[1592/4/93]*[print] [email] [cite] [preceding] [following]
†Our sovereign lord, with advice of the estates of parliament, understanding the great wrong done to the common welfare by certain private persons for their own commodity transporting in England yearly wool, sheep and cattle above the number of £100,000, whereby such dearth is raised in the country that a mutton buck is dearer and far surmounts the price of a boll of wheat; for remedy whereof, has statute and ordained that no wool, sheep nor cattle be transported in England under the pain of escheating, not only of the said wool, sheep and cattle, which shall be found passing to England, but also of the whole moveable goods of the actual transporters, and also the merchants, causers and principal doers of the said transporting, albeit deceitfully they cause the same to be done by poor folks, the one half of the said escheats to appertain to the apprehender of the said goods and wool, in case he may sufficiently verify and try the same, and the other half to our sovereign lord and to be intromitted with by the warden, keeper, sheriff, stewart or bailie who shall be accountable to his majesty for the same; and further, the said offenders shall be punished in their persons by warding for the space of six months and otherwise at his highness's pleasure, likewise our said sovereign lord has statute and ordained that it shall be permissible to any sheriff, warden, keeper or any other baron or officer having the treasurer's power and direction, to stay and arrest, take and apprehend the said goods and persons, and to present them before the warden, sheriff, stewart, bailie or keeper, or bring them to Edinburgh to be presented to the justice and his deputes, and to underlie the law for the said offence, which being tried the offenders shall lose their whole moveables to be divided as said is; and also shall be punished in their persons as is above-written at the king's pleasure to the terror of others; and the same penalties to be extended against whatsoever persons within this realm that shall sell any cattle and sheep to whatsoever Englishman or other either abiding within the bounds of England or that trafficks within this realm, it being tried that the person, buyer of the same goods, sells or transports the same in England. And our sovereign lord, with advice of this said estates, annuls all licences granted or to be granted in the contrary hereof, and ordains that the penalty of this act shall strike against the transgressors thereof, notwithstanding the said licences purchased or to be purchased.