“Mem.  That an act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country; and that no merchant shall hereafter purchase above L40 lands by the year.”—­Cotton MS. Titus, b. i. 160.

[40] When the enclosing system was carried on with greatest activity and provoked insurrection.  In expressing a sympathy with the social policy of the Tudor government, I have exposed myself to a charge of opposing the received and ascertained conclusions of political economy.  I disclaim entirely an intention so foolish; but I believe that the science of political economy came into being with the state of things to which alone it is applicable.  It ought to be evident that principles which answer admirably when a manufacturing system capable of indefinite expansion multiplies employment at home—­when the soil of England is but a fraction of its empire, and the sea is a highway to emigration—­would have produced far different effects, in a condition of things which habit had petrified into form, when manufactures could not provide work for one additional hand, when the first colony was yet unthought of, and where those who were thrown out of the occupation to which they had been bred could find no other.  The tenants evicted, the labourers thrown out of employ, when the tillage lands were converted into pastures, had scarcely an alternative offered them except to beg, to rob, or to starve.

[41] Lansdowne MS. No.  I. fol. 26.

[42] GIUSTINIANI’S Letters from the Court of Henry VIII.

[43] Ibid.

[44] 22 Hen.  VIII. cap. 18.

[45] Under Hen.  VI. the household expenses were L23,000 a year—­Cf. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vol. vi. p. 35.  The particulars of the expenses of the household of Hen.  VIII. are in an MS. in the Rolls House.  They cover the entire outlay except the personal expenditure of the king, and the sum total amounts to L14,365 10s. 7d.  This would leave above L5000 a year for the privy purse, not, perhaps, sufficient to cover Henry’s gambling extravagances in his early life.  Curious particulars of his excesses in this matter will be found in a publication wrongly called The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth.  It is a diary of general payments, as much for purposes of state as for the king himself.  The high play was confined for the most part to Christmas or other times of festivity, when the statutes against unlawful games were dispensed with for all classes.

[46] 18 Hen.  VI. cap. 11.

[47] 4 Hen.  VII. cap. 12.

[48] During the quarter sessions time they were allowed 4s. a day.—­Ric.  II. xii. 10.

[49] The rudeness of the furniture in English country houses has been dwelt upon with much emphasis by Hume and others.  An authentic inventory of the goods and chattels in a parsonage in Kent proves that there has been much exaggeration in this matter.  It is from an MS. in the Rolls House.