The bands of retainers who had hung round the castle, living at the expense of its lord, and ready to follow him in his career of violence, were gradually being absorbed in useful and industrial pursuits. Among the yeomanry the general progress was exceedingly noticeable. The character and worth of this important class were commented upon by Holinshed.[40] "This sort of people * * * commonlie live wealthilie, keepe good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not idle servants as the gentlemen doo, but suche as get bothe their owne and part of their master's living), do come to great welth, in so much that manie of them are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and often setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the universities, and to the Ins of the Court, or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may live without labour, do make them by those meanes to become gentlemen: these were they that in times past made all France afraid, and albeit they be not called Master, as gentlemen are, or Sir, as to knights apperteineth, but only John, and Thomas, etc., yet have they beene found to have doone verie good service; and the kings of England in foughten battels, were woont to remain among them (who were their footmen), as the French kings did among their horsemen; the prince thereby showing where his chief strength did consist." This middle class were enjoying a luxury and comfort undreamt of by their fathers, or indeed by the nobility of feudal times. Thatched cottages smeared with mud were fast being succeeded by brick or stone houses, finely plastered, with glass windows, chairs in place of stools, and tables in place of rough boards lying loosely on tressles. "Farmers learned also to garnish their cupboards with plate, their joined beds with tapestrie and silken hangings, and their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie * * * doth infinitelie appeare."[41] The new comforts, enumerated by Harrison, presented a striking contrast to the condition the "old men" had been satisfied with in their "yoong daies," "Our fathers (yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats * * * and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers, or the good man of the house, had within eleven years after his marriage purchased a matteras or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the towne." The new comforts were the result, not of extravagance, but of prosperity. Notwithstanding the rigid economy of the old times, men "were scearce able to live and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a cow, or an horse or more, although