there is no speedy law provided for them to have recovery of their debts at the day of payment assigned; and by reason hereof many merchants do refrain to come into this realm with their merchandise to the damage as well of the merchants as of the whole realm," etc., therefore certain penalties and regulations were enacted against these flagitious practices in future; and the last statute, besides repealing the Act of 1261, has the following most important provision :

"The merchants of Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Navarre, Lombardy, Florence, Provence, Catalonia, Aquitaine, Toulouse, Flanders, Brabant, and of all other foreign parts, who shall come to traffic in England, shall and may safely come with their merchandise into all cities, towns, and ports, and sell the same by wholesale only, as well to natives as to foreigners. And the merchandise called merceries, as also spices, they may likewise sell by retail. They may also upon payment of the usual customs carry beyond sea whatever goods they buy in England excepting wines Wherefore all officers in cities, towns, and fairs are commanded to do sure and speedy justice to all foreign merchants according to the law merchant or merchant's custom, etc. etc." These were valuable and enlightened measures, and had they been maintained in their efficiency and fairly obeyed they would in fact have established free trade in England at this early epoch. Unfortunately, they were evaded, and soon repealed in obedience to public clamour, and the legislation in respect to trade that for a long while after took their place was of a much more retrograde character. In the meanwhile the country had undoubtedly been making progress in other directions under the able rule of this monarch. Edward I. devoted a large portion of the time that he could spare from warlike operations to the restoration of public order, and the improvement of the administration of

SOCIAL CONDITION
OF THIS TIME.

the law. He added to his famous Statutes of Merchants his scarcely less famous Statute of Winchester (13° Edward I.), for securing the safety of the public highways, and establishing a better system of local government in the towns. The substance of one principal provision of this Act will afford a better insight into the condition of the times, especially in relation to the insecurity of life and property, than any lengthened description would do. It is to the effect that (clause 5) "highways leading from one market town to another shall be enlarged, so that there be no dyke, tree, nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within two hundred foot of the one side, and two hundred foot on the other side of the way. And if percase

a park be near to the highway, it is ordered that it be set back two hundred foot from the highway as beforesaid, or that a wall, dyke, or hedge be made, that offenders may not pass to do evil.” Another clause exhorts people to keep arms in readiness to protect themselves from violence; and yet another commands "that in great towns, being walled, the gates shall be closed from the sun setting until the sun rising, lest they be entered and plundered during the night." These efforts were not fruitless. Robberies, murders, and other outrages became somewhat less frequent, and the authors of them more amenable to justice. A circuit of judges was established to enforce the laws locally, and those laws themselves were rendered more clear and definite. In still another direction a no less important advance was made. The representative element in Parliament was widely increased by the admission of burgesses and knights of the shire; and thus that form given to the fabric of our Constitution that it has ever since, through many modifications, retained.

Still the social condition of all classes was low in the extreme; even that of the rich being such as would be con

sidered utterly despicable now by the sorriest pauper. The gloomy stone castles in which they lived, and that overspread the land to terrorise the native population, were the most uncomfortable dwellings inside that it is almost possible to conceive; foul, bare, and squalid: without windows, without chimneys, almost without furniture; the unplastered walls hung with tapestry to keep out the cutting winds that entered by every chink and cranny. The life led in these dreadful places was sombre as the places themselves, when not wholly consumed in action. There was then but little stir of mental life anywhere outside the monasteries. There were scarcely any books; there was little or no interchange of hospitalities; none except on very rare and very grand occasions. Even the rude revelry that we read of in the stories of novelists must be greatly exaggerated, for little wine, or other strong drink, was drunk, and foreign luxuries of all kinds were very limited and difficult to obtain. Occasionally some great fête would be held, or a royal progress would be made through the country; and as this last was the great opportunity for the display of all feudal magnificence, it will be well to give a description of what one was like, which we shall do in the words of a historian dealing specially with the social condition of the English people. "The most squalid wretchedness, and vice in its most revolting form were rudely blended, and, as it were, incorporated," says Sir George Nicholls, "with the pomp and pageantry of the royal processions. These processions were, in fact, little better than organised mobs, perambulating the country, and levying contributions, without stint or mercy, upon all who unhappily came within their reach. Estates were then held on the condition of furnishing straw for the royal beds, and litter for the royal apartments. The rush-strewer was a

A History of the English Poor Law, by Sir George Nicholls, K.C.B., vol. i. p. 18 (Murray, 1854).

recognised officer in the royal household, and it was considered an act of unusual magnificence to cover the floor of the great dining-hall with clean rushes or clean straw daily, so that those who could not find room at the common table might sit on the floor without soiling their clothes." Needless to say there were no such implements as knives or forks in use at those repasts, and we learn from many other sources how filthy the rush-strewn floors became when these epochs of " unusual magnificence" were over.

These,

When such was the condition of the higher classes, it is easy to imagine how pitiable was that of the lower. in fact, were not housed at all, but stabled, in the outbuildings of the lord whom they served. Even the residents in towns were, up to the fourteenth century, accommodated in dwellings built only of mud held together by beams of wood (as are sometimes seen still), for stone houses were hardly known up to that time, and the art of brickmaking had been completely lost since the departure of the Romans, and was only just then being reintroduced from abroad. The majority of the nation was still in bondage to the minority and the whole nation in bondage to ignorance, sloth, and dirt. The reigns of the first two Edwards are to some extent the turning-point of this drear time; for partly through the efforts of the former, and partly owing to other influences, more or less glanced at as we have proceeded, a better time was in store, as the next chapter will disclose.

CHAPTER VIII.

ENGLAND BEFORE THE FACTORY SYSTEM-FROM

EDWARD III. TO WILLIAM III.

Edward III.: Establishment of the English Woollen Manufacture― John Kempe The Black Death-The Statutes of Labourers-Wat TylerEmancipation of the People-The Wars of the Roses--Political Economy of this Period-Wages-Sumptuary Laws-The Tudors—Elizabeth-The Poor Laws-Apprenticeship-The Iron Industry-The Stuarts.

WE enter upon a new era in the history of English industry from the accession to the throne of Edward

EDWARD III.; ESTAB- III. During the long reign of that mon

LISHMENT OF THE

ENGLISH WOOLLEN arch, lasting just fifty years (from 1327 to MANUFACTURE. 1377), England became again a manufacturing country, clothing not merely her own people at home, but exporting home-made cloth to other countries. Unfortunately this prosperity was scarcely established before many things occurred to check it, but the impetus then given was never afterwards quite lost. In a variety of ways some little noticeable, others more or less manifest, with now a step forward here, now a retrogression thereour country began to advance from that time forward to the great industrial destiny that awaited her. Once again, too, it was to the foreigner that she was indebted for this new impulse. Edward had married a Flemish princess, Philippa of Hainault, and to that union is immediately owing-indeed, to the queen's personal efforts and influence, it is said1

1 Strickland's Lives of the Queens of England, vol. i.; Philippa of Hainault (George Bell and Sons, 1880).