422.
*** Birch's Memoirs, vol.ii.p.

511.
**** Sir John Davis's Question concerning Impositions, passim v D'Ewes, p.

141.
v* Rymer, tom, xv.

p 652 708, 777.
It was very usual in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and probably in all the preceding reigns, for noblemen or privy counsellors to commit to prison any one who had happened to displease them by suing for his just debts; and the unhappy person, though he gained his cause in the courts of justice, was commonly obliged to relinquish his property in order to obtain his liberty.

Some, likewise, who had been delivered from prison by the judges, were again committed to custody in secret places, without any possibility of obtaining relief; and even the officers and serjeants of the courts of law were punished for executing the writs in favor of these persons.