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The landowners, cut off from the increasingly commercial power of London, cultivated the huntin’-shootin’-and-fishin’ country life, secure in their miniature sovereignty. They were better off now than before, thanks to new legislation permitting them to entail their estates to their eldest sons before death. This ensured continuity of ownership.

Continuing the feudal practice of primogeniture, legislation passed after the middle of the seventeenth century also forbade the entry of eldest sons into trade or the professions, leaving such pursuits open to the younger members of the family. Ownership of land was therefore absolute, single and permanent, free from arbitrary death duties even if the heir was under age and a ward of court. The great value of this new law was to make it possible for landowners to survive temporary periods of financial difficulty by borrowing against the long-term value of the land without having to sell all or part of their estates. Their hold on the land was consolidated.

Moreover, in the wake of the Cromwellian republic, when over seven million pounds’ worth of land had been appropriated and given to the lower orders, large numbers of lesser landowners had disappeared. Those who retrieved their lands after the Restoration made up for their losses by finding ways of making the land more profitable. One way to do this was to enclose common land and fence the rest.

The benefits of enclosure were obvious. Fencing permitted controlled experimentation on improving yields of both crops and animals, as well as helping to limit the spread of disease by wandering animals. As one agronomist, Adolphus Speed, said in 1653: ‘England affords land enough for the inhabitants, and if men did but industriously and skillfully manure it we need not go to Jamaica for new plantations.rsquo;

The loss of rights by the poor, who had previously looked to the common heathland for the rabbits they could catch there or for grazing their sheep and cows, was justified by the landowners in the belief that common land kept men out of gainful employ. As the saying went, ‘There are fewest poor where there are fewest commons.’ Limiting the amount of common land would encourage more labourers to work for wages. This, it was thought, would ultimately improve their condition. Besides, it was reckoned towards the end of the seventeenth century that enclosure put the value of improved land up by as much as three times.

Ninety-five per cent of the wealth of England in 1743 was owned by two per cent of the population: gentry such as these, gathered for the kill at a hunt in Ashdown Park.

The new shape of the countryside which emerged at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The open commons have given way to fields enclosed by hedgerows and divided between arable and livestock

Of course not all landowners set these events in motion themselves. In most cases the great magnates leased their lands or sold them to efficient, money-conscious tenants. The tenants were, in the main, merchants, professionals and businessmen who wanted to buy their way into the upper classes. The new legislation made that easier too. At the end of the seventeenth century there ceased to be a high court of chivalry and there was no longer a crime called ‘offence against a magnate’. The right to a coat of arms was now conferred by social consent. Many younger sons were in trade.

Patronage was rife. Edward Gibbon expressed the general approval of the system: standing for Parliament, he claimed, enabled one ‘to acquire a title the most glorious in a free country and to employ the weight and consideration it use. gives in the service of one’s friends.’ The country agreed. ‘Friends’ included relatives, members of staff, helpers and associates, villagers and tenants, as well as persons of esteem. Sons of poorer men were often educated by their father’s patron, poets received sinecures, chaplains entered benefices and secretaries