[534] _E.g._ Ormesby in Norfolk, where in 1516 thirty-one tenants holding "in farm" formed the whole landholding population (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. 18). For a great rise in rents following a probable substitution of leases for customary tenures, see the case of Lewisham in Kent. On this manor in the reign of Henry VI. the rent of the tenants (tenure unspecified) was £8, 11s. 7d., 9 plougshares, and 6s. 2-1/2d. in the abbot's hand (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Roll 361). In 1621 it was £23, 1s. 6-1/2d. (R.O. _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipt_, vol. clxxiv., fol. 1?34). In the reign of James I. we have full details. The rent of the free tenants was £17, 12s. 10-1/2d.; that of the tenants at will 9d.; that of tenants "per dimissionem" (_i.e._ lease-holders) £72, 9s. 8-1/2d. (R.O. _Misc. Bks. Aug. Off._, vol. ccccxiv., f. 33?34). It is unfortunate that we are not told how the bulk of the tenants held at the two earlier dates. But is it unreasonable to say that they were probably customary tenants, and that the introduction of leases was followed by a great rise in rents?
[535] Survey of Town and Liberty of Holt, MS. transcript in Wrexham Free Library.
[536] _S. P. D._, ch. i. vol. cli., No. 38. (See Appendix I., No. iv.)
It is so easy to be intimidated by the fear of aggravating your misfortunes. When an agent frightens some tenants by telling them the unfavourable decision of the Court of Chancery as to the tenant right of the copyholders on a neighbouring estate, do they answer, as they should, that manorial customs vary, and that they will see what the Courts say about their own? No, they make "Humble suit that your lordship will be pleased to grant them leases for twenty-one years, and they will pay, in lieu of their fine, double rent for every farm."[537] Sometimes they live to repent their bargain. "I have persuaded one John Wilson of Over-Buston," writes a manorial official to the Earl of Northumberland, "to deliver me in his copy, and he is content to take a lease at double rent."[538] A strange chance has left us a letter, in which this very John Wilson, labouring horribly amid the intricacies of grammar, expounds through one long, broken-backed sentence, what balm such "contentment" brings. "To the Right Honourable the Earl of Northumberland, the humble petition of John Wilson, his wife and 8 poor children. Humbly complaining showeth ... your petitioner ... that whereas your said petitioner and his predecessors being ancient tenants to your honour, holding one tenement on ferme in Upper Bustone, by virtue of copyhold tenure out of the memory of man, which copies both of your said poor petitioners' great grandfather, his father's father, and his own father are yet extant to be seen: and now of late your said poor petitioner, being under age, helpless and none to do for him, and forced (God knows) by some of your honour's officers to take a lease and pay double and treble rent, in so much that your said poor petitioner, his wife, and 8 poor children is utterly now beggared and overthrown, unless your worthy good honour will be pleased to take a pitiful communication thereof, or otherwise your saide poore petitioner, his wife and poore children knows no other way but of force to give over your honour's land, by reason of the deare renting thereof, and so be constrained to go a-begging up and down the countrie."[539] Poor, patient, stiff-fingered John Wilson, so certain that he has not been treated fairly, so confident that his lordship cannot have meant him to be wronged, so easily circumvented by his lordship's brisk officials! He and his heavy kind are slow to move; but, once roused, they will not easily be persuaded to go back. It was such as he that, at one time or another in the sixteenth century, set half the English counties ablaze with the grievances of the tillers of the soil.