In 1215 Middlesex was ravaged by King John's army. In the Civil War Middlesex supported parliament. Sir Denzil Hollis was defeated by the Royalists at Brentford in 1642, and in 1645 a fruitless treaty between Charles I. and the parliament was con cluded at Uxbridge.
The woollen and leather industries flourished in Middlesex in Norman times ; hides were tanned at Enfield, bricks were manu factured, and Heston was noted for its wheat. Paper was manu factured in the 17th century.
The soil is not particularly suitable for agriculture and the acreage cultivated, as well as the number of livestock, has decreased rapidly as London has ex panded, incorporating villages and covering the land with build ings. The most important cultivation is that of market gardens on the rich alluvium in the Thames valley. The county possesses a number of varied industries which depend for their prosperity on their proximity to the metropolis and on the railway lines, the spread of industries along which is a very marked feature of industrial change for the period after 1918.
The county is closely intersected with railways, the following companies affording communications: L.N.E.R., L.M.S.R., S.R., G.W.R., Metropolitan and District. Moreover, in some parts the tramway system has been extended over a wide area from London. The principal canals are the Grand Junction, running west from Brentford to the Colne valley, and thence northward; with a branch (the Paddington canal) con necting it with the Regent's canal in London; and, in the east, the Lea navigation.
The part of the ancient county transferred to the county of London under the Local Government Act of 1888 was 31,484 ac. in extent, and 771 were then transferred to Hertfordshire; while under the London Government Act of 1899 the southern part of Hornsey was transferred to London. Area of administrative county 148,691 ac., pop. (1931) 1,638,521. The municipal boroughs are Acton, Ealing, Hornsey, Twickenham. The county is within the Metropolitan Police district and within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court. There is one court of quarter sessions held at the Middlesex Guildhall, West minster, but no county town. The extra-Metropolitan parlia mentary divisions, each returning one member, are Acton, Brent ford and Chiswick, Enfield, Finchley, Harrow, Hendon, Spel thorne, Twickenham, Uxbridge and Wood Green. The parl. boroughs are Ealing, Edmonton, Hornsey, Tottenham and Willes den; the first three return one member, the last two, two members to parliament.
See John Norden, Speculum Britanniae: the firste parte, an his toricall and chorographicall description of Middlesex (London 1593: reprinted 1637 and 1723) ; Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London (i792-96) ; Victoria County History, Middlesex.