the State—because it means depopulation. But along with this complaint we are assured that there are too many people in England. And then, on a sudden, we hear of people assembling to break down enclosures. We get several lurid glimpses of this during the reigns of the first two Stuart Kings.
The most serious was in 1607. The lands of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators had just been confiscated, and as usual the new owners began to enclose the common land—those lands of a manor, which lay around a village, and from time immemorial were cultivated by the villagers in allotments. These lands consisted of tillage and pasture (the tillage being often used as pasture in winter), together with tracts of moor and waste, where every man might turn out a certain number of beasts. In the middle of May 1607 "a great number of common persons suddenly assembled themselves in Northamptonshire, and then others of like nature assembled themselves in Warwickshire and Leicestershire."[1] In Leicestershire "they violently cut and brake down hedges, filled up ditches, and laid open all such enclosures of Commons and other grounds as they found enclosed, which of ancient time had been open and employed to tillage." These "tumultuous persons grew very strong; being in some places of men, women and children a thousand together, and at Hill Norton in Warwickshire a former estate of the Treshams there were 3000, and at Cottesbich there assembled of men, women and children to the number of full 5000." These "riotous persons bent all their strength to level and lay open enclosures, without exercising any manner of violence upon any man's person, goods or cattle, and wheresoever they came they were generally relieved by the near inhabitants, who sent them not only many carts laden with victual, but also good store of spades and shovels for speedy performance of their present enterprise, who until then some of them were fain to use bills, pikes, and such like tools instead of mattock and spade."
These people were called "Levellers," because they levelled enclosures — the first time the word appears as a name.
- ↑ Stow. (Continued by Howes.)
