Page:VCH Rutland 1.djvu/283

 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY forcible inclosure of portions of common fields is contained in a letter dated from Barleythorpe, 1605, written by Jeffrey Bushy to George Byllot, receiver at Westminster." The writer says that Sir Andrew Wood's workmen and labourers are ' dickinge and quick-setting in Langham field, and purposeth to in and inclose fyve hundret acars of arable land at the least besides that which he had taken in before tyme . . . also they are taking in some ground belonging to Westminster.' He proceeds to say, ' I have discharged the workmen, but they will take no discharge at me, for Sir Andrew's officers said that they did no wrong. They are very importunat to know of me how I hold the two yard lands which I have by lease of the College in Langham feilds, and are about to entitle Sir Andrew Wood in the same,' and he (the writer) wishes the dean to be moved in his behalf — ' for the symple people there will inclose also, and the arable land will be converted into pasture, and there will be neither tythe corn for me nor for the college.' He also writes that many of Sir Andrew's tenants would willingly take land, and offer great sums of money for it, ' but can have none for he doth inclose the best arable land in the feild.' Probably there were many cases similar to those just quoted at an earlier period, and if so it is not surprising to hear that some of the men of Rutland took part in the rising of 1548-9. In the journaP* of King Edward VI we read that this revolt began in Wiltshire, and spread to eleven other counties, ' Rutlandshier ' being one of these. The king proceeds to say, ' by fair persuasion, partly of honest men among themselves and partly by gentle- men thei were often appeased, and again because certain commissions were sent downe to plucke down inclosures, then did rise again.' '^ Very few Rut- land details of this rising are known, but we may infer that it was fairly violent from a letter written by the Earl of Huntingdon, 12 September 1549, in which he writes : ' Ther have already dyverse in the countie of Rutland byn condempned, & have suffred for the same.' "" In 1649 the county was described by Walter Blyth as entirely uninclosed, but the examples we have given of attempts at inclosure during the i6th and 17th centuries, and the part taken by Rutland in the revolt of 1548—9, seem to contradict this statement. ^"^ There is also the testimony of Celia Fiennes, who, writing in the late 17th century, says, 'Rutlandshire seems more woody and enclosed than some others.'"^ Inclosing must have pro- ceeded fairly rapidly during the i8th century, for by 1794 only one-third of the county remained open.^"' In 1808 the only parishes where land lay in open fields were Barrowden, Morcott, the two Luffenhams, Seaton, Thorpe, Pilton, Whitwell, and Oakham, and in some of these were ' old in- closures.'"* " Westm. Abbey Rut. Doc. parcel 3, no. 20717. ^' Lit. Remains of King Edw. VI (ed. Nichols), ii, 226. " The Lord Protector, Somerset, tried at first to pacify the people by issuing a proclamation against in- closures, and ordered that the commons should be laid open again, but very few paid any attention to the proclamation, and so the people rose again and took the law into their own hands. '"" Lodge, Illustrations, i, 1 34. Cf. Mr. E. F. Gay, ' The Midland Revolt,' Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. xviii, 195. '"' Mr. Slater queries the statement on the ground that similar statements made by Walter Blyth with regard to other counties are undoubtedly inaccurate. The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields, 203. '"^ Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of ffilliam and Mary, 54. '™ John Crutchley, Gen. View of Agric. of Rut. 30. '"' Parkinson, Gen. View of Agric. of Rut. 5-10. 223