there is no Law to be found that contradicts and therefore 't is to be supposed that an Argument drawn from those two Statutes of Edw. 3. being an Argument ex Consequenti that is an Argument grounded upon Consequence the Consequence if good ought to be derived from a right interpretation of those Statutes Now the decision of the matter rests onely upon this Which of the two Parties Judgements you will rely upon as most likely to make right interpretation of the Statutes whether upon our Author's Judgment and his Fellows who appear to be parties concerned in a present Factious designe and season or upon the Judgment of the Queen's Parliament which sat in a more Happie Season who doubtless could not be ignorant of those Statutes but neither they nor any Parliament or Person since that yeer of the Queen ever found fault with her Prorogation as illegal which it 's to be believed would have been done before this time if that Parliament or any succeeding Parliament or Lawyer or other person before the time of the late Prorogation had apprehended the Queen to be faulty in hers Therefore 't is to be supposed that this Precedent of Prorogation made by that most excellent Princess is a good one and that the Interpretation of those Statutes made by this Author and his Fellows to serve a Faction towards the ruine of this Parliament is the wrong Moreover if the sence of those Statutes be taken as they would have it viz. That no Parliament ought to sit above a yeer but a new one to be called within the yeer why were not those Statutes made use of before in Fifteen yeers time to condemn the sitting of this It is strange that no notable Lawyer should in all that time affirm the illegality of it But that onely some few Scarabees of the Law should now to bolster up a Faction be scribling their sence upon the Statutes when the ablest have been and are silent is ridiculous Besides Fourthly consider that when his Majesty now Regnant did in the 16 yeer of his Reign Enact That the Triennial Act passed by his Royal Father in his 16th yeer should be Repealed for Reasons in that Act of Repeal expressed yet upon the humble Supplication of the Lords and Commons He did Declare That hereafter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three yeers at the most And that within three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments or if there be occasion more often your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for calling assembling and holding of another Parliament to the end there may be a frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments once in three yeers at the least From which I collect these ensuing Particulars 1. That by the word Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament it is implied by the Act that the duration of this Parliament shall not be comprehended within any determinate time and there was reason for it because they had a tedious work to do to repair the Ruines of three Kingdoms wasted and unsetled by a long Civil War 2. This appears farther by the subsequent words which shew that the determinate Course of Parliaments set by the Act is meant onely for the future after the Dissolution of this 3. The Parliament had been sitting four yeers when they form'd this Act and therefore though they in the Act made mention of the two old Statutes of Edward the Third for holding a Parliament every yeer yet it seems they did not then in their virgin-days conceive themselves to be within the breach of those Statutes for sitting above a yeer because they were upon the making of this Act which doubtless so many learned men as are in these honourable Houses would never have presumed to do if their Sitting had by Law been limited to but a yeers time for then they could not but have apprehended that the Laws they made in the three yeers before must have been null and void for want of legal power to make them as well as all the Laws that they should make afterward till this day And what must the miserable Consequence of that have been even to demolish all the new Foundations which had been or were to be laid for the Restauration and Establishment of the Crown Church and State in case the validity of their former Sitting and Acting had been questionable as they would have been by such bold Interpreters of Law as I shall further make them appear to be who presume to advance their own Understandings above the Judgement of whole Bodies of Parliaments which these men have done and do by Printed Books scattered like Wild-fire about the three Nations to set all in Combustion But Fifthly what if it should appear a more considerable Question to be put Whether those two Old Statutes of Edward the Third be not of most force for the King And truely there appears good reason to conclude in the Affirmative The two Statutes may stand as declarative Memorials of the Judgement of Parliament in time past for the Peoples having a right to a frequencie of Parliaments if need require and no farther but it is not to be believed that so Victorious and Potent a King as Edward the Third ever would have passed those two Acts if his Parliaments meaning had been to cut off that main Point of his Prerogative Royal viz. the power of judging when 't is fit or needful to call a Parliament and when not Nor is it at all likely that it was the Opinion of that Age that the King had done so in passing those Acts but 't is rather to be supposed that that Parliament meant no more than this That those Statutes were intended to be declarative of the Common Law and of the People's having Right by antient Custom to Parliaments and that as they had been so they should also be yeerly in the future if judged necessary For I would know of any man of an impartial Judgment how it is possible to skrue out of those Statutes any other Meaning seeing the words if need be are words Hypothetical or Conditional viz. supposing there be need or upon Condition there be need Hereby 't is implied that if in a yeers time there be no need there is no obligation by Law from hence for the calling a Parliament always within the yeer The Sum of all then is this That if no need be he need not call one And who I pray you ought to be judge of this need but the King who is to Call But what saith our Author of the Considerations to this He hereupon turns Statute-Expositor and Objector as followeth CONSIDERATOR He saith this meaning of the Law is but a Phansie all our Properties Rights and Liberties are bound up in those LAWS of Annual Parliaments and
Bottom he and the rest of them do build their Argumentations and the high-flown flourishes of discourse which they so diligently Print and spread abroad to deceive the weaker unwary People and intoxicate them with disaffection to this Parliament and to the lawful Prerogative and Government of His Majesty But if they can make no better Squibs than this to blow up a Parliament they had best give it over for the King not being bound up by Law within a yeer he is at liberty to Prorogue beyond the limit of a yeer and so the Fifteen Months Prorogation was and is good though it hath been seldom that there have been so long Prorogations For that is no Argument against the Wisdom and Power of the King to exceed some days or months if He seeth in prudence it be pro bono Publico and that urgent Reasons of State do require it and there is nothing in all our Law that speaks a syllable to the contrary if rightly consider'd Therefore to unwinde the Bottom which the Dissolver hath entangled let me with assurance determine this Point which is the Standard by which you may measure all that they have said or can say If those two Statutes did not confine the Parliament's sitting to Twelve months then the Kings Proroguing His Parliament to Fifteen months was no violation of the said Statutes If no Statute be thereby violated then the Prorogation was and is good If so then the Parliament is as firm in Being as ever any Prorogued Parliament was or can be and consequently the Laws which they have made or shall make after the Prorogation are as perfect and obligatory upon us as any other Laws that ever were made in this Nation And 't is no question a Crime little less than an endeavour at the Subversion of Parliament for any persons by Speeches or Prints in or out of the Houses to carry on a Designe of arguing a Dissolution of this thereby to perswade the People against Obedience and Submission to it Nor can this Assertion of mine be construed as if I maintained any thing in derogation of that Freedom of speech which ought to be had in Parliament and which I count absolutely necessary for the Debate and the Dispatch of the Grand Affairs But then that freedom of speech ought to be qualified with so much Modesty and Reverence as not to run to such licentious discourse as the Laws make Criminal for next to downright Treasonous discourse none can be worse than that which tends to the Violent Dissolution of a Parliament that is to say without the King's consent or against His will What then do they deserve who have been such busie Speech-makers both in and out of Parliament to bring that End about against the King's consent and against the Laws Or that shall presume to do it hereafter seeing the two Houses have given their Judgment in the Case contrary to the interpretation of all Factious Penmen and Talkers But the Dissolver goes further than this and takes upon himself the person of the People of England and in their Name falls to downright threatning of both Houses of Parliament in the following words DISSOLVER Pages 9 and 10. This we say not Gentlemen by way of acknowledgment that you are in a Legal capacity now to do us either good or hurt for your day is done and your power expired but that you may not like a Snuff smell ill after you are out For the reason why we more particularly direct our selves to you is because of the Character you have born that therefore you should not seem so much as to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law That so however you have lived yet all may say and witness for you that you died well and made a worthy End If not we hope the whole Nation will strictly observe every man among you that to sit a little longer yet would sacrifice to this Prorogation the very best of Laws and in them all the Laws and Liberties of England The two Statutes of EDW. 3. were declared to be in force by your Selves in the Sixteenth yeer of the King in the new Triennial Act then passed and we are sure there hath been no new Parliament since to Repeal them ANIMADVERSION What need this phrentick impertinent Clause here at last seeing that no man affirms those two Statutes to be Repealed Let them stand for ever as Laws to shew that as we had and have a Right to a frequencie of Parliaments so also that the King hath a Right of Prerogative to judge whether there be need of having them so often as every yeer And thus much is to be understood also by the tenour of the new Triennial Act passed by this Parliament to prevent Inconveniences hapning by the long intermission of Parliaments for they name the two Statutes of Edward the Third but make no mention of a Right to Parliaments once every yeer the words of the Act referring to those Statutes being these onely because by them Parliaments are to be held very often which is the very same that I grant and affirm to be the meaning of the said Statutes and their not affirming a jot more than I do implieth that they understood them no otherwise than I do in general terms for a Declarative Frequencie but whether within a yeer or oftner they say not a word touching which it is to be presumed they would not have been silent if they had understood it to be the Right of the People to have had certain Parliaments yeerly whenas the Statutes declare not absolutely but onely with condition IF NEED BE. And because all mouthes should be stopped and no room left for an Objection which ill-minded heads or jealous may make and is made use of by these our Factious Book-makers viz. that our having of Parliaments is by this means left to the King's pleasure when he please to judge them needful behold there is no reason for such objecting because the nature of His power to judge I maintain not to be absolute whether we shall have Parliaments or not but whether it be needful to have one or more so oft as within every yeer Therefore the high Wisdom of this present Parliament is to be magnisied in contriving that new Triennial Act in such a manner as prevents all the frivolous Objections that may be made by any other persons For in the later end of the Act they pray in these words That it may be Declared and Enacted And be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That hereafter the Sitting and Holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above Three years at the most but that within Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within Three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments OR IF THERE BE OCCASION MORE OFTEN your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for Calling Assembling
3. cap. 10. That for the maintenance of those Liberties and remedy of Mischiefs and Grievances that daily happen a Parliament should be held once every yeer ANIMADVERSION I cannot but note this Dissolver to be a mere Shifter He shifts that Statute of 4 Edw. 3. out of the way as a thing too hot for him to handle because of the words IF NEED BE. And as he lays that aside so next he turns Statute-clipper cuts off the main Clause which qualisies the Sence of the Second Statute of the 36 of Edw. 3. The words of the Clause are As at another time WAS ORDAINED BY STATVTE Now that other Statute here mentioned is the first Statute of Edw. 3. which ordained that Parliaments shall be holden once a yeer if need be and more often if need be that is to say we shall have frequent Parliaments and as frequent as heart can wish IF NEED require Just so much and no more was Ordained by the former Statute But who shall be Judge of this need or who can be but the King in whom the Law hath trusted the Calling of Parliaments Therefore 't is in Law to be supposed it may be inconvenient for Him to call a Parliament so often as every yeer when in his Judgment He concludes it not needful so to do So much for Clipping the Statute a Crime as bad as Clipping the King's Coyn if not worse But any thing must be done to serve the turn of Dissolution DISSOLVER The reason he saith is because this Parliament hath sat so many years till they are not the Representatives of one half of the People of England And the Gentry who think themselves born to have their share in Ruling as well as being Ruled judge it a very hard thing upon them to be secluded from their hopes of having the honour to serve their King and Country in Parliament ANIMADVERSION A Share of Ruling as well as being Ruled 'T is very fine ye men of Shaftsbury this is so like the language of the Old Levellers who were all for Ruling by Turns that one might almost swear a small Friend of yours was at the Penning it He is always for Vp and Ride and Rule and Rule alone and so is the whole Faction and that is the Reason why they are for a Tumbling-Cast to the present Rulers of Church and State But what Gentry are those who hanker after Rule If to sit and serve in Parliament be to Rule this the Law never understood in England and the Writ of Summons to Parliament saith no such thing the Rule and Empire being vested in the King and those that are by Law deputed under Him for that purpose It was never otherwise understood till that fatal Parliament in FORTY ONE when they wrested the Rule out of the hand of the King and His inferiour Magistrates There were then such a Sort of Gentry got into the House though but few in comparison of the whole number that in order to the gaining of all Rule into their own hands from their Fellow-Members as well as the King first placed it in the hands of London-Prentices till by Tumults and Tumultuous Voting they drave away the rest of the Gentry as well as the King and the majority of the Lords and never left till themselves became the onely Lords of Mis-rule Such Gentry as those were are they that now reckon of Ruling in Parliament one day or other if they can but be rid of this and perswade the People to chuse 'em having to that end a great confidence in the strength of the Tongues and Lungs of their Ambulatory Chaplains The rest of the Gentry understand them well enough and all their Windings and do very well know and are satisfied that here is a full Parliament all places of Members having been fill'd up by Election of new ones as fast as they were vacant and that a convenient duration of this Assembly of the Peoples Representatives as he calls them is the only Expedient to prevent the Designe of that restless Faction in whose Service this Dissolver and his Scribling Companions are listed And now to do the Feat he ventures at matter of Law too and his Arguments are all summ'd up in what follows DISSOLVER By the Statute of 4 EDW. 3. cap. 10. and 36 EDW. 3. cap. 14. and by other Statutes a Parliament is to meet once within a yeer But directly contrary to those Statutes this last Prorogation Order'd the Parliament not to meet within a yeer but some months after and therefore either the Prorogation is null and void in Law and consequently the Sitting and Acting as a Parliament is at an end or else by your Sitting and Acting you will admit and justifie that a particular Order of the King is to be obey'd though contrary to an Act of Parliament and thereby subvert the Government of England by Law So also the King's Order is to be obeyed against Magna Charta Petition of Right c. and we have neither life nor liberty secured unto us Then the Dissolver by vertue of the foregoing Lines goes on to spend four or five pages in setting forth the great hazard of our Laws Liberties and Properties as if all were true he said and concludes all are gone if the Prorogation beyond twelve months were a good one but he saith 't is null and the Parliament null'd therewith ANIMADVERSION Such small Faggots of Argumentation as these are now bound up in Books to fire the Nation if it be possible They first make false Constructions of the two Statutes of Edw. 3. telling the world the King is by them bound to hold a Parliament once within every yeer and if we could grant that to be the Statutes meaning then they might have some shadow of Reason to make Conclusions to their own mindes But I have already made evident that they either misunderstand the Statutes or craftily wrest the sence of them There is no intent in the Statutes that Parliaments be call'd yeerly ex absoluto but they contain a clear Hypothesis as a Salvo for the undoubted legal Prerogative of the King in the words IF NEED BE so that 't is supposed in the Statutes the King hath by his Prerogative-Royal a Right of Judging the time when it is needful to call a Parliament because He and none but He can Call Therefore 't is to be admir'd there should so many words be made about so plain a business For were I never so much a Conspirator in forming Devices for the Destruction of this Parliament I would finde out some more solid Basis to build my Arguments upon than a manifest Contradiction or else certainly I would for shame be silent The two Statutes say we shall have frequent Parliaments and so frequent as once a yeer if there be need But the Factious Dissolver maintains the sence of them to be that we shall have Parliaments once a yeer though there be no need so that you see upon what a wretched
Hereditarily invested with all the Rights of Government of which this sort of Judicatory power is a principal Wherefore the Reason of the ancient frequencie being out of date long since it was well done by this Parliament upon new Reason more suitable to the Condition and Temper of this Age to ascertain us of holding Parliaments in the future with frequencie more convenient for us However 't is worth the observation what his Master-ship doth grant that Non-user may antiquate Acts of Parliament and make them lose their Force if the Reason of them fail or if by change of time they become a Publike Mischief As for the Reason of King Edward's Act I have shewn already that his Parliament had nothing in their Reason of making them that savours of the Old Custom of yeerly frequencie otherwise than with Condition there shall be need nor do they contain any sence that gives us cause to plead that they are antiquated or to desire an antiquation of them because to Repeal them would be an Injury to the King But next let me adde this that in the two late Triennial Acts it is implied that in these days things are alter'd to such a pass that there was high Reason to be no longer bound to the ancient Custom of that Annual frequencie which his Mastership pleads for and thereby you have the Determination of two whole Parliaments the FORTY ONE Parliament and this Parliament that the Reason of the said Custom at Common law fails and that publike Inconveniences if not publike Mischief would follow if it were practised in our time or else 't is in reason to be supposed they never would have alter'd it Therefore seeing his Mastership doth admit what I have made evident in the foregoing part of this Discourse that there hath been a Non-user of King Edward's two Statutes in any such sence as he and his fellows do impose they having never been so put in practice by Edward himself or by any succeeding King to this day we with all assurance conclude that a pleading of Non-user is a good Plea against the two Statute's being in force for such an absolute yeerly frequencie as the Faction doth insinuate into the mindes of the people Especially when two Parliaments before-nam'd have judged that Reason of publike Good and Convenience now lies against having them so frequent as within a yeer and that the time of Three yeers is soon enough unless there be need Nothing then but a spirit of Sedition or Treason would have fixed such a Construction as these men have lately made upon the said Statutes with a mighty Clamour as if Noise would carry it among reasonable men But their Construction being every way proved naught all the Arguments founded upon that Bottom do necessarily fall and Master Bencher and the rest of the Disputants ought to be tried before a Bench of Academian Sophisters that they may be brought under Correction for that wretched Beggery A Begging of the Question A way then with the Questions with which he stuffs up all the rest of his Book because they are grounded upon the same sad account of Petitio Principii and so are altogether impertinent to the Point in hand till they can better prove their own Construction of the two Statutes to be a right one or that those Statutes were at any time since their making put in use and practice upon supposal of any such absolute Meaning as he and his Fellow-writers would fasten upon them His Questions follow BENCHER 1. Whether the Statutes for yeerly Parliaments may be dispensed with by the King 's Soveraign Power and Prerogative being as some say onely Counsels and Advices to the King not obligatory ANIMADVERSION Who are those some that say so If any did they talkt as idly as Master Bencher writes and as little to the purpose for his Mastership hereupon starts up an invidious Question Whether the King may dispence with Laws and Statutes I rather suppose the SOME that say so never were men of God's making but mere men of straw set up by Master Bencher for a Tryal of his own Skill in Confutation and Conquest and to entertain his Majesties subjects with Supposals that there is strange Doctrine at Court in matter of Law that so himself may take occasion to lug in a long discourse to prove the Negative that his Majestie cannot dispence But know once for all that there is none under heaven who can be more tender of the currencie of Law and Legal Constitutions than the King Himself is especially such as are Parliamentary and it would be the joy of the Faction if they could really finde Him otherwise or if they could by any Tricks of State such as were shewn in several Sessions of Parliament before last February-Session play in upon Him the necessity of having recourse to that Supreme Law the Idol of the FORTY ONE Parliament Salus Populi suprema lex to save Himself and his People from such Confusions and Destructions as the Counsels of the Faction if they proceed will bring upon us I may well call it the Idol of that Parliament considering how they abused that Maxime in a causless using it against his Majesties Father perfidiously pleading the Safety of the People to justifie whatsoever they did as confidently as if the People could have been saved no other way if they had kept within the Bounds of Ordinary law But the ordinary path of Law is that which his Majestie desires to walk in and to prove the Truth of this we need onely to recollect the past Provocations given Him by the late extravagances of some men which would have provoked any Prince less patient to other Courses than he hath taken to secure Himself his Affairs his Friends and the Interest of his Crown And as to that point of the Prorogation he did not thereby assume to Himself any power to dispence with the Laws relating to the Course of Parliament but kept within the bound of Law as is abundantly proved Therefore the dragging in this Question of yours must needs be very impertinent as well as maliciously meant good Master Bencher and so are all the vile Inferences that you have made thereupon to catch the People BENCHER 2. His Second Point under question is Whether the Kings dismission of the Parliament without any day set for their return and their continuing so beyond a yeer be a Dissolution or whether such a failer in Time onely may by Act of Law dissolve a Parliament even against the Will of the King ANIMADVERSION So so All is out now The main Point they drive at is to Dissolve the Parliament against the Will of the King but what pretence hath the Bencher for declaring it Dissolved Not a tittle more than what was alledged by the DISSOLVER He said Dismission of a Parliament sine Die amounts to a Dissolution But how comes it that the Fifteenth of February the day to which the Parliament was prorogued or dismissed