218 



Extracts from the Records of the 



death of the sovereign as a remedy for the high price of grain. 

 Yet the licensing laws were vigorously administered : they came 

 under the care alike of the county justices and the Privy Council; 

 and a man's neighbours were prompt enough to add the epithet of 

 " drunkard " to any complaint which they had in hand against 

 him. 



Some incurable topers there may have been who well deserved 

 anything that could be said of them. Among the presentments 

 made at the Trinity Sessions, 1604, is one of a party of extravagants 

 who revelled in metheglin — an intoxicating drink compounded of 

 honey : — 



" Whoe all did confesse that they had druncken iij q'tes before this exat came 

 to them and one q'te after and had eaten iirj cakes and did in the evening after 

 come to the house of the father of this exat and sayed that their drincke there 

 did taste like water in comparison of the metheglen." 



The alehouses were stringently dealt with. Witness an order of 

 the Trinity Sessions, 1603 : — 



'* Yt is ordered .... That all the Alehouses and comon victualinge 

 houses within the Borough of Devizes and Towne of Warminster .... 

 shalbe suppressed and putt downe savinge onely suche of them as had alowance 

 at the last gen'all Sessions .... And that Sir Henrye Baynton Knight 

 Alexander Tutt Esquier James Ley and Edmund Lambert Esq. Justices of the 

 Peace .... shall meete twixt this and the next Sessions That is to saie 

 Sir Henry Baynton and Alex Tutt in the Devizes afores d . and the fores d . James 

 Ley and Edmund Lambert in Warminster afores d . about the said business . . 

 • . And if it shalbe thought fitt . . . . that there should be in either of 

 the saide Townes any more p'sons as inhabite and dwell in and about the middest 

 of either the saide Townes convenient and fitt for that purpose as shalbe comended 

 unto them by the Maior and chiefe Burgesses of the saide Boroughe of the 

 Devizes and the constables Bayliffe or Hedd Officers of Warminster aforesaide 

 and all other either for number or place unnecessarye and inconvenient to p'hibite 

 and suppresse." 



The sort of testimonial which an intending publican relied on as 

 likely to satisfy the licensing magistrates may be conjectured from 

 the following specimen, on the roll of the Hilary Sessions, 1605-6, 

 penned by some sententious writer, dealing liberally in antithesis : — 



" Right Worshippfull forasmuch as, not onely in time of harvest but alsoe at 

 divers other seasons, uppon occasion some taskers and day labourers woulde 



