Note 237 — Chapter IV · TEXTILES.

The Council ordered the Justices of the Peace for the counties of Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Gloucester, Worcester, Oxford, Kent and Suffolk, to summon clothiers and “deale effectually with them for the employment of such weavers, spinners and other persons, as are now out of work.... We may not indure that the cloathiers ... should att their pleasure, and without giving knowledge thereof unto this Boarde, dismisse their workefolkes, who being many in number and most of them of the poorer sort are in such cases likely by their clamour to disturb the quiet and government of those partes wherein they live.” (C.R., 9th Feb., 1621-2.)