A SPEECH TOUCHING PURVEYORS. 5 



we cannot but with great thankfulness profess, that 

 your majesty, within the circle of one year of your 

 reign, &quot; infra orbem anni vertentis,&quot; hath endea 

 voured to unite your Church, which was divided ; 

 to supply your nobility, which was diminished ; and 

 to ease your people in cases where they were bur 

 dened and oppressed. 



In the last of these your high merits, that is, the 

 ease and comfort of your people, doth fall out to be 

 comprehended the message which I now bring unto 

 your majesty, concerning the great grievance arising 

 by the manifold abuses of purveyors, differing in 

 some degree from most of the things wherein we 

 deal and consult ; for it is true, that the knights, 

 citizens, and burgesses, in parliament assembled, are 

 a representative body of your Commons and third 

 estate ; and in many matters, although we apply 

 ourselves to perform the trust of those that chose us, 

 yet it may be, we do speak much out of our own 

 senses and discourses. But in this grievance, being 

 of that nature whereunto the poor people is most 

 exposed, and men of quality less, we shall most 

 humbly desire your majesty to conceive, that your 

 majesty doth not hear our opinions or senses, but 

 the very groans and complaints themselves of your 

 Commons more truly and vively, than by represen 

 tation. For there is no grievance in your kingdom 

 so general, so continual, so sensible, and so bitter 

 unto the common subject, as this whereof we now 

 speak ; wherein it may please your majesty to vouch 

 safe me leave, first, to set forth unto you the dutiful 



