[172] Hale, Crim.  Prec., 145 ("Dominus decrevit scribendum fore regie majestate pro corporis capcione [etc.].”  The threat subdued the excommunicate, for 15 days later “solutis xxxiiis.... pro expensis contumacie,” absolution was given, and penance enjoined. 1562). Ibid., 172 (Similar threat, we do not hear of the outcome).  Cf.  R.W.  Merriam, Extracts from Wilts Quarter Sess.  In Wilts Arch. and Nat.  Hist.  Mag., xxii (1885), 20 (Affray because of an arrest under the writ. 1604).  See also Whitgift’s note to his bishops in 1583, Cardwell, Doc.  Ann., i, 404-6 ("If the ordinarie shall perceave that, either by slackness of the justices or waywardness of juries,” recusants cannot be indicated at quarter sessions, then the ordinary shall, after first trying persuasion, excommunicate the culprits, and after forty days procure the writ against them).  Bancroft writes, March, 1605, that he will use his “uttermost endeavour” to aid his suffragans in procuring the writ, and in having it faithfully and speedily served.  Cardwell, Doc.  Ann., ii, 80.  Cf. also the satirical single-sheet, published June, 1641, entitled The Pimpes Prerogative ... a Dialogue between Pimp-Major Pig and Ancient Whiskin, in Brit.  Mus. Coll. of Polit. and Personal Satires.  Pig:  “Tush, their Excommunications fright not us; but our Land-ladies (poore soules) lie in most danger; for them they serve after with Excommunicato capiendo, and then our Forts are beleaguer’d with Under-Sheriffs, Bum-Bayliffs, Shoulder-clappers, etc., whom we sometimes beat back by violence.”

[173] Cardwell, loc. cit., 100.  Ecclesiastical jurisdiction derived also much temporal strength from the fact that practically every bishop was also a justice of the peace.  For proof of this see Strype, Annals of the Reformation (Oxon. ed.), iii, Pt. ii, 451 (Bishop of Peterboro’ complaining that he alone was left out of the commission. 1587).  Cardwell, Doc.  Ann., ii, 80 (Bancroft’s letter, 1605:  “We that are bishops, being all of us (as is supposed) justices of the peace").  When commissioning justices Burghley referred to the bishops for lists of orthodox men.  See such lists in Strype, op. cit., 453-60.  Also in Strype, Life of Whitgift, i, 187-8. Victoria County History of Cumberland, ii, 73-4. Sussex Arch.  Soc.  Coll., ii (1849), 58-62.  Mary Bateson, Letters from the Bishops to the Privy Council, 1564, with Returns of the Justices of the Peace, etc., in Camden Miscellany, ix (1895).  By 1 Eliz. c. 2, bishops could at pleasure associate themselves to justices of oyer and terminer or of assize.  Cf.  Strype, Whitgift, 329.

[174] Presentments on this score are frequent.  Take only a single jurisdiction, that of the Dean of York’s Peculiar, between the years 1592-1601, and a number will be found.  See Dean of York’s Visit., 222 (5 persons); 226, 229, 315, 326, 329 (Remaining excommunicate for a month); 334 (Over 40 days.  Also a person presented for harboring an excommunicate); 335 (Over a year); 341 (14 days).