A decree issued in 1258 by the Council of State. It provided for the placing of the royal castles in the hands of English Governors, and for the summoning of Parliament three times a year. This document is noteworthy as being the first public document issued in the English language. Provisors, Statute of. A statute passed in the thirty-eighth year of Edward III (1365), and directed against the claim of the Pope to appoint to benefices in England. It confirmed a previous statute which enacted that the King and the Lords were to appoint to benefices of their own or their ancestors’ creation, and not the Pope of Rome, and further made the introduction of Papal Bulls and Briefs into the realm illegal. Prudhommes. Notable citizens elected, in the French towns in the twelfth century, to act as an advisory board to the provost or representative of the King. Pruth, Peace of the. A treaty between Russia and Turkey, signed in 1711, after the relief of Peter the Great, who had been besieged in Hush. It provided for the cession to Turkey of Azov, and the retirement of Charles XII to Sweden unmolested. It is also called the Treaty of Falczi. Pucelle, La. A sobriquet of Joan of Arc. Punishment Act. An Act passed by the British Parliament in 1836, at the instance of Lord Glenelg, which, after setting forth in the preamble that the Cape Colony was inhabited by “uncivilized persons,” proceeded to give the officers of the Crown power to arrest and bring to trial in Cape Town all British subjects dwelling south of the twenty-fifth parallel of latitude. It caused intense irritation in South Africa, especially in Natal, which was claiming to be erected into a separate British Colony, and refused to recognize the right of the Cape Government to enforce the law while affording them no protection against Kaffir and other enemies. Punjaub, Annexation of. Following on the victory of Gujerat, which closed the second Sikh war, the Punjaub was annexed in 1851, an arrangement being made to pay a life annuity of £50,000 to the Maharajah, Dhuleep Singh. Among the treasures which were surrendered to the British was the Koh-i-Noor. Purandhar, Treaty of. A treaty between the British and the Mahrattas, signed in 1776, by which the Treaty of Surat was annulled, Salsette being surrendered and Raghoba’s cause abandoned. This was due to the action of the Council of Bengal, which declared that the Treaty of Surat was unjust and inexpedient, and that the Bombay Council had acted _ultra vires_ in agreeing to it. Purveyance. The right claimed by the followers of the early Norman Kings who attended their lord during his progresses, to exact from the inhabitants such supplies as they might think fit, without payment. The abuses which grew out of this system were to some extent alleviated by Henry I, and the right was afterwards restricted by Magna Charta, and by the Statute of Stamford. Puseyites.