86 THE REIGN OF ELIZABETH 



of land, and that now, in 1669, there were three Barons, four 

 Baronets, and twenty calling themselves Esquires who had bought 

 estates with money made in trade. Similar is the evidence of the 

 compiler of Angliae Notitia x (1669). " The English," he says, 

 " especially the Gentry are so much given to Prodigality and Sloth- 

 fulness that Estates are oftner spent and sold than in any other 

 Countrey . . . whereby it comes to passe that Cooks, Vintners, 

 Innkeepers, and such mean Fellows, enrich themselves and begger 

 and insult over the Gentry . . . not only those but Taylors, Dancing 

 Masters and such Trifling Fellows arrive to that Riches and Pride, 

 as to ride in their Coaches, keep their Summer Houses, to be served 

 in Plate, etc. an insolence insupportable in other well-go vern'd 

 Nations." 



Another class, that of labourers, suffered from the dearness of 

 agricultural produce, because their wages were fixed by law, and 

 only by slow degrees followed the upward tendency of prices. In 

 some respects the worst evils of the period 1485-1558 were passing 

 away, or were modified by the expansion of trade. Enclosures 



still continued. Acts of Parliament 2 were still passed against the 

 decaying of towns and against the substitution of pasture for 

 tillage, and one of the most vehement of protests against enclosures, 



was made by Francis Trigge, 3 in 1604. But land was now more 

 frequently enclosed for arable farming, and there was consequently 

 less displacement of labour. The great extension of gardens 

 attached to country houses provided new occupations. Industries 

 like spinning, 'weaving, and rope-making, which were previously 

 confined to particular towns by the craft-organisations of guilds, 

 spread into rural districts, and employed villagers in supplying not 

 merely their domestic wants but the needs of manufacturers. 

 Agriculturally, a change was taking place in the labourer's condi- 

 tion. For the cultivation of the soil, farmers, except in the North 

 and East, looked less to servants in husbandry and more to the day- 

 labourers, whose wages assumed a new importance in the assess- 

 ments of the Justices of the Peace. As the prices of agricultural 

 produce rose, and as, here and there, the improvement of roads 

 brought new markets within the reach of farmers, it was cheaper 



1 In the 1692 edition of Angliae Notitia the words "Prodigality, Sports, 

 and Pastimes " are substituted for " Prodigality and Slothfulness." 



2 1562-3, 5 Eliz. c. 2 ; 1597-8, 39 Eliz. cc. 1 and 2 ; 1601, 43 Eliz. c. 9. 



3 The Humble Petition of Two Sisters : the Church and Common-wealth. 



