1607-36: Charles I halting then reversing enclosure
Tony Gosling
tony at cultureshop.org.uk
Sat Mar 7 13:19:47 GMT 2015
Puritan Iconoclasm in the English Civil War
http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/401
ISIS endeavors to destroy the art of ancient Nineveh (AKA Mosul).
The efforts at destruction that you see at the
beginning of this video are not as horrible as
they look, for reasons that are explained half way through.
http://althouse.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/isis-endeavors-to-destroy-art-of.html
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Charles I: The Commoners' King - halting then reversing enclosure
http://www.bilderberg.org/land/tenure.htm
Yes... King Charles I was 're-nationalising'
newly enclosed land, just before the English Civil War broke out.
I present here three accounts, from two
different books, of pre-Civil War actions by King
Charles I to penalise lords of manors, merchants
and other enclosers. I suggest resentment caused
by these retrospective 'compositions', or fines,
may have been the true reason for acrimony, and
eventually civil war, between England's feudal
and merchant classes. It certainly speaks very
well for Charles' record and was largely a result
of his good relationship with Archbishop Laud,
who was championing the needs of the new landless
classes within the English church and government.
After the civil war enclosure was greatly
accellerated by a landowners parliament, to
blight the entire population to the present day.
If the 'compositions' had not been retrospective
the merchant class may have put up with them...
but this aspect of Charles' new anti-depopulation
and anti-enclosure fines/laws made the merchant class very angry.
Extract 1 - 'The English Village Community and
the Enclosure Movements' - W. E. Tate, Victor
Gollancz, London, 1967. "From about 1607 to 1636,
the Government pursued an active anti- enclosure policy"
Extract 2 - The English Village Community and the
Enclosure Movements by W. E. Tate, Victor
Gollancz, London, 1967 - 'If the reign in its
social and agrarian policy may be judged solely
from the number of anti-enclosure commissions set
up, then undoubtedly King Charles I is the one
English monarch of outstanding importance as an agrarian reformer.'
Extract 3 - Common Land and Inclosure, by E. C.
K. Gonner. Macmillan and Co., Limited. St.
Martin's Street, London. 1912. - 'In 1633-4 we
find a proposal that all inclosures made since
James I. should be thrown back into arable on
pain of forfeiture, save such as be compounded
for. The suggestion was not lost sight of, and
from 1635 to 1638 compositions were levied in
respect of depopulations in several counties of
which an account is fortunately preserved.' -
download this as a printable Word document with table and footnotes
Charles I: The Commoners' King
http://www.bilderberg.org/land/tenure.htm#Commoners
"From about 1607 to 1636, the Government pursued
an active anti- enclosure policy" - W.E. Tate
Charles' anti-enclosure policies may have been
the spark that ignited the English Civil War
Extract 1
Historians are inconclusive about the origin
and cause of the war. Whatever brought the
merchant classes, or bourgeoisie, to armed
conflict with the landed feudal gentry,
personified by the king, must have had a mighty
incentive. Driven by the new capitalist class the
move from collective to private ownership of land
was extremely lucrative. To halt it,
unforgivable. In the eyes of the avaricious merchants the king had to go!
Extent of Charles' penalties on enclosers
Extract from: 'The English Village Community and the Enclosure Movements'
W. E. Tate, Victor Gollancz, London, 1967. (longer extract below)
Chapter 11
Enclosure and the State in Tudor and Early Stuart times.
The Policy of the Early Stuart Governments
Probably in Stuart times baser motives weighed
more heavily with the governmental authorities.
The Stuart policies, especially that of Charles
I, were as Tawney says, 'smeared with the trail
of finance'.,' Enclosure, at any rate enclosure
leading to depopulation, was an offence against
the common law."* Commissions inquired into it,
and in many cases the statesmen and divines who
composed these were inspired by the loftiest
motives. The general action of the government,
however, was to use the Privy Council and the
courts, especially the prerogative courts, the
Court of Requests and the Star Chamber, the
Councils of Wales and the North, as means of
extortion. The offenders were 'compounded with',
i.e. huge fines were levied so that the culprits
might continue their malpractices.¹
In 1601 a proposal to repeal the depopulation
acts was crushed upon the ground that the
majority of the militia levies were ploughmen.²
In 1603 the Council of the North were ordered to
check the 'wrongful taking in of commons' and the
consequent 'decay of houses of husbandry . . .'.
From about 1607 to 1636, the Government pursued
an active anti- enclosure policy.³ In 1607 the
agrarian changes in the Midlands had produced an
armed revolt of the peasantry, beginning in
Northamptonshire, where there had been stirrings
of unrest at any rate since 1604. The counties
mainly affected were Northamptonshire,
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire,
Leicestershire, the three divisions of Lincolnshire, and Warwickshire.
The leader was a certain John Reynolds, nick-
named Captain Pouch, 'because of a great leather
pouch which he wore by his side, in which purse
he affirmed to his company there was sufficient
matter to defend them against all commers, but
afterwards when he was apprehended, his Pouch was
searched, and therein was only a peece of greene
cheese'. John was soon dealt with after a
skirmish at Newton, where a body of mounted
gentlemen with their servants dispersed a body of
a thousand rebels, killing some forty or fifty of
the poorly-armed rustics. Some of his followers were hanged and quartered.
Promises of redress made by various
proclamations were fulfilled only to the extent
of the appointment of still another royal
commission to inquire into agrarian grievances in
the counties named. After it had made its return,
however, it was discovered that on legal
technicalities the commission was invalid, and
little action seems to have been taken upon its
laboriously compiled returns. The local gentry
were soon busily at work again in enclosing their
own land and that of others, though in 1620 Sir
Edward Coke, the greatest of English judges, who
had already shown himself a keen opponent of
enclosure, declared depopulation to be against
the laws of the realm, asserting that the
encloser who kept a shepherd and his dog in the
place of a flourishing village community was hateful to God and man.
A reaction set in when in 1619 there were good
harvests, and the Privy Council was concerned to
relieve farmers and landlords who were suffering
through the low price of corn. This is why
commissions were appointed to grant pardons for
breaches of the depopulation acts, and why in
1624 all save the two acts of 1597 were repealed.
The county justices still, however, attempted to
check the change, and in this received more or
less spasmodic pressure from the Council. In the
1630's corn prices rose again, and in 1630 the
justices of five Midland counties were ordered to
remove all enclosures made in the last two years.
In 1632, 1635, and 1636 more commissions were
appointed, and the justices of assize were
instructed to enforce the tillage acts. In 1633
they were cited before the Board to give an
account of their proceedings. From 1635-8
enclosure compositions were levied in thirteen
counties, some six hundred persons in all being
fined, and the total fines levied amounting to
almost £50,000. Enclosers were being prosecuted
in the Star Chamber as late as 1639. However, the
Star Chamber was to vanish in 1641, and the
Stuart administrative policy disappeared with the
engines by which it had been - somewhat
ineffectively and spasmodically - put in force.
If the reign in its social and agrarian policy
may be judged solely from the number of
anti-enclosure commissions set up, then
undoubtedly King Charles I is the one English
monarch of outstanding importance as an agrarian
reformer. How far his policy was due to genuine
disinterested love of the poor, and how far it
followed from the more sordid motive of a desire
to extort fines from offenders, it is difficult
to say. But even the most unsympathetic critic
must allow a good deal of honest benevolence to
his minister Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
some measure of it to his master. On the whole it
is perhaps not too much to say that for a short
time after the commissions issued in 1632, 1635,
and 1636, Star Chamber dealt fairly effectively
with offenders. The lack of ultimate success of
this last governmental attempt to stem the tide
of enclosure was due, no doubt, partly to the
mixture of motives on the part of its proponents.
Still more its failure is to be attributed to the
fact that again the local administrators, upon
whom the Crown depended to implement its policy,
were of the very [landed] class which included
the worst offenders. A (practising) poacher does
not make a very good gamekeeper!
The Commonwealth
During the Commonwealth there was little legal
or administrative attempt to check enclosure of
open fields. It is not clear how far this was
taking place, though there was great activity in
the enclosure and drainage of commonable waste.
Some of the Major-Generals, especially Edward
Whalley, held strong views upon agrarian matters,
and attempted to use their very extensive powers
to carry their ideals into operation. Petitions
were prepared and presented, a committee of the
Council of State was appointed and numerous pamphlets were written.
In 1653 the mayor and aldermen of Leicester
complained of local enclosures and sent a
petition to London, very sensibly choosing their
neighbour, John Moore, as its bearer. Appar-
ently it was because of this that the same year
the Committee for the Poor were ordered 'to
consider of the business where Enclosures have
been made'. The question arose again in 1656 when
Whalley, the Major-General in charge of the
Midlands, set on foot local inquiries, and took
fairly drastic action in response to petitions
adopted by the grand juries in his area. He hoped
that as a result of his action 'God will not be
provoked, the poor not wronged, depopulation
prevented, and the State not dampnified'. The
same year he brought in a Bill 'touching the
dividing of commons', but it failed through the
opposition of William Lenthall, the Master of the
Rolls, and indeed was not even given a second
reading. This was the last bill to regulate
enclosure. Ten years later, in 1666, another bill
was read in the Lords, to confirm all enclosures
made by court decree in the preceding sixty
years. It also was unsuccessful, but the fact
that it was introduced is indicative of a great
change in the general attitude towards enclosure
displayed by those in authority.
Footnotes:
* Coke (Chief justice of the King's Bench,
1613-16), was very emphatic on this, Institutes
III, 1644 edn., p. 205. Ellesmere, his great
rival (Lord Chancellor 1603-16), was more
favourably disposed to enclosure, and himself
authorised some enclosures by Chancery Decree.
The point is of interest, since it may well have
been Ellesmere's attitude which emboldened his
kinsmen, Arthur Mainwaring, to embark on the
enclosure of Welcombe, near Stratford, in 1614.
In the story of this, Shakespeare plays a (very
minor) part. Tothill, W., Transactions of the
Court of Chancery etc., 1649, edn. 1827, P. 109,
and Ingleby, G. M., Shakespeare and the Welcombe Inclosure, 1885.
¹ There is a tabular statement of the proceeds
in Gonner, p. 167 [and presented below!].
² See D'Ewes, op. cit., p. 674, for Cecil's speech on this.
³ The activity was mainly 1607-18 and 1636, the
first spasm being due presumably to the Midland
riots, the second to a period of high corn prices.
Extract 2 - 'If the reign in its social and
agrarian policy may be judged solely from the
number of anti-enclosure commissions set up, then
undoubtedly King Charles I is the one English
monarch of outstanding importance as an agrarian reformer.'
Extracted from
The English Village Community and the Enclosure
Movements by W. E. Tate, Victor Gollancz, London, 1967
Chapter 11, Enclosure and the State: (A) In Tudor and Early Stuart Times
The Tudor Governments
From the social and political points of view
too the Tudor governments disliked such
enclosures as led or threatened to lead to
depopulation. Several of the Tudor rulers,
certainly Henry VIII and the Lord Protector
Somerset, had a quite genuine desire to be fair
to the small proprietor, who was usually, with
good reason, bitterly opposed to enclosure. All
had a lively apprehension of the danger of
dynastic or religious rebellion, and all were
unwilling that malcontents should be presented
with the opportunities afforded by the existence
of a dispossessed and starving peasantry. Even
before Henry VIII's time anti-enclosure measures
had been placed on the statute book, and
throughout Tudor times there was a long stream of
statutes, proclamations and commissions, all
designed to check a process felt to be utterly
destructive of the common weal. Thus in 1517
there was the commission already referred to.
Thirty-two years later a main count in the
indictment against Somerset, under which at last
he lost his head, was that he had been so slack
in suppressing Kett's Rebellion in 1549 as to
give the rebellious peasantry an idea that he was
in sympathy with their feelings on the agrarian
grievances which had led to the disturbance.
The first landmarks in the story of enclosure
in Tudor times are the Depopulation Act of 1489
'agaynst pullying doun of Tounes', a proclamation
of 1515 against engrossing of farms, and certain
inquiries by the justices, etc., made the same
year. A temporary act of early 1516 was virtually
made permanent later in the year, and the next
year was the commission of 1517, addressed to the
nobles and gentry of all save the four most
northerly counties of England, with other
anti-enclosure commissions in 1518 and 1519. In
1519 Wolsey, as Chancellor, ordered that those
claiming the royal pardon for enclosure should
destroy the hedges and ditches made since 1488. A
proclamation of 1526 made a similar order. There
was an act for restraining sheep farming in 1534,
and two further depopu-lation acts in 1536. At
the same time proceedings were taken in the
Chancery and the Court of Exchequer against
enclosers, sometimes those of lofty station.
Evidently the acts and pro-clamations were little
observed, and in 1548 the Protector Somerset
issued yet another proclamation. A movement in
the reverse direction was made in 1550, when as
part of the policy of the nobility and gentry who
had triumphed over him, the Statutes of Merton
and Westminster 112 were confirmed and
re-enacted, and measures were taken to check
hedge and fence-breaking. However, only two years
later another depopulation act was passed, in 1552.
There was still another in Philip and Mary's
time, 1555, and one five years after Elizabeth
I's accession, in 1563. This repealed as
ineffectual the three latest depopulation acts,
of 1536, 1552, 1555 but re-enacted the earlier
one of 1489. It was repealed in part in 1593.
Most of these acts endeavoured to re-establish
the status quo, to forbid under penalty of
forfeiture the conversion of arable to pasture,
and to compel the rebuilding of decayed houses,
with the reconversion to arable of pasture which
had lately been put down to grass. Probably the
multiplicity of acts is an indication of their
ineffectiveness. The reason was that the
administration alike of acts and commissions was
largely in the hands of the landed classes
profiting by agrarian change. In 1589 was passed
Elizabeth's famous act prohibiting the erection
of any cottage without four acres of arable land
[? and of course, proportionate pasture rights].
This remained in force, theoretically at any
rate, until 1775. The difficulty with which the
government was faced is well illustrated by two
acts of 1593, which passed through Parliament
together, and which in fact stand next to one
another on the statute book, but which adopt
markedly contrasting points of view towards
enclosures of different kinds. The first of them,
as noted above, repeals much. of the 1563 act,
that part forbidding the conversion of arable to
pasture. The second of them anticipates
legislation of the nineteenth century. It orders
that no persons shall enclose commons within
three miles of the City of London, 'to the
hindrance of the training or mustering of
soldiers, or of walking for recreation, comfort
and health of Her Majesty's people, or of the
laudable exercise of shooting. . .' etc.
The last Depopulation and Tillage Acts
The more complacent attitude towards enclosure
evidenced by the first of the 1593 acts did not
last very long. In 1597 were passed two acts,
again neighbours on the statute book, the first
for the re-erection (though with some
qualifications) of houses of husbandry which had
been decayed. At the same time the government
clearly recognized that if it merely tried by
legislation to maintain or to restore the status
quo, its efforts would be in vain. So the same
act specifically authorizes lords of manors, or
tenants with their lord's consent, to exchange
intermixed open-field holdings in order to
facilitate improved husbandry. The preamble of
the second act sets out that since 1593 [and the
partial repeal of the tillage acts then] 'there
have growen many more Depopulacions by turning
Tillage into Pasture', and the first act orders
that decayed houses were to be re-erected, and
lands reconverted to tillage under a penalty of
20s. per acre per annum. The second act relates
to twenty- three counties only, generally those
of the Midlands, with one or two southern
counties, and Pembrokeshire in South Wales. These
were the last of the depopulation and tillage
acts, and they escaped the general repeal of such
acts in 1624, and remained in force (in theory) until 1863.
The Policy of the Early Stuart Governments
Probably in Stuart times baser motives weighed
more heavily with the governmental authorities.
The Stuart policies, especially that of Charles
I, were as Tawney says, 'smeared with the trail
of finance'. Enclosure, at any rate enclosure
leading to depopulation, was an offence against
the common law. Commissions inquired into it, and
in many cases the statesmen and divines who
composed these were inspired by the loftiest
motives. The general action of the government,
however, was to use the Privy Council and the
courts, especially the prerogative courts, the
Court of Requests and the Star Chamber, the
Councils of Wales and the North, as means of
extortion. The offenders were 'compounded with',
i.e. huge fines were levied so that the culprits
might continue their malpractices.
In 1601 a proposal to repeal the depopulation
acts was crushed upon the ground that the
majority of the militia levies were ploughmen. In
1603 the Council of the Nortt were ordered to
check the 'wrongful taking in of commons and the
consequent 'decay of houses of husbandry. . .'.
From about 1607 to 1636, the Government pursued
an active anti-enclosure policy. In 1607 the
agrarian changes in the Midland had produced an
armed revolt of the peasantry, beginning ii
Northamptonshire, where there had been stirrings
of unrest at any rate since 1604. The counties
mainly affected were Northamptonshire,
Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire,
Leicestershire, the three divisions of
Lincolnshire, and Warwickshire. The leader was a
certain John Reynolds, nick named Captain Pouch,
'because of a great leather pouch which he wore
by his side, in which purse he affirmed to his
company there was sufficient matter to defend
them against all comers, but afterwards when he
was apprehended, his Pouch was searched, and
therein was only a peece of greene cheese'. John
was soon dealt with after a skirmish at Newton,
where a body of mounted gentlemen with their
servants dispersed a body of a thousand rebels,
killing some forty or fifty of the poorly-armed
rustics. Some of his followers were hanged and
quartered. Promises of redress made by various
proclamations were fulfilled only to the extent
of the appointment of still another royal
commission to inquire into agrarian grievances in
the counties named. After it had made its return,
however, it was discovered that on legal
technicalities the commission was invalid, and
little action seems to have been taken upon its
laboriously compiled returns. The local gentry
were soon busily at work again in enclosing their
own land and that of others, though in 1620 Sir
Edward Coke, the greatest of English judges, who
had already shown himself a keen opponent of
enclosure, declared depopulation to be against
the laws of the realm, asserting that the
encloser who kept a shepherd and his dog in the
place of a flourishing village community was hateful to God and man.
A reaction set in when in 1619 there were good
harvests, and the Privy Council was concerned to
relieve farmers and landlords who were suffering
through the low price of corn. This is why
commissions were appointed to grant pardons for
breaches of the depopulation acts, and why in
1624 all save the two acts of 1597 were repealed.
The county justices still, however, attempted to
check the change, and in this received more or
less spasmodic pressure from the Council. In the
1630's corn prices rose again, and in 1630 the
justices of five Midland counties were ordered to
remove all enclosures made in the last two years.
In 1632, 1635, and 1636 more commissions were
appointed, and the justices of assize were
instructed to enforce the tillage acts. In 1633
they were cited before the Board to give an
account of their proceedings. From 1635-8
enclosure com-positions were levied in thirteen
counties, some six hundred persons in all being
fined, and the total fines levied amounting to
almost £50,000. Enclosers were being prosecuted
in the Star Chamber as late as 1639. However, the
Star Chamber was to vanish in 1641, and the
Stuart administrative policy disappeared with the
engines by which it had been-somewhat
ineffectively and spasmodically - put in force.
If the reign in its social and agrarian policy
may be judged solely from the number of
anti-enclosure commissions set up, then
undoubtedly King Charles I is the one English
monarch of outstanding importance as an agrarian
reformer. How far his policy was due to genuine
disinterested love of the poor, and how far it
followed from the more sordid motive of a desire
to extort fines from offenders, it is difficult
to say. But even the most unsympathetic critic
must allow a good deal of honest benevolence to
his minister Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
some measure of it to his master. On the whole it
is perhaps not too much to say that for a short
time after the commissions issued in 1632, 1635,
and 1636, Star Chamber dealt fairly effectively
with offenders. The lack of ultimate success of
this last governmental attempt to stem the tide
of enclosure was due, no doubt, partly to the
mixture of motives on the part of its proponents.
Still more its failure is to be attributed to the
fact that again the local administrators, upon
whom the Crown depended to implement its policy,
were of the very [landed] class which included
the worst offenders. A (practising) poacher does
not make a very good gamekeeper!
The Commonwealth
During the Commonwealth there was little legal
or admin-istrative attempt to check enclosure of
open fields. It is not clear how far this was
taking place, though there was great activity in
the enclosure and drainage of commonable waste.
Some of the Major-Generals, especially Edward
Whalley, held strong views upon agrarian matters,
and attempted to use their very extensive powers
to carry their ideals into operation. Petitions
were prepared and presented, a committee of the
Council of State was appointed and numerous pamphlets were written.
In 1653 the mayor and aldermen of Leicester
complained of local enclosures and sent a
petition to London, very sensibly choosing their
neighbour, John Moore, as its bearer. Appar-ently
it was because of this that the same year the
Committee for the Poor were ordered 'to consider
of the business where Enclosures have been made'.
The question arose again in 1656 when Whalley,
the Major-General in charge of the Midlands, set
on foot local inquiries, and took fairly drastic
action in response to petitions adopted by the
grand juries in his area. He hoped that as a
result of his action 'God will not be pro-voked,
the poor not wronged, depopulation prevented, and
the State not dampnified'. The same year he
brought in a Bill 'touching the dividing of
commons', but it failed through the opposition of
William Lenthall, the Master of the Rolls, and
indeed was not even given a second reading. This
was the last bill to regulate enclosure. Ten
years later, in 1666, another bill was read in
the Lords, to confirm all enclosures made by
court decree in the preceding sixty years. It
also was -unsuccessful, but the fact that it was
introduced is indicative of a great change in the
general attitude towards enclosure displayed by those in authority.
Extent of Charles' penalties on inclosers
1) Introduction of tillage acts
2) Introduction of depopulation acts
3) A total of 600 individual fines on enclosing landowners as follows
[from p. 167, Gonner, E.C.K., 'Common Land and Inclosure', 1912]:
King Charles I - fines on enclosing landowners -
(££) Year -> 1635 1636 1637 1638 Total 1635-8
Lincolnshire 3,130 8,023 4,990 2,703 18,846
Leicestershire 1,700 3,560 4,080 85 9,425
Northamptonshire 3,200 2,340 2,875 263 8,678
Huntingdonshire 680 1,837 230 2,747
Rutland 150 1,000 1,150
Nottinghamshire 2,010 78 2,088
Hertfordshire 2,000 2,000
Gloucestershire 50 50
Cambridgeshire 170 340 510
Oxfordshire 580 153 733
Bedfordshire 412 412
Buckinghamshire 71 71
Kent 100 100
Grand Total
£46,810
If anyone has the equivalent amount in today's
money please contact me here and I will include it on this page
Extract 3 - Common Land and Inclosure
By E. C. K. Gonner
Brunner Professor of Economic Science in the University of Liverpool
Macmillan and Co., Limited. St. Martin's Street, London. 1912
Download this extract as a Word document with footnotes.
Extracted using a scanner so there may be minor
errors. Please note the use of the spelling
"inclosure" as compared to the more common "enclosure".
'Cope writes of "the poor who, being driven out
of their habitations, are forced into the great
towns, where, being very burdensome, they shut
their doors against them, suffering them to die in the streets and highways,"'
II - INCLOSURE DURING THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
THOUGH the view which regards inclosure of
common and common right land as taking place
mainly at two epochs, in the sixteenth and
eighteenth centuries respectively, and as due to
causes peculiar to these particular times, is
certainly less firmly held than was formerly the
case, it is nevertheless not yet realised that
thus stated it gives an almost entirely false
presentation of what occurred. No doubt it is
true that particular circumstances or
combinations of circumstances at certain times
accelerated the movement or invested it with some
special character, but inclosure was continuous,
and a very considerable mass of evidence as to
its reality and extent exists, spread over the
long intervening period of a century and a half.
Some part of this evidence has been indicated by
different writers, and particularly by Professor
Gay and Miss Leonard, but as yet its mass and
continuity, and so the extent of the progress to
which it testifies, have not been fully stated.
When that is done it will be seen not so much
that the earlier view was inadequate as that it
was actually the very reverse of the true state
of the case, that inclosure continued steadily
throughout the seventeenth century, and that the
inclosures of the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries were no new phenomena but the natural
completion of a great continuous movement. In
dealing with this movement throughout the
seventeenth century attention must be directed to
certain matters besides continuity and extent.
The districts, the character, and the mode of
inclosure require to be dealt with.
If we turn to the later years of the sixteenth
century the frequent statutes dealing with
tillage and houses of husbandry afford
considerable evidence of the efforts of the
government to secure adequate attention to arable
cultivation, and to prevent land suited to corn
being used for pasturage. To some extent these
acts were directed to remedy conversions to
pasture which had taken place in earlier years,
and, taken by themselves, they do not, despite
their stringency and frequent re-enactment, prove
much more than the difficulty of reversing by
state action a movement which, whatever its
consequences, had at its base great economic
causes. But this would be a very imperfect view
of the condition which prevailed at the time.
Economic causes were still at work, and inclosure
was the natural response. No doubt they were
somewhat changed in character. Even if the demand
for pasture was still effective, the increased
population, with its growing need of corn, and
the new possibilities of improved methods of
cultivation added new reasons for inclosure,
though obviously for inclosure with different
results, against which the old reproaches of
depopulation and the diminution of the food
supply could not be alleged. In respect of this
tendency the evidence of writers like Tusser and
FitzHerbert seems conclusive, and it is probable
that it was due to a like perception that,
despite the very obvious anxiety about inclosure,
the statute was enacted which so specifically
repeated the power of approvement enacted in the Statute of Merton.
That inclosure from which such detrimental
results as those mentioned above might be and
were apprehended was, however, steadily
progressing is obvious from circumstances
attending the later statutes of tillage, as from
other evidence. The words of the statutes are
very significant. Thus the preamble to 39 Eliz. c. 2 runs:-
"Whereas from the XXVII year of King Henry the
Eighth of famous memory until the
five-and-thirtieth year of her majesty's most
happy reign there was always in force some law
which did ordain a conversion and continuance of
a certain quantity and proportion of land in
tillage not to be altered; and that in the last
parliament held in the said five-and-thirtieth
year of her majesty's reign, partly by reason of
the great plenty and cheapness of grain at that
time within this realm, and partly by reason of
the imperfection and obscurity of the law made in
that case, the same was discontinued, since which
time there have grown many more depopulations by
turning tillage into pasture than at any time for
the like number of years heretofore."
Like language is to be found in 39 Eliz. c. I,
which states, "where of late years more than in
time past there have sundry towns, parishes, and
houses of husbandry been destroyed and become
desolate." A like condition of things is stated
in the tract Certain Causes gathered together,
wherein is shown the Decay of England, if it may
be assumed that this was written in the later
part of the century. It relates to inclosures in
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and
Northamptonshire, and complains that there has
been a change for the worse since the days of Henry VII.
Additional light on the time and on the aims of
Elizabeth's ministers is thrown by a letter from
Sir Anthony Cope to Lord Burleigh concerning the
framing of the new bill against the ill effects
of depopulation, written with the draft of the
bill before him. In this criticism the writer
says, "Where every house is to be allotted twenty
acres within two miles of the town I dislike the
limitation of the place, fearing the poor man
shall be cast into the most barren and fruitless
coyle, and that so remote as altogether
unnecessary for the present necessities of the
husband mane's trade." He then proceeds with
other grounds of objection, very pertinent to the
working of the act, and important as showing the
difficulties obviously experienced in certain
places. The 'very definiteness of statement is
sufficient to show that inclosures were taking
place, and that they were attended in some places
at least with bad results. He specifically urges
that recent titles ought not to hinder the
immediate application of the statute.
The foregoing evidence, which bears directly on
the conversion to pasture and the existence of
inclosure at the time, and also on the remedy of
the former by law, can be supplemented by that of
the writer of 1607, whose careful comparison of
inclosed and open lands, especially as
illustrated by the counties of Somerset and
Northampton, has often been quoted. He deals not
only with the two systems but with the remedy for
inclosing when that results in depopulation. Here
he considers the expediency of offering a remedy
at a time when, as he says, the mere offer or
attempt may serve as an encouragement to violent
attempts at redress. Inclosure, he writes, was
made the pretended cause for the late tumults.
However he over rules this scruple and suggests
that, so far as in closure is harmful, which in
general he may be taken as denying or doubting,
action must be taken not only with regard to that
which has been but also in prevention of that to
come. To prevent or to stay harmful inclosure he
recommends that existing laws should be
maintained and that new measures should be taken
against ingrossing of lands. Briefly stated, no
one is to hold more than one-fourth of the land
-of any manor, the remaining three-fourths to
remain in tenantries none of which is to exceed
one hundred acres. Side by side with this as
testimony to the real existence of the movement is the inquisition of 1607.
Though it is not intended to deal at this point
with the nature of the inclosures, it should be
added that further testimony as to inclosure of
wastes is afforded by a memorial addressed in
1576 to Lord Burleigh by Alderman Box. This
memorial is interesting by reason of the
information it gives as to the condition of the
land, and its general breadth of treatment. The
writer urges the necessity of increasing the
tillage lands, a necessity arising from, firstly,
the large amount of good and fruitful land "lying
waste and overgrown with bushes, brambles, ling,
heath, furze, and such other weeds"; secondly,
the amount converted from arable to pasture,
which he states has been estimated at one-fourth
of that at one time agreeable to maintain the
plough. That there has been decay of arable is
assumed, and equally he has no doubt in stating
that laws made in redress have been
inefficacious. The decay and putting down of
ploughs have not been stayed, "but are rather
increased, and nothing amended." His own remedy
is to leave the land in pasture alone and devote
all efforts to the cultivation of the wastes. But
here he points out a difficulty, which evidently
was a real one. While the wastes existed the
herbage and other profits belonged to the
tenants; when divided and. separated their
division was at the lord's pleasure. Hence he
advocates the introduction, of a regular system
of inclosure of wastes, the lord of the manor,
together with four or five of the gravest
tenants, appointed and chosen by their fellows,
to be empowered to proceed to a division and
allotment, each allotment to be according to the
rent paid and to be granted on condition of
clearing and cultivating in two years. His object
was not only to supply the lack of tillage land
but to prevent division taking place under
conditions which placed the land at the pleasure
of the lord; it became his and the tenant lost
the free profit which he formerly possessed in
herbage, etc. Here, however, the memorial is
instanced as evidence that inclosure of waste to
the lord's advantage was taking place, at any
rate to some extent. Of course the writer's
recommendation; had it been enforced by law,
would have increased the amount inclosed, though
it would have removed or modified the objection
felt by the tenants and people in general and
evinced in the discords referred to, as also later at the time of the Diggers.
On turning to what occurred during the
seventeenth century it will be convenient to
examine the evidence as it presents itself under
three headings-general references in tracts,
pamphlets, and the like, official records, and
lastly the evidence afforded by comparisons
between the state of the country in the sixteenth
and towards the end of the seventeenth century.
So far as the first two bodies of evidence are
concerned the century may be divided into periods
of twenty-five years. One thing, however, must be
remembered. Literary references frequently are to
movements which have been in progress for some
little time and have grown to sufficient
dimensions to impress themselves as a general
grievance in a district and within the knowledge
of the writer, and yet not so long-standing as to
have lost their aggressive character. A tract on
inclosure does not merely deal with the events of
the last year or so, but covers a much wider range.
So far as the first quarter of the century is
concerned reference has already been made to the
analysis of the relative advantages of inclosure
and open which distinctly favours inclosure as
conducing to (1) security from foreign invasion
and domestic commotion, (2) increase of wealth
and population, (3) better cultivation through
land being put to its best use. In the
Geographical Description of England and Wales
(1615) complaint is made in respect of
Northamptonshire that "the simple and gentle
sheep, of all creatures the most harmless, are
now become so ravenous that they begin to devour
men, waste fields, and depopulate houses, if not
whole townships, as one hath written." The
passage is of course copied from the Utopia. The
Commons' Complaint (1612) and New Directions of
Experience to the Commons' Complaint (1613), both
by Arthur Standish, advocate inclosure in every
county of the kingdom. In the preface to the
earlier tract he refers to "a grievance of late
taken only for the dearth of corn in
Warwickshire, Northamptonshire, and other
places." Since this as well as the other tract is
largely a defence, or rather advocacy, of
inclosing there can be no doubt that the
suggested cause was the in closing. Of Cornwall
Carew writes in 1602," They fall everywhere from
commons to inclosure." Again, Trigge in The
Humble Petition of Two Sisters (1604) condemns inclosure.
In the second quarter the literary treatment of
the subject is not very full. Depopulation
Arraigned (1636), by R. P. (Powell), of Wells,
was occasioned by the issue of the royal
commission to inquire into inclosures, and deals
in a hostile spirit with the subject. The author
specially condemns what he describes as "a
growing evil of late years "-namely, grazing
butchers taking up land,-and gives some details
of inclosure accompanied by depopulation.
In the third quarter and at the very beginning
there is much more to be referred to under this
heading. Inclosure Thrown Open; or, Depopulation
Depopulated, by H. Halhead (1650), is a vigorous
attack on those desirous of inclosing, who are
accused of resorting to any means to secure their
object. As to the district referred to, the
authorship of the preface by Joshua Sprigge, of
Banbury, affords some slender ground for the
conjecture that it refers to the South Midlands.
That the Midlands formed a conspicuous area is
clearly shown by other writings. In these a
definite controversy centres round the in
closures of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and
the adjacent Midlands, while it comprises also
references to other parts of the country. The
first publication in this series was The Crying
Sin of England of not Caring for the Poor,
wherein Inclosure, viz. such as doth Unpeople
Towns and Uncorn Fields, is Arraigned, Convicted,
and Condemned by the Word of God, by John Moore,
minister of Knaptoft, in Leicestershire (1653).
To this there appeared an answer, Considerations
Concerning Common Fields and Inclosures (1653).
Moore replied in a printed sheet which apparently
is lost. To this the author of the Considerations
published a Rejoinder, written in 1653, but not
printed till 1656. In this latter year Joseph
Lee, the minister of Cotesbatch, published A
Vindication of Regulated Inclosure. A final
retort to both the foregoing by Moore in A
Scripture Word against Inclosure (1656) concludes
the controversy. By its side must be placed The
Society of the Saints and The Christian Conflict,
both by Joseph Bentham, of Kettering. With regard
to all these some few points require notice. The
controversy begins with the inclosures in
Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and the
counties adjacent, and then extends somewhat to
other inland counties in general, one writer
alluding to the inland counties" where inclosure
is now so much inveighed against." References in
particular are made to inclosure in Warwickshire,
and to the existence of in closed districts in
Essex, Kent, Herefordshire, Devon, Shropshire,
Worcestershire, and even Cornwall, though it
cannot be concluded that the allusion is to
recent inclosures in these latter counties. In
the second place even Moore is careful to
distinguish between inclosure which depopulates
and that which has no such effect. When hard
pushed he goes further, writing, " I complain not
of inclosure in Kent or Essex, where they have
other callings and trades to maintain their
country by, or of places near the sea or city."
Thirdly, a very important consideration as to the
ultimate effect of the movement is raised by
those in its favour in the assertion that very
often in closure is laid to pasture and then
after a rest returned to arable use greatly
enriched. This assertion is accompanied by a
consider able number of instances. Probably the
references to the large inclosures in North
Wiltshire by John Aubrey in the Natural History
of Wiltshire were written during this period, for
his studies began in 1656, though his preface was
not written until 1685. The same period saw the
publication of what was one of the most important
seventeenth century works dealing with the
subject, Blith's English Improver (1652). In 1664
Forster in England's Happiness Increased
prognosticates a rise in the price of corn from
inclosure which he deplores, stating, " more and
more land inclosed every year."
During the last quarter of the century we have
the many definite assertions by Houghton in his
valuable Collections. In 1681 he writes of the
many inclosures which" have of late been made,
and that people daily are on gog on making, and
the more, I dare say, would follow would they
that are concerned and understand it daily
persuade their neighbours." He instances the
sands of Norfolk as an example of what they may
effect and urges the need of a bill of in
closure. In 1692, in arguing against the common
notion that inclosure always leads to grass, he
adduces instances to the contrary from Surrey,
Middlesex, and Hertfordshire. In 1693 he gives
some account of inclosed land in Staffordshire,
and adds, " I cannot but admire that people
should be so backward to in close, which would be
more worth to us than the mines of Potosi to the
king of Spain." In 1700 he argues again in favour
of a general act which should be permissive.
Equally significant testimony is borne in 1698 by
The Law of Commons and Commoners, which devotes a
special section to the matter of legal inclosure.
Campania Felix, by Timothy Nourse (1700), deals
with the advantages of inclosure, as also does
Worledge in the Systema Agriculturae (third
edition, 1681). General references of this kind
during the latter part of this century multiply
as literature dealing with agricultural systems increases.
But to illustrate the condition of things
during the last quarter of the seventeenth
century, or even during the latter half, we must
turn also to books and tracts published shortly
after its termination. In The Whole Art of
Husbandry; or, the Way of Managing and Improving
of Land, by J. M., F.R.S. (John Mortimer),
published in 1707, inclosure is treated as
obviously beneficial, as with reference to it the
writer adds, " I shall only propose two things
that are matters of fact, that, I think, are
sufficient to prove the advantages of inclosure,
which is, first, the great quantities of ground
daily in closed, and, secondly, the increase of
rent that is everywhere made by those who do
inclose their lands." Again, the editor of Tusser
in Tusser Redivivus (1710), commenting on a
reference by Tusser, says, "In our author's time
inclosures were not as frequent as now." John
Lawrence in A New System of Agriculture (1726)
contrasts the inclosed and open fields in
Staffordshire and Northamptonshire to the
advantage of the former, and says as to the north
that the example of Durham, the richest
agricultural county, where nine parts in ten are
already inclosed, is being followed by the more
northern parts. He expresses surprise that so
much of the kingdom is still open. Edward
Lawrence in The Duty of a Steward to his Lord
(1727) gives a form of agreement which he
recommends to proprietors anxious to inclose.
Equal testimony to the reality of the movement is
offered by J. Cowper in An Essay Proving that
Inclosing Commons and Common Fields is Contrary
to the Interests of the Nation, in which he seeks
to controvert the opinions of the Lawrences.
Writing in 1732 he says: " I have been informed
by an ancient surveyor that one third of all the
land of England has been inclosed within these
eighty years." Within his own experience of
thirty years he has seen about twenty lordships
or parishes in closed. An Old Almanac, which was
written and printed in 1710, though it has a
postscript bearing date 1734, urges the need of a
general act and expresses the opinion that the
consent of the lord with two-thirds of the
tenants should bind the minority in any
inclosure. Again, in the Dictionarium Urbanicum
(1704) we read of "the great quantities of lands
which in our own time have laid open, in common
and of little value, yet when in closed . . .
have proved excellent good," etc.
Turning from this kind of evidence to that of
an official and legal character, it is fortunate
that the comparative weakness of the testimony of
tracts and pamphlets during the first
half-century can be otherwise strengthened. The
inquisition into inclosures in 1607 refers
obviously to what had taken place in the latter
period of the preceding century, but during the
reigns of the first two Stuarts the anxiety as to
depopulation and scarcity which are apprehended
as a probable if not a necessary result displays
itself in almost undiminished force, as it may be
seen from the Register of the Privy Council. In
the reign of James I. there are some few
references to cases of inclosure, the most
interesting of which deals with the case of
Wickham and Colthorpe, in Oxfordshire, in respect
of which a bill in chancery for inclosure had
been exhibited by Sir Thomas Chamberlain. Lord
Say, however, had pulled the hedges down with
considerable disturbance, and thus the matter
came to the attention of the council. In a letter
to the lord-lieutenant from the council it was
pointed out that, owing to Lord Say's action
being known, "there is very great doubt, as we
are informed, of further mischief in that kind,
the general speech being in the country that now
Lord Say had begun to dig and level down hedges
and ditches on behalf of commons there would be
more down shortly, forasmuch as it is very
expedient that all due care be taken for the
preventing of any further disorder of this kind,
which, as your lordship knoweth by that which
happened heretofore in the county of Northampton
and is yet fresh in memory, may easily spread
itself into mischief and inconvenience." There
are, however, but isolated instances of intervention.
More systematic attention to inclosure is shown
during the second quarter of the century. The
great administrative activity of the council in
the fourth decade found a sphere here. On 26th
November, 1630, a letter was directed to be sent
to the sheriffs and justices of the peace for the
counties of Derby, Huntingdon, Nottingham,
Leicester, and Northampton, calling for an
account of inclosure or conversion during the
past two years or at that time in progress. In
the replies from Leicestershire and
Nottinghamshire many great inclosures were
reported, and directions were accordingly
despatched as to the course to be taken; some, as
tending to depopulation or the undue diminution
of arable, were to be thrown open. That this was
deemed unnecessary in other cases is evident from
a subsequent letter of 25th May, 1631, whereby
inclosures begun might proceed on due
undertakings that the houses of husbandry be not
restricted injuriously or the highways interfered
with. That considerable care was exercised in the
matter is evident from further references in the
proceedings of the council. On 9th October, 1633,
the judges of assize were ordered to attend the
board on the 18th to give an account of their
doings and proceedings in the matter of
inclosures. Unfortunately in the account of the
meeting on this date and of the interview with
the judges no definite reference is made in the
Register to what transpired in the case of
inclosures. In general it is said that the
justices of the peace do not meet often enough to
carry out the Book of Orders and that the returns
of the sheriffs are defective. Among the State
Papers is a copy of a warrant to the
attorney-general to prepare commissions touching
depopulation and conversion of arable in the
counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Northampton, Somerset, Wilts, and Gloucester.
While it is doubtful if much was done directly
to stay inclosure, and while with the approach of
the Civil War the time of the council was
necessarily devoted to other matters, the
existence of an inclosure movement is certain. It
is equally clear that information was obtained of
which some use was made, though possibly for
other ends than the benefit of the agricultural
interest and the people. In 1633-4 we find a
proposal that all inclosures made since 16 James
I. should be thrown back into arable on pain of
forfeiture, save such as be compounded for. The
suggestion was not lost sight of, and from 1635
to 1638 compositions were levied in respect of
depopulations in several counties of which an
account is fortunately preserved. Some 600
persons were fined during this period, the
amounts in some cases being considerable. The
following is a summary of the sums obtained from
compositions in the several counties affected during these years:
County
1635
£
1636
£
1637
£
1638
£
Total
£
Lincolnshire
3,130
8,023
4,990
2,703
18,846
Leicestershire
1,700
3,560
4,080
85
9,425
Northamptonshire
3,200
2,340
2,875
263
8,678
Huntingdonshire
680
1,837
230
2,747
Rutland
150
1,000
1,150
Nottinghamshire
2,010
78
2,088
Hertfordshire
2,000
2,000
Gloucestershire
50
50
Cambridgeshire
170
340
510
Oxfordshire
580
153
733
Bedfordshire
412
412
Buckinghamshire
71
71
Kent
100
100
(apologies but this table doesn't seem to have
come out 100% - please see the section
immediately above this article - it will print
correctly if you download the Word document - ed.)
Having regard to the size of the counties and
the number of instances in each, this may be
taken as indicating a considerable amount of
inclosure in the case of the first six
counties-Lincoln, Leicester, Northampton,
Huntingdon, Rutland, and Nottingham. Only
inclosures leading to depopulation were supposed to be included.
To the evidence thus given in official records
as to inclosure during the first half of the
century must be added that of the drainage inclosures.
A large body of evidence as to in closures and
their distribution, mainly affecting the latter
part of the century, lies in the Chancery
Enrolled Decrees, where cases of inclosure suits
and agreements occur in large numbers. These are
of different kinds. In some instances agreements
were enrolled to secure record and to bind the
parties concerned; in other instances the object
was to bind a minority who were not consenting
parties to the case. For this purpose what seems
to have been a collusive suit was brought against
certain persons proceeding to in close and a
decree obtained giving allotments to the
petitioners. This was used, though obviously
illegally, to prevent third persons not parties
to and probably often in ignorance of the action
from disturbing the division of the ground in
question. That this was illegal is clearly stated
by the author of the legal text-book on the Law
of Commons and Commoners (1698), but his language
leaves no doubt as to its occurrence. Probably in
the then state of the rural districts the method
was efficacious. Not only so, but the threat of a
suit at law was used frequently, we are told by
others, to secure assent to a proposed agreement
to inclose. The mere menace would inevitably
cause many to assent and others to withdraw from
their rights. But the defect as against those who
stubbornly adhered to their opposition, and who
had sufficient means to give expression to their
opposition, doubtless strengthened the growing
desire for some parliamentary action, a full
account of which has been given already. By this
it will be seen that no fewer than eight general
bills dealing with commons or common land were
introduced into Parliament during the last half of the century.
The allusions to tumults in Northamptonshire at
the beginning of the century, a repetition of
which was feared at the time of Lord Say's
destruction of an inclosure, together with the
movement of the Diggers, add the testimony of
public disorder to the very considerable array of
evidence adduced. A further supplement is to be
found in the references made both by contemporary
writers and by those of the earlier part of the
next century to specific inclosures. Thoroton
mentions some in Nottinghamshire. A list of the
inclosures in Leicestershire, drawn up in the
eighteenth century, notes some as effected in the
previous century. A few instances in
Northamptonshire beginning with 1600 are given by
Bridges. The list might be further multiplied.
Isolated instances are chiefly useful as filling
up and strengthening the more general assertions
made elsewhere. By themselves, however, they are too few to be of great value.
On turning to another kind of evidence and
attempting some comparison between the state of
the country, or rather of different districts, as
described at approximately the beginning and
approximately the end of the century, very
obvious difficulties present themselves, except
in one instance. The terms used are general and
not precise, while further the obvious aim of the
writer at any date is to compare the state of any
particular district with that of adjacent
districts or of the country at large at the same
date. Hence the meaning of the terms "champion"
or "inclosed" varies a good deal. But this
feature, which renders the various descriptions
so good for a comparison of the different parts
at the same time, takes away from their value as
a means of comparing the condition of one
district at one time with its condition at
another time, save when the change has been so
great that the main character of the district is
transformed, or when the change has been very irregular in its distribution.
In one instance, however, this difficulty does
not present itself, and a good deal as to the
progress of inclosure may be learnt from a
comparison of the Itinerary of Leland with the
road maps of Ogilby. Out of the references by
Leland to the condition of the land along the
road traversed, counting as one each case where
there is a practically continuous account of a
uniform character, about one-half can fairly be
identified with a route described by Ogilby. Of
these in twenty-seven cases the land is
apparently in much the same condition. In the
case of fourteen the amount of inclosure however
has obviously increased, sometimes very greatly
increased. Some two or three other cases, though
indications point in the same direction, have
been put aside on the ground that the evidence is
inadequate. I t ought to be added that in no case
does land stated to be inclosed on the earlier
tour appear to have fallen back into an open
condition. Taking these fourteen cases, two occur
in Devon and Cornwall, and so the inclosure is of
waste or open common, three in Yorkshire (E. and
N. Ridings), one in Hampshire, one in
Worcestershire, while the remaining seven are in
the Midlands. Three of these last seven are in
Northamptonshire. The route taken by Leland in
South Leicestershire runs from Stanton
(Stoughton) to Leicester, and the traveller adds
"all by champain land." The neighbouring route
described by Ogilby from Glen to Leicester runs
through in closed ground, a fact which suggests
that there had been some increase of inclosure in
this district. Turning from the particular
instances analysed above, a careful comparison of
the two itineraries, to give a common name to
both, certainly leaves an impression of a general
and marked increase in inclosed land, though,
except in the Midlands, it seems that inclosure
rather tends to increase in areas and to extend
along lines already affected by the movement than
to break out in wholly new districts.
Turning to the general comparison of
descriptions and records at different times, for
reasons already given great care must be
exercised. Certain instances occur, however,
where a definite conclusion seems possible.
Leicestershire is described as " champion" in the
Geographical Description of England and Wales
(1615), while Burton (1622) specially says that
the south-east is " almost all champion." On the
other hand according to Ogilby's road maps there
was a large amount of inclosed ground in the
south-east. Again, we have in Aubrey a definite
comparison of North Wilts at an early date and
towards the end of the century, the latter state
being confirmed by Ogilby. Of Durham the east is
"most champain," according to the Geographical
Description, a condition apparently continuing in
1673, when, Blome writes in Britannia, the east
is champain. On the other hand, according to John
Lawrence in 1726 nine parts in ten are inclosed.
In North Wilts, according to Leland, the route
from Cirencester to Malmesbury was after the
first mile all by champain, which continues to
Chippenham. But by the latter part of the century
much in this district was inclosed, a state of
things very clearly shown in the roads passing
through Malmesbury by Ogilby. Again, if Norden is
accurate in describing Dorset, Wilts, Hampshire,
and Berks as being champion in 1607, the state of
the roads in Ogilby indicates that in Berkshire
as well as in Wiltshire a considerable amount of
inclosing had taken place during the seventeenth
century. The same, though probably to a less extent, is true of Hampshire.
Before summarising the foregoing some account
may be attempted of the condition of the country
in respect of inclosure at the time of Ogilby's
road book Britannia, which bears date 1675,
supplementing that with references of the same
time or a little later. Such an account requires
considerable additions to make it applicable to
the end of the century, since there can be no
doubt that the movement progressed considerably during the last two decades.
If we follow Ogilby's description of the land
lying at the side of the routes he traversed as
fairly illustrating the country, the area in
which open land chiefly continued at that time
forms an irregular triangle, the apex of which
lies in South Wilts, somewhat south and midway
between Warminster and Salisbury, and the sides
extend in a north-easterly and easterly direction
respectively to the east coast. Of these the
north side may be roughly figured as passing
through Warminster and Devizes to Highworth;
thence almost direct north to Stow, whence it
makes a detour in a north-westerly direction
through Pershore almost to Worcester, thence by
Alcester, Coventry, Kegworth, Mansfield, Blyth,
Doncaster, Pontefract, York, to Gainsborough, and
thence to the coast. 'The more southerly side
runs through Salisbury, Hungerford, Oxford,
Aylesbury, Newport Pagnel, thence with a
southerly detour through Luton to Biggleswade,
thence by Royston, Linton, Newmarket, to Bury St.
Edmunds, and thence by Thetford, Hingham,
Norwich, southerly to Great Yarmouth. The
triangular area thus roughly delineated consists
of the following counties: all or very nearly all
of Cambridge, Bedford, Northampton, Huntingdon,
Rutland, Lincoln, and Leicester, also S. and E.
Warwick, S. Wilts, W. Norfolk, E. Yorks, a
considerable part of Oxford, Buckingham,
Nottingham, some part of Worcester, and small
portions of Berks and Suffolk. There was, of
course, open land outside, in addition to that
lying in down, moor, heath, and hill, but if
Ogilby can be taken as indicating the average
character of the land it was in this area that
open field and commons constituted a widespread
feature. On the other hand, it is equally clear
from Ogilby that there was a very large amount of
in closed land in the area described, a feature
particularly conspicuous in Northamptonshire,
S. Leicestershire, W. Norfolk, S.
Nottinghamshire, S. Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire.
Elsewhere the inclosed land presents itself more
intermixt and in less continuous amounts, as in
Bedfordshire. There is little doubt that by the
end of the century the proportion of this had
increased. The tendency for inclosure to prevail
near towns of any size is marked and important.
But this suggests the need of some allowance in
our account for a larger amount of open land more
distant from roads and so less accessible to or more distant from towns.
Summarising the evidence which has been
adduced, it is clear that inclosure had been
going on with some activity in the latter part of
the sixteenth century. When the seventeenth
century opens inclosure is attracting
considerable attention, some part of which is no
doubt due to the menace of disorder, or even to
actual disturbances as in Northamptonshire.
Complaint, however, is not confined to that
county, but extends into Warwickshire and
elsewhere. At the same time in Cornwall wastes
are being inclosed for the purpose, it may be
assumed, of cultivation. With time the movement
in the Midlands, so far from being stayed,
gathers force and extends over the adjacent
districts to such an extent that the fear of
depopulation leads to official inquiry into what
was happening in the counties of Northampton,
Leicester, Derby, Huntingdon, Nottingham,
Gloucester, Wilts, Somerset, and Lincoln. Redress
in certain cases is attempted, but not, it would
seem, often, the most systematic use of the
information obtained by these or other inquiries
being the exaction of compositions from
offenders, a course which obviously assisted the
king in his effort to avoid dependence upon
parliamentary supplies, though it might not
remedy the evil. The chief counties affected by
such compositions were Lincoln, Leicester,
Northampton, Huntingdon, Nottingham, and Rutland.
They certainly do not do much to stay the
movement in the Midlands, which leads to
considerable local controversy as to the results
occasioned. Whatever be thought of these there
can be no doubt that inclosure in the Midlands
was both continuous and wide 'spread, though it
probably was most severe in the border district
between Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and
Northamptonshire. Meantime there are marks of
like change elsewhere, as in North Wilts, where
the inclosures extend over a considerable area,
and in other districts where the mentions which
survive are of separate instances. During the
latter half of the century there is a great body
of evidence as to the extensive nature of the
movement, which evidently increases during the
last two decades. As to this latter period, the
evidence goes to show that very large quantities
of land were regularly inclosed. The question of
in closure is now not in any sense local, its
advocates going so far as to seek to obtain
parliamentary sanction to remove the difficulties
which seem to have impeded though they could not check its course.
As can be seen from a comparison of this
summary with the account drawn from Ogilby the
chief area in which inclosure is mentioned as
taking place coincides roughly with the region in
which there still remained a large quantity of
open. But in closure also took place just on the
borders, and the inclosures in Durham and the
north must be treated as additional. But it must
be remembered that in closures which created no
grievance, public or private, which, that is, did
not threaten the realm with depopulation or
dearth, or dispossess individuals of rights or of
all opportunity of earning a living, were little
likely to attract attention. What we know of the
north or of Wilts, or of the sands of Norfolk, is
due to rather casual notices. Even Moore, the
vehement censor of the movement, writes, "I
complain not of inclosure in Kent or Essex, where
they have other callings and trades to maintain
their country, or of places near the sea or
city." By the side of this passage may be put his
remark that" the great manufacture of
Leicestershire and many (if not most) of the
inland counties is tillage." Probably this
attempt at discrimination is due to a desire to
distinguish between what was occurring in his
neighbourhood and what was taking place
elsewhere. The reference may be restricted
intentionally to Essex and Kent, in neither of
which is it probable that there was inclosing
during this century, but on the whole a wider
application seems more probable. Towns, it must
be remembered, were growing and manufacture was
on the increase, and, to judge from Ogilby and
other sources, inclosure in the neighbourhood of
the towns' was of usual occurrence. Some further
evidence to this effect is offered by the
complaint that the poor, deprived of the chance
of labour in the field, were driven into towns.
The material conclusion is that additional
inclosure, which, far from being complained of,
was regarded with favour, took place round the
growing cities and towns. The growth of
industries had undoubted influence in this
direction. The weaving districts both in the east
and in the west had been gravely affected in the
early part of the sixteenth century, when the
need of local supplies led to a considerable
alteration in the cultivation of the land. It
must not be assumed that the conversion, when it
occurred, from arable to grazing was wholly in
view of wool. The increase in the need for food,
and especially animal products for consumption,
must be taken into account. In some districts no
doubt both wool and corn were largely imported,
as was the case in part of Devonshire at the end
of the sixteenth and the beginning of the
seventeenth centuries, when, as we hear in an
account in 1630, the country was so full of
cloth-making that food was imported. The wool
used was not only local, or even from the
neighbouring counties of Cornwall and Dorset, but
brought from elsewhere, as from Worcestershire
and Warwickshire. Probably this was true also of
Somerset. Though tillage was still the great
interest in the Midlands in the seventeenth
century, town growth and the spread of industry
were beginning, and these had a necessary effect upon inclosure.
Again, the inclosures in the north and in
Cornwall have been mentioned. But these were not
the only districts where wastes existed. To judge
from the accounts of England towards the end of
the sixteenth century there was a vast quantity
of wild, uncultivated ground, of heath, moor,
fen, and forest. To this Leland bears testimony
in his Itinerary, while the already cited
memorial by Alderman Box lays stress on its
amount, as also on the desirability of its
cultivation. Now any such quantity of waste land,
as may be estimated from these and other sources,
is, save in some districts in the north, quite
inadequately accounted for in the inclosures by
private act in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, or in the other recorded inclosures.
Considerable ground was brought into cultivation
by the drainage of the fens, and to this, it is
contended, must be added the land recovered as it
were from a wild condition. It is probable,
indeed, that some portion was inclosed and
cultivated during the earlier years of the
eighteenth century. But, granting this and making
allowance for the condition of the country in the
late sixteenth century, the conclusion that a
very considerable quantity of inclosure from a
wild condition took place in the seventeenth or
early eighteenth century is necessary. It may be
contended that in a large number of cases such a
course did not imply technical inclosure,
inasmuch as the land may not have been under any
common right servitude, and further that in such
an event there would be nothing to tell of its
inclosure, if the term be employed, even during
the period of private acts. This may be true or
partially true in the more outlying regions, but
so far as much wild land is concerned the
testimony of Box is in the opposite direction,
since one object of the particular method
suggested by him is to prevent tenants having
rights from being deprived of them, as they
evidently were being deprived on inclosure. But
even in the case of land where rights either had
not existed or had fallen into desuetude, from
the early middle of the eighteenth century our
knowledge of the movement is sufficiently
complete to preclude its inclosure in large
quantities without some notice. The enlargement
of the whole region of or near cultivation after
the middle of the sixteenth century seems to
justify the conclusion that much in closure of
this kind must have taken place during the
seventeenth century, possibly during the latter years.
During the long period dealt with, extending
from the later years of the sixteenth to the
beginning of the eighteenth century, there seems
abundant evidence as to the progress of inclosure in the following counties :
Warwick, Derby, Norfolk, Leicester, Nottingham,
Durham, Northampton, Rutland, Cornwall (early), Hunts, Wilts,
There is also testimony as to some inclosure in
certain other counties, though not of so definite
a character or in such great amount
Buckingham, Hampshire, Gloucester, Berkshire, Somerset, Yorkshire (part of)
-to which might possibly be added other
counties in the north to which inclosure had
spread from Durham. In addition both from the
Decree Rolls as also from scattered instances
occasional inclosure was taking place throughout
the country generally. But as to this it should
be remembered that some counties were in a highly
inclosed state when the period opened. Among
these were Suffolk, Essex, Hertford, Kent, Devon,
Herefordshire, Shropshire, Cheshire. Both
Cornwall and Somerset, different in character as
their inclosures are, were probably highly
inclosed. Whether much inclosure went on during
this period in Bedfordshire is difficult to
decide. According to Ogilby a good deal of
inclosure had been achieved by that time. It
seems probable that the northern part of
Cambridgeshire was in closed at the end of the century.
Leaving, however, the more special cases on one
side the general outlines of the
seventeenth-century inclosure seem clear and
sufficiently distinctive to permit of certain
conclusions. Firstly, there is evidence of
inclosure continuing from earlier times through
the Thames district. The Norfolk inclosures
probably arose from new causes and at the end of
the period. In Durham and the north the movement
rises and develops. Probably much the same may be
said of the whole district round the Wash. In the
Midlands we have a movement which, though not
new, since the north of Warwickshire was already
inclosed to a great extent, increases very
rapidly. Secondly, the. country in the regions of
early industrial and town growth was already
largely inclosed. Thirdly, a considerable amount
of land was reclaimed from an uncultivated state
by fen or draining inclosures, and in some cases
from encroachment by the sea. Fourthly, the
development of inclosure in the northern Midlands
attacks a region, little affected hitherto, under
very particular conditions. The soil of a large
part of the district under the old common field
system could not be devoted to the use for which
it was best adapted-namely, grazing. Again,
during that century a considerable quantity of
land was reclaimed, thus adding to the area of
cultivation much new and good corn land.
Transport was developing and security of
locomotion was greater. On the other hand towns
were beginning to develop, and to some extent at
any rate it would seem probable that inclosure
took place owing to their development, and it may
have been to supply their needs.
The method and nature of the inclosures during
this period now call for some notice. The mode
whereby these were effected at once follows in
due sequence on that pursued in earlier times,
and prepares. the way for that which was employed
in the next century. In the first place
approvement was still in force, and there is
evidence that the powers thus at the disposal of
the lord of the manor were in use. Among the
answers to the inquiries set on foot by the privy
council are references to sufficient land being
left to others, in one case the lord alleging
that he has left as much "as by law he ought to
do." That this means became of less use as time
passed and with the decrease of the land in waste
seems evident both from the nature of the case
and also from the attempts in 1696 and 1697 to
revive or even extend old powers. In the second
place, while arbitrary inclosures no doubt took
place, they seem, so far as their direct
character is concerned, to have yielded to the
development in the administration of the law.
Agreements take their place, though not
necessarily to the prevention of arbitrary
action. That is removed one stage further off,
and manifests itself in the kind of pressure
exerted to secure assent to these agreements.
Unwilling commoners are threatened with the risks
of long and expensive lawsuits; in other cases
they are subject to persecution by the great
proprietors, who ditch in their own demesne and
force them to go a long way round to their own
land, or maliciously breed rabbits and keep geese
on adjoining ground, to the detriment of their
crops. In addition, to some extent, though until
the records of the decrees in chancery have been
fully examined it will be impossible to say to
what extent, advantage was taken of the ignorance
of the small commoners to make an illegal use of
judgments obtained in their absence against their
right of common. Thus agreements real or
fictitious were secured. Probably where but few
were concerned it was not difficult to bring
people to .a voluntary assent, and in other cases
by mingled cajolery and pressure dissent could be
prevented. But the complexity of rights which
existed in the larger number of open fields and
the growing knowledge that decrees obtained in
chancery did not bind a dissentient minority
rendered resort to parliamentary sanction desirable.
Hence arose the movement which began in the
promotion of a bill to make such decrees valid,
and ended in the resort to private acts. These
must not be regarded as involving a novel system
of inclosure. They became necessary in order to
carry out the system of agreements on a large and
uniform scale, supplying both a means of
registering them, where unanimous, more
convenient than that previously employed, and
further a legal method of enforcing agreements
arrived at by a large majority upon a small and
very often an ignorant minority. In many cases
the early acts do little more than give legal
assent and force to a division and inclosure
already agreed upon and apparently in the process
of execution. Nor were they without precedent. In
addition to the acts passed for the inclosure and
division of lands under particular conditions,
as, for instance, those reclaimed by drainage or
needing protection from encroachments by the sea,
there is at least one early act of this very
nature. The precedent was not, indeed, followed
at the time, owing, at any rate in part, to the
other means which presented themselves for the
ready accomplishment of the end in view. At the
close of the period matters had changed. These
means had been exhausted or found ineffective for
further use. So gradually recourse was had to the
system of private acts. Their use, however,
coincides in an interesting way with the growing
assertion of parliamentary methods as contrasted
with the action of the crown by ordinance or
decree. A private act is the answer by the king
in parliament to the petition by a subject. But
the decree in chancery is the answer by the king
to such a petition in his court of chancery. In
this sense continuity is exhibited in form as well as in substance.
Though it is not possible here to attempt a
discussion of the nature of the inclosures of
this period or of their consequences, one or two
remarks may be added. Taking the century as a
whole the grave apprehensions expressed as to
depopulation or diminution of arable were not
fulfilled. In large measure inclosure was
promoted in view of agricultural or even arable
necessities. The relief of these inspired the
support of the movement by its strongest
advocates, as Standish, Lee, the author of the
Considerations, and Houghton. The. opportunities
which were offering for skilful farming made some
alteration imperative. Again, at the very close
of the century there is the positive assertion
that less land is devoted to stock than was
recently the case, while the Records of the Privy
Council show that these results were often absent
in the very cases selected for inquiry. It will
be remembered that writers like Moore admit that
a good deal of inclosure might occur without such
consequences. On the other hand it is clear that
at certain times and in certain districts,
particularly in the Midlands, conversion from
arable to pasture took place. Diverse influences
were at work. Of these the most important are the
growth of towns, which, while making better
farming imperative, tended towards inclosure in
the neighbourhood and the local increase of
stock; the improvement in farming methods, which
made the difference greater between the good and
the bad farmer; and, lastly, the growth of
locomotion. The skilful farmer required freedom
for the exercise of his skill, and it was to the
benefit of the nation that land should be put to
the use for which it was fitted.
Speaking generally, the notion that the sole
aim and result of inclosure during this period
was the conversion of arable to pasture must be
abandoned. No doubt this took place in many
cases. No doubt, too, that in the earliest stage
of the movement conversion was an important
though possibly an exaggerated feature. But the
description does not apply to the later sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries as a whole. In Leland's
Itinerary, as has been already pointed out, there
is mention of inclosed land in some sixty
instances. In twenty-six of these notice is
definitely made of corn. Sometimes the land is
termed "goodly corn land" ; sometimes it is said
to be fruitful and plentiful of grass and corn,
and at other times fruitful of grass and corn.
But in each case the corn is sufficiently obvious
to be noted. Again, in the Properties of the
Shires, printed with the Itinerary, we hear of
Somerset, a much inclosed county, that it is
"good for whete." If we turn to Suffolk, also a
very early inclosed county, we learn from Reyce
that in Mid Suffolk there is both pasture and
tillage; but mainly the latter, and this is not
the district which he treats as champion. On the
contrary, the greater number of flocks are in the
champion district, the west. There is, of course,
much other evidence so far as many cases are
concerned. Lee, in Regulated Inclosure, while
claiming that hedges provide shelter for cattle
also argues that they are good for crops, an
opinion which, though probably erroneous, shows
that the inclosure movement was definitely viewed
as acting favourably on arable cultivation.
Reconversion after a rest is evidence as to
result, if not intention. If at the end of the
century we turn to Celia Fiennes's record of her
journeys, despite the sporadic character of her
references, which invalidates her testimony with
regard to the condition of the land, whether open
or inclosed, her mention of inclosures makes it
clear that these had not necessarily resulted in
the substitution of pasture for arable. Her
distinct references to inclosure are some thirty
in number. In about half these instances there is
nothing said to indicate the use made of the
land. Of the remainder in some six instances she
specifically mentions the corn, while in the rest
the ground is styled fruitful, or good, or the like.
I t will not be out of place to conclude with a
brief statement of the chief matters dealt with
and the conclusions reached, or at any rate
indicated. In the first place it has been
contended that during this century inclosure
proceeded steadily and over a wide area, and that
a very large amount of land from being open
passed into several ownership and was in closed.
In the second place, these inclosures form part
of a general movement which during this period of
a century and a half extends into and then
becomes very marked in a particular area, while
doubtless still continuing, though to a much less
extent, outside that area. In some districts it
would appear that for the time it had reached its
limits. In the third place, the movement was
continuous not only in itself but in the means
adopted to give it effect. These means follow
each other in natural and explicable sequence.
Lastly, the condition of the Midlands attracted
particular attention. This area was affected for
different reasons, and especially because,
firstly, towns and industries were beginning to
develop, secondly, in certain districts the old
common field system had kept under grain land
peculiarly suited for pasture, and thirdly,
better land for grain had been added by means of
drained and reclaimed or improved land.
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shall not be made known. What I tell you in
darkness, that speak ye in the light and what ye
hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. Matthew 10:26-27
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