Edward Hall’s Chronicle [1] records how in the year 1513:
… the inhabitants of the towns about London, as Iseldon [Islington], Hoxton, Shoreditch, and others, had so enclosed the common fields with hedges and ditches, that neither the young men of the city might shoot, nor the ancient persons walk for their pleasures in those fields, but that either their bows and arrows were taken away or broken, or the honest persons arrested or indicted; saying 'that no Londoner ought to go out of the city, but in the highways.'
This saying so grieved the Londoners, that suddenly this year a great number of the city assembled themselves in a morning, and a turner in a fool's coat, came crying through the city, 'Shovels and spades! Shovels and spades!' So many of the people followed that it was a wonder to behold. And within a short space, all the hedges about the city were cast down, and the ditches filled up, and everything made plain, such was the diligence of these workmen.
The King heard about this and demanded an explanation.The authorities complained of the ‘injury and annoying’ done by the protesters to the landowners, but King’s council after some deliberation decided not to take action, ‘after which time these fields were never hedged’.
[1]Edward Hall, The Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York, 1542.
