Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	king_n	parliament_n	3,554	5	6.8839	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88684	Considerations touching the great question of the King's right in dispensing with the penal laws Written on the occasion of His late blessed Majesties granting free toleration and indulgence. By Richard Langhorn, late of the Middle Temple, Esq;	Langhorne, Richard, 1654-1679.; Langhorne, Richard, fl. 1687.	1687 (1687)	Wing L396A; ESTC R229629	25,471	35

Crown Coke lib. 7. fol. 36. Reported as the Resolution of all the Judges of England XI The King cannot by his Grant nor yet by Act of Parliament Bar himself of any thing which is inherent in and inseperably annexed unto his Royal Person for that in so doing he should cease to be King and consequently Change and Subvert the Government which our Law allows not Note this is proved in substance by 2 H. 7. fol. 6. Cited and Agreed in Calvin's Case Coke lib. 7. fol. 14. The Case was thus In the Statute 23. H. 6. Cap. 8. it was Enacted under great penalty That none should serve the King as Sheriff of any one County above one Year And that if the King by any Non obstante should dispense with that Statute such dispensation should be void Yet it was Adjudged That notwithstanding that express Clause and even against it the King might dispense And the reason given was Because the King had a Right by the Law of Nature as King to the Service of his Subjects And such Right being inseperably annexed to and inherent in his Royal Person that Act could not Bar the King of the Service of his Subjects Every Subject being bound by his Natural Legeance to serve the King. XII That therefore when ever the King to gratifie a Parliament doth Consent in Parliament to any Law by which he seems to strip himself of or depart from any Prerogative or Right which in truth is insperable from him as King Or when the King in Parliament or otherwise by any Declaratory Words or Speeches seems to relinquish such Right such Consent to such Law is no more than an Agreement on his part not to use that Right ordinarily but only in Extraordinary Occasions when in his Princely Wisdom he shall find it necessary and for Publick Good. But this Bars him not to use this Right again when he sees just cause so to do nor can any declaratory words spoken by the King or his Assent incerted into an Act of Parliament Estoppe the King in any Case of this Nature This Ground being established all the difficulties touching Parliaments endeavouring to entrench upon the Crown and the frequent Charges of Breach of Promises imputed to our Kings are solved and fall to nothing nor will there be any more use of that Engine made use of so unhappily by the late Usurpers of wounding the King through the pretence of removing Evil Counsellors when ever the King shall think fit to reassume his Right in Extraordinary emergent Occasions after having agreed by Act of Parliament or by any other publick way not to make use of that Right ordinarily It being clear upon this Ground That a Parliament offering a Bill to the King which seems to take from him such a Right hath not in Truth any Design in it to prejudice the Crown For then a Parliament should do wrong which the Law allows not to say nor is such a reassuming the Exercise of such a Right a Breach of Promise in the King but a making use of the Condition implyed in his Agreement as to such a particular Case and in such present Circumstances Otherwise the King should be said to do wrong which our Law also forbids us to say And all those Judgements and Resolutions of our Judges which confirm it to us That the King hath such Rights and which have allowed the Exercise of such Rights notwithstanding Acts of Parliament would be infringed and become Erronious and consequently the whole Frame of our Laws unsettled These Rules before layd or some other of the like nature which those who are learned in our Laws agree upon among themselves have been of so great force that in all Ages those who have been otherwise the greatest Opposers of the Prerogatives of the Crown have nevertheless always Agreed That the King hath a Power inherent in him and inseperable from his Royal Person to dispense with Penal Laws as to particular Persons But several do deny That His Majesty hath any Power in himself alone to dispense in general with a Penal Law or to suspend in general the Execution of such a Law Though others do very strongly Affirm His Majesty to have this Power and do conceive that upon the Grounds before laid all Objections which are commonly urged against this Power are clearly Answer'd and prevented Those who maintain the Affirmative in this Point do at all times declare That their Affirmative is not intended of a General Power in the King to suspend all Penal Laws in general at his pleasure to the prejudice of the Publick and without just Cause Such a Power being against the Grounds before laid and never claimed by any King of England But that which they affirm is of a Right bounded within the true just and agreed Definition of a Dispensation mention'd as the fourth Ground before asserted And therefore when they discourse the point they state and divide the Difficulty into these following Quuestions viz. Quest I. Whether the Legislative Power may not possibly make such a Law as in respect of Time and other Circumstances impossible to be foreseen may prove inconvenient to the whole Kingdom or a great part of it And if the Affirmative in this Question be True which they hold Then Quest II. Whether in case of such a Law made is there not some Power and is it not absolutely necessary there should be some Power always Visible and in Being to dispence with and to suspend the General Execution of such a Law Necessity and Publick or General Good requiring it In this they also hold the Affirmative which if it be True Then Quest III. Whether this Power be in the King or any where else And where else Or whether it be in the King with some other And with whom And in this they hold That it is in the King solely For Proof of their Affirmative to the first Question they say I. It is proved by the Seventh Ground before layd II. By what is observed upon the Fifth Ground even Magna Charta rigorously insisted on according to the Letter of it would be inconvenient and against Publick Good. III. There are many Ancient Penal Laws which though never Repealed yet are not put in Execution Because though Necessary when they were first made yet now Obsolete in respect of Time and other Circumstances not foreseen and impossible to be foreseen when the said Laws were made IV. It is ordinary for the Legislative Power in all Ages to make several Penal Laws meerly temporary and experimentally to the end that Experience may shew whether they may conveniently be continued or not V. The late Acts of Parliaments made for Encouragement of Navigation and touching Cart-wheels being Penal Laws made by this present Parliament does clearly prove this point The first had Inconveniencies not foreseen and only appearing when we made War The other had such Inconveniencies not foreseen by the Law-makers that had it been put in Execution all

our Inland Trade had been destroyed For Proof of their Affirmative to the Second Question they say I. It is proved by the Fifth Sixth and Eighth Grounds before layd II. To deny this would be to Charge our Laws with the highest defect imaginable for to grant as they do That the Law hath provided a Fountain of Mercy always visible and in being to take care of private and particular Persons and to dispense with Penal Laws as to such when Necessity requires and to deny that the Law hath provided any Fountain of Mercy always visible and in Being to take Care of the Publick and to provide for the Safety of the People when Necessity requires would be to charge our Law with a greater defect than ever any yet charged it with III. That if no such Power had been all Navigation as to Trade must have totally or at least for a great part have ceased during this present War for want of Mariners and all our Inland-Trade must have ceased from the time of the making of the Act touching Cart-Wheels for want of Carriages and De Witts designs for ought we know might have been effectual to have engaged us in a New War at home and to have Provoked our Non-Conformists into a Rebellion in which they would most certainly have been assisted with all necessaries from Holland for the rescuing themselves from the Inconveniencies which they pretend they lye under from the Penal Laws made against them if there had not been a Visible Power in Being to avoid the Danger then threatning us and not foreseen by the Law-makers by suspending the Execution of those Laws For Proof of their Affirmative to the Third Question and what they hold therein they say I. It is proved by the Ninth Tenth and Eleventh Grounds before layd II. There is no other Power always visible and in being which doth or can pretend with any colour of Reason to have this Right besides the King alone III. To place this Power in any other without the King would be to make that other King. And to place it any where then in the King alone so as to make some others to be sharers in this Power were to make those others to be sharers in the Highest Act of Soveraignty and consequently sharers in the Crown which would be wholly to change our Government and to alter our Laws and consequently to subvert all our Liberties and Properties which cannot be safe if any Principles be admitted in alteration of our Laws and Government And it is for this Reason that the King cannot commit the power of his Mercy concerning any Penal Statute to his Subjects Coke lib. 7. fol. 37. IV. Our Kings have always used this Power and our Judges approved the Exercise thereof to be agreeable with our Laws as is proved in the Grounds before layd And though it be true that some Ancient Laws seem suspended by a dis-usance and a seeming tacite Consent of the whole Kingdom King Judges and People yet that was in truth the suspension of the King alone For those Laws were when once made the King's Laws and the King was the only Person trusted with them he might have put them in Execution and commanded his Judges to see them put in Execution if he had pleased and his Judges would not have taken upon them to say That they the Judges or That the People had thought fit to suspend them by common consent and therefore they stood Suspended In short those who do maintain these Affirmatives in all these Questions and insist upon the Grounds and Rules before layd do for farther clearing of the matters in debate humbly offer the following Cases to Consideration as concieving the Solutions of them may settle the Point I. Suppose a Distress taken upon that Branch of the Statute of 14. Car. 2. cap. 6. which relates to the breadth of the Weels of Carts and Waggons and the Execution of which Branch was suspended by His Majesties Proclamation Would the Judges justifie this Distress or not If they did in pursuance of the Statute and dis-ailowance of the Power of Suspension the Consequences would be That they would hereby destroy the greatest part of In-Land-Trade of the Kingdom If they did not allow the Distress but agree the Act to be lawfully Suspended by the King's Proclamation issued forth in a Case where so great a Necessity required for the Publick Good Then all the three Affirmatives upon the aforesaid Questions are settled with this Addition That the King may dispense with a Malum Prohibitum though it be as it is in the Case put adjudged by Act of Parliament a Common Nusance And may dispense with a Penal Law though the Forfeitures as they are in the Case put be not given to the King but to others as in this Case to the Surveyors of the High-Ways the Poor and the Prosecutor But if the Judges in this Case as it is here put to avoid the difficulty should refuse to allow the distress upon some other Reason as rather taking upon themselves to adjudge the Act of Parliament as to this particular Branch to be void then to allow the King to have Power to Dispense with what an Act of Parliament adjudgeth to be a Common Nusance though the whole Kingdom believes that his Majesties said Proclamation was the sole Cause why there was never any Execution of that Law And that no man was ever prosecuted upon that Branch because all men generally admitted that the King had dispensed with it and had a power so to do And consequently That the Judges never had an Opportunity to Repeal it by their Judgment yet if the Judges should in this Case proceed this latter way or any other way rather then to Affirm the King 's Right for Reasons best known to themselves there would be then no more gained by this Case then A Law may be made by the Legislative Power which may be very inconvenient to the whole Kingdom And that in such Case there must necessarily be a Power somewhere either to suspend its Execution or to Repeal it totally by adjudging it to be Void And then the next Case proceeds thus II. Suppose a Law made under the penalty of 100 l. to the Prosecutor to his own Use That none shall serve His Majesty either in his Navies at Sea or in his Armies at Land or bear Arms in the Militia in any County except he first take the Oaths of Supremacy and Obedience And take the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper according to the Form used in the Church of England And Abjure Transubstantiation This Law being made Suppose France and Holland should Unite their Forces and make a present War upon His Majesty And the more to distract us and raise Divisions amongst us should publish their Placaet and promise a general Toleration to all in England in point of Religion and the Enjoyment of their Ancient Laws if the People of England will sit still and not take up