Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/349

335 CHAPTER LV. THE RIDOLFI CONSPIRACY. WHILE the political and religious passions of the English nobility were increasing in heat and in- tensity, the economical condition of the commons was slowly improving. The social convulsions which ac- companied the earlier stages of the Reformation had settled down. The State papers are no longer crowded with complaints of the oppression of the poor. The people could again be trusted with arms without fear that they would use them against the landowners. The interruption of trade with the Low Countries permitted the yeoman once more to drive his plough over the pastures from which he had been expelled by the sheep- owners, and the prices of wages and food had satisfac- torily adjusted themselves. The Flemings, who had crowded across the Channel in tens of thousands, brought with them their arts and industries, and while the fine ladies and gentlemen still looked to the East for the silks and satins in which they fluttered round Elizabeth, the artisans, the labourers, and the farmers were clothed