LIGEANCIA LUGENS, OR LOYALTY LAMENTING  
The many great Mischiefs and Inconveniencies which will fatally and inevitably follow the taking away of the Royal Pourveyances, and Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, which being ancient and long before the CONQUEST, were not then, or are now any Slavery, Public or General Grievance.  
With some Expedients humbly offered for the prevention thereof.  
By Fabian Philipps.  
LONDON, Printed by J. M. for Andrew Crook, and are to be sold at his Shop at the Green-Dragon in St Paul's Churchyard. 1661.   

Ligeancia Lugens, OR Loyalty Lamenting: The many great mischiefs and Inconveniences which will fatally and inevitably follow the taking away of Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, which being Ancient and long before the Conquest, were not then or are now any Slavery Public or General Grievance.  
THe King will upon occasion of Warr want the obligations and service of his Nobility and Gentry which hold in Capite.  
Their Homage, which is the Seminary and Root of the Oath of Allegiance.  
The Education of the Heirs of persons disaffected which hold in Capite, when they shall be in ward or minority.  
His Tenants will be the more enabled to alienate their Lands to his Enemies, or such as are disaffected, which common persons in their Leases one to another do usually prevent and prohibit.  
Provision for maintenance, education and portions for younger Children, care of payment of Debts, preservation of the Wards estate, Woods, and Evidences, will be neglected.  
Finding of Offices after the death of the Ancestors, extents of Manors and Lands, a light to Titles and Descents of Lands, and recovery and making out of Deeds and Evidences laid aside.  
Genealogies and Pedigrees darkened, and Descents not at all to be proved.  
Contention concerning the rights of Guardianship increased and multiplied.  
The Mothers of Fatherless Children in their minority made the Guardians, & permitted to sacrifice the children of the first husband to the spoil and interest of a Father in Law and his second Children.  
Or make them to be a prey to the kindred of the Mother's side, who will neither be so kind or careful as those of the Fathers.  
Or to trusties, Executors, or Administrators, who are too many of them daily experimented to be false to their Trusts, and may be as bad in their Guardianships.  
There will not be so good a means as formerly for the preservation of the Wards Estate from false or forged Wills, fraudulent Conveyances, and other Encumbrances.  
Nor for preventing of the Heirs of Tenants in Capite to be disinherited by Heirs by second Venter's, forged Conveyances or Wills, frewardness of an aged Father or cunning of a Stepmother.  
In Socage and that ignoble or Plow-Tenure there will not be that ready defence for the Kingdom as in Capite and by Knight-Service.  
All the Ancient Baronies which are annexed to ancient Earldoms and Baronies, and the newly created Baronies being by Law and the signification of the words, a Complexum of honorary possessions belonging to Earls and Barons, aswell as of the honour and title residing in their persons, cannot now be properly called Baronies, and he that was a Baron before will in a strict interpretation of the Feudal Laws, from whence they had their beginning, be no more nor no better than a Soke-man.  
Altar and disparage the fundamental and ancient constitution of Peerage, by making them to hold in Socage, which no Baronies in the Christian World ever did, or can be found to do.  
The ancient Earls and Barons who hold as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam, as the Earl of Arundel, who holdeth by the Service of Eighty four Knights Fees, and the Earl of Oxford by thirty, & many others may be greatly prejudiced.  
The Nobility and Gentry of England will by the taking away of their mesne Tenors by Knight-Service be disabled to serve their Prince as formerly, or bring any men into the Field.  
The Subjection and Rights of the Bishop of the Isle of Man, who holdeth immediately of the Earl of Derby, will be taken away.  
The profits of the Kings Annum▪ Diem & Vastum will be lost or greatly disturbed, and his and the Nobilities and Gentry's Escheates, which as to a third part of that which is holden in Capite or Knight Service could not before have been conveyed away, will be in no better condition.  
Our Original Magna Charta (which is holden in Capite) and all the Confirmations of the English Liberties, Franchises of the City of London, and many other Cities and Boroughs which before 9 H. 3. did use to send Burgesses to Parliament will be enervated.  
Destroy or weaken the ancient Charters of the City of London, for what (except their Court of Wards or Orphans) concerns their Customs and Husting Courts.  
Put into fresh disputes the question of Precedency betwixt England and Spain, which belongeth to England, in regard it holdeth of none but God, and hath Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man holding in Capite of it.  
Not well agree with the honour of England and the Monarchy and Superiority thereof to have the Isles of Garnesey and Jersey, which are a part of Normandy, to hold of the King by Feif roturier, or the Principality of Wales and the Isles of Wight and Man to hold in Socage.  
Damnify all the Nobility and Gentry in their mesne Tenors, in which they have a propriety which our Magna Charta, and a greater than that, twice written by the finger of God himself, do without a crime forfeiting it, or a just consideration or recompense for it, (which a relaxation of their own Tenors and Services will not amount unto) forbid to be taken away.  
Prejudice the Families of Cornwall, Hilton and Venables, who are called Barons, as holding per Baroniam, though not sitting in Parliament.  
Bring a dis-repute upon the Esquires and Gentry of England, whose original was from Tenors by Knight-Service.  
Take away a great part of the root and foundation of the Equestris Ordo which was derived out of Tenors in Capite.  
Blast and enervate the degree of Baronet's.  
Take away the cause of the eminent degree of Banneretts.  
Make our heretofore famous Nation in Feats of Arms and Chivalry to be but as an Agreste genus hominum, or a race of Rustics like the Arcadians.  
Take away or weaken all the Manors and Court Barons in England, which were derived or had their original from Tenors in Capite.  
Turn Tenors in Capite, which from the Duty of Homage and acknowledgement of Sovereignty were so called, into a Tenure, which by only acknowledging a Fealty for particular Lands which they hold is but à Latere, and no more than what one man holding by a Lease for years is by Law bound to do to another.  
Release the aid of the Maritime Counties and Ports in case of War and Invasion.  
Extinguish the Duties which every Hundred upon the Sea Coasts do owe in that which which was called the Petty Watches.  
Discharge the Mises or Payments which in Wales and Cheshire are due to the Kings of England at their Coronations.  
Indamage the King in his other R●galities, as in the Cinque Ports, finding fifty ships upon occasion of War, and many reservations of Honour and profit upon Tenors in Capite, Knight Service, and Socage in Capite, which if revived and well looked after would almost raise an Army and furnish a great part of the Provisions thereof.  
The King upon occasion of War shall never be able to erect his Standard, but will be left to hire and provide an Army out of the Rascality, faithless, unobliged, rude, debauched, necessitous, and common sort of people.  
If a War should break forth before a Rent-day or Excise money can be gathered, will never want misfortunes and distresses, and the King thereby failing of an Assistance at Land may lose also the help of his Navy at Sea.  
May have his Money and his Rents seized, as his late Majesty's Magazines and Rents were in the beginning of the late Wars.  
Can have no manner of assurance in a Sedition or Commotion of the people that men will for a small pay adventure their lives and limbs for many times no better a reward then the lamentable comforts of an Hospital, and the small charities and allowance usually bestowed upon maimed Soldiers.  
Destroy the hopes of the Bishops ever sitting again in the House of Peers as a third Estate, or if restored to those their just rights, so weaken the ground and foundation of that most ancient Constitution, as they may again be in danger to be divested of them, which the inconveniences of prescriptions interrupted, and Customs altered, may persuade us to take heed of.  
Disable the King and his Successors from recovering Foreign Rights, succouring Allies, and making an Offensive or diversive Warr.  
Shake or dislocate, if not take away that great Fundamental Law and Ancient Constitution of the Baronage and Peerage of England, and their Rights of Sitting in the House of Peers in Parliament, who sit there as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam, and are summoned thither in fide & homagio, in the faith and homage by which they are obliged, which Provisoes not always arriving to their ends or intentions, or a Saving of the Rights of Peerage, of Sitting in the House of Peers in Parliament, will not be able to insure or give them a certainty to be left in as good a condition as they were before.  
Disfranchise the Counties Palatine of Lancaster, Chester, Durham, and the Isle of Ely, which relate unto Palaces of Kings, (not Plows,) and are no where in the Christian world to be found holden by any other Tenure then in Capite.  
Make our Nobility and Gentry to hold their lands by no better Tenors than the Roturiers or peasants of France do theirs; and in Socage, which, as Sir Henry Spelman saith, Ignobilibus & rusticis competit 
spelman's Glossar. 261.  nullo feudali privilegio ornatum & feudi nomen sub recenti seculo perperam & abusu rerum auspicatum; belongs only to rustics and ignoble men, and being not entitled to any feudal privilege hath of late times improperly and by abuse gained the name of Fee.  
Loosen the foundation of such ancient Earldoms and Baronies as have been said to consist of a certain number of Knights Fees holden of them.  
Hazard the avitas consuetudines, ancient Rights and Customs belonging to Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service.  
Take away, or lessen, as to the future, the fame and honour of the Nobility and Gentry of the English Nation, which in feats of Chivalry (not Socagerie) extended as far as the Roman Eagles ever flew, and had no other bounds then the utmost parts of the earth.  
Render them in Tenure, and that which at first made them by their virtue and employment, Superiors in degree, aswell as in their Lands and Revenues to the common sort of people, to be in that particular but as their equals.  
Will not be consistent with the honour of England, to have Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service retained in Ireland, and Scotland, and not in England; and to lessen the honour and strength of the English Nobility and Gentry in England, by reducing their mesne Tenors into free and common Socage, whilst the better and more Noble Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service shall be enjoyed in those inferior and dependent Kingdoms.  
Or if taken away in Ireland, and reduced into free and common Socage, will in all probability meet with as many inconveniences as the like may do in England, and lose the Kings of England that Service which by reason of the Tenors in Capite was always in a readiness, and made use of by their Progenitors upon all occasions of War and necessity, as well in England as Ireland.  
And if the like shall be done in Scotland, where the people, too much accustomed to infidelity and a Rhodomontading, where they are not resisted, are best if not only to be Governed by their dependencies upon their Superiors and Benefactors, and holding their Lands by Military and Knight-Service, (as that Kingdom itself doth in Capite of England, as it was stoutly asserted by our King EDWARD the First and His Baronage of England;) there will happen such a dissolution or distemper of that body politic as will exceed all or any imagination before hand, and the inferior sort of people will by such an alteration of their Tenors be like hunger bitten Bears, let loose to as bad if not a worse kind of levelling then our fanatics would not long ago have cut out for the three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, now happily conjoined under their rightful King and Sovereign.  
Will greatly derogate from the honour of the English Nation, and make them who excelled in their Laws and Constitutions all or most of the Nations and Kingdoms of the Christian world, and had more of right reason in them; to be as a reproach to other Nations, and separated from the use of those ancient and Regal Rights, Customs, Powers and Regalities which all Monarchies in Christendom do use, and will be as inconsistent with the honour of England as it would be to have their Kings, in a complaisance of a troublesome and unquiet part of the people, not to be Crowned nor Anointed, not to use a Sceptre, or have a sword born before Them, not to make Knights, or not to do it in the ancient and usual manner, which the Kings of other Nations and Kingdoms have ever done and enjoyed; or to have the Earls of England (as if they were only Comites Parochiales, Governors of Villages, mentioned by Goldastus, or Dijck Graven; or men of small honour in Holland, appointed to look to their Sea-banks) not to wear their Circulos Aureos, Coronets of Gold.  
Will not accord well with the Rules of Justice to take away Knights Fees or Tenors by Knight-Service from the mesne Lords without a fitting Recompense.  
But break the Public Faith and Contracts of those that hold of the King or them.  
The recompense of 150000 l. per Annum, will not be adequate to the loss of the Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, which nothing but the Kingdom of England itself can balance; and which the King of France, or the King of Spain, in their several Dominions, would not for an yearly Revenue of many hundred thousand pounds' part with, but would think it no bad bargain to be re purchased after the same or a greater rate.  
It will be as unsafe as unusual, to turn into a Rent that which was intended for the defence of the Kingdom.  
And to charge all men's Lands with recompense to be made for it, will be against Justice, Equity, and Reason, and make nineteen parts in twenty of the people, to bear the burden of the twentieth.  
Or if by Excise upon Ale & Beer, will do the like, & lay the burden of the rich upon the poor, & extend it to Children, Servants, Day-labourers, Cobblers, Apple-women, and all manner of the lowest ranks of people, which are as unlikely to be Tenants in Capite as all the Colleges in the Universities, and Hospitals of England are, whose expenses will be also enlarged by it.  
Will be a seminary and complication of Grievances.  
May be afterward legally taken away by Petitions to Parliaments, or illegally (which God forbid,) by an Insurrection or Mutiny of the common people as in Naples, France, etc.  
Will not be an honourable Revenue, nor ever be well settled without the help of Garrisons, Troops of Horse, and Companies of Foot.  
The people will be double charged by the Brewers and Ale-men, and enforced to pay 250000 l. per Annum, for 150000 l. per Annum.  
And whether Excise, or not Excise, the King, when the Tenors shall be taken away, and Ship-money shall be denied him, because as Mr. Saint John argued in the case of Ship money, he had the Tenors in Capite allowed for the defence of the Kingdom.  
Or the miseries of an actual War shall overwhelm or oppress Him, shall be told as His Royal Father was by that part of the Parliament which sat at Westminster in 1642. That He ought not to put in execution His Commissions of Array, because His Tenors in Capite were for the defence of the Kingdom.  
And that by several Statutes and Acts of Parliament in the Reign of King E. 3. it shall be said that he is restrained not to Impressed Hoblers, which were as our Dragoons, or Archers, or Footmen, who are thereby not to go out of their Counties but in case of necessity and coming in of Foreign enemies.  
Or shall have need to succour His Allies, make a diversive War, or embroil an Enemy, shall be answered, That they are quit of all Services but the holding their Lands of Him, by doing of fealty, which they will be apt to interpret according to their Interest, the humour of their faction or party, or as their designs or better hopes in a change shall direct them.  
Must be enforced for the safety of His people, if the Tenors shall be taken away, to raise and maintain a standing Army.  
And a standing Army, and standing Assessments to maintain it, will be certainly more prejudicial and chargeable to all the people in general, then that which without any ground or reason, the Tenors in Capite have lately been supposed to be to any in particular.  
It will derogate from the honour of the King, who is Pater Patriae, not to be trusted with the protection of Orphans, so much as the Dutch, who have a Court of Orphans.  
Or as the City of London, who by ancient Custom have an absolute Court of Wards, called a Court of Orphans, which may by overthrowing the King's Court of Wards come under the like fortune.  
Be a means to defraud Creditors and Purchasers, who cannot for want of Offices or Inquisitions found after the death of Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service, so well as formerly know how the Debtors Lands are settled, or what is in fee simple to charge the Heir.  
Be against the people's Oaths of Supremacy to desire the diminishing or taking away the King's Rights or Jurisdiction.  
Take away His Power and Means of protecting and defending them, and to perform his Coronation Oath, and when the assistance and help of Tenors in Capite have like Sea walls and banks, proved not strong enough to withstand and keep out the Floods of Sedition, it cannot now surely be for the good and safety of the people either to weaken as much as may be, the strength which was before in them, or to have none at all.  
Draw a Curse upon the Posterities of those that hold under those Tenors and shall endeavour, contrary to the faith and promise of their Ancestors, to subvert them.  
Make the common people insolent, and teach them hereafter to find fault with every thing that fits not their Interest or humour, and by such a largeness of liberty, having before surfeited upon lesser, to be like the waves of the Sea and its deep, tossed and beating one against another by the winds of those enticements or factions which for their own wicked ends shall blow upon them.  
And by such an easiness of granting away so great a part of the just and legal power of the King, Nobility, and better part of the people, over the most rude and not easy, without it, to be either governed or persuaded, invite them to take up their not long ago designs and projects of taking away Copy-holds, which they lately, as foolishly as falsely, called Norman slaveries, and of enforcing their Lords to take two years' purchase for them; and that Landlords might be st●nted and ordered to take what the factiously well-affected Tenants should call reasonable in the leasing and renting of their Lands.  
Carry along with it and abolish the Royal Pourveyances, which being in use amongst the people of 
1 Reg. 10. 24, 25. 2 Reg 4. 21, 22, 23. Nchem. 5. 18. Sigonius de Repub. Athen. lib. 4. 540. & 541. Martin: Cromerus, lib. 2. de Regno Poloniae. Bignonius in notis ad lib. 1. Marculfi 465. Rosinus de Antiquitat Rom. lib. 7. 14. 24. lib. 10. cap. 22. LL Wisigoth. lib. 9 tit. 6. LL Ripuar. tit. 65. Cujacius tit. 48. ad 10. cod. justinian 14 29 Tacitus in vita Ridley's View of the Civil and Ecclesiastical Law. 9 H. 3. cap. 21.  Israel, were never in that glorious and ever commended Reign of King Solomon, nor in that long after pious order and Government of the good Nehemiah, found to be a grievance, nor taken to be so amongst the Greeks, Poles, Romans, ancient Britain's, Franks, and Germans, those great Assertors of Liberties, or the most of the Nations of Europe, (not cast unhappily into Commonwealths, where they only dream of freedom, but cannot find it;) but were used in the West-Indies long before the Spanish courtesies and care of their conversion, had engrossed their gold, destroyed the most of their Natives, and made the relidue their slaves; And in China, and most parts of the habitable World.  
And being a Jus Gentium, and a part of right Reason so universally allowed and practised, were as Oblations or recompenses for tolls or pre-emption, or for some other considerations, cheerfully paid to our Kings of England, & so butted and bounded with good Laws, and so easy, as the Tenants did neither care to provide against it in their Leases, or reckon to their Landlords those little and seldom payments and charges which were occasioned by them.  
And by throwing the Purveyance into the same Bill or intended Act of Parliament, for taking away the Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, hath since caused the King to pay three times or more than formerly he did, as 12d per pound for Butter, where it was before but three pence; twelve shillings a hundred for Eggs, where it was before but three shillings; and eighteen pence a mile for a Cart to carry his goods or provision, when it was before but two pence a mile in Summer, and six pence in winter; twelve pounds for a Beef or an Ox, which before was willingly and without any oppression of the Counties, served in at fifty shillings.  
Render the One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum of Excise▪ money for the intended recompense for the profit and honour of his Tenors, Court of Wards, and Pourveyance, to be no more (if it could clearly come up to that sum) then Thirty seven thousand and five hundred pounds, but if with allowances and charges in the collecting, and arrears and bad payments, or otherwise, it should amount (as it is likely) to no more than One hundred thousand pounds per Annum, the clear of that to the King, three parts in four of his prizes enhanced being deducted, is like to be but Twenty and five thousand pounds per Annum.  
Which when the Excise (wherein the King himself shall now pay a Tax or Excise for his Beer and Ale) and other Assessments shall every day more and more make dear the Markets, and that the people shall, to make themselves more than saviours, stretch the price of their Commodities, and make an addition to the former years' rates and demands, for all sorts of victuals and provision of livelihood, or that the King or His Pourveyors shall over and above that be, for want of ready money, enforced to pay a treble or more interest for buying upon Time or days of payment; will also within the compass of seven years vanish into a cipher.  
And if the Excise, for the burden and grievance thereof, should also be taken away, the King having no provision made in the Act for taking away his Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service and of his Pourveyance, (●or the intended recompense of that part of the Excise therein mentioned) to resort back again in such a case to the former profit of his Tenors and ease of Pourveyance.  
Will then not only have given away those two great Flowers of His Crown for nothing, but be as much a loser in what he shall over and above pay for his household provision, Cart taking, and other necessaries, as he shall pay a greater rate than his former pourveyances came unto, which in 200000 l. per ann. which may well be conjectured to be the least which will be expended in that kind) will, considering three parts in four of the prizes enhanced, amount to no less a detriment then one hundred seventy five thousand pounds per Annum, besides what must be added to that loss for what shall be paid more than formerly for Timber and materials for the Navy, and repair of the King's Houses, Castles and Forts, and by the people's every year more and more raising their priaees upon him.  
And then the bargain or exchange betwixt the King and the people for the Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, and his Pourveyances, besides the giving away so great a part of his Prerogative and Sovereignty will arrive to no more than this. The King shall remit the yearly revenue of Eighty eight thousand & seventy pounds per Annum, (defalcations for exhibitions and allowances for Fees, Diet, and other necessaries and charges first deducted) which was made by the Court of Wards in the year 1640, besides Thirteen thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds profit for those kind of Tenors which in that year was collected and brought into the Exchequer, which will make a Total of One hundred one thousand three hundred fifty eight pounds per Annum.  
Or if but Eighty one thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds, all charges cleared and deducted, as it came unto in Anno 1637. which was 13ᵒ Car. primi, both which was easily paid by the Nobility, Gentry, and richest and most able part of the people, for or in respect of their Lands holden in Capite, which were never purchased but frankly given for their Service, Homage, and incidents thereunto apperteining.  
And release the ease and benefit of his Pourveyances, which did not in all the Fifty two Counties of England and Wales, by the estimate of what was allowed towards it in Kent, being thereby charged only with Twelve hundred pounds per Annum, or thereabouts, put the people of England to above Forty thousand pounds per Annum charges; which totalled and summed up together with the profits of the Tenors in Capite in An. 1640. being 16ᵒ Car. will make One hundred forty▪ one thousand three hundred pounds, or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred eighty eight pounds, all necessary charges satisfied as it was in 13ᵒ Car. primi.  
Shall give away that One hundred forty one thousand three hundred pounds, or One hundred and twenty thousand two hundred and eighty pounds per Annum, and lose One hundred and fifty thousand pounds per Annum in the buying of his Household provisions (besides what more shall be put upon him by a further enhance of prizes) for to gain One hundred thousand pounds for that moiety of the Excise of Ale and Beer, to be paid out of the sighs, daily complaints and lamentations of the poorest sort of the subjects, and the discontents and mournings of nineteen parts in twenty of all the people, who by the payment of that Excise will be made to bear the burdens of others, to acquit less than a twentieth part of them, of those no ruining payments not often happening to be charged upon them by reason of those kind of Tenors; or for nothing, if that Excise should be taken away.  
Prejudice the King in his Honour (which Saul, when he entreated Samuel not to dishonour him before the people, understood to be of some concernment) and his Estate, in not affording his Pourveyors a pre-emption in the buying provision for his Royal Family, Tables and Attendants, which all the Acts of Parliament made concerning the Regulating of Pourveyances never denied. The Princes of Germany are allowed in their smaller Dominions, the Caterers of every Nobleman frequenting the Markets, the servants of every Lord of a Manor in England do enjoy, and the common civilities of mankind, and but ordinary respect of inferiors to their superiors do easily persuade.  
Will not agree or keep company with that honour and reverence which by the Laws of God and Nature, Nations, and right reason, will be due, and aught to be paid to a King and Father of his Country, nor with the gratitude of those who often enough come with their Buckets to the Well or Fountains or his mercy, or are not seldom craving and obtaining favours of him, to refuse him those small Retorns or Acknowledgements for his bounties, nor prudence to show him the way to be selfish or sparing in his kindness to them.  
Shame our promises and protestations made unto him at his return from that misery wherein the sins and madness of a factious part of his subjects had cast him, of sacrificing their lives, fortunes and estates, and all that they had for him, that had rescued them from an utter destruction; and yet when he had told them of his wants, and how much it troubled him to see his people to come as they did flocking to see him at Whitehall, that he had not wherewithal to entertain them or make them eat, make such haste to take away his ancient Rights of Pourveyance, or daily and necessary support of Him, his Queen, Children and Servants, and for entertainment of Ambassadors of Foreign Princes which for three days until they have their Audience, which is so sumptuous and extraordinary as it costs him at the least three or four hundred pounds a day.  
When as the ill-nurtured and unmannerly Dutch (gnawing a pickled Herring and an Onion in one hand and a piece of ruggen bread in the other) can in their slovenly and small moralities to their Prince of Orange allow him and his Court (which after the griping & high rate of their Excise goes a good part of the way to as much as what the King saved by his Pourveyances) a freedom from payment of Excise upon all Provisions, and the like to the Queen of Bohemia, and Ambassadors of Foreign Princes all the year, and to their Army & every common Soldier when they are in the field or leaguer or upon a march, to the Ships of Merchants aswell as those of War in their Victualling, and to the English Company of Merchants of the Staple there residing, and deny not the University of Leyden a freedom of having their provision of Wine and Beer laid in Excise-free.  
When the Lord Mayor of London hath an allowance or tolls out of Oats and Sea-Coals which are brought to be sold to London of Stallage and Pickage in the Markets and Fairs, out of cattle brought to be sold in Smithfield, and many other things towards the charge of his extraordinary House-keeping in the Year or Time of his Majorality, which the simplest and poorest Citizen never grumbles at, but acknowledgeth it to be for the honour of their City, hath every Company or Corporation of Trades bringing him forty shillings in retribution of a Dinner and a cheap Silver Spoon, every Citizen contributing to the charge of Triumphal Arches in entertainment of their Prince upon extraordinary occasions, every Company bearing the charge of the Livery men and chief of their Company in their Pageants on the Lord Mayor's days, and every little Borough-Town in the Country can be well content to help one another in the charges which are put upon it when the King shall in his Progress receive any entertainment from them.  
Such a great provision as is necessarily to be made for the King's Household and his multitude of Servants and Attendants, will, when much of his Provision shall not be sent (as formerly to his Court which did prevent it) sweep and take away the best sorts of Provision from the Markets, and as experience hath already told us, make scarce and dear all that can be brought to the Market near the King's residence or his occasions.  
Teach the people, whose measure and rule of conscience is to ask high rates, and take as much as by any pretence, tales, falsehoods or devices they can get, and more of the King, Nobility and Gentry then common people, to heighten their prices, and get thereby unjustly of the King more than all their Subsidies or Assessments shall come to, and render him in no better a case or condition (as to prices or good husbandry) in buying his necessary provision (as they say) by the penny, than a Landlord that lets a Farm of 50l. per Ann. to his Tenant, and takes his rent in Wheat, Malt, Oats, Wood, Beef, Mutton, Veal and Poultry, at such rates as he shall exact of him.  
Every Clown or Carter, every man's servant or Kitching-maid shall in matters of Market and Provision be at liberty to buy a Salmon, Pheasants, Partridges, or Bustards, and the like, (fitter for the King than their Masters) out of his Pourveyors hands, and do by him as a Trim over-monied Citizens wife did by a Gorget of 60l. price, (now too low a price for those kind of Gentlewomen) which she bought in Anno 1641. in the beginning of our pretended religious but irreligious War out of the Queen's hand, and being afterwards sent to with a proffer of some advantage, could find neither manners nor duty to persuade her to part with it.  
And the e will be then but few Araunahs, who when David and his Servants came to buy his 
2 Reg. 24. v. 20. & 22.  Threshing-floor for to build an Altar, bowed himself before the King on his face upon the ground, and answered, Let my Lord the King take and offer up what seemeth good unto him; Behold, here be Oxen for burnt-sacrifice.  
But every Nabal will be ready to answer our David and his Pourveyors or Servants, Who is David, and who is the son of Jesse? or as one of that kindred 
1 Sam. 25. 10.  did lately to the King's Harbinger a: Windsor at the solemnities of the Feast of the Garter, when he could say the King had quitted his Tenors & Pourveyance, and was now no more to him then another man, he was at liberty to let his Lodgings to any one would give him sixpence more; though the poor Persian (so much celebrated in History) who rather then he would offer nothing to his Prince in his Progress by his Cottage, could run to the next water and bring as much of it as he could carry in hish and for a present, would, if he were now alive, in a horror and detestation of so great a bestiality and such a Monstrum horrendum, take his heels and run quite away from such an ingratitude or inhumanity.  
Disable the Brewers, who complaining heavily of the Excise-men or Torments (as they call them) will by the mysteries of their Trade lay the burden as much as they can upon their customers, & will not be able to give as much as formerly to the Maltsters, nor the Maltsters to those that sell the Barley, but all of them shifting of the burden one upon another will be a cause of the enhancing of the rates of Beer and Ale, vitiating or making of it worse, and by false Gaugings, Expilations and Tricks of Excise men lesser measures used by the Retailers, and every ones labouring to ease themselves as much as they can, and using too many devices to make themselves savours, or to increase their gain by the pretences of it, will not fail to bring a huge trouble, much damage, and many inconveniencies upon the people, and the poorer part of them.  
Will very much in the matter of Pourveyances (which Oliver and his Conventions were content not to molest) now thrown into that bargain, diminish the magnificence and grandeur of the King's hospitality, which the surplusage of his Tables, plenty in his Kitchings and Cellars, and every where else to be found in all the places and offices of his Court, did not only cause an admiration to strangers, but yield a comfort and relief to many sorts of neighbor-inhabitants, streets and villages adjacent, and a great support of the poor, who in the Reign of King Henry the Third, were (besides the daily crumms, fragments, and relics of his household provision) not infrequently fed and Treated by that King; who, as our public Records can tell us, did several times send out Warrants and Writs to provide Victuals ad alendos pauperes 
Claus. 31 H. 3.  in Westminster-Hall, for as many poor as it could contain, being a better kind of expense than those vain, unnecessary and costly Treatments which our young Gallants and some Tradesmen do now too often make their Gentlewomen and Mistresses in Hide Park and Spring Garden, to show them how little at present they value money and how much they may want it hereafter.  
And at the same time can think every public duty to be a grievance and every little too much which they contribute to their Prince.  
Who (if Pourveyances shall be taken away) will not be able to hinder or keep off those many inconveniencies which will obstruct his House keeping & Hospitality, nor those many hardships, disgraces and ruins which will fall upon many of his Servants and Attendants, who (like the Priests in the desolation of the Temple) bewailing the former glory and present necessities of their Master's Court and house, may weep between the Gate and the more retired places thereof, and wish that a Queen of Sheba (as she that came once out of the South to see King Solomon) may never come to view their Prince's Court, the manner of his Servants sitting at their Tables and eating of their meat, the attendance of his Ministers and their apparel.  
Take away not only the honour but the public benefits and feudal Rights of the Tenors in Capite, by Knight-Service and per Baroniam, which are justly and highly esteemed in all Kingdoms and Principalities which are so happy as to live under Monarchy the best of Governments, and deprive ourselves of those nerves and sinews which fix and consolidate the fidelity, peace and welfare of Monarchies, and the best part also of those feudal Laws, wherein are contained many of the Laws and Rights of Kingdoms, Marquisates, Earldoms, Baronies, and their dependencies.  
Tenors in libero & communi Soccagio per fidelitatem tantùm pro omnibus servitiis, in free and common Socage by Fealty only for all services so universally extended as to make all the English Tenors to be in that condition, will be dangerous rather than profitable to the King and people, whose good and safety consists in a due obedience of the people to their Prince, and not in that which may invite and encourage Sedition and Rebellion, & is fitter to be trusted to a Kingdom of Angels (which was once not without a Lucifer (a pretender to great Light) & his rebelling party then to a people (many of whom being not fully cured of a disobedience more than ordinarily acted to the ruin of their King and his three Kingdoms, are now in a full career of all manner of vice and wickedness, running over all the Laws of God and man, and wholly given up to their pride and Luxury, and an interest and care to maintain them.  
They that could then misinterpret Scripture, abuse the plain and genuine sense and meaning of all our Laws, clearly expressed and fully to be understood, and make an ill use of a not to be (as they thought) dissolved Parliament, rebel and fight against their King, multiply Grievances under colour of remedying them, destroy him and endeavour to do the like to his Children and Successors, and all the loyal Nobility and Gentry, which according to their Allegiance and Tenors of their Lands made haste to his Standard and Defence, will now think they have gotten better Fig-leaves, either to cover any thing they shall attempt against their King and Sovereign, or for abiding with Gilead beyond Jordan, and not coming to help or assist him, in regard that for all manner of services they are only to do him Fealty, which they may disguise according to their several humours and interests.  
Will unhinge the Government and take away the Ties and Obligations which were betwixt the King and his Subjects, the Nobility and better part of the people, and the more common and inferior sort of them, untie their bonds of Obedience, and let them lose to a liberty of ruining and undoing themselves by not obeying their Sovereign, which is not to be hazarded upon the hopes of Tenors in Cord, when the impression and remembrance of Benefits are as frail and little immortal as Gratitude's, or the love and kindness of many friends or children which hardly survives days or months or a few years, and at the most do not outlive the first Receivers, but do most commonly within a few days, if not hours after, wax faint and languish; and though they did at the first really mean and intend the thankfulness they promised, can as quickly as the Scots did by the late Kings extraordinary favours and concessions, even to the giving away almost all that he had in Scotland, or as some of their Brethren in England did in their undertake to make him a glorious King, forget what they promised or should do; and having got power into their hands, be most rigid and severe in the exercise and employment of it and their liberties against those which granted them.  
Make the head of our English Body Politic not to be as a head in the body natural, strongly fixed and resting upon those many Bones, Joints, Arteries, Muscles and Veins which in that line of Communication, do serve and attend the motions and directions of the head and principal part for the well being of the whole body; but to be set in such an unfixed, unsafe, and unusual order, as it shall neither be able to protect itself or those who depend upon it, and have no other ligaments but Fealty, and the too often broken oaths of Allegiance & Supremacy, which can never attain to those great Obligations of Homage and Service of War; which being annexed to the Land itself, had besides the Bond of Loyalty another also of Gratitude attending upon it, and as a threefold cord not easily to be broken, must of necessity far surmount that so small a one as Fealty, which being little more than our modern ill used daily Compliments, will prove such a small something, as when Interest, Profit, Humours or Factions shall either altogether or apart stand in the way of them or any of them, will be made to be little more than nothing.  
Mutilate and lame our Ancient best regulated and unparallelled Monarchy, and make it to be as paralytic on the right side, and wanting the natural and right use of its right Arm and Legg; and applying no better a remedy then a plaster of Excise, drawn from the rebelling & necessitous example of a Neighbour Republic or Democraty, put the power and ability of serving the King in his Wars, of helping him to preserve the Salus Populi or good of the people, and performing the Oaths and Duty of Allegiance, (a great part whereof was before in the Nobility and Gentry, who were the best educated, more knowing and virtuous part of the people, and better understanding the order and affairs of Government and the Loyalty which at all times and upon all occasions did belong unto it) into the hands and humour of the ignorant, misunderstanding, rude and giddy Plebeians or Common people.  
Deprive the King and people of those Strengths, ready Aids and Assistance of the Tenants in Capite and by Knight Service (who were as so many little and inoffensive Garrisons & Forts in every County to defend it) to make head against the sudden invasion of an Enemy, put him to a stand, and prevent (which was evidenced by the late use and terrors of oliver's County troops) the overrunning or gaining of whole Territories or taking of places of Strength, until greater neighbour forces or an Army be embodied, or to be as so many Brigades or Auxiliaries well horsed and furnished (with their Tenants) to attend their King in a diversive War, as they were in Anno 1640. in that unfortunately suspended Expedition or Inroad into Scotland against those Rebellious COVENANTERS against the Laws of God as well as those of their Sovereign.  
Decay and impoverish the King's Revenue, and bring him into a want of money, which made his late Majesty the Martyr's great and extraordinary Virtues, Piety and Prudence, too weak to defend himself or resist the torrent of Sedition and Rebellion, which like an inundation of many waters rushed in upon him.  
Exchange the ancient and noble Guards of England and its never failing defence, as the earthen Walls and Bulwarks thereof, by an Obligation of Tenure and Homage annexed to the Lands of those which hold in Capite and by Knight-Service, for a standing Guard or Army of Hirelings, or men whose Fortunes are worn on their Backs as their Clothes, or by their sides as their Swords, which upon any necessity or mischance happening to the King, may, for want of pay (as the Germane Ruyters or Lancekneghts) or by insolence or presumption of their numbers or strength (as the Praetorian Bands amongst the later Romans) or the Turkish mutinous Janissaries; or by being inconstant and faithless, as the Cosacks and Tartars usually are to the Poles; ruin and forsake him, or by an humour of making Remonstrances and intermeddling in State matters, Innovating of Laws, changes of Government, and sacrificing to the Ignorance of their own mechanic Brains and new found destructive Politics, destroy the people & their liberties, as our late Colonels and Captains of the new edition, and the Agitators and Self-canonized Saints did attempt to do when they would make themselves to be so much concerned in the good of the people as to set up a Law of the Sword and a Committee of Safety to make no man to have any safety or property but themselves, and called every thing Providence which proceeded from their own unparallelled Villainies.  
Renverse and overturn many of the fundamental Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom, and throw it with the heels upwards into very many evils and confusions, which ourselves as well as posterity may repent but not know how to remedy.  
Perpetuate a Moiety of the Excise upon Ale, Beer, Perry and Cider, and make the groans and burden thereof to be as an Inheritance for the people, & by the example and custom thereof be by degrees a means to introduce the whole Excise, which in the Oliverian usurpation was laid upon them; and though it may not happen in the life time of a gracious Prince, Father of his Country, and Preserver of his people's Rights and Liberties, may afterwards, like Nessus' poisoned shirt upon the back of our Hercules and former Government, canker, eat up and destroy all their labours and industry.  
Will cut off our Sampsons' Locks, and bereave him of his strength, break in pieces the Shield and Spear of his mighty men of War, and when all things Antimonarchical should be rooted out, will be a fruitful plantation and product of the greatest of Antimonarchicks, and be that which our English Monarchy never yet saw or allowed; and if God's mercy prevent not, may be as good a guest as a Canker or Snake in the Bosom of it.  
All which and more evils and inconveniences than can at present be either fore-seen or enumerated, and will (as to very many of them) as certainly follow the taking away of Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, as effects do usually their causes, Cromwell the Protector of his own Villainies as well as our Miseries) very well understood, when, in order to the destruction of the King and his Family, the ruin of all the Nobility and Gentry, and the rooting up of Monarchy, and every thing which did but resemble or help to support it; he did all he could to take away Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service.  
And having a constant and standing Army of Thirty thousand Horse and Foot allowed to him and his Successors by his Instrument of Government, or Rod of Scorpions, and a Revenue of Nineteen hundred thousand pounds to maintain himself in his intended unlimited Monarchy, and to keep the people in slavery, cozening, cheating, and ruining all Loyal and honest men under the Hypocrisy and pretence of intentional Godliness, and Two hundred thousand pounds per Annum for the provision of his House and Servants, found himself no way indammaged by destroying Tenors in Capite or by Knight-Service, or concerned to retain or keep them.  
Which being the most noble sort of Tenors, most ancient, free, and privileged, will if they shall be truly and judiciously put in parallel and balance with those of the original and proper Tenors in Socage, who as Coloni & adscriptitii, tied to 
Socage.  their husbandry and ploughs, did (as Sr Edward Cook saith) Arare & Herciare, Blow and Harrow their Lords Lands, and do many other servile works; or with such a Socage as those many Tenants hold their Lands by, which hold by a certain small rent of Sir Anthony Weldens Heir for Castleguard to the ruined Rochester Castle in Kent, to pay 3 s. 4 d. nomine poenae for every Tide which after the time limited for payment shall run under Rochester Bridg.  
Or with Copyhold Tenors, (which at the first being frankly given for years or life, and after by a continued charity turned to a Customary Inheritance) were bound up to many inconveniences, 
Copyhold.  as not to lease their Lands or fell Timber without their Lord's licence, and many forfeitures, payments and customs, some at Fines incertain, at the will of the Lord, after the death of their Ancestor, and which upon a suit or appeal in the Courts of Justice or Chancery are never mitigated or brought lower than two years present and improved value; and where the Fines are certain, do in many places pay as much or more, in some places where they pay less pay after the rate of five pence per Acre, and in other eight pence per Acre, or higher as the custom varies; and pay Herriots, not only upon the death of the last Tenant but upon Surrenders; and in some places the Widows having no Free Bench (as they call it) or Estate in the Lands after their Husbands; and where they have that or Dower, which is seldom in other places, do forfeit if they marry again; or in some places, if they commit fornication or adultery in their Widowhood; and if the Lords of Manors put the Tenants out of their Copyhold Estates upon a forfeiture, they have by Law no remedy but to petition to them, can have no Writ of Right-close to command their Lords to do them right without delay according to the custom of the Manor, no Writ of False Judgement at the Common Law given in the Lord's Court, but must sue to the Lord by Petition, nor can sue any Writ of Monstraverunt to command their Lords, not to require of them other Customs or Services than they ought, must grind at the Lords Mill and bake at his common Oven, and not speak irreverently of them.  
Or those kind of Tenors of Lands in Cumberland, Northumberland, Westmoreland, and the North parts of England, which pay a thirty penny 
Northern Tenant-Right.  Fine at every alienation, and a twenty penny Fine upon the death of an Ancestor or of their Lord, according to the rate of the small yearly rents of their Lands, which were at the first freely given for service in War, and to repel the Scottish Incursions, now much insisted upon and called Tenant-Right.  
Or Lease-holders' which are racked or pay Fines, 
Lease-holders'.  and a Rent, as much as any will give for them under harsh and strict Covenants, conditions, forfeitures, & Nomine Poenae's, without a standing Army & Assessments and a Troop of Horse (as was done in oliver's time) to scout in every County, to awe, terrify, abuse and sometimes rob the Inhabitants.  
Or the now so much desired Tenure of free and 
Free Socage.  common Socage, (many of which are under the payment of a Tenth every year, of the value as they were first granted) by Fealty only for all services, with a standing Army or Assessments, though far lesser, as it is hoped, instead of Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, will be more desirable and prove a greater freedom then either the old Socage Tenure, which in Kent they did sometimes willingly exchange, to hold the same Lands by Knight-Service, or the Copy-holders' or Northern Tenant-rightmen, or the free and common Socage by Fealty only and no other Services.  
None of which have or can justly claim as the Tenants in Capite and by Knight-Service do those ancient and honourable Rights, Immunities and Privileges which justly belong unto them, nor their 
Beraultus in Commentar. & spelman's Glossar. 261. & in verb. leta, 431.  Court Barons and Court Leetes, with the privileges of base Justice, doing Justice to their Tenants for small Debts under Forty shillings, correcting and overseeing the Assize of Bread and Beer, Weights and Measures, corrupt 
Trin. 18. E. 1. in placit inter Abbatem de Leicester & Abbatem de Selby.  Victuals, punishment of breach of the Peace, swearing Constables, making By-lawes, power of administering the Oath of Allegiance, Inquiries concerning Victuallers, Artificers, Workmen, Laborers, and excess of prizes of Wines, etc. Inquiries after Seditions, Treasons, etc. and presenting and certifying them or any other thing that might disturb the Peace and Welfare of their King and Country, and by keeping the lesser Wheels in order, did contribute much to that of the greater, and every one (as little and subordinate Reguli and petty Princes) enjoying under their Kings and Sovereigns that which to this day (as well as anciently) have been called Royalties, which being but pencilled and drawn out of Regal favours and permission, are in Fide & Homagio deduced from those Tenors; For all which free Gifts, Emoluments, Immunities and Privileges, they had no other.   

Burdens or Duties incumbent upon Tenors in Capite and Knight-Service.  
THen to go to War well arrayed and furnished 
Escuage.  with the King or his Lieutenant General (which every Subject if he had not Lands freely given him is in duty bound to do) or his mesne Lord when Wars should happen, which in a common course of Accidents may be but once or not at all in his life time, and then not to tarry with him above forty days or less according to their proportion of Fee or Lands holden at their own charge (which is a greater favour then to go along with him all the time of his Wars) and for all the time that they remain afterwards in the Camp to be at the King's charge, and to have Escuage assessed by Parliament of their own Tenants if they shall refuse to go also in person.  
Their respite of Homage was without personal attendance discharged once in four Terms or a years 
Homage.  space for smaller Fees proportionable to the yearly value of their Lands then three shillings four pence per Ann. which they that held a Knight's Fee yearly paid to their mesne Lords for respite of suit of Court.  
Their relief when they died, leaving their Heirs 
Relief.  at full age, was for a whole Knight's Fee but Cs. (less most commonly than a Herriot or the price of their best Horse or beast if they had holden in Socage) and when they were in Ward paid nothing for it; for a Barony 100 marks, and an Earldom 100l. of a Marquis 200 Marks, and a Duke 200 l.  
The Primer seisin, which though due by Law was 
Primer Seisin.  never paid until 4ᵒ or 5ᵒ Car. primi, was like the Clergies first-Fruits, according to a small moderate value a years profit if in possession, and a Moiety in Reversion; and so small a casualty or revenue, as in the 16th year of the Reign of his late Majesty they did but amount unto 3086 l. 9 s. 8 d. ob. half farthing.  
And the charge to the Officers of a general Livery 
Livery.  (being like to an admittance of a Tenant in a Copyhold estate, but a great deal cheaper) where the Lands were under value and found but at 5l. per Ann. which most commonly was the highest rate of finding or valuation of it when it was 100l. per Annum or something more, with all the Fees and requisites thereunto did not exceed 10l. and the Fine for a Livery where there was a Wardship, half a years profit after a small value, and so little as in 16 Car. the account for Liveriess was but 1316 l. 12 s. 4 d. ob. farthing.  
And where a Special Livery under the Great Seal of England was sued out, with a Pardon for Alienations, Intrusions, etc. did not with the Lord Chancellors, Master of the Rolls, and Master of the Wards, and all other Fees included, make the charge amount to more than 15 l. or 20 l.  
Where a Livery was not sued out as it ought to 
Mesne Races.  be, the mesne rates and forfeitures (which may be avoided) were either pardoned or gently compounded, and of so small a consideration in the King's Revenue by Wardships, as in Anno 1640. and a time of peace, the Account thereof amounted to no more than Nine hundred ninety two pounds fifteen shillings two pence halfpenny half-farthing.  
And where a minority happened, which in Times of less luxury was but seldom, many were either Knighted or Married before they attained to their full age, and Heirs females were not infrequently married long before their age of 21. there being not one with another, one in every seven that died leaving an Heir in Minority.  
Which may the better be credited, for that, if Report mistake not, a Family of Poynings or Pointz, having from the Reign of King H. 1. now almost six hundred years ago, not had an Heir in minority.  
And it is certain enough that in twenty Descents of the Family of Veeres, now Earls of Oxford, in the space of six hundred years and some thing more, and the Wars and Troubles which happened in many of them, there have not been but six in minority when their Fathers or Ancestors died; and the like or less may be found or instanced in many others.  
And for one that is left very young at his Father's death, there are commonly nineteen that are of greater age; and for one betwixt five years old and ten, there are ten that are above the age of ten; and for one that is betwixt that and fifteen, there are seven that are above it; for that most commonly in such early marriages as these times afford, which in great Estates are not seldom the sons are at age, or a great part of it, before their Father's death, and do keep a better account of their Father's age than they do of their own.  
And then the marriages, which now generally 
Marriage.  bring ten times bigger Portions than one hundred years ago, were most commonly granted to the mothers, or to the next and best friends, if they petitioned within a month after the death of the Fathers or Ancestors, and where there were considerable debts or many younger children, were not rated at above one years improved value, if the Estates were not indebted or encumbered with younger children's portions, and a great deal less if it were, as may easily occur to any that shall compare the Fines for marriages (appearing in Sir Miles Fleetwood the Receiver General's Accounts of the Court of Wards) with the value of the Lands in Wardship, where very small sums, as 40, 50, 80, or 100 l. Fines for Marriages, may be found to be set upon an Estate of 2 or 300 l. per Annum.  
And most commonly compounded for to the use of the Ward himself, and from Heir male to Heir Male, although they were six or seven of the Sons of the same father, for the same fine or compositi on, if the Ward should die, which, or the like favour as to Lands, is not used by Lords of Manors upon admission of Tenants to Copyhold Estates.  
The Lands where there were no Dowers or Jointures 
Rents.  (which ordinarily did take away a third part or more) were leased for a small Rent, not exceeding most commonly the tenth part, and very often according to the troubles, encumbrances and debts upon the Estate, at the fifteenth or twentieth part, out of which the Ward had an exhibition yearly allowed towards his Education; if of small age, after the rate of 10l. per Cent. of the revenue of the Lands, certified by the Feodary; or if at University or in Travel beyond the Seas, had a better allowance.  
The Licences for Marriage (which is totally denied 
Licences to Widows holding in Capite by Knight Service to marry.  in Copyhold Estates, and would be therein gladly purchased) were of so small profit to the King seldom happening or cheaply granted, and in that of great Ladies not called for, as it came to no more in the 16th year of the Reign of King Charles the First, than 37l. 3 s. 4 d.  
And the Licence to compound with Copy-holders' 
To compound with Copy-holders'.  for their Admittances in the times of the Lords of the Manors, Wardships, so easily and for a little granted, as in that they came but unto 50l.  
The fines upon the making of the Leases or 
Fines taken by the Court of Wards upon the Grants of Lands in minority.  Grants of the Lands were small and more pro forma then otherwise at 10 s. 15 s. 12d. 6d, etc. and very small sums of money when they exceeded.  
And whatsoever charges or payments may happen by Wardships, which all things duly considered are less than what is paid upon Copyhold Estates, may by Law and the favour of former Kings, be for a great part escaped by conveying away in their life times or devising by will two parts in three of all their Lands (leaving a third part to descend to the heirs) for payment of Debts and preferment of Wives and Children, the heirs of Tenants in Capite and men of any considerable Estate very often marrying before the age of One and twenty years, and having all or the most part of the Father's Estate, reserving some Estate for life, and the Mother's Jointure or Dower excepted settled upon them.  
Which they may well be contented with, when as all the charges and burdens (as some, do call them) which do happen upon those Tenors, are lesser than the payment of the first-fruits of Benefices and Bishoprics to the Clergy, with Procurations, synodals, & other necessary charges in the Bishop's Visitations, lesser than that of Tenths, according to the then true yearly value, reserved by King H. 8. and E. 6. upon their Gifts, Grants, Sales and Exchanges of Abbey Lands, lesser than the payment of Tithes, and lesser and more seldom then the easy payments and burdens upon Copyhold Estates; when as those that purchased any of those kind of Lands either charged with Tithes or Tenths, or the Duties or incidents belonging to Lands in Capite and by Knight-Service, did buy them with those Concomitants, which neither buyer nor seller were able to purchase or discharge; and cannot pretend it to be a grievance, because they cannot enjoy them freer than they purchased or expected, no more than he that buys a Calf can complain it was not an Ox, than he that bought a Copyhold Estate after the rate of an Estate of that nature, and did suit and service belonging unto it, can afterwards think himself to be ill used, or under any oppression, because it was not freehold; or he that bought a Lease can justly conceive himself to be injured by him that sold it, because he hath not the Reversion or Fee simple of it.  
And should (if rightly examined and duly considered) be no more a cause of complaint or grievance then the weakness in Estate of a Tenant overwhelmed with debts, and his disability to pay a cheap and easy Rent of Twenty pounds per Annum, though it makes that Rent to be a burden, which formerly (and being not indebted) he found to be none, can make it either to be a grievance or unreasonable or illegal, or the old age or sickness of a formerly lusty and healthful man, which renders a small weight to be very heavy, which was at other times not at all troublesome to him, can make it in itself to be so much as he now takes it.  
Nor are the supposed Grievances and Burdens of Tenors in Capite and Knight-Service, naturally, originally or intrinsically to be found either in them or by them, but are often occasioned by the parties groundless complaints, and the troubles and burdens which they bring upon themselves, who like men very sick by distempers and diseases of their own making and complaining heavily of their pains and anguish, can many times only tell that they are sick, and not as they would or should be, but not whence it came, or if they could are unwilling to remember the causes of it.  
For,  

The Reason why they seem to be Burdens and Grievances, and heavier then formerly  
CAnnot be hid from those which shall but inquire and rightly and judiciously search into the Causes of that which now lies more upon some men's spirits, or imaginations, then need to be, if they would do by themselves in the Oeconomie and manage of their Estates and Affairs, as their more prudent and virtuous Ancestors did, who when Meadow ground was in H. 6. days now not much above 200 years ago, in the most fertile Counties of England, at no greater a yearly value then 8 d per Acre by the year, and other lands of 4 d. or 5 d. an Acre per Annum, could keep greater houses or hospitalities by five or ten to one than they do now, a greater retinue of servants and dependants, gave great quantities of lands in Common, and Estovers of wood to the poor or whole Townshipps, live honourably if they were Barons, and worshipfully if they were Knights, and Esquires, and serve their Prince faithfully, did great acts of Piety and Charity, by building and endowing of Churches, and stood as greater and lesser Pillars in their several Counties, did not rack and screw their Tenants to the utmost that any would give for lands, with harsh and hard Covenants and Conditions, did grant Manors, Annuities, and Farms to Gentlemen in Fee, or for lives, to serve and go along with them and their Prince upon occasion of wars, were not troubled at their Tenors in Capite and by Knight-service, did not think those benefits to be any burdens, though great sums of money were sometimes paid as 6000 l. by a mother of an Earl of Oxford, and 20000 marks by a mother of in Earl of Clare, in the reign of King H. 3. for their wardshipps, when marriage Portions or Dowries in money were but small, and their large and great revenues considered, were but as accumulations of many lesser wardship; were not so much indebted as now, nor so much enforced to mortgage or sell Lands, get Friends, Servants, or Tradesmen to be bound for them; to have their Lands extended, or the persons of such of them as were under the degree of Baronage, outlawed or arrested, were not up to the ears in Shopkeepers or Tradesman's Books or Items, but lived within the pale of Virtue and fence of Sobriety, and far better than they do now, when they do let errable land at 13 or 16 s. per Acre, by the year; Pasture at 20 or 30 s. and Meadow at 40 s. or sometime 3 l. the Acre per An. were not driven out of their ancient and former love and reputation in their Countries or Neighbourhood, by letting the Kitchen chimneys of their Country houses fall down for want of making but ordinary fires in them; but did in their several orbs and ranks live more honourably and worshipfully then now they do or can, when they are guilty of few of those great and good actions; did not, as too many do, spend in the pursuit of Vanities ten times more than their Forefathers, who had long kept and enjoyed the same or greater Estates; nor sit up all night▪ to come home drowsy and discredited in the morning, with the loss of 4 or 500 l. and sometimes 3 or 4000 l. by gaming; bestow 2 or 300 l. on a Coach, and 100 or 200 l. upon a Band; Spend more in gaming, drinking, and whoring, (which their forefathers, though sometimes addicted thereunto, could get at cheaper rates then by maintaining a costly Corinthian Lais or a sumptuous Cleopatra) then would pay for the charge of a Wardship, and lose more in a careless or not at all taking of their Accounts, or looking to their Estates & Affairs than would twice over discharge it, nor did tamely permit their flatterers, sycophants, and promoters or concealers of their vices, to go a share in their Estates and Fortunes: Too many of their eldest sons were not so mounted to the height of Fashions as to spend more in Powder, Plays, Coaches and Ribbons (the lesser circumstantials of their vain expenses) than their forefathers, when they were Heirs apparent had allowed them for all necessaries, and a better kind of education, and expend more in Peruks or Periwigs, at 3 or 5 l. price, for every one, than would pay for the charges of suing out their Father's Liveries; too many of their wives and daughters did not racket with a troop of young Gallants, or Gentlemen of Amours or Dalliance; nor discourse more of Romances than the Word of God, Virtue and good Examples, send their Linen for the attire of their heads and necks, when they are above one hundred miles from London, by the weekly Posts, to be washed or starched by the Exchange-women, hunt after the newest and most costly fashions, sacrifice to all the parts of pride, gluttony, prodigalities, and luxuries, drive a trade of black Patches and Painting, give 10, 20 or 40 l. for a yard of Lace; did not make it their designs to vie with every one they can perceive to wear Jewels, Diamond Lockets, Necklaces of Pearl, or more costly Apparel than themselves; did not give insana pretia, extravagant and cheating prices, because such a mad great woman, or a neighbours purse-emptying wife had given the same, & 'twould be a disparagement to come (as they say) behind them, or wear any thing at a lesser rate; nor adventure and many times lose 5, 10 or 20l. in an afteroonn or evening at Cards, which is now become most of their housewifery; their daughters did not in their hopes of getting Princes to their Husbands, or impossible great Marriages, help to cast their father's estates and purses into a consumption, and spend more money betwixt their age of 13 and 20 than would have made treble the marriage portions of their Grandams, when 100 l. or 2 or 300 l. was a good portion for a good Knights well-bred Daughter, when 1100 marks was in 2 H 6. a good portion for a marriage betwixt Thomas Lord Clifford and a Daughter of the Lord Dacre; when Henry Lord Clifford having great and large Revenues in the North parts of England and else where, did in 33 H. 8. suppose it to be a good provision for his Daughter Elizabeth Clifford to devise to her by his last Will and Testament one thousand pounds if she married an Earl, (which in those days were men of no small revenues) or an Earl's son and heir, 1000 marks if a Baron, and 800 marks if a Knight, and that Henry Lord Clifford his son did in the 12th. or 13th year of the reign of Queen Eliz. give by his Will but 2000 l. to his Daughter if she married an Earl or an Earls son and heir, 2000 marks if a Baron or his son and heir apparent, and 800 marks if she married a Knight, and that 1500 or 2000 or 3000 l. is now but an ordinary Portion to be given in marriage to rich yeoman's sons, or the smaller sort of Gentry or Silkmen, Mercers, or Drapers, and a great deal too little for those kind of Haggard Hawks (for there be some though not so many as should be which live soberly and chastely, and are helpers to preserve and increase, not spend their husband's estates, aswell as their own Portions,) who fly Steeple high and cannot by any law or persuasion of Scripture, Reason, Shame, or fear of Poverty, Imprisonment and ruin of their husbands & children, and their sighs & sorrows be brought to stoop or give way to any lower pitch, but are more destructive to a husband, who against his will and for that little quiet and content which he can get, must permit it, than the mischances of a Rot of Sheep, Piracies or Shipwrecks, the sea breaking in upon their Lands, ruin of Sequestrations or Suretyship, and if they might have their wills are able to Bankrupt and exhaust the King of Spain and all his West-Indies.  
When too many of the young women will not like or love the men, unless they be as vain and expensive as themselves; and the men to please the women & be fashionable, must run a vie with them who shall soon spend all they have, or can by any sinful courses compass a support or maintenance for it.  
And the father's most commonly so much indebted before they marry their eldest sons, as they must have their marriage Portions to marry their Daughters, and for 2 or 3000 l. Portion, make his Daughter in law a Jointure of 4 or 500 l. per Annum, to free her from the trouble of over-loveing her husband, when as she shall be after his death so well provided to get another.  
When two or three servants wages amount to as much as six heretofore, and a great deal more per Annum then would have made a good Gentleman's younger son an Annuity, when great Assessments beleaguer them on one side, and their own vices and prodigalities, and all manner of costly sins and vanities now so universally practised on the other side; Tradesmen use false weights and measures, and more than formerly tricks and mysteries of Trade, adulterating their work and commodities, and raiseing the prices to three times more than heretofore, and by the prodigality and carelessness of not a few of the Gentry, creep into their estates, and get too great a footing in it, by furnishing them with vanities, and the country men and Farmers to maintain their growing pride, and excess making all the haste they can to imitate them, do heighten the rates of all that they sell; and when the foundations of our Little World (which was wont to be the best of the Greater) are broken up, and most part of the people eccentrick and running into excess and disorder; when the Apprentices and Servants will do all they can to live like Gentlemen, the Mechanics like Merchants, the Gentry as high as the Nobility, the Maids will be apparelled like their Mistresses, & the Mistresses as far beyond their estates as their wits, Vintners & Woodmongers wives & Poulterer's daughters must have Pearl Necklaces of great prizes, and all ranks and degrees of people would, (as if they had been chosen Kings & Queens on Twelfth nights, make it their business to be in their expenses Kings and Queens all the year after) do not only consume and waste the estates of very many of our Gentry, and disable them to pay as formerly their necessary Aids, Contributions and Oblations to their Prince for the safety of themselves and their Countries, but carry them and all that follow their example beyond an Asiatica luxus, that foreign luxury of Asia, which, as Juvenal saith, 
— incubuit victumque ulciscitur orbem,  Conquered and undid the conquering Rome and Mistress of the word; the abuse of peace and plenty, which the Lydians by the policy of Cyrus did ruin and subdue themselves withal; & that height of pride and plenty which in Germany did help to procure their after woeful wars and desolations.  
And making us to be almost as mad in our Luxuries as the ridiculous Sybarites, will suddenly (if God's mercy and good Laws prevent not) make poor England (which for Twenty years' last passed hath been kicked, tossed and torn like a Football by the pocketing and plundering Reformers and their ungodly Wars) to be a Burden to itself, and not able to support the Excesses and pride of the people of it; but trembling at the apprehension of Gods long deferred Judgements for the punishment of it, groan under the burden of those sins which do every day more and more hasten and draw them down upon us.  
And may persuade us when it is too late, that the saving in these last Twenty years Eighteen hundred thousand pounds which would have been paid to King Charles the First, and his Majesty that now is, by reason of Wardships and Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, with many other great sums of money due to them out of their Royal Revenues, amounting to as much or a great deal more which the King in his largely extended Act of Oblivion is now pleased to remit and pardon, will not by a Tenth part make the people of England savours for what was lost and expended in the Wars by ruins and plunderings, besides very near Forty millions of sterling money spent in public Taxes and Assessments to purchase an unhappy Rebellion, and the sad effects and consequences of it.  
So that our Complaints of Tenors in Capite and Knight-Service are from a Non causa, by imagining that to be a cause which was not, for our supposed grievances, are but like those of hurt and wounded men by their own follies and distempers, which cannot endure the softest hand or most gentle touch of a Friend.  
Tenterden Steeple was not the cause of Goodwin Sands, nor of Shipwrecks at Sea, but the rage of the Winds & Seas, and the Waves and Billows cuffing each other.  
Nor is our ever welcome Youth, and lamented when it is lost, the cause of Gouts, Palsies, Dropsies, Hectic Fevers, Consumptions, and many times a worse Disease, which the Intemperances' of young people with no little charge in the purchase of them have hired to be their attendants.  
But they are our more than ordinary pride and vices which have made our Burdens twenty times exceed any payments or charges by Wardships, which are (when they happen) sufficiently recompensed by the care and privileges of the Court of Wards, preserving the Wards Wood and Timber, binding in great Bonds those which are trusted, to make true and just accounts, calling them (if need be) often to account, as in the Duke of Buckingham's case, once in every three years, and redressing wrongs done to them either in their real or personal estates.  
The Hundred thousand pounds and above spent the last year in Coaches and Feathers extraordinary, and One hundred and fi●ty thousand pounds at the least spent this year in Ribbons, must be no grievance, but a quarter of either of the sums spent in Wardships, (which in Scotland in the reign of their King Malcombe the Second, which was before the Conquest, was not unwillingly yielded to be the Kings Right, nè non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates, to the end the King should have wherewithal to defend the Kingdom; which Master St John in the case of Ship money, and the Parliament (so called) in An. 1642, were content should be allowed the King for the same purpose) must be intolerable.  
Or like those which let their sacks of Wool fall into the water, and find them to be much heavier than they were, if our Land be as the shaking of the Olive-tree, and as the gleaning Grapes when the Vintage is done, and we cry, Our leanness, Our leanness, and find a disability more than formerly to perform those Duties & Services which were never denied to be due unto our Prince in support of his Royal Dignity and the Welfare and happiness of his people, the cause is allunde, comes another way, and ariseth from our unlucky Reformations, public Taxes and Assessments, to assist the ungodly attempts of those who designed and continued our intestine wars, & from those grand Impositions which most of the people have laid upon themselves in the purchase of pride and superfluities, which those who have made it to be so much their business may know how to free themselves of.  
And if the Lands which are holden by such beneficiary Tenors so ancient, so honourable for the King, and safe for him and his people, and so legal & rational cum totius antiquitatis et multorum seculorum, concensu, from generation to generation, & through many generations well and thankfully approved, usage and custom of them shall be now taken to be burdens, the owners of those Lands may easily save the labour and trouble of complaining, and free themselves of those undeservedly called burdens, by restoring of the Lands according to the rules of right reason, law, and equity, to those or their heirs, which did at first freely give them, and had the faith and promise of those that received those no small favours cum onere to perform the Services and Duties which the Law and a long and reasonable custom have charged upon them or those which afterwards purchased them.  
Or if that will not be liked, and we must think we do nothing, unless (not in a Desert but a Land of Canaan) we outdo the murmurings of the sadly punished Israelites with Quails in their mouths, when all shall be done as some people would have it, and that Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, and the Royal Pourveyances shall be sacrificed to their desires or wishes, they will then make no better a Bargain of it then those, who repining & grumbling at the charge of maintaining Sea-walls and Banks, have aftewards found by woeful experience, that it was far less charge and damage then to have the Sea break in upon their Marshes and Lands, drown and carry away their cattle, and be at a greater charge then formerly in making them up again and maintaining of them.  
Or as those that found fault with the Surplice did, when by their unquiet ignorances' they opened the door to an Army of fanatics and Locusts which did almost eat up every green thing in the fields of our Religion.  
Or as those Murmurers, who thinking Twenty shillings to be a heavy Tax for Ship-money, Guard of the Seas, and Defence of the Kingdom, to be laid upon 7 or 800l. per Annum (for that was all which was in a year or half a year laid upon the unhappy Mr Hamdens' Lands) were afterwards for many years together enforced to pay the fifth part of their Rents and Revenues to help to destroy the King, Laws, and Religion, kill their Debtors, Husbands and Children, and near Relations.  
And then the next thing will be to desire that they might have the far heavier burden of Taxes and Assessments taken off, which if Tenors in Capite & by Knight-Service shall be taken away, can no more be avoided than he that wilfully shuts out the light of the Sun or the Day, unless he will like Democritus sit and grow wiser in the dark, can save the greater charges and expenses of candles and other lights: And will at the last learn to believe, that when Salus privatorum & omnia bona Civivin in salute 
Bodin. de Repub.  Patriae continentur, every private man's good and safety depends upon the Kings and the Weal public, it will not be for the good and safety of the people to take away the Lion's meat, enforce him to seek his prey or take it himself, or to suffer the head to languish, in hope that the members or the rest of the body should be the better for it; who when they are called to the Council or Parliament of the body natural, are to lay aside all their own Interest and Concernments, and every one do what they can to cure and help the wants of it.  
And that if those Lands which are holden in Capite and by Knight-Service had been at the first purchased at the true and utmost value, and the charges now incumbent upon them, had been since imposed upon them, when other Lands were free and not charged with them, there might be reason enough to call them burdens; But being that they were not at the first purchased, but freely and frankly given upon those Conditions which were by Agreement promised to be performed by those that thankfully received them, and would be so now by the greatest maligners of them or inveighers against them, there can be no manner of reason, cause or ground to esteem them to be burdens, oppressions or Norman servitudes (as Ordericus Vitalis and Matthew Paris; the later whereof wrote his History in the Reign of King H. 3. since which time many Indulgences have been granted to those kind of Tenors, have been pleased to mistake them) when our Magna Charta and all our Acts of Parliament have in every age ranked them amongst the people's Liberties, and confirmed and made many an Act of Parliament to support those Regalities.  
And when the Parliament of Imo Car. I mi in their great care of their Liberties, and the taking away of all that might but disturb them, did call them a Principal Flower of the Crown, which being not used to be made-up or grow out of Grievances.  
Cannot be disparaged by those clamours and cries which have, more than needed, been made concerning the Earl of Downs concealed Wardship, and the inconveniences arising thereby, which did not the tenth part of that prejudice to his Revenue and Estate, which his prodigality and other Extravagancies afterwards brought upon it, and might how soever have been prevented, if his mother in law or any other of his friends (upon the several Requests of the Master of the Court of Wards and the Officers of that Court) would have petitioned and compounded for his Wardship, and not have made those many Traverses and Denials in those many Suits of Law and pursuits which were afterwards made to compel them to it.  
Nor will that or any other which are pretended grievances be ever equal or come up to those far exceeding real and certain grievances which too many of the Fathers in law of England (into whose hands and custody most of the Wardships or Guardianships are endeavoured to be more then formerly put) will, if those Tenors shall be taken away, bring upon fatherless children, and will in a short time do more harm to the children's Estates of the first husband then ever yet happened by Wardships to the King and mesne Lords.  
Which the case of one that twelve years ago had the Revenue of an Infant amounting unto above 700l. per Annum charged with no more than 1000 l. debt, and a great personal Estate committed to his Trust, hath to this day paid none or a very small part of it, but keeps the Rents and profits, allowing a small exhibition to the Infant, to his own advantage.  
Of another, that hath sold and wasted Woods and Timber of a Minors, to the value of Ten Thousand pounds sterling.  
And many more sad & deplorable Experiments, which abundantly induce to believe as well as lament them, & are not to be found in those well-ordered & easy way of the Grants and Dispositions of Wardships which happened by Tenors in Capite & by Knight-Service.  
Which may appear to be the better established, & upon greater grounds of Law, right Reason, Justice and Equity, when as many of the Lords of Manors and Copyhold Estates who do now enjoy by those Tenors many Rights, Seignories and commands, with view of Frankpledge, Deodands, 
Coke in praefat. 9 Relat.  Felons Goods, Wrecks, Goods of Outlawed persons, and retorna Brevium granted and imparted to their Ancestors by the bounty and favour of his Majesty's Royal Progenitors, who did not think it to be a grievance to have Abbey or religious Lands which were freely given or cheaply granted to them held in Capite and by Knight-Service, though there were at the same time a Tenth of the then true yearly value reserved, would not upon the pretence and clamours of some Copy-holders' concerning Fines incertain, and the rigours and high demands put upon them by some Lords of Manors who have 5 or 600 Copy-holders' in some Manors belonging unto them, and can ask 13 s. 4 d. per Acre for some Lands, and 10 s. per Acre for others to permit them to take their Estates hereafter at a reasonable Fine certain; and whether poor or rich, indebted or not indebted, and charged with children or not, will seize their Herriots, and take as much as they can get upon the admissions of the Heir, or the out▪ cries against the many costly and vexatious Suits which have tired Westminster-Hall, and some Parliaments concerning Fines incertain, be well contented.  
That their power of rating and taking Fines should be restrained, or that they should be ordered upon the admittances of their Copyhold Tenants by Act of Parliament to permit their Tenants without such Fines as they usually take to surrender and alien two parts in three for the advancement of their Wives, payment of debts or preferment of Children, as the Kings of England and mesne Lords have limited themselves, or should be tied upon the death of every Tenant and admission of his Heir, as King James was pleased to limit him and his Heirs and Successors.  
That upon consideration of Circumstances, which 
Instructions or Directions of King James to be observed in the Court of Wards.  may happen in assessing Fines, either by reason of the broken Estate of the deceased, want of provision for his wife, his great charge of children unprovided for, infirmity or tenderness of the Heir, incertainty of the Title, or greatness of Incumberances upon the Lands, there shall be (as those or any other the bike Considerations shall offer themselves) used that good discretion and conscience which shall be fit in mitigating or abating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities.  
Or to release and quit all their Royalties in their Manors, nor would think it a good bargain to have no Compensation or Recompense at all for them, or no more than after the rate of what might Communibus Annis, one year with another, be made of them; or that they could with justice and equity lay the burdens and payments of the Copy-holders' upon the Freeholders' and Cotagers.  
Which if they do not now take to be reasonable in their own cases, may certainly give every man to understand how little reason there will be to take away the dependencies and benefits by Tenors in Capite and Knight-Service holden of the King and mesne Lords.  
Or to abridge the King of that harmless power never before denied to any of his Ancestors, to create Tenors in Capite and by Knight service, or in grand Serjeanty for the defence and honour of the Kingdom, upon new Grants of Lands or Favours; especially when ●s His Majesty that now is, did by His Declaration of the thirtieth of November last, concerning the establishing and quieting the Government in the Kingdom of Ireland, (which hath been since very much liked and approved by the Parliament of that Nation) insert a Saving of the Tenors of the Mesne Lords, and ordained Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service upon the Lands which shall be set out to the Soldiery for their Arrears.  
Or that Tenors in Capite not by Knight-Service, with all petit Serjeanties', (which, as Sir Edward Coke saith, is a Tenure as of the Crown, that is, as he is King) and the Profits and Reservations upon them, which if well gathered would make some addition to the Royal Revenue, should by the pattern of Olivers (so called) Act of Parliament be taken away when there are no Wardships incident thereunto, and that aid to make the King's eldest Son a Knight, or marry his eldest Daughter, should 
Coke 1. part: institut. 126. Fitz Herbert's N B. 82. 25. E. 3. cap. 11.  be taken away in the Capite and Knight-Service Tenors, and left to remain in the former Socage Tenors, or how little it will be for the good of the people if the intended Act of Parliament shall order the Tenors in Capite by Socage to pay double their former quit Rents or other Rents or Incidents belonging thereunto, or to pay for a Relief double their petit Serjeanties' or other Duties reserved.  
When as Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service can certainly have no pretence of Grievance in them, (for they are only pretences and causeless clamours that have of late cast them into an odium or ill will of the common sort of people, or such as do not rightly understand them) but may be made to be more pleasing unto them by this or the like   

Expedient,  
IF the Marriage of the Wards and Rents of their lands during all the time of their minorities computed together shall be reduced to be never above one years improved value, which will be but the half of that which is now accounted to be a reasonable Fine, and frequently paid by many Copyhold Tenants, whose Fines are certain, and would be most joyously paid by those which are by Law to pay Fines incertain at the will of their Lords.  
That the Archbishop of Canterbury and those other few mesne Lords, who by ancient exemption and privilege are to have the Wardships of Tenants holding of them by Knight-Service in their 
Rot. Parl. 20. R. 2. n. 27.  minorities, though they hold other Lands in Capite and by Knight-Service of the King, may be ordained to do the like favours.  
That all that hold in Capite and by Knight-Service be freed from all Assessments touching War of their demesne Lands holden in Capite and by Knight-Service, as in all reason they ought, being a Liberty or Privilege (amongst others) granted to them by the Charter of King Henry the First, the (Original of a great part of our Magna Charta) in these words, Militibus qui per Loricas terras suas defendunt terras dominicarum carucarum suarum quietas ab omnibus geldis & ab omni opere proprio dono meo concedo, ut sicut tam magno gravamine alleviati, sunt in Equis & Armis, se bene instruant ut apti & parati sint ad servitium meum & ad defensionem Regni mei; that the Knights which hold by Knight-Service, and defend their own Lands by that Tenure, shall be acquitted of all geldes and taxes of their Demesn Lands, and from all other works upon condition, that as they being freed from so great a burden, they be at all times ready with Horses and Arms, for the service of the King and defence of the Kingdom: Which being long after found out, produced, and read by Stephen Langton, to the Earls and Barons of England, and Abbots and others of the Clergy, assembled in Saint Paul's Church in London, in the great Contest which was betwixt King JOHN and His Barons about their Liberties, Gavisi sunt gaudio magno valde (saith Matthew 
Mat. Paris 240, 241.  Paris) & juraverunt omnes in presentia dicti Archi-Episcopi quod viso tempore congruo pro hiis libertatibus, si necesse fuerit, decertabunt usque ad mortem; They greatly rejoiced, and did in the presence of the said Archbishop swear, that if need were they would contend even to death for those Liberties: And is at this day so little misliked in France, as an ancient Counsellor of Estate of that Kingdom, in the Reigns of the Great Henry the Fourth of France, and his son Lewis the Thirteenth, in his discourse of the means of establishing, preserving and aggrandising a Kingdom, is of opinion that those Fieffs, Nobles, and Tenors by Knight Service, aught to have an exemption, as they there have, of all manner of Taxes and Impositions, for that they are to hazard their lives pour la defence de l'Estat, for the defence of the Kingdom.  
If where Lands are holden in Socage of the King or any other Person, and there be a Wardship by reason of the said lands holden of the King in Capite, or pour cause de garde of some other that holds in Capite and is in minority, the lands which are found to be holden of the King or any other mesne Lord in Socage, being taken into consideration only as to the Fine for the marriage, may not be put under any Rent or Lease to be made by that Court, but be freed as they were frequently and anciently by Writs sent to the Escheators, now extant and appearing upon Record.  
That Primer seisins be taken away and no more paid.  
That the King shall in recompense thereof have and receive of every Duke or Earl that dieth seized of any Lands or Hereditaments in Capite and by Knight-Service, the sum of two hundred pounds; of every Baron two hundred marks; of every one else that holdeth by a Knight's Fee, proportionably, according to the quantity of the Fee which he holdeth, twenty pound for a Relief.  
That encroachments upon waste grounds and high ways, which are holden in Capite, shall be no cause of Wardship or paying any other duties incident to that Tenure, if it shall upon the first proof and notice be relinquished.  
That in case of neglecting to petition within a month after the death of the Tenant in Capite, or otherwise concealing any Wardships, or not suing out of Livery, if upon information brought, issue joined, and witnesses examined, or at any time before Hearing or Trial of the Cause, the Party offending or concerned shall pay the prosecutor his double costs, and satisfy the King the Mesne rates, he shall be admitted to compound.  
That only Escuage and service of War (except in the aforesaid cases of the Archbishop of Canterbury and some few others) and all other incidents except Wardships, due by their Tenants which hold of them by Knight-Service, be reserved to Mesne Lords, & that the Reliefs of five pounds for a whole Knight's Fee, or proportionably according to the quantity of Lands of that kind of Fee holden, shall be after the death of every such Tenant Twenty pounds, and proportionably as aforesaid.  
That to lessen the charges of Escheators and Juries for every single Office or Inquisition to be found or taken, after the death of every Tenant in Capite & by Knight-Service, the time of petitioning within a month after the death of the Ancestor may be enlarged to three months, and the Shire, Town, City, or principal place of every County be appointed with certain days or times for the finding of Offices, to the end that one and the same Meeting, and one and the same Jury, with one and the same charge, or by a contribution of all parties concerned may give a dispatch thereunto.  
That the unnecessary Bonds formerly taken in the Court of Wards at 2 s. 6 d. or 3 s. charge upon suing out of every Diem clausis extremum, or Writ to find an Office obliging the prosecution thereof, may be no more taken, when as the time limited for petitioning to compound for Wardships, and the danger of not doing of it, will be engagement sufficient.  
That Grants, Leases, and Decrees of the Court may not (to the great charge of the people) be unnecessarily as they have been at length Enrolled with the Auditors of that Court, when as the same was done before by other Officers, in other Records of that Court to which the Auditors may have a free access, and at any time take extracts out of them.  
That a severe Act of Parliament be made against such as shall mis-use or waste any Wards Estate, Lands, Woods, and Timber committed or granted to them, or any personal Estate which belongeth unto them, or shall not give them fit education, or shall disparage them in their Marriages, or marry them without any competent portion, or shall not within a month after the death of such Ward, or coming to his age of One and twenty years make a true account and payment unto the said Ward, or his Heirs or Executors, of all that shall be by them due and payable to him or them by reason of the said Wardship, upon pain of forfeiture to the use of the said Ward, his Heirs or Executors, besides the said moneys due and payable to the use of the said Wards, double costs and damages expended or sustained therein.  
And that if any thing of grievance shall appear to have been in the compositions for Royal Pourveyances, or in Cart taking, which that which was called a Parliament did (shortly after the death & murder of the King) very much mistake, when in their Declaration sent into all the parts of the world of the causes and reasons of their erecting a Commonwealth, they were pleased to aver (that which the people of England know how to wonder at, but not to make affidavit of) that they exceeded all their Taxes and Assessments laid upon the people.  
And that if the manage of those ancient customs should require some better order to be taken, there may be such a reiglement as may consist with his Majesty's Honour and Profit, and the ease and good of his people.  
Or if a Trial and experiment be to be given the people, or those (who like children will trouble a kind and tender hearted Parent with Requests and Importunities to give them stones instead of bread and Scorpions for Fishes) of the Inconveniences of taking away of ancient Landmarks, and good old Laws and Customs, tried and approved in this Nation for more than One Thousand years, and a great deal more in others, and the greater and more to be feared Inconveniences of Excises, losses, and damage to the Royal Revenue, and committing the Tutelage, protection and ordering of the best Families of the Kingdom and their Estates during their minorities to the prey and ill management of those that can get them, and will never so well execute those Trusts as the King, who hath not, nor can (as they) have any private passions, Interests or Concernments to carry him out of the ways of Justice.  
And that if such or the like Regulations to be added by His Majesty or His Counsel will not be enough to persuade the people from being Pelo's de se, or longing for their own ruins.  
The Act of Parliament intended to take away Tenors in Capite and by Knight-Service, may be with a reservation of Escuage service in War and Homage, without the incidents of Wardships, and be but as a Probationer to continue until three years, and the next ensuing Parliament after that time expended, which may either continue the Act or suffer it to expire.  
Which with other Regulations which may be made in separating from the right use any abuses which may be found to have crept into those Seminaries of Honour, that standing, more noble, and more obliged Militia, that legal and ancient Constitution or the management thereof, and giving if need be some better Rules and Orders, may preserve unto the King and his Successors that great part of his Regal Jurisdiction and power to defend himself and his people, and to the People that most ancient and fundamental Law which is attended by many other Fundamentals, Customs, Rights, & Usages in relation & affinity to it not to be parted withal, keep us from serò sapiunt Phryges', the fate of those that would rather repent bitterly and too late, then yield to those counsels or admonitions which might have prevented it; and from a worse complaint, by as much as the whole differs from a part, made by Monsieur la Noüe, that great Captain 
La Noüe Discourse Politicques.  and Soldier of France, in the Reigns of their Francis the First, and our Henry the Eight, and Edward the Sixth, of the alienation and decay of the Feiffes' Nobles and Arrierebans, by granting them in Mortmain and to Roturiers, or men ignoble, wherein he informs us, that Francis the First and Henry the Second (Kings of France) did do all they could to reduce them to their former Order, and was of opinion that Barbarians have better observed that policy in Government then Christians, and that the Obligation of those Military Tenors sont bien estroites, are very binding, Et avec lesquelles les Roys de France par l'espace de sept cent Ans ont faites choses memorables, and wherewith the Kings of France have for seven hundred years achieved great things.  
That the wings of our Eagle may not be clipped, nor the paws of our Lion, which is to defend his Kingdoms and people, lamed, lessened, or cut shorter, that the common and poorer sort of people may not (as they do begin already) complain that the Nobility and Gentry have to ease themselves bound heavy burdens upon them, that we may not (as Bodin 
Bodin. lib. 6, de Repub.  relates of Henry the Second King of France) fall into his mistake, who raising a great Tax upon the people whereby to free them from the ravage and insolences of the hired Soldiers, found it afterwards to be an increase of their grievances.  
That the people may not do by their fundamental Laws (which they were but lately much in love with, and called their Birthrights) as some young Prodigals do by their Fathers dearly gained Lands, sell them for a mess of Pottage with Coloquintida in it, which would be a greater folly than the hungry Esau committed; or as some young Gentlemen do, when (to get or save a little money) they pull down their Ancestors ancient, great, and hospitable Houses, and sell the Timber, Led, and materials thereof, to put themselves in a more speedy way of ruin.  
That our King (who in extent of his Dominions and the Antiquity of his Royal Blood and Descent is superior to the most of Kings and inferior to none) may not be less than they in his Tenors or the dependency of his people, but be girt with as much power and majesty as his glorious Progenitors.  
That the Mighty men and the men of War may continue, that the Ensign of the People, nor the Watchmen upon Mount Ephraim may not be taken away, that the Vintage may not fail and the gatherings not come, that his Servants may not ask▪ Where is the Corn and the Wine and not be known in the streets, but may (as King solomon's) every man in his course lack nothing, that their Children (as it was of that wisest of King's Servants, when Nehemiah long after returned with the Children of Israel from Captivity) may be found in the Registers, that the Splendour & Magnificence of the Kings of England's Courts (far surpassing those of France, Spain, the Emperors of Germany, and all other Christian Princes) may not be impaired or diminished, and that our Paths and the glory of our Lebanon and Excellency of Sharon and the foundations of many Generations may be restored.   — Casus Cassandra canebat. 
FINIS.