and prices of Barley and what they made it with and confirmed by Inspeximus of the Ordinances of divers Kings of England the Kings Progenitors which set the assise of Bread and Ale and the making of measures and howsoever stiled a Statute appears not to have been an Act of Parliament but an Exemplification only made of those Ordinances and Orders by King Henry the third at the request of the Bakers of Coventry mentioning that by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Reign he had granted that all good Statutes and Ordinances made in the times of his Progenitors aforesaid and not revoked should be still holden in which the rates and assise of bread are said to have been approved by the Kings Bakers and contained in a Writing of the Marshalsey of the Kings House where the Chief Justice and other Ministers of Justice then resided and by an Ordinance or Statute made in the same year for the punishment of the offending Bakers by the Pillory and the Brewers by the Tumbrel or some other correction The Bayliffs were to enquire of the price of Wheat Barley and Oats at the Markets and after how the Bakers bread in the Court did agree that is to wit waistel which name a sort of bread of the Court or Kings House doth yet retain and other bread after Wheat of the best of the second or of the third price also upon how much increase or decrease in the price of wheat a Baker ought to change the assize and weight of his bread and how much the wastel of a farthing ought to weigh and all other manner of bread after the price of a quarter of Wheat which shewes that the Tryal Test Assay or Assize of the true weight of bread to be sold in all the Kingdome was to be by the Kings Baker of his House or Court and that there was the Rule or Standard and that the prices should increase or decrease after the rate of six pence And Fleta an Author planè incognitus as to his name saith Mr. Selden altogether unknown who writ about the later end of the Reign of King Ed. 1. tells us that amongst the Capitula coronae itineris the Articles in the Eyre concerning the Pleas of the Crown which were not then novel or of any late institution enquiries were made de vinorum contra rectam assisam venditoribus de mensuris item de Forstallariis victualibus â—â—nalibus mercatum obviâ—ntibus per quod carior sit inde venditio de non virtuosis cibariis of wine sold contrary to the assize of Measures and Forestallers of the Market to make victualls dearer and of such as sold corrupt food or victuals An. 31 Ed. 1. it was found by inquisition that Bakers and Brewers and others buying their corn at Queen-Hithe were to pay for measuring portage and carriage for every quarter of corn whatsoever from thence to Westcheap St. Anthonies Church Horshoo Bridge to Wolsey street in the Parish of Alhallowes the less and such like distances one ob q to Fleetstreet Newgate Cripplegate Birchoners Lane East-cheap and Billingsgate one penny 17 Ed. 2. By command of the King by his Letters Patents a Decree was made by Hamond Chicwel Maior That none should sel Fish or Flesh out of the Markets appointed to wit Bridge-streat East-cheap Old-Fishstreet St. Michaels Shambles and the Stocks upon pain to forfeit such Fish or Flesh as were sold for the first time and for the second offence to lose their Freedome And so inherent in Monarchy and the royall Praerogative was the power and ordering of the Markets and the rates of provision of victuals and communicable by grant or allowance to the inferior Magistrates as the King who alwayes reserves to himself the supreme power and authority in case of male administration of his delegated power or necessity for the good and benefit of the publick is not thereby denuded or disabled to resort unto that soveraign and just authority which was alwayes his own and Jure coronae doth by right of his Crown and Regal Government belong unto him as may appear by the forfeiture and seising of Liberties and Franchises and many other the like instances to be found every age And therefore 41 King E. 3. without an Act of Parliament certain Impositions were set upon Ships other Vessels coming thither with Corn Salt and other things towards the charge of cleansing Romeland And 3 Ed. 4. the Market of Queen Hithe being hindred by the slackness of drawing up London Bridge it was ordered that all manner of Vessels Ships or Boats great or small resorting to the City with victuals should be sold by retail and that if there came but one Vessel at a time were it Salt Wheat Rye or other Corn from beyond the Seas or other Grains Garlick Onions Herrings Sprats Eels Whitings Place Codds Mackarel c. it should come to Queen-Hithe and there make sale but if two Vessels came the one should come to Queen-Hithe the other to Billingsgate if three two of them should come to Queen-Hithe and if the Vessels coming with Salt from the Bay were so great as it could not come to these Keyes then the same to be conveyed to the Port by Lighters Queen Elizabeth by advice and order of her Privy Councell in a time of dearth and scarcity of corn commanded the Justices of Peace in every County to enforce men to bring their Corn to the Markets limited them what proportions to sell to particular persons and ordered them to cause reasonable prices and punish the Refusers And the like or more hath been legally done by the Kings authority in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr in the beginning of whose Reign by the advice of all the Judges of England and the eminently learned Mr. Noy the then Attorny Generall rates and prices were set by the Kings Edict and Proclamation upon Flesh Fish Poultry and most sort of victuals Hay Oats c. commanded to be observed All which reasonable laws constitutions customes were made confirm'd continued by our Kings of England by the advice sometimes of their lesser and at other times of their greater Councels the later whereof were in those early dayes composed of Bishops Earles and Barons and great and wise men of the Kingdome not by the Commons or universall consent and representation of the people by their Knights of the Shires or Burgesses sent as their Procurators ad faciendum consentiendum to consent unto those Acts of Parliament which should be made and ordained by the King and the Barons and Peers of England for they were neither summoned for that purpose nor represented in Parliament untill Anno 49 H. 3. and in Anno 26 or 31 Ed. 1. were called thither only ad faciendum quod de communi consilio per Comites Barones ceteros Proceres to do those things which by the King and the Barons and
the University of Cambridge who may require the Maior of the Town to make the Assise in the presence of the Chancellor of that University and if it be not well observed may himself punish the offenders by the authorities and power only derived from the King Who may with better reason justice and equity claim and keep his Rights of Praeemption Pourveyance and compositions for it then the Stret gavel was in 4. Ed. 1. claimed by the Lord of the Manor of Cholmton in the County of Sussex that every Tenant of that Manor should yearly give two shillings then a good summe of money pro itu reditu for his going out of the Manor or returning into it or as the Town of Maldon in Essex did in the fifteenth year of the Reign of that King claim by antient custome Totteray which was a payment of four pence for every bushel and a half of corn sold there 4 pence for Stallage and a Mark penny viz. 1 d. per illos qui truncos extra domum in vicis ejusdem ville habuerunt for every one which had pipes or gutters laid or made out of their houses into the streets de omnibus pascentibus mariscum de pecoribus of all that had cattel going or feeding in the Marsh for every Horse two pence Oxe two pence Bullock a penny and for every five Sheep two pence quae praestatio vocatur which in the language of the Civil and Common Law was usually understood to be Pourveyance or furnishing of necessary provisions Or as the Town of Yarmouth which was made a Port or Haven by Letters Patents of King Edward the first did antiently and doe now take and receive of the Herring-Fishers a certain Prize of Pourveyance of Fish and Herring towards the maintenance and repair of their Haven Or as the Lord Roos of Hamlake from whom the Earls of Rutland are descended did claim and enjoy as belonging to Belvoir Castle custumam ibidem vocat Palfrey silver quae levari debet annuatim de villis a Custome called Palfrey silver which ought to be levied every year of the Towns of Botelesford Normanton Herdeby Claxton Muston Howes Barkeley Queenby aliis Hamlettis and of other Hamlets Or as King Edward the third had to send his Writ or Comâ—â—ssion to the Magistrates of the Town of Barwick 〈◊〉 Tweed to inquire Si pisces marini Salmones in aqua de Tweed capt usque villam praedictam duci in vico vocat Narrow Gate venditioni exponi de custumis inde Regi solvend if the Sea Fish and Salmons taken in the River of Twede were brought to the Town of Barwick upon Tweed and put to sale in the street called Narrow-gate and of the Customes to be paid for them to the King More especially when the Judges in 11 Hen. 4. did resolve it to be Law as well as reason that the Pourveyor or taker for the King might take victuals or provisions at a reasonable price to the use of the King against the will of the party â—elling them Which unless the Laws of God Nature and Nations and the Laws of the Land reasonable Customes Liberties Rights and Priviledges should be all and every thing in the peoples own cases and concernments and nothing at all in the Kings and that the duty of Subjects honor of the King and support and maintenance of him who supports and defends them and all that is theirs in their just and legal Interests should be but as the Astronomers lines and terms of art in the firmament as Zones Tropicks Meridian Zodiack and the Ursa major and minor c. meerly imaginary and undemonstrable may with as much or greater reason be understood to be no burden as the late design if it should take effect of the Petition of the Lord Maior Aldermen and Common Councel of the City of London lately presented vnto the House of Common in Parliament in order as they alleage to the honor happiness and prosperity of the Kingdom that the Governor Deputy and Assistants of their desired Company of thâ—â—nglish Merchants trading into Italy and the Dominiâ—â— of the French King and the King of Portugal and of all other Merchants thereafter to be taken into that Association may besides other emoluments to be taken of the Merchants have power for the maintenance of the Government to take and receive upon all goods to be exported and imported not exceeding one twentieth part of the Customes as they are on all goods except Wines and on wines not exceeding one fourtieth part of the Customes as they now are Which twentieth part after no greater a reckoning then four hundred thousand pounds per annum for the Customes which if not too much defrauded are more likely to be eight hundred thousand pounds per annum will be twenty thousand pounds per annum and if eight hundred thousand pounds per annum will come near unto as much as the pretended losses of the Counties in the Compositions for the Pourveyances And the people of England would find the Pourveyance and Compositions for them to be for their own good and profit as well as there is a great and every where to be acknowledged reason for it not denied to be reason in their own cases affairs dealings one with another by the want of greater benefits if the King should shut up all his Ports and forbid all Trade with forreign Merchants inward or outward as some Kings and Princes have commonly and ordinarily done and as Common-wealths and those that call themselves Estates do as well as Kings and Princes in case of hostilities and upon reason of State or some other extraordinary occasions Or put down as God forbid he should or seise as forfeited by misuser which many will be found to have deserved all the Fairs and Markets in the Kingdome or some great part of them or forbid for some time as hath been antiently done all the Markets in two or three Counties and command the people to bring their victuals and provisions to be sold where the Kings or the Publick necessities or occasions wanted them or allow but one or two in a County at the chiefest or greatest of Cities or Towns or as King Henry the third did strictly command the assise of bread wine beer and victuals to be kept in Oxford in debito statu secundum precium bladi sicut in aliis Burgis Villis as it ought according to the price of corn and as was used to be in other Towns and Burrows threatning them that if they neglected to doe it he would seise and take the Town into his own hands and at the same time setting a rate or price upon wines gave the Magistrates of that Town to understand that whoever did otherwise ad corpus suum graviter se caperet omnia vina sua a Vice-comite suo Oxon. in manum suam capi praeciperet should be arrested and
to even the Tax or Assessements of the people or to make them to be just so much and no more then the Kings wants but were alwayes like the Tax in France for money to buy the Queen Pins or the Aids given to some Foreign Princes to marry their eldest daughters which amounted unto many times double the sum of the greatest portions which they gave with them or the Aides in England to make the Prince or the Kings eldest son a Knight when the expences never came neer the sum contributed and as heretofore the City of London and other Cities and Corporations have done in their Taxes and Subsidies leavyed upon the Citizens and Townesmen which did usually by a considerable everplus furmount the necessities and occasions of them Or if there could be any Reason Prudence or Religion for the people to permit their Soveraign who is to protect and defend them to live under the Tyranny discredits and pressures of Debts and necessities when as that which is grievous or too much for him to bear may easily be supplyed or helpt by a contribution of the multitude or many giving every one a little It cannot be for their good that the Kings small Revenue and the Hospitality and honor of his house-keeping should be subject to the enhaunce of Prices cosening and cheating of Tradesmen and of every one which his Officers and Servants shall have occasion to deal with or that the Royal Revenues should be like Pharaohs lean kine devoured by the fat or daily tormented and gnawn upon like Titius heart in the Fable with greedy and never gorged Vultures Which if the King and his Revenue could bear at the present will be every year and oftener more increased as the pride of the people and their avarice and cheating to maintain it shall multiply When such a great Provision of Meat and Victuals as is necessarily to be made for the Kings houshold and his multitude of Servants and Attendants will when his Provision shall not be sent in as formerly to his Court which did prevent it sweep and take away the best sorts of Provisions from the Markets and as experience hath already told us make scarce and dear all Commodities not only in the Markets within the Virge or in or near London but in the more remote places or threescore miles off and as far as Salisbury all that can be brought to the Markets near the Kings residence or his occasions Teach the people to heighten their Prices whose measure and rule of Conscience is to ask high rates and take as much as by any pretences tales falshoods or devices they can get and more of the King Nobility and Gentry then of the Mechanick or Common people and get thereby unjustly of the King more then all their Subsidies and Assessements if they be not very great shall come unto And if the great enhaunce of Prices were not or could not be so great a consumption of the Kings Revenue it must needs be altogether indecent and unbefitting the Duty and Honor of Subjects to their Kings That the Kings Harbingers should be so ill entertained as one of them was lately by one of the Tribe of Naâ—al at Windsor at the solemnities of the Feast of the Garter who answered his demand in the Kings name for lodgings for some of the Kings Court or retinue that the King had quitted his Pourveyance and was now no more unto him then another man and he was at liberty to let his lodgings to any one who would give him six pence more Or as one of his Pourveyors was by a London Poulterer by Trade and a Captain by a sinful mistaken Commission who upon the ingagement of an unwarrantable Covenant with hands lifted up to heaven to testifie his Loyalty to the late King Charles the Martyr whilst with the same hands he did fight against his Person Authority for liberty of Conscience to destroy him his more Loyal and Honest Subjects did no longer ago then the last Christmas when he should have bewailed his Rebellion and the sad account which he was to make to God for those numberless sins which he had accumulated by ingaging in such an ungodly and unwarrantable war and should have bin more thankful for his Majesties Pardon and Act of Indempnity and abhorred and repented his former wickedness buy against the will of the Kings Pourveyer three Bitternes which he was bargaining for and buying of a Poulterer and though he was informed by the Pourveyor that he was buying and had bid money for them for the King could in a most unchristian rude and barbarous manner say He cared not a Turd for the King he had bought and would have them and would by no means be perswaded to permit the Kings Pourveyer to have them Or that every Clown and Carter and every mans Kitchin-Maid shall in matters of Market and Provision be at liberty to buy Salmons Phesants Partriches Bustards or the like fitter for the King then their Masters or Mistresses out of his Pourveyers hands Or if the product of the taking away of the Pourveyance and Compositions for them could be so innocent as not to swell and multiply the Kings charges beyond its just or former dimensions there will be many other Evils and Inconveniencies by enforcing the Officers and servants of the Kings-houshold to buy and provide his and their food and provisions as the common people do theirs when they shall be larded or inlaid with all the oaths deceits and pretences which the invention of the Market people can possibly lay upon it and when that and many over-reaches and couâ—ening tricks shall be endured cannot by the carelesness of the Clerks of the Market and too many of the Justices of the Peace be always at any certainty that they do not buy the Beef of some diseased Oxe or Cow which had the knavish help of a Butcher to make mans meat of that which was more fit to make a Feast for the Crows or such Dogs as should have the happiness to smell out the Carrion and go a share with them or that the Poultery which they shall buy were not killed by some accident or disease as many times they are before they are brought or offered to be sold. And if that all the many other mischiefs inconveniencies which â—hall happen by taking away the Kings Pourveyances Compositions for them levelling him and his Officers Servants ranking them in the business of Markets amongst the Vulgus Plebeians or common or rudest sort of the people and rendring them in the particular of Pourveyance in a worse condition and more to be exacted upon then many of the Nobility Gentry and Lords of Mannors are whose Tenants are not at liberty to use them either as Strangers or Inferiors and in as bad a condition as the poorest or meanest laborer of the Parish were fit to be endured or could be reckoned amongst the honors and respects due unto
Aurum Reginae Gold or presents made and given to the Queen in return of their Gifts and favors received from the King Great liberties and priviledges by grants of free Warren Mines Felons and Outlaws goods Deodands Waiss Estraies Fishings Court Leets Tolls and freedom from Tolls to many Cities and people of England granted since the ninth year of the raign of King Henry the third when for the like and some other liberties then confirmed unto them the people of England not having half so much before that time granted unto them as by the bounty and Indulgences of the succeeding Kings and Princes they have had since took it to be no ill bargain to give unto the King for that his grace and favour a Subsidy of the Fifteenth part of all their moveables not loosely rated or much undervalued as their posterities have found the way to do Abundance of Wood and Tymber sold and destroyed by their prodigal posterities which yeelded them as much money as the inheritance of the Lands would have done some of their wives like the story of Garagantuas lusty Mare whisking down with their Tailes whole Woods and great store of Timber in them of two or three hundred years growth A lesser number of servants and retainers and charge of Badges and Liveries especially since the Statutes of 1 R. 2. ca. 7. and 8 E. 4. ca. 2. made against too great a number or the abuse of them when as now many Gentlemen can put a Coachman Carter into one and supply the places of a Servingman Butler and Taylor by one man fitted for all those imployments A great increase of Wool and the price thereof since the Raign of King Edward the third by our quondam flourishing Trade of Clothing untill that our late giddy times of Rebellion had so very much lessened and impaired it Many great Factories or Manufactures of Bays Sayes Serges and Kerseys at and about Colchester Sudbury c. and of stuffs at Norwich Canterbury Sandwich Kiderminster c. erected and encouraged before our long and late unhappy wars and the raign and Rapine of Mechanick Reformers The Lands of Wales greatly improved since the Raign or King Henry the fourth and his severe Laws which denyed them the intercourse commerce and priviledges of England The freeing of some of the Northern Counties as Cumberland Westmerland and Northumberland from the trouble charge and damages of maintaining their Borders against the Scotish formerly and frequent outrages invasions and taking away their goods and cattle by day and by night And the like freedom from the incursions and depraedations of the Welch assured and settled upon the four Shires or Counties of Gloucester Worcester Hereford and Shropshire by the guard and residence of a Lord President of Wales and the Marches thereof Abundance of Markets and Fairs now more then formerly granted so as few or no parts of England and Wales can complain of any want of them within every four or five miles distance Great stoâ—e of Welch Scottish and Irish-cattel now yearly brought into England when as few or none were heretofore Horses Oxen and Cattel now by Law permitted to be transported into the parts beyond the Seas which were formerly denyed A greater profit made to many private Lords of Mannors by Lead and other Mines c. more then heretofore Many Fruit Trees bearing Apples Pears c. yearly planted and great quantities of Sider and Perry made more then formerly Many Rivers made Navigable and Havens repaired The loss of Cattel and great damages by Inundations of the Sea or the Creeks thereof or of some boysterous and unâ—uly Rivers prevented by contributions to the making of Sea walls by several Statutes or Commissions for Sewers None or very little trouble or charges before ouâ— late wars for maintaining of Garrisons c. or by the disorder or Rapines of any of them Our Ships better then in former times secured upon the Sea Coasts by light houses c. Some of our Principal native Commodities as Fâ—llers Earth Leather Hides c. and Corn when it is not cheap prohibited to be exported Divers Statutes restraining Aliens not being Denizend to Trade or keep Shops c. Convenient provisions made for Vicars in case of Churches appropriate The goods of Foraigners to be taxed for the payment of fifteens The breed of large Horses and increase of Husbandry commanded divers Statutes made for the incouragement of Merchants Merchandize and Mariners preservation of Fishing Fuel Cattel and Rivers and against Freequarter of souldiers excessive Tolls Forestallers Regrators Ingrossers and Monopolies Riots Routs and Vagabond Rogues and to relieve the poor All Commotes or unlawful gatherings of money in Wales and the Marches thereof taken away Weights and measures Regulated Depopulations prohibited Many an unjust title in concealed Lands made good by sixty years quiet possession Interest for money lent reduced to a lower rate then formerly and Brokage forbidden No Tillage or errable land to be laid down but as much to be broken up Merchants Strangers permitted to Trade and sell their Merchandize in England and buy and sell things veâ—dible and a great improvement of Trade and Merchandize six or seven times exceeding that which was in or before the raign of Queen Elizabeth Fishgarthes in the Rivers of Ouse and Humber ordered to be pulled down The passage upon the River of Severne freed from Tolles imposed by the proprietors of the Lands upon the Banks The bringing of Silver Bullion into England by our English Merchants encouraged the transportation from thence of Gold and Silver without the Kings licence prohibited and the care of the Kings Exchangers untill the disuse of it now of late preventing all abuses in the coyn or money of the Kingdom Merchants Aliens and Merchants of Ireland ordained to imploy their mony received in England upon the Commodities thereof and every Merchant Alien to finde Sureties that they shall not carry Gold or Silver out of this Realm The keeping of great numbers of Sheep by rich men whereby meaner men were impoverished restrained to a certain number Ordinances made for Bakers Brewers and other Victuallers The prices of victuals to be rated and assessed by the Magistrates Rents of houses in Staple-Towns to be reasonable and assessâ—d by the Maior Great quantities of waste grounds and Commons inclosed and improved A long and happy Peace at home for more then two hundred years Many an Act of Parliament made to prevent or remedy grievances enlarge the peoples liberties and make them the most free and happy Nation in the world si sua bona Norint if they could but be content with their happiness and know how to use it All the Revenues and Estates of the people aswell reall as personal exceedingly and by many degrees improved more then formerly And all manner of Victuals and provisions sold at such excessive rates and prices as would busie our Forefathers with no common or ordinary wonder if they could be alive again
pay one per cent for provision of Fortresses In the Kingdom of Barnagasso the King hath besides Silks and Cloth of Gold and other precious things for Tribute Horses and payeth himself 150. Horses to Pretious or Prete John Emperor of Ethiopia of whom he holdeth The Kingdom of Oghy besides a Tribute of Gold and Silver sendeth him yearly a thousand Beeves In Ethiopia the Prete or Emperor upon the coming or returning of Embassadors gives order to his Subjects or Vassals to furnish them with provisions for their Journey and not long agoe commanded one to whom he had but a little before given a little Lordship containing not above 80. Houses and two Churches to furnish an Embassador with five hundred Loads of Corn a hundred Oxen and a hundred Sheep The Gozagues do yearly pay to their King besides great quantities of Gold and Silver a thousand Beeves alive The Maldives do yearly pay unto their King the fifth part of the grains which they sowe and give him a Portion of their Coco's and Limmons and besides their Taxes compound also for fruits and honey The Princes and great men in Japan do contend who shall give most to the Caesar and almost impoverish themselves by their Presents All the houses in the City of the Kings Residence are by the King taxed towards the making of Fortresses In Firando in Japan when any forraign Merchants are by the King invited to see Playes and publick Shows they send Presents to him and every forraign Merchant that comes thither may not sell his goods untill he hath carried a Present to the Emperor And when any of the Kings white Elephants are brought unto him the Merchants in the City are commanded to come and see him and bring every one a Present of half a Ducat which altogether amounteth to a great sum of money In Industan when the Mogol goeth abroad or in progress euery one saith Sir Thomas Roe by whose house he passeth is to make him a Present Sir Thomas Roe himself doing it when the King or Mogol rode to the River of Darbadath All the Persian Merchants doe bring their goods first to the Mogol who buyes what he pleaseth and after his Officers have set the rate they may sell to whom they will All men strive to present him with all things rich and rare and no man petitioneth him for any thing empty-handed and thereby come to preferment some giving him one hundred thousand pounds in Jewels at a time The King of Achen commands those of Tecoo to bring thither their Pepper which none may buy but he and puts off his Surat commodities in truck to them at what rates he pleaseth and oftimes sends his commodities to Priaman and Tecoo enforcing them to buy them at his own rates none being suffered to buy or sell before he hath vented his own At Bantam the Governor or Protector so called useth to send in the Kings name to the people to serve him with sacks of Pepper some a hundred some fifty some ten some five at the Kings price which was a Riall less in a Sack then the Merchants paid Divers bring Presents of Rice and Cashes and some bring imbroidered cloth for the Kings wearing Nor were the more civilized part of the Heathen only accustomed to the way of Pourveyance or bringing provisions or presents to their Kings and Princes but the wild and savage part of them were by the Lawes of nature and glimmerings of the light of reason taught to doe it In Mexico in the West-Indies and its large Dominions under the Emperor Montezeuma containing 100 Cities and their Provinces the people did pay a certain yearly Tribute to the King for water brought by pipes into the City Those that hold lands did yearly pay unto him one third part of their fruit and commodities which they had or did reap as gold silver stones dogs hens fouls conies salt wax honey mantels feathers cotton and a certain fruit called Câ—cao which they there used for money also all kinds of grain Garden-herbs and fruits Some Towns paid 400 burdens of white Mantles others great Tropes of wood full of Maiz Friâ—oles c. some four hundred burdens of wood others four hundred planks of Timber some every six moneths brought four hundred burdens of Cotton-wool and others two thousand loads of Salt two hundred pots of Honey twenty Xacaras of Gold in powder and some a Truss of Turkie stones and paid besides the King of Alzopuzalco a Tribute of Firre and Willow-trees towards the building of a City Divers Provinces are bound to provide fire-wood for the Kings house amounting unto two hundred and thirty weight a day which was five hundred mens burdens for the Kings particular Chimnies they brought the Bark of the Oak The Incas or Indian Kings before the coming of their unlucky loving friends the Spaniards had their Tributes yearly brought unto the Court and when any work was to be done or any thing to be furnished for the Incas the Officers knew presently how much every Province Town and Family ought to provide and by their Registers strings and knots knew what every one was to pay even to a hen or burden of wood And as Inea Garzilasco de la Vega a Native of Cozco relates in his book of the antient customes of those Countries did amongst other Tributes make and furnish clothes and Arms to be used in warr In Virginia the Weroances under-Lords or petty Kings did hold their lands habitations and limits to Fish Foul or Hunt of their soveraign King Powhatan to whom they pay Tributes of Skins Beads Copper Pearl Dear Turkies wild Beasts and Corn. And in all Savage Countries the English Merchants and Navigators as Mr. Edward Winslow a man afterwards too well known amongst the plundering and mistaken godly at Haberdashers Hall hath related at his return from thence doe make presents to the Savage Kings In New-England the Sachims or Lords are subject to one Sachim to whom they resort for protection and pay homage neither may any make warre without their privity every Sachim knoweth the bounds and limits of his Country and that is as his proper Inheritance and out of that if any of his men desire Land to set their corn he giveth them as much as they can use and puts them in their bounds Whosoever hunteth or killeth any venison which is there much of their food he bringeth him his Fee which is the fourth part of the same if it be killed on the Land but if in the water then the skin thereof Once a year the people are provoked by the Pinieses Knights or Councellors of the Sachims to bestow much corn on the Sachim who bring him thereupon many Baskets of corn and make a great Stack thereof In Florida where they all goe naked and doe but litle exceed the beasts of the field in understanding and want the wit of most part of the Nations of the world to cover their nakedness they can notwithstanding
solvat persolvat postea forisfacturam nor to sell or buy any thing for money but within Cities and before three witnesses nor without a Voucher or warranty and if any did otherwise they were to be fined and at last incurre a forfeiture Item nullum mercatum vel forum fieri permittatur nisi in civitatibus regni jus suum commune dignitatis coronae quae constituta sunt a bonis predecessoribus suis deperiri non possunt nec violari sed omnia rite in aperto per judicium â—ieri debent likewise that no Market be kept but in Cities so that the right of the King and the dignity of his Crown as it was constituted in the times of his good predecessors might not be lost defrauded or violated and that all things be rightly and openly done according to right and justice King Henry the 1. his Son saith the Monk of Malmsbury corrected the false Ell or Measure so called of the Merchants brachii sui mensura adhibita omnibusque per Angliam proposita causing one to be made according to the measure or length of his own arm ordered it to be used through all England and in his Laws reckoneth the punishment of false Coiners and prohibiting and punishing of Forestall or forestalling of Markets inter Jura his Rights Royal Prerogatives quae Rex Angliae solus super omnes homines habet in terra sua which belonged to him only as King of England and without an Act of Parliament ordered the rate and value of mony which being the mensura rerum measure guide of all things in commerce and dealings one man with another hath no small influence or power in the heightning or lessening of the price of things and is such a part of Soveraignty as the Parliament in their 19. high and mighty and unreasonable propositions sent unto the late King Charles the Martyr in his troubles in June 1642. never attempted to restrain or take from him In the Reign of King Henry the second when as Ranuphus de Glanvilla Chief Justice of England under him saith in that book which is generally believed to have been written by him the Laws and Customes of England being ratione introductis diu obtentis founded upon reason and long used had arrived to that perfection as pauperes non opprimabantur adversarii potentia nec a limitibus Judiciorum propellabat quenquam amicorum favor gratia the poor were not oppressed by their adversaries power nor did partiality or friendship hinder any from Justice the inquiry and punishment of false measures and all manner of deceipts did appertain Coronae Regis to the King only Justices in Eyre were after the return of King Richard the first from his Captivity sent into all Counties of England to enquire amongst other things de Faeneratoribus vinis venditis contra Assisam de falsis mensuris tam vini quam aliarum rerum of Usurers and of wine sold contrary to the Assize and of false measures as well of wine as other things In Anno quarto of King John being thirteen years before the granting of Magna Charta de Libertatibus Angliae the great Charter of the Liberties of England the King did by his Edict and Proclamation command the Assize of bread to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates were set the Assise approved per Pistorem as Matthew Paris saith Gaufridi filii Petri Justiciarii Angliae Pistorem R. de Thurnam by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz Peter Justice of England and the Baker of R. of Thurnam And in the Magna Charta and Liberties granted by him afterwards at Running Munde or Mead near Stanes assented which our Ancestors and Procurers of that Charter believed to be for a publick good that una mensura vini cervisiae sit per totum Regnum una mensura bladi scilicet quarterium Londinense una latitudo pannorum tinctorum russetorum haubergetorum panni genus a kind of Cloth saith Sir Henry Spelman then so called there should be throughout all England one measure of Wine and Beer and the like of Corn and of the breadth of Cloth died and russet or other kinds And was confirmed by King Henry the third his Son in Anno 9. of his Reign who by an Ordinance made by the Kings command and on the behalf of the King howsoever it be stiled a Statute and is placed in our Statute book collected by Mr. Poulton amongst those which he calleth Statutes incerti temporis made in the Reigns of Hen. 3. Ed. 1. or Ed. 2. but cannot assign by whom or in what years or times but in all probability in the Reign of King Henry the third did ordain that no Forestaller which is an open oppresser of poor people and of the Commonalty and an enemy of the whole Shire and Countrey which for greediness of his private gain doth prevent others in buying Grain Fish Herring or any other thing to be sold coming by Land or waters oppressing the poor and deceiving the rich and câ—rrieth away such things intending to sell them more deer should be suffered to dwell in any Town he that shall be convict thereof shall for the first offence be amerced and lose the thing so bought and for the second time have judgement of the Pillory the third time be imprisoned and make Fine and the fourth time abjure the Town And this Judgement to be given upon all manner of Forestallers and likewise upon them that have given them counsel help or favour And providing that his people should not be oppressed with immoderate unreasonable prices in the buying of food and victuals and other necessaries did by his Writ limit the price of Lampreys and had as his Royal Progenitors such a power and just Prerogative of regulating and well ordering of Markets and Fairs as notwithstanding any Charters or Grants of Fairs and Markets to Cities and Towns he did in anno quinto of his Reign upon a complaint of some Merchants of Lynn that when they came to sell their goods and Merchandize at Norwich the Merchants or Tradesmen took away their goods and Merchandise to the value of three hundred marks by his writ give them power to arrest and seize any goods of the Norwich Merchants which should come to any Fairs at Lyn untill that Justice should be done unto them And in anno 49. of his Reign commanded the Barons of the Exchequer that they should inroll and cause to be executed his Letters Patents of a Confirmation to the Citizens of Lincoln of a Charter of King Henry the second his Grandfather that the Sheriff and other the Kings Officers and Ministers of Lincolnschiry should not hinder forraign Merchants to come to Lincoln to trade there ita rationabiliter juste as reasonably and justly as they were wont to do in
Last take upon them for the payment of all the Herrings that shall be sold by their assent to any persons and the hundred of Herring shall be accompted by sixscore and the Last by ten thousand That the people of London at such Fair shall bring the Last from Yarmouth to London for one Mark of gain and not above That the Fishers be compelled to bring the remnant of their Herrings not sold in the Road of Kirkley to the Fair to sell them so that none sell Herring in any place about the haven of Yarmouth by seven miles except in three Towns of Yarmouth that is to say Easton Weston and Southton unless it be Herrings of their own Fishing The Chancellor or Treasurer taking to them Justices and other the Kings Council shall have power to ordain remedy touching the buying and selling of Stock-fish of Saint Botolph and Salmon of Barwick and of Wines and Fish of Bristâ—ute and else-where to the intent the King and his People may better be served and have better Markets then they have had before this time and that the Ordinances by them made in this party be firmly holden Doggers and Landships of Blackney Haven shall discharge their Fish there the price of Dogger-fish and Loichfish that is to say Lob Ling and Cod shall be assessed by the Advice of the Merchants and Rulers comming to the Fair of Blackney and of the owners of the ships before any sale be made which shall be holden during the Fair Every man shall buy Herrings openly and not privily at such price as may be agreed betwixt him and the seller And no man shall enter into bargain upon the buying of the same till he that first cometh to bargain shall have an end of his bargain greable to the seller and that none increase upon other during the first bargain Londoners and other shall sell victualls by retail Sweet wines may be sold by retail at the price of Gascoyne wines Victuallers shall have but reasonable gains according to the discretion of the Justices of Peace there shall be but eight Bushels striked to the Quarter the severall measures of vessels of wine Eels Herrings and Salmons and vessels of Oil and Honey to be gauged 12 E. 4. ca. 8. Divers Patents being granted under the great Seal of England to divers persons to be Surveyors and Correctors of beer ale wine and victuals within divers Cities Boroughs and Towns it was ordained That they should be void and that the Mayors Bayliffs and chief Governours of Cities Boroughs and Towns Corporate shall be the only Searchers and Surveyors of victualls for that every City Borough and Town of substance in England for the most part have Court Leeâ—s and views of Frank-pledge holden yearly within the same Cities Boroughs and Towns surveying of all victualls therein and correction and punishment of the offenders and breakers of the Assise of the same which ought not to be câ—ntraried Ordinances made by Guilds Fraternities and Companies of Trade shall be examined and approved by the Chancellor Treasurer of England or Chief Justices of either Benches or three of them or by Justices of Assise in their Circuits to prevent and hinder unlawfull Ordinances as well in prises of wares as in other things to the Common hurt and damage of the people When any victualler is chosen Officer in any City except London York and Coventry Borough or Town Corporate which by virtue of his Office should have the Assising and Correction for selling of victualls that then two discreet and honest persons neither of them being Victuallers shall during that time be sworn truely to sess and set the price of victuals such as sell false and mixt Oils to be searched and punished and such as destroy wild â—oul whereby formerly the Kings most honourable Houshold and the houses of Noblemâ—n Prelates were furnished at convenient prices to be punished Upon complaint made for enhauncing of prices of victuals the prices thereof shall be assessed by the Kings Councellors and Officers and they which have victuals to sell shall sell them at the same prises The Prises of the But Tun Pipe Hogshead c. of all kinds of wines when it shall be sold in gross shall be set by certain of the Kings great Officers Whosoever shall buy or sell any Fâ—sant or Partridge saving the Officers of the Kings Queens or Princes houses shall forfeit for every Fesant six shillings eight pence and for every Partridge three shillings four pence to the King Conspiracies made by Victuallers touching selling of victuals shall be grievously punished Taverns may be appointed in every City Borough or Town Corporate to sell wine by Retail None shall retail wines but in Cities Market Towns c. Vintners which sell by Retâ—il in Towns Corporate shall be assigned by the head Officers thereof and in other Towns by the Justices of Peace And 2 3 Ed. 6. by a temporary Act expired with the time therein limitted which may shew the minds and intents of the makers and what was then thought convenient for that small part of time and being probably only done upon some grounds or reasons of State for the present or in ease of the people or some popular designe of the then ruling Lord Protector was not then nor at any time after thought fit to continue any longer it was ordained That no Pourveyor or other person by authority of any Commission or other Warrant shall during three years then next ensuing pourvey or take for the provision of the Kings Houshold his Sisters or any others any Corn Beeves Muttons c. Wood Coal Straw Hay or any kind of Victuals without the full consent of the owner and at such price for ready money as the owner or Pourveyor can agree nor shall take for any of the Kings Affairs or the Warres or otherwise any Goods Chattels or other things whatsoever saving Barges Ships Carts and things necessary without the consent of the owners and at such prises for ready money as the owner Pourveyâ—rs can agree except Post-horses for which shall be paid a penny a mile and the King will allow to the owner of every Cart taken for his houshold four pence a mile and for the Warres and other Carriages three pence a mile The Lord Chancellor of England Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel Lord Privy Seal and the two Chief Justices or any five four or three of them are authorised to set prises of wine and none to sell either in gross or by retail above those prises No Cattel shall be bought but in open Fair or Market but by a Butcher provisions of houshold Butter or Cheese shall not be bought to be sold again except it be by retail in open Shop Fair or Market Forestallers and Regrators shall be punished Badgers and Drovers licensed by three Justices of the Peace
Tenants to permit them to pay their respects and obligations unto them in that way or upon a New-years day or when they shall invite them to a Christmas dinner or doe them any courtesie to bring them a present of Capons or Chickens or the like or when they come to welcome them home from London or have any request how little soever to make unto them are afraid to approach them without bringing some offering or mediation though it be but a bottle of such pitifull wine as the Vintner of the next Market Town can furnish them out of a Vessel but little bigger And the Lord of the Manor of Harrow in the County of Middlesex had in Anno 21 R. 2. a Custome belonging to that Manor that by summons of the Bayliffe upon a Generall Reap day or Magna precaria then so called the Tenants as well free as Copiholders should yearly amongst them doe 199 dayes work for the Lord within the Manor and every one having a Chimney should send a man thither for that purpose and where there is no Custome to oblige it or the like some curtesies amounting to near as much are as often to be found as the love and good will to a Landlord or a man of quality or fear of his ill will or displeasure Nor is it unusuall for Parishioners to help a Parson or Minister of a Parish to reap and carry in his corn or to fetch coals or wood for him many a mile distant And will be as much and more according to the dictates of right reason as for a Patron of the Advowson of a Church to be for ever entitled to the presentation of it because his Ancestors or those under whome he claime did at the first build and endow it with the Glâ—be land and their own Tythes though the Parson presented by him unto it is to repair the Chancel and the Parishioners tax one another to maintain and keep the other parts of the Church in good reparations or that the Patron and Ordinary should in a vacancy charge the Glebe with some yearly payments Or for those that have Grants of Fairs or Markets or enjoy them by prescription to take their Toll which unless there be found a speciall custome that the Sellers should doe it is to be paid by the Buyers and money for Pickage and Stallage or for Toll called Travers or passage by some wayes and Thorough Toll for driving or passing through some Towns c. And the Assistances Aids or Contributions in his Majesties Pourveyance and Composition for his house-keeping may be as much and more warranted by the rules of right reason as they are in matters of Policy and well ordering of some Societies and subordinate Governments in and concerning the Kingdome and as they are when the Merchants of the English Staple at Dordrecht and Hamborough do tax and receive a certain summe of money upon every English Cloth sold beyond the seas and to imploy that and the admittances and making free of Apprentices of the old or new Hanse And the Fines assessed upon the Infringers of any Orders of the Companies to defray the charges and support thereof or as the Lord Mayor of London for the time being by Custome or Charter of the City takes for Scavage or Shewage of all Merchandise brought to London a certain rate by the Tonne or Pack so much as amounts to above three hundred pounds besides the profits of the Tolls Pickage and Stallage of Fairs and Markets with an allowance of fourscore pounds out of every one of the 8. Coal-meaters places and for Cattle brought to Smithfield to be sold and Eels Fish and Corn imported and many other things towards the charges of his extraordinary housekeeping for the credit and honor of the City in the time of his Maioralty which the simplest and poorest Citizen never grumbles at but acknowledgeth to be for the good of the City the Company of which he is free for he must alwaies in the year of his Maioralty be â—aken in as a Freeman of one of the twelve antient and principall Companies of the City as the Mercers Goldsmiths Groâ—ers Cloth-workers Fishmongers c. though before he was free of some other Company largely contributing to the charges of him and his Pageants upon the day of his Initiation or Lord Maiors day so as the twelve Companies are every year never able to escape a great part of the charges of that day and besides an allowance of five hundred pounds or a considerable summe of money towards that years expences out of the Chamber and Revenues of the City hath the Livery men of every of the many Companies or Corporations of Trade bringing him 40 s. in retribution of a Dinner and a small silver spoon of the sixth part of the value every Citizen of any considerable Estate taxed and contributing to the charges of Triumphant Arches or Entertainments of their King or Prince upon extraordinary occasions every Company bearing and helping out the charges of the Livery-men Wardens and chief of their Company many rich Bachelers or men so called though some of them are married created in the Lord Maiors Company only for the service of that day paying six pound a man and others of that Company paying four pound a man to be of the Budge and to wear their Gowns faced with a furre so called and the other Companies have Bachelers created or chosen for that day out of the Yeomanry so stiled which besides their something extraordinary charges in Feasts at their admissions and in apparrel and habiliments for that day doe likewise contribute to the charges and worship of their particular Companies for that day which enables them to drain the Capons White-broath puts them in a capacity of most couragiously storming the Custards in their Grusty Garrisons and of the better overseeing of the Company and Mystery of their Trade at their no seldome comfortable meetings and rejoycing in the creatures the Lord Mayor having also the benefit of great Fines of four hundred pounds or more a man imposed upon twenty or thirty in a year or too many more then need who after such time as his Lordship in his Fishing for Fines hath drunk unto them shall be unwilling or not think themselves fit to be an Alderman or Sheriffe And as consonant and more agreeable to right reason as the quarteridge of never less then five pence every quarter of year and twelve pence per annum to be distributed as their Company pleaseth to the poor paid by every Freeman of which there are very great numbers to every of their Halls or Companies two shillings and six pence for binding and thirteen shillings and four pence for making free of every Apprentice six pence per annum for every Yeoman or Freeman of the Company under the Livery and two shillings per annum of every one of the Livery towards the expences of their Barge when with as much magnificence
people Subjects and men of Honor in England in those more honorable more performing less complementing times but since withering and growing fruitless and out of fashion when that great commander Luxury had with his Regiments and Brigades of vices new fangles and vanities subdued and put the people to a greater contribution towards such their wicked and vain expences and all that they can now make shift for is too little to support and bear out their extravagancies It is well known and experimented to the great comfort of such as lived within the virge of the Kings houses and residence that the Hospitality of the Kingdome like the heart in the body naturall the primum vivens beginner and conservator of life beginning in the Kings house and propagating and diffusing it self in and through as many of the Nobility and Gentry as being de meliori lutâ— of a more then ordinary extraction did strive as much as became them to imitate Royal Examples would be in the Kings house the ultimum mâ—riens the last which expired And that besides the necessary grandeur and magnificence of the Kings houshold plenty and variety of meat and drink to entertain at his Officers Tables the Nobility Gentry and Citizens which had any occasion to come thither and 240 gallons of Beer allowed the poor every day at the Buttery Barre three gallons every day at the Court gate for thirteen poor men six services or messe of meat and seven pieces of beef a day as wast and extraordinarie for the Kings Honor the chippings of bread sometimes more then should be and the fragments and knapstry of broken or quarter or half joynts of meat carcases of Fowl and Poultry pieces of Pie-crust or other provisions carefully and daily gathered and put into severall Almes-baskets left at every Table and Chamber in the Court and distributed unto the poor by two Grooms and two Yeomen of the Elemosinary or Almnery who enjoy an yearly Salary and maintenance from the King for that only imployment which hath fed and supported many poor Families in and about Westminster as well as Common Beggars the Lodgings and accomodations of Nobility and Gentry resorting to the Court have so greatly enriched all the Streets and parts about it as that end of London and parts adjacent have like trees planted by the water side so very much prospered as Westminster which originally had but some scattered houses adjoyning to the Abby and the Kings Palace came aftewards to be a Burrough Town Corporation endowed with great Liberties and Priviledges and sending Burgesses to the Parliament afterwards to be a City and the people of other parts as birds haunting the woods for shelter shade or succor observing the plenty happiness which they enjoyed have built made their nests habitations as near as they could unto that place and Royal seat of bounty charity and magnificence insomuch as the swelling and increase of London at this day every where to be seen not without some admiration in her Extent and buildings hath within this and the last Century of years very much outgrown that antient City it self and as Mr. John Graunt and some others have truly and ingeniously observed extended it self Westward and as near as it could unto the Royal bitation as if that were more to be desired for a neighbourhood then the River of Thames the Exchange or Custome-house of London and places of Trade and Traffick They therefore that shall remember how his Majesties Maundie or Charity kept as his Royal Ancestors ever did upon the Thursday before Easter or Eve of Good-Friday with a Joul of Salmon a Poll of Ling 30 red Herrings and as many white garnished with â—erbs in new clean wooden dishes four six penny loaves of Court bread cloth for a Gown and a Shirt a pair of New Shoes and Stockins and a single penny with a twenty shillings piece of gold overplus put in severall little purses given to as many poor old men as the King is years old and the state and decency observed in the distributing of it after their feet washed and dried and the King with a condiscention and unexampled humility beyond the reach and example of any of his Subjects kneeling upon his knees and devoutly kissing the feet of those his Almes-men cannot certainly tell how to murmur at such an hospitality or Provisions which afforded him the means wherewith to doe it Nor should the many cures which he yearly doth unto such as are Lame Blind Diseased or troubled with the Disease called the Kings Evil because he cureth it the patience and meekness which he employeth in it and the yearly charge of at least three thousand pounds per annum which his Angel Gold of the value of ten shillings and a silk Ribbon put about the neck of every one be they rich or poor young or old which doe come to that English Pool of Bethesda to be healed and cured be forgotten or thought unworthy a gratitude or some remuneration or acknowledgements Neither can any that ever understood or read of the round Tables of our King Arthur the great Roger Mortimer and the famous Hospitality of England continued through the British Saxon and Norman times all the turmoyls and troubles of the after Generations in their greatest extremities of the Barons warres and the direfull and bloody contentions of the two great discording Houses of York and Lancaster with the vast quantities of Land given besides to Monasteries and Religious Houses to the great increase of Charity and Alms-deeds which was then the only Trade driven or thought on in the way to Cabo di buona speranza the everlasting rest of the righteous the large proportions of Lands given for Chantries in a then supposed pious care of themselves and their Progenitors great gifts and remunerations to Servants and curtesies and kindness to Neighbours and Tenants when most of our Nobility and Gentry thought themselves not great unless they were good nor a Gentleman because he had only the insignia virtutum Armories and marks of the honor of his Ancestors descended unto him without the virtuous noble and heroick qualities which were the cause or original of them when pride and interest the Devils Deputies were not the Soveraign which they most obeyed vanity and all the folliâ—s of sin the neighbours which they loved as themselves when virtue was not reckoned as it is now amongst too many a base or simple companion nor honour turned into a Pageant or nâ—men inane or only made a pretence to deceive mens expectations when almost every English Gentleman was in his Parish and amongst his Tenants like Job that good accomptant of his talents a deliverer of the poor that cried the fatherless and him that had none to help him caused the Widows heart to sing for joy was eyes to the blinde feet to the lame brake the jawes of the wicked pluckt the spoils out of his teeth grieved for the poor
with some that have Tables daily furnished at the Kings charge to feed so many as depend upon it and entertain such men of quality as shall come to his Court about his or their affairs and would much advance their private purses and do well in their own families to have the expences of it turned into a yearly Pension in money wherein the King is like to be as much a saver as King Charles the Martyr was when he allowed Mr. Andrew Pitcarne the Master of his Hawks ten shillings per diem to provide Pigeons Hens and other meat for his Hawks and as he and many of his Progenitors have been in converting allowances or provisions into Salaries And that some of those who advise a Sparing not at all becoming the grandeur and honour of a Prince to make themselves the greater gainers by his bounty to be worse imployed upon themselves may suppose that which might be a fit Espargne in their own lesser Orbes and Oeconomies may serve for the Court and Family of an English King and that the Grandeur and Magnificence thereof would be but little or not at all lessened by some thriftie contrivances and abatements calculated only for their own Meridian and that the Power Authority and Virtue of a Prince can well enough subsist without the prop and support of that due Awe and Reverence which are to attend the Majesty of Kings and that some in their short sighted Policies may reckon such or the like good husbandries to be no small part of Prudence and Providence very laudable and fit to be put in practice Yet the Laws of God Nature and Nations and the state and magnificence of Kings and their Princely Families allowed as well as mentioned in the Book of God and Holy Writ as that of Pharaoh Saul David Solomon and Ahashuerus The State and Magnificence of all the Christian and Heathen Kings and Princes Grecian Magistrates Romane Consuls and Dictators Venetian Doges and Dutch Stadtholders and our laudable customs of England can teach every man who hath not abjured his own reason as well as the Laws of God and Nature and the reasonable customes of England how very necessary the honor and State of Princes are to the obedience and good Government of the people how much they conduce to their well-being how the observance honor and reverence due unto Kings are lessened by the meannesse of their Servants and diminishing their State and Port how unsafe and insipid such new found policies and contrivances would be and that the dishonor of the Prince is the unsafety and dishonor of the people who may easily and every where find a necessity of his Pourveyance or Compositions for it and no reason at all to deny it When the total of the charges of it will be so useful to their Soveraign so becomming his Royal Dignity so necessary to the honor and splendor of his house-keeping and that the parts which shall be charged upon particular men to make up that total will be so petit and inconsiderable as our Laws and the Compositions for Pourveyance had ordered it CHAP. VI. The small charge of the Pourveyance or Compositions for it to or upon such of the people as were chargeable with it AS may evidently and undeniably appear by the Compositions for Pourveyance which were agreed to be paid by the several Counties As For the County of Anglisey in Wales which hath eighty three Parishes but five pounds which is for every Parish not one shilling three pence it being commonly in every County charged onely upon the Lands of inheritance of the greater size or quantity not upon Copyholders or small Freeholders and upon those kind of Lands which were most proper for it and could better afford it as Wheat Malt c. upon Errable Lands and Cattel upon Pasture c. For the County of Mountgomery who weâ—e to provide yearly but twenty Sturks or smaller sized Cattle so called or sixty pounds per annum and had Fifty four Parishes whereof five or six were Borough Towns which made the charge upon every Parish to be little more then twenty shillings per annum All the charge of the Compositions for the Kings provisions being onely of one hundred and eighty Sturks in Wales and its thirteen shires or Counties which costes that Dominion yeerly no more then three hundred and sixty pounds The County of Worcester which hath one hundred and fifty two Parishes paid but four hundred ninety five pounds besides the Kings pâ—ice or rate allowed for provisions served in kinde which is but three pounds and seven shillings or thereabouts to be assessed upon every Parish Derbyshire having one hundred and six Parishes paid but two hundred fifty four pounds two shillings two pence which is something less then fifty shillings upon every Parish Yorkeshire which hath four hundred fifty nine Parishes besides many large Chapelries was charged with no more then four hundred ninety five pounds which was not two and twenty shillings upon every Parish one with another and would not be six pence a year upon every house one with another if no respect were to be had to the real or personal Estates of the proprietors which admits of large differences or proportions more or less then one another The County of Midlesex having seventy three Parishes besides what are in the London Suburbes paid but nine hundred seventeen pound nineteen shillings which by her great benefits by the Kings constant residence in it is in a better condition with her few but vâ—ry plentiful and numerous Parishes then the Counties further distant and by the letting and setting of their Lands Houses and Lodgings and the great rates and prices of all the Commodities which they sell to other people gaineth fourty to one at the least of what they loose by the Kings prices for his Pourveyance or houshold provisions the City of Westminster and the Suburb Parishes of London consisting more of houses then Lands or Pasture and being not at all charged or troubled wiâ—◠〈◊〉 The County of Essex paid for Composition but two thousand nine hundred thirty one pounds two shillings and two pâ—nce and having many of the benefits which Midlesex enjoyeth far exceeding the charge of the Compositions for Pourveyance hath four hundred and fifteen Parishes which is little more then seven pound five shillings upon every Parish chargeable for the Compositions and provisions served in kinde Bedfordshire which hath one hundred and sixteen Parishes paid but four hundred ninty seven pounds eight shillings four pence which was but four pounds five shillings nine pence upon every Parish The County of Buckingham which hath one hundred eighty five Parishes two thousand fourty pounds sixteen shillings and six pence which was but something more then eleven pounds upon every Parish one with another Berkshire having one hundred and fourty Parishes but one thousand two hundred and fifty five pounds seventeen shillings and eight pence which did not charge every Parish with
all their Customers and Inhabitants of London who paying for it in the smalness of their Ale and Beer and of the measure were notwithstanding no loosers by it when as the damage that the poorest sort of house-keepers received thereby came not when their gains were least unto the twentieth penny nor of the richer to the hundreth or two hundreth peny of what they gained by the Kings residence by trade letting of lodgings or the greater rent of their houses and if the Brewer had paid it himself and not laid it upon his Customers might for his priviledge in Brewing in the Cities of London and Westâ—minster and not being removed or punished for the Nuisance have very well afforded so small a sum as four pence in every quarter of Mault containing Berkshire Cheshire Cornewall Devonshire Gloucestershire Hertfordshire Herefordshire Kent Northampton Norfolk Somersetshire Surrey Sussex and London may give the prospect of the rest and how small the proportions were which were charged upon such as were to bear or pay them may make it appear that that so much now of late complained of charge of Pourveyance or Compositions for them will be so little as there will be no cause at all for it when as the yearly charge of buying Babies Hobby horses and Toys for children to spoil as well as play with which costs England as hath been computed near one hundred thousand pounds per annum or of amending the High ways yearly Treatments given to Harvest Folk or the expences of an Harvest Goose and a Seed Cake given yearly to their Plow-men keeping a Wake or Parish Feast every year or the monyes which the good Women in every Parish and County do expend in their Gosshippings at the birth of their Neighbours Children or many other such like trivial and most cheerful and pleasing expences will make the foot of the accompt as to the several kinds of those particulars to be a great deal more then the charge of that necessary duty of Pourveyance or Compositions for them which was so â—asy and petit as in most of the Counties of England it was many times not singly rated or assessed by it self but was joyned with some other Assessements and in Kent where more was paid then in any one County near London it was so little felt and regarded as a Tenant paying one hundred pounds rent per annum for his Land did not think it to be of any concernment for him to reckon it to his Landlord and demand an allowance for it Which caused the people of Oxfordshire Barkshire Wiltshire and Hampshire upon his now Majesties most happy restoration receiving his gracious letters offering them the Election of suffering him to take his Prae-emption and Pourveyance or to pay the Compositions to return answer by their letters which were read before the King in his Compting-house in White-Hall that they humbly desired him to accept of the Compositions And all the other Counties and the generality of the people of the smaller as well as greater Intellectuals to understand it to be so much for the good of the King his People as many of them are troubled and discontented that he hath them not And they who causing the Markets and the prices of things to be so unreasonably dear and excessive by their own raising of prices for their own advantages may when they please make the difference betwixt the Kings rates and theirs to be none at all or much lesser if they would but sell as cheap as they might afford their commodities according to the plenty of Victuals or provisions which is in England The high prices and rates which are now put upon Victuals and Provisions for Food and House-keeping being neither enforced nor occasioned by any plenty of Gold or Silver in England and if there were any such store or abundance of it non causatur effective cujus effectus est necessarius nisi aliunde impediatur could not be so the sole or proper cause of it as if not otherwise hindered it could not want its necessary effect Berkshire Cheshire Cornewall Devonshire Gloucestershire Hertfordshire Herefordshire Kent Northampton Norfolk Somersetshire Surrey Sussex and London may gâ—ve the prospect of the rest and how small the proportions were which were charged upon such as were to bear or pay them That so much now of late complained of charge of Pourveyance or Compositions foâ— them will be so little as there will be no cause at all for it when as the yearly charge of buying Babies Hobby-horses and Toys for children to spoil aswell as play with which costes England as hath been computed near one hundred thousand pounds per annum or of amending the High ways yeerly Treatments given to Harvest Folk or the expences of an Harvest Goose and a Seed Cake given yearly to their Plowmen keeping a Wake or Parish Feast every year or many other such like trivial and most cheerful and pleasing expences will make the foot of the accompt as to the several kinds of those particulars to be a great deal more then the charge of that necessary duty of Pourveyance or Compositions for them which was so easie and petit as in most of the Counties of England it was many times not singly rated or assessed by it self but was joyned with some other Assessements and in Kent where more was paid then in any one County near London it was so little felt and regarded as a Tenant paying one hundred pounds rent per annum for his Land did not think it to be of any concernment for him to reckon it to his Landlord and demand an allowance for it And the people of Oxfordshire Barkshire Wiltshire and Hampshire upon his now Majesties most happy restoration receiving his gracious letters offering them the Election of suffering him to take his Prae-emption and Pourveyance or to pay the Compositions returned answer by their letters which were read before the King in his Compting house in Whitehall that they humbly desired him to accept of the Compositions And all the other Counties and the generality of the people of the smaller as well as greater Intellectuals do understand it to be so much for the good of the King and the people as many of them are troubled and discontented that he hath them not And they who causing the Markets and the prices of things to be so unreasonably dear and excessive by their own raising of prices for their own advantages may when they please make the difference betwixt the Kings rates and theirs to be none at all or much lesser if they would but sell as cheap as they might afford their commodities according to the plenty of Victuals or provisions which is in England The high prices and rates which are now put upon Victuals and Provisions for Food and house-keeping being neither enforced nor occasioned by any plenty of Gold or Silver in England and if there were any such store or abundance of it non causatur effective
should be And that it was and will be for the good of the people unless the oppressing and cheating one another shall be understood to be for their good that the King and his subordinate Magistrates should correct and regulate the deceits and excess of rates and prices in Markets as those of the Fishmongers of London were by King Edward the first when they were fined five hundred Marks pro illicitis negotiis Forstallamentis aliis transgressionibus in officio suo Piscatorum for Forstallings and other unlawful practises in their Trades or as King E. 3. did when upon a Complaint made by the Commonalty of the City of London that the Butchers such a watchful eye was then kept more then now upon the deceits of Trade did stick and fasten the fat of great or fat Oxen upon the flesh of the lean whereby to promote the sale and price in deceptionem populi to the damage and deceipt of the people he commanded the Maior to provide a remedy or as an Assise of Bread and good and needful Ordinances for Bakers Brewers Inholders Vintners and Butchers was set and made there being an old Assise book made and Ordained in Anno 12 H. 7. by the Lords of the Privy Councel to Queen Elizabeth viz. John Archbishop of Canterbury Sir Christopher Hatton William Lord Burghley Henry Earl of Derby Charles Lord Howard Henry Lord Hunsdon Thomas Lord Buckhurst Sir Francis Knowles Sir Thomas Heneage Sir John Fortcâ—cue and Sir John Wolley or the Decree if had been observed which was made in the Star Chamber the thirteenth day of November Anno 11. of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr after consultation had with diverse Justices of the Peace and the Certificate of all the Judges of England viz. Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Sir Robert Heath Knight Sir Humfrey Davenport Knight Sir John Denham Kt Sir Richard Hutton Knight Sir William Jones Knight Sir George Croke Knight Sir Thomas Trevor Knight Sir Geâ—rge Vernon Knight Sir Robert Barkley Knight and Sir Francis Crawley Knight and confirmed by the Kings Letters Patents under the great Seal of England the 14. day of December then next following that No Inkeeper or Ostler within the Cities of London and Westminster or ten miles distant who have since made such excessive rates as have affrighted many of their Customers away who finde it less chargeable to come to London in passage Coaches or send their horses back into the Country to finde out more honest Inkeepers should take above six pence for Hay for a horse standing night or day nor more then six pence for a peck of Oats of the measure called Winchester measure No Tavernor or Victualler selling Wine by Retail should sell or make ready for sale any sort of Flesh Fish or other victual save bread nor procure to be set up the Trade of a Cook within the same house or in any Shop or Room thereunto belonging or in any house near adjacent nor permit or suffer any Flesh Fish or other Victual except bread to be brought into the house to be there eaten by any of his Guests And did likewise upon hearing of divers Inkeepers who could not deny but that the rates before specified were competent further ordain that where Grain and Hey should at a further distance from London be sold at lesser prices there the rates prices should be accordingly And that that Ordinance should continue in the County of Middlesex untill it should be made to appear to the Justices of the Kings Bench and in other Counties and places to the Justices of peace that because of the increase of prices in the parts adjoyning greater rates should be necessary to be permitted and that thereupon other rates should from time to time be set and being set were commanded and enâ—oynâ—d to be strictly and duely observed untill by the like authority they should be altered And cannot deny but that if the King and his Royal Progenitors if they could ex praevisione by some foresight of things to come of which supernatural eminencies there is a non datur or denyall even to Kings and Princes have understood that their ancient and lawful rights of Pourveyance and Prae-emption would in return of all their benefits daily and yearly heaped upon their subjects have been ever thought to have been a grievance or oppression or endeavored to be withheld from them they might have saved as much and more as that would have come unto by reserving upon all their bounties and grants or Leases of their Mannâ—rs or Lands their Pourveyance or houshold provisions or when they gave Lands of inheritance rendring small or disproportionate Rents or Fee Farms to the greater yearly value which they now appear to be might have added so much of Pourveyance or provisions as might have taken away that causeless murmur against the Pourveyance which our old Saxon King Aethelstane who raigned here in Anno Dom. 938. understood to be so necessary for his housekeeping as when he had subdued the Welâ—h Princes made them his Tributaries he caused them to Covenant with him at Hereford not onely to pay him yeerly twenty pounds weight of Gold and three hundred of Silver but five hundred head of Cattlâ— with Hawks and Hounds to a certain number towards which payment by the Statutes of Howel Dâ—a saith our Industrious Speed the King of Aberfraw was charged at sixty six pounds an Early Composition rate for Pourveyance the Prince Dinemore and the Prince of Powys being to pay the like sums of money And that now to deny it unto the Crown is a greater injustice and injury then to have denyed it to Queen Elizabeth King James or his son King Charles the Martyr or in some hundred years before for that then our Kings and Princes might have preserved themselves and their successors from the rapines and unconscionable rates and prices of houshold provisions which some of his subjects might have forborn to impose upon their King though they do it upon others That if in the Raign of King Henry the seventh a Law or Act of Parliament had been made that for one hundred and fifty years after to the end to make a Treasury or provision of money which Common-wealths and many Kingdoms are not without for the protection and defence of the people against invasions or emergent evils the prices taken in the Markets more then formerly over and above the genuine and real worth of the Commodities should be collected and laid up for the good of the Publike or that all that took Lands to Farm should pay ten times the former yearly value and all things bought in the Market should like the King of France his Salt be for some things at three or four times or for others at ten fifteen or 20. times beyond the true value it would not be imaginable how near the peoples murmuring would have arrived to that of the Children of Israel in the Desart when they
forgot the mercies and wonders of the Almighty or that they would have been brought to any manner of beliefe that ever they should have been able to bear so great and so intollerable as they would have called it a burden And yet now that time and custome like Milo's Calf carryed untill he be a Bull and being a Bull found to be no heavyer then when he was a Calf the burthen is not so heavy at the last as they would have believed it would have been at the first because the people have hitherto made shift to bear it by cheating or impoverishing one another and by laying the burden one upon another will dispendio reipublicae to the not to be avoyded loss and ruine of the Commonwealth be for some time longer able to endure it if the rich may grinde and devour the poor and the King now his Pourveyance is taken away must bear the greater part of the burden That if the King before he had granted the greatest Act of Pardon Bounty and Indempnity that ever any or all the Kings of England had done before him to a company of Factious and Rebellious people who had out done either Sheba or Shimei or any of the sons of Zeruâ—ah and deserved less then any of their forefathers unless the murder of his Royal Father and all the groundless obloquies and reproaches which they could cast upon him the banishing persecuting of himself his brethren murder and ruine of his loyal subjects and dispossessing him of his Estate Kingdoms and Revenues for twelve years togeâ—her and all things endeavoured which might load him or them with scorn and indignities can by any Fanaticks or Factious people be proved which it never can to have been by dispensations or communication with God and a living and walking in the spirit had taken in again to the Crown all those forfeited Rights Franchises and priviledges which had been heretofore too liberally given or granted from it and reserved a ten times greater Pourveyance then is by any now complained of the people of England would have been so glad with their Quailes as they would have blamed themselves for murmuring without a cause either before or after they had them And that those who could adventure to transgress the Laws which by their Idolized Covenant they bound themselves to observe and buy Places and Offices in the Kings houshold the greatest part of the profits whereof were made by the Kings allowance of Dyet may now that many of those Dyets and Tables are taken away come to a better understanding of the necessity and right use of Pourveyance and Compositions for them That the allowance of fifty thousand pounds per annum proposed as a recompence for his losses in the want of his Pourveyance is not to be found in the moyety of the Excise of Ale and Beer settled upon him and his heirs and successors for that the benefit thereof will not make amends for what he lost by his Tenures in the yearly Revenue thereof for as to the honor regality and right use of it that and Ten times more and all that could be given in money or an yearly rent would not have been enough for the purchase That thrice the sum of fifty thousand pounds per annum cannot ballance so great a loss and damage as the King sustains by his remitting of the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions for them That the splendor and magnificence of the Kings house cannot be so well supported by any certain yearly allowance in money nor the Squeeze and enhance of the Markets be so well escaped as they will be by that most easie laudable and accustomed way and establishment of the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions for them and that it can be no less then an undenyable truth and reason that it is the duty and should be the care of every good subject to further rather then hinder the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions for them That the mischiefs and inconveniences of taking away the Royal Pourveyances or Compositions for them have so visibly and often appeared to every unprejudiced eye or judgement as there is scarce an Englishman unless it be Cornelius Holland one of those that helped to kill the heir for his inheritance and would rather have Pourveyance to be a grievance then that he should fail of getting to him and his heirs Creslow Pâ—stures in Buckinghamshire which were appropriate to the fatting of the Kings lean Cattle for the provision of his houshold as every man may well conclude that it will be more for tâ—e good and ease of the people who can never be rich or happy when their Prince is poor or necessitous and if they love themselves are to love and support him that the King should have his Praeâ—emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them then that he should be so much dishonored or oppressed as he is already and like to be more and more for want of it Which should be numbred amongst those ancient and legal priviledges and rights belonging to soveraignty puâ—chased by the cares and labors of our many English Kings and Monarchs with the hazard of their lives fortunes and estates in the preservation of the wel-fare of the people and a Monarchy which is of more then one thousand years continuance and being a duty ought to be more cheerfully submitted unto then any Ordinances By Laws or Customes of any Cities Borough Towns or Corporations or those of the Lords of Mannors by Grant Allowance or permission of Royal Indulgences or those of the City of London that great ingrosser of Liberties and priviledges who besides their Court of Wards and Orphans which yeildeth them very great yearly profits and advantages do receive take amongst many other things not here particularly mentioned by a Grant of King Henry the third of his Tolles at Queen Hithe Belines Gate and Downgate and else where in the City of London for a small Fee Farm Rent of fifty pounds per annum if enjoyed by so good a title which were formerly taken for the Kings use For every Tun of Beer carryed from Billingsgate by Merchant Strangers beyond the Seas four pence out of every hundred of Salmons brought to Queen Hithe by foraigners or such as are not free of the City two Salmons for every thousand of Herrings bought in Shops an haâ—f penny twenty six Mackarels out of every Mackarel Boat one Fish out of every Dosser of Fish not having in it Mullet Ray Congre Turbut c. Two Salmons out of every Bark which bringeth Salmons out of Scotland some Sprats out of every Boat or Barke with Sprats two pence of every Oyster Boat out of every Bark or Boat of Haddocks twenty six Haddocks out of every Ship or Bark laden with Herrings from Yarmouth two hundred Herrings for all kind of Fish brought to London after the same rate as was paid to the King at London Bridge for every Ship Bark or Vessel not belonging to London or
great Talbots or as the Prior of Canterbury did of his Tenants who in every Manor were bound ex antiqua consuetudine providere Priori ibidem de quodam Palifrido competenti tempore novae creations suoe by ancient custome to present the Prior at his election or first admittance a Palfrey fitting for him Or which the Prior of Rochester did of his Tenants of the Mannor of Haddenham in the County of Buckingham who by ancient custome in the eighteenth yeer of the raign of King Edward the third were to Mow and make the Lords Hey Weed his grain in his demesnes pay certain Rent Corn called Booting Corn and five hundred threescore and three Eggs at Easter which in Anno 18 H. 6. were by an agreement made with the Prior of Rochester released for the sum of three pounds and an increase of Rent from thence forward viz. for every Yard land twelve pence every half yard land six pence every Cotland eight pence and every worthy some Tenants so called four pence which is to this day paid and continued And being besides obliged by their customes to the works and services following viz. That every Tenant holding a yard land and the Tenants of two half yard lands ought to plough the Demeasne lands of the Lord two days in the year viz. in Winter and in Lent for which they were to have their dinner allowed by the Lord every Tenant holding a yard land ought in harvest upon a flesh day as also upon a Fish day to be assigned by the Reeve or Bailiff to find two able persons every holder of a half yard every Cotland or Cottogea and every worthy ought to finde the same day one able and lawful person with Hooks or Sickles to reap the Lords Grain in his Demeasnes for which they were to have their dinner allowed them at the charge of the Lord or his Farmer every yard land ought to carry half a quarter of the Lords grain to Oxford being about twelve miles distant to Wallingford neer as much or to Wickham being about ten miles distant being Market Towns near adjoyning to Haddenham and all the Carriers were to have one penny in common to drink the morrow they ought not to work every yard land ought to carry to Marlow eleven quarter of Grain of antient measure at three tearms of the year to be quit from all things by six weeks after and to carry the Lords grain from his demeasnes into his Barn from the furthest field four loads from Dillicot field six loads and if they carry nearer then all the day if it please the Lord also if the Lord shall buy Wood every Yard land ought to carry two loads of Wood from the place into the Lords Yard so it be ready to carry before the Feast of St. Michael otherwise each Yard land should onely carry a horse load so as they may in one day go and return and all that week they should remain quiet likewise if the Lord should build houses he ought to buy Tymber and the men viz. his Coppyholders ought to bring it home viz. each hide every day one Load untill the whole be carryed so as they may in one day go and return also if it please the Lord to send for fish four hides ought to be summoned and two shall go for fish to Gloucester which is about six and thirty miles from thence and other two shall carry it to Rochester upon their own cost and they should remain quiet until they return all the Cotterels and worthy Tenants ought to wash the Sheep of the Lord and to sheer them and fully to perform all thereunto belonging and have nothing therefore and if a theif should be taken in the liberty of the Lord the Cotterel Tenants should keep him And were so due and of so long a continuance as though the Tenants some few onely excepted which would not pertake of the Composition and are still contented to do their work and carriage services did upon a reference made by King James to Henry Earl of Manchester Lord President of his Councel in Anno 1624. to hear and determine the differences betwixt Sir Henry Spiller then Lord of the said Mannor and the Tenants concerning that and other matters within a short time after viz. in the first year of the raign of King Charles the Martyr agree for a Release of the said services not acquitted in Anno 18 H. 6. to pay yeerly unto the Lord of the Mannor and his heirs after the rate of three pence for every Acre and a penny for every Messuage or Cotage which had no land belonging unto it Or as many the like beneficial customes and priviledges at this day enjoyed by the Lords of some thousands or more of Mannors in England which beloned unto the Abbies and Religious houses for which they have quit Rents or other payments not unlike the Compositions for the Royal Pourveyance Or that the Steward of the Kings house should not if the Kings Pourveyance and Prae-emption had not been remitted by Act of Parliament have authority to do as much as the Steward of the Kings house did about the eighteenth year of the Raign of King Edward the second notwithstanding so great priviledges immunities and exemptions granted and confirmed to the City of London command that no Fishmonger upon pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of his goods and chattels should go out of the City to forestall any Sea or fresh fish or send them to any great Lord or Religious house or any person whatsoever nor keep from coming to Town untill the hour appointed for selling be past untill the Kings Achators or Pourveyers should have made their Pourveyance to the use of the King Or that the King of England whose Royal Ancestor King Richard the first did not onely give to many Religious houses as to the Priory of Royston in Cambridgeshire divers exemptions and priviledges to be free from Carriages c. but de Regalium domorum aedificatione ac omnimoda operatione of works towards the repair or building of the Kings houses Ac ut silvae eorum ad praedicta opera aut ad aliqua alia nullo modo capiantur that their Woods or Timber should not be cut or taken for that or any other purpose and whose other Royal Progenitors have abundantly furnished diverse Abbies Religious houses with priviledges to be free of Carriage by Carts Summage upon horses de Thesauro ducendo Convoy of the Kings Treasure de operationibus Castellorum Pontium Parcorum Murorum work to be done in the building or repairs of Castles Bridges or Walls de vaccarum solutione quae dari solebant pro Capitibus utlagatorum and the payment of certain Cows or Cattel to redeem the forfeitures of Outlaws and exemptions from payment of Fumage or Chimny money Lestage or licence to carry away from Markets what they had bought or in release or discharge of customes such as at Beleshale in
and other Officers of Companies Provosts of the Marshals and their Lieutenants Paymasters of the Companies Commissaries and Comptrollers at war Contrerolleur general and other Officers of the Arâ—illery Mort or dead pays Mint Masters and such as do work in the Mint the Kings Secretaries the Rectors or Governors of Universities Heads of Colledges Notaries Bedels Scholars or such as are actually Students Physitians Presidents Councellors Advocates Proctors Greffiers or Officers of Courts of Justice Ushers of Courts Soveraign and other Officers also all Officeâ—s in inferior Courts which are as many almost as there are Vâ—llages Stewardships Bayliages or petit jurisdictions as the Lieutenants Criminel and Civil general or particular their Councellors Greffiers and other Officers and the chief Magistrates of Tholouse during the year of their Magistracy And are so much the more a burden and grievous to the common people by the partialâ—ty of the Elections or those in every Province which are the Tax Masters by the exactions of the Collectors particular receivers Controlleurs generaux Receivers generauz Tresoriers de l' Espargne Commis inspectors of the Revenue and Clercs des Finances which their great Henry or Henry the fourth did so well undeâ—stand to be a torment and a trouble to the people as he said that On fait payer double Taille l' une est a moy l' autre aux officers la seconde rend la premiere insupportable car les despens que fâ—nt les officers montent plus que la Taille my people do pay double Taxes or Tallages by paying as much to the Officers as to me which do make the Taxes insupportable for the charge of the Officers do exceed that of the Tax Insomuch as the Paisants Artizans and common people of France may bewail the loss of the virtues of the old Gaules and Franks their Ancestors and predecessors that the Parliament of Paris once the guide of that Nation and representing the three Estates of that Kingdom is now become but an extraordinary Court of Justice to verifie the Kings commands and Edicts with a Car tel est nostre plaisir for so is our will pleasure lament the change of their Government and ancient constitutions and the wasting and dismembring of the ancient Domaine and Revenue of the Crown of France which notwithstanding it be a part of the Oath of the Kings of France at their Coronations not to alien any of that sacrum Patrimonium or perpetual maintenance intended for the Crown and the returns of those many great Appennages and childrens Estates created out of them by the Escheat or coming back of Normandy Britain and other great Provinces and many Revnions Rachapts and Retraicts is now de cursu temporis by a long course of time and necessities of State or Royal munificences languished and brought into the small compass of twenty thousand pounds per annum sterling the Forests and Chases not included so as that Crown and the Important affairs thereof are now onely upheld and supported by Taxes and a grand and yearly Revenue raised out of them to help to maintain souldiers and Armies the Tax making a more then ordinary necessity of Armies and their pay and maintenance a necessity of multitudes of Taxes imposed upon the people Who may now believe that they are under a harder fate then the common people of the old Gaules were whom Julius Caesar now above seventeen hundred years ago found to be under so much vassalage and contempt as he saith apud Galles nihil fere plebe contemptius amongst the Gaules nothing is more contemptible then the common people by how much it is now increased and made more then it was then by their Taxes and poverty affording them little more comfort then to be sometimes able to purchase some of our English old Shoos transported thither as a Merchandize and some of our old Cloths Carbonadoed and trimmed up or revived a la mode de France Doth not use his subjects as those of Lorraine who besides their many Taxes as near of kin as they are in neighborhood to many of those in France do pay a certain Tax for the paâ—ns of Glasse in their Windows Nor as those of Ferrara now a Territory of the Church of Rome where besides the defraying of their former Dukes charges in the expences of his house and family which was wont to be nobly kept with a stable of four hundred horses or disbursed upon his own person or for gifts or Pensions or maintenance of Garrisons and the great profit which is made yeerly by Fish taken in the Lake of Comachio the people do pay a tenth of the true value of all things exported and imported and as much out of every Contract Lease Gift or Alienation and endure the gnawings and bitings of the Officers and Tax Masters which are to them as unwelcome as the Lice and Frogs some of the Plagues of Egypt every time that they come amongst them Nor as the State and Republike of Venice that Lottery of liberty where the people besides their Taxes upon publike necessities as when in the wars against the Emperor Maximilian all but the poorest sort paid a moyety of their Rents being not excused by the yearly Taxes payments or Aydes of 140000 Aurei or fifteen shillings sterling out of Padua 36000 Vincenza ninety thousand Verona 1000450. Bergamo six thousand Friuli thirty thousand Dalmatia ten thousand besides what they have yeerly out of Zant Candy and Corcyra do pay a great Excise or Imposition upon Oyl Wine Corn Iron Fruit Wood Bakehouses Mills and all Commodities exported and imported and do with their burdens on their backs but draw blancks in stead of real immunities and liberties admire and talk of the inestimable Treasury and Arsenall of that City which sitteth as a Lady upon many waters and please themselves with the glimmering and far distant hopes that they or some of their posterities may one time or another by the chance of the Balloting Box come to be a Senator or Clarissimo or obtain some gainful Magistracy or the Procuratorship of St. Mark and are notwithstanding so little pleased with their Taxes and Tax-masters when they do better think of it as their Masters the Doge and Signory dare not at home Trust any of their Natives with any commands or generalship in their hired Armies but do rather adventure the success and conduct of the wars in the hands of Foraigners and other Nations Doth not do as the King of Sweden who besides his Aydes from the people for publike occasions which by an eternal Law of Nature and Nations and self preservation are never denyed to Kings or Princes takes in that Elective Kingdom a tenth of all Mines Fruit Barley Butter Fish Oxen and Hides with a Tax upon Furs as the cold increaseth or decreaseth the Nobility and their Tenants contributing nothing but in case of war to any publike Taxes
want or be without their Trade of warre as if there be no forreign warres they doe commonly make it out in rebellions and combustions amongst themselves which bringing a large addition to the ordinary burdens of the Paisants or Countrymen renders them ever unable to purchase themselves some freedome or exemption of Taxes by getting themselves to be made Gentlemen and taking share in the fortune and ravage of warre and that being not to be compassed are to live as well contented as they may in being their drudges and to take it for a happiness to make some of their children to be their Lacquies or Jack Puddings very fine for a little time of every year when their fantasticall Apish clothes are new but in rags foul and lowsie linnen and vices all the year after And that the custome and usage of Pourveyance and the smaller trouble charge thereof will be much better which being by the light of nature irradiations of wisdom and right reason not only confined to the Jews Graecians Romans and Europe hath diffused and spread it self to the Mahumetans and the more remote Heathen as may appear by good Authors and Writers of their Customes and usages and by our Ambassadours sent from hence in the behalf of our Merchants as the learned and greatly experienced Sir Thomas Roe besides many Sea Captains Navigators and Traders into the farther parts of the World as Captain Hawkins Sir John Davis Mr. Methwold Captain Saris Captain Whittington Mr. Courtop Mr. Peyton and others and of some French and Venetians trading into the East and West Indies Tartary and other farre distant places whose written relations in their adventurous discoveries of most of the habitable parts of the earth and search after Trade and Commerce were very carefully collected by Mr. Samuel Purchas For in that great extent of Kingdoms and Provinces belonging to the Grand Signior or Emperor of Turkie there comes yearly to the Ottoman Port from Egypt great store of of Dates Prunes and other dried plums of divers sorts which the Cooks doe use in their dressing of meat great quantities of honey from Valachia Transilvania and Moldavia which are presented to the Grand Signior and oyl of which there is an unspeakable consumption made brought from Modon and Coron in Graecia the Saniack Begh of that Province being bound to see the Port sufficiently served therewith The Butter of which there is also spent a great quantity in that it is much used in most of their meats comes out of the Black sea from Mogdania and from Caffa in great Oxe and Buffale hides and fruits of all sorts are daily brought for Presents In the great Empire of Persia there are urbes complures alimenta donantes una panem altera ova alia obsonia suppeditant many Cities which have several assignations for furnishing provisions for the King and his publick uses and the Subjects do over above other great Tributes pay other things towards the maintenance of the King as those of Armenia Horses Babilonia four moneths victuals the rest of Asia eight and other Regions their particular commodities and some of his Guard receive no money but victuals for their wages The antient more Eastern or Cathaian Tartars doe daily from October to March send unto their great Chan great store of cattel And on his Birth-day great Presents and it is the custom of those which bring Presents unto him at New-years tide which the Rulers and Governors of Provinces never fail to do or at other times of the year to present nine times nine of gold and horses and of all that they bring so as sometimes he hath at once one hundred thousand horses and when he hath any use of his Dukes whom they call Morscis or Divoimorscis they are bound to come bring with them their Souldiers to a certain number every man with his two horses at the least the one to ride on and the other to kill when it cometh to his turn to have his horse eaten And the Governors of Countries and Provinces doe send the best of the wild beasts which the Hunters take as Stags Boares c. unto the Emperor in Wains or Ships many daies journey and if farre distant the skins only to make armour In China and the vast Provinces thereunto belonging where they think they have a Monopoly of wit and bragging of their two eyes would not willingly allow the Europeans any more then one every house not priviledged payes a Tribute towards the expences of the Kings Houshold and the great numbers of the Royall Line which in a Country where Polygamy is allowed are many thousands are all maintained at the publick charge every man payes a Tribute for his person lands and trees and all that he hath Every Province yearly sends its Legates or Deputies and all his kindred bring Presents unto him in so much as ten thousand Vessels in a year are imployed by water to carry Tributes and provision for the Kings Houshold and all dainties and things of worth or value presented to him for the service of him and his house The greatest part of the King of Fez his Tribute is paid in corn cattel oyl and butter In Guinea the King hath a Custome of fish which is sent by his Slaves every morning to his house And the Prete or Emperor of Ethiopia hath of that King besides gold an yearly Tribute of three thousand five hundred Mâ—les and three hundred Horses And it is a custom in the East-Indies near the Portugals Dominions that when any Vice-Roy cometh newly over all the Kings bordering upon Goa which have peace and friendship with the Portugals do send their Embassadors unto him to confirm their Leagues with great and rich Presents which do amount unto a great mass of treasure In the Province of Goa as appears by the confirmation of their Customs by John King of Portugal in the year 1526. and that which is now continued and in use amongst them under the government of the Portuguez at what time soever the chief Master of the Ports with the Clerks or Clerk of his charge together or any one of himself shall goe to the Island about matters concerning the Kings affairs or any one whom they shall send to the Island or to the Towns of the same they are to give them their meat according to their use and custome and also to the Kings Factor or Officer of that Office when they shall goe thither to provide in any matters concerning the Kings Affairs or the Towns of the Island and whatsoever footman shall go of any message pertaining to the Kings service or the recovery of any of his Rents they shall give him every day that he shall be there without dispatching two measures of Rice for his meat or one Leal a piece of money of the value of our three farthings to buy Betre which is an herb that they do use to eat and out of their Trade or Customes do
or any manner of Article contained in that Charter willed and granted that such manner of Statutes and Customes should be void and frustrate for ever Anno 28 Ed. 1. Artic. super Chartaâ— ca. 2. upon complaint that the Kings Ministers of his house did to the great grievance and damage of the people take the goods as well of the Clergy as the Laity without paying any thing or els much less then the value It was ordained that no Pourveyors should take any thing but for the Kings House and touching such things as they should take in the Country of meat and drink and such other mean things necessary for the house they should pay or make agreement with them of whom the things should be taken nor take more then should be needfull to be used for the King his Houshold and Children with a Proviso therein that nevertheless the King and his Counsel did not intend by that Estatute to diminish the Kings Right for the antient prices due and accustomed as of wines and other goods but that his Right should be saved unto him in all points Anno 16 Ed. 2. the King sent his Writ to the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench then not so fixed as now or of later times to command them to take care to punish the Infringers of those Lawes And howsoever the Articles and inquiries in the Eyres in the Reign of King Edward the first were to enquire and punish those Sheriffs Constables or Bayliffs which took any victuals or provisions for the King or his Houshould which shews that then also no Markets were kept at the Court gates nor that all the Kings provisions were there bought or taken contra voluntatem eorum quorum Catalla fuerint without the will of the owners which in all probability was to be regulated and perswaded by that duty and loyalty which every good Subject coming to a Country or City Market did bear to his Soveraign and the Preserver by his authority and power of not only what they brought to Market that day but what was left at home or to be brought at other times to Market and the words sine consensu voluntate c. without the consent of the Seller are to be interpreted and understood saith Sir Edward Coke to have been inserted in that and other Statutes for that Pourveyers would take the goods of such men as had no will to sell them but to spend them for their own necessary use But afterwards some abuses like weeds getting in amongst the best corn or greatest care of the watchfull Husbandman happening in the manner of Pourveyances by taking them without warrant or threatning the Sellers or Assessors to make easie prices or not paying ready money or the Market rate for them or taking more then they needed or by greater measures making the Pourveyances for divers Noble-men belonging to the Court as of the Duke of Gloucester in the Reign of King Henry the sixth and in his time also some Hostlers Brewers and other Victuallers keeping Hosteries and Houses of retailing victuals in divers places of the Realm having purchased the Kings Letters Patents to take Horses and Carts for the service of the King and Queen did by colour of them take horses where no need was and bring them to their Hosteries and other places and there keep them secretly untill they had spent xx d or xl.d. of their stuff and sometimes more and then make the owners pay it before their horses could be delivered and sometimes made them pay a Fine at their will and at other times took Fines to shew favour and not to take their horses and many times would not pay for the hire of the said horses and carts divers Acts of Parliament upon complaints at several times in Parliament of the said abuses committed by Pourveyers were made to prohibit and provide against them but none at all to take away the Pourveyance it self or Prae-emption or the Kings just Rights and Prerogatives therein but a saving of the Kings Rights especially provided for in many of them as Anno 10 Ed. 3. ca. 4. The Sheriff shall make Pourveyance for the Kings horses Anno 18 Ed. 3. ca. 4. In the Commissions to be made for Pourveyance the Fees of the Church shall be exempted in every place where they be found Anno 25 Ed. 3. ca. 1. after that in Anno 20 Ed. 3. divers Pourveyers had been attainted and hanged for fending against those Lawes and that in the 23. year of that Kings Reign divers of the Kings Pourveyers were indited for breach of those Lawes It was enacted that If any Pourveyer of victuals for the King Queen or their Children should take Corn Litter or Victuals without ready mony at the price it commonly runneth in the Market prized by Oath by the Constable and other good people of the Town he shall be arrested and if attainted suffer pains as a Thief if the quantity of the goods the same require Cap. 6. No Pourveyer shall take cut or â—ell wood or Timber for the Kings use for work growing near any mans dwelling house Et cap. 7 Keepers of Forrests or Chaces shall gather nothing nor victuals nor sustenance without the owners good will but that which is due of old right Cap. 15. If any Pourveyer take more sheep then shall be needfull and be thereof attainted it shall be done to him as a Thief or a Robber Anno 36 Ed. 3. ca. 6. No Lord of England nor none other of the Realm of what estate or condition that he be except the King and the Queen his wife shall make any taking by him or any of his Servants of any manner of victuals but shall buy the same that they need of such as will sell the same of their good will and for the same shall make ready payment in hand according as they may agree with the seller And if the people of Lords or of other doe in other manner and thereof be attainted such punishment of life and of member shall be done of them as is ordered of the buyers the occasion of the making of which Statute and the preceding Act of Parliament of 25 Ed. 6. before mentioned Sir Edward Cook informes us was a book written in Latin by Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury and before that a Secretary of State and Privy Councellor to King Ed. 3. called Speculum Regis sharpely inveying against the intollerable abuses of Pourveyers and Pourveyance in many particulars and earnestly advising and pressing him to provide remedies for those insufferable oppressons and wrongs offered to his Subjects which the King often perusing it wrought such effect as at divers of his Parliaments but especially in his Parliament holden in the 36 year of his Reign he did of his own will without the motion of the great men or Commons as the Record of Parliament speaketh cause to be made many excellent Laws against the oppressions and falshood of Pourveyâ—rs
as they can they doe with Trumpets Drums and Musick by water in their several Barges adorned with the Banners and Arms of their Companies or Gilds conduct and attend their Lord Maior to be sworn at Westminster although the City of London and every Company in London are abundantly or very well endowed with lands of inheritance of a great yearly value and great stocks of money by Gifts and Legacies And no less reason then the imposing of a penny upon every Broad Cloth brought to sale to Blackwell-hall in London to be paid to the Chamberlain of London to the use of the City for Hallage which the Judges of the Kings Bench in Mich. Terme 32 33 Eliz. in the Chamberlain of Londons Case adjudged to be lawfull because it was as they then declared pro bono publico in regard of the benefits which the Subjects enjoyed thereby and for the maintenance of the weal publick and can not be said to be a charge to the Subject when he reaps benefit thereby and resembled it to Pontage Murage Toll and the like which as appeareth by the book of 13 H. 4.14 being reasonable the Subject will have more benefit by it then the charge amounts unto and that the Inhabitants of a Town or Parish may without any Custome make Ordinances and Bylawes for the reparation of a Church or High-wayes or any thing which is for the weal publick and in such cases the greater part shall bind all the rest And as much to be approved as the wages of the Knights of the Shires and Burgesses coming to Parliaments which are taxed and levied of the Counties Cities and Boroughs some few as those which hold any Lands parcel of an Earldome or Barony only excepted and the charges of the Convocation or Clergy assessed upon the Clergy The Synodals Procurations Proxies and payments made and paid by every Minister to defray the charges of the Arch Deacons in their Visitations every year and the Bishops every three years who are enabled to recover them by the Statute of 34 and 35 of Henry the eighth cap. 19. Oblations Easter and other offerings for the further supply and maintenance of the Ministry Tributes Customes and allowances to Governors of Colonies and Plantations as Virginia New-England Barbados c. or 10 s. or some other rate given by Merchants to the Consuls at Venice Smirna Aleppo Ligorne c. towards their support to assist them in the matter of Trade and procuring Justice from the Superiors of the Territories The Pensions Admissions and Payments in the Universities and the severall Colleges and Halls therein for their support with Taxes also sometimes imposed for publick Entertainments of the King Queen Prince Chancellor of the University or some other Grandees although every Colledge and Hall is endowed with large yearly and perpetuall Revenues in Lands the Admittances yearly Pensions and Payments together with the sale and rent of many Chambers in the Inns of Court Chancery or Colledges or Houses of Law towards the maintenance charges and support of the honour of those Societies and contributions not seldome made and enforced towards publick Treatments and Masques the payments and rates in Parishes for Pews Burialls tolling a passing Bell or ringing him and his companions at Funerals which if not enough to defray the charges of the many Feasts and Meetings of the Church-wardens and Petty States of the Parish repairing of the Church new painting and adorning it buying new Bell-ropes casting one or more Bells building the Steeple something higher or making a sumptuous Diall with a gilded Time and Hour-glass are sure enough to be enlarged by a Parish Rate or Tax more then it comes to Or that which is paid by the poor Tankard or Water-Bearers at the Conduits in London where every one payeth three shillings and six pence at his admittance and a penny a quarter towards the support of that pittifull Society Or those contributions sic magna componere parvis to represent great things by small and the vegetation or manner of the growth of an Oak by that of the lowly Shrubs which are made by a more impoverished sort of people the Prisoners for Debt in Ludgate by Orders and Constitutions so necessary is Government and Order and the support thereof even in misery of their own sorrowfull making in their narrow confinements that the Assistant which is monethly chosen by all the Prisoners to attend in the Watch-hall all day to call down prisoners to strangers which come to speak with them change money for the Cryers at the Grates keep an accompt in writing what money or gifts are every day sent to the Prisoners or given to the Box to charge the Steward with it upon the Accompt day see the Accompts truly cast up the Celler cleared by ten of the clock at night of all Prisoners and the Prisoners to be at their Lodgings quietly and civily hath his share of six pence allowed out of the Charity money every night whereof two pence is to be for the Assistant two pence for the Master of the Box and the other two pence allowed in mony or drink unto him which is the running Assistant or unto the Scavenger for bearing 2 candles before him at nine of the clock at night and rings the bell for Prayers is the Cryer for sale at the Markets for the Charity men of light bread taken by the Lord Maior or Sheriffs chumps of Beefe or any other things sent in by the City Clerk of the Market and unsized Fish by the water Bayliffe with many other small employments for which his Salery is four shillings eight pence per moneth and two pence out of the sixteen pence paid by every Prisoner at his first coming And the Scavenger who is to keep the house clean hath for his standing Salery five shillings eight pence per moneth two pence for every Prisoner at his first coming out of the sixteen pence table-money by him paid and a penny out of every Fine imposed upon offenders for the breach of any orders Every Prisoner paying at his first coming besides many other Fees fourteen pence for entring his name and turning the key five shillings for a Garnish to his Chamber-fellows to be spent in coals and candles for their own use or for a Dinner or Supper and sixteen pence to one of the Stewards of the House for Table-money out of which candles are to be bought for the use of the House every night set up in places necessary c. notwithstanding that it hath above 60 l. per annum belonging unto it charged upon lands in perpetuity and many other considerable and misused Legacies which have been setled and bestowed upon that should be well priviledged Prison And as much and more reasonable as the generall protection and defence is above any particular and the publick benefits do exceed any that are private as those payments and services which being derived from gratitude or retribution for
Henry the third his Sonne by their Magna Charta Agreement or Accord made with their then powerfull Barons and Church men and a discontented and seditious Commonalty since reduced into Lawes and confirmed by thirty Acts of Parliament wherein the people having many liberties granted them by those Kings the great Lords Prelates and superior part of the Clergy of whom they held which they could not then claim as rights but were to be received as favours and as much to be valued as their pardon and indemnity which was granted unto them by the same Charter King John therein promising them that all those Customes and Liberties quantum ad se pertinet erga suos omnes homines de regno suo tam Laici quam Clerici observent quantum ad se pertinet erga suos as much as belonged to him he would observe towards all men and that all as well Laick as spiritual should as much as belonged to them observe them towards such as held of them And by the late King Charles the Martyr who took but one hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome which was antiently accompted to be but of the yearly value of four hundred pounds per annum the least of which are now three or four thousand pounds per annum very many double as much and some sixteen or twenty thousand pounds per annum when as the hundred pounds was then according to the now value of silver above three hundred pounds And to disburse in houshold provisions according to the difference betwixt the rates and prises of victuals as they were in the Reign of King Edward the second which was above 80 years after the granting and confirming of Magna Charta by King Henry the third when a Capon was sold for two pence and what they are now will not be the fourth part as to some sort of provisions and victuals and as to others not the sixteenth of that hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome and so proportionably in other reliefs and the summe of five pounds for the relief of a Knights Fee which is but the fourteenth part according to the difference betwixt the antient and then value of the lands belonging unto a Knights Fee now estimated but at three hundred pounds per annum many of which are four or five hundred pounds per annum and others of a greater yearly value as the lands are lesser or more improved nearer or farther distant from London the grand Emporium of the Trade and Commerce of the Nation and the residence of the King and his superior Courts of Justice And are but the Antiqua Relevia antient Reliefs which King Henry the first in his Charter of Liberties granted to the people did not reduce unto any certain sums but ordered to be justa legitima And but two hundred Marks for the Relief of a Marques and two hundred pounds of a Duke although there were at the time of the making of those great Charters neither Dukes nor Marquesses in England or any such Titles in being and one hundred pounds for the relief of a Baron And if the warres had not hindred him from those and other his dues but 20 s. for every Knights fee according to the Statute in anno 3 E. 1. towards the marriage of his eldest Daughter and making his eldest Son a Knight and no more of every twenty pounds per annum in Socage Did not according to the Equity and Preamble of the Act of Parliament de anno quinto Eliz. cap. 4. which in regard that the wages and allowances limited and rated in former Statutes were in divers places too small and not answerable to that time respecting the advancement of prices of all things belonging unto Servants and Labourers and that the Law could not conveniently without the great grief and burden of the poor Laborers and hired men be put in execution and to the end that there might be a convenient proportion of wages in the times of scarcity and plenty did repeal so much of the said former Statutes as concerning the working and wages of Servants and Labourers and enacted that the wages of Artificers Labourers and Servants should be yearly assessed by the Justices of the Peace and Magistrates in every County City and Town Corporate with respect to the plenty and scarcity of the time and other circumstances necessary to be considered endeavour to raise them to any higher sums or make them proportionable to the present values of lands and money rates and prices of victuals And by the favour of his now Royal Majesty who delighting in the vestigiis and pathes of his many indulgent and Royall Progenitors though his own very great wants and necessities and their daily importunities might have advised him not to have kept the road of his Ancestors liberality and bounty but to reserve some kindness for himself and his more urgent occasions did not as King Henry the third and several other Kings of England his Successors cause his Taxes Assessements by Parliament to be assessed upon oath according to the full and true value of the peoples Estates or as was done by King Edward the sixth since the Statute of 6 Ed. 3. for restraining the Parliament aids to the old Taxation upon the assistance or relief then so called given unto him by Parliament and make enquiries upon oath of the best values of the substance of such as were to pay that Relief Dismes and Subsidies and by the oaths also of those who were to pay them and caused some to be sworn to value clothes to the end that the King might receive payment of Relief for every cloth or as Queen Mary did cause an enquiry to be made upon oath of the value of the goods and lands of such as were lyable to the payment of Fifteens Dismes and Subsidies in the 2 3 4 and 5 years of her Reign But in his Assessments Aids or Subsidies granted by Parliament did imitate his Royal Father King Charles the first who took and received all his Subsidies at two shillings eight pence in the pound for goods and moveables and four shillings for lands and immoveables with defalcation of debts and consideration of a greater then ordinary charge of children assessed by an express exception without oath and the Commissioners left at liberty to assesse themselves and the Assessors according to the old and easie Taxations Takes and receives his First-fruits or the first years value of Bishopricks Spiritual Promotions and of Benefices not under ten marks per annum and Vicarages not under ten pounds per annum since treble those values as they are said to be in the Kings books and for the Tenths of their Spirituall Promotions after no greater a rate or yearly value which no Act of Parliament ever obliged him to doe then they were long agoe valued with some very small encrease or raising long since in a very few of the Bishopricks but
wept for him that was in trouble and sate chief and dwelt as a King in the Army as one that comforteth the mourners the ears that heard him blessed him and the eye that saw him gave witness to him when men gave care and waited and kept silence at his counsel although it must be acknowledged that there are now some of the Gentry more learned accomplished then in former ages and might equall or goe beyond their worthy and honorable Ancestors if they would but imitate their Alms-deeds and hospitality and not permit their greater expences in matters less warrantable and laudable to make and enforce an avaâ—ice or Rubiginem animarum canker or rust of the soul to hinder or keep them from it And Gentlemen were not then as too many now are the fools of the Parish and so little valued as they are now when too many of them may be beaten and kickt in the Market-places in the view and sight of their over-racked and disobliged Tenants piget pudet dicere I would there were no cause or occasion to speak it and with their few attendants of Sicophants Pimps and Foot-boyes be as little helped or regarded by the Common people as a ridiculous pride and a large and wastfull retinue of sins and folly ought to be But kept great hospitalities and were heretofore in their houses in the Country as the Dii Tutelares of the poor or such as were in any want or necessitâ—es the Cities of refuge in all their distresses the Esculapius Temple for wholsome or honest medicaments or unmercinary cures of wounds and diseases which the good Ladies and Gentlewomen their Wives or Daughters were then well practised in and had great respects and reverence paid unto them for it And see how little is now done in any of those kinds if he hath any fear of God or care of goodness love or respect to his Country and posterity forbear a bewailing of the ruine and decay of the moralities virtues and honor of England and wonder how that only remaining relique of our fore-fathers magnanimity and virtues that seed plot of love and good will which the Angels in their song and rejoycing at the birth of our Jesus and Redeemer proclaimed to be a blessing that seminary of reverence honor and respect that ligament and tye betwixt the inferiours and superiours that incitement and encouragement to reciprocations of love and duty and that heretofore so famous and well imployed strength and power of the Nobility and Gentry should be disused and laid side and that those laudable pious and honorable actions of Hospitality and Charity in which our Kings of England so much delighted and by a solemn and thrice repeated crie or proclamation made by one of the Heralds of a Largesse a Largesse at the creation of every Baron Earl or Duke being as the cry or joy of the Harvest mentioned in the holy Scriptures and at St. George's Feasts did put the Nobility and Gentry in mind to doe the like in their several orbes and stations should be now restrained by the want of Pourveyance or Compositions for it or that there should be any endeavours to decay and hinder it at the fountain or well head by stopping the pleasant and refreshing waters which gladded our Sion and the Inhabitants thereof and made it to be the terror of all the Nations round about us or that any should think it to be for the good and honor of England to lessen that hospitality and plenty in the Kings House or Court which is so pleasing and suitable to the humor and constitution of the English Nation hath gained the Kings of England so much love at home and honor abroad maintained so fair a correspondency and intelligence betwixt the Court and Ministry and relieved the poor and needy the Widdow and the Fatherless And is so essentiall and proper to Majesty as David when he offered sacrifice unto the Lord after the bringing back of the Ark did give to every one of the people men and women a Cake of bread a good piece of flesh and a Flaggon of wine and so customary as the Romans could not think themselves secure in the good wills affections of the people without their Epulae and publick Feasts and caressing of the people which Julius Caesar nor his Successor Augustus would not adventure to omit Nor Domitian and Severus who gave oyle wine and other necessary provisions a Fin as Lois d' Orleans rightly understood it d' concilier l' amour de leurs Subjects quils prenoient par lebouchâ— to procure the love of the people who were taken by the mouth and was so customary in France as well as England as at a great solemnity there after that our King Henry the fifth had espoused the Daughter and Heir of France and the people of Paris in great numbers went unto the Louvre to see the King and Queen of England sit at meat together with their Crowns upon their heads but being dismissed without an invitation to eat or drink by some of the Officers or Masters of the houshold as they were accustomed they murmured exceedingly for that when they came to such grand solemnities at the King of Frances Court they used to have meat and drink given them in great plenty and those which would sit at meat were by the Kings Officers most abundantly served with wine and victuals and at extraordinary Feasts as that at the marriage of King Henry the fifth of England and the Lady Katherine Daughter of Charles the sixth King of France had Tables furnished with victuals set in the streets where they which would might sit and eat at the Kings charges as was afterwards also done at Amiens at the enterview of Lewis the eleventh of France and Edward the fourth of England And was there in those dayes most laudably used a fin dâ— unir le peuple au Roy les pieds a la teste pur affirmir le corps politick le lier par une gracieuse voire necessaire correspondence to the end to fasten the people unto the King and the feet unto the head to strengthen the body politick and unite all the parts thereof by a loving and necessary compliance and was an usage so well entertained in other Nations as the Tartars and Laplanders would not be without it and the Graecians thought themselves dishonored if there were not a more then ordinary care to entertain strangers of free cost insomuch as a Law was made amongst the Lucani to punish such as took not a care of them and the Swedes and Gothes esteemed it to be so great an unworthines not to doe it as they did by a Law ordain That whosoever denied lodging or entertainment to any strangers and was by witnesses convicted to have thrice offended in that kind his house was to be burned Those or the like kind and charitable customs haveing so crept through the cranies of humane
intended a Progress to visit his loyal City of Worcester the Royâ—l ever to be remembred Oak and the places of his marvelous escape in a grateful acknowledgement of Gods never to be forgotten mercies shewed unto him in that his greatest of distresses so as he could not either then or ever since perfect or put in execution that his pious and most Christian-like resolution may inform every one that is not more then deaf to all reason that it was the Nations concernment that the King should not have wanted the assistance of his Pourveyance to have gone to the place of that his extraordinary deliverance to have rendred thanks for himself and his people who may be said to have been delivered in him and escaped with him And if it had not been such an ancient right should not have been denyed him in his necessities which Cicero who was as great a Commonwealths man in Rome and lover of it as any of our Republicans could be in England was of opinion ought to be obeyed ubi pro salute Reipublicae where it is for the good of the Commonwealth And Molinâ— and Couarruvias do think it no adventure to conclude that in that case Subditi non sunt excusati in foro conscientiae si tributa collectas c. detrectent aut fraude circumveniant Subjects are not in conscience to be excused if they delay or deny to pay their Tributes or dues or shall use any deceipt in the payment of them For it can be no other then the weal publike and an universal good and benefit that the King who although he be Gods Deputie is not as he is Omniscient or Omnipresâ—nt nor can at once or a far off see and understand all the Actions of his subjects should like the Sun in his course visit at several times as many parts and places of his Kingdom as he can and it must needs be a great damage to his people that the King who is not to be chained like the Romane Gods to the Capitol or forced into the condition of some Foggy Citizen of London who being born within the sound of Bow Bell thinks it a great adventure to travil any further should be kept for want of his Pourveyance from the knowledge of his people who can not justly complain that their burdens or grievances when there are any as some will always be in the most Pacifique and happy Government and are many times not at all occasioned by any publike affairs or inconveniencies but by the peoples afflicting and oppressing one another a small matter being to a weak man or of an incumbred estate or overcharged with children misfortunes or debts a burden or grievance which to one that is otherwise would seem light or trivial and scarce worth the taking notice of Are not remedied or can no sooner get through the throng or crowds of pleasures designs or interests which too much and too often infest and injure the Courts of Princes and their good intentions or that they cannot find intercessors or opportunities when they shall for want of his Pourveyances and progresses confine him to one place of residence nor may wonder that he is so much in want of money and complain that they should so often be inforced to give entertainment to Subsidies Taxes and Assessments to supply him and the publike affairs when as they themselves do not onely increase his wants by putting dear rates and unreasonable prices upon him but constrain him by reason of the loss of his Pourveyance to reside altogether at London where nothing but devout cheating and knavery is cheap when David was sometimes at Hebron and Solomon at Gibeon aswell as at Jerusalem And it must needs be very necessary that Kings should sometimes by their progesses visit their several Provinces and inquire into the contents or discontents weal or wo of their Subjects when they have not an hundred eyes like Argus nor Lynceus his sharp sight to see as he is said to have done at a great distance nor can make use of their own eyes and ears the truest and best Intelligencers if they shall be always tyed up to one and the same House or Palace where the mists and clouds of Flattery the bane and ruine of Princes and their Kingdoms and people and multitudes of varnished designs do hourely interpose keep out or abuse any true information which shall be given or made unto them of the grievances of the people who like Cripples or Mephibosheth lame of their feet cannot reach the gracious eyes or ears of their Prince but must give against their wills advantages to every lying and deceitful Ziba to misuse or divert the effect of their Princes cares and good intentions which makes Progresses to be so useful and to have been heretofore so observed and unneglected by our English as well as all other Kings and Princes whereby to understand as Philippus Honorius saith La natura di subditi the manners and imployment well or ill being of their subjects and the performance or neglect of subordinate Governors and to rejoyce and comfort themselves in their love and acclamations and should therefore have their eyes like Gods-providence running to and fro the Land as much as mortality and its frailties can permit them which hath taught the great Monarch of Industan not onely yeerly to make his progresses into several parts of his Dominions but wherever he resides to shew himself every evening out of his window about Sun setting to the people and to cause a little Bell to be hung in the room where he sits by the cord whereof conveyed without the door and suitor or petitioner may ring the Bell be admitted And the unhappy Childerick King of France keeping too much within doors all the rest of the year could notwithstanding be perswaded to exhibite and shew himself to the people every May day The necessity and good use of Progresses being to be subscribed unto and acknowledged when the King shall diffuse his comforts to all that shal be within the circumference or neighborhood of his abode when he shall not by his Royal influence and neighborhood make one part of his Kingdom an East or West Indies and all the rest or the major part thereof to be a Greenland or place uncomfortable but extend his bounty and goodness at several times and seasons to all his people When many a petition and request shall not need to make a costly journey to London when the prices of the Markets raised higher then they were before by his Train and Retinue coming amongst them and the confluence of many people from all parts within or neer unto the neighborhood shall reimburse the Sellers a great deal more then those parts or their neighborhood did pay or were charged with either for Compositions for Pourveyance or Cart taking when some Cities and Towns as many have done shall be much the better by an enlargement of their Charters or a grant of
some immunities and priviledges to them their successors and after generations in perpetuity When some families may be forever made happy as one was in a progress of King James when a careful Gentlewoman with her seven young children having too small an estate to educate them being purposely placed in a stand where the King was brought to shoot at a Deer and pleasantly tendred to the King as a Hen with her seven Chicken gave his Princely charity and bounty the opportunity to take them into his care and service when they came to be fit for it and brought either all or most of them to great preferments when poor people or their children being lame or diseased with the sickness called the Kings Evil may be freed from their otherwise tedious journeys and charges in going to London their abode there and returning home which if a Tax were laid upon their Parishes to furnish would come to as much if not more then the charge of Cart taking and Pourveyance did cost them When our Pool of Bethesda shall be Itinerant and the good Angel shall yearly ride his Circuit to bring blessings and cures to those that need it and where a multitude of people shall not be the cause of uncovering the roof of any house to let down the sicke in their beds to be healed All which with many other comforts and benefits which the King by his progress or residence brings to all which are or shall be near it The City of York in the North parts of England and her adjacent and neighbor Provinces would purchase at a greater rate then the Pourveyances or Compositions for them do or did ever yearly amount unto and being like to be gâ—eat and glad gainers by it would be most chearfully willing and ready to carry or remove his travailing goods or utensils from or to any of his Royal houses at his no contemptible or unreasonable rates or Prices Oâ— the City of Worcester or Town of Shrowsbury with their adjacent bordering Shires would in the prospect or certain gain of it be not at all discontented or troubled at the neighboâ—hood of such an enriching staple comfort Which every man may believe when as he must be a great stranger to England as well as to common sense and understanding who cannot apprehend how much relief an old fashioned English Gentlemans house for we must distinguish betwixt rich hospitable good men and those who being weary of Gods long continued mercies and patience do think they are not Gentlemen or well educated if they do not swear as fast as they can God damne me and the devil take me and make themselves and their wives and children their estate and all that they have the prey and business of Taylors Vintners Cooks Pimps Flatterers and all that may consume them is unto two or three Cottages or poor peoples houses near unto it what small Villages and Towns and how mean unfrequented and poor Oxford and Cambridge were before the founding of those famous Universities and the Colledges and Halls in them How many Villages and some Borrough Towns have been founded and built by the warmth and comfort of the Kings Palaces as Woodstock c. how many have been built or much augmented by the neighborhood of Abbies and Monasteries c. as Evesham Reding Bangor St. Albans c. and of Bishops houses as Croydon Lambeth c. though many or most of the Religious Houses in England and Wales were at the first designed intended for solitude How many great Towns and Villages in Middlesex Essex and Kent have been more then in other Counties more remote built or much augmented and increased by the Kings residence at London and the Port Towns and conveniency for Shipping How many Farmers in Berkshire and other Counties near London have more then in those farther distant converted their Barns into Gentlemens Halls or stately houses and began their Gentility with great and plentiful revenues to support it What addresses or suites are often made to Judges in their Circuits to transfer the keeping of the Assizes from some City or Shire Town to some other Town in the County to help or do them some good by the resort and company which comes to the Assizes as to keep it at Maidstone and not at Canterbury in the County of Kent at Woolverhampton not at Stafford in the County of Stafford c. or to keep Terms in a time of Pestilence and adjornment from London to St. Albans Hertford or Reding how like an Antwerp or the Skeleton or ruins of a forsaken City the Suburbs of London now the greatest and beautifullest part of it would be if the residence of the King and his Courts of Justice should be removed from thence or discontinued How many thousand families would be undone and ruined and how those stately buildings would for want of that daily comfort which they received by it moulder and sink down inter rudera under its daily â—uines and give leave to the earth and grass to cover and surmount them and turn the new Troy if that were not a fable into that of the old Which the Citizens of London very well understood when in the raign of King Richard the second and the infancy of those blessings and riches which since have hapned to that City by the Kings of England making it to be their darling or Royal Chamber that King was so much displeased with them as besides a fine of ten thousand pounds imposed upon them for some misdemeanors their liberties seised their Maior committed prisoner to the Castle of Windsor and diverse Aldermen and substantial Citizens arrested he removed his Court from London where not long before at a solemn Justes or Tourney he had kept open house for all comers they most humbly and submissively pacified â—im and procured his return to so great a joy of the Citizens as they received him with four hundred of their Citizens on horseback clad all in one Liveâ—y and pâ—esented the King and Queen with many rich gifts All which and more which may happen by the Kings want of his Pourveyance or Compositions for them and keeping him and his Officers and Servants in want of money or streightning him or them in their necessaries and daily provisions may perswade every man to subscribe to these Axioms that the more which the King hath the more the people have That whosoever cozens and deceives the King cozens and deceives the people that the wants and necessities of the King and common parent which is to be supplyed by the people are and will become their own wants and necessities That it cannot be for the good or honor of the Nation that the King who is not onely Anima Cor Caput Radix Reipublicae the Soul heart head and foundation of the Commonwealth but the defender and preserver of it should either want or languish in his honor and estate when as unusquisque subditorum saith Valdesius Regi ut
nine pounds per annum Cheshire having sixty eight Parishes and furnâ—shing but 25. lean Oxen at the Kings price 2l 13s -4d a peice Total 66 l. 13 s. 4 d. at the Market price 6 â— 10 s. Total 162 l. 10 s. 0. Difference 95 l. 16 s. 8 d. was not thereby charged with more then one pound nine shillings upon every parish Cornewall having an hundred sixty one Parishes and furnishing but Ten fat Oxen at the Kings price 4 l. Total â—0 l. Market price 10 l. Total 100 l. Difference 60l did bear not so great a contribution as eight shillings upon every Parish The County of Devon having three hundred ninty four Parishes and furnishing but Ten fat Oxen at the Kings price 4 l. Total 40 l. Market price 10 l. Total 100l Difference 60 l. Muttons fat 150. at the Kings price 6 s. 8 d. Total 50 l. Market price 18 s. Total 135l Difference 85l paid no greater a sum in that yearly Composition then ten shillings upon every parish Gloucestershire which hath two hundred and eighty parishes paid but four hundred twenty two pounds seven shillings eight pence which was not one pound eleven shillings upon every parish Hertfordshire numbering one hundred and twenty parishes paid but one thousand two hundred fifty nine pounds ninteen shillings four pence which laid upon every parish but abouâ— ten pounds ten shillings Herefordshire furnishing but 18. fat Oxen at the Kings price 4 l. Total 72 l. Market price 10 l. Total 180l Difference 108 l. and having one hundred seventy six parâ—shes made every one of them a contributary of no more then about twelve shilâ—ings six pence upon every parish Kent having three hundred ninety eight parishes and being a very great gainer by the Kings so constant abode in his Chamber of London more then its charge of Pourveyâ—nce amounted unto paid but three thousand three hundred thirty four pounds and six shillings which laid upon ever parish for Composiâ—ions for the Pourveyance no more then about eight pounds ten shillings Lincolnshire which hath six hundred and thirty parishes and paid but one thousand one hundred seventy five pounds thirteen shâ—llings and eight pence charged every parish with no more then about nineteen shâ—llings six pence or thereabouts The County of Northampton having three hundred twenty six parishes and being like to be no looser by its gainful vicinity to London and the Royal Residence paid no more towards the Pourveyance and Compositions then nine hundred nineâ—y three pounds eighteen shillings four pence which was for every parish very little more then three pounds The County of Norfolke having six hundred and sixty parishes paid but one thousand ninety three pounds two shillings and eight pence which charged every parish not with one pound eleven shillings Somersetshire which hath three hundred eighty five parishâ—s and paid no more then seven hundred fifty five pounds fourteen shâ—llings eight pence laid no greater a leavy for the Composition for Pourveyance upon every Parish then about fourty shillings The County of Surry having one hundred and fourty parishes and paid no more then one thousand seventy nine pounds three pence rendered every parish a contributer for the Pourveyance of not above seven pounds nineteen shillings The County of Sussex which hath one hundred and twelve parishes and paid no more to that kind of contribution then one thousand and sixteen pounds two shillings six pence makes every Parish to be charged with no greater a sum or proportion then three pounds thirteen shillings six pence or thereabouts And London which is and hath been the greatest gainer by the residence of the King and his principal Courts of Justice at Westminster and by the confluence of the people not onely of this Nation but many Merchants and people from all parts of the Christian word is grown to be the grand Emporium and Town of Trade in England mighty and strong in shipping a Merchant-like Tyrus for many Isles and as great and famous as any City or Mart Town of the World to whom all the Ships of the Sea with their Mariners do bring their Merchandize the most of Nations are her Merchants by reason of the multitude of the Wares of her making and with the multitude of her riches and Merchandize makes all the other parts Counties Cities and Borough Towns of the Kingdom as to riches money and Trade her vassals and retailers doth for all these benefits contribute with the out Ports only for the Kings Grocery ware which if it could be called a contribution did in some years amount according to the full price but unto two thousand pounds per annum and in other years but unto sixteen hundred pounds or there abouts and is raised and charged by way of Impost upon the gross quantites of such kinde of Merchandise and being repayed the Merchant by the retailer and by the buyer to the retailer was no more in the fifth year of the Raign of King Charles the fiâ—st in the Impost or Rates of Composition then as followeth viz. Rates of Composition for Grocery wares for his Majesties House Pepper The hundred pound xviii d. Cloves The hundred pound xviii d. Mace The hundred pound xviii d. Nutmeggs The hundred pound xviii d. Cynamon The hundred pound xviii d. Ginger the hundred pound xii d. Raisons of the Sun the hundred waight iii. d. Raisons great the piece i. d. ob Proyns the Tun xvi d. Almonds the hundred waight v. d. Corrants the Tun ii s. Sweet oyle the Pipe iii. s. Sugar refined the hundred waight viii d. Sugar powder and Mukovadoes the C. waight v. d. The Chest xx d. Sugar corse and paneles the C. waight iii. d. Figges the Barrell i. d. Figges the Piece ob q. Figges the Topnet ob Dates the hundred waight viii d. Rice the hundred waight iiii d. ob Olives the Tun iiii s. Castel and all other hard Soap the C. waight vi d. Anniseeds the hundred waight ii d. Licorish the hundred waight ii d. And so petit as in a pound of Raisins of the Sunne now sold for four pence a pound it falls to be less then the eighth or tenth part of a farthing increase of price in every pound of Raisins of the Sun And as inconsiderable in the charge or burden of it laid upon the Grocers or Retailers as that of their pack-thred and brown paper which in the vent of those commodities and accommodation of Customers are freely and willingly given into the bargain And when the Brewers in London and four miles about did before the granting of the Excise upon Ale and Beer and taking away of the Pourveyances or Composition for them pay four pence in every quartet of Malt which they Brewed the Composition thereof amounting but unto three thousand five hunded pounds per annum being now remitted and not paid by reason of the said Excise that yearly Impost or Composition did not onely lye upon the Brewers but was dispersed and laid upon
a consumption of their estates making the greatest most universal and extended gâ—ievances and oppression of the Nation When as there is and hath been for some yeers of late in England the greatest want of money and Trade which should introduce and procure it that ever it languished and groaned under for three hundred years last past by an universal poverty and want of it by reason of twenty years great and heavy Taxes which yearly enforced and called for more money then the King of Spain during that time received for his West Indies for his own account or England ever paid in Taxes all being summed up together in the space of 500. years before together with a geneâ—al pride luxury since wasting and carrying away that little that was left of our money whilst all or the most of our Gold have been inticed and transported into Foraign Countries by reason of the fineness of our Standard and their putting a greater value upon our coyne much of our Silver hath in coyne or Plate been carried into Ireland and Scotland and from thence or from England into Foraign parts and that little which remained of it together with a great part of our Silver converted into Gold and Silver Lace or other vain and needless manufactures some millions of money imployed here by the Dutch at interest because that their own Country yeelded not above four per cent for it called home and taken away by reason of our distempers and troubles the bringing of interest by our usuâ—ping Legislators to six per cent whereby to advance the sale of loyal mens lands which they had without law or reason taken from them eighty thousand pounds in coyne and Silver Bullion or Ingotts of our small â—emainder of mony yearly carryed out of England by our East Indian company into the East Indies or Persia to purchase Spices many superfluous and transmarine commodities without which our forefathers could live longer more plentifully and healthy then now they do And so little money left in the Nation in general or amongst the common people as they are many of them being dragged by their necessities enforced to endure the greatest bitings and extortions from the Usurers and the Cancer or Gangreen of Usury Brokage grown so high and intollerable as by a judicious computation lately made there are no less then 3000. publike and private Brokers and Harpies in and about the City of London taking fourty sixty or eighty per cent far exceeding that of the Jews or the Caursini when they toâ—mâ—nted England with their unmerciful Usuries untill they were banished many of our Merchants by reason of the adulterating of our Commodities and taking away the credit of them or by the inticements of an unlawful gain buying their Corants at Zant and Silks and other Commodities in the Levant and Turky with pieces of eight and their Deal and Timber in Norway with Dollars which hath made such a scarcity and want as all the Silver money coyned in the Kingdom by the late Parliament so called with their dolorous Cross and ill tuned Harp amounted when it was called into the Mint after his Majesties restoration to no more with some store of Brass Copper or Lead counterfeit money crept in amongst it then five hundred thousand pounds sterling or thereabouts and that which went about of the Coynes of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles the Martyr not being estimated to be much above as much more noâ— making a total with both included together of more then a million and a half of sterling monies which amongst four millions of people if that should be the account of the number of the inhabitants men women and children in England there being not likely to be many less would afford but seven shillings and six pence to every one and if the money in the Kingdom should as some have guessed it more at random then upon certainty or pâ—obability amount unto twenty seven hundred thousand pounds or to make it numerum rotundum for the more even and easie computing of it three millions sterling would yeild every one but fifteen shillings which renders the mony of the kingdom to be lamentably scarce too little for the people may without the blame of being over sanguine or credulous induce any man to believe that the credit which the people have one with another far exceeds the money of the Nation that they which are any thing rich in the Kingdom the Nobility Gentry and such as live upon their Lands and Estats without trading onely excepted are but as the Pikes in the Ponds or Rivers which devour and feed upon the multitude and smaller Frye of Fâ—shes that there is no such plenty of money now in England when poverty and want are as Regiments of armed men breaking in upon every County and part of England and Wales the lamentations of the poor and such as are undone for want of trade and imployments are as the noise of many waters and the excessive rates and prices of victuals and houshold provisions are to seek for some other causes or originals then a supposed plenty of money when as there is no housekeeper but feels the burden and smart of them and may hear almost every body not as Usurers which do it to conceal their money from such as might over importune them to borrow it or to heighten the necessities of such as they may scrue up to their exactions or in a greedy humor or appetite never think they have money enough but as a people exhausted and impoverished by wars and luxury lamenting their want of money and that every Town Corporation City and County of the Kingdom the more vain and prodigal part of the people who make hast to spend all that they have or can come at onely exepted have too many symptomes and signs of a poverty and want of Trade and tire themselves with the complaints of it And it cannot be either want or plenty of money which causeth such extraordinary rates and prices of food and houshold provisions servants and workmens wages greatness of Rents and the intollerable and unreasonable prices of all that are to be bought either for the Belly or the Back now more then it was twenty years ago and then more then it was some hundred years before making the sin of oppression and cozening one another to rise like the waters of Noahs Flood prevailing and increasing greatly but the wickedness in the hearts of men doing and devising evil continually oppressing and cheating one another For it was not an abundance of mony that hath made Beef to be at three pence Mutton four pence a pound and to be much dearer at Christmas and other Festivals then at other times in the year but an evil custome only the will pleasure of the Butchers or that hath raised â—he Board wages of a Footmen to be seven shillings and a valect du Chambre or extraordinary Serving-man ten shillings
to the King many if not all of which were by Priviledges or otherwise exempted from Pourveyance and being at a low and great undervalue in the latter end of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth now above one hundred years since of the yearly value of one hundred eighty six thousand five hundred twelve pounds eight shillings peny farthing now improved unto more then Ten times that yeerly value are for the most part of them come to be the inheritance of Lay-men And too much of the Revenues of Bishops which by a sacrilegious alienation from the Church are not enjoyed by any of the sons of Levy A great part of the Lands belonging to Monasteries or Religious houses by custome or exemption become Tythe free The greatest part of 3845. Appropriations or Impropriations which had been formerly designed and given ad mensam unto several Monasteries and Religious houses for the better support and maintenance of their hospitality and which before contributed nothing to the Kings Pourveyance now made to be a Temporal and Lay inheritance Many Forrests and Chaces and a great part of other Forrests and Chases Deafforrested much Assart lands and many Parks converted to Tillage or Pasture No Escuage paid since the Reign of King Henry the sixth nor Aid leavyed to make the Kings eldest son a Knight or to marry his eldest daughter for above fifty years during the Reign of King Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and very many Copy-hold estates which usually paid nothing at all to the provisions for the Kings houshold converted into Freeholds Many Fenns and Imbancked Marshes consisting of some hundred thousand Acres Drained or recovered from the Sea An Espargne or saving more then formerly of much money very far surmounting the yearly charge damage or losses by the Kings Pouâ—veyances in the purchase or procuring the Popes Bulls which as was affirmed in the Parliament of 25 H. 8. had betwixt that time and the fourth year of the Reign of King H. 7. cost the people of this Kingdome threescore thousand pounds Steâ—ling by being no more troubled with provisions to Benefices many chargeable Oblations to the Church and mony spent in Lamps or Taâ—ers Pourveyance or provisions for the Popes Legates Shrines Copes Altarages extraordinary Masses Dirges Trentals relaxations faculties grants aboltions Pensions Censes Procurations rescripts appeals and long and chargeable journyes to Rome where as well as in England as their own Monkes and Wâ—iters affirm the Pope did Angariis Injuriis miseros exagitare poll and pill the wretched English made Walter Gray a Bishop of England in the Reign of King H. 3. pay one thousand pounds for his Pall and at the breaking up of every general Council extorted of every Prelate a great sum of money before he would give them leave to depart chid William Abbot of St. Albans for coming to take leave of him without any present and when he offered him fifty marks checked and inforced him before he went out of his Chamber to pay one hundred Marks the fashion being then for every man to pay dear for his Benedictions lay down his money ready told before his Holiness feet and if present Cash was wanting the Popes Merchants and Usurers were at hand but upon very hard conditions to supply it And so great were his Emunctiones as Mathew Paris calls them exactions and impositions in England as a bloody Wolf tearing the Innocent sheep by sometimes exacting a third part of the Clergies goods and at other times a twentieth by aides towards the defraying of his own wars and other pretences sometimes exacting the one half of an yearly revenew of their Benefices and enjoyning them under the penalty of their then dreadful Excommunications not to complain of it or publish it sending his Legats or Predicatores to wring and preach money out of the peoples purses pro negotio Crucis under coloâ—r of making a war to regain Jerusalem and the Holy Land out of the hands of the Saracens and by such a multitude of other contrivances and extorsions as all the Abbotts of England vulâ—u Flebili capite dâ—â—nisso were with great sorrow and lamentation enforced to complain to the King of the impossibility of satisfying the Pope eos incessanter torquenâ—i incessantly grinding tormenting them of his avarice and exactions toto â—undo detestabiles to be abhorred of all the world By Dispensations pardons liceâ—ces Indulgencies vows pilgrimages Writs calâ—ed perinde valere breeves and other instruments of sâ—â—dry natures names and kinds in great 〈◊〉 which in the Act of Parliament of â—5 H. 8. 〈…〉 the exonerating of the Kings subjects from 〈…〉 and impositions paid to the See of Rome 〈…〉 said to have greatly decayed and impoverished 〈◊〉 â—â—tâ—llerable exactions of great sums of money the subjects of the Realm A freedom from the chargeable giving of great quâ—ntities of Lands for Chantries and the weaniâ—g of that Clergy by the reformation of the Church oâ— England from their over-sucking or making sore the Breasts or Nipples of the common people which the murmuring men of these times would if they had as their forefathers tried it more then seven times and over and over be of the opinion of Piers the Plowman in Chaucer who being of the Romish Church wrote in the unfortunate Reign of King Richard the second when the Hydra of our late Rebellious devices spawned by the not long before ill grounded Doctrines and treasonable positions of the two Spencers father and son began to Craule complaining That the Friars followed folke that were rich And folk that were poor at little price they set And no Cors in the Kyrkeyard nor Kyrke was buried But quick he bequeth them ought or quit part of his det Adviseth his friend Go confesse to some Frier and shew him thy synnes For while Fortune is thy frend Friers will thee love And fetch the to their Fraternity and for thee beseech To their Prior Provinciall a pardon to have And pray for the pole by pole if thou be pecunâ—osus Brings in a Frier perswading a sick Farmer to make his confession to him rather then to his Parish Priest and requesting him as he lay upon his death-bed to bestow a Legacy upon his Covent Give me then of thy Gold to make our Cloister Quoth he for many a Muskle and many an Ouster When other men have been full well at ease Hath been our food our Cloister for to rease And yet God wot unneath the foundement Performed is ne of our pavement Is not a Tile yet within our wones By God we owen fourty pound for stones And in his Prologue to his Canterbury Tales thus Characters such a Frier Full sweetly heard he confession And pleasant was his absolution He was an easie man to give pennance There as he wist to have a good pitance The diâ—use of the old and never grudged course of Sponte Oblata's gifts or presents to the King and the