Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	england_n	king_n	lord_n	4,602	5	4.1139	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59476	Notes taken in short-hand of a speech in the House of Lords on the debates of appointing a day for hearing Dr. Shirley's cause, Octob. 20, 1675	Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 1621-1683.	1679 (1679)	Wing S2897A; ESTC R12391	8,136	5

address to you A Land may groan under a multitude of Laws and I believe ours does and when Laws grow so multiplied yearly they oftner prove snares then the directions and security of the people I look upon it as the ignorance and weakness of the latter Age if not worse the effect of the designs of ill men that it 's grown a general Opinion that when there is not a particular direction in some Act of Parliament the Law i● defective as if the Common Law had not provided much better shorter and plainer for the peace and quiet of the Nation then intricate long and perplexed Statutes do which has made work for the Lawyers given power to the Judges lessen'd your Lordships power and in a good measure unhinged the Security of the People My Lord Bishop tells you your whole Judicature is not in question but only the Priviledge of the House of Commons of their Members not appearing at your Bar. My Lords were it no more yet that for Justice and the peoples sake you ought not to part with how far a priviledge of the House of Commons their Servants and those they own doth extend Westminster-hall may with grief tell your Lordships they have neither Presidents nor Reason nor any Justifiable pretence to shew against us and therefore my Lords if you part with your undoubted right meerly for asking where will their asking stop And my Lords we are sure it doth not stop here for they have already nemine contradicente Voted against your Lordships power of Appeal from any Court of Equity so that you may plainly see where the confusion and reason of State means to stop not one jot of laying your whole Judicature aside for the reason of passing the Kings Money if not interrupting good Laws or whatever else must of necessity avoid all breach upon what score soever And your Lordships plainly see the breach will be as well made upon our Judicature in general as upon this so that when your Lordships have appointed a day a very long day to consider whether Dr. Shirley's Cause be not too hot to handle and when you have done the same for Sir Nicholas Stoughton whose Petition I hear is coming in your Lordships must proceed to a Vote to lay aside all private business for six Weeks For the phrase of private business had obtained this last Age upon that which is your most publick duty and business namely the administration of Justice And I can tell your Lordships besides the reason that leads to it that I have some intelligence of desiring such a Vote for on the second day of our sitting at the rising of the Lords House there came a Gentleman into the Lobby belonging to a very great Person and asked in great haste are the Lords risen have they passed the Vote and being asked what Vote he answer'd the Vote of no private business for six Weeks My Lords if this be your business where are you if we are to post-pone our Judicature for fear of offending the House of Commons for six Weeks that they may in the interim pass the Money and other acceptable Bills that His Majesty thinks of importance Are so many wise men of the House of Commons so lull'd to pass all these so acceptable things and when they have done to let us loose upon them will they not remember this next time there is want of Money or may they not rather be assured by those Ministers that are among them and go on so unanimously with them that the King is on their side in this Controversy And then I beg your Lordships where are you after you have but the last Sessions asserted your rights of Judicature so highly even in this point and after the House of Com had gone so high against you on the other hand as to post their Declaration and Remonstrance on Westm. hall Doors The very next Session after you postpone the same Causes and not only those but all Judicatures whatever I beseech your Lordships will not this prove a fatal President and Confession against your selves 'T is a maxime and a rational one amongst Lawyers that one President where the Case hath been contested is worth a 100. where there hath been no Contest My Lords in saying this I humbly suppose I have given sufficient Answer to my Lord Bishops two Questions for it is a plain Confession that it is a thing never heard of before for it is the very same Case that you formerly Ordered and so strongly asserted so that upon time and all the deliberation imaginable you declare yourselves doubtful and you put your selves out of your own hands that power you have no reason to believe on your sides in this question My Lords I have all the Duty imaginable to His Majesty and should with all submission give way to any thing that he should think of Importance to His Affairs but in this point it is to alter the Government If you are asked to lay this aside yet there is no reason of State can be an Argument to your Lordships to turn yourselves out of that Interest you have in the Constitution of the Government It is not only your concern but it is the concern of the poorest man in England that you keep your Station It is your Lordships concern and that so highly that I will be bold to say the King can give you no recompence for it What are empty Titles What is present Power or Riches or great Estate wherein I have no firm no fixed Property 'T is the constitution of the Government and maintaining it that secures your Lordships and every man else in what he has the poorest Lord if the Birthright of the Peerage be maintained has a fair prospect before him for himself and his Posterity but the greatest power with greatest Title and Riches is but a mean Creature and maintains those Monarchies no otherwise then by servile and low flatteries and upon uncertain terms My Lords 'T is not your Interest but the peoples that you maintain your rights for let the House of Commons and Gentry of England think what they please there is no Prince that ever governs without a Nobility or an Army If you will not have one you must have the other or else the Monarchy cannot long support it self from tumbling down into a Democratical Republick Your Lordships and the people have the same Cause and the same Enemies My Lord would you be in favour with the King 't is a very ill way to it to put your selves out of a future capacity to be considerable in his service I do not find in Story or Modern Experience but that it is better and a man is much more regarded that is still in a capacity and opportunity to serve then he that hath wholly deprived himself of all for his Princes sake And therefore I declare I will serve my Prince as a Peer but will not destroy the Peerage to serve him My Lords I

Notes taken in Short-hand of a Speech in the House of Lords on the Debates of appointing a day for Hearing Dr. Shirley's Cause Octob. 20. 1675. My Lords OUr All is at Stake and therefore you must give me leave to speak freely before we part with it My Lord Bishop of Sarum is of Opinion that we should rather appoint a day to consider what to do upon the Petition then to appoint a day of hearing And my Lord Keeper for I may name them at a Committee of the whole house tells us in a very Eloquent and Studied Language That he will propose us a way far less lyable to Exceptions and much less offensive to our Priviledges than that of appointing a day of Hearing And I beseech your Lordships did you not after all these fine words expect some admirable proposals but it ended in this that your Lordships should appoint a day nay a very long day to consider what to do in it And my Lord hath undertaken to convince you that this is the only course by several undenyable reasons The first of which is that it is against our Judicature to hear this cause which is not proper for us nor ought to be relieved by us To this my Lords give me leave to answer that I did not expect from a man professing the Law that after an answer by order of the Court was put in and a day had been appointed for hearing which by some accident was set aside and the Plaintiff moving for a second day to be assigned that ever without hearing Councel on both sides the Court did enter into the merits of the cause And if your Lordships should do it in a cause attended with the circumstances as this is it would not only be an apparent injustice but a plain subterfuge to avoid a point you durst not maintain But my Lords second reason speaks the matter more plainly for it is because it is a doubtful case whether the Commons have not priviledge therefore my Lord would have you to appoint a further very long day to consider of it which indeed in plain English is that your Lordships would confess upon your own Books that you conceive it on second thoughts a doubtful case and that for no other reason but because my Lord Keeper thinks it so which I hope will not be a reason to prevail with your Lordships since you cannot yet by experience tell that his Lordship is capable of thinking your Lordships in the right in any matter against the Judgment of the House of Commons 't is so hard a thing even for the ablest man to change ill habits But now my Lords third reason is the most admirable of all which he stiles unanswerable viz. That your Lordships are all convinced in your own Conscience that this if prosecuted will cause a breach I beseech your Lordships to consider whether the Argument thus applyed would not overthrow the Law of Nature and all the Laws of right and property in the World for it is an Argument and a very good one that you should not stand or insist on claims where you have not a clear right or where the question is not of consequence and moment in a matter that may produce a dangerous and pernicious breach between Relations Persons or Bodies-politick joyned in Interests and high Concerns together So on the other hand if the obstinacy of the parties in the wrong shall be made an unanswerable Argument for the other party to recede and give up his just rights how long shall the people keep their Liberties or the Princes and Governours of the World their Prerogatives How long shall the Husband maintain his Dominion or any man his property from his Friends or his Neighbours Obstinacy But my Lords when I hear my Lord Keeper open so Eloquently the fatal consequence of a breach I cannot forbear to fall into some admiration how it comes to pass that if the consequences be so fatal the Kings Ministers in the House of Commons of which I am sure there are several that are of the Cabinet and have easie resort to his Majesty and have the direction and trust of his Affairs I say that none of these should press these consequences there or give the least stop in the career of that House in this business but that all the Votes concerning this affair nay even that very Vote that no Appeal is cognoscible by the House of Lords should pass nemine contradicente and yet all the great Ministers here yea Bishops and other Lords of greatest dependance on the Court contend this point as if it were pro aris foris I hear His Majesty in Scotland hath been pleased to declare against Appeals in Parliament I cannot much blame the Court if they think the Lord Keeper and Judges being of the Kings naming and in his power to change that the justice of the Nation is safe enough and I my Lords may think so too during this Kings Reign though I hear Scotland not without reason complain already Yet how future Princes may use this power and how Judges may be made not men of Ability or Integrity men of Relation and dependance who will do what they are commanded and all mens Causes come to be judged and Estates disposed of as great men at Court please is to be considered My Lords the constitution of our Government hath provided better for us and I can never believe so wise a Body as the House of Commons will prove that foolish woman that pluck'd down her house with her hands My Lords I must presume to say something to wit what was offered by my Lord Bishop of Sarum a man of great Learning and Ability and always versed in a stronger and closer way of reasoning then the business of the Noble Lord I answered before did accustom him to and that Reverend Prelate hath stated the matter very fairly upon two heads 1. Whether the hearing of Causes and Appeals and especially in this point where the Members have priviledge be so material to us that it ought not to give way to the reason of State of greater Affairs that press us at this time 2. If the business be of that moment yet whether the appointing a day to consider of the Petition would prove of that consequence and prejudice to our cause My Lords to these give me leave in the first place to say that this matter is no less then your whole Judicature and your Judicature is no less then the Life and Soul of the Dignity of the Peerage of England you will quickly grow burthensom if you grow useless you have now the greatest and most useful end of Parliament principally in you which is not to make new Laws but to redress Grievances and to maintain the Old Land-Marks The House of Commons business is to complain to your Lordships to redress not only the Complaints from them that are the Eyes of the Nation but also other particular persons that