the pattern of private Housekeepers and the narrow and unbeseeming Customes of their smaller Estates and Families That the wast of honor and the more then ordinary Fragments left in the Kings House as the remainders of the Dyet provided for him and his servants for the food and sustenance of the Poor and such as will be glad of it are but the requisites and appurtenances to the Majesty and Honor of a King that Sir Richard Weston afterwards Earle of Portland and Lord High Treasurer of England Sir John Woâ—stenholme Knight Sir William Pâ—tâ— and others commissioned by King James to make a Reiglement and Espaâ—gne in his house-keeping being men of known and great experience in the management of their own Estates could not then find any such things as have been since laid to the charge of the Kings Officers and Servants in his House that the pretensions not long after of better husbandry in the Kings House by some niggardly contrivances and serving some of the Tables with half a Goose instead of a whole came to no more at the last then the obtaining of the pretenders self ends and an Annuity of 500l per annum for thâ— lives of the pretender his wife and the longer liver of them that the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Housholds yearly Fee of 100 l. the Treasurer of the Housholds yearly Fee of 123l 14s and the Cofferers yearly Fee of 100l measured and proportioned to the antient and former cheapness and means of livelihood would have even then been very deficient for the support of such persons of Honor and Quality if they had not had at the same time some seldome falling expectations of other favours and rewards from a Princely Master and a present liberal allowance for their Tables which although it doth now stand the King by the enhance of his rates and prices in a great deal more then it did formerly yet unto those that received those allowances for their Tables and Dyet it is no more then formerly for if an estimate were taken how much it would cost the King to make and encrease the Salaries and wages of his Servants and Officers of all ranks and sorts which in all the several Offices and Places and Dependencies about the persons of the King and Queen are above one thousand all or most of whom did when the Tables and Diets were allowed intercommune one with another and were with many also of their Servants fed with the Kings Victuals and Houshold Provisions to be according unto the rates of wages Salaries and as much as they are now taken and given in private Families and all were to be paid in money and nothing in dyet the Kings Treasury Purse or Estate would soon be brought to understand that such increased Allowances or other Allowances Pensions Wages and Salaries which must according to the rise and enhance of all manner of things conducing to the support and livelihood of such Servants be now necessarily paid and given over and above the antient Fees and Salaries would arise and amount unto more then all the charge of the Pourveyance or Compositions for them whether it were thirty and five thousand pounds a year or fifty thousand pounds per annum which was laid and charged upon the Counties or more then the King is unjustly supposed to be deceived or cheated by his servants or those which do direct the affairs of his Houshold when it cannot escape every private mans Judgement and experience in house-keeping that he that doth give his servants forty shillings per annum Salary and as much more to be added unto it in certain Fees and Profits well known and calculated to amount unto no more then another forty shillings per annum doth give his servant but four pounds per annum in the totall and is not at all cozened therein and that it would otherwise be no Honour to the King but a diminution of Majesty and a temptation or necessity enforced upon his servants to deceive him if the Serjeant of the Ewrie and the Serjeant of the Bakehouse to mention but a few of many should have but their antient and bare Salaries of 11 l. 8 s. 1 d. per annum and want their antiently allowed Avails and Perquisites That such short and now far too little Wages and Salaries to be given to the Kings Servants in their several honourable and worshipfull Stations would be unworthy for them to receive and dishonorable for the King to give And that the no inconsiderable summe of money which was yearly and usually saved by the venditions of the over-plus of the Pourveyance or Compositions for them and imployed in the buying of Linnen and Utensils for the service of the House the now yearly allowances for Diet to eight principall great Officers and to seaven of the next principall Officers and what his Majesty payeth yearly to others for Board-wages and what is enhanced and laid upon him by unreasonable rates and prices now that his Officers are constrained to buy with ready money and to pay a barbarous Interest and Brocage to provide it compared with what he now spends in his private allowances for his own and the Queens Diet and some other few yet allowed Tables will make a most certain and lamentable demonstration that the King and his Honor were gainers by the Pourveyance os Compositions for them and very great loosers by the taking of them away And that he did meet with a very ill Bargain by the Exchange of his Pourveyance or Compositions for them for a supposed recompence of Fifty thousand pounds per annum intended him out of the Moiety of the Excise of Ale Beer Perry c. But if the abuses committed by the Servants and Officers of the King within the house were so great or any thing at all as is pretended for as to the Pourveyors and those that act without dores the Law hath sufficiently provided they may certainly be rectified and brought under a reformation without the abolishing or totall taking away of the right use of them or that which cannot be spared or by any means be abandoned but may be dealt with as we do by our Wines Victuals or Apparel which as necessaries of life are in their right use to be kept and reteyned notwithstanding any misusage of them Or if the Pourveyance or Compositions for them were so much diverted from the use intended by them yet that will not be any reason for the quitting of them without a due exchange or recompence for that if they were all of them as is meerly fained or fanciâ—d mispent or misimployed yet those that do mispend them and they that have the benefit of them not that I would be an Advocate to justifie the selling of the Kings meat or houshold provisions unto any in the Neighbourhood or any accursed cheatings of the King which I wish might be punished as Felony are neither Enemies or Strangers to the Nation but the Kings Subjects and
part in the residue he being now enforced to purchase the victuals and food for Himself and his houshold at a far greater rate then any of his Subjects 20000 l. 0 s. 0 d. Besides what may be added for the tricks pilferings of inferiour Servants of the houshold and their taking indirect courses and advantages to make up or recruit their Losses and the damage which the King may susteyn by having such his servants Metamorphosed and turned into hunger-starved Ratts which will be nibling and gnawing at every thing which they can come at and may be catched but are not to be destroyed by drowning or poisoning And the loss and diminution of the Honour of the King in his Royal Houshold which is and ought to be inestimable and as much beyond a valuation As the Honor of a Sovereign Prince is and ought to be above and beyond that of the vulgar or any private person Which may bring us to this conclusion That although Fifty thousand pounds per annum were in the granting of a Moyety of the Excise to the King his Heirs or Successors intended to be allowed for the Pourveyance or Compositions for them which did cost the Kingdome yearly and Communibus Annis but Twenty five thousand and twelve pounds or thereabout in the 35 year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and in the third year of the Reign of King James not much above Forty thousand pounds per annum and in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr at the most but fifty thousand pounds per annum 〈◊〉 whether more or less is not to be found in the Receipt or yearly Income of that Revenue of the moyty of the Excise For that the totall of the clear yearly profit of the moyety of the Excise allowed unto the King for the Exchange of his Tenures in Capite and by Knights service and the Pourveyance or Compositions for them doth not amount unto the charges of the Collection deducted above One hundred and twenty thousand pounds per annum Is likely to be lesse by reason of an universall poverty of those which should pay it making a large accompt of many desperate Arrears and of the Farmers in many places letting it three or four times over to others under them and so very much racking and oppressing of the people if but half of what is complained of be true as many private Families do to avoid the gripes of the Excise-men and the knavery of the Common Brewers set up Brewhouses for their own occasions And will be too little for the exchange or purchase only of such a principall flower and support of the Crown and an eminent part of the Royall Prerogative as the Tenures in Capite and Knight-service are which in yearly revenue yielded him above One hundred thousand pounds per annum And for that the Power Might and Majesty of a King being unvaluable is not to be ballanced by any thing which is not as much So as the damages and losses susteyned by the want of the Pourveyance or Compositions for them besides what shall be paid more then formerly for the charges of the Stable impressing of Workmen for the Kings occasions by the Master◠of the Works the King now paying every Workman eighteen pence or two shillings per diem when it was before but twelve pence and the charges more then formerly in the Pourveyance for the Navy Ship-Timber Ammunition and carriage thereof c. and many other losses not here enumerated will be no less then the sum of One hundred seven thousand and fifteen pounds five shillings And a too certain Totall of that which is here valued and brought to accompt besides the unvaluable honour and power of the King loss and ruine of his Servants and what indirect courses may intice them unto Which needs not be doubted when as by an exact and carefull accompt given unto the Lords in Parliament in or about the third year of the Reign of King James by Sir Robert Banister Knight then one of the Officers of his Houshold of what was yearly saved to the King by the Compositions for the Pourveyance over and above the yearly value of what it cost the Countries when the rates were both in the Country and City of London not by a third part and in many things a half and more so much heightned as now they are and a project of purchasing the Pourveyance from the Crown for Fifty thousand pounds per annum was in agitation there appeared to have been yearly saved by the Compositions and Commissions for Pourveyance the sum of Thirty four thousand eight hundred forty six pounds ten shillings and six pence and in the Office for the Stable Two thousand six hundred ninety and eight pounds which made a Totall of Thirty seven thousand five hundred forty and four pounds ten shillings and six pence and probably might be the reason that that unhappily after accomplished designe did then vanish into nothing 1. Nor will the yearly damage losses of the people in the totall arrive unto a lesse when they shall finde the moyety of the Excise not amounting to One hundred and thirty thousand pounds per annum in the utmost extent and income of it without deductions or defalcations to the Officers imployed by his Majesty therein to be doubled and made as much again upon them by the fraud and oppression of the Brewers little malt put into their Beer and ill boyling of it and lesser measures sold by the Inkeepers and Alehouse-keepers And yet the Brewers being paid the Excise of Beer and Ale by the housekeepers and Retailers as much as they do pay to the King and a great deal more by reason of the Excise of three Barrels of Beer and two of Ale in every twenty allowed them will not think it enough to cozen and abuse the people whose good and evil and profit and loss is included in that of the Kings unless they do also by false Gaugings concealed Brewings and other ill Artifices use all the wayes and means which they can to make themselves great gainers by deceiving the King as well as the people and will like too many of their fellow Citizens the great Tax-Improvers and Advantage-catchers of the Kingdom be sure to be as little loosers by it as the Fox would if a monthly Assessement should be set upon him for his subterranean Boroughes and dark Labirinths or the griping Usurer the biting Broker and the knavish Informer would be if an yearly Imposition or Tax should be layd upon their ungodly and oppressive gains and Imployments 2. Neither will the peoples loss damage be lessened when there shall be a scarcity of Food Provisions at the Markets in regard that the Kings Officers and Pourveyors for his Houshold shall now be constrained to buy his Houshold provisions in great quantities at the Markets or Shops in London or in the Counties adjacent which were wont to be served in kind by the several Counties
troublesome to give a Guard of 4000 Archers of Cheshire with their Bows bent and their Arrows hocked ready to shoot Bouche of Court to wit meat and drink and wages of six pence a day then accompted a very great pay Or that King Henry the 7 th then whom the Kingdom of England never had a more thrifty Prince did the morrow after Twefthtyde in a great Solemnity keep a Feast in Westminster Hall where he being set at a Table of Stone which remained untill the middle of our late Rebellion accompanyed with the Queen and many Embassadours and other Estates 60 Knights and Esquires served 60 Dishes to the Kings Mess and as many to the Queens and served the Lord Mayor of London at a Table where he was set with 24 dishes of meat to his Mess. And our succeeding Kings understood to be so much for the good and welfare of the people as King Edward the Sixth that great Blossome of prudence and piety and all manner of Princely virtues when a surfeit of Church Lands and Revenues had like the coal carried into the Eagles nest reduced the Royall Revenues into a consumptive and languishing condition had by the advice of his Privy Council suppressed but with no advantage to the Revenue or curing the diseases of it as it then and hath since happened in many of those pretended rather then really effected dishonorable Espargnes witness the putting down of fourteen Tables at once by King Charles the Martyr which gained in one year Thirty thousand pounds to some few of his Officers who did advise him to do it but nothing at all for himself the Tables formerly appointed for young Lords the Masters of Requests and Serjeants at Armes c. he did not howsoever think fit to diminish or lessen any more of the Royall Hospitality And King James when he had by an over-great bounty to his Countrymen the Craving Scots and their restless importunities brought himself and Revenue into many streights and was contented to seek out wayes of sparing did in the inquest and seeking to abate the charge of his housekeeping in his Letters to the Lords of the Councel bearing date in November 1617. and pressing earnestly to have it done to the end that he might equall his charges to his Revenue direct them to abate superfluities in all things and multitudes of unnecessary Officers and to do things so as they might agree with his honor but concluded that there were twenty wayes of abatement besides the House if they be well looked into Which may give us a Prospect which a larger Treatise of the Antiquitie legality reason duty and necessity of Prae-emption and Pourveyance for the King or Compositions for his Pourveyance as they were used and taken for the provision of the Kings Houshold the small charges and burden thereof to the People and many great mischiefs and inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away will more fully evidence how great a damage the King susteyneth by the want of them How unbecoming the Majesty and Honor of a King and his many Princely affairs and occasions it will be that the people should deny him that granted or continueth their Profits in Fairs and Markets the benefit of Prae-emption which all Princes as well Christian as Heathen do enjoy and is but conformable to the Tenor and meaning of the Fifth Commandement in the Decalogue and the Honour due unto common Parents and Magistrates enjoyned thereby How unsafe to the peoples consciences when they do by their Oathes of Allegeance and Supremacy swear to maintain and defend his Regall Rights and Jurisdictions not to allow his Prae-emption 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or forecheapum and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Saxon Times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying ante 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prendere which is Prae-emption and was then as it hath been ever since so just and legall a part of the Kings Prerogative as King Ina who reigned here in the year 720. did by a Law prohibit that Fore fang or Captio obsoniorum in foris aut nundinis non ab aliquo fit priusquam minister Regis ea ceperit quae Regi fuerint necessaria the taking or buying of Houshold provisions by others in Fairs or Markets before the Kings Minister or Pourveyor should take those things which were necessary for the King And was not then any Novel constitution or acquired Right or Praerogative or without a Divine pattern but so inhaerent in Monarchy and Kingly Government and so becoming the duty and gratitude of Subjects as we may find the Vestigia or Tracs of it in the morning of the restored not long before drowned and washt world when Joseph that great and happy Minister of State under Pharaoh King of Egypt did by the help of that Royal Right of Praeemption keep the Lean Kine from eating up the Fat and save that Kingdome and many other neighbouring Nations from an irresistible famine and ruine And how contrary it will be unto the duty of Subjects to refuse him their Carts to convey his Carriages unless they may have two parts in three more then formerly when the Earl of Rutland and Countess Dowager of Pembroke and many other of the Nobility have not only their Pourveyances but can have their Tenants Boon Carts upon any of their occasions for nothing and every Lord of a Manor or Parson of a Parish do seldom fail of as much or greater curtesies or respects from their Tenants or Parishioners or that the Kings Harbingers should from some of the Tribe of Naball receive uncivill and churlish answers that they are not to loose the advantage of six pence more which may be given by any other or that his Pourveyors should not have the benefit of Praeemption as one of them lately was refused in the buying of a Salmon or be wrangled with and have Fowl taken out of their hands as one lately did and when he was told it was for the King could say he cared not a turd for him or that his Officers should be exposed to the humours or incivilities of Clowns Quakers or disaffected persons And that strangers who have commonly and usually seen forreign Princes travailing in any parts of Christendome out of their own Territories and Jurisdictions to be by a generall and never intermitted custome honourably and respectfully received in all Cities and Places of note and presented with Wine Fish and other provisions such as the place and season of the year afforded which even those Commonwealths States and Places of incivility Trade and selfishness such as Holland and Hamborough do never omit should see the King of Englands Servants and Officers so little respected in their attendance upon him in his Journeys or Progresses as not to be trusted with a small hire of a Cart unless like some beggars in the streets buying an halfpenny or a farthing worth of pottage at a Cooks Shop they do first
Winter and Sommer at less then 20 shiâ—lings a Chaldron and it was by the Statute of 32 H. 8 cap. 8. ordained That none do sell Phesants or Partriches unto any but unto the Officers of the King Queen or Princes Houses upon the forfeiture of 6 s. 8 d. for every Phesant and 4 s. 4 d. for every Partrich and did by their Charters or allowances of Prescription grant Free-warren and divers other Franchises unto divers Lords of Manors yet matters must be so ordered as the King though he buy with ready mony must be sure to pay dearer for his Butter Cheese Coals Beer Ale Billet Tallwood Faggots Grocery-ware Rabbets Phesants and Partriches then any of his Subjects Took away by the Statute of 5 Eliz. the severity of the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. enjoyning small wages to Labourers and Artificers and ordained That the Justices in every County should by their discretion according to the dearth or plenty of victuals yearly at the Sessions held at Easteâ— assesse how much every Mason Carpenter Tyler other Crafts men Workmen and Labourers should have by the day or year and limit proportions of Wages according to plenty or scarcity and by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King James did amongst other things give a further power to the Justices of every County to limit and regulate the wages and hire of Labourers and Artificers according to plenty and scarcity that Act of Parliament being since expired for want of continuance yet the King in all his occasions and affairs for Workmen and Artificers shall be sure to pay them rates and wages at the highest Did by the Statute of 23 Ed. 3. cap. 6. provide That Butchers Fishmongers Brewers Bakers Poulterers and other Sellers of Victuals should sell them at reasonable prices and be content with moderate gains And by the Statute of 13 R. 2. ca. 8. That all Majors Bayliffs Stewards of Franchises and all others that have the order and survey of victualls in Cities Boroughs and Market Towns where victuals shall be sold in the Realm should enquire of the same And if any sell any victuals in other manner he should pay the treble of the value which he so received to the party damnified or in default thereof to any other that will pursue for the same By the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. cap. 2. when but a year before Beef and Pork was by Act of Parliament ordained to be sold at an half penny the pound and Mutton and Veal at an half penny farthing the pound and less in Counties and places that may sell it cheaper and complaint was made in Parliament that the prices of victuals were many times enhaunced and raised by the greedy avarice of the owners of such victuals or by occasion of ingrossing and regrating the same more then upon any reasonable or just ground or cause ordained that the prices of Butter Cheese Capons Hens Chickens and other victualâ— necessary for mans sustenance should from time to time as the case should requireâ— be set and taxed at reasonable prices how they should be sold in gross or by retail by the Lord Chancellor of England Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings most honourable Privy Councel Lord Privy Seal Lord Steward the Chamberlain and all other the Lords of the Kings Councel Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings most honourable House Chancellour of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Kings Justices of either Bench the Chancellor Chamberlains under Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer or any seaven of them whereof the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel or the Lord Privy Seal to be one and commanded the Justices of Peace and Lords of Leets to take a care that the prices and rates of victuals be reasonable Yet the King must not have so much favour and kindness as the Tinientes or Magistrates in the Canarâ—es or other parts of the Spanish Dominions who by reason of their power and authority in the correction and rating of the prices of victuals can have their provisions freely and of gift presented unto them or at small and reasonable rates and prices or as the Lords of Leets the Justices of Assise Justices of Peace Mayors Magistrates of Cities and Corporations might have theirs if they would but put in execution the Laws which are entrusted to their care and charges Nor can have any thing at reasonable rates but is enforced to pay dearer for the provisions of his house then any of his Subjects when as they that could receive his Majesties very large and unexampled Act of Oblivion can only afford him in their Market rates an Act of Oblivion for his protection and care of them and for his many favours and helps in all their occasions and necessities and for forgiving them many Millions of monies sterling or the value thereof and as unto too many of them are willing that our King and Head should in the rates of his victuals and houshold provisions bear the burden of their follies and irregularities Of which the plenty or scarcity of money cannot be any principal or efficient cause as may be verified by an instance or example lately happened in Spain where the calling down of money to the half value to aswage the afflictions of a Famine was so farre from the hoped for effect of abating the prices of victuals and houshold Provisions as they are now well assured that the covetousness of the Sellers and tricks of Trade have added more to the heightning of those rates and prices then any want or abundance of mony And it would therefore well become that part of the People of England who by their intemperance and carelesness as iâ— they were that Nation which dwelt without care against whom the Prophet Jeremy denounced Gods heavy wrath and judgements have brought and reduced themselves and their Estates into a languishing and perishing condition and turned their backs upon the honor of Hospitality to take into their more then ordinary consideration that Sir Anthony Brown a Privy Councellor â—â—to King Henry Eighth did not deviate either from truth or prudence when he said that others apprehension of the Kings greatness did contribute as much to our welfare as our welfare it self or Sir John Russel a vâ—ry valiant as well as wise Statesman Comptroler of the Houshold of King Henry the Eighth and afterwards Earl of Bedford when he declared that the Courts of Princes being those Epitomes through which â—trangers look into Kingdomes should be royally set out with utensils and with attendance who might possess all comers with reverence there and fear elsewhere Or that the learned and reverend Sir James Dier Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-pleas in the 25 th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth committed an error when in the sage and discreet rules left behind him in a Manuscript for the preservation of the Common-wealth he advised that