CHAP.
III.

On the 30th of March the allowance for wages was confirmed as in former parlia1640. ments, thirteen fhillings and four pence for knights, ten fhillings for citizens, and fix and eight pence for burgeffes, ten days before and ten days after parliament. In England it appears from Prynne's treatise de expenfis militum, that members' wages lafted in proportion to the time necessary for travelling from the district they reprefented to the place where parliament was affembled. This payment of wages was conftantly varying in England, because in early time parliament feldom met twice in the fame place. Thus the members of Cornish boroughs had a week's extra wages when parliament assembled at Westminster, and a fortnight's when they were convened at York,

A very extraordinary affair occupied the attention of the house this day: A complaint against fir Henry Wallop, the ancestor of the prefent earl of Portsmouth, who had exacted a custom of the thirteenth part of

all

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1640

all the timber paffing from Ennifurthy to CHAP. Wexford. This eftate, I believe, remains in the earl's family to this day. The exaction had been cenfured in the laft feffion the 4th of March one thoufand fix hundred and thirty-four, and he was now ordered to attend. A representation of this grievance was made to lord Strafford to inflic a proper legal punishment; and the exaction must have been very confiderable in thofe days; for, according to an excellent treatise written by Andrew Yarrandon at the time of the revolution, entitled Eng

land's Improvement by Sea and Land,” one of his projects is to make the river Slaney navigable, to afford an easy transport of the timber, from the oak forefts with which the counties of Wexford and Wicklow at that time abounded, for the use of the navy of England.

The declaration to the act for four fubfidies was this day agreed to, and announces their unanimous and cheerful consent to this grant for the reduction of the Scotch cove→

nanters :

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1640.

CHAP. nanters they defired it to be represented to the king, and published in print as a testimony to the whole world, that as they had the happiness to be governed by the best of kings, fo they are defirous to give his majefty juft caufe to account of his people among the best of his fubjects.

A writ was iffued this day by consent of Henry Dillon efq. for electing a member in his room for the county of Rofcommon, which makes the twelfth precedent of this fort on the journals.

On the ift of April one thousand fix hundred and forty the celebrated historian and antiquarian, fir James Ware, member for the university of Dublin, who appears to have been an active and useful member in all the parliaments fince one thousand fix hundred and thirteen, was ordered to collect ten fhillings from every knight, and five fhillings from every burgess; two thirds for the clerk and his affiftants, and a third for the ferjeant at arms and doorkeeper: this

III.

and fimilar contributions mark how very ill CHAP. paid the fervants were in ancient time, and the small produce of fees upon private 1640. bills.

The house then adjourned to the ift of June, and on the 5th of June a very important bill was under confideration for the remedy of defective titles to eftates.

On the 11th of June a new writ under the great feal was ordered for the returning of two members for Atherdee, in the county of Louth, and the sheriff was punished for a former omiffion.

On the 15th of June the house was occupied by the declaration, and in proposing arrangements with the lords about levying the fubfidies; from a farther declaration it appears, that the act of fubfidy and the preamble and declaration were supposed by some to be a mere act of lord Strafford's, as it afterwards turned out to be; and he feemed fo vain of this declaration, that it

was

CHAP. was ordered to be enrolled in the auditorgeneral's office, in the records of the Chan→ cery, and of the privy council.

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1640.

On this day a petition was presented to 1ord Strafford for the house to fit fome days longer, that they might hear and confider of certain grievances.

This seems not to have been relished by lord Strafford, who fent the very fame day a meffage by the ufher of the black rod for the house to attend him immediately, when parliament was prorogued, but not before the two following measures took place.

The first was, a letter from the speaker to the high commiffion court, to abfolve William Stout and Richard Fountain, who had been excommunicated in a cause promoted against them by one Holt, a priest, who had prefented a petition to the house; and secondly, an unanimous remonftrance to the lord lieutenant against certain exactions of

the