Under the Tudors the efforts made to foster the sea fisheries did not, as has been said, take the form of interfering with the foreign fishermen. They were rather directed, on the one hand, to increase the consumption of fish by restoring the strict observance of Lent and fish-days, and, on the other hand, to check the importation of fish caught by foreigners. In this way it was hoped that the native fisheries would be stimulated to supply at least the home markets. As early as 1541--a year or two after the suppression of the monasteries--an Act was passed which apparently indicates that the decline in the fisheries had already set in, and that it was customary for the English people to purchase fish from foreigners rather than catch them for themselves. Heavy penalties were imposed on any person who should bring into the realm for sale fresh fish (except sturgeon, porpoise, and seal, which were then included in the term) which they had purchased from strangers in Flanders, Zealand, Picardy, France, or elsewhere beyond the sea, “or upon the sea between shore and shore”; but the buying of fish at Iceland, Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Ireland, or Newfoundland--to all which places English vessels went--was not prohibited.[157] This statute was re-enacted four years later, and again by Edward VI. and Queen Mary.[158] In the reign of Elizabeth a number of similar statutes were made, with the object of favouring the native fishermen in their competition with foreigners. About the same time as the first Act of Henry was passed we begin to get evidence of laxity in the observance of Lent and of measures taken to deal with it. Many persons, including noblemen, were brought before the Privy Council charged with having eaten flesh in Lent, and were committed to the Fleet. The mayor and aldermen of London were commanded to make inquisition throughout all the wards of the city as to the households in which flesh was used in Lent, and the butchers were required to furnish information as to the quantity of flesh sold by them, and to whom, in the same period.[159] This activity of the Privy Council foreshadowed the new policy of the “political lent” which was inaugurated a few years later in the reign of Edward VI., and with which the name of Cecil was associated. By this time it was clearly recognised that the religious changes that had taken place were prejudicial to the fisheries by lessening the consumption of fish, and in 1548 an “Act for Abstinence from Flesh” was passed, by which fines were imposed on those who did not observe the usual fast-days. The object of the measure was clearly explained. “One day or one kind of meat of itself,” it said, “is not more holy, more pure, or more clean than another, for that all days and all meats be of their nature of one equal purity, cleanness, and holiness;” but “considering that due and godly abstinence is a mean to virtue, and to subdue men’s bodies to