[275] Egerton MSS. 2644. Copy of a set of orders sent by Henry Mildmay to the justices of a division of Essex. It is signed by Burghley and other Lords of the Privy Council, and states that the orders issued in Jan. of the 29th year of the Queen's reign were now renewed and that these justices were to meet and put them in execution.
[276] "Par sa devise demesne." _Les Reportes del Cases in Camera Stellata_, 1593-1609, John Hawarde, edited by W. P. Baildon, F.S.A., p. 19. Hawarde was a barrister of the Middle Temple: he wrote his volumes from rough notes taken in Court, but does not seem to have verified his references. _Ib._ Introd. p. vii.
[277] The Lord Treasurer and Lord Keeper.
[278] _Les Reportes_ (_l.c._) p. 21. June 3rd, 1595. On July 1st, 1596, the justices were again addressed and ordered to return home "in regarde of eminent daungers." _Ib._ p. 56.
[279] A. Hamilton, _Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne_, p. 17.
[280] Hamilton, _Quarter Sessions_, p. 16.
[281] Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. No. 32092, f. 145. See Appendix.
The Earl of Bath received letters concerning the high prices of corn at Barnstaple and "he with other justices came to town, viewed the market and set the price upon corn there, to wit wheat 9_s._, rye 6_s._, barley 5_s._, oats 2_s._, threatening the seller with duress if he sold for above that price[282]." Very little grain was to be had even at high prices, and a Mr Stanbury was deputed to go to London in order that he might help to purchase corn for the town. "God speed him well," writes Wyot, "that he may procure some corn for the inhabitants of this town in this time of scarcity, that there is but little cometh to the market and such snatching and catching for that little and such a cry that the like was never heard." Barnstaple was not, however, at the end of its troubles[283]; in 1597 wheat was sold at 15_s._ and 20_s._ the bushel, and many of the inhabitants must have starved.
[282] In May 1596 the price of wheat at Barnstaple was 11_s._, rye and barley 8_s._, oats 2_s._ 4_d._ "whereupon upon letters sent to the Earl of Bath" presumably from the Council, he set the prices mentioned in the text. _Barnstaple Records North Devon Herald_, June 3rd, 1880, quoting from Wyot's Diary. Wyot's Diary is described as a small quarto book of 52 leaves purporting to contain extracts from an older manuscript. It was copied by William Palmer in the seventeenth century, from the diary of Philip Wyot, who was Town Clerk between 1586 to 1608. _Ib._ April 22nd, 1880.