The
clergyman who adopts a prayer book other that the prescribed one
commits a crime. Excommunication has imprisonment behind it.
Elizabeth gave this court the power to fine and imprison, which
the former church courts had not had. At first, the chief work was
depriving papists of their benefices.
Suits on titles to land were restricted to the common law courts
and no longer to be heard in the Star Chamber, Chancery Court, or
in the Court of Requests (equity for poor people).
The Queen's Privy Council investigated sedition and treason,
security of the regime, major economic offenses, international
problems, civil commotion, officials abusing their positions, and
persons perverting the course of justice. It frequently issued
orders to Justices of the Peace, for instance to investigate riots
and crimes, to enforce the statutes against vagrancy and illegal
games, to regulate alehouses, to ensure that butchers, innkeepers,
and victuallers did not sell meat on fish days, and to gather
information needed from the counties. The Justices of the Peace
decided misdemeanors such as abduction of heiresses, illegal
entry, petty thievery, damage to crops, fence-breaking, brawling,
personal feuds, drunken pranks, swearing, profanation of the
Sabbath, alehouse nuisances, drunkenness, perjury, and malfeasance
by officials. They held petty and quarter sessions. The Justices
of the Peace had administrative duties in control of vagrancy,
upkeep of roads and bridges, and arbitration of lawsuits referred
to them by courts.
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