England must have been a hell for the poor, and for the thousands of evicted and ruined peasant farmers, in the days of Edward VI. The monks were reviled for having fed the poor; the reforming Government made them slaves—not even wincing at the word, and incited their owners to beat them and chain them up. The words "or otherwise" are a direct incitement to actual starvation and torture.
The great soldier and statesman whom we call "the Conqueror" is handed down to execration because he cleared out fifty villages to make the New Forest. But what was that to this? And this Act was passed by the first Parliament of the Reformation—a Parliament which had just passed the Act for uniformity of worship—an Act stuffed with pious expressions and texts of Scripture, and satisfaction at the pure light of the Gospel shining at last upon England, and dispelling the old superstitions. One of those superstitions was that any poor starving beggar might be the Lord Himself, come back to earth to see how His brethren were treated by His disciples.
This Act has not much about the impotent poor. It says vaguely that they are to have convenient houses provided for them, in the places where they were born, or lived three years, "by the willing and charitable dispositions" of the parishioners; and it was evidently thought that these dispositions would chiefly show themselves in licences to beg.[1] To some extent this infamous Act defeated itself. Even the Ministers of Edward VI. saw that it would not do, and it was not put in force, as to its very worst features, for much more than a year.
Nothing was wanting to complete the misery of the people : the coinage was debased, provisions were dear, there was a dearth. The streets and alleys of London were full of poor creatures, some of them positively dying in the streets. Latimer says he cannot "go to his book" for the poor people who come to complain to him. The evidence shows an actual diminution of population. Three years later so much of the Act cited as "tendeth to make vagabonds slaves" was repealed, but all the rest was left. The reason
- ↑ John Stow, the historian, was kindly granted a licence to beg by James I.
