350 History of the English Landed Interest. 



the ranks of the squirearchy. If men fretted at the inferiority 

 of their present ruler, they at anj^ rate preferred his disgraceful 

 patronage to the open hostility displaj^ed by his predecessors. 

 Their tenantry were at least left to their own individual con- 

 trol, and when a period of high prices ensued they raised rents 

 to a height never before attained on English soil. From 1661 

 to 1690 was a period of agricultural prosperity ; and what with 

 the emancipation of their estates from feudal obligations, the 

 legislation against Irish importation, and the increased rentals, 

 English landlords, though poor in comparison to modem land- 

 owners, had become extremely prosperous. The yeoman free- 

 holders were also benefiting from the rise in prices, but the 

 farming and labouring classess were, however, making but 

 little headway, and it was only after the Treaty of Utrecht and 

 close of the great war, that fresh agricultural improvements 

 and better seasons afforded them a fair prospect of greater 

 profits.^ But a measure so revolutionary to the landed interest 

 as the abolition of the feudal dues requires longer treatment at 

 our hands than the cursory allusion convej^ed in the foregoing 

 sketch. It will be remembered that the step had been mooted 

 as early as the reign of James I. An ordinance abolishing the 

 court of wards and liveries had been passed by the Lords and 

 Commons in 1645, but it remained a dead letter until the end 

 of 1656, when the Barebone's Parliament not only confirmed 

 this statute, but further enacted that " all wardships, liveries, 

 primer seisins, and oustrelemains, and all other charges, in- 

 cident and arising for or by reason of wardship, livery, primer 

 seisin or oustrelemain, and all other charges incident there- 

 unto, be likewise taken away from the said 24th of February, 

 1645 ; and that all homage, fines, licenses, seizures, pardons 

 for alienation incident or arising for or by reason of wardship, 

 hvery, primer seizin, or oustrelemain, and all other charges 

 incident thereunto, be likewise taken away from the same 

 date ; and that all tenures in capite and by knight's service of 

 the late king or any other person ; and all tenures by soccage in 

 chief be taken away ; and aU tenures turned into free and 



' Eogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, ch. xvi., p. 466 sqq. 



