24 PROBLEMS OF VILLAGE LIFE 



a champion of the despoiled peasants emerge 

 from the ranks of the greater aristocracy 

 in the person of the Duke of Somerset, the 

 " Protector " of young King Edward VI., 

 and his sympathy, with the oppressed subjects 

 of the king was undoubtedly his undoing. 

 One of the comments in the indictment which 

 brought him to the block was this : " You 

 said that the Lords of Parliament were loth 

 to incline themselves to reformation of in- 

 closures and other things ; therefore the 

 people had good cause to reform the things 

 themselves." No writer of the period says 

 a good word for the brave peasants who 

 fought desperately with rude and inferior 

 weapons against the foreign mercenaries 

 whom the ruling classes imported for the 

 slaughter of their own countrymen. 



The peasant rising had ended in failure, but 

 the times of stress and terror were not easily 

 forgotten by the classes whose authority had 

 been assailed. The general policy of these 

 classes from the sixteenth to the eighteenth 

 century appears to have been one of distrust 

 and hostility towards the rural population. 

 The Law, the Church, and social influences 

 seemed to combine in order to crush out every 

 spark of independence and every hope of 

 advancement amongst our peasants. The 



