Clocks were by no means common articles at this time in other lands, and the first clock that kept good time in England is said to have been that set up at Hampton Court many years later--that is, in 1530. But in the reign of Matthias, clocks made their appearance on many of the castle towers in Hungary; and, thanks to the king's encouragement and the energetic measures he took, it was not long before Hungarian craftsmen became so famous that the Grand Duke of Moscow asked to have goldsmiths, gun-founders, land-surveyors, miners, architects, and others sent to him from Hungary. But where is the use of arts, crafts, and manufactures--how indeed can they flourish--where there is a dearth of food? What with enemies without and enemies within, there were extensive districts in some parts of Hungary, and among them some of the royal domains, which were little better than wildernesses when the king came to the throne. Villages had been burned down, the inhabitants driven away, and the land left desolate in many parts; and in order to tempt the people back, and induce others to come and settle in these deserted spots, the king caused it to be proclaimed at the fairs that land might be had rent-free by those who would undertake to cultivate it, and that for a certain number of years they should be exempt from taxes of all sorts. The king did all he could to induce the great landed nobles to follow his example in these matters, and to pay more heed to the cultivation of their property, and to the peasants who laboured for them, than they had been in the habit of doing. One day, so the story goes, he invited a number of distinguished nobles to dine with him in one of the northerly counties, and when the meal was ended he distributed among them a number of pick-axes and spades, and taking one himself, called on them to join him in clearing away the underwood and digging up the ground. The active young king, who was well accustomed to exert himself, worked away energetically; but the well-fed, self-indulgent lords almost melted away, the labour made them so hot, and very soon they were completely exhausted. "That's enough, my friends," said the king, observing the state they were in. "Now we know a little of what it costs the peasants to produce that which we waste in idleness while they live in poverty. They are human beings like ourselves, yet we often treat them worse than we do our horses and dogs." The spot where Matthias read his nobles this wholesome lesson is still pointed out in Gömör. But indeed some of them needed sharper teaching than this, and Matthias did not scruple to give it them.