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The revolutionary rise of popular sovereignty
society. More and more of the country’s common pastures were enclosed into private landholdings. These enclosures hurt the smaller free-holding farmers, who depended on the commons to feed their animals; but they consolidated the economic and political base of a narrow landholding elite from which most government officials were recruited. England’s wealthy landowners dominated Parliament, passed enclosure acts and conducted foreign policies which suited their interests. Unlike the nobility on the Continent, they did not depend upon the Crown for wealth or influence, and