whatsoever done or to be done for the adiournement proroguing or dissolving of that Parliament contrary to the said Act should be utterly void and of none effect That the house of Commons in their joynt declaration with the Lords in Parliament 9 August 1642. Ibid. 502. Did alleage the house of Peeres to be the hereditary Counsellors of the Kingdome That Mr. Pym in his Speech at Guild Hall London 14 January 1642 printed by Order of Parliament affirmed that the Lords had an hereditary interest in makeing Lawes in this Kingdome That the Natinall Covenant and Oath enjoyned the maintenance and defence of the liberties priviledges of Parliment the Judicative better part whereof was the House Peeres and the Rights and Liberties of the Nobillity and every one in their severall callings Rights Liberties and Priviledges That in Aprill 1646. an Ordinance was made and commanded to be read in Churches that the Parliament intended the Commonwealth should be governed by King or Supream Magistrate Lords and Commons That the general Councell of the Officers of the Army Prinn's plea for the Lords and house of Peeres 45 46. in their Declaration made at Windsor about January 1647. presented to the Lords House by Sir Hardresse Waller did declare the hereditary legall Right of the Lords and their House in Parliament and the Armies fixed resolution to uphold and maintayn them and their Priviledges with their Swords And that the late Lord Protector Iohn Lilburnes letter to the Speaker printed in July 1648. when he was Leivtenant Generall protested to Iohn Lilburne and others at the Lord Whartons house that upon his Conscience in the sight of God the Lords had as true a right to their Legislative and Jurisdictive power as he had to the Coat on his Back and that he and the Army would support the same That such of the Baronage of England as in the late warrs adhered to the King did afterwards by severall Acts and orders of Parliament compound for it And that such as have not acted against the Parliament since the 30 day of Ianuary 1648 or are not within the exceptions of the Act of Parliament for a generall pardon and oblivion made in the latter end of the year 1651 are included in that gener all pardon and Oblivion and to receive benifit by it That the Act in Anno 1648 which after the death of the King was made to take away the house and priviledge of the Peeres in Parliament who were neither cited if the house of Commons had been impowred thereunto nor so much as conferred with or heard was only by a part of the house of Commons when many of their members were kept and forced away and the remainder could not reach to the number of one hundred That the house of Lords then sitting did never give consent to their dissolution or unto that Act of that small remainder of the house of Commons to take away their Peerage but protested against it as an Act made against the fundamentall Lawes and invalid That the Parliament in 1653 did declare that they would be as tender of the Rights and Properties of the people as they would be of themselves and their posterities 13. July 1653 That by the humble Petition and advice of the Parliament presented to the late Lord Protector and assented unto the 26. day of June 1657 It was advised that the antient and undoubted liberties priviledges of Parl. which are there said to be the birthright Inheritance of the people wherein every man is interessed be preserved and mainteyned And that he would not break or interrupt the same nor suffer them to be broken or interrupted That the Gothes Vandalls and Tartars the ruder sort of Nations Savages only excepted the Swedes Polonians Hungarians Bohemians whose Kings are some of them wholy and others partly elective the French Spanish Portuguez Itallians Germans Scots Irish Russians Persians Egyptians Ethiopians and the major part of all the World aswell Heathen as Christian Prinns plea for the Lords and house of Peeres 45.46 as Mr. Prinne in a larger Plea for the Lords and House of Peeres of England hath learnedly and abundantly proved do admit their Nobility into all their Assemblies Conuentions of Estate Parliaments Dyets and Councells And that now to exclude our English Nobillity whose Ancestors were so principally instrumental in the disclaiming and annulling the Resignation and Grant of the ill advised King John Mat. Paris 237.245.270 Walsingham y podigm Neus triae pat 60. to hold the Kingdomes of England and Ireland in Fee farme of the Pope and his Chaire by the payment of 1000 Markes yearly Tribute Fought for and maintained our English Lawes and Liberties built and endowed at their own charges many of our Churches procured many deafforrestations for the people and Charters and Liberties for many of their Cities and Townes gave and distributed out of their own Lands and Estates great and large quantities of Land and Ground to be held in Common and were the Donors of much of the Copy hold Lands of the Nation which being no Norman slavery but a continuance of Charity and Benevolence since turned into a Custome were not long agoe a fourth part if not halfe the Commons Wastes and Forrests excepted of all the lands and reall estates of the Nation to render them thereby to be as no part of the People but as meer Tituladoes Shaddows or aiery Notions or as men of no value interest or concernment would be a strange kinde of gratitude as well as an unparalell'd violation of the Petition of Right our no lesse then thirty times confirmed Magna Charta and the common Justice of the World who by the Rule and example of God himselfe in the case of Adam in the very dawning and Infancy of the World was taught not to condemne any man or Society without a Citation and heareing what they can alleage or plead for themselves And make this Nation which hitherto hath justly claymed and enjoyed the precedency of most of the Nations of the Earth to be and appear in the eyes of the World lesse than the Republicke of Venice who by their admission of their Clarissimo's and Nobility into their Senate are the more esteemed for it And cause us in the not makeing use of or admitting our Nobility in to our assemblies and Parliaments to be looked upon in that particular as a Nation having no Nobility or as that Mountanous and beggerly people the Switzers who live and subsist onely in being as mercenary and Hireling Souldiers to Neighbour Princes and are in that respect so undervalued as they are taken to be but as Fragments or broken peices of a Common-Wealth deformedly put together That it will be against the nature and end of a Commonwealth to have a principall estate and part of the people put out of the lynes of Communication of it and be only admitted to the Taxes and burthens thereof That many of no few of our Lawes and Acts of Pvrliament yet unrepealed and not altered by any subiequent Act of Parliament which do grant allow and confirm the rights and priviledges of our English Nobility whose Ancestors have not only in one but many generations been the grand and stout Assertors and Maintainers of our Magna Charta and Lawes and liberties of England when the Common people could not do it are included in these Lawes and liberties which the now Lord Protector hath lately sworn to observe and keep That two of the Ten Commandements given by the mouth of Almighty God himselfe in Mount Sinai with thunder and Lightenings when the Mount shoke for the dread and Majesty thereof twice afterwards written in Tables of Stone by his own hand and many other of his precepts repeated in his book and holy writt do command the preservation of every mans property And that the care of the rights liberties and properties of the Peeres and Nobility of England which neither were nor are nor can be proved to be inconsistent with the rights liberties and properties of the other part of the people ought to be very much incumbent upon the hearts and spirits of the members of this Parliament who come thither under an oath which the Parliaments of the former ages sufficiently carefull of the rights and liberties not only of a part but of all the people were not ordered to take to uphold and maintaine the true reformed Protestant Religion in the purity thereof as it is contained in the old and new testament which certainly enjoynes the preservation of every mans property and as members of Parliament to indeavour as much as in them lieth the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people FINIS
against the King being by act of Parliament in Anno 50. H. 3. disinherited and the lands of many of them given away or sold and the Dictum de Kenilworth in 51. H. 3. admitting them to a composition Wake Hastings Vescy Gray Nevill Barons and Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford and many other of the Nobility having compounded did without any new grant of their Eâ—rldomes and Baronies retaine all their Parliament priviledges Andrew de Astely the Sonne and Heir of Sir Thomas de Asteley a Baron slain at the Battell of Evesham against the King was after his Fathers deathin 49 H. 3. summoned as a Baron to Parliament in severall Parliaments in the raigne of King E. 1. 16 Richard the 2. 16 R. 2. Act. 15. the King granting and restoring to Sir Aubrey de Vere Unckle to Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland and Earl of Oxford in Parliament the Name Title Estate and Honour of Earl of Oxford which was forfeited by the attainder of the said Duke to hold to him and his heires Males caused him to be put as the words in the record thereof in French beares it en son lieu ovesquè les Peeres in his place with his Peeres The clayme in Parliment in xi H. 6. Rot Parl. 11. R 2 m. 9. n. 32 33 34 35. of the Earl of Arundell to sit in Parliament where it was adjudged that he and his Heires Earles of Arundell should have locum sedem the place of Earls of Arundell in Parliament as they had formerly And the like adjudged in Parliament in the Controversie betwixt William Earl of Arundell and the Earle of Devonshire in 27. H. 6. Parl. 27 H. 6. Art 18. All which with the priviledge granted of old unto the English Nobility to kill a Buck or Deer in any of the Kings Forrests and Chases in their going to the Parliament or to have no Wages for the Knights of the Shires which served in Parliament to be levyed of such of their Lands as were parcell of their Earldomes and Baronies The Act of Parliament of 14. E. 3. cap. 5 for redressing in Parliament the delayes in Judgements of other Courts the Act of 31. H. 8. Cap 10. giving the Earles and Barons their place of Antienty in the Parliament and all the Acts of Parliament which we have had from the first being and methodizing of our Lawes from the Brittish times untill the latter end of 1648. All our Restorations of antient Barons and bringing them into Parliament by virtue of Entailes of Earldomes and Baronies or otherwise and all our Records and Journalls of Parliament do plentifully shew that they had an Inherirable right to sit in those Assemblies And cannot be supposed to represent the Commons in Parliament whose first summoning thither either by H. 1. or H. 3 was meerely by the Kings writts or Summons and not by any Act or order of Parliament When as the Nobillity were ever a distinct Estate by themselves and the Commons did after their calling or being summoned to Parliament represent onely for their owne estate and degree agitate their Votes and busines apart Elect their Knights of the Shire and Burgesses to consent and represent for them send Messages and desire Conferences with the Lords stand bare whilst they sit coverd and receive Bills from them And that the Commons were never authorized or accompted to represent for the Nobility by any Law Record Constitution legall Custome or Usage of this Nation as yet to be found or extant And that if the Lords had represented the Commons or any other than themselves the Commons would have taken more care of themselves than to have voted them dangerous or uselesse And howsoever that the later Letters Patents or creation of Earles 11. R. 2. pat 3. m. 15. Pat. 23. H. 6. part 2 m. 20. Viscounts and Barons as that of Sir John Beauchamp Baron of Kidderminster the first which was created by Letters Patents in 11 R. 2. of the Lord Beaumont in 23. H. 6. and the succeeding ages have been so punctuall and carefull as to grant in speciall words to them and their Heirs Males Sedem locum vocem in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis Conciliis Place and Voice in Parliament Yet it was as much before the right of the Baronage of England upon that accompt Ralph de Monthermer who married Joane Countesse of Glocester and divers others in the right of their Wives did sit in Parliament aswell as enjoyed their Baronies And it is to be remembred That Sir Edward Cook in his Institutes Cookes instit printed by Order of Parliament saith that the Lords and Peeres are to have their Writts or Summons Ex debito Justitiae Rushworth historicall collections 240. which was not denyed the Earl of Bristoll upon his petition for his Writs or Summons in 2 Carol. That in the begining of our late civill and unhappy warrs there was no small use made of an Argument to justifie them taken out of some words in Bracton which as to the superiority of the house of Peers over the King was something too much strained and beyond his expresse words in other places who was a Lord Chiefe Justice Bracton lib. 2. Cap. 16.36 in the raign of King Henry the third that Rex hahet superiorem Deum Legem per quam factus est Rex Curiam seilicet Comites Barones The King hath his Superiours God the Law and his Court of Earles and Barons That the Parliament Exact Collection 846.528 in their Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdome in December 1641. did alleage that the Peers were the Kings great Councell In which Parliament they also declared but what can we the Commons do without coniunction of the house of Lords That the trienniall Parliament ordained in Anno 1641. To be called once in every three yeares is to be holden by the King or Supreame Magistrate and Lords and Commons And that the power thereby given to the people to make elections of the members and to assemble in Parliament if the King or Supreame Magistrate should omitt or refuse to do it cannot be made use of or put in execution with any safety to the people who by the Act of Parliament for a trienniall Parliament are only allowed and authorized to do it or any Lawes which shall be made in such a Trienniall Parliament be valid or binding If it shall not be called and holden accord ing to the directions of that Act of Parliament or pursue the very prescript form and allowance thereof That it was likewise enacted by the assent of the Lords and Commons in that Parliment that that Parliment should not be dissolved or ad jorned unless it should be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose and that the house of Peeres should not at any time dureing that Parliament be adiourned unless it be by themselves and their own order and that every thing and things
THE ANTIENT LAND-MARK SKREEN or BANK BETWIXT The Prince or Supreame Magistrate and the People of ENGLAND BY THE Right of Inheritance which the NOBILITY BARONAGE of ENGLAND have TO Sit in the House of PEERS IN PARLIAMENT March 12th LONDON Printed by T. W. for Daniel White at the seven Starrs in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1659. The antient Land-marke Skreen or Bank betwixt the Prince or Supream Magistrate and the People c. IT should be confessed by all that have but Travailed the ordinary Roades and pathes of the book of God and Scripture that the Princes and heads of the Tribes of the people of Israel in and after the Theocraty or time of Gods own government of them and in the Raign of the Kings which he extraordinarily blessed and appointed over them were of their greatest and most eminent Councells and Sanhedrims And not to be denyed by those that have been acquainted with the Greek and Roman Histories That the Patricii of the one and the wise and great men of the other were alwaies made use of and preferred in their Senates and Councells as men of the greatest understanding and interest attended by their own virtues education and fitnes as well as those of their Ancestors In Imitation and conformity whereof and that conduct of reason and successe which had incouraged all the Civilized people and Nations of the earth rather to follow than desert such universally approved experiments Our no foolish English progenitors did not think they should do themselves or posterity any harme to tread the same steps and embrace and make much of the Truth in the old paths thereof And hence it was that our over-warlike and too much busied forefathers the Saxons in their Civil Wars and Discords took it to be neither dangerous nor useles to make their Princes and Ealdermen which were the same with our Earles and Barons the later being the Genus I. Brampton hist Joruall or foundation of the former of their Councells and Parliaments as King Ina did in Anno 711. Now above nine hundred 40 and 7 yeares ago and then not remarqued for any Novelty Selden Tit. Honour Ca. 5 sect 6 632. Bede lib. 2. Ca. 13. in a Parliament or place where he made his Lawes That Edwin King of Northumberland when he was perswaded to become a Christian consulted cum principibus Consiliariis suis or with his Ealdormen as King Alfred expounded those wordes in Bede And Cynewlf King of west-Saxe Selden Tit. Honour 701. cum Caterva Satraparum with the whole body of his Nobility That William the Conquerour Math. Paris 75. Consilio Baronum suorum restored our English Lawes And Henry the first at his Coronation saith Mathew Paris made Lawes Consilio Baronum suorum For Comes or the title of an Earle derived or branched out of the Baronage could not be so separate from the person of the Prince in the interpretation of the word Ex vi termini or the legall Custome or appropriation of it as not to be with the King or supream Magistrate in his great and publique Councels or Parliaments And by the longest Prescription or use of any Lawes or good Customes which we now have in the English Nation from long before the Conquest without any interruption untill the yeare 1648. The Nobility and Barons of England may clayme and ought to enjoy it as well as any other part of the people do all or any part of their inheritances which they would be unwilling not to have called their own or not to be justified by an Immemoriall Prescription And therefore in the Grants and Letters Patents of Earles of long or great Antiquity as in that of the Earldome of Hereford to Miles de Glocestria by Maud the Empresse She grants it with all liberties and customes as honorably as any former Earle of that County enjoyed it And to Awbrey de Vere of the Earldom of Oxford by King Henry the Second now above 500 yeares past it was Ita liberé honorificè as freely and honourably sicut aliquis Comitum Angliae as any of the Earles of England most honourably enjoyed it And if any would know whether the priviledge to them and their Heires of sitting in Parliament Selden Tit. Honor Cap. 5 704. were one of their just inheritable liberties and Birth-rights the most learned Selden will tell them That in the great Parliament of Clarendon held by King Henry the second in the Tenth yeare of his Raigne presentibus Comitibus proceribus Angliae The Earles and Nobility being present The Avitae consuetudines antient Customes of their Fore-fathers noble Progenitors were among other Customes Recognized to be that Debent interesse Judiciis Curiae Regis they ought to sit in Parliament And notes thereupon that to be a Baron and to have right to sit with the rest of the Barons in Councells or Courts of Judgment were according to the Lawes of that time Synonimies And were no otherwise taken also to be in the succeeding ages when as in the 23 year of Henry the second as Hoveden reports the determination of the controversy between Alphonso King of Castile and Sanche King of Navarr submited to the Arbitrement of that English King was determined Habitocum Comitibus Baronibus cum deliberatione consilii by mature advice of his Earles and Barons In the sixth year of King Iohn certain Lawes were made communi consilio Baronum suorum by a Common Counsell or Parliament held at Winchester William de Breose a Baron Math. Puis 303. edit Londini being in that Kings raigne demanded by the King to have his Children delivered for Hostages answered as the Monk of St. Albans relates it Si ipsum in aliquo offendi paratus sum ero domino meo sine obsidibus satisfacere secundum Judicium Curiae suae Baronum parium meorum certo mihi assignato die loco I am shall be ready to satisfy the King my Lord without Hostages if in any thing I have offended him according to the Judgment of his Court and the Barons my Peeres if he shall assigne me a certain day and place And the Modus tenendi Parliamentum which cannot be denyed but to have been exemplified under the great Seal of England and sent by that King into Ireland where our English Lawes then began to be planted saith also expressely that omnes singuli Comites Barones summoniri venire debent ad Parliamentum All Earles and Barons ought to be summoned and come to Parliament The restoration of Hugh de Vere Earl of Oxford to the Earldome of Oxford and all his fathers lands in 17. H. 3 by an investie ture of Cinxit eum gladie comitatus Oxen. Girding him with the sword of the Earldome did continue unto him his Peerage or Priviledge of sitting in Parliament enjoyed by his Ancestors After the battell of Evesham in 49. H. 3. the Earles and Barons and others which stood