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	law_n	parliament_n	2,185	5	6.6353	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56178	A legall vindication of the liberties of England, against illegall taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament lately enforced on the people: or, Reasons assigned by William Prynne of Swainswick in the county of Sommerset, Esquire, why he can neither in conscience, law, nor prudence submit to the new illegall tax or contribution of ninety thousand pounds the month; lately imposed on the kingdom, by a pretended Act of some commons in (or rather out of) Parliament	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1649 (1649)	Wing P3996A; ESTC R206108	46,568	58

destroy and subvert both Lawes Liberties and Properties at last And not any thing like them to introduce Anarchy Democracy Parity Tyranny in the Highest degree and new formes of arbitrary Government and leave neither King nor Gentleman all which the people should too late discover to their costs and that they had obtained nothing by adhering to and compliance with them but to enslave and undoe themselves and to be last destroyed Which royal Predictions many complaine we finde too truely verified by those who now bear rule under the Name and visour of the Parliament of England since its dissolution by the Kings decapitation and the Armies imprisoning and seclusion of the Members who above all others are obliged to disprove them by their answers as wel as declarations to the people who regard not words but reall performances from these new keepers of their Liberties especially in this FIRST YEAR OF ENGLANDS FREEDOM engraven on all their publick Seals which else will but seal their Selfdamnation and proclaim them the Archest Impostors under Heaven Secondly should I voluntarily submit to pay this Tax and that by vertue of an Act of Parliament made by those now sitting some of whose Elections have been voted void others of them elected by * new illegall Writs under a new kind of Seal without the Kings Authority stile or Seal and that since the Kings beheading as the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Howard uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common Law and custome of Parliament being Peers of the Realm if now worthy such a Title as was adjudged long since in the Lord Camoyes case Claus. Dors. 7. R. 2. m. 32. and asserted by Master Selden in his Titles of Honor part 2. c. 5. p. 737. seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4 Institut p. 1 4 5 46 47 49. As I should admit these to be lawfull Members and these unlawfull void Writs to be good in Law so I should thereby tacitly admit ex post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledg judgment conscience Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance Protestation and solemn League and Covenant taken in the presence of God himself with a sincere he●…rt and reall intention to perform the same and 〈◊〉 therein al the days of my life without suffering my self directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terror to be withdrawn therefrom As first That there may be and now is a lawfull Parliament of England actually in being and legally continuing after the Kings death consisting only of a few late Members of the Commons House without either King Lords or most of their fellow-Commons which the very Consciences and judgments of all now sitting that know anything of Parliaments and the whole Kingdom if they durst speak their knowledg know beleeve to be false yea against their Oaths and Covenant Secondly That this Parliament so unduly constituted and packed by power of an Army combining with them hath a just and lawful Authority to violate the Priviledges Rights Freedomes Customs and alter the constitution of our Parliaments themselves imprison seclude expel most of their fellow-members for voting according to their consciences to repeal what Votes Ordinances and Acts of Parliament they please ere●…t new Arbitrury Courts of war and Justice 〈◊〉 a●…aign condemn execute the King himself with the Peers Commons of this Realm by a new kind of Martial law contrary to Magna Charta the Petition of Right and Law of the Land dis-inherit the Kings poste●…ty of the crown extirpat Monarchy the whole house of Peers change and subvert the ancient Government Seals Law●… Writs legal proceedings Courts and coin of the Kingdom ●…ell and dispose of all the Lands Revenues Jewels goods of the Crowne with the Lands of Deans and Chapters as they think meet absolve themselves like so many antichristian Popes with all the Subjects of England and Ireland from all the Oaths and engagements they have made TO THE KINGS MAJESTY HIS HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS yea from their very Oath of Allegiance notwithstanding this express clause in it which I de●…ire may be ●…riously and conscienciously considered by all who have sworne it I do ●…eleeve and in Conscien●… am r●…olved that neither the Pope NORANY PERSON WHATSOEVER HATH POWER TO ABSOLVE ME OF THIS OATH OR ANY PART THEREOF which I acknowledge by good and ●…ull Authority to be lawfully ministred unto me and DO RENOUNCE ALL PARDONS AND DISPENSATIONS TO THE CONTRARY dispense with our Protestations Solemn League and Covenant so lately * zealously u●…ged and injoyned by both Houses on Members Officers Ministers and all sorts of P●…ople throughout the Realm dispose of all the Forts Ships Forces Offices and Places of Honour Power Trust or profit within the Kingdom to whom they please to displace and remove whom they will from their Offices Trusts Pensions Callings at their pleasures without any legall cause or tryall to make what new Acts Lawes and reverse what old ones they think meet to insnare inthral our Consciences Estates Liberties Lives to create new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and declare r●…ll treasons against King Kingdome Parliament to be no tr●…asons and Loyalty Allegi●…nce due obedience to our knowne Lawes and consciencious observing of our Oaths and Covenant the breach whereof would render us actuall Traytors and perjurious persons to be no lesse then High Treason for which they may justly imprison dismember disfranchise displace and fine us at their wills as they have done some of late and confiscate our persons liv●…s to the Gallowes and our estates to their new Exchequer a Tyranny beyond all Tyrannies ever heard of in our Nation repealing Magna Charta c. 29. 5. E. 3. c. 6. 25. Edw. 3. cap. 4. 28. Ed. 3. c. 3. 37. E. c. 18. 42. E. 3. cap. 3. 25. Ed. 3. cap. 2. 11. R. 2. c. 4. 1. H. 4. c. 10. 2. H. 4. Rot. Par. N. 60. 1. E. 6. c. 12. 1 Mar. c. 1. The Petition of Right 3 Caro●… and laying all our * Laws Liberties Estates Lives in the very dust after so many bloody and costly years wars to defend them against the Kings invasions rayse and keep up what forces they will by Sea and Land impose what heavy Taxes they please and renew increase multiply and perpetuate them on us as often and as long as they please to support their own encroached more then Regall Parliamentall Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us and all that is ours or the Kingdoms at our private and the publique charge against our wils judgments consciences to our absolute enslaving and our three Kingdom●… r●…ine by engaging them one against another in new Civill wars and exposing us for a prey to our Forraign Enemies All which with other particulars lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it I must necessarily admit acknowledg to be just and legall

villified affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority and thereby induced others to contemn and question it and as great a baseness in others for to pay it upon any terms Secondly he there affirms that (d) Oliver Crumwel by the help of the Army at their first Rebellion against the Parliament was no sooner up but like a perfidious base unworthy man c. the House of Peers were his only white boys and who but Oliver who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Usurpers became their Proctor where ever he came yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also insomuch that at some meetings with some of my friends at the Lord Wh●…rtons lodgings he clapt his hand upon his breast and to this purpose professed in the sight of God upon his conscience THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO THE COAT UPON HIS BACK and he would procure a friend viz. Master Nathaniel Fiennes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England And not only so but did he not get the General and Councel of War at Winsor about the time that the Votes of no more addresses were to pass to make a Declaration to the whole world declaring THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE LORDS HOUSE THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN UPHOLD IT which was sent by the General to the Lords by Sir Hardresse Waller and to inde●…r himself the more unto the Lords in whose house without all doubt he intended to have sate himself he requited me evil for good and became my enemy to keep me in Prison out of which I must not stirre unless I would stoop and acknowledge the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do●… it yet now they have suppressed them Whence it is most apparent 1. That the General Lieutenant Generall Cromwel Ireton Harrison and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members and over-ruling all the rest have wittingly acted against their own knowledges Declarations Judgments Consciences in suppressing the Lords Hou●…e and depriving them of ther Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power by presuming to make Acts passe sentences and impose Taxes without them or their assents in Parliament 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom for their own particular advantage pay and enrichment is in their own judgment and conscience both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm being not assented to by the Lords and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all who love their own or Countries Liberties or have any Nobility or Generosity in them Thirdly he (e) there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf and his confederates That the purged Parliament now sitting is but a pretended Parliament a mock-Parliament yea and in plaine English NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL but the shadow of a Parliament That those Company of men at Westminster that gave Commission to the High Court of Justice to try and behead the King c. were no more a Parliament by Law or Representatives of the People by the rules of Justice and Reason then such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People that a company of armed Theeves choose and set apart to try judge condemne hang or behead any man that they please or can prevaile over by the power of their Swords to bring before them by force of arms to have their lives taken away by pretence of JUSTICE grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their Wills and Swords That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters or to give a Law unto them or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power and set themselves downe in it which is the Armies case with the Parliament especially at Thomas Pride's late purge which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons to set up indeed a MOCK-POWER and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT by purging out all those that they were any way jealous of would not Vote as they would have them and suffering and permitting none to sit but for the Major part of them a company of absolute School-boys that will like good Boys say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters and vote what they would have them and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people with the name of Parliament and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assessments and Taxations and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees the best of which is now become a perfect Star-chamber High-Commission and Councel-board make them their perfect slaves and vassals With much more to this purpose If then their Principal admirers who confederated with the Army and those now sitting in all their late proceedings and cryed them up most of any as the Parliament and supreme Authority of England before at and since the late force upon the House and its violent purgation do thus in print professedly disclaim them for being any real Parliament or House of Commons to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people the secluded Members Presbyterians Royallists and all others have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegal Taxes Acts as not made by any true English Parliament but a mock-Mock-Parliament only Fourthly He therein futher avers (f) That the death of the King in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament ipso facto though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it the rather because the men that would have it continue so long as they please are those who have created these necessities on purpose that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent That the main end wherefore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither was To treat and conferr with King Charles and the House of Peers about the great affairs of the Nation c. And therefore are but a third part or third estate of that Parliament to which they were to come and ●…yn with and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make laws the end both in reason and law of the peoples trust is ceased for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end cannot play Lord paramount over the Major and then do what it please no more can the Minor of a Major viz. one Estate of three legally or justly destroy two of three without their own assent c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within

when all or most of the Members were present as the Parliament Rolls Journals Modus te●…ndi Parliamentum Sir Edward Cooks 4 Institu●…s p. 1. 2 26. 35. 36. Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts f. 1 c. 39. E. 3. 7. Brook Parliament 27. 1. Jac. c. 1. and the many Records I have cited to this purpose in my Levellers levelled my Plea for the 〈◊〉 and Memento p. 10. abundantly prove beyond contradiction●… for which cause the Members ought to be fined and lose their ●…ges if absent without sp●…cial Li●…nce as Modus t●…nexdi Parliamentum 5 R. 2. Par. 2. c. 4. 9. H. 8. c. 16. and A Co●…ection of all Orders c. of the late Parliament pa. 294. 357. with their frequent summoning and fining absent Members evidence Secondly Though fo●…ty Members onely may peradventur●… make an House in cas●… of absolu●…e nece●…y when ●…he r●…st through sicknes publick or private occasions are volu●…rily or negligently absent and might freely repair thither to sit or give their Votes if they pleased yet forty Members nev●…r yet made a Common●… House by custome of Parliament ●…here being never any such case til now when the rest being above ●…our hundred were forcibly secluded or driven thence by an army through the practice or connivance of those forty sitting o●… purpose that they should not over nor counte●…-vote them much lesse an House to sequester or expell the other Members or impose any Tax upon them Till they shew me such a l●…w custom or President of Parliament not to be found in any age all they pretend is nothing to purpo●…e or the present case Thirdly Neither forty Members nor a whole House of Commons were ever enough in any age by the Custome of Parliament or Law of England or impose a Tax or make any Act of Parliament without the King and Lords as I have n already proved much l●…sse after they ceased to be Members by the Parliaments dissolution through the Kings beheading Neither w●…re they ever invested with any legall power to seclude or exp●…l any of their felow Members especially if duly elected for any Vote wherein the Majority of the House concurred with them or differing in their consciences and judgements from them nor for any other cause without the Kings and Lords concurrence in whom the ordinary judiciall power of the Parliament resides as I have undeniably proved by presidents and reasons in my Plea for the Lords p. 47. to 53. and Ardua Regni which is further evident by Claus. Dors. 7. R. 2. M. 32. Mr. Seldens Titles of Honor p. 737. Banneret Camoys Case discharged from being knight of the Shire by the Kings Writ and judgment alone without the Commons vote because a Peer of the Realm the practice of s●…questring and expelling Commons by their fellow-Commons only being a late dangerous unparliamentary usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructive to the priviledges and freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities Boroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons it self being no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or finall Sentence and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members then any Judges Justices of peace or Committees have to disjudg disjustice or discommittee their fellow Judges Justices or Committee-men being all of equall authority and made Members only by the Kings Writ and peoples Election not by the Houses or o●…her Members Votes who yet now presume both to make and unmake seclude and recal expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages to patch up a factious Conventicle instead of an English Parliament Therefore this Objection no waye●… invalids this first Reason why I neither can nor dare submit to this illegal Tax in conscience law or prudence which engage me to oppose it in all these Respects If any object That true it is the parliament by the common Law and Custome of the Realm determines by the Kings death but by the Statute of 17 Caroli which enacts That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose continues this Parliament still in being notwithstanding the Kings beheading since no Act of Parliament is passed for its Dissolution The only pretext for to support the continuance of the Parliament since the Kings violent death To this I answer That it is a Maxime in Law That every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it and the mischiefs it intended onely to prevent as is resolved in 4. Edw. 4. 12. 12. Edw. 4. 18. 1. H. 7 12 13. Plowd Com fol. 369. and Cooks 4. Instit. p. 329 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act and the end of enacting it was not to prevent the dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death no ways intimated or insinuated in any clause thereof being a cleer unavoydable dissolution of it to all intents not provided for by this Law but by any Writ or proclamation of the King by his Regal power without consent of both Houses which I shall manifest by these ensuing reasons First From the principal occasion of making this Act. The King as the COMMONS in their * Rem●…nstrance of the state of the Kingdom 15 Decemb. 1642 complain had dissolved all former Parliaments during his Reign without and against both Houses approbation to their great discontent and the Kingdoms prejudice as his Father King James had dissolved others in his Reign and during their continuance adjourned and prorogued them at their pleasure Now the fear of preventing of the like dissolution prorogation or adjournment of this Parliament after the Scotish Armies disbanding before the things mentioned in the Preamble were effected by the Kings absolute power was the only ground occasion of this Law not any fear or thoughts of its dissolution by the King untimely death then not so much as imagined being before the Warrs or Irish Rebellion brake forth the King very healthy not ancient and likely then to survive this Parliament and many others in both Houses judgment as appears by the Bill for trienniall Parliaments This undeniable Truth is expresly declared by the Commons themselves in their foresaid Romonstrance Exact Collection p. 5. 6. 14. 17. compared together where in direct terms they affirm The ABBRUPT DISSOLUTION OF THIS PARLIAMENT is prevented by another Bil by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament there seems TO BE SOME RESTRAINT OF THE ROYAL POWER IN D SSOLVING OF PARLIAMENTS NOT TO TAKE IT OUT OF THE CROWN BUT TO SUSPEND THE EXECUTION OF IT FOR THIS TIME and OCCASION ONLY which was so necessary for THE KINGS OWN SECURITY and the publick Peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges but must