impoverished exchequer might both benefit. Villiers adopted the suggestion. It was urged that the functions of the new commissioners would clash with those of the justices of the peace, but Bacon, then attorney-general, and three judges were consulted, and the referees were of opinion that the patent for the commission was perfectly legal. Accordingly, in October 1616, Mompesson and two others were nominated commissioners for the licensing of inns, and invested with the fullest powers, but the patent was not sealed by Lord-chancellor Egerton till March 1617, and then only under great pressure from the king (Cal. State Papers, 1611-18, p. 439). The fees which the commissioners were allowed to charge for the grant of licenses were practically left to their discretion, although it was stipulated that four-fifths of the sums received were to be paid into the exchequer (Spedding, Bacon, vi. 98-9 ; Cal. State Papers, 1611-18, p. 439). To increase his dignity in his new office, Mompesson was knighted by James I at Newmarket on 18 Nov. 1616 (Nichols, Progresses, iii. 227). Bacon wrote to Villiers that he was glad that the honour had been conferred on Mompesson : 'he may the better fight with the Bulls and the Bears, and the Saracens' Heads, and such fearful creatures' (Spedding, vi. 102). Mompesson performed his duties with reckless audacity. He charged exorbitant fees, exacted heavy fines from respectable innkeepers for trifling neglect of the licensing laws, and largely increased the number of inns by granting, on payment of heavy sums, new licenses to keepers of houses that had been closed on account of disorderly conduct.
Mompesson thus acquired a very evil reputation (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1611-18, p. 473), but his intimate relations remained unchanged with Buckingham and with Bacon, who became lord keeper 7 March 1616-17, and chancellor 7 Jan. 1617-18. At the end of 1619 Bacon frequently consulted him on matters affecting the public revenue, and on 12 Dec. invited him to Kew in order to confer with him the more quietly (Spedding, vii. 68-9).
Meanwhile, in 1618, Mompesson's functions were extended. Early in the year a commission had been issued for the purpose of imposing heavy penalties on all who engaged in the manufacture of gold and silver thread without a special license, which the commissioners were empowered to sell at a high price. On 20 Oct. 1618 the punitive powers of the commissioners were enlarged and their number increased by the addition of Mompesson. He at once set energetically to work, and threatened all goldsmiths and silkmen
that they should 'rot in prison' unless they proved submissive. His activity satisfied the court. On 19 Feb. 1619 Sir Henry Savile wrote that Mompesson and Sir Albertus Morton were acting as clerks of the council (Cal. State Papers, 1619-23, p. 16), and on 9 Nov. 1619 James granted the former the office of surveyor of the profits of the New River Company, with an annual income of 200l. 'from the king's moieties of the profits of the said river' (ib. p. 91). On 25 April 1620 he received a license to convert coal and other fuel, excepting wood, into charcoal (ib. p. 139). But public feeling was running very high against him, and his re-election as M.P. for Great Bedwin in 1620 was quickly followed by retribution. On 19 Feb. 1620-1 the House of Commons considered Noy's proposal to inquire into the procedure of all commissions lately created to enforce such monopoly-patents as those affecting inns or gold and silver thread. Although that resolution was not adopted, a committee of the whole house opened, on 20 Feb., an investigation into the patent for licensing inns. Witnesses came forward to give convincing testimony of the infamous tyranny with which Mompesson or his agents had performed the duties of his office (Gardiner, iv. 42; Archæologia, vol. xli.) The patent was unanimously condemned. Mompesson at once admitted his fault, and, in a petition which was read in the house on 24 Feb., threw himself on the mercy of the house, but his appeal was heard in silence (Speeding, vii. 186). In a letter to Buckingham he promised to clear himself of all imputations if the king would direct the commons to specify the charges in greater detail (Lords' Debates in 1621, ed. Gardiner, Camd. Soc., p. 150). On 27 Feb. Coke, when reporting the committee's decision to the house, declared Mompesson to be the original projector of the scheme, to have prosecuted no less than 3,320 innkeepers for technical breaches of obsolete statutes, and to have licensed, in Hampshire alone, sixteen inns that had been previously closed by the justices as disorderly houses. Mompesson was summoned to the bar of the house and rigorously examined. He endeavoured to throw the responsibility on the lord chancellor and the judges who had declared the patent to be legal. Finally he was ordered to attend the house every forenoon, and to render his attendance the more certain he was committed to the care of the serjeant-at-arms (Commons' Journals, i. 532). The commons, at the same time, invited the lords to confer with them respecting his punishment. New charges against him accumulated daily, and his fears grew propor-
