one of them, who, not being able to
repair it, suffereth it to fall down--and thereto thinketh himself very
friendly dealt withal, if he may have an acre of ground assigned unto him,
wherein to keep a cow, or wherein to set cabbages, radishes, parsnips,
carrots, melons, pompons,[76] or such like stuff, by which he and his poor
household liveth as by their principal food, sith they can do no better.
And as for wheaten bread, they eat it when they can reach unto the price
of it, contenting themselves in the meantime with bread made of oats or
barley: a poor estate, God wot! Howbeit, what care our great encroachers?
But in divers places where rich men dwelled some time in good tenements,
there be now no houses at all, but hop-yards, and sheds for poles, or
peradventure gardens, as we may see in Castle Hedingham,[77] and divers
other places. But to proceed.

It is so that, our soil being divided into champaign ground and woodland,
the houses of the first lie uniformly builded in every town together, with
streets and lanes; whereas in the woodland countries (except here and
there in great market towns) they stand scattered abroad, each one
dwelling in the midst of his own occupying. And as in many and most great
market towns, there are commonly three hundred or four hundred families or
mansions, and two thousand communicants (or peradventure more), so in the
other, whether they be woodland or champaign, we find not often above
forty, fifty, or three score households, and two or three hundred
communicants, whereof the greatest part nevertheless are very poor folks,
oftentimes without all manner of occupying, sith the ground of the parish
is gotten up into a few men's hands, yea sometimes into the tenure of one
or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled either to be hired
servants unto the other or else to beg their bread in misery from door to
door.

There are some (saith Leland) which are not so favourable, when they have
gotten such lands, as to let the houses remain upon them to the use of
the poor; but they will compound with the lord of the soil to pull them
down for altogether, saying that "if they did let them stand, they should
but toll beggars to the town, thereby to surcharge the rest of the parish,
and lay more burden upon them." But alas! these pitiful men see not that
they themselves hereby do lay the greatest log upon their neighbours'
necks. For, sith the prince doth commonly loose nothing of his duties
a