An Act for purgation of Convicts in WALES.
Where in the Parliament summoned and holden at London the 3rd. of November in the 21st year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King Henry the eighth and from thence adjourned unto Westminster in the County of Middlesex, and after divers prorogations there also holden the 15th day of January in the 23rd. year of the reign of our said Sovereign Lord King Henry the eighth: It was enacted among other, that no person nor persons which from thenceforth should happen to be found guilty, after the laws of this Land, for any manner of petty treason, or for any wilful murder of malice prepensid, or for robbing of any Church Chapels or other holy places, or for robbing of any person or persons in their dwelling houses or dwelling place, the owner or dweller in the same house his wife his children or servants then being within and put in fear and dread by the same, or for robbing of any person or persons in or near about the Highways, or for wilful burning of any dwelling houses or barns wherein any grain of corns should happen to be, nor any person or persons being found guilty of any abettment, procurement helping, maintenance or counseling of or to any such petty treasons murders or felonies, should from thenceforth be admitted to the benefit of his or their clergy, but utterly be excluded thereof and suffer death, in such manner and form as they should have done for any the causes or offences abovesaid if they were no clerks; such as be within holy orders, that is to say of the orders of subdeacon or above, only excepted; And also it was then and there by authority aforesaid further enacted, that every such person and persons, within such orders of subdeacon or above which at any time from thenceforth should be found guilty of any petty treason, or of any murder of malice prepensid, or of any of the felonies above rehearsed, or of any accessary to petty treason wilful murder or to any other the felonies above specified, and admitted to his or their clergy and delivered to the Ordinance for the same, should not in any wise from thenceforth be suffered to any purgation, nor be set at liberty, but remain and abide in perpetual prison, under the Keeping of the Ordinary to whom he should be committed and his successors, without any manner of purgation, during the natural life of every such convict; except only such person
