Statute of Westminster, The First (1275)

1275 CHAPTER 5 3 Edw 1

The STATUTES of WESTMINSTER; The First.

THESE be the Acts of King Edward, Son to King Henry, made at Westminster at his first Parliament general after his Coronation, on the Monday of Easter Utas, the Third Year of his Reign, by his Council and by the assent of Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and all the Commonalty of the Realm, being thither summoned:

Because our Lord the King had great zeal and desire to redress the State of the Realm in such Things as required Amendment for the common profit of Holy Church, and of the Realm: And because the State of the Holy Church had been evil kept, and the
Prelates and Religious Persons of the Land grieved many ways, and the People otherwise intreated than they ought to be, and the Peace less kept, and the Laws less used, and the Offenders less punished, than they ought to be, by reason whereof the People [of the Land] feared the less to offend; the King hath ordained and established these Acts underwritten, which he intendeth to be necessary and profitable unto the whole Realm.

AND because Elections ought to be free, the King commandeth upon great Forfeiture, that no Man by Force of Arms, nor by Malice, or menacing, shall disturb any to make free Election.