To sum up, we find that in the north-west of Warwick enclosure was general as early as 1540, while it was practically non-existent in the south-east of that county and in Leicester, Northampton and Rutland. We find that the movement towards enclosure of the “champaine” country began about the year 1600, that it proceeded steadily in spite of great popular resistance through the seventeenth century, but at a much greater rate in Leicester, and probably in S.E. Warwick, than in Northamptonshire, the rate in Rutland being probably slower than in Leicester, but certainly greater than in Northamptonshire, the course of the movement being from west to east; that about half of S.E. Warwick and of Leicester was enclosed when the movement of Parliamentary enclosure began, but less than half of Rutland, and not more than quarter (probably not more than a fifth) of Northamptonshire.
We have seen that the enclosure of Bedford was later than this, and we shall see that the same is true of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon. In the midlands of England the course of enclosure from 1600 onwards was from west to east.
A word may be added with regard to the methods by which non-Parliamentary enclosure was effected in this district. There was great diversity in Leicestershire from village to village with regard to the diffusion of property, as may be seen from Monk’s Appendix, in which he endeavours to give the names of the principal owners in each “lordship.” Some were entirely in the hands of a single individual, others had many owners, but in the great majority the land was mainly, but not entirely, owned by the lord of the manor. The description of the enclosure of S.E. Warwick supplied by John Wedge, the consolidation of farms, and the depopulation of the villages, indicates that there enclosure, whether by Act of Parliament or not, was carried through by the authority of the lord of the manor, he being the main landowner.
The method by which this would be done when an Act of Parliament was not resorted to is fully explained by Edward Lawrence (“The Duty of a Steward to his Lord, 1727”), Article XIV.
“A Steward should not forget to make the best Enquiry into the disposition of any of the Freeholders within or near any of his Lord’s Manors, to sell their Lands, that he may use his best Endeavours to purchase them at as reasonable a price as may be for his Lord’s Advantage and Convenience ... especially in such Manors where improvements are to be made by inclosing Commons and Common Fields; which (as every one, who is acquainted with the late Improvements in Agriculture must know) is not a little advantageous to the Nation in general, as well as highly profitable to the Undertaker. If the Freeholders cannot all be perswaded to sell, yet at least an Agreement for Inclosing should be pushed forward, by the Steward, and a scheme laid, wherein it may appear that an exact and proportional share will be allotted to every proprietor; perswading them first, if possible, to sign a Form of Agreement, and then to chuse Commissioners on both sides.... If the Steward be a Man of good sense, he will find a necessity of making use of it all, in rooting out superstition from amongst them, as what is so great a hindrance to all noble Improvements.” The superstition referred to, is that enclosed land is cursed, and doomed in three generations to pass out of the hands of the descendants of the proprietor who enclosed it.
That in the early seventeenth century much of the enclosure was carried out by the power of the lord of the manor is plain from the scraps of information given by John Moore. Thus he tells us that Ashby Magna was enclosed in 1606, and that the lord gave most of his tenants leases for three lives and twenty-one years after (“Scripture Word Against Inclosures,” p. 9), that being the reason why depopulation had not resulted up to 1656; that in both Misterton and Poultney no house at all was left except the minister’s, so that these two manors must have been the property of absentee landlords.
But Catthorpe had no lord of the manor, it consisted of 580 acres divided among eight freeholders and five or six holders of “ancient cottages” who were also Freeholders (Joseph Lee, p. 5). The enclosure was carried out by the agreement of all the owners, except one who objected on conscientious grounds. The way in which these agreements to enclose were effected in parishes where property was divided is thus described by Moore:—“In common fields they live like loving neighbours together for the most part, till the Spirit of Inclosure enter into some rich Churles heart, who doe not only pry out but feign occasions to goe to law with their neighbours, and no reconcilement be made till they consent to Inclosure. So this Inclosure makes thieves, and then they cry out of thieves. Because they sold the righteous for silver, and the poor for a pair of shoes. If it had not been for two or three righteous in many Townes of these Inland Counties, what desolation had there been made ere this time?” (Scripture Word, p. 12).
Cambridge and Huntingdon.
Much of these two counties anciently consisted of fen and marsh, and of the land now cultivated a great deal never passed through the common field system. But the “upland” of each county was very late in undergoing enclosure.