Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/370

350 and they produce also fanatics, and fools, and villains; but they are unfavourable to the action of average conscientious men, and to the application of the plain principles of right and wrong to every-day life. Common men at such times see all things changing round them—institutions falling to ruin, religious truth no longer an awful and undisputed reality, but an opinion shifting from hour to hour; and they are apt to think that, after all, interest is the best object for which to live, and that in the general scramble those are the wisest who best take care of themselves. Thus, from arbitrary selfishness on one side, and discontent rapidly growing on the other, the condition of the country districts in England was becoming critical. The yeomen, driven from their holdings, were unable to find employment elsewhere. The loss of the common lands took from many of the poor their best means of subsistence; while corn was rising to famine prices from the diminished breadth of land under the plough, and with corn, all other articles of daily consumption. Unhappily, two causes were operating to produce the rise of prices, and the people and many educated persons believed that the landlords were responsible, not only for half the blame, but for the whole of it.

Instead of restoring the silver currency, the Protector, as has been seen, had yielded to the temptation to raise supplies from the same source for the Scottish wars; and from the mints at York, South wark, Canterbury, and the Tower, fresh and fresh streams of base money had been poured into circulation. The sums for