Page:Henry Mayers Hyndman and William Morris - A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884).djvu/21

 adopted every conceivable device to enrich themselves at the expense of those who had a better title to the land than they had. Hence more vagrants, more homeless and a manifest decay in the real strength of the kingdom. Here again the reasons of the change were economical. The nobles wanted money to pay the debts which they had incurred during the wars, and also to maintain themselves at Court which they now more regularly frequented; just at this time too the Flanders market afforded a most profitable outlet for wool. Hence it was advantageous for the land-holders in every way to remove men and substitute sheep; since pasture farming needed fewer hands than arable and sheep paid better than human beings. This process of expropriation therefore went relentlessly on during the whole of the latter part of the sixteenth century in spite of numerous statutes against such action and the never-ceasing protests of men like More, Latimer, &c., against the mischief that was being done. Thus by degrees a landless class was being formed with no property beyond the bare force of labour in their bodies; and these people were slowly driven into the towns where they formed the germ of our modern city proletariat.

The breakdown of the feudal system led in almost every country to the establishment of a despotism, and England formed no exception to the rule. Henry VIII. and Thomas Cromwell answer closely enough to Louis XIII. and Richelieu. It was the object of king and minister alike that the crown should be supreme, and to a large extent they succeeded in attaining it: though Cromwell, less dexterous than the