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were to any large extent swollen by agriculturists, driven to want and desperation by the loss of their holdings. The sturdy beggars, against whom Richard II. had legislated, had not the excuse of want of employment. They consisted, partly of disbanded soldiers who had so long followed the trade of war that they knew no other; partly of men who had suffered that general moral deterioration which often resulted from great catastrophes like the successive visitations of the "Black Death." In the fifteenth century, the close of the French war and of the Wars of the Roses again recruited the ranks of idle poverty and crime. To them were added, at a later date, the disbanded retinues of great nobles, "the great flock or train," to quote More's Utopia, "of idle and loitering serving-men, which never learned any craft whereby to get their - living." Finally, the suppression of the monasteries displaced and threw upon the world a large number of dependents, many of whom, from inclination or necessity, joined the army of sturdy beggars. Disbanded soldiers, discharged serving-men, and dismissed dependents of monastic institutions account for a formidable total of unemployed labour, without the addition of clothiers out of work or displaced agriculturists. But the evidence of More's Utopia cannot be ignored. The passage is familiar 1 in which he speaks of the husbandmen "thrust owte of their owne by enclosures; compelled to " trudge out of their knouen and accustomed howses "; driven to a forced sale of their "housholde stuffe " and constrayned to sell it for a thyng of nought." "And when they have, wanderynge about, sone spent that, what can they els do but steale, and then justelye, God wote, be hanged, or els go about a beggyng? And yet then also they be cast in prison as vagaboundes, because they go about and worke not; whom no man will set a worke, though they never so willingly offer them selfes therto." More's eloquent appeal may have produced effect. In the year after the publication of Utopia, the first and most important Commission was issued (1517-19) to enquire into the progress and results of enclosures in the twenty-four counties principally affected. The Returns of the Commissioners in Chancery are admittedly imperfect. But they justify the conclusion 2 that More's picture, though true

1 Utopia, bk. i., ed. Lupton, pp. 53-4.

2

1

Hypothetical tables based on these returns have been constructed by Mr. Gay, showing that the total number of persons displaced by enclosures during the period 1485-1517 did not much exceed 6931. Disappearance of the Small Landowner, p. 58.

See Johnson's

in particular instances, is as a general description of rural conditions too highly coloured. Dispossessed agriculturists undoubtedly contributed some proportion of the class which the Government grouped under the heading of idle rogues. Contemporary writers imply that the proportion was large modern research, based on contemporary enquiries and returns, suggests that it was relatively small. The evidence seems insufficient for a decision. In coping with a real evil, the Government attempted no classification. The innocent suffered with the guilty, and men and women, whether many or few, who had lost their means of livelihood and were willing to work, were the victims of severe punishment designed for the class of professional vagabonds.

Something is known of the degrees, practices, and jargon of the Elizabethan fraternity of vagabonds. Awdelay and Harman 1 describe the " Abraham man," or "poor Tom," bare-legged and bare-armed, pretending madness; the "Upright man" with his staff, and the "Ruffler " with his weapon; the "Fraters," Pedlars, and Tinkards; the "priggars of Prauncers," or horse-stealers, in their leather jerkins; the "Counterfet Cranke," feigning the falling sickness, with a piece of white soap in his mouth which made him foam like a boar the "Palliards," with their patched cloaks, and selfinflicted sores or wounds; and many others of the twenty-three varieties, male and female, of the professional beggar. But even Harman seldom enquired into their previous life. Some, like the Ruffler," had either serued in the warres or bene a seruinge man"; others, like the "Uprights," have been "serueing men, artificers, and laboryng men traded up to husbandry." The wild Roge was a begger by enheritance-his Grandfather was a begger, his father was one, and he must nedes be one by good reason." Few allusions can be gleaned from Shakespeare's writings to the agricultural changes which were taking place around him. But when we pass from the movement itself to some of the results which it helped to produce, his references are many and clear. The mass of vagrom men was a real social danger which exercised the wits of wiser men than Dogberry.2

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1 The Fraternity of Vacabondes, by John Awdeley (1561) and A Caveat or Warening for Commen Curseters, by Thomas Harman (1567-8).

2 Many of the types of beggars appear in Shakespeare's pages. Harman's " Ruffler," the worthiest of this unruly rablement :

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fit to bandy with thy lawless sons To ruffle in the commonwealth of Rome."

(Tit. Andr. Act i. Sc. 1, II. 312-3.)

There is

SHAKESPEARE'S "VAGROM MEN

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There is the "pedlar," the aristocracy of the profession, a clever plausible rascal like Autolycus. "The droncken tyncker" is represented by Christopher Sly" by birth a pedlar. . . by present profession a tinker "-drunk on the heath, and in debt for ale to Marian Hacket (Tam. Sh. Ind. ii. 11. 19-22). There is the "prygger or prygman," who "haunts wakes, fairs, and bear-baitings" (Wint. Tale, Act iv. Sc. 2, 1. 109). There is Awdeley's "choplogyke," who gives " XX wordes for one," to whom Capulet likens his daughter Juliet (Rom. and Jul. Act iii. Sc. 5, 1. 150). There is Harman's "Rogue," or "Wild Rogue," in the " rogue forlorn," who shares the hovel and the straw with King Lear and the swine (Lear, Act iv. Sc. 7, 1. 39). Edgar, disguised as a madman and calling himself poor Tom" (Lear, Act iii. Sc. 4, 1. 57), is Awdeley's " Abraham man," who "nameth himselfe ' poore Tom.'.. Whipped from tithing to tithing," he had only received the punishment to which an Elizabethan statute (39 Eliz. c. 4) sentenced "all fencers, bearwards, common players, and minstrels; all jugglers, tinkers and petty chapmen," and other vagrants who were adjudged to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars.

CHAPTER IV.

THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH.

Paternal despotism: restoration of the purity of the coinage; a definite commercial policy: revival of the wool trade: new era of prosperity among landed gentry and occupiers of land: a time of adversity for small landowners and wage-earning labourers: Statute of Apprentices; hiring fairs; growth of agricultural literature: Fitzherbert and Tusser: their picture of Tudor farming: defects of the open-field system: experience of the value of enclosures; improvement in farming: Barnaby Googe; Sir Hugh Plat: progress in the art of gardening.

THE reign of Elizabeth marks a definite stage in English history. The mediaeval organisation of society, together with its trade guilds and manorial system of farming, had broken down. Out of the confusion order might be evolved by a paternal despotism. The Queen's advisers, with strong practical sagacity, set themselves to the task. They sate loosely to theories and rode no principles to death. But so firmly did they lay their foundations, that parts of their structure lasted until the nineteenth century. National control displaced local control. The central power gathered strength: it directed the economic interests of the nation; it regulated industrial relations; through its legislation and administration it fostered the development of national resources.

The restoration of the standard purity and weight of the coinage was resolutely taken in hand. Its debasement had been the cause of much of the economic distress in previous reigns; credit was ruined, and the treasury bankrupt. The debased, sweated, and clipped silver coinage was called in, and new coins were issued. As silver flowed into the country from the New World, the amount of money in circulation increased. More capital was available in a handy form, and, when legitimate interest ceased to be confused with usury, more people could borrow it on reasonable terms. The way was thus paved for a new era of commercial prosperity.

In mediaeval times the whole external trade of the country had

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been in the hands of foreigners. Elizabeth followed and developed the commercial policy of England, which first assumed a deliberate continuous shape under Henry VII. Foreign traders were discouraged, and English merchants favoured. The Hanseatic League lost the last of its privileges; the Venetian fleet came to England less and less frequently, and at last ceased altogether to fly its flag in the Channel. The import of manufactured goods was checked. The export of raw material and of English sheep was narrowly restricted, though long wool, as the staple of a great trade, was still sent abroad freely. The Government realised to the full all the abuses of patents and monopolies; but they did not hesitate to grant both privileges in order to stimulate native enterprise. Companies were formed with exclusive rights of trading in particular countries. The oldest and most powerful of these Companies, the Merchant Adventurers, obtained a royal charter in 1564. The Muscovite, Levant or Turkey, Eastland or Baltic, and Guinea or African Companies were formed to push English trade in foreign parts. In 1600 the East India Company was chartered. The mercantile marine was encouraged by fishery laws, which gave English fishermen a monopoly in the sale of fish. Men who argued that abstinence from meat at certain seasons was good for the soul's health risked the stake or the rack; but, for the sake of multiplying seamen, the Government did not hesitate to ordain fast-days on which only fish was to be eaten.1 To foster the home manufacture of cloth, it was made a penal offence for any person over the age of six not to wear on Sundays and holy days a cap made of English cloth. Stimulated by such methods, trade throve apace, and English goods were carried in English-built ships, owned by Englishmen, and manned by English seamen. While foreign merchants were discouraged, foreign craftsmen, especially religious refugees from France or Flanders, were welcomed as settlers, bringing with them their skill in manufacturing paper, lace, silk, parchments, light woollens, hosiery, fustians, satins, thread, needles, and in other arts and industries.

The English wool trade was restored to more than its former

1 The rule of eating fish twice a week was continued from Catholic times but a third day was added by Elizabeth from motives of " civile policy.' "Accounting the Lent Season, and all fasting daies in the yeare, together with Wednesday and Friday and Saturday, you shall see that the one halfe of the yeare is ordeined to eate fish in " (Cogan, Haven of Helthe, ed. 1612, p. 138).