DEPOPULATION ARRAIGNED, CONVICTED AND CONDEMNED, BY THE LAW OF GOD and Man: A TREATISE NECESSARY IN THESE TIMES;  
By R. P. of Wells, one of the Society of New Inn.  Regis, Ecclesiae, reipublicae, & pauperum ergò. 
LONDON, Printed by R. B. and are to be sold in S. Dunstan's Churchyard near the Church door, 1636.   

TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFUL, truly Learned, and most judicious, Sir john Banks Knight, Attorney General to the sacred Majesty of our Sovereign Lord King CHARLES.  
Right Worshipful,  
IT is a true saying, that the lives of some men are like a long vacation: I cannot altogether excuse myself of some fruitless vacancies, and do therefore sincerely acknowledge myself a debtor to the Common weal: yet upon the occasion of some employment by a very worthy friend Thom. Hugh's Esquire, in the County, where I live, upon the execution of his Majesty's Commission addressed into that, and other several Counties for the discovery, and reformation of a monstrous and growing evil, Depopulation; this small treatise, by my slender labours of the last long vacation, had its conception, birth, and being. A little creature it is, and though it hath obtained licence to walk abroad into the world, yet it cannot be bold without the protection of authority to adventure into the hands of this age for fear of crushing. As under his Royal Majesty, and his most honourable Privy Council, it properly appertaineth unto the eminent trust of your place to provide for the discovery, and prepare for the suppression of such, and the like oppressions; (wherein your faithful care, and vigilancy hath been sufficiently remonstrated) so is it most proper for your worthiness, to patronise the labours of any well affected Subject in this kind from the spurnings and tramplings of the grander sort of delinquents. To you therefore Right worshipful, this little one doth humbly present itself, and earnestly implores your favourable patronage & safe conduct to be vouchsafed to it, wherewith being encouraged it will not fear the face of any greedy and grinding Achabs' or Nimrods' of the times, it will modestly presume to tell those peop e how injurious they are to his highness' royal State in the diminution of his people, in the multitude of whom consisteth the honour of a Prince, as also in the lessening of his revenues: It will tell them, how sacrilegious they are to the Church and painful ministry: how pernicious they are to the Common weal, and what wretched starvers they are of all sorts of poor: The criminous actors in this mischief have spread themselves throughout all the quarters of the Kingdom, and have scattered and dispersed the many samples of their worst actions, as the Levite did the twelve parts of his Concubine per omnes terminos, through all the quarters of Israel. I might more aptly say that his Majesty hath dealt in justice with this crying crime, as the Levite did in the case of his dead Concubine, with the Gibeathites. He dispersed her membratim, by pieces and morsels, aswell for a shame, a byword, and a parable against the unruly actors in that tragedy, with a nunquam res talis facta est in Israel: As also to summon a general assembly, for the just destruction of them; This only puts the difference; there was then no King in Israel. Blessed be God, we have a blessed King over our Israel, who (not for destruction) for reformation of oppressing Depopulators hath by his gracious directions to his honourable judges circuiting all the quarters of his Kingdom, seconded with his careful Commissions, and by the consequences ensuing thereupon, endeavoured to distribute all parts of Royal justice in omnes terminos Israelis; And as the offence of late time hath grown so monstrous, as never was it so great, nor so exemplary in its evil in any former age: So the unpatterned proceeding in proportionable justice by his Majesty, and his right honourable Counsel, doth justly meet with it: Nunquam res talis facta est in Israel; Herein, as in other things your prudent and provident care neither hath been, nor is wanting: And that it may long continue, and increase with length of happy and honourable days, he, who beggeth pardon for this presumption, will not fail to offer up his continual prayers to Heaven.  
Your Worships in all observance and duty, ROE. POWELL. New Inn 1. july. 1636.   

Decemb. 3. 1635.  
Perlegi hoc Opusculum cui Titulus (Depopulation, Arraigned, Convicted, etc.) quod continet paginas 64. in quibus nihil reperio sanae doctrinae au● bonis moribus contrarium, quo minus cum utilitate public â imprimi possint, sub eâ tamen conditione ut si non intra sex menses proxime sequentes typis mandemur, haec licentia sit omninò irrita.  
Guil. Haywood R. R. P. Archiepisc. Cantuar. Capell. domest.   

Depopulation ARRAIGNED, CONVICTED, AND CONDEMNED.  
I Have in another Treatise handled the grand offence of Forestallers and Engrossers of Corn, and therein touched his Highness' careful directions, and just proceeding, against them; I shall now presume to add one debt more unto the remembrance of his Majesties many and memorable deeds of impartial justice, his zealous and indefatigable care often commended, and charged to his Counsellors of State, for rooting up and extirpation of that crying sin Depopulation, and the thrice honourable proceed of his highest judicatory Court against some delinquents, and his Majesties no less goodness in addressing several Commissions (according to former precedents, of his most noble progenitors) into most part of his kingdom, for the more absolute discovery of this monstrous overgrown evil, which I may well term peccatum Camelinum.  
Sect. 1 It is an offence at the Common Law: For so it appears by the Statute of 39ᵒ. ELIZ. 1ᵒ. (hereafter cited at large) that the decays of towns and habitations, have been, by the ancient laws of this Realm, esteemed an high offence. And by the decree of the Star-chamber, which I shall handle in its due place, Offences of that nature are punishable at the common-Law. That it is a public and popular offence, who can deny? Then being popular, and an offence at the Common-Law, it might and may be inquired at the ancient Courts of Leet or view of Franckplegde. And though it be now in this age grown Giantlike without a proper name, save what the deplorable issue and fruit of its prodigious birth doth render (Depopulation;) and though by connivance and impunity in former times, it is now grown so huge, that the proportion of remedy must exceed the ordinary verge of justice, and appeal to the highest seat, yet fit it is, that the discovery thereof should be revived, and enjoined within the inquisition of the Leet.  
Sect. 2 The inquiry of Forestallers, and such like miscreants, began to languish and to be disused in those Courts, until his Majesty's gracious directions did put life into it. And certainly if the inquiry of this growing evil had at those ancient meetings been from time to time observed, it had not mounted to so monstrous a growth.  
Sect. 3 Whether the Forestaller and Engrosser, or the Depopulator, be the heaviest in the scale, both being the spawn of that bloodsucking Cynomyia covetousness, might at first apprehension seem doubtful; But if, to shut and close up the womb of the earth, communis reipublicae matris, from bringing forth any increase at all, be a worse sin than the hiding and hoarding up of her fruits after its birth; then is the one more pernicious and intolerable than the other, both too bad, neither of them worthy of the least indulgence, for both are horribly guilty of privative injustice. And if the curse be denounced against that, Qui abscondit frumentum maledicetur in populo, Pro. 11.26. it must needs, fall heavier upon this. Depopulation is praefocatio matricis, a strangling or choking of the womb, and causing an utter sterility. The other forestall and engrossing, is suffuratio partus matricis, a privy stealer (though a public enemy) of the birth of the womb, both Monopolists, and both Foster-fathers' of miserable Famine, this preventing a plenty, that raising a dearth, and scarcity in the time of plenty.  
Sect. 4 I am not here to deal with those, whom the Civilians call Nocturnos Depopulatores agrorum, invaders of other men's possessions in the night, whom it was lawful to kill if they resisted, Liceat occidere propria authoritate; but with an offendor of a fare worse nature. That being an open enemy, may be easily resisted or prevented: this under a Mask and visage of his own private, destroyeth the public good. It is like the biting of an Asp, a little Serpent in Africa, which takes away the life of him whom it bites in a kind of swowne, sensibus sinè sensu deficientibus. Before I can well proceed in deciphering the odious conditions of that abominable sin of Depopulation, I must render a definition and description of it. The word is not obvious to the understanding of those whom it most concerns and offends, that is, his Highness' liege people, versed and employed in rural affairs of Husbandry.  
Sect. 5 Depopulation hath its Etymon from the preposition De, and the verb Populor, which singly signifies and imports to rob and spoil people, to waste and destroy Countries. Seneca tells us, Cura populatur artus, Care consumeth the joints: and it is aggravated by the word (De) which imports ablatively, in and by some unlawful act, and the consequence and effects of that unlawful act, by the privation of some lawful and common good.  
To describe it more plainly, it robs and pills the people of their due means and maintenance, and thereby disables them both in body and state from performing their service, and liege obedience, immediately to their Prince, and mediately to the Commonweal; By which I mean, Clergy, and Laiety: And it altars the quality of the people; from good Husbands, it makes them houselesse and thriftless, puts them in a course of idleness (the mother of mischief, and bane of all rule and order.) So as they become aliens and strangers to their national government, and the kingdom by that means in a manner dispeopled and desolated.  
Sect. 6 The unlawful ways and means by which this grievous desolation is wrought, are next to be considered; It is not by any invasion, sacking or ransacking of places or people, by any foreign enemy, but by a bosom and homebred enemy, either by an actual, violent, and voluntary rasing and demolition of mansions and houses of habitation, or a careless and negligent suffering of them to decay, and to be unhabitable, or by enclosing, and hedging in Common fields, and converting errable into pasture.  
Sect 7 The Persons Actors in this oppression are (though they draw in by their example other inferior persons) gripping and avaricious Landlords, who commonly suffer ancient demiseable tenements, to fall into their hands, and so retain them without granting further estates, at conscionable fines; and then wilfully, or negligently decay the houses, and either keep their grounds in their own, or a Bay liffes manurance, or let it out by several parcels, at rack and extreme rents, to several persons; who to make the best of a bad bargain, are enforced (for want of the entierty of a Message, or farm to maintain a Plough.) to turn Tillage into pasture, and thereby only keep a few Sheep and a Cow.  
Sect. 8 The subject of this sin is, houses and lands. A house by the Civilians is called Mansus, and doth consist of foundation, wall and cover; in our French Law Maison, and in our legal latin Messuagium, which contains the buildings, Curtilage, Orchard, and Garden; and Message consists of two things, land and structure. And though before the building, it was but land, yet when the edifice is erected, then is it called a Message: And albeit the structure be afterwards utterly ruinated, Et aequata solo, yet for dignities sake, in regard it was once a place of habitation, which is highly esteemed in the Law, it shall have no more the name of Land, but be called a TOFTE, (that is) a place wherein a house had been.  
Sect. 9 Land or earth, Terra in the natural sense is taken for the emblem of mortality, terra quam gerimus, The earth or earthly Tabernacle of our flesh, which we bear about us, and which must return to earth. In the interpretation of the Law it doth comprehend any ground, soil or earth whatsoever, and is the most general name of all sorts of soil: But properly, Terra dicitur à terendo. The earth on which we tread and walk, and must make use of the fruits and increase thereof, to sustain and support our houses of clay, and yet more specially a terendo, quia vomere teritur, broken, bruised, and worn with the ploughshare.  
As the Heavens are the habitation of Almighty God; so the earth hath he appointed as the suburbs of Heaven, to be the habitation of man. Behold the Heaven, and the Heaven of Heavens is the Lords, the earth also with all that therein is, Deuteronomie 10. ver. 14.  
Sect. 10 Agricolari fuit hominum prima conditio & status: even before the fall, God took Adam, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it, Posuit in paradisum voluptat is, ut operaretur & custodiret illum. After the fall and the expulsion of our first Parents, it was then primum opus homini impositum propter peccatum.  
Agriculture was the first work enjoined to man for sin: God then gave the earth to man with limitation and condition, Gen. 3.17. Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, until thou return unto the ground: for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return: And it follows. 23. The Lord God sent him forth to till the ground from whence he was taken,  operaretur terram de qua sumptus est. The grazing of herds, of beasts, and sheep, are part of Husbandry; Pars rusticae vitae, in illis qui armenta & oves pascunt, consistere videtur, saith the Civilian, li. 24. Syntag. cap. 5.  
Adam's two sons, Abel and Cain, were both Husbandmen, Abelcustos ovium, Cain agricola, the one a keeper of Sheep, the other a tiler of ground; and there were houses, habitations, and Cities built by them.  
Sect. 11 So we see God gave the earth unto man, terram dedit filiss hominum. But God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, Gen. 6.5. He therefore by a general deluge over the face of the whole earth, doth cancel his former gift of terram dedit, with a proviso of preservation reserved to Noah and them that were with him in the Ark, Gen. 7.23. But after the waters had prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days, Genesis 8.1. God remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the cattles that was with him in the Ark: And God made a wind to  the earth, and the waters assuaged; And afterwards the face of the ground was dry, Noah and his family by God's direction went forth. 20.21. And every beast, every creeping thing, and every foul, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the Ark. And Noah builded an Altar unto the Lord and took of every clean beast, and of every clean foul, and offered burnt offerings on the Altar; God accepted the sweet favour of Noah's thankful sacrifice, and reneweth his former grant of terram dedit by a strict covenant. Nonigitur ultra percutiam omnem animam viventem, sicut feci, etc. I will not again smite any more every living thing as I have done: Cunctis diebus terrae, while the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and Summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.  
Sect. 12 Thus man by God's covenants stands seized of an absolute inheritance in fee of the earth, the best of the four elements, Habendum per servitia, To hold in capite of Almighty God, as of his Throne of Heaven, to which the earth is but a footstool, and to uses too, dispensatores, non dissipatores; To be Stewards of it, terram colere, arras excolere, to till, manure and husband the earth, and out of the increase thereof to build, polish and repair Altars, Churches and Oratories for the God of Israel, and to maintain and support the beauty of holiness, and to give unto God's Ministers, the sacred Priesthood, his own reserved portion, their dues and duties, and not to commit any spoil, waste or destruction of the earth, or the inhabitants thereof. Thus we observe that the first institution of Husbandry upon the earth, enjoined by God for the sin of man, was agriculture, tillage, and must be performed by the work of the hands, and sweat of the brow; the maintenance of the Ox at the crib, and the pasturage of the Sheep, are but handmaids to do their office in that great labour, The Ox to plough the ground, the sheep to compester it in due times of season.  
Sect. 13 The end and fruit of Tillage, is to bring food out of the earth, and bread to strengthen man's heart, Psalm. 104.15. all sorts of victual or sustenance, either, oil, wine, or any other food are inferior to bread. When God pronounceth any commination of famine for the wickednese of the people, it is by breaking the staff of bread, Ecce ego conteram baculum panis in Jerusalem; Ezec. 4.16. Behold I will break the staff of bread in jerusalem, and they shall eat bread by weight and with care, and they shall drink water by measure and with astonishment.  
Sect. 14 This work of agriculture hath been universally esteemed in all nations of the world. Among the heathen Idolaters (who had a glimmering of a deity) many of them in the variety of objects finding contentment to their desires, forthwith collected that to be God, which had given them such contentment, from whence sprang Idolatry. The earth and the fruits thereof were had in so great honour, that they ascribed a kind of deity to it. Let me a little prosecute the fictious allusions of Heathen Poets in this kind, that I may convince the earth-choaking Christians of this age: they feign Coelus (further they do not aspire) to be married to Terra his sister, by some called Vesta, sive quòd omnibus rebus terra vestiatur, sive quòd vi sua stet; either because the earth is clothed with all things, or because it subsisteth of its own strength. The latter seems to be borrowed from Ovid, Lib:  Stat viterra sua, 
Ovid l. 3. Fast.  vi stando, vesta vocatur. 
But the first in my judgement is more probable. For vesture (vestitura) signifies a garment, and in that sense it may be taken; for grass, corn and all kind of Trees, Woods, and underwoods, are as it were the comely clothing and garments of the earth. I find in an old Law of King Inas, 
Lambert Archaion.  which herein I shall have occasion to touch: Qui decem hidas terrae occupaverit, sex hidas frugibus vestito. In the use of our common Law, it is taken metaphorically to betoken a possession, or an admittance to a possession; and with the feudists, possession itself. And so it may well stand according to Gods grant before mentioned; terram dedit filijs hominum. Sometimes it is taken for the profits of the land: And so 4ᵒ. ED. 1. Stat. 1. entitled extenta manerij; Inquirie was to be made pro quanto vestura cujuslibet acre possit communiter appreciari, how much the vesture of an acre is worth. But I return to my poetical pedigree: They further feign, that in this marriage Saturnus. Atlas, Ops, and others, brothers and sisters were begotten: And from the name of Coelus they derive the appellation of the highest heavens: Ab cujus nomine miravarietate formosissimum, supremum Corpus coelum dicunt fuisse appellatum.  
Some think that Ops the daughter was so called; Quod terrae ope vita hominum sustentatur, by the help of the earth, the life of man is supported; or from the ancient adjective Ops, which fignified rich. For the people of ancient days, whose riches did especially consist in Agriculture and cattles, did adore the earth by the name of the goddess Ops, as the bountiful Mistress of their wealth; they also feign Ceres to be the daughter of Saturn and Ops, and to be the first Inventrix of fruit and tillage, whence Virgil. 1ᵒ. Geo.  
Prima Ceres far mortales vertere terram  
Instituit—  
Ceres did first direct the use of Iron Blow.  
This goddess was sometimes called Thesmophoros (i.e.) legum latrix. For some would have the original of laws, for meats and boundaries, and right of property, to begin with the use of Tillage and Husbandry: Coeptum est de agrorum finibus (qui antea nulli erant) disceptari: Then the limits and bounds of fields (which were not before) began to be in question. And certain it is, the occasion of Tillage and Corn, begat the more frequent use of distinctions, Landmarks and boundaries.  
Sect. 15 As I said before, the people in those blind days, were ready to make a god of that, which gave them a present content. Dimensiones terrarum terminis, positis vagantibus ac discordantibus populis pacis utilia praestiterunt: The allotting and bounding of land, did yield the profitableness of peace, unto wand'ring and disagreeing people. The luxuriant fruition of peace, by this means made them fancy, and frame to themselves the worship of an Idol called Terminus, to whom they offered up their sacrifices in the month of February; Numa Pompilius the second King of the Romans after Romulus, having made a public perambulation throughout the kingdom, and prefixed private limitations and bounds, betwixt party and party; did for establishment thereof dedicate a Chapel, upon the top of the Tarpeian Hill unto this Idol; to whom the people by way of sacrifice brought Cakes, pulse, and the first fruits of the field. In the emblem of peace, Agriculture is portrayed as her Companion, sister, and daughter, carrying ears of corn, and grapes in her hand.  Quae comes haec spicas manibus quae gestat, & uvas. 
Agricultura, quid illa?  
Fida comes pacis, soror haec, & filia,—  
Sect. 16 Lycurgus of Sparta, the Lacedaemonian Law maker, observing what great emolument the study and industry of husbandry did afford unto the public Weal, did divide and farm out all his fields unto his Citizens; that thereby laying aside all private envy and grudge, they might all alike share in pains and profit together.  
Cato the elder was wont to say, that the choicest men for strength and martial designs, and that imagined least mischief, had their off spring from Husbandmen, ex agricolis nasci. It is reported by Suetonius, that when Domiti●● the Emperor, taking notice that study colendi vineta, negligerentur arva; the solicitous care in pruning, and trimming of Vineyards begat a neglect of tillage, commanded all the vines to be rooted out and destroyed. The remedy was as bad as the evil; his care of husbandry (had it been singly) was commendable, but not his absolute destruction of Vineyards; which was a type of his bloody persecution of Christians, and was intolerable to the weal public.  
Amongst the Romans, Agriculture grew in so high esteem, that the Senators themselves would put their hands to the plow. And it never prospered better, than when the Senators themselves ploughed: Scipio major is reported by Seneca, often to have exercised himself in Tillage,  mos erat priscis, as the custom was; and was wont after he had tired himself with rural labours, to refresh his body by bathing, abluere corpus rusticis fessum laboribus.  
The best of ancient Orators, in describing of liberal, 
Cic. l. 1. Offi.  and illiberal arts and sciences, tells us, That Omnium rerum ex quibus aliquid exquiritur, nihil agricultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil libero homine dignius: Nothing better, nothing more plentiful, more sweet, more worthy of a free man, than Tillage.  
Sect. 17 Let us survey the high esteem of Agriculture, and Tillage, by the line and level of the ancient government in this kingdom. Amongst the laws of King Inas, whom I mentioned before, and who began his reign in the year of Christ 712. the 65 Law is de fundum occupantibus, and is to this purpose; 
Archaion.  Qui viginiti hidas terrae possederit, is migraturus undecim hidas segetibus satas à tergo relinquito: Qui decem occupârit, is sex hidas frugibus vestito, etc. He that was possessed of twenty hides of land, and was to departed thence to dwell elsewhere, should leave behind him twelve hides sown with corn: And he that had ten, should leave six, and so after the like proportion. By this may be collected, what provident care those times had for maintenance of the Blow and Tillage.  
Sect. 18 The first commencement of common appendment by the ancient Law of this Realm, was to maintain the service of the Blow, servitium socae. And therefore the Tenant had common in the Lords wastes, to gain (i. e to till) and to compester the land, for the maintenance of tillage; which was much regarded and favoured by the Law. This sort of land was anciently called hide and gain, the word hide signifying such a portion of land, as might be laboured and tilled in a year, and a day, by one Blow: and gain (i. e. Quaestus, lucrum;) Metonymically from the profit and advantage which ariseth by Tillage; whence the Civilians do term Corn and harvest fruits, Fructus industriales. And whereas all service due for land, is either Knight's service or socage: The word socage is derived of the word soc (i. e.) vomer a Ploughshare or Coulter. Et inde (saith Bracton li. 2. ca 35. num. 1.) tenentes qui tenent in sockagio sockmanni dici poterunt; co quòd deputati sunt (ut videtur) tantummodo ad culturam. The tenure of socage hath more privileges than that of Knight's service. The son and heir of a socage tenant, sockmanni, was understood to be of sufficient age to enter to his land cum quindecim compleverit annos, whereas the son and heir of the other, not till he attain the age of 21. Glanvill lib. 7. ca 9  
Sect. 19 The common Law did and doth prefer errable land before all other sort of land. And therefore for its dignity is named in a Praecipe upon a fine, and in a writ of entry, before meadow, pasture, wood, or any other soil.  
Yea the very beast of the Blow, averia carucae have a privilege. For in the old Statute, the districtione Scaccarij. 51. Hen. 3.1266. It is provided that no man of Religion (or other) shall be distreyned by his beasts that gain his land, nor by his Sheep for the King's debt, nor the debt of any other man, nor for any other cause, by the Kings, or other Bailiffs; but until they can find another distress, or Chattels sufficient, whereof they may levy the debt, or that is sufficient for the demand, except impounding of beasts, damage Fezant. By the Statute of Artic. super chartas 28ᵒ. EDW. 1. ca 12. The King willed, that distresses to be taken for his debts, should not be made upon beasts of the Blow, so long as a man may find any other; upon this Law a writ is founded, ne quis distring atur per averia carucarum, vel per oves suas, 
Regist. Breu.  against those that shall transgress, and impound any cattles of the Blow, or sheep, contrary to that ordinance being made; ad communem utilitatem Regnì, as the writ sets forth.  
Sect. 20 To compare the Laws of other Nations, amongst the ancient Indians, Agricolae were the second degree of men, after the Philosophers or wise men. And when all the Provinces in that great Country (being by some noted to be the third part of all the earth, containing 50000. Town's) were embroiled with civil Wars; amidst all their hostilities, 
Strah. li. 55.  Agricolae erant sacrosancti & intacti, agrique corum, etc. the Husbandmen and their fields, were privileged from any violation or invasion, and they had the happiness, quietly to apply themselves unto their Blow, their vintage, lopping of trees, or their harvest labours, according to the season of the year: Arrianus in Indicis. Whence it may be probably conceived that the industry of the people, as well as the fertility of the soil was the means, that the earth in those parts brought forth its fruits to maturity twice a year. This custom of the Indians grew to be part of the Civil Law among the Romans, li. 2. Synt. Tit. 27ᵒ.  
Sect. 21 It was the constitution of Fredericus Caesar; which meetly symphonizeth with our common Law, Agricultores circa rem rusticam occupati, dum villis incident, dum agros colunt, securi sint in quacunque parte terrarum: ita ut nullus inveniatur tam audax, ut personas, boves, & agrorum instrumenta, aut si quid aliud sit, quod ad agrorum rusticam curam pertineat, invadere, aut capere, aut violenter auferre praesumat: That Husbandmen versed about their Country affairs, whilst they abode upon their farms, and whilst they tilled their grounds, should be quiet, or safe in all parts of the land. So, that none should be so hardy, as presume to assault, take, or forcibly carry away, their persons, their Oxen, and tools of Husbandry, or any other thing that belonged to the affairs of Husbandry. The penalty followeth, and deserves a due perpension: Si quis autem hujusmodi statutum ausu temerario violare praesumpserit, in quadruplum ablata restituat, & infamiae notam ipso jure incurrat, imperiali arbitrio nihilominus puniendus: The rash and insolent violater of that Law was to make a fourfold restitution of the things taken away, to be accounted infamous by the Law, and notwithstanding to be punished at the pleasure of the Emperor. I shall in its proper place, parallel the late Decree of the King's great counsel, and high Court of Star-chamber against Depopulation, with this imperial constitution for rural immunities, to show that no Law or ordinance never so strictly contrived, hath been hitherto more proportionably and conveniently medicinable for this sore then the Arbitrary proceed of that great Court.  
Sect. 22 The benefit and commodity of tillage, and supporting houses of Husbandry, will best be manifested by describing the inconvenience of Depopulation, Contraria contrarijs illustrantur. And therein I shall not need to inquire any further, than into the Statute Laws of our kingdom, and to take a survey, as well of the preambles, and the reasons therein comprised, which are Medulla legis, as of the proviso or act itself, which is (I may term it) medicina mali; where the symptoms and circumstances of diseases, either corporal or political, are not first descried, the remedy may be misapplyed. In this case therefore Optima statuti interpres est (omnibus particulis ejusdem inspectis) ipsum statutum.  
King Henry the seventh, 
Lord Bacon.  by an eminent writer of his life, is highly commended for the laws enacted in his time, to advance Husbandry and tillage; Though the common Law, at that time, was furnished with sufficient power to defend and conserve it, and to punish the delinquents; yet that being lex non scripta, was not so conspicuous to the vulgar eye, as an act of Parliament made by all the three States; whereof, as every man hath by his suffrage of electing of Knights and Burgesses, an interest in the making of it, so he may the sooner take notice of it. And therefore to prevent the then growing evil, the first positive Law was made in the third Parliament, 
4 Herald 7. ca 19  holden in the fourth year of his reign, ca 190. providing penalties against decaying houses of Husbandry, or not laying of convenient land for the maintenance of the same: 
Eodem Anno. ca 12.  But I must look back upon another Statute, the same time, Cap. 12o 0 which was made to rouse up the remiss and misdemeaning justices of peace of that age, with more care to execute their Commission, to redress injuries, and maintain the laws, which is termed by that learned Writer, Monitory and Minatory. And therein amongst other enormities, which did daily arise by the impunity of murders, robberies, felonies, idleness, extortions, and other offences, it is expressed, that the Husbandry of this land was decayed, whereby  
The Church of England was upholden,  
The service of GOD continued,  
Every man thereby had his sustenance,  
Every inheritor his rent for his land.  
His Majesty then did therein further declare his consideration, that a great part of the wealth, and prosperity of his land, did depend upon the increasing and upholding of Husbandry. This Statute is but by way of reflection, and strikes at this evil, but through the sides of the justices.  
Sect. 23 That which follows, did strike more home to it (i. e.) the Statute ca 190. which sets forth; That among all other things, great inconveniences did daily increase by desolation and pulling down, and by wilful waste of houses and Towns within the Realm, and laying to pasture, lands which customably had been used to tilth. And thereby,  
1. Idleness, the ground and beginning of all mischiefs, daily did increase: For, where in some Towns, 200 persons lived by their lawful labour, they are now occupied, by two or three herdsmen.  
2. Husbandry, one of the greatest commodities of the Realm greatly decayed.  
3. Churches destroyed, and the vice of God withdrawn by diminution of Church living, decay of tithes, and the like.  
4. Patrons and Curates, Gods Ministers wronged.  
5. The defence of the land against foreign enemies feebled and impaired.  
The two consequences that follow of these inconveniences, Are,  

1. The displeasure of Almighty God.  
2. Subversion of the policy, and good rule of the land. For remedy whereof it was enacted; that if any owners of houses of Husbandry, which had been let to farm, with twenty Acres of land at least, or more lying in tillage and Husbandry; And the occupiers did not maintain the houses and buildings convenient for upholding the said tillage; The Lord of the Fee had power to receive yearly half the issues and profits of the land, until the houses were sufficiently builded or repaired again. The Statute of 70. of HEN. 8. ca 1. was to the same purpose, not much different, and so was the Stature of 27. Hen. 8. ca 22.   
Sect. 24 But these acts, and all other subsequent acts, as namely, the act of 5. Edw. 6. by which, so much providence was had for the supportation of tillage, as that Commissions were awarded into several Counties, to inquire of the offences, and delicts, committed contrary to the tenor of that Stature; And the acts 2. and 3. Phil. and Mar. ca 2. by which the Statute of 4. Hen. 7. ca 19 was revived and confirmed, and Commissions a warded to certain persons, to inquire of all defaults and offences committed since An. 20. Hen. 8. or then after to be committed, contrary to the tenor of the forecited Statutes of 4. H. 7.19. and 7. Hen. 8.1. and the act of 5. Eliz. 2. which repealed the Statues of 5. and 6. Edw. 6.5. and 2. and 3. Phi. and Ma. 2. confirming the rest, were all repealed 39 Eliz. cap. 1. And thereby explained and enacted, that every house which at that time, or then after, had twenty acres (to be adjudged according to the ordinance, de terris mensurandis) of errable land, meadow, and pasture, or more, thereunto belonging, and so let to farm for three years together, since the beginning of the Queen's reign (not being the Castle, or dwelling House of any Nobleman, or Gentleman, nor the chief mansion house of any Manor) shall be adjudged a house of husbandry for ever, with many provisions for repairing, and new-building houses of husbandry: 
39 Eliz. cap. 2.  was same Parliament an Act ca 2. was made, that errable land converted to sheep pastures, or to the fatting or grazing of cattles since 1. Eliz. should be restored or laid to tillage, and so continue for ever, according to the nature of the soil, and course of husbandry, with some clauses and restrictions, and a penalty of twenty shillings for every acre for every year not restored. I cannot omit the reasons of this Law enforced in the entrance of it.  
1 That the strength and flourishing estate of this kingdom hath been always upheld and advanced by the maintenance of the Blow and tillage.  
2 Tillage is the occasion of multiplying of people, both for service in the wars, and time of peace.  
3 A principal means that people are set on work, and thereby withdrawn from idleness, drunkenness, unlawful games, and all other lewd practices and conditions of life.  
4 That by tillage and husbandry, the greater part of the subjects are preserved from extreme poverty in a competent estate of maintenance and means to live.  
5 The wealth of the Realm kept, dispersed and distributed in many hands, where it is more ready to answer all necessary charges for the service of the Realm.  
6 It is a cause that the Realm doth more stand upon itself, without out depending upon foreign Countries, either for importation of Corn, in time of scarcity, or for vent and utterance of our own commodities.  
These two last mentioned Acts, were but to endure to the end of the next Session of Parliament, which being holden 43. Eliz. they were then revived and continued, ca 9 and likewise continued 1. jacobi. 25. and afterward discontinued, and by the Statute of 21. jacob. all the said other Statutes against decay of houses, were utterly repealed. And so the remedy must have recourse to the Common Law, and the wisdom of the State.  
Sect. 25 I thought it no great digression from any purpose, succinctly to run over those Comitiar Laws, framed according to the necessity of the times wherein they were made, that we may observe the opinion, and detestation those times had of this exorbitant evil: And though those Laws be by repeal and expiration exauctorated, yet the inconveniences and mischiefs pointed out by them, still remaining, and increasing, and the nature and quality of the offence, transcending from mean Tenants to great Land. lords, from small quantities of acres, to whole Towneships, tithings and hamlets; The care and cure must be greater and speedier, than any Stature-Law hath hitherto provided: Yet there is one Law made 25. 
25 Herald 8. ca 13.  Hen. 8. ca 13. entitled, An act limiting what number of sheep men shall keep, occupy, and have in their own possession at one time, still in force, and unrepealed, which though in the frontispiece it seems to look upon a silly company of sheep, it doth unkennel a subtle sort of Foxes, which waste and spoil the Vineyard of the Common wealth. Observe (1) the footing of these Foxes, by their practices, and injuries to the common good: (2) the mischiefs, and inconveniences thereupon happening: (3) the great consequence ensuing: (4) the remedy provided by that Law.  
1 It discovereth unto us, that sundry of the King's Subjects, to whom GOD had disposed great plenty of movable substance, did daily practise and invent ways and means how they might accumulate and gather together into few hands, as well great multitudes of farms, as great plenty of Cattles, and in especial sheep, putting such lands as they can get, to pasture, and not to tillage.  
2 The incoveniences four fold.  
1 That thereby they have pulled down Churches, and Towns.  
2 enhanced the old rates of the rents of the possessions of this Realm, or brought it to such excessive fines, that no poor man is able to meddle with it.  
3 That they have raised the prices of all manner of Corn, , Wool, and such other, almost double above the accustomed prices.  
4 That multitudes of people not able to provide necessary victuals and clothing, for themselves, their wives and children, were so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they fell daily to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, or pitifully died for hunger and cold.  
3 The consequence or enormities ensuing, five fold.  
1 That things thus used be principally to the high displeasure of Almighty God.  
2 To the decay of the hospitality of this Realm.  
3 To the diminishing of the King's people.  
4 To the let of Clothmaking, whereby many poor people had been accustomed to be set to work.  
If remedy were not found, it might turn to the utter destruction and desolation of the Realm.  
4 The remedy prescribed, 2. fold, restriction and limitation.  
1 That none should occupy in farm, or otherwise have of his own proper cattles, in his own proper lands, nor in the possession, lands or grounds of any other, which he shall have in farm, by any manner of means, craft, or cunning above two thousand sheep at one time, within any part of the Realm, upon pain of three shillings and four pence for every sheep above that number.  
2 That none should take in farm for term of life, years, or at will, any more houses and renements of husbandry whereunto any lands are belonging, in Town, Village, Hamlet or tithing, above the number of two, upon the penalty of three shillings and four pence for every week.  
Sect. 26 All these Statutes are but municipalis aperturae legis, overtures of the ancient Common Law; One of the mainest special occasions of this grand mischief, is a growing evil of late years practised and set on foot by certain greedy and covetous persons, Carnifices & carnivoros regni, grazing butchers, who under colour of their mechainck trade in butchery, respecting their own private gain and lucre, above the general good of his Highness' Subjects, do accumulate and gain into their hands, at excessive yearly rents, several great portions and parts of the grounds and lands of this Realm, from several Landlords, and persons, to the value of four hundred, five hundred, eight hundred, or a thousand pounds a year, more or less, from the occupation of poor husbandmen, to the intent to use it in pasture, and not in tillage; and thereby not only to graze and feed great store of sheep, and other Cattles, which they usually buy in great numbers, to the intent to sell them alive, contrary to the true meaning of a good Law, made in the third and fourth years of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth, cap. nineteen. continued by the last Parliament, An. 3. Car. Reg. ca 4. but also to agift, and take to pasture in those several grounds, the Cattles of divers poor husbandmen and others at very high and unusual rates and prices; By means whereof the poor laborious husbandmen in most parts of the Kingdom, whose tenements do most consist of errable land, are intercepted and forestalled from renting any competent quantities of meadow, or pasture to maintain their Oxen, and other Cattles, to keep the plough in use according to the season of the year; And those grounds which within the space of few years have been let at reasonable yearly rates to neighbouring husbandmen, are now by the supplantings and outbidding of those and such like covetous accumulators enhanced to the full double value; to the great discomfort and discouragement of the husbandman, who ofttimes is enforced for want of food and fodder for his Oxen and Cattles, to sell them away, and to leave his grounds untilled.  
Sect. 27 That Devil Covetuosnesse the mother of all these mischiefs, hath ever some argument, to elude (if it could) the intention of all Law and justice; In this case it will with a high hand, umbonibus junctis, press a double argument by way of question. 1. a proprio (2) ab utili.  
1 A proprio, Is it not lawful for me to do what I list with my own, to pull or let down my own houses, or alter the property of my own soil, & c?  
2 Ab utili, Shall I not buy and purchase as much as I am able to pay for; And shall I not make the most of my own?  
Sect. 28 They are general questions, and one general maxim will serve to answer both, Interest reipublicae, nequis re sua male utatur; The interest of the Common weal hath such a power over the actions and estates of men, that no man must abuse or mis-imploy the talon of his means; And by the rules of contraries, every man must well and rightfully order and employ it.  
It agrees with the rule of Law and reason, Prohibetur ne quis faciat in suo, quod nocere possit alieno: Et sic utere tuo, ut alienum non laedas: No man must do that in his own property or possession, as may hurt another man's; And we must so use our own, that we may not offend our neighbour: This rule may seem to reflect upon particular nuisances, to the discommodity of vicinage and neighbourhood, which are to be remedied by actions at the Common Law, whereof many particular cases might be plentifully urged: If in such cases the Law provides a remedy, contra vicinum & privatum nocumentum, against a private annoyance; à fortiori, against common nocumentum, that nuisance which offends many, which the wisdom of the Law meets with, by Indictments, presentments, and other ways in several Courts of justice. But à mulio fortiori, against generale nocumentum, that which displeaseth and offendeth not one alone, or many, but All, God and man, and of men all sorts, from the highest to the lowest.  
Sect. 29 It is an undoubted Principle, omne bonum est sui diffusivum; All goodness doth communicate itself to others: he that racketh and tentereth his bona fortunae, his fortune, and means, to improve his private, and impair the public good, hath not participation of this goodness: And as little hath he of that cardinal and all-crowning virtue, Charity, the groundsel of religion, without which nothing availeth, sine Charitate nihil prodest, quia fundamentum religionis Charitas est. Charity, saith Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 13.5. non quaerit quae sua sunt: It seeketh not her own, it prefers the good of others before its own private; In a former Chapter, cap. 10. ver. 24. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth; The words, either in the literal acceptation, or taken according to the Apostles meaning, do insinuate, that no man must so use his own, as thereby to offend his neighbour.  
Non nobis nati sumus, we are not borne for ourselves, but partly for our friends, and partly for our Country, It is a vulgar Country proverb, every man for himself and God for us all. But a reverend Divine thus inverted it; Where every man is for himself; non deus, sed diabolus, The Devil is for all: The rich man's barn is full of Corn; It is his own, jure proprietatis; But he must not hide and hoard it up to enhance the price, he must expose it to public sale, and at reasonable prices, propter commune bonum, Or else a vae qui abscondit is denounced against him: He that received but one Talon committed to him by his Lord, wherein he had but a fiduciary interest, and hide it, and did not rightly use it, was cast into utter darkness, and had his Talon taken from him: Matthew 25.15. we are all but trusties of this worldly estate or earthly Talon; As we must not hide, but use it; So must we use it, not for ourselves only, but for the common utility of the weal public.  
Sect. 31 As it transgresseth the bond of Charity, the Crown of all good gifts and graces; It doth likewise offend against the rules of justice, the Queen regent of all virtues; The confession of sins daily celebrated by the Church, doth conclude by way of prayer, that we may live a godly, righteous and a sober life, which implies three duties, piety to God, Just ce or upright dealing to our Neighbour, and sobriety to ourselves: I meddle but with the second.  
Sect. 32 justice is either univerfall, whereby a man doth justly carry himself, and level his actions for the common and public good, and yields obedience to all laws, ut ex earum praescripto omnes alias virtutes colat: That by the rule or prescript of those laws, he may have all other virtues in esteem, which Aristotle calls legal, quia leges eam praecipue intendunt, for that the whole use and operation of the law is for the support and execution of it.  
Or it is particularis, which is also called Moral, and is a virtue busied and exercised in the distribution and commutation, or merchandizing of all outward things. The object of her employment and negotiation, sunt bona externa, & fortunae, ut opes & honores, all external goods, and goods of fortune, as riches, and honours; Hence it is divided into distributive and Commutative justice.  
This observeth an arithmetical proportion in all exchanges, contracts, covenants and commerce, between man and man, strictly looking upon the equality of the thing bought, sold, bartered, or exchanged, without respect of the person, party in the bargain, whether he be a Noble man, Citizen, or Plebeian, rendering the price no less unto the one, than to the other; It hath this general rule to be exercised in all intercourses of buying, selling, and dealings whatsoever, Thes. 4.6. That no man outreach, or circumvent his brother in any matter, ne quis supergrediatur, vel circumveniat in negotio fratrem suum; This justice, the depopulating questionists may in some measure observe, when they do buy or sell, they may afford rem pro pretio, pretium pro re; But they will not sell their lands and commodities with conveniency, either of time or price, till the members of the Common wealth are ready to suffer for want of it: And in buying and accumulating Vineyard to Vineyard, they are so excessive and outrageous, that they become masters of a whole Country, and none must have any thing near them, but at their prices; This kind of justice commutative respecteth only private persons; That other (i.e.) listributive, respecteth public persons: By the one we defraud or do injury to no man; by the other we benefit and do good to all men.  
Sect. 33 Distributive justice hath this indelible character, alienum non vendicat, utilitatem propriam negligit.  communem aequitatem custodiat; She claims not that which belongs unto another, she passeth by her own profit, that she may preserve common right; It hath this general rule, Galathians 6.10. As we have occasion, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Let us do good to all men; Not only individually to any particular person or member, but to the King, the head of the State, and to the Church and Common weal, the body, and not at any stinted or expectatory times, but upon all opportunities, Salutem qui cum poterit, protrahit, negat; The delaying of succour and relief, when a man may afford it, is as much as an absolute denial.  
The violating of this justice, is ever a privative injustice, whereby we do not that common good, as we ought to do; It is aswell injustice (though not alike) not to do for our brother what we ought, as to do what we ought not, according to that saying, pasce esurientem; si non pavisti, occidisti, feed thy hungry brother, if thou feed him not, thou art a homicide privatively, if not positively. If so; In what case is the Depopulator? He doth not only not feed the hungry, but robbeth them of their bread, and therein he is a man of blood: panis pauperum est vita pauperum, & qui defraudat, vir sanguinis est: Nay he is a matricide, he chokes up the earth our common mother, from yielding her foizon and increase unto her offspring.  
Sect. 34 It is reported by an ancient Chronologer, Walter Map Archdeacon of Oxford, who was bred up with Hen. 2. That the Abbots and, Monks in that time were very criminous in matter of depopulation, whence a proverb did arise of them, Monachi desertum, aut inveniunt aut faciunt wheresoever they settled themselves, they either found it, or made it a desert: It is said of them, that they laid more places waste, then ever William the Conqueror, or his Son Rufus did, when they demolished and destroyed many parishes with their Churches to enlarge the bounds of New forest.  
The Abbot of Osney, was principally noted for a great Depopulator; he made all poor that dwelled within the compass of his possessions; whereof King Hen. 2. took such notice, that one day, when he had not poor enough, to bestow his alms unto, upon some festival and solemn time did discontentedly affirm, that rather than his bounty should be undisposed, he would make as many beggars, as the Abbot of Osney had done.  
Their monasteries and religious houses were no sooner dissolved, but eftsoons their goodly structures were wasted and ruined, yet their lands (as if they seemed to carry with them a successory adherence of this leprosy) have fallen into the hands of many more uncharitable than ever they were; for as they made poor, they did in some competency maintain and relieve them; But these do not only make many poor, but starve those that are poor.  
Sect. 35 It was the Law of GOD by the mouth of Moses, Leu. 19.9. When you reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of the field, neither shalt thou gather the glean of thy harvest. Verse 10. And thou shalt not glean the Vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy Vineyard: thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: The like, Ch. 23. Ver. 22. Thou shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of thy field, when thou reapest, neither shalt thou gather any glean of thy harvest: thou shalt leave them unto the poor, and to the stranger: He that had forgotten a sheaf behind him in the harvest, should not go again to fetch it, but leave it behind for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, Deut. 24.19.  
A blessing is promised, that the LORD thy GOD may bless thee in all the works of thy hands; then needs must be employed, whosoever doth it not, shall not be blessed; where benedictions are excluded, woes and maledictions soon make their entrance, where there is no tillage, there can be no harvest, and where no harvest is, no relics, no glean can be.  
Dost cultura? labant messes, & mess labanti.  
Deficient inopi, spicas, frumenta legenti.  
If tillage fail, the harvests fail, which once failing,  
The corn cannot yield unto the poor their gleaning.  
Woe then to the Depopulator, who is so fare from making riddance of the corners of the fields, that he rids whole fields, and takes away all occasions of glean and harvest, in debarring and forechoaking the work of tillage, by converting errable into pasture, and ruinating the habitations of husbandry, by turning them into sheep-coates; Our times cannot make good that saying, Nunc seges est ubi Troj a fuit: Now corn grows where houses stood; but we may take it up with a lamentation; where hospitable Farms, and plentiful fields of corn have been, nothing remains but a champant wilderness for sheep, with a Coat, a pastoral boy, his dog, a crook and a pipe.  In casulas, veteres mansus mutantur oviles. 
Or as the Thebans in the time of a devouring pestilence, bewailed the loss of their husbandmen.  — Viduas colonis Respicis terras miseranda Thebes: 
Senec. troth. in Oedip.  
We might in these contagious days of depopulation, justly expect the like querimony, if his Majesty's gracious, and watchful providence, in preventing such mischiefs, did not cheer up our fainting hearts.  
Sect. 36 One of the instruments of depopulation is enclosure, I do not mean of wastes, woods and pastures, so fare as they are warranted by several Laws and Statutes; for where a man hath Common in the Lords wast ground, the Lord by the Law may enclose part of the waste for himself, leaving nevertheless sufficient Common with egress and regress for the Commoners: And it is called approvement (appruamentum) that is, to make the best benefit thereof by increasing the rent; And if the Lord doth approve his waste, not leaving sufficient Common for the Tenants, the Law gives them a remedy against the Lord by writ of assize: But my aim is at enclosing of common fields used to culture, and converting them into pasture, whereby one grand offence and inconvenience not yet formerly mentioned doth arise: The stopping and straightning of the King's high ways: For whereas by the Statute of Winton, 13. Edw. 1.5. It was commanded that high ways leading from one Market Town to another, should be enlarged, where bushes, woods, or dykes were, so that there should be neither dyke, tree nor bush, whereby a man might lurk to do hurt, within two hundred foot of the one side, and two hundred foot of the other side of the way, (except Ashes or great Trees) By the meaning of which Law, the King's high ways (which the Common Law had ever in high estimation) were to be of such sufficient breadth, that three or four Carts or carriages might well pass in range together, without any stop or impediment: Now in most parts of the Kingdom, within the space of these forty years, There have been so much Circumseption and wounding in of common errable lands and fields, abutting and adjoining to high ways, by Tenants with consent of the Lord of the fee (all partakers of the crime) and the high ways thereby so straightened, that in many places, but one Cart, and not without some danger and difficulty, can pass, and scarce two horsemen side by side, without climbing upon side banks, whence these inconveniences and mischiefs must needs arise.  
1 A great danger to his Majesty's Subjects in being exposed to assassinations and robberies, with little possibility to avoid or resist them, by reason of the narrowness and encumbrance of the ways.  
2 As great a danger to his highness' liege people, who upon necessitated occasions, either for his highness' public service, or for common intercourse and traffic, being upon the height of speed (which brooks no delay) Omnis nimium long a properanti mora est, do oftentimes in straight and narrow lanes (I cannot term them ways, for the way aswel as the word are become diminutives, via is turned into viculi) meet with countercourses and are ready for want of competent spaciousness, which might decline the sudden distress, rashly encounter each other, to the peril of their limbs or lives.  
3 A manifest impairment or population of the ways themselves doth this straightness produce, and thereby not only makes them unpassable upon some unseasonable times & weather, to the great trouble and impediment of the Subjects, who are enforced to compass their journey with much tediousness, through private grounds, and other byways; But it doth also exhausted from the poor neighbouring Inhabitants, a fare greater and more frequent charge of reparations, then if they had the Statute allowance of latitude; the often pressures and tread in one tract, will sooner founder a way, then if there were variety and choice of tracts which would be supplied in breadth according to that law of Winton, if enclosures were not in the way.  
Sect. 37 All the mischiefs and miserable inconveniences before cited, I shall reduce in one distich.  
Rex patitur, patitur clerus, respublica, pauper;  
Et non passurus depopulator erit?  
Rex patitur: The King suffers; 1 First in his Royal Majesty, he cannot number so many strong and able men as he might do, if tillage had its ancient esteem: In the multitude of people is the King's honour, but in the want of people is the destruction of the Prince: In pautitate plebis ignominia Principis, Prov. 14.28. It was the lamentation of jerusalem, Lamen. 1.1. How doth the City sit solitary, that was full of people? how is she become as a widow? Amongst people the husbandmen are noted to be homines strenuissimi, the strongest men, and fittest for any labour, whence Seneca observed; Nullum laborem recusant manus quae ab aratro ad arma transferuntur: Their hands refuse no labour, who from the exercise of the Blow are trained to the field; The Law therefore of 39 Eliz. ca 1. doth excellently set forth; That the strength and flourishing estate of this Kingdom hath been always upheld and advanced by tillage, and people thereby multiplied for service, both in times of war and peace, and by the decay of it, the defence of the land, against foreign enemies have been feebled and decayed.  
2 Secondly in the means and maintenance of his imperial state, and therefore a depopulator may be well called depeculator, a robber of the King's treasury: for it must of necessity be diminished and fare shortened, if sufficient Families (who were able to pay subsidies, fifteen, and other duties to supply the KING'S necessities, aswell for the support of his regality, as for the defence of the Kingdom) be utterly decayed and disabled: And it is a common practice with Landlords and others, to keep tenements in their hands, and instead of Subsidies, to pay the King with Certificates. It is the prudent policy of a Prince, in the time of peace to make provision for the maintenance of war, Nulla quies gentium sine armis, the peace of a Nation cannot be without an army; No armies without Soldiers, no Soldiers without salaries, no salaries without tributes and taxes to the Prince. And where there are no people, there can be no payments, and then the desolation of a Kingdom must needs follow, which I hope our Nation shall never see.  
Sect. 38 Patitur Clerus: The Church suffers, 1. in the decay and ruin of material temples, oratory's, chapels and houses of religion, 2. abating and diminishing the number of painful and learned Pastors, 3. in robbing God and his holy Church of tithes both personal and predial: for where Towns, Parishes, and Villages are dispeopled, there must be a failing of personal duties: And where errable lands are converted into pasture, there must needs ensue a diminution of predial tithes: sheep do never yield so much profit and advantage to God's Ministers, as the sheaf; this is commonly sure to be paid in kind: In the tything of the other, which consisteth in wool and lamb, there are many slights and subtle deceits of late crept in, and many devices started up by covetous and ill disposed persons; They will either shift away their sheep from one place to another; and sometimes upon a petty composition with a neighbour incumbent from one parish to another, and so encumber the tything for the fall of Lambs, and set a variance between the Ministers, or they will sell their sheep a little before the time of shearing, and so cheat the Minister of his dues in the title of wool; And to countenance this pillage, some strange prescription, or modus decimandi must presently be set on foot, a prohibition speedily had, and the litigious Countryman's next labour is, to provide for a trial at the assizes, and to prepare (as the too common proverb is, horresco referens) good swearers, that may cleave a pin, and so by horrid perjury outstrip God and his Ministers of their just dues; It is lamentable to see what perplexed swearing and counterswearing do often happen upon such trials.  
Qui rem Sacram legit; He that robs Churches, or Chapels, or other holy places, and takes any ornaments out of them feloniously, is to suffer death by the Law, without benefit of Clergy: I will not term the Depopulator Sacrilegus: Sacred things which are stolen a way, may be possibly found and had again; But I shall call him sacrivorus, such a devouring Leviathan, that swallows Steeples, Churches, and whole fields, and makes a non entity, and takes away the very being of sacred things apppointed and designed for the glory of God, and the maintenance of religigion: He adnuls that sacred rule, honour God with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: Pro. 2.9. The Prophet brandeth such men with a just accusation of robbery, will a man rob God? yet ye have rob me: But ye say wherein have we rob thee? in tithes and offerings: ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have rob me, Malac. 3.8. Therefore just was the complaint of the Parliament, 4 Herald 7. ca 19 That Churches were destroyed, and the service of God withdrawn by diminution of Church living, decay of tithes, and the like; and Patrons of Churches, and Curates, Gods Ministers were wronged.  
Patitur respublica.  
Sect. 39 In whatsoever the King doth suffer, the Publike-weale hath a share; if the Head be grieved, the whole Body will sympathise: The Commonweal of England, is a Society or common doing of Freemen, collected together, and united by common accord, and governed by the administation of laws, as well in peace as in war, under the Princely rule and protection of an absolute Monarch, who, under God, is supreme head both of Church and State, and acknowledgeth no other Superior. It is called the Commonweal, quia respicit communem utilitatem, because it respecteth the common good: The Depopulator strikes at the very structure and frame of a Commonweal, by dispeopling of Societies in Towns, Parishes, and Hamlets. He brings in Idleness, the ground and foundation of all mischiefs, accompanied with luxury, ebriety, unlawful games, and all other lewd practices and conditions of life: He is the common inhanser of the prizes of all manner of Corn, Graine, and Victual, and of all the old rents of ancient Farms and Possessions: He makes the kingdom beholding to foreign Countries for importation of Corn in times of scarcity. By his unconscionable enclosures the King's high ways are straightened and impaired, and commonly foundered, to the hindrance and impediment of common mercature, and travail to and fro: There is not one good quality in him for the common good.  
Sect. 40 Patitur pauper.  
The poor suffers: for whereas by tillage and husbandry the greater part of the subjects are preserved from extreme poverty in a competent estate of maintenance, and means to live; now by the decay of it multitudes of people, not able to provide necessary victuals and clothing for themselves, and their families, are so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they daily fall to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, and either die by the hand of justice, or perish and starve in a Gaol. It is woeful to see, that those places are now more pestered with poor prisoners, than heretofore they were. As it doth depauperate able men, so, for want of alms and glean, it is a means to starve and famish them, when they are made poor; for the poor labourer, who, like the painful Ant, was wont in harvest time to glean, and lease up so much corn, as would thriftily maintain him a good part of the winter, is now for want of tillage, destituted of that benefit.  
Sect. 41 But now (God and the wisdom of our great Sovereign by him inspired, be blessed) Passurus est depopulator, you have heard him discovered, described, arraigned, & convicted, & ere long you shall hear his sentence: His crime is no less than crimen laesae majestatis, high Treason against the sacred Trinity of heaven, in compassing about the violating & cancelling of that great Charter, or, magna Charta of terram dedit filiis hominum, ut operarentur; and endeavouring to overthrow God's institution of husbandry, primum opus impositum; and in stead of operari, to bring in otiari, in stead of many labourers in the harvest, to maintain only a shepherd and his Cur.  
Sect. 42 The Charter of confirmation of the liberties of England, and the forests, made 10. Octo. 25. Edw. 1.1297. doth provide cap. 4. that all Archbishops, and Bishops, should pronounce the sentence of excommunication against all those that by word, deed or counsel, do contrary to the said Charters, or that in any point break or undo them: and that the said Curses should be twice a year denounced, and published by the Prelates aforesaid. The sentence of excommunication is extant, styled sententia lata super confirmatione Chartarum; whereby Robert Winchesly then Archbishop of Canterbury, did excommunicate all the violaters of those Charters, from the body of our Lord jesus Christ, from all the company of heaven, and from all the Sacraments of holy Church for ever, fiat, fiat, Amen. Though neither the Anathema of that time, being now expired, nor any of this time do meet with them; yet let them expect, (my charity interdicts the word Curse) but little blessing from heaven. Sure I am, the sacred Scripture pronounceth many a Vae, many woes against the several qualities and species of that grand offence: One they have heard already, a Vae qui abscondit, etc.  
Sect. 43 A covetous man is described, that his eye is neither satisfied with riches, neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? Eccle. 4.8. and presently follows vers. 10. a Vae soli, woe to him that is alene. The Depopulator may take up this woe, who will be alone in his habitation, without the comfort of neighberhood; alone in his actions, without any participation with other; and he shall be alone in his punishment: Vae soli, Woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him. He that offends all generally, may have the prayers of many to convert him, but scarce the prayers of any to help him, Solitudinem faciunt, & habent, shall be the Motto of such persons, Qui neminem miseretur, à nemine miserebitur; He that pitieth none, shall be pitied of none. There is a Vae qui conjungitis domum ad domum; Isai. 5.8. woe unto them, that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed in the midst of the earth.  
The Prophet Micha, cap. 2. vers. 1. doth second this woe with a Vae qui cogitatis inutile, & operamini malum, etc. Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds, when the morning is light they practise it, because it is in the power of their hands. Verse. 2. And that covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away. So they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage: Their doom follows pronounced by the Prophet: Idcirco hoc dicit Dominus, ver. 3. Therefore thus saith the Lord, with an ecce, Behold, against this family do I devise an evil, from which you shall not remove your necks, neither shall ye go haughtily; for this time is evil. 4. In that day one shall take up a parable against you, and lament with a doleful lamentation, and say (in the words of S. jeromes' translation, Depopulatione vastati sumus) We beutterly spoilt: He hath changed the portion of my people: how hath he removed it from me? turning away (or in stead of restoring) he hath divided our fields. This woe was pronounced against the Israelites, and the jews, and as well against their Princes (their mighty men) as against the people, for a memorial and example to all the posterity of Adam. It is remarkable, and should take very much to observe the Analogy and proportion between the sin and the sentence against it.  
Sect. 44 In the sin there is a devising of an iniquity, a working, of an evil, malum culpae, they think upon the evil of sin, Vae qui cogitatis.  
In this sentence there is a cogito, a devising of an evil too against the sinner, but it is malum poenae, God against them thinketh upon the evil of punishment. In the sin, there is an extension considerable in the persons against whom the evil is devised and wrought; it is not against a man and a field, but agros and domos, fields and whole houses, families, men, women, and Children; not grey hairs, not men of strength, not the nursing mother, nor the tender babe; not the very embryo in the womb were exempted from this oppression.  
Under the Law the Dam was not to be taken with her young ones, And therefore if a birds nest chanced to be found, whether they were young ones or Eggs; and the Dam sitting upon the young, or upon the Eggs; The Precept was, Thou shalt not take the Dam with the young; Deut. 22. v. 6. If God had such care of the fowls of the air, which was typical, what shall be expected amongst Christians, to whom the Veil of the Law is opened; woe be to him that shall oppress the Dam with her young ones.  
In the sentence there is an extent of the evil of punishment devised, quadrant to the sin; Cogito super istam familiam, Against that family do I devise an evil; As if he should say, Against the old and strong, the Dam, and her young ones, this evil shall cleave to all; In quo quis peccat, in eo punietur; I will add a qualiter, and a taliter; in that kind as a man offends, he shall be punished; he that wasteth and destroyeth families, shall be destroyed in his families.  
Sect. 45 In the sin there is a double effect proceeding from this device and operation of evil; 1. Of force or violence, violenter tulerunt agros, & rapuerunt domos, They take away fields and houses by violence. 2. Of fraud and circumvention, Calumniabantur virum & domum ejus, virum & haereditatem ejus; They oppress a man and his house, a man and his heritage, or posterity. Oppression is ever attended with two bad Angels, Force and Fraud. In this place the word calumniabantur may be taken for oppressing a man, his house and heritage, by some malicious, deceitful, or crafty allegation and cavil.  
It was the oppressing sin of Ahab, who first coveted Naboths' field, and when he could not get it by a specious pretext of composition with him, then with the wicked art and assistance of jesabel, an instrument of blood is contrived, two children of Belial are raised up against him, Calumniantur virum, vitam, & haereditatem, By false and deceitful accusation they rob him both of life and land.  
Sect. 46 The sentence meets with both. 1. The force or violence is paid in its kind with a malum unde non auferetis colla vestra, non ambulabitis superbi: As if he should say, Such an evil will I devise, I will so subdue you, that you shall not pull your necks out of the collar; I will so curb you, that ye shall have no more power to oppress, ye shall walk no more so proudly as ye have done. I will bind your Princes with chains, and your Nobles with links of iron. In a word, God threatens to them a miserable and shameful end. 2. The fraud or false circumvention is likewise met with, & the punishment amplified by a proverb or form of execration or cursing, calumniabantur, is answered with a Sumetur super vos parabola, A parable shall be taken up against you, We are spoiled, your cruelty shall be recompensed with perpetual ignominy. No less judgement did God himself denounce by the mouth of his Prophet agianst the Princes of judah, & others, That they should be a reproach & a proverb, a taunt, and a curse in all places, in opprobrium, & in parabolam, & in proverbium, & in maledictionem in universis locis: jerem. 24.9. Amongst all the curses pronounced against the children of disobedience, Deut. 28. from verse 15. unto 45. one of the last, and not the least, is a curse of reproach or infamy; Eris perditus in proverbium ac fabulam omnibus populis, Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations. verse 37.  
Sect. 47 Let us look upon the times wherein we live, and behold the same sin, we shall find a devising of an evil, coveting of fields, joining house to house, laying field to field, taking by violence, and oppressing men, and their houses, and their heritage's; and whatsoever can be comprised under the word depopulation.  
Shall not the authors of this evil, the Nimrods', and migty ones expect the same sentence, the same punishment of evil; the same reproach, parable, and proverb of Depopulatione vastati sumus? Yes verily: They will perhaps flatter themselves, that the curses were never intended to this nation; if it were, yet it is far off, not imminent; and they have time enough to expiate their error: (they will not confess it a sin) They will pretend, that though they build not Churches or Chapels, yet they maintain a stipendiary Preacher in their houses; and though they are alone, and remote from Churches, yet they are duly fed with the word of God, and they themselves do feed the poor too at the times of Christmas, and such solemn times: These are but shadows, and poor palliations. They must know, that the curses of sacred Writ will one day or another cleave unto them, their houses, their families and posterities, without true repentance, satisfaction, and restitution; and they must know it is not a light error, but as the Poet hath it,  
Sape error ingens sceleris obtinuit locum.  
It is a stupendious error, and hath ever equivalence with a heinous crime: They must not think, that such a grand transgression against the Majesty of Heaven, his pious and prudent Vicegerent here on earth, against the Church, the State and poor, can be expiated by a Parlour sermon of a stipendiary Schoolmaster, who must sow down under his Patron's Elbows; Vlcus est, ne tangas, he must not touch this malady, for fear he should lose his Salary; no, nor with their petty alms at stinted times of solemn festivities, when every man's hands are open the give, Ad aliud remedium recurrendum est; They must resort to other Physicians, true penitence, and her two companions mentioned before.  
Sect. 48 Their offence is grievous, and aggravated by the example. It is observable, that omne grave & grassans malum aliquem semper in populo principem habet; There is not any great and growing evil, but hath ever some Prince (I mean some great man) to be an example, a patron, and protector of it. If a mean man be like to be questioned for ruinating a house of husbandry, or translating culture into pasture; he is ready presently to stop the mouth of authority with an exprobration of his great Ringleader & Precedent; You (saith he) can look upon me, & upon my petty slips, why should not I for my own private profit & advantage do this, as well as such as have no need, and yet suffer many houses together to decay, not habitable nor hospitable, naming, and meaning their great Princes, and Patterns of this evil? So that this great one, either by parity in authority, or by alliance in blood, affinity, or some other respects, is so near upon the eye of Country justice, that the object commonly hinders the sight, and because the greater cannot, the lesser must not be seen: The greater break the Net, and hold off ordinary power, & so all escape together impunè, if it were not for Superior jurisdiction.  
Sect. 49 I speak it knowingly, & do appeal to the whole Kingdom. How many careful dictates, and remembrances have been yearly delivered by the right honourable Lord Keeper, from the mouth of his sacred Majesty, in the greatest threshing floor of our Nation, to the Reverend judges and others, before their address unto their several Circuits; requiring them to take special notice and inquiry of this grand evil? And in pursuance thereof, how earnest and solicitous have those noble justiciaries been in their charges, and directions to the justices of the Peace, and the body of the county, the grand jury, strictly to inquire after, and present those offences? was there ever any presentment or indictment effectually prosecuted against them, without which the judges could work little reformation? Might not the single-hearted eye of one body behold a depopulator upon the Bench, when the many eyes of that County body, either for fear, favour, self-guiltiness, or other by-respects, or neglects, did overlook him? The meanest Country capacity in every County understands what I mean, and therefore I repress myself from pressing this point any farther upon the Country, lest I be shent from my labour,  
Sect. 50 Yet passurus est Depopulator; He must suffer in this world by the temporal stroke of justice; for where inferior Courts leave him, Superior find him: I have before touched upon distributive justice, and her opposite privative injustice: The Philosophers divide distributive justice into remunerative and punitive; This kind of justice observeth a geometrical proportion; It doth not barely and absolutely regard the equality of things, as justice commutative doth rei ad rem, ut tantum quis reponat quantum accipit, that is to deposit to all persons alike in commerce, the price for the thing, and the thing for the price, but she keepeth her equality, according to the diversities of circumstances, and the differences of persons to be rewarded warded or punished. In wars more reward is to be given to a Captain in respect of the trust and weighty care of his place, and the dignity of his person, then to a common Soldier; And if he offend, he must look for a proportionable punishment, according to the circumstances of his offence, and the quality of his person and place.  
Omne animi vitium, tanto conspectius in se  
Crimen habet, quanto major, qui peccat, habetur.  
As the example of an offence in a man of eminence and trust in the Common wealth, doth not only scandalise the government of a State, but ministers an occasion of liberty to others of meaner rank, to commit the like or worse, who are ever most prone and forward to run with a multitude, soothing themselves with a vain and false opinion, that multitudo errantiam parit errori patrocinium; So the punishment of such a person must be in all things exemplarily proportionable.  
Sect. 51 Some would have jus talionis to be part of this justice: Ius talionis is either simplex or proportionale; It is simply taken, when the same or the like is rendered as was taken away, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; Taken the other way, it is compensatio bonorum & malorum facta proportionaliter, a proportionable compensation of good and evil, and is most necessary in every Christian common weal; This compensative part of distributive justice (without farther distinctions, I will give it that appellation) hath been constantly practised for many ages in this famous Island.  
According to the rule of this justice was that constitution of Fredr. Caesar before remembered, made for the protection and vindication of husbandry, which limits a quadruple restitution of the things taken away, for the comfort and compensation of the party greeved; And for satisfaction of the Law against the offendor, nigro carbone notatur, he is branded with infany ipso jure in the place of a vae so often pronounced by the Prophets, and in steed or resemblance of the Parable and Proverb, threatened by the Law in Deuteronomie, and denounced by jeremy, and Mich. And he is to undergo an arbitrary censure at the will of the Emperor. According to this justice the Lords and others in the high Court of Starchamber, have ever used to proceed, and ground their sentences against delinquents of this and the like nature.  
Sect. 52 In Michaelmas term 10. Car. Upon an information exhibited by his Majesty's Attorney general against a gentleman of note and worth for Depopulation, converting great quantities of land into pasture, which formerly for the space of about forty years had been arable, used to tillage, and occupied as belonging to several farm houses or houses of husbandry, and suffering the farm houses with their outhouses to be ruined and uninhabited, and a water-grist Mill to decay and go to ruin, for that it appeared to the Court upon evident proof, that there were many servants and people kept upon those farms when they were used in tillage; And the same were furnished with sufficient houses, barns, and outhouses, necessary for farmers to dwell in, and many quarters of wheat and other grain out of each farm, were yearly sold and vented to London and elsewhere; And many poor men and women, were then there set on work, and about twenty persons fit for wars were maintained in and upon the said farms, as also several Carts, ready and fit to do his Majesty service, both in carrying timber for repair of his Navy and otherwise: And for that the defendant had then of late years, taken into his own occupation all the said farms, and converted all the lands formerly used for tillage unto pasture, and had also Depopulated and pulled down, three of the said farm houses, and suffered the other two to run to ruin, and to lie uninhabited, and one of the said farms which was before a great defence and succour for Travellers who passed that way, since the Depopulation thereof, hath been a harbour for thiefs, and many robberies have been thereabouts committed, and moneys recovered by the rob persons from the hundred, which together with the wants of those clowes there formerly kept, had been a great burden to that part of the Country; And for that also the defendant, to the great inconvenience and prejudice of a Town near adjoining, had pulled down and suffered to go to decay not habitable, one water corn mill which thentofore did grind good store of corn weekly: Upon grave and deliberate liberate consideration, the Court did with a joint consent and opinion declare, that the defendant was clearly guilty of the said Depopulation, and conversion of errable into pasture before expressed, And that the same offences were punishable even by the Common Law of this Kingdom, and fit to be severely punished, the rather for that it was a growing evil, and had already spread itself into very many parts of this Kingdom, and might in time (if it were not met withal and prevented by the just Censure of that Court) grow very prejudicial and dangerous to the State and Common wealth, and therefore their Lordships did think fit, order, adjudge, and decree.  

1 That the defendant should stand and be committed to the prison of the Fleet.  
2 That he should pay a fine of four thousand pounds to his Majesty's use.  
3 That he should at the next assizes to be holden for that County in open Court (the judges and justices there sitting) acknowledge his said offences, and for the better manifestation of the offence to the Country, and to the end that others seeing his punishment might be thereby after warned to forbear the committing of the like: It was ordered, that their Lordship's sentence and decree should be then at the said assizes publicly read.   
And further, the Court considering and commending the pains, care, and travel, taken by the Relator in bringing that cause to judgement, and being satisfied upon the hearing of the cause, that the poor of the parish and the Minister there had been severally damnified by the defendant; Their Lordships did farther order and decree.  
4 That the said defendant should pay unto the said Relator one hundred pounds for recompense of his travail, besides his costs of suit.  
5 That he should pay unto the Minister of the Parish one hundred bounds.  
6 That he should pay unto the poor of the Parish one hundred pounds to be distributed to and amongst them at the discretion of the four next justices of peace adjoining to the said Town.  
7 And lastly, the Court did order that the defendant should within two years after, repair and build again all the said farme-houses with their outhouses, and the said Cornemill fit for habitation and use, as formerly they were, and should restore the lands formerly used and let, with the same farms, unto the farme-houses again, and let and demise the same several farms to several Tenants for reasonable rents, such as the Country would afford, and that all the said lands, should be again ploughed up and used to tillage, as formerly it had been.  
As by the decree remaining of Record in that honourable Court may plainly appear; The true contents whereof are here set down, that as it was published at the Assizes for an example in that Country, the benefit thereof may hereby redound to all the Counties of his Majesty's dominions.  
Sect. 53 I have the rather summarily touched the several points and branches of this decree for these reasons; That every well affected Subject may discern the singular wisdom of the Lords of his Majesty's most honourable privy Counsel, and their assistants in that great Court: The Prayers of the Church we well hope are not in vain; That it may please him to endue the Lords of the Council and all the Nobility, with grace, wisdom and understanding. And without God's special endowments conferred on them, and on their Head under CHRIST, the Ship Royal of our State could not be so religiously, providently, and prosperously steered as it is: Methinks when I considerately weigh the Composition of this decree, all parts of justice seem here to be included.  
1 Here is punition, 1. by imprisonment, 2. by fine, 3. by public acknowledgement.  
2 Here is remuneration to the party Relating, for discovering, and bringing the offendor to the public seat of judgement.  
3 Here is compensation, 1. to the Minister, 2. to the poor of the Parish, for the detriment and damage by them respectively sustained according to the circumstances of the cause.  
4 And lastly here is reparation and restitution, which concerns the Common weal, 1. in repairing and re-edifying the farms, 2. in restoring the Land formerly used and let with them, 3. in letting and demizing the same farms to several Tenants at reasonable rents, 4. in converting the land to tillage again  
Sect. 54 As in GOD'S sentence, the malum culpae was answered with the malum poenae; So it is fully accomplished in this decree; for hereby All that any way suffered 1. King, 2. Church, 3. Common weal, 4. Poor, are all righted and salved, and therefore it deserves the more earnest pressing, first for the comfort of those who grieve and groan under the burden of this oppression, that, though they be remote in the Country from the eye of superior justice, yet in the particulars of this decree, they may tanquam in perspicillis behold a fare off the vigilant care which his Majesty and his honourable Council have of the meanest member of his Common weal: Secondly that others delinquents of the same rank and quality, may tanquam in specule, as in a lookingglass, view their own evil of sin, and justly expect the same evil of punishment.  
Sect. 55 That no men may lull themselves asleep with the conceit of security, and that his highness' Subjects who feel the smart of this mischief, may have no cause to distrust the continuance of his care, his goodness hath of late directed several Commissions into most Counties of the Kingdom, out of the high Court of Chancery, I shall but briefly touch some special points therein.  
First, the motives which induced his Majesty thereunto; His intelligence that in divers parts of his Kingdom, very many Messages and Mansion houses (which had been for many years past habitations for husbandmen, farmers, and others exercised in tillage) did now remain in decay, ruinous, destroyed, or uninhabited, and the farms and errable lands severed and divided from the houses whereto they belonged, and great quantities of such errable land, have been converted from culture into pasture, whereupon great waist, and depopulation of Towns, Villages, Parishes and Hamlets in divers parts of his Kingdom have ensued, and are like daily, more and more to increase to the dishonour and prejudice of his Majesty and his Crown, and to the damage and detriment of his people and whole Realm.  
Secondly, his Majesty's readiness to meet with such mischiefs, and to provide for the welfare of himself and his people, by assigning and appointing certain Commissioners in most parts of his Kingdom, and giving unto them full power and authority under his great Seal, to inquire by the oaths of good and honest men, aswell within liberties as as without, as also by the depositions of any credible witnesses, to be called and examined upon their oaths, and by all other ways and means, and to make Certificate of the Inquisitions taken before them, into the Chancery.  
Thirdly, the Subject of this inquiry: What and how many Burrougheses, Towns, Villages, Parishes, Hamlets, Farms, Farmehouses or other Messages or houses, since the tenth year of the late Queen Eliz. have been and now are depopulated, wasted, destroyed and ruinated, or converted from the habitation of husbandmen to other uses, and what lands and Tenements have been converted from tillage and ploughing to other uses, with divers other particular clauses and branches.  
Fourthly, a Command unto the Commissioners, to give notice unto all persons, who claim title to any Lands or Tenements so wasted, depopulated, or separated, either as heirs or purchasers, or by or under any person committing such depopulation, and waste, their Farmers or Assigns: That within a time limited by the Commissioners, or any two, or more; They, and every of them, do respectively cause to be re-edified and repaired, all and singular the said houses of husbandry, and all the separated lands to be restored to the houses, and that the lands converted from tillage to pasture and other unlawful uses, be again restored to tillage, and to admit of husbandmen to be Tenants to those houses, prout hactenus fieri consuetum fuerit.  
Sect. 56 That his Majesty hath full and absolute power, to award such Commissions for the good and benefit of his Kingdom's welfare, I think none so disloyal as to doubt, according to the exigence of the present times, for the better preparing of his intended reformation without a literal imitation of former precedents: In novo casu novum apponendum est remedium, variety of cases must have variety of remedies; The wisdom of a Parliament or a State may foresee an ensuing evil, and they may enact a prohibiting of it, and a provision of some pain and penalty against it, but they can never provide de futur is contingentibus of future circumstances and contingencies, and therefore ubi non est directa lex, standum est arbitrio judicis, where a direct positive Law cannot meet with an offence in the very apple of the eye, the defect must be supplied by an arbitrary judgement according to the circumstances and occurencies of things. Let all the Statutes that ever were made, against the decaying of houses of husbandry and tilage, be strictly inspected, and not any one of them either did or ever could prescribe such a proportionable remedy, for such a crime in all things, as the sentence of that great judgement seat hath done.  
Sect. 57 By the Statute of 5. and. 6. Edw. 6. cap. 5. entitled, An act for the maintenance of tillage, and increase of corn; It was ordained that his then Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, at his and their will and pleasure, should from time to time, direct his and their several Commissions under the great Seal of England, to such persons as it should please them, to inquire by the oaths of a sufficient jury, what Lands and Tenements in every Town, Parish, Village, or Hamlet within the limits of their charge, had at any time or times since the first year of King Henery the eight been converted and turned from tillage to pasture, and was then, or then after should be continued and occupied in pasture, and to certify the presentment thereof into the Court of Chancery with convenient speed, to be thence delivered over into the Court of Exchequer, there to remain amongst the Records of the same Court, to the end that Statute might be the more diligently and indifferently put in execution.  
By the Statute of 2. and 3. Philip and Mary cap. 2. entitled, An act for the re-edifying of decayed houses of husbandry, and for the increase of tillage, citing the Law of 4. Henery 7. which is before largely recited, it was ordained that the like Commissions in effect should be awarded, and that the Commissioners should have full power and authority, to inquire, hear and determine, by the oaths of twelve men, or by information, or other lawful ways or means, all and singular defaults and offences, committed or done since the feast of Saint George the Martyr, in the twentieth year of Henry the eighth, or then after should be committed or done, aswell contrary to the tenor and effect of the said former act (4. Henery 7.) as contrary to one other act of 7. Henery 8. entitled, An act to avoid letting down of houses, and also to inquire, hear, order, and determine by the said ways and means of and concerning all grounds whatsoever converted from tillage to pasture since the said feast, or then after to be converted from tillage to pasture, and also of all ground in or near any corn fields newly used or employed since the said feast, or then after newly to be used, employed and converted to the keeping of Coneys, not being a lawful warren, and whereby the Corn of any persons, other than the owner of the same Coneys since the said feast had been, or then after should be, destroyed or consumed; And that the said Commissioners should and might bind by Recognizance the persons offending, and guilty in any of the foresaid decays or defaults in such sums of Money, as to the Commissioners should seem reasonable, for the re-edifying of such decayed houses, and for the converting of such grounds from pasture to tillage again, and for the diminishing and destroying of Coneys within such convenient time, as the Commissioners should think meet, limit and appoint; with many clauses and provisoes in the said Statute at large expressed.  
Sect. 58 By this every man may see that his now Majesties proceeding to inquire by way of Commission, is no innovated thing (as some would murmur and pretend) but warranted by former examples, though different in the manner and form, according to the difference of times; That of K. E. was to inquire and certify; This of. K. Phi. and Q. M. to inquire, hear and determine.  
In this Statute there is one clause of moderation in these words. And for as much as it is like to be that some ground converted from tillage into pasture, is divided into several small parcels, remaining and being in diverse and several men's hands, so that any one part will not be sufficient to keep a plough upon: and for that some grounds have been tilled for the destroying of moss, bushes, brown sirs, heath, and not only to be continued in tillage and such like, and that also some demeans in the absence of the owners have been divided to sundry occupiers, who have tilled the same, not being commonly used to tillage, before the said feast of S. George: and for that diverse other particular cases may fortune to be, which the general purveiance of this Statute cannot remedy without greater hurt than good to be done by the same: and for that also in some places of this Realm it is not necessary the purveying of this statute, to extend and to be fully executed, but in some places, and upon some occasions or causes, it may more conveniently be spared then put in ure, and is therefore necessary to refer such things with all other circumstances, to the discretion of the Commissioners who may more perfectly understand the same.  
Sect. 59 By this every man may collect, that no positive Law can be so punctually made, as to adapt a cure for every civil disease, but must admit of a temper and qualification in some things, aswell as an agravation in other things, according to the intervenience of circumstances: and therefore there was a power of discretion left unto the Commissioners.  
But this evil being now grown great, and in favour and alliance with the greatest men of a Country, the providence of his Majesty and the State, hath by this Commission only delegated a power to inquire and certify, but not to determine, reserving that to the discretion of himself and his sacred Council who never confine their judgements to the faces, but the facts of men, and secundum allegata & probata.  
There is another provision in that Law of Philip and Mary, in these words: And be in enacted by the authority aforesaid, that if any person or persons, shall be condemned or charged with or for any offence, that he or they ought not to be charged withal, by this act or by any of the foresaid former Statutes: That then the said party or parties shall and may have his or their traverse and remedy therefore in the Star-chamber before the Council there.  
Sect. 60 Hence is to be inferred, that no Law can be so wisely woven and contexed, but will need some interpretation and explanation; And to whom doth the interpretation of the Laws belong, but to the King, assisted with his Honourable Council, and to the Reverend judges under him. There is no Act done by the body of the Council, but is presumed to be the Act of the King; In the time of Ed. the 3. Thorpe and other grave judges would not in cases of difficulty deliver their final judgements, until they had resorted to the Lords of the Council; Of cases in that kind, the year books in his Reign are plentiful.  
This Statute, according to the practice of former times, seems to refer the party grieved to a remedy by way of traverse and defence in the Star-chamber, a Court consisting of the greatest Lords of the Honourable Council, spiritual and temporal, reverend judges and other assistants. Whither should there then be any refuge, either for the interpretation or moderation of positive Laws (in the vacancy and cessation of the great Court of Parliament) but unto this Court, where Kings themselves have often vouchsafed to sit in person? Sect. 61  
His now M 'tis providence and justice in dispersing his said Commissions, cannot take so good effect, if the people and Country (for redress of whose grievances they are awarded) be not dextrous and careful in performing their duties of inquiry & discovery, the Cmmoissioners are enjoined under their faith & legiance to discharge the trust in them reposed; and all his M 'tis Subjects, aswell officers as others by the last clause of the Commission, are required to be attending, aiding, and assisting unto them, so often as they shall be thereunto summoned.  
I cannot therefore pass by those good and lawful men of the Country, who not only by virtue of their natural and legal legiance, but also, by a Sacramental tie and bond, are or shall be engaged and charged to inquire of those offences in the country without a monitory caution, that they imitate especially, one of the properties prescribed by jethro, his Counsel to Moses in selecting his Rulers of the people to be viri fortes, able men, non fortitudine corporis, but animi, not in strength of body, but strength of mind, not to fear the faces of men, not of a Landlord, not of a potent man (were he a Livetennant or greater) in a Country. Fortitude is one of Tully his cardinal virtues, it banisheth all sordid and slavish fear; It was an old complaint, that, Laws were aranearum telis similes, like Cobwebs, wherein the smaller flies are caught, great ones break forth: Surely our Laws are not such of themselves, and most sure it is, that our superior seats of Laws and justice are not so easily passed through, but that they will seize and hold the most griping and rapacious, bird, or beast; And with them is observed aswell the practice as the rule.  Indè ortae leges, ne fortior omnia posset. 
But it is the abuse of bad men, together with the cowardice and pusillanimity of those who should be probi & legales homines, for want of presenting and bringing offenders under the eye of Law, that the Laws are so much disesteemed: Such men who are so regardless of their allegiance, so careless of their conscience, and respectless of their oaths, that they will not see and discover the desolations and greevances of their Country, are themselves a greevance to the Country, and enemies to the King and State.  — Hostis est, 
Sen. in. Her. fur.  quisquis mihi non monstrat hostem— 
He is a foe unto me that discovers not my foe: A man may as much transgress in conniving at, and concealing an offence, as the offender himself in the acting of it, and therefore may justly expect a proportionable punishment.  
This may suffice for a brief remembrance to the jurors, whereof the Counstables and other Country Officers may partake. I shall conclude all with a Caution to Farmers and Husbandmen, and then draw to an end.  
Sect. 62 They may observe by what hath passed before, that the labour of Culture was the first work enjoined unto man after the fall, renewed upon the renewing of the world in Noah and his posterity, that it hath been highly honoured and privileged amongst all Nations, that it is most precious in the esteem of our laws and government, and with what circumspection & watchfulness his gracious Majesty and his honourable Council have proceeded for the upholding & maintaining of it, and punishing all sorts of delinquents against it; Will it not well beseem them to make themselves fitly deserving, and worthy of so great a favour? The way to do it, is to act their part of distributive justice, in bringing their corn and grain cheerfully into the Markets for supply of the poor and others at reasonable prices, and not to hide and hoard it up, to expect, nay to make and raise up a dearth.  
Sect. 63 I cannot choose but under favour tell them their fault, ingens crimen, a very great fault, they are grown to be the common favourers of Forestallers and Engrossers, and fosterers of an unruly generation of Maltmakers, and by consequence of a pernicious number of Alehouses, who have all a dependency one upon the other.  
It is a common practice, Et malum quo communius, eo pejus, for a Maltmaker to resort to a farmers' house, & after a scrutiny made what store of barley he hath in his hands and possession, he presently deals with the husbandman to bring a sample of it to market in a quantity of four or five bushels, and there he will bargain for all the rest in mow or barn, though it be five hundred quarters, to be threshed out and brought home to his house, vainly flattering himself with this conceit, that because the compact was made for it in the marker, and earnest there given, it is a lawful buying, and not within the compass of forestall or engrossing, Pereant arts & artifices: Let all such who by these wily and wick subtleties, go about to Circumvent the true intention of the Law, perish with their own devices: as it is the trick of a forestall Maltmaker, so is it as frequent with Bakers, Badgers and other forestallers of Wheat and other grain at the houses of husbandmen.  
Sect. 64 This evil hath so long dwelled amongst us, that the offenders are ready to prescribe use and custom; they have been well met withal in the County of Norfolk, and other places by several Censures and Decrees of the honourable Court of Starchamber, made in the term of S. Michael in the seventh year of his Highness' Reign, one especially twenty-three of November, in the same term, whereby some delinquents were sentenced for contracting with Corne-masters upon market days for great quantities of Corn, and afterwards causing the same to be brought home to their houses, as by the decree of the Court may appear.  
It hath not only infected those parts, but like a venomous humour hath spread its infection through the veins of the body of the whole Kingdom, and poisoned almost the life blood of government, especially in many parts of our Western region, where it hath crept into borough Towns and Corporations, and there sojourns in the houses of Magistrates and Aldermen, who being expressly required by his Majesty's Articles and directions published for the good of his people in the year 1630 to take care for the suppressing of Maltsters; did in affront thereunto, take up and exercise the trade themselves, having great means and other trades to live by.  
Sect. 65 Wheresoever there are excess of Maltsters, there will be a greater excess of Alehouses, and I may be bold to say that the one engenders the other, but it is a spurious and unlawful birth and brood; The Maltster commonly trusteth the poor Alehouse keeper with a brewing of malt before hand, upon some slender security, the vent of that must usher in and pay for the next, and so still keep a course beforehand, and it is very frequent, that one Maltster hath under his protection and command at least six or seven tiplers, either by connivance, or unlawful licence, that shall most of them utter for him at least thirty bushels of malt a week one week with another; So outrageous is the one in his oppression by forestall and engrossing, and so wasteful and disordered the other in their inordinate tippling, that scarce can a poor man buy a peck of barley in a market day for his money, and not five barley loves for the sustenance of a hungry multitude (if need required) to be found in a whole Country.  
Sect. 66 This mischief would be prevented, if the Farmers and Husbandmen would decline all sinister contracts with such kind of men, and not sell and deliver their Corn at their private houses, but with cheerfulness bring it into the open market: Emporium est optima aestimatrix rerum; No kind of Grain, Victual, or other vendible mercimony can be so truly valued and estimated, as in Fairs or Markets overt, where there is a plentiful concourse of buyers; Markets are either by grant from the King, or by ancient prescription; The Common Laws of this Land have ever had the well using and ordering of them in great esteem.  
To which end and purpose the office of Clerk of the market being very ancient, was first ordained to take care, and to view and inquire that all weights and measures be agreeable to the King's Standard in his Exchequer at Westminster, and that all Corn and Victual be sold by such, and by no other, and divers good Laws have been made for appointing and observing the assize of bread and beer, according to the prizes of Corn in the markets adjoining; Of these things I have more amply treated elsewhere.  
Sect. 67 The husband man must not only bring his Corn into the market, but he must send the best, and not the refuse, he must not sell it in a pinching, scant, or deceitful measure, he must not keep it up in muzzled bags in the market, for colour and a show only, and not with any intention to set it to sale, he must not use any art or shift to enhance the price of his Corn, and rather than he will sell it at the ordinary price in the market, slide it into some private corner, to remain for a dearer sale: It is not long since that a Country man standing by his Corn in a market, and observing the price that day to be more moderate than his covetuos mind expected, did with some fury and indignation, close up his bags, convey them away, and fearfully swear, that he would keep his Corn till Mice had devoured it, rather than he would vent it at the rate of the market.  
Against all false, decitfull and hard hearted sellers, the Prophet Amos denounceth a woeful Commination, rousing them up first with, Audite hoc qui conteritis pauperem, & deficere facitis egenos terra, Dicentes, Quando transibit messis & venum dabimus merces? Et Sabbatum, & aperiemus frumentum, ut imminuamus mensuram, & angeamus siclum, & supponamus stater as dolosas, & possideamus deamus in argento egenos, & pauperes pro calciamentis, & quisquilias frumenti vendamus: Hear this o ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the Land to fail, saying, when will the new Moon be gone, that we may sell Corn, and the Sabbath, that we may set forth Wheat, making the Ephah small, and the Shekell great, and falsifying the balances by deceit, that we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea and sell the refuse of the Wheat; Amos ca 8. verse 5, 6, 7. The sentence follows: Shall not the Land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? verse 8. I will turn lla your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentations, ver. 10.  
Sect. 68 But sithence the excellency of our dread Sovereign hath vouchsafed so much tender care of tillage and culture, as hath already produced a hopfull issue of future reformation, for the honour of his imperial State, the advancement of the Church, and common good of all; It is much to be hoped, that the Farmers and Husbandmen of his Kingdom will shake off those Vipers, and have no fellowship with them in their ways and courses of oppression, that they will not hide their Corn, and keep it up to be devoured by vermin, rather than at Competent rates, to disperse and distribute the blessings of the earth, amongst his Majesty's people, at public times and places appointed by the Laws and Government under which we live, that they will avoid, all unwarranted transportations of Corn, and in all things do, as they would be done unto; And then,  
Virg. Geor l. 3.  O fortunatos nimium bona si sua norunt Agricolas. 
Then the blessings of obedience shall be pronounced to them: Blessed shalt thou be in the City, and blessed shalt thou be in the field, blessed shall be thy basket and thy store, Deu. 28.3, 5. The King shall be blessed in his people, and the people shall be blessed in their King, we shall not have cause to fear the faces of them that grind the faces of the poor, those lapides molares; depopulators and racking Landlords. Nor ever take up that parable of lamentation, depopulatione vastati sumus. The King shall cover us under the wings of his Royal and religious protection, and we shall render to him the dues of our faith and obedience, the Almighty shall cover us all with his blessing of peace and plenty, and all shall go well between King and Subject, better than prout hactenus fieri consuetum fuerit.   

IN CAMERA STELLATA CORAM CONCILIO IBIDEM, VICESSIMO TERTIO DIE Novembris, Anno Septimo Caroli Regis.  
THis day was brought to this Bar, William Taylor, Toby Pedder, john Tubbin, Nicholas Browne, Robert Money, john Bolt, and Henery Cougham, against whom William Noy Esquire, his Majesty's Attorney general, did inform o'er tenus, on his Highness' behalf, that notwithstanding the care taken by his Majesty for this Realm, and Subjects thereof, aswel from the scarcity of Corn and grain, as from the excessive prizes and dearth of the same, and notwithstanding the wise directions given, and politic orders devised and established, and by Proclamation published, for the preventing of such abuses and inconveniences which might otherwise happen, to the enhancing of the prices of Corn and grain, to the great prejudice of the rich, and even to the destruction of the poorer sort of people; And not withstanding, that the Lords of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council did take continual care that his Majesty's gracious and provident direction in that behalf should be put in due and constant execution, especially this last year when as a great dearth and scarcity of Corn and grain was generally feared throughout this his Majesty's Kingdom, and therefore the better to prevent all inconvenience by the well ordering and disposing of all such Corn and grain, as God had blessed this Kingdom withal, they did prudently provide, that first there should be a general and strict restraint from transportation of all sorts of Corn and grain out of this Kingdom, and that the justices of the peace in every County, should take care that the Markets should be weekly served by such as had Corn to spare, and that none should sell out of market any Corn what soever, except it were to labourers, that so through the covetousness of those that hoard up their Corn of purpose to enhance the prizes thereof, and make a dearth without cause, the King's loving Subjects, the poor especially should not be pinched; ye the said William Taylor, Tobby Pedder, john Tubbin, Nicolas Browne, Robert Money, john Bolt, and Henery Cougham, not regarding the said directions, nor deterred with the punishments which by the Laws and Statutes of this Realm may be inflicted upon such offenders, but covetously and unconscionably desiring to enrich themselves by the oppression and loss of others, and endevoring to raise the excessive prizes of Corn, where there was no want (praised be God) of the same, but want of Charity and Obedience in these and such like wicked and wretched minded persons, who strive to enrich themselves by engrossing of Corn, keeping their Corn up, and keeping it out of market, that their store and plenty might not be known, to the great contempt and breach of the said Laws, Statutes, and Ordinances, and to the great offence of his Royal Majesty, to whom nothing is more pleasing than the peace, plenty, and prosperity of his people, and to the great scandal of all good and charitable minded persons, have this last year, notwithstanding they had knowledge of the Orders and Proclamations▪ lately published concerning Corn and grain, bought great quantities of Corn out of the markets, having great store of their own growing, and also forborn to bring any Corn at all into the markets all this last year, as by their several examinations may appear, which he humbly prayed might be read in Court, and that thereupon their Lordships would be pleased to inflict such punishment upon them for their said offences as they in their great wisdoms should hold fit; Whereupon the several examinations of the said defendants were severally showed unto them, and acknowledged by them, and upon reading thereof, it appeared that the said William Taylor having knowledge of his Majesties said Proclamation and book of orders, which came forth this last year by the justices of the Peace of the County of Northfolk, where the said Tailor dwelled, for restraint of Maultage, did about Michaelmas last was a twelve month buy twenty quarters of barley at several times in Burneham market, but the said Corn was not in the market, nor ever brought to the market, but did not at any time carry or sell any Corn at any market this last year, notwithstanding he had five score quarters of Barley, ten quarters of Wheat, and ten quarters of Rye, of his own, growing the last year, and had but only fifteen persons in his house all that year. And it likewise appeared, that the said Toby Pedder having the last year about forty quarters of Wheat, ten or twelve quarters of Rye, and above two hundred and threescrore Combs of Barley of his own growing, and having notice of his Majesty's Proclamation and of the book of orders, set forth this last year, for serving the markets with Corn, did not send to or sell any Corn at any market all the last year, but sold about fifty quarters of Barely about Candlemas time last, to Matthew Hunt near to Peterborough, and fifty quarters more to divers others at the water there, which was carried away, and delivered at Holme in Huntingdon shire, as he taketh it, and also bought this last year out of the market two quarters of wheat, and after he had notice of the said Proclamation and book of orders; bought five and twenty quarters of Barley, which he used for seed, but sent not any in lieu thereof to the market, and thirteen or fourteen quarters of Barley to malt which he put out to maulting to others, and did not use any maulting house of his own the last year; and it likewise appeared that the said john Tubbin taking notice of the said Proclamation and book of orders for serving the market with Corn the last year, and having above thirty Combs of Rye, and above five or six hundred Combs of Batley, of his own growing this last year, bought ten Combs of Rye after Michaelmas last was twelvemonth, and five Combs of Rye more about Midsummer last, all out of the market, and sent not any Corn at all to any market, nor sold any thereby all the last year, but sold to several persons, from Farninghan, and Aldborough, 80. Combs of Barley about Candlemas last, and sold 60. Combs of Barley more to a Cambridge shire man a little before Christmas last, and sold to one Baker of Colchester in Essex threescore Combs of Barley more about Michaelmas last was twelvemonth, all which with several quantities of Barley were sold out of market, and shipped away at Burneham by Sea, and exported to the several places aforesaid (by licence from the justices) as by way of excuse is in his examination set forth, and also maulted sixscore quarters of Barley that year: And it likewise appeared that the said Nicholas Browne of Walsingham in the County of Norfolk Gentleman, having knowledge of the Proclamation and Orders aforesaid, touching Corn and grain: and having nine score quarters of Barley, fourteen quarters of Wheat, fourscore quarters of Rye and Maslyn, and threescore quarters of Oats of his own growing, the last year carried not any Corn to the market, but twice the last year (for that as he allegeth in his excuse it is not the usage of that Country to carry any Corn to the market, and at those times when he did carry it to the market he brought it back again, for that none came to buy the same as he allegeth, but the said Browne did buy threescore quarters of Barley and part thereof, together with a great quantity of his own, he maulted by licence of the justices as he allegeth, and by like licence sold the same, some into Yorkshire, some to Molden in Essex, and the rest to Brewers in and near Walsingham, and likewise maulted all his Oats, and sold them to Brewers, in and near Walsingham, and of his Wheat he spent only four quarters in his family, and sold the rest to the Bakers of Walsingham, but neither bought or sold any in the market as he ought to have done, only he contracted for the Corn he bought, with Corn growers upon the market day at Walsingham, who shortly after brought it to his house, and there received their money, and it likewise appeared that the said Robert Money of Wells in the County of Norfolk Gentleman, having knowledge of the said Orders and Proclamation published concerning Corn and grain, and having twelvescore Combs of Barley, betwixt forty and fifty Combs of Wheat, and about fifty Combs of Rye and Maslin of his own growing, the last year did not carry any Corn to the market to be sold, but saith he spared thirty Comb of Wheat out of his own provision, and sent the same to London in the middle of the year, and sold the same there at the best rate he could get, which was thirty shillings the Comb, and also sold threescore Comb of Barley to one Pemberton of Ipswich, which the said Pemberton affirmed he had warrant from some of the justices of Suffolk to buy for the poor of Ipswich, and further affirmed that he had warrant from some of the justices of the peace of the said County of Norfolk, to export the said grain from his house to Ipswich, but the said Robert Money did not see either of the said warrants, and yet notwithstanding carried the said Corn in Carts to the Seaside to be conveyed from thence to Ipswich. And further it appeared that the said john Boulte late of Wells in the County of Norfolk Gentleman, having knowledge of the said Orders, and Proclamation late published concerning Corn and grain, and having the last year fifty Comb of Barley, and above thirty Comb of Wheat of his own growing, and having a Family of fourteen persons, did buy ninescore Comb of Barley more which he contracted for at Burneham market, & had the same sent home to his house, and there paid the money for the same, and also bought forty Comb of Rye of another Corn-master which he contracted for at Falkenham market, and had it sent home to his house and there paid the money for the same, but since harvest last was twelvemonth, did not bring any Corn to the market to be sold, for that as he allegeth in his excuse two of the justices did give leave that the poor, and handicrafts men of the town being provided for, the said Bolt and the rest of the Corne-masters might dispose of their Corn as they pleased, as also for that it is not usual in those parts to bring Corn into the markets to be sold, but to utter their Corn either in their houses, or by exportation to other remote places within the Kingdom, nevertheless the said Bolt did malt a great quantity of the Barley he bought, and by Licence from the justices as he allegeth shipped the same away to Newcastle, and there sold the same, and also sold twenty Comb of his Wheat to one Arwaker of Chelmesford who brought a Licence from the justices of Essex and shown the same to the justices of Norfolk for his buying the same: And lastly it appeared that the said Henry Cougham of Wells in the said County of Norfolk Gentleman, having knowledge of the said Orders and Proclamation concerning Corn and grain published as aforesaid, and having in harvest was a twelvemonth fivescore Combs of Barley, twenty Comb of Rye, and twenty Comb of Wheat of his own growing, did not since harvest aforesaid carry any Corn to the market to be sold, but bought sixscore Comb of Wheat of several Corne-masters dwelling near the said town of Wells, and delivered the same to Francis Carter of London Baker, and Samuel Satchfield of London Grocer, which in his excuse he allegeth he did by virtue of a warrant from the Lord Mayor, and two other justices of the peace of the City of London, but upon reading the said warrant, it appeareth that the said Cougham was not required or authorised to buy any Corn of the said parties for the use of the said City of London, but to convey Corn to London which was bought before by the said Carter and Satchfield, and the said Cougham did also the last year buy twelve score Comb of Barley at several times in several places, and maulted all the same, as also the Barley of his own growing, excepting about threescore and ten Comb, with twenty Comb whereof he sowed his land, and by the direction of the justices he kept in store the fifty Comb residue for the poor of Wells, and about forty or fifty comb of the malt he made he sent to Newcastle, and the rest to Ipswich, and that he allegeth in his excuse he did by Order from the justices under their hands. Upon reading of all which their said examinations the said delinquents at the bar were severally demanded what answer they could make to their said offences who endeavoured to excuse the same in such sort as some of them in their examinations had done by alleging that it was not the usage of that part of the Country to carry any Corn to the markets nor for any to buy at the markets in respect of the plenty of Corn in those parts, and that after provision was made for the poor of the several Parishes and hundreds where they live, they had licence from the justices to dispose of the rest of their Corn as they pleased themselves, and humbly craved the favour of this most honourable Court: And thereupon the Court well weighing the nature and quality of their said offences to be such as justly deserved the censure of this most honourable Court considering the great peril whereunto the Commonwealth is subject, if the same should increase and continue the uncharitable and unlawful hoarding up and engrossing of Corn and keeping their own from the markets being a great means to arise and continue the excessive prizes of Corn without any scarcity, and withal the Court considering that all offences and misdemeanours tending to the inhauncement of the prizes of commodities, especially of Corn and Victual to excessive rates, are great and general oppressions against the ancient and good Laws of the Kingdom, and conceaving that these delinquents have not only offended against the laws and Statutes of this Realm made and provided aswell against engrossers and hoorders up of Corn, and forestallers of markets, as against such as shall practice or procure the raising of Corn, Victual or other commodities unto unreasonable prizes, but have also highly offended against his Majesty's Royal Proclamation, and the good and politic Orders made and taken by the Lords of his Majesty's most honourable Privy Council for preventing the dearth and scarcity of Corn, and relief of the poor in times of dearth and scarcity, have therefore adjudged and decreed that the said William Toby, Pedder, john Tubbin, Nicholas Browne, Robert Money, john Bolt, and Henery Cougham, shall all and every of them for their offences aforesaid stand and be committed to the Prison of the Fleet, and pay a hundred pounds apiece for their several fines to his Majesty, and withal the Court holding it fit to have some example made thereof in the County of Norfolk where all the said defendants dwell, to the end other persons of like uncharitable dispositions may take warning thereby, and be deterred from offending in the like kind hereafter, have therefore further ordered, adjudged, and decreed, that all the said defendants shall at the next Assizes to be holden for the said County, severally make their humble acknowledgements of their offences publicly in the face of the Court, the judges and justices then there sitting, but the Court doth forbear to inflict any further corporal or ignominious punishment upon them, in respect their offences seem to be somewhat qualified by the Licence given them by the justices, who should and ought more strictly to have required their obedience to the said Proclamation and Orders, and not to have given way to the breach thereof, which their Lordships hold a great offence in them, and worthy to be punished, if it be true as the delinquents in their excuses have pretended.  
FINIS.