Chapter 5

The monarch acted upon insidious advice; he spoke them fair at first, to gain time, but did not fulfil his promises. Ultimately the people gained part of their demands. To limit or defeat them, an act was passed, fixing the wages of laborers to 4d. per day, with meat and drink, or 6d. per day, without meat and drink, and others in proportion; but with the proviso, that if any one refused to serve or labor on these terms, every justice was at liberty to send him to jail, there to remain until he gave security to serve and labor as by law required. A subsequent act prevents their being employed by the week, or paid for holidays.

Previous to this period, the major barons and great lords tilled their land by serfs, and had very large flocks and herds of cattle. On the death of the Bishop of Winchester, 1367, his executors delivered to Bishop Wykeham, his successor in the see, the following: 127 draught horses, 1556 head of cattle, 3876 wedders, 4777 ewes, and 3541 lambs. Tillage was neglected; and in 1314 there was a severe dearth; wheat sold at a price equal to L30 per quarter, the brewing of ale was discontinued by proclamation, in order "to prevent those of middle rank from perishing for want of food."

The dissensions among the descendants of Edward III. as to the right to the Crown aided the nobles in their efforts to make their estates hereditary, and the civil wars which afflicted the nation tended to promote that object. Kings were crowned and discrowned at the will of the nobles, who compelled the FREEMEN to part with their small estates. The oligarchy dictated to the Crown, and oppressed and kept down the FREEMEN. The nobles allied themselves with the serfs, who were manumitted that they might serve as soldiers in the conflicting armies.

From the Conquest to the time of Richard II., only barons-by-tenure, the descendants of the companions of the Conqueror, were invited by writ to Parliament. That monarch made an innovation, and invited others who were not barons-by-tenure. The first dukedom was created the 11th of Edward III., and the first viscount the 18th Henry VI.

Edward IV. seized upon the lands granted by former kings, and gave them to his own followers, and thus created a feeling of uneasiness in the minds of the nobility, and paved the way for the events which were accomplished by a succeeding dynasty. The decision in the Taltarum case opened the question of succession; and Edward's efforts to put down retainers was the precursor of the Tudor policy.

We have a picture of the state of society in the reign of Edward IV. in the Paston Memoirs, written by Margaret Paston. Her husband, John Paston, was heir to Sir John Fastolf. He was bound by the will to establish in Caister Castle, Fastolf s own mansion, a college of religious men to pray for his benefactor's soul. But in those days might was right, and the Duke of Norfolk, fancying that he should like the house for himself, quietly took possession of it. At that time, Edward was just seated on the throne, and Edward had just been reported to Paston to have said in reference to another suit, that

"He would be your good lord therein as he would to the poorest man in England. He would hold with you in your right; and as for favor, he will not be understood that he shall show favor more to one man to another, not to one in England."

This was a true expression of the king's intentions. But either he was changeable in his moods, or during these early years he was hardly settled enough on the throne always to be able to carry out his wishes. This time, however, in some way or another, the great duke was reduced to submission, and Caister was restored to Paston.

In 1465 a new claimant appeared; and claimants, though as troublesome in the fifteenth as the nineteenth century, proceeded in a different fashion. This time it was the Duke of Suffolk, who asserted a right to the manor of Drayton in his own name, and who had bought up the assumed rights of another person to the manor of Hellesdon. John Paston was away, and his wife had to bear the brunt. An attempt to levy rent at Drayton was followed by a threat from the duke's men, that if her servants "ventured to take any further distresses at Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a pin, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon."

Paston and the duke alike professed to be under the law. But each was anxious to retain that possession which in those days seems really to have been nine points of the law. The duke got hold of Drayton, while Hellesdon was held for Paston. One day Paston's men made a raid upon Drayton, and carried off seventy-seven head of cattle. Another day the duke's bailiff came to Hellesdon with 300 men to see if the place were assailable. Two servants of Paston, attempting to keep a court at Drayton in their master's name, were carried off by force. At last the duke mustered his retainers and marched against Hellesdon. The garrison, too weak to resist, at once surrendered.

"The duke's men took possession, and set John Paston's own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston's own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the wreck of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now" (Introd. xxxv.).

The meaning of all this is evident. We have before us a state of society in which the anarchical element is predominant. But it is not pure anarchy. The nobles were determined to reduce the middle classes to vassalage.

The reign of the Plantagenets witnessed the elevation of the nobility. The descendants of the Norman barons menaced, and sometimes proved too powerful for the Crown. In such reigns as those of Edward I., Edward III., and Henry VI., the barons triumphed. The power wielded by the first Edward fell from the feeble grasp of his son and successor. The beneficent rule of Edward III. was followed by the anarchy of Richard II. Success led to excess. The triumphant party thinned the ranks of its opponents, and in turn experienced the same fate. The fierce struggle of the Red and White Roses weakened each. Guy, Earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," sank overpowered on the field of Tewkesbury, and with him perished many of the most powerful of the nobles. The jealousy of Richard III. swept away his own friends, and the bloody contest on Bosworth field destroyed the flower of the nobility. The sun of the Plantagenets went down, leaving the country weak and impoverished, from a contest in which the barons sought to establish their own power, to the detriment alike of the Crown and the FREEMEN. The latter might have exclaimed:

"Till half a patriot, half a coward, grown, We fly from meaner tyrants to the throne."

The long contest terminated in the defeat alike of the Crown and the nobles, but the nation suffered severely from the struggle.

The rule of this family proved fatal to the interest of a most important class, whose rights were jealously guarded by the Normans. The Liberi Homines, the FREEMEN, who were Odhal occupiers, holding in capite from the sovereign, nearly disappeared in the Wars of the Roses. Monarchs who owed their crown to the favor of the nobles were too weak to uphold the rights of those who held directly from the Crown, and who, in their isolation, were almost powerless.

The term FREEMAN, originally one of the noblest in the land, disappeared in relation to urban tenures, and was applied solely to the personal rights of civic burghers; instead thereof arose the term FREEHOLDER from FREE HOLD, which was originally a grant free from all rent, and only burdened with military service. The term was subsequently applied to land held for leases for lives as contradistinguished from leases for years, the latter being deemed base tenures, and insufficient to qualify a man to vote; the theory being that no man was free whose tenure could be disturbed during his life. Though the Liberi Homines or FREEMEN were, as a class, overborne in this struggle, and reduced to vassalage, yet their descendants were able, under the leadership of Cromwell, to regain some of the rights and influence of which they had been despoiled under the Plantagenets.

Fortescue, Lord Chief-Justice to Henry VI., thus describes the condition of the English people:

"They drunk no water, unless it be that some for devotion, and upon a rule of penance, do abstain from other drink. They eat plentifully of all kinds of flesh and fish. They wear woollen cloth in all their apparel. They have abundance of bed covering in their houses, and all other woollen stuff. They have great store of all implements of household. They are plentifully furnished with all instruments of husbandry, and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a great and wealthy life, according to their estates and degrees."

This flattering picture is not supported by the existing disaffection and the repeated applications for redress from the serfs and the smaller farmers, and the simple fact that the population had increased under the Normans--a period of 88 years--from 2,150,000 to 3,350,000, while under the Plantagenets--a period of 300 years--it only increased to 4,000,000, the addition to the population in that period being only 650,000. The average increase in the former period was nearly 14,000 per annum, while in the latter it did not much exceed 2000 per annum. This goes far to prove the evil from civil wars, and the oppression of the oligarchy.

VI. THE TUDORS

The protracted struggle of the Plantagenets left the nation in a state of exhaustion. The nobles had absorbed the lands of the FREEMEN, and had thus broken the backbone of society. They had then entered upon a contest with the Crown to increase their own power; and to effect their selfish objects, setup puppets, and ranged under conflicting banners, but the Nemesis followed. The Wars of the Roses destroyed their own power, and weakened their influence, by sweeping away the heads of the principal families. The ambition of the nobles failed of its object, when "the last of the barons" lay gory in his blood on the field of Tewkesbury. The wars were, however, productive of one national benefit, in virtually ending the state of serfdom to which the aborigines were reduced by the Scandinavian invasion. The exhaustion of the nation prepared the way to changes of a most radical character, and the reigns of the Tudors are characterized by greater innovations and more striking alterations than even those which followed the accession of the Normans.

Henry of Richmond came out of the field of Bostworth a vistor, and ascended the throne of a nation whose leading nobles had been swept away. The sword had vied with the axe. Henry VII. was prudent and cunning; and in the absence of any preponderating oligarchical influence, planted the heel of the sovereign upon the necks of the nobles. He succeeded where the Plantagenets had failed. His accession became the advent of a series of measures which altered most materially the system of landholding. The Wars of the Roses showed that the power of the nobles was too great for the comfort of the monarch. The decision in Taltarum's case, in the reign of Edward IV., affected the entire system of entail. Land, partly freed from restrictions, passed into other hands. But Henry went further. He destroyed their physical influence by ridigly putting down retainer; and in one of his tours, while partaking of the hospitality of the Earl of Oxford, he fined him L15,000 for having greeted him with 5000 of his tenants in livery. The rigid enforcement of the laws passed against retainers in former reigns, but now made more penal, strengthened the king and reduced the power of the nobles. Their estates were relieved of a most onerous charge, and the lands freed from the burden of supporting the army of the state.

Henry VII. had thus a large fund to give away; the rent of the land granted in knights' service virtually consisted of two separate funds--one part went to the feudee, as officer or commmandant, the other to the soldiery or vassals. The latter part belonged to the state. Had Henry applied it to the reestablishment of the class of FREEMEN (LIBERI HOMINES), as was recently done by the Emperor of Russia when he abolished serfdom, he would have created a power on which the Crown and the constitution could rely. This might have been done by converting the holdings of the men-at-arms into allodial estates, held direct from the Crown. Such an arrangement would have left the income of the feudee unimpaired, as it would only have applied the fund that had been paid to the men-at-arms to this purpose; and by creating out of that land a number of small estates held direct from the Crown, the misery that arose from the eviction and destruction of a most meritorious class, would have been avoided. Vagrancy, with its great evils, would have been prevented, and the passing of the Poor laws would have been unnecessary. Unfortunately Henry and his counsellors did not appreciate the consequence of the suppression of retainers and liveries. By the course he adopted to secure the influence of the Crown, he compensated the nobles, but destroyed the agricultural middle class.

This change had an important and, in some respects, a most injurious effect upon the condition of the nation, and led to enactments of a very extraordinary character, which I must submit in detail, inasmuch as I prefer giving the ipsissima verba of the statute-book to any statement of my own. To make the laws intelligible, I would remind you that the successful efforts of the nobles had, during the three centuries of Plantagenet rule, nearly obliterated the LIBERI HOMINES (whose rights the Norman conqueror had sedulously guarded), and had reduced them to a state of vassalage. They held the lands of their lord at his will, and paid their rent by military service. When retainers were put down, and rent or knights' service was no longer paid with armed men, their occupation was gone. They were unfit for the mere routine of husbandry, and unprovided with funds for working their farms. The policy of the nobles was changed. It was no longer their object to maintain small farmsteads, each supplying its quota of armed men to the retinue of the lord; and it was their interest to obtain money rents. Then commenced a struggle of the most fearful character. The nobles cleared their lands, pulled down the houses, and displaced the people. Vagrancy, on a most unparalleled scale, took place. Henry VII., to check this cruel, unexpected, and harsh outcome of his own policy, resorted to legislation, which proved nearly ineffectual. As early as the fourth year of his reign these efforts commenced with an enactment (cap. 19) for keeping up houses and encouraging husbandry; it is very quaint, and is as follows:

"The King, our Sovereign Lord, having singular pleasure above all things to avoid such enormities and mischiefs as be hurtful and prejudicial to the commonwealth of this his land and his subjects of the same, remembereth that, among other things, great inconvenience daily doth increase by dissolution, and pulling down, and wilful waste of houses and towns within this his realm, and laying to pasture lands, which continually have been in tilth, WHEREBY IDLENESS, THE GROUND AND BEGINNING OF ALL MISCHIEF, daily do increase; for where, in some towns 200 persons were occupied, and lived by those lawful labors, now there be occupied two or three herdsmen, and the residue full of idleness. The husbandry, which is one of the greatest commodities of the realm, is greatly decayed. Churches destroyed, the service of God withdrawn, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the patrons and curates wronged, the defence of the land against outward enemies feebled and impaired, to the great displeasure of God, the subversion of the policy and good rule of this land, if remedy be not hastily therefor purveyed: Wherefore, the King, our Sovereign Lord, by the assent and advice, etc., etc., ordereth, enacteth, and establisheth that no person, what estate, degree, or condition he be, that hath any house or houses, that at any time within the past three years hath been, or that now is, or heretofore shall be, let to farm with twenty acres of land at least, or more, laying in tillage or husbandry; that the owners of any such house shall be bound to keep, sustain, and maintain houses and buildings, upon the said grounds and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding said tillage and husbandry; and if any such owner or owners of house or house and land take, keep, and occupy any such house or house and land in his or their own hands, that the owner of the said authority be bound in likewise to maintain houses and buildings upon the said ground and land, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding the said tillage and husbandry. On their default, the king, or the other lord of the fee, shall receive half of the profits, and apply the same in repairing the houses; but shall not gain the freehold thereby."

This act was preceded by one with reference to the Isle of Wight, 4 Henry VII., cap. 16, passed the same session, which recites that it is so near France that it is desirable to keep it in a state of defence. It provides that no person shall have more than one farm, and enacts:

"For remedy, it is ordered and enacted that no manner of person, of what estate, degree, or condition soever, shall take any farm more than one, whereof the yearly rent shall not exceed ten marks; and if any several leases afore this time have been made to any person or persons of divers and sundry farmholds whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum, then the said person or persons shall choose one farm, hold at his pleasure, and the remnant of the leases shall be void."

Mr. Froude remarks (History, p. 26), "An act, tyrannical in form, was singularly justified by its consequences. The farm-houses were rebuilt, the land reploughed, the island repeopled; and in 1546, when the French army of 60,000 men attempted to effect a landing at St. Helens, they were defeated and driven back by the militia, and a few levies transported from Hampshire and the surrounding counties."

Lord Bacon, in his "History of the Reign of Henry VII., says:

"Enclosures, at that time, began to be more frequent, whereby arable land (which could not be manured without people and families) was turned into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and tenancies for years, lives, and at will (whereupon much of the yeomanry lived) were turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people and (by consequence) a decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like. The king, likewise, knew full well, and in nowise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes; for the more gentlemen, ever the lower books of subsidies. In remedying of this inconvenience, the king's wisdom was admirable, and the parliaments at that time. Enclosures they would not forbid, for that had been to forbid the improvement of the patrimony of the kingdom; nor tillage they would not compel, for that was to strive with nature and utility; but they took a course to take away depopulating enclosures and depopulating pasturage, and yet not by that name, or by any imperious express prohibition, but by consequence. The ordinance was, that all houses of husbandry, that were used with twenty acres of ground and upward, should be maintained and kept up for ever, together with a competent proportion of land to be used and occupied with them; and in nowise to be severed from them, as by another statute made afterward in his successor's time, was more fully declared: this, upon forfeiture to be taken, not by way of popular action, but by seizure of the land itself, by the king and lords of the fee, as to half the profits, till the houses and land were restored. By this means the houses being kept up, did of necessity enforce a dweller; and the proportion of the land for occupation being kept up, did of necessity enforce that dweller not to be a beggar or cottager, but a man of some substance, that might keep hinds and servants, and set the plough a-going. This did wonderfully concern the might and mannerhood of the kingdom, to have farms, as it were, of a standard sufficient to maintain an able body out of penury, and did, in effect, amortise a great part of the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and occupation of the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and cottagers or peasants. Now, how much this did advance the military power of the kingdom, is apparent by the true principles of war, and the examples of other kingdoms. For it hath been held by the general opinion of men of best judgment in the wars (howsoever some few have varied, and that it may receive some distinction of case), that the principal strength of an army consisteth in the infantry or foot. And to make good infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner. Therefore, if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that the husbandman and ploughman be but as their workfolks and laborers, or else mere cottagers (which are but housed beggars), you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot; like to coppice woods, that if you leave in them standing too thick, they will run to bushes and briars, and have little clean underwood. And this is to be seen in France and Italy, and some other parts abroad, where in effect all is nobles or peasantry. I speak of people out of towns, and no middle people; and therefore no good forces of foot: insomuch as they are enforced to employ mercenary bands of Switzers and the like for their battalions of foot, whereby also it comes to pass, that those nations have much people and few soldiers. Whereas the king saw that contrariwise it would follow, that England, though much less in territory, yet should have infinitely more soldiers of their native forces than those other nations have. Thus did the king secretly sow Hydra's teeth; whereupon (according to the poet's fiction) should rise up armed men for the service of this kingdom."

The enactment above quoted was followed by others in that reign of a similar character, but it would appear they were not successful. The evil grew apace. Houses were pulled down, farms went out of tillage. The people, evicted from their farms, and having neither occupation nor means of living, were idle, and suffering. Succeeding sovereigns strove also to check this disorder? and statute after statute was passed. Among them are the 7th Henry VIII., cap. 1. It recites: