The works of Francis Bacon, lord chancellor of England.

AN
ACCOUNT OF THE LATELY ERECTED SERVICE,
CALLED THE OFFICE OF
COMPOSITIONS FOR ALIENATIONS.
WRITTEN [ABOUT THE CLOSE OF 1598] BY MR. FRANCIS BACON,
AND PUBLISHED FROMI A MS. IN THE INNER-TEMPLE LIBRARY.
The sundry ALL the finances or revenues of the I per for them; and the fines for all original writs,
sorts of the imperial crown of this realm of Eng- and for causes that pass the great seal, were wont
land be either extraordinary or ordinary. to be immediately paid into the hanaper
Those extraordinary be fifteenths and tenths, of the chancery; howbeit, now of late The hanaper.
subsidies, loans, benevolences, aids, and such years, all the sums which are due, either for any
others of that kind, that have been or shall be writ of covenant, or of other sort, whereupon a
invented for supportation of the charges of war; final concord is to be levied in the common bench,
the which, as it is entertained by diet, so can it or for any writ of entry, whereupon a common
not be long maintained by the ordinary fiscal and recovery is to be suffered there; as also all sums
receipt. demandable, either for license of alienation to be
Of these that be ordinary, some are certain and made of lands holden in chief, or for the pardon
standing, as the yearly rents of the demesne or of any such alienation, already made without
lands; being either of the ancient possessions license, together with the mean profits that be
of the crown, or of the later augmentations of forfeited for that offence and trespass, have been
the same. stayed in the way to the hanaper, and been let to
Likewise the fee-farms reserved upon charters farm, upon assurance of three hundred pounds of
granted to cities and towns corporate, and the yearly standing profit, to be increased
blanch rents and. lath silver answered by the over and above that casual commoo- derivedoutof
sheriffs. The residue of these ordinary finances dity, that was found to be answered iehanaer.
be casual, or uncertain, as be the escheats and in the hanaper for them, in the ten years, one
forfeitures, the customs, butlerage, and impost, with another, next before the making of the same
the advantages coming by the jurisdiction of the lease.
courts of record and clerks of the market, the And yet so as that yearly rent of increase is
temporalities of vacant bishoprics, the profits that now still paid into the hanaper by four gross porgrow by the tenures of lands, and such like, if tions, not altogether equal, in the four usual open
there any be. terms of St. Michael, and St. Hilary, of Easter,
And albeit that both the one sort and other of and the Holy Trinity, even as the former casualty
these be at the last brought unto that office of her itself was wont to be, in parcel meal, brought in
majesty's exchequer, which we, by a metaphor, and answered there.
The pipe. do call the pipe, as the civilians do by And now forasmuch as the only mat- The nameof
a like translation marne it fiscUzs, a ter and subject about which this far- theoffice.
basket or bag, because the whole receipt is finally mer or his deputies are employed, is to rate or
conveyed into it by the means of divers small compound the sums of money payable to her
pipes or quills, as it were water into a great head majesty, for the alienation of lands that are either
or cistern; yet, nevertheless, some of the same be made without license, or to be made by license,
first and immediately left in other several places if they be holden in chief, or to pass for common
and courts, from whence they are afterwards car- recovery, or by final concord to be levied, though
ried by silver streams, to make up that great they be not so holden, their service may therefore
lake, or sea, of money. very aptly and agreeably be termed the office of
As for example, the profits of wards and their compositions for alienations. Whether the adlands be answered into that court which is pro- vancement of her majesty's commodity in this
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