persons born in Wales or its Marches, and that they should hold any lands, &c., according to the tenor and under the authority of the same.
In the same year, in order to prevent the exportation of leather, an Act (27 Henry 8, c. 14) was passed forbidding tanners to export hides or leather, but by section 7 of the Act, untanned hides of beasts killed within Wales and its Marches were allowed to be sold and exported by any persons "except only by tanners and such as had tan houses." This was part of the paternal legislation frequently indulged in by the early Tudor Parliaments.
A later Statute (27 Henry 8, c. 24) of the same year shows that Henry secured all the executive and judicial power in the realm of England, Wales and the Marches, by uniting all authority under the "Imperial Crown of this Realm." He alone was to be Lord and Ruler. It was part of the plan for rendering the process of law more effectual by placing every judicature in the Kingdom in his hands.
The first of the important measures of Henry the 8th, by which Wales was, in 1535, admitted into the English polity, is entitled " An Act for Laws and Justice to be administered in Wales in like form as it is in this Realm" (27 Henry 8, c. 26).
Its preamble recites, in the imposing style of Tudor English, that the "Dominion, Principality and Country of Wales" was and ever had been incorporated, annexed, united, and subject to the "Imperial Crown of this Realm as a very member and joint of the same, whereof the King's most Royal Majesty of very right, is very Head King Lord and Ruler," yet because in that same Country Principality and Dominion divers rights, usages, laws and customs were far discrepant from the laws and customs of England, and also because that the "people of the same Dominion have and do daily use a speech nothing like nor consonant to the natural mother tongue
