Raign of King Richard the Second when the Dukes Earls and Barons were Created by Letters Patents of our Kings the Names of the Barons to be Summoned in Parliament were Written from the King 's own Mouth at his Direction and Command and in that agreeth with Mr. Elsing who saith It was ad libitum Regis for surely none but the King can Summon a Parliament and that was the reason that Henry the Fourth having taken King Richard the Second his Leige and Lord Prisoner the 20th day of August in the 21st Year of his Raign did cause the Writ of Summons for the Parliament wherein he obtained the Crown to bear Date the 19th day of the same Month for the Warrant was Per ipsum Regem Concilium and himself to be Summoned by the Name of Henry Duke of Lancaster SECT XIII That the Majores Barones regni and Spiritual and Temporal Lords with their Assistants were until the 49th Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third and the constrained Writs issued out for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses whilst he was a Prisoner in the Camp or Army of his Rebellious Subjects the only great Councel of our Kings FOr the Barons of England viz. the Lords Spiritual and Temporal with some other wise and selected Men which our Kings did anciently and upon Occasions call into that Assembly were the Great Council of the Kingdom and before and from the Conquest until a great part of the Raign of King Henry the Third in whose dayes saith Mr. Elsing it is thought the Writs for Election of Knights and Burgesses were framed made the Great Councel of the Kingdom and under the name of Barons not only the Earls but the Bishops also were comprehended for the Conqueror Summoned the Bishops to those great Councels as Barons and in the Writ of Summons made as aforesaid in the Captivity and Troubles of King Henry the Third we find the Bishops and Lords with some Abbots and Pryors to be the Councellors and the Commons only called to do perform and consent unto what should be ordained And Mr. Selden and Sir Henry Spelman have by divers Instances and warrantable Proofs declared unto us That the Bishops and Lords only were admitted into the Wittenagemots or great Councels which were wont in and after the Raigns of the Saxon Kings to be kept at the three great Festivals in the Year viz. Easter Whitsontide and Christmass when the Earls and Barons came to pay their Respects and Reverence to their Soveraign and give an Account of what was done or necessary to be known or done in their several Provinces and Charges and what was fit to be Consulted thereupon and were then accustomed to meet and Assist their Kings and Soveraigns with their Advice and Counsel Which was so constantly true as Antecessores Comitis Arundel solebant tenere manerium de Bylsington in com' Kanc. quod valet per Annum 30. l. per Serjeantiam essendi Pincernam Domini Regis in die Pentecostes Ela Comitissa Warwick tenuit manerium de Hoke Norton in com Oxon quod est de Baronia de Oyley de Domino Rege in capite per Serjeantiam scindendi coram domino Rege die Natalis Domini habere Cultellum domini Regis de quo scindit Roger de Britolio Farl of Heresord being in Armes and open Rebellion against King William the Conqueror taken Prisoner and Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment wherein though he frequently used many scornsul and contumelious words towards the King yet he was pleased at the Celebration of Faster in a solemn manner as then was usual to send to the said Earl Roger then in Prison his Royal Robes who so disdained the Favour that he forth with caused a great Fire to be made and the Mantle the inner Surcoate of Silk and the upper Garment lined with precious Furs to be Burnt which being made known to the King he became displeased and said Certainly he is a very proud Man who hath thus abused me but by the Brightness of God he shall never come out of Prison as long as I live which was fulfilled In Anno 1078 William Rufus tenuit curiam in natali domini apud London Rex Anglorum Willielmus cognomento Rufus gloriose curiam suam tenuit ad Natale apud Gloverniam ad Pascham apud Wintoniam apud Londonias ad Pentecosten Et hic Concessus Ordinum regni saith Sir John Spelman Sive totius regni Repraesentatio quod intelligere convenit ab Alfredo certis quidem vicibus ijs ordinariis non quasi ejusdem formae celebritatis esset cujus hodierna Comitia quae Parliamentum vulgò dicuntur sed ut quantum est in Anglia terrarum tunc aut unum omninò Regis erat aut Comitun ejus atque Baronum qui sub illis agros colerent eos Clientelari atque precario jure possederint ut qui toti ab nutu dominorum penderent ità quicquid ab isto tempore ab Rege Comitibus ejus atque Baronibus constitutum est toto regno sancitum erat velut ab ijs transactum quibus in caeteros suprema absoluta potestas esset adeoque reliquorum seu clientium mancipiorum jura includeret Episcopos quod attinet hi magnis hisce Concilijs nunquam non intersuerunt suisque suffragijs leges sanxerunt nam praetereà illud quod ob seculares fundos Barones vel ob ipsum sacerdotis honorem sacrosancti censebantur eâ infuper sapientiâ plerumque praestabant ut non tantùm suffi agia Procerum aequiparârint sed actis omnibus venerationem atque pondus addiderint ab hoc Regis instituto manavit uti videtur mos ille posteris Saxonibus non inusitatus ut concilia Episcoporum atque Magnatum tèr quotannis celebrarentur nempe ad Domini Natales Pascha atque Pentecosten ad consultandum de arduis regni negotijs neque id uno semper eodemque loco sed ubicunque res posceret licet ferè ubi Rex cum Aulicis ageret praesens And in our Parliaments as well Modern as Ancient had a deliberative Power as the most Learned Selden hath informed us in advising their Kings in Matters of State and giving their Assent in the making of Laws and a judicial subordinate Power to their Kings in giving of Judgment in Suits or Complaints brought before them in the House of Lords or that Magna Curia Universitas regni as Bracton stiles it and whither in his time Causes were for difficulty adjourned from the other Courts of the Kingdom unto which no Remedies could otherwise be given and saith Mr. Elsing All Judgments are given by the Lords as aforesaid and not by the Commons And that very ancient long experimented and well approved Custom appeareth not to have been discontinued or forgotten when in the Parliament holden in the first Year of the Raign of King Henry the
be no pardon or protection granted of those Felonies which shall be hereafter committed without the Special Commandment of us our selves In the Ordinatio Forestae made in the 34th Year of his Reign the King ordained The like in Ca. 2. That an Officer dying or being absent another shall be put in his place That no Forester should be put in any Assize or Jury the King willeth The like touching the punishment of Officers surcharging the Forest. The like for Grounds disafforested Touching Commons in Forests and that the Justices of the Forest in the presence of the King's Treasurer and by his assent may take fines and amerciaments it is said the King willeth In the Statute de Asportatis Religiosorum it being recited that it came to the knowlege of our Lord the King by the grievous Complaints of the honourable persons Lords and other Noblemen of this Realm that Monasteries and other Religious Houses founded by the King and his Royal Progenitors and by the said Noblemen and their Ancestors and endowed with great portions of Lands that the Abbots and Priors especially certain aliens Priors c. have letten the said lands and laid great impositions and tallages thereupon our Lord the King by the Councell of his Earles Barons great men and other Nobles of his Kingdom no Commons in his Parliament hath ordained and enacted That Religious persons shall send nothing to their Superiors beyond the Seas That no Impositions shall be Taxed by Priors Aliens it is said moreover our aforesaid Lord the King doth inhibit it By whom the Common Seal of the Abbys shall be kept and how used it is said and further our Lord the King hath ordained and established And though the publication and open notice of the ordinances and Statutes aforesaid were in suspence for certain causes since the last Parliament until this present Parliament holden at Caerlisle the Octaves of St Hilary in the 35 Year of the Reign of the said King to the intent they might proceed with greater deliberation and advice our Lord the King after full conference and debate had with the Earls Barons Noblemen and other great men of his Kingdom no Commons touching the premisses by their whole consent and agreement hath ordained and enacted that the ordinances and Statutes aforesaid under the manner form and conditions aforesaid from the 1st day of May next ensuing shall be inviolably observed for ever and the offenders of them shall be punished as is aforesaid And so well did he and the Lawyers of that age understand the Originall Benefit and use of the Feudall Laws the Ancient Honour Glory and Safety of the English Nation their Kings Princes and People as he did as the Learned and Judicious Dr. Brady hath asserted in and by the right of the Feudal Laws and their original grant of the Fees without assent or advice of Parliament give license to their Tenants to Talliate Tax and take Scutage for ayd of performing the Knight or Military Service incident or chargeable upon their Lands and likewise to Tenants otherwise employed by the King in Capite though not in the Army to charge their Tenants with Scutage warranted by the Writ following in the 10th Year of his Reign directed to the Sheriff of Worcester in these words Rex Vicecomiti Wigorn. salutem Quia dilectus fidelis noster Hugo le dispencer per praeceptum nostrum fuit cum dilecto consanguineo fideli nostro Edmundo Com. Cornub. qui moam traxit in Anglia pro conservatione pacis nostrae Anno regni nostri decimo nobis tunc existentibus in Guerra nostra Walliae Tibi praecipimus quod eidem Hugoni facias habere scutagium suum in feodis militum quae de eo tenentur in balliva tua videlicet quadraginta solidos de Scuto pro exercitu nostro praedicto hoc nuâ—latenus omittas T. Edmundo Comite Cornubiae Consanguine Regis apud Westm. 13 die Aprilis Et Consimiles literae diriguntur vicecomitibus Leicest Eborum Lincoln Suff. Wilts South Surr. Buck. Essex North. Oxon Berk. Norff. Staff Rotel Justic. Cestr. And a Writ on the behalf of Henry de Lacy Earl of Lincoln directed the Sheriff of York in the Words Quia delectus fidelis noster Henry de Lacy Comes Lincoln non sine magnis sumptibus expensis ad Communem utilitatem regni nostri in obsequium nostrum per praeceptum nostrum in partibus Franciae pro reformatione patis inter nos Regem Franciae tempore quo Eramus in Guerra nostra Scociae Anno videlicet Segni nostri 31. Quod quidem obsequium loco servitii sui quod tunc nobis fecisse debuerat Acceptamus tibi praecipimus quod eidem Comiti haberi facias scutagium suum de feodis militum quae de eo teneantur in balliva cua videlicet Quadraginta solidos de scuto pro Exercitu nostro praedicto Et hoc nullatenus omittas Teste Rege apud Westm. 6. die Aprilis Consimiles literas habet idem Comes direct Vicecomitibus Warr. Bedford Buck. Somerset Dorset Glouc. Norff. Suff. Hereford Leic. Lenc Notting Derby Northampton Midd. Cantabr Oxon. Berk. Another on the behalf of Henry de Percy in the form ensuing videlicet Rexvicecomiti Eborum salutem Quia dilectus fidelis noster Henricus de Percy fuit nobiscum per praeceptum nostrum in exercitu nostro Scotiae Anno Regni nostri 31. Tibi praecipimus quod eidem Henrico haberi facias Scutagium suum de feodis militum que de eo tenentur in balliva tua videlicet quadraginta solides de Scuto pro Exercitu nostro praedicto hoc nullatenus omitas teste Rege c. Consimiles literas habet idem Henricus Vicecomitibus Lincoln Derb. Notting Cant. Hunt Norff. Suff. Salop. Stafford Consimiles literas habent Executores testamenti Johannis de Watrenna quondam Comitis Surr. defuncti probably the same man that being called to an account Quo Warranto he held many of his Liberties is said over Sturdily to have drawn out or unsheathed an old broad Rusty Sword and shewing unto the Justices Itinerants instead of his Plea answered by this which helped William the Conqueror to Subdue England which so much incensed the King as he afterwards as some of our English Annalists have reported at his return home caused him to be Besieged in his Castle at Rigate untill in a better obedience to his Laws he had put in a more Loyall and Legall Plea Had the like letters de Habend Scutag de feod militum quae de ipso Comite tenebantur die quo obiit in guerra Regis speciale direct Vicecomitibus Surr. Sussex Essex Hereff. Buck. Lincoln Northampton Ebor. by writ of privy seal Consimiles literas habuit prior de Coventry qui finem fecit c. direct Vicecomitibus Warr. Liec Northt Glouc. Wigorn. Abissa Shafton qui fecit finem c. Habet Scutagium suum But
quibusdam Magnatibus aliis de Concilio suo super dictis negotiis in brevi specificat eis ibidem plenius exponend tractaturi suumque concilium impensuri ulteriusque facturi quod ibidem de communi concilio assensu contigerit ordinari and that the Sheriff as likewise the Sheriffs of all the other Counties of England were commanded to certify the names of the Merchants sic eligendorum with a severe admonition in the latter end of the said Writ of Summons viz. sciens procerto quod fi dicti Mercatores de discretioribus ditioribus ut praedicitur eligendi ad dictos diem locum non habueris te ab ofsicio tuo amovere teque tanquam expeditionem negotionum nostrorum praedictorum impedieras de impeditione hujusmodi culpabilem invenire absque difficultate aliqua faciemus Teste Edwardo Duce Cornubiae Domino de Cestria filio nostro charissimo Custode Angliae apud Kennington Et Eodem Anno Strangers have been sometimes admitted into the House of Peers after a Summons to be Receivers and Tryers of Petitions but did not sit The Commons at the beginning of every Parliament are sent for out of the House of Commons to come to the Bar of the House of Lords where the Lord Chancellor if he be present or in his absence one of the Lord Chief Justices or an Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and sometimes the Lord Treasurer and in 9. H. 6. Linwood a Doctor of Law in the sickness of a Lord Chancellor declared in the behalf of the King or his Lieutenant the cause at large of the Summons of Parliament commanded them to elect and present their speaker the Writs of Summons making sometimes a short mention thereof and many times none at all In 17th E. 3. the cause of Summons was begun to be declared by the Chancellor but pursued by Sr Bartholomew Burghurst concerning the Kings Actions in France 15. E. 3. The King denied the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to come into the Parliament-House untill he had answered certain Articles objected against him in the Exchequer and then also refused him entrance untill at the last at the intercession of the Lords he was admitted In Anno 16 of his Reign Prince Edward his son Duke of Cornewall and Custos regni with others of the Councell summoned a Parliament in his fathers name to grant him an aid being then in his Wars beyond the Seas The King in the 18th year of his Reign sent his Writs of Summons to a Parliament to treat of the affairs of the Kingdom with these words nobiscum si praesentes fuerimus ibidem seu cum deputandis a nobis si abesse nos contigerit Eodem Anno Writs were issued for the Electing of two Knights for every County without mention of any Citizens Burgesses and in some no manucaptors for the Elected retorned and were to appear at London but before the day appointed come another Writ came to appear at Sarum Eodem Anno The King being offended at the small appearance of the parliament on Monday commanded it to be adjourned untill the next day The Receivers and Tryers being named because the prelates and other grandees were not come on Tuesday the parliament was adjourned untill the Thursday on which day the cause of Summons was declared 20. E. 3. On Fryday the Commons delivered in their petitions which were considered by the Lords upon Saturday Sunday and Monday next following and on that Monday they were Dissolved In the 21st Year of his Reign he declared in his Writs to Summon that parliament that he did call them not to give him Money or Supplies but only to enquire after wrongs done to the people Eodem Anno the Commons having long continued together desire an answer to their Bill leur deliverance Anno 24. E. 3. The King sending his Writs to Elect 2 Knights of every County and 2 Burgesses of every City and Borough caused a Clause to be inserted that none should be placitatores querolarum manutentores aut ex hujusmodi quaestu vincentes In 26. E. 3. the King issued out Writs to the Sheriffs of every County in England to elect one Knight for every County to come to the parliament and sent his Writs to the Mayors and Bailiffs of Burgess Towns not to the Sheriffs as at other time to retorn 1 Citizen for every City and 1 Burgess for every Borough except London whose Sheriffs were commanded to Elect 2 Citizens giving the reason why no more then 1 for other places ut Homines ab ista occupatione Audumpnalo quo nirus possimus retrahomus Anno 27. E. 3. Sent hrs Writs to the Sheriff to Elect de assensu Com. only 1 Knight and to the Sheriffs of London the Mayor and Bayliffs of all other Boroughs that used to send Burgesses to Parliament to Elect and retorn 2 Citizens and Burgesses apiece for the Statute of the Staple made in the same year ca. 3. hath these words viz. Whereas good deliberation had with the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons and great men of the Country that is to say of every County one for all the Countys and of the Commons of Cities and Boroughs Anno 28. E. 3. the cause of Summons was first declared before the names of the Receivers and Tryers were published Eodem Anno the King issued his Writs to all the Sheriffs of England to cause 2 Knights of every Shire to come to the Parliament at Lincoln to confirm the perambulation of the Forrests and particularly enjoyned to Summon the Knights Elected the last Parliament but if dead or unable to come to Elect others in their places and the Sheriff for Oxford and Barkshire receiving only a mandate to elect Knights for Oxfordshire did notwithstanding retorn two for Berkshire in this manner Et quia Com. Berks. est in ballia mea licet perambulatio in eodem facta fuit observata pro eo quod in isto brevi continetur quod colloquium in Parliamento tractandum erit Super aliis negotiis praefatum Regem tangentibus Ideo gratis elegerunt duos milites quorum nomina c. Anno 29. E. 3. the Chief Justice declared that the Kings pleasure was that the Cause of Summons should be declared by Mounsieur Walter de Manny and so it was yet the Chief Justice managed the Parliament business in the House of Peers as Speaker for presently after Mounsieur de Manny's discourse he called the Commons to advise thereof and make ready their Petitions In the 34 year of his Reign sent his Writs to all the Sheriffs to cause to appear in Parliament all Collectors of the Tenths and Fifteenths granted to him in Parliament for paying his Forces by Land and Sea for the Kingdoms defence to be restored again to the payers in case no such expences should be made and all Arrayers of Souldiers to give an account of all Moneys received and disbursed
Durham Earls of Northampton Arundel Warwick Oxford Suffolk and Hugh le Despenser Lord of Glamorgan to the whole so misnamed Estate of Parliament when the King could not be one of them not at all being present purporting that whereas the King at his Arrival at Hoges in Normandy had made his Eldest Son the Prince of Wales Knight he ought to have of the Realm forty Shillings for every Knights Fee which they all granted and took Order for the speedy levying thereof 25 E. 3. Sir John Matravers pardon was confirmed by the whole missettled Estates whereof the King could not be accompted any of them for he granted the pardon 28 E. 3. Richard Earl of Arundel by Petition to the King praying to have the Attainder of Edmond Earl of Arundel his Father reversed and himself restored to his Lands and Possessions upon the view of the Record and and the said Richard Earl of Arundels Allegation that his Father was wrongfully put to death and was never heard the whole Estates saith that ill Translator adjudged he was wrongfully put to Death and Restored the said Earl to the benefit of the Law which none could do but the King who was petitioned and having the sole interest in the forfeiture was none of those which were wrongfully called the whole Estates 37 E. 3. Where it is said that at the end of the Parliament the Chancellor in the presence of the King shewed that the King meant to execute the Statute of Apparel and therefore charged every State to further the same the King could not be understood to charge himself After which he demanded of the whole Estates so as before mistaken whether they would have such things as they agreed on to be by way of Ordinance or of Statute they answered by way of Ordinance for that they being to take benefit thereby might amend the same at their pleasure And so the King having given thanks to all the as aforesaid miscloped Estates for their pains taken licensed them to depart which should be enough to demonstrate that the Granter and Grantees were not alone or conjoynt and that the King giving thanks to the Estates did not give it to himself 42 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury on the Kings behalf gave thanks to the whole in the like manner mis-termed Estate for their Aids and Subsidies granted unto the King wherein assuredly the Archbishop of Canterbury did not understand the King to be any part of the whole Estate which the King gave thanks unto The Commons by their Speaker desiring a full declaration of the Kings necessity require him to have consideration of the Commons poor Estate The King declared to the Commons that it was as necessary to provide for the safety of the Kings Estate as for the Common-wealth Anno 6. Regis Richardi 2. after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named Commandment was given that all persons and Estates which imported no more being rightly understood than conditions or sorts of men miscalled as aforesaid should the next day have the cause of summoning the Parliament declared 11 R. 2. The Parliament was said to have been adjourned by the common Assent of the whole Estates the first time of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being called the Estates without or with the Commons joyned with them no such names or words appellations or Titles were either known or in use nor any such words or Titles as Estates being to be found in the Originals or Parliament Rolls before Anno 11 R. 2. for no more appeareth in the Original than in and under these expressions viz. Et mesme le vendredi auxint a cause ce fest solempnite de pasch estoit a progeno ii coveient le Roi les Seigneurs tautx autres entendre a devotion le Parlement coe assent le toutz Estats le Parlement estoit continez del dit vendredi tanque Lindy lendemain de la equinziesme de Pasch adonquez prochem ensuent commandez per le Roy a toutz les Seigneurs Communs du dit Parlement Quils seroient a Westminster le dimengo en la dite quinzieme de pascha a plustaid sur ceo noevelles briefs furent â—aiots a toutz les Seigneurs somons au dit parlement de yestre a la dite quinzieme sur certaine peine a limiter per les Seiguro qui seroient presents en dit Parlement a la quinzieme avant dite le quel Limdy le dit Parlement fust recommence tenat son cours selont la request des Communs grant de nostre Seigur le Roi avant ditz And then but the inconsiderate hasty new created word of the Clerks in a distracted time when the great Ministers of State in two contrary Factions to the ruin of the King and many of themselves as it afterwards sadly happened were quarrelling with each other and all the Bishops so affrighted as they were enforced to make their Protestation against any proceedings to be made in that so disturbed a Parliament In Anno 21. R. 2. The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England taking his Theme or Text out of Ezechiel Rex unius omnibus erat proved by many Authors that by any other means than by one sole King no Realm could be well governed For which cause the King had assembled the Estates in Parliament to be informed of the rights of his Crown withheld which Oration afterwards was to the same effect seconded by Sir John Bussey Knight Speaker of the House of Commons King Richard the second being as a Prisoner in the Tower of London made the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Hereford his Procurators to publish his Rem 〈…〉 of the Kingdom to the whole Estates Which whether at at that time distinguished or divided into three doth not appear viz. into Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons could not comprehend the King who was not to be present but gave the direction and authority to his said Procurators and could never have been understood to have been present or one of them himself or to have made such a prosecution against or for himself After the claim made unto the Crown of England in Parliament by Henry Duke of Lancaster and a consultation had amongst the Lords and Estates not expressing that the Commons were a 3d. or any part thereof it being then altogether improbable that King Richard the 2d or any other representing for him was there present and to make one of the said pretended Estates as much out of the reach of probability that King Richard himself was one or a Person then acting against himself the Duke of Lancaster himself then affirming that the Kingdom was vacant And when the Usurping King Henry the 4th openly gave thanks to the whole Estates wherein is plainly evidenced that himself neither was or could be understood to be then or at any other time one of the said Estates The first day of the Parliament the Bishop of London
upon occasion of War binos ornatos atque instructos Equites when by converting all the Tenures in Capite that of the Peers and Grand Serjeants excepted into Socage they have given the King a greater Revenue than they intended far exceeding the Revenue of the tenures in Capite the honour of the King and safety of himself and the people excepted And that in those early times none were imployed in Commissions or Places of trust by our Kings and their Laws but Knights holding by Tenure in Capite immediately or mediately that King Henry the 2d in some of his Laws declared none to be liberi Homines but those that were Military and that if the Socage men or Tenants of all the Possessors of Lands and Tenements now in England and Ireland must be in no better a capacity than as Villani Servi Bordarii Cotarii and Tenants at will under domineering Landlords and be shut out of the blessings of our Magna Carta and Carta de Foresta and left as the people were in the Raign of William the Conqueror William Rufus and Henry the first to the dire punishments cases of Treason and Felony only excepted of plucking out of Eyes and cutting off the Genitals Legs or Noses of the Offenders And it might be a meet question among the Heralds upon what foundation more than 1000 Knights Baronets do now stand seeing that Ireland is turnd into a Socage Tenure when the first original of them was to find in Capite so many men at Arms in the Kings Service And having with the Prophet Jeremy called cried out and advised many of my friends stare super vias antiquds inquirere veritatem I lament and bewail that the Monarchy of England that for more than 1600 years last past hath been so great glorious amongst her Neighbour Nations and hath in this our last Century of years been so unhappy ever since the beginning of the Raign of King John when Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury had in his Oration at the Coronation of that infortunate King declared to the Nobility and people there assembled that he was created King by the Election of the people and being reprehended and blamed for it by some of the Nobility was at that Instant or before that Assembly forced to excuse that inadvised Speech as well as he could by saying he had so done it as knowing his force nature it might induce him to govern the more orderly although he might have known that the Kingdom of England was hereditary and that King Richard the first had by his last Will and Testament devised it unto him with all other his Dominions and caused the Nobility there present to swear fealty unto him Which poyson so thrown into our Body Politick and by degrees creeping into it may well be believed to have so fixed the venom thereof as it hath from age to age been the original Cause and fomenter of the very many mischiefs and discords some Intervals of quiet intervening that have until the late long Parliament Rebellion and the Murder of King Charles the first and ever since unto this very day by those unhappy discords hapned in our Parliaments General Consiliums Colloquiums or conferences betwixt our Kings and Princes and a select number of his Subjects for mutual Aids in a general and reciprocal concernment the best and most happy constitution that ever was or could be practised in any Kingdom if it could have escaped that Series malorum Concatenation of discords that have of late been too often their Concomitants either by some aversions to Loyalty or by the Grand mistakes in the practise thereof and by the Common people making the Parliaments of later times to be as their King and he that is and should be their King little more than an extraordinary fellow Subject A Right observation and accompt whereof may from one unto the other lead us to the late blessed Martyrs fatal Murther and that Pestiferous Doctrine that did over much intice the Vulgus and ignorant part of the people that there is and ought to be an Inhaerent Right of Soveraignty in the people it being not unuseful for after ages to know and understand the same with the beginnings and progress thereof which for ought appears had its first original from Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury who had in the troublesome Raign of King Henry the second and at the time of the making the Assise and Constitutions at Clarendon such a peevish ambition and unwarrantable loftiness of Spirit as after the King had in the presence of the said Archbishop and all the Bishops Earls and Barons of England received their Recognitions and promises to perform and obey them they were sent unto the Pope to have his approbation who returned them to some with an hoc damnavit toleravit as unto others And Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury promoted by the Pope against the will of King John discovering as a singular rarity the Charter of the liberties granted by King Henry the first did so please some discontented Barons as they swore upon the Altar they would live and dye in the obtaining those beneficial Laws and Liberties begot a Spirit of unquietness in them which could not be allayed until the said Avitae consuetudines recognized and all ratified by King Henry the second his his Grandson by the constitions â—at â—arendon which begetting some little quiet broke out again in a worse manner upon his Son King John in the constraint and unkingly force put upon him at Running Mede where those tumultuous Barons w 〈…〉 a great Army in battel Array the better to attain their said Charter of liberties had promised to pay debts but never intended it And were so faithless and unwilling to be his Subjects as what they by force extorted from that oppressed Prince could never truly and properly merit the name or title of a Charter although he himself had been constrained so to call it and the King of France in his Exception to his award made as aforesaid many years after had so stiled it yet those undutiful doings of theirs were disliked by divers of the Bishops that had been the Popes and those Rebellious Barons Favourites who it seems did so little intend what they ought to do and undertook as some of the Bishops could not deny to certify as followeth Omnibus Episc. sidelibus Stephanus De igra Cant. Archiep. Primas Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Card. Henr. Dublin Archieq Will. London Petrus Winton Joscelin Bathon Glaston Hugo Lincoln Walter Wigorn. Will. Coventr Richardus Cicestr Magister pond Domini papae Subdiaconus familiaris Salutem Noverit Universitas vestra quod quando facta fuit pax inter donum Regem Johannem Barones Angliae de discordia inter eas orta lidem Barones nobis presentibus audientibus promiserunt dom Regi quod quamcunque securitatem haberi vellet ab iis pace illa observanda ipsi
his to come into England but such only as the King and the Lords should like The Poictovins landing at Boloign had much-a-do to gain passage into their own Countreys by reason that Henry de Montfort Son to the Earl of Leicester whose power was very great in France had followed them thither Rumours were spread amongst the people in England that the Earl of Gloucester was attempted to have been poyson'd and one of his Servants executed upon no other proof but presumption and every one that would complain of the Poictovins wanted no encouragement Richard Gray whom the Lords had made Captain of the Castle of Dover intercepted as much as he could of what the Poictovins carried over and enriched himself thereby The new Chief-Justice Hugh Bigod Brother to the Earl Marshal being chosen in the last Parliament by publick voice procured an order that four Knights in every Shire should enquire of the poor oppressed by great men and certifie the same to the Baronage under their hands and seals which were never found to have been certified And made an Order that no man should give any thing besides Provisions for Justice or to hinder the same and that both the corrupter and corrupted should be grievously punished Notwithstanding which pretended care the Lords enforceing the service of the King's Tenants which dwelt near unto them were as totidem Tyranni furnished the especial Fortresses of the Kingdom with Garrisons of their own sworn to the common State and took the like assurance of all Sheriffs Bailiffs Coroners and other publick Ministers with strict Commissions upon Oath to examine their behaviour And to make the King and his actions the more odious and their own more popular it was rumoured that the King's necessities must be repaired out of the Estates of his people and he must not want whilst they had it Whereupon the King to defend himself from such scandals was constrained to publish his Declaration to desire the people to give no credit to such false suggestions for that he was ready to defend all Rights and Customs due unto them Howsoever Montfort Gloucester and Spencer who had by the late constitution of the twenty-four Conservators drawn the entire managing of the Kingdom into their hands enforced the King to call a Parliament at London where the authority of the twenty-four Conservators was placed in themselves and order taken that three at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of Castles and other business of the Kingdom of the Chancellor Chief-Justiciar Treasurer and all other Officers great and small and bound the King to release to them their legal Obedience whensoever he infringed his Charter In the mean time the Earl of Cornwal King of the Romans being dispossest of that Kingdom or not well liking it returning into England the Barons send to know the cause of his coming and require of him an Oath before he should land not to prejudice their late established Orders of the Kingdom which he sternly refused saying He had no Peer in England being the Son and Brother of a King and was above their power and if they would have reformed the Kingdom they ought first to have sent for him and not so presumptuously have attempted a business of so high a nature The Lords upon return of such an answer sent to guard the Ports came strongly to the Coast prepared to encounter him and the King Queen and their Son Edmond in a more loving manner go to Dover to receive him but neither they nor the Earl of Cornwal were by them permitted to enter into the Castle for that it was the chief Fortress of the Kingdom But finding the Earl of Cornwal's Train small they suffered him to land and did upon his promise to take the propounded Oath bring him and the King into the Chapter-house at Canterbury where the Earl of Gloucester standing forth in the midst in the presence of the King called forth the Earl not by the name of King but Earl of Cornwal who in reverend manner coming forth took his Oath That he would be faithful and diligent with the Barons to reform the Kingdom by the counsel of wicked persons over-much disordered and to be an effectual Coadjutor to expel Rebels and disturbers of the same under pain of losing all the Lands which he held in England After which both parties strengthening themselves all they could the King for the assurance of the King of France ex praecepto consilio Domini Regis Angliae totius Baronagii sent the Earls of Gloucester Leicester Peter de Subaudia John Mansel and Robert Walerand to the Parliament of Paris de arduis negotiis Regna Angliae Franciae contingentibus carrying with them a resignation of the Dutchy of Normandy and the Earldoms of Anjou Poicteau Turaine and Mayne for which the King of France was to give him three hundred thousand pounds with a grant of all Guyen beyond the River of Garonna all the River of Xantoigne to the River of Charente and the Counties of Limosin and Quercy to him and his Successors dong his Homage and Fealty to the Crown of France as a Duke of Aquitain and a Peer of that Kingdom After whose return Montfort as he had incensed others so had he those that animated him against the King as Walter Bishop of Worcester and Robert Bishop of Lincoln who enjoyned him upon the remission of his sins to prosecute the cause unto death affirming that the peace of the Church of England would never be established but by the Sword But the people being oppressed and tired at length with those commotions part-takings and discords which by the provisions wrested from the King at Oxford and so many mischiefs and inconveniencies had harassed and almost ruined them and did help to increase rather than decrease those troubles and controversies which afflicted the Nation it having never been easie to bring those that were to be governed to rule with any modesty or moderation those that had enjoyed a governing power in authority established and appointed by God in a well-temper'd Monarchy and succession for many Ages or those that were to govern to obey the giddy and unjust dictates of those who were to obey them or to unite in any contenting harmony the various ambitions envies revenges hatreds partialities self-interests and designs of many or a multitude or such enforcements and contrivances to be lasting durable or pleasing and that all could not well rule or agree how to do it The King and Queen keeping their Christmas in the Tower of London cum suis consiliariis saith Matthew Paris elaboratum fuit tam à Regni Angliae pontificibus quam à Regni Franciae ut pax reformaretur inter Regem Angliae Barones ventumque est ad illud ut Rex Proceres se submiserunt ordinationi Regis Franciae in praemissis provisionibus Oxoniae nec non pro depraedationibus damnis utrobique
introduced amongst us that Distinction long after about the Raign of our King John of the Barones majores those that were Ministri Regis and held great Possessions only of the King for long before the Conquest they were called Thaines Barons or Lords who were Honorary and the Minores middle Thaines or Valvasores who were only feudal and held all or much of others or lesser parts of the King and by Canutus's Laws there appears to have been in those times Thani infimae conditionis In Germany saith Schwederus there are two sorts The First that do hold of the Empire immediately The Second mediately of others and that in the diversity of Opinions amongst the Learned whether the word Baron be derived from the Hebrew Greek Latine Spanish or French the Germans have been content with theit own word or original Baar which signifieth Frey or liber homo Barones are liberi Domini Frey Heeren Et Baro signifieth virum dignitate praecellentem So as that exquisitely Learned Du Fresne in his Gloss upon the words Barones Parliamenti saith In Anglia Scotia qui vulgò Lords of Parliament vocantur ij sunt ex Majoribus Baronibus qui à Rege undè pendent ad Parliamentum sive concilium publicum diplomatibus Regiis evocantur nam constat in Anglia ut in Francia non omnes qui à Rege praedia sua immediatè tenebant ad Parliamenta admissos nam nimius esset numerus eorum sed illos tantum qui proximi essent a Rege dignitate vassallorum numero caeteros anteirent prout etiam in ipsis Baronum feudis factitatum And defining a Barony saith it is Praedium à Rege nudé pendens vel maius praedium vel feudum Cassanaeus taketh it to be Quaedam dignitas habens quandam praeeminentiam inter solos simplices Nobiles Tiraquel by good Authority of rectified experimented Reason Laws and ancient Customs saith Leges sanciri debent a Principibus etiam Nobilium concilio quod plane ostendit Virgilius de Aceste Rege loquens Gaudet regno Treianus Acestes Indicitque forum Patribus dat Jura vocatis Id est Leges sancit Jura distribuit vocatis ad id Patribus id est Senatoribus L'Oyseau defining Seigneuries saith they are Publique ou prives and that les droits praerogatives des grandes Seigneuries a scavoir les Duchez Marquisats Comtez Principautez dont le premier est qu'elles ne relevent que du Roy encore que de leur nature elles deuvoient relever immediatement de la Couronne C'est pourquoi les Feudistes les appellent Feuda regalia ou Regales dignitates tit ' de Feud encore non tant pour ce qu'elles participent aux honeurs des souverainetez que de leur d'autant qu'elles sont vrays Fieffs du Roiaume ne pouvant relever d' autre Seigneurie Et tout ainsi que ces Capitaines s' aydoient de leurs vassaux en la guerre aussi faisoient ils en les Justices principalement aux causes d' importance qu' ils Iugoient par leur advis pour ceste raison ils les appelloient Pairs Cour C'est a dire Pairs au Compaignons de leur Cour de Justice Saith le Seigneurie privee n' induit point de puissance publique and concludeth and proveth it to be un Erreur d' penser qu' aux livres de Fieffes Valvasores Regni seu Majores valvasores fussent ceux qui tenoient leurs Fieffs a Capitaneis Regni nempe a ducibus Marchionitibus And were had in such a Veneration and Respect as when in the first Year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth an Act of Parliament was made that every Member of the House of Commons should before the Lord Steward of the King Queen or her Successors Houshold or his Deputy for the time being before they sit or be admitted by his Oath taken upon the Holy Evangelists testify and declare That the Queens Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other Her Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and renounce all Foreign Jurisdiction of any Foreign Prelate Prince or Potentate whatsoever And promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors or United and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm From the taking of which Oath the Lords Temporal and all of or above the degree of a Baron were by that Act of Parliament of 5. Eliz. exempted for that the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of her High Court of Parliament Although of that High and Honourable Assembly of the House of Peers all that hold Offices under our Kings as the Lords Chancellour Treasurer Steward great Chamberlain and Chamberlain of the Houshold Constable Earl Marshal Lord Privy-Seal Secretaries of State and all that receive Creation-Money of him as Earls Viscounts Marquesses and Dukes and all the Assistants as Judges Masters of Chancery and the Barons in that high Court of Judicature Subordinate to the King may find themselves comprized and obliged in and by that Act of Primo Eliz. ca. 1. as the Arch-Bishops and Bishops are For it may everlastingly with great assurance of Certainty and Truth be affirmed That our Parliaments or great Councells have in their Constitutions Formes Customes and Usages altogether or for the most part followed and imitated those of the Almans Saxons and Ancient Francks when Marculfus who lived in the Year after the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ Six Hundred and Sixty now something more than One Thousand Years when Clodouaeus the Son of Dagobert of the Merovignian and first Race of the Kings of France ruled as it will be Evident by the Writ of Summons thereunto Entituled Prologus de Regis Judicio cum de Magna re duo causantur simul in the form or words ensuing or the cause of Summoning or Calling the Parliament as our Kings have many Times done in their Writs of Summons to their Parliaments Viz. Cui Dominus regendi curam Committit cunctorum Jurgia diligenter examinatione cum rimari oportet ut juxta propositionum vel responsionum alloquia inter alterutrum salubris donetur sententia quo fiat ut nodos causarum vivacis mentis acumen coerceat ubi praelucet Justitia illuc gressum deliberationis imponat Ergo nos in Dei nomine ibi in Palatio nostro ad universorum Causas recto Judicio terminandas una cum Dominis Patribus nostris Episcopis vel cum plurimis Optimatibus Nostris patribus illis Referendariis illis
by them for that the Soldiers and Mariners were not paid And to appoint one honest man out of every County to come along with them to see and examine their accounts 37. E. 3. The cause of the Summons was first declared before the names of the Receivers and Tryers were published according to the use at this day and of all Parliaments since 29. E. 3. And it is said in the end of the shewing the cause of the Summons Et outre le dit Roy volt que si nul se sent greever mett avent son petition en ce Parlement ci ne avoir convenable report sur ce ad assignee ascuns de ses Clercks en le Chancellarie Recevoirs des ditzpetitions In eodem Anno Proclamation was made in Westminster Hall by the Kings command that all the Prelates Lords and Commons who were come to the Parliament should withdraw themselves to the painted Chamber and afterwards on the sâ—m◠〈◊〉 there being in the same chamber the Chancellor Treasurer 〈◊〉 some of the Prelates Lords and Commons Sr Henry Greeâ— the Kings Chief Justice told them in English much of the French Language being then made use of in the Parliament-Rolls and Petitions that the King was ready to begin the Parliament but that many of the Prelates Lords and Commons who were Summoned were not yet come wherefore he willeth that they should depart and take their ease untill Monday Anno 40. E. 3. The Lord Chancellor concluded his speech touching the Summons The Kings will is que chescun que ce sont grievez mett devant sa petition a ces sont assignez per lui de ces recevoir aussi de les triers Six days were not seldom allowed for receiving and trying petitions which were sometimes prolonged two or three days ex gratia Regis and the reason supposed for such short prefixions was because the sitting of Parliaments in former times continued not many days Toriton a Town in Devonshire was exempted from sending of Burgesses to Parliament and so was Colchester in 6. R. 2. in respect of new making the walls and fortifying that Town for Five Years In divers Writs of Summons of King Edward 3. He denied to accept of proxies ea vice 6. 27. And 39. E. 3. Proxies were absolutely denied ista vice 6. R. 2. And 11. R. 2. The like with a clause in every of those Writs of Summons legitimo cessante impedimento Anno 45. E. 3. Ista vice being omitted a clause was added Scientes quod propter arduitatem negotiorum Procuratores seu excusationem aliquam legittimo cessante impedimento pro vobis admittere nolumus and thereupon the Lords that could not come obtained the Kings License and made their proxies and although at other times they did make Proxies without the Kings License yet in such cases an Affidavit was made of their sickness or some other Lawfull impediment as in 3. 6. 26. And 28. H. 8. The antient form and way of such Licenses in 22d E. 3. being in French and under the Kings Privy-Seal as Mr Elsing hath declared and therein the Abbot of Selby's Servant was so carefull as he procured a Constat or Testimoniall under the Kings Privy-seal of his allowance of the said procuration and another was granted to the said Abbot in 2. H. 4. under the signet only Eodem Anno The Parliament having granted the King an ayd of 22 s. and 3 d. out of every parish in England supposing it would fully amount to Fifty Thousand Pounds but the King and his Councell after the Parliament dismissed finding upon an examination that the rate upon every parish would fall short of the summ of mony proposed for that supply did by his Writs command the Sheriffs of every County to Summon only one Knight for every County and one Citizen and Burgess for every City and Borough that had served in the said Parliament for the avoiding of troubles and expences to appear at a Councell to be holden at Winchester to advise how to raise the intended summ of money Anno 46. E. 3. An ordinance being made that neither Lawyer or Sheriff should be returned Knights of the shire the Writs received an addition touching the Sheriff only which continues to this day viz. Nolumus autem quod tu vel aliquis alius Vicecomes shall be Elected but the King willeth that Knights and Serjeants of the best esteem of the County be hereafter returned Knights in the Parliament Eodem Anno There was no Judges Summoned to the Parliament In Anno 50. Some particular Knights were specially commanded by the King to continue in London 7 days longer then others after the Parliament ended to dispatch some publique affairs ordained by Parliament and had wages allowed for those 7 days to be paid by their Countries Some being sent from Ireland to attend the Parliament a Writ was sent by the King to James Boteler Justice of Ireland to leavy their expences upon the Commonalty of that Kingdom which varied from those for England After the bill which in the usuall language and meaning of those times signified no more then a petition delivered the Chancellour willed the Commons to sue out their Writs for their fees according to the custom after which the Bishops did arise and take their leaves of the King and so the Parliament ended Anno 51. E. 3. the Prince of Wales representing the King in Parliament Sate in the Chair of State in Parliaments after the cause of Summons declared by the Lord Chancellour or by any others whom the King appointeth he concludes his speech with the Kings Commandment to the House of Commons to choose their Speaker who being attended by all the House of Commons and presented by them unto sitting in his Chair of Estate environed by the Lords Spirituall and Temporall hath after his allowance and at his retorn and not before one of the Kings maces with the Royall armes thereupon allowed to be carried before him at all time dureing the Parliament with one of the Kings Serjeants at armes to bear it before him and to attend him during the time of his Speakership Anno 1. Richardi 2. The Parliament beginning the 13th of October was from time to time continued untill the 28th of November then next ensuing and the petitions read before the King who after answers given fist bonement remercier les Prelats Seigneurs Countes de leur bones graundez diligences faitz entouz l'Esploit de dites besognes requestes y faitzpur commun profit de leur bien liberal done au liu grantez en defens De tout le Roialme commandant as Chivaliers de Contes Citizens des Citeos Burgeys des Burghs quils facent leur suites pour briefs avoir pour leurs gages de Parlement en manere accustumes Et leur donast congie de departir In a Parliament of 5. R. 〈◊〉 there were severall adjournments and the Knights and
Burgesses resorting to continuing at and returning diversis vicibus the Parliament was thrice adjourned from one day to another before it sate by reason that sundry Sheriffs had not returned their Writs divers of the Lords and Commons were not come and there arose a great quarrell betwixt the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Northumberland who came attended with many Thousand armed men of his Tenants and followers to the Parliament which caused the King to adjourn it from Monday to Tuesday thence to Wednesday and from thence to Saturday untill all were come and the quarrell being pacified betwixt those great Lords from the 8th Nov. to 15 Decemb. by reason of the approach of the feast of Christmas and the Queens arrival from beyond the Seas for her intended marriage from thence to the 24th of January many of them in the mean time returning home thence untill Monday following and from that time untill the 23d of February Before the 1st Writ of Summons could be executed a 2d came to prorogue that Parliament In 7. R. 2. a Parliament being Summoned to meet at new Sarum on the 20th day of Aprill being Fryday it was twice adjourned untill the Wednesday and Thursday following because divers of the Lords were not come and many of the Sheriffs had not returned their Writs 21. R. 2. The Parliament was adjourned from Westminster to Shrewsbury began the Monday next after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross at Westminster and at Shrewsbury the 15th of St Hillary In 1st H. 4. The Writ for the Election of Commons had this clause Nolumus autem quod tu seu aliquis alius Vicecomes Regni nostri seu aliquis alius homo ad legem aliqualiter sit electus whence it was called the Lay-mans Parliament or indoctum Parliamentum By the Statute of 7 and 8. H. 4. a clause was added in the Writ Et electionem tuam in pleno Comitatu tuo factam distincte aperte sub sigillo tuo sigillis eorum qui electioni illi interfuerunt nobis in Cancellaria nostra not into the House of Commons or House of Peers ad diem locum in brevi contentum certisices indilate The Receivers and Tryers of petitions in Parliament which were nominated in the beginning of every Parliament were Prelates Nobles and Judges and sometimes the Lord Chancellour and Treasurer and if need required antiently the Clerks of the Chancery In two Parliaments of King Henry the 6th the Chancellours place was supplied by the Kings verbal Authority In 9. H. 6. The Chancellour to whom it appertained ratione officii sui to declare the cause of the Summons of Parliament being sick the Duke of Gloucester the Kings protector appointed Dr Linwood a Doctor of Civill and Canon Law to declare the cause of the Summons of that Parliament In the Title of the Act of Parliament 18. 23. 27. 31. 33. H. 6. E. 4. And 14. E. 4. It is mentioned to be by the advice and assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporal and the Commons and in 20. H. 6. By the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and at the request of the Commons as it had been in the 25 of H. 6. where Bristoll was exempted by a Charter of King Henry the 6th from sending any more then 2 Homines or Burgesses to Parliaments 7 or 8 Ports Summoned and in like manner admitted by the only Writ to Summon the Cinque Ports 1. H. 7. Acts of Parliament were mentioned to have been made by the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons 2. H. 7. By the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons In 3 4. H. 7. the like 11. H. 7. By the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons Anno 12 the like 19 the like In the r. 3. 4. H. 8. Acts of Parliament were said to have been made by the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons and in 5. 6. 7. 14. 15. 23. H. 8. 1. H. 8. The Abbot of Crowland was licensed to be absent by the Lord Chancellour and Lord Treasurer signifying the Kings pleasure And howsoever that the Kings verbal license was sufficient yet they that had obtained that favour had for the most part a formal license under his hand and if not ready to be produced testimonialls thereof by some Lord or others that could witness it And so continued untill 28 or 31. H. 8. But afterwards neither licenses or testimonialls were required only it satisfied that the proxies or procurations mentioned the Kings license which no man could be presumed to do unless he had had it Anno 1. Henrici 8. Ex mandato Domini Regis Quia Domini Spirituales absentes in convocatione occupati sunt continuavit Parliamentum usque in diem Crastinum the Lord Chancellor being then a Bishop and absent also and although some one or two of the Temporall Lords then sate in the House of Peers it was but to receive Bills Which continued untill 7. H. 8. In which Year the Lord Chancellour did the day before continue the Parliament unto the day after In the same Year 30 November Dominus Cancellarius propterea quod Domini Spirituales in convocatione in crastino die occupandi continuavit praesens Parliamentum usque in diem lunae and many of the Parliament Rolls and Journalls of King Henry the 8th being not to be found And from the 17th H. 8. untill the 25th there does not appear to have been any Journalls although severall Parliaments sate in the 21. 22. 23. 24 Years of his Reign 20. H. 8. No mention was made of the advice or consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporall or Commons The like in 25 and 26. 27. 28. 31. H. 8. 25. H. 8. There is a memorandum in the Journalls of the House of Peers Decretum est quod Domini Spirituales in convocatione diebus Martis Veneris prox sequen ex tunc die Veneris donec secus melius videtur versari possent proceres sequentibus diebus sine impedimento quotidie circa dimiâ—ietat horae octavae ante meridiem in locis consuetis simul convenirent ad tractandum consulendum circa Republicae negotia And after in the same Parliament the Fryday was changed into the Wednesday in every week Eodem Anno In the Reign of H. 8. Wednesday being a Starr-Chamber day and Friday a convocation of the Bishops of the house of Peers was by the Chancellor adjourned to the Saturday following and in Queen Elizabeths days when the Starr-Chamber days were setled to be upon Wednesdays the Parliament did not sit upon those days in the Term time which was constantly observed says Mr Elsing all the time of King James untill the 18th Year of his Reign when upon Tuesday the 24th day of Aprill upon a motion made in the House of Peers that there was a great cause in the middle
of hearing to be heard in the Starr-Chamber the morrow after the Lords were content not to sit that Morning provided that it be not drawn into a precedent but that the House being the Supream Court may sit upon a Starr Chamber day notwithstanding the absence of the Lord Chancellor Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Treasurer the Lords of the Privy-Councell great Officers of State the two Lord Chief Justices and Lord Chief Baron who do use to attend that Court and the next Starr-Chamber day the other part of the Lords House did sit in the forenoon The Lords that were absent and could not appear upon Summons of Parliament were excused if they could obtain a license of the King otherwise they were amerced as in 31. H. 6. a Duke was to be amerced 100 l. an Earl 100 Marks and a Baron 40 l. If they came not upon Summons to Parliament If the King be present in person when the cause of Summons is declared the Lord Chancellour doth first remove from his place which is on the Kings Right hand behind the Chair of Estate and conferreth privately with his Majesty And that ceremony is ever to be observed by the Lord Chancellour or those that are appointed by the King to officiate in that particular for him before he speak any thing in Parliament when the King is present The cause of which ceremony saith Mr Elsing seeming to be that as none but the King can call a Parliament so none but the King can propound or declare wherefore it was called If the King be represented in Parliament by Commission the Lord Chancellor sits on the Wool-sack after the Commission read the Commissioners go to the seat prepared for them on the Right side of the Chair of Estate then the Lord Chancellour ariseth conferreth with the Commissioners returns to his place on the Wool-sack and there declareth the cause of the Summons or Commission as was done in 28 Elizabeth The Warrants of the King for the making of the Writs of Summons to Parliaments have been divers some times per breve de privato sigillo but commonly per ipsum Regem concilium Anno 32. H. 8. Acts of Parliament were said to have been enacted with the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the Parliament was continued by divers short prorogations and was by his Graces Authority dissolved 33. H. 8. In the Acts of Parliament no mention was made of advice or assent 34. 35. H. 8. The like Proxies were in the 20th Year of the Reign of King James under the hand and seal of an absent Lord upon a lawfull impediment signifying the Kings license in the form ensuing pro se nomine suo de super quibuscunque causis exponend seu declarand tractand tractatibus quae hujusmodi mihi factis seu faciendis concilium nomine suo impendend statutisque etiam ordinationibus quae ex maturo deliberati judicio dominorum tam spiritualium quam temporalium in eodem Parliamento congregat inactitari seu ordinari contigerint nomine suo cousentiendum eisdemque si opus fuerit subscribend caeteraque omnia singula quae in praemissis necessaria fuerint seu quo modo libet requisita faciend exercend in tam amplis modo forma prout ego ipse facere possem aut deberem si praesens personaliter interessem ratum gratum habens habiturus quicquid dictus procurator statuerit aut fecerit in praemissis A proxy cannot be made to a Lord that is absent himself The Lord Latimer made his proxy which although the Clerk of the House of Peers received it was repealed by the Lord Chancellour for that the Lord Latimers deputy or procurator was absent for if he to whom the proxy is made be absent the proxy is void neither can it be transferred by the proxy to another as was adjudged in the case of the Lord Vaux 18 Jacobi Our Kings since the force put upon King Henry the 3d by some Rebellious Barons at a Parliament at Oxford in Anno 42 of his Reign at the beginning of every Parliament by publick proclamation did use to prohibit the coming with Arms. Not any of the Kings Serjeants at Law were Summoned to Parliament untill the Tenth of Edward the Third when Robert Parning William Scot and Simon Trevise Servientés Regis were Summoned by special Writs unto 2 Parliaments after which none were Summoned untill the 20th of E. 3. Robert de Sodington Capitalis Baro Scaccarii was the First and only Baron of the Exchequer who was Summoned to Parliament as one of the Kings Councell in 12. E. 3. The Kings Attorney Generalls whose Office and impolyment was as ancient as 7. E. 1. when William de Gisilham enjoyed it and Gilbert de Thorneton was in 8. E. 1. his Attorney Generall had their First Writ of Summons in the 21. 30. 36. Henrici 8. Those that succeeded them never wanting the like priviledges And the Kings Sollicitors generalls have been in like manner Summoned The Writs of Summons to the Lords are returned and delivered to the Clark of their House those with their Indentures for the Election of members for the House of Commons to the Clark of the Crown in Chancery The Clergy of the convocation in Parliament are Elected by virtue of the Kings Writs of Summons to the Bishops and their precepts but not by any from the Sheriffs The Master of the Rolls if not Elected a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament hath a Writ of Summons to attend in the House of Lords The Masters of Chancery as necessarily appertaining to the Lord Chancellour or Keeper of the Great Seal of England have neither Writ nor patent yet do there attend The Bill or Act of Parliament signed for the Beheading the Earl of Strafford much against the will of King Charles the Martyr was by Commission And divers adjournments and prorogations in the Reign of King Charles 2d have been sometimes by Commission and at other times by proclamations The Commons were never Elected to come to Parliament before the 49th Year of King H. 3. and his imprisonment and then and from the 21st Year of the Reign of King E. 1. did but as the Lesser lights follow that greater of the Sun and could not possibly be sent for or caused to be Elected without the Peers then Summoned and convened for that they were only to consent unto and do such things as the King by the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall should there ordain if the Lords were not Summoned to be there at the same time or sitting The Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold was Summoned to sit in the House of Peers in 25. 27. 28. E. 3. Masters of Ships and some Scots have for advice been Summoned to attend the House of Lords Ever since the making of the Statute of 5. Eliz. every Knight Citizen Burgess and Port Baron Elected or to
8th who being a Member of the House of Commons and Imprisoned the House of Commons made an address to the King for his release when they could not do it by their own power Mr Speaker said I am to deliver unto you her Majesties commandement that for the better and more speedy dispatch of causes we should sit in the afternoon and that about this day sennight her Majesties pleasure is this Parliament shall be ended At a conference with the Lords their Lordships told the Commons they would not have their Judgment prejudicated and in that conference of the House of Commons stiled themselves the Lower House There was saith Justice Hussey a whole Alphabet of paenall Laws in the time of King Henry the 7th Mr Mountague said The praerogative Royall is now in Question which the law hath over allowed and Maintained Serjeant Heale speaking somewhat that displeased the Generality of the House they all made an humming and when he began to speak again they did the like whereupon the Speaker stood up and said It is a great disorder that this should be used for it is the antient use of this House for every man to be Silent when any one Speaketh and he that is Speaking should be Suffered to deliver his mind without interruption Sr Edward Hobby upon the debate of a bill brought in for the peoples more diligent repair to Church whether the Church-Wardens were the more proper to certifie the defalters said that when her Majestie did give us leave to chuse our Speaker She gave us leave to chuse one out of our own number Mr Onslow the Clark of the House of Commons in Parliament being Sick the House gave his man leave to officiate for him every Members contributing 12d apeice for his support In the case of Belgrave depending in the Court of Star-Chamber upon an Information brought by Sir Edward Coke her Majesties then Artorney General prosecuted by the Earl of Huntington for wearing his Livery to make himself a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament after several Motions Debates and Disputes in the House of Commons a Conference was concluded to be had with the Lords thereupon the rather for that it had been said that the Lords in Parliament were reported to have directed the said Bill to be exhibited in the Star-Chamber one of their House being concerned therein and a day appointed by the Lords accordingly which failing and revived again by a motion of one of the Members of the house of Commons in their own House and the matters limitted whereupon it should consist first touching the offence committed by Mr. Belgrave whether it was an Infringement of the Liberty of the House of Commons and for the first that the Commons would do nothing therein until a Conference with them for the 2d to know the reasons of their Lordships appointment of the Information and to bring it to some end Mr. Speaker at another day certifying a message from the Lords concerning some other matters Sir Edward Hobby said We attended the Lords that morning which was appointed touching the Information against Mr. Belgrave who in the end concluded that forasmuch as it concerneth them as the House of Commons Priviledges they desired some time to consult and they would send us word of their Resolutions and some days after a Copy of the Information against Belgrave was sent to the House of Peers unto them under the hand of the Clerk of the Star Chamber by them and Sir Edward Hobby with some Bills but nothing appeareth to have been done touching the said Information against Belgrave In the mean time a servant of Mr. Huddleston a Knight of the Shire for Cumberland being arrested in London upon a Writ of Execution the Plaintiff and Serjeants denying to release him because it was after Judgment they were upon complaint to the House committed to Prison the Serjeant released paying the Serjeant at Arms Fees and the Plaintiff paying them as well as his own was ordered to remain three days in the Serjeants Custody For a like Judgment was cited to have been given by the House of Commons in the case of the Baron of Wilton in that Parliament Upon Thursday December the 7th Sir Edward Hobby shewed that the Parliament was now in the wain and near ending and an order was taken touching the Information delivered to this house viz. the House of Commons in Mr. Belgraves case but nothing done therein and as it seemeth by not taking out the Process no Prosecution of the Cause is intended against the said Mr. Belgrave he thought it fit because the chief Scope of the said Information seemeth to be touching a dishonour offered to this House that it would please the House that it might be put to the question being the original and first horrid fashion of their afterward altogether course or manner of voting and making their own pretended Liberties whether he hath offended this House yea or no If he hath he desireth to be censured by you and if he hath not it will be a good motive to this Honourable House here present who are Judges in this Court and yet he might have remembred what long and learned debates and disputes there had lately been amongst themselves whether the Custom of that House was or had been in cases of grievance to proceed by Bill or Petition to the Queen and it was resolved that it was the most proper and dutiful way to proceed by Petition which was done accordingly in clearing the Gentleman of that offence when it came before them which had then no higher esteem in Sir Edward Hobbyes opinion than to be previous to an after disquisition which that Law and the Queens Writ and the Election of that part of the people that brought them thither neither did or could give them any greater authority than ad faciendum consentiendum to do and perform that which the King and Lords in Parliament should ordain to be done and performed and when all should be rightly considered was an offence too often by more than one or once since practised to procure a Membership indirectly in an House of Commons in Parliament committed by Mr. Belgrave that should as little have been countenanced as there was any just or legal Warrant for it wherein Mr. Comptroller said I know the Gentleman to be an honest Gentleman and a great Servant to his Prince and Countrey I think it very fit to clear him I wish it may be put to the Question I will be ready to vouch your sentence for his offence when it comes there but if any other matter appears upon opening the Cause with that we have nothing to do Mr. Secretary Cecil who had not long before said in the same House he was sorry to see such disorder and little do you know how for disorder this Parliament is taxed I am sorry I said not slandered I hoped that as this Parliament began gravely and with Judgment
that nothing was done upon their Petitions and therefore prayed that they might be answered before the Parliament ended It appeareth by divers Answers to Petitions in Parliament that the Kings Councel unto whom they were committed did but report what they thought fit to be done for Answer prout Anno 15. E. 3. n. 17. where it is said our Lord the King caused the same Answers to be given to the said Petitions the which together with the Petitions were reported in full Parliament Eodem Anno it was answered Our Lord the King commanded Answers to be made the which put into writing were reported before our Lord the King and the Prelates and other Grandees Anno 17. E. 3. It seemeth to the Councel that it be done Anno 18. E. 3. Divers Petitions of the Commons being exhibited a Memorandum was entred viz. Unto which Petitions it was answered by the King and the Grandees as to the second Article Soit cestipetition granted To the third Article il plaist au Roy c. To the eight Article il plaist au Roy au Son conseil quae se soit To the eleventh il plaist au Roy c. To the 12th Article Soient les Statutes sur ceo faites tenus c. Anno eodem the Answer was It is assented by our Lord the King the Earls Barons Justices and other Sages of the Law that the things above written be done in convenable manner according to the prayer of the Commons in a long Petition of theirs against provisions from Rome whereunto the Bishops durst not assent Eodem Anno the Commons exhibited their Petitions which were answered drawn into a Statute sealed and delivered unto them Sedentibus before the Parliament ended in the same Parliament also the Parliament exhibited their Petitions which were answered sealed and delivered unto them sitting the Parliament which was not usual for the Statutes were most commonly made after the end of the Parliament The Answer to one of the Clergies Petitions in this Parliament was accord est pur assent du conceil Unto which may be added those of the 20th year of the Raign of King Edward the third which concerned the Pope to which Answers the Praelates who were of that Committee not daring to agree the opinion of the temporal Lords and the Judges were only reported viz. It seemeth to the Earls Barons and other Sages Lay-men of the Kings Councel c. Anno 21. E. 3. il Semble a conseil qu'il faut faire pour grand bien si plaist au Roy as grandes du terre Eodem Anno It seemeth unto the King the Praelates and the Grandees that the Custom stand in force the Commons having petitioned that the Custom of the Cloth made in England might be taken away Anno 25. E. 3. It seemeth to the Councel that such enquires cease if it please the King Eodem Anno It seemeth to the Councel that the Laws heretofore ordained ought to suffice for that this Petition is against the Law of the Land as well as against the holy Church It seemeth to the Councel that it ought not to be granted the Petition being that no Capias Excommunicat should issue before a Scire facias to the party Et al. hujusmodi c. Eodem Anno It was answered It is not the interest of our Lord the King nor of the Grantz Anno 28. E. 3. n. 33. It seemeth to the Lords and to the Grands that the Petition is reasonable Eodem Anno It is answered Let the Common Law used stand for the Lords will not change it Anno 30. E. 3. The Petition of the Commons touching Chaplains Wages had two answers The Archbishops and Bishops at the motion of the King and Grandees have ordained c. And therefore the King and the Grandees have ordained c. Those two Answers are recited almost ad verbum the Prelates first and then the Temporal Lords considered of the Answer Anno 47 E. 3. It was answered The King and the Lords have yet no will to change the Common Law Eodem Anno The Commons do require that every mans Petition be answered Anno 2. R. 2. apud Glocester le Roy del assent des Praelats Dukes Countz Barons de les Commons de son Royalme ad ordeigne c. The Commons having petitioned that all manner of Merchants might have free Traffick here And the like Answer was made to their Petition in Anno 3 R. 2 n. 37. 38. In 16. R. 2. Upon a Petition of Robert de Mull and his Wife touching the discharge of a Fine the King answered Soyent au Roy car ceo nest petition du Parlement In Anno 20. R. 2. Robert Mull petitioned the Commons stiling them by the title of honourable and Sage Commons in Parliament praying them to be discharged of a Fine to the King imposed upon him and supplicating them to make Relation thereof to the Parliament and alledging that his Bill or Petition had been put upon the file the last Parliament which doth prove that there was no standing Committees then appointed by the Commons in Parliament 2 H. 4. The King by Advice of the Lords in Parliament hath committed this Petition to his Councel Eodem Anno upon a Petition of the Commons for removing of Stanks and Milks generally it was answered It seemeth to the King and to the Lords that this Petition sounds in disherison of the King and of the Lords and others wherefore let the Statutes before made be held and kept Eodem Anno It is assented and accorded by the King and Lords c. Anno 2. H. 5. The King by the assent of all the Lords granteth c. Touching the Petition for taking of Tithe of great Wood contrary to the Statute of 4 E. 3. whereupon the Judges were of sundry opinions It was answered because the matter of the Petitioners demands required great and mature deliberation the King therefore would that it be adjourned and remitted to the next Parliament and that the Clerk of the Parliament cause this Article to be brought before the King and the Lords at the beginning of the next Parliament for declaration thereof to be made In the 2d year of the Raign of King Henry the sixth the King by the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons granted the contents of their Petition in all points Divers other Answers given do prove Debates to have been in Parliament upon Petitions betwixt the Lords and the Kings Councel And saith Mr. Noy that grand and very Attorney General to King Charle 〈…〉 the Martyr who unhappily died before his Royal 〈◊〉 had so much need as he had afterwards of his great abilities or who ever was the careful Examiner of many of the Parliament Rolls and Compiler of that Manuscript which is honoured with his name there can be no question made of those or the
King that now is touching Pourveyors and the other Statute made in his time and the time of his Progenitors be firmly kept and maintained in all points and be duly Executed according to the Law and that Writs be granted to every one who will sue upon every point contained in what Statute soever And if any Justice or Minister be dilatory to any Statute thereof made that so much as he hath done to the contrary be held for nothing and erroneous To which was answered Il plest au Roy. And yet notwithstanding that Petition was thus absolutely granted and agreed upon the Statute made thereof cap. 1. is only that Magna Charta and all other Statutes shall be kept and duly Executed omitting all the test Anno 45. E. 3. n. 14. They Petition that King that it please him of his Grace and Majesty to command charge and ordain that the great Charter and the Charter of the Forest be kept and held in all points and that the Franchises Customs and Liberties heretofore used be held and kept in form as they were granted or used To which was anwsered Re Roy le voet And yet in the Statute thereon cap 1. is no more than thus It is ordained that the great Charter and the Charter of the Forest be held and kept in all points and omitteth all the rest Anno 2. R. 2. n. 27. cap. 1. The Statute is penned much larger for the Liberties of the Church than is in the Petition or Answer and the salvo for the Kings Regality is wholly omitted Anno 3. R. 2. n. 26. cap. 1. They agree for the Liberties of the Church but Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta are wholly omitted in the Statute Anno 3. R. 2. n. 37. cap. 3. Touching Provisions the special abuses of the Pope are omitted Anno 13. R. 2. n. 40. cap. 3. In the Oath which the Justices are to take the words duly and without favour are omitted Anno 25. E. 1. cap. 5. 7. Touching Aids Taxes and Prises granted to the King but not to be taken for a Custom And a release for Tole taken by the King for Wooll and a grant that he will not take the like without common consent and good will were agreed by the Lords and Commons in that Parliament sealed with the Kings Seal and the Seals of the Archbishop and Bishops who with the Kings Councel were voluntarily sworn to the performance thereof Anno 28. E. 1. cap. 2. The saving was added by the King and his Councel at the drawing up of the Statute as appears by the words therein viz. The King and his Councel do not intend by reason of the Statute Item cap. 20. At the conclusion was added a saving for the King 5. R. 2. cap. 5. For Preachers without the Commons Assent repealed 1 E. 6. 12. 1 Eliz. 1. The Assent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament one or both expressed included or implied in that of King E. 3. or H. 4's grant of the Dutchy of Cornwal and annexing Lands thereunto do as in the many antient grants of the Saxon Kings signify no more than an approbation and confers neither jus in re or potestatem dandi vel concedendi And so in the case of the entailed and restored Lands and the Honour and Earldom of Oxford granted by King R. 2. to Awbrey de Vere in the 16th year of his Raign n. 151. And the like may be believed where some things have been done or Grants or Charters said and entred in the Parliament Rolls to be Authoritate Parliamenti which as the Judicious Mr. Noy hath observed do not without other circumstances prove a common Assent of Parliament for that some of the Answers to divers Petitions of the Commons in Parliament temporibus R. 2. H. 4. were put upon the Files only and not entred in the Parliament Rolls And the same words are in divers Acts of Parliament mentioned to be inrolled in the Parliament Rolls of 4 7 of H. 4. Anno 4. H. 4. The Commons pray that the most sufficient Welshmen of every Lordship be chosen to keep the Peace and to answer for all Felonies c. as they were wont to do unto the Conqueror of Wales in the time of King Edward To which the King answered let this Petition be committed to the Councel to be thereof advised and the same Councel have power to provide Remedy therein according to their discretion by Authority of Parliament In the 7th year of the Raign of the said King the Commons prayed the King that certain Petitions exhited by Bartholomew Verdon and his companions might graciously be exploited per authoritatem Parliamenti whereupon the King by the Advice and Assent of the Lords in Parliamenr and at the request of the Commons granted the said Petition as by the Endorsement thereof filed amongst the special Petitions may appear But afterwards Anno 8. H. 5. n. 12. The Commons perceiving those words Authoritate Parliamenti often used by the Lords alone in their Answers to Petitions exhibited to the Receivers appointed by the King whereby the parties complained of were oftentimes constrained to answer Causes determinable at the Common Law before the Kings Councel or in the Chancery exhibited the Petition ensuing viz. Praying the Commons in this present Parliament that if any man sue a Bill or Petition with these words authoritate Parliamenti and the Answer be made let this Bill or Petition be committed to the Councel of the King or to the Councellors of the King to execute and determine the contents thereof whereas the said Bill or Petition is not by the Commons of the Land required to be affirmed or assented unto that no man to such a Bill or Petition unless the Assent or Request of the Commons be endorsed be bound to answer contrary to the Laws of the Realm Unto which was answered soit aviser per le Roy. At the foot of many Charters and Writs have been indorsed per ipsum Regem totum concilium in Parliamento and sometimes per ipsum concilium suum in Parliamento and at other times per petitionem in Parliamento Anno 6. H. 6. 1. Part pat n. 1. Pro Abbate conventu de Welhow de avisamento Dominorum ad supplicationem Communitatis Et Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium per petitionem in Parliamento pro 10 l. solut in Hanaperio Anno 4. H. 4. n. 116. The Commons pray that whereas one Thomas Taynleur Approver had appealed divers honest men very falsly for which he was drawn and hanged it would please the King to grant out Writs of the Chancery unto the Justices to cease all process against the party so falsly appealed which was granted assensu Praelatorum Procerumque c. And the form of the Writ there set down and underneath was written per petitionem in Parliamento In publick Ordinances the words of ceremony are seldom expressed only the matter agreed upon is
proper for Members of the House of Commons in Parliament may be extended to all that they shall fancy or think to be necessary or suitable to their incroaching humours or designs and may be very great loosers by the bargain if by such a Gross mistake they make all that is or shall be their own proper Estates allowed or given unto them by the bounty and munificence of our Kings and Princes and their Feudal Laws to be Priviledges of Parliament when their Properties and Liberties are not Priviledges of Parliament and all kind of Priviledges are and ought to be subject unto these two grand Rules of Law and may and ought to be forfeitable by a non user or misuer no Praescripton or length of time in such cases being to be made use of against the King and some Corporations as the Burrough of Colchester procured an Exemption from sending Members to the House of Commons in Parliament in regard of their charge of Building or Repairing their Town-walls and New-Castle upon Tyne did the like propter inopiam and charge and trouble to defend themselves against the Scots and Priviledges of Parliament are not nor can with any propriety of Speech Truth Reason or Understanding be called Liberties Properties or Franchises which they that make such a noise with them would be sorry to have so brittle short or uncertain Title in or unto their own Rights in their own Estates Lands or Livelihoods and had better be at the charge to go to School again or fee a Lawyer to instruct or make them understand the difference betwixt Priviledges of Parliament and Priviledges that do no way appertain unto the aforesaid Parliament Priviledges and betwixt Privilegium and Proprium and cannot sure be so vain or foolish as to think that they were Elected by the Peoples Authority and their own and not by the Kings or that after the King hath allowed them a Speaker for otherwise he must be at the trouble to forsake his own proper place Chair of Estate or Throne in the House of Peers and sit in the House of Commons with them and hear their Debates Discourses and Speeches pro aut contra which might have abridged them of their Priviledge of Freedom of Speech granted at his allowance of their Speaker or that by the immediate causing to be carried before that their allowed Speaker in the presence of these many Members of the House of Commons that came to attend him to the King one of his Royal Masses or Maces Crowned usually born before our King as Ensigns of Majesty to attend him during the time of his Speakership at home or abroad in the House of Commons in Parliament or without whether it continue for a short or long time as many of our Parliaments have done with an allowance of five pounds per diem for his House-keeping and Table-provision whereof many of their Members do not seldom partake the Lord Steward of the Kings Houshold having likewise a large Allowance of Expences by the King for his Table to entertain such of the Nobility and others as during the time of Parliament will come to eat with him besides many large Fees in the making of Orders and passing of Bills or Acts of Parliament for Laws Naturalizations c. which could not be legally taken without the Kings Tacit permission the late illegal and unparliamentary way never used in any Kingdom Senate or Republick or in this Kingdom to suffer their Speaker or his Clerks to make a great weekly gain by the Printing and Publishing to be sold at every Sationers or Booksellers Shops and cryed up and down the Streets in London and Westminster by Men Women Girls and Boys all that is or hath been done in the Commons House of Parliament to the no small profit of their Speaker excepted or that when any person not of that House who have not by any supposed Priviledge any Serjeant Lictor Catchpole or Messenger fastes or secures to attend them or any particular Prison allotted unto them who by their Commissions Elections or Trusts reposed in them by their King and Countries may search and never find any power or Authority lodged in them who never were or are any Court of Judicature to Seise Arrest or Imprison any of their Fellow Subjects but since that late Incroachment which hath no older a Date than about the latter end of the Raign of our King James the First who upon his observation of some of their Irregularities jestingly said that the House of Commons in Parliament were an House of Kings it never being intended by those that Elected them or our Kings and Princes that admitted them that they should have or exercise any power to Seise or Imprison or any place or Prison allowed by our Kings as their particular Prison and though it appears that they had in the latter end of the Raign of King Henry 6. a Clerk yet it was by the grants of our Kings by themselves have by the Kings permission appointed Door-keepers but upon any occasion or cause of Imprisonment or punishing any offenders could find no other means Praesident or way unto it than to make use of the Kings Serjeant at Arms attending their Speaker who arresteth and either carrieth them to Prison to the Tower of London which is no Prison appropriate to matters of Parliament either to the House of Peers who are to consult and advise their Soveraign or the House of Commons to Assent and obey the Tower of London being only the Kings Prison for special offenders and more than ordinary safe Custody the Marshallsea for the Courts of Kings-Bench and Marshallsea the Fleet for the most of the Courts in Westminster-Hall that was anciently the Kings House or Palace every County or City in England and Wales and the Court of Admiralty having their particular Prisons appertaining to their Coercive Power subordinate to their King every Prison being alwaies stiled and said to be prisona nostra or prisona domini Regis the Prison for or of the King whereby to restrain offenders of their Liberties and keep them in the Custody of the Law until they can be tryed and give Satisfaction to the Law so as if there were no other cogent arguments or evidences amongst multitudes of those that in our Annals and Records and the whole frame and constitution of our Kingly government to support and justify the Soveraignty thereof that only one of our Kings allowing their Speaker the attendance of one of their Serjeant at Arms with his Mass or Mace as an Ensign of Royal Majesty with a pension for his support and House keeping and an allowance of large Fees as aforesaid might be sufficient to proclaim a most certain Soveraignty and Supremacy in our Kings and Princes and none at all in the House of Commons who may do well to take more heed in their ways and incroaching upon Regal Authority which in the Raigns of King Edward the third and King Richard the 2d
expresly prohibited cannot be supposed to be the concern or interest of all the People deserving or requiring satisfaction or especially provided for by Law to have satisfaction unless it could by any probability or soundness of Judgment be concluded that all the People of England besides Wives Children or near Kindred and Relations the necessity of publick Justice and deterring Examples are or should be concerned in such a never to be fancied Appeal of the People And it will be very hard to prove that one or a few are all the People of England or if they could be so imagined are to be more concerned than the King who is sworn to do Justice unless they would claim and prove a Soveraignty and to be sworn to do Justice which though they had once by a villanous Rebellion attacked until Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin cheated them of it for God would never allow them any such power or priviledge or any Title to the Jesuits Doctrine which some of our Protestant Dissenters their modern Proselites have learned of them that the King although he be singulis major is minor universis And it is no denial of Justice in the House of Peers to deny the receiving of an Impeachment from the House of Commons when they cannot understand any just cause or reason to receive it and the Records Rolls Petitions and Orders of Parliament will inform those that will be at the pains to be rightly and truly directed by them that Petitions in Parliament have been adjourned modified or denied and that in the Common or Inferior Courts of Justice Writs and Process may sometimes be denied superseded or altered according to the Rules of Justice or the circumstances thereof And our Records can witness that Plaintiffs have petitioned Courts of Justice recedere a brevi impetrare aliud And it cannot be said that the King doth denegare Justitiam when he would bind them unto their ancient legal well experimented forms of seeking it in the pursuing their Rights and Remedies hinders them in nothing but seeking to hurt others and destroy themselves For Justice no otherwise denied should not be termed Arbitrary until there can be some solid reason proof or evidence for it When it is rather to be believed that if the Factious Vulgar Rabble might have their Wills they would never be content or leave their fooling until they may obtain an unbounded liberty of tumbling and tossing the Government into as many several Forms and Methods as there be days in the year and no smaller variety of Religions And by the Feudal Laws which are the only Fundamental Laws of our Government and English Monarchy those many parts of the Tenants that held of their Mesne Lords in Capite could not with any safety to their Oaths and Estates Authorise any of their Elected Members of the House of Commons in Parliament to accuse or charge any of the Baronage of England in the House of Peers in Parliament although every Tenant in his Oath of Vassalage to his Mesne Lord doth except his Allegiance to the King and would be guilty of Misprision of Treason if he should conceal it by the space of twenty and four hours and if any of the Elected would or should avoid such Misprision of Treason in the not performance of his Duty and Oath of Allegiance it would require a particular Commission to his own Elected Members and is not to have it done by way of a general Representation when there is not to be discerned in the Kings Writ or in the Sureties or Manucaptors matters or things to be performed or in the Indentures betwixt the Sheriff and the Electors and Elected any word of Representation or any thing more than ad faciendum consentiendum iis to assent and obey do and perform such things as the King by the Advice of the Lords in Parliament shall ordain and if they would make themselves to be such Representers were to have a particular and express Commission to charge or impeach any one of themselves or of the House of Peers with Treason or any other high Misdemeanours And they must be little conversant with our Records that have not understood that the Commons have many times received just denials to their Petitions and that some have not seldom wanted the foundations of Reason or Justice That many of their Petitions have adopted the Concerns and Interests of others that were either Strangers unto them or were the Designs of some of the grand Nobility who thought them as necessary to their purposes as Wind Tide and Sails are to the speeding of a Ship into the Port or Landing-places of their Designs For upon their exhibiting in a Parliament in the 28 year of the Raign of King Henry the Sixth abundance of Articles of High Treason and Misdemeanours against William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk one whereof was that he had sold the Realm of England to the French King who was preparing to invade it When they did require the King and House of Lords that the Duke whom not long before they had recommended to the King to be rewarded for special services might be committed Prisoner to the Tower of London the Lords and Justices upon consultation thought it not reasonable unless some special Matter was objected against him Whereupon the said Duke not putting himself upon his Peerage but with protestation of his innocency only submitting himself to the Kings mercy who acquitting him from the Treason and many of the Misdemeanours and for some of them by the advice of the Lords only banished him for five years And that thereupon when the Viscount Beaumont in the behalf of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal required that it might be Inrolled that the Judgment was by the Kings own Rule not by their Assent and that neither they nor their Heirs should by this Example be barred of their Peerage No Protestation appears to have been made by any of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for or on the behalf of the Commons Or by the Commons for themselves So as a different manner of doing Justice can neither truly or rationally be said to be an absolute denial of Justice and was never believed to be so by the Predecessors of the House of Commons in Parliament in our former Kings Raigns when some hundreds of their Petitions in Parliament have been answered There is a Law already provided or let the old Law stand or the King will provide a covenable or fitting remedy And is not likely if it were as it is not to be any Arbitrary Power or any temptation or inducement thereunto to produce any Rule or incouragement to the exercise of an Arbitrary Power in the Inferiour Courts when there is none so weak in his Intellect but may understand that different Courts have several Boundaries Methods and Forms of Proceedings and that the Kings extraordinary great Court and Councel in His House of Peers although very just and
unarbitrary in their procedures is so always ready to succour the Complaints of People as it never willingly makes it self to be the cause of it And cannot misrepresent the House of Peers to the King and his People in the Case of Mr. Fitz Harris or any others when that honourable Assembly takes so much care as it doth to repress Arbitrary Power and doth all it can to protect the whole Nation from it and many of the House of Commons Impeachments have been disallowed by the King and his House of Peers in Parliament without any ground or cause of fear of Arbitrary Power which can no where be so mischievously placed as in the giddy multitude whose Impeachments would be worse than the Ostracisme at Athens and so often overturn and tire all the wise men and good men in the Nation as there would be none but such as deserve not to be so stiled to manage the Affairs of the Government subordinate to their King and Soveraign To all which may be added if the former Presidents cited to assert the Kings Power of Pardoning as well after an Impeachment made by the Commons in Parliament as before and after an Impeachment made by the Commons and received by the Lords in Parliament or made both by the Lords and Commons in Parliament be not not sufficient that of Hugh le Despenser Son of Hugh le Despenser the younger a Lord of a great Estate which is thus entred in the Parliament Roll of the fifth year of the Raign of King Edward the Third ought surely to satisfie that the Laws and reasonable Customs of England will warrant it Anno 5 E. 3. Sir Eubule le Strange and eleven other Mainprisers being to bring forth the Body of Hugh the Son of Hugh le Despenser the younger saith the Record A respondre au prochein Parlement de ester au droit affaire ce de liu en conseil soit ordine mesuerent le Corps le dit Hugh devant nostre Seigneur le Roi Countes Barons autres Grantz en mesme le Parlement monstrent les L'res Patents du Roi de Pardon al dit Hugh forisfacturam vite membrorum sectam pacis homicidia roborias Felonias omnes transgressiones c. Dated 20 Martii anno primo Regni sui Et priant a n're Seigneur le Roi quil le vousist delivrer de las Mainprise faire audit Hugh sa grace n're Seigneur le Roi eiant regard a ses dites L'res voilant uttroier a la Priere le dit Mons'r Eble autres Main pernors avant dit auxint de les Prelatz qui prierent molt especialment pur lui si ad comande de sa grace sa delivrance Et voet que ses Menpernors avant ditz chescun d'eux soient dischargez de leur Mainprise auxint le dit Hugh soit quit delivrers de Prisone de garde yssint si ho'me trove cause devors lui autre nest uncore trove quil estoise au droit And the English Translator or Abridger of the Parliament Records hath observed that the old usage was that when any Person being in the Kings displeasure was thereof acquitted by Tryal or Pardon yet notwithstanding he was to put in twelve of his Peers to be his Sureties for his good Behaviour at the Kings pleasure And may be accompanied by the Case of Richard Earl of Arundel in the 22 year of the Raign of King Richard the Second being Appealed by the Lords Appellant and they requiring the King that such Persons Appealed that were under Arrest might come to their Tryal it was commanded to Ralph Lord Nevil Constable of the Tower of London to bring forth the said Richard Earl of Arundel then in his custody whom the said Constable brought into the Parliament at which time the Lords Appellants came also in their proper Persons To the which Earl the Duke of Lancaster who was then hatching the Treason which afterwards in Storms of State and Blood came to effect against the King by the Kings Coommandment and Assent of the Lords declared the whole circumstances after the reading and declaring whereof the Earl of Arundel who in Anno 11 of that Kings Raign had been one of the Appellants together with Henry Earl of Derby Son of the said Duke of Lancaster and afterwards the usurping King Henry the Fourth against Robert de Vere Duke of Ireland and Earl of Oxford and some other Ministers of State under King Richard the Second alledged that he had one Pardon granted in the Eleventh year of the Raign of King Richard the Second and another Pardon granted but six years before that present time And prays that they might be allowed To which the Duke answered that for as much as they were unlawfully made the present Parliament had revoked them And the said Earl therefore was willed to say further for himself at his peril whereupon Sir Walter Clopton Chief Justice by the Kings Commandment declared to the said Earl that if he said no other thing the Law would adjudge him guilty of all the Actions against him The which Earl notwithstanding would say no other thing but required allowance of his Pardons And thereupon the Lords Appellant in their proper Persons desired that Judgment might be given against the said Earl as Convict of the Treason aforesaid Whereupon the Duke of Lancaster by the Assent of the King Bishops and Lords adjudged the said Earl to be Convict of all the Articles aforesaid and thereby a Traytor to the King and Realm and that he should be hanged drawn and quartered and forfeit all his Lands in Fee or Fee-tail as he had the nineteenth day of September in the tenth year of the Kings Raign together with all his Goods and Chattels But for that the said Earl was come of noble Blood and House the King pardoned the hanging drawing and quartering and granted that he should be beheaded which was done accordingly But Anno 1 Hen. 4. the Commons do pray the reversal of that Judgment given against him and restoration of Thomas the Son and Heir of the said Richard Earl of Arundel Unto which the King answered he hath shewed favour to Thomas now Earl and to others as doth appear The Commons do notwithstanding pray that the Records touching the Inheritance of the said Richard Earl of Arundel late imbezelled may be searched for and restored Unto which was answered the King willeth And their noble Predecessors in that Honourable House of Peers the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament long before that videlicet in the fifth year of the Raign of King Edward the Third made no scruple or moat point or question in Law whether the power of pardoning was valid and solely in the King after an Impeachment of the Lords in Parliament when in the Case of Edmond Mortimer the Son of Roger Mortimer Earl of March a Peer of great Nobility and Estate the
acquiruntur In concessione Privilegiorum observari debet ne contra Jus divinum possumus morale ejusque abolitionem quicquam indulgeat vel largiatur which would so have been if the parties supposed to have been Priviledged should extend them against their King and Gods Vicegerent And it neither was or could be by any Rule of Law or Right Reason any Priviledge granted unto any Members of the House of Commons in Parliament by any of our Kings to their Speaker or otherwise that any of our Kings and Princes should not upon any occasion of High Treason Felony or breach of the Peace personally enter into the House of Commons and cause to be Arrested any of the Members thereof when Queen Elizabeth caused Dr. Parry one of their Members to be Arrested sitting the Parliament for High Treason and tryed condemned and executed for it by Sentence of her Justices in the Court of Kings Bench at Westminster §. 29. Neither could they claim or ever were invested by any Charter or grant of any of our Kings or Princes or otherwise of any such Priviledge or Liberty nor was or is in England any Law or Usage or Custom that a Parliament sitting cannot be prorogued or dissolved as long as any Petition therein exhibiteth remained unanswered or not determined IT being never likely to have been so in a well-constituted government of a Kingdom built constituted upon sound solid principles of Truth Right Reason as ours of England is to have either often or always Ardua to be considered of or of those Arduorum quaedam most especially concerning the defence of the Kingdom and Church of Eng. which were not only to make an Act for the killing of Crows of Paving of Streets or that ex se or per se naturally or properly it could be or ever was in any Regal government in the Earth any Law or Custom to perpetuate or everlastingly to hold a Parliament a thing altogether unknown and unpractised by our English Monarchs who thought it enough at three great Festivals in every year to be attended with their Praelates Nobility and Grandees viz. at Christmas Easter and Pentecost and inquire into the State of affairs of the Kingdom which many times did occasion as much of Advice and Conference amounted as to a Parliament some addresses upon home emergencies being then made for Remedies of evils happened or as fires been to be prevented private petitions seldom interposing if in the inferiour Courts of Justice they might otherwise have Redress for that had been expresly forbidden by a Law of King Canutus and those Sumptuous Feasts and Solemnities being of no longer duration than the Festivals themselves And in so many inferior Courts that gave Remedies the people had no need to trouble themselves or their Kings in Parliament with Petitions especially when in the 9th year of the Raign of King H. 3. A peculiar Court was granted by our Magna Charta and Erected to give Remedies to all the peoples Actions Complaints not Criminal with a lesser charge and attendance in an ordinary and more expedite course and when they came with Petitions proper as they thought for Parliaments they were to be tryed by Bishops and Barons thereunto by the King appointed who by the advice of the Chancellor Treasurer Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law were if they thought fit to receive them or otherwise to reject them with a non est Petitio Parliamenti and they that were received were many times referred by the King to his Privy Councel and sometimes with an Adeat Cancellariam and at other times with a farther Examination to the Justices of the Courts from whence the complaints did arise or with a respectuatur per dominum principem or referred to the Judges as against the multitude of Attorneys as in the Raign of King Henry 4. And Petitions were not seldom answered with there is a Law already or the King will not depart from his Right And when the Acts of Parliament were made in the 4th and 36th years of the Raign of King Edward 3. wherein he granted that Parliaments should be holden once in every year if need be the Petitions of the people could not avoid the like Limitations or Tryals of them as the Laws required Certain Petitions having been exhibited by the Clergy to the King it was agreed by the King Earls Barons Justices and other wise men of the Realm that the Petitions aforesaid be put in sufficient form of Law A time was appointed to all that would exhibit any Petitions The first part of a Petition the King granted and to the rest he will be advised The Commons did pray that the best of every Countrey may be Justices of Peace and that they may determine all Felonies to which was answered for the 2d the King will appoint Learned Justices they pray that the 40 s. Subsidy may cease Unto which was Answered the King must first be moved They pray that the King may take the Profits of all other Strangers Livings as Cardinals and others during their Lives Unto which was answered the King taketh the profits and the Councel the Kings privy Councel hath sent their Petitions to the King who was then busied in his Wars in France The Commons did pray that all Petitions which be for the Common profit may be delivered in Parliament before the Commons so as they may know the Indorsement and have Remedy according to the ordinance of Parliament unto which was given no Answer The Commons having long continued together to their great Costs and mischief desire Answer to their Bill which in the Parliament Language signified no more than a Petition leur deliverance The Commons petitioned against the falshood of such as were appointed Collectors for 2000 Sacks of Wooll To which was answered This was answered in the last Parliament and therefore Commandment was given to execute the same And the like Answer given ut prius to their Petition touching Robbers and Felons They pray that all Petitions in this present Parliament may be presently answered To which 〈◊〉 answered by the King after Easter they shall be answered The Parliament in Anno 6. E. 3. began upon Monday but forasmuch as many of the Peers and Memb 〈…〉 were not come the assembly required the continuance of the Parliament until the 5th of Hillary next following which was granted The Commons praying the King to grant a pardon for the debts of King John and King Henry the third for which process came dayly out of the Exchequer The King answered he will provide Answer the next Parliament No Parliament being after summoned until Anno 13. of his Raign when the Lords granting to the King the 10th Sheaf of all the Corn of their demesns except of their bound Tenants the 10th fleece of Wooll and the 10th Lamb of their own store to be paid in two years and would that the
and for difficulty saith Mathew Paris Prorogued to St. Barnabas day and thence Adjourned to Oxford And thence in the same year adjourned to London in Anno 48 two Parliaments were called at London 51. a Parliament at London Anno 53. another at Marlburgh but in truth in Anno 47. as appeareth by the Parliament Roll. There was a Parliament at Westminster in the third year of the Raign of King Edward 1. another Anno 4. one at Gloucester Anno 6. another at Westminster Anno 7. one Anno 10. 13. another at Acton Burnel and one afterwards in the same year at Westminster another in that year at Winchester another afterward in the same year at Westminster Anno 18. two Parliaments were holden at Westminster the Statute of Quia Emptores terrarum Quo Warranto fines seeming to be made at several Parliaments or Sessions Statutes of Vouchers Wast and de defensione Juris made in Anno 20. E. 1. probably made in like manner Anno 21. De his qui ponendi sunt in Assisis and another ut supra de malefactoribus in Parcis the Statute of Consultation Anno 24. A Parliament in Anno 25 at London another at Bury another at Salisbury 26. At York held at another time a Parliament â—nno 27. a Parliament at Westminster and another Anno 28. for Persons appealed and a Parliament wherein were made the Articuli super Chartas Anno 30. The Statute of Quo Warranto 31. a Parliament Statutes of Conspiracy and Maintenance in Anno 33. And in the 34th year of his Raign before the Writ of Summons could be executed sent another Writ to Adjourn the Parliament and by his Writs Prorogued or Adjourned some if not many of those other Parliaments In the 5th year of the Raign of King Edward the 2d a Parliament being Summoned to be holden at Westminster it was Prorogued before they could meet and Writs were sent to signifie that they need not come In the 18th year of his Raign having Summoned the Earl Marshal to be at a Parliament to be holden at Winchester secunda dominica quadragessima prox futur and being informed by some of the Nobility that by reason of the shortness of time they could not sufficiently provide themselves Prorogued the Parliament to Octabis Paschae prox futur In the Printed Statute made at Lincoln in 9 E. 2. Mr. Pulton hath by his Modern Ph 〈…〉 mentioned that Statute to have been made by the Assent of t 〈…〉 〈◊〉 Earls Barons and other great Estates but the origiâ—â—l Record is only Prelats Countz Ba 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And in 5 E. 3. it was mistakenly 〈◊〉 by the Abridger that all the Estates in full 〈◊〉 the King being not with his Power of Pardoning 〈◊〉 other his Rights of Soveraignty comprehended 〈◊〉 that notion did agree that none of them should retain sustain or own any Felon or other Common Breaker of the Law And the whole Estate whereof the King was not likely to be one moved the King to be Gracious to Edmond Son of the late Earl of March who asked what they would have done sith King Edward the 2d was murdered by the procurement of the said Earl they Answered for certain Lands Entailed the Kings Answer was that the same should be done at his pleasure In Anno 6 E. 3. The Parliament Adjourned which was done by no other than the King because most of the Estates were not come The Archbishop of York and his Suffragans and Clergy came but the Archbishop of Canterbury and his did not by reason of the contention betwixt them for Superiority of bearing up their Crosses whereby the same was not only a loss of an opportunity for Scotland but also an insupportable charge to the whole Estate saith the Erroneous Abridger of the Parliament Records by a new Re-assembly which could not be intended of the King who then was there resident at his Palace of Westminster to which they were Summoned For the efficient Formal and Final cause of our Parliaments or great Councels being vested in our Soveraign Kings and Princes and in no other solely and incommunicably none of their Subjects did or could ever rightly understand or believe that any of those great Councels or Parliaments summoned upon great and weighty emergencies of State accidents or dangers which were to be suddenly heeded by preventing or avoiding imminent or Impendent evils by their wary and deliberate consults put into a speedy Execution could ever receive a certain and continual fixation or be obliged thereunto for that besides the fertility and growth of Hydras innumerable mischiefs and Inconveniences not long ago wofully experimented it would altogether contradict and be against the nature reason and being of our Kings and Princes summoning or calling of Parliaments according to the ancient and Laudable constitutions of our Nation It being as unusual as improper to Summon or call Parliaments pro quibusdam arduis when Hannibal is not every day ad portas but sometimes ruining himself and his Army at Capua when our Kings have their continuum Concilium private Councel and cares in a perpetual watch for the preservation of them and their people when the Ardua are but the well foreseen Accidents and Dangers likely to happen and fit to be prevented and it is not pro omnibus arduis but quibusdam and the Civil Law can inform us That Accidens appellatur quod adesse aut abesse potest preter Subjecti corruptionem de donat ante nupt Accidens is defined to be 1. Quod Accidit 2. Quod inheret Subjecto oppositum substantiae 3. Quod est extra essentiam rei ut neque intra attributa essentialia neque desinitione Essentiali exprimitur For a Fleet of well Rigged and furnished Ships doth not call a Councel or cause all the Commanders Captains and Pilots to come on board the Admiral for every little storm or quarrel of the Winds and Seas Nor our Generals of an Army at Land call a Councel of War for every small alarm or beating in of the Scouts And our Kings without Assent or Act of Parliament have appointed Terms or times for the orderly dispatch of Law affairs in the distribution of their Justice in their many other Courts of Justice And our inferior Courts Baron and Leet and Hundreds have been contented with lesser Periods And a standing perpetual Parliament either in Actu or potentia was never yet known or used in England when its Constitution Writs of Summons and Usage doth at all times and should declare the contrary And as extraordinary Accidents dangers and emergences in a Kingdom and Government and their greatest concernments are in no wife to be slighted delayed or neglected but suddenly endeavoured to be prevented escaped avoided or lessened though it be to no small charge attendance and trouble put upon the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Members summoned and caused to convene and come from several parts remote or further distant as in their
next following And the Commons upon the Kings demand of an Aid alledge that they cannot agree thereunto without further conference with their Countries pray a respite of time until they return from thence For that sundry of the Lords and Commons were not come the Parliament was Adjourned for some few days In regard the Commons had so long continued at their great costs and expences they desire Answer of their Bills and a deliverance Lionel Duke of Clarence the Kings Son held the Parliament The Parliament for certain causes was Adjourned until Monday next after the Feast of St. Edmond the Martyr After the Petitions of the Commons not before Answered were read and answered before the King Lords and Commons the King Licensed the Commons to depart and the Parliament ended And although in a Parliament holden in Anno 4. E. 3. ca. 14. It is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every year and more often if need be yet in Anno 5. there being one there ensued none after until 9. in 10. there was one from thence until 14. none in 15. another after which none until 18. after which none until 20. thence none until 23. none after until 25. thence none until 27. and in that of 25. were 6. several Sessions wherein several Acts of Parliament were made in Annis 28. 29. Parliaments were holden but none afterwards until 31. thence none until 33. thence every year until 36. In which an Act was made that for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes in the said 36 years ordained and redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which may happen a Parliament shall be holden every year as another time was ordained by a Statute in 4 E. 3. cap. 14. in 37. 38. Parliaments were holden from thence none until 45. another in 47. another in 50. In Annis 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. none in 8 9 10 11. and in every year after during his Raign a Parliament 1 2. Parliament in one year in 2. a Parliament in 3. one in 4 5 6. one in 7. none in 8. one in 9. one in 10. none in 11. one in 12. none and in 13. one 1 2 3 4 5. Parliaments none in 6. but in 7 8. 9. were Parliaments 1 2 3 4. were Parliaments but none in 5. 7. in 10 11. Parliaments in 12. 13. none in 14 15. were Parliaments in 16 17. none in 18. one in 19. none in 21. 22. none in 23. a Parliament in 24. none a Parliament in 25 in 26. none in 27 28 29. were Parliaments in 30. none in 31. one in 32 none in 33 one 1. one in 2. none in 3. 4. were Parliaments in 5. 6. none in 7. 8. Parliaments in 9 10. 11. none in 12. one in 13. none in 14. one in 15 16. none in 17. one but in 18 19 20 21 none in 22. one But 1 Parliament though he lived a few years after In some part of whose Raign many of the Acts of Parliament being not to be found the first that appears amongst the Printed Acts of Parliament was in the 3. year of his Raign 2 Parliaments were held in that year and a 3. in the 4th year of his Raign none in the 5. 6. but one in the 7th and no more until the 11th one in the 12th and no more until 19. 1. And thence none until the 3. and after every year a Parliament until the 8th year of his Raign In which the like misfortune happened unto the Parliament Rolls for many years as it did in the Raign of his Father King Henry the 7th in 14 15. there appeareth to have been an Act of Parliament and from thence no more until the 21. and thence a Parliament in every year until 30. and in that year none but in 31. and thence every year a Parliament until 36. wherein was no Parliament but in 37. one 1 2 3 4 5 6 7. A Parliament in every year 1. Mar. 2. Sessions 1. 2. Philippi Mar. 3 4. 5. A Parliament was in the first year of her Raign and from thence none until 6. and thence none until 8. from whence none until 13. thence to 15. and afterwards none until 18. and from thence none until 23. thence none until 27. none in 28. and but one in 29. none in 30. one in 31. thence none until 35. thence none until 39. thence none until 43. 1. one in 2. none Parliaments in 3 4. none in 5. 6. from 7. none until 18. thence none until 21. In Primo Caroli Regis 1. in 2. none in 3. 4. another No complaints being in those Internals of Parliament made for want thereof and that blessed Martyr having granted to the great inconveniences of his Regality and necessaries of his Monarchicque more than was fit for his Subjects to ask which was dearly after paid for after by many a suffering Loyal Family in the late long Rebellion did in the granting of the Act of Parliament the 16th day of November 1640. for a Triennial Parliament to be holden in every 3d. year declare unto them in these words viz. My Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons you may remember when both Houses were with me at the Banqueting House at Whitehall I did declare unto you two Rocks I wished you to eschew this is the one of them and of that consequence that I think never Bill passed here in this House of more favour to the Subjects than this is and if the other Rock be as happily passed over as this shall be at this time I do not know what you can ask for ought I can see at this time that I can make any question to yield unto therefore I mention this to shew unto you the sense that I have of this Bill and obligation as I may say that you have to me for it for hitherto to speak freely I have had no great incouragement to do it if I should look to the outward face of your actions or proceedings and not to the inward intentions of your hearts I might make question of doing it Hitherto you have gone on in that which concerns your selves to amend and yet those things that meerly concern the strength of this Kingdom neither for the State nor my own particular This I mention not to reproach you but to shew you the State of things as they are you have taken the Government almost in pieces and I may say it is almost off the hinges A Skilful Watch-maker to make clean his Watch he will take it asunder and when it is put together it will go the better so that he leave not forth then one pin in it Now as I have done all this on my part you know what to do on your parts and I hope you shall see clearly
Praemunire the Commons by the name of the Commons of England three times repeated not stiling themselves a third Estate petitioned the King that the Estates viz. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal herein acknowledging the Praelates to be of great use to the King might declare their resolutions to stand to and abide by the King and had never presumed so high as publickly to print and declare that the Soveraignty is inherent and radicated in the people if they had not plundered or sequestred the Devils Library of Hellish Inventions Tricks and new found devices or met with some manuscript of them at some Auction a Trick of trade newly found out by the Stationers And likewise prayed the King and him require by way of Justice that he would examine the Lords Spiritual and Temporal severally and all the Estates in Parliament to give their opinion in the cases aforesaid whereupon the said Archbishops Bishops and Praelates being severally examined made their Protestations that they could not deny or affirm that the Pope had power to excommunicate or translate Bishops or Praelates but if any such thing be done by any that it is against the Kings Crown and dignity And the Lords Temporal being severally examined answered that the matters aforesaid were clearly in derogation of the Kings Crown and Dignity And likewise the Procurators of the Lords Spiritual being severally examined answered in the name and for their Lords as the Bishops had done whereupon the King by the Assent aforesaid and at the request of the Commons did ordain and Enact the said Statute of Praemunire And might be assured that in Holland the united Provinces the chief of the confederate Estates with those that represent the Reistres Schaff or Nobility do usually sit at the Hague in Holland many times go home or send to the Towns and places they represent to receive their orders or approbation who sometimes send their Deputies unto the Estates at the Hague with their resolutions so as there is a wide and great difference betwixt those which our ambitious high-minded parcel of people that would be called Estates and those that are the true and real Estates of the principality of Ghelders and County of Zutphen Earldoms and Counties of Holland Zealand Utrecht and Friziss Omland and the Eu and Lovers who did so unite and confederate themselves together with all those that would allye and unite with them as they promised not to infringe or break any of each of their Priviledges or Immunities which our Members of the House of Commons in Parliament have largly done by ejecting turning out and imprisoning one another putting others in their places and making them receive their illegal Sentences and unjust Judgments upon their knees neither shall raise or make any Taxes or Imposts upon each other without general consent which ours would be so stiled Estates have as largely done as 48 Millions of English Money have amounted unto and in case any thing be done to the contrary it shall be null and void the Lords Lieutenants and Governors of the said several Provinces and Stadtholders thereof and all the subordinate Magistrates and Officers should from time to time take their Oaths to perform the same and the Governors of the Cities Towns Places in the said united Provinces do in especial cases send unto their Stadtholders their Assent or Ratifications before any thing be acted which our pretending third Estates did not do when they arraigned and murdered their King at the suit of the people when that blessed Martyr King Charles the first asserted that they were not a tenth part of the people and he might truly have said that there were not above one in every 200 of the deluded people of many Millions of his Subjects Cromwels Souldiers and Army and the murdering Judges only excepted and not all of them neither that desired his death or being so wickedly used And can never find any reason record or president to warrant the imprisoning securing or secluding as they have lately called it any of their own Members nor are to judge of the Legality or Illegality of the Election of their Members nor of any the pretended breach of their Priviledges of which the King and Lords were anciently the Judges as is evident by 16 R. 2. n. 6. 12 R. 2. n. 23. 1 H. 4. n. 79. 4 H. 4. n. 19 20. 5 H. 4. n. 71. 78. ca. 5. 8 H. 4. n. 13. Brook Parliament 11. 8 H. 6. n. 57. 23 H. 6. n. 41. 31 H. 6. n. 27 28. 36. 14 E. 4. n. 55. 17 E. 4. n. 36. cum multis aliis but were always Petitiouers to the King for Publick Laws and redress of grievances or in the case of private persons but very seldom petitioned unto and then but by sometimes the Upholsters and Merchant adventurers of London and though they had the free Election of their Speakers granted yet they were to present them to the King who allowed or refused them and sometimes caused them to chuse another never did or could of right administer an Oath to witnesses or others to be examined by the whole House of Commons as the Lords in their subordinate Judicative power usually did had no Vote nor Judicature in Writs of Errour brought in Parliament returnable only before and to be judged by the King and his House of Lords nor yet in criminal Causes upon impeachments wherein the Lords are only subordinate to their Soveraign to be Judges So as the improbability impossibility and unreasonableness of the super-governing power and pretended Supremacy of the House of Commons in Parliament will be as evident as the Absurdity and Frenzy thereof will appear to be by all our Records Annals Historians and Memorials which will not only contradict the follies of those that are so liberal to bestow it upon them but may give us a full and undeniable assurance that the representing part of part of the Commons of England in Parliament from their first Original in 49 H. 3. when their King was a Prisoner to a part of his Subjects they could then represent none but Rebels did not certainly believe themselves to be either one of the 3. Estates of the Kingdom or co-ordinate with their King when in the first year of the Raign of King Edward the second as Walsingham a Writter of good accompt then living and writing after the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. hath reported the people seeking by the help of the Bishops and Nobility to redress some grievances which did lye heavily upon them ad Regem sine strepitu accedentes rogant humiliter ut Baronum suorum Conciliis tractare negotia regni velet quibus a periculis sibi regno imminentibus non solum cautior sed Tutior esse possit And when they had any cause of complaint or any grievances cast or fallen upon them by their fellow Subjects or thrown or imposed one upon another did not
words following in a Parenthesis viz. but never intended to have any share in the government And they that heretofore did take it for an especial honour to wear many of the Peers and Nobilities Liveries and glad to be reteyners to them were so modest as to be unwilling to assume the Title of an Estate in Parliament when in Parliament conferences passing of Bills Messages or other occasions the House of Peers sate covered that third Estate if it could be so called stood and are to stand uncovered And Mr. Pryn one of their greatest Champions that did more than he should to magnify their Customs and Priviledges was at length constrained to acknowledge that in all the Parliaments of King Edward the third Richard the second Henry the fourth fifth and sixth Edward the fourth and Richard the third the Commons in Parliament never claimed nor exercised an such Titles or Jurisdictions as of late years have been usurped by them or given unto who never until they ran mad with Rebellion who never presumed or pretended to make Print or Publish any Act Ordinance or order whatsoever relating to the People or their own Members without the King and Lords Assent and Concurrence never attempted to impose any Tax Tallage Charge Excise or Duty upon the people without the King and Lords consent never adventured to appoint any Committee or subcommittee to hear and determine any particular business or complaint without the report thereof to the whole House of Commons without the privity or Assent of the House by way of transmission or impeachment to their superior Authority and Judicature of the House of Peers never attached fined imprisoned or censured any person by their own authority without the Lords as they have hundreds of late years done And that very famous Ancient and Great Republick of Venice Crowning their Doge with an Imaginary Crown for Venice and two other real and very Crowns the one for Cyprus and the other for Candy both Kingdoms revera in their actual possession yet as the lesser in the greater bound up and captivated under a strange diversity of Forms and Cantons hath not the Priviledge to read a Letter without the Privity or overlooking of the grand Consiglio or Venetian Nobility hath besides their many great Varieties and Fragments of Magistracy Offices and Parts of Governments cut into as many Parcels as they can to give every one as much Relish and hopes as their largely extended dominions can afford are not without at the first 150 since augmented into the number of 3000 of those which they stile Nobility and makes a principal part of the first quality or concern in their government as our Bishops and Lords Temporal the former being Barons as much as the latter for their lives although not as the latter in Fee or Fee-Tail and amongst the many particles or pieces of their mangled government can allow their Doge to be the Superior and more than Co-ordinate with all or any of the Avogardoit di Communite the Pregadi that are to guide their chief affairs of Estate and consist of 120 Noblemen some whereof have their rights of the Lottery or Balloting Box their greatest Councel consists of the Doge Consiglieri the Consiglio di dioci the third Consigliera de bassa the three Lords of the Raggioni Vecchio the three Lords of the Raggioni Nuevo the Cattaveri or the Inquisitors of truth the two Censori the three Provisori delli dieci Savii or special wisemen and that which should be the wonder the Colledge of the Savii are to have no Vote in the Pregadi and they of the Pregadi can take no resolution except there be in it four Consiglieri or at least 60 of the Nobility be of the Quorum or that they do ordinarily give order to their Embassadors in all parts of the World whither they have been sent to Register and give an accompt to their State or Senate or whatever they can be called of the the several forms of government in other Nations and Kingdoms and yet omitting the Feudal the best of all governments happily experimented in the most of their Neighbour Nations and Kingdoms so pertinatiously as they do and have such an hotch potch or Gallimaufry of mixtures as we say in England as if they were again to be dislocated or taken in pieces that great republick planted betwixt the two great Empires of the West and East would in all probability be on a sudden in as great misery distress and confusion or greater than it was when they fled from the Ravage and Fury of the Huns and Vandals into the Arms and Bosom of the Gulf of the Adriatique Sea and Mr. Selden hath informed us that in England in the Saxons time and long after the middle Thanes and the Valuasers were not honorary as the greater Thegnes or Barons were And it may be worthy our observation that although Mr. Pryn in his careful recapitulation before mentioned of the Lords Spiritual the Bishops and the Earls and Barons the Lords Temporal excluding the Commons until after th 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. doth altogether negatively conclude that there were no Commons then present yet when he comes to rectify as he calleth it the mistakes of the abridger doth in Anno 5. E. 3. relate that the Estates in full Parliament do agree that they shall not retain sustain or avow any Felons or Breakers of Houses which the King having commanded before is truly and properly to be understood of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal And in another place of the said record mentioneth that the whole Estate prayed the King to be gracious unto Edward the Son of Roger Mortimer Earl of March which could not inforce the King to be one of the Estates or that there were any other or more Estates than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Anno 6. E. 3. were Proclaimed the Articles agreed in the last Parliament and 1 2 3. in another Parliament intended to be at York it is said that most of the Estates were absent Sir Jeffry le Scroop by the Kings Command shewed the cause of summoning the Parliament but for that most of the Estates were absent which might consist only of Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the King ordained new Writs of Summons to be issued In a reassembly at York in the same year Articles of the last Parliament were proclaimed by the Steward and Marshal of the King and the Commons not then said Estates had license to depart and the Lords commanded to attend until the next day at which time the Parliament was dissolved In Anno 8. E. 3. It was petitioned that no pardons be granted unto outlawed persons by any Suggestions or means but only by Parliament To which the King answered the Statutes made shall be observed That all men may have their Writs out of the Chancry paying nothing but the fees for the Seals without any fine
and stablish for him and his heirs and Successors by the Assent of the Praelates Earls Barons and Commons wherein if the Commons had in themselves an inhaerent Right of Soveraignty they would neither have been troubled with any such fears of the French Government or needed any such provision against it of his Realm of England in this present Parliament in the 14th year of his Raign of England and first of France that by the cause or Colour of his being King of France and that the said Realm to him pertaineth or that he came to be named King of France in his Stile or that he hath changed his Seal or Arms nor for the Commandments which he hath made or shall make as King of France his said Realm of England nor the people of the same of what Estate or condition they shall be shall not at any time to come be put in Subjection nor in obeysance of him or his Heirs nor Successors as Kings of France nor be subject or obedient but shall be free and quit of all manner of obeysanee as they were wont to be in the time of his Progenitors For that Trick or Engine of metamorphosing the Soveraignty of the King into that of the people and by excluding the Bishops and Lords Spiritual out of the House of Peers in Parliament unto which ab ultimo Antiquitatis seculo since Christianity abolished Paganisme they were as justly as happily entituled and put our Kings and their Regalities in their places whereby to create unto themselves a co-ordination and from thence by the Intrigues of Rebellion a Soveraignty in themselves which was not in the former and better Ages ever entertained or believed by our Parliaments when no Original pact or agreement hath been or can yet be discovered how or when the House of Commons came to be entituled unto their pretended inherent Soveraignty or to be seized thereof by their representation of the people or from whom they had it or who gave it unto them when it may be believed God never did it for he that never used or was known to contradict himself hath in his holy word declared and said per me Regis regnant which should not be misinterpreted and believed to be conditionally if the people should approve or elect them for which the Gentlemen of Egregious Cavillations if they would be believed should search and see if in all the Books of God and Holy Writ they can find any revocation of what God himself hath said and often declared for an undeniable truth or that he ever discharged and renounced it by as infallible Acts and Testimonies But if any one that believes Learning and the inquires after Truth Right Reason and what our impartial Records and Historians will justify how or from whence that Aenigna or mystical peice of Effascina of the Members of the House of Commons making themselves to be a 3 Estate of the Kingdom and a Creed of the late Factioâ—s and Rebelling ever to be deplored Parliament or from what Lernean Lake or Spawn of Hydras came It may besides the Pride and Ambition of many that were the fomenters or Nurses of them be rationally 〈◊〉 understood to have none other source or Original besides don Lancifer himself then for Sir Edwards Cokes unhappy stumbling upon his reasonless admired forged Manuscript and Imposture called Modus tenendi Parliamentum in Anglia in King Edward the Confessors Raign there having been neither any Author or Record as Mr. Pryn hath truly observed to Justify or give any credit thereunto but was as he hath abundantly proveâ— a meer Figment and Imposture framed by Richard Duke of York 31. and 32. H. 6. by the Commons Petition and the Duke of Yorks Confederates by the Rebellion and Insurrection of Jack Cade and his Rebellious levelling party to make him that Duke of York Protector and Defender of the People which ended in the dethroning of King Henry 6. and though Mr. Hackwel of Lincolns-Inne a learned Antiquary hath adventur'd to say that he hath seen an Exemplification of a Record sent from England into Ireland to establish Parliaments there after the form or Method of that Modus yet when the learned Archbishop Usher pressed him much to see it he could neither shew the exemplication nor the Record it self neither of which are yet to be seen in England or Ireland only Sir Edward Cokes Copy remains but when or from whence he had it he was never yet pleased to declare 13. E. 3. At the request of the whole Estate which may most certainly have been thought to have been made to the King not to themselves those Articles were made Statutes and the Conditions were read before the King and the Chancellor Treasurer Justices of both Benches Steward of the Kings Chamber and others were all sworn upon the Cross of Canterbury to perform the same 17. E. 3. The cause of summoning the Parliament being declared amongst the other things to be touching the Estate of the King who was often absent in the Wars of France and for the good government which they whom the erring Abridger hath stiled the 3 Estates viz. 1. The Lords Spiritual 2. The Lords Temporal 3. The Commons in Parliament were to consult of so as if the Commons could be a third Estate the King and his Estate and the government were necessarily and only then and always to be understood and believed to be the 4th Estate principal Superior and Independent 18. E. 3. At which Parliament and Convention sundry of the Estates saith that ill Phrasing Abridger or Translator whoever he was were absent whereat the King was offended and charged the Archbishop of Canterbury for his part to punish the defaults of Clergy and he would do the like touching the Parliament whereof Proclamation was made and being not absent was neither likely to be angry with himself or resolving to punish himself The Chancellor in full Parliament declaring the cause of summoning the Parliament viz. The Articles of the Truce with the French King the breaches in particular thereof the whole Estates mistakenly so stiled were willed the King that willed or commanded being no part of them unless it could be believed that himself willed or commanded himself as well as others to advise upon them give their opinion thereof by the Monday next following 20 E. 3. After the reading of the Roll of Normandy and that the King of France his design to extirpate the English Nation the Messengers that were sent by the King required the whole Estate no such Title being in the Original whereof the King could then be no part if it was said to be the whole Estate without him for he could not be with them when he was absent in France and had sent his Messengers unto them to be advised what Aid they would give him for the furtherance of his Enterprise And Mr. John Charleton one of the Messengers aforesaid likewise bringing Letters from the Bishop of
the Kings Brother and Chancellor of England in the behalf of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of calling the Parliament and taking for his Theme Multitudo Sapientum learnedly resembled the Government of the Realm to the Body of a man the Right-hand to the Church the Left-hand to the Temporalty and the other Members to the Commonalty of all which Members and Estates the King not deeming himself to be one was willing to have Councel The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England by the Kings commandment declaring the cause of the Summoning the Parliament and taking for his Theme Regem honorificate shewed them that on necessity every Member of mans Body would seek comfort of the Head as the Chief and applyed the same to the honouring of the King as the Head And in that his Oration mentioning the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses giveth them no Title of Estates but the Kings Leiges In the presence of John Duke of Bedford Brother of the King Lieutenant and Warden of England and the Lords and Commons the Bishop of Durham by his commandment declared that the King willed that the Church and all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not include the King It was ordained that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties without the words Concessimus which could not comprehend the King who granted it to them but not to himself The Chancellor at the first assembling of the Parliament declared that the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which must be intended to others that were his Subjects and not to himself that was none of them The Archbishop of York Chancellor of England declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties in which certainly he well knew that the Person willing or granting was not any of the Persons or Estates to whom he willed and granted that they should enjoy their Liberties The Duke of Gloucester being made Guardian or Keeper of England by the King sitting in the Chair the Archbishop of York being sick William Linwood Doctor of Laws declaring the cause of summoning the Parliaâ—ent said that the King willed that every Estate should enjoy their due Liberties which properly enough might be extensively taken to Military men and Soldiers the Gentry Agricolis opificibus all sorts of Trades Labourers Servants Apprentices Free-holders Copy-holders Lease-holders single Women and Children Tenants at Will and which never were themselves Estates but the several sorts and degrees thereof wherein if any Law Reason or Sense could make the King to be comprehended an inextricable problem or question would everlastingly remain unresolved who it was that so willed or granted The King sitting in his Chair of State John Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the Bishops Lords and Commons by the Kings Commandment declared the causes of summoning the Parliament taking for his Theme or Text the words sussipiant montes Pacem Colles Justitiam divided it into three parts according to the three Estates by the Hills he understood Bishops and Lords and Magistrates by little Hills Knights Esquires and Merchants by the People Husbandmen Artificers and Labourers By the which third Estates by sundry Authorities and Examples he learnedly proved that a Triple Political vertue ought to be in them viz. In the first Unity Peace and Concord In the second Equity Consideration Upright Justice without maintenance In the third due Obeysance to the King his Laws and Magistrates without grudging and gave them further to understand the King would have them to enjoy all their Liberties Of which third Estates the Chancellor in all probability neither the King or they that heard him did take or believe the King himself to be any part The 15th day of August the Plague beginning to increase the Chancellor by the Kings Commandment in the presence of the 3 Estates the Clerks Translator or Abridger being unwilling to relinquish their Novelty or Errors of which the commonest capacity or sense can never interpret the King to be one Prorogued the Parliament until the Quindena of St. Michael The Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of the Summons of Parliament said that the King willed that all Estates should enjoy thâ—â— Liberties which might intitle the King to be the Party willing or granting but not any of the Parties who were to take benefit thereby It was enacted by the whole Estates which may be understood to be the King Lords Spiritual and that the Lords of the Kings Councel none of theirs should take such order for the Petition of the Town of Plymouth as to them should seem best Letters Patents being granted by the King to John Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury of divers Mannors and Lands parcel of the Dutchy of Lancaster under the Seal of the Dutchy were confirmed by the whole Estates for the performance of the last Will and Testament of King H. 5. though it was severed from the Crown and was no part of the concernment thereof nor had any relation to the Publick or any Parliamentory Affairs the King himself that granted the Letters Patents could not be interpreted to be one of those whole Estates which were said to have confirmed them By the whole Estates were confirmed King Henry the 6th Letters Patents of the Erection and Donation of Eton Colledge and also of Kings Colledge in Cambridge with the Lands thereunto belonging which might well conclude the King although he being the Donor could not be believed to be any part of the whole Estates who by their approbation are said to have confirmed his Letters Patents The Chancellor in the name of all the Lords in the presence of the King protested that the Peace which the King had taken with the French King was of his own making and will and not by any of the Lords procurations the which was enacted And it was enacted that a Statute made in the time of King H. 5. that no Peace should be taken with the French King that then was called the Dolphin of France without the assent of the three Estates of both Realms should be utterly revoked and that no Person for giving Counsel to the Peace of France be at any time to come impeached therefore which may demonstrate that neither the Dolphin of France nor the King of England were then accompted to be any part of the several 3. Estates of the said Kingdoms The King by his Chancellor declared that he willed that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties it cannot be with any probability supposed that either he or his Chancellor intended that himself was one of the said Estates The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King gave thanks in his behalf to the 3. Estates wherein no
Grammar or Construction of Reason or Sense will ever be able to comprehend the King The 17th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3 Estates which is surely to be understood to consist of other Persons separately and distinct from the King Prorogued the Parliament until the 20th day of January then next ensuing at Westminster and upon the 28th day of April was likewise Prorogued to the 5th day of May next following The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said that the Kings pleasure was that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not signifie that the King himself was one of those Estates to whom he granted that favour The 25th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates by the Kings Commandment giving thanks to the 3. Estates the King being then by the Chancellor or any other Master of Reason or Common Sense not understood to be any one of the 3. Estates to whom the thanks were given dissolved the Parliament An Act of Parliament was made wherein was declared that King Edward the 4th was the undoubted King of England from the 4th day of March last before and that all the Estates yielded themselves obeysant Subjects unto him and his Heirs for ever the late never to be maintained Doctrine of the pretended co-ordination of the House of Commons in Parliament as Subjects with their Soveraign in Parliament and the Government being not than that established or ever to be evidenced otherwise then God hath ordained a co-ordination betwixt the King and his Subjects which is that the People as Subjects should obey their King and the King as their Soveraign Protect Rule and Govern them and affirmed the Raign of King Henry the 4th to be an Intrusion and only Usurpation The Chancellor the King sitting in his Royal State in the presence of the Lords and Commons made an Eloquent Oration wherein he declared the 3. Estates to comprehend the Governance of the Land the preheminence whereof was in the Bishops the second to the Lords Temporal which the learned and men of that Age and other Chancellors understood to be no other than two separate and distinct Estates the one Temporal and the other Spiritual and the King to be Superiour The Bishop of London Chancellor of England in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates the King being none of them but Superior over them all Prorogued the Parliament to the 6th of June ensuing For where the Abridger or Mr. Pryn possessing himself to be the Rectifier or Corrector amongst his other faults and mistakings in his Epitomizings made it to be in the Parliament Rolls of 6 Edwardi 3. that many failing to come to the Parliament upon the Summons of the King did put a charge upon the whole Estate by a reassembly he will find neither words or matter for it All that appears of the Title of Estates in the Parliament and Statute Rolls of that year is no more than the Prelats grants gentz du Commune or les Prelats Counts Barons gentz des Countez gentz de la Commune No whole Estate mentioned in the Parliament Roll all that is said n. 42. is no more than a les requests des grantz come de ceuâ— de la Commune de le Clergie That which is translated the Estate of the King is no more in the Parliament Roll n. 5. than les beseignes nostre seigneur le Roy de son Royame Where the Abridger saith the Parliament was to treat and advise touching the Estate de nostre Seigneur le Roy le Governement le salnette de sa terre d' Angleterre de son people relevation de lour Estate there is no other mention of Estates than the Prelatz grantz Commons de son roiame and charged les Chinalers des Countes and Commons to assemble in the Chamber de Pinct A quel Jour vindrent les Chivalers des Counties autres Commons and gave their advice in a Petition in the form ensuant a tres excellent or tres honorable Seigneur les gentz de vostre Commun soy recommandent a vous obeysantment en merciant se avant come leur petitesse powre suffice de tant tendrement pervez a quer maintenir la pees a la quiete de vostre people c. Et en maintenance des autres Leyes as autres Parliaments devant ces heures grantees vostre poure Commons sil vous plaist sa gree semble a la dite Commune totes autres choses poent suffisantement estre rewelez Terminez en Bank le Roy Commune Bank devant Justices as Assises prendre nisi les delayes nient covenable soient aggregez oustez ore a ce Parliament per estatut En. Ro. Parl. 18. E. 3. Where the King desired the names of the absent Lords that he might punish them there is no mention of the Clergy or Commons or of any Estates and the King afterwards desiring their advice touching his Treaty with France charged the Prelats Countz Barons et Communs to give their advice therein Which they all did without naming themselves or being stiled Estates The Kings Letters of Credence sent out of France to his Parliament in England were directed a toutes Erchevesquis evesques Abbes Priours Counts Barons toutz autres foialx le Roy vendront au dit Parlement troter sar les beseignes le Roy whereupon he demanded an Aid of the said Prelats grantz Communs And the Lords without the Title of Estates having granted it the Chivalers des Counties Citizens Burges des Cities Burghs Prioront de avoir avisement entre eux and in Answer thereunto delivered a Petition unto the King for redress of Grievances not by the name of the Estates but a nostre Seigneur le Roy a son conseil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentz de la Communes de sa terre ausi bien des 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Counties Where it was supposed that a Pardon was granted and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sir John Matrevers of all his Lands by the whole Estates there appeareth no more in the 〈…〉 ment Roâ—â— than that he Petitioned A nostre Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil wherein he recited that Restitution had been granted de poiar royal nostre Seigneur le Roy par bor accord 〈◊〉 Common assent des Prelatz Co 〈…〉 es Barons de son Roialme par plusieurs causes appearing in the 〈…〉 ings Charter of Pardon and prayed quil p 〈…〉 st a nostre dit Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil par la boâ—dance de sa Noble Seignorie granter la restitution scisdite pâ—usse estre ore renovelle en cest Parlement quelle Petition lue fut respondue
themselves they with a parcel of conscience not of God did treat with the particular Lenders of the Money to King James and for ten l. or a very little in every hundred comed and took up their Privy Seals but were unwilling to trouble the King with the thoughtâ—s thereof to the damage of him and disherision of the Crown of England and being taken notice of and complained of a Commission was granted unto the Lord ottington Sir Henry Vane and Sir Charles Harbord the Kings Surveyor to enquire thereof and certify the King thereof wherein they were so kind hearted and the matters so managed as noâ—hing more was heard thereof but the City of London continueth in possession of the said Manors and Lands or have spent the same in assisting the late horrid Rebellion against him and together with it the CityOrphans Mony for which it hath been reported they are willing to pay them by composition after the rate of 6d per. ponnd caused a Bill to be exhibited by his Attorney General in his Court of Starr Chamber against John Earl of Clare and Mr. Selden for having only in their Custody two Books or Manuscripts directed unto him by Sir Robert Dudley an Englishman living in Florence and stiling himself a Titular Duke of that Countrey endeavouring to instruct him in the method of raising Money by a Tax upon all the Paper and Parchment to be used in England caused Sir Giles Allington to be fined in the High Commission Court for Incest and the Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven to be arraigned in the Court of Kings Bench for Sodomy whereupon after Tryal by his Peers he was Condemned and Beheaded suffered a great Arcanum Imperii in his Praerogative in taxing or requiring an Aid of Ship Money or for setting out a Navy of Ships when the Kingdom was in danger to be disputed in the Exchecquer Chamber by Lawyers and Judges which King Henry the fourth of France by a constant Rule in State Policy would never yeild to have done imitated by Queen Elizabeth who in some of her Charters or Letters Patents as unto Martin Forbisher a great Sea-Captain declared de qua disputari nolumus upon the case or question of 10 s. charged upon Mr. Hamdens Estate in Buckinghamshire of 4000 l. p. Annum wherein all that could be raked out of or by the Records of this Kingdom was put together by Mr. Oliver St. John and Mr. Robert Holborn theformer being after made Cheif Justice of the Court of Common Pleas by Hambden and the Rebel party and the later taking Arms for the King faithfully adhered unto him whereupon that cause coming to be heard all that could be argued for the not paying or paying of it of twelve Judges that carefully considered the Arguments and gave their opinions there were ten concurred in giving Judgment for the King and only two viz. Justice Hatton and Justice Crooke who having before under their hands concurred with all the other and suffered their subscriptions to be publickly inrolled in their several Courts at Westminster could find the way to be over-instrumental in setting our Troy Town all in Flames whilst that pious Prince being overburdened with his own more than common necessities did not omit any part of the Office of a Parens Patriae but taking more care for his People than for himself too many of whom proved basely and wickedly ingrateful called to accompt Lionel Cranfield whom he had made Earl of Middlesex and Lord Treasurer of England fined him in vast sums of money ordered him during his life never more to sit in the House of Peers in Parliament received a considerable part of his Fine and acquitted him of the residue And being desirous as his Father was to unite the Kingdom of Scotland in their Reformed Religion as the more happy Church of England was both as unto Episcopacy and its Liturgy that attempt so failed his expectation as a mutiny hapned in the Cathedral Church of Edenburgh and an old Wife sitting upon a Stool or Crock crying out that she smelt a Pape at her Arse threw it at the Ministers Head whereupon a great mutiny began and after that an Insurrection which to pacify the King raised a gallant Army of Gentry and Nobility with all manner of warlike provision and marched unto the Borders but found them so ill provided for defence as they appeared despicable yet the almost numberless Treacheries fatally encompassing that pious King persuading him not to beat or vanquish them when he might so easily have done it he returned home disbanding his Army and a close Favourite of Scotland was after sent to pacify them but left them far more unruly than before shortly after which Philip Nye a Factious Minister that should have been of the Church of England but was not with some other as wicked Persons were from England delegated to Scotland to make a Coâ—enant of Brotherly Rebellion against the King and accordingly the Scots being well assured that their Confederates in England would not hurt them marched into England with a ragged Army with Petitions to the King and Declarations of Brotherly Love unto too many of their Confederates seised by the cowardise or carelesness of the Inhabitants the Town of Newcastle upon Tine notwithstanding a small Army ill ordered was sent to defend it better than they did so as the Scotch Petitioning Army quartering there and in the Northern parts the King hastening thitherwards with Forces was persuaded to summon at Rippon a great Council of many of his Nobility whither too many of them that came being more affected to the Scotch Army that came like the Gibeonites with old Shoes and mouldy Bread were allowed to be free-quartered and a Parliament suddenly to be summoned at London whereby to raise money for the discharge of their Quarters Army charges in the mean time the Scotch their Commissioners with their Apostle Alexander Henderson have license to visit London where they are lamented feasted and visited and almost adored as much as St. Paul was amongst the Macedonians or the Brethren who cryed up their holy Covenant and Religion to be the best the Church of England with her Ceremonies Common Prayers and Potage not to be compared unto it the Parliament would help all and the Scots Commissioners were so popular and in request as they seemed for that time to govern both the City of London and Parliament and by their peace pride and plenty had generated Sedition and Faction and that combustible matter in England burst into a Fire which could not be quenched the Kings Privy Council could not please the five Members nor Kimboltons Ambition and Envy be satisfied without being made a great Officer of State but proved after to be a general of some associated Counties against the King God might be worshipped with a thriving Conscience and the people taken care for by plundering Sequestration Decimation Killing Slaying or Impoverishing the Common Wealth or Weal Publick Pym
of such Assistance as his Majesties and the publick Records of the Kingdom unto which for more than 45 years I have been no Stranger and my own private Library could afford me wherein I cannot be without hope but something considerable may appear in my Labours that do not in his but walking together in the inquiries after our Fundamental Laws have not contradicted but concurred with each other in the Rescue and discovery of the truth of our Ancient and excellent Government and that which I have done might have been more exact if I had not by the no small disturbances of my own affairs and the common Falshoods and Delays of most of the Printers been greatly hindred so as I was in some part thereof to endure the disadvantage of writing as the Printing Press went and therein also could not escape several discouragements and can as Livy that grand Historian of the Roman Empire hath truly said of his Enterprise that it was res magna Ardua with great sincerity say with the learned Bracton perpetuae memoriae commendium postulans a Lectore ut diligenter legat bene consideret si quid super fluum aut perperam in hac opere invenerit illud corrigat aut emendet cum omnia habere in memoria Et in nullo peccare divinum sit potuis quam humanum And with the learned Dr. Barlow Bishop of Lincoln to the like purpose as unto what he wrote against the Church of Rome that if he had miscited or quoted added or omitted any thing or matter willingly against the truth Errors of misinterpretation or definition and of the Printers only excepted I shall be willing to reform any humane frailties or frrors of that kind that shall so appear unto any considerate impartial Reader that do not read it here and there a little runing over as the Irish do their Bogs or as some others do after dinner and in afternoons Nap or Slumber or by Indexes so as I may not prejudice that grand truth concerning the Just Rights of the Imperial Crown of England and the Doctrine of the reformed Church of England against all the Engines of Rebellion Falsities Cavillations and Impostures that have been made use of against it and all their Loyal and Learned Propugnators that have done so worthily in our Israel to defend them Wherein if any shall object and think I have been too copious and fewer words and more labour might have been spared they that have been conversant with Books or the learned or be themselves learned should know that a little may be enough to some when a great deal will not be so for others especially where the Arch Enemy of Mankind hath sown and planted Weeds such as Henbane and Night Shade in our G 〈…〉 dens amongst our wholsom Herbs and Flowers the Lillies of the Vallies and the Roses of Shaâ—on which will require much time and labour and more than a few words to eradicate or pull them up or a few most clear demonstrations to a numerous party the more is the pity that for the space of almost Fifty years last past have been strangely effascinated and infatuated and yet like well of it because they have enriched themselves by turning Religion into Rebellion and Rebellion into a part of that which never was any part of Religion extravagant Religion is now made Liberty and Liberty and Religion too much turned into Rebellion And our Laws and long approved good Monarchick Government having by a seditious party of Rebels abusing the Right power and use of Parliaments diverted our Antient Just and True Laws out of their proper course and channel wherein they had blessed both our Kings and their People I am not unlike to escape the rash or envious censure of some that either have not read throughly as they ought or misread or not understood our genuine proper and true Laws therefore should be content with the duty of those that have made it their endeavour either to vindicate the Rights of their King or relieve a too much neglected unvalued truth and be as much blamed as the Bishop Elect of Winchester was in the time of the troubles and Imprisonment of King Henry the 3d. by some of his overgrown Nobility when they wrote unto the Pope as bitterly as they could against him for maintaining the justice of his Kings cause and when it may be heard of or read by some of our long missed Lawyers that have for almost 50 years been suckled or nursed up in a contrary practice may take it to be a bet ter way and more agreeable to their genuine at least to their profit and humor of the present times to do as Demetrius the Silver smith did unto St. Pauls Doctrine rather cavil and say something against it to no purpose then any thing concerning truth or cogent Arguments yet it must be adventured with a melioraspero and that the errors and mistakes of too many of our men of Law and others may no longer as it were successively afflict our Nation that the subjects may learn understand and practise the duty of Allegeance and Supremacy and not be so much out of their wâ—es as to believe that there ever was a Treason committed by a King or Emperour against their people or that the Members of the House of Commons in 〈◊〉 proceeding beyond their Limits and the King 〈◊〉 â—oples Commission ought to be accompted the reasion of the People but that so many Advocates and Lawyers as England is and hath been abundantly replenished with should rather make it their business strongly upon all occasions to defend their â—ings Rights which every man would expect of his stipended Lawyer as the Advocates of other Kingdoms never failed to do Or can any man adventure to say or think that the All-knowing Never-erring God did not intend to keep his word but made one Vicegerent after that he had made or promised it unto another or ever made the Common People his Vicegerent or any King or Prince subject to their ignorances mutabilities and Passions to be Arraigned and Murdered when they pleased at the suit of the People for Treason committed against them or if any Nation Record or History did or could ever furnish out such an example when the Murder of our Prince did so stink and was more than ordinarily abhorred and detestable as besides many learned men in Forreign parts publickly writing and declaiming against it the Czars or Czar of that great Empire of Russia or Moscovia were so sensible of it as he banished and seized many of the English Merchants and their goods and effects to the ruin of many of them for no other cause than that as he said they had been Traytors unto their King and had Murdered him though they were then men of great Loyalty and were not then Resident in England and see and read Milton over much learned in the School of his Master the Devil and our infatuated Regicides
and all the exiled Bishops and Monks of Canterbury should in peace return to their own but refused to make satisfaction for their Goods taken away They depart unsatisfied which made the Pope more Imperious to constrain him to do whatsoever he desired and to that end Absolved all his Subjects upon what occasion soever from all their obedience strictly forbidding them under pain of Excommunication Board Councel and Conference Who preparing to suppress an Insurrection of some of the Welsh had intelligence that if he proceeded therein he would either be killed or betrayed whereupon he returned to London required Pledges of the Nobility and had them Eustace de Vescy and Robert Fitz-Walter being accused of the Conspiracy fled the one into Scotland the other into France and the Pope pronouncing the Kings absolute Deposition from the Regal Government of the Kingdom wrote to the King of France a perfidious dangerous enemy of King John's That as he looked to have remission of his Sins he should take the charge upon him to expel him out of the Kingdom of England and possess the same to Him and his Heirs for ever and sent Letters to the Princes and great Men of other Nations That they should aid the King of France in the dejection of that contumacious King of England in revenge of the Injuries done to the Universal Church granting like remission of their Sins as if they undertook the Holy War The King of France thereupon making great preparations against him and with that Commission the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other exiled Bishops with Pandulphus the Popes Legate being sent unto him private instructions were given by the Pope to Pandulphus his juggling Legate at his returning into England out of the King of France's great Army prepared against him that if upon the Preparation and Forces gathered by the King of France for his dejection he could work the King of England to such conditions as he should propound Absolution and Restauration should be granted unto him Who thus distressed not only granted restitution and satisfaction of whatever had been taken from the Archbishop and Monks of Canterbury and the Bishops of London Bathe and Lincoln who were fled into France to the Archbishop but also laid down his Crown Scepter Sword and Ring the Ensigns of his Regality at the feet of Pandulphus as a Livery and Seizin of the Kingdom of England to the Pope and submitted himself to the judgment and mercy of the Church which being two days after or as some have written six restored unto him upon an agreement made at the receiving thereof upon his Oath Non sine dolore saith Matthew Paris tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis in praesentia Pandulphi se judicio sanctae Ecclesiae pariturum sexdecim cum eo Comites Barones ex potentioribus Regni in animam ipsius Regis juraverunt Quod si fortè facti paeniteret ipsi eum pro possibilitate compellerent And thereupon convenerunt decimo tertio die Maii apud Doveriam viz. die Lunae proximo ante Ascensionem Domini Rex Pandulphus cum Comitibus Baronibus turba multa nimis no House of Commons certainly ubi in pacis formam unanimitèr consenserunt And in the King's Name and under his Seal it was declared by the Title of Iohannes Dei Gratiâ not of the Pope or People and four of the Barons viz. William Earl of Salisbury his Brother Reginald Earl of Boloigne William Earl of Warren and William de Ferrariis juraver ant in animam suam i. e. Regis That they should bonâ side in every thing observe that Peace and Agreement And he did likewise solemnly and absolutely swear stare mandato Domini Papae to stand to the will and command of the Pope and his Legate or Legates aforesaid in all things for not doing whereof he was excommunicated by him and that he should not molest Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury William Bishop of London Eustace Bishop of Ely Giles Bishop of Hereford Iosceline Bishop of Bath Hubert Bishop of Lincoln the Prior and Monks of Canterbury Robert Fitz-Walter whose Castle of Baynard in or near London the King had before seized with all his other Lands and Estate proclaiming him a Traytor and Eustace de Vescy with all other Clarks and Laicks which had adhaered unto them but continue in a firm peace and good accord with them and should publickly take his Oath before the said L gate or his Delegate that he should not hurt or cause them to be molested in their Persons Lands Goods or Estates but should receive them into his grace and favour and pardon all their Offences not hinder the said Archbishops and Bishops in their jurisdictions and execution of their Office but they might fully execute their Authority as they ought and should grant to the Pope Archbishops and Bishops his Letters Patents thereof upon Oaths to be taken by the Bishops Earls and Barons and their Letters Patents given that they would firmly and truly hold and keep the said Peace and Agreement and if he by himself or others should infringe it they in the behalf of the Church should oppose the Violators of the said Peace and Agrement and he should lose the benefit of the Custody of their Churches in the vacancy thereof and if he could not perswade others to keep the last part of the Oath that is to say by himself or others should contradict or go against it they should put in execution the power of the Church and Apostolick Command and did by his Letters Patents further oblige himself to quit and renounce all his Rights and Patronage which he had in any of the Churches of England and the said Letters Patents should be transmitted and delivered to the said Archbishop and Bishops before their coming into England the said Archbishop and Bishops with a Salvo honore Dei Ecclesiae giving caution by their Oaths and Letters Patents that neither they nor any on their behalf should attempt or do any thing against his Person or Crown whilst he observed and secured unto them the Peace and Agreement as aforesaid And as to what was taken from them should make unto them full Restitution with Damages for all that had been done as well to Clerks as Laicks intermedling in those Affairs not only as to their Goods and Estates but all Liberties which should be preserved unto them and to the Archbishop and Bishop of Lincoln from the time of their Consecrations and to all others from the time of the aforesaid Discords nor should there be any hindrance to the living or dead by any of his grants or promises before made neither should he retain any thing by way of Service due unto him but only the Services which should hereafter be due unto him all Clerks and Laicks imprisoned upon that occasion should be restored to Liberty And the King should presently after Absolution given to him by him that should do it cause to be
Canterbury in the behalf of the State of his Oath made and taken by others for him upon the Peace made with Lewis for confirmation of the Liberties of the Kingdom for which the War was begun with his Father without which the whole State would again fall assunder and they would have him to know it betimes to avoid those miserable inconveniencies which might happen William Brewere a Councellor urging it to have been acted by constraint and therefore not to be performed Notwithstanding which it was at that time being the 7th year of his Reign promised by the King to be ratified and a Commission was granted by Writs unto Twelve Knights in every Shire to examine What were the Laws and Liberties which the Kingdom enjoyed under his Grandfather and return the same by a certain day which saith the learned and judicious Sir Henry Spelman were never returned or could not be found In the mean time the Earls of Albemarl Chester and divers of the Nobility assemble together at Leicester with intent to remove from the King Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justiciar and other Officers that hindred their motion but the Archbishop of Canterbury by his Spiritual Power and the rest of the Nobility being careful to preserve the Peace of the Kingdom stood to the King and would not suffer them to proceed therein so as they were constrained to come in and submit themselves And the King in Parliament resumed such alienations as had been made of the Lands appertaining to the Crown by any of his Ancestors to the end he might live of his own and not be chargable to the People The next year after being the 8th year of his Reign another Parliament was holden at Westminster where the King required the Fiftieth part of all the movables both of the Clergy and Laity but Mat. Paris more probably saith the Fifteenth for the recovering of those parts in France which had been held from the Crown being one and the same which is said in Magna Charta to have been granted as a grateful acknowledgment for the grant of their Liberties which though it concerned the Estates of most of the Nobility that had Lands therein would not be yielded unto but upon confirmation of their Liberties atque his in hunc diem prosecutis Archiepiscopus concilio tota Episcoporum Comitum Priorum habita deliberatione Regi dedere responsum quod Regis petitionibus gratunter ad quiescerent si illas diu petitas libertates concedere voluisset annuit itaque Rex cupiditate ductus quod petebant Magnates Chartisque protinus conscriptis Regis sigillo munitis in the next year after for the Charters themselves bear date in the 9th year of his Reign And the several Charters or Copies thereof were sent to the Sheriffs of every County and Twelve Knights were out of every County chosen to divide the Old Forests from the New and lay open all such as had been afforested since the first Coronation of King Henry II. Although at the same time or a little before or after it some of the Nobility who had formerly crowned Lewis of France King and had been the cause of King John's death for which they were banished the Realm endeavouring to return into England and to set up again the French King's Interest and domineer over the King and his faithful Councellors by circumventing Pope Honorius Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice of England the Earl of Chester and seven other of the King's Councellors sent an Epistle to the Pope desiring him to assist the King and them and prevent those dangerous Plots and Designs And the King having sent also his Proctors to Rome upon the like occasion they returned him an account of a new Confederacy betwixt his discontented Barons and the French King to invade England and dispossess him of the Crown thereof adding thereunto quod Gallici praedicabant omnibus quod majores Angliae obsides offerebant de reddendo siâ—i terram â—um primo venire curaret ad illam adjicientes Si aâ—iquid in curia Romana contra voluntatem Regis Franciae attemptaretur incontmenter Rex transfretaret in Angliam Nor could any such authority accrue to them in or by those Charters called Magna Charta and Charta Forestae granted by King Henry III. his Son which were in very many things but the exmeplaria or patterns of that of King John in the like method and tenour containing very many Liberties and great Priviledges which were by King Henry III. as those Charters do declare of his own free accord granted and confirmed in the 9th year of his Reign to his Subjects and People of England Liberis hominibus Free-men or Free-holders for otherwise it would have comprehended those multitudes of Villains Bondmen and Bond-women which the Nation did then and long after employ and make use of and those very many men accounted by the Laws of England to be as dead men viz. Monks Fryers Priors and Abbots to be holden to Them and their Heirs of Him and his Heirs for ever But in those Charters or his confirmation of them in the 21st and 28th year of his Reign could not procure to be inserted or recorded those clauses which they had by their terrours gained from his Father in these words viz. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponam in Regno nostro nisi per commune consilium Regni nostri ad corpis nostrum redimendum ad primogenitum filium nostrum militem faciendum ad primogenitam filiam nostram semel maritandam ad hoc non fiet nisi rationabile auxilium simili modo fiat de auxiliis de Civitate Londinensi quod omnes aliae Civitates Burgi Villae Barones de quinque portubus omnes portus habeant omnes libertates omnes liberas consuetudines suas Et ad habendum commune concilium Regni de auxiliis assidendis aliter quam in tribus casibus praedictis scutagiis assidendis submoneri faciemus Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates Comites majores Barones Regni singillatim per literas nostras Et praetereà faciemus submoneri in generali per Vicecomites Ballivos nostros omnes alios qui in capite tenent de nobis ad certum diem scilicet ad terminum quadraginta dierum ad minus ad certum locum in omnibus literis submonitionis illius causam submonitionis illius exponemus sic facta submonitione negotium procedat ad diem assignatum secundum consilium eorum qui praesentes fuerint quamvis non omnes submoniti Nos non concedimus de caetero alicui quod capiat auxilium de liberis hominibus suis nisi ad corpus suum redimendum ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem ad primogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam ad hoc non fiat nisi rationabile auxilium but were constrained to omit altogether and forgo those clauses and provisions which
Pope sending his Legate with a large power to exact money for himself his Agent was disgracefully returned with an answer That the Kingdom was poor the Church in debt and it was of a dangerous consequence to the State to be exposed to the will of the Pope and therefore seeing a General Councel was shortly to be held at Lyons if the Church would be relieved it were fit to be done by a general consent of that Councel And the Emperour Frederick at the same time by his Letters to the King which were openly read desiring as he had often before That the Pope might have no supplies ou of England for that therewith he did oppress him by seizing upon his Castles and Cities appertaining to the Empire notwithstanding his often submissions desire of Peace and offers to refer the cause to the arbitration of the Kings of England and France and the Baronage of both Kingdoms and entreating that he might not receive a detriment whence as a Brother and Friend he expected a favour added that if the King would be advised by him he would by power free the Kingdom from that unjust Tribute which Pope Innocent III. and other Popes had laid upon it Which pleasing the Assembly the business took up so much time as the design of a share in the Government something like if not worse then a Co-ordination meeting with no concessions or effect they only granted an Aid to the King for the Marriage of his Daughter 20 s. of every Knights Fee not without much ado and repetition of all his former Aids although at the same or much about that time they could not be ignorant that he had by his Writ commanded Hugh Gifford and William le Brun that upon Friday next after the Epiphany they should cause to be fed in the Hall at Windsor ad bonum focum omnes pueros pauperes egenos quos invenire poterint ita quod aula impleatur si tot inveniantur The Charters were again ratified which confirmation is printed in the perclose or latter-end of those in the 9th year of that persecuted Prince after a proposal of Conservators and election of Judges and Lord Chancellors rejected which was urged and much insisted upon After which and his return from an expedition with great charges into Scotland a Parliament was summoned where he moved for an Aid against an Insurrection in Wales and for money to supply his wants and pay his Debts which were so great as he could not stir out of his Chamber for the clamour of those to whom he ow'd money for Wine Wax and other necessaries of House-keeping which wrought so little as to his face they denied to grant him any thing and enquiry being made what Revenues the Romans and Italians had in England they found them to have been annually 60000 Marks which being notified to the General Councel at Lyons the Pope was so vexed therewith as he was said to have uttered these words The King begins to Frederize it is fit that we make an end with the Emperour that we might crush these pety Kings for the Dragon once destroyed these lesser Snakes will soon be trodden down In the 32d year of his Reign a Parliament being convoked he was upon requiring another aid sharply reproved for his breach of promises and it was alledged that his Judges were sent in Circuit under pretence of Justice to fleece the people that his needless expences amounted to above 800000 l. and advising him to recal the old Lands of the Crown and pull them from his Favourites enriched with the Treasure of the Kingdom told him of his Oath made at his Coronation Complained that the Chief-Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer were not made by the Common-Councel of the Kingdom according as there were in the time of his Magnificent Predecessors although they could not at the same time deny him that Right which was justly due unto him that he had by his Writs commanded the said William de Haverhul and Edward of Westminster quod singulis diebus à die natalis domini usque ad diem circumcisionis computatis illis duobus diebus impleri faciant magnam aulam Regis de pauperibus and in the same year by his Writ commanded William de Haverhul his Treasurer and Edward Fidz-Odo to feed upon the day of Edward the Confessor pauperes in magna aula Westmonasterium sicut fieri consueverunt ipsis Monachis Pittanciam eodem die sicut consueverunt faciant The King promised redress but nothing was effected so that after sundry meetings and much debate the Parliament was prorogued until Midsummer following and at the next Session he tells them that they were not to impose a servile condition upon him or deny him that which every one of them might do to use whom they pleased as Counsel Every Master of a Family might place or displace what Servants he pleased Servants were not to judge their Masters nor Subjects their Prince or hold them to their conditions and that he that should so encline to their pleasures should not be their King but as their Servant And being constrained to furnish his wants with the sale of his Plate and Jewels his Crown of Gold and Edward the Confessor's Shrine and with great loss received money for them enquired who had bought them whereunto answer being made that the City of London had bought them That City said he is an inexhaustible Gulf if Octavius ' s Treasure were to be sold they would surely buy it Howsoever being besides constrained to borrow 20000 l. of the City of London he wrote to every Noble-man and Prelate apart to borrow money but got little the Abbot of Ramsay lent him 100 l. but the Abbot of Burgh could not spare him so much although the King told him It was more Alms to give unto him than to a beggar that went from door to door The Lords in the 4th year of his Reign assembled again at London and pressed him with his promises that the Chief-Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer should be constituted by the general Councel of the Kingdom but by reason of the absence of the Earl of Cornwal nothing was done therein The King demanding aid of his Prelates and Nobility assembled in Parliament they by agreement amongst themselves stoutly denied it which greatly troubling him he shewed them the Note or Roll what moneys some few Abbots had lent unto him with an Ecce how little it was with which not being able to remove their fixed resolutions he with some anger expostulating told them Ero nè perjurus juravi sacramento intransgressibili transfretans jura mea in brachio extento à Rege Francorum reposcam quod sine capioso thesauro qui à vestra liberalitate procedere debet nequaquam valeo and that not prevailing called aliquos sibi familiares affatus eos dit quid perniciosius exemplum aliis praebetis vos qui Comites Barones Milites strenui estis
Fourth the Commons shewing to the King that Comme les Juggements du Parlement appurteignont seulement au Roy as Seigneurs nient as Commones si noun en case que sil plest au Roy de sa grace especile leur monstrer ses ditz Juggements pur ease d' eux que nul record soit fait en Parlement encontre les ditz Communes que sont ou serrent partyes as escunes Juggementz donez ou adonees ou apres en Parlement A quoi leur feust respondu per l' Ercevesque de Canterbire de commandement du Roy 〈…〉 ment mesmes les Commones sont Petitioners demandeurs que le Roy les Seigneurs de tout temps ont eves averont de droit les Juggementz en Parlement en manere come mesme les Comones ount Monstrez sauvez quen Statutz Affaires ou en Grauntez subsides ou tiel choses Affaires pur comon profit du Royalme le Roy voit avoir especialment leur Advys Assent que cel ordre de fait soit tenuz gardez en tout temps adveniz And the Earls and Temporal Barons were by vertue of their Tenures and Summons of Parliament since the beginning of the Raign of King Richard the Second said to be Conciliarij nati of the King and Kingdom and the Bishops to sit there then and long before by reason of their Baronies which no Member of the House of Commons is or can claim to be in our King 's great Councels or Parliament until the framing of that aforesaid novel Writ to Elect Knights Citizens and Burgesses in the time of the Imprisonment of King Henry the Third and after his Release was discontinued and no more made use of until the 22d Year of the Raign of King Edward the First his Son and the Heirs by ancient Customes of that Court under and by the Kings Authority do exercise in Causes and Complaints brought before them a judicial and decisive Power And in the preceding Times and Ages until that new Writ of Elections was contrived and imposed upon that distressed and much injured Prince Certissimum est saith that learned and judicious Antiquary Sir henry Spelman that the Nobility and Barons which did hold immediately of the King in Capite judicijs praefuêre Aulae Regiae did usually sit and determine Causes or Controversies in the King's Court or Palace as the Barons of the Coife in the Exchequer who were heretofore Earls and Barons do at this day judge and determine of Matters touching the King's Revenues And as the Lords of Mannors in their Courts Barons do admit none to be Judges in those their little Courts but their Tenants who are Free-holders and do hold of them and being stiled and said to be of the Homage do subserviently manage the Affairs of their Lords therein who did very anciently use to act therein Concilio prudentum hominum militum suorum by their Presentments Advice and Judgements and are therein not much differing from the Customs and Laws of the Longobards where their Emperor commanded that Nullus Miles nobiscum saith Sir Henry Spelman Liber homo sine certâ convictâ culpâ suum beneficium perdat nisi secundum consuetudinem Antecessorum nostrorum et judicium Parium suorum In which saith Sir Henry Spelman Th 〈…〉 is an Idea of our Magna Charta the Free-holders in the Hundred Courts being thither also called Conformable to the League made by King Alfred with Guthrun the Dane wherein Homicide sive de crimine alio quod quatuor marcas excederet postularetur per duodecim ex paribus reliquos autem subditos per 11 Pares unumque ex Baronibus Regis fore judicandos And to the Laws of our King Henry the First wherein it was ordained That Unusquisque per Pares judicandus est si quis in Curia sua vel in quibuslibet agendorum locis placitum tractandum habet convocet Pares vicinos suos si inter compares vicinos sint querelae conveniant ad divisas terrarum suarum qui prior queremoniam fecerit prior rectum habeat si alias ire oporteat in Curiam domini sui eant si unum dominum habeant Soca sit ejus illic eos amicitia congreget aut sequestret judicium And may seem to be derived from the Laws and Customs of the Germans where by the Court of Peers are understood Causarum feudalium Judices à Caefare constituti qui sine provocatione cognoscebant to be Judges appointed by the Emperor to hear and determine without appeal Matters concerning their Lands and Territories where the like usage and term of Peers in their Judicatures Great Councels or Diets is at this day used the Princes of the Empire being Paribus cu 〈…〉 ae and such are those of our House of Peers in Parliament being the highest Court of the Kingdom of England where none were admitted or did administer Justice Nisi qui proximi essent à Rege ipsique arctioris fidei homagij vinculo conjuncti but such as were near unto the King and held of him in Capite which kind of Tenures howsoever they were most unhappily Dissolved by a late Act of Parliament in His now Majesties Raign for converting Tenures in Capite into free and common Socage were by an Exception and Proviso in the said Act of Parliament as to the Rights and Priviledges of the Peers in Parliament specially saved and reserved unto them who were heretofore Capitanei regni as Sir Henry Spelman saith Captains of the Kingdom and Peers obliged and bound unto their Kings by Homage and Fealty in that highest and most honourable Court of the Kingdom wherein the Judicative Power of Parliament under their King their Head and chief Resides which high and honourable Assembly reverencing and taking Care for their Head and Soveraign the only under God Protector of themselves the Church and all their worldly Concernments and Liberties Was so much used in France as saith Conringius Proceres temporibus Francorum temporibus antiquissimis Concilio interfuisse plurimis quidem testimonijs in proclivi est and cites a Book written per Theganum Chorepiscopum Trevirensem de gestis Ludovici Imper ' Ca. 6. ubi de Carolo Magno Imperatore legitur Cùm intellexisset appropinquare sibi diem obitus sui vocavit filium Ludovicum ad se Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus loco positis habuit grande colloquium cum ijs Aquisgravi eodem spectat procul dubiò Hinckmari who was a Bishop and Councellor of Charlesmaynes illud concilium Lodovico Baldo datum epistolam ut rempublicam administret ex Procerum aut Principum consensu nusquam Plebis mentione factâ unde epistolam illam claudens Ca. 10. Scribit de generalibus Ecclesiae Regni negotijs fine generali Procerum regni consensu concilio secretum dare concilium nefas etiam
them were the common People or that the Nobility were intended to be a part of them but rather that their Wills and Actions were wholly submitted to the Peerage reformare voluissent Regnum deformatum me deberent primùm accersire In Crastino post ejus adventum in Angliam intraverunt Magnates Capitulum Cantuariense so great a Power had they then over their Tenants and the Common People ducentesque reverenter Reges Angliae Alemanniae the Earl of Gloucester stans in medio called out the King of Almaine by the name of the Earl of Cornewall to take the Oath for a general Reformation of the Kingdom Eodem Anno being 43. Henry the Third Congregati sunt Nobiles Angliae Londini prout inter se prius condixerant whither came quidam de secreto Regis Francorum concilio Decanus Bituricensis ubi non modicè tractatum fuit de negotio inter duos Reges Franciae Angliae quid in partibus transmarinis actum fuerit exinde probatum After which a Monk of St. Albans ex parte Regis Reginae Magnatibus Angliae finding the King Queen Magnatibus Scotiae in their Parliament and informing them of the cause of his coming ex parte Regis Reginae Baronum Angliae requested that the King and Queen would not fail to come into England to treat of Matters of great Concernment and Secrecy with much difficulty obtained Letters Patents from the King Queen and Nobility of Scotland Communitèr sigillatas tà m sigillo Regis quà m omnium Magnatum Scotiae ad Regem Angliae totam communitatem wherein they granted their Request dummodo se facerent Rex Angliae Magnates which explains the extent and true meaning of the preceding words Tota Communitas Angliae de scripto suo sibi prius promisso securos and returned by him Domino Regi Angliae Reginae Magnatibus terrae Literas commendatorias and did shortly after send the Earl of Bochan and other honourable Commissioners to Treat with the King of England ejus Concilio who at their coming speaking with the said Monk Nullam in publico super expeditione negotij erga Regem Regni communitatem which may in this place well be understood to intend the Baronage reliquerunt redeuntes Certificationem Eodem Anno ex concilio domini Regis Franciae Angliae totius Baronagij the Earls of Clare and Leicester John Mansell Peter de Sabaudia and Robert Wallerand were sent ad Parliamentum Magnum Regis Francorum pro pluribus negotiis regna Franciae Angliae contingentibus carrying with them a Charter or Resignation from their King to the King of France and Letters of Credence to compose with that King and his Councell super negotiis without the Commons or their Consents inter eosdem Reges eorum regna diu agitatis but for that the Countess of Leicester refused to resign that part which she held or claimed in Normandy infecto negotio cachinnantibus Francis redierunt In the mean time the Almaines perceiving how little their King elected was respected in England returned home saying Ex quo compatriotae sui ipsum non venerantur nos ipsum quomodo honoribus prosequemur And in his Absence elected another Eodem Anno King Henry the Third in Franciam transfretavit and required Restitution to be made of the Provinces in France unjustly taken away from his Father King John and detained from him unto which the French answered That the Donation of Normandy was not free but by force extorted by Rollo so as the King if he had a mind to regain it having not Money to raise an Army and especially when he did see his own Subjects ready to make War against him was enforced to yield to a Peace that pro 300000 Turonensibus parvis restitutione terrarum in France unto him ad valorem 20000 librarum in Gasconia the King was to resign and release to the King of France his Dutchy of Normandy and County of Anjou ex tunc literarum suarum abbreviavit titulum ut nec Ducem Normanniae nec Comitem Andegaviae se vocaret And fearing that he had committed Perjury in taking the Oath to observe the Provisions enforced from him at Oxford sent secretly to the Pope for an Absolution Eo tempore Symon de Monte Forti Comes Legriae Richardus de Clare Comes Gloverniae Nicholaus filius Johannis Johannes filius Galfridi multique Nobiles ipsis adhaerentes convenerunt Oxoniae equis armis sufficientèr instructi finalitèr Staâ—uentes aut mori pro pace patriae aut pacis eliminare Patriae turbatores whither came also the Bishop Elect of Winchester William de Valentia and the rest of the Poictovins stipati Magna caterva satellitum fautorum but when they understood that the English Nobility intended eos vocare standum judicio pro suis nequam factis simul communitèr jurandum cum eis ad observandum provisiones they fled to the Castle of Whitesey whither the Barons pursued them and fearing that the Bishop Elect of Winchester would carry his Complaints to Rome against them sent four Knights as their Agents to Rome with Letters under their Hands and Seals not of the Commons to complain of the Injuries which the Bishop had done to the Kingdom and the Justices itinerant of the King were at Hereford prohibited to proceed for that as was alleadged it was against the Provisions made at Oxford Anno 45. Henry the Third the King retired to the Tower of London and caused all the Citizens of London above the Age of Twelve Years to Swear unto him Fealty and made Proclamation that all that would come as Souldiers to serve him should be paid the Barons came with great Forces to the Walls of the Tower lodging in the City the Absolution being come and Prince Edward not accepting it which the Magnates not the Multitude or Commons taking notice of missis Nuntiis humilitèr rogabant ut communitèr juramentum praestitum inviolabilitèr observare vellet si quid displiceret eisdem ostenderet ad emendandum Qui nequaquam acquiescens durè minacitèr respondens dicens quòd eis à Conventione deficientibus non amplius adquiesceret sed unusquisque deinceps propriis defensionibus provideret tandèm quibusdam mediantibus it was agreed that Two should be chosen on the King's part and Two on the Barons no Commons mentioned and the Arbitrators were if they could not agree to choose a Third but by reason of Prince Edwards late return from beyond the Seas and that being returned and informed what strange Councels had been given his Father was so Angry as he absented himself from him and adhering to the Barons saith the Continuator of Matthew Paris in hac parte prout juraverat fitque conjuratio inter eos quòd malos Conciliarios eorum fautores adquirerent à Rege pro viribus alongarent which the King understanding betakes
The Tenants in Chief being by those Differences distinguished in their Titles Possessions and Reliefs were so much less in Honor than the greater Barons who had several Writs at every Summons and all the ancient Circumstances of the Title of Baron still remaining to them It was the less difficult for those greater Barons to Exclude the rest wholly at length from having any Interest in the Parliaments of that Time under the name of Tenants in Chief only And although in somewhat a different and much inferiour manner to the Majores Barones their Number Greatness of Provinces and Estates or near Alliance in Blood unto the Crown is not much unlike the distinction made in France of the Douze Pairs not exclusively to the other Baronage which our Mathew Paris and their own Authors will Evidence were not only before but are there to this day continued as a Degree of Honor different from the Barones Minores or the Vulgus or Common People much inferior to that lesser Baronage yet the Annalls and Records of France are not yet accorded of the precise time of the first Institution of their twelve Pairs lately Augmented to a much greater number For Du Fresne is of Opinion That in the Year 1179. which was the 25th Year of the Raign of our King Henry the Second there was no certain number of the Peers of France Narrat quippe Rogerus Hovedenus Willielmum Archiepiscopum Remensem eundem Regem unxisse Remis ministrantibus ei in illo officio Willielmo Turonensi Biturocensi Senonensi Archiepiscopis fere omnibus Episcopis regni Henricum vero Regem Angliae de jure ducatus Normanniae coronam auream qua coronandus erat Philippus Philippum Comitem Flandriae gladium regni praetulisse alios vero Duces Comites Barones praeivisse Secutos diversos diversis deputatos officiis according to the long before used custom of the English at the Coronation of their Kings where divers of the greatest Officiary and Nobility as the Constable Marshall Steward and Great Chamberlain of England cum multis aliis One Nation learning of Another their Customs and Usages did conceive it to be an Honour fixt in their Families by Grand Serjeanty Et Rigordus eandem Coronationem peractam ait astante Henrico Rege Angliae ex una parte coronam super caput Regis Franciae ex debita subjectione humiliter portante cum omnibus Archiepiscopis Episcopis caeterisque regni principibus ex quibus patet saith Du Fresne caeteros Episcopos qui pro Franciae Paribus habentur ea quae hodie non assecutos ministeria in ea Solemnitate Proinde hand improbanda forte sententia qui Parium Francicorum duodecim virorum definitum fuisse tradunt a S. Ludovico Rege quos inter est Iohannes a Leidis lib. 22. ca. 7. itaque Sanctus Ludovicus Rex Franciae ordinavit in regno Franciae constituens inde collegium seu capitulum qui haberent ardua regni tractare Scilicet 6 Duces 6 Comites de Ducibus sunt tres Episcopi de Comitibus sunt etiam tres Episcopi And L'Oiseau a Learned French-man giveth us an account of the Erection of the 12 Pairs of France in these Words ils furent choisis selon la plus vray semblable opinion par Loys le Ieune du tout a la maniere des anciens Pairs de fief dont parlent les livres de fieffs et ont aussi toutes les mesmes charges qu' eux a Scavoir d' assister leRoy en Son investiture qui est son sacre coronement et de juger avec luiles differens des vassaux du Royame ont les uns les autres este ainsi appellez non pas pour estre agaux a leur seigneur mais pour estre Pairs compagnons entr ' eux seulement come l' explique un ancien Arrest donne contre le Comte de Flandres au Parlement de Toussaints 1295. rappâ—rte par du Tillet Ce fut pourtant un trait non de ieune mais de sage Roy lors que les Duc's Com'tes de France avoient usurpe le souverainete presque entiere pour empescher qu' ils ne se separassent tout a faict du Royaume d'en choisir douze des plus mauvais les faire Officiers principaux commemembres inseperables de la couronne a fin de les ingager par un interest particulier a la maintenir en son integriâ—e mesmea empescher la des union des autres moindres qu' eux moyen que les Allemans ont aussi tenu pour la conservation de l' Empire par la creation des 7 Electeurs Which in process of Time being long afterwards done by the Aurea Bulla might not improbably have been instituted in some imitation of the douze Pairs du France And in Anno 1226. being the 30th year of the Reign of our Henry the 3d the Earl of Flanders and the Earl of Boloigne complaining that their Lands had been Seized and taken away without the judgement of the 12 Peers as by the Laws of France they as was alledged ought and when those their greivances were redressed they would attend at the Coronation howsoever Blanch the Queen Regent although the Duke of Burgundy Earl of Champaigne St Paul Britain fere omnes nobiles ad Coronam who may probably be understood such as more particularly did hold by some grand Serjeanties to be performed at the Inauguration of their Kings did by the Counsell of the Popes Legat cause her Son Lewis to be Crowned without them And when St. Lewis the French King so called whose Saintship in our Barons wars had cost England very dear could in a seeming friendly Entertainment of our King Henry the 3d at Paris wish with an Outinam duodecim Pares Franciae had not done as they did in the forfeiture of Normandy mihi consentirent certe amica essemus indissolubiles but did at the same time adde Baronagium and might have understood that that judgment against King John denyed by the English to have any justice in it was not given by the 1â— Peers against him as Duke of Normandy for he was one of the principall of them himself and was neither present or heard But whither that or their Offices to be performed at the Coronation of their Kings gave the rise or ground of that especiall Peerage the time when being something uncertain for Du Fresne doubting of it declareth that quando the Pairs of France redacti fuerunt ad duodenarium numerum non omnino constaet inter Scriptores sane in confesso esse debat ab ipso seudorum origino vassallorum Coronae Franciae controversias a Paribus suis fuisse judicatas Anno. 1216. which was the 17th year of the Raign of our King John numerus Parium Franciae non fuit definitus And that distinction of the Majores Barones Minores Barones
8. by Act of Parliament to dispose of 2 parts of his lands reserving a 3 part to the Heir and Administrations de bonis Intestati were anciently as Mr Selden saith granted by our Kings or Lords of Manors Derivatively from them 13. E. 1. Quia Emptores terr the statute 1. E. 1. compelling men of 20 l. per Annum to take the honour of the Knighthood 17. E. 2. de homagio faciendo cum multis aliis And those together with the before-mentioned Feudall Laws have been so fundamentall to our Laws and Customs of England and which hath been called our Common Law as it hath been rightly said to be velut ossa Carnibus and so Incorporate in the body thereof as it runneth like the life-blood through the veins arteries and every part thereof circulating to the heart the primo vivens ultimo moriens of our heretofore for many ages past in our very ancient body-politick and Monarchick attested and every where plainly and visibly to be met with seen and understood not only in and by our Glanvill Bracton Britton and Fleta together with our Annalls Historians and Records the latter of which as unto matter of fact do never lye or speak false but is and hath been written said and practised by in and amongst the most of Europaean Nations of Germany France and Spain if we reade and consider well the books of their learned Lawyers when too many of our now effassinated nation will not take the pains to look into former ages or if at all beyond our Inexpiated late Rebellious Age beginning at the year 1641. but scorn at Solomons large Just and Well-deserved Commendations of Wisdom and esteem the Prophet Jeremy inspired by God to be no other in his Councel or Advice State Supervias antiquas inquire veritatem then a fopp or a grave thinking Coxcomb and to be told to his face as the Prophet Jeremy was say what thou wilt we will not hear thee And it may be to our sorrow be made an Addition to our heretofore seven wonders of England that our Littleton and Sir Edward Coke his adoring Commentator should draw the water and have so little or no acquaintance with the Fountain from whence it Came and all our Year-books and Law-Reports should allow of so many of our Feudall Laws and not cite or quote or tell us from whence their Originall came in Insomuch as Littleton as Sir Edward Coke relateth speaketh of the Kings Prerogative but in 2 places in all his book viz. § 125. 128. and in both places saith it is by the Law of England And Sr Edward Coke that gave in some of his books that good and wholesome advice petere fontes non Sectari Rivules should not as he fondly did have built Altars Sacrificed his otherwise to be well esteemed abilities to the reasonless and notoriously false and vain figments of his so much adored modus tenendi Parliamentum and the mirrour of Justice and it can be no less then a marvail that so learned a Councell at Law and State as that great and Excellent Queen Elizabeth was so blest with should permit her to afflict and torment her mind in the taking away the life of her Cousin Mary Queen of Scotland for Treason who had fled unto her for protection against the persecution of her Rebellious Subjects who had driven her out of her own Kingdom and was by some Ill-affected English made use of in some of their plots and Conspiracies which were then made or Contrived by the advantage of her being here against their Sovereign and her Royall Government upon a designed Marriage betwixt her and the Duke of Norfolk and to endure the menaces and threatnings of some forreign Kings and Princes her Allies to avenge her death as a Common Concernment which his now Majestie and his blessed Father the Royall Martyr for his people could not in all their many distresses find any amongst their great Allies and kindred that would do any thing more then to make their own unjust advantages by an Early Complying with their Adversaries when the Justice of that her unwilling action in the Silence of our best and most learned Annalists and Historians who brobably might in that and other matters of our Laws think our Feudall Laws to be as unnecessary to be proclaimed in England as that there is a God when every one should believe it might have easily proved demonstrated the sentence condemnation of that unfortunate Queen being a Feudatory of our Queen Elizabeth and holding her Kingdom of Scotland of her by ancient Tenure in Capite homage and fealty of and under her Crown of England to have been agreeable unto those Laws although very unhappy unto the necessity of the one in the causing and the other in her Suffering under it and that so many of the Kings Council in the Law that should be more than the Carved Lyons about Solomons Throne if they would but read the learned Bâ—oks that have been written by some Learned Gentlemen and Divines in the defence of the Kings Just Rights from the Bars of our Courts of Justice to the Bench and from the Bench to the Bar should take so little notice of those our fundamentall Laws as only to entitle the Kings ancient Monarchick Rights to no better a Foundation and Originall then that which the miserable seduced and infatuated Common people shall be pleased to call Prerogative as if it were some new word or term of Usurpation or Tyranny to be maligned bawled and bayted at by the silly rabble or as if the name of Prerogative made every thing unjust that the King or his Ministers have either done or shall do and some of the Causes for reason amongst many of the effascinations which like the Egyptian darkness hath almost Covered all our Land of Egypt is a word too good for it may be the mischeivous quarrell betwixt our Common Lawyers and Civill or Caesarean Lawyers not reading or understanding so much as they should do the venerable mother of that which they would call the Common Laws when at the same time they can be content to make use of their Excellent Rules and Maximes in many of their Pleas Arguments Books and Reports as so many faithfull Guides and Directions And for further satisfaction unto and as far as a demonstration from what original the most of our fundamental and Principal Laws tanquam a fonte purissimo the purest fountain of Right Reason have proceeded been fixt and continued amongst us the particulars of the Feudal Laws following not before mentioned will if rightly considered abundantly Illustrate and Declare when the Feudists or Fendal Lawyers may assure us that the Feudal Laws being as a Jus gentium of all the Northern Nation of Europe from or out of which England Scotland and Ireland with their adjacent Isles and Territories are not or ever yet were to be excluded In the company whereof attended also as the
the Common Laws of England some part of the Civil and Canon Laws and a great part of the Records of the Kingdom and much honoured for his love and care of Justice But being a Judge in those Times and seduced by another of that Rank to take such a place upon him upon the pretence of keeping up and supporting the Law and was upon his Majesties Restauration advanced into an higher degree seemed notwithstanding not to have been so much or so well read as he might have been in the Feudall Laws excellent constitution and frame of the Monarchick Government of this Realm when in that House of Commons either in a cool neutrality or over perswaded by by his fears of or desire of living in safety or to preserve the Common Law when against his will and well known Integrity he was in that house of Commons in Parliament heard by another Member that Sat next unto him to say or declare his opinion that the King was trusted by the People wherein he might have better considered that two parts of our Laws most precious and necessary both to and for the King and his People which were the Summoning and calling of Parliaments or Great Councells and the Tryals of his Subjects Guilts or Innocencies per Pares with Reliefs Herriots due to our Kings and Princes and unto Ten thousand Lords of Manors or thereabouts Subordinate unto their Kings in England and Wales with Fines and Amercements Felons and Out-Laws Goods Annum diem vastum cum multis aliis c. were solely and principally derived from the Feudall Laws Which with some of the Usages and Customs of the Nation and our Statutes and Acts of Parliament from Time to Time after made and added thereunto were the Laws which many of our Kings and Princes took an Oath at their Coronations to Protect and Defend as also the leges Consuetudines quas vulgus elegerit who if our Feudal Laws had not been so very ancient as they have been would not want such as would heartily desire and make choice of them to have Lands given to hold of their King in Capite and enjoy to them and their Heirs under his more especiall protection and was in the Reign of our famous Arthur King of Brittain esteemed so great an happiness as Consensu Historicorum eruditorum of that Age and Time Leland hath informed us Utherus Pendraco fuit pater Arthuri cujus Gorlas Corinnae regulus beneficiarius erat a Notion or Title anciently used of such as held their lands in Capite or by Knight Service And therefore howsoever the learned Bracton's Pen might seem to have erred in his expression or words of Fraenare Regis it might as it ought consonantly to the Proper and Genuine Sense Intention and Meaning of all his Arguments through the Context and Tenor of his whole Books being no little one be accepted and taken to be no otherwise then a restraining him as Kings and great and good men have usually been by good advice and Councell of friends or Servants as Naaman the Syrian's Servants did in their Lords returning back in an anger from the Prophet Elisha who came near unto him and perswaded him to wash in Jordan in order to his recovery from his Leprosy when otherwise that harsh word or phrase of fraenare Reges could not without great danger damage or forfeiture be used or any forcible perswasion put upon a free Prince by Authorities coutrary to their Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy Justly and Truly descending from the Feudall Laws which commandeth all men holding of them in Capite to do otherwise And although some of our Ancient Historians have informed us that in a Parliament holden at Merton in the 20th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 〈◊〉 upon the Bishops endeavouring to have a Law made that according to the Canon Law the Children born before Marriage illicitis amplexibus should by a subsequent Marriage of the Parents be esteemed legitimate the Temporall Lords restiterunt and laying their hands upon their Swords Jurarunt quod noluerunt leges Angliae mitare it was not any plain absolute deniall of the Kings Decisive and Legislative Power but only an Altercation Debate or Dispute betwixt the Spirituall and Temporall Lords in Parliament concerning that matter And neither the Bishops or the house of Commons or any of the Commons represented or not could not so much as attempt to force or bridle their King by Commotions or force of Arms which by the Feudall Laws and the most of our Laws and Customs derived from thence would have been legally adjudged a Rebellion and Fraenare Regis in that undecent expression si quod rei fecerit aut neglexerit quod Dominum contempsisse dicitur aut si Dominus per consequentiam laedatur persona cujus existimationem sartam tectam manere Domini interest for Concilio auxilio Domino adesse debet which was the Cause and ground of right Reason that in the Reign of our King Edward the 2. the Lord Beaumont or de Bello monte was in Parliament Fined for refusing to come to Parliament and give the King his advice or Councell And it is not many Years since that the Emperor of Germany Seised and Imprisoned Prince William of Furstenburgh a feudatory for appearing in Person at a Treaty betwixt the Emperor and the King of France against his Lord the Emperor And our Mesne Lords holding their Lands Jurisdictions Courts Baron and Courts Leet notwithstanding that Act of Parliament for dissolving the Court of Wards and Liveries and the tenures in Capite supporting it did from the 24th Day of February in the Year of our Lord 1645 when in the height of their Wars against their Sovereign they had but Voted the Dissolution of thrt Court and the Tenures in Capite for at that Time there appeared not to have been any Act of Parliament although an Act made in the Time of Oliver Cromwell might be an usher or used as a pattern in the drawing of that by a learned Judge of those Rebellions Times wherein the Reliefs Herriots were found necessary to be reserved unto his now Majesty his Heirs and Sucessors Which may sadly be believed to have been a Decapitation or cutting off the head of the Body-Politick or Government as a Prologue to the Tragicall and Direfull Murder in the cutting off the Head of their most Pious better Deserving King No King or Prince in the World Christian or Heathen black or white that had all their Subjects except their Nobility and the Bishops and such as hold their Lands by the Honorary Services of grand Serjeanty or by the tenures of Copyhold or by Copy of Court-Roll unto which our Littleton giveth no better a name or Title then tenure in Villainage or any service incident thereunto which being originally derived from the tenures in Capite were not many Years ago very nigh a fourth Part of the Kingdom that had so
unto the now Duke of Beaufort and by men leavyed and sent unto him from Wales in his Majesties March as far as Shrowsbury towards him the better to enjoy and be near the great assistance which he promised and performed without which and the Ancient and Legall aid and help of his tenures in Capite and by Knight-service he could not have made any defence for Himself or his Loyal Subjects but might have been taken and Imprisoned by the Sheriffes of every shire or County thorough which he was to pass in his Journey to York with his eldest Son the Prince whom they would likewise have seised upon when he was by the Faction and their Hunters driven and pursued as it were thither for Refuge as a Partridge hunted upon the Mountains from his Parliament when he had no Provision of Arms Men or Money And the Rebell-Party of that Parliament had formed and beforehand made ready a great and powerfull Army without any manner of want of Money and a seduced party of his People to march against him And our Feudall Laws were so little despised unknown or unusuall in this Kingdom as our Magna-Charta and Charta de Foresta more then 30 times confirmed by Acts of Parliament and the Petition so called of Right will appear to have no other source or Fountain as to the most of the many parts thereof then the Feudall Laws And they must be little Conversant in the reading practice and usage thereof demonstrable in and through our Records and Authentique Annalls and Historians that will not confess and believe it when they shall so manifestly almost every where see the vestigia and tracks thereof and our Saxon Laws faithfully translated and rendred unto us by the labours and industry of our learned Lambard and Abraham Whelock Arabick professor in the University of Cambridge and the glossary of our Learned Sr Henry Spelman may aboundantly be found to declare that they had for the most part no other Progenitors And could not be understood to amount unto no less then the greatest and strongest Fortifications that any Kingdom could have though not so guarded by the Sea as our Islands of Great Brittain are and have been when Seventy Thousand Horsmen gravi Armatura or not meanly Armed should as the manner of those Times were without much disturbance to their other affairs be sodainly ready upon any Emergencies of Wars Intestine or Forreign without Pay or Wages under the greatest obligations Divine and Humane to defend their Kings themselves and their Estates which in more valiant and plain dealing Times did in no longer part of time commonly determine the fate or fortune of a Kingdom as to a great part of the Event or success of a War And was so necessary to the Defence of the King and People as our William the Conqueror that did not bring but found the Feudall Laws here in England may be thought to have been very willing to have strengthend his Conquests here when he distributed amongst his great Officers in the Army his Soldiers as much of his Conquered Lands as Ordericus Vitalis hath related it Seventy Thousand Knights Fees who in regard of their service for the defence of the King had a Privilege by the Kings Writ for them and their Tenants to be free ab omni Talagio from all Taxes which priviledge or acquittal saith Sr Edward Coke discontinued Of which our Feudall Laws the Brittains the more ancient Inhabitants of England as well as the Brittains in America in France now known by the name of the Duchy of Brittain cannot be believed to have been Ignorant when the Father of our Victorious Arthur King of Brittain was a Beneficiarius and held his Lands in Cornwall of the King in Capite unto whose Kingdom were appendant the large Dominions of Norway and the Islands ultra Scanriam Islandiam Ireland Curland Dacia Semeland Winland Finland Wareland Currelam Flanders omnes alias terras Insulas Orientalis Oceani usque Russiam Et iu Luppo etiam posuit orientalem metam Regni Brittania multas alias Insulas usque Scotiam usque in Septentrione quae sunt de appendicis Scaniae quae Noricena dicitur and that Kingdom of Brittain had so large an Extent and the King of Brittain such a directum Dominium therein that upon an exact Search and inquiry into the Memorialls Antiquities Annalls and Historians thereof it was evident that in the Times of Ely and Samuel after the Siege and Destruction of Troy Brute came into this Island called it by his name and divided his Kingdom to his 3 Sons Loegria now called England to his Eldest Albania since called Scotland came to the 2 and Cambria or Wales unto his 3 Son Camber after whom was Arthurus Rex Britonium famosissimus Who subdued a great part of France and those his Noble Acts were not unknown unto some of the Roman Poets and Historians and the Laws used here in his Time may with great reason be understood to have been the same which the English or Saxons our later Ancestors Fletibus Precibus with supplications washed in Tears obtained of the Norman Conqueror to be left unto them as King Edward the Confessors Laws for his Justice and Holiness reputed to have been a Saint and together with the Mercenlage or Laws made by Mercia a Queen of Mercia or the Borders or Confines of Wales ought to be esteemed the same aggregate Laws which K. William the Conqueror of the Brittains Saxons and Normans after they had began to Intermarrie and were become as it were Populus unus Gens una were certified by the greatest most universall and most Solemn Jury and verdict that ever was Impannelled or made use of in England and under the strictest and severest Charge not by Judges delegate but by the King himself and a Conquering King that had omnia Jura et terras in manu sua which he did Consilio Baronum suorum in Anno quarto Regni sui cause to be Summoned through all the Shires Counties of England of out of the Nobiles sapientes et in Lege cendites ut eorum Leges et Jura et Consuetudines ab ipsis audiret Whereupon in singulis totius patriae Comitatibus a Jury of 12 men qualified as aforesaid Jure Jurando coram ipso Rege before the King himself no ordinary Judge but the Highest under God quo ad possent recto tramite incidentes neither turning on the Right hand nor the Left legum suarum Consuetudinum suarum patefacerent neither omitting or adding any thing by fraud or praevarication yet the King seeming better to approve of his Norway and Danish Laws which in many things affinitate Saxonum seemed to be the same with the Norway Laws except in some small difference in the heightning of the Fines and Forfeitures which when the King had heard read unto him maxime appreciutus est proecepit ut Obsequerentur per
faceret And that greatly learned man could not but acknowledge that there were afterwards resumptions of Crown-Lands in the Reign of King Henry the 2. the alienation of some of the Crown-Lands severely charged upon King Richard the 2d Anno. 33. H 6. by an Act of Parliament and in the reign of King Edward the 4th at the request and upon the Petition of the Commons and were much more needfull then those that had been before in the Reign of King Henry the 2. made Leoline Prince of Wales to come and do him Homage and Baliel King of Scotland attending in our Pâ—rliament to arise from his State placed by the Kings and Stand at the Bar of the House of Peers whilst a cause was pleaded against him And it might not be improbable that that League betwixt that King and the aforesaid Christian Princes might be entred not amongst the Common Rolls and records of England but of Gascoigne where it was most proper and that some Vestigia of his great Actions might be there found of it as well as that of the 22th Year of his Reign of a Summons of divers English Barons to come to his great Councell or Parliament in England and it could not be unknown to that great man of learning that as Authors and Writers have learned and Writ one out of another so have many Wrote that singly and alone which many of the Contemporaries have either not been Informed of or did not think fit to Mention the dreadfull plagues of Egipt and the most remarkable that ever were in so short a Time inflicted by God upon any Nation of the Earth since the universall Deluge destroying all but the Righteous Noah his Family the several Kinds of Creatures perserved with him the passage of Moses thorough the Red-Sea in his conduct of the People of Israel into the land of Canaan were not to be thrown out of the belief of Christians all others Venerating the Sacred Scriptures because Plato or Pythagoras travailing into Egypt in the inquest of learning have given us no particular accompts thereof and it will ever be as truly said as it hath been that Bernardus non videt omnia the ancient institution rites ceremonies of the most Honourable Garter is not to be suspected because our Law and Statute books have not made such Discoveries Recherches or a worthy and most elaborate Record thereof as the learned and Judicious Mr Elias Ashmole hath lately done or our Glauviles Book de legibus Consuetudinibus Angliae is not to fall under the question whether he was the Lord Chief Justice of England that Wrote it because there hath not been so much heed taken of him as ought to be by our Common-Law Year-Books or Memorialls of Cases adjudged in our Courts of Justice and later Law Books when the learned Pancirollo in his Book de deperditis Ac etiam de novis repertis and the exquisitely learned Salmuthius in his Comment or Annotations thereupon or the learned Pasquier in his Recherches and our ever to be honored Mr Selden in his rescuing from the Injuries of Time those many before hidden truths which he in his history of Tithes Jauus Anglorum Analett Brittanniae Titles of honor de Synedriis Judeorum uâ—or Jus naturae Gentium Historia Ead mei cum multis aliis and those very many discoveries of learning and Truth which the world must ever confess ought to be attributed to his walking in unknown paths nullius ante trita pede have very Justly escaped any such suspicions and that long and Eminent Treaty for Peace at Nimiguen for divers Years last past managed by most of the Monarchs of Europe and their concerns wherein the care and mediation of our King in the charge of his Plenipotentiaries have not wanted gratefull Testimonialls of the many very much concerned Kings and Princes in the putting a stop to the Warrs effusion of Blood and devastation of so great a part of Christendom is not or ought to be placed amongst the non liquets or Doubtings of after Ages because which by some Incuria or neglect of our Recording of it amongst our Archives which the more is to be pittied is not much unlikely to happen it is not to be met with amongst our Records or Historians When the so much Deservedly admired speculations and Experiments of the excelently Learned Sr Francis Bacon Lord Verulam in his Philosophy more then Aristotle and many others had made those Discoveries of des Cartes Depths and Investigations of our Sr Kenelme Digby into the most abstruse parts of Learning and that great addition now every where allowed to be true to that most necessary and usefull Art or Faculty of Physick of the circulation of the Blood in the Bodies of men first Discovered and made apparent by our late Learned Doctor Harvey though the Egiptian Arabian and Grecian Doctors and the greatly Famed Galen and Hypocrates had in all their labors knowledge and Practice not so much as taken notice of it were never the worse but rather much the better that former ages and men in the length of Art and the short Curriculum of their lives often intermitted with Sickness and the Cares and Troubles of the World had no sooner communicated it neither ought the Truth and value of our allways highly to be esteemed Seldens Labours in the vindication of our Kings Sovereignty in our Brittish Seas suffer any abate because no Englishman before had undertaken it or of his learned Observations and Comments upon Sr John Fortescues Book de laudibus Legum Angliae because he did not mention or had Discovered that that over-tossed and turmoiled worthy and learned Chancellor was after the Expulsion of the 3 Henrys 4. 5. 6th of the House of Lancaster under the later of whom he had Faithfully served from the Inheritance of the Crown of England by King Edward the Fourth with his better Title enforced publickly to beg his Pardon and with much ado and by Writing and delivering unto him a Book contradicting the Title of those former Kings and asserting that of his own which appeareth in that Act of Parliament in the 13th Year of that King for the Reversall of his Attainder And those disturbers and misuses of our Fundamental Laws might do well to sit down and consider that our uncontrolled every where in England venerable Littleton can certify us that if a man hold Land of his Lord by Fealty only for all manner of service it behoveth that he ought to do some service to his Lord for if the Tenant ought to do no manner of service to his Lord or his Heirs then by long Continuance of time it would grow out of memory whether the Land were holden of the Lord or his Heirs and thereupon the Lord may loose his Escheat of the Land or some other Forfeiture so it is reason that the Lord and his Heirs have some service done unto them to prove
direct and plead their causes and was with us in England the originall of our Serjeants at law and pleaders mentioned in the Statute made in the 3d year of his Reign with great penalties to be inflicted upon them for any falshoods or deceits which should be committed by them which in the 3d year of the Reign of King Edward the 2d came to be so much in use and reputation much more since augmented by the grace and permission of our Kings and Princes into an eminent State and degree as they are only to be made and constituted by the King's writs appointed for the people to help them to Justice in their causes or actions either as to Prosecute for their Rights or defend them from wrongs and oppressions and intimate and shew unto Judges what the laws do require to be done according to Justice and equity and must needs be gratefull to the people who were so thereby freed from maintenance champerty and quarrels too frequently haunting the courts of Justice as it was enough for an advocate or Lawyer in discharging himself from actions brought against him for Champerty or maintenance to plead that he is Homo legis and was retained by his Client Although the word Narrator or Narratores pleaders have been found to have been used in the later end of the Reign of King Henry the 3. which might either proceed from the Civill or Caesarean Laws whereof the Lawyers of those Times would have been ashamed to have been such profest Enemies as some of ours are pleased to be because they do not or cannot afford to understand their excellencies or from the use or misapplication of some newly Devised Verba Novata by some rash or inconsiderable Authors or Writers unto some long before by gone and past ages such as Hint Sham c. not at all in those Times made use of or understood which have produced great Digladiations and Disputes both amongst Writers and Readers and made many that otherwise would not or should not go to Cuffs in the Dark for little or nothing And to satisfy his Subjects in the grand concernments of their Laws and Liberties Lives and Estates and to cause them to be fully kept and Executed sent his Writs to his Justice of Chester and the Sheriffs of all the Counties of England in these Words viz. Cum propter communem utilitatem totius Regni nostri meliorationem populi nostri relevationem de Communi concilio Praelatorum Magnatum Regni ejusdem no Knights or Citizens and Burgesses for the Commonalty being then present or believed to have been necessary quasdam provisiones quaedam Statuta cum magua diligentia ordinari postmodum sigillo nostro signari fecerimus tam a nobis quam a ministris nostris quibuscunque quam ab ipsis Praelatis Magnatibus nostris ac tota communitate Regni praedicti then understood to be included in the advice of the Prelates and Nobility ad perpetuam memoriam rei gestae inviolabiliter observand vobis mandamus in fide dilectione quibus nobis tenemini firmiter injungentes quod provisiones Statuta illa in pleno Com. Cestr. in singulis Hundredis ejusdem comitatuus Civitatibus Burgis Villis Mercatoriis locis aliis ubi expedire videritis legi publice solempnitor proclamari ea in omnibus singulis articulis suis ab omnibus de baelliva vestra futuris temporibus juxta tenorem corundem firmiter inviolabiliter observari provisionibus Statutis illis sic proclamatis ea in singmlis locis infra ballivam vestram ubi expediri videritis distinct aperte conscribi ea fidelibus nostris locorum illorum sic Scripta sine dilatione liberari vobis ac ballivis fidebus nostris habere cum eis indigueritis ostendenda quatuor vel duobus militibus de fidelioribus discretioribus militibus Comitatus praedicti de assensu totius communitatis tradâ— faciatis those Knights only and no Citizens or Burgesses trusted therein ad Securitatem dictae communitatis Cusiodiend it a vos habeatis in hoc mandato nostro exequendo ne nobis seu aliis per vos vel vestros seu vobis per defectum vestrum vel vestrorum imputari possit vel debeat quod ea quae in dictis provisionibus Statutis continentur vel corum aliquae in balliva vestra minus plene observentur hoc vobis universitati Comitatus praedictitenore presentium significamus T. R. apud Westm. 28 die Mar. consimiles literae diriguntur singulisVice comitibus per Angliam which needed not to have been said there if there had then been an House of Commons in Parliament or any such comprehension or representation of Commons by Commons in Parliament as the Authors of their supposed Sovereignty have fondly imagined And at the instance of John de Cobham altering the tenure of some of his Lands in Gavel-kind did it by his Charter in these Words ad Regis celsitudinis potestatem pertinet officium ut partium suarum leges consuetudines quas justas utiles censuerit ratas habeat observari faciat inconcussas illas autem quae regni robur diminuer potius quam augere conservare abolere convenit aut saltem in melius commutare Directed his Writ to Roger de Seyton and other his Justices Itinerant at the Tower of London in these Words viz. Rex dilectis fidelibus suis Magistro de Seyton Sociis suis Justiciariis Itinerantibus apud Turrim London Salâ—tem Sciatis quod per dominum H. Regem patrem nostrum nos ac Consilium nec non alios fideles suos qui cum eodem patre nostro convenerant apud Marleberge provisum fuit quod si coram quibuscumque Justiciariis Itinerantibus appellum vel querimonia fieret de roberia pace fructa vel homicidio aut aliis commissis tempore guerrae nuper suborte versus eos qui fuerunt contra eundem patrem nostrum vel alios aut dc hujusmodi commissis presentationes fierent sicut ad Capitula Coronae fieri solent nullus ea occasione amitteret vitam vel membra aut penam perpetui Carceris incurreret set alio modo de dampius amissis vel ablatis transgressionibus fieret Judicia castigatio secundum discretionem Justiciariorum dicti patris nostri insuper diligenter attenderent observarent ea que continentur in dicto de Kenilleworth Et habeant Justiciarii in singulis Itineribus suis transcriptum dicti prefati Ita quod de his quae per alios Justiciarios ipsâ—â—s patris aostri ad hoc assignatos termina fuissent seu terminari deberent nichil facerent Justiciarii dicti patris nostri Itinerantes sine speciali mandato suo si forte sibi idem pater noster aliquid injungeret sciendum quod tempus guerrae
the Crown of Scotland amongst which was Erick King of Norway and received the homage of the King thereof and in his Claim to the Superiority strongly Asserted it when the Pope had by his Letter unto him mediated on the behalf of the King of Scotland and claimed that Kingdom And was so watchfull over his own Rights and what belonged to his Crown and Dignity as upon an appeal from John Baliol King of Scotland and his Parliament to the Parliament and Court of the K. of England unto which when he was Summoned personally to appear before him appearing sate with him in Parliament was Suffered no longer to sit by him but untill the Cause came to be heard when he was cited by an Officer to leave his Seat and Commanded to stand at the Barr appointed for pleading which he having no mind to do craved leave to answer by his procurator but was denied and as a Feudatory made to arise and descend to the Barr and defend his own Cause before him as his Superiour Which by the Ancient feudall Fundamentall Laws of England without the assistance of any other of our Laws concerning Treason might have excused and Justified our excellently virtuous Queen Elizabeth in her unwilling Tryall Condemning Beheading and putting to Death Mary Queen of Scotland her Feudatory not only for Usurping the Arms and Title of the Crown of England but plotting after her flying for Refuge unto her and her Kingdom of Scotlands Superior for Resuge to bereave her of her Kingdom of England and the Dominions thereof by her intended Marriage of the Duke of Norfolk for which he was likewise condemned and Executed for Treason In the same Year by his Writ commanded to be arrested Susurrones publicos predicatores contra personam Regis In the 7th year of his reign upon occasion of false rumours sent his Commissioners into severall Counties of the Kingdom ad inquirendum qui dicebant Regem inhibuisse ne quis blada sua meteret vel prata sua falcaret quod omnes tales sine dilatione in prisona custodiantur douec authores suos invenerint tunc liberent authores in prisona custodiant donec pro deliberatione corum mandatum habuerint Speciale In the 13th Year of his Reign for a fine of 20 Marks paid by W. gave him a respite de se militem faciendo Et a pres il fut amerce per les Justices itinerant parceo q'il ne leur monstre son Charter In the 10th Year of his Reign granted authority to Signify his assent to a future Abbot And in the same year impowred Edmond Earl of Cornwall to admitt in his name the Mayor of Oxon when the commonalty of the town should present him and the like for the Mayor and Sheriffs of London In the 12th Year of his Reign granted to the Citizens of London power to make Sheriffs of London and Middlesex In the 13th Year of his Reign directed his Writts to the Sheriffs in the words ensuing cum de consuetudine regni qui habent 20 libratas terrae vel feodum militis valens 20 libratas terrae vel feodum militis valens 20 libratas per annum distringerentur ad arma militaria suscipiendum nos ob servitium c. in Wallia a communitate regni nostri volumus quod non habentes tantas libratas terrae non distringantur Ordained that in Parliament certain Bishops Lords and Other their Assistants should be named of that Honourable Assembly of Parliament at the very beginning thereof which for many Ages after hath been duly observed to be receivers and tryers of the Petitions Complaints and Desires of his People to be exhibited therin whether properly to be there determined or in the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall or other inferior Courts In the 14th and 16 Years of his Reign made his cousin Edmund Earl of Cornwall custos regni Spared not in his Court of Kings-bench Robert the Son of William de Glanvile and Reginald the Clark of the said William for delivering at Norwich a Panell of the Kings Writs which the King 's Coroner ought to have brought Banished his Son Prince Edward from his Court Presence for 6 Months for giving reproachfull words to a great Officer of his Court or Houshold Caused the Prior of the Holy Trinity in London and Bogo de Clare a man of great power and reputation to be arrested at his suit by Peter de Chanet Steward of his houshold and Walter de Fancourt Marshall of the King for citing Edmond Earle of Cornewall to appear before the Archbishop of Canterbury as he was passing thorough Westminster-Hall to the Parliament whereupon the Prior and Bogo after some pleadings in the said case submitting themselves uuto the King's Grace Will and Pleasure were committed to the Tower of London there to remain during his Will and Pleasure and being afterwards Bailed the said Bogo paid to the King a Fine of 2000 Marks and gave security to the Earl for 1000. which by the interposition of the Bishop of Durham and others of the King's Councell was afterwards remitted unto 100 l. and the Prior was left to the Judgment and process of the Court of Exchecquer In the 20th Year of his Reign praecepit singulis vice Comitibus per Angliam Justic. Cestr. quod proclamari facerent quod omnes qui habent 40. libratas terrae in feodo haereditate sumerent militaria arma In that and the Year following seized the Lands of those that would not take that Degree and made speciall respites to some during their lives Caused his Justices to certify into the Exchecquer at the return out of their Circuits by particular Rolls under their own Names the Fines and amerciaments set imposed and forfeited upon Actions of trespass rescous deceit attaints non est factum or salse Pleas untrue avowries appeals of Murder felony manslaughter meyheim Contempts and attachments upon process out of any of his Courts of Justice abuse of the Law Fictitious actions and vexatious Suits Non-suits in Actions reall and personall or when but part was found for the Plaintiff or Defendant which were in those Days as much for the advance and well ordering of Justice as they were for the Kings profit who took such a care not to have it neglected as by his Writ without an Act of Parliament he prefixt his Justices certain times for the causing the said Monies to be levied when their own then little Wages or Salaries were to be paid out of it which made them to be so exact therein as there was no fault deserving a Just Punishment could escape the Eyes and Ears apprensions and Watch of his regulated Justices insomuch as Offenders were Fined or amerced pro falso clamore or quia non invenerunt pleg for Deceipts Sheriffs for not returning of Writs Jurors for not appearing or pro falsa appretiatione or giving verdicts before
to provide remedy hath ordained In Ca. 3. where a cui in vita shall be granted and a Wife or he in reversion received the King hath ordained Ca. 6. Where a Tenant Voucheth and the Vouchee denyeth the Warranty the King hath ordained Ca. 9. Entituled in what case the Writ of Mesne is to be pursued it is said in the perclose that for certain causes Remedies are not in certain things provided God willing there shall be at another time Ca. 10. Providing at what time Writs shall be delivered for suits depending before Justices in Eyre the parties may make Generall Attorneys it is said the King hath ordained Ca. 14. Concerning Process to be made in wast our Lord the King from henceforth to remove this error hath ordained Ca. 24. For the granting of Writs of Nuysance quod permittatis in consimili casu where the King ordaineth for which by no ground or colour of reason it is otherwise to be understood that whensoever from thenceforth it should fortune that in Chancery which is no body's Court but the Kings a like Writ is found and in another case falling under the like Law a like remedy is not found the Clerks of the Chancery shall agree in making the Writ or the Plaintiffs may adjourn it untill the next Parliament and let the cases be written in which they cannot agree and let them referr themselves untill the next Parliament by consent of men learned in the Law which could not in those times be understood as of the Members of the House of Commons none of them being then chosen or Summoned to give their consent in Parliament Ca. 25. In the Act of Parliament entituled of what things an Assize shall be certified It is said that forasmuch as there is no Writ in the Chancery whereby Plaintiffs can have so speedy remedy by a Writ of Novell Disseisin our Lord the King willing that Justice may be speedily ministred and that delays in Pleas may be taken away or abridged granteth c. And our Lord the King to whom false exceptions be odious hath ordained c. The like words of the King 's granting and ordaining are to be understood in the Chapters immediately following viz Ca. 26. 27. 28. 29. and 30. In that of 13. E. 1. ca. 30. The two Knights of the Shire are changed by length of time or some other causes into those which are now called Associates and are indeed but the enrolling Clarks which by that Statute are allowed the Justices in their Circuits as they have used to have in times past Were not Knights of the Shire Elected for an House of Commons in 29. E. 1. ca. 5. the King willeth that the Chancellor and Justices of his Bench shall follow his Court so that he may at all Times have some near unto him which be learned in the Laws and be able to order all such matters as shall come unto the Court at all Times when need shall require And the like that the King ordained and willed is to be understood in the chapters or articles 31. 32 33. In that of 32. where it is mentioned and so the Statute is defrauded it is said our Lord the King hath ordained and granted Ca. 39. Concerning the manner of Writs to be delivered to the Sheriffs to be executed it is said that our Lord the King hath provided and ordained c. And the King hath commanded that Sheriffs shall be punished by the Justices for false Retornes once or twice if need be Ca. 41. entituled contra formam collationis which was of great concernment in their lands and estates and also as they then thought in matters of provision for the souls of their parents Ancestors and near relations it is said our Lord the King hath Ordained In ca. 42. appointing the several fees of Marshall Chamberlains in fee Porters of Justices in Eyre c. which was of great Importance to many it is mentioned that our Lord the King hath caused to be enquired by an enquest what the said Officers of fee used to have in times past and hath ordained and commanded that a Marshall in fee c. which was then Roger Bigod Earl of Norfolk a man of great power and authority it is in like manner Ordained Ca. 43. That Hospitalers and Templers which were a part of the People then of great Estates Power and Authority in the Kingdom shall draw no man in suite c. it is said to have been prohibited and the King also prohibiteth Ca. 44. Setling the Fees of Porters bearing Virges before the Justices c. it is said be it provided and ordained and the King chargeth his Justices In the Statute of Winchester made in Anno. 13. E. 1. that fresh suit shall be made after Felons from Town to Town our Lord the King to abate the Power of Felons hath established a pain in that case Ca. 2. Where the County shall answer for the Robbery where the Felon shall not be taken which though it was an excellent Law and ever since put in execution might upon the first impression seem to bear hard upon the People that they not committing the Crimes should be responsable in their Purses and Estates for it the preamble saith likewise our Lord the King hath Established Ca. 3. Respiting that Act until Easter then next nsuing it is mentioned that forasmuch as the King will not that his People should be suddenly impoverished by reason of the penalty which seemeth very hard to many the King granteth that they shall not incurr immediately but it should be respited untill Easter next following within which time he may see how the Country will order themselves whether such felonys do cease After which time let them all be assured that the aforesaid Penalties shall run generally that is to say the People in the Country shall be answerable for Felonies Robberies done amongst them In an Act of Parliament at what time the gates of great Towns shall be shut and Night-Watches begin and end it is said the King commanded For the breadth of High-ways leading from one Market-Town to another it is said and further it is Commanded In the Act of Parliament that every man should have Armour in his house according to his ability it is said and further it is commanded and the Justices assigned shall present in every Parliament unto the King such defaults as they shall find and the King shall provide remedy therein In the Statutes of Merchants made in the same year wherein the form of a Statute Merchant is appointed it is recited that the King and his Councel at his Parliament holden at Acton Burnell in the 11th year of his Reign hath ordained In the Statute of Circumspecte Agatis the King only saith Use your self circumspectly concerning the Bishop of Norwich and his Clergy In the Statute of Quia Emptores terrarum made in the 18th of his Reign it is said our Lord the King in his Parliament at the
to his people that they shall have Election of their Sheriff in every Shire where the Shrievalty is not of Fee if they list which would have been very prejudicial both to the King and his people as to the collecting of his revenue and Executing his Justice by his Mandates Writs and Process if the confirmation allowance or disallowance thereof had not been by Law lodged in the King and his Supream authority What persons shall be returned in every Jury the King Willeth and Commandeth For a remedy against Conspirators False Enformers and Embracers of Juries the King hath provided a remedy Against Mainteynors of Suits it is said the King willeth but it may not be understood hereby that any person shall be prohibited to have Councel of Pleaders or of Learned Men in the Law for his Fee or of his Parents or next Friends What distress shall be taken for the Kings debts and how it shall be used the King willeth What sort of Persons the Commons of shires shall chuse for their Sheriffs forasmuch as the King hath granted it is said the King willeth That Baylewicks and Hundreds shall not be let too dear to charge the people with contribution In summons and attachments in plea of land the writ shall contain 15 daies it is in like manner to be understood In like manner against false retornes of writs The King willeth that the Statute of Winchester shall be read 4 times in the year and put in execution The King willeth that Escheators shall commit no wast in Wards lands In an act of Parliament declaring in what cases the owner shall have his lands delivered out of the King's hands with the issues it is said the King willeth In an Act of Parliament that vessels of gold shall be assayed it is said to have been ordained and that notwithstanding all those things before-mentioned or any point of them both the King and his Councell and all that were present at the making of that Ordinance meaning the Judges and Assistants of that Honourable Court will and intend that the right and prerogative of his Crown shall be saved to him in all things In the Statute de Escatoribus 29. E. 1. at the Parliament of our Lord the King at Lincoln in his Councell it was agreed and also commanded by the King Himself and this order shall be held from henceforth in the Chancery notwithstanding a certain ordinance lately made by our Lord the King concerning lands and tenements taken into his hands by his officers and not to be delivered but by the King himself and as it is conteined in a Certain dividenda or indenture made betwixt the King himself and his Chancelor whereof one part remaineth in the Custody of the Chancelor In the new Statute of Quo Warranto made Anno 30. E. 1. it is recited that the King himself in the 6 year of his Reign providing for the wealth of his Realm and the more full administration of Justice as to the Office of a King belongeth the more discreet men of the Realm as well high as of low degree being called thither it is provided and ordained but in the writs framed to enquire by what warrant the Liberties were granted to the people they are said to be in Parliamento nostro per nos concilium nostrum 31. E. 1. In an ordinance for Measures it is said that by the consent of the whole Realm of England the King's measure was made In the Statute of 33. E. 1. Touching protections granted by the King it is said to have been provided In the ordinance or definition of Conspirators made in the aforesaid Year it is declared that this ordinance and final definition of Conspirators was made and aworded by the King and his Councell in Parliament In the Statute of Champerty made in the 33d year of the Reign of the aforesaid King it is recited that whereas in our Statute it was contained and provided by a common accord the writ framed thereupon mentioneth that law to be the Kings Ordinance In the Ordinance for enquests made in Parliament the same year it is said to have been agreed and ordained by the King and all his Councell In the ordinatio Forestae made in the year aforesaid whereas certain people have by great men made request to our Lord the King that they may be acquitted of their charge and the demand of the Foresters our Lord the King answered that when he had granted Pour lieu he was pleased it should stand as it was granted albeit the thing was sued and demanded in an evill point Nevertheless he willeth and intendeth that all his demeasne lands which have been of the Crown or returned unto it by Escheat or otherwise shall have free chase and free warren and in right of them that have lands and tenements disafforested for the said Pourlieus and such as demand to have Common within the bounds of forests the intent and will of our Sovereign Lord the King is c. And if any that were disafforested would rather be in the Forest it pleaseth the King very well and our Lord the King willeth and commandeth the Justices of the Forest c. In Anno 34. of his Reign there being an Ordinance for measuring of Land In the same Year the King by his Letters-Patents with the Teste meipso certifying the Statute de Conjunctim Feoffatis declared that it was no new thing that among divers establishments of Laws which he had ordained in his time upon the great and heinous mischiefs that happen in Writs of Novel disseisin chiefly above others he as if he neither did know or believe any co-ordination or that he was to be tutored by a Conservatorship had devised a more speedy remedy then was before and willeth and granteth that that Statute shall take his effect the morrow after the feast of St Peter ad Vincula next coming In the Statute for Amortising of Lands tempore E. 1. the King commandeth c. In Ca. 4. Which seemeth to be about the 27th Year of that Kings Reign in the confirmation of all our Laws Liberties and Customes it is said that the King willeth and granteth if any Statutes have been made or any customes brought in contrary thereunto that such Statutes and Customes shall be void for evermore And for the more assurance of this thing we will and grant that all Archbishops and Bishops for ever shall twice in the year cause to be openly read in their Cathedralls the said Charters and denounce curses against the willing infringers thereof and the Archbishops Bishops c. have voluntarily Sworn to observe the tenor thereof In the ordinatio pro Statu Hiberniae made by him at Nottingham by the assent of his Councel there being in Ca. 6. in what cases the Justices of Ireland may grant pardon of Felony c. and where not there is an exception so always that there
Domino donante Rex non solum Mercor sum sed omnium provinciarum quae generali nomine Angli dicuntur did grant Cumberhto 10. Cassatas terrae cui ab antiquis nomen est indicum Husmerat juxta fluvium â—tur subscribed with ✚ Ego Aethelbald Rex Britaniae propriam donationem confirmavi subscripsi ✚ Ego Unor Episcopus consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Unilfridus Episcopus jubente Aethelbaldo Rege subscripsi ✚ Ego Aethelric subre gulus atque Comes Gloriosissimi principis Aethelbald huic donationi consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ibrorsi magnus Abbatis consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Heardberht frater atque dux praefati Regis consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ebbella consensum accommodans subscripsi ✚ Ego Onec Comes subscripsi ✚ Ego Oba consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Sigibrid consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Bercot consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ealdoult consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Caila consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Pedo consensi subscripsi And the meer consent of a Tenant to his Landlords or Lords grant by Attornment doth not encrease or enlarge his former estate but is only a consent and agreement unto that grant or as an obliging taking notice thereof And where an Archdeacon Dean and Chapter are Summoned to Parliament act tractandum they neither did do or can claim any other power beyond their obedience to what should be ordained by their Superiors The choice or Election of a Verdurer in a Forrest by the Kings Writ doth not make those that did it the owners thereof and the Election of a Coroner by the like Authority to collect and take care of the Kings rights and profits did never yet truly and rationally signify that the Electors were the Masters of them neither doth the assent of the Freeholders in a Court-Baron or Leet devest the Lord of the Manor or Court-Leet of any part of his Right Propriety or Jurisdiction therein For to assent in the aforesaid enforced Statute de Tallagio non concedendo without the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and Commons of England viz. That Tallage or Aid shall be taken or leavied by the King or his Heirs in his Realm without the assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the Land which Tallages were the prises as Walsingham mentioneth taken de bobus vaccis frumentis bladis coriis purveyance taken against his preparation for Warrs in Flanders de quibus tota Communitas Angliae gravabatur but was never granted and intended either in words express or tacite to give either unto the House of Peers or Commons Jointly or severally a Negative Vote or deniall or a Legislative power but only to free themselves from those Tallages and Prises complained of which had such a force and obligation upon them and placed in them such a reverence and awfull respect to their King and head as they did subordinately not seldom obtain their Kings Leters-Patents to license or impower them Talliare Tenentes suos de dominico suo And although the Commons in Parliament in the 2 year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th had in the Advantage which they suppose they might sasely adventure upon in a Time of Usurpation assumed and arrogated to themselves a Legislative co-ordinate power in the making of Laws which other then Petitionary as Subjects to their King none of their predecessors before or since the 48th year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. ever had or obtained untill the last Horrid Rebellion in 1642. when they would make heedless and headless ordinances instead of Statutes or Acts of Parliament without their King and would not forsake their madness untill they had Murthered that Blessed Martyr King Charles the I. yet the answer of King Henry the 5th to that Petition and claim did so manifestly deny to give any allowance thereunto as one of their greatest Champions and Underminers of our Fundamental manarchick Laws could afford without prejudice to his the grounded cause to give posterity that Kings answer thereunto but concealed it as a conviction not to be devulged to their seduced Proselites For in the making of a Bishop wherein the King is acknowledged by the laws of England truth and Right reason to be the only true and proper cause of making him a Bishop and the impositions of hands by some of the Presbyters Subservient unto him in his Diocess which was but Ceremoniall and much less then the ornaments of Aarons garments in his multifarious priestly Attire and could never make or ordain him a Bishop without the King or give him Livery of the Lands appertaining to the Bishoprick neither doth any Law or right reason of any Nation or the dictates of holy Writ enable any to believe that the assent of the Woman or Wife in the holy Rites of Matrimony could or should ever entitle her unto a command and superiority over her Husband or Annihilate the Decree of Almighty God in the framing and forming of Man and Woman kind and order of the subservient government of the World And it would be an Engine mathematicall or contrivance Worth the Enquiry or finding out if it could be possible how to settle or make our most excellently composed Monarchick Government usefull in its Legislative power if the Houses of Peers and Commons in Parliament should disagree who but their King and Superior can or could be able to reconcile their discording Votes Opinions or Resolves For our Records Histories Annals and National Memorialls have never yet found or so much as mentioned any Laws Statutes or ordinances made in Parliament or out without le Roy le voult or his fiat or grant or the grant and assent of the Custos Regni or his Lieutenant Commissionated by him made by an House of Peers or Commons or party of them as it were in Parliament untill the Devil in a Religious habit taught it unto the last most horrid of incomparable Rebellions or that any House or number of Peers ever did or attempted to do any such thing or matter without the Kings le Roy le veult fiat assent or ratification or that of his Castos Regni or Lieutenant Commissionated by him Except that which was done by Symon Montfort and his Rebell partners in Annis 48. 49. Henry the 3 against that distressed over powred Prince when they had taken and kept him a prisoner for more then a Year and by fear and by force issued out Writs in his name for an Original of an House of Commons in Parliament and owned and acted what they would have him or constrained him to do in his name and as by his sole authority neither as Ego Rex meus or Senatus populus quoÌ„ Anglicanus neither can the Eyes of any far-seeing Linx or Lynceus or any Perspicuity clearness or strength of sight or the greatest of industry search or scrutiny whatsoever of our
easily take effect be put in execution and that all occasions of Envy Dislike Hatred and Calumny might be taken from the Prince and his Ministers of State which advised or promoted them which as Zanzini di Recanati hath reported was a custom and usage of our Neighbours the French in and since the Reign of their Charlemayn and the succeeding Kings untill the Reigns of some of their later Kings and Princes Which could not be without some variations in the Writs of our Kings and Princes Summoning or calling some of their Subjects their great Councels or Parliaments which may be fully evidenced SECT XXV Of the many Variations and Alterations of our Kings Writs of Summons to their great Councels or Parliaments Excluding some and taking in others to be assistant in that high and honourable Court with its Resummons Revisions drawing of Acts of Parliament or Statutes by the Judges or the Kings Learned Councel in the Laws and other requisites therein necessarily used by the Sole and Individual Authority of our Kings and Princes FOr in the 22. or 23. E. 1. the Sheriffs were authorised to Elect Citizens and Burgesses which they have since used to do by their precepts to the Mayors Bayliffs c. The Writ for the City of London Anno 26. E. 1. was to Elect two Citizens another in 29 for 4 1. E. 2. for 2 32. E. 3. no more Anno 34. E. 3 to Elect 4 and had usually Elected and returned 3 or 4 Citizens to serve in Parliament upon sundry Writs requiring them only to Elect two as in Annis 6. 7. 8. and 15. E. 2. Annis 1. 6. 9. 11. 12. 14. 20. 21. 22 E. 3. and Mr Pryn's opinion was that such kind of Elections were made good and effectual only by the subsequent allowances of our Kings unto whom all those returns were made and who in those times determined all the rights of Elections and numbers of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses to be elected And heretofore Burgesses only of every Borough in Dorsetshire by assent of the rest elected and returned their Burgesses in the County Courts on the day of the Knights election all by one joint Indenture and so continued to do not only in 3. 5. 8. 9. H. 5. 7. and 20. H. 6. but after the Statute of 23. Henry 6. as the Indenture of 33. of Henry 6. doth attest In 27. E. 1. no Judges appear to have been Summoned to that Parliament Nor to another in the same Year Divers of the Writs of Summons in the Reigns of Edward 1. E. 2. E. 3. did specify the causes of Summoning the Parliament but for the most part they were generall as at this day and none speciall after the 7th Year of the Reign of Richard 2. The Parliament being prorogued for that the King could not be present the same day new Writs of Summons have been antiently sent forth and another day appointed as in 6. E. 1. 23. E. 1. 11. E. 2. Edward the First in the Thirty Third Year of his Reign having Summoned a Parliament to meet at Westminster die Martis in quindena Purificationis beatae Mariae Virginis proximo pro quibusdam negotiis regnum suum Angliae nec non stabilimentum terrae suae Scotiae directing his Writ to Edward Prince of Wales his Son aliis Magnatibus proceribus Regni sui to be there tractatur concilium suum impensur did the 22d day of that January direct other Writs unto them declaring that at that day propter aliqua impedimenta legittima postmodum a latere emergentia ibidem commode interesse non possumus quod nos taedet vobis mandamus quod die dominica proxima post festum sancti Mathei Apostoli proximo futuri ibidem personaliter intersitis nobiscum super dictis negotiis tractaturi hoc nullate 〈…〉 s omittátis And in the same Year added a clause in the later end of his Writ of Summons et habeas ibi nomina praedictorum militum Civium et Burgensium et hoc breve scire facias eisdem quod propter arduitatem negotiorum praedictorum celeriorem expeditionem eorundem volumus primo die Parliamenti personaliter interesse per quod nolumus nec intendimus aliquem ad dictum Parliamentum Summonitum quod eodem primo die personaliter non inter sit habere ullo modo excusatum c. In the 34th Year of his Reign Summoned the Earls and Barons to come to a Parliament ad tractandum de super auxilio ad Edwardum primogenitum filium Regis militem faciendum In the 35 Year of his Reign having Summoned a Parliament to be holden at Caerlisle in Octabis Sancti Hillarii in expectation that Petrus Sabinensis Episcopus a Cardinal of the Church of Rome and a Legate of the Popes whose Predecessor or himself had been a great Agent against him and his father for the Pope the Kings of France and the unquiet part of the Baronage in the sad Afflictions of the Crown would be there against that time Et idem Cardinalis came not to him to Carlisle untill the Sunday after Mid-Lent called Passion Sunday quae nunc instat did afterwards The 22d of February then next following Send his Writ to Thomas Earl of Lancaster his Nephew a man of great power and Estate and a darling of the People Commanding him in fide dilectione quibus tenetur firmiter injungentes quod dictis die loco modis omnibus personaliter intersitis nobiscum super praemissis habituri colloquium tractaturi vestrumque Concilium impensuri hoc sub foriffactura omni quae nobis foriffacere poteritis nullatenus omittatis Et eodem modo scribitur Episcopis aliis Baronibus King Edward the 2d his Son in the first Year of his Reign Summoned a Parliament to consult about his Coronation burying of his Father and the Solemnities thereof and his nuptialls and commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to Summon the Chapter of his Church Archdeacon and Clergy of his Diocess the Dean and Archdeacon in their proper persons and the Chapter by one and the Clergy by two procuratores idoneos ad faciendum consentiendum his quae tunc de communi concilio favente Domino ordinari contigerit super negotiis antedictis hoc nullo modo omittatis Eodem modo scribitur Episcopis Lincoln London Cicestren Oxon. In the 2d Year of his Reign the Sheriff of Yorkshire returned a Writ of Summons to the Parliament that he had according to the Tenor of the Writ made Proclamation that none should come armed to the Parliament Some of our Kings after Writs of Summons to some Temporal Lords and Bishops have countermanded them and commanded others to continue at their Charges In the 7th Year of his Reign a Parliament being called to be holden at Westminster the King understanding that Johannes de Insula and some others had appointed the Assizes
custome of the House of Lords was that when any Bills or messages were sent to them the Lord Keeper and some of the Lords were to â—rise from their places and from thence to go unto the Barr and receive the said Bills or messages but contrarywise when any answer is to be delivered by the Lord Keeper in the name and behalf of the Lords the Commons sent were to stand at the Barr and the Lord Keeper is to receive the Bills or answer the messages with his head covered and all the Lords were to Keep their places with which the Lower House was satisfied and the same order hath been ever since observed accordingly Anno 39. Eliz. There being in former times a custom in the house of Commons to have a bill read before the house did arise the same could not now be done at that time because her Majesty and the upper House had adjourned the Parliament untill Saturday Sennight at Eight of the Clock in the Morning which being signified by their Speaker he said all the Members of the House might depart and so they did Eodem Anno. At the ending of the Parliament after they had given the Queen subsidies and prayed her assent to such laws as had passed both Houses she gave the Royall assent to 24 publick Acts and 19 private but refused 48 Bills which had passed both the Houses Anno 43. Eliz. John Crook Esq. Recorder of London being chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament disabling himself desired the Queen to command the House of Commons to choose another but his excuse received no allowance The Lord Chief Justice of the Queens bench and Common pleas together with the Lord Chief Baron and Attorney Generall were ordered to attend a Committee of Lords and Bishops Sr John Popham Lord Chief Justice Francis Gaudy one of the Justices of the Kings bench George Kingsmill one of the Common pleas Dr Carew and Dr Stanhop were constituted Receivers of petitions for Gascoigne and other lands beyond the Seas Sr Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas Sr William Peryam Lord Chief Baron Thomas Walmisley one of the Justices of the Common pleas Dr Swale and Dr Hone. Tryers of petitions of England the Archbishop of Canterbury Marquis of Winchester Earls of Sussex Lord Marshall Lord Admirall and Steward of the Queens Houshold Earls of Nottingham and Hertford Bishops of London Durham and Winchester Lords Zouch and Cobham calling unto them the Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and the Queens Serjeants at Law Great fault was found by many of the House of the factouring and bribing of too many of the Justices of the Peace and it was by one of the members alleadged that the five bills â—arely passed against Swearing Drunkenness and for the making of good Ale would be as much worth to those kind of Justices of the Peace as a Subsidy and two Fifteens Mr Conisby Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers complained that forasmuch upon the breach of any Priviledge of that House he only was to be employed and not the Serjeant at Arms the House ordered a Committee to consider of Presidents and settle it a motion was made by the Lord Keeper and approved of by the Lords that the Ancient course of the House might be kept by certifying the Excuses for the absence of any of the Peers by the Peers and not by others The House being offended with Sr Walter Rawleigh for some words and crying to the Barr Mr Brown a Lawyer stood up and said Mr Speaker par in parem non habet Imperium we are as members of one body and we cannot Judge one another whereupon it being put to the question it was resolved in the negative that he should not stand at the Barr. The Speaker of the House of Commons at the ending of the Parliament of 44. Eliz. humbly desired of the Queen that certain Acts may be made Laws by her Royall assent which giveth life unto them Unto which the Lord Keeper answered that as touching her Majesties pioceeding in the making of Laws and giving her Royall assent that should be as God directed her Sacred Spirit and delivered her Majesties commandement that as to the Commons proceedings in the matter of her Prerogative she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully observe and that she understood they did but obiter touch her Prerogative and no otherwise but by humble petition but she well perceived that private respects are privately masked under publique pretences Admonished the Justices of the Peace some whereof might probably be of the House of Commons that they should not deserve the Epithetes of prowling Justices Justices of Quarrells who counted Champerty good Conscience Sinning Justices who did suck and consume the good of this Commonwealth and likewise all those who did lye if not all the Year yet at the least Three Quarters of the Year in the City of London Anno 43. Eliz. One Mr Leigh of the House of Commons complained that whilst the Speaker of the House of Commons was presented to the Queen he was denyed entrance into the House of Peers which the Lords excused by saying it was the ignorance of some of the Grooms or attendance in the choosing of a Speaker Mr Knolls the Comptroller alleaged that it was not for the State of the Queen to permit a confused multitude to speak unto her when it might often happen that one or some might move or speak that which another or some or many would contradict or not allow The Queen being sate in her State in the House of Lords the House of Commons were sent for to present their Speaker who in a modest pretence of disability prayed her Majesty to command the House of Commons to choose one more able but had it not allowed And she in her grant of freedom of speech gave a caution not to do it in vain matters verbosities contentions or contradictions nor to make addresses unto her but only in matters of consequence and prohibited their retaining or priviledging desperate debtors upon pain of her displeasure and desired a Law might be made to that purpose Which done the Lord Keeper said for great and weighty causes her Highness's pleasure was that the Parliament should be adjourned untill the Fryday following At which time the House of Commons did appoint a Minister every morning before the House sate to officiate and use a set form of prayer specially ordained to desire Gods blessing upon their Councells and preserve the Queen their Sovereign The Ancient usage of not coming into the House of Commons with spurs was moved by the Speaker to be observed others moved that they might not come with Boots and Rapiers but nothing was done therein Sr Robert Wroth a Member of the House of Commons did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Sr Andrew Noel Sheriff of Rutlandshire having returned himself to be a Knight of the shire for that
Soveraigns privity or order being far without the Bounds or reach of their Commission or purpose of it and an incroachment upon the regall power was in the House of Commons in Parliament used until the Late distemper thereof or for their late Speaker Mr Williams when Sr Robert Peyton one of their Members was for some matter which they would create to be criminall brought upon his knees and adjudged to be expelled the House and to receive his sentence from their Speaker in no smoother an expression or language then Go thou cursed thou worst of men the House of Commons hath spewed thee out when they and others may know that the House of Peers do never use by themselves to exclude any of their members without the order and concurrence of their Sovereign and in case of Treason Upon the great debate of Monopolies as they called them granted by the Queen a list being brought into the House she having notice thereof sent for the Speaker and declared unto him that for any patents granted by her whereby any of her Subjects might be grieved or oppressed she would take present order for reformation thereof her Kingly Prerogative was tender and therefore desired them not to speak or doubt of her carefull reformation but that some should presently be repealed others suspended and none put in execution but such as by a Tryall at Law should appear to be for the good of the people which he reporting to the House to his unspeakable joy as he said and comfort but thereupon Secretary Cecill said that there was no reason all should be revoked for the Queen meant not to be swept out of her Prerogative And therefore gave them a caution for the future to believe that what soever is subject to a publick exposition cannot be good and said that Parliamentary matters were ordinarily talked of in the streets that the time was never more apt to disorder or make ill interpretations of good meanings and thought those persons would be glad that all Sovereignty were turned into Popularity we being here but the popular bouch and our liberty but the liberty of the Subject if any man in the House speak wisely we do him great wrong to interrupt him if foolishly let us hear him out we shall have the more cause to tax him and I do heartily pray that no member of this House may plus verbis offendere quam concilio inuare Mr Francis Moore moved that the Speaker in the name of the House might give thanks to her Majesty for setting at liberty her Subjects from the thraldom of those monopolies and crave pardon for any extravagancy of words in that House Mr Wingfield wept and said his heart was not able to conceive or his tongue express the joy that he had in that message but his opinion and Mr Francis Moore and Mr Francis Bacon's were against the making of the Apology for that would be to accuse themselves of a fault when they had committed none and being put to the vote it was by the whole House agreed that the Speaker should return the Queen their humble thanks Mr Donald wished that her gracious message might be recorded in their books others that it might be in Letters of Gold others in their Hearts Mr Secretary Cecill said there is not any soul living deserves thanks in this cause but our Sovereign Mr Francis Bacon said he had served as a member in 7 Parliaments and never knew but two committed to the Tower the one was Mr Arthur Hall for saying that the Lower House was a new Person in the Trinity and the other was Parry for making a seditious speech in the House When the thanks were given by the Speaker she said She was the person that still yet under God had delivered them and trusted that by his Almighty power she should be the Instrument to protect them Declared to the Speaker of the House of Commons that she rejoyced not so much to be a Queen as a Queen over so thankfull a people Sir George Belgrave was complained 〈◊〉 for procuring himself to be elected Burgess of Leicester by appearing in a blew coat with the Earl of Huntingtons cognisance for which the Queens Attorney Sr Edward Coke exhibited in the Earl of Huntingtons name an Information at the Queens suite in the Star-Chamber Mr Bacon said there never were but 2 articuli super chartas the one when the Sword was in the Commons hands the other Articuli Cleri when the Clergy of the land bore sway Some bill being brought in concerning monopolies which had been formerly by the Queen redressed Sr Edward Hobby said If we will be dealing herein by petition will be our only course this is a matter of Prerogative and this no place to dispute it Upon the bill concerning the transport of Iron ordnance Mr Cary said we take it for an use in the House that when any great and weighty matter or bill is here handled we straightway say it toucheth the Prerogative and that must not be medled withall and by that we come here to do our Country good bereave them of that good help we might administer unto them To which Mr Speaker replyed qui vadit plane vaditâ—sane let us lay down our griefs in the preamble of the bill and make it by way of petition Mr Francis Hastings said How swiftly and sweetly her Majesty apprehended our griefs I think there is no Subject but knoweth for us then to deal in a matter so highly touching her Prerogative we shall not only give her Majesty just cause of offence but to deny our Proceeding by bill Sr George Moor disliked the proceeding by bill Mr Laurence Hyde said that he saw no reason but we may proceed by bill and not touch her Prerogative her Majesty is not more carefull and watchfull of her Prerogative then H. 8. E. 6. were and then there was no doubt or mention made of Prerogative Mr Comptroller said in duty we should proceed to speak unto the Queen by wny of petition and not by way of bill or contestation we must note that her self and her Prerogative will not be forced and I do not hold this course by bill to fiand either with respect or duty In the debate concerning the Earl of Huntingtons bill in the Star-chamber sitting the Parliament against Sr George Belgrave for indirectly making himself a Burgess in Parliament some of the House moving for a conference with the Lords about it Mr Dale said id possumus quod dejure possumus and that the safest way would be a conference Mr Tate said it will not be good to pry too near into her Majesties Prerogative by examining Informations exhibited in the Star-Chamber Mr Cary said that the custom of the House of Commons was when they wanted any Record to send their Warrant to the Lord Keeper to grant a Certiorari to have the Record brought into the House in Ferrers case in the Reign of King Henry the
Petition They pray that the Customs of the Merchants cease and they make their own conduct To which was answered le Roys ' avisera and thereupon will answer in convenable manner Anno 13. E. 3. they pray that a Justice of the one Bench or the other may come twice a year into the Counties beyond Trent To which the King answered as touching this point l' Roys ' avisera Which amounted not to a denyal for the Judges went Circuit thither afterwards Anno 37. E. 3. They pray that none be impeached for making Leases for Life in time of Pestilence nor hereafter for Lands holden in Capite without Licence of Alienation To which the King answered This requires a great deliberation and therefore the King will advise therein with his good Councel how this right may be saved and the Grands and Commons of this Land eased Anno 45. E. 3. they Petition for the free passage of Woolls To which was answered Estoit sur avisement Anno 50. E. 3. They pray that a Fine levied by Infants and Feme Coverts may be reversed within three years after they come to years or their Husbands Death To which the King answered le Roys ' avisera tanque al procheine Parliament de changer le loy devant used And it was the observation of Mr. Noy that faithful and learned Attorney of his late Majesty that in the Raign of King E. 3. in whose time the Answers of le Roys ' avisera first began by reason of his being continually in War beyond the Seas the King or his Councel had no leisure or at least no will to answer so in time s' avisera became as bad as a denyal and no other Answers given to such Petitions shewed that the King was not pleased to grant them The Commons alledging that notwithstanding the Statute made concerning Lands seized into the Kings hands by his Escheators the Lands after Enquest taken and before it can be returned into Chancery are granted to Patentees and before the Tenant can be admitted to traverse the Lands are many times wasted do pray that none be outed by reason of such Enquests until they be returned into the Chancery and the Occupiers warned by Scire facias to answer at a day to come when if they do not appear and traverse and find Sureties to answer the profits and commit no wast if it be found for the King and that if any Patent be granted or any thing done to the contrary the Chancellor do presently repeal the same and restore the Complaint to his possession without warning the Patentee or other occupier as well for the time past as the time to come The Answer unto which was The King willeth and Commands upon great pain that the Escheators hereafter do duly return all their Enquests in the Term and upon the pain heretofore ordained by the Statutes And further it is accorded by the Lords of the Realm if it please the King that before such Enquests be returned into the Chancery the King shall not hereafter make any Patent of such Lands in debate unto any c. And that the King of his abundant grace will abstain one month after such return within which time the party may traverse the Office and that the King will not make any Patent of such Lands unto any Stranger and if after any be made it shall be void But touching that which is demanded of Patentees made hereafter le Roys ' avisera It being observed by that worthy Observator that as he conceived the first part was answered by the Kings Councel and by them reported to the Lords who added the rest of the Answer if it please the King And yet the said Answer is vacated upon the Roll being Crossed all over with a Pen and the reason thereof given in the margent with a contrary hand to that of the Roll which sheweth that it was done after the Parliament was ended and after the said Roll was ingrossed viz. Quia dominus noster Rex noluit istam responsionem affirmare sed verius illam negavit pro magna parte dicens soit usez come devant en temps de ses nobles progenitors Roys d Angle terre out ad estre use Et ideo cancellatur damnatur And there can be no question but this answer in the affirmative was allowed at the least not denyed at the time of the Royal assent and that afterwards when the Statute was to be drawn up the King taking advantage of the words si plest au Roy did deny it and so the Roll was vacated And the Councel which ought to be intended the Kings Privy Councel for the Lords were the Kings great Councel and they or any Committee of them assisted by the Judges whilst the Parliament was in being were at the dissolution or proroguing thereof all gone out of their former power or employ and nothing ought to debar a King from advising with his Privy Councel by whose Advice as the Writs of Summons do import his greater Councel was called to assist them as well as himself in the time of Parliament or after it was ended and whether the one or the other had just cause to advise the King not to grant that Petition for it omitted the finding of Sureties to commit no Wast and to answer the Issues to the King which the Commons offered in their Petition and the Lords if the King so pleased that no Patent be made to any stranger of the Lands in debate which the Commons never desired But the Councel were the willinger to let it pass because it was in the Kings Power to deny it afterwards as he did whereas had it been the practice of those times the Councel would rather have kept back the Answer and not suffered it to have been read at the time of giving the Royal Assent In the fame Parliament after the said Petition was granted and the Assent cancelled as aforesaid the Commons delivered openly in Parliament a great Roll or Schedule and another Bill annexed to the said Roll containing about 41 Articles one of which remains Cancelled and Blotted out And in a Petition do pray the King their Leige Lord and the continual Councellors about him which can be no otherwise understood than of his constant privy Councel that of all the said Articles comprised in the said Roll and Schedule or Bill which are in the file of other Bills in this Parliament good Execution and true Justice be done for the profit of the King our Lord and his whole Realm of England Whereupon after it was said by the Chancellor of England on the Kings behalf to the Knights of the Shires Citizens and Burgesses there present that they sue forth their Writs for their Wages the Praelates and Lords arose and took their leaves of the King their Lord and so departed that present Parliament And after the Parliament ended the Commons delivered unto the Lords two great Bills for
or his Servant he shall upon declaration have a Warrant signed by the Speaker to obtain a Writ of Priviledge after which as on the same day follows a special Entry of a Vote of the House of Commons in these words For that William Ward Burgess of Lancaster had obtained a Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery without a Warrant from the House it is committed to Mr. Mason Mr. Hare and Serjeant Morgan to examine and certify whence it is apparent saith Mr. Pryn their old friend that the House of Commons in that age did not use to enlarge their Arrested and Imprisoned Members by their Serjeant at Mace and own Orders but only by special Writs of Priviledge issued out of the Chancery under the great Seal of England according to the practice and usage of former ages that the House was first to be informed of the Arrests and thereupon to order their Speaker not to grant a Warrant directed to the Lord Chancellor not as their Subordinate or Coordinate Soveraigns to Issue a Writ of Priviledge to them if he saw cause and in case of Servants of a Member of an House of Commons in Parliament Arrested or Imprisoned the Master was upon his corporal Oath to prove that he was his real moenial Servant who came along with and attended on him before he could be released by a Supersedeas and Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery being the Court of the King not of the House of Commons in Parliament one Member of the House of Commons in Parliament assaulting another is a breach of Priviledge and of the Peace for which he may be imprisoned until he find Sureties of the Peace and in the case of George Ferrers a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament reported by Mr. Crompton the House it self appealed to King Henry the 8th for his deliverance And although they do represent some part of the Commonalty yet it is within limits and boundaries so little to be transgressed as our Laws constant Customs and Usage of Parliament have una voce constantly affirmed that there can be no allowance of Priviledge of Parliament in cases of Treason Felony or Trespass And being so subordinate and tyed up as to themselves by our Laws antient Customs and Usages and their own Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought not surely to think that the power of representing for some can be by a limited Commission or Procuratorship enlarged to all that an Authority to represent in the doing of one single Act or consenting thereunto can give them a liberty to do what they please in every other matter and even in contraries against duties enjoyned by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and that when antiently and of long continuance now altogether disused they were to give Sureties or Pledges to their Counties or places to perform their trusts it was not to imprison sequester starve or ruine or make Rebels Traitors those that gave them their Letters of Attorney Substitutions or Procurations and cannot but understand that an Attorney or Transgressor wilfully damnifying those that commissionated them are by common Law Reason and Equity damna resarciri and make amends that jure gentium Leagues even made by Embassadours in the behalf of their Princes that sent them contrary to their Mandates or Instructions have not seldom been avoided or altered and that it was adjudged in the case of Mendoza the Spanish Embassadour plotting Treason here against Queen Elizabeth that he was not to be allowed the priviledge of an Embassador for that Illiciti non est mandatum For did they represent those that within their bounds they did truly and properly represent they could not Arrogate a power without the King to unelect or remove those that came thither elected by their own Counties Cities and Burroughs not by any power or Authority of their own but by virtue of their Kings Writs nor order the Clerk of the Crown the Kings Officer and none of theirs to raze their names out of the Record a matter which our Laws and Parliaments themselves have ordained to be without exception highly Criminal and it may be an everlasting problem how the Members chosen by one County or City should be put out by another that were strangers or Forreign unto their Election and were not commissionated to expel or justle out one another for so might Cornwal Wiltshire and the County of Sussex who do claim a multiplicity of Members in the House of Commons in Parliament be praedominant and out-do all the rest in benefiting themselves or hindring whom they list or by what Authority they do now of late for before or in the Raigns of King Henry the 8th Edward 6. Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth King James King Charles the Martyr and all their Royal Progenitors and Predecessors ever since this Kingdom was and hath been and should be a Monarchy of above One Thousand years it hath been never heard of that strangers whom they would be thought to represent and sometimes their own Members or those they do not represent must when they receive their sentence or censure as it is stiled from them who have no judicative power but were only Elected ad faciendum consentiendum unto those things which should be ordained by the King by or upon the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament constrain to receive their sentence of expulsion if they be Members or punishment if otherwise upon their knees unless they will claim to be a Soveraignty which their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy all our Laws Records and Journals of Parliament and our Annals and Histories and the Usage and Customs of Neighbour Nations Kingdoms and Republiques have hitherto contradicted or if it shall be said that it is in regard that the King is supposed to be virtually there and always believed to be present our Laws Records Annals and Reason and Truth will make hast to confute them that it would be absurdissimum ab omni ratione remotum nullo Exemplo in Anglia usitatum for that the King is we hope no Commoner or Member of the House of Commons in Parliament who come thither as his Subjects and sworn to obey him and his Successors under their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy was not Elected at all or to be there for his Place and his Throne and Chair of State is in his House of Peers in Parliament to whom he sends which he usually doth in the time of Parliament to come to receive his Commands and Directions and cannot surely at one and the same time be supposed to be in two places or to send for himself to come out of the House of Commons to himself into the House of Peers to hear what himself would say unto himself for when in other cases it hath been said that the King is by our Laws intended to be vertually or personally present in his Courts of Justice it it is not personaliter but
said to be per Dominum Regem And a second of the same date and tenor with a perclose said to have been per Dominum Regem magnum Concilium John Pechies pardon for whom that House of Commons in Parliament was said to intercede only mentioneth that it was precibus aliquorum Magnatum 15 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury before the King and Lords humbling himself before the King desired that where he was defamed through the Realm he might be arraigned before his Peers in open Parliament Unto which the King answered that he would attend the Common Affairs and afterward hear others 5 H. 4. The King at the request of the Commons affirmeth the Archbishop of Canterbury the Duke of York the Earl of Northumberland and other Lords which were suspected to be of the confederacy of Henry Percy to be his true Leige-men and that they nor any of them should be impeached therefore by the King or his Heirs in any time ensuing 9 H. 4. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented a Bill on the behalf of Thomas Brooke against William Widecombe and required Judgment against him which Bill was received and the said William Widecombe was notwithstanding bound in a 1000 pound to hear his Judgment in Chancery And the many restorations in blood and estate in 13 H. 4. and by King E. 4. and of many of our Kings may inform us how necessary and beneficial the pardons and mercy of our Kings and Princes have been to their People and Posterities The Commons accuse the Lord Stanley in sundry particulars for being confederate with the Duke of York and pray that he may be committed to prison To which the King answered he will be advised And Pardons before Indictments or prosecution have not been rejected for that they did anticipate any troubles which might afterwards happen For so was the Earl of Shrewsburys in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth for fear of being troubled by his ill-willers for a sudden raising of men without a warrant to suppress an insurrection of Rebels Lionell Cranfeild Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England being about the 18th year of King James accused by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for great offences and misdemeanours fined by the King in Parliament to be displaced pay 50000 l. and never more to sit in Parliament was in the 2d year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr upon his Submission to the King and payment of 20000 l. only pardoned of all Crimes Offences and Misdemeanors whatsoever any Sentence Act or Order of Parliament or the said Sentence to the contrary notwithstanding For whether the accusation be for Treason wherein the King is immediately and most especially concerned or for lesser Offences where the people may have some concernment but nothing near so much or equivalent to that of the Kings being the supreme Magistrate the King may certainly pardon and in many pardons as of Outlaries Felonies c. there have been conditions annexed Ita quod stent recto si quis versos eos loqui voluerit So the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr to prevent any dangerous questions touching the receiving of Fines and other Proceedings in Chancery sued out his Pardon The many Acts of Oblivion or general Pardon granted by many of our Kings and Princes to the great comfort and quiet of their Subjects but great diminution of the Crown Revenue did not make them guilty that afterwards protected themselves thereby from unjust and malicious Adversaries And where there is not such a clause it is always implyed by Law in particular mens cases and until the Soveraignty can be found by Law to be in the People neither the King or his people who by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are to be subordinate unto him are to be deprived of his haute ex basse Justice and are not to be locked up or restrained by any Petition Charge or Surmise which is not to be accompted infallible or a truth before it be proved to the King and his Council of Peers in Parliament and our Kings that gave the Lords of Mannors Powers of Soke and Sake Infangtheif and Outfangtheif in their Court Barons and sometimes as large as Fossarum Furcarum and the incident Power of Pardons and Remissions of Fine and Forfeitures which many do at this day without contradiction of their other Tenants enjoy should not be bereaved of as much liberty in their primitive and supream Estates as they gave them in their derivatives And though there have been Revocations of Patents during pleasure of Protections and Presentations and Revocations of Revocations quibusdam certis de causis yet never was there any Revocation of any Pardon 's granted where the King was not abused or deceived in the granting thereof For in Letters Patents for other matters Reversals were not to be accounted legal where they were not upon just causes proved upon Writs of Scire facias issuing out of the Chancery and one of the Articles for the deposing of King Richard 2d being that he revoked some of his Pardons The recepi's of Patents of Pardon or other things were ordained so to signifie the time when they were first brought to the Chancellour as to prevent controversies concerning priority or delays made use of in the Sealing of them to the detriment of those that first obtained them And the various forms in the drawing or passing of Pardons as long ago His testibus afterwards per manum of the Chancellour or per Regem alone per nostre Main vel per manum Regis or per Regem Concilium or authoritate Parliamenti per Regem Principem per Breve de privat sigillo or per immediate Warrant being never able to hinder the energy and true meaning thereof And need not certainly be pleaded in any subordinate Court of Justice without an occasion or to purchase their allowance who are not to controul such an Act of their Sovereign Doctor Manwaring in the fourth of sixth Year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr being grievously fined by both Houses of Parliament and made incapable of any place or Imployment was afterwards pardoned and made Bishop of St. Asaph with a non obstante of any Order or Act of Parliament So they that would have Attainders pass by Bill or Act of Parliament to make that to be Treason which by the Law and antient and reasonable Customs of England was never so before to be believed or adjudged or to Accumulate Trespasses and Misdemeanors to make that a Treason which singly could never be so either in truth Law right reason or Justice May be pleased to admit and take into their serious consideration that Arguments a posse ad esse or ab uno ad plures are neither usual or allowable and that such a way of proceeding will be as much against the Rules of Law Honour and Justice as of Equity and good
any thing that had been Acted amiss in that Court who bringing it unto him in writing he so much approved thereof as he took him by the hand and gave him great thanks but the fatality of that lamentable attempted alteration of our ancient Monarchy into an Anarchy or Poliarchy with by their good will a nudum nomen of a metamorphosed Monarchy and that unhappy as aforesaid proposer of it cannot if he were now amongst the living but remember that after I had Written a Book to Justify the Tenures in Capite entituled Tenenda non Tollenda dedicated to the Lord Chancellor but delivered it unto him before the Act had passed against them and not at all imagining that Mr. Solicitor General had been so over-active in destroying them desired him that he would be a means to procure the military Services to be reserved was answered it could not be done and yet notwithstanding about a year or two after attending him about some other affairs he was pleased to say unto me Mr. Philipps do you ever think to write in the Tenures in Capite again unto which I answering no Sir but I think the Child that is yet unborn may rue it unto which he replyed so do I also think or I am of that opinion which shews that though he did it without the Kings knowledge and as a special Service to be done unto him did him that great mischief he never intended and was sorry for it afterwards But when it was the wisdom of former ages to know what to contend for before they quarrelled therefore it may be necessary to let the Cavalling party understand that there are multitudes of Priviledges which are not Priviledges of Parliament but truly and properly are the Priviledges and Properties in their own Estates and they may be kinder to themselves if they will but take a view of such Priviledges and Properties as they can call their own § 28. Of the Protection and Priviledge granted unto the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament by our Soveraign Kings and Princes during their Attendance and Employments in their great Councels of Parliament according to the Tenor and Purport of their Commissions COuld be granted by none but by our Kings the Original either by grant or permission of all Priviledges and Liberties enjoyed by their Subjects under or in order to their Monarchick Regal Government a view or Prospect whereof well warranted by our Laws Records and Annals and from time to time contemporary Historians and experimented rules of right reason may serve to settle and rectifie the ill founded and superstructed fancies and opinions rather than Judgments built thereupon which like some ignis fatuus have led many otherwise well meaning people that heartily hated Rebellion and Perjuries into the Bogs and Snares of those very great and pernicious sins against God and his Vicegerents their Neighbours and fellow Subjects when their so ever much mistaken priviledges of Parliament will appear to be no more but temporary and of no long duration but from one usually short Parliament to another when they were petitioned for before they were granted The Finis end or motives whereof was primarily and principally the Kings important occasions of summoning a Parliament and causing them to come thither and he only was the Efficient cause or causa sine qua non thereof to protect and keep them from disturbances whilst they were busy and employed in his service either in their coming tarrying or returning And therefore the Members of the House of Commons were so sensible and willing to have those priviledges to be granted unto them as might be necessary for the affairs wherewith he had intrusted them as they not dceming any other to be requisite or belonging unto them And not thinking any more or other Priviledges to be requisite for the publick good were by the Kings License for better Orderand methods sake to Elect one of their Members to be their Speaker and present him unto the King who very seldom refused him notwithstanding his usual disabling himself by modest excuses after whose allowance he did in the presence of many of his fellow Members make it his and the House of Commons special request at that time before and ever since believed to be pertinent and necessary the priviledge of freedom of Access to his Majestys person and freedom from Arrest and Imprisonment for themselves and their moenial Servants whilst they according to their duties attended his commands in veniendo morando redeundo and a third for himself since the miscarriage of an over-busy Speaker in the Raign of King Henry the fourth to be pardoned for his ignorance in case he should speak any thing ignorantly to the displeasure of his Majesty which ought to be kept within their proper limits and bounds and not let loose to all or any the Extravagant interpretations of the Roving fancies either of the Vulgar or Factious neither making additions thereunto or Supernumeraries or as many as they please by a new Art of mutiplication Alchymy or Transmutation or as if they had purchased th◠often beggaring and deluding so called Philosophers Stone properly enough so stiled from making their Sectaries to be as poor as Philosophers use to be by transmating all that it toucheth into it self or something like it and rendring the aforesaid two or three priviledges to be 100 or 1000 10000 or 20000 cum multis aliis there having been an abundance of various sort of priviledges not Priviledges of Parliament as well Civil as Ecclesiastick even to an Excess granted by the Indulgence of our Kings and Princes in the great and various concerns of their particular Affairs and Estates as far as the extent of their fancies could carry them and therein grew to be something confident if they could procure some success to Warrant it they might in good time by the help of their never-tyring Cavilling Tricks and Endeavours accomplish as much as ever the Colledge de beaux Esprits at Paris or the Experiment-mongers of our Gresham Colledge did hope to do by the transmutation of young Blood into Old Bloodless Carcasses which might have done no small mischief to our circulating Doctors of Physick And therefore certainly it would be more available before we hunt our selves out of our Loyalty Christianity Religion Wits and Estates to enquire into the natural and true meaning of the word Priviledge of Parliament and Proprieties and how far it can carry us into those very different Proprieties and that which we may truly and not fictitiously call our own Wherein the Civil Law that universal Method of the reason of the World in the diffinition and true meaning and intent of priviledges concludeth that privilegium neque stricte neque nimis large interpretari debet ne gravem aliis Jacturam adfert Quando igitur sine quavis gravamine alterius non possunt concedi Privilegia proximum est ut cessant cum nimium laedant Et Privilegium est
Statute already made which he wills that it shall stand in its force Wherein if they could by Fraud and Hypocritical Flatteries have entituled themselves and their Faction-Mongers and perswade them to make them the only managers thereof they will never be able to procure the so often deluded part of the people to believe they would deal any otherwise with them than they have done before that is when they gave them Stones instead of Bread and Scorpions instead of Fishes Which Petition of Right so called being read unto the King the second day of June 1626. his Answer thereunto was the King willeth that Right be done according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm and that the Statutes be put in due Execution that his Subjects may have no cause to complain of any wrong or oppression contrary to their Just Rights and Liberties to the performance whereof he holds himself as well obliged as of his Praerogative which not giving satisfaction he was again petitioned for a Fuller Whereupon he came in person and made a second Answer that the Answer which he had already given them upon a great deliberation appeared in the Judgement of so many wise men that he could not have imagined but that it should have given them full satisfaction but to avoid all ambiguous Interpretations and to shew them that there was no doubleness in his meaning and that he was willing to satisfy them in words as well as substance bad them read their Petition and they should have an Answer he was sure would please them Which being read by the Clerk of the Crown the Clerk of the Parliament read the Kings Answer which was to this effect that he was sure was full yet no◠more than what he had granted in his first Answer for the meaning of that was to confirm all their Liberties knowing according to their own protestation that they neither mean nor can hurt his Praerogative And he assured them that his maxim was that the Peoples Liberties strengthen the Kings Praerogative and that the Kings Praerogative is to defend the Peoples Liberties they might see how ready he had shewed himself to satisfie their demands so as he hath done his part and therefore if that Parliament hath not a happy Conclusion the fault will be theirs he was sure of it Which being reported in the Town so filled the People with Joy as by the Parliaments Order the Bells and Bonefires every where proclaimed the comfort and hopes of a deluded People little thinking as it afterwards proved to have their King and Defender of their Faith and Religion manacled and betrayed into the fatal consequences of a long lasting King and People destroying Parliament-Rebellion And on the last day of that Session his Majesty before any Bill signed spake unto both the Houses of Parliament and told them that he owed an accompt of his Actions to none but God alone that it was well known unto many that a while ago the House of Commons gave him a Remonstrance how acceptable every man might judge and for the merit he would not call it in question for he was sure no wise man could justifie it But since he was certainly informed that a second Remonstrance was preparing for him to take away his Poundage and Tunnage one of the chief maintenance of the Crown a grateful return of his Answers to that they without any Just Title would call their Petition of Right by alledging that he had given away his Right therein by his Answer unto that Petition And is so prejudicial unto him as he is enforced to end this Session some few hours before he meant he being willing not to receive any more Remonstrances unto which he must give an harsh Answer And since he seeth that even the House of Commons do begin already to make false constructions to what he had granted in their Petition which was in truth rather a claim of his Rights than any thing that was their own least it should be worse interpreted in the Countrey he would make a Declaration concerning the true Intent thereof the profession of both the Houses of Parliament in the time of their hamering their Petition was not to incroach upon his Praerogative which appears to be the only design and drift thereof 〈◊〉 〈…〉 ying they had neither intent or power to hurt it therefore it must needs be conceived that he hath granted no new but only the ancient Liberties of his Subjects which understood as they ought to be neither were to be their Liberties or Rights but his own unless they would Petition him that they might be Kings and he their Subject yet to shew the clearness of his intention that he neither intends or means to recede from any thing which he hath promised them he did there declare that those things which have been done whereby men had some cause to suspect the Liberty of the Subject to be trenched upon which indeed was the first and true ground of the Petition shall not hereafter de drawn into Example of their Prejudice and in time to come in the word of a King they shall not have the like cause to complain But as for Poundage and Tonnage it is a thing he cannot want and was never intended by them to ask never meant he was sure by him to be granted Commanded all that were there to take notice of what he had spoken at that time to be the true intent and meaning of what he had granted unto them in their Petition but especially the Judges for unto them only under him belongs the Interpretation of Laws for none of the Houses of Parliament joint or separate what new Doctrine soever may be raised have any power either to make or declare a Law without his consent Which all the Inveigling promising Petitioners were wiser than to make any attempt to contradict when they foresaw it not to be possible by any parcel or Rule of truth but made what they thought they had so successfully gained to be an Incouragement to proceed to other designs in making themselves Governours of their Kings and to be of their Election when God never gave them any such Power or Jurisdiction or appointed our Kings to permit their Subjects under the colour or pretence of Councel Advice and Approbation in Parliament to be as helpful to their Kings and fellow Subjects as the Epheri in Sparta were to make it their business to find out as many of the Errors in government and grievances of the people of their own making and charge the faults upon their Kings when they were of the Ephori's own making Or by what strain or stretch of wit or squeezing the word Priviledge those aforesaid Parliament Priviledges allowed by our Kings to the House of Commons in Parliament viz. Access unto them freedom of Speech and from Arrests during that their Imployment could be made to laquey after or be subservient unto those many their evil designs which after ensued having
of his Aerarium or Treasury without which no King or Prince can be safe or great and protect and defend himself and his people from Injuries and Contempt which put all together may give Gods appointed watchman of our Israel besides their more weighted and occasional business in Parliament scarcely time to slumber or sleep or enjoy his natural refreshments or divertisements without the addresses and Importunities of his almost always wanting and complayning Subjects which they that will be at leisure to peruse all the orders of himself and his privy Councel and treasury References upon Petitions in the Secretary of State and Master of the Requests Books and the Reports and Returns thereof with all that are contained in the patent close Rolls fine and liberate Rolls of every year besides the Writs Remedial granted out of the Chancery from which no man as our Laws say is to return sine Remedio those of the Common or Ordinary sort in every year amounting to no smaller a number than eighty Thousand in a year which by Law were anciently intended not to have been granted but by immediate Petitions to the King howsoever are now dispatched of Course as it hath long been by his Majesties not a few subordinate Officers very much to the ease and relief of his People who have so long enjoyed those benefits and accommodations as those Writs of Course without the trouble either of our Kings or their more especial Court of Parliaments as Anciently as King Canutus Raign who began his Raign in the year of our Lord 1016. and from thence so continued until the Raign of King John wherein a Writ of Novel diseisin is noted in the Margin of a Roll to be de cursu from whence the Cursistors in Chancery have taken and do yet keep their Name not a Cursitando as Fleta who wrote about the Raign of King Edward the 2d terms them Juvenes pedites little Lads who carried and fetcht Writs to and from the Great Seal but Clerici de Cursu mentioned in the Oath ordained to be given unto them in Parliament in Anno 18. E. 3. Insomuch as when Simon de Montfort that Married the Sister of King John and either his Father or himself had about that time been the destruction of the Protestant Albigenses and Waldenses in France did in the time of the Imprisonment of King H. 3. and his Son Prince Edward whom he and his Rebellious Partners had taken Prisoners in the Battle at Lewes take an especial care that in the absence of Thomas de Cantilupo the Kings Chancellor the Kings great Seal being committed to the Trust of Ralph de Sandwich Keeper of the Kings Wardrobe assisted by Hugh le Despencer Justiciar of England and Peter de Montfort two special Rebels to be kept until the return of the Chancellor and that the said Ralph should Seal brevia de Cursu but those which were de praecepto were to be Sealed in their presence And when that Rebellion was afterwards broken and Simon de Montfort and the most of his Rebel partners were slain at the more fortunate Battle at Evesham and the King restored to his Regality and Rights of government he and his Successors afterward did in all their Parliaments enjoy the power and authority of Monarchs in their great Councels or Assemblies of Parliament wherein by reason of their great and important affairs in War a in France Scotland and Wales they could not be able to be personally present but summoned and held their no long lasting Parliaments by their Lieutenants or Guardians of the Kingdom for the short continuance thereof § 31. That our great Councels or Parliaments except Anciently at the three great Festivals viz. Christmas Easter and Pentecost being ex more summoned and called upon extraordinary emergent occasions could not either at those Grand and Chargeable Festivals or upon Necessities of State or Publick Weal and preservation ex natura rei continue long but necessarily required Prorogations Adjournments Dissolutions or Endings FOR extraordinary occasions being not common or ordinary and the Summons or calling of fit and well capacited Persons to those venerable or great Councels of Parliament for purposed sometimes especily Limitted and Declared to be for Advice and Aid not in omnibus arduis only but in quibusdam arduis concerning the defence of the King his Kingdom and the Church always howsoever declared by the King himself or such as he appointed and there being other great and little Courts enough in the Kingdom to dispatch and administer Justice it could not but put our Kings and Princes in mind not to trouble their highest Court for small and trivial Affairs but to believe that Canutus an Ancient King of this Nation who began his Raign in Anno Domini 1001. had reason by an express Law to prohibit the troubling of him or his Parliament or greatest Councel with small matters when they might with more ease less delay expences and attendance be determined at home or in their proper Courts or Places in these words videlicet neme de injuria alterius Regi quaeritur nisi quidem in Centuria Justitiam consequi aut impetrare non potest Centuria autem Cominus quisque ut quidem par est intersit aut saltem debito absentiam luat supplicio and that Law might well be said to have been made by that King sapientum Concilio which might occasion the use of Receivers and Triers of Petitions constantly appointed by the King or his House or Councel of Peers until our late times of Rebellion and Confusion that great Councel or Court never being intended by our Kings or their Laws to be a standing often or continual Court for ordinary Affairs The wisdom of our Kings and their House of Peers having often rejected and not given any Remedies to Petitioners that might more properly be relieved in Inferiour Courts For King Offa in the year 787. after the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ had a 2d Session in his great Councel And therefore as all Parliaments have had very urgent and necessary causes of Calling and Summoning them by their Kings so they were to have their continuance and duration proportionable to the Business and Affairs for which their Advice Assent or Approbation were required and even in the Ecclesiastical Councels begun as early after the Incarnation of our blessed Redeemer Jesus Christ as the year 446. The many Secular Businesses as making of Laws and redressing of Grievances in and by the Presence and Assistance of our Kings and many of the Nobility continued until the Norman Conquerour who separated the Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdictions one from the other and the Attendance upon Parliaments were not a little troublesom and chargeable to the Spiritual and Temporal Baronage and therefore the Ancient Custom of our Saxon Kings was more easy and less burdensom unto the Prelates and Nobility when it required their constant and annal Attendance
that I have performed really what I expressed to you at the beginning of this Pailiament of the great trust I have of your affections to me and this is the great expression of trust that before you do any thing for me that I do put such a confidence in you Which was such an Assent to an Act of Parliament to ruin himself and his Monarchy as never was asked or imposed upon any King or Prince not a vassal unto any Prince or Republick or by any King granted unto his Subjects that did not intend to make himself to be either a Subject to his Subjects or a fellow Subject unto he could not tell who which that ensnared necessitated and every where almost betrayed Prince did never intend or think to be rational or any thing but an oppression and force put upon him by too many of his Rebellious Subjects when he was so pinched and surrounded with Perils and Hazards of the greatest importance either as to the saving of himself or his Royal Posterity and three Kingdoms when the Faction of 5 or 6 of some ambitious and unquiet Spirits backt with a lurking Scottish contrived Universal Rebellion the villany of some of the unquiet nonconforming Clergy and the Bestial ignorance of the Rabble had forced him to a condescension of an Act of Parliament in the 16 year of his Raign that if he did not summon a Parliament once in every three years his Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal of England or Commissioners thereof upon their Oaths after a certain prefixion of daies and under a penalty to be incapable and suffer such Censures as both Houses of Parliament should inflict should be obliged to do it wherein if he or they should in like manner fail any 12 or more of the House of Peers should do it and cause Writs under the great Seal of England to issue forth for the summoning of an yearly Parliament all Clerks of Offices that were used to officiate therein were commanded under the pain of incapacity and forfeiture of their Offices and such other Penalties as that terryfying Parliament should ordain if any Sheriff Mayor or Bayliff disobeyed he or they were to suffer the Penalties of a Praemunire and the people were to proceed to an Election and send those that they Elected to the Parliament to be holden once in every year wherein the King was to be personally present and he or both Houses within the year might adjourn prorogue or dissolve the same the House of Peers might appoint their own Speaker and the House of Commons theirs the King might nominate by Commission one or more to take of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and they that refused to be punished by the House of Commons they that sought to disturb or hinder those Orders for frequency of Parliaments were to endure the Penalties of Praemunire take no benefit by the Laws be incapable of any Inheritance Legacy Gift or Grant and be disabled to purchase by themselves or any other or capable of any Office Use or Trust. §. 33. That all or any of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament are not properly or by their original constitution intended or otherwise entituled or properly truly justly lawfully seized or to be stiled or termed Estates neither are to be so understood or believed to be and being to be no otherwise than subject to a temporary Election and by the authority of their Kings Writs paid their wages and charges by those that sent and elected them can have no Just or Regal Right thereunto FOr that the Title or usage of the Word Estate cannot bear or carry any other acceptation interpretation or signification than a party or condition of men elected by a Community composed of several sorts of men anciently and originally the Electors and the Sheriffs themselves excepted as their Procurators or Attorneys to be present in Parliament ad consentiendum iis to consent unto obey and perform such things as the King by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should be pleased to ordain For the word Status or Estates truly legally and properly understood either now or anciently can have or receive no other signification Etymology Interpretation common use proper or true understanding or meaning than Status est duplex publicus est dignitatis honorum l. cognitionem l. 5. F. De extraordinariis cognitio privatus est hominis conditio ipsum privatum concernens spectatur in tribus in libertate in Civitate in familia l. Fin. F. de cap. dim Ideo statum mutare dicitur qui mutat illud Jus quod habet in isto casu servi statum non habent Cal. 9. Unde dici solet servus caput non habet Minsh statum unde capitis diminutio quod status diminutio Meulf p 71. Statum mutant liberi omnes qui vel ivitatem vel libertatem vel familiae Jus amittunt Cal. 5. Status personarum conditionem significat sicut Ingenui libertini servi Cal. 9. 29. prat Status dicitur conditio qualitasve personarum qua quis plurimum potest appellatur in Institutionibus Jus personarum Cal. 6. Gradum pro existimationis honoris loco usurpari notum est hinc in Gradum reponere est disjectum restituere Spieg. prat Gradus in Agone literario tres sunt ut doctores legum seq Baccularii Licentiati Doctores Status Curia comitatus Aula Regis Jacobus de vitriace lib. 3. pag. 1126. de sapphedino primo die recepit ipsos legatos Christianorum in prima scala de Cairon ubi semper est status ejus Statutarii sunt Magistratus qui statuta odunt vel horum observationes invigilant vel secundum ea judicia sua odunt Charta Annum 1322. infrascripta statuta conscripta per Dominos Jurisperitos electos per dominos statutarios Bulla p. p. data Lugduni in M. pastorali Eccl. parisiensi lib. 19. ca. 15. Excommunicatos nuncios Statutarios et Scriptores statutorum ipsorum Alia Bonifacii 9. p. p. Anno 1391. Apud Goldastum to 2 constit Imper. Potestates vero Consules statutarii Scriptores Statutorum praedict nec non consiliarii locorum ipsorum qui secundum Statuta consuetudines memoratas judicarent c. Status Statura Gregorius Taron lib. 4. Hist. cap. 24. Celsum Patriciatus honore donavit virum procerum statu in scapulis validum lacerto robustum c. Mon. Sangallensis l. 1. cap. 19. de quodam Ep. qui cum familiaritate illius animari caepisset in tantam progressus est proterviam ut virgam auream incomparabilis Caroli quam ad Statum suum fieri Jussit feriatis diebus vice baculi ferendam pro Episcopali ferula improvidus ambiret Status Sedes Statum facere sedere morari Ethelwerdus lib. 4. cap. 3. Attamen oppressi lassatu desistunt pugne barbari sterilem obticient tunc victorie Statum
endorse par les Seigneurs autres grantz du Parlement quil semble an conscil la Chartre doit estre renovelle entre en roule du Parlement est de Record sil plest au Roy pour ceo mesme cesse Petition fust pius monstre au Roy il ad ottroie aussint est ottroio per la Commune soit la dite Chanre renovelle per accord de tut le Parlement entre en roule de meisme le Parlement en le meliour mannere pourra estre pour bone gremdre assurance del estat le dit Johan in and by which the King repealing the Judgment given against him in Parliament Judicio predicto non obstante saith only nos ad requisitionem praedicti Johannis pro majori securitate status ipsius Johannis de assensu praelatorum ducum Comitum Baronum Comitatis Regni nostri Angliae in praesenti Parliamento nostro existentium restitutionem praedictam ratisicamus c. The Archbishop of Canterbury and those many Suffragan Bishops and Clergy of his Province not at that time deeming themselves to be an Estate Soveraign or Governing either in or out of Parliaments when in that Parliament they Petitioned unto him in this manner a nostre Seigneur le Roy supplient ses humbles Chapelleius Symon par divine soefrance Erchevesque de Canterbury ses frereres Evesques de sa Province par eux tote le Clergie quil pleise a nostre dit Seigneur le Roy pour le reverence de dieu et de Sainte Eglise et a sa benignite a eux granter et confirme totes les liberties et privileges et droits grantez et donez par lui et ses nobles progenitors avant ses heires a sainte Eglise par leur Chartres Estatuts et Ordinances c. Where it was in the Translation mistakenly said that the King gave thanks to the whole Estate and licensed them to depart The Record is only et si faict mercia le Roy as Prelatz grantz et Communs de leur venir et leur bone port en Parlement et leur done congie a departir et issint finist le Parlement Anno 42. E. 3. When the English Abridgment or Translation saith that the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 〈…〉 ings behalf gave thanks to the whole Estate for their Aids and Subsidies The original in the Parliament Roll is no more than et le Samedy suant les Communs esteanuts en la dite chambre Blanche fueront charges quils faissent leur Petitions et quilles baillerent le meskerdy sumant Et le Lundy Suant les Prelatz grantz en mesme la Chambre esteant fut monstrez a eux par lerchevesque coment le Roy leur mercie de grant Cuer de plusieurs aides quils lui avoeint faitz et meement des darreine aide quils lui facerent en le darrein Parlement des Subsides et Customs a lui grants de Leynes Quiers et Peaux lanuz pour un temps et ce fut il que le grant fust chargrant a son people nient moins per vint an demora au profit ou encres de lui per cause des grant chargez et payements faits et sustemis â—y bien a Caleis Guines Pontiff et ses autres terres de la come d' Irland et la marche de escoce que leur plat par tant avoir consideration a son Estat et honeur eta sgrantz charges que lui avoient faire et sustenue deners le marche d' Escoce pour la salvation dicelle pour cause qui semble plus la guerre qui pees par les respons des Escetz Sur que les choses les Prelatz et grantz en deliberation plein ove les Communs de une accord granterent a nostre Seigneur le Roy en aide de son et honeur somner et gardez et les grants custages que lui coment faire et mettre par diverse voies les Subsides et Customs de laynes c. par deux Aus prochein ensuant qui passe hors du dit roialme After which followed the Petitions des Commons without any Title of Estate The Chancellor on the Kings behalf commanded the Prelats Seigneurs and Commons there being to continue there until le besoignes del Roy were finished and not to depart without License and the Commons do in their Petitions stile themselves no otherwise than voz pouvrez et liges Commons Item prient la Clergie And the Commons made their Declaration in these and no other words a nostre Seigneur le Roy et a son conscilpar la Commune d' Angleterre Item prie le Commune at coine ils se sentent de jour en autres our agenses estre grievez par pluralitez des guerre as constage importables et plese nostre Seigneur le Roy et son sage conseil ordonne ent remede qur tieuxchargez autre porter la Commune ne purra en nul manere susteiner Unto which the King answered le Roy le faâ—â—e volunters ses honeurs et Estat â—ondâ—z salvez all which put together do not declare the Commons to be a third Estate and no ways agreeth with the Abridgers Translation that the Commons by their Speaker requiring the King to have consideration of their poor Estate He answered that it was necessary to provide as well for the safety of his own Estate as for the Common-wealth Where the Abridger or Corrector Translates after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named commandment was given that all Persons and Estates should return the next day to hear the cause of Summoning the Parliament declared The original saith no more than Touz ensemblez en my des Prelats et Seigneurs avant duz appellez eux Chancellor Terminer Seneschall Chamberlaine et les Sergeantz le Roy quat il beseignera et tiendrout lour place â—n la Chambre Mercalfe Et le Roy vous commande et vour retornez le de maine per temps pur avoir declaration en place especial manere sur les causes des le somonce avant dite et en oultre le Roy commande a touz et avoient la dite somonce quils vieguent de jour en autre audit Parlement et quils ne se absentent mye en de protentdycell sans especial congie de lui sur peril q' appont The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England at the assembling of the Parliament taking his Text out of the Prophecy of Ezekiel Rex erit unus omnibus alledging the Power that ought to be in Soveraign Kings and Princes whereby to Govern and the Obedience in Subjects to Obey and that all alienations of his Kingly Priviledges and Prerogatives were reassumable and to be repealed by his Coronation Oath pour quoi le Roy ad fat assembler de Estatz de Parlement a cest faire pour estre enformez si ascun droitz de sa
the Mazorites to understand their own Language and by creeping themselves into that which our Rebel Innovates would have called a third Estate made themselves the Governing Essential and Constituent part of the Parliament the generale Consilium or Colloquium of the Nation in arduis not in omnibus but quibusdam being the most useful wholesome and profitable in and through all the Christian World and so experimented where they are kept in their due and proper Limits and Boundaries in a due Obedience to their Kings and Soveraigns and cause as many as they can to believe them that they as representing the People who never trusted them to any or the like purpose have an Inherent Right of Soveraignty in themselves to accuse depose or murder their Kings and Elect or Choose another turn a Monarchy into a Republick or Common-wealth when there had not been in England within the memory of any true Record or impartial History any one before framed by a Factious and Unquiet Party of Rebels in Parliament under the basest of Hypocrisy that ever was practised in the World upon the pretence of setting Christ upon his Throne And could not be content until they had without any cause raised a Rebellion against their pious Prince and murdered him forced from the People to maintain those their ungodly doings by Taxes as much as amounted unto 48 Millions of Sterling Money besides the vast sums of Money and Riches gained by the extorted Fines and Compositions from the Kings Loyal Party at Goldsmiths and Haberdasher's Halls in London the one for the 20th part of their Estates and the other for compounding for their supposed forfeiture for fighting to defend their King against his Rebels and their Plunderings Sequestrations and Decimations of those with whom they had before compounded besides a Tax for six Months of every House-keeper in London and its vast Lines of Communication for as much as their weekly Diet amounted unto with Money borrowed upon that which they would call the Publick Faith which cheat brought that Godless Party into their Repository of the Guild-Hall in London abundance of Money Plate Rings Jewels Silver Bodkins and Thimbles many of whom after those villainous Wars and Rebellions something appeased being in Poverty have been the constant Attenders at the House of Commons doors in Parliament to enquire for Madam Publick Faith's Habitation but could never be able to find it and besides all these wickednesses could not think they had done enough until they had added unto their many sins that no small sin of Sacriledge by Sequestring the Orthodox Ministers Imprisoning of the Bishops and sale of their and the Deans and Chapters Prebends and Cannons Lands and their Woods and Possessions Banishing and every way Impoverishing them shutting up all or many of the Church doors in Wales upon pretence of Reforming or Propagating Religion but gathering the Tithes into their own Purses sale of the King Queen and Princes Houses and Rich Moveables and of all their Lands and Revenues the Coats of their Yeomen of the Guard and the Plate in their Royal Chappels Allen a Goldsmith and Member of that House of Commons picking out and exchanging the Jewels out of the Kings Crown and putting in counterfeit plundered and sold much of the Lands and Goods of the Nobility displaced the Masters of Colledges and Halls in both the Universities without shewing any cause more than that they would put in another of their own Party and began to gape and lick their Lips after a like Reformation of their Lands and Revenues tore up the Brass upon Monuments upon the ground and made Money of them because there was inscribed upon them Orate pro nobis and broke those Glass windows that had any Pictures or Images in them for fear of Superstition made a Stable for Horses in the Cathedral of St. Pauls in London where heaps of dung might be as high as the Roof and Sawyers seen sawing in the Grave where the Bishop of London was buried that obtained the City of Londons Charter of their Liberties from William the Conqueror for which their more grateful Successive Mayors and Aldermen at great solemnities never failed at their coming to that Cathedral in a kind of Procession to walk about it And the Othodox Clergy of the Church of England calumniated by Mr. John White a Lawyer of the late seditious Edition who being a Chairman appointed by a Committee of Parliament to relieve those that they would call plundered Ministers being the Factious Antichurch party did so order the matter as to put out all the Orthodox Ministers and taking his Notes and Examinations in Characters was able to interpret them how he pleased and upon the Accusation of a Cobler at Lambeth that the Learned Dr. Featly had Preached false Doctrine he must be turned out of his Benefice and imprisoned at Lambeth wherein besides many other if not all he or his Notes were shrewdly mistaken when one Mr. Clopham a Minister was for Adultery Ejected when it was proved that by a fall from his Horse he was so disabled in his Genitals as he could not be guilty of it And the Ecclesiastical plunder Masters were to take a more than ordinary care that when their small comcompassion had been pleased to allow the Sequestred Ministers Wives and Children a 5th part of their Husbands Benefices that they should have as little and as hardly as could be of it when after they had tired themselves with their Petitions to the upper and lower Committees they had obtained an Order for that their small pittance found no other comfort after that they had travelled forty or fifty or more miles unto one that should pay it then one who being more merciful and candid than the rest was pleased to shew a small common or private almost invisible note or mark in the Order that they should not obey it Mean while about 100 of Sequestred Ministers of the West parts of England could have no better a place provided for them than to be imprisoned at Lambeth House but a little before notoriously infected with the Plague and ordered an Alderman of London whose Son is yet living to attend them with two Culverings or small pieces of Cannon ready charged to fire upon them as they were in the Chappel serving God and hearing Doctor Featly preach unto them where they had perished if God had not in mercy provided an escape for them And if this were or could be proved or justified to be a work for such a third Estate as that modus tenendi Parliamentum was so willing to provide for our Laws having in their Subordination to Gods Laws and not opposite unto them been truly believed and said to have been derived from Right Reason yet that is always to be understood to be so when it hath received the Sanction of the King and are not agitated by the various wills interest and fancies of the People next unto madness And it might amuse and
defectum ejus Et dixit D. Tho. qui. 1. P. 62. Quest. dixit Angelos quia peccare non possunt liberiores esse nobis qui pecca e possunt And Cicero defineth liberty to be potestas vivendi ut velint at non vivit ut velit qui juxta sensus carnis suae Cupiditatis sed is solummodo qui vivit juxta rationem Plutarchus Epictetus eandem Libertatis definitionem Nobis dederunt not that liberum esse debet dici cui nec impedimentum praeberi possit volenti nec vis inferri volenti but if none of the fancied vast liberties which the too many of our State or Government Menders would entitle their own evil designs and entail upon all that shall be so foolishly wicked as to be deluded by them and the costly searches of Mr. William Pettit amounting by his own Report unto more than five hundred pounds in all that could be found in any the Books and Manuscripts publick or private of England cannot reach or come so near as unto a probability that there ever were in the Brittish Roman Saxon Danish or Norman Raigns of our Kings and Princes and their many Royal Successors ever since or long before that since the Creation of the World either in Parliament or without any mention of a third Estate inherent in the people and they must be content to go a begging for a belief in some lately discovered Island where they may dream any such stuff may be sound either as their modus tenendi Parliamentum or a third Estate as Subjects at the same time governing their Kings and Princes when by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy they are bound alwaies to be obedient unto them as next under God their SupremeHead and Governor And may curse their fate that every thing their scrutinies can assist them with should not with wresting wringing and false and senseless Interpretations appear at all to be for their purposes but every thing clearly against them and sorrowfully repent that they or their Predecessors had so unhappily busied themselves in destroying so many Props of the Monarchick Government as the Court of Star Chamber wherein did sometimes sit as Judges the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer and the Chief Judges of both the Benches and the Barons of the Exchequer the Archbishop of Canterbury and divers of the Kings Privy Council who as Judges in seveveral Courts did sit there upon special occasions and the procuring the King to take away the High Commission Court in their miscarried designs of Levelling the Hierarchy and order of Bishops The want of which two very necessary and useful Courts hath suffred the Nation to be overflown with all manner of wickedness and Impiety And in that their over-hasty carreer of breaking our English Monarchy like a Glass into many small or little peices needed not to have been so hasty but have paused a little while have considered that as unto the circumstances of Time Place Number of Persons Usages and Customs in a variety of contingencies being the only ancient proper and efficient cause of summoning Parliaments adjorning or dissolving them there could not be a probability of a modus tenendi Parliamentum either in King Edward the Confessors Raign or before or after for that our Parliament Rolls and Records do una voce plainly declare against it and shew that many times Parliaments have been holden in the absence of our Kings by the Prince his Eldest Son or by some other of their Sons as Lieutenants or Guardians of their Kingdom or by the Queen Mother assisted by the Kings Justitary or other Commissioners during the Imprisonment of King Richard the first or by the Queen Consort of King John in his absence or by King Henry the 4th in his usurpation upon King Richard the second when he unjustly made use of a Parliament summoned by him And there could not be a third Estate in the Raign of King Charles the second when he had as aforesaid so unfortunately been ill advised to exchange the Nerves Sinews Strength and Honour of his Crown and Government for a mistaken Recompence of an Excise upon Ale Beer and Syder and then there were but two Estates viz. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal subordinate unto their Soveraign and it would be a difficulty insuperable to find any Truth Reason Evidence Probability or Possibility that there is or ought to be a Soveraignty inhaerent in the people or if such Improbabilities were or could be what Method or contenting Equal distribution could be made thereof amongst Learned and Unlearned Ambitious Rich and Poor Rude Ignorant or better tempered vicious or virtuous Women and Children or Fooles Madmen in their intervals or without when some have not improbably calculated the number of the Kings Subjects in England only to be not much under five Millions besides these vast numbers in Scotland and Ireland And who upon any or many discords like to happen should be the pacifying Reconciler Justiciary or Umpire betwixt them and what Charters Agreements or Surrenders should be contrived or put in writing betwixt them concerning the Right use or distribution of that never to be proved inhaerent Soveraignty in the people taking as Subjects the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy or that ever it was attempted before our English Rebellions either in England Scotland or Ireland or can they give us any reason or demonstration that it was ever allowed of or that any pact or Agreement was made to confirm it Neither is there any Modus tenendi Parliamentum or any such thing or matter as a three governing Estate in the solemn Recognition made in a Parliament at Clarenden in the Raign of King Henry the second of the Anitae Consuetudines or Laws used in the time or Raign of his Grand-Father King Henry the first which the Archbishops and Bishops verbo veritatis sine dolo malo Ing nio promised faithfully to obey and the Earls and Barons likewise And will be a Priviledge never taught to the Athenians sometimes the wiser part of Greece by their great Legislator Solon who after he had made them some Laws feigned a Voyage or Journey to Salamia and caused them to swear to observe them until his Return and absented himself the longer because he would not have them break them as Pisistratus the Tyrant did afterwards to his own advantage perswade them to do the Spartans under their great Legislator Lycurgus and the many other little Commonwealths of Achaia first fooled by Philip of Macedon afterwards by Alexander the Great his Son who conquered all that part of the World but Diogenes the Philosopher in his Tub now all into slavery the Ottoman Empire had long before better business to trouble their Heads with than the fond Imagination of a Soveraignty inhaerent in themselves although one of their most â—acred Laws in their Ten Tables was Slus populi sit Suprema Lex ne quid detrimenti res publica capiat Neither did
set on fire about his Ears at once that of Ireland incited by his condescensions to that of Scotland and that of England as busy as the worst but gaining more by it when the King had to pacify all given them license by an Act of Parliament to continue in Parliament without adjourning proroguing or dissolving until those great Sums of Money should be satisfied and Ireland quieted which they never intended but hindred and perplexed all they could although he offered to go thither in Person himself which they would not consent unto for fear least he should thereby get Arms and Power into his own hands to frustrate their wicked design which that Republican wicked party durst never offer to Oliver Cromwell the Protector of their supposed Liberties with any the least of those monstrous conditions by them called Priviledges but could tamely suffer him to make his own Instrument of Government alter the Course of Parliament with more or less Members of the House of Commons in Parliament pull out and imprison diverse Members of that House and shut up the Doors constitute a new House of his mechanick and ordinary Commanders instead of a House of Lords after the Republican partty had made such an Act of Parliament as they could that none should have benefit of the Laws who did not take an oath of engagement not to have any more a King or House of Lords And to be disappointed as little as they could possibly in those their intentions made all the hast they could to fire their Beacons of personal Plots and dangers against themselves the great Patriots of the Kingdom and Weal publick as they had done before against Popery and therefore incredible Plots and Conspiracies were discovered by one of their Members who had an especial faculty therein and likewise by others as a Plaister taken from the sore of a man infected therewith and brought by an Incognito in a Letter to Mr. John Pym the Lord Digby seen at Kingston upon Thames with four Horses in a Coach in a warlike manner Horses kept and trained under ground and a dangerous design to blow up the River Thames with Gunpowder whereby to drown the Parliament Houses with many the like ridiculous fopperies to affright the easy to be deluded silly Vulgar and engage them in a Rebellion and were in the mean time to be secured themselves by a guard for which they â—eâ—tioned the King who ordered the Justices of Peace to command the Constables of that division to furnish one but that would not accommodate their purposes nothing would help forward their more than ordinary designs than a guard by the Trained Bands of the City of London by turns which being granted by the King suddenly after the Citizens Wives were so afraid of the danger oâ— the Tower of London as they could not lye dry in their Beds and the Lieutenant of the Tower must be displaced and a more confiding one put in to give them content that never intended to be satisfied Which being done the Pulpits of the Prebyterian Scotized Clergy flaming and the Printing Presses Stationers and Cryers in the Streets as busy in the publishing the Harangues of the House of Commons Members in proclaiming the imaginary grievances and he was a small man at Arms that had made and published no more than one or two such Speeches mean while Protestations were ordered to be made in every Parish of England and Wales to defend the King and the Protestant Religion the King going into London in his Coach hath a Paper thrown into it with a writing thereupon To your Tents O Israel the many Rude â—eople of the adjoyning Hamlets came in droves to the Parliament crying No Bishops and for Justice and as they pass by Whitehall Gate and knock at it desire to speak with the King who sends unto the Students of the Inns of â—ourt with some Captains and Commanders to attend him as a supplemary Guard who came and had a Diet and Table provided for them the Bishops do leave the House of Peers with a protestation patterned with one in 11 R. 2. that they could not sit there in safety for which they were all made Prisoners in the Tower of London but were all afterwards released except Matthew Wren Bishop of Ely who remained there sequestred from his Bishoprick for something more than 13 years without knowing for what cause or crime until his late Majesties happy Restauration Mr. Henry Martin a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament more fearing the Anger of his Mistress than his God or King begins in Parliament to declaim against the King saying that he was not fit to Raign or Govern and moved that all the Regal Ornaments customarily lodged in the Abby of Westminster under the custody of the Dean and Chapter thereof might be seised one Mr. Parker made hast to make himself an Observator of the Rebellious way with dislocated Maximes abused and wrested out of their proper meaning and Interpretations viz. Quod efficit tale est magis tale the King is Major singulis but minor universis salus populi est suprema Lex which although Learnedly answered by the more Loyal Orthodox Party to an ample Conviction that should be could not satisfie or stop the designed Confederacy and Rebellion but the ten Judges of the twelve that gave their Opinions in the case of Mr. Hambden against him concerning the Ship-money for the King were by the Parliaments Order put out of their Offices and Places Justice Berkly one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench taken Prisoner as he was sitting by the Usher of the Black Rod attending the House of Peers after which Mr. Denzal Hollis came to the House of Lords and with greater boldness than assurance claimed the Militia and Power of the Sword to appertain of Right to the People and Mr. Pryn writes and Publishes his Book of the Supremaey of Parliaments seconded by Mr. John Whites Book entituled a Politick Chatechism undertaking to prove by our Laws the Resistibility and Forcing the Power of our Kings to be Vested in the People and the Judges were commanded by the Parliament without the King to declare to the People in their Circuits that the Militia is and ought to be in the Parliament as the Representative of the People which was never before done read seen or heard of in England which all the Judges obeyed but my honoured Friend the worthy Sir Thomas Mallet one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench who not forgetting his very Ancient and Noble discent plainly and resolutely at every place in his next Circuit declared it in all his Charges to be in Law de Jure Coronae suae in the King and for his so exemplary Loyalty was in the last place of that Circuit by Sir Richard Onslow Knight a Member of the Commons House in Parliament with a Troop of Horse as he was sitting upon the Bench at Kingston upon
the hands or clutches of their Wolves Foxes and Harpies Birds or Beasts of prey mean while the King labouring by many Princely Answers to their Messages Letters and Proclamations to keep them from the Witchcraft of Rebellion the more they galloped into it and nominate the Earl of Essex to be their General and a great contribution of Plate and Money as before hath been mentioned to bring the King home to his Parliament who might have been more ready than they had he not been encompassed without any cause or provocation with as many Treasons Plots Falsehoods and Treacheries as he had Hairs upon his Head and Beard with no small want of Money and Friends in the midst of his three once flourishing Kingdoms flaming and on fire about his Ears which could not otherwise have brought such an accumulation of evils upon him And being somewhat supplied by many of his Exchecquer Receivers who brought unto him Remainders of Moneys upon their Accompts John Pym excepted that was the Kings and his Fathers Receiver in Arrear about 22 years and could not be at leisure lest he should thereby hinder the managing of his Treason against the King and so would have made a trusty Chancellor of the Exchecquer for the King marched as well as he could toward his Loyal Subjects of Wales whither to hinder and distress him the Earl of Essex with his Army of Rebels way-laying him at Edge-hill in Warwickshire where Loyalty and Rebellion fighting a bloody Battel and Robert Earl of Lindsey the Kings General being hurt and carried away Prisoner to Warwick Castle shortly after died his Son the Lord Willoughby offering himself an Hostage being not according to the Laws of War accepted and the Rebels Cannons levelled against the brow of the Hill where the King and the Prince sat but being disappointed left the Field and retired to Warwick and the King keeping it all that night the next day marched to Banbury and took it from thence fixed himself at Oxford to which very many Parliament Men that were Loyal retired and kept a true Parliament howsoever the Rebels made shift to get by parcels to London where they Publish how near they were to gain the Victor◠of which they could have given a greater eertainty of the Lord Wharton had not hid himself in a Saw-pit and Stephen Marshal a Factious Minister had not mistaken himself when in his Parish Pulpit at Finching field in Essex he had related an impudent Lye in the hearing of one that had been in that Battel that he had pickt up Bullets in his Velvet Cap to help the Rebels Souldiers when a Souldier that heard him so preach could have proved that he at another time had confessed that he was so affrighted that he had run away four or five Miles from the place where the Battel had been before he knew where he was after which they were so unwilling to forsake their Treasonable hopes as they rallyed and ingaged all the Friends the Devil could help them unto insomuch as the War grew more and more fierce as at the Kings Besieging of Gloucester the effascinated Citizens of Londons Trained Bands came to raise the Siege a sharp Fight was at Newbury where they were beaten and Weemes a Scotish Cannoneer taken Prisoner whilst he was levelling at the Person of the King in a Bloody Fight at Copreby Bridge where the Rebels had the worst and yet Weemes was pardoned and left to do more mischief when all he could say was in Gude Faith his Heart was to the King And the King was from place to place so victorious as he drove the Parliament Rebels by the help of his Nephews Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice and the gallant Conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton and the Greenviles and the courage of the Cornish men for which they had the Kings thanks publickly read and Registred in the Churches the Earl of Essex and his Rebel Parliamentarians were so driven and penn'd up at Lestichiel in Cornwal as their whole Army Cannon and Amunition Bag and Baggage were seized and the Earl of Essex and some other Commanders enforced to shift and save themselves in a Cock-boat Sir William Balfour getting away with some of the Horse notwithstanding all which and that that over-tender hearted Prince had experimented more than once their Rebellion was inexorable and that neither his Protestation upon the Sacrament nor the word stamped upon his Coyn for Religion and the Priviledges of Parliament could make them forsake their Rebellious Principles could not forbear to bring them if possible out of that sin of Witchcraft but when he might with a victorious Army have beaten them at Bramford did by some that were hired to betray 〈◊〉 Councels for by that time they had as much lea 〈…〉 the Art of Bribery as they had the glosses of Rebellion rouse their obdurate and feared Souls with Messages for Peace and divers Royal Ministers and Citizens of London had petitioned them to make Peace with the King who sent the Earls of Southampton and Dorset unto their then called House of Peers who were answered and received uncivilly enough as to their own Persons and the King their Master that sent them Printed and Published intercepted Letters betwixt the King and the Queen and relying more upon their confederating Brethren of Scotland than upon their God and the King his Vicegerent in all hast sent to invite them to come unto their Aid which they did and before they went home had 300000 l. Sterling paid unto them for their Rebel Assistance which putting a stop to the Kings Victories especially in that unfortunate Battel at Naseby and afterwards at Marston Moore by a misintelligence at the later betwixt Prince Rupert and the Earl of Newcastle the King condescended to a Treaty by Commissioners at Uxbridge where no other reason could be accepted but as if the King had been a Subject and they his Soveraign they appeared willing to transfer unto their Scotish Brethren a great part if not all of the Kingdom of Ireland every attempt and self-defence of the King and his Loyal Party bringing no better comfort than dispair he gave license to his good Subjects to retire into the Parliament Quarters or unjust Dominion and compound for their supposed forfeitures which much encreased their Treasure and Power for fighting against the King when they fought for him against his Rebels as if the King and they had been but one Incorporation and themselves the head and the King could be a Rebel to himself and them at the same time and Wat Tyler or Jack Cade or the late Massinello had Authority to make themselves Soveraigns which they had not impudence enough to adventure for it must needs appear to all Mankind to be a Gipsy jugling trick or Proteisme never before heard of in any part of the World The Noble Earl of Scarsdale refusing to compound but retiring home did ever after cloath himself in Sackcloth and every day to his death make a
Secretaries of State two Chief Justices and Chief Baron not being to be ranked with the Peers may always be chosen by the approbation of both Houses of Parliament the House of Commons being never before accompted equal with the House of Peers in Birth Honour Wisdom Education Alliance or Estate and in the Intervals of Parliament by the Assent of the Major part of the Councel in such manner as was before expressed in the choice of Councellors which in a matter of a much less consequence in the Government of the Kings Houshold was so little endured by the Nobility of England in the 10th year of the Raign of King Richard the 2d as it was adjudged an incroachment upon Regal Authority and high Treason and some great Lords suffered in their Persons and Estates for it and others glad to receive their Pardons for being confederate or Privy thereunto 4. That he or they unto whom the Government or Education of his Children shall be committed shall be approved by both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament by the Major part of his Council in such manner as was before expressed in the choice of Councellors and that all such Servants as are now about them against whom both Houses shall have any just exception shall be removed which before they had disclaimed as Mr. Rushworths Historical Collections Printed and allowed by them not long before had informed us 5. That no Marriage shall be concluded or treated for any of his Children with any Forreign Prince or any Person whatsoever abroad or at home without the consent of the Parliament under the penalty of a Praemunire unto such as shall conclude or treat any Marriage as aforesaid which they had as aforesaid disclaimed and the said penalty shall not be pardoned or dispenced with but by the consent of both Houses of Parliament that lower House never having before or since any power of pardoning or dispensation nor that higher without the Sanction or Authority of their Soveraign 6. That the Laws in force against Jesuits Priests Papists and Recusants be put in execution without any Toleration or Dispensation to the contrary and that a course may be enacted by Authority of Parliament to hinder them from making any disturbance in the State or Law by Trusts or otherwise 7. That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Lords may be taken away so long as they continue Papists and that his Majesty would consent to such a Bill as shall be drawn for the Education of Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion which was to take away the Priviledge of Barons holding by Tenure without conviction for Treason and of Earls Viscounts Marquesses or Dukes which ever since the beginning of the Raign of King Richard the 2d were by that and all succeeding Kings Letters Patents to have vocem locum sedem in Parliamentis 8. That his Majesty would be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made of the Church Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise wherein they do intend to have consultation with Divines as is expressed in their Declaration to that purpose and that his Majesty will continue his best assistance unto them for raising of a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers through the Kingdom when there was no want of the Orthodox more Loyal and better sort and that his Majesty would be pleased to give his consent to Laws for the taking away of Superstitions and Innovations and of pluralities and scandalous Ministers which in their accompt were only of the Church of England and Loyal 9. That his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with the course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for the ordering of the Militia until the same shall be further setled by a Bill and that his Majesty would be pleased to recal his Proclamations and Declarations against the Ordinance made by the Lords and Commons concerning it which was to take away the Tenures the Power of the Sword and defence of his People 10. That the Members of either Houses of Parliament as have during the time of this present Parliament been put out of any Places or Offices may either be restored to their Place or Office or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the Petition of that House whereof he or they are Members 11. That all Privy Counsellors and Judges may take their Oath the form thereof to be agreed on and setled by Act of Parliament for the maintaining of the Petition of Right which was in many things more than ever they could claim or ever had or could by Law have any Right unto and of certain Statutes made by this Parliament which shall be mentioned by both Houses of Parliament as if they were in all Duty and Loyalty bound to make him a glorious King thought they could never have unking'd him enough and brought him to their murdering ever to be abhorred Tribunal and that an inquiry of all the Breaches and Violations of all those Laws may be given in charge by the Justices of the Kings Bench and by the Justices of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of the Peace at their Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law 12. That all the Judges and Officers placed by approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their places quam diu se bene gesserint 13. That the Justice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it And that all persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the sentence of Parliament 14. That the general Pardon offered by his Majesty may be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament 15. That the Forts and Castles of this Kingdom may be put under the Command and Custody of such persons as his Majesty shall appoint with the approbation of his Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament with the Major part of the Council in such manner as is before expressed in the choice of Councellors 16. That the extraordinary Guards and Military Forces attending his Majesty may be removed and discharged and that for the future he will raise no such Guards or extraordinary Forces but according to the Law in case of Actual Rebellion or Invasion an Imposition and Vassalage was never put upon any thing that was like a King in Christendom for the Kings of Scotland whilst seperate from England and did homage to our Kings had when there was cause enough of fear and jealousie as now there was none no such unkingly Vassalage put upon him King David had 24000 men for his Guard who every Month came up to Jerusalem and our Saxon King Alured had his Guards by monthly courses 17. That his Majesty would be pleased to enter into a more strict Alliance with the States of the united Provinces and States of the Protestant Religion for the defence and
maintenance thereof against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his Adhaerents to subvert and suppress it whereby his Majesty will be much incouraged and enabled in a Parliamentory way for his aid and assistance in restoring his Royal Sister and her Princely Issue to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them and relieving the other distressed Protestant Princes who have suffered in the same cause 18. That his Majesty would be pleased by Act of Parliament to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the 5 Members of the House of Commons in such manner that future Parliaments may be secured from the consequence of that evil president 19 That his Majesty would be graciously pleased to pass a Bill for restraining Peers from sitting or voting in Parliament unless they be admitted thereunto with the consent of both Houses of Parliament which would have made him such a King as never was or can be found in any Christian or Heathen Kingdom or Nation and themselves such Subjects as until they could agree the matter amongst themselves or they should be couzened by some Republicans and those publick Plunderers by some Cromwel cheat those kind of extraordinary mad Men and Fools of both Sexes must have been all Kings Queens and Princes and that which they would have called their King to be but as a shadow or semblance or none at all which would have restrained the King from all power that other â—ings and Princes had to reward men of merit when as Joseph had the Honour done him by Pharaoh that they should make him ride them second Chariot and cry before him Bow the Knee and as Mordecai who had preserved King Ahashuerus Life was Arrayed with the Royal Apparel and rode upon the Horse on which the King used to ride with the Crown Royal on his Head and the Horse to be led by one oâ— his greatest Princes through the Street of the City who sh 〈…〉 Proclaim before him Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to Honour All those or which their humble desires being granted by his Majesty they should faithfully apply themselves to regulate his present Revenue in such sort as may be for his best advantage and likewise to settle such an ordinary and constant increase of it as shall be sufficient to support his Royal Dignity in Honour and Plenty beyond the proportion of any former Grants of his Subjects of the Kingdom of his Majesties Royal Predecessors And what he owed to himself his Posterity People Prudence Honour and Dignity as to have granted what they desired they would too easily have obtained their advantages of bereaving him of his Monarchy by such their Propositions not fit to be advised and Petitions neither to be made or granted more than Pepin the Mayor of the Palace at Paris ever had when he perswaded the last King of the Merovignian Line to indulge his ease leave all his Affairs of State to his care manage which brought that Prince within a short time after to be shaved and put into a Monastery and the great Charles or Charlemain Son of Pepin established King of France or the like opportunities which Hugh Capet the Ancestor of the now King of France had by his getting the Rule and Reins of the Government into his own hands which did the like to the Family of that Great Charles and placed himself and his ever since flourishing Lineage in that Throne And would make him as small a King as Arise Evans a Fanatick Taylor in Black Fryers in London had proposed when Sir James Harrington had modelled his Government of Oceana Mr. Henry Nevil his Plato Redivivus and Mr. Charles George Cock his Houshold of God upon Earth and every one would be busy as he could in shooting of his bolt That a King should be Elected out of the Poorest sort of Men and have an 100 l. per Annum for his care and pains to be taken in the Government which would have been much better than the aforesaid 19 careful manackling Propositions when the Parliament must have been the King and the King only executive and as the Subject and the Parliament from time to time impowered to make Laws contrary to those which he and his predecessors had made and governed by and when they please is to execute quite contrary and procure a pardon when he can of God Almighty for it And having by the help of their Seditions and Rebellion gained as they hoped a new Magna Charta for themselves as representatives for the people their next care and industry were employed not only to guard and keep what they had thought themselves possessed of but to add as many more advantages unto them as the pressures and necessities of their King might join unto them and therefore when the Noble General Monke after Duke of Albemarle had by Gods mercy to King Charles the 2d under the mask of a Commonwealth by his wary conduct in almost a miraculous manner reduced the King to his Kingdoms Dominions and Monarchick Rights without as the Parliament Rebels would have perswaded him the taking of the Rebellious Covenant or the abstracting of any of his Regal Rights they did so contrive their matters as in an Act of general pardon larger than ever was granted by any of our Kings of England with some small exceptions prepared by two Serjeants at Law that had Sailed along with the Wind and Tide of that long lasting Rebellion they had bestowed upon it an especial praeamble That whereas divers Rebellions and Insurrections had been by vertue of divers Commissions of the King and of the Parliament as if any could be guilty of High Treason or other Misdemeanors or could forfeit that acted by the Kings Authority the King had pardoned all Treasons Felonies c. And as if they had nothing more to incroach upon the Monarchy did take it to be a breach of they knew not what Priviledge for their murdered King to send for a Printing-press from London to York or Oxford and the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament after that huge pardon granted by King Charles the 2d of the forfeiture of all the Lands in England which were in the Rebels possessions with all their rich Goods and Chattels together with another Act to unbastardize their Children and unadulterate their Fathers and Mothers fastened and entailed upon them by a new Fanatical way of Marriage before Justices of Peace as if they were only to part a fray or keep them from fighting for which they seemed not to be at any rest or quiet with themselves until every County City Burrough Market Town and Corporation or Company of Trade had attended his Majesty with Addresses of huge protestations of Loyalty and Obedience and the expence of their Blood Lives and Fortunes and all that could be dear unto them yet too many of them could after make their counterfeit Loyalty with promises to live and dye with him to
the provisions Derogatory to Kingly Government made at Oxford in the Raign of King Henry the third and constrained of King Edward the second And might have happened into a question unanswerable what mischief our Magna Charta or Charta de Foresta had done unto our Nation or upon what other cause or reason those excellent Laws were granted by our King Henry the 3d and so dearly beloved as they thought themselves utterly undone if they had not with the 15th part of their Moveables obtained them eisdem modo forma without any substraction or addition the same which have been continued confirmed by their several Kings and Princes above thirty times and was such a caution in one of their Parliaments as the Bishops in their several Diocesses were impowered to Anathematize all the Infringers thereof and King Henry the 3d in that direful Procession was constrained to walk through Westminster-Hall the Abby-Church of Westminster with all the Bishops Earls Barons and Nobility of England and Wales holding burning Tapers in their hands the King only refusing after the reading of the aforesaid Magna Charta's freely granted by that King and likewise that enforced upon King John his Father and throwing down their Tapers wishing that the Souls of the Infringers thereof might so burn and fry in Hells everlasting fire being such a cursed obligation as was never enforced upon any King or Prince by their people in any Nation of the World and might if Right had been done unto that distressed King have been deeply censured in foro Animae gratitudinis And if those Magna Charta's have been such a darling of the people as they seemed to value it as their Blood and Estates how could they fall so much out of their love as they would do all that they could to be rid of them as if they had been Circe's Swine tearing them in peices when they are for the most part a compleat System or figure of our Antient Monarch Feudal Laws and every Chapter therein loudly proclaim them to be no otherwise And what have we got in Recompence of the overturning of our beneficial and ever to be praised Feudal Laws but the forfeitures of all our Lands and Estates if God and the King should be extream and mark what is done amiss Or can any man of Learning Reason or Understanding or any but one that is or hath been mad without Lucid Intervals believe that St. Edward the Confessors Laws have not deduced their Original for the most part if not all from the Feudal Laws when by the solemnest and greatest Jury of the World impannelled by King William the Conqueror they appeared sine dolo malo ingenio to be no other than our Feudal Laws by which the Soveraignty did appear to be in the King not the People by which our Kingdom had been Governed and did bear as near a resemblance thereunto as one Hen Egg doth or can unto another in shape or figure And what strange kind of Imaginary Soveraignty radically or otherwise at any time was believed to reside in the people when the Pope and his Legate Pandulphus made our affrighted King John to do homage by laying down his Crown and Scepter at the feet of his Legate multum dolente Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi saith Matthew Paris nor was the Tribute paid or thought fit to be paid thereupon for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland though demanded of King Henry the third his Son or Edward the first his Grandson but by all our Kings and Princes neglected it being an allowed Maxime in our Law that Angliae Rex nunquam moritur which could not be if all the People had been understood to have been Soveraigns Or can any man believe that our English Ancestors did not think St. Edward the Confessors said Laws to be tantum sacrae when they hid them under his Shrine in the Church of Westminster-Abby and afterwards precibus fletibus obtained of him to be Governed by them Which William the Conqueror would not have granted until he had by the aforesaid grand Jury examined and compared them per sapientes viros in Lege eruditos and the People of England and Wales have ever since being about 619 years never believed their Lives Estates and Posterities to be in any kind of safety if the Conqueror and all the succeeding Kings and Princes did not at their several Coronations take their Oaths to observe most especially St. Edward the Confessors Laws which they never failed to do and hath been so taken both by his late Majesty and this our present King And it would be a strange forgetfulness of Duty and our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy upon which and no other our Feudal Laws are built to forget them and the care of our Souls which the Britaignes in Armorica in France could never do since the dread and fear of the cruel Invasion of the Scots and Picts making them forsake their Native Countrey of England and retire where they now are where they yet retain their Antient Feudal Customs used in England which is that Ligeance est ordinaire en tous fiefs la quelle de sa nature emporta obeyssance du vassal foy homage autre les droits devoirs contenus en l'infeodation anciens advouz tenures L'homage lige ce fera en ceste forme scavoir que le vassal l' Espee Esperons ostez teste nue ayant les mains entre celles de son Seigneur se enclynant dira telles paroles mon Seigneur Je deviens vostre home Lige pour telles choses lesquelles Je releve tien de vous ligement en tiel vostre fief Seigneurie lesquelles choses me sont advenues par tels moyens a cause de quoi Je vous doy la foy homage lige vous promittes par ma foy serment vous estre Loyal feable porter l' honneur obeysance envers vous me gouverner aynsi que noble homage de foy lige doit faire envers son Seigneur Le Seigneur respondra come sensuit vous devenus mon home pour rayson de tales choses par vous dites de choses en tel me promittant que vous me serra feal obeysant home vassal si que vostre fief le requier le Subject respondra Je le promets ainsi lors le Seigneur dira Je vous y recen sauf mon droit de l' autrui Insomuch as when all the aforesaid concurrences of the Laws of God and Man Records and Annals Truth and rectified Reason shall be united and laid together he must be an ill Subject and a very great INfidel that cannot with great assurance believe that the Blessed Martyr King Charles the first and his late Royal Majesty and our now Gracious Soveraign have been much wronged in their Regal Rights Revenue and Authority and had as their Blessed Father been made likewise Martyrs if
quod contra Communem Civilium ordinatio tenorem propter aliquam naturalis aequitatis rationem certa constituentium authoritate introductum est unde apparet saith Cicero quod Privilegium contra Jus naturae vel utilitatem publicam non magis sunt Privilegia quam Tirannis Privilegia ultra suam propriam naturam non extendi debet nec ad ea quae neutiquam prima sua origine sunt directa aliquin etiam ad incognita contra intentionem dantis extendi possent quod in Jure absurdum est Expressa Privilegia a re ex Jure proprio Majestatis superioritatis proprie privilegiorum concessio non tantum arguit superioritatem dantis inducit subjectionis speciem in persona impetrantis quidem Ita ut privilegium non subdito concessum Regulariter in contractum transeat sed soli Principi summo qui regalem dignitatem potestatem exercendi Jura principis quoad Subditos suos in suo territorio concessit competit per L. Vinc. de his qui a Princip Vac accep lib. 10. Privilegia Jus superioritatis stricte quidem Ita interpretari convenit ut semper intelligantur salvo Jure superioritatis concessa Privilegii enim Interpretatio non debet verti contra Autorem Ita quod per privilegia subditi desinant esse subditi sed quod tanto magis esse debent subditi cum Privilegia proprie non nisi subditis dantur quis dubitat eum qui Privilegium libertatis accipit leges alterius agnoscere cum privilegium non sit nisi exemptis a Jure Communi L qui singulare F. de L. And very often confirmed Priviledges that have been incroached or usurped may justly come within the compass of that Rule also of the Civil Law much allowed and made use of in our Common Law Quod ab initio non valet tractu temporis non convalescit Confirmatio ex certa Scientia quamvis det robur non tamen extenditur ad id quod in eo non includebatur secundum Bald. sing in l. 3. in fin C. Interpretatio privilegiorum ita siat necesse est nec torqueatur sed facto deserviat neque factum variare oportet ut Privilegio respondeat Privilegium debet esse observatum et clarum Michael Ant. Frances de veritigati aequivocum nihil operatur p. 564. in privilegiis mens concedentis attenditur cap. 51. n. 223. privilegium transit in contractum ex causa onerosa fieri dicitur nec revocatur cap. 30. et 294 et 304. p. 570. ex privilegiatis duobus quis sit praeferendis cap 10. p. 193. magis privilegiatus praecellere debet ratione dignitatis privilegium non extendit se ad ea quae de facili concedi non solent qualis est derogatio concilii cap. 28. n. 327. non datur res quae not sit cap. 28. 414. 415. p. 514. concessum ex causa ea cessante revocatur etiam si concedens ex alia causa ea concessisset cap. 28. n. 497. p. 510. Revocatur nova causa superveniente cap. 28. n. 428. p. 522. Non datur nisi aliquid particular concedat cap. 13. n. 26. p. 556. Privilegium Exemptio laedunt Jus Commune cap. 30. n. 17 p. 554. Privilegium ratione scandali revocatur cap. 30. n. 299. p. 570. And there were Priviledges that were more stable yet no Parliament Priviledges such as St Pauls was of being a Freeman and Citizen of Rome bought as he said with a great price and some Coloniae Mancipiae had the same Laws and Priviledges which Rome had the four great High Ways made by the Romans in Brittain to keep their Souldiers from Idleness as Watlinstreet c. had great Immunities and Priviledges as to have the persons and goods of such as travailed or dwelt therein freed from Arrest or Distress Et privilegia quae utilitati publicae sunt dannosa strictam interpretationem requirunt quia generaliter quicquid contra jus vel utilitatem publicam in quolibet negotio prefertur non valet l Jubeamus 10. C. des s. Ecclesiae 4. The Decree of the great King Ahashuerus that raigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 Provinces his Laws being holden to be irrevocable were as unto some part of them reversed for the preservation of the Jewish Nation upon the petition of Queen Esther and his holding out his golden Scepter to her And the House of Commons themselves did in a Parliament in the 21 year of the raign of King Richard the Second certainly so understand and believe it when they recommended to posterity their dutiful protestation to their King and Soveraign and request to have it specially Inrolled in these words Item les ditz Comes fierent protestation devant le Roi en plein Parlement ils vurroient monstrer declarer mesme le Jour en plein Parlement certeine matieres Articles deus queux ils fierent alors aviser entre eux accorder nient majus il fust est leur entent volunte percongie de nostre Seigneur le Roy de accuser empesther persone ou persones a tantes de foiz come leur sembleroit affaire durant le temps de cest present Parlement prierent au Roy lui pleiroit accepter leur dite protestation quil soit entrer en rolle de Parlement de record la quele chose nostre Seigneur le Roi leur ad ottroie commanda a destre fait and did think it not to be unbecoming their duty to require license of the King to charge or accuse any person or persons in that tempestuous Parliament nor did beleive that their accusations or impeachments should or ought to be so fatally mortal when in the first year of the Raign of King Henry the 4th by a patched contrivance of the Parliament in the Raign of King H. 4. the same Commons in Parliament desired that the Judgment given against the said Earl of Arundel whose Pardon but a little before had been rejected might be reversed and a restoration made of all his Lands Estate and Evidences And those their Priviledges being but personal and temporary and after they were allowed by our Kings a Speaker which was about the Raign of King R. 2. the House of Commons well knowing who was the only donor of them never fail'd at the Change Allowance of every of their Speakers to give him in charge to Petition in their behalf unto the King for the same no other Priviledges being necessary for the aforesaid Imployment Upon the violation of any whereof by any of their fellow Subjects they did so well understand the extent of those their Temporary Peculiar and Limited Priviledges with the obligations of their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and that it neither appertained unto them nor was or could be in their power to cause or enforce a better observation thereof but it was only in the King
that granted them and was to be vouched to warranty which was in common and ordinary matters very usual in our Laws and reasonable Customs and therefore to him only as the Grantor and Protector of their Parliament Priviledges and not to themselves the gratitude and acknowledment was only due And the House of Commons until this our present unruly Age or Century did not adventure to take upon themselves or endeavour by any pretended Authority of their own to punish any the violators of their aforesaid Priviledges but supplicated Aid of their Kings and Princes that were the donors and granters of them And therefore in the Raign of King Henry the fourth it was adjudged that as the Record witnesseth Videtur Cur. quod non For in Anno 8 H. 6. William Lark a Servant of William Wild Burgess of Parliament being arrested upon an Execution during the Parliament the Commons petitioned the King to give order for his discharge and that no Lords Knights Citizens or Burgesses nor their Servants coming to the Parliament may be Arrested during the Parliament unless it be for Treason Felony or Breach of the Peace The King granted the first part of the Petition Et quant al residue le Rei sa avisera The Commons prayed that Edmond Duke of Somerset Alice Poole the late Wife of William Poole Duke of Suffolk William Bishop of Chester Sir John Sutton Lord Dudley the Lord Hastings James de la Barre one of the Kings Secretaries and 20 or 22 Knights and Esquires particularly named amongst which was Thomas Kemp Clerk of the House of Commons which the Commons themselves and their own Clerk had not them found to be either a Liberty or Priviledge of their own to punish might be banished from the King during their Lives and not to come within twelve Miles of the Court for that the People do speak evil of them To which the King answered He is of his own meer motion contented that all shall depart unless only the Lords and a few of them whom he may not spare from his presence and they shall continue for one year to see if any can duly impeach them In Anno 31 H. 6. The Commons made a Request to the King and Lords that Thomas Thorp their Speaker and Walter Roil a member of their house who were in Prison might be set at liberty according to their Priviledges The next day after the Duke of York who was then a Rival for a long time but after a publick Competitor for the Crown and President of the Parliament came before the Lords not the Commons and shewed that in the vacation of the Parliament he had recovered damage against the said Thomas Thorp in an action of trespass by Verdict in the Exchequer for carrying away the goods of the said Duke out of Durham House for the which he remained in Execution and prayed that he might continue therein Wherein the Councel of the Judges being demanded they made Answer it was not their part to Judge of the Parliament which was Judge of the Law wherein surely they might rather have said what they should have most certainly have believed then as Sir Edward Coke did long after that the King was principium caput finis Parliamenti and only said that a general Supersedeas of Parliament there was but a special supersedeas in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the Commons House ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony Surety of the Peace or for a condemnation before the Parliament After which the Lords determined that the said Thomas Thorp should remain in execution and sent certain of themselves to the Commons who then had so little power to free themselves from Arrests and imprisonment as they could not deliver their own Speaker out of Prison but were glad to follow the direction of the King and Lords to chuse and present unto the King another Speaker the which they did and shortly after certain of the Commons were sent to the Lords to declare that they had in the place of the said Thomas Thorp chosen for their Speaker Thomas Charleton Esquire Walter Clark a Burgess of Chippenham in the County of Wilts being committed to the Prison of the Fleet for divers condemnations as well to the King as to others was discharged and set at Liberty at the Petition of the Commons to the King and Lords without Bail or Mainprise At the Petition of the Commons William Hill a Burgess of Chippenham aforesaid being in Execution in the Kings-Bench was delivered by a Writ of the Chancery saving the Plaintiffs right to have Execution after the Parliament ended It was enacted by the universal Vote and Judgment as well of the Commons as the Lords that John Atwil a Burgess for Exeter being condemned during the Parliament in the Exchequer upon 8 several informations at the suit of John Taylor of the same City shall have as many Supersedeas as he will until his returning home King Henry 8. in the case of Trewyniard a Burgess of Parliament imprisoned upon an Outlawry after Judgment caused him to be delivered by a Writ of Priviledge upon an Action brought against the Executors and a demurrer it was resolved by the Judges to be Legal George Ferrers Gent. servant of the King and a Burgesse of Parliament being arrested in London as he was going to the Parliament-house by a Writ out of the Court of Kings Bench in execution at the Suit of one White for the sum of 200 markes being the debt of one Walden which arrest being signifyed to Sir Tho. Moyle Knight Speaker of the House of Commons and to the Knight and Burgesses there an order was made that the Serjeant of the Mace attending the Parliament should go to the Compter and Demand the Prisoner which the Clerks and Officers refusing from stout words they fell to blows whereof ensued a fray not without hurt so as the said Serjeant was forced to defend himself with his Mace and had the Crown thereof broken off by bearing off a stroak and his Servant struck down which broil drawing thither the 2 Sheriffs of London who did not heed or value the Serjeants complaint and misusage so much as they ought but took their Officers parts so as the Serjeant returning without the Prisoner informed the Speaker of the House of Commons how rudely they had entertained him who took the same in so ill part that they all together some of whom were the Kings privy Councel as also of the Kings privy Chamber resolved to sit no longer without their Burgess but left their own house and went to the House of Peers and declared by the mouth of their Speaker before Sir Thomas Audley Knight then Lord Chancellor and all the Lords Judges there assembled the whole matter such no Estates they believed themselves to be who Judging the contempt to be very great referred the punishment thereof to