two employers run after one man wages rise, when two men run after one employer wages fall. But in the sixteenth century there was a superfluity of agricultural labour, and society was now confronted with a problem for which it has still to find a satisfactory solution, the problem of the unemployed. ... 4 rections (4) The social discontent of the sixteenth century found (4) Insur· vent in numerous riots and insurrections. "I think", said the Doctor in the Discourse of the Common Weal, that enclosures are "the most occasion . . . of these wild and unhappy uproars amongst us. . . . Hunger is a bitter thing to bear. Wherefore, when they lack, they must murmur against them that have plenty, and so stir up these tumults"1. In London 2 and other towns 3 the citizens took the law into their own hands, though unlawful assemblies to pluck down hedges were forbidden by proclamation. It is uncertain to what extent the rebellions of the period were due to the enclosing movement. The uprising in the west of England under Edward VI. was brought about by the religious discontent, though the Bristol chronicler attributes it in part to enclosures 5. The men of Cornwall and Devon rejected the First Book of Common Prayer; the use of the liturgy in the vernacular was no boon to men to whom the English tongue was stranger than the old traditional phrases. The revolt in the eastern counties, on the other hand, was provoked by the enclosure of the commons. The Oak of Reformation under which Kett the Tanner dispensed justice symbolized the reformation not of church, but of state. In the list of grievances drawn up by the insurgents there is no reference to the conversion of arable into pasture, and the grievance upon which they fastened is the enclosure of the common waste. "We pray your grace", ran their petition, "that no lord of no manor shall common upon the 2 R. Holinshed, Chronicles (1808), iii. 599. 1 Discourse, 48-49. 3 Adams's Chronicle of Bristol (ed. F. F. Fox, 1910), 99; Leet Book of Coventry, ii. 574 seq. 4 Crawford, Catalogue of Tudor and Stuart Proclamations (1910), i. 36 (1549). Similarly, Acts of the Privy Council, 1552-4, P. 377 (1553). Adams's Chronicle, 100: to have their old religion restored again as well as the enclosures". Rapin, History of England (ed. 1733), ii. 16. commons"1. The attempt to exclude the lord from rights of common, and to confine them to freeholders and copyholders, measures the full force of the reaction against the landowner's encroachments upon the common lands. The causes of the Pilgrimage of Grace are more difficult to ascertain, because a variety of motives were at work. The leaders were hostile to Henry VIII.'s counsellors and sought to reverse the religious changes which they had initiated. Robert Aske in his examination declared that "the suppression of the abbeys was the greatest cause of the insurrection"; he "did grudge" against the dissolution of the monasteries "because the abbeys in the north parts gave great alms to poor men and laudably served God"; whereas now not only did the poor lack "meat, cloth and wages", but travellers and strangers also suffered, "for none was in these parts denied, neither horse-meat nor man's meat "2. But economic grievances were unquestionably a factor in the situation. The rebels would be largely recruited from the ranks of evicted tenants, who would be easily induced to impute their economic degradation to the religious crisis. Order was taken for the "casting down of enclosers of commons " 4, and among other demands the insurgents sought (1) that the statute for enclosures and intacks should be executed, and all enclosures and intacks made since 1489 should be pulled down; (2) that certain lands in the north of England should be held by tenant right, the lord to receive as admission fine a 'gressom' not exceeding two years' rent 5. We need not speak in detail of the minor insurrections. There was a rising in Lincolnshire in 1536, and again in Buckinghamshire in 1552. Local disturbances continued during the reign of Elizabeth, and though not serious in 1 The petition is printed in Russell, Kett's Rebellion, 48, and in J. Clayton, Robert Kett and the Norfolk Rising (1911), App. III. 2 M. Bateson, "The Pilgrimage of Grace," in English Hist. Review, v. 558, 561. But Dr. Savine's researches seem to show that the extent of monastic charity and hospitality has been exaggerated: English Monasteries, 227, 241, 265. A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII. (1905), 352. 4 English Hist. Review, v. 339. 5 Letters and Papers Henry VIII. xi. 507. • Trans. Royal Hist. Soc. N.S. xviii. 214; Tawney, Agrarian Problem, character they serve to indicate the direction in which the tide of social changes was still flowing. the Tudors. While the agrarian changes were in progress the govern- Agrarian ment did not remain indifferent to the social unrest, and policy of measures of reform were attempted. It was an essential feature of Tudor policy to foster the prosperity of the yeomanry, from whose ranks were recruited the defenders of the realm. The husbandmen were recognized as "the body and the stay "1 of the kingdom, and they made the best infantry when "bred not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner just as fishermen made the best seamen. Sheep-farming, on the other hand, meant "great decay to artillery, for that do we reckon that shepherds be but ill archers" 3. If the depopulation of the country-side went on unchecked, there would come to pass "a mere solitude and utter desolation to the whole realm, furnished only with sheep and shepherds instead of good men; whereby it might be a prey to our enemies that first would set upon it "4. The act on behalf of the Isle of Wight laid particular stress upon the dangers of foreign attack: "If hasty remedy be not provided that Isle cannot be long kept and defended, but open and ready to the hands of the king's enemies "5. Henry VIII. from fear of invasion found it necessary to build many "castles and bulwarks" on the coast, and was driven to employ mercenaries. The realm, observed a royal proclamation against enclosures in 1548, "must be defended against the enemy with force of men and the multitude of true subjects, not with flocks of sheep and droves of beasts"7. Apart from the fears of foreign invasion, which was seriously apprehended during the sixteenth century, depopulation also involved a diminution of taxes and subsidies, for "the more gentlemen", says Bacon, "ever the lower books of subsidies "8. The universities and schools shared in the prevailing social and economic dislocation, for the yeomanry, according to Latimer, not able to put their sons to school, as indeed. were 1 Vox Populi, Vox Dei. 3 Certayne Causes, 100. 7 Ibid. ii. 93. 2 Bacon, Works, vi. 95. Strype, ii. App. Q, 50.. 8 Infra, p. 521. Tudor Universities do wondrously decay already". The Supplication of the Poore Commons also complains that they could not send their children to school, because they must labour to help to pay the rent 2. The first general statute passed in restraint of sheeplegislation. farming was in 1489; it recited the evils arising from the destruction of farm-houses and the conversion of cultivated land into pasture. This was followed in 1515 by an act which ordered that within one year all land converted to pasture should be restored to tillage; subsequently the statute was made perpetual. The act of 1515 would doubtless have shared the fate of its predecessors, if supplementary steps had not been taken to confirm it. Of all Tudor statesmen, Wolsey and Somerset were the only agrarian reformers who made a really serious effort to extirpate the evils arising from sheep-farming. In 1517 Wolsey appointed a Commission to inquire into all enclosures which had taken place since 1488. Offenders were impleaded in Chancery and compelled to enter into recognizances to destroy their hedges 5. Further acts were passed in 1534 and 1536, and repeated proclamations reiterated the injunction to lay open all enclosed lands, throw down hedges, and occupy but one or two farms at the most. The fear of an insurrection, which eventually did break out, induced the government to appoint a fresh Commission in 1548. Somerset, who deserves recognition as a social reformer, lent all the weight of his authority and active sympathy to the Commission. Maugre the devil", he declared, "private profit, self-love, money and such-like the devil's instruments, it shall go forward "8. It was the policy of Thorough applied to a better cause. The instructions of the Commissioners were to make inquiry what villages and hamlets had decayed as a result of enclosures into pastures since the opening years of Henry VII.'s reign; 6 1 Sermons, i. 102. 3 Statutes, ii. 542. Four Supplications, 80. ▲ Ibid. iii. 127, 176. 5 Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. Nos. 106, 107. • Statutes, iii. 451 (no one was to keep more than 2000 sheep or to hold more than two farms); ibid. iii. 553. Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. Nos. 103, 111, 115, 333 and 352. The dates are respectively 1526, 1528, 1529 and 1548. 8 A. F. Pollard, England under Protector Somerset (1900), 232. how many persons kept two thousand sheep or more, what common lands had been seized into private hands and whether the grantees of abbey lands maintained as much land in cultivation as was kept before the suppression1. The leading spirit of the Commission was John Hales, and his 'charge' or opening address sums up in an effective manner the policy of the government. In words recalling the doctrine of Ruskin that the only real wealth is life, he said: "The force and puissance of the realm consisteth not only in riches, but chiefly in the multitude of people. But . . . where there were in few years ten or twelve thousand people, there be now scarce four thousand "2. The question how far the legislation of the Tudors was How far effective. effective is a difficult one. On the whole our impression is that, while not altogether ineffective, it was yet powerless to stem the current of agrarian changes. In 1548 the government confessed that its measures had not "wrought the effect that was hoped should follow "4. "Let the preacher ", cried Latimer despairingly, " preach till his tongue be worn to the stump, nothing is amended. We have good statutes made for the commonwealth as touching commoners and enclosers, but in the end of the matter there cometh nothing forth". And again: "There have been many good laws' Hales reminded the Commission in his exhortation', "made for the maintenance of houses and husbandry and tillage", but all to no purpose. It has been regarded as one of the strongest forms of testimony to the strength of the social movement . . . that it could advance to its completion notwithstanding the steady opposition of the strong Tudor monarchy". This is doubtless true, but the explanation lies in the fact that the vigour of Tudor administration depended upon the loyalty and good-will of the justices of the peace, the pivot of their local government. ` 1 Tudor and Stuart Proclamations, i. No. 359; Strype, ii. App. Q, 55. 2 Ibid. ii. App. Q, 54. 3 Other acts prior to the accession of Elizabeth are Statutes, iv. part i. 134, 269 (1552 and 1555). Commissions were also appointed in 1566 and 1607. The returns for 1548 and 1566 are few: Quarterly Journal of Economics, xvii. 577. 4 Strype, ii. App. P, 47. • Strype, ii. App. Q, 49. 5 Sermons, i. 101. ' Cheyney, Social Changes, 85. |