[239] J.C.  Cox, Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals, i, 136.

[240] E. Freshfield, St. Bartholomew, Exchange, Acc’ts, s.a. 1598, et passim.  Freshfield, St. Margaret, Lothbury, Vestry Book, 32 (1595). St. Margaret’s, Westminster, Overseers’ Acc’ts in The Westminster Tobacco Box, Pt. ii (1887), e.g., s.a. 1572-3, where we find donations from Lord Burghley, the Lord Chief Justice, the Dean of Westminster, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Hertford, etc.

[241] Though by 37 Hen.  VIII c. 9, sec. 3 (Stats. of Realm, iii, 996) interest up to 10 per cent. per annum was permitted, all interest was prohibited by the 5 & 6 Ed. VI, c. 20, sec. 2 (Stats. of Realm, iv, Pt. i, 155).  Interest is here dubbed usury, “a vice most odyous and detestable.”  Interest up to 10 per cent. was, however, again made lawful by the 13 Eliz. c. 8, sec. 4 (Stats. of Realm, iv, Pt. i, 542) which, however, stigmatizes usury as sinful.

[242] Examples are, Vestry Minutes of St. Margaret, Lothbury, 32 (Gift of L20 in 1595 to be employed in wood and coal for the use of the poor.  A committee of four was appointed to invest and make sales.  See their account for 1596, p. 34). The Westminster Tobacco Box, Pt. ii, 22 (One of the overseers of St. Margaret’s to keep a gift of L42 “untill the same may be bestowed upon somme good bargaine as a lease or somme other such like commoditie w[hi]ch may yeelde a yerely rente to the pore.” 1578).  Cf. St. Bartholomew, Exchange, Acc’ts Books, 3 ff., where in 1598, and regularly in subsequent years, appears the item:  “Alowed to this account for the geft of the Lady Wilfordes xx li for the pore xx[s].”  Also another item, likewise of 20s. yearly, on Mr. Nutmaker’s L20—­in other words, 10 per cent. in each case every year.  Cf.  Jas. Stockdale, Annals of Cartmel (Lancashire, pub. 1872), 37-8 (L65 6s., money belonging to Cartmel grammar school “placed” in the hands of various persons, some of whom give pledges, others mortgages, for repayment.  The revenue from this is L6 10s. 7d., i.e., 10 per cent. in 1598).  In 1613, in allowing the overseer’s accounts of Swyre, Dorset, the local justices indorse:  “Upon this condition that from henceforth the overseers and Churchwardens do yearlie charge themselves with the some of xxs. for thuse of a stocke of xli [i.e., 10 per cent.] giuen to the poore by the testam[en]t of James Rawlinge.”  The practice above illustrated is simply that enjoined by 18 Eliz. c. 3, amended and completed by 39 Eliz. c. 3 and 43 Eliz. c. 2, with an object of making the poor administration self-supporting as far as might be.  The fact that Elizabethan poor laws were based on the best-approved parish customs made them perdurable.  For a model administration of parish stock according to the poor laws see the Cowden Overseers Acc’ts, Sussex Arch.  Coll., xx, 95 ff. (1599 ff.).