hee heard what could be said for it he prevented his owne so by this declaration of his he endevours to prevent the Judgement of your Lordships too and to confine the power of a Parliament the onely place where this mischiefe might be redrest Sure he is more wise and learned then to beleeve himselfe in this opinion or not to know how ridiculous it would appeare to a Parliament and how dangerous to himself and therefore no doubt but by saying no Parliament could abolish this Judgement his meaning was that this Judgement had abolish't Parliaments This imposition of Ship-mony springing from a pretended necessity was it not enough that it was now grown annuall but he must intayle it upon the State for ever at once making necessity inhâ—eâ—ent to the Crowne and slavery to the Subject Necessiâ—y which dissolving all Law is so much more prejudiciall to his Majesty then to any of us by how much the Law has invested his Royall State with a greater power and ampler fortune for so undoubred a truth it has ever beene that Kings as well as Subjects are involv'd 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 declar'd the dissolution of the Law by this suppos'd necessity with what conscience could hee at the same Assize proceed to condeme and punish men unlesse perhaps hee 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 lesse horrid then if the Sunne should burne without lighting us or the earth serve onely to bury and not to feed and nourish us But my Lords to demonstrate that this was a suppositious impos'd necessity and such as they could remove when they pleas'd 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 necssity again you shall for ever abolish that judgement Here this mystery is revealed this visour of necessity is pull'd off and now it appeares that this Parliament of Judges had very frankly and bountifully presented his Majesty with twelve Subsidies to be leavied on your Lordships and the Commons Certainly there is no priviledge which more properly belongs to a Parliament then 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 then 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 Crowne of all that either your Lordships or the Commons of England doe of shall hereafter possesse And because this man has had the boldnesse to put the power of Parliament in ballance with the opinion of the Judges I shall intreat your Lordships to observe by way of comparison the solemne and safe proceeding of the one with the precipitate dispatch of the other In Parliament as your Lordships know well no new Law can passe or old be abrogated till it has been thrice read with your Lordships thrice in the Commons House and then it receives the Royall Assent so that 't is like gold 7 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 32 times confirm'd by his Royal Progenitours the petition of Right and all other Lawes 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 Charme it should silence the Laws while we are pispoyl'd of all we have for that but a part of our goods was taken is owing to the grace and goodnesse of the King for so much as concernes these Judges we have no more left then they perhaps may deserve to have when your Lordships shall have passed Judgement upon them This for the the neglect of their Oaths and betraying that publique trust which for the conservation of our Lawes was reposed in them Now for the cruelty and unmercifulnesse of this judgement 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 wee have therein making the supply of our Navy a pretence for the ruine of our Nation for observe I beseech you the fruit and consequence of this judgement how this money has prosper'd 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 tels us how ill ship-money has maintain'd the Soveraignty of the sea and by the many petitions which we receive from the wives of those miserable Captives at Algier being between 4 and 5 thousand of our Country-men it does evidently appeare that to make us slaves at home is not the way to keepe us from being made slaves abroad so farre has this judgement bin from reliving the present or preventing the future necessity that as it changed our reall propriety into the shadow of a propriety so of a seigned it has made a Reall 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 voyce in the Aire lowder then ordinary The Gaules are come which voyce after they had sack'd the Citie and besieged the Capitoll was held so ominous that Livie relates it as a Prodigy This Anticipation of necessity seems to have been no lesse ominous to us These Judges like ill boading 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 superstitions to take this as an Omen sure I am we may look on it as a cause of the unfained necessity we now suffetr for what regret and discontent had this judgement bred among us And as when the noyse and tumult in a private house growes 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 likelyhood our known discontents at home have been a concurrent cause to invite our Neighbours to visite us so much to the expence and trouble of both these Kingdomes 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 wonder for if it be true that oppression makes a wise man mad it may well suspend the courage of the valiant The same happened to the Romans when for renowne in Armes they most excell'd the rest of the world the story is but short 't was in the time of the Decem-viri and I think the chief-troublers of our State may make up that number The Decem-viri my Lords had subverted the Lawes suspended the Courts of Justice and which was the greatest grievance both to the Nobility and people had for some years omitted to assemble the Senate which was their Parliament This sayes the Historian did not onely deject the Romans and make them despaire of their Liberty but caused them to be lesse valued by their Neighbours The Sabines take the advantage and invade them and now the Decem-viri are forc'd to call the long desired Senate whereof the peopie were so glad that Hostibus belloque gratiam habuerunt This Assembly breaks up in discontent neverthelesse the warre proceeds Forces are rais'd led by some of the Decem-viri and with the Sabines they meet in the Field I know your Lordships expect the event My Authors words of his Countrey-men are these Ne quid ductu aut auspicio Decem-virorum prospere gereretur vinci se patiebantur They chose rather to suffer a present diminution of their Honour then by victory to confirme the tyranny of their new Masters At their return from this unfortunate expedition after some distempers and expostulations of the people an other Senate that is a second Parliament is call'd and there the Decem-viri are questioned deprived of their Authority imprisoned banish'd and some loose their lives and soon after this vindication of their Liberties the Romans by their better successe made it appeare to the world that liberty and courage dwell alwayes in the same brest and a re never to be divorced No doubt my Lords but your Justice shall have the like effect upon this dispirited people 't is not the restitution of our ancient Lawes alone but the restauration of our ancient courage which is expected from your Lordships I need not say any thing to move your just indignation that this man should so cheaply give away that which your noble Ancestors with so much courage and industry had so long maintain'd you have often been told how carefull they were though with the hazard of their lives and fortunes to derive those Rights and Liberties as entire to posterity as they received from their Fathers what they did with labour you may do with ease what they did with danger you may doe securely the foundation of our Lawes is not shaken with the Engine of Warre they are onely blasted with the breath of these men by your breath may be restored What Judgements your Predecessors have given and what punishments their Predecessors have suffer'd for offences of this nature your Lordships have already been so well informed that I shall not trouble you with a repetition of those precedents Onely my Lords something I shall take leave to observe of the person with whose charge I have presented you that you may the lesse doubt of the wilfulnesse of his offence His education in the Inns of Court his constant practice as a Councellour and his experience as a Judge considered with the mischiefe he has done makes it appeare that this Progresse of his through the Law has been like that of a diligent Spie through a Country into which he meant to conduct an enemy To let you see he did not offend for company there is one crime so peculiar to himselfe and of such malignity that it makes him at once uncapable of your Lordships favour and his own subsistence incompatible with the right and propriety of the Subject for if you leave him in a capacity of interpreting the Lawes has he not already declared his opinion That your votes and resolutions against Ship-money are voyd and that it is not in the power of a Parliament to abolish that Judgement To him my Lords that has thus plaid with the power of Parliament wee may well apply what was once said to the Goat browsing on the Vine Rode caper vitem tamen hinc cum stabis ad aras In Tuaquod fundi cornua possit erit Hee has cropt and infring'd the priviledges of a banish'd Parliament but now it is returned he may find it has power enough to make a Sacrifice of him to the better establishment of out Lawes and in truth what other satisfaction can he make his injur'd Country then to confirme by his example those Rights and Liberties which he had ruin'd by his opinion For the proofes my Lords they are so manifest that they will give you little trouble in the disquisition his crimes are already upon Record the Delinquent and the Witnesse is the same having from severall Seats of Judicature proclaim'd himselfe an Enemy to our Lawes and Nation Ex ore suo judicabitur To which purpose I am commanded by the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons to desire your Lordships that as speedy a proceeding may bee had against M. Justice Crawley as the course of Parliaments will permit Mr. WALLERS SPEECH In the House of Commons the fourth of July 1643. being brought to the Bar and having leave given him by the Speaker to say what he could for himselfe Mr. Speaker I Acknowledge it a great mercy of God and a great favour from you that I am once more suffered to behold this Honourable Assembly I mean not to make use of it to say any thing in my own defence by Justification or denyall of what I have done I have already confessed enough to make me appeare worthy not onely to be put out of this House but out of the World too All my humble request to you is that if I seeme to you as unworthy to live as I doe to my selfe I may have the Honour to receive my death from your owne hands and not bee exposed to a Tryall by the Counsell of Warre what ever you shall thinke me worthy to suffer in a Parliamentary way is not like to finde stop any where else This Sir I hope you will be pleased for your own sakes to grant me who am already so miserable that nothing can be added to my calamity but to be make the occasion of creating a President to your own disadvantage besides the right I may have to this consider I beseech you that the
antiquas and remove not the ancient bounds and Land-marks which our Fathers have set If to bee absolute were to bee restrained by no Lawes Then can no King in Christendome bee so for they all stand obleidged to the Laws Christian and we ask no more for to this Pillar bee our Priviledges fixt Our Kings at their Coronation having taken a Sacred Oath not to infringe them I am sorry these men take no more care for the informing of our Faith of these things which they tell us for our Soules health whilest wee know them so manifestly in the wrong way in that which concernes the Liberties and Priviledges of the Subjects of England They gain preferment and then it is no matter though they neither beleeve themselves nor are beleeved by others But since they are so ready to let loose the Conscience of our Kings wee are the more carefully to proceed for our protection against this Polpit-law by declaring and reinforcing Municipall Laws of this Kingdom It is worthy the observation how new this opinion or rather this way of rising is even amongst themselves For Mr. Speaker Mr. Hooker who was no refractory man as they term it thinks that the first government was Arbitray untill it was found that to live by one mans will becomes all mens misery these are his words and that these were the originall of inventing Laws And Mr. Speaker if wee looke farther backe our Histories will tell us that the Prelates of this Kingdome have often been the Mediators between the King and his Subjects to present and pray redresse of their grievances and had reciprocally then as much love and reverence from the people But these Preachers more active then their Predecessors and wiser then the Laws have found out a better form of Goverment The King must be a more absolute Monarch than any of his Pedecessours and to them he must owe it though in the mean time they hazard the hearts of his People and involve Him into a thousand Difficulties For suppose this forme of Government were inconvenient Mr. Speaker this is but a Supposition for this five hundred years it hath not only maintained us in safety but made us victorious over other Nations But suppose this form of Government were inonconvenient and they have another Idea of one more convenient We all know how dangerous Innovations are though to the better and what hazard those Princes run that enterprize the Change of a long established Government Now Mr. Speaker 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 King so diverted can never doe any great matters abroad But Mr. Speaker whilest these men have thus bent their Wits against the Law of their Country have they not neglected their own profession What tares are grown up in the field which they should have tilled I leave it to a second consideration not but Religion be the first thing in our purposes and desires But that which is first in dignity is not alwayes to preceed in order of time for well-being supposes a being and the first impediment which men naturally endeavour to rem ove is the want of those things without which they cannot subsist God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life and added to him a title to the rest of the Creatures before he appointed a Law to observe And let me tell you that if our Adversaries have any such designe as there is nothing more easie then to impose Religion on a people deprived of their Liberties so there is nothing more hard then to do the same upon Free-men And therefore Mr. Speaker I conclude with this motion that there may be an Order presently made that the first thing this House goes about shall be the restoring of this Nation in generall to the fundamentall and vitall Liberties the propriety of our Goods and freedome of our Persons And then We will forthwith consider of the supply desired And thus shall We discharge the trust reposed in us by those that sent us hither And His Majesty shall see that we will make more then ordinary hast 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 no interruption to the Former Mr. WALLERS Speech in Parliament at a Conference of both Houses in the painted Chamber 6. July 1641. MY LORDS I Am 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 heare read I shall take leave according to custome to say something of what I have collected from the sense of that House concerning the crimes therein conteined Here the charge was read conteining his extrajudicall opinions subscribed and judgement given for Ship-money and afterward a declaration in his charge at on assize that Ship-mony was so inhaerent alright 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 render me lesse fit for this imployment for though it has not been my happinesse 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 runne a hazard of being styled Parliamentum indoctorum But as all professions are obnoxious 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 Coyfe are become fratres in malo how these sonnes of the Law have torne out the bowells of their mother But this Judge whose charge you last heard in one expression of his excells no lesse his Fellowes then they have done the worst of their predecessours in this conspiracy against the Common-wealth Of the Judgement for Shipmoney and those extrajudiciall opinions preceding the same wherein they are joyntly concern'd you have already heard how unjust and pernitious a proceeding that was in so publique a Cause has beene sufficiently express'd to your Lordships But this man adding despaire to our misery tells us from the Bench that Ship-money was a Right so inhaerent in the Crowne that it would not be in the power of an Act of Parliament to take it away Herein my Lords he did not onely give as deepe a wound to the Common-wealth as any of the rest but dipt his dart in such a poyson that so farre as in him lay it might never receive a cure As by those abortive opinions subscribing to the subversion of our propriety before