ur of their hands and the profit which they can make upon
the commons."--STAFFORD'S _Discourse_. This novel class had been called
into being by the general raising of rents, and the wholesale evictions of
the smaller tenantry which followed the Reformation. The progress of the
causes which led to the change can be traced from the beginning of the
century. Harrison says he knew old men who, comparing things present with
things past, spoke of two things grown to be very grievous--to wit, "the
enhancing of rents, and the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords
seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery,
daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them
shorter and shorter; doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times
increasing their fines; driving them also for every trifle to lose and
forfeit their tenures, by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand
and is maintained, to the end they may fleece them yet more: which is a
lamentable hearing."--_Description of England_, p.318.

[33] HALL, p. 581. Nor was the act in fact observed even in London itself,
or towards workmen employed by the Government. In 1538, the Corporation of
London, "for certain reasonable and necessary considerations," assessed the
wages of common labourers at 7d. and 8d. the day, classing them with
carpenters and masons.--_Guildhall MSS. Journal_ 14, fol. 10. Labourers
employed on Government works in the reign of Hen. VIII. never received less
than 6d. a day, and frequently more.--_Chronicle of Calais_, p. 197, etc.
Sixpence a day is the usual sum entered as the wages of a day's labour in
the innumerable lists of accounts in the Record Office. And 6d. a day again
was the lowest pay of the common soldier, not only on exceptional service
in the field, but when regularly employed in garrison duty. Those who doubt
whether this was really the practice, may easily satisfy themselves by
referring to the accounts of the expenses of Berwick, or of Dover, Deal, or
Walmer Castles, to be found in the Record Office in great numbers. The
daily wages of the soldier are among the very best criteria for determining
the average value of the unskilled labourer's work. No government gives
higher wages than it is compelled to give by the market rate.

[34] The wages of the day labourer in London, under this act of Elizabeth,
were fixed at 9d. the day, and this, after the restoration of the
depreciated currency.--