STORY OF THE ENGLISH LAND 25 



success of this conspiracy, one of the most 

 efficient engines of human oppression that 

 the world has seen, has left its mark only too 

 clearly on the English village of to-day. It 

 apparently transformed the whole character 

 of our countrymen. In earlier days of English 

 history the yeoman and the peasant, the men 

 who fought at Agincourt and Crecy, who 

 struggled desperately under Kett and Tyler, 

 were described by Froissart as " le plus 

 perilleux peuple qui soit au monde et plus 

 outrageux et orgueilleux." But in the later 

 centuries the glory of courage had, indeed, 

 departed from the English countryside. The 

 villagers were utterly cowed, fit ancestors of 

 the men who were described by a Prime 

 Minister of our own day as " afraid to call their 

 souls their own." Advantages once gained 

 were jealously preserved. By one enactment 

 after another the villager was robbed of his 

 Common rights, cheated of his wages, tied to 

 the soil, denied all education and deprived of 

 all hope. The harsh Act of Elizabeth's reign 

 which enabled Justices to fix the maximum 

 price of agricultural labour was tolerated by 

 a submissive people until 1812. The Law of 

 Parochial Settlement in 1662, which sought 

 to prevent the movement of the labourer 

 from parish to parish, fastened the chains of 



