Note 704 — PART IV. From the Reformation to the present time. (continued 2)

Those Licences and Dispensations seem to have been no longer at the disposal or option of the parish ministers, for there was an office in London opened expressly for that purpose, as we find by an advertisement which appeared in the said Mercurius Publicus of Feb. 26. 1662, and the two following weeks, and which was expressed as follows—“An advertisement—The Faculties Office for granting Licenses (by Act of Parliament) to eat flesh in any part of England, is still kept at Paul’s-Chain, near St. Paul’s Church-yard.” The present writer cannot find when this notable office was first opened, or how long it existed, but thinks it not very likely that it was laid by, or shut up before the revolution.