PR,EJIUNFRE (used for pramortere," to forewarn," Co. Lit. 129 b) is the first word of an ancient writ by which a party was summoned before the sovereign to answer a charge of contempt against him. The commencement of the writ was as follows :—" Praemunire faciam A. B. quod sit comm nobis," &c. The contempt consisted in the doing of some act in derogation of his allegiance; and in case of conviction, thr judgment was, that the defendant should be thenceforth out of the king's protection, and his lands and tenements, goods and chattels forfeited to the king, and his body should remain in prison at the king's pleasure. The word prtemunire, as now used, has two meaning: —one the writ itself, the other the offence to which the writ ii applicable.
In late times it seems to have been considered that the offence was .eferrible only to attempts to introduce the papal authority into this ringdom; but it would appear that any attempt to introduce foreign luriscliction or usurp upon the "kingly lawes of the crown" was equally sithin the penalties of a prmmunire. Most of these attempts did .elate to the papal jurisdiction, and the statute of prmmunire (16 Rich. II., c. 5) relates only to such attempts. But the 27 Edw. HI., 1, referred to by that Act, visits an analogous offence with the same penalty where one "shall draw any out of the realm in plea whereof ,he cognizance pertaineth to the king's courts, or whereof judgment is Oven in the king's courts, or which do sue in any other court to defeat )r impeach the judgment given in the king's court, &c." Numerous statutes have defined what shall be such a contempt as mounts to a prmmunire.. Most of the earlier are directed against worisers, as they were called, or persons who purchased from Rome 'revisions for holding abbeys or priories, &c., before those benefices ivere vacant (25 Edw. III., stat. 5, c. 22, stat. 6), or for exemption 'rem obedience to their proper ordinary (2 Hen. IV., c. 3), or bulls or exemption from tithes (2 Hen. IV., e. 4), or those who held bone ices in favour of aliens, &c. (3 Rich. II., c. 3; 7 Rich II., c. 12; 12 Rich. II., c. 15; 13 Rich. II., stat. 2, c. 2), or those who purchased :procured) bulls, sentences of excommunication, &c., against the king ;16 Rich. II., c. 5). During the time of Henry VIII., several statutes applied the penalties of a prmmunire to those who sued for or attempted to enforce any bull, &c., from Rome, or appealed there (23, c. 2; 24, c.
12; 25, cc. 19, 21; 28,c. 16), or refused to elect a bisll'op named by the king (25, c. 20). By 5 Eliz. c. I, 13 c. 2, 27 c. 2, it was applied to those who refused to take the oath of supremacy, or defended the pope's jurisdiction, abetted publishers of bulls, &c., or sent relief to Jesuits beyond seas.
About this time the penalties of a proemunire ceased to be confined to the class of offences above referred to. The 13 Ch. II., a. 1, c. 1, made persons who advisedly assert that both or either house of parlia ment have a legislative authority without the king, and 4 Jac. I., c. 4, I W. & M., a. 1, e. 8, those who refused to take the oath of allegiauee, guilty of a priemunire. By 7 & 8 Will. Ill., c. 4, serjeants, barristers, attorneys, &c., are subjected to the same penalties if they practise without taking the oath. By the 6 Anne, c. 7, a malicious or advised assertion that the then pretended Prince of Wales had any right to the throne, or that the king and parliament cannot make laws to limit the descent of the crown, amounts to the same offence. And 12 Geo. III., c. 11, attaches the same penalties to all such as willingly solemuise or assist, &e., at any forbidden marriage of the descendants of George II. The penalties of a priemunire have also been attached to persons guilty of offences of very different characters : to those who molested the possessors of abbey lands granted to Henry VIII. and Edward VI.; to brokers in any usurious contract, by 13 Eliz., e. 8; to those who obtained any stay of proceedings other than by arrest of judgment or writ of error in any suit for a monopoly, by 21 Jac. I , c. 3; a. 4; and to those who obtained an exclusive patent for the soh making or importation of gunpowder or arms, or hindered others from importing them, by 16 Ch. 1., e. 21. By the Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Ch. 11., c. 2, those who deprive or assist in depriving any subject of this realm of his liberty contrary to that Act, incur the penalties of przemunire; and by 6 Anne, c. 23, if the peers of Scotland convened to elect their representatives treat of any other matter, they are guilty of prmmunire. After the breaking of the South Sea bubble, those who thereafter engaged in such undertakings were, by 6 Geo. I., c. 18 (now repealed), made liable to the penalties of a priemunire.