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there shall be read to them, in English, by the Court, the record and nature of the plea.'1

Thus protected, the English commons cannot be other than flourishing. Consider, on the other hand, he says to the young prince whom he is instructing, the condition of the commons in France. By their taxes, tax on salt, on wine, billeting of soldiers, they are reduced to great misery. You have seen them on your travels.

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'The same Commons be so impoverishid and distroyyd, that they may unneth lyve. Thay drink water, thay eate apples, with bred right brown made of rye. They eate no fleshe, but if it be selden, a litill larde, or of the entrails or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and merchants of the land. They weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their uttermost garment, made of grete canvass, and cal it a frok. Their hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee, wherfor they be gartrid and their thyghs bare. Their wifs and children gone bare fote. For sum of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his tenement which he hyrith by the year a scute payth now to the kyng, over that scute, fyve skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd by necessite so to watch, labour and grub in the ground for their sustenance, that their nature is much wasted, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd and ar feeble, not able to fight nor to defend the realm; nor they have wepon, nor monye to buy them wepon withal. . . . This is the frute first of hyre Jus regale. . . . But blessed be God, this land ys rulid under a better lawe, and therfor the people therof be not in such penurye, nor therby hurt in their persons, but they be wealthie and have all things necessarie to the sustenance of nature. Wherefore they be myghty and able to resyste the adversaries of the realms that do or will do them wrong. Loo, this is the frut of Jus politicum et regale, under which we lyve.' .'2 'Everye inhabiter of the realme of England useth and enjoyeth at his pleasure all the fruites that his land or cattel beareth, with al the profits and commodities which by his owne travayle, or by the labour of others, hae gaineth; not hindered by the iniurie or wrong deteinement of anye man, but that hee shall bee allowed a reasonable recompence.3. . . Hereby it commeth to passe that the men of that lande are riche, havyng aboundaunce of golde and silver, and other thinges necessarie for the maintenaunce of man's life. They drinke no water, unlesse it be so, that some for devotion, and uppon a zeale of penaunce, doe abstaine from other drinks. They eate plentifully of all kindes of fleshe and fishe. They weare fine woollen cloth in all their apparel; they have also aboundaunce of bed-coveringes in their houses, and of all other woollen stuffe. They have greate store of all hustlementes and implementes of householde, they are plentifully furnished with al instruments of husbandry, and all other things that are requisite to the accomplishment of a quiet and wealthy lyfe, according to their estates and degrees. Neither are they sued in the lawe, but onely before ordinary iudges, where by the lawes of the lande they are iustly intreated. Neither are they

1 The original of this very famous treatise, de Laudibus Legum Angliæ, was written in Latin between 1464 and 1470, first published in 1537, and translated into English in 1737 by Francis Gregor. I have taken these extracts from the magnificent edition of Sir John Fortescue's works published in 1869 for private distribution, and edited by Thomes Fortescue, Lord Clermont. Some of the pieces quoted, left in the old spelling, are taken from an older edition.—TR.

2 Of an Absolute and Limited Monarchy, 3d ed., 1724, ch. iii. p. 15. 3 Commines bears the same testimony.

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arrested or impleaded for their moveables or possessions, or arraigned of any offence, bee it never so great and outragious, but after the lawes of the land, and before the iudges aforesaid.' 1

All this arises from the constitution of the country and the distribution of the land. Whilst in other countries we find only a population of paupers, with here and there a few lords, England is covered and filled with owners of lands and fields; so that therein so small a thorpe cannot bee founde, wherein dwelleth not a knight, an esquire, or suche a housholder as is there commonly called a franklayne, enryched with greate possessions. And also other freeholders, and many yeomen able for their livelodes to make a jurye in fourme afore-mentioned. For there bee in that lande divers yeomen, which are able to dispende by the yeare above a hundred poundes.'2 Harrison says: 3

"This sort of people have more estimation than labourers and the common sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, keepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are for the most part farmers to gentlemen,' and keep servants of their own. "These were they that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit they be not called master, as gentlemen are, or sir, as to knights apperteineth, but onelie John and Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have done verie good service; and the kings of England, in foughten battels, were wont to remaine among them (who were their footmen) as the French kings did among their horssemen: the prince thereby showing where his chiefe strength did consist.' Such men, says Fortescue, might form a legal jury, and vote, resist, be associated, do everything wherein a free government consists: for they were numerous in every district; they were not down-trodden like the timid peasants of France; they had their honour and that of their family to maintain; they be well provided with arms; they remember that they have won battles in France. Such is the class, still obscure,

1 De Laudibus, etc., ch. xxxvi.

The might of the realme most stondyth upon archers which be not rich men.' Compare Hallam, ii. 482. All this takes us back as far as the Conquest, and farther. 'It is reasonable to suppose that the greater part of those who appear to have possessed small freeholds or parcels of manors were no other than the original nation. . . . A respectable class of free socagers, having in general full right of alienating their lands, and holding them probably at a small certain rent from the lord of the manor, frequently occurs in the Domesday Book.' At all events, there were in Domesday Book Saxons 'perfectly exempt from villenage.' This class is mentioned with respect in the treatises of Glanvil and Bracton. As for the villeins, they were quickly liberated in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, either by their own energies or by becoming copyholders. The Wars of the Roses still further raised the commons; orders were frequently issued, previous to a battle, to slay the nobles and spare the commoners.

3 Description of England, 275.

The following is a portrait of a yeoman, by Latimer, in the first sermon preached before Edward VI., 8th March 1549: 'My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a farm of £3 or £4 by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tiled so much as kept half a dozen men. He had walk for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find

but more rich and powerful every century, who, founded on the degraded Saxon aristocracy, and sustained by the surviving Saxon character, ended, under the lead of the inferior Norman nobility, and under the patronage of the superior Norman nobility, in establishing and settling a free constitution, and a nation worthy of liberty.

IX.

When, as here, men are endowed with a serious character, strengthened by a resolute spirit, and entrenched in independent habits, they meddle with their conscience as with their daily business, and end by laying hands on church as well as state. It is now a long time since the exactions of the Roman See provoked the resistance of the people,1 and a presuming priesthood became unpopular. Men complained that the best livings were given by the Pope to non-resident strangers; that some Italian, unknown in England, possessed fifty or sixty benefices in England; that English money poured into Rome; and that the clergy, being judged only by clergy, gave themselves up to their vices, and abused their state of impunity. In the first years of Henry III. there were reckoned nearly a hundred murders committed by priests still alive. At the beginning of the fourteenth century the ecclesiastical revenue was twelve times greater than the civil; about half the soil was in the hands of the clergy. At the end of the century the commons declared that the taxes paid to the church were five times greater than the taxes paid to the crown; and some years afterwards,2

the king a harness, with himself and his horse; while he came to the place that he should receive the king's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He married my sisters with £5 or 20 nobles a-piece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God; he kept hospitality for his poor neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this did he of the said farm. Where he that now hath it payeth £16 by the year, or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.'

This is from the sixth sermon, preached before the young king, 12th April 1549 In my time my poor father was as diligent to teach me to shoot as to learn (me) any other thing; and so, I think, other men did their children. He taught me how to draw, how to lay my body in my bow, and not to draw with strength of arms, as other nations do, but with strength of the body. I had my bows bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in them, so my bows were made bigger and bigger; for men shall never shoot well except they be brought up in it. It is a goodly art, a wholesome kind of exercise, and much commended in physic.'

1 Pict. Hist. i. 802. In 1246, 1376. Thierry, iii. 79.

1404-1409. The commons declared that with these revenues the king would be able to maintain 15 earls, 1500 knights, 6200 squires, and 100 hospitals: each earl receiving annually 300 marks; each knight 100 marks, and the produce of four ploughed lands; each squire 40 marks, and the produce of two ploughed lands. Pict. Hist. ii. 142.

considering that the wealth of the clergy only served to keep them in idleness and luxury, they proposed to confiscate it for the public benefit. Already the idea of the Reformation had forced itself upon them. They remembered how in the ballads Robin Hood ordered his folk to 'spare the yeomen, labourers, even knights, if they are good fellows,' but never to pardon abbots or bishops. The prelates grievously oppressed the people with their laws, tribunals, and tithes; and suddenly, amid the pleasant banter and the monotonous babble of the Norman versifiers, we hear resound the indignant voice of a Saxon, a man of the people and a victim.

It is the vision of Piers Ploughman, a carter, written, it is supposed, by a secular priest of Oxford.1 Doubtless the traces of French taste are perceptible. It could not be otherwise: the people from below can never quite prevent themselves from imitating the people above; and the most unshackled popular poets, Burns and Béranger, too often preserve an academic style. So here a fashionable machinery, the allegory of the Roman de la Rose, is pressed into service. We have Do-well, Covetousness, Avarice, Simony, Conscience, and a whole world of talking abstractions. But in spite of these vain foreign phantoms, the body of the poem is national, and true to life. The old language reappears in part; the old metre altogether; no more rhymes, but barbarous alliterations; no more jesting, but a harsh gravity, a sustained invective, a grand and sombre imagination, heavy Latin texts, hammered down as by a Protestant hand. Piers Ploughman went to sleep on the Malvern hills, and there had a wonderful dream:

"Thanne gan I meten-a merveillous swevene,

That I was in a wildernesse-wiste I nevere where;
And as I biheeld into the eest,-an heigh to the sonne,

I seigh a tour on a toft,-trieliche y-maked,

A deep dale bynethe-a dongeon thereinne

With depe diches and derke-and dredfulle of sighte.

A fair feeld ful of folk-fond I ther bitwene,

Of alle manere of men,-the meene and the riche,
Werchynge and wandrynge-as the world asketh.
Some putten hem to the plough,-pleiden ful selde,
In settynge and sowynge-swonken ful harde,

And wonnen that wastours-with glotonye dystruyeth."

A gloomy picture of the world, like the frightful dreams which occur so often in Albert Durer and Luther. The first reformers were persuaded that the earth was given over to evil; that the devil had in it his empire and his officers; that Antichrist, seated on the throne of Rome, spread out ecclesiastical pomps to seduce souls, and cast them into the fire of hell. So here Antichrist, with raised banner, enters a convent; bells are rung; monks in solemn procession go to meet him,

1 About 1362.

Piers Ploughman's Vision and Creed, ed. T. Wright, 1856, i. p 2, v. 21–44.

CHAP. II.]

THE NORMANS.

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and receive with congratulations their lord and father. With seven great giants, the seven deadly sins, he besieges Conscience; and the assault is led by Idleness, who brings with her an army of more than a thousand prelates: for vices reign, more hateful from being in holy places, and employed in the church of God in the devil's service:

'Ac now is Religion a rydere-a romere aboute,

A ledere of love-dayes-and a lond-buggere,

A prikere on a palfrey-fro manere to manere. . . .

And but if his knave knele-that shal his coppe brynge,

He loureth on hym, and asketh hym-who taughte hym curteisie."

But this sacrilegious show has its day, and God puts His hand on men in order to warn them. By order of Conscience, Nature sends up a host of plagues and diseases:

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• Kynde Conscience tho herde,-and cam out of the planetes,

And sente forth his forreyours-feveres and fluxes,
Coughes and cardiacles,-crampes and tooth-aches,
Reumes and radegundes,-and roynous scabbes,
Biles and bocches,-and brennynge agues,

...

Frenesies and foule yveles,-forageres of kynde. . . .
There was "Harrow! and Help!-Here cometh Kynde!
With Deeth that is dredful-to undo us alle!"
The lord that lyved after lust-tho aloud cryde.
Deeth cam dryvynge after,—and al to duste passhed
Kynges and knyghtes,-kaysers and popes,

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Manye a lovely lady-and lemmans of knyghtes,

Swowned and swelted for sorwe of hise dyntes. '3

Here is a crowd of miseries, like those which Milton has described in his vision of human life; tragic pictures and emotions, such as the reformers delight to dwell upon. There is a like speech delivered by John Knox, before the fair ladies of Mary Stuart, which tears the veil from the human corpse just as brutally, in order to exhibit its shame. The conception of the world, proper to the people of the north, all sad and moral, shows itself already. They are never comfortable in their country; they have to strive continually against cold or rain. They cannot live there carelessly, lying under a lovely sky, in a sultry and clear atmosphere, their eyes filled with the noble beauty and happy serenity of the land. They must work to live; be attentive, exact, close and repair their houses, wade boldly through the mud behind their plough, light their lamps in the shops during the day. Their climate imposes endless inconvenience, and exacts endless endurance. Hence arise melancholy and the idea of duty. Man naturally thinks of life as of a battle, oftener of black death which closes this

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1 The Archdeacon of Richmond, on his tour in 1216, came to the priory of Bridlington with ninety-seven horses, twenty-one dogs, and three falcons.

Piers Ploughman's Vision, i. p. 191, v. 6217-6228.

3 Ibid. ii. Last book, p. 430, v. 14084-14135.

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