BOOK II. The real fact was, that the progressive course of national improvement was abolishing the old yeomanry of the country, and substituting instead a minor gentry, and the present farmer. The reign of Edward VI. was the period in which this transition from what had been good and valuable into what would be still better, was taking place. Latimer has drawn, in his own father, an interesting picture of THE ANTIENT YEOMAN. 'MY Father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own: he had only a farm of three or four pounds a year at the uttermost ; and hereupon, he tilled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for 100 sheep, and my mother milked thirty kyne. He was able and did find the king a harness [man] and his horse, while he came to the place where he should receive the king's wages. I buckled his harness, when he went to Blackheath field. 'He kept me to school: or else I had not been able to have preached before the king's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles a piece. He brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors; and some alms he gave to the poor: and all this he did from the said farm. But he that now hath it payeth £.16. by the year, or more, and is not able to do any thing for his prince, for himself, nor for his children; nor to give a cup of drink to the poor. Where ye had a single too much, ye have enhanced the rent ; and now have double too much. But, let the preacher preach,- nothing is amended.' $1 51 That these noble yeomanry were broken up and destroyed,' we have remarked to have been complained of by Ascham;" and the consequence was, as Latimer declared, that thousands were begging, who had kept honest homes;'53 that many former 51 Latim. Serm. p. 30. 53 See before, note 30. 54 VIII. villages were disappearing and antient towns decay- CHAP. ing; and that pastoral solitudes appeared, where a rustic tenantry had been active and happy." The yeoman was converted into the day laborer and the servant; 56 and from the language of the contemporary authorities, tho it seems rather warmly tinted, we cannot doubt that there was much local and temporary depopulation, and severe individual pauperism and distress.57 On the personal sympathies and morality of those proprietors who bent their resolution to produce and witness this misery among their existing tenantry, in order to multiply their incomes and enjoyments, it is unnecessary and now unserviceable to make any observations. Every one has a legal and social right of employing his property as he pleases; and how far he will make his use of it compatible with the comforts of others, must be always a matter of his 54 Thus Hales stated, Towns, villages and parishes, do daily decay in great numbers. Houses of husbandry and poor men's habitations be utterly destroyed every where, and in no small number. Husbandry and tillage is greatly abated, and the king's subjects wonderfully diminished.' Hales' Charge, in Strype, p. 352. 55 So Latimer affirms: For where have been a great many householders and inhabitants, there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' p. 29. 36 All such proceedings do tend plainly to make the yeomanry slavery.' Lat. Serm. p. 30. 57 The royal commissioner was emphatic on this point: The force and puissance of the realm consisted not in riches only; but chiefly in the multitude of people. But it appeareth, good people! that the people of this realm, our native country, is greatly decayed, thro the greediness of a few men, in comparison, and by this ungodly means of gathering together goods; and by pulling down of towns and houses, which we ought all to lament. Where there were a few years ago 10 or 12,000 people, there be now scarce 4,000. Where there were 1,000; now scarce 300. And in many places, where there were very many able to defend our country from landing of our enemies, now, almost none. Sheep and cattle that were ordained to be eaten of men, hath eaten up the men. The places where poor men dwelt, clearly destroyed. Lands improved to so great rents; or such excessive fines taken, that the poor husbandmen cannot live.' Strype, p. 359. II. BOOK private consideration, with which no one, without infringing the common freedom of all, can ever interfere. He will act most uprightly, who makes it a question of moral conscience as well as of pecuniary benefit; and the tender cautions of benevolence on this delicate and difficult theme will be found occasionally as applicable to every class of society as to the ejecting landlord. But that no national detriment resulted from it-no diminution of the riches, food, and prosperity of the country at large is clear to every one who surveys the general state and progress of England with a comprehensive impartiality. 58 One expressive coincidence was, that it was not rents only which were raised, or land incomes alone that were sought to be enlarged. Every thing was advancing in price. Bishop Ridley referred this universal effect to unfeeling avarice. The emperor's minister complained to sir William Paget, that, against our treaties, we were exacting more for our wool;59 and yet, tho our cloths were complained of for frauds in the dealers, and altho he taxed their 60 58 In July 1551, his language was, 'The world is grown into that uncharitableness, that, as it appeareth plainly, one goeth about to devour another, moved with unsatiable covetousness-that greedy and devouring serpent, covetousness.' Lett. to the Preachers in London, 25 July 1551. 4 Burn. Ref. 318. 59 On 24 July 1549, he wrote 'D'Arras stated to me two points, which the emperor desireth to have reformed. The first was, That our merchants, contrary to our intercourse, do enhance the prices of their wools; and will not sell at such prices as they are bound by the intercourse.' Lett. Pag. 24 July 1549. 4 Burn. 251. Go Latimer thus describes it: If his cloth be eighteen yards long, he will set it on a rack and stretch it out with ropes, and rack it, till he has brought it to twenty-seven yards. When they have brought it to that perfection, they have a pretty feat to make it thick again. He makes a powder for it; and plays the apothecary. They call it flock-powder.' They do so incorporate it to the cloth, that it is wonderful to consider. Oh! that so goodly wit should be so ill applied!' Serm. p. 43. 62 VIII. importation, his Flemish subjects were eager to have CHAP. them." So that this augmentation of price was not beyond the ability or willingness of other nations to pay. If the landlord advanced his rent, the farmer was also demanding more for his produce. All trades were doing this:63 the king particularizes the fact as to every order of his people," and very impartially observed, that the gentry were straitened in their circumstances by this fact, and were even driven to make agriculture a supporting trade." thought this a hardship to which they ought not to be subjected; and that as the military defence of the country then rested on them, they were entitled to have adequate rents, but not so much as would de 67 65 He King Edward penned the following remarks on this subject: Having first noted, The ill working of our cloths make them less esteemed,' (Rem. p. 113;) he afterwards wrote: As ill as they be made, the Flemings do, at this time, desire them wonderfully; offering rather to pay the imposition of the emperor, than to lack them.' P. 114. ib. 6 We learn this from Latimer's increpation, who did not see the remedial applicability of his own fact. "The too much which these rich men have, causeth such dearth, that poor men, which live of their labor, cannot with the sweat of their face have a living; all kinds of victuals is so dear. Pigs, geese, capons, chickens, eggs, &c.; these things, with others, are so unreasonably enhanced, that, if it thus continue, we shall be at length constrained to pay for a pig a pound.' Latim. Serm. p. 29. 63 Latimer observed of merchants, no kind of ware can be had, except we give for it too much. Serm. p. 29. 64 Merchants have enhanced their ware; farmers have enhanced their corn and cattle; laborers, their wages; artificers, the price of their workmanship; mariners and boatsmen, their hire for service;' and, with a spirit more enlightened than his worthy bishops, Edward adds, 'Whereby they recompense the loss of things they buy.' Rem. p. 100, 101. 65 Their housekeeping is dearer; their meat is dearer; their liveries dearer; their wages greater.' ib. P. 101. 66 The gentleman, constrained by necessity and poverty, becometh a farmer, a grazier, or a sheep master.' ib. 101. 67The husbandman must pay such rent, and so sell things that come of the increase of the ground, as that the estates of gentlemen and serving men (in war) may do the commonwealth the service they ought to do." Edw. p. 99. The gentleman ought to labor in service of his country; and be painful in ordering it.' ib. 100. BOOK press the English into the debased condition of the French peasantry." 68 This general advancement of prices did not arise from any deficiency in the production or supply of the commodities; they were never more abundant." The most popular theory of the accounting cause, was the usual belief of a pernicious monopoly: Every one was monopolizing. As if there could be such a thing as universal monopoly. All buying, in order to sell again for a profit, was denounced to be so; and not only declaimed against as discreditable, by the prelate, whose attention to his clerical duties precluded his acquiring just notions on trade,70 but was even 68 The gentlemen and serving men ought to be provided for; yet not to have so much as they have in France, where the peasantry is of no value; nor yet meddle in no occupations.' Edw. ib. The rents, and produce, and other things were at the same time also advancing in France; for M. de Rochechouart, who was living at this time, says, in his interesting little sketch of his own life, that his father left him four hundred livres of rent, out of which he had to pay his mother 175, leaving him but 225 livres to live upon. If at present the lands produce me more, it is because the bushel of corn was then worth but quatre blancs, and is now worth six sols. The tithes and land taxes have also increased two parts, and in like manner also the disbursements.' 3 Castel. Mem. Add. p. 242. So that the rise of prices was a general movement of things in Europe. 69 Hales mentioned this as a truth, All things at this present, saving corn, which by reason that it is in poor men's hands who cannot keepit, is good cheap, be so dear as they never were; victual, and all other things that be necessary for man's use. And yet, there never was more cattle, specially sheep, than there is at this present. But the cause of the dearth [dearness] is, that those that have it, may chuse whether they will sell or no; and will not sell but at their own prices. All corn would be likewise [dear] if it were in their hands, and might be well kept.' Charge, p. 359. to Landlords have become graziers; and burgesses are become regraters; and some farmers will regrate and buy up all the corn that cometh to market, and lay it up in store, and sell it again at an higher price, when they see their time.' Latim. p. 130. I heard a merchant say, that he had travelled all the days of his life in trade, and had gotten 3 or 4,0001. by buying and selling; but in case he might be licensed, or suffered to do so, he would get 1,000l. a year, by only buying and selling of grain here within this realm.' ib. |