The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century Part 28

[631] 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 2.

[632] 5 Elizabeth, c. 2.

[633] 31 Elizabeth, c. 7.

[634] 35 Elizabeth, c. 7.

[635] 39 Elizabeth, c. 1 and c. 2.

The Statutes are evidence of a state of opinion. To judge how far that opinion wrote itself on the world of affairs we must look elsewhere. Nor are they in themselves very interesting. The genius of sixteenth century statesmans.h.i.+p lay in administration not in legislation. It dwelt not in Parliament but in the Council, and in those administrative courts, the Court of Star Chamber, the Court of Requests, the Council of the North, the Council of Wales, which were the Privy Council's organs. In studying economic questions in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, one is met at every turn by the apparatus of special administrative jurisdictions, which was built up by the Tudors, and which fell to pieces with the final rupture between the Crown and Parliament. On the one hand, they supply the control and stimulus in matters of detailed administration, without which all legislation designed to regulate s.h.i.+fting economic relations.h.i.+ps, or running counter to the prejudices of a powerful cla.s.s, is doomed to be ineffective. Are the Justices of the Peace lax in carrying out the Statutes for the relief of the poor and punishment of vagrants? The Council will remonstrate. Have they omitted to a.s.sess wages and fix prices? The Council will let them know that their neglect has been noted at headquarters and that it must be corrected. Are capitalists in the clothing counties dismissing workmen in times of trade depression? The Council will direct the justices to read them a lesson on the duty of employers to their operatives and to the State, and threaten them with a summons to Whitehall unless they mend their ways. A stream of correspondence pours into London from the Government's agents in the counties--returns as to the supplies of wheat available for consumption, applications for permission to license the export of food-stuffs, statistics as to prices, information as to unemployment, information as to vagrancy based on a "day-count" of vagabonds. The Council digests it, and sends out its mandates to continue this and alter that, to raise wages or reduce prices, to inspect granaries, punish middlemen, whip st.u.r.dy rogues, relieve the poor. Bad means of communication, scanty and inaccurate intelligence, incompetent local officials, prevent administration from running smoothly; and as the Civil War approaches incompetence becomes recalcitrance. Nevertheless the engine is a powerful one, and up to a year or two before the meeting of the Long Parliament its throb is felt throughout the country.

Such a system of centralised supervision, which can meet emergencies with prompt.i.tude, and can adjust regulations to the varying needs of different years and different localities, is a necessity in any society where economic relations.h.i.+ps are made the object of authoritative control. Under the Tudors and first two Stuarts the Council does much that is done to-day by several State departments--the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Education, the Local Government Board, the Home Office, as well as much that is left to Private Bill legislation. But the Council is, of course, much more than an executive organ. It is also a court of law. It does not only make rules, it punishes people for breaking them. Sometimes it exercises jurisdiction itself. More often, at any rate in the cases arising out of the economic questions with which we are chiefly concerned, it issues an order, and leaves the punishment of breaches of it to the Court of Star Chamber and the Court of Requests. Into the controversy as to the const.i.tutional position of these courts we need not enter; we need only point out their extreme importance as b.u.t.tresses of the Government's control over economic affairs. Both in personnel and procedure they were admirably qualified to be the instruments of a thorough system of State intervention in matters of industry and agriculture. Both of them were committees of the Council, and in both the governmental predominated over the judicial element, the two judges who attended the Court of Star Chamber, and the Masters of Requests who sat in the Court of Requests, being in the position rather of legal advisers or a.s.sessors than of judicial authorities. In theory the former court dealt with criminal, the latter with civil cases. But in an age when the majority of the populace were armed, a dispute was extremely likely to terminate in a riot, and in practice there were subjects on which complaints came before either court indifferently. They dispensed with a jury. They took account of equitable considerations which had no place in the common law courts. They were guided by reasons of State, not by the letter of the law, and would punish behaviour as contrary to public policy. For the execution of their rulings they used not only the ordinary officers of the law, the Justices of the Peace, but also special bodies of Commissioners.

Whatever may have been the abuses of this system of administrative jurisdictions, one can easily understand that it was well fitted to deal with the agrarian problem. It is seen at its worst in ecclesiastical matters. It is seen at its best in protecting the poorer cla.s.ses against economic tyranny; and we shall fail to understand the popularity of the Tudor Governments unless we lay as much emphasis on the good side as on the bad. The Court of Requests in particular is a popular court, a court which punishes the rich, a court which brings, in the words of the aristocratic chronicler, "many an honest man to trouble and vexacion," a court to which the poor "compleyned without number."[636] The notorious difficulty of getting a verdict from a jury of tenants who are liable to eviction means that a landlord can break the law with impunity. Here are courts before which the intimidator can be intimidated; courts which will handle him "on that sort, that what courage soever he hath, his heart will fall to the grounde."[637] The enormous importance of manorial custom in determining the fate of all cla.s.ses of peasants, except the freeholders, makes it certain that grave injustice will be done to vested interests by any court which confines itself to the strict letter of the law. The Council will direct that "such order be taken in the matter as in justyce and equitie shall appertayn."[638] The mere fact that its ruling is not simply the verdict of a court but the command of the Government, increases the probability that it will receive due attention from those whose duty it is to enforce it. The landlord who has enclosed may be the very man who hears the peasant's complaint. The Council will interfere to insist on the local authorities taking "a more indifferent course."[639]

[636] Hall's _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, p. 585 (Edition 1809), quoted by Leadam, introduction to _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_ (Selden Society).

[637] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. III., chap. iv.

[638] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp.

91-92.

[639] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. x.x.x. pp.

36-37. A letter to the Council in the Marches of Wales, concerning the tenants of Aston in Montgomerys.h.i.+re: "And if it be true, as they do inform us by their pet.i.tions, that examinations in a case concerning one of that Counsell should be taken by a kinsman of his owne and a clerk underneathe him, wee wyshe ... that you would have taken a more indifferent course, especially in a matter of commons, which, concerning many persons, doth easily give occasion of offence and scandal."

The activity of the Government in matters of land was not so incessant as it was in the regulation of prices and the administration of the Poor Laws; for its land policy was strongly opposed to the interests of the country gentry who were its officials, and it had to proceed with caution. If we except the first great Commission appointed by Wolsey in 1517, the periods in which it was especially energetic in dealing with the land question were three, the years between 1536 and 1549, the years from 1607 to 1618, the years from 1630 to 1636; and on each of these three occasions there was some temporary cause to explain its peculiar zeal--on the two first the revolts of the peasantry, and on the last the rise in the price of grain, which suggested that an unduly small proportion of the land was under tillage. Nevertheless it handles individual cases with considerable frequency throughout the whole period from 1517 to 1640. Usually it acts as a final court of appeal, which intervenes only when other means of redress have broken down, and it is sometimes at pains to explain to offended landlords that it does not intend to debar them from a.s.serting their rights at Common Law, if they can. Its aim is to stop very gross cases of oppression, to prevent the peasants being made the victims of legal chicanery and intimidation, to induce landlords to take a larger view of their responsibilities, to settle disputes by the use of common sense and moral pressure. It steps in when the tenants are poor men who are being ruined by vexatious lawsuits, or when enclosure is thought likely to produce disorder, or to forbid a landlord to take action pending a decision by the courts. It has to hear many cases touching copyholders and many touching commons; for no one is quite certain as to the legal rights of copyholders, and in the matter of commons there is a fearful gulf between law and equity.

Occasionally in the reign of Henry VIII., and even in that of Elizabeth, it deals with cases of villeinage. But these, though more numerous than might have been supposed, are nevertheless rare, for the princ.i.p.al economic evils of the period consist not in the revival of old claims, but in the new compet.i.tive conditions of agriculture. The treatment of the latter is by no means a simple matter--even the strong Governments of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth will not lightly thrust forceful fingers into the mysterious custom-bound recesses of the manor--and when we have said that on the whole the bias of the Tudor and early Stuart statesmen is against revolutionary changes that damage the peasants, we can say little more without citing individual cases of interference.

Let us look shortly at the more striking among them. The famous Commission upon enclosure appointed by Wolsey in 1517 set a precedent to be followed in several subsequent inquiries, and has left us an invaluable body of information as to the nature and extent of the enclosing movement. It was, however, by no means the first example of the Government intervening in the agrarian problem, and the partial reconversion of pasture to arable, which seems to have resulted from its labours, still left an urgent need for a continuous supervision of the relations between landlord and tenant by some tribunal sufficiently independent to do justice to the weaker party. In 1494 the earliest proceedings in the interminable case[640] of John Mulsho v. the inhabitants of Thingden ended in the Court of Star Chamber (the same court was dealing with the same matter in 1538) with a decree in favour of the tenants. In 1510 the same body was dealing with a quarrel between the Abbot and the copyholders of Peterborough,[641] and in 1516 with a complaint from the inhabitants of Draycote[642] and Stoke Gifford that the lord of the manor had evicted copyholders, stopped up rights of way, and enclosed common land. The policy of Wolsey is sufficiently indicated by the active campaign which he set on foot against depopulation, and requires no further ill.u.s.tration. But it is interesting to observe that his att.i.tude towards the agrarian question was not a mere personal idiosyncrasy, and that it was the same in all essential particulars as that of his successor. Thomas Cromwell must bear the blame for part of the agrarian distress which prevailed during the closing years of Henry VIII. and the reign of Edward VI.; for that distress was enhanced by the wild land speculation which followed the secularisation of the monastic estates. In that age, however, such indirect social reactions of their policy were matters quite beneath the consideration of statesmen, and the fact that the Government was responsible for changes which operated most disastrously on the established order of rural society did not prevent administrative interference to impede agrarian innovations from going on to the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Indeed the King, influenced no doubt by the fear that agrarian agitation might add fuel to religious discontent, seems himself to have taken some interest in the matter. In 1534 one finds Cromwell writing to congratulate him on the pa.s.sage through the House of Commons of a Bill providing that no man shall keep more than 2000 sheep, and that one-eighth of every farmer's land shall always remain in tillage, "The most profitable and most benefycyall thing that ever was done to this the commonwealthe of your realm;"[643] and in the following year there is a letter[644] from Cromwell to Rich directing him to apprise the Duke of Suffolk of the King's displeasure at the decay of certain towns which the Duke had promised to repair. The agrarian grievances expressed in the Pilgrimage of Grace were admitted, and in the instructions issued to the officers who were appointed to restore order in the disaffected counties special directions[645] were included to throw open enclosures, and to reduce the excessive fines charged to tenants on admission to their holdings.

In the years immediately following the same policy was pursued in other parts of the country. In 1538 the Earl of Derby[646] writes to Cromwell protesting against the pressure put upon him to reinstate seven tenants whom he has turned out. In 1540 a landlord[647] in the Isle of Wight is compelled to restore to their holdings some recently evicted tenants. In 1541 several cases come before the Council. It appoints a Commission to investigate the case of a Northamptons.h.i.+re[648] landlord who has prevented the tenants of Brigstock from feeding their pigs, calves, and sheep, by cutting up part of a common wood "into several pastures for his own private use and benefit." It meets a complaint from the borderers[649] of the Forest of Dartmoor that the owner of the lands of the monastery of Buckfast is breaking the statute which required the lands of dissolved abbeys to be farmed in the traditional way, by excluding them from the common, with a decision upholding the tenants'

case and with the appointment of Commissioners to carry out the award.

It sets a certain choleric Sir Nicholas Poyntz,[650] who has dared to procure the imprisonment of a tenant for proceeding against him before the Council, to cool his temper in the Fleet, and when he comes out compels him to grant his victim a new farm in exchange for one which he has surrendered, to reduce his rent from 20s. to 6s., and to pay him forty marks as compensation for his "damages and travailles." In 1543[651] the tenants of Abbots Ripton lay a complaint in the Court of Requests against Sir John St. John on the ground that, in addition to other acts of oppression, he has entered forcibly on their holdings. Sir John replies that they are not copyholders, but merely tenants at will, who are unprotected by any immemorial custom, and after an examination of the manor rolls the court holds that he is right. But the legal insecurity of the tenants does not prevent them from getting protection.

The court requires their landlord to grant them leases for years at reasonable rents, and orders that the property which he has distrained shall be restored.

[640] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star Chamber_, edited by Leadam, and Leadam, E. H. R., vol. viii. pp.

684-696.

[641] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696.

[642] _Ibid._

[643] Merriman, _Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell_, vol. i.

p. 273.

[644] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 413.

[645] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 98 and 595.

[646] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xiii., I., 334 (see also 66, where an appeal is made January 11, 1536, to Cromwell to protect some tenants in Denbighs.h.i.+re.)

[647] _Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council_, vol.

vii. p. 42: "The King's pleasure was signified to John Dawney, Knight, that whereas he had turned certain persons in the Isle of Wight out of their farms, whereof they pretended to have leases, and had demised the same to others that minded not to dwell upon the same, he should take order that the old tenants might enjoy their leases until Michaelmas, come a twelve month, and that in the mean season the King's Highness would see a direction taken in the matter."

[648] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 225-226. July 30 and August 1, 1541.

[649] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 123-125. January 25, 1541.

[650] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. i. pp. 5 and 9.

[651] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696.

With the Protectorate of Somerset we enter upon a period of more violent agitation and more drastic expedients. There was a large difference between using the jurisdiction of the Council to redress individual cases of hards.h.i.+p and a deliberate attempt to effect a general settlement of the land question upon lines which would do substantial justice to the peasants. The former course involved no perilous a.s.sertion of principles, and could be pursued under the guise of a purely conservative policy, merely by referring disputes between landlords and tenants to the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests, which, though in fact administrative and governmental bodies, were none the less protected to some extent against criticism by wearing the appearance of mere legal tribunals. The latter might, perhaps, have been attempted with some faint hope of success, if statesmen had been much more careful than they were to discriminate between the different aspects of the problem with which they were confronted. To us, who look back on the situation from a distance of three and a half centuries, it seems that the one guiding thread, which might have led some way through the welter of confusion, was offered by the sharp distinction drawn by Hales between those enclosures which were made by the exchange and consolidation of strips, with a view to better husbandry, and those which had as their effect the conversion of arable land to pasture, the monopolising of commons, and the eviction of tenants. The arguments in favour of the first type of enclosure were too cogent for any policy which condemned enclosing in general to have the smallest prospect of success. The only possibility of averting the ruin to the peasantry which accompanied depopulation lay in encouraging them generally to follow the example of their brothers in Kent, Ess.e.x, Devons.h.i.+re, and Cornwall, who had for centuries been subst.i.tuting a more progressive husbandry for the "mingle mangle" of the open fields, without the disastrous consequences entailed by the spread of capitalist agriculture in other parts of the South and Midlands. But such a frank encouragement of certain kinds of enclosure for the sake of repressing others implied an appreciation of the economics of the problem to which comparatively few persons in our period had attained, and was quite beyond the grasp of Governments, which, at their worst, as under Warwick, were quite indifferent to the sufferings of the poorer cla.s.ses, and, at their best, conceived public interests to be served best by a strict maintenance of customary conditions. Somerset's policy of deliberately restoring ancient relations.h.i.+ps with a strong hand could hardly even be begun without those who pursued it taking sides in a bitter economic agitation, and essaying openly to reverse the whole agrarian movement with which, in the course of the past half century, the wealth of the middle and upper cla.s.ses, at any rate south of the Trent, had become inextricably identified. It involved in fact a return to the policy of Wolsey, and a return to it under conditions which made Wolsey's policy doubly hard to carry out, inasmuch as, on the one hand, the position of Somerset as temporary head of a jealous aristocracy was far weaker than that of the omnipotent Cardinal, and, on the other hand, the lapse of twenty years had seen the growth of a generation to which enclosures were a vested interest.

Yet it would be a mistake to think of the whole agrarian episode between the death of Henry VIII. and the fall of Somerset as the mere freak of a misguided doctrinaire. If we can see difficulties which he did not, if we can smile at the thought of any Government at once so incompetent, and but for Somerset himself, so entirely selfish, carrying out a great conservative revolution in the teeth of the new wealth and power of the country, we must also remember that he was not alone in thinking the spoliation of the weaker rural cla.s.ses not only, as it certainly was, illegal, but also so patently unjust as to amount to a national crime, and that in that age men overestimated the ability of a Government fiat to modify economic habits almost as much as they underestimated it two and a half centuries later. Somerset can hardly have been ignorant of the tremendous risks involved in his policy. But he may well have thought inaction not only baser than, but almost as dangerous as, action. It was certain that, unless the Government interfered to protect tenants, there would be a series of peasants' revolts. The best answer to the charge of stirring up cla.s.s hatred, which was made against Somerset, as against all who call attention to its causes, was that agrarian rioting had begun in Hertfords.h.i.+re[652] before the Commission on Enclosures was sent out, that in those counties where it took its work seriously order was maintained till the end of 1548, and that grave disturbances did not take place until the following year, when it became evident that, both in Parliament and on the Council, the Protector's policy had been beaten by the opposition of the great landowners. Nor is there any reason to doubt the sincerity of Somerset himself (though he, like every one else, had speculated in monastic estates), however much there may be to regret that his policy did not come into stronger hands, or fall upon times which were, from a political point of view, less hopelessly impracticable. An attempt was made to set a good example on the Crown Estates. In 1548, in response to complaints from the tenants at Walton, Weybridge, Esher, and Shepperton, that the making of the royal deer park at Hampton Court was ruining them through the loss of common rights which it entailed, an order[653] was issued dechasing the Park, and throwing open the enclosed lands to the commoners. In the following year Somerset secured the pa.s.sage through Parliament of a Private Act[654] conferring a good t.i.tle on those copyholders on his own manors to whom demesne lands had been let, and who, as occupiers of other than customary tenancies, could not claim the protection of manorial custom. It is plain from the comparatively few complaints which came in the sixteenth century from freeholders that, if such a course had been generally pursued, the chief objection to the changes grouped together under the name of enclosure would have been removed, because the harsh disturbance of vested interests which they involved would have been avoided. But that, of course, was quite outside the bounds of political possibility.

[652] Appendix to Miss Lamond's edition of _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, Hale's defence, p. lviii.: "Whas ther not, longe before this Commyssyon was sent forthe, an insurrection in Hertfords.h.i.+re for the comens at Northall and Cheshunt?"

[653] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. ii. pp.

190-193, May 5, 1548: a complaint from "many poor men of the Parishes of Walton, Weybridge, East Molson, West Molson, Caverham, Esher, Byfiete, Temsditton ... in the name of the whole parishes before rehea.r.s.ed, that by reason of the making of the late chase of Hampton Court, forsomyche as their commons, pastures, and meadows be taken in, and that all the said parishes are overlaid with the deer now increasing daily upon them, very many households of the same parishes be let fall down, the families decayed, and the king's liege people much diminished, the country thereabout in manner made desolate."

[654] See p. 294.

The story of Somerset's attempt to deal with the land question is soon told. In 1548 agrarian discontent was at its height. Some time in that year there must have come to the hands of the Government the small tract on the effect of sheep-farming in Oxfords.h.i.+re, Northamptons.h.i.+re, Buckinghams.h.i.+re, and Berks.h.i.+re, which was printed in 1551 under the name of "Certayne causes of the Present Discontent."[655] In spring and summer Latimer was thundering against the "Step-lords"[656] at Paul's Cross. In autumn Crowley published his "Information and Pet.i.tion against the Oppressors of the Poor Commons."[657] Above all, the poor commons had earlier in the year shown unmistakable signs of fending for themselves. The result of Somerset's own sympathy with the prevalent discontent was the formation of something like a party, under the name of the "Commonwealth men," with Latimer as its prophet and Hales as its man of action, which had a programme sufficiently definite to put heart into the peasantry and to terrify the great landed proprietors. On June 1st a Royal Commission[658] was appointed to inquire into offences committed against the Acts forbidding conversion of arable to pasture and depopulation. The Commission divided itself into several committees to deal with different parts of the country. Only one of them, however, consisting of John Hales and five of his colleagues, got seriously to work. It had a large area to cover--the counties of Oxfords.h.i.+re, Berks.h.i.+re, Warwicks.h.i.+re, Leicesters.h.i.+re, Bedfords.h.i.+re, Buckinghams.h.i.+re, and Northamptons.h.i.+re--and one which was the centre of the agitation against enclosure. It seems to have interrupted its labours during autumn and winter, but it was busy in June, July, and August 1548, and again in the summer of 1549, by which time, however, the anger of the landed gentry against its proceedings, and of the peasants against the inactivity of the Commission as a whole, had reached a point which made it hardly possible for it to do more than collect information.

Considering the difficulties of its task, and the wide tract of country to be covered, its behaviour appears to have been thorough and business-like. The usual procedure was to empanel a jury of twelve in each place visited, to whom Hales delivered an address explaining the objects and methods of the inquiry, as set out in the instructions issued by the Government to the Commissioners. These stated the Commission to have been formed in particular "for the maintenance and keeping up of houses of husbandry, for avoiding destruction and pulling down of houses for enclosures and converting of arable land into pasture, for limiting what number of sheep men should have and keep in their possession at one time, against plurality and keeping together of farms, and for maintenance of housekeeping, hospitality, and tillage on the sites ... of such monasteries, priories, and religious houses as were dissolved."[659] Offenders were then presented by the jury, and though, on Hales' advice, a pardon was granted them for their past illegalities, their enclosures seem to have been thrown down, arable which had been turned into pasture to have been ploughed up, and farms which had been united to have been separated.[660]

[655] Published by the E. E. T. S.

[656] The first sermon preached before King Edward the Sixth, March 8, 1549: "You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say you step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for your possession yearly too much. For that herebefore went for twenty or forty pounds by year ... now is let for fifty or an hundred pound by year." See also Latimer, _The Sermon of the Plough_, January 18, 1548.

[657] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_.

[658] The proclamation appointing the Commission is printed by Strype, _op. cit._, vol. ii., Book I., chap. ii. The operative part of it runs: "And therefore, He ... hath appointed, according to the said acts and proclamations, a view and inquiry to be made of all such as contrary to the said acts and G.o.dly ordinances have made enclosures and pasture of that which was arable ground, or let any house, tenement, or mease decay or fall down, or done anything contrary of the good and wholesome articles contained in the said acts." In my account of the situation under Somerset I have followed the doc.u.ments printed by Strype, and the appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_.

[659] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_.

[660] For the pardon, see appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The Commonweal_, &c., p. lxi.; for the ploughing up of a park and division of farms, _ibid._, pp. xli. and lxi.-lxii.; for the Bills introduced by Hales, _ibid._, xl., xlv.-lii., lxii.-lxv. Strype's account appears to be based on that of Hales.

In the meantime Somerset kept the general policy of agrarian reform alive on the Council. In the autumn of 1548 Hales had returned to London, and, as member for Preston, had prepared three Bills, dealing partly with enclosures and partly with the high prices. The first, requiring re-edification of decayed houses and the maintenance of tillage, and the second, forbidding speculation in food-stuffs, were introduced into the House of Lords. The third, which aimed at encouraging cattle breeding as distinct from sheep grazing, was read first in the House of Commons. Neither Bill came to anything, for Parliament was as angry as the Council with Somerset's policy. But in May 1549 the Protector issued another proclamation against the decay of houses and enclosure; in June he infuriated the upper cla.s.ses by a proclamation pardoning persons who had taken the law into their own hands by pulling down hedges; and throughout the whole period of his power he used the Court of Requests as an instrument for protecting tenants against landlords.[661] The Secretary[662] to the Council, who was quite ready for a reign of terror provided that the gentry began it, prophesied gloomily that the German peasants' revolt was to be re-enacted in England, and Warwick attacked Hales fiercely for venturing to discharge the duties laid upon him by the Government, of which Warwick was a member.[663] "Sir," wrote a plaintive Norfolk gentleman to Cecil about the time of Ket's rebellion, "Be plain with my Lord's Grace, that under the pretence of simplicity and poverty there may not rest much mischief. So do I fear there doth in these men called Commonwealths and their adherents. To declare unto you the state of the gentlemen (I mean as well the greatest as the lowest) I a.s.sure you they are in such doubt that almost they dare touch none of them, but for that some of them have been sent up and come away without punishment, and that Commonwealth called Latimer hath gotten the pardon of others.... I may well gather some of them to be in jealousy of my Lord's friends.h.i.+p, yea and to be plain, think my Lord's grace rather to will the decay of the gentlemen than otherwise."[664] Poor gentlemen! A Government which holds that laws do not exist only to preserve the rich in their possessions!

Truly the mountains are removed.

[661] For these facts, see Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_.

[662] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. Sir William Paget to the Lord Protector, July 7, 1549: "The king's subjects are out of all discipline, out of all obedience, caring neither for Protector nor King. And what is the cause? Your own lenity ...

the foot taketh upon him the part of the head, and commons is become king, a king appointing conditions and laws to the governors, saying, 'Grant this and that and we will go home.'...

What then is the matter, troweth your grace?... By my faith, Sir, even that which I said to your grace.... Liberty, Liberty.... In Germany, when the very like tumult to this began first, it might have been appeased with the loss of 20 men, and after with the loss of 100 or 200. But it was thought nothing and might easily be appeased, and also some spiced consciences taking pity of the poor ... thought it a sore matter to lose so many of their country folk, saying they were simple folk.... It cost, ere it was appeased, they say, 1000 or 2000 men."

[663] Appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The Commonweal_, &c., pp. xli. and lii. But of course there was no such thing as collective responsibility for policy in the sixteenth century.

[664] Russel, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 202.