The disaffection of the common people increased; they were borne down with oppression. They struggled against their masters, and tried to secure their personal liberty, and the freedom of their land. The population rose in masses in the reign of Richard II., and demanded—

1st. The total abolition of slavery for themselves and their children forever;

2d. The reduction of the rent of good land to 4d. per acre;

3d. The right of buying and selling, like other men, in markets and fairs;

4th. The pardon of all offences.

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:

"That great inconveniency did daily increase by dissolution, pulling down, and destruction of houses, and laying to pasture, lands which customarily had been manured and occupied with tillage and husbandry, whereby idleness doth increase; for where, in some town-lands, hundreds of persons and their ancestors, time out of mind, were daily occupied with sowing of corn and graynes, breeding of cattle, and other increase of husbandry, that now the said persons and their progeny are disunited and decreased. It further recites the evil consequences resulting from this state of things, and provides that all these buildings and habitations shall be re-edificed and repaired within one year; and all tillage lands turned into pasture shall be again restored into tillage; and in default, half the value of the lands and houses forfeited to the king, or lord of the fee, until they were re-edificed. On failure of the next lord, the lord above him might seize."

This act did not produce that increased tilth which was anticipated. Farmers' attention was turned to sheepbreeding; and in order to supply the deficiency of cattle, an act was passed in the 21st Henry VIII., to enforce the rearing of calves; and every farmer was, under a penalty of 6s. 8d. (about L3 of our currency), compelled to rear all his calves for a period of three years; and in the 24th Henry VIII. the act was further continued for two years. The culture of flax and hemp was also encouraged by legislation. The 24th Henry VIII., cap. 14, requires every person occupying land apt for tillage, to sow a quarter of an acre of flax or hemp for every sixty acres of land, under a penalty of 3s. 4d.

The profit which arose from sheep-farming led to the depasturage of the land; and in order to check it, an act, 25 Henry VIII., cap. 13, was passed. It commences thus:

"Forasmuch as divers and sundry persons of the king's subjects of this realm, to whom God of His goodness hath disposed great plenty and abundance of movable substance, now of late, within few years, have daily studied, practised, and invented ways and means how they might gather and accumulate together into few hands, as well great multitude of farms, as great plenty of cattle and in especial sheep, putting such lands as they can get to pasture and not to tillage: whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns, and enhanced the old rates of the rents of possessions of this realm, or else brought it to such excessive fines that no poor man is able to meddle with it, but have also raised and enhanced the prices of all manner of corn, cattle, wool, pigs, geese, hens, chickens, eggs, and such commodities almost double above the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a marvellous multitude of the poor people of this realm be not able to provide meat, drink, and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives, and children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they fall daily to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, or pitifully die for hunger and cold; and it is thought by the king's humble and loving subjects, that one of the greatest occasions that moveth those greedy and covetous people so to accumulate and keep in their hands such great portions and parts of the lands of this realm from the occupying of the poor husbandmen, and so use it in pasture and not in tillage, is the great profit that cometh of sheep, which be now come into a few persons' hands, in respect of the whole number of the king's subjects, so that some have 24,000, some 20,000, some 10,000, some 6000, some 5000, and some more or less, by which a good sheep for victual, which was accustomed to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at most, is now sold for 6s., 5s., or 4s. at the least; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shire of this realm was accustomed to be sold from 16d. to 20d, is now sold for 4s. or 3s. 4d. at the least; and in some counties, where it has been sold for 2s. 4d. to 2s. 8d., or 3s. at the most, it is now 5s. or 4s. 8d. at the least, and so arreysed in every part of the realm, which things thus used to be principally to the high displeasure of Almighty God, to the decay of the hospitality of this realm, to the diminishing king's people, and the let of the cloth making, whereby many poor people hath been accustomed to be set on work; and in conclusion, if remedy be not found, it may turn to the utter destruction and dissolution of this realm which God defend."

It was enacted that no person shall have or keep on lands not their own inheritance more than 2000 sheep, under a penalty of 3s. 4d. per annum for each sheep; lambs under a year old not to be counted; and that no person shall occupy two farms.

Further measures appeared needful to prevent the evil; and the 27th Henry VIII., cap. 22, states that the 4th Henry VII., cap. 19, for keeping houses in repair, and for the tillage of the land, had been enforced on lands holden of the king, but neglected by other lords. It, therefore, enacted that the king shall have the moiety of the profits of lands converted from tillage to pasture, since the passing of the 4th Henry VII., until a proper house is built, and the land returned to tillage; and in default of the immediate lord taking the profits as under that act, the king might take the same. This act extended to the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Leicester, Warwick, Rutland, Northampton, Bedford, Buckingham, Oxford, Berkshire, Isle of Wight, Hertford, and Cambridge.

The simple fact was, that those who had formerly paid the rent of their land by service as soldiers were without the capital or means of paying rent in money; they were evicted and became vagrants. Henry VIII. took a short course with these vagrants, and it is asserted upon apparently good authority that in the course of his reign, thirty-six years, he hanged no less than 72,000 persons for vagrancy, or at the rate of 2000 per annum. The executions in the reign of his daughter, Queen Elizabeth, had fallen to from 300 to 400 per annum.

32 Henry VIII., cap. 1, gave powers of bequest with regard to land; as it explains the change it effected, I quote it:

"That all persons holding land in socage not having any lands holden by knight service of the king in chief, be empowered to devise and dispose of all such socage lands, and in like case, persons holding socage lands of the king in chief, and also of others, and not having the lands holden by knight service, saving to the king, all his right, title, and interest for primer seizin, reliefs, fines for alienations, etc. Persons holding lands of the king by knight's service in chief were authorized to devise two third parts thereof, saving to the king wardship, primer seizin, of the third paid, and fines for alienation of the whole lands. Persons holding lands by knight's service in chief, and also other lands by knight's service, or otherwise may in like manner devise two third part thereof, saving to the king wardship of the third, and fines for alienation of the whole. Persons holding land of others than the king by knight's service, and also holding socage lands, may devise two third parts of the former and the whole of the latter, saving to the lord his wardship of the third part. Persons holding lands of the king by knight's service but not in chief, or so holding of the king and others, and also holding socage lands, may in like manner devise two thirds of the former and the whole of the latter, saving to the king the wardship of the third part, and also to the lords; and the king or the other lords were empowered to seize the one third part in case of any deficiency."

The 34th and 35th Henry VIII., cap. 5, was passed to remove some doubts which had arisen as to the former statute; it enacts:

"That the words estates of inheritance should only mean estates in fee-simple only, and empowers persons seized of any lands, etc., in fee-simple solely, or in co-partnery (not having any lands holden of knight's service), to devise the whole, except corporations. Persons seized in fee-simple of land holden of the king by knight's service may give or devise two thirds thereof, and of his other lands, except corporation, such two thirds to be ascertained by the divisor or by commission out of the Court of Ward and Liveries. The king was empowered to take his third land descended to the heir in the first place, the devise in gift remaining good for the two thirds; and if the land described were insufficient to answer such third, the deficiency should be made up out of the two thirds."

"The next attack," remarks Sir William Blackstone, vol. ii., p. 117, "which they suffered in order of time was by the statute 32 Henry VIII., c. 28, whereby certain leases made by tenants in tail, which do not tend to prejudice the issue, were allowed to be good in law and to bind the issue in tail. But they received a more violent blow the same session of Parliament by the construction put upon the statute of fines by the statute 32 Henry VIII., cap. 36, which declares a fine duly levied by tenant in tail to be a complete bar to him and his heirs and all other persons claiming under such entail. This was evidently agreeable to the intention of Henry VII., whose policy was (before common recovery had obtained their full strength and authority) to lay the road as open as possible to the alienation of landed property, in order to weaken the overgrown power of his nobles. But as they, from the opposite reasons, were not easily brought to consent to such a provision, it was therefore couched in his act under covert and obscure expressions; and the judges, though willing to construe that statute as favorably as possible for the defeating of entailed estates, yet hesitated at giving fines so extensive a power by mere implication when the statute DE DONIS had expressly declared that they should not be a bar to estates-tail. But the statute of Henry VIII., when the doctrine of alienation was better received, and the will of the prince more implicitly obeyed than before, avowed and established that intention."

Fitzherbert, one of the judges of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry VIII., wrote a work on surveying and husbandry. It contains directions for draining, clearing, and inclosing a farm, and for enriching the soil and reducing it to tillage. Fallowing before wheat was practised, and when a field was exhausted by grain it was allowed to rest. Hollingshed estimated the usual return as 16 to 20 bushels of wheat per acre; prices varied very greatly, and famine was of frequent recurrence. Leases began to be granted, but they were not effectual to protect the tenant from the entry of purchasers nor against the operation of fictitious recoveries.

In the succeeding reigns the efforts to encourage tillage and prevent the clearing of the farms were renewed, and among the enactments passed were the following:

5 Edward VI., cap. 5, for the better maintenance of tillage and increase of corn within the realm, enacts:

"That there should be, in the year 1553, as much land, or more, put wholly in tillage as had been at any time since the 1st Henry VIII., under a penalty of 5s. per acre to the king; and in order to secure this, it appoints commissioners, who were bound to ascertain by inquests what land was in tillage and had been converted from tillage into pasture. The commission issued precepts to the sheriffs, who summoned jurors, and the inquests were to be returned, certified, to the Court of Exchequer. Any prosecution for penalties should take place within three years, and the act continues for ten years."

2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 2, recites the former acts of 4 Henry VII., cap. 19, etc,, which it enforces. It enacts:

"That as some doubts had arisen as to the interpretation of the words twenty acres of land, the act should apply to houses with twenty acres of land, according to the measurement of the ancient statute; and it appoints commissioners to inquire as to all houses pulled down and all land converted from pasture into tillage since the 4th Henry VII. The commissioners were to take security by recognizance from offenders, and to re-edify the houses and re-convert the land into tillage, and to assess the tenants for life toward the repairs. The amount expended under order of the commissioners was made recoverable against the estate, and the occupiers were made liable to their orders; and they had power to commit persons refusing to give security to carry out the act."

2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 3, was passed to provide for the increase of milch cattle, and it enacts:

"That one milch-cow shall be kept and calf reared for every sixty sheep and ten oxen during the following seven years."

The 2d Elizabeth, cap. 2, confirms the previously quoted acts of 4 Henry VII., cap. 19; 7 Henry VIII., cap. 1; 27 Henry VIII., cap. 22; 27 Henry VIII., cap. 18; and it enacts:

"That all farm-houses belonging to suppressed monasteries should be kept up, and that all lands which had been in tillage for four years successively at any time since the 20th Henry VIII., should be kept in tillage under a penalty of 10s. per acre, which was payable to the heir in reversion, or in case he did not levy it, to the Crown."

31 Elizabeth, cap. 7, went further; and in order to provide allotments for the cottagers, many of whom were dispossessed from their land, it provided:

"For avoiding the great inconvenience which is found by experience to grow by the erecting and building of great number of cottages, which daily more and more increased in many parts of the realm, it was enacted that no person should build a cottage for habitation or dwelling, nor convert any building into a cottage, without assigning and laying thereto four acres of land, being his own freehold and inheritance, lying near the cottage, under a penalty of L10; and for upholding any such cottages, there was a penalty imposed of 40s. a month, exception being made as to any city, town, corporation, ancient borough, or market town; and no person was permitted to allow more than one family to reside in each cottage, under a penalty of 10s. per month."

The 39th Elizabeth, cap. 2, was passed to enforce the observance of these conditions. It provides:

"That all lands which had been in tillage shall be restored thereto within three years, except in cases where they were worn out by too much tillage, in which case they might be grazed with sheep; but in order to prevent the deterioriation of the land, it was enacted that the quantity of beeves or muttons sold off the land should not exceed that which was consumed in the mansion-house."

In these various enactments of the Tudor monarchs we may trace the anxious desire of these sovereigns to repair the mistake of Henry VII., and to prevent the depopulation of England. A similar mistake has been made in Ireland since 1846, under which the homes of the peasantry have been prostrated, the land thrown out of tillage, and the people driven from their native land. Mr. Froude has the following remarks upon this legislation:

"Statesmen (temp. Elizabeth) did not care for the accumulation of capital. They desired to see the physical well-being of all classes of the commonwealth maintained in the highest degree which the producing power of the country admitted. This was their object, and they were supported in it by a powerful and efficient majority of the nation. At one time Parliament interfered to protect employers against laborers, but it was equally determined that employers should not be allowed to abuse their opportunities; and this directly appears from the 4th and 5th Elizabeth, by which, on the most trifling appearance of a diminution of the currency, it was declared that the laboring man could no longer live on the wages assigned to him by the Act of Henry VIII.; and a sliding scale was instituted, by which, for the future, wages should be adjusted to the price of food. The same conclusion may be gathered also indirectly fom the acts interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition showed itself to exercise them selfishly.

"The city merchants, as I have said, were becoming landowners, and some of them attempted to apply their rules of trade to the management of landed estates. While wages were rated so high, it answered better as a speculation to convert arable land into pasture, but the law immediately stepped in to prevent a proceeding which it regarded as petty treason to the state. Self-protection is the first law of life, and the country, relying for its defence on an able-bodied population, evenly distributed, ready at any moment to be called into action, either against foreign invasion or civil disturbance, it could not permit the owners of land to pursue, for their own benefit, a course of action which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often that we are able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so clearly as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I have described were made in the Isle of Wight early in the reign of Henry VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks by France, the Isle of Wight was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state of defence, and the 4th Henry VII., cap. 16, was passed to prevent the depopulation of the Isle of Wight, occasioned by the system of large farms."

The city merchants alluded to by Froude seem to have remembered that from the times of Athelwolf, the possession of a certain quantity of land, with gatehouse, church, and kitchen, converted the ceorl (churl) into a thane.

It is difficult to estimate the effect which the Tudor policy had upon the landholding of England. Under the feudal system, the land was held in trust and burdened with the support of the soldiery. Henry VII., in order to weaken the power of the nobles, put an end to their maintaining independent soldiery. Thus landlords' incomes increased, though their material power was curtailed. It would not have been difficult at this time to have loaded these properties with annual payments equal to the cost of the soldiers which they were bound to maintain, or to have given each of them a farm under the Crown, and strict justice would have prevented the landowners from putting into their pockets those revenues which, according to the grants and patents of the Conqueror and his successors, were specially devoted to the maintenance of the army. Land was released from the conditions with which it was burdened when granted. This was not done by direct legislation but by its being the policy of the Crown to prevent "king-makers" arising from among the nobility. The dread of Warwick influenced Henry. He inaugurated a policy which transferred the support of the army from the lands, which should solely have borne it, to the general revenue of the country. Thus he relieved one class at the expense of the nation. Yet, when Henry was about to wage war on the Continent, he called all his subjects to accompany him, under pain of forfeiture of their lands; and he did not omit levying the accustomed feudal charge for knighting his eldest son and for marrying his eldest daughter. The acts to prevent the landholder from oppressing the occupier, and those for the encouragement of tillage, failed. The new idea of property in land, which then obtained, proved too powerful to be altered by legislation.

Another change in the system of landholding took place in those reigns. Lord Cromwell, who succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as minister to Henry VIII., had land in Kent, and he obtained the passing of an act (31 Henry VIII., cap. 2) which took his land and that of other owners therein named, out of the custom of gavelkind (gave-all-kind), which had existed in Kent from before the Norman Conquest, and enacted that they should descend according to common law in like manner as lands held by knight's service.

The suppression of the RELIGIOUS HOUSES gave the Crown the control of a vast quantity of land. It had, with the consent of the Crown, been devoted to religion by former owners. The descendants of the donors were equitably entitled to the land, as it ceased to be applied to the trust for which it was given, but the power of the Crown was too great, and their claims were refused. Had these estates been applied to purposes of religion or education they would have formed a valuable fund for the improvement of the people; but the land itself, as well as the portion of tithes belonging to the religious houses, was conferred upon favorites, and some of the wealthiest nobles of the present day trace their rise and importance to the rewards obtained by their ancestors out of the spoils of these charities.

The importance of the measures of the Tudors upon the system of land-holding can hardly be exaggerated. An impulse of self-defence led them to lessen the physical force of the oligarchy by relieving the land from the support of the army, and enabling them to convert to their own use the income previously applied to the defence of the realm. This was a bribe, but it brought its own punishment. The eviction of the working farmers, the demolition of their dwellings, the depopulation of the country, were evils of most serious magnitude; and the supplement of the measures which produced such deplorable results was found in the permanent establishment of a taxation for the SUPPORT of the POOR. Yet the nation reeled under the depletion produced by previous mistaken legislation, and all classes have been injured by the transfer of the support of the army from the land held by the nobles to the income of the people.

Side by side, with the measures passed, to prevent the Clearing of the Land, arose the system of POOR LAWS. Previous to the Reformation the poor were principally relieved at the religious houses. The destruction of small farms, and the eviction of such masses of the people, which commenced in the reign of Henry VII., overpowered the resources of these establishments; their suppression in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth aggravated the evil. The indiscriminate and wholesale execution of the poor vagrants by the former monarch only partially removed the evil, and the statute-book is loaded with acts for the relief of the destitute poor. The first efforts were collections in the churches; but voluntary alms proving insufficient, the powers of the churchwardens were extended, and they were directed and authorized to assess the parishioners according to their means, and thus arose a system which, though benevolent in its object, is a slur upon our social arrangements. Land, the only source of food, is rightly charged with the support of the destitute. The necessity for such aid arose originally from their being evicted therefrom. The charge should fall exclusively upon the rent receivers, and in no case should the tiller of the soil have to pay this charge either directly or indirectly. It is continued by the inadequacy of wages, and the improvidence engendered by a social system which arose out of injustice, and produced its own penalty.

Legislation with regard to the poor commenced contemporaneous with the laws against the eviction of the small farmers. I have already recited some of the laws to preserve small holdings; I now pass to the acts meant to compel landholders to provide for those whom they had dispossessed. In 1530 the act 22 Henry VIII., cap. 12, was passed; it recites:

"Whereas in all places through the realm of England, vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased, and daily do increase, in great and excessive numbers by THE OCCASION OF IDLENESS, THE MOTHER AND ROOT OF ALL VICES, [Footnote: See 4 Henry VII., cap, 19, ante, p. 27, where the same expression occurs, showing that it was throwing the land out of tilth that occasioned pauperism.] whereby hath insurged and sprung, and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the inquietation and damage of the king and people, and to the marvellous disturbance of the commonweal of the realm."

It enacts that justices may give license to impotent persons to beg within certain limits, and, if found begging out of their limits, they shall be set in the stocks. Beggars without license to be whipped or set in the stocks. All persons able to labor, who shall beg or be vagrant, shall be whipped and sent to the place of their birth. Parishes to be fined for neglect of the constables.

37 Henry VIII., cap. 23, continued this act to the end of the ensuing Parliament.

1 Edward VI., cap. 3, recites the increase of idle vagabonds, and enacts that all persons loitering or wandering shall be marked with a V, and adjudged a slave for two years, and afterward running away shall become a felon. Impotent persons were to be removed to the place where they had resided for three years, and allowed to beg. A weekly collection was to be made in the churches every Sunday and holiday after reading the gospel of the day, the amount to be applied to the relief of bedridden poor.

5 and 6 Edward VI., cap. 2, directs the parson, vicar, curate, and church-wardens, to appoint two collectors to distribute weekly to the poor. The people were exhorted by the clergy to contribute; and, if they refuse, then, upon the certificate of the parson, vicar, or curate, to the bishop of the diocese, he shall send for them and induce him or them to charitable ways.

2 and 3 Philip and Mary, cap. 5, re-enacts the former, and requires the collectors to account quarterly; and where the poor are too numerous for relief, they were licensed by a justice of the peace to beg.

5 Elizabeth, cap. 3, confirms and renews the former acts, and compels collectors to serve under a penalty of L10. Persons refusing to contribute their alms shall be exhorted, and, if they obstinately refuse, shall be bound by the bishop to appear at the next general quarter session, and they may be imprisoned if they refuse to be bound.

The 14th Elizabeth, cap. 5, requires the justices of the peace to register all aged and impotent poor born or for three years resident in the parish, and to settle them in convenient habitations, and ascertain the weekly charge, and assess the amount on the inhabitants, and yearly appoint collectors to receive and distribute the assessment, and also an overseer of the poor. This act was to continue for seven years.

The 18th Elizabeth, cap. 3, provides for the employment of the poor. Stores of wool, hemp, flax, iron, etc., to be provided in cities and towns, and the poor set to work. It empowered persons possessed of land in free socage to give or devise same for the maintenance of the poor.

The 39th Elizabeth, cap. 3, and the 43d Elizabeth, cap. 2, extended these acts, and made the assessment compulsory.

I shall ask you to compare the date of these several laws for the relief of the destitute poor with the dates of the enactments against evictions. You will find they run side by side.

[Footnote: The following tables of the acts passed against eviction, and enacting the support of the poor, show that they were contemporaneous:

Against Evictions. 4 Henry VII., Cap. 19. 7 Henry VIII, Cap. 1. 21 Henry VIII, 24 Henry VIII, Cap. 14. 25 Henry VIII, Cap. 13. 27 Henry VIII, Cap. 22. 5 Edward VI., Cap. 2. 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, Cap. 2. 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, Cap. 3. 2 Elizabeth, Cap. 2. 31 Elizabeth, Cap. 7. 39 Elizabeth, Cap. 2.

Enacting Poor Laws. 22 Henry VIII., Cap. 12. 37 Henry VIII., Cap. 23. 1 Edward VI., Cap. 3. 5 and 6 Edward VI., Cap. 2. 2 and 4 Philip and Mary, Cap. 5. 5 Elizabeth, Cap. 3. 14 Elizabeth, Cap. 5. 18 Elizabeth, Cap. 3. 39 Elizabeth, Cap. 3. 43 Elizabeth, Cap. 2.]

I have perhaps gone at too great length into detail; but I think I could not give a proper picture of the alteration in the system of landholding or its effects without tracing from the statute-book the black records of these important changes. The suppression of monasteries tended greatly to increase the sufferings of the poor, but I doubt if even these institutions could have met the enormous pressure which arose from the wholesale evictions of the people. The laws of Henry VII and Henry VIII., enforcing the tillage of the land, preceded the suppression of religious houses, and the act of the latter monarch allowing the poor to beg was passed before any steps were taken to close the convents. That measure was no doubt injurious to the poor, but the main evil arose from other causes. The lands of these houses, when no longer applicable to the purpose for which they were given, should have reverted to the heirs of the donors, or have been applied to other religious or educational purposes. The bestowal of them upon favorites, to the detriment alike of the State, the Church, the Poor, and the Ignorant, was an abuse of great magnitude, the effect of which is still felt. The reigns of the Tudors are marked with three events affecting the land—viz.:

1st. Relieving it of the support of the army;

2d. Burdening of it with the support of the poor;

3d. Applying the monastic lands to private uses.

The abolition of retainers, while it relieved the land of the nobles from the principal charge thereon, did not entirely abolish knight's service. The monarch was entitled to the care of all minors, to aids on the marriage or knighthood of the eldest son, to primerseizin or a year's rent upon the death of each tenant of the Crown. These fees were considerable, and were under the care of the Court of Ward and Liveries.

The artisan class had, however, grown in wealth, and they were greatly strengthened by the removal from France of large numbers of workmen in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. These prosperous tradespeople became landowners by purchase, and thus tended to replace the LIBERI HOMINES, or FREEMEN, who had been destroyed under the wars of the nobles, which effaced the landmarks of English society. The liberated serfs attained the position of paid farm-laborers; had the policy of Elizabeth, who enacted that each of their cottages should have an allotment of four acres of land, been carried out, it would have been most beneficial to the state.

The reign of this family embraced one hundred and eighteen years, during which the increase of the population was about twenty-five per cent. When Henry VII. ascended the throne in 1485 it was 4,000,000, and on the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603 it had reached 5,000,000, the average increase being about 8000 per annum. The changes effected in the condition of the farmers' class left the mass of the people in a far worse state at the close than at the commencement of their rule.



VII. THE STUARTS.

The accession of the Stuarts to the throne of England took place under peculiar circumstances. The nation had just passed through two very serious struggles—one political, the other religious. The land which had been in the possession of religious communities, instead of being retained by the state for educational or religious purposes, had been given to favorites. A new class of ownership had been created—the lay impropriators of tithes. The suppression of retainers converted land into a quasi property. The extension to land of the powers of bequest gave the possessors greater facilities for disposing thereof. It was relieved from the principal feudal burden, military service, but remained essentially feudal as far as tenure was concerned. Men were no longer furnished to the state as payment of the knight's fee; they were cleared off the land, to make room for sheep and oxen, England being in that respect about two hundred years in advance of Ireland, though without the outlet of emigration. Vagrancy and its attendant evils led to the Poor Law.

James I. and his ministers tried to grapple with the altered circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class burdened with knight's service, or payments in lieu thereof, comprised 160 temporal and 26 spiritual lords, 800 barons, 600 knights, and 3000 esquires. The knight's fee was subject to aids, which were paid to the Crown upon the marriage of the king's son or daughter. Upon the death of the possessor, the Crown received primer-seizen a year's rent. If the successor was an infant, the Crown under the name of Wardship, took the rents of the estates. If the ward was a female, a fine was levied if she did not accept the husband chosen by the Crown. Fines on alienation were also levied, and the estates, though sold, became escheated, and reverted to the Crown upon the failure of issue. These various fines kept alive the principle that the lands belonged to the Crown as representative of the nation; but, as they varied in amount, James I. proposed to compound with the tenants-in-fee, and to convert them into fixed annual payments. The nobles refused, and the scheme was abandoned.

In the succeeding reign, the attempt to stretch royal power beyond its due limits led to resistance by force, but it was no longer a mere war of nobles; their power had been destroyed by Henry VII. The Stuarts had to fight the people, with a paid army, and the Commons, having the purse of the nation, opposed force to force. The contest eventuated in a military protectorship. Many of the principal tenants-in-fee fled the country to save their lives. Their lands were confiscated and given away; thus the Crown rights were weakened, and Charles II. was forced to recognize many of the titles given by Cromwell; he did not dare to face the convulsion which must follow an expulsion of the novo homo in posession of the estates of more ancient families; but legislation went further—it abolished all the remaining feudal charges. The Commons appear to have assented to this change, from a desire to lessen the private income of the Sovereign, and thus to make him more dependent upon Parliament, This was done by the 12th Charles II., cap. 24. It enacts:

"That the Court of Ward and Liveries, primer seizin, etc., and all fines for alienation, tenures by knight's service, and tenures in capite, be done away with and turned into fee and common socage, and discharged of homage, escuage, aids, and reliefs. All future tenures created by the king to be in free and common socage, reserving rents to the Crown and also fines on alienation. It enables fathers to dispose of their children's share during their minority, and gives the custody of the personal estate to the guardians of such child, and imposes in lieu of the revenues raised in the Court of Ward and Liveries, duties upon beer and ale."

The land was relieved of its legitimate charge, and a tax on beer and ale imposed instead! the landlords were relieved at the expense of the people. The statute which accomplished this change is described by Blackstone as

"A greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Charta itself, since that only pruned the luxuriances that had grown out of military tenures, and thereby preserved them in vigor; but the statute of King Charles extirpated the whole, and demolished both root and branches."

The efforts of James II. to rule contrary to the wish of the nation, led to his expulsion from the throne, and showed that, in case of future disputes as to the succession, the army, like the Praetorian Guards of Rome, had the election of the monarch. The Red and White Roses of the Plantagenets reappeared under the altered names of Whig and Tory; but it was proved that the decision of a leading soldier like the Duke of Marlborough would decide the army, and that it would govern the nation; fortunately the decision was a wise one, and was ratified by Parliament: thus FORCE governed LAW, and the decision of the ARMY influenced the SENATE. William III. succeeded, AS AN ELECTED MONARCH, under the Bill of Rights. This remarkable document contains no provision, securing the tenants-in-fee in their estates; and I have not met with any treatise dealing with the legal effects of the eviction of James II. All patents were covenants between the king and his heirs, and the patentees and their heirs. The expulsion of the sovereign virtually destroyed the title; and an elected king, who did not succeed as heir, was not bound by the patents of his predecessors, nor was William asked, by the Bill of Rights, to recognize any of the existing titles. This anomalous state of things was met in degree by the statute of prescriptions, but even this did not entirely cure the defect in the titles to the principal estates in the Kingdom. The English tenants in decapitating one landlord and expelling another, appear to have destroyed their titles, and then endeavored to renew them by prescriptive right; but I shall not pursue this topic further, though it may have a very definite bearing upon the question of landholding.

It may not be uninteresting to allude rather briefly to the state of England at the close of the seventeenth century. Geoffrey King, who wrote in 1696, gives the first reliable statistics about the state of the country. He estimated the number of houses at 1,300,000, and the average at four to each house, making the population 5,318,000. He says there was but seven acres of land for each person, but that England was six times better peopled than the known world, and twice better than Europe. He calculated the total income at L43,500,000, of which the yearly rent of land was L10,000,000. The income was equal to L7, 18s. 0d. per head, and the expense L7, 11s. 4d.; the yearly increase, 6s. 8d. per head, or L1,800,000 per annum. He estimated the annual income of 160 temporal peers at L2800 per annum, 26 spiritual peers at L1300, of 800 baronets at L800, and of 600 knights at L650.

He estimated the area at 39,000,000 acres (recent surveys make it 37,319,221). He estimated the arable land at 11,000,000 acres, and pasture and meadow at 10,000,000, a total of 21,000,000. The area under all kinds of crops and permanent pasture was, in 1874, 26,686,098 acres; therefore about five and a half million acres have been reclaimed and added to the arable land. As the particulars of his estimate may prove interesting, I append them in a note.

[Footnote—Geoffrey King thus classifies the land of England and Wales:



Acres. Value/Acre Rent

Arable Land, 11,000,000 L0 5 10 L3,200,000 Pasture and Meadow, 10,000,000 0 9 0 4,500,000 Woods and Coppices, 3,000,000 0 5 0 750,000 Forests, Parks, and Covers, 3,000,000 0 3 6 550,000 Moors, Mountains, and Barren Lands, 10,000,000 0 1 0 500,000 Houses, Homesteads, Gardens, Orchards,) 1,000,000 (The Land, 450,000 Churches, and Churchyards, ) (The Buildings, 2,000,000 Rivers, Lakes, Meres, and Ponds, 500,000 0 2 0 50,000 Roadways and Waste Lands, 500,000 ————— ———- ————— 39,000,000 L0 6 0 L12,000,000

He estimates the live stock thus: Value without the Skin Beeves, Stirks, and Calves, 4,500,000 L2 0 0 L9,000,000 Sheep and Lambs, 11,000,000 0 8 0 4,400,000 Swine and Pigs, 2,000,000 0 16 0 1,600,000 Deer, Fawns, Goats and Kids, 247,900

15,247,900

Horses, 1,200,000 2 0 0 3,000,000 Value of Skins, 2,400,000 —————- L20,647,900

The annual produce he estimated as follows:

Acres Rent Produce Grain, 10,000,000 L3,000,000 L8,275,000 Hemp, Flax, etc., 1,000,000 200,000 2,000,000 Butter, Cheese, and Milk, ) ( 2,500,000 Wool, ) ( 2,000,000 Horses bred, ) ( 250,000 Flesh Meat, )- 29,000,000 6,800,000 -( 3,500,000 Tallow and Hides, ) ( 600,000 Hay Consumed, ) ( 2,300,000 Timber, ) ( 1,000,000 ————— —————- —————- Total 39,000,000 L10,000,000 L22,275,000]

He places the rent of the corn land at about one third of the produce, and that of pasture land at rather more. The price of meat per lb. was: beef 1 and 1/8d.; mutton, 2 and 1/4d.; pork, 3d.; venison, 6d.; hares, 7d.; rabbits, 6d. The weight of flesh-meat consumed was 398,000,000 lbs., it being 72 lbs. 6 oz. for each person, or 3 and 1/6 oz. daily. I shall have occasion to contrast these figures with those lately published when I come to deal with the present; but a great difference has arisen from the alteration in price, which is owing to the increase in the quantity of the precious metals.

The reign of the last sovereign of this unfortunate race was distinguished by the first measures to inclose the commons and convert them into private property, with which I shall deal hereafter.

The changes effected in the land laws of England during the reigns of the Stuarts, a period of 111 years, were very important. The act of Charles II. which abolished the Court of Ward and Liveries, appeared to be an abandonment of the rights of the people, as asserted in the person of the Crown; and this alteration also seemed to give color of right to the claim which is set up of property in land, but the following law of Edward III. never was repealed:

"That the king is the universal lord and original proprietor of all land in his kingdom, and that no man doth or can possess any part of it but what has mediately or immediately been derived as a gift from him to be held on feodal service."

No lawyer will assert for any English subject a higher title than tenancy-in-fee, which bears the impress of holding and denies the assertion of ownership.

The power of the nobles, the tenants-in-fee, was strengthened by an act passed in the reign of William and Mary, which altered the relation of landlord and tenant. Previous thereto, the landlord had the power of distraint, but he merely held the goods he seized to compel the tenant to perform personal service. It would be impossible for a tenant to pay his rent if his stock or implements were sold off the land. As the Tudor policy of money payments extended, the greed for pelf led to an alteration in the law, and the act of William and Mary allowed the landlord to sell the goods he had distrained. The tenant remained in possession of the land without the means of tilling it, which was opposed to public policy. This power of distraint was, however, confined to holdings in which there were leases by which the tenant covenanted to allow the landlord to distrain his stock and goods in default of payment of rent. The legislation of the Stuarts was invariably favorable to the possessor of land and adverse to the rights of the people. The government during the closing reigns was oligarchical, so much so, that William III., annoyed at the restriction put upon his kingly power, threatened to resign the crown and retire to Holland; but the aristocracy were unwilling to relax their claims, and they secured by legislation the rights they appeared to have lost by the deposition of the sovereign.

The population had increased from 5,000,000 in 1603 to 5,750,000 in 1714, being an average increase of less than 7000 per annum.



VIII. THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.

The first sovereign of the House of Hanover ascended the throne not by right of descent but by election; the legitimate heir was set aside, and a distant branch of the family was chosen, and the succession fixed by act of Parliament; but it is held by jurists that every Parliament is sovereign and has the power of repealing any act of any former Parliament. The beneficial rule of some of the latter monarchs of this family has endeared them to the people, but the doctrine of reigning by divine right, the favorite idea of the Stuarts, is nullified, when the monarch ascends the throne by statute law and not by succession or descent.

The age of chivalry passed away when the Puritans defeated the Cavaliers. The establishment of standing armies and the creation of a national debt, went to show that money, not knighthood or knight's service, gave force to law. The possession of wealth and of rent gave back to their possessors even larger powers than those wrested from them by the first Tudor king. The maxim that "what was attached to the freehold belonged to the freehold," gave the landlords even greater powers than those held by the sword, and of which they were despoiled. Though nominally forbidden to take part in the election of the representatives of the Commons, yet they virtually had the power, the creation of freehold, the substance and material of electoral right; and consequently both Houses of Parliament were essentially landlord, and the laws, for the century which succeeded the ascension of George I., are marked with the assertion of landlord right which is tenant wrong.

Among the exhibitions of this influence is an act passed in the reign of George II., which extended the power of distraint for rent, and the right to sell the goods seized—to all tenancies. Previous legislation confined this privilege solely to cases in which there were leases, wherein the tenant, by written contract, gave the landlord power to seize in case of non-payment of rent, but there was no legal authority to sell until it was given by an act passed in the reign of William III. The act of George II. presumed that there was such a contract in all cases of parole letting or tenancy-at-will, and extended the landlord's powers to such tenancies. It is an anomaly to find that in the freest country in the world such an arbitrary power is confided to individuals, or that the landlord-creditor has the precedence over all other creditors, and can, by his own act, and without either trial or evidence, issue a warrant that has all the force of the solemn judgment of a court of law; and it certainly appears unjust to seize a crop, the seed for which is due to one man, and the manure to another, and apply it to pay the rent. But landlordism, intrusted with legislative power, took effectual means to preserve its own prerogative, and the form of law was used by parliaments, in which landlord influence was paramount, to pass enactments which were enforced by the whole power of the state, and sustained individual or class rights.

The effect of this measure was most unfortunate; it encouraged the letting of lands to tenants-at-will or tenants from year to year, who could not, under existing laws, obtain the franchise or power to vote—they were not FREEMEN, they were little better than serfs. They were tillers of the soil, rent-payers who could be removed at the will of another. They were not even freeholders, and had no political power—no voice in the affairs of the nation. The landlords in Parliament gave themselves, individually by law, all the powers which a tenant gave them by contract, while they had no corresponding liability, and, therefore, it was their interest to refrain from giving leases, and to make their tenantry as dependent on them as if they were mere serfs. This law was especially unfortunate, and had a positive and very great effect upon the condition of the farming class and upon the nation, and people came to think that landlords could do as they liked with their land, and that the tenants must be creeping, humble, and servile.

An effort to remedy this evil was made in 1832, when the occupiers, if rented or rated at the small amount named, became voters. This gave the power to the holding, not to the man, and the landlord could by simple eviction deprive the man of his vote; hence the tenants-at-will were driven to the hustings like sheep—they could not, and dare not, refuse to vote as the landlord ordered.

The lords of the manor, with a landlord Parliament, asserted their claims to the commonages, and these lands belonging to the people, were gradually inclosed, and became the possession of individuals. The inclosing of commonages commenced in the reign of Queen Anne, and was continued in the reigns of all the sovereigns of the House of Hanover. The first inclosure act was passed in 1709; in the following thirty years the average number of inclosure bills was about three each year; in the following fifty years there were nearly forty each year; and in the forty years of the nineteenth century it was nearly fifty per annum.

The inclosures in each reign were as follows:

Acts. Acres. Queen Anne, 2 1,439 George I., 16 17,660 George II., 226 318,784 George III., 3446 3,500,000 George IV., 192 250,000 William IV., 72 120,000 —— ————- Total, 3954 4,207,883

These lands belonged to the people, and might have been applied to relieve the poor. Had they been allotted in small farms, they might have been made the means of support of from 500,000 to 1,000,000 families, and they would have afforded employment and sustenance to all the poor, and thus rendered compulsory taxation under the poor-law system unnecessary; but the landlords seized on them and made the tenantry pay the poor-rate.

The British Poor Law is a slur upon its boasted civilization. The unequal distribution of land and of wealth leads to great riches and great poverty. Intense light produces deep shade. Nowhere else but in wealthy England do God's creatures die of starvation, wanting food, while others are rich beyond comparison. The soil which affords sustenance for the people is rightly charged with the cost of feeding those who lack the necessaries of life, but the same object would be better achieved in a different way. Poor-rates are now a charge upon a man's entire estate, and it would be much better for society if land to an amount equivalent to the charge were taken from the estate and assigned to the poor. If a man is charged with L100 a year poor-rate, it would make no real difference to him, while it would make a vast difference to the poor to take land to that value, put the poor to work tilling it, allowing them to enjoy the produce. Any expense should be paid direct by the landlord, which would leave the charge upon the land, and exempt the improvements of the tenant, which represent his labor, free.

The evil has intensified in magnitude, and a permanent army of paupers numbering at the minimum 829,281 persons, but increasing at some periods to upward of 1,000,000, has to be provided for; the cost, about L8,000,000 a year, is paid, not by landlords but by tenants, in addition to the various charities founded by benevolent persons. There are two classes relieved under this system, and which ought to be differently dealt with—the sick and the young. Hospitals for the former and schools for the latter ought to take the place of the workhouse. It is difficult to fancy a worse place for educating the young than the workhouse, and it would tend to lessen the evil were the children of the poor trained and educated in separate establishments from those for the reception of paupers. Pauperism is the concomitant of large holdings of land and insecurity of tenure. The necessity of such a provision arose, as I have previously shown, from the wholesale eviction of large numbers of the occupiers of land; and, as the means of supplying the need came from the LAND, the expense should, like tithes, have fallen exclusively upon land. The poor-rates are, however, also levied upon houses and buildings, which represent labor. The owner of land is the people, as represented by the Crown, and the charges thereon next in succession to the claims of the state are the church and the poor.

The Continental wars at the close of the eighteenth and the commencement of the nineteenth century had some effect upon the system of tillage; they materially enhanced the price of agricultural produce—rents were raised, and the national debt was contracted, which remains a burden on the nation.

The most important change, however, arose from scientific and mechanical discoveries—the application of heat to the production of motive power. As long as water, which is a non-exhaustive source of motion, was used, the people were scattered over the land; or if segregation took place, it was in the neighborhood of running streams. The application of steam to the propulsion of machinery, and the discovery of engines capable of competing with the human hand, led to the substitution of machine-made fabrics for clothing, in place of homespun articles of domestic manufacture. This led to the employment of farm-laborers in procuring coals, to the removal of many from the rural into the urban districts, to the destruction of the principal employment of the family during the winter evenings, and consequently effected a great revolution in the social system. Many small freeholds were sold, the owners thinking they could more rapidly acquire wealth by using the money representing their occupancy, in trade. Thus the large estates became larger, and the smaller ones were absorbed, while the appearance of greater wealth from exchanging subterranean substances for money, or its representative, gave rise to ostentatious display. The rural population gradually diminished, while the civic population increased. The effect upon the system of landholding was triplicate. First, there was a diminution in the amount of labor applicable to the cultivation of land; second, there was a decrease in the amount of manure applied to the production of food; and lastly, there was an increase in the demand for land as a source of investment, by those who, having made money in trade, sought that social position which follows the possession of broad acres. Thus the descendants of the feudal aristocracy were pushed aside by the modern plutocracy.

This state of things had a double effect. Food is the result of two essential ingredients—land and labor. The diminution in the amount of labor applied to the soil, consequent upon the removal of the laborers from the land, lessened the quantity of food; while the consumption of that food in cities and towns, and the waste of the fertile ingredients which should be restored to the soil, tended to exhaust the land, and led to vast importations of foreign and the manufacture of mineral manures. I shall not detain you by a discussion of this aspect of the question, which is of very great moment, consequent upon the removal of large numbers of people from rural to urban districts; but I may be excused in saying that agricultural chemistry shows that the soil—"perpetual man"—contains the ingredients needful to support human life, and feeding those animals meant for man's use. These ingredients are seized upon by the roots of plants and converted into aliment. If they are consumed where grown, and the refuse restored to the soil, its fertility is preserved; nay, more, the effect of tillage is to increase its productive power. It is impossible to exhaust land, no matter how heavy the crops that are grown, if the produce is, after consumption, restored to the soil. I have shown you how, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a man was not allowed to sell meat off his land unless he brought to, and consumed on it, the same weight of other meat. This was true agricultural and chemical economy. But when the people were removed from country to town, when the produce grown in the former was consumed in the latter, and the refuse which contained the elements of fertility was not restored to the soil, but swept away by the river, a process of exhaustion took place, which has been met in degree by the use of imported and artificial manures. The sewage question is taken up mainly with reference to the health of towns, but it deserves consideration in another aspect—its influence upon the production of food in the nation.

An exhaustive process upon the fertility of the globe has been set on foot. The accumulations of vegetable mould in the primeval forests have been converted into grain, and sent to England, leaving permanent barrenness in what should be prolific plains; and the deposits of the Chincha and Ichaboe Islands have been imported in myriads of tons, to replace in our own land the resources of which it is bereft by the civic consumption of rural produce.

These conjoined operations were accelerated by the alteration in the British corn laws in 1846, which placed the English farmer, who tried to preserve his land in a state of fertility, in competition with foreign grain—growers, who, having access to boundless fields of virgin soil, grow grain year after year until, having exhausted the fertile element, they leave it in a barren condition, and resort to other parts. A competition under such circumstances resembles that of two men of equal income, one of who appears wealthy by spending a portion of his capital, the other parsimonious by living within his means. Of course, the latter has to debar himself of many enjoyments. The British farmer has lessened the produce of grain, and consequently of meat; and the nation has become dependent upon foreigners for meat, cheese, and butter, as well as for bread.

This is hardly the place to discuss a question of agriculture, but scientific farmers know that there is a rotation of crops, [Footnote: The agricultural returns of the United Kingdom show that 50 and 1/2 per cent of the arable land was under pasture, 24 per cent under grain, 12 per cent under green crops and bare fallow, and 13 per cent under clover. The rotation would, therefore, be somewhat in this fashion: Nearly one fourth of the land in tillage is under a manured crop or fallow, one fourth under wheat, one fourth under clover, and one fourth under barley, oats, etc., the succession being, first year, the manured crop; next year, wheat; third year, clover; fourth, barley or oats; and so on.] and that as one is diminished the others lessen. The quantity under tillage is a multiple of the area under grain. A diminution in corn is followed by a decrease of the extent under turnips and under clover; the former directly affects man, the latter the meat-affording animals. A decrease in the breadth under tillage means an addition to the pasture land, which in this climate only produces meat during the warm portions of the year. I must, however, not dwell upon this topic, but whatever leads to a diminution in the labor applied to the land lessens the production of food, and DEAR MEAT may only be the supplement to CHEAP CORN.

I shall probably be met with the hackneyed cry, The question is entirely one of price. Each farmer and each landlord will ask himself, Does it pay to grow grain? and in reply to any such inquiry, I would refer to the annual returns. I find that in the five years, 1842 to 1846, wheat ranged from 50s. 2d. to 57s. 9d.; the average for the entire period being 54s. 10d. per quarter. In the five years from 1870 to 1874 it ranged from 46s. 10d. to 58s. 8d., the average for the five years being 54s. 7d. per quarter. The reduction in price has only been 3d. per quarter, or less than one half per cent.

I venture to think that there are higher considerations than mere profit to individuals, and that, as the lands belong to the whole state as represented by the Crown, and as they are held in trust TO PRODUCE FOOD FOR THE PEOPLE, that trust should be enforced.

The average consumption of grain by each person is about a quarter (eight bushels) per annum. In 1841 the population of the United Kingdom was 27,036,450. The average import of foreign grain was about 3,000,000 quarters, therefore TWENTY-FOUR MILLIONS were fed on the domestic produce. In 1871 the population was 31,513,412, and the average importation of grain 20,000,000 quarters; therefore only ELEVEN AND A HALF MILLIONS were supported by home produce. Here we are met with the startling fact that our own soil is not now supplying grain to even one half the number of people to whom it gave bread in 1841. This is a serious aspect of the question, and one that should lead to examination, whether the development of the system of landholding, the absorptions of small farms and the creation of large ones, is really beneficial to the state, or tends to increase the supply of food. The area under grain in England in 1874 was 8,021,077. In 1696 it was 10,000,000 acres, the diminution having been 2,000,000 acres. The average yield would probably be FOUR QUARTERS PER ACRE, and therefore the decrease amounted to the enormous quantity of EIGHT MILLION QUARTERS, worth L25,000,000, which had to be imported from other countries, to fill up the void, and feed 8,000,000 of the population; and if a war took place, England may, like Rome, be starved into peace.

An idea prevails that a diminution in the extent under grain implies an increase in the production of meat. The best answer to that fallacy lies in the great increase in the price of meat. If the supply had increased the price would fall, but the converse has taken place. A comparison of the figures given by Geoffrey King, in the reign of William III., with those supplied by the Board of Trade in the reign of Queen Victoria, illustrates this phase of the landholding question, and shows whether the "enlightened policy" of the nineteenth century tends to encourage the fulfilment of the trust which applies to land—THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD.

The land of England and Wales in 1696 and 1874 was classified as follows:

1696. 1874. Acres. Acres. Under grain, 10,000,000 8,021,077 Pastures and meadows, 10,000,000 12,071,791 Flax, hemp, and madder, 1,000,000 - Green crops, - 2,895,138 Bare fallow, - 639,519 Clover - 2,983,733 Orchards, 1,000,000 148,526 Woods, coppices, etc, 3,000,000 1,552,598 Forests, parks, and commons, 3,000,000 Moors, mountains, and bare land, 10,000,000 - 9,006,839 Waste, water, and road, 1,000,000 - - 39,000,000 37,319,231

The estimate of 1696 may be corrected by lessing the quantity of waste land, and thus bringing the total to correspond with the extent ascertained by actual survey, but it shows a decrease in the extent under grain of nearly two million acres, and an increase in the area applicable to cattle of nearly 8,000,000 acres; yet there is a decrease in the number of cattle, though an increase in sheep. The returns are as follows:

1696. 1800. 1874. Cattle 4,500,000 2,852.428 4,305,440 Sheep 11,000,000 26,148,000 19,859,758 Pigs 2,000,000 (not given) 2,058,791

The former shows that in 1696 there were TEN MILLION acres under grain, the latter only EIGHT MILLION acres. Two million acres were added for cattle feeding. The former shows that the pasture land was TEN MILLION ACRES, and that green crops and clover were unknown. The latter that there were TWELVE MILLION ACRES under pasture, and, in addition, that there were nearly THREE MILLION ACRES of green crop and THREE MILLION ACRES of clover. The addition to the cattle-feeding land was eight million acres; yet the number of cattle in 1696 was 4,500,000, and in 1874, 4,305,400. Of sheep, in 1696, there were 11,000,000, and in 1874, 19,889,758. The population had increased fourfold, and it is no marvel that meat is dear. It is the interest of agriculturists to KEEP DOWN THE QUANTITY AND KEEP UP THE PRICE. The diminution in the area under corn was not met by a corresponding increase in live stock—in other words, the decrease of land under grain is not, PER SE, followed by an increase of meat. If the area under grain were increased, it would be preceded by an increase in the growth of turnips, and followed by a greater growth of clover; and these cattle-feeding products would materially add to the meat supply.

A most important change in the system of landholding was effected by the spread of RAILWAYS. It was brought about by the influence of the trading as opposed to the landlord class. In their inception they did not appear likely to effect any great alteration in the land laws. The shareholders had no compulsory power of purchase, hence enormous sums were paid for the land required; but as the system extended, Parliament asserted the ownership of the nation, over land in the possession of the individual. Acting on the idea that no man was more than a tenant, the state took the land from the occupier, as well as the tenant-in-fee, and gave it, not at their own price, but an assessed value, to the partners in a railway who traded for their mutual benefit, yet as they offered to convey travellers and goods at a quicker rate than on the ordinary roads, the state enabled them to acquire land by compulsion. A general act, the Land Clauses Act, was passed in 1846, which gives privileges with regard to the acquisition of land to the promoters of such works as railways, docks, canals, etc. Numbers of acts are passed every session which assert the right of the state over the land, and transfer it from one man, or set of men, to another. It seems to me that the principle is clear, and rests upon the assertion of the state's ownership of the land; but it has often struck me to ask, Why is this application of state rights limited to land required for these objects? why not apply to the land at each side of the railway, the principle which governs that under the railway itself? I consider the production of food the primary trust upon the land, that rapid transit over it is a secondary object; and as all experience shows that the division of land into small estates leads to a more perfect system of tillage, I think it would be of vast importance to the entire nation if all tenants who were, say, five years in possession were made "promoters" under the Land Clauses Act, and thus be enabled to purchase the fee of their holdings in the same manner as a body of railway proprietors. It would be most useful to the state to increase the number of tenants-in-fee—to re-create the ancient FREEMEN, the LIBERI HOMINES—and I think it can be done without requiring the aid either of a new principle or new machinery, by simply placing the farmer-in-possession on the same footing as the railway shareholder. I give at foot the draft of a bill I prepared in 1866 for this object.

[Footnote: A BILL TO ENCOURAGE THE OUTLAY OF MONEY UPON LAND FOB AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES.

Whereas it is expedient to encourage the occupiers of land to expend money thereon, in building, drainage, and other similar improvements; and whereas the existing laws do not give the tenants or occupiers any sufficient security for such outlay: Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same:

1. That all outlay upon land for the purpose of rendering it more productive, and all outlay upon buildings for the accommodation of those engaged in tilling or working the same, or for domestic animals of any sort, be, and the same is hereby deemed to be, an outlay of a public nature.