w ordaineth
this manner of correction. The rogue being apprehended, committed to
prison, and tried in the next assizes (whether they be of gaol delivery or
sessions of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond,
either by inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible
witnesses upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be
grievously whipped and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a
hot iron of the compass of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked
life, and due punishment received for the same.[172] And this judgment is
to be executed upon him except some honest person worth five pounds in the
queen's books in goods, or twenty shillings in land, or some rich
householder to be allowed by the justices, will be bound in recognisance
to retain him in his service for one whole year. If he be taken the second
time, and proved to have forsaken his said service, he shall then be
whipped again, bored likewise through the other ear, and set to service:
from whence if he depart before a year be expired, and happen afterwards
to be attached again, he is condemned to suffer pains of death as a felon
(except before excepted) without benefit of clergy or sanctuary, as by the
statute doth appear. Among rogues and idle persons, finally, we find to be
comprised all proctors that go up and down with counterfeit licences,
cozeners, and such as gad about the country, using unlawful games,
practisers of physiognomy and palmestry, tellers of fortunes, fencers,
players, minstrels, jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretended scholars,
shipmen, prisoners gathering for fees, and others so oft as they be taken
without sufficient licence. From among which company our bearwards are not
excepted, and just cause: for I have read that they have, either
voluntarily or for want of power to master their savage beasts, been
occasion of the death and devouration of many children in sundry countries
by which they have passed, whose parents never knew what was become of
them. And for that cause there is and have been many sharp laws made for
bearwards in Germany, whereof you may read in other. But to our rogues.
Each one also that harboureth or aideth them with meat or money is taxed
and compelled to fine with the queen's majesty for every time that he doth
succour them as it shall please the justices of peace to assign, so that
the taxation exceed not twenty, as I have been informed. And thus much of
the po