Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/49

Rh surprising to find legislative measures of a repressive character passed by the English Parliament.

A.D. 1400-1401.—The general character of the Acts relating to and, from 1400 until the accession of the Tudor dynasty, is that they were coercion measures, designed for the purpose of crushing the national spirit of the  people. Six coercion Acts were passed in 1400-1401. They laid down that no, "wholly born in " could purchase lands or tenements within England nor within the Boroughs or English towns of Wales. A could not obtain the privileges of a citizen or burgess in any city or borough or merchant town; could not become a municipal officer, and was forbidden to carry armour in any city or town on pain of imprisonment. Exemption from these statutes was often granted to certain as a special favour. In consequence of the complaint that "the people of —sometime by day, and sometime by night"—distrained and seized upon the cattle and goods of their English neighbours in counties adjoining the Marches of, it was enacted that upon failure of redress the English were permitted to arrest all persons with their goods and chattels coming out of and to retain them until full satisfaction was made to the complaining parties. If a committed a felony in England, and repaired to, the English officials in  were directed to execute him, upon a certificate given by the King's Justice. The Lords Marchers were to keep "sufficient stuffing and ward" in their castles in in case of riots. No Englishman could be convicted at the suit of any in, except by the judgment of English justices, or by the judgment of Englishmen resident in the Principality.

A.D. 1402.—In 1402, nine further coercion Acts were passed. One established that Englishmen were not to be convicted by in. Another, in order "to eschew many diseases and mischiefs which have happened before