74 ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



doubtedly it was a time of much disorder, whilst in 

 addition there were many plagues, more virulent cer- 

 tainly in the town than the country, and also several 

 years of famine, which may have been local rather than 

 national. It is difficult to reconcile these apparent 

 inconsistencies : the fact seems to be that the nation, 

 owing to the spread of trade, was getting rapidly richer, 

 and the country people, as a whole, benefited accord- 

 ingly. But at the same time this growth of prosperity 

 was checked by the disorders. These disorders were 

 widespread : it was not only that the Wars of the 

 Roses went on intermittently, but many of the great 

 nobles and large landowners carried on their private 

 quarrels by force of arms. The lawlessness of the 

 period had one interesting indirect effect: it gave a 

 special opening to those of the young men of the 

 villages who wished to free themselves from bondage 

 and secure an adventurous life. Such men, like the 

 ' commended ' men of the Xlth century, attached them- 

 selves to a superior, and taking the 'livery' of some 

 great baron, some abbot or knight, secured * main- 

 tenance.' They were then of the retinue of their new 

 lord and were responsible to him alone ; in return they 

 fought for him in case of need. When, later on, these 

 retinues were broken up by the Tudors, a large number 

 of these men lost their employment and were thrust 

 down into the poverty-stricken class. 



The peasants also fought in their own quarrels. The 

 Lollards appear to have fanned the flame which caused 

 turmoils early in the century, and there was in 1431 a 

 mob of peasants who combined under the leadership of 

 a certain Jack Straw but the principal peasant rising of 

 the XVth century took place under Jack Cade in 1450. 

 In this year the Kentish men, who were Cade's principal 



