Page:The statutes of Wales (1908).djvu/268

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136
THE STATUTES OF WALES
[A.D. 1547

That his Highness Dominion and Principality of Wales, and all Manors, Lands, Tenements and other Dominions within the said Dominion and Principality of Wales, should be divided into twelve Shires or Counties, that is to say, the Shires or Counties of Glamorgan, Radnor, Brecknock, Caermarthen, Pembroke, Cardigan, Merioneth, Montgomery, Flint, Caernarvon, Anglesey, and Denbigh; in every of which said Counties and Shires, amongst the Officers yearly appointed, it was then ordained, that there should be distinct and several Sheriffs yearly; and also where the Counties Palatine of Chester, and of the City of Chester, be ancient and several Counties Palatine of themselves, in all which said Counties the King's Writ hath not nor yet doth run; so that the Proclamation awarded upon any Exigent against any Person or Persons in any Action wherein Process of Outlawry doth lie, according to the Statute made in the sixth Year of the Reign of the said late King, cannot be directed unto the Sheriff or Sheriffs of any of the said Shires or Counties, but unto the Sheriff of the County next adjoining; so that the Party dwelling in any of the said Shires or Counties against whom any such Exigent and Proclamation shall be so awarded, shall not nor can have any Knowledge of the same Suit or Process, by Reason whereof many of the Persons inhabiting in the said Shires and Counties, without Knowledge or Cause of Suit, have been wrongfully and unjustly outlawed to their utter Undoing.

2. Be it therefore, and for divers other good Considerations, by the King our Sovereign Lord, with the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority of the same, enacted, ordained and established, That if and whensoever, any Writ of Exigent at any Time after the first Day of April next coming, shall be awarded at the suit of the King, or of any Person or Persons, Plaintiff or Plaintiffs in any Action or Suit in any of the Courts of our said Sovereign Lord the King, his Heirs or Successors, commonly called the King's Bench and the Common Place, against any Person or Persons dwelling in any of the aforesaid Counties in Wales, or in the said Counties Palatine of Chester or of the City of Chester or in any of them, that then immediately upon the awarding of every such Exigent, the Justice or Justices before whom any such Writ of Exigent upon such Suit or Action shall be sued, shall have full Power and Authority to award one Writ of Proclamation according to the Tenor and Effect of Proclamations awarded upon