of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service which nothing but the Kingdome of England it self can balance and which the King of France or the King of Spain in their several Dominions would not for an yearly Revenue of many hundred thousand pounds part with but would think it no bad bargain to be re purchased after the same or a greater rate It will be as unsafe as unusual to turn into a Rent that which was intended for the defence of the Kingdome And to charge all mens Lands with recompence to be made for it will be against Justice Equity and Reason and make nineteen parts in twenty of the people to bear the burden of the twentieth Or if by Excise upon Ale Beer will do the like lay the burden of the rich upon the poor extend it to Children Servants Day-labourers Coblers Apple-women and all manner of the lowest ranks of people which are as unlikely to be Tenants in Capite as all the Colledges in the Universities and Hospitals of England are whose expences will be also enlarged by it Will be a seminary and complication of Grievances May be afterward legally taken away by Petitions to Parliaments or illegally which God forbid by an Insurrection or Mutiny of the common people as in Naples France c. Will not be an honourable Revenue nor ever be well setled without the help of Garrisons Troops of Horse and Companies of Foot The people will be double charged by the Brewers and Ale-men and inforced to pay 250000 l. per Annum for 150000 l. per Annum And whether Excise or not Excise the King when the Tenures shall be taken away and Ship-money shall be denied him because as Mr. St John argued in the case of Ship money he had the Tenures in Capite allowed for the defence of the Kingdome Or the miseries of an actuall War shall overwhelm or oppress Him shall be told as His Royal Father was by that part of the Parliament which sate at VVestminster in 1642. That He ought not to put in execution His Commissions of Array because His Tenures in Capite were for the defence of the Kingdome And that by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament in the Raign of King E. 3. it shall be said that he is restrained not to Imprest Hoblers which were as our Dragoons or Archers or Foot-men who are thereby not to go out of their Counties but in case of necessity and coming in of Forreign enemies Or shall have need to succour His Allies make a diversive War or embroyl an Enemy shall be answered That they are quit of all Services but the holding their Lands of Him by doing of fealty which they will be apt to interpret according to their Interest the humor of their faction or party or as their designs or better hopes in a change shall direct them Must be enforced for the safety of His people if the Tenures shall be taken away to raise and maintain a standing Army And a standing Army and standing Assesments to maintain it will be certainly more prejudicial and chargeable to all the people in general then that which without any ground or reason the Tenures in Capite have lately been supposed to be to any in particular It will derogate from the honour of the King who is Pater Patriae not to be trusted with the protection of Orphans so much as the Dutch who have a Court of Orphans Or as the City of London who by ancient Custom have an absolute Court of Wards called a Court of Orphans which may by overthrowing the Kings Court of Wards come under the like fortune Be a means to defraud Creditors and Purchasers who cannot for want of Offices or Inquisitions found after the death of Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service so well as formerly know how the Debtors Lands are setled or what is in fee simple to charge the Heir Be against the peoples Oaths of Supremacy to desire the diminishing or taking away the Kings Rights or Jurisdiction Take away His Power and Means of protecting and defending them and to perform his Coronation Oath and when the assistance and help of Tenures in Capite have like Sea walls and banks proved not strong enough to withstand and keep out the Floods of Sedition it cannot now surely be for the good and safety of the people either to weaken as much as may be the strength which was before in them or to have none at all Draw a Curse upon the Posterities of those that hold under those Tenures and shall endeavor contrary to the faith and promise of their Ancestors to subvert them Make the common people insolent and teach them hereafter to find fault with every thing that fits not their Interest or humor and by such a largeness of liberty having before surfeited upon lesser to be like the waves of the Sea and its deep tossed and beating one against another by the winds of those inticements or factions which for their own wicked ends shall blow upon them And by such an easiness of granting away so great a part of the just and legal power of the King Nobility and better part of the people over the most rude and not easie without it to be either governed or perswaded invite them to take up their not long ago designs and projects of taking away Copy-holds which they lately as foolishly as falsly called Norman slaveries and of enforcing their Lords to take two years purchase for them and that Landlords might be stâ—nted and ordered to take what the factiously well-affected Tenants should call reasonable in the leasing and renting of their Lands Carry along with it and abolish the Royal Pourveyances which being in use amongst the people of Israel were never in that glorious and ever commended Raign of King Solomon nor in that long after pious order and Government of the good Nehemiah found to be a grievance nor taken to be so amongst the Greeks Poles Romans ancient Brittains Franks and Germans those great Assertors of Liberties or the most of the Nations of Europe not cast unhappily into Common-wealths where they only dream of freedom but cannot find it but were used in the West-Indies long before the Spanish curtesies and care of their conversion had ingrossed their gold destroyed the most of their Natives and made the relidue their slaves And in China and most parts of the habitable World And being a Jus Gentium and a part of right Reason so universally allowed and practised were as Oblations or recompences for tolls or pre-emption or for some other confiderations chearfully paid to our Kings of England so butted and bounded with good Laws and so easie as the Tenants did neither care to provide against it in their Leases or reckon to their Landlords those little and seldome payments and charges which were occasioned by them And by throwing the Purveyance into the same Bill or intended Act of Parliament for taking away the Tenures
pride and vices which have made our Burdens twenty times exceed any payments or charges by Wardships which are when they happen sufficiently recompenced by the care and priviledges of the Court of Wards preserving the Wards Wood and Timber binding in great Bonds those which are trusted to make true and just accompts calling them if need be often to accompt as in the Duke of Buckinghams case once in every three years and redressing wrongs done to them either in their real or personal estates The Hundred thousand pounds and above spent the last year in Coaches and Feathers extraordinary and One hundred and fiâ—ty thousand pounds at the least spent this year in Ribbons must be no grievance but a quarter of either of the summs spent in Wardships which in Scotland in the raign of their King Malcombe the Second which was before the Conquest was not unwillingly yielded to be the Kings Right nè non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates to the end the King should have wherewithall to defend the Kingdom which Master St John in the case of Ship money and the Parliament so called in An. 1642 were content should be allowed the King for the same purpose must be intolerable Or like those which let their sacks of Wool fall into the water and finde them to be much heavier then they were if our Land be as the shaking of the Olive-tree and as the gleaning Grapes when the Vintage is done and we cry Our leanness Our leanness and finde a disability more then formerly to perform those Duties Services which were never denyed to be due unto our Prince in support of his Royal Dignity and the Welfare and happiness of his people the cause is allunde comes another way and ariseth from our unlucky Reformations publick Taxes and Assessments to assist the ungodly attempts of those who designed and continued our intestine warrs from those grand Impositions which most of the people have laid upon themselves in the purchase of pride and superfluities which those who have made it to be so much their business may know how to free themselves of And if the Lands which are holden by such beneficiary Tenures so antient so honorable for the King and safe for him and his people and so legal rational cum totius antiquitatis et multorum seculorum concensu from generation to generation through many generations well and thankfully approved usage and custome of them shall be now taken to be burdens the owners of those Lands may easily save the labour and trouble of complaining and free themselves of those undeservedly called burdens by restoring of the Lands according to the rules of right reason law and equity to those or their heirs which did at first freely give them and had the faith and promise of those that received those no small favours cum onere to perform the Services and Duties which the Law and a long and reasonable custome have charged upon them or those which afterwards purchased them Or if that will not be liked and we must think we do nothing unless not in a Desart but a Land of Canaan we out-do the murmurings of the sadly punished Israelites with Quails in their mouthes when all shall be done as some people would have it and that Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service and the Royal Pourveyances shall be sacrificed to their desires or wishes they will then make no better a Bargain of it then those who repining grumbling at the charge of maintaining Sea-walls and Banks have aftewards found by wofull experience that it was farr less charge and damage then to have the Sea break in upon their Marshes and Lands drown and carry away their Cattel and be at a greater charge then formerly in making them up again and maintaining of them Or as those that found fault with the Surplice did when by their unquiet ignorances they opened the door to an Army of Fanaticks and Locusts which did almost eat up every green thing in the fields of our Religion Or as those Murmurers who thinking Twenty shillings to be a heavie Taxe for Ship-money Guard of the Seas and Defence of the Kingdom to be laid upon 7 or 800l. per Annum for that was all which was in a year or half a year laid upon the unhappy Mr Hamdens Lands were afterwards for many yeares together enforced to pay the fifth part of their Rents and Revenues to help to destroy the King Laws and Religion kill their Debtors Husbands and Children and near Relations And then the next thing will be to desire that they might have the farr heavier burden of Taxes and Assessments taken off which if Tenures in Capite by Knight-Service shall be taken away can no more be avoided then he that wilfully shuts out the light of the Sun or the Day unless he will like Democritus sit and grow wiser in the dark can save the greater charges and expences of candles and other lights And will at the last learn to believe that when Salus privatorum omnia bona Civiuin in salute Patriae continentur every private mans good and safety depends upon the Kings and the Weal publick it will not be for the good and safety of the people to take away the Lions meat enforce him to seek his prey or take it himself or to suffer the head to languish in hope that the members or the rest of the body should be the better for it who when they are called to the Council or Parliament of the body natural are to lay aside all their own Interest and Concernments and every one doe what they can to cure and help the wants of it And that if those Lands which are holden in Capite and by Knight-Service had been at the first purchased at the true and utmost value and the charges now incumbent upon them had been since imposed upon them when other Lands were free and not charged with them there might be reason enough to call them burdens But being that they were not at the first purchased but freely and frankly given upon those Conditions which were by Agreement promised to be performed by those that thankfully received them and would be so now by the greatest maligners of them or inveighers against them there can be no manner of reason cause or ground to esteem them to be burdens oppressions or Norman servitudes as Ordericus Vitalis and Mathew Paris the later whereof wrote his History in the Raign of King H. 3. since which time many Indulgences have been granted to those kinde of Tenures have been pleased to mistake them when our Magna Charta and all our Acts of Parliament have in every age ranked them amongst the peoples Liberties and confirmed and made many an Act of Parliament to support those Regalities And when the Parliament of Imo Car. I mi in their great care of their Liberties and the taking away of all that might but disturb them did call them a
of England at their Coronations Indamage the King in his other Râ—galities as in the Cinque Ports finding fifty ships upon occasion of Warr and many reservations of Honor and profit upon Tenures in Capite Knight Service and Socage in Capite which if revived and well looked after would almost raise an Army and furnish a great part of the Provisions thereof The King upon occasion of Warr shall never be able to erect his Standard but will be left to hire and provide an Army out of the Rascalâ—ity faithless unobliged rude deboisht necessitous and common sort of people If a Warr should break forth before a Rent-day or Excise money can be gathered will never want misfortunes and distresses and the King thereby failing of an Assistance at Land may loose also the help of his Navy at Sea May have his Money and his Rents seised as his late Majesties Magazines and Rents were in the beginning of the late Warrs Can have no manner of assurance in a Sedition or Commotion of the people that men will for a small pay adventure their lives and limbs for many times no better a reward then the lamentable comforts of an Hospital and the small charities and allowance usually bestowed upon maimed Souldieâ—s Destroy the hopes of the Bishops ever sitting again in the House of Peers as a third Estate or if restored to those their just rights so weaken the ground and foundation of that most antient Constitution as they may again be in danger to be divested of them which the inconveniences of prescriptions interrupted and Customs altered may perswade us to take heed of Disable the King and his Successors from recovering Forreign Rights succouring Allyes and making an Offensive or diversive Warr. Shake or dislocate if not take away that great Fundamental Law and Ancient Constitution of the Baronage and Peerage of England and their Rights of Sitting in the House of Peers in Parliament who sit there as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam and are summoned thither in fide homagio in the faith and homage by which they are obliged which Proviso's not always arriving to their ends or intentions or a Saving of the Rights of Peerage of Sitting in the House of Peers in Parliament will not be able to insure or give them a certainty to be left in as good a condition as they were before Disfranchise the Counties Palatine of Lancaster Chester Durham and the Isle of Ely which relate unto Palaces of Kings not Plows and are no where in the Christian world to be found holden by any other Tenure then in Capite Make our Nobility and Gentry to hold their lands by no better Tenures then the Roturiers or Paysants of France do theirs and in Socage which as Sir Henry Spelman saith Ignobilibus rusticis competit nullo feudali privilegio ornatum feudi nomen sub recenti seculo perperam abusu rerum auspicatum belongs only to rusticks and ignoble men and being not intituled to any feudal priviledge hath of late times improperly and by abuse gained the name of Fee Loosen the foundation of such ancient Earldoms and Baronies as have been said to consist of a certain number of Knights Fees holden of them Hazard the avitas consuetudines ancient Rights and Customs belonging to Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service Take away or lessen as to the future the fame and honour of the Nobility and Gentry of the English Nation which in feats of Chivalrie not Socagerie extended as far as the Roman Eagles ever flew and had no other bounds then the utmost parts of the earth Render them in Tenure and that which at first made them by their virtue and imployment Superiors in degree aswell as in their Lands and Revenues to the common sort of people to be in that particular but as their equals Will not be consistent with the honour of England to have Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service retained in Ireland and Scotland and not in England and to lessen the honour and strength of the English Nobility and Gentry in England by reducing their mesne Tenures into free and common Socage whilst the better and more Noble Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service shall be enjoyed in those inferior and dependent Kingdoms Or if taken away in Ireland and reduced into free and common Socage will in all probability meet with as many inconveniences as the like may do in England and lose the Kings of England that Service which by reason of the Tenures in Capite was always in a readiness and made use of by their Progenitors upon all occasions of War and necessity as well in England as Ireland And if the like shall be done in Scotland where the people too much accustomed to infidelity and a Rhodomontading where they are not resisted are best if not only to be Governed by their dependencies upon their Superiors and Benefactors and holding their Lands by Military and Knight-Service as that Kingdome it self doth in Capite of England as it was stoutly asserted by our King EDWARD the First and His Baronage of England there will happen such a dissolution or distemper of that body politique as will exceed all or any imagination before hand and the inferior sort of people will by such an alteration of their Tenures be like hunger bitten Bears let loose to as bad if not a worse kind of levelling then our Phanaticks would not long ago have cut out for the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland now happily conjoyned under their rightful King and Soveraign Will greatly derogate from the honour of the English Nation and make them who excelled in their Laws and Constitutions all or most of the Nations and Kingdoms of the Christian world and had more of right reason in them to be as a reproach to other Nations and seperated from the use of those ancient and Regal Rights Customs Powers and Regalities which all Monarchies in Christendom do use and will be as inconsistent with the honour of England as it would be to have their Kings in a complaisance of a troublesome and unquiet part of the people not to be Crowned nor Annointed not to use a Scepter or have a sword born before Them not to make Knights or not to do it in the ancient and usual manner which the Kings of other Nations and Kingdoms have ever done and enjoyed or to have the Earls of England as if they were only Comites Parochiales Governors of Villages mentioned by Goldastus or Dijck Graven or men of small honour in Holland appointed to look to their Sea-banks not to wear their Circulos Aureos Coronets of Gold Will not accord well with the Rules of Justice to take away Knights Fees or Tenures by Knight-Service from the mesne Lords without a fitting Recompence But break the Publique Faith and Contracts of those that hold of the King or them The recompence of 150000 l. per Annum will not be adequate to the loss
in Capite and by Knight-Service hath since caused the King to pay three times or more then formerly he did as 12d per pound for Butter where it was before but three pence twelve shillings a hundred for Eggs where it was before but three shillings and eighteen pence a mile for a Cart to carry his goods or provision when it was before but two pence a mile in Summer and six pence in winter twelve pounds for a Beef or an Oxe which before was willingly and without any oppression of the Counties served in at fifty shillings Render the One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum of Excise money for the intended recompence for the profit and honour of his Tenures Court of Wards and Pourveyance to be no more if it could clearly come up to that summ then Thirty seven thousand and five hundred pounds but if with allowances and charges in the collecting and arrears and bad payments or otherwise it should amount as it is likely to no more then One hundred thousand pounds per Annum the clear of that to the King three parts in four of his prizes enhaunced being deducted is like to be but Twenty and five thousand pounds per Annum Which when the Excise wherein the King himself shall now pay a Taxe or Excise for his Beer and Ale and other Assessments shall every day more and more make dear the Markets and that the people shall to make themselves more then savers stretch the price of their Commodities and make an addition to the former years rates and demands for all sorts of victuals and provision of livelihood or that the King or His Pourveyors shall over and above that be for want of ready money enforced to pay a treble or more interest for buying upon Time or days of payment will also within the compass of seven years vanish into a Cypher And if the Excise for the burden and grievance thereof should also be taken away the King having no provision made in the Act for taking away his Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service and of his Pourveyance â—or the intended recompence of that part of the Excise therein mentioned to resort back again in such a case to the former profit of his Tenures and ease of Pourveyance Will then not only have given away those two great Flowers of His Crown for nothing but be as much a looser in what he shall over and above pay for his houshold provision Cart taking and other necessaries as hee shall pay a greater rate then his former pourveyances came unto which in 200000 l. per ann which may well be conjectured to be the least which will be expended in that kinde will considering three parts in four of the prizes enhanced amount to no less a detriment then one hundred seventy five thousand pounds per Annum besides what must be added to that loss for what shall be paid more then formerly for Timber and materials for the Navy and repair of the Kings Houses Castles and Forts and by the peoples every year more and more raising their priaees upon him And then the bargain or exchange betwixt the King and the people for the Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service and his Pourveyances besides the giving away so great a part of his Prerogative and Soveraignty will arrive to no more then this The King shall remit the yearly revenue of Eighty eight thousand seventy pounds per Annum defalcations for exhibitions and allowances for Fees Dyet and other necessaries and charges first deducted which was made by the Court of Wards in the year 1640 besides Thirteen thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds profit for those kinde of Tenures which in that year was collected and brought into the Exchequer which will make a Total of One hundred one thousand three hundred fifty eight pounds per Annum Or if but Eighty one thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds all charges cleared and deducted as it came unto in Anno 1637. which was 13º Car. primi both which was easily paid by the Nobility Gentry and richest and most able part of the people for or in respect of their Lands holden in Capite which were never purchased but frankly given for their Service Homage and incidents thereunto apperteining And release the ease and benefit of his Pourveyances which did not in all the Fifty two Counties of England and Wales by the estimate of what was allowed towards it in Kent being thereby charged only with Twelve hundred pounds per Annum or thereabouts put the people of England to above Forty thousand pounds per Annum charges which totalled and summed up together with the profits of the Tenures in Capite in An. 1640. being 16º Car. will make One hundred forty one thousand three hundred pounds or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds all necessary charges satisfied as it was in 13º Car. primi Shall give away that One hundred forty one thousand three hundred pounds or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and eighty pounds per Annum and loose One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum in the buying of his Houshold provisions besides what more shall be put upon him by a further enhaunce of prizes for to gaine One hundred thousand pounds for that moyety of the Excise of Ale and Beer to be paid out of the sighes dayly complaints and lamentations of the poorest sort of the subjects and the discontents and mournings of nineteen parts in twenty of all the people who by the payment of that Excise will be made to bear the burdens of others to acquit less then a twentieth part of them of those no ruining payments not often happening to be charged upon them by reason of those kinde of Tenures or for nothing if that Excise should be taken away Prejudice the King in his Honor which Saul when he entreated Samuel not to dishonor him before the people understood to be of some concernment and his Estate in not affording his Pourveyors a pre-emption in the buying provision for his Royal Family Tables and Attendants which all the Acts of Parliament made concerning the Regulating of Pourveyances never denyed The Princes of Germany are allowed in their smaller Dominions the Caterers of every Nobleman frequenting the Markets the servants of every Lord of a Mannor in England do enjoy and the common civilities of mankinde and but ordinary respect of inferiors to their superiors do easily perswade Will not agree or keep company with that honor and reverence which by the Laws of God and Nature Nations and right reason will be due and ought to be paid to a King and Father of his Country nor with the gratitude of those who often enough come with their Buckets to the Well or Fountains or his mercy or are not seldom craving and obtaining favors of him to refuse him those small Retorns or Acknowledgments for his bounties nor prudence to shew him the way to be
Justice or Chancery are never mitigated or brought lower then two years present and improved value and where the Fines are certain do in many places pay as much or more in some places where they pay less pay after the rate of five pence per Acre and in other eight pence per Acre or higher as the custome varies and pay Herriots not only upon the death of the last Tenant but upon Surrenders and in some places the Widdows having no Free Bench as they call it or Estate in the Lands after their Husbands and where they have that or Dower which is seldom in other places do forfeit if they marry again or in some places if they commit fornication or adultery in their Widdow-hood and if the Lords of Mannors put the Tenants out of their Copyhold Estates upon a forfeiture they have by Law no remedy but to petition to them can have no Writ of Right-close to command their Lords to do them right without delay according to the custome of the Mannor no Writ of False Judgment at the Common Law given in the Lords Court but must sue to the Lord by Petition nor can sue any Writ of Monstraverunt to command their Lords not to require of them other Customs or Services then they ought must grinde at the Lords Mill and bake at his common Oven and not speak irreverently of them Or those kinde of Tenures of Lands in Cumberland Northumberland Westmerland and the North parts of England which pay a thirty peny Fine at every alienation and a twenty peny Fine upon the death of an Ancestor or of their Lord according to the rate of the small yearly rents of their Lands which were at the first freely given for service in Warr and to repell the Scottish Incursions now much insisted upon and called Tenant-Right Or Lease-holders which are racked or pay Fines and a Rent as much as any will give for them under harsh and strict Covenants conditions forfeitures Nomine Poenae's without a standing Army Assessments and a Troop of Horse as was done in Olivers time to scout in every County to awe terrifie abuse and sometimes rob the Inhabitants Or the now so much desired Tenure of free and common Socage many of which are under the payment of a Tenth every year of the value as they were first granted by Fealty only for all services with a standing Army or Assessments though farr lesser as it is hoped instead of Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service will be more desirable and prove a greater freedom then either the old Socage Tenure which in Kent they did sometimes willingly exchange to hold the same Lands by Knight-Service or the Copy-holders or Northern Tenant-rightmen or the free and common Socage by Fealtie only and no other Services None of which have or can justly claim as the Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service do those antient and honourable Rights Immunities and Priviledges which justly belong unto them nor their Court Barons and Court Leetes with the priviledges of basse Justice doing Justice to their Tenants for small Debts under Forty shillings correcting and overseeing the Assize of Bread and Beer Weights and Measures corrupt Victuals punishment of breach of the Peace swearing Constables making By-lawes power of administring the Oath of Allegiance Inquiries concerning Victuallers Artificers Workmen Laborers and excess of prizes of Wines c. Inquiries after Seditions Treasons c. and presenting and certifying them or any other thing that might disturb the Peace and Welfare of their King and Country and by keeping the lesser Wheels in order did contribute much to that of the greater and every one as litle and subordinate Reguli and petty Princes enjoying under their Kings and Soveraignes that which to this day as well as antiently have been called Royalties which being but pencil'd and drawn out of Regal favours and permission are in Fide Homagio deduced from those Tenures For all which free Gifts Emoluments Immunities and Priviledges they had no other Burdens or Duties incumbent upon Tenures in Capite and Knight-Service THen to go to Warr well arrayed and furnished with the King or his Lieutenant General which every Subject if he had not Lands freely given him is in duty bound to do or his mesne Lord when Warrs should happen which in a common course of Accidents may be but once or not at all in his life time and then not to tarry with him above forty dayes or less according to their proportion of Fee or Lands holden at their own charge which is a greater favor then to go along with him all the time of his Warrs and for all the time that they remain afterwards in the Camp to be at the Kings charge and to have Escuage assessed by Parliament of their own Tenants if they shall refuse to go also in person Their respit of Homage was without personall attendance discharged once in four Terms or a years space for smaller Fees proportionable to the yearly value of their Lands then three shillings four pence per Ann. which they that held a Knights Fee yearly paid to their mesne Lords for respite of suit of Court Their releif when they dyed leaving their Heirs at full age was for a whole Knights Fee but Cs. lesse most commonly then a Herriot or the price of their best Horse or beast if they had holden in Socage and when they were in Ward paid nothing for it for a Barony 100 marks and an Earldom 100l. of a Marquis 200 Marks and a Duke 200 l. The Primer seisin which though due by Law was never paid untill 4º or 5º Car. primi was like the Clergies first-Fruits according to a small moderate value a years profit if in possession and a Moyety in Reversion and so small a casualtie or revenue as in the 16th year of the Raign of his late Majestie they did but amount unto 3086 l. 9 s. 8 d. ob half farthing And the charge to the Officers of a general Livery being like to an admittance of a Tenant in a Copy-hold estate but a great deal cheaper where the Lands were under value and found but at 5l. per Ann. which most commonly was the highest rate of finding or valuation of it when it was 100l. per Annum or something more with all the Fees and requisites thereunto did not exceed 10l. and the Fine for a Livery where there was a Wardship half a years profit after a small value and so little as in 16 Car. the accompt for Liveriess was but 1316 l. 12 s. 4 d. ob farthing And where a Special Livery under the Great Seal of England was sued out with a Pardon for Alienations Intrusions c. did not with the Lord Chancellors Master of the Rolls and Master of the Wards and all other Fees included make the charge amount to more then 15 l. or 20 l. Where a Livery was not sued out as
Principal Flower of the Crown which being not used to be made-up or grow out of Grievances Cannot be disparaged by those clamours and crys which have more then needed been made concerning the Earl of Downes concealed Wardship and the inconveniences arising thereby which did not the tenth part of that prejudice to his Revenue and Estate which his prodigality and other Extravagancies afterwards brought upon it and might how soever have been prevented if his mother in law or any other of his friends upon the several Requests of the Master of the Court of Wards and the Officers of that Court would have petitioned and compounded for his Wardship and not have made those many Traverses and Denyals in those many Suits of Law and pursuits which were afterwards made to compell them to it Nor will that or any other which are pretended grievances be ever equal or come up to those farr exceeding real and certain grievances which too many of the Fathers in law of England into whose hands and custody most of the Wardships or Guardianships are endeavored to be more then formerly put will if those Tenures shall be taken away bring upon fatherless children and will in a short time do more harm to the childrens Estates of the first husband then ever yet happened by Wardships to the King and mesne Lords Which the case of one that twelve years ago had the Revenue of an Infant amounting unto above 700l. per Annum charged with no more then 1000 l. debt and a great personal Estate committed to his Trust hath to this day paid none or a very small part of it but keeps the Rents and profits allowing a small exhibition to the Infant to his own advantage Of another that hath sold and wasted Woods and Timber of a Minors to the value of Ten Thousand pounds sterling And many more sad deplorable Experiments which abundantly induce to believe as well as lament them are not to be found in those well-ordered easie way of the Grants and Dispositions of Wardships which happened by Tenures in Capite by Knight-Service Which may appear to be the better established upon greater grounds of Law right Reason Justice and Equity when as many of the Lords of Manors and Copy-hold Estates who do now enjoy by those Tenures many Rights Seignories and commands with view of Frank-pledge Deodands Felons Goods Wrecks Goods of Out-lawed persons and retorna Brevium granted and imparted to their Ancestors by the bounty and favor of his Majesties Royal Progenitors who did not think it to be a grievance to have Abby or religious Lands which were freely given or cheaply granted to them held in Capite and by Knight-Service though there were at the same time a Tenth of the then true yearly value reserved would not upon the pretence and clamours of some Copy-holders concerning Fines incertain and the rigours and high demands put upon them by some Lords of Manors who have 5 or 600 Copy-holders in some Manors belonging unto them and can ask 13 s. 4 d. per Acre for some Lands and 10 s. per Acre for others to permit them to take their Estates hereafter at a reasonable Fine certain and whether poor or rich indebted or not indebted and charged with children or not will seise their Herriots and take as much as they can get upon the admissions of the Heir or the out cries against the many costly and vexatious Suits which have tired Westminster-Hall and some Parliaments concerning Fines incertain be well contented That their power of rating and taking Fines should be restrained or that they should be ordered upon the admittances of their Copy-hold Tenants by Act of Parliament to permit their Tenants without such Fines as they usually take to surrender and alien two parts in three for the advancement of their Wives payment of debts or preferment of Children as the Kings of England and mesne Lords have limited themselves or should be tyed upon the death of every Tenant and admission of his Heir as King James was pleased to limit him and his Heirs and Successors That upon consideration of Circumstances which may happen in assessing Fines either by reason of the broken Estate of the deceased want of provision for his wife his great charge of children unprovided for infirmity or tenderness of the Heir incertainty of the Title or greatness of Incumberances upon the Lands there shall be as those or any other the bike Considerations shall offer themselvs used that good discretion and conscience which shall be fit in mitigating or abating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities Or to release and quit all their Royalties in their Manors nor would think it a good bargain to have no Compensation or Recompence at all for them or no more then after the rate of what might Communibus Annis one year with another be made of them or that they could with justice and equity lay the burdens and payments of the Copy-holders upon the Free-holders and Cotagers Which if they do not now take to be reasonable in their own cases may certainly give every man to understand how little reason there will be to take away the dependencies and benefits by Tenures in Capite and Knight-Service holden of the King and mesne Lords Or to abridge the King of that harmeless power never before denyed to any of his Ancestors to create Tenures in Capite and by Knight service or in grand Serjeanty for the defence and honour of the Kingdom upon new Grants of Lands or Favours especially when â—s His Majesty that now is did by His Declaration of the thirtieth of November last concerning the establishing and quieting the Government in the Kingdom of Ireland which hath been since very much liked and approved by the Parliament of that Nation insert a Saving of the Tenures of the Mesne Lords and ordained Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service upon the Lands which shall be set out to the Souldiery for their Arrears Or that Tenures in Capite not by Knight-Service with all petit Serjeanties which as Sir Edward Coke saith is a Tenure as of the Crown that is as he is King and the Profits and Reservations upon them which if well gathered would make some addition to the Royal Revenue should by the pattern of Olivers so called Act of Parliament be taken away when there are no Wardships incident thereunto and that aid to make the Kings eldest Son a Knight or marry his eldest Daughter should be taken away in the Capite and Knight-Service Tenures and left to remain in the former Socage Tenures or how little it will be for the good of the people if the intended Act of Parliament shall order the Tenures in Capite by Socage to pay double their former quit Rents or other Rents or Incidents belonging thereunto or to pay for a Relief double their petit Serjeanties or other Duties reserved When as Tenures in Capite and by Knight-Service