Hereditarily invested with all the Rights of Government of which this sort of Judicatory power is a principal Wherefore the Reason of the ancient frequencie being out of date long since it was well done by this Parliament upon new Reason more suitable to the Condition and Temper of this Age to ascertain us of holding Parliaments in the future with frequencie more convenient for us However 't is worth the observation what his Master-ship doth grant that Non-user may antiquate Acts of Parliament and make them lose their Force if the Reason of them fail or if by change of time they become a Publike Mischief As for the Reason of King Edward's Act I have shewn already that his Parliament had nothing in their Reason of making them that savours of the Old Custom of yeerly frequencie otherwise than with Condition there shall be need nor do they contain any sence that gives us cause to plead that they are antiquated or to desire an antiquation of them because to Repeal them would be an Injury to the King But next let me adde this that in the two late Triennial Acts it is implied that in these days things are alter'd to such a pass that there was high Reason to be no longer bound to the ancient Custom of that Annual frequencie which his Mastership pleads for and thereby you have the Determination of two whole Parliaments the FORTY ONE Parliament and this Parliament that the Reason of the said Custom at Common law fails and that publike Inconveniences if not publike Mischief would follow if it were practised in our time or else 't is in reason to be supposed they never would have alter'd it Therefore seeing his Mastership doth admit what I have made evident in the foregoing part of this Discourse that there hath been a Non-user of King Edward's two Statutes in any such sence as he and his fellows do impose they having never been so put in practice by Edward himself or by any succeeding King to this day we with all assurance conclude that a pleading of Non-user is a good Plea against the two Statute's being in force for such an absolute yeerly frequencie as the Faction doth insinuate into the mindes of the people Especially when two Parliaments before-nam'd have judged that Reason of publike Good and Convenience now lies against having them so frequent as within a yeer and that the time of Three yeers is soon enough unless there be need Nothing then but a spirit of Sedition or Treason would have fixed such a Construction as these men have lately made upon the said Statutes with a mighty Clamour as if Noise would carry it among reasonable men But their Construction being every way proved naught all the Arguments founded upon that Bottom do necessarily fall and Master Bencher and the rest of the Disputants ought to be tried before a Bench of Academian Sophisters that they may be brought under Correction for that wretched Beggery A Begging of the Question A way then with the Questions with which he stuffs up all the rest of his Book because they are grounded upon the same sad account of Petitio Principii and so are altogether impertinent to the Point in hand till they can better prove their own Construction of the two Statutes to be a right one or that those Statutes were at any time since their making put in use and practice upon supposal of any such absolute Meaning as he and his Fellow-writers would fasten upon them His Questions follow BENCHER 1. Whether the Statutes for yeerly Parliaments may be dispensed with by the King 's Soveraign Power and Prerogative being as some say onely Counsels and Advices to the King not obligatory ANIMADVERSION Who are those some that say so If any did they talkt as idly as Master Bencher writes and as little to the purpose for his Mastership hereupon starts up an invidious Question Whether the King may dispence with Laws and Statutes I rather suppose the SOME that say so never were men of God's making but mere men of straw set up by Master Bencher for a Tryal of his own Skill in Confutation and Conquest and to entertain his Majesties subjects with Supposals that there is strange Doctrine at Court in matter of Law that so himself may take occasion to lug in a long discourse to prove the Negative that his Majestie cannot dispence But know once for all that there is none under heaven who can be more tender of the currencie of Law and Legal Constitutions than the King Himself is especially such as are Parliamentary and it would be the joy of the Faction if they could really finde Him otherwise or if they could by any Tricks of State such as were shewn in several Sessions of Parliament before last February-Session play in upon Him the necessity of having recourse to that Supreme Law the Idol of the FORTY ONE Parliament Salus Populi suprema lex to save Himself and his People from such Confusions and Destructions as the Counsels of the Faction if they proceed will bring upon us I may well call it the Idol of that Parliament considering how they abused that Maxime in a causless using it against his Majesties Father perfidiously pleading the Safety of the People to justifie whatsoever they did as confidently as if the People could have been saved no other way if they had kept within the Bounds of Ordinary law But the ordinary path of Law is that which his Majestie desires to walk in and to prove the Truth of this we need onely to recollect the past Provocations given Him by the late extravagances of some men which would have provoked any Prince less patient to other Courses than he hath taken to secure Himself his Affairs his Friends and the Interest of his Crown And as to that point of the Prorogation he did not thereby assume to Himself any power to dispence with the Laws relating to the Course of Parliament but kept within the bound of Law as is abundantly proved Therefore the dragging in this Question of yours must needs be very impertinent as well as maliciously meant good Master Bencher and so are all the vile Inferences that you have made thereupon to catch the People BENCHER 2. His Second Point under question is Whether the Kings dismission of the Parliament without any day set for their return and their continuing so beyond a yeer be a Dissolution or whether such a failer in Time onely may by Act of Law dissolve a Parliament even against the Will of the King ANIMADVERSION So so All is out now The main Point they drive at is to Dissolve the Parliament against the Will of the King but what pretence hath the Bencher for declaring it Dissolved Not a tittle more than what was alledged by the DISSOLVER He said Dismission of a Parliament sine Die amounts to a Dissolution But how comes it that the Fifteenth of February the day to which the Parliament was prorogued or dismissed
the King is Judge onely whether a Parliament shall be held oftner than once a yeer whereas the Conjunction AND couples and joyns the sence of the words IF NEED BE to the former part of the sentence and so the Statute speaks plain for the King 's being Sole Judge whether there be need of calling Parliaments once a year as well as whether there be need of calling them oftner than once a yeer So that 't is evident the Noble King Edward the Third and his Parliament meant no such matter as the Considerator and his Fellows and as some other Professors of the Law have hitherto misunderstood contrary to the General sence of Law in that part of our Laws which concerns the Establishment of the Prerogative of our Kings a very principal flower whereof is the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments as often as they shall judge there is need and the Practice of other Nations in all the World hath justified this that it is the common Birth-right of Hereditary Kings to be sole Judges of this Question Whether there be need or no need at all times of Calling or of Dismissing the Supreme Assemblies unless they limit themselves but you see here is reason absolute to conclude our King Edward did not intend to limit himself to yeerly Parliaments by the said Statutes And to make further proof of this see again what is said by the Considerator CONSIDERATOR That the Kings of England have not duely nor constantly observed those Statutes ever since their making doth not render them of the less Force because 't is an Offence in the King not to fulfil a Law ANIMADVERSION Here he is pleased to acknowledge what cannot be denied that the Kings of England have not observed those Statutes ever since their making which shews that our succeeding Kings never thought themselves obliged by them or that King Edward intended it so unless they should see need or at any time judge it necessary to call a Parliament Besides we do not read of any Parliamentary Complaint about the omitting of YEERLY Parliaments till our Presbyterian Masters of the Faction in their Grand Remonstrance 1641. charged it as a fault upon his Majesties Father under pretence of those Statutes And doubtless some of the foregoing Parliaments would have made complaint about Yeerly Omission had they believed Kings bound to Yeerly Parliaments But that King Edward and his Parliament which passed the Law never intended or understood it in the Considerator's sence is to be concluded from this most undeniably That from the Fifth yeer of the said King to the Eighth yeer no Parliament was called the reason was because he judged there was no need Nor doth it appear that he did afterward observe any such certain Puncto of time in calling his Parliaments but doubtless 't is in reason to be thought he would have been so tender of his own Law as to have observed it within the fifth or sixth yeer and not so soon have broken it if he had thought himself obliged absolutely to a yeer because it was but in the fourth year that he passed it CONSIDERATOR But saith the Considerator the King is the onely person that is meant or can be bound For he it is that is to Summon or Hold Parliaments and therefore the Statutes intend to oblige Him or else they intend nothing and the Laws for Parliaments that secure our Religion Properties and Liberties are become onely Advices and Counsels to the King with no obligation further than the Kings present thoughts of their expedience ANIMADVERSION That the Obligation to a Yeerly Parliament lies no further upon the King than if in prudence he see there be need is already proved from a Right Construction of the words of the Statutes and that this prudential power and part of the Kings Prerogative in Judging the expedience of calling Parliaments at this or that time as Affairs shall in His Judgement require did remain undiminished by the said Statutes And they intended onely this which was enough That seeing the People had an ancient Right by Custom to have frequent Parliaments the King accordingly should oblige himself to call Parliaments so often as every yeer or oftner if there should be need Whereupon it is observable that seeing in the interval of Parliament there neither ought nor can be any Judge of the necessity but the King these two Laws left the power of judging it in the Prerogative-Royal as they found it and the then Parliament gained this great Advantage for the People that whereas they before had a Right by Custom and Common Law they now obtain a right by Statute-Law too which certainly so wise a King as Edw. 3. would never have granted without a Salvo put in for his Prerogative by the words IF NEED BE. Moreover consider if those Statutes should be otherwise understood viz. that the King ex debito were bound every yeer to call a Parliament whether it would not have been a great Mischief rather than Benefit to the People For in those days they that served Members in Parliament were wont to take Wages for their Service and that would have layn heavie upon every poor Burrough to have been bound to pay Wages due once a yeer sometimes oftner to their Burgesses it being recoverable by Law against them which peradventure would amount to more than their share of payment of Subsidies Again consider as this would empty their Purses so it would lade them with innumerable Laws which are as grievous almost as to have none as it hath been found in many Nations by experience and therefore it is that Justinian hath been every-where praised for so excellent an Emperour because when all the Nations under the Roman Empire were even over-laid with multitudes of Laws and groaned more under this Yoak than that of Taxes Tributes he took care how to deliver the people from that vexatious Burthen by cutting off the major unnecessary part of the Imperial Statutes and Digesting the rest into a tolerable Body Therefore should such yeerly Parliaments be imposed on us by Law the Statutes would soon swell to the like intolerable pass and tire the people out of fondness after so frequent Meetings as these Writers plead for and would force Us to admit even against all Sense and Reason Therefore we have abundant cause to praise the Wisdom of His Majestie and this His Parliament that in the 16th yeer of his Reign they framed that most prudent Triennial Law which placeth a golden Mediocrity betwixt the having too frequent Parliaments and too long delay of them and I must needs say His Majestie hath therein appeared by limiting himself to call Parliaments hereafter at Three yeers time after the determination of this and after the determination of every succeeding Parliament to be beyond all our Kings and most gracious in condescending and Indulgence towards his people that as the Faction which set on work this Considerator and his Fellows to delude the
Question to put it in your eyes that you may not discern Right from Wrong Their Business is to get themselves by the help of a Popular Vproar into a Governing posture and to this end they compass Sea and Land to make Proselytes to carry on a general Crucifixion of the present Governours Cares and Sorrows that is a Crown of Thorns they prepare for the head of the King Scandals for his Ministers a Level for the Nobility a Pitfal for the Bishops a Yoke for the Gentry and a Fools Coat for all the Commons that they can seduce into their Party in which they have leisure to repent and once more pay Taxes to fellow-Subjects who as ye may remember do know how to ride you being ready Booted and Spurr'd if you please once more to set them on horseback till you sigh and confess what a Poet said of old Nec enim Libert as gratior extat Quà m Domino servire bono As for the two Statutes of Edward the third you know I have granted that the Triennial Act of Charles the second doth not at all infringe their force and I have told you I wish they may for ever stand to preserve the Right of the King in calling frequent Parliaments when he judgeth them necessary as well as to maintain the Rights of the People in having them BENCHER He talks next of a Statute made in Richard the second 's Reign That Parliaments be held yeerly to redress delays in Suits and to end such Cases as the Judges doubt Also that in the Ninth of Richard the second the Duke of Gloucester told the King That one old Statute and laudable Custom is approved that the King once a yeer do summon his high Court of Parliament as you may read in Grafton ANIMADVERSION First you have onely Grafton's word that the Duke of Gloucester said so And suppose the Duke did say so you have onely the Duke's saying for it and he doth not name the time of that old Statute's making for no such Statute was in being till the time of Richard's Grandfather viz. King Edward the third and then that short succession of time from him could not make any such Statute an old one But I grant there had been an ancient Custom of yeerly Parliaments till at length the people grew weary of it which no doubt was the reason why the House of Commons in Edward the third's time agreed to pass those Statutes not to have them so frequent unless the King should see need For this sence is clearly implied in the very words of the first of the two Statutes as I have shewn before Besides I once again assure you No such Statute is to be found that saith any thing about the matter in the times elder than Edward onely there had been a Custom which the people held as laudable till they saw reason to alter it in that King Edward's days As for yeerly Parliaments to redress delays in Suits of Law and end difficult Cases there is no such Statute which he mentions to be found nor is it likely that the Commons should be called to such kinde of work of determining such Suits they having never had jurisdiction so to do Nor could it have been a Parliament after the manner of the Parliamentary Constitution then in being if the Lords had assembled alone to end Suits Therefore it is in no wise likely that there ever was any Intention to make such a Statute about the Calling of Parliaments yeerly to end such Law-suits Nor are such difficult Suits as pass the skill of the Judges or so many of them happening constantly in a yeers time as to need a Parliament to end them BENCHER The ancient Britains as Dunwallo writes held Annual Parliaments four hundred yeers before Christ and the Mirrour of Justice saith King Alfred ordained parliaments twice in the yeer or oftner and William the Conqueror did the like ANIMADVERSION Here learned Mr. Bencher shews his Reading So the old Britains went naked before Christ's time and many odd fashions came up in the times of the Saxons the Danes and Normans both in Cloaths and Government Doth this oblige us to the like now To what end then is this old thred-bare stuff brought hither to stuff his Pamphlet I have granted over and over that Parliaments of old were so frequent as he saith but I suppose it would do the people of England little service to tell them what a sort of Parliaments they were and how composed of Lords Spiritual and Temporal c. I suppose we should be loth to have such Parliaments now And yet according to Mr. Bencher's learned way of Arguing if we be obliged to one Circumstance of Example we are also as much bound to observe the other If to the timing of Parliaments as of old then also to the form and manner of them But Time and Law having provided better things for the people his Worship's way of arguing Us into old Fashions again is as pertinent as if he would prove John a Nokes should be bound to make all good that was devised by his sixteen hundred and tenth great-great-great-Grandfather whose name was John-a-Stiles if the Writings of the Devise were to be found in Dunwallo BENCHER I must tell you there are those that affirm the Laws for Annual Parliaments to be Musty obsolete Statutes whose strength and life are devoured by Time But it is enough to stop their mouthes that they have been Declared by two Parliaments within forty yeers last past to be the Laws of our Realm ANIMADVERSION Who are they that are so weak-headed as to say they are Musty and Obsolete Neither his Majestie nor his Parliament will give 'em thanks for saying so nor doth the Prorogation need such an Allegation to maintain it good I have sufficiently shewn that the sence of the two Statutes if entirely taken makes fully for the Right of the King to judge whether Parliaments Annually be needful or not and that within Forty yeers time two Parliaments have confirm'd their Frequencie and so frequent as every yeer or oftner if his Majestie see Occasion shall require their Assembling so often Therefore he hath much more reason to defend them than the Faction hath to make such ado about them unless they could get more Credit to their own Cause by a Rational Construction of them BENCHER My Lord Coke saith Instit part 1. page 81. That no Act of Parliament can lose its force or be antiquated by Non-user unless the Reason of it fail and by change of time it become a publike Mischief c. ANIMADVERSION It seems the Reason for having constant yeerly Parliaments did fail in Edward the Third's time or else his Parliament had never devised those two Statutes and put in the words IF NEED BE so far to change the ancient Custom of their frequencie as not to hold them so often unless Need require and of that Necessity who can be a Judge but the King whom our Laws have
is reckoned to be No day They prove this as fast as Hops because it is to be reckoned No day in construction of Law in regard it exceeded three months beyond the term of Twelve and beyond Twelve no Parliament can by Law live and dying at the yeers end it cannot be made alive again by Prorogation This is a very fine and quick dispatch but 't is to be answer'd too as fast as Hops now that King Edward and his Statutes meant no such quick Births and sudden Deaths of Parliaments as these men would perswade us so that notwithstanding all the Clouds that some persons raised about it the 15th of February appear'd a fair day in Law and to all other intents and purposes and it gave us day-light enough to discern the vanity and folly of the Faction and its chiefest Advocates with their matchless Confidence grounded upon the Construction of no better Lawyers than Master Bencher himself and his fellows appear to be viz. pitiful Logicians Lack-learning Lawyers for they are his own words which in pag. 22. he frankly bestows upon all Gentlemen of the long Robe that are of less malice and more understanding Therefore his Friend the new-elected Member may come up to Town if he please for the Body to which he belongs is yet alive and like to continue in good Health notwithstanding all the endeavours that have been used to put it out of temper Thus far I have been giving you the utmost that hath been argued by all the Three books which the Projecting Faction have hitherto proclaimed to be unanswerable But now you see a very little Learning in Law they having no Law on their side goes a great way with them They are better at Vp-cry and Out-cry and Down-cry and just so much Construction of Law and Gospel as will serve to beat up Drums in the Pulpit for that is the way of doing their work without Wit or Reason And therefore I was willing to spend the more time about those Books that I might not omit any one thing in them that is considerable that so the World may see how small cause they have for all their Clamour and that the Parliament did Justice when they condemned so many of these Prints as came to their hands to be fired by the hand of the Hang-man The next Pamphlet that comes to hand is a Thing that pretends to little of Argument but takes occasion from the Imprisonment of the Four Lords to rail at and revile and scandalize the whole Government most sufficiently especially the Parliament in the most odious terms that could be invented It is Intituled A Narrative of the cause and manner of the Imprisonment of the Lords now close Prisoners in the Tower of London And it is intended to walk abroad among the People to perswade them that their Lordships suffer Martyrdom for maintaining the Nation 's Rights and Liberties whereas the very Truth is they are but one mans Martyrs being misled by him 'T is a little leven that leveneth the whole lump Behold how great a matter a little fire kindles Can a man take fire into his bosome and not be burnt Nay though it be but a small Squib it will do the Feat if it be not well put out especially on the return of Gunpowder-Treason-days Therefore I will be so charitable as not to think that all the Four Lords had a hand in this malicious work My reason is It can hardly consist with a Man of Honour unless he be one that hath often forfeited it to be petitioning his Prince and at the same time to be plotting a Libel against Him It was about the time that the Petition was deliver'd to the King at Newmarket in April last that this Printed Narrative came to my hand and after perusal finding it was full fraught with Revenges and Falsities it proved the occasion of my now taking Pen in hand to cure all the Tetters of State that are to be cured with Ink of which none is so virulent and Corrosive as this We expect to see it more openly published as soon as the Faction shall finde the lucky day they hope for but in the mean while the Books are kept in and ready dormant all except those which they craftily convey in private to inflame their Party in City and Country against this Parliament It begins thus NARRATIVE On Thursday the 15th of February the Parliament as they call themselves or the Convention as I hear others generally call them met And at the same time a vast number of people filled Westminster-Hall the Court of Requests the Painted Chamber the Lobbies and all places neer the Parliament-house that the like was never seen upon the Meeting of this or of any other Parliament in our memory They did earnestly desire and expect they would declare themselves to be No Parliament ANIMADVERSION There was little difference betwixt the number of people at the opening of that February-Session and the number that went to be at the Opening of other Sessions of Parliament But how weak soever this Narrator's Memory be I and Thousands more can remember and the Citie of London can and will remember what they got by it when it began to be Flowing water of Rebellion with the same Faction in 1641 what a mighty Inundation of the Multitude they sent down to Westminster to fill that Hall and besides the Lobbies Court of Râ—quests Court of Wards and Painted Chamber that whole Citie White-hall the Strand and All was filled with a Mad Crew crying out upon King Evil Counsellors Bishops French and English Popery Fears Jealousies and Grievances And as Cats are let blood in the Ear many times by old women to cure the Shingles so the whole Posse of Sermoning Matrons the chief Garison of the Presbyterian Clergie made a Sally out o' th' Citie and went down also to bleed Strafford and Canterbury as the onely means to cure all our Evils I should not mention these things but that I am forced with grief of heart to it now that I see the same Humours would be preached about anew by the same impenitent restless Faction if they could but cheat the Old men again who saw and cannot forget these things so easily but the Faction now delude the Younger men who never saw yet a Bleeding nor the sport of Bear-baiting the King's Ministers and Privie Counsellers in whom lies all His Safety at such a season I remember what some of the Leaders then said Have we got him to part with Strafford Then he must deny us nothing the rest at Court being frighted will fall in with us to save themselves and so it proved too true of too many of them that for their childrens sakes I forbear the naming But by this means those Leaders got the Foot-ball before 'em and the King was fain to run for it but could never recover it And then what got the Nation by it I think we all know but that the young men of