334 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



ments, beginning with the reign of Henry VII. ; that 

 is to say, immediately after the Wars of the Koses, 

 when some degree of order and security was restored. 

 The feudal system, suitable enough for warlike times, 

 was at that period found to be incompatible with a state 

 of peace. No sooner did the English nobility desire to 

 have fewer armed men and more revenues, than they 

 acted at the end of the fifteenth century exactly as 

 the Scotch nobility did two hundred years later ; they 

 reduced, as much as possible, the number of their re- 

 tainers, and replaced them by sheep. During the whole 

 of the succeeding century, this systematic depopulation 

 continued, and especially after the expulsion of the 

 monastic orders, which produced that multitude of vaga- 

 bonds who infested the rural districts, and caused the 

 establishment of the famous poor-rate. It was only 

 towards the end of Elizabeth's reign that ideas on this 

 subject began to change; because, owing to the increase 

 of the industrial and commercial population, it became 

 necessary to provide more corn for food ; and the English 

 nobility had not the same excuse as those of the High- 

 lands at a later period, because the country which they 

 depopulated was infinitely more susceptible of cultiva- 

 tion. 



Even Walter Scott, the Bard of the Clans, when, leav- 

 ing fiction, he turned historian, forcibly recognises the 

 necessity for their dispersion. In his History of Scot- 

 land he says, " The view which we cast upon the system 

 of clanship, as it existed in the time of the last genera- 

 tion, is like looking upon a Highland prospect, enlivened 

 by the tints of a beautiful summer evening. On such 

 an occasion, the distant hills, lakes, woods, and preci- 

 pices, are touched .by the brilliancy of the atmosphere 



