158 LAND REFORM 



Many of them poorly armed, all of them without 

 defensive armour, they faced without fear the well- 

 equipped, well-trained mercenary soldiers who fought 

 against them. Referring to the battle of Clist Heath, 

 the chronicler writes: "Such was the stoutness of 

 these men, that Lord Grey reported himself that he 

 never in all the wars that he had been in did know 

 the like."^ 



The agrarian rebellions of 1549 were the last that 

 took place of a national character. Smaller disturb- 

 ances of a local kind, of which few particulars are 

 given, were continual, while the feelings of anger and 

 injustice on the part of the peasantry were continuous. 

 A formidable outbreak took place in the midland 

 counties so late as 1607, which at one time bid fair 

 to extend throughout the country, but it was promptly 

 suppressed. The peasants assembled together in 

 different places in large numbers." 



" These riotous persons bent all their strength to 

 level and lay open inclosures without exercising any 

 manner of theft or violence upon any man's person, 

 goods or cattell and wheresoever they came they were 



1 Holinshed, Vol. Ill, p. 957. 



In reading of the doughty deeds of the lords, knights, and squires, it 

 must be borne in mind that their bodies were cased in plate armour, and 

 that in a conflict with the peasantry they ran but few risks— fewer perhaps 

 than those to which men are liable in the hunting-field and the steeple- 

 chase. 



"The poor husbandmen were obliged to come to the field of battle 

 with such arms as they had ; and it was no uncommon thing to see a few 

 of these knights and squires ride over and put to flight hundreds of them, 

 for the gentry were clothed in complete armour, so that they could receive 

 little hurt, and the poor peasantry had scarce clothes sufficient to cover 

 them."— " Tales of a Grandfather," Sir Walter Scott. 



^ In the quiet little village of Hillmorton, Warwickshire, about 3000 

 men gathered together to regain their rights by throwing down in- 

 closures. The population of the whole of the parish of Hillmorton 

 (about 3000 acres) is now, according to the last census, only 1243. 



