ELIZABETH. prisoned for suing ordinary actions, and suits at the common 1558-1603. law, until they will leave the same, or against their wills put their matter to order, although some time it be after judgment and accusation. Persons detained in prison, and no "Item: Others have been committed and detained in cause assigned. prison upon such commandment against the law, and upon the queen's writ in that behalf, no cause sufficient hath been certified or returned. When discharged have been re committed in secret places. "Item: Some of the parties so committed and detained in lawfully in court, prison after they have, by the queen's writ, been lawfully discharged in court, have been eftsoones recommitted to prison in secret places, and not in common and ordinary known. prisons, as the Marshalsea, Fleet, King's Bench, Gatehouse, nor the custody of any sheriff, so as upon complaint, made for their delivery, the queen's court cannot learn to whom to award her majesty's writ, without which justice cannot be done. Officers for exe of the superior courts sent to "Item: Divers serjeants of London, and officers, have been cuting the writs many times committed to prison for lawful execution of her majesty's writs out of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and other courts, to their great charges and oppression, whereby they are put in such fear, as they dare not execute the queen's process. prison. Extortions by pursuivants. The judges re quired to state when persons should be detained in or de livered from prison. Unconstitutional declaration of the judges. "Item: Divers have been sent for by pursuivants for private causes, some of them dwelling far distant from London, and compelled to pay to the pursuivants great sums of money against the law, and have been committed to prison till they would release the lawful benefit of their suits, judgments, or executions for remedie, in which behalf we are almost daily called upon to minister justice according to law, whereunto we are bound by our office and oath. "And whereas it pleased your lordships to will divers of us to set down when a prisoner sent to custody by her majesty, her council, or some one or two of them, is to be detained in prison, and not to be delivered by her majesty's courts or judges. "We think that, if any person shall be committed by her majesty's special commandment, or by order from the council board, or for treason touching her majesty's person, [five illegible letters follow] which causes being generally returned 16 Hume, 465. 5 Lingard, 421–425. into any court, is good cause for the same court to leave the ELIZABETH. person committed in custody. "But if any person shall be committed for any other cause, then the same ought specially to be returned 1." 1558-1603. the rack. The rack was a punishment resorted to in cases of suspicion, Punishment by but only executed in England under a warrant of a secretary of state or the privy council 18. But the council in the Marches of Wales were empowered to inflict that punishment, whenever they thought proper 1. 5. Pecuniary Exactions. lities of Eliza Some biographers of the heartless and depraved Elizabeth, Pecuniary liabihave praised her "economy;" but it appears that the pecu- beth. niary grants which she acquired from parliament amounted to twenty subsidies, thirty tenths, and forty fifteenths, which exceed the average of preceding reigns, and although she mesnes. raised immense sums by dilapidation of the royal demesnes', Dilapidation of fines of recusants, profits of monopolies, and the monies raised the royal deby forced loans, yet " she left more debts unpaid, taken upon credit of her privy seals, than her progenitors did take, or could have taken up, that were a hundred years before her." Although Elizabeth possessed every power except that of Exaction of imperatively imposing taxes; yet she often arbitrarily exacted "Loans," and when the money was returned it was without the payment of interest. "Benevolences" were likewise another grievous imposition upon industry. Loans were almost imperative, as a refusal to contribute, 17 58 Lansdown MSS. 87. 1 Hallam's Const. Hist. 318-320; vide etiam 1 Anderson, Rep. 297. Biographia Britannica, art. Anderson. 18 5 Lingard, 380. 5 Hume, 456. 1 Hallam's Const. Hist. 201. Cabala, 81. 19 Haynes, 196. 1 La Boderie, 211. 116 Rymer, 141. D'Ewes, 151, 457, 525, 629. 4 Bacon, 363. 3 A loan, when granted to the sovereign, came to be nearly of the same amount with a benevolence. From the condition of the debtor, he could never be compelled to do justice to his creditors; and his circumstances were such as always afforded plausible pretensions for delaying and evading repayment. Although the nature of a loan, implying a mutual transaction, appeared to exclude any idea of right in demanding it; yet the same indirect methods might easily be practised by the crown, for procuring a supply in this manner, as under the form of a benevolence. We accordingly find, that in a parliament as early as the reign of Edward III., the commons prayed the king, " that the loans which were granted to the king by many of that body may be released; and none compelled to make such 66 loans.} ELIZABETH. Would have incurred the vengeance of the Star Chamber*, and 1558-1603. in a letter from the lord mayor to the council, he acquaints them, of some citizens having been committed to prison, for refusing to pay the money demanded of them3. Purveyance and No article allowed to be imported or exported without license. Robbery of the church. Purveyance and pre-emption; new-year's gifts; wardships'; embargoes on merchandise; grant of monopolies11; were also engines of oppression 12, to enrich the exchequer, and when, in 1589, the House of Commons interfered to alleviate the miseries arising from purveyance, the queen expressed her displeasure, that the commons should presume to touch on her prerogative. "If there were any abuses either in imposing purveyance, or in the practice of the exchequer, she was able and willing to provide due reformation, but would not permit the parliament to intermeddle in these matters 18" 13 The commons, alarmed at this message, appointed a committee to wait upon her majesty, to satisfy her of their humble and dutiful intentions. The crown assumed absolute authority over all foreign trade, and would not allow any article to be imported nor exported without a license, and where the statutes laid any branch of manufacture under restrictions, the crown, by exempting one person from the laws, gave him, in effect, the monopoly of that commodity", and which afforded a source of disgraceful profit. The queen was empowered, on the vacancy of any see, to seize all the temporalities, and to bestow on the bishop elect, an equivalent in the impropriations belonging to the crown. The pretended equivalent was commonly much inferior in value; and thus the crown, amidst its concern for religion, loans for the future against his will, for that it was against reason and the 5 Murden, 632. The misery which resulted from “purveyance" is illustrated by the following statutes. Stat. 28 Edward I. c. 2; 4 Edward III. c. 4; 5 Edward III. c. 2; 10 Edward III. Stat. 2; 25 Edward III. Stat. 5, c. 21; 36 Edward III. cc. 2-6; 1 Richard II. c. 3; 6 Richard II. Stat. 2, c. 2; 23 Henry VI. c. 1. followed the example of preceding reformers in committing ELIZABETH, depredations on the ecclesiastical revenues". 1558-1603. Bishops and in cumbents prohi bited from alienating their reve nues. The mode in which Elizabeth The bishops and all incumbents were prohibited from alienating their revenues, and from letting leases longer than twenty-one years, or three lives. This law was for securing the property of the church, but as an exception was left in favour of the crown, great abuses still prevailed. It was usual for the courtiers to make an agreement with a bishop or incum- pillaged the bent and to procure a fictitious alienation to the afterwards transferred the lands to the person agreed on". This method of pillaging the church was not remedied till the reign of James I.; but to Elizabeth it was a source of revenue1. 17 6. Impressment. queen, who church. Osborne' thus describes Elizabeth's method of employing the prerogative of impressment. "In case she found any likely to interrupt her occasions, she did seasonably prevent him by a chargeable employment abroad, or putting him upon some service at home which she knew to be less grateful to the people: contrary to a false maxim since practised with far worse success, by such princes as thought it better husbandry to buy off enemies, than reward friends." tion appointed to mean and incom This power was frequently abused, persons of education Persons of educa being appointed to mean and incompatible offices, from which they were not released, except by the payment of a pecuniary patible offices. imposition; in fact, such was the state of vassalage, that the nobility could not marry3, neither were any persons allowed to enter or depart the kingdom without the permission of the executive*. 7. Liberty of the Press. Sale of books re gulated by the Liberty of the press was unknown during this era :-copyright of authors, importation and sale of books were regulated government. by the government, and it was penal to possess any Roman Catholic treatises'. 15 4 Strype, 215, 351. 1 P. 392. 16 1 Strype, 79. 2 Murden, 181. 5 Hume, 459. 3 2 Birch's Mem. 422. 17 5 Hume, 12. * Sir John Davis upon Impositions, passim. 2 Birch's Mem. 511. 15 Rymer, 620. 16 Rymer, 97. Lingard, 518. Strype's Parker, 221. Strype's Whitgift, 222, App. 94. 5 T 1558-1603. ELIZABETH. In 1585, the Star Chamber published ordinances for the regulation or restriction of the press, which, after reciting that enormities and abuses of disorderly persons professing the art of printing and selling books had increased, arising from the inadequacy of the penalties hitherto inflicted; then commands Presses to be en- every printer to certify his presses to the stationers' company, tered at Sta tioners' Hall. Licensing of printers. on pain of having them defaced, and suffering a year's imprisonment; that none should print at all, under similar penalties, except in London, and one in each of the two universities;-that no printer who had only set up in his trade within six months, should exercise it any longer, nor any commence in future, until the excessive multitude of printers were diminished, and brought to such a number as the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, for the time being, might think convenient; but whenever any addition to the number of master printers was required, the stationers' company should select proper persons to use that calling with the approbation of the ecclesiastical commissioners;-that none should print any book, matter, or thing whatsoever, until it had been first seen, perused, and allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Bishop of London, except the queen's printer, to be appointed for some special service, or law printers, for whom the license of the chief justices should alone be requisite ;-that every one selling books contrary to the intent of this ordinance should suffer three months' imprisonment. That the stationers' company should pany empowered be empowered to search houses and shops of printers and booksellers, and to seize all books printed in contravention of this ordinance, and to destroy and deface the presses, and to arrest and bring before the council, those who should have offended therein. Licensing of books. Stationers' com to search houses. James extended this decree to the importation of books, and forbade the printing of any book without a license from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Bishop of London, or the Vice-Chancellor of one of the Universities, or of some person appointed by them. 8. Undue Influence exercised over the Boroughs. Elizabeth having perceived the necessity of acquiring a numerical ascendency over the deliberations of the commons, 21 Hallam's Const. Hist. 324, 325. |