hall cause such idle person so to him
brought, to be had to the next market town or other place, and there to be
tied to the end of a cart, naked, and be beaten with whips throughout the
same town till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after
such punishment of whipping had, the person so punished shall be enjoined
upon his oath to return forthwith without delay, in the next and straight
way, to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the
same punishment, by the space of three years; and then put himself to
labour like a true man ought to do; and after that done, every such person
so punished and ordered shall have a letter, sealed with the seal of the
hundred, rape, or wapentake, witnessing that he hath been punished
according to this estatute, and containing the day and place of his
punishment, and the place where unto he is limited to go, and by what time
he is limited to come thither: for that within that time, showing the said
letter, he may lawfully beg by the way, and otherwise not; and if he do not
accomplish the order to him appointed by the said letter, then to be
eftsoons taken and whipped; and so often as there be fault found in him, to
be whipped till he has his body put to labour for his living, or otherwise
truly get his living, so long as he is able to do so."

Then follow the penalties against the justices of the peace, constables,
and all officers who neglect to arrest such persons; and a singularly
curious catalogue is added of certain forms of "sturdy mendicancy," which,
if unspecified, might have been passed over as exempt, but to which Henry
had no intention of conceding further licence. It seems as if, in framing
the Act, he had Simon Fish's petition before him, and was commencing at
last the rough remedy of the cart's-tail, which Fish had dared to recommend
for a very obdurate evil.[78] The friars of the mendicant orders were
tolerated for a few years longer; but many other spiritual persons may have
suffered seriously under the provisions of the present statute.

"Be it further enacted," the Act continues, "that scholars of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, that go about begging, not being
authorised under the seal of the said universities, by the commissary,
chancellor, or vice-chancellor of the same; and that all and singular
shipmen pretending losses of their ships and goods, going about the country
begging without sufficient authority, shall be pun