RURAL ENGLAND IN THE PAST 25 



thus in the complaint of Piers Plowman in the 

 fourteenth century : " I have no penny, pullets for 

 to buy nor neither geese nor pigs, but two green 

 cheeses, a few curds and cream, and an oaten cake, 

 and two loaves of beans and bran baken for my 

 children. I have no salt bacon nor no cooked 

 meat, collops for to make, but I have parsley and 

 leeks and many cabbage plants and eke a cow and 

 a calf, and a cart-mare to draw afield my dung 

 while the drought lasteth, and by this livelihood 

 we must all live till Lammas-tide, and by that I 

 hope to have harvest in my croft." 



The labourer did not even avail himself of the 

 opportunities to better his condition that he might, 

 for even the simple gardening that could provide 

 beans and leeks and cabbage plants became a lost 

 art. In the reign of Henry VIII. it is recorded 

 that, because such dainties were not to be pro- 

 cured within the kingdom, the queen's table had 

 to be supplied with ordinary vegetables and " sal- 

 lets " brought over from the Low Countries. The 

 skippers of Dutch sloops and pinks were only too 

 glad to deliver the cargoes of onions and cabbages 

 at Hull, which sold for fabulous prices six cab- 

 bages and a few carrots are stated to have been 

 purchased there at a cost equal to twenty shillings 

 of our current coin for a nobleman's table yet 

 these the English peasant was too wretched or too 

 ignorant to cultivate even for profit. 



But in course of years the hardships gradually 

 grew less, revolts and revolutions worked out their 

 good and ill, the times became more prosperous. 

 In the reign of Elizabeth a wondrous change came 



