The story of the attempted enclosures at Welcombe at the beginning of the seventeenth century has always been considered chiefly of interest because Shakespeare’s name was associated with it. But the incidents are of great importance in the history of Stratford-on-Avon and its relation to William Combe, entirely apart from the interest Shakespeare gives to the proceedings, The facts are worth recalling in relation to the great fires, which I discussed in this paper lately under the title of “Fires and Thatch at Stratford-on-Avon.” Just about the time of the disastrous fire of 9th July 1614, John Combe, the money-lender, died. After various charitable bequests, in his will dated 28th January 1612-13, he desires to be buried in the church near his mother, and a convenient tomb to be set over him of the value of threescore pounds. He leaves his brother George Combe the land “called Parson’s Close, or Shakespeare’s Close” in Hampton; to his brother John Combe his property in Warwick; residuary legatees were William and Thomas Combe his nephews (proved 10th November 1616). Hardly had they inherited (before even they had proved their uncle’s will), William took it into his head to enclose the Common Fields of Welcombe, over most of which he was chief landlord. We can find a good many details of the proceedings, preserved in the crabbed characters in which Thomas Greene made his memoranda, in a few leaves which have been called “His Diary,” now among the Stratford Records. This shows that Shakespeare went up to London on 16th November, and next day Thomas Greene, then staying in London, “went to see him how he did.” They were both full of “the enclosures,” and Shakespeare told Greene the latest news of the plan and the schemes, adding that “he thought nothing would be done.” That very night, however, Greene drew up the petition of the town, and “gave it to Edmund to write fair, so that Greene and Mr. Wyatt might see it before it was wrytten to be presented to the Lordes,” that is, the Lords of the Privy Council. On the 22nd Greene records that he heard that Lord Carew meant to oppose the enclosing all he might, and Mr. Mainwaring said if he did not do it well he cared not to do it at all. This “Lord Carew” is he who married Joyce Clopton, and whose tomb is in the church at Stratford. Thomas Greene was Town Clerk, and he notes on 5th December that six of the company (himself among them) were to “go to Mr. Combe, and present their loves, and desire he would be pleased to forbeare the enclosing.” They went on the 9th, and were not satisfied with the results. William Combe said he would be glad of their loves, but the enclosure would not be hurtful to the town; indeed, there would be some profit in it. Thomas Combe said “they were all curres,” and spoke of “spitting one of the dogs.”

Mr. Spenser said the Lord Chancellor was their friend, and Sir Fulke Greville advised them on a precedent. But William Combe went on determinedly. “The Miscellaneous Documents” and reports of the Council meetings at the Hall give details of his actions. Thomas Greene says in his Diary on the 23rd December 1614, that at the Hall that day the company had written through him to Mr. Mainwaring and Mr. Shakespeare (and he himself wrote a private letter “to his cosen Shakespeare”) to prove the “inconvenience” of the proposed enclosure. Neither of the letters to Shakespeare has been preserved, but that to Mainwaring has, and from it we may have some notion of the arguments of the other. (Wheler MS., i, 109.) This Mr. Mainwaring was the steward and agent of the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who seems to have had some interest in local affairs, and who in the earlier stages at least seems to have co-operated with William Combe. It was addressed “To the Worshipfull Arthur Mainwaring, Esq., at the Rt. Hon. the Lord Chancellor his howse.” The Bailiff and the company showed him that by the Charter of Edward VI the tithes were allowed them for the support of the almshouses, the school, and the bridge. “We hear that some land is conveyed to you in Welcombe, and that you intend enclosure. We entreat you to call to mind the manifold great and often miseries this Borough hath sustained by casualties of fires fresh in memory, and now of late one dying in the ashes of desolacion, and in your Christian meditations to bethink you that such inclosure will tend to the great disabling of performance of those good meanings of that godly king, to the ruyne of this Borough wherein live above seven hundred poor which receive almes, whose curses and clamours will be poured out to God against the enterprise of such a thing.” That was the way the Corporation looked at the enclosure. They “could not fulfil their trust to do the best possible for the town” without opposing it tooth and nail. And Thomas Greene could not fulfil his duty to the Corporation without working along with them, and we may be sure that his letter to Shakespeare was strong enough to convince the poet also. The Christmas of 1614 was a gloomy one for Stratford, with the ruins of blackened houses lying around, the poor calling for shelter and food, and the great dread of this new disaster looming all the more largely before them because of the general depression. The year 1615 saw a pitched battle. The aldermen took what legal action they could in their own right; they filed their “complaints” in many courts; they were driven into unnecessary expenses of various kinds; they sent Thomas Greene often to Warwick and to London; and all because of William Combe’s unsettling whim. He had sent his own servants and employed others, Stephen Sly among them, to dig ditches round the land he wished to enclose, and Thomas Greene writes that on 7th January “William Combe had told Baylis that some of the better sort meant to go and throw down the ditches, and said ‘I would they durst’ in a threatening manner with very great passion and anger.” Two days after some of the Corporation did, indeed, send on their spades to avoid a riot, and they went themselves and filled in the ditches. They were personally injured by Combe’s servants. William Combe said, “They were a company of factious knaves, and he will do them all the harm he can,” and added, “they were puritan knaves, and underlings in their colour.” Next day Mr. Archer was appealed to as a justice of the peace and a commoner to prevent a breach of the peace. He proposed for the preventing of tumults that there should be a stay of proceedings; that no further ditching or ploughing should be done till the 24th March, and no further ditches to be thrown down before that date. (While they were discussing these matters, however, the remainder of the ditches were being filled in by women and children.) On the 11th of January 1614-15 they took an attorney’s opinion as to what constituted a riot; and on the 12th Mr. Replingham came to the Hall, hoping to talk the company over. The Bailiff said he would never agree to the enclosures as long as he lived. Then Mr. Replingham wanted him to bind some of the inhabitants over to good behaviour. Thomas Greene said he would not bind them for all his clerk’s fees. On the 16th Mr. Combe went to London to push his cause as he might. He then rated the value of the enclosure at £250 per annum. On the 25th of January Mr. Chandler and Mr. Daniel Baker went to London to take advice on their side. A lull seemed to come into the proceedings, probably because of Mr. Archer’s decision above noted. On the 24th of February they resolved to take Sir Edward Coke’s opinion. On the 22nd of March Mr. Chandler for the Corporation did present a petition to the Lord Chief Justice at Coventry, and Mr. Combe called him a knave and a liar to his face. The Lord Chief Justice bade Chandler remind him of the case when he came to Warwick on the 27th. There he definitely said that it was against the laws of the realm and must be stopped. Thomas Greene says in his Diary, 1st April 1615: “Mr. Baker told me at his shop-house that the day before he was in Sir William Somerville’s and Mr. Combe’s company a-hunting in Awston fields, and Mr. Combe told him he might thank me for the petition, and offered to sell him lands to the amount of £50 per annum lying in Bridgetown among the Lord Carew’s land there, and that he never meant to inclose.” On the 2nd of April Mr. Combe asked Mr. Alderman Parsons why he was against the enclosures, and he said, “We are all sworn men for the good of the Borough and to preserve their inheritance, therefore they would not have it said in future time they were the men which gave way to the undoing of the town; and that all three fires were not so great a loss to the town as the enclosures would be.” On the 12th of April Mr. Parsons reported that he had been beaten by Mr. Combe’s men.

On the 19th April Laurence Wheeler and Lewis Hiccox started ploughing on their own land within the intended enclosure, and Mr. Combe railed at them; but the next day they returned, and Mr. Nash and many other tenants did the same, and Mr. Combe became still more wrathful. Mr. Combe’s next move was to try to get Sir Edward Greville and Sir Arthur Ingram to sell him the royalty of the town; but Sir Henry Rainsford told Greene he would never get that, and added that he was going to sue Mr. Combe on his own account in an action for trespass, and would sue him in the Star Chamber for riots, and he was going to sue Thomas Combe on a bond for £40, and so the bitterness spread. September saw fresh quarrels with Mr. Combe. On 14th December Greene notes, “Mr. Francis Smith told me that Mr. Thomas Combe told him that his brother would plow this year for his own good, but next year would lay it down to spite me. The Combes questioned my Lord Chief Justice’s authority to make any such order as was made, there being nothing before him.” And again there was another Christmas clouded by threatened enclosures, Shakespeare’s last Christmas upon earth.

On 21st February 1615-16, the Corporation agreed that the enclosure should be “made a Town Cause,” and the charges defrayed out of the revenue, for the battle was becoming fiercer than ever. Their opponent, Mr. William Combe, had been made High Sheriff of the county, the very officer delegated by the Crown to prevent riots, etc., which he was really rousing. Mr. Baker on the 24th told him and his brother “at the Bridge end towards the woodyard that he marvelled they would, contrary to my Lord’s order, enclose and dig in the Common. They said they hoped my Lord would not hinder them from doing what they would with their own, and Mr. William Combe said the ditch was made to save his corn.” The Combes retorted on Mr. Baker that “the Corporation had given money to my lord’s gentleman to work my lord, i.e., Sir Edward Coke, and that was no good employment for the Town revenue!” In Mr. Sheriff’s absence Mr. Thomas Combe set some workmen to work, and when the Sheriff came home he approved of it, and promised the workmen they should come to no harm. On the 1st of March some members of the Council went to inspect and found workmen “finishing twenty-seven ridges of the enclosure, acre’s length a-piece.” “Mr. Sheriff told Morrell that if he were not out of authority he would send him to gaol, and having divers times impounded his sheep, bade him tell my Lord Coke that for every several trespass he would have a several action, and for every sixpence damage he would recover against him six pounds.”

On the 2nd of March 1615-16, Mr. Chandler having sent his man Michael Ward to the place where Combe’s men were digging to fling down the ditches, they assaulted him, and would not let him proceed, and Stephen Sly said that “if the best in Stratford were to go there to throw the ditch down he would bury his head at the bottom.”

No wonder that in the petition of the 27th of March 1616, the Corporation stated, “Mr. Combe being of such an unbridled disposition he should be restrained.” In that Lent term at the Assize Court my Lord Coke delivered his final decision, and told Combe to set his mind at rest, for he would “neither enclose nor lay down any arable land, nor plough up any ancient greensward.” The Corporation told Mr. Combe that they desired his goodwill, but they would ever withstand the enclosure: and on the 10th of April Mr. High Sheriff told Mr. John Greene that he was out of hope now ever to enclose.

So Shakespeare sank to rest that month with the belief that the struggle was over, and there would be no enclosure in Welcombe. But it was not over yet by a long way. Mr. William Combe made up his mind to defy the Lord Chief Justice as well as the Corporation. He moved gently now, however. On the 24th of June 1616, he wrote to the Corporation from Abchurch, desiring their loves, and showing how he would remedy all their objections, a long letter still among the records. They replied that they were desirous of his love and of peace, but they prayed him against the enclosure, and said they would by all lawful means hinder it. The miscellaneous documents of Stratford-on-Avon show that the Bailiff and Burgesses of Stratford also complained to the Court of Common Pleas against William Combe for enclosing. Their notes show “The points to be complayned of and contayned in our petition are that Mr. Combe hath not laid down meres according to my Lord Hobart’s order, and the certificates of the justices upon the reference. And that he hath decayed 117 ridges of tilling and neglecting the farming thereof contrary to the order and contrary to his own word and promise made to the judges and justices at the tyme of their conference. My Lord Coke at Lent Assizes 13 James I, and my Lord Hobart confirmed this assize. The grief for decaying is the destruction of our common, and the decaying of the tilling is the losse of our tythes with which our poor are free.” They also presented “My Lord Coke and my Lord Hubbard their orders for the restraint of enclosier and decay of tillage in the feeldes of Stratford, 1617.”

But the struggle continued during 1618, though more warily on Combe’s side. The Privy Council had become interested. It had dawned on them that they had had to excuse the subsidies from Stratford more than once on account of the fires, and if it happened, as a petition from the Corporation suggested, they might have to excuse them again on account of Combe’s enclosure. On the 14th of February 1618 the Privy Council referred the consideration of the Stratford petition to the Master of the Rolls and Sir Edward Coke, and wrote officially to William Combe in a very sharp way. He was to restore the enclosures to their pristine condition, and whatever the judges decided to do with him in regard to the course he had taken in defiance of the order of the justices in assize and the certificate of Sir Richard Verney he must not fail to obey, or he would answer it at his peril.

Apparently Combe was at last alarmed, and gave in, not too soon, for decisions had gone against him in every court, and orders were out against him for “contempt of court” also. Influence saved him from some of the consequences. In the Stratford Miscellaneous Documents there is one called “Dispensation to William Combe for enclosing,” or “Mr. Combe, his pardon for enclosing.” But he had to pay a fine of £4 for that, and to go to all the expense of putting the land back as the people were used to see it. By the summer of 1619 Stratford-on-Avon and its Corporation were at rest as to Combe’s enclosure.

I have found that the final award for the Stratford enclosures, under the Act of Parliament for enclosures, 15 George III, was signed 21st January 1775. They amounted to 1,635 acres, 1 rood, 18 perches.

“Stratford-on-Avon Herald,” 23rd August 1912.