UNDER THE TUDORS 115 



Similar measures were taken throughout the country. The 

 sheriffs and justices of the peace were ordered by the Council 

 to see that the Act was duly enforced, and innkeepers had to 

 enter into recognisance to observe it. 



But there is abundant testimony that the observance of the 

 fish-days was evaded on all sides. The policy was against the 

 temper of the people. So long as it had been a matter of re- 

 ligion and ecclesiastical rule they were faithfully observed. 

 The motive was now too remote ; and although the people were 

 exhorted on grounds of " conscience " to eat fish on 153 days 

 in the year in order to maintain the navy, and "great 

 numbers" at first obeyed, the "universal multitude" always 

 abstained, and their example was followed by the better 

 classes. Many considered abstinence from flesh on fish-days 

 to be " papistical " ; others objected on economic grounds, say- 

 ing they could maintain their families better and cheaper on 

 flesh than on fish ; and great numbers took advantage of the 

 clauses in the Act granting license of exemption. The Lord 

 Mayor was pestered by such applications, very commonly from 

 noblemen and persons about the Court, even receiving them 

 from the Queen herself, and in 1595 he begged that the Act 

 might be repealed altogether. 1 Thus " Cecil's fasts," as the 

 unpopular fish -days were vulgarly called, designed by the 

 great statesman to increase the fisheries and strengthen the 

 navy, became the butt of the popular dramatist, and served 

 little purpose except, in the words of Ben Jonson, to " keep a 

 man devoutly hungry all day, and at night to send him 

 supperless to bed." 2 There is little doubt that the policy of 

 the political lent, if it had been feasible, would have succeeded 

 in its object. Edward Jennings at the end of the century 

 calculated that shipping had diminished in the proportion of 

 two to five since the time when fish-days were observed, and 

 that the fisheries were reduced in the proportion of four-fifths 

 in the same period ; while the number of idle persons in Eng- 

 land who had previously engaged in fishing in the sea was 



1 Jeninges, A britfe discouery of the damages that happen to this Realme by dis- 

 ordered and i~nlawfutt diet, 1593. Hitchcock, A brief e note of the benefits that grow 

 to this Realme by the observation of Fish-Date*, Hatfield MSS., 1595. State Papers, 

 Dom., cclxv. 25. Remembrancia, 391 et seq. 



2 Ei-ery Man in His Humour, Act 3, sc. 4. 



