to receive universal recognition. Moreover, it is at least noticeable that in the Middle Ages the leaders of a Jacquerie were as hostile to the Church as to the State.[1] The Primate of England was beheaded by Tyler's followers, and the Convent of St. Albans terrorised by sympathisers with Tyler; the Bishop of Salisbury was beheaded by sympathisers with Cade, and in either movement Church officials were obliged to hide for their lives. It can scarcely be supposed, therefore, that the poor were conscious of profiting to any great extent by Church alms. As a fact, we know that lawless vagabondage and extreme destitution in great cities were features of every period of the Middle Ages. The tendency of the representatives of labour in modern times is to give increased power to the State, and to attain their ends by influencing its councils. It may prove that the expectation of obtaining relief through the State has been a fallacious one. Meanwhile, that the vagrant poverty of our large communities has been considerably reduced can hardly be doubted. The English poor-rate in Charles II. 's time amounted to little less than half the entire revenue of the Crown,[2] and the paupers and beggars in 1696 were estimated at more than one-fifth of the population. They are now one-thirtieth. Two years later (1698) Fletcher of Saltoun declared that in Scotland, which had then a population of about a million, there were 200,000 persons begging from door to door, and that "in all times there have been about 100,000 of those
- ↑ The confession of Jack Straw says: "We would have destroyed all the beneficed clergy, bishops, monks, canons, and the rectors of churches off the face of the earth."—Walsingham, vol. ii. p. 10. Even if we take this confession to be a forgery, it must be assumed to represent in an exaggerated form the views held by the insurgents.
- ↑ Macaulay's History of England vol. i. pp. 437, 438.
