opened up the lead mines of Cardiganshire. The extinction of piracy made the coasts safe for trade. Many Welshmen emigrated into England and won good positions in camp, court, and mart. Everywhere the policy of the Welsh line of English Kings had proved abundantly successful."[1]
Although the modern physical boundary of Wales was and is arbitrary, although it coincides neither with race, language, nor physical configuration, yet it was clearly defined by the Tudor legislation, and the fierce, debatable border-land, the scene of so much suffering and ruin, has since that period ceased to be the fruitful cause of national enmity.
A.D. 1547. —In the first year of the reign of Edward the Sixth (1 Edward 6, c. 10) a technical measure, designed to complete the efficiency of the judicial procedure in Wales, became law.
A writ of exigent was a writ issued by the King's Justices commanding the sheriff to summon a defendant to appear and deliver himself up upon pain of outlawry. Outlawry meant putting a person out of the law for contempt in wilfully avoiding the execution of the process of the King's Court. Although now abolished in civil proceedings, it is formally kept alive in criminal procedure by the Forfeiture Act, 1870 (33-34 Vict., c. 23). But in the old English laws relating to crime and wrong, it was the law's ultimate weapon, involving not merely escheat and forfeiture, but a sentence of death. Later it was extended to civil procedure, with lessened penalties. Ample opportunity was given to a defendant for appearing before he was treated as contumacious, and the sheriff demanded his appearance from county court to county court. The King's Justices could order a writ of exigent to issue, and thereupon a proclamation was made bidding the defendant come in to the King's peace, and in case of non-appearance, ordering that he should be outlawed, but no man could be outlawed until his appearance had been so demanded in five successive county courts.
- ↑ "Wales under the Tudors," by Professor Tout, p. 510.
