The King's Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (Pimlico) (116 page)

It was in May 1517 that commissioners were appointed to inquire into the extent of
depopulation and enclosure in all but the four most northern counties.
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They, in turn, were to summon juries of local men whose task was to report on

which and how many towns and hamlets, and how many houses and buildings, have been destroyed since the feast of St Michael the archangel in the 4th year [1488] of the reign of the illustrious Lord Henry
VII
, late king of England, our dearly beloved father, and how many and how large the lands which were then in tillage and have now been put down and converted to pasture, and also how many and how large parks have been emparked since the feast for the preservation of game, and what lands have been enclosed in any park at any time
.
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For those who have seen Wolsey as power-hungry, self-obsessed and essentially frivolous, this apparent concern for the poor and dispossessed has been inconvenient, so it has been necessary for them to undermine his efforts. Pollard thought that they were ineffective and possibly illegal.
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More recently they have have been cited as evidence of a ‘crass absence of political sensitivity and an unflinching refusal to look reality in the face’.
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However, Wolsey has also had one recent champion in J.J. Scarisbrick, who in a very important essay, whose title this chapter deliberately echoes, sought to show that Wolsey deserved the plaudits and the tears bestowed on him by the poor commons on his final journey, for he had truly laboured on their behalf. It is this view that will be accepted here; indeed, much of what follows is but a commentary on Scarisbrick’s pioneering work.
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The charge of political insensitivity derives from the provision under the still operative statutes of 1489 and 1515, that held the landowners responsible for any infringements,
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so that it was on the whole important people who found themselves facing prosecution. This included not just the gentry, but heads of important religious houses such as Peterborough and Reading; Wolsey’s own episcopal colleagues, including his former patron, Richard Fox; and at least nine noblemen, amongst whom were the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk.
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But it is a point that can be overstressed. Since very few of these people were personally involved in enclosure and the charges against them were thus technical, the offence having been committed by tenants who were probably not even known to them, there was little personal blame attached to the prosecutions, nor was any slight intended. Indeed, those who were closely involved in government, which is to say the most powerful of them, were presumably as anxious as Wolsey that the government’s efforts to tackle the problem should succeed – and this is not entirely speculation.

The views on enclosure of only two royal councillors have survived. One, John
Longland bishop of Lincoln, was positively in favour of what the government was doing, while the other, Sir Thomas More, was the author of a famous attack on enclosers. Both may have been prosecuted for enclosure! This does not, however, make them hypocrites. Longland himself may have escaped prosecution, but, if so, his predecessor William Atwater did not, which is to make the point that either would have been prosecuted not as active enclosers, but as, by virtue of their office, the chance owners of the land concerned.
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There is no doubt at all, though, that in Hilary term 1527 More did appear in court as a defendant in an enclosure case, but, as he had acquired the property in question only two years earlier, on the death of Sir Thomas Lovell, it is difficult to attach any blame to him.
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This is not to suggest that having to answer in court, even for an offence one had not committed, was not without embarrassment. It could also be tedious and costly, and may well have dampened enthusiasm for what the Crown and its leading minister were doing. But these prosecutions do not amount to a serious attack on the political nation, such as might justify the accusation of gross political insensitivity. This is especially so since, as will shortly emerge, the number of eminent people for whom enclosure was an important financial concern was probably very small.
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But why did Wolsey go for the owners if they were not in any real sense responsible? Probably he thought that a landlord was in a much better position than the Crown to ensure that the wrongs were remedied. Moreover, because most landlords were financially so little affected, they were less likely to try to deceive the courts and the more distinguished they were, the more they had to lose if they were found out doing so. What does emerge, even from a cursory look at the evidence, is a serious intention on the government’s part – and one sustained long after the initial inquiry – to achieve results. There is, first of all, the sheer scale of the administrative exercise begun in May 1517, seeking out information about thousands of acres of land and about the fates of countless properties and individuals. What is also striking is the altruistic nature of the exercise. With other national inquiries, including Wolsey’s own general proscription of 1522, the intention had usually been to establish royal rights and thus incur financial and political advantages. In this case the Crown would in theory make some slight financial gain – under the provision of the enclosure Acts it received half the income from land during the period that it had been wrongfully enclosed. However, this only applied where it could be shown that the land was held directly from the Crown; and furthermore the whole thrust of the government’s action was to provide every incentive for the enclosure to be brought to an end, thereby eliminating any possible financial claim by the Crown.

The whole question of intention will have to be looked at again, but for the moment the assumption will be that, when embarking upon the enclosure inquiry of 1517, Wolsey wanted to do something for the common weal, and to that end some 260 people are known to have been brought to court. This in itself is remarkable, when one remembers how rarely anybody appeared in court.
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It is even more
remarkable that some 188 of the cases (and the actual figure was almost certainly greater) are known to have been brought to a conclusion. In addition, seventy-four people are known to have pleaded guilty and, as a consequence, entered into large recognizances to remedy the fault.
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On the face of it, all this unusually successful legal activity is yet more evidence of serious intent.

In 1518 and 1519 further commissions of inquiry were set up, while in 1523 the General Pardon, which traditionally brought a parliament to an end, contained an important provision designed to further the thrust of government policy on enclosure.
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In 1526 there was a new initiative. On 14 July a proclamation was issued in which it was admitted that despite the ‘industry and diligence’ of the government ‘to reform, remove and repress the aforesaid great enormities and inconveniences … very little reformation thereof as yet is had’.
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This may have been a deliberately pessimistic assessment designed to encourage more effort, but Wolsey was not content with mere words. New commissioners were sent out, and on 30 September one of them, John Longland, was reporting back to Wolsey that he had had no time to write earlier because he had been

so occupied in the view of these enclosures according unto the king’s commission
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And tomorrow do ride to Northampton and all the week to be occupied in that part of the shire. And the week after that in Leicestershire and Rutland. My Lord Brudenell and Sir William Fitzwilliam hath taken great labour therein with as good a mind as any men might. And we most humbly beseech the king’s highness and your good grace to give us a further time for much part of it is so intricate and large it cannot be well done in little time. Our books will be far greater than hath been and much things will come to light that yet hath not been known
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Then in November two Chancery decrees were issued ordering all those named by the commissioners to appear in court and make recognizances whereby they promised to remedy their errors on pain of considerable financial penalties.
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And the pressure continued. In May 1528 there was a further decree ordering all the king’s subjects

being relaters and furtherers of the commonwealth … that they by writing and bills secretly disclose unto the lord legate, his chancellor of England, the name of all such persons … who hath and keepeth in his hands and possession … any more farm than one; and moreover by the same bill to disclose to the same lord chancellor the names of such person as do enclose any grounds or pastures to the hurt of the commonwealth of this the king’s realm
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Two masters of chancery were deputed to receive the information and a promise was made that the names of the informers would be kept secret.
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In the following
February it was further ordered that anyone obtaining profit from land enclosed

contrary to the statutes and law of the realm … that they and every of them, at this side the 15th of Easter next coming [11 April], without any further delay or contradiction, clearly break and cast down all and singular the said hedges, ditches and enclosures so made and enclosed as is aforesaid upon pain to them and every of them not following the king’s commandment to run into his high indignation and displeasure
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If anybody dared to ignore such a warning, the sheriffs were instructed to tear down the enclosures themselves.
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And in the previous month Wolsey had ordered the sheriff of Northamptonshire to intervene in a long-running dispute between the inhabitants of Thingden (now Finedon) and the lord of the manor, to the point of destroying the hedges and ditches which the lord had apparently wrongfully erected. In none of this is there any evidence of a lack of determination on Wolsey’s part. Indeed, it has been argued, especially as regards the last episode, that he was verging on the over-zealous.
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So determination and effort there certainly were, but to what ends? The various statutes, proclamations, decrees and government instructions provide a number of answers, but in trying to make sense of them, it may be helpful to begin with a source less directly bound up with the propaganda requirements of government policy, Thomas More’s well-known analysis of the problem in
Utopia
. More’s literary skill and sharp intelligence must always command attention, but what is particularly relevant here is the timing. Published in December 1516, it appeared only six months before the setting up of the enclosure inquiry, just when More was entering royal service and coming into close contact with Wolsey. This does not mean that Wolsey would have read More’s book, but he could hardly have been ignorant of its contents, and to that extent, it may bring us as close to the workings of Wolsey’s mind on this and related economic and social concerns as it is possible to get.
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The effectiveness of More’s analysis derives in part from one striking passage in which, by reversing the expected order of things and making sheep devour human beings, he created an image that has been difficult to forget.
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It may also, however, have focused attention in the wrong place, that is, on the sheep.
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But for More, at any rate, there was no doubt that sheep were at the heart of the problem, and in the following way: sheep meant wool, wool meant cloth, and cloth, as England’s major export, meant profits, not just for the merchants but for the producers of the wool. The profitability of sheep farming encouraged farmers to convert from arable to pasture. This in turn encouraged enclosure because farmers would not want other people’s sheep grazing their pasture. It also encouraged an
accompanying evil, legislated against in the enclosure Acts – that of engrossing the consolidation of two separate farming units into one, the consequent rationalization bringing with it the eviction of tenants and farm labourers and the destruction of property. In this way large sheep runs could be created, a form of farming that was profitable not only because the demand for wool was so great, but because it was far less labour-intensive than arable farming. If a farmer could not physically enclose or engross, he could, if powerful enough, eliminate or at any rate seek to limit, the right of others to graze their stock on the common fields.
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This, very simply, was More’s analysis, and much the same view was taken by other writers and social commentators in the sixteenth century and later.
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The most serious consequence for More was the enforced idleness that came from people being driven off the land. It led them into bad ways such as drinking and gaming, and these in turn led to crime. Indeed, it was his preoccupation with crime and what he saw as the Crown’s failure to tackle its underlying causes that had led him to a discussion of enclosure. But other, more mundane, ills were mentioned. He blamed the obsession with sheep for the high price of food and raw materials, including wool. The overstocking of sheep resulted in disease and death and the breeding of cattle was neglected. More generally, prices had been kept artificially high by greedy farmers and middlemen combining to ensure that output always lagged behind demand. The result was large profits for the few but misery for the many.
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