together with a competent proportion of land to be used and
occupied with them; and in nowise to be severed from them, as by
another statute made afterward in his successor's time, was more
fully declared: this, upon forfeiture to be taken, not by way of
popular action, but by seizure of the land itself, by the king and
lords of the fee, as to half the profits, till the houses and land
were restored. By this means the houses being kept up, did of
necessity enforce a dweller; and the proportion of the land for
occupation being kept up, did of necessity enforce that dweller not
to be a beggar or cottager, but a man of some substance, that might
keep hinds and servants, and set the plough a-going. This did
wonderfully concern the might and mannerhood of the kingdom, to
have farms, as it were, of a standard sufficient to maintain an
able body out of penury, and did, in effect, amortise a great part
of the lands of the kingdom unto the hold and occupation of the
yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between gentlemen and
cottagers or peasants. Now, how much this did advance the military
power of the kingdom, is apparent by the true principles of war,
and the examples of other kingdoms. For it hath been held by the
general opinion of men of best judgment in the wars (howsoever some
few have varied, and that it may receive some distinction of case),
that the principal strength of an army consisteth in the infantry
or foot. And to make good infantry, it requireth men bred, not in a
servile or indigent fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner.
Therefore, if a state run most to noblemen and gentlemen, and that
the husbandman and ploughman be but as their workfolks and
laborers, or else mere cottagers (which are but housed beggars),
you may have a good cavalry, but never good stable bands of foot;
like to coppice woods, that if you leave in them standing too
thick, they will run to bushes and briars, and have little clean