Part I

, pp. 428-429_], 1562.

Whereas heretofore the artificers of this realm of England (as well within the city of London as within other cities, towns and boroughs of the same realm) that is to wit, girdlers, cutlers, saddlers, glovers, point-makers, and such like handicraftsmen, have been in the said faculties greatly wrought, and greatly set on work, as well for the sustentation of themselves, their wives and families, as for a good education of a great part of the youth of this realm in good art and laudable exercise, besides the manifold benefits, that by means or by reason of their knowledges, inventions, and continual travel, daily and universally came to the whole estate of the commonwealth of this said realm:

II. Yet notwithstanding so now it is, that by reason of the abundance of foreign wares brought into this realm from the parts of beyond the seas, the said artificers are not only less occupied, and thereby utterly impoverished, the youth not trained in the said sciences and exercises, and thereby the said faculties, and the exquisite knowledges thereof, like in short time within this realm to decay; but also divers cities and towns within this realm of England much thereby impaired, the whole realm greatly endamaged, and other countries notably enriched, and the people thereof well set on work, to their commodities and livings, in the arts and sciences aforesaid, and to the great discouragement of skilful workmen of this realm, being in very deed nothing inferior to any stranger in the faculties aforesaid.

III. For reformation whereof, be it enacted by our sovereign lady the Queen's Highness, and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons of this present parliament assembled and by the authority of the same, that no person or persons whatsoever, from or after the feast of the Nativity of St. John Baptist now next ensuing, shall bring or cause to be brought into this realm of England from the parts of beyond the seas, any girdles, harness for girdles, rapiers, daggers, knives, hilts, pummels, lockets, chapes, dagger-blades, handles, scabbards, and sheaths for knives, saddles, horse-harness, stirrups, bits, gloves, points, leather-laces or pins, being ready made or wrought in any parts of beyond the seas, to be sold, bartered or exchanged within this realm of England or Wales; upon pain to forfeit all such wares so to be brought contrary to the true meaning of this act, in whose hands soever they or any of them shall be found, or the very value thereof. This act to continue and endure to the end of the next parliament.

8. AN ACT TOUCHING CLOTH-WORKERS AND CLOTHS READY WROUGHT TO BE SHIPPED OVER THE SEA [_8 Eliz. c. 6, Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV,