Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	according_a	court_n	law_n	1,543	5	4.8094	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88153	The afflicted mans out-cry, against the injustice and oppression exercised upon; or, An epistle of John Lilburn, gent. prisoner in Newgate, August 19. 1653. to Mr. Feak, minister at Christ Church in London.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2078; Thomason E711_7*; ESTC R212915	13,792	15

declared to be only tryable by the course and custome of the Common-law and no otherwise Nay in Parliament it self and Parliament men there was and for ought I found alwayes and the like course observed For in case of a Peer the Custom of the Kingdom is to proceed by a special Commission to one as Lord Steward and 12 others at least for a Jury ●f Tryers besides Accuse●s and witnesses and a formal indictment and all from Record to Record or all is illegal if it be onely by the House of Peers If a Charge come from the House of Commons they are as Indictors being more then 12 sworn men Trustees to the whole Kingdom and Neighbors to the fact or party or both to which also there must be a legal proof by lawful Witnesses or else the Charge will not suffice And in pag. 181 he saith That for any thing done abroad I hope they do not use to tabe rumours and reports though from their own members to be sufficient for or equivol●nt to a legal Indictment an Oath seeing there scarce is or can be any Case so notorious but it may be pleaded unto by somewhat of law or necessity And although I should yield the Commons to be the Masters of the law in making it yet they●● pleased to allow others to be Judges by their Lawes and if they re-assume this also yet it may be more easie to judge of some law then of any fact at least it may be cloathed so as a curious Search or Inquest may be requisite to lay it cleer and naked Neither can I see how it may be necessary to proceed against any by force or illegal process when it is so easie as well as just to go rightly as to do right For who can imagine a case so dark or intricate but it may be contrived so that particular men may be Accusers and others Witnesses with a cleer and reall distinction between Indictors Tryors and Judges most of all in Cases notorious and evident for in such there may be lesse fear of the Juries Verdict against Evidence or of the Judges Sentence against the Verdict And in pag. 184. he saith I will not I cannot say the Commons of England cannot chuse or constitute their Judges yet of this again ere long But this I say or believe their Delegates ought to be exceeding curious I had almost said exceeding scrupulous in making Judges and bounding them to law and justice both in way as well as end I must again repeat it that it may not seem enough to settle Judges just and wise and good nor onely to provide that they may do what is just I speak of ends but men are men and ought in cases of such consequence to have their way their Rule and Square by which they must proceed to be prescribed in their Pattents or Commissions that they may do justly too aswell what is just to me it seemeth to be reason or the law of Nature unto men that the supream Court should so limit all inferiors that it may not be left at large to their list or pleasure to condemn or sentence without Hearing Accusation Witnesse or without such processe and Tryall as shall be cleer and plain and so prescribed in the Pattent or Commission If it be not so done and expressed I know not what Appeal can be but from the Court before judgment for what Appeal what Writ of Errour or what Plea can a man frame upon their Judgment who have no Rule no way of processe prescribed and so cannot erre transgresse or exceed their Commission No not if they should without all legal Accusation Proof or Witnesse condemn one to be sliced and fryed with exquisite Tortures They are Judges unlimitted in way of processe infinite and purely arbitrary No they are men and so they must be rational and just which was presupposed by them that gave so vast a power They may be just indeed and so they should but yet no thank for this to their Commission if it doth not bound and limit out their way and manner or processe as it doth their work and object or their end which was the wont of English Parliaments who were so just and wise themselves that they did see or fear it might be possible for their Committees to be both unjust and arbytrary if they were not most exactly limited of all Commissions None were more curiously drawn and pointed out by our Ancestors then those of especial Oyer and Terminer because the Cases were not onely heynous so they ought to be but such as for some extraordinary cause emergent seemed to be as it were extrajudicial and such as could not stay and abide the usual processe of the setled Courts of justice yet of these also did our Fathers take most especial care they might be just in way as well as end and that they might not be too high in justice for it seems that they had also learned a usual saying of the Antients sumum iis est injuria so that in divers of the Saxon lawes we finde high justice summum jus to be as much forbidden as injustice and I should tremble at it as an ill Omen to hear authority command the Kings Bench or any other Court should be now stiled The Bench of high justice for injustice the higher men go up the worse or so at least it was esteemed by our Ancestors their constant limitation was in every such Commission thus and thus you shall proceed but still according to the Laws and Customs of England secundum legem consuetudinem Angliae and no otherwise that is as Fortescue well saith You shal be pitiful in justice and more merciful then all the world besides this Kingdom And if such a limitation were not expressed this was enough to prove the Commission unjust and illegal which is so well known to all Lawyers that I need not cite N. B. or the Register Commissions or Scrogs Case in Dyer or so many Elder Cases in Edw. 3. Hen. 4. and almost all Kings Reigns Nay in King Iames among the great debates of uniting Scotland to England when it was driven up so close that instead of according to the Law and Custome of England it might be according to the law and custom of Brittain it was resolved by all the Judges that there could not be that little change but of one word that doth so limit such Commissions but by consent of Parliament of both kingdoms and in divers Parliaments of Ed. 1. Ed. 3. and Hen. 4. there were many Statutes made to limlt all Commissions of Oyer and Terminer as that they must never be granted but before and to some of the Judges of the Bench or of the grand Eire nor those to be named by parties but by the Court and with this usual restriction according to the known cause of the Statute of Westminster in the 2d Reign of Edw. the first And the Lord Cook in the 4 part of his

up by saying to the Root We mean you good and do but lay you bare that so you may the more behold and more admire our justice in the end when all the boughs and branches shall be gone that do but hinder all your Prospect I must but touch and glance there is a Trinity which all our laws do seem to worship here on earth estate liberty and life And in pag. 175. Mr Sadler saith I need not speak how curious our Fathers were in all their process touching life the way was still as punctual as cleer and plain as was the end they loved to be just and to do justly Doth our Law condemn any man without hearing or due Summons to judgment I hope it never will A great man of a good name standeth upon Record as by Parliament condemned to death without hearing or legal Summons But there is a Bl●sh or a Vail of Oblivion drawn upon it by good Writers as a stain and a shame to the Parliament Rolls yet as a just judgment on him that had first moved that another might be so condemned and he so perished by that law which he would have made for others This seemeth also to be written in the law of Nature and doubtless the sins of Sodom were as notorious to God in Heaven as any others can be to men in Parliament and yet he would and did go down to hear and see and proceed in a judicial way nor would he condemn or execute before he had not onely cleared his justice in himself or to his Angels but also to Abraham Lot and other lookers on that he still might be justified both when he judgeth and is judged for he still did and will put his actions on mans judgment as we shall more fully cleer hereafter This Processe also towards Sodome is by many of our old Lawyers brought for the pattern of our laws in that especially that none may be condemned without a legal hearing And in this and divers other things doth Bracton and Fleva borrow much in the laws of Henry the first And be the matter of Fact never so notorious yet there may be some plea that no man can fore-see or ought to fore-judge before he heareth For all men may plead necessity or force upon themselves as well as right and law for any thing they do amisse And for this and other Reasons the law doth suppose all men to be just or excusable till they be legally heard and adjudged This difference there is between the Judges and the Law-makers for these they say do suppose all men to be evil but the Judges should suppose all men to be good till they be proved to be evil The Charge and Accusation by the law of Nature ought to be cleer distinct and particular with time and place or other circumstances else the party accused cannot discharge himself Universals do not presse or oppresse at all Generals do not presse at all or else they are apt to oppresse The Witnesse and the Evidence must also be so cleer that those must condemn rather then the Judge who si●teth as Councel for the party Accused That so he be not oppressed by or against law And besides the Judge in most Cases and in those also of life in Scotland there is Councel allowed by law which may and ought to be heard in particulars of law or what ever may be justly disputable as Treason is by Statute so that of all Crimes by expresse Acts of Parliaments it ought to have no Tryal but clear and plain according to the course and custom of the common law In such Cases therefore should the Judges both in Law and Conscience sit and be in stead of Councel to the party and this they owe to every subject though they had a special Obligation to the King Who to his own Rights and therefore to his Wrongs was ●n Infant in Law and so expresly declared in the old Mirrou● B●sid●s other Books His Politike Capacity never but his Person ever in Nonage or supposed so in law for it may be a child or a woman not able to know the lawes and therefore alwayes had by law a legal mouth assigned in Councel of law And so might any man else of old it seemes for matter of demurs before judgment or for framing of a leg●l appeal by Writ of Error or some other way from any judgment whatsoever But our last King professed himself to know the lawes so well that it seemeth the Judges and others did hold themselves to be excused from speaking for him as else they would or should or might have done In this I might speak too plainly but I may be pardoned It is also the law of this kingdome and of Nature That although there be no Councel assigned yet may any in a good manner move the Court to keep the party from injustice or the Court from errour as Stanford and the third part of Institutes Cap. 2. fol. 63. 101. and in such Cases it may be excused and not censured for rash Zeal if some do or shall appear where or when it may be thought they be not called Neither can the whole Parliament of England I suppose make any Court to condemn without lawful Accusers or lawful Witnesses which by expresse Acts of Parliament is most especially provided in Case of Treason in King Edward the sixth and Queen Maries Reign and Tryal of Treason most expresly tyed to the Course and Custome of the Common-law Nay in full Parliament of Henry the Eighth it was declared That attaint of Treason in or by Parliament was of no more force or strength then it was or ought to be by the Common-law or then as good and strong as that by Parliament Nor can the whole Parliament I think by the law of Nature and right Reason make any children Ideots or all others whatsoever to be so much as Accusers or Witnesses That I say not Indictors Tryors or Judges By expresse Acts of Parliament in Philip and Mary Edward the sixth Hen. 8. Hen. 4. Hen. 1. for to him doth the Mirrour and his lawes lead us as to a cleer Christal Fountain of our Law-process as was shewed before None shall suffer for Treason or other Crime but by lawful Accusers and lawful Witnesses before those that by law might receive Indictments Which with all Inquests are to be made by honest lawfull able men Neighbors to the Fact And in pag. 179. he saith He should mispend his time to shew it to be the great law of the Kingdom as well as of Nature that none may be Judges and Parties in their own Cause Which may ere long be found perhaps to be the reason of the th●ee Estates and very much of our common-Common-law which is punctual in nothing more then in providing for a cleer distinction of Accusers Witnesses Indicters Tryers and Judges especially in Cases of Treason which upon divers motions of the Commons in Parliament have been so often enacted and

institutes chapt High Court of Parliament folio 39 which book by two special Orders of house of Commons in their purest purity is published to the special view of the Nation expresly saith That by order of Law a man cannot be attainted of high Treason unlesse the offence be in Law high Treason he ought not saith he to be attainted by general words of high treason by authority of Parliament as sometime hath been used but the high treason ought to be especially expressed seeing that the Court of Parliament is the highest and most honourablo Court of Justice and ought as hath been said to give example to inferiour Courts And the Lord Cook in the last recited chap. sheweth that Empson and Dudley two privy Counsellours to Henry the 7th were indicted as a couple of Traitors for acting without Juries contrary to the fundamental Law of the land although they had an Act of Parliament made in full and free Parliament by Kings Lords and Commons to bear them out in what they did And yet for all this and twenty times more that in law I am able to say for my self wherefore I ought not to be past upon adjudged or condemned without due processe of Law and having Crimes particularly and distiuctly laid unto my charge must I be over-ruled in all manner of law that I can all●dge for my self and be indeavoured to be hanged because I am so honest and just that my adversaries neither have can nor dare lay any crime in Law unto my charge But in the second place although the great sword men of England be the present Lords and Rulers of England and my grandest and principallest prosecutors at this time And although several of their Declarations against their quandam Lords and Masters the Parliament they appeal to all men whether it be just or tollerable that any priviledge of Parliament should contrary to the Law of Nature make a mans adversary judge in his own cause and concernment And therefore they declare they cannot any longer suffer the same but shall take some speedy and effectual course whereby to refrain them viz. several Parliament men from being their own ours and the Kingdomes Iudges in those things wherein they have made themselves parties And yet contrary to the expresse Law of England the Law of Nature and their own foresaid Declarations the great Sword men my present chiefest adversaries have constituted one of my grandest and maliciousest enemies that I have in the world viz. Mr. Attorney General Prideaux to be one of my principallest Iudges and that also in his own concernment And that he is so I thus make appear First he was in October 1649 at Guild-hall my chiefest most bloody and cruel Prosecutor without Law or Reason to take away my life and was so malicious and unjust in his prosecution of me as that he did avowedly again and again in open Court aver that there was a Statute made in Queen Maries days that did expresly take away and abolish those two Statues of Edward the sixth viz. Ed. 6.12 and 5 and 6 Ed. 6. chap. 11. that I insisted upon to save my life by at those that require two plain and evident witnesses to prove every fact of treason against any man that are charged therewith And if in that particular I had not understood the Law as well as himself he had taken away my life with a consident lie and f●lshood 2dly he produced two of his sevants Mr. Nutleigh and Edward Radney and Nutleigh who the other day at the Sessions took two of the strangest contradicting oaths that ever I heard from the mouth of a man in my life And he swore that he was with the Attorney General in his chamber when he see me give to his Master the Atturney General this specifical book intituled A Preparative to Hue and Cry after Sir Arthur Haslerig and he did own it saith he and called himself the Author of it save onely the errataes of the Printer The same said Edward Radney but being both demanded by me whether to the words there was not this addition saving the Printers errataes which are many and they both denied them although Col. Francis West the then Lievtenant of the Tower who sate all the while betwixt Mr Prideaux and my self swore these were the words viz. here is a book which is mine which I will own the errata's of the Printer excepted which are many And besides I did not see either of the foresaid servants of the Attorney General in the room although I often looked diligently about me and were it the last thing that ever I were to say I am not able to say there was so much as one person in the room at that time besides the Attorny Gen. Prideaux Col. West then Lievt of the Tower and my self Again about a term or two before I left England the said Attorny General Prideaux before the Lord chief Baron Wild and Baron Thorp at the open Exchequer Bar preferred and caused in open Court to be read against me one or more most false forsworn and perjured affidavits which in the substance of them did declare That I was in the head such a day as the Ringleader of a great Rabble of people and set them on to pull down about four score houses and set them on to do it in my own person in the Isle of Axom After the reading of which I told the Lord chief Baron Wild that I was amazed and confounded that a man that pretended to have any thing of common honesty durst be so impudent and audaciously wicked as contrary to his own particular knowledge and conscience with his own hands and tongue to present such abhominable false and perjured oaths into a Court as Mr. Prideaux that day had done against me when in his own conscience and knowledge in open Court I did then appeal to that Mr. Attorney very well knew that for so many days before the day mentioned in the said oaths that the houses were pulled down and upon that very day the act was done and for so many days after I was constantly day by day without intermission at the Parliament doors or at a Parliament Committe with Mr Prideaux himself a managing and negotia●ing that very affair of my honest Cliants of the Isl● of Axome and therefore then told the Judges That if Mr. Attorney General did deny this which I was confid●nt in his own kn●wledge he kn●w to be true I had witnesses enough at that Bar to prove every circumstance of it and therefore being I was constantly in London and Westminster both before the day the fact was committed and upon the very day it was acted and so many days a●ter it was done it was impossible for Mr. Prid●aux his oaths to have any shadow of truth in them unlesse he could prove that I had such a body that could be at Westminster and in the Isle of Axholm about 7 or 8 score miles from Westminster at one and