part of the well being of the Nation not at once but at several times in several ages and several Generations support and uphold them by after Laws constitutions as That no Freeman should from thence give nor sell any more of his lands but so that of the residue of the lands the Lord of the fee may have the services due unto him which belongeth to the Fee Lands aliened in mortmaine shall accrew to the Lord of the Fee 9 H. 3. ca. 32. 36. the Ward shall pay to the Lord of the Fee the value of his marriage if he will not marry at the request of his Lord for the marriage of him that is within age say the Statute the makers thereof of meer right pertaineth to the Lord of the Fee 20. H. 3 cap. 7. The Lord shall not pay a Fine for distraining his Tenant for Services and â—ustomes 52. H. 3 cap. 3. A fraudulent conveyance to defeat the Lord of his ward shall be void cap. 6. The King shall have primer seisin neither the heir nor any other shall intrude into their Inheritance before he hath received it out of the Kings hands as the same Inheritance was wont to be taken out of his hands and his Ancestors in times past if the lands be accustomed to be in the Kings hands by Knight service or Serjeanty or right of Patronage 52. H. 3. cap. 16. If an heir marry within age without the consent of his Guardian before he be past the age of fourteen years it shall be done according as is contained in the statute of Merton and of them that marry after that age without the consent of their Guardian the Guardian shall have the double value of their marriage such as have withdrawn their marriage shall pay the full value to the Guardian for the trespass and nevertheless the King shall have like amends And if the wards of malice or by evil council will not be married by their chief Lords where they shall not be disparaged then the Lords may hold their lands and Inheritance until they have accomplished the age of an heir male that is to wit of twenty one years and further until they have taken the value of the marriage 3 E. 1.22 A Tenaent shall have a writ of mesne to acquit him of his services and if the mesne come not he shall loose the service of his Tenant 13 E. 1.9 Priority of Feoffment shall make a title for wardship cap. 16. the chief Lord shall have a Cessavit against the Tenant if he cease for two years to do his service writs of Ravishment degard allowed to the Lord and the Party offending though he restore the ward unmarried or pay for the marriage shall nevertheless be punished by two years Imprisonment 13 E. 1.35 The Feoffee shall hold his lands of the chief Lord and not of the Feoffor 18 E. 1. Quia emptores terrarum A saving to the King of the antient aydes due and accustomed 25. E. 1.6 The King shall have the wardship of his Tenant which holdeth in chief the marriage of the heir primer seisin assignement of dower to the widdow marriage of the women Tenants deviding their lands in Coparcinery holden of him and they which hold of him in Serjeanty shall pay a Fine at the Alienation 17. E. 2. A Free-man shall doe his homage to his Lord 17. E. 2. Knights Fees shall not pass in the Kings grants without special words 17 E. 2.16 he shall be answered the mesne rates of Lands coming to him by his Tenants death 28. E. 3.4 where sundry of the Kings Tenants holding of him immediately as of his Dutchy of Lancaster did by sundry Recoveries Fines and Feoffments in use defeat the King of Wardships of Body and Lands It was Enacted that the King and his Heirs shall have the Wardship and Custody of the Body and Lands of cestui que use and if they be of full age shall have relief notwithstanding any such conveyance and an exact provision made for Writs to be granted upon the imbesiling of any such Heir Rot. Parl. 22 E. 4. N. 16. 17. The Lord of Cestui que use no will being declared c. shall have a Writ of Right of Ward for the Body and Land and the Heir of Cestuique use being of full Age at the Death of his Auncestor shall pay a relief 4 H. 7.17 Avâ—wry may be made by the Lord upon the land holden of him without naming his Tenant 21 H. 8.19 And no grievance was thought be in them at the time of the making of the Act of Parliament of 27 H. 8 2. when as it was expresly provided by that Act that Tenures in Capite should be reserved to the King of all mannors lands and hereditaments belonging to Monasteries religious houses which had lands Tenements and hereditaments not exceeding the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds which he should afterwards grant for an estate of Inheritance nor did the Parliament in the 31 year of the raign of that King retract that good opinion which was formerly had of them when enacting that the King and his heirs and Successors should be put in actual possession of all mannors lands and hereditaments of any yearly value whatsoever belonging to Monasteries they saved to the King his heirs and Successors all rents services and other duties as if that act had never been made Nor in the Act of Parliament of 32 H. 8. cap. 46. For erection of the Court of wards and Liveries wherin it is acknowledged that Tenures in Capite and wardships with their incidents did of right belong to the King in the right of the Imperial Crown of this Realm In the Act of Parliament of 32. H. 8. And an explanation thereof in 34 and 35 H. 8.5 giving power to those that held lands in Capite and by Knights service to devise two parts thereof reserving to the King wardship primer seisin and Fines for alienation of the third part and Fines for alienations of the Freehold or Inheritance of the two parts The Crown being secured of the Tenure of the two parts by the statute of Quia emptores terrarum Nor at the making of the statutes of 35 H. 8.14 37 H. 8.2 Whereby the King might reserve Tenures in Socage or Capite at his will and pleasure upon grants of lands not exceeding the value of forty shillings per annum belonging to religious houses And that the Kings former right shall be saved notwithstanding any Traverse a remedy for the rents of the mesne Lords where the King hath the wardships 2 and 3 E. 6. cap. 8 And those that held by such Tenures besides the care of so many Acts of Parliament were not unhappy also in that provision of the Common Law where it was an Article or inquiry in the Eyre if any Lord novas levavit consuetudines had charged his Tenant with any new Customes if any Escheators or Subescheators had made any
detruncatione vel alijs modis juxtâ— quantitatem delicti puniat To be an Hangman or Executioner of such as were condemned to suffer death or any loss of Members according to the nature of their offences could neither be parted with or taken to be any thing but a benefit And that a claim was made by one thâ—â— held Lands in the Isle of Silly to be the Exeâ—cutioner of Felons which there was then usualy done by letting every one of them down in a Basket from a steâ—p Rock with the provision only of two Loaves of Barly bread and a pot of water to expect as they hung the mercy of the Sea when the Tide should bring it in And that those which held by the easy and no dishonourable Tenures of being Tenants in Capite and Knightâ—service should as Mr. Robert Hill a learned and judicious Antiquary in the beginning of the Reign of King James well observeth rack and lease their Lands to their under Tenants at the highest Rents and Râ—tes and neither they nor their Tenants call that a slavery which though none at all may seem to be a far greater burden than any Tenâ—nt in Capite and by Knight service which holdeth of the King or any Tenant that holdeth by knight service of a mesne Lord endureth when as the one is always more like to have the bag and burden which he must pay for laid upon him in his Bargain then the other who is only to welcom a gift or favour for which he payeth but a grateful acknowledgment Nor is there in that which is now so much complained of and supposed to be a Grievance which whatever it be except that which may as to some particular cases happen to the best and most refined Constitutions and the management thereof hath only been by the fault of some people who to be unfaithful and deceive the King in his Wardships or other Duties have some times cast themselves into the trouble and extremityes which were justly put upon them for concealments of Wardships or making fraudulent conveyances to defeat the just Rights of the King or their superiour Lords or by some exorbitances or multiplications of Fees since the erecting of the Court of Wards and Liveries by an Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. any malum in se original innate or intrinsecal cause of evil or inconvenience in them Active or Prâ—xime meerly arising from the Nature or Constitution of Tenures in Capite and Knight Service To be found upon the most severe examinations and inquiries which may be made of them nor are they so large in their number as to extend or spread themselves into an universality of grievances nor were or are any publick or extraordinary Grievance CHAP. III. Tenures of Lands in Capite and by Knight service are not so many in number as is supposed nor were or are any publick or general grievance FOr the Number of Knights Fees which were holden in Capite and by Knight service of the King have by tract of time Alienations Purprestures Assarts incroachments deafforrestations and concealments been exceedingly lessened and decreased 28015 which were said to be parcel of the 60215 knights Fees created by William the Conquerour being granted afterwards by him or his successors to Monasteries Abbyes Priories and religious houses or parcelled into Glebes or other endowments belonging to Cathedrals Churches and Chantries or given away in Mortmain and very many quillets and parcels of Land after the dissolution of the Abbyes and religious houses not exceeding the yearly value of forty shillings And now far exceeding that value granted in Socage by King Henry the eighth besides many other great quantities of dissolved Abbyes and religious Lands granted to be holden in Socage Much of the Abbye Lands retained in the Crown or Kings hands as part of the Royal Patrimony and many Mannors and great quantities of Land granted to divers of the Nobility gentry and others with reservations many times of Tenures of but half a knights Fee when that which was granted would after the old rate or proportion of knights Fees have been three or four knights Fees or more and somtimes as much or more then that no rule at all as touching the proportions of Lands or Tenures being then in such an abundance of Land and Revenue as by the dissolution of the Abbyeâ— came into the Kings hands or disposing 〈◊〉 all kept which might have made many knights Fees were not seldom granted with a Tenure only of a twentieth or fortieth and sometimes an hundreth part of a knights Fee whereby the knights Fees which were granted to the Religious houses being almost half of the number which William the Conquerour is said at the first to have created might well decrease into a smaller number and many of those which diverse of the Nobility and great men held of the King as those of Ferrers Earl of Darby and the Earls of Chester those that came by marriage as by one of the Daughters and Heirs of 〈◊〉 Earl of Hereford and Essex by escheat as the Earldome of Clare or by Resumptions Dissolution of Priors Alienâ— Knights of St. John of Hierusalem Attainders Escheats or Forfeitures which in the Barons Wars were very many or holden as of honors c. Merging and devolving into the Royal Revenue did take of very many of the number especially since the making of the Act of Parliament in 1 â— 6. cap. 4. that there should be no Tenure in Capite of the King by reason of Lands coming to the hands of him or any of his Progenitors Heirs or Successors by Attainders of Treason misprision of Treason Premunires dissolution or surrender of Religious Houses And not a few of the Mesne Lords and those which held also of the King did make as great an abatement in their Tenures by releasing and discharging their services before the making of the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum granting Lands in Socage Franck Almoigne or by copy of Court Roll and casting out a great part of their Lands as well as the Kings of England did not Forrests Chases many vast Commons which they laid out in Charity for the good of the poorer sort of people infranchising of a great number of Copyholders selling giving away many and great parcels of their demesne Lands disparking of many of their Parks deviding them into many Tenements to be holden in Socage endowing of Churches Chantries religious houses the like the forrests Chases and Commons of the Kingdom making very near a tenth part in ten of the Lands of the Kingdom and the Socage Lands Burgage Franck Almoigne and Copyholds more than two parts in three of all the remainder of the Lands of the Kingdom So as it is not therefore improbable but that there are now not above ten thousand or at most a fourth part of those 62015. Knights Fees to be found And that in antient and former times either by reason that great quantities of Mannors and
shillings for a whole Knights Fee and after that rate proportionably ibm 35. If the Guardian maketh a Feoffement of the Wards Lands he shall have a Writ of Novel disseisin and upon recovery the Seisin shall be delivered to the next friend and the Guardian shall loose the Wardship 3. E. 1. ca. 47. Usurpation of a Church during the minority of the Heir shall not prejudice him 13 E. 1.5 Admeasurement of Dower shall be granted to a Guardian and the Heir shall not be barred by the suite of the Guardian if there be collusion 13 E. 1.7 Next Friends shall be permitted to sue if the Heir be â—loyned 13 E. 1.15 If part of the Lands be sold the services shall be apportioned Westmr. 3.2 Escheators shall commit no waste in Wards Lands 28 E. 1 18. If Lands without cause be seised by the Escheator the Issues and Mesne profits shall be restored 21 E. 1.19 where it is found by Inquest that Lands are not holden of the King the Escheator shall without delay return the possession Stat de Escheatoribus 29 E. 1. Escheators shall have sufficient in the places where they Minister to answer the King and his People if any shall complain 4 E 3.9.5 E. 3 4. Shall be chosen by the Chancelour Treasurer and chief Baron taking unto them the chief Justices of the one bench and the other if they be present and no Escheator shall tarry in his office above a year 14 E. 3.8 A Ward shall have an action of waste against his Guardian and Escheators shall make no waste in the Lands of the Kings wards 14 E. 3 13. Aid to make the Kings Son a Knight or to marry his Daughter shall be in no other manner then according to the Statute thereof formerly made 25 E. 3 11. Traverses of offices found before Escheators upon dyings seised or alienations without licence shall be tried in the Kings Bench 34 E. 3 14. An Escheator shall have no Pec of wood fish or venison out of the wards Lands 38 E. 3 13. An Idempnitate nominis shall be granted of another mans Lands seised by an Escheator 37 E 1.2 No Escheator shall be made unless he haue twenty pounds Land per annum or more in Fee and they shall execute their offices in proper person the Chancellor shall make Escheators without any Gift or Brokage and shall make them of the most lawful men and sufficient 12 R. 2.2 An Escheator or Commissioner shall take no Inquest but by such persons as shall be retorned by the Sheriff they shall retorn the offices found before them and the Lands shall be let to farm to him that tendereth a Traverse to the office 8 H. 6.16 Inquisitions shall be taken by Escheators in good Towns and open places and they shall not take above forty Shillings for finding an office under the penalty of forty pounds 23 H. 6 17. Women at the age of fourteen years at the time of the death of their Ancestors without question or difficulty shall have Livery of their Lands 39 H. 6.2 No office shall be retorned into any of the Kings Courts by any Escheator or Commissioner but which is found by a Jury and none to be an Escheator who hath not forty markes per annum above all reprises the Jurors to have Land of the yearly value of forty shillings within the Shire the Forman of the Jury shall keep the Counter part of the Inquisition and the Escheator must receive the Inquisition found by the Iury as also the offices or Inquisitions shall be received in the Chancery and Exchequer 1 H. 8 ca. 8. Lands shall be lâ—t to farme to him that offereth to traverse the office before the offices or Inquests retorned or within three Months after 1 H. 8 ca. 10. the respite of Homage of Lands not exceeding five pounds per Annum to be but eight pence the yearly value of Lands not exceeding twenty pounds per annum to be taken as it is found in the Inquisition except it by examination otherwise appear to the Master of the Wards Surveyer Atturney or Receiver General or three of them or that it shall otherwise appear and be declared in any of the Kings Courts No Escheator shall sit virtute officii where the Lands be five pounds per annum or above the Escheator shall take for finding of an office not exceeding five pounds per annum but six Shillings eight pence for his Fee and for the writing of the office three Shillings four pence for the charges of the Jury three Shillings and for the officers and Ministers of any Court that shall receive the same Record two shillings upon pain of five pounds to the Escheator for every time so offending the Master and Court shall have power to moderate any Fines or Recognisances 33 H 8.22 The Heir of Lands not exceeding five pounds per annum may sue his General Livery by warrant only out of the Court of wards although there be no Inquisition or office found or certified The Interest of every lesser Tenant for Term of years Copy-holder or other person having interest in any Lands found in any office or Inquisition shall be saved though they be not found by office The Heir upon an aetate probanda shall have an oustâ—e le maines and the profits of his Lands from the time that he comes to age and if any office be untruely found a Traverse shall be allowed or a Monstrans de Droit without being driven to any petition of right though the King be entitled by a double matter of Record A Traverse to an office shall be allowed where a wrong Tenure is found an ignoramus â—ound of a Tenure shall not be taken to be any Tenure in Capite and upon a Traverse a Scire facias shall be awarded against the Kings Patentee 2 and 3 E 6. ca. 8. And if there had been any certain or common grievances or so much as a likelyhood of any to have risen or happened by such Tenures and benefits which many were the better for and had no reason at all to find fault with w ch many more were striving to deserve of the Kings of England the Nobility great men of this Kingdom the Parliaments that have been ever since the 8 th year of the reign of H. 3. would not have made so many Acts of Parliament for their establishment or tending to their preservation if we should believe as it cannot be well denyed that Parliaments have been sometimes mistaken and enacted that which they have afterwards thought fit to repeal Yet it comes not within the virge or compass of any probability that Parliaments where all grievances are most commonly represented should for almost four hundred years together in a succession of many Kings Parliaments enact or continue grievances instead of remedies neither find those Tenures to be inconvenient or not fit to be continued or so much as complain of them but as if they were blessings of a
ages in the Managing Collecting and Improveing of the Kings Revenue in England whether certain or casual The strict Inquiries Orders and the care of every thing which might make a profit or prevent a damage which made some of the Kings of England to be so litle wanting money as King Canutus as the Abby Book of Ramsey hath recorded it was able out of his Hanaper or travailing Trunk when he lodged at Vassington in Northamptonshire to lend the Bishop Etheruus who sâ—bita pulsus occasione had a great occasion to use it good store of money And that in William the Conquerours time and in the height of his plenty and prosperity no repairs of Castles and Houses were made but upon accompt by Oath Inquiries were made by some of the succeeding Kings and their Officers after windfalen trees a few trees were not given nor Cheverons nor Rafters allowed towards the repairing of a Grange or Farm without the warrant of the great Seal of England Judges commanded to look to the Fines imposed in the Eyreâ— or Circuits and in all the Eyres Circuits a Clark who kept particular Rolles or Duplicates of the Judges Rolles or Records of their Proceedings was for the King especially appointed and attended and as smal a sum as 2 d. accompted for a Deodand Nor was any thing as far as Humane vigilance Industry or Providence might foresee prevent or remedy suffered to be done or continue that might endammage or lessen the Royal Revenue which King Henry the 3 d. could so watch over as the Court of Exchequer hath sometimes seen him there sitting and taking his own accompts Which kinds of wariness and care have been so much disused or neglected by many of his Successors as though by time and the course thereof the alteration of the value of mony Coyne from twenty pence the ounce to five shillings a peny the ounce of Silver the prizes rates of Provision and Commodities to be bought with it almost yearly raised and inhaunced and the more chargeable way of living which followed thereupon might have put them in mind to have given lesse or demanded more for what was justly their own when as in the 14 th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3 d. 40 shillings per diem was thought by the King and his Councel to be a royal and sufficient expence for Edward Baliol King of Scots his train whilst he tarried at London and 6 s. per diem when he travailed And in the reign of King H. 6. Medow-ground in Leicestershire was valued but at eight pence an Acre and that as appears by a Remonstrance made in Parliament in or about the 11 th year of the reign of that King who was King in possession of France as well as of England now not above 227 years agoe he did right worshipfully as the Record saith maintain the charge of his houshold with sixteen thousand pounds Sterling per annum and could not then defray it with less than Twenty four thousand pounds per annum which now cannot well be done under ten times as much when an Annuity or Pension of ten pounds or twenty marks per annum which was then sufficient for the Kings better sort of Servants is now scarce enough for a Foot-man and the most ordinary sort of inferior Servants Did notwithstanding not lessen their bounty or raise the Rents or Rates of their Revenues but permitted their Escheators in matters of Tenures and Wardships to adhere unto their former courses and find the value of the Lands in their Offices or Inquisitions at the old or small yearly values the rule which the Escheators took for the finding of the values of the Lands upon Inquisitions being at the highest but the tenth part of the true yearly value which was the guide also for the rate of the primer seisins where they were to be taken as much lower as the unwarrantable kindness of too many of those which were trusted and should have looked better unto it could perswade them The Feodaries also upon their Surveys seldom raising the yearly value to more than about a third part of such a gentle value as he should be entreated to adde to that which the Jurors and Escheators had friendly found it So as somtimes a Mannor of above one hundred pounds per annum was found but at thirteen shillings four pence per annum and other times if mingled with other lands of a great yearly value at no more than forty shillings per annum And no longer agoe than in the reign of King Chaâ—les the first above one thousand poundâ— per annum hath been found to be but of the yearly vaâ—ue of twenty Marks And an Estate consisting of very few Mannors and as few Coppyholders but most in Fâ—rms and demâ—snes upon an improved and almost racked Rent worth six thousand pounds per annum found at no greater yearly value than one hundred eighty three pounds eleven shillings which is lesse than the thirtieth parâ— â—hough the Escheators with Knights and Gentlemen and sometimes men of greater mark and quality were Commissioners the Jurors made up somtimes of Gentlemen and most commonly of substantial Freeholders and all of them such as might better have understood an Oath who takeing an ill custom to be warrant enough for a bad Conscience did when they were by the Writ to enquire upon their Oaths de vero Annuo valore of the true yearly value of the Lands thâ—nk that they did honestly and well enough to find it at a very small or low yearly value because they were sure it was weâ—l worth so much Neither were the paymâ—nts o◠〈◊〉 of Homage so troublesom as to make a complaint of when as by an Order made in 13 Eliz. by virtue of her privy Seal by the Lord Burghley Lord Treasurer and the Chancellour and Barons of the Exchecquer which the Lords and Commons of England in primo Jacobi did pray and procure to be enacted by Parliament It was after such an easy and old fashioned rate or value of the Lands as it was but in every fifth Term to be paid in the Exchecquer by a rate and apportionment and might have been saved by an actual doing of Homage as was antiently used to be done upon their Livery and first coming to their Lands and their respit of Homage and howsoever may as well be taken to be a favour as they do of their mesne Lords or one to another in paying three shillings four pence per annum as a quit Rent for respit of suit of Court And that it was therein and thereupon also enacted that no processe ad faciendum Homagium or fidelitatem scire facias Capias or distresse should issue out of the Exchequer but upon a good ground And that the Clerks of the Treasurers Remembrancer in the Exchequer shall pay all issues that any shall loose after he hath paid ordinary Fine for respite of Homage
and so may be proved by any of their Acquittances Neither were the Rates for Licences of Alienations burdensom when they were paid by the rich and improving and most commonly advantage taking purchasors or by the gainers by the settlement or alteration of Lands or Estates and are in passing Fines not usually above a thirtieth part and so after an antient un-improved small yearly value as six thousand pounds per annum hath within three years last past paid but a little above one hundred and twenty pounds for a Composition or Licence of Alienation Which with other of the Kings casual profits by a long remissenesse and usage of some ages past whilst the people to save their own Purses and favour one another choosing the open Rode and track and following the precedents and too common use of under valuations which hath ever been and is the great obstructor and diminisher of royal Revenues would as much as they could never forsake or go much out of it as is visible enough in the Escuageâ— upon Knights Fees and valuatioÌ„s in several ages Kings reigns in that of a tenth in 36 H. 3. demanded in Parliament to be paid out of all the Ecclesiastical Revenues after the full yearly value where adjuncto magnae verbâ— offensionis as Mathew Paris tells us it was taken the worse in regard it was required to be taxed non secundum estimationem pristinâ—m sed secundum â—stimationem noâ—am ad inquisitionem strictissimam not according to the former estimation or rates but a nâ—w and most severe valuation was not at all granted And in a Parliament at Bury in 5â— H. 3. the Clergy denyed to be rated by the Laity or Justa alta taxatione By a just high valuation Sed tantum ut taxatio staret antiqua But only that the old taxation might stand nor was it much otherwise in the rates of fifteens and other proportions of taxes granted by Parliaments though somtimes ordered to be assessed upon oath the greatest tye and obligations that can be laid upon men and their Consciences wherein litle or more then a tenth or smal part was paid or collected of the true yearly value But like a numerous family of Children spending much wanting much and drawing all that they can from the kind and self-denying common parent together with the bounty and munificence which Kings and Princes are not seldom necessitated unto in the way of Government and care of the generality would never be brought to any just valuation or improvement no more than that of customs for goods exported or imported at the rate of twelve pence in the pound and for the subsidies given by Parliament whereupon no more was used to be paid than two shillings or two shillings eight peâ—ce in the pound for Moveables Debts defalked and 4 s. in the pound and most commonly not so much according to the yearly value of Lands Rents Annuities or other yearly profits after an easy and accustomed great undervaluation no more than that of Tenths and first Fruits or of Taxations or Valuations of Benefices in the Kings Books at the tenth or fifth of the true yearly value though every age of one or two ages last past and every thirty or twenty years in the age of Century in which we now live have hugely raised the yearly value of Lands every one striving who shall do it most in their own particular Estates And if there were not as there are so very many plain and evident Demonstrations of it may well be believed to be possible when the publick though made up of the private is dayly gnawed and preyed upon by the private and every one lurches and takes what he can from the Publique to add to his private when the numberlesse Number of the Private is more than the Head or Monarch when the people are to assesse themselves and will ease one another when interest and partiality are the Loadstones that attracts and the Cards and Compasses which the most of men do sail by every man is a well-wisher to the Publique but very few well-doers every one pretends good unto it but intend if not all yet a great deal more unto themselves and do make it their businesse to be the Kings Cozens though they are not of the blood-Royal and by the help of bad Consciences and no good affection to the publique or Common-weale do think no more evil to be in such purloinings than to fetch or take water from a great River or stones or gravel from a vast and high Mountain And the Nobility and Gentry and most of the Land-Lords in England have for many years last past in the publick Assessements which were made to maintain the miseries and iniquityes of our latter times to their cost and grievance experimented that where the Tenants were to pay for their Stock they could so order it as to lay the most of the Burden upon the Land-Lords upon pretences that they had but a small Stock of Cattle when it was in their power not only to undervalue what they had but to lessen or make it more any Fair or Market-day before or after Wherby and the effects which best discovers the truth and intention of all men and their matters be their pretences never so plausible much coloured or varnished over the Conclusion will necessarily follow the Premises that the outsides and noyse of great ayds and Subsidyes have been always a great deal more than the reality of them that the Kings and Queens of England have always had in their Revenues fair blossomings or Bloomes but little more than the Tenth of it hath come to be fruits or gatherings into their Treasuries witnesse if there were nothing else to prove it the great and more than treble or a better Improvement which hath been lately made of them since they came to be wrongfully possessed by private men and that the Revenues of the Kings and Princes of England could never yet arrive to the Fate of great Rivers which fertilizeing all the Neighbouring shores and carrying many a great Burden and Vessel which dayly sail to and fro upon them are notwithstanding so farre from emptying or impairing themselves as the further they run they are sure enough to be made greater by an Addition of many little Brooks and great Rivers which fall into them But by a continual emptying and deflux must of necessity sink it self into a great decay and deficiency when as that which was accounted Providence and good Husbandry in King H. 2. or H. 1. if Samuel Daniel and others be not mistaken to change his Rent Provisions of Corn Victuals which in every County was paid in Specie into yearly Rents or Summs of money because conâ—luebat ad Regis Curiam Multitudâ— Coloâ—orum oblatis vomeribus in signum deficientis Agriculturae A Multitude of Plow-men and Husband-men occasioned probably by the many vast Demeasns Commons Woods and Forrests which then
example of Magistracy put any grievance upon the people when as in the re-building of Ierusalem and to repell the Enemies and hinderers thereof there being as much necessity to defend a City or Commonwealth after it is built or established as it can be in the building framing or repairing of it he ordered the one half of the servants to work and the other to hold the Spears the shields Bows and Habergeons and every one of the builders had his Sword girded by his side and the Nobles were appointed when the Trumpeter should sound that stood by Nehemiah because they were separated one from another to resort thither unto him upon occasion of â—ight or danger and did after their work finished cause the Rulers of the people to dwell at Jerusalem and out of the rest of the people by lot to bring one of every Tribe to inhabit and dwell in there such as were valiant or mighty men of valour and had for overseers the principal and most eminent men and Zabdiel the Son of one of the mighty men David did not turn aside from God nor bind heavy burdens upon the people because he had mighty men about him and that Joshebbassebet the Tachmonite sate like a Constable or Marshal of England chief amongst the Captains nor did Solomon bruise the broken Reeds because he had many Princes and great Officers under him as Benajah the Son of Jehoiada who served his Father David and was Captain over his Guard was over the Host Azariah the Son of Nathan over the Officers like as in England a Lord great Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold Zabud the Son of Nathan Principal Officer and Aâ—ishar as a Treasurer or Comptrouler over the Houshold none of which could take it for any injury to enjoy those great Offices and places during the Kings pleasure but would have esteemed it to have been a greater favour if they had a grant for life and most of all and not to be complained of to have it to them and to their Heirs or after Generations for that all good things and blessings by a natural propension and custom amongst the Sons of men are very desireable to be continued and transmitted to posterity and the sacred Volumes have told us that it is a reward of wisdom and vertue to stand before Princes Nor was it any dishonour to the men of Judah and people of Israel that the Queen of Sheba wondring even to astonishment at the Attendance of Solomons Servants and Ministers and his Cup bearers or Butlers as the Margin reads it pronounced them happy that stood continually before him Or to the Subjects of Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over an hundred and seventeen Provinces that besides his seven Chamberlains or Officers of honour he had the seven Princes of Persia and Media which saw the Kings face and sate the first in the Kingdom Nor any to our heretofore happy Nation enjoying in a long Series and tract of time an envied peace and plenty under famous and glorious Kings and Princes that they did give Places Castles Mannors and Lands of great yearly values to certain great and well-deserving men and their Heirs to serve in great Imployments Solemnities and Managements of State-affairs to the honour of their Soveraigns and the good safety of the People in the Offices of great Chamberlain high Steward Constable or Marshal of England chief Butler of England and the like For when the guift of the Land it self was a great kindness it must needs be a greater to have an honourable Office Imployment annexed to it that an act of bounty done by a Prince in giving the Land should oblige the claim or receiving a far greater in the executing of that Office or Attendance which belonged to it And could have nothing of affinity to a burden when as besides the original guift of the Lands which were very considerable and to be valued many of those personal services by grand Serjeanty were not unprofitable or without the addition or accession of other Bounties and Priviledges as the guift to the Lord great Chamberlain of forty yards of Crimson Velvet for his Robes upon the Coronation day the Bed and furniture that the King lay in the night before the silver Bason and Ewer when he washed his hands with the Towels and Linnens c. The Earl Marshal to have the granting of the Marshals and Ushers in the Courts of Exchecquer and Common Pleas with many other guifts and Priviledges and Dymock who holds some of his Lands by the service of being the Kings Champion and to come upon the Coronation day into Westminster-Hall on Horse-back compleatly armed and defie or bid battel to any that shall deny him to be rightful King of England is to have the Kings best Horse and were not in the least any charge to the people or laid upon them as Cromwel did the stipends of his mock Lords or Officers of his imaginary Magnificence to be paid out of the publick Purse or Taxes as were the self created Lords of his Counsel who had 1000 l. per an for advising him how to fool the people build up himself by the wickedness of some and ruines of all the rest or as the Lord so called Pickering or Chamberlain of his Houshold and the quondam would be Lord Philip Jones who was called the Comptrouler of his Household had to buy them white staves to cause the people to make way and gape upon them No Prejudice to the Common-wealth that the Beauchamps Earls of Warwick did hold Land by right of inheritance to be Panterer at the Kings Coronation and to bear the 3 Sword before him the Duke of Lancaster before that Dutchy came again into the possession of the Kings of England to bear before him the sword called Curtana or the Earls of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man to bear before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Lancaster which Henry the 4 th did wear when he returned from exile into England or for the Earl of Arundel to be chief Butler of England the day of the Coronation No disfranchisement to the City of London that some Citizens of London chosen forth by the City served in the Hall at the Kings Coronation assistants to the Lord chief Butler whilst the King sits at Dinner the day of his Coronation and when he enters into his Chamber after Dinner and calls for Wine the Lord Mayor of London is to bring him a Cup of Gold with Wine and have the Cup afterwards given to him together with the Cup that containes water to allay the Wine and that after the King hath drunck the said Lord Mayor and the Aldermen of London are to have their Table to Dine at on the left hand of the King in the Hall Or to the Barons of the Cinque Ports who claim are allowed to bear at the Kings Coronation a Canopy â—f cloth
as an Escheat annexed to the Crown of England And as litle when any held of the King in Capite by some other Service and not in Chivalry and by Knight Service as the Town of Shrewsbury to cause 12 Towns-men apud Angliae Reges excubare cum in illa urbe agerent To watch and ward about the Kings Person which the affrighted Cromwel with his guilty and terrified Conscience would have been well content with totidemque concomitare cum venatum prodirent and as many to attend him whilst he rode on hunting Or when Richard Pigot of Stanford in the County of Hereford or his Ancestors had two Yard Land given him there by the King to hold in Capite per servitium conducendi Thesaurum Domini Regis which Sir Edward Coke calleth Firmamentum pacis et robur Belli the Foundation of Peace and strength of War de Hereford usque ad London quotiescunque opus fueries sumptibus Domini Regis et in redeundo sumptibus suis propriis et etiam summonendi Episcopium Hereford ad portas Manerij dicti Episcopi de Bromyard si contingat Dominum Regem praedictum Episcopum implacitare By the Service of conducting the Kings Treasure from Hereford to London as oft as there should be occasion at the Kings charge in going thither and at his own in his retorn and to summon the Bishop of Hereford at the Gates or door of his Manour of Bromyard when it should happen that the King should implead him Never troubled the heart of Roger the Kings Taylor when the King gave him a good quantity of Land in Halingbury in the County of Essex tenendum per Serjeantiam solvendi ad Scaccarium Domini Regis unum Acum argenteum quolibet anno in crasâ—ino Sancti Martini To hold the Serjeanty of paying yearly at the Exchequer upon the morrow of St. Martin a silver Needle Nor did the Donees or those who had those Lands of so free a gift or bounty esteem them to be any burden could it be heavy or troublesome to their Heirs or those that should succeed them in those Lands whenas our Kings did successively give away so great a part of the Lands of England as were holden in Capite and by Knight Service either to follow or serve them in the Wars for their own defence as well as theirs or for their attendance whâ—rein they received more honour than their Princes gained by it at their Coronations or other great Solemnities by grand Serjeanty or by petit Serjeanty to present them at some times of the year with a Rose or a Hawk or a pair of Spurs or an Arrow to keep them a Hawk or Hounds provide necessaries in their Progresse for their houshold Expences Sumpter Horses in their Journey to some particular place Straw for their Bed and Rushes for their Chamber as if they gave away all to receive almost nothing for it and so willingly as be put themselves to some trouble to devise what kind of grateful acknowledgments should be made them in a perpetuity or as far as they could reach to a supposed or hoped for Eternity that many of their Tenures where there were not necessaryes in war or peace reserved do seem to be but so far for pleasure and merryment as they did not care what was reserved so it was but something as to hold the Kings head at Sea when he should sail betwixt Dover and VVhitsand or hold the Cord by which the Sail was tyed when the Queen not to shoot with Guns and Canons as some of the Covenanters for the late Kings good could find the way to do at his deer Wife the Queen Mother that now is should pass the Seas into France cum multis aliis with many other sortes and kinds not here to be enumerated without the trouble of a volume which those honester times having a better opinion of gratitude and not thinking it to be so crazy or mortal as now every one finds it to be did liberally create and bestow No wrong was done to them that had Lands given to them and their Heirs by a Mesne Lord before the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum as our forefathers the Saxons long before the Conquest believed when as Byrhtrick a Saxon of great note and eminency in Kent holding Lands of Aelsrick a Mesne Lord did by his last will and testament in the first place give to his natural Lord a Bracelet of fourscore marks of Gold one Hatchet of half as much four Horses two of them trapped two Swords trimmed two Hawks and all his Hounds and to the Lady his wife one Bracelet of thirty marks of Gold and one Horse to intreat that his Testament wherein he devised great quantities of land to divers persons and to charitable uses and the Lords consent was very necessary stand may and prayed his dear leefe Lord that he do not suffer that any man his Testament do turn aside Nor to the County of Hertford or places adjacent when Leofranus Abbot of St. Albans gave in Edward the Confessors reign unto Turnot Waldef and Thurman three Knights the Mannor of Flamsteed in the County of Hertford to be holden by the service ut regionem vicinam contra latrones defendâ—rent to the end that they should defend the neighbour-hood against Thieves And no hurt to the Common-wealth when as the Nobility and great men of England imitating the bounty and munificence of their Kings and Princes for the enabling themselves to serve their King Country did bountifully give much of their own Estates Demesâ—s to divers of their friends followers to hold of them by Knight service or some honourable seldom services about their Persons or Estates As the Earls of Oxford Arundel Norfolk Hereford Essex Hertford Gloucester Leicester Chester Lancaster Northumberland other antient Earls did when they severally gave to those who had so litle wrong done them by their kindness as they have for many ages and doe yet continue men of worship and great estates in their Counties as many as 100 Knights fees many times more and seldome less to be holden of them by Knight service which at the now value of Lands reckoning every Knights fee as Sr. Edward Cooke doth if at 100 l. per annum which is the lowest value would be 10000 l. per annum at 200 l. per an which is the most probable medium rate will amount unto no less than 20000 l. per annum That Harden Castle in Cheshire with the lands thereunto belonging of a great yearly value in the County of Chester was given by an Earl of Chester to be holden of the Earl and his heirs per senescalciam comitum Cestriae by the service of being Stewards to the Earls of Chester Or that the Castle and Mannor of Tunbridge and the Mannors of Vielston Horsmund Melyton and Pettis in the County of Kent were holden by Richard de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford of
Oath of him That he would not deal falsly with him nor with his Sons son but according to the kindnesse that he had done unto him and to the Land in which he had Sojourned And that Abraham thereupon swore which somewhat resembles our Oath of Fealty or Fidelity and took Sheep and Oxen for then Pecus was instead of pecunia which is derived a Pecude and gave unto Abimelech and both of them made a Covenant It will though as in many other matters not tending to mans Salvation which are not expressed in the sacred Story there is not so full and clear a light evidence as to intitle the holding of Land by the service of going to War to so great a Warrant or Original as that of a Scripture direction or example Notwithstanding be no wild or improbable conjecture that some such or the like obligations more than the affections good will of the people did lye upon them or their Estates not to forsake their King and Country in time of Wars and distresse the Law of Nature teaching the necessity of the Members readinesse and combination to preserve the head its well being as well as their own Estates and well beings in that of their King or Supreme Governour and every mans particular in the General when as the antient Inhabitants of the Earth or some of them at least as appears by Iacobs blessing to his Sons upon his Death-bed became Servants to Tribute and Moses by the advice of Iethro his Father-in-law did choose able men ouâ— of all Israel and made them Heads over the people and Rulers which were afterwards called Captains of thousands Rulers of hundreds fifties and tens to be as a standing and certain Militia and all the people young and old that had not rebelled with Absalom went out with David Rehoboham his Grandchild ouâ— of the two Tribes of Iudah and Benjamin could muster an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men which were Warriors to preserve their Prince in War and defend his as well as their own Estates and that some such or the like obligations passed betwixt Solomon and Hyram King of Tyre when he gave him the twenty Cities in the Land of Gallilee And that from thence either by Tradition or Travel of Philosophers or wise men into those more knowing Countries and Regions of Palestine or Egypt where Gods chosen and peculiar people of Israel had a nearer communication with him and his Divine Illuminations or by those secret dictates and the Edicts Statutes and Decrees of the Law of Nature whereby as the Judicious and Learned Hooker saith Humane Actions are framed and the Chincks and Crannyes by which the wisdom of the Almighty that intellectual worker as Plato and Anaxagoras stiled him is wont imperceptibly to diffuse impart its impressions into the Customs and manners of men That custom now about 2293 years agoe used by Romulus in his new established City or Empire of Rome took its rise or beginning of appointing the Plebeian or common people to make choyce of whom they could out of the Patricij Senators or Eminent men to protect them in their causes or concernments in recompence or lieu whereof the Clyents were to contribute if need were to the marriages of their Daughters redeem them or their Sons when they were taken Captives in War as bearing a reverence or respect to their Lords or Patroni to the end that they might be defended by them that they should reciprocally propter beneficium the help favour received from them maintain and defend their dignity and that duty or Clientela was therefore not altogether improperly called Homagium or Homage as a Service pro beneficio prestandum for a benefit had or to be injoyed accipitur pro patrocinio protectione and taken to be as a patronage and protection insomuch as upon the Conquest or reducing of any province into their obedience they did in Clientelam se dare Romanis acknowledge a Duty or Homage either to the Senate or certain of the Nobility or great men to be their Patroni or Protectors quae necessitudo or near relations which were betwixt tâ—em id serebat saith Oldendorpius ut Clientes perpetua Patronorum protectione defenderentur ac vicissim eos omni obsequio colerent brought it so to pass that the Clyents enjoyed a constant protection of their Patrons or great men and exhibited for it a duty and obedience unto them From which kind of Customes and usages Tutandae vitae ac fortunarum omnium for the defence of life and estate veluti scintillis quibusdam caepit initium benificiariae consuetudinis quae aucta est multum propter continuam bellorum molestiam as from increasing sparkes or small beginnings that beneficial Custom taking its original which by continuance of wars and troubles was much increased another kind of Clientela was introduced though there be as Craig saith a great difference betwixt Clientela and Vassalagium qua vel dignitas vel praedium aliquod alicui datur ut et ipse istius posteri et haeredes beneficii auctorem perpetuo agnoscant et quasi pro Patrono colant ejusque caput existimationem et fortunas tueantur whereby either some dignity or lands were given to any one to the end that he and his heirs should always acknowledge the giver to be the Author of that benefit reverence and esteem him as their Patron and defend him and his life reputation and fortunes In resemblance whereof or from the eommon principle of Reason that private or particular men or their estates cannot be safe or in any good condition where the publick is either afflicted or ruined was the use or way of Tenures in Capite or Knights Service found out and approved by Kings and Emperours ut cum delectus edicitur in militiam eant vel vicarium mittant vel certum ceâ—sum domini aerario inferant that when a muster was to be made or a going to War they should either go in person or send one in their stead or pay a certain raâ—e in mony and was so antient and universal as whilst the Germans would intitle themselves to be the first of Nations introducing it the Gaules or French were so unwilling to come behind them as they indeavour out of Caesars Commentaries to make themselves the right owners of it where he saith that Eos qui opibus inter Gallos valebant multos habuisse devotos quos secum ducerunt in bello Soldarios sua lingua nuncupatos quorum haec erat conditio ut omnibus in vita commodis cum ijs fruerentur quorum amicitiae se dedissent quod si quid pervim accidisset aut cundem casum ferrent ipsi aut mortem sibi consciscerent the Gauls which were rich or had good Estates had some which were devoted unto them which followed them in the Wars in their language were called Souldiers and injoyed a livelyhood
wast in the Wards Lands or seised Lands which ought not to be seised Et omnes illi qui sentiunt se super hiis gravatos inde conqueri voluerint audiantur fiat eis Justitia All that were grieved were to be heard and have Justice done them and the Tenant had his remedy by a writ of ne injuste vexes where his Lord did Indebita exigere servitia And least any thing should but come within the suspition of a Grievance or that the power of the Court of Wards and Liveries and the latitude which the Act of Parliament of 32 H. 8. had given it which was to be as fixed as the trust which was committed to it should in the intervalls of Parliaments or seldomest Cases be any thing like to a burden or Inconvenience the disposing and granting of wardships was by King James his Commission and instructions under the great Seal of England in an 1622. to the end that the people might stand assured that he desired nothing more than that their Children and their Lands which should fall unto him by reason of wardships might after their decease be committed in their neerest and trustiest friends or to such as they by will or otherwise commit the charge unto upon such valuable considerations as are just and reasonable that the Parents and Ancestors may depart in greater peace in hope of his gracious favour their friends may see their children brought up in piety and learning and may take such care as is fit for the preservation of their inheritance if they will seek the same in time Ordered that no direction for the finding of any Office be given for the wardship of the body and lands of any Ward until the end of one moneth next after the death of the Wards Ancestor but to the neerest and trustiest friends of the ward or other person nominated by the Ancestor in the wards behalf who may in the mean time become Suiters for the same among whom choice may be made of the best and fittest No composition agreement or promise of any wardship or lease of Lands be made until the office be found and then such of the friends to have preferment as tendred their Petitions within the moneth they yeilding a reasonable composition The Master Attorney Surveyor and other the Officers of the Court of Wards were to inform them selves as particularly as they might of the truth of the Wards estate as well of his Inheritance as of his Goods and Chattels the estate of the deceased Ancestors and of all other due circumstances considerable to the end the Compositions might be such as might stand with the Kings resonable profit and the Ability of the Heirs estate No Escheatâ—r shall inforce any man to shew his evidence That all Leases of Wards lands except in cases of concealment be made with litle or no Fine and for the best improved yearly rent that shall be offered consideration being had of the cautions aforesaid that no recusant be admitted to compound or be assignee of any wardship That where it shall appear that neither the King nor his progenitors within the space of threescore years last past enjoyed any benefit by Wardship Livery Primer seizin Releif Respect of Homage Fiâ—es or mesne rates of any lands the Master and Councel of the said Court were authorized to remit and release all benefit and profit that might accrew to the King thereby And in all cases where covenants were pâ—â—formed to deliver bonds which were taken concerning the same And that upon consideration of circumstances which may happen in assessing of Fines for the marriages of the Wards and renting of their lands either by reason of the broken estate of the deceased want of provision for his wife his great charge of Children unprovided for infirmity or tendernesse of the heir incertainty of the title or greatnesse of incumbrance upon the lands they shall have liberty as those or any other the like comsiderations shall offer themselves to use that good discretion and Conscience which shall be sit in mitigating or abating Fines or Rents to the releif of such necessities In pursuance whereof and the course and usage of that Court as well before as after the said Instructions Wardships nor any Custody or Lease of the Wards or their Lands were not granted in any surprising or misinforming way but by the care and deliberation of the Master and Councel of the Court of Wards and Liveries upon a full hearing and examination of all parties and pretenders they to whom they were granted Covenanting by Indenture under their Hands and Seals with Bonds of great penalties to perform the same to educate the ward according to his degree and quality preserve his lands and houses from waste fell no Coppice Woods grant no Copy-hold estates for lives nor appoint any Steward to keep the Courts without licence and to permit the feodary of the County where the land lieth yearly to survey and superintend the care thereof and had reasonable times of payment allowed them And could not likely produce any grievances in the rates or assessing of Fines for marriages or for rents reserved during the minority of the wards or for primer seisin or any other Compositions when as the Kings of England since the Raign of the unhappy R. 2. and the intermission of the Eyres and those strict enquiries which were formerly made of the frauds or concealment of the Escheators or their Deputies in the businesse of Tenures and Wardships and their neglect or not improving of them most of those former Officers and those that trucked with them not doing that right which they ought to their Consciences and their Kings and Benefactors Have for some ages past been so willing to ease their people or comply with their desires as they have noâ— regarded aâ— all their own profit or taken such a care as they might to retain â—hose just powers which were incident or necessary to their Royal Government but by leaving their bounty and kindnesse open to all the requests or designs of the people have like tender hearted parents given away much of their own support and sustenance to gratify the blandishments or necessities of their Children and not only enervated but dismembred and quitted many of their Regal powers and just Prerogatives in their grants of Lands and Liberties and thereby too much exhausted and abandoned the care of their own Revenue and Treasure as may easily appear to any that shall take but a view of those many Regalities Franchises and Liberties which being to be as a Sacrum patrimonium unalienable have heretofore either been too liberally granted by the Kings Progenitors of which H. 3. was very sensible in his answer to the Prior or Master of the Hospital of St. Johns at Jerusalem or not well looked after in those Incroachments and Usurpations which have been made upon them Or consider the very great cares and providence as well as prudence of former
Officers of the Bench made in the second year of the King Nor was there so much as an Apprehension of any evil in them in the Parliament of 4 H. 4. where the Commons pray that The Act of Parliament of the 1 of E. 3. that none shall be distrained to go out of their Counties but only for the Cause of necessity of suddain coming of strange Enemies into the Realm and the Statute made in the 18 th year of the Reign of the said King That men of Armes Hoblers and Archers chosen to go in the Kings Service out of England shall be at the Kings wages from the day that they do depart out of the Counties where they were chosen and also that the Statute made in the 25 th year of the Raign of the said King that none be compelled to find Men of Arms Hoblers nor Archers other than those which hold by such services unlesse it be by common assent and grant made in Parliament be firmly holden and kept in all points it was upon the granting of their desires and an Act of Parliament made for that purposâ— as the Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament against the Kings Commission of Array in an 1642 mentioneth especially provided that by force or colour of the said supplication nor of any Statute thereupon to be made the Lords nor any other that have Lands or Possessions in the Counties of Wales or in the Marches thereof shall in no wise be excused of their Services and Devoires due of their said Lands and Possessions nor of any other Devoier or things whereunto they or any of them be especially bound to the King though that the same Lords and others have other Lands and Possessions within the Realm of England nor that the Lords or other of what Estate or Condition soever they be that hold by Esâ—uage or other Services due to the King any Lands and Possessions within the said Realm be no way excused to do their Services and Devoirs due of the said Lands and Possessions nor that the Lords Knights Esquires nor other Persons of what Estate or Condition they be which hold and have of the Grant or Confirmation of the King Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or other yearly profits be not excused to do their Services to the King in such manner as they are bound because of the Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or Profits afâ—resaid And might challenge their quietus est or Proclamation of acquittall when there were no complaints made against them in the former ages when there were so many Taxes laid upon Knights Fees as 20 shillings then a great sum of money as much almost as 20 markes is now upon every Knights Fee imposed by King R. 1. toward his ransome 26 s. 8 d. upon every Knights Fee by King Iohn and another also of the same sum towards his expedition into Wales 20 s. upon every Knights Fee towards his Charges in Normandy an Escuage of 20 s. upon every Knights Fee to be paid the one half at Easter and the other at Michaelmas besides the Escuage which he had upon the marriage of his Sister Isabel to the Emperor Frederick two Escuages imposed by H. 3. and an Escuage upon the marriage of his Daughter the Lady Margaret to Alexander King of Scots 20 s. of every Knights Fee by H. 4. the many services in person done by those which held in capite and Knights Service in forinseco servitio in all the expeditions and Wars in France from the time of the Norman Conquest to the end of the Raign of E. 4. and at home in the Wars betwixt England and Wales and betwixt England and the Scots where very many Inhabitants of the Counties of Cumberland Westmeâ—land and Northumberland that held by Cornage a kind of Knight Service to blow a horn upon the invasion or incursion of the Scots and to help to repell them and had their Lands sometimes at the Will of the Lords conferred and given to the younger and more lusty Sons who were able to undergo that service could before King James his accession to the Crown of England the pacification of the English and Scottish hostilities placing them under one obedience scarce rest in their beds by reason of the Scots sudain or nightly alarmes and depredations driving or stealing their Cattell and spoiling all that they had And in all the troubles of England before and since the Barons Wars upon any Rebellions and inquietudes of the people when those that held by Knight service were frequently and hastily summoned to come to the King cum Equis Armis and the great charges trouble hazard and expences which the Lords Mâ—sne were put unto by Assessements of Escuage and otherwise And that immediately upon the death of the Kings Tenants in capite by Knight Service the Escheators did usually seise not only the Lands of the greatest of the Nobility Gentry and meaner men But the Stock and Cattell upon their grounds and the Goods in their Houses insomuch as their Executors were many times constrained to Petition and obtain the Kings Writs and Allowance to have the Stock and personal Estate delivered unto them And yet no complaints made at all against those Tenures or necessary defences of the Kingdome nor against Tenures by grand or Petit Serjeanty in the thirty confirmations of our Magna Charta upon as often Breaches to be supposed of it Never complained off in the making of thirty six Acts of Parliament concerning Wardships and Tenures in the several times and Ages from 8 H. 3. to this present nor at the making of the Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. for the erection of the Court of Wards Nor in so many thousand Petitions which have been in 186. several Parliaments for almost four hundred years last past or before 9 H. 3. or ever since this nation could remember any thing either in our Parliaments Micel-gemots Wittena-gemots conventus sapientum or Magna Concilia where all the Grievances and Complaints of the people not to be remedied else where came as to the Pool of Bethesda for help and relief and wherein if any in some one or more Parliaments should so much neglect their duty and the more than ordinary business and concernments of their Kings themselves and Countries with which they were intrusted and to which their Oaths of Allegiance if nothing else must needs be their Monitors it cannot without a supposition and belief which will never be able to find entertainment in any rational mans understanding be imagined that the whole Nation for so many Ages past and in so many Assemblies of those that should be the Sons of Wisdome should be bound up under such a fate of Stupidity or Ignorance as to represent those that were sick and not know of it or that all or any of them should propter imbecillitatem vel pernegligentiam by a to be pitied weakness or negligence not either seek or
their winding Sheets It will be against the Peoples Oaths of Supremacy to desire to purchase of or diminish the Kings Rights and Jurisdictions And against their own safety to weaken the hands and power of their Prince that should protect and defend them and commit the trust of protecting and defending the oppressed poor to the oppressing Rich the Chickens to the Kites the harmless Lambs to the cunning Foxes or greedy Wolves the weak and the Innocent to such as shall endeavour to hurt them and charge and burden themselves and their Posterities with a Rent and excise for mischiefs and inconveniences enough in perpetuity Take away that power and ready means of protecting and defending them and that which should enable him to procure according to his Coronation Oath to the Church of God and the Clergy and people firm peace and unity in God according to his power and to administer indifferent and upright Justice by forsaking a certain willing way of defence for a constrained or incertain by taking away the best for so much of it of all defences for that which in the very birth of it is justly feared to be the worst Draw a Curse rather than any expected blessing or happinesse upon all such Tenures in Capite and by Knight service as by seeking to purchase their Homages and obedience to their Prince and a better and long experimented and prosperous way of defence of themselves posterity shall seek or endeavour to break the reiterated oaths and contracts of all their Ancestors to be but a part for a short time of the general defence of the Kingdom like a Life-guard at hand to skirmish and make head against an Enemy untill a Parliament can be called and have time to consult of the means or the whole Nation summoned for help and imbodied will be a perjury more sinful then that of the Children of Israel to the deceitful and turn-coat Gibeonites and may be more severely punished by God Almighty upon the hereafter withering Estates of those men and their generations who shall not only break their own oaths and faith but the oaths and faith also of their more grateful Ancestors who would never have done it Will make our common people which were wont like the lesser Wheels in a well ordered watch to be governed by the greater or superior to run themselves into as many blessings as they did in these last twenty years when they wrested the Sword out of their Kings hands and by the power of those two great Devils Interest Reformation in the abuse and not right use of the words which may well wear the name of those Devils which were called Legion to cut murder pillage and rob the honest and loyal part of the the people lasciviendo in quaerelas quaestiones playing the wantons in their complaints and evil practices which they found to be so beaten a track or rode of prosperity to the journeys end of their wickedness complain of every thing that likes not their fancies or ignorance and from Wardships and Tenures return again in their ingratitude to God and man to their late design of taking away Tithes Coppyholds by enforcing the Lords to take a year or two years purchase for the rights of their Mannors Copyhold Estates from thence to the Act of Parliament intended in our Reformers late deformations to abate Rents where the Landlords were not so well affected as the Tenants to make or maintaine War against their Soveraign And if there had nothing been said or written as we hope there is sufficient to justify the Innocency or right use of Tenures in Capite and by Knight service it had been enough as it was to the vertuous Seneca to be persecuted and put to death by Nero who loved all Ill and hated all Good that Cromwel that Minotaure to whom in his Labâ—rinth of Subtilties Hypocrisy and abused Scripture our Lawes and Liberties were daily sacrificed by the Flattering Addresses of a company of Knaves or Fooles very well know after he had cut down the Royal Oak and blasted all the lofty Pines and Firres in Druina's Forrest procured an Act for renouncing and disannulling the Title of our now most graciovs Soveraign and his Brothers to the Crown of England and their Fathers Dominions and all other which should pretend any Title or Claim from by or under them or any of them how much it concerned his most wicked purposes of establishing that which should be called a Common-wealth under His and his posterities Protectorship and most Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government by a perpetual standing Army of 30000. Horse and Foot an intollerable Excise and monthly Assessements to pay them set up the other or tother House instead of a House of Peers made up for the most part of Mechanicks transformed into Colonels and Major Generalls and some other who might have been better Englishmen then to have been catched in the Trap of Ambition or Titles made the wrong way By which he might check the growing Factions in the House of Commons and destroy their pretended Soveraignity Tax and Rack the estates of all men and more then a Grand Seignior or Turk ever durst adventure upon Command as he should please the Bodies and Souls of the people take away every Surculus or little Sprigs that might grow out of the remaining Sap of that mighty Tree and every thing that might either contribute to it or remain but as Reliques of the Regal Estate and peoples happiness did by an Ordinance as he called it of himself and his Council the 12 th of April 1654. not only ordain an Union betwixt the two Kingdoms but that all the Nation of Scotland should be discharged of all Fealty Homage and Allegiance which is or should be pretended to be due to his Majesty that now is and that neither he nor any of his Royal Brothers or any deriving from the late King should hold Name Title and Dignity of King of Scotland and that all Herritors Proprietors and Possessors of Lands in Scotland should hold their Lands of their respective Lords by and under their accustomed yearly Boones and Annual services without rendring any Duty or Vassallage and discharged them of all military services and well knowing that their old Customes being taken away the Court-Barons would also fail did by another Ordinance erect new Court-Barons for them And having made store of Slaves in that Kingdome made all the hast he could to compleat his wickednesse in this and did the 17 th day of September 1656. procure his houses of Parliament or good will and pleasure rather to doe as much for England and take away all Tenures in Capite by Knight service and all Homages and Reliefs not only do all he could to destroy the heirs thereof but cut the Nerves let out the blood of a most noble antient Monarchy But if there could be any hopes in the Exchange of those