Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/483

This page has been validated.
EDICT OF NANTES.
475

73d.—If any prisoners are still in confinement or at the galleys, by judicial authority or otherwise, on account of the troubles, they shall be enlarged and set fully at liberty.

74th.—Those of said religion shall not, hereafter, be over-taxed or oppressed by the imposition of any tax, ordinary or extraordinary, beyond what is imposed upon Catholics, in proportion to their property and ability. The parties who complain of surcharge may apply for relief to the Judges who have cognizance thereof, and all our subjects. Catholics, and those of said pretended Reformed religion, shall receive equal justice, and shall be discharged from all impositions illegally laid on them by either party, together with all unpaid obligations, expenses incurred without consent of the parties, without, however, being able to recover the income which shall have been used for the payment of said charges.

75th.—It is intended that neither those of said religion, others of their party, nor the Catholics who remained in the towns and places occupied and retained by them, and who were laid under contribution, shall be prosecuted for the payment of subsidies, excise, city tolls, levies, land tax, quarters for soldiers, indemnities or other impositions and taxes laid during the troubles, before our accession to the Throne, whether by the Edicts and Mandates of the deceased Monarchs, our predecessors, or by the advice and legislation of Governors of Provinces, Courts of Parliament and others. We have discharged and do hereby discharge them from the payment of all such, in forbidding our Royal Treasurers, Receivers, General and Particular, their Clerks and Agents, and other Comptrollers and Commissioners of the Exchequer to inquire after, molest or disturb them, directly or indirectly, in any way whatever.

76th.—There shall be no claim upon the Chiefs, Lords, Knights, Nobles, Officers, Corporations, Societies, persons assisting them, or widows, heirs and successors of such as themselves took and collected, or by their decrees obtained money of any amount, whether belonging to the King's Revenues or to private individuals; rents, revenues, plate and sales of furniture belonging to clergy or laity; forest trees, royal or otherwise; fines, pillage, ransoms or any other kind of property, seized on account of the troubles beginning in March, 1585, and other previous troubles, up to our accession to the Throne. Those persons appointed to collect said funds, or who leased them, or procured them by their Ordinances, cannot be called to account for their proceedings now or at any future time, but shall