Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/207

 1922 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE 199 documents prejudicial to the Crown which were of foreign origin, and once the statute ceased to be interpreted strictly in the light of the preamble there was no good reason for limiting the meaning of aillours in the manner suggested. At all events it is evident that in the royal courts no attention was being paid to the preamble, and that the crucial words tieux and come devant est dit were being practically ignored. It is significant that, according to the clergy, this was not the only statute which their enemies were trying to wrest to the disadvantage of the church, for the petition goes on to complain that a statute of 1401 against those who procured from the pope exemptions from ordinary obedience was being unwarrantably extended to cover papal licences for non-residence and certain other dispensations. 1 The further history of the dispute throws no fresh light on the subject of my inquiries. It is enough to say that, except for a small concession made by Edward IV, 2 the efforts of the clergy were unsuccessful. The petitions just noticed indicate that the statute was being used with vigour against the English ecclesiastical courts, and it is remarkable that I have found no clear instance of its employment as against the pope up to the middle of the century. But that its anti-papal potentialities were not over- looked is shown by the report of a case of 1448, in which it is described as ' le statut des provisors fait 1'An xvi le Roy Richard '. 3 Probably the defendant, Thomas Kemp, archdeacon of Richmond, was being prosecuted for accepting papal provision to the see of London, 4 but we are not told what the case was about, the report being concerned entirely with a discussion of procedure, which suggests that the court of king's bench had had little to do with the statute before. The description of the statute is interesting as showing that it was regarded primarily as an anti-papal measure and as illustrating the fact that such acts, however wide their scope, were seldom used to the disadvantage of the pope except in suits concerning papal provisions or reservations, the one question on which the Crown and the papacy were seriously at variance. It must of course have been some years before 1439 that the statute was rediscovered and first employed to the detriment of the English spiritual courts. The precise date can only be conjectured. Probably it was prior to 1434 ; for in that year Archbishop Chichele, addressing the convocation of Canterbury, 1 The act in question was Stat. 2 Hen. IV, c. 3 (Statutes, ii. 121). 2 That the church courts might entertain suits about tithes on great trees without being interfered with by writs of praemunire (Wilkins, iii. 584). Year Books, 27 Hen. VI, p. 5. Cf. Le Neve, Fasti, ii. 297 ; Official Correspondence of Thomas Bekynton (Bolls Ser.), i. 155, 157.