V.ViiUAXT. 



VACUA NT. 







. should be not in the stocks three days aud three nigbU, and 

 umiv uther wwUTiance but bread and water, and then should be 

 pat out of the town ; and that whosoever should give such i<lh- 

 person* more should forfeit 12 pence; and that every beggar not able 

 to v.,. r J, .-hoiiM resort to the hundred where he last dwelt, wai bent 

 kn mi. <>r was born, and there remain, upon the pain aforesaid." 

 1 1 1 I'M. VII., c. ) This vague enactment was followed by the 

 more definite provisions of the stat 19 H.n. \ II., c. 1'J, which 

 declared that impotent beggars should go to and abide in the city, town, 

 or hundred where they were born, or else the place where they had 

 made their last abode for three years ; and thia rule of settlement was 

 adopted in the statutes subsequently passed against vagrancy in the 

 reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. (Nolan's 

 Poor Law,' chap, xv.) By stat. 22 Hen. VIII., c. 12, the justices of 

 the peace in every county were empowered to grant licences under seal 

 to " poor, aged, and impotent persons," to beg within a certain precinct ; 

 and persons begging without licence or out of their precinct* were to 

 be whipped or set in the stocks for three days and three nights, with 

 bread and water only. Thia provision applied to impotent vagrants. 

 On the other hand it was provided that if any person, " being whole 

 and mighty in body," and able to labour, should be found begging or 

 vagrant, he should be taken before a magistrate, who might direct him 

 to be whipped out of the place at the end of a cart, " till his body was 

 bloody," and should then be sworn to return to the place where he was 

 born, or last dwelt by the space of three years, and there to put him- 

 self to labour as a true man ought to do. He was to be provided with 

 a certificate of his punishment, stating the place to which he was going 

 and the time allotted for his journey ; and during that time he might 

 beg by the way. Another law passed against beggars and vagabonds 

 was the 27 Hen. VIII., c. 25, which, though severe in its terms against 

 such persons, approached more nearly to just principles than previous 

 enactments on the same subject, inasmuch as it provided a legal mode 

 of supporting the poor, and thus took away the common apology for 

 vagrancy. This law directed the governors of shires, cities, towns, 

 hamlets, and parishes, to find and keep every aged, poor, and impotent 

 person, by way of voluntary and charitable alms, with such convenient 

 alms, that none of them should be compelled to go openly in begging : 

 children under fourteen years of age and above five, taken, begging, 

 were to be put to work : " a valiant beggar or sturdy vagabond was 

 to be, for the first offence, whipped and sent to his place of settlement ; 

 and if he continued his roguish life, to have the upper part of the 

 gristle of his right ear cut off; and if after that he was taken wondering 

 in idleness, or did not apply to his labour, or was not in service with 

 any master, he was to be indicted and tried as a felon, and if found 

 guilty, to suffer death. 



Notwithstanding the above laws, vagrancy appears to have greatly 

 increased at the commencement of the reign of Edward VI., of which 

 effect the abolition of monasteries was one main cause. Previously to 

 the Reformation churches were bound by law, both civil (stat. 15 

 Rich. II., c. 6) and ecclesiastical, to contribute a portion of their 

 income to the living atd sustenance of the poor, and the gates of 

 the religious houses were thronged by beggars, who daily received a 

 donation of food, and sometimes of money. This practice contributed 

 no doubt to increase the number of idle beggars, who, upon the with- 

 drawal of their accustomed means of support by the dissolution of 

 the monasteries, became vagrants. To remove the pressure of the 

 evil thus occasioned, an enactment of unexampled severity was devised. 

 The stat 142 Edw. VI., c. 3, after reciting that " the multitude of 

 people given to vagabondrie and idleness had always been within thin 

 realm very great, and more in number than in other regions," and that 

 the laws of preceding reigns had been found ineffectual, repealed all 

 statutes previously made for the punishment of vagabonds and sturdy 

 beggars.. It then enacted that all able-bodied persons, without property 

 sufficient for their support, who should, " either like sen-ing men 

 wanting masters, or like beggars, or after any other such sort, be 

 lurking in any house, or loitering or idle -wandering by the highway's 

 Hide," or who in towns should not apply themselves to any servile or 

 art, and should so continue for three days without offering to labour 

 for meat and drink (if no man otherwise will take them) ; or who, 

 having been taken to service, should leave their work or run away, 

 abould be taken to be vagabond* ; and that it should bo lawful for 

 any person having offered or given work to any such idle person, and 

 for any other person espying the same, to bring such idle person before 

 two justices, who shnuld immediately cause him to be marked with a 

 hot iron on the breast with the letter V, and adjudge him to such pre- 

 senter " to be AM slare ; to hare and to hold the taid ilarr unto him, hit 

 txtCHtart, or aui<i*i, far tkt tpact oftm year* then next fnUoving, and 

 to order the said slave as followeth (that is to say), to take such slave 

 with him, and only giving him bread and water, or small drink and 

 Mich refuse of meat as he shall think meet, cause him to work by beat- 

 ing, chaining, or otherwise in such work and labour (how vile soever it 

 be) as he shall put him unto." The statute also provides that an action 

 of trespass may be maintained for a runaway slave, and that the run- 

 away himself shall, upon his apprehension, be adjudged by two justices 

 to be hi* marter's slave for ever. If he ran away a second time, the 

 slave became a felon, and might be tried and executed as uncli. This 

 singular enactment further declared that a master might " let, set 

 forth, sell, bequeath or give" the service and labour of such slaves, 



upon such condition and for such term of yean as h<- mi-lit 

 any other of his moveable goods or chattels. " Some th 

 Burnet, " this law against vagabonds was too severe, and contrary to 

 that common liberty of which the English nation has always been very 

 sensible. Yet it could not be denied but extreme diseases required 

 extreme remedies; and perhaps there is no punishment too severe 

 for persona that are in health, and yet prefer a loitering course of 

 life to an honest employment." (' History of the Return 

 vol. ii., p. 45.) 



The consequence of the absurd severity of this law was that its pro- 

 visions were not carried into execution; and being found wholly 

 ineffectual, it was repealed by the statute 3 & 4 K.lw. VI., c. 1C. 

 also repealed all former laws upon the same subject excepting the 

 22 Hen. VIII., c. 12. Another statute of the same reign (5 & 6 

 Kdw. VI., c. 2) slightly modified the preceding laws ; but the regula- 

 tion of vagrants and mendicants stood in effect upon the footing of 

 the three last-mentioned statutes until the latter part of the reign of 

 Elizabeth. 



About the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, a description <>f ; XT- 

 sons called roguei first appeared in the general clan of vagrants. The 

 derivation of this word is variously given by etymologists. Home 

 Tooke derives it from a Saxon word signifying " cloaked," or covered. 

 (' Diversions of Purley,' vol. ii.) Webster takes it from another Saxon 

 word, and Dr. Johnson, admits its derivation to be uncertain. Lom- 

 bard says " the word is but a late guest in our law ; fur the ancient 

 statutes call such a one a valiant, strong, or sturdy beggar, or vaga- 

 bond, and it seemeth to be fetched from the Latin ' rogator,' an asker 

 or beggar." (' Eirenarcha,' book iv., chap. 4.) Dolton also says "a 

 rogue may be so called quia ostiatim rogat." (' Country Justice,' 

 chap. 83.) It is believed that the word does not occur in the English 

 language before the middle of the 16th century ; and if so, it is pro- 

 bably one of those numerous cant words by which, at that period, 

 vagrants, in counterfeiting Egyptians or gipsies, began to designate 

 different classes of their own " ungracious rabble," and of which 

 Harrison enumerates twenty-three degrees. (Harrison's 'Dese! : 

 of England,' prefixed to Holinshed's ' Chronicles.') 



In the course of the reign of Elizabeth the evils of vagrancy increased 

 to an alarming extent ; and although the accounts given by historians 

 of the multitude of vagabonds in England are founded upon rude esti- 

 mates, and are probably somewhat exaggerated, there is undoubted 

 evidence that the numbers and attitude of these persons at that period 

 constituted an evil of dangerous magnitude. Strype relates that in 

 1569 circular letters were issued by the privy council to the sheriffs of 

 the different counties, directing them to search for and apprehend " all 

 vagabonds and sturdy beggars, commonly called rogue* or Egyptian* ; " 

 and he says that on the search through the nation 13,000 " masterleeB 

 men " were taken up. (Strype's ' Annals,' vol. i., part 2, pp. 295, 296, 

 654.) Harrison, who wrote towards the eud of Elizabeth's reign, states 

 that the number of vagrants in England in his time amounted to above 

 10,000 (' Description of England ) ; and Strype publishes a paper, 

 written, in 1596, by a justice of the peace of Somersetshire, which 

 affirms that there were 300 or 400 wandering idle people in every 

 county, who met at fairs and markets for purposes of theft and rapine, 

 and who sometimes assembled in troops to the number of 60, and com- 

 pletely overawed the magistrates and constables by their audacious 

 threats. (Strype's ' Annals,' voL iv., p. 405.) The recorder of I. , 

 in a letter to Lord Burleigh, written in 1581 (Ellis's ' Letters,* voL ii., 

 p. 283), gives a remarkable account of the prevalence of vagrants in the 

 metropolis at that period. He says, that being informed that the 

 queen, " in taking of the air in her coach at Islington, hod been 

 environed with rogues," he went abroad himself and took seventy-four 

 rogues, " whereof some were blind, and yet great usurers and very 

 rich." A day or two afterwards he says that, in consequence of war- 

 rants issued by him, he received " a shoal of forty rogues, men and 

 women, from Southwark, Lambeth, and Newington," and after bestow- 

 ing them in Bridewell, he " perused " St. Paul's, and took about twenty 

 " cloaked rogues that there used to keep standing." Notwithstanding 

 this zeal and activity, vagrants still increased in the metropolis, both 

 in numbers and audacity ; and the efforts of the ordinary magistrates 

 having failed to prevent the frequent and dangerous disorders and 

 tumults occasioned by offenders of this description, they were, in 1595, 

 placed under martial law. The instrument appointing a provost- 

 marshal for this purpose authorises that officer " to repair with a con- 

 venient company to all common highways near to the city of London, 

 where he should understand that any vagrant persons did haunt ; and 

 calling to his assistance some convenient number of justices and con- 

 stables, to apprehend all such vagrant and suspected persons, ami 

 deliver them to the said justices, to be by them committed :.n,l 

 examined of the causes of their wandering." It then directs him that 

 " if such persons should be found notoriously culpable in the unlawful 

 manner of life, as incorrigible, and should be so certified to him by the 

 justices, he should by law-martial cause some of them to be executed 

 upon the gallows or gibbet." (Rymer's ' Fcedera,' vol. xvi., p. 279.) 



The means of suppressing or diminishing vagrancy and mendicancy 

 were constant subjects of discussion in the parliaments of Elizabeth. 

 With this view, extraordinary means of relief were devised. Voluntary 

 subscriptions of sums of money, varying in amount according to the 

 rank and supposed ability of the contributors, were made in both 



