PURVEYANCE was a prerogative of purchasing goods for the royal household, enjoyed by all English kings up to Charles II. Certain officers attached to the king's court were charged with the duties of buying and arranging for the cartage of goods where necessary, the ancient prerogative of the King entitling him to demand carriage- services from his subjects. The possibilities of abuse were obvious. Magna Carta (q.v.) ordered that goods should be paid for at once, and that horses and carts should not be taken for carriage duty, nor timber taken for castles without the consent of the owner. These stringent regulations were con siderably modified to the King's advantage in later issues of the charter.
Many early statutes were passed against purveyance. People particularly resented the exercise of this right by royal officials and ministers for their own benefit. Statutes therefore limited its use to the immediate households of the king and queen. The name purveyor was so much hated that it was provided by statute that it should be changed to achatour (buyer). But statutes had little effect. In Elizabeth's reign complaints against purveyance were particularly bitter. In her early years the queen seems to have made use of her rights of purveyance to victual her navy. Later an arrangement was made by which some, if not all, coun ties agreed to furnish definite provisions at a fixed rate in order to get rid of the uncertainty which made the burden so much heavier. These compositions were arranged between the officers of the Board of Green Cloth and the Justices of Peace for each county at fixed prices. These fixed prices were very much lower
than the market value of the goods and the difference was met by an assessment on the county. Cattle supplied in this way were kept in certain royal pastures. The parliaments of James I. de termined to get rid of the abuses of purveyance, and Sir Francis Bacon made a famous speech against the purveyors in the first parliament of the reign. It was held that only the abolition of the right would put an end to its abuse. The purveyors made a prac tice of demanding far more goods than were necessary and sold the surplus for their own advantage. They ordered goods to be taken to remote places that people might buy from them exemp tion from coming with their portions. There were innumerable ways in which purveyors could make dishonest profit. Despite complaints, the right of purveyance went on until it fell into disuse during the Commonwealth. Its abolition was part of the Restora tion Settlement, though till the end of the century it was sometimes partially revived during royal progresses.
An elaborate treatise on the subject was written by the ardent royalist Fabian Philipps, The Antiquity, legality, reason, duty and necessity of preemption and pourveyance for the king (1663). See also W. Money, A Royal Purveyance (Newbury, I9oI). (D. M. S.)