And our will and pleasure is, and We do hereby declare our Royal intent and meaning to be, and the said [Fellowship, etc.] do covenant, promise and agree to and with Us our heirs and successors by these presents, that they and their successors shall from time to time and at all times do their utmost endeavours that after the end and expiration of the said three years ensuing, during which the proportion of thirty-six thousand cloths are undertaken to be exported as is before in these presents expressed, that their trade of exporting and merchandising into the foresaid countries, provinces, towns and places aforesaid of woollen cloths may be wholly reduced unto the venting of such cloths only as shall be dyed and dressed here within this our Realm and other our Dominions, so far forth as it shall please God to give them and their successors ability and the trade encouragement, anything in these presents contained to the contrary notwithstanding: ...
... Provided also that these our Letters Patents or any matter or thing therein contained shall not extend to give authority or power to the said [Fellowship of the King's Merchants, etc.] or to any member or person of the said Company to transport or carry out of the realm any cloths, kersies, wares, commodities or merchandises whatsoever, which by the laws and statutes of this Realm are restrained or prohibited to be transported or carried over the seas, otherwise than according to the true intent and meaning of these presents, unless they shall obtain and procure licence for the same.
[312] Printed in the publications of the Selden Society, Vol. 28, pp. 78-98.
17. Sir Julius Caesar's Proposals for Reviving the Trade in Cloths [Lansdowne MSS.,[313] clii. 56, f. 271], 1616.
Means to avoid the present stand of cloth—
(1) Commissioners honest and substantial and sufficient for skill to be presently appointed for the view of the cloth weekly to Blackwell Hall, and the faulty cloth to be returned upon the clothier with imprisonment till he put in security to answer it in the law; and the good to be justly valued, according to the usual prices for these two years past, and the new Merchant Adventurers enforced to buy the same.
(2) So many of the new Merchant Adventurers as shall refuse to lay out for cloth such sums as they have subscribed for to be presently committed, to abide the censure of the Star Chamber for abusing of his Majesty and the State in so desperate and dangerous a case as this is.
(3) The fines of them to be employed in the buying of cloth for the riddance of the market.
(4) So many in London as are thought worth 10,000l. to be moved by my Lord Mayor to buy up clothes for 1,000l. at the least; especially all woollen drapers of half that worth, viz., 5,000l.
(5) Express commandment and present example of King's Counsellors and Courtiers and all their servants to wear nothing but broad cloth in their gowns, cloaks, girths, robes or breeches till Easter next, to the end that woollen drapers may be encouraged to buy the cloth made or to be made before that day; or else on pain of imprisonment not to come into Court....