wever, there seems no reason to doubt that the enclosure
of this period was but a faint beginning of that great outburst of it
that marked the agrarian revolution of the middle of the eighteenth
century, and that it was mainly confined to the Midland counties, Mr.
Johnson, in his recent Ford Lectures, has stated that the enclosure of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was not accompanied by very
much direct eviction of freeholders or bona fide copyholders of
inheritance; yet the small holder suffered in many ways, e.g. by the
lord disproving the hereditary character of the copyhold, or by
changing copyholds of inheritance into copyholds for lives or leases
for lives or years. He and his successors could then refuse to renew
at the termination of lives or years except on payment of a
practically prohibitory fine. In short, though there was not much
violation of legal right there was much injustice, and enclosure,
though its effects were exaggerated at this period, certainly tended
to displace the small landholder. It does not appear, however, that
the moderate-sized proprietors were seriously affected. Many of the
larger freeholders and copyholders on manors enclosed on their own
account, and perhaps increased at the expense of the very large and
the very small. Indeed, the decrease of small landowners was chiefly
due to political and social causes. The old self-sufficing,
agricultural economy of England, which we have seen beginning to break
up in the fourteenth century, was becoming thoroughly disintegrated.
The capitalist class was increasing; the successful merchant and
lawyer were acquiring land and becoming squires; there was an intense
land hunger. Simon Degge, wilting of Staffordshire in 1669, says that
in the previous sixty years half the lands had changed owners, not so
much as of old they were wont to do, by marriage, but by purchase; and
he notices how many lawyers and tradesmen have supplanted the
gentry.[278]

In fact, there was a much freer disposal of lands from the end of the
fifteenth century, when the famous Taltarum's case enabled entailed
estates to be barred, until the Restoration, than there has been
before or since. For these two hundred years the courts of law and
parliament resisted every effort to re-establish the system of
entails; the owners of land constantly multiplied, and this tendency
must have counteracted the displacement of the small holder by
enclosure. Sir Thomas Smith, writin