me 



A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



But before the matter came to a climax, the inhabitants, probably in view of future develop- 

 nts deposed the bylawmen, elected possibly under coercion, and chose m their place Christopher 

 Keld and Thomas Brocklebank. Having secured these important allies, for they were sworn to see 

 that each had his just rights and that no one was oppressed, Robert Legeard, the self-elected 

 ringleader of the malcontents, called a meeting at his own house to arrange the plan of campaign. 

 All those present were required to sign an undertaking to act in concert. No coercion was used 

 to the solitary dissentient ; the witness emphatically declared that Robert Legeard simply said to 

 him, ' Go thy way,' and he went. The meeting was then unanimous and it was decided that the 

 inclosure in question must go. The task was accomplished with surprising ease. Christopher 

 Keld, Edward Turlton, and William Southwick, armed with sticks, went to Southolme Close, 

 where two workmen were dyking. At the end of a brief conversation they filled up the dyke and 

 left their work. Some men were engaged in hedging and fencing the same piece of ground. 

 Apparently they did not acquiesce quite so readily, but Christopher Keld laying down his ' walking 

 rod ' on the dyke-side said, ' You dyke upon my common and I will sue you for it, for I have nothing 

 to do with Mr. Hawoord.' The men replied, ' God shield rather than we be sued, we will cast it 

 down again,' so the fences and hedges were pulled up. Hayward was driven to the expensive 

 method of protecting himself by law, whether he gained his case is not recorded." 



A curiously perplexing case, which shows the difKculties attending informal arrangements, 

 came into the Exchequer Court in 1 619. 



The landowner, Francis Salkeld, and his undertenants, the freeholders of Bowes and their 

 farmers, and the king's tenants decided among themselves that 500 acres of the best land should 

 be inclosed. According to the evidence the inclosure was ' for the general good without exception 

 of any.' The cost of fencing was defrayed by each paying according to the quantity of his rent 

 and lands and having stint of cattle in the same ratio. Francis Salkeld, Arthur Sheppard, Charles 

 Kipling and their tenants paid jf 5 each, John Hamby and John Bousfield £2 6^- 8^. At a general 

 meeting held at 'thegaite' of the said pasture as soon as the fencing was complete, it was decided that 

 those who had paid the fencing fees should have for xxs. nine beasts' gates therein every year. For 

 the first year the defendants put in ' their stint of cattle and quietly enjoyed the same.' The second 

 year Robert Peacock, Thomas Leadman, William Antony, and George Alderson, with a mob of 

 people armed with pitchforks, staves, and daggers drove the cattle away. A compromise was 

 arranged from which Francis Salkeld and his undertenants were expressly excluded. Encouraged 

 by their success. Peacock and his followers began to treat the inclosed land as freehold. They 

 granted rights of pasturage to those who lived near the common, and sold a piece of land on which 

 a house was built. As the building was in the neighbourhood of Salkeld's tenements he was com- 

 pletely cut off from all access even to the uninclosed common. His case was undoubtedly strong ; 

 by legal inclosure used in an illegal way he had lost his right of approach to that part of the 

 common for the inclosing of which he had paid heavily ; by a second series of illegal inclosures he 

 was debarred from access to that part of the common that still remained open. The defendants 

 had not only defied the law by acting without the consent of the complainants or warrant of His 

 Majesty, but had infringed a special order ' set down under the hand of Sir Talbott Bowes, deputy 

 steward under the late Lord Scrope, that no inclosure should be taken up after in Bowes Moor or 

 Common without a consent general of the King's tenants and the freeholders and their farmers 

 there.' The evidence is complicated and perplexing, but two facts emerge : that the collective com- 

 mon-right holders could be as tyrannical as the individual landlord, and that parliamentary inclosure 

 presented less opportunities of a miscarriage of justice than the earlier haphazard methods by agree- 

 ment, collusion, warrant, or promiscuous annexation.'' 



In 1632 the York aldermen and the noted Sir Arthur Ingram had a hot dispute over a 

 question of inclosing, but 



after much treatye and debating of the matter with Sir Arthur Ingram Knight agreed with him that 

 he shall and will in satisfaction of the right that this city clames to have in the common of Huntington 

 which he hath now lately inclosed made an estaite in fee to feoffees to the use of the maior and 

 comonalty of a full fourth part of the soyle which he hath soe inclosed to be sett out in severalty from 

 the other three parts which is wellingly accepted of And the sayd Mr. Alderman Allanson and Mr. 

 Pepper are now desired that they will gett a conveyance drawne and sealed by the said Sir Arthur 

 accordingly." 



The Session Rolls for the first half of the 17th century yield evidence of a systematic attempt 

 to inclose without legal right. On 18 April 1637 an Alne " yeoman was brought before the court 

 for stopping up the highway between Thirsk and York in his ' alottments laitely improved in the 



" Exch. Dep. Yorks. Mich. 12 Jas. I, no. 32. " Ibid. Hil. 17 Jas. I, no. i. 



" York Munic. Rec. xxxv, fol. 169^, 4 June 1632. 



" Six hundred acres were inclosed by Act of Parliament at Alne in 1 807. 



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