Tenants v lord. The peasants are revolting!
Whenever a lord of the manor fell out with his tenants, there was usually one winner. But while I couldn’t resist the old joke line about peasants, those tenants weren’t always downtrodden, illiterate yokels.
As the Hudlestons of Hutton John were to discover in the late 1600s and again in 1716 and 1738.
(My sources are largely documents in Carlisle Archives).
Customary tenants
First, a little background.
If you were a freeholder, you held your land ‘for ever’ and didn’t have to abide by the customs of the manor
If you were a customary tenant, you could sell or hand on your property as you wished. BUT you had to pay a entry fine when you took over land, and a general fine if the lord of the manor died and a new one took over. And you might also be subject to other conditions set by the lord of the manor.
The gressom. As stated, this was usually a general fine paid by all customary tenants when one lord died and his heir took over.
But at Hutton John, things were different.
Tenants had to pay a ‘running fine’ every seven years, equivalent to two years’ rent.
And the tenants thought that was quite enough, thank you, and meant they shouldn’t be expected to pay a general fine on top. Ever.
Boons and greenhew
It wasn’t ‘just’ the general fine the tenants took exception to down the centuries.
They were expected to provide boon services: a day’s ploughing, or shearing, done for free for the lord of the manor.
And then there was the greenhew: a tenant’s payment for the right to cut greenery, sometimes as fodder for his animals.
Which the tenants sometimes outright refused to pay.
1632 The first revolt
According to this website, based on a book written in 1909, in the late 1620s, Joseph Hudleston wanted the tenants of Hutton John to pay a general fine.
The tenants weren’t having any of it, and in 1632, Joseph took the matter to court. The tenants responded with a petition to King Charles I. And then the Civil War kept them all busy until 1651.
Cutting a complex story short: in 1668, Sir George Fletcher made a ruling. The general fine was NOT payable on the death of a lord. Other matters, such as boons and services, were dealt with. The tenants all agreed to his findings. And several of the tenants were paid damages by the lord for false imprisonment.
Peace, for five minutes
It lasted just four years. In 1672, Andrew Hudleston succeeded his father (also Andrew) and demanded the general fine and services, contrary to the award.
The Carlisle Archives documents
The first I found, date-wise, outline the grievances leading to the 1668 ruling. They say that 28 tenants, ‘for themselves and all other tenants’
‘exhibited a bill of complaint in the High Court of Chancery against Andrew Hudleston and his sons Andrew, Wilfrid, William, Richard and Lawson’
Their complaint being that Andrew Hudleston was claiming the general fine and services,
‘and endeavouring to restrain the tenants from cutting wood growing on their tenements, although it was a right and privilege their ancestors had always enjoyed.’
It also names the men wrongly imprisoned: Edward Ra—tray, John Todhunter, Lancelot Rookin and William Todhunter. And says they were each awarded £3 damages.
There were pages and pages of this. Including the information that a Thomas Atkinson (for one) ended up on the pillory at Carlisle, and that he was: ‘a poor, illiterate man’.
The website I’ve linked to says:
‘Although the struggle lasted until the year 1716, the climax was reached in 1704.’
Well possibly correct in essence. But…
1716
The archives documents include one dated 1716, in which:
John Sandwick, son of John Sandwick deceased, for themselves and others, took a case to Chancery against Andrew Hudleston and sons (and also against a bunch of other people)
And the Hudlestons answered, with several pages of legal waffle in the folder.
Fast forward to 1738
The struggle may have ended in 1716, but it wasn’t the last.
On October 16, 1738, some 22 named tenants have refused to pay greenhew. Which seems to have related to bracken.
Some simply refuse. Others add that they ‘think it is not due’. While one says if others have paid it, they were wrong.
1756
In June 1756, Andrew Hudleston wrote a letter starting: “Revd Sir’.
It seems the tenants had paid their ‘service money’ but not the (unnamed) vicar. And Andrew was worried this could lead to:
‘many ill consequences with respect to my other customary tenants’.
With regret, Hudleston was going to see ‘justice in a due course of law’.
‘I am sorry a gentleman of your cloth should compel me to this method for so trifling a matter, but I cannot help it unless I should give up most of the others dues of my manor..’
1759
In February 1759, Mr Hudleston was assuring that he:
‘never had nor intended to impeach the report of Baron Trevor the award of Sir Geo Fletcher or the Decree made for the establishment thereof, but was willing to comply with all matters thereby expressly settled and determined and onlly contreverted such matters as had been payd and performed and the Decree did not as he apprehended extend to or determine.’
That is, he was only concerned with matters outside the scope of of the 1668 deal. He pressed the tenants for an answer, preferably within the week.
That same evening, a William Pollock put his proposals to a bunch of tenants in a pub in Penruddock. Some asked for a copy, but ‘all were silent’ when asked for a reply.
Their actual response seems to have been another legal Bill in Chancery. And in 1760, they were asking for Andrew Hudleston senior and junior to produce or supply all their deeds of mortgages – presumably to check the terms and conditions in them for themselves.
There’s a list of 44 names and ‘licensed at’ dates after.
Enclosing waste grounds
Jump ahead to 1776 and Andrew Hudleston is trying to resolve the enclosure of 4,000 acres or so at Hutton Moor.
The tenants seem to have used this to finally free themselves of boon services and gressoms…
1782
1782 upon inclosure of infranchisements
‘We being tenants or agents of tenants to propose to enfranchise our estates in the following manor, viz:
- three fines to purchase all fines free
- three gressoms to purchase all gressoms free
- Two pounds for each heriot to purchase all heriots free (kind of death duty)
- Twenty years purchased for all the services and moulter rent, the plows of each tenement to be averaged back for ten years in order to have the price fixed. Hens to be sorted at 4d each and each cart and load of peats to be set at 6d.
- Two shillings and sixpence to purchase very ancient tenement free from uncertain services.’