of the farmers' class left the mass of the people in a far
worse state at the close than at the commencement of their rule.

VII. THE STUARTS.

The accession of the Stuarts to the throne of England took place under
peculiar circumstances. The nation had just passed through two very
serious struggles--one political, the other religious. The land which
had been in the possession of religious communities, instead of being
retained by the state for educational or religious purposes, had been
given to favorites. A new class of ownership had been created--the lay
impropriators of tithes. The suppression of retainers converted land
into a quasi property. The extension to land of the powers of bequest
gave the possessors greater facilities for disposing thereof. It
was relieved from the principal feudal burden, military service, but
remained essentially feudal as far as tenure was concerned. Men were no
longer furnished to the state as payment of the knight's fee; they were
cleared off the land, to make room for sheep and oxen, England being
in that respect about two hundred years in advance of Ireland, though
without the outlet of emigration. Vagrancy and its attendant evils led
to the Poor Law.

James I. and his ministers tried to grapple with the altered
circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or
money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected
by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of
twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class
burdened with knight's service, or payments in lieu thereof, comprised
160 temporal and 26 spiritual lords, 800 barons, 600 knights, and 3000
esquires. The knight's fee was subject to aids, which were paid to the
Crown upon the marriage of the king's son or daughter. Upon the death
of the possessor, the Crown received primer-seizen a year's rent. If the
successor was an infant, the Crown under the name of Wardship, took the
rents of the estates. If the ward was a female, a fine was levied if she
did not accept the husband chosen by the Crown. Fines on alienation
were also levied, and the estates, though sold, became escheated, and
reverted to the Crown upon the failure of issue. These various fines
kept alive the principle that the lands belonged to the Crown as
representative of the nation; but, as they varied in amount, James I.
proposed to compound with the tenants-in-fee, and to conv