[2] Lawrence Stone, in a 1948 article,[3] made an effort to use statistical data and methods to prove Tawney's thesis.
However, Stone's argument was marred by methodological mistakes, and he came under heavy attack from Hugh Trevor-Roper and others.
[4] Trevor-Roper argued that the gentry was declining and so tried to improve its fortune through the law or the court office.
Christopher Thompson, for example, showed that the peerage's real income was higher in 1602 than in 1534 and grew substantially by 1641.
[5] In 1961 American scholar JH Hexter developed a quite widely accepted view that largely ended the debate by saying neither a rise nor a decline of the gentry could explain the Civil War; he claimed that such theories could explain only a “deliberate revolution”, which did not take place.