Page:Ruffhead - The Statutes at Large - vol 3.djvu/99

A.D. 1605. XXVI. And that it shall be lawful for any two Justices of Peace within the Limits of their Jurisdiction or Authority, and to all Mayors, Bailiffs and Chief Officers of Cities and Towns Corporate in their Liberties from Time to Time, to search the Houses and Lodgings of every Popish Recusant convict, or of every Person whose Wife is or shall be a Popish Recusant convict, for Popish Books and Relicks of Popery: (2) And that if any Altar, Pix, Beads, Pictures, or such like Popish Relicks, or any Popish Book or looks shall, be found in their or any of their Custody, as in the Opinion of the said Justices, Mayor, Bailiff or Chief Officer, as aforedaid, dhall be thought unmeet for duch Recudant, as aforedaid, to have or use the same, shall be predently defaced and burnt, if it be meet to be burned: (3) And if it be a Crucifix, a Crucifix or other Relick of any Price, the same to be defaced at the General Quarter-Sessions of the Peace in the County where the same shall be found, and the same so defaced to be restored to the Owner again.

XXVII. And be it also enacted by the Authority aforesaid. That all such Armour, Gunpowder and Munition, of whatsoever Kinds, as any Popish Recusant convict within this Realm of England, hath or Armour, shall have in his House or Houses, or elsewhere, or in the Hands or Possession of any other at his or their Dispostion, shall be taken from such Popish Recusants or others which have or shall have the same to the Use of such Popish Recusant, by Warrant of four Justices of Peace at their General or Quarter-Sessions, to be holden in the same County where such Popish Recusant shall be resident (other than such necessary Weapons, as shall be thought fit by the said four Justices of Peace to remain and be allowed for the Defence of the Person or Persons of such Recusants, or for the Defence of his, her or their House or Houses) and that the said Armour and Munition so taken, shall be kept and maintained at the Costs of such Recusants, in such Places as the said four Justices of Peace at their said Sessions of the Peace shall set down and appoint.

XXVIII. And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid. That if any such Recusant having or which shall have any such Armour, Gunpowder and Munition, or any of them, or if any other Person or Persons which shall have any such Armour, Gunpowder and Munition, or any of them, to the Use of any such Recusant, shall refuse to declare or manifest unto the said Justices of the Peace, or any of them, what Armour he, she or they have, or shall have, or shall let, hinder or disturb the Delivery thereof, to any of the said Justices, or to any other Person or Persons authorized by their Warrant to take and seize the same; then every such Person so offending contrary to this Statute in this Behalf, shall forfeit and lose to the King's Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, his and their said Armour, Gunpowder and Munition, and shall also be imprisoned by Warrant of or from any Justices of Peace of such County, by the Space of three Months, without Bail or Mainprize.

XXIX. And yet nevertheless, be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid. That notwithstanding the taking away of such Armour, Gunpowder and Munition, the said Popish Recusant shall and may be charged with the maintaining of the same, and with the buying, providing and maintaining of Horse, and other Armour and Munition, in such Sort as other his Majesty's Subjects from Time to Time shall be appointed and commanded, according to their several Abilities and Qualities, and that the said Armour and Munition, at the Charge of such Popish Recusant, for them, and as their own Provision of Armour and Munition, shall be shewed at every Muster, Shew or Use of Armour to be had or made within the said County.

XXX. Provided always. That neither this Act, nor any Thing therein contained, shall extend to take away or abridge the Authority or Jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Censures, for any Cause or Matter; but that the Commissioners of his Majesty, his heirs and Successors, in Causes Ecclesiastical, for the Time being, Archbishops, Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges, may do and proceed as before the making of this Act they lawfully did or might have done; any Thing in this Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

HEREAS divers Merchants have of late obtained from the King's most excellent Majesty, under the Great Seal of England, a large Charter of Incorporation for them and their Company to trade into the Dominions of Spain and Portugal, and are also most earnest Suitors to obtain the like from his said Majesty for France, whereby none but themselves, and such as they shall think fit, as being meer Merchants,, shall take Benefit of the said Charter, disabling thereby all others his Majesty's loving subjects of this realm of England and Wales, who during all the Time of her Late Majesty's wars, were in divers respects greatly charged with the Defence of their Prince and Country, and therefore ought indifferently to enjoy all the Benefits of this most Happy Peace; (2) and also debarring them from that free Enlargement of common Traffick into those Dominions, which others his Majesty's Subjects of his Realms of Scotland and Ireland do enjoy;  (3) to the manifest impoverishing of all Owners of Ships,  Masters, Mariners, Fishermen, Clothiers, Tuckers, Spinsters, and many thousands of all Sorts of Handcraftsmen, besides the Decrease of his Majesty's Customs, Subsidies and other Impositions; and the Ruin and Decay of Navigation, together with the Abating of the Prices of our Wools, Cloth, Corn and such like Commodities, arising and growing within this his said Majesty's Realm of England, and the inhancing of all French annd Spanish Commodities, by reason of Insufficiency of the Merchants, they being few in Number, and not of Ability to keep the great number of our Ships and Seafaring-Men awork, and to vent the great Store of Commodities which this his Majesty's Dominion of England doth yield; (4) and by means that all owners and Mariners, with divers others (if these Incorporations should continue) shall be cut off from their ordinary Means of Maintenance, and preserving their Estates; and finally, by reason that all French and Spanish Commodities shall be in a few mens hands; '(5) in