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
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
that purpose seene themselves attended in the plenty State and greatest of Royalty of the King or Prince from which they were sent and in the mean time nothing wanting or missing in that of the Kings attendance or magnificence in his Court oâ— Family From whence at all times Carelesnes Profusenes and all manner of wast were so banished as the Porters at the Gates were charged to watch and hinder the carrying out of meat and provision by such as should not the Pastrie rated in their allowances for Spice Sugar Corance c. the servants took an oath of duty and obedience and the Treasurer and Comptroller to make due allowance and payments with favourable demeanings and cherish love betwixt the King and his people In Anno 7 Jac. Rates and orders were made and set touching the Kings Breakfast and his particular fare as to qualities and proportions for Dynner and Supper and Fish dayes for the dyet of the great Officers and all other Officers and Servants having diet and the like on the Queens side Rates for Bouche of Court for Mornings and Evenings Lights and Candles and the Yeomen of the Guards diet and Beefe ordered to be on Flesh dayes for the King Queen and Houshold In anno 16 Jac. by advice of the Earl of Middlesex Sir Richard Weston Knight Sir John Wolstenholme Sir William Pyt Knight and other discreet men very much experienced in the Affairs of the world appointed to lessen as much as might be the charges of his house many good orders were made for the regulation of the Kings Houshold some abatements made in the allowance for his Breakfast by his own order a Limitation and stint of Joynts of Meat to make Jellies and all other compositions the number and names of all Noblemen and Ladies attending the Court to be quarterly presented And that the Prince should pay for his diet at his coming to Court which the most narrow-hearted and frugall of fathers in private Families and Societies have not done and his Countrymen of Scotland and many English could not say he was according to the rates he paid at his own House and that when he should repair to any of the Kings Houses in remote places he should pay for such of the Kings provisions as he should expend there according as they should be worth at the next Market And yet in all that frugality and care to prevent wast and the daily meeting of some of the Officers of the Green-cloth in the Compting house there were 240 gallons allowed at the Buttery Bar per diem three gallons per diem at the Court gate for thirteen poor men six Services or Mess of meat and seven pieces of Beefe per diem as wast and extraordinary for the Kings honour And there was no Sunday or other day of the week but the Tables of the great Officers and Lords entertained many Lords Knights and Gentlemen which were not of the Houshold but came to see the King or make and attend their petitions and suits and few Gentlemen of quality Citizens or other persons of those multitudes whose busines or desires to see the Court brought them thither but were taken in as Guests to dinner with some of those many other Officers of the Court that had diet allowed them it having been an antient custome after the King was set to dinner to search through all the Lodgings and Rooms of the House to find out Gentlemen and Strangers fit for and becoming the invitation of the Kings Servants to the Kings meats and provision for his servants and in all those treatments and largess of house-keeping there wanted not a sober plenty of wine and beer out of the Kings Sellers and an open house-keeping with so much sobriety as if it had not been an open housekeeping wherein no drunkenness or debauchery was to be seen as is too commonly in the now almost out of fashion open or free house-keeping at Christmas or other Festivals 18 Jac. Regis Divers Ordinances were made for the diminution of the charge of the Kings house-keeping the allowances of wast to be given dayly for the Kings honour reduced to a certainty viz. 200 loaves of bread 240 gallons of beer remains of Wax and Torch-lights to be returned the number of Artificers Victualleâ—s and Landresses ascertained number of Carts for Carriages stinted and proportioned to all degrees and Offices the charge of the Stable being almost doubled to what it was in Queen Elizabeths time to be lessened as much as may be none to be sworn Servants before the number of Officers should be reduced to what was formerly no Offices or Places in the Kings House to be sold all other good Orders to be put in Execution yet could at the same time by his especiall grace and favour remit to certain places some of his compositions Nor did those contrivances and endeavors to lessen the Kings charge of house-keeping die with King James but were found to survive to his Son and Successor his late Majesty King Charles the first in the third year of whose Reign half the allowance for houshold diets was abated on fasting nights and the carriages in every office reduced to a certain number and when the composition or Country provision of Oxen or Sheep did by the Courts frugality sometimes exceed or make an overplus they were sold and exactly brought unto an accompt for the defraying of other houshold charges where as his Royal Progenitors used to doe he could in his greatest wants and care of all fitting Espargne in his own diet and houshold cause the Lord High Stewards Table in time of Parliament to be constantly abundantly and extraordinarily kept and furnished to treat and dine the then numerous nobility and persons of honour coming to the Court and Parliament But all that was of Innocency antient legall and just Rights in it backt and seconded by right Reason the Lawes and reasonable Customes of the Land the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy taken by all Magistrates Justices of Peace Officers and many of the better sort of the people and of every Freeman of every Trade and Company in London and ordered to be taken by all men in the Kingdome to defend and maintain the Rights and Jurisdictions of the King and his Crown and the interests concernments good honor safety welfare and happiness of every man in particular being involved in that of their King or Prince were not enough to perswade those who had found the sweetness of ruining him and all which were loyal and well affected to him from pursuing the sinfull and abominable ends and designes of themselves and their great Master of Delusion the Devil to murder him but whilst they hunted him like a Partridge upon the mountains and through more persecutions of mind and body and a longer time then ever the righteous and holy David endured in his greatest afflictions could take all that he had from him his Lands Revenues and Estate and so much as
for a greater observance is certainly to be tendered unto the King even in that particulâ—r of Praeemption which may well be believed by all that are not Quakers whose Tenants all the people of England are mediately or immediately by some or other Tenure Then that which is usually done to Lords of Manors Justices of Peace or Country Gentlemen by their Tenants or poorer sort of Neighbours who if they chance to catch any Woodcocks or Partridges in any of those Gentlemens Lands will bring them to their â—ouses to sell at such cheap and easie rates as they shall please to give for them and if which seldome happens they should carry them to the Markets and not thither are sure enough to be chid for it and crossed and denied in any greater matter which they shall have to doe with them And is but that or a little more curtesie which Butchers Fishmongers and other Tradesmen selling victualls or provisions in great quantities and all the year or often unto their constant Customers will not for their own ends fail to doe or neglect or to sell unto them at easier rates then unto others and find themselves to be many times no loosers by it insomuch as some have lately well afforded to sell to a constant Customer for great quantities at the same rate it was 40 or 60 years before And the Compositions of the Counties for Pourveyance to serve in Beefe Mutton Poultry Corn Malt and other provisions for the Kings Houshold and the maintenance and support of it at a more cheaper rate then the Markets yeild which when they were first set was but the Market rate or a little under long agoe made and agreed upon by the greater Officers of the Kings Houshold and some Justices of Peace in every County and easily and equally taxed and laid upon the whole and not upon any particular man which was poor or of a small Estate not fit to bear it May be with as much and more reason allowed and chearfully submitted unto as those many now called quit rents or Rent services which the most of our Nobility Gentry and others not for some few of them doe yet hold some of their Tenants to their antient and reasonable Customes doe receive and their Tenants easily and willingly pay for their several sorts of â—apola Gavels or Tributes charged upon their Lands before and since the Conquest in Kent a County recounting with much comfort of their many Priviledges and beneficiall Customes and most parts of England as Gavel Erth to Till some part of their Landlords Ground Gavel Rip to come upon summons to help to reap their Corn Gavel Râ—d to make so many perches of hedge Gavel Swine for pawnage or feeding their Swine in the Lords Woods Gavel werk which was either Manuopera by the person of the Tenant or Carropera by his Carts or Cariages Harth-silver Chimney-money or Peter-pence which some Mesne Lords do yet receive Were Gavel in respect of Wears and Kiddels to catch Fish pitched and placed by the Sea coasts Gavel noht or Fother or Rent Foder which did signifie pabulum or alimentum ut Saxones antiqui dixerunt and comprehended all sorts of victuals or provisions as the old Saxons interpreted it for the Lord probably in his progress or passing by them and was in usage and custome in the time of Charlemaigne the Emperor about the year of our Lord 800. when the people of Italy Regi venienti in Italiam solvere tenebantur pro quo saepe etiam aestimata pecunia pendebatur were to provide Foder or provisions for the King when he came into Italy in liew of which money to the value thereof was sometimes paid and was long after taken to be so reasonable as it was by the Princes and Nobility of Italy acknowledged in an Assembly to be inter Regalia as a Prerogative due to the King And after the Conquest for Aver Land or Ouver Land carriage of the Lords Corn to Markets and Fairs or of his domestick utensils saith the learned and Judicious Mr. Somner or houshold provisions of the Lord or his Steward when they removed from one place to another sometimes by horse Average sometimes by foot Average one while within the Precinct of the Manor thence called In average and at other times without and then called Out Average whereupon such Tenants were known by the name of Avermanni or Bermanni Smiths Land holden by the service of doing the Smiths work the not performing of which several services so annexed to the said several sorts of Lands and their Tenures made them to be forfeited which though not exchanged and turned into Rents Regis ad exemplum in imitation of the indulgence and favour of King Henry the first to the Tenants of his demeasne Lands either then or shortly after but many of them as appeareth by Mr. Somner continuing in Kent to the Reign of Henry the third others to Edward the first and Edward the third and some in other places to the Reign of King Henry the sixth and in all or many of the Abbies and Religious Houses untill their dissolution in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the eighth notwithstanding that the Lords of Manors and Leets receiving those free or quit Rents as they were called of their Freeholders and Tenants belonging unto their several Manors in lieu and recompence of those services did or ought in their Court Leets twice a year holden cause to be presented and punished any unreasonable prises for provisions or victuals sold in Markets Fairs oâ— otherwise or if they have not Leets are when they are Justices of Peace authorised to doe it and by that untill their Interests perswaded them to let their Tenants use all manner of deceipts in their Marketings and get what unreasonable prises they pleased so as they themselves might rack their Rents farre beyond former ages might have had their provisions untill this time at as low and easie rates as the Kings prouisions and Compositions were at when they were rated and set by the Justices of Peace in the severall Counties and all others of their Neighbourhood might also have enjoyed the benefit of the like rates which the Law intended them And the King may as well or better deserve and expect as many Boons or other services as the Nobility and other great men of the Kingdome doe notwithstanding many Priviledges and Indulgences granted by their more liberall Auncestors and better bestowing their bounties to their Tenants And to be furnished with Carts and Carriages at easie rates as well as the Earl of Rutland is at this day for nothing upon any removall from Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire to Haddon in Darbyshire and elsewhere from one place to another with very many Carts of his Tenants which are there called Boon Carts when as all Lords or Gentlemen of any rank place or quality in the Kingdome doe take it to be no burden or grievance to their
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
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
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
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
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
upon any expedition by land or sea he was to have out of that Manor twenty shillings to feed his Buzcarles Mariners or Seamen or took for every five hides of land or that then esteemed honorable quantity of land a man with him But howsoever if that of Canutus discharging Pourveyance were a Law neither altered nor repealed it did but like his Laws touching Ordeal and delivering over the Murderer to the Kindred other of his Laws which proved to be unpracticable rather make the matter worse then better by his renouncing Pourveyance in his own Demeasnes for that Law and Resolution of his did meet with so little observance as in the Reign of King William Rufus and a great part of the Reign of his Brother King Henry the First the Kings Servants and Court for want of their former provisions grew to be so unruly as multitudo eorum qui curiam ejus sequebantur quaeque pessundaâ—ent diriperent nulla eos cohibente disciplina totam terram per quam Rex ibat devastarent and a multitude following the Court took and spoiled every thing in the way which the King went there being no discipline or good order taken Et dum reperta in Hospitiis quae invadebant penitus absumere non valebant ea aut ad forum per eosdem ipsos quoruÌ„ erant pro suo lucro ferre ac vendere aut supposito igne cremare â—ut â—i potus esset lotis exinde equâ—rum suorum pedibus residuum illius per terram effundere aut aliquo alio modo disperdere solebant and when they could not consume that which they found in the houses whereinto they had broken made the owners carry it to the Market and sell it for them or else burnt their provisions or if it were drink washed their horses feet with it or poured it upon the ground in so much as quique preâ—ognito regis advenâ—u sua habitacâ—l a fugithant every one hearing before hand of the Kings coming would run away from their houses which probably bringing in a dearth or scarcity of coâ—n might be the cause of the Tenants of the Kings Demeasne Lands bringing in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the First for then it was and not before as it appears by Edmerus and William of Malmsbury who lived in his time to the King their Plowshares instead of Corn to Court on their backs and making heavy complaints of their poverty and misery procured that King to change their Rents which before were used to be paid for the most part in corn cattle and provisions and were wont abundantly to supply his houshold occasions and with which in primitivo regno statu post conquisitionem the Kings of England from the Conquest untill then did plentifully as Gervasius Tilburienâ—is who lived also in his Reign hath related defray the charges of their Courts and Housholds into money with six pence in the pound overplus left the value of the mony should afterwards diminish but whether Canutâ—â— his Law were then in force or not or could be sufficient to abrogate those Jura Majestatis Rights or Prerogatives of our English Kings we find King Henry the first after those disorders in his greatest compliance with the English and his need of their aid to defend him against the pretensions and better Title of his elder Brother Robert Duke of Normandy and his couâ—ting of them unto it per libertates quas sanctus Rex Edwardus spiritu Dei provide sancivit by the antient Lawes and Liberties of holy King Edward which he had granted them and a promise to grant them any other retaining his Pourveyance and putting it into better order for as William Malmesbury hath recorded it Curialibus suis ubicunque villarum esset quantum a Rusticis gratis accipere quantum quoto praetio emere debuissent edixit transgressores vel gravi pecuniarum mulcta vel vitae dispendio afficiens directing and ordering those of his Court in whatsoever places he should abide what and how much they were to receive from the Country people gratis and without money and at what prices and rates they should buy other things under great penalties of money or punishment by death and was optimatibus venerabilis provincialibus amabilis reverenced by the Nobility and beloved by the common people and in his Charter which was for a gâ—eat part of it the original of our Magna Charta where omnes malas consuetudines quibus regnum Angliae iniuste opprimebatur inde aufert he took away all the evill Customs with which England was oppressed Et quas as the Charter saith in parte hic posuit and which were in part recited and with which the discontented Barons Nobility of England claiming their antient Liberties were so well contented in the 14. year of the Reign of King John when Steven Langton Archbishop of Canterbury produced it unto them as gavisi sunt gaudio magno valdè juraverunt omnes quod pro hiis libertatibus si necesse fuerit decertabunt usque ad mortem they greatly rejoyced and swore that they would if need were contend unto death for those Liberties there is no mention of any evil in Pourveyance nor any order for the taking of them away And might as justly rationally continue in the Raign of King Henry the second his Grandchild as that custome or usage for the Bishops and dignified Clergy to take their provisions of the Inferior Clergy and their Carriages or Carts which Pope Alexander in a Councel or Synod held at Rome where were present the Bishops of Durham Norwich Hereford and Bath and divers Abbots sent from England did notwithstanding many complaints not against the Pourveyance it self but the immoderate use of it onely limit and restrain them secundum tolerantiam in illis locis in quibus amâ—liores fuerint redditus Ecclesiasticae facultates in pauperibus autem mensura tenenda to be moderately taken in such places as had more large possessions and Ecclesiastical Revenues and less of those who were in a poorer condition and then and long before the Domini hundredorum Lords or great men having the command or jurisdiction of Hundreds uti comes aut vicecomes as the Eaâ—l or Sheriff of the County had multa inde auxilia tributa sectas aliasque praestationes cum ad utilitatem tum ad voluptateÌ„ CerereÌ„ nempe frumentuÌ„ receperunt c and received many aids tributes and Pourveyances aswel conducing to their profit as pleasure cujus hodie nomine Annuum penditur tributum pecuniarum for which now there is a certain rent in mony paid Nor could the rights of Pouâ—veyance Prae-emption be any thing less then denizend in Scotland or the Northern parts of our British Isles when as the Civil and universal Law of the World was there so long ago entertained and yet continues the great Director and Guider of their Justice where in
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
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
have all his wines seised or limit them to such rigorous observances as the Saxon and some of the Norman Kings did command require to have witnesses and Vouchers for all that the people should sell or buy Or if upon that or some other causes or grounds there were no Markets or Fairs to resort unto or vent the plenty or over-plus of the peoples corn cattel fruits fish flesh butter cheese poultrie or other provisions or commodities and that by tarrying at their own houses they could not be informed what rates they would yeild or what some over-lavishly have given for the like or for less or worse then theirs which is usually a great cause of the enhaunce of prices in the endeavours of all people to get as much for their commodities as they finde others have gotten or as much or more as by any pretences or frauds they can procure for them there would be so much and so great a cheapness and plenty of our native commodities as would draw along with them or cause a great abatement in the rates of setting or letting of land and bring us again into some part of that hospitality charity and alms deeds which our pious Progenitors made to be a great part of their cares and business and rescue us from those great sinnes of avarice envie Pride uncharitableness cozening cheating and oppression under which the Land grones and for which Gods judgements like a sword hanging over our heads in a small silk or hair are ready to destroy us And we should quickly find by the want of Fairs and Markets that which our daily experience now tells us to be true that they are the Markets and Fairs which doe make and yeeld a greater price then can be had at home at the peoples own houses that the Markets and Fairs which are a blessing and happiness to the people granted by our Kings and Princes not now to be wanted with a Safety and Protection in viis Regiis aquis Silvis Semitis in or through his high-wayes or by land or water very often denied by private men through their own lands and Jurisdictions which our forefathers not deserving to be called fools by their lesâ— wise generations for obtaining for them so many good Laws Liberties understood to be so much the Kings rights and favours as in the old Grants and Charters made by the King of any lands or liberties unto them they thought themselves never safe enough unless those words and priviledges were specially inserted And it is obvious to all mens experience that by the intercourse and commerce of the people one with another in the accommodation of one anothers wants affection interest present necessities or occasions the prices of all manner of commodities victuals and provisions have been very much raised and heightned more then formerly or when the buyers were not so numerous and that the vie and biddings which are usually found and to be met with at Fairs and Markets doe much raise and enhaunce them farre above the reall worth or for what otherwise they might be had with a reasonable gain and profit for the things themselves or recompence for labour of bringing them thither as is often found in the way of Holland and some other forreign parts now used by our English and other Merchants of Londan in selling goods or merchandise by an inch or small piece of candle set up to burn for a small time with a condition that he that bids most before it be out shall have it in which contest or striving who shall have the commodity the hasty or over-biddings as the candle goes almost out makes the price to be sometimes a fifth and sometimes a tenth more then it is truly worth and if it chance to be no loss or but a small one to him that winns the bargain it is because it may more conduce to some one particular occasion or affair which that party hath for it more then another That the Markets or Fairs in Cities or great Towns of trade where there are more people a larger expence and more delicate way of living brings the sellers or Market people a meliâ—ur marchè or better gain or return then they would or could get by carrying it to some lesser Town or place not so much frequented And that the ground and soyl near those Market Towns are much bettered and impâ—oved by the ordure dirt and dung of Horses or Cattel in the Streets or Stables carried out and laid upon it That the loss supposed by the duty or compositions for the Pourveyance would not come up to the fortieth or fiftieth part of what they would be otherwise loosers in the fall of their rents and prices And be at last assured to their losses that there can be no reason that all or many of the people who can now take or receive advantage by their own heightning and enhaunce of the prices of provisions at home or at the Markets and so greatly improve their estates by it against the minâ— and intent of the King and his Laws should stretch and raise all they can their rates and prises upon him or should in his particular of his Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions for it take advantage or benefit by their own wrongs or breach of the Law which by the rule or maxime of the Civil Law that Nâ—mo ex suo delicto meliorem suam conditionem facere potest no man is to make himself a gainer by his own evil doings is not permitted and our Common Law is not willing to allow a man to take benefit de son tort of his own wrongfull actions Or if that shall not be enough to make the experiment let the most froward and unwilling to that Duty and reasonableness of the Praeemption or Compositions for Pourveyance suppose that which was grown to be almost more then a supposition that Oliver the Cheat as well as Darling of the Factious and Rebellious part of the people and the Patrono of all or many of their wicked doings had as William the Conqueror all the Lands of England in his demeasn power or disposing and given to all the people more then eight parts in nine the Tithes or Tenths being reserved to God and the Clergie with all their Liberties Courts-Leet and Baron Franchises Priviledges of Free-warren Fishing Trade and Commerce Markets Fairs and Tolls with many other Immunities and Freedoms which the bounty and indulgence of our more lawfull Kings and Princes have from age to age and one generation to another given and granted to them and their heirs in perpetuity speciall or generall tail and think but how willing and glad they would have been before they were given or afterwards the late little benevolence being given to the King after the greatest Act of Oblivion or Indempnity which ever Englishmen or any other people had bestowed upon them teaching us the difference betwixt after and before and between a willingness to receive benefits and
Praeemption Pourveyance or Compositions for it when it concerns him so much and so nearly in his honour and the daily bread and sustenance of himself and his Royal Family when he expendeth for want of his Pourveyances or compositions for them yearly more then he did when he enjoyed them as may appear by a just accompt and calculation lately made by his Majesties special command no less then seventy three thousand six hundred seaven pounds fourteen shillings and seaven pence in his Houshold and Stable provisions besides the extraordinaries of Carriages for his Navy Provisions and Ammunition and what would have been added unto it if he had as other Kings or Princes gone his Sommer Progress when the want of it is so unbecomming a King and the aspect of it when he had it was in CHAP. IV. The right use of the Praeemption and Pourveyance and Compositions for them SO lovely and very well imployed and canont by rules of truth reason and understanding be gainsaid by the most disffaected and worst of Subjects when they shall but please to take into their consideration That the magnificence and bounty of a King in his house and the method and manner used therein is no small part of the increase continuance and support of his power reverence honor and awe which are so necessary and essentiall to the good and well-being of a King and his People as they cannot be wanted but are and should be the adjuncts and concomitants of the Royall or Princely dignity and like Hypocrates Twins subsist in one another which the wisdome of the Antients as well as modern and all Nations and People under the Sun and even the naked wild and savage part of them have by a Jure Gentium and eternall Law of Nature derived from divine instinct allowance and patern in the infancy of the world and through all the times and ages of it so well approved as they could never think fit to lay aside or disuse the practise of it for it cannot be by any rule of reason supposed that the fifth Commandement being at the Creation of mankind after Gods own Image written in the heart of him and all his after Generations and justly accompted to be comprehended in those Precepts of the Law of Nature and the righteous Noah with which the world was blessed as well before the flood as afterwards and before the Children of Israel had received the Decalogue or ten Commandements in the dread and astonishment of Gods appearance to Moses in Mount Sinai there was not a distinction at the first and all along holden and kept betwixt Parents and Children and Kings or common Parents and their Subjects in the fear and reverence of Children to Parents and of Subjects to their Kings and Soveraigns when as Noah though preaching to the old world in vain and to no purpose as they made it was so mighty a man and so well beloved and observed as he could by Gods direction cause to be brought into the Ark two of every sort of the species of all irrationall living creatures in order to their preservation for the Generations which were to survive the threatned deluge which without some more then ordinary extent of power could not be compassed by him if he had been but an ordinary man or but one of the common people who hearkened not unto his preaching and had no better an opinion of his Ark or Floating-house then as a Dilirium or his too much adoring the Images of his own phantasie Pharaoh King of Egypt having those requisites and decorums which the Kings and Princes of those early dayes had appertaining to their Royall super-eminence and dignities could upon Josephs extraordinary deserts array him in fine linnen and silks put a gold chain about his neck make him to ride in his second Charriot and cause a Cry or Proclamation to be made before him that every man should bow the knee David that was but the Sonne of Jesse the Bethlemite and once a Keeper of his Fathers few sheep as his envying brother told him in the Wilderness or Common and was taken as God himself said from the Sheep-coat would not when he came to be King omit the dues and regalities which belonged unto Kings though he could in a gratefull acknowledgment say unto God Who am I O Lord God and what is my house that thou hast brought me hither but could think it comely and fitting for him as a King to dwell in a house of Cedars And King Solomon his Son who expending 7 years in the building of the Temple and House of God was thirteen years in building of his own house and another magnificent and stately house of the Forrest of Lebanon and another for the Queen his Wife which was the Daughter of Pharaoh had 300 shields of beaten gold three pound to every shield put into his house of the Forrest his sumptuous Throne of Ivory over-laid with the best gold the like whereof was not in any Kingdome drinking vessels and all the vessels of Gold in that house and kept that state and order in his Tables in the sitting of his servants at meat the attendance of his Ministers and their Apparrel and his Cup-bearers as the Queen of Sheba coming unto him with a very great Train was so much astonished thereat and the house that he had built as there was no more spirit in her and confessed that what she had seen with her own eyes was more by half then what was told her in her own Land All which being allowed by God as necessary honors for Kings conservations of respects and allurements to the obedience and esteem which were to be paid and performed by the people were not put in the Catalogue of that Prince and great Master of wisdomes failings or not walking in the wayes of God or doing that which was right in his eyes and keeping his Statutes and Judgements as his Father David did Neither were those Royal and great Feasts made long after by Ahasuerus which reigned from India unto Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty Provinces to his Princes and Servants the Nobles and Princes of his Provinces for one hundre◠〈◊〉 eighty daies Or the state of that mighty King whe◠〈◊〉 shewed the honour of his Excellent Majesty when as white green and blue Hangings were fastned with cords of fine linnen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble with Beds of gold and silver upon a pavement of red blue white and black marble and gave them drink in vessels of gold according to the state of the King put under any note or character of blame But those and other due respects have so alwaies attended the world and the good order and government of it under Monarchy and Kings and Princes through all the changes and chances thereof as it may be taken to be as universall a Law of Nature and Custome or Nations as the duty and honor of
Capiti cordique suo oppitulari debeat precipue ad dignitatem Regiam Regnique auhoritatem publicam tuendam cum ut membrum particeps fit gloriae qua Caput fruitur every subject ought to assist his King as he would do his own head and heart and more especially to maintain and defend his Kingly dignity and authority for that every member in the body pertakes of the good and honor which the head enjoyes That it cannot be for the good or happiness of subjects to necessitate the power of their Prince or enforce him to try how far it can extend or prevail to free himself from wants or pressures incumbent upon him when as common observation can tell us that small Brooks or Rivolets being stopt or obstructed in their creeping Maeanders or way unto the greater Rivers who are to conduct and lead them into the great assembly or collection of waters will go out of their former gentleness and either inforce a passage by inundations or break their way through all the Barricadoes which can be made to restrain them and that the more they are endeavored to be restrained the more they do rage and easily overcame and bear down before them all that can come in the way of their combined fury stirred up and heightned by the necessities which were put upon them That a want of Revenue in a King to discharge common and ordinary necessaries makes necessitatem invincibilem violentam which saith Aristotle proposito electioni prohibet obstat such an irresistable and violent necessity as it enforceth that which was never intended nor would otherwise have been done which the Wisdom Spirit of God in the vision which he shewed unto the Prophet Ezekiel of the building order of the Holy City the Revenues of the Prince held fit to prevent by a competent Revenue That Armies do notwithstanding all the cares and commands of their Generals and the severest Laws and Discipline of war prohibiting spoil rapine or plundering break out for want of pay and necessaries into all manner of disorders and oppressions and that we need not enquire of the days of old or the Ages past of the numberless mischiefs and inconveniences which have inevitably followed the wants of Princes and the effects of power put on or let loose by necessities And may sadly remember that the people of England denying the late blessed King and Martyr his Customes of Tonnage and Poundage did not onely put him and the cause of his Protestant Allies and friends into many disadvantages for want of those aides which he would otherwise have been enabled to give them and enforced him to fall short of his desires and intentions therein but to give way to many of his craving Scots and wanting servants to take in the assistance of his Royal Prerogative and stretch it further then ever he intended That notwithstanding all the care which he could take that such grants and letters Patents should not transgress or go beyond the bounds of the Law and the right reason and use of it and did upon the granting of many of those Patents cause the Patentees to become bound in Recognizances of great penalties to surrender up their grants and letters Patents if at any time he or his Councel should equiâ—e it And had of his own accord in the year 1639. and 1640. by his Proclamation called in above thirty of such Patents and Commissions as either had been or were likely to be grievances unto the people and in the beginning of that long and unhappy Parliament had graciously condescended to th annulling or abolition of all that did but resemble grievances or were but likely to produce them And that those Letters Patents Commissions and Grants which were called Projects and Innovations were invented and promoted by many Citizens Tradesmen Gentlemen others who being none of the Kings servants did court and wo the Kings Prerogative unto it and busily employed some of the Kings servants to go shares with them in the gain or profit thereof none or very little whatsoever was pretended coming to the King or his Treasury began with the necessities which a causeless discontented part of the people did most unadvisedly and undutifully put upon their King whom they would not suffer to be at any rest untill he had ingaged himself and his Allies in a war with Spain and the then greatly prevailing house of Austria for the recovery of the Palatinate and to make a breach with France for the relief of Rochel and the Hugonots and left him afterwards in the midst of the troubles expence and danger thereof without any aid or assistance to go through as well as he could with it And may now understand how much better it had been to have acquiesced in the many precedents and authorities of the Kings just and legal power of sending his writs to the Cinque ports and many maritime Towns Counties many if not all of whom were by Tenure or Custom in lieu of many liberties priviledges granted unto them by the Kings Royal Progenitors which they do yet enjoy to send or furnish out a certain number of Ships as their own charges when the King should have any publick occasion or necessity to have continued the Kings most just ancient rights and regalities in his Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which by Land together with a fixed certain aid of Shipping contributed by the Cinque Ports and Maritime Towns and Counties would together with his Commissions of Array have enabled him upon a short warning never to have wanted most puissant and gallant Armies and Forces both by Land and by Sea consisting not of hirelings and strangers but such as would have fought pro Aris Focis for their own as well as their Princes interest and would not easily turn their backs betray or fly from their Wives and Children and their own Estates then to put the King for want of them to a yearly charge of no less than eight hundred thousand pounds per annum by Sea and by Land for the peace security honour of the Nation which did not before cost the late King fourscore thousand pounds per Annum Or to be charged with an everlasting Excise as to the moiety of the Excise of Ale Beer Sider Perry c. which did noâ— the last year amount unto more than one hundred five thousand pounds per annum in recompence of the yearly profits of the Kings Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service and what he looseth by his want of Pourveyance and Compositions for them both which did yearly amount unto a far greater benefit what an ill bargain both the King and the people have by the laying by of the one and granting the other how small an advantage the people got by their heretofore invisible Keepers of their Liberties who did all they could to keep them from them or by Oliver their
cujus effectus est necessarius nisi aliunde impediatur could not be so the sole or proper cause of it as if not otherwise hindered it could not want its necessary effect CHAP. VII That the supposed plenty of money and Gold and Silver in England since the Conquest of the West Indies by the Spaniards hath not been a cause of raising the prices of food and victuals in England BUt will upon a due examination be too light in the Ballanee of Truth and Reason and deserve a place in the Catalogue of vulgar Errors For that the rise of Silver in its value or denomination by certain gradations or parts in several Ages from twenty pence the ounce by King Henry the sixth by his prerogative to thirty pence and between his Raign and that of Queen Elizabeth to forty pence and after to forty five pence and after to sixty pence ours being of a finer standard mixture or Allay then that of France the united Belgicque Provinces or the haâ—se or Imperial Cities of Germany and is now as high as five shillings and a penny the ounce comes far short of the now or then enhaunce of victuals and commodities and makes so large a disproportion as the abundance of that could not be probably the cause of the dearth of victuals and all manner of Commodities for that the plenty of those bewitching and domineering mettals of Gold and Silver supposed to be betwixt the Times of the discovery and subduing of the Indian Mines in the Raign of our King Henry the seventh which was about the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred and five and the middle of the Raign of King Edward the sixth when as those Irritamenta malorum American riches and the alurements of them did not in the time of Charles the fifth Emperor who out-lived our King Henry the eight amount unto for his account any more then five hunddred thousand Crowns of Gold and with that and what came into Europe to the Spanish Merchants Accompts our English havâ—ng not then learnt the way to the West Indies or to search the unknown passages of the unmerciful Ocean could not have so great an influence upon England which was no neer neighbor to the Indies as to cause that dearth of Victuals all commodities which was heavily complained of in the raign of King Edward the sixth and if it had there would not have been any necessity of King Henry the 8. embasing or mixing with Copper so much as he did the Gold and Silver Coin of the Nation or that the price of the ounce of Silver should be raised betwixt the Raign of King Henry the 7. and the middle of the raign of Queen Elizabeth to sixty pence or five shillings the ounce and though it must be granted that the raising of the ounce of Silver by King Henry the 8. or King Edward the 6. to five and forty pence and afterwards by some of his successors to sixty pence and the making of more pence out of an Ounce then was formerly might be some cause of the enhaunce of the price of victuals and commodities And that some of our Gallants or Gentlemen of these times forgetting the laudable fâ—ugality of their ancestors who had otherwise not have been able to have leâ—t them those Lands estates which do now so elevate their Poles â—ay by coiting their mony from them as if they were weary of it many times ignorantly give out of their misused abundance more mony or as much again as a thing is worth or not having money to play the fools withall in the excess of gluttony or apparel or the pursuite of their other vices may sometimes by taking them upon day or trust give three or four timâ—s more then the commoditys would be sold to another for ready money the seller being many times never paid at all and if he should reckon his often attendance and waiting upon such a customer to no other purpose but to tire himself and never get a peny of his money would have been a greater gainer if he had given him his wares or commodityes for nothing and if after many yeers he should by a chance meet with his money looseth more by his interest then the principal amounted unto Yet if Parliaments which have been composed of the collected wisdom of the Nation and their Acts and Statutes which have been as they are understood to be made with the wisdom and universal consent of the people of England tanta solemnitate and with so great solemnity as Fortescue in the Raign of King H. 6. and the Judges in Doctor Fosters Case in 12. Jac. Regis do say they are may be credited the plenty of Gold and Silver was never alleaged or believed to be a cause of the dearness of Victuals and provisions When as the Statute of Herring made in the thirty fifth year of the Raign of King Edward the third when the Trade of Clothing was in a most flourishing condition such a Trade necessarily inducing conferring some plenty of money declares the cause of the dearness of Herring to be because that the Hostes of the Town of great Yarmouth who lodged the Fishers coming there in the time of the Fair would not suffer the Fishers to sell their Herrings nor to meddle with the sale of the same but sell them at their own will as dear as they will and give the Fishers that pleaseth them so that the Fishers did withdraw themselves to come there and the Herring was set at a greater dearth then there was before and that men outvied and overbid each other For if the many accidents concurring to the enhauncing of the price of any thing or commodity beyond its ordinary and intrinsicque worth value shall be rightly considered as famine the unseasonableness of the year or harvest blasts or Mildews of Corn transportation fear of an approaching famine keeping Corn and provisions from Markets and hoarding them up eâ—ther for the people 's own use or to catch an opportunity of the highest rates the scarcity or surpassing excellency of it obstructions which wars policy or controversies of Princes or neighbor Nations one with or against another may put upon it a general Murrain or Mortality of Cattel Inundations of waters great store of provision or foder for Cattle or a gentle Winter the charge and burden of a new Tolle or Taxe a present necessity to have the thing desired to be bought or had which the crafty and covetous seller hath taken notice of the importunity of an affection to have it although it cost a great deal more then the worth of it or the conveniency for one more then another which may recompence the damage in giving too much for it or more then was otherwise needful making it to be a good bargain for that particular person time or place which would not be so for others and the Market people imitating one anothers high demands
rates and prices for victuals and houshold provisions In France the Paysants which are the greatest part of the people will tell us that there is mony little enough and that there would if it were not for their Hydras and multitudes of Taxes and Gabels be cheapness enough of all manner of houshold provisions when their Wines and flesh notwithstanding that or any supposed plenty of money are cheap enough In Scotland the moneys and riches which that Nation gained from England by King James his coming to the English Crown and the bounties of that King and his Son King Charles the Martyr with the three hundred thousand pounds sterling for brotherly assistance given to a factious and Rebellious part of them by a party of Covenanting English Rebels to ruine their King and the race and posterity of their benefactors together with the two hundred thousand pounds sterling far exceeding the pay as well as wickedness of their Master Judas given them to sell their pious and distressed King who in a confidence of their Covenanting pretences Faith and promises had fled to their Army for refuge which with the help of his loyal English subjects might easily have preserved him as well as themselves from the miseries and destruction which afterwards happened never appeared to be any cause of the dearness of victuals and houshold provisions more then ordinary or what proceeded from other accidents or causes In Germany where the Bavarian Silver Mines have of late made a plenty of it and every petty Prince and principality hath a regality and priviledge of coyning their Dollars are much allayed and mixed with a baser mettal and their Hanse and Imperial Cities do enjoy a great commerce by Sea and Land they do not complain of the high rates and prices of victuals and houshold provisions The Kingdom of Sweden whose Copper Mines are their Indies and do furnish plenty of Copper money with a value in its weight and materials as much as their denominations which the coyns of Gold and Silver necessarily requiring an allay and some mixture are never blessed with hath in a plenty of that base money no high rates or prices upon their native commodities but 〈◊〉 reasonable as fish enough may be bought for three pence to dine twenty men Rome which receives the money as well as feet of many strangers is the Mart or Forum for the dispatch of most of the Ecclesiastical and too much of the civil affairs of the Catholike Nations and by her claimed Vicariat or Lieutenancy from Jesus Christ and an Empire in Ecclesiastical affairs hath her Taxes Tenths first fruits Oblations Jubilees Indulgences pardons and other attractions of money large Territories Church Land Revenues and the disposal of many priviledges and principalities and famous Channels cut for the Gold and Silver of the Catholike and most enriched Nations to run into the Ocean of its ever filling and never emptying Treasury can at the same time whilst she fits as Queen and delights her self in the several Magazines and Store-houses of her abundance of riches enjoy a very great plenty and cheapness of houshold provisions The Commonwealth of Venice with her wonderful Amass of Treasurs by which she hath for some years last past made wars with the gâ—and Seignior the Behemoth and Leuiathan of the East doth notwithstanding as she did before those wars bless her inhabitants with a competent cheapness The Kingdom of Naples and Dutchy of Milan who with their Garrisons and Armies of Spaniards to the natives in a forced and unwilling obedience are the expenditors and wasters of much of the King of Spaines incomes from India and other his Dominions do not finde that to be the cause or occasion of any dearth or high prices of victuals amongst them The grand Duke of Florence with his great commerce and riches brought into that Country by granting of great priviledges to his Port of Legorn and the Merchants of other Nations trading thither filling his subjects and people with more then formerly and ordinary plenty of money did not thereby so establish the unhappiness of buying their victuals and provisions at unreasonable prices but that there as well as in other principalities and Provinces of Italy which by the Trade of Legorn and neighborhood of Rome and her Ecclesiastical Merchandize are greatly enriched there is so little reason for an enhaunce of the prices and rates of food or provisions as they can be honest gainers by an easie Banda or Reiglement of what is to be paid for them In Spain where the common people do onely hear of the arrival of many millions of Gold and Silver from the West Indies and have little of that but a great deal of black money or Maravedis their great rates for flesh do not arise from the abundance of their money either of the one kinde or of the other but from the barrenness of the Country and the little use thereof procuring no dearness in their Oranges Olives and Lymmons and other fruits and delicacies of that mountainous Country In the East Indies which is one of the Suns darlings whether our English Merchants carry more mony then they should where their mountains hills bring forth great quantities of precious stones and Jewels Gold and Silver and bestows upon them an abundance thereof enough to adorn themselves and the people of the utmost Isles there are no high rates put upon food or victuals In China where there is no want of money they have Rice and other meat for the sustenance of man very cheap and to be had for almost nothing in the Philippina Islands three Hens were sold not long ago for a Rial which is no more then six pence English mony a Dear for two Rials and a Hogg for eighteen And our Countriman Mr. Gage in his journey in Anno 1625. from St. John de Ulhua to Mexico in the West Indies where the world had as it were laid up its Treasures of Gold and Silver found Beef Mutton Kid Hens Turkies Fowles and Quailes to be so plentiful and cheap as he was astonished at it nor was it any store of money in Virginia which heightened there for some times the prices of all things but the Merchants giving greater sums of money to the Savages then they needed neither in New England in Anno 1636. when a Cow was sold for two and twenty pounds which the next yeer after upon the arrival of more might be had for eight pounds And as little is any supposed plenty of money in old England when three millions of Gold too much of which is since transported were coined here betwixt the yeers 1622. and 1630 and two hundred thousand pounds per annum brought hither from Spain to be coined for some years betwixt that and 1640. now no more coming so long a voyage to our Minâ— the cause or reason of those excessive and intollerable pâ—ices and rates of victuals and houshold provisions even to an oppression of the buyers and