SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



The inclosers had been allowed by the Acts of 1516 and 1517 to pull 

 down their inclosures within six months and to repair the houses on their 

 lands, and in the actions taken on the evidence of this commission much of 

 the land had been thrown open. The effect of the commission does not seem 

 to have been permanent. Much discontent was aroused in the country, and 

 the feeble effort at repression made in 1 549 by the issue of a * proclamation 

 for the laieng open of enclosures ' was of no avail. 



The discontent finally burst forth in Ket's rebellion, and though most 

 serious in Norfolk, risings took place in other parts of the country. The 

 rebels hoped that the government would support them, believing that the 

 proclamation pledged it more or less to assist any movement against in- 

 closures. Holinshead describes the causes of the rebellion in the south of 

 England and the means that were taken to suppress it with a good deal of 

 detail in the following words : 



For where as there were few that obetad the commandment, the unadvised people presum- 

 ing upon their proclamation, thinking that they should be borne out by them that had set 

 it forth rashlic without order tooke upon themselves to redresse the matter, chose to them 

 capteins and leaders, brake open enclosures, cast doun ditches, killed up the deare, which 

 they found in parkes, spoiled and made havock, after the manner of an open rebellion . . . 

 First they began to plaie these parts in Sommcrsetshire, Buckinghamshire, Northampton- 

 shire, Kent, Essex, and Lincolnshire. 



The rebellion in the west was put down with severity by Sir William Her- 

 bert, many of the rebels being slain and, quoting further from the Chronicle: 



About the same time that this rebellion . . . began in the west, the like disordered buries 

 were attempted in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but they were speedilie appeased by 

 the Lord Greie of Wilton, who comming downe that waie to joine with the lord privie 

 seale, chased the rebels to their houses, of whome two hundred were taken and a dozzen of 

 the ringleaders to him delivered, where of certaine afterwards were executed. 



Ket's rebellion, followed shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries and 

 the renewed outcry against inclosures, has been attributed to the disappear- 

 ance of the old ecclesiastical lords of the manor. The new occupants of 

 these lands in Buckinghamshire most probably were more ready to inclose 

 than the religious houses had been, and whatever charity had been dispensed 

 to the evicted tenants was probably not continued by the new tenants in 

 chief or the firmors of the crown. They represented a new class of men in 

 the county, the lands often being held by merchants or lawyers ; amongst 

 the latter class, Sir John Baldwyn, the Lord Chief Justice, who was the 

 lord of the manor of Aylesbury, was a prominent example. Not only did 

 the monastic lands come to the crown in the sixteenth century, but each 

 of the numerous rebellions and plots brought the forfeited lands of traitors, 

 and whether the fee-simple was granted away or whether they were held 

 by indenture or letters patent, the new owner helped to swell the class 

 of country gentlemen who gathered all local power into their own hands. 

 Their influence in the county was but little connected with the manor, 

 which was no longer the centre of local government. The views of 

 frankpledge held in the king's manors show the small importance of mano- 

 rial justice. The constables or tithing men merely paid their fine due from 

 their township and occasionally made a presentment about the highways, 

 but all effective administration had passed to the justices of the peace. Not 

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