PEASANT REVOLTS 145 



door to door which have kept honest houses. ... So 

 many mighty Nimrods in England that hunt for pos- 

 sessions and lordships that poor men are daily hunted 

 out of their livings. There is no covert or den can 

 keep them safe. They have such quick -smelling 

 hounds they can lie in London and turn men out of 

 their farms and tenements an hundred, some two 

 hundred miles off. When wicked Ahab hunted after 

 Naboth's vineyard he could not, though he were a 

 king, obtain that prey till cursed Jezebel took the 

 matter in hand, so hard a thing it was then to wring a 

 man from his father's inheritance which now a mean 

 man will take in hand." 



It is further necessary in an account of the peasants 

 of England to dwell on these proceedings because so 

 many writers have treated these peasant revolts as 

 though they arose from political causes. But if the 

 events which took place prior to the risings are ex- 

 amined, it will be found that agrarian grievances were 

 the chief cause of them all, though increased political 

 liberties were sometimes among- the results. 



The rebellions of the year 1549 were of this order. 

 The Duke of Somerset, Protector of the young king 

 Edward VI, took a serious view of the public danger 

 likely to accrue from these continual encroachments on 

 the rights of the peasantry, and was well known to 

 have practical sympathy with the despoiled husband- 

 men. 



In any account of the peasantry of England the 

 Duke of Somerset should have an honourable place. 

 During different reigns many were found, of all de- 

 grees, to protest against the evil practices referred to, 

 but the Protector, in an unprecedented manner, pitted 

 his great power, as the virtual ruler of the country, 



