The million-peopled city
Garwood, John
1853
How the Disabled and Aged Soldier was previously supported in this Country.
It may be interesting to the reader that we should briefly glance at the mode in which the heavy payment now imposed upon us was dispensed with before had its foundation. We quote from a volume entitled, " and its Traditions," [1] by the , a former chaplain of the Hospital, but now Chaplain General of the Forces:- | |
" In ancient times the recompense of military merit was everywhere the same,-namely, donations of money or land, or both, proportionate in extent and value to the rank and services of the meritorious warrior. Under free Govern- ments, or such as had once been free, soldiers of every class partook in the State's bounty. The Athenians, besides maintaining out of the public fund all disabled and wounded soldiers, took care of the parents and children of such as fell in battle; while the Romans settled their discharged legion- aries in villages, called colonies, where each man occupied a farm on a sort of military tenure, perfectly independent of all the world besides. In like manner, the followers of those barbarous chiefs before whose might the colossal power of gave way, received, as the recompense of their valour, glebes or fields, which they cultivated for their own use, and | |
130 | bequeathed to their children, subject only to such conditions as a regard to the welfare of the community might impose. But the Northern barbarians came, as the Romans had done before them, into lands where equal rights were unknown, and practices, often loosely attributed to the feudal system, prevailed ... There grew up everywhere arrange- ments in social life, which in due time cut off the common soldier from all participation in the rewards which had heretofore been bestowed equally upon him and upon his leader. |
" Under the feudal system, as it showed itself in the days of , the possession of land continued to be the great object of ambition; and was very liberal in his grants of lordships and manors to the chiefs who aided him in his contest with . It was on knights and barons, however, and on them alone, that these rich prizes were bestowed; for of the private soldiers no heed was taken, except, indeed, that each baron, attaching a certain portion of these to his own fortunes, carried them down to his estate, and used them there, as soon as the army broke up, as instruments for oppressing and plundering his neighbours. In like manner, during the unsettled and turbulent reigns of many of the succeeding monarchs, though estates continually changed their owners, they passed only from one great chief to another; for the spirit of feudalism was entirely opposed to the subdivision of land; and in that species of spoil, as it came day by day to be disposed of, the leaders of armies or the heads of factions alone took part. Yet were the followers of these rapacious barons far from suffering neglect. The supreme govern- ment, indeed, knew them not,-for the supreme government dealt only with persons who were in a condition to bring certain proportions of horse and foot into the field; but the baron himself was induced, both by honour and self-interest, | |
131 | to provide for the old age of such as had served him faith- fully. Many common soldiers became, therefore, hangers-on about the castle, - foresters, dog-feeders, hawk-trainers, seneschals, &c.; while others fell back into the station of serfs, and, cultivating the soil for their lord's benefit, received out of its produce the sort of sustenance to which in early life they had been accustomed. ... In exact proportion to the decay of the feeling of mutual pro- tection and allegiance which originally bound the lord to his tenant and the tenant to his lord, was the worn-out soldier cut off from the sources of established support which had been accessible to his ancestors. It is true that the convent door still stood open, and there, especially if he had served against the Infidels, an alms was freely given. But casual charity, however frequent, could furnish no compensation for the loss of a maintenance which every change in the manners of society rendered more and more insecure; for not only the effects of a growing commerce, which diffused wealth more and more equally through the different classes, but the spirit of chivalry itself, strange as the assertion may sound, was all against the private soldier. . |
"Of any systematic plan for the relief of wounded or discharged soldiers, from the downfall of the feudal system up to reign, I cannot discover a trace. Occa- sional instances of Royal bounty are indeed recorded; as, for example, in the reign of ., when grants were made to private soldiers,-one to , being an annuity of four marks as a compensation for the loss of his hand at the battle of ,-the other to , a pension of ten pounds, by letters patent under the great seal, till he should obtain some permanent office. The latter, which, considering the value of money at the time, was a very handsome provision, is stated in the patent as having been bestowed ' for the good and agreeable service | |
132 | which he did unto us in berying and holdyng our standard of the black bull at the battle of .' But such occurrences were probably rare; at all events, chroniclers take no notice of them. |
"With the reign of we open out, as it were, a new era in the history of this country. In the first place, England then began to play a more conspicuous part in the game of European politics than she had yet done since the days of her Edwards; and her armaments, both by sea and land, were consequently on a larger scale. In the next place, the work of the Reformation being completed, amid the unsparing plunder of the property of the , some evils were felt to accompany the benefits thence arising. The suppression of the monasteries, and the transference of a large portion of the tithes to lay impropriators, placed the clergy and the great body of the people in a new relation one towards another. The former were no longer in a condition to bestow those abundant alms, on which the latter had, doubtless, too much depended; and the latter, unable either to find employment or to subsist without it, suffered severe privations. For great changes had for some time been carried forward in the system of culture and general management of the soil, which consolidating occupa- tions and enclosing commons, had reduced multitudes of the peasantry to a state of absolute pauperism. These being cut off from their last resource, the priests' bounty, became desperate; insomuch that Parliament found it necessary to institute a system of compulsory relief, out of which, however humanely it might have been intended, enormous evils unquestionably arose. With the country in such a state, it would have been both impolitic and cruel to exclude the discharged soldier from the same kind of assistance which was awarded to the destitute peasant. Accordingly, by statute 43 of this reign, 'the majority of the justices of . | |
133 | the peace in their Easter sessions had power to charge every parish towards a weekly relief of maimed soldiers and mariners, so that no parish should pay weekly above ten- pence, or below twopence; nor any county which consisted of above fifty parishes to pay more than sixpence, one parish with another; which sums so taxed were to be assessed in every parish by the parishioners,-or, in default, by the churchwardens and constables,-or, in their default, by the next justice or justices of peace.' . . .[2] Such is the substance of the Act of which first gave to the wounded and war-worn soldier a legal claim upon the bounty of his countrymen. It will be seen, however, that the footing on which it placed him was not of a nature to raise him in his own estimation, or in that of the people generally. He was treated as a pauper-not as one who had served his king, or shed his blood in defence of the land which doled out its unwilling alms to keep him from starving. Yet were the provisions thus made very imperfectly applied. With Elizabeth, indeed, expired for a time the martial feeling both of the court and the people; and old soldiers, like things out of date, were cast aside and forgotten. |
" The reign of was a peaceable one, and its dura- tion-two-and-twenty years-sufficed to thin the numbers, at all times inconsiderable, of decayed soldiers in England. With the accession of , a different prospect opened. First, his foreign wars,-if indeed such expeditions as those to and deserve the name,-and latterly, the terrible struggle in which he engaged with his Parliament, put arms into the hands of a large portion of the male population throughout the kingdom. Yet the Royal exchequer was from the beginning to the end of the contest so thoroughly impoverished, that not only was the king unable to provide for his wounded and disabled adherents, | |
134 | but the means of paying the troops actually in the field were generally wanting. It was not so with the Parliament. Wielding a large share of the authority, and having com- plete command over the resources of the nation, that body was enabled to act in a more liberal spirit. Accordingly, on the , an Act was passed for the relief of maimed soldiers, as well as of the widows and orphans of men slain in battle, by imposing upon the parishes from which such soldiers might have enlisted a tax or assessment adequate to the necessity of each case. Such tax was to be levied by the same process and under the same authority as a poor-rate; and care was of course to be taken that none should derive benefit from it except those who, in their own persons, or by their husbands or fathers, had served the cause of the people against the Sovereign. |
" Whatever might be the situation of the Parliamentary invalids, found, on reascending the throne of his ancestors, that the men who had followed his father's fortunes and suffered wounds in his cause were everywhere turned loose to beg their bread. Careless, but not wholly destitute of heart, the King early adopted measures with a view of bettering their condition as far as his limited means would allow, and passed, in the twelfth year of his reign, an Act which secured to discharged soldiers certain immunities. Such of them as had been apprentices were permitted to exercise the trades to which they were bound, even if they had failed to serve out their time; while others were authorized to follow, in any town or place within their native counties, any occupations for which they might be fitted. But to give a starving man leave to follow a regular calling, without at the same time furnishing him with means to begin business, is to con- tribute in a very slender degree to the amelioration of his Fortunes. In spite of this well-intended law, and of the old | |
135 | statute of, which still continued in force, both town and country swarmed with mendicants, almost all of whom, many doubtless unfairly, represented themselves as decayed loyalists. It was at this juncture that the circum- stance is said to have befallen, [which led to the formation of ]." |
Footnotes: [1] Pp. 8-18. [2] Grose's Military Antiquities. |
