Elizabeth if they stood upon equall terms with him and owed him neither gratitude allegiance or subjection That he who is so great a looser by the change alteration of times and his own his Royal Progenitors bounties and indulgences might howsoever be allowed to be a little gainer in that one particular of the Compositions for his Pourveyances for in every thing else he is abundantly a very great looser and ought as well to take an advantage by it as the Clergie and Impropriators of England doe by the rise and encrease of their Tithes and impâ—ovement of their Glebes and are sure to be gainers by the difference in the value and price of commodities when as they sell their corn at the highest rates and make the improvement of their Glebes to follow the rise of money and the Markets And may take it to be no Paradox or stranger to any mans understanding or belief that the King who by his Lawes hath ordered that reasonable prises and rates should be taken for victuals and houshold provisions for himself and all his people and if his Sheriffs Justices of Peace Clerks of the Markets and the Lords and Stewards of Court-leets had but imitated the care of their Predecessors in the execution of the trusts committed unto them by their Soveraign and his Laws or of the Sheriffs in the reign of King Henry the third when as the King by his Writ being petitioned to give the Sheriffe of Bedford a power to dispence with the Vintners in the Town of Bedford for selling wine above the rates assize doth it in these words Rex c. Vic. Bed salutem Quia Villa de Bedeford distat a quolibet portu maris duas dietas tibi praecipimus quod permittas Vinitar Bed Sextarium vini Franc. vendere pro 8. denar sextarium vini Andeg. Wascon de Blanc pro 10 d. non obstante c. Teste R. c. allowing them to take for a pint and a half if the Sextarie was then accompted to be no greater a measure of wine 7 d. and for the like measure of white wine of Anjou and Gascoine 10 d. And had not as they doe daily too much neglected the execution of the Laws and laid by their duties to God their King and Country and by being over wakefull and diligent to improve their estates and private interests taken a Nap or fit of sleeping in point of time farre beyond that of the seven notorious Sleepers might at this day have been out of the reach of the causeless murmur of those who as they were seduced and fooled by Oliver and his Associates in the greatest of iniquities can make a Non causa to be a cause of their Complaints and of a grievance to themselves when as they and many of their fellow Subjects are and have been the only and immediate causes of it and if rightly considered is a reall grievance to the King and to all that buy more then they sell. And that if the King and his Laws had been as they ought to have been better obeyed and observed in such a Land or Kingdome as England is which is justly accompted to be blest with so much peace and plenty and such an over-plus of all things good and pleasant as well as necessary for the sustenance of the People or Inhabitants thereof as a deer year is not heard of above once at the most in ten or twenty years but many very cheap ones The rates or prices agreed upon by the Counties in the fourth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth would have been enough and sufficient or more then enough if the Acts of Parliament of 25 H. 8. ca. 2. to suppress the enhaunce of the then Market rates which may well be supposed to have been much cheaper then what it was in Anno 4 of Elizabeth and the Statutes of incerti temporis or King Henry the third 3 4 Ed. 6. ca. 19. 5 Ed. 6. ca. 14. against Forestallers had been duly put in execution And that the 12. Counties bordering upon London and adjacent as Middlesex Essex Kent Surrey Sussex Hertford Buckingham Berkshire Bedford Oxford Cambridge and Hâ—ntington Shires making no small gains by the vent and rise of their provisions and commodities and an high improvement of their Lands beyond all other Counties and Parts of England would if the Markets had been regulated and kept down to such just and reasonable prices as might have been well enough afforded have for want of their now great rates for victuals and commodities night and day sent unto London that greatest belly and mouth of the Kingdome and their racking or improving of their Lands been constrained to let fall and diminish their rates and prices and follow the regulating of the Markets and make their prices and rates to be conformable to the Laws and plenty of the Kingdome which would have brought unto them and their Estates a greater or more then supposed damage many times and very far exceeding the pretended losses of serving in their proportions of the Kings provisions as they were agreed upon And if this shall not be believed without experiments or demonstrations they may be quickly brought to assent unto that which will certainly pâ—ove to be a truth that if the King should as King Henry the second keep his Court and Parliament for a time at â—larendon in Wiltshire or as King Edward the first did keep his Court and Parliament in Denbigh-shire at Ruthland too often mistaken and called Rutland or at Carnarvon in Wales or at York where whilest he was busie and imployed in his Warres against the Scots he kept his Terms and Court for seven years together or as many of the former Kings did keep their Christmas and other great yearly Festivals sometimes at Nottingham other times at Worcester Lincoln and other places far remote from London And as the Sun yearly diffuseth his liâ—ht and heat in his journey through the Tropicks some at one time and some at another unto all parts of the world or as the blood in the body naturall daily circulates visits and comforts all the parts of it should enrich comfort most of the parts of his Kingdom with the presence and influence of his Courts and residence Those rates and prises in the Composition for Pourveyances would rather prove to be too high a rate and allowance then too little As it happened to be in Anno 1640. when the late King and Martyr was enforced to be with his Court and Army about Newcastle upon Tine on the borders and confines of Scotland where the cheapness of victualls and other provisions at the Market rates in those parts fell to be very much under the Kings rates or allowance according to the Compositions for his Pourveyance made in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth which the Inhabitants and People thereabouts understood so well as a great store and farre more pâ—ovisions being daily brought in at those rates then
The Antiquity 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 Provisions of the KINGS Houshold the small charge and burthen thereof to the PEOPLE and the many great Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will inevitably follow the taking of them away By FABIAN PHILIPPS Manilius 3 Perquè tot Aetates hominum tot tempora Annos Tot Bella varios etiam sub pace labores Virgil Aeneid lib. 8. Sic placida populos in pace regebat Deterior donec paulatìm Decolor Aetas Et Belli Rabies Amor successit habendi London Printed by Richard Hodgkinson for the Author and are to be sold by Henry Marsh at the sign of the Princes Arms in Chancery-Lane 1663. To the Right Learned and truely Noble Lord Christopher Lord Hatton Baron of Kirkby Knight of the Bath Governor of the Isle of Guarnesey and one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honorable Privy Council My Lord THE Holy Evangelist St. Luke in his Gospel and History of the Acts of the blessed Apostles when he inscribed or Dedicated it to his friend Theophilus hath given us to understand that the Dedication of Books unto such as would read and peruse them is no late or Novel usage for it was in those times or shortly after not thought to be unfitting or unnecessary to take the approbation and opinion of Grave and Learned men of such things as were to be made publicke as Plinius Junior in his Epistles informs us so that it may with reason and evidence be concluded that the Dedication of Books was not originally to procure the favor of some great or good Man neither were the Epistles Dedicatory heretofore acquainted with those gross Flatteries untruths or immense and accumulated praises of the Patrons or their Ancestors which some Foraign Printers for their own private gain do use in publishing Books out of some Copies and Manuscripts left by the deceased Authors or as too many German and other Authors have of late stuffed their Dedications withall which Heroick and great Souls do so little relish as the Books themselves would meet with a better entertainment if they came without them but one of the best and most approved usages of Dedications hath certainly and most commonly been derived from no other Source or Fountain then the great desire which the Author had there being before printing most probably but a few Copies sent abroad to receive the friendly censure and approbation of some Learned man who would in those days carefully read and peruse it and not as now too many men do oscitanter and cursorily take a view onely of the Frontispice or Title and lay it in the Parlor or Hall Windows to be idly turned over by such as tarry to speak with them or else crowd it in their better furnished then read or understood Libraries to make a Muster or great shew of such Forces as they have to bring into the Feild of Learning when there shall be any occasion to use them but neither then or before are able to finde or say what is in them But your Lordship being Master of the Learning in Books as well as of an excellent well furnished Library with many choice Manuscripts never yet published and very many Classick Authors and Volums printed and carefully pick't and gathered together out of the Gardens of good letters which an unlearned and reforming Rebellion and the Treachery of a wicked servant hired to discover them did very much diminish And your Eye and Judgement being able before hand to Calculate the Fate of the Author in the good or bad opinion of all that go by any Rules or measure of right Reason Learning or Judgement I have adventured to present unto your Lordship these my Labours in the Vindication of the Legality Antiquity right use and necessity of the Praeemption and Pourveyance of the Kings of England or Compositions for the Provisions of their Royall houshold for that your Lordship is so well able to judge of them and having been Comptroller of the houshold to his Majesties Royal Father the Martyr King CHARLES the First and to the very great dangers of your person and damage of your Estate like one of Davids good servants gone along with him in all his Wars and troubles when as he being first assaulted was inforced to take Arms against a Rebellious and Hypocritical part of his people in the defence of himself and his people their Religion Laws and Liberties and the Priviledges of Parliament and not only remained Faithfull to him during his life but after his death unto his banished and strangely misused Royal Issue when Loyalty and Truth were accompted crimes of the greatest magnitude and like some houses infected with the plague had more then one ✚ set upon them with a Lord have mercy upon us And did whilst that blessed King continued in his Throne and Regalities so instruct your self in those Excellent Orders and Government of his house as you have been able to enlighten and teach others amongst whom I must acknowledge my self to have been one and out of a Manuscript carefully collected by your Lordship concerning the Rules and Orders of the Royal houshold which your Lordship was pleased to communicate unto me to have been very much informed which together with the many favors with which you have been pleased to oblige me the incouragements which you have given me to undertake this work and the great respect and veneration which I bear unto your Lordships grand accomplishments in the Encyclopaidia large extent and traverses of all kinde of learning and your knowledge of Foraign Courts and Customes which being very extraordinary if you were of the ranke of private men must needs be very much more when it shall be added to the eminency of your Birth and qualitie and the Trust and Emploiments which his Majesty hath been pleased deservedly to confer upon you have emboldened me to lay these my endeavors before your Lordship submitting them to an utter oblivion and extinguishment and to be stifled in the Birth or Crâ—dle if they shall not appear unto your Lordship to be worthy the publike view and consideration Wherein although some may feast and highly content their Fancies with censuring me that I have been to prodigal of my labors in proving either at all or so largly the antiquity or legality of the Kings just Rights unto Prae-emption and Pourveyance or Compositions for them when as the Act of Parliament in Anno 12 of his now Majesties raign for taking them away doth give him a Recompence for them yet I may I hope escape the censure or blame of setting up a Giant of Straw and fighting with it when I have done or of being allied to such as fight with their own shadows or trouble themselves when there is neither any cause or necessity for it when as the Act of Parliament for taking away Pourveyance
people Subjects and men of Honor in England in those more honorable more performing less complementing times but since withering and growing fruitless and out of fashion when that great commander Luxury had with his Regiments and Brigades of vices new fangles and vanities subdued and put the people to a greater contribution towards such their wicked and vain expences and all that they can now make shift for is too little to support and bear out their extravagancies It is well known and experimented to the great comfort of such as lived within the virge of the Kings houses and residence that the Hospitality of the Kingdome like the heart in the body naturall the primum vivens beginner and conservator of life beginning in the Kings house and propagating and diffusing it self in and through as many of the Nobility and Gentry as being de meliori lutâ— of a more then ordinary extraction did strive as much as became them to imitate Royal Examples would be in the Kings house the ultimum mâ—riens the last which expired And that besides the necessary grandeur and magnificence of the Kings houshold plenty and variety of meat and drink to entertain at his Officers Tables the Nobility Gentry and Citizens which had any occasion to come thither and 240 gallons of Beer allowed the poor every day at the Buttery Barre three gallons every day at the Court gate for thirteen poor men six services or messe of meat and seven pieces of beef a day as wast and extraordinarie for the Kings Honor the chippings of bread sometimes more then should be and the fragments and knapstry of broken or quarter or half joynts of meat carcases of Fowl and Poultry pieces of Pie-crust or other provisions carefully and daily gathered and put into severall Almes-baskets left at every Table and Chamber in the Court and distributed unto the poor by two Grooms and two Yeomen of the Elemosinary or Almnery who enjoy an yearly Salary and maintenance from the King for that only imployment which hath fed and supported many poor Families in and about Westminster as well as Common Beggars the Lodgings and accomodations of Nobility and Gentry resorting to the Court have so greatly enriched all the Streets and parts about it as that end of London and parts adjacent have like trees planted by the water side so very much prospered as Westminster which originally had but some scattered houses adjoyning to the Abby and the Kings Palace came aftewards to be a Burrough Town Corporation endowed with great Liberties and Priviledges and sending Burgesses to the Parliament afterwards to be a City and the people of other parts as birds haunting the woods for shelter shade or succor observing the plenty happiness which they enjoyed have built made their nests habitations as near as they could unto that place and Royal seat of bounty charity and magnificence insomuch as the swelling and increase of London at this day every where to be seen not without some admiration in her Extent and buildings hath within this and the last Century of years very much outgrown that antient City it self and as Mr. John Graunt and some others have truly and ingeniously observed extended it self Westward and as near as it could unto the Royal bitation as if that were more to be desired for a neighbourhood then the River of Thames the Exchange or Custome-house of London and places of Trade and Traffick They therefore that shall remember how his Majesties Maundie or Charity kept as his Royal Ancestors ever did upon the Thursday before Easter or Eve of Good-Friday with a Joul of Salmon a Poll of Ling 30 red Herrings and as many white garnished with â—erbs in new clean wooden dishes four six penny loaves of Court bread cloth for a Gown and a Shirt a pair of New Shoes and Stockins and a single penny with a twenty shillings piece of gold overplus put in severall little purses given to as many poor old men as the King is years old and the state and decency observed in the distributing of it after their feet washed and dried and the King with a condiscention and unexampled humility beyond the reach and example of any of his Subjects kneeling upon his knees and devoutly kissing the feet of those his Almes-men cannot certainly tell how to murmur at such an hospitality or Provisions which afforded him the means wherewith to doe it Nor should the many cures which he yearly doth unto such as are Lame Blind Diseased or troubled with the Disease called the Kings Evil because he cureth it the patience and meekness which he employeth in it and the yearly charge of at least three thousand pounds per annum which his Angel Gold of the value of ten shillings and a silk Ribbon put about the neck of every one be they rich or poor young or old which doe come to that English Pool of Bethesda to be healed and cured be forgotten or thought unworthy a gratitude or some remuneration or acknowledgements Neither can any that ever understood or read of the round Tables of our King Arthur the great Roger Mortimer and the famous Hospitality of England continued through the British Saxon and Norman times all the turmoyls and troubles of the after Generations in their greatest extremities of the Barons warres and the direfull and bloody contentions of the two great discording Houses of York and Lancaster with the vast quantities of Land given besides to Monasteries and Religious Houses to the great increase of Charity and Alms-deeds which was then the only Trade driven or thought on in the way to Cabo di buona speranza the everlasting rest of the righteous the large proportions of Lands given for Chantries in a then supposed pious care of themselves and their Progenitors great gifts and remunerations to Servants and curtesies and kindness to Neighbours and Tenants when most of our Nobility and Gentry thought themselves not great unless they were good nor a Gentleman because he had only the insignia virtutum Armories and marks of the honor of his Ancestors descended unto him without the virtuous noble and heroick qualities which were the cause or original of them when pride and interest the Devils Deputies were not the Soveraign which they most obeyed vanity and all the folliâ—s of sin the neighbours which they loved as themselves when virtue was not reckoned as it is now amongst too many a base or simple companion nor honour turned into a Pageant or nâ—men inane or only made a pretence to deceive mens expectations when almost every English Gentleman was in his Parish and amongst his Tenants like Job that good accomptant of his talents a deliverer of the poor that cried the fatherless and him that had none to help him caused the Widows heart to sing for joy was eyes to the blinde feet to the lame brake the jawes of the wicked pluckt the spoils out of his teeth grieved for the poor
Aurum Reginae Gold or presents made and given to the Queen in return of their Gifts and favors received from the King Great liberties and priviledges by grants of free Warren Mines Felons and Outlaws goods Deodands Waiss Estraies Fishings Court Leets Tolls and freedom from Tolls to many Cities and people of England granted since the ninth year of the raign of King Henry the third when for the like and some other liberties then confirmed unto them the people of England not having half so much before that time granted unto them as by the bounty and Indulgences of the succeeding Kings and Princes they have had since took it to be no ill bargain to give unto the King for that his grace and favour a Subsidy of the Fifteenth part of all their moveables not loosely rated or much undervalued as their posterities have found the way to do Abundance of Wood and Tymber sold and destroyed by their prodigal posterities which yeelded them as much money as the inheritance of the Lands would have done some of their wives like the story of Garagantuas lusty Mare whisking down with their Tailes whole Woods and great store of Timber in them of two or three hundred years growth A lesser number of servants and retainers and charge of Badges and Liveries especially since the Statutes of 1 R. 2. ca. 7. and 8 E. 4. ca. 2. made against too great a number or the abuse of them when as now many Gentlemen can put a Coachman Carter into one and supply the places of a Servingman Butler and Taylor by one man fitted for all those imployments A great increase of Wool and the price thereof since the Raign of King Edward the third by our quondam flourishing Trade of Clothing untill that our late giddy times of Rebellion had so very much lessened and impaired it Many great Factories or Manufactures of Bays Sayes Serges and Kerseys at and about Colchester Sudbury c. and of stuffs at Norwich Canterbury Sandwich Kiderminster c. erected and encouraged before our long and late unhappy wars and the raign and Rapine of Mechanick Reformers The Lands of Wales greatly improved since the Raign or King Henry the fourth and his severe Laws which denyed them the intercourse commerce and priviledges of England The freeing of some of the Northern Counties as Cumberland Westmerland and Northumberland from the trouble charge and damages of maintaining their Borders against the Scotish formerly and frequent outrages invasions and taking away their goods and cattle by day and by night And the like freedom from the incursions and depraedations of the Welch assured and settled upon the four Shires or Counties of Gloucester Worcester Hereford and Shropshire by the guard and residence of a Lord President of Wales and the Marches thereof Abundance of Markets and Fairs now more then formerly granted so as few or no parts of England and Wales can complain of any want of them within every four or five miles distance Great stoâ—e of Welch Scottish and Irish-cattel now yearly brought into England when as few or none were heretofore Horses Oxen and Cattel now by Law permitted to be transported into the parts beyond the Seas which were formerly denyed A greater profit made to many private Lords of Mannors by Lead and other Mines c. more then heretofore Many Fruit Trees bearing Apples Pears c. yearly planted and great quantities of Sider and Perry made more then formerly Many Rivers made Navigable and Havens repaired The loss of Cattel and great damages by Inundations of the Sea or the Creeks thereof or of some boysterous and unâ—uly Rivers prevented by contributions to the making of Sea walls by several Statutes or Commissions for Sewers None or very little trouble or charges before ouâ— late wars for maintaining of Garrisons c. or by the disorder or Rapines of any of them Our Ships better then in former times secured upon the Sea Coasts by light houses c. Some of our Principal native Commodities as Fâ—llers Earth Leather Hides c. and Corn when it is not cheap prohibited to be exported Divers Statutes restraining Aliens not being Denizend to Trade or keep Shops c. Convenient provisions made for Vicars in case of Churches appropriate The goods of Foraigners to be taxed for the payment of fifteens The breed of large Horses and increase of Husbandry commanded divers Statutes made for the incouragement of Merchants Merchandize and Mariners preservation of Fishing Fuel Cattel and Rivers and against Freequarter of souldiers excessive Tolls Forestallers Regrators Ingrossers and Monopolies Riots Routs and Vagabond Rogues and to relieve the poor All Commotes or unlawful gatherings of money in Wales and the Marches thereof taken away Weights and measures Regulated Depopulations prohibited Many an unjust title in concealed Lands made good by sixty years quiet possession Interest for money lent reduced to a lower rate then formerly and Brokage forbidden No Tillage or errable land to be laid down but as much to be broken up Merchants Strangers permitted to Trade and sell their Merchandize in England and buy and sell things veâ—dible and a great improvement of Trade and Merchandize six or seven times exceeding that which was in or before the raign of Queen Elizabeth Fishgarthes in the Rivers of Ouse and Humber ordered to be pulled down The passage upon the River of Severne freed from Tolles imposed by the proprietors of the Lands upon the Banks The bringing of Silver Bullion into England by our English Merchants encouraged the transportation from thence of Gold and Silver without the Kings licence prohibited and the care of the Kings Exchangers untill the disuse of it now of late preventing all abuses in the coyn or money of the Kingdom Merchants Aliens and Merchants of Ireland ordained to imploy their mony received in England upon the Commodities thereof and every Merchant Alien to finde Sureties that they shall not carry Gold or Silver out of this Realm The keeping of great numbers of Sheep by rich men whereby meaner men were impoverished restrained to a certain number Ordinances made for Bakers Brewers and other Victuallers The prices of victuals to be rated and assessed by the Magistrates Rents of houses in Staple-Towns to be reasonable and assessâ—d by the Maior Great quantities of waste grounds and Commons inclosed and improved A long and happy Peace at home for more then two hundred years Many an Act of Parliament made to prevent or remedy grievances enlarge the peoples liberties and make them the most free and happy Nation in the world si sua bona Norint if they could but be content with their happiness and know how to use it All the Revenues and Estates of the people aswell reall as personal exceedingly and by many degrees improved more then formerly And all manner of Victuals and provisions sold at such excessive rates and prices as would busie our Forefathers with no common or ordinary wonder if they could be alive again
of Supernumeraries cannot be lessened where the high State and Honor of a King is to be maintained which some great or publike occasions as at Coronations Funerals Triumphs c. onely excepted is principally to reside in his house or fixed Station and therefore it cannot be for the good of the people or be correspondent to the Majesty of a great King that a lesser number of Maces should be born before him or that there should not be so many servants of one the same imployment but if the grandeur and magnificence of the King could be served with a lesser number of servants the pretended surplusage would be necessary enough in order to the preferring and pleasing of his people and to give them encouragement to love and honor him which is their head and to make it their business to preserve and keep up the honor and gâ—eatness of the King and his Court which David in the order and placing of Officers and servants in the house and Temple of the God of Israel as well as in his own did not think impertinent as the several distributions and pluralities of Officers to places of one and the same nature will sufficiently evidence and to do otherwise would as little conduce to that Decorum which ought to be in a Kings Family as some indigested advice would do in the propounding that there might be a sparing of a great yearly charge of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners who were anciently those that served in War and ad latus principis in a pitched field or Battel and were by Covenant and Indenture which are frequently mentioned and to be found in the Records and ancient memorials of the Kingdom his Pensioners onely for that purpose because that the King is at a charge of a Life Guard which cannot comprehend and take in the uses for the Gentlemen Pensioners in their guarding the King within doors where there is a greater decency and honor in them and their service then can be in the Esau's or men of the Field and such as are onely useful in the direful Sacrifices to Bellona where the Majesty of a King is laid aside and by a present necessity exchanged for a sword and the bloody and unmajestick business of it and would be as little for the profit of a King within the Virge of that honor which shâ—uld encompass and attend him and his affairs as to suppose that the Master of the houshold which certainly hath been as ancient as the houshold it self and never but once for ought appears to the contrary intermitted and then by the cunning insinuation and self ends of one that was too instrumental in the introducing of our Trojan Horse is useless and supernumerary for that the Treasurer Comptroller Cofferer Clerks of the Greencloth and Clerks Comptrollers may amongst them and altogether discharge and supply the care and business of it which will appear to be no more then suppositions and pretences when as the Office of Master of the houshold which if well executed and as it ought to be is of most necessary use and of a greater Fatigue and trouble then any other of the houshold is not at all comprehended in the Lord Steward or great Master of the housholds place nor within the Offices of Treasurer Comptroller Cofferer Clerks of the Greencloth or Clerks Comptrollers but hath as all the rest of the Officers of the Greencloth have his peculiar and particular charge which is to inspect all the under Offices of the houshold and to be as a Corrigidor or Surveyor of those numerous Officers and servants which are therein unto which the other great imployments and high honor of the Lord Steward and the Treasurer and Comptroller who are of his Majesties Privy Councel will not permit them always to attend to call in question and prosecute the punishment of such under Officers and Servants and their irregularities as deserve it and keep a constant watch eye upon their actions and cause the daily orders and commands of the great Officers to be obeyed and executed by the inferior as well as the set and known Rules of the house which is now more then ever necessary and not to be wanted when there are so very great and many disorders which aâ—e heightned and more and more increased by the want of the Royal Pourveyances or Compositions for them and by the enhaunce of rates and prices of houshold provisions which do more infest the Purse and profit of the King then any supernumerary Officers and servants have as yet done and hinder him from regulating these unallowable improvements and as they are called Fees and perquisites of some Offices and Places in his Court by an Augmentation of the ancient Wages and Salaries of his servants now far too little and unable to support them in his service which the monys wasted in the damages and loss sustained for want of his Prae-emption and Pourveyances and by those otherwise remediless irregularities would have easily accomplished And all the people of England and their after generations may take it to be no less then their duty as well as their interest and if the irrational creatures were but to be Judges of it a common gratitude to endeavour all they can and to be willing that those ancient Rights should be continued and preserved to the King and his successors And having no small concernment in the honor of their Kings which by its Rays and Râ—flexions communicated unto them was and ever is and will be as necessary for the good and welfare of the King and his people as either Credit Cloths Jewels or any thing else they can have or adorn themselves withall when as their own interest or well or ill being is involved in the Kings May understand it to be no less their interest to uphold the honor of the King and his house then it was the interest of their forefathers who if they had not found it to be a more then ordinary concernment of themselves and every good subject to be assistant thereunto would not so often have been petitioners in several Parliaments and several Kings Raigns for the well ordering of the Kings house And being not ignorant how much all people are won and kept by hospitalities and benefits or lost for want of them should not be instrumental to mudd or stop the fountain but cherish rather keep the hospitality of the Kings house as carefully as the Romans did their Vestal fire and the Anciâ—ia or sacred Sheilds as some special part of the salus populi and believe that it was for the interest of the Nation that some Lords of the Kings Privy Council in the 21. year of the Raign of Henry the eighth even in the decay and expiring of Hospitality and almost all other the English vertues did amongst other Articles of Impeachment exhibited to the King against Cardinal Woolsey who kept a very large and ample Hospitality in his own house charge him that
very great sum of money which is reduced to an ordinary Revenue takes a Tax for the Chimneys or Fires in every house yearly to be paid towards the Wages of soldiers and an allowance to be made to such of the Nobility as attend the Vice Roy another Tax towards the Garrisons and a great Tax upon Silk and Cards Victuals and houshold provisions where the people having besides four thousand Barons or Titulado's with many petty Princes Dukes Marquesses and Earls to domineer over them do find the great plenty of that Country converted into a poverty of the common people Nor as the great Duke of Tuscany imposes besides other Assessements upon extraordinary necessitys eight per cent upon Dowries and as much upon the sale of all immoveables according to the full and real value the tenth part of the Rent made by houses or lands leased a rate upon every pound of flesh sold and upon Bills of Exchange and when he is to raise any great sum of money makes his list of all the rich men able to fuâ—nish it who not dareing to deny it are within twenty eight moneths after repaid by a general Taxe laid upon the people exacteth an Excise upon Roots and Herbs or the least thing necessary for the life of man bought or sold or brought to any Towns and a Tax likewise to be paid by every Inholder Brewer Baker and Artificer and of every man travailing by land or by water who pays money at every Bridge or Gate of a Town and if he doth not pay the Gabeller Arrests him and is ready to strip him naked to see what Goods he hath which ought to pay a Gabel Neither as the King of Spain doth in Milan where his subjects do the better endure their multitude of taxes by his moderating la voragine de gl interesse their grand usury cutting off or restraining le spese superflue superfluous expences havendo gli occhi apperti alle mani de Ministri and by the Magistrates keeping a strict watch and eye upon the Ministers of State and Justice who do notwithstanding so load and oppress the people as it is grown into an Adage or Proverb Il ministro di Sicilia rode quel di Napoli mangia quel di Milano divora the Governors and officials of Sicily do gnaw the estates of the people those of Naples eat them and those of Milan devour them Nor as in Spain where the people being Tantalized may hear of Gold and Silver brought from the West Indies and sometimes see it but it being altogether imployed to maintain souldiers Garrisons and designes in the services of their Princes never to be satisfied ambition of piling up Crowns Scepters and Titles one upon another as if they intended to give thier neighbor Princes no rest untill they had built themselves a Piramid of them passes away from the subjects like a golden Dream leaving them a certain assurance that the Gold and Silver of America hath but increased their Burdens and Taxes and that besides their servitios ordinarios ordinary and formerly accustomed services paid and done and the Subsidies called Des millions upon extraordinary occasions and necessities granted in their Parliaments or Assemblies of the Estates and the charges which the people are put to for librancas Warrants or Assignments for moneys to be paid like a late and ill invented way of Poundage here in England and the Eâ—comienda's or recommendations to Offices Places or Dignities or the Venteia or sale of them and the appointing Alcaldes or Officers of Justice in the Towns and Villages and Corregidors oâ— Governors to look to their obedience to Laws and Taxes and the profit of their inquisitions do pay the Alcavala or tenth of every mans estate first raised at a twentieth by Alphâ—nsus the twelfth in An. Dom. 1342. to expell the Moors and since though they be long ago driven away made a perpetual Revenue Collect out of all Lands Houses Goods Commodities which are sold and from Artificers Workmen Tavern keepers Manufactures Butchers Fishmongers Markets c. And for every thing sold or which they take mony for an Almoxariffe do take a tenth of all Foraign Commodities imported and exported a tenth of all Merchandize exported to the West Indies a twentieth when they come thither paid for importation Vectigalia decimaruÌ„ portuum siccorum or puertos secos a tenth of all Commodities carryed by Land out of the lirtle Kingdoms of Valentia Arragon and Navarre and out of Portugall into any part of Spain and from Spain into any of those Kingdoms two Ducats from the Natives of Spain and four of Strangers for every Sack of Wooll exported El Senneor-capo de la moneda a Real or six pence out of every six Ducats coyned in the Mint a Tax called the Almodraua out of the Tunny Fishes a great yearly Revenue out of salt El exercitio a tribute for the maintenance of the Gallies and Marriners la Monoda Forara which is seven Maravedis for ever Chimney a Tax upon Cards Quicksilver and Russet Cloth made in Spain and the Maestrazgos a great Revenue yeerly raised upon the Rents and Estates of the Knights of the Orders of St. Jago Calatrava and Alcantara'la Cruzava or benefit of the Kings selling of the Popes Pardons to eat Flesh in Lent or tiâ—es prohibited granted to maintain the charge of War against Infidels or Hereticks yearly yeilding eighty thousand pounds sterling the terzae or thirds out of the Lands and Estates of the Ecclesiasticks and Clergy for the maintenance of the wars and defence of the Catholick Religion over and above the Excusado or ordinary Revenue of a Tenth by the grant of the Pope of all the goods and Lands of the Church which yeildeth yearly six hundred and twenty thousand Duckets besides the State Artifices of getting Bulls or Warrants from the Pope to lay heavy Taxes upon the Clergy as in Anno 1560. to leavy every year for five years together three hundred thousand Crowns with a liberty of lengthning that time if the Pope should think fit to furnish fifty Gallies against the Infidels and Hereticks and two years after an Addition of four hundred thousand Duckets per annum and at another time three Millions for six years to be yearly paid by the Clergy vast sums of money yeerly raised out of their Wine and Oyl for some yeers insomuch as the Cardinal Ossatus complaining of it saith That nullus est Clerus in toto orbe Christiano qui majoribus oneribus prematur quam Clerus Hispaniae no Clergy in the Christian world is more oppressed with Taxes then the Clergy of Spain Doth not lay such Taxes or Impositions as the people of Portugal do bear by the Alfandega's or Impositions upon all Merchandize Corn excepted Imported upon some a tenth upon some a fifth and in some places some other parâ—s a Tax upon Wood Wine Oyl Fruit Flesh Fish Blacks or Negros servants or slaves
by King Francis the first for that they could hinder their passage thorough their Towns or coming into them and after upon the Country to be paid without exemption of persons or allowance of priviledge with an addition of charge added thereunto by an Ordinance of that King for the maintenance of the seven Legions of Foot consisting of six thousand men a peece for the safeguard of the Kingdom the tenths of all the Benefices and Dignities Ecclesiasticks and Commonalties erected into Benefices which have a Revenue in perpetual succession les deniers Communs or monies imposed upon Cities and Towns for the repair fortification or defence of them or of any Castles or Forts to which all are to contribute without exemption the rights and payments due out of very many Bishopricks and Archbishopricks for Quints and Requints Rachapts Censives Lots Ventes Saisines Amandes Justices Greffes Auboines confiscations the Estappes or Annonae militares free quarterings or Provisions for the Armies or souldiers in their March or encampings contributions in times of peace pour le Ban arriere Ban upon Fiefs and Tenures levâ—es de Chevaux Charriotts a leavy upon Carts and Carriages le Traicte Imposition forraigne being a twentieth penny extending to all commodities that are carryed by Land out of the Kingdom into other Kingdoms and Territories as out of France into Catalonia Spain Lorraine Savoy Flanders and Italy makes as much as an Excise upon Corn Wine Oyle Flesh Fish Poultery Herbs Fruits and all sorts of Victuals and Provisions for the Belly and the Back All which before mentioned Taxes and Impositions being become as the Sieur Girard du Haillan saith who wrote in the later end of the Raign of their King Henry the fourth Patrimonial and Hereditary or as Droits du Domaine without any distinction betwixt the times of war or peace and leavied as the ordinary Revenues of the Crown of France have been by the Artifice of Lewis the 11. and other his successors more then doubled or trebled by other Tailles Taxes and Impositions which are laid upon extraordinary occasions by the Kings Ordonnances or Letters Parents quand bon lui sâ—mble at his own will and pleasure and so much as the Sieur de Haillan complains that ilz ne se sont contentez des dites Tailles mais peu a peu ont mis sur le dos du paâ—ure peuple les autres impositions depuis on a mis Taille sur Taille imposition sur imposition dont la France se est esmeüe contre ses Roys ils en ont cuide perdre la France they were not content with those ordinary Taxes but by little and little have put upon the backs of the poor people Tax upon Tax and Imposition upon imposition which caused a sedition and rebellion amongst the people which had almost lost or destroyed all France and in stead of diminishing are more and more increased though their good King St. Lewis who raigned in Anno Domini one thousand two hundred and thirty did upon his death bed in the words of a dying man as Bodin saith inserted into his last Will Testament exhort his son Philip to be legum Morum sui Imperii Custos vindex acerrimus ac ut vectigalibus tributis abstineret nisi summa necessitas ac utilâ—â—atis publicae justissima causa impellat to be a Guardian and severe observer of the Laws and customs of his Kingdom and abstain from Taxes and Impositions unless there should be a great necessity or it should appear to be for the good of the people and that afterwards Philip de Valois did in an Assembly of the three Estates in Anno one thousand three hundred thirty eight Enact and decree ne ullum Tributi aut vectigalis genus nisi consentientibus ordinibus imperaretur that no kinde of Tallage or Tax should be leavyed without the consent of the three Eastes So very many have been day after day added as there is not to be wanted a Tax or Imposition for Piâ—s for the Queen and for Clouts against her time of Child-bed with Daces or Tributes Peages Impositions upon the going out and in of Towns and other places Taxes for passage upon the high ways Emprunts generaux particuliers borrowing of money in general or particular ad nunquam Solvenda never to be paid again vente confirmation des offices sale of Offices and places of Justice and Judicature which their ancient and fundamental Laws and customes do forbid and being cut into small parts and multiplyed do make up a very great Total or number and by a common and publike Merchandise of them have increased those great corruptions delays and intrigues of Justice by appeals and otherwise which our learned Fortescue Chancellor to our King Henry the sixth observed in the time of his Exile was no small grievance of the people and made that litium fertilitas abundance of suits and controversies which their own Learned Bodin doth ingeniously acknowledge to be so very many as vix in omnibus Europae Regionibus imperiis tot lites sint quam in hoc unto Imperio there are not so many suits in Law almost in all the Counties and Kingdoms of Europe put all together as they were in his time in that one Kingdome of France which besides the Ottroys or aydes granted by the three Estates and universal consent of the people upon publike and great emergencies and occasions are with many Arbitrary Taxes and Assessements as the King or the necessities of War or State shall require much the more burdensome to the Pesants Bourgeois and Artizans or a third or lower estate of the people for that all the Clergy so long as they live Clericalement without taking of Farms or dealing in Lay matters which with their Tenants and dependencies have been in the Raign of King Henry the fourth reckoned to be an hideous number are to be exempt from the Tailles or Arbitrary Taxes as likewise all the Nobility and Gentry which are many and very numerous both in the greater and lesser sort of them and that most men of any Estate both of the long Robe or Lawyers or soldiers or other lower ranks do by purchase procure themselves to be of the nobless or Gentry for that they are thereby to be freed from arbitrary Tallages insomuch as some thousands have been at once enfranchised made Gentlemen and inrolled into that condition or quality for such lands as they hold in their hands there being amongst those which are exempted also reckoned the Domesticks of the King and Queens the house and Crown of France and their sons daughters brothers and sisters if they do not Traffick or negotiate further then with the increase of their own Lands and Revenues With such also as are exempt by paâ—ticular Mandates and Ordinances of the King as amongst the souldiers and Life Guards the Captains Lieutenants Cornets Guidons Quartermasters men at Arms Archers Fourriers
to receive the Kings or Princes Messengers or Earls or Dukes and their Attendants imployed in their Affairs but to give them entertainment according to their dignities and it was so especially ordained as de missis nostris discurrentibus saith an express Law of that good and virtuous as well as great Emperor vel ceteris propter utilitatem nostram iter agentibus ut nullus mansionem contradicere eis presumat no man was to deny any employed upon his service entertainment in his house regis quoque recipiendi idem onus provincialibus incumbebat ejusque rei cura ad mansionarium and the King was in his Progress or travelling to have the like and the care thereof belonged to an Officer called Mansionarius or Mansionum Marescallum the Marshall or as we now call it the Harbenger to whom saith Hinckmarus out of Adalhardus it belonged ut in hoc maxime sollicitudo ejus intenta esset ut susceptores quo tempore ad eos illo in loco Rex venturus â—sset propter mansionum preparationem ut opportuno tempore prescire potuissent nè aut tardè scientes propter afflictionem familie importuno tempore peccatum aut isti propter non condignam susceptionem to take great care that those who were to receive the King when he should come might have such timely notice as for want thereof the Family might not be put to the greater trouble or punished for not worthily entertaining him And the old French whom Franciscus Hottâ—mannus would make to be the freest of all Nations were so used to those paratas or pastùs making provisions for their Kings as they did make livrees a term now used in France for provisions or meats which in specie were daily provided for the Kings house Et olim magistris hospitiijus Annonae quae in Comitatum Regium importabatur per praeconem statuendi praetium eosque poenis gravioribus mulctandi qui societatem coiissent ut Annona Carior esset and therefore the Stewards or great Officers of the Kings Houshold did heretofore appoint the rates of provision for the Kings house publickly proclaim it and punish such as did confederate to raise the prices or make them dearer Et non hospicium modo Regi aliisque ab eo missis dabatur verum parabantur alimenta not lodging or house-room only but food and provisions were to be provided for the King or such as he should employ upon his occasions Nor was it unusual amongst the antient Germans who totam spirantes libertatem though they were loath to come behind any Nations of the world in freedome ex omnibus quae terra producere solet usui necessariis exceptis vix bubus semmibus ad excolendam terram idoneis de ceteris quantum necesse fuerit militi profuturis ad regios usus suppeditare aequum illi arbitrentur of all which the earth produced and was necessary for use except Oxen and seed to sow the ground withall and might supply the Army to furnish some part for the use of the King In Franconia that great part or Circle of the German Empire which is washed with the Rhine non antea Vindemiare cuiquam concessum quam domini quibus decimae debentur permiserunt suis expensis decimam in domini Torcular inferre debent no man was to gather and press his grapes without the Lords licence and every man was at his own charge to bring the tenth part thereof to their Lords By the Laws of tâ—e Ripuarians or Borderers upon the Rhine a penalty of 60 shillings was to be imposed upon him qui Legatarium Regis vel ad Regem seu in utilitatem Regis pergentem hospitio contempserit who should refuse to lodge any Embassadour of the Kings or sent unto him And amongst the Lombards such a care there was to be in every man of all the Kings concerns as nemopresumat ad Regem venienti mansionem vetare quae necessaria sunt sicut vicino suo ei vendat no man was to deny any of the Kings Lieges lodging in his journey to the King but was to sell him things necessary as cheap as to his Neighbour In Poland which is an Elective Kingdome and where the people take no small care of their Liberties and Priviledges the Agrestes and Ascriptitii Socage Tenants and Husbandmen besides their Rents paid to the King in money Pensitant Pecuarias Frumentarias Avenarias aliarum rerum pensiones nec Agricolae sed et oppidani quin et equites sive milites non penitùs immunes sunt doe provide Cattle Corn Oates and other provisions and not only the Husbandmen but the Burgers neither are the Knights or Gentry altogether free from it Jumenta autem ei quacunque iter facit et canes cum venatoribus ejus alere necesse habent but doe furnish horses and carriages and provisions for his Hounds and Hunters And the Kingdome being divided into four parts Rex in orbem quotannis invisit the King every year visiteth them in his Progress è quorum singulae ternis mensibus alunt Regem Regumque Comitatum and every Province for the space of three moneths doe furnish him and his Court with provisions of victuals The dull and frozen Muscovite or Russian denies not his Prince his labour when he calls for it or a part ex ferarum exuviis of the surres which he getteth The Tartars as fierce and unruly as they are and a nasty People nearly related to beasts who live in Tents all the Summer and remove from place to place with their Cousins the Cattle and in their Cottages or ugly Houses daubed with their Cattles dung all the Winter drink Mares milk and eat Horse-flesh carrion and garbage bestowing many times no more Cookery upon it then what â—he wind and sun affords them do willingly furnish their Prince or great Chan with horses and all kind of houshold provisions as well in time of Peace as Warre The Laplanders and Samoites bordering upon the Dane and Russe when they hold their Mart at Cola upon St. Peters day cannot keep it unless the Captain of the Wardhuyss that is Resiant there for the King of Denmark be present or send his Deputy to set prices upon their Stock-fish Train-oyl Furres and other Commodities as also the Emperour of Russia's Customer or Tribute Taker to receive his Custome which is ever paid before any thing can be bought or sold. At Naples a Tribute is yearly paid pro singulis focis pro hospitiis praesidiariorum nobilium quorundam qui Proregem comitantur by every house towards the charge and provision of the Presidents and Nobles which attend the Vice-Roy and every two years great Donations are presented from the Churches The Grand Duke of Florence or Tuscany vectigal quod ipsi darium vocant pro animalibus quae Florentiam ducuntur percipit hath a Tribute which they
Mogende great and high and mighty Lords like a Corporation of Kings govern the people by a false perswasion of liberties under more burdens and Taxes then they ever endured under their Earles of Holland and Friesland and their German and Spanish Monarchs can in their Low-country and levelling humour and the ill measure which they take of reverence to their betters afford the Prince of Orange and his Court and Houshold which is not small a freedom from Excise upon the buying of all provisions for his house which after the rate of its griping would goe a great part of the way to as much as what the King of England saves by his Pourveyances and the like to the Queen of Bohemia her Retinue and Court when she was resident amongst them Embassadours of forraign Princes the English Company of merchants of the Staple their Armies common Souldiers when they are â—n the field or a Leaguer for all their victuals and such like provisions their ships and men of warre at sea and to the University of Leyden for their Wine and Beer The States Generall having great and fitting stipends from their several Provincâ—s whom they represent in an Assembly or standing Counsel at the Hague and the Deputies of every Province sent to the Hague when their Comitia or as it were Parliaments are there assembled have each of them four Florens or our eight shillings a day allowed them the Princes of Orange besides their great places of Captain General by Sea and by Land which yielded them great profits as well as power had 1000 pounds sterling a moneth stipend eâ— cum in castris agebant et in ipsa erat expeditione when they were in the Leagure or any service of warre had for a present given them forty thousand Florens being almost four thousand pounds sterling for a Present or Honorary magnaque pecuniae vis quâ— centum millia persaepe excedebaâ— in eundem conferebatur and a great sum of money over and above which many times was more then one hundred thousand Florens or ten thousand pounds sterling for Spies Intelligence and other necessaries without any accompt to be given for it which stipends of the Prince of Orange and the States of Holland or the Duke of Venice including their charges of Diet Servants and Retinue and all other necessaries belonging to the honor of their imployments being paid in money or raised by Taxes or Excise out of the people have no other difference with the Pourveyance or Royall provision for Kings or Princes but that the stipends are in money and a gross summe large enough to take in all occasions and necessaries and most commonly more then needs And as to that particular being a great deal more then the Pourveyance or compositions for it would amount unto many times falls more heavy upon the people in the lump then it doth or could in a Pourveyance by distribution of it into small parts for that Commonwealths and those Free States or Combinations of governing and taxing are never no loosers by making finding or taking advantage of necessities or catching opportunities of burdening the people and getting such overplus as may either help to enrich their Treasuries and furnish out their magnificence in publick or too often their private and particulars wherein our cunning Church-wardens and Epitomes of Free States in their Parishes and the Grandees of some of our Cities and Corporations are very well instructed In the German Empire now much lessened in its antient rights and preâ—ogative by granting them away to several Princes Hanse Towns and Imperial Cities by indulgences necessity of State affairs or want of money the Angariae and Parangariae duties of furnishing horses and carts upon any publick necessity are not denied to the Emperor and upon occasions of warre extraordinariae collationes prastantur que Fodron appellantur et ea appellatione non solum pabulum equorum quod Futter vocatur set et frumentum hordeum aliaeque res ad Imperatoris exercitum victui extraordinary provisions called Foder are furnished which in the German or high Dutch signifieth not only horse meat but corn barley other food for the Emperors Army Et aliorum sententia verior esse videtur qui dicunt extraordinariam collationem quae pro Imperatoris Utilitate et necessitate indicitur supra ordinarias et statas indictiones census et tributa And the better opinion is that Pourveyance or Provisions may be taken for the necessary occasions of the Emperor over and above his Tributes or what is paid unto him And as that excellently learned D. Weymondus now deceased Chancellor to the Prince Elector of Brandenburgh was pleased to inform me at his late being here together with Prince Maurice of Nassau Embassadors from that Prince Elector prae-emption and a power of ordering moderate rates and prices in the Markets is passim in tota Germania now in use in all Germany as well by the Emperor as the Electors and many other lesser Princes And if the French who have yet their Terms des droits de Bordage of provisions which Tenants were obliged to furnish for the Kings Houshold and their grand Provost de l' hostel Lord Steward of the Kings house met priz et taxe a pain vin viandes foin et avoine had in the year 1654 power to rate the prices of wine victuals hay provender and all things appertaining to the provision of the Kings House And were wont to be very wary in parting with Regalities have by any ill advice turned away the honour of hospitality and that magnificence and good which ariseth thereby to their Kings and Princes and put their Court to board-wages which falling short or coming to be ill paid or long forborn will but starve the Houseshold and so keen the appetite and projects of the Court when they shall be every day pursued by their own necessities and put in mind to make what shift they can for themselves as that Nation which is already over-spread with Taxes as with a Garment may in due time if they doe it not already easily acknowledge the difference betwixt this Kingdome and its just Laws and Liberties and the present mode or fashion of that which by departing from their antient and better Laws and Constitutions is now for the most part cut into Tallages and Commands in warre Titles and Outsides of honor and Offices granted not to the deserver but the best Chapman and betwixt making Pourveyance for the Kings Houshold and necessaries to support his Regalities and paying as many kinds of Gabels and Impositions instead of it as there be weeks in the year and the rich and plentifull living of our English Yeomen Francklins and Farmers and their Paysants whose hardship and beggerly way of living makes them to be but as Slaves to their Gentry and Nobility And the dependencie of the Noblesse or the Nobility and Gentry upon the King for charges and places making them so little able to
Henry the third his Sonne by their Magna Charta Agreement or Accord made with their then powerfull Barons and Church men and a discontented and seditious Commonalty since reduced into Lawes and confirmed by thirty Acts of Parliament wherein the people having many liberties granted them by those Kings the great Lords Prelates and superior part of the Clergy of whom they held which they could not then claim as rights but were to be received as favours and as much to be valued as their pardon and indemnity which was granted unto them by the same Charter King John therein promising them that all those Customes and Liberties quantum ad se pertinet erga suos omnes homines de regno suo tam Laici quam Clerici observent quantum ad se pertinet erga suos as much as belonged to him he would observe towards all men and that all as well Laick as spiritual should as much as belonged to them observe them towards such as held of them And by the late King Charles the Martyr who took but one hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome which was antiently accompted to be but of the yearly value of four hundred pounds per annum the least of which are now three or four thousand pounds per annum very many double as much and some sixteen or twenty thousand pounds per annum when as the hundred pounds was then according to the now value of silver above three hundred pounds And to disburse in houshold provisions according to the difference betwixt the rates and prises of victuals as they were in the Reign of King Edward the second which was above 80 years after the granting and confirming of Magna Charta by King Henry the third when a Capon was sold for two pence and what they are now will not be the fourth part as to some sort of provisions and victuals and as to others not the sixteenth of that hundred pounds for the Relief of an Earldome and so proportionably in other reliefs and the summe of five pounds for the relief of a Knights Fee which is but the fourteenth part according to the difference betwixt the antient and then value of the lands belonging unto a Knights Fee now estimated but at three hundred pounds per annum many of which are four or five hundred pounds per annum and others of a greater yearly value as the lands are lesser or more improved nearer or farther distant from London the grand Emporium of the Trade and Commerce of the Nation and the residence of the King and his superior Courts of Justice And are but the Antiqua Relevia antient Reliefs which King Henry the first in his Charter of Liberties granted to the people did not reduce unto any certain sums but ordered to be justa legitima And but two hundred Marks for the Relief of a Marques and two hundred pounds of a Duke although there were at the time of the making of those great Charters neither Dukes nor Marquesses in England or any such Titles in being and one hundred pounds for the relief of a Baron And if the warres had not hindred him from those and other his dues but 20 s. for every Knights fee according to the Statute in anno 3 E. 1. towards the marriage of his eldest Daughter and making his eldest Son a Knight and no more of every twenty pounds per annum in Socage Did not according to the Equity and Preamble of the Act of Parliament de anno quinto Eliz. cap. 4. which in regard that the wages and allowances limited and rated in former Statutes were in divers places too small and not answerable to that time respecting the advancement of prices of all things belonging unto Servants and Labourers and that the Law could not conveniently without the great grief and burden of the poor Laborers and hired men be put in execution and to the end that there might be a convenient proportion of wages in the times of scarcity and plenty did repeal so much of the said former Statutes as concerning the working and wages of Servants and Labourers and enacted that the wages of Artificers Labourers and Servants should be yearly assessed by the Justices of the Peace and Magistrates in every County City and Town Corporate with respect to the plenty and scarcity of the time and other circumstances necessary to be considered endeavour to raise them to any higher sums or make them proportionable to the present values of lands and money rates and prices of victuals And by the favour of his now Royal Majesty who delighting in the vestigiis and pathes of his many indulgent and Royall Progenitors though his own very great wants and necessities and their daily importunities might have advised him not to have kept the road of his Ancestors liberality and bounty but to reserve some kindness for himself and his more urgent occasions did not as King Henry the third and several other Kings of England his Successors cause his Taxes Assessements by Parliament to be assessed upon oath according to the full and true value of the peoples Estates or as was done by King Edward the sixth since the Statute of 6 Ed. 3. for restraining the Parliament aids to the old Taxation upon the assistance or relief then so called given unto him by Parliament and make enquiries upon oath of the best values of the substance of such as were to pay that Relief Dismes and Subsidies and by the oaths also of those who were to pay them and caused some to be sworn to value clothes to the end that the King might receive payment of Relief for every cloth or as Queen Mary did cause an enquiry to be made upon oath of the value of the goods and lands of such as were lyable to the payment of Fifteens Dismes and Subsidies in the 2 3 4 and 5 years of her Reign But in his Assessments Aids or Subsidies granted by Parliament did imitate his Royal Father King Charles the first who took and received all his Subsidies at two shillings eight pence in the pound for goods and moveables and four shillings for lands and immoveables with defalcation of debts and consideration of a greater then ordinary charge of children assessed by an express exception without oath and the Commissioners left at liberty to assesse themselves and the Assessors according to the old and easie Taxations Takes and receives his First-fruits or the first years value of Bishopricks Spiritual Promotions and of Benefices not under ten marks per annum and Vicarages not under ten pounds per annum since treble those values as they are said to be in the Kings books and for the Tenths of their Spirituall Promotions after no greater a rate or yearly value which no Act of Parliament ever obliged him to doe then they were long agoe valued with some very small encrease or raising long since in a very few of the Bishopricks but
time or standing and not upstarts made it their honour as well as business to imitate their Progenitors the old not now drinking Germans who as Tacitus mentions in their Customes were to their Princes in pace decus in bello praesidium which may shew us the grand esteem antient and noble use of Tenures by Knight-service an honor in Peace a Guard in war and made it their glory si numero virtute comitatus emineant if they had a great number of Tenants and Retainers following them insomuch as ipsa plerumque fama Belli profligant the fame and fear of them did many times prevent warres and promote peace Et quum ventum in aciem turpe principi virtute vinci turpe comitatui virtutem principis non adaequare infame per omnem vitam at probrosum superstitem principi suo ex acie recessisse illum defendere tueri sua quoque fortia facta gloriae ejus assignare praecipuum sacramentum est Principes pro victoria pugnant Comites pro Principe and when they were in battel the Prince or King took it to be a shame and dishonor to be out-done in valour those who attended him thought it to be as much unworthy not to imitate him a great disgrace all their life after to leave him in the field and come home without any wounds their greatest care being to defend him and to ascâ—ibe and offer all their valiant Acts to his renown and glory their Prince fighting for victory their Attendants for their Prince Magnaque Comitum aemulatio quibus primum apud principum locus exigunt principis liberalitate illum bellatorem equum illam cruentam victricemque frameam nam epulae quanquam contempti largi tamen apparatus pro stipendio cedunt and vied who should be nearest their Princes in all their dangers and believed themselves to be well rewarded if by the bounty of the Prince they had such a charging Horse or such a bloody and conquering Spear bestowed upon them for as to wages they were very well contented with Feasts and a large provision of victuals though homely drest And by such or the like longa series or continuance of duties and obedience to Princes kindness and hospitality of the more great and powerful to the meaner came that strength and honor of our Nation not by screwing or racking their Tenants and the Lands which they let them but by easie and cheap bargains when the Tenant would be well content to make his Rents to his Landlord to be as much in love and retribution as in money and both were no loosers when provisions for house-keeping were so much and excessively reserved or presented for Prisci autem moris saith Sir Henry Spelman profusius hospitalitas annales reditus in eduliis collegisse in the times of great hospitality the manner or custome of Landlords was to reserve provisions for house-keeping for all or some of their Rents And those reservations of provisions grew to be so excessive as before the Conquest lege cautum fuit de quantitate eduliorum reddenda it was by a Law ordained by Ina King of the West Saxons betwixt the years 712. and 727. how much rent in provisions should be taken or reserved for every 10 Hides or Plough lands which Sir Henry Spelman understands to be a prohibition that no man should take or reserve more viz. Mellis dolia Hogsheads or vessels of Honey of which it seems there was then great plenty and much used 10 Panes loaves of bread 300 Amphorae Cervisiae Wallicae duodenae twelve Rundlets of Welch Beer or Ale Amphorae Cervisiae tenuioris Rundlets of small Ale or Beer 30 Oxen 2 Weather Sheep 10 Geese 10 Hens 20 Cheeses 10 Gallons of Butter 9 Salmons 5 Twenty pound weight of Hey or Provender 10 And Eels 100 Which was but a small Rent as Rents are now heightned for ten Yards or plough Lands and the Heirs of those which held such proportions of Lands upon those or the like easie Rents or afterwards paid and doe now pay only as Freeholders certain small Quit-rents in money proportionable to the then small rates of such provisions may thank God that the alteration of times and rates of provisions have made them in such a condition as to be very well enabled to perform their duties to their Prince in an easie contribution for the composition for the Royall Pourveyances And that most necessary duty of the Kings Royal Pourveyance if he had not power to regulate and bring down the excessive prises of provisions and at Markets as well for the ease and benefit of his Subjects as himself might be the more willingly and cheerfully submitted unto and performed when as it is for the good of the head and principall part of the body Politick and when as that which the members do contribute is communicated to all the members and parts of it in the preventing hindring or keeping off greater inconveniencies burdens and troubles which would otherwise fall upon them or serves to support and maintain many of themselves and their Sons and Daughters in the service of the King and his Court which hath raised many Families which now either forget or over-look their beginnings originals and founders or to relieve many poor and others who doe partake of those National Blessings of Peace and plenty which are maintained by the honor well-being and prosperity of the King which procures them And should not be disliked but rather rejoyced in when we shall recount unto our Children and posterity the magnificence and hospitality of our Kings when the great Hall at Westminster capable and large enough to entertain three of the largest Courts of Justice in the Nation besides many Shops of Trade built by the sides thereof and receives the feet of some hundreds of the Natives which four times or Terms in the year do come thither to demand it was heretofore but the Common Hall or dining Room of King William Rufus That Henry the 2. caused corn to be laid up in store in Granaries to be given to the poor in the time of dearth in the parts of Anjou and Main and fed every day out of his Granaries a thousand persons from the beginning of April untill new corn was gotten Henry the third in the 23 year of his Reign did by his Writ command William de Haverhull and Edward Fitz Odo that upon Friday next after the Feast of St. Matthias being the Anniversary of Elianor Queen of Scotland his Sister they should cause to be fed as many poor as might enter into or be entertained in the greater Hall of Westminster And in the same year did by his Writ likewise command the said William de Haverhull to feed fifteen thousand Poor at St. Peters in London on the Feast day of the Conversion of St. Peter And four thousand Poor upon Monday next after the Feast of St. Lucie the Virgin in the great Hall
the sellers shall be pleased to put upon him shall for want of his Pourveyance or Compositions be enforced to lay down his Officers and Servants Tables and put all or most of his servants to Board-wages and that the money which shall be intended or assigned to pay them shall afterwards upon some emergencies or necessities of State affairs for the defence or preservation of himself or his people be transferred to other important uses When the wants and cravings of his servants who cannot live by unpaid Arrears may set them to hunt the people for monys which they suppose may by reason of some neglected rights or concealments be due from them to the King their Master or to devise projects and perswade him to strain his Prerogative in the reformation of known abuses in Trade or other dealings wherein many of the people do appear to be very great gainers more then by Law or Conscience they ought to be to the end that he might help his servants who think it to be reasonable enough for them to essay lawful ways and means to support themselves whilst they conceive that they should not have wanted their daily bread or maintenance if the business of the Common-wealth and the Kings care of the people in general had not bereaved or deprived them in their particulars And that their sufferings want of Wages and fitting maintenance was to procure the wel-fare and happiness of their fellow subjects Or if that way which many times galles vexes more in the maner then the things themselves shal not extend unto their relief will at the best after dangerous discontents and commotions in the minds of the people but beget largâ— Taxes and Assessements in exchange of projects or some other necessitated incursions upon the peoples liberties or produce some Artifices of Policies of State to raise money from them as the Crusadoes by the Popes in the Reign of King Henry the third and dispensing for money with such as had engaged to go to the wars in the holy Land and were sick or not able or had a minde to â—arry at home or as some Kings and Princes have done by pretending fears of invasion from some neighbor Princes or a necessâ—ty of transporting the war out of their own into an enemies Country and when they had raised great sums of money and made ready their Armies dismissed all but the money which was gained by them to return home again upon an overture of a peace or a certainty that there was no need or likelihood of wars When it is well known that the people had no just cause to complain of the Pourveyance or Compositions for it nor of the Cart taking as to themselves or their servants when the Masters had two pence a mile allowed them for their Horses and Carts which most commonly went not above twelve miles from their habitations the Horses having no want of Grass Provender or Hey the men had better Beer and Victuals then they had at home And the owners of Carts and Horses within the Virge of the Kings houses or Palaces or in the way of his progress were no loosers by his coming when either for his recreation or refreshment or to visit the several parts and Provinces of his kingdom he should think fit to make his progress to meet with and redress any complaints or grievances which should happen therein So as the fault must needs be in themselves if they would now finde fault with that which they could not do before when as those just and ancient rights of the Kings of England and duties of their subjects were alwayes so necessary and inseparable to the Crown and their Imperial dignity as that if our ancient Kimgs of England had not enjoyed those their just rights which the fury of the Barons waâ—s against King John and his son King Henry the third and those grand advantages which they had over those Kings in so great a commotion of the people which the power and interests of those Barons for all had not laid aside their loyalty had stirred up against them did not in the making and confirming of our Magna Charta think fit to deny them if they paid the antiqua pretia ancient rates and hire they could not without an immense charge which we do not finde they were at have removed so often and so far as they did from London to their several houses and Palaces which their many Forrests Chases and Parks for their disport and Hunting in several Counties and remote parts of the Kingdom will evidence that they did not seldom do and make so many Voyages into Normandy as our Norman Kings William Rufus and Henry the first and their successor Henry the second and he and his son King John and Richard the second did into Ireland or as other of their predecessors did into Wales or as King James did from and into Scotland or King Charles the Martyr his son when he went thither to be Crowned nor keep their Christmas and other Festivals or their Parliaments as many of our Kings and their successors did in several places of the Kingdom which their Letters Pattents dated from thence do frequently testifie or the term as King Edward the first did at York Neither could our late Royal Martyr King Charles the first have made so good a shift as he did to remove himself and his Court Northerly and to York in the yeer 1641. to save himself from the London tumults nor have gathered Forces or had means or time to defend himself and his people if he had released and forbid his Pourveyances by Act of Parliament but must like a Bird without Feathers or with broken wings have been taken with a little running after and been brought back again by the Sheriff of the first County he had escaped into which the Rebellious paâ—ty in the late distempered and fatally unhappy Parliament were confident would have been the consequence of his going away from them without granting unto them his regality and surrendring up the care and protection of his people into their arbitrary way of governing them in his name to their own use and as they pleased by Votes and Ordinances If his officers and servants could not when the Factious party in that Parliament had seised his Rents and Revenues have hired a Cart for his use without an order or provision of Carts and Horses made by the appointment of two of the next Justices of Peace or at a lesser rate then six pence a mile or what more every rich sturdy Clown or his rude unmannerly servants should have demanded of them to be paid before hand and upon refusal of their Carts or Carriages should have had no other remedy but to complain to the Justices of Peace to compell or punish them The want of which part of the Royal Pourveyance as well as his other Pourveyance and Compositions for them hindring his now Majesty in the last Summer 1661. when he
to the King many if not all of which were by Priviledges or otherwise exempted from Pourveyance and being at a low and great undervalue in the latter end of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth now above one hundred years since of the yearly value of one hundred eighty six thousand five hundred twelve pounds eight shillings peny farthing now improved unto more then Ten times that yeerly value are for the most part of them come to be the inheritance of Lay-men And too much of the Revenues of Bishops which by a sacrilegious alienation from the Church are not enjoyed by any of the sons of Levy A great part of the Lands belonging to Monasteries or Religious houses by custome or exemption become Tythe free The greatest part of 3845. Appropriations or Impropriations which had been formerly designed and given ad mensam unto several Monasteries and Religious houses for the better support and maintenance of their hospitality and which before contributed nothing to the Kings Pourveyance now made to be a Temporal and Lay inheritance Many Forrests and Chaces and a great part of other Forrests and Chases Deafforrested much Assart lands and many Parks converted to Tillage or Pasture No Escuage paid since the Reign of King Henry the sixth nor Aid leavyed to make the Kings eldest son a Knight or to marry his eldest daughter for above fifty years during the Reign of King Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and very many Copy-hold estates which usually paid nothing at all to the provisions for the Kings houshold converted into Freeholds Many Fenns and Imbancked Marshes consisting of some hundred thousand Acres Drained or recovered from the Sea An Espargne or saving more then formerly of much money very far surmounting the yearly charge damage or losses by the Kings Pouâ—veyances in the purchase or procuring the Popes Bulls which as was affirmed in the Parliament of 25 H. 8. had betwixt that time and the fourth year of the Reign of King H. 7. cost the people of this Kingdome threescore thousand pounds Steâ—ling by being no more troubled with provisions to Benefices many chargeable Oblations to the Church and mony spent in Lamps or Taâ—ers Pourveyance or provisions for the Popes Legates Shrines Copes Altarages extraordinary Masses Dirges Trentals relaxations faculties grants aboltions Pensions Censes Procurations rescripts appeals and long and chargeable journyes to Rome where as well as in England as their own Monkes and Wâ—iters affirm the Pope did Angariis Injuriis miseros exagitare poll and pill the wretched English made Walter Gray a Bishop of England in the Reign of King H. 3. pay one thousand pounds for his Pall and at the breaking up of every general Council extorted of every Prelate a great sum of money before he would give them leave to depart chid William Abbot of St. Albans for coming to take leave of him without any present and when he offered him fifty marks checked and inforced him before he went out of his Chamber to pay one hundred Marks the fashion being then for every man to pay dear for his Benedictions lay down his money ready told before his Holiness feet and if present Cash was wanting the Popes Merchants and Usurers were at hand but upon very hard conditions to supply it And so great were his Emunctiones as Mathew Paris calls them exactions and impositions in England as a bloody Wolf tearing the Innocent sheep by sometimes exacting a third part of the Clergies goods and at other times a twentieth by aides towards the defraying of his own wars and other pretences sometimes exacting the one half of an yearly revenew of their Benefices and enjoyning them under the penalty of their then dreadful Excommunications not to complain of it or publish it sending his Legats or Predicatores to wring and preach money out of the peoples purses pro negotio Crucis under coloâ—r of making a war to regain Jerusalem and the Holy Land out of the hands of the Saracens and by such a multitude of other contrivances and extorsions as all the Abbotts of England vulâ—u Flebili capite dâ—â—nisso were with great sorrow and lamentation enforced to complain to the King of the impossibility of satisfying the Pope eos incessanter torquenâ—i incessantly grinding tormenting them of his avarice and exactions toto â—undo detestabiles to be abhorred of all the world By Dispensations pardons liceâ—ces Indulgencies vows pilgrimages Writs calâ—ed perinde valere breeves and other instruments of sâ—â—dry natures names and kinds in great 〈◊〉 which in the Act of Parliament of â—5 H. 8. 〈…〉 the exonerating of the Kings subjects from 〈…〉 and impositions paid to the See of Rome 〈…〉 said to have greatly decayed and impoverished 〈◊〉 â—â—tâ—llerable exactions of great sums of money the subjects of the Realm A freedom from the chargeable giving of great quâ—ntities of Lands for Chantries and the weaniâ—g of that Clergy by the reformation of the Church oâ— England from their over-sucking or making sore the Breasts or Nipples of the common people which the murmuring men of these times would if they had as their forefathers tried it more then seven times and over and over be of the opinion of Piers the Plowman in Chaucer who being of the Romish Church wrote in the unfortunate Reign of King Richard the second when the Hydra of our late Rebellious devices spawned by the not long before ill grounded Doctrines and treasonable positions of the two Spencers father and son began to Craule complaining That the Friars followed folke that were rich And folk that were poor at little price they set And no Cors in the Kyrkeyard nor Kyrke was buried But quick he bequeth them ought or quit part of his det Adviseth his friend Go confesse to some Frier and shew him thy synnes For while Fortune is thy frend Friers will thee love And fetch the to their Fraternity and for thee beseech To their Prior Provinciall a pardon to have And pray for the pole by pole if thou be pecunâ—osus Brings in a Frier perswading a sick Farmer to make his confession to him rather then to his Parish Priest and requesting him as he lay upon his death-bed to bestow a Legacy upon his Covent Give me then of thy Gold to make our Cloister Quoth he for many a Muskle and many an Ouster When other men have been full well at ease Hath been our food our Cloister for to rease And yet God wot unneath the foundement Performed is ne of our pavement Is not a Tile yet within our wones By God we owen fourty pound for stones And in his Prologue to his Canterbury Tales thus Characters such a Frier Full sweetly heard he confession And pleasant was his absolution He was an easie man to give pennance There as he wist to have a good pitance The diâ—use of the old and never grudged course of Sponte Oblata's gifts or presents to the King and the
pence in one intire peice of coyn and a Queen Elizabeths six pence doth now pass in payment for three times the value of a two pence yet our Caesars value or rate put upon it making our now Denarius or penny to be current at the rate or value which the former Denarius or peny was and the King giving at his Mint or Exchange for those or any other coyns of Silver after the rate as the ounce of Silver is now at and the buyers of things or commodities can put it away in payment for a peny and the seller can pass it away for as much as he received it there is no wrong at all done by it when it passeth in England though the intrinsick value will be onely looked upon in Foraign parts for a greater value then it is as in some of the Heathen Countries where Rice and sometimes Cocao Nuts pass for their money or as the Dutch have done when some of their Towns have been streightly besieged in allowing the Townesmen and â—arrison to make use of Tynne Leather or Paper for money and not onely promised but at the raising of the siege rendred them in good money as much as that went or was taken for or as our King James did when he made good Queen Elizabeths promise and paid good money for that Copper or base money which her necessities in the Irish wars had made use of for the present or as our farthing Tokens or brass did no hurt but a great deal of good when they went for more then the intrinsick worth or value And therefore such high rates and prices of victuals and houshold provisions may well be understood to be the product of other causes and not of any plenty of money which could not cause either a scarcity of provisions which is one of the grand causes of high rates and prices or when there is a plenâ—y of provisions enforce any great rates and prices for them But if it should be otherwise and that the valuing of Coyn above their true and real values should have no small influence upon the prices and rates of food and houshold provisions yet they did not always proceed passibus aequis keep even pace one with another when as from the raâ—sing of the ounce of Silver to fourty five pence those peices of Coyn which went before for a penny were as Mr. Malines saith taken in payment in the Raigns of King Henry the eighth Edward the sixth and Queen Mary for two pence and when the ounce of Silver came to be five shillings or sixty pence in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth went for three pence though it waighed but a penny waight the prices or rates of victuals and houshold provâ—sions would not keep company with the intrinsick value of the money but contenâ—ing themselves with the denomination or what it was then or is since onely currâ—nt for are at this day gone excessively beyond the rise of the ounce of Silver so unreasonably as they do exceed all measure and reason those proportions which were formerly holden betwixt the coyn and the Bullion and Master Malines in his book called Lex Mercatoria attributting all or or the most part of the dearness of all sorts of houshold provisions to the raising of the Rents of Lands will hardly be able to reconcile that contradiction with what he seemeth at the same time to be very positive in that according to plenty or scarcity of mony commodities do generally become dear or good cheap and that so it came to pass of late years that every thing is enhaunced in price by the aboundance of Bullion moneys which come from the West Indies into Europe and the money it self being altered by valuation caused the measure to be made lesser whereby the number did increase to make up the tale being augmented by denomination from twenty to forty and in later years from forty five to sixty it being always to be remembred that the rareness or scarcity of every thing doth augment the value and that it is the value which begets an esteem and makes it precious and that Silver being in the infancy of the world very much esteemed and valued and hath to the decrepit and old age of the world more more increased its value and esteem the rising of the price or rate of the ounce of Silver by King Henry the sixth King Henry the eight and Queen Elizabeth might as well proceed from the scarcity of it as from any policy or reason of State to keep our Silver at home and not permit it to be carryed away by Foraign Princes enhances or putting a denomination upon it over and above its real value or to keep the ballance of Trade and Commerce even betwixt us and them and that as it hath been rationally enough said by some that the denomination of coyn passeth by the connivance of the Magistrate insensibly and as much without damage or inconvenience to the people as the permissive monies have done amongst Brokers and Merchants Cashiers and as it is now daily experimented by the Brass or Copper farthing since the causeless suspention of the farthing tokens by the late over turning Reformers because they were established by his late Majesties Letters Patents or upon some other new found Politick pretences which some Tavern keepers and Chandlers do take the boldness to stamp with an inscription of their own names and places of abode And it would be near of kin to a wonder the reason of it lye everlastingly hid undiscovered that any plenty of monys here should so swell our rates and prices and make every thing dear which is to be bought with it and make a plenty of provisions to be as a scarcity when as there have been no such effects or consequences thereof found amongst other Nations For the Hollanders who by the Artifice of their Banks and greatness of their Trade do give laws to all the commerce and money of Christendom and a great part of the Pagan Nations and in their long wars with the King or Spain for above sixty years together have been a means to waste consume all the Gold and money which his Indies or other large and over taxed Dominions could furnish and had it spent upon or amongst them and having little Lands of their own but much of their provisions and victuals from the neighboring Countries and Nations could not in that great plenty of money and Trade wherein they are known to abound live so cheaply as they might if the heavy burden of continual Taxes and Excise which are there the onely or a great part of the cause of their dearness were separate and abstracted from the natural and genuine rates and prices thereof where Fish Fowl Carrets Turneps Apples Pears and many other houshold provisions are notwithstanding the burden of their Excise much cheaper then in England if store or plenty of money could be any efficient cause of high
rates and prices for victuals and houshold provisions In France the Paysants which are the greatest part of the people will tell us that there is mony little enough and that there would if it were not for their Hydras and multitudes of Taxes and Gabels be cheapness enough of all manner of houshold provisions when their Wines and flesh notwithstanding that or any supposed plenty of money are cheap enough In Scotland the moneys and riches which that Nation gained from England by King James his coming to the English Crown and the bounties of that King and his Son King Charles the Martyr with the three hundred thousand pounds sterling for brotherly assistance given to a factious and Rebellious part of them by a party of Covenanting English Rebels to ruine their King and the race and posterity of their benefactors together with the two hundred thousand pounds sterling far exceeding the pay as well as wickedness of their Master Judas given them to sell their pious and distressed King who in a confidence of their Covenanting pretences Faith and promises had fled to their Army for refuge which with the help of his loyal English subjects might easily have preserved him as well as themselves from the miseries and destruction which afterwards happened never appeared to be any cause of the dearness of victuals and houshold provisions more then ordinary or what proceeded from other accidents or causes In Germany where the Bavarian Silver Mines have of late made a plenty of it and every petty Prince and principality hath a regality and priviledge of coyning their Dollars are much allayed and mixed with a baser mettal and their Hanse and Imperial Cities do enjoy a great commerce by Sea and Land they do not complain of the high rates and prices of victuals and houshold provisions The Kingdom of Sweden whose Copper Mines are their Indies and do furnish plenty of Copper money with a value in its weight and materials as much as their denominations which the coyns of Gold and Silver necessarily requiring an allay and some mixture are never blessed with hath in a plenty of that base money no high rates or prices upon their native commodities but 〈◊〉 reasonable as fish enough may be bought for three pence to dine twenty men Rome which receives the money as well as feet of many strangers is the Mart or Forum for the dispatch of most of the Ecclesiastical and too much of the civil affairs of the Catholike Nations and by her claimed Vicariat or Lieutenancy from Jesus Christ and an Empire in Ecclesiastical affairs hath her Taxes Tenths first fruits Oblations Jubilees Indulgences pardons and other attractions of money large Territories Church Land Revenues and the disposal of many priviledges and principalities and famous Channels cut for the Gold and Silver of the Catholike and most enriched Nations to run into the Ocean of its ever filling and never emptying Treasury can at the same time whilst she fits as Queen and delights her self in the several Magazines and Store-houses of her abundance of riches enjoy a very great plenty and cheapness of houshold provisions The Commonwealth of Venice with her wonderful Amass of Treasurs by which she hath for some years last past made wars with the gâ—and Seignior the Behemoth and Leuiathan of the East doth notwithstanding as she did before those wars bless her inhabitants with a competent cheapness The Kingdom of Naples and Dutchy of Milan who with their Garrisons and Armies of Spaniards to the natives in a forced and unwilling obedience are the expenditors and wasters of much of the King of Spaines incomes from India and other his Dominions do not finde that to be the cause or occasion of any dearth or high prices of victuals amongst them The grand Duke of Florence with his great commerce and riches brought into that Country by granting of great priviledges to his Port of Legorn and the Merchants of other Nations trading thither filling his subjects and people with more then formerly and ordinary plenty of money did not thereby so establish the unhappiness of buying their victuals and provisions at unreasonable prices but that there as well as in other principalities and Provinces of Italy which by the Trade of Legorn and neighborhood of Rome and her Ecclesiastical Merchandize are greatly enriched there is so little reason for an enhaunce of the prices and rates of food or provisions as they can be honest gainers by an easie Banda or Reiglement of what is to be paid for them In Spain where the common people do onely hear of the arrival of many millions of Gold and Silver from the West Indies and have little of that but a great deal of black money or Maravedis their great rates for flesh do not arise from the abundance of their money either of the one kinde or of the other but from the barrenness of the Country and the little use thereof procuring no dearness in their Oranges Olives and Lymmons and other fruits and delicacies of that mountainous Country In the East Indies which is one of the Suns darlings whether our English Merchants carry more mony then they should where their mountains hills bring forth great quantities of precious stones and Jewels Gold and Silver and bestows upon them an abundance thereof enough to adorn themselves and the people of the utmost Isles there are no high rates put upon food or victuals In China where there is no want of money they have Rice and other meat for the sustenance of man very cheap and to be had for almost nothing in the Philippina Islands three Hens were sold not long ago for a Rial which is no more then six pence English mony a Dear for two Rials and a Hogg for eighteen And our Countriman Mr. Gage in his journey in Anno 1625. from St. John de Ulhua to Mexico in the West Indies where the world had as it were laid up its Treasures of Gold and Silver found Beef Mutton Kid Hens Turkies Fowles and Quailes to be so plentiful and cheap as he was astonished at it nor was it any store of money in Virginia which heightened there for some times the prices of all things but the Merchants giving greater sums of money to the Savages then they needed neither in New England in Anno 1636. when a Cow was sold for two and twenty pounds which the next yeer after upon the arrival of more might be had for eight pounds And as little is any supposed plenty of money in old England when three millions of Gold too much of which is since transported were coined here betwixt the yeers 1622. and 1630 and two hundred thousand pounds per annum brought hither from Spain to be coined for some years betwixt that and 1640. now no more coming so long a voyage to our Minâ— the cause or reason of those excessive and intollerable pâ—ices and rates of victuals and houshold provisions even to an oppression of the buyers and
where good hospitality hath been used to be kept in houses and places of Religion in this Realm and many poor people relieved thereby the said hospitality and relief is now decayed and not used And it is commonly reported that the occasion thereof is because the said Lord Cardinal hath taken such Impositions upon the Rulers of the said houses as well for his favor in the making of Abbots and Priors as for his visitation by his authority Legatine And yet nevertheless taketh of such Religious houses such yearly and continual charges as they be not able to keep hospitality as they were used to do which is a great cause that there be so many Vagabonds Beggers and Theeves And where the same Lord â—ardinal hath said before the suppression of the Religious houses which he suppressed that the possessions of them should be set to Farm amongst your Lay Subjects after such reasonable yearly Rent as they should well thereupon live and keep good hospitality now the demeasne possession of the said houses since the suppression of them have been surveyed met and measured by the Acre and set above the value of the old Rent c. That Judge Walmesly one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster did not appear to be an ill Commonwealths man when upon his death bed as some few other old fashioned English Gentry have lately done charge his heir to continue his custome of good house-keeping and using his Tenants well That when King James in the thirteenth year of his Raign being perswaded that it did greatly conduce to the welfare of his people did by his Proclamation or Edict command all the Gentry of the Kingdom to repair at the Feasts of Christmas then next ensuing unto their several Countries and habitations for the onely ends of hospitality and housekeeping and that such as were Justices of the Peace and did not should be put out of the Commission of the Peace he did not think his own heirs and successors should ever be streightned in the means that should maintain their own Hospitalities And that we have had of late the happy effects experiments fruits of good house-keeping usage of Tenants by what was done by the late Loyal Noble Marquess of Worcester when as he could by that and the love of his Tenants and dependencies in the beginning of the late unparalelled Rebellion assist his distressed King with great supplies of men and money and help him that was then almost helpless to form an Army to defend our Religion Laws and Liberties as well as his own Rights by the late Marquess of Hertfords bringing to his rescue great numbers of his Tenants and have nothing to hinder our belief that Sir George Booth could never so gallantly as he did have ingaged almost two thousand of his friends and Tenants to open the passage to his now Majesties happy restoration of himself to his Rights and us to our Religion Laws and Liberties if it had not been for his and his Fathers small Rents and great hospitalâ—ties And that we shall but destroy our own interest and appear to be ill affected to our own as well as the weal publike if we shal contribute any thing to the burdening of his now Majesty with an enhaunce of Rates prices most unconscionably put upon houshold provisions and so beleaguer him with necessities for want of his Pouâ—veyance or Compositions for them as he shall not be able himself to do that which for reason of State and the care of the welfare of his people he would command others to do For it will be obvious to every mans understanding that our so famous Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the glorious structures of their Colledges Halls and habitations of the Muses with their prudent foundations and statutes and great endowments of Lands and Revenues thereunto belonging causing those Universities as much to excell all other the Universities of the world as the Sun that grand Flambeau and most Illustrious Torch and light of the Firmament doth the lesser and communicated Lights would by the rise of prices for victuals and houshold provisions neither then suspected or expected to have ever been able to come to such immoderate rates as they have since arrived unto have notwithstanding all the care and forecast of their Founders and the great yeerly Revenues thereunto belonging sunk into the Rubbidge of those goodly buildings and lost the intentions of their most noble and pious Founders if it had not been for the care and prevention of the Statute of 18. Eliz. justly accompted by Mr. Camden to be a principal means of the support of those Universities which provided that the third part of the Colledges yearly Rents and Revenues should be for ever paid and reserved in Corn Malt and other provisions for house-keeping That it cannot be for the good or honor of the Nation to hinder the King from being a Trajan or herba parietaria a sweet smelling Wall Flower or deliciae hominum by taking away or obstructing the Magnetick virtue of his Hospitality or attraction of the love of his people And that to overburden our head or heap necessities upon the King would bring us within the blame and censure of the judicious Bodin a man not meanly learned in Politicks who decrying all unbecoming Parsimonies in a King or his Family delivers his opinion that sine Majestatis ipsius contemptu fieri non potest ea res enim Peregrinos ad principem aspernandum subditos ad deficiendum excitare consuevit That to lessen the number of a Kings servants or attendants cannot be done without a contempt or diminution of Majesty it self and that it may cause strangers to despise him and his own subjects to Rebell against him and gives us the example and ill consequences which may thereby happen by the misguided frugality of Lewis the 11. King of France who when he had put out of his houshold those that were of the Nobility and Gentry made a Physician his Chancellor and his Barber his Herald and Embassador and how little good the people of France and their posterity have gained by his dishonorable and unkingly Parsimoney when he did usually wear a course cloth suit and greasie old hat and at the same time was but busie to load them with Taxes and lay the foundation for as many more in perpetuity and may now remember with grief how little was saved by sending his Barber as an Embassador to propound a marriage with Mary Dutchess of Burgundy then the greatest heir of Christendom and that the Burgundian scorn of such a simple Messenger lost him and all France the advantage of having her and those seventeen great and rich Provinces which have since been the cause of so much War and trouble to the Christian world to be united and incorporate to the Crown of France and that thirty years late wars and expence of blood and many millions
with another to a custome of some little favors or ease in their buyings and bargains as the Baker his one loaf of bread to the dozen the Brewer a Barrel of strong Beer at Christmas the Tallow Chandler his Christmas Candle the London Draper his handful or more then the yard called London measure and that of the hundred and ten pound to some hundred of things sold by weight and one hundred and twenty to others and the Vintners sending some Hippocras at Christmas to their yearly and constant Customers and the like can suppose it fit to save such a petty contribution as the Kings Composition for Pourveyance which throughout England do scarcely amount to so much as those small Civilities and being saved will probably be spent in pride and vanities or for worse purposes Or to weaken the hand of our Moses which they should rather help to sustain and strengthen and when all Nations rejoyce in the power might and Majesty of their Kings shall make it their business to eclipse or diminish it by cutting of our Sampsons locks and that which should promote it For if the men of Israel are said to do well when they perswaded their King Ahab not to hearken to the insolent demands of Benhadad the King of Syria to deliver him his silver and gold c. the people of England must needs be believed to do ill to deny the King so necessary a part of his Regality which was more precious then gold and silver and put him to a treble or very much greater then formerly expences in his houshold provisions when the mercies of God which have hitherto spared our transgressions accomplished our unhappy warfare broken the staffe of the wicked driven them far away that would have swallowed us up and restored our Princes and nobles and mighty men the men of war the Judges and Prophets the prudent and the ancient so as the light hath shined upon them that dwelt in the Land of the shadow of death our Cities have not been laid waste our vallies have not perished nor our habitations been made desolate should put us in mind to be more mindful of his Vicegerent and annointed and remember how much and how often he did threaten his judgements and brought many upon his chosen people of Israel for their ingratitude and how much he was offended with them for not shewing kindness to the house of Gideon and Zerubbaal according to all the goodness which he had shewed to Israel and that as Bornitius saith Quicquid boni homo civisque habet possidet quod vivit quod libere vivit quod bene quod beate omniumque rerum bonorum usu interdum etiam copia ad voluptatem utitur fruitur totum hoc benificium Reipublicae Civilique ordini acceptum est referendum that whatsoever a subject enjoys or possesseth that he lives and lives freely well and happily and abounds wâ—th pleasure and plenty are benefits proceeding from the Commonwealth and good order and government thereof And that omnis homo every man Et res singulorum in Republica conservari nequeant nisi conservetur res publica sive communis adeoque singuli sui causa impendere videntur quicquid conferunt in publicum usum every mans particular estate cannot be in any condition or certainty of safty unless the Commonwealth be preserved so that whatsoever is laid out or expended for the Commonwealth is at the same time laid out and expended for every mans particular and that St. Chrâ—sostom was of the same opinion when he said that ab antiquis Temporibus communi omnium sententia principes a nobis sustentari debere visum est ob id quod sua ipsorum negligentes communes res curant universumque suum otium ad ea impendunt quibus non solum ipsi sed quae nostra sunt salvantur That anciently and by the opinion of all men Princes ought to be supported by their subjects for that neglecting their private affairs they do imploy all their power and care for the good of the Common-wealth whereby not onely what is their own but that which is the subjects are preserved That the King whose Royal progenitor King Edward the third could take such a care of the honor and Pourveyance of the City of London as to grant to the Maior of London who by reason of the wars had not for two years received that great profit which he was wont to receive de mercatoribus Alienigenis illuc confluentibus of Merchants strangers resorting thitheâ— one and twenty pounds per annum de reddit diversorum messuagiorum shoparum ibidem out of the Rents of divers Messuages and Shops in London in relevamine status sui for the maintenance and support of his estate might have as much care taken if duty and loyalty should not be as they ought to be the greatest obligations of his more ancient rights and Pourveyance or Compositions for them And may consider that if such an inseparable right and concomitant of the Crown of England should hereafter appear not to be alienable by any Act or exchange betwixt the King and the people they and their posterities will have but an ill bargain of it if the Pourveyance or Compositions for them should hereafter by any reason or necessity of State be resumed and the Excise or imagined satisfaction granted as a recompence for that and the taking away of the Tenure in Capite and by Knight service should be retained That it cannot be for the good or honor of the English Nation that our King should be reproached as some of a light headed and a light heeled neighbor Nation observing his want of Pourveyance have of late very falsly that he had not wherewithall to buy bread for his Family Or that other Nations should think our English so Fanatick or improved to such a madness by a late rebellion as to embrace the opinion of Arise Evans that pittiful pretender to Prophesie and Revelations who when the men of the Coffee-house Assembly or Rota mongers were with their Quicksilver Brains together with some Rustick or Mechanick nodles framing a new Government or moddel for a Kingdom torn in pieces would likewise shoot his Bolt and publikely in Print advise that the best way would be to Elect some honest pâ—or man of the Nation to be King onely during his life and allow him but one hundred pounds per annum which would be a means to keep off all Plots and Treasons against him or any ambitions or designs to enjoy his Office and when he should die to chose another for the term of his life and so successively one after anothâ—r upon the same and no better terms or allowance Or that we have a minde to do by our gracious King as the Fifth-Monarchy-men do by their King Jesus who notwithstanding all their pretences of setting him upon his Throne are well enough content to gather what they can the while for