網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版

he treats of the causes of begging, and attributes it partly to the griping avarice of great families, who found pretexts" for wiping manie out of their occupieings," he says, "the better minded doo forsake the realme for altogether, and seek to live in other countries, as France, Germanie, Barbarie, India, Moscouia, and verie Calecute, complaining of no room to be left for them at home." the greater part commonlie having nothing to staie upon, ar wilfull, and thereupon doo either prooue idle beggers, or else continue starke theeues, till the gallowes doo eat them up *."

"Yet

Having shown how the Revolution in manners affected the people, it remains to trace its consequences upon the government. During the plenitude of aristocratic power, the lower country population, possessed of independent means of subsistence, must, for their own security against aggression from great families, have sought the alliance of potent neighbours. These would generally be of the gentry, as their jealousy of the peerage would induce them to desire the support of numerous allies, that they might be enabled to withstand the influence of that body, and buoy up their own class; and they would retain the attachment of the lower ranks by procuring laws beneficial to them. But men of independent cir

and nature dooth permit all men to liue in their best manner, and whatsoeuer trade they be exercised in, there commeth some priuilege or other in the waie, which cutteth them off from this or that trade, whereby they must needs shift soile and seeke unto other countries.” Ib.

* P. 183.

cumstances would submit no longer to the degradation of such patronage than was requisite for their own security against injury and insult. Commines, in his time, remarked that the English people were jealous of the aristocracy; and when the change of manners had abridged the power of the higher ranks, the lower would be ready to support the throne in extending its authority, that it might fully reach a class whose influence in the community was equally hurtful to the prerogative, and subversive of the public happiness. The extensive transferences of land afterwards increased the influence of the inferior gentry, as they diminished that of the higher, as well as of the nobility: For new men, as they are most obnoxious to aristocratic pride, are commonly the most spirited in resenting insult, and the ablest to improve the natural influence of their station. Power, that threatens all alike, is not so much an object of apprehension with any particular class, as that which proceeds from a body but a little removed from itself; and the inferior country ranks, therefore, would, without calculating upon the distant problematical consequences of an undue preponderance in the crown, throw all their influence into its scale, that it might reduce the still formidable power of the great aristocracy, and raise their own respectability, by depressing those above them. The Star Chamber was the most arbitrary institution ever known in England; yet the illegal extension of its authority, during the reign of Henry VIII., must have gratified the lower rans

as its avowed object was to bring within the sphere of justice men whose situation raised them above the reach of ordinary jurisdiction, and to teach them that their inferior neighbours should not be aggrieved without the hope of remedy.

Large towns commonly give the tone to public opinion; and these had daily obtained a great accession of strength, both by the improvements in the mode of life, and by the decay of provincial towns-while the increasing wealth of the country, and the transferences of land, rendered the citizens less dependent on any particular class of customers. If they were not, in former times, prone to support the aristocracy, who envied their prosperity, and despised their habits, they would be less so now that the change of manners made great families more sensible of any approach to rivalry in expenditure, and the citizens more apt to affect it from their increasing wealth. While, therefore, the prerogative was likely to come into contact chiefly with the aristocracy, towns would be, in most cases, disposed to support it. The literary men, too, in that age, being patronized by the crown, inclined to direct the current of public opinion in its favour.

The advantages which Henry derived, at his accession, from the state of the aristocracy, and his own personal qualities, have already been detailed; but it remains to be stated, that the disordered frame of civil society, in consequence of the dismission of dependents from estates, naturally induced the higher ranks to desire measures which;

however innocuous they might appear at the time, formed precedents dangerous to public liberty: For mankind seldom reflect upon the problematical consequences of measures which liberate them from present calamities; and neither person nor property being safe from the numerous banditti that infested the kingdom, while repeated insurrections threatened the very existence of social institutions, the people neither weighed the distant consequences of impressments which swept off the idle, nor of a resort to martial law, which promised relief from such harrassing evils. Though, therefore, speculative politicians entered their protest against the use of martial law, when it could possibly be avoided; the bodies of men, who possessed influence, frequently solicited commissions to authorise it. But it ought never to be forgotten, that these commissions were never executed, except in cases of actual insurrection; nay, the greatest legal authorities held that the execution of them under other circumstances would have been murder in the agents*: and that the aristocracy themselves generally raised the armies, while the prince was often disposed, even in cases of actual insurrection, to adopt milder proceedings towards a class whose misery he deplored. It was chiefly his clemency to the poor, and his resistance of sanguinary measures, which raised such a host of enemies against the Duke of

See this subject discussed in the next Chapter, under the head of Martial Law.

1

[ocr errors]

Somerset, protector to Edward VI. as, in spite of the regal power with which he was invested, brought him to the scaffold*.

From so many circumstances, the current set in strongly in favour of the prerogative, and Henry knew how to avail himself of his situation. "It was his manner always," says Herbert, "with great industry to procure members of Parlia ment well affected to his service. +" He gene, rally kept up a good correspondence with both Houses, and was seldom disappointed in his expectations but in regard to supplies, which, as they in those times deeply affected the members themselves, were granted with reluctance t. He had allowed himself, at one period, however, to be deceived by appearances, or to be misled by his counsellors, into the erroneous belief of a predisposition in the people to submit to any measures of the court: For he ventured to violate the fundamental principle of the constitution, by an attempt to impose a tax without the assent of the Legislature; but the attempt raised such a spirit of commotion, that he perceived the propriety of

Strype's Ec. Mem. Vol. II. p. 152, 167, 169, 171, and 183. Burnet, Vol. V. p. 327. It would appear that some foreign troops had been entertained; but it disgusted the people. Ib. The nobility and gentry, however, seem to have been employed against the people, and they desired sanguinary measures. Strype's Ec. Mem. Vol. II. c. 21.

+ P. 218. In 1614, Sir Roger Owen, member of the lower house, ascribed the fall of Cromwell (Henry's minister) to his having unduly interfered with elections, Journ. 2d May, p. 470.

Burnet, Vol. I. p. 16.

« 上一頁繼續 »