.[*]

Purveyance and preemption were also methods of taxation, unequal,
arbitrary, and oppressive. The whole kingdom sensibly felt the burden of
those impositions; and it was regarded as a great privilege conferred
on Oxford and Cambridge, to prohibit the purveyors from taking
any commodities within five miles of these universities. The queen
victualled her navy by means of this prerogative, during the first years
of he reign.[**]

Wardship was the most regular and legal of all these impositions by
prerogative; yet was it a great badge of slavery and oppressive to all
the considerable families. When an estate devolved to a female, the
sovereign obliged her to marry anyone he pleased: whether the heir were
male or female, the crown enjoyed the whole profit of the estate during
the minority. The giving of a rich wardship was a usual method of
rewarding a courtier or favorite.

The inventions were endless which arbitrary power might employ for the
extorting of money, while the people imagined that their property was
secured by the crown's being debarred from imposing taxes. Strype has
preserved a speech of Lord Burleigh to the queen and council, in which
are contained some particulars not a little extraordinary.[***]

* Strype's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 137.

** Camden, p. 388.

*** Annals, vol. iv. p. 234 et seq.

Burleigh proposes, that she should erect a court for the correction
of all abuses, and should confer on the commissioners a general
inquisitorial power over the whole kingdom. He sets before her the
example of her wise grandfather, Henry VII., who by such methods
extremely augmented his revenue; and he recommends that this new court
should proceed, "as well by the direction and ordinary course of the
laws, as by virtue of her majesty's supreme regiment and absolute power,
from whence law proceeded." In a word, he expects from this institution
greater accession to the royal treasure than Henry VIII. derived from
the abolition of the abbeys, and all the forfeitures of ecclesiastical
revenues. This project of Lord Burleigh's needs not, I think, any
comment. A form of government must be very arbitrary indeed, where a
wise and good minister could make such a proposal to the sovereign.

Embargoes on merchandise was another engine of royal power, by which the
English princes were able to extort money from the people. We have seen
instances in the reign of Mary. Elizabeth, before her coronation, issue