METHODS OF CONSOLIDATING ESTATES 69 



besydes it, or by wronges and injuries they be so weried that they 



be compelled to sell all." If a small freeholder or copyholder proved 



obstinate, the proceedings of Sir Giles Overreach, in A Neiv Way 



to Pay Old Debts (Act ii. Sc. I), may illustrate the methods by which 



a Naboth's vineyard, even when it belonged to a manorial lord, 



might be appropriated by a wealthy capitalist : 



" I'll therefore buy some cottage near his manor, 

 WTiich done, I'll make my men break ope his fences, 

 Ride o'er his standing corn, and in the night 

 Set fire on his barns, or break his cattle's legs, 

 These trespasses draw on suits, and suits expenses 

 Which I can spare, but will soon beggar him. 

 When I have harried him thus two or three year, 

 Though he sue in forma pauperis, in spite 

 Of all his thrift and care he'll grow behindhand. 



Then, with the favour of my man at law, 

 I will pretend some title : want will force him 

 To put it to arbitrament. Then if he sell 

 For half the value he shall have ready money. 

 And I possess his land." 



Considerations of mutual advantage, equitable bargains, fair pur- 

 chase, superior force, legal chicanery, threats and bull3dng, were 

 all at work to hasten the change to the individual occupation of 

 land, and the consolidation of separate holdings. If copyholders 

 or commoners appealed to the law-courts, matters, no doubt, some- 

 times ended as they were friended. " Handy-dandy " was in the 

 Middle Ages a proverbial expression for the covert bribe offered by 

 a suitor, and the occasional perversion of justice is enshrined in the 

 Latin jingle : Jus sine jure datur, si nummus in aure loquatur. 



Illegal evictions are not included among the grievances alleged by 

 the leaders in any of the risings of the peasantry which marked 

 the Tudor period. Their absence from these lists justify the con- 

 clusion that open illegality was at least rare. But the law itself 

 gave landowners abundant opportunities of regaining possession of 

 the land. Leaseholders for a term of years or for Hves had no legal 

 claim to a renewal of their leases, when the term of years had 

 expired or the last life had dropped. Rents might then be raised 

 to an exorbitant sum or extravagant fines exacted, and, unless the 

 tenant was prepared to pay the increased charge, he must surrender 

 his holding. Cottagers or squatters on the waste could rarelj^ 

 show any legal claim to the occupation of land, and the tenancy of 

 a cottage to which rights of common attached could be practically 

 determined by enhancing the rent. Copyholders were, in all 



