be content to let them at the old price, but raise them up daily, even to the clouds … so that the poor man that laboureth and toileth upon it is not able to live." And if another "rich, covetous earl, who hath too much already, will give anything more than he that dwelleth upon it, out he must, be he never so poor ; though he should become a beggar, and after that a thief, and so at length be hanged, by his outgoing: so little is the law of love regarded; oh, cruel tyrannies! "Brinklow says it is now a common custom that the landlord, for every trifle, even for his friend's pleasure, in case his tenant have not a lease, "shall put him out of his farm," though he is "an honest man, paying his rent, and other duties well and honestly. I think there be no such wicked laws nor customs in the universal world again. What a shame is this to the whole realm, that we say we have received the Gospel of Christ, and yet it is worse now in this matter than it was over fifty or four-score years ago, when we had the Pope's law, wicked as it was." He says that this enhancing of leases will be the decay of the commonwealth. It must needs make all things dear, both for back and belly—all but landed men will suffer. And even they were richer when their lands went at the old price. When the landlord increases his rent, the farmer must ask more for his wool, cattle, and all the victuals, else he too cannot live, Brinklow has a chapter on "the enclosing of parks, forests, and chases." This is no small burden to the commons; the deer destroy the corn and grass. "And what land is your parks?" What but the most "batel and fruitful" ground in England And now by wicked laws, if a man kill a deer that bears the mark of a private person, though it came on his own ground, or devour his corn or grass, he is hanged.[1]
It may seem surprising that Brinklow dared to say this in Henry's lifetime, but he was a vehement supporter of the royal supremacy, and so long as a man supported that, he might compassionate the poor with safety.
My second witness is Thomas Lever, Master of St John's, Cambridge. He preached a sermon before Edward VI.,
- ↑ The Parliament of the Dissolution made it felony to take a fish out of a stew-pond.
