Note 132 — BOOK III THE COMPANIES

Wallace, ii. 84, gives the endorsed date omitted by Greenstreet and Fleay, as ‘Marti decimo quinto Decembris Anno xliiij Elizabeth Regine’; the date set down for trial is indicated as ‘p Octab Hillar’. This agrees with the time indication of the offence in the complaint itself as ‘about one yere last past, and since your maiesties last free and generall pardon’. The pardon referred to must be that of 1597–8 (39 Eliz. c. 28; cf. R. O. Statutes, iv. 952). There was another passed by the Parliament of 1601 (43 Eliz. c. 19; cf. Statutes, iv. 1010) for all offences prior to 7 Aug. 1601, but presumably this was not yet law when the complaint was drawn. The Parliament sat to 19 December. Clifton, however, was only just in time.