at the end of the sixteenth centuries, are the Controlment Roll 15 Hen. VII., and the Controlment Roll 42 Eliz.-the date of the one being exactly a century later than that of the other. The Controlment Rolls generally are an excellent index to the whole of the business transacted by the Court of King's Bench.

A list of the monopolies actually in existence in the 43rd year of Elizabeth's reign (and granted since the preceding Parliament of three years before), appears in D'Ewes, Journal of the House of Commons,' pp. 648-652, where the dissatisfaction with them is shown by the remarks made upon them in the House.

The commission to John Cabot and his sons is printed in Rymer, vol. xii., p. 595, from the French Roll, 11 Hen.

Pp. 104-108.

VII., m. 23; and to Hugh Elyot and Thomas Ashehurst, in Touching marivol. xiii., p. 37, from the Patent Roll, 18 Hen. VII. pt. 2,

m. 2.

time adventure and piracy, &c.

The statute of Henry V. respecting Letters of Marque &c. is 4 Hen. V., c. 7.

In the Fœdera, xiii., 649, 650, will be found (printed ex autogr.) the 'Tractatus depredationis,' for the suppression of pirates.

The trial of pirates on land, by virtue of the Royal Commission, is required by the statutes 27 Hen. VIII., c. 4, and 28 Hen. VIII., c. 15.

The references to cases of piracy are so numerous in the State Papers that a bare catalogue of them would occupy space out of all proportion to the paragraph in the text. The 'Book touching Pirates' is known as State Papers (Domestic), Elizabeth, vol. 135. Vol. 115, No. 32, and vol. 118, Nos. 11 and 14, may be cited as specimens of commissions to enquire concerning the abettors of pirates, and vol. 120, Nos. 79, 80, and vol. 124, No. 16, for lists of the names of such abettors.

M. de Ségur, in a letter dated December 15, 1584, and addressed to Walsingham, gives a lamentable account of the pirates from Poole to Southampton Water (State Papers, France, vol. 81.) By another letter of his in the same volume it appears that he had to embark at Plymouth. (Dated December 21, 1584.)

Pp. 109, 110. Touching new and executions.

punishments,

The statute of Elizabeth's reign according to which rogues might be banished or sent to the galleys is 39 & 40 Eliz., c. 4. A commission of the same reign for carrying out the punishment of the galleys as a substitute for death is printed in Rymer, vol. xvi., p. 446, from the Patent Roll, 44 m. 37 d.

Eliz., pt. 12,

In one of the descriptions prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle it is stated (on hearsay evidence) that 72,000 thieves and vagabonds were executed in the reign of Henry VIII., the duration of which was not

quite thirty-eight years, and an estimate is made of the annual number of executions in the writer's own time. Some more trustworthy evidence is to be found in a letter from Edward Hext, a Justice of the Peace of Somersets hire to the Lord Treasurer, with a Calendar of the Assises of that County for the year 1596. It shows that much of the medieval lawlessness continued to exist, and that vagabonds were very troublesome; but as it makes much of one particular case in which sixty thieves assembled to rob a cheese-cart on the way to a fair, the inference is that brigandage as a common pursuit had nearly if not quite died out. (Strype, Annals, vol. vii., p. 404, new edition.)

Pp. 111, 112. Acts, Records, &c., concerning the state of the roads.

The first Acts relating to particular highways are 14 and 15 Hen. VIII., c. 6, and 26 Hen. VIII., c. 7. The first Act for the repair of highways in general is 2 & 3 Philip and Mary, c. 8. In these carriages are mentioned; but on the Controlment Roll 15 Hen. VII., there is a characteristic complaint against a person who had made an obstruction in a high road in Middlesex, to the effect that the King's lieges, 'tam pedestres quam equestres,' fell into the dung-heap which he had erected. Similar expressions showing that the usual modes of travelling were either on horseback or on foot during the reign of Henry VII. occur elsewhere.

By the statute 23 Hen. VIII., c. 1, benefit of clergy was taken away from highway robbers, a convincing proof that a proclamation of 14 Hen. VIII. (for which see Durham Cursitor's Roll, No. 71, m. 36) had been altogether ineffectual, though it enjoined 'all and singular the king's subjects to keep good and substantial watches by day and by night, by all highways.' For the time required to carry a letter from London to Edin burgh, see State Papers and Letters of Sir Ralph Sadler,' vol. ii., p. 146.

CHAPTER VII.

FOR the character of the Marches towards Scotland' in earlier times, see vol. i. of the present work, pp. 246, 475. The instances of outrages there which occur in State Papers of the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth are too numerous for special reference. They abound alike in the Domestic Series and in the papers relating to Scotland. No one who studies those papers can fail to dis

cover them.

Pp. 113-115. Touching crime on the Scottish Marches.

For the letters of Lord Scrope and the Bishop of Carlisle to Lord Burleigh on the expediency of letting slip' Fergus Greame against Irvine of the Boneshaw, see State Papers, Elizabeth, Foreign, 1572, Nos. 248 and 249. See also Proclamation touching the Northern Marches, Pat. R., 1 James I., p. 3, m. 11 (Rymer, xvi., 504) and others subsequent to it.

The plot or plots to seize the person of James I. and of his son Henry, and to place Arabella Stuart on the throne, are Pp. 115-117. the subjects of the documents in the 'Baga de Secretis,' Arabella Stuart and Raleigh. Pouch lviii. (calendared in D. K. 5 Rep., App. ii., pp. 135-139). See also the materials collected in the 'State Trials,' vol. ii., col. 1 et seq.

For the subsequent commission to Raleigh, see Rymer, xvi., 789, from the Patent Roll 14 James I., pt. i. dors. ; and for his execution in 1618 upon a sentence passed fifteen years previously, see also Rymer, vol. xvii., p. 92 and p. 115, from Patent Roll, 16 James I., pt. 26 (Proclamation), and Pat. Roll, 16 James I., part 2, No. 4 (Order for beheading).

Pp. 117-124.

Records &c.
Gunpowder Plot.

concerning the

For the official account of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, see the Gunpowder Treason' papers, in the Public Record Office, No. 129 (in the writing of Muncke, and corrected throughout by the Earl of Salisbury). No. 37 of the same series contains the result of the first examination of Fawkes (then calling himself Johnson) on November 7, No. 49 the result of his examination on the following day, No. 54 the result of his examination under torture on November 9, with his signature made on the 10th. The king's warrant to torture him is in the same volume. Cf. also the proceedings

in the Baga de Secretis,' Pouch lix. (calendared in 5 D. K. Rep., App. ii., pp. 139–142.

Pp. 124-126. Heresy.

The account of Legatt and Wightman is from the State Papers (Domestic), 1612, March 9 (copy of writ de heretico comburendo), from Stow, Annals, 1002, from the Diary of Walter Younge, Esquire, February 21 and March 14, 1611–1612, and from the State Papers (in the Public Record Office) relating to the case of Trendall, viz., Domestic, 1639, Archbishop Neile to Sir Dudley Carlton, August 9 (in an enclosure of November of the same year bundle 432), and the same to Archbishop Laud, August 23, among the papers of that month.

Among the High Commission Court cases, that of Lane occurs October 27, that of Viccars November 3, 1631, that of Harrison and that of Lane's wife April 13, 1632 (Bodl. Rawlinson, A. 128). I am much indebted to Mr. S. R. Gardiner for Tone of judges: the loan of transcripts of proceedings in the Courts of High Commission and Star Chamber from the Bodleian and

Pp. 126-131. High Commission: Laud:

compurgation.

Harleian MSS.

For the tone of the judges at Prynne's trial in the Star Chamber, see the account in Rushworth's Collection, vol. ii., p. 220 ('State Trials,' iii., 561 et seq.). See also other State trials of the period generally for the language of the Courts.

Dr. Hooke's compurgation in the Court of High Commission is related in the proceedings of November 24, 1631, and of April 19, 1632 (Bodl., Rawlinson, A. 128, p. 27). Other instances showing the practice to be common occur June 8 and 14, 1632, etc.

Reginald Scot's 'Discovery of Witchcraft,' originally published in 1584, was reprinted in 1651, and is still accessible and well worthy of study in the edition of the latter date. James's 'Demonologie,' from the preface to which there is an extract in the

Pp. 131-139. Witchcraft.

text, bears date 1597.

The statute of this Previous Acts on the

The 72nd canon 1604, prohibited

Bigamy was made felony by 1 James I., c. 11. period relating to witchcraft is 1 James I., c. 12. subject are 33 Hen. VIII., c. 8, and 5 Eliz., c. 16. of the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury, attempts to cast out devils by ministers without special licence from the bishop of their diocese.

Passages relating to Essex and Suffolk witches in contemporary letters are printed in the 'State Trials,' vol. iv., col. 819 et seq.

The account of Mary Smith, the witch, by A. Roberts, B.D., 1616, is reprinted in the 'State Trials,' vol. ii., col. 1049 et seq., and some of the proceedings against the Essex witches, in 1645, in vol. iv., col. 817 et seq., also from a contemporary pamphlet.

The case of the woman who deliberately made a false confession of witchcraft at Lauder rests upon authority no less than that of George Sinclair, whose name is inseparably associated with the history of the barometer. It is related in his 'Satan's Invisible World Displayed,' pp. 53-55 (Reprint, Edinburgh, 1871). The frequency of confessions of witchcraft, made for the purpose of escaping from a life of persecution, is mentioned by Reginald Scot, p. 16 (Reprint of 1651).

The 'Stabbing Act' is 1 James I., c. 8.

That brawls were still very prevalent in churches is established by proceedings of May 8, 1652, of which an account has been preserved in Bodl., Rawlinson, A. 128.

Pp. 139-145

Stabbing, brawling, duelling, drunkenness, &c.

An illustrative case of an offence against a Proclamation of James I. to forbid duelling occurs in the Proceedings of the Star Chamber, May 11, 1632 (Bodl., Rawlinson, A., 128), in which precedents are cited.

An instance of the appeal of murder occurred in 1628, when one Arthur Norcott was tried with others for the murder of his wife. A few years later (1631) there were proceedings upon a wager of battle, when Donald, Lord Rea, appealed David Ramsay of high treason (Rushworth's Collection, vol. ii., pp. 112-128), and when, after preliminaries in the Painted Chamber at Westminster, the final decision was left to the king. A later case (that of Ralph Claxton and Lilburne) occurred in the reign of Charles I. (Rushworth, vol. ii., p. 788), but no actual combat ensued. The wager of battle and the appeal were abolished by 59 Geo. III., c. 46. Ale or tippling houses and drunkenness are the subjects of statutes 5 and 6 Ed. VI., c. 25; 1 James I., c. 9; 4 James I., c. 5; 7 James I., C. 10; 21 James I., c. 7; 1 Charles I., c. 4, etc. Numerous instances of offences against the form of the 'statute concerning the keeping of tippling houses' appear in the Controlment Rolls.

The 'Act for punishing divers Abuses committed on the Lord's Day,' and reciting the frequency of bloodshed, is 1 Charles I., c. 1, and the republication of James's Book on Sports by Charles in the sixth year of his reign is mentioned in Whitelocke's Memorials, p. 17.

Proclamations during this period against eating flesh in Lent are too numerous to need special reference; that against the exchange of monies and the excessive use of gold and silver foil is printed in Rymer, xvii., 133, from Patent R., 16 Ja. I., pt. 3 đ. The statute of 1624, limiting the rates of interest, is 21 James I., c. 17.

The statute by which it became a felony to go abroad with a plaguesore is 1 James I., c. 31, continued by 3 Charles I., c. 4, and again by 16 Charles I., c. 4.

The particulars of Overbury's murder, of the events which caused it, and of the subsequent trials, have been gathered from the State Papers, Domestic, 1616, vol. 87, (Conway Papers), Nos. 132, 133, 28, 134, 34,