Note 445 — Chapter II · THE REACTION OF THE AGRARIAN CHANGES ON THE PEASANTRY

Northumberland County History, vol. ix. p. 124. For a similar case of evictions by Delavale, showing how they were carried out, ibid., pp. 201–202: “There was in Seaton Delavale township 12 tenements, whereon there dwelt 12 able men sufficiently furnished with horse and furniture to serve his Majestie ... who paid 46s. 8d. rent yearlie a piece or thereabouts. All the said tenants and their successors saving 5 the said Robert Delavale eyther thrust out of their fermholds or weried them by taking excessive fines, increasing of their rents unto £3 a piece, and withdrawing part of their best land and meadow from their tenements ... by taking their good land from them and compelling them to winne moorishe and heathe ground, and after their hedging heth ground to their great charge, and paying a great fine, and bestowing great reparation on building their tenements, he quite thrust them off in one yeare, refusing either to repay the fine or to repay the charge bestowed in diking or building.... The said seven fermholds displaced had to every one of them 60 acres of arable land, viz. 20 in every field at the least, as the tenants affirme, which amounteth to 480 acres of land yearlie or thereabouts, converted for the most part from tillage to pasture, and united to the demaine of the lordship of Seaton Delavale.”