150 LAND REFORM 



rich inclosers as well as of the poor sufferers — in the 

 hope that the rich violaters of the law would amend." 

 (Strype.) He also introduced three Bills in Parlia- 

 ment to remedy the evils by curtailing the powers of 

 the landlords. On their rejection Hales bitterly com- 

 plained " that the sheep were entrusted to the care of 

 the wolf." 



The appointment and report of the Commission 

 gave great hope and joy to the rural population, but 

 when they found that no results followed, disturbances 

 broke out among them, and the great peasant re- 

 bellion, led by Robert Kett, a yeoman as well as a 

 tanner, immediately followed.^ 



Froude, taking a sentimental and an artificial view, 

 describes the advantages connected with the existence 

 of an exclusive system of landownership," and is not 

 likely, therefore, to be unjustly severe on the landlord 

 class. But he recites the state of things which existed 

 after the failure of the Commission and on the eve of 

 Kett's rebellion with a severity that can hardly be 

 increased, and in language that cannot be improved 

 upon. 



"There was," he writes, "a gathering of people for 

 an annual festival at Wymondham, in Norfolk (where 

 Kett lived). The crowd was large, and the men who 

 were there brought together found themselves pos- 

 sessed of one general feelins: — a feelinof of burninof 

 indio^nation at the un-Eno^lish conduct of the orentle- 

 men. The peasant whose pigs and cow and poultry 

 had been sold, or had died because the commons were 



^ Although Robert Kett was a tanner, he held three manors in Norfolk, 

 and, being a man of good speech and taking manner, he was readily 

 accepted by the people as a leader. (" Kennett's History.") 



' " Short Studies on Great Subjects," 3rd series, by J. A. Froude. 

 Longmans, 1879. 



