What happened in London was repeated in different forms in various parts of England. In Norwich there was a tumult, which it needed the presence of the Duke of Norfolk to appease. He asked the confused assembly who was their captain, and bade that he should speak. Then out spake one John Greene, a man of fifty years. "My lord, since you ask who is our captain, forsooth, his name is Poverty; for he and his cousin Necessity have brought us to this doing. For all these persons and many more live not of ourselves, but we live by the substantial occupiers of this country; and yet they give us so little wages for our workmanship that scarcely we be able to live; and thus in penury we pass the time, we, our wives and children: and if they, by whom we live, be brought in that case that they of their little cannot help us to earn our living, then must we perish and die miserably. I speak this, my lord: the clothmakers have put away all their people, and a far greater number, from work. The husbandmen have put away their servants and given up household; they say the king asketh so much that they be not able to do as they have done before this time, and then of necessity must we die wretchedly." John Greene's speech expressed only too truly the condition of affairs in a period of social change. The old nobility had declined, and the old form of life founded on feudalism was slowly passing away. Trade was becoming more important than agriculture; the growth of wool was more profitable than the growth of corn. It is true that England as a whole was growing richer, and that the standard of comfort was rising; but there was a great displacement of labour, and consequent discontent. The towns had thriven at the expense of the country; and in late years the war with France had hindered trade with the Netherlands. The custom duties had diminished, the drain of bullion for war expenses had crippled English commerce. There had been a succession of bad seasons, and every one had begun to diminish his establishment and look more carefully after his expenditure.