THE CROWN LAND PURCHASES

The sources for this account are the historical review by I. Gentles (Toronto) entitled "The Purchasers of Northamptonshire Crown Lands, 1649 - 1660" and S. Blake's transcription of the first Grafton Survey of 1727.

After the death of Roger Wake, the Act of 1541 declared that from the following year the Manor of Grafton (which, together with Hartwell, had been in Crown hands since 1527) should be erected into an honour and should have a number of other estates annexed to it. In Northamptonshire these included the hundreds of Wymersley and Hamfordshoe, the forests of Whittlewood and Salcey, and also Yardley Chase, as well as Whaddon Chase in Buckinghamshire. In addition all the king's lands in a long list of manors within roughly a ten-mile radius of Grafton were brought into the honor, including Hartwell, Ashton, Roade, Courteenhall, Alderton, Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Sewardsley, Blisworth, Milton Malsor, Tiffield, Paulerspury, Towcester, Easton Neston, Hulcote, Abthorpe, Foscote, Greens Norton, Blakesley, Eastcote, Astcote, Dalscote, Bugbrooke, Rothersthorpe, Collingtree, Hardingstone, Wootton, Quinton, Slapton, Deanshanger, Yardley Gobion, Potterspury, Furtho, Cosgrove, Castle Ashby, Wicken and Delapre in Northamptonshire, together with Luffield, Hanslope, Castlethorpe, Haversham, Shenley, Little Horwood, Snelshall and Little Linford in Buckinghamshire. Centred upon the Manor at Grafton Regis, this mass of land, crown land, was essentially a play and hunting park for Henry VIII and his courtiers.  Various detailed accounts of the history of the area exist on-line and this list is recommended for reading.

Soon after the execution of Charles I in January 1649 the government of the new republic, led by Cromwell, addressed itself to the problem of how to dispose of the extensive royal estates in England and Wales. Obvious candidates for the crown lands were the soldiers of parliament's victorious army whose pay was now heavily in arrears. There were also one or two courtiers, notably John Crane, who had loaned money to the crown.  Accordingly it was decided to issue them with debentures for their back pay or their loan and allow them to redeem the debentures with crown land. The Act for Sale of Crown Lands was passed on 16 July 1649, the lands were then quickly but accurately surveyed, and before the end of the same year the first sales had begun. By the time the last sale was completed the total value of the lands sold had reached £1,434,239, with the great bulk of the sales being concluded within three years of the passage of the Act. Northamptonshire was richly endowed with crown estates. Besides the royal forests of Rockingham, Whittlewood and Salcey, and the countless fee farm rents which were not touched by the 1649 Act, there was a vast array of manors, parks and lands whose sale value reached £103,788 whilst the sale of lands in the parish of Blisworth amounted to £3048 with John Crane as a major purchaser - see table below.  The moneys, of course, went to swell the parliamentary commonwealth coffers.  The upper half of the table below lists the purchasers along with the last part of the numerical index, E121/4/1/?, for the conveyance details held at PRO, Kew.

Note that the total area bought is estimated at 1600 acres out of the parish total of 1980 acres. The 1600 is arrived at by noting in Gentles paper that the average land cost was £1 .. 10 .. 0 per area and out of the total cost only £2400 was spent on land.

The soldiers were generally able to purchase the fine mansions and parks while most, if not all, lands in Blisworth were sold instead to either upwardly mobile people from originally peasant stock who were likely to be merchants or to yeoman farmers.  Only a minority of people were from the parish in which the purchase was made and this may have applied to Blisworth as well.  For Northamptonshire, 80% of purchasers were from outside the county.  Prior to 1649 the proportion of land that was still part of the communal ridge and furrow system was probably over 80%.  Sale of the land would immediately allow that system to be swept away and by the mid-1700s ridge and furrow was less than 60%.

New owners could do anything they liked with their land.  At Blisworth we have no idea how effective the new owners were at farming but there are a few clues: the Plowman brothers, one a yeoman from Milton Malsor the other a Blisworth yeoman, were farmers and they held the old manor estate which included the mill pond and the large "Youngs Pool".  Both were drained and in cultivation (grass?) by 1727 so it seems logical to suggest they were responsible for that improvement during their ownership.  We know virtually nothing, at present, of the other purchasers.  All of them except for Charles Brafield had left the parish by the 1700s and it seems likely they originally purchased the land speculatively and then sold parcels on to mostly farmers before the end of this interregnum.  An alternative is that an individual could have made a purchase as the chief representative of a corporation of yeoman farmers.  That would have been a natural reason for the purchaser's name to be quickly forgotten.  Close examination of the conveyance documents would be needed to clarify this.  One name continues in the main churchyard; the Tibbes family is represented on one old headstone (go to page 53 of the Church Notes).

Cromwell died in 1658 thus weakening the republican constitution. Charles II's restoration to the throne in 1660, invited back from exile by a newly formed royalistic parliament, signalled an abrupt halt to the experiment in land redistribution. In principle all the purchasers were kicked out and the crown lands returned to the King. However a petition was submitted by a large group of parliamentary soldiers who had switched, before 1660, their allegiance to General Monck, the architecture of the new parliament.  King Charles appears to have agreed to let many of them keep their estates as his tenants.  The Lordship of Grafton was taken back from Lord Monson and other purchasers, and together with the manors of Hartwell, Alderton, Blisworth, Stoke Bruern, Greens-Norton, Potterspury, Moorend and Ashton, settled in trust for Catherine of Braganza as part of her jointure.  Eventually that whole great estate was inherited by Charles's son, Henry, in 1705 when he became the Duke of Grafton.

The lower half of the table below lists the chief Blisworth tenants in 1727.  It is evident that only two family names carried through. In this part 1693 acres are accounted for with a significant area of common land, probably 300 acres under inclosure to at least 17 farmers. The 1727 survey maps that show the holding only accounts for about 840 acres of the 1237 acres in the accounts (see below) and it is supposed that the maps, which are drawn on a total of 4 sheets, should be complete with a missing fifth section corresponding to the south field and plain area of the parish.

The general upheaval, 1650 - 1705, might have worried some land owners and perhaps just before their land was taken back they quickly sold on to other farmers.  Some soldiers were stripped of their land and not given any option to rent.  Clearly, the Plowman family decided to purchase the manor  house from Thomas Tibbes, for on the header over its front door there is a datestone recalling W. E. Plowman dated 1702.  By 1727 the Duke of Grafton's survey clearly shows the Plowman family as tenants to a substantial parcel of land including the manor house (this is the house adjacent to the church on the site of a feudal 'seat' - not a farm house on the other side of the main street from the church, that being a common misconception).  It seems likely that the Plowmans improved that house which they retained until 1779 when, as farmers, they sold up and occupied a small cottage instead.  From c1640 to 1779 the fortunes of the Plowmans had gone through an amazing trajectory.  By 1800, the Brafields had also left the parish.

Throughout the interregnum and well into the 1700s the total land in tenanted cultivation was about 1700 acres which left another 1000 acres, at least, as ridge and furrow land and waste land and woods.  The inclosure of the ridge and furrow land continued with quickening pace, as did the clearance of waste and woods, until around 1845 when the process was near completed.  In 1718 the parsons report to Bridge's historical survey, that some small part of the parish was inclosed, was a lie - perhaps the surveyor was treated with considerable suspicion.

A notable fact about land valuation is that, during the sell off in the 1640s by pseudo-socialists, the land was available at typically £1. 8. 0. per acre.  When Grafton set his rents, in a return to capitalism in the 1720s (the rate being typically £1. 16. 0. per acre per year) land was evidently valued at more like £36 per acre.  The social impact of this massive inflation along with a new awareness of land values and the wealth of just a few villagers must have been staggering on the peasantry.  The divisiveness of the fact that "ordinary people" in the 1650s could own dozens of acres of land must have torn village customs apart.  Maybe some of the deals were geared with the help of bankers, making this an early example of 'private equity'.

Ownership of most land and property in Blisworth Parish was with the Duke of Grafton until the estate sale in 1919 brought on by debt due to death duties.