IV AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES 79 



well-known peers and courtiers ; indeed, Burnet surmises 

 that Cromwell advised the king, by so doing-, to bind the 

 nobles to the break with Rome, and there are very few 

 apparently among the original grantees who did not hold 

 land before. 1 But at least many of the small er landlords 

 were enriched, and much of that which originally passed 

 into the hands of the great men was certainly subsequently 

 sold, since many obtained licences to do this. 



Again, if it be true, as was popularly supposed, that the 

 families of these sacrilegious persons soon died out, this 

 would again, in many cases, bring more land into the 

 market.* Harrington, in his Oceana, seems to imply this 

 when he says that the dissolving of the abbeys brought 

 with the declining state of the nobility so vast a prey to 

 the industry of the people that the balance of the common- 

 wealth was too apparently in the popular party to be unseen 

 by the wise council of Queen Parthenia. 3 



It should also be remembered that the right to leave 

 two-thirds of land held by knight's service, and all held in 

 free soccage by will, at the common law was first allowed 

 by the statute 32 Henry VIII, and that the custom of 

 tying up land by family settlements had not yet become 

 common. In all these ways much land came into the 

 market to be bought by novi homines, and the number of 

 landowners increased. 



The results of this strengthening of the landed interest 



1 See Mr. Fisher's table. He gives 8 clerks, 86 industrials. These 

 may not have held land. But probably all the rest did, except 

 perhaps the physicians, who number eleven. 



2 This legend, however, has been dispelled. Cf. Galton and Schuster. 

 Out of 245 estates half of which were Church property given to lay- 

 men, half lay property the first had in 100 years 464 owners, of 

 whom 240 were eldest sons, the second had 459 owners, of whom 

 241 were eldest sons. 



3 Harrington, Morley's edition, 1887. 



