, spent
their money in the provinces and among their tenants, afforded a ready
market for commodities, were a sure resource to the poor and indigent;
and though their hospitality and charity gave but too much encouragement
to idleness, and prevented the increase of public riches, yet did
it provide to many a relief from the extreme pressures of want and
necessity. It is also observable, that as the friars were limited by
the rules of their institution to a certain mode of living, they had not
equal motives for extortion with other men, and they were acknowledged
to have been in England, as they still are in Roman Catholic countries,
the best and most indulgent landlords. The abbots and priors were
permitted to give leases at an under-value, and to receive in return a
large present from the tenant, in the same manner as is still practised
by the bishops and colleges. But when the abbey lands were distributed
among the principal nobility and courtiers, they fell under a different
management: the rents of farms were raised, while the tenants found not
the same facility in disposing of the produce; the money was often spent
in the capital, and the farmers, living at a distance, were exposed to
oppression from their new masters, or to the still greater rapacity of
the stewards.

These grievances of the common people were at that time heightened by
other causes. The arts of manufacture were much more advanced in other
European countries than in England; and even in England these arts had
made greater progress than the knowledge of agriculture; a profession
which of all mechanical employments, requires the most reflection and
experience. A great demand arose for wool both abroad and at home:
pasturage was found more profitable than unskilful tillage: whole
estates were laid waste by enclosures; the tenants, regarded as a
useless burden, were expelled their habitations; even the cottagers,
deprived of the commons on which they formerly fed their cattle, were
reduced to misery; and a decay of people, as well as a diminution of the
former plenty, was remarked in the kingdom.[*] This grievance was now
of an old date, and Sir Thomas More, alluding to it, observes in his
Utopia, that a sheep had become in England a more ravenous animal than a
lion or wolf, and devoured whole villages, cities, and provinces.

* Strype, vol. ii. Repository, Q.

The general increase, also, of gold and silver in Europe, after
the discovery of th