[Footnote 28: 6 Hen. VIII., c. 9; 27 Hen. VIII., c. 12. In view of what will be said later, it may be noticed that, in the first of these statutes, regulations were laid down regarding the delivery of wool, by clothiers, for breaking, combing, carding and spinning, and the amounts of wool or yarn to be redelivered by workpeople.] [Footnote 29: Baines, _History of the Cotton Manufacture_, p. 96.] [Footnote 30: _The Itinerary of John Leland_, edited by Thomas Hearne (1711), vii., p. 41.] Until the middle of the century it appears that the manufacture of cottons was unregulated, but in 1551 a comprehensive statute was passed relating to the manufacture of cloth throughout the country, and “all and everie cottonnes called Manchester Lancashire and Cheshire Cottonnes” and “all cloths called Manchester Rugges otherwise named Friezes” were included within its scope.[31] By the regulations of this statute, the lengths, breadths and weights of these cloths were fixed, and also the amount of stretching to which they could be subjected. After this time the regulations were continued and modified in numerous statutes enacted during the remainder of the sixteenth century and in the early seventeenth century. [Footnote 31: 5 and 6 Edw. VI., c. 6.] The next important statute affecting the Lancashire cloth industry, however, was the Weavers’ Act of 1555.[32] The main purpose of this Act was to prevent the increase of clothiers outside corporate towns, and, to secure this end, country clothiers were forbidden to have more than one loom each in their possession, while country weavers were limited to two looms, and also to two apprentices. Every weaver had to serve a seven years’ apprenticeship, and no person not already engaged in weaving or in causing to be woven any kind of broad white woollen cloth was allowed to begin, except in towns or in places where such cloth had been commonly made for the last ten years. [Footnote 32: 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 11.] When the Act was passed, York, Cumberland, Northumberland and Westmorland were exempted from its provisions, but Lancashire was included. At this time the county was still largely a country district with a cloth industry that had not yet become famous, though there is much evidence that it was expanding. Consequently, had the Act remained unmodified, the development of the county and the expansion of its industry might have been seriously checked. Two years after its enactment, however, several additional counties were exempted from its provisions, except as regards apprenticeship, and Lancashire and Cheshire were included among them.[33] [Footnote 33: 4 and 5 Philip and Mary, c. 5. Ashley, _Economic History_ (1909), vol. i., pp. 233-235. Unwin, _Industrial Organisation in the XVIth and XVIIth Centuries_ (1904), pp. 92-93. In 1558-1559 and 1575-1576 other places were exempted, and in 1623-1624 the Act was finally repealed.]