In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him, and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price, nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen at all which cost more than 14d.[182] Yeomen and those below them were forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes. In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest of the country went about their business, is somewhat exaggerated. No doubt, the mass of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth century, preferred to 'sit still', as Clarendon said, but the business of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards; and many a farmer must have seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdonshire were copyholders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had to give up their copyholds through poverty.[183] The loss of life, too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to till the soil must have been seriously diminished. FOOTNOTES: [171] See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices which occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious metals. [172] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 128. The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in 1522 was a little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about 1s. 6d.--_Cheshire Sheaf_ (Ser. 3), iv. 23. [173] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 3. [174] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 39. [175] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 187. The amount of seed for the various crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2-1/2. [176] By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but the statute was largely disregarded.