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A25530
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An answer to a letter written by a member of Parliament in the countrey upon the occasion of his reading of the Gazette of the 11th of December, 1679.
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1679
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Wing A3320; ESTC R10364
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7,226
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6
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Hobbart tells us Hob. 220. Wrenhams Case That it is lawful for any Subject to Petition to the King for redress in an humble and modest manner for says he access to the Soveraign must not be shut up in case of the Subjects distresses Vet. Magn. Chart. Exil Hugi. De Spencer 51. It was one of the Crimes for which the Spencers were banished by Parliament that they hindred the King from receiving and answering Petitions from great men and others And as it is our unquestionable Right so in all ages the usage has been by Petition to inform our King of our Grievances In the Reign of King Ed. the II. and Ed. the III. Petitions were frequent for Redress of publick Grievances and for Parliaments especially out of Ireland though that is a conquer'd Nation as may be seen in the close Rolls of the Reigns of those two Kings One instance I will give you for your satisfaction but I will tire you with no more for that would be endless 'T is Claus 10. Ed. 2. M. 28. intus Pro communitate Hiberniae Rex Dilect Claus to E. 2. M. 28. intus Pro communitate Hiberniae fidelibus suis Justa Cancellar The saur suis Hib. salutem ex parti populi nostri terrae predict per Petitionem suam eoram nobis Concillio nostro exhibitum nobis ese cum instantia supplicatum quod cum c. In the 5th year of King Richard the II. Coke Jurisdiction of Courts p. 79. Burarts History of the Reformation pag. 231. Procl Dat. 7. Feb. 11. Jac. the whole body of the Realm Petition'd that the most wise and able men within the Realm might be chosen Chancellors King Henry the VIII told his Subjects then in Arms against him in York shire that they ought not to have Rebell'd but to have applied themselves to him by Petition King James by a Proclamation publisht in the 12th year of his Reign begins thus The complaints lately exhibited to us by certain Noblemen and others of our Kingdom of Ireland suggesting disorders and abuses as well in the proceedings of the late begun Parliament as in the Martial and Civil Government of the Kingdom We did receive with extraordinary grace and favour And by another Proclamation in the 12th year of his Reign Procl 12 Jac. he declares That it was the right of his subjects to make their immediate addresses to him by petition and in the 19th year of his reign he invites his subjects to it And in the 20th year of his Reign he tells his people Procl dat 10th July 19. Jac. Procl dated 14 Feb. 20. Jac. That his own and the ears of his Privy-Council did still continue open to the just complaints of his people and that they were not confined to times and meetings in Parliament nor restrained to particular Grievances not doubting but that his loving subjects would apply themselves to his Majesty for relief to the utter abolishing of all those private whisperings and causless rumours which without giving his Majesty any opportunity of reformation by particular knowledg of any fault serve to no other purpose but to occasion and blow abroad discontentment It appears that the House of Lords both spiritual and temporal Lords Journal An. 1640. nemine contradicente voted thanks to those Lords who petitioned the King at York to call a Parliament And the King by his Declaration printed in the same year Declar. 1640. declares his Royal will and pleasure That all his loving subjects who have any just cause to present or complain of any Grievances or Oppressions may freely address themselves by their humble petitions to His Sacred Majesty who will graciously hear their complaints Since His Majesty's happy Restauration Temp. Car. 2. the inhabitants of the County of Bucks made a petition That their County might not be over-run by the Kings Deer and the same was done by the County of Surry on the same occasion 'T is time for me to conclude your trouble I suppose you do no longer doubt but that you may join in Petition for a Parliament since you see it has been often done heretofore nor need you fear how many of your honest Countreymen join with you since you hear of Petitions by the whole body of the Realm and since you see both by the opinions of our Lawyers by the Doctrine of our Church and by the Declarations of our Kings That it is our undoubted right to petition Nothing can be more absurd than to say That the number of the Supplicants makes an innocent petition an offence on the contrary if in a thing of this publick concernment a few only should address themselves to the King it would be a thing in its self ridiculous the great end of such Addresses being to acquaint Him with the general desires of His people which can never be done unless multitudes join How can the complaints of the diffusive body of the Realm reach His Majesty's ears in the absence of Parliament but in the actual concurrence of every individual person in petition for the personal application of multitudes is indeed unlawful and dangerous Give me leave Stat. 13. Car. 2. c. 5. since the Gazette runs so much in your mind to tell you as I may modestly enough do since the Statute directs me what answer the Judges would now give if such another Case were put to them as was put to the Judges 2 Jacobi Suppose the Nonconformists at this day as the Puritans then did should sollicité the getting of the hands of multitudes to a Petition to the King for suspending the execution of the penal Laws against themselves the present Judges would not tell you that this was an offence next to Treason or Felony nor that the offenders were to be brought to the Council-board to be punished but they would tell you plainly and distinctly That if the hands of more persons than twenty were sollicited or procured to such a petition and the offenders were convicted upon the evidence of two or more credible Witnesses upon a prosecution in the Kings Bench or at the Assizes or Quarter Sessions within six months they would incur a penalty not exceeding a hundred pounds and three months imprisonment because their petition was to change a matter establisht by Law But I am sure you are a better Logician than not to see the difference which the Statute makes between such a petition which is to alter a thing establisht by Law and an innocent and humble petition That a Parliament may meet according to Law in a time when the greatest dangers hang over the King the Church and the State FINIS
An Answer to a LETTER Written by a Member of Parliament in the Countrey upon the occasion of his reading of the Gazette of the 11th of December 1679. SIR I Received your Letter when I was engaged in much other business which will excuse me that I have not returned an Answer sooner and that it is done no better now You desire me to let you know what that Judgment is which my Lord Chancellor acquainted my Lord Mayor and his Brethren with and what my thoughts are upon it and that I may obey you in both I will first Transcribe that Case as it is reported by Justice Crook that being already put into English whereas the Case in Moor is in French MEmorandum That by Command from the King all the Justices of England with divers of the Nobility viz. the Lord Ellesmere Lord Chancellor the Earl of Dorset Lord Treasurer Viscount Cranbourn Principal Secretary the Earl of Nottingham Lord Admiral the Earls of Northumberland VVorcester Devon and Northampton the Lords Zouch Burghley and Knowles the Chancellor of the Dutchy the Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishop of London Popham Chief Justice Bruce Master of the Rolls Anderson Gawdy VValmesley Fenner Kingsmil VVarberton Savel Daniel Yelverton and Snigg were assembled in the Star-Chamber where the Lord Chancellor after a long Speech made by him concerning Justices of Peace and his Exhortation to the Justices of Assize and a discourse concerning Papists and Puritans Declaring how they both were disturbers of the State and that the King intending to suppress them and to have the Laws put in Execution against them demanded of the Justices their Resulutions in three things First Whether the Deprivation of Puritan-Ministers by the High Commissioners for refusing to conform themselves to the Ceremonies appointed by the last Canons was Lawful Whereto all the Justices answered That they had conferred thereof before and held it to be Lawful because the King hath the Supreme Ecclesiastical power which he hath delegated to the Commissioners whereby they had the power of Deprivation by the Canon-Law of the Realm And the Statute of 1 Eliz. which appoints Commissioners to be made by the Queen doth not confer any new power but explain and declare the ancient power And therefore they held it clear That the King without Parliament might make Orders and Constitutions for the Government ☜ of the Clergy and might deprive them if they obeyed not And so the Commissioners might deprive them But they could not make any Constitutions without the King And the divulging of such Ordinances by Proclamation is a most gracious Admonition And for as much as they have refused to obey they are Lawfully deprived by the Commissioners ex Officio without Libel Et ore tenus convocati Secondly Whether a Prohibition be grantable against the Commissioners upon the Statute of 2 H. 5. if they do not deliver the Copy of the Libel to the party Whereto they all answered That that Statute is intended where the Ecclesiastical Judg proceeds ex Officio ore tenus Thirdly Whether it were an offence punishable and what punishment they deserved who framed Petitions and collected a multitude of hands thereto to prefer to the King in a publick cause as the Puritans had done with an Intimation to the King That if he denied their sute many thousands of his Subjects would be discontented Whereto all the Justices answered That it was an offence finable at discretion and very near to Treason and Felony in the punishment For they tended to the raising of Sedition Rebellion and discontent among the people To which Resolution all the Lords agreed And then many of the Lords declared That some of the Puritans had raised a false Rumor of the King how he intended to grant a toleration to Papists Which offence the Justices conceived to be heinously finable by the Rules of the Common Law either in the Kings Bench or by the King and his Councel or now since the Statute of 3 H. 7. in the Star-Chamber And the Lords severally declared how the King was discontented with the said false Rumor and had made but the day before a protestation unto them that he never intended it and that he would spend the last drop of blood in his body before he would do it and prayed that before any of his Issue should maintain any other Religion than what he truly professed and maintained that God would take them out of the world I doubt not but your self and every English Protestant will joyn with this Royal Petitioner and will heartily say Amen But you desire to know if I think that the Resolution of the Judges in this case ought to deter us from humbly Petitioning His Majesty that this Parliament may effectually sit on the 26th day of January next In order to this give me leave to observe to you As it is most certain that a great Reverence is due to the Unanimous opinion of all the Judges so there is a great Difference to be put between the Authority of their Judgments when solemnly given in Cases depending before them and their sudden and extrajudicial Opinions The Case of Ship-money it self is not a better proof of this than that which you have now read as you will easily see if you consider distinctly what they say to the several Questions proposed to them As to their Answer to the first Questiom it much concerns the Reverend Clergy to enquire whether they did not mistake in it and whether the King by his Proclamation can make new Constitutions and oblige them to Obedience under the penalty of Deprivation Should it be so and should this unhappy Kingdom ever suffer under the Reign of a Popish Prince he might easily rid himself of such obstinate Hereticks and leave his Ecclesiastical Preferments open for men of better Principles He will need only to publish a Proclamation that Spittle and Salt should be used in Baptism that Holy water should be used and Images set up in Churches and a few more such things as these and the business were effectually done But if you will believe my Lord Chief Justice Cook 12. Co. 19 he will tell you that it was agreed by all the Judges upon Debate Hill 4 to Jacobi and that it was resolved by the whole Court of Common Pleas Trin. 6 to Jacobi 12. Co. 49 that the King cannot change his Ecclesiastical Laws and you may easily remember since the whole Parliament declared that he could not alter or suspend them I have the uniform Opinion of all the Judges given upon great Deliberation Mich. 4 to Jac. to justifie me Co. Mag. Char. 616. if I say that our Judges here were utterly mistaken in the Answer which they gave to the second Question I will not cite the numerous subsequent Authorities since every man knows that it is the constant practise of VVestminster-Hall at this day to grant Prohibitions upon refusal to give a Copy of Articles where the Proceedings in