The old process of enfranchisement went quietly on.

During the century and a half which followed the Peasant Revolt villeinage died out so rapidly that it became a rare and antiquated thing.

The class of small freeholders sprang fast out of the wreck of it into numbers and importance.
In twenty years more they were in fact recognized as the basis of our electoral system in every English county.

The Labour Statutes proved as ineffective as of old in enchaining labour or reducing its price.

A hundred years after the Black Death the wages of an English labourer was sufficient to purchase twice the amount of the necessaries of life which could have been obtained for the wages paid under Edward the Third.