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The Midland Revolt and the Inquisitions of Depopulation of 1607

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 June 2009

Edwin F. Gay
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Extract

The opinion has recently been expressed by a competent student of the sixteenth century that the inclosures of that period, both those which turned the old open fields into sheep farms, thereby evicting husbandmen from their holdings, and those which hedged in severalty the common pastures, were almost entirely responsible for the greater revolts which occurred under Tudor rule. Mr. Pollard specifies this cause of social discontent as mainly operative in the Pilgrimage of Grace, Wyatt's rebellion and that of 1569, as well as those of 1549, both east and west. Such a view ascribes, I think, an exaggerated importance to the inclosing movement of the time and fails to take due account of the combination of motives, political, religious, and social other than agrarian, which acted concurrently, though often at cross purposes, upon all classes, high and low, of a people which was passing reluctant and uncomprehending through an agitated era of transition. The thread of inclosure discontent, it is true, may be traced more or less plainly in these popular uprisings, but as only one of a tangled skein. Yet it is certainly a hasty generalisation, which, laying emphasis on this single element in a complex problem, declares that the masses who took part in all these cbellions were composed of ‘men who had been evicted from their tenements or who had been ground down to the verge of poverty by the loss of their rights to common—men who had nothing to hope from the existing social condition, and nothing to lose in case of failure.’

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Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 18 , December 1904 , pp. 195 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1903

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References

page 195 note 1 Pollard, A. F., England under Protector Somerset, 1900, pp. 205–210Google Scholar.

page 196 note 1 England under Protector Somerset, 1900, p. 240.

page 196 note 2 L. and P. Hen. VIII. xi. 1246Google Scholar, art. 13. It was demanded that the statute for inclosures and intacks be put in execution, and all inclosures and intacks since 4 Hen. VII. be pulled down ‘except mountains, forests, and parks.’ In the mass of evidence collected on the causes and course of the rebellion the confession of Win. Stapulton, one of the rebel captains in Yorkshire, alone mentions in addition to the intacks the ‘pulling down of towns and husbandries’ (ibid. xii. i. 392). One small case of hedge-breaking is mentioned (xi. 960).

page 196 note 3 The oath of the Yorkshire rebels had expressly forbidden them to ‘doe any displeasure to any private person’ (Stow, , Annals, ed. 1605, p. 967Google Scholar), and the council of the rebel leaders at York took order against the ‘casting down of inclosures of commons’ (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xi. 11SS (2, ii) xii, i, 6, 901).

page 196 note 4 The resentment at the increase of fines or ‘gressoms,’ especially in the north-west, seems to have been greater than that aroused by the inclosure of commons. See the proclamation of the rebels, ‘Claim ye old customs and tenant right to take your farmes by a God's penny, all gressums and heghtnynges to be laid down’ (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xi. 892), and Article 9 of the Doncaster demands. (xi. 1246; cf. also 1080). Cromwell's ‘extreme assessment of ther fynes’ was mentioned by Aske as one of the grounds of popular hatred against him, so intense ‘that in maner they wold eat him, and extemys ther greves only to aryse by him and his councell’ (ibid. xii. i. 6, in extenso Engl. Hist. Rev. v. 340).

page 197 note 1 L. and P. Hen. VIII. xi. 1081Google Scholar, 1296, 1337, xii. i. 136, 163, 1361.

page 197 note 2 Ibid. xii. i. 319, 919.

page 197 note 3 ‘What with the spoiling of them now and the gressing of them so marvelouslysore in time past and with the increasing of lords'rents by inclosings, and for lack of the persons of such as shall suffer, this border is sore weked and specially Westmoreland; the more pity they should so deserve, and also that they have been so sore handled in times past, which, as I and all other here think, was the only cause of this rebellion,’ i.e. of the later risings (ibid. xii. i. 478. See also 687, 914, and the complaints of the previous year, xi. 1080).

page 197 note 4 Of the willing co-operation of the gentry with the commons before the Doncaster conference there is abundant evidence, but afterwards it was possible for Ralph Sadler to report that ‘everywhere on this side Doncaster bills have been set on church doors urging the commons to stick together, for the gentlemen had deceived them’ (ibid. xii. i. 200). This is confirmed by Norfolk (xii. i. 336).

page 197 note 5 Ibid. xi. 971. The sense of betrayal by their leaders animated the cry of the commons: ‘Kill the gentlemen’ (xi. 975).

page 197 note 6 ‘One ground of the late rebellion was that certain lords and gentlemen have enclosed commons and taken intolerably excessive fines.’ The Duke is to receive complaints, inquire who have been most extreme and moderate between them, so that ‘gentlemen and yeomen’ may live together as they be joined in one body politic’ (ibid. xii. i. 98). Similar instructions to the Earl of Sussex for Lancashire (xii. i. 302, (4)).

page 198 note 1 That a bitter opposition to the religious changes was the dominant motive is apparent in the numerous statements as to the cause of the rising. See, for example, xii. i. 29, and several of the articles both from Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire, (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xi. 705, 1246, 553, 585, 780, 853Google Scholar) and the oath taken by the insurgents (xi. 705 (4), 1059 (ii.)).

page 198 note 2 The clergy are described as the ‘greatest corypers’ of the temporality, the secret occasion of all this mischief (ibid. xi. 1371). They were active in both the Lincolnshire and the Yorkshire risings (xi. 972–5, 1047). See the instances cited by Sir Wm. Fairfax (xii. i. 192).

page 198 note 3 In Lincolnshire ‘the poor men were content to be ordered by the gentlemen who might have stopped the insurrection’ (ibid. xii. i. 70) Sir Brian Hastings wrote that the captains of the rebels were ‘the worship of the whole shires’ from Doncaster to Newcastle, except the Earls of Cumberland and Westmoreland (xi. 759). Aske declared that ‘the commons would have none but the nobility here to rule’ (xi. 1128), and the Pomfret meeting shows this leadership (xi. 1209).

page 198 note 4 We find the gentlemen explaining to the Lincolnshire commons that Cromwell is a ‘false traitor and deviser of all the false laws’ (ibid. xii. i. 70, p. 38). For the popular hatred aroused against him see also xi. 841.

page 198 note 5 The article against the Statute of Uses was put into the Lincolnshire demands at the request of the gentlemen, the commons knowing little what it meant (ibid. xii. i. 70, pp. 37–9). If it had not been included among the Lincolnshire articles, Aske thought it would not have been remembered in Yorkshire (xii. i. 901, p. 406).

page 198 note 6 Ibid. xii. i. 6, 901 (and Engl. Hist. Rev. v. 558). The monasteries, according to Aske's statement, also lent money to gentlemen, took charge of evidences and money, were a convenience in disposing of younger sons and n educating daughters, and were great maintainers of sea-walls, highways, and bridges. The ballad on the Pilgrimage of Grace emphasises the charity of the abbeys; the poor had of them ‘Boithe ale and breyde At time of nede, And succer grete In alle distresse’ (printed in Engl. Hist. Rev. v. 345). Norfolk declared that this indiscriminate almsgiving bred vagabonds (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xii. ii. 14).

page 199 note 1 Ibid. xi. 1182 (2), 1244.

page 199 note 2 Aske said that the rumours of increased taxes were ‘not in question among the people’ in Yorkshire (ibid. xii. i. 901), but there is much evidence that they played a large part in fomenting disorder in both Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. The fullest statement concerning them speaks of the suppression of churches with the confiscation of church jewels, a rigorous assessment, the sealing of cloth, payments on weddings, buryings, and christenings, on unmarked cattle, and on the eating of white bread, geese, and capons. ‘These things slanderously reported through the country make every man think they shall be undone for ever’ (xi. 768 (2), and see xi. 534, 567, 826, 841, 892, xii. i. 369, 393). These bruits were attributed to ‘the traitors of the clergy’ (xi. 650, 1047, xii.. 481). The Lincolnshire rebels required ‘that the king shall not now or here-after demand any money of his subjects except for defence of the realm in time of war’ (xi. 585).

page 199 note 3 SirHayward, John, ‘The Life and Reign of Edward VI.,’ in Kennett's, Hist, of Engl. ed. 1719, ii. 289Google Scholar.

page 199 note 4 Letter of Sir Wm. Paget to Somerset, July 7, 1549 (Strype, , Eccl. Mem. II. ii. 420, ed. 1816.Google Scholar).

page 200 note 1 John Hales in his defence says that long before the commission of 1548 there was ‘an insurrection in Hertfordshire for the comens at Northall and Chesthunt’ (Introd. to the Discourse of the Common Weal, ed. Lamond, , p. lviiiGoogle Scholar). Early in 1547 we hear of recent disorders ‘in many places of the kinges reahne’ (letter of the Council to the Justices of the Peace, 8 March, 1547, Hist. MSS. Comm. vii. i. 605).

page 200 note 2 Letters between Somerset and Hales, August 1548 (Lansdowne MS. 238, ff. 318b, 319b–321b).

page 200 note 3 King Edward's account is that during the third year of his reign ‘the people began to rise in Wiltshier, where Sir William Harbert did put them downe, overrun, and slay them. Then they rose in Sussex, Hamptshier, Kent, Glocitershier, Southfolk, Warwickshier, Essex, Hartfordshier, a Pece of Leicitershier, Worcestershier, and Rutlandshier, where by fair purswasions, partly of honest men among themselves, and partly by gentlemen, thei were often appeased, and again, bicause certain commissions wer send downe to plucke down inclosures, then did arise again’ (Literary Remains of King Edward VI. ed. Nichols, , ii. 225–7Google Scholar).

page 200 note 4 Proclamation of May 22, 1549, S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. vii. 18.

page 200 note 5 S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. viii. 9.

page 201 note 1 Somerset's letter of June 11, 1549, to the Marquis of Exeter and the Earl of Huntingdon shows the religious motive for revolt gaining the upper hand over the agrarian: ‘Whereasin the most partes of the Realme sundry lewd persons have attempted tassemble themselfs and first seking redresse of enclosures have in some places by seditious prests and other yvill peple set forth to seke restitucons of tholde bluddy lawes and some fall to spoil to prevent all inconvenyences wt yowe pray yo to cause the proclamacons sent herwt to be published by the sheriff weh shal wthstand yvel Brutes, for yorself and the gentlemen of the shire of Leycestre by yr admonicons.’ (S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. vii. 31.)

page 201 note 2 Somerset to Lord Russell (printed in Pocock, Prayer Book of 1549, Camden Soc. N.S. 37, p. 26, from the Petyt MSS. no. 538, vol. 46). A letter of July 18 informs Russell that Lord Grey has ‘chased the Rebells of Bucks, Oxfordshire, and these partes to their houses and taken cc of them’ (ibid. p. 29).

page 201 note 3 Order of July 19, 1549, prescribed by Lord Grey for the execution of rebels in Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, and Northamptonshire (S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. viii. 32). The places mentioned in the order are confined, however, to Oxfordshire.

page 201 note 4 Zürich Letters, 1st ser. vol. ii. p. 391 (Parker Soc.).

page 201 note 5 The Earl of Huntingdon to the Earl of Shrewsbury, September 12, 1549; Talbot Papers, A, 415 (printed in Lodge, Illustrations, 2nd ed. i. 163).

page 201 note 6 SirSmith, Thomas to Cecil, July 19, 1549 (S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. vii. 33)Google Scholar.

page 202 note 1 Spanish Chronicle of King Henry VIII. ed. Hume, , p. 169Google Scholar. The author, a Spanish merchant, writing in London about 1550, says the London butchers laid the blame for the high meat prices during the scarcity on inclosures, specifying the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Sec. Paget, the former for taking in ‘all the commons in Kent,’ and the latter in Northamptonshire. Godwin calls Kent ‘the Fountain of this General Uproar’ (Annals of Engl. ed. 1675, p. 134). Evidence of anti-inclosure activity in Kent is furnished in a suit brought concerning Boxley Park and a neighbouring wood, inclosed by order of Sir Thomas Wyatt about 1543–4. This was ‘not throwen open in the tyme of rebellion of comen welthe,’ but ‘twoo parcels of lande belonging toNewenham Courte were then cast open and throwen downe by the people in that rebellion wtin the parishe of Boxley’ (Exch. K. R., Barons' Depositions, no. 815).

page 202 note 2 ‘Records of the City of Canterbury,’ Hist. MSS. Comm. ix. i. 154. (Cf. article by Thos, . Wright in Archæologia, xxxi. 211Google Scholar.)

page 202 note 3 Memoranda of July 18, 1548, addressed to the Lord Protector by E. Wotton and others, commissioners in Kent, (Hist. MSS. Comm., Lord Salisbury's MSS. i. 54Google Scholar). The articles of the Kentish rebels, here mentioned, are unfortunately not preserved. Godwin says the commissioners caused the inclosures to be thrown open (Annals, p. 134).

page 202 note 4 Acts of the Privy Council, i. 567.

page 202 note 5 A Council letter of July 10, 1549, to Russell, putting the best face on things, represents the disaffected of Suffolk, Essex, Kent, Hants, and Surrey as confessing their faults ‘with verie lowlye submission,’ and ready to fight the rebels of the west. But another letter of July 22 to the same acknowledges that ‘no lenger then yesterdaye sume of the Countres hereabouts, as Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Kent, were not in so good ordre and Quiet as we wold wyshe.’ Their articles were apparently ‘to have one man to have but one ferme lands at theyr owne parych, and such lyke’ (Pocock, , op. cit. pp. 24, 31–2Google Scholar). Sir John Markham writes, August 1, 1549, to the Earl of Rutland from the Court that in the ‘generall plage of rebelling’ ‘Kent, Sussex, Essex, and all the parts near London have meekly confessed theirfolly and pray for the king's most gracious pardon’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. xii. iv. 42, Rutland MSS. i.). An echo of disaffection in Hertfordshire comes from a Star Chamber case of 5 Edw, VI., where a constable deposes that ‘at the tyme of the last rebellion … he durst not execute his office, for he was arrestyd twyse in the Marischalsy for executyng his office upon. one that had offendyd the kyngs lawes at that time’ (P. R. O., Star Chamber Proc. 7/53).

page 203 note 1 The first Cornish rising was in April 1548, but was speedily suppressed and a proclamation of pardon made (May 17) to all but thirty ringleaders (Cotton MSS., Titus, B. ii. f. 25). On June 3 the commissioners were ordered by the Council to proceed to the execution of the traitors, ‘albeit some of them thoughte the nomber appointed to be executed there was over greate’ (Acts of Privy Council,ii. 554). The Black Book of Plymouth notes that this first insurrection was ‘pacified by the gentylmen of the countrey with small troble, but then certaine of the chyff of the comens were hanged, drawn, and quartered’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. ix. i. 277).

page 203 note 2 The beginning was in Wiltshire, according to the King's Journal (above, p. 272, n. 3), but in John Hales's account the risings of 1549 commenced in Somersetshire, thence entering Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey, Essex, and Hertfordshire, as well as affecting the midlands (Introd. to the Discourse, p. lviii). Holinshed adds Lincolnshire to the list (Chronicle, ed. 1808, iii. 917).

page 203 note 3 On May 15, 1549, the Council was bidding the Hampshire sheriffs and justices to employ the power of the shire with vigour for the suppression of turbulence, since they had heard that ‘sondry light folks of the counties of Somerset and Wiltshire have attempted to stirr in great companies upon pretence of libertie proclamacions against enclosures’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. xi. iii. 116). A later Council letter (May 26) to the mayor of Southampton dates the outbreak of ‘mysorder’ in Hampshire (ibid.). John Paston writes, May 25, to the Ear of Rutland details of the Wiltshire rising. ‘Ther ys a grete number of the commonse uppe abowte Salssebery in Wylleshere and they have pluckyd downe Sir Wyllyam Harberde's parke that ys abowte hys new howse, and dyverse other parkysse and commonse that be inclosyd in that cuntre, but harme thay doo too parson (nobody). Thay saye thay wylle obaye the Kynges maister and my lord Protector with alle the counselle, but thay saye thaye wyll nat have ther commonse and ther growendes to be inclosyd and soo taken from them. … Ther is neyther gentylle man nor yet a man of any substance as furforthe as I can lerne amoynge them’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. xii. iv. 36, Rutland MSS.). Holinshed has it that ‘in Summersetshire they brake up certaine parks of Sir William Herbert and the lord Sturton.’

page 203 note 4 The clerical animus of Hampshire disaffection is illustrated in the depositions of Blakman and Svlver against John Garnham of Winchester, August 12, 1549. Garnham said, ‘We have ten thousand now in a Redyinesse for Flynte he will bringe a greate sight of them oute Sussex and we shall have all the bishoppes tennaunts full and hole. And all the countrie rounde abowte will repaire unto us, for I knowe there is not one of the bishoppes servaunts but if he have xiid we shall have vid of yt. … We shall have all the Ayde of the prestes on the close (at Winchester) and we shall have money inough’ (S. P., Dom., Edw. VI. viii. 41).

page 204 note 1 Hooker says the western rebels ‘hade the countenance of some such of the beste, as whoe did both favour their cause and secrietly encoraged them’ (Life of Sir Peter Carew, printed in Archteologia, xxviii. 116). In his account of the rebellion he specifies some of the gentlemen and yeomen who were willing ‘to be capteins and guiders’ —in Devonshire Sir Thos. Pomeroy, knight, John Bury and ‘one Coffin,’ gentlemen, and in Cornwall Humphrey Arundell and Winneslade, esquires, and Holmes, a yeoman (in Holinshed, ed. 1808, iii. 944). Others of good birth are mentioned in the correspondence between Lord Russell and the Council; Robert Paget, brother of Sir William Paget, for instance, was declared by Somerset ‘to have been an heade and captyon of rebellion’ (letter of August II, with other letters referring to the same in Pocock, , op. cit. pp. 53, 55, 62, 74Google Scholar). Sir John Arundell's loyalty was in question before the Council (ibid. pp. 23, 26, 28). At the beginning of the outbreak the justices of the peace with their retinues outnumbered the rebels, but were inactive, probably, as Hooker suggests, because some of them ‘did not like the alteration (of religion), as it was greatlie suspected.’ This suspicion was shared by Lord Russell, who in his letters to the town authorities of Exeter ascribed the chief blame for the rebellion to ‘the lacke of suche aide and assistaunce as the gentelmen of the country shoulde have geven’ (Cotton and Woollcombe, , Gleanings relative to the History of Exeter, p. 191Google Scholar). He declared that ‘a greate many’ of the citizens of Exeter, ‘of good wealthe and substaunce,’ showed their ‘synister affeccons’ in the cause (ibid. p. 192). Mr. Pollard goes too far when he says that there was not a peer, ‘not even a knight’ or a man of wealth, implicated in the western rebellion (op. cit. p. 239).

page 203 note 2 Russell had informed the Council that he could raise but 1,000 footmen from Dorset and Somerset, because of the ‘evill inclynation of the people,’ the rebels bragging of 40,000, ‘to set on your backs out of those shires’ (Pocock, pp. 32, 40). Bury and other Devonshire leaders after their defeat attempted ‘to stir up Somersetshire and have gotten them a band or camp, but they are set after’ (Somerset to Sir Philip Hoby, August 24, 1549, printed in Strype and more correctly inBurnet, , Hist. Ref, ed. Pocock, v. 250Google Scholar). The account for 1549 of Sir John Thynne”, sheriff for Somersetshire and Dorsetshire, contains his expenses in executing rebels at Frome, Wells, Shepton Mallet, Glastonbury, Milverton, Wyllyscombe, Dunster, and Exford. By reason of pardon to offenders at Wells, North Currey, and Bridgewater, he notes the loss of money he had paid for the ‘irons to hang them with’ (P. R. O., Exch. Mem. L. T. R., 3 Edw. VI. p. ii. m. 177 d).

page 205 note 1 Art. 13 of the second set of articles. ‘It appeareth plainly,’ said Cranmer in his ‘Answers to the Fifteen Articles of the Rebels,’ ‘that you devised it to diminish their strength, and to take away their friends, that you might command gentlemen at your pleasures.… Will you now have the subjects to govern their king, the villains to rule the gentlemen, and the servants their masters ?’ (Parker Soc. ii. 185.) Among the charges against two of the Cornish rebels, themselves entitled ‘Esquire’ and ‘Gentleman,’ were that ‘they imprisoned divers knights, esquires, and gentlemen of Cornwall, crying out“, Kill the gentlemen and we will have the Act of Six Articles up again and ceremonies as were in King Henry the Eighth's time ” ‘(Baga de Secretis, pouch xvii.; D. K. Fourth Report, App. ii. 221).

page 205 note 2 Letter of Council to Lord Russell, June 29, 1549, concerning the rumours current in Devonshire, that ‘after the payment for shepe they should paie for theyr geese and piggs and such like.’ He is to declare that these rebels ‘be wonderfully abused, and that by the provocation only of certain popyshe prests’ (Pocock, , op. cit. p. 16Google Scholar; similar account as to the reports spread by the priests in Holinshed, p. 924). One of the articles of the ‘Supplication’ of the rebels of Devon and Cornwall, answered July 8 (this article not found in either of the two sets of articles preserved in Holinshed, pp. 918–9, and in the answers of Cranmer and Nicholas Udall), prayed for dispensation from ‘the reliefe granted unto us by the Parliament, of cloth and shorn sheep’ (Tytler, i. 182). The Council were inclined to grant this, but were dissuaded by Russell. They were, however, of contrary opinion to him in regard to the clothiers, by whose action the Council held (August 27) that ‘this sparke of rebellyon toke the kyndling’ through ‘theyr malignimity at the relyefs pulling a waye of theyr workmen, ye and pryvie insencing and encouragment’ (Pocock, pp. 61–2, 66). The ‘reliefs’ referred to were those on sheep and woollen cloth granted by Edward's second Parliament (2–3 Edw. VI. c. 36) and promptly repealed in the next parliamentary session in response to the complaints of the clothiers (3–4 Edw. VI. c. 23).

page 206 note 1 Spanish Chron. of Henry VIII. p. 181. One of the banners of the Lincolnshire rebels of 1536 bore the plough, the chalice and Host, the five wounds, and the horn of Horncastle (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xii. i. 70 (xiii)). See the description of these flags in the homily against rebellion (Homilies, ed. 1595, sig. Oo 3).

page 206 note 2 Holinshed, p. 926.

page 206 note 3 Printed in F. W. Russell, Ketfs Rebellion, pp. 48 ff.

page 206 note 4 Hayward, , The Life and Reign of Edw. VI., in Kennett, ii. 296Google Scholar.

page 206 note 5 Thos, . Lever, Sermon in the Shroudes, 1550Google Scholar (Arber reprint, p. 39). Cranmer, , Works (Parker Soc. ii. 195Google Scholar).

page 206 note 7 A case before the Star Chamber illustrates this side of the revolt. The crown tenants of Leyston, Suffolk, complained against Robert Brown that he had deprived them of their commons, that he was overrunning the land with his flock of sheep and his ‘connyes.’ The defendant set forth the agreement as to the use of common which had been duly observed by himself and the tenants ‘untyll the Campyng tyme, that is to saye about the monyth of Julye last past,’ when the complainants riotously depastured their cattle, ‘as though all wer ther own,’ and compelled the defendant's wife ‘to vytell the Rebels.’ His family were obliged to take refuge three days and nights in the woods (P. R. O., Star Chamber Proc. Edw. VI. 4/7).

page 207 note 1 Stow, , Annals, ed. 1605, p. 1006Google Scholar; Lit. Remains of King Edw. VI. p. 228. See also Somerset's letter to Sir Philip Hoby of August 24, 1549, referred to above (p. 276, note 2).

page 207 note 2 Commotions in the west, in Nottinghamshire, Kent, and elsewhere durin 1550 (Acts of the Privy Council, iii. 6, 31, 35, 198, 225, 256, 262, 272, 295; iv. 45, et al.) Men from the Boulogne garrison were distributed in Dorsetshire, Hampshire, Sussex, Essex, Kent, and Suffolk (ibid. iii. 81). In 1550 one John Higgins was indicted at Hereford for inciting others to break up inclosures, saying that by the king's proclamation all inclosures were to be broken up (Hist. MSS. Comm. xiii. iv. 317). An insurrection was prevented the following year in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Rutlandshire (letter of Sir John Harrington to the Lord Admiral, September 2, Hist. MSS. Comm., Lord Salisbury's MSS. i. 92).

page 207 note 3 The confusion of motive is well portrayed in Somerset's letter to Sir Philip Hoby, August 29, 1549: ‘The causes and pretences of these uproars and risings are divers and uncertain, and so full of variety almost in every camp (as they call them) that it is hard to write what it is; as ye know is like to be of people without head and rule, and that would have that they know not what: some crieth, Pluck down inclosures and parks, some for their commons; others pretendeth religion; a number would rule another while and direct things as gentlemen have done; and indeed all hath conceived a wonderful hate against gentlemen, and taketh them all as their enemies’ (Burnet, , Hist, of the Reformation, ed. Pocock, , v. 251Google Scholar). Hales mentions the divergent causes of the insurrections (Introd. to Discourse, p. lvii).

page 207 note 4 The Princess Mary wrote to Somerset from Kenninghall, Norfolk, in selfdefence ‘that all the rising about the parts where she was, was touching no part of religion’ (Strype, , Eccl. Mem. iiGoogle Scholar. i. ch. 21). She was referring, of course, to Roman Catholicism; several of the articles of the eastern rebels are animated by zeal for Reformed ideas-for ‘the woorde of God’ (Russell, , Kelt's Rebellion, pp. 49, 51, 53Google Scholar).

page 208 note 1 This distinction has not always been clearly made. While, as we have just noticed, the Council was erroneously suspecting the Princess Mary of instigating and abetting a revolt for the old religion in the east, it was, under equal mis-apprehension, sending inclosure proclamations to pacify the rebels of Devonshire and Cornwall (Pocock, p. 17; letter of June 29; cf. letter of July 4 to Paget at Brussels, p. 24). Stow, Grafton, and Cooper say that the Devonshire rising was not only against inclosures, ‘but they were chiefly offended with the alteration of religion’ (Stow, , Annals, ed. 1605, p. 1005Google Scholar; Grafton, , Chronicle, ed. 1809, p. 5141Google Scholar; Cooper, , Chronicle, ed. 1565, f. 345Google Scholar). Godwin likewise confuses the two movements. Drayton thinks the Cornish rebellion was ‘call’ d Inclosures to cast downe’ (Polyolbion, ed. 1672, pt. ii. p. 62), while Lingard represents the conscience of the Norfolk rebels revolting against the new service (Hist, of Engl. ed. 1849, v. 290).

page 208 note 2 Pollard, , op. cit. p. 239Google Scholar.

page 208 note 3 An examination of a large number of inclosure cases before the Star Chamber discloses but few instances in these two counties, four in Cornwall, and three in Devonshire, and these are for inclosure of common pasture or small cases of hedge-breaking. Among the proceedings of the Court of Requests I have noted no cases of inclosure from Cornwall and but one from Devonshire, where in the manor of Byckelegh and Shagh the tenants were inclosing small parcels of the waste (Proc. 3 Ed. VI. 16/4). Both these counties belonged to the old inclosed districts of England, and the only new inclosure here possible, that of the common pasture or waste, seems at this period to have been inconsiderable.

page 208 note 4 Mr. Pollard, in his excellent book on Henry VIII., in describing the Pilgrimage of Grace, again reverts to this notion that ‘the rebels were drawn mainly from evicted tenants, deprived of their holdings by inclosures or by the conversion of land from tillage to pasture, men who had nothing to lose and everything to gain by a general turmoil (Henry VIII. 1902, p. 237). Many of the impoverished and the dregs of society would undoubtedly welcome these turmoils, but to make them the chief, or even important, elements in the greater revolts of the sixteenth century seems to me a plain misreading of the evidence. We have a glimpse of this propertyless class at the close of the Pilgrimage, when the movement was no longer so well under the control of its leaders. Sadler, for example, reports from his northern journey in January 1537 that ‘he found men in the bishopric (Durham) very desirous of quiet, except those who had nothing of their own and might gain by robbery’ (L. and P. Hen. VIII. xii. i. 259); and Sir Henry Savile writes at the same time from Lancashire that ‘from Sawllay Abbey northwards those who have little are still wild’ (ibid. p. 281). But even in poor Westmoreland and Cumberland the goods of the ‘poor caitiffs’ executed for the later rising amounted to some 400 marks (ibid. p. 641). In the depositions after the rebellion each class seems anxious to cast the blame on some other, but it is clear that all were involved in the main rising.

To prevent the spread of the western rebellion in 1549, the Council sent down proclamations for Cornwall, Somersetshire, and Dorsetshire for the forfeiture of the lands, copyholds, and goods of all who, after a certain date, should remain with the insurgents, ‘the matyar of copiholds being so generall a leving to the nomber of those shires, shalbe as moche a terror as anye other thing that can possibly be devised.’ This measure, it writes, ‘will be some stay to those ready in Cornwall to join the rebels; if not, put it in execution, which will draw them back’ (Pocock, pp. 32, 33). The Council writes later, September 10, explaining the intention of these proclamations, and disapproving Russell's gifts of the rebels’ lands and goods to his soldiers, since ‘by these gifts the multitude of the common people seinge ther lands and goods geven from them, wer therbye made the more desperate’ (ibid. pp. 68–71). Nicholas Udall, writing as a countryman of the rebels, warns them that in the rebellion ‘your substance and catall is not only spoiled and spent upon unthriftes … your houses falle in ruin,’ and more to the same effect (‘Answer to the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall,’ printed in Pocock, p. 145). This certainly does not point to the desperate poverty of the rank and file.

page 209 note 1 The Reformers frequently inveigh against the conservative clinging to the old faith among the common people. John Hooker speaks of the unpopularity of the Reformation preachers in the west and of the ‘obstynauncie of the people … so miche addicted to the Popishe religion’ (Life of SirCarew, Peter, Archceologia, xxviii. 116, 147Google Scholar).

page 210 note 1 Peter Martyr writes to Bullinger from Strasburg, February 24, 1554, the news there received of Wyatt's rebellion. ‘The army in encampment,’ it was reported, ‘make three demands of the Queen: 1, that a king shall be chosen of English blood; 2, that the religion that flourished under Edward shall continue to be in force; and 3, that all the pasture lands which had been forcibly seized by persons in power shall be restored’ (Zurich Letters, 1st ser. ii. 514).

page 210 note 2 Grindal, Bishop of London, writes to Cecil in 1563, asking that the poor tenants of ‘that little angle where I was born, called Coupland, parcel of Cumberland, the ignorantest part in religion, and most oppressed of covetous landlords, of any one part of this realm to my knowledge,’ be not left subject ‘to the expilation of these country gentlemen’ (Remains of Grindal, Parker Soc, pp. 256–7). The surveyors of the rebels' lands in the north report in 1570 that the Earl of Northumberland had ‘taken sore fines of his tenants for things of small value’ (Cal. S. P., Bom., Eliz. vol. vii. p. 288). ‘The country people,’ they add, ‘have been sore taken on, what by their Lords in taking great fines for their lands, the spoil lately made by the armies, and compositions made by men for their lives, … so the people seem to be in much obedience, though they talk of some of their countrymen somewhat at large for their hard dealing with them ‘(ibid. p. 290). After completing their survey in all the northern counties they comment again on the ‘great fines,’ the land being let ‘so that no ground in our country is dearer’ (ibid. p. 307). Among the arguments supporting a Bill, proposed in 1571, for the confirmation of tenant right in Cumberland was that if fines were certain, thus removing the fear of the landlord, the tenants would not be led by their landlords to rebellion, 7a s lately by Leonard Dacre’ (ibid.p. 348). But one of Leonard Dacre's retainers had just been urging him to raise fines on his tenants, saying that if he made himself a popular landlord in other respects ‘they will not think much of their rent doubling’ (ibid. p. 225).

page 210 note 3 As examples of the decay in the tillage in the north which aroused the concern of the government (see p. 294, n. 2), I note the depopulation of Ross, Northumberland, byconversion to pasture shortly before 1561 (Raine, , N. Durham, p. 19Google Scholar), and the threatened evictions at Nesbit (Hist. MSS. Comm. xii. iv. Rutland MSS. i. 79.

page 210 note 4 The Earl of Arundel, writing to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Jan. 28, 1554, says, ‘The cause of this insurrection, as they bruit in all these places, is the Queen's marriage with the Prince of Spain’ (Lodge, , Illustrations, i. 233Google Scholar). The Queen herself in letters of Jan. 25 and Feb. 1554 to the Council of the Marches, and through this Council to the sheriff and justices of Shropshire, declared that ‘under the pretense of myslykinge this mariedge’ the rebellion was directed against herself and ‘the Catholycke relligion and divine service restored within this our realme’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. x. iv. 449, xiii. iv. 318). A well-informed contemporary adds that to the resistance to the Spanish marriage the rebels joined a desire ‘for moving certayn counsellours from about the quene’ (Chronicle of Queens Jane and Mary, p. 36). Lord Cobham, writing to the Queen, asserted that most of the rebels were ‘rascalls and rakehells as lyve be spoyle’ (Cruden, , Gravesend, p. 181Google Scholar), but Sir Thomas Cheyney, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, testified to the temper of the commons, their earnestness ‘in this theyr most develishe entreprise; and will by no means be persuaded to the contrary but that it is for the comen welthe of all the realme’ (letter printed in Burgon's Gresham, i. 168, and in Cruden, p. 183). For the honest behaviour of Wyatt's men in Southwark see the Chronicle above cited, p. 45.

page 212 note 1 There was word of the ‘inconstancy and murmuring of the people in the north, touching the alteration of religion,’ in 1565 (Cal. S. P., Dom., Eliz. vol. vi. pp. 567, 570), and the examinations of the leaders show clearly that the purpose of the rebellion of 1569 was the restoration of Catholicism and the recognition of Mary, Queen of Scots, as the heir to the English throne. (See the statement of the Earl of Northumberland, ibid. p. 407, printed also in Sir Cuthbert Sharpe's, Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569, p. 202, and Thos.Google ScholarNorton's, examination, Hist. MSS. Comm., Lord Salisbury's MSS. i. 468Google Scholar.) When the two earls, followed by many of the leading gentlemen of the north, raised the standard of religious revolt, stating in their proclamation that they intended the redress of the over-throw of the true and Catholic religion (Cal. S. P., Dom., Eliz. vol. vii. p. III), the Earl of Sussex wrote that ‘the people like so well their cause of religion that they flock to them in all places where they come’ (ibid. p. 112). Sussex was not sure of his own handful of soldiers (ibid. pp. 108, 112), since in Yorkshire the ‘inhabitants were more addicted to the rebels than to the Queen’ (ibid. p. 124). Despite their high fines the ‘meaner sort’ sided willingly with the rebel leaders, and suffered for their religion. By Feb. 4 we hear of 500 of the poor sort already executed (ibid. p. 221). Inventories were taken of the goods and lands of this poor rebel class, amounting in value to 3,000 l. (ibid. p. 251), but that they might not be ‘brought to extreme beggary’ and desperation they were allowed to go free and fined (ibid. p. 271. See the instructions, p. 252). Sir Ralph Sadler's letter of December 6, 1569, from the north, testifies to the stubborn conservatism of the ‘comon people.… ignorant, full of superstition, and altogether blynded with tholde popish doctryne,’ as well as of their leaders, ‘for there be not in all this countrey x gentlemen, that do favour and allowe of her Majesty's proceedings in the cause of religion’ (State Papers and Letters of Ralph Sadler,1809, ii. 325). James Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, writing to Cecil, January 4, 1569, does not support the doctrine that the rebels were men who had ‘nothing to lose.’ ‘The number of offenders,’ he says, ‘is so grete, that few innocent are left to trie the giltie: and iff the forfeted landes be bestowed on such as be straungers, and will not dwell in the cuntre, the peple shall be withoute heades, the cuntre desert, and no number of freeholders to doe justice bi juries, nor service in the warres’ (Works, Parker Soc. p. ix).

page 212 note 1 It was planned that some two or three hundred people should meet at Enslow Hill, spoil gentlemen's houses, and march to London, where they expected the support of the apprentices. A carpenter and a miller are indicated as the ringleaders, and the rebels are described as chiefly young unmarried men and not poor. One of the leaders asked for good fellows in Witney ‘who would rise and knock down the gentlemen and rich men that take in the commons and make corn so dear.’ Another declared that inclosures would be pulled down, ‘whereby the ways were stopped and arable lands enclosed.’ The chief inclosers were indicated: ‘Mr. Power has enclosed much; Mr. Frere has destroyed the whole town of Water Eaton; Sir William Spencer has enclosed common fields, and many about Banbury and other places have done the same.’ Henry, Lord Norris, one of the lords-lieutenant of Oxfordshire, asked for a ‘commission and some order to be taken about enclosures on the western part of the shire, where this stir began, that the poor may be able to live’ (Cal. S. P., Dom., Eliz. vol. iv. pp. 316 ff., 343, 345; see also Hist. MSS. Comm., Lord Salisbury's MSS., vii. 46). The Council wrote several letters to the Lord Lieu-tenant of Oxfordshire concerning this intended revolt. The ringleaders were sent to London and examined ‘under torture’ by the Attorney-General and others. A paper drawn up in connection with these proceedings, erroneously calendared among the State Papers of James I., is here printed in Appendix I. Two gentlemen were accused of complicity in the rising. (Acts of the Privy Council, xxvi. 64. 365. 373. 383. 398. 412.)

page 212 note 2 Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, p. 42.

page 212 note 3 Ibid. p. 107.

page 213 note 1 Proclamation of May 30, 1607 (Rot. Pat. 5 Jac. I. p. 16): ‘It is manifest by Act of Parliament, passed since our comming to this Crowne, that we have bene carefull to prevent such Enclosures and Depopulations, and that it hath bene an ordinary charge given by us to our Justices of Assizes, when they went to their Circuits, to enquire of all unlawful Depopulations and Enclosures, and to take order to remedy the same, and to punish the Offendors therein according to the due course of Law. And it is well knowen to many that we were now also in hand with some course to be taken by advise of our Counsell for the performance thereof.’ In the following inclosure proclamation of June 28 the blame for non-execution of the law is transferred from the Justices of Assize to the people, who ‘have bene wanting to themselves in the due and ordinary meanes which they ought to take, by presentment of such as are or have bene guilty of these oppressions.’

page 213 note 2 Most of the anti-inclosure legislation of the sixteenth century coincides with periods of dearth. Complaints of dearth are audible at the time of the risings of 1536, 1548–9, and 1596. In 1620 the justices of Northamptonshire, in reporting against the project of corn magazines, add that the poor should be provided with cheap corn, ‘to prevent their discontent and tumultuous levelling’ (Cal. S. P., Dom., James I. vol. x. p. 130).

page 213 note 3 The inclosure proclamation of July 24, 1607, asserts that ‘there was not so much as any necessitie of famine or dearth of corne … that might stirre or provoke them.’ Rogers, however, indicates rising prices (Ag. and Prices, v. 186). High corn prices are reported from the west of England in 1606–7, and there are proclamations’ for thamendyng of the dearth of graine and other victuall’ in 1607–8 (Hist. MSS. Comtn. ix. i. 160, 268–9). A letter of Wm Combe to the Earl of Salisbury, June 2, 1608, speaks of the dearth of corn in Warwickshire and adds that the common people threaten to resist turning arable land into pasture (S. P., Dom., James I. vol. viii. p. 437). These troubles of 1607 are perhaps referred to by Arthur Standish when he mentions the mutinies caused ‘only for the dearth of Corne in Warwikshire, Northamptonshire, and other places’ (The Commons Complaint, 1611).

page 214 note 1 Lord Chief Justice Montague, writing to the Council in 1618 concerning a case of disputed common right in Bedfordshire, says the commoners ‘are stirred up by others, as were the levellers in Northamptonshire’ (Cdl. S. P., Dom., James I. vol. ix. p. 532). An undated paper, entered in the Calendar under the date 1635) but referring, I suspect, to the inclosure grievances of 1607, expresses the fear that ‘nowe there ys a pacificacion had of theys trobles’ and it is known who threw down the inclosures and who gave encouragement thereto, there will grow private revenges, ‘and specially by the better sorte and by those that be in authoritie’ (S. P., Dom., Charles I. vol. 307, no. 2).

page 214 note 2 Edmund Howes, in his additions to the 1615 edition of Stow's Annals (p, 889), says that wheresoever the rioters came ‘they were generally relieved by the neer inhabitants, who sent them not only many cartes laden with victuall, but also good store of spades and shovells for speedy performance of their present enterprize.’ The sympathy shown by the citizens of Leicester aroused the resentment of the Earl of Huntingdon, lord-lieutenant of the county, a resentment which cost the town and its chief dignitaries a considerable sum of money and much annoyance. By the earl's command a gibbet had been set up in Leicester to deter the people from assembling. This was torn down by the mob, which drew from the earl an angry letter, June 10, 1607 (Hist. MSS. Comm. viii i. 434). The mayor and a Mr. Robert Erick were imprisoned, and the corporation, anxious to appease the earl's wrath, sent a present of a gelding to the younger countess of Huntingdon, which she refused (Nichols, , Leicestershire, 1. i. 420Google Scholar).

page 214 note 3 This appears from the petition of ‘The Diggers of Warwickshire to all other Diggers,’ which very likely dates from these troubles. They complain of the ‘incroaching Tirants,’ who grind the poor, ‘so yt they may dwell by them-selves in yemidst of theyr heards of fatt weathers … onely for theyr owne private gaine. …They have depopulated and overthrowne whole townes and made thereof sheep pastures. ‘It is better to die manfully than’ to be pined to death for want of ytwth those devouring encroachers do serve theyr fatt hogges and sheep withal’. ‘Signed,’ poore Delvers and Daylabourers for ye good of ye Comonwealth till death’ (printed in Wit and Wisdom,ed. Halliwell, New Shaksp. Soc, pp. 140–1). Another of the popular protests circulated at the time against inclosures is referred to in a letter of July 27, 1607, from Sir Wm. Pelham to the Earl of Rutland, inclosing a copy of a libel thrown into the parish church at Caistor (Northamptonshire), entitled ‘The Poor Man's Friend and the Gentleman's Plague,’ and beginning, ‘You gentlemen that rack your repts and throwe downe land for come’ (Hist. MSS. Comm., RutlandMSS. i. 406).

The officers of the Crown who advocated the inclosure of forests and wastes explained that the ‘insurrection made against inclosures in Northamptonshire cannot be induced as a precedent,’ since that was against depopulators who sought their own gain by ‘expelling men out of their dwellings and converting tillage to pasture.’ Their plan, on the contrary, was ‘to people places now unpeopled’ (‘An Account of the Benefits from the Inclosing and Improving the Forests, &c., belonging to the Crown,’ printed in St. John, Observations on Land Revenue of the Crown, App. iii., probably from Sir Julius Caesar's papers).

page 215 note 1 Letter of the Earl of Shrewsbury to the Earl of Kent, June 2, 1607 (Lansdowne MSS. vol. 90, f. 23), printed in Appendix II. no. I.

page 215 note 2 Howes, , in Stow's, Annals, ed. 1615, p. 889Google Scholar. He adds that many thought the cause of the rising was religion, either ‘the Puritane faction to enforce their pretended reformation,’ or the Papists to obtain toleration, but on examination it proved to be solely on account of inclosures and to prevent depopulation. The Earl of Kent mentions reports of ‘popish priests’ leaving the rebels. (See Appendix II. no. 2.)

page 215 note 3 Hist. MSS. Comm. xii. iv., Rutland MSS. i. 405.

page 215 note 4 Letter of June 20, printed in Appendix II., no. 3.

page 215 note 5 Stow, , Annals, ed. 1615, p. 889Google Scholar.

page 215 note 6 For Rushton and Pightesley see Bridges, , Hist, of Northamptonshire, ii. 206Google Scholar.

page 215 note 7 P. R. O., Petty Bag Depopulation Returns, Inq. for Northamptonshire, 1607. At Haselbeech the whole lordship had been inclosed; out of 40 yardlands but two were left in tillage and four highways had been closed. One en of the town was stopped by Wm. Saunders till ‘it was throwne down by those that made the late insurrection.’

page 216 note 1 The repressing of the riots ‘we did first referre onely to the due course of Justice, and the ordinary proceedings of the Commissioners of the Peace, and other our Ministers in such cases: Forasmuch as wee have perceived since, that lenitie hath bred in them, rather encouragement then obedience, and that they have presumed to gather themselves in greater multitudes, as well in that County (Northamptonshire) as in some others adjoyning, we finde it now very necessary to use sharper remedies.’ AH officers are therefore commanded, if such assemblies continue, ‘immediately to suppresse them by whatsoever meanes they may, be it by force of Armes, if admonitions and other lawfull meanes doe not serve to reduce them to their dueties.’

page 216 note 2 The Council to the Deputy Lieutenants of Leicestershire, May 29, 1607; order to suppress unlawful assemblies against inclosures (Hist. MSS. Comm. xdi. iv., Rutland MSS. i. 405). The same to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord-Lieutenant of Derbyshire, June 8 (ibid.). The same to Lord Berkeley, Lord-Lieutenant of Gloucestershire, June 8. If there should be any inclosure riots there, he is to use forcible means to suppress them (Hist. MSS. Comm. iv. i., MSS. of Lord Fitzhardinge, p. 367).

page 216 note 3 Letter of June 11, 1607, from the Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir John Manners: ‘Sr Anth. Mildmay and Sr Edw. Montacute repaired to Newton, Mr. Thos. Tresham's toune, wheare 1000 of thease fellowes who term themselves levelers weare busily digging, but weare furnished with many halfe pykes, pyked staves, long bills, and bowes and arrowes and stoanes. Thease gentlemen, fynding great backwardnes in the trained bandes, weare constrained to use all the horse they could make, and as many foote of their owne servants and fellowes as they could trust; and first read the proclamation twice unto them, using all the best perswasions to them to desist that they could devise; but when nothing would prevaile, they charged them thoroughlie both with their horse and foote. But the first charge they stoode, and fought desperatelie; but at the second charge they ran away, in which there weare slaine som 40 or 50 of them, and a very great number hurt’ (printed in Lodge, Illustrations, iii. 196, and Nichols, Leicestershire, iv. i. 83). A parish register entry by Thos. Cox, rector of Addington Magna, dates this skirmish at June 8. He says ‘many were taken prisoners, who afterwards were hanged and quartered, and their quarters set up at Northampton, Oundle, Thrapston, and other places’ (Bridges, , Northamptonshire, ii. 206Google Scholar).

page 217 note 1 This leader, John Reynoldes, was surnamed Captain Pouch, ‘because of a great leather powch which he wore by his side, in which purse hee affirmed to his company, yt there was sufficient’ matter to defend them against all commers, but afterward when hee was apprehended, his Powch was seearched and therein was onely a peece of greene cheese. Hee told them also, that hee had Authoritie from his maiestie to throwe downe enclosures, and that he was sent of God to satisfie. all degrees whatsoever, and that in this present worke, hee was directed by the lord of Heaven’ (Howes, in Stow's, Annals, p. 889Google Scholar).

page 217 note 2 Barker, , Book of Proclamations, p. 140Google Scholar(Rot. Pat. 5 Jac. I. p. 18).

page 217 note 3 Ibid. p. 146 (Rot. Pat. 5 Jac. I. p. 11).

page 217 note 4 See Appendix II. nos. 3, 4.

page 217 note 5 ‘A consideration of the cause in question before the Lords touchinge depopulation’ (July 5, 1607), Cotton MSS., Titus F. iv. 322–3, and a similar document, Faustina C. ii. 165. The ‘Consideration’ has been printed in Cunningham, Engl. Industry and Commerce, 3rd ed. II. ii. App. B, pp. 897–9.

page 218 note 1 25 Hen.VIII. c. 13, no person to keep more than 2,000 sheep or hold in farm more than two houses of husbandry, and not two unless resident in the parish. A similar measure was under discussion in March 1549 (Egerton Papers, p. 11. Camden Soc.)

page 218 note 2 Rot. Pat. 5 jac. I. p. 26.

page 218 note 3 Sir Edward Coke was active in these proceedings; see Cal. S. P., Dom., James, I. vol. viii. pp. 373Google Scholar, 541. Bonds were taken from the depopulators (ibid pp. 483, 545), and some inclosures were ordered down. Edward, Lord Zouche, writing probably to Sir Edward Montague, deplores that ‘poor Boughton's enclosures must also go down’ (Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Lord Montague, p. 85). I could find among the legal records but little trace of proceedings growing out of the activity of these commissioners of 1607. There are two folios containing fifteen orders of the depopulation commissioners for the rebuilding of houses of husbandry in Northamptonshire, together with assize presentments concerning the same. Eight of these orders are certified as having been performed, the new-built farmhouses having thirty to fifty acres each (P. R. O., Misc. of the Excheq. 17/8).

page 219 note 1 ‘The Commissioners took many presentments in English, and did return them into the Chancery; and after (soil. Trin. 5 Jac.) it was resolved by the two Chief Justices, and by Walmsley, Fenner, Yelverton, Williams, Snigg, Altham, and Forster, that the said commissions were against law for three causes: I. Fo this, that they were in English. 2. For that the offences enquirable were noc certain within the commission itself, but in a schedule annexed to it. 3. For this, that it was only to enquire, which is against law, for by this a man may be unjustly accused by perjury, and he shall not have any remedy. 4. For this, that it is not within the statute of 5 Eliz., &c. Also the party may be defamed, and shall not have any traverse to it’ (Coke, , Rep. xii. 31Google Scholar).

page 219 note 2 Letter of August 12, 1608: ‘For an example of my own knowledge within less than a quarter of a mile of Holdenby House one great enclosure made since the late Stir, by one Mr. Saunders with Mr. Dyves and Mr. St. John in the Parish of East Haddon.’ This and other inclosures, the letter says, was causing discontent among the meaner sort of people (S. P., Dom., James, I. vol. xxxv. p. 52Google Scholar, printed in Hartshorne's, Emily S.Memorials of Holdenby, 1868, p. civ)Google Scholar.

page 220 note 1 Letter from Sir John Harpur to the Earl of Shrewsbury, September 25, 1607 (printed in Nichols, , Leicestershire, III. ii. 563Google Scholar, n. I). Notice of the sitting of the commission in Northampton, September 14, is found in a letter from Thos., Earl of Exeter, to SirMontague, Edw. (Hist. MSS. Comm., MSS. of Lord Montague, p. 50Google Scholar).

page 220 note 2 That the commissioners for Lincolnshire sat at Spalding early in September we learn from a chance note at the end of a survey of the manor of Sutton, Lincoln-shire: ‘9 Sept., 1607. Memorand that one of the tenants being at Spalding ye day befor the Commissioners for inclosures meeting me on the way ye next day did acknowledge that the medow and pasture at Sutton was worth xiiid iiiid the acre, the arrable viiis;’ (P. R. O., Land Revenue Misc. Books, vol. 211, f. 92Google Scholar).

page 221 note 1 Moore, John, The Crying Sin of England, 1653, p. 13Google Scholar.

page 222 note 1 In this petition complaint is made that gentlemen have ‘enlarged ther parks and made gret Inclosures not only upon ther corne londs but upon the common wherein yor seyd pore subjects were wonte to shak and fede there wether catell,’ and also that lords of manors have purchased freeholds and gotten possession of copyholds and then in sundry towns have ‘decayed the houses of the seyd mesuages and tenements.’

page 222 note 2 ‘Further, his highness pleasure is, that the said lord president and council shall from time to time make diligent inquisition of the wrongful taking in and inclosing of commons and other grounds, and who be extreme therein; and in taking and exacting of unreasonable fines and gressoms, and overing or raising of rents; and to call the parties that have so evil used themselves therein before them; and leaving all respects and affections apart, they shall take such order for the redress of enormities used in the same, as the poor people be not oppressed; but that they may live after their sorts and qualities’ (printed in Burnet, Hist, of the Reformation, ed. Pocock, v. 339). See also the instructions of 1557, 1568, and 1574 to the Council of the North for the suppression of ‘the unlawful taking in of commons,’ and the decay of houses and tillage (S. P., Dom., Eliz. vol. vi. pp. 465, vii. pp. 64, 462). An inquiry into the state of Borders in 1578–80 (Cal. of Border Papers, i. 47, 50, 74) led to the Act of 1581 (23 Eliz. c. 4) which testifies to the conversion of tillage to pasture. A new bill drafted about 1596 recurs to the same fact. But in the returns of the commissioners appointed under the Act other causes for the decrease of tenants properly equipped for Border service appear of more importance. Of the extension of pasture farming in the North there can, however, be no question.

page 223 note 1 The Dean of Durham exaggerates after the fashion of the time in stating that 500 ploughs were decayed and ‘of 8,000 acres lately in tillage now not eightscore are tilled’ (Cal. S. P., Dom., Eliz. vol. iv. pp. 347, 542), but for an instance of thorough depopulation note the case of Newham, whence there were ‘expelled seaventene score men, women, and children all upon one day’ (Bateson, , Northumberland, I. 275Google Scholar). The Bishop of Durham was at the same time urging on Lord Burghley the revival of the tillage statutes (Hist. MSS. Comm., Lord Salisbury's MSS. vii. 453).

page 224 note 1 P. R. O., Court of Requests, Proceedings, 8/256.

page 224 note 2 P. R. O., Star Chamber Proceedings, Henry VIII. 34/29.

page 225 note 1 P. R. O., Star Chamber Proceedings, Henry VIII. bdle. 28, no. 65.

page 225 note 2 P. R. O., S. P., Hen. VIII. vol. 87, f. 46. Latimer writes to Cromwell about the same time, ‘yf commyssioners were allweys as mindfull to further the kyngs busynes as they be to avaunce ther owne profetts … butt I wene yf you myght make progresse thorow ought England you shuldefynd how actts declarith hartts’ (ibid. vol. 83, f. 193).

page 225 note 3 Introd. to Discourse, ed. Lamond, , p. lixGoogle Scholar.

page 225 note 4 See, for example, Lambard, , Archeion, 1591, ed. 1635, pp. 83–4, 190, 198, 202–3.Google Scholar A proclamation was issued in 1607 against the abuses of juries (Barker, , Book of Proclamations, p. 157Google Scholar). Powell, in 1636, complains of ‘the litigious Countryman,’ who provides for a trial at the assizes by preparing, ‘as the too common proverb is, horresco referens, good swearers, that may cleave a prune, and so by horrid perjury outstrip God' (Depopulation Arraigned, p. 63).

page 226 note 1 In the 1607 Inquisition for Bedfordshire two of the commissioners, Henry, Earl of Kent, and Sir Richard Conquest, were presented for depopulation. The son of the commissioner, Sir Edward Montague, was presented in Northamptonshire for a considerable inclosure at Hanging Houghton. Sir Oliver Cromwell, one of the commissioners for Huntingdonshire, was presented for an inclosure at Sawtrey. There are a number of presentments of jurymen; for instance, irt Northamptonshire at Arthingworth of five yardlands inclosed two were in the occupation of William Malyn, a juror, ‘havinge noe more in his occupation;’ at the inclosure o1; Haselbeech three jurymen were implicated; at Kislingbury Wm. Crane the elder was presented by Wm. Crane junior as responsible for the decay of a house, but two cottiers, it was added, were placed in the house ‘before he came to it.’ The Lincolnshire returns of 1517 show two of the commissioners presented for inclosures, but in both cases the addition is made that there is ‘no howse or beilding desolate nor in dekey by reason of the said enclosure’ (Domesday of Inclosures, pp. 248, 251).

page 228 note 1 At Ruston, Northamptonshire, ‘the said Sir Thomas Tressam hath converted from tillage to pasture and not inclosed 28 acres about six years last past.’

page 228 note 2 Sir Philip Sherrard is presented for converting 80 acres, a part whereof lies inclosed ‘and the residue lyeinge in common in the oppen feilde.’

page 229 note 1 Trans. R. H. S. xiv. 290.

page 238 note 1 This document should be dated 1597. See above, p. 284, n. 1.

page 238 note 2 The conjecture in the Calendar as to the description and dating of this report is erroneous. It belongs to the proceedings of 1597 against the Oxfordshire conspiracy. See above, p. 284, n. 1.

page 238 note 3 The transcription of the following illustrative documents, with one exception, I owe to the liberality of this Society. Mr. W. H. Price kindly copied for me from the Lansdowne MSS. the letter numbered I in Appendix II.