ABSTRACT
Enclosures.—We have already referred to the mistaken notion that the enclosure movement came to an end somewhere about the year 1600. So far from this being true, enclosing continued throughout the seventeenth century on a scale sufficient to provoke popular outbreaks and to call for the intervention of the government. In 1607, there was a Levellers ‘or Diggers’ rising in the Midlands, which had to be put down by military force. During the turmoil of the Commonwealth period, disturbances were frequent and resentment at enclosures was one of the influences that produced the movement in favour of agrarian communism, associated with the name of Gerard Winstanley. 1 The attitude of the State during the first half of the century remained unchanged. Though most of the laws against enclosures were repealed in 1624, action continued to be taken against enclosing landlords on the ground that depopulation was an offence under the common law. During the period of Charles I’s personal rule (1629–40), the government was particularly active. Commissions were appointed in 1632, 1635 and 1636, and the Privy Council showed energy in bringing offenders to justice, stimulated no doubt by the knowledge that the fines imposed were a valuable supplement to the royal revenue. At the council board, Archbishop Laud lost no opportunity of showing his animosity against enclosers, and it is probable that the attitude of the Crown and its advisers towards the agrarian problem drove many of the landed gentry into the ranks of the Parliamentary opposition. Lord Saye and Sele, who was associated with Hampden in the refusal to pay ship-money, was an enclosing landlord who had felt the heavy hand of the Privy Council.
