Chapter XI: Social State of England (2)

Before the sixteenth century lords had naturally been expected to provide for the old age of their villeins, whose lives had been spent for their profit. But after villeinage became extinct, private charity was not openhanded enough to maintain the impotent poor, and the Government found it necessary to legislate in their favour. During the sixteenth century, the earliest of the poor-laws were passed. Statutes of Henry VIII. empower the justices of the peace to give licences to impotent persons to beg within certain limits, and also order collections for the relief of the poor to be made in church on Sundays and holidays (22nd, 27th Henry VIII.). In the reign of Elizabeth, laws were passed, rendering these alms compulsory, and appointing in every parish overseers of the poor. These overseers were to consist of the churchwardens, together with three or four householders, to be appointed by the justices of the peace. The justices of the peace were further ordered to build houses of correction in waste places, where the impotent might be maintained, and the strong found idling or out of employ be set to work (5th, 43rd, 49th Eliz.). No means, however, were taken to see that these statutes were put into force; wanderers were branded, but workhouses were not built. “I have heard rogues and vagabonds,” says a pamphlet writer, “curse the magistrates to their faces, for providing such a law to whip and brand them, when no place is provided to set them to work.” These complaints were not ill-founded; and, in 1610, a statute was passed, that justices of the peace who neglected to build houses of correction should be fined £5 each. James I., in alarm at the beggars in London, usurped the legislative power, and issued a proclamation to the effect, that as rogues grew to be dangerous to himself and his court, they were to be banished to Newfoundland, the East and West Indies, Spain, or the Low Countries. Though the poor laws of Elizabeth and James do not forbid the labourer to remove from the place of his birth, they practically prevent migration by classing the man who is without a master, or refuses to work at the wages offered, under the same category as rogues and vagabonds. The Law of Settlement, passed immediately after the Restoration, actually bound the labourers to the soil (1662). It enacted that if any person came to settle in a parish and occupied a tenement under the yearly value of £10, the justices of the peace should have power to remove him back to the parish where he was last settled for the space of forty days. Roger North, writing in 1688, thus described the fatal effects of this pernicious law. “Surely, it is a great imprisonment, if not slavery, to a poor family to be under restraint by law, that they must always live in one place, whether they have friends, kindred, employment, or not. Such persons, if they had spirits, have no encouragement to aspire to a better condition, since being born poor and in a place which gives no means to be otherwise, they are not allowed to go and search it elsewhere; and if they find it, they are not permitted to entertain it. Then their spirits sink, and they fall into a sottish way of living, depend on the parish, who must however wretchedly maintain them.” Two motives prevented the repeal of a law which was thus early allowed by intelligent men to be injurious--the one, the selfish desire of employers of labour to force the labourers to take work at the wages offered; the other, the selfish desire of ratepayers to limit as far as possible the number of poor in their own parish.[168] In the reigns of James and Charles I., a labourer generally received from eightpence to one shilling a day, or from four shillings to six shillings a week, without board. As, however, four shillings then would buy as much as fourteen now, his living was not inferior to that of many agricultural labourers at the present time. So much land, moreover, still remained unenclosed, that he probably possessed a bit of garden-ground attached to his cottage, and fed his cow, or pig, or flock of geese, on the neighbouring common. His ordinary fare was rye-bread, barley-meal, onions, carrots, bacon, and beer. Vegetables common now, were then rarities. Potatoes, first brought from America by Hawkins, Drake, and Raleigh, sold at two shillings a pound. Articles of clothing, candles, salt, sugar, and wheaten bread, were all much dearer than they now are, though meat and beer were much cheaper. The wages of artificers and those engaged in manufactures were also fixed by the justices of the peace; and generally ranged at about one shilling a day. At Kidderminster there were few beggars, the common trade of stuff-weaving providing work for men, women, and children. ‘But none were very wealthy, as the wages only served to provide food and raiment.’[169] Some of the master workmen got one shilling and eightpence a day. There were no large factories, as little machinery had been introduced, but weaving and other manufacturing processes were carried on in the poor people’s homes by hand labour. Though the table of wages of the seventeenth century may not compare unfavourably with that of the nineteenth, in other respects a great improvement has taken place in the material condition of the working classes. In the seventeenth century the ravages of fire, disease, and famine often inflicted a greater amount of suffering than a war would now bring upon the country. Destructive fires took place periodically in most towns, for the houses were all of wood, and there were no appliances at hand with which to quench the flames. Whether the town were wholly or partially destroyed depended principally upon the direction of the wind at the time of the breaking out of the fire. Owing to an utter neglect of the laws of health, villages and towns were subject to the visitation of frightful plagues and diseases, for which no remedies were known. At such times the deaths in London would increase by several thousands a week.[170] Famines were common in England then, for the same reasons as they are now in India. The badness of the roads prevented any rapid communication from one part of the country to another, so that the people in Yorkshire might be near starving from lack of bread, while those in Kent possessed a superfluity of corn. It was customary to travel with a coach and four horses, not from ideas of grandeur or speed, but because otherwise there was no chance of getting through the bogs. Often a coach would be six or eight hours in going a distance of twelve miles. An overset was not the worst danger that might befall the traveller. ♦Highwaymen.♦ He sometimes had to pass through gloomy forests and over far-stretching heaths without seeing a single enclosed field for a distance of forty or even fifty miles, and under these circumstances, it was a lucky chance if he came to his journey’s end without being stopped by a band of highwaymen and robbed of money and goods. At the close of the civil war, many Cavaliers, finding they had ruined themselves in the service of the king, took to the road, and ended their lives on the gallows. Thus, in 1656, a notable highwayman was secured, the chief of a company which had robbed the carrier of York of £1500. “And it is reported,” says the newspaper, “that he and his companions have, in little more than a twelvemonth’s time, robbed to the value of £11,000; [and have taken] so great sums of money at a time, that, instead of telling it, they shared it by the quart pot.”[171]

♦Post-office.♦ Charles was the first to establish a post-office, to carry letters between London, Edinburgh, Chester, Holyhead, and other towns. The charge was twopence a letter on any distance under eighty miles. During the war, the post fell into disuse, but was re-established on the return of peace.

%LONDON.%

London itself was the centre of trade, wealth, and intelligence. ♦Corporation of London.♦ It was, as it still is, a chartered or self-governed town. The city was divided into twenty-six wards. The householders or freemen of every ward elected the members of a common council, which formed the legislative body of the corporation, making bye-laws and police regulations to be of force within the city boundaries. The aldermen were also elected by the householders, and these with the lord mayor were the principal magistrates. In the Old Bailey they had an independent criminal court for the trial of treasons, murders, and felonies, committed within the city of London and the County of Middlesex. The independence and power of the city have been shown in the previous history. The Guildhall was the asylum of the five members of the Parliament. Without the support of the corporation, that is to say, of freemen, common council, and city aldermen, the Parliament could never have commenced the war with the king; at a later hour, when the corporation went with the Presbyterians for the king, the Independent leaders, though backed by a veteran army, were greatly weakened by the defection. The city had supplied the sinews of war; indeed, from no other town in England could enough money have been borrowed to pay the troops of the Parliament. Had the king had the city at his back, he need never have been bankrupt, and might have checked the marauding habits of his army. It was in fact in London that the richest merchants of the kingdom were collected. The nobles themselves had not houses more magnificent, furniture more costly and collections of pictures and rarities more valuable. The Thames served as a highway between the city and Westminster. There were numbers of public landing-places, where boatmen waited to ferry passengers to any part up and down the river, or over to Southwark. Old London Bridge was the one bridge that had then been built; the highway across, passing under gateways and flanked by houses, gave it the appearance of a castellated street. Some noblemen still lived in the Strand, and had gardens attached to their dwellings, sloping down to the river’s edge, with private landing-places; but the more fashionable quarter was now further west, about Covent Garden and Drury Lane. Though London was then considered of enormous size, on the east it hardly extended beyond the Tower; on the west it touched the city of Westminster. In the north, around the old Convent or Covent Garden, Inigo Jones had lately designed new streets, connecting the City with St. Giles’, then really a hamlet in-the-Fields. The old houses were all of timber, with high-gabled roofs, and stories jutting out one above the other. As few could read, not only every tavern, but every shop, possessed its signboard, and the streets presented a succession of Cross Keys, Three Pigeons, Golden Lambs, Ships, and Black Swans. The principal streets alone were paved, and these merely with little round jolting stones. The dirt was frightful. Into the kennel, or open gutter-like sewer, refuse was thrown out of houses and shops, and there rotted and reeked until it was carried away by the rain to Fleet Ditch and the Thames. Rain, in fact, did yeoman’s service, though the pipes on the house-roofs first conducted their contents to the heads of passers-by. Kites and ravens were kept to act as scavengers, and the bonfires lighted on every occasion of rejoicing served a good purpose in occasionally consuming the rubbish. The streets, before the great fire, were rather to be called alleys; in some, friends could shake hands across from the projecting upper stories. Coaches had been introduced into England from Germany about 1580. Some enterprising man, a few years later, set up hackney-coaches in London, and in 1634 there were said to be 1900 such vehicles ready for hire in the streets. Sedan chairs followed. The first was brought by Buckingham from Spain. The street mob hooted at the hated favourite, regarding it as a ‘mastering pride’ in him to be borne upon men’s shoulders; but the convenience of the conveyance overcame prejudice, and, like coaches, sedan chairs were soon in common use.

%APPRENTICES.%

Hyde Park was a fashionable drive, where coach-races were sometimes held. Spring Gardens, opening into St. James’ Park, was a favourite resort of ladies and gentlemen. There was drinking going on always under the trees, and quarrels took place two or three times a week. Cromwell, much to the discontent of Royalists, caused both gardens and park to be closed for months.[172] Before the breaking out of the Civil War, St. Paul’s Cathedral had been used as a daily lounging and meeting-place by people of every rank and profession. Its uses were, perhaps, less worldly when it became the stable of the sectarian horse during the war. The streets were always a Babel of sounds. Masters or their apprentices stood at the shop doors, touting for customers with cries of ‘What d’ye lack, sir--what d’ye please to lack?’ Fish-wives, orange-women, broom-men, chimney-sweepers, with the original costard-applemongers, passed up and down, crying their wares or services. Over this motley crowd hung the warning gallows, occupying a prominent position outside the Old Bailey on Ludgate Hill. Felons and others were hung there every Monday morning. Riots and scuffles often took place. We have seen how ready the populace of London was to rise, and how rival parties in Parliament raised mobs to intimidate their opponents. On all such occasions the apprentices took a leading part. There was a strong class feeling and close union amongst them. The apprentice was bound to his master for seven years, after which he might set up in business for himself, and rise if he could to be a member of the Common Council, a City Alderman, and even sworn Lord Mayor of London. If an apprentice were assaulted, he raised the cry of ‘’Prentices, clubs!’ and out of every shop in the street rushed friends to the rescue. The students of the Inns of Court, mostly gentlemen by birth and Royalist at heart, felt themselves natural enemies of Presbyterian shopkeepers, and a standing feud produced frequent fights between Templars and apprentices. Like the athletic sports of the time--boating, bowling, shooting, football, cudgelling--the London street fights helped to form the raw material of a soldiery. Formerly the London train-bands had been famous for their archers. The Artillery Company had been originally formed in 1585 by volunteer citizens and officers, when the country was threatened with invasion; and from this small beginning had developed the new set of train-bands raised upon the breaking out of the Civil War. These, however, were not used as police, and the citizen of London had to trust in the strength of his own arm to defend his property and life from the assaults of thieves and robbers. There were no street lamps, though, indeed, an order existed for every householder to hang out a lanthorn over his door at night; and at stated times bellmen walked the streets, ringing their bells, and crying, ‘Hang out your lanthorns!’ The order, however, seems to have been but little observed, so that the city remained practically unlighted. Standing watchmen, who remained at their posts only till one or two o’clock in the morning, formed but an inefficient police, and, when it grew dark, even the chief streets grew dangerous for all but the well-armed. London was, indeed, the head-quarters of thieves and rogues of all descriptions, and the exercise of their profession required but little ingenuity or caution. The country gentleman was known to them at once by his manners, his accent, and the cut of his clothes. While he, a stranger in the great city, was gazing upon the new sights round him, thieves cut the string of his purse, which he wore, as was the custom, attached to his girdle. Sharpers prevailed upon him to enter taverns in their company, where his pockets were soon emptied of his cash. In the intervals of business, all rogues could find an asylum in Whitefriars, which took its name from a house of white-hooded friars; before the Reformation it had been a sanctuary for criminals, and still remained one for debtors. Accordingly, not only bankrupts and debtors, but highwaymen, false witnesses, robbers, and murderers herded together in Whitefriars and other congenial haunts, where the officers of justice dared not enter unattended by a guard of musketeers.[173]

%SOCIAL STATE OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.%

A very slight comparison of the England of to-day with the England of the seventeenth century is sufficient to show what a vast advance has been made in the material condition of the country. Yet, because an efficient police system now renders roads and streets nearly as safe by night as by day; because the population has more than quadrupled; because towns have sprung up where once were villages; because trade has increased to an extent far beyond the vision of the statesmen of the Long Parliament; because science has done much to prolong life and alleviate suffering--it would be a great mistake to suppose that, because of these things merely, future generations will regard the nineteenth century as superior to those before it. The men of the time of James I. and Charles I. are not now allowed any special credit, because in travelling they used coaches instead of riding on horseback; because they built better houses than their great-grandfathers, and slept on softer beds; because they had more wealth, more knowledge, and more refinement; all this was the result of work done before they were born. Material well-being must, in the first instance, spring from certain qualities of mind, and the people who, while they have inherited the well-being, have lost the qualities of mind which enabled their ancestors to bequeath it them, are far less likely to be at the highest than at the lowest stage of their career. The claim of any age to the respect and gratitude of posterity rests on the manner in which it dealt with its own special problems. Judged by this test, the patriots of the seventeenth century can never be found wanting. It has taken a course of two hundred years but to polish off the work that they rough-hewed. The material advantages now enjoyed spring in great part from the principles then so boldly maintained. Science cannot flourish in a land where men are imprisoned for speaking and writing what they believe; trade cannot flourish amid the shackles of monopolies and restrictive laws; abuses will rarely be reformed, or bad laws abolished, where the light of free discussion never penetrates. On the other hand, the mistakes of their age may be warnings for other generations: to take a single instance, the history of the witchcraft laws shows that education is vital to the morality of a state, and that the association of false theories with cherished beliefs is a means by which cruel and heartless oppression may win the support of religion and piety. The problems of the present century are distinct from those of the seventeenth, but, perhaps, no less important. Two or three hundred years hence it may be possible to form a fair judgment of the manner in which those problems have been treated. It may well be doubted whether future generations will allow that they owe us as great a debt of gratitude as we and they owe the men whose judgment, fortitude, and self-sacrifice alone prevented the establishment of arbitrary government in England.

FOOTNOTES:

[154] Hallam, Lit. of Europe, iii. 457.

[155] “It cometh many times to pass,” says Bacon, “that ‘_materiam superabit opus_’--that the work and carriage is more worth than the material, and enricheth a State more; as is notably seen in the Low Countries, who have the best mines above ground in the world.”--BACON’S ESSAYS, xv.

[156] Bancroft, Hist. Am. i.

[157] The Water Poet (temp. Charles I.)

[158] Nugæ Antiquæ, i. 349, apud Taine, II. i. 3.

[159] Jermyn debauched Lord Grandison’s sister, Miss Villiers; this incident was important, as it first led Hyde, a connection of the lady, into a correspondence with the king, whom Hyde tried to get to act firmly in the matter. Such misconduct, however, in no way impaired Jermyn’s influence with the queen, who not only supported him against the king at home, but afterwards kept him by her as her constant companion abroad.--LISTER’S LIFE OF CLARENDON.

[160] Harris, Life of Cromwell.

[161] Evelyn, 196, 261; Chambers, 569, 599.

[162] Though a committee of Parliament was appointed to investigate the state of prisons in 1729, no reforms were made for another half century. In 1773 John Howard began his tour of inspection. He lived to see many reforms introduced, both in the condition of prisons and the treatment of prisoners, the results of his own noble efforts.

[163] Whitelock, Mem., 450.

[164] Roger North, Life of Lord Guildford; Somers, iii.; Trial of Lancashire Witches.

[165] Life of Lord North; Beesley, Hist. of Banbury; Cullum, Hist. of Hawsted; Evelyn, Diary.

[166] See p. 2.

[167] Rushworth, Abr., ii., 191.

[168] The law, having thus forbidden the labourer to move from his parish to seek work for himself, was compelled to provide for him. If the overseers could not find him full employment, they were required to make up any deficiency in wages out of rates. In consequence of this system, farmers purposely underpaid their labourers, knowing the parish could not refuse relief, while the labourers themselves were deprived of any motive for self-exertion. As the overseers were not appointed by the ratepayers, there was no check upon the expenditure, and the poor-rates rose with extraordinary rapidity. In 1760, the population was 7,000,000; the rates were £1,250,000. In 1834, the population had rather more than doubled, being 14,372,000, the poor-rates had increased by more than five times, £6,317,235. In 1834, the Reformed Parliament passed the Poor Law Amendment Act. A central authority was created--a board of three commissioners, with power to regulate the administration of relief throughout England and Wales. Parishes were united into unions, directed by boards of guardians, of whom the majority were elected by the ratepayers. The commissioners put an end to the allowance system, only granting outdoor relief to the able-bodied poor in exceptional cases. This Act made no alteration in the Law of Settlement. The 35th George III. had already prohibited the removal from a parish of any newcomer, until he should have become actually chargeable (1795). The 9th and 10th Victoria prohibits the removal of any person who shall have resided five years in a parish without being chargeable. The 11th and 12th Vict. relieves the parish of the cost of maintaining persons who have so become chargeable, and lays it on the common fund of the union. The continuance of the Laws of Settlement to the present time is consequent upon the principle, that every parish, however poor itself, is bound to relieve its own poor. The entire abolition of these is still required, as well as the universal substitution of union instead of parochial chargeability; and, where necessary, an equalization of the poor-rates over wider areas than a single union presents.--NICHOLLS ON THE POOR LAWS. CHITTY’S STATUTES.

[169] Baxter’s Life, 33.

[170] The deaths from plague in London were:--

11,503 in 1592
30,583 in 1603
35,428 in 1625
1,317 in 1630
12,102 in 1636
2,876 in 1637

STATE PAPERS, 1637.

[171] Cromwelliana.

[172] Evelyn, Diary; Knight, i. 191; Character of England, Somers Tracts, vii.

[173] In 1697 an Act of Parliament was passed, abolishing the privileges of Whitefriars and of the Savoy, another haunt of the same kind. See Macaulay, chap. xxii.