Wiltshire Quarter Sessions. 



337 



and forbade the dyeing of any wool which had not been perfectly 

 woaded, boiled and maddered .... according to the ancient 

 " workmanship in time past used." Minute restrictions and pro- 

 hibitions were laid upon the clothiers, the due enforcement of which 

 was secured by the annual appointment of overseers in every town 

 or village in which cloth was manufactured. The detective energies 

 of these officers, and the critical faculties of the acting magistrate, 

 were simultaneously stimulated by an ingenious expedient. It was 

 provided that any piece of contraband cloth should be divided into 

 three parts : of these one was allotted to the King, a second to the 

 person presenting it, i.e., the informer, the remaining third part to 

 the person to whom it was presented, i.e., the magistrate by whom 

 it was condemned. 



The manufacturers were evidently harassed and impeded by the 

 severity of these requiiements, and it probably fell out, as in the 

 preceding reign, that : — 



" Upon these taxations 

 The clothiers all, not able to maintain 

 The many to them 'longing, have put off 

 The spinsters, carders, fullers, weavers, who 

 Unfit for other life, compelled by hunger 

 And lack of other means . . are all in uproar." 



At all events an Act of Philip and Mary recites that <( divers 

 clothiers found themselves aggrieved alledging that it is un possible 

 for them to observe the same Act [of E. 6] in all points and have 

 . . prayed some mitigation thereof/'' which mitigation Parlia- 

 ment proceeded in some measure to administer. 



Apart from this aspect of the matter, the Act of Philip and Mary 

 is interesting as containing an inventory of the only colours per- 

 missible in any cloths "put to sale within the realm of England." 

 These were, " scarlet, red, crimson, morrey, violet, pewke, brown-blue 

 [a remarkable shade], black, green, yellow, blue, orange, tawney, 

 russet, marble gray, sad new colour [a distinctly precious tint] , 

 azure, watchet, sheeps colour, lion colour, motley, iron gray, fryer's 

 gray, crane colour, purple, and old medley colour." 



Elizabeth carried on the legislation ; but her hand was heavier 



