The number of sheep allowed to be kept in one flock, was restrained to two thousand.[v*] Sometimes, says the statute, one proprietor or farmer would keep a flock of twenty-four thousand.

It is remarkable, that the parliament ascribes the increasing price of mutton to this increase of sheep: because, say they, the commodity being gotten into few hands, the price of it is raised at pleasure.[v**] It is more probable, that the effect proceeded from the daily increase of money; for it seems almost impossible that such a commodity could be engrossed.
In the year 1544, it appears that an acre of good land in Cambridgeshire was let at a shilling, or about fifteen pence of our present money.[v***] This is ten times cheaper than the usual rent at present.
But commodities were not above four times cheaper; a presumption of the bad husbandry in that age.
Some laws were made with regard to beggars and vagrants;[v****] one of the circumstances in government, which humanity would most powerfully recommend to a benevolent legislator; which seems, at first sight, the most easily adjusted; and which is yet the most difficult to settle in such a manner as to attain the end without destroying industry.
The convents formerly were a support to the poor; but at the same time tended to encourage idleness and beggary.
* 25 Henry VIII.c.

2.
** 24 Henry VIII.c.

3.
*** 33 Henry VIII.c.

11.
**** Strype, vol.i.p.