361. Bad Government; Seizure of Unenclosed Lands; High Rents;
Latimer's Sermon.
Edward, son of Henry VIII by Jane Seymour (S355), died at sixteen. In
the first part of his reign of six years the goverment was managed by
his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, an extreme Protestant, whose
intentions were good, but who lacked practical judgement. During the
latter part of his life Edward fell under the control of the Duke of
Northumberland, who was the head of a band of scheming and profligate
men.
They, with other nobles, seized the unenclosed lands of the country
and fenced them in for sheep pastures, thus driving into beggary many
who had formerly got a good part of their living from these commons.
At the same time farm rents rose in somee cases ten and even twenty
fold,[1] depriving thousands of the means of subsistence, and reducing
to poverty many who had been in comfortable circumstances.
[1] This was oweing to the greed for land on the part of the
mercantile classes, who had now acquired wealth, and wished to become
landed proprietors. See Froude's "England."
The bitter complaints of the sufferers found expression in Bishop
Latimer's outspoken sermon, preached before King Edward, in which he
said: "My father was a yeoman [small farmer], and had no lands of his
own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds [rent] by year, and
hereupon tilled so much as kept half a dozen men; he had walk
[pasture] for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine.
"He was able and did find the King a harness [suit of armor] with
himself and his horse, until he came to the place where he should
receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness
when he went into Blackheath Field. He kept me to school, or else I
had not been able to have preached before the King's majesty now. He
married my sisters with five pounds [dower] ... apiece. He kept
hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms he gave to the poor.
"And all this he did off the said farm, where he that now hath it
payeth sixteen pounds a year or more, and is not able to do anything
for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of
drink to the poor." But as Latimer patheticall said, "Let the
preacher preach till his tongue be worn to the stumps, nothing is
amended."[1]
[1] Latimer's first sermon before King Edward VI, 8th of March, 1549.