*

nothing can be finer than the survey; the rise of the middle class is surrounded with a splendour which conceals from most observers the growth of misery among the people. Yet from the early years of the sixteenth century until the accession of James I., the lot of the great mass of working Englishmen, which was so flourishing and so wholesome, became miserable in the extreme, and the labourers of England, in the widest sense of the word, were reduced to destitution-plunged from the age of gold into the age of iron. The increase of wealth consequent upon the opening of foreign markets and the improvement in home agriculture, did but create a needy and desperate class in town and country alike.

The rate of wages for various kinds of labour was stationary during the whole of the fifteenth and the earlier portion of the sixteenth century, nor does it appear that the purchasing power of such wages was greatly reduced. Nevertheless, with the close of the Wars of the Roses a change took place which led to much of the general distress and vagabondage that followed after. I have already spoken of the great increase in the numbers of the personal retainers of the barons during the troubled times which ended with the accession of Henry VII. The number of personal retainers ready to fight under his banner or to follow him to court became, indeed, the measure of a noble's importance and power, and the bailiff or steward, who then managed the estates in the same way as the agent of an absentee's Irish property, had to strain all his lord's re

* The French word bourgeoisie has now been adopted in almost all languages as most clearly conveying the meaning I wish to express. The reign of the bourgeoisie includes the domination of town over country, the supremacy of the trading class, and the capitalist form of production as the main social forces.

sources, and generally to run into debt into the bargain, in order to maintain the baron and these adherents of the house at the capital or in attendance on the King. Consequently when the struggle was over, even as early as the accession of Edward IV., the barons almost without exception found themselves in great poverty and debt. Their first and most obvious course was to reduce their expenditure by discharging their retainers. This they did, and these people, having for the most part no recognised position when thus cut adrift, fell back on the wage-earning class, or even formed bands of vagrants. Thus began the growth of the lack-land class as a class, and of the vagrants without house or home, which brought about such a serious state of affairs later on. But the impoverishment of the nobles and their greed for gain were the cause of still more grave events. Society is never stationary; movement is going on even at times when, to all appearance, economical and social quiescence universally prevails. As in the lower, so in the higher forms of animal life and combination—these flourish, those decay. Thus when all seemed well for our people, the cruel process of uprooting them from the soil had begun which has continued up to the present date.

Henry VII. came to the throne in 1485, marrying Elizabeth of York in the following year. In the year 1489 a statute was enacted for the purpose of putting a stop to enclosures. The great gain which the common lands and open pastures were to the people has been seen, although the lord of the manor and richer commoners frequently took advantage of their superior wealth and strength to put on more cattle or other animals than they were entitled to. But the anxiety of the nobles to get in funds again led them to seize upon these lands and enclose them for their

own use and benefit, to the exclusion and injury of the people of the district. This was then something new, and

the drawbacks of the enrichment of the few at the cost of the property of the many were clear, not only as affecting the people themselves, but the monarch and the realm at large. Bacon, in his Henry VII., thus describes the statute and its objects:-"Enclosures at that time began to be more frequent, whereby arable land which could not be manured without people and families was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and the tenancies for years, lives, and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry lived, were turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people, and by consequence a decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like. The king likewise knew full well, and in nowise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes; for the more gentlemen ever the lower books of subsidies. In remedying of this inconvenience the king's wisdom was admirable, and the parliament's at that time. Enclosures they would not forbid, for that had been to forbid the improvement of the patrimony of the kingdom; nor tillage they would not compel, for that was to strive with nature and utility; but they took a course to take away depopulating enclosures and depopulating pasturage, and yet not by that name, or by any imperious express prohibition, but by consequence. The ordinance was, 'That all houses of husbandry that were used with twenty acres of ground and upwards should be maintained and kept up for corn; together with a competent proportion of land to be used and occupied with them;' and in nowise to be severed from them, as by another statute made afterwards in his successor's time was more fully declared: this upon forfeiture to be taken, not by popular action, but by seizure of

half the

By this

the land itself by the kings and lords of fee, as to profits till the houses and lands were restored. means the houses being kept up did of necessity enforce a dweller; and the proportion of land being kept up, did of necessity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar or a cottager, but a man of some substance, that might keep hinds and servants, and set the plough on going."

From this passage we see that not only were the commons being enclosed at this period, but that the yeomanry and tenants were being gradually expropriated by various devices. Such men as these were, as Bacon goes on to observe, the very mainstay of the king's armies, and invaluable to the country. Turned out they were nevertheless, in spite of this and other statutes, swelling the numbers of the vagrants, beggars, and wage-earners who had sprung from the discharged retainers. Other causes combined to help on this process of enclosures and pasture farming, as well as to swell the ranks of well-to-do landowners and farmers on the one side in the country and those of the mere wanderers on the other.

The rate of wages in Henry VII's. reign was still high, the improvements now being gradually introduced into agriculture increased the abundance and cheapness of corn. Consequently tillage was less profitable, especially to large landowners, some of whom were even then producing for profit, than it had been. Wool had begun to rise in price owing to the demand for the Flanders markets and the increased manufacture at home. Sheep need far fewer hands than arable farming, and there was gain both ways by pasture farming in the saving on wages and in the increased profit on wool. Thus not only were the small farmers themselves deprived of their holdings, but the farm labourers found themselves without employment, the houses of these

unfortunates were therefore torn down, and they themselves were cut adrift from the means of earning a livelihood at the only trade they knew, their few acres of land around their cottages being added at once to the great pastures that were formed. Employment in the country was decreasing, whilst men anxious for work were increasing every year. Notwithstanding all attempts to stop this removal of the people from the land, the change went steadily on from this time forward.

All authorities of the period combine to lament the mischief which was being wrought. The change which had taken place by the middle of the sixteenth century would be incredible, but that we have irrefragable testimony as to what had been already done. Latimer and Sir Thomas More, Harrison and Ascham are all of one mind in regard to the injury suffered by the people. In place of the wellto-do yeomen of the previous period there was an evergrowing population of needy folk. Husbandmen thrust out of their own or cozened into forced sales, houses swept away, towns and villages decaying.* Sheep flourished in

Massinger's Sir Giles Overreach, in "New Way to Pay Old Debts," shows clearly how large properties were made:

"I'll buy some cottage near his manor ;

Which done I'll make my men break ope his fences,
Ride o'er his standing corn, and in the night
Set fire to his barns or break his cattle's legs;
Then trespass draw on suits, and suits expenses,
Which I can spare, but will soon beggar him.
When I have harried him thus two or three years,
Though he sue in formâ pauperis, in spite

Of all his thrift and care he'll grow behindhand.
Then with the favour of my man at law,

I will pretend some title: want will force him

To put it to arbitrament; then, if he sell
For half the value, he shall have ready money
And I possess his land."