come with them to sach Convocation often times and commonly be arrested molested and inquieted the King willing gratiously in that behalf to provide for the security and quieâ—ness of the said Prelates and Clergy at the supplication of the said Prelates and Clergie and by the assent of the great men and Commons in Parllament assembled did ordain and establish that all the Clergy hereafter to be called to the Convocation by the Kings writ and their servants and familiars should for ever hereafter fully use and enjoy such liberty or defenee in coming tarrying and retorning as the great men and commonly of the Realm of England called or to be called to the Kings Parliament did enjoy or were wont to enjoy or in time to come ought to enjoy In the 23. and 24 th year of the Raigne of that King the Commons in Parliament did pray the King that every person being of the Lords or Commons House having any assault or fray made upon him being at the parliament or coming or going from thence might have the like remedy therefore as Sir Thomas Parre Knight had which shews that in those days they did not endeavour to punish any breach of their priviledges by their own authority but made their addresse by their petitions unto the King as their Soveraigne and Supreme for his Justice therein To which the King answered the Statutes therefore made should be observed In the 28 th year of the said Kings Raigne It was at the request of the Commons in parliament for that William Taylebois of South Lime in the County of Lincoln Esq would in the Parliament time have slain Ralph Lord Cromwell one of the Kings Councel in the Pallace of Westminster Enacted that the said William Taylebois should therefore be committed to the Tower of London there to remain one year without bayle baston or Mainprize and that before his delivery he should answer unto the same In the 14 th and 15 th year of the Raign of King Edward the 4 th William Hide a Burgess of Parliament for the Town of Chippenham in Wiltshire being a Prisoner upon a Writ of Capias ad satisfaciendum obtained a Writ out of the Chancery to be delivered with a saving of the right of other men to have Execution after the Parliament ended notwithstanding the Pâ—ecedent of Sir William Thorpe Knight Speaker of the house of Commons in the 18 th year of the Raigne of the Raigne of King Henry the 6 th taken in Execution for a debt of 1000 l. at the suit of Richard Duke of York betwixt the adjournment and recess of that Parliament and could not be released so as a new Speaker was chosen in his place which may well be conjectered to have been so carried by the then overbearing power and influence of that Duke and his party great alliance and pretences to the Crown which that meek and pious King was not able to resist For in the 17 th year of the raigne of King Edward the 4 th at the petition of the Commons in Parliament the King with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal granted that John Atwill a Burgess of the City of Exeter condemned in the Exchequer during the Parliament upon eight several informations at the suit of John Taylor of the same Town should have as many Writs of Supersedeas as he would untill his coming home after the Parliament In the 35 th year of the Raigne of King Henry the 8 th Trewyniard a Burgess of Parliament being imprisoned upon an Utlary in an action of debt upon a Capias ad satisfaciendum was delivered by priviledge of Parliament allowed to be legal by the opinion of the Judges before whom that case of his imprisonment and release was afterwards debated and their reasons as hath been before remembred given for the same with which agreeth the precedent in the case of Edward Smalley a servant of Mr. Hales a member of Parliament taken in Execution in the 18 th year of the Raigne of Queen Elizabeth in the Report whereof made by the Committee of Parliament for his delivery it is said that the said Committee found no precedent for the setting at large any person in arrest but only by writ and that by diverse precedents on Record and perused by the said Committee it appeared that every Knight Citizen and Burgesse of the house of Commons in Parliament which doth require priviledge hath used in that case to take a corporal oath before the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England for the time being that the party for whom such writ is prayed came with him to the Parliament was his servant at the the time of the arrest made whereupon Mr Hale was directed by the house of Commons to make an oath before the Lord Keeper as aforesaid and to procure a warrant for a Writ of priviledge for his said servant howbeit the Lords in Parliament did in the Raigne of Queen Elizabeth usually of their own authority deliver their Servants out of Execution if arrested in Parliament time In the 27 th year of her Raigne a Member of the house of Commons having been served with a Writ of Subpaena issuing out of the Chancery and the house signifying to the Lord Keeper that it was against their priviledge he retorned answer that he could not submit to any opinion of the house concerning their priviledges except those priviledges were allowed in Chancery and would not recall the Subpaena With which accordeth Mr. VVilliam Pryn too violent an undertaker in the late times of usurpation to assert their phantosme or feigned soveraignty whereof he was then and since his Majesties happy restoration untill his death a member who having by the keeping of the Records in the Tower of London found the way to a better weighed and more sober consideration and cause enough if he would have well inspected himself and what he had formerly written to retract those many errors which an overhasty reading and writing had hurried him into hath in his animadversions upon Sir Edward Cokes 4 th part of his Institutes declared that the house of Commons in Parliament had untill the later end of the last Century assumed no Jurisdiction to themselves or their Committee of priviledges to punish breaches of priviledges but onely complained thereof to the King or the Lords in Parliament And therefore King James in an answer to a Petition of the House of Commons in Parliament in Anno Dom. 1622 was not in an error when he said that although we cannot allow of the stile calling your priviledges your antient and undoubted rights and inheriiance but could rather have wished that you had said that your priviledges were derived from the grace or permission of our Ancestors and us for most of them were from precedents which shews rather a tolleration then inheritance yet we are pleased to give you our royal assurance that as long as you contain
Lands in antient Demesn to the prejudice of the Lord and for those that are Summoned to the Sheriffs turn out of their own Hundred a Writ de libertate allocanda for a Citizen or Burgesse to have his Priviledge allowed when he is impleaded contrary thereunto and a Writ de Consuâ—tudinibus servitiis a Writ of right close against a Tenant which deforceth his Lord of the Services due unto him and a Writ to exempt a man from the view of Frank pledge when he is not there resident although all men are obliged thereunto by reason of their Lands not their habitation and as Bracton saith a view of Frank pledg is res quasi Sacra quia solam personam Regis respicit introducta sit pro pace utilitate Regis as it were a Sacred matter or thing in regard it taketh care of the Kings person and was introduced for his Peace and Profit should by the rule of gratitude if there were nothing of right or duty to perswade it not tell how to obstruct that so antient Claim of Priviledge of the Kings Servants when it will ever be as Consonant to Law and right Reason for the Kings Servants not to be disturbed or prejudiced in their duties and attendance upon the King as it is for any others Of his people and Subjects being not his Servants when by a Statute made at Gloucester in the 30th year of the Reign of King Edward the first the King himself as that Act of Parliament mentioneth providing for the Wealth of the Realm and the more full Administration of Justice as to the Office of a King belongeth the discreet men of the Realm as well of high as low degree being called thither it was provided and ordained that when men were to claim or shew their Liberties within a time of 40 days prefixed and were before the King that is to say in his Court of Kings-Bench where himself is by Law supposed to sit they should not be in default before any Justices in the Circuits for the King of his especial grace hath granted that he will save that party harmless and if the same party be impleaded upon such manner of Liberties before one or two of the aforesaid Justices the same Justices before whom the Party is impleaded shall save him harmless before the other Justices and so shall the King also before him when it shall appear by the Justices that so it was in Plea before them and if the aforesaid Party be afore the King so that he cannot the same day be before the said Justices in their Circuits the King shall save that party harmless before the aforesaid Justices in their Circuits for the day whereas he was before the King And not at all agreeable to reason that the Franchises and Liberties granted by our Kings to the Counties Palatine of Chester Lancaster Durham the Cinque ports the City of Gloucester with the Barton or little Territory so called annexed unto it the large extent of the Liberty of the Bishop of Ely that of ten Hundreds to the Bishop of Winchester in or near Somersetshire Seven Hundreds in or near Gloucestershire Claimed by Sir Robert Atkins Knight of the Bath the large extents and compass of the Liberties and Soke of Dâ—ncaster in the County of York and of Sheffeild Rotherham and Hallomshire in the same County Grantham and its large Soke and Liberties in the County of Lincoln Tindall in Hexamshire in the County of Northumberland and many an hundred more of Liberties and Franchises not here specified exclusive to all others intermedling therein should by the power of the Kings Grants or Allowance and a just reverence and respect of their Neighbours and Tenants have and enjoy a Priviledge and Civility not to have their Servants Arrested or Imprisoned without complaint first made to their Lords or Masters or leave asked upon any of the Writs Process or Warrants of their own Liberties or Courts before they suffer their Bailiffs or Officers to Arrest any of their Servants or upon the Warrants or Process of any other the Kings Courts untill a Writ of non omittas propter aliquam libertatem claimed by them shall be after a not Execution of the first be awarded either or both of which may give a sufficient or large respite for the parties Prosecuted to satisfie pacifie or prolong the patience of an eager or furious Creditor and that the King who gave and indulged those Liberties should not be able to deserve or command a like Licence in the Case of any of his own Servants to be demanded of him either upon a Process made out by the owner or his Substitutes of the same Liberties or any other Warrant or Process directed to the Owner or his Subordinates of that Liberty Or should not have as much Priviledge for his Servants as the Miners in the Peak-hills in Derbyshire or those of the Stanneries in Devonshire and Cornwall not to be Sued or Prosecuted out of their Berghmote or Court of Stanneries or disturbed in their Works or business Or that his Servants should not as well deserve their Priviledges to be continued unto them as the Kings Tenants in antient Demesn who upon the only reason and accompt that they were once the Kings Tenants and did Plow and Sow his Lands for the maintenance and Provision of his Houshold and Family are not yet by the Tenure of those Lands of which there are very many Mannors and great quantities in England Ousted of those their Immunities or denyed them but the very Tenants at Will who are as they say here to day and gone to morrow do claim them and are not in any of the Kings Courts of Justice debarred of those exemptions although those Mannors and Lands are very well known to have been long ago Granted away and Aliened by the King or his Royal Progenitors since passed from one Owner to another for many Generations the effect by an Indulgence Permission or Custom contrary to the general and every where approved Rule or Maxime that cessante causa tollitur effcâ—tus the cause or reason of the thing ceasing the effect should cease continuing after the Cause ceased in so much as many do now enjoy those Priviledges who are no Tenants of the King neither have any thing to do with his most Honourable Houshold or have any Relation thereunto For if all the depths of Reason and Humane Understanding were Sounded Searched and dived into by the Sons of men all the Ingenuity of Mankind will never be able to find or assign a Cause or Reason why the House of Commons in Parliament have heretofore Petitioned our Kings for a Freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment or to Punish any the Offenders therein if they had any doubt of his want of a legal Power and Authority therein to grant it or why the business or Service of the King concerning himself or the Weal Publick should so
received him with four hundred men on Horsback clad all in one Livery And by a sad experience if they have a mind to taste it and the King should not continue and make it to be as his Chamber Court or Palace but remove his Courts his Servants and Courts of Justice as King Edward the first did to York for Seven years together during his Wars with Scotland would too late repent the misusage of the Founders and cause of their happiness and acknowledge the Night and Shades to be long and cold when their Sun should remove his Walk or Tropick to enlighten and refresh another part of the World And would find themselves to be mistaken in their Accompt as well as Opinion if they should fancy that nothing can hurt their Trade unless the River of Thames should be carried away from them and may in time be so well Acquainted with the Error of those conceipts as to confess that they were built upon a very Tottering and failing Condition when they shall like men either of any retrospect to the Ages or Times past or prospect of what is coming or may surely happen but consider that in all the Reigns of our Brittish Saxon or Danish Kings or of those of the Norman Race untill the Reign of King Edward the third the Neighbourhood of their Thames brought them so little advantage as it was rather an Embrio than an Emporium or noted Town of Trade that from thence to the Erecting and Incouragement of the Staple Towns and Cities of Trade whereof Westminster was one By King Edward the third for the Advance of our Clothing and Wollen Manufacture which in a short time after by the Wars of Franâ—e or some other intervenient obstruction dwindled into a desuetude and London and her Blackwell-hall made to be the Mistress of that once flowrishing Trade the quieting of Wales and the Commerce with it after the Reign of King Henry the 4th the uniting of the Houses of York and Lancaster by King Henry the 7th the opening of the Passages to the East and West Indies Grants of many Fairs and Markets which have been since made the Trade of London which was not before much more than in its Bloom and Blossom is by the Power Alliance Leagues and Interest of our Kings and Forreign Princes and the many Immunities and Priviledges procured by them for our Merchants with Francâ— Spain Portugal Burgundie and the Netherlands the Russia or Moscovie Hause or Hamburgh East and West-India Trade with those of the English Colonies as Virginia Bermudus Barbados St. Christophers New-England Maryland Mevis and Siranam since arrived to that height or perfecton which hath like Tirus Enlarged Her Borders and made her the Merchant of many Isles and to be as the Ocean into which al the Rivers of the Land do run and hasten to pay their Tribute And in the greatest of her Pride and Glory should not be to learn that the Scheld could not after that the Heiresse of Burgundie had transferred her Court and residence into Spain That great and Famous Town of Trade was made a place of desolation and a wonder of what she was and that the residence and Court of the French Kings hath made Paris though an Inland City far di-distant from the Sea and washed only by the River Seyne not much acquainted with Ships or Navigation to be called domicilium Regis caput regni the Head and Chief of all the Towns and Cities of France le Roy ayant son domicile ou les Princes Pairs de France autres officiers de la Couronne doivent estre a la suâ—te du Roy the King having there his House or Palace and the Princes and Peers of France and other Officers of the Crown who ought to attend the Court of the King Do the Merchants of London who Trade into Spain Russia and many other parts of the World by the Care Power and Protection of our Kings and Princes and their chargeable Embassies to Forreign Princes and States enjoy a Priviledge and Freedom from Arrests of their Persons or Estates without a Complaint first made to their Consuls or Remedie endeavoured to be obtained by Application unto them and to have their Causes and Actions tryed before a Judge Conservator of their own Priviledges Do our Kings allow and cause those Consuls to Solicite and take a care to maintain and defend those Priviledges and Authorize their Embassadors residing in the Courts of any Kings Princes or Republicks to make it to be a part of their business to be assistant unto them Have the Magistrates of the City of London for more than 500 years together at their coming to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul at some of their greatest Festivals and Solemnities in every year untill our late times of Confusion in a gratefull remembrance of his Favours walk round about and visit the Grave-Stone or Burial place of William Bishop of London who procured some Liberties to be Granted by William the Conqueror to their City being not the half of those of a greater Consequence and Profit which have been since Granted unto them by King Henry the first King Richard the first King John King Henry the third King Edward the third King Richard the second King Edward the 6th and divers others of our Kings and Princes who gave unto them many more and greater Favours and Priviledges as the Shrevalty of Middlesex Liberty to choose every year their Mayor free Warren in a great Circuit about the City that every Sheriff should have two Clarks and two Serjeants and the City have a Common Seal that the Mayor should be Escheator and Justice of Gaol Delivery at Newgate that the Serjeants of the Mayor and Sheriffs should bear Maces of Silver and Guilt with the Kings Arms Engraven upon them the Aldermen should continue during their lives and not be removed without special Cause with the grant of the Borough of Southwark and Conservation of the River of Thames cum multis aliis c. and many more some of which were before recited Will not all those Benefits their Being their Happiness and the continuance of those blessings with their Trades at home and abroad be enough to put them in mind to shew a kindness respects and Civility due unto the Kings Servants and not to drown those many Favours Honours and Priviledges received from him and his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors in the dead Sea of a base and unworthy Ingratitude or imitate Jesurun who like an Heyser waxing fat kickt against the cause of it Or can they upon any Foundation or ground of Reason or probability think that if our Kings should not continue and make London to be as his Chamber Court or Palace but remove himself his Court and Servants to York Hull Oxford or Bristoll the Inhabitants thereof would not gladly pay him a greater Tribute of Duty and Thankfulnes than the not Arresting his Servanrs without licence first