will, their younger children would be left portionless.[1]
Small grievances are readily magnified in seasons of general disruption. A wicked spirit in the person of Cromwell was said to rule the King, and everything which he did was evil, and every evil of the commonwealth was due to his malignant influence.
The discontent of the noblemen and gentlemen would in itself have been formidable. Their armed retinues were considerable. The constitutional power of the counties was in their hands. But the commons, again, had their own grounds of complaint, for the most part just, though arising from causes over which the Government had no control, from social changes deeper than the Reformation itself. In early times each petty district in England had been self-supporting, raising its own corn, feeding its own cattle, producing by women's hands in the cottages and farmhouses its own manufactures. There were few or no large roads, no canals, small means of transport of any kind, and from this condition of things had arisen the laws which we call
- ↑ 'Masters, there is a statute made whereby all persons be restrained to make their will upon their lands; for now the eldest son must have all his father's lands; and no person, to the payment of his debts, neither to the advancement of his daughters' marriages, can do nothing with their lands, nor cannot give to his youngest son any lands.'—Speech of Mr Sheriff Dymock, at Horncastle: Rolls House MS. A 2, 29.'They want the Statute of Uses qualified, that a man be allowed to bequeath part of his lands by will. It will invade the old accustomed law in many things.'—Examination of Aske: MS. ibid. 'Divers things should be reformed, and especially the Act of Uses. Younger brothers would none of that in no wise.'—Earl of Oxford to Cromwell: Miscellaneous MSS. State Paper Office, second series, vol. i.
