26 HISTORY OF COMMONS. 
great value of their Commons; and they maintained 
that the disuser of rights by the Commoners had 
operated as an abandonment of such rights, enabling 
them to put in force their powers under the Statute. 
In the succeeding chapters the development of the two 
movements, thus alluded to, will be described, and it will 
be shown how the new contentions of Lords of Manors 
and their attempts to appropriate the Commons have 
been met, and finally defeated, both in the Law Courts 
and in the Legislature. 
