But when the abbey lands were distributed among the principal nobility and courtiers, they fell under a different management: the rents of farms were raised, while the tenants found not the same facility in disposing of the produce; the money was often spent in the capital, and the farmers, living at a distance, were exposed to oppression from their new masters, or to the still greater rapacity of the stewards.
These grievances of the common people were at that time heightened by other causes.

The arts of manufacture were much more advanced in other European countries than in England; and even in England these arts had made greater progress than the knowledge of agriculture; a profession which of all mechanical employments, requires the most reflection and experience.

A great demand arose for wool both abroad and at home: pasturage was found more profitable than unskilful tillage: whole estates were laid waste by enclosures; the tenants, regarded as a useless burden, were expelled their habitations; even the cottagers, deprived of the commons on which they formerly fed their cattle, were reduced to misery; and a decay of people, as well as a diminution of the former plenty, was remarked in the kingdom.[*] This grievance was now of an old date, and Sir Thomas More, alluding to it, observes in his Utopia, that a sheep had become in England a more ravenous animal than a lion or wolf, and devoured whole villages, cities, and provinces.
* Strype, vol.ii.Repository, Q.
The general increase, also, of gold and silver in Europe, after the discovery of the West Indies, had a tendency to inflame these complaints.

The growing demand in the more commercial countries had heightened every where the price of commodities, which could easily be transported thither; but in England, the labor of men, who could not so easily change their habitation, still remained nearly at the ancient rates, and the poor complained that they could no longer gain a subsistence by their industry.

It was by an addition alone of toil and application they were enabled to procure a maintenance; and though this increase of industry was at last the effect of the present situation, and an effect beneficial to society, yet was it difficult for the people to shake off their former habits of indolence; and nothing but necessity could compel them to such an exertion of their faculties.
It must also be remarked, that the profusion of Henry VIII.