3.
**** They assert, in the fifteenth of this reign, that there had been such instances.

Cotton's Abridg.p.31.They repeat the same in the twenty-first year.

See p.

59.
But there is no article in which the laws are more frequently repeated during this reign, almost in the same terms, than that of purveyance which the parliament always calls an outrageous and intolerable grievance, and the source of infinite damage to the people.[*] The parliament tried to abolish this prerogative altogether, by prohibiting any one from taking goods without the consent of the owners,[**] and by changing the heinous name of purveyors, as they term it, into that of buyers;[***] but the arbitrary conduct of Edward still brought back the grievance upon them, though contrary both to the Great Charter and to many statutes.

This disorder was in a great measure derived from the state of the public finances, and of the kingdom; and could therefore the less admit of remedy.