Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 3.djvu/624

610 floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he turned out of the high road, and was conducted across some meadows, when it was necessary for him to ride to the skirts in water. In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being swept away by an inundation of the Trent. He was afterwards detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state of the roads, and then ventured to proceed only because fourteen members of the house of commons, who were going up in a body to parliament, with guides and numerous attendants, took him into their company. On the roads of Derbyshire travellers were in constant fear for their necks, and were frequently compelled to alight and lead their beasts. The great route through Wales to Holyhead was in such a state that, in 1686, a viceroy, going to Ireland, was five hours travelling fourteen miles—from Saint Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was forced to walk a great part of the way, and his lady was carried in a litter. His coach was, with much difficulty, and by the help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, carriages were taken to pieces at Conway and borne on the shoulders of stout Welsh peasants to the Menai Straits. In some parts of Kent and Sussex none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the bog, in which at every step they sunk deep. The markets were often inaccessible during several months. It is said the fruits of the earth were sometimes suffered to rot in one place, while in another place, distant only a few miles, the supply fell short of the demand. The wheeled carriages in this district were generally pulled by oxen. When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of Petworth in wet weather he was six hours going nine miles; and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages which conveyed his retinue several were upset and injured. A letter from one of the party has been preserved, in which the unfortunate courtier complains that, during fourteen hours, he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned or stuck fast in the mud."

To avoid the nuisance of carriages on such roads the habit prevailed of travelling very much on horseback; but then it required to go well armed, and, if possible, in company, for the country was infested by highwaymen. The adventures of horsemen were commonly as numerous and exciting as those who used carriages, though mails and carriages were also frequently stopped by the Nevisons, Biases, and Claude Duvals of the day. To abate the difficulties of the road, on the restoration the turnpike system was adopted—a new era in road-making—and what were called flying coaches were put on the amended ways, which conveyed passengers at a better rate; but it was only in our time that Macadam made the highways really passable at all seasons.

During the commonwealth, travellers met equally provoking impediments in passing through towns, if they dared to travel on Sundays. There was a fine for such a breach of the Sabbath; and Elwood describes his ludicrous dilemma when riding to a Friends' meeting on Sunday, on a borrowed horse, with a borrowed hat and great coat; for his father had locked up his own horse, hat, and coat to keep him from the conventicle. Being stopped and brought before a magistrate, he was ordered to pay the fine; but he replied that he had no money. "You have a good horse, however," observed the magistrate. "That is borrowed," said Elwood. "Well, you have a good great coat." "That is borrowed, too," added Elwood. "Nay, then, we must have your hat, it is a good one." "That also is borrowed," continued the young quaker. At which the magistrate, declaring that he never saw such a traveller in his life, who had nothing but what was borrowed, ordered him to be detained till the morrow, and then sent back again.

In the times we are now reviewing the tables were turned, and the royalist churchmen and squirearchy were employing their country leisure in breaking up the conventicles of all sorts of dissenters, pulling down the meeting-houses of the obstinate quakers, and sending them to prison by shoals. Sir Christopher Wren, by order of the king, tried his hand at pulling down quakers' meeting-houses, before he built St. Paul's. The spirit of political and ecclesiastical party violence raged through the country, and formed a strange contrast, in the cruelties and oppression practised on the truly religious portion of the community, to the profligacy of the gentry and, above all, of the court. What rendered this condition of things more gloomy was the low position which the country clergy then occupied. The property of the church having fallen into the hands of the aristocracy, the generality of country livings were poor, and depended chiefly on the small tithes and a miserable glebe of a few acres. Whilst some few men of distinguished abilities, like Burnet, Tillotson, Barrow, and Stillingfleet, rose to distinction and occupied the few wealthy dignities and livings, the parish clergymen were too commonly men of low origin and little education. Men of family disdained the office, and the chaplain of a great house was looked on as little better than a servant; married the cook or the housekeeper, and became the hanger-on of some country hall, joining in the rude riot and the ruder jests of his patron. Even so late as Fielding's time, as we have already remarked, the relative position of the squire and the parson were those of Western and parson Adams.

Perhaps the most pleasing feature of country life was that of the position of the yeoman, or man of small independent property. This class had been increased by the various distributions of great estates; and it is calculated that at this time one-seventh at least of the population consisted of men with their families who lived on their own little demesnes producing from fifty to a hundred pounds a year. The number of men who farmed the lands of the aristocracy at that time is affirmed to have been much fewer than those who farmed their own. This independence of condition gave them independence of mind, and it was amongst this class that the strongest resistance to the dominance and intolerance of the squirearchy was found. Many of them during the civil wars and the commonwealth adopted the puritan faith, and continued to maintain it in defiance of five-mile acts, conventicle acts, and acts of uniformity. From them has descended the sturdy spirit which, uniting with the same in towns, has continued to vindicate the liberties and manly bearing of the British population.

Nor amid the corruptions and bitternesses of the times