There were several attacks on carts at Newbury and elsewhere; and there were rioters at Gloucester.
[Sidenote: 4. Bearing of the scarcity measures on the history of poor relief.]
[Sidenote: _a._ The training of the justices.]
The organisation for supplying the poor with corn in 1631 is both indirectly and directly connected with the history of poor relief. We have already seen that the orders for supplying corn seem to have suggested the orders for the ordinary relief of the poor, and that both sets of orders were worked by similar methods. The season of 1630-1 is the first in which the administrators seem to have properly fulfilled their duties. Then the commands of the Government seem to have been vigilantly enforced. This was not always easily accomplished, rebellious inhabitants were coerced, negligent justices were punished[469]. But on the whole the justices seem to have worked with zeal, and the success obtained by them during this exceptional crisis must have made it easier for them to cope with the relief of the poor in more ordinary times.
[469] Thus at Doncaster engrossers of corn were made to sell their stocks in bushels and peckes 7_s._ a load under the market price. _Dom. State Papers_, Chas. I., Vol. 189, 8. III. At Ipswich, Edw. Man refused to bring his corn to market when ordered to do so and was made to submit and to sell sixpence a bushel under the market rate. _Privy Council Reg._ 26th Dec. 1630, f. 256 and 272. Conners and bakers of Colchester also were guilty of the same offence and were punished in the same manner, _D. S. P._, Vol. 184, 30. At Uppingham, an Edmund Wright refused to pay his rate and if still refractory was to be ordered to appear before the Privy Council. _Privy Council Reg._, 24th Feb., 1631/2. Two justices of Stamford were removed from their office and one was sent to the Fleet because they opposed the Book of Orders. 3rd Dec., 1631, f. 286.
[Sidenote: _b._ The standard of comfort of the poorer classes.]
Moreover the direct relief afforded by the corn stores must be taken into account when we attempt to estimate the amount of comfort enjoyed by the manual workers in the reign of Charles I.
Prof. Rogers has compared the condition of the labouring population at different times by estimating the amount of food which could be bought by a labourer receiving average wages in each period. This method of comparison leads him to the conclusion that the majority of the population were in a very miserable condition before the outbreak of the Civil War[470].