exemption by an Assessement to be made for that purpose Or by the West Indians in Guaxara who by order of the high Justice do deliver unto Fryers travailing that way if they have no money Horses to ride on or to carry their carriages or provision without money so that at their departure they write it down in the Town book what they had spent and not abide above four and twenty hours in the Town where by a contribution their expences are defrayed Or by the old Irish one of which being a Tenant of Termonland or Land belonging to the Church and unwilling to change his old customes for new said to the Bishop of Dermot of whom he held his Lands non debet dominus mutare censum antiquum sed si careat rebus necessariis vaccis pinguibus c. debet ad nos miâ—tere Et nos debemus subministrare nam quaecunque nos habemus Domini sunt nos etiam ipsi illius sumus My Lord ought not to change his ancient Customes Rents or services due out of the Land but if he wanteth necessary provisions for his house and family as fat Cows c. we ought to furnish them for whatsoever we have are his and we our selves are the Lords Or by the modern Irish or inhabitants of Ireland who notwithstanding the Pourveyance or Compositions for Pourveyance and Prae-emption allowed to the Kings Lord Lieutenant of that kingdom could since the abolition of that most useful necessary custome in England offer if Fame did not mistake her self an yeerly supply of 3000. Irish Oxen or Cattel towards the support of the King and his Family and have besides in their Act of Parliament lately made for the execution of his Majesties Declaration for the setlement of that kingdom consented That the Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Kings Bench the Lord Chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer and the Master of the Rolles or any other his Majesties Officers of that Kingdom for the time being shall and may have and receive such Port Corn of the Rectories Impropriations or Appropriate Tythes forfeited unto or vested in his Majesty his heirs â—nd successors which have been formerly paid or reserved Or by the Scots a people never as yet exceeding or so much as keeping even pace with their neighbors of England in civilities kindness and gratitudes who when their King Malcolme who raigned in Scotland in Anno Dom. 1004. had given and distributed all the Lands of the Realm of Scotland amongst his men and reserved na thing as the Act of Parliament of 22 Jac. 3. beareth in property to himself but the Royal dignity and the Mute hill in the Town of Scone could give and grant to him the ward and relief of the heir of ilke Baron quhan he sold happen to deceis for the Kings sustentation And did notwithstanding so well esteem and allow of those ancient rights of Pourveyance or Compositions for them as in the Raign of their King James the 4. in the year of our Lord 1489. The Lords spiritual and temporal and uthers his Leiges did declare in Parliament that it was the Kings property for the honorable sustentation of his house according to his Estait and honor quhilk may not be failized without great derogation of his noble Estaite and that his true lieges suld above all singular and particular profit desire to prefer the noble Estaite of his Excellence like as it was done in the time of his maist noble progenitors of gud minde And did therefore think it neidful expedient and reasonable And did statute and ordain that full derogation cassation and annullation be maid of all Gifts Donations Infeftments Fewes life Rents given by his Hieness to quhat sumever person or persons sen the day of his Coronation swa that all Lands Rents Customes Burrow Mailles Fermeâ— Martes Mutton Poultery avarage carriage and uther Dewties that were in the hands of his Progenitors and Father the day of his decease notwithstanding quhat sumeuer assignation or gift be maid thereupon under the Great Seal Privy Seal or uthers be all utterly cassed and annulled so that the haill profits and Rents thereof may cum to the King to the honorable sustentation of his house and noble Estaite Or so much degenerate from the Brittaines our Ancestors and predecessors who were heretofore so glad of any occasions to express their love and honor of their Princes as when they made their progress or had any occasion to visit any of their houses they flung the doors off the Hinges and gave them open hearted and free entertainment Nor deny those respects and duties to our Kings which no other Nations do refuse to their Kings or Princes which may make us to be an hissing and reproach to other Nations and by using our head so ill to be esteemed as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 people without an head or the Sciopedes who are reported to have such large feet as they can when they please cover their head with it and never let it be said that when a factious and rebellious part of our people could in the year 1656. suppose it to be their Interest to exchange with Cromwell their Antichrist or Mahomet their Religion Laws and liberties for his Tyrannical and Arbitrary will and pleasure and petition him in their Conventicle or pretended Assembly of Parliament that he would besides the remainder of the Kings Queens and Princes Revenues not disposed of except Forrests and Chaces and the Mannors thereunto belonging and of all the Lands of Delinquents in the Counties of Dublin Kildare Clare and Katerlaugh the forfeited Lands in Scotland which were great and considerable two parts of the Recusants Lands in England not compounded for and all Debts Fines Penalties Issues and casual profits belonging to the Keepers of the liberties of England so miscalled which was by them and their fellow Usurpers setled upon him and was of it self a Revenue too great for all the Brewers of England to accept of ten hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum to be leavyed upon the people with such other supplies as should be needful to be raised from time to time by consent of that which they Nick named a Parliament and three hundred thousand pounds per annum to be raised for the charge of the Administration of Justice and support of Government which he thinking not enough to serve his wicked occasions designes or desires to â—lay or keep in exile the heir of the Kingdoms tells his dutiful Parliament at a conference in April 1657. that the charge of the Government would yearly amount unto ninteen hundred thousand pounds sterling and therefore though the war with Spain should cease desired that the thirteen hundred thousand pounds per annum might have six hundred thousand pounds per annum more added thereunto and that that could be willingly assented unto and all the Loyal party enforced and driven to submit
Elizabeth if they stood upon equall terms with him and owed him neither gratitude allegiance or subjection That he who is so great a looser by the change alteration of times and his own his Royal Progenitors bounties and indulgences might howsoever be allowed to be a little gainer in that one particular of the Compositions for his Pourveyances for in every thing else he is abundantly a very great looser and ought as well to take an advantage by it as the Clergie and Impropriators of England doe by the rise and encrease of their Tithes and impâ—ovement of their Glebes and are sure to be gainers by the difference in the value and price of commodities when as they sell their corn at the highest rates and make the improvement of their Glebes to follow the rise of money and the Markets And may take it to be no Paradox or stranger to any mans understanding or belief that the King who by his Lawes hath ordered that reasonable prises and rates should be taken for victuals and houshold provisions for himself and all his people and if his Sheriffs Justices of Peace Clerks of the Markets and the Lords and Stewards of Court-leets had but imitated the care of their Predecessors in the execution of the trusts committed unto them by their Soveraign and his Laws or of the Sheriffs in the reign of King Henry the third when as the King by his Writ being petitioned to give the Sheriffe of Bedford a power to dispence with the Vintners in the Town of Bedford for selling wine above the rates assize doth it in these words Rex c. Vic. Bed salutem Quia Villa de Bedeford distat a quolibet portu maris duas dietas tibi praecipimus quod permittas Vinitar Bed Sextarium vini Franc. vendere pro 8. denar sextarium vini Andeg. Wascon de Blanc pro 10 d. non obstante c. Teste R. c. allowing them to take for a pint and a half if the Sextarie was then accompted to be no greater a measure of wine 7 d. and for the like measure of white wine of Anjou and Gascoine 10 d. And had not as they doe daily too much neglected the execution of the Laws and laid by their duties to God their King and Country and by being over wakefull and diligent to improve their estates and private interests taken a Nap or fit of sleeping in point of time farre beyond that of the seven notorious Sleepers might at this day have been out of the reach of the causeless murmur of those who as they were seduced and fooled by Oliver and his Associates in the greatest of iniquities can make a Non causa to be a cause of their Complaints and of a grievance to themselves when as they and many of their fellow Subjects are and have been the only and immediate causes of it and if rightly considered is a reall grievance to the King and to all that buy more then they sell. And that if the King and his Laws had been as they ought to have been better obeyed and observed in such a Land or Kingdome as England is which is justly accompted to be blest with so much peace and plenty and such an over-plus of all things good and pleasant as well as necessary for the sustenance of the People or Inhabitants thereof as a deer year is not heard of above once at the most in ten or twenty years but many very cheap ones The rates or prices agreed upon by the Counties in the fourth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth would have been enough and sufficient or more then enough if the Acts of Parliament of 25 H. 8. ca. 2. to suppress the enhaunce of the then Market rates which may well be supposed to have been much cheaper then what it was in Anno 4 of Elizabeth and the Statutes of incerti temporis or King Henry the third 3 4 Ed. 6. ca. 19. 5 Ed. 6. ca. 14. against Forestallers had been duly put in execution And that the 12. Counties bordering upon London and adjacent as Middlesex Essex Kent Surrey Sussex Hertford Buckingham Berkshire Bedford Oxford Cambridge and Hâ—ntington Shires making no small gains by the vent and rise of their provisions and commodities and an high improvement of their Lands beyond all other Counties and Parts of England would if the Markets had been regulated and kept down to such just and reasonable prices as might have been well enough afforded have for want of their now great rates for victuals and commodities night and day sent unto London that greatest belly and mouth of the Kingdome and their racking or improving of their Lands been constrained to let fall and diminish their rates and prices and follow the regulating of the Markets and make their prices and rates to be conformable to the Laws and plenty of the Kingdome which would have brought unto them and their Estates a greater or more then supposed damage many times and very far exceeding the pretended losses of serving in their proportions of the Kings provisions as they were agreed upon And if this shall not be believed without experiments or demonstrations they may be quickly brought to assent unto that which will certainly pâ—ove to be a truth that if the King should as King Henry the second keep his Court and Parliament for a time at â—larendon in Wiltshire or as King Edward the first did keep his Court and Parliament in Denbigh-shire at Ruthland too often mistaken and called Rutland or at Carnarvon in Wales or at York where whilest he was busie and imployed in his Warres against the Scots he kept his Terms and Court for seven years together or as many of the former Kings did keep their Christmas and other great yearly Festivals sometimes at Nottingham other times at Worcester Lincoln and other places far remote from London And as the Sun yearly diffuseth his liâ—ht and heat in his journey through the Tropicks some at one time and some at another unto all parts of the world or as the blood in the body naturall daily circulates visits and comforts all the parts of it should enrich comfort most of the parts of his Kingdom with the presence and influence of his Courts and residence Those rates and prises in the Composition for Pourveyances would rather prove to be too high a rate and allowance then too little As it happened to be in Anno 1640. when the late King and Martyr was enforced to be with his Court and Army about Newcastle upon Tine on the borders and confines of Scotland where the cheapness of victualls and other provisions at the Market rates in those parts fell to be very much under the Kings rates or allowance according to the Compositions for his Pourveyance made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth which the Inhabitants and People thereabouts understood so well as a great store and farre more pâ—ovisions being daily brought in at those rates then
charge and burthen thereof to the People and the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away THat wise Councel and Saying of Solomon the wisest of Men as well as Kings To fear God and honor the King and not to meddle with them who are given to change should if it were not a part of the Sacred Volumes not be denied an admission into every mans care and observation to follow that advice as well as to believe that it is good to do so when as every Nation in the World in every age and generation of mankind may by woful experience many times acted over subscribe unto it or be ready to make Oath or Affidavit of the many ill consequences which have very often happened in the Tryal and event of the contrary and is the more to be followed in the retaining of good Laws or not changing them upon Light seldom small or inconsiderable inconveniences for that those antient and righteous Judicial and Moral Laws of Moses written or dictated by God himself and originally fitted for the Jewish Government and the Manners and Customs of that his Darling and beloved people were not certainly intended to Lacquie after the humors designs passions or Interests of men and those people who were to obey and observe them but to remain and continue as fixed and permanent as they were good and profitable for otherwise they would not have been commanded to be taught their Children and after Generations to be laid up in their hearts and their Souls written upon the Posts of their houses and on their Gates bound for a Sign upon their hands and as Frontlets between their eyes For howsoever other Laws which have not so divine an Original or not being de jure Naturae and drawn from that holy and excellent fountain of Scripture are and may upon a true not phantastick or imaginary ballancing and due consideration of Conveniencies with Inconvenienâ—es be alterable and either totally taken away or reformed Yet when the ages past and daily experiences have not only told us but all the people of the world that new Laws cannot give us that certainty of their effects which the old have done nor can be like Christal so clear and transparent as to give us beforehand a liberty of discerning the effects hoped for and that experience is by much a better guide then hopes or expectation we may with som assurance of reason conclude that Licurgus did not ill to ordain that de legibus semel receptis probatis disserere non liceret that the goodness of Laws experimented should be honored rather then called in question did not merit a repoof when for fear of the Inconstancy of the Lacedemonians or a less understanding part of them he caus'd an oath to be taken that those Laws which he had devised for them should not be altered until his return from Delphos where or at Creet he pined himself to death to make them perpetual and that Solon was not likewise to be blamed in imitating him so far as to ordain an Oath to be taken by the people of Athens not to change the Laws which he had ordained for them but would rather endure a ten years absence not much unlike a banishment from that his beloved country because he would not give them any occasion or temptation of changing them and that our late Factious and ignorant Legislators have been far exceeded and outgone by the inferior and overwise seeming Members or parts of the body natural represented in Menenius Agrippa's happy Fable to the seditious Romans of the mutiny of the Members of the body natural against the Belly or Paunch thereof who did not in all that contention and desire of some better as they thought order to be enacted betwixt it and the Members many of them having several intents and interests propose as our late Giddy Reformers have done any thing against the Soveraignity or Supremacy of the Head or to dislocate or cast it into a meaner scituation or condition amongst its inferiors upon pretence that it might be more serviceable if it were placed in a Co-ordination in the middle of the body or to reside nearer the Belly or Feet and be a Concomitant of them and their more ignoble Offices would conduce to a better Reiglement of the affairs of the Belly and the rest of the inferior Members or a more even walking or at least not so often stumbling of the Feet and prevent many a prejudice to those now more remote parts from its ordinary care and protection And we cannot therefore without some wonder contemplate the vast difference which appears to have been betwixt all the heretofore popular Pretences and intended Reformations of the Athenian and Spartan Commonwealths now sufficiently quieted and purged of those humors by a Turkish Tyranny and that of the Romans in their many Tumults and Seditions under their many several sorts of Governments and our godly as they called themselves Reformers of laws amenders of male administration as they supposed in Government when as those Greeks and Romans being Heathens could pursue their ends without rapine and plundering of their fellow citizens but our men of Ignorance and Innovation could in their vertigo and overturning of Kingdoms and good Laws finde the way to all manner of Ravage Rapine and Injustice to enrich and advance themselves by that great gain and spoil which they met with by the alteration of Laws and invadeing their Neighbors and other mens Proprieties And at the same time when they made their Jugling self denying Ordinancâ— and pretended so much to Revelations and Gifts extraordinary could think of nothing more then making themselves great by the ruine of their betters the afflictions of the poor and needy the Widdows and Fatherless And rather then faile of their prey which had such a pleasant Haut-goust or relish cooked and palated for them by the Devil would pretend all our Laws and good and reasonable Customs to be as bad as they were antient and rather call their Fore-fathers fools for enacting or permitting them then acknowledge those Excellencies Reason Justice and Goodness which were every where to be found in them as if more then six thousand years of the Worlds age already past were not time enough to teach mankind necessary helps for its well being and preservation or as if God having given man a reasonable Soul endued with all those eminent faculties which he communicated unto it had confined the right use of them to the later part decrepit and old age only of the world and permitted all the experiments of the long lived Patriarches and their succeeding Generations and all the Rules of Prudence and Wisdom which the former ages had observed and found to be good and useful for the sons of men to be so bound up in the bundles of vanity or not worth the heeding as every Chimaera or Megrum of the less
crowd in amongst them and subscribe to that rule and part of right reason in making retributions and acknowledgements to their Kings or Governors for self-preservation so as a Lord of that Country brought the Governour of the Plantation which was made there two Deer skins and in one Town they made him a present of 700 wild hens and in other Towns sent him those which they had or could get A Caâ—ique at Panico near Florida and his men as their manner is weeping in token of obedience made the Governor a Present of much Fish And this custom of Pourveyance and gratefull acknowledgments being thus diffused and to be found amongst the farre greater part of all the Nations of the world we may well conclude it to be almost as universal as the use of Beds Phisick Horses and Shooes or the custome of washing of hands and so generally as if the Sun had in his journies been imployed by God Almighty the Author of all Wisdome and Goodness to scatter and infuse it with his light into the minds and understandings of mankind And that those few places or parts of the world which have not that custome because their Kings are their Peoples Heirs take what part of their Estates they please and govern by an Arbitary power may when they arrive to a better understanding acknowledge and bewaile the want of it And that from these and the like customes of real and willing obedience love to their Princes and their honor and dignity in which their native Countries and themselves did pertake and had so great a share came those great and marvailous publick works As the Piramides of Egypt the Obelisk cut by Semiramis out of the mountains the Pensil Gardens made by Nebuchadonosor the costly and most magnificent Temple of Solomon which was seven years in building by one hundred eighty three thousand six hundred men imployed therein the second Temple at Jerusalem which was 8 years in building and 10000 workmen at a time working upon it a part of the River Euphrates cut and brought into Tigris Ninive built and walled 480 furlongs about and 10000 workmen at a time imployed The stupendious and great Wall of 40 leagues in length built in China the Picts Wall as yet a wonder in its ruines and remains built betwixt some part of England and Scotland of 80 miles in length by Adrian the Emperor and another in or near the same place by the Emperor Severus Grahams Dike in Scotland built by Carausâ—us the Vallum Barbaricum a great Wall or Trench made by the Emperor Julian in Germany to defend it against the incursions of the Barbarians the four great High-wayes or Roads in England called Watlingstreet the Fosse Erminstreet and Iknel-street leading to the four Quarters or several parts of the Kingdome the Aquaeducts stately Buildings Palaces Castles and Forts and many other publick works built by the Romans and the greatest part of the Nations of the World serving to beautifie and adorn as well as strengthen it which could never have been made or done by the greedy rates of workmen or the extremities or hire of the utmost farthing And hence it will be now time to imbark for old England and our British Isles the more antient habitation of the Britains CHAP. II. Of the Use and Allowance of Pourveyance in England and our British Isles WHere those prudential as well as antient just reasonable Customes being by a long usage of time incorporated into the Civil Law and so universally allowed and received amongst many Nations as they may well be said to be established jure naturae gentium by a Law of Nature and Nations could not be any stranger when as the Romans by the conquest of it and the Governors and Legions transported hither were not likely to leave behind them their own Lawes and Customes especially such as these which had been appropriated to Martiall affairs and the support of the Honor and Dignity of the Governours or Lievtenants of Provinces For in Britain when Julius Agricola in the Reigns of Nero and Domitian governed for the Romans such kind of Pourveyance for publick uses or support of the Magistrate was taken as Tacitus his Son in Law in his life relates when he did frumenti tributorum auctionem aequalitate munerum mollire circumscisis quae in quaestum reperta mollifie the augmentation of Tribute and Corn with equal dividing of burdens cutting of those petty extortions which grieved the Subjects more then the Tribute it self for it seemed that the Romans had ingrossed all the Corn of the Country and instituting a Monopoly thereof compelled the poor Britains to buy it again of them at their price and shortly after laying a new charge upon them as to victuall the Army or the like to sell it again under foot and the Cart-takers for carriage of provision did use to take up Carts at places farre distant and make them pay well to be spared whereas the same thing saith Sir Hen. Savile the learned Scholiast or Commentator upon Tacitus might have been done without molestation of the people but not with like gain to the Officers nor were our Ancestors the Britains so unhappy in their friends the Saxons likely to be unlearned in those customes of Pourveyance when that great and famous Lawyer Papinian did afterwards at York for some years together under the Emperor Severus as our great Selden intimates dicere docere jus Caesareum keep the Courts of Justice according to the Roman Laws and that those Lawes flourished and continued here as directors and assistants of their Government for more then 350 years after that is to say from the fiftith year of Christ to about the year 410 since when or before the Irish paid very antiently their Coshery or exactio Dynastae Hibernici quando ab incolis sub ejus potèstate clientela victum hospitium capiebat pro seipso suaque sequela Tributes to their Kings or Rulers of lodging and victuals for them and their Retinue and so long continued it as it is not yet out of the memory of some men with how much honour and esteem an Earl of Desmond lived in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth amongst his Tenants in Ireland where when he yearly made his Progress they having comfortable bargains were some for one day and night others for two and some for a greater part of time to entertain him and his no small company And those reasonable Customes of Pourveyance without destroying of property have not been disused but have with relation to publick uses or benefits kept company with our municipall Lawes and Customes during all the Saxon times untill the Reign of Canutus the Danish King who notwithstanding his Agreement with King Edmond Ironside made in a single combat in Alney Mead before Gloucester in Campo Martio view of the Danish and English Armies to divide the Kingdomes of England and Denmark betwixt them having by the death of
and profit of holy Church and the King and his People Which Rules and Rates being not held to be a publick grievance in all his Reign and the Reigns of King Edward the sixth and Queen Mary some of the Counties in the beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth though the people thereof were most commonly well paid for their provisions by the Queens Pourveyors finding some trouble and attendance in the procuring their monies to be paid for their commodities which were sometimes taken upon credit by reason of so many Offices Cheques Intrada's and Comptrolments which they were to pass through at the Court did about the fourth year of her happy Reign petition her to accept the value in money to be yearly paid by the Countries which she by no means hearkening unto it came afterwards to an agreement what proportion those and severall other Counties should yearly serve in Oxen Calves Muttons Poultry Corn c. In which she was so carefull to preserve her Subjects and People from grievances or just causes of complaints as in Anno 32 of her Reign Nicholls one of her Pourveyors was attainted of Felony and hanged for forcibly taking provisions without money and those compositions and agreements for provision of the Houshold continuing all her glorious and happy Reign and all the Reign of the peaceable King James it was in the eighth year of his Reign in the case betwixt Vaâ—x and Newman resolved by the Judges and allowed for law that it was lawfull for a Pourveyor paying for them to take Cattle for the Kings House by virtue of the Kings Commission and cited the book of 18 H. 6. 19 b. to that purpose And in the third year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr were none of the grievances then complained of in order to the obtaining of the Petition of Right and confirmation of the Peoples Rights and Liberties or of those which were then alleaged to be infringed Although that in the Reign of King James some of his Pourveyors having taken greater quantities of provision for his House and Stable then ever came or were needfull to his use and caused Timber to be cut down thereupon in Anno 2. of his Reign it was resolved by all the Judges of England and Barons of the Exchequer upon mature deliberation that the Kings Pourveyors could take no Timber growing upon the Inheritances of the Subject because it was parcell of their Inheritances no more then the Inheritance it self of which the King and his Council being informed he did by a Proclamation dated 23 Aprilis anno 4 of his Reign prohibit such their ill dealings and divers Pourveyors were afterwards punished by the Court of Starre-chamber for Pourveying of Timber growing without the consent of the owners Nor had that fatal and ever to be bewailed Remonmonstrance of the House of Commons in Parliament the 15. of December 1641. in which was too industriously amassed and put together all the errors imaginable in the Government and Reign of that pious Prince and more then could be proved any thing to charge upon the Pourveyance or Compositions for the provision of the Kings Houshold but only that the people were vexed and oppressed with Pourveyors and Clerks of the Market neither in their nineteen Propositions in June 1642. sent to the King at Oxford wherein they would have lessened his power all they could and extended their own was there any thing proposed for the taking away of the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions or in other propositions afterwards sent thither or in the Treaties at Uxbridge and the Isle of Wight Nor if causes and circumstances be as they ought to be well weighed in the Ballance of Judgement and all things rightly considered could be any grievance or cause of complaint When as the remote Counties which had less benefit by the constant residence of Q. Elizabeth King James King Charles the First in their Chamber of London the heart of the Kingdome did bear very little and the near adjacent Counties which by heightning their Markets and prices of all sorts of Commodities by a large improvement of their Lands and Rents to above twenty times more then â—t was in the Reign of King Henry the seventh and ten times more then it was in the eighteenth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth might better afford it did not pay or bear much in the Pourveyance or Composition which were made by the Justices of the Peace in each County upon consultation and agreement with the Officers of the Green-cloth in the Kings House for serving in a certain quantity of provisions out of every County at such rates and prices as were agreed on betwixt them as by a few instances of many may easily appear by what was yearly charged upon the Counties of Essex and Midlesex neer adjacent to London and the Counties of Derby Worcester and York which were more remote viz.  The Kings price Totall  l. s. d. l. s. d. Wheat 500 quarters at 0 6 8 166 13 4 Oxen fat 20 at 4 0 0 80 0 0 Muttons fat 300 at 0 6 8 100 0 0 Veals 300 at 0 6 8 100 0 0 Porks 100 at 0 6 8 33 6 8 Boars 6 at 0 13 4 4 0 0 Bacon Flitches 30 at 0 2 0 3 0 0 Lambs 1200 at 0 1 0 60 0 0 Geese 5 dozen at 0 4 0 1 0 0 Capons 10 dozen at 0 4 0 2 0 0 Hens 30 dozen at 0 2 0 3 0 0 Chickens 150 dozen at 0 2 0 15 0 0 Pullets 40 dozen at 0 1 6 3 0 0 Hay 134 loads at 0 8 0 53 12 0 Oats 1426 quarters at 0 4 0 285 4 0 Litter 120 loads at 0 4 0 24 0 0 Wood 769 loads at 0 3 0 115 7 0 Coals 250 chalder at 0 13 9 171 17 6 Summe    1201 0 6  Kings price Totall Wheat 200 quarters at 0 6 8 66 13 4 Veals 40 at 0 12 0 24 0 0 Veals 100 at 0 6 8 33 6 8 Green Geese 20 doz at 0 3 0 3 0 0 Capons course 10 doz at 0 4 0 2 0 0 Hens 20 dozen at 0 2 0 2 0 0 Pullets 20 dozen at 0 1 6 1 10 0 Chicken 40 dozen at 0 2 0 4 0 0 Hay 202 loads at 0 4 0 40 8 0 Oats 211 quar 2 bush at 0 4 0 42 5 0 Litter 180 loads at 0 4 0 36 0 0 Wood 200 loads at 0 3 0 30 0 0 Summe    285 3 0 The Market price Totall Difference l. s. d. l. s. d. l. s. d. 1 16 8 916 13 4 640 0 0 10 0 0 200 0 0 120 0 0 1 0 0 300 0 0 200 0 0 1 4 0 360 0 0 260 0 0 1 3 4 116 13 4 83 6 8 4 0 0 24 0 0 20 0 0 0 10 0 15 0 0 12 0 0 0 8 0 480 0 0 420 0 0 0 18 0 4 10 0 3 10 0 0 16
the times of his great Grandfather Henry the first his Uncle King Richard and his Father King John or at any time in his own Reign untill his first going over the Seas into Britain for the Kings of England saith the learned Sir John Davies have always â—ad a special Prerogative in the ordering and government of all Trade and Traffique in Corporations Markets and Fairs within the Kingdom which the Common Law of England doth acknowledge and submit unto as amongst many other things may appear by the Charter granted to the Abbot of Westminster mentioned in the Register of Writs wherein the King doth grant to the Abbot his Successors to hold a Fair at Westminster for two and thirty dayes together with a Prohibition that no man within seven miles thereof should during that time buy or sell but at that Fair. Whence for the freedome of Markets and Fairs protection in going and retorning and other immunities had their extraction and original and no less just and reasonable then antient foundation those duties of Toll or Tribute for all things sold in them the Exemptions of the Kings own Tenants or in Auntient demeasn by writs de quietos esse de Theloneo to be Toll-free à regale and power not denied to any forreign Prince or King in Christendome or the States of Holland in their free as they would be called Common-wealth the benefit and authority whereof most of the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation tanquam Reguli as little Kings do by the Charters and Grants of the Kings of England or a Prescription or time immemoriall which supposeth it now injoy in their Manors under that part only of his Prerogative and many Cities Boroughs and Towns Corporate by their Charters have likewise not only before the 49 of Henry third but in almost every Kings Reign since their Liberties Customes and Franchises concerning their Markets and Fairs and the assise and correction of victuals Whence also were deduced the Standard kept in the Exchequer for all weights and measures the Kings power of the Mynt coyning enhauncing or decrying the value of moneys and his publick Beam or Weigh-house in London where all Merchandise brought from beyond the Seas are or should be justly weighed And whence it came that King Henry the 3. in the ninth year of his Reign caused the Constable of the Tower of London to arrest the Ships of the Cinque-Ports on the Thames and compel them to bring their Corn to no other place but only to the Queens Hithe charged in anno undecimo of his Reign the said Constable to distrain all Fish offered to be sold in any place but at Queen Hithe and that Tolls and payments were then and formerly made and paid to the Kings use for Corn Fish and all other provisions brought thither or to Down or Dowgate the rent and profit whereof were afterwards in anno 31. of his Reign granted and confirmed to the Maior and Commonalty of London at 50 l. per annum Fee-farme And in Anno 14 H. 3. forraign Ships laden with Fish were ordered to unlade only at Queen Hithe and if any did contrary thereunto he should be amerced forty shillings Whence also proceeded that well known and antient Office of the Clerk of the Markets in the later end of the Reign of King Edward the first who was not to be a stranger in the prices or rates of the Markets for his Office extended something further then the care of just weights and measures and as Sir John Davies saith was to oversee and correct all abuses in Markets and Fairs it being said in Fleta that ipse in notitia assisarum panis vini mensurarum cervisiae debet experiri ut inde notitiam habeat pleniorem he ought well to inform himself of the assises of Bread Measures Beer and Wine the later of which was not assised or rated by the assisa panis cervisiae in anno 51 of Henry the third and no man could be fitter to watch and hinder for the Justices in Eyre came but twice a year or seldome into every County Forestallers or such as made the Markets dearer or informe or give evidence thereof to the Justices in Eyre or Juries impanelled by them then the Clerk of the Markets who was probably attendant in all the Iters or Eyres for otherwise the Juries who had it then in charge to inquire of false weights and measures or such as buy by one measure and sell by another would have wanted or not so well have had their evidence and the Justices in Eyre could not so well inquire in their Eyres or Circuits de custodibus mensurarum of the Guardians of the measures or Clerks of the Market for so they may be understood to be which took bribes or gifts to permit false Measures if there had been but one Clerk of the Market infra villatas virgam hospitii Regis within the Townships or Virge of the Kings House or if as Sir Edward Coke supposeth the Clerks of the Market had been penned within the narrow compass of the Kings House and the Virge thereof or that the cares of the Fairs and Markets and the Justice of the Kingdome as to that concernment had been but only calculated for the Kings Houshold and confined unto it When as Bracton a learned Judge sub ultima tempora Henrici Tertii in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the third hath recorded in his book de Legibus consuetudinibus Angliae of the Lawes and Customes of England the Justices in Eyre did enquire de mensuris factis juratis per Regnum si servatae sint sicut praevisum fuit de vinis venditis contra Assisam c. of the Measures sworn to be observed whether they were kept as it was ordained and of Wines sold contrary thereunto And was of opinion that it was gravis praesumptio contra Regem coronam dignitatem suam si assisae statutae juratae in regno suo ad commuem Regni sui utilitatem non fuerint observatae a great offence against the King his Crown and Dignity if the assizes or rates which were appointed and sworn to be kept in the Kingdome to the common profit or weal publick thereof should not be kept Which do fully evidence that those antient Rights of the Crown were inquirable in the Eyres and Leets long before that which is called a Statute of view of Frank pledge in anno 18 Ed. 2. was made which at the best was but declaratory of what was before the Common Law some other antient Customes of England And anno 51 H. 3. in the assisa panis cervisae being as Decrees or Rates ordained which as to Ale and Drink the Judicious and right-learned Sir Henry Spelman believeth was altioris originis and as antient as 18 R. 1. mutatis ratione seculi mutandae to be altered and changed according to the rates
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
of the County and enter into Recognizances not to forestall or ingross provided that all Cities and Towns Corporate may assigne and licence Pourveyors for their provisions Which power of regulating weights and measures and reduction of victuals to reasonable prices and rates was no stranger in Ireland whither many if not all of our then Laws were transmitted by King John by exemplification undeâ— his great Seal of England and all our Laws reasonable Customes and Acts of Parliament both before and afterwards were by Act of Parliament called Poynings Act or Law allowed and enacted to be Laws in that Kingdome in the Reign of our King Henry the seventh Nor in Scotland where the assises of weights and measures were ordained by King James the first in Parliament in Anno Domini 1426. And it was also ordained by King James the second in Parliament that Schireffes Bayllies and uther officiars baith to burgh and to land take and inquire at ilk Court that they haldquhat persons within their boundes by is victuall and haldis it till a dearth and punish them which sall be found to offend therein and besides their uther punishment the victuall that they have be escheated to the King All which may declare and give us to understand how unreasonable it would be that the King who by his Oath and Kingly Office is to keep all his people from oppression which being one of the great sins of Sodom as the Prophet Ezekiel tells us in that she strengthened not the hand of the poor and needy caused God to say he would come down nd see the oppressions of his people should take no order to preserve himself from the more then formerly deceipts of his own people and their enhaunce of prises King Edward the second therefore and his Councell after that the Commons of England had in the second year of his Reign granted him in Parliament an aid of the five and twentieth part of their goods upon condition that he would answer and redress their grievances which they in eleven Articles had then presented unto him in some of which they complained that their Corn Victuals Poultrie and Fish as well fresh as salt were taken by those which called themselves the Kings Mâ—nisters and paid nothing for it nor gave them any manner of satisfaction by which they were greatly impoverished And he had answered that there was an Ordinance made of those prises in the time of his Father King Edward which was for the good of the King and his people and willed that it should be kept and observed in all parts did in the fifteenth year of his Reign upon occasion of his being at Cirencester in the County of Gloucester with divers of the Nobility and great men of the Kingdome not think it to be any violation of the Laws formerly made for the regulation of Pourveyance to command and ordain by his Letters Paâ—ents directed to the Sheriffs of Gloucester Worcester and Wiltshire in the words following viz. Rex vic al. ministris de Com. Glouc. Wigorn. Wilts salutem cum sumus in partibus Cirencestr cum pluribus magnatibus pro negotiis c. pro nostra ipsorum sustentatione plura victualia oportet providere plures frumentum habâ—ntes ea penes se retinent non curantes illa vendic expâ—nere nisi excessiva Caristia nos volentes sustentac â—orum providere prout decet assignavimuus Johan Hampton al. ad supervidendum blada in Com. praedict ad emend ubi blada invenerint pro pretio rationabili jam currente de quo ipsi respondeant illa quo pretio emptâ—â—runt ad liberand pistoribus braciatoribus furnend braciand vend dictis magnatibus c. that a reasonable price should according to the ordinary Market rate beset upon Corn. Noâ—â—ere the Writs or Commissions de providentiis pro Rege faciendis to buy and make provisions for the Kings houshold in 7 E. 2. 37 E. 3. 3 R. 2. 1 H. 4. and other Kings Reigns directed to the Sheriffs of several Counties to whose oaths and Offices it belonged by the just and antient Laws and Customes of England to cause men to sell victuals and necessary provisions at reasonable rates and prices or Writs sent to the Sheriffes to make provisions for some of the Kings of Scotland and their Trains in their passage as they came to London to do their homage unto some of our Kings esteemed to be any breach of the peoples Liberties Neither did Queen Elizabeth that delight and love of her people enriching as well as easing and filling them with peace and plenty who was never of the opinion of Oliver Cromwel that grand Master of Iniquity who as carefull as he would seem to be of the peoples ease and liberties in his afterwards counterfeit kindness of taking away the Royal Pourveyance could when he was Lievtenant Generall of an Army of a distempered and disobedient part of the Parliament being moved by a Gentleman of Bedfordshire for some ease of their great Assessements and Burdens answere that he could never believe that the Country-men were poor or not able to bear them as long as they could whistle at the Plow and Cart but so contented them in her happy Government as the 20. day of November the beginning of her Reign is yet though above one hundred years agoe gratefully remembred with the ringing of Bells in many of the Churches of England conceive or understand it to be any grievance to the people for the Soveraign or Lex viva the maker Protector and Preserver of many of those good Laws which they enjoyed to ordain and publish by the advice of her Privy Councel who by the happy and sage conduct of all her affairs were well known by the effects as well as the causes the Mediums as well as the success to be as wise and prudent a Councel as any Prince of Christendome had to attend them That the Clerk of the Market in avoiding of the danger of the loss of his Office and further punishment at her pleasure should duly and substantially put in execution all such things as to his charge appertaineth as well for vittails to be had seasonable good and wholsome in the Towns and places near unto the Court as for the just observing of Weights and Measures assigned and assessed and likewise for setling of convenient and reasonable prises as well upon Meat and Drink Horse-meat Lodging Bedding and other things in such cases accustomed so as the Noblemen attending in the Court and all Suitors others following the same be not compelled in default of the said Clerk to be put unto excessive charges for their expences but such indifferency to be used therein as the plenty or sterility considered should accord with equity And straightly charged that no person of what estate or degree soever should in any wise pay mâ—re for Vittail Horsemeat Lodging or otherways then after the prises that
for murage or repair of the walls of Towns as Ipswich Harwich Newcastle upon Tine Ludlow c. or Cities as London Norwich York Bristol c. which must of necessity raise the rates of commodities brought thither to be sold and by the same power or authority remit or release them and being granted to many Cities or Towns but for three of seven years or as to London for five years or some other short term since expired is as may be feared under a colour of custome or praescription as yet continued Or being Soveraign of the British seas to take weekly for all Herring taken therein six pence for every Ton and the like for other fish every three weeks either of his own Subjects or forraign Nations or for his Admiral under him to take the tenth of all the Prizes or Ships of his Enemies taken at the Sea and money for Anchorage paid by every Ship for their quiet riding in the river of Thames or any of the Kings Harbours And with as good reason as the Burrow Mealis in Scotland where quilibet Burgensis debet domino Regi pro Burgagio quinque denarios annuatim dicuntur incorporari annexique Fisco patrimonio Regis every Burgess was to pay five pence per annum for his mealis which Sir Henry Spelman interprets to be a Farme appropriated to buy provisions in regiae mensae apparatum for the Kings Table or Houshold and are said to be incorporate and annexed to the Patrimony of the King and his Exchequer Or as the Provost of Edenburgh or other borough Towns in Scotland may take and receive four pence upon every quarter of Malt of ilk Brewster quhe brewes aill all the zeir four pennies and for â—ne halfe zeir twâ— pennies As the Apprisers of flesh are appointed to apprise it at the Kings price ilk dayes of the Markets and to admit the eath of the â—â—sâ—er in that matter And as by the Statutes of King David the second it was ordained that for relief of the inward parts of the Realm quhair woll hes course and quhilks ar burdened with customes and that the remanent parts of the Realm may be made equall with them in all services and burdings It is Statute that certain sommes and quantities of victuall quhareof there is abundance in these utward parts sick as Marts beir and sicklike sall be taken up zeirly at the Chamberlains command to the expenses of the Kings house according to the prices quihilk in auld times used to be taken up in these places Queen Mary the Lord Governour and Lords of secret Counsell havand respect to the great and exorbitant dearth risen upon the will and tâ—me Fowles ordained the prices thereof as 5 s. Scottish the Swan the black Cock and gray hen six pennies twenty of their pennies being but two pence the Woodcock four pennies and the dousâ—n of Laverocks and uthers small birds four pennies c. And by as good reason as King James the sixth his Majesties Grandfather confirmed the Acts of Parliament made by his noble Progenitors for the stanching of dearth of Victuals and setting order and price on all Stuffe and ordained all Earls Lords Barons as well within regality as royalty and their Bailles to landwart and the Provestes and Bailles of all Bâ—rrows and Cities to cause the said Acts to be put to due execution every ane within their boundes and Jurisdiction respective makand and constitutand them Justices to that effect with power to make and appoint Statutes and Ordinances for the special observation of the saidis Acts at every head Court zierly Assigned money and victuals of several Shires and places in Scotland to the keeping of the Castles of Edinburgh Dunbartane Strivilinge and Blacknes Declared the tenths of all Herrings taken in the Scottish Seas to be due unto him as King of Scotland and all infestments and Alienations in few ferme or utherwaies and all dispositions quhatsumever in all time bygane and to cum of the Assise Herring to be nil and of no avail because the said Assise Herring pertanis to the King as ane part of his Customes and annexed property And by as much or a greater warrant or assent of reason as King Henry the 5. of England did in a Patent or Grant of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland to James de Boteler Earl of Ormond authorise him ad victualia sufficientia necessaria pro expensis hospiâ—ii sui ac Soldariorum suorum in quocunque loco infra terram predictam per Provisores hospitii sui alios ministrossuos unacum Cariagio suâ—ficienti pro eisdem tam inâ—ra libertates quam extra feodo Ecclesie duntaxat excepto pro denariis suis rationabiliter solvend capere providere juxta formam diversorum Statutorum de hujusmodi provisionibus ante haec tempora factorum to take victuals sufficient and necessary for the expences of his Houshold and his Souldiers by his Pourveyors and other Ministers in any place whatsoever in Ireland with carriages sufficient for the same as well within liberties as without the Fees of the Church only excepted at reasonable prises according to divers Statutes made concerning provisions And was so well grounded upon Law and reason as all the succeeding Lord Lieutenants or Deputies of Ireland have ever since not wanted those necessary priviledges to attend their high honourable trusts imployments could so little be parted with in the 19. year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when Sir Henry Sidney was Deputy of Ireland as the Earl of Desmond the Viscount Baltinglas other unquiet spirits refusing to pay the provision or Ceasse as they there called it for the Lord Deputies house the Souldiers in Garrison which the learned Camden saith was exactio rei Annonariae certo pretio provisions to be furnished at a certain rate or price ad alendum proregis familiam militesque praesidiarios for the Lord Lieutenants or Deputies Families the Souldiers in Garrison quasi non exigenda nisi ex authoritate Parliamentaria as not due unless it were ordained by authority of Parliament sending over their complaints into England the Lords of the Privy Council upon the hearing bate thereof committed them and those which remained in Ireland and had sent them were in like manner imprisoned untill they should submit to the payment and furnishing thereof for that it appeared by the Records of that Kingdome to be antiquitus institutum an antient constitution jus quoddam Majestatis a part of the right appertaining to the soveraign Power Praeeminence or Kingly Praerogative quae legibus non subjicitur nec tamen legibus adversatur ut Jurisprudentes judicarunt which being not against the Laws was not to be subjected to them saith that worthy Historian the Queen then only ordering the Lord Deputy to use as much moderation as he could in taking those Provisions or Pourveyances And as
of the King Arch-Bishops Earls Barons and the most eminent men of the Kingdome with candles or torches burning in their hands in Westminster Hall denouncing excommunication direfull curses and Anathema's against the Infringers thereof by the candles or torches flung upon the ground and wishing that so their souls might burn in hell And the same Magna Charta being by thirty Parliaments since confirmed and accompted to be part of the peoples Birthright It can be no less then the greatest of reason that those his Liberties and Priviledges mentioned and agreed therein should be as well preserved unto him as those of the people unto them and with the greater reason in that his were alwaies his own and many of theirs but newly granted them And that he was not in the confirming of Magna Charta without some care of preserving his own rights and priviledges as appeareth by his Writ or Proclation better in former times then now obeyed sent unto the Sheriff of York in these words Cum probis hominibus nostris libertates concesserimus per Cartas nostras in quibus continetur that which we have of that excellent Law and Charter being by many learned men believed to be but a Transcript quòd nihilomninus salve sint omnibus libertates liberae consuetudines quas prius habuerunt libertates nostras de quibus maxime specialis mentio in Cartis praedictis facta non est nobis volumus inviolabiliter observari unde tibi districtè praecipimus quatenus omnes libertates nostras usitatas tempore domini Johannis Regis patris nostri quas quidem nobis non subtrahimus ex speciali mentione facta in praedictis Cartis nobis facias firmiter observari nullius obstante reclamatione sicut usitatae fuerunt temporibus antecessorum nostrorum maxime tempore predicti patris nostri wherein he having granted that their Liberties which they had before should not be prejudiced commanded him that all his Liberties and Priviledges which were not specially mentioned and granted away in those Charters should be specially observed notwithstanding any allegation to the contrary as they were used and accustomed in the times of his Ancestors and especially in the Reign of his Father King John For the reason which gives Aaron and his Sons the Clergie their Tythes and Pourveyance should perswade the people to think the Composition for Pourveyance to be no burden when as it is as short of the Tithes as one unto a hundred And it should be reason if any thing can be reason and it be not fled after Astraea into the upper Regions and left some counterfeit and false resemblance instead of it that all or many or most of the males and men of England and such as in the Court Leets and elswhere have taken the Oath of Allegiance which all the men of England and their generations are so born under as by the Laws and Customes of England it is and ought to be as Connaturall and Congaeniall unto them and the Oath of Supremacy to maintain and defend the Kings Rights and Jurisdictions and all the Citizens and Freemen of London and other Cities and Corporations of England taking an Oath to the like purpose all the Freeholders of the Kingdome holding of him immediately swearing in their homage and fealty to doe him service and be faithfull unto him all the Copiholders holding of him swearing unto him their Fealty and all the Freeholders and such as hold of their mesne Lords by Knights service or Socage in their homage and fealty unto them excepting their allegiance and duty to the King should have as great a care not to deny him those parts of his Jurisdictions Praeeminences and just rights as they would not to perjure and forswear themselves or bring the curses and woes attending such grievous sins or the breach of that part of Magna Charta upon the heads of them and their posterities which a Kings assent to any Acts of Parliament for the taking away or extinguishing such individua annexa Coronae jure diadematis potestatis atque authoritatis inseparable parts of Majesty and the Rights of his Crown Regal power and Prerogative If any Law or Sanction could enable him to that which all Laws both Civil and Common doe deny will not be sufficient to acquit or discharge for although the dispensation of Oathes by those to whom and for whose benefit they were made be in some cases allowed by the Canon Law and some Roman Casuists doe believe that violation of oathes have been well dispensed withall by those for whose interest and benefit they were made it will not be hard to determine in the greatest veneration of Parliaments which are to be obeyed actively or passively and of whose acts no man is so much as to think evil that Laws of that kind when they shall be by importunities and necessities made or enacted against the Lawes of God and right reason cannot give an absolution for oathes violated nor if they could be excused for the not payment of those most necessary duties to their King and common Parent in foro humano in this world will ever be excused in foro animae in the next And if the Parliament in Anno 18 Eliz. took it to be for the good of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that the Colleges Halls and Houses for Students therein should receive the third part of their Rents in Corn and Mal◠and ordered them so to doe and that their Tenants who had then have since such comfortable Bargains and Leases under them as every man is glad to purchase or get them and inroll themselves for their Tenants wherein if a deer year comes once in 7 or 10 years and their Bargains happen to be so much the worser as the prises which are to be ruled according as the like was sold the Market day next before the Rent day exceeds the former or cheaper prices the yearly profit notwithstanding of their Lands being alwaies more then the Rent and six or nine cheap years to one may pacifie their complaints or grudgings the King certainly may expect as much or more care to be had of him and his house-keeping as there was of the Universities Colledges and Halls and not to be denied in his particular of Pourveyance or compositions for it that which every man thinks reasonable in his own Nor to be made so great a sufferer under those heaps of mischiefs and inconveniencies which by the great and excessive rates and prises put upon victuals and household provisions daily more and more encreasing doe assault and lessen his too smal a Revenue Neither should be rendred more helpless and in a worser condition then the Lords of Leets Sheriffs in their Turns Justices of Peace in their Counties Magistrates in Cities and Towns Corporate Judges in their Circuits the University of Oxford who hath liberty to punish the breakers of the Assise of Bread Beer and Ale 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
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
for Tillage and Pasturage agros luxuriantes rich and fertil Lands watered and enriched with many Rivers her Mountains and Downs covered and replenished with Sheep and far more then they were before the Raign of King Edward the third abounds with Corn Butter Cheese and all manner of Commodities for the uâ—e and livelyhood of mankind and by a greater improvement of all the Lands of the Kinâ—dom within this last Century or hundred yeares then was in three or four hundred yeares before and by watering marling and burning the more barren parts of it is gone far beyond the time and expectation of our Fathers and Progenitors either Brittaines Saxons or Normans and is in the yearly value of Land increased in many parts or particulars thereof twenty thirty or fourty to one more then it was insomuch as we may to our comfort say and believe that Forraign Writers were well acquainted with our happiness when they called England the Court of Ceres and as Charles the great or Charlemaigne of France our neighbor was wont to term it the Granary of the Western world a Paradice of Pleasure and Garden of God and was many ages before in the Brittish times so fruitful in all kinde of Corn and Grain as the Romanes were wont yearly to transport from hence with a Fleet of eight hundred vessels then but something bigger then Barges great store of Corn for the maintenance of their Armies and our Brittains could before those large improvements of Lands and Husbandry which have been since made in it declare unto the Saxons when they unhappily called them in to their aid and took them to be their friends that it was a Land plentiful and abounding in all things Pope Innocent the fourth in the Raign of our King Henry the third called it Hortus deliciarum a Garden of delights ubi multa abundant where all things are plentiful And in the Raign of King Edward the third where there was small or very little enriching or bettering of Lands compared with what it is now the English Leigier Embassadors at Rome heaâ—ing that Pope Clement the sixth had made a grant as he then took upon him to the King of Spaine of the Fortunate Islands now called the Canaries did so believe that to be England which was then granted by the name of the Fortunate Islands as they made what haste they could home to inform the King of that which they believed to be a danger And may now more then ever well deserve those Encomiums or commendations which our industrious Speed hath given it that her Vallies are like Eden her Hills as Lebanon her Springs as Pisgah her Rivers as Jordan and hath for her Walls the Ocean which hath Fish more then enough to feed her people if they wanted Flesh and had not as they have such innumerable Herds of Cattle flocks of Sheep such plenty of Foul Fruit Poultery and all other provisions on the Land for the sustenance life of man to furnish the delicacy of the richer part of the people and the necessities of the poorer if they would but lay aside their too much accustomed Lazines and carelesseness with which the plenty of England hath infected her people and not suffer the Dutch to enrich themselves and make a great part of their vast Commerce and Trade by the Fish which they catch and take in our Brittish Seas multiplying the stocks of their children and Orphants whilst too many of ours for want of their parents industry have none at all or being ready to starve or dye do begg up and down the streets when the waters have made her great the Deep hath set her on high with her Rivers running round about her plants and sent out her little Rivers unto all the Trees of the field when she is become the Merchant for many Isles hath covered the Seas with her ships which go and return a great deal sooner then Solomons Ships to or from Ophyr searcheth the Indies and the remotest parts of the earth to enrich her borders and adds unto her extraordinary plenty the Spices Sugar Oyl Wine and whatsoever foreign Countries can produce to adorn our Tables which former Ages wanted or had not in so great an abundance And that her people are now if so much no more numerous than formerly by her emptying of multitudes of her Natives into Ireland since the Raign of King Henry the Second many of whose Inhabitants have been English transplanted gone thither by our many great Plantations since the middle of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth sent into America as Virginia Bermudas New-England Barbadoes St. Christophers Mary-Land Charibe Isles Meâ—is c. By our many Voyages at Sea and to the Indies more than formerly our Fishing in Newfound Land which we had not in former dayes our Nursery of War and Regiments of English in Holland and the United Provinces and our greateâ— than formerly Luxury use of Physick and shortning the lives of the richer part of the people by it When the Provisions for the Kings Houshold or the Compositions for them in so great a plenty as England is now more than formerly blessed with notwithstanding that we do keep fewer Vigils Fasting Eves than heretofore and do as it hath been an usage custom of this Nation eat more flesh in every one month of every year the time of Lent excepted which since the Reformation of our Religion the return of it from the now Church of Rome to that which is more Orthodox is very little at all or not so well observed as our Laws intend and it ought to be than all France Spain the Netherlands do in every year would if the Universal Pride Luxury of the people and their Racking and Cheating one another to maintain it did not hinder it be as cheap or cheaper afforded than it was heretofore For that our Ancestors well approved and much applauded customs of Hospitality are almost every where turned out of doors and an evil custom of eating no Suppers which a Tax for a little time of as much as was saved by one meal in every week introduced and brought into fashion to maintain the Grand Rebellion hath helped the Back to cozen the Belly and the Back with its Brigade of Taylors and all other the abused and retaining Trades to Lucifer hath cheated and rooted out Love Charity and good House-keeping and retrenched much of the Provisions which were wont to be better employed That the Lands of most part of the Monasteries and Religious Houses in England and Wales and their yearly Revenues which at the old easie rates were in or about the Raign of King Henry the Fourth computed to be sufficient and enough to maintain fifteen Earls which after the rate of Earls in those dayes and their great Revenues could not be a little fifteen hundred Knights six thousand two hundred Gentlemen and an hundred Hospitals besides â—wenty thousand pounds per Annum to be given
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
being sometimes imployed onely to the Pasturage of Sheep and lessened the plenty of Calves Butter Eggs Cheese Chickens Hens Capons Ducks Geese Beef Piggs Porâ— and Bacon the labor of the husbandman wife and servants encreasing more Victuals thorough the whitemeat of one Cow in one year being well pastured and her Calf taken from her at a moneth old then her body being fat amounted unto the dearth of Victuals causing the greatness of price of other Commodities and the overcharging of Commons by raising the Rents of enclosed grounds The very judicious and leaâ—ned Camden doth not believe the plenty of money to be the sole or principal if any cause of the high prices and rates of Victuals but refers it to Politicians to dispute among themselves whether the dearth of all things now very much exceeded which most complain of doth proceed from plenty of Gold and Silver since the discovery of the West Indies or from Monopolies and Combinations of Merchants and Crafâ—smen transportation of grain or from the pleasure of great personages who â—o most highly rate such things as they do most like or excess in private persons or from all these And Gerard Malines a Learned knowing and judicious Merchant is in his learned Tract or Book called Lex Mercatoria written in Anno 1622. of opinion that the General dearth of all things within this Realm where there is no scarcity of provisions for the Back and Belly yet food is dear and there is a dearth proceeds from the Husbandman who lays the fault upon the Noblemen and Gentlemen for raising of their Rents taking of Farms into their hands and making of inclosures Noblemen and Gentlemen alleaging the fault to be in Merchants and Artificers for selling things dearer then in times past which caused every man to make the most of his own and the Artificers and workmen raising their wages when they do buy all things dearer To which the Merchants in their ordinary and lawful course of Trade and Merchandize without those lately practised illegal wayeâ— of Ingrossings when as one having bought up all the Pepper which was in London and recruiting and adding more unto it made thirty thousand pounds clear gain thereof being more to be tollerated then other men in regard of the hazard of Seas Pirates and Imbargoes which many times attends their business and affairs do but very little contribute but the disease and evil is more intrinsicke within our selves and at home and proceeds where it is not upon scarcity as of Corn c. which happeneth not often nor continueth long not from the increase of money or people but of pride selfishness oppressing of one another and the non-execution of many good Laws which are yet in force and unrepealed as may evidently appear to any that will but look back and suâ—vey our Bigone and former times For although money which notwithstanding the opinion of some learned men that pecunia was derived a pecude from the use of Cattle in exchange of other commodities was as anciently in use as the times of Abraham and Jacob be as it hath of long time been in this and many other paâ—ts of the world the exchange rule or measuâ—e in commutations and commerce and should be in some sort the Par in the prices or rates of all Commodities to be bought or exchanged by it yet the avarice and craft of people never satisfied with gaining advantages one upon another the power of some and weakness of others in Estate or Judgements have so far transgressed the rules which ought to be in that measure or the Justice which every man owes one to another anâ— to do as they would be done unto as the plenty or want of money not abased or corrupted is seldom as to the generality the cause of the dearness or cheapness of things and if it could so happen or appear to be so neither of them can be any causa potens an onely or meer cause in it self of the dearth or cheapness or the excessiveness of the prices or rates of provisions to be bought or provided with it It being not to be denyed but that the scarcity or want of money doth many times enforce a Tenant to sell his Corn or Cattle at cheaper rates and prices then he otherwise would do whereby to be able to pay his Landlord his Rent at the time appointed or an Indebted Gentlemen to sell his Lands much beneath the worth or true value of it to avoid greater inconveniences or â—edeem himself out of the Pawes of a Panther like usurer and his biting Interest and that the plenty of mony at the same time in the buyer makes it to be much cheaper unto him then otherwise it would have been and renders the scarcity or want of money in the one and the plenty of it in the other to be a cause of the small rate or price of the commodity or that which is sold and howsoever it be admitted that the prices and rates of commodities or things to be bought with money may sometimes have a respect or regard to the true and intrinsick value of the Coin or money which is to be given for it and that at some times there may be more mony or Coin in a Kingdom then there is or can be at another time yet that grand Witch or Inchantress which insinuates it self into most mens loves and affections the small and contemptible the more is the pitty society of Scholars Philosophers and Vertuosi's onely excepted is so predominant and powerful as Auri sacrafameâ— the greedy appetite of Gold and Silver and the insatiablenes thereof veriâ—ying the long ago experimented saying of the Poet that Crescit amor nummi quantum ipsa pecunia crescit the love of money increaseth as the money doth will not allow us to believe that there is no hoarding or keeping it from the knowledge or use of others or that there is such an equal distribution of it that every one like the children of Israel gathering their Manna in the Desert might go out and fill their Homers or as much as might be sufficient for their necessary provisions when this age wherein we live hath told us that Sir William Craven an Alderman of London could besides a great estate purchased in Land leave at his death in money four hundred thousand pounds which was more overplus and spare money then all the men in that large County of York from whence originally he came could make or cast into a Treasury That Sir William Cokaine an Alderman of London could within a few yeers after notwithstanding great portions given unto two of his daughters in marriage the one unto a Baron the other unto an Earl dye possessed of a personal Estate worth 200000 l. and seised of such an Estate of Inheritance of his own getting as enabled his son to be made an Irish Viscount which was more then all the men in the County of Bedford from whence he was discended could
subdued and conquered as they were enforced to be shaved and wear their hair shorter their Lands being given away to his Normans the greatest part of the Nobility and Gentry extirped many of the common people glad to be vassals and Tenants to those Lands which before were their own and had nothing to recompence their losses but the retaining of their good old Laws and their Masters and Conquerors having gathered all the money and riches of the Kingdom into their Chests and possessions there was after the harrassed English had gained some peace and that the long languishing Olive branches began again to recover their Sap and Verdure so small an improvement of the rent of Land amongst the Normans plenty of money as in the valuation of Lands in the sixteenth year of the raign of William the Conqueror there was such a wonderful small value put upon Lands fifty or sixty and more to one less then it is now the commodities and Cattel raised thereupoâ— being in all probability proportionable thereunto as in Drayton no unfruitful place in Cambridgeshire the Abbot of Croyland had fourteen or fifteen yard Lands twelve Villaines three Bordmen three Soccage Tenants and two Meadows which in the time of Edward the Confessor were of the value of five pounds per annum and at that time but four pounds and ten shillings In the Raign of King Henry the first which began his Raign in the year of our Lord one thousand one hundred when the Normans had something more improved their Lands and possessions their plenty of money made out of the English miseries did not banish their cheapness of victuals and provisions but left them at those small rates of one shilling for the Carcase of an Ox and four pence for a sheep and no more for the Provender of twenty horses the Denarius or English penny then being probably as the Roman which was but the fourth part of an ounce of Silver which in coyn or money made no more then twenty pence In the latter end of the Raign of King Richard the first who began his Raign in Anno Domini one thousand one hundred eighty nine and after his redemption from his imprisonment by the Emperor of Germany in his return from the Holy Land when money was so scarce in England as to make up the sum of one hundred thousand Marks for his ransome the Church Plate and Chalices were pawned an Oxe or Cow was but of the price of four shillings a Hogg ten pence a sheep of the finer Wooll ten pence and six pence of the courser In the Raign of King Edward the first whose raign commenced in the year of our Lord God one thousand two hundred fifty two when there was as much plenty of mony as peace and an increase of Trade under his â—appy and prudent Government Scotland conquered and subdued and such a plenty of money as some Esterlings or men of Germany from whom our Sterling money is well conjectured by Sir Henry Spelman to receive its denomination were here imployed to coyn our money the Market price of an Oxe was eight shillings and six pence twenty six seames or sums or horse-loads or quarters of Barley was at fourty three shillings a quarter of Oats for fourteen pence and the yearly value of an Acre of Meadow was in Buckinghamshire apud altum firmam at the Rack but eight pence per Acre and so small a power had the plenty of mony then upon the price of victuals as upon the payment of mony agreed to be paid upon a Bond or Deed which was not likely to be for any long time as the Case at Law tempore E. 1. Cited in 9. E. 4. informs us the price of a quarter of Barley which was at the time of the making of the Bond or Deed but three shillings a quarter was before the time of payment for it come to be thirty and two shillings a quarter which might happen from some other causes and not at all by reason of any extraordinary store of money which the Kingdom was then blessed withal In the eighth year of the Raign of King Edward the second which was in the year of our Lord God one thousand three hundred and fifteen a Parliament was assembled at London where all or most of the Prelates and great Lords of England were with the Commons assembled â—aith Thomas Walsingham ad tractandum de statu regni alleviatione rerum venalium a matter now moâ—e then ever necessary to consult of the State of the Kingdom and the taking down the price of victuals which saith Walsingham was then so high ut vix posset vivere plebs communis as the common people could scarce live and would have been in a worse condition if the Landlords had then let their Lands at the Rack or beyond the value as many of them do now and many of the houshold provisions had been sold as they are now more then twenty times and others ten or fifteen times more then they were then where it was ordained that an Ox not fed with grain should be sold for sixteen shillings and if with grain and fat for four and twenty shillings and no more a fat Cow of the best sort for twelve shillings a fat Hogg of two years old three shillings and four pence a Mutton fat and shorn for fourteen pence and for one that was unshorn one shilling eight pence a Goose for two pence half penny a Hen for a penny and four Pigeons for a penny And though immediately after in the same year there followed such a very great famine as Flesh and Corn were scarcely to be had Hens and Geese seldom found Pigs and Swine wanted Food and Sheep dyed of the Rot or Murrain yet a quarter of Malt was sold for a Mark and a quarter of Corn for twenty shillings and upon the great dearth which happened in the next year after making such a famine as Horse-flesh was good Diet for the poor and causing a repeal of the Act of Parliament which was made the year before touching the price of Victuals three quarts of strong Beer was then sold for three pence and of small for two pence which in that sad and horrid famine the Magistrates of London understood to be so unreasonable as they prohibited it to be sold at so high a rate in the City and ordained that no more then three half pence should be taken for three quarts of strong Beer and a penny for small and the King by his Proclamation likewise commanded that in all parts of the Kingdom three quarts of Beer should not be sold for more then a penny In the 21. year of the Raign of King Edward the third notwithstanding any enhaunce of prices made or occasioned by the great famine which was in the eight and ninth years of the Raign of King Edward the second his Father and the continuance of it for four or five years
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
pay those Thraves of Corn which would far exceed the Pourveyance charged upon that County or have compounded for them or do pay them to such as have obtained Grants of the Lands and Revenues belonging to that Hospital Or that he whose Royal Ancestor King Henry the second took a care as appears by the black book in the Exchequer that the Barons of the Exchequer who were then taken to be a part of the Kings houshold should have their provisions at easier rates then others Et de victualibus suae domus in urbibus Castellis maritimis nomine consuetudinis nihil solvunt Quod si minister vectigalium de hiis quicquam solvere compulerit dummodo presens sit serviens ejus qui suis usibus empta fuisse oblata fide probare voluerit Baroni quidem exacta pecunia restituetur inde in integro improbus exactor pro qualitate personae pecuniarum penam luet and pay nothing for custom for the victuals or provisions for their houses in Cities Castles and Maritime places and if any Officer should compell them to pay any thing for them whilstâ—their servants were ready to testifie and prove that they were bought to their use the money was to be again restored and the party so wickedly exacting it amerced or fined according to the quality of his person And that our succeeding Kings and Princes causing a Pourveyance and provision of Diet to be made for the Justices of Assize Justices of the Peace at the Assizes Sessions by the Sheriffs in every County making an allowance for the same out of the Exchequer Q. Elizabeth in Anno 1573. finding that to be troublesome inconvenient for the Sheriffs ordained that charge to be defrayed out of her Coffers as may appear by a Copy of a letter from the Lords of her Privy Councel communicated unto me by my worthy and learned friend Mr. William Dugdale and here inserted and that expence being since ordered to be defrayed out of the Fines and profits of the Counties after the rate of four shillings per diem at the Assizes Sessions to every Justice of the peace and two shillings per diem to the Clerk of the Peace and the King being at more then 10000 l. per annum charges to the Judges of the superior Courts at Westminster who by their Circuits do to save his people a great deal more charges cause a cheap and impartial Justice to be twice in every year brought into every County and is at many other yeerly expences to others in the administration of Justice for which Cromwell and his fancied Parliaments thought a large yeerly allowance to be little enough makes an yearly allowance of one thousand one hundred and six pounds thirteen shillings and four pence per annum to the Lord President of Wales and the Justices attending that Court for the provisions of their Diet with an allowance of Dyet to the Justices of Wales in their great Sessions twenty four shillings per diem to the Domestick Clerks or servants of the Lord Chancellor an allowance of Forty Marks per annum to the Kings Remembrancer in the Exchequer which may shew what cheapness was formerly for the diet of himself and of his eight Clarks who ought to table with him the like for the Treasurers Remembrancer and his twelve Clarks and to the Clark of the Pipe five pence per diem for his diet every day when he sitteth in Court and the like to the Comptroller of the Pipe should be now put to seek his own Provisions or Pourveyance at the dearest most disrespectful rates or that the Kings servants and Officers of his houshold in whose honor or dishonor the Majesty whom they serve as that of David was in the reproach of his servants or Embassadors sent to the King of Ammon is not a little concerned should now for want of the Pourveyance or Compositions for them complain that the beauty is departed from the Kings house his servants are become like Harts that finde no Pasture and they that did feed plentifully are desolate in the streets And that the servants of the Abbot of St. Edmunds Bury were in a better condition when as he could allow John de Hastings the Steward of the Courts of his Mannors who claimed the said Office by inheritance a Provision when he came at night unto him for eight horses and thirteen men with an horse load of Provender and Hey sufficient Wine and Beer twenty four Wax Candles in the Winter time and twelve in the Summer eight loaves of Bread for his Greyhounds two Hens for his Hawks pro se hominibus suis honorabilem sustentationem in Cibo potu and an honorable provision for himself and his servants in meat and drink And as those of the children of Israel which returned from the Captivity lamented the difference betwixt the glory of the first and second Temple bewail the desolation of the house wherein the Kings honor dwelled and the alteration reducing of it to what it is now from that which it was in the raigns of Queen Elizabeth King James or King Charles the Martyr And that Foraigners and Strangers who were wont so to magnifie and extoll the Hospitality state and magnificence of the King of Englands Court and house-keeping as that Philip Honorius after an exact survey of many other Kingdoms and their Policies hath publikely declared that no Nation in the world goeth beyond our Brittain in the honor of the Kings Court and houshold in maggior numero di servitori con maggior distinctioni d' officii e gradi multitude of servants Officers and distinction of degrees and cannot be ignorant of the respects and honor done by all Nations to Foraign Princes though no Monarchs or their superiors in their passages and journeys through any Towns or Cities beyond the Seas by making them presents of Wine Fish Oats and the best of houshold provisions which those places afforded and that even those mechanick souls of Hamborough and Amsterdam can think it worthy their imitation shall finde the King of England whose Ancestor Offa King of the Mercians in Anno Dom. 760. would be so little wanting to himself and his posterity in the preserving the honor and rights of Majesty as he ordained that even in times of peace himself and his successors in the Crown should as they passed thorough any City have Trumpets sounding before them to shew that the person of the King saith the Leiger book of St. Albans should breed both fear and honor in all which either see him or hear of him to be so scanted de ea sublimitate amplitudine augustaque illa Majestate in that honor and reverence which his predecessors would never abate any thing of as his Officers and servants like some Beggars who are not used to be trusted with a Mess of Pottage to be put into their hands when they buy it at the
by King Francis the first for that they could hinder their passage thorough their Towns or coming into them and after upon the Country to be paid without exemption of persons or allowance of priviledge with an addition of charge added thereunto by an Ordinance of that King for the maintenance of the seven Legions of Foot consisting of six thousand men a peece for the safeguard of the Kingdom the tenths of all the Benefices and Dignities Ecclesiasticks and Commonalties erected into Benefices which have a Revenue in perpetual succession les deniers Communs or monies imposed upon Cities and Towns for the repair fortification or defence of them or of any Castles or Forts to which all are to contribute without exemption the rights and payments due out of very many Bishopricks and Archbishopricks for Quints and Requints Rachapts Censives Lots Ventes Saisines Amandes Justices Greffes Auboines confiscations the Estappes or Annonae militares free quarterings or Provisions for the Armies or souldiers in their March or encampings contributions in times of peace pour le Ban arriere Ban upon Fiefs and Tenures levâ—es de Chevaux Charriotts a leavy upon Carts and Carriages le Traicte Imposition forraigne being a twentieth penny extending to all commodities that are carryed by Land out of the Kingdom into other Kingdoms and Territories as out of France into Catalonia Spain Lorraine Savoy Flanders and Italy makes as much as an Excise upon Corn Wine Oyle Flesh Fish Poultery Herbs Fruits and all sorts of Victuals and Provisions for the Belly and the Back All which before mentioned Taxes and Impositions being become as the Sieur Girard du Haillan saith who wrote in the later end of the Raign of their King Henry the fourth Patrimonial and Hereditary or as Droits du Domaine without any distinction betwixt the times of war or peace and leavied as the ordinary Revenues of the Crown of France have been by the Artifice of Lewis the 11. and other his successors more then doubled or trebled by other Tailles Taxes and Impositions which are laid upon extraordinary occasions by the Kings Ordonnances or Letters Parents quand bon lui sâ—mble at his own will and pleasure and so much as the Sieur de Haillan complains that ilz ne se sont contentez des dites Tailles mais peu a peu ont mis sur le dos du paâ—ure peuple les autres impositions depuis on a mis Taille sur Taille imposition sur imposition dont la France se est esmeüe contre ses Roys ils en ont cuide perdre la France they were not content with those ordinary Taxes but by little and little have put upon the backs of the poor people Tax upon Tax and Imposition upon imposition which caused a sedition and rebellion amongst the people which had almost lost or destroyed all France and in stead of diminishing are more and more increased though their good King St. Lewis who raigned in Anno Domini one thousand two hundred and thirty did upon his death bed in the words of a dying man as Bodin saith inserted into his last Will Testament exhort his son Philip to be legum Morum sui Imperii Custos vindex acerrimus ac ut vectigalibus tributis abstineret nisi summa necessitas ac utilâ—â—atis publicae justissima causa impellat to be a Guardian and severe observer of the Laws and customs of his Kingdom and abstain from Taxes and Impositions unless there should be a great necessity or it should appear to be for the good of the people and that afterwards Philip de Valois did in an Assembly of the three Estates in Anno one thousand three hundred thirty eight Enact and decree ne ullum Tributi aut vectigalis genus nisi consentientibus ordinibus imperaretur that no kinde of Tallage or Tax should be leavyed without the consent of the three Eastes So very many have been day after day added as there is not to be wanted a Tax or Imposition for Piâ—s for the Queen and for Clouts against her time of Child-bed with Daces or Tributes Peages Impositions upon the going out and in of Towns and other places Taxes for passage upon the high ways Emprunts generaux particuliers borrowing of money in general or particular ad nunquam Solvenda never to be paid again vente confirmation des offices sale of Offices and places of Justice and Judicature which their ancient and fundamental Laws and customes do forbid and being cut into small parts and multiplyed do make up a very great Total or number and by a common and publike Merchandise of them have increased those great corruptions delays and intrigues of Justice by appeals and otherwise which our learned Fortescue Chancellor to our King Henry the sixth observed in the time of his Exile was no small grievance of the people and made that litium fertilitas abundance of suits and controversies which their own Learned Bodin doth ingeniously acknowledge to be so very many as vix in omnibus Europae Regionibus imperiis tot lites sint quam in hoc unto Imperio there are not so many suits in Law almost in all the Counties and Kingdoms of Europe put all together as they were in his time in that one Kingdome of France which besides the Ottroys or aydes granted by the three Estates and universal consent of the people upon publike and great emergencies and occasions are with many Arbitrary Taxes and Assessements as the King or the necessities of War or State shall require much the more burdensome to the Pesants Bourgeois and Artizans or a third or lower estate of the people for that all the Clergy so long as they live Clericalement without taking of Farms or dealing in Lay matters which with their Tenants and dependencies have been in the Raign of King Henry the fourth reckoned to be an hideous number are to be exempt from the Tailles or Arbitrary Taxes as likewise all the Nobility and Gentry which are many and very numerous both in the greater and lesser sort of them and that most men of any Estate both of the long Robe or Lawyers or soldiers or other lower ranks do by purchase procure themselves to be of the nobless or Gentry for that they are thereby to be freed from arbitrary Tallages insomuch as some thousands have been at once enfranchised made Gentlemen and inrolled into that condition or quality for such lands as they hold in their hands there being amongst those which are exempted also reckoned the Domesticks of the King and Queens the house and Crown of France and their sons daughters brothers and sisters if they do not Traffick or negotiate further then with the increase of their own Lands and Revenues With such also as are exempt by paâ—ticular Mandates and Ordinances of the King as amongst the souldiers and Life Guards the Captains Lieutenants Cornets Guidons Quartermasters men at Arms Archers Fourriers
that valiant Saxon King and his own and others treachery gained and gotten to himself the whole Kingdome murdered Edmond Ironsides kindred and friends denied his children their fathers right in the Kingdom of the West Sexes banished them deprived his Cousin Olaus of the Kingdome of Norway and acting an haughty and domineering Tyranny thought his Prerogative to be so boundless that he took it ill that the Sea which is only commanded by him that stilleth the raging waves and rideth upon the wings of the wind did not adore his feet and run back like the river Jordan and having Demeasns Provisions enough of his own for the maintenance of his Houshold and lazy and unruly Lourdanes did in a contrivance of some ease to the people in small or less considerable matters the better to please them and assure his new Dominions sapientum adhibito Consilio by advice of his Parliament or Councill in Anno 1010. ut quo prius opprimabatur onere populum liberaret that they might be freed from the burden with which as he said they were formerly oppressed amongst other things by a Law Order and Command his Officers as the learned Mr. Lambard hath out of the old English or Saxon published it ut ex aratione praediis suis propriis quae sibi fuerunt ad victum necessaria suppeditent neque alius quisquam victui sui adjumenta praestare invitus cogatur atque si eorum aliquis hoc nomine mulctam petierit is proprii capitis estimationem Regi dependito that out of his own Demeasnes they should provide necessaries for his Houshold and that none be compelled to furnish any provisions And if any of his Officers should impose any penalty upon them for not furnishing such provisions he should himself forfeit or pay a great sum of money amounting to near as much as he was worth But as John Bromton who wrote in the Reign of King Edward the third hath recited that Law it doth something differ from that which Mr. Lamberd hath mentioned and is only in these words praecipio praepositis meis omnibus ut in proprio meo lucrentur inde mihi serviant nemo cogatur ad firmae adjutorium aliquid dare nisi sponte sua velit all his Reeves or Officers were commanded that they should make the best profit they could of the Kings Lands for his use and that no man should be compelled to add or pay any thing more then his Rent or Farme unless he should do it of his own accord Et si quis aliquem inde gravabit werae sua Reus sit erga Regem and if any should disturb them therein they should forfeit and pay a Fine to the King And that Law or Edict or Proclamation rather then a Law taken as it is either in Bromton or Lambard was but only intended as the title and body of it signifieth de victu ex praediis regis concerning his Tenants in his own Lands and Demeasnes and any provisions to be made by them over and above their Rents but did not discharge Cart-taking or other parts of the Royal Pourveyance in his own Demeasnes nor extended to any Lands or people other then the Kings own Demeasnes and can signifie no more then his desire to spare the Tenants of his own Lands from being charged with any provisions for his House who as Sir Edward Coke saith in his Comment or Annotations upon Magna Charta and the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas being the Kings Tenants in antient Demeasne have ever since enjoyed many great priviledges as to be free from payment of Toll paying of wages to the Knights of the Shire which serve in Parliament and the like And were by speciall priviledge granted by William the Conqueror to have upon Judgements obtained against any that did them wrong double the forfeitures and penalties or damage which were to be adjudged to any other And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mr. Somner saith in his Glossary victum propriè sonans signifying only some provision of victuals reserved it is not likely that the firmae adjutorium in Bromtons Translation of that Law or Edict of King Canutus could be meant or expounded that no provisions should at all be paid for then it would have signified the whole Rents to have been acquitted if no moneys had been used to have been paid together with provisions Or if as the judicious Sir Hen. Spelman saith the word Farme doth import tam redditus pecuniarias ex elocatis provenientes quam Annonarias as well for rent in money as corn and other provisions for housekeepings pro caena prandio corrodio convivio epulis et omni mensae apparatu sumitur and is taken for a Corrody Supper Dinner Feast or any other provision to furnish the Table and that some money and some provisions were paid for their Rents it remains a doubt what that favour intended by Canutus his Law or Edict should be interpreted to be or how much of that Kings provisions towards the keeping and maintenance of his house were by him remitted or if it shall be understood to have been only in alba firma quae argento penditur non pecude only in money which if at all was very seldome used in those times that also must be denied to have been either the meaning or practise of that Law or Edict of Canutus when as the Tenants of the Crown have been found to have paid their provisions for Housekeeping in Edward the Confessors reign before the Conquest and after in the reigns of William the Conqueror William Rufus and part of the reign of Henry the first so as the way to get out of it will be in all probability to understand it to be no otherwise then a foâ—bidding the rapines and the outragious taking of the peoples Cattel Corn and Provisions by his unruly Danes who had so lately been invading and plundering enemies and were scarcely denizend For in the same Parliament we find his Law that Dona potionis honoraria aliaque debita Dominis officia in suo semper statu immutato manerent honorary oblations or customes for drink with other duties of Tenants to their Lords should continue as formerly and remain unchangeable And the Customes of England afterwards extant and to be found in old Charters and Doomsday book do accordingly often mention Bordland to find provisions for the Lords Houses or Tables Droâ—land to drive their Caâ—tel to Fairs Markets c. Berland to bear or carry provision of victuals or the like for them or their Stewards in their remove from place to place Poâ—ura or Drinklan or Scot ale a Contribution by Tenants towards a â—otation Drinking or an Ale provided to entertain the Lord or his Steward coming to keep his Courts Gavel Malt Gavel Corn ad deferâ—endum cariandum ad costas expensas tenentium usque ad granarium and to carry it at