s to be repeopled with English people for
"defence of the King's auncien ennemyes of the realme of Fraunce."

In 1491 all Scots are to depart the realm within forty days upon pain
of forfeiture of all their goods; it is not recorded that any remained
in England. In 1491 Henry VII levied an amazingly heavy tax upon
personal property, that is to say, two fifteenths and tenths upon all
"movable goodes cattales and othre thinges usuelly to suche xvmes and
xmes contributory," with the exception of Cambridge and a few other
favored towns. In 1495 the famous Oklahoma statute is anticipated by a
law regulating abuses in the stuffing of feather beds.

In 1503 a statute recites that the "Longe Bowes hathe ben moche used
in this his Realme, wherby Honour & Victorie hathe ben goten ... and
moche more drede amonge all Cristen Princes by reasone of the same,
whiche shotyng is now greatly dekayed." So this mediaeval Kipling
laments that they now delight in cross-bows to the great hurt and
enfeebling of the Realm and to the comfort of outward enemies,
wherefore cross-bows are forbidden except to the lords, on penalty of
forfeiture of the bow.

(1509) The reign of Henry VIII was one of personal government; and
in those days personal government resulted in a small output of
law-making by Parliament. Indeed, after 1523, under Cardinal Wolsey,
Parliament was not summoned for seven years. In 1539 the attempt to do
without popular legislation is shown in the act already referred to,
giving royal proclamations of the king and council the force of law, a
definite attempt at personal government which might have resulted in
the establishment of an administrative law fashioned by the executive,
had it not been for the sturdy opposition of the people under weaker
reigns. But under the reign of Henry VIII also the great right of free
speech in Parliament was established; and in 1514 the king manumitted
two villeins with the significant words "Whereas God created all
men free," vulgarly supposed to be original with our Declaration of
Independence.

The important principle of a limitation for prosecutions by the
government for penal offences dates from the first year of Henry
VIII, the period being put, as it still is, at three years; and it is
expressed to be for better peace and justice and to avoid the taking
up of old charges after the evidence has disappeared.

In 1515 is another act of apparel providing, among other things, that
the king