Sir John Mason to Cecil on High Prices, 4 Dec
| Artifact Summary | |
|---|---|
| Artifact type | |
| Creator/author | Sir John Mason |
| Date | 1550 |
| Period | |
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| Abstract | |
Entry
[P. Fraser Tytler, England under the Reigns of Edward VI. and Mary (1839), Vol. I., p. 340.]
Gentle Mr. Cecil. I have received your letter of the 14th of November, and thank you most heartily for the good comfort you put me in of my short return, and for the travail yourself hath taken in the same. I have written letters of thanks to my Lords of Somerset and Warwick, of whose good agreement I do rejoice even at the bottom of my heart ; for in so doing consisteth their own healths, and the upright administration of the commonwealth.
.
I hear here a great bruit of the discontentation of our people upon a late proclamation touching cheese and butter ; of a little thing we make here a great matter. And surely, if there be no other thing than I do see in the thing, the matter might even as well have been spared. I have seen so many experiences of such ordinances ; and ever the end is dearth, and lack of the thing that we seek to make good cheap. Nature will have her course, etiam si furca expellatur ; and never shall you drive her to consent that a penny-worth of new shall be sold for afarthing. If good cheap follow this device, then hereafter will I think it were good the like were still used; but this I am sure, the thing shall not be so plentiful as it was, and then I report me to you whether it will be better cheap. For who will keep a cow that may not sell the milk for so much as the merchant and he can agree upon ?
See what a babbling I make, being clean ignorant of the case ! I doubt not but my Lords saw what they did, and therefore I may hold my peace like a fool. From Bloys, the 4th day of December 1550. Your own most assuredly, .
..
John Masone.
HIGH PRICES AND THE COINAGE
