the Maintenance of all the Laws of the Kingdom and Remedy of Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen then another particular Order of the Kings contrary to Magna Charta and another Order of the Kings contrary to the Petition of Right and another particular Order of the Kings contrary to the Statute De Tallagio non concedendo must also be obeyed So that then the King may by his particular Order take away any mans Life Liberty or Estate when ever he pleaseth And our condition is changed from that of Freemen to be worse than that of Villaines For tho the Lord had the power over his Villaines Goods and Liberty yet he had not a power over the Life of his Villaine that the Law secured to him But of the Kings particular Order contrary to Law must be obeyed we have nothing to secure our very Lives unto us For if our Lives Liberties and Estates have their Security from the Lavvs only and the Lavvs have their Maintenance from Parliaments then if a particular Order of the Kings concerning the Sitting of Parliaments must be obeyed contrary to all these Acts made for holding of Parliaments the king when ever he pleaseth may take away both the laws which should Secure us and Parliaments which should secure our Laws and then in what a condition we shall be left we conceive both you and we may easily judge For now if any threatens to take away our lives arbitrarily and without the legal Judgement of our Peers or our liberties without shewing cause in law we can answer Magna Charta will not suffer you If any threaten to violate our Properties we can now answer the Petition of Right will not suffer you If any attempt to raise money without consent in Parliament we can yet say no the law De Tallagio non concedendo will not permit you But if the kings particular Order contrary to these laws must give supercedias to them and be obeyed by us What have we to answer then For you throw the whole People of England on their knees to beg for their lives and for what part of their liberties and propeties Will and Pleasure will please to spare them The Lavvs are the Banks and Fence of our Lives and all that we can call Ours so that no man can wrong us neither in our Persons nor our Properties but we can strait run to them for Right But if contrary to lavv an Order of the kings that breaks down these Banks and Bounds and like an Inundation overflows all our Freedom must be obeyed What end will there be of our Miseries Where will it stop or who or what can stop it Now t is injustice in any person whilest our lavvs govern us to take any thing that is ours illegally from us but if the kings Order against our lavvs must be obeyed 't will be Mercy that any thing of ours is left us Nay to say truth then all is his and we have nothing that we can call ours for 't is lavv alone that makes Property Nor are our written lavvs and statutes only subverted but the Common lavv may also by the same Rule For if an Order of the King must be obeyed against Acts of Parliament of the highest Importance and most Universal concern then also may his Order be obeyed against the Common lavv and then whereas by the Common lavv every Member of Parliament is to have 40 days Summons before the Meeting of Parliament that he may have time sufficient to prepare himself to come up and attend the discharge of his duty that there may be a full Assembly and nothing done upon the catch nor by a Party the kings Order contrary to this law may restrain the 40 dayes to 20 10 5 4 days nay 24 hours if he please and it may be easily supposed he cannot want a Quorum of each House of his own Servants and Officers who may dispatch what lavvs soever he pleaseth though to the total alteration of the Government before any from the Country can come up to hinder it And not only the Statute and Common lavv but lex consuetudo Parliamenti the laws and customs of Parliament is likewise subverted For whereas by that law and custom of Parliament 40 Members and a Speaker makes a House this or any succeeding kings may be the same Power order that 24 nay 14 or any less number shall make a House and then a Parliament may be packt with ease at pleasure And the law and custom of Parliament allowes freedom of debate and indemnisies every Member that speaks his mind from any other Judgement but that of their own Bar from which freedom it hath the denomination of Parliament But if a private Order of the king or his Successors must be obeyed the Members of either House may be brought to answer for their freedom of speech at the kings-bench-bar and from thence at a worse place and they have no law left nor custom of Parliament to relieve them We might instance in many other Laws and Customs of Parliament by which extraordinary Priviledges are given to the whole Parliament and to every Member thereof in particular but that would rather be sit a Volumn than such a Discourse Wherefore we will shut up this Point with this Conclusion That if you do admit that the Kings Order contrary to lavv must be obeyed you do admit that the king and his successors may hold Parliaments only vvhen they please and when they do hold them may make them do vvhat they please Nay that they may vvith or vvithout Parliaments make lavvs or make their particular Orders and Proclamations go for lavvs raise Money and do to Parliaments and all the people of England to their lives to their liberties in to their estates vvhatsoever either the kings themselves their ministers or the vvorst of evil Counsellors can desire An admission so Impudent that the French Tyranny came in more modestly than this For the French king introduced his Absolute Rule by Courtship He pray'd a lavv to order him to raise Money but till their next Meeting and that neither but if there vvere occasion which the Parliament by Inadvertency granted and have never Met since But he did not issue out an Order contrary to the Laws and bare-fac'd impose his Will upon them For tho they were French-men they could never endure that And shall English-men not by Inadvertency but upon Deliberation patiently suffer the self same Yoak to be put upon them on worser Tearms This we say not Gentlemen by way of acknowledgement that you are in a legal Capacity now to do us either good or hurt for your Day is done and your Power-expired but that you may not like a Snuffe smell ill after you are out For the only reason why we more particularly direct our selves to you is because of the Character you have born that therefore you should not so much as seem to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law
particular and private cases and concernments not upon the Laws themselves And our Histories of later times say That Sir W. Thorp Chief Justice of the Kings Bench in the reign of Edvv. 3. for receiving but one poor hundred pounds in Bribes was for that alone adjudged to be hang'd and all his Lands and Goods forfeited and this reason rendred for his condemnation Becruse thereby as much as in him lay he had broken the Kings Oath made unto the people vvhich the king had entrusted him vvithall And in the 11th year of Richard the second The Lord chief Justice Trisilian was hanged drawn end quartered for giving his judgement that the king might act contrary to one particular Statute And Black the kings Council and Uske the Unde-sheriff of Middlesex with 5 more persons of quality were also hagng'd for but assisting in that Case And in the first year of Hen. 8. Empson and Dadley notwithstanding they were two of the kings privy council were hang'd for procuring and executing an Act of parliament contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the kingdom and to the great vexation of the people And in the of Hen. 8. Cardinal Woolsey was accounted guilty of High Treasor for endeavouring to sublert the Common Laws of the land and to introduce the Civil Law in its stead Divers later instances might be given but that it is not prudence to follow Truth too close at the heels neither will it be necessary to name more if these are well considered For if the Lord Chief Justice Thorp for receiving the Bribery of a hundred pounds was adjudged to be hanged as one that had made the king break his oath to the people how much more guilty are they of making the king break his Coronation Oath that perswad him to actagainst al the laws for holding parliaments which he is sworn to maintain And if the Lord chief Justice Tresilian was hanged drawn and quartered for advising the king to act contrary to one Statute only What do they deserve that advise the king to act not only against one statute but against all thess antient laws and statutes of the Realm And if Blake the kings Council but for assisting in the matter and drawing up Inditements by the kings Command contrary to law though it is likely he pleaded the kings Order for it his duty to do it and that it was but pro forma what he did yet if he was hang'd drawn and quarterd for that what Justice is due to them that assist in the total destruction of all the Laws of the Nation And if Uske the Under-Sheriffe whose Office t is to execute the laws for but in deavouring to aid Tresilian Blake and their accomplices against one single Statute was also with 5 more hang'd drawn and quartered what punishment do they deserve that ayd and endeavour the subversion of no less than all the laws of the kingdom Nay if Empson and Dudley tho they had an Act of Parliament on their side yet that act being against the known laws of the land were hang'd as Traitors for putting that statute in execution and if Woolsey was accounted guilty of high Treason for endeavouring to exchange the laws of England for the Civil laws How great must be your condemnation and of how much sorer punishment must you be judged worthy if you shall but endeavour to sit and act as a Parliament upon this prorogation For you have not only no law to plead as Dudley and Empson had but are directly contrary to all our laws of every kind And you will thereby not onely atempt to exchange our lawes as Woolsey did but to put us into a state of no law at all Having thus faithfully discharged our duty and layd yours before you that through no inadvertency you may be surprised we have done Not at all doubting the issue thereof for if it be his Majesties honour and true intrest to keep the lawes he hath so solemnly sworn and protested to do as assuredly it is we have no Reason to doubt him And if those worthy patriots in the lords house whose names can never be mentioned with that Honor they deserve from the people did desire to addrese to his Majesty fifteen months agoe for the Parliaments dissolution and since all the resons that moved them thereto at that time do still continue and that this main reason is now also added That this parliament can sit and Act no more as a parliament without the total subversion of the laws and the very constitution of the Government of England we have no reason to doubt the lords And if the Commons shall but consider from whence and for what end they received their trust we have no cause at all to doubt them neither for certainely among them as well as among the lords are a greater number of persons of honor wisdom and fortune then of those that are Indigent of all and that will think with themselves that if not above halfe the people of England are represented by them and that two thirds of that halfe that are represented are weary of their siting and desirous of their dissolution and that 5. Parts of 6 do believe they can never more legaly sit as a parliament and that sixth seem doubtful And since that worthy part of the Commons can get nothing to themselves in particular by sitting and that if 5 10 or 20 years hence they should by another parliament be found to have usurped the legislative power of England to the Ruine of our lawes and the destructon of the people they would be sure to answer it with no less then their Lives and Fortunes and since if they should presume to fit so many person of quality are resolved not to pay any taxes or obey any other of their acts without first trying their validity by due process of Law And what pleasure or aduantage his Majesty can take or they themselvs can have in their sitting as a perliament when their very Jurisdiction is like to be questioned in all the Courts of England And whether it be likely that English Juries should find against their neighbours and therin against themselves to uphold a parliament that hath so many yeares imposed it self upon them contrary to their desire And that novv is Legally dissovled we leave to themselves to Judge FINIS Rot. Parl. 13. Edv. 4. No 43.
it so yet still it were but as broad as long for a prorogation sine die is nothing but a dissolution neither for there is no other sine die in Nature but that so that look which way you will whether on the Prorogation of the fifteenth of February or a Dismission sine die the Law shews you nothing but Death and you love to be Members of Parliament a great deal better than we if you will adventure your Lives and Fortunes to sit after the Lavv hath put a Dissolution on you Edvvard the Fourth held a Parliament the eighth day of April in the thirteenth year of his Reign which he prorogued to the sixth of October following but being desirous to call them sooner if the urgency of his affaires should require it no other expedient could be found to enable the King to do it but by a special Act of Parliament to adjorn them to that time and yet if occasion did require to summon them sooner which Act was made with that caution and legal formality that in the very Record of that Prorogation there is a Salvo for the Act of Parliament and the Act it self recited in haec verba an the Record Rot Parl. 13 Edw. 4. Cap. 47 Item codem octavo die Apâ—ilis post gratiasreditas ex parte dicto Domini Regis ejus mandato per venerabilem Pâ—â—re Willm Bathon Wellen Episcopum Cancellarium praefact is Dominis omnibus tunc ibidem presentibus de eorum bonis diligentiis laboribus circa ea quo sibi ex parte Regis injunct a fuerunt exhibitis oftend Idem Cancellarius ex mandato ejusdem Dom. Regis ulterius declaravit qualiter Idem Dominus Rex sacrum tempus Quadragesimate tunc instans fere praeteritum ad sacrum Festum Paschae tune quasi in proxinie existens quamque necessarium atque placabile esset tam Dominis quam Communibus dicto Parliament to intendentibus ad suas Libertates existere aliasque causas urgentes ipsum Dominum Regem Regnum suum Angliae concernentes debitae discussionis libramine ponderans Parliamentum suum predictum usque sextum diem Octobris tunc proximum futurum ad idem Palatium apud Westminster quo tunc erat tentam tunc ibideâ—â—teâ—end â—ensuit prorogand adjornand illud realiter sic prorogavit adjornavit omnibus singulis quorum intersuir firmiter injungendo quod ad dictum sextum diem Octobris apud dict Palacium Westmin excusation quaerunque cessante personaliter convenient in negotiis dicti Parliamenti processurus Salva semper praefato Domino Regi conditione in quodam Actu authoritate dicti Parliamenti super hujusmodi prorogatione adjornatione edito contenta Cujus quidem Actus tenor de vero in verbum hic subsequenter inseritur viz. Formsmuch as the King intendeth to prorogue and adjourn this his present Parliament to this his Palace of Westminster unto the sixth day of October next coming then there to be holden It is Ordained by the authority of this present Parliament that all-be-it any such prorogation and adjournment be had yet if for any urgent cause moving his highness it shall be thought to the same behoveful to reasume reassemble and have appearance of this his said Parliament at any time or place within this his Kingdom asore the said fixth day of October that then at his pleasure he may direct his several Writs to the Sheriffe or Sheriffes of every shire of this his Realm to make open Proclamation in every Shire-Town That all Lords spirituall and temporal being Lords of Parliament and all Knights of shires Citizens of Cities and Burgesses of Broughs returned in this present Parliament Personally appear at such day and place as in the same Writs of Proclamation shall be specified so alwayes that every of the said writs be made out twenty days or more before the said day of appearance limited by the same And that such appearance at that day and place to be limited by the said Writs be taken and had of like force and effect as if the same king had prorogued and adjourned this his said Parliament unto the same day and place And that then the said prorogation and adjournment to be had to the said Palace of Westminister unto the said sixth day of October to be void and of none effect And in this Instance there are these two things observable First How careful our Ancestors were in all their concessious to their king that they did no damage their Laws and thereby hurt the people who had entrusted them And next That that was a very learned Age and had the assistance of Littleton and Hussey two as great Lawyers as any one time hath produced And certainly all this trouble care and pains both to King and Parliament might have been saved if either that Age or those learned men could have found out the expedient of a Parliament prorogued or adjourned sine die but there was none And t is well that there is not for if the king by prorogation sine die may hold a parliament but in fifteen months then by a prorogation sine die he may not hold them if he please but in fifteen year nay not hold them if he please but in fifteen year nay but in twice or thrice fifteen if he will And on the other hand If the king by a prorogation sine die may hold a parliament then he may call them in together again in 7 or 8 dayes when all the Country members are returned to their homes and none can attend by reason of the suddennesse thereof but such as the King may hope for any thing from as we have already intimated so infinite are the mischiefs that would attend a sine die prorogation that God be thanked our Laws and Ancestors would never abide it in any other sencethan we have said And therefore do not think the People of England will ever do that indignity to their Lavvs That dishonour to the Finger of God which by so stupendious and over-ruling a Providence hath dissolved you Or that dis-service to their own Interest as ever to acknowledge you any more for their Representative Sine die being thus unable to help in this matter these Gentlemen are forced to return again to the Prorogation as seeing a uecessity to stand or fall by it and either to make that good or to be totally routed and therefore their last labour spends it self in tumbling the Records to find out Presidents as if Presidents could prevail against Law and 't is boasted by them with mighty joy that they have at Last found out one President in Q. Eliz Reign wherein a Parliament was Prorogued for three dayes more than a Year But we say this is no President at all but only one illegal Fact and that there is but one in nigh 400 Years And 300 Prorogations make very little for the honour of those that urge it But if this were a President