ly the farms and cottages within the same
circuits, but also the towns and villages adjoining." A herdsman and
his wife took the place of eighteen to twenty-four farm hands. The
people thus set wandering could only join the wanderers from the
decaying towns. At the same time the economic difficulty was
aggravated by a new patrician or commercial greed; and once more the
land question--the absorption of property into a few hands instead of
its free exchange--led to lasting social demoralization. A few years
after the alienation of the monasteries the coinage (1543) was
debased. By this means prices were arbitrarily raised, and wages were
increased nominally; but nevertheless the price of necessaries was "so
enhanced" that neither "the poor labourers can live with their wages
that is limited by your grace's laws, nor the artificers can make,
much less sell, their wares at any reasonable price" (Lamond, _The
Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. xlvii). No social
reformation, such as the charitable instincts of Wycliffe, More,
Hales, Latimer and other men suggested, was attempted, or at least
persistently carried out. In towns the organization of labour had
become restrictive, exclusive and inadaptable, or, judged from the
moral standpoint, uncharitable. There had been a time of plenty and
extravagance, of which in high quarters the famous "field of the cloth
of gold" was typical; and probably, in accordance with the frequently
observed law of social economics, as the advance in wages and their
purchasing power in the earlier part of the 15th century had not been
accompanied by a simultaneous advance in self-discipline and
intelligent expenditure, it resulted in part in lessened competence
and industrial ability on the part of the workmen, and thus in the end
produced pauperism.

The poverty of the country was very great in the reigns of Edward VI.
and Elizabeth. Adversity then taught the people new manners, and
households became more simple and thrifty. In the reign of James I.,
with enforced economy and thrift, a "slow but substantial improvement in
agriculture" took place, and a new growth of commercial enterprise. The
vigour of the municipalities had abated, so that in Henry VIII.'s time
they had become the very humble servants of the government; and the
government, on the other hand, had become strongly centralized--in
itself a sign of the general withdrawal of