PEASANT REVOLTS 159 



generally received by the neere inhabitants who sent 

 them not only many carts with victuall but also good 

 store of spades and shovells for speedy performance 

 of their enterprise." ^ 



They had heard of the large number of townships 

 and villages which had been depopulated and had 

 decayed, and their declared object was " the preven- 

 tion of further depopulation, the increase and con- 

 tinuance of tillage to relieve their wives and families. 

 . . . Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice, with other 

 learned judges and discrete justices, was sent to do 

 justice on the levellers. . . . Some of these were exe- 

 cuted for high treason in opposing themselves against 

 the King's forces." 



No apology is needed for dwelling at some length 

 on these peasant revolts, because it is only by a study 

 of them that the origin and growth of the present 

 English land system can be understood. Apologists 

 for that system, and a certain order of economists, 

 preach the specious and — to them — the satisfying 

 doctrine that the disappearance of the great peasant 

 and yeoman classes in England was caused by the 

 action of economic laws. But the history of the peas- 

 ant revolts shows the untenable character, the utter 

 absurdity, of any such doctrine as that. 



It is stated that the revolts during the year 1549, 

 which extended almost all over the country, " involved 

 the destruction of 10,000 brave Englishmen by the 

 arms of foreigners." This was but am instalment of 

 the cost of building up our present land system. The 

 account is still open. The state of agriculture and 

 the social condition of masses of the people of England 



* Stow's " Chronicles," p. 890. 



