ABSTRACT
The Tudor and early Stuart period had witnessed an unprecedented growth in the population of England. In 1524 there were some 2.3 million people living in the kingdom, but the comparable figure for 1601 was above 4 million, and by 1656 it was around 5.3 million. English agriculture responded to this massive increase in population, and with the exception of brief periods when the harvest failed for several years in succession it met the demand for more food. The late Stuart period was one of consolidation but also of experimentation with new crops and new and improved techniques. Agricultural labourers, even though they were not destitute, normally lived near the poverty line. Their wages were low, their living conditions primitive, and they depended on communal grazing rights and the collection of brushwood to keep themselves going. The clergy, who from the economic point of view counted as smaller landowners, shared these Tory and Country prejudices.
