Note E13 — 2.

Harrison, in his Description of England (E.E.T. Soc. ed. Furnivall, part i. p. 241), gives a very bad character to the landlords of his day: "What stocke of monie soeuer he [the farmer] gathereth and laieth vp in all his yeares, it is often seene, that the landlord will take such order with him for the same, when he renueth his lease, which is commonlie eight or six yeares before the old be expired (sith it is now growen almost to a custome, that if he come not to his lord so long before, another shall step in for a reuersion, and so defeat him out right) that it shall neuer trouble him more than the haire of his beard, when the barber hath washed and shaued it from his skin. And as they commend these, so (beside the decaie of house-keeping whereby the poore haue beene relieued) they speake also of three things that are growen to be verie grieuous vnto them, to wit, the inhansing of rents, latelie mentioned; the dailie oppression of copiholders, whose lords seeke to bring their poore tenants almost into plaine seruitude and miserie, dailie deuising new meanes, and seeking vp all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then seuen times increasing their fines; driuing them also for euerie trifle to loose and forfeit their tenures, (by whom the greatest part of the realme dooth stand and is mainteined,) to the end they may fleece them yet more." See also Norden's Surveyor's Dialogue, ed. 1607, p. 51.

The following curious prayer is in Edward the Sixth's Liturgies:—"The earth is Thine, O Lord, and all that is contained therein, notwithstanding Thou hast given possession of it to the children of men, to pass over the time of their short pilgrimage in this vale of misery. We heartily pray Thee to send Thy Holy Spirit into the hearts of those that possess the grounds, pastures, and dwelling-places of the earth, that they, remembering themselves to be Thy tenants, may not rack nor stretch out the rents of their houses and lands, nor yet take unreasonable fines and incomes after the manner of covetous worldlings, but so let them out to others, that the inhabitants thereof may both be able to pay the rents, and also honestly to live and nourish their families, and relieve the poor. Give them grace also to consider that they are but strangers and pilgrims in this world, having here no dwelling-place, but seeking one to come; that they, remembering the short continuance of their life, may be contented with that which is sufficient, and not join house to house and land to land, to the impoverishment of others; but so behave themselves in letting out their lands, tenements, and pastures, that after this life they may be received into everlasting dwelling-places, through, etc."