victed or attainted at any time after, shall incur á præmunire: And as well justices of assize in their circuits, as justices of the peace in their quarter or open sessions, may inquire thereof as of other offences against the peace, and shall certify every presentment thereof into the king's bench within forty days, if the term be then open; if not, at the first day of the full term next following the said forty days; on pain of 100l.: and the justices of the king's bench shall hear and determine the same, as in other cases of præmunire. And for the second offence, such person shall be guilty of high treason: But not to work corruption of blood, disherison of heirs, or forfeiture of dower. Provided that the charitable giving of reasonable alms to any offender, without fraud or covin, shall not be deemed any such abetment, procuring, counselling, aiding, assisting, or comforting, as thereby to incur any pain or forfeiture.

His abettors, procurers, and counsellors, and also their aiders, assistants, and comforters.] An indictment against any such person must be, knowing the principal to be a maintainer of the jurisdiction of the pope; and to say, against the form of the statute only, is not sufficient. 1 H.H. 332.

Charitable giving of reasonable alms.] This special clause of giving alms not to make an aider or comforter, if the alms be reasonable and without covin, though the offender be not imprisoned nor under bail, seems to be but agreeable to the common law; and therefore it seems even by the common law, if a physician or surgeon minister help to an offender sick or wounded, though he know him to be an offender even in treason, this makes him not a traitor, for it is done upon the account of common humanity; but it will be misprison of treason, if he know it, and do not discover him. 1H.H. 332.

7. Finally, by the 3 Ja. c.4. If any person shall, either upon the seas, or beyond the seas, or in any other place within the king's dominions, put in practice to absolve, persuade, or withdraw any of his majesty's subjects from their natural obedience, or to reconcile them to the pope or see of Rome, or to any other prince, state, or potentate; or shall be willingly so absolved or withdrawn as aforesaid, or willingly reconciled, or shall promise obedience to any such pretended authority, prince, state, or potentate; he, his procurers and counsellors, aiders and maintainers, knowing the same, shall be guilty of high treason. § 22, 23.

But this shall not extend to any person who shall be reconciled to the pope or see of Rome (for and touching the point of so being reconciled only) that shall return into this realm, and [120] thereupon within six days before the bishop of the diocese or two justices of the peace of the county where he shall arrive, submit himself and take the oaths (of allegiance and supremacy, 1 W.

[121]

sess. 1. c. 8.): which oaths the said bishop or justices shall certify at the next sessions, on pain of 40l. § 24.

And persons shall be tried for these offences, at the assizes of that county, or in the king's bench, and be there proceeded against as if the treason had been committed in the county where the person shall be taken. § 25.

III. Peter-pence abolished.

Peter-pence was an annual tribute of one penny, paid at Rome out of every family at the feast of St. Peter.

Gibs. 87.

And this, Ina the Saxon king, when he went in pilgrimage to Rome about the year 740, gave to the pope, partly as alms, and partly in recompence of a house erected in Rome for English pilgrims. God. 111. 356.

And this continued to be paid generally until the time of king Henry the eighth, when it was enacted, that from thenceforth no -person shall pay any pensions, censes, portions, peter-pence, or any other impositions, to the use of the bishop or see of Rome. 25 H. 8. c. 21.

IV. First fruits and tenths taken from the pope.

First fruits, annates, or primitiæ, are the first fruits after the avoidance of every spiritual living for one whole year. These have been paid of very ancient time; for amongst the laws of king Ina, who began his reign in the year 712, there is an order for the payment thereof. But the pope did not obtain to have them appropriated to himself, until after the reign of king Edward the first. 4 Inst. 120. God. Introd. 49. Degge P. 2. c. 15.

Tenths, decimæ, are the tenth part of the yearly value of all ecclasiastical livings. This payment was exacted from the clergy by the pope in the reign of king Edward the first; and was sometimes granted by the pope to the kings of this realm, especially for the aid of the holy land: but afterwards these tenths became wholly appropriated to the see of Rome. 4 Inst. 120, 121.

But by the 26 H. 8. c. 3. (z) The revenues of the first fruits and tenths are for ever annexed to the imperial crown of this realm. (See First Fruits and Tenths.)

V. The pope's presentation to benefices.

1. By the 25 Ed. 3. st. 6. If any reservation, collation, or provision be made by the court of Rome, of any archbishoprick, bishoprick, dignity, or other benefice, in disturbance of the right

(2) And also by 1 El. c. 4.

ful donors; the king shall present for that time, if such donors shall not themselves exercise their right. And if persons lawfully presented shall be disturbed by such provisors; then the said provisors, their procurators, executors, and notaries, shall be attached by their body, and brought in to answer, and if they be convict, they shall abide in prison without bail, till they have made fine to the king and gree to the party grieved; and before they be delivered, they shall make full renunciation, and find surety that they shall not attempt such things in time to come. And if they cannot be found, the exigent shall go against them. 2. By the 38 Ed. 3. st. 2. To cease the perils that shall happen, because of provisions of benefices; it is ordained, that all persons obtaining such provisions, shall be punished according to the aforesaid statute of the 25 Ed. 3. and they who cannot be attached, if they appear not in two months, shall be punishedaccording to the statute of provisors of the 27 Ed. 3. c. 1. (hereafter following)

3. By the 12 R. 2. c. 15. No person shall pass or send out of. the realm, without the king's licence, to provide for himself a benefice; on pain that such proviso shall be out of the king's protection, and the benefice to be void.

4. And by the 13 R. 2. st. 2. c. 2. If any shall accept a bene-fice contrary to the statute of the 25 Ed. 3. st. 6. he shall be banished out of the realm for ever, and his lands and goods forfeited to the king.

5. By the 3 R. 2. c. 3. No person shall take to ferm any benefice of an alien, without the king's licence: nor shall convey money out of the realm for such ferm, on pain of being punished as by the statute of provisors of the 27 Ed. 3.

6. And by the 7 R. 2. c. 12. If any alien shall purchase and occupy any benefice without the king's licence, he shall be comprised within the statute of the 3 R. 2. c. 3. and moreover shall [ 122 ] incur the forfeitures of the 25 Ed. 3. st. 5. c. 22. (that he shall be out of the king's protection.)

7. And finally, by the 16 R. 2. c. 5. which is the famous statute called the statute of præmunire; if any shall purchase or pursue, in the court of Rome or elsewhere, any translation of any prelate out of the realm, or from one bishoprick to another, he shall be put out of the king's protection, his lands and goods forfeit to the king, and shall be attached by his body if he may be found, and brought before the king and his council, there to answer, or else process to be made against him by præmunire facias, as in other statutes of provisors.

Shall be put out of the king's protection.] By these words, the persons attainted in a writ of præmunire, are disabled to have any action or remedy by the king's law or the king's writs; for the law and the king's writs are the things whereby a man is

protected and aided; so as he who is out of the king's protection is out of the aid and protection of the law. 3 Inst. 126.

VI. Appeals to Rome.

1. The statutes concerning the prohibition of appeals to Rome, are but declaratory of the ancient law of the realm. 4 Inst. 340, 341.

2. The first attempt of any appeal to the see of Rome out of England was by Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of William Rufus: and yet it took no effect. 4 Inst. 341.

And the same is opposed by the statutes following:

3. By the 27 Ed. 3. c. 1. called the statute of provisors, All the people of the king's ligeance, which shall draw any out of the realm in plea, whereof the cognizance pertaineth to the king's court, or of things whereof judgments be given in the king's court, or which do sue in any other court, to defeat or impeach the judgments given in the king's court, shall have a day containing the space of two months by warning to be made to them, to appear before the king and his council, or in his chancery, or before the king's justices of the one bench or the other, to answer to the king for the contempt. And if they come not at the day to be at the law, they, their procurators, attornies, executors, notaries and maintainers, shall be put out of the king's protection, and their lands and goods forfeit to the king, and their bodies [123] (wheresoever they may be found) shall be taken and imprisoned and ransomed at the king's will: And upon the same a writ shall be made to take them by their bodies, and to seize their lands and goods into the king's hands; and if it be returned that they be not found, they shall be put in exigent and outlawed.

4. By the 38 Ed. 3. st. 2. To cease the perils that shall happen, because of citations out of the court of Rome, upon causes whose cognizance pertaineth to the king's court, it is ordained, that all persons obtaining such citations shall be punished according to the statute of the 25 Ed. 3. st. 6. (above recited); and they who cannot be attached, if they appear not in two months, shall be punished according to the aforesaid statute of provisors. And the king, clergy, and laity do mutually engage to stand by one another in defence of this act.

5. By the 13 R. 2. st. 2. c. 3. If any person shall bring or send into the realm any summons, sentences, or excommunications against any person for executing the statute of provisors, he shall be imprisoned, and forfeit his lands and goods, and incur the pain of life and member: And if any prelate make execution thereof, his temporalties shall be taken into the king's hands; and if any person of less estate than a prelate make such execu

tion, he shall be imprisoned, and make fine and ransom by the discretion of the king's council.

6. By the statute of præmunire, 16 R. 2. c. 5. If any shall purchase or pursue, in the court of Rome or elsewhere, any processes, sentences of excommunication, bulls or instruments, against any persons executing judgments in the king's courts, or shall bring within the realm or receive the same, he shall be put out of the king's protection, his lands and goods forfeit to the king, and shall be attached by his body if he may be found, and brought before the king and his counsel there to answer, or else process to be made against him by præmunire facias, as in other statutes of provisors.

Or elsewhere.] It hath been said, that suits in the ecclesiastical courts within this realm are within these words, if they concern matters, the cognizance whereof belongs to the common law ;: as where a bishop deprives an incumbent of a donative, or excommunicates a man for hunting in his parks. 1 Haw. 51.

But it seemeth that a suit in those courts, for a matter which appears not by the libel itself, but only by the defendant's plea or other matter subsequent, to be of temporal cognizance (as where [124] a plaintiff libels for tithes, and the defendant pleads that they were severed from the nine parts, by which they became a lay fee), is not within the statute; because it appears not that either the plaintiff or the judge knew that they were severed. 1 Haw. 52.

7. Finally, by the 24 H. 8. c. 12. All causes testamentary, causes of matrimony, and divorces, rights of tithes, oblations, and obventions (the knowledge whereof by the goodness of princes of this realm, and by the laws and custom of the same, appertaineth to the spiritual jurisdiction of this realm) shall be determined within the king's jurisdiction and authority, and not elsewhere; any foreign inhibitions, appeals, sentences, summons, citations, suspensions, interdictions, excommunications, restraints, judgments, or other process, or impediments whatsoever notwithstanding. And all spiritual persons shall and may use, minister, and execute all divine services, any foreign citations, processes, inhibitions, suspensions, interdictions, excommunications, or appeals touching any the causes aforesaid, from or to the see of Rome, or any other foreign prince or court, to the contrary notwithstanding: And if they shall, by the occasion thereof, refuse to minister the same, they shall be imprisoned for a year, and make fine and ransom at the king's pleasure.

And if any person in any of the causes aforesaid, shall attempt to procure from the see of Rome or elsewhere, any foreign process or other the instruments abovementioned, or execute any of the same, or do any thing to the hindrance of any process, sentence, judgment, or determination in any courts of this realm,