PROSPERITY OF YEOMEN 83 



lessees for lives and copyholders, Harrison says that they " com- 

 monlie live wealthilie, keepe good houses, and travell to get riches." l 

 Their houses were furnished with " costlie fumiture," and they had 

 " learned also to garnish their cupbords with plate, their joined 

 beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and their tables with carpets 

 and fire naperie." Though rents had risen and were still rising, 

 " yet will the farmer thinke his gaines verie small toward the end 

 of his terme if he have not six or seven yeares rent lieing by him, 

 therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire garnish of pewter 

 on his cupbord, three or foure featherbeds, so manie coverlids and 

 carpets of tapistrie, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen of 

 spoones to furnish up the sute." Old men noted these changes in 

 luxurious habits " the multitude of chimnies latelie erected," " the 

 great amendment of lodging," and " the exchange of vessel as of 

 treene platters into pewter and wodden spoones into silver or tin." 

 Writing of the Cheshire yeomen in 1621, William Webb says : 2 

 " In building and furniture of their houses, till of late years, they 

 used the old manner of the Saxons ; for they had then* fire in the 

 midst of the house against a hob of clay, and their oxen also under 

 the same roof ; but within these forty years it is altogether altered, 

 so that they have built chimnies, and furnished other parts of their 

 houses accordingly. . . . Touching their housekeeping it is 

 bountiful and comparable with any shire in the realm. And that 

 is to be seen at their weddings and burials, but chiefly at their 

 wakes, which they yearly hold ... for this is to be understood 

 that they lay out seldom any money for any provision but have 

 it of their own, as beef, mutton, veal, pork, capons, hens, wild fowl, 

 and fish. They bake their own bread and brew their own drink. 

 To conclude, I know divers men, who are but farmers, that in their 

 housekeeping may compare with a lord or a baron in some countries 

 beyond the seas. Yea, although I named a higher degree, I were 

 able to justify it." In the Isle of Wight, Sir John Oglander 3 com- 

 pares the state of the country at the close of Elizabeth's reign with 

 that at the outbreak of the Civil War. At the former period he 

 says that " Money wase as plentiful in yeomens purses as no we 

 in ye beste of ye genterye, and all ye genterye full of monyes and 

 owt of debt." 



1 Description, bk. ii. ch. v. 



2 Quoted in King's Vale Royal (1778), vol. i. pp. 30, 31. 

 8 Oglander Memoirs (1595-1648), p. 55. 



