The king refused to interfere by any further and harsher provisions between employers and employed, and left cases of breach of law to be dealt with in his ordinary courts of justice.

On the one side he forbade the threatening gatherings which were already common in the country, but on the other he forbade the illegal exactions of the employers.

With such a reply however the proprietary class were hardly likely to be content.

Two years later the Parliament of Gloucester called for a Fugitive-slave Law, which would have enabled lords to seize their serfs in whatever county or town they found refuge, and in 1379 they prayed that judges might be sent five times a year into every shire to enforce the Statute of Labourers.
[Sidenote: Edward and the Parliament] But the strife between employers and employed was not the only rift which was opening in the social structure.

Suffering and defeat had stripped off the veil which hid from the nation the shallow and selfish temper of Edward the Third.