Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	king_n	law_n	lord_n	4,135	5	3.8427	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B05024	Familiar letters. Vol. II. Containing thirty six letters, / by the Right Honourable John, late Earl of Rochester. Printed from his original papers. With letters and speeches, by the late Duke of Buckingham, the Honourable Henry Savile, Esq; Sir George Etherridge, to several persons of honour. And letters by several eminent hands.	Rochester, John Wilmot, Earl of, 1647-1680.; Savile, Henry, 1642-1687.; Brown, Thomas, 1663-1704.; Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 1628-1687.	1699 (1699)	Wing R1748; ESTC R182833	66,393	222

number or Rhetorick describe Oh Dorinda that I were at your Feet to give you fresh Assurances of the Inviolableness of my Passion whose Greatness was once your Wonder and Delight LETTERS AND SPEECHES ON SEVERAL SUBJECTS By the Late Duke of Buckingham To the Lord Bercley My LORD I Must needs beg your Lordship's Excuse for not waiting upon you next Sunday at Dinner for two Reasons The first is Because Mrs. B refuses to hear me preach which I take to be a kind Slur upon so learned a Divine as I am The other That Sir Robert Cl is to go into the Country upon Monday and has desir'd me to stay within to Morrow about Signing some Papers which must be dispatch'd for the Clearing so much of my Estate as in spite of my own Negligence and the extraordinary Perquisits I have receiv'd from the Court is yet left me I 'm sure your Lordship is too much my Friend not to give me Leave to look after my Temporal Affairs if you do but consider how little I 'm like to get by my Spirituality except Mrs. B be very much in the wrong Pray tell her I am resolv'd hereafter never to to swear by any other than Jo. Ash and if that be a Sin 't is as odd a one as ever she heard of I am My Lord Your Lordship 's most humble and most faithful Servant Buckingham The DUKE ' s Speech in a Conference Gentlemen of the House of Commons I Am commanded by the House of Peers to open to you the Matter of this Conference which is a Task I could wish their Lordships had been pleas'd to lay upon Any-body else both for their own sakes and mine Having observ'd in that little Experience I have made in the World there can be nothing of greater Difficulty than to Unite Men in their Opinions whose Interests seem to disagree This Gentlemen I fear is at present our Case but yet I hope when we have a little better consider'd of it we shall find that a greater Interest does oblige us at this time rather to joyn in the Preservation of both our Priviledges than to differ about the Violation of either We acknowledge it is our Interest to defend the Right of the Commons for should we suffer them to be opprest it would not be long before it might come to be our own Case And I humbly conceive it will also appear to be the Interest of the Commons to uphold the Priviledge of the Lords that so we may be in a condition to stand by and support them All that their Lordships desire of you on this Occasion is That you will proceed with them as usually Friends do when they are in Dispute one with another That you will not be impatient of hearing Arguments urged against your Opinions but examine the Weight of what is said and then impartially consider which of us two are likeliest to be in the wrong If we are in the wrong we and our Predecessors have been so for these many hundred of Years and not only our Predecessors but yours too This being the first time that ever an Appeal was made in point of Judicature from the Lords House to the house of Commons Nay those very Commons which turn'd the Lords out of this House tho' they took from them many other of their Privileges yet left them the constant Practice of this till the very last day of their Sitting And this will be made appear by several Precedents these Noble Lords will lay before you much better than I can pretend to do Since this Business has been in Agitation their Lordships have been a little more curious than ordinary to inform themselves of the true nature of these Matters now in Question before Us which I shall endeavour to explain to you as far as my small Ability and my Aversion to hard Words will give me leave For howsoever the Law to make it a Mystery and a Trade may be wrapt up in Terms of Art yet it is founded in Reason and is obvious to common Sence The Power of Judicature does naturally descend and not ascend that is no Inferiour Court can have any Power which is not deriv'd to it from some Power above it The King is by the Laws of this Land Supreme Judge in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil And so there is no Court High or Low can Act but in Subordination to Him and tho' they do not all Issue out their Writs in the King's Name yet they can Issue out none but by Vertue of some Power they have received from Him Now every particular Court has such particular Power as the King has given it and for that reason has it Bounds But the Highest Court in which the King can possible Sit that is His Supreme Court of Lords in Parliament has in it all Judicial Power and consequently no Bounds I mean no Bounds of Jurisdiction for the Highest Court is to Govern according to the Laws as well as the Lowest I suppose none will make a Question but that every Man and every Cause is to be tried according to Magna Charta that is by Peers or according to the Laws of the Land And he that is tried by the Ecclesiastical Courts the Court of Admiralty or the High Court of Lords in Parliament is tried as much by the Laws of the Land as he that is tried by the King's-Bench or Common-Pleas When these Inferior Courts happen to wrangle among themselves which they must often do by reason of their being bound up to particular Causes and their having all equally and earnestly a Desire to try all Causes themselves then the Supreme Court is forc'd to hear their Complaints because there is no other way of deciding them And this under favour is an Original Cause of Courts tho' not of Men. Now these Original Causes of Courts must also of necessity induce Men for saving of Charges and Dispatch sake to bring their Cause originally before the Supreme Court But then the Court is not obliged to receive them but proceeds by Rules of Prudence in either retaining or dismissing them as they think fit This is under Favour the sum of all that your Precedents can shew us which is nothing but what we practise every day That is that very often because we would not be molested with hearing too many particular Cases we refer them back to other Courts And all the Argument you can possibly draw from hence will not in any kind lessen our Power but only shew an Unwillingness we have to trouble our selves often with Matters of this Nature Nor will this appear strange if you consider the Constitution of our House it being made up partly of such whose Employments will not give them leisure to attend the Hearing of Private Causes and entirely of those that can receive no Profit by it And the truth is the Dispute at present is not between the House of Lords and the House of Commons but between Us and

Parliament is Dissolved And if in this Opinion I have the Misfortune to be mistaken I have another Misfortune joyned in it I Desire to maintain the Argument with all the Judges and Lawyers in England and leave it afterwards for your Lordships to decide whether I am in the right or no. This my Lords I speak not out of Arrogance but in my own Justification because if I were not thoroughly convinced that what I have now to urge were grounded upon the Fundamental Laws of England and that the not pressing it at this time might prove to be of a most dangerous Consequence both to his Majesty and the whole Nation I should have been loth to start a Motion which perhaps may not be very agreeable to some People And yet my Lords when I consider where I am whom I now speak to and what was spoken in this Place about the time of the last Prorogation I can hardly believe that what I have to say will be distasteful to your Lordships I remember very well how your Lordships were then disposed with the House of Commons and remember too as well what Reasons they gave to be so It is not so long since but that I suppose your Lordships may easily call to mind that after several odd Passages between Us your Lordships were so incensed that a Motion was made here for an Address to his Majesty about the Dissolution of this Parliament and tho' it fail'd of being carried in the Affirmative by two or three Voices yet this in the Debate was remarkable the Cit prevail'd much with the Major part of your Lordships that were here present and were only over-power'd by the Proxies of those Lords who never heard the Argument What change there hath been since either in their behaving or in the state of our Affairs that should make your Lordships change your Opinions I have not heard and therefore if I can make it appear as I presume I shall that by Law the Parliament is dissolv'd I hope your Lordships ought not to be offended at me for it I have often wondred how it should come to pass that this House of Commons in which there are so many honest and so many worthy Gentlemen should be less respectful to your Lordships as certainly they have been than any House of Commons that ever were chosen in England and yet if the matter be a little enquir'd into the Reason of it will plainly appear For my Lords the very Nature of the House of Commons is changed they do not think now they are an Assembly that are to return to their Houses and become as private Men again as by the Laws of the Land and the Ancient Constitution of Parliament they ought to do but they look upon themselves as a standing Senate and as a Company of Men pick'd out to be Legislators for the rest of their whole Lives and if that be the cause my Lords they have reason to believe themselves our Equals But my Lords it is a dangerous thing to try new Experiments in Government Men do not foresee the ill Consequences that must happen when they go about to alter those Essential parts of it upon which the whole Frame of the Government depends as now in our Fall the Customs and Constitutions of Parliaments for all Governments are artificial things and every part of them has a Dependance one upon another As in Clocks and Watches if you should put great Wheels in the room of little ones and little ones in the place of great ones all the Fabrick would stand still So you cannot alter any one part of the Government without prejudicing the Motions of the whole If this my Lords were well considered People would be more cautious how they went out of the old English Way and Method of Proceedings But it is not my business to find fault and therefore if your Lordships will give me leave I shall go on to shew you why in my Opinion we are at this time no Parliament The ground of this Opinion of mine is taken from the ancient and unquestionable State of this Realm And give me leave to tell your Lordships by the way that Statutes are not like Women for they are not one jot the worse for being Old The first Statute that I shall take notice of is That in the Fourth Year of Edward the Third Cap. 14. and it is thus set down in the Printed Book Item It is accorded that a Parliament shall be holden every Year once and more often if need be Now these Words be as plain as a Pike-staff and that no Man living that is not a Scholar could possibly mistake the meaning of them It is the Grammarians of those Days did make a shift to explain that the Words If need be did relate as well to the Words Every Year once as to the Words More often And so by this Grammatical Whimsey of theirs had made this Statute to signifie just nothing at all For this Reason my Lords in the 36th Year of the same King's Reign a new Act of Parliament was made in which those unfortunate Words If need be are left out and that Act of Parliament is Printed thus relating to Magna Charta and other Statutes made for the Publick Good Item For maintainance of these Articles and Statutes and the Redress of divers Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen a Parliament shall be holden every Year as at other time was ordained by another Here now my Lords there is not left the least Colour or Shadow for any further Mistake for it is plainly declared That the King of England must call a Parliament once within a Year And the Reasons why they are bound to do so are as plainly set down namely For the Maintenance of Magna Charta and other Statutes of the same Importance and for the preventing the Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen The Question then remains Whether these Statutes have been since repealed by any other Statutes or no The only Statutes I ever heard mention'd for that are the two Triennial Bills the one made in the last King's the other made in this King's Reign The Triennial Bill in the last King's Reign was made for the Confirmation of the two Statutes of Edward the Third before-mention'd For Parliaments having been omitted every Year according to these Statutes a Statute was made in the last King's Reign to this purpose That if the King should fail of Calling a Parliament according to these Statutes of Edward the Third then the third Year the People should Meet of Themselves without any Writs at all and choose their Parliament-men of Themselves This being thought disrespectful to the King a Statute was made by this last Parliament which repealed the Triennial Bill but after the Repealing Clause which took notice only of the Triennial Bill made in the last King's Reign there was then in this Statute a Paragraph to this purpose That because the ancient Statutes of the Realm

of those Rebellious Pyrates that so long have molested the peaceable Trade of Europe and hath presented further Occasion to root out the Generation of those who have been so pernicious to the Good of our Nations I mean since it hath pleased God to be so auspicious to our Beginnings in the Conquest of Sallee that we might joyn and proceed in hope of like Success in the Wars of Tunis Algiers and other Places Dens and Receptacles of the Inhumane Villanies of those who abhor Rule and Government Herein whilst we interrupt the Corruption of malignant Spirits of the World we shall glorifie the Great GOD and perform a Duty that will shine as glorious as the Sun and Moon which all the Earth may see and reverence A Work that shall ascend as sweet as the Perfume of the most precious Odour in the Nostrils of the LORD a Work grateful and happy to Men a Work whose Memory shall be reverenced so long as there shall be any remaining amongst Men that love and honour the Piety and Vertue of Noble Minds This Action I here willingly present to You whose Piety and Vertues equal the Greatness of Your Power that We who are Vice-gerents to the Great and Mighty GOD may hand-in-hand Triumph in the Glory which the Action presents unto Us. Now because the Islands which You Govern have been ever Famous for the Unconquered Strength of their Shipping I have sent this my Trusty Servant and Ambassadour to know whether in Your Princely Wisdom You shall think fit to Assist me with such Forces by Sea as shall be answerable to those I provide by Land Which if You please to grant I doubt not but the LORD of Hosts will protect and assist those that fight in so Glorious a Cause Nor ought You to think this strange that I who so much Reverence the Peace and Accord of Nations should Exhort to a War Your Great Prophet Christ Jesus was the Lion of the Tribe of Judah as well as the Lord and Giver of Peace which may signifie unto You That He which is a Lover and Maintainer of Peace must always appear with the Terror of his Sword and wading thro' Seas of Blood must arrive to Tranquillity This made James Your Grand-father of Glorious Memory so happily Renown'd amongst all Nations It was the Noble Fame of Your Princely Vertues which resounds to the utmost Corners of the Earth that persuaded me to invite You to partake of that Blessing wherein I boast My self most happy I wish GOD may heap the Riches of his Blessings on You encrease Your Happiness with Your Days and hereafter perpetuate the Greatness of Your Name in all Ages To Mr. Bulstrode at White-hall SIR THE Turks breaking their Truce and besieging Vienna is very deplorable but might reasonably enough have been foreseen and is therefore the more strange the Emperor should be so unprovided From the Princes of the Empire surely no great Matters are to be expected for they have their various Interest and such Confederate Armies seldom do great things and should they call in the French to their Assistance the end of that may easily be discerned for in all kind of Probability it must make that King the Universal Emperor and perhaps they may then bring amongst themselves as dangerous an Enemy as him they now fear The old Saying is a Truth Every-body for himself and God for us all and therefore I confess I think it better for these Parts of the World the Turks should have that part of Germany than the French for that Almighty Neighbour should he acquire the Empire will be a perpetual Plague to the Northern Countries and in time to the warmer Climates too for he has already made one Step into Italy by Casal and more than two Strides into Spain by his other Conquests tho' he had solemnly protested at the Holy Altar Religiously to observe the Peace of the Pyrenaeans but we see these Protestations are no Tye upon this Most Christian King for when ever that he calls the Advancement of his own Glory comes in Competition with his Justice to His Neighbour the Latter is sure to be the Sufferer I doubt you will think me very impertinent in medling in State Affairs but I rely upon your Goodness to forgive me since you know I am Your most humble Servant M. Peachey To Dear Sir Politick TO prepare my self for writing to you I wish I could conjure up the Spirit of Nick Machiavel for how can I be able to make good my Promise to you who are the Great Anima Mundi Politici I have naturally a strange unhappy Honesty which makes me not the best qualified for Politicks I suppose you have heard over and over of the Action in Hungary where we have been as honourably Beaten as a Man could well desire The Business of our Coin which under the new Dispensation has been more then Mosaically Circumcised begins now to make a very handsome Appearance there being great store of new Money To tell you my poor Opinion the Nation has suffer'd the Fate of a Man that has got the Pox who yet very wisely rejects all the Quacks and relies upon the known approv'd Method of Fluxing She throws off all the unsound Part the bad Money and in its room gets up a fresh Stock of Vigour You very well know how Matters have gone with the Bank Their Abatements are not so great as they have been and it is hoped it will be again in a flourishing Condition You and I have private Reasons to wish well besides this publick one That the Bank is one of the Pulses of our Government and as it beats high or low a Man may make his Inferences And thus much for State Affairs for really Sir I have but a mean Opinion of that sort of Study Politicks in Italy may be refin'd Understanding in France a genteeler sort of Villany in Holland Interest coarse spun but in England are certainly Flatus Hypocondriaci If this be not an effectual Plea for my Carelesness you ought to consider I am out of the Road of Government and of an Age when Men generally mind other things People under Seven and Twenty tho' they live about Town either are for none or else for a lower Species of Politicks such as which in the present War of Pleasure shall get the better King Thomas or the Confederacy of Players Sir I am c. Octob. the First 1696. To Mr. Savage SIR IEsteem tho' I cou'd not merit your Salute and while I return you mine in exchange I acknowledge you a Loser by the friendly Venture you have made yet let not one Loss deter you from a farther Correspondence The Amorous or rather Wanton Widow bears her Loss like a Christian her Grief proceeds more from your Absence than his Death I have the Secret but am not beholding either to him that is dead or her that is living for it I am sorry to hear you made no greater Progress in