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city_n citizen_n london_n mayor_n 9,097 5 11.2140 5 false
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ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A93823 The State of the city of London, and their humble desires upon the bill for restoring their charters and liberties 1690 (1690) Wing S5316B; ESTC R42892 3,692 5

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THE STATE OF THE City of London And their Humble Desires upon the Bill for Restoring their CHARTERS and LIBERTIES As the same were Offered to many of the LORDS in Parliament by divers Citizens whilst their Petition was depending to be heard TO prepare the Lords to hear what Council should offer upon the Cities Petition it was first prayed That the Judgment against the City and its Liberties might be well weighed the Substance thereof was That the Liberties claimed for the Citizens of London to be of Themselves a Body-Corporate and Politick by the Name of Mayor Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London should be Taken and Seized into the Hands of the King And that the Citizens should be taken Prisoners to satisfie the King for his Fine for Vsurping the said Liberty and Priviledge The purport of the Bill is to Reverse this Judgment as Illegal and Arbitrary and to make it Null and Void to be hereafter of no Effect But shews not wherein it was Illegal or Arbitrary either in Matter or Form whereby the City might be secured against the like Illegal Judgments The Bill also declares in effect That Illegal Judgment to have been of such legal force and efficacy that by vertue thereof the Body Politick of the City was utterly dissolved and destroyed and all their Liberties Lands Goods Debts and Interests as a Corporation even those belonging to their Wives and Children forfeited to the King 'T is herein imply'd That the City to this hour is no Corporation And all that exercise the Powers of Mayors Sheriffs or Common-Councils or any other City Office are in effect declared to be Usurpers and Wrong-doers having no Lawful Authority And 't is also in effect affirmed That the City hath no right nor claim to Liberties Lands Goods Debts or any other Interest unless the Late King's Trustees and Confidents to whom he granted them for that year please to shew the Effects of His Grace to the Citizens or the Chancery shall compel them to it But the City takes these Declarations and Concessions of the Bill to be destructive to their Fundamental Rights and Liberties they claiming to have been a City and Body Politick with divers Liberties and Customs above 2000 years and to have perpetual Succession which could not be forfeited nor destroyed or come under the Judgment of the Judges of the King's-Bench for their being a Body Politick if any Citizens had been Offenders as they were not in this case nothing less than an Act of Parliament being able to destroy their Corporation subsisting by Customs Prescription and many Acts of Parliament Therefore they justly dread a Declaration to be made by Parliament as in this Bill that an Illegal Arbitrary Sentence of the King's Bench Judges have dissolved the Body of the City and may at any time at the Will of an Arbitrary Prince destroy it again and all its Customs Authority and Privileges to the ruine of their Wives and Childrens Interests The City therefore as We humbly conceive justly insists That this Judgment was void in it self and of no force to destroy their Incorporation and are ready to maintain themselves to have always been and to be at this time a Body Politick in due form of Law And they aver That the King neither did nor could by Law take any thing into his hands by force of that Judgment And they affirm That the present Mayor and Sheriffs and Common-Council are legally possessed of their respective Places being duly chosen according to their Customs and Charters They say That the Information in the nature of the Quo Warranto upon which the Judgment was founded was void of it self in the Construction of Law and ought to be esteemed and taken for none being brought against the Body-Politick of the City for usurping to be a Body-Politick which is utterly Repugnant and Contradictory in its self It cannor be admitted to Complain and Aver in a Legal Court That a Body Politick usurps to be a Body-Politick there being in that case no Defendant to answer the Complaint so the very Information is void and null in its self it is in reality no Information against any Body and no Judgment could be given upon it The very Judgment also is contradictory in its self being to take into and continue in the hands of the King the Franchizes of the Corporation and Body-Politick of the City mentioned in the Pleadings when 't is averr'd in the whole Proceedings towards Judgment That there was no Corporation or Body-Politick of the City but that there was an Usurpation only of the name of a Body-Politick The City insists That many Points of Law do arise naturally upon the Bill fit for the greatest Consideration and the Advice of all the Learned Judges the whole Constitution of the Government of the Kingdom being concerned in them as well as the City These following Questions in Law ought to be clearly Resolved before it 's reasonable that the Bill should be made a Law 1 Q. Whether by force of the Judgment the Corporation or Body-Politick of the City was by our Laws actually in King Charles the Second and descended to the late King James and remained in him notwithstanding his Instrument and Grant under the great Seal to restore to the City all that was pretended forfeited to him and that he took from them If the Corporation was never in King James or was restored to the City by him then this Bill will do great wrong to the City by depriving their Officers of their Authorities and Interest without Cause and changing the Customary Times of Chusing Officers and of their holding their Offices the Bill appointing them to continue for Sixteen Months which is a burden intolerable to some of the City-Officers 2. Q. Whether the Officers of the City and Members of Parliament serving for the City being chosen according to the Cities Customs and Liberties be Usurpers of their Offices and Places as the Bill clearly imports 3. Q. Whether by that form of the said Judgment the Cities Franchise of being a Body-Politick be taken and seized into the King's hands all the Lands and Inheritances of the City were by Law so vested in the King that the late King might grant them to whom he pleased This Bill plainly implying the late King James's Lease of all the City Lands to his Confidents in trust to have béen good in Law 4. Q. Whether the Judges of the King's Bench have a Legal Jurisdiction to Judg and if they please to Destroy the being of all the Corporations by Prescription throughout the Kingdom of whose Burgesses the Parliament in great part consists This Bill supposes and allows the Judges to have had a Jurisdiction which shakes the Ancient Foundation of the Government wherein all the Corporations by Prescription are taken to have perpetual Succession 5 Q. Whether any small pretended or real Misdemeanor of some Members of Corporations by Prescription can be a Forfeiture of all the