TO SEV _,xH CENTURIES 65 



is son on lease for twenty-one years. 1 That actual 



gful eviction^ was not extensively practised is further 



Drted by the fact_that it is not mentioned among the 



ances of the rebels under Edward VI. and that it 



not appear in a Prayer set out for landlords by order 



of the king. 2 



There were, however, other means by which the 

 copyholder could be got rid of. Sir Thomas More, in 

 continuation of the passage above cited, says : ' or else by 

 coueyne and fraude or by violent oppression they be put 

 besydes it, or by wrongs and injuries they be so weried 

 that they be compelled to sell all/ This is a much more 

 difficult question to settle. At all times there have been 

 cases of illegal oppression by the rich, and the standard of 

 conduct in that respect does not appear to have been high 

 in Tudor days. The looseness of Sir T. More's previous 

 sentence with regard to ( husbandmen being thrust out of 

 their own', would tempt one to doubt the accuracy of the 

 one before us, if it were not supported by other evidence. 

 Thus, Fitzherbeij/s protestation in the Prologue to his 

 Book on Surveying evidently shows that in his opinion 

 such things were done. 'I declare/ he says, ' and take_ 

 God tojny recorde. that I make this boke only to the 

 entent that the lordes, the freeholders shulde not be disheryt 

 ~ have their landes loste nor imberseld nor encroched by 

 from another/ And Harrison f in his Description of Eng- 

 d, also speaks of the daily oppression of copy holders /.their 

 Is devising new means to cut them shorter ; doubling, 



Cf. Hasbach, p. 33 ; Transactions Royal Hist. Soc., vi ; Selden 

 ., Court of Requests, 12 ; English Hist. Review, viii. 687 ; Dugdale, 

 rwickshiro, p. 36 ; Victoria County Hist. : Sussex, ii. 190 ; Savine, 

 irterly Journal of Economics, xix, especially p. 58 ; Seaton Delaval : 

 aval MSS. in possession of Newcastle Soc. of Antiquaries ; Merton 

 rsar's Book, 81, 512. 

 Cf. Cheyney, Social England, pp. 82, 99. 



