LIFE IN THE TIME OF THE STUARTS 107 



the very first took a more democratic line, and gathered 

 within their organizations a considerable number of the 

 more intelligent and active of the villagers, from which 

 class some of their ministers and lay preachers have 

 been recruited. 



The general character of the country life of the 



century has now, it is hoped, been made clear. The 



country-side was slowly changing : more and 



General more land was being enclosed, and more 



character of , - c c 



the changes. an ^ more were the farmers of enterprise 



experimenting and succeeding and coming 

 to the front : but such men rarely rose into the upper 

 class, for the new landlords had consolidated their 

 position and were building up the great estates and 

 ' settling ' them on the families which were to control 

 rural England for many a generation. Meanwhile, the 

 villagers were losing their gaiety. Some, too, were 

 losing their land, and were being crushed down into the 

 great pauper class, which was by that time under the 

 control of the law. The Church, too, had lost its grip 

 on village life, and a new element of independent 

 thought was spreading. A way was being prepared 

 for the greater changes that were to follow with the 

 Industrial and Social Revolution of the XVIIIth and 

 XlXth centuries. 



