Note 275 — ACT II., SCENE I.

When the king visited the different parts of the country.

When the court made those excursions, which were called Progresses, to the seats of the nobility and gentry, waggons and other carriages were impressed for the purpose of conveying the king's baggage, &c.—Pegge.

This privilege in the crown was continued until the civil wars in the reign of Charles the First, and had been exercised in a manner very oppressive to the subject, insomuch that it frequently became the object of Parliamentary complaint and regulation. During the suspension of monarchy it fell into disuse, and King Charles II at the Restoration consented, for a consideration, to relinquish this as well as all other powers of purveyance and pre-emption. Accordingly, by stat. 12, Car. II. c. xxiv. s. 12, it was declared that no officer should in future take any cart, carriage, or other thing, nor summon or require any person to furnish any horses, oxen, or other cattle, carts, ploughs, wains, or other carriages, for any of the royal family, without the full consent of the owner. An alteration of this act was made the next year, wherein the rates were fixed which should be paid on these occasions, and other regulations were made for preventing the abuse of this prerogative.