directed that such houses should immediately be built or provided for every county, "with mills, turns, cards, and such like necessary implements, to set the said rogues, or such other idle persons, on work." "Lord Coke," says Sir Frederick Eden, "was of opinion that justices of the peace were authorized by this act to commit to the house of correction idle or disorderly persons, although they had lawful means to live by. He conceived that houses of correction were the only possible means of compelling them to labor; and that this excellent work (as he called it) was, without question, feasible; for he says that, upon making of the 39th of Elizabeth (chap. 4), and a good space after, while justices and other officers were diligent and industrious, there was not a rogue to be seen in any part of England; but, when justices became remiss, rogues swarmed again. He adds, that few were committed to the house of correction without coming out better."1 The poor-law of the 43d of Elizabeth was continued by several statutes passed in the reigns of James and Charles, and a few additions were made to it, relating principally to the binding of poor children apprentices. These acts, however, are affirmed to have been very imperfectly executed; in many places, it is said, no rates were made for twenty, thirty, or forty years after the passing of the act of Elizabeth; and in most cases the sums raised were so inadequate that numbers of persons were still left to perish for want. fish as they could catch for themselves; a quarter respects been duly and severely put in execution, of a pound of butter a-day, costing about a penny, "to butter their fish, or otherwise to eat as they like;" half a pound of Holland cheese, costing five farthings; together with three pints of vinegar, costing about 2d., and seven Kentish fagots, costing about 6d. a-day, for every sixteen. The exact estimated daily cost of victualing for each is seven pence, three farthings, and one twenty-eighth of a farthing. This is rather higher than the allowance that is made in the Rutland table for the highest class of mechanics, even the master carpenter being only allowed sixpence a-day for diet; but the difference was no doubt found necessary in those days to make up for the dangers and disagreeable circumstances of a sailor's life. The wages proposed to be paid to the crew are also high as compared with the earnings of either agricultural or mechanical labor: the masters were to have about 3s. 7d. a-day; the mates about 10d.; one half of the men about 8d. each; the others about 7d.; and the boys about 2d. It appears by an ordinance printed in Rymer, that in 1636 seamen in the royal navy were allowed in harbor sevenpence halfpenny a-day for their provisions, and, when at sea, eightpence halfpenny. In a curious tract, entitled "Stanley's Remedy, or the Way how to Reform Wandering Beggars, Thieves, Highway Robbers, and Pickpockets," written in the reign of King James, and printed in 1646, the cost of the diet and maintenance of every one of the idle, thievish, drunken persons that infested the kingdom, living only upon beggary and plunder, is estimated at threepence per day at the least. Although the legislation respecting pauperism had begun to be separated from that respecting vagrancy and crime some time before the end of the preceding century, the two subjects still continued to be frequently viewed in their old, and, indeed, in some respects, natural and indissoluble connection. Even so early as only a few years after the accession of James I. we find parliament adverting to the inconveniences which had already begun to be experienced from the legal provision that had been established for the poor operating in many cases as a premium and encouragement to idleness. One of the clauses of an act passed in 1609 complains that many willful people, finding that they, having children, have some hope to have relief from the parish wherein they dwell, and being able to labor, and thereby to relieve themselves and their families, do nevertheless run away out of their parishes, and leave their families upon the parish." It was, therefore, enacted that all such persons should be deemed to be incorrigible rogues, and punished as such. This same act, after noticing that divers good and necessary laws formerly made for the building of houses of correction for the suppressing and punishing of rogues, vagabonds, and other idle, vagrant, and disorderly persons, had not wrought so good effect as was expected, partly because the houses of correction had not been built as was intended, partly that the laws had not in other 2 See vol. ii. p. 674. 1 Færdera, xx. 103. Stat. 7 Jac. I, c. 4. :- 66 The author of a pamphlet, entitled "Grievous Groans for the Poor, by M.S.," published in 1622, writes as follows: Though the number of the poor do daily increase, there hath been no collection for them, no, not these seven years, in many parishes of this land, especially in county towns; but many of those parishes turneth forth their poor, yea, and their lusty laborers that will not work, or for any misdemeanor want work, to beg, filch, and steal for their maintenance, so that the country is pitifully pestered with them; yea, and the maimed soldiers, that have ventured their lives and lost their limbs in our behalf, are also thus requited; for when they return home, to live by some labor in their natural country, though they can work well in some kind of labor, every man saith, We will not be troubled with their service, but make other shift for our business: so are they turned forth to travel in idleness (the highway to hell), and seek their meat upon meres (as the proverb goeth), with begging, filching, and stealing for their maintenance, until the law bring them unto the fearful end of hanging." Some information respecting the pauper and disorderly portion of the population a few years after this may be gleaned from a paper of orders for the regulation of certain branches of police, issued by the privy council in 1630. Common offenses and abuses, 1 State of the Poor, i. 145. The references are to Coke, 2 Inst., 729 and 734. 2 Reprinted, by Eden, from a copy in the British Museum: State 4 Poor, i. 156-160. which stewards to lords and gentlemen are enjoined specially to inquire into in keeping their leets twice a-year, are enumerated as follows: "Of bakers and brewers for breaking of assizes; of forestallers and regrators; against tradesmen of all sorts, for selling with under-weights, or at excessive prices, or things unwholesome, or things made in deceit; of people breakers of houses, common thieves, and their receivers; haunters of taverns or ale-houses; those that go in good clothes and fare well, and none knows whereof they live; those that be nightwalkers; builders of cottages and takers-in of inmates; offenses of victualers, artificers, workmen, and laborers." Another regulation directs that "the correction houses in all counties may be made adjoining to the common prisons, and the jailer to be made governor of them, that so he may employ to work prisoners committed for small causes, and so they may learn honesty by labor, and not live idly and miserably long in prison, whereby they are made worse when they come out than they were when they went in; and, where many houses of correction are in one county, one of them at least to be near the jail." It would appear from this that the house of correction system had lost by this time very much of the virtue ascribed to it by Coke in its first operation. Another order, prohibiting all persons from harboring rogues in their barns or outhousings, and authorizing constables and justices of the peace to demand from persons wandering about | with women and children where they were married and where their children were christened, adds, "for these people live like salvages, neither marry, nor bury, nor christen; which licentious liberty makes so many delight to be rogues and wanderers." A great increase of beggars had been occasioned about this time by the disbanding of the army in Ireland the preceding year: the consequence was that the soldiers, and probably many others along with them, immediately flocked over in swarms to England; to remedy which evil a proclamation was issued, commanding them to return to Ireland, and ordering them to be conveyed from constable to constable to either Bristol, Minehead, Barnstaple, Chester, Liverpool, Milford, or Workington; if they should be found begging in England afterward, they were to be punished as rogues and vagabonds.1 2 Rymer, Fœd., xix. 72. N the 25th of May of Manchester, the Lord Kimbolton of former Charles and his two times, and one of the members whose attempted brothers, the dukes arrest had hurried on the civil war, hailed him as of York and Glouces-"Great king," "dread sovereign," "a native king," ter, landed near Do- "a son of the wise," "a son of the ancient kings," ver, where Monk met and prophesied to him that he would be an example them. The king em- to all kings of piety, justice, prudence, and power, braced and kissed his the greatest king that ever bore the name of restorer, calling him Charles. Nor were the Commons much behind "father," and walked the Lords: their speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimwith him to his coach; ston, who had formerly been distinguished by a and the glorified gen- very different species of oratory, told Charles that eral, to the envy of older and nobler royalists, rode he was deservedly the king of hearts;" that he in the same coach with the king and the dukes. would receive from his people a crown of hearts: On the 28th, the Lords were advertised, by a that he could not fail of being the happiest and royal message, that his majesty would be at White- most glorious king of the happiest people. We hall on the morrow; and on the 29th, which shall presently see how these predictions were was Charles's birthday,' he made his solemn verified. entry into London, attended by the members of both Houses, bishops, ministers, knights of the Bath, lord mayor and aldermen, kettle-drums and trumpets. The streets were railed in, the windows and balconies were hung with tapestry, flowers were scattered on his path, and all was joy and jubilee. The first thing he did on arriving at Whitehall was to invest Monk with the Order of the Garter, and make him a member of the privy council: The foreign ambassadors, who had complimented Oliver and Richard Cromwell, and even acknowledged the restored Rump, made great testimony of joy for his happy restoration. And when Charles met the House of Lords, the Earl 1 He then completed his thirtieth year. Even at Dover the restored king was beset by ambitious and impatient cavaliers, who all hoped to be made ministers, members of the privy council, or something great in the government, as the reward of their loyalty and sufferings; and those were the most pressing whose services had been the least valuable to the cause. At Canterbury, Monk, who in some respects was a mere broker for others, who might have opposed him but for the tempting bargains he had offered, put into his majesty's hands "a large paper full of names," telling him "that he could not do him better service than by recommending to him such persons who were most grateful to the people, and in respect of their parts and interests were best able to serve him." Charles put the paper into his pocket without reading it; but, as soon as he could, he took an opportunity of consulting with his chancellor, Clarendon, who had returned with him from a long exile, and who informs us that the paper contained the names of at least threescore and ten persons, who were thought fittest to be made privy councilors; that in this entire number there were only two-the Marquis of Hertford and the Earl of Southampton-who had ever served the king, or been looked upon as zealously affected to his service; that all the rest were either such as had deserted the king by adhering to the parliament, or such as had taken part in the beginning of the late revolution (here called rebellion), and had acted with all fierceness and animosity until the new model, and dismissal of the Earl of Essex: then, indeed, as Cromwell had grown terrible to them, they were disposed to wish the king back again, though they had done nothing but wish. There were then," adds Clarendon, "the names of the principal persons of the Presbyterian party, to which the general (Monk) was thought to be most inclined, at least to satisfy the foolish and unruly inclinations of his wife. There were likewise the names of some who were most notorious in all the other factions; and of some who, in respect of their mean qualities and meaner qualifications, nobody could imagine how they could come to be named." But the chancellor, who cared a great deal more about the cabinet to be established than did the indolent, pleasure-loving king, and who had made up his mind for a privy council of a very different composition, undertook to settle this matter with the general, through the medium of Mr. Morrice, the The wary most intimate friend of the latter. Monk avoided committing himself in person; but his friend Morrice, after speaking with him in private, returned to the chancellor and told him the trouble the general was in-that the truth was, he had been obliged to have much communication with men of all humors and inclinations, and so had promised to do them good offices to the king, and could not, therefore, avoid inserting their names in that paper, without any imagination that the king would accept them; that he had done his part, and all that could be expected from him, and left the king to do what he thought best for his own service." In lieu, therefore, of Monk's list, a new one was drawn up by Clarendon, who found himself constrained to admit almost as many Presbyterians as cavaliers and Church-of-England men, but who evidently hoped to be able to displace the former by degrees. The king's two brothers, the dukes of York and Gloucester, the Marquis of Ormond, the Earl of Lindsay, the Earl of Southampton, Lord Say and Sele, Lord Seymour, Sir Frederick Cornwallis, Sir George Carteret, Colonel Charles Howard, General Monk, the Earl of Manchester, the Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Mr. Arthur Annesley, Mr. Morrice (Monk's confidential friend, who was also made secretary of state), the Chancellor Clarendon, the Marquis of Dorchester, the Earl of Berkshire, the Earl of Norwich, Lord Wentworth, Mr. Denzil Hollis, Sir Edward Nicholas, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Marquis of Hertford, the Earl of Northumber land, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Roberts, Lord Berkeley, and General Montague, admiral of the 1 Clarendon, Life. |