80 OTHER TENDENCIES OF SIXTEENTH T 



in Parliament and in the country is seen in the oppositior 

 made to the Protector Somerset's desire to check enclosure 

 and alleviate the condition of the poor. 1 In the Lonj 

 Parliament the strength of the landed interest was great. 

 The estates held, by members of the House of Commons 

 ] have been computed to have been three times as large as 

 those held by members of the House of Lords. 2 The 

 distribution of landed property was again increased by the 

 confiscations, the compositions, and the Decimation Tax, 

 / inflicted by the victorious Parliament on the royalists after 

 the Civil War. The number of estates actually confiscated 

 was not less than 700. Besides these, many estates were 

 forfeited for refusal or neglect to compound, and more had 

 to be sold to meet the compositions and the Decimation 

 Tax. 3 It is notorious that members of the Committee for 

 compounding and other M.P.'s were accused of doing a 

 goodly traffic in this business. Nor was it confined to 

 them. Wildman, the famous agitator and friend of John 

 Lilburne, was a great speculator. His purchases, we are 

 told, were scattered over at least twenty counties, and 

 when he was arrested, in 1655, ' certain well affected to 



1 Cf. Pollard, Protector Somerset. 



2 Gneist, Englische Verfassungsgeschichte, Eng. Trans., ii. 320. 



3 March, 1643. An Ordinance sequestered estates of all who had 

 assisted the King, one-fifth being set aside for wife and children. 

 Oct. 1645. By the General Composition Act, all who should submit 

 by Dec. 1 were to be admitted to composition, the time limit 

 being subsequently extended. Delinquents were arranged in cla 

 (Gardiner, Civil War, iii. 7-21, 311-19; Calendar of Committee for 

 Compounding, 1643-60, Introd., p. xxx and pp. 33, 98). In 1653, 617 

 estates were declared forfeited for refusal to compound, _most of which 

 were sold, much of it in small parcels. In July, 1651, 70 estates were 

 confiscated and ordered to be sold, most of these being large estates 

 among them those of Newcastle, Buckingham, and Hopton. In 

 Nov., 1652, 618 estates were confiscated and ordered to be sold, 

 many belonging to small men (Gardiner, Commonwealth, i. 417, 

 ii. 141> 



