Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	edward_n	king_n	time_n	2,766	5	3.7255	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44187	A letter of a gentleman to his friend, shewing that the bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in cases capital	Holles, Denzil Holles, Baron, 1599-1680.	1679 (1679)	Wing H2461; ESTC R204379	41,325	145

should be done in derogation or restriction of the power of their Holy Father the Pope saying they were sworn to his Holiness and to the Court of Rome These were likely to make a good Third Estate of an English Parliament And is it not then a wonder that any Engiish man should desire to bring Popery in again for Bishops to controule both King and Parliament Would it not set even Monarchy it self one degree lower Sure it would But this is by the way Consider further that if they had had such a power of being a Third Estate in the days of Queen Elizabeth those good Acts for a Reformation in Religion had never pased and the Reformation had never been 1 Eliz. The Bill for restoring the first Fruits and Tenths to the Imperial Crown of England which passed February 4. The Bill for restoring the Supremacy to the Crown and repealing divers Acts made to the contrary which passed March 18. The Bill giving authority to the Queen upon avoidance of a Bishoprick to take some part of the Temporalties into her hands recompensing the same with Impropriate Parsonages which passed April 7. All the Bishops present were against the passing of these Bills And before that in Edward the Sixths time they were against the Bill for Priests to marry which passed Feb. 19. 2 E. 6. So the Bill for ordering Ecclesiastical Ministers giving power to Six Prelates and Six other men learned in the Laws to set down the form and manner of their Consecration which passed Ian. 25.3 E. 6. The Bill for nominating thirty two Persons to peruse the Ecclesiastical Laws which passed Ian. 31. The Bill for abolishing and putting away divers superstitious Books as Legends Missals Processionals and the like and taking away Images out of Churches and Chappels which passed also that Parliament All these good Bills the Bishops were against yet they passed into Laws and were the foundation of our Reformation which had they been a Third Estate had never been laid for those Bills had not passed But you will say perhaps that we need not fear such mischiefs and inconvenience from our Protestant Bishops and I grant it nor do I urge these things with any such apprehension I only shew you what the Popish Bishops did then and that if they had been a Third Estate such mischiefs would have followed upon it and thence to infer That they were not in those times so accounted and that our Protestant Bishops cannot then pretend to it now They then and These now having Place and Vote in Parliament upon the same terms But then we have good Authority to inform us which are truly the Three Estates King Iames seems to make it clear in a Speech he made at the Prorogation of the Parliament in the year 1605. the words are these As for the thing it self that is the Parliament it is composed of a Head and a Body The Head is the King the Body are the Members of the Parliament This Body again is subdivided into two parts the Vpper and the Lower House The Vpper House compounded partly of Nobility Temporal men who are Heritable Counsellours to the High Court of Parliament by the honour of their Creation and Lands And partly of Bishops Spiritual men who are likewise by the virtue of their Place and Dignity Counsellours Life Renters or Advitam of this Court. The other House is composed of Knights for the Shires and Gentry and Burgesses for the Towns But because the number would be infinite for all the Gentlemen and Burgesses to be present at every Parliament therefore a certain number is selected and chosen out of the great Body serving only for that Parliament where their Persons are the Representation of that Body You see that wise King makes the Body to consist of Two Parts the Upper House or the House of Lords to be one of those parts consisting of Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual who together make one part And the House of Commons another part It is true he calls neither of them an Estate but most certain he cannot be thought to understand the Spiritual Lords to be an Estate by themselves making them to be but a Part of one of the Parts of that Body For by the same reason he may be said to make the House of Commons consist of two Estates saying it is composed of Knights of the Shires and Burgesses for the Towns But King Charles the First is plainer in his expressions in his Answer to the Nineteen Propositions sent to him from the two Houses Iune 2. 1642. He tells them That neither one Estate should transact what is proper for two nor two what is proper for three And in that same Answer he saith a little after It is most unreasonable that two Estates proposing something to the Third the Third should be bound to take no advice whether it were fit to pass but from those two who did propose it Nothing can be clearer than this to shew what the opinion of that good King was concerning the three Estates in Parliament And 2 H. 4. n. 32. It is so declared by the House of Commons even to the King himself and to the Lords That the three Estates of Parliament are the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons who should all be at an Vnity among themselves and therefore hearing there were some differences between the Lords they humbly prayed the King to compose them And Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester sometime Lord Chancellor an ancient Parliament-man in Henry the Eighths time who well understood the constitution of Parliaments in his Letter to the Lord Protector in Edward the Sixths time which Letter is in the second Volume of the Book of Martyrs Printed in 1641. p. 7. doth acknowledge it and saith That the three Estates make a Law and compares the three Estates in Parliament to the three Christian Vertues Faith Hope and Charity and saith That it were the same absurdity and untruth to say the Higher House and the Lower House exclude the King in the Office of making Laws as it would be in Religion to say that Faith excludeth Charity in the Office of Justification Here you have the Testimony of a Bishop I confess a Popish Bishop as you may see by his application of this Simile to make Charity that is works of Charity to have a part in Justification But I meddle not with his Divinity As to that which he saith of the Estates in Parliament he is in the right and he was one that knew well enough what was due to the Order of Bishops even to the full extent of it and would not have shortned it the breadth of one hair yet he makes them not an Estate by themselves but as joyned with the Lords Temporal Then for the Common Law you have Finch in his Book of Law dedicated to King Iames the first Chapter of the second Book p. 21. who saith the very same thing in very plain terms His

a Statute Law of the Land as much as any other can be which we have in our printed Statute Books The first time was at a Great Council which was then their Parliament at Clarendon about the 10 of H. 2. where were made that which they call the Constitutions of Clarendon which were not new things then first made but a recapitulation of some things that had been in use and practice in former times Matthew Paris and Gervasius Dorobornensis recite them at large other ancient Historians more succinctly There were of them sixteen in number Matthew Paris gives the best account of them and of the whole proceeding in that affair He tells you how the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons and other great ones Aliis Proceribus being present Facta est Recognitio sive Recordatio partis Consuetudinum Libertatum antecessorum suorum A Recapitulation or a Rehearsal was made of the Liberties and Customs of their Ancestors in the time of H. 1. and of other Kings so it was not a new Law and but then enacted but it was indeed a Declaration of what was the Law before yet then more solemnly enjoyned In regno observari ab omnibus teneri To be in the Kingdom observed and kept by all men and this in regard of differences oft times arising between the Kings Justices and the Clergy Propter dissensiones discordias saepe emergentes inter Clerum Iusticiarios Domini Regis that Popish Clergy being still apt enough to encroach upon the Civil power which made it the more necessary to revive and re-establish the old Law and Custom of the Kingdom Sixteen Articles were then agreed upon one of which the eleventh runs thus Archiepiscopi Episcopi universe Persone Regni qui de Rege tenent in Capite habeant possessiones suas de Rege sicut Baroniam inde respondeant Iusticiariis Ministris Regis sequantur faciant omnes Consuetudines Regias Et sicut ceteri Barones debent interesse Iudiciis Curie Regis quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem The Archbishops Bishops and all the dignified Clergy of the Land that hold of the King in Capite shall hold their possessions from the King as a Barony and answer for their Estates unto the Kings Iustices and Ministers and shall observe and obey all the Kings Laws And together with the other Barons they are to be present at all Iudgments in the Kings Courts till it come to require either loss of member or life And this Article as well as the rest they are sworn to observe See how the Author expresseth it Hanc Recognitionem sive Recordationem de consuetudinibus libertatibus iniquis Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates Priores Clerus cum Comitibus Baronibus Proceribus cunctis juraverunt firmiter in verbo veritatis promiserunt viva voce tenendas observandas Domino Regi heredibus suis bona fide absque malo ingenio in perpetuum This Recognition or Recordation of these wicked Customs and Liberties did the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors and the whole Clergy together with the Earls Barons and all the Great men swear to and firmly promise upon the word of truth by word of mouth that they should be kept and observed to the King and his Heirs in true faith without any evil meaning for ever Now can there be a more solemn establishing and a stronger confirmation of any Law to have it inviolably observed and obeyed by the whole Nation that this we find here where besides the authority of the Parliament for these great Councils were the Parliaments of those times there is an Oath which is the greatest Obligation that mankind is capable of making even God a party to it to see it obeyed and punish the transgressors And from whom have we the testimony of these transactions to assure us of the matter of Fact From Matthew Paris a Monk one that would not be partial for the Lords Temporal in relating matters to give them more power in Judicature and less to the Lords Spiritual than of right belonged to each and looking upon this exclusion of the Prelats from the power of Judging in such cases to be some diminution of their Omnipotency which they were so ambitious of he therefore ranks it amongst the Consuetudines iniquas the wicked Customs of the former times So we have here Testimonium irrefragabile an irrefragable and invincible testimony upon which we may build our faith and have a certain assurance that there was really such an usage in ancient times and that it was then in that 10. year of H. 2. again ratified and confirmed since these Monks have so recorded it and transmitted it to posterity The second time time that this received a Confirmation in Parliament was the 11 of R. 2. which I mentioned before when the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops upon their withdrawing then from the Parliament in regard matters of Bloud were to be there agitated and determined In quibus non licet alicui eorum personaliter interesse as they say In which it was not lawful for any of them to be present in person did therefore enter a Protestation with a Salvo to their right of Sitting and Voting in that and all other Parliaments when such matters were not in question which Protestation of theirs was at their desire enrolled in full Parliament as the Record saith Par commandment du Roy assent des Seigneurs Temporelz Communes By the Kings command with the assent of the Lords Temporal and Commons So indeed it was here a perfect and compleat Act of Parliament and if it had not been a Law be-before would than have been made one But it was a Law before and this needed not to make it more a Law than it was before yet certainly what was here done must be of some signification and add some weight that it may be said at least that it seems to enforce some greater compliance with it and to heighten the offence of such as will not conform to it And by the way let me desire to be well understood what I mean by saying This would make it a Law if it was not one before I do not mean the Protestation would be a Law for a Protestation Modo Forma cannot be a Law but the subject matter of it was then enacted which did consist of two Particulars the one That the Prelates had a right and a Priviledge to sit and vote in Parliament in all other businesses the other That they had no Right nor was it lawful for them to be present in Parliament when such businesses were in question Which one would think they might look upon as a Right and Priviledge to be exempt from being obliged to attend in such Cases Cases of Bloud As the Lords Temporal who are Peers of the Realm challenge it to be their Right and Priviledge not to be returned in Juries