went into effect, the flame of revolt broke out in De difficul 123 ties, their character; manorial its effect relation of While Lord Russell was engaged in stamping out the reli- Agrarian gious revolt that thus arose in the western counties, a rebellion more serious still began in the east, under the leadership origin and of Robert Ket, a Wymondham tanner, who, pitching his camp near Norwich, marshalled his forces under an Oak of Reformation in order to demand the redress of grievances that were mainly agrarian. The most important social revolution which followed the Conquest was that which resulted from the breaking up of the manorial system, a process wherein the lord of a breaking manor passed from his original position at the head of a culti- up of the vating community composed of dependents owing personal system and services, which were either paid in kind or commuted, to that upon the of a modern landlord receiving rent in money from his tenants, landlord and supplying their places in the cultivation of the demesne and tenant; lands by paid laborers as occasion required. Prior to the ravages of the Black Death that made its advent into England at the close of 1348, the supply of hired labor, which scarcity of became more and more necessary as the process of enfranchise- caused by ment advanced, had been both abundant and cheap.2 After the ravages that event, which swept away perhaps half of the population, Black Death, hired labor became so scarce that the wealthier craftsmen of which the towns as well as the farmers of the country became began in 1348; alarmed at what they considered the extravagant demands of the laboring classes. The counterblast of the landowners to this revolt was the Statute of Laborers, the first passed at the Statute of close of 1349, whereby parliament attempted not only to fix enacted by arbitrarily the price of labor, but also to drive the peasant the landclass back into the state from which they were fast escaping the coercion through enfranchisement by cruel provisions forbidding the working laborer, under heavy penalties, to quit his parish in order to ob- classes; 1 The demands of the rebels are printed in Strype's Cranmer. Another version to the same effect is given in Holinshed. See also Burnet's Hist. hired labor of the Laborers owners for of the conflict between capital and labor culminated in Peasant Revolt of of villenage; change in of agri culture; tain better employment.1 When the villeins refused to accept the starvation wages thus held out to them, the lords fell back upon their demesne rights, which they were quick to enforce through the manorial courts presided over by their own stewards whenever a manumission or exemption could be cancelled upon the ground of informality. The story has been told of how this bitter conflict between capital and labor culminated at last in the Peasant Revolt of 1381, which, in spite of the period of repression that immediately followed it, was so far successful 1381; that at the end of a century and a half from the time of the extinction rising, villenage had become a rare if not obsolete institution. Misfortunes that might have fallen upon the landowners through the gradual revolution in the system of labor were consequent averted, however, by a serious change in the method of agrithe method culture which, beginning with the Black Death, went steadily on for a century after that event. The rise that took place in the price of wool made it expedient for the landlords to dispense to a great extent with the services of agricultural laborers by laying down the land in pasture. In that way there began in England during the fifteenth century a steady increase of sheep farming, and such a consequent decrease of corn growing as to cause serious anxiety. Out of the change consequent upon this increase of pasture farming at the expense of tillage, which signified the inclosing of large districts of country and the expulsion of tenants occupying small holdings therein, grew the famous question of "enclosures," -a tion of "en- question embracing not only the eviction of tenants from their holdings, but also the inclosure of the common, waste which in some instances was so curtailed that the peasantry could not obtain pasturage enough to maintain the stock necessary to work their fields. To check the growth of this evil a statute was passed in the reign of Henry VII. (4 Hen. VII. c. 16), inclosures; followed by 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1, and 25 Hen. the ques closures;" statutes passed to check the evils arising from 1 Vol. i. pp. 507, 508. 2 Ibid., pp. 508-510. In some instances the manorial lords exacted predial services from villeins as late as the reign of Elizabeth, but without any formal change in the law the right was extinguished. See the report of the case of Somerset, a negro slave, in 1771, Howell's State Trials, vol. xx. p. 40. 8... "Of that we shall hear much more in Tudor times, but it is of more immediate importance to notice how a death-blow had now been given to the old manorial system. It was not only that it had become difficult to work it, but that another mode of using the land was proving profitable." - Cunningham, Growth of English Ind. and Commerce, vol. i. p. 361. increased by the dis asteries; VIII. c. 13, the last of which, after denouncing the process that was gathering "together into few hands as well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle and in especial sheep," provided remedies of a very stringent character.1 But the effort thus made in 1534 to check the evil was immediately followed by the dissolution of the monasteries, which event is admitted on every hand to have greatly increased it, by the which were transfer of the abbey lands from the hands of the most indul- greatly gent of landlords to those of the courtiers, who were eager solution of to swell their resources by devoting their new possessions to the monthe use that would produce the greatest immediate income. Thus in spite of well-meaning legislation, the oppression of the peasant class consequent upon the advance of inclosures went steadily on, the general distress being greatly increased by a serious rise in prices resulting from a debasement of the coinage which had begun in the reign of Henry VIII.3 When Somerset was called upon to cope with the evil, his sympathy with the laboring class was manifested in no uncertain terms Enclosures by the appointment in the summer of 1548 of an Enclosures' sion apCommission, charged with the duty of searching out and re- pointed by porting the names of the landlords who were violating the til- in the lage statutes.4 The commissioners presented a report fully 1548; explaining the extent of the evil, which was made the basis of refusal of parliament the Enclosure Bill rejected in the fall session by the house of to grant lords. The refusal of parliament to act brought the protector face to face in the summer of 1549 with the armed rebellion rebellion headed by Ket, who raised the eastern countries in order to Ket, who demand the prohibition of inclosures and the general redress demanded of grievances from which the peasant class were then suffer- redress of ing. In the presence of this new danger, Somerset, whose grievances; 1 See Cunningham, Growth of Eng. Ind. and Commerce, vol. i. pp. 468 472. 2 "It appears that the suppression of the monasteries in the last reign had tended greatly to increase the appropriation of land to pasture. For in a proclamation of Edward VI., as stated by Strype, it was lamented that the realm was wasted, by bringing arable land into pasture, and letting houses and families decay and waste; so that various villages were entirely destroyed, and one shepherd dwelt where many industrious families dwelt before.". 3 See Froude, Hist. Eng., vol. iv. 4 Instructions of the Protector to the Commissioners of Enclosures, Strype's Memorials, vol. iv. 5" These pretended nothing of religion, but only to suppress and destroy the gentry, and to raise the commons, and to put new councillors about the Commis Somerset summer of relief brought on headed by general agrarian earl of Warwick the land owners to the revolt; sympathy with the common people was notorious, so far lost the confidence of the council by his hesitation that they resolved to act without him. At this juncture the earl of Warwick, who was now passing into prominence, became the selected by chosen leader of the landowning class, known as the gentlemen, and under his generalship the revolt in the eastern counput down ties was put down before the end of August by the aid of German and Italian mercenaries, who were now for the first time employed by English rulers for the coercion of English Warwick subjects. The prestige of victory thus gained the subtile supplanted and ambitious Warwick was not slow to turn to his personal advantage. Drawing to his side the majority of the council, open opposition was avowed early in October to the protector, who was declared a traitor on the 7th, and sent to the Tower on the 13th. Thus practically ended the protectorate of Somerset, whose brief period of power marks that stage of the English Reformation during which took place the memorable revision of the devotional system of the Church of England. Somerset in October, 1549. Govern ment of duke of Northumberland: 3. The hope of a reaction in favor of catholicism which the Warwick, fall of the protector excited for a moment vanished in the presence of the fact that the same motives that had prompted Somerset to put himself at the head of the reformers dictated a like policy to his successor. Warwick,2 no less than Somerset, was one of the "new men" whose fortunes had sprung out of the religious revolution to which all the nobles of the new blood were irrevocably committed. It was soon made apparent, therefore, that the recovery of authority by the executors under the lead of Warwick, who at a later day assumed the title of duke of Northumberland, was to signify no change of policy. The despotic conciliar system which Cromwell had organized, and which Somerset had enforced by the aid of foreign mercenaries, was to be administered as before by a new master, as cautious and decisive as his predecessor had been imprudent and irresolute. In the parliament that met in Henry's executors regained authority under the lead of Warwick; no change of policy; king." p. 376. p. 14. Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. i. Grey Friars' Chron., Camd. Soc., 2 Dudley, earl of Warwick, was the son of the Edward Dudley who, with Empson, was punished upon the ac cession of Henry VIII. for financial oppressions practised in his father's reign. See above, p. 40. 8 In October, 1551, he took the title, which had long been extinct by reason of the attainder of Lord Thomas Percy in 1537. VI. c. 10; formation November assurance was given to the landowning gentlemen, with whose aid Warwick had put down the agrarian revolt, by the passage of a riot act, which made it felony for persons to riot act of the number of twelve or more to assemble for the purpose of 3 & 4 Edw. abating the rents of farms or the price of provisions, for the destruction of houses or parks, or for the assertion of common rights. When the object of such assembly was to alter the laws, or to kill or imprison a member of the king's council, the offence was made high treason.1 At Christmas the king issued a circular letter to the bishops, informing them that he would proceed with the reformation,2 and requiring them to work of redeliver up all the old service-books to be burned or otherwise continued; destroyed, a mandate which was soon followed by an act providing that all persons, clerical or lay, who should persist in keeping such books in their possession should be fined for the first and second offences, and imprisoned at the king's pleasure for the third. And in spite of the conservative opposition of many of the lords, an act was also passed commanding the removal from the parish churches of all paintings and statues except "the monumental figures of kings or nobles who had never been taken for saints." 4 While an attempt to give back attempt to to the ecclesiastical courts a portion of their former authority jurisdiction failed, an act was passed repealing the cruel vagrancy act of tical courts the previous session, which imposed slavery as a punishment failed; for idleness, and restoring the statutes of Henry VIII. upon act of Edw. that subject, under which laborers who refused to work were repealed. punished as vagabonds. Not, however, until the years 1552-53 transpired the two memorable events in the history of the English Reformation which specially distinguish the rule of Northumberland. restore of ecclesias vagrancy VI. c. 2 attack upon book of Not long after the promulgation of the prayer-book of 1549, Bitter a bitter and persevering attack upon it began under the the prayerlead of John Hooper, afterwards bishop of Gloucester, who 1549 led by had lived abroad at Strasburg and Zurich, and who was thor- Hooper; oughly imbued with the ideas of the anti-sacerdotalist school of attack; 1 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 10. 2 See the letter from the council to the bishops, dated December 25, printed in Burnet's Collectanea. Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. i. p. 395. 4 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 10. 5 See Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. ii. p. 434. 6 3 & 4 Edw. VI. c. 16. By 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 2 those statutes were confirmed, but licenses to beg upon certain terms were given. main points |