Landholding in England

by F.R.H.S. Joseph Fisher

This was a true expression of the king's intentions. But either he was changeable in his moods, or during these early years he was hardly settled enough on the throne always to be able to carry out his wishes. This time, however, in some way or another, the great duke was reduced to submission, and Caister was restored to Paston.

In 1465 a new claimant appeared; and claimants, though as troublesome in the fifteenth as the nineteenth century, proceeded in a different fashion. This time it was the Duke of Suffolk, who asserted a right to the manor of Drayton in his own name, and who had bought up the assumed rights of another person to the manor of Hellesdon. John Paston was away, and his wife had to bear the brunt. An attempt to levy rent at Drayton was followed by a threat from the duke's men, that if her servants "ventured to take any further distresses at Drayton, even if it were but of the value of a pin, they would take the value of an ox in Hellesdon."

Paston and the duke alike professed to be under the law. But each was anxious to retain that possession which in those days seems really to have been nine points of the law. The duke got hold of Drayton, while Hellesdon was held for Paston. One day Paston's men made a raid upon Drayton, and carried off seventy-seven head of cattle. Another day the duke's bailiff came to Hellesdon with 300 men to see if the place were assailable. Two servants of Paston, attempting to keep a court at Drayton in their master's name, were carried off by force. At last the duke mustered his retainers and marched against Hellesdon. The garrison, too weak to resist, at once surrendered.

"The duke's men took possession, and set John Paston's own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston's own place, they stripped it completely bare; and whatever there was of lead, brass, pewter, iron, doors or gates, or other things that they could not conveniently carry off, they hacked and hewed them to pieces. The duke rode through Hellesdon to Drayton the following day, while his men were still busy completing the wreck of destruction by the demolition of the lodge. The wreck of the building, with the rents they made in its walls, is visible even now" (Introd. xxxv.).

The meaning of all this is evident. We have before us a state of society in which the anarchical element is predominant. But it is not pure anarchy. The nobles were determined to reduce the middle classes to vassalage.

The reign of the Plantagenets witnessed the elevation of the nobility. The descendants of the Norman barons menaced, and sometimes proved too powerful for the Crown. In such reigns as those of Edward I., Edward III., and Henry VI., the barons triumphed. The power wielded by the first Edward fell from the feeble grasp of his son and successor. The beneficent rule of Edward III. was followed by the anarchy of Richard II. Success led to excess. The triumphant party thinned the ranks of its opponents, and in turn experienced the same fate. The fierce struggle of the Red and White Roses weakened each. Guy, Earl of Warwick, "the king-maker," sank overpowered on the field of Tewkesbury, and with him perished many of the most powerful of the nobles. The jealousy of Richard III. swept away his own friends, and the bloody contest on Bosworth field destroyed the flower of the nobility. The sun of the Plantagenets went down, leaving the country weak and impoverished, from a contest in which the barons sought to establish their own power, to the detriment alike of the Crown and the FREEMEN. The latter might have exclaimed:

"Till half a patriot, half a coward, grown, We fly from meaner tyrants to the throne."

The long contest terminated in the defeat alike of the Crown and the nobles, but the nation suffered severely from the struggle.

The rule of this family proved fatal to the interest of a most important class, whose rights were jealously guarded by the Normans. The Liberi Homines, the FREEMEN, who were Odhal occupiers, holding in capite from the sovereign, nearly disappeared in the Wars of the Roses. Monarchs who owed their crown to the favor of the nobles were too weak to uphold the rights of those who held directly from the Crown, and who, in their isolation, were almost powerless.

The term FREEMAN, originally one of the noblest in the land, disappeared in relation to urban tenures, and was applied solely to the personal rights of civic burghers; instead thereof arose the term FREEHOLDER from FREE HOLD, which was originally a grant free from all rent, and only burdened with military service. The term was subsequently applied to land held for leases for lives as contradistinguished from leases for years, the latter being deemed base tenures, and insufficient to qualify a man to vote; the theory being that no man was free whose tenure could be disturbed during his life. Though the Liberi Homines or FREEMEN were, as a class, overborne in this struggle, and reduced to vassalage, yet their descendants were able, under the leadership of Cromwell, to regain some of the rights and influence of which they had been despoiled under the Plantagenets.