A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



which was disparked in the time of Edward VI, at the petition of 

 the inhabitants, who surmise that a younger king will prefer to seek 

 better sport further afield. The land was re-let to the former tenants at 

 the old rents, 106 just as Henry III granted 108 to the county of Middlesex, 

 in 1227, that the warren of Staines should be disafforested 'so that all 

 men may cultivate their lands and assart their woods therein.' 



Long before inclosures became a source of contention, pasture and 

 common rights were a frequent subject of dispute. There are constant 

 entries in the court rolls, especially in the fifteenth century, of tenants 

 fined for overcharging the commons, and pasturing on them beasts not 

 their own property for which they were paid. The right of the animals 

 of the vill to pasture on the arable after the harvest was lifted, and 

 the periodical opening as common for the manor of the ' Lammas ' fields 

 often led to trouble, and there was the further complication of common 

 rights enjoyed on one manor by the tenants of another. Thus the men 

 of Drayton and Herdington exercised pasture rights on the Harmonds- 

 worth stubble fields, and in 1414, at the instigation of some of the Har- 

 mondsworth tenants, 140 men of Drayton and Herdington came into the 

 manor, ' armed with bows and arrows, swords, staves and bills,' and with 

 their teams and swine trampled and depastured the corn and hay where 

 they had no right to common till the corn was cut and carried ; neither 

 the bailiff nor the hayward nor any other of the lord's ministers daring 

 to oppose them for fear of death. 107 On the other hand the Harmonds- 

 worth tenants had the right of mast pasture in the Drayton Woods, and 

 it was reported to the court of the manor in 1521-2, as an infringement 

 of these rights, that the bailiff of Drayton manor had felled some twenty 

 oaks in the wood there. 108 At Isleworth in 14456 the court was in- 

 formed that the abbess of Syon had inclosed and kept separate two 

 pastures which were always open from the Feast of St. Peter in Chains 

 to the Purification (2 February) or the Annunciation (28 March), and 

 in which two other persons, the prior of St. Walery and Emma de 

 Ayston, shared her rights. 109 



The quality of the Middlesex land was so much better adapted to 

 arable than to pasture farming that comparatively little was inclosed for 

 pasture. But the rapid expansion of London made land in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the City valuable, and most of the inclosures near the walls 

 were probably made rather with a view to building than for any agri- 

 cultural purpose. 



Parts of the depopulation returns made for Middlesex by the inclo- 

 sure commission of Henry VIII in 1517 are preserved in the Record 

 Office. 1 " There are only two membranes, a considerable piece being 

 torn away from the right-hand side of each. They are headed ' Inquisitio 

 indentata et prima capta apud Hendon in com. Mid. die Lune, 28 



104 B.M. Harl. MS. 6195, fol. 3. ' P.R.O. Chart. R. 1 1 Hen. Ill, pt. 2. 



07 P.R.O. Ct. R. Hen. V, bdle. 191, No. 20. los Ibid. Hen. VIII, bdle. 191, No. 30. 



M Ibid. Hen. VI, bdle. 191, No. 36. 



110 Chan. Misc. 7, No. 2 (z). Compare also Leadam, Domesday of Inclosures (Roy. Hist. Soc.) and 

 Gay, ' Depopulation Inquisition, I 507,' Roy. Hist. Soc. Trans. (New Ser.), xiv. 



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