Winter and Sommer at less then 20 shiâ—lings a Chaldron and it was by the Statute of 32 H. 8 cap. 8. ordained That none do sell Phesants or Partriches unto any but unto the Officers of the King Queen or Princes Houses upon the forfeiture of 6 s. 8 d. for every Phesant and 4 s. 4 d. for every Partrich and did by their Charters or allowances of Prescription grant Free-warren and divers other Franchises unto divers Lords of Manors yet matters must be so ordered as the King though he buy with ready mony must be sure to pay dearer for his Butter Cheese Coals Beer Ale Billet Tallwood Faggots Grocery-ware Rabbets Phesants and Partriches then any of his Subjects Took away by the Statute of 5 Eliz. the severity of the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. enjoyning small wages to Labourers and Artificers and ordained That the Justices in every County should by their discretion according to the dearth or plenty of victuals yearly at the Sessions held at Easteâ— assesse how much every Mason Carpenter Tyler other Crafts men Workmen and Labourers should have by the day or year and limit proportions of Wages according to plenty or scarcity and by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King James did amongst other things give a further power to the Justices of every County to limit and regulate the wages and hire of Labourers and Artificers according to plenty and scarcity that Act of Parliament being since expired for want of continuance yet the King in all his occasions and affairs for Workmen and Artificers shall be sure to pay them rates and wages at the highest Did by the Statute of 23 Ed. 3. cap. 6. provide That Butchers Fishmongers Brewers Bakers Poulterers and other Sellers of Victuals should sell them at reasonable prices and be content with moderate gains And by the Statute of 13 R. 2. ca. 8. That all Majors Bayliffs Stewards of Franchises and all others that have the order and survey of victualls in Cities Boroughs and Market Towns where victuals shall be sold in the Realm should enquire of the same And if any sell any victuals in other manner he should pay the treble of the value which he so received to the party damnified or in default thereof to any other that will pursue for the same By the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. cap. 2. when but a year before Beef and Pork was by Act of Parliament ordained to be sold at an half penny the pound and Mutton and Veal at an half penny farthing the pound and less in Counties and places that may sell it cheaper and complaint was made in Parliament that the prices of victuals were many times enhaunced and raised by the greedy avarice of the owners of such victuals or by occasion of ingrossing and regrating the same more then upon any reasonable or just ground or cause ordained that the prices of Butter Cheese Capons Hens Chickens and other victualâ— necessary for mans sustenance should from time to time as the case should requireâ— be set and taxed at reasonable prices how they should be sold in gross or by retail by the Lord Chancellor of England Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings most honourable Privy Councel Lord Privy Seal Lord Steward the Chamberlain and all other the Lords of the Kings Councel Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings most honourable House Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Kings Justices of either Bench the Chancellor Chamberlains under Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer or any seaven of them whereof the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel or the Lord Privy Seal to be one and commanded the Justices of Peace and Lords of Leets to take a care that the prices and rates of victuals be reasonable Yet the King must not have so much favour and kindness as the Tinientes or Magistrates in the Canarâ—es or other parts of the Spanish Dominions who by reason of their power and authority in the correction and rating of the prices of victuals can have their provisions freely and of gift presented unto them or at small and reasonable rates and prices or as the Lords of Leets the Justices of Assise Justices of Peace Mayors Magistrates of Cities and Corporations might have theirs if they would but put in execution the Laws which are entrusted to their care and charges Nor can have any thing at reasonable rates but is enforced to pay dearer for the provisions of his house then any of his Subjects when as they that could receive his Majesties very large and unexampled Act of Oblivion can only afford him in their Market rates an Act of Oblivion for his protection and care of them and for his many favours and helps in all their occasions and necessities and for forgiving them many Millions of monies sterling or the value thereof and as unto too many of them are willing that our King and Head should in the rates of his victuals and houshold provisions bear the burden of their follies and irregularities Of which the plenty or scarcity of money cannot be any principal or efficient cause as may be verified by an instance or example lately happened in Spain where the calling down of money to the half value to aswage the afflictions of a Famine was so farre from the hoped for effect of abating the prices of victuals and houshold Provisions as they are now well assured that the covetousness of the Sellers and tricks of Trade have added more to the heightning of those rates and prices then any want or abundance of mony And it would therefore well become that part of the People of England who by their intemperance and carelesness as iâ— they were that Nation which dwelt without care against whom the Prophet Jeremy denounced Gods heavy wrath and judgements have brought and reduced themselves and their Estates into a languishing and perishing condition and turned their backs upon the honor of Hospitality to take into their more then ordinary consideration that Sir Anthony Brown a Privy Councellor â—â—to King Henry Eighth did not deviate either from truth or prudence when he said that others apprehension of the Kings greatness did contribute as much to our welfare as our welfare it self or Sir John Russel a vâ—ry valiant as well as wise Statesman Comptroler of the Houshold of King Henry the Eighth and afterwards Earl of Bedford when he declared that the Courts of Princes being those Epitomes through which â—trangers look into Kingdomes should be royally set out with utensils and with attendance who might possess all comers with reverence there and fear elsewhere Or that the learned and reverend Sir James Dier Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-pleas in the 25 th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth committed an error when in the sage and discreet rules left behind him in a Manuscript for the preservation of the Common-wealth he advised that
troublesome to give a Guard of 4000 Archers of Cheshire with their Bows bent and their Arrows hocked ready to shoot Bouche of Court to wit meat and drink and wages of six pence a day then accompted a very great pay Or that King Henry the 7 th then whom the Kingdom of England never had a more thrifty Prince did the morrow after Twefthtyde in a great Solemnity keep a Feast in Westminster Hall where he being set at a Table of Stone which remained untill the middle of our late Rebellion accompanyed with the Queen and many Embassadours and other Estates 60 Knights and Esquires served 60 Dishes to the Kings Mess and as many to the Queens and served the Lord Mayor of London at a Table where he was set with 24 dishes of meat to his Mess. And our succeeding Kings understood to be so much for the good and welfare of the people as King Edward the Sixth that great Blossome of prudence and piety and all manner of Princely virtues when a surfeit of Church Lands and Revenues had like the coal carried into the Eagles nest reduced the Royall Revenues into a consumptive and languishing condition had by the advice of his Privy Council suppressed but with no advantage to the Revenue or curing the diseases of it as it then and hath since happened in many of those pretended rather then really effected dishonorable Espargnes witness the putting down of fourteen Tables at once by King Charles the Martyr which gained in one year Thirty thousand pounds to some few of his Officers who did advise him to do it but nothing at all for himself the Tables formerly appointed for young Lords the Masters of Requests and Serjeants at Armes c. he did not howsoever think fit to diminish or lessen any more of the Royall Hospitality And King James when he had by an over-great bounty to his Countrymen the Craving Scots and their restless importunities brought himself and Revenue into many streights and was contented to seek out wayes of sparing did in the inquest and seeking to abate the charge of his housekeeping in his Letters to the Lords of the Councel bearing date in November 1617. and pressing earnestly to have it done to the end that he might equall his charges to his Revenue direct them to abate superfluities in all things and multitudes of unnecessary Officers and to do things so as they might agree with his honor but concluded that there were twenty wayes of abatement besides the House if they be well looked into Which may give us a Prospect which a larger Treatise of the Antiquitie 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 provision of the Kings Houshold the small charges and burden thereof to the People and many great mischiefs and inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away will more fully evidence how great a damage the King susteyneth by the want of them How unbecoming the Majesty and Honor of a King and his many Princely affairs and occasions it will be that the people should deny him that granted or continueth their Profits in Fairs and Markets the benefit of Prae-emption which all Princes as well Christian as Heathen do enjoy and is but conformable to the Tenor and meaning of the Fifth Commandement in the Decalogue and the Honour due unto common Parents and Magistrates enjoyned thereby How unsafe to the peoples consciences when they do by their Oathes of Allegeance and Supremacy swear to maintain and defend his Regall Rights and Jurisdictions not to allow his Prae-emption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forecheapum and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Saxon Times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying ante 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prendere which is Prae-emption and was then as it hath been ever since so just and legall a part of the Kings Prerogative as King Ina who reigned here in the year 720. did by a Law prohibit that Fore fang or Captio obsoniorum in foris aut nundinis non ab aliquo fit priusquam minister Regis ea ceperit quae Regi fuerint necessaria the taking or buying of Houshold provisions by others in Fairs or Markets before the Kings Minister or Pourveyor should take those things which were necessary for the King And was not then any Novel constitution or acquired Right or Praerogative or without a Divine pattern but so inhaerent in Monarchy and Kingly Government and so becoming the duty and gratitude of Subjects as we may find the Vestigia or Tracs of it in the morning of the restored not long before drowned and washt world when Joseph that great and happy Minister of State under Pharaoh King of Egypt did by the help of that Royal Right of Praeemption keep the Lean Kine from eating up the Fat and save that Kingdome and many other neighbouring Nations from an irresistible famine and ruine And how contrary it will be unto the duty of Subjects to refuse him their Carts to convey his Carriages unless they may have two parts in three more then formerly when the Earl of Rutland and Countess Dowager of Pembroke and many other of the Nobility have not only their Pourveyances but can have their Tenants Boon Carts upon any of their occasions for nothing and every Lord of a Manor or Parson of a Parish do seldom fail of as much or greater curtesies or respects from their Tenants or Parishioners or that the Kings Harbingers should from some of the Tribe of Naball receive uncivill and churlish answers that they are not to loose the advantage of six pence more which may be given by any other or that his Pourveyors should not have the benefit of Praeemption as one of them lately was refused in the buying of a Salmon or be wrangled with and have Fowl taken out of their hands as one lately did and when he was told it was for the King could say he cared not a turd for him or that his Officers should be exposed to the humours or incivilities of Clowns Quakers or disaffected persons And that strangers who have commonly and usually seen forreign Princes travailing in any parts of Christendome out of their own Territories and Jurisdictions to be by a generall and never intermitted custome honourably and respectfully received in all Cities and Places of note and presented with Wine Fish and other provisions such as the place and season of the year afforded which even those Commonwealths States and Places of incivility Trade and selfishness such as Holland and Hamborough do never omit should see the King of Englands Servants and Officers so little respected in their attendance upon him in his Journeys or Progresses as not to be trusted with a small hire of a Cart unless like some beggars in the streets buying an halfpenny or a farthing worth of pottage at a Cooks Shop they do first
fallen upon the Orphans or fatherless Children of that part of the People and their Estates when the Wolves shall be made the Keepers of the Lambs and every indigent or wastfull father in Law shall be a Guardian to those whose Estates he makes it his business to spend and ruine or to transferre upon his own Children and the charge and trouble of Petitions at the Councell Board or more tedious Suits in Chancery to be relieved against them the pay of more Life-guards or a small standing Army to keep the People within the bounds of their duty and secure good Subjects from the mischief intended by the bad frequent Musters of the Trained Bands more then formerly and of an Army to be hired upon an occasion of an Invasion or the transferring the sedem belli or miseries of warre into an Enemies Country much whereof would not have needed to be if the Tenures in Capite and by Knight-service those stronger Towers and Forts of our David those Horsemen and Charriots of our Israel and alwayes ready Garrisons composed of the best and worthiest men of our Nation not hirelings taken out of the Vulgus nor unlettered unskilfull and uncivilized nor rude or debauched part of the people but of those who would fight tanquam pro aris focis as they and their worthy Ancestors ever used to do for the good and honour of their King and Country and the preservation of their own Families as being obliged unto it by the strongest tyes and obligations of law and gratitude which ever were or could be laid upon the fortunes Estates Souls and Bodies of men that would have a care but of either of them Or to put in the Ballance against the benefits which they had in the preservation of their Woods recording their discents and titles to their Lands and many a Deed and Evidence which would otherwise have been lost or not easie to be found and the help and ayd which their heirs in their infancies have never failed of in all their Suits and Concernments And the seldome abuses of some naughty Pourveyors and the complaints thereby do not any thing neer amount unto the immense gains of the people of some millions sterling per annum in their vast improvements of their Lands and Estates by the rack and rise of rents enhaunce of Servants and Labourers wages and all commodities in all parts of the Kingdome before and since the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when the Compositions for the Pourveyance were made and agreed upon may seem but a very small yearly Retribution to the King or his Royall Progenitors for permitting so much as shall be reasonable of it And the People of England might better allow him those small and legall advantages which are and will be as much for publique good as his own then they do themselves in many of their own affairs one with another in many of their particular private ends advantages wherein the will and bequests oâ— the dead their Hospitalls Legacies or Gifts to charitable uses are not nor have been so well managed as they ought to be As may be instanced in those multitudes of charitable Legacies or Gifts in lands originally cut out and proportioned to the maintenance of certain numbers of poor or for some particular uses which by the increase and improvement of Rents before and since the dissolution of the Abbies Religious Houses and Hospitals did very much surmount the proportions which were at the first allowed or intended for them And with more Reason and Justice then the City of London and many of their Guilds and Fraternities do now enjoy divers Lands which were given for Lamps and other superstitious uses for which they compounded by order of the Councell Board with King Edward the Sixth for twenty thousand pounds and more then that which that and many other Cities and Towns do take and receive for Tolls which being many times only granted for years or upon some temporary occasions are since kept and retained as rights besides many Gifts and Charitable Uses since the dissolution of the Abbies and Religious Houses amounting to a very great yearly value which by the improvement and rise of Rents beyond the proportion of the Gifts or the intention of the Givers have been either conveyed by Jâ—yntures or leases to wives or children or much of the overplus which came by the improvement or concealed Charitable Uses converted by the Governours of many a City and Town Corporate to the maintenance of themselves the Worship of the Corporation and many a comfortable Feast and Meeting for the pretended good of the 〈◊〉 people thereof who are but seldome if at all the better for it Some of which not to mention any of greater bulk or value may appear in a few instances instead of a multitude of that kind dispeâ—sed in the Kingdom as two Closes of Land or Meadow Ground lying in the Parish of Shoreditch in the County of Middlesex given by Simon Burton Citizen and Merchant-Taylor of London in the year 1579. unto St. Thomas Hospital upon condition that the Governors of the said Hospitall should yearly give unto 30 poor Persons of the said Parish on the 21 22 or 23 dayes of December for ever the summe of eight pence a piece Mr. William Hanbury Citizen and White-baker of London did by a Surrender in the year 1595. give unto Elizabeth Spearing certain Copihold Lands in Stebuâ—heath and Ratcliffe in the said County to pay the Parson and Church-wardens of the said Parish for ever to the use of the poor People there two and fifty shillings yearly which by consent of the Parish is by twelve pence every Wednesday weekly bestowed upon the Poor abroad And Mrs. Alice Hanbury Widow by her will did in the same year give unto Mr. George Spearing a Tenement in the said Parish wherein William Bridges a Taylor then dwelled upon condition that the said George Spearing his Heirs and Assignes should yearly pay to the Churchwardens of the said Parish and their Successors to the use of the poor and impotent People thirteen shillings and four pence And that whether the King be enough recompenced or not at all recompenced for his Pourveyance it would be none of the best bargains for the Subjects of England or their Posterity to exchange or take away so great and nâ—â—â—ssary a part of his Prerogative or support of Majesty as the Pourveyance or Compositions for them were which in the Parliament in the 4 th year of the Reign of King James were held to be such an inseperable Adjunct of the Crown and Imperiall dignity as not to be aliened and some few years after believed by that incomparable Sir Francis Bacon afterwards Lord Chancellor of England to be a necessary support of the Kings Table a good help and justly due unto him And the Learned both in Law and Politiquâ—s in other Nations as well as our own have told us that such Sacra