Servants and the Children Friends and Kinred of many of those which do contribute towards the Pourveyance or Compositions for them and that which is so misimployed serves instead of some other largesses allowances or connivencies which are usually in Kings Houses and whether well spent or mispent being Oblations and Offerings of duty made by the People to their Sovereign are not to be denyed or retrenched no more then the misbehaviour of the Sons of Ely with which the Almighty was so much offended would have been any just cause of the Children of Israels forbearing to bring their Offerings It being no Paradox but certain enough that those seeming but not reall grievances to the People by the Kings Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them have no other source or originall then the rise and enhance of the Markets and all Victualls and Provisions by which all the selling and richer part of the People are ten to one more gainers by the Kings Pourveyance or Compositions for them then they can be loosers and are better able to bear it and the poorer sort of the people were less grieved when it was not taken away then they are now by the Excise of Ale Beer c. which comes in the place or pretended recompence of it that the Gentry and Landlords of the Lands in the Nation who by heating of those Lands that were cold drayning and drying of those that were wet and moist watering of such as were dry and sandy and planting of Wood and Fruit have brought their lands to a greater increase and fertility not yet come to its Acme or just height then the former ages and a thousand years knowledge or practise of our Forefathers the Inhabitants of this Nation could before this last Age or Century wherein we are now ever reach or attain unto and the Landlords of Houses Innes Taverns Shops or Stalls in London who have now by the increase of Tradesmen rather then Trade raised their rents ten or twenty to one more then what they were One hundred years agoe might in some measure or moderation have taken their advantages of the improvements of their Lands Rents Houses and Shops without such an overstretching their Rents as the Tenants where they have no Leases but at will or from year to year in some Counties of England should be enforced as many have lately been to throw up and forsake their Bargains And that all or any of that over-high racking the Rents of Lands and Houses or a supposed plenty of money which in the time of the greatest enhance and rack of rents rates and prices which ever England did see or endure is now so scarcely to be found as the universality of the people do heavily complain of the want of it and the product or consequence of that evil in a like enhance of rates and prices by the Freeholders and Copyholders who pay no rents as Farmers do and by the Tenants of the King Queen Prince or Bishops some of the hospitable and well minded Nobility and Gentry the Tenants of the Church and Colledge Lands and of Lands belonging to Cities Corporations Companies and Hospitals who have cheap and comfortable Estates and Bargains and yet do all they can to imitate them although they have no cause to do it which would be much higher If all the Copihold Estates in England and Wales were at as great a rack of rent as the Lands of the most of Farmers If all the Privileges and Rights of Common Estovers and Turbary Modus decimandi and Exemption from the payment of Tythes and Tolls were abrogated And if the King should keep the same rule and measure of high rating and racking of his Revenues certain or casuall as many Landlords do Or make our East-India Merchants pay for their licence or priviledge of trading to the East-Indies all others being excluded for one and twenty years a share or proportion amounting in the whole very near a Million sterling money as the Dutch have made their East-India Company to do could not be the only proper or efficient causes of that long-strided and swift progresse and increase of the rates and prices not only of victuals and all houshold provisions but of all manner of commodities apparel and necessaries either for use or ornament So as we shall not conclude without premisses or be thought to want a ground or foundation of an irrefragable truth that Lucifer the great Merchant and furnisher of our sins and excess and of the great and intollerable pride of all the degrees and ranks of men women children and servants in the Nation as far beyond the former ages as a Giant is to a Pigmee or Pauls Steeple in London when it was highest to the Pissing Conduit as they call it in Cheapside and the avarice of the people to maintain it together with the necessities attending their pride and vanities have been no small part of the cause of it for otherwise it would have been some difficulty to find or give a reason why we should not in England a Kingdome untill our late times of confusion of the greatest peace and plenty in Christendome be able to afford victuals and all manner of provisions for the belly and back as cheap as in France where notwithstanding the heavy oppressions and burdens of the Paysants who do fare hard and are ill clad and by reason of the frugality of most of the Gentry a Partridge may be bought for â—our pence and a Gentleman and his horse at night be very well entertaind for four shillings or as in Spain where a Bando is yearly made by the Corrigidores of every City and Place which the Civil Law doth allow and direct and our Laws of England do as to victuals also intend setting yearly the rates and prices not only of all victuals and houshold provisions for the belly and of fruit and Apples but of all Commodities as Linnen and Woollen Cloth Silk Knives Haâ—s c. where notwithstanding their continuall Warres and multitudes of heavy Taxes to mainteyn them there is a cheapness of victuals and such an absence of deceit as a child or the most ignorant way as to measure weight and prices buy and not be deceived Or as is in the same manner done at Rome Naples Florence Milan and most of the Principalities of Italy not so freed from publick Burdens as our more happy England is at this present which neither would nor could be there ever submitted unto and obeyed as it is if the pride and necessities or avarice of the Landlords and the pride of the Tenants which the Pragmatico's forbidding the pride and excess of apparel do in Spain very much eradicate were not less then ours and their frugalities more and such restrictions and reglements thereby made to be the more tolerable and contenting And those that do like it more then they should and shall be content to imploy their times in the pursuit of vanities and means to
of his burdens as he and his Royal Progenitors have done unto them in any of the complained of burdens of them and their Forefathers by many times laying to sleep some good Laws Constitutions which though at the making thereof they were most just and rationall would now by the rise of silver two to one more then formerly the change of Times and Customes be very prejudiciall and burdensome unto them As King Henry the First did by no Law or Act of Parliament but his own good will and promise calculated only for that present Age or Reign but since observed by all his Successors in the change of his rent provisions into Rents of money many of which being now and ever since paid in small quit-rents made that part of the People very great gainers and that King and his Heirs and Successors to be loosers more then Fifty thousand pounds per annum or the greatest extent of the Nations yearly charge for the Royall Pourveyance or Compositions for them did ever amount unto And as the Asise of Bread Bear and Ale in 51 H. tertii which holds no proportion with the now Assize or rules for Bakers and Brewers but very much differs from it and exceeds it was not for many ages past and in some plentifull years in our memory kept when Corn Wheat and Malt did fall within the virge or direction of that Act of Parliament or Ordinance rather of the King without an Act of Parliament Nor did hold those kind of Trades to the Assize made and appointed by King Henry the 7 th nor by any Act of Parliament or otherwise restrain the Shoemakers to the prices appointed by the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. repealed in the 5 th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when there was an allowed transportation of Leather and scarcely half so many Cattle bred in England and brought from Ireland and Scotland nor any Leather at all imported from Russia as it is now in great quantities when they do now by their own and the Tanners knaveries and enhaunces take for a pair of shoes which in the Reign of King Edward the 2 d. might be bought for the use of a good Knight or Gentleman for a groat and in Yorkshire for some of the best Gentry of that County in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth but for little more where also a pair of shoes for a Lady of a good Extraction and Quality were in the begining of the Reign of King James sold for sixteen pence and a pair of shoes for a man in the memory of middle aged men were made and sold in London for two shillings six pence and eight groats a pair no less then four shillings eight pence at the lowest and many times five shillings and six pence or six shillings a pair which as Mr. Richard Ferrour hath judiciously and ingeniously observed doth yearly cheat and cozen the people besides the inconveniences by ill wrought and half tanned Leather six or seaven hundred thousand pounds or a Million Sterling per annum which might well have been spared or better employed And be as willing to ease his burdens and grievances as Queen Elizabeth that mirrour of Women and Princes was in theirs by the repealing of so much of the Statute for limiting the wages of labourers in the 25 th year of the Reign of King Edward the Third when Churches Castles and Abbies weâ—e wont to be built as concerned the wages of Labouâ—ers that Master Masons Carpenters and Tylers should take but three pence a day and others of that Trade but two pence a day a Tylers boy a peny per diem that none other should take above a penny for a days work for mowing five pence for reaping of Corn in the first week of August two pence and in the second week and unto the end of that moneth not above three pence And by the making of an Act of Parliament that the wages of Artificers and Labourers then six times more then they were at the time of the making of the said Act of Parliament in the 25 th year of the Reign of King Edward the Third should be yearly assessed by the Justices of the Peace and Magistrates in every County City and Town corporate at their Quarter-Sessions with respect unto the plenty and scarcity of the time and other circumstances necessary to be considered for that as the praeamble thereof declared 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 the prices of all things belonging unto Artificers and Labourers that the Law could not conveniently without the great grief and burden of the poor Labourers 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 Which was the cause that King James by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Reign upon compleynt that their wages were not rated and proportioned according to the plenty necessity and scarcity and respect of the time as was politiquely intended by the said Queen Elizabeth did amongst other provisions give a further power authority to the Justices of Peace in every County at their Quarter Sessions from time to time to limit and regulate the wages and hire of Labourers and Artificers although their wages and hire were then much encreased and are since very excessive and immoderate which by an Act of Parliament made in the third year of the Reign of King Charles the Martir being continued untill the end of the first Session of the then next Parliament is for want of continuance expired and did repeal as Queen Elizabeth and other of our Kings also did many an Act of Parliament in regard of Inconveniences or damages arising to the people or because they did not answer the expectations of the makers thereof And may as little grudge the King his Pourveyance or Compositions for them though the richer part of the people who are only contributory to the Pourveyance or Compositions for them may by their own excessive raysing of all manner of prices of houshold provisions and their unreasonable gains by it seem to be something more then formerly burdened with it as they did the late King Charles the Martyr his indulgence to them and dispensing with a Decree made in the Starre-Chamber in the 11 th year of his Reign by the Lords of his Privy Councel and other the Judges of that Court after consultation had with Judge Hutton and Judge Croke who were well known to be very great well-wishers to the peoples just and legall liberties and the other reverend Judges and divers Justices of the peace of the Kingdom confirmed by the Kings Letters Patents under the great Seal of England which did forbid the Vintners to dress any meat for their Guests or Strangers and limited the Inkeepers of London and
his men wear the same colour of Livery that the Kings servants did Or that it was ill done by the Parliament in the 14 th year of the Reign of that King when they petitioned him that the Prerogative of him and his Crown might be kept and that all things done to the contrary might be redressed Or that the Lords Spirituall and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled in the 16 th year of the said Kings Reign did not well understand the good of the Kingdom when upon a Debate and consideration of the Popes Usurpation and Incroachments upon the Kings Regalities and his Holiness Provisions made for Aliens and Strangers by the benefices of the Church of England they did unanimously declare that they and all the Leige Commons of the Realm would stand with the King and his Crown and Regality in the cases aforesaid and in all other cases attempted against him his Crown and Regality in all points to live and to dye Or that our forefathers were not to be imitated in their stout assertions of the Rights of their Kings and their Regalities when in their zeal thereunto Humphry Duke of Glocester when the Pope had wrote Letters in the Reign of King Henry the Sixth in derogation of the King his Regality and the Church-men durst not speak against them he did throw his Letters and Missive into the fire and burn them Or that it can be well done by us to withhold from him that small retribution of Pourveyance which is a Duty established by a fourfold obligation composed of a Right or Duty a very antient Custome backt by the Laws of God Nature and Nations the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and a contract made and continued by the people to their Kings built upon the best and greatest of considerations which the Prophet David in the 15 th Psalm if it had not been as it is beneficiall to the people but to some loss or damage adviseth not to be broken and enforce him for want of it to give over his Housekeeping and deprive him of that Loadstone which might amongst many other of his daily graces and favours attract and draw unto him the love and affections of his people the most iron rusty hearted Clowns or leave our Trajan no wall for his â—erba Parietaria sweet smelling flower to grow upon Or that it can be any honour for our Lords and Ladies who received their honour from the King and his Progenitors and were in the Saxon Times called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lords and Ladies from their Hospitalities and giving of bread to see and not seek or help to remedy the greatest dishonour which in the consequence of it was ever put upon the Fountain of honour and a King of England in Solio in his Throne and full possession of his Kingdome and so much the more and without an example because it is not in the Time of a Rebellion but a happy Restauration and in the time of Peace after an end or conclusion of an intestine and barbarous Warre and so notorious as it hath been told in the Streets of Gath and Askalon and stirred up some unmannerly fancies and pictures made by some of our envious Neighbours in reproach of it Or that there can be any reason that those that think it reason that the King should recompence them for their losses and damages susteyned in his service in doing their duty unto him should not be as willing to give him an ease in his losses by any agreement made with them which proves to be prejudiciall or a damage unto him or that we may not give our selves in assurance that the Baronage of England who in a Parliament in the 20 th year of the Reign of King Henry the Third refused to consent to an Act of Parliament for the legitimation of such children as were botâ— before marriage to Parents afterwards married and clapping their hands upon their swords cryed una voce with one voice nolumus mutare leges Angliae we will never consent to change the laws of England would now if they were living say more and bewail the downfall of the Honor of their King and Country And not only they but all the then hospitable Gentry and Commonalty of England Lament to see so good and gracious a King allied to all the greatest Houses and Princely Families of Christendome by a discent farre beyond the most antient of them and an extraction of blood equalling if not surpassing the greatest of them and as well deserving of his People want the means to support a Magnificence as high and illustrious as any of his Royall Progenitors and not to be able for want of his Pourveyance to give his Servants Diet or Wages and that some of the principall of them as the Treasurer and Comptroller being sworn by the Orders of the House that all things in the Kings House be guided to the Kings most worship and that they search the good old rule worshipfull and profitable of the Kings Court used before time and them to keep and better if they can should have so much cause as they have to weep as the Priests did at the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and complaining that the beauty is departed from the Kings house his Servants are become like Harts that find no Pasture and they that did feed plentifully are desolate in the Streets Wonder what wild Boar out of the Forrest or Fox out of the Wood have so destroyed and laid wast the Vineyards and the Gardens the Beds of Spices the Roses of Sharon and the Lilies of the Vallies that some of our Temples should be gloriously re-edified and our Zion repaired and yet the glory of our Solomon and his housekeeping not restored but his Servants ruined and their names as to their pay and maintenance blotted out of the Registers that the Winter should be past the Rain over and gone the Flowers appear on the earth the time of the singing of the Birds come and the voyce of the Turtle heard in our Land and the State and Magnificence of our Solomon and his Royall housekeeping which would have heretofore astonished a Queen of Sheba should be now most needlesly exchanged for a desolation and bear all the marks upon it of a languishing Honour That the Courts and Palace of our most gracious King Charles the Second by a mischance of quitting his Rights of Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them should as to many of its Attendants have all the year turned into an Ember week and be about Noon or Dinner time like the silence and want of Company at Midnight or a representation of the middle Isle of the Cathedrall of St. Pauls in London destitute of all its Walkers or Company but such as had nothing to buy their Dinner withall which heretofore begot the reproachfull adage or saying usually cast upon such men of distress
again the compass of their estates and sobriety of their forefathers We may wish and pray that all the Common people were in the moderation of their Apparel Quakers as they are called that all our Market-folk Tradesmen Artificers and Servants as to the justness of their dealings and buying and selling were Quakers and that it may not be our sad and never enough to be lamented experience that as Doctor Peter Heylin well observed the afflictions of the Church of England in the Martirdomes and Persecutions of the Protestants in the Reign of Queen Mary and the restoring afterward of many Godly Divines that fleâ— from it brought 〈…〉 the Genevian Schismes and Discipline 〈…〉 since almost undone and 〈…〉 which were heretofore purpâ—sâ—ly â—own and cherished to enervate and destroy â—onaâ—chy joyned with thâ—â—ll Manners and Customes of some Neighbour Nations may not likewise by some that might be better Englishmen and his Majesties better subjects be more then should be endeavoured to be planted amongst us which being abundantly and sufficiently triâ—d to be evill did never nor will ever attain unto the reason right use goodness and perfection of our good old English Customes amongst which is and ought to be more especially ranked the honor and support of the Royall Court of England Majesty and honor of our King and Soveraign Which the Romans who would not endure any Common-wealth Competitors nor think themselves to be in any condition of safety untill they had ruined and destroyed Carthage and those Commonwealths of Achaia Athens and Sparta were so unwilling in the height of their glory their Senate Magistrates Republick should want as the Comminalty of Rome did in a popular Election deny to make Elius Tubero a most upright and just man the Nephew of L. Paulus and Sisters Sonne of the great and famous Scipio Africanus to be a Pratâ—r or Lord Chief Justice for that he being imployed by Fabius Maximus publicquely to feast or entertain in the name and at the charge of the people of Rome his Uncle Scipio Africanus in the preparing and making ready the Triclinia or Tables lectulos punicanos pellibus â—aedinis straverat had covered the Carthaginian Beds whereon the Guests were to sit or lye with Goat-skins pro Argenteis vasis samia exposuerat and instead of silver Vessels made use of Earthen which due observance of a Heathen Republique being under no obligation of any Divine Praecepts or Examples to honour their Governours or Assembly of wise men may teach us that are Christians how very necessary it will be to take more care of the Honour of our Prince then of any our own estimations or honors which for a great part of them are or have been derived from him or his most noble Ancestors and by so much the more for that the honor to be done unto him is every where to be found commanded directed exampled and encouraged in and by those sacred Registers the holy Scriptures which are to conduct us through the Red Sea of the miseries and troubles of this life to that of a blessed and everlastingly happy in the heavenly Jerusalem in the way whereunto will be no small helpers and assistants the rendring to Caesar all his dues and rights who is the protector of ours a more exact and carefull observance of Religion Laws of nature and Nations right reason our Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy and the love and honour of our King and Country the nâ—w almost forsaken virtues of our Ancestors and the good old Customes of England which should not like some rustie pieces of old neglected Arms be hung up in our Halls and now and then only talked of or like as if they were some race of Wolves come again to infâ—st us or our profits be hunted and persecuted but recalled revived and practised In which as a fidus Achatâ—s shall never be wanting the wel-wishes and endeavors of FABIAN PHILIPPS BY the Laws and Custome of England as well as of other Nations where Monarchy or the right way and order of Government hath any thing to do the King hath a Controll of Markets may regulate order the price rates of victuals houshold provisions and hinder it from being excessive As likewise may the Lords of Manors in their Leets the Sheriffs in their Tournes the Justices of the Kings Bench Justices of Peace and Justices of Assize at the Quarter-Sessions and Assizes by an authority derived from him Which when it was better observed then now made the Market Rates about the fourth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth to be if any thing at all but little different from her price or those Compositions for her houshold Provisions which by agreement made by the Justices of Peace of the severall Counties with the Offficers of her house were to be furnished according as the Counties were more or less distant from London the place of her Residence and the profits which they received thereby in the improvement of their Lands and selling their Commodities at greater rates unto others And was the cause besides the duty and obligation of it that the Kings Praeemption which should not be denyed as long as civility and good manners and the Fifth Commandement shall continue or be in use amongst us And the Royall Pourveyance warranted by the Lawes of God Nature and Nations aswell as by the Civil Law the universal and refined reason of the civilized part of the world and the Common Law of this Nation having dwelt here amongst us above the age of Methusaelah and as Retributions and Gratitudes in signe of subjection paid and allowed in other Nations by the Heathen and Savages as well as Christians were not in the right use of them untill our late Times of Rebellion and Confusion taken to be either a grievance or burden unto the people For that which besides the designes of the Levelling Party and such as were the professed Enemies of Monarchy and Majesty and the ill Impressions which they have cast into the minds of such who have too much believed them hath made them to seem that which they are not Hath been the Rack and Enhaunce of the Rents of Lands by the Nobility Gentry and Landlords The increase of Servants and Labourers wages and the high rates imposed by Tenants and Farmers upon victuals and houshold Provisions which if it were not for the pursuit of pride and vanity and the peoples racking of one another to maintain it might be afforded cheaper then it was in the 4 th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth And as they are now raised to immoderate rates and prices do make a Desert in our Land of Canaan and a generall Enhaunce of all things in the midst of a plenty wherein every one is sure to be a gainer or saver but the King Who by the loss of his Praeemption and Pourveyance is made to be the only Sufferer and as to the Market rates in a worse condition