28 FAKMING FOR PROFIT 



right to any common in the said pasture or inlandys of 

 the said Edmund.' 



Here in the England of 1437 was the principle of com- 

 mutation of rights of common applied by private contract. 

 Sometimes these bargains were sanctioned by the Court of 

 Chancery, or, where the Crown was interested, by royal 

 license. No parliamentary confirmations are to be found 

 before the reign of Charles II. Each party to the pri- 

 vate contract possessed his block absolutely, instead of 

 enjoying a perplexing variety of cross rights. Browbeat- 

 ing and bullying doubtless occurred, but attempted acts of 

 oppression were frequently checked by the courts of law. 

 Justice was not always perverted in the interests of land- 

 lords, nor were matters always ' ended as they were friended.' 

 An interesting account of the attempted enclosure of the 

 common fields at Welcombe, near Stratford-on-Avon, has 

 been recently published by the late Dr. Ingleby, the well- 

 known Shakespearian scholar. It is contained in a frag- 

 ment of the 23rivate diary of Thomas Green, town clerk of 

 Stratford in the first years of the seventeenth century. 

 William Combe, lord of the manor of Welcombe, desired 

 to enclose a portion of the hamlet which from time imme- 

 morial had been common fields. Lord Chancellor Elles- 

 mere was an interested promoter of the scheme. Among 

 the persons possessing rights over these common fields was 

 William Shakespeare, who appears to have resisted their 

 enclosure. Upon the petition of the commoners at War- 

 wick Assizes, Chief Justice Coke made an order that ' noe 

 iuclosure shalbe made within the parish of Stratforde, for 

 that yt is agaynst the Lawes of the Realme.' 



