It was enacted, That any person or persons which do now inhabit and dwell, or hereafter shall inhabit and dwell in the Country anywhere, or County within this Realm of England, out of any of the said Cities, Boroughs, Towns Corporate or Market Towns, from and after the Feast of St. Michael the archangel next coming, shall not sell or cause to be sold by retail, any woollen cloth, Linen Cloth, Haberdashery wares, Grocery wares, Mercery wares, at or within any of the said Cities &c., or within the Suburbs or Liberties of the said Cities, &c., within the said Realm of England (except it be in open Fairs) upon pain of forfeiting 6s. 8d. and the whole Wares so sold, proffered and offered to be sold contrary to the form and intent of this act as above is said. But all such persons might sell their products wholesale; and persons dwelling in the Country, but afterwards becoming free of any City &c. would be thus placed outside the operation of this act. And persons might sell by retail all manner of Cloth, Linen or Woollen of our making anywhere notwithstanding this act. “Provided alway that this act or anything therein contained shall not be prejudicial or hurtful to the Liberties and Privileges of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, or either of them.”
Horse Fairs.—1555. The 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 7 related to the facilities for dealing in stolen horses, which it was attempted to check by having duly appointed fairs for such dealings. This Act gave rise to the holding of “Horse Fairs” separately from other fairs. The Act 31 of Elizabeth c. 12 (1589) required a record to be kept of all horses sold at fairs.
Plague.—1625. The importance rightly attached from a sanitary point of view to the gathering of large multitudes together at fairs is manifested in a very ample degree in a Royal Proclamation issued by Charles I. from his Palace at Woodstock on the 4th August:
The Kings most excellent majesty, out of his Princely and Christian care of his loving subjects, that no good means of Providence may be neglected to stay the further spreading of the great infection of the Plague, doth find it necessary to prevent all occasions of public concourse of his people for the present, till it shall please Almighty God of His goodness, to cease the violence of the Contagion which is very dispersed into many parts of the Kingdom already; And therefore remembering that there are at hand two Fairs of special note and unto which there is usually extraordinary resort out of all parts of the Kingdom, the one kept in Smithfield, near the City of London, called Bartholomew Fair, and the other near Cambridge called Stourbridge Fair, the holding whereof at the usual times would in all likelihood be the occasion of further danger and infection in other parts of the land, which yet in Gods mercy stand clear and free, hath, with the advice of his Majesty’s Privy Council, thought good, by this open declaration of his pleasure and necessary commandment, not only to admonish and require all his loving subjects to forbear to resort for this time to either of the said two fairs, or to any other fairs within 50 miles of the said City of London, but also to enjoin the Lords of the said Fairs, and others interested in them, or any of them, that they all forbear to hold the said Fairs, or anything appertaining so them, at all times accustomed or at any time, till by God’s goodness and mercy the infection of the Plague shall cease, or be so much diminished, that his majesty shall give order for holding them; upon pain of such punishment as, for a contempt so much concerning the universal safety of his people, they shall be adjudged to deserve, which they must expect to be inflicted with all severity: His Majesty desire being so intentive for preventing the general Infection threatened, as he is resolved to spare no man that shall be the cause of dispersing the same. And to that purpose doth hereby further charge and enjoin, under like penalty, all citizens and inhabitants of the said City of London, that none of them shall repair to any fair held within any part of his kingdom, until it shall please God to cease the infection now reigning amongst them: His Majesty’s intention being, and so hereby declaring himself, that no Lord of any Fairs, or others interested in the profits thereof, shall by this necessary and temporary restraint, receive any prejudice in the right of his or their Fairs, or liberties thereunto belonging, anything before mentioned notwithstanding.
Earlier proclamations and orders had prevented the holding or had curtailed the period of St. Bartholomew fairs on several occasions viz. 1348, 1593, and 1603; and other fairs had likewise been stayed or postponed. These will be noticed in dealing with such fairs specifically.
1630. The Plague was prevailing in Cambridge, and a Royal Proclamation was issued, dated Aug. 1, prohibiting the holding of the “three great Fairs of special note, unto which there is an extraordinary resort from all parts of the Kingdom” viz. those of Bartholomew, Sturbridge, and Southwark.
Coinage.—1662. The preceding year was that of the Restoration, and it was by Proclamation ordered that the coinage of the Commonwealth should be no longer current than the last day of November. The “Kingdom’s Intelligencer” for Aug. 22-25 this year contained the following: “Whitehall Aug. 23. There hath been a discovery of divers persons who have coined both gold and silver, and of other persons who have vended the same in great quantities &c. intending to utter the same to Clothiers and at Fairs; which is published to an end that honest persons may not be deceived by receiving such monies.”
Sale of Printed Matter, &c.—1698. In the 9 and 10 William III. c. 27—An Act for Licensing Hawkers and Pedlars &c. section 9 is as follows: Provided always.... That this Act or anything contained shall not Extend to Prohibit any persons from selling of any Acts of Parliament, Forms of Prayer, Proclamations, Gazettes, licensed Almanacks or other Printed Papers, licensed by authority, or any Fish, Fruits or Victuals; nor to hinder any person or persons, who are the real workers or makers of any Goods or Wares within the Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, or his her or their Children, Apprentices, Agents or Servants, to such real Workers and makers of such Goods or Wares only, from carrying abroad, exposing to Sale, or selling any of the said Goods and Wares of his, her, or their, own making in any Public Mart, Fairs, Markets, or Elsewhere; nor any Tinkers, Coopers, Glaziers, Plummers, Harness-menders, or other persons actually trading in mending kettles, Tubs, Household Goods or Harness whatsoever, from going about and carrying with them proper materials for mending the same.
And by Section 12 it is further enacted: That nothing herein contained shall extend or be construed to extend to hinder any person or persons from Selling or exposing to sale any sorts of Goods or Merchandises, in any public mart, Market, or Fair within the Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, but that such person or persons may do therein as they lawfully might have done before the making of this act; anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.