Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/212

 204 THE GREAT STATUTE OF PRAEMUNIRE April presented at the parliament of Carlisle in 1307. 1 But for examples of how the meaning of an act can be distorted and its range extended, there is no need to look further than the notorious achievements in later times of the very statute we have been considering. The statute of 1393, as interpreted after its reappearance, was the most serviceable of the laws at the disposal of the Crown in its occasional differences with the pope or the English clergy. It summed up in itself all previous anti-papal legislation, provided simple and effective modes of procedure, and ordained very severe punishments for all encroachments on the rights of the Crown. But as long as any respect was shown for the wording of the statute, it gave the temporal authorities few powers that they would not have possessed without it. Writs of prohibi- tion, of quare impedit, quare non admisit, and such-like ; the long-established royal right, reaffirmed by the ordinance of 1343, of forbidding the introduction into the realm of bulls prejudicial to the Crown ; and, in addition, the numerous anti-papal acts, great and small, passed before and after 1393, furnished the Crown with ample resources for resisting invasions of the tem- poral sphere, whether by foreign or by English churchmen. The statute of 1393 did not seriously threaten the established relations between church and state until the king's courts took to ignoring, not merely the preamble, but certain words in the enacting part, words of restrictive force which yet might be omitted without destroying grammar or sense. Once the pre- amble was disregarded, the words tieux and come devant est dit ceased to have much apparent weight, and at some date unknown disappeared from writs citing the statute : 2 even when their full significance was overlooked, they might have served as reminders that the range of the measure was not so wide as the courts assumed. But it was more serious still when the statute was cited as covering everything which touched the king, his crown, regality, or realm, the words ' against him ', awkwardly inserted in the original text after the word ' king ', being left out. 3 Thus, the writ of praemunire in vogue in 1529 makes the penalties of the statute apply to those who pursue in the court of Rome or elsewhere, or bring into the realm, or receive, notify, or in any way execute within the same realm any processes, sentences of excommunication, bulls, instruments, or other things 1 Hot. Pad. i. 219. 2 From the wording of the petition of the bishops in 1439, it almost looks as if this had already happened, but it is impossible to be certain (cf. supra, p. 198, n. 4). 3 It is strange that the clergy, in their petition of 1447, omit these words (cf. supra, p. 198, n. 3). They are, however, attempting to quote the text of the statute itself, so the omission was probably due to mere inadvertence. But it shows how easily the words might be overlooked.