3^2 Histo7'y of the English Landed Interest.'- 



were almost entirely defrayed by the landowning class. Estates 

 were mortgaged up to the hilt, and many of their tenantry, 

 let alone their owners, were mined. Confiscated lands fell into 

 the possession of needy Parliamentarians, only to revert back at 

 the Restoration to the needier hands of their original owners. 

 In fact, if rents had not doubled themselves between 1600 and 

 1699,^ it is a question if there would not have been a far greater 

 sprinkling of the English squirearchy not only at the American 

 plantations, but even in the cutpurse profession of the English 

 highwaj'-s. 



No wonder, then, that the Tudor and Stuart days were 

 specially marked by the prevalence of crime. All that can be 

 said for the latter period is that it was not so bad as the former. 

 72,000 thieves and rogues, besides other malefactors, were 

 hanged during the reign of Henry VIII.^ at the rate of 2,000 

 per annum, and though in Elizabeth's reign this item drops 

 to three or four hundred, it is ten times as much as the annual 

 cases of capital punishment a century later. 



The large inroad of gipsies, which began in the reign of 

 Henry VHI., and by the end of the sixteenth century had in- 

 creased the total of this nomadic community to over 10,000 

 souls, may have had something to do with these heavy criminal 

 statistics. That these people were specially addicted to every 

 kind of misdemeanour may be inferred from Harrison's sug- 

 gestion that their extirpation can only be brought about by 

 the enforcement against them of martial law.^ 



The subject leads us by easy stages to that of Local Jurisdic- 

 tion with its Justices of Assize, its Courts Leets and Baron, 

 and its County Magistrates, institutions which had so much to 

 do with the detection, prevention and suppression of crime. 



The first named had replaced the Justices in Eyre instituted 

 in the reign of King Henry II. In the time of Edward III. the 

 counties had been divided into circuits, and two of the king's 

 justices had been appointed to travel these divisions twice 

 a year for the trial of prisoners and gaol delivery. Having 



* Davenant. 



2 Harrison, DcHcriptlon of England, bk. ii., ch. 11. 



3 Id., Ibid... bk. ii., ch. 10. 



