Magna Carta did not abolish purveyance, and placed no restrictions whatever upon its use for the legitimate and original purpose of supplying the king’s household. Some slight attempt to control its exercise was made sixty years later in the Statute of Westminster I.; but without producing much effect.[[682]] The grievances connected with purveyance continued throughout four centuries as a fertile source of vexation to the people and of friction between parliament and the king. An attempt, made by the House of Commons to induce James I. to surrender this prerogative for a suitable money grant, ended in failure, with the abandonment of the abortive treaty known as “the Great Contract.” In the general re-settlement of the revenue, however, at the Restoration, purveyance and pre-emption, which had fallen into disuse during the Commonwealth, were abolished.[[683]] Yet in the following year a new statute[[684]] virtually revived one branch of the right under essential modifications: when royal progresses were necessary in the future, warrants might be issued from the Board of Green Cloth, authorizing the king to use such carts and carriages as he might require, at a fair rate of hire specified in the Act of Parliament.
II. Branches of Purveyance restricted by Magna Carta. A practice tolerated in spite of its burdensome nature because of its absolute necessity, when confined to its original purpose of providing for the needs of the king’s household, became intolerable when claimed by every castle-warden, sheriff, and local bailiff for his own personal or official needs. The annoyance and hardships inseparable from such arbitrary interference with the rights of private property were thus increased tenfold, while ample discretionary authority was vested in a class of officials least qualified to use it, unscrupulous foreign adventurers hired by John to intimidate the native population, responsible to no one save the king, and careful never to issue from their strongholds except at the head of their reckless soldiery. The Great Charter contained a few moderate provisions for checking the abuses of purveyance as an instrument of local administration.
(1) The provisioning of castles. Commanders of fortresses were left perfectly free by Magna Carta to help themselves to such corn and other supplies as they deemed necessary for their garrisons. Immediate payment, however, must be made in current coin (not in exchequer tallies) for everything they requisitioned, unless the owner, on whom a compulsory sale was forced, consented to postpone the date of payment. The Charter of 1216 made a slight modification in favour of castellans. Payment for goods taken from inhabitants of the town where the castle was situated might be legally delayed for three weeks, a term extended in 1217 to forty days. Such relaxation was perhaps necessary to meet the case of a warden with an empty purse called on to provide against an unexpected siege or other emergency; but the peaceful townsmen, over whose dwellings the dark walls of a feudal stronghold loomed, would not prove creditors who pressed unduly for payment. Under Henry’s Charters, as under that of John, immediate payment had to be tendered to owners of goods who lived elsewhere than in this neighbouring town.[[685]]
(2) The requisitioning of horses and carts. The provisions of chapter 30, modified in subsequent re-issues, sought to prohibit sheriffs from exacting compulsory cartage from the property of freemen.
(3) The appropriation of timber. The succeeding chapter confined the king and his officers to the use of such wood as they could obtain from the royal demesnes.[[686]]
III. Branches of Purveyance not mentioned in Magna Carta. A wide field was left alike for the use and the abuse of this prerogative, after due effect had been given to these moderate provisions. In addition to the constant friction kept up through many centuries by its employment as a means of supplying the wants of the king’s household, two minor aspects of purveyance came into special prominence in later history.
(1) The requisition of forced labour. Hallam points out that the king’s rights of pre-emption over such goods as he required were extended, by analogy, to his subjects’ labour. "Thus Edward III. announces to all sheriffs that William of Walsingham had a commission to collect as many painters as might suffice for ‘our works in St. Stephen’s chapel, Westminster, to be at our wages as long as shall be necessary’; and to arrest and keep in prison all who should refuse or be refractory; and enjoins them to lend their assistance. Windsor Castle owes its massive magnificence to labourers impressed from every part of the kingdom. There is even a commission from Edward IV. to take as many workmen in gold as were wanted, and employ them at the king’s cost upon the trappings of himself and his household."[[687]] Perhaps, however, such demands did not form a branch of purveyance at all, but were merely instances of illegal royal encroachments.
(2) Billeting of soldiers in private houses. This practice, which may be considered a branch of purveyance, has always been peculiarly abhorrent to public opinion in England. It is as old as the reign of John; for when that king visited York in 1201 he complained bitterly that the citizens neither came out to meet him nor provided for the wants of his crossbow-men. His threats and demands for hostages were with difficulty turned aside by a money payment of £100.[[688]] Charles I. made an oppressive use of this branch of what seems to have been once a perfectly legal prerogative, punishing householders who opposed his unpopular measures by quartering his dissolute soldiery upon them, a practice branded as illegal by the Petition of Right in 1628.[[689]]
[681]. See Blackstone, Commentaries, I. 287, for an often-quoted definition of purveyance.