Also the said dame Isabel on Monday last past did pass the night with the Austin friars at Northampton, and did dance and play the lute with them on the same place until midnight, and on the night following she passed the night with the friars preachers at Northampton, luting and dancing in like manner.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY ENCLOSURES, A.D. 1549
(Holinshed, Chronicle of England, III, p. 156)
So it was, that the King’s Majesty, by the advice of his uncle, the Lord Protector, and other of the Council, thought good to set forth a proclamation against enclosures, and taking in of fields and commons that were accustomed to lie open, for the behoof of the inhabitants dwelling near to the same, who had grievously complained of gentlemen and others for taking from them the use of those fields and commons, and had enclosed them into parks and several pasture for their private commodities and pleasures, to the great hindrance and undoing many a poor man.
This proclamation tending to the benefit and relief of the poor, appointed that such as had enclosed those commons, should upon a pain by a day assigned lay them open again. But how well soever the setters forth of this proclamation meant, thinking hereby peradventure to appease the grudge of the people that found themselves grieved with such enclosures; yet verily it turned not to the wished effect, but rather ministered occasion of a foul and dangerous disorder. For whereas there were few that obeyed the commandment, the unadvised people presuming upon their proclamation, thinking they should be borne out by them that had set it forth, rashly without order took upon them to redress the matter: and assembling themselves in unlawful wise, chose to them captains and leaders, brake open the enclosures, cast down ditches, killed up the deer which they found in parks, spoiled and made havoc after the manner of an open rebellion. First they began to play these parts in Somersetshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Kent, Essex, and Lincolnshire.
In Somersetshire they brake up certain parks of Sir William Herbert, and the Lord Sturton: but Sir William Herbert assembling a power together by the King’s commission, slew and executed many of these rebellious people. In other places also by the good diligence and police used by the council, the rebels were appeased and quieted.
But shortly after, the commons of Devonshire and Cornwall rose by way of rebellion, demanding not only to have enclosures laid open, and parks disparked, but also through the instigations and pricking forward of certain popish priests, ceased not by all sinister and subtle means, first under God’s Name and the King’s, and under the colour of religion, to persuade the people to assemble in routs to choose captains to guide them and finally to burst out into open rebellion.
GRIEVANCES OF CAMBRIDGE MEN. (EXAMPLES)
(Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, Vol. II, p. 38)
Inprimis, we find that there be IV Almshouses decayed in Jesus Lane, which ought to be upholden and maintained by Mr. Thomas Hutton.