Then that which had been specially the scourge of the people at large began to be looked upon as likely to prove a blessing in disguise. The landowner's need was recognised as the labourers' opportunity, upon which they were not slow to seize. Wages everywhere rose to double the previous rate and more. In vain did the King and Council strive to prevent this by legislation, forbidding either the labourer to demand, or the master to pay, more than the previous wage for work done. From the first the Act was inoperative, and the constant repetition of the royal commands, addressed to all parts of the country, as well as the frequent complaints of non-compliance with the regulations, are evidence, even if none other existed, of the futility of the legislation. Even when the King, taking into consideration "that many towns and hamlets, both through the pestilence and other causes, are so impoverished, and that many others are absolutely desolate," granted, if only the money were paid him in three months, that the fines levied on servants and others for demanding excessive wages, and on masters for giving them, might be allowed to go in relief of the tax of a tenth and fifteenth due to him,[371] the justices appointed to obtain the money plead that they "cannot and have not been able to levy any of these penalties."[372] The truth seems to be that masters generally pleaded the excessive wages they were called upon to pay, as an excuse for not finding money to meet the royal demands, and it was for this reason rather than out of [p198] consideration for the pockets of the better classes that Edward issued his proclamations to restrain the rise of wages. But he was quickly forced to understand "that workmen, servants, and labourers publicly disregarded his ordinances" as to wages and payments, and demanded, in spite of them, prices for their services as great as during the pestilence and after it, and even higher. For disobedience to the royal orders regulating wages the King charged his judges to imprison all whom they might find guilty. Even this coercion was found to be no real remedy, but rather a means of aggravating the evil, since districts where his policy was carried out were quickly found to be plunged in greater poverty by the imprisonment of those who could work, and of those who dared to pay the market price for labour.[373]