"That if any member of the royal household, or any retainer of the nobility, shall attempt to take possession of a house within the City either by main force or by delivery [of the Marshal of the King's Household]; and, if in such attempt he shall be slain by the master of the house, then, and in such case, the master of the house, shall find six of his kinsmen [i.e. as compurgators], who shall make oath, himself making oath as the seventh, that it was for this reason that he so slew the intruder; and thereupon he shall go acquitted." PRE-EMPTION The humbler people who escaped billeting might still have cause to regret royal journeys owing to the inconsiderate exercise of the right of pre-emption. Subjects were compelled to sell; and the worst of it was that the King's purveyors were in the habit of paying not in cash down, but by means of an exchequer tally, or a beating! A tally was a hazel rod which had certain notches indicating the amount due. It obtained its name from the circumstance that these rods were in pairs, the creditor having one and the debtor the other, so that they could be used for the purpose of comparison. In practice it was found no easy matter to recover under this system, which lent itself to the worst exactions, and is the subject of numerous complaints in our early popular poetry. Thus in "King Edward and the Shepherd": "I had catell, now have I none; They take my beasts, and done them slon, And payen but a stick of tree ... They take geese, capons, and hen And all that ever they may with ren And reaves us our catell.... They took my hens and my geese And my sheep with all the fleece And led them forth away." Somewhat similarly, when a ship arrived in port with a cargo of wine, the prerogative of _prise_ was enforced, whereby the King was entitled to "a tun before and one abaft the mast," or the equivalent in money. The royal household and those of "the great lords of the land" enjoyed the right of pre-emption not only in the country but in the London markets. Dealers in fish, for example, were not allowed to quit the City in order to meet a consignment "for the purpose of sending it to any great lord or a house of religion, or of regrating it," until the King's purveyors had first purchased what was required for their master's table. When fish had been brought to the City, no fishmonger might buy "before the good people have bought what they need." It was the same with poultry. Until prime had been sounded at St. Paul's, poulterers were forbidden to buy for resale, the object being that "the buyers for the King and great lords of the land, and the good people of the City may make good their purchases, so far as they shall need." LIVERY