thought in your discretion made for your intent. Whereupon the lords spiritual and temporal assembled in parliament, among whom were your uncles, the bishop of Winchester who now liveth, and the duke of Exeter, and your cousin earl of March that are gone to God, and of Warwick, and others in great number that now live, had great and long deliberation and advice, searched precedents of the government of the land in similar times and cases, when kings of this land have been of tender age, took also information of the laws of the land, of such persons as are notably learned therein, and finally found your said desire not caused nor grounded in precedent, nor in the law of the land; the which the king that is dead might not in his life, nor by his last will nor otherwise alter, change nor abrogate, without the assent of the three estates, nor commit or grant to any person, government or rule of this land longer than he lived; but on the other hand, the said lords found your said desire not according with the laws of this land, and against the right and freedom of the estates of the same land. How be it, be it not thought, that any such thing wittingly proceeded of your intent. And nevertheless to keep peace and tranquility, and to the intent to ease and appease you, it was advised and appointed by the authority of the king, the three estates of this land assenting that you in the absence of my lord, your brother of Bedford, should be chief of the king's council, and devised therefore unto you a name different from the other councillors, not the name of tutor, lieutenant, governor, nor of regent nor any name that should import authority of government of the land, but the name of protector and defender, the which importeth a personal duty of attendance to the actual defence of the land, as well against enemies without, if the case required, as against rebels within if any there should be, which God forbid; granting you therewith certain power, which is specified and contained in an act of the said parliament, to endure as long as it pleaseth the king. In which if the intent of the said estates had been, that you should have had more power or authority, more would have been expressed therein; to which appointment, ordinance and act, you thereto agreed as for your person, making nevertheless protestation, that it was not your intent in any wise to derogate or do prejudice unto my lord your brother of Bedford by your said agreement, as toward any right that he would pretend or claim in the government of this land, and as toward any pre-eminence that you might have or belong to you as chief of the council, it is plainly declared in the said acts and articles, subscribed by my said lord of Bed

ford, by yourself, and the other lords of the council. But as in parliament to which you are called upon your faith and allegiance as duke of Gloucester, as other lords are and not otherwise, we know no power nor authority that you have, other than you as duke of Gloucester should have, the king being in parliament, at years of most discretion; we marvelling with all our hearts, that considering the open declaration of authority and power belonging to my lord of Bedford, and to you in his absence, and also to the king's council, subscribed purely and simply by my said lord of Bedford, and by you, that you should in any wise be stirred or moved not to content you therewith, or to pretend you any other especially considering that the king, blessed be our Lord, is since the time of the said power granted unto you, much advanced and grown in person, in wit and understanding, and likely with the grace of God to occupy his own royal power within a few years. And forasmuch considering the things and causes above said, and many others that would be too long to write, we lords aforesaid, pray, exhort and require you, to content you with the power abovesaid and declared, with which my lord your brother of Bedford, the king's eldest uncle, contented him; and that you do not desire, will nor use any larger power: giving you this that is above written, for our answer to your aforesaid demand, which we will dwell and abide with, without variance or change.

121. Electors of Knights of the Shire must be Forty Shilling Freeholders

Freeholders6y

(1429. French text and translations, 2 S. R. 243. 3 Stubbs, 114, 265.)

7. ITEM, whereas the elections of knights of shires chosen to come to the parliaments of the king, in many counties of England, have now of late been made by very great, and excessive number of people dwelling within the same counties of the which most part was by people of small substance, or of no value, whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy knights and esquires dwelling within the same counties; whereby manslaughters, riots, batteries, and divisions among the gentlemen and other people of the same counties, shall very likely rise and

be, unless convenient remedy be provided in this behalf: our lord the king, considering the premises, hath provided, and ordained by authority of this present parliament, that the knights. of the shires to be chosen within the same realm of England to come to the parliaments hereafter to be holden, shall be chosen in every county, by people dwelling and resident in the same, whereof every one of them shall have free tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year at the least above all charges; and that they which shall be so chosen shall be dwelling and resident within the same counties; and such as have the greatest number of them that may expend forty shillings by year and above, as afore is said, shall be returned by the sheriffs of every county, knights for the parliament, by indentures sealed betwixt the said sheriffs and the said choosers so to be made; and every sheriff of England shall have power, by the said authority, to examine upon the holy evangelists every such chooser, how much he may expend by the year: and if any sheriff return knights to come to the parliament contrary to this ordinance, that the justices of assizes in their sessions of assizes shall have power by the authority aforesaid, thereof to inquire; and if by inquest the same be found before the same justices, and the sheriff thereof be duly attainted, that then the said sheriff shall incur the pain of an hundred pounds to be paid to our lord the king, and also that he have imprisonment by a year, without being let to bail or mainprise; and that the knights for the parliament returned contrary to the said ordinance shall lose their wages. Provided always, that he which cannot expend forty shillings by year as afore is said shall in no wise be chooser of the knights for the parliament; and that in every writ that shall hereafter go forth to the sheriffs to choose knights for the parliament, mention be made of the said. ordinances.

122. Larke's Case: Privileges of Member's

Servants

(1429. French original, 4 R. P. 357, No. 57. Translation by Editors.

THE

3 Stubbs, 514.)

HE commons pray that as one William Larke, servant to Wm. Milrede, coming to your court of the present parliament for the city of London, in the service of the said Wm.

Milrede then sitting, through the subtle imagination and conjecture of one Margery Janyns was arrested in the court of pipoudrez of the abbot of Westminster, by his officers there, and removed from there to your common bench by writ of corpus cum causa at the suit of the said Margery, and by the justices of your said bench commanded to Fleet prison and there detained in prison till the present, by the force of a judgment given against the said Wm. Larke in your said bench by your said justices, both because the said Wm. Larke was condemned at the suit of the said Margery in your said bench in an action of trespass, to the damage of 208£ 6s. 8d. before the day of the summoning of this present parliament, and for fine to make to you because the trespasser was found with force and arms. May it please Your Royal Majesty to consider that the said Wm. Larke, at the time of the said arrest, was in the service of the said Wm. Milrede, supposing truly by the privilege of your court of parliament to be free of all arrest during your said court, except for treason, felony or surety of the peace; to order by the authority of the same parliament, that the said Wm. Larke may be delivered out of your said prison of Fleet, the said condemnation, judgment and execution or anything depending hereupon against him or upon him notwithstanding. Saving at all times to the said Margery and to her executors, their execution outside of the said judgment against the said Wm. Larke, after the end of the said parliament, and also to grant, by the authority aforementioned, that no one of your said lieges, that is to say, lords, knights from your counties, citizens, burgesses, in your parliaments to come, their servants or familiars, be at all arrested nor detained in prison during the time of your parliament, except for treason, felony, or surety of the peace as was said before.

RESPONSE

The king, by the advice of the lords spiritual and temporal and at the special request of the commons, sitting in this present parliament, and also with the consent of the counsel of Margery Janyns named in this petition, wills and grants by the authority of the said parliament, that Wm. Larke named in the said petition, be delivered immediately out of Fleet prison. And that the said Margery, after the end of this parliament, have her execution of the judgment which she has against the said William, in the common bench, as it is contained in the same petition, in the same form that it should have had if the said judgment

had never been executed. And that the judges of the said bench give to the said Margery, after the end of this parliament, execution of the said judgment, by capias ad satisfaciendum, and by exigent; and likewise issue processes from our lord the king, for his fine regarding the said William, by capias and exigent, as they should have done, if the said William had never been taken nor imprisoned, by cause of the said judgment. And besides the king wills, by the authority of the same parliament, that the chancellor of England for the time being, from the end of the said parliament, make commissions to different persons assigned at discretion, to take the said William and to deliver him to the keeper of the Fleet, who is held to receive and guard him, until satisfaction shall be given to the aforesaid Margery, of the sum to recover from him by the aforementioned judgment, and to the king, of that which belongs to him in the case. And that the said deliverance to the said keeper, have the same effect for the said Margery, as would execution for her made by capias ad satisfaciendum, any variance through the said petition or the indorsement of the same, and the record of the same recovery, or any other thing notwithstanding, and as to the rest of the petition: the king will consider.

C

123. Act against Smuggling

(1437. French text and translation, 2 S. R. 294.)

8. ITEM, our sovereign lord the king, to remove and eschew the great unlawfulness and damage, which daily is to him done, in withholding the customs and subsidies, and to the staple of Calais in hindering of the sale of wool and woolfells, by such which do ship their wools and woolfells in divers secret ports and creeks, and other suspect places within this realm, stealing, bringing, and carrying away the same, not customed to divers parts beyond the sea, and not to Calais; hath ordained by the authority aforesaid, that from henceforth no manner of person shall ship nor cause to be shipped wools, woolfells, nor other merchandises pertaining to the staple, in no place within this realm, but all only at the keys and wharfs being in the ports assigned by statute, where the kings weights and his beam be set. And that every master of the ships and vessels, in