FAEMING FOR PROFIT 27 



More speaks of ' husbandmen thrust out of their own, or 

 else, by covin and fraud, or by violent oppression, put be- 

 side it, or by wrongs and injuries so wearied, that they be 

 compelled to sell all.' The proceedings of Sir Giles Over- 

 reach in the ' New Way to pay Old Debts ' did not entirely 

 originate in the brain of the dramatist, and the peasant 

 proprietor of a Naboth's vineyard would fall an easier 

 victim than a lord of the manor. 



I'll buy some cottage near his manor, 

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

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

 Set fii'e to his barns, or break his cattle's legs. 

 These trespasses will draw on suits, and suits expenses, 

 Which I can spare, but will soon beggar him. 

 When I have harried him thus two or three years. 

 Though he sue in forma paxiperis, 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 sells 

 For half the value he shall have ready money, 

 And I possess the land. 



But forcible enclosures of wastes or encroachments by 

 squatters were not the only means by which common land 

 passed into individual ownership. Voluntary agreements 

 between commoners and proprietors of land were frequent, 

 and bargains were often struck on equitable terms. In- 

 stances like the following extract from Rennet's ' Parochial 

 Antiquities ' (ii. 324) might be indefinitely multiplied : 



' The said Edmund Rede, Esq., granted and confirmed 

 to Thomas Billyngdon one close in Ardyngrave, in con- 

 sideration whereof the said Thomas Billyngdon quitted 

 and resigned his right to the free pasturage of four oxen 

 to feed with the cattle of the said Edmund Rede and all 



