Middlemen in English Business 143 



The Statute of Regrators is so usid that in many quarters of these partes it will 

 do little good; and in some parts, where as license by the Justices wiU not be 

 grauntyd, the people are mouche offended, that they should not, as well as others, 

 bagge, as they were wont to do.' 



So many licenses were issued that ten years later the statute was 

 amended and further limitations laid by way of qualifications for 

 those eligible to hcense. The amendment states that 



'Such a great Number of Persons seeking only to live easily, and to leave their 

 honest labour, have and do daily seeke to be allowed and licensed to the said Offices 

 and Doings, being most unfit and unmeet for those purposes, and also very hurtful 

 to the Commonwealth of this Realm, as well as by the inhauncing of the Prices of 

 Com .... as also by diminishing of the Number of good and necessary 

 Husbandmen. 2 



These allegations have scarcely a pith of economic truth in them as 

 reasons for reducing the number of badgers; nevertheless, on the basis 

 of these assumptions, hereafter no one was to be licensed who had not 

 lived the previous three years in the county in which he would be 

 licensed, who was not married, and who was not a householder rather 

 than a servant or retainer to another person. The time of the license 

 was restricted to one year,^ and provision was made whereby a badger 

 might procure a special license for buying "Corn or Grain out of 

 open Fair or Market to sell again" but this license had to contain 

 " special and express words . . . that he . . . may do so."* 

 A slight fee was charged for the license and a register kept of all 

 licenses issued. 



Such was the legislation which existed a centur\' later, in 1660. 

 During this century the system seems to have operated quite uni- 

 formily, trade fell in with the license system, custom mollified the 

 erratic features, and the business of the market and fair was done in 

 generaP in the prescribed public and open way. But immediately 

 after the Restoration the system began to break and lose its customary 

 grip. In 1663 Charles II enacted a law^ for the encouragement of 

 agriculture, (a) permitting exportation of corn when the prices of 



' Strype, Cranmer, II, 628. 



- 5 Eliz., Cap. 12, Sec. 3. 



3 Ibid., Sec. 4. 



abid.. Sec. 7. 



'•' The law was not rigidly enforced. In times of dearth a sort of public recog- 

 nition was given the regrator; see Book of Orders, extensive quotations from which 

 are given in Leonard, 318-26. 



<■> 15 Chas. II, Cap. 7. 



