68 FARMING FOR PROFIT 



Avon. 1 The example is the more interesting because it reveals one 

 of the rare appearances of William Shakespeare in public life. In 

 1614 William Combe, of Stratford-on-Avon, the Crown tenant of 

 the " College," wished to withdraw his arable land from the open- 

 field farm of Welcombe, enclose it, and lay it down to pasture. He 

 also wished to enclose so much of the ancient greensward or pasture 

 as his rights of pasturage represented. To his scheme he had 

 obtained the consent of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, as representative 

 of the Crown, and the active co-operation of the Chancellor's 

 steward. Shakespeare, however, was in a position to be a formidable 

 opponent, for he not only owned land adjoining, but also held the 

 unexpired term of a lease of half the tithes of the open-fields. But 

 a deed, dated October 28, 1614, secured him from any loss of tithe 

 through the conversion of tillage into pasture, and his consent to 

 the enclosure was obtained. Combe had now only to deal with 

 the Corporation of Stratford, who offered a strenuous resistance. 

 Strong language did not move them ; in the Corporation MS. the 

 witnesses are duly noted who heard him call them " Purtan knaves," 

 " doggs and curres." Tempting offers were refused, though Combe 

 proposed to compensate them in more than the value of the tithe, 

 to undertake the perpetual repair of the highways passing over 

 the land, and to increase the value of the rights of freeholders and 

 tenants by waiving part of his claim to turn out sheep and cattle 

 on the commons. Then Combe took matters into his own hands, 

 and prepared to enclose his land by surrounding it with a ditch. 

 This brought the dispute to a crisis. Not apparently without the 

 knowledge of the Town Clerk, the townspeople filled in the ditch. 

 A breach of the peace seemed imminent. The matter was, there- 

 fore, referred to the law-courts, and at Warwick Assizes, on March 

 27, 1615, Lord Chief Justice Coke made an order that " noe inclosure 

 shalbe made within the parish of Stratforde." The Dingles, which 

 formed part of the common-fields of Welcombe, remain uninclosed 

 to this day. 



Instances of the tyrannical use of power could also be quoted. 

 The Tudor age was rough, and might was sometimes right. Sir 

 Thomas More in his Utopia (1516) paints this side to the picture, 

 when he speaks of " husbandmen . . . thrust owte of their owne, or 

 els by coveyne and fraude or by vyolent oppression they be put 



1 Shakespeare and the Enclosure of Common Fields at Welcombe, edited by 

 C. M. Ingleby (1885). 



