Selected quad for the lemma: act_n
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A45191
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A defence of the charter, and municipal rights of the city of London, and the rights of the other municipal cities and towns of England directed to the citizens of London. / By Thomas Hunt.
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Hunt, Thomas, 1627?-1688.
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1683
(1683)
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Wing H3750; ESTC R16568
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22,067
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49
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Warrant that we hear of yet granted by the Lord Chief Justice But it is not a Duke of Guise to be assassinated a Turbulent wicked and haughty Courtier But an innocent and gentle Prince as well as brave and renowned for noble Atchievements A Prince that hath no fault but that he is the Kings Son and the best too of all his Sons such a Son as would have made the best of Emperors happy Except it be that the People honor him and love him and every where publiquely and lowdly shew it But this they do for that the best People of England have no other way left to shew their Loyalty to the King and love to their Religion and Government in long intervals of Parliament than by prosecuting his Son for the sake of the King and his own merit with all the demonstrations of the highest esteem But he hath not used his Patron Duke much better for he hath put him under a most dismal and unfortunate Character of a Successor excluded from the Crown by Act of State for his Religion who fought his way to the Crown chang'd his Religion and dyed by the Hand of a Roman Assassinate It is enough to make his great Dukes courage quail to find himself under such an unlucky and disastrous representation and thus personated Besides he hath offered a justification of an Act of Exclusion against a Popish Successor in a Protestant Kingdom by remembring what was done against the King of Navar. The Popish Religion in France did de facto by Act of State exclude a Protestant Prince who is under no obligation from his Religion to destroy his Popish Subjects Though a Popish Prince is to destroy his Protestant Subjects A Popish Prince to a Protestant Kingdom without more must be the most insufferable Tyrant and exceed the Character that any story can furnish for that sort of monster And yet all the while to himself a religious and an applauded Prince discharged from the tortures that ordinarily tear and rend the hearts of the most cruel Princes and make them as uneasy to themselves as they are to their Subjects and sometimes prevail so far as to lay some restraints upon their wicked minds But this his Patron will impute to his want of Judgment for this Poets Hero's are commonly such Monsters as Theseus and Hercules are renowned throughout all Ages for destroying But to excuse him this man hath forsaken his post and entered upon an other province To the Observator it belongs to confound truth and falshood and by his false colors and impostures to put out the Eyes of the People and leave them without understanding But our Poet hath not so much art left him as to frame any thing agreeable or very-similar to amuse the People or wherewith to deceive them His Province is to corrupt the manners of the Nation and lay wast their morals his understanding is clapt and his brains are vitiated and he is to rot the Age. His endeavors are more happily applyed to extinguish the little remains of the virtue of the Age by bold impieties and befooling Religion by impious and inept Rhimes to confound virtue and vice good and evil and leave us without consciences And thus we are prepared for destruction But to give the World a tast of his Atheism and Impiety I shall recite two of his Verses as recited upon the Stage viz. For Conscience and Heavens fear Religious rules They are all State bells to toll in pious fools which I have done the rather that some honest Judge or Justice may direct a process against this bold impious man or some honest Surrogate or Official may find leasure to proceed ex officio against him notwithstanding at present they are so incumbered with the Dissenters Such publick Blasphemies against Religion never went unpunished in any Country or Age but this But I have made too long a digression but that it carries with it some instructions towards the preserving of the honor of your August City viz. That you do not hereafter authorize the Stage to expose and revile your great Officers and Offices by the indignities your selves do them whilst the Papists clap their hands and triumph at your publick disgraces and in the hopes they conceive thereby of the ruine of your Government as if that were as sure and certain to them as it is to us without doubt that they once fired it And further for that it was fit to set forth to the World of what Spirit our Enemies are how they intend to attach us As also how bold they are with His Majesty what false and dishonorable representations they make of him and present to the World upon a publick Theatre which I must confess hath moved me with some passion I have now some mistakes to remove that I observe abuse you and make you think that it is in your power to destroy your Franchises I come to defend your Charter against your reason and understanding though against your will there is nothing can be said if it be peremptory and obstinate But that it can have no effect in Law it will be criminal and punishable The mistakes are these That the Excommunication of Dissenters render them uncapable of suffrage and voice in the election of your Officers That by thrusting them from a right of Suffrage a Common Council may be had that will dispose of the Charter And that the Common Council have authority to destroy it Which are both mistakes And I shall likewise make out to you that the Sherifalties of London and Middlesex are in the City by course of Common Law or by Statute Law and are not of the nature of a voluntary grant from the Crown of a meer right nor can they be considered as a property that is alienable for if they were so they might lawfully be regranted by those in whom the right is So that they cannot be displac'd but by Act of Parliament tho the consent of every Citizen were thereunto had And first that excommunicate Dissenters have a right to choose City Officers notwithstanding their excommunication is evident For that excommunication forfeits no private right If a Plaintiff excommunicate sues his excommunication is pleaded in delay only and not in abatement of the writ But outlawry pleaded abates the writ and barrs the Action If a Mayor sues in his incorporate capacity a plea of excommunication is not allowable to stay proceedings for that its a publick right that he pretends to but excommunication of an Executor will stay the Suit tho he sues in another right no excommunication is to be pleaded in delay of the process in judicial writs as in Quare non admist or in a scire facias upon a judgment because the right is ascertained by the judgment and it is not militant as in an original action And tho it be allowed that a person Excommunicate may be challenged if he be returned upon a Jury which is said in some of our old
If the minority be big enough to maintain support the ends of the Corporation the minority is still the Corporation If any single Person is unwilling the Society should be dissolved and this Corporation is under the Government of any greater Society of Men as a Corporation within a Polity this single person may require and prosecute the revolters from the Society to abide in that Community These societies of men that are form'd by the soveraign Authority cannot dissolve or make the terms of their Society and the Order and Rule of governing them other than is appointed by the Charter of Incorporation Nay it is a Question whether a King can change it who hath not the Power of making Laws For the terms of their Society their Order and Rule of Government is the Condition of Incorporating and upon these terms they consent to be incorporated no man by our Law is compellable to be incorporated against his own liking Roll. 1. Rep. Baggs Case And agreeable hereto changes in the Government of the City of London from the first Charters have been made by Acts of Parliament Acts of Parliament was made for the Division of a Ward and for altering the Election and Continuance of the Office of an Alderman for Life whereas in the first Charters they were choosen annually and not to be choosen the next Year I shall here transcribe the Acts themselves which are not printed but supplied to me by my worthy Friend Mr. Petyt whose enquiry nothing that is notable in our Records hath escaped The Commons in the Parliament 7. R. 2. prayed the King for the maintenance of peace and tranquility in the City of London for the time to come by reason that all the Aldermen were choosen from year to year at the Feast of St. Gregory the Pope and none of them could be re-elected for the year ensuing and others put in their places to the great endamagement of the City The Commons therefore pray the King to grant to the Mayor and Commons of the City and their Successors in that present Parliament that the Aldermen to be elected from year to year at the said Feast franchement Ezluz be freely choosen and that of the most sufficient persons and good fame of those who had been Aldermen as others per le Gardes de la Citee by the Wards of the City Saving to the Wards their free Election in manner aforesaid To which the King answer'd Le Roy le voet Grante to endure so long as good Government should be in the City by reason of that clause Rot. Parl. 7o. R. 2 ds Numb 24. In the Parliament 17o. R. 2 di Numb 25. It was ordained that the Aldermen should not be removed Sanz honest reasonable causes without reasonable Cause In the same Parliament Numb 27. upon the Petition of the Mayor Aldermen and Commons in the said City by reason of the greatness of the Ward of Farringdon which was too great to be governed by one Alderman The King grants that les Gents de la dite Gard of Farringdon within might choose one Alderman and those of Farringdon without another and that both those Aldermen so choosen should not be removed Si non per cause reasonable as it was ordained by the King in Parliament to the Aldermen of the said City But though the Government of such Societies and Corporations may be changed by Law Yet no Law can change the Government of Kingdoms and Common-wealths and alter the terms of Government and Obedience established nothing can do this but chance and time violence and an irresistible Power But every English man ought from the Nature of his Allegiance to defend the English Monarchy with his Life under the Authority of the Government and the protection of Laws To conclude the best way to shew our Loyalty to the King is to think honorably of His Majesty to account his Person Sacred as it is and himself impeccable for so our Government hath made him by imputation which is the highest Prerogative of the Crown and a notable instance of the wisdom of our Government Imperii Majestas Tutelae Salus We heartily bewail the unhappy death of the late King But detest that it should be made a pretense to change our Government They are very bad men that raise on the one side in the People a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or King-dread and on the otherside in the King a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or People dread from his deplorable death Such passions indeed respectively possess the People and Successors of Tyrants and work the woo of the People or the abolition of the Kingly Government But most unnatural these confounding apprehensions are from the death of a good King bitterly bewail'd by almost all of his subjection It is too unreasonable that we should offer up our antient Government our pretious liberties our Religion it self in the defence of which he dyed to attone for the guilt of an inconsiderable part of the Nation that was engaged in that detestable fact and are since gone to their proper place This is hard that we must loose our Government and have no more English Kings to expiate for their guilt We do not shew our Loyalty but discover an ignominious baseness if we yeeld up our rights at the perswasion of a Courtier who tells us it is for the Kings Service when he is thereby promoting his own advantages and projects and shifting for indeminity upon the ruin of the Government Plutarch in his treatise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 base sneaking says that the Asâ—â—ticks became slaves because they could not pronounce the word NO and gave denyal to Sycohants and flatterers If these Courtiers really and honestly thought it were for His Majesties Service that all Authorities and Dignities in the Government should be held precaciously of the Crown they ought to hold their honors and session in Parliament by the same tenure for that those that shall inherit to them may be wiser than themselves for this there way is their folly and their posterities I hope will not approve their doings When our Preachers exhort to obedience they ought not to be heard if they press us beyond the terms of obedience that the Government hath established And we may dutifully insist notwithstanding to have the benefit of such Laws that the power of the Government can make to preserve us in the peaceable enjoyment of our Religion when we have a Protestant King When they exhort us to Christian patience they should not forget to tell the People that they are not bound to suffer but where the Christian virtue of Fortitude is perfected and not else but as Christian charity doth direct But they ought not by any means to abuse the People with a vain amuzement that a Popish Successor will protect the Church of England I shall end with the words of King Solomon Proverbs 24. My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their Calamity shall arise suddenly and who knoweth the Ruine of them both It is not good to have respect of Persons in Judgment He that saith unto the wicked thou art righteous him shall the People curse Nations shall abhor him But to them that rebuke him shall be delight and a good Blessing shall come upon them If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be slain If thou saist behold we knew it not doth not he that pondereth the Heart consider it and he that keepeth thy Soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every Man according to his Works ERRATA Pag. 2. L. 23. r the negligence of page number the twelfth is misplac'd after page the thirteenth and must be read before it pag. 7. r obliquandi for obliquendi pag. 12. lin vlt. for which r what pag. 13. L. 19. for help r help'd pag. 19. L. 26 dele all pag. 36. r. By-laws p. 38. l. 21. r. their FINIS