Ann Wallwyn writes to Salisbury soliciting the wardship of the son of James Tomkins who is likely to die.[[27]] The petition of Dame Anne Wigmore, widow of Sir Richard Wigmore, states that she has found out a suit which will rectify many abuses, bring in a yearly revenue to the Crown and give satisfaction to the Petitioner for the great losses of herself and her husband. Details follow for a scheme for a corporation of carriers and others.[[28]]
Dorothy Selkane reminds Salisbury that a patent has been promised her for the digging of coals upon a royal manor. The men who manage the business for her are content to undertake all charges for the discovery of the coal and to compensate the tenants of the manor according to impartial arbitrators. She begs Salisbury that as she has been promised a patent the matter may be brought to a final conclusion that she may not be forced to trouble him further “having alredie bestowed a yeres solicitinge therein.”[[29]] In 1610 the same lady writes again:—“I have bene at gte toyle and charges this yere and a halfe past as also have bene put to extraordinarie sollicitacion manie and sundry waies for the Dispatching of my suite ...” and begs that the grant may pass without delay.[[30]]
A grant was made in 1614 to Anne, Roger and James Wright of a licence to keep a tennis court at St. Edmund’s Bury, co. Suffolk, for life.[[31]] Bessy Welling, servant to the late Prince Henry, petitioned for the erecting of an office for enrolling the Apprentices of Westminster, etc. As this was not granted, she therefore begs for a lease of some concealed lands [manors for which no rent has been paid for a hundred years] for sixty-one years. The Petitioner hopes to recover them for the King at her own charges.[[32]] Lady Roxburgh craves a licence to assay all gold and silver wire “finished at the bar” before it is worked, showing that it is no infringement on the Earl of Holland’s grant which is for assaying and sealing gold and silver after it is made. This, it is pointed out, will be a means for His Majesty to pay off the debt he owes to Lady Roxburgh which otherwise must be paid some other way.[[33]]
A petition from Katharine Elliot “wett nurse to the Duke of Yorke” shows that there is a moor waste or common in Somersetshire called West Sedge Moor which appears to be the King’s but has been appropriated and encroached upon by bordering commoners. She begs for a grant of it for sixty years; as an inducement the Petitioner offers to recover it at her own costs and charges and to pay a rent of one shilling per acre, the King never previously having received benefit therefrom.[[34]] The reference by Windebank notes that the king is willing to gratify the Petitioner. Another petition was received from this same lady declaring that “Divers persons being of no corporation prefers the trade of buying and selling silk stockings and silk waistcoats as well knit as woven uttering the Spanish or baser sort of silk at as dear rates as the first Naples and also frequently vending the woven for the knit, though in price and goodness there is almost half in half difference.” She prays a grant for thirty-one years for the selling of silk stockings, half stockings and waistcoats, to distinguish the woven from the knit receiving from the salesmen a shilling for every waistcoat, sixpence per pair of silk stockings and fourpence for every half pair.[[35]]
Elizabeth, Viscountess Savage, points out that Freemen of the city enter into bond on their admittance with two sureties of a hundred marks to the Chamberlain of London not to exercise any trade other than that of the Company they were admitted into. Of late years persons having used other trades and contrived not to have their bonds forfeited, and the penalty belonging to His Majesty, she begs a grant of such penalties to be recovered at her instance and charge.[[36]]
The petition of Margaret Cary, relict of Thomas Cary Esquire, one of the Grooms of the Chamber to the King on the behalf of herself and her daughters, begs for a grant to compound with offenders by engrossering and transporting of wool, wool fells, fuller’s earth, lead, leather, corn and grain, she to receive a Privy Seal for two fourth-parts of the fines and compositions. Her reasons for desiring this grant are that her husband’s expense in prosecuting like cases has reaped no benefit of his grant of seven-eighths of forfeited bonds for the like offences. She urges the usefulness of the scheme and the existence of similar grants.[[37]]
Mistress Dorothy Seymour petitions for a grant of the fines imposed on those who export raw hides contrary to the Proclamation and thereby make coaches, boots, etc., dearer. The reference to the Petition states: “It is His Majesty’s gratious pleasure that the petitioner cause impoundr. to be given to the Attorney General touching the offences above mencioned ... and as proffyt shall arise to His Majesty ... he will give her such part as shall fully satisfy her pains and good endeavours.”[[38]]
The projecting of patents and monopolies was the favourite pursuit of fashionable people of both sexes. Ben Johnson satirises the Projectress in the person of Lady Tailebush, of whom the Projector, Meercraft says:
... “She and I now Are on a Project, for the fact, and venting Of a new kind of fucus (paint for Ladies) To serve the Kingdom; wherein she herself Hath travel’d specially, by the way of service Unto her sex, and hopes to get the monopoly, As the Reward of her Invention.”[[39]]
When Eitherside assures her mistress: