(1400) Under Henry IV is the first secular law against heresy, making it a capital offence. Upon conviction by the ordinary the heretic is to be delivered to the secular arm, i.e., burnt. Note that the trial, however, still remains with the ordinary, i.e., the clerical court. Under Henry IV also we find a statute banishing all Welshmen and forbidding them to buy land or become freemen in England; and under Henry VI the same law is applied to Irishmen, and in the next reign to Scotchmen as well. The Irishmen complained of, however, were only those attending the University of Oxford. In 1402 we find Parliament asserting its right to ratify treaties and to be consulted on wars; matters not without interest to President Roosevelt's Congress, and in 1407 we find definite recognition of the principle that money bills must originate in the lower house.
For the purpose of his Chicago speech, it is a pity that Mr. Bryan's attention was never called to the Statute of the 8th of Henry VI, which forbids merchants from compelling payment in gold and from refusing silver, "which Gold they do carry out of the Realm into other strange Countries." An enlightened civic spirit is shown in the Statute of 1433, which prohibits any person dwelling at the Stews in Southwark from serving on juries in Surrey, whereby "many Murderers and notorious Thieves have been saved, great Murders and Robberies concealed and not punished." And the statute sweepingly declares everybody inhabiting that part of Southwark to be thieves, common women, and other misdoers. Fortunately, this was before the time that John Harvard took up his residence there.
In 1430 was the first statute imposing a property qualification upon voters.
In 1452 is a curious statute reciting that "Whereas in all Parts of this Realm divers People of great Power, moved with unsatiable Covetousness … have sought and found new Inventions, and them continually do execute, to the Danger, Trouble and great abusing of all Ladies, Gentlewomen, and having any Substance … perceiving their great Weakness and Simplicity, will take them by Force, or otherwise come to them seeming to be their great Friends … and so by great Dissimulation … get them into their Possession; also they will many Times compell them to be married by them, contrary to their own liking." A writ of chancery is given to persons so constrained of their liberty to summon the person complained of, and if he make default be outlawed—an early example of "government by injunction" applied to other than labor disputes! I know no example of an American statute to this effect; presumably our women are lacking in "weakness and simplicity."
In 1463 is another curious sumptuary law prescribing with great care the apparel of knights, bachelors, gentlemen and their wives, making it criminal for tailors to make cloths not according to this fashion, and for shoemakers to make boots or shoes having pikes more than two inches long. No draper shall sell or women wear hose to the value of more than fourteen pence, nor kerchiefs worth more than ten shillings, but scholars of the universities "may wear such Array as they may," nor does the ordinance extend to judges or soldiers. The provision against long pikes to shoes appears to be considered of importance, for it was re-enacted in 1464. I have searched in vain for a statute relating to hatpins. Again in 1482 there is another long statute concerning apparel which seems to have been considered under the reign of Edward IV quite the most important thing in life. A more manly clause of the statute is concerned with the benefits of archery to England, reciting that "In the Time of the victorious Reign … the King's Subjects have virtuously occupied and used shooting with their Bows, whereby and under the Protection of Almighty God, victorious acts have been done in Defence of this Realm," and the price of long bows of yew is limited to three and four pence. The statutes now begin to be in English.
In 1488 the Isle of Wight is to be repeopled with English people for "defence of the King's auncien ennemyes of the realme of Fraunce."
In 1491 all Scots are to depart the realm within forty days upon pain of forfeiture of all their goods; it is not recorded that any remained in England. In 1491 Henry VII levied an amazingly heavy tax upon personal property, that is to say, two fifteenths and tenths upon all "movable goodes cattales and othre thinges usuelly to suche xvmes and xmes contributory," with the exception of Cambridge and a few other favored towns. In 1495 the famous Oklahoma statute is anticipated by a law regulating abuses in the stuffing of feather beds.
In 1503 a statute recites that the "Longe Bowes hathe ben moche used in this his Realme, wherby Honour & Victorie hathe ben goten … and moche more drede amonge all Cristen Princes by reasone of the same, whiche shotyng is now greatly dekayed." So this mediaeval Kipling laments that they now delight in cross-bows to the great hurt and enfeebling of the Realm and to the comfort of outward enemies, wherefore cross-bows are forbidden except to the lords, on penalty of forfeiture of the bow.
(1509) The reign of Henry VIII was one of personal government; and in those days personal government resulted in a small output of law-making by Parliament. Indeed, after 1523, under Cardinal Wolsey, Parliament was not summoned for seven years. In 1539 the attempt to do without popular legislation is shown in the act already referred to, giving royal proclamations of the king and council the force of law, a definite attempt at personal government which might have resulted in the establishment of an administrative law fashioned by the executive, had it not been for the sturdy opposition of the people under weaker reigns. But under the reign of Henry VIII also the great right of free speech in Parliament was established; and in 1514 the king manumitted two villeins with the significant words "Whereas God created all men free," vulgarly supposed to be original with our Declaration of Independence.
The important principle of a limitation for prosecutions by the government for penal offences dates from the first year of Henry VIII, the period being put, as it still is, at three years; and it is expressed to be for better peace and justice and to avoid the taking up of old charges after the evidence has disappeared.