[We have not been able to find any account of the execution for burning
coal noticed by Dr. Bachoffner, which probably took place during the
reign of Edward I., when the use of coal was prohibited by proclamation
at London in the year 1306. These proclamations are noticed in Prynne's
_Animadversions on the Fourth Part of Sir Edward Coke's Institutes_, p.
182., where it is said, that "in the latter part of the reign of Edward
I., when brewers, dyers, and other artificers using great fires, began
to use sea-coals instead of dry wood and charcoal, in and near the city
of London, the prelates, nobles, commons, and other people of the
realm, resorting thither to parliaments, and upon other occasions, with
the inhabitants of the city, Southwark, Wapping, and East Smithfield,
complained thereof twice one after another to the king as a public
nuisance, corrupting the air with its stink and smoke, to the great
prejudice and detriment of their health. Whereupon the king first
prohibited the burning of sea-coal by his proclamation; which being
disobeyed by many for their private lucre, the king upon their second
complaint issued a commission of Oyer and Terminer to inquire of all
such who burned sea-coals against his proclamation within the city, or
parts adjoining to it, and to punish them for their first offence by
great fines and ransoms; and for the second offence to demolish their
furnaces, kilns wherein they burnt sea-coals, and to see his
proclamation strictly observed for times to come, as the Record of 35
Edw. I. informs us." On this subject our correspondent should consult
Edington's _Treatise on the Coal Trade_; Ralph Gardiner's _England's
Grievance discovered in Relation to the Coal Trade_; and Anderson's
_Origin of Commerce_.]
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