[652] Appendix to Miss Lamond’s edition of The Commonweal of this Realm of England, Hale’s defence, p. lviii.: “Whas ther not, longe before this Commyssyon was sent forthe, an insurrection in Hertfordshire for the comens at Northall and Cheshunt?”
[653] Acts of the Privy Council, New Series, vol. ii. pp. 190–193, May 5, 1548: a complaint from “many poor men of the Parishes of Walton, Weybridge, East Molson, West Molson, Caverham, Esher, Byfiete, Temsditton ... in the name of the whole parishes before rehearsed, that by reason of the making of the late chase of Hampton Court, forsomyche as their commons, pastures, and meadows be taken in, and that all the said parishes are overlaid with the deer now increasing daily upon them, very many households of the same parishes be let fall down, the families decayed, and the king’s liege people much diminished, the country thereabout in manner made desolate.”
[654] See p. 294.
[655] Published by the E. E. T. S.
[656] The first sermon preached before King Edward the Sixth, March 8, 1549: “You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say you step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for your possession yearly too much. For that herebefore went for twenty or forty pounds by year ... now is let for fifty or an hundred pound by year.” See also Latimer, The Sermon of the Plough, January 18, 1548.
[657] Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials.
[658] The proclamation appointing the Commission is printed by Strype, op. cit., vol. ii., Book I., chap. ii. The operative part of it runs: “And therefore, He ... hath appointed, according to the said acts and proclamations, a view and inquiry to be made of all such as contrary to the said acts and godly ordinances have made enclosures and pasture of that which was arable ground, or let any house, tenement, or mease decay or fall down, or done anything contrary of the good and wholesome articles contained in the said acts.” In my account of the situation under Somerset I have followed the documents printed by Strype, and the appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to The Commonweal of this Realm of England.
[659] Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials.
[660] For the pardon, see appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to The Commonweal, &c., p. lxi.; for the ploughing up of a park and division of farms, ibid., pp. xli. and lxi.-lxii.; for the Bills introduced by Hales, ibid., xl., xlv.-lii., lxii.-lxv. Strype’s account appears to be based on that of Hales.
[661] For these facts, see Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials.