Alike in town and
country the presence of armed and idle ruffians was a source of
well-grounded apprehension. Thus, when the Bishop of Durham attended
parliament, he had to obtain a licence before his retainers could be
quartered at Stratford-at-Bow; and the manifold inconveniences produced
by these satellites in country districts during the reign of Edward I.
form the subject of a versified complaint, to be found in Wright's
'Political Songs'. One of the causes of the grievous scarcity of labour
is believed to have been that nobles and others, under the pretence of
husbandry, kept in their pay able-bodied dependants who, rather than eke
out a miserable existence on the land, preferred to follow some warlike
lord.
BILLETING
As usual, the trouble began at the fountain-head. Everybody knows the
term "billeting" as applied to soldiers on the march, who are
compulsorily quartered on licensed victuallers and others at fixed
rates. This is really a very ancient custom, which is closely, and
indeed lineally, connected with the topic under discussion.
In the early days of royal progresses it was the duty of the Marshal of
the King's Household to secure lodgings for the members of the retinue
which accompanied him; and this he did by means of a billet, by virtue
of which he appropriated for the occasion the best of the houses in the
vicinity, marking them with chalk and ruthlessly ejecting the occupiers.
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