Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	act_n	king_n	lord_n	2,770	5	3.9050	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55894	A seasonable question, and an usefull answer, contained in an exchange of a letter between a Parliament-man in Cornwell, and a bencher of the Temple, London	Parliament-man in Cornwall.; H. P., Bencher of the Temple.	1676 (1676)	Wing P35; ESTC R5471	14,823	24

dispence with the certain appointed sitting of this Judicature he can lawfully say the wrongs that I and my great Ministers too bigg for other Courts shall do to the people shall never be heard or Judged but at my will their complaints shall not be admitted once in 50. years nor till domes day unless I please If our men of the Robe will maintain such a dispensing Power in the king with the statutes in question they must say that the king may by law prevent and defeat the last results of Justice and null the highest Court of Judicature founded on the common law and let them tell me why he may not by the same right and reason despence with the lawes whereby all the inferior Courts of Judicature now fits or adnull the Courts themselves and throw all things into a confused Chaos where the strongest shall injoy every thing Upon these Premises I may dare to conclude That the laws for holding a Parliament every year stand firm and immutable untill an undobted parliament shall repeale them by some express words and that the prorogation can never be reconciled to those lawes or be helped by any power of the kings to despence with them but must be Judged inconsistent with the lawes that are of the essence of our government having actually defeated the execution of them and therefore ought to be holden for nothing and the day appointed for your meeting to be no day for that purpose in the sence of our law Supposing then that I having hitherto rightly concluded the question will be Whether the kings dismission of the parliament without any day set for their return and their continuing so beyond the year be a dissolution Ill tell you Sir the method of my thoughts upon this Question that I might not be couzened with words nor intangled in trifling disputes about them I first consider whether dissolving a Parliament were a term of art in our law and ought to have some peculir sence gained by the use of it in the law But finding it used only in its vuilgar sence I perceived it signified to break off or put an end to a Parliament and all their business and authority so that a dissolution may be made without the king or Lord Chancellors saying you are hereby dissolved The force of the law or custom of England may put an end to a Parliament Of old the finishing the business of the people for which they were called did dissolve them See the ancient Modus tenendi Parliamt The custom was that when all the petitions for relief against grievances were dispacthed proclamation was made demanding if any petition were yet unanswered and if there was none the parliament forth with departed this was the naturall death or dissolution of a parliament but if the king did command the Lords and Commons to depart before they had suffitiently consulted about the state and defence of the king and Kingdom and set up-day for their return that was the voilent death of a Parliament and I doubt a violence to the kings conscience But it was usuall for the kings to dissolve Parliaments either by leave or command given them to depart fixing no day for their return so testify the Antient Rolls of the 37. Ed. 3. n. 38. and 38. Ed. 3. n. 31. 40 Ed. 3. n. 16. 45. Ed. 3. n. 13. 50. t is by force of law that the writ of sumons to Parliament abates or becomes void by the kings naturall death and the Parliament is thereby dissolved Upon the same reason a failer of some circumstance as the naming such a time as the law allowes to which it is adjourned the holding and continuing a parliament if Judged necessary by the law for preserving both the form and substance of the Government I say such a fayler in time onely may by Act of law dissolve a parliament even against the will of the king and if such a failer happens if the king should step out of the form of the law to revive a parliament it would alter the whole Government by owning a power in the king to vest in such as he please the legislative power out of the form of the law In making a parliament the king hath his power from the law to summons and the form wherein only he can exert that power And the Elected have their power from the people by the writ of the law what to do and consent to on their behalf at the time and place then mentioned as the writ says tunc jbidem and these powers must by the law be strictly and punctually persued and nothing less than an Act of parliament can help any defect or failer in persuance of these powers if the Parliament then meet as the law requires if they fayl to be continued in the form of the law then by the Act of law they are dissolved not being able to create to them selves a day or time which will not agree with the returnes to the writ of summons by which their Masters impowred them to consent on their behalf Neither is this a nicety or quirk in law but a form essentialy necessary to preserve our liberties If the representatives trusted for the people to do and consent for them at the time and place mentioned in the lawfull writ after a fayler of continving their trust as the law directs pceede to Act as a parliament they must do it without any appointment or power given them from the people in any form of law and in the appearance and Judgment of the law without any Authoritie and if they might do it after fayler of a legall continuance one year they may do it after 20 years and because they were once commissioned by the people to represent them in one parliament they should therefore make themselves Lords of the people and of their Laws Lives and Liberties for ever and admit whom they please as some have done heretofore into their society and if it should be admitted that any number of men might exercise a share of the legislative power without evidence in law upon record that they were thereunto first sufficiently authorized and therein legally continued it would give a fatall stroak to the Antient English government and all its lawes and liberties Sir from these principles I tell you freely my opinion That the parliament is dissolved having been dismissed or commanded to depart without a day to return within the time that the Laws require a Parliament to be holden and that time also lapsed since their dismission I think it not material in the case what words the Lord Chancellor said when he dismissed them If he said you are prorogued or you are dismissed or you are sent home or you must be gon 't is all one I mind what was really done you were in substance and sence of the words commanded to dissolve your Assembly and you were told that all the business before you was at an end as if it had not

been and that you must not assemble again or hold Parliament for above a year then following and you did separate your selves and never held Parliament within the year and this by the act and judgment of the Law hath Dissolved you there hath been a failer of any such act in law as could continue you in the Commission and Authority whereunto the People hath chosen you in the Form that the laws hath prescribed The King declaring under the name of proroguing you that all the 〈◊〉 you had begun should be void and that you should not meet in parliament the next insuing year as the law required I say that declartion of the kings could not in any construction of law be an Act of continuance of your power and commission you had from the people the execution whereof was thereby wholly defeated likewise there was no Act of your own by adjournment of your house to continue you and therefore your Authority was wholly superseded and discontinued I know nothing that can be pretended to prevent your discontinuance but the kings will that you should sit again 3 months after the year expired but his prevention of your sitting for above a year having contrary to the law and his trust first discontinved you his Will cannot give or renew those Parliamentary powers that the people gave you in return of the legall writ The Lord Cooke sayth 3. Part. Instis. Chap. Parl If you sit again you are a severall Parliament from vvhat you vvere if you be a Parliament every distinct session being in lavv a severall Parliament And your former Authorities being Ceased by a failer of continuance you can have none but what the kings will vest in you and I need not tell you that the king cannot chuse for the people their Representatives To me it seemes playn that the king having not continued you nor you continued your selves nor having set or held Parliament for above a year the law hath dissolved you and Judged you for none I have not time to write you all the talks of the Town upon this question some have invented a new fashion prorogation for the king to prorogue without day and call the Parliament again by proclamation but their mouths must be stopped if they be only told That such a practise or use of prorogation hath no foundation in any Statute Custome usage or Reason of Law and the king cannot change the lawes and customes or introduce new I take a prorogation Sine die if any such be made to be as void in law as a writ of summons of a Parliament would be that named no day for their sitting And there can be no pretence of Antiquity for such prorogations the words of Adjornment and Prorogation having been used in differently for the same thing about 400. years if not more They were so taken in the state of 13. E. 4. n. 42. and how long after I cannot find but it would have been a plain contradiction in termes to have said then the Parliament is adjorned Sine die that is it was appointed to meet at another day without a day It s a sign that men are sore pinched when they will assert contradictions rather then submit to truth I ought to tell you one thing more that is said in this case they pretend a president that the king hath prorogued above a year they say that in the great plague in the 7. of Eli. that Parliament was prorogued for a year and three dayes what then say they therefore the king might do it now Such arguers shew themselves pittifull Logitians lack-lerning lavvyers and degenerate English men Is it a logicall arguments to say that what ever any king of England hath once or oftner done may be lawfully done by any other king An English king Rich. 2. by pretence of Royall authority cut many a worthy mans throat and murdered his Unkle the Duke of Gloster An other king Iohn sold this kingdom to the Pope May it therefore be lawfully sold and have any lawyers learned so little as not to know that there is no President to be alledged against an express Statute or not to know A Transgression of a statute even by the king if silently passed over and never brought into Judgment is not in the meaning of the law to be called apresident There 's no use of presidents unless it be to shew the usage where there is no statute in the case or to serve the construction of a statute where the meaning is doubtfull but where so many statutes are plaine and express as in this case 't is in vain to alledge what hath been done and connived at without Questioning it as a president to warrant the present breach of those statutes or rather to anull them forever And they must also as much degenerate from English men as from Logick and Lavv who shall assert that the kings of England may acquire a right or power to themselves and their successors for ever by their Ancestors transgressing any statute made to bound the Regall power All true English have alwayes maintained with their blood that our kings were limmitted by the laws and that they broke their oaths if they did not carefully see to the execution of them And in dayes of yore they have been so far from allowing the son and succesor of a king to break any of the laws because his father did so before him they have rejected the father because he kept not within the limmits of the law and taken the son upon his promise not to walk by his fathers Example Sir I have told you my thoughts upon the Question being satisfied that the kings will being declared upon record that you should not hold Parliament within the time limmited by law you were thereby dissolved and the Authorities given you by the people did thereby cease and return into the People and the kings will that you should afterwards hold Parliament again being not agreeable to law could not revive your power And in my poor opinion if you now assume to your selves to exercise Parliamentary powers becaus the king will have ' it so you must pass this fatall Judgment against the old English government That the king may lawfully prorouge you for 40. years if he please and may refuse for ever to hold a Parliament and if such a Judgment seemingly passed in Parliament against our Fundamentall lawes and liberties shall ever be left to the interpretation of any successors to our gracious king who shall intend a Tyranny he shall claim by that record to be our absolute master and neither Lords nor Commons to have any right to provide in Common Counsel for the defence of the Realm and their own good government and wellfare unless be please In fine our innocent babes shall hereafter read in that record that you Judged your selves and them to be perfect slaves all prostitute to the will of the king Doubtless if it be granted that the People have no right to parliaments but at the kings will we shall never have any king after this that will tell us as king Iames did in his speech to the parliament held March 19. 1603. That he vvas not ashamed to confess it his principle honnor to be the great servant of the Common vvealth and that he knevv himself to be ordained for the people and not the people for him I shall not advise you to come or stay I have herein delivered my one soul as becomes Your Fithfull and Affestionate Friend H. P. FINIS