paltry exceptions the whole of that vast capital and revenue was granted to courtiers and favourites, sold at nominal prices, or frittered away by the king and his satellites.1

§ 124. Results of the Suppression.

Although the mass of the people did not protest very vigorously against this piece of royal robbery, many of them witnessed with silent dismay the destruction of ancient institutions that had taken at one time an important share in the national life. It is true that the monasteries had, so to speak, worn themselves out and outgrown their usefulness.2 Some were deeply in debt, some almost deserted, almost all had misapplied their revenues.3 Some reform, at least, was necessary, perhaps even a total suppression, but undoubtedly the worst feature about the whole transaction was the distribution of the spoil. In any case the country districts, if none other, lost in many instances (though not in all) hospitable and charitable friends; and discontent, eagerly fomented of course by the dispossessed monks, broke out into open insurrection. The well-known revolt called the Pilgrimage of Grace (1536) was an instance of this, though it had also other causes, connected with the general agrarian change which was then taking place. These causes may be detailed in the words of those concerned in the rebellion, words which give a very clear insight into the grievances that were vexing men's minds in the rural districts: "The poor people and commons," said one, "be sore oppressed by gentlemen because their living is taken away." This is vague, but another witness tells us more explicitly in what the oppression consisted. He mentions "the pulling down of villages and farms, raising of rents, enclosures, intakes of the commons, worshipful men taking yeomen's offices, that is, becoming dealers in farm produce." One great reason

"

6

1Many of the new aristocracy of Henry VIII.'s reign owe their riches to this spoliation. "The Russells and Cavendishes rose from obscurity through the grants of church lands." Green, History, ii. 201.

2 Burrows, Commentaries, p. 270.

Ib.. p. 271.

Ib.

272.

5 Ib.,

7 William Stapleton's evidence, ib.

"Evidence of Geo. Gisborne, Rolls House, MSS., miscellaneous, first series, 132 (Froude).

severe.

of the discontent is thus clearly seen to be the enclosures, and another was the raising of rents; and grievances like these, coupled with religious feeling, fear of change, and sympathy for the dispossessed monks, were sufficient to give rise to a very considerable outbreak, which was only suppressed with some difficulty. The economic disturbances which resulted, though not so clearly seen, were far more They were acute enough from the mere fact of so much wealth having suddenly changed hands and being spent with reckless prodigality. It is said that one-fifth,2 or even one-third, of the land in the kingdom was held by the monasteries, and this was now transferred from the hold of the Church into the hands of a new set of nobles and landed gentry, created from the dependants and followers of Henry's court.1 These were enriched, but the former tenants of the monasteries and the poorer class of labourers suffered greatly.5 Hence serious results followed. Many of the monastic lands were held by tenants upon the stock and land lease system, spoken of before; but, when these monastic lands were suddenly transferred into the clutches of Henry's new and grasping nobility, or were bought by merchants and mauufacturers who only cared for profits," the stock was confiscated and sold off, while the money rent was raised. The new owners did not care for the slow, though really lucrative, system of providing the tenant with a certain amount of stock for his land, but simply wished to get all the money they could without delay. They often evicted the tenantry and lived as absentees on the profits of their flocks.8 The result was that the poorer tenants were 1 Annals of England, p. 302, 303. 2 Green, History, ii. 201.

Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 113; Six Centuries, p. 323, who however seems to think it rather doubtful.

Cf. Froude, History, iii. 206, where he mentions the novi homines.

5 Cf. the contemporary evidence in the Cole MSS. (Brit. Museum) xii. fol. 5. The Fall of Religious Houses: "They never raised any rent nor took any incomes or fines of their tenants." Again, "If any poor householder lacked seed to sow his land, or bread, corn, or malt before harvest, and came to a monastery, he should not have gone away again without help." Of course, some allowance must be made for the evident friendly bias of the author.

Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 323.

7 Froude, History, iii, p. 206.

8 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. p. 434.

almost ruined, and it seems fairly evident that pauperism was much increased.

§ 125. Pauperism.

Whether it is true that the monasteries relieved what poverty there was, or not, or whether in pre-Reformation days the charitable instincts of the general public were more actively encouraged by their religion, may still be a matter of dispute, but there can be no doubt as to the growth of pauperism in the days of Henry VIII. Of course it had existed before, and measures had been passed for its relief, but henceforth it becomes a more noticeable phenomenon, and its difficulties increase instead of diminishing. Its growth was due to the agrarian difficulties of the sixteenth century, especially to the enclosures, and perhaps in some measure to that peculiarly modern development of society by which, as the wealth of the nation increases, it seems to become vested in fewer hands, while the numbers of the poor increase with the accumulation of riches. Be that as

it may, legislation was found necessary before the suppression of the monasteries, though the suppression must have given an impetus to the other already existing causes of trouble. Two acts were passed in the middle of Henry's reign. The first (1531) mentions the increase of "vagabonds and beggars," and the crimes they commit, and enacts that the justices, mayors, and other authorities "shall make diligent search and inquiry of all aged poor and impotent persons which live, or of necessity be compelled to live, by alms of the charity of the people"; that they then shall only allow them to beg, after giving them a proper license to do so, within certain limits, while begging outside such limits, or without permission, was to be punished by imprisonment in the stocks and by whipping. The second

Act (1536), evidently framed because the first was unsatisfactory, forbids private persons to give money to beggars, but makes provision for a charity organisation fund, to be collected by the church wardens on Sundays and holidays in 1 Froude, History, i. 77, and cf. iv. 355. 2 Above, p. 194, note 3.

3 The 22 Henry VIII., c. 12.

the churches. The parish priest was to keep an account of receipts and expenditure. All idle children, over five years of age, were to be appointed "to matters of husbandry, or other craft or labour to be taught." But for the "sturdy vagabond" there was no mercy; if found begging a second time, he was to be mutilated by the loss of the whole or part of his right ear; if caught a third time, to be put to death as a felon and an enemy of the commonwealth.” 1 So the law remained for sixty years; unrepealed through the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary; reconsidered, but again formally passed, under Elizabeth. "It was the express conviction of the English nation that it was better for a man not to live at all than to live a profitless and worthless life." 2 But the simple, if sanguinary, measures of the Tudor age were found in later days to be insufficient to cure an evil of which simplicity is unfortunately far from being a characteristic.

§ 126. The Issuing of Base Coin.

A few years after the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry was in difficulties again. He dared not ask his Parliament for further supplies so soon after his last piece of plunder, and therefore he betook himself to a still more underhand kind of robbery. In 1527 he had begun to debase the currency, and now he repeated this criminal action in 1543, 1545, and 1546. The process was continued by the guardians of Edward VI., till an almost incredible amount of alloy was added to the coins. in 1549, the debasement had reached six ounces of alloy in the pound of silver; but in 1551 there were nine ounces, a pound of this base mixture being coined into seventy-two shillings. This debasement forms a landmark in English industrial history, almost as noticeable as events like the 1 The 27 Henry VIII., c. 25. 2 Froude, History, i. 88.

5

Already,

3 Cunningham, i. 482. He coined a pound of silver of the old touch into 458. in 1527. See Dr Cunningham's strong remarks on the iniquity of the Tudor kings.

Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 342. In 1543 the debasement was 2 ounces of alloy in 12, in 1545 it was 6, in 1546 it was 8. The coinage was reformed by Elizabeth. Cf. Hist. Agric., iv. 186-200.

Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 343.

first Poor Law or the Plague. Its effect was not felt immediately, but it was none the less real. The chief point that concerned the labourer was that prices rapidly rose, but that, as is always the case, the rise of wages did not coincide with this inflation, and when they did rise, they did not do so in a fair proportion. The necessaries of life rose in proportion of one to two and one-half; wages, when they finally rose, only in the proportion of one to one and one-half.2 When too late, it was recognised that the issue of base money was the cause of dearth in the realm, and Latimer lamented the fact in his sermons. Meanwhile, the mischief had been done.

The government was almost bankrupt, and when Henry VIII. died he bequeathed to his young son, instead of the magnificent fortune which his own father had amassed, a treasury not only empty, but completely overwhelmed in debt. These debts were augmented by the " wilful government" of the Duke of Somerset, while the council of nobles who surrounded the youthful Edward only made matters worse by their unpatriotic rapacity.

§ 127. The Confiscation of the Gild Lands.

In the very first year of Edward's reign a fresh piece of robbery was carried out. This was the confiscation of all chantries and gild lands, planned by Henry VIII. but executed by the Protector Somerset. All lands belonging to " colleges, chantries, and free chapels," were in 1547 given to the king, and it was professed by the Act that their revenues would be given to the establishment of

1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 344.

2 Ib., p. 345; cf. also Froude, History, v. 95. "The measure of corn that was wont to be sold at 2s. or 3s. was at 6s. 8d. in March 1551, and 30s. in March 1552. A cow that had been worth 6s. 8d. sold for 40s."

3 See Northumberland's letter to the Council; MSS. Domestic, Edward VI., vol. xv. (Froude), where he speaks of "the great debts wherein, for one great part, he [Edward VI.] was left by his Highnesse's father, and augmented by the wilful government of the late Duke of Somerset, who took upon him the Protectorship and government of his own authority." Of course Northumberland's evidence is not altogether unprejudiced. • In the Act 37 Henry VIII., c. 17. cf. Froude, History, iv., p. 193. By the Act 1 Edw. VI., c. 14.