Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	court_n	judge_n	king_n	3,392	5	4.2214	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A25494	Another word to the wise, shewing that the delay of justice is great injustice by displaying heavier grievances in petitions from severall counties to the House of Commons and letters to Parl[i]ament men, from Mr. John Musgrave, Gentleman, one of the commissioners from Cumberland and Westmerland, for presenting their grievances to the Parliament, who, instead either of redressing those two counties grievances, or prosecuting the charge given in by him against Mr. Richard Barwis, a Parliament man ... did illegally commit the said Mr. John Musgrave to the Fleet, where he hath lain these 4. moneths without any justice on tryall of his businesse ...	Musgrave, John, fl. 1654.	1646 (1646)	Wing A3274A; ESTC R17785	19,085	18

from the Chancery where the suit is depending but by the potency and policy of some he was so pursued even after he was last released that he could not walk London streets for diversity of Bayliffes who were ready awaiting upon all occasions to arrest him whereupon he was forced to return to his Countrey and the said Iustice Whitaker before I was committed to the Fleet whilst we both were to attend on that Committee whereof Mr. Lisle is chair man issued out his warrant to search my chamber for suspected papers against the State and to attach my body by vertue wherof my chamber was searched in the night time and my self apprehended and brought before the Committee of Examinations and kept under a messengers custody eight daies before I could procure a discharge and when I was brought before that Committee th●● had nothing to lay to my charge but did propound interrogatories as I conceive to insnare me All which practises did and do tend to the obstruction of our Countrey busines if not to the ruine of the Countrey it self had not some of the Scots forces prevented the incursions of Digby and Longdale and they that had the chiefest command in martiall affairs against whom we complain doing nothing considerable to preserve the Countrey though they had command and power to have done what was needfull and many of them since my imprisonment have come to London to compound for their delinquency and treasons paying some part of that whereof they have wronged the Countrey and not making any reparation to the poor oppressed people Therefore my humble request is that I may be permitted according to law to answer and I doubt not but to clear my self of that supposed contempt for which I was committed and that my Countrey busines may be put into a speedy way of tryall and that those whom this honourable House according to the fundamentall lawes of the land have declared to betraytors and such as kept correspondency with them may be put upon due tryall at common law and justice no longer sold denyed nor delayed and that their lands and estates according to law seized upon and reparations made out of the same to the parties wronged and such men as are and have been the Parliaments friends the well affected of the Countrey may be put in places of trust and command And as I am in duty bound so shall I praise God and pray for you The Postscript CVrteous Reader thou maist very much wonder at the delatory and slow proceedings of the House of Commons in doing justice and right from whom the Commons of England may justly expect more then from any other Judicatory being they are imediatly chosen by them and to 〈…〉 no more but their stewards and servants for whose good and benefit all their actions ought to be extended and ought in honesty and right to have but one and the same interest with them but no distinct self-interest from them Yet by their proceedings daily we see it is in vaine to expect justice from them so long as they are so linkt and glude in factions each to other by their private interests in their great places which ties all such amongst them to maintain one another in all their unjust waies and to oppresse and crush as much as they are able all the prosecuters of just and righteous things and so to barre and stop justice that it shall have little or no progresse divers of them and their creatures sons brothers unkles and kinsmen and allies in the sub-committees having already committed so much injustice that they are undone in their blazed honour and ill-gotten estates if justice should run in its native lustre and full current and of necessity they and their great places would quickly be destroyed O therefore that the freemen of England had but their eyes open to see the mischief of members of the House of Commons men of their own election chusing to sit in the supream Court of England to be intangled themselves or intermeddle with any other place whatsoever then that whereunto their Countrey have chosen them what a shame is it to see the mercinary long gown-men of the House of Commons to run up and down like so many hackney petty foggers from bar to bar in Westminster hall c. to plead before inferiour Judges and to ingrosse and monopolize the greatest part of the practise of the law from other poore lawyers although divers of these Parliament grosses be recorders of Corporations besides who ought in Conscience and reason to give way to their Corporations to chuse new Recorders in their places for how is it possible that they should serve the Parliament as members thereof and their Corporations as Recorders at so many miles distance and at one and the same time And besides how can such great practisers chuse but mercinarily be ingaged to helpe their clyents over a stile in case that ever they have to do with any of their owne Committees and what is this else but to sell justice for money Besides what a snare is it to the new Judges who are placed in the room of those that have bought sold and betraid the lives liberties and estates of all the free denizons of England witnes their judgement in ship mony c. to see 3. or 4. eminent lawyers members of the House of Comons come before them in an unjust cause when they consider that if they should displease them it partly lies in their power to turn them out of their places being they are as it were wholy made Judges by the House of Commons and nominated by the Lawyers therein We professe seriously that to pull the gownes over these mercinary mens eares and forever to throw them out of the House of Commons as men unfit to sit there or to plead at any barre in England is too little a punishment for them the scum of mankind and the same we conceive do they deserve that are members of that House and take upon them to sit as judges in inferiour Courts by means of which they rob the Freem●n of England of the benefit of an appeal in case of injustice because they have no where to appeal to but the Parliament where they sit as judges in their own cause which is a most wicked intolerable and unjust thing in any judge whatsoever We hope shortly that if these men be not ashamed of their evil herein some honest and resolute hearted Englishman will be so bold as publiquely to post up their names as destroyers of the Kingdom And as great an evill is it to the Kingdom for members of the House of Commons to take upon them to be fingerers and treasurers of the publique money of the Kingdome because they are thereby in a condition to fill their own coffers and do what wrong they please or else how comes it to passe that so many of their children are so richly married of late that were but mean before and

but by constraint have by subtle speeches and clandestine wayes gradually wound themselves in to be Committees for the Parliament and some to be Commanders Who so palliate and vail their actions with pretences of State that the well-affected and friends of the Parliament cannot have justice or are so delayed in their just suits that they are quite wearied out and discouraged The Petitioners therfore humbly pray this honourable House to take the premises into serious and due consideration and for prevention of the great mischiefe that may happen if not prevented by disheartning the good and animating the ill affected To order that all such persons as have been in Armes against the Parliament Malignants and Neuters may be removed from being Committees or Commanders and that their place may be supplyed with honest men who have ventured their Lives spent their Estates in and for the Parliaments service And they shall ever pray c. The Coppy of a letter sent by Mr. John Musgrave Gent. to Alexander Rigby Esquire a member of the House of Commons Worthy Sir LIttle did I expect to have beene so troublesome to my friends upon such an occasion as this sitting a free Parliament we were in hope when the High Commission Councell Board and Starre-chamber were taken away according to the Law that we had been free men and no more subject to any Arbitrary Power But according to the Law we should have beene protected in our just Liberties and have had justice done us without begging or intreaties I have beene kept Prisoner here some 13. weekes yet neither by solicitation of friends or petitions can I get audience I desire but the benefit of the Law which I claim as my Right either to bee justified or condemned by the same favour I desire not no other then the innocency of my cause deserveth Justice only I expect as you have ever professed your selfe to be the Common wealths servant so I desire you in the behalfe of my Country to move the House that I may have my Liberty being their Agent and their Cause put in a way of Tryall This is all I desire from you which I hope you will not deny me and I shall bee From the Fleet Prison 29th of the first moneth 1646. Yours to do you service John Musgrave The coppie of a letter sent by Mr. John Musgrave to Sir Arthur Hasilrigge Knight a Member of the House of Commons Sir I Am given to understand that my petitions and letters of late published by some of my wel-wishers under the title of A word to the Wise were delivered unto you by Mr. Peters there is nothing in any of these petitions and letters which are mine but I am ready to owne and avow and if I may have but common justice and an equall hearing I doubt not but to make good the same to be agreeable to law and truth I am informed that you alone have taken upon you to be my judge and have already condemned me and cast many vile aspersions upon me giving forth how I comply with the Scotts to drive on some wicked designe of theirs tending to the prejudice of the State and undoing of my Countrey which if it were true then are you blame-worthy to passe by the same and not to bring me forth to condigne punishment for already you have given out sentence and adjudged me guilty though you never heard me speak and I suppose never knew me by face but howsoever though I were guilty of that wherein you condemne me yet it doth not beseeme you nor any in the place of iudicature as you are to condemne any man unheard and who is absent nor to have respect of persons in iudgement And none but unrighteous iudges will doe so for it is good and agreeable to law what Seneca saith Qui aliquid statuerit altera parte inauditu aequum licet statuerit haud aequus est He that determineth and ordereth any thing the one partie being unheard although he determine and order that which is right yet is he uniust And this your doing is the more grievous in that you insult over a poore prisoner whom you now have in bonds and so not in place to answer for himselfe I complaine of Traytors whom you suffer to walke at libertie I have given in charges against them unto you yet cannot get them brought to answer whiles I am cast into prison before any charge be brought against me put to answer interrogatories and no accusers comming against me Traitors whom I accuse are continued in their authorities yet almost foure months have I laine in prison and know not for what but hetherto neither by friends nor petitions could I ever obtaine that favour and right which of dutie you owe me and all the free borne of this Kingdome to have audience and libertie as a free man to answer for my selfe for as you can exact no obedience of us further then by the law so may we boldly claime iustice according to the law which to deny us is iniustice in you by the law I am blamed because I decline the Committee how should I expect any good from them when they dare not or will not suffer our cause to be publiquely heard and debated but doe shut their doores against both our friends and also against strangers contrary to law yet suffer they our adversaries whom we accuse to sit with their hats on as Iudges in the cause both permitting them and they taking upon them to examine us O England saith one well in the like case what 's become of thy liberties For if Sir Edward Cooke spake truth or knew the law that iudge who ordereth and ruleth a cause in his chamber though his order or rule be iust yet offendeth he the law and the reason he rendereth is for that all causes ought to be heard ordered and determined openly in the Kings Courts whether all persons may resort and not in chambers or other private places See Cooke 2. part instit. fol. 103. And how can I assent unto the Committees demands to bring witnesses to be examined before such a Committee as cannot or is not authorized to administer an oath and so consequently cannot determine or give any iudgement for or against the partie accused for that all matters of fact and causes criminall are to be tryed and determined by the verdict of 12. men upon the solemne oaths and depositions of witnesses See Cook 3. part instit. fol. 163. And how can I without incurring the haynous sin of periury submit unto the arbitrary proceedings and determinations of any Committee being bound by solemne oath and protestation to maintaine the lawes and iust liberties of the people and that the proceedings orders and results of the Committees be arbitrary and not regulated by the law I need no further proofe then that exorbitant and unlimitted power they take upon them and daily exercise in seizing on free mens goods and imprisoning their bodies contrary to law

no man knowes how to call them to account unlesse they deal with them as the Romans sometimes dealt with their Senators or as the Switzers dealt with their 〈◊〉 for the money is the Kingdomes and not the members of the House of Commons and the Kingdom 〈◊〉 in Justice reason and ●ight to have a publique punctuall and particular account of it and therefore it ought not to be in the hands or fingers of those that are able to make so great a faction as are able to protect themselves from justice and an exact account O that that gallant man L. G. Cromwel to whom the Kingdom for their preservation under God oweth so much would a little more deny himself and cease to be a stalking horse and a dangerous president of most dangerous consequence to these wicked mercinary pluralists non residentary great place men for whom an Hospitall of any consequence cannot fail but they must be governours of it nor a petty place in the petty-bag office but they must get into it which men if the Kingdome would rightly consider it have just cause to disclaim as none of their patrons but proclaime as their enemies and destroyers being only pecuniary self seekers For so long as parliament men can get into their hands the riches and treasures of the Kingdom and live like Kings and Emperours and like lawlesse men none such being of Gods creation for he never created a lawlesse man there will never be an end of this Parliament which by its everlasting continuance by the abuses of lawlesse and rotten hearted men Machiavels sons whose principall it is when he would destroy a State or Kingdom and deliver them into the hands of their enemies to put them upon acts of injustice oppression and invading of the peoples right which is the only way to effect their ruine and destruction will become the most absolute burthen and greatest oppression that ever was upon the people when as in times by past it used to be their onely remedy from their oppression and oppressors The thing that we wash L. G. Cromwel to consider of is this that he was chosen a Burgesse for Cambridge to sit in Parliament and not to be Lieut. Gen. of an Army both which places he ought not in conscience nor cannot in equity honesty and honour hold but either must come and sit in Parliament his proper place or else he ought to advise and permit them to chuse another Burgesse to sit in his stead which we conceive would be the greatest and best peece of service that ever he did the Parliament or Common-wealth in his life who both are in the high roade way of destruction by these mercinary pluralists great place men for to be a member of the House of Commons is enough to take up the whole and intire man without deviding it although he were five times wise then any man there appears to be and if Cromwel would do his duty herein their vail and president were taken of and laid down which would be for his exceeding honour and glory and the unspeakable good of the Kingdom Wherefore dear and beloved friend Mr. Musgrave seeing God hath given you the spirit of boldnes wisdom understanding zeal and courage lay it out more fully for the good of your Countrey and speedily present him with a home and plain Epistle for that end and we also intreat you to make some observations to him upon what you will find in the 19.20.21 pages of Englands birth-right and presse them home to him Curteous Reader At the Lord Major of London his house the 16th of this second moneth 1646. upon divers complaints made by the ministers of London against many parishes and particular Citizens for not payment of tithes and after severall daies disputations in free publick meetings at his hall between the Plantiffes and defendants by themselves and their learned Counsell and many arguments discussed on both sides it was found at last that howsoever th●se priests have exacted and received tithes a long time yet altogether unjustly by the law both of God and man for the one Christ hath prescribed voluntary maintenance for his pastors to feed all his flocks and for the other that statute of the 87. of H. 8. authoriseth certain Commissioners to 〈…〉 of tithes to the London Ministers and 〈…〉 order and decree shall be binding to the citizens of London in case the decree be made by such a day and inrouled in the high Court of Chancery but in case it be not inrouled there it is no law and so not binding but Mr. Nerborow the citizens counsell produced to the Lord Maior a certificate under the Registers hand that it neither is nor never was inrouled and therefore the ministers may goe whissell for their tithes Next the tithes were given to maintaine those priests who read service which none do now because the service book is abolished and so no work no wages And thirdly Though that English masse book were yet in force these black-coats now are not the men for whom those tithes were provided but onely such as were ordained by and serv'd under the Bishops which ordination and service these Priests now have not only renounced but quite deposed and rejected those their masters And so if they be to seek new masters and new work they must also seek new wages Yet it is my advice and I trow will be their best course even to worke with their hands as many better men do and not to live idley by the sweat of other mens browes Psal. 141.5 Let the Righteous smite it shall be a kindnes and let him reproove me ●t shall be an extellent oyl which shall not break mine head for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities Proverbs 27.6 Faithfull are the wounds of a friend but the kisses of an enemy are deceitfull FINIS