myserie and
povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye
for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these
accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep,
that was used to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at the most, was now from
4s. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was
accustomed to be sold for 18d. or 20d., is now 3s. 4d. to 4s.; and in
others, where it was 2s. 4d. to 3s. it is now 4s. 8d. to 5s.

It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to
keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm,
though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these
laws proves their inefficacy, and the conduct of Henry VIII was the
chief cause of it; for while Parliament was complaining of the
decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the
monasteries to greedy courtiers, who evicted the tenants and lived on
the profits of sheep farming.[200] For the dissolution of the
monasteries was now taking Place,[201] and the best landowners in
England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay
landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are
said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and
ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the
confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about
one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The
transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial
to farming; it was a source of serious dislocation of agricultural
industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that
attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many
of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases; and the stock
was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the
landlord.[202] And not only was a serious injury wrought to
agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally
noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious
houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the
amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of
the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle,
1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats,
rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay.[203] It must indeed have seemed
to many as if th