Editing English Civil War (section)

==Popular gains==
Ordinary people took advantage of the dislocation of civil society in the 1640s to gain personal advantages. The contemporary guild democracy movement won its greatest successes among London's transport workers.The old ''status quo'' began a retrenchment after the end of the First Civil War in 1646, and more especially after the Restoration in 1660, but some gains were long-term. The democratic element introduced into the watermen's company in 1642, for example, survived with vicissitudes until 1827.<ref>{{Harvnb|Lindley|1997|p=160}}.</ref> 

Parliament adopted a policy of confiscating ("sequestrating") the estates of “delinquents” (active Royalists) in 1643, a policy carried out by local committees.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Braddick |first=Michael |title=God's Fury, England's Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars |date=Feb 2018 |publisher=Penguin UK |isbn=9780141926513 |location=London |pages=366}}</ref> Rural communities seized timber and other resources on the sequestrated estates of Royalists and Catholics, and on the estates of the royal family and church hierarchy. Some communities improved their conditions of tenure on such estates.{{Sfn|O'Riordan|1993|pp=184–200}}