this Judgment his meaning was That this Judgment had abolish'd Parliaments This Imposition of Ship-money springing from a pretended Necessity was it not enough that it was grown Annual but he must entail it upon the State for ever at once making Necessity inherent to the Crown and Slavery to the Subject Necessity which dissolving all Law is so much more prejudicial to His Majesty than to any of us by how much the Law has invested his Royal State with a greater Power and ampler Fortune For so undoubted a Truth it has ever been that Kings as well as Subjects are involved in the Confusion which necessity produces that the Heathen thought their Gods also obliged by the same Pareamus necessitati quam nec Homines nec Dii superant This Judge then having in his Charge at the Assize declared the dissolution of the Law by this supposed necessity with what Conscience could he at the same Assize proceed to condemn and punish Men unless perhaps he meant the Law was still in force for our Destruction and not for our Preservation That it should have Power to kill but none to Protect us A thing no less horrid than if the Sun should burn without lighting us or the Earth serve only to bury and not feed and nourish us But my Lords to demonstrate that this was a supposititious impos'd Necessity and such as they could remove when they pleased at the last Convention in Parliament a Price was set upon it for Twelve Subsidies you shall reverse this Sentence It may be said that so much Money would have removed the present Necessity but here was a Rate set upon future necessity for Twelve Subsidies you shall never suffer necessity again you shall for ever abolish that Judgment Here this Mystery is revealed this Vizor of Necessity is pull'd off And now it appears That this Parliament of Judges had very frankly and bountifully presented His Majesty with Twelve Subsidies to be levied on Your Lordships and the Commons Certainly there is no Priviledge which more properly belongs to a Parliament than to open the Purse of the Subject and yet these Judges who are neither capable of sitting among us in the House of Commons nor with your Lordships otherwise than as your Assistants have not only assum'd to themselves this Priviledge of Parliament but presum'd at once to make a present to the Crown of all that either your Lordships or the Commons of England do or shall hereafter possess And because this Man has had the boldness to put the Power of Parliament in ballance with the opinion of the Judges I shall entreat your Lordships to observe by way of comparison the solemn and safe proceeding of the one with the precipitate dispatch of the other In Parliament as your Lordships know well no new Law can pass or old be abrogated till it has been thrice read with your Lordships thrice in the Commons House and then it receives the Royal Assent so that 't is like Gold seven times purified Whereas these Judges by this one Resolution of theirs would perswade his Majesty that by naming Necessity he might at once dissolve at least suspend the great Charter two and thirty times confirm'd by his Royal Progenitors the Petition of Right and all other Laws provided for the maintenance of the Right and Propriety of the Subject A strange force my Lords in the sound of this word Necessity that like a Charm it should silence the Laws while we are dispoyl'd of all we have For that but a part of our goods was taken is owing to the Grace and Goodness of the King for so much as concerns these Judges we have no more left than they perhaps may deserve to have when your Lordships shall have passed Judgment upon them This for the neglect of their Oaths and betraying that publick Trust which for the conservation of our Laws was reposed in them Now for the cruelty and unmercifulness of this Judgment you may please to remember that in the old Law they were forbid to seeth a Kid in his Mothers Milk of which the received interpretation is that we should not use that to the destruction of any Creature which was intended for its preservation Now my Lords God and Nature has given us the Sea as our best Guard against our Enemies and our Ships as our greatest Glory above other Nations and how barbarously would these Men have let in the Sea upon us at once to wash away our Liberties and to overwhelm if not our Land all the Propriety we have therein making the Supply of our Navy a pretence for the ruine of our Nation For observe beseech you the fruit and consequence of this Judgment how this Money has prospered how contrary an effect it has had to the end for which they pretended to take it On every County a Ship is annually impos'd and who would not expect but our Seas by this time should be covered with the number of our Ships Alas my Lords the daily Complaints of the decay of our Navy tell us how ill Ship-Money has maintained the Sovereignty of the Sea and by the many Petitions which we receive from the Wives of those miserable Captives at Algier being between four or five thousand of our Countrymen it does too evidently appear that to make us Slaves at home is not the way to keep us from being made Slaves abroad so far has this Judgment been from relieving the present or preventing the future necessity that as it changed our Real Propriety into the shadow of a Propriety so of a feigned it has made a real necessity A little before the approach of the Gaules to Rome while the Romans had yet no apprehension of that danger there was heard a voice in the Air lowder than ordinary The Gaules are come which voice after they had sack'd the City and besieged the Capitol was held so ominous that Livie relates it as a Prodigy This Anticipation of necessity seems to have been no less ominous to us These Judges like ill boding Birds have call'd necessity upon the State in a time when I dare say they thought themselves in greatest security But if it seem Superstitious to take this as an Omen sure I am we may look on it as a cause of the unfeigned necessity we now suffer for what regret and discontent had this Judgment bred among us And as when the Noise and Tumult in a private House grows so loud as to be heard into the Streets it calls in the next Dwellers either kindly to appease or to make their own use of the domestick strife so in all likelihood our known discontents at home have been a concurrent cause to invite our Neighbours to visit us so much to the expence and trouble of both these Kingdoms And here My Lords I cannot but take notice of the most sad effect of this oppression the ill influence it has had upon the Ancient Reputation and Valour of the English Nation And no
with Awe Engage Invite Affection and restrain our Rage Less Pleasure take brave Minds in Battels won Than in restoring such as are undone Tygers have Courage and the Rugged Bear But Man alone can when he Conquers spare To Pardon willing and to punish loth You strike with one Hand but you heal with both Lifting up all that Prostrate lye you grieve You cannot make the Dead again to Live When Fate or Error had our Rage misled And o're these Nations such Confusion spread The only Cure which could from Heav'n come down Was so much Power and Clemency in One One whose Extraction from a Noble Line Gives Hopes again that Well-born Men may shine The meanest in your Nature Mild and Good The Noblest Rest secured in your Blood Much have we wonder'd how you hid in Peace A Mind proportion'd to such things as these How such a Ruling Spirit you could restrain And Practice first over your self to Reign Your Private Life did a Just Pattern give How Fathers Husbands Pious Men should live Born to Command your Princely Vertue slept Like Humble David whilst the Flock he kept But when your troubled Country call'd you forth Your flaming Courage and your matchless worth Dazzling the Eyes of all that did pretend To fierce Contention gave a Prosperous end Still as you rise the State exalted too Finds no Distemper while 't is chang'd by you Chang'd like the Worlds great Scene when with-out noise The Rising Sun Night's Vulgar Lights destroys Had you some Ages past this Race of Glory Run with amazement we should read the Story But living Vertue all Atchievements past Meets Envy still to grapple with at last This Caesar found and that ungrateful Age Which losing him fell back to Blood and Rage Mistaken Brutus thought to break the Yoke But cut the Bond of Union with that stroke That Sun once Set a thousand meaner Stars Gave a Dim light to Violence and Wars To such a Tempest as now threatens all Did not your Mighty Arm prevent the fall If Rome's great Senate could not weild the sword Which of the Conquer'd World had made them Lord What hope had ours while yet their Power was new To Rule Victorious Armies but by you You that had taught them to subdue their Foes Could order teach and their high Spirits compose To every Duty could their Minds engage Provoke their Courage and command their Rage So when a Lyon shakes his dreadful Main And angry grows if he that first took pain To tame his Youth approach the haughty Beast He bends to him but frights away the rest Then let the Muses with such Notes as these Instruct us what belongs unto our Peace Your Battels they hereafter shall Endite And draw the Image of our Mars in Fight Tell of Towns Storm'd of Armies over-run And Mighty Kingdoms by your Conquest won How while you thundred Clouds of dust did choak Contending Troops and Seas lay hid in Smoke Illustrious Acts high Raptures do Infuse And ev'ry Conqueror creates a Muse. Here in low strains your milder Deeds we Sing But then my Lord we 'll Bays and Olive bring To crown your Head while you in Triumph ride O're Nations Conquer'd and the Sea beside While all the Neighbour Princes unto you Like Josephs Sheaves pay Reverence and bow Upon the Death of O. C. WE must resign Heav'n his great Soul does claim In Storms as loud as his Immortal Fame His dying Groans his last breath shakes our Isle And Trees uncut fall for his Funeral Pile About his Palace their broad Roots are tost Into the Air So Romulus was lost New Rome in such a Tempest mist her King And from obeying fell to Worshipping On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead With ruin'd Oaks and Pines about him spread Those his last Fury from the Mountain rent Our dying Hero from the Continent Ravish'd whole Towns and Forts from Spaniards reft As his last Legacy to Britain left The Ocean which so long our hopes confind Could give no limits to his vaster mind Our bounds enlargement was his latest toil Nor hath he left us Prisoners to our Isle Under the Tropick is our Language spoke And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our Yoke From Civil Broils he did us disingage Found Nobler Objects for our Martial Rage And with wise Conduct to his Country show'd Their ancient way of Conquering abroad Ungrateful then if we no Tears allow To him that gave us Peace and Empire too Princes that fear'd him grieve concern'd to see No pitch of Glory from the Grave is free Nature her self took notice of his Death And sighing swell'd the Sea with such a breath That to remotest Shores her Billows rowl'd Th' approaching Fate of their great Ruler told Mr. WALLER's Speech to the House of Commons April 22. 1640. Mr. Speaker I Will use no Preface as they do who prepare Men for some thing in which they have a particular Interest I will only propose what I conceive fit for the House to consider and shall be no more concerned in the Event than they that shall hear me Two things I observe in his Majesties Demands First The Supply Secondly Our speedy dispatch thereof Touching the First His Majesties Occasions for Money are but too evident For to say nothing how we are neglected abroad and distracted at home the Calling of this Parliament and our Sitting here an Effect which no light Cause could in these times have produced is enough to make any reasonable Man believe That the Exchequâ—r abounds not so much in Money as the State does in Occasions to use it And I hope we shall all appear willing to disprove those who have thought to disswade his Majesty from this way of Parliaments as uncertain and to let Him see it is as ready and more safe for the Advancement of His Affairs than any New or pretended Old way whatsoever For the speedy Dispatch required which was the Second thing not only his Majesty but Res Ipsa loquitur the occasion seems to importune no less Necessity is come upon us like an Armed Man Yet the use of Parliaments heretofore as appears by the Writs that call us hither was to advise with His Majesty of things concerning the Church and Commonwealth And it hath ever been the Custom of Parliaments by good and wholsom Laws to refresh the Commonwealth in general yea and to descend into the Remedies of particular Grievances before any mention made of a Supply Look back upon the best Parliaments and still you shall find That the last Acts are for the free Gifts of Subsidies on the Peoples part and General Pardons on the Kings part Even the wisest Kings have first acquainted their Parliaments with their Designs and the Reasons thereof and then demanded the Assistance both of their Council and Purses But Physicians though they be called of the latest must not stomach it or talk what might have been but apply themselves roundly to the Cure Let us not stand too nicely upon
taking a sacred Oath not to infringe them I am sorry these Men take no more care to gain our Belief of those things which they tell us for our Souls Health while we know them so manifestly in the wrong in that which concerns the Liberties and Priviledges of the Subjects of England But they gain Preferment and then 't is no matter though they neither believe themselves nor are believed by others But since they are so ready to let loose the Consciences of their Kings we are the more carefully to provide for our Protection against this Pulpit-Law by declaring and reinforcing the Municipal Laws of this Kingdom It is worth observing how new this Opinion is or rather this way of rising even among themselves For Mr. Hooker who sure was no refractory Man as they term it thinks That the first Government was Arbitrary till it was found that to live by one Mans Will became the Cause of all Mens Misery these are his Words concluding That this was the Original of inventing Laws And if we look further back our Histories will tell us that the Prelates of this Kingdom have often been the Mediators between the King and His Subjects to present and pray redress of their Grievances and had reciprocally then as much Love and Reverence from the People But these Preachers more active than their Predecessors and wiser than the Laws have found out a better Form of Government The King must be a more Absolute Monarch than any of his Predecessors and to them he must owe it though in the mean time they hazard the Hearts of his People and involve him in a Thousand Difficulties For suppose this Form of Government were inconvenient and yet this is but a Supposition for these Five hundred Years it hath not only maintained us in safety but made us Victorious over other Nations but I say suppose they have another Idea of one more convenient we all know how dangerous Innovations are though to the better and what hazard those Princes must run that enterprize the change of a long establisht Government Now of all our Kings that have gone before and of all that are to succeed in this happy Race Why should so Pious and so Good a King be exposed to this Trouble and Hazard Besides that Kings so diverted can never do any great Matter abroad But while these Men have thus bent their Wits against the Laws of their Country whether they have neglected their own Province and what Tares are grown up in the Field which they should have tilled I leave it to a second Consideration not but that Religion ought to be the first thing in our Purposes and Desires but that which is first in Dignity is not always to precede in order of time For Well-Being supposes a Being and the first Impediment which Men naturally endeavour to remove is the want of those things without which they cannot subsist God first assigned unto Adam Maintenance of Life and gave him a Title to the rest of the Creatures before he appointed a Law to observe And let me tell you if our Adversaries have any such design as there is nothing more easie than to impose Religion on a People deprived of their Liberties so there is nothing more hard than to do the same upon Freemen And therefore Mr. Speaker I conclude with this Motion that there may be an Order presently made that the first thing this House will consider of shall be the restoring this Nation in general to the Fundamental and Vital Liberties the Propriety of our Goods and Freedom of our Persons and that then we will forthwith consider of the Supply desired And thus we shall discharge the Trust reposed in us by those that sent us hither His Majesty will see that we make more than ordinary haste to satisfie his Demands and we shall let all those know that seek to hasten the matter of Supply that they will so far delay it as they give Interruption to the former Mr. WALLER's Speech July 6. 1641. MY LORDS IAm commanded by the House of Commons to present you with these Articles against Mr. Justice Crawley which when your Lordships shall have been pleased to hear read I shall take leave according to custom to say something of what I have collected from the sense of that House concerning the Crimes therein contained Then the Charge was read containing his extrajudicial Opinions subscribed and judgment given for Ship-money and afterward a Declaration in his charge at an Assize That Ship-money was so Inherent a Right in the Crown that it would not be in the power of a Parliament to take it away My Lords NOT only my Wants but my Affections ronder me less fit for this Employment For though it has not been my happiness to have the Law a part of my breeding there is no Man honours that Profession more or has a greater Reverence towards the Grave Judges the Oracles thereof Out of Parliament all our Courts of Justice are governed or directed by them and when a Parliament is call'd if your Lordships were not assisted by them and the House of Commons by other Gentlemen of that Robe Experience tells us it might run a hazard of being stiled Parliamentum indoctorum But as all Professions are obnoxions to the malice of the Professors and by them most easily betrayed so my Lords these Articles have told you how these Brothers of the Coif are become fratres in malo how these Sons of the Law have torn out the Bowels of their Mother But this Judge whose charge you last heard in one expression of his excels no less his Fellows than they have done the worst of their Predecessors in this Conspiracy against the Commonwealth Of the Judgment for Ship-money and those extrajudicial Opinions preceding the same wherein they are joyntly concern'd you have already heard how unjust and pernicious a proceeding that was in so publick a Cause has been sufficiently express'd to your Lordships But this man adding despair to our misery tells us from the Bench that Ship-money was a Right so Inherent in the Crown that it would not be in the Power of an Act of Parliament to take it away Herein my Lords he did not only give as deep a Wound to the Commonwealth as any of the rest but dipt his Dart in such a Poyson that so far as in him lay it might never receive a Cure As by those abortive Opinions subscribing to the Subversion of our Propriety before he heard what could be said for it he prevented his Own So by this Declaration of his he endeavours to prevent the Judgment of Your Lordships too and to confine the Power of a Parliament the only Place where this Mischief might be redrest Sure he is more wise and learned than to believe himself in this Opinion or not to know how Ridiculous it will appear to a Parliament and how Dangerous to himself And therefore no doubt by saying no Parliament could abolish