Page:Ruffhead - The Statutes at Large, 1763.djvu/219

IT is provided by our Lord the King and his Justices, and also granted unto the Citizens of London, That Arcbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and other that have Rents in London, and for some Tenements the Rents are behind, and cannot recover those Rents, that it shall be lawful for them to distrain their Tenants for their Arrerages, so long as any Thing is found in the Fee, whereby they may be distrained; (2) and if they have nothing in the Fee, whereby they may be distrained, then the Tenants shall be impleaded by a Writ of Gavelet of Customs and Services, which may be well done by the Freemen of their City presented in their Hustings, for the keeping of their Suit, to gather their Rents; so that if the Tenants do acknowledge their Services, they shall presently and without Delay satisfy their Lords of their Arrerages. (3) And if they deny them their Services, the Demandants shall immediately name two Witnesses, whose Names shall be inrolled, and shall have Day to bring them forth at the next Hustings; (4) at which Day if they bring forth Witnesses, and it is shewed by them in the full Court of their own Sight and Hearing, that the same Plaintiffs have any Time received the Rents which they demand of the Tenements, then the Tenants shall leese their Fees by award of the Court, and the Plaintiffs shall recover their Tenements in Demean. (5) If they will not acknowledge the Services unto their Lords, as before is said, and likewise the Arrerages, then the Arrerages by Judgement of the Court shall be doubled, and they shall give to the Sheriff for the wrongful withholding (if they be worth so much) C. s. without any Difficulty; (6) and if they do not come in after due Summons in the Hustings, then the same Fees shall be delivered unto the Plaintiffs in the full Hustings, to be holden in their own Hands for one Year and a Day; (7) within which Time if the Tenants do come unto them, and do offer to satisfy them of the Arrerages double, and to the Sheriff for his Amerciament, as before is said, then they shall have their Tenements again. (8) But if it be after one Year and a Day accomplished such Tenements shall remain unto the Lords of those Fees by Judgement of the Court in their Demean for ever; (9) and then such Lands shall be called Forschoke, because such Tenements shall remain for ever in demean to the Lords of the Fees for Default of the Service. (10) The same Ordinance shall be kept and observed if the Tenants do knowledge the Arrerages, and be not able to make Satisfaction therefore, as it is said before.