whole course of its growth, and into two stages through which it passed I must enter with some minuteness. The 12th of the 22nd of Henry VIII., and the 25th of the 27th, are so remarkable in their tone, and so rich in their detail, as to furnish a complete exposition of English thought at that time upon the subject; while the second of these two Acts, and probably the first also, has a further interest for us, as being the composition of Henry himself, and the most finished which he has left to us.[1]
'Whereas,' says the former of these two Acts, 'in all places throughout this realm of England, vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased, and daily do increase in great and excessive numbers, by the occasion of idleness, mother and root of all vices; whereby hath insurged and sprung, and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the inquietation and damage of the King's people, and to the marvellous disturbance of the common weal of this realm; and whereas, strait statutes and ordinances have been before this time devised and made, as well by the King our sovereign lord, as also by divers his most noble progenitors, Kings of England, for the most necessary and due reformation of the premises: yet that notwithstanding, the same number of vagabonds and beggars be not seen in any part to be diminished, but rather daily augmented and increased into great
- ↑ Letter of Thomas Dorset to the Mayor of Plymouth: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 36.
