The Law

Churchwardens of every parish shall oversee the poor in their parish. They shall, with consent of the Justices of the Peace, set to work children whose parents cannot maintain them and also set to work married or unmarried persons who have no trade and no means to maintain themselves. Churchwardens shall tax every inhabitant, including parson and vicar and every occupier of land and houses, as they shall think fit. There will be a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron and other necessary ware and stuff to set the poor on work. There will be competent sums of money for the relief of the lame, impotent, old, blind, and others not able to work, and also for the putting out of children to be apprentices. Child apprentices may be bound until 21 years of age or until time of marriage. They shall account to the Justices of the Peace for all money received and paid. The penalty for absence or neglect is 20s. If any parish cannot raise sufficient funds, the Justices of the Peace may tax other nearby parishes to pay, and then the hundred, and then the county. Grandparents, parents, and children of every poor, old, blind, lame, or impotent person not able to work, being of sufficient ability, shall at their own charge, relieve and maintain every such poor person in that manner and according to that rate as Justices of the Peace of that county determine, or else forfeit 20s. per month. Two Justices of the Peace may commit to gaol or house of correction persons refusing to work and disobedient churchwardens and overseers. The overseers may, with the consent of the lord of the manor, build houses on common or waste land for the poor at the expense of the parish, in which they may place more than one family in each house.

Every parish shall pay weekly 2-10d. toward the relief of sick, hurt, and maimed soldiers and mariners. Counties with more than fifty parishes need pay only 2-6d. The county treasurer shall keep registers and accounts. Soldiers begging shall lose their pension and shall be adjudged common rogues or vagabonds subject to imprisonment and punishment.

Sheriffs summoning defendants without a writ shall pay 200s. and damages to the defendant, and 400s. to the King.

Persons stealing crops from lands or fruit from trees shall be whipped.

Since administrators of goods of people dying intestate who fail to pay the creditors of the deceased often can't pay the debts from their own money, the people (who are not creditors) receiving the goods shall pay the creditors.

Every person shall receive the holy communion in church at least once a year or else forfeit 20 pounds for the first year and 40 pounds for the second year, and threescore pounds for every year after until he takes the said sacrament.

No person convicted of Catholicism may practice the common law as a counsellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor, nor may practice civil law as advocate, or proctor, nor shall be justice, minister, clerk, or steward in any court, nor practice medicine, nor perform as apothecary, nor be officer in a town, in the army, or navy, or forfeit 100 pounds as punishment. Nor may they be administrators of estates, or have custody of any child as guardian. Nor may they possess any armor, gunpowder, or arms. Nor may anyone print or import Popish books rosaries, or else forfeit 40s.

No merchant may dress black rabbit skins, nor export them, unless dressed by skinners and bought from them because the skinners have been thus deprived of their livelihoods to their impoverishment throughout the realm.

Beer may be exported when malt is at 16s. per quarter because exporting beer instead of barley and malt will (1) increase the export tax to the King, (2) increase income for coopers and brewers, and (3) provide more jobs in transporting beer, which is more voluminous, to the great comfort of the port towns.

Fish which are spawning and growing in harbors may not be taken by any net or weirs because this practice has hurt fishermen and the realm.

London may make a trench to bring water to the north part of the city and shall compensate the owners of lands by agreement with them of an amount or an amount determined by commissioners.

Actors profaning God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost on stage are to be penalized 200s.

No one shall sell beer or ale to an unlicensed alehousekeeper because abuses there have become intolerable.

Every person convicted of drunkenness shall be penalized 5s. or else placed in the stocks for six hours, because the loathsome and odious sin of drunkenness has grown into common use lately and it is the root of many other sins, such as bloodshed, stabbings, murder, swearing, fornication, and adultery, and is detrimental to the arts and manual trades and diverse workmen, who become impoverished. Offenders convicted a second time shall be bound with two sureties to the sum of 200s.

No person at least 18 years of age may be naturalized or restored in blood after being attainted unless he takes the sacrament and the Oath of Supremacy [of the king over the church of England], and Oath of Allegiance [to the king].

Money given by will for the apprenticeship of poor children shall be managed by incorporated towns and unincorporated parishes. Masters receiving such apprentices shall become bound with sufficient sureties.

Houses of correction shall be built in every county.

Lewd women, having bastards, chargeable to the parish, shall be committed to the house of correction to be punished and set to work for one year.

Persons deserting their families shall be deemed incorrigible rogues and punished as such.

Persons such as sorters who purloin or embezzle wool or yarn delivered to them by clothiers and the receivers thereof, knowing the same, shall recompense the party grieved or else be whipped and set in the stocks.

All hospitals and abiding places for the poor, lame, maimed, and impotent persons or for houses of correction founded according to the statute of Elizabeth shall be incorporated and have perpetual succession.

Only lands and hereditaments paying rents to the Crown within the last sixty years shall be claimed by the Crown; the title of all persons and corporation who have enjoyed uninterruptedly against the Crown for the last sixty years are confirmed against the Crown.

A seminal patent-protection law was passed in 1624. It stated that all monopolies to any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything within the realm are void. This does not include London or towns. Parties aggrieved by such may recover treble damages in the superior courts, with double costs. Excepted are existing patents, for 21 years or less, for new inventions and for future patents for 14 years or less. Excepted also are patents for printing or making saltpeter, gunpowder, shot or ordinance, etc.; patents concerning allum mines or Newcastle coal or glass making or export of calves' skins or making smalts [deep-blue pigment or glass] or melting iron ore; grants of office; and licenses for taverns.

Because benefit of clergy is not allowed to women convicted of felony by reason whereof many women suffer death for small causes, any woman convicted for the felonious taking of any money, goods or chattels greater than 12d. and less than 10s. other than burglary or robbery on the highway or from the person of any man or woman without their knowledge, shall be branded and marked in the hand upon the brawne of the left thumb with a "T" and imprisonment, whipping, stocking, or sending to the house of correction for a year or less.

No one may take more than 8% interest on loans because 10% has caused many, including gentry, merchant, farmer, and tradesman, to sell their land and forsake their trade to pay their debts.

Mothers concealing the death of a bastard baby shall suffer as for murder, unless one witness proves the child was born dead.

Papists running a school must forfeit 40s. a day for such. Anyone conveying a child beyond the seas to be educated in popery may not sue in the courts, may not hold any office, and shall forfeit 100 pounds and all lands. But the child returning may have his family lands restored to him if he receives the sacrament of the lord's supper in the established church after reaching 18 years of age.

In 1604 it was decided that it was not necessary to prove that witchcraft caused the death of a person for there to be punishment for the witchcraftery. All that was necessary now was the practice of witchcraft. The punishment was death by hanging. Also, consulting or feeding an evil spirit was felony.

As Attorney General, Coke introduced the crime of "seditious libel" in a case before the Star Chamber in 1606. These written slanders or libels were viewed as incitements to disorder and private vengeance. Because the tendency to cause quarrels was the essence of the crime, the truth of the libel was not a defense, but might be an aggravation of criminality.

Edward Coke, former Chief Justice of both the Court of Common Pleas and Court of the Queen's Bench, wrote his Reports on court cases of all kinds through forty years and his Institutes on the law, in which he explained and systematized the common law and which was suitable for students. This included a commentary and update of Littleton, published in 1627; old and current statutes; a description of the criminal law; and lastly an explanation of the court system, the last two published in 1644. Coke declared that "a man's house is his castle".

Coke waged a long battle with his wife over her extensive property and the selection of a husband for their daughter. In his institutes, he described the doctrine of coverture as "With respect to such part of the wife's personality as is not in her possession, as money owing or bequeathed to her, or accrued to her in case of intestacy, or contingent interests, these are a qualified gift by law to the husband, on condition that he reduce them into possession during the coverture, for if he happen to die, in the lifetime of his wife, without reducing such property into possession, she and not his representative will be entitled to it. His disposing of it to another is the same as reducing it into his own possession." He further states that "The interest of the husband in, and his authority over, the personal estate of the wife, is, however, considerably modified by equity, in some particular circumstances. A settlement made upon the wife in contemplation of marriage, and in consideration of her fortune, will entitle the representatives of the husband, though he die before his wife, to the whole of her goods and chattels, whether reduced into possession or not during the coverture. ... A settlement made after marriage will entitle the representative of the husband to such an estate in preference to the wife. ... A court of equity will not interfere with the husband's right to receive the income during the coverture, though the wife resist the application."