have taken it for an addition of Honour and not any lessening to be knighted And had no cause at all to dislike such military Tenures which were not called vassalage as Common People may now mistake the word but from vassus or Cliens qui pro beneficio accepto fidem suam autori benificii obligat or from Gesell a German word which signifieth Socius or Commilito a fellow Souldier the name and profession reason and cause of it being so honourable and worthy Or to deem them to be burthens which were at the first intended and taken to be as gifts and favours which none of the sons of men who are Masters of any sense or reason do use to find fault with but may well allow them to be very far distant from Slavery when as Servitude is properly quum quod acquiritur servo acquiritur Domino when that which is gained or acquired by the servant is justly and properly the Lords and a freeman is contra-distinguished by quod acquirit sibi acquirit in that which he gaineth is his own or hath a property in it and that among the Southern Nations a more gentle and merciful bondage being paternd by that of Abraham and his successors the Patriarchs and allowed by the rules and government of God dura erat servitus Dominorum imperia gravia service or the condition of Servants was hard and the severity of Masters great who had potestatem vitae necis power of life and death over their Servants who having nothing which they could call their own but their misery were put to maintain their Masters out of their labours and enduring vilissima et miserrima ministeria all manner of Slaveries ab omni Militia arcebantur were not suffered to know or have the use of Arms apud Boreales tamen gentes justior suit semper servitus et clementior but amongst the Northern Nations there was a more just and gentle usage of their Servants for that they did devide their Lands Conquests amongst their Souldiers and Servants pactionibus interpositis inter Dominum et servientem de mutua Tutela upon certain agreements betwixt them for mutual defence Which made our English as well as other Nations abundantly contented with it as may appear by the acquiescence of them and the Normans under the Norman and next succeeding Kings and of Edward the Confessors Laws and other English customes retaining them the reckoning of it amongst their liberties fighting for them and adventuring their lives and all that they had at the making of Magna Charta and in the Barons wars wherein those great spirits as Mr. Robert Hill saith so impatient of tyranny did never so much as call in question that great and antient prerogative of their Kings or except against Tenures escuage releifs and other moderate and due incidents thereof The care taken in the Parliament of 52 H. 3. to prevent the deceiving of the Lords of their wardships by fraudulent conveyances or Leases of 18 E. 10. in the making of the statute of Quia emptores terrarum that the Feoffees or Purchasers of Lands holden of mesne Lords should hold by such services and Customes as rhe Feoffor did hold the Registring and Survey of Knights Fees by H. 2. H. 3. E. 1. E. 3. and H. 6. Escuage Aydes and Assessements in Parliament and the Marshals Rolls in time of War and necessity The esteem antiently held of the benefits and liberties accrewed by them insomuch as many have by leave of their Lords changed their Socage Tenures into Knights service and thought themselves enfranchised thereby The value put upon them by the Commons of England in the Parliament of 6. H. 4. when they petitioned the King in that Parliament that all Feoffements of Lands and Tenements holden by Knight service and done by Collusion expressed in the Statute of Marlbridge might upon proof thereof be utterly void The opinion of Chief Justice Fortescue in the raign of H. 6. in his Book de laudibus legum Angliae commending them as most necessary as well for the Common-wealth as for those and their Heirs who held their Land by such Tenures The retaining of it by the Germans who did as most of the Northern Nations saith Bodin libertatem spirare only busie themselves to gain and keep their liberty and from the time of their greatest freedom to rhis present and now also could never tell how to find any fault with them Their Princes Electors of the Empire and the Emperial Cities or Hanse townes who take thrmselves to be as free as their name of freedom or liberty doth import not at this day disdaining or repining at them the Switzers in their greatest thoughts of freedom taking their holding of the Empire in Capite to be no abatement of it The use of them by the antient Earles and Governours of Holland Zealand and West-freezland who having been very successful in their Wars without the use of Tenures in Capite or knights service but finding that ipsa virtus amara alioqui per se atque aspera praemiis excitanda videretur simul uti fisco ac Reipublicae consulerâ—tur saith Neostadius that the hardship of vertue needed to be sweetened with some rewards that the old custom of the Longobards in creating and reserving Tenures in Capite and by knights service would be not only a saving of Charges to their Treasury but a good and benefit to their Provinces or Common-wealth did create and erect such or the like Tenures And to this day by the Scotish Nation in a time and at the instant of their late obtaining if they could be thankful for them of all manner of liberties and freedom do sufficiently evince them to be as far from Slavery as they are always necessary Wherein if the primitive purpose and institution of Tenures in capite knight service and Socage be rightly considered every man may without any violence or Argument used to his reason or Judgment if self-conceitedness and obstinacy doe not choke or disturb his Intâ—lâ—â—ctuals Easily conclude whether if it were now 〈…〉 Choice he would not rather take Land by a Service or Condition only to go to warr with the King or his mesne Lord when Wars shall happen which in a Common course of accidents may happen but once or not at all in his life time then not tarry with him above forty days or less according to his proportion of Fee or Land holden to have escuage of his own Tenants if they shall refuse to go also in person with him and to have his heir if he chanced to die which in times of less Luxury happened not so often but once perhaps in three or four descents to be left in his minority to be better educated than he could have been in his life time married without disparagement and himself as well as his own Childrens estates protected Or accept of a Mannor freely granted him
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
and the quiet repose and peace of all mankind makes a certainty in all their actions and leads to the Mountain of Holinesse and the Hill of eternal rest and blessednesse No grinding of the face of the poor which if it were any as it can never be evinced to be could not commonly or ordinarily be in the case of such Tenures when as those which are any way concerned in it are men of good Estates and Revenues and would be loth to be under any other notion to pay a reasonabe Escuage assessed in Parliament when they went not themselves or sent any in their stead and where their Tenants went not in person to defend their Lords as well as their King to have as much assessed upon them and by no other than a Parliament wherein the Commons of England had their Representatives of their own Election Neither were the Kings of England or the Mesne Lords in the case of those Tenures any Egiptian Task-Masters when those that held under them had such benefits and bounties of free guift and if they have been since transferred and aliened that part of it viz. the Tenures and a gratefull acknowledgement of the favour of the first givers were neither sold or paid for in the purchase but the Services were by Act and operation of Law and the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum reserved to the first Donors by an expresse Covenant in the deeds of purchase to be performed to the Lords of whom they were holden and it is a maxime in Law Quod nemo plus juris in alium transferre potest quam in ipso est that no man can grant or transferre a greater right than he hath or is in him And are if a right consideration of things shall not be as it hath been too much in the times of our late Frenzies and Distractions adjudged a premunire or committing high Treason More noble Tenures than that of Soccage by how much a rustick and Plowmans life and demeanor was ever in all ages and amongst all Nations which had any civility and understanding justly accompted to be so far inferior to the Equestris ordo Gentlemen or men of more noble imployments As that those and not the military Tenures were truly accompted to be a kind of Slavery according as they were in their original Institution before the favour obtained of the King and Mesne Lords to reduce their drudgeries to easy and small quit Rents and to be but litle better than Joshuas Gibeonites Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water or Solomons Perezites and Jebusites to be imployed as his Servants and Work-men And as now they are or expect to be in that which they would imagine to be their better condition holding in free and common Soccage by fealty only for all services and being not to be excused from Aydes to make the Kings eldest Son a Knight or for the marriage of his Daughter or to pay a years value of their Lands and sometimes double the rent which is to be payed at the death of every Tenant and may amount to a great deal more than the ordinary low and favourable rate of five pounds for a releif for every Knights Fee 50 shillings for a half and 25 shillings for a quarter of a Knights Fee and lesser according to the smaller proportions of the Lands which they hold would in all likelyhood if they might but enjoy the antient and long agoe discontinued priveledge which the Tenures by Knight service in Capite were to enjoy by the Charter or Magna Charta of King H. 1. of not having Lands of that kind of Tenure which was in their own Demeasne charged with any other Assessements or services than what they were obliged unto by their Tenures And was no more than what was before the common Justice and right Reason of this nation be now very well content to exchange their free as they call it Socage Lands which was antiently understood to be no other than feudum ignobile et plebeium an ignoble and plebeian Fee or Estate and as Sr. Henry Spelman saith nobili opponitur et ignobilibus et rusticis competit nullo feudali privilegio ornatum et feudi nomen sub recenti seculo perperam et abusu rerum auspicatum est is opposed or contra distinguished to the more noble Tenures and being not entituled to any feudal priviledge belongs only to Ignoble and Rusticks and hath of late times improperly and by abuse gained the name of Fee for Lands holden in Capite and by Knight service So as they might be free from all assessements and charges of War under which burden the Owners of Lands holden by any kind of Tenures have for these last Twenty years heavily groaned and if Mr. Prynne had not publiquely and truly said it did muâ—â—is parasangis by many and very many degrees out goe all that was pretended to be a Grievance by the Court of Wards and Tenures in Capite and by Knight service which all things rightly considered are a more free beneficial franck and noble kind of Tenure the Mariages of the Heirs in Minority only excepted which not often happening are notwithstanding abundantly recompenced by the freenesse of the gift seldom Services and other Immunityes Then Socage which those many Tenants which hold by a certain rent of Sir Anthony Weldens Heir for Castle-Guard to the ruined Rochester Castle in Kent to pay 3 s. 4 d. nomine paenae by way of Penalty for every Tide which after the Time limited for payment shall run under Rochester Bridge and the Rent and Arrears refused though tendred the next day do not find to be the best of Tenures or so good as that of Knight Service in Capite Which is better than that which the Tenants in Cumberland and other Northern Partes do claim by a kind of inheritance and Tenant Right wherein they can be well contented to pay their Lord a thirty peny â—ine at every Alienation and a twenty peny upon the Death of an Ancestor or the death of their Lord according to the Rate of the small yearly Rent which they pay to their Lords Better then all or most kind of Estates or Tenures and better than that at will which many are well apaied with and better than those of Copyholders who if the Lords of Manours put them out of their Estates have no Remedy but by Petition to them Can have no Writ of Right-Close to command their Lords to do them Right without Delay according to the Custom of the Manour No Writ of false Judgement at the Common Law upon Judgments given in the Lords Court but to sue to the Lord by Petition nor can sue any Writ of Monstraverunt to command their Lords not to require of them other Customs or Services than they ought to do Are to pay upon their admission an uncertain Fine at the will of the Lord who if they be unreasonable the most they can be compelled unto by
sint semper prompti parati ad servicium suum integrum explendum peragendum cum semper opus adfuerit secundum quod debent de â—eodis tenementis suis de jure facere Appointed and commanded that all Earls Barons Knights and their Servants should be ready with their Horse and Arms as they ought to do their Service which they owed and were to do for their Fees and Lands when need should require and was beneficial to the Vassal or Tenant CAP. II. The holding of Lands in Capite and by Knight Service is no Slavery or Bondage to the Tenant or Vassal FOr his lands were a sufficient recompence for the service which he performed for them and his Lord besides the lands which he gave the Tenant gave him also a protection and help in lieu of the service which he received from him For though as Bodin observeth vassallus dat fidem nec tamen accipit The Tenant makes fealty to his Lord but receiveth none from him there is betwixt them mutua fides et tuendae salutis et dignitatis utriusque obligatio contracta a mutual and reciprocal obligation to defend one another And when the Donee had lands freely conferred upon him and his Heires upon that consideration omnia feoda as well in Capite and Knights service tenure as Copy-hold and more inferior Tenures being at first ad arbitrium Domini no man can rightly suppose that he would refuse the reservation of Tenure and incidents unto it or imagine it to be a servitude or any thing else but an Act of extraordinary favour arising from the Donor which by the Civil Law and Customes of Nations chalenged such an hereditary gratitude and return of thankfulnesse as amongst many other priviledges thereupon accrued to the Donor if any of the Heires of the Lord of the Fee happened to fall into distresse the Heires of the Tenant though never so many ages and descents after were to releive them Domini utilitatem proferre et incommoda Propellere et si cum poterit non liberaverit eum a morte feudo sive beneficio suo privabitur such a Donee or Tenant was to advance the good of his Lord or Benefactor and hinder any damage might happen unto him and forfeit and be deprived of those lands if he did not when he could rescue him from death for Feudum ut habeat et Dominum non juvet rationis non est it is no reason that he should enjoy that land or benefit and not help or assist him which gave it and by our Law if such a Tenant ceased to do his service if not hindred by any legal impediment by the space of two years upon a Cessavit per Biennium brought by the Lord the land if no sufficient distresse was to be had was forfeited if he appeared not upon the distresse and paid the arreares And such Tenure carrying along with it an end and purpose in its original institution not only of preservation and defence of the Donor but of the Kingdome and protection also of the Tenant and the land which was bestowed upon him And being a voluntary and beneficial paction submitted unto by the Tennant insomuch as Feudum whether derived from the German word Feec or warre or a fide prestanda or a faedere inter utrosque contracto is not seldom in the Civil Law called beneficium may with reason enough be conceived to be cheerfully after undergone and approved of by the Tennants and their Heirs receiving many Privileges thereby as not payign any other aydes or Tallages besides the service which their Tenures enjoyned them w ch by a desuetude or necessity of the times is not now allowed them not to be excommunicated by the Pope or Clergy which H. 2. amongst other Laws and Customes observed in the time of his Grandfather H. 1. in the Parliament at Clarindon claimed as a special priviledge belonging to him and those which held of him in capite which in those days was worthily accounted amongst the greatest of exemptions and of creating like Tenures to be holden of themselves with services of War Wardship Marriage and other incidents to have their heirs in minority not only protected in their persons and estates which in tumultuous and unpeaceable Times was no small benefit but to be gently and vertuously educated in Bellicis artibus feats and actions of arms taught to ride the great horse and manage him and himself compleatly armed with Shield and Launce married without disparagement in his own or a better rank and quality his equitatura or Horse and Arms could not be taken in execution unless he dishonourably absented himself when his service was required and then all that he had was subject to execution saving one horse which was to be left him propter dignitatem militiae and have no usury which in those dayes especially until the reign of E. 1. By Jews and a sort of foreiners called Caursini was very oppressive and intollerable run upon them for their fathers Debts whilst they were in wardship Besides many other great priviledges belonging to Knights Gentry the original of many of whom was antiently by Arms and military service allowed them by our Laws of England as wel as by the Civil Law and Law of Nations as to bear Arms make Images and Statues of their Ancestors and by the Civil Law a preheminence that more credence should be given by a Judge to the oath of two Gentlemen produced as Witnesses then to a multitude of ungentle persons ought to be preferred to Offices before the ignoble in â—uâ—io enim presâ—mitur pro nobiliâ—ate ad efficia regenda and honoured in the attire and apparrel of their bodies as to wear Silks and purple colours and ex consâ—eâ—udine non suspenduntur sed decapitantur are not when they are to suffer death for offences criminal used to be hanged but beheaded with many other priviledges not here enumerated which our common people of England in their abundance of freedom have too much forgotten Were so much respected here in the raign of H. 2. saith the eminently learned Mr. Selden as one was fined one hundred pounds which in those days of more honesty and less mony was a great sum of mony for striking a Knight and another forty Marks because he was present when he was compelled to swear that he would not complain of the injury done unto him the grand Assize in a writ of right which is one of the highest Trials by Jury and Oath in the Law of England is to be chosen by Knights and out of Knights a Baron in a Jury for or against him may challenge the Pannel if one Knight at the least were not returned of the Jury if a Ribaud or Russian stroke a Knight without cause he was to loose the hand that struck him Kings have Knighted their eldest Sons and somtimes sent them to neighbour Kings to receive that Honour and Barons and Earls
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
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
any Court or Rule of Justice is a reasonable Fine commonly adjudged or estimated at two years value and either certain or uncertain are to be paid at the death or alienation of every Tenant which doe as in Socage happen more often and constantly than that of Escuage and Knight Service and have many Payments Forfeitures Restraints and Dependencyes attending that kind of Estate and Inheritance as in some places the Heir to forfeit his Land if after three Solemn Proclamations in three several Courts he comes not in payes his Fine and prayes to be admitted or shall without any reasonable cause of absence wilfully refuse to appear after summons at his Lords Court Baron or to be sworn of the homage or denie himself to be a Coppy-holder payeth not his Fine when it is assessed or sues a Replevin against his Lord distraining for Rent-service payes not his Rent or permits or commits voluntary wast by plucking down an antient built house and building up a new in the place or cutting Timber without licence may be fined or amerced if he speak unreverently of his Lord or behave himself contemptuously towards him is at his Death to pay his best beast or if he hath none the best peice of his housholdstuffe for a herriot and in some places for it varies according to several customes is to give the Lord a certain sum of mony every month during Wars to bear his charges cannot be sworn of the Homage or bring a plaint in the nature of an Assize untill he be admitted Tenant to his Land the Wife shall not have her Bench or Life in her Husbands Copyhold Estate if she marry without Licence of the Lord and in some places if she will redeem it must come riding into the Court upon a â—lack Ram or as in the manner of South Peveâ—ton in Somersetshire being an anâ—ient Dâ—mesne where a Widdow convicted of Fornication shall as an Escheat to the Lord of the Mannor forfeit all her Lands and Goods and the Tenant is by a peculiar custom in some places before he can inforce his Lord to admit any one to his Coppyhold to make a prosfâ—r thereof to the next of the blood or to his Neighbours ab orientesole inhabiting Eastward of him who giving as much as another is to have it and many more inconveniencies and unpleasing customes not here remembred which they who in the Raign of H. 3. and E. 1. Or when Bracton and Fleta wrote were but Tenants at the will of the Lord and by an accustomed and continued charity fixed and setled upon them and their Heirs are now become to be the owners of a profitable and well to be liked inheritance secundum consuetudinem manerij according to the custome of the Mannor could never by any manner of Reason or Justice require a better usage oâ— find the way to complain of untill our late horrid and irrational Confusions when Injustice accused Iustice Oppression complained of Rightâ— and the wickedest oâ— Gains was called the refined Godlinesse and when they got so much incouragement as in the height of a grand and superlative ingratitude to cry aloud and clamour against their Lords who were nothing else but their good and great Benefactors and would make as many as they could beleive that their Coppyhold Estates which were great Acts of Charity in the time of the Saxons were now nothing lesse than Norman Slaveries Are better also than Estates for lives or years which are not unless in case of a seldome happening minority which is otherwise recompenced so happy in their conditions as Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service but are more clogged and incumbred with Covenants or operation of Law then Knight Service as the Tenant to be punished with treble dammage and a forfeiture of Locum vastatum the place wasted for wast committed or permitted to be done in but cutting down an Apple tree in an Orchard or a few Willows or other Trees that grow about the House or plowing up land that was not arrable cannot Assigne his Term or make a Lease of part of it or cut down Timber of Wood without leave of his Lord is stinted to his fewel or firewood and to have so many Loads only to burn is not to carry any dung of the ground is to forfeit his Lease if he pay not his Rent if demanded at the time appointed and many times strict Nomine Penaes for every day after in which it shall be unpaid must carry so many loads of Wood or Coal every year for his Land-lord pay quarters of Wheat Rent Capons a Boar or Brawn a Mutton or fat Calf and the like renewing thereby again the old kind of Socage by their own Covenants or for their own conveniency agreeing to find so many men furnished with Pikes or Musquets in the service of their Land-lords in the time of Wars which was not long agoe done in Ireland by some Tenants of the late Lord Conway which is no lesse then a Military Tenure Wardships and Marriage only expected And whether for lives or years doe live under as many other harsh and uncomfortable Covenants and Conditions as the warinesse distrust or griping of their Land-lords will put or enforce upon them which he that hath not the property of the Land which he renteth and knows it to be none of his own is to endure the more patiently because if he will not take it or hold it so another will be glad to do it and that Covenants and Obligations which were at first but voluntatis at the Tenants will and pleasure before they were entered into do afterwards as the Civil Law saith become to be necessitatis and cannot be avoyded So as Tenures in Capite and Knight service being more beneficial and most commonly less troublesome and incumbred than either Socage or Copyhold Tenures or Estates for lives or years which are more than two parts of three of the Lands of the Kingdom and are yet well enough endured purchased and daily sought for and when all is said that can be truly and rationally alleadged for any good that is in them that in Capite and by Knight service being the most noble and best of Tenures will weigh heavier in the ballance of any reasonable impartial or knowing mans understanding it cannot be imagined from which of the many points of the compasse or Card of the vulgar and unruly apprehensions the Wind or Heriâ—an of the complaints can come which are made against them unless any should be so bruitish as to think the payments of Rent to their Land-Lords or the performing of their oaths when they make Fealty or their Covenants Promises or Contracts are a grievance And therefore until upon any account of truth or reason a just and more than ordinary care of the King shall be reckoned to be a Curse Favour a Fault Protection a Persecution Benefits shall be taken for Burdens Blessings for Bondage performance of promises a Sin and compelling of them an
ten to one all that hath been but only surmised of the Court of Wards which being a standing Court where there are no Interestâ— but a care only of the Kings and the Peoples just Rights and their Oaths cannot be so predominant or inchanting as the Interests advantages or designs of single Persons And it is not now to learn that the Mischiefs done to Infants and their Estates are more where they be in Socage then in Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service that there is a great difference between accompts that are to be made to a Court and impartial Auditors and where the Guardians will accompt when or where they list and give no security for true Accompts and discharge of their trust and without it are not to be trusted for that many times they faile in their Estates and are impoverished and the Evils that have happened to the heir of Hele or of Davenport where some of the Souldiery which were formerly Tradesmen have in the usurpations of authorities made themselves to be more then like the Master of the Wards and tossed and tumbled their Estates and Marriages at their pleasure and complaints are obvious where an Heir by the unconscionablenesse of Socage Guardians have by the spoyl and wast of their Woods and Estates been damnified ten or twenty thousand pounds The Kings Tenants will be enabled to alienate their Lands to such as may be open enemies or ill affected to his Person Succession or Government Which will leave him a lesser power over his Subjects in relation to his â—enants and those that hold of him then every Gentleman and Lord of a Mannor hath in England over his Coppy-holders or such as hold of them by Leases for lives or years Which every Land-Lord finds aswel as believes to be so necessary as Citizens and Burgers and all manner of Land-Lords doe both in litle and great estates and leases especially provide against letting setting or assigning without their license first had in writing unless it be sometimes to Wives or Children which in the Kings case in matter of free-hold was in 32 H. 8. allowed his Tenants so as they left a full third part to descend to the Heir The education of the Heirs in minority of Recusants or persons disaffected to the King or his Government or to the Orthodox Religion Provisions for protections for younger Children and care of payment of Debts preservation of the Wards Estate Woods and Evidences will be neglected The finding of Offices or Inquisitions post mortem of the Auncestor and the true extent and quantities of the Mannors and Lands and many times the finding or mentioning of Deeds or Evidences in the Offices which in antient aswell as latter times have given a great light and help to titles and descents of Land and the recovery and making out of Deeds or Evidences lost will now be laid aside and all things left in the darkness of ignorance and incertainty Genealogies and Pedigrees which by such Offices have only since the beginning of the raign of King H. 3. been deduced and brought into great certainties will now be left like those of the Welch to beleive one Ap after another and Ap John Ap Jenkin Ap David and whatsoever the wild traditions and boastings of our New men or upstarts and our Bards or undertaking ignorant Painters to draw money out of their credulous customers purses shall be pleased to fancy and shall not be so happy as the Jews in their return out of their captivity who were not to seek for the registers of their Genealogies but be like the dull Thracians who are said to have so short a memory as not to count above the number of 4 or 5 Or being like a House with the windowes or lights only backward or as a people with their eyes only in their backs and in the time to come not be able to give an account of our Ancestors further then our Grand-Fathers And no other course or way being yet found to preserve the memory or right of Armes or certainty of descents of our Nobility and Gentry the people which the more Peysant and Mechanick part will be glad of will be left to fool and make one another believe their own Rhodomantadoes and Delusions Cause increase and multiply contention betwixt the Kindred and near Relations of the Orphans and Minors in striving who shall have the Manage and Protection of their Lands and Estate or as too often happens most cleanly or hypocritically deceive or ruine them or make an Interest or Advantage for themselves friends or kindred by their Marriages which in these last twenty years and the practise of Counterfeit Religion and Honesty calling every successfull knavery a Providence of the Almighty who not only hates but will punish it can take 500 l. or or more at a time to make Matâ—hes where they pretend great friendships and in an Age of all manner of cheating and cunning devices to maintain Pride is become the beneficial imployment of many that would be thought to be Gentlemen or people of great respect or worship and if a Trades-man or Citizen whose riches and influence have of late been too much upon all men or their estates in the Kingdome more especially those that are prodigal or vitious should get a Guardian-ship may doe as the Dutch are now complained of who out of their Weis Camer Chamber or Court of Orphans can send their monyes to trade as far as the East-Indies not for the Childrens but for their own advantage and in the mean time make delayes and pretences enough not to pay them their money insomuch as a young Girle whose Parents dyed when she was but three years old was of late so out of patience with Petitioning and attendance untill she was 17. as shee had almost clawed out the Grefâ—â—erâ— or Registers eyes and in the chase of such controversies which upon pretences of nearer of kin weakness of Estate in some or bad life and conversation and unfitness in other may aswel be lengthened and made to be very chargeable as those are concerning Executors or Administrators which doe too often make the Infants money and Estates the lamentable paymasters Whereas in the Court of Wards Controversies or Competitions for Wardships were by reason of the instructions and rules by which they walked easily and quietly determined in an hour or litle more time spent Summarily and upon Petition only in the Council Chamber of that Court. There will not be that ready help or care which was used to be for the preservation of the Wards estate from false or forged Wills fraudulent or forged Conveyances unjust Entries and pretended Titles and other Incumbrances Nor for Tenants in Tayl and their Heirs whose Deeds being found in the Offices did many times prevent their disherision by Heirs by second Venter and forged Conveyances or Wills Creditors cannot for want of such Offices sound know how the Debtors Lands are setled or what is in Fee-simple
tenendi Parliamentum so beleived to be true that King John caused it when he sent our English Laws into Ireland to be exemplified and sent thither under the Great Seal of England it is said that every Earldom consisteth of 21 Knights Fees and every Barony of 13 Knights Fees and a third part of a Knights Fee and were of such a value and esteem as they were wont heretofore to bring Actions and Assizes for them and their Homage and Services And so litle lesse in France as the wealth of that great and populous Kingdom is not as may be rationally supposed enough to purchase of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom the transmutation of their Fiefs nobles into the Roturier or Feifs ignobles nor are the Princes or Nobility of Germany likely to be perswaded out of their antient Rights and Tenures into that of the Boors or common sort of People The Nobility and Gentry of England when their Military Tenures and Dependencies shall be taken from them will not upon necessities of War and Danger according to the Tenures of their Lands their Homages and Oaths of Allegiance and their natural and legal Allegiance be able to succour or heâ—p their Prince and Father of their Country their Defender and Common Parent as they have heretofore done when as they stoutly and valiantly helped to guard their Standard and Lions but for want of those which held Lands of them and the Tenures by Knight service will be forced to abide with Gilead beyond Jordan and not be able to imitate their noble Ancestors nor each or any of them bring to his Service three Bannerets sixty one Knights and one hundred fifty four Archers on Horseback as Thomas de Bello campo Earl of Warwick did to E. 3. in anno 21. of his Raign at the Seige of Caleis or as the Earl of Kildare did to King E. 3. in the 25 th year of his Raign when he besieged Calice when he brought one Banneret six Knights thirty Esquires nineteen Hoblers twenty four Archers on Horseback and thirty two Archers on foot It will take away the subjection of the Bishop of the Isle of Man who holdeth of the Earl of Derby as King of the Isle of Man and not of the King of England and therefore cometh not to Parliament Take away from the King Nobility and Gentry who have Lands holden by Knight service all Escheats of such as die without Heirs or forfeit or be convicted of Felony and the Kings Annum diem vastum year day and wast where the Lands are holden of Mesne Lords the Escheats of those that held of Kings imediately being so considerable as the Castle of Barnard in Cumberland and the Counties of Northumberland and Huntington which the Kings of Scotland sometimes held of England came again to the Crown by them and the power which King Edward 1. had to make Baliol King of Scots and to determine the competition for that Kingdom was by reason it was held of him the Earldoms of Flanders and Artois were seised by Francis the 1. as forfeited being Fiefs of the Crown of France Flanders and many other Provinces forced to submit themselves upon some controversies to the Umpirage of France of whom they held Enervate at least if not spoil our original first Magna Charta which was grante by H. 3. tenendum de se heredibus suis and all our Liberties and the many after confirmations of that Magna Charta will be to seek for a support if it shall be turned into Socage the Libâ—rties also of the City of London all other antient Cities and Boroughs and such as antiently and before 9 H. 3. did use to send Burgesses unto Parliament Alter if not destroy the Charter of K. R. 1. granted to the City of London for their Hustings Court to be free of Toll Lastage through all England and all Sea-Ports with many other Priviledges which were granted to be held of the King and his Heirs and the same with many other immunities granted confirmed by King John with a Tenure reserved to him and his Heirs for where no Tenure is reserved nor expressed though it should be said absque aliquo inde reddendo it shall be intended for the King and the Law will create a new Tenure by Knight service in Capite A Socage Tenure for Cities and Boroughs which have no Ploughs or intermedle not with Husbandry will be improper when as there is not any fictio juris or supposition â—in Law which doth not sequi rationem so follow reason or allude unto it as to preserve the reason or cause which it either doth or would signify but doth not suppose things improper or which are either Heterogeneous or quite contrary Put into fresh disputes the question of precedency betwixt Spain England which being much insisted upon by the Spaniard at the treaty of peace betwixt the two Kingdoms in anno 42. of Q. Eliz. at Calice occasioned by the contests of the Embassadour of Spain and Sir Henry Nevil Embassadour for England it was argued or adjudged that England besides the arguments urged on its behalf viz. Antiquity of Christian Religion more authority Ecclesiastical more absolute authority Political eminency of royal dignity and Nobility of blood ought to have precedency in regard that it was Superiour to the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland and the Isle of Man which held of iâ— that Spain had no Kingdom held in Fee of it but was it self Feudatory to France and inthral'd by oath of Subjection to Charles the fifth King of France in anno 1369. holds a great part of the Netherlands of France Arragon both the Indies Sicily Granado and Navarre Sardinia Corsica and the Canary Islands of the Pope Portugal payeth an annual Tribute to him and Naples yearly presents him with a white Spanish Genner and a certain Tribute Lessen and take away the honour of the King in having the principality of Wales Kingdom of Ireland Isle of Man Isles of Wight Gernesey and Jersey holding of England as their Superiour in Capite Enervate or ruine the Counties Palatine of Chester Lancaster Durham and Isle of Ely if the Tenures should be Levelled into Socage Very much damnifie all the Nobility and Gentry of England who hold as they have antiently divers Mannors and Lands or Offices by grand Serjeanty as for the Earls of Chester which belongeth to the Princes of Wales and the eldest Son of the King to carry before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Curtana to be Earl Marshal of England and to lead the Kings Host to be Lord great Chamberlain of England which is claimed by the Earl of Oxford to carry the Sword called Lancaster before the King at his Coronation due to the Earl of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man to be grand Faulconner or Master of the Hawks claimed by the Earl of Carnarvon and the Kings Champion at his Coronation claimed
by the Family of the Dymocks in Lincolnshire and very many others holding by divers other grand Serjeanties Prejudice the Families of Cornwal Hilton and Venables who though not priviledged and allowed to sit as Peers in Parliament are by an antient custome and prescription allowed to use the Title of Baron of Burford Baron Hilton and Baron of Kinderton because they hold their Lands per Baronâ—am Disparage the Esquires and Gentry of England the first sort of which being as antiently as the dayes of the Emperour Julian called Scutarii of their bearing of shields in the Wars and the other as our excellently learned Mr. Selden teacheth us called Gentlemen a gente or the stock out of which they were derived or because they were ex origine gentis of noble kind distinguished from them whom Horace termeth sine gente or that they had servile Auncestors had by their fears and prowess in War not only gained great reputation but Lands given to them and their Heirs for their reward support and maintenance from which custome and usage amongst the Romaâ—s saâ—th Pasquier the French in imitation of the Gaules did call those Esquires Genâ—â—â—men Quilz viâ—â—ent estre pourvâ—uz de tels benefices whom they did see so provided with those benefices or rewards Et pour autant quilz veterent ceux cy n' estre chargez d' aucune redevance pecuâ—iare à raison de leurs terres benificiales envers le Prince et outre plus qu'a l' occasion d'icelles ils devoient prendre les armes pour la protection et dâ—ffense de Royaume le peuple commenca de fonder le seul et unique degrè de noblesse sur telle maniere de gens â—or that they did see that they were not charged with any Assessement in money to the Prince by reason of the Tenures of their Lands and that therefore they were upon all occasions to take Armes for the protection and defence of the Realm the people took them to be a degree of Nobility as appeareth by the stature of 1 E. 2. touching such as ought to be Knights and came not to receive that order Take away a great part of the root and foundation of the Equestris ordo and antient and honourable degree of Knighthood in England which was derived and took its beginning from the service of their Lands which were military for the cheif Gentlemen or Free-holdes of every County in regard they usually held by Knights service saith the learned Selden were called Chivalers in the statute of W. 1. touching Coroners and was so honourable a Title as the name of Chivaler was antiently given to every temporal Baron whether he were dubbed a Knight or no. Blast and enernate that also of our not long agoe instituted order of Baronetts which are though there be no Tenure expressed in their Patents held by service in War and a more noble Tenure then Socage Take away the cause and original of that antiently very eminent degree of Banneret when as such as hold Lands in Capite and by Knight service and had many Tenants also holding of them by Knight service were able in a more then ordinary manner to do their King and Country service by bringing their own Banner in the Feild which was to be displaced by the King or his Leivetenant Make our heretofore famous English Nation in matters of Armes and feats of Chivalry to be as a Pastoritium or agreste genus hominum to be Rusticks and Plowmen which the followers of Romulus which were many of them but Rubulâ—i et opiliones Sheppheards and Heardsmen did not take to be a degree worthy the Founders of that great Empire of Rome nor could be content with any lesâ— then that of their Patricij or Equites Senaâ—ors or Knights And was therefore called Feudum nâ—bile et cognoscitur mulâ—is privilegiis inhaerentibus viz. Gardia Fidelitas Homagium Curia Consuetudinâ—s Jurisdictio in Vassallos Banni et retrobannâ— privilegium jus Columbarij jus molendini c. A noble Fee which hath many priviledges belonging to it viz. Wardship Fealty Homage a Court Customes Jurisdiction over Tenants priviledge of Ban and Arriere Ban calling them to War in defence of their Prince a right to have a Dove-house and a Mill the two latter of which others could not heretofore build or enjoy without the Kings licence Equibus liquet ingentem maneriorum nostrorum multitudinem Normannis enim abunde auctam videmus ex privilegiis ad feuda militaria olim spectantibus originem sumpsisse by which it is manifest that our great number of Mannors came to be abundantly increased by the Normans and took their begining from the priviledges belonging to Knights Fees Take away all the Mannors and Court Barons of the Kingdome which being before the statute of Quia emptores terrarum created by the Lords who parcelled out the Lands which the King had before given them to several Friends or Tenants to be held of them and their Heirs by Knight service and some other part in Socage to plow their Lands and carry their Hay c. and to do suit to the Courts of which the Free-holders are said to be the Homage holden for their Mannor in whose Jurisdiction the Lands do lye and are no small part of the legal and necessary priviledges and power of the Gentry or Lords of Mannors over their Tenants which were as Sr. Edward Coke saith given them for the defence of the Kingdome and doe not only very much conduce to the well ordering of their Tenants but to the universal peace and welfare of the Nation in their inferior Orbes and Motions subordinate to the higher Were all at the first derived out of Knight service as evidently appears by Edward the Confessors Laws wherein it was ordained that Barones qui suam habent Curiam de suis hominibus which have their Court consisting of their men and Tenants Et qui Sacham et Socam habent id est Curiam et Jurisdictionem super Vassallis suis have a Court and Jurisdiction over their Tenants are to doe right to their Tenants and by the fall of those many thousand Mannors Court Barons in the Kingdoms which will at the same time dye and perish with the Tenures in Capite and by Knight service Extinguish the Copyhold Estates which belong unto them which by the destruction of the Mannors and Court Barons will also fall for as there can be no Court Baron without Freeholders so no customary Court without Copiholders And once lost or but altered cannot be created again for that now a Subject cannot make a Mannor which must be part in demesnes and part in services to hold of him by services and Suit of Court which is to be by a long continuance of time a tempore cujus contrarij memoria hominum non existit and if there be no Court the Customary Tenants or Copiholders cannot enter their Plaints make Surrenders
and be admitted Turn the Tenures in Capite which are only so called from the duty of Homage and the acknowledgement of Soveraignity and Headship in the King into a Tenure in Socage which is so far from acknowledgeing the King to be chief or to ingage as the other doth their Lands to do him service as it is but a Tenure as it were a latere is no more then what one Neighbour may acknowledge to hold or doe to another for his Rent or money be a Lease for a Life or one or more years or as Tenant at will and levels and makes rather an equality then any respect of persons which if ever or at all reasonable or fit to be done is in a democratical or popular way of Government but will be unexampled and is not at all to be in Monarchy may make many of the people which are not yet recovered out of a gainful Lunacy to beleive they were in the right when they supposed themselves to be the Soveraigns Ireland which in the subverting Olivers time was to have their Swords by the like Tenure turned into Plow-shares though their warres and taxes were never intended to leave them was to pay but 12000 l. per annum to turn their better Tenures Conditions into worse will if they be not come again to their wits expect the like prejudicial bergain Bring many inconveniences and mischiefs to the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland if their Tenures in Capite and Knight service and those which are holden of them as Mesn Lords shall as ours be taken away with their services and dependencies Licences of Alienation benefits of Investitures infeodations and the like it being amongst others as a reason given for Wardships in that Kingdom in the Laws of Scotland in the reign of their Malcombe the 2. which was before the Conquerours entring into England Ne non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates to the end that the King should have where-withall to defend the Kingdom And a letting loose of a fierce and unruly people who are best of all kept in awe order by a natural long well enough liked subjection to their Mesne Lords and Superiours into a liberty which cannot be done without a disjointing and over-turning all the Estates of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom and may like our late English Levellers either endeavour to do it or bring themselves and the whole Nation to ruine by a renversing of the fundamental Laws and that antient order and constitution of that Kingdom wherein the estates and livelyhood of all the Nobility and Gentry and better part of the people are hugely concerned And besides a great damage to the King in his Revenues and profits arising out of such Tenures if not recompenced by some annual payment Will howsoever take away that antient Homage and acknowledgement of Superiority which from that Kingdom to this of England cannot be denyed to be due and to have been actually and antiently done and presidented and not in one but several ages fidem obsequium ut vassallos Angliae Regibus superioribus dominis jurejurando promisisse to have done their Homage and Fealty as vassals to our English Kings and bound themselves by oath thereunto as namely to Alfred Edgar Athelstane William the Conqueror William Rufus Maud the Empresse Henry the second and Edward the first the later of whom with all the Baronage of England in a Letter to the Pope did upon the search of many Evidences and Records stoutly assert it Will be no small damage and disturbance to the Kings other Regalities and Prerogatives and in the Tenures of the Cinque Ports who are to provide fifty ships for the guarding of the Seas and the Town of Maldon in Essex one the Town of Lewis in Sussex as the Book of Doomsday informeth where King Edward the Confessor had 127 Burgesses in dominio eorum consuetudo erat si Rex ad Mare custodiendum sine se suos mittere voluisset de omnibus hominibus cujuscunque terrae fuissent colligebant 20 sâ—lidos hos habebant qui in manibus arma custodieâ—ant had 127 Burgesses in his demeâ—ne of the King and when he sent any of his men to guard the Seas they were to gather 20 s. a man which was to be given to those that manned the Ships in Colchester where the custom then was that upon any expedition of the Kings by Sea or Land every house was to pay six pence ad victum soldariorum Regis towards the quarter or livelyhood of the Kings Souldiers and likewise prejudice him in his grand and Petit Serjeanties and many thousand other reservations of honour and profit by and upon Tenures in Capite and Knight service which revived and called out of their Cells wherein those that are to do and pay them are content they should sleep and take their rest for ever would go near to make and maintain an Army with men and Provisions The King when the Tenures in Capite shall be taken away shall never be able to errect his Standard and to call thereunto all that hold Lands Fees Annuities and Offices of him to come to his assistance according to the duty of their Tenures and the Acts of Parliament of 11 H. 7. chap. 18. And 19. H. 7. chap. 1. of forfeiting the Lands and Offices holden of him under the penalties which was the only means which the late King his Father had to protect as much as he could himself and his Subjects or to manifest the justice of his Cause in that War which was forced upon him and was very useful and necessary heretofore for the defence of the Kings of England and their People and proved to be no otherwise in the Bellum Standardi so called in the reign of King Stephen where some of the Barons of England and some of the English Gentry gathered themselves to the Royal Standard and repelled and beat the King of Scotland and in several Kings reigns afterwards repulsed the Scotch and Welch Hostilities and Invasions and at Floddon Field in King H. 8 ths time when the Duke of Norfolk and his Son the Earl of Surrey and diverse of the Nobility and Gentry which accompanied them vanquished and slew the King of Scots The benefit whereof the Commons of England had so often experimented as in diverse Parliaments they Petitioned the King and Lords to cause the Lord Marchers and other great men to repair into their Counties and defend the borders and was so necessary in France to assemble together the Bans and Arrierebans which were but as our Tenants in Capite as it helped King Charles the 7 th of France to recover that Kingdom again out of the hands and possession of our two Henries the 5. and 6. Kings of England And if any Rebellion or Conspiracy shall hereafter happen When Cum saepe coorta Seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus Fury and Rage of
Tenures in Capite and finding of Offices wherein the Evidences being produduced and many Times found did not only find but declare what Estate the deceased was seised of and if the truth did not then appear which could hardly be hid when as the Jury were commanded by the Writ of Diem clausit extremum to inquirâ— upon their Oaths of what Estate the last Ancestor dyed seised of and that the vigilancy and cares of the Feodaries and Escheators who were also to be present to attend them would cause them to be the more careful and if the fraud of the Heir should be able to make its way or escape thorough them the Estate found in the Office would after prove to be an Evidence against them and either overthrow or perplex the Knavery of such wicked designs The Recompence of 100000 l. per Annum if it could be raised without Injustice or the breach of the Laws of God Nature and Nations and our oftentimes confirmed Magna Charta and the inforcing of 19 men in every 20 to bear burdens which nothing at all appertains to them will not be adaequate to the losse of a great part of the Kings Revenue which did serve for the maintenance of his Crown and Dignity and to exempt and ease the Subjects of extraordinary Taxes and Assessements which the Necessity of Princes for the good and Defence of the Kingdom must otherwise bring upon them Nor to the want of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service the Services Incidents belonging unto them being a certain and never failing Defence of himself and the Kingdom Castle-guard Licence of Alienations giving him notice and continuing him safe in the Change of his Tenants being so necessary to Government as some have been grievously fined for alienating their Lands in Capite without it Mariage Dependancy of the Heirs which hold of him Livery and Reliefs Grand Serjeantyes and a great part of the Honour and Priviledges which all other neighbour Kings ond Princes are neither desired to part with nor can he perswaded so much to lessen themselves and their Regalities For gold and Silver and precious Stones or any thing lesse than the whole Kingdom of England it self is not of value or to be compared to the Honour of a King and the homage and duty of his Subjects the Gratitude Faith and Promises of their Ancestors which should descend to them with the Lands holden by those Tenures whenas Omnes habent Causam a primo et ex tunâ— non ut ex nunc are bounden to the Cause which obliged their first Ancestor and Progenitor and are to consider that it is now as it was then a most ready means and help which did and doth naturally and kindly arise for the Defence of themselves and the Kingdom for as it is not the weight of an inestimable Dyamond or Ruby that makes either of them to be better than a Flint or any other Stone but the lustre vertue and scarcenesse of them and that a greater poise or weight of a man makes not a Solomon an Alexander Sir-named the great or an Aristotle but that all men and things are to be esteemed according to the vertues and Excellencyes which are in them so it will not be the yearly Profit in money which was made of the Wardships primer Seisins Liveryes and Incidents which belong to those Tenures but the Homage Dutie gratitude and necessary Attendance in War not only of those that held immediatly of the King but those that were the mediate Tenants and came also with the immediate the grand and mutual Tye betwixt the King and his people and the Regality Prerogative intrinsical and true worth and value of them when there should be any use of those necessary Defences of the King and his Kingdom in making a diversive War or succouring his Friends and Allies which are not seldom or were in more heroick times justly accounted to be as Outworks Ante Murales or Bulwarks of the Kingdom that the Rate which is now offered for those Tenures are but like a Tender or Offer to give the weight in Gold for an incomparable not to be got again and unvaluable Meddal or for Aarons Brest-Plate Moses rod or the Scepters of Princes if they could have been purchased at all and by weight It will be as unsafe as unusual to take money or Turn into a Rent that which in its first Institution and a happy long and right use which was made of it was only intended for a defence of the Kingdom when the King is not likely to be any â—aver by it and shall not gain 90000 l. per Annum his own Income by Licences of Alienation deducted for the clear Profit of the Court of Wards which the Lord Cottington when he was Master of that Court did but a year before the Troubles make as much by it besides the many great and royal Prerogatives which he shall lose to gain more mischiefs and Inconveniencyes to himself his People then at the present can be instanced or numbred The giving the King a Recompence by an yearly Rate amounting to one hundred thousand pounds per Annum to be charged upon all mens Lands Tenements and Hereditaments holden in Capite or Socage by Copy-hold Leases for Lives or Tenants at Will or for yeares will be against right Reason Justice and Equity as well as unwarranted by any hitherto Law or Custom of England to make 19 parts of 20 for so much if not more will probably be the odds that were not liable to Wardships or any imagined Inconveniences which might happen thereby not only to bear their proportionable part of the general Assessements for War but a share also in the burden of others where it could never be laid upon them and wherein they or the major part of them by more than two in three have no Lands in Fee simple Fee taile or by Leases for 100 years or any longer Term nor are never like to be purchasers of any Lands at all and if they had mony to do it are not likely to buy Inheritances if inheritances not Capite or Knight Service Lands when there is by more than 9 parts in 10 of Socage or Copy-hold Lands to be purchased were not nor are like to be in any danger of Wardships or under any fear or Apprehensions of it and render the Capite Land three or four years purchase dearer than it was wont to be and the Socage Lands three or four years purchase the cheaper only to free the Nobility Gentry and men of greatest Riches and Estates in the Kingdom which are subject to those small Burdens which are only said to be in Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service Or if laid upon the Moyety of the Excise upon Ale Beer Syder and Coffee c. or any other native or Inland Commodity will fall upon those that have no Land as well as those which have as upon Citizens Mechanicks Children
ejus in artibus sint experti quod domus regia sit tanquam gymnasium supremum nobilitatis regni schola quoque Strenuitatis probitatis morum quibus regnum honoretur floret ac contra Irruentes securatur hoc revera bonum accidisse non pottuisset regno illi Si nobilium filâ—i Orphani Pupilli per pauperes amicos parentum suorum nutrirentur and greatly approve as he did of our Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which have heen since better ordered and more deserve that and a better commendation and to put forth your hand to rescue them who have hitherto as great Beams peices of Tymber or Pillars helped to bear up and sustain the Fabrick of our Antient and Monarchical Government and have no other fault but that they are misunderstood and misrepresented to the vulgar who by making causelesse complaints multiplying them have done of late by our Laws and best Constitutions as the Boys are used to do when they hunt Squirrels with Drums shouts and Noyses And that your Lordship who is able to say much more for that Institution and Right use of Tenures will be pleased to accept of my good Intentions and pardon the Imperfections of London 23. November 1660. Your Lordships most Humble Servant Fabian Philipps THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. OF the antiquity and use of Tenures in Capite and by Knight service in England and other Nations page 1. CHAP. II. The holding of Lands in Capite and by Knight service is no Slavery or Bondage to the Tenant or Vassals 12. 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 publique or general Grievance 29. CHAP. IV. How the design of altering Tenures in Capite and by Knight service into Socage Tenures and Dâ—ssolving the Court of Wards and Liveries and the Incidents and Revenue belonging thereunto 〈◊〉 out of the Forges of some private mens imagiâ—â—â—ions to be afterwards agitated in Parliaâ—â—nt 145. CHAP. V. The Benefits or Advantages which are expected â—y the people in putting down of the Court of wards â—nd Liveries and changing the Tenures in Capiâ—e and by Knight service into free and common Sâ—cage 154. CHAP. VI. The great and very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will happen to the King and Kingdom by taking away Tenures in Capite and Knight service 157. CHAP. VII That Tenures in Capite and Knight service holden of the King and the Homage and Incidents thereunto appertaining and the right of the Mesne Lords cannot be dissolved or taken away by any Act of Parliament The Conclusion 258. Errata's or Faults escaped in Printing by the hast of the Presse PAge 1 line 1 leave out and p. 2 l 28 for be read by p. 6 l 12 for or Knights r and Knights p. 8 l 16 leave out that ib. r in Capite and Knight service p. 9 l 25 for where r were p. 17 in the margent leave out the quotation note p. 21 l 18 r. his enfant p. 23 l 23 r. be the lesse free p. 24 l 26. for was r. were p. 36. l 12 r them 20 H. 3.6 p. 38 l 3 for E 1 r. E 3. p. ib. l 6. r person 42 E 3.5 p 40. l 31. for of r. or p. 43. l 18. r thought to p. 54 l. 16. leave out and. p. 68 l. 14 leave out was p· 81 l. 12 for aâ— r. in p. 82 l. 15 for E. 3 r E 1. p. 100 l. 7 for 1648 r. 1643. p. 111 l. 2 leave out his p. 125 l. 1 for Episcopium r Episcopum ib. l 18. r hold by ib. l. 23 r nor could 126. l 12 for â—e r. to p. 131 l 32. r For it p. 13â— l. 1 leave out Lawes after the. ib. l. 2 leave out the. ib. l. 15 for and r. for p. 135 l 6. r or by p. 136 l. 14 for and â— which p. 138 in the margent leave out Litletons quotation p. 140 l. 13 leave out an p. 154 l. 10 r. Grand and Petit. p 159. in the margent for XI r II. p. 162. against l 12 in the margent put V. ib. against l 33. put VI. p. 163. l 4. for Protections r Portions ib. in the margent against l 8 put VII ib. against â— 20 put VIII p. 164 l 4. for and r shall ib. in the margent against l 15 put IX p. 165 against l 33. put X. p. 166 against l 5. put XI ib. against l. 10 put XII ib. against l 14 put XIII ib. against l 26. put XIV p. 17 r l. 15 for amore r. more p. 174 in the margent for Olbertus r. Obertus p. 183 in margent for Lovelaces r. Loâ—es p. 184 l. 16. leavo out in p. 185 l. 32. leave out they p. 187 l. 9. for enernate r enervate ib. l 24. for displaced r. displayed p. 192 l. 15. leave out if not recompensed by some Annual payment p. 194 l. 8. r. under the penalties of ibib l 9. leave out under the penalties p. 212 l 22. r be a Baron ibib leave out of Holt. p. 217 l. 2. for derived r. deemed p. 222 in the margent against l. 15 put L. p. 241 in the margent against l 6. put LXIV p. 24â— against l 4 put LXV p. 246. against 26 put LXXII p. 247. l 4. for know r knowing p. 254. l 20 r which is ib. 28 r and theâ— p. 255 l 24 r or that p. 259 l 18. for it r them ib. l 23 leave out upon all p. 268. l 4. leave out and. p. 269 l 15 r or toâ— p. 274. l 33 for of r if p. 275. l 11 leave out would ruine◠〈◊〉 l 13 r Baronies would be ruined CAP. I. Of the Antiquity and use of Tenures in capite and by Knight service in England and other Nations THe Law of Nature that secret and great Director under God and his Holy Spirit of all mens Actions for their safety and self preservation by the Rules or Instinct of Right Reason and the Beams of Divine Light and Irradiations So far as those Laws of Nature are not contrary to positive and Humane Laws which are alwayes either actively or passively to be obeyed having in the beginning of time and its delivery out of the Chaos made and allowed Orders and distinctions of man-kind as they have been found to be more Rich Wise Virtuous Powerful and Able than others therfore the fitter to Protect Defend and do good unto such as wanted those Abilities Endowments and constituted ordained the faith and just performances also of Contracts Promises and Agreements and the acknowledgements of benefits and favours received being no strangers to those early dayes when the Patriarch Abraham had leave given him by Abimelech King of Gerar to dwell in the Land where it pleased him and that Abimelech in the presence of Phicol the chief Captain of his Host who took himself to have some concernment in it required an
to hold of the King by an honourable service of grand Serjeanty Then to hold in Socage and be â—yed to do yearly and oftner some part of Husbandry or drudgery upon his Lords Land for nothing or pay an annual Rent besiâ—â—â— many other serviâ—e payments duties as for Rent Oats rent Timber rent Wood Malâ— rent Hoâ—y rent for fishing liberty to Plow at certain seasons and the like And if they had been esteemed or taken to be a bondage the Commons of Eng. certainly in the Parliament of 1 R. 2. Would not by their Speaker have commended the Feats of Chivalry shewed to the King that thereby the people of England were of all Nations renoumed and how by the decay thereof the Honour of the Realm was and would dayly decrease Or in 9 H. 4. Petitioned the King that upon seisure of the Lands of such as be or should be attainted or grants of such Lands by the King the services therefore due to other Lords might thereupon be reserved The good and original benefit whereof derived to the Tenant from the King or mesne Lord that first gave the Lands and the consideration that by the taking of that a way every one was in all justice equity to be restored to his primitive propriety and that which was his own and so to reduce the Lands to the Heirs of those that at first gave them restraining them might be in all probability the reason that not only Capite and Knight service Tenures but Copyhold other Tenures and estates also having as much or more pretence or fancy of servitude in them were never so much as petitioned against in Parliament to be utterly taken away Some instance whereof may be had in that of Villinage which being the heaviest and most servile of all kind of Tenures though some thousand Families in this Kingdom there being antiently some Tenants in villenage belonging almost to every Mannor by desueâ—ude expiration of that course of Tenures now esteeming themselves nothing less were never in any Parliament desired to be abolished Bracton Fâ—eta other antient Authors in our English Laws alleging it to be de jure Gentium and that nihil detrahit libertaâ—i is not to be reckon'd a servitude much less surely then are Tenures in Capite and Knight service which the learned Grotius in the utmost that he could in his Book de antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae alleage for the freedom and independency of the Hollanders though he could not deny but that the German Emperours did claim them to hold in vassalage or as a Feiff oâ— the Empire will not allow to be any derogation from their liberty but concludes quod etsi optinerent non eo desinerent Hollandi esse liberi cum ut Proculus egregie demonstrat nec Clientes liberi esse desinant quia Patronis dignitate pares non sunt unde liberi feudi orta est appellatio That if it should be granted it would make the Hollanders not to be free when as Proculus very well demonstrateth Clients or vassails did not cease to be free because they are not equall to their Patrons in dignity whence the name or Term of franck Fee was derived and Sr. Henry Spelman saith quemadmodum igitur omnibus non licuit feudum dare ita nec omnibus accipere as it was not lawful for every one to give lands to hold of him so it was not allowed to every one to take prohibentur enim ignobiles servilisque conditionis homines et quidem juxta morem Heroicis seculis receptum munera subire militaria for ignoble and men of servile condition according to the usage of Heroick times were â—orbid to attempt military Offices and Imployments as may be evidenced also in those antient Customes and usages of those grand eminent Commonwealths of Rome and Athens in the latter of which notwithstanding the opinion of those who deny the use of Tenures by military service to have been in Greece before the time of Constantine Porphyrogenneta it appears that Solon had long before made a second classis or degree of such as could yearly dispend three hundred Bushels of Corn other liquid fruits were able to find a Horse of service called them Knights Soli igitur saith judicious Spelman nobiles feudorum susceptibiles erant quod praeâ—â—usticis et ignobilibus longe agiliores habiti sunt ad tractanda arma regendamque militiam And therefore the Nobility and Gentry were only capable of such Fees or Tenures in regard that they were more agile and fitter for the use of Arms and military Government and Order and was therefore called by the French heritages nobles et liberis et ingâ—nuis solummodo competunt a noble inheritance and only belonged to men that were free born and of ranâ—k and quality And wereâ—no longer ago than in Anno Dom. 1637. in the argument of the case of 〈◊〉 Ship-mony in the Exchecquer Chamber so little thought to be a Slavery to the people or any unjust or illegal prerogative of the Kings as Mr Oliver St. John none of the reverend and learned Judges of England then contradicting it alleaged them to be for the defence of the Realm and that they were not ex provisâ—one hominis not of mans provision but ex provisione legis ordained by Law and that the King was to have the benefit that accrewed by them with Wardships primer seisins Licences of Alienation and Reliefs as well to defend his Kingdom as to educate his Wards Nor can they be accounted to be a Bondage or Slavery unless we should fancy which would like a dream also vanish when men shall awake into their better senses and reason that those ornaments in peace and strength in time of war which have been for so many ages and Centuries since King Inas time which was in an 721 now above 940 years agoe and may have beene long before that ever accompted to be harmlesse and unblameable and in King Edgars Time by a Charter made by him unto Oswald Bishop of Worcester said to be constitutione antiquorum temporum of antient time before the date of that Charter were an oppression that all rankes and sorts of the People should endure a slavery and not know nor feel it nor any of the contemporary writers antient or modern take notice of it that the Peers of this Kingdom should be in Slavery and not know or believe it The The gentry of the Kingdom should be as worshipful Slaves and not understand or perceive it And the Commons of the Kingdom what kind of Slaves it should please any without any cause to stile them That Honours Gifts and Rewards Protection Liberties Privileges and Favours to live well and happily of free gift and without any money paid for the purchase should be called a Bondage when as a Tenure in Socage ut in condemnatos ultrices manus â—â—ttant ut alios suspendio aliâ—s membrâ—rum
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
design to make all or most of the Actions of those our Kings and Princes and the Nobility and Clergy in their several reigns for at all of them like one of the Ephori sitting in Censure rather than Judgement upon the Spartan Kings and Government and the Acts of Parliament made in the several Reigns of those Kings he aimed and flung his Fancies clad in a sober Stile and Gravity rather than any Truth or Reason by pretending that they were made and contrived only under their influence to be arbitrary and oppressive to the freeborn people of this Nation for which he got several Preferments under Oliver the Protector of our burdens miseries Though if the Records and Journals of our Parliaments may be credited as certainly they ought to be before him most if not all of our Acts of Parliament were granted and assented unto by our Kings upon the Petitions of the Commons representing the people in Parliament as â—alsoms and great Remedies and redresses of all that they could complain of deliverances from the oppressions frauds and deceipts of one another and prevention of evils which might happen to them and their posterities wherein our Kings have almost in every Parliament given away many diminished very much of their own just legal Rights and prerogatives by granting and confirming their Liberties and Estates with such an infranchisement and freedom as no Nation or people under Heaven now enjoyes And when as heretofore in former Parliaments they gave to their Kings Princes many times too unwillingly any aydes or Subsidies were sure besides the blessings which accrewed to them by many good Laws and wholesome Acts of Parliament to gain a great deal more by their Acts of grace and general pardons only then the aids and Subsidies did amount unto Unlesse it were in the Reign of King H. 8. when the Abby Lands were granted unto him in the raign of King E 6. when the Chanterie remaining peices of those religious Lands were given to him wherein only the Founders and the religious to whom they properly belonged were the only loosers and yet by reason of King H. 8. his Endowments and erection of the Bishoppricks of Oxford Peterborough Chester Gloucester and Bristol the Colledge of Christ-Church in Oxford and the Deanary of Westminster Deanries and Prebends of Canterbury Winchester Worcester Chester Peterburgh Oxford Ely Gloucester Bristol Carlile Durham Rochester and Norwich and his large gifts and grants to divers of the Nobility who had formerly been the Founders or great Benefactors to many of the Abbyes and Prioryes and also to other of his people and the grants of E. 6. Queen Eliz. and King James considered very little of those Lands and Revenues doe at this time continue in the Crown And our many Acts of Parliament against Mortmaines without the Kings Licence Provisions by the Pope or any appeales to be made to him under the most severe penalties of Premunire the Act of Parliament taking away the Popes Supremacy the fineing and putting the Clergy of the Provinces of Canterbury and York under Premunires by King H. 8. An Oath of Renunciation of all fealty and appeales to the Pope an Engagement to observe all Lawes made against his Power the losse of 72 Mannors or Lordships out of the Revenues of the Arch-bishopprick of York and of sundry great Mannors and Possessions taken from the Sees of Canterbury Ely and London The demolishing and dissolution of Religious Houses 3845. Parochial Churches being more than a third part of all the Churches in England impropriated and gotten into the hands of the Laity many of the Vicarages confined to the small and pittiful maintenance of some 20 l. per Annum others 10 and some but 6 l. per An. several Acts of Parliament made in the reigns of several other Kings and Princes clipping the Clergies Power in making Leases or chargeing their Benefices with Cure restraining their taking of Farms forbidding Pluralityes intermedling as Commissioners in Lay or Temporal Affairs or to make Constitutions in their Synods or Convocations without the Kings Assent may declare how little power for some hundreds of years past the Clergy of England have before or since the Reformation either encroached upon or been able to get or keep Finds not in his mistaken Censures and Distortions of most of the Acts of our Kings and Parliaments to make way in the deluded peoples minds for the erecting of Olivers Protean and Tyranical Government Any fault with the erection of the Court of Wards and Liveries nor with Tenures or Wardships but justifying them sayes that the relief paid by the Tenant upon the death of his Ancestor was in memorial of the first Lords favour in giving him the Land and was first setled in the Saxons times that the Law of Wardship may seem more antiently seated in this Kingdom than the Normans times that Wardship was a fruit of the Service of the Tenant and for the defence of the Kingdom Which that Parliament or the following Conventions or Assemblies made no hast to overturn or take away until Oliver Cromwel that Hyaena or Wolf of the Evening having filled the Kingdom with Garrisons several Regiments of Horse and Foot amounting to 30000. men which were to be constantly maintained at the peoples charge to keep them quiet in their slavery had upon the humble petition and advice of that which he called his Parliament acknowledging with all thankfulness the wonderful mercies of God in delivering them from that Tyranny and Bondage both in their Spiritual and Civil Governments which the late King and his party which in a Fog or Mist of sin and delusion they were pleased most injuriously to averre and charge upon them designed by a bloody War to bring them under when as then they were under none and all but the gainers by the spoyles of those Wars have since had more Burdens Grievances and Taxes entailed upon them then ever was in any Nation in Christendome allowed him in a constant Revenue for support of the Government and the safety and defence of the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland a yearly Revenue of thirteen hundred thousand pounds whereof ten hundred thousand pounds for the Navy and Army which far exceeded thaâ— which accrewed to the Crown or Kings of England by Wardships Tenures and Ship-mony which were but casual and upon necessity and but at some times or seldome and alwayes less by more than eight parts in ten of those justly to be complained of awful and yearly Asessements Procured the Assembly or Parliament so called in Anno 1657. to awake that sleeping Ordinance and dresse it into an Act as he called it of Parliament wherein It was without any Cause or Grievance expresâ— or satisfaction given or promised to those that remained the loosers by it enacted that the Court of Wards and Liveries and all Wardships Primer seisins and Oustre le maines and all other charges incident and arising for
War shall burn And the Ignoble to the worst side turn Must be left to hire his Souldiers or Assistance out of the Rascallity Debauched and Ruder sort of People and such as know neither how to fight or be faithful if his Treasory or yearly Income upon such an increased Revenue can do it when as without the necessity of his Subjects preserving their own Lands and Estates by performing the duties and service of their Tenures the money which the late King could have procured could never have brought any considerable number of men to his Standard of whose fidelity being Hirelings and such of the Vulgar and ignoble part of the people as had neither courage virtue or Estate or such as for a litle more pay would either have deserted or betrayed him nor could he be so certain and assured as he was in the aid and assistance of that of the Nobility and Gentry and better part of the people virtuously educated and descended from worthy Ancestors furnished out and ready to attend him with the hazâ—râ— of all their Estaâ—â—s and Foâ—â—uâ—es and whose great Souâ—s â—ctâ—d by a nobler principle made them scorn to stoop to any unworthy Actions basenâ—sse or villany which caused our brave King H. 5. after the Batteâ— at Agencourt in a Muster or Leavy which he was to make of Souldiers to passe with him into France publiquely to Proclaim that none should presume to go with him for then they needed no other impressing but the obligation of their Tenures and glory and honour of serving their Prince and Country but such as were Gentlemen and had Tunicas armoâ—um did bear Arms except such as had served him at the Battel of Agencourt though they had none For if a War which will be sure to loose no opportunities but pick cull its advantages should break out before the rent day or the monyes can be gathered he cannot likely want distresses or misfortunes either for himself or his people when they shall not have wherewith to hire an Army And failing of a necessary defence and assistance at Land for want of his Tenures in Capite and Knight service shall also loose the help of his Ships and Navy at Sea And if the King or any of his Successors should be so happy as to have money in their Treasury which as the course and charge of War is now must be no small sums to hire provide and continue an Army it may be seized on as his Revenues and all the money in the Exchequer and much of his Plate and Houshold stuffe were in the late Wars and if he could be so well before hand as to have any Magazines may have that as easily taken from him as his Magazines at Hull and the Tower of London were when his Tenures per Baroniam and in Capite and by Knight service were not Can have no manner of assurance that when any sedition or commotion of the people shall be bred or increased by the practise of some great men or inticements of any of the Clergy and a Bellum flagrans or a War as suddain and unexpected as it shall be dangerous shall breake out not only in one but several parts of the Nation that the people or most vulgar and common sort of Hirelings will especially in a frenzy or humour of sedition be hired or drawn to fight for him by a small and inconsiderable pay and the support of an Hospital when their wounds shall bring them into it or a small allowance which the statute allows wounded Souldiers until they be cured or maimed Souldiers which are incurable shall be so very disproportionate to their danger and hazards When the hireing also of common Souldiers upon a suddain and in case of necessity will if he could get them be more chargeable and difficult then when he was to be served and defended in his Wars by men of worth and quality under the ingagement of their Lands and Tenures which made our former Kings besides those aids and safeguards by Tenures of Lands to stipend and pension certain of their Nobility and Gentry whom they found most proper and fit to serve them by Indenture with so many men at Armes or Souldiers as for instance Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick retained in 46 E. 3. by Indenture to serve the King in his Wars beyond Seas for one whole year with 100 men at Arms of which number himself to be one 160 Archers 2 Bannerets 30 Knights and 77 Esquires a tryal or proof whereof would easily have manifested the difference betwixt the one way the other if when the late King in his march or expedition against the Covenanting Scots in An. 1639. had such a gallant Army as he had of his English Nobility Gentry had disbanded them taken as well as he could in their rooms only milites Gregarij or Tirones common and mercenary Souldiers And may expose him in any distresse when his mony or hirelings shall fail him to that disloyal and rebellious late opinion too much entertained and taken in by Newtrals double dealing or time serving people that where the King cannot protect them their Oaths and Consciences gives them a liberty to make the best bergain they can for themselves Take away also the foundation of the House of Peers in Parliament whom the Laws and Records of the Kingdom do prove to sit there only as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam which well might be the grand foundation of so noble a Senate when as amongst the Romans their Senators were Lecti in senatum ex equestri ordine chosen into the Senate out of the degree of Knighthood and even by Brutus in his Consulship and great endeavours to restore that people to their Liberty was so approved as that many ages after Perseus Macedoniae Rex apud Livium lib 42. Equites Romanos appellat principes juventutis seminarium Senatus calleth in Livy the Roman Knights the Princes or Flower of the youth and the Nursery of the Senate and saith that inde lectos in patrum numerum they where thence chosen to be Senators and ex veteri instituto the Custom was as Isiodore saith that when the Senators Sons came to be of Age they were not to be admitted into the Senate until they were Knighted And Alexander Severus the Emperor would not assumere libertos in equestrem ordinem ordain or make Yeomen or such as were nâ—wly 〈◊〉 to be Knights or give 〈◊〉 as he did Lands to hold by Knight 〈◊〉 dicens quod seminarium 〈◊〉 Equestrem â—sse locum that it was the seminary for the Senate amongst the Germans who were as jealous to keep their Honor as they were their Liberties Nobiles vocati Ritter id est Servator Noblemen were termed Ritters which signifieth a Saviour or Defender quod virtute fortitudine servent patriam because by their vertue and manhood they defended their Country amongst whom the degree of Knighthood is
Coppy-holder of that Mannor and those Patent Lords doe by their Patents hold their Honor and Dignities in Capite though it be not expressed in their Paâ—ents and should pay as great a Releif as the other Earls and Barons doe by Tenure for no man can sit there but as a Tenant in Capite and acknowledging his Soveraign unless a Coordination should be supposed and that dangerous Doctrine again incouraged nor can these by Creation sit if the House should be dissolved by the change of the others Tenures for that they were but Adjuncts and Associates of them Which was so well understood by Sir Edw. Coke to be a shaking if not an over-turning of the foundation of that high and most honourable Court or Judicatorie as in the Parliament of the 18 â—h year of King James in the proposition which was then on foot to change the Tenures in Capite and by Knight service into free and common Socage he and some of the old Parliament men advised a Proviso to be inserted in that intended Act of Parliament that the Bishops notwithstanding that their Baronies should be holden in Socage should continue Lords of Parliament and in our late times in that great inundation of mistaken Liberty when the outrage of the vulgar and common people greedily pursued the dictates of their ignorance and fancie and that after the House of Lords had been shut up and voted to be uselesse and dangerous the persons of the Barons of England which the Law and the reasonable and antient as well as modern Customes of England did never allow to be arrested were arrested and haled to Prison In the seeking a remedy wherof some of the Baronage pleading their Priviledge it was in Easter Term 1650. in the Kings or upper Bench in the argument of the Countess of Rivers Case argued and urged that all Tenures as well as the House of Lords were taken away so that the Court holding that the Priviledge was not allowable for that she never had reference to the Parliament or to do any publique service the Cause was adjourned Wherefore seeing that the custom of a Court is the Law of a Court and the interrupton of a Custom Prescription or Franchise very dangerous and Cessante causa tollitur effectus the cause or foundation taken away the effect or building faileth that a Lord of a Mannor is not able to create a Mannor or make a Lease-holder or Tenant of one Mannor to enjoy the same priviledges which he did formerly be incorporate a Tenant in another Mannor a House with a Common Appendent or which was before belonging unto it once pulled down though built up again looseth its Common and Prescription or if a Coppy-hold estate come to the Lord by Forfeiture Escheat or otherwise if he make a Lease or otherwise it is no more grantable by Copy of Court Roll or make a Feoffment upon condition and after enter for the Condition broken it shall not be regranted by Copy And if a man hath libertyes by Prescription take letters Patents of them the matter of the Record drowns or takes away the prescription as was held in 33 H. 8. tit precription Br. 102. c. Or if as in the Acts of Parliament for the dissolution of the Monasteries the King shall be before the Tenures be ordained to be in free and common Soccage made or derived to be in the actual Seâ—sin and Possession of all the Lands There will be cause and reason enough to make a stand or a pause and inquire further into it For if the subversion of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service will not totally or at once ruine and dissolve the House of Peers in Parliament or put upon it a new constitution it will not be good certainly to leave that House and most high and Honourable Court and all its just Rights and Privileges which hath already so much suffered by the Assaults and Batteries of Faction and vulgar Frenzies to an after question of moote point whether or no it be not dissolved or put upon a new Foundation And must needs be very dangerous when as one of the three Estates under the King which is Supream and not Coordinate viz. the Bishops and Lords Spiritual being lopt off the second which is the Lords Temporal shall be but either suspected or doubted to have a being and the third which is the House of Commons shall upâ—â— the next advantage or distemper of that paâ—â—y which lately gained so much by â— supposing it to be the Soveraign bâ—â—ancied â—o be above both it and the King who as the head is above them both and too much gratifie that late illegal and unwaâ—rentable opinion and practice of the Soveraignty of the House of Commons in Parliament or that they alone are the Parliament of England Destroy the hopes and rights of the Bishops being the third Estate in Parliament of ever being restored or admitted again into it from which after a force and a protestaâ—ion solemnly made against it twelve of them imprisoned for making of it they were by an Act of Parliament in an 17. Car. Regis primi prohibiting them as well as all other Clergy men to intermeddle in any temporal affairs or proceedings excluded the House had all their Estates afterwards by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons without being cited or heard and without the Kings consent and after his going from the Parliament and in the midst of a War and Hostilities betwixt them confiscated and taken from them by the taking away of Tenures per Baroniam being the only cause and reason of their sitting there and constituting them a third Estate will now after his Majesties happy restoration when the waves and rage of the people are so calmed and ceased as the Halcyon is preparing to build her nest be more then ever made to be altogether impossible Hinder and restrain our Princes from recovery of Foreign Rights a necessary inlarging their Dominions making an offensive War or pursuing a flying or like to be recruited Enemy which in keeping a Kingdom in peace and plenty or maintaining the Commerce thereof will be according to the rules of policy and good Government as necessary as that of Davids revenging upon the Ammonites the affronts done to his Embassadors the Wars of our Edward the third or H. 5. in France of the great Gustavus King of Sweden in Germany or the now King of Denmarks and Marquesse of Brandenburghes Wars upon Charles late King of Sweden And when any of those occasions or necessities shall offer themselves or inforce a forinsecum serviciuâ— or service in foreign wars shall have none but Auxiliaries Hirelings to go along with them when as several Acts of Parliament do prohibit the enforcing Hoblers which were a kind of light horsemen Archers Trained Bands and common Souldiers to go out of their Countries unlesse it be in cases of necessity which the common people know not
how to judge of and the little Parliament so called in the beginning of the year 1640. upon the invasion of an Army of â—actiâ—us Scots and a letter produced by the King that they had written for aid to the French Kâ—ng did not rightly apprehend for it is not to be doubted but that the cheerful and ready aids upon all occasions given to the Kings of England by the Tenants in Capitâ— and Knight Service and the Nobility and Gentry and their Tenants Friendâ— and Followers taking Arms and foâ—lowing the Royal Standard was a great cause â—f their Conquests in France and Warlike atchivement in that and other parts of the World often beating back the incursions of the Scotch and Welch and deâ—ending the borders The taking away of thâ— Knights Fees or Tenures by Knight Service from the Nobility and Gentry without any Recompence if they would be content to part with them or to accept it Will be an Act of great Injustice Regula quippe feudalis et firma est quod Dominus nec in totum nec pro parte minuere adimereve Jus vassallo quesitum possit sine culpa eoque non convicto for it is a fixed and constant Rule in the Feudal Law That the Lord cannot neither in the whole nor in part without a forfeiture or conviction of his Tenant diminish or take away the Vassals Right and it would be against Right Reason and Equity not to give a Recompence in Caâ—se of pulling down or fireing a House in a Necessity of War to prevent an Enemy but much more against it and our Magna Charta in Case of no Necessity to Sacrifice without a just Recompence given for it the Estates and Rights of some to pacifie the Fears of others and disturb and incumber the Estates of all or a great many to free the Estates of a few which would be aâ— unjust as for the Lords of Mannors to make By-laws forbidding the Services of their Tenants and without any forfeitures or convictions grant or sell away their Lands or Copy-hold Inheritances to Strangers or dedicate the Profits thereof to the publick wherein the owners or Proprietors shall get none or very little share in it or such as will be impreceptible and appeared to be so much against Law and Reason as when in the dissolution of the Abbyes and Monasteryes the Nobility and great men who had been Founders of many of them or given a great part of the Lands thereof were to be the losers of that which should have reverted or come unto them if they could not consist with the first Intentions King H. 8. did take a care to gratifie many of them with great quantityes and Portions thereof and to some granted intire Priories and Nunneries of their Ancestors founding as to John Earl of Oxford the Priory of Colne and Nunery of Hedingham in Essex and the like to many others which might be here remembred The Publique Faith which was wont to have so much care taken of it when she borrowed money to make our unhappy warres and Contentions of so much of the Nation as hold by the Tenures in Capite and Knight Service and of all the other parts of the people who by Oaths of Supremacy Protestations and Covenant were not to prejudice the King nor by their Covenant any other in their Rights and Liberties will now be broken which when Livy a Heathen Writer and one that very well understood affairs of State upon the making of a Law at Rome to pacify a mutiny that the Prisoners for Debt should not be bound or fettered as the manner then was could say that Ingens vinculum fidei a great Obligation or Bond of Faith amongst men was that day broken he would have without doubt said more were he now aâ—ive as to our breach of Faith amongst men but a great deal more if he had been Christian as to God Almighty Take away not only the Honor but the publick Benefits of those Tenures and feudal Rights which are so highly and justly esteemed in all other Kingdoms and Principalityes which are so happy as to live under Monarchy the best of Governments as they can give them no other Character then that Jura Regnorum Ducatuum Marchionatuum adeoque totius Imperij Leges Fundamentalâ—s ac nervi quibus Monarchiae Romanae cum ipso senescente mundo languescentis lutei pedes colligantur inâ—iis continentur Therein are contained the Laws and Rights of Kingdoms Dukedoms Maâ—quisates the Fundamental Laws of the Empire and the Nerves and Sinews by which the Empire languishing in the old age of the world hath been sustained And that Feuda Feudorumque Jura â—â—delitatem â—idem publicaâ—â— pacem incolumnatem Communis Patriae firmant â—irmissimum Militiae contra Communes Reipublicae hostes neâ—vum ac praesidium suâ—ministrat adeoque fulcâ—a Germanico Romani Imperi◠〈◊〉 desiderant Feuds and the Rights thâ—â—â—of do six and consolidate the Fidelity publique Faith Peace and wellfare of the Common-wealth and administreth the greatest help and strength in war against the Common Enemy and is worthy to be called the Prop of the German and Roman Empire Make our Nobility and Gentry who have by their Chivalry and high Attempts by Sea and Land rendred them second to none and published the Fame and Glory of their Actions as far and farther than ever the Roman Eagles flew to be like the Roturiers or Paysants oâ— France and a reproach or hissing to all Natioas or like Davids Embassadors when the Children of Ammon had misused them and shaved the one half of their Beards and cut off their Garments in the middle even to their Buttocks and to be put behind all but the Dutch and Switzers the former of which do Trade under Taxes Excise the latter are but the Mercenaries and Hirelings of the French and Spanish Kings in their Wars and Hostilities and ranâ—king us with them and those little and despicable Commonwealths of Luca and Geneva cast us into the Giddy and at last woeful Presidents and Consequences of the unquiet headed Argentinians Lindorians Citizens of Siena Genoa and Florence who by ruining and rooting up the Nobility and Gentry and making three rancks and degrees of their Citizens some great some mean and the rest of the vulgar the two last putting out the first cast themselves into a Circle of blood and misery out of which nothing but their former Government was able to refcue them Occasion the losse and ruine of purchasers and Mony-lenders enlarge their complaints of double treble Feoffments Mortgages which by the disuse of the Court of Wards and finding of Offices after the death of Tenants in Capite and by Knight Service have been more than formerly and wherein some of our late Reformers were known more to have exercised their wits than their Consciences conceal'd Dormant and fraudulent Assurances carried in the Pockets of some to pick the Pockets of others which by reason of the
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