date as well in Mantua and Verona, as also in Trent, after your arrival there. Whereof the last be of the 24th day of December. In your said letters you have full discreetly advertised the King's Highness, and me, of the occurrences in those parts, with such matters, as the Duke of Bourbon 1 hath desired you to write on his behalf. For which your diligence the King's Grace giveth unto you hearty thanks, like as I do the semblable [same].

His Highness and I desire you to persuade the Venetians, upon such great and notable considerations as be mentioned in the same copy, touching the dangers imminent unto all Christendom, firmly and constantly to stick and adhere at this time unto the emperor's party, and not to suffer themselves to be brought into such danger as they are like to be, if the French king were lord of Naples and Milan. Who, they may be well assured, would be no quiet neighbour unto them; nor should they, without their great trouble and peril, conveniently resist or withstand any [of] his pleasures or commandments. The example whereof, and of his entente towards that seigniory, if he may have an overhand in Italy, appeared at such time as the late French King compassed and brought about the great league 2 of the Pope, Emperor, himself, and the King of Spain then being, with other great princes against the same.

And in this matter you shall the better animate and encourage them, if you say secretly to the Duke and others of the council, that it is not unknown to the King's Highness, how inhumanely the Spaniards have ordered themselves in Italy, giving thereby cause and occasion to such as favour the emperor's party to decline from the same, and rather to desire and suffer the Frenchmen there, not being so cruel, than the Spaniards. But you shall say that the matters well proceeding at this time, the King's Highness trusteth to do so much with the emperor, that he shall give the investiture of the duchy of Milan clearly unto the Duke of the same. Whereby Italy may be delivered both from the Frenchmen and also the Spaniards. And thus, by the best means you can, to further, by all the ways to you possible, the exclusion of the French King from this enterprise of Naples, and the strengthening the emperor's folks, to resist him in the duchy of Milan.

Whereunto if the Venetians will not condescend, like as they shall be partners of the peril, the French King having

1 The Constable of Bourbon, who deserted Francis I. for Charles V, ? The League of Cambray, 1508.

such a foot in Italy, that he may command them at his pleasure, so they shall be of the first that shall suffer and put their state and dominion with the rest of Christendom in trouble, hazard and danger.

You shall say also unto them, that if their breaking their pacts, bands and conventions with the emperor, should give unto the French King commodity to attain the realm of Naples, the King's Highness cannot repute them as the emperor's friends, but rather his enemies: whereof in that case, as God forbid, should grow and ensue also cause of enmity between the King's Grace and them. In the declaration whereof you must handle them in doulce and pleasant manner; putting them in remembrance of the great intelligence and friendship, that hath of long season continued between this realm and that seigniory. Which to be discontinued in their default, the King's Highness, for the great favour that his Grace beareth to the same, would be right loth to see. And the point of enmity between the King and them not to be spoken of, unless then you shall see a desperation in their proceeding.

It shall also be well done, that at some convenient time, as of yourself, you persuade the Duke of Venice, that these great things depending, touching as well the continuance of the good intelligence between the King's Grace and them, as other matters of weighty importance, concerning the state of their seigniory; it shall be right expedient for conducing of things to the better train and purpose, that they have an ambassador here resident, by whose means the matters may be directed to much the more perfection, as by their wisdoms they can well consider. And what answer shall be made unto you, upon the premises, with other occurrences and successes there, I pray you to advertise me with diligence from time to time, as the King's and my special trust is in you. And thus right heartily fare ye well. At my place beside Westminster the 16th day of January.

Your loving friend,

T. CARLIS. EBOR.1

55. SHEEP WALKS (1516).

all

Every Englishman of moderate education has heard the name Utopia, and knows what the adjective Utopian means. The title of More's book has also been adopted by several European

1 Thomas, Cardinal and Archbishop of York,

languages to signify an ideal state which is impossible of attainment. The pity is that so few read Utopia. More sets out by cataloguing the worst social and political evils which he sees around him, especially in England. He then professes that he has a remedy, namely the common ownership of all things. Part I. states in dialogue form the main species of existing wrongs, and Part II. contains a sketch of the communal government which is established in Utopia (Nowhere). Historically Part I. excels Part II., and is invaluable to students of the period which lies just before the Reformation. One of More's complaints is that the monks evict tenants from their farms because wool-raising pays better than agriculture. It has been doubted whether the extent of this hardship was as he represented, but it was certainly a cause of discontent. With regard to the author, a considerable portion of More's life is part and parcel of his country's history. His writings prove his strength of mind, his learning, his warmth of sympathies and the quickness of his wit.

SOURCE.-Utopia. Sir T. More (1478-1535). Ed. Arber. Birmingham, 1869. P. 40.

There is another [cause of stealing] which, as I suppose is proper and peculiar to you Englishmen alone. What is that? quoth the Cardinal; 1 forsooth, my lord (quoth I) your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up, and swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, houses and cities. For look in what parts of the realm doth grow the finest, and therefore dearest wool, there noblemen and gentlemen: yea and certain abbots, holy men no doubt, not contenting themselves with the yearly revenues and profits, that were wont to grow to their forefathers and predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure nothing profiting, yea much noying [annoying] the weal public : leave no ground for tillage, they enclose all into pastures: they throw down houses: they pluck down towns, and leave nothing standing, but only the church to be made a sheephouse. And

1 John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1420?-1500).

as though you lost no small quantity of ground by forests, chases, lands and parks, those good holy men turn all dwelling places and all glebeland into desolation and wilderness. Therefore that one covetous and insatiable cormorant and very plague of his native country may compass about and enclose many thousand acres of ground together within one pale or hedge, the husbandmen be thrust out of their own, or else either by coveyne [deceit] and fraud, or by violent oppression they be put besides it, or by wrongs and injuries they be so wearied, that they be compelled to sell all: by one means therefore or by other, either by hook or crook they must needs depart away, poor, selye [innocent], wretched fools, men, women, husbands, wives, fatherless children, widows, woeful mothers, with their young babes, and their whole household small in substance, and much in number, as husbandry requireth many hands. Away they trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed houses, finding no place to rest in. All their household stuff, which is very little worth, though it might well abide the sale yet being suddenly thrust out, they be constrained to sell it for a thing of naught. And when they have wandered abroad till that be spent, what can they then else do but steal, and then justly pardy be hanged, or else go about a begging. And yet then also they be cast in prison as vagabonds, because they go about and work not: whom no man will set to work, though they never so willingly proffer themselves thereto. For one shepherd or herdman is enough to eat up that ground with cattle, to the occupying whereof about husbandry many hands were requisite. And this is also the cause why victuals be now in many places dearer. Yea, besides this the price of wool is so risen, that poor folks, which were wont to work it, and make cloth thereof, be now able to buy none at all. And by this means very many be forced to forsake work, and to give themselves to idleness. For after that so much ground was enclosed for pasture, an infinite multitude of sheep died of the rot, such vengeance God took of their inordinate and insatiable covetousness, sending among the sheep that pestiferous murrain, which much more justly should have fallen on the sheep masters' own heads. And though the number of sheep increase never so fast, yet the price falleth not one mite, because there be so few sellers. For they be almost all come into a few rich men's hands, whom no need forceth to sell before they list, and they list not before they may sell as dear as they list. Now the same cause bringeth in like dearth of the other kinds of cattle, yea and that so

much the more, because that after farms plucked down, and husbandry decayed, there is no man that passeth for the breeding of young stoore [stock]. For these rich men bring not up the young ones of great cattle as they do lambs. But first they buy them abroad very cheap, and afterward when they be fatted in their pastures, they sell them again exceeding dear. And therefore (as I suppose) the whole incommodity hereof is not yet felt. For yet they make dearth only in those places, where they sell. But when they shall fetch them away from thence where they be bred faster than they can be brought up then shall there also be felt great dearth, stoore beginning there to fail, where the ware is bought. Thus the unreasonable couvetousness of a few hath turned that thing to the utter undoing of your land, in the which thing the chief felicity of your realm did consist.

56. AN OATH OF ALLEGIANCE TO HENRY VIII. (1534).

This "Form or Example of the Profession and Oath exhibited to Henry VIII., king of England, by the Bishops and Clergy assembled in the Convocation in Parliament held anno Domini, 1534," will indicate the length to which by that date the revolt from Rome had gone. Parliament met in January, and in March the pope, Clement VII., finally pronounced that Henry's marriage with Catharine was valid, declaring the king excommunicate if he would not accept the decision. Doctrinal divergence from the mother church had not yet advanced so far as ecclesiastical.

SOURCE. Exemplar Professionis et Juramenti. Trans. in Somers' Tracts. Vol. i., p. 35.

To the most invincible and our most pious Lord in Christ, the Lord Henry the eighth, by the grace of God, king of England and France, defender of the faith, lord of Ireland, and on earth, under Christ, supreme head of the Church of England, your humble subjects and most obliged supplicants.

Reverence and obedience due to, and worthy of so excellent and mighty a prince, with all honour of subjection.

We, not constrained by force or fear, not hereunto induced or seduced by any deceit or other sinister machination, but out of our own certain knowledge, deliberate minds and mere and

1 Utopia was written in Latin. The original form of this last phrase is non sunt qui foeturam curent.

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