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the means of subsistence, or yet the consequences that flowed from their misery. The country

swarmed with beggars, thieves, and robbers: despair drove the wretched to repeated insurrections, which threatened the overthrow of all the established institutions of society: The husbandman was plundered, the magistrate resisted, and the most cruel sanguinary laws failed to terrify men into submission who were perishing of hunger. The number of Egyptians, by augmenting that of a beggared population, increased the common calamitiest.

See Strype's Ec. Mem. Vol. II. p. 92, et seq. 150, 166, et seq. 353. + Harrison's Description of England in Holin. Vol. I. p. 182, et seq. as to beggars. In p. 186, he says, "Our third annoiers of the commonwealth are roges, which doo verie great mischeefe in all places where they become. For they spare neither rich nor poore. But whether it be great gaine or small, all is fish that commeth to net with them, and yet I saie both they and the rest" (other kinds of malefactors which the author speaks of in the same chapter-the 11th)

are trussed up apace. For there is not one yeare commonlie,

wherein three hundred or foure hundred are not deuoured and eaten up by the gallowes in one place and other. It appeareth by Cardane, who writeth upon the report of the Bishop of Lerouia, in the geniture of King Edward the Sixt, how Henrie the Eight, executing his laws verie seuerelie against such idle persons, I meane great theeues, pettie theeues, and roges, did hang up threescore and twelue thousand of them in his time." The enlightened and benevolent Sir Thomas More condemned the cruelty exercised towards these unhappy wretches, and held that no man could justly be put to death for theft. We learn from him, that twenty were frequently hung on one gallows, and yet that the evil was not abated. Utop. L. I. See Eden on the Poor, Vol. I. particularly p. 101, as to the cruelty of the laws against the poor. Even in the year 1596, when the mischief was greatly lessened, the state of the country was most wretched. Strype's

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The melancholy state of the kingdom early attracted the attention of the Legislature, but its enactments were not calculated to meet the evil

Ans. Vol. IV. from 291 to 295. The nation was however plagued with worse rogues than these. Justices of peace were beyond measure corrupt. "These,” said a member of the Lower House in Elizabeth's time" be the basket justices, of whom the tale may be verified of a justice that I know, to whom one of his poor neighbours coming, said, Sir, I am very highly rated in the subsidy-book, I beseech you to help me. To whom he answered, I know thee not. Not me, Sir? quoth the countryman-Why, your worship had my team and my oxen such a day, and I have ever been at your worship's service. Have you so, Sir? quoth the justice-I never remembered I had any such matter, no not a sheep's tail. So unless you offer sacrifice to the idol-justices, of sheep and oxen, they know you not. If a warrant come from the Lords of the Council to levy a hundred men, he will levy two hundred, and what with chopping in and choosing out, he'll gain a hundred by the bargain." The same member declares that a justice of peace, "for half a dozen of chickens, will dispense with a whole dozen of penal statutes.' D'Ewes' Journ, p.

661.

"Another way," says Strype, speaking of Edward VI.'s time-in 1553—(in Vol. II. of Ec. Mem. p. 439.) "they (the gentry) had of oppressing their inferiours, was when these were forced to sue them at the law for some wrong they had done them, or for some means which they violently detained from them. For either they threatened the judges or bribed them, that they commonly favoured the rich against the poor, delayed their causes, and made the charges thereby more than they could bear. Oftentimes they went home with tears, after having waited long at the court, their causes unheard. And they had a common saying then, Money is heard every where." author gives some instances of gross corruption in the judges-principally taken from Latimer's Sermon before the King. That worthy prelate wished "a Tyburn-tippet for such as took bribes or perverted judgment, if it were the Judge of the King's Bench, the Lord Chief Justice of England; yea, if he be my Lord Chancellor himself-to Tyburn with him." Lat. Sermons. This preacher had suitors at all times praying him to intercede in their favour for justice; and he advised the King, the Protector, &c. to hear causes themselves. Even

The

-when it was the interest of the lawgivers to elude them. The statute of 1489, for keeping up farmhouses, though pronounced by Bacon a statute of singular policy, and as evincing admirable wisdom in the King and Parliament, and which therefore Bacon, in his time, endeavoured to strengthen by additional laws-was merely a repetition of former enactments, and proves a change of system in the country, but did not relieve the misery of the peoplet. The law provided that all houses of husbandry, used with twenty acres and upwards, should be maintained and kept up for ever, with a competent proportion of land attached to themunder the penalty of seizure of half the profits by the King or the Lord of the fee, till the statute

murders by men of note escaped unpunished, through the baseness of the ministers of the law. Strype's Mem. Vol. II. p. 442. But the most incontrovertible proof is the following extract from Sir N. Bacon's speech as Lord Keeper to Parliament, in 1572, at opening the Session. "Is it not, trow you, a monstrous disguising, to have a justice a maintainer, to have him that should by his oath and duty set forth justice and right—against his oath, offer injury and wrong?-to have him that is specially chosen amongst a number by a prince, to appease all brawlings and controversies, to be a sower and maintainer of strife and sedition-by swaying and leading of juries according to his will-acquitting some for gain, indicting others for malice, bearing with them as his servants or friends, overthrowing others as his enemies-procuring the questmonger to be of his livery, or otherwise in his danger, that his winks, frownings, and countenances may direct all inquests? Surely, surely, these be they that be subverters of all good laws and orders, yea, that make daily the laws, which of their nature be good, to become instruments of all injuries and mischiefs." D'Ewes' Journ. p. 153.

* Strype's Ec. Mem. Vol. II. p. 94, et seq. 171 and 172.

+ 3 Inst. p. 204.

were complied with *. Bacon was not prevented, by the evident futility of this law for ages, from deducing mighty advantages from its supposed effect of rearing up a middle rank of societyt. But the consolidation of farms was not retarded by these enactments, however individuals might be harassed by them; and, as the country population was so greatly diminished, while intercourse with the cities and large towns daily increased, provincial towns,-which had owed their importance to the demands of such a numerous body of country inhabitants for coarse articles of manufacture, &c. and could not compete in productions of an equal fabric with those furnished by the large townsfell into decay. But, as the laws about apprenticeships did not apply to them, part probably,

* Bacon's Hist. p. 596.

+ In 1597, this great philosopher brought that important topic before the Lower House and his speech was to this purpose: "Inclosure of grounds brings depopulation, which brings, 1st, Idleness. 2dly, Decay of tillage. 3dly, Subversion of houses, and decay of charity, and charges to the poor. 4thly, Impoverishing the state of the realm." "I would be sorry," says he, "to see within this kingdom that piece of Ovid's verse prove true-jam Seges ubi Troja fuit, so in England, instead of a whole town full of people, nought but green fields, but a shepherd and his dog." D'Ewes' Journ. p. 551.

It appears from a passage quoted already from More's Utopia, that the lower classes used to manufacture some of their own articles of dress. Yet a part of the manufacture only-as the spinning-could be accomplished by them. See also Eden. p. 121, as to this. Moryson too, in his travels, published in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says, "Husbandmen wear garments of coarse cloth, made at home, and their wives wear gowns of the same cloth." P. 178. Both Hume and Eden-see the last at p. 109, have attempted to account for the decay of provincial towns but, in my opinion, unsatisfactorily.

by removing into the large towns, where their industry would be rewarded, escaped the misery of their former customers; a large portion must, however, have shared the common calamity-as their labour could no longer be required.

While the kingdom groaned under such wretchedness, the Reformation was effected; an event which, though it proved, ultimately, productive of the happiest consequences, in the outset greatly augmented the misery of the lower orders. By the dissolution of religious houses, the devotees of the old religion, with their attendants, paupers, &c. to an immense number, were thrown loose upon the world; and, though some regulations were devised, to afford part of them relief, the great body were obliged to join the common herd of rogues and beggars, or perish of hunger. Nothing indeed, casts a great

* The monks," says Eden, "to the number of fifty thousand, were converted into miserable pensioners, and, unaccustomed to the active exertions of industry, were thrown among the busy crowd, to whose manners and modes of life, a long seclusion from the world had rendered them indifferent," p. 94. That part of the monks got pensions, at the rate of four, six, and even eight pounds a year, is a point established by the clearest evidence. See Burnet's History of the Reformation, yol. I. p. 487. B. III. and No. 3. of Col. there referred to, Strype, Ec. Mem. vol. I. p. 262.-but this extended to a very small portion of the fifty thousand. Thus, in the case alluded to by Burnet, where the highest pensions were allowed-thirty monks had pensions assigned; but then there were thirty eight individuals, denominated religious persons, who were dismissed with a sum of money distributed amongst them, amounting only to £80, 13s. 4d. or little more than two guineas a-piece-a sum that could not support them above a few weeks or months at most: Besides these, there were 144 servants who were merely paid up any arrears of wages. It was in fact only those who were in priest's orders that became stipendiaries. According to some ac

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