from Robertson's The Baconian Heresy

Mr. Grant White's Case – Part 2

We have the word again in Langland:

And purchased him a pardon
A Poena et a culpa—
Manye wepten for joie
And preiseden Piers the Plowman
That purchased this bulle.
Vision of Piers Ploughman,ed. Wright, 4469-70, 4538-40.

—where the idea is not buying but obtaining. It has the same force in the phrase "favour craftily purchasing" in Roye’s Rede Me and Be Nott Wrothe (1528) and in Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation (1534):

If we might once purchase the grace to come to that point,
Dent’s rep. with Utopia, p. 187

and again, in the editor’s preface to Latimer’s Second Sermon before Edward VI, the word is used in the alleged "legal" sense, though the writer is ostensibly a foe to lawyers:

Thou that purchasest so fast, to the utter undoing of the poor.
Sermons of Latimer, Dent’s rep. p. 90

Obviously this was the regular force of the term, and it is in that sense that Latimer himself uses it:

A certain great man that had purchased much lands.
Last Sermon before King Edward, ed. cited, p.240.

So in Roger Hutchinson:

Now they [who "were wont to . . . maintain schools and houses of alms"] be purchasers and sellers-away of the same.
Epistle to Archbishop Cranmer; Parker Soc. vol. of Works, p. 4.

In theology the term is often used metaphorically with the same force: e.g.

The everlasting heritage which he [Christ] hath purchased for us.
Trans. of Calvin on Ephesians, 15, fol. 146, verso.

A metaphorical use of the word, resting on the "legal" sense, was in fact normal throughout Tudor literature and a dozen instances of it may be found in the early [104] version (from the Italian) of the Phśnissæ of Euripides by Gascoigne and others under the title of Jocasta (1566). It is common, again, in Spenser, in various senses which all turn upon the alleged "legal" one:

For on his back a heavy load he bare
Of nightly stelths and pillage severall
Which he had got abroad by purchas criminall.
      Faerie Queene, B. I, C. iii, St. 16.

That [sword] shall I shortly purchase to your hand.
      Id. B. II, C. iii, St. 18.

Made answere that the mayd of whom they spake
Was his owne purchase and his onely prize.
      Id. B. VI, C. xi, St. 12.

Sicker I hold him for a greater fon (fool)
That loves the thing he cannot purchase.
      Shepheard’s Calendar, 1589.

Again in the prose dedication of Muiopotmos he has:

That honourable name which ye have by your brave deserts purchast to yourself.

In Puttenham’s prose this sense of the term is explicit:

No doubt the shepheard’s . . . trade was the first act of lawful acquisition or purchase, for at these days robbery was a manner of purchase.
Art of Poetrie, Arber’s rep., p. 53.

That the word was in normal Elizabethan use in the quasi-legal sense might be inferred from its occurring twice metaphorically with such a meaning in Nicholas Breton’s Tom the Page’s Song:

Faith! she will say, you wicked page!
I’ll purchase you an heritage.
To purchase me an heritage.
Joys of an Idle Head, in A Flourish upon Fancy, 1582.
Rep. in Arber’s Spenser Anthology, 1899, p. 187.

In homiletic literature it has the same metaphorical force:

Thereby purchase to himself . . . eternal damnation.
Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses, Collier’s Rep. p. 37. Again, p. 68

And unless we are to suppose that all the dramatists [105] alike made their personages talk out of character—as in effect the legalists imply that Shakespeare did—we must draw the same inference from their plays, for they all introduce the word in the broad primary sense, and this far more often than in the limited modern one:

He that will purchase things of greatest prize
Must conquer by his deeds, and not by words.
Lily, Woman in the Moon, ii, 1.

My valour everywhere shall purchase friends.
Kyd, Soliman and Perseda, IV, ii, 6.

To purchase Godhead, as did Hercules.
Id. ib. 1. 19.

To purchase fame to our posterities.
Id. Cornelia, v, 5.

His company hath purchased me ill friends.
Arden of Feversham, v, i [twice].

Jeron. How like you Don Horatio’s spirit?
What, doth it promise fair?
K. of Spain. Ay, and no doubt his merit will purchase more.
First Part of Jeronimo [1605] Sc. i, II. 17-19.

Sadoc. God save Lord Cusay. And direct his zeal
To purchase David’s conquest ‘gainst his son.
Peele, David and Bethsabe, iii, 2.

To purchase hearing with my lord the King.
Id. ib.

Messenger. How many friends I purchase everywhere.
King Leir and his Three Daughters, Sc. 17.

That purchas’d kingdoms by your martial deeds.
Marlowe, I. Tamb. v, 2, end.

To purchase towns by treachery.
Id. Jew of Malta, v, 4.

He that will not when he may
When he desires shall surely purchase nay.
Greene, Alphonsus King of Arragon, v, ed. Dyce, p. 245.

Your pardon is already purchased.
Id. ib. p. 246.

Greene uses the word in the same way in his prose tales

He thought no victuals to have their taste which were not purchased by his own sweat.
      Id. Tale of Perimedes the Blacksmith [1588],
       Works, ed. Grosart, vii, 12. [106]

Thou may’st practise virtue if thou take heed, or purchase discredit if thou beest careless.
      Id. Card of Fancy. Works, iv, 20.

and in his play JAMES IV (v, 4):

The crafty men have purchased great men’s lands.

Jonson in his plays uses it many times: I glory

More in the cunning purchase of my wealth
Than in the glad possession.
Jonson, Volpone, i, 1, near beginning.

A diamond, plate, chequines. Good morning’s purchase. [In this case = acquisitions by gift].
Id. ib. near end of Scene.

Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase. [In this case = cheaters’ booty].
Ib. iv, 4.

I think I must be enforced to purchase me another page.
Id. Cynthia’s Revels, ii, 1.

I will not rob you of him, nor the purchase.
Id. The Magnetic Lady, v, 6, end.

Wittipol. I will share, Sir,
In your sports only, nothing in your purchase
[in this case = gains]
The Devil is an Ass, iii, 1.

This second blessing of your eyes
Which now I’ve purchased.
Ib. i, 1.

Purchase to themselves rebuke and shame.
Sejanus, iii, 1.

(Here the sense is "attained to." Wittipol would not tell the lady that he has bought the sight of her.)

No less common is the word in Webster and his collaborators:

I will not purchase by thee [Laverna] but to eat.
Webster and Rowley, A Cure for a Cuckold, ii, 1.

And will redeem myself with purchase [= booty].
Id. ii, 2.

Of all my being, fortunes, and poor fame
(If I have purchased any) . . .
You have been the sole creatress.
Id. iii, 3. [107]

I made a purchase lately, and in that
I did estate the child—
Joint-purchaser in all the land I bought.
Id. iv, 1.

Ignorance, when it hath purchased honour,
It cannot wield it.
Webster, Duchess of Malfi, ii, 3.

Were all of his mind, to entertain no suits
But such they thought were honest, sure our lawyers
Would not purchase half so fast.
Id. The Devil’s Law Case, iv, 1.

They do observe I grew to infinite purchase
The left-hand way.
Id, iii, 1.

That noblemen shall come with cap and knee
To purchase a night’s lodging of their wives.
Id. iii, 2.

In the same sense we have it in Randolph:

Here is a conquest purchas’d without blood.
The Jealous Lovers, i, 10.

In Thomas Heywood the word is particularly frequent:

I’ll gain her, or in her fair quest
Purchase my soul free and immortal rest.
      Heywood, A Woman Killed with Kindness, iii, 1.

I have a trade
And in myself a means to purchase wealth.
      Id. The Foure Prentises of London, i, 1.

They are all on fire
To purchase [= win booty] from the Spaniard.
      Id. The Fair Maid of the West, i, 1.

Now could your lady purchase

Their pardon from the king.

[Here the force is, "obtain by favour"].

     Id. ib. v, 1.

I’ll purchase ‘t with a danger.

     Id. Part II,Fair Maid of the West, Pearson’s Heywood, ii, 349.

Purchased by this bold answer,

     Id. ib. p. 350.

Show me the way

To gain this royal purchase.

     Id. ib. p. 350. [108]

Not to do it

May purchase his displeasure.

     Id. ib. p. 351.

Here the word is used in the quasi-legal sense four times in three successive pages. But it constantly recurs in the same general sense, as distinct from that of buying.

To purchase to yourself a thrifty son.
Id. The English Traveller, iv, 6.

Could I have purchased houses at that rate,
I had meant to have bought all London.
(Here the sense is "acquired by fraud"].
Id. ib.

Your grace may purchase glory from above,
And entire love from all your people’s hearts.
Id. If you know not me you know nobody. Pt. I
Pearson’s Heywood, i, 225.

When my poor wife and children cry for bread,
They still must cry till these [hands and spade] have purchast it.
Id. ib. Part II, ed. cited, p. 304.

My love to her may purchase me his love.
Id. Pt. I of King Edward IV, ed. cited, i, 129.

Jupiter. Hadst thou asked love, gold, service, Empiry,
This sword had purchased for Callisto all.
Id. The Golden Age, ii, 1, ed. cited, iii, 26.

I’ll wake her
Unto new life. This purchase I must win.
Id. ib. iv, i, p. 68.

Saturn. Re-purchast and re-lost by Jupiter.
Id. ib. v, I, p. 75.

I’ll try conclusions,
And see if I can purchase it with blows.
Id. ib. p. 76.

Pluto. Ceres nor Jove, nor all the Gods above,
Shall rob me this rich purchase [Proserpine].
Id. The Silver Age, iii, vol. cited, p. 137.

Hercules. We take but what our valour purchast us.
Id. The Brazen Age, i, 1, p. 177.

Atreus. Without some honour purchast on this Boar.
Id. ib. p. 188.

Meleager. To have purchased honour in this hasty quest.
Id. ib. p. 189.

Thou hast purchast honour and renown enough.
Id. ib. p. 192. [109]

Jason. Rename all Greece
By the rich purchase of the Colchian fleece.
Id. ib. p. 203.

Hercules. Now is the rich and precious fleece
By Jason’s sword repurchast.
Id. ib. p. 218.

Medea. To redeem the fleece,
And it repurchase with your tragic deaths.
Id. ib. p. 219.

Hercules. She is the warlike purchase of thy sword.
Id. ib. p. 225.

And by our deeds repurchase our renown.
Id. ib. p. 246.

Here we have the word used nine times in one play, and only in the primary sense. For Heywood, in fact "purchase" normally means acquisition otherwise than by inheritance or buying; and there is no inference open save that this was a normal sense of the word in his day.

But we have it also in Dekker:

That would have purchased sin alone to himself.
Dekker. The Honest Whore, Pt. 1, ii, 1.

The purchase [booty] is rich.
Ib. Pt. II, iv, 1.

It shall concern thee and thy love’s purchase.
The Witch of Edmonton, by Rowley, Dekker, Ford, &c. iii, 1.

Of this as of other "legal" uses of terms we have frequent examples in the prose of Nashe:

It may be that he meaneth about purchasing [acquiring property] as he hath done.
First Part of Pasquil’s Apology. Works, ed. McKerrow, i, 128.

That recantation purchased his liberty.
Four Letters Confuted. Vol. cited, p. 297.

Their purchased [=granted by the King] prerogatives.
Nashe’s Lenten Stuff, ed. cited, iii, 165.

Voyages of Purchase of Refusals.
Id. p. 180.

Men that have no means to purchase credit with their prince.
Id. p. 218.