and prices of Barley and what they made it with and confirmed by Inspeximus of the Ordinances of divers Kings of England the Kings Progenitors which set the assise of Bread and Ale and the making of measures and howsoever stiled a Statute appears not to have been an Act of Parliament but an Exemplification only made of those Ordinances and Orders by King Henry the third at the request of the Bakers of Coventry mentioning that by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Reign he had granted that all good Statutes and Ordinances made in the times of his Progenitors aforesaid and not revoked should be still holden in which the rates and assise of bread are said to have been approved by the Kings Bakers and contained in a Writing of the Marshalsey of the Kings House where the Chief Justice and other Ministers of Justice then resided and by an Ordinance or Statute made in the same year for the punishment of the offending Bakers by the Pillory and the Brewers by the Tumbrel or some other correction The Bayliffs were to enquire of the price of Wheat Barley and Oats at the Markets and after how the Bakers bread in the Court did agree that is to wit waistel which name a sort of bread of the Court or Kings House doth yet retain and other bread after Wheat of the best of the second or of the third price also upon how much increase or decrease in the price of wheat a Baker ought to change the assize and weight of his bread and how much the wastel of a farthing ought to weigh and all other manner of bread after the price of a quarter of Wheat which shewes that the Tryal Test Assay or Assize of the true weight of bread to be sold in all the Kingdome was to be by the Kings Baker of his House or Court and that there was the Rule or Standard and that the prices should increase or decrease after the rate of six pence And Fleta an Author planè incognitus as to his name saith Mr. Selden altogether unknown who writ about the later end of the Reign of King Ed. 1. tells us that amongst the Capitula coronae itineris the Articles in the Eyre concerning the Pleas of the Crown which were not then novel or of any late institution enquiries were made de vinorum contra rectam assisam venditoribus de mensuris item de Forstallariis victualibus â—â—nalibus mercatum obviâ—ntibus per quod carior sit inde venditio de non virtuosis cibariis of wine sold contrary to the assize of Measures and Forestallers of the Market to make victualls dearer and of such as sold corrupt food or victuals An. 31 Ed. 1. it was found by inquisition that Bakers and Brewers and others buying their corn at Queen-Hithe were to pay for measuring portage and carriage for every quarter of corn whatsoever from thence to Westcheap St. Anthonies Church Horshoo Bridge to Wolsey street in the Parish of Alhallowes the less and such like distances one ob q to Fleetstreet Newgate Cripplegate Birchoners Lane East-cheap and Billingsgate one penny 17 Ed. 2. By command of the King by his Letters Patents a Decree was made by Hamond Chicwel Maior That none should sel Fish or Flesh out of the Markets appointed to wit Bridge-streat East-cheap Old-Fishstreet St. Michaels Shambles and the Stocks upon pain to forfeit such Fish or Flesh as were sold for the first time and for the second offence to lose their Freedome And so inherent in Monarchy and the royall Praerogative was the power and ordering of the Markets and the rates of provision of victuals and communicable by grant or allowance to the inferior Magistrates as the King who alwayes reserves to himself the supreme power and authority in case of male administration of his delegated power or necessity for the good and benefit of the publick is not thereby denuded or disabled to resort unto that soveraign and just authority which was alwayes his own and Jure coronae doth by right of his Crown and Regal Government belong unto him as may appear by the forfeiture and seising of Liberties and Franchises and many other the like instances to be found every age And therefore 41 King E. 3. without an Act of Parliament certain Impositions were set upon Ships other Vessels coming thither with Corn Salt and other things towards the charge of cleansing Romeland And 3 Ed. 4. the Market of Queen Hithe being hindred by the slackness of drawing up London Bridge it was ordered that all manner of Vessels Ships or Boats great or small resorting to the City with victuals should be sold by retail and that if there came but one Vessel at a time were it Salt Wheat Rye or other Corn from beyond the Seas or other Grains Garlick Onions Herrings Sprats Eels Whitings Place Codds Mackarel c. it should come to Queen-Hithe and there make sale but if two Vessels came the one should come to Queen-Hithe the other to Billingsgate if three two of them should come to Queen-Hithe and if the Vessels coming with Salt from the Bay were so great as it could not come to these Keyes then the same to be conveyed to the Port by Lighters Queen Elizabeth by advice and order of her Privy Councell in a time of dearth and scarcity of corn commanded the Justices of Peace in every County to enforce men to bring their Corn to the Markets limited them what proportions to sell to particular persons and ordered them to cause reasonable prices and punish the Refusers And the like or more hath been legally done by the Kings authority in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr in the beginning of whose Reign by the advice of all the Judges of England and the eminently learned Mr. Noy the then Attorny Generall rates and prices were set by the Kings Edict and Proclamation upon Flesh Fish Poultry and most sort of victuals Hay Oats c. commanded to be observed All which reasonable laws constitutions customes were made confirm'd continued by our Kings of England by the advice sometimes of their lesser and at other times of their greater Councels the later whereof were in those early dayes composed of Bishops Earles and Barons and great and wise men of the Kingdome not by the Commons or universall consent and representation of the people by their Knights of the Shires or Burgesses sent as their Procurators ad faciendum consentiendum to consent unto those Acts of Parliament which should be made and ordained by the King and the Barons and Peers of England for they were neither summoned for that purpose nor represented in Parliament untill Anno 49 H. 3. and in Anno 26 or 31 Ed. 1. were called thither only ad faciendum quod de communi consilio per Comites Barones ceteros Proceres to do those things which by the King and the Barons and
understanding and more distempered part of the people should be better and more to be followed and therefore to be taken in and receive as great an entertainment and applause as the Children of Israel did their Golden Calfe with shouts and acclamations whilst Moses as they thought had tarried too long with God Almighty in the Mount for his direction in the making of Laws or as the Romans did the more to be respected twelve Tables of Laws then those of their Mechanick and vulgar Judgements and reasonings which the wiser and more noble not the illiterate and foolisher sort of their Citizens and people had learned well considered and brought home from Athens and other cities of Greece as fit to be observed or imitated When as it might rather be remembred that God in his infinite mercy to the works of his own hands did so early distribute the Beams of his Right Reason and Illumination as the days of old were not without wisdom which being from everlasting and rejoycing afterwards in the habitable parts of the Earth her delights were with the sons of men And therefore Jeremy no Fanatique or man of an Imaginary or self conceited mistaken holiness but inspired by God Almighty and filled with the wisdom from above did not tell us as many of our Novelists and Commonwealth-mongers and the would be wise of the Rota's or Coffee-houses would make us believe that all the succesful experiments which the long lived world had approved to be right reason were either burthensome or oppressive and not to be any longer esteemed or that the paths of wisdom were worne out and not at all to be walked in but with a thus saith the Lord enjoyned us as if there and no where else it were to be found to stand in the ways and see and ask for the old Paths where is the good way and walk therein But that would have been to their loss and rather then faile of their purpose or forsake their beloved ignorant intermedling in Government they could never think any thing to be well until they had made all things ill and like Children would have liberty to do what they list which would do them as much good as the liberties of their misusing the power of the Sword or in medling in matters too high for them did in these last unhappy Twenty years and as little conduce to the publick or their own good and safetie as for Children to be permitted the use of Swords or Pistolâ— whereby to kill and mischief one another or of fire to burn themselves or set their Parents houses on fire or as they are said to do in Gonzaguas new discovered world in the Moon to govern their parents cannot finde the way to obey Laws and reasonable Customs unless their narrow Capaciâ—ies or small Understandings may apprehend the cause of it the reason of it must like the Lesbian rule be made to be as they whyâ—â—sie or fancie it and obedience to Kings or Laws cut out to their Interest and Conveniencies And will not believe that they have Liberties enough unlesse like Swyne got into a Garden they may foule and root up all that is good and beautifull in it And with their cries and gruntings could never be at quiet until they had trampled upon Monarchy and the majesty and loveliness of it digged up the Gardens of Spices and stopped the streams of our Lebanus And the late blessed Martir King Charles the First was no sooner in the defence of our Magna Charta and the Lawes and Liberties of England murdered but they and their Partisans must frame a Commonwealth and pretend a necessity thereof for avoiding the intollerable as they falsely called them burdens and oppressions of the people amongst which is ranked that great and most notorious piece of untruth that the Cart-taking for the King impoverished many of the people and that the Pourveyance cost the Country more in one year then their Assessments to the Army which with other matters contained in that most untrue and malicious Declaration of the Parliament of England as they then called themselves beraing date the 17. day of March 1648. are more against truth or any mans understanding then the tale of Garagantua's mighty mouth and stomach of eating three hundred fat Oxen at a meal and having five or six men to throw mustard into his mouth with shovels And as false as it was must for an edium to the late King and his Monarchicall Government be translated into Latine and sent and dispersed by their Emissaries into all the parts of the Christian world And from thence or some of the other I may not say causes but incentives or delusions the people too many of whom were inticed or made to believe any thing though never so much against truth reason common sense and their own knowledge must be taught for they could of themselves not find any cause to complain of it to believe that Declaration to be true to the end that whilst they did then bear and had long before endured very great assessements and burdens they might be enabled and be the better in breath to sustein for many years more a seaventy and sometimes a ninty and not seldome one hundred and twenty thousand pounds monethly Taxes and Assessments besides many other greater impoverishments and oppressions obedience must be called a burden every thing but ruining honest men and destroying of Loyaltie an oppression and every thing but vice and cheating to maintain it a grievance for the Truths sake therefore which every good and honest man is bound to submit unto and deâ—end and in vindication of his late Sacred Majesty and the Laws and Honor of my Country the too much abused England by such Tricks and Villanies and upon no other motive byasse or concernment but to make that scandal which only becomes the Father of Lyes and the causelesness of that complaint appear in their Deformities and proper colours I shall by an enquiry and search for the Original and Antiquity of Royal Pourveyance as to the furnishing of several sorts of Provision for the Kings House and Stable at a small or lesser rate then the markets and a praeemption for those or the like purposes used in this and most Nations of the World bring before the Reader the Laws and Acts of Parliament in England allowing it the Legality Reason Necessity and right use of it the small charge and burden of it and the consequences which will inevitably follow the takeing of it away which we hope will remove the ill opinion which some worthy men heretofore by reason of an abuse or misusage only and some very learned men of late misled by them have had of it CHAP. I. The Antiquity of Regal Pourveyance and Praeemption for the maintenance of the Kings Houses Navy Castles Garrisons attended by a Jus Gentium and reasonable Customs of the most or better part of other Nations WHich being not here intended or understood
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
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
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
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
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
H. 8. c 8. (i) Ibid. ca. 14.25 H. 8. ca. 11. (k) 24 H. 8. ca. 3. 4.25 H 8 ca. 2. (l) 28 H. 8.14.37 H. 8.23.5 E. 6.17 (m) 32 H. 8. ca. 8 Ibidem ca 14. (n) 37 H. 8 23. (o) Ibidem (p) Ibidem (q) Ibidem (r) 2 3 E. 6. ca. 3. (s) 3 4 E. 6. ca. 1â— (t) 5 6 E. 6. c. 14. (u) 5 Eliz. ca 12 (x) 6. Parliament James the second Reg. Majest (y) Ezekiel 16.49 (z) Claus. 3 E. 2. â— 2. in dâ—â—s (a) pat 15 E 2. m. 5. (b) Pat. 7 E 2. part 1. m 2â— Claus. 37 E. 3. part 1. m. 26. Pat. 1. part 3 R. 2 m. â—9 Pat. 1 H 4 part m. 8. (c) 23 E. 3. c. 6. Lambard 〈◊〉 4â—3 448. (d) Book of Entries 49 â— Hill 2 H. 7. â—ol 11 pl. 11. (e) 2 Reg. câ— 6. (f) 1 Reg. 18. (g) Spelman Glossâ—â— in voce Fore fang L.L. Inae cap. altero ante penult M. S. (h) Somners Treatise of Gavelkind Customs in Kent (i) Spelman Glossar in vâ—cibus Fodrum Sigonius de Regno Italiae lib. 7. (k) Radenicus in gestis Friderici lib. 2. ca. 5. (l) Somner of Gavelkind 116 (m) Coke 2. par Instit. p. 204. (n) Somner Treatise of Gavelkind Coke 2. parâ— 5. report 81. (o) Cokes 2. part 5. Relat. Cases de By-lawes and Ordinances (p) 44 E. 3 19. Lindâ—wood constâ—tutiones Angliae constitut O. boâ—oni Johnson of the order and government of Ludgate (q) Bodin de Repub. ca. 7. (r) In Baga de quo warranto in Com. Not. placitis de Ragemannis coram Justic. Itinerant in Com. Nott. anno regni Regis 8. incipiend nono in Recept Scacarâ—i Estate de la France par N. Besogâ—e en l' An. 1661. (s) Skene de verborum significatione (t) Register of â— writs 87. (u) Skeâ—euâ— ad Tit. de Herezeldis in Quon attach ca. 25. Alciat lib. 1. parerg ca. 45. Spelman glossar in voce Heriotum Neoâ—â—acitus de feudiâ— Hollandiciâ— (x) Repetit l. Imperial in Bartholmeo Camerari 769. (y) â—esoldus discurs Politic 741. Commentar duaâ—eni Wesenbech Contii in Consuetudine Veudâ—rum Obertuâ— de Feudis lib. 2. â—t 24 28. Spelman glossar in voce auxilium Littleton ca. 3. Escuage Claus. H. 3. (z) Bractâ—n lib. 2. tract 1. cap 16. num 8. (a) Spelman glossar in voce Auxilium (b) Spelman glossar in voce Ebedâ—â— (c) Ex nigro libro in Aâ—chivâ—â—iscali sive recept Fines 6 Johannis Mat. Paris 336. (d) Spelman glossar in vâ—ce Corredio F. N. â— 230. (e) Fitz Herbert Novel Natura Brevium 230. A. (f) Genes 21. v. 23.26 (g) 2 Sam. ca. 24. v. 21 22 23. 1 Reg. 10. 2 Reg. 5. (h) Charles Loysâ—aâ— traite des sâ—igneuriâ—s Stows Survey of London 421. (i) Gervasius Tilburiensis in Archizo Fiscali apud Recept Scaccâ—â—ii Spelman glossâ—r in verbo Firma (k) Magna Charta Regis Johannis apud Mat. Paris 255. 256. 9 H. ca. 2. Selden 2 part titles of honor Charta H. 1 in Mat. Paris 240. Mat. Paris 380. Anno 4 Car. 1. Instructions of King James to his Councel of the Court of Wards and Liveries Petit Parliament 21 Ed. 3. n. 43 (l) 34 H. â— ca. 26. Charta Gulielmi Conquestoriâ— in notis Seldeni ad Hist. Edmeri (m) Stephens discourse of Procurations Synodals c. 44. (n) Stephens Ibidem 13. (o) Mat. Parker Antiquitates Britannicae 244.348 (p) Camdeâ— 1. part Annales of Queen Elizabeth in Anno 1560. (p) Spelman in voce Herenâ—ciis (r) Comment in Artic. super Chartas 542 543. (s) Vide Act for Subsidies in Anno 4 Car. 1. Leviticus 38. v. 32 33. Numbers 18. v. 21. Numbers ca. 7. Numbers 9. v 13. Fleta lib. 8. ca. 47. Spelman glossar in voce Ciricksceat Inae LL. ca. 4. Canuti LL. ca. 10. Zach· 9.9 Mark 11. v. 3. Bracton de actionibus ca. 2. Oldendorpius in locis communibus Actionum Juris Civilis 9. 11. Glos. in veâ—b usque ab hoc tempus c. serviâ—tium 18 q. 2. Camdâ—â— 1 〈◊〉 Annals of Queen Elâ—zabeth Aâ—ciat lib 5. aâ—â—ust Camden 1. part Annals of Queen Elizabeth in Anno 1560. Weavers funeral monuments 176. Siâ— Roger Twisdens Vindication of the Church of England 77. Conquestorisâ—9 â—9 Cokesâ— part 5. Reports Glanvil lib. â—2 cap. 9. and Coke Magna Charta ca. 10. Fitz. Heâ—bert brief de droir patent N. â— B Register of Writs Câ—ke 4 â—h part Institutes Peâ—er Martyr Commenâ— in lib 1. Reg Besoldus in discurs politic de Aerarâ—o ca. 1. Bullinger de Vecâ—igal ca. 1. Casâ— de Swanns Coke 7. â—elat Stamford pleas of the Crown and Bracton lib. 3. de corona Pat. 20 Ed. 3. m. 1. Ex librâ— Câ—mput Garderobâ— 34 Ed. 1. ex parte Rememb Reg. Paâ— 33 Ed. 3. pat 3. m. 4. 1 Reg. 10.28 Pat. 11 E. 3. m 5.3 part 22 E. 3 part 1. m. 20. Pat. 24 E. 3. part 2. m. 16.25 E. 3. part 2. m. 9.28 E. 3. part m. 4. Pat. 12 E. 3. part m. 15. Pat. 12 E. 3. part 1. m. 2. Pat. 11 E. 3. part 3. m. 5. Rot. Parl. 2 R. 2. Seldens Maâ—e clausum â— Parliamenâ— James 1. ca. 8. Spelman in verb. â—oâ—row mealis Borrow Laws ca. 39. Statutes of David the second Anâ—o 13â—7 5. Parliament Mary 1551. 7. Parliament King James 6. An. 1581. 9. Parliament James 6. 1585. 15. Parliament James the sixt Pat. â— H. 5. m. 9. Camâ—en 2 part Annals of Q Elizabeth de Anno 1576. Rex Jacobus in his â—asilicon Doron or instructions to his Son Prince Henry Stowes Survey of London M. S. of the antient order and government of the City of London Pat. 8 Ed. 2. pâ—rt 2. m. 7. 21. Pat. 10 Ed. 2. part 2. m. 11. 1 Reg. câ— 10 Spelman â—loss in voc◠〈◊〉 Nehemiah 5. v. 10. Stowes Survey of London 925. in quarto Jud. ca. 18. Inquis 10 E. 2. n. 142. Escâ—et 23 E. 3. post mortem Roberti de Byker Claus. 10 H. 3. m. 13. in dorso Mat. Paris 86â— Claus. 9 H. 3. m. 9. Calvins Case in Câ—kes 2 part 5. Reports Lord Chancellor Ellismeres post Nati or argument concerning them Gregor Tholosan Syntag. Juris universi 〈◊〉 Comment 398.6 Pat. 46 Ed. 3. part 2. m. 17. Pat 10 Ed. 3. part 1. m. 36. Pat. 4 R. 2. part 2. m 34. Mich. 4 E. 1 coâ—am Rege Hil 15 E 1. Escaet 23. E. 3. post mortem Gulielmi de Roos de Hamlake Pat. 22 Ed. 3. part 1. m. 1. in dorso â—râ—ayd del Roy 29. Vide Petition of the Lord Maior and Common Council of London to the Commons in Parliament assembled in April 1662. câ—a s. 20 H. 3. m. 24 in dorso De cius de regul Juris regul 176 1 Reg. ca. 10. v. 15. 25. Grotius Annotat ad vet Testament 1 Reg. ca. 10. v. 15. 25. Mich. 23 Ed. 1. coram â—egâ— Genes 6 19.
The Antiquity Legality Reason Duty and Necessity OF PRAE-EMPTION AND POURVEYANCE FOR THE KING OR Compositions for his Pourveyance As they were used and taken for the Provisions of the KINGS Houshold the small charge and burthen thereof to the PEOPLE and the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away By FABIAN PHILIPPS Manilius 3 Perquè tot Aetates hominum tot tempora Annos Tot Bella varios etiam sub pace labores Virgil Aeneid lib. 8. Sic placida populos in pace regebat Deterior donec paulatìm Decolor Aetas Et Belli Rabies Amor successit habendi London Printed by Richard Hodgkinson for the Author and are to be sold by Henry Marsh at the sign of the Princes Arms in Chancery-Lane 1663. To the Right Learned and truely Noble Lord Christopher Lord Hatton Baron of Kirkby Knight of the Bath Governor of the Isle of Guarnesey and one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honorable Privy Council My Lord THE Holy Evangelist St. Luke in his Gospel and History of the Acts of the blessed Apostles when he inscribed or Dedicated it to his friend Theophilus hath given us to understand that the Dedication of Books unto such as would read and peruse them is no late or Novel usage for it was in those times or shortly after not thought to be unfitting or unnecessary to take the approbation and opinion of Grave and Learned men of such things as were to be made publicke as Plinius Junior in his Epistles informs us so that it may with reason and evidence be concluded that the Dedication of Books was not originally to procure the favor of some great or good Man neither were the Epistles Dedicatory heretofore acquainted with those gross Flatteries untruths or immense and accumulated praises of the Patrons or their Ancestors which some Foraign Printers for their own private gain do use in publishing Books out of some Copies and Manuscripts left by the deceased Authors or as too many German and other Authors have of late stuffed their Dedications withall which Heroick and great Souls do so little relish as the Books themselves would meet with a better entertainment if they came without them but one of the best and most approved usages of Dedications hath certainly and most commonly been derived from no other Source or Fountain then the great desire which the Author had there being before printing most probably but a few Copies sent abroad to receive the friendly censure and approbation of some Learned man who would in those days carefully read and peruse it and not as now too many men do oscitanter and cursorily take a view onely of the Frontispice or Title and lay it in the Parlor or Hall Windows to be idly turned over by such as tarry to speak with them or else crowd it in their better furnished then read or understood Libraries to make a Muster or great shew of such Forces as they have to bring into the Feild of Learning when there shall be any occasion to use them but neither then or before are able to finde or say what is in them But your Lordship being Master of the Learning in Books as well as of an excellent well furnished Library with many choice Manuscripts never yet published and very many Classick Authors and Volums printed and carefully pick't and gathered together out of the Gardens of good letters which an unlearned and reforming Rebellion and the Treachery of a wicked servant hired to discover them did very much diminish And your Eye and Judgement being able before hand to Calculate the Fate of the Author in the good or bad opinion of all that go by any Rules or measure of right Reason Learning or Judgement I have adventured to present unto your Lordship these my Labours in the Vindication of the Legality Antiquity right use and necessity of the Praeemption and Pourveyance of the Kings of England or Compositions for the Provisions of their Royall houshold for that your Lordship is so well able to judge of them and having been Comptroller of the houshold to his Majesties Royal Father the Martyr King CHARLES the First and to the very great dangers of your person and damage of your Estate like one of Davids good servants gone along with him in all his Wars and troubles when as he being first assaulted was inforced to take Arms against a Rebellious and Hypocritical part of his people in the defence of himself and his people their Religion Laws and Liberties and the Priviledges of Parliament and not only remained Faithfull to him during his life but after his death unto his banished and strangely misused Royal Issue when Loyalty and Truth were accompted crimes of the greatest magnitude and like some houses infected with the plague had more then one ✚ set upon them with a Lord have mercy upon us And did whilst that blessed King continued in his Throne and Regalities so instruct your self in those Excellent Orders and Government of his house as you have been able to enlighten and teach others amongst whom I must acknowledge my self to have been one and out of a Manuscript carefully collected by your Lordship concerning the Rules and Orders of the Royal houshold which your Lordship was pleased to communicate unto me to have been very much informed which together with the many favors with which you have been pleased to oblige me the incouragements which you have given me to undertake this work and the great respect and veneration which I bear unto your Lordships grand accomplishments in the Encyclopaidia large extent and traverses of all kinde of learning and your knowledge of Foraign Courts and Customes which being very extraordinary if you were of the ranke of private men must needs be very much more when it shall be added to the eminency of your Birth and qualitie and the Trust and Emploiments which his Majesty hath been pleased deservedly to confer upon you have emboldened me to lay these my endeavors before your Lordship submitting them to an utter oblivion and extinguishment and to be stifled in the Birth or Crâ—dle if they shall not appear unto your Lordship to be worthy the publike view and consideration Wherein although some may feast and highly content their Fancies with censuring me that I have been to prodigal of my labors in proving either at all or so largly the antiquity or legality of the Kings just Rights unto Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them when as the Act of Parliament in Anno 12 of his now Majesties raign for taking them away doth give him a Recompence for them yet I may I hope escape the censure or blame of setting up a Giant of Straw and fighting with it when I have done or of being allied to such as fight with their own shadows or trouble themselves when there is neither any cause or necessity for it when as the Act of Parliament for taking away Pourveyance
that valiant Saxon King and his own and others treachery gained and gotten to himself the whole Kingdome murdered Edmond Ironsides kindred and friends denied his children their fathers right in the Kingdom of the West Sexes banished them deprived his Cousin Olaus of the Kingdome of Norway and acting an haughty and domineering Tyranny thought his Prerogative to be so boundless that he took it ill that the Sea which is only commanded by him that stilleth the raging waves and rideth upon the wings of the wind did not adore his feet and run back like the river Jordan and having Demeasns Provisions enough of his own for the maintenance of his Houshold and lazy and unruly Lourdanes did in a contrivance of some ease to the people in small or less considerable matters the better to please them and assure his new Dominions sapientum adhibito Consilio by advice of his Parliament or Councill in Anno 1010. ut quo prius opprimabatur onere populum liberaret that they might be freed from the burden with which as he said they were formerly oppressed amongst other things by a Law Order and Command his Officers as the learned Mr. Lambard hath out of the old English or Saxon published it ut ex aratione praediis suis propriis quae sibi fuerunt ad victum necessaria suppeditent neque alius quisquam victui sui adjumenta praestare invitus cogatur atque si eorum aliquis hoc nomine mulctam petierit is proprii capitis estimationem Regi dependito that out of his own Demeasnes they should provide necessaries for his Houshold and that none be compelled to furnish any provisions And if any of his Officers should impose any penalty upon them for not furnishing such provisions he should himself forfeit or pay a great sum of money amounting to near as much as he was worth But as John Bromton who wrote in the Reign of King Edward the third hath recited that Law it doth something differ from that which Mr. Lamberd hath mentioned and is only in these words praecipio praepositis meis omnibus ut in proprio meo lucrentur inde mihi serviant nemo cogatur ad firmae adjutorium aliquid dare nisi sponte sua velit all his Reeves or Officers were commanded that they should make the best profit they could of the Kings Lands for his use and that no man should be compelled to add or pay any thing more then his Rent or Farme unless he should do it of his own accord Et si quis aliquem inde gravabit werae sua Reus sit erga Regem and if any should disturb them therein they should forfeit and pay a Fine to the King And that Law or Edict or Proclamation rather then a Law taken as it is either in Bromton or Lambard was but only intended as the title and body of it signifieth de victu ex praediis regis concerning his Tenants in his own Lands and Demeasnes and any provisions to be made by them over and above their Rents but did not discharge Cart-taking or other parts of the Royal Pourveyance in his own Demeasnes nor extended to any Lands or people other then the Kings own Demeasnes and can signifie no more then his desire to spare the Tenants of his own Lands from being charged with any provisions for his House who as Sir Edward Coke saith in his Comment or Annotations upon Magna Charta and the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas being the Kings Tenants in antient Demeasne have ever since enjoyed many great priviledges as to be free from payment of Toll paying of wages to the Knights of the Shire which serve in Parliament and the like And were by speciall priviledge granted by William the Conqueror to have upon Judgements obtained against any that did them wrong double the forfeitures and penalties or damage which were to be adjudged to any other And the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Mr. Somner saith in his Glossary victum propriè sonans signifying only some provision of victuals reserved it is not likely that the firmae adjutorium in Bromtons Translation of that Law or Edict of King Canutus could be meant or expounded that no provisions should at all be paid for then it would have signified the whole Rents to have been acquitted if no moneys had been used to have been paid together with provisions Or if as the judicious Sir Hen. Spelman saith the word Farme doth import tam redditus pecuniarias ex elocatis provenientes quam Annonarias as well for rent in money as corn and other provisions for housekeepings pro caena prandio corrodio convivio epulis et omni mensae apparatu sumitur and is taken for a Corrody Supper Dinner Feast or any other provision to furnish the Table and that some money and some provisions were paid for their Rents it remains a doubt what that favour intended by Canutus his Law or Edict should be interpreted to be or how much of that Kings provisions towards the keeping and maintenance of his house were by him remitted or if it shall be understood to have been only in alba firma quae argento penditur non pecude only in money which if at all was very seldome used in those times that also must be denied to have been either the meaning or practise of that Law or Edict of Canutus when as the Tenants of the Crown have been found to have paid their provisions for Housekeeping in Edward the Confessors reign before the Conquest and after in the reigns of William the Conqueror William Rufus and part of the reign of Henry the first so as the way to get out of it will be in all probability to understand it to be no otherwise then a foâ—bidding the rapines and the outragious taking of the peoples Cattel Corn and Provisions by his unruly Danes who had so lately been invading and plundering enemies and were scarcely denizend For in the same Parliament we find his Law that Dona potionis honoraria aliaque debita Dominis officia in suo semper statu immutato manerent honorary oblations or customes for drink with other duties of Tenants to their Lords should continue as formerly and remain unchangeable And the Customes of England afterwards extant and to be found in old Charters and Doomsday book do accordingly often mention Bordland to find provisions for the Lords Houses or Tables Droâ—land to drive their Caâ—tel to Fairs Markets c. Berland to bear or carry provision of victuals or the like for them or their Stewards in their remove from place to place Poâ—ura or Drinklan or Scot ale a Contribution by Tenants towards a â—otation Drinking or an Ale provided to entertain the Lord or his Steward coming to keep his Courts Gavel Malt Gavel Corn ad deferâ—endum cariandum ad costas expensas tenentium usque ad granarium and to carry it at
or any manner of Article contained in that Charter willed and granted that such manner of Statutes and Customes should be void and frustrate for ever Anno 28 Ed. 1. Artic. super Chartaâ— ca. 2. upon complaint that the Kings Ministers of his house did to the great grievance and damage of the people take the goods as well of the Clergy as the Laity without paying any thing or els much less then the value It was ordained that no Pourveyors should take any thing but for the Kings House and touching such things as they should take in the Country of meat and drink and such other mean things necessary for the house they should pay or make agreement with them of whom the things should be taken nor take more then should be needfull to be used for the King his Houshold and Children with a Proviso therein that nevertheless the King and his Counsel did not intend by that Estatute to diminish the Kings Right for the antient prices due and accustomed as of wines and other goods but that his Right should be saved unto him in all points Anno 16 Ed. 2. the King sent his Writ to the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench then not so fixed as now or of later times to command them to take care to punish the Infringers of those Lawes And howsoever the Articles and inquiries in the Eyres in the Reign of King Edward the first were to enquire and punish those Sheriffs Constables or Bayliffs which took any victuals or provisions for the King or his Houshould which shews that then also no Markets were kept at the Court gates nor that all the Kings provisions were there bought or taken contra voluntatem eorum quorum Catalla fuerint without the will of the owners which in all probability was to be regulated and perswaded by that duty and loyalty which every good Subject coming to a Country or City Market did bear to his Soveraign and the Preserver by his authority and power of not only what they brought to Market that day but what was left at home or to be brought at other times to Market and the words sine consensu voluntate c. without the consent of the Seller are to be interpreted and understood saith Sir Edward Coke to have been inserted in that and other Statutes for that Pourveyers would take the goods of such men as had no will to sell them but to spend them for their own necessary use But afterwards some abuses like weeds getting in amongst the best corn or greatest care of the watchfull Husbandman happening in the manner of Pourveyances by taking them without warrant or threatning the Sellers or Assessors to make easie prices or not paying ready money or the Market rate for them or taking more then they needed or by greater measures making the Pourveyances for divers Noble-men belonging to the Court as of the Duke of Gloucester in the Reign of King Henry the sixth and in his time also some Hostlers Brewers and other Victuallers keeping Hosteries and Houses of retailing victuals in divers places of the Realm having purchased the Kings Letters Patents to take Horses and Carts for the service of the King and Queen did by colour of them take horses where no need was and bring them to their Hosteries and other places and there keep them secretly untill they had spent xx d or xl.d. of their stuff and sometimes more and then make the owners pay it before their horses could be delivered and sometimes made them pay a Fine at their will and at other times took Fines to shew favour and not to take their horses and many times would not pay for the hire of the said horses and carts divers Acts of Parliament upon complaints at several times in Parliament of the said abuses committed by Pourveyers were made to prohibit and provide against them but none at all to take away the Pourveyance it self or Prae-emption or the Kings just Rights and Prerogatives therein but a saving of the Kings Rights especially provided for in many of them as Anno 10 Ed. 3. ca. 4. The Sheriff shall make Pourveyance for the Kings horses Anno 18 Ed. 3. ca. 4. In the Commissions to be made for Pourveyance the Fees of the Church shall be exempted in every place where they be found Anno 25 Ed. 3. ca. 1. after that in Anno 20 Ed. 3. divers Pourveyers had been attainted and hanged for fending against those Lawes and that in the 23. year of that Kings Reign divers of the Kings Pourveyers were indited for breach of those Lawes It was enacted that If any Pourveyer of victuals for the King Queen or their Children should take Corn Litter or Victuals without ready mony at the price it commonly runneth in the Market prized by Oath by the Constable and other good people of the Town he shall be arrested and if attainted suffer pains as a Thief if the quantity of the goods the same require Cap. 6. No Pourveyer shall take cut or â—ell wood or Timber for the Kings use for work growing near any mans dwelling house Et cap. 7 Keepers of Forrests or Chaces shall gather nothing nor victuals nor sustenance without the owners good will but that which is due of old right Cap. 15. If any Pourveyer take more sheep then shall be needfull and be thereof attainted it shall be done to him as a Thief or a Robber Anno 36 Ed. 3. ca. 6. No Lord of England nor none other of the Realm of what estate or condition that he be except the King and the Queen his wife shall make any taking by him or any of his Servants of any manner of victuals but shall buy the same that they need of such as will sell the same of their good will and for the same shall make ready payment in hand according as they may agree with the seller And if the people of Lords or of other doe in other manner and thereof be attainted such punishment of life and of member shall be done of them as is ordered of the buyers the occasion of the making of which Statute and the preceding Act of Parliament of 25 Ed. 6. before mentioned Sir Edward Cook informes us was a book written in Latin by Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury and before that a Secretary of State and Privy Councellor to King Ed. 3. called Speculum Regis sharpely inveying against the intollerable abuses of Pourveyers and Pourveyance in many particulars and earnestly advising and pressing him to provide remedies for those insufferable oppressons and wrongs offered to his Subjects which the King often perusing it wrought such effect as at divers of his Parliaments but especially in his Parliament holden in the 36 year of his Reign he did of his own will without the motion of the great men or Commons as the Record of Parliament speaketh cause to be made many excellent Laws against the oppressions and falshood of Pourveyâ—rs
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
pleist al Roy que le Navie soit maintain garde a greindre ease et profit que fair se poet Eodem Parliamento The Commons desire the King and his Councill that whereas it is granted that no Pourveyance be but where payment is made at the taking that it will please him that his Ordinance be holden as it was granted It pleaseth the King that he that findeth himself grieved shall pursue it and right shall be done him 47 Ed. 3. That the Statute made whereby buyers of the Kings Houshold should pay readily may stand and that no man be impeached for resisting them therein The Statute therefore provided shall be kept and who will complain shall be heard Eodem Parliamento That Masters of Ships and their Mariners may be paid their wages from the day of their being appointed to serve the King Taking of Ships shall not be but for necessity and payment shall be reasonable as heretofore They pray That Masters of Ships may have allowance for their Tackling worn in the Kings service Such allowance hath not been heretofore made 50 Ed. 3. That the Kings Carriages for himself and his Houshold may be of Carts and Horses of his own and not to charge the Commons therewith The King knoweth not how these things may be brought to pass but if they be he will charge the Steward and Officers to make redress The Commons of Norfolk require that payments may be made to them and to all their Countries for sheep taken by the Pourveyors farre under the price against the Statute This Bill is otherwise answered within the Bill of Buyers The Commons of Devon pray that they may be paid for victuals taken of them by the Duke of Britain whilst he lay there of long time for passage and that from thenceforth no protection be granted to any passenger to take any victuals ooher then for present pay Let the offendors for time past pay and answere and for to come the King will provide 50 Ed. 3. That the Kings Pourveyor take of the Provision the Clergy and cause them also to make carriage for the King against the Ordinances and Statutes thereof made 2. That the owners of the Ships taken up for the Kings service may be considered for their losses in the same and that Marriners may have the like wages as Archers have It shall be as it hath been used 2 R. 2. The Commons of the Dutchy of Cornwall shew how by taking up their Mariners the Spaniards lately burned all their Ships and otherwise much eâ—damaged them and the like complaint was made by all the Sea-coasts and therefore pray remedy may be had The King by advice of his Councill will provide remedy therefore 3. R. 2. The Commons by their Speaker pray that it would please the King to appoint by Commission such as should enquire by all means of the Kings charges as well of his Houshold as otherwise The King granteth it his Estate and Royalty alwayes saved and it was enacted untill the next Parliament That every Master of a Ship shall have for his reward for every Tonne weight for such his vessel as shall be taken up to serve the the King for every quarter of a year that they shall remain in his service three shillings four penâ— begining the first day of their entring into the haven or place appointed 5 R. 2. The Commons made Recapitulation of their requests and namely of the Ordinance concerning Pourveyors Whereto it was replied for the King That his charges were great as well concerning sundry particulars there uttered as like to be greater for the solemnity of his marriage with the Lady Anne Daughter to the mighty Prince Charles Emperor of Rome the which Lady was newly come into the Realm the tenth part of which charges the King had not in treasure or otherwise and that therefore it was as necessary to provide for the safety of the Kings Estate as for the Commonwealth 6 R. 2. The Commons pray That the Statute of Pourveyors may be observed and that ready payment may be made The Statute therefore made shall be observed 2 R. 2. The Commons pray that every Ship taken up for the Kings service may towards her apparrelling take for every quarter two shillings of every Tonne That the Statutes of Pourveyors and Buyers be executed and that the Justices of the Peace have power to hear and determine the same That the Estate of the Kings Houshold be yearly viewed once or oftner by the Chancellor Treasurer and Keeper of the privy Seal and that the Statutes therefore appointed may be observed The King granteth to the first at his pleasure and to the second he granteth 10 R. 2. That every owner of a ship serving the King may have for every quarters service of the same his Ship three shillings four pence of every Tonne Leighter or little Ship The King hath committed the same to his Counsel to be considered 14 R. 2. They require remedy against Masters of Ships and Mariners The Admirall shall appoint them to take reasonable wages or punish them 17 R. 2. Pray that Remedy may be had against the Officers in London who exact of Drovers bringing Cattle into Smithfield the third Beast The Maior and Sheriffs of London shall answere the same before the Council 20 R. 3. A Bill was exhibited in Parliament amongst other things for the avoiding of the outragious expences of the Kings House upon which particular the King seemmed much offended saying he would be free therein and that the Commons thereby committed offence against him and his dignity which he willed the Lords to declare to the Commons and their Speaker was charged to declare the name of him who exhibited the said Bill which having done and the Bill delivered to the Clerk of the Crown the Commons came before the King shewing themselves of heavy cheer and declared they meant no harme submitted and craved pardon and Sir Thomas Hexey a Clergie-man who exhibited the Bill was by Parliament adjudged to die as a Traitor but at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Bishops pardoned for life and ordered to be by Sir Thomas Percy Steward of the House delivered to the custody of the Archbishop Anno 1 Hen. 4. The Commons pray that the King may have only two Tons of wine of every ship of wine coming to any port in the name of prize It shall be as heretofore 6 H. 4. That the owners of every Ship or other Vessel serving the King may have allowance of every Tonne waight of the same Vessel three shillings four pence for every quarter towards the apparrelling of the said ship The Statute therefore appointed shall be observed 7 8 H. 4. That all the Statutes touching buyers and Pourveyors may be executed and that payment may be made for victuals taken by the Kings Pourveyors from the time of his
Coronation The King is willing to doe the same and that all Statutes of Pourveyors be observed 11 H. 4. The King promiseth convenient payment for victuals taken by his Pourveyors Thomas Chancer chief â—â—tler to the King sheweth what prices of wine the King ought to have of every Ship and how much the King was deceived thereof that the Citizens of London being exempt from the same did use notwithstanding to make strangers free thereof The King sent for the Citizens heretofore and further willeth that none shall enjoy any such liberty unless he be there a Citizen resâ—aâ—t and dwelling 3 H. 5. The Commons pray that no Ship be taken to serve the King by any Letters Patents but that the same Letters Patents may be seen before the Maior and other Officers of the Town that hire of the fraight may be by them made and ready payment had The Statutes heretofore made shall be observed 18 H. 6. Order was taken for the payment of the Kings debts and provision of his Houshold and authority committed to the Kings Council to take order concerning Pourveyors and the fourth part of the Tenth and Fifteenth to be imployed to the payment of the Pourveyance for his Houshold 20 H. 6. The Commons pray that certain Lords such as the King shall please may have authority to settle good order in his Houshold and that ready money be paid for victuals carriages and other dispenses of the same House Be it as is desired provided that this extend not to impeach any Assignments Grants Payments Benefit or Interest to any man lawfully granted or had before this Parliament 27 H. 8. cap. 24. The Kings Pourveyors may for the provision of the King Queen and their Children take all victuals corn and other kinds of things whatsoever according to their Commissions as well within the Liberties and Franchises as without any Grants Allowance or other thing to the contrary notwithstanding 1 2 Phil. Maâ— It was ordained by Act of Parliament That no Commission of Pourveyors should continue above six moneths the County to be named where Beeves Weathers Lambs Calves Swine Salt-fish Corn Butter Cheese Bacon Conies Pigs Geese Capons and Hens and any other provision of victuals were taken the proportions and numbers of them and a Docquet to be made all things taken And cap. 6. No victuals shall be taken by the Kings Pourveyors within five miles of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford nor in Oxford or Cambridge upon pain of forfeiture of four times the value provided that the Act be not put in execution at any time or times whensoever the Queen and her heirs and successors shall please to come to both or any of the said Universities or within seven miles of either of them but be suspended during that time and no longer 5 Eliz. cap. 5. Composition Fish heretofore granted to the Queens Majesty by the Subjects of this Realm travailing into Iseland may be taken by her Majesties Officers and Pourveyors in such sort as the same hath been lawfully used to be taken before the making of this Act saving to the Queens Majesty her Heirs and Successors and to all other persons such Fishes as be known and used to be called Regall Fishes whereunto her Majesty or the said other persons have or shall have right or interest for such recompence as heretofore hath been accustomed 13 Eliz. cap. 21. Reciting the said Act of the 2 and 3 of King Phillip and Queen Mary and that since divers of the Townships Inhabitants and Resâ—ants within the Limits and Precincts aforesaid having converted the benefit of the said Act to their private use and commoditie without any profit or commodities to the poor Schollars of either of the said Universities whereby the Queens Majesty was not only not served of provision of Corn Grain and other victuall to be taken for her Majesties-provision but also the said Universities were defrauded of the benefits and commodities to them intended It was ordained that no person whatsoever nor the Pourveyors of the Queen her Heirs and Successors nor no Badger or Poulter should take or bargain grain or victuals within the compass of five miles of the said Universities or within the Towns of Oxford and Cambridge without the consent of the Chancellors or Vice-Chancellors in writing under the Seal of either of the said Universities first had in writing And if any person or persons within the said Precincts should refuse reasonably to serve the necessary provision of the said Universities that then it should be lawfull to any of the Queens Majesties Takers or Pourveyors to provide any corn or victuall of any such person or persons within any part of the precinct aforesaid for the use of the Queen as should be declared and notifâ—ed to the said Pourveyors or Takers to be persons not worthy of the said priviledge for not reasonably serving the necessities of the said Universities by the Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor for the time being of either of the said Universities with the assent of the two Justices of Peace resâ—ant within the said Universities Town or County under the hands and Seals of the said Chancellor or Vice-Chancellor and the said two Justices of the Peace as the said Pourveyors or Takers lawfully may in any other place within the said Precinct and not otherwise Provided that the Act shall not be put in execution at any time or times whensoever the Queens Majesty her Heirs and Successors shall come to any of both the Universities or within seven miles of either of of them but shall be in suspence during that time only and no longer And King Henry the seventh who in the rage and scuffle of a fortunately fought Battel at Bosworth field having found his Crown thrown into a Hathorn or bush of Thorns as a presage of the cares which usually attend the wearers and by marriage once accounted the best of unions happily established himself in the Kingdom and stopt the issue of blood betwixt those two great contending Families of York and Lancaster and having afterwards as no giddy but a probable tradition hath left it in the successive memories of the servants of the Royal houshold for the better government and order of his Expences of his House and their provision of Diet put a rate or Reiglement as well in the quantity as quality and price thereof which in those cheaper times was little less then the Market rate or but that which might reasonably be afforded It continued uncomplained of in the Reign of King Hen. 8. when Cardinal Wolsey Lord Chancellor of England and the Kings Privy Council made certain Reiglements Constitutions touching the well ordering government of the Kings Houshold the motives thereof were therein expressed to be al honneâ—r de Diu a honneur profit de Saint Eglise al honneur du Roy a son profit du profit de son peuple for the honor of God and the honour
solvat persolvat postea forisfacturam nor to sell or buy any thing for money but within Cities and before three witnesses nor without a Voucher or warranty and if any did otherwise they were to be fined and at last incurre a forfeiture Item nullum mercatum vel forum fieri permittatur nisi in civitatibus regni jus suum commune dignitatis coronae quae constituta sunt a bonis predecessoribus suis deperiri non possunt nec violari sed omnia rite in aperto per judicium â—ieri debent likewise that no Market be kept but in Cities so that the right of the King and the dignity of his Crown as it was constituted in the times of his good predecessors might not be lost defrauded or violated and that all things be rightly and openly done according to right and justice King Henry the 1. his Son saith the Monk of Malmsbury corrected the false Ell or Measure so called of the Merchants brachii sui mensura adhibita omnibusque per Angliam proposita causing one to be made according to the measure or length of his own arm ordered it to be used through all England and in his Laws reckoneth the punishment of false Coiners and prohibiting and punishing of Forestall or forestalling of Markets inter Jura his Rights Royal Prerogatives quae Rex Angliae solus super omnes homines habet in terra sua which belonged to him only as King of England and without an Act of Parliament ordered the rate and value of mony which being the mensura rerum measure guide of all things in commerce and dealings one man with another hath no small influence or power in the heightning or lessening of the price of things and is such a part of Soveraignty as the Parliament in their 19. high and mighty and unreasonable propositions sent unto the late King Charles the Martyr in his troubles in June 1642. never attempted to restrain or take from him In the Reign of King Henry the second when as Ranuphus de Glanvilla Chief Justice of England under him saith in that book which is generally believed to have been written by him the Laws and Customes of England being ratione introductis diu obtentis founded upon reason and long used had arrived to that perfection as pauperes non opprimabantur adversarii potentia nec a limitibus Judiciorum propellabat quenquam amicorum favor gratia the poor were not oppressed by their adversaries power nor did partiality or friendship hinder any from Justice the inquiry and punishment of false measures and all manner of deceipts did appertain Coronae Regis to the King only Justices in Eyre were after the return of King Richard the first from his Captivity sent into all Counties of England to enquire amongst other things de Faeneratoribus vinis venditis contra Assisam de falsis mensuris tam vini quam aliarum rerum of Usurers and of wine sold contrary to the Assize and of false measures as well of wine as other things In Anno quarto of King John being thirteen years before the granting of Magna Charta de Libertatibus Angliae the great Charter of the Liberties of England the King did by his Edict and Proclamation command the Assize of bread to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates were set the Assise approved per Pistorem as Matthew Paris saith Gaufridi filii Petri Justiciarii Angliae Pistorem R. de Thurnam by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz Peter Justice of England and the Baker of R. of Thurnam And in the Magna Charta and Liberties granted by him afterwards at Running Munde or Mead near Stanes assented which our Ancestors and Procurers of that Charter believed to be for a publick good that una mensura vini cervisiae sit per totum Regnum una mensura bladi scilicet quarterium Londinense una latitudo pannorum tinctorum russetorum haubergetorum panni genus a kind of Cloth saith Sir Henry Spelman then so called there should be throughout all England one measure of Wine and Beer and the like of Corn and of the breadth of Cloth died and russet or other kinds And was confirmed by King Henry the third his Son in Anno 9. of his Reign who by an Ordinance made by the Kings command and on the behalf of the King howsoever it be stiled a Statute and is placed in our Statute book collected by Mr. Poulton amongst those which he calleth Statutes incerti temporis made in the Reigns of Hen. 3. Ed. 1. or Ed. 2. but cannot assign by whom or in what years or times but in all probability in the Reign of King Henry the third did ordain that no Forestaller which is an open oppresser of poor people and of the Commonalty and an enemy of the whole Shire and Countrey which for greediness of his private gain doth prevent others in buying Grain Fish Herring or any other thing to be sold coming by Land or waters oppressing the poor and deceiving the rich and câ—rrieth away such things intending to sell them more deer should be suffered to dwell in any Town he that shall be convict thereof shall for the first offence be amerced and lose the thing so bought and for the second time have judgement of the Pillory the third time be imprisoned and make Fine and the fourth time abjure the Town And this Judgement to be given upon all manner of Forestallers and likewise upon them that have given them counsel help or favour And providing that his people should not be oppressed with immoderate unreasonable prices in the buying of food and victuals and other necessaries did by his Writ limit the price of Lampreys and had as his Royal Progenitors such a power and just Prerogative of regulating and well ordering of Markets and Fairs as notwithstanding any Charters or Grants of Fairs and Markets to Cities and Towns he did in anno quinto of his Reign upon a complaint of some Merchants of Lynn that when they came to sell their goods and Merchandize at Norwich the Merchants or Tradesmen took away their goods and Merchandise to the value of three hundred marks by his writ give them power to arrest and seize any goods of the Norwich Merchants which should come to any Fairs at Lyn untill that Justice should be done unto them And in anno 49. of his Reign commanded the Barons of the Exchequer that they should inroll and cause to be executed his Letters Patents of a Confirmation to the Citizens of Lincoln of a Charter of King Henry the second his Grandfather that the Sheriff and other the Kings Officers and Ministers of Lincolnschiry should not hinder forraign Merchants to come to Lincoln to trade there ita rationabiliter juste as reasonably and justly as they were wont to do in
Roturiers des Villes non Franches Bourgs Villages a proportion des biens du Taillable sans qu ' il ait estè besoin d' asembler les Estats pour ce suiet those kind of Taxes are paid by the third Estate or Commonalty that is to say by the Inhabitants or common people of the Towns and Boroughts not infranchised or freed from it by the King according to the proportion of their goods or moveables without any assembly of the Estates to that purpose except in Languedoc Provence Burgogne Daulphine and Brittaine where when the King and his Councel have resolved what the Tailles shall be les terres immeubles seulement sont Taillables the lands and immoveables only are tailleable and their near friends the Scots did long agoe so well like of gratitude as they enacted and held it to be a good Law that Lands holden in few Ferme pay and ane certain zierly dewty nomine Feudi Firme may be recognosced be the Superior for none payment of the few dewtie and that twa maner of waies the first ex provisione naturae contractus by operation of law and the nature of the contract for the few Fermorer not pay and his few Ferme for his ingratitude and unthankfulnes Tinis and forfaltis his few Ferme be the disposition of the Law quhilk as zit was not in practique and use in Scotland And the English Landlords were so unwilling to part with any priviledges which brought them in any power gain or profit as where they held any of the Kings antient Demesnes in Fee Farme and the King did cause his antient Demesnes to be Tallied the Lord or Fee Farmer under him would sue forth the Kings writ commanding the Sheriff that in case the lands were auntient Demeasne hucusque consueverit Talliari and was untill then accustomed to be Tallied that rationabile Tallagium ei habere faceret de libere Tenentibus suis in manerio praedicto sicut prius fieri consuevit he should cause the Freeholders of the said Manor to pay unto their Lord such reasonable Tallage as was accustomed And with as much or more reason were the Pourveyances or Compositions for them allowed and established as the hitherto never complained of in Parliament or accompted to be grievances Herezelda Herriot services or Herriots which Skene an Author of great authority amonst the Scots defineth to be gratuitae donationes quae ab husbando seu agricola datur domino suo ratione dominij reverentiae the free gifts or remunerations of the Tenants to their Lords in the reverence and respect which they bear unto them Which the Hollanders those grand contesters for Liberties doe call Laudemia and notably increase their small Revenues in lands with them And in England saith the learned Spelman Non nisi post mortem husbandi solvitur is only paid after the death of the Tenant and differs from a Reliefe for that a Reliefe is in case of Inheritance but an Herriot in a lesser Estate as for life c. and being formerly and in the Saxon times of a greater value by the giving or paying to their Lords Shields Swords Spears Helmets Horses furnished and money according to the several qualities and estates of the Tenants have been since by the example and indulgence of our Princes imitated by the Nobility and Gentry reduced to the best horse or beast and if none to the best houshold stuffe but so greedily attached or seldome remitted by the Landlords as the poor mans single Ewe Lamb in the parable of the Prophet Nathan to David or a Cow which should give the lamenting Wife and Children some nourishment and sustenance are seldome able to escape their Bailiffes or such as are sent to fetch them And if it be reason for the people to make such payments and contributions and observe such respects to their Landlords and subordinate Governors or Superiors as much and greater surely ought they to pay unto their Pater Patriae the protector and defender as well of those that receive those duties as of those that pay them and are and should be enough to awaken and rouze up their gratitudes and imprint in their memories the never enough to be requited benefits and blessings received by our Kings and Princes as much as if with a forfeiture upon the not doing or observing those Agreements they had been as strongly annexed and incorporated into our Lands and Estates as that of the Service or Conditions of Lands given to hold by the Tenures of Knight service which as some Civilians hold ipsi sanguini cohaerent are inherent in the very blood of the Tenants which being the most noble gentile rich and better sort of the people were when the Pourveyance was in being the most fit and likeliest to be charged with the Payments or Contributions towards it and were therefore in several Kings Reigns sometimes singly and often charged with publick Ayds or Taxes and very much more then other of the people as twenty shillings for every Knights Fee granted by Parliament to King Richard the first six and twenty shillings eight pence for every Knights Fee to King John and as much at another time to him towards his Warres in Wales twenty shillings upon every Knights Fee towards his Voyage into Normandy and forty shillings at another time and as much twice assessed in the Reigns of King Henry the third towards his Warres in Gascony twenty shillings upon every Knights Fee by Henry the fourth the Warres in Scotland by King Edward the first and Edward the second and of France by King Edward the third and the personal and chargeable services of most of the Nobility and Gentry therein probably procuring them some relaxation of not having their Fees or Lands so charged as formerly And besides other incidents belonging thereunto are by the Fewdists said to be so more then ordinarily tied up unto gratitudes and the more especiall duties and obligations thereof as such a Tenant forfeits his Lands in Fee Si percipiat magnum periculum domino imminere ultrò sine requisitione servicium non offert if he perceived any danger imminent or likely to happen to his Lord and did not of his own accord offer his service to prevent it or if his Lord were a Captive or in prison ought to contribute towards his redemption or if he should happen to fall into distress was to relieve him as farre say some of the Fewdall Laws which by stipulation or paction being not at the first agreed upon or included in the General words of defending the Lord and his Dignity was with many other their gratefull observances afterwards particularized and deduced from such customes as gratitude only had in process of time introduced and as much as amounted unto the Moiety of one years Rent or si dominum in acie periclitantem deseruerit if he left his Lord in the field and was ingratefull And by our Laws of England if
to be charged upon the Revenues of the Holy Church and that of the Clergy but shall claim some priviledges and exemptions therein be pleased to remember that although Simon Islip Archbishop of Canterbury being in many things a man of a severe life and discipline did write his Speculum Regis aforesaid or a book so called sharply inveighing against the Kings Pourveyors and their manner of taking the Pourveyance without money or due payment in some sence and feeling probably of the taking of it from the Clergy complained of by them in the Parliament of 18 of Edward the third they being no longer before exempted from it some only as the Abbot of Battel and others specially priviledged excepted then the first year of the Reign of that King who as Matthew Parker in the life of Walter Reynold Archbishop of Canterbury mentioneth being very well pleased with the Clergy for so freely contributing to his Warres did in Parliament not only restore unto them vetera antiquissima privilegia Ecclesiae Anglicanae the old and antient Rights of the Church of England which by Magna Charta could as to Cartâ— taking claim but the same freedom which those did who held by Knight service viz. that their own Carts used in their Demeasnes should not be taken for the Kings use but de novis auxit i. e. de non exigendis a Clero in regis hospitium esculentis poculentis vecturis similibus gave them new priviledges that is to say to be freed from furnishing of Carts and provisions of victuals for the Kings Houshold Yet he and all other the Bishops of England could at the same time and their Successors after them do unto this day justly and lawfully take receive in their Visitations once every 3 years a certain Rate or Tax set upon every Benefice propter hospitium towards the charge of their expences house keeping and victuals which saith Mr. Stephens in his learned and judicious Treatise of Procurations and Synodals are Perquisites or Profits of their Spiritual Jurisdictions as creation money given to a Duke or Earl for the maintenance of his honour and by reason of the great Trains Attendance of Bishops heretofore with one hundred or two hundred men and horses at a time some of the Visitors carrying Hounds and Hawks with them and sparing not the exempt and priviledged placed it grew to be so excessive as interdum Ecclesiastica ornamenta subditi exponere tenebantur the poor Clergy were enforced to make provision for them by selling their Church plate and ornaments and it was therefore by a Constitution of Boniface the eighth about the year 1295. ordained that the Archbishops should be limited unto 40 or 50 men and horses the Bishops to 20 or 30 the Cardinals unto 25 and the Arch-Deacons unto 5 or 7 and they were prohibited to carry Hounds and Hawks along with them and that also bringing but little ease to the inferiour Clergie saith Mr. Stephens because when victuals were not furnished they being left unlimited in Compositions or summes of money to be taken in lieu or recompence thereof broke down the doors of Monasteries and Churches taking where they were denied what they could lay their hands on which caused the Councell of Vienna in the year 1311. to declaim against and prohibit such doings which being not redressed might have put Simon Istip in mind who was betwixt that and 1349. when he was elected Arch-bishop of Canterbury in almost the zenith and heighth of his preferment as Councellor and Secretary to King Edward the third and Keeper of the Privy Seal to have written as well against the abuse of Visitations and Procurations if the Book which I have not seen and is only to be found in Sir Robert Cottons excellently well furnished library do not as I could never understand it did mention them as against the abuses in the maner of making the Kings Pourveyances But was the cause howsoever that Pope Benedict the twelfth about the year 1337. which was the eleventh year of the Reign of King Ed. 3. did make a Canon or Constitution to settle a proportionable rate of mony to be paid in lieu of victuals or provisions out of all Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses not exempted and where custome and the smalness of the Benefices have not lessened it was as Lindewood saith in the Reign of King Henry the fifth of and out of every Benefice for the Arch-Deacons procuration no less then seven shillings and six pence which was for each man attending him twelve pence towards the defraying of his charges being then a great ordinary and eighteen pence for the Arch-deacon himself as well when they did visit as when they did not And even Simon Islip himself whilest he was so busie about other mens failings was not without some of his own nor was so great a friend to Justice in every part of it or in his own particular as he might have been for when he had been as Matthew Parker Arch-Bishop of Canterbury one of his reverend and worthy Successors in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth recordeth it at some extraordinary charges in repairing of his Manor house at Wrotham in Kent and obtained a Licence from the Pope to tax all the Clergie of his Province at a great in every twenty marks towards his expences therein the Collectors did probably by his privity so order it that they gathered a Tenth which being complained of could never be refunded And if he and his Successors had not continued the custome of their Procurations and other profits raised from the Clergy towards their more honourable and necessary support would have been blamed as much as he was by Matthew Parker and others long before his time with a malè audivit for releasing to the Earl of Arundel for 240 marks the yearly payment of 26 red and fallow Deer in their seasons to the Arcbishops of Canterbury Who as well as other Bishops can take and receive Subsidium Cathedraticum which is a duty of prerogative and superiority Quarta Episcopalis which is given to them for the reparation of Churches which if the Cathedrals be not intended thereby is not bestowed upon the Parochiall Churches which the Rectors and Parishioners are now only charged with Doe continue their taking also of Proxies being an exhibition towards their charges for their visitation of Religious houses since dissolved and not now at all in being and permit their Arch-Deacons in some Dioceses to receive their Pentecostalia or Whitsun farthings for every Family yet used and taken by the Bishops Arch-Deacons of the Diocesses of Worcester and Gloucester be well pleased with some good Benefices many times allowed them in Commendam to make out and help the inequality of the Revenues of some of their Bishopricks with the greater charges and expence of their spirituall dignities And their middle sort of Clergie can be well content to eâ—ke and piece out their Benefices with
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
for murage or repair of the walls of Towns as Ipswich Harwich Newcastle upon Tine Ludlow c. or Cities as London Norwich York Bristol c. which must of necessity raise the rates of commodities brought thither to be sold and by the same power or authority remit or release them and being granted to many Cities or Towns but for three of seven years or as to London for five years or some other short term since expired is as may be feared under a colour of custome or praescription as yet continued Or being Soveraign of the British seas to take weekly for all Herring taken therein six pence for every Ton and the like for other fish every three weeks either of his own Subjects or forraign Nations or for his Admiral under him to take the tenth of all the Prizes or Ships of his Enemies taken at the Sea and money for Anchorage paid by every Ship for their quiet riding in the river of Thames or any of the Kings Harbours And with as good reason as the Burrow Mealis in Scotland where quilibet Burgensis debet domino Regi pro Burgagio quinque denarios annuatim dicuntur incorporari annexique Fisco patrimonio Regis every Burgess was to pay five pence per annum for his mealis which Sir Henry Spelman interprets to be a Farme appropriated to buy provisions in regiae mensae apparatum for the Kings Table or Houshold and are said to be incorporate and annexed to the Patrimony of the King and his Exchequer Or as the Provost of Edenburgh or other borough Towns in Scotland may take and receive four pence upon every quarter of Malt of ilk Brewster quhe brewes aill all the zeir four pennies and for â—ne halfe zeir twâ— pennies As the Apprisers of flesh are appointed to apprise it at the Kings price ilk dayes of the Markets and to admit the eath of the â—â—sâ—er in that matter And as by the Statutes of King David the second it was ordained that for relief of the inward parts of the Realm quhair woll hes course and quhilks ar burdened with customes and that the remanent parts of the Realm may be made equall with them in all services and burdings It is Statute that certain sommes and quantities of victuall quhareof there is abundance in these utward parts sick as Marts beir and sicklike sall be taken up zeirly at the Chamberlains command to the expenses of the Kings house according to the prices quihilk in auld times used to be taken up in these places Queen Mary the Lord Governour and Lords of secret Counsell havand respect to the great and exorbitant dearth risen upon the will and tâ—me Fowles ordained the prices thereof as 5 s. Scottish the Swan the black Cock and gray hen six pennies twenty of their pennies being but two pence the Woodcock four pennies and the dousâ—n of Laverocks and uthers small birds four pennies c. And by as good reason as King James the sixth his Majesties Grandfather confirmed the Acts of Parliament made by his noble Progenitors for the stanching of dearth of Victuals and setting order and price on all Stuffe and ordained all Earls Lords Barons as well within regality as royalty and their Bailles to landwart and the Provestes and Bailles of all Bâ—rrows and Cities to cause the said Acts to be put to due execution every ane within their boundes and Jurisdiction respective makand and constitutand them Justices to that effect with power to make and appoint Statutes and Ordinances for the special observation of the saidis Acts at every head Court zierly Assigned money and victuals of several Shires and places in Scotland to the keeping of the Castles of Edinburgh Dunbartane Strivilinge and Blacknes Declared the tenths of all Herrings taken in the Scottish Seas to be due unto him as King of Scotland and all infestments and Alienations in few ferme or utherwaies and all dispositions quhatsumever in all time bygane and to cum of the Assise Herring to be nil and of no avail because the said Assise Herring pertanis to the King as ane part of his Customes and annexed property And by as much or a greater warrant or assent of reason as King Henry the 5. of England did in a Patent or Grant of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland to James de Boteler Earl of Ormond authorise him ad victualia sufficientia necessaria pro expensis hospiâ—ii sui ac Soldariorum suorum in quocunque loco infra terram predictam per Provisores hospitii sui alios ministrossuos unacum Cariagio suâ—ficienti pro eisdem tam inâ—ra libertates quam extra feodo Ecclesie duntaxat excepto pro denariis suis rationabiliter solvend capere providere juxta formam diversorum Statutorum de hujusmodi provisionibus ante haec tempora factorum to take victuals sufficient and necessary for the expences of his Houshold and his Souldiers by his Pourveyors and other Ministers in any place whatsoever in Ireland with carriages sufficient for the same as well within liberties as without the Fees of the Church only excepted at reasonable prises according to divers Statutes made concerning provisions And was so well grounded upon Law and reason as all the succeeding Lord Lieutenants or Deputies of Ireland have ever since not wanted those necessary priviledges to attend their high honourable trusts imployments could so little be parted with in the 19. year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when Sir Henry Sidney was Deputy of Ireland as the Earl of Desmond the Viscount Baltinglas other unquiet spirits refusing to pay the provision or Ceasse as they there called it for the Lord Deputies house the Souldiers in Garrison which the learned Camden saith was exactio rei Annonariae certo pretio provisions to be furnished at a certain rate or price ad alendum proregis familiam militesque praesidiarios for the Lord Lieutenants or Deputies Families the Souldiers in Garrison quasi non exigenda nisi ex authoritate Parliamentaria as not due unless it were ordained by authority of Parliament sending over their complaints into England the Lords of the Privy Council upon the hearing bate thereof committed them and those which remained in Ireland and had sent them were in like manner imprisoned untill they should submit to the payment and furnishing thereof for that it appeared by the Records of that Kingdome to be antiquitus institutum an antient constitution jus quoddam Majestatis a part of the right appertaining to the soveraign Power Praeeminence or Kingly Praerogative quae legibus non subjicitur nec tamen legibus adversatur ut Jurisprudentes judicarunt which being not against the Laws was not to be subjected to them saith that worthy Historian the Queen then only ordering the Lord Deputy to use as much moderation as he could in taking those Provisions or Pourveyances And as
Elizabeth if they stood upon equall terms with him and owed him neither gratitude allegiance or subjection That he who is so great a looser by the change alteration of times and his own his Royal Progenitors bounties and indulgences might howsoever be allowed to be a little gainer in that one particular of the Compositions for his Pourveyances for in every thing else he is abundantly a very great looser and ought as well to take an advantage by it as the Clergie and Impropriators of England doe by the rise and encrease of their Tithes and impâ—ovement of their Glebes and are sure to be gainers by the difference in the value and price of commodities when as they sell their corn at the highest rates and make the improvement of their Glebes to follow the rise of money and the Markets And may take it to be no Paradox or stranger to any mans understanding or belief that the King who by his Lawes hath ordered that reasonable prises and rates should be taken for victuals and houshold provisions for himself and all his people and if his Sheriffs Justices of Peace Clerks of the Markets and the Lords and Stewards of Court-leets had but imitated the care of their Predecessors in the execution of the trusts committed unto them by their Soveraign and his Laws or of the Sheriffs in the reign of King Henry the third when as the King by his Writ being petitioned to give the Sheriffe of Bedford a power to dispence with the Vintners in the Town of Bedford for selling wine above the rates assize doth it in these words Rex c. Vic. Bed salutem Quia Villa de Bedeford distat a quolibet portu maris duas dietas tibi praecipimus quod permittas Vinitar Bed Sextarium vini Franc. vendere pro 8. denar sextarium vini Andeg. Wascon de Blanc pro 10 d. non obstante c. Teste R. c. allowing them to take for a pint and a half if the Sextarie was then accompted to be no greater a measure of wine 7 d. and for the like measure of white wine of Anjou and Gascoine 10 d. And had not as they doe daily too much neglected the execution of the Laws and laid by their duties to God their King and Country and by being over wakefull and diligent to improve their estates and private interests taken a Nap or fit of sleeping in point of time farre beyond that of the seven notorious Sleepers might at this day have been out of the reach of the causeless murmur of those who as they were seduced and fooled by Oliver and his Associates in the greatest of iniquities can make a Non causa to be a cause of their Complaints and of a grievance to themselves when as they and many of their fellow Subjects are and have been the only and immediate causes of it and if rightly considered is a reall grievance to the King and to all that buy more then they sell. And that if the King and his Laws had been as they ought to have been better obeyed and observed in such a Land or Kingdome as England is which is justly accompted to be blest with so much peace and plenty and such an over-plus of all things good and pleasant as well as necessary for the sustenance of the People or Inhabitants thereof as a deer year is not heard of above once at the most in ten or twenty years but many very cheap ones The rates or prices agreed upon by the Counties in the fourth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth would have been enough and sufficient or more then enough if the Acts of Parliament of 25 H. 8. ca. 2. to suppress the enhaunce of the then Market rates which may well be supposed to have been much cheaper then what it was in Anno 4 of Elizabeth and the Statutes of incerti temporis or King Henry the third 3 4 Ed. 6. ca. 19. 5 Ed. 6. ca. 14. against Forestallers had been duly put in execution And that the 12. Counties bordering upon London and adjacent as Middlesex Essex Kent Surrey Sussex Hertford Buckingham Berkshire Bedford Oxford Cambridge and Hâ—ntington Shires making no small gains by the vent and rise of their provisions and commodities and an high improvement of their Lands beyond all other Counties and Parts of England would if the Markets had been regulated and kept down to such just and reasonable prices as might have been well enough afforded have for want of their now great rates for victuals and commodities night and day sent unto London that greatest belly and mouth of the Kingdome and their racking or improving of their Lands been constrained to let fall and diminish their rates and prices and follow the regulating of the Markets and make their prices and rates to be conformable to the Laws and plenty of the Kingdome which would have brought unto them and their Estates a greater or more then supposed damage many times and very far exceeding the pretended losses of serving in their proportions of the Kings provisions as they were agreed upon And if this shall not be believed without experiments or demonstrations they may be quickly brought to assent unto that which will certainly pâ—ove to be a truth that if the King should as King Henry the second keep his Court and Parliament for a time at â—larendon in Wiltshire or as King Edward the first did keep his Court and Parliament in Denbigh-shire at Ruthland too often mistaken and called Rutland or at Carnarvon in Wales or at York where whilest he was busie and imployed in his Warres against the Scots he kept his Terms and Court for seven years together or as many of the former Kings did keep their Christmas and other great yearly Festivals sometimes at Nottingham other times at Worcester Lincoln and other places far remote from London And as the Sun yearly diffuseth his liâ—ht and heat in his journey through the Tropicks some at one time and some at another unto all parts of the world or as the blood in the body naturall daily circulates visits and comforts all the parts of it should enrich comfort most of the parts of his Kingdom with the presence and influence of his Courts and residence Those rates and prises in the Composition for Pourveyances would rather prove to be too high a rate and allowance then too little As it happened to be in Anno 1640. when the late King and Martyr was enforced to be with his Court and Army about Newcastle upon Tine on the borders and confines of Scotland where the cheapness of victualls and other provisions at the Market rates in those parts fell to be very much under the Kings rates or allowance according to the Compositions for his Pourveyance made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth which the Inhabitants and People thereabouts understood so well as a great store and farre more pâ—ovisions being daily brought in at those rates then
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
promises of gratitude and thankfulness after they are had and received to have given him in perpetuity as much or a great deal more than ever the Pâ—aeemption Pourveyance or Composition for it would have amounted unto and imprecated curses and woes as many or more then the plagues of Egypt to have fallen upon them and their after generations neglecting it for it is ever to be understood that the Subsidies Assessements and other Ayds given to the Kings and Princes of England by their Subjects and People in Parliament or at any time taken or otherwise received by them have been more with respect unto their own particular Estates included in the safety of his greater and his granting them free and general pardons not only for offences criminal committed one against another but for offences committed against the King and incroachments and intrusions upon the royal Revenves and for his Royal protection and defending of them and preserving them in their peace and plenty then as for any retributions or acknowledgements of their favours shewed to any or many in particular There being as much reason for the King to expect and receive the presents or acknowledgements of his people as it was for King Solomon to take his presents sine quibus saith the great and excellently learned Grotius Reges Orientis adire non solebant without which the people were accustomed not to come unto their Kings and continued long after to be a custome as may be understood by the Kings or Wise men coming out of the East to worship and adore our blessed Saviour at his birth and is at this day not disused in the Africk and Asiatick Countries And did not nor ought to dull or lessen the alacrity and payment of other necessary duties and tributes when as Solomon besides the provisions of his Houshold brought and served in every year by a rate and what he had of the Governors of the Countrey which if they were not provisions or conducing thereunto might be some other Tributes and did receive Gold and Tributes or Customs of the Merchant men of the Trafâ—ick of the Spice Merchants For if it hath been reason every where and amongst all Nations where either subjection and duty to superiors or humane prudence had any entertainment or abode to take as much care as may be of general and publick safeties when the safeties of particulars are included and comprehended in them and to be willing in the common or publick calamities of a Warre already fastned upon them or hope to prevent them readily to contribute to their Princes or permit them to take provisions sometimes without any price at all and at other times but at reasonable prises in order to their preservation or repelling of evils or inconveniences which would a great deal more molest or trouble them or to give him or his Army free quarter as the men of Israel Juda did unto David their King or bring or send victuals and provisions to his Camp or marching Army and can think it no ill husbandry though they have but the day before paid contribution to the Enemy had much of their Cattel and Provisions taken away by the Enemy a Husband Brother or Sonne killed women and children slain and butchered and the bloody and dreadfull Scenes or Pageants of Warre every where to be seen heard of or lamented or to do as the Danes did lately to the unjustly invading Swedes give money to keep their houses from spoiling or burning It can be no less then reason to contribute something yearly to a King who not only keeps us from those and many other woes and miseries by land and by Sea but daily heapes and multiplies his blessings upon us in protecting and defending us and not only gave many of us our Vineyards but procureth us all to sit quietly under the shadow pleasure content and fruitfulness of our owâ— vines and by his care at home and abroad preserves us and our Estates in an envied peace and plenty And be the more willing to allow him his Praeemption and Compositions for Pourveyance which amounts not unto the two hundreth or five hundreth part and sometimes not the one thousand part or more of the expence and losses which warre and the many times not to be avoided unruliness and spoil thereof may bring upon them Unless like Ulisses Companions transformed into Swine by the accursed charms of a Cirâ—e or inticements of selfish or foolish interests for the maintenance of our vices and luxuries we should think it to be either Religion Duty Conscience Reason or Prudence to take all we can from a King who is the Guardian of all his people and a nursing Father to the Church which his Royal Progenitors Kings of England were so long agoe accustomed to rank amongst their principall cares as in the 23. year of the Reign of King Edward the first it was alledged in a pleading and allowed for law right reason that Ecclesia est infra aetatem in custodia Regis qui tenetur jura haereditates ejusdem manu tenere defendere the Church is as an Infant under age and in the custody of the King who is bound to defend and maintain its rights estates and hereditaments who governs by no Arbitrary will or power but by our known Lawes which are so excellent beyond all the Laws of other Nations so rational so binding and transcendent so carefully watching over the peoples liberties and proprieties such a Buckler Guard and strong Tower of defence unto them and poenal to all that shall but execute any unjust or illegall commands tending to the violation of them not to be denied by the most seditious and undutifull Subjects when they shall but be pleased to be friends and at peace with their reason and understanding as if by any divine punishment proceeding from an iratum Numen an angry and just God after ages should find England to be governed by a King or Prince as cruel as Nero or Commodus and as arbitrary and unruly as some of the Roman or Eastern Emperors have been there cannot untill the sword shall have cut the strings of our Magna Charta and silenced or banished the Laws be any oppression or evil happen to the people without the Balm of Gilead and remedies as quickly brought and found out by our Lawes as there can be any necessities or occasions of them Wherefore we should not like people altogether transported and carried out of humanity into a Lycanthropia or woolfish nature think it to be rationall honest or becoming us instead of every mans saying Domine quid retribuam Lord what shall I render thee for all thy benefits to make it the greatest of our care imployment and business not only to take from the King but keep all we can from him And if they would or could tell how to doe it without the just reproach of disloyalty dishonesty and villany should not do it in his
people Subjects and men of Honor in England in those more honorable more performing less complementing times but since withering and growing fruitless and out of fashion when that great commander Luxury had with his Regiments and Brigades of vices new fangles and vanities subdued and put the people to a greater contribution towards such their wicked and vain expences and all that they can now make shift for is too little to support and bear out their extravagancies It is well known and experimented to the great comfort of such as lived within the virge of the Kings houses and residence that the Hospitality of the Kingdome like the heart in the body naturall the primum vivens beginner and conservator of life beginning in the Kings house and propagating and diffusing it self in and through as many of the Nobility and Gentry as being de meliori lutâ— of a more then ordinary extraction did strive as much as became them to imitate Royal Examples would be in the Kings house the ultimum mâ—riens the last which expired And that besides the necessary grandeur and magnificence of the Kings houshold plenty and variety of meat and drink to entertain at his Officers Tables the Nobility Gentry and Citizens which had any occasion to come thither and 240 gallons of Beer allowed the poor every day at the Buttery Barre three gallons every day at the Court gate for thirteen poor men six services or messe of meat and seven pieces of beef a day as wast and extraordinarie for the Kings Honor the chippings of bread sometimes more then should be and the fragments and knapstry of broken or quarter or half joynts of meat carcases of Fowl and Poultry pieces of Pie-crust or other provisions carefully and daily gathered and put into severall Almes-baskets left at every Table and Chamber in the Court and distributed unto the poor by two Grooms and two Yeomen of the Elemosinary or Almnery who enjoy an yearly Salary and maintenance from the King for that only imployment which hath fed and supported many poor Families in and about Westminster as well as Common Beggars the Lodgings and accomodations of Nobility and Gentry resorting to the Court have so greatly enriched all the Streets and parts about it as that end of London and parts adjacent have like trees planted by the water side so very much prospered as Westminster which originally had but some scattered houses adjoyning to the Abby and the Kings Palace came aftewards to be a Burrough Town Corporation endowed with great Liberties and Priviledges and sending Burgesses to the Parliament afterwards to be a City and the people of other parts as birds haunting the woods for shelter shade or succor observing the plenty happiness which they enjoyed have built made their nests habitations as near as they could unto that place and Royal seat of bounty charity and magnificence insomuch as the swelling and increase of London at this day every where to be seen not without some admiration in her Extent and buildings hath within this and the last Century of years very much outgrown that antient City it self and as Mr. John Graunt and some others have truly and ingeniously observed extended it self Westward and as near as it could unto the Royal bitation as if that were more to be desired for a neighbourhood then the River of Thames the Exchange or Custome-house of London and places of Trade and Traffick They therefore that shall remember how his Majesties Maundie or Charity kept as his Royal Ancestors ever did upon the Thursday before Easter or Eve of Good-Friday with a Joul of Salmon a Poll of Ling 30 red Herrings and as many white garnished with â—erbs in new clean wooden dishes four six penny loaves of Court bread cloth for a Gown and a Shirt a pair of New Shoes and Stockins and a single penny with a twenty shillings piece of gold overplus put in severall little purses given to as many poor old men as the King is years old and the state and decency observed in the distributing of it after their feet washed and dried and the King with a condiscention and unexampled humility beyond the reach and example of any of his Subjects kneeling upon his knees and devoutly kissing the feet of those his Almes-men cannot certainly tell how to murmur at such an hospitality or Provisions which afforded him the means wherewith to doe it Nor should the many cures which he yearly doth unto such as are Lame Blind Diseased or troubled with the Disease called the Kings Evil because he cureth it the patience and meekness which he employeth in it and the yearly charge of at least three thousand pounds per annum which his Angel Gold of the value of ten shillings and a silk Ribbon put about the neck of every one be they rich or poor young or old which doe come to that English Pool of Bethesda to be healed and cured be forgotten or thought unworthy a gratitude or some remuneration or acknowledgements Neither can any that ever understood or read of the round Tables of our King Arthur the great Roger Mortimer and the famous Hospitality of England continued through the British Saxon and Norman times all the turmoyls and troubles of the after Generations in their greatest extremities of the Barons warres and the direfull and bloody contentions of the two great discording Houses of York and Lancaster with the vast quantities of Land given besides to Monasteries and Religious Houses to the great increase of Charity and Alms-deeds which was then the only Trade driven or thought on in the way to Cabo di buona speranza the everlasting rest of the righteous the large proportions of Lands given for Chantries in a then supposed pious care of themselves and their Progenitors great gifts and remunerations to Servants and curtesies and kindness to Neighbours and Tenants when most of our Nobility and Gentry thought themselves not great unless they were good nor a Gentleman because he had only the insignia virtutum Armories and marks of the honor of his Ancestors descended unto him without the virtuous noble and heroick qualities which were the cause or original of them when pride and interest the Devils Deputies were not the Soveraign which they most obeyed vanity and all the folliâ—s of sin the neighbours which they loved as themselves when virtue was not reckoned as it is now amongst too many a base or simple companion nor honour turned into a Pageant or nâ—men inane or only made a pretence to deceive mens expectations when almost every English Gentleman was in his Parish and amongst his Tenants like Job that good accomptant of his talents a deliverer of the poor that cried the fatherless and him that had none to help him caused the Widows heart to sing for joy was eyes to the blinde feet to the lame brake the jawes of the wicked pluckt the spoils out of his teeth grieved for the poor
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
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
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
or avarice by taking advantage of some particular persons folly or over-bidding and keeping up the excessive rates of the Market to the same or a more unreasonable price and not being willing to let them fall again to a lower price though there be plenty and reason enough to do it unlawful combinations and confederacies of Trades men to raise their prices or cause their wares to be made Slight or insufficient unconscionable adulterating of Commodities and making them seem what they are not to raise the greater prices evil Artifices of Forestallers of the Markets Ingrossers and Regrators who for their own ungodly gains can make a dearth and scarcity in the midst of plenty and like Caterpillars spoil and devour the Hopes of the years fertility the Landlords racking of rents and the price of all manner of houshold provisions and other things raised by the Tenants to enable them to pay them an universal pride and vanity of the Nation and enhaunce of prices to support them plunder miseries and desolations of War numberless tricks and deceipts of Tradesmen and fraud of the common and Rustick part of the people in the Counties neer London in keeping many of their Cattel half a mile or some little distance from the Fairs untill the Evening or much of the day be spent to make them to sell at greater rates frequent deceits of stocking or Tying up the Udders of Kine a day before hand to make them swell and seem to give great store of Milke And as many other tricks of Trade and deceit as the Devil and deluded consciences can invent And truely looked upon as causes or concurrent parts of the cause of the now grand and most intollerable inhaunce of the rates and pâ—ices of Victuals houshold provisions and other Commodities there will be little or no room for the supposed plenty of Gold and Silver to be either a cause or so much as any part of a cause of it Nor can be well imagined when as notwithstanding that betwixt the middle of the Raign of King Henry the eight and the beginning of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth the Gold and Silver Mines of the West Indies had by the Spanish cruelty to the Indians and their almost extirpation afforded such quantities of these baites of Satan and temptations as two hundred and sixty millions of Gold did appear by the Records of the Custom house of Sivill to have been brought from the West Indies into Spain all the plenty of that riches either by our Merchants bringing in of Bullion from Spain and its other Kingdomes and Provinces by Commerce or return of Merchandize did not so in England raise enhaunce the rates and prices of Victuals and houshold provisions but that we finde the Parliament of 24. H. 8. ordaining that Beef Pork Mutton and Veal should be sold by the weight called haber dupois no person should take for a pound of Beef or Pork above one half penny nor for a pound of Mutton or Veal above half penny farthing did believe they might be reasonably so afforded And the rates of Victuals and houshold provisions notwithstanding so increasing as in the yeer following It was ordained That Governors of Cities and Market Towns upon complaint to them made of any Butcher refusing to sell victuals by the weight according to the Statute of 24 H. 8. ca. 3. might commit the offenders toward untill he should pay all penalties limitted by the said Statute and were enabled to sell or cause to be sold by weight all such victuals for ready money to be delivered to the owner and if any Grasier Farmer Breeder Drover c. should refuse to sell his fat Cattel to a Butcher upon such reasonable prices as he may retail it at the price assessed by the said Statute The Justices of Peace Maiors or Governors should cause indifferent persons to set the prices of the same which if the owner refused to accept then the Justices c. should binde him to appear the next Term in the Star Chamber to be punished as the Kings Councel should think good And the same Parliament Enacting That upon every complaint made of any enhauncing of prices of Cheese Butter Capons Hens Chickens and other Victuals necessary for mens sustenance without ground or cause reasonable in any part of this Realm or in any other the Kings Dominions the Lord Chancellor of England the Lord President of the Kings most honorable Councel the Lord Privy Seal the Lord Steward the Lord Chamberlaine and all other Lords of the Kings most honorable house the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Kings Justices of either Bench the Chancellor Chamberlains under Treasurer and the Barons of the Kings Exchequer or seven of them at the least whereof the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer the Lord President of the Kings Councel or the Lord Privy seal to be one should have power and authority from time to time as the cause should require to set and tax reasonable prices of all such kinde of Victuals how they should be sold in gross or by retail and that after such prices set and taxed Proclamation should be made in the Kings name under the great Seal of the said prices in such parts of this Realm as should be convenient for the same Was not of opâ—nion that the plenty of Gold and Silver were any cause of the enhaunce of the prices or rates of Victuals but did in the preamble of that Act declare That forasmuch as dearth scarcity good cheap and plenty of such kinde of Victuals happeneth riseth and chances of so many and diverse occasions that it is very hard and difficult to put any certain prices to any such things yet nevertheless the prices of such Victuals be many times enhaunced and raised by the greedy covetousness and appetites of the owners of such Victuals by occasion of ingrossing and regrating the same more then upon any reasonable or just ground or cause to the great damage and impovershing of the Kings subjects Siâ— Thomas Chamberlaine qui mores hominum multorum vidit urbes who by his several Embassages fâ—om England into Foraign Countries in the Raigns of Kiâ—g Henry the eighth and King Edward the sixth was not a little acquainted with the customes of other Nations aswell as his own did in the Raign of King Edward the sixth in a Treatise entituled Policies to reduce the Realm of England unto a prosperous wealth and estate dedicated unto the Duke of Somerset then Lord Protector assign the causes of the high prices and dearness of Victuals far less then what is now to be abasing of Coyn and givâ—ng more then Forty pence for the ounce of Silver ingrossing of Commodities the high price of Wooll which caused the Lords and Gentlemen being by the suppressing of the Abbies and liberality of King Henry the eight waxen rich to convert all their grounds into Sheep Pastures which diminished Victuals ten Lordships to the great decay of Husbandry
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
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
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
of Supernumeraries cannot be lessened where the high State and Honor of a King is to be maintained which some great or publike occasions as at Coronations Funerals Triumphs c. onely excepted is principally to reside in his house or fixed Station and therefore it cannot be for the good of the people or be correspondent to the Majesty of a great King that a lesser number of Maces should be born before him or that there should not be so many servants of one the same imployment but if the grandeur and magnificence of the King could be served with a lesser number of servants the pretended surplusage would be necessary enough in order to the preferring and pleasing of his people and to give them encouragement to love and honor him which is their head and to make it their business to preserve and keep up the honor and gâ—eatness of the King and his Court which David in the order and placing of Officers and servants in the house and Temple of the God of Israel as well as in his own did not think impertinent as the several distributions and pluralities of Officers to places of one and the same nature will sufficiently evidence and to do otherwise would as little conduce to that Decorum which ought to be in a Kings Family as some indigested advice would do in the propounding that there might be a sparing of a great yearly charge of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners who were anciently those that served in War and ad latus principis in a pitched field or Battel and were by Covenant and Indenture which are frequently mentioned and to be found in the Records and ancient memorials of the Kingdom his Pensioners onely for that purpose because that the King is at a charge of a Life Guard which cannot comprehend and take in the uses for the Gentlemen Pensioners in their guarding the King within doors where there is a greater decency and honor in them and their service then can be in the Esau's or men of the Field and such as are onely useful in the direful Sacrifices to Bellona where the Majesty of a King is laid aside and by a present necessity exchanged for a sword and the bloody and unmajestick business of it and would be as little for the profit of a King within the Virge of that honor which shâ—uld encompass and attend him and his affairs as to suppose that the Master of the houshold which certainly hath been as ancient as the houshold it self and never but once for ought appears to the contrary intermitted and then by the cunning insinuation and self ends of one that was too instrumental in the introducing of our Trojan Horse is useless and supernumerary for that the Treasurer Comptroller Cofferer Clerks of the Greencloth and Clerks Comptrollers may amongst them and altogether discharge and supply the care and business of it which will appear to be no more then suppositions and pretences when as the Office of Master of the houshold which if well executed and as it ought to be is of most necessary use and of a greater Fatigue and trouble then any other of the houshold is not at all comprehended in the Lord Steward or great Master of the housholds place nor within the Offices of Treasurer Comptroller Cofferer Clerks of the Greencloth or Clerks Comptrollers but hath as all the rest of the Officers of the Greencloth have his peculiar and particular charge which is to inspect all the under Offices of the houshold and to be as a Corrigidor or Surveyor of those numerous Officers and servants which are therein unto which the other great imployments and high honor of the Lord Steward and the Treasurer and Comptroller who are of his Majesties Privy Councel will not permit them always to attend to call in question and prosecute the punishment of such under Officers and Servants and their irregularities as deserve it and keep a constant watch eye upon their actions and cause the daily orders and commands of the great Officers to be obeyed and executed by the inferior as well as the set and known Rules of the house which is now more then ever necessary and not to be wanted when there are so very great and many disorders which aâ—e heightned and more and more increased by the want of the Royal Pourveyances or Compositions for them and by the enhaunce of rates and prices of houshold provisions which do more infest the Purse and profit of the King then any supernumerary Officers and servants have as yet done and hinder him from regulating these unallowable improvements and as they are called Fees and perquisites of some Offices and Places in his Court by an Augmentation of the ancient Wages and Salaries of his servants now far too little and unable to support them in his service which the monys wasted in the damages and loss sustained for want of his Prae-emption and Pourveyances and by those otherwise remediless irregularities would have easily accomplished And all the people of England and their after generations may take it to be no less then their duty as well as their interest and if the irrational creatures were but to be Judges of it a common gratitude to endeavour all they can and to be willing that those ancient Rights should be continued and preserved to the King and his successors And having no small concernment in the honor of their Kings which by its Rays and Râ—flexions communicated unto them was and ever is and will be as necessary for the good and welfare of the King and his people as either Credit Cloths Jewels or any thing else they can have or adorn themselves withall when as their own interest or well or ill being is involved in the Kings May understand it to be no less their interest to uphold the honor of the King and his house then it was the interest of their forefathers who if they had not found it to be a more then ordinary concernment of themselves and every good subject to be assistant thereunto would not so often have been petitioners in several Parliaments and several Kings Raigns for the well ordering of the Kings house And being not ignorant how much all people are won and kept by hospitalities and benefits or lost for want of them should not be instrumental to mudd or stop the fountain but cherish rather keep the hospitality of the Kings house as carefully as the Romans did their Vestal fire and the Anciâ—ia or sacred Sheilds as some special part of the salus populi and believe that it was for the interest of the Nation that some Lords of the Kings Privy Council in the 21. year of the Raign of Henry the eighth even in the decay and expiring of Hospitality and almost all other the English vertues did amongst other Articles of Impeachment exhibited to the King against Cardinal Woolsey who kept a very large and ample Hospitality in his own house charge him that
of money raised by Taxes have but enforced a Conquest of less then a sixâ—eenth part of those great and rich Territories which might once have been had at a cheaper rate And if we would but regard the honor of the English Nation and the gratitude which like the blood was wont to circulate and attend their hearts should blush to take a lesser care of the Kings rights and preheminences then our ancestors were accustomed to do who in a Parliament of King Edward the third in the 42. year of his Raign declared That they could not assent to any thing which tended to the dishâ—rison of the King and his Crown to which they were sworn And in a Parliament in the fourteenth yeer of the Raign of King Richard the second did pray the King That the prerogative of him and his Crown might be kept that all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that the King might be as free as any of his progenitors were Or to deny those ancient rights of Prae-emption and Pourveyance or the former Compositions for them to a King who hath rescued us from a slavery from which we could not redeem our selves and restored all the Factious and Rebellious parties to their forfeited Laws and Liberties Or that he should meet with no better acknowledgements then that those who professed that their lives estates and fortunes should be at his dispose in order to his service and that they would be Tenants in Corde should by denying hâ—s Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them but be Tenants in Ore and by their high rates and impositions upon his houshold provisions make it their business to take ex Ore suo that which should maintain him his houshold And that the King who publickly professed that he was much troubled that his people should come flocking as they did to Whitehal to see him where he had nothing to â—eed them should now be so much necessitated or imposed upon as he is by his want of Pourveyance and the former way of Compositions for them or that the maligners of our English honor and prosperity should publish it in Gath or Askelon or have cause to upbraid us with Hic clarae virtutis honos haec gloria sceptri Hoc magni Decus Imperii tales ve Triumphâ—s Are these the promises This the high renown Great Empires Honor Glory of a Crown Or that our Returns should be no more to a King who doth not as the Commonwealths of Greece the spawn and Nursery of Republikes fill their Treasuries with Taxes impose ten Drachmas upon every house Assessements upon every payment of Silver mony and Taxes upon Beggars Whores and such as were made Free upon Cattle Dung Horses Mules Asses Oxen and 3. pence upon every Dog or the Fumaria Tributa Chimney money leavyed by Nicephorus the Emperor the Chimney money which is now taken in England being of late onely granted by Act of Parliament and consent of the people to supply the decayed revenues of the Crown with a Tax likewise upon every man that grew suddainly rich upon a presumption that he had found some Treasure which by Prerogative belonged to the Emperor a Canon or Canonicum Tributum ordinary or constant yeerly Tribute amounting in the whole to as much as 17 s. six pence besides a Sheep six Bushels of Barley six Bushels of Bran six measures of Wine and thirty Hens imposed upon every village having thirty Chimneys imposed by â—saacus Commenius the Emperor or a Tax upon the rich to excuse the poor Nor as the Romans did whilst they were a Common-wealth impose a Tax or Imposition but in case of present great necessity and by the peoples consent in Parliament de agris Pascuis or a Land Assessement to make an Aerarium or Treasury to supply future emergencies or Collect Aurum vicesimarium a twentieth peuy of every mans estate ad ultimos Casus to support the Commonwealth when it should happen to be â—istressed or a Tax before hand to defray the charge of a war in Gaule when there should be any or Poll-money without common assent and an imposition or Tax upon salt nor raise Taxes and Tributes as they did Tributim a singulis ad Tributum solvendum aerario bellis exinanito to fill again their Treasuries exhausted by War a Tax or rate upon Wine a tenth of all Corn Oyl and fruits of the earth and a twentieth penny of the estates of such as were made free a vectigal or tribute for Fish in Lakes and Fish ponds a yeerly pension for every house in Rome their Aedilitia vectigalia a tribute to maintain their Theaters or Play-houses Siliquaticum a certain Toll in Markets and Fairs Vectigal macelli an Excise upon all flesh and Victuals a Tenth of Legacies the Decumae or Tenths of the profits of Lands given by a Husband to a Wife or a Wife to a Husband if they had no children and a Portorium or custom for exportation or importation of Commodities Did not make his Census or Assessements so poenal in the not due discovery of the peoples estates as the Romans those great pretenders to love and liberty did in theirs wherein wives servants and children were not exempted sub poena publicationis inflicta his qui nollent bona sua aestimari vâ—l mala fide minoris quam valerent aestimari paterentur under the penalty of a forftiture of their goods if they should refuse to have their estates Assessed or suffer them to be under valued and exact a rate to be paid for the burial of such as died extra patriam and were brought home to be buried or such taxes as were afterwards imposed by the Emperors of Rome when that grand and universal Commonwealth revolved into its first constitution and a Monarchy as a third part of the revenues of all men made Free in Italy and a fourth of the Natives or Free-holders imposed by Lepidus and Antonius in their Tâ—iumvirate with Augustus or as Augustus Caesar the best of their Emperors or Monarches did who exacted the fourth part of every mans revenue and the eighth of every mans goods which were made free to furnish an Aerarium militare or Magazin of money for the souldery a Centesima pars or hundred penny of all things sold a twentieth part or penny of all Legacies and grants of inheritance the Vicesima quinta or twenty fifth part of all things sold in the Country Market Towns the Quinquagesima or fiftieth part of wild Beasts brought to be sold and fifteen pence sterling for the peice of money taken out of the Fishes mouth which paid the Poll-money for our Saviour Christ and Peter is by good authors reckoned to be two shillings and six pence sterling for Poll money the hundred part of all things bought or sold within the Empire taxed before the Civil Waâ—s and continued by Tiberius
licencia an unbounded licence in the Magistrate to Tax the people and a licence to the people in stead of a liberty to Trade and cozâ—n one another makes them so patient to undergo those vectigaliâ— ac Collationes aliaque servilâ—a onera Taxes payments and servil burdens which otherwise they would be unwilling to endure All or most of which being continued and lying heavy upon them upon pretences of debts incurred for the publike to be paid or otherwise have made such a dearth of all houshold provisions as that notwithstanding that their huge Granaries at Amsterdam are always stored with abundance of Corn to transport and sell to all other Nations and Kingdoms where they finde any scarcity or want of it a family of ten persons more then one half whereof have been young children have this last Winter amongst other Victuals as Flesh Fish Roots c. been inforced to spend 17 s. sterling in a week in ordinary and common bread and twelve shillings sterling within the same Circle of time for Turfe or Firing and the generality of the Nation are sinking so fast into a poverty as by an exact account taken thereof there have been this last year more then in any of the former years above eighty thousand Pawns brought into the publike Lumbard at Amsterdam and may teach them and all the world at last how great the difference will be betwixt a natural and hereditary Prince governing by the known Laws of a Nation and with less charges and that which is onely upheld by the power of money and Taxes to make and preserve an interest for those who are the only gainers by it Did not in any of his necessities as some of his predecessors Kings of England have done in theirs both before and since the Conquest continue and take the Tax of Dane gelt laid to expel that Nation out of England after they were quieted and returned home nor as many of the English Lords of divers Mannors have done and do to this day require and take of their Tenants Peter pence or Chimney money amounting in some Mannors to considerable summes though it was long since abolished by Act of Parliament and was not to be taken in that kind or for that purpose nor doth by wars or impositions impoverish his people as some of his neighbors have done or made them to complain as the common people of Normandy did not long ago that they were une uraye Anatomy de corps humain auquel ne reste plus que les os le Peau encore foulez like an Anatomy of a mans body which had nothing but bones and skin left upon it and that also foul enough but hath made them in the generality richer then himself and more abounding in plenty and riches then any Nation of Christendom And being the son and heir of the Crowns and Kingdoms as well as afflictions of his Royal Father King Charles the Martyr who in the Halcion and peaceable days of the former part of his Raign did so much abhor the mode or manner of an Arbitary Government as he did imprison in the Tower of London that Monarch of Letters and Learning the great Selden together with Mr. Oliver St. John for but having in their custody or divulging a Manuscript or discourse written by Sir Robert Dudley a titular Duke of Tuscany and an English Fugitive of the way and means how to make the King a great Revenue according to the manner of Gabels or Taxes in Italy borrowed by Mr. St. John out of Sr. Robert Cottons famous library where it had otherwise slept and caused his Attorney General to exhibit a Bill in the Star Chamber against the now Earl of Clare the said Mr. Selden and Mr. St. John for the publishing of it though but in Manuscript and was so far from any action desire or intention of a Tyrant as when he might like the Dairo or Emperor of Japan have wallowed in riches and pleasures and as a Minotaur have fed upon the liberties of the people if he would have but delivered up the Church of England and his subjects and their after generations as slaves to the Arbitrary will Government of a Rebellious part of the people calling themselves a Parliament he did on the contrary not only most constantly endure all the miseries dangers ignominies which they could cast upon him but rather then he would betray or give up their Religion Laws or liberties laid down his life as a sacrifice to preserve them and havâ—ng before his death established our excellent Laws of Magna â—harta and made them stronger and more binding then ever they were before by confirming them and other their liberties and customs under the name and notion of their petition of Right and at the signing or ratification thereof used a saying or sentence deserving to be written in Letters of Gold which he called his Maxime and declared to be his own That the peoples liberty strengthens the Kings prerogative and that the Kings prerogative is to defend the peoples liberty did not for all those unparalelled sufferings and great Misusage of his Father and himself take any advantage of those that forfeited their interest in those excellent laws and liberties but pardoning all their transgressions restored them to all that they could but so much as pretend unto And notwithstanding that he and his Royal predecessors had quamplurimisdonis largitionibus by their very many favors and bounties to such as deserved well of the Commonwealth and had been instrumental in the preservation or promoting the good of it given away the most part of the Crown Lands and many of their Regalities doth not make an Aeraâ—ium or Treasury of mony for himself or his own particular use out of his own revenues separate from that of the publike as Lewis the 12. of France did but doth with that very small part of his Lands which remaineth and his legal and undenyable rights and prerogatives without any Taxes or Impositions laid upon the people other then what is assented unto by themselves and their representatives in Parliament bear and support the burden and continual charges of the Government and affaires thereof Which should rouze and stir up the hearts and affections of his people of England and perswade them who have now and had before the Taxes raised to improve Rebellion fewer Taxes and impositions laid upon them then any Nation within the walk or perambulation of the Sun and are the freest and do enjoy more liberties immunities and priviledges then any people of the world not to deny or withhold from him and of his just Regalities rights and preheminences but think it to be more necessary for their good and well-being to permit him to enjoy his Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them then that which many of our Acts of Parliament have done to enjoyn the repairs of Havens and Peers as was in the last Session of Parliament for the Peer
exemption by an Assessement to be made for that purpose Or by the West Indians in Guaxara who by order of the high Justice do deliver unto Fryers travailing that way if they have no money Horses to ride on or to carry their carriages or provision without money so that at their departure they write it down in the Town book what they had spent and not abide above four and twenty hours in the Town where by a contribution their expences are defrayed Or by the old Irish one of which being a Tenant of Termonland or Land belonging to the Church and unwilling to change his old customes for new said to the Bishop of Dermot of whom he held his Lands non debet dominus mutare censum antiquum sed si careat rebus necessariis vaccis pinguibus c. debet ad nos miâ—tere Et nos debemus subministrare nam quaecunque nos habemus Domini sunt nos etiam ipsi illius sumus My Lord ought not to change his ancient Customes Rents or services due out of the Land but if he wanteth necessary provisions for his house and family as fat Cows c. we ought to furnish them for whatsoever we have are his and we our selves are the Lords Or by the modern Irish or inhabitants of Ireland who notwithstanding the Pourveyance or Compositions for Pourveyance and Prae-emption allowed to the Kings Lord Lieutenant of that kingdom could since the abolition of that most useful necessary custome in England offer if Fame did not mistake her self an yeerly supply of 3000. Irish Oxen or Cattel towards the support of the King and his Family and have besides in their Act of Parliament lately made for the execution of his Majesties Declaration for the setlement of that kingdom consented That the Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Kings Bench the Lord Chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer and the Master of the Rolles or any other his Majesties Officers of that Kingdom for the time being shall and may have and receive such Port Corn of the Rectories Impropriations or Appropriate Tythes forfeited unto or vested in his Majesty his heirs â—nd successors which have been formerly paid or reserved Or by the Scots a people never as yet exceeding or so much as keeping even pace with their neighbors of England in civilities kindness and gratitudes who when their King Malcolme who raigned in Scotland in Anno Dom. 1004. had given and distributed all the Lands of the Realm of Scotland amongst his men and reserved na thing as the Act of Parliament of 22 Jac. 3. beareth in property to himself but the Royal dignity and the Mute hill in the Town of Scone could give and grant to him the ward and relief of the heir of ilke Baron quhan he sold happen to deceis for the Kings sustentation And did notwithstanding so well esteem and allow of those ancient rights of Pourveyance or Compositions for them as in the Raign of their King James the 4. in the year of our Lord 1489. The Lords spiritual and temporal and uthers his Leiges did declare in Parliament that it was the Kings property for the honorable sustentation of his house according to his Estait and honor quhilk may not be failized without great derogation of his noble Estaite and that his true lieges suld above all singular and particular profit desire to prefer the noble Estaite of his Excellence like as it was done in the time of his maist noble progenitors of gud minde And did therefore think it neidful expedient and reasonable And did statute and ordain that full derogation cassation and annullation be maid of all Gifts Donations Infeftments Fewes life Rents given by his Hieness to quhat sumever person or persons sen the day of his Coronation swa that all Lands Rents Customes Burrow Mailles Fermeâ— Martes Mutton Poultery avarage carriage and uther Dewties that were in the hands of his Progenitors and Father the day of his decease notwithstanding quhat sumeuer assignation or gift be maid thereupon under the Great Seal Privy Seal or uthers be all utterly cassed and annulled so that the haill profits and Rents thereof may cum to the King to the honorable sustentation of his house and noble Estaite Or so much degenerate from the Brittaines our Ancestors and predecessors who were heretofore so glad of any occasions to express their love and honor of their Princes as when they made their progress or had any occasion to visit any of their houses they flung the doors off the Hinges and gave them open hearted and free entertainment Nor deny those respects and duties to our Kings which no other Nations do refuse to their Kings or Princes which may make us to be an hissing and reproach to other Nations and by using our head so ill to be esteemed as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 people without an head or the Sciopedes who are reported to have such large feet as they can when they please cover their head with it and never let it be said that when a factious and rebellious part of our people could in the year 1656. suppose it to be their Interest to exchange with Cromwell their Antichrist or Mahomet their Religion Laws and liberties for his Tyrannical and Arbitrary will and pleasure and petition him in their Conventicle or pretended Assembly of Parliament that he would besides the remainder of the Kings Queens and Princes Revenues not disposed of except Forrests and Chaces and the Mannors thereunto belonging and of all the Lands of Delinquents in the Counties of Dublin Kildare Clare and Katerlaugh the forfeited Lands in Scotland which were great and considerable two parts of the Recusants Lands in England not compounded for and all Debts Fines Penalties Issues and casual profits belonging to the Keepers of the liberties of England so miscalled which was by them and their fellow Usurpers setled upon him and was of it self a Revenue too great for all the Brewers of England to accept of ten hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum to be leavyed upon the people with such other supplies as should be needful to be raised from time to time by consent of that which they Nick named a Parliament and three hundred thousand pounds per annum to be raised for the charge of the Administration of Justice and support of Government which he thinking not enough to serve his wicked occasions designes or desires to â—lay or keep in exile the heir of the Kingdoms tells his dutiful Parliament at a conference in April 1657. that the charge of the Government would yearly amount unto ninteen hundred thousand pounds sterling and therefore though the war with Spain should cease desired that the thirteen hundred thousand pounds per annum might have six hundred thousand pounds per annum more added thereunto and that that could be willingly assented unto and all the Loyal party enforced and driven to submit
themselves and Blaspheme abuse and crucifie him in his members And that it will be better to subscribe to that which is amongst all civilized Nations and people taken to be an Aphorisme or Maxime irrefragrable that omâ—e imperium omnisque Reipublicâ— forma validissimo munimento tuetur Auctoritate eorum penes quos simmum Imperium existit that all Kingdoms and Governments are most strongly fortified and defended by the authority of those who do govern that praeclara de Imperio existimatio sue reputatio multa efficit plura non nunquam quam vis Arma that the esteem and reputation of a King or Governor doth many times bring greater advantages then power and Armies That it is patrimonium principis as much to a King or Prince as his Patrimony or inheritance and certissima Imperii salutis publciae tutela a most certain guard and defence of a King and his people which Saul well apprehended when upon the displeasure of Almighty God threatned by Samuel he entreated him to honor him before the Elders of his people And that if a long duration of a right or custome and quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus approbatum that which is and hath been always every where and of all people so much allowed and practiced should not be enough as it hath in many other things which have a lawful prescription the reason right use and necessity of it and the avoiding of those many inconveniences which will inevitable follow the disuse of it may perswade us to recall again and revive the duties of Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them and to petition the King by our Representatives in Parliament as our forefathers did in 14 R. 2. that the prerogative of him and his Crown may be kept and that all things done to the contrary may be redressed That so our King may as Solomon who feasted all the people for seven days and seven days even fourteen days have wherewithall to maintain his own honor and the love of his people anâ— give portions of meat as the Prophet Daniel and others had in the house of Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon that the people may with gladness and rejoycings enter into the Kings Palaces and the King not doubt of their affections though the waters should roar and be troubled and the mountains shake with the swellings thereof that his love unto them may from his throne exhale and attract theirs and distill it down again upon them as the raine upon the grass or showers that water the earth and that our England which was heretofore the happiest Nation that ever the Sun beheld in his journeys may be once again the land of love and happiness and that the people may be as busie in their gratitudes to their Prince as the Rivers are in the tender and payment of their Tributes to the Ocean Moribus antiquis stent res Britanna viresque FINIS ERRATA OR FAVLTS escaped in the Printing PAge 12. line 11. intersere and took only p. 13. l. 27. insert enabled p. 15. l. 10. dele had and besides insert with and l. 11. had p. 26. l. 27. intersere middle p. 27. l. 19. dele and. p. 30. l. 23. dele for a present p. 30. l. 19. dele Sir p. 42. l. 9. dele and Shoes p. 50. l. 8. dele i. in deferiendum p. 51. l. 22. intersere not only p. 62. l. 30. dele and. p. 68. l. 30. dele and intersere and. p. 71. l. 9. intersere of p. 79. l. 28. dele thereupon p. 98. l. 8. intersere to p. 100. l. 30. dele and. p. 107. l. 26. dele about p. 81. l. 7. for eighteenth read fourth p. 113. l. 13. intersere de offendi quietos dele de quietis esse p. 131. l. 23.17 pro 20. p. 133. l. 18. intersere them p. 139. l. 3. intersere if p. 142. l. 1. intersere all p. 153. l. 3. dele which p. 154. l. 9. dele and them intersere as p. 170. l. 7. dele which intersere 15. l. 25. dele pounds intersere marks p. 195. l. 22. dele and. p. 196. l. 26. dele 3. p. 198. l. 16. dele Fisher and read Flesher p. 231. l. 4. dele and. p. 236. l. 8. read delirium p. 261. l. 12. dele Ministry intersere Country p. 264. l. penulâ— dele of p. 266. l 6. dele Nobility and. p. 280. l. ult dele and read to him who p. 281. l. 21. dele all or p. 302. l. 1. read where he took all and dele that notwithstanding p. 337. l. 1. intersere being and but. p. 339. l. 14. dele or p. 365. l. 18. intersere and and l. 19. dele eighteen pence for a hen p. 374. l. 2. read so ibidem l. 28. read keep p. 377. l. 10. dele for and read from p. 391. l. 19. read still p. 450. l. 30. dele noâ— p. 455. l. 14. read Almoxariffadgos p. 456. l. 11. dele quents p. 459. l. 7 put in the mâ—rgent France p. 467. l. 26. read panes p. 468. l. 18. read out of Brescia p. 480. l. 27. intersere which and 29. read Embassadors Prov. 24.21 (b) Deut. 6 8.9.11.18 (c) Plutarch in vita Licurgi (d) Plutarch in vita Solonis (e) Prov. 8.31 (f) Jeremy 6.16 (g) Genesis 43.24 26. (h) 1 Sam. 25. 2 Sam. 8. (i) 2 Sam. 1.17 (k) 1 Reg. 4 21 22 23. (l) 1 Reg. 10.24 25. (m) Josephus de 〈◊〉 Jud. lib. 8. (n) 2 Reg. 3. () Chron. 16. (p) Ezekiel 45. 48. (q) Nehemiah 5.18 (r) Hom. Iliad (s) Boemus de moribus Gentium (t) Sigonius dâ— Repub. Athen. 540. 541. Eudaeus in Pandect 192. (u) Appâ—an l. 1. (x) Rasinus de antiquitate Rom. 993. (y) Pancirollus Comment in notitiam imperii occidentis ca. 5. (z) Rosinus de Antiquâ—tat Rom ca. 14.24 lib. 10. c. 22. (a) Annotations upon Tacitus (b) L. Julia de Magistratibus (c) Cod. tit de cursu publico Ant. Thisius de celebero Repâ—b (d) Pancirol in noâ—itiaÌ„ utriusque Imperii ca. 6. (e) Maranta speculum aureum parte 6. de executione sententiae (f) Bart. in l. jubemus uâ— nullam navem 1â— in princip (g) Novel Majoran tit 1. de Curialibus Cujat tit 48. ad librum 10. Cod. Justinian 1429. Cujacius Commentar Expositio Novel tit 63. k) Pancirollus Comment in notitiâ—m Imperii occidentis c. 65. (l) Zenopbon lib. 8. Paidiae (m) Pancirollus in â—otitia Imperii orientis (n) Spartianus cap. 6. in Seveâ—o (o) Pancirollus Comment in notitiam Imperii orient 86. (p) LL. Wisigoth lib. 9. tit 6. (q) LL. Wisigoth lib. 2. tit 9. (r) Cassiodorus variarum l. 12. (s) Ibidem lib. 11. (t) Leg. Jul. de Annon Cujacius Paratitl in lib. Cod. Justiniani (u) C. de Annon Tribut vegâ—tius (x) Lib. 1. tit de Annon Tribut (y) Cujacius in lib. 1 Cod. Justâ—niani 52. z Ridleys view of the Civil and Ecclesiasticall Lawes (a)
Cod. Th. Justinian lib. 12. Cujaâ—ius (b) Bignonius Not. in lib. 1. Marculfi 465. (c) Capitl lib. 4. cap. 72. (d) Biâ—nâ—nius Not. in Marculâ—um (e) Capitl Caâ— M. lib. 3. c. 1 39· (f) Hinckmarus Ep. 3. c. 23. (g) Hottoman Franco Galiâ—a (h) Bignonius Not. in 1. lib. Marculsi 447. 448. (i) Vincentius Lupaâ—us de Magistrat Franciae lib. 1. (k) Otho Frifingeâ—siis de gistis Friderici lib. 2. ca· 12. (l) Botmus de moâ—ibus Gentium LL Ripuar (m) LL. Lombard 3. tit 2 Imperator Carotas (n) Martinus Cremerus de Regnâ— Poloniae (o) Boemus de moribus Gâ—ntium (p) Mosconiae Tâ—pograph Thuâ—â—us lib. 69. Fletchers History of Russia Sâ—gethus de Principatibus Italiae Leges Hungariae 537. Decret Pâ—ssonien Anno 1â—66 Aâ—tic 14. Decret Posonien An. 1600. Artic. 13 Messenius de Legibus Suecorum Gothorum lib. 2.53 Julius Feâ—reâ—us de re disciplina militari 137. Sect. 155. 157. Alber de Rosa in l. jubennis c. de sacrosanct Ecclesia Ferettus de disciplina militari 137. Ulpian in l. Si pendentes L. 3. de muneribus patrimon lib. 10. c. l. 3. L. 3. sect in eos milâ—es D. de muneribus Mariana de redditibus Hispaniae Mariana ibid. Johannes Coâ—onicus Synoâ—fis de Repub. Venâ—t Ja. Howells Survey of the City of Venice Contarenus de Repub. Venet Contarenus de Repub. Venet. Philippus Caesius a Zesen de Leone Belgiâ—o 186. 226. Vulteius num 7. Otto Orâ—â—gensis de jure publico Imperii Romani (a) Brissonius de regno Persiae lib. 1. (b) Tractat. Don Duarte de Meneses (c) Varennius lib. 10. de regno Japan (d) Tacitus in vita Agricolae (e) Selden dissertat ad Fletam 478. 479. (f) Ware de Antiquitatibus Hiberniae (g) Simeon Dunelm 175 176 178. (h) Chronic. Bromton 912. (i) LL. Canuti 67. (k) Chronic. Johannis Bromton 930. (l) Coke 2. part institutes Comment in Artic super Chartas (m) LL. Gulielmi Conquestoris 2. (n) Spelmans Glossar in verbo fiâ—ma 274. (o) LL. Canuti 78. (p) Somner Treatise of Gavelkind (q) Chronic. Bromton 912. (r) LL. Edwardi Câ—isessoris (s) Chronic. Leâ—ebfeldense (t) LL. Gulielmi Conquestoris 59. (u) LL. Gulielmi Conquestoris 34. (x) LL. Edwardi Confessor * Spelman â—n verbo Angaria (y) Tit. Gloucestrescire (z) Tit. Dorsetscire Spelman in verbo Bordarii 202. (a) Spelman glossar in verbo firma 275. (b) Hist. Edmer lib. 4.22.94 (c) Lib. rub in Scaccario (d) Mat. Paris 62. (e) Malmesbury lib 5.91 (f) Mat. Paris 240. 258. Charta H. 1. de libertatibus Deâ—retum Alexandri Papae in parte posteriori Annal Rogeri de Hoveden 333. Spelman glossar in voce Hundredus (h) 14. Parliament King James the 3. (i) Craig de feudis apud Sâ—oâ—os Dâ—eg 14. (k) Skene de verborâ—â— significatione (l) Mat. Paris 323. (m) Charta Regis Johannis de libertatibus Angliae 9 H. 3. ca. 19. 21. (n) Mat. Paris 641. (o) 9 H. 3 ca. 7. (p) Ro. Claus. H. 3. Clâ—us 1 H 3. m. â—5 Claus. 29 H. 3. m 11. 13 Ed. 3.6 Brook Leet 26. Dier 13. Coke 2. part Institutes 72. (q) Câ—ke 2 parâ—e institutes in Artic. super â—haâ—tas 543 (r) Britton de meâ—ures ca. 30. (s) Hill 16 E. 2. (t) Coke 2. parte Institut 543. (x) Coke 2. part Institutes 545. (y) Coke 2. part Institutes Comment in confiâ—mationes Chartarum 526 (z) Petitions in Parliament 2 R. 2. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp. Resp Resp. (a) Coke comment in Artic. super Chartas (b) Coke iâ— Mag. Charta 36. (c) Exact Collection of passages betwixt the King and Parliament 7. Essex Midlesex Essex Middlesex Derby Worcester Yorkshire Derby Worcester Yorkshire (d) Fleta lib. 2. ca. 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24. (e) Exodus 22. v. 24 25. 23. v. 11. (f) Leviticus câ— 25. v. 11 14. (g) Nehemiah cap 5. (h) LL. Wisigoth lib. 8.39 (i) Spelman Glossar in vocekernellare (k) De Offic. 155. (l) Grotius de â—â—re â—elli pacis lib. 2.215 231. (m) Levit. 19.35 36. (n) Proverbs 11. v. 1. 16. v. 11. (o) Levit. 27.3 (p) Menochius de Repub. Hebrae orum lib. 7. ca. 10. 11. (p) Sigonius de Repub. Atheniensâ—um lib. 4. ca. 3. (r) Aristotel Politic. (s) Persius Sat. 6. Juvenal Sat. 10. Rofinus de Aâ—tiâ—uâ—tat Rom u. â—ib 7. cap. 24. (t) D. Hier. Ep. 4. (u) Pancirollus in notic Imp. occidentis ca. 5. (x) Cod. lib. 10. de Poâ—der (y) Digest lib. 27. tit 1.26 Cassiodorus variaâ— lib. 6.18 23. Marant Specul Aur. parte 4.9 dist Jud. de indic mercator (z) LL. Wisigoth lib. 5.6 (a) Edictum Theodorici Regis in Lindenbrogio 259. (b) LL. Almanorum capitl 78. (c) LL. Longobard lib. 3. tit 22. Goldastus constitutiones Imperial 151. (d) Constitut. Sicularum lib. 3. tit 36. (e) Leges Swecorum collectae per Reginaldum Ingemundum l. 7 ca. 1. 2. (f) Charles Loyseau du droit de Police ca. 9. (g) LL. Edâ—vardi 2. (h) Aethelstani 12. (i) LL. Edgari 8. (k) LL. Canuâ—â— 9. 22. (l) LL Edwardi Câ—nfessoris 24. (m) Ibidem 38. (n) LL. Gulielmi Conquestoris 43. (o) Ibidem 60. (p) Ibidem 61. (q) Selâ—en Janus Anglorum Malmesbury in leg bus Henâ—â—ci primâ— collect per Seldenum edit per Cl. Râ—gerum Twisden Equit. Aurat (r) Houeden in H. 1. () Glanvill in Proaeâ—mio lib. 14. cap. 7. (t) Hoveden Annal parte posterior 423. * Mat. Paris 208. (u) Charâ—â— Regis Johannis in Mat. Paris 258. (x) 2. H. 3. cap. 25. â—laus 10. H. 3. m. 23. (z) Claus. â— H. 3. m. â— (a) Claus. 49. H 3. m. 11. in doâ—sâ— (b) Sir John Davies Aâ—gument upon the question of Impositions Register 167. Register 258. (c) Paâ— 31 H. 3. (d) Fleta lib 2 â—ad 8. (e) Bracton lib. 3. de Coronae 116. 120. (f) Spelman Glossaâ— in voce assisa (g) Fleta lib. 1. cu. 10. lib. 2.75 Selden dissert in Fletam (h) Pat. 17 E. 2. (i) Stowes Survey of London (k) Stows Survey of London 6â—2 (l) Prynne second part of a brief Register of the forms of Parliamentary Writs 22 39.67 (m) Cap. 6 7. (n) Cap. 8. (o) â—ap 9. (p) 4 E. 3 cap 1â— (q) 5 E. 3. ca. â— (r) 23 E. 3. cap. 6. (t) 25 E. 3. cap. 3. (u) 31 E. 3. cap. 2. Ibidem ca. 5. (x) 31 E. 3. cap 10. (y) Statute of Herringâ— 31 Ed. 3. ca. 2. (z) Ibid ca. 3. (a) Ibid. ca. 1. 2. (b) 36 E. 3. Ordinance of Petriâ—g (c) 42 E 3. c. 7. (d) 6 R. 2. ca 7. (e) 13 R. 2. c. 8.15 R. 2. ca. 4.2 H. 6. ca 11.18 H. 6. ca. 8. (f) 12 E. 4. c 8. (g) 22 E. 4. c. 2. (h) 3
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