and, convenient and necessary for maintaining and upholding
the said tillage and husbandry. On their default, the king, or the other
lord of the fee, shall receive half of the profits, and apply the same
in repairing the houses; but shall not gain the freehold thereby."

This act was preceded by one with reference to the Isle of Wight, 4
Henry VII., cap. 16, passed the same session, which recites that it is
so near France that it is desirable to keep it in a state of defence. It
provides that no person shall have more than one farm, and enacts:

"For remedy, it is ordered and enacted that no manner of person, of what
estate, degree, or condition soever, shall take any farm more than one,
whereof the yearly rent shall not exceed ten marks; and if any several
leases afore this time have been made to any person or persons of divers
and sundry farmholds whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum,
then the said person or persons shall choose one farm, hold at his
pleasure, and the remnant of the leases shall be void."

Mr. Froude remarks (History, p. 26), "An act, tyrannical in form, was
singularly justified by its consequences. The farm-houses were rebuilt,
the land reploughed, the island repeopled; and in 1546, when the French
army of 60,000 men attempted to effect a landing at St. Helens,
they were defeated and driven back by the militia, and a few levies
transported from Hampshire and the surrounding counties."

Lord Bacon, in his "History of the Reign of Henry VII., says:

"Enclosures, at that time, began to be more frequent, whereby arable
land (which could not be manured without people and families) was turned
into pasture, which was easily rid by a few herdsmen; and tenancies for
years, lives, and at will (whereupon much of the yeomanry lived) were
turned into demesnes. This bred a decay of people and (by consequence) a
decay of towns, churches, tithes, and the like. The king, likewise, knew
full well, and in nowise forgot, that there ensued withal upon this a
decay and diminution of subsidies and taxes; for the more gentlemen,
ever the lower books of subsidies. In remedying of this inconvenience,
the king's wisdom was admirable, and the parliaments at that time.
Enclosures they would not forbid, for that had been to forbid the
improvement of the patrimony of the kingdom; nor tillage they would not
compel, for that was to strive with nature and utility; but they took a
course to take away depopulating enclosur