way. But sweeping measures
have never found favour in England. There has ever been in English
legislation, even when most reforming, that temperate spirit of equity
which has refused to visit the sins of centuries upon a single generation.
The statute limited its accusations to the points which it was designed to
correct, and touched these with a hand firmly gentle.

"Whereas great numbers of the king's subjects," says the preamble, "as well
men, wives, servants, or others dwelling in divers dioceses of the realm of
England and Wales, heretofore have been at many times called by citations
and other processes compulsory to appear in the Arches, Audience, and other
high Courts of the archbishops of this realm, far from and out of the
dioceses where such persons are inhabitant and dwelling; and many times to
answer to surmised and feigned causes and matters, which have been sued
more for vexation and malice than from any just cause of suit; and when
certificate hath been made by the sumners, apparitors, or any such light
litterate persons, that the party against whom such citations have been
awarded hath been cited or summoned; and thereupon the same party so
certified to be cited or summoned hath not appeared according to the
certificate, the same party therefore hath been excommunicated, or, at the
least, suspended from all divine service; and thereupon, before that he or
she could be absolved, hath been compelled, not only to pay the fees of the
court whereunto he or she was so called, amounting to the sum of two
shillings, or twenty pence at the least; but also to pay to the sumner, for
every mile distant from the place where he or she then dwelled unto the
same court whereunto he or she was summoned to appear, twopence; to the
great charge and impoverishment of the king's subjects, and to the great
occasion of misbehaviour of wives, women, and servants, and to the great
impairment and diminution of their good names and honesties--be it
enacted----" We ask what?--looking with impatience for some large measure
to follow these solemn accusations; and we find parliament contenting
itself with forbidding the bishops, under heavy penalties, to cite any man
out of his own diocese, except for specified causes (heresy being one of
them), and with limiting the fees which were to be taken by the officers of
the courts.[347] It could hardly be said that in this parliament there was
any bitter spirit against the church. This act sho