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	say_a	writ_n	1,469	5	10.2245	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60883	The security of English-mens lives, or, The trust, power, and duty of the grand jurys of England explaining according to the fundamentals of the English government, and the declarations of the same made in Parliament by many statutes / published for the prevention of popish designs against the lives of many Protestant lords and commoners who stand firm to the religion and ancient government of England.	Somers, John Somers, Baron, 1651-1716.	1681 (1681)	Wing S4643; ESTC R33648	56,152	169

The Indictments against them mentioned in Anderson's Reports Pa. 156. 157. are worth reading whereby they are charged with Treason for Subverting the Laws and Customs of the Land in their proceedings without Grand Juries and procuring the murmuring hatred of the People against the King to the great danger of him the Kingdom Nothing could satisfy the Kingdom tho the King was dead whom they had flattered and served but such Justice done upon them and many of their Instruments and Officers as may for ever make the Ears of Judges to tingle And it is not to be forgotten that the Judges in Queen Eliz. time in the Case of R. Cavendish in Anderson's Reports P. 152 and 155. were as they told the Queen and her Councellors by the punishment of former Judges especially of Empson and Dudley deterred from obeying her illegal Commands The Queen had sent several Letters under her Signet Great Men pressed them to obey her Patent under the Great Seal and the Reasons of their disobedience being required They answered That the Queen her self and the Judges also had taken an Oath to keep the Laws And if they should obey her Commands the Laws would not warrant them and they should therein break their Oath to the Offence of God and their Country and the Common-wealth wherein they were born And say they if we had no fear of God yet the Examples and punishments of others before us who did offend the Laws do remember and recal us from the like Offences Whosoever being in the like places may design or be put upon the like practices will do well to consider these Examples and not to think that he who obliquely Endeavors to render Grand Jurys useless is less Criminal than he that would absolutely abolish them That which doth not act according to its Institution is as if it were not in being And whoever doth without prejudice consider this matter will see that it is not less pernicious to deny Juries the use of those Methods of discovering Truth which the Law hath appointed and so by degrees turn them into a meer matter of form than openly and avowedly to destroy them Surely such a gradual Method of destroying our Native Right is the most dangerous in its consequence The safety which our Fore-fathers for many hundreds of years enjoyed under this part of the Law especially and have transmitted to us is so apparent to the meanest Capacity that whoever shall go about to take it away or give it up is like to meet with the fate of Ishmael to have every mans hand against him because his is against every Man Artifices of this Kind will ruine us more silently and so with less opposition and yet as certainly as the other more moved oppression This only is the difference that one way we should be slaves immediately and the other insensibly But with this further disadvantage too that our slavery should be the more unavoydable and the faster rivited upon us because it would be under colour of Law which Practice in Time would obtain Few men at first see the danger of little changes in Fundamentals and those who design them usually act with so much craft as besides the giving specious Reasons they take great Care that the true Reason shall not appear Every design therefore of changing the Constitution ought to be most warily observed and timely opposed Nor is it only the Interest of the People that such Fundamentals should be duly guarded for whose benefit they were at first so carefully layed and whom the Judges are sworn to serve but of the King too for whose sake those pretend to act who would subvert them Our Kings as well as Judges are sworn to maintain the Laws They have themselves in several Statutes required the Judges at their peril to administer Equal Justice to every Man notwithstanding any Letters or Commands c. even from themselves to the contrary And when any failure hath been the greatest and most powerful of them have ever been the readiest to give Redress It appears by the preface to the Statutes of 20th Ed. 3. that the Judicial proceedings had been perverted That Letters writs and Commands had been sent from the King and great Men to the Justices and that Persons belonging to the Court of the King the Queen the Prince of Wales had maintained abetted Quarrels c. Whereby the Laws had been violated and many wrongs done But the King was so far from justifying his own Letters or those illegal practices That the preamble of those Statutes saith they were made for the relief of the People in their sufferings by them That brave King in the height of his glory and vigor of his Age chose rather to confess his Error than to continue in it as is Evident by his own words Edward by the Grace of God c. Because by divers Complaints made unto us we have perceived that the Law of the Land which we by our Oath are bound to maintain is the less well kept and Execution of the same disturbed many times by maintenances and procurements as well in the Court as the Country We greatly moved of Conscience in this matter and for this Cause desiring as much for the pleasure of God and ease and quietness of our Subjects as to save our Conscience and for to save and keep our said Oath by the Assent c. Enact That Judges shall do Justice notwithstanding Writs Letters or Commands from himself c. and that none of the King's House or belonging to the King Queen or Prince of wales do maintain Quarrells c. King James in his Speech to the Judges in the Starchamber Anno. 1616. told them That He had after many years resolved to renew his Oath made at his Coronation concerning Justice and the promise therein contained for maintaining the Law of the Land And in the next Page save one says I was sworn to maintain the Law of the Land and therefore had been perjured if I had broken it God is my Judge I never intended it And His Majesty that now is hath made frequent Declarations and Protestations of his being far from all thoughts of designing an Arbitrary Government and that the Nation might be confident He would rule by Law Now if after all this any Officer of the Kings should pretend Instructions from his Master to demand so material an Alteration of proceedings in the highest Cases against Law as are above mentioned And the Court who are required to slight and reject the most solemn Commands under the Great Seal if contrary to Law should upon a Verbal Intimation allow of such a Demand and so break in upon this Bulwark of out Liberties which the Law has erected Might it not give too just an occasion to suspect that all the legal securities of our Lives and Properties are unable to protect us And may not such fears rob the King of his greatest Treasure and Strength the Peoples hearts when they

be taken from him by the Gaoler or the Court and given to his Prosecutors And all Advice Assistance from Councils or friends and his nearest Relations shall be denied him none suffered by word or writing to inform him of the indifferency or honesty or the Partiality or malice of the Pannels returned whom the Law allows him to Challenge or refuse either peremptorily or for good Reasons offered should he be thus deprived of all the good provisions of the Law for his safety To what Frauds Perjuries Subornations is not he and every man Exposed who may be accused What Deceits may there not be put upon Juries and what Probability is there of finding security in Innocence What an admirable Execution would this be of their Commission To make diligent Inquisition after all manner of Falshoods Deceipts wrongs and Frauds and thereupon to do Justice according to Law When at the same Time if so Managed a Method would be introduced of ruining and destroying any Man in the form of Justice Such practices would be the highest dishonour to the King imaginable whose name is used and so far Misrepresent the Kingly Office as to make that appear to have been Erected to vex and destroy the People which was intended and ordained to help and preserve them The Law so far abhors such proceedings that it intends that every Man should be strictly bound to be Exactly just in their several Imployments relating to the Execution of Justice The Sergeant of the Kings Council Sir George Jeffrys among the rest who prosecute in the King's name and are consulted in the forming bills of Indictment and advice about the witnesses and their Testimonies against the Accused These if they would remember it when they are made Sergeants take an Oath Cokes 2d Institutes Pag. 214. as well truly to serve the People whereof the party accused is one as the King himself and to minister the Kings matters duely and truely after the course of the Law to their Cunning Not to use their Cunning Craft to hide the Truth and destroy the accused if they can They are also obliged by the Statute of Westm 1. Cap. 29. To put no manner of Deceit or Collusion upon the Kings Court nor secretly to consent to any such Tricks as may abuse or beguile the Court or the party be it in Causes Civil or Criminal And it is ordained that if any of them be convicted of such practices he shall be imprisoned for a year never be heard to plead again in any Court and if the Mischievous consequence of their Treacheries be great they are Subject to further and greater punishments Our Auntient Law Book called the Mirror of Justice Cap. 2. Sect. 4. says That every Sergeant Pleader is chargeable by his Oath not to maintain or defend any wrong or Falshood to his Knowledge but shall leave his Client when he shall perceive the wrong intended by him Also that he shall not move or proffer any false Testimony nor consent to any Lyes Deceits or Corruptions whatsoever in his pleadings As a further Security unto the People against all Attempts upon their Laws Exemplary Justice hath been done in several Ages upon such Judges and Justiciaries as through Corruption Submission unto unjust Commands or any other Sinister consideration have dared to swerve from them The punishments of these wicked Men remain upon Record as Monuments of their Infamy to be a Terror unto all that shall succeed them In the Reign of the Saxons the most notable Example was given by King Alfred who caus'd above forty Judges to be hanged in a Short Space for several wrongs done to the People as is related in the Mirror of Justice Some of them suffered for imposing upon Juries and forcing them to give Verdicts according to their will And one as it seems had taken the Considence to examine a Jury that he might find which of them would Submit to his will and Setting aside him who would nor condemned a Man upon the Verdict of Eleven Since the Coming in of the Normans our Parliaments have not been less severe against such Judges as have suffered the course of Justice to be perverted or the Rights and Liberties of the People to be invaded In the time of Edward the 1st Anno 1289. The Parliament finding That all the Judges except Two had swerv'd from their duty condemned them to several punishments according unto their Crimes As Banishment Perpetual Imprisonment Ex Chron. Anno 10 Ed. 1. or the Loss of all their Estates c. Their Particular Offences are specified in a speech made by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in Parliament They had broken Magna Charta Incited the King against his People Violated the Laws under pretence of expounding them And impudently presumed to prefer their own Councils to the King before the Advices of Parliament as appears by the speech c. Hereunto annext The like was done in Ed. the 2d Time when Hugh De Spencer was charged for having prevailed with the King to break his Oath to the People in doing Things against the Law by his own Authority In Edward the 3d. Time Judge Thorpe was hanged for having in the like manner brought the King to break his Oath Dan. History p. 260 261. And the happy Reign of that great King affords many Instances of the like nature amongst which the punishment of Sr. Henry Green and Sr. William Skipwith deserve to be observed and put into an Equal rank with those of his brave and victorious Grand-father In Richard the Second's Time See all the English Histories of Walsingham Fabian Speed c. in the 11 and 21 years of Richard the 2d Eleven of the Judges forgetting the dreadful Punishments of their Predecessors subscribed malicious Indictments against Law and gave false Interpretations of our Antient Laws to the King thereby to bring many of his most Eminent worthiest Subjects to suffer as Traytors at his Will Subjected the Authority and very being of Parliaments to his absolute pleasure And made him believe that all the Laws lay in his own breast Hereupon sentence of death passed upon them and tho upon their repentance and confessing they had been swayed by fear and threatnings from the King Two only were Executed all the others were for ever banished as unworthy to enjoy the benefit of that Law which they had so perfidiously and basely betrayed It were an Endless work to recite all the Examples of this kind that are found in our Histories and Records but that of Empson and Dudley must not be omitted They had craftily contrived to abolish Grand Juries and to draw the Lives and Estates of the People into question without Indictments by them and by surprise and other wicked practices they gained an Act of Parliament for their countenance Hereupon false Accusations followed without number Oppression and Injustice broke forth like a Flood And to gain the Kings Favor they filled his Coffers