PEASANT REVOLTS 143 



The spirit of Sir Giles Overreach was prevalent in 

 a variety of forms. " These trespasses will draw on 

 suits, and suits expenses which I can spare, but will 

 soon beggar him. ... He frights men out of their 

 estates and breaks through all law nets as if they were 

 cobwebs."^ 



Instances abound, in the old records, of the free 

 tenants being deprived of their lands and commoners 

 of their commons, by process of law. As an illustra- 

 tion of one of the methods, a case is given in Britton's 

 " History of Wiltshire,"^ in which the lord of the 

 manor, by litigation lengthened out until the means of 

 the commoners became exhausted, succeeded in con- 

 fiscating the land in dispute as well as other property. 

 In this case the commoners and free tenantry, being 

 beaten at law, sent a petition to Parliament stating that 

 the lord of the manor was too powerful for them, and 

 that *' the said free tenants were not able to wage law 

 any longer ; for one of their number was thereby forced 

 to sell all his land (to the value of ;^50o) with following 

 the suits in law, and many others were thereby im- 

 poverished and were thereby forced to yield up their 

 rights and take a lease of the said common, of the 

 said Sir Francis Englefield for the term of his life. 

 . . . We have not so much as a foot of common left 

 us, and are thereby grown so in poverty unless your 

 Honourable House enact something for us that we 

 may enjoy our rights again." 



It is necessary to dwell on these proceedings in 



prudents. A glance at them, however, is useful, as showing the com- 

 plexity of feudal legislation and the small chance the peasants had in 

 contending against acute lawyers with wealthy landlords for clients. 



1 Massinger's "A New Way to Pay Old Debts." 



' Quoted by Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice in an article on " Enclos- 

 ures," "Nineteenth Century," December, 1886. 



