nt aggression, he suffered no harm. The
citizens, indeed, were so assured of their rights in this particular,
that at some date--probably in the reign of Edward I.--an ordinance had
been passed:

"That if any member of the royal household, or any retainer of the
nobility, shall attempt to take possession of a house within the City
either by main force or by delivery [of the Marshal of the King's
Household]; and, if in such attempt he shall be slain by the master of
the house, then, and in such case, the master of the house, shall find
six of his kinsmen [i.e. as compurgators], who shall make oath, himself
making oath as the seventh, that it was for this reason that he so slew
the intruder; and thereupon he shall go acquitted."

PRE-EMPTION

The humbler people who escaped billeting might still have cause to
regret royal journeys owing to the inconsiderate exercise of the right
of pre-emption. Subjects were compelled to sell; and the worst of it was
that the King's purveyors were in the habit of paying not in cash down,
but by means of an exchequer tally, or a beating! A tally was a hazel
rod which had certain notches indicating the amount due. It obtained its
name from the circumstance that these rods were in pairs, the creditor
having one and the debtor the other, so that they could be used for the
purpose of comparison. In practice it was found no easy matter to
recover under this system, which lent itself to the worst exactions, and
is the subject of numerous complaints in our early popular poetry. Thus
in "King Edward and the Shepherd":

"I had catell, now have I none;
They take my beasts, and done them slon,
And payen but a stick of tree ...
They take geese, capons, and hen
And all that ever they may with ren
And reaves us our catell....
They took my hens and my geese
And my sheep with all the fleece
And led them forth away."

Somewhat similarly, when a ship arrived in port with a cargo of wine,
the prerogative of _prise_ was enforced, whereby the King was entitled
to "a tun before and one abaft the mast," or the equivalent in money.

The royal household and those of "the great lords of the land" enjoyed
the right of pre-emption not only in the country but in the London
markets. Dealers in fish, for example, were not allowed to quit the City
in order to meet a consignment "for the purpose of sending it to any
great lord or a house of religion, or of regrating it," until the King's