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Quiz: Obscure Tudor and Stuart laws

Obscure Tudor and Stuart laws

Test your knowledge of obscure Tudor and Stuart laws with these 11 tricky questions from legal historian William Eves.

1. What was the name for laws regulating the type of clothes that people were permitted to wear?

Answer: Sumptuary Laws, from the Latin sumptum, meaning something bought or obtained.

2. Which Tudor king oversaw the passing of a law that made the crime of poisoning ‘high treason’, punishable by boiling alive?

Answer: Henry VIII, who took a personal interest in the case of Richard Roose, who allegedly poisoned some of the Bishop of Rochester’s staff.

3. The ‘Act for the Making of Caps’ ordered that all people over the age of six were required to wear an English-made woollen hat on Sundays. Other than children aged six and under, who else was exempt?

Answer: According to the act, the nobility were exempt from this rule, as were ‘maidens, ladies and gentlewomen’.

4. According to the 1559 Act of Uniformity, how much would you be fined for missing Church on a Sunday?

Answer: 12 pence (about a day’s wages for a skilled tradesman).

5. The 1559 Act of Uniformity also mandated the use of a particular prayer book in church services. What was the name of this book?

Answer: The Book of Common Prayer.

6. After the English Civil War, Parliament banned various religious festivals, including Christmas. In which year was the ban on Christmas lifted?

Answer: The ban on Christmas was lifted in 1660 with the restoration of the monarchy.

7. Under the unpopular 1662 ‘hearth tax’, how much tax was due annually for every fireplace, hearth and stove in each dwelling?

Answer: Two shillings (one shilling payable twice a year).

8. If someone would not pay the hearth tax, their property could be seized to cover the debt. What is the legal term for this process of seizure?

Answer: ‘Distraint’. The word derives from the Latin distringo, which literally means ‘I stretch out’ but has the associated meaning ‘I detain’.

9. A 1709 Act of Parliament imposed a tax on candles. But which type of candle was taxed more – beeswax or tallow?

Answer: Beeswax candles were taxed more, at four pence per pound in weight. Tallow candles were taxed at half a penny per pound in weight.

10. Why was forging an ace of spades card punishable by death?

Answer: The design of the card functioned as a tax stamp and forging a tax stamp was a capital crime.

11. During the Tudor and Stuart period, which courts sat more frequently – the courts of Justices of the Peace, or assize courts?

Answer: Justices of the Peace sat more frequently. They held ‘Quarter sessions’ four times a year and could also hear cases outside these sessions. Assize courts met twice a year.

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