grammar schools, the maintenance of vicarages, and the support of preachers. Some portion was so applied-probably to salve the consciences of the spoilers-but by far the greater part was shared among the members of the government or devoted to pay off some of the late King's debts.1 A portion of the lands so confiscated was the property of the craft-gilds both in town and country, having been acquired partly by bequests from members, and partly by purchase from the funds of the gilds. The revenues derived from them were used for lending, without usury, to poorer members of the gilds, for apprenticing poor children, for widows' pensions, and, above all, for the relief of destitute members of the craft.2 Thus the labourer of that time had in the funds of the gild a kind of insurance money, while the gild itself fulfilled all the functions of a benefit society. Somerset procured the Act for suppressing them on the plea that these lands were associated with superstitious uses. Only the property of the London gilds was left untouched.

The effects of this confiscation were felt perhaps indirectly more than directly, but were none the less serious. No doubt the landed property of the gilds was largely devoted to the maintenance of masses for departed members of the society, but assistance was also freely given to members in distress, to enable them to tide over hard times. These institutions rather prevented men from falling into pauperism than actually relieved it to any great extent, but the net result was of course much the same. Their suppression certainly must have helped to swell the number of untoward influences that combined at this period to depress the condition of the working classes.

Why this abolition was not more generally resented is a point of some interest. In the first place, the lands of the religious gilds and craft gilds were confiscated together on

1 Annals of England, pp. 316, 317. Froude, History, iv., p. 313, remarks:-"The carcase was cast out into the fields and the vultures of all breeds and orders flocked to the banquet."

2 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 347; Hist. Agric., iv. 6.

8 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i., p. 480.

• Ib., p. 481; and cf. on the other hand Prof. Ashley's remarks in the Political Science Quarterly, vol. iv., No. 3, p. 402, who rather minimises the usefulness of the gilds.

the plea above mentioned, and thus the difference between them was confused in the eyes of the Protestant party then in the ascendant. Then, again, the London gilds were spared because of their power, and thus it was made their interest not to interfere with the destruction of their provincial brethren. The nobles were bought off with presents gained from the funds of the gilds. Moreover, the craft gilds in the country towns were becoming close corporations, whose advantages were often monopolised by a few powerful members. This led, as we saw,2 to the manufacture of cloth spreading from the towns into industrial villages in the rural districts, where perhaps the mass of the population, not perceiving the full significance of the Act, did not object to a measure which struck a blow at the town "mysteries." But, nevertheless, a great deal of discontent was aroused. Somerset became very unpopular and insurrections broke out in many parts of the country, the most dangerous being in Cornwall, Devonshire, and Norfolk (1549). They were caused not only by this spoliation but by agrarian discontent as well, added to religious disturbances, but German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to put them down, and the protests of the people were everywhere choked in their own blood.

§ 128. Bankruptcy and Rapacity of Edward VI.'s

Government.

These insurrections serve to show the anger of the nation at the atrocious rapacity and misgovernment of the nobles who surrounded the boy-king Edward. And indeed the nation had a right to be angry. The government was practically bankrupt, and had to resort to the most desperate measures to obtain money for immediate necessities. The currency had been so debased that they dare not debase it any further, and it only remained to acknowledge the fact openly, to throw the burden of it upon the country, and

1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 6.

* Above, p. 146. 'Ashley, in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. iv., No. 3, p. 402. • Annals of England, p. 318; Froude, History, iv. 408, 440-453. "Froude, History, iv., pp. 445, 447. "Froude, History, v. pp. 9, 110.

to call the existing coinage down to its actual value.1 "By this desperate remedy every holder of a silver coin lost upon it the difference between its cost when it passed into his hands and its actual value in the market. On the 30th April 1551 the Council passed a resolution that in future the shilling should pass for only ninepence, and the groat (4d) for threepence.2 At the same time, such was the unabashed audacity of this gang of noble swindlers, they contemplated a fresh issue of base money; 3 but, postponing this wickedness for a time, they had recourse to the great banking firm of the Fuggers at Antwerp, and raised loans at ruinous rates of interest. In the month of May, however, they issued £80,000 of silver coin, of which two-thirds was alloy, and in June £40,000, containing no less than three-quarters alloy. "This was the last grasp at the departing prey, and perhaps it transpired to the world for so profound and so wide was the public distrust that when the first fall in the coin took effect prices everywhere rose rather than declined, even allowing for the difference of denomination." 5 Then in August a proclamation was issued by which the shilling passed for no more than sixpence, and again the nation had to bear the loss.

But the difficulties of the Government were far from being at an end, and fresh means had to be devised for extorting money from an exhausted country. As early as 1549 Commissioners had been appointed to make inventories of Church ornaments, jewels, vestments and other property, even including the Church bells 7; but in the autumn and winter of 1552-3 no less than four commissions were appointed with this object, "to go again over the ofttrodden ground and glean the last spoils which could be gathered from the Churches. Vestments, copes, plate, even the coins in the poor-boxes were taken from the churches in the City of London. A sweep as complete cleared the

1 Froude, History, v. pp. 9-15.

2 Ib., v. p. 10.

3

3 Ib., p. 11.

Ib., p. 11 and p. 112. They had borrowed from Antwerp Jews before, iv. p. 399.

• Ib., 8 Froude, History, v. p. 119,

7 In Feb. 1549, Annals of England, p. 317.

4

parish churches throughout the country."1 Other measures as mean and as desperate were also taken, and a subsidy was granted by the Parliament of 1553; 2 but all attempts to fill the treasury were rendered useless by the extraordinary rapacity of the Council of the Minority,' the nobles who governed during the minority of Edward VI. Estates worth half-a-million sterling in the money of those days, or about five millions in the money of our own time, had been appropriated by these ministers, and though the Duke of Northumberland accused his rival Somerset of "wilful misgovernance" and waste of treasure," he himself obtained the suppression of the enormously rich bishopric of Durham, and the whole of its temporalities were granted to him as a County Palatine. It is no wonder that with ministers such as this the country narrowly escaped ruin, nor could it have passed through this period as well as it did, had it not been for the undercurrent of sound prosperity inherited from the latter end of the fifteenth century. But the situation was most serious, especially in the rural districts, and these now demand our attention.

§ 129. The Agrarian Situation.

Of course, by this time, the symmetry of the old manorial system was almost entirely destroyed by the revolution in agriculture to which we have already alluded, and which was now making itself felt increasingly every day. It was inevitable that such should be the case, and the ultimate benefit was, no doubt, very great, but the immediate effects were productive of considerable hardship to many of the smaller men. It is true, as has been pointed out by a great German economist, that, after all, agriculture in this period (apart from the special stimulus of wool-growing) 1 Froude, History, v. pp. 120, 121.

2 Act 7 Edward VI., c. 12.

3 Froude, History, iv. 397, mentions "the waste and luxury" of Edward VI.'s nobles as "the preponderating cause" of the pecuniary difficulties of the time.

Froude, History, v. p. 128, and MS. Domestic, Edward VI., vol. xix. " See preamble to Act 7 Edward VI. c. 12, inspired by Northumberland. By the Act 7 Edward VI. c. 17.

7 Ashley, Econ. Hist., ii. ii., p. 263.

Roscher, Nationalekonomie des Ackerbaues, bk. ii., ch. ii.

was only passing through the second of the three great stages which mark its economic evolution. In these we may distinguish (1) the old open-field husbandry of early times, so closely associated with the manorial system; (2) convertible husbandry, wherein the land is used for a few years as pasture and then put under crops, a method which necessitates enclosures in order that it may be properly carried out in a systematic and orderly manner; and (3) the more modern method of rotation of crops, which begins in England much later than the period with which we are now dealing. But the process of this evolution with its resulting enclosures, added to the ever-increasing sheep farms, pressed hardly upon the smaller cultivators; and in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. we cannot help being struck with the terrible discontent and misery of the rural districts. The labourers and small husbandmen were becoming more and more separated from the land, while tenant farmers were ruined with high rents exacted by the new nobility.1 The landed gentry and nobility, however, profited by this, and the merchants grew rich by their accumulations in foreign trade.2 But those who depended directly upon the cultivation of the land for their living suffered severely. There had been for some years past a steady rise in the price of wool for export, partly because the manufactures of the Netherlands were so flourishing, and partly owing to a general rise of prices on the Continent since the great discoveries of silver in South America. Land-owners saw that it was more immediately profitable to turn their arable land into pasture and to go in for sheep farming on a large scale. They therefore did three things. They evicted as

1

"You

1Cf. Latimer's Sermons (in 1548) in Froude, History, iv. p. 356. landlords, you rent raisers, I may say you steplords! that which heretofore went for 20 or 40 pounds by the year, now is let for 50 or 100 pounds : and thus is caused such dearth that poor men which live of their labour cannot with the sweat of their faces have a living."

2" Michele, the Venetian, says that many London merchants were worth as much as £60,000 in money; the graziers and the merchants had made money while the people had starved." Froude, History, vi. 78.

* Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 718; the average from 1401 to 1540 was 6s. 24d. per tod, and from 1541-82, it was 17s. 4d. per tod,

Cf. Froude, Ch. History, iv. 349.