30 



Brougldon Gifford. 



clothing. The home market was the only market. Landlords and 

 farmers were content to raise corn, because it paid as well or better 

 than anything else. The government was content, because the 

 people were employed and fed. The opening of new markets for 

 wool, both at home and in Flanders, by the developement given to 

 the clothing trade at the commencement of the 16th century, 

 brought about a great change in the management of the land. 

 Landlords found that, English wool being up, it was much more 

 profitable to breed sheep than to grow corn. Accordingly they 

 turned their arable into pasture, they enclosed the commons (which 

 were generally arable), threw several small farms into one, and 

 became large flock-masters. This, like all other industrial changes, 

 operated to the peculiar disadvantage of those who were lowest 

 down in the particular department of labour affected, and who 

 could not turn to other pursuits even had any been offered to 

 them. The landlord was founding a house and a fortune, the 

 labourer was losing all. The instincts of nature and the claims of 

 affection alike impelled him to rise. He joined 1536 the "Pilgri- 

 mage of grace," or 1549 the Devonshire and Norfolk insurrections* 

 and, being led by those who had ecclesiastical grievances to redress, 

 whatever they thought of the agricultural, well nigh turned back 

 the tide of the Reformed religion in this country. The Tudor 

 sovereigns, and Parliament at their instance, did all they could to 

 help the labourer. Many statutes, prosecutions in the courts, and 

 Star Chamber fines, 1 endeavoured to restrain the proceedings of the 

 landlords in turning arable into pasture, and thereby throwing men 

 out of work. But self interest was too strong for legislation, 

 especially with landlords for legislators and magistrates. Enclos- 

 ing and grazing went on, to the great suffering of the people for 

 the time. I cannot forbear copying, from Froude's History, a very 

 graphic description of grievances, embodied in a petition to Henry 

 YIIL, from a discontented district, which might well have been 



1 Sir Anthony Cooper was fined by the Star Chamber no less a sum than 

 £4000, for converting arable into pasture, in Charles the First's time. But 

 this excessive punishment may have been partly from political motives, partly 

 to fill an empty exchequer. 



