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A58205
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The Readers speech of the Middle-Temple, at the entrance into his reading, Febr. 29, 1663/4 upon the statute of Magna Charta, Cap. 29.
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Reader.
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1664
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Wing R441; ESTC R24507
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10,926
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say They were somewhat too severe upon the Natives the better to make room for a new Plantation Dangelt an exaction not clear'd from the Crown he Releases The Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and Civil this King also sâ—ver'd for before his Reign the Bishop and the Earle or their Deputites sate jointly in the Counties determining spiritual Causes in the Forenoon and secular in the Afternoon according to the pattern of the Jewish Sanhedrim which was imitated by the Christians in times primitive The Apostles and Elders which were no other than Lay-Magistrates deciding all controversies among Christians who voluntary submitted to their judgment for this see the Glossary 315. Lambert 80. and Mr. Selden on Edmerus 166. and History of Tyths chap. 14. 'T is only to be wish't that he had distinguisht their Causes as he divided their Courts for that omission has occasion'd those justlings of Jurisdiction which have since hapned between the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Courts and Common Law But more violent was this Conflict till by a Canon of the Counsel of Clarendon it was decreed That Regis justiciarius mittet in curiam sanctae Ecclesiae ad videndum quo modo res ibi tractatur The ground of Prohibitions Mat. Paris An. 1164. This the Clergy endeavoured to qualifie by Petition in Parliament 5.1 Ed. 3. nu 83. But thereto the King answered that he could not depart with his right 4. Just 339. King William in this Act designed a more regular dispatch of Causes and indeed as Pictaviensis sayes he was a Prince of Courage Spectaculum delectabile simul terribile He was sayes Matthew Paris Subjectis humilis but Rebellibus inexorabilis and deserves a memory in our Chronicles more illustrious for though his Normans at his new establishment importun'd him to connive at some oppressions yet the Law held out in title And then may we interpret the mistakes of a Prince to be his necessity or at least but as a step out of the way to avoid the Dirt manifesting that he is but Man and not more priviledged from Infirmity than his Subjects Little of good fame a revenge which bad Princes after their deaths cannot provide against in Rufus his Son have we upon Record for then sayes Paris were their Malae consuetudines exactiones injstae And this appears by that great Charter of his succeeding Brother King Henry the First who sayes Hoveden those evil customs penitus abrogavit and restor'd to opprest England the Laws of good King Edward with those emendations which his Father had added by the Counsel of his Barons so Florentius and Malmsbury King Stephen by his Charter confirms the good Laws which King Henry his Uncle had before granted with those of good King Edward and enjoins sayes Roger Bacon in his Book De impedimentis scientiae That none of the Laws of Italy the Imperial Laws should be retain'd Henry the Second ratifies the same Charter He grants what his Grandfather King Henry had granted and remits what he had remitted King John disputes it with his Nobles but was prevaild with in the Seventeenth year of his Reign to contract those former general Charters into one Grand one and this sayes the Monck of St. Albons Ex parte maxima leges antiquas regni consuetudines cortinebat Paris 246. But King John being as the Moncks report him of an unsteddy spirit recalls his Charter when the Normans being ingrafted into the English Nobility and inheritable as they thought to the English freedom contest it with their Prince and pray in aid of Lewis the French Kings Son by whose powers King John being worsted he dyes being poysoned as is supposed in a Chalice He left his Heir of the Age of Eleven years whose innocence had contracted no malice and in whom concenter'd not only the title of the Norman but also of the Royal Saxon blood for he was Grandson to Maud the Empress Daughter and Heir of Henry the First by Maud the Daughter of Malcolm King of Scots and Margaret his Wife Sister and Heir of Edgar Atheling true Heir to the Confessor The English who naturally abhor wrong and without a strong byas are just loyal forthwith desert the Forreigner and adhere to the Royal Issue The French Prince affrighted at the fervour of that generous spirit submits to terms and departs the Land King Henry the Third the Infant is Crown'd and in the Ninth year of his Reign being the Twentieth of his Age upon payment of a Fifteen of all mens movables Cap. 37. in full Parliament he gives and grants this Magna Charta whereof my Statute is a Chapter Afterwards pretending Infancy he declares this Charter Null which revives the Barons War and issues streams of English blood Yet here give me leave to note what the French Comines gives for a Maxim That no Subject ever drew Sword against his Prince but though his design prevail'd he himself suffer'd in Life Estate or Conscience And of this gives evidence That Pardon for which the Lords Petition this King Henry in Kenelworth the same Castle where they had imprisoned him Dictum de Kenelworth H. 3. Yet the result in the long run was the re-establishment of this Charter in the Twenty fifth of his Reign and in the presence of his Son the brave King Edw. 1. Mag. ch 37. and with such direful Ceremonies as were then Authentick by way of cursing and execrations to the Infringers as may astonish the Reader if he peruses Matthew Paris An. 1253. And reflects as well on such as violate the Kings Prerogative as Intrenchers upon the Subjects liberty By some as ignorant as censorious our Laws are scandal'd as introduced by Conquest whereas in truth this Charter is purely declaratory of the old Saxon as aforesaid so concludes St German Fol. 12. And in those captious points of Tenures Wardships and Purveyance I can demonstrate footsteps thereof before King William though possibly by him and his Issue improved with the honour of Kinghthood and Knights service But were the quarrel at all a grievance we have now a Prince who derives his Pedigree not only from the Norman but more ancient and direct from the Royal Saxon Line as well by Queen Margaret Sister and Heir of Edgar in the Scotch Descent as from Maud her Daughter Queen to King Henry the First in the English And for those pretended Norman innovations of Tenures Wardships and Purveyance he has been pleased to unhatch these Royalties from his Crown upon the Petition of the Parliament which is a Court de Tesgrand honour justice de que nul doit imaginer chose dishâ—nourable as we are taught in Plo. 388. In whose wisdoms it becomes people to acquiesce as their own choice and Representatives or to renounce all Rule but their own Yet may it with all submission be aver'd Those Royalties might possibly have been so refin'd to the Saxon Model as would have given an ornament and lustre to the Crown yet no pressure to the Subject But
THE READERS SPEECH OF THE Middle-Temple At the Entrance into his Reading FEBR. 29. 1663 4. Upon the STATUTE of Magna Charta CAP. 29. Bono servire principi optima libertas LONDON Printed for G. Bedell and T. Collins and are to be sold at their Shop at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet 1664. THE READERS SPEECH OF THE Middle-Temple May it please your Masterships and Gentlemen SEnsible I am of my much unfitness for this Exercise Arguments I have us'd many to their Masterships that they would please to secure their own and your honour by a more pregnant choice What prevailed not with their Wisdoms to excuse may it with your Candors to interpret mildly First My Memory is in disorder for want of use at the Bar whence I was excluded Fourteen Years Next My Limbs are disjointed by the Gowt a distemper I contracted by the laziness of a long and close imprisonment My Estate has been impaired by Sequestration Decimation and those other sufferings which deepliest opprest Members who withdrew to OXFORD Scandal'd also I have been and so was Jesus Christ and so are many more both Great and Good because they are so I have hopes as they to conquer it by Contempt If not by Moderation yet that 's my Crime As for my Ambition to be Great I assure you 't is no less than my desert and hopes and that 's None at all These Considerations as they discouraged so they inclined me now in Age when the Clouds return after the Rain and the strong men bowe to a retired life BUT were it that Fate which has hitherto doom'd me to a suffering condition or a mistake in their Masterships of some abilities in me which I know not to the work I must and which is worse by anothers fayler a full year before my course Next to Obedience That which disposed me most was a due sense of the Debt which we all in course owe to the Society A Society at this day observed to be highly Civil Generous and Gentile Nobilium Filii of which extraction says Fortescue and Fern persons ought to be that have the honour to be here admitted A lower breed being not proportionate to the ayre and ingenuity of this profession A Society so prosperous upon account of Learning that a messe of our chief Masters are worthily advanc't for it to offices of honour and we have in view a flourishing recruit to improve the splendour of this Exercise and with it the Government And so hopeful in the fair branches growing up that I have confidence to aver you will no way derogate from the Glory of your Predecessors whose Arms and Trophies you cannot but behold if you look up to Heaven A debt so honourable so just though I engaged to others I resolved to pay though perhaps not in weight yet in number And what is light I have hopes may be supplied by that weighty indulgence of their Masterships favourably to interpret my endeavours with respet to my sufferings and surprize And that Gentlemen from you and persons of your deep Reason I demand as a due to Justice and I shall return you an acknowledgment as a due to Civility Where Excuses you 'l say are so near Errors usually are not far nor indeed are mine Troth 't is I had advanc't a Statute more useful in order to conveyancing but time straitning me I found it too laborious Whereupon upon this Law I fix't having somewhat ponder'd it in the late Troubles that disputed it which soon wiping off the gloss and varnish of pretences made it demonstrative That it is not only Duty but Interest to build high upon the old foundation You have here a Stature which proclaims Liberty to the English Subject a liberty as far transcending that Imposture of a Free State as the glory of the Sun the Prodigy of a Comet That Comet which our great Statesman prudently observed to have influenc'd mens spirits into the late Confusions Confusion unavoidably incident to that Modell without Wars or Garrisons Wars to keep up the great ones from falling down Garrisons to keep down the lesser from rising up Where no King is there can be no Honour no Degrees and where all are equal every man thinks himself as fit to rule as any and will put for all Therefore subsists it only where there is a Head-City to give name to it to awe and tax the adjacent Country as of old Rome Carthage Athens with us Venice Geneva Ragusa nay and the Swisse and fatal Netherlands who are united and secured by a confederacy of Garrisons and those chiefly manag'd by no Gentry Hence is it that England is inconsistent with that fiction as well regard of scituation being a large continent not to be denominated or awable by one City as of the brave and sprightly temper of the Gentry not to be inslaved by Mechanicks Peruse our Chronicles and there shall we read that the English are Gens inclyta belli audax impatiens froeni but in their highest tumults not in the least dispos'd to alter Kingship not then when they bandied Crowns as we do Tennis balls into Crosse Hazard no not when the Smith Flammock Wat the Tyler or Jack Straw revell'd it with their Clowns Did you not mark when our late Riders like Sots in Drink reel'd from this to that the unpliant Genius of the Nation which will carry things in the long Run enforc'd their giddy Heads to a stand even where we stood at first even there where now we stand And some that dar'd not stand it to stand higher Don't you believe that it was the courage of this Party the contrivance of that or that compliance of a third no it was the general Spirit and Genius of the Nation that brought home the King and it had an influence dextrous and powerful and yet invisible Was it not strange While the factions quarrell'd among themselves who shall have the Rule the King must be call'd in to save them against themselves and to take the Rule He that was their fear must become their Refuge Peace with the King brings peace among themselves yea and with all the world and Parliaments as at the first Pacatumque regit patriis virtutibus orbem Proh Dii Not one drop of blood runs out in the whole transaction but only in the clar stream of Justice and that administred in such a stood of mercy as design'd rather to vindicate and purge Religion from that putrid stain of King-killing than to inflict vengeance on the Workers of Iniquity If then his Enemies have cause much more have his Friends to cry GOD SAVE THE KING I stir not this to reflect for I abhor it but to evidence not only their disloyalty and lewd conscience but their folly that conspire a Change capable of no other issue but their own destruction And that not only in their estates and persons but even in that liberty which they so much labour For were it a scelus prosperum instead