the said
laws; ne any of the said laws have been declared unto them in the English
tongue, or otherwise published, by knowledge whereof they might have
eschewed the penalties, dangers, or censures of the same; which laws so
made your said most humble and obedient servants, under the supportation of
your Majesty, suppose to be not only to the diminution and derogation of
your imperial jurisdiction and prerogative royal, but also to the great
prejudice, inquietation, and damage of your said subjects.

"II. Also now of late there hath been devised by the Most Reverend Father
in God, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, that in the courts which he
calleth his Courts of the Arches and Audience, shall only be ten proctors
at his deputation, which be sworn to preserve and promote the only
jurisdiction of his said courts; by reason whereof, if any of your lay
subjects should have any lawful cause against the judges of the said
courts, or any doctors or proctors of the same, or any of their friends
and adherents, they can ne may in nowise have indifferent counsel: and
also all the causes depending in any of the said courts may by the
confederacy of the said few proctors be in such wise tracted and delayed,
as your subjects suing in the same shall be put to importable charges,
costs, and expense. And further, in case that any matter there being
preferred should touch your crown, your regal jurisdiction, and
prerogative Royal, yet the same shall not be disclosed by any of the
said proctors for fear of the loss of their offices. Your most obedient
subjects do therefore, under protection of your Majesty, suppose that
your Highness should have the nomination of some convenient number of
proctors to be always attendant upon the said Courts of Arches and
Audience, there to be sworn to the preferment of your jurisdiction and
prerogative, and to the expedition of the causes of your lay subjects
repairing and suing to the same.

"III. And also many of your said most humble and obedient subjects, and
_specially those that be of the poorest sort_, within this your Realm, be
daily convented and called before the said spiritual ordinaries, their
commissaries and substitutes, _ex officio_; sometimes, at the pleasure of
the said ordinaries, for malice without any cause; and sometimes at the
only promotion and accusement of their summoners and apparitors, being
light and undiscreet persons; without any lawful cause of accusation, or
credible fam