Persons such as sorters who purloin or embezzle wool or yarn delivered to them by clothiers and the receivers thereof, knowing the same, shall recompense the party grieved or else be whipped and set in the stocks.
All hospitals and abiding places for the poor, lame, maimed, and impotent persons or for houses of correction founded according to the statute of Elizabeth shall be incorporated and have perpetual succession.
Only lands and hereditaments paying rents to the Crown within the last sixty years shall be claimed by the Crown; the title of all persons and corporation who have enjoyed uninterruptedly against the Crown for the last sixty years are confirmed against the Crown.
A seminal patent-protection law was passed in 1624. It stated that all monopolies to any person or persons, bodies politic or corporate for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of anything within the realm are void. This does not include London or towns. Parties aggrieved by such may recover treble damages in the superior courts, with double costs. Excepted are existing patents, for 21 years or less, for new inventions and for future patents for 14 years or less. Excepted also are patents for printing or making saltpeter, gunpowder, shot or ordinance, etc.; patents concerning allum mines or Newcastle coal or glass making or export of calves' skins or making smalts [deep-blue pigment or glass] or melting iron ore; grants of office; and licenses for taverns.
Because benefit of clergy is not allowed to women convicted of felony by reason whereof many women suffer death for small causes, any woman convicted for the felonious taking of any money, goods or chattels greater than 12d. and less than 10s. other than burglary or robbery on the highway or from the person of any man or woman without their knowledge, shall be branded and marked in the hand upon the brawne of the left thumb with a "T" and imprisonment, whipping, stocking, or sending to the house of correction for a year or less.
No one may take more than 8% interest on loans because 10% has caused many, including gentry, merchant, farmer, and tradesman, to sell their land and forsake their trade to pay their debts.
Mothers concealing the death of a bastard baby shall suffer as for murder, unless one witness proves the child was born dead.
Papists running a school must forfeit 40s. a day for such. Anyone conveying a child beyond the seas to be educated in popery may not sue in the courts, may not hold any office, and shall forfeit 100 pounds and all lands. But the child returning may have his family lands restored to him if he receives the sacrament of the lord's supper in the established church after reaching 18 years of age.
In 1604 it was decided that it was not necessary to prove that witchcraft caused the death of a person for there to be punishment for the witchcraftery. All that was necessary now was the practice of witchcraft. The punishment was death by hanging. Also, consulting or feeding an evil spirit was felony.
As Attorney General, Coke introduced the crime of "seditious libel" in a case before the Star Chamber in 1606. These written slanders or libels were viewed as incitements to disorder and private vengeance. Because the tendency to cause quarrels was the essence of the crime, the truth of the libel was not a defense, but might be an aggravation of criminality.