[542] Roxburghe Club, Surveys of Pembroke Manors. The manors are South Newton, Washerne, Donnington, Winterbourne Basset, Estoverton and Phipheld, Byshopeston (all Wilts), and South Brent and Huish (Somerset).
[543] E. E. T. S., Crowley, The Way to Wealth.
[544] See below, pp. [334–337].
[545] Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of Edward VI. Bills to establish a fine certain on admission and alienation, to get protection against exorbitant fines, &c. are common. For popular complaints see E. E. T. S., A Supplication of the Poore Commons: “These extortioners have so improved theyr lands that they make of a xls. fyne xl. pounds,” &c. For an actual instance see the following case. The tenants of Austenfield claim “that of ancient time all the customary tenants of the said manor of Austenfield were finable at fines certain, until of late years the lords moved by covetousness, by troubling and vexing their copyholders, drove many of them, for the buying of their quietness, to be at fines uncertain" (William Salt Collection, vol. ix. Chancery Proceedings. Bdle. 12, No. 70).
[546] Th. Wilson, A Discourse upon Usurie, 1584: “And therefore I would not have men altogether to be enemies to the Canon Lawe, and to condemn everything there written, because the Pope was author of them.... Naie, I will saie plainlie that there be some such lawes made by the Pope as be right godlie, saie others what they list.”
[547] Norden, The Surveyor’s Dialogue, Book I.: “Surveyor. The tennant leaveth commonly one either in right of inheritance, or by surrender, to succeed him, and he by custome of the manor is to be accepted tenant, alwaies provided he must agree with the lord, if the custome of the manor hold not the fine certain as in few it doth.... Farmer. You much mistake it, for I will show by ancient court rolls that the fine of that which is now £20 was then but 13s. 4d., and yet will you say they are now as they were then? Surveyor. Yea, and I thinke I erre little in it. For if you consider the state of things then and now, you shall find the proportion little differing; for so much are the prices of things vendible ... now increased as may well be said to exceed the prices then as much as £20 exceede the 13s. 4d."
[PART III]
THE OUTCOME OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION
“Lords spiritual and temporal, have it in your mind This
world as it waveth, and to your tenants be kind.”
—The Proclamation of the Commons, Gairdner,
Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.,
xii. I. 163.