[380] Rymer, xvi. 448.
[381] Many of these proclamations are scattered through Rymer; and the whole have been collected in a volume.
[382] By a proclamation in 1560, butchers killing flesh in Lent are made subject to a specific penalty of £20; which was levied upon one man. Strype's Annals, i. 235. This seems to have been illegal.
[383] Lord Camden in 1766. Hargrave, in preface to "Hale de Jure Coronæ," in Law Tracts, vol. i.
[384] We find an exclusive privilege granted in 1563 to Thomas Cooper, afterwards Bishop of Winchester, to print his Thesaurus, or Latin dictionary for twelve years (Rymer, xv. 620); and to Richard Wright to print his translation of Tacitus during his natural life; any one infringing this privilege to forfeit 40s. for every printed copy. Id. xvi. 97.
[385] Strype's Parker, 221. By the 51st of the queen's injunctions, in 1559, no one might print any book or paper whatsoever unless the same be first licensed by the council or ordinary.
[386] A proclamation, dated February 1589, against seditious and schismatical books and writings, commands all persons who shall have in their custody any such libels against the order and government of the church of England, or the rites and ceremonies used in it, to bring and deliver up the same with convenient speed to their ordinary. Life of Whitgift, Appendix 126. This has probably been one cause of the extreme scarcity of these puritanical pamphlets.
[387] Strype's Grindal, 124, and Append. 43, where a list of these books is given.
[388] Strype's Whitgift, 222, and Append. 94. The archbishop exercised his power over the press, as may be supposed, with little moderation. Not confining himself to the suppression of books favouring the two religions adverse to the church, he permitted nothing to appear that interfered in the least with his own notions. Thus we find him seizing an edition of some works of Hugh Broughton, an eminent Hebrew scholar. This learned divine differed from Whitgift about Christ's descent to hell. It is amusing to read that ultimately the primate came over to Broughton's opinion; which, if it prove some degree of candour, is a glaring evidence of the advantages of that free enquiry he had sought to suppress. P. 384, 431.
[389] Camden, 449; Strype's Annals, ii. 288. The queen had been told, it seems, of what was done in Wyatt's business, a case not all parallel; though there was no sufficient necessity even in that instance to justify the proceeding by martial law. But bad precedents always beget "progeniem vitiosiorem."