On 21st February 1615-16, the Corporation agreed that the enclosure should be “made a Town Cause,” and the charges defrayed out of the revenue, for the battle was becoming fiercer than ever. Their opponent, Mr. William Combe, had been made High Sheriff of the county, the very officer delegated by the Crown to prevent riots, etc., which he was really rousing. Mr. Baker on the 24th told him and his brother “at the Bridge end towards the woodyard that he marvelled they would, contrary to my Lord’s order, enclose and dig in the Common. They said they hoped my Lord would not hinder them from doing what they would with their own, and Mr. William Combe said the ditch was made to save his corn.” The Combes retorted on Mr. Baker that “the Corporation had given money to my lord’s gentleman to work my lord, i.e., Sir Edward Coke, and that was no good employment for the Town revenue!” In Mr. Sheriff’s absence Mr. Thomas Combe set some workmen to work, and when the Sheriff came home he approved of it, and promised the workmen they should come to no harm. On the 1st of March some members of the Council went to inspect and found workmen “finishing twenty-seven ridges of the enclosure, acre’s length a-piece.” “Mr. Sheriff told Morrell that if he were not out of authority he would send him to gaol, and having divers times impounded his sheep, bade him tell my Lord Coke that for every several trespass he would have a several action, and for every sixpence damage he would recover against him six pounds.”
On the 2nd of March 1615-16, Mr. Chandler having sent his man Michael Ward to the place where Combe’s men were digging to fling down the ditches, they assaulted him, and would not let him proceed, and Stephen Sly said that “if the best in Stratford were to go there to throw the ditch down he would bury his head at the bottom.”
No wonder that in the petition of the 27th of March 1616, the Corporation stated, “Mr. Combe being of such an unbridled disposition he should be restrained.” In that Lent term at the Assize Court my Lord Coke delivered his final decision, and told Combe to set his mind at rest, for he would “neither enclose nor lay down any arable land, nor plough up any ancient greensward.” The Corporation told Mr. Combe that they desired his goodwill, but they would ever withstand the enclosure: and on the 10th of April Mr. High Sheriff told Mr. John Greene that he was out of hope now ever to enclose.
So Shakespeare sank to rest that month with the belief that the struggle was over, and there would be no enclosure in Welcombe. But it was not over yet by a long way. Mr. William Combe made up his mind to defy the Lord Chief Justice as well as the Corporation. He moved gently now, however. On the 24th of June 1616, he wrote to the Corporation from Abchurch, desiring their loves, and showing how he would remedy all their objections, a long letter still among the records. They replied that they were desirous of his love and of peace, but they prayed him against the enclosure, and said they would by all lawful means hinder it. The miscellaneous documents of Stratford-on-Avon show that the Bailiff and Burgesses of Stratford also complained to the Court of Common Pleas against William Combe for enclosing. Their notes show “The points to be complayned of and contayned in our petition are that Mr. Combe hath not laid down meres according to my Lord Hobart’s order, and the certificates of the justices upon the reference. And that he hath decayed 117 ridges of tilling and neglecting the farming thereof contrary to the order and contrary to his own word and promise made to the judges and justices at the tyme of their conference. My Lord Coke at Lent Assizes 13 James I, and my Lord Hobart confirmed this assize. The grief for decaying is the destruction of our common, and the decaying of the tilling is the losse of our tythes with which our poor are free.” They also presented “My Lord Coke and my Lord Hubbard their orders for the restraint of enclosier and decay of tillage in the feeldes of Stratford, 1617.”
But the struggle continued during 1618, though more warily on Combe’s side. The Privy Council had become interested. It had dawned on them that they had had to excuse the subsidies from Stratford more than once on account of the fires, and if it happened, as a petition from the Corporation suggested, they might have to excuse them again on account of Combe’s enclosure. On the 14th of February 1618 the Privy Council referred the consideration of the Stratford petition to the Master of the Rolls and Sir Edward Coke, and wrote officially to William Combe in a very sharp way. He was to restore the enclosures to their pristine condition, and whatever the judges decided to do with him in regard to the course he had taken in defiance of the order of the justices in assize and the certificate of Sir Richard Verney he must not fail to obey, or he would answer it at his peril.
Apparently Combe was at last alarmed, and gave in, not too soon, for decisions had gone against him in every court, and orders were out against him for “contempt of court” also. Influence saved him from some of the consequences. In the Stratford Miscellaneous Documents there is one called “Dispensation to William Combe for enclosing,” or “Mr. Combe, his pardon for enclosing.” But he had to pay a fine of £4 for that, and to go to all the expense of putting the land back as the people were used to see it. By the summer of 1619 Stratford-on-Avon and its Corporation were at rest as to Combe’s enclosure.
I have found that the final award for the Stratford enclosures, under the Act of Parliament for enclosures, 15 George III, was signed 21st January 1775. They amounted to 1,635 acres, 1 rood, 18 perches.
“Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 23rd August 1912.
Note to Article XI (2)
FIRES AND THATCH IN STRATFORD
The distressing fires which so frequently raged in Stratford-on-Avon during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may be considered among the causes likely to account somewhat for the fact that no letters of Shakespeare’s have come down to us. These fires (1594-6, 1598, 1614) were almost of national importance, as they were serious enough to force the Corporation to petition the Queen for the remission of taxes—which was granted (Wheeler MS. i. 46); and sometimes also they had permission to collect for their poor in the neighbouring towns and counties. A touching letter in 1598 from Richard Quiney as “the poor suitor from Stratford,” whose purse is weakened by long sojourning in London “shews that the Collector was retaining £24 10s., while the poor needed it,” is in Wheler MS., i, 54.