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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61556	The grand question, concerning the Bishops right to vote in Parliament in cases capital stated and argued, from the Parliament-rolls, and the history of former times : with an enquiry into their peerage, and the three estates in Parliament.	Stillingfleet, Edward, 1635-1699.	1680 (1680)	Wing S5594; ESTC R19869	81,456	194

In his absence the People refuse to pay the Taxes and the Lords combine together and all things tend to an open Rebellion His Son Ed. II. calls a Parlament at London and promises a Confirmation of the Charter and that no Taxes should hereafter be raised either on Clergy or Laiety without their consent Which being sent over Edw. I. confirmed it with his own Seal which was all done within the compass of this year But he again ratified it in the Parlament 27 Ed. I. So that nothing was done in that Parlament at S. Edmondsbury but granting a 12 th of the Laiety to the King And when the great Laws were passed the King and Clergy were reconciled and they sate in Parlament And the Archbishop of Canterbury fell into the King's displeasure afterwards for being so active a promoter of them The summe then of this mighty argument is that the Lords and Commons once granted their own Subsidies without the concurrence of the Clergy therefore the Clergy are no essential part of the parlament 3. The Reason assigned in Keilway's Reports why the King may hold a Parlament without the Bishops is very insufficient viz. because they have no place in Parlament by reason of their Spiritualty but by reason of their Temporal possessions The insufficiency of which Reason will appear by two things 1. That it is not true as appears by this that the Clergy are one of the Estates of the Kingdom and all the Estates of the Kingdom must be represented in Parlament 2. Were it true it is no good Reason For why may they be excluded because they sit on the account of their Baronies Where lies the force of this Reason Is it because there will be Number enough without them That was the Rump's Argument against the Secluded Members And I hope the Authour of the Letter will not justify their Cause Or is it because they hold their Baronies by Tenure So did all the ancient Barons of England and why may the King hold his Parlament with the other Barons without the Bishops and not as well with the Bishops without the other Barons Which I do not see how it can be answer'd upon those grounds Suppose the Question had been thus put Since all the ancient Lords of Parlament were Barons by Tenure and Parlaments were held for many Ages without any Barons by Patent or by Writ why may not the King hold his Parlament after the ancient way onely with Barons by Tenure I do not see but as good a Reason may be given for this as that in Keilway's Reports All that I plead for is that our good ancient and legal Constitution of Parlament may not be changed for the sake of any single Precedents and rare Cases and obscure Reports built upon weak and insufficient Reasons For as the Authour of the Letter very well saith Consuetudo Parlamenti est Lex Parlamenti The constant Practice of Parlaments and not one single Instance is the Law of Parlaments And suppose that Precedent of 25 Ed. I. as full as could be wished in this case yet I return the answer of the Authour of the Letter in a like case This is but one single Precedent of a Parlament without Bishops against multitudes wherein they were present it was once so and never but once And can that be thought sufficient to alter and change the constant course and practice of Parlaments which hath been otherwise Nothing now remains but a severe reflexion on the Popish Bishops for opposing the Statute of Provisors and the several good Acts for the Reformation But what this makes against the Votes of Protestant Bishops is hard to understand If he thinks those could not make a good Third Estate in Parlament who took Oaths to the Pope contrary to their Allegeance and the interest of the Nation so do we If he have a great zeal for the Reformation so have all true Members of the Church of England who we doubt not will heartily maintain the Cause of our Church against the Vsurpations of Rome though the heat of others should abate For did not our Protestant Bishops seal the Reformation with their Bloud and defend it by their admirable Writings What Champions hath the Protestant Religion ever had to be compared in all respects with our Cranmer ●idley Iewel Bilson Morton Hall Davenant and many other Bishops of the Church of England And notwithstanding the hard fortune Archbishop Laud had in other respects not to be well understood in the Age he lived in yet his enemies cannot deny his Book to be written with as much strength and judgment against the Church of Rome as any other whatsoever I shall conclude with saying that the Clergy of the Church of England have done incomparably more Service against Popery from the Reformatition to this day then all the other Parties among us put together And that the Papists at this time wish for nothing more then to see men under a pretence of Zeal against Popery to destroy our Church and while they cry up Magna Charta to invade the legal Rights thereof and thereby break the first Chapter of it and from disputing the Bishops presence in Cases Capital to proceed to others and so by degrees to alter the ancient Constitution of our Parlaments which will unavoidably bring Anarchy and Confusion upon us from which as well as Popery Good Lord deliver us THE END Letter p. 1. Lett. p. 93. Lett. p. 3. 118. Lett. p. 66. P. 21. Lett. p. 2 3. Lett. p. 5. Lett. p. 86. Hincmar Epist de Ordine lalatii Concil Franc. c. 3. 9. Marculph Form l. 1. c. 25. Not. in Marc. p. 287. Concil Tolet 4. c. 75. 5. c. 7. 6. c. 17. 8. in Praef. 12. c. 1. 17. c. 1. 17. c. 1. Cont l. Tolet 13. c. 2. Rer. Aleman To. 2. Cod. Leg. Antiq. B. 362. Arumae de Comitiis ● 35. c. 4. ● 98. Goldast Bohem l. 5. c. 1. Bonfin dec 2. l. 1. Decret Ladiss p. 12. Starovolse ●olon p. 2●5 Herburt Stat. Regni Pol. p. 263. Adam Brem de situ Dan. n. 85. Loccen Antiq S●eco Goth. c. 8. Ius Aulicum N●rveg c. 3. c. 36. Lett. p. 3 4. Stat. Merton c. 9. 20 H. 3. Dissert ad Flet. c. 9. § 2. Soz. hist. l. 1. c. 9. Capitul Carol Ludov l. 6. c. 281. ed. Lindenb c. 366. ed. Baluz Cod. Just. de Epise Audient l. 1. tit 4. c. 8. Cod. Theodos l. 16. tit 11. c. 1. Greg. NysS vit Greg. Basil. in ep Socr. l. 7. c. 37. Ambros. de Offic. l. 2. c. 24. Aug. ep 147. in Ps. 118. conc 24. Jac. Goth. in cod Theod. ad Extrav de Episc. judicio Concil Sardic c. 7. Balsam in Can. 4. Concil Chalced. Auth. Collat 1. tit 6. Novell 6. c. 2. Justin. Cod. l. 1. tit 3. c. 41. Cod. Theod. l. 16. tit 2. n. 38. Lindwood l. 3. de Testam Lett. p. 4. Lett. p. 68. Lett. p. 69. Lett. p.

all probability this passage of his was levelled at those Bishops who did observe this 11. Constitution 3. We have a plain way to understand the meaning of this Constitution by what happen'd soon after in the Parlament at Northampton which was summon'd upon Becket's Obstinacy and Contempt of the King's Authority where Fitz-stephen saith he was accused of Treason and the Bishops sate together with other Barons and because it did not come to a sentence of Death after great debate between the other Lords and the Bishops about pronouncing the Sentence the Bishop of Winchester did it Wherein we have as plain evidence as can be desired that the Bishops did sit with the other Barons and vote with them in a case of Treason To this Precedent the Authour of the Letter answers several things 1. That none of the ancient Historians of those Times say any thing of his being accused of Treason and therefore he thinks one may modestly affirm that it was a mistake in Fitz-stephen to say so But what if H. II. and Becket himself both confess that he was charged with Treason H. II. in his Letter to Reginaldus saith that by consent of his Barons and Clergy he had sent Ambassadours to Pope Alexander with this Charge that if he did not free him from that Traitour Becket he and his Kingdom would renounce all Obedience to him And Becket did not think this a bare term of reproach for in one of his Letters he saith that defending the Liberties of the Church laesae Majestatis reatus sub persecutore nostro est was looked on as Treason by the King And even Gervase himself to whom the Authour of the Letter appeals saith some of his friends came to him at Northampton and told him if he did not submit to the King he would be proceeded against as a Traitour for breaking the Allegeance he had promised to the King when he did swear to observe the ancient Customs at Clarendon And Fitz-stephen saith the King's Council at Clarendon said it was Treason or taking the King's Crown from his head to deny him the Rights of his Ancestours 2. That it was a strange kind of Treason Becket was charged with at Northampton viz. for not coming when the King sent for him which at the most was onely a high Contempt and Fitz-stephen who was a Creature of the Archbishop's might represent it so to draw an odium on the King And therefore he looks on this as a weak precedent for the Bishops to lay any weight upon being at best out of a blind MS. of an Authour justly suspected of partiality against the tenour of all the ancient Writers that give an account of the same business What truth there is in this last suggestion appears in part already and will do more by what follows Must all the unprinted Records be answered with saying they are blind MSS I cannot but take notice how unreasonable a way of answering this is It is like turning of that pressing Instance of the Bishops making a Proctor in Capital Cases by saying it was Error temporis which because it will answer all Instances whatsoever as well as that is therefore an answer to none Just so it is equally an answer to all MSS to say they are blind and to all printed Books too because they were once MSS and for any thing that appears to the contrary as blind as Fitz-stephen's For surely no authority is added to a Book by its being printed unless in the opinion of the common people who are said to take all for true that is in Print I do not go about to parallel Fitz-stephen with Parlament-Rolls but I say his Authority is very good being present upon the place and the best we have of all the proceedings in the Parlament at Northampton And if the Authour of the Letter had taken the pains to peruse him he would not have contemned the Precedent drawn from thence which being so near the Parlament at Clarendon that as himself confesseth the one was in February the other in October following it gives the best Light into this matter of any thing in that Age and being not yet fully printed it will be worth our while to set it down Mr. Selden hath indeed printed very exactly the Proceedings of the first Iudgment upon Becket about the Cause of Contempt for not coming upon the King's Summons at the complaint of Iohn the Marshall wherein the Bishops did certainly sit in Iudgment upon him with the other Barons but there is a farther strength in this Precedent not yet taken notice of Which is that after this Iudgment passed Becket behaved himself with so great insolency towards the King and the Bishops upon the King's calling him to farther account for many other things laid to his Charge as diverting the King's Treasure and applying it to his own use and great Accounts to the King while he was Chancellour c. that the King required him to stand to the Iudgment of his Court Becket gave a dilatory Answer the King summons the Bishops and Earls and Barons to give Iudgment against him the Bishops tell the King Becket had appealed to the Pope and prohibited them to give any farther Judgment upon any Secular Complaint against him Whereupon the King sent some Earls and Barons to him to expostulate the matter since he was the King's Subject and had so lately sworn to the Constitutions at Clarendon and to know whether he would give Security to the King about making up his Accounts and stand to the Judgment of his Court Becket refuseth to give answer to any thing but the Cause of Iohn the Marshall for which he was summoned to appear slights his Oath as contrary to the Rights of the Church and confirms his Appeal to the Pope And such an owning of the Pope's Power in derogation to the Rights of the Crown Sir Edward Cook saith was Treason by the ancient Common Law before any Statutes were made However the King charges the Bishops by virtue of their Allegeance that together with the Barons they would give Iudgment upon the Archbishop They excused themselves on the account of the Archbishop's Prohibition The King replied That had no force against the Constitution of Clarendon so lately made and acknowledged by them The words of Fitz-stephen are these Rex responso Archiepiscopi accepto instat Episcopis praecipiens obtestans per homagium fidelitatem sibi debitam juratam ut simul cum Baronibus de Archiepiscopo sibi dictent sententiam Illi se excusare coeperunt per interpositam Archiepiscopi Prohibitionem Rex non acquievit asserens quòd non teneat haec ejus simplex Prohibitio contra hoc quod Clarendonae factum initum fuerat So that H. II. in the Parlament at Northampton declared that Bishops were bound by virtue of the Constitution of Clarendon to be present and to give their Votes in cases of Treason