Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	death_n	king_n	treason_n	2,352	5	9.2422	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91147	Beheaded Dr. John Hewytts ghost pleading, yea crying for exemplarie justice against the arbitrarie, un-exampled injustice of his late judges and executioners in the new High-Commission, or Court of Justice, sitting in Westminster-Hall. Conteining his legal plea, demurrer, and exceptions to their illegal jurisdiction, proceedings, and bloody sentence against him; drawn up by counsel, and left behinde him ready ingrossed; the substance whereof he pleaded before them by word of mouth, and would have tendred them in writing in due form of law, had he not discerned their peremptory resolution to reject and over-rule, before they heard them read.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.; Hewit, John, 1614-1658.	1659 (1659)	Wing P3900; Thomason E974_2; ESTC R205170	13,713	20

Li●ge people to be maliciously accused apprehended imprisoned and tried before the Constable and Marshall of England in their military Court for words secretly spoken or acts privately done to the scandal of his Royal Person where they were enforced to acquit themselves by duell whence the destruction not only of the Nobles and Great Men but likewise of all and every the persons of the Commons of the Realm might probably have ensued And this Defendant further saith that one Peter Burchet of the Temple in the 13th year of Queen Elizabeths Reign having wilfully stabbed that famous Sea-Captain John Hawkins for not being of his opinion in Religion Burchet being perswaded in Conscience that it was lawfull for him to kill every one who was not of his opinion the Queen being much incensed against him for this horrid fact commanded him to be forthwith tried and executed for it by Martial Law But her Judges and Councill informing her that he could not be so tried by law it being done not in an Army but in time of peace when her Courts of Law and Justice were open thereupon she desisted from this way of Tryall After which he was tried according to Law for this and his murdering his keeper in the Tower as Mr. Camden records in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth p. 242. 243. And whereas in the Parliament of the 4th of King James holden at Westminster there was some kind of motion made that to extirpate and reforme the inveterate evil customes disorders fewds bloudsheds thefts and spoiles wherewith the worst sort of Inhabitants near the borders and limits of both Realmes of England and Scotland were infected and inured that they might be tried by a summary Proceeding by way of Martiall Law or by the Lawes of the Kingdome into which they fled to purchase their impunity This Parliament was so farre from approving thereof that they specially enacted in this case even of these worst sort of men * 4 Iacob ch 1. That in regard of some difference and inequality in the Laws Trials and Proceedings in cases of life between the Justice of the Realm of England and that of the Realme of Scotland it appearing to be most convenient for the contentment and satisfaction of all his Majesties Subjects to proceed with all possible severity against such offenders in their own country ACCORDING TO THE LAWES OF THE SAME WHEREUNTO THEY ARE BORNE AND INHERITABLE and by and before the naturall borne subjects of the same Realme by whom their Murders Felonies Rapes c. should be inquired of heard and determined before his Majesties Justices of Assize or Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer or Goal delivery by good and lawfull men of the 3. Counties therein specified and none other And that at all such Trials the Jurie then and there sworne shall have in their power and election according to their conscience and discretion upon their Oathes to receive and admit only such sufficient good and lawfull witnesses upon their Oathes either for or against the party arraigned as shall not appear to them or the greater part of them to be unfit and unworthy to be witnesses in that cause either in regard of their hatred and malice or their favour and affection either to the party prosecuting or to the party arraigned or of their former evil life and conversation Which common equal indifferent Justice allowed to the worst Malefactors as their birthright and inheritance by this Parliament and Act this Defendant now onely craves and hopes you cannot in Law or Justice deny him nor proceed against him by way of Martial Law And so much the rather because since this Statute King Charles in the 3d. year of his Reign by the advice of his Counsell to suppresse the Insolencies of Souldiers and Mariners then billeted in sundry parts of the Realm having issued out Commissions to sundry persons of quality in time of peace to execute Martiall Law upon those Soldiers and Mariners and other dissolute persons only joyntng with them for Murther Robbery Felony Mutiny and other outrages committed by them by such summary course and order as is agreeable to Martiall Law a●… is used in Armies in time of Warre to proceed to the triall and condemnation of such offenders and then to cause them to be executed and put to death according to the Law Martiall By pretext whereof some of the said souldiers and subjects were put to death by some of the said Commissioners when and where if by the Lawes and Statutes of the Land they had deserved death by the same Lawes and Statutes also they might and by no other ought to have been Judged before the Kings Iustices and executed Upon Complaint of these Commissions as illegal in the Parliament of 3. Caroli they were after a full debate by both Houses voted to be against Law And in the Petition of Right it self it was then prayed by the Lords and Commons assented to by the late beheaded King himself and enacted by this Law That hereafter no Commissions of like Nature may issue forth to any person or persons whatsoever to be executed as aforesaid lest by colour of them any of his Majesties Subjects be destroyed or put to death contrarie to the Laws and Franchise of the Land which the Lords and Commons then prayed and the King granted confirmed by Act of Parliament as their Right and Liberty according to the Lawes which Act stands yet in its full force Upon consideration of which late Excellent Law the last long Parliament in the cases of the Lord Connor Magwire and Mac-mohun and the Court of Kings Bench wherein they were tried by their special order in Michaelmas and Hilary Terms 20 Caroli were so just punctual and honorable in confining themselves to the rules of Law and Justice that though these were principal Conspirators and Actors in the late most horrid barbarous bloody Treason Rebellion and Massacre in Ireland and taken in its prosecution yet they were so far from trying them by Marshal Law in a Council of Warre or High Court of Justice even in a time of open warre both in England and Ireland that they assigned the said Maguire Counsil to argue against the very Jurisdiction of the Kings Bench it self whether he being a Peer of Ireland could in point of Law or justice by the Statute of 35 H 8. ch 2. 〈◊〉 any other Act be ●uted of his Trial by his Peers and tried by a Jury of good and lawfull men of the County of Middlesex for a Treason committed in Ireland being sent a Prisoner from thence against his will Which was there * See Mr. Prynnes Argument thereof publickly argued at the Bar by Counsel pro contra and then by the Judges and overruled at last against him before he was put to plead guilty or not guilty to his Indictment after which they both were admitted to take both their peremptory and legal challenges to the Juries returned * 32 H. 6. f 26.