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—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
his Plate for religious uses for his Chappel and Devotion sell the Coats of the Yeomen of his Guard break in scorn his great Seal of England by the hand and hammer of a common Blacksmith which shewed what they intended to the life of the owner drive and engage all men into a monstrous Rebellion a slavery which proved to be the consequence and just reward of it and deprive him as much as they could of the loyalty duty love and obedience of his people and having abundantly enriched themselves and their Godless praying party by the Crown Lands and Revenues of the Church most of the Nobility and Gentry and many other good men and their Families did not think it reasonable to serve their Master for a little but as a further reward and recompence for their care and diligence to oppress and ruine their King and his better Subjects would be sure to make for themselves as good a Pourveyance and Provision as they could upon pretences of some little losses in their own small and necessitous Estates and allow one another besides their gaine of plundering and traiterous and sacrilegious purchases out of the improvements of the Common misery and washing as well as wasting three Kingdomes over in blood some fifty pounds some ten some four pounds a week towards theiâ— support and maintenance and to make their proportions the more plausible and to seem something reasonable would not leave out of the account the well stretched Items of the losses and charges of their Grandchildren married Sons and Daughters and when they had finished their ungodly work murdered the King Monarchy Magna Charta Petition of right and the Lawes and Liberties of the People and converted their own sins into the bloody and unsure foundation of a Common-wealth founded upon the blood and murther of their Soveraign and many thousands of his loyal and religious Subjects and the perjury of themselves and as many as they could perswade or constrain unto it and the greatest of iniquities and made the people who got as much ease by it as the Asse in the Fable who thought to make his burden of Sponges the lighter by lying down in the water with them believe that when two parts in three of the Kingdome were undone to enrich a third and brought under a slavery and arbitrary power of the mechanick and ruder sort of them that their freedome from Pourveyance and Cart-taking was an especial deliverance which amongst other wonderfull things as they called them pretended to be done for them being only to buy Sadles for their reforming Legislators to ride upon their backs and a favour much of kin to that of Pharoahs kind usage of the Children of Israel when he set Task-masters over them to afflict them with burdens made their lives bitter with hard bondage caused them to make bricâ— and double the Taâ—e thereof and gather the straw was recompence sufficient for all their money and sins laid out in that wicked and detestable cause and for all that which they were to endure in this life and the next and in that seeming holy but assured cheating a miserable and strangely deluded Nation continued like the Egyptians in their way to the Red sea and oppressing of Gods people untill their Oliver and grand Impostor and Instrument had out-witted and undermined them and insâ—ead of many Tyrants had set up his single Tyranny and having from an indebted and small Estate made much less by a former drunken and debauched conversation by which he was so streightned as not to be able to buy some oats or pease to sow a small parcel of ground but to borrow some of a friend upon his promise of a Repayment upon his hoped for increase at Harvest did notwithstanding neither then nor after a more plentifull crop of his wicked doings and that great Estate which the sinnes of a factious and wicked part of the people had made him Master of ever find the way to satisfie or repay And having largely pourveyed for himself better then he could do in his Brewhouse put an Excise upon Ale Beer and intoxicated as many as he could seduce with an opinion that Rebellion was Religion and gotten an Arbitrary power with a large Revenue in Lands which was the Kings and other mens an Army of twenty thousand Foot and ten thousand Horse and a formidable Navy to be maintained at the peoples charge to continue their misery and three hundred thousand pounds per annum to defray the charges of his tyrannical Government took himself to be a Child of Providence and something more then one of the smallest Branches of Cromwell alias Williams King Henry the eights Barber and therefore in order to a Kingship or something by another name amounting to as much made it his work to disguise and metamorphose the antient Government decry our fundamentall Lawes and every antient constitution dig up by the roots all that was not novel or assistant to his designs fit to make a head out of the Heels and after he had taken an oath to maintain and preserve the Laws and Liberties of the people imprisoned Serjeant Maynard Serjeant Twisden and Mr. Wadham Windam who pleaded in the behalf of a Client for them thought it to be conscience Law and Latin good enough to call our Magna Charta magna Farta and did so order his Convention or thing called a Parliament of England compounded and made up of time-servers and a Medly of Irish and Scottish of the like complexion as they were brought in Anno 1656. by one of their Tooles called an Act of Parliament to ordain that pourveyance or Composition for the Kings house which they were taught to alleage to be a grievance to the people and very chargeable when there was none at all at that time in being in England nor was ever intended by many of the worshipfull Mushrooms to be thereafter should no more be taken under pain of Felony And was as great a kindness and ease to the people as if they had ordained that no more Subsidies which seldome amounted to more then a tenth part of the late yearly Taxes should be imposed by Parliament but Assessments at 70 thousand pounds or one hundred and twenty thousand pounds per mensem as often as long as that which they called the supreme Authority should have or feign a necessity for it or that offenders should be no more sent for by the Kings messengers or tried by Juries and the known Laws of the Land but at Cromwells High Court of Justice or Shambles lined with red or bloody Bayes or that there should be no more use or trouble of the Train Bands but an Army of 30000 domineering Redcoats or Fanaticks with their Bashaws or Major-Generals maintained at the peoples charge to keep or make them quiet under their vassalage or slavery or that there should be no more Coat and Conduct money long agoe remitted by King Charles the Martyr
Nobiltiy by their Common Council should be ordained and the Procuratores Cleri Proctors or Representers of the Clergy not Bishops who sate in Parliament and were summoned unto it as a third Estate and Barons inter Proceres Regni amongst the Nobility of the Kingdome ad consentiendum to consent only to such things as should be ordained in Parliament as hath been learnedly and accurately proved by examination of antient Records and Parliament Writs by Mr. William Prynne in his second part of a Register and Survey of severall kinds and forms of Parliament Writs And may well be deemed to be no less then Law and right Reason when as divers Acts of Parliament made by the advice of the Lords Spiritual Temporall and the assent of the Commons summoned called unto Parliament by the Kings Writ to consent only unto such Laws as should be made therein with the Royal assent and breath of life given by the King unto such Acts without which those Petitions and Bills which were intended and desired by the people to be Acts of Parliament are but as the matter to the form presented unto the King in his great Councill and Parliament and amount unto no more in the best of value and constructions which can be put upon them then Petitions and Requests or as bodies without souls or pieces of Silver or Gold uncoyned having not the power or effect of money without Caesars Image and Superscription and the Royal Stamp and Authority given them have enacted and ordained the same or the like cares and provisions as that without date made in the Reign of King H. 3. or Ed. 1. or Ed. 2. and to be found amongst the Statutes of 17 Ed. 2. if all or some of them were not made by the Kings Royal Authority and power only that the Toll of a Milne shall be taken according to the custome of the Land strength of the water-course either to the twentieth or four and twentieth corn and the measure whereby the Toll must be taken was to be agreeable to the Kings measure and taken by the rate and not by the heap or cantell The Assise of Ale to be according to the price of Corn. Butchers to be punished which sell unwholsome flesh â—ushels Gallons and Ells shall be kept by Mayors Bayliffs c. signed with the Kings Seal and he that buyeth or selleth with any other shall be amerced No grain shall be sold by the Heap or Cantell but Oats Malt and Meal Wines by the Act of Parliament of 4 Ed. 3. shall be assaied twice a year and be sold at reasonable prices and a Cry or Proclamation made that none should be so hardy as to sell wines but at a reasonable price regarding the price that is at the Ports from whence the Wines came and the expences as in carriage of the same from the Ports to the places where they be sold. No man may sell Ware at a Fair after iâ— is ended Victuals shalâ— be sold at reasonable prices and Butchers Fishmongers Regrators Hostelers Brewers Bakers Poulters and all other sellers of all manner of victuals shall be bound to sell the same victuall for a reasonable price having respect to the price that such victuals be sold at in the places adjoyning so that the said Sellers have moderate gains and not excessive reasonably to be required according to the distance of the place from whence the said victuals be carried None shall Forestall Wines and Victuals Wares and Merchandizes coming to the good Towns of England by land or by water to be sold. Auncel weight shall be put out weighing shall be by equall ballances every measure shall be according to the Kings Standard and be striked without heap It shall be Felony to forestall or ingross Gascoine wine Red and white wine shall be gauged Ballances and Weights shall be sent to all the Sheriffs of England and all persons are to make their Weights and Ballances by them And in anno 31 Ed. 3. because saith the Statute the Fishers Butchers Poulters and other sellers of Victualls in the City of London by colour of some Charters and by evil intepretation of Statutes made in advantage of the people that every man may freely sell victuals without disturbance and that no Maior Bailiffe or other Minister ought to meddle with the sale It was accorded assented That every man that bringeth victuals whatsoever they be to the City by land or by water may freely sell the same to whom shall please him without being interrupted or impeached by Fisher Butcher Poulter or any other and that the Maior and Aldermen of the said City may rule and redress the defaults of Fishers Butchers and Poulters as they doe of those which sell Bread Ale or Wine In the same year upon the complaint of the Commons that the people of great Yarmouth did encounter the Fishers bringing Herrings to the said Town in the time of the Fair and buy and forestall the Herrings before they come to the Town And also the Hostlers of the same Town which lodge the Fishers coming thither with Herrings would not suffer the said Fishers to sell their Herrings nor meddle with the sale thereof but sell them at their own will as dear as they will and give to the Fishers what pleaseth them whereby the Fishers did withdraw themselves from coming thither It was enacted that Herrings should not be bought or sold upon the sea That Fishers be free to sell their Herrings without disturbance of the Hostelers that when the Fishers will sel their Merchandises in the Port they shall have their Hostelers with them if there they will be and in their presence openly sell their Merchandises and that every man claim his part for the taking after the rate for the same Merchandises so sold. That no Hosteler or other buy any for to hang in their houses by Covin nor in other manner at a higher price the last then forty shillings but less in as much as he may That no Hosteler nor any of their Servants nor any other shall by land or Sea forestall the said Herrings No vessel called Piker of London nor of no other place shall enter into the said Haven to abate the Fair in damage of the people That all the Hostelers be sworn before the Wardens of the Fair and enjoyned upon a great forfeiture to the King to receive their Guests well and conveniently and to aid and ease them reasonably taking of every Last that shall be sold to other Merchants then the said Hostelers 40 d. That of Herrings sold to the same Hostelers to take in their houses the same Hostelers shall take nothing and that because of the profits which they shall have of victuals sold to their said Guests and of the advantage which they have more then other of carriage of Herrings so by them bought and hanging in their houses and for the advantage of 40 d. the
benefits received which highly pleasing the Almighty and being lovely in the eyes of all men which are not only enjoyed but held fast and enforced by all the Nobility Gentry and richer sort of men in England when it happens to be denied as the services and customes of all their Tenants to grind their corn at their Lords Mill or baking their bread at his common Oven in some Borough or Market Town The Reliefs in Tenures by Knight Service or Chivalry fixed and appropriate unto those Fewds and Tenures and paid at the death of every Tenant dying seised being at the first never condescended unto by the Tenants by any paction or stipulation betwixt them and their Lords But although there was antiently and originally betwixt the Lord and the Tenant mutua fides tuendae salutis dignitatis utriusque saith Bodin a mutual obligation betwixt the Tenant and the Lord to defend one anothers Estate and Dignity or as Craig saith pactionibus interpositis de mutua Tutela upon certain agreements to defend one another were lately notwithstanding received and taken by the Nobility and Gentry as a gratitude and in that and no other respect were by the Tenants willingly paid unto them The Reliefs paid by the Heirs of Freeholders in Socage after the death of their Ancestors which being not paid by Tenants for years by a rack Rent do appear to have no other commencement but in signum subjectionis gratitudinis a thankfull acknowledgement for benefits received Or those duties payments which many Lords and Gentry doe enjoy in Cumberland Westmerland and many of the other Northern Counties which were not at the first by any original contract or agreement as to their Tenants particular services for so it could not be a custome but the Tenants at the first upon the only reason of gratitude untill it had by length of time and usage uninterrupted gained the force of a custome and that the succeeding Heirs and Tenants were admitted according to those customes did as willingly observe and acknowledge them The Fines incertain at the will of severall Lords which the Nobility and Gentry of other parts of England do receive and take of their Copihold Tenants under the penalty of a forfeiture if not paid in a reasonable time after they were assessed and the priviledges which they retain of seising their Tenants Copihold Lands as forfeit whether the Fines were certain or incertain if they sued Replevins against them distraining for their Rents or Services and had no other parents or originall untill custome had settled it then the Tenants gratefull acknowledgements of the Lords or his Ancestors former kindess and benefits bestowed upon them or their Progenitors And the Socage Lands and Freeholders might be Tallied or have a Tax laid upon them by their Lords at their will and pleasure as their necessities or occasions required as well before as after the Statute de Tallagio non concedendo made betwixt the years 25 34 Ed. 1. and if it had been an Act of Parliament and not a Charter could bind only the King as to his extraordinary but not to his legall Tallages untill custome by the kindness or favour of time and the curtesie and good will of their Lords did permit them by a desuetude of imposing and a well rellished custome of the Tenants not paying to enjoy their easie and cheap bargains and freedome of their Lands for which they should doe well to remember better then they doe their Benefactors and be more mannerly and gratefull then of late they have been and were before those indulgencies held to be so accustomed and usual as it was not seldome found by Inquisitions and Juries upon oath that such or such land was holden Et Talliari potest c. And might have Taxes or a greater Rent laid upon them by the Lord of the Manor in so much as the Kings demeasne Lands were not free from Tallage which will be evident enough by a presentment of a Jury of Nottinghamshire before the Justices in Eyre in anno 8 E. 1. or King Edward the first when the Kings Letters Patents of a Grant of the Town of Retford to the Burgesses thereof and their Heirs in Fee Farm was found and mentioned in these words viz. Edwardus Dei gratia c. Sciatis nos concessisse c. Burgensibus nostris de Retford quod ipsi eorum haeredes de cetero habeant teneant ad feodi firmam de nobis haeredibus nostris in perpetuum villam nostram de Retford cum pertnen reddendo inde nobis haeredibus nostris per manus suas proprias decem libras per annum ad Scaccarium nostrum ad festum Sancti Michaelis pro omnibus serviciis c. Salvo inde nobis haeredibus nostris Tallagio nostro cum nos haeredes nostris Dominica nostra per Angliam fecimus Talliari c. reserving to himself and his Heirs a Fee Farme Rent of ten pounds per annum and the power of Tax or Tallage or improving what he had granted unto them when he should have occasion to make a Taxe or Tallage upon all his Demesne Lands in England And untill Rents were racked of which the Kings of England and the Officers of their Revenue in land were seldom or never yet much guilty that Rents were improved as high as the profits of Lands all the Lands of England except the Copihold Customary lands by Fines certain the curtesie of time and their Landlords suffering their good will and charity to be reduced into thankless customs escaped it were liable to be made contributaries to many of the necessities or occasions of the Lords of Manors who formerly did not make Leases and take Fines to lessen the rents as they doe now by a high rate or rule of interest and disadvantages procuring their rents to be advanced as it were in the name of a Fine before hand nor if the Lands were holden in Capite by Knight service untill time and their Princes favours had disused it could make a Lease unto any Tenant of such Lands but by licence and then also for no longer a term then 3. or 7. years And their Lands and Rents except Capite and Knight-service and Copihold land and lands in Frank Almoigne being capable of no higher Rents or improvement cannot now be any more by them Tallied which in effect is but a calling for more rent or raising it which every Landlord may do where his Tenants are at Will or when their Leases are expired when they are now all but those Lands before excepted as to the King and the mesne Lords and the Lands of the Freeholders and Cop holders at the utmost or a very high rent And such Tallage is at this day not laid aside by our Neighbours of France in very many places were les Tailles se paient par ceuz du Tiers estat c'est a dire par les habitans
in many as Canterbury York Durham Lincoln Coventry and Lichfield Exeter Ely Winchester and Norwich much abated when as now by the rise of mony and prises they are greatly different from what they then weâ—e and are of some of those Benefices and Spiritual Promotions but the eighth or tenth and of many but the twentieth part And receives his prae-Fines and post-Fines Licences and Pardons of Alienation upon Common Assurances at less then a tenth and many times less then a twentieth part of the true yearly values of the lands or rates which the Law ordering the compositions to be upon oath intendeth him after the example of his Royal Father who permitted the yearly value of lands in Capite and by Knight-service to be found by Juries and Inquisitions at the tenth part of the now true yearly value when as by oath they were to find and certifie the true yearly values and all the Lands of the Kingdome but his own are raised and improved generally ten to one or very much in very many parts and particulars thereof more then what they were two hundred years last past in or about the Reign of King Henry the sixth when as the errable and pasture lands which are now in Middlesex let at fifteen or sixteen shillings per annum an Acre and Meadow commonly at forty shillings and sometimes at three pounds the Acre were in Anno 1 Ed. 3. at a farre lesser yearly value when two Toftes of Land one Mill fifty acres of Land and two acres of Wood in Kentish Town near London was of no greater yearly value then 20 s. and 3 d. and the courser sort of pasture land in Essex now let for 8 or 9 s. the Acre and Meadow at twenty or thirty shillings the Acre was then in that Countie and in many fertill Counties within sixty miles and farre less of London valued but at eight pence per annum and four or five pence the Acre errable and the like valuations were holden in licences of Mortmain in all his extents or values of lands seised for taken into his hands Received their primer seisins at the like small yearly rate and took for suing out of Liveries which may be resembled to a Copiholders admittance not a fifth part proportionably to what is now paid by Copiholders to their Lords of Manors and respites of homage as they were taxed and set in anno primo Jacobi in a very easie manner Did not in the valuation of Lands and Estates as some Lords of Manors have been known to doe whereby to rack and oppress the Widdows and Fatherless employ some Sycophants or Flatterers of the Manor to over-value them or have some Decoyes in the assessing of Fines to seem willing to pay or give as much when they are sure to have a good part of it privately restored unto them again or cause their poor Tenants to be misled and the more willingly cozen themselves by crediting hard and erroneous Surveyes taking Leases of their Copihold Estates or using some other unwarrantable and oppressive devices worse then the Pharisaicall Committees did in the renting of lands they had no title unto when they did put men to box one another by overbidding themselves at their wickedly improving Boxes But did according to his Father King James his instructions given to his Councel of the Court of Wards in the assessing of Fines for the Marriages of the Wards and renting of their Lands which too many of the Nobility and Gentry and other of his Subjects did never or very seldome order the Stewards of their Manors to doe order that upon considerations which might happen therein either by reason of the broken estate of the deceased want of provision for his wife his great charge of children unprovided for infirmity or tenderness of the Heirs incertainty of the title or greatness of the incumbrances upon the Lands they should have liberty as those or the like considerations should offer themselves to use that good discretion and conscience which should befit in mitigating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities Suffers the Fees of his Chancery and Courts of Common-pleas and Kings-Bench for the small Seals to be receved as they were in the Reign of King Ed. 3. and the Tenths reserved upon the Abby and Religious lands at no greater an yearly value then they were in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the eighth when they were first granted though now they are of a four times or greater yearly value The Fees of the Seals of Original and Judiciall Writs and Process in Wales as they were in the 34. year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth when the English Courts of Justice were there first erected takes six pence a piece for Capons reserved for Rent in Queen Elizabeths time the issues of lands forfeited unto him upon Writs of distringas at such small rates as six shillings eight pence upon one distringas and 10 s. at another which the Law intendeth to be the profits of the Lands distrained betwixt the Teste and the return of the Writs which would have amounted unto twenty times or a great deal more and receiveth his Fines upon Formedons and othe real Actions granted and issuing out of the Chancery at most gentle and moderate rates his Customes inward and outward at easie rates proportionable to such small values as the Merchants advantage to themselves shall give in or the Officers or Commissioners for the King at the Custome-houses shall at randome and without view think to be a favourable and easie estimate Some single ones of which before recited undervaluations besides the profits of the Tolls of Fairs and Markets if rightly and justly paid according to the true improved values or two of the most of them would make up in a constant Revenue unto him a great deal more then the Compositions for his Pourveyances yearly and lately amounted unto by the difference betwixt his rates or prices and those of the Market A due consideration whereof if there were nothing else to put in the Ballance might induce the Earls Marquesses and Dukes of England who have received their honors and dignities from his Royal Progenitors to permit him as well to enjoy his Pourveyance and reasonable support maintenance of the honor of himself and his Royal Family as they doe take and receive of him their Creation monies being antiently a third part of the fines and profits of the Counties whereof the Earls are denominated since reduced to a certain and yearly sum of money when as also not a few of them have had great and large Revenues given them by his Royal Progenitors to uphold and sustein their Dignities and Honors And the Bishops whose Bishopricks and Baronies and most of the Revenues belonging unto them were of the foundation of the Kings Royal Ancestors and received their Investitures and Temporalties from him may if they shall think the Compsitions for Pourveyances ought not
have all his wines seised or limit them to such rigorous observances as the Saxon and some of the Norman Kings did command require to have witnesses and Vouchers for all that the people should sell or buy Or if upon that or some other causes or grounds there were no Markets or Fairs to resort unto or vent the plenty or over-plus of the peoples corn cattel fruits fish flesh butter cheese poultrie or other provisions or commodities and that by tarrying at their own houses they could not be informed what rates they would yeild or what some over-lavishly have given for the like or for less or worse then theirs which is usually a great cause of the enhaunce of prices in the endeavours of all people to get as much for their commodities as they finde others have gotten or as much or more as by any pretences or frauds they can procure for them there would be so much and so great a cheapness and plenty of our native commodities as would draw along with them or cause a great abatement in the rates of setting or letting of land and bring us again into some part of that hospitality charity and alms deeds which our pious Progenitors made to be a great part of their cares and business and rescue us from those great sinnes of avarice envie Pride uncharitableness cozening cheating and oppression under which the Land grones and for which Gods judgements like a sword hanging over our heads in a small silk or hair are ready to destroy us And we should quickly find by the want of Fairs and Markets that which our daily experience now tells us to be true that they are the Markets and Fairs which doe make and yeeld a greater price then can be had at home at the peoples own houses that the Markets and Fairs which are a blessing and happiness to the people granted by our Kings and Princes not now to be wanted with a Safety and Protection in viis Regiis aquis Silvis Semitis in or through his high-wayes or by land or water very often denied by private men through their own lands and Jurisdictions which our forefathers not deserving to be called fools by their lesâ— wise generations for obtaining for them so many good Laws Liberties understood to be so much the Kings rights and favours as in the old Grants and Charters made by the King of any lands or liberties unto them they thought themselves never safe enough unless those words and priviledges were specially inserted And it is obvious to all mens experience that by the intercourse and commerce of the people one with another in the accommodation of one anothers wants affection interest present necessities or occasions the prices of all manner of commodities victuals and provisions have been very much raised and heightned more then formerly or when the buyers were not so numerous and that the vie and biddings which are usually found and to be met with at Fairs and Markets doe much raise and enhaunce them farre above the reall worth or for what otherwise they might be had with a reasonable gain and profit for the things themselves or recompence for labour of bringing them thither as is often found in the way of Holland and some other forreign parts now used by our English and other Merchants of Londan in selling goods or merchandise by an inch or small piece of candle set up to burn for a small time with a condition that he that bids most before it be out shall have it in which contest or striving who shall have the commodity the hasty or over-biddings as the candle goes almost out makes the price to be sometimes a fifth and sometimes a tenth more then it is truly worth and if it chance to be no loss or but a small one to him that winns the bargain it is because it may more conduce to some one particular occasion or affair which that party hath for it more then another That the Markets or Fairs in Cities or great Towns of trade where there are more people a larger expence and more delicate way of living brings the sellers or Market people a meliâ—ur marchè or better gain or return then they would or could get by carrying it to some lesser Town or place not so much frequented And that the ground and soyl near those Market Towns are much bettered and impâ—oved by the ordure dirt and dung of Horses or Cattel in the Streets or Stables carried out and laid upon it That the loss supposed by the duty or compositions for the Pourveyance would not come up to the fortieth or fiftieth part of what they would be otherwise loosers in the fall of their rents and prices And be at last assured to their losses that there can be no reason that all or many of the people who can now take or receive advantage by their own heightning and enhaunce of the prices of provisions at home or at the Markets and so greatly improve their estates by it against the minâ— and intent of the King and his Laws should stretch and raise all they can their rates and prises upon him or should in his particular of his Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions for it take advantage or benefit by their own wrongs or breach of the Law which by the rule or maxime of the Civil Law that Nâ—mo ex suo delicto meliorem suam conditionem facere potest no man is to make himself a gainer by his own evil doings is not permitted and our Common Law is not willing to allow a man to take benefit de son tort of his own wrongfull actions Or if that shall not be enough to make the experiment let the most froward and unwilling to that Duty and reasonableness of the Praeemption or Compositions for Pourveyance suppose that which was grown to be almost more then a supposition that Oliver the Cheat as well as Darling of the Factious and Rebellious part of the people and the Patrono of all or many of their wicked doings had as William the Conqueror all the Lands of England in his demeasn power or disposing and given to all the people more then eight parts in nine the Tithes or Tenths being reserved to God and the Clergie with all their Liberties Courts-Leet and Baron Franchises Priviledges of Free-warren Fishing Trade and Commerce Markets Fairs and Tolls with many other Immunities and Freedoms which the bounty and indulgence of our more lawfull Kings and Princes have from age to age and one generation to another given and granted to them and their heirs in perpetuity speciall or generall tail and think but how willing and glad they would have been before they were given or afterwards the late little benevolence being given to the King after the greatest Act of Oblivion or Indempnity which ever Englishmen or any other people had bestowed upon them teaching us the difference betwixt after and before and between a willingness to receive benefits and
understanding and right reason into the ruder sort of the heathen as in some parts of Africk the King thinks he is not beloved of his people unless he doth sometimes feast them and the heads of the Cowes which are killed for that provision are painted and hung up like pictures in his Chamber as for an honor to the King whereby such strangers which did come to his Court might perceive that he was a good King Being like the Agapes or Love Feasts allowed by St. Paul and those which the primitive Christians continued as an excellent Custome and usage when the rich as Tertullian witnesseth brought to those publick feastings meat and provisions and fed and feasted the poor which were so usefull and well-becoming all such as intended or desired the comfort and blessing of it as that thrifty as well as magnificent Commonwealth of Venice doe not only order and encourage yearly Feasts among the several ranks and Classes of their Citizens and people but doe make an allowance to their Duke or shadow of Monarchy for the feasting of the principal of the Senate and to send yearly in the winter to every Citizen a certain petty present of wild foul And if the virtue of charity which St. Paul makes to be the chief or summa totalis of all the virtues and excellencies which humane nature or frailties can be capable of and will not allow that of speaking with the tongues of Angels which certainly is more to be valued then our last twenty years English complement nor the gift of prophecy and understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge neither the having of such a faith as might remove mountains to be any more then nothing in him or a noise or emptiness if charity be not joyned with it be so superlative The people of England as well as their Kings and Princes were not mistaken when they did so heed and thought it necessary to be observed as a good part of the Tythes given by Aethelulph in the year after the birth of Christ 855. not only of his own Lands in demeasne but as most of the Writers which lived nearer that time have as the most learned and judicious Selden rightly observed it extended unto a grant made by the consent omnium Praelatorum ac Principum suorum qui sub ipso variis provinciis totius Angliae praeerant of all the Bishops and Prelates and the Princes and Earles which under him governed in the severall Provinces and whether the Tithes came first to be setled here by that great King Ethelulphus and his Bishops and great men or were assented unto or granted afterwards by the piety and devotion of particular men and the owners of lands and goods of which very many grants doe occurre before they were settled by a very just and binding authority of the Secular Ecclesiastical power and authority in this our Isle of great Britain some part of them may be certainly said to be in the use and application of them to the Church and Ministry and sacred uses dedicated and designed for hospitality Which the People of did so greatly regard and look after as the supposed want of it in the reverend Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury begot a project in the reign of King Henry the eighth as Doctor Peter Heylin that learned and great Champion of the Church of England and the truth even after he was blind hath recorded it Whereby a design was laid by a potent and over-busie Courtier to ruine the Revenues belonging to that Arch-Bishoprick by informing the King that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had fallen much Wood let long Leases for great Fines and made great havock of the Revenues of his Arch-Bishoprick whereby to raise a fortune to his wife and children and with so large a Revenue had kept no Hospitality that it was more meet for Bishops to have a sufficient yearly stipend out of the Exchequer then to be incumbred with Temporal Revenues and that the Lands being taken to his Majesties use would afford him besides the said Annual stipends a great yearly Revenue But the King rightly apprehending the device sent the Informer on an errand about Dinner time to Lambeth-house where he found all the Tables in the great Hall to be very bountifully provided the Arch-Bishop himself accompained at Dinner with diverse persons of quality his Table exceeding plentifully furnished and all things answerable to the port of so great a Prelate wherewith the King being made acquainted at his coming back gave him such a rebuke for his false information and the design which was built upon it as neither he nor any of the other Courtiers duâ—st stir any further in that suite And the common people of England have always with so much reason loved and applauded Hospitality good House-keeping Alms Deeds and works of Charity and in that besides their own benefits and concernments did but delight in the ways of God which he hath commanded and is well pleased with whereby the heretofore famous and greatly beloved Nobility and Gentry of England have gained so much love honor power reverence and well deserved esteem as the greatest part of the respects which are now afforded and paid by them unto their Issues and remaining generations are as unto too many of them more in remembrance of the good and vertuous deeds of their Ancestors then any personal good or vertue is either to be found in them or according to the courses which they now hold is so much as expected from them who think a name or title like some gaudy Sign-post hung out of an empty ill governed and worse furnished house where vice and all manner of sins in their horrid and ugly deformities being treated and entertained do crawle up and down like Toads Frogs and Serpents in some dark and loathsome Dungeon or that a pedigree deriving their discents from some or many Heroes and Worthy Patriots is honor enough for them do scorn all but their own foolries and suppose a witty Drollery and the Friskes and Funambuloes of an ill governed wit or of brains soaked and steeped in drink more to be valued then the wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon hate vice and admonition shun vertue and morality as they would do the burst and fire of a Granado and believe dâ—inkâ—ng Dicing and Drabbing to be a more Gentile and cleanlier way of Hospitality and make the common people whilst they stand almost amazed at their Debaucheries and irregularities ready to swear they are illegitimate or some Changelings crept into the name and estate of their Hospitable and vertuous Progenitors and if any of them should be well affected and inclined to walk in the ways of their Ancestors and keep good houses can never be able to do it by reason of the no Reason of their Ranting and expensive Wives twenty of which sort of new fashioned women for there are some though not so many as should be which are or would be helpers to
very great sum of money which is reduced to an ordinary Revenue takes a Tax for the Chimneys or Fires in every house yearly to be paid towards the Wages of soldiers and an allowance to be made to such of the Nobility as attend the Vice Roy another Tax towards the Garrisons and a great Tax upon Silk and Cards Victuals and houshold provisions where the people having besides four thousand Barons or Titulado's with many petty Princes Dukes Marquesses and Earls to domineer over them do find the great plenty of that Country converted into a poverty of the common people Nor as the great Duke of Tuscany imposes besides other Assessements upon extraordinary necessitys eight per cent upon Dowries and as much upon the sale of all immoveables according to the full and real value the tenth part of the Rent made by houses or lands leased a rate upon every pound of flesh sold and upon Bills of Exchange and when he is to raise any great sum of money makes his list of all the rich men able to fuâ—nish it who not dareing to deny it are within twenty eight moneths after repaid by a general Taxe laid upon the people exacteth an Excise upon Roots and Herbs or the least thing necessary for the life of man bought or sold or brought to any Towns and a Tax likewise to be paid by every Inholder Brewer Baker and Artificer and of every man travailing by land or by water who pays money at every Bridge or Gate of a Town and if he doth not pay the Gabeller Arrests him and is ready to strip him naked to see what Goods he hath which ought to pay a Gabel Neither as the King of Spain doth in Milan where his subjects do the better endure their multitude of taxes by his moderating la voragine de gl interesse their grand usury cutting off or restraining le spese superflue superfluous expences havendo gli occhi apperti alle mani de Ministri and by the Magistrates keeping a strict watch and eye upon the Ministers of State and Justice who do notwithstanding so load and oppress the people as it is grown into an Adage or Proverb Il ministro di Sicilia rode quel di Napoli mangia quel di Milano divora the Governors and officials of Sicily do gnaw the estates of the people those of Naples eat them and those of Milan devour them Nor as in Spain where the people being Tantalized may hear of Gold and Silver brought from the West Indies and sometimes see it but it being altogether imployed to maintain souldiers Garrisons and designes in the services of their Princes never to be satisfied ambition of piling up Crowns Scepters and Titles one upon another as if they intended to give thier neighbor Princes no rest untill they had built themselves a Piramid of them passes away from the subjects like a golden Dream leaving them a certain assurance that the Gold and Silver of America hath but increased their Burdens and Taxes and that besides their servitios ordinarios ordinary and formerly accustomed services paid and done and the Subsidies called Des millions upon extraordinary occasions and necessities granted in their Parliaments or Assemblies of the Estates and the charges which the people are put to for librancas Warrants or Assignments for moneys to be paid like a late and ill invented way of Poundage here in England and the Eâ—comienda's or recommendations to Offices Places or Dignities or the Venteia or sale of them and the appointing Alcaldes or Officers of Justice in the Towns and Villages and Corregidors oâ— Governors to look to their obedience to Laws and Taxes and the profit of their inquisitions do pay the Alcavala or tenth of every mans estate first raised at a twentieth by Alphâ—nsus the twelfth in An. Dom. 1342. to expell the Moors and since though they be long ago driven away made a perpetual Revenue Collect out of all Lands Houses Goods Commodities which are sold and from Artificers Workmen Tavern keepers Manufactures Butchers Fishmongers Markets c. And for every thing sold or which they take mony for an Almoxariffe do take a tenth of all Foraign Commodities imported and exported a tenth of all Merchandize exported to the West Indies a twentieth when they come thither paid for importation Vectigalia decimaruÌ„ portuum siccorum or puertos secos a tenth of all Commodities carryed by Land out of the lirtle Kingdoms of Valentia Arragon and Navarre and out of Portugall into any part of Spain and from Spain into any of those Kingdoms two Ducats from the Natives of Spain and four of Strangers for every Sack of Wooll exported El Senneor-capo de la moneda a Real or six pence out of every six Ducats coyned in the Mint a Tax called the Almodraua out of the Tunny Fishes a great yearly Revenue out of salt El exercitio a tribute for the maintenance of the Gallies and Marriners la Monoda Forara which is seven Maravedis for ever Chimney a Tax upon Cards Quicksilver and Russet Cloth made in Spain and the Maestrazgos a great Revenue yeerly raised upon the Rents and Estates of the Knights of the Orders of St. Jago Calatrava and Alcantara'la Cruzava or benefit of the Kings selling of the Popes Pardons to eat Flesh in Lent or tiâ—es prohibited granted to maintain the charge of War against Infidels or Hereticks yearly yeilding eighty thousand pounds sterling the terzae or thirds out of the Lands and Estates of the Ecclesiasticks and Clergy for the maintenance of the wars and defence of the Catholick Religion over and above the Excusado or ordinary Revenue of a Tenth by the grant of the Pope of all the goods and Lands of the Church which yeildeth yearly six hundred and twenty thousand Duckets besides the State Artifices of getting Bulls or Warrants from the Pope to lay heavy Taxes upon the Clergy as in Anno 1560. to leavy every year for five years together three hundred thousand Crowns with a liberty of lengthning that time if the Pope should think fit to furnish fifty Gallies against the Infidels and Hereticks and two years after an Addition of four hundred thousand Duckets per annum and at another time three Millions for six years to be yearly paid by the Clergy vast sums of money yeerly raised out of their Wine and Oyl for some yeers insomuch as the Cardinal Ossatus complaining of it saith That nullus est Clerus in toto orbe Christiano qui majoribus oneribus prematur quam Clerus Hispaniae no Clergy in the Christian world is more oppressed with Taxes then the Clergy of Spain Doth not lay such Taxes or Impositions as the people of Portugal do bear by the Alfandega's or Impositions upon all Merchandize Corn excepted Imported upon some a tenth upon some a fifth and in some places some other parâ—s a Tax upon Wood Wine Oyl Fruit Flesh Fish Blacks or Negros servants or slaves
to those and as many more burdens and payments as should be necessary to keep them their posterities in a perpetual slavery we should when the Kings Revenue real and casual much enlarged since his happy Restoration and yet appearing not to be enough to go thorow with his important and necessary occasions and to amount but to nine hundred and fifty thousand pounds per annum his Revenue in lands being also included take it to be consistent with the duty of subjects to put in dolio perforato a vessel that leaks more then ordinary or wants a bottom the remembrance of all the benefits and â—avors of our King and Soveraign Who hears no body say or do as that great Commander and as much a Gentleman Mounsieur de la Noüe did to his Grandfather the great Henry of France who finding himself much obliged unto him when he was King of Navarre and full of troubles for raising and bringing to his assistance one hundred horse well furnished at his own charges and unfurnished with money to recompence him sent a grant by Letters Patents unto him and his heirs of certain Crown lands lying neer unto his estate which the virtuous and generous la Noüe not thinking fit to receive brought back again to the King with these words Sire ce m'est beauecoup d' honneur de contentment de receuoir ces tesmoignages de la bonne vâ—lonte de votre Majestè je ne les refuserois pas si vos affaires estoient en estat de faire telles liberalites Quand je vous verray Sire au dessus vos Ennemis possedant des biens proportionnees a la grandeur de vostre courage de vostre naissance je receuroy de bon Caeur vous gratifications pour cette heure si vous vouliâ—z recompencer de ceste facon tous ceux qui vous serviront vostre Majeste seroit incontinent ruâ—nee Sir These testimonies oâ— your Majesties good will towards me and the honor which you have done me therein do very much content me and I would not refuse them if your Majesties affaâ—â—s and estate were in a condition to afford such bounties and when I shall see your Majesty to have overcome your enemies and possessing an estate becoming your grandeur and birth I shall be very willing to accept of your gratifications in the meantime if you shall go on in a way of recompencing in this manner all those which shall serve you your Majesty will be suddainly ruined and by no means would receive it but all his life after continued a great Warrior and suffering most heroically in the troubles and affairs of his Soveraign lost his life in them Or imitate Jesurum who like an Heifer waxing fat kicked against the cause of it or do as the Athenians taken by Philip King of Macedon did at the Battel of Chaeroâ—ea who could not remember his favors in releasing of them out of their Captivity unless they might have what they lost also restored unto them Or be guilty of a national Ingratitude the sin whereof being next to blasphemy the most ugly and horrid of all other sins which can be in a particular man was so abhorred by the heathen as Hippocratidas did as some wise Christians have since done wish it were made a crime as punishable as Felony Or so despoil our Land of its ancient vertue and love to their Princes as to have Nabalisme incouraged and our Araunahs and Barzillai's to dye childless and unimitated or suffer our selves to be misled by any Temptations of particular sparing or profits to do as some of the worser sort of the late reforming Traitors did pick out the choicest Jewels of the Crown and put in counterfeits in stead of them or hearken to the Syren songs of those who for an advantage which may before the account be cast up prove a greater disadvantage will suppose it to be for the good of the Nation to disuse and lay by those necessary duties and grateful acknowledgements of Pourveyance and Compositions for them to their King and Soveraign which Renatus Choppinus a learned French Advocate in his Treatise of the Domaines and Revenuâ— of France stiles Dominicum jus primitus sceptris addictum in necessarios Regiae mensae Aulaeque sumptus honorificum ad summi Imperii inclitae decus Majestatis conservandum a paâ—t of the Kings Domaine belonging and annexed to the Royal Scepter and appropriate to the necessary uses and provisions of the Kings Court and houshold for the honor and conservation of the Rights of Majesty And was with us in England in the Case of one Richards a Pourveyor combining with some Constables to charge the Country with more then the Pourveyance amounted unto for which he was grievously fined and punished no longer ago then in Michaelmas Term in 3 Jac. certified by all the Judges of England to be a prerogative of the King at the common Law and â—hat all the Statutes which have been made to correct abuses in Pourveyance took not away Pourveyance but confirmed it for quâ— tollit iniquitatem firmat proprietatem confirmat usum the taking away of the abuse confirmeth the Right and when the Reputation and credit of a Town and City shall be so dear unto the Inhabitants as they will to preserve ancient Customes supply the charges thereof with publike contributions as the Town of Yarmouth doth in entertainments frequently given to strangers of quality comming thither and the Town of Droitwich in Worcestershire can allow the yearly profit of four of their Salt vats or portions of Salt so called for the like purpose shall endeavor all they can to lessen that of the Kings And the Gentry of Cheshire who are above those of many other Counties well known to preserve the ancient honor of the English Hospitalities and are accustomed to send provisions of meat one to another to help to bear out the charges of their entertainments when any of their friends come unto them will not do well to murmur at so small an yeerly contribution for the provision of the Kings houshold as ninety five pounds sixteen shillings eight pence per annum which is all was charged upon that County Nor can all the housekeepers of England who do well understand that the breeding and raising of their own victuals and houshold provisions by and out of the profits of their Lands are a great help to their house-keeping and makes it to be far cheaper and easie unto them then to buy all that they spend at the Markets where every one doth improve their gain and Commodities and put the loss and hardships upon the buyers think it to be their duty to put a necessity of these inconveniences upon the King which they do all they can to avoid themselves Or when the designs of profit or hopes of reciprocations of courtesies one from another do ordinarily invite the people in their commerce or affairs one
to be by an invadeing of the peoples Rights and Properties in their moveables or immovables but a receiving or imposing of that which publick welfare and the contracts or respects of Subjects in general or particular have for benefits received and to be continued reduced into reasonable Customs and made to be as a most ready and willing Tribute Oblations or Duty to their Kings and Princes may go as high as Filial duty and Paternity and a retribution or gratitude for the peace and plenty which their Subjects and people enjoy under their Government Love Honor and Reverence for their Protection and self Preservation publick weal and safety and of every mans particular included in the General and was to be found in the morning of the world as well as in the afternoon and evening of it when as Joseph relieving the Egyptians necessity which a national Famine had brought upon them gave them Lands and Seed-Corn to sow it that they might have food for their Housholds and little ones and made a Law over the Land of Egypt to this day that the King should have the Fifth part of the yearly profits except the land of the Priests only which became not Pharaohs And in the Reign of King David when the Moabites being become his Subjects sent him Guifts and Shobi the Son of Nahash and Rabbab of the Children of Ammon and Machir the Son of Ammiel of Lodebar and Barzillai the Gileadite of Rogelim in his sorrowfull march against his Son Absolom brought Beds and Basins Earthen Vessels Wheat and Barley Floure Parched Corn Beans Lentils Parched Honey Butter Sheep and Cheese of Kyne for David and the people and in all or most of the Circumstances of what was lately used in England was no stranger in the happy and famous Government of King Solomon the wisest of men whose wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the East Country and all the wisdom of Egypt for besides the Victuals and Provision which his twelve great Officers or Socage Tenants provided for him and all that came unto his Table all the Kingdoms which he reigned over from the River of Euphrates unto the Land of the Philistines and unto the border of Egypt and all other his Dominions brought Presents unto him and his prouision for one day was thirty measures of fine Floure threescore measures of meal ten fat Oxen Twenty Oxen out of the Pastures and an hundred sheep besides Harts Roe Bucks Fallow Deer and fatted Fowl And all the Earth sought to Solomon to hear his wisdom which God had put in his heart and they brought every man his present Vessels of Silver Vessels of Gold Garments Armour Spices Horses and Mules a rate year by year And he raised a Levy out of all Israel and the Levy was thirty thousand men and sent them to Lebanon as workmen ten Thousand a month by course and two months at home and Judah and Israel were many as is the sand which is by the Sea in multitude eating and drinking and making merry and dwelt safely every man under his own Vine and under his Figg Tree from Dan even unto Beer-Sheba all the days of Solomon and as Josephus saith had Tribute Gatherers over the Syrians who brought him Provision towards the keeping of his house horses Mesha King of Moab rendred unto Ahab King of Israel a Tribute of one hundred Thousand Lambs and an hundred Thousand Rams with the wool some of the Philistines brought Jehosophat King of Judah Presents and Tribute Silver and the Arabians brought him Flocks seven thousand Rams and seven hundred Hee-goats And in the measure and description of the Holy City shewed to the Prophet Ezekiel in the Twenty Fifth year of Jehoiakims Captivity a portion of the City and Suburbs and Oblations were appointed for the Prince Which custom or right due to the Kings or Governors was not after the long and lamentable Captivity of the Children of Israel at their return and building of Jerusalem either forgotten or thought fit to be laid aside when as the Righteous Nehemiah considering the necessities of the people refused the bread of the Governor and that which was prepared for him daily which was one Oxe and six thousand sheep and also Fowls and once in ten days store of all sorts of wine Nor was that usage and way of remuneration to Superiors confined only to the pedagoguie of the Jews under the Severities of their Mosaical Laws or their being so much weaned from avarice or selfishnes by their remissions in their years of Jubile their many oblations free-will offerings and chargeable Sacrifices and no less a penaltie then death ordained for not obeying their Princes or Magistrates but was by a light of nature and emanation of right Reason some way or other brought or carried to the Greeks no despisers of wisdom or prudential imitations Agamemnon at the siege of Troy was able to treat the chief of the Grecian Army in his Tent with all fitting provisions And Eustathius the Scoliast saith that the King had at the devision of any spoils an extraordinary share assigned him for such entertainments The Spartan Kings had in all Sacrifices the Chynes and the skins for their honorary Fees as amongst the Hebrews the Priests had the shoulders and in that popular rustick and unmanerly Commonwealth of the Lacedemonians their Kings even in the time of their insolent Ephori who dominered over them and when they lived and were maintained ex publico out of the publick could not be denied by the Laws of Lycurgus in egressibus their marches or progresses capere quaecunque pecora libuerit to take what Cattel they pleased Et singulis quoque Calendis mensium singula pecora eis è publico data fuerint And in the Calends of every month the people gave or presented Cattel unto them Apollini immolanda to sacrifice to Apollo and when their Pythii or those two whom the Kings did use upon occasions to send to Delphos to consult the Oracle were publickly to eat with them Regibus ad Caenam non euntibus binae Chaenices id est Semimodia Farinae uni singulae Cotylae i. e. sextarii presentibus dupla data fuerint if the Kings for sometimes they had two came not to the place appointed to eat with the Pythii certain large proportions of meat wine and other Provisions were sent them and when they did come had a double proportion more then the Pythii allowed them The Athenians whilst they were a Republick highly valuing and carefully preserving their Liberties had their Tolls and vectigalia publica their Senators as well as their Judges having an allowance or pensions out of them and their Sitophilaces and Frumentatores or Overseers of the Corn were able to take care of the Provision of Corn quod in atticum emperium adveheretur duas partes in urbem mercatores deferre cogerent that two parts of the Corn which should be brought
he or his heirs did not unto the Lord or any of his Heirs of whom the Lands were holden his services within two years was upon a Cessavit per Biennium brought by the Lord and no sufficient distress to be found to forfeit the Lands so holden And from no other source or original was derived Escuage for the Tenants by Knight service not attending the King or their Lords in the wars which as Littleton saith was because the Law intendeth and understood it that the lands were at the first for that end freely given them whence also came the Aide to make the eldest Sonne of the King a Knight and to marry the eldest Daughter and the like assistances or duties unto the mesne Lords as gratefull acknowledgements for the Lands holden of them which the Freeholders in Socage are likewise not to deny and were not at the first by any Agreement betwixt the King and his particular Tenants nor likely to be betwixt the mesne Lords and their Tenants when the Lands were given them for that some of the mesne Lords might probably be without Sonne or Daughter or both or any hopes to have any when they gave their Lands and their Grants doe frequently mention pro homagio servicio in consideration only of homage and service to be done And being called auxilia sive adjutoria Aids or Assistances to their Lords who could not be then in any great want of such helps when the portions of Daughters were very much in vertue and little in mony and the charges of making the eldest Son a Knight the King in those dayes bestowing upon all or many of them some costly Furres Robes and the other charges consisting in the no great expences of the furnishing out the young Gentleman to receive the then more martial better used and better esteemed honour of Knighthood were reckoned by Bracton in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the third inter consuetudines quae serviciae non dicuntur nec concomitantia serviciorum sicut sunt rationabilia auxilia amongst those customes which are not understood to be services nor incidents thereof if they be reasonable But were de gratia ut Domini necessitas secundum quod major esset vel minor relevium acciperet and proceeded from the good will of the Tenants to help their Lords as their occasions or necessities should require Et apud exteros saith Sir Henry Spelman non solum ad collocandas sorores in matrimonium sed ad fratres etiam Juniores milites faciendos And with some forreign Nations as the Germans old Sicilians and Neapolitans not only towards the marriage of the Sisters of their Lords but to make also their younger Sons Knights For the good will and gratefull retorns of the Subjects to their Kings and Princes and of the Tenants to their Lords were not only since the Norman Conquest but long before practised and approved by the Britains the elder and most antient Inhabitants of this our Island and other world as is manifest by the Ebidiu or Tributum paid per Nobilium haeredes Capitali provinciae domino the Heirs of the Nobility or great men after the death of their Ancestors to the Lords or chief of the Province like unto as Sir Henry Spelman saith our relief which Hottoman termeth Honorarium a free gift or offering And that learned Knight found upon diligent enquiry amongst the Welch who by the sins of their forefathers and injury of the Saxons are now contented to be called by that name as Strangers in that which was their own Country that that Ebidiu was paid at a great rate non solum è praediis Laicis sed etiam Ecclesiasticis not only by the Laity but the Church-men And being not discontinued amongst the Saxons was besides the payment of Reliefs attended with other gifts and acknowledgements of superiority as well as thanks for Gervasius Tilburiensis in the Reign of King Henry the second when the people of England had not been so blessed and obliged as they were afterwards with the numberless Gifts Grants and Liberties which in the successive Reigns of seventeen Kings and Queens after preceding our now King and Soveraign were heaped upon them found oblata presents gifts or offerings to the King to be a well approved Custome and therefore distinguished them into quaedam in rem quaedam in spem some before hand for hopes of future favours and others for liberties or other things given and granted by the King and the Fine Rolles of King John and Henry the third his Son will shew us very many Oblata's or Free-will Offerings of several kinds which were so greatly valued and heeded as King Henry the third and his Barons in or about the 23 year of his Reign which was thirteen or fourteen years after his confirming of Magna Charta did in the bitter prosecution and charge of Hubert de Burgo Earl of Kent and chief Justice of England demand an Accompt de donis xeniis of gifts and presents amongst which Carucagii or carriages were numbred spectantibus ad Coronam appertaining to the Crown And upon that and no other ground were those reasonable Lawes or Customes founded that the King might by the Laws of England grant a Corody which Sir Henry Spelman ex constitut Sicul. lib. 3. Tit. 18. defineth to be quicquid obsonii superiori in subsidium penditur provisions of victuals made for superiors Et ad fundatores Monasteriorum and to the Founders of every Monastry though by the Constitutions of Othobon the Popes Legat in the Reign of King Henry the third the Religious of those houses were forbidden to grant or suffer any to be granted or allowed è communi jure spectabat corrodium in quovis suae fundationis monasterio nisi in libera Eleemosina fundaretur it belonged of common right to grant a Corrody in any Religious houses of their foundation if not founded in Franke Almoigne disposuit item Rex in beneficium famulurom suorum corrodium c. likewise the King might grant to any of his houshold servants a Corrody in any houses of the foundation of the Kings of England and as many were in all by them granted as one hundred and eleaven which that learned Knight conceived to be an argument that so many of the Monasteries were of their foundation Et issint de common droit saith the learned Judge Fitzherbert in his Natura Brevium and also of Common Right the King ought to have a reasonable Pension out of every Bishoprick in England and Wales for his Chaplain untill the Bishop should promote him to a fitting Benefice Which if the compositions for Pourveyances being reduced into contracts and a lawfull custome were or should be no other then gratitudes may be as commendable and necessary as those well approved Examples of thankfulness recorded in holy writ of Abrahams giving King Abimelech Sheep and Oxen
and the greatest of Customes because it was not gained as most of the peoples Customs or Prescriptions were the best of which had no other originall then the continuance of favours of those that bestowed and permitted them to be enjoyed or a neglect of taking or calling for duties untill time had over-run and covered them with that which is now called a Custome or Prescription but were established by a threefold obligation composed of a Right or Duty a very antient Custome backt by the Lawes of God Nature and Nations and a Contract made and continued by the people to their King built upon the best and greatest of considerations which the Prophet David in the 15 Psalm if it had not been beneficiall but to some loss or damage adviseth not to be broken And merited the bettter observance in that Queen Elizabeth did but the year before call into her Mint and reduce unto pure silver the monies which her Father King Henry the eighth had so much debased with a mixture of brass as it was scarcely half the value in silver which made the price of commodities so much or a great deal the dearer and by her Edicts did all she could to bring down the prices in the Markets which then began to swell more then there was any cause for and in her composition and agreement with many or most of the Counties of England and Wales the next year after did but accept of what then they understood might as the learned and judicious Mr. Camden hath informed us justo pretio at a reasonable or Market rate be well afforded And the Lords of Manors who according to the several customes thereof think it not unreasonable to enjoy their Chevagia or Chiefage which Cowel takes to be pecunia Annuâ— data potentiori tutelae patrociniique gratia a small yearly payment paid by Tenants as acknowledgments for favours and help received or to be received and take their reliefs of their Tenants in Socage in some places by custome a years value and in some but half as much and in others more according as their customes vary the least of which in value of money doth twice exceed what it amounted unto formerly enjoy their Free Warrens and Fishings with many other Priviledges and immunities by Grant or Prescription and with the Yeomanry and lower ranks of people can be content to claim the benefit of their Customes de non decimando of paying no Tythes at all for Lands formerly belonging to the Cistercians Knights Templers Hospitlers or Knights of St. John of Jerusalem or of a modus decimandi of paying but a penny or some little yearly summe of money in lieu of all Tithes and make an inheritance of the greatest part of 3845 Impropriations with the Smoke-pennies or Peter or Chimney pence which being formerly paid unto some Abbies and Religious Houses and coming afterwards to the Crown in the Reign of King Henry the eight and granted out again by him are in many places as Appendants unto some Manors paid unto this day And think it no grievance to enjoy them and many other priviledges which wereby Grants or Exemptions by Papal Constitutions designed to Religious and not any Lay uses And the customary services of their Tenants to repair wayes and Bridges contribute to the maintenance of a Priest or Preacher or to the marriage of poor Maids or to carry Milstones some miles distant to their Milnes to doe suit of Court or be Butler Baker or Carver at some Festivals and can notwithstanding all the sometimes tedious Suits in Law of their Tenants who hold by Fines incertain and their complaints cram'd in a great purse made of many little ones attended with staves and ill-smelling shoes and feet travailing for relief to Westminster Hall and the superior Courts of Justice with store of out-cries of grievances and oppressions filling every Alehouse they come in with the lamentable tediously told stories of that which they doe many times but guess to be like them raise their Fines for admittances unto two years present value which amounts unto sixteen or twenty times as much as the antient value and demand and take ten or thirteen shillings an Acre to reduce the Fines incertain to a smaller certainty Can take the Optimum Animal or best horse or beast for a Herriot at the death of their Tenants when it exceeds the value of as much as 40 or 50 or 100 to one of what it was at the Conquest when it was reduced from a greater to that lesser rate and within a month or less after take as much as they can get for an Admittance of the Widdow or Heir of the deceased which in Copihold Estates differs very Little from a Relief and in some places as in Cumberland Westmerland and some adjacent Northern Counties compel them besides their formerly perilous enjoyned services annexed to their Lands to be ready night or day to repell the incursions of their plundering and unruly Scottish Neighbours to pay a thirtieth penny after the rate or assise of their old rents upon every Alienation and a twentieth upon the death or change of a Landlord which were formerly more easie and have been since only raised to those higher rates in regard of a greater value since put upon lands houshold provisions and commodities should not murmur at the small oblations which in no burdensome great or general contributions are to be made unto the King for the maintenance of himself and his Royal Family And the Copiholders who can when they please think themselves happy in their customes of Fines certain which patientia charitate in jus transiâ—runt crept by the charity and sufferance of their Landlords into that which they doe now call Tenant rights when as the lands which they do now hold is in the improved yearly value ten or sixteen or twenty times in many places more then the former yearly value and are by so much beyond the intention either of the Lords or Tenants the Grantors or Grantees when those Fines certain were at the first set or accepted and in those Tenant Rights as they call them and many of their Customes have in many places large Pastures and Meadows of many Acres yearly thrown out at Midsummer or the first day of August or some other time in the Summer or latter end thereof for a Township to inter Common for three quarters of every year or some months and in some places have Common belonging to their Copyholds for paying to the Lord of the Manor yearly as in Grayes Case in Hil. 37 Eliz. a hen five eggs much increased in price since that collateral recompence as it was in that case resolved to be was first taken continued and preserved unto them by the care of the King and his Laws by Inquiries formerly in the Eyres or Circuits de novis consuetudinibus levatis if any oppression or new customs were imposed by their Lords and no sooner complained
Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions for it when it concerns him so much and so nearly in his honour and the daily bread and sustenance of himself and his Royal Family when he expendeth for want of his Pourveyances or compositions for them yearly more then he did when he enjoyed them as may appear by a just accompt and calculation lately made by his Majesties special command no less then seventy three thousand six hundred seaven pounds fourteen shillings and seaven pence in his Houshold and Stable provisions besides the extraordinaries of Carriages for his Navy Provisions and Ammunition and what would have been added unto it if he had as other Kings or Princes gone his Sommer Progress when the want of it is so unbecomming a King and the aspect of it when he had it was in CHAP. IV. The right use of the Praeemption and Pourveyance and Compositions for them SO lovely and very well imployed and canont by rules of truth reason and understanding be gainsaid by the most disffaected and worst of Subjects when they shall but please to take into their consideration That the magnificence and bounty of a King in his house and the method and manner used therein is no small part of the increase continuance and support of his power reverence honor and awe which are so necessary and essentiall to the good and well-being of a King and his People as they cannot be wanted but are and should be the adjuncts and concomitants of the Royall or Princely dignity and like Hypocrates Twins subsist in one another which the wisdome of the Antients as well as modern and all Nations and People under the Sun and even the naked wild and savage part of them have by a Jure Gentium and eternall Law of Nature derived from divine instinct allowance and patern in the infancy of the world and through all the times and ages of it so well approved as they could never think fit to lay aside or disuse the practise of it for it cannot be by any rule of reason supposed that the fifth Commandement being at the Creation of mankind after Gods own Image written in the heart of him and all his after Generations and justly accompted to be comprehended in those Precepts of the Law of Nature and the righteous Noah with which the world was blessed as well before the flood as afterwards and before the Children of Israel had received the Decalogue or ten Commandements in the dread and astonishment of Gods appearance to Moses in Mount Sinai there was not a distinction at the first and all along holden and kept betwixt Parents and Children and Kings or common Parents and their Subjects in the fear and reverence of Children to Parents and of Subjects to their Kings and Soveraigns when as Noah though preaching to the old world in vain and to no purpose as they made it was so mighty a man and so well beloved and observed as he could by Gods direction cause to be brought into the Ark two of every sort of the species of all irrationall living creatures in order to their preservation for the Generations which were to survive the threatned deluge which without some more then ordinary extent of power could not be compassed by him if he had been but an ordinary man or but one of the common people who hearkened not unto his preaching and had no better an opinion of his Ark or Floating-house then as a Dilirium or his too much adoring the Images of his own phantasie Pharaoh King of Egypt having those requisites and decorums which the Kings and Princes of those early dayes had appertaining to their Royall super-eminence and dignities could upon Josephs extraordinary deserts array him in fine linnen and silks put a gold chain about his neck make him to ride in his second Charriot and cause a Cry or Proclamation to be made before him that every man should bow the knee David that was but the Sonne of Jesse the Bethlemite and once a Keeper of his Fathers few sheep as his envying brother told him in the Wilderness or Common and was taken as God himself said from the Sheep-coat would not when he came to be King omit the dues and regalities which belonged unto Kings though he could in a gratefull acknowledgment say unto God Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me hither but could think it comely and fitting for him as a King to dwell in a house of Cedars And King Solomon his Son who expending 7 years in the building of the Temple and House of God was thirteen years in building of his own house and another magnificent and stately house of the Forrest of Lebanon and another for the Queen his Wife which was the Daughter of Pharaoh had 300 shields of beaten gold three pound to every shield put into his house of the Forrest his sumptuous Throne of Ivory over-laid with the best gold the like whereof was not in any Kingdome drinking vessels and all the vessels of Gold in that house and kept that state and order in his Tables in the sitting of his servants at meat the attendance of his Ministers and their Apparrel and his Cup-bearers as the Queen of Sheba coming unto him with a very great Train was so much astonished thereat and the house that he had built as there was no more spirit in her and confessed that what she had seen with her own eyes was more by half then what was told her in her own Land All which being allowed by God as necessary honors for Kings conservations of respects and allurements to the obedience and esteem which were to be paid and performed by the people were not put in the Catalogue of that Prince and great Master of wisdomes failings or not walking in the wayes of God or doing that which was right in his eyes and keeping his Statutes and Judgements as his Father David did Neither were those Royal and great Feasts made long after by Ahasuerus which reigned from India unto Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty Provinces to his Princes and Servants the Nobles and Princes of his Provinces for one hundre◠〈◊〉 eighty daies Or the state of that mighty King whe◠〈◊〉 shewed the honour of his Excellent Majesty when as white green and blue Hangings were fastned with cords of fine linnen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble with Beds of gold and silver upon a pavement of red blue white and black marble and gave them drink in vessels of gold according to the state of the King put under any note or character of blame But those and other due respects have so alwaies attended the world and the good order and government of it under Monarchy and Kings and Princes through all the changes and chances thereof as it may be taken to be as universall a Law of Nature and Custome or Nations as the duty and honor of
or some other sum of money in a Bill of four or five pounds and give an acquittance for it as if they themselves had received it So as all manner of cozening and artificial and newly devised trim ways of cheating under the pretence and colour of Religion honesty and doing of faithful service having like some Epidemick and general contagion infected and spread it self through almost all the ranks and degrees of the people the King who is like to be most abused by it hath now a greater necessity then ever of his Compositions for Pourveyance and of the several Counties serving in their Provisions for that otherwise so great a number of Harpies and Gypsâ—es as his officers and servants shall meet with in the buying of his houshold Provisions will make a great allowance or assignments in money for houshold expences which several Acts of Parliament in the Reign of King H. 7. King H. 8. Queen Elizabeth and King James did in aid of the Pourveyance or Compositions for them limit and appoint to be paid towards the charge of house-keeping out of several parts of the revenue as some out of the profits of the Court of Wards some out of Fee Farm Rents and others out of the Customes yet unrepealed to be but as a very little and render it altogether insufficient and not the one half so much in value as the allowance or money shall seem to be Or if the King had had a yearly sum of money to be yearly charged upon the people and paid by them in lieu of the Pourveyance as it was designed by a Bill for an Act of Parliament thrice read in the house of Peers in Parliament in the first year of the Reign of King James and passed and sent down to the house of Commons and being by them not assented unto but another Bill for an Act of Parliament prepared and sent up in stead of the former and the abolishing of all Pouâ—veyance and fifty thousand pound per annum in recompence thereof granted to be leavyâ—d upon the Lands in every County of England and prosecuted no further then the twice reading of that Bill Such an yearly sum of money being afterwards yearly drawn and forced from those uses by some greater necessities would have left the King to more wants and his people to a greater necessity of supplying him or if it had been then as it is now supposed to be satisfied by a grant of the moiety of the Excise of Ale Beer Sider Perry and other compounded drinks to be yearly paid to him his heirs and Successoâ—s those yearly profits would have been under the like fate of being otherwise imployed and whether in that way or by the fifty thousand pound per annum to be charged upon the people would not have been a just and adâ—equate recompence for the yearly loss if no more of seventy three thousand six hundred pounds fourteen shillings and seven pence which the King now sustaineth for want of his prae-emption Pouâ—veyance or Compositions for them by how much the sum of seventy three thousand six hundred pounds fourteen shillings and seven pence per annum if no furâ—her addition of damage should happen exceedeth fifty thousand pounds per annum and by how much the moiety of such an Excise might as it doth now fall a great deal short of the estimate or yearly Income which it was believed to be Nor can come up unto that equality or rule of justice which ought to be in laying of Assessements or Taxes upon the common people for a general and publike good wherein every man being concerned ought to contribute for that such a Tax or Imposition for the Pourveyance will be as wide of it as to lay the burden of the rich upon the poor compell the Aged Lame or Impotent to maintain the young more healthy and able or to enforce a contribution of the County of Oxford towards the See Walls Inning of Marshes or draining of Fennes in Norfolk and Lincolâ—eshire constrain men to fraight out Ships and pay custome for the goods of Merchants when they shall partake nothing of the gains and make all the Counties and people of England to pay a far greater Tax then the Compositions for Pourveyance amounted unto for to purchase a discharge of Compositions for Pourveyance which lay but lightly upon all but twelve or thirteen Shires or Counties which are near adjacent unto London and gave them little or no trouble at all to ease those twelve or thirteen Counties which gained ten times more by the Pourveyance and the Kings residence at London then what they ever paid or contributed towards it And may well miscarry in the hopes ot wishes of the peoples content or approbation when as such a recompence as the King is supposed to have by it and as much again laid upon the people by the fraud and exactions of the Brewers and sellers of Ale and Beer c and the peoples oppressing and cheating of one another by pretence and colour of it and in the Farming or collecting of it shall be extorted or taken out of the necessities or excess of his subjects the groans and complaints of the poorer sort of them and the murmurings and discontents of the rich more able to bear it who will not be perswaded but that it is an Artifice of the Nobility and Gentry to ease themselves of other necessary duties and payments by taking it off their own shoulders and putting it upon theirs And the poorer sort of people who were never used to be troubled with any charge or payments towards Pourveyance and Compositions and by their weakness of Purse and Estate are always more sensible and complaining of any burdens which shall be laid upon them shall as they will finde themselves to be loosers in the rise and heightning of all victuals and provisions to be bought as much or more then the yearly charge of the Kings Pourveyance and Compositions did amount unto for that the Kings price will increase that of the Nobility that of the Nobility will raise the Gentry in their prices and the unreasonable rates and prices which the Gentry must be constrained to give will raise that of the common people and a price once raised and fixed but for a little time is so by the craft and sinful pretences of the sellers kept up and continued as it seldom falls again but riseth higher and higher and as far as they can possibly stretch or strain it so as none will be gainers but the sellers who are not a third part of the people and their gains must be made out of the losses and damage of the King and two parts of the people Who will also be put in a worse condition when the King by a daily waste and consumption in his Revenue by such exactions and prices imposed upon him in buying his houshold provisions at such intollerable rates and prices as the unbounded avarice gnawing and grinding advantages of
the sellers shall be pleased to put upon him shall for want of his Pourveyance or Compositions be enforced to lay down his Officers and Servants Tables and put all or most of his servants to Board-wages and that the money which shall be intended or assigned to pay them shall afterwards upon some emergencies or necessities of State affairs for the defence or preservation of himself or his people be transferred to other important uses When the wants and cravings of his servants who cannot live by unpaid Arrears may set them to hunt the people for monys which they suppose may by reason of some neglected rights or concealments be due from them to the King their Master or to devise projects and perswade him to strain his Prerogative in the reformation of known abuses in Trade or other dealings wherein many of the people do appear to be very great gainers more then by Law or Conscience they ought to be to the end that he might help his servants who think it to be reasonable enough for them to essay lawful ways and means to support themselves whilst they conceive that they should not have wanted their daily bread or maintenance if the business of the Common-wealth and the Kings care of the people in general had not bereaved or deprived them in their particulars And that their sufferings want of Wages and fitting maintenance was to procure the wel-fare and happiness of their fellow subjects Or if that way which many times galles vexes more in the maner then the things themselves shal not extend unto their relief will at the best after dangerous discontents and commotions in the minds of the people but beget largâ— Taxes and Assessements in exchange of projects or some other necessitated incursions upon the peoples liberties or produce some Artifices of Policies of State to raise money from them as the Crusadoes by the Popes in the Reign of King Henry the third and dispensing for money with such as had engaged to go to the wars in the holy Land and were sick or not able or had a minde to â—arry at home or as some Kings and Princes have done by pretending fears of invasion from some neighbor Princes or a necessâ—ty of transporting the war out of their own into an enemies Country and when they had raised great sums of money and made ready their Armies dismissed all but the money which was gained by them to return home again upon an overture of a peace or a certainty that there was no need or likelihood of wars When it is well known that the people had no just cause to complain of the Pourveyance or Compositions for it nor of the Cart taking as to themselves or their servants when the Masters had two pence a mile allowed them for their Horses and Carts which most commonly went not above twelve miles from their habitations the Horses having no want of Grass Provender or Hey the men had better Beer and Victuals then they had at home And the owners of Carts and Horses within the Virge of the Kings houses or Palaces or in the way of his progress were no loosers by his coming when either for his recreation or refreshment or to visit the several parts and Provinces of his kingdom he should think fit to make his progress to meet with and redress any complaints or grievances which should happen therein So as the fault must needs be in themselves if they would now finde fault with that which they could not do before when as those just and ancient rights of the Kings of England and duties of their subjects were alwayes so necessary and inseparable to the Crown and their Imperial dignity as that if our ancient Kimgs of England had not enjoyed those their just rights which the fury of the Barons waâ—s against King John and his son King Henry the third and those grand advantages which they had over those Kings in so great a commotion of the people which the power and interests of those Barons for all had not laid aside their loyalty had stirred up against them did not in the making and confirming of our Magna Charta think fit to deny them if they paid the antiqua pretia ancient rates and hire they could not without an immense charge which we do not finde they were at have removed so often and so far as they did from London to their several houses and Palaces which their many Forrests Chases and Parks for their disport and Hunting in several Counties and remote parts of the Kingdom will evidence that they did not seldom do and make so many Voyages into Normandy as our Norman Kings William Rufus and Henry the first and their successor Henry the second and he and his son King John and Richard the second did into Ireland or as other of their predecessors did into Wales or as King James did from and into Scotland or King Charles the Martyr his son when he went thither to be Crowned nor keep their Christmas and other Festivals or their Parliaments as many of our Kings and their successors did in several places of the Kingdom which their Letters Pattents dated from thence do frequently testifie or the term as King Edward the first did at York Neither could our late Royal Martyr King Charles the first have made so good a shift as he did to remove himself and his Court Northerly and to York in the yeer 1641. to save himself from the London tumults nor have gathered Forces or had means or time to defend himself and his people if he had released and forbid his Pourveyances by Act of Parliament but must like a Bird without Feathers or with broken wings have been taken with a little running after and been brought back again by the Sheriff of the first County he had escaped into which the Rebellious paâ—ty in the late distempered and fatally unhappy Parliament were confident would have been the consequence of his going away from them without granting unto them his regality and surrendring up the care and protection of his people into their arbitrary way of governing them in his name to their own use and as they pleased by Votes and Ordinances If his officers and servants could not when the Factious party in that Parliament had seised his Rents and Revenues have hired a Cart for his use without an order or provision of Carts and Horses made by the appointment of two of the next Justices of Peace or at a lesser rate then six pence a mile or what more every rich sturdy Clown or his rude unmannerly servants should have demanded of them to be paid before hand and upon refusal of their Carts or Carriages should have had no other remedy but to complain to the Justices of Peace to compell or punish them The want of which part of the Royal Pourveyance as well as his other Pourveyance and Compositions for them hindring his now Majesty in the last Summer 1661. when he
quondam Protector and whether the turning of their freedom into a slavery and the intreating of him by that which by a dreamed authority of Parliament they called the Petition and advice to accept oâ— ten hundred thousand pounds per Annum to be charged upon the people without a Land Tax for the maintenance of a Navy ten thousand horse and Dragoons and twenty thousand Foot to keep them and their posterities in sin and slavery with such other supplies as should be needful to be raised from time to time and three hundred thousand pounds per Annum in like manner to be raised for the support of his Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government were less trouble and charge than the Kings Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service and his Compositions for Pourveyance the greatest yearly profit by the Tenures in what was paid to the King not amounting unto above one hundred thousand pounds per Annum and the Pourveyance which saved the King in his Houshold expences above one hundred and forty thousand pounds per Annum not charging the people in these late times of enhaunce of prices above Sixty five thou-pounds per annum Who when they shall have paid double or treble more then the Excise is rated at by colour of the Excise which was by Act of Parliament given to the King and his Heirs and Successors in supplement of his exhausted and overwasted Revenue and racked and oppressed one another by occasion or pretence of the charge of it cunning and avariâ—e of the selling and richer part of the people Merchants Retailers and Mechanicks of the Nation every one striving to put the damage from themselves and shift as much as they can the burden upon others will by a lamentable summa totalis find how little they have gained by putting their Prince into necessities and how small a gain or blessing they will leave to their posterities When by begging getting and keeping all they can from the King and cozening him all that they can the common people unless they will have their body Politick to be without a head and as they were in the Time of Usurpation when there was no King in Israel busied like the Beasts of the Forrests and Fishes in the Sea in devouring and oppressing one another in a Chaos of villany and confusion cannot subsist or maintain themselves in peace and plenty without enabling the King to support himself to protect anâ— defend them And may without any violence used to their judgments believe that it was better with the common people of England when they paid for theiâ— Farms some rent in mony some in provisions of house-keeping when by the hospitality of their Landlords they were sure to partake of them their Lands and Rents being not tortured or drawn up to the highest pin or screw of the Rack or any possible improvement which might be made of it And the plowing of some part of their Lords Demeasnes reaping or carrying in of their Corn and helping them to fetch home some Wood or Coals did not amongst a many of Tenants according to their proportioned services for which they reckoned the love protection and hospitality of their Landlords to be satisfaction enough amount unto the Twentieth or Thirtieth part of the rack Rent which now they do pay and have not so much as a Cup of Beer or a morsel of Bread given them when they come to pay it Which the people of Scotland may to their cost experiment if they should as the rustick part of the people of England have done never think themselves happy untill they have shaken off the services and obligations to their Lords and Benefactors and in stead of paying some Chaldâ—rs of Victuals Mailes and other more easie duties have their Lands let by their Landlords to the utmost penny and bidding and like the Israelites in their Egyptian bondage make Brick and gather the Straw and pay a Rent as much as the Land or Farm can possibly yeild or it may be a great deal more And may perswade the people that there is a grand necessity attended with many other great necessities that the King should have again his just and harmless rights and prerogative of prae-emption Pourveyance and Compositions and as great a necessity for the people if they will avoid those heaps of evils and inconveniences which may otherwise happen upon them and their posterities to desire that he should have it When the oppression of the Markets and the peoples working upon one anothers necessity the most part of them walking by no rule of piety virtue morality humanity charity or conscience but labouring all they can in their actions to advance the kingdom of Sin and Satan and their own everlasting punishments shall by their wicked and illegal enhauncings ingrossings combinations and contrivances make the prizes of every thing to be so immense and unreasonable as the vicious and Rooking part of the people will if such rates and prices shall hold on continue and grow higher and higher as they are like to do without some Bando or reiglement and a greater care taken by the Justices of Peace and Clerks of the Market then hitherto they have been pleased to bestow in the execution of their places and duties undoe and begger the virtuous or such as shall be inforced to buy at such unreasonable rates their provisions of food and livelyhood make as a Jew lately well observed none but the richer part able to live with any plenty or content uâ—terly ruine the middle ranks of the people and enslave and begger the poorer who must like the Gibionites be well contented to be hewers of Wood drawers of Water that they may live and eat bread And that all that the King and his Council can do by putting in practice the antient usage of a Jury impannelled by the Clerk of the Market within the Virge of the Court and commanding them upon their Oaths to set a marketable and reasonable rate according to the usual prices of Victuals and household provisions in Markets and elsewhere which all men were enjoyned by His Majesties Proclamation strictly to observe cannot now that the Pourveyance or Compositions for it are laid aside keep their rates and prices within the bounds and limits of any reason but the people are so insatiable in their gains and so cuning to promote their unjust designs therein as they do not only not keep the Kings rates but to enlarge their profit and prices do all they can to bribe and go a share with some of his Pourveyers When it is very evident and demonstrable and our own happiness might tell us if we did not too much mistake and abuse it and make our sins to be the product of it that now that in England by laying down of Tillage more than it should there is more Pasture Land to feed or fatten Cattel ten or twenty to one then ever it had before and that this our fruitful Isle hath both
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
to the King many if not all of which were by Priviledges or otherwise exempted from Pourveyance and being at a low and great undervalue in the latter end of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth now above one hundred years since of the yearly value of one hundred eighty six thousand five hundred twelve pounds eight shillings peny farthing now improved unto more then Ten times that yeerly value are for the most part of them come to be the inheritance of Lay-men And too much of the Revenues of Bishops which by a sacrilegious alienation from the Church are not enjoyed by any of the sons of Levy A great part of the Lands belonging to Monasteries or Religious houses by custome or exemption become Tythe free The greatest part of 3845. Appropriations or Impropriations which had been formerly designed and given ad mensam unto several Monasteries and Religious houses for the better support and maintenance of their hospitality and which before contributed nothing to the Kings Pourveyance now made to be a Temporal and Lay inheritance Many Forrests and Chaces and a great part of other Forrests and Chases Deafforrested much Assart lands and many Parks converted to Tillage or Pasture No Escuage paid since the Reign of King Henry the sixth nor Aid leavyed to make the Kings eldest son a Knight or to marry his eldest daughter for above fifty years during the Reign of King Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and very many Copy-hold estates which usually paid nothing at all to the provisions for the Kings houshold converted into Freeholds Many Fenns and Imbancked Marshes consisting of some hundred thousand Acres Drained or recovered from the Sea An Espargne or saving more then formerly of much money very far surmounting the yearly charge damage or losses by the Kings Pouâ—veyances in the purchase or procuring the Popes Bulls which as was affirmed in the Parliament of 25 H. 8. had betwixt that time and the fourth year of the Reign of King H. 7. cost the people of this Kingdome threescore thousand pounds Steâ—ling by being no more troubled with provisions to Benefices many chargeable Oblations to the Church and mony spent in Lamps or Taâ—ers Pourveyance or provisions for the Popes Legates Shrines Copes Altarages extraordinary Masses Dirges Trentals relaxations faculties grants aboltions Pensions Censes Procurations rescripts appeals and long and chargeable journyes to Rome where as well as in England as their own Monkes and Wâ—iters affirm the Pope did Angariis Injuriis miseros exagitare poll and pill the wretched English made Walter Gray a Bishop of England in the Reign of King H. 3. pay one thousand pounds for his Pall and at the breaking up of every general Council extorted of every Prelate a great sum of money before he would give them leave to depart chid William Abbot of St. Albans for coming to take leave of him without any present and when he offered him fifty marks checked and inforced him before he went out of his Chamber to pay one hundred Marks the fashion being then for every man to pay dear for his Benedictions lay down his money ready told before his Holiness feet and if present Cash was wanting the Popes Merchants and Usurers were at hand but upon very hard conditions to supply it And so great were his Emunctiones as Mathew Paris calls them exactions and impositions in England as a bloody Wolf tearing the Innocent sheep by sometimes exacting a third part of the Clergies goods and at other times a twentieth by aides towards the defraying of his own wars and other pretences sometimes exacting the one half of an yearly revenew of their Benefices and enjoyning them under the penalty of their then dreadful Excommunications not to complain of it or publish it sending his Legats or Predicatores to wring and preach money out of the peoples purses pro negotio Crucis under coloâ—r of making a war to regain Jerusalem and the Holy Land out of the hands of the Saracens and by such a multitude of other contrivances and extorsions as all the Abbotts of England vulâ—u Flebili capite dâ—â—nisso were with great sorrow and lamentation enforced to complain to the King of the impossibility of satisfying the Pope eos incessanter torquenâ—i incessantly grinding tormenting them of his avarice and exactions toto â—undo detestabiles to be abhorred of all the world By Dispensations pardons liceâ—ces Indulgencies vows pilgrimages Writs calâ—ed perinde valere breeves and other instruments of sâ—â—dry natures names and kinds in great 〈◊〉 which in the Act of Parliament of â—5 H. 8. 〈…〉 the exonerating of the Kings subjects from 〈…〉 and impositions paid to the See of Rome 〈…〉 said to have greatly decayed and impoverished 〈◊〉 â—â—tâ—llerable exactions of great sums of money the subjects of the Realm A freedom from the chargeable giving of great quâ—ntities of Lands for Chantries and the weaniâ—g of that Clergy by the reformation of the Church oâ— England from their over-sucking or making sore the Breasts or Nipples of the common people which the murmuring men of these times would if they had as their forefathers tried it more then seven times and over and over be of the opinion of Piers the Plowman in Chaucer who being of the Romish Church wrote in the unfortunate Reign of King Richard the second when the Hydra of our late Rebellious devices spawned by the not long before ill grounded Doctrines and treasonable positions of the two Spencers father and son began to Craule complaining That the Friars followed folke that were rich And folk that were poor at little price they set And no Cors in the Kyrkeyard nor Kyrke was buried But quick he bequeth them ought or quit part of his det Adviseth his friend Go confesse to some Frier and shew him thy synnes For while Fortune is thy frend Friers will thee love And fetch the to their Fraternity and for thee beseech To their Prior Provinciall a pardon to have And pray for the pole by pole if thou be pecunâ—osus Brings in a Frier perswading a sick Farmer to make his confession to him rather then to his Parish Priest and requesting him as he lay upon his death-bed to bestow a Legacy upon his Covent Give me then of thy Gold to make our Cloister Quoth he for many a Muskle and many an Ouster When other men have been full well at ease Hath been our food our Cloister for to rease And yet God wot unneath the foundement Performed is ne of our pavement Is not a Tile yet within our wones By God we owen fourty pound for stones And in his Prologue to his Canterbury Tales thus Characters such a Frier Full sweetly heard he confession And pleasant was his absolution He was an easie man to give pennance There as he wist to have a good pitance The diâ—use of the old and never grudged course of Sponte Oblata's gifts or presents to the King and the
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
with some that have Tables daily furnished at the Kings charge to feed so many as depend upon it and entertain such men of quality as shall come to his Court about his or their affairs and would much advance their private purses and do well in their own families to have the expences of it turned into a yearly Pension in money wherein the King is like to be as much a saver as King Charles the Martyr was when he allowed Mr. Andrew Pitcarne the Master of his Hawks ten shillings per diem to provide Pigeons Hens and other meat for his Hawks and as he and many of his Progenitors have been in converting allowances or provisions into Salaries And that some of those who advise a Sparing not at all becoming the grandeur and honour of a Prince to make themselves the greater gainers by his bounty to be worse imployed upon themselves may suppose that which might be a fit Espargne in their own lesser Orbes and Oeconomies may serve for the Court and Family of an English King and that the Grandeur and Magnificence thereof would be but little or not at all lessened by some thriftie contrivances and abatements calculated only for their own Meridian and that the Power Authority and Virtue of a Prince can well enough subsist without the prop and support of that due Awe and Reverence which are to attend the Majesty of Kings and that some in their short sighted Policies may reckon such or the like good husbandries to be no small part of Prudence and Providence very laudable and fit to be put in practice Yet the Laws of God Nature and Nations and the state and magnificence of Kings and their Princely Families allowed as well as mentioned in the Book of God and Holy Writ as that of Pharaoh Saul David Solomon and Ahashuerus The State and Magnificence of all the Christian and Heathen Kings and Princes Grecian Magistrates Romane Consuls and Dictators Venetian Doges and Dutch Stadtholders and our laudable customs of England can teach every man who hath not abjured his own reason as well as the Laws of God and Nature and the reasonable customes of England how very necessary the honor and State of Princes are to the obedience and good Government of the people how much they conduce to their well-being how the observance honor and reverence due unto Kings are lessened by the meannesse of their Servants and diminishing their State and Port how unsafe and insipid such new found policies and contrivances would be and that the dishonor of the Prince is the unsafety and dishonor of the people who may easily and every where find a necessity of his Pourveyance or Compositions for it and no reason at all to deny it When the total of the charges of it will be so useful to their Soveraign so becomming his Royal Dignity so necessary to the honor and splendor of his house-keeping and that the parts which shall be charged upon particular men to make up that total will be so petit and inconsiderable as our Laws and the Compositions for Pourveyance had ordered it CHAP. VI. The small charge of the Pourveyance or Compositions for it to or upon such of the people as were chargeable with it AS may evidently and undeniably appear by the Compositions for Pourveyance which were agreed to be paid by the several Counties As For the County of Anglisey in Wales which hath eighty three Parishes but five pounds which is for every Parish not one shilling three pence it being commonly in every County charged onely upon the Lands of inheritance of the greater size or quantity not upon Copyholders or small Freeholders and upon those kind of Lands which were most proper for it and could better afford it as Wheat Malt c. upon Errable Lands and Cattel upon Pasture c. For the County of Mountgomery who weâ—e to provide yearly but twenty Sturks or smaller sized Cattle so called or sixty pounds per annum and had Fifty four Parishes whereof five or six were Borough Towns which made the charge upon every Parish to be little more then twenty shillings per annum All the charge of the Compositions for the Kings provisions being onely of one hundred and eighty Sturks in Wales and its thirteen shires or Counties which costes that Dominion yeerly no more then three hundred and sixty pounds The County of Worcester which hath one hundred and fifty two Parishes paid but four hundred ninety five pounds besides the Kings pâ—ice or rate allowed for provisions served in kinde which is but three pounds and seven shillings or thereabouts to be assessed upon every Parish Derbyshire having one hundred and six Parishes paid but two hundred fifty four pounds two shillings two pence which is something less then fifty shillings upon every Parish Yorkeshire which hath four hundred fifty nine Parishes besides many large Chapelries was charged with no more then four hundred ninety five pounds which was not two and twenty shillings upon every Parish one with another and would not be six pence a year upon every house one with another if no respect were to be had to the real or personal Estates of the proprietors which admits of large differences or proportions more or less then one another The County of Midlesex having seventy three Parishes besides what are in the London Suburbes paid but nine hundred seventeen pound nineteen shillings which by her great benefits by the Kings constant residence in it is in a better condition with her few but vâ—ry plentiful and numerous Parishes then the Counties further distant and by the letting and setting of their Lands Houses and Lodgings and the great rates and prices of all the Commodities which they sell to other people gaineth fourty to one at the least of what they loose by the Kings prices for his Pourveyance or houshold provisions the City of Westminster and the Suburb Parishes of London consisting more of houses then Lands or Pasture and being not at all charged or troubled wiâ—◠〈◊〉 The County of Essex paid for Composition but two thousand nine hundred thirty one pounds two shillings and two pâ—nce and having many of the benefits which Midlesex enjoyeth far exceeding the charge of the Compositions for Pourveyance hath four hundred and fifteen Parishes which is little more then seven pound five shillings upon every Parish chargeable for the Compositions and provisions served in kinde Bedfordshire which hath one hundred and sixteen Parishes paid but four hundred ninty seven pounds eight shillings four pence which was but four pounds five shillings nine pence upon every Parish The County of Buckingham which hath one hundred eighty five Parishes two thousand fourty pounds sixteen shillings and six pence which was but something more then eleven pounds upon every Parish one with another Berkshire having one hundred and fourty Parishes but one thousand two hundred and fifty five pounds seventeen shillings and eight pence which did not charge every Parish with
afterwards by reason of the Murrain of Cattel and a more then ordinary unseasonableness of those years twenty quarters of Corn were furnished for the Kings use and taken by the Sheriff of Kent at eleven shillings the quarter as appeareth by a Tally struck foâ— the payment thereof yet extant in his Majesties Receipt of the Exchequer and although that in the year next following by reason of a peace with France and the great victories before obtained against it by the English when the King was rich and the people rich which makes a Kingdom compleatly rich with the riches and spoiles gained thereby and that great store of Gold and Silver Plate Jewels and rich vestiments sparsim per Angliam in singulorum domibus were almost in every house in England to be found and that in the 23. year of the Raign of the said King so great a mortality of men and Cattle happned ut vix media aut decima pars hominum remaneret as scarce a third parâ— and as some were of opinion not above a tenth part of the people remained alive which must needs have made a plenty of money tunc redditus perierunt saith the Historian hinc terra ob defectum Colonorum qui nusquam erant remansit inculta tantaque miseria ex bis malis est secuta quod mundus ad pristinum statum redeundi nunquam postea habuit facultatem insomuch as Rents or Tenants for Lands were not to be had the Lands for want of husbandmen remained untilled which would necessarily produce a dearth and scarcity of Victuals And so great was the misery as the Kingdom was never like to recover its former condition And that in the 25. year of the Raign of King Edward the third by reason of the Kings coyning of groats and half groats less in value then the Esterling money Victuals were through all England more dear then formerly and the Workmen Artificers and servants raised their Wages yet in Anno 12 R. 2. though there was a great dearth yet Wooll was sold for two shillings a Stone a Bushel of Wheat for thirteen pence which was then thought to be a great rate a Bushel of Wheat being sold the year before for six pence And in Anno 14. of King R. 2. in an account made in the Receipt of the Exchequer by Roger Durston the Kings Bayliff he reckons for three Capons paid for Rent four pence half penny for thirteen Hens one shilling and seven pence for a Pâ—owâ—share paid for Rent eight pence and for four hundred Couple of Conies at three pence a couple one hundred shillings In Anno 2 H. 5. the Parliament understood four pounds thirteen shillings four pence to be a good yearly aâ—lowance or salary for a Chaplain being men of more then ordinary quality so gâ—eat a cheapness was there then of Victuals and other provisions for the livelihood of men and for Parish Priests six pounds per annum for their Board Apparrel and other necessaries and being to provide that Jurors which were to be impanelled touching the life of man Plea Real or Forty Marks damage should be as the Statute of 42 E. 3. c. 5. required men of substance good estate and credit did ordain that none should be Jurors in such cases but such as had fourty shillings per annum in Lands above all charges which was so believed to be a good estate in 5 H. 8. c. 5. which was almost one hundred years after as the Parliament of that year did think it to be an estate competent enough for such kind of men In the Raign of King Henry the sixth after that France a great and rich neighboring kingdom was wholy conquered and possessed by the English who had not then learned their wasteâ—ul Luxuries or Mimick fashions and could not with such an increase of Dominion and so great spoils and riches transported from thence hither but be abundantly and more then formerly full of money the price and rates of Victuals was so cheap as the King could right worshipfully as the Record saith keep his Royal Court which then could be no mean one with no greater a charge then four and twenty thousand pounds per annum and in the 33. year of his raign which was in Anno Domini one thousand four hundred fifty and five by assent of Parliament granted to his son the Prince of Wales but one thousand pound per annum whilst he had Dirt and Lodging for himself and his servants in his house until he should come to the age of eight years and afterwards no more then 2000. Marks per annum for the charge of his Wardrobe Wages of servants and other necessaâ—y expences whilst he remained in the house of the King his â—ather which was then thought sufficient to support the honor and dignity of the Prince and heir apparent of England though now such a sum of money can by some one that mâ—ndeth his pleasure more then his estate and the present more then the future be thrown away in one night or day at Cards or Dice In Anno 37 H. 6. Meadow in Derbyshire was valued but at ten pence per Acre and errable Land at three pence In the 22. year of the Raign of King Edward the fourth which was â—n the year of our Lord one thousand four hundred eighty and two the price and value of six Oxen was at the highest valuation but ten pounds In the seventh year of the Raign of King H 7. which was in Anno Domini one thousand four hundred ninety and two Wheat was sold at London for twenty pence the Bushel which was then accounted a great dearth and three years after for six pence the Bushel Bay Salt for three pence half penny Nampâ—wich Salt for six pence the Bushel white Herrings nine shillings the Barrel red Herrings three shillings the Cade in the fifteenth year of his Raign Gascoign Wine was sold at London for fourty shillings the Tun and a quarter of Wheat for four shillings In the 24. year of the Raign of King Henry the 8. a fat Ox was sold at London for 26 s. an half peny a pound for Beef and Pork and a half penny farthing a pound for Veal and Mutton was by Act of Parliament thought to be a reasonable price and with gain enough afforded In the fourth year of the Raign of Queen Mary which was in the year of our Lord God one thousand five hundred fifty and seven when very many families and multitudes of the people of England had been but a little before greatly monyed enriched by the lands spoil or the Monasteries and other Religious houses and their large possessions Wheat was sold before Harvest for four Marks the quarter Malt at four and fourty shillings the quarter and Pease at six and fourty shillings and eight pence but after Harvest Wheat was sold at London for five shillings the quarter Malt at six
of himself and his own posterity to further and advance the peoples cheating and oppressing of one another or to cause the King to pay the dearer or incur so great a damage as now it plainly appears he doth in his house-keeping for want of his Pourveyance when as all the Landed and rich men in England all the Farmers and all the Citizens and Tradesmen of the Nation the later of whom like aqua fortis can eat and make their way to be sauers thorough the dearest or highest rates or prices of houshold provisions by adulterating or raising their Commodities or as a London Brewer lately said concerning the Excise upon Ale and Beer that it should never hurt him whilst there was water enough in the Thames those of that profession being not contented to be repaid by the house-keeper the six pence rated for the Excise upon every Barrel of six shillings Beer unless they may leave out of such a Barrel of Beer six penny worth of Malt and make it by an half Boyling of it to save the expence of fire little better then so much half sodden water and are not satisfied also with such an unchristian cozening of the people and making their drink by such their doings and puting in Broom and other noxious ingredients in stead of Hopps to be as unwholsome as it is weak and naughty unless they may likewise cozen the King of his Dues upon the Excise and put as many tricks as they can upon him and his Laws and Officers and when by these and many other devices they make themselves very great gainers by the Excise in abusing both the King and his people are as busie as any in raising the cry against the Excise as a very great grievance and when all the Mechanick and Rustick part of the Nation workmen day-laborers maid-servants and men-servants shall not onely be savers but gainers by the enhance of rates and prices and the King onely and the poor of the Kingdom be the very great loosers and sufferers by it Or for the interest of the body Politick that the pinch and hardship should lye all on the Princes part and he onely be the greatest looser by his want of Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions of the Counties as he had formerly be as an Amorite or stranger in our Israel and pay usury for his victuals by being constrained to give two parts in three or more sometimes then fourty per cent for the houshold provisions which his officers and servants do buy or provide for him four parts in five in many things six parts in seven in some other more then the Market rates and prices were in the beginning of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth when the Compositions were made by the Counties and willingly assented unto or that now there is a greater plenty of Food and houshold provisions Trade and Manufâ—cture then were in the former ages and all things may be afforded to be sold as cheap as they were retroactis seculis or some hundred years ago or as they were in the four and twentieth year of the Raign of King Henry the eight and cheaper then they were in the beginning of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth every thing should be dearer to him then to others or that so great an increase of Rates and Prices as have been within this last hundred years and all the mischiefs and inconveniencâ—s of them which have been brought upon the King and his people by private and particular interests the non execution of good Laws and the neglect and carelesseness of the subordinate Magistrates Justices of Peace and Clerks of the Markets should with an addition be continued and fixt upon the King who if he should resume but his Tolles in Fairs and Markets which the Civilians do rightly enough derive a tollendo from taking many of which are now accompted to be as the proprieties inheâ—itance of private men or Lords of Mannors are in some cases more by the indulgence of the Kings Royal Progenitors and a prescription claimed by long enjoyments or continuance of favors then de jure or were by grants or confirmations allowed where they were before but usurped and with-held from him and a Royalty and prerogative so antiently allowed in the Roman Empire as Valens and Valentinian the Emperors a mercatoribus seu negotiatoribus quae ad domum imperialem pertinent exegerunt necessitatem debitam pensionum ex emolumentis negotiationum did raise a good part of their Pourveyance or provisions for their houshold out of the Tolles or profits made by Fairs and Markets those of the people of England who do claim an exemption from the payment of them and those very many proprietors of Lands or Mannors who by many Royal grants and favors do claim and enjoy the profit of the Tolles would finde to be a greater damage and prejudice unto them then that which the Olivariaâ— party and the troublers of our Israel pretended to be by the Royal Pourveyance or Compositions for them or should as he never doth let his Lands to the uttermost penny measure his gifts or bounties by that of private men and proportion his favors according to his wants or occasions of keeping or saving what he can for himself or the ingratitude or forgetfulness of those which receive them and be as unwilling to answer acknowledge benefits as too many are unto him or take his Reliefs Herriots First fruits Fee Farms Quit Rents Customes Fines for alienation Fines certain or incertain of his Copyhold estates at the full and present value and the Fees for his Seals in Chancery and the other Courts and all his Subsidies according to the alteration of monys the disproportion betwixt the present and the former rates there would be cause enough for them to acknowledge his favouâ—s already received and believe that those small retributions in his Pourveyance or Compositions for them will bear so small a part in the Ballance as they should rather lay their hands upon their mouths and rest assured that they which are daily craving and gaining by the King and blest with a peace and plenty under his government cares and protection should be ashamed to make him to be so great a looser and themselves such gainers by his loss and damages And that it can no way become them to suffer him that granted or confirmed their Fairs and Markets to be oppressed by them pay a shilling and many times more for every groat he disburses for his necessary occasions and at the same time in the distribution of his bounties and rewards give a shilling more for every groat which he intended to give shall be kind to every body and receive in acknowledgement thereof no more then to get keep all they can from him which in their own particular estates would bring no less then ruine to all the people of England and those that so very much enrich themselves by putting him to more expences then
should be And that it was and will be for the good of the people unless the oppressing and cheating one another shall be understood to be for their good that the King and his subordinate Magistrates should correct and regulate the deceits and excess of rates and prices in Markets as those of the Fishmongers of London were by King Edward the first when they were fined five hundred Marks pro illicitis negotiis Forstallamentis aliis transgressionibus in officio suo Piscatorum for Forstallings and other unlawful practises in their Trades or as King E. 3. did when upon a Complaint made by the Commonalty of the City of London that the Butchers such a watchful eye was then kept more then now upon the deceits of Trade did stick and fasten the fat of great or fat Oxen upon the flesh of the lean whereby to promote the sale and price in deceptionem populi to the damage and deceipt of the people he commanded the Maior to provide a remedy or as an Assise of Bread and good and needful Ordinances for Bakers Brewers Inholders Vintners and Butchers was set and made there being an old Assise book made and Ordained in Anno 12 H. 7. by the Lords of the Privy Councel to Queen Elizabeth viz. John Archbishop of Canterbury Sir Christopher Hatton William Lord Burghley Henry Earl of Derby Charles Lord Howard Henry Lord Hunsdon Thomas Lord Buckhurst Sir Francis Knowles Sir Thomas Heneage Sir John Fortcâ—cue and Sir John Wolley or the Decree if had been observed which was made in the Star Chamber the thirteenth day of November Anno 11. of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr after consultation had with diverse Justices of the Peace and the Certificate of all the Judges of England viz. Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Sir Robert Heath Knight Sir Humfrey Davenport Knight Sir John Denham Kt Sir Richard Hutton Knight Sir William Jones Knight Sir George Croke Knight Sir Thomas Trevor Knight Sir Geâ—rge Vernon Knight Sir Robert Barkley Knight and Sir Francis Crawley Knight and confirmed by the Kings Letters Patents under the great Seal of England the 14. day of December then next following that No Inkeeper or Ostler within the Cities of London and Westminster or ten miles distant who have since made such excessive rates as have affrighted many of their Customers away who finde it less chargeable to come to London in passage Coaches or send their horses back into the Country to finde out more honest Inkeepers should take above six pence for Hay for a horse standing night or day nor more then six pence for a peck of Oats of the measure called Winchester measure No Tavernor or Victualler selling Wine by Retail should sell or make ready for sale any sort of Flesh Fish or other victual save bread nor procure to be set up the Trade of a Cook within the same house or in any Shop or Room thereunto belonging or in any house near adjacent nor permit or suffer any Flesh Fish or other Victual except bread to be brought into the house to be there eaten by any of his Guests And did likewise upon hearing of divers Inkeepers who could not deny but that the rates before specified were competent further ordain that where Grain and Hey should at a further distance from London be sold at lesser prices there the rates prices should be accordingly And that that Ordinance should continue in the County of Middlesex untill it should be made to appear to the Justices of the Kings Bench and in other Counties and places to the Justices of peace that because of the increase of prices in the parts adjoyning greater rates should be necessary to be permitted and that thereupon other rates should from time to time be set and being set were commanded and enâ—oynâ—d to be strictly and duely observed untill by the like authority they should be altered And cannot deny but that if the King and his Royal Progenitors if they could ex praevisione by some foresight of things to come of which supernatural eminencies there is a non datur or denyall even to Kings and Princes have understood that their ancient and lawful rights of Pourveyance and Prae-emption would in return of all their benefits daily and yearly heaped upon their subjects have been ever thought to have been a grievance or oppression or endeavored to be withheld from them they might have saved as much and more as that would have come unto by reserving upon all their bounties and grants or Leases of their Mannâ—rs or Lands their Pourveyance or houshold provisions or when they gave Lands of inheritance rendring small or disproportionate Rents or Fee Farms to the greater yearly value which they now appear to be might have added so much of Pourveyance or provisions as might have taken away that causeless murmur against the Pourveyance which our old Saxon King Aethelstane who raigned here in Anno Dom. 938. understood to be so necessary for his housekeeping as when he had subdued the Welâ—h Princes made them his Tributaries he caused them to Covenant with him at Hereford not onely to pay him yeerly twenty pounds weight of Gold and three hundred of Silver but five hundred head of Cattlâ— with Hawks and Hounds to a certain number towards which payment by the Statutes of Howel Dâ—a saith our Industrious Speed the King of Aberfraw was charged at sixty six pounds an Early Composition rate for Pourveyance the Prince Dinemore and the Prince of Powys being to pay the like sums of money And that now to deny it unto the Crown is a greater injustice and injury then to have denyed it to Queen Elizabeth King James or his son King Charles the Martyr or in some hundred years before for that then our Kings and Princes might have preserved themselves and their successors from the rapines and unconscionable rates and prices of houshold provisions which some of his subjects might have forborn to impose upon their King though they do it upon others That if in the Raign of King Henry the seventh a Law or Act of Parliament had been made that for one hundred and fifty years after to the end to make a Treasury or provision of money which Common-wealths and many Kingdoms are not without for the protection and defence of the people against invasions or emergent evils the prices taken in the Markets more then formerly over and above the genuine and real worth of the Commodities should be collected and laid up for the good of the Publike or that all that took Lands to Farm should pay ten times the former yearly value and all things bought in the Market should like the King of France his Salt be for some things at three or four times or for others at ten fifteen or 20. times beyond the true value it would not be imaginable how near the peoples murmuring would have arrived to that of the Children of Israel in the Desart when they
want or be without their Trade of warre as if there be no forreign warres they doe commonly make it out in rebellions and combustions amongst themselves which bringing a large addition to the ordinary burdens of the Paisants or Countrymen renders them ever unable to purchase themselves some freedome or exemption of Taxes by getting themselves to be made Gentlemen and taking share in the fortune and ravage of warre and that being not to be compassed are to live as well contented as they may in being their drudges and to take it for a happiness to make some of their children to be their Lacquies or Jack Puddings very fine for a little time of every year when their fantasticall Apish clothes are new but in rags foul and lowsie linnen and vices all the year after And that the custome and usage of Pourveyance and the smaller trouble charge thereof will be much better which being by the light of nature irradiations of wisdom and right reason not only confined to the Jews Graecians Romans and Europe hath diffused and spread it self to the Mahumetans and the more remote Heathen as may appear by good Authors and Writers of their Customes and usages and by our Ambassadours sent from hence in the behalf of our Merchants as the learned and greatly experienced Sir Thomas Roe besides many Sea Captains Navigators and Traders into the farther parts of the World as Captain Hawkins Sir John Davis Mr. Methwold Captain Saris Captain Whittington Mr. Courtop Mr. Peyton and others and of some French and Venetians trading into the East and West Indies Tartary and other farre distant places whose written relations in their adventurous discoveries of most of the habitable parts of the earth and search after Trade and Commerce were very carefully collected by Mr. Samuel Purchas For in that great extent of Kingdoms and Provinces belonging to the Grand Signior or Emperor of Turkie there comes yearly to the Ottoman Port from Egypt great store of of Dates Prunes and other dried plums of divers sorts which the Cooks doe use in their dressing of meat great quantities of honey from Valachia Transilvania and Moldavia which are presented to the Grand Signior and oyl of which there is an unspeakable consumption made brought from Modon and Coron in Graecia the Saniack Begh of that Province being bound to see the Port sufficiently served therewith The Butter of which there is also spent a great quantity in that it is much used in most of their meats comes out of the Black sea from Mogdania and from Caffa in great Oxe and Buffale hides and fruits of all sorts are daily brought for Presents In the great Empire of Persia there are urbes complures alimenta donantes una panem altera ova alia obsonia suppeditant many Cities which have several assignations for furnishing provisions for the King and his publick uses and the Subjects do over above other great Tributes pay other things towards the maintenance of the King as those of Armenia Horses Babilonia four moneths victuals the rest of Asia eight and other Regions their particular commodities and some of his Guard receive no money but victuals for their wages The antient more Eastern or Cathaian Tartars doe daily from October to March send unto their great Chan great store of cattel And on his Birth-day great Presents and it is the custom of those which bring Presents unto him at New-years tide which the Rulers and Governors of Provinces never fail to do or at other times of the year to present nine times nine of gold and horses and of all that they bring so as sometimes he hath at once one hundred thousand horses and when he hath any use of his Dukes whom they call Morscis or Divoimorscis they are bound to come bring with them their Souldiers to a certain number every man with his two horses at the least the one to ride on and the other to kill when it cometh to his turn to have his horse eaten And the Governors of Countries and Provinces doe send the best of the wild beasts which the Hunters take as Stags Boares c. unto the Emperor in Wains or Ships many daies journey and if farre distant the skins only to make armour In China and the vast Provinces thereunto belonging where they think they have a Monopoly of wit and bragging of their two eyes would not willingly allow the Europeans any more then one every house not priviledged payes a Tribute towards the expences of the Kings Houshold and the great numbers of the Royall Line which in a Country where Polygamy is allowed are many thousands are all maintained at the publick charge every man payes a Tribute for his person lands and trees and all that he hath Every Province yearly sends its Legates or Deputies and all his kindred bring Presents unto him in so much as ten thousand Vessels in a year are imployed by water to carry Tributes and provision for the Kings Houshold and all dainties and things of worth or value presented to him for the service of him and his house The greatest part of the King of Fez his Tribute is paid in corn cattel oyl and butter In Guinea the King hath a Custome of fish which is sent by his Slaves every morning to his house And the Prete or Emperor of Ethiopia hath of that King besides gold an yearly Tribute of three thousand five hundred Mâ—les and three hundred Horses And it is a custom in the East-Indies near the Portugals Dominions that when any Vice-Roy cometh newly over all the Kings bordering upon Goa which have peace and friendship with the Portugals do send their Embassadors unto him to confirm their Leagues with great and rich Presents which do amount unto a great mass of treasure In the Province of Goa as appears by the confirmation of their Customs by John King of Portugal in the year 1526. and that which is now continued and in use amongst them under the government of the Portuguez at what time soever the chief Master of the Ports with the Clerks or Clerk of his charge together or any one of himself shall goe to the Island about matters concerning the Kings affairs or any one whom they shall send to the Island or to the Towns of the same they are to give them their meat according to their use and custome and also to the Kings Factor or Officer of that Office when they shall goe thither to provide in any matters concerning the Kings Affairs or the Towns of the Island and whatsoever footman shall go of any message pertaining to the Kings service or the recovery of any of his Rents they shall give him every day that he shall be there without dispatching two measures of Rice for his meat or one Leal a piece of money of the value of our three farthings to buy Betre which is an herb that they do use to eat and out of their Trade or Customes do
pay one per cent for provision of Fortresses In the Kingdom of Barnagasso the King hath besides Silks and Cloth of Gold and other precious things for Tribute Horses and payeth himself 150. Horses to Pretious or Prete John Emperor of Ethiopia of whom he holdeth The Kingdom of Oghy besides a Tribute of Gold and Silver sendeth him yearly a thousand Beeves In Ethiopia the Prete or Emperor upon the coming or returning of Embassadors gives order to his Subjects or Vassals to furnish them with provisions for their Journey and not long agoe commanded one to whom he had but a little before given a little Lordship containing not above 80. Houses and two Churches to furnish an Embassador with five hundred Loads of Corn a hundred Oxen and a hundred Sheep The Gozagues do yearly pay to their King besides great quantities of Gold and Silver a thousand Beeves alive The Maldives do yearly pay unto their King the fifth part of the grains which they sowe and give him a Portion of their Coco's and Limmons and besides their Taxes compound also for fruits and honey The Princes and great men in Japan do contend who shall give most to the Caesar and almost impoverish themselves by their Presents All the houses in the City of the Kings Residence are by the King taxed towards the making of Fortresses In Firando in Japan when any forraign Merchants are by the King invited to see Playes and publick Shows they send Presents to him and every forraign Merchant that comes thither may not sell his goods untill he hath carried a Present to the Emperor And when any of the Kings white Elephants are brought unto him the Merchants in the City are commanded to come and see him and bring every one a Present of half a Ducat which altogether amounteth to a great sum of money In Industan when the Mogol goeth abroad or in progress euery one saith Sir Thomas Roe by whose house he passeth is to make him a Present Sir Thomas Roe himself doing it when the King or Mogol rode to the River of Darbadath All the Persian Merchants doe bring their goods first to the Mogol who buyes what he pleaseth and after his Officers have set the rate they may sell to whom they will All men strive to present him with all things rich and rare and no man petitioneth him for any thing empty-handed and thereby come to preferment some giving him one hundred thousand pounds in Jewels at a time The King of Achen commands those of Tecoo to bring thither their Pepper which none may buy but he and puts off his Surat commodities in truck to them at what rates he pleaseth and oftimes sends his commodities to Priaman and Tecoo enforcing them to buy them at his own rates none being suffered to buy or sell before he hath vented his own At Bantam the Governor or Protector so called useth to send in the Kings name to the people to serve him with sacks of Pepper some a hundred some fifty some ten some five at the Kings price which was a Riall less in a Sack then the Merchants paid Divers bring Presents of Rice and Cashes and some bring imbroidered cloth for the Kings wearing Nor were the more civilized part of the Heathen only accustomed to the way of Pourveyance or bringing provisions or presents to their Kings and Princes but the wild and savage part of them were by the Lawes of nature and glimmerings of the light of reason taught to doe it In Mexico in the West-Indies and its large Dominions under the Emperor Montezeuma containing 100 Cities and their Provinces the people did pay a certain yearly Tribute to the King for water brought by pipes into the City Those that hold lands did yearly pay unto him one third part of their fruit and commodities which they had or did reap as gold silver stones dogs hens fouls conies salt wax honey mantels feathers cotton and a certain fruit called Câ—cao which they there used for money also all kinds of grain Garden-herbs and fruits Some Towns paid 400 burdens of white Mantles others great Tropes of wood full of Maiz Friâ—oles c. some four hundred burdens of wood others four hundred planks of Timber some every six moneths brought four hundred burdens of Cotton-wool and others two thousand loads of Salt two hundred pots of Honey twenty Xacaras of Gold in powder and some a Truss of Turkie stones and paid besides the King of Alzopuzalco a Tribute of Firre and Willow-trees towards the building of a City Divers Provinces are bound to provide fire-wood for the Kings house amounting unto two hundred and thirty weight a day which was five hundred mens burdens for the Kings particular Chimnies they brought the Bark of the Oak The Incas or Indian Kings before the coming of their unlucky loving friends the Spaniards had their Tributes yearly brought unto the Court and when any work was to be done or any thing to be furnished for the Incas the Officers knew presently how much every Province Town and Family ought to provide and by their Registers strings and knots knew what every one was to pay even to a hen or burden of wood And as Inea Garzilasco de la Vega a Native of Cozco relates in his book of the antient customes of those Countries did amongst other Tributes make and furnish clothes and Arms to be used in warr In Virginia the Weroances under-Lords or petty Kings did hold their lands habitations and limits to Fish Foul or Hunt of their soveraign King Powhatan to whom they pay Tributes of Skins Beads Copper Pearl Dear Turkies wild Beasts and Corn. And in all Savage Countries the English Merchants and Navigators as Mr. Edward Winslow a man afterwards too well known amongst the plundering and mistaken godly at Haberdashers Hall hath related at his return from thence doe make presents to the Savage Kings In New-England the Sachims or Lords are subject to one Sachim to whom they resort for protection and pay homage neither may any make warre without their privity every Sachim knoweth the bounds and limits of his Country and that is as his proper Inheritance and out of that if any of his men desire Land to set their corn he giveth them as much as they can use and puts them in their bounds Whosoever hunteth or killeth any venison which is there much of their food he bringeth him his Fee which is the fourth part of the same if it be killed on the Land but if in the water then the skin thereof Once a year the people are provoked by the Pinieses Knights or Councellors of the Sachims to bestow much corn on the Sachim who bring him thereupon many Baskets of corn and make a great Stack thereof In Florida where they all goe naked and doe but litle exceed the beasts of the field in understanding and want the wit of most part of the Nations of the world to cover their nakedness they can notwithstanding
the Tenants charges to the Lords Granary Gabulum mellis or Rent-honey 〈◊〉 gavel Rent-oates Wood-lede to carry home his wood Gavel or Rent-timber to repair his house and Gavel dung to carry out his dung often used in Kent where they think that in liberties and priviledges they doe surpass most of the other parts and Provinces of England And could at the same time also lay a greater burden upon the people then his pretended ease amounted unto in that his Law touching his own Demeasnes and enjoyn the Romescot or Peter-pence for every house or chimney which he had given the Pope larga maâ—u penhenniter as Bromton saith and a charge upon the people to a perpetuity as he thought of that which the former Kings had made but some temporary grants of to the See of Rome with great penalties for the non payment thereof And under severe mulcts commâ—nded the yearly payments of the Cirickseaâ— or Oblations for First fruits to the Church which was then as Mr. Somner saith à census sâ—â—e in gallinis sive in aliis rellus pro aedium decima solvendis a Rent or Duty to be paid in Henns or other things for the Tithes of their Houses or as a Symbolum or munus gift or offering And though William the Conqueror had a great affection to establish Leges Noricas Danish or Norway Lawes then used in many Provinces yet was England so happy in its unhappiness as he did not but precibus Anglorum atque Normannorum deprecâ—tus tired with the petitions and importunities as well of his Normans as the English ut per animam Regis Edwardi qui sibi post diem suum concesserat câ—ronam regnum cujus erant Leges nec aliorum extraneorum exaudiendo concederet eis sub legibus perseverare paternis as he respected the soul of King Edward who gave him the Crown and Kingdome and whose Lawes they were and not any strangers that he would not hearken unto them but give them leave to enjoy the Lawes of their Ancestors whereupon consilio habito precatu Baronum by the advice and counsel of the Barons when his conquering Normans as well as the subdued English thought it to be most for their good and safety to be governed by Edward the Confessors Lawes and the good old Customes of England he did after an enquiry of duodeâ—im sapientiorum de quo libet comitatu quibus jurejurando injunctum fuit twelve of the wisest men of every County upon their oaths restore to them patriae leges their own Laws especially the Laws of Edward the Confessor which were first instituted by King Edgar and had long lain asleep but at the same time took a care by a Law made on purpose ne quis domino suo debitas praestationes which did then and antiently signifie services and duties to be done subtrahat propter nullam remissionem quam ei antea feâ—erit that no man upon any release or discharge made thereof should withhold or deny his service or accustomed dues to the Lord which repealing as it were Canutus his Law did not certainly exclude the King or his Successors in their own particulars when as he procured by another Law ut jura regia illaesa servare pro viribus conentur subditi that all his Subjects should endeavour all they could to preserve his Regalities Et ex illo die the Laws of Canutus vanishing probably as those of Cromwell did Leges Sancti Edwardi multa autoritate veneratas per universum regnum corroboratas et observatas and from that time the Lawes of Edward the Confessor were greatly reverenced and through all England observed For we find not that Law of Canutus either repeated or mentioned as the Laws of some of the Saxon Kings were or any thing of that nature enacted or confirmed in or by the Laws of Edward the Confessor William the Conqueror or King Henry the the First but on the contrary the Laws of Edward the Confessor confirmed by William the Conqueror doe expresly ordain that debent enim et leges eâ— libertates jura et justas consuetudines regni et antiquas a bonis predecessoribus which could not well be meant or intended of any of Canutus or any the Denelage or Danish Lawes approbatas inviolabiliter modis omnibus pro posse suo servare every man ought to his utmost to keep and conserve the Lawes Liberties and Rights and the just and antient Customes of the Kingdome The Abbot of Ramsey was by a Charter of William the Conqueror exempt from carriages and Pourveyance And the Book of Doomesday which was made in the sixteenth year of his Reign and remains ever since an unquestionable record of the Kingdome is not without some vestigia or footsteps of Pourveyance in the Reign of that good and to this day ever honored King Edward the Confessor where it is said that tempore regis Edwardi reddebat civitas de Gloucester xxxvi l. numeratas xii sextaria mellis ad mensuram ejusdem Burgi xxxvi Dacras ferri C. virgas ferras ductiles ad claves navium Regis quasdam alias minutas consuetudines in Aula in Camera Regis in the time of King Edward the Confessor the City of Gloucester did pay yearly six and thirty pounds in money twelve measures of honey containing six Gallons a piece according to the measure of the Town six and thirty Dacres a proportion then known by that term of Iron and one hundred Rods of Iron to make nails for the Kings Ships and certain other small Customes for the Hall and Chamber of the King Et in Sciptone Rex tenet de annona xv l. the King had fifteen pounds per annum provision of corn and other victuals The Bordarii often mentioned in Doomesday Book were such as held Lands mensae domini designatas esculenta indicta videlicet ova gallinas aucas porcellos et hujusmodi ezhiberent appropriate to a Pourveyance for the Kings Table furnishing Eggs Hens Geese Pork and the like and for the Huscarles or houshold servants so called concerning whom it is there said Et gilda pro decem hidis scilicet ad opus huscarlum unam marcam argenti and he paid taxes for ten hides that is to say a mark of silver for the use or maintenance of them Tit Northantesceire reddit firmam trium noctium vel edulia ad caenam unam 30. lib. ad pondus made provision for one night of the value of thirty pound tit Oxenefordsc Comitatus Oxeneford reddit firmam trium noctium hoc est 100 lib. furnisheth provision for three nights of the value of 100 pound Et Doomsd. tit Wilts Wilton quando Rex ibat in expeditione vel terra vel mari habebat de hoc manerio xx sol ad pascendos suos Buzcarlos aut unum hominem ducebat secum pro honore quinque hidarâ—m when the King went
upon any expedition by land or sea he was to have out of that Manor twenty shillings to feed his Buzcarles Mariners or Seamen or took for every five hides of land or that then esteemed honorable quantity of land a man with him But howsoever if that of Canutus discharging Pourveyance were a Law neither altered nor repealed it did but like his Laws touching Ordeal and delivering over the Murderer to the Kindred other of his Laws which proved to be unpracticable rather make the matter worse then better by his renouncing Pourveyance in his own Demeasnes for that Law and Resolution of his did meet with so little observance as in the Reign of King William Rufus and a great part of the Reign of his Brother King Henry the First the Kings Servants and Court for want of their former provisions grew to be so unruly as multitudo eorum qui curiam ejus sequebantur quaeque pessundaâ—ent diriperent nulla eos cohibente disciplina totam terram per quam Rex ibat devastarent and a multitude following the Court took and spoiled every thing in the way which the King went there being no discipline or good order taken Et dum reperta in Hospitiis quae invadebant penitus absumere non valebant ea aut ad forum per eosdem ipsos quoruÌ„ erant pro suo lucro ferre ac vendere aut supposito igne cremare â—ut â—i potus esset lotis exinde equâ—rum suorum pedibus residuum illius per terram effundere aut aliquo alio modo disperdere solebant and when they could not consume that which they found in the houses whereinto they had broken made the owners carry it to the Market and sell it for them or else burnt their provisions or if it were drink washed their horses feet with it or poured it upon the ground in so much as quique preâ—ognito regis advenâ—u sua habitacâ—l a fugithant every one hearing before hand of the Kings coming would run away from their houses which probably bringing in a dearth or scarcity of coâ—n might be the cause of the Tenants of the Kings Demeasne Lands bringing in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the First for then it was and not before as it appears by Edmerus and William of Malmsbury who lived in his time to the King their Plowshares instead of Corn to Court on their backs and making heavy complaints of their poverty and misery procured that King to change their Rents which before were used to be paid for the most part in corn cattle and provisions and were wont abundantly to supply his houshold occasions and with which in primitivo regno statu post conquisitionem the Kings of England from the Conquest untill then did plentifully as Gervasius Tilburienâ—is who lived also in his Reign hath related defray the charges of their Courts and Housholds into money with six pence in the pound overplus left the value of the mony should afterwards diminish but whether Canutâ—â— his Law were then in force or not or could be sufficient to abrogate those Jura Majestatis Rights or Prerogatives of our English Kings we find King Henry the first after those disorders in his greatest compliance with the English and his need of their aid to defend him against the pretensions and better Title of his elder Brother Robert Duke of Normandy and his couâ—ting of them unto it per libertates quas sanctus Rex Edwardus spiritu Dei provide sancivit by the antient Lawes and Liberties of holy King Edward which he had granted them and a promise to grant them any other retaining his Pourveyance and putting it into better order for as William Malmesbury hath recorded it Curialibus suis ubicunque villarum esset quantum a Rusticis gratis accipere quantum quoto praetio emere debuissent edixit transgressores vel gravi pecuniarum mulcta vel vitae dispendio afficiens directing and ordering those of his Court in whatsoever places he should abide what and how much they were to receive from the Country people gratis and without money and at what prices and rates they should buy other things under great penalties of money or punishment by death and was optimatibus venerabilis provincialibus amabilis reverenced by the Nobility and beloved by the common people and in his Charter which was for a gâ—eat part of it the original of our Magna Charta where omnes malas consuetudines quibus regnum Angliae iniuste opprimebatur inde aufert he took away all the evill Customs with which England was oppressed Et quas as the Charter saith in parte hic posuit and which were in part recited and with which the discontented Barons Nobility of England claiming their antient Liberties were so well contented in the 14. year of the Reign of King John when Steven Langton Archbishop of Canterbury produced it unto them as gavisi sunt gaudio magno valdè juraverunt omnes quod pro hiis libertatibus si necesse fuerit decertabunt usque ad mortem they greatly rejoyced and swore that they would if need were contend unto death for those Liberties there is no mention of any evil in Pourveyance nor any order for the taking of them away And might as justly rationally continue in the Raign of King Henry the second his Grandchild as that custome or usage for the Bishops and dignified Clergy to take their provisions of the Inferior Clergy and their Carriages or Carts which Pope Alexander in a Councel or Synod held at Rome where were present the Bishops of Durham Norwich Hereford and Bath and divers Abbots sent from England did notwithstanding many complaints not against the Pourveyance it self but the immoderate use of it onely limit and restrain them secundum tolerantiam in illis locis in quibus amâ—liores fuerint redditus Ecclesiasticae facultates in pauperibus autem mensura tenenda to be moderately taken in such places as had more large possessions and Ecclesiastical Revenues and less of those who were in a poorer condition and then and long before the Domini hundredorum Lords or great men having the command or jurisdiction of Hundreds uti comes aut vicecomes as the Eaâ—l or Sheriff of the County had multa inde auxilia tributa sectas aliasque praestationes cum ad utilitatem tum ad voluptateÌ„ CerereÌ„ nempe frumentuÌ„ receperunt c and received many aids tributes and Pourveyances aswel conducing to their profit as pleasure cujus hodie nomine Annuum penditur tributum pecuniarum for which now there is a certain rent in mony paid Nor could the rights of Pouâ—veyance Prae-emption be any thing less then denizend in Scotland or the Northern parts of our British Isles when as the Civil and universal Law of the World was there so long ago entertained and yet continues the great Director and Guider of their Justice where in
2 R. 2. ca. 1. Upon complaint made in Parliament that Pourveyors and Buyers did take Provisions of the Clergy and enforce them to make carriages against their Liberties It was enacted that the holy Church should have and enjoy her Franchises and Liberties in all points in as ample manner as she had in the time of the Kings noble Progenitors Kings of England and that the great Charter and the Charter of the Forest and the good Laws of the Land be firmly holden and kept and put in due execution saving to the King his Regality which is in the Record but omitted in the Print by which Statute saith Sir Edward Coke there was nothing enacted but what was included in Magna Charta And in the same Parliament it was ordained that the Statutes heretofore made should be kept and that all Clerks should have their Actions against such Pourveyors by Actions of Trespass and thereby recover treble damages And in 7 R. 2. cap. 8. it was ordained that no Subjects Chator shall take any victuals or carriages to the use of their Lords or Ladies without the owners good will and the party endamaged if he will shall have his Suit at the Common Law 2 H. 4. cap. 15. Pourveyance of the value of forty shillings or under for the Kings house shal l be paid for presently upon pain of forfeiture of the Pourveyors Office 23 H. 6. ca. 14. If any Buyer or other Officer of the Duke of Gloucester or of any other Lord or person take any Victuals Corn Hey Carriages or any other thing of the Kings Liege people against their will or without lawfull bargain but only for the King and the Queen and their houses they shall be arrested and if any of the said buyers other then of the King and Queen shall be convicted of such unlawfull taking he shall pay treble damages 28 H. 6. ca. 2. None shall take any persons Horses or Carts without the delivery of the Owner or some Officer nor any money to spare them saving alwayes to the King his Prerogative and his Preheminence of and in the premisses And in the care of our Kings to redress the peoples grievances and satisfie their complaints against the Pourveyors rather then the Royal Pourveyances it may be understood also that they did not altogether lay aside the preservation and care of those antient and most necessary rights and parts of the Kingly Prerogative by their Answers given in divers Parliaments to the Petitions of the People concerning it as 13 Ed. 3. The Commons pray in Parliament that all Pourveyors as well with Commission as without shall be arrested if they make not present pay whereupon it was agreed that the Commissioners of Sir William Heallingford and all other Commissioners for Pourveyance for the King be utterly void 14 Ed 3. Ordered that the Chancellor by Writs doe pay the Merchants of Barton and Lynne for their Pourveyance of corne 17 Ed. 3. The Commons pray that remedies may be had against the outragious taking of Pourveyors The Statutes made shall be kept and better if it may be devised 20 Ed. 3. That payment be made for the last taking of victuals Order shall be taken therein They pray that Pourveyors not taking the Constables with them according to the Statute of Westminster shall be taken as Theeves and the Judges or Justices of Assize or the Peace may inquire of the same The Statutes made shall be observed 21 Ed. 3. Upon a complaint of the Commons That whereas in the Parliament in anno 17. and the next Parliament before it was accorded that Commissions should not issue out of the Chancery for Hoblers and taking of Victuals c. the said Ordinances are not kept If any such Imposition was made the same was made upon great necessity and with consent of the Prelates Counts Barons Autres grandees and some of the Commons then present notwithstanding the King will not that such undue Imposition be drawn into consequence but willeth that the Ordinances in this Petition mentioned be well kept And as touching the taking of victuals alwayes saving the Kings Prerogative his will is that agreement be made with such of whom the same are and shall be taken The Commons alleaging That whereas it was lately ordained and assented by the King and hîs Council that men and horses of the Kings Houshold should not be harbinged in any part of the Country but by Bill of the Marshall of the House delivered to the Constable who should cause them to have good sustenance for themselves and their horses as should be meet and cause their victuals to be prised by the men of the same Towns and before their departures should pay the parties of whom the victuals were taken and if they did not their horses should be arrested and that contrary hereunto they depart without payment pray that in every Bill mention be made of the number of horses and that no more but one Garson be allowed and that payment according to the Statute may be made from day to day The King is pleased that this Article be kept in all points according to the form of the Statute They complain that the Pourveyors of the King Queen and Prince severally doe come yearly assess and Towns severally at ten Quarters of Oates more or less at their pleasure and the same doe cause to be carried away without paying for the same and pray that such Tallages and Pourveyance may be taken away The King will forbid it and that no man take contrary to such prohibition saving to him the Queen his companion and their Children their rightfull takings Eodem Parliamento whereas the horses of the King Queen Prince do wander into divers parts doing much hurt and damage to the people and that hay oats c. are taken contrary to the Ordinances already made the Commons pray That the King will ordain that those horses may abide in some certain place of the Country where they are and that Pourveyance may be had for them in convenient time of the year by the Deputies as may be agreed between them and the owners of those goods The King is well pleased that the Ordinances already made shall be kept and that Pourveyances may be made for his best profit and ease of his People 45 Ed. 3. That no Pourveyance be made for the King but for ready money and that the King be served by common measure The Statutes made before shall be observed They complain of the decay of the Navy by reason tha◠sundry mens ships were stayed for the King long before they served the Masters of the Kings Ships doe take up Masters of the Ships as good as themselves The King will provide Remedy 46 Ed. 3. They complain that Ships arrested have been kept a quarter of a year before they pass out of the Port and in that time the Masters or Marriners have no wages Y
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
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
should be assessed by the said Clerk of the Market in avoiding her Highness displeasure and further punishment at her Graces pleasure Which as to the enforcing of reasonable rates and pâ—ises for victuals and houshold provisions was no more then that which all Maiors and Bailiffs of Cities Boroughs Merchant Towns and others and of the Ports of the Sea and other places are by the Statute of 23 Ed. 3. cap. 6. authorised to doe and is to be given in charge and inquired of by the Justices of Peace of every County at their Quarter Sessions For if by the rules of Reason Policie and Prudence it was alwayes adjudged to be necessary and profitable for the people in general that the King or Prince should restrain them from deceiving or oppressing one another or not permit the cunning false or richer part of the people to deceive and put what rates or prises they please or can heighten and invent upon the plain dealing honest simple hearted poor and necessitous part of them but should rather resist the Nimrods Tormentors of them and by putting them into some method of righteousness imitate the care and designs of the Almighty to succour relieve and help the poor and needy And that it can never be for the good of the Nation so to encourage the evils and deceitfulnes of mens hearts one towards another as to suffer every one to hatch or spawn as many cheating and cozening tricks perjuries deceipts and false or aequivocal oathes as they can possibly or under a counterfeit shew of godliness make contrive and invent to blind deceive delude or oppress one another or to be like Cut-purses Jews Bandities Wild Arabs or crafty deceitfull Bannyans to the well-doing as well as well-meaning little part of the people or like Rooks cawing wrangling and making a noyse in the trees make it their perpetual business when they are not asleep to steal and filch away one anothers Nests and provisions and being guilty of as bad themselves to be in a perpetuall watch of keeping as well as they can their own whilest they are busie in stealing from others or to make old England to be a Country of Rooks and Jackdaws It cannot be certainly adaequate to any rule of Justice that the King who is to make it his daily care to provide peace plenty and benefits for all his Subjects regulates by his Magistrates and Officers rates and prices of victuals at Markets and Fairs moderates and abates such as are excessive and unreasonable and by Law may seize as forfeit the Court Leets of Lords of Manors for not providing Pillories to punish offending Bakers and ordaineth by his Laws that every Lord or other having the priviledge of a Market shall forfeit it if he have not a Clerk of the Market to look unto it should provide blessings for every one but himself and partake of none or very little of them and that his Subjects should not be at liberty to cozen and oppress one another and yet every man should be at liberty and make it his designe and business to cozen and lay burdens upon him which would be as little for the good of the body politick as it would be in the body natural to wear the head downward and make it to be subservient to the business and humor of the ignoble and less to be taken care of parts of the body Or to give liberty not only in a Siege or publick necessity like that of Samaria but at all other times unto as many as will like the gain or content of it to be as Bears and Wolves one to another and by hardening of their hearts and oppressing one another make a Wilderness and Desert in our Land of Canaan which if well ordered flows with more then milk and honey and by reason of an universall pride ingrossing enhauncing and cheating to maintain it cause a dearth when there may be a plenty And reducing him thereby into the condition of the King of Israel in that Siege when an Asses head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and the fourth part of a kab of Doves dung for five pieces of silver enforce him to answer as he did the woman which cryed unto him Help my Lord O King if the Lord doe not help thee whence shall I help thee out of the Barn floor or out of the Wine-presse Or that the King when he shall as the King of Israel did in an unseasonable and dry year search the Land for grass to save the peoples horses mules and beasts alive should let his own not pertake of his cares but perish whilst he mittigates unjust and unconscionable rates and prices in the Markets beÌ„ himself exposed to all manner of unconscionable and deceitfull dealings Which his just and alwaies until now allowed right of Praeemption which heretofore made the Kings provision for his houshold when it was bought in the Markets or Fairs to be much cheaper then what were bought upon the vie or endeavours who should give most to purchase it at such unreasonable prices as the Sellers could strain or scrue them unto And the Commissions not seldome made by his Royal Progenitors to the Sheriffs and other Officers and Magistrates which had the delegated power of Assise and Correction of Markets and unreasonable prices and the rating of them to make his houshold provisions and where the Pourveyors and the owners could not otherwise agree were to be rated and ascertained as some Acts of Parliament and Statutes have appointed by Constables and some honest men of their Neighbourhood upon their oaths which cannot be supposed to make or admit them to be high or immoderate together with a due regulation of the Markets by the Clerks of the Markets and that care with the Law enjoyneth the Lords of Manors in their Court Leets the Sheriffs in their Tornes the Justices of Peace of every Countie and the Magistrates of every City and Towns Corporate to take in the supressing of unreasonable prices Forestallers Ingrossers and Regrators which are no small part of the causes of them would have prevented or greatly lessened And the Markets would not have risen to that excess of price which is now heavily complained of and every where to be met with by the sleepiness or sluggishness of Magistrates and Justices of the Peace neglect of their oathes and duties which are too often and easily obliterated or put out of memory by sprinkling or dipping them in the waters of some Lethe or Oblivion or by some unrighteous or unbecoming partialties connivance and kindness to their Neighbours and friends or such as they would make to be their friends a timerousness or unwillingness to displease or irritate such as are or may be their enemies or the allurements and temptation of their own Interests in letting their Lands at the rack or very much dearer then it was when the Kings price or compositions were agreed upon and by tentering the Tenants Rents
for a greater observance is certainly to be tendered unto the King even in that particulâ—r of Praeemption which may well be believed by all that are not Quakers whose Tenants all the people of England are mediately or immediately by some or other Tenure Then that which is usually done to Lords of Manors Justices of Peace or Country Gentlemen by their Tenants or poorer sort of Neighbours who if they chance to catch any Woodcocks or Partridges in any of those Gentlemens Lands will bring them to their â—ouses to sell at such cheap and easie rates as they shall please to give for them and if which seldome happens they should carry them to the Markets and not thither are sure enough to be chid for it and crossed and denied in any greater matter which they shall have to doe with them And is but that or a little more curtesie which Butchers Fishmongers and other Tradesmen selling victualls or provisions in great quantities and all the year or often unto their constant Customers will not for their own ends fail to doe or neglect or to sell unto them at easier rates then unto others and find themselves to be many times no loosers by it insomuch as some have lately well afforded to sell to a constant Customer for great quantities at the same rate it was 40 or 60 years before And the Compositions of the Counties for Pourveyance to serve in Beefe Mutton Poultry Corn Malt and other provisions for the Kings Houshold and the maintenance and support of it at a more cheaper rate then the Markets yeild which when they were first set was but the Market rate or a little under long agoe made and agreed upon by the greater Officers of the Kings Houshold and some Justices of Peace in every County and easily and equally taxed and laid upon the whole and not upon any particular man which was poor or of a small Estate not fit to bear it May be with as much and more reason allowed and chearfully submitted unto as those many now called quit rents or Rent services which the most of our Nobility Gentry and others not for some few of them doe yet hold some of their Tenants to their antient and reasonable Customes doe receive and their Tenants easily and willingly pay for their several sorts of â—apola Gavels or Tributes charged upon their Lands before and since the Conquest in Kent a County recounting with much comfort of their many Priviledges and beneficiall Customes and most parts of England as Gavel Erth to Till some part of their Landlords Ground Gavel Rip to come upon summons to help to reap their Corn Gavel Râ—d to make so many perches of hedge Gavel Swine for pawnage or feeding their Swine in the Lords Woods Gavel werk which was either Manuopera by the person of the Tenant or Carropera by his Carts or Cariages Harth-silver Chimney-money or Peter-pence which some Mesne Lords do yet receive Were Gavel in respect of Wears and Kiddels to catch Fish pitched and placed by the Sea coasts Gavel noht or Fother or Rent Foder which did signifie pabulum or alimentum ut Saxones antiqui dixerunt and comprehended all sorts of victuals or provisions as the old Saxons interpreted it for the Lord probably in his progress or passing by them and was in usage and custome in the time of Charlemaigne the Emperor about the year of our Lord 800. when the people of Italy Regi venienti in Italiam solvere tenebantur pro quo saepe etiam aestimata pecunia pendebatur were to provide Foder or provisions for the King when he came into Italy in liew of which money to the value thereof was sometimes paid and was long after taken to be so reasonable as it was by the Princes and Nobility of Italy acknowledged in an Assembly to be inter Regalia as a Prerogative due to the King And after the Conquest for Aver Land or Ouver Land carriage of the Lords Corn to Markets and Fairs or of his domestick utensils saith the learned and Judicious Mr. Somner or houshold provisions of the Lord or his Steward when they removed from one place to another sometimes by horse Average sometimes by foot Average one while within the Precinct of the Manor thence called In average and at other times without and then called Out Average whereupon such Tenants were known by the name of Avermanni or Bermanni Smiths Land holden by the service of doing the Smiths work the not performing of which several services so annexed to the said several sorts of Lands and their Tenures made them to be forfeited which though not exchanged and turned into Rents Regis ad exemplum in imitation of the indulgence and favour of King Henry the first to the Tenants of his demeasne Lands either then or shortly after but many of them as appeareth by Mr. Somner continuing in Kent to the Reign of Henry the third others to Edward the first and Edward the third and some in other places to the Reign of King Henry the sixth and in all or many of the Abbies and Religious Houses untill their dissolution in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the eighth notwithstanding that the Lords of Manors and Leets receiving those free or quit Rents as they were called of their Freeholders and Tenants belonging unto their several Manors in lieu and recompence of those services did or ought in their Court Leets twice a year holden cause to be presented and punished any unreasonable prises for provisions or victuals sold in Markets Fairs oâ— otherwise or if they have not Leets are when they are Justices of Peace authorised to doe it and by that untill their Interests perswaded them to let their Tenants use all manner of deceipts in their Marketings and get what unreasonable prises they pleased so as they themselves might rack their Rents farre beyond former ages might have had their provisions untill this time at as low and easie rates as the Kings prouisions and Compositions were at when they were rated and set by the Justices of Peace in the severall Counties and all others of their Neighbourhood might also have enjoyed the benefit of the like rates which the Law intended them And the King may as well or better deserve and expect as many Boons or other services as the Nobility and other great men of the Kingdome doe notwithstanding many Priviledges and Indulgences granted by their more liberall Auncestors and better bestowing their bounties to their Tenants And to be furnished with Carts and Carriages at easie rates as well as the Earl of Rutland is at this day for nothing upon any removall from Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire to Haddon in Darbyshire and elsewhere from one place to another with very many Carts of his Tenants which are there called Boon Carts when as all Lords or Gentlemen of any rank place or quality in the Kingdome doe take it to be no burden or grievance to their
for his kindness shewed unto him in the Land wherein he had sojourned Araunah bowing himself with his face to the ground before King David when he asked him to buy his threshing floor and being willing not only to have given it him if he would have accepted it as a King and unto the King as the Text saith the Threshing floor but Oxen also for burnt sacrifice And The custome of Strangers much more to be observed by Subjects who are under greater obligations in the Queen of Sheba's presents of an hundred and twenty Talents of gold and of spices very great store and pretious stones which she had before hand prepared and brought with her and gave him at her departure or in acknowledgement of her entertainment And of Naaman the Sirians pressing the Prophet Elisha very hard after he was cured of his leprosie by no long or troublesome medicines to take a blessing of him which may be understood to be no less an offer then a good part of ten talents of silver six thousand pieces of gold and ten changes of raiment which he took with him when he began his journey unto him to seek his cure And more expressions of thankfulness then the Royal Pourveyance amounteth unto may certainly be due unto the King who doth not as many great and small Princes or States usually do in Germany and Italy build Forts upon some or many rivers or passages which may streighten incumber or terrifie Merchants with their Merchandize or other men that travail in the day time or at other seasonable times upon their occasions and affairs to enforce a Toll or payments of money nor make a Sundt or Baltick of the Auss or passage from Bristow to Wales or out of Lincolnshire over the Humâ—er to Hull or at Barwick or Newcastle or in the passage betwixt Dover and Calais which might yeild him even of Strangers a benefit or profit as considerable or very neer as much as the Danish King doth of the Sund. Suffers not the people to be troubled in their going to Markets Fairs or passing to fro with their goods or inland Commodities or Merchandize with any such paages payages or monies as are now paid by Passengers through the divers great and small many several Territories of the Nobility or Lords of Manors in France for carriage of Goods or Merchandise some of which payments are called Barrage by reason of a Barre put cross the way or Billets in respect of a Billet which is hung upon a tree to denote the entrance into another Territory or Pontage for the passage over a Bridge or Prevostè for the Customes or Rights due in their passage to the Lord of that Jurisdiction or the Travers which is paid by every one which carrieth any thing to sell out of the Manor Jurisdiction or Territorie and altogether doe make so great a trouble to the Carters Voituriers Passengers or people and the affairs of Merchandise loosing much time in paying their Billets almost in every Parish as they pass finding out and tarrying for those that are to receive it and in some places having Souldiers or some hungry and almost starved companions placed to receive it and Billets hung out many times where they should not and being constrained thereby to seek by-wayes to escape such their too farre extended exactions and hazard themselves if catched to pay une grosse amende more then otherwise they should as the Commonalty and poor People of France who have little more for their hard labours and drudgery to comfort them then a Lenten or slender dyet all the year with Taxes Rags and Apish fashions had rather pay another Tail or Tax to the King or twenty times as much to the Lords in their petites soâ—erainetès little Royalties then to be so much incumbred Which our Traders and Travailers are not at all troubled with but are excused at Markets and Fairs Cities or Towns of Trade by a Toll which is more antient then the Conquest or a few Centuries are now taken by the King where he or his Progenitors have not granted them away unto others at the same or some easie rates which they were at some hundreds of years or long agoe when the price of a fat Sheep or Mutton was but twenty pence and the Toll in some places for they vary according to custome at one half penny a Sheep amounted unto a fortieth part of the then value of a fat Sheep which is now not seldome rated and sold at 20 s. and may therefore be the more contentedly paid and if raised up together with the Pickage and Stallage and for the Pennes to the now rates of victuals and provisions would according to the difference betwixt the then small value of silver and that which is now more then twice as much and at 5 s. and a penny the ounce and setled again in the Crown from whence it first came to many Lords of Manors some of whom doe make 80 l. per annum by it go a great way towards the loss or charges which the Counties doe pretend were laid upon them by the differences betwixt the Market prises and the rates which they did in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth agree by their Compositions to serve in the provisions for her and her Royall Family or if raised up proportionably unto the price which it bears in the Markets and Fairs since those Tolls were first set and imposed which must needs be understood to have a greater respect to the value then the numbers or what they have been enhaunced since the 24. year of the Reign of Henry the eighth after the ounce of Silver was raised to five shillings when a pound of Mutton was by Act of Parliament not to be sold above a half penny farthing and in Anno 34 of Henry the eighth 25 Boards or Stalls in the Stocks Market in London for Fishmongers paid rent yearly to the City 34 l. 13 s. 4 d. and for eighteen Butchers Boards or Stalls one and forty pounds sixteen shillings and four pence or the Reign of King Henry the first which was long after the custome of paying Toll when the rate or price of a Mutton for the Kings provision was secundum constitutâ—m modum according to the then valuation and rate set at no greater a price then four pence so great a difference had two hundred years betwixt that and the Reign of King Edward the second made in the rates and provisions for victuals would make an encrease of the rates for Pickage and Stallage and for Toll as much or more after no greater a rate then twenty shillings for a fat Mutton which is now often exceeded as five to one and come up very near unto the pretended loss or difference in serving in the provisions for the Kings house And if it did not may be well afforded and was abundantly recompenced by the indulgence of his Royall Progenitors King John and King
Henry the third his Sonne by their Magna Charta Agreement or Accord made with their then powerfull Barons and Church men and a discontented and seditious Commonalty since reduced into Lawes and confirmed by thirty Acts of Parliament wherein the people having many liberties granted them by those Kings the great Lords Prelates and superior part of the Clergy of whom they held which they could not then claim as rights but were to be received as favours and as much to be valued as their pardon and indemnity which was granted unto them by the same Charter King John therein promising them that all those Customes and Liberties quantum ad se pertinet erga suos omnes homines de regno suo tam Laici quam Clerici observent quantum ad se pertinet erga suos as much as belonged to him he would observe towards all men and that all as well Laick as spiritual should as much as belonged to them observe them towards such as held of them And by the late King Charles the Martyr who took but one hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome which was antiently accompted to be but of the yearly value of four hundred pounds per annum the least of which are now three or four thousand pounds per annum very many double as much and some sixteen or twenty thousand pounds per annum when as the hundred pounds was then according to the now value of silver above three hundred pounds And to disburse in houshold provisions according to the difference betwixt the rates and prises of victuals as they were in the Reign of King Edward the second which was above 80 years after the granting and confirming of Magna Charta by King Henry the third when a Capon was sold for two pence and what they are now will not be the fourth part as to some sort of provisions and victuals and as to others not the sixteenth of that hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome and so proportionably in other reliefs and the summe of five pounds for the relief of a Knights Fee which is but the fourteenth part according to the difference betwixt the antient and then value of the lands belonging unto a Knights Fee now estimated but at three hundred pounds per annum many of which are four or five hundred pounds per annum and others of a greater yearly value as the lands are lesser or more improved nearer or farther distant from London the grand Emporium of the Trade and Commerce of the Nation and the residence of the King and his superior Courts of Justice And are but the Antiqua Relevia antient Reliefs which King Henry the first in his Charter of Liberties granted to the people did not reduce unto any certain sums but ordered to be justa legitima And but two hundred Marks for the Relief of a Marques and two hundred pounds of a Duke although there were at the time of the making of those great Charters neither Dukes nor Marquesses in England or any such Titles in being and one hundred pounds for the relief of a Baron And if the warres had not hindred him from those and other his dues but 20 s. for every Knights fee according to the Statute in anno 3 E. 1. towards the marriage of his eldest Daughter and making his eldest Son a Knight and no more of every twenty pounds per annum in Socage Did not according to the Equity and Preamble of the Act of Parliament de anno quinto Eliz. cap. 4. which in regard that the wages and allowances limited and rated in former Statutes were in divers places too small and not answerable to that time respecting the advancement of prices of all things belonging unto Servants and Labourers and that the Law could not conveniently without the great grief and burden of the poor Laborers and hired men be put in execution and to the end that there might be a convenient proportion of wages in the times of scarcity and plenty did repeal so much of the said former Statutes as concerning the working and wages of Servants and Labourers and enacted that the wages of Artificers Labourers and Servants should be yearly assessed by the Justices of the Peace and Magistrates in every County City and Town Corporate with respect to the plenty and scarcity of the time and other circumstances necessary to be considered endeavour to raise them to any higher sums or make them proportionable to the present values of lands and money rates and prices of victuals And by the favour of his now Royal Majesty who delighting in the vestigiis and pathes of his many indulgent and Royall Progenitors though his own very great wants and necessities and their daily importunities might have advised him not to have kept the road of his Ancestors liberality and bounty but to reserve some kindness for himself and his more urgent occasions did not as King Henry the third and several other Kings of England his Successors cause his Taxes Assessements by Parliament to be assessed upon oath according to the full and true value of the peoples Estates or as was done by King Edward the sixth since the Statute of 6 Ed. 3. for restraining the Parliament aids to the old Taxation upon the assistance or relief then so called given unto him by Parliament and make enquiries upon oath of the best values of the substance of such as were to pay that Relief Dismes and Subsidies and by the oaths also of those who were to pay them and caused some to be sworn to value clothes to the end that the King might receive payment of Relief for every cloth or as Queen Mary did cause an enquiry to be made upon oath of the value of the goods and lands of such as were lyable to the payment of Fifteens Dismes and Subsidies in the 2 3 4 and 5 years of her Reign But in his Assessments Aids or Subsidies granted by Parliament did imitate his Royal Father King Charles the first who took and received all his Subsidies at two shillings eight pence in the pound for goods and moveables and four shillings for lands and immoveables with defalcation of debts and consideration of a greater then ordinary charge of children assessed by an express exception without oath and the Commissioners left at liberty to assesse themselves and the Assessors according to the old and easie Taxations Takes and receives his First-fruits or the first years value of Bishopricks Spiritual Promotions and of Benefices not under ten marks per annum and Vicarages not under ten pounds per annum since treble those values as they are said to be in the Kings books and for the Tenths of their Spirituall Promotions after no greater a rate or yearly value which no Act of Parliament ever obliged him to doe then they were long agoe valued with some very small encrease or raising long since in a very few of the Bishopricks but
the comfort of the Lands belonging to a Deanery Prebenda or Prebendship of Lands and other Revenues annexed to the Cathedrals many if not most of which with the Deanerles and Prebendships thereunto belonging as the Deanerie and twelve Prebends of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth were of the foundation and gift of the Kings Royal Progenitors Which comfortable and necessary supports of our Bishops administred by their Clergie are ex antiquo and long agoe resembled by some or the like usages in Ireland where the Coloni or Aldiones such as hold in Socage of the Irish Bishops did besides their Rents and Tributes erga reparationes Matricis Ecclesiae quidpiam conferre give something yearly towards the reparation of the Cathedral or Mother Churches and the Herenaci another sort of Tenants so called did besides their annual rent cibarià quaedam Episcopo exhibere bring to the Bishop certain provisions for his Houshold which was very frequent with the Tenants of Lands holden of our English Abbies and Religious Houses by an inquisition in the County of Tirone in anno 1608. it was by a Jury presented upon oath that there were quidam Clerici sive homines literati qui vocentur Herinaci certain learned men of the Clergy who were called Herinaci ab antiquo seisiti fuerunt c. And anciently were seised of certain lands which did pay to the Arch-bishop or Bishop of the Diocess quoddam charitativum subsidium refectiones pensiones annuales secundum quantitatem terrae consuetudinem patriae a dutifull and loving aid and some provisions and pensions according to the quantity of their lands and custome of their Country and the grants of such lands as appeareth by a Deed of the Dean and Chapter of Armach in Anno Domini 1365. to Arthur and William Mac Brin for their lives and the longer liver of them at the yearly rent of a mark and eight pence sterling una cum aliis oneribus servitiis inde debitis consuetis with all other charges and services due and accustomed had in them sometimes a condition of quam diu grati fuerint obedientes so long as they should be gratefull and obedient unto them Wherefore the Barons Nobility and Gentry of England who did lately enjoy those beneficiall Tenures by Knight-service now unhappily as the consequence and greater charges and burdens upon the people will evidence converted as much as an Act of Parliament in the twelfth year of the Reign of his Majesty that now is can doe it into Socage which were at the first only given for service and assistance of their King and Country and their mesne Lords in relation thereunto and have besides the before recited conditions many a beneficiall custome and usage annexed and fixed unto them and at the dissolution of the Abbies and Religious Houses had much of the Lands given and granted unto them and their Heirs in tail or otherwise with a reservation of a Tenth now a great deal below the value can doe no less in the contemplation of their honours dignities and priviledges received from them and many great favours continued unto their Heirs and Successors from Generation to Generation then doe that in the matter of Praeemption Pourveyance or Contribution towards the Composition or serving in of victuals or Provision for his Majesties Royal Houshold and the honor of his House and Kingdome which their Ancestors did never deny The Lord Maiors of London who doe take and re-receive yearly a payment or Tribute called Ale-silver and the Citizens of London who doe claim and enjoy by the Kings Grants Charters or Confirmations a freedom from all â—olls Lastage throughout England besides many other large priviledges and immunities and the Merchants of England and such as trade and trauell through his Ports and over his Seas into forrain parts and are not denied their Bills of Store to free their Trunks and wearing Clothes and other necessaries imported or exported from paying any Custome and other duties which with many other things disguised and made Custome-free under those pretences for which the Farmers of the Customes have usually had yearly allowances and defalcations would amount unto a great part of the peoples pretended damage by the compositions for Royall Pourveyance should not trouble themselves with any complaints or calculations of it when as both Citizens and Merchants can derive their more then formerly great increase of trade and riches from no other cause or fountain then the almost constant â—esidence of the King and Courts of Justice in or near London and the many great priviledges granted unto them and obtained for them by the Kings and Queens of England The Tenants in ancient Demeasne claiming to be free from the payment of Tolls for their own houshold provisions and from contribution unto all wages assessed towards the expences of the Knights of the Shires or Burgesses sent unto the Parliament which Sir Edward Coke believes was in regard of their helping to furnish the Kings Houshold provisions though since granted to other persons and their services turned into small rents now much below what they would amount unto and many Towns and Corporations of the Kingdome the Resiants in the Cinque Ports and Romney Marsh Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the Colledges and Halls therein and the Colledges of Winton and Eaton claiming to be acquitted from the payment of Subsidies by antient Exemptions may be willing to pay or bear as much as comes to their share in that one of the smallest parts of duty which is not to be refused by such as will fear God and honour the King And all the Subjects of England who enjoy their Common of Estovers in many of the Kings Woods or Forrests Pannage or feeding of Swine with Acorns or fetching of Ferne from thence Priviledges of Deafforrestations Assart lands Pourlieus and Browse wood and have Common of Vicinage and Common appendant not only therein but in most of his Manors by a continuance or custome of the charity or pitty of his Royal Progenitors and where they have no grant to produce for those and many other favours will for refuge and to be sure not to part with it fly to praescription and time beyond the memory of man and suppose that there was a grant thereof because that possibly there might have been one should not think much to let him pertake of some of their thanks and retributions which will not amount to one in every twenty for all the benefits which they have received of his Royal Ancestors or doe yearly receive of him Nor should forget that God Almighty the maker of heaven and earth giver of all good things and bestower of blessings who fed his people of Israel with Quails in the Wilderness where none were bred Manna where none was either before or since and made the Rocks to yeild water did in his Theocraty or Government of them by his Laws and Edicts written
necessary as that most prudently governing Queen who as King James her Successor saith prudentia faelicitate imperandi omnes ab Augusto principes superavit in the wisdome and happiness of her government out went and exceeded all the Princes of the world since Augustus Caesar understood it to be when by a warrant under the hand of the Earl of Leicester Master of her horse bearing date the 3. of July 1574. she commanded the furnishing of four able Cart Horses or Geldings with all manner of furniture for draughts to serve her during the Progress Or as he by a just authority derived from her by his letter bearing date the 29. day of June before authoâ—ized the Knight Marshall to apprehend and punish all such as George Middleton one of the Surveyors of the Stable should inform not to have done their duties in furnishing provisions for the Stable and by his warrant bearing date the 20. of October 1574. which was in the seventeenth year of her reign directed to the high Constable of Elthorne in the County of Middlesex commanded the Inhabitants to furnish the arrears of composition Oats for the years 13 14 15 and 16. then last past as also the composition Oats for that present year And the like to the Constables of the hundred of Isleworth in the said County and by a warrant under his hand in the year 1576. in the 19. year of her reign ordered the taking up of 16 Ambling Mares for the service of her Majesty at reasonable prises in such places as they should think meet And by as much right and reason as the Maior and Magistrates of London did in the seventh year of the reign of King Edward the second set prises on victuals ordered no more to be taken for a fat Oxe then 24 s. a fat Goose two pence half penny a fat Mutton twenty pence a fat Capon two pence a fat Hen a penny two Chickens a penny three Pigions a penny and 42 Eggs a penny and as the present Lord Maior doth or should daily and weekly by his Officers rate and set prices upon all Fish Cheese Salt Onions Garlick Oats Pease Victualls and Fewell brought unto London by water and upon all manner of Grain and Victuals brought by land and to commit to prison such as disobey which doth or might make his own provisions to be much the cheaper Or as the Maior of London did in the 8. year of the reign of King Ed. 2. take for the strengthening of Newgate and the Gaol therein and the repair of certain Chambers there by the Kings grant or Licence â—ertam consuetudinem de rebus vaenalibus a certain Toll or Custome of things to be sold or the like shortly after in auxilium or ayd to build a new Bulwark upon the wall of the City near the house of the Friers predicants Or as there was a Fee Farm rent of 80 l. per annum to the King and his Successors auntiently and long agoe reserved payable by the Town of Droitwich in Worcester-shire for their Salt-pits wherein their Burgers doe claim by proportions an estate of inheritance Or as in the Colleries of Newcastle upon Tine wherein the Owners of the Soil have an inheritance and propriety the King and his Progenitors have a legall allowance or imposition of twelve pence upon every Chaldron of Coles And with better reason may set a rate or price year by year upon his houshold provisions then Solomon did who though he in the Trade managed for himself in sending his ships to Ophir to fetch gold and silver made it to be in the large expression or manner of speech as plentifull as stones in the streets yet he did not give to all or any of the Tribes of Israel their Lands or Possessions who had them at their first coming into the Land of Canaan by Joshua and divine appointment allotted unto them and not given unto them by any of their Kings Or if he gave them any which doth not appear did not do it so largely as our William the Conqueror did in the rewarding of those that assisted him if what he so gave amounted but unto as much as would in those dayes make a competent living or maintenance for 10000 Knights and their Heirs which some that lived in or near his time believe to have been more then for 60000 l. and valued but at 20 l. per annum as they were reckoned in 1 Ed. 2. would amount unto 200000. pounds per annum and if but at three hundred pounds per annum which is now the least improvement would amount unto as much as three millions per annum sterling besides large quantities of Socage lands with twice or thrice as much more in the several reigns of our succeeding Kings given to the people in lands and yearly revenues of inheritance Or then Nehemiah who having the provisions allotted to the Governor and in compassion of the poverty of the people for that part of time remitting it could tell them that he might exact it of them but did not give them any Lands or Possessions and being but as a Conductor or Governour of them had not if he would wherewithall to doe it So as all degrees ranks and orders of the people of England may if the difference or value betwixt the former and present market rates and prices should be the Jonas that troubles their ship and affairs permit it to take its rest and be as well contented with that in the Kings case as they are in many of their own when as many of them can retain and keep without any murmur or grudging above 30 thousand pounds per annum lands of inheritance or as some have computed it above eighty thousand pounds per annum being almost all the certain and reall revenues which are remaining to the Crown holden of his Majesty and his royall Progenitors in Fee Farme at the small rents which were at the first and long agoe reserved thereupon when as at the times when they were first reserved they were in the intention of the Donors or the allegations likewise or intentions of the Donees proportioned according to the then yearly value of the Lands which are now improved in many or much of them to a twentieth thirtieth fortieth fiftieth or sixtieth part more then they were and if they were not as they are at all or so very much improved are no more then one in three to the price or value which silver now bears by the Ounce more then formerly and five pound of that rent when it was first reserved would according to the rate of 2 d. a Capon in King Edward the seconds time many of the Fee Farm rents having been more antiently reserved have bought 60 Capons at the then Market price now at two shillings six pence a Capon which is less by six pence or twelve pence in a Capon then the King now paieth for them will buy but
the King and his then more then ordinary numerous retinue could expend he was which many that were then present can testifie enforced by a Proclamation to forbid the bringing in of great quantities or more then was necessary And if the rates which Queen Elizabeth accepted her provisions to be served in by the Counties had been agreed to have been paid in money and not in kind and had by the fall of the Markets which the Lawes well executed would in a Kingdome of peace and plenty have easily brought to pass been too high a rate and more then the provisions served in kind would have amounted unto those who made that agreement for themselves and the Counties and places which they represented could not have receded from it no more then she or her Successors if the provisions served in kind should have grown cheaper or might have been had for less money or been bought by her Officers at easier rates then the Compositions could without the help of a Proviso with honour or Justice have desired that her provisions might not have been served in kind by the several Counties of England and Wales but that the money or rate then agreed upon to have been the price of those provisions should have been yearly paid into the Exchequer to be disposed of for that purpose which probably might have been the reason that at the first agreement made by several Counties for the Compositions some for 3 years some for four and some for seven there was a proviso that either party disliking which until our mad times or quarrelling with the fifth Commandement and finding fault with every thing that fed not the rebellious humour was not at all done by the Counties should be at liberty and free from that agreement For there can be no reason unless ingratitude and unreasonableness neglect of Laws and Duties breach of Faith and Contracts and reasonable Customes unto the King and Soveraign shall be installed virtues and put in the seat of reason and understood to be no otherwise that when all the Lands of the twelve adjacent and neighbour Counties of London have been so exceedingly and to such a height improved and the Lands of all the other Counties of England and the Dominion of Wales have by neighbourhood and communication largely likewise and more then formerly improved and raised their rents and estates by the rise and greater prices given for Corn Cattel Victuals and all other Houshold Provisions more then they were heretofore the Landlords made to be so very great gainers and the Tenants if they be no great gainers sure enough to be made savers by heightening the prices of Corn Cattel and all other victuals and houshold provisions the King only should bear the burden and not partake of some of the fruits if there were nothing else to require or deserve it of their great advance and increase in all their Estates and Revenues And that he by whose power alliance and interest with forreign Princes the People of England doe enjoy the trade as well inward from forâ—aign parts as outward into them the many priviledges and immunities procured for our Merchants by his famous Progenitors and Predecessors as that of Burgundy and the Neatherlands France Spain Portugal Ligorne the Russian or Muscovy Trade the Hanse or Hamborough Turkish and East-Indie Trades for all which but Burgundy and the east-East-land Trades our Merchants are beholding to Queen Elizabeth and King James the Rex Pacificus with the Trades now begining to florish in and with our English Colonies in Virginia Bermudas Barbados St. Christophers Meviâ— New-England and Sianam c. which doe serve to augment our plenties and delicacies in England and his protection of them and all their Trades with forreign Princes by his Leagues Confederacies and Ambassadors and allowing them the freedom of the Seas and Ports and that beneficiall Trade for the London Woodmongers or Colliers to Newcastle upon Tine for coals where their Chaldrons by which they buy are more then double to what they sell and measure by at London and the owners of the Colleries to gain their custome doe not only sell at cheap and easie rates but give and allow them for nothing seven and sometimes eight or nine Chaldron of their great and double chaldrons or measures in every twenty or score of chaldrons and notwithstanding their easie and small rates can by engrossing and keeping them upon the River of Thames unsold and a combination and confederacy among themselves sell their coals at 24 or 30 s. a single or London chaldron and think that also not to be gain or profit enough unless they can upon any Frost or increase of winter weather or the news sometimes but feigned or pretended that a Ship or two of coals were cast away by storms raise their coals 2 3 5 10 or 20 shillings more in a chaldron when they please to the damage of the Rich and great oppression of the Poor who buy their coals by the peck and must pay a greater rate for them then their labours small earnings every day from 4. in the morning until 12. at night will amount unto and did in the times of Rebellion and pretence of Gods glory to be advanced by it continue their mystery of trade and oppression to such a height impudence as when it was proved at a Sessions at the Old-Baily in London that they might sell cheaper and the Lord Maior and Justices had put a rate upon coals and ordered that they should sell accordingly neither the fear of Laws or Magistrates was able to perswade them to an obedience or diswade or deterre them from their Liberty of sinning should be denied such a legal antient and reasonable duty And may believe that the granting and permitting of Marts Fairs and Markets at home and the improvement of his Subjects Estates Revenues a five times moâ—e in some places and ten in others within the space of 200 years last past and 20 times more then what they were before that period by their peace and liberties may very well deserve so small an acknowledgement and return and so petit a priviledge as the having of a Praemption and his Provisions served in for his household at reasonable prices which is no more then what the Law it self enjoyneth to be done unto all the People and Subjects of England from the highest to the lowest and to the poorest as well as unto the aboundantly or indifferently rich And that when in our Magna Charta or great Charter of our Liberties the Praeemption Pourveyance was not denied upon present payment for all under 40 shillings and for the rest within forty dayes after and the Cart-taking upon the payment of ten pence a day for a Cart with two horses and fourteen pence a day for three secundum antiqua pretia after the old rates for which now are allowed better rates and being afterwards confirmed by King Henry the third in a solemn procession
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
preserve and increase their Husbands estates not to waste or destroy them would if they might injoy their spending humors in the wasteful course of their lives be able to consume the value of all or the greatest part of the Lands and Estates in a County But however such kind of people shall so misuse their estates and Talents our Kings Princes being to guide their Actions by higher more transcendent rules then any of their Subjects did in the better times of vertue and Hospitality are not certainly to be restrained in the magnificence and state of their House-keeping nor to have the means whereby they should do it diverted or diminished when as Alexander the Great answered some that â—ound fault with the greatness of his gift or bounty to a mean man The gifts of Kings are not altogether to be proportioned according to the men who receive it but of the King that giveth it and as the Duke of Savoy said unto King Henry the fourth of France when he found him unwilling to grant or remit unto him the Marquisate of Saluces Kings do wrong the greatness of their courage if they shall not give great things For if there were no necessity of a largeness of heart and expences in Hospitality in the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation they would not be good Subjects to blame it in their King nor honorers of him unless they should as they ought and are enjoyned by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy maintain and defend his Honor and Jurisdictions who by the preeminency of his Imperial Dignity is not to want that which should help to support and adorn it when as to that and the preservation of his people who are to subâ—ist and be protected by his welfare honor and happiness there will be a real and very great CHAP. V. Necessity that the King should have and enjoy his Ancient Right of Pourveyance or Compositions for them FOr that there is and should be always a necessity to observe the Laws of God Nature and Nations right reason and the Laws and reasonable Customes of England and of honoring and obeying the King and keeping him from mischiefs and inconveniencies and that the members of the body Politick should as every part of the body natural doth be willing to assist and contribute unto the good and well being of the head and better part of it And although that sin the fruitful parent of all our evils and miseries be not in numero eligibilium or to be put within the pleas of necessity yet goodness vertue and the duties of holy life are propter se expetibilia for their real benefits and excellencies to be desired and thirsted after as the Hart panteth and thirsteth after the water brooks And it would be neither wisdom nor goodness in the people to subject the King to an yeerly loss of seventy three thousand six hundred seven pounds fourteen shillings and seven pence which he did the last year loose in his house-keeping by the want of his Pourveyance or Compositions for them and by the excessive Rates and Prices of Provisions for his houshold which were put upon him by the avarice and ill custome of such as sold or furnished them besides his greater then formerly charge of Carts and other parts of the Royal Pourveyance and drive him thereby into wants of money which may either cause him to be more sparing then he would be otherwise in his Royal favors bounty indulgences and Charity to his people or to seek after and take those many legal and just advantages to support himself in his Kingly Office which the Law affords and cannot be denyed him or give a greater liberty or attention then otherwise he would to his necessities or the designs or invention of those who by finding out ways of supply to an over-burdened and insufficient Royal Revenue may shew the people their errors in the denyal of just rights and duties and by putting him to inconveniencies exceedingly increase and multiply their own and that it would be much better to imitate the prudence of Abigail who to make some recompence to Davids keeping safe all that appertained to her husband Nâ—bal so that nothing was missing whilst he was a wall unto him and his people by night and by day made haste and took two hundred Loaves two Bottles of Wine five Sheep ready dressed five measures of parched Corn an hundred Clusters or Lumpes of Raisins and two hundred Cakes of Figgs and intreated him to accept of the blessing or present which she had brought unto him then the indiscretion ingratitude and folly of her Husband Nabal and consider that even the Beasts of the Forrest would think themselves more happy and safe when the Lyon shall have his Food and Dyet provided for him and his family then that he and the young Lyons should roar for hunger and that it would be better for the Shephard to bring him a Lambe or two of the Flock then to enforce him in the extremity of hunger to come and take away three times as many more and carry to his Den. That the Turks may as they have for many ages past rejoyce in the foolish covetousness of the Citizens of Constantinople whose generations may curse and abominate their selfishness and then supposed wisdom in denying their Emperor money and means to defend them bewail the loss of Greece and weep unpittied for their children when they are by the command of that grand Tyrant of the Mahometan Empire taken from them and driven like heards of Cattle and Flocks of Sheep never more to know or remember their parents or be of the Christian Religion to his Serraglio where the Males are bred up in the service of his wars or civil affairs and many of their daughters made to be his Concubines And the French may lament their ill usage of their King Charles the seventh in his great extremities in refusing necessary Aids to resist the successes of our English Conquering forefathers which brought the Pesantry and lower ranks of that â—ince Gabelled and over Salted people not only to their present miseries and that fertility of Taxes which is since most fatally rivetted and entailed upon them but the loss of all their liberties Experience having told our Progenitors how much the necessities and wants of some of our Kings and Princes have heretofore given way to the excursions of some of their servants and Ministers upon the rights and liberties of the people which made the Lords and Commons in Parliament frequently in sundry Ages and Parliaments past to take a great care for the support and honor of their House-keeping the preserving of the Kings Rights and Revenues and the punishment of such as were any cause of the waste or diminishing of it And that a supply of the Kings wants or for the payment of his debts could never yet nor can be so Arithmetically made or proportioned either as to what was past or to come as
Capiti cordique suo oppitulari debeat precipue ad dignitatem Regiam Regnique auhoritatem publicam tuendam cum ut membrum particeps fit gloriae qua Caput fruitur every subject ought to assist his King as he would do his own head and heart and more especially to maintain and defend his Kingly dignity and authority for that every member in the body pertakes of the good and honor which the head enjoyes That it cannot be for the good or happiness of subjects to necessitate the power of their Prince or enforce him to try how far it can extend or prevail to free himself from wants or pressures incumbent upon him when as common observation can tell us that small Brooks or Rivolets being stopt or obstructed in their creeping Maeanders or way unto the greater Rivers who are to conduct and lead them into the great assembly or collection of waters will go out of their former gentleness and either inforce a passage by inundations or break their way through all the Barricadoes which can be made to restrain them and that the more they are endeavored to be restrained the more they do rage and easily overcame and bear down before them all that can come in the way of their combined fury stirred up and heightned by the necessities which were put upon them That a want of Revenue in a King to discharge common and ordinary necessaries makes necessitatem invincibilem violentam which saith Aristotle proposito electioni prohibet obstat such an irresistable and violent necessity as it enforceth that which was never intended nor would otherwise have been done which the Wisdom Spirit of God in the vision which he shewed unto the Prophet Ezekiel of the building order of the Holy City the Revenues of the Prince held fit to prevent by a competent Revenue That Armies do notwithstanding all the cares and commands of their Generals and the severest Laws and Discipline of war prohibiting spoil rapine or plundering break out for want of pay and necessaries into all manner of disorders and oppressions and that we need not enquire of the days of old or the Ages past of the numberless mischiefs and inconveniences which have inevitably followed the wants of Princes and the effects of power put on or let loose by necessities And may sadly remember that the people of England denying the late blessed King and Martyr his Customes of Tonnage and Poundage did not onely put him and the cause of his Protestant Allies and friends into many disadvantages for want of those aides which he would otherwise have been enabled to give them and enforced him to fall short of his desires and intentions therein but to give way to many of his craving Scots and wanting servants to take in the assistance of his Royal Prerogative and stretch it further then ever he intended That notwithstanding all the care which he could take that such grants and letters Patents should not transgress or go beyond the bounds of the Law and the right reason and use of it and did upon the granting of many of those Patents cause the Patentees to become bound in Recognizances of great penalties to surrender up their grants and letters Patents if at any time he or his Councel should equiâ—e it And had of his own accord in the year 1639. and 1640. by his Proclamation called in above thirty of such Patents and Commissions as either had been or were likely to be grievances unto the people and in the beginning of that long and unhappy Parliament had graciously condescended to th annulling or abolition of all that did but resemble grievances or were but likely to produce them And that those Letters Patents Commissions and Grants which were called Projects and Innovations were invented and promoted by many Citizens Tradesmen Gentlemen others who being none of the Kings servants did court and wo the Kings Prerogative unto it and busily employed some of the Kings servants to go shares with them in the gain or profit thereof none or very little whatsoever was pretended coming to the King or his Treasury began with the necessities which a causeless discontented part of the people did most unadvisedly and undutifully put upon their King whom they would not suffer to be at any rest untill he had ingaged himself and his Allies in a war with Spain and the then greatly prevailing house of Austria for the recovery of the Palatinate and to make a breach with France for the relief of Rochel and the Hugonots and left him afterwards in the midst of the troubles expence and danger thereof without any aid or assistance to go through as well as he could with it And may now understand how much better it had been to have acquiesced in the many precedents and authorities of the Kings just and legal power of sending his writs to the Cinque ports and many maritime Towns Counties many if not all of whom were by Tenure or Custom in lieu of many liberties priviledges granted unto them by the Kings Royal Progenitors which they do yet enjoy to send or furnish out a certain number of Ships as their own charges when the King should have any publick occasion or necessity to have continued the Kings most just ancient rights and regalities in his Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which by Land together with a fixed certain aid of Shipping contributed by the Cinque Ports and Maritime Towns and Counties would together with his Commissions of Array have enabled him upon a short warning never to have wanted most puissant and gallant Armies and Forces both by Land and by Sea consisting not of hirelings and strangers but such as would have fought pro Aris Focis for their own as well as their Princes interest and would not easily turn their backs betray or fly from their Wives and Children and their own Estates then to put the King for want of them to a yearly charge of no less than eight hundred thousand pounds per annum by Sea and by Land for the peace security honour of the Nation which did not before cost the late King fourscore thousand pounds per Annum Or to be charged with an everlasting Excise as to the moiety of the Excise of Ale Beer Sider Perry c. which did noâ— the last year amount unto more than one hundred five thousand pounds per annum in recompence of the yearly profits of the Kings Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service and what he looseth by his want of Pourveyance and Compositions for them both which did yearly amount unto a far greater benefit what an ill bargain both the King and the people have by the laying by of the one and granting the other how small an advantage the people got by their heretofore invisible Keepers of their Liberties who did all they could to keep them from them or by Oliver their
have made in overplus and spare money and that Paul Bayning an Alderman of London could about the same time besides an Estate in Land of inheritance of almost six thousand pound per annum make a totall of his personal Estate of about one hundred and fourty thousand pounds which was as much or more then many thousand men in the County of Essex could above their necessary expences make in â—n overplus or sum of money And that if money were in England as plentiful as it was in Jerusalem in the happy Raign of the wise King Solomon when it was said to be in as much abundance as the stones in the streets yet if Corn Cattel and food should be scarce the greatest plenty of money we can imagine would not deliver us from that dearth which was in that Kingdom not many years after when Samaria was besieged making the excessive rates of an Asses head and a Kab of Pigeons Dung and whether money be scarce or plentiful if there should be a famine as it was in Israel when there had been no rain in three years when the heavens were as brass and the fruits of the earth failed no man can with any reason believe that the great rates or prices of Corn Victuals and houshold provisions were because there was plenty of Gold Silver for if there be a scarcity of the thing to be bought it must be the want of that and not the abundance of money that makes the dearness which if it be never so much cannot increase that little that is of the Commodity or thing to be bought nor the want of money make it to be any cheaper the want or plenty of it contributing in such a case nothing at all to the making that to be dear which when there is more of it will be sold at a cheaper rate for a little money whether they that are to buy it have little or more of money the want of money constraining him that sells to sell cheaper and the great store of money sometimes but not often or generally perswading the buyer to give more then one that hath not so much will be dâ—awn to give for it For as it is true that in Virginia where their principal Barter or Exchange is by Tobacco instead of money and is there many times used as their Coyn or money that where any man there is in want of Tobacco and must needs have it he will be willing to give more Beavers Skins or any other commodities which he hath for it then he would otherwise do if Tobacco were more plentiful or easier to be had And as certain likewise that when there is great store of Tobacco and it is in the language of Merchants and Tradesmen but as a Drug and of little price or value there will not be so much of other things or commodities given for it So it will be as true and certain that there is in no Kingdom or Country of Christendom especially in our Brittain and other world where howsoever some Cosmographers and Chartes or Mapps would by a great mistake make Gold to be a Native the Sun is not so amorous as to beget us Mines of Gold nor is there any probability that there ever were any neither is there any Tagus or River bringing any golden Sands along with it And that which we have of Silver is but rarely and seldom intermixed and lurking in our Mines of Lead there can be no ground for our belief or reason that there should be such a disesteem or under valuing of Gold and Silver in regard of any plenty of it as was amongst the Americans or West Indians when they would give great quantities of it for Knives Beads or other Toys which the novelty of them or their desires to have them made to be pretious or that there should ever be such a surfet of Gold and Silver which most of the sons of men do desire to get or keep as to make all things dear which are to be bought with it or to hinder that cheapness of things to be bought with it which will be of necessity where there happens to be an abundance which is the true and never failing cause of cheapness abstracted and altogether a stranger to any supposed plenty of money neither the want of money or plenty of it being generally any sole proper or efficient cause of cheapness or dearness which residing in the commodity to be bought or fold tanquam in subjecta materia as in its matter or subject regulates and makes the price when there are no fraudes or Artifices to disturbe it according as there is a scarcity or plenty of that which is to be bought or sold which is the cause that the scarcity of money hath not in all ages made or enforced a cheapness of commodities or houshold provisions to be bought with it nor a plenty of money made a dearness or enhaunce of prices nor any thing like or within many degrees of that which is nâ—w or â—ath been within forty years last past and they therefore will err toto Caelo who by misplacing thâ— cause would make the plenty or scarcity of the mensura or money to be either the cause of the scarcity or plenty dearness or cheapness of the Mensurata or things to be bought with it as by a retrospect into the course of former times and ages may be plainly manifested Where we may find the Britaines when the Barbarians drave them back to the Sea and the Sea put them back to the Barbarians grievously tormented with a famine and mortality which raged in the Land and with great desolations wrought by that dearth and after they had by repressing their enemies gained some peace and that produced such a plenty and abundance of all things as the like before no age had seen to have faln into great Riots and Excesses plenty of money there being then none or little in the Land not being any cause of the dearth or scarcity nor scarcity of the mony of the plenty of provisions The Saxons being oppressed with the invasion of the Danes and enforced to pay them a Composition of sixteen thousand pounds shortly after twenty thousand pounds afterwards twenty four then thirty and lastly fourty thousand pounds untill all the Land was emptyed of all her Coyne did not find their Victuals to be cheap in regard of their want of money but Victuals and all things to be bought with it to be dear by reason of the spoil of wars and Murrain of Cattel And they having in Anno Domini 1066 met with Talions Law and the Divine vindicta or punishment for their perfidiousness to the Britaine 's hastened by their excess of pride the women wearing as Ordericus vitalis a contemporary of William the Conqueror tells us far longer Trains or Garments then was necessary and the men striving to overtake the pride and vanity of Absolom in his hair or Bush of Excrement and so
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
shillings eight pence and Rye at three shillings four pence the quarter and in the Country Wheat was sold for four shillings the quarter Malt at four shillings eight pence and in some places a Bushâ—l of Rye for a pound of Candles which was worth but four pence In the eighteenth year of Queen Elizabeth when the Act of Parliament was made in favour of the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge that the Colledges and Halls should take a third part of their rents in Corn Malt c. the price of a quarter of Wheat was valued but at six shillings eight pence the quarter and Malt at five shillings and the Tenants or Lessees might if it should be cheaper make their election to pay them after the rate as it should be the next Market day before their rents should grow due Anno 25. Eliz. four good Leggs of Mutton could be bought in London for four shillings two Roasting Piggs for two shillings and six pence four Pullets for four shillings four pence and four Leggs of Pork for four shillings and six pence which may prove that the Compositions for Pourveyance made with the County of Essex in or about the fourth year of her blessed Raign for six shillings eight pence a quarter of Wheat six shillings eight pence for a Mutton no more for a Pork and eighteen pence for a Hen was if not more or as much but a very little below the Market In Anno 34. Eliz. after her many glorious successes against the Spanish King with whom she had no commerce or alliance to bring any fruits of his golden Mines into England and the many plunderings and ransackings of his Indian Treasurs by our famous Drake and his worthy contemporaries in their high adventures and the enriching of our Land and people thereby that or any other plenty of money did not so increase if at all it had been able our Market prices for food and houshold provisions but that they might be bought at London at lesse then half the rate they are now at and the whole charges of a plentiful Dyet for a society of twenty four Gentlemen of no ordinary quality or condition with Beef Mutton Beer Bread Rabits Chickens Geese Capons Piggs Fish Sawses and Oysters and the charges of Fire Washing of Table Clothes and Napkins the Cooks and Butlers Salaries and all other appuâ—tenant expences of household Provisions with Suppers as well as Dinners came then by the week but unto six pound five shillings and fouâ— pence which amounted unto very little more then five shillings a man In Anno 43. Eliz. two necks of Mutton were bought for one shilling and ten pence and four large Shoulders of Mutton for five shillings six pence and a weeks Commons for the same society and number of quality which might have contented Justices of Peace and men of worshâ—p came but to eight pound ten shillings seven pence which charged every man with little more then seven shillâ—ngs a peece In Anno 20. Jac. after that England had suffered too many of the hungry never satisfied Scotish Nation not only to pertake of her plenties here but to carry home all the monies and riches which an over kind gracious Soveraign sending away few of their desires unanswered had so liberally distributed amongst them and the more then formerly profusions expences of â—ur own nation making such a scarcity of money as might have made provisions for housekeeping cheap if the supposed Rule of plenty of money would make them dear the rates of victuals and provisions met with some augmentation notwithstanding more then needed And in quarto Car. primi when too many mens unnecessary expences and the higher rack and rent of Lands had informed every man that victuals and household provisions were dearer then they should have been the rates and prices of diet and houshold provisions be-but a little more advanced And the stretch of prices and rates of victuals and houshold provisions from that time keeping pace with the rack and increasing of Rents or rather out going them and so far surpassing the bounds of reason and moderation as well as the customs and usage of former times and ages as a Tenant by several Leases of a Farm in the County of Essex almost fourty miles distant from London of no extraordinary Lands being raised since the beginning of the Raign of King James from five and twenty pounds per annum to eight thirty pounds per annum after that to sixty pounds per annum was most unconscionably turned out of his Farm this present yeer because he could not afford to give his â—acking Landlord one hundred Marks per annum and too many of the Landlords Tenants and Selleâ—s vying who should most drain and disadvantage the purses of the buyers or those which had need of their Lands or Commodities as if God Almighty the revenger of oppressions and relief at one time or another or by one way or another of such as suffer by it had onely made and ordained mankind to devour and take advantages one of another have so brought the Markets and prices of houshold provisions from those formerly more moderate gentle and easie to those immoderate and unconscionable rates which are now imposed upon the buyers as we may plainly see from whence they do proceed and that the raising and increase of the price of the ounce of Silver could not cause or effect them For although that our Denarius both Anglo Saxonick and Norman had more weight and Silver in it when the ounce of Silver was valued but at twenty then when it was at thirty pence and that had more weight and Silver in it then when it was at fourty or five and fourty pence then as it is now at five shillings the ounce and that a Denarius or English peny is but now the sixtieth part of an ounce and that when it was in the raign of King Henry the sixth raised to thirty pence the ounce in regard of the enhauncing of mony in foraign parts that our Denarius or penny passed as Mr. Malines saith in his Lex Mercatoria for three half pence and in the raign of King Edward the fourth for two pence when the ounce of Silver was raised to fourty pence and so continued untill the raigns of King Edward the sixth and Queen Elizabeth and was then valued a three pence because the ounce of Silver was enhaunced to sixty pence or five shillings and that all three pences coyned by that Queen did weigh but a peny weight and the six pence but a two penny weight which is rather to be understood as to the weight of the penny or two pence in the coyning or mynting of it then to the denomination of it or the value as the people did receive or pay it in Commerce and exchange when as six single pence or three two pences weâ—e then as they are now esteemed taken for no less then a six
great Talbots or as the Prior of Canterbury did of his Tenants who in every Manor were bound ex antiqua consuetudine providere Priori ibidem de quodam Palifrido competenti tempore novae creations suoe by ancient custome to present the Prior at his election or first admittance a Palfrey fitting for him Or which the Prior of Rochester did of his Tenants of the Mannor of Haddenham in the County of Buckingham who by ancient custome in the eighteenth yeer of the raign of King Edward the third were to Mow and make the Lords Hey Weed his grain in his demesnes pay certain Rent Corn called Booting Corn and five hundred threescore and three Eggs at Easter which in Anno 18 H. 6. were by an agreement made with the Prior of Rochester released for the sum of three pounds and an increase of Rent from thence forward viz. for every Yard land twelve pence every half yard land six pence every Cotland eight pence and every worthy some Tenants so called four pence which is to this day paid and continued And being besides obliged by their customes to the works and services following viz. That every Tenant holding a yard land and the Tenants of two half yard lands ought to plough the Demeasne lands of the Lord two days in the year viz. in Winter and in Lent for which they were to have their dinner allowed by the Lord every Tenant holding a yard land ought in harvest upon a flesh day as also upon a Fish day to be assigned by the Reeve or Bailiff to find two able persons every holder of a half yard every Cotland or Cottogea and every worthy ought to finde the same day one able and lawful person with Hooks or Sickles to reap the Lords Grain in his Demeasnes for which they were to have their dinner allowed them at the charge of the Lord or his Farmer every yard land ought to carry half a quarter of the Lords grain to Oxford being about twelve miles distant to Wallingford neer as much or to Wickham being about ten miles distant being Market Towns near adjoyning to Haddenham and all the Carriers were to have one penny in common to drink the morrow they ought not to work every yard land ought to carry to Marlow eleven quarter of Grain of antient measure at three tearms of the year to be quit from all things by six weeks after and to carry the Lords grain from his demeasnes into his Barn from the furthest field four loads from Dillicot field six loads and if they carry nearer then all the day if it please the Lord also if the Lord shall buy Wood every Yard land ought to carry two loads of Wood from the place into the Lords Yard so it be ready to carry before the Feast of St. Michael otherwise each Yard land should onely carry a horse load so as they may in one day go and return and all that week they should remain quiet likewise if the Lord should build houses he ought to buy Tymber and the men viz. his Coppyholders ought to bring it home viz. each hide every day one Load untill the whole be carryed so as they may in one day go and return also if it please the Lord to send for fish four hides ought to be summoned and two shall go for fish to Gloucester which is about six and thirty miles from thence and other two shall carry it to Rochester upon their own cost and they should remain quiet until they return all the Cotterels and worthy Tenants ought to wash the Sheep of the Lord and to sheer them and fully to perform all thereunto belonging and have nothing therefore and if a theif should be taken in the liberty of the Lord the Cotterel Tenants should keep him And were so due and of so long a continuance as though the Tenants some few onely excepted which would not pertake of the Composition and are still contented to do their work and carriage services did upon a reference made by King James to Henry Earl of Manchester Lord President of his Councel in Anno 1624. to hear and determine the differences betwixt Sir Henry Spiller then Lord of the said Mannor and the Tenants concerning that and other matters within a short time after viz. in the first year of the raign of King Charles the Martyr agree for a Release of the said services not acquitted in Anno 18 H. 6. to pay yeerly unto the Lord of the Mannor and his heirs after the rate of three pence for every Acre and a penny for every Messuage or Cotage which had no land belonging unto it Or as many the like beneficial customes and priviledges at this day enjoyed by the Lords of some thousands or more of Mannors in England which beloned unto the Abbies and Religious houses for which they have quit Rents or other payments not unlike the Compositions for the Royal Pourveyance Or that the Steward of the Kings house should not if the Kings Pourveyance and Prae-emption had not been remitted by Act of Parliament have authority to do as much as the Steward of the Kings house did about the eighteenth year of the Raign of King Edward the second notwithstanding so great priviledges immunities and exemptions granted and confirmed to the City of London command that no Fishmonger upon pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of his goods and chattels should go out of the City to forestall any Sea or fresh fish or send them to any great Lord or Religious house or any person whatsoever nor keep from coming to Town untill the hour appointed for selling be past untill the Kings Achators or Pourveyers should have made their Pourveyance to the use of the King Or that the King of England whose Royal Ancestor King Richard the first did not onely give to many Religious houses as to the Priory of Royston in Cambridgeshire divers exemptions and priviledges to be free from Carriages c. but de Regalium domorum aedificatione ac omnimoda operatione of works towards the repair or building of the Kings houses Ac ut silvae eorum ad praedicta opera aut ad aliqua alia nullo modo capiantur that their Woods or Timber should not be cut or taken for that or any other purpose and whose other Royal Progenitors have abundantly furnished diverse Abbies Religious houses with priviledges to be free of Carriage by Carts Summage upon horses de Thesauro ducendo Convoy of the Kings Treasure de operationibus Castellorum Pontium Parcorum Murorum work to be done in the building or repairs of Castles Bridges or Walls de vaccarum solutione quae dari solebant pro Capitibus utlagatorum and the payment of certain Cows or Cattel to redeem the forfeitures of Outlaws and exemptions from payment of Fumage or Chimny money Lestage or licence to carry away from Markets what they had bought or in release or discharge of customes such as at Beleshale in
Warwickshire belonging to some Religious house where they were to Mow three dayes at the charge of the house three dayes to Plow and at the charge of the house to reap one day and to have a Wether Sheep or eight pence or twenty five loaves or peices of bread one of the best Cheeses in the house and a measure of Salt and if any horse Colt were foled upon the lands he was not to be sold without licence nor were any of the Tenants to marry a daughter without licence and by the custome of the Township of Berstanestone in Warwickshire horse Colts foled upon the land were not to be sold without licence for which a penny was to be paid nor any of their daughters to be married without licence c. which in divers old Charters and confirmations of our Kings and Princes do frequently occur may evidence that such or the like were once undeniable duties to their Kings and Benefactors and onely released in favor of those which were the owners and proprietors of the lands and priviledges and being now enjoyed were formerly regalities and rights inherent and vested in the Crown of England should retain no liberties or priviledges for himself And that the Quit Rents as they are now called taken by the owners and proprietors of some of the Abby and Religious Lands for Eleemosinae's or Alms-money given by Founders or other charitable persons many a sum of money formerly paid for Mortuaries Pardons Indulgences Pitances or Pourveyances and Oblations which are at this time kept on foot and received under the name and notion of Quit Rents might put them in mind how necessary it is for them to perform the duty of Pourveyance to the King being the heir and successor of many of those which gave them And how unbeâ—oming the duty of subjects pertaking the benefits thereof it would be that the King whose Royal Ancestors Saint Edward the King gave for ever to the Abby of St. Edmonds Bury the Mannor of Mildenhall in Suffolk to buy wheaten bread for the Monks to prevent their necessities of eating Barly bread which he perceived them to do when he came once to visit them King John gave for ever to the Abby of St. Albans and King Edward the first as many other Kings of England have done to other Monasteries and Religious houses gave and confirmed for ever to the Abby of St. Edmunds Bury divers Mannors Lands Tyths and yeerly Revenues of a very great yeerly Revenue to maintain their Hospitalities Pitances and Liuâ—â—es of servants and for the relief of strangers and poor people coming thither should now have his own Hospitality and the means to support it taken from him And that if all the customes priviledges and Royalties as they are called which are now performed and willingly assented unto by Tenants and enjoyed by the Lords of other Mannors by the power and priviledges derived unto them from the King his Royal Progenitors were truely represented and brought to a publike view together with all the priviledges liberties exemptions and immunities granted unto the Cities Boroughs and Towns Corporate of England it might be wondered how they that enjoy so much so many liberties favours from the King his Royal Progenitors by grants or prescribed Indulgences should think there could be any reason to deny him those his most just necessary and ancient rights and liberties of Pourveyances or Compositions for them when at the same time they are so carefull to preserve and keep their own And it would be something more then unfitting that the King whose Royal Ancestors have allowed so many of his subjects those priviledges and liberties should be debarred from a greater right and legal liberty in his own case or when he should make his progress to Chester should be refused that priviledge more ancient then the Conquest of having of every Yard land two hundred Capons or Caponets a fat or stand of Beer and a certain quantity of Butter which as appears by the book of Domesday were by custome or Tenure to be provided for him and not enjoy as much liberty as Hugh Earl of Chester did when he could priviledge Nigell de haulton his Constable and his heirs Quod omnia quae ad praedicti Nigelli opus erant necessaria emant ministri sui ante omnes alios in Civitate Cestriae nisi praenominati Comitis ministri praevenerint sine cujuscunque contradictione that his servants should in the City of Chester without contradiction have a Prae-emption before any but the Earles servants and Officers or as the Abbot of Burgh who had a Pâ—aeâ—emption in all necessaries concerning the Abby a priviledge to pay an half penny cheaper then others in every hundred of Herring or the Abbot of St. Albans who was by the Charter of King John to have a prae-emption for any of his provisions to be bought in London as well as any of the Kings Officers the Abbot of St. Edmonds Bury having a like priviledge for his Fodder Corn. That the King of England whose Royal Ancestor King Aethelstane was able to give to the Church of Beverlye quasdam avenas vulgariter dictas Hestcorn percipiendas de Dominiis Ecclesiis in illis partibus certain Oats commonly called Hestcorne to be taken out of his Demeasnes and the Churches in those parts which by the dissolution of the Religious houses are now probably claimed and enjoyed by Laymen and did in Anno Dom. 936. ex sua Regalitate by his Kingly authority saith the History of that Foundation give towards the Hospitality and relief of the poor coming to the Hospital of St. Peters or St. Leonards in York de qual bet Caruca Arante in Episcopatu Eboraci unam Travam bladi out of every yard land of errable in the Bishoprick of York one Thrave which is four and twenty sheaves of Corn Et ex consensu Incolarum Episcopatus Eboraci Rex habuit saith that Historian Travas praedictas sibi successoribus suis sic quod exterminaret lupos patriam devastantes and was ofterwards granted by the consent of the inhabitants upon condition that he would destroy the Wolves which wasted that Country Erat siquidem in Diocesi Eboracensi tanta adtunc multitudo luporum quod omnes fere villanorum bestias devorarunt for there were in that Diocess such a multitude of Wolves which King Aethelstane thereupon destroyed as they almost devoured all the Beastes and Cattel belonging to the Countrimen should now that the County and Bishoprick of York have in all the after ages and successions of our Kings not onely received of them many and greater benefits but have been by their many good Laws and Governments protected and defended from all manner of Wolves be denyed so small an observance or retribution as the Pourveyance or Compositions for them which were charged upon that County or Bishoprick did amount unto and at the same time do either not
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
Cooks stall unless they shall first lay down their little peice of Coyn for it shall like some Mounsieur Mal-regard be inforced to pay for a Cart or horses before hand as if there were no other way to deal with them And in stead of being as the children of the servants of Solomon when Nehemiah long after returned with the children of Israel from Captivity found in the Registers in order to a preferment there being then no selling of Places in fashion be afterwards no where to be found unless it be in the Role of the Beggars or that they who have spent their times and industry in the hopes and expectation of their Princes favour should when the Jews who as the learned Grotius hath recorded would not suffer any Qui ministerio fuerant Regio alterius se quam Regis successoris ministerio addicere who had once served the King to serve any but his successors which our Kings of England have frequently observed be constrained to betake themselves to the services of subjects or such as they can finde have a mind to entertain them And not onely his servants who are or should be well wishers to the return of Pourveyance or Compositions for them some of whom as the Treasurer and Comptroller are by the orders of the house to be sworn That all things in the Kings house be guided to the Kings most worship and that they search the good old rule worshipful and profitable of the Kings Court used before time and them to keep and better if they can But all the people of the Nation should remember that the honor and magnificence of David and that Royalty of Solomon which amazed the Eastern world in the distribution of their Officers and servants in their houses and order theâ—eof were justly numbered amongst the greatest Actions of their might and Majesty And that the wisdom of our King Henry the seventh was not a little conspicuous in the happy effects which it produced when after a retuâ—n from his troubles and afflictions in his great care and wisdom to prevent avoid the like and make such an establishment of the Crown for himself and his posterity which he had as happily as unexpectedly attained unto as might continue to as long a duration as the world was capable of he did so order his Court and houshold as it was a composure and assembly of men of the best birth education fortunes and estates qualities endowments and reputation in every County of the Kingdom were most popular best allied and beloved therein and had no small influences upon their Tenants Allies and dependencies some of whom he made to be the Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber Esquires of the body Pensioners Carvers Cupbearers Sewers Ushers and Waiters and made the Yeomen of his guard out of the best of the Yeomandry or such as were recommended by the Gentlemen of his Privy â—hamber or other of his servants of the higher ranks which together with other carefully pickt and well chosen servants not introduced by money or the avarice of such as were about him disguises partiâ—lities or false recommendations were as so many Intelligencers Eyes and Ears to the better ordering of his Government and affairs which were then in a nice and perplexed condition or as the Wheels in Ezekiels vision and the eyes in them to inform as well as Act served as a glass in the absence of Parliaments to represent unto him from time to time the symptomes and indications of the peoples contents or discontents and if any thing were to be rectified for the good of his subjects or done by him were by the great obligations which the people and such as were not his servants had and owed unto them which were his servants and were sure to have them reciprocally to be their Advocates and Intercessors to the King for favors to be granted or done unto them the most sure silent and never failing engines and contrivances to accomplish their soveraigns just and reasonable ends by which excellent and ever to be imitated order and very easie to be put in practice in the choice and election of such as were to serve and stand before him which is and ever hath been one of the greatest paâ—ts of prudence either in the manage of smaller affairs in every mans private Family or that of a Kâ—ngdom which is the Complexum or comprehension of all of them And such an happy as well as wise and successeful constitution which many of the Heathen Princes and those that live in the dark of understanding do not omit for their own security by making the children of their subjects to be their servants and bred up in their Courts as Hostages and Sureties for their parents good behaviours made and observed in his Court and within doors conjoyned with that without doors by agreement and good accord with the then potent Barons and great men of the Kingdom who by their hospitalities and letting of their lands at small Rents which were as Loadstones to attract the hearts and affections of the common people did not onely augment their own grandeur but like Solomons Lyons upholding his Throne imployed it in the support of the honor and magnificence of their King and Soveraign did to the univeâ—sal content both of Prince and people Domi forisque atchieve and bring to pass his many great and difficult affairs by imitation whereof and continuing that or the like course King Henry the eighth his son did deliver his people and Kingdom from the Impositions of Rome wherewith it had formerly been much troubled And Queen Elizabeth likewise waded through those many difficulties which had beleagured her Crown and Scepter and did those other great actions in defence of her self and her people which have laid her up in glory and made her remembrance to be as precious as the Spikenard or the sweet smelling Mirrhe and the most precious of Odors The consideration whereof and what will necessarily follow by any contrary course to be held and the lessening of Officers and servants by the want of Pourveyance or Compositions for them upon pretences of thrift and good husbandry or being supernumerary may inform us that it will not onely diminish and cloud the Majesty and splendor which is necessary to be in the Courts of Princes where the people should behold as well as rejoyce in the State and honor of their Kings which in England did outgo and surpass all that of our neighbour Princes but break the Links of that golden chain of order in the English Court when it will be apparent that such as otherwise may seem to be supernumeraries are not to be judged or looked upon as they would be in private families where their concernments are most commonly with a respect unto profit more then Worship or Honor that Princes are to have and keep a greater State then any of their subjects and that such a State which is some times made up
sold Puertes secos or for goods or commodities carryed to be sold by Land a Tax upon Cards besides many Almoxariffadgo's laid upon the Towns and people a particular Tax upon Tunny Fish a third paâ—t yeerly collected of the Rents and profits of all the Revenues belonging to every City and Town in the Kingdom every one having some appropriate unto them and of Fines and penalties imposed upon any quenâ—s therein Doth not do as the Emperor and German Princes do by their people and subjects who besides the Dranksteur Bierrecht Biersteur or Excise upon drink and their Schoorstein oder Caming gelt or Chimny money Frawlensteur certain quantities of Wine appropriate to the Prince those many Consuetudines quae praestantur in recognitionem Dominii directi Jurium Dominicalium Customes and services which are to be performed to the Emperors or chief Lords of whom they hold and their Laudemia's Lehâ—wahrs or Reliefs which if it be a Hahe Lehâ—wahr is of great men or Estates a Twentieth penny in Ecclesiastical Fees or Revenues two Dollers per cent and in the Kleine lehne wahr or small Estates or Revenues a sixteenth penny and over and above what is paid for Licences of Alienation or for lehn gelâ— for a Liveâ—y or investiture into Lands Hanâ—â—ohn an Oblation for any thing written in a subjects favour by the Prince and Recht steur a payment of money towards the maintenance of the Courts of Justice do take Turkensteur a Tribute for war or defence against the Turks Krieg steur a Tax for the payment of souldiers Forst gelt Forrest money Mase gelt money paid for measures Malschwein for Swine Last gelt Ton money or gaging of vessels Pfâ—ug gelt a Tax upon every Plow Bâ—lcken gelt Timber money Haupt vizh money for the head of every Beast Zehenden vam Fleisch wein corne Erbsen Tenths of Flesh Wine Corn and Herbs Hausen gelt a Tax upon houses Frey gelt money upon the making men to be free Schuck gelt Shoo money Brucken gelt Bridge money â—eg gelt way money or for passage Aufâ—nauch gelt or Aufâ—arth money paid in Cities and Towns for being chosen into any Office or Magistracy and Abefarth Abschusz Ablosung when one removeth his Family or houshold from one City or Town to another and is to pay a tenth of any goods sold upon such removals Toll or Foriscapium to be paid by the buyer over and above the price agreed to be paid to the seller Accisz upon all Commodities sold and spent and a Land steur Tribute upon Lands which is ex voluntate superioris ob necessitatem supervenientem variantur imposed for the other as aide against the Turks and for payment of souldiers are to be by publike assent ordained at their Diets or Parliaments it the pleasure of the Prince and varied according to occasions or necessities And so many other Taxes and payments for the publike saith Bâ—soldus ut nominibus laboretur as there are scarce names enough for them so that as free and full of liberties as that Nation did heretofore suppose themselves to have been they do find by their Taxes and payments that the feathers which their Electors Dukes Margraues Counts Barons and Imperial Cities have eâ—ther taken by force gained by favor or purchased for money from the Imperial Roman Eagle which Crantzius and other good Authors do heavily complain of have but increased rather then eased the burdens of the common people Doth not as the King of the French who besides his Foüages or Chimney money which though they of Gulen did heretofore so little like of as they rebelled against our famous English Black Prince for imposing twelve pence upon every Chimney they believe in that and the other parts of France to be accustumez de toute Anciennete allowed by all Antiquity the services and profits Feodall le Paulet or a Tax of four Deniers upon every liuer or two shillings of the yeerly value of Offices profits of Prizes at Sea and of the Admiralty Tenths and first fruits payable by Ecclesiastical persons Escheates Ottroyes Licenses and Dons gratuits gifts or oblations and Regalities doth continue as perpetual a Tax called le Tailon imposed by King Henry the second in the year one thousand five hundred fourty nine to increase the Wages of the soldery in regard of the dearness of victuals and the burdens which the men at Arms or Gens d' armes did lay upon the Laborers and common people la Creüe or augmentation for the pay of the Army an Impost of the twentieth penny upon Wine sold in gross the eighth upon all in Normandy by retail and a Tax upon all drink now made a constant Revenue of the Crown a Tax upon every vessel of Wine which in the time of Julius Caesar had no Imposition or burden laid upon it carryed into Walled Towns or the Suburbs and to pay as much though it be transported from thence again before it be sold The Gabell upon Salt which being imposed by Philip the long with a Protestation that it should continue but a while and afterwards by Philip de Valois in the year one thousand three hundred twenty eight who declared that he intended not to incorporate it to the Royal Demeasnes being remitted by Charles the fifth in the year one thousand three hundred sixty nine is since made perpetual and annexed to the Royal Revenue and the King and his successors are become the only Merchants of Salt whereof every house is to take a certain proportion loaded with the Kings Taxe and Imposition upon it though it be more then he have occasion to expend the aequivalent or aequipollent which in Narbonne was granted for the abolition of an old Tax of the twentieth part of the price of all moveables sold by retail about the year one thousand four hundred and sixty and agreed to be paid by a Denier in every Liure not onely for all moveables but of Flesh and Fish sold by Retail and the sixtieth part of all the Wine bought to sell again and is paid in Auâ—ergâ—e for a liberty to buy their Salt where they please and to be exempt from the Tax and Imposition of buying it at the Kings Granaries or Salt Magazines being with Wine a great part of the natural commodities of the Country besides the other Impostes Entries or Customes to be paid in Towns or for Peages and passages by Land or Water la subsistance which in the Raign of King Henry the fourth and since have been leavyed pour faire subsister les soldats dans les quartiers d' hyver moyennant quoi on devoit estre exempt du logement de la Gens d' armes durant l' hyver to keep the souldiers in or to maintain them in their quarters all the Winter and to be exempt from the trouble of lodging them in their houses la solde dâ— 50 mille hommes a Tax for the wages of fifty thousand men first laid upon the Cities and Walled Towns
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