1831.] REVIEW.-Hamilton's Progress of Society. "The necessary or ordinary expenses of the labouring part of the community in Britain, including men, women, and children, may be taken at six pence a day, or nine pounds a year each.―p. 101. "As the labouring part of the community seldom accumulate much wealth, their annual earnings are nearly equal to their annual outgoings. This we have stated at nine pounds a year each. If a family consist of five persons, a man, his wife, two children, and an infant, their aggregate expense amounts to forty-five pounds. If the man gain eighteen pence a day for three hundred working days, his wages amount to twenty-two pounds ten shillings in the year."-p. 103. Now if we take, as here stated, the minimum of expense for such a family to be 451. per annum, and the wife and children to be incapable of Proprietors of land, gross income 151 earning any thing, how is it possible that they can be duly maintained upon only 22l. 10s.? and if this family be doubled, as is sometimes the case, the income of each will be only between 21. and 31. per annum. "To persons in these circumstances food is the principal article of expense. According to Sir Frederick Eden, it amounts to three-fourths of the whole. The income of a labourer is burthened with a part of the taxes, which supply the national revenue. He pays little in direct taxation, but he pays indirectly in the price of beer, leather, candles, soap, tobacco, and other articles." p. 104. The net income of the different classes, excluding professional men, Dr. Hamilton makes to be the following: ... ... Deduct tithes, poor's rates, and other local taxes, £.10,000,000, and land-tax, £.1,200,000 £.55,000,000 11,200,000 43,800,000 9,100,000 34,700,000 125,000,000 2,000,000 123,000,000 5,600,000 97,400,000 ... ... 90,000,000 10,000,000 80,000,000 Dividends to national creditors ... Public expenditure for army, navy, civil list, &c. Deduct the part which falls upon the national creditors, public 67,000,000 152 REVIEW.-Hamilton's Progress of Society. out of which deduct 10,000,000 taxes, remainder is 80,000,000, to which add poor's rates, 6,000,000, making 86,000, 000, and leaving_only 4,000,000 deficient, to complete the 90,000,000 requisite for their maintenance at 9l. per head. According, therefore, to these statements, the funds requisite for supporting the poor are nearly tantamount to the demand. But here lies the rub. It has been before shown that a family of five persons ought to have 451. per ann. (5 x 945); but instead of this, if four out of the five earn nothing, then the utmost a labourer can make by working at 18d. a day, will only amount to 221. 10s. per annum, leaving him in want of a full half of a competent support. If luxurious habits be added, the want will be further aggravated. As to the other point of public interest, the education of the poor, Dr. Hamilton shows us, from the example of Scotland, its good effect, and he says, in reference to those with whom the education has been carried as high as Mechanics' Institutes and similar societies for diffusion of knowledge, "We have never observed that persons of this character were less diligent than others in their ordinary occupations, and they are seldom or never addicted to intemperance."-p. 251. No truth is more manifest, than that the farmer gains more by paying a composition to the clergyman for his tithes, than he would if he paid that assessment in the form of increased rent to his landlord, together with a government impost for the support of the Church. It is, we repeat utterly impossible to get rid of the payment of tithe in some form or other; and we are exceedingly surprised to see such a man as Dr. Hamilton was, losing sight in p. 167, of this palpable fact, and treating the payment as if it was capable of utter extinction. As Dr. Hamilton proceeds, he makes, as do others, tithe to be a tax upon capital, and the position is marshalled in an algebraic array of indicatory letters and figures. The simplification of all this parade is as follows: A has a plot of ground, upon which he raises thirty cabbages, worth say one penny each. The tithe-owner takes his tenth, viz. three cabbages, or three pence. A then manures the said plot, and has an increased crop to the amount of sixty [Feb. cabbages. The tithe-owner then receives six cabbages or pence instead of three, and thus levies a new tax upon the capital (i. e. the manure) which has caused the increase. But does this rise of tithe depress agriculture? Most certainly not, unless it can be proved that a man who can gain nine parts out of ten will forego these because he grudges the odd tenth? If a man expends his capital in any commercial transaction whatever, he pays as much more in customs, excise, or other taxes to the State, as the farmer does in regard to the increase of tithe, and if he did not pay it to the parson, he would to the landlord in the additional amount of rent. It is very true that there ought to be no tax whatever upon capital expended to increase production, and it is frequently guarded against by leases. Nevertheless, why is an inevitable circumstance common to every kind of improved property, ascribed to tithes in particular? It might be supposed that people made such improvements not for their own benefit or pleasure, but for that of others. Do not the very improvers themselves endeavour to gain from the public far more than they themselves are called upon to pay, in consequence of their improvements? In p. 252, Dr. Hamilton has a chapter upon the "Effect of Numbers in a State." Here we shall notice the mistake of those who suppose that the evil can be cured by breaking up fresh land. It has been before shown that a labourer with a wife and three children can earn only 221. 10s. per annum. Unless, therefore, his income can be raised to 451. per annum, it is to no purpose. To make the position good, it ought to be shown that such employment upon a new soil will augment his wages to the amount desired. Whereas, instead of doing this, it will only multiply the labouring class, and of course make more paupers. Labour never rises to a fair and adequate maintenance price in over peopled countries, and emigration is the only means of preserving society in a state of wellbeing. We cannot take leave of this work without again reverting to the state of the labourer before alluded to. It seems clear that the ninety millions is sufficient for the support of ten millions of labourers at 97. a head per annum; but that the women and chil 1831.] REVIEW.-Nicolas's Expenses of Elizabeth of York. dren commonly act as a dead weight, Privy-purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: THE utility of this species of record was exemplified in our last number (p. 53), by much important information derived from the Privy-purse Expenses of Henry the Seventh, introduced in the Excerpta Historica. The present work is edited upon the same plan as the Privy-purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth, published in 1828, with which it forms a correspondent volume. These accounts of Queen Elizabeth of York extend only over one year, 1502, which was the last of her life; but the valuable illustrations they afford of the manners, arts, and manufactures of the age, in addition to various points of historical interest, will be apparent from the Editor's own of their contents: summary "The disbursements were for servants' wages; for preparing apartments for her Majesty when she removed from one place to another; for conveying her clothes and necessary furniture; for messengers; for the repairs of her barge, and the pay of the bargemen; for her chairs and litters; for the purchase of household articles; for silks, satins, damask, cloth of gold, velvet, linen, gowns, kirtles, petticoats, for her own use, or the use of the ladies whom she maintained; for jewellery, trappings for horses, furs, gold chains, &c.; for the charges of her stable and greyhounds; for the salaries of her ladies; for annuities to her sisters, and the entire support of the children of Katherine Lady Courtenay; for the clothing and board of her fool; for her numerous offerings, and other demands for religious purposes, principally in sending persons on pilgrimages in her name; for GENT. MAG. February, 1831. 153 the distribution of alms on her journeys; for the maintenance of her daughter the Queen of Scots, for whose use clothes and musical instruments were repeatedly purchased; for repairs of Baynard's Castle; for gifts at christenings; for setting anthems and carols at Christmas; for making bonfires; for gratuities to old servants, to the King's painter, and to others who had done any thing acceptable to her; for minstrels; for the support of children which were presented to her; for the trifling losses she incurred at cards, dice, and the tables; for boat-hire; for the attendance of physicians and apothecaries, and for medicine; for the wages of priests, and for making nuns and a monk, &c."—p. cii. The same custom of mean persons continually making trifling presents to their superiors, and even the Sovereign, which we noticed in Henry the Eighth's accounts, is equally displayed in the present: "Nothing was too contemptible to be received, nor was any person deemed too humble to be permitted to testify his respect in this manner. Among the articles presented to Elizabeth were fish, fruit, fowls, puddings, tripe, a crane, woodcocks, a popinjay, quails, and other birds, pork, rabbits, Lanthony cheeses, pease-cods, cakes, a wild boar, malmsey wine, flowers, chiefly roses, bucks, sweetmeats, rose-water, a cushion, and a pair of clarycords, a kind of virginal."-p. ci. Rewards were given in return, and "the douation, though generally proportionate to the article given, was sometimes of greater value." The total amount expended in the year to which these accounts relate was 3411. 5s. 94d. The highest salary of the Queen's ladies was 331. 6s. 8d. and the lowest 51. For the diet of her two nephews and niece, two female servants, and a groom, only 13s. 4d. a week were allowed; and when Lord Edward Courtenay died, the allowance was reduced to 9s. Their clothes were separately provided; and, as a speci men of the manner in which the accounts are kept, we quote the following entry relative to these high-born children. "It'm, the xth day of Juyn to Robert Hed of London, tailloure, for making of twoo cootes of blake chamlet for my youg Lordes Henry Courtney and Edward Courtney, at ijs. the coote, iiijs. ayenst Christmas anno xvjmo. It'm, for making of twoo cootes of blake velvet for the same yong lordes aganst Estre than next ensuyng iiijs. deli 154 verd by William Bailly. It'm, for making of twoo cootes of blake chamlet the same tyme for the said lordes deliverd by Elys Hiltone, iiijs... xijs. REVIEW.-Nicolas's Expenses of Elizabeth of York. [Feb. cited in their favour, was induced to court popularity by solemnly promising them his protection, and a sufficient provision. The words of this engagement, to which he swore before the Lords spiritual and temporal, and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London, are preserved, and therein his nieces are simply designated as "the doughters of Dame Elizabeth Gray, late calling her selff Quene of England, that is to wit, Elizabeth, Cecill, Anne, Kateryn, and Briggitte," on which Mr. Sharon Turner remarks, that "there was indeed an unworthy jealousy of power in not calling them Princesses It would be too much to assert that genealogists make the best historians; yet it is certain that no historian can be a master of his subject, especially during the dominion of feudal arrangements, who does not keep constantly in view the ties of family descent, relationship, and connection; and endeavour to inform himself with accuracy of the dates when changes took place in those circumstances, whether by births, marriages, or deaths, or by the less obvious processes of legitimation, betrothings, attainders, or restorations in blood. That constant vigiJance in these particulars is necessary, is evident, when we find Mr. Sharon Turner, an historian who is allowed the merit of unusual research, falling into erroneous conclusions from its non-observance. The instance is this. After Queen Elizabeth Wydeville and her five daughters had lain for ten months in sanctuary, during the first year of King Richard's reign, the usurper, observing the general sympathy ex in his oath, and in the idea of marrying them as private gentlewomen merely." Now the fact was, that "The marriage of their mother had just before been declared invalid, and they bastardized, by the Act of Settlement; hence, if Richard had styled them Priucesses,' or treated them in any other way than as private gentlewomen, he would have contradicted the Act of Parliament, and have impeached his own title to the Crown.”—p. xlii. With the same genealogical penetration Mr. Nicolas suggests, that, if the Duke of Buckingham, as his first motive for rebellion, entertained (as it is probable he did) a hope of attaining the Crown himself, his claim was founded upon his descent from Thomas of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward the Third; and not, as suggested in the apocryphal speech ascribed to him by the chronicler Grafton, upon his mother's being the heiress of the house of Beaufort, since it is highly improbable he should ever have been ignorant of the superior claims of his cousin, the Countess of Richmond, the heiress of the elder brother.p. xxxvi. Regarding the marriage which the historianst of Richard the Third have all hinted that he proposed with Elizabeth of York, Mr. Nicolas considers it improbable that he entertained such a project, as several political objections would militate against it; in which view we coincide. The objections of the illegality of such an union, and the "" "All things requisite and necessary for their exibicion and findings as my kynneswomen. The term " exhibition is now applied only to the other sex, and confined, we believe, to the Universities.-For "th' exhibicion and finding of the said dame Elizabeth Gray" the sum of DCC marks was allowed, that is 4667. 13s. 4d.; which is misprinted 2661. 13s. 4d. in p. xl, and 233l. in p. lxxvii. Among these writers (pp. xlvi. and 1.) Sir Thomas More should not have been included, as his history breaks off in the middle of the Duke of Buckingham's business. 1831.] REVIEW.-Nicolas's Expenses of Elizabeth of York. disgust which it might have created, the author is inclined to combat: "The Pope not only might, but often did, authorize the marriage of uncles and nieces; and where would have been the crime, if Richard, as a son of the Church of Rome, had sought to fortify his throne, and prevent a civil war, by availing himself of an indulgence which then, as now, is held in all Catholic countries to be strictly legal? It is true that in England relatives so closely connected seldom married; and, excepting under urgent circumstances, it might not have been wise to deviate so much from the general custom; but all which is contended is, that an act which was not unusual in other countries, which was not forbidden by the common law, and which could be rendered lawful in the eyes of the Church, might have been contemplated by Richard the Third, without rendering him the incestuous monster he has been represented.”—p. xlv. We are not sufficiently informed on this subject, to know whether this liberty, which in more recent times has indeed been too common in the Royal houses of the Romish communion, was in the fifteenth century "not unusual in other countries," at the same time when consanguinity so much more distant required the papal dispensation to legalise marriage; but when it is stated that it seldom" happened in England, we think the words" if ever" might have been safely added, as we never heard of a single instance. From the tenour of various entries in these accounts, and those of Henry VII., and the inquiries to which they have led, Mr. Nicolas finds no reason to suppose that Henry was either unkind to his wife, or severe to her mother; both which charges were not discredited by any writer before the recent work of Dr. Lingard. With regard to Queen Elizabeth Wydeville historians have been contented to state, that she passed her latter years in a melancholy seclusion, approaching to imprisonment, at Bermondsey Abbey; but, on collecting the remaining particulars of her history, after her daughter's marriage, it appears that the King at different times made proper provi 155 sion for her support; that in 1486 she was Prince Arthur's godmother, and present at his christening at Winchester; that in Nov. 1487, Henry was willing that she should become the wife of the King of Scots; and that she was present at court when her daughter gave audience to the French ambassador in Nov. 1489. The only mention of Bermondsey Abbey is in lodging within that monastery, beher will; it is presumed she was then cause the Abbot was witness to the instrument; but she gives "directions which indicate that she would be interred wherever she might desire, and that her funeral would be conducted, not like that of a disgraced prisoner, but according to her elevated rank." "Her not having any property to bequeath, arose from her interest in her income and lands being for life only." It appears that when the MSS. lately transferred from the Royal Society to the British Museum are arranged, 66 an account of her funeral, and of the attention and kindness of her daughters to her in her illness," will be accessible.-P. lxxx. At the same time that Henry's behaviour towards his wife and motherin-law is by investigation relieved from opprobrium, it is undeniable that, before he would conclude the marriage, he took every possible care that he should be in no wise considered as indebted for the throne to his intended union with the heiress of York, but that the right should be acknowledged as entirely vested in himself. Sensible that his title by descent was too defec tive to be relied on,* rather than derive any title from his bride, he put forward that of conquest, declaring, in his first speech to parliament, that it was. "as well by just hereditary title as by the sure judgment of God, which was manifested by giving him the victory in the field over his enemy." Although the Parliament, in their Act of Seulement, took no notice of this, contenting themselves with declaring the inheritance of the Crown to be in the person of " our now + Sovereign Lord * A favourable point in Henry's title has been recently discovered, namely, that in the original patent of Legitimation to the Beauforts (which, as it was ratified by Parliament, Parliament alone could alter), the exception of inheritance to the Kingdom does not. occur; the words "excepta dignitate regali" being inserted only by the caution of Henry the Fourth, in his confirmatiou, ten years after. See the Excerpta Historica, p. 153. But it is extremely doubtful if Henry himself was aware that his maternal pedigree was free from the defect so confidently ascribed to it."-Memoir of Elizabeth of York, p. lx. + By a very unfortunate error of the press, this word is in p. lxii. misprinted “new.” |