icter administration of justice; an advantage
which induced the men of landed property to leave the provincial
towns, and to retire into the country. Cardinal Wolsey, in a speech to
parliament, represented it as a proof of the increase of riches, that
the customs had increased beyond what they were formerly.[**]

But if there were really a decay of commerce, and industry, and
populousness in England, the statutes of this reign, except by
abolishing monasteries and retrenching holydays--circumstances of
considerable moment--were not in other respects well calculated to
remedy the evil. The fixing of the wages of artificers was attempted:
[***] luxury in apparel was prohibited by repeated statutes;[****] and
probably without effect.

* Henry VIII. c. 8.

** Hall, fol. 110.

*** 6 Henry VIII. c. 3.

**** 1 Henry VIII. c. 14. 6 Henry VIII. c. I 7 Henry VIII.
c. 7

The chancellor and other ministers were empowered to fix the price of
poultry, cheese, and butter.[*] A statute was even passed to fix the
price of beef, pork, mutton, and veal.[**] Beef and pork were ordered
to be sold at a halfpenny a pound; mutton and veal at a halfpenny half
a farthing, money of that age. The preamble of the statute says, that
these four species of butcher's meat were the food of the poorer sort.
This ace was afterwards repealed.[***]

The practice of depopulating the country by abandoning tillage, and
throwing the lands into pasturage, still continued;[****] as appears by
the new laws which were from time to time enacted against that practice.
The king was entitled to half the rents of the land, where any farm
houses were allowed to fall to decay.[v] The unskilful husbandry was
probably the cause why the proprietors found no profit in tillage. The
number of sheep allowed to be kept in one flock, was restrained to two
thousand.[v*] Sometimes, says the statute, one proprietor or farmer
would keep a flock of twenty-four thousand. It is remarkable, that the
parliament ascribes the increasing price of mutton to this increase of
sheep: because, say they, the commodity being gotten into few hands, the
price of it is raised at pleasure.[v**] It is more probable, that the
effect proceeded from the daily increase of money; for it seems almost
impossible that such a commodity could be engrossed.

In the year 1544, it appears that an acre of good land in Cambridgeshire
was let at a shilling, or about fifteen pence of ou