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Post-Restoration Landownership: The Impact of the Abolition of Wardship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2014

Peter Roebuck
Peter Roebuck*
Affiliation:
New University of Ulster, Coleraine
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Extract

Major emphasis has been placed on the political significance of the final abolition of the Court of Wards and Liveries in 1660. Not only did it remove a substantial source of grievance against the crown but, as part of a wider settlement whereby Charles II surrendered ancient dues in return for revenue granted by parliament, it formed a major signpost on the road from a feudal to a constitutional monarchy. Historians have also stressed the importance of abolition to developments in landownership and agriculture. To Blackstone writing in the eighteenth century, abolition was “a greater acquisition to the civil property of this kingdom than even Magna Carta itself.” A century later G. C. Brodrick felt it “at least possible” that “this great reform” had provided England with “an advantage in agriculture over her foreign rivals which has not yet been fully exhausted.” David Ogg went so far as to suggest that abolition “was possibly the most important single event in the history of English landholding.” While most recently, in analysing the economic causes of the English revolution, Lawrence Stone has argued that “it is surely significant that among those [things[ whch were not [restored in 1660] were feudal tenures.”

It has been suggested that the more substantial landowners benefited in three respects from abolition: fiscally; collectively, in relation to other groups in rural society; and managerially, insofar as the reform increased their capacity to conduct their affairs effectively. Their financial position improved with the disappearance of the feudal exactions associated with wardship to which the majority of them had previously been liable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , Fall 1978 , pp. 67 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1978

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References

1. I am grateful to the New University of Ubter and the Trustee; of the Twenty-Seven Foundation for financing the research on which this article is based; and to G. E. Mingay, S. G. F. Spademan, W. H. Crawford, W. A. Maguire, and A. C. Hepburn for comments on earlier drafts. None of these individuals should be held responsible for the deficiencies of this final version.

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33. PRO, C 33/399/281; 38/526.

34. University of Hull, Hotham of South Dalton MSS, DDHO/20/26.

35. Hotham of South Dalton MSS, DDHO/15/16.

36. In his will Sir Charles had ordered all “surplus moneys” to be invested in the “public funds.”

37. Hotham of South Dalton MSS, DDHO/15/6, 7, 9, 10.

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42. The list of ninety-three families was compiled from Cockayne, G. E. (ed.), Complete Baronetage 1611-1800 (London, 1900–1909)Google Scholar. Additional genealogical information was derived from Foster, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire; Clay (ed.), Dugdale's Visitation; and Gibbs, Vicary, Doubleday, H. A., et al (eds.), Complete Peerage (London, 1910–1959)Google Scholar. Wherever necessary and possible, the material drawn from these sources was checked against the information in a variety of family histories and other local studies.

43. Included in this total are minorities which began before but ended after either of the two terminal dates; indeed, this applies to all those listed in the Table as pre-1646. The inclusion of such minorities to some extent distorts the overall figures; on the other hand their exclusion would also have led to distortion.

44. See Clay, J. W., “The Gentry of Yorkshire at the Time of the Civil War,” Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, XXIII (1914–1915), 349Google Scholar. Nine of the sixteen minorities in the pre-1646 category began from 1642 onwards; a tenth followed the execution of the Earl of Strafford in 1641.

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