e beyond question.[47]

The enclosures did not end with the sixteenth century, and for another one
hundred years complaints are heard of the steady depopulation of rural
England. In the eighteenth century came the second great series of
enclosures--the enclosing of the commons and waste spaces, by Acts of
Parliament. Between 1710 and 1867 no less than 7,660,439 acres were thus
enclosed.

To-day the questions of land tenure and land ownership are conspicuous
items in the discussion of the whole social question, for the relations of
a people to its land are of very first importance in a democratic state.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV

THE STRUGGLE RENEWED AGAINST THE CROWN

PARLIAMENT UNDER THE TUDORS

The English Parliament throughout the sixteenth century was but a servile
instrument of the Crown. The great barons were dead. Henry VIII. put to
death Sir Thomas More and all who questioned the royal absolutism.
Elizabeth, equally despotic, had by good fortune the services of the first
generation of professional statesmen that England produced. These
statesmen--Burleigh, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Walter Mildmay, Sir Thomas
Smith, and Sir Francis Walsingham--all died in office. Burleigh was
minister for forty years, Bacon and Mildmay for more than twenty, and Smith
and Walsingham for eighteen years.[48]

[Illustration: SIR JOHN ELIOT]

Parliament was not only intimidated by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, its
membership was recruited by nominees of the Crown.[49] And then it is also
to be borne in mind that both Henry and Elizabeth made a point of getting
Parliament to do their will. They governed through Parliament, and ruled
triumphantly, for it is only in the later years of Elizabeth that any
discontent is heard. The Stuarts, far less tyrannical, came to grief just
because they never understood the importance of Parliament in the eyes of
Englishmen in the middle ranks, and attempted to rule while ignoring the
House of Commons.

Elizabeth scolded her Parliaments, and more than once called the Speaker of
the House of Commons to account. The business of Tudor Parliaments was to
decree the proposals of the Crown. "Liberty of speech was granted in
respect of the aye or no, but not that everybody should speak what he
listed." Bacon declared, "the Queen hath both enlarging and restraining
power; she may set at liberty things restrained by statute and may restrain
things which be at liberty."

Ye