the Parliament it Self must needs die and can continue no longer to act as a Parliament being by Law extinct and Dissolved This is the Sum of what the Faction alledges to destroy this Parliament Lord what a Thing is Pedantism in every Profession The shame and reproach of every Science and Sort of Learning especially of this of the Law and more especially of that part of it which concerns the Constitution of the Crown and Kingdom to the prejudice whereof no Construction of Law whatsoever ought to be made or will be made by any wise and weighty man But there are a sort of little Pedants whose shallow Brains want Line and Plummet to sound the depth of matters whose Skulls are too narrow to comprehend the utmost Scope of Law these are a sort of Creatures that are wont to be carried away with mere Sounds of words are too apt to be Captivated by Phansie and mistake it to be Understanding as 't is the manner of the profane Vulgar of this and every Profession and so not being fit to get Publike employment from a King are of little use but to torment the Law by wresting it for the service of such as are Factious and Seditious in his Kingdom But now for an Answer to their Argument take notice in the first place That in all the Books lately printed by this sort of men to pervert the People's opinion against the legal continuance of this Parliament they are very careful to tickle them with frequent mentions of ancient Laws the good old Laws and ancient Customs of England and the like Phrases which make a noise and great Noises usually take the weaker sort of people yea and engage them too they believing of course that where most Clamour is there must needs be most Right especially if it be thought that the wisdom of our Fore-fathers and their practice be concerned in the Case As for the Antiquity of Politick Constitutions I believe our Predecessors acted as far as they understood and perhaps they understood what was convenient in their time and state of affairs to be done but certainly they could not be so unwise as to do it eo animo with an intent to tie up Posterity to the same Rules as were then used it being utterly impossible in matters which relate to administration of Government because in the Torrent of Time there flow down innumerable Accidents both among our Selves and our Neighbour Nations which induce unavoidable Alterations in every Age and those must of necessity introduce new Counsels and Rules and Forms of managing a Government suitable to the Season that is to say to the present posture and condition of the People For as in the preservation of mens private bodies so this Verse following holds to be a Rule absolute in ordering the Publike Body Sic quoniam variant Morbi variabimus Artes. As new disorders in State arise and alter its former Temper so there must be variation in the method and means of Remedy or else all runs to Ruine And for this End Parliaments themselves were first ordained that Princes in such Cases might advise with them when they shall need their Advice about the making of new Laws or altering old Laws and Customs as they shall see occasion Secondly we find by old Records that our Forefathers in conformity to this Reason many times varied the Formalities of Parliament both as to its time of Meeting its Number its Manner of sitting and time of Continuance and other Circumstances yet we nowhere find them in any wise condemned for it it being to be supposed they did what in their times was for the then publike Convenience For both before and after the Conquest Parliaments were held Three times a year viz. at Easter Whitsuntide and Christmas but for continuance no longer than the space of Eight days for each time but that Custom continued not any considerable time after the Conquest but received many Variations all along to the time of King Edward the Third in whose days the fore-cited Statutes were made which give Occasion to our present Disputes The Book call'd The Mirrour of Justice saith Cap. 1. Sect. 3. that sometimes those Parliaments departed from that frequencie and were held Twice a yeer and in those days there was no such thing as a House of Commons as 't is noted in Print for that the Parliament consisted then onely of King and Lords so that it were better for our Admirers of old Statutes and Customs in some Cases to bury some of them rather than let their Brains run a madding up towards the Conquest and beyond to revive them to give Rules for us to proceed by Thus it was some time of old as to the quality of Parliament-members and then as to their manner of Sitting my Lord Coke Instit Par. 4. cap. 1. tells us that in Edw. the First 's Reign the Commons had no distinct House to sit in and no Speaker as it appears in the Treatise de Modo tenendi Parliamentum And in 6 of Edw. 3. in divers places it appeareth that the Lords and Commons sat together and had then no continual Speaker And then as to the nature of the Power of the Commons House it would tend to little edification to describe and measure it by the Report of Ancient Records Customs and Proceedings and the People would get nothing by it but this even a discovery of the slenderness of those Priviledges which they had of old in comparison of those that by the Favour and Indulgence of succeeding Kings they have enjoyed to this day But thirdly if Customs and Precedents of time past be of such esteem with this Author and the rest of his Fellow-Scriblers in their Printed Books then let them tell me a reason why a Prince may not in his time make use of a Precedent made by a former Prince in a Business of the same nature and for which that Prince was never found fault with after till this Captious quarrelsome Age that we now live in For this Author confesses that Queen Elizabeth in the Fifth yeer of her Reign Prorogued the Parliament from the second of October to the fifth of October of the yeer following which was three days above a yeer and in strictness of Law this Prorogation lately made Anno 1675. for Fifteen Months which is three Months above a year is as good and valid in Law as that they are his very words wherein he is so far in the right because three days or three months can as to point of Law make no difference in the Case either of them being a lapse of time beyond what this man and his Fellows do suppose as limited by those Statutes for a Parliament's sitting and consequently for its Proroguing because if a Parliament cannot legally sit longer than a yeer it cannot be Prorogued to a longer time than the Law gives it a Being But that a Parliament may sit and act with full force and vigor longer than a yeer
Subjects and beget in them an Opinion as if His Majestie intended to deprive them of their Old Laws and Rights to Parliaments do appear now to be most ungrateful towards Him so I suppose their mouthes will henceforth be stopped seeing they are secured by that new Triennial Act in which they ought to bury all such Disputes for the future which they must needs do if they will cast an eye upon the said Act before they fall to disputing and perverting His Subjects One Objection more give me leave to answer because it will be but in short 't is this That though the words if need be be in the first Statute yet they are not expressed in the Second which being passed Thirty two yeers after must be understood therefore to be absolute But this I say though the words be not there in terminis yet other words are there which make those to be necessarily understood and they are these AS ANOTHER TIME WAS ORDAINED BY STATVTE The Statute meant here is the former of the two which is of the Fourth of Edward the Third The Issue then is this That this later Statute which is of the 36 of Edward the Third referring as by the word AS appears to the former Statute nothing more is Ordained here but what was and AS it was Ordained in the former and so it can bear no other Interpretation than what is proper to the former and is onely a Second Confirmation by Statute-Law of the Right by ancient Custom which the People had before to Parliaments as often as they should be needful as it is intended by the first of the said Statutes So I have done with the Considerator His Fellows who do but steal out of him shall be handled in the next place One of them entitles his Book THE LONG PARLIAMENT DISSOLVED But under that Title he means this Parliament because they have sat Fourteen or Fifteen yeers by reason of the world of work they have had before them to repair the large Breaches made within these Nations by a tedious Civil War which they might have finished before now had not many impediments been cast upon them by the Malice and Cunning of a restless implacable Faction whose glory it would be above all other things attainable in the World if they could any way dissolve this Parliament or contrive how to make it End with disgrace re infectâ that they may not have the honour of finishing that glorious Establishment of Church and State which they designe but that themselves viz. the Faction and the Forlorn Hope of their Party might once more have the opportunity to play the Game they have prepared against the good time of trying their Fortune at New Elections In the mean while their Plot is laid every way to backbite this present House of Commons and by odious Reflections upon the King and House of Peers to make as many of the People as they can out of love with our ancient Monarchical Constitution of Parliaments that they may introduce the New Model of their own For this is certain the Spiritual Drivers which they make use of and must will neither go nor drive as the Proverb saith unless the whole Civil Frame be form'd to a cleverly comportment with the Geneva-Patern but will rather flie off and curse them in stead of Meroz and all their Undertakings as the Scotch General Assembly did Duke Hamilton when by an Authority of Parliament there he presumed without their Blessing to enter England Anno 1648. to have restored His Majestie 's Father No Temporal Lordships must look to thrive by trinkling with them unless they will truckle to 'em too and comply with their eternal Pride and Ambition in all Senatical as well as Classical Concernments as those unhappie Lords and leading Commons who staid in the Houses to act along with them were fain to do in the yeers 1644 1645 1646. 'T is worth the remembring how the Spiritual Assembly sat and dictated Decrees to the Secular which the poor Senate always very tamely obeyed and shaped into Ordinances as fast as might be to be hang'd about the necks of the People who had e'n as good have been hang'd out of the way as to have suffer'd the Intailment of such a Slavery upon their Posterity the End whereof must have been and if we look not now about us may and must be again to bring King and Parliament to the same truckling condition which King James once most sadly experienced in Scotland and in his wisdom saw after he came to the Crown of England would certainly return upon Him and His People here if ever that Faction got afoot again or a horsback forasmuch as 't is the onely Faction that cannot be mended or put into a consistence with Monarchy By which you may see what is to be gotten by crying down Bishops which their Opposites of late have most studiously done both in Prints and by long Speeches and what those few Lords and others must bring upon us at last though perhaps they intend it not if ever to compass their own Ends they make use of that Malignant Faction And know that use them they must and be ruled by 'em too if they weaken the Reputation legal Power and Reverence due to Bishops the doing whereof will necessarily make way for the other and give them the opportunities for which they have above these hundred yeers been sowing of Tares and planting and watering them in England and Scotland Oh that I had leisure in this place to give a particular Account of them what a Thorn they have been in the sides of Princes and People in both the Kingdoms The prevention of the like is to be expected onely from His Majesty and this present Parliament who are sure to Him and the Government by Law established And that is the reason why this Dissolving Pamphleter and his Fellows are so hot for a Dissolution of them having set their Dice to make us undergo Hap-hazard by a New one which must needs have less Ability Experience and Knowledge than these that have been long practised to promote and manage what is proper Parliamentary work in this difficult season to heal our Breaches secure the Government compose and ease the People But a new raw one quoth the Faction would be more fit for us to practise upon and tutour The Author of this Book may be called the Dissolver because he would Dissolve all immediatly But having little of a Lawyer in him he goes another way to work and in stead of Reasoning he chiefly betakes himself to Oratory to try what that will do among the People with the help of fine Flashes of Wit Therefore I shall make but short work in dispatching him as he does to dispatch this Parliament out of the way DISSOLVER Our Ancestors had a glorious value and kindness for our English Liberties therefore that they might have a perpetual Assurance that their Liberties should continue it was Ordained 36 EDW.
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