allodial estates, held direct from the Crown. Such an arrangement
would have left the income of the feudee unimpaired, as it would
only have applied the fund that had been paid to the men-at-arms to
this purpose; and by creating out of that land a number of small
estates held direct from the Crown, the misery that arose from the
eviction and destruction of a most meritorious class, would have
been avoided. Vagrancy, with its great evils, would have been
prevented, and the passing of the Poor laws would have been
unnecessary. Unfortunately Henry and his counsellors did not
appreciate the consequence of the suppression of retainers and
liveries. By the course he adopted to secure the influence of the
Crown, he compensated the nobles, but destroyed the agricultural
middle class.

This change had an important and, in some respects, a most
injurious effect upon the condition of the nation, and led to
enactments of a very extraordinary character, which I must submit
in detail, inasmuch as I prefer giving the ipsissima verba of the
statute-book to any statement of my own. To make the laws
intelligible, I would remind you that the successful efforts of the
nobles had, during the three centuries of Plantagenet rule, nearly
obliterated the LIBERI HOMINES (whose rights the Norman conqueror
had sedulously guarded), and had reduced them to a state of
vassalage. They held the lands of their lord at his will, and paid
their rent by military service. When retainers were put down, and
rent or knights' service was no longer paid with armed men, their
occupation was gone. They were unfit for the mere routine of
husbandry, and unprovided with funds for working their farms. The
policy of the nobles was changed. It was no longer their object to
maintain small farmsteads, each supplying its quota of armed men to