The idea of traditional order is misleading

This is where the idea of a 'traditional' order is most effectively misleading. For there is no innocence in the established proprietors, at any particular point in time, unless we ourselves choose to put it there. Very few titles of property could bear humane investigation, in the long process of conquest, theft, political intrigue, courtiership, extortion and the power of money. It is a deep and persistent illusion to suppose that time confers on these familiar processes of acquisition an innocence which can be contrasted with the ruthlessness of subsequent stages of the same essential drives.

Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (Oxford University Press, 1975) p. 50