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272

EGYPTIANS AND PRETENDED EGYPTIANS.

[1597.

impulse of society towards industrial improvement was sure to free the labourers from these galling restraints, step by step, as the true principle of the common interest of employer and employed came to be better understood, and more honestly carried out.

The Statute of the 39th Elizabeth includes amongst Rogues and Vagabonds, "all persons pretending themselves to be Egyptians." The Egyptians, or Gipsies, themselves, were to be dealt with by the very summary process under the statute of Philip and Mary, by which, being declared felons, they were liable to be hanged. But the pretended Egyptians, by an early statute of Elizabeth, were also recognised as felons: "Every person which shall be seen or found in any company or fellowship of vagabonds commonly called Egyptians, or counterfeiting, transforming, or disguising themselves by their apparel, speech, or other behaviour, like unto such vagabonds, and shall continue and remain in the same by the space of one month, every such person shall be deemed and judged a felon, and suffer the pains of death."* This special Act, to meet a condition of life which we might otherwise consider most rare and exceptional, shows us that England was still a country offering facilities for existence to those, who elected to go forth from the restraints of civilisation into the extremest license of vagabondage. The Robin Hood class had passed away with the Plantagenets. A lower class of denizens of the woods, with nothing heroical about them, had grown with the growth of a population amongst which the principle of competition had wholly superseded the feudal organisation. The bold spirits of the time of Elizabeth, who spurned the base mechanical arts, had many outlets of honourable employment. The wild profligate who had spent all his means had a new career opened to him, when the rovers became captains and admirals: "He will go to the sea, and tear the gold out of the Spaniards' throats." + But the most reckless of the large number to whom regular labour was misery went out of the towns and villages to the wealds and heaths; discoloured their skins; gave an oriental fashion to their ragged apparel; learnt the gipsy-dialect; and put on the gipsy-nature of cheating and pilfering. To some minds there must have been a charm in this mode of life, proscribed as it was, far beyond the mere desire of a precarious subsistence. The dramatic poets saw its sunny side; and when we read "The Beggars' Bush" of Fletcher, in which the whole aspect of vagrancy has a freshness which makes it look like an essential part of nature, we need not wonder that "pretended Egyptians" were numerous enough to have a statute to themselves. There is another Act of Elizabeth which is also an indication of an altered condition of society. It sets forth that lewd and licentious persons "have, of late days, wandered up and down in all parts of the realm, under the name of soldiers and mariners, abusing the title of that honourable profession to countenance their wicked behaviour, and do continually assemble themselves, weaponed, in the highways and elsewhere, in troops, to the great terror and astonishment of her majesty" true subjects." There had been ten years of war with Spain at the time of passing this Act; and in the long interval between the military service of feudality and the standing army of modern times, troops were occasionally raised for a special warfare, such as the expedition to Cadiz; and, whether

* 5 Eliz. c. 20.

+ Nash.

+ 39 Eliz. c. 17.

1598.]

VILLANIES OF LONDON.

273

with pockets filled with plunder, or penniless, they were returned to their parishes, and were told, by this same statute, "to betake themselves to some lawful course of life, on pain of being reputed felons." This was hard measure, and we need not be surprised that "under the name of soldiers and mariners," some of the honourable profession were a real terror to the true men, whilst the habitual thieves and beggars became their counterfeits. In this case, as in most others where punishment was first resorted to as the cure of an evil, severity alone was found to be ineffectual; and, four years afterwards, the parishes were required by statute to pay a weekly sum, to be determined by the justices, towards the relief of sick, hurt, and maimed soldiers and mariners, having been in the queen's service. If they were found begging, after receiving such allowance, they were to forfeit all claim, and be deemed rogues and vagabonds.*

The latter period of the reign of Elizabeth was a time when the ability to read was widely extended, compared with the general education of the previous century. All readers, especially those with whom study is not habitual, want amusing reading; and there were several smart writers then ready to supply this demand. The Puritans denounced, as "invented by Belzebub," the little novels, and other "toys and bableries" which these writers produced; and the more they railed at the Greenes and Dekkers who supplied this ephemeral literature, the more their productions were purchased. These men, who lived amongst the irregular frequenters of taverns and play-houses, had a keen eye for observing the various forms of crime and imposture which presented themselves in London; and their racy descriptions of "Coneycatching," and of the more daring "Villainies," were amongst the most popular of pamphlets. We should do great injustice to the morals of the community if we were to conclude from these representations that society was then mainly composed of two classes-the rogues and the gulls. The natural attraction of the subject led to the production of such descriptions in an age before police-reports; and the ampli

tude of the details has induced some in recent times to assign far too large a proportion of folly and roguery to the composition of Elizabethan society. Cutpurses there were in abundance. There were gangs of thieves" under Pancras" and at "Hyde Park Corner."+ Fleetwood, the recorder, is wearied out of his equanimity by the multitude of rogues for whom he has to make search. When he catches them, and the gallows is ready, gentlemen of the court can baulk justice by reprieves. Within the city walls there is watch and ward, not altogether ineffectual; but the suburbs are wholly unprotected. The northern side. of London and Westminster is almost

[graphic]

Watchman.

wholly fields and woods; and "the ways over the country," from Finsbury-field,

* 43 Eliz. c. 3.

+ Norden's "Essex," Camden Society.

T

See Ellis, First Series, vol. ii. pp. 283, 291, 299.

VOL. III.

274

INCREASE OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER.

[1598. covered with trees and windmills, to Kilburn, with its solitary priory, surrounded by a real "St. John's Wood," are familiar to robbers by day and night. The "Marribone justice," who lives in these rural parts far away from city magistrates, is the warrant-granter of the district. But the metropolis and its suburbs of the days of Fielding could match their robbers for numbers and audacity against those of Fleetwood. Let us not imagine that the times of Elizabeth were marked by more than usual enormities. The gallows then consumed about three hundred annual victims; but the hangmen of Henry VIII. had to operate upon two thousand in each average year. Hanging was the one remedy; and its efficacy did not begin to be much doubted till the present

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

century. The increase of London through the rapid progress of commerce, and of Westminster as the seat of government and of legal administration, constantly brought thither a large class of "valiant and sturdy rogues, masterless men, vagrants, and maimed soldiers."+ Splendid houses connected the City with Westminster, some of which, in the Strand, were standing at the beginning of the present century. But a dense population was beginning to crowd into obscure alleys. In 1580 a proclamation was issued against the erection of new buildings in London.

Jonson, "Every Man in his Humour."

+ Stow.

1598.]

STATUTES AGAINST INCREASE OF BUILDINGS.

275

The number of beggars, it alleged, was increased; there was greater danger of fire and of the plague; the old open spaces for walking and for sports were enclosed; the trouble of governing so great a multitude was become too great. By a statute of 1593 it was provided that no new buildings should be erected in London and Westminster, or within three miles, unless they were fit for the habitation of persons assessed at 57. in goods or 31. in land. Houses were not to be converted into separate dwellings. By the increase of buildings, it is said, "great infection of sickness, and dearth of victuals and fuel, hath grown and ensued, and many idle, vagrant, and wicked persons have harboured there." In 1602, the Act had been so ineffectual, that a proclamation was issued for pulling down newly-built houses. "Little was done," says Stow, "and small effect followed." The increase of the poorer classes was sought to be prevented in the country districts upon the same principle. By a statute of 1589, no cottage was to be erected, unless four acres of land were perpetually annexed to the holding; and one family only was to occupy the tenement. The system might be a temporary expedient; but long experience, and in the case of Ireland bitter adversity, have shown how incompatible is the principle of small holdings of land with the proper cultivation of the country, and the inevitable increase of population as a generation succeeds that must be driven forth into irregular means of subsistence.

It was in the merciful spirit which produced the Act for the relief of the Poor of the 39th Elizabeth, that, in the same year, the Legislature placed the endowment of hospitals, or alms-houses, upon a new footing. By a special

[graphic][merged small]

Act of Parliament the earl of Leicester had been enabled to found his hospital at Warwick,-an institution which still remains to make the observer doubt whether the favourite of the great queen was altogether so bad a man

276

HOSPITALS AND ALMS-HOUSES.

(1598.

as historians have chosen to represent. Other hospitals had been founded by special license under the Great Seal. By this Act any person might, within twenty years, found and establish, with an adequate provision of land, "hospitals, maisons de Dieu, abiding-places, or houses of correction, as well for the sustentation and relief of the maimed poor, needy, or impotent people, as to set the poor to work; and from time to time place therein such head and members, and such number of poor, as to him shall seem convenient."* By an Act of the 21st James I., this statute was made perpetual. Such foundations, which are numerous throughout the land, are enduring monuments of the kindly spirit of our ancestors; and others have been established in the same spirit by associations in modern times. The purposes of many of the old endowments have been abused; their funds have been misapplied; but the value of such institutions has been universally felt as decent retreats for the unprosperous-resting-places, before the final resting-place, where poverty may exist without degradation.

As early as 1563 the Legislature had declared that the Statutes for the regulation of Wages could not be enforced, on account of the advancement of prices. The unnatural advances that had been produced by the depreciation of the currency, in previous reigns, had been wisely remedied in 1560 by reducing the coin of the realm to a just standard. But there were causes in operation which tended to a steady rise in the market-rate of all commodities. The influx of the precious metals had begun decidedly to produce this effect; and concurrently with that increase the condition of the great body of the people was greatly improving, so that there was a more universal demand for every necessary of life. This demand produced a consequent rise of price. In the half century from 1550 to 1599, the average price of wheat had risen 100 per cent. This advance of prices is no indication of a more impoverished condition of the labourers, but the contrary. The increase of the market rate gave an impulse to production; and the cultivation of the land necessarily went on improving. But the improvements were too slow,-the amount of agricultural produce too entirely dependent upon good or bad seasons,—so that the utmost misery was occasionally produced by excessive fluctuations in price. Wheat was at a famine price in 1573, in 1586 and 1587, in 1596; the price per quarter in those terrible seasons of scarcity being as high, or higher, than the average prices of the present times. Temporary relief was given, in some places, by buying up corn, and selling it at a reduced rate. The necessity in the summer of 1587 was so extreme, that some foreign hulks, belonging to the subjects of a friendly power, were seized by English vessels, and brought into Weymouth, being laden with corn and provisions for Spain. The Council held that they might be compelled to sell their corn; but wisely did not attempt to enforce such a violation of commercial freedom. The mayor of Weymouth had hoped that a compulsory sale of these stores would relieve the distresses of that part of the country. Such fluctuations of price were amongst the most bitter inflictions that poverty had to bear. The plague was a necessary attendant upon any dearth approaching to famine. The general health of the people was habitually inferior to the sanitory condition of our own days.

* 39 Eliz. c. 5.

See ante, p. 130.

Roberts's "Southern Counties," p. 212.

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