solvat persolvat postea forisfacturam nor to sell or buy any thing for money but within Cities and before three witnesses nor without a Voucher or warranty and if any did otherwise they were to be fined and at last incurre a forfeiture Item nullum mercatum vel forum fieri permittatur nisi in civitatibus regni jus suum commune dignitatis coronae quae constituta sunt a bonis predecessoribus suis deperiri non possunt nec violari sed omnia rite in aperto per judicium â—ieri debent likewise that no Market be kept but in Cities so that the right of the King and the dignity of his Crown as it was constituted in the times of his good predecessors might not be lost defrauded or violated and that all things be rightly and openly done according to right and justice King Henry the 1. his Son saith the Monk of Malmsbury corrected the false Ell or Measure so called of the Merchants brachii sui mensura adhibita omnibusque per Angliam proposita causing one to be made according to the measure or length of his own arm ordered it to be used through all England and in his Laws reckoneth the punishment of false Coiners and prohibiting and punishing of Forestall or forestalling of Markets inter Jura his Rights Royal Prerogatives quae Rex Angliae solus super omnes homines habet in terra sua which belonged to him only as King of England and without an Act of Parliament ordered the rate and value of mony which being the mensura rerum measure guide of all things in commerce and dealings one man with another hath no small influence or power in the heightning or lessening of the price of things and is such a part of Soveraignty as the Parliament in their 19. high and mighty and unreasonable propositions sent unto the late King Charles the Martyr in his troubles in June 1642. never attempted to restrain or take from him In the Reign of King Henry the second when as Ranuphus de Glanvilla Chief Justice of England under him saith in that book which is generally believed to have been written by him the Laws and Customes of England being ratione introductis diu obtentis founded upon reason and long used had arrived to that perfection as pauperes non opprimabantur adversarii potentia nec a limitibus Judiciorum propellabat quenquam amicorum favor gratia the poor were not oppressed by their adversaries power nor did partiality or friendship hinder any from Justice the inquiry and punishment of false measures and all manner of deceipts did appertain Coronae Regis to the King only Justices in Eyre were after the return of King Richard the first from his Captivity sent into all Counties of England to enquire amongst other things de Faeneratoribus vinis venditis contra Assisam de falsis mensuris tam vini quam aliarum rerum of Usurers and of wine sold contrary to the Assize and of false measures as well of wine as other things In Anno quarto of King John being thirteen years before the granting of Magna Charta de Libertatibus Angliae the great Charter of the Liberties of England the King did by his Edict and Proclamation command the Assize of bread to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates were set the Assise approved per Pistorem as Matthew Paris saith Gaufridi filii Petri Justiciarii Angliae Pistorem R. de Thurnam by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz Peter Justice of England and the Baker of R. of Thurnam And in the Magna Charta and Liberties granted by him afterwards at Running Munde or Mead near Stanes assented which our Ancestors and Procurers of that Charter believed to be for a publick good that una mensura vini cervisiae sit per totum Regnum una mensura bladi scilicet quarterium Londinense una latitudo pannorum tinctorum russetorum haubergetorum panni genus a kind of Cloth saith Sir Henry Spelman then so called there should be throughout all England one measure of Wine and Beer and the like of Corn and of the breadth of Cloth died and russet or other kinds And was confirmed by King Henry the third his Son in Anno 9. of his Reign who by an Ordinance made by the Kings command and on the behalf of the King howsoever it be stiled a Statute and is placed in our Statute book collected by Mr. Poulton amongst those which he calleth Statutes incerti temporis made in the Reigns of Hen. 3. Ed. 1. or Ed. 2. but cannot assign by whom or in what years or times but in all probability in the Reign of King Henry the third did ordain that no Forestaller which is an open oppresser of poor people and of the Commonalty and an enemy of the whole Shire and Countrey which for greediness of his private gain doth prevent others in buying Grain Fish Herring or any other thing to be sold coming by Land or waters oppressing the poor and deceiving the rich and câ—rrieth away such things intending to sell them more deer should be suffered to dwell in any Town he that shall be convict thereof shall for the first offence be amerced and lose the thing so bought and for the second time have judgement of the Pillory the third time be imprisoned and make Fine and the fourth time abjure the Town And this Judgement to be given upon all manner of Forestallers and likewise upon them that have given them counsel help or favour And providing that his people should not be oppressed with immoderate unreasonable prices in the buying of food and victuals and other necessaries did by his Writ limit the price of Lampreys and had as his Royal Progenitors such a power and just Prerogative of regulating and well ordering of Markets and Fairs as notwithstanding any Charters or Grants of Fairs and Markets to Cities and Towns he did in anno quinto of his Reign upon a complaint of some Merchants of Lynn that when they came to sell their goods and Merchandize at Norwich the Merchants or Tradesmen took away their goods and Merchandise to the value of three hundred marks by his writ give them power to arrest and seize any goods of the Norwich Merchants which should come to any Fairs at Lyn untill that Justice should be done unto them And in anno 49. of his Reign commanded the Barons of the Exchequer that they should inroll and cause to be executed his Letters Patents of a Confirmation to the Citizens of Lincoln of a Charter of King Henry the second his Grandfather that the Sheriff and other the Kings Officers and Ministers of Lincolnschiry should not hinder forraign Merchants to come to Lincoln to trade there ita rationabiliter juste as reasonably and justly as they were wont to do in
the times of his great Grandfather Henry the first his Uncle King Richard and his Father King John or at any time in his own Reign untill his first going over the Seas into Britain for the Kings of England saith the learned Sir John Davies have always â—ad a special Prerogative in the ordering and government of all Trade and Traffique in Corporations Markets and Fairs within the Kingdom which the Common Law of England doth acknowledge and submit unto as amongst many other things may appear by the Charter granted to the Abbot of Westminster mentioned in the Register of Writs wherein the King doth grant to the Abbot his Successors to hold a Fair at Westminster for two and thirty dayes together with a Prohibition that no man within seven miles thereof should during that time buy or sell but at that Fair. Whence for the freedome of Markets and Fairs protection in going and retorning and other immunities had their extraction and original and no less just and reasonable then antient foundation those duties of Toll or Tribute for all things sold in them the Exemptions of the Kings own Tenants or in Auntient demeasn by writs de quietos esse de Theloneo to be Toll-free à regale and power not denied to any forreign Prince or King in Christendome or the States of Holland in their free as they would be called Common-wealth the benefit and authority whereof most of the Nobility and Gentry of this Nation tanquam Reguli as little Kings do by the Charters and Grants of the Kings of England or a Prescription or time immemoriall which supposeth it now injoy in their Manors under that part only of his Prerogative and many Cities Boroughs and Towns Corporate by their Charters have likewise not only before the 49 of Henry third but in almost every Kings Reign since their Liberties Customes and Franchises concerning their Markets and Fairs and the assise and correction of victuals Whence also were deduced the Standard kept in the Exchequer for all weights and measures the Kings power of the Mynt coyning enhauncing or decrying the value of moneys and his publick Beam or Weigh-house in London where all Merchandise brought from beyond the Seas are or should be justly weighed And whence it came that King Henry the 3. in the ninth year of his Reign caused the Constable of the Tower of London to arrest the Ships of the Cinque-Ports on the Thames and compel them to bring their Corn to no other place but only to the Queens Hithe charged in anno undecimo of his Reign the said Constable to distrain all Fish offered to be sold in any place but at Queen Hithe and that Tolls and payments were then and formerly made and paid to the Kings use for Corn Fish and all other provisions brought thither or to Down or Dowgate the rent and profit whereof were afterwards in anno 31. of his Reign granted and confirmed to the Maior and Commonalty of London at 50 l. per annum Fee-farme And in Anno 14 H. 3. forraign Ships laden with Fish were ordered to unlade only at Queen Hithe and if any did contrary thereunto he should be amerced forty shillings Whence also proceeded that well known and antient Office of the Clerk of the Markets in the later end of the Reign of King Edward the first who was not to be a stranger in the prices or rates of the Markets for his Office extended something further then the care of just weights and measures and as Sir John Davies saith was to oversee and correct all abuses in Markets and Fairs it being said in Fleta that ipse in notitia assisarum panis vini mensurarum cervisiae debet experiri ut inde notitiam habeat pleniorem he ought well to inform himself of the assises of Bread Measures Beer and Wine the later of which was not assised or rated by the assisa panis cervisiae in anno 51 of Henry the third and no man could be fitter to watch and hinder for the Justices in Eyre came but twice a year or seldome into every County Forestallers or such as made the Markets dearer or informe or give evidence thereof to the Justices in Eyre or Juries impanelled by them then the Clerk of the Markets who was probably attendant in all the Iters or Eyres for otherwise the Juries who had it then in charge to inquire of false weights and measures or such as buy by one measure and sell by another would have wanted or not so well have had their evidence and the Justices in Eyre could not so well inquire in their Eyres or Circuits de custodibus mensurarum of the Guardians of the measures or Clerks of the Market for so they may be understood to be which took bribes or gifts to permit false Measures if there had been but one Clerk of the Market infra villatas virgam hospitii Regis within the Townships or Virge of the Kings House or if as Sir Edward Coke supposeth the Clerks of the Market had been penned within the narrow compass of the Kings House and the Virge thereof or that the cares of the Fairs and Markets and the Justice of the Kingdome as to that concernment had been but only calculated for the Kings Houshold and confined unto it When as Bracton a learned Judge sub ultima tempora Henrici Tertii in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the third hath recorded in his book de Legibus consuetudinibus Angliae of the Lawes and Customes of England the Justices in Eyre did enquire de mensuris factis juratis per Regnum si servatae sint sicut praevisum fuit de vinis venditis contra Assisam c. of the Measures sworn to be observed whether they were kept as it was ordained and of Wines sold contrary thereunto And was of opinion that it was gravis praesumptio contra Regem coronam dignitatem suam si assisae statutae juratae in regno suo ad commuem Regni sui utilitatem non fuerint observatae a great offence against the King his Crown and Dignity if the assizes or rates which were appointed and sworn to be kept in the Kingdome to the common profit or weal publick thereof should not be kept Which do fully evidence that those antient Rights of the Crown were inquirable in the Eyres and Leets long before that which is called a Statute of view of Frank pledge in anno 18 Ed. 2. was made which at the best was but declaratory of what was before the Common Law some other antient Customes of England And anno 51 H. 3. in the assisa panis cervisae being as Decrees or Rates ordained which as to Ale and Drink the Judicious and right-learned Sir Henry Spelman believeth was altioris originis and as antient as 18 R. 1. mutatis ratione seculi mutandae to be altered and changed according to the rates
he or his heirs did not unto the Lord or any of his Heirs of whom the Lands were holden his services within two years was upon a Cessavit per Biennium brought by the Lord and no sufficient distress to be found to forfeit the Lands so holden And from no other source or original was derived Escuage for the Tenants by Knight service not attending the King or their Lords in the wars which as Littleton saith was because the Law intendeth and understood it that the lands were at the first for that end freely given them whence also came the Aide to make the eldest Sonne of the King a Knight and to marry the eldest Daughter and the like assistances or duties unto the mesne Lords as gratefull acknowledgements for the Lands holden of them which the Freeholders in Socage are likewise not to deny and were not at the first by any Agreement betwixt the King and his particular Tenants nor likely to be betwixt the mesne Lords and their Tenants when the Lands were given them for that some of the mesne Lords might probably be without Sonne or Daughter or both or any hopes to have any when they gave their Lands and their Grants doe frequently mention pro homagio servicio in consideration only of homage and service to be done And being called auxilia sive adjutoria Aids or Assistances to their Lords who could not be then in any great want of such helps when the portions of Daughters were very much in vertue and little in mony and the charges of making the eldest Son a Knight the King in those dayes bestowing upon all or many of them some costly Furres Robes and the other charges consisting in the no great expences of the furnishing out the young Gentleman to receive the then more martial better used and better esteemed honour of Knighthood were reckoned by Bracton in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the third inter consuetudines quae serviciae non dicuntur nec concomitantia serviciorum sicut sunt rationabilia auxilia amongst those customes which are not understood to be services nor incidents thereof if they be reasonable But were de gratia ut Domini necessitas secundum quod major esset vel minor relevium acciperet and proceeded from the good will of the Tenants to help their Lords as their occasions or necessities should require Et apud exteros saith Sir Henry Spelman non solum ad collocandas sorores in matrimonium sed ad fratres etiam Juniores milites faciendos And with some forreign Nations as the Germans old Sicilians and Neapolitans not only towards the marriage of the Sisters of their Lords but to make also their younger Sons Knights For the good will and gratefull retorns of the Subjects to their Kings and Princes and of the Tenants to their Lords were not only since the Norman Conquest but long before practised and approved by the Britains the elder and most antient Inhabitants of this our Island and other world as is manifest by the Ebidiu or Tributum paid per Nobilium haeredes Capitali provinciae domino the Heirs of the Nobility or great men after the death of their Ancestors to the Lords or chief of the Province like unto as Sir Henry Spelman saith our relief which Hottoman termeth Honorarium a free gift or offering And that learned Knight found upon diligent enquiry amongst the Welch who by the sins of their forefathers and injury of the Saxons are now contented to be called by that name as Strangers in that which was their own Country that that Ebidiu was paid at a great rate non solum è praediis Laicis sed etiam Ecclesiasticis not only by the Laity but the Church-men And being not discontinued amongst the Saxons was besides the payment of Reliefs attended with other gifts and acknowledgements of superiority as well as thanks for Gervasius Tilburiensis in the Reign of King Henry the second when the people of England had not been so blessed and obliged as they were afterwards with the numberless Gifts Grants and Liberties which in the successive Reigns of seventeen Kings and Queens after preceding our now King and Soveraign were heaped upon them found oblata presents gifts or offerings to the King to be a well approved Custome and therefore distinguished them into quaedam in rem quaedam in spem some before hand for hopes of future favours and others for liberties or other things given and granted by the King and the Fine Rolles of King John and Henry the third his Son will shew us very many Oblata's or Free-will Offerings of several kinds which were so greatly valued and heeded as King Henry the third and his Barons in or about the 23 year of his Reign which was thirteen or fourteen years after his confirming of Magna Charta did in the bitter prosecution and charge of Hubert de Burgo Earl of Kent and chief Justice of England demand an Accompt de donis xeniis of gifts and presents amongst which Carucagii or carriages were numbred spectantibus ad Coronam appertaining to the Crown And upon that and no other ground were those reasonable Lawes or Customes founded that the King might by the Laws of England grant a Corody which Sir Henry Spelman ex constitut Sicul. lib. 3. Tit. 18. defineth to be quicquid obsonii superiori in subsidium penditur provisions of victuals made for superiors Et ad fundatores Monasteriorum and to the Founders of every Monastry though by the Constitutions of Othobon the Popes Legat in the Reign of King Henry the third the Religious of those houses were forbidden to grant or suffer any to be granted or allowed è communi jure spectabat corrodium in quovis suae fundationis monasterio nisi in libera Eleemosina fundaretur it belonged of common right to grant a Corrody in any Religious houses of their foundation if not founded in Franke Almoigne disposuit item Rex in beneficium famulurom suorum corrodium c. likewise the King might grant to any of his houshold servants a Corrody in any houses of the foundation of the Kings of England and as many were in all by them granted as one hundred and eleaven which that learned Knight conceived to be an argument that so many of the Monasteries were of their foundation Et issint de common droit saith the learned Judge Fitzherbert in his Natura Brevium and also of Common Right the King ought to have a reasonable Pension out of every Bishoprick in England and Wales for his Chaplain untill the Bishop should promote him to a fitting Benefice Which if the compositions for Pourveyances being reduced into contracts and a lawfull custome were or should be no other then gratitudes may be as commendable and necessary as those well approved Examples of thankfulness recorded in holy writ of Abrahams giving King Abimelech Sheep and Oxen
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
for murage or repair of the walls of Towns as Ipswich Harwich Newcastle upon Tine Ludlow c. or Cities as London Norwich York Bristol c. which must of necessity raise the rates of commodities brought thither to be sold and by the same power or authority remit or release them and being granted to many Cities or Towns but for three of seven years or as to London for five years or some other short term since expired is as may be feared under a colour of custome or praescription as yet continued Or being Soveraign of the British seas to take weekly for all Herring taken therein six pence for every Ton and the like for other fish every three weeks either of his own Subjects or forraign Nations or for his Admiral under him to take the tenth of all the Prizes or Ships of his Enemies taken at the Sea and money for Anchorage paid by every Ship for their quiet riding in the river of Thames or any of the Kings Harbours And with as good reason as the Burrow Mealis in Scotland where quilibet Burgensis debet domino Regi pro Burgagio quinque denarios annuatim dicuntur incorporari annexique Fisco patrimonio Regis every Burgess was to pay five pence per annum for his mealis which Sir Henry Spelman interprets to be a Farme appropriated to buy provisions in regiae mensae apparatum for the Kings Table or Houshold and are said to be incorporate and annexed to the Patrimony of the King and his Exchequer Or as the Provost of Edenburgh or other borough Towns in Scotland may take and receive four pence upon every quarter of Malt of ilk Brewster quhe brewes aill all the zeir four pennies and for â—ne halfe zeir twâ— pennies As the Apprisers of flesh are appointed to apprise it at the Kings price ilk dayes of the Markets and to admit the eath of the â—â—sâ—er in that matter And as by the Statutes of King David the second it was ordained that for relief of the inward parts of the Realm quhair woll hes course and quhilks ar burdened with customes and that the remanent parts of the Realm may be made equall with them in all services and burdings It is Statute that certain sommes and quantities of victuall quhareof there is abundance in these utward parts sick as Marts beir and sicklike sall be taken up zeirly at the Chamberlains command to the expenses of the Kings house according to the prices quihilk in auld times used to be taken up in these places Queen Mary the Lord Governour and Lords of secret Counsell havand respect to the great and exorbitant dearth risen upon the will and tâ—me Fowles ordained the prices thereof as 5 s. Scottish the Swan the black Cock and gray hen six pennies twenty of their pennies being but two pence the Woodcock four pennies and the dousâ—n of Laverocks and uthers small birds four pennies c. And by as good reason as King James the sixth his Majesties Grandfather confirmed the Acts of Parliament made by his noble Progenitors for the stanching of dearth of Victuals and setting order and price on all Stuffe and ordained all Earls Lords Barons as well within regality as royalty and their Bailles to landwart and the Provestes and Bailles of all Bâ—rrows and Cities to cause the said Acts to be put to due execution every ane within their boundes and Jurisdiction respective makand and constitutand them Justices to that effect with power to make and appoint Statutes and Ordinances for the special observation of the saidis Acts at every head Court zierly Assigned money and victuals of several Shires and places in Scotland to the keeping of the Castles of Edinburgh Dunbartane Strivilinge and Blacknes Declared the tenths of all Herrings taken in the Scottish Seas to be due unto him as King of Scotland and all infestments and Alienations in few ferme or utherwaies and all dispositions quhatsumever in all time bygane and to cum of the Assise Herring to be nil and of no avail because the said Assise Herring pertanis to the King as ane part of his Customes and annexed property And by as much or a greater warrant or assent of reason as King Henry the 5. of England did in a Patent or Grant of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland to James de Boteler Earl of Ormond authorise him ad victualia sufficientia necessaria pro expensis hospiâ—ii sui ac Soldariorum suorum in quocunque loco infra terram predictam per Provisores hospitii sui alios ministrossuos unacum Cariagio suâ—ficienti pro eisdem tam inâ—ra libertates quam extra feodo Ecclesie duntaxat excepto pro denariis suis rationabiliter solvend capere providere juxta formam diversorum Statutorum de hujusmodi provisionibus ante haec tempora factorum to take victuals sufficient and necessary for the expences of his Houshold and his Souldiers by his Pourveyors and other Ministers in any place whatsoever in Ireland with carriages sufficient for the same as well within liberties as without the Fees of the Church only excepted at reasonable prises according to divers Statutes made concerning provisions And was so well grounded upon Law and reason as all the succeeding Lord Lieutenants or Deputies of Ireland have ever since not wanted those necessary priviledges to attend their high honourable trusts imployments could so little be parted with in the 19. year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when Sir Henry Sidney was Deputy of Ireland as the Earl of Desmond the Viscount Baltinglas other unquiet spirits refusing to pay the provision or Ceasse as they there called it for the Lord Deputies house the Souldiers in Garrison which the learned Camden saith was exactio rei Annonariae certo pretio provisions to be furnished at a certain rate or price ad alendum proregis familiam militesque praesidiarios for the Lord Lieutenants or Deputies Families the Souldiers in Garrison quasi non exigenda nisi ex authoritate Parliamentaria as not due unless it were ordained by authority of Parliament sending over their complaints into England the Lords of the Privy Council upon the hearing bate thereof committed them and those which remained in Ireland and had sent them were in like manner imprisoned untill they should submit to the payment and furnishing thereof for that it appeared by the Records of that Kingdome to be antiquitus institutum an antient constitution jus quoddam Majestatis a part of the right appertaining to the soveraign Power Praeeminence or Kingly Praerogative quae legibus non subjicitur nec tamen legibus adversatur ut Jurisprudentes judicarunt which being not against the Laws was not to be subjected to them saith that worthy Historian the Queen then only ordering the Lord Deputy to use as much moderation as he could in taking those Provisions or Pourveyances And as
many of them who having racked their Tenants to the utmost can leave their Ancestors great and stately houses in the Country as if they had been lately infected with the plague or were haunted with some Devils or Hobgoblins and employ their expences which would have been more honourably laid out in hospitality in treatments of two or three hundred pounds at a time some of our prodigal Gentry expending fifty threescore or an hundred pounds in a Suit of Apparrel can give it away after twice or thrice wearing to a Pimp Sicophant or flattering Servant and lose two hundred or five hundred pounds in a night at Dice or Cards give a hundred pounds for a needle work Band and expend two hundred pounds per annum for Periwigs and all the racked Revenue either laid out by themselves or their wives who vie who shall spend most in the wicked and vain pursuits of a detestable luxury and as if they held their Lands not as formerly by Knight service but by Lady service and their Ancestors had taken pains to leave them estates to play the mad-men withall do make sin the only Errand and employments of their lives and conversations and by their prodigal expences and confining themselves to some few dishes of meat dressed at the Common Cooks in London do leave their Foot-boys and Servants so little of it as they are many times constrained to be glad with the bones and scraps which would have been better bestowed upon Beggars and have reason enough to believe that their Masters can doe no miracles nor multiply loaves of bread or fishes But our Nobility and Gentry demeaned themselves in a more honorable noble and Christian way as may be understood by that of Thomas Earl of Lancasters expences in house-keeping in the Reign of King Ed. 2. when money was scarcer than now it is and yet the account from Michaelmas in the 7. year of the Reign of that King unto Michaelmas in the 8. year of his Reign being but for one year was in the Buttery Pantry and Kitchin three thousand four hundred and five pounds And there was paid for 6800 Stock-fishes so called and for dried Fishes as Lings Haberdines c. 41 l. 6 s. 7 d. for one hundred eighty four Tonnes and one Pipe of Clarret wine and one Tonne of white wine 104 l. 17 s. 6 d. gave costly Liveries of Furres and Purple to Barons Knights and Esquires and paid in that year 623 l. 15 s. 5 d. to divers Earles Barons Knights and Esquires for Fees The house-keeping of the Nobility being not then mean or ignoble when in the fourteenth year of that Kings Reign Hugh Spencer the elder was by Inquisition found to have been possessed of at his several Houses or Manors 28000 Sheep 1000 Oxen and Steers 1200 Kine with their Calves 2000 Hogs 300 Bullocks 40 Tons of Wine 600 Bacons 80 Carcases of Martilmas Beef 600 Muttons in the Larder and 10 Tons of Sider Richard Nevil Earl of Warwick in the Reign of King Henry the fifth had in his house oftentimes six Oxen eaten at a Breakfast and every Tavern was full of his meat and he that had any acquaintance in his house might have there so much sodden and roste as he could prick and carry upon a long Dagger Cardinal Woolsey Arch-Bishop of York in the Reign of King Henry the eighth kept no small house when as his Master Cook in the Privy Kitchin went daily in Velvet and Satten with a chain of Gold about his neck had two Clerks of the Kitchin a Surveyor of the Dresser a Clerk of the Spicery four Yeomen of the ordinary Scullery four Yeomen of the silver Scullery two Yeomen of the Pastery and two Pastery men under them in the Scalding house a Yeoman and two Grooms In the Buttery two Yeomen Grooms and two Pages In the Pantery two Yeomen and in the Waferie two Yeomen Nicholas West Bishop of Ely in the year 1532. in the 23 year of the Reign of King Henry the Eighth kept continually in his house one hundred Servants giving to the one halfe of them 53 s. 4 d. a piece then an allowance for a Gentleman Servant but now by an unreasonable and illegall rise and exaction of servants wages not the halfe of a Carter or Ploughmans wages and to the other 40 s. a piece and to every one of his Servants four yards of broad Cloth for his Winter Gown and for his Summer Coat three yards and a half and daily gave at his gate besides bread and drink warm meat for two hundred poor people Edward Earl of Derby in the Reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth had 220 men in Checque Roll fed sixty eight aged persons twice every day besides all comers appointed thrice a week for his dealing dayes and every good Friday gave unto two thousand seven hundred poor men meat drink and money The Lord Cromwell in the declyning times of charity as Mr. John Stow well observed served twice every day at his gaâ—â— two hundred poor people with bread meat and drink sufficient all the Gentry making it to be their honor in their lesser orbes to measure their Actions by those as good and honorable patterns And proportionable to their hospitality and the state and dignity of our then Nobility were the numbers of their Servants in their houses at home or in their journies or riding abroad many of the Knights Gentlemens Sons of England making it to be the best of their breeding education and way to preferment to serve or retain unto them insomuch as notwithstanding the Statute made against giving of Liveries or Badges 1 R. 2. cap. 7. and the suspicion which some of our Kings and Princes and King Henry the seventh had of their greatness and popularities the great so called Earl of Warwick in the Reign of King Henry the sixt rode with six hundred men in red Jackets embroidered with ragged staves before and behind Thomas Audley Lord Chancellor of England usually rode with many Gentlemen before him with coats guarded with velvet and chains of gold and his Yeomen following after him in Liveries not guarded William Paulet Marquess of Winchester did ride with a great attendance in Liveries and gave great reliefe at his gate and Edward Duke of Somerset did the like John de vere Earl of Oxford in the Reign of Queen Mary notwithstanding the rigour of the Law against Liveries and Reteiners which King Henry the seventh did so turn against one of his highly deserving Ancecestors as it cost him a fine of ten or fifteen thousand marks was accustomed to ride from his Castle of Hedingham in Essex to his City House at London Stone with eighty Gentlemen in tawny velvet Liveries or Coats and Chains of Gold about their necks before him and one hundred tall Yeomen in the like Livery of Cloth following him with the cognisance of the Blew Bore embroidered on their left shoulder Which being the custome of the good
wept for him that was in trouble and sate chief and dwelt as a King in the Army as one that comforteth the mourners the ears that heard him blessed him and the eye that saw him gave witness to him when men gave care and waited and kept silence at his counsel although it must be acknowledged that there are now some of the Gentry more learned accomplished then in former ages and might equall or goe beyond their worthy and honorable Ancestors if they would but imitate their Alms-deeds and hospitality and not permit their greater expences in matters less warrantable and laudable to make and enforce an avaâ—ice or Rubiginem animarum canker or rust of the soul to hinder or keep them from it And Gentlemen were not then as too many now are the fools of the Parish and so little valued as they are now when too many of them may be beaten and kickt in the Market-places in the view and sight of their over-racked and disobliged Tenants piget pudet dicere I would there were no cause or occasion to speak it and with their few attendants of Sicophants Pimps and Foot-boyes be as little helped or regarded by the Common people as a ridiculous pride and a large and wastfull retinue of sins and folly ought to be But kept great hospitalities and were heretofore in their houses in the Country as the Dii Tutelares of the poor or such as were in any want or necessitâ—es the Cities of refuge in all their distresses the Esculapius Temple for wholsome or honest medicaments or unmercinary cures of wounds and diseases which the good Ladies and Gentlewomen their Wives or Daughters were then well practised in and had great respects and reverence paid unto them for it And see how little is now done in any of those kinds if he hath any fear of God or care of goodness love or respect to his Country and posterity forbear a bewailing of the ruine and decay of the moralities virtues and honor of England and wonder how that only remaining relique of our fore-fathers magnanimity and virtues that seed plot of love and good will which the Angels in their song and rejoycing at the birth of our Jesus and Redeemer proclaimed to be a blessing that seminary of reverence honor and respect that ligament and tye betwixt the inferiours and superiours that incitement and encouragement to reciprocations of love and duty and that heretofore so famous and well imployed strength and power of the Nobility and Gentry should be disused and laid side and that those laudable pious and honorable actions of Hospitality and Charity in which our Kings of England so much delighted and by a solemn and thrice repeated crie or proclamation made by one of the Heralds of a Largesse a Largesse at the creation of every Baron Earl or Duke being as the cry or joy of the Harvest mentioned in the holy Scriptures and at St. George's Feasts did put the Nobility and Gentry in mind to doe the like in their several orbes and stations should be now restrained by the want of Pourveyance or Compositions for it or that there should be any endeavours to decay and hinder it at the fountain or well head by stopping the pleasant and refreshing waters which gladded our Sion and the Inhabitants thereof and made it to be the terror of all the Nations round about us or that any should think it to be for the good and honor of England to lessen that hospitality and plenty in the Kings House or Court which is so pleasing and suitable to the humor and constitution of the English Nation hath gained the Kings of England so much love at home and honor abroad maintained so fair a correspondency and intelligence betwixt the Court and Ministry and relieved the poor and needy the Widdow and the Fatherless And is so essentiall and proper to Majesty as David when he offered sacrifice unto the Lord after the bringing back of the Ark did give to every one of the people men and women a Cake of bread a good piece of flesh and a Flaggon of wine and so customary as the Romans could not think themselves secure in the good wills affections of the people without their Epulae and publick Feasts and caressing of the people which Julius Caesar nor his Successor Augustus would not adventure to omit Nor Domitian and Severus who gave oyle wine and other necessary provisions a Fin as Lois d' Orleans rightly understood it d' concilier l' amour de leurs Subjects quils prenoient par lebouchâ— to procure the love of the people who were taken by the mouth and was so customary in France as well as England as at a great solemnity there after that our King Henry the fifth had espoused the Daughter and Heir of France and the people of Paris in great numbers went unto the Louvre to see the King and Queen of England sit at meat together with their Crowns upon their heads but being dismissed without an invitation to eat or drink by some of the Officers or Masters of the houshold as they were accustomed they murmured exceedingly for that when they came to such grand solemnities at the King of Frances Court they used to have meat and drink given them in great plenty and those which would sit at meat were by the Kings Officers most abundantly served with wine and victuals and at extraordinary Feasts as that at the marriage of King Henry the fifth of England and the Lady Katherine Daughter of Charles the sixth King of France had Tables furnished with victuals set in the streets where they which would might sit and eat at the Kings charges as was afterwards also done at Amiens at the enterview of Lewis the eleventh of France and Edward the fourth of England And was there in those dayes most laudably used a fin dâ— unir le peuple au Roy les pieds a la teste pur affirmir le corps politick le lier par une gracieuse voire necessaire correspondence to the end to fasten the people unto the King and the feet unto the head to strengthen the body politick and unite all the parts thereof by a loving and necessary compliance and was an usage so well entertained in other Nations as the Tartars and Laplanders would not be without it and the Graecians thought themselves dishonored if there were not a more then ordinary care to entertain strangers of free cost insomuch as a Law was made amongst the Lucani to punish such as took not a care of them and the Swedes and Gothes esteemed it to be so great an unworthines not to doe it as they did by a Law ordain That whosoever denied lodging or entertainment to any strangers and was by witnesses convicted to have thrice offended in that kind his house was to be burned Those or the like kind and charitable customs haveing so crept through the cranies of humane
understanding and right reason into the ruder sort of the heathen as in some parts of Africk the King thinks he is not beloved of his people unless he doth sometimes feast them and the heads of the Cowes which are killed for that provision are painted and hung up like pictures in his Chamber as for an honor to the King whereby such strangers which did come to his Court might perceive that he was a good King Being like the Agapes or Love Feasts allowed by St. Paul and those which the primitive Christians continued as an excellent Custome and usage when the rich as Tertullian witnesseth brought to those publick feastings meat and provisions and fed and feasted the poor which were so usefull and well-becoming all such as intended or desired the comfort and blessing of it as that thrifty as well as magnificent Commonwealth of Venice doe not only order and encourage yearly Feasts among the several ranks and Classes of their Citizens and people but doe make an allowance to their Duke or shadow of Monarchy for the feasting of the principal of the Senate and to send yearly in the winter to every Citizen a certain petty present of wild foul And if the virtue of charity which St. Paul makes to be the chief or summa totalis of all the virtues and excellencies which humane nature or frailties can be capable of and will not allow that of speaking with the tongues of Angels which certainly is more to be valued then our last twenty years English complement nor the gift of prophecy and understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge neither the having of such a faith as might remove mountains to be any more then nothing in him or a noise or emptiness if charity be not joyned with it be so superlative The people of England as well as their Kings and Princes were not mistaken when they did so heed and thought it necessary to be observed as a good part of the Tythes given by Aethelulph in the year after the birth of Christ 855. not only of his own Lands in demeasne but as most of the Writers which lived nearer that time have as the most learned and judicious Selden rightly observed it extended unto a grant made by the consent omnium Praelatorum ac Principum suorum qui sub ipso variis provinciis totius Angliae praeerant of all the Bishops and Prelates and the Princes and Earles which under him governed in the severall Provinces and whether the Tithes came first to be setled here by that great King Ethelulphus and his Bishops and great men or were assented unto or granted afterwards by the piety and devotion of particular men and the owners of lands and goods of which very many grants doe occurre before they were settled by a very just and binding authority of the Secular Ecclesiastical power and authority in this our Isle of great Britain some part of them may be certainly said to be in the use and application of them to the Church and Ministry and sacred uses dedicated and designed for hospitality Which the People of did so greatly regard and look after as the supposed want of it in the reverend Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury begot a project in the reign of King Henry the eighth as Doctor Peter Heylin that learned and great Champion of the Church of England and the truth even after he was blind hath recorded it Whereby a design was laid by a potent and over-busie Courtier to ruine the Revenues belonging to that Arch-Bishoprick by informing the King that the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had fallen much Wood let long Leases for great Fines and made great havock of the Revenues of his Arch-Bishoprick whereby to raise a fortune to his wife and children and with so large a Revenue had kept no Hospitality that it was more meet for Bishops to have a sufficient yearly stipend out of the Exchequer then to be incumbred with Temporal Revenues and that the Lands being taken to his Majesties use would afford him besides the said Annual stipends a great yearly Revenue But the King rightly apprehending the device sent the Informer on an errand about Dinner time to Lambeth-house where he found all the Tables in the great Hall to be very bountifully provided the Arch-Bishop himself accompained at Dinner with diverse persons of quality his Table exceeding plentifully furnished and all things answerable to the port of so great a Prelate wherewith the King being made acquainted at his coming back gave him such a rebuke for his false information and the design which was built upon it as neither he nor any of the other Courtiers duâ—st stir any further in that suite And the common people of England have always with so much reason loved and applauded Hospitality good House-keeping Alms Deeds and works of Charity and in that besides their own benefits and concernments did but delight in the ways of God which he hath commanded and is well pleased with whereby the heretofore famous and greatly beloved Nobility and Gentry of England have gained so much love honor power reverence and well deserved esteem as the greatest part of the respects which are now afforded and paid by them unto their Issues and remaining generations are as unto too many of them more in remembrance of the good and vertuous deeds of their Ancestors then any personal good or vertue is either to be found in them or according to the courses which they now hold is so much as expected from them who think a name or title like some gaudy Sign-post hung out of an empty ill governed and worse furnished house where vice and all manner of sins in their horrid and ugly deformities being treated and entertained do crawle up and down like Toads Frogs and Serpents in some dark and loathsome Dungeon or that a pedigree deriving their discents from some or many Heroes and Worthy Patriots is honor enough for them do scorn all but their own foolries and suppose a witty Drollery and the Friskes and Funambuloes of an ill governed wit or of brains soaked and steeped in drink more to be valued then the wisdom in the Proverbs of Solomon hate vice and admonition shun vertue and morality as they would do the burst and fire of a Granado and believe dâ—inkâ—ng Dicing and Drabbing to be a more Gentile and cleanlier way of Hospitality and make the common people whilst they stand almost amazed at their Debaucheries and irregularities ready to swear they are illegitimate or some Changelings crept into the name and estate of their Hospitable and vertuous Progenitors and if any of them should be well affected and inclined to walk in the ways of their Ancestors and keep good houses can never be able to do it by reason of the no Reason of their Ranting and expensive Wives twenty of which sort of new fashioned women for there are some though not so many as should be which are or would be helpers to
for Tillage and Pasturage agros luxuriantes rich and fertil Lands watered and enriched with many Rivers her Mountains and Downs covered and replenished with Sheep and far more then they were before the Raign of King Edward the third abounds with Corn Butter Cheese and all manner of Commodities for the uâ—e and livelyhood of mankind and by a greater improvement of all the Lands of the Kinâ—dom within this last Century or hundred yeares then was in three or four hundred yeares before and by watering marling and burning the more barren parts of it is gone far beyond the time and expectation of our Fathers and Progenitors either Brittaines Saxons or Normans and is in the yearly value of Land increased in many parts or particulars thereof twenty thirty or fourty to one more then it was insomuch as we may to our comfort say and believe that Forraign Writers were well acquainted with our happiness when they called England the Court of Ceres and as Charles the great or Charlemaigne of France our neighbor was wont to term it the Granary of the Western world a Paradice of Pleasure and Garden of God and was many ages before in the Brittish times so fruitful in all kinde of Corn and Grain as the Romanes were wont yearly to transport from hence with a Fleet of eight hundred vessels then but something bigger then Barges great store of Corn for the maintenance of their Armies and our Brittains could before those large improvements of Lands and Husbandry which have been since made in it declare unto the Saxons when they unhappily called them in to their aid and took them to be their friends that it was a Land plentiful and abounding in all things Pope Innocent the fourth in the Raign of our King Henry the third called it Hortus deliciarum a Garden of delights ubi multa abundant where all things are plentiful And in the Raign of King Edward the third where there was small or very little enriching or bettering of Lands compared with what it is now the English Leigier Embassadors at Rome heaâ—ing that Pope Clement the sixth had made a grant as he then took upon him to the King of Spaine of the Fortunate Islands now called the Canaries did so believe that to be England which was then granted by the name of the Fortunate Islands as they made what haste they could home to inform the King of that which they believed to be a danger And may now more then ever well deserve those Encomiums or commendations which our industrious Speed hath given it that her Vallies are like Eden her Hills as Lebanon her Springs as Pisgah her Rivers as Jordan and hath for her Walls the Ocean which hath Fish more then enough to feed her people if they wanted Flesh and had not as they have such innumerable Herds of Cattle flocks of Sheep such plenty of Foul Fruit Poultery and all other provisions on the Land for the sustenance life of man to furnish the delicacy of the richer part of the people and the necessities of the poorer if they would but lay aside their too much accustomed Lazines and carelesseness with which the plenty of England hath infected her people and not suffer the Dutch to enrich themselves and make a great part of their vast Commerce and Trade by the Fish which they catch and take in our Brittish Seas multiplying the stocks of their children and Orphants whilst too many of ours for want of their parents industry have none at all or being ready to starve or dye do begg up and down the streets when the waters have made her great the Deep hath set her on high with her Rivers running round about her plants and sent out her little Rivers unto all the Trees of the field when she is become the Merchant for many Isles hath covered the Seas with her ships which go and return a great deal sooner then Solomons Ships to or from Ophyr searcheth the Indies and the remotest parts of the earth to enrich her borders and adds unto her extraordinary plenty the Spices Sugar Oyl Wine and whatsoever foreign Countries can produce to adorn our Tables which former Ages wanted or had not in so great an abundance And that her people are now if so much no more numerous than formerly by her emptying of multitudes of her Natives into Ireland since the Raign of King Henry the Second many of whose Inhabitants have been English transplanted gone thither by our many great Plantations since the middle of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth sent into America as Virginia Bermudas new-New-England Barbadoes St. Christophers Mary-Land Charibe Isles Meâ—is c. By our many Voyages at Sea and to the Indies more than formerly our Fishing in Newfound Land which we had not in former dayes our Nursery of War and Regiments of English in Holland and the United Provinces and our greateâ— than formerly Luxury use of Physick and shortning the lives of the richer part of the people by it When the Provisions for the Kings Houshold or the Compositions for them in so great a plenty as England is now more than formerly blessed with notwithstanding that we do keep fewer Vigils Fasting Eves than heretofore and do as it hath been an usage custom of this Nation eat more flesh in every one month of every year the time of Lent excepted which since the Reformation of our Religion the return of it from the now Church of Rome to that which is more Orthodox is very little at all or not so well observed as our Laws intend and it ought to be than all France Spain the Netherlands do in every year would if the Universal Pride Luxury of the people and their Racking and Cheating one another to maintain it did not hinder it be as cheap or cheaper afforded than it was heretofore For that our Ancestors well approved and much applauded customs of Hospitality are almost every where turned out of doors and an evil custom of eating no Suppers which a Tax for a little time of as much as was saved by one meal in every week introduced and brought into fashion to maintain the Grand Rebellion hath helped the Back to cozen the Belly and the Back with its Brigade of Taylors and all other the abused and retaining Trades to Lucifer hath cheated and rooted out Love Charity and good House-keeping and retrenched much of the Provisions which were wont to be better employed That the Lands of most part of the Monasteries and Religious Houses in England and Wales and their yearly Revenues which at the old easie rates were in or about the Raign of King Henry the Fourth computed to be sufficient and enough to maintain fifteen Earls which after the rate of Earls in those dayes and their great Revenues could not be a little fifteen hundred Knights six thousand two hundred Gentlemen and an hundred Hospitals besides â—wenty thousand pounds per Annum to be given
Aurum Reginae Gold or presents made and given to the Queen in return of their Gifts and favors received from the King Great liberties and priviledges by grants of free Warren Mines Felons and Outlaws goods Deodands Waiss Estraies Fishings Court Leets Tolls and freedom from Tolls to many Cities and people of England granted since the ninth year of the raign of King Henry the third when for the like and some other liberties then confirmed unto them the people of England not having half so much before that time granted unto them as by the bounty and Indulgences of the succeeding Kings and Princes they have had since took it to be no ill bargain to give unto the King for that his grace and favour a Subsidy of the Fifteenth part of all their moveables not loosely rated or much undervalued as their posterities have found the way to do Abundance of Wood and Tymber sold and destroyed by their prodigal posterities which yeelded them as much money as the inheritance of the Lands would have done some of their wives like the story of Garagantuas lusty Mare whisking down with their Tailes whole Woods and great store of Timber in them of two or three hundred years growth A lesser number of servants and retainers and charge of Badges and Liveries especially since the Statutes of 1 R. 2. ca. 7. and 8 E. 4. ca. 2. made against too great a number or the abuse of them when as now many Gentlemen can put a Coachman Carter into one and supply the places of a Servingman Butler and Taylor by one man fitted for all those imployments A great increase of Wool and the price thereof since the Raign of King Edward the third by our quondam flourishing Trade of Clothing untill that our late giddy times of Rebellion had so very much lessened and impaired it Many great Factories or Manufactures of Bays Sayes Serges and Kerseys at and about Colchester Sudbury c. and of stuffs at Norwich Canterbury Sandwich Kiderminster c. erected and encouraged before our long and late unhappy wars and the raign and Rapine of Mechanick Reformers The Lands of Wales greatly improved since the Raign or King Henry the fourth and his severe Laws which denyed them the intercourse commerce and priviledges of England The freeing of some of the Northern Counties as Cumberland Westmerland and Northumberland from the trouble charge and damages of maintaining their Borders against the Scotish formerly and frequent outrages invasions and taking away their goods and cattle by day and by night And the like freedom from the incursions and depraedations of the Welch assured and settled upon the four Shires or Counties of Gloucester Worcester Hereford and Shropshire by the guard and residence of a Lord President of Wales and the Marches thereof Abundance of Markets and Fairs now more then formerly granted so as few or no parts of England and Wales can complain of any want of them within every four or five miles distance Great stoâ—e of Welch Scottish and Irish-cattel now yearly brought into England when as few or none were heretofore Horses Oxen and Cattel now by Law permitted to be transported into the parts beyond the Seas which were formerly denyed A greater profit made to many private Lords of Mannors by Lead and other Mines c. more then heretofore Many Fruit Trees bearing Apples Pears c. yearly planted and great quantities of Sider and Perry made more then formerly Many Rivers made Navigable and Havens repaired The loss of Cattel and great damages by Inundations of the Sea or the Creeks thereof or of some boysterous and unâ—uly Rivers prevented by contributions to the making of Sea walls by several Statutes or Commissions for Sewers None or very little trouble or charges before ouâ— late wars for maintaining of Garrisons c. or by the disorder or Rapines of any of them Our Ships better then in former times secured upon the Sea Coasts by light houses c. Some of our Principal native Commodities as Fâ—llers Earth Leather Hides c. and Corn when it is not cheap prohibited to be exported Divers Statutes restraining Aliens not being Denizend to Trade or keep Shops c. Convenient provisions made for Vicars in case of Churches appropriate The goods of Foraigners to be taxed for the payment of fifteens The breed of large Horses and increase of Husbandry commanded divers Statutes made for the incouragement of Merchants Merchandize and Mariners preservation of Fishing Fuel Cattel and Rivers and against Freequarter of souldiers excessive Tolls Forestallers Regrators Ingrossers and Monopolies Riots Routs and Vagabond Rogues and to relieve the poor All Commotes or unlawful gatherings of money in Wales and the Marches thereof taken away Weights and measures Regulated Depopulations prohibited Many an unjust title in concealed Lands made good by sixty years quiet possession Interest for money lent reduced to a lower rate then formerly and Brokage forbidden No Tillage or errable land to be laid down but as much to be broken up Merchants Strangers permitted to Trade and sell their Merchandize in England and buy and sell things veâ—dible and a great improvement of Trade and Merchandize six or seven times exceeding that which was in or before the raign of Queen Elizabeth Fishgarthes in the Rivers of Ouse and Humber ordered to be pulled down The passage upon the River of Severne freed from Tolles imposed by the proprietors of the Lands upon the Banks The bringing of Silver Bullion into England by our English Merchants encouraged the transportation from thence of Gold and Silver without the Kings licence prohibited and the care of the Kings Exchangers untill the disuse of it now of late preventing all abuses in the coyn or money of the Kingdom Merchants Aliens and Merchants of Ireland ordained to imploy their mony received in England upon the Commodities thereof and every Merchant Alien to finde Sureties that they shall not carry Gold or Silver out of this Realm The keeping of great numbers of Sheep by rich men whereby meaner men were impoverished restrained to a certain number Ordinances made for Bakers Brewers and other Victuallers The prices of victuals to be rated and assessed by the Magistrates Rents of houses in Staple-Towns to be reasonable and assessâ—d by the Maior Great quantities of waste grounds and Commons inclosed and improved A long and happy Peace at home for more then two hundred years Many an Act of Parliament made to prevent or remedy grievances enlarge the peoples liberties and make them the most free and happy Nation in the world si sua bona Norint if they could but be content with their happiness and know how to use it All the Revenues and Estates of the people aswell reall as personal exceedingly and by many degrees improved more then formerly And all manner of Victuals and provisions sold at such excessive rates and prices as would busie our Forefathers with no common or ordinary wonder if they could be alive again
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
and prices of Barley and what they made it with and confirmed by Inspeximus of the Ordinances of divers Kings of England the Kings Progenitors which set the assise of Bread and Ale and the making of measures and howsoever stiled a Statute appears not to have been an Act of Parliament but an Exemplification only made of those Ordinances and Orders by King Henry the third at the request of the Bakers of Coventry mentioning that by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Reign he had granted that all good Statutes and Ordinances made in the times of his Progenitors aforesaid and not revoked should be still holden in which the rates and assise of bread are said to have been approved by the Kings Bakers and contained in a Writing of the Marshalsey of the Kings House where the Chief Justice and other Ministers of Justice then resided and by an Ordinance or Statute made in the same year for the punishment of the offending Bakers by the Pillory and the Brewers by the Tumbrel or some other correction The Bayliffs were to enquire of the price of Wheat Barley and Oats at the Markets and after how the Bakers bread in the Court did agree that is to wit waistel which name a sort of bread of the Court or Kings House doth yet retain and other bread after Wheat of the best of the second or of the third price also upon how much increase or decrease in the price of wheat a Baker ought to change the assize and weight of his bread and how much the wastel of a farthing ought to weigh and all other manner of bread after the price of a quarter of Wheat which shewes that the Tryal Test Assay or Assize of the true weight of bread to be sold in all the Kingdome was to be by the Kings Baker of his House or Court and that there was the Rule or Standard and that the prices should increase or decrease after the rate of six pence And Fleta an Author planè incognitus as to his name saith Mr. Selden altogether unknown who writ about the later end of the Reign of King Ed. 1. tells us that amongst the Capitula coronae itineris the Articles in the Eyre concerning the Pleas of the Crown which were not then novel or of any late institution enquiries were made de vinorum contra rectam assisam venditoribus de mensuris item de Forstallariis victualibus â—â—nalibus mercatum obviâ—ntibus per quod carior sit inde venditio de non virtuosis cibariis of wine sold contrary to the assize of Measures and Forestallers of the Market to make victualls dearer and of such as sold corrupt food or victuals An. 31 Ed. 1. it was found by inquisition that Bakers and Brewers and others buying their corn at Queen-Hithe were to pay for measuring portage and carriage for every quarter of corn whatsoever from thence to Westcheap St. Anthonies Church Horshoo Bridge to Wolsey street in the Parish of Alhallowes the less and such like distances one ob q to Fleetstreet Newgate Cripplegate Birchoners Lane East-cheap and Billingsgate one penny 17 Ed. 2. By command of the King by his Letters Patents a Decree was made by Hamond Chicwel Maior That none should sel Fish or Flesh out of the Markets appointed to wit Bridge-streat East-cheap Old-Fishstreet St. Michaels Shambles and the Stocks upon pain to forfeit such Fish or Flesh as were sold for the first time and for the second offence to lose their Freedome And so inherent in Monarchy and the royall Praerogative was the power and ordering of the Markets and the rates of provision of victuals and communicable by grant or allowance to the inferior Magistrates as the King who alwayes reserves to himself the supreme power and authority in case of male administration of his delegated power or necessity for the good and benefit of the publick is not thereby denuded or disabled to resort unto that soveraign and just authority which was alwayes his own and Jure coronae doth by right of his Crown and Regal Government belong unto him as may appear by the forfeiture and seising of Liberties and Franchises and many other the like instances to be found every age And therefore 41 King E. 3. without an Act of Parliament certain Impositions were set upon Ships other Vessels coming thither with Corn Salt and other things towards the charge of cleansing Romeland And 3 Ed. 4. the Market of Queen Hithe being hindred by the slackness of drawing up London Bridge it was ordered that all manner of Vessels Ships or Boats great or small resorting to the City with victuals should be sold by retail and that if there came but one Vessel at a time were it Salt Wheat Rye or other Corn from beyond the Seas or other Grains Garlick Onions Herrings Sprats Eels Whitings Place Codds Mackarel c. it should come to Queen-Hithe and there make sale but if two Vessels came the one should come to Queen-Hithe the other to Billingsgate if three two of them should come to Queen-Hithe and if the Vessels coming with Salt from the Bay were so great as it could not come to these Keyes then the same to be conveyed to the Port by Lighters Queen Elizabeth by advice and order of her Privy Councell in a time of dearth and scarcity of corn commanded the Justices of Peace in every County to enforce men to bring their Corn to the Markets limited them what proportions to sell to particular persons and ordered them to cause reasonable prices and punish the Refusers And the like or more hath been legally done by the Kings authority in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr in the beginning of whose Reign by the advice of all the Judges of England and the eminently learned Mr. Noy the then Attorny Generall rates and prices were set by the Kings Edict and Proclamation upon Flesh Fish Poultry and most sort of victuals Hay Oats c. commanded to be observed All which reasonable laws constitutions customes were made confirm'd continued by our Kings of England by the advice sometimes of their lesser and at other times of their greater Councels the later whereof were in those early dayes composed of Bishops Earles and Barons and great and wise men of the Kingdome not by the Commons or universall consent and representation of the people by their Knights of the Shires or Burgesses sent as their Procurators ad faciendum consentiendum to consent unto those Acts of Parliament which should be made and ordained by the King and the Barons and Peers of England for they were neither summoned for that purpose nor represented in Parliament untill Anno 49 H. 3. and in Anno 26 or 31 Ed. 1. were called thither only ad faciendum quod de communi consilio per Comites Barones ceteros Proceres to do those things which by the King and the Barons and
as they can they doe with Trumpets Drums and Musick by water in their several Barges adorned with the Banners and Arms of their Companies or Gilds conduct and attend their Lord Maior to be sworn at Westminster although the City of London and every Company in London are abundantly or very well endowed with lands of inheritance of a great yearly value and great stocks of money by Gifts and Legacies And no less reason then the imposing of a penny upon every Broad Cloth brought to sale to Blackwell-hall in London to be paid to the Chamberlain of London to the use of the City for Hallage which the Judges of the Kings Bench in Mich. Terme 32 33 Eliz. in the Chamberlain of Londons Case adjudged to be lawfull because it was as they then declared pro bono publico in regard of the benefits which the Subjects enjoyed thereby and for the maintenance of the weal publick and can not be said to be a charge to the Subject when he reaps benefit thereby and resembled it to Pontage Murage Toll and the like which as appeareth by the book of 13 H. 4.14 being reasonable the Subject will have more benefit by it then the charge amounts unto and that the Inhabitants of a Town or Parish may without any Custome make Ordinances and Bylawes for the reparation of a Church or High-wayes or any thing which is for the weal publick and in such cases the greater part shall bind all the rest And as much to be approved as the wages of the Knights of the Shires and Burgesses coming to Parliaments which are taxed and levied of the Counties Cities and Boroughs some few as those which hold any Lands parcel of an Earldome or Barony only excepted and the charges of the Convocation or Clergy assessed upon the Clergy The Synodals Procurations Proxies and payments made and paid by every Minister to defray the charges of the Arch Deacons in their Visitations every year and the Bishops every three years who are enabled to recover them by the Statute of 34 and 35 of Henry the eighth cap. 19. Oblations Easter and other offerings for the further supply and maintenance of the Ministry Tributes Customes and allowances to Governors of Colonies and Plantations as Virginia new-New-England Barbados c. or 10 s. or some other rate given by Merchants to the Consuls at Venice Smirna Aleppo Ligorne c. towards their support to assist them in the matter of Trade and procuring Justice from the Superiors of the Territories The Pensions Admissions and Payments in the Universities and the severall Colleges and Halls therein for their support with Taxes also sometimes imposed for publick Entertainments of the King Queen Prince Chancellor of the University or some other Grandees although every Colledge and Hall is endowed with large yearly and perpetuall Revenues in Lands the Admittances yearly Pensions and Payments together with the sale and rent of many Chambers in the Inns of Court Chancery or Colledges or Houses of Law towards the maintenance charges and support of the honour of those Societies and contributions not seldome made and enforced towards publick Treatments and Masques the payments and rates in Parishes for Pews Burialls tolling a passing Bell or ringing him and his companions at Funerals which if not enough to defray the charges of the many Feasts and Meetings of the Church-wardens and Petty States of the Parish repairing of the Church new painting and adorning it buying new Bell-ropes casting one or more Bells building the Steeple something higher or making a sumptuous Diall with a gilded Time and Hour-glass are sure enough to be enlarged by a Parish Rate or Tax more then it comes to Or that which is paid by the poor Tankard or Water-Bearers at the Conduits in London where every one payeth three shillings and six pence at his admittance and a penny a quarter towards the support of that pittifull Society Or those contributions sic magna componere parvis to represent great things by small and the vegetation or manner of the growth of an Oak by that of the lowly Shrubs which are made by a more impoverished sort of people the Prisoners for Debt in Ludgate by Orders and Constitutions so necessary is Government and Order and the support thereof even in misery of their own sorrowfull making in their narrow confinements that the Assistant which is monethly chosen by all the Prisoners to attend in the Watch-hall all day to call down prisoners to strangers which come to speak with them change money for the Cryers at the Grates keep an accompt in writing what money or gifts are every day sent to the Prisoners or given to the Box to charge the Steward with it upon the Accompt day see the Accompts truly cast up the Celler cleared by ten of the clock at night of all Prisoners and the Prisoners to be at their Lodgings quietly and civily hath his share of six pence allowed out of the Charity money every night whereof two pence is to be for the Assistant two pence for the Master of the Box and the other two pence allowed in mony or drink unto him which is the running Assistant or unto the Scavenger for bearing 2 candles before him at nine of the clock at night and rings the bell for Prayers is the Cryer for sale at the Markets for the Charity men of light bread taken by the Lord Maior or Sheriffs chumps of Beefe or any other things sent in by the City Clerk of the Market and unsized Fish by the water Bayliffe with many other small employments for which his Salery is four shillings eight pence per moneth and two pence out of the sixteen pence paid by every Prisoner at his first coming And the Scavenger who is to keep the house clean hath for his standing Salery five shillings eight pence per moneth two pence for every Prisoner at his first coming out of the sixteen pence table-money by him paid and a penny out of every Fine imposed upon offenders for the breach of any orders Every Prisoner paying at his first coming besides many other Fees fourteen pence for entring his name and turning the key five shillings for a Garnish to his Chamber-fellows to be spent in coals and candles for their own use or for a Dinner or Supper and sixteen pence to one of the Stewards of the House for Table-money out of which candles are to be bought for the use of the House every night set up in places necessary c. notwithstanding that it hath above 60 l. per annum belonging unto it charged upon lands in perpetuity and many other considerable and misused Legacies which have been setled and bestowed upon that should be well priviledged Prison And as much and more reasonable as the generall protection and defence is above any particular and the publick benefits do exceed any that are private as those payments and services which being derived from gratitude or retribution for
people Subjects and men of Honor in England in those more honorable more performing less complementing times but since withering and growing fruitless and out of fashion when that great commander Luxury had with his Regiments and Brigades of vices new fangles and vanities subdued and put the people to a greater contribution towards such their wicked and vain expences and all that they can now make shift for is too little to support and bear out their extravagancies It is well known and experimented to the great comfort of such as lived within the virge of the Kings houses and residence that the Hospitality of the Kingdome like the heart in the body naturall the primum vivens beginner and conservator of life beginning in the Kings house and propagating and diffusing it self in and through as many of the Nobility and Gentry as being de meliori lutâ— of a more then ordinary extraction did strive as much as became them to imitate Royal Examples would be in the Kings house the ultimum mâ—riens the last which expired And that besides the necessary grandeur and magnificence of the Kings houshold plenty and variety of meat and drink to entertain at his Officers Tables the Nobility Gentry and Citizens which had any occasion to come thither and 240 gallons of Beer allowed the poor every day at the Buttery Barre three gallons every day at the Court gate for thirteen poor men six services or messe of meat and seven pieces of beef a day as wast and extraordinarie for the Kings Honor the chippings of bread sometimes more then should be and the fragments and knapstry of broken or quarter or half joynts of meat carcases of Fowl and Poultry pieces of Pie-crust or other provisions carefully and daily gathered and put into severall Almes-baskets left at every Table and Chamber in the Court and distributed unto the poor by two Grooms and two Yeomen of the Elemosinary or Almnery who enjoy an yearly Salary and maintenance from the King for that only imployment which hath fed and supported many poor Families in and about Westminster as well as Common Beggars the Lodgings and accomodations of Nobility and Gentry resorting to the Court have so greatly enriched all the Streets and parts about it as that end of London and parts adjacent have like trees planted by the water side so very much prospered as Westminster which originally had but some scattered houses adjoyning to the Abby and the Kings Palace came aftewards to be a Burrough Town Corporation endowed with great Liberties and Priviledges and sending Burgesses to the Parliament afterwards to be a City and the people of other parts as birds haunting the woods for shelter shade or succor observing the plenty happiness which they enjoyed have built made their nests habitations as near as they could unto that place and Royal seat of bounty charity and magnificence insomuch as the swelling and increase of London at this day every where to be seen not without some admiration in her Extent and buildings hath within this and the last Century of years very much outgrown that antient City it self and as Mr. John Graunt and some others have truly and ingeniously observed extended it self Westward and as near as it could unto the Royal bitation as if that were more to be desired for a neighbourhood then the River of Thames the Exchange or Custome-house of London and places of Trade and Traffick They therefore that shall remember how his Majesties Maundie or Charity kept as his Royal Ancestors ever did upon the Thursday before Easter or Eve of Good-Friday with a Joul of Salmon a Poll of Ling 30 red Herrings and as many white garnished with â—erbs in new clean wooden dishes four six penny loaves of Court bread cloth for a Gown and a Shirt a pair of New Shoes and Stockins and a single penny with a twenty shillings piece of gold overplus put in severall little purses given to as many poor old men as the King is years old and the state and decency observed in the distributing of it after their feet washed and dried and the King with a condiscention and unexampled humility beyond the reach and example of any of his Subjects kneeling upon his knees and devoutly kissing the feet of those his Almes-men cannot certainly tell how to murmur at such an hospitality or Provisions which afforded him the means wherewith to doe it Nor should the many cures which he yearly doth unto such as are Lame Blind Diseased or troubled with the Disease called the Kings Evil because he cureth it the patience and meekness which he employeth in it and the yearly charge of at least three thousand pounds per annum which his Angel Gold of the value of ten shillings and a silk Ribbon put about the neck of every one be they rich or poor young or old which doe come to that English Pool of Bethesda to be healed and cured be forgotten or thought unworthy a gratitude or some remuneration or acknowledgements Neither can any that ever understood or read of the round Tables of our King Arthur the great Roger Mortimer and the famous Hospitality of England continued through the British Saxon and Norman times all the turmoyls and troubles of the after Generations in their greatest extremities of the Barons warres and the direfull and bloody contentions of the two great discording Houses of York and Lancaster with the vast quantities of Land given besides to Monasteries and Religious Houses to the great increase of Charity and Alms-deeds which was then the only Trade driven or thought on in the way to Cabo di buona speranza the everlasting rest of the righteous the large proportions of Lands given for Chantries in a then supposed pious care of themselves and their Progenitors great gifts and remunerations to Servants and curtesies and kindness to Neighbours and Tenants when most of our Nobility and Gentry thought themselves not great unless they were good nor a Gentleman because he had only the insignia virtutum Armories and marks of the honor of his Ancestors descended unto him without the virtuous noble and heroick qualities which were the cause or original of them when pride and interest the Devils Deputies were not the Soveraign which they most obeyed vanity and all the folliâ—s of sin the neighbours which they loved as themselves when virtue was not reckoned as it is now amongst too many a base or simple companion nor honour turned into a Pageant or nâ—men inane or only made a pretence to deceive mens expectations when almost every English Gentleman was in his Parish and amongst his Tenants like Job that good accomptant of his talents a deliverer of the poor that cried the fatherless and him that had none to help him caused the Widows heart to sing for joy was eyes to the blinde feet to the lame brake the jawes of the wicked pluckt the spoils out of his teeth grieved for the poor
the Cinque Ports which cometh within the Orlokes two pence five Eggs in every hundred brought to London for Poultery brought thither on horseback three Farthings and on foot an half penny for every load of Cheese two pence for every dozen of Sheep brought to Smithfield to be sold an half penny for every Cow or Beast bought out of the Franchise a penny and of every foraigner bringing Cows Beeves Sheep Swine or Porks to Smithfield to be sold betwixt the Feast of St. Martin and Christmas the third best Beast Sheep Swine or Pork after the two first best or some Composition for them and if the Beast be of the value of a Mark the Bailiff was to restore fourty pence for his skin and might take for lean Hogs or Porks brought thither to be sold betwixt Hock tyde and Michaelmas the third best next afâ—ter the first best or twelve or six pence in lieu thereof which with their other Tolles and Perquisites and the yearly Scavage or Shewage the profit of Tronage and Pesage at the Balance together with their yearly income by the Cole Meters places would if the King for the better supply of his Pourveyance should take into his own hands as they are now Collected and taken either in money or in specie the above mentioned Tolles and Customes which are but the Irradiations and participations of the power and authority of the King imparted unto them for the better order and management of the peace and affairs of the people in those lesser Orbes and as was covenanted in a confirmation of the Fee Farm of three hundred pounds per annum for the Shirivalties of London and Middlesex by King John in case of taking away or granting any of the profits thereof release and discharge the said Fee Farm Rent of fifty pounds per annum bring a good assistance to his charge of Pourveyance and houshold provisions and make him some amends and recompence for his daily great damages sustained in his more then formerly expences for his houshold provisions by making his so constant aboad in that his Imperial Chamber Being priviledges better to be liked and approved then many of those which are not discommended in Military affairs where a Colonel of horse hath liberty besides his pay of a Colonel to reckon a pay for a Captain though he hath none and to be allowed for a certain number of spare Horses and to Muster and take pay for â—ix of his own servants and the like for one in every of the six Troops of his Regiment And may be allowed a soveraign as well as those daily and frequently practised given received and taken acknowledgments of Favors Reciprocations and discharges of obligations which are in and thorough the Kingdom performed as well as expected by all the people of the Nation one unto another and by all mankind in their several actions and affairs one with another and their dependencies and relations one unto another And as little to be omitted as the duty and priviledge of the Prae-emption of the Tyn at a reasonable rate with many other allowances and liberties in the Counties of Cornwall and Devon not to be denyed to the King or his Royal Predecessors Kings of England who before they had granted them away had all or the greatest part of the Lands or soyle where the Tynne Mines are For it cannot be any injustice or have so much as any aspect of wrong or oppression that he whose Royal Ancestors have granted confirmed to all his people their liberties and priviledges should seek to preserve his own which helpes to preserve theirs and be unwilling to part with them and his praestationes Angariarum Parangariarum Plaustrorum navium c. his Pourveyance Cart taking and impressing of Ships which as Bossius cited by Zecchius saith Regi competunt ratione Excellentiae ejus dignitatis quae Regalia dicuntur for that as Zecchius alleadgeth multa adjumenta sunt ti necessaria ut dominium intus externe Tueri valeat many things are necessary for a Prince to defend his Dominions at home as well as abroad Or if any should be willing to have it to be no duty would be such strangers to the Scriptures the right interpretation and meaning thereof as to think that the fifth Commandement extendeth onely to parents natural when any shall have a minde to respect them or to let their Fancies run as wild as the zealous reformer did at Crâ—ydon in the beginning of the grand Rebellion when he would have prohibited the reading of that and the other Commandments in the Decalogue by alleaging that they were made by the Bishops they cannot if they will not throw away their Reason and understandings but acknowledge that if Uriah could rationally conclude it to be unfit for him to go to his own house and take the comfort of it when his Lord Joab and the servants of his Lord the King were incamped in the field and hath been ever since applauded for it It cannot be thought to be correspondent to the greatness and Majesty of a King or the duty of his subjects that he should want those ordinary and no very chargeable respects and conveniencies of Pourveyance or Compositions for them and the priviledge to have his goods in progress or upon removals carryed for him at easie rates by his subjects and such as hold of him or have been raised and brought to what they have by the bounties and Royal influences of him and his Princely Progenitors and protected and defended by them when as many of the Nobility and Gentry of England do enjoy those or the like services from their Tenants for letting them heretofore have good penniworths of them or in hope that they may hereafter be good unto them and should not at all grumble or grudge to perform those duties and remunerations to their King whose honor and jurisdictions they are sworn to defend and maintain when they can do it willingly to others upon lâ—sser hopes or gratifications and that he hath already and may as well deserve it as that great and honorable family of the Cliffords late Earles of Cumberland whose heir the Lady Anne Clifford Countess of Pembroke Dorset and Mountgomery doth at this day of her obliged Tenants in the North whose Carts are not to be denyed at any removal from her Castle of Skipton in Craven in Yorkshire by certain proportioned journeys to her Castle of Appleby in Westmerland where her Tenants in that County are to furnish yearly six hundred Hens or a groat for eveâ—y Hâ—n and six hundred Bushels of Oats distinguished or called by the name of Sergeant Oats and those in Craven as many Hens or six pence for every Hen or as others who take benefit by such or the like retributions Customs and usages in other parts of England or the North thereof as Boon Hens c. at Sheffeild in the County of York once the inheritance of the