My British Empire

  Chapter 236 Four Families

  ps: Opening season, ask for tickets, ask for subscription

  The resplendent and resplendent Delphi Palace makes every guest who comes here amazed. They are sincerely envious of the wealth of the Matthew family, and they can't help but feel some sour water in their hearts.

  But if they are asked to build one, they can only shake their heads with wry smiles.

You know, in order to build this exquisite Delphi Palace, the Matthew family spent two generations, forty-four years, and spent a huge figure of 50,000 pounds as expenditure, which is not so amazing for ordinary families wealth.

Therefore, although there were rumors that the Matthew family was all fools, Sir Matthew didn't care. He knew that this palace not only brought great honor to the Matthew family in Oxfordshire, but also brought great honor to the Matthew family. There are huge indirect benefits.

  We know that the advent of the Age of Discovery and the Reformation quietly changed England’s traditional moral standards.

  People's desire for wealth has reached a perverted level, and even the evaluation of a family and an individual is no longer his knowledge and cultivation, but his wealth.

  So, since owning the famous Delphi Palace in Oxfordshire, the prestige of the Matthew family has skyrocketed, and in England, with prestige, everything is possible.

With the help of prestige, the Matthew family had a seat in the Oxford Magistrate's Committee. Later, with the help of power, he united with other families to enclose the land wantonly. The Matthew family became one of the best big families in Oxfordshire, and their influence became more and more powerful. Huge up.

  At this time, in the Delphi Palace, a group of gentlemen who are considered superior to the common people are frowning.

  The contemporary Sir Matthew Parker. Matthew is only in his early thirties. He has long, wavy black hair, a high nose bridge, and deep eye sockets.

  At the same time, sitting together were the patriarchs of the other three major families, Began Thomas, Chabos Owen, and Brill John.

  Everyone sat together with serious expressions, but the atmosphere in the room seemed low and dignified.

   "Tell me, what to do with this young man from London?"

  Charles Owen, who was only twenty years old, as a young man, this dreary atmosphere made him a little aggrieved, and he couldn't help asking.

Seeing this, the others also turned their gazes to Brill John, who was in contemplation. This bald old man in his fifties, the beard on his chin was well combed, and his eyes were deep and calm, as if it was a small piece of work. Things are normal.

  The John family is the most powerful family among the four families present, and Brill John has always been known for his wisdom, so everyone turned their attention to him, not Sir Matthew, the owner of Delphi Palace.

   Sir Matthew has no complaints about this. As a newly promoted family, it still seems small compared to the John family, which has been around for hundreds of years.

   "Don't worry, at present he is only active under our noses, and has been under our surveillance, they will not get any powerful news!"

  Brill John paused for a moment, glanced at the eager crowd, took a breath, and continued, "Besides, he came here this time mainly to deal with Justice Felton John, so what does it have to do with us?"

   Speaking of Felton John, Brill showed a contemptuous smile and said sentence by sentence.

   "My sir, that greedy guy knows our situation very well, I'm afraid he-"

   Began Thomas, who had blond curly hair, looked at Brill's indifferent expression, and said directly, with a hint of blame in his tone.

"Hehe!" Brill smiled lightly as if hearing some joke, shook his head, and asked directly: "Mr. Thomas, don't we go down first? Don't let that greedy idiot be killed by others?" Arrest?"

   "You mean?" asked Sir Matthew in a tone of surprise.

  The faces of the others were roughly the same, full of surprise and puzzlement.

   You know, if a circuit judge is killed, the consequences will be much more serious. This is a direct challenge to the majesty of the king, so that no one can avoid it.

Seeing the terrified expressions on their faces, Brill could only sigh in his heart, pretending to sigh, and continued to explain: "In this world, there are countless ways to die. For example, our Lord Judge has It would be a pity if you accidentally fell down the stairs!"

   As he spoke, Brill did not show a trace of regret on his face, but instead smiled, looking so happy and happy.

  After hearing such an explanation, the others also smiled, and the atmosphere in the air suddenly became much happier.

  For Felton John, an insatiable fellow, everyone couldn't bear it. He was cutting the fat of everyone's mouths again and again. This kind of thing that involved profit completely exhausted everyone's patience.

   This matter has to start from the circle.

  The so-called enclosure refers to the fact that the nobles and gentlemen turned the originally public land into their private land by riding horses and laying wooden stakes.

  Ancient England was in a primitive mode. In the countryside, except for private land, all other land was public and belonged to all villagers.

  The land enclosure movement is that nobles and gentlemen rode horses, laid wooden stakes, and drove away farmers who were farming on public land, so that the public land became their private.

Just like the land in our Chinese countryside, all the land belongs to the collective, but at this time, if some bullies allocate all the land as their own private, this kind of behavior is not tolerated by the government, and it was also in the Tudor Dynasty in this way.

  In the 150 years after 1488, the Tudor government issued at least eleven parliamentary acts and eight investigation reports to ease the enclosure movement.

  However, the effect is not obvious,

  For example, in Oxfordshire, from 1547 to the present 1550, at least 10,000 acres of land were enclosed.

   In this regard, the Tudor royal family specially set up an anti-enclosure committee, stipulating that some enclosure behaviors are illegal, and half of the enclosure proceeds need to be paid to the royal family.

  As for the Anti-Rowage Committee, which gradually became marginalized with Thomas Wolsey's loss of power, the circuit judges took on this task at this time.

In this regard, the four major families joined hands to bribe Felton John, but Felton John was insatiable and asked again and again. The accumulated amount reached two thousand pounds, which was almost one-tenth of the income from the enclosure. up.

   A few days ago, he also asked the four major families for a hundred acres of fertile land. It seems that he also knew that he was going too far, and threatened them.

   How could the four major families be satisfied with him.

  (end of this chapter)