eligendum deputandum Milites pro hujusmodi Comitatibus ad interestendum Parliamento ought to be free in chusing and deputing Knights to be present in such Parliaments for each respective County and to declare their Grievances and to prosecute such Remedies thereupon prout eis videretur expedire as to them should seem expedient Yet the King ut in Parliamentis suis liberiùs consequi valeat suae temerariae Voluntatis effectum that he might in his Parliaments be able more arbitrarily to accomplish the effects of his head-strong will did very often direct his commands to his Sheriffs ut certas personas per ipsum Regem nominatas ut Milites Comitatuum venire faciant ad Parliamenta sua that they should cause to come to his Parliaments as Knights of the Shire certain Persons named by the King which Knights being his Favourites he might lead as often he had done quandóque per minas varias terrores quandóque per Munera sometimes by various Menaces and Terrors and sometimes by Gifts to consent to those things as were prejudicial to the Kingdom and exceeding burthensome to the People and especially to grant to the King a Subsidy on Wool for the term of his Life and another Subsidy for certain Years thereby too grievously oppressing his People I shall descend from that unfortunate Prince to King 23 H. 6. cap. 15. Hen. 6. and there in the 23d year of his Reign almost 256 years ago a Statute was made intituled Who shall be Knights for the Parliament The manner of their Election The Remedy where one is chosen and Pulton's Stat. fol. 349. another returned In the Body of which we read That every Sheriff after the delivery of the Writ to him made shall make and deliver without fraud a Precept under his Seal to every Mayor and Bailiff or Bayliffs or Bailiff where no Mayor is of the Cities and Buroughs within his County reciting the Writ commanding them if it be a City to chuse by Citizens of the same City Citizens and if a Burough Burgesses to come to the Parliament and such Officers as aforesaid shall return Lawfully such Precept to the same Sheriff by Indentures between them of such Elections and the Names of the Citizens and Burgesses so chosen and thereupon every Sheriff shall make a good and Rightful Return of every such Writ and of every Return by such Officers as aforesaid And every Sheriff at every time that he does contrary to this Statute or any * 3 E. 1. other Statutes for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses shall incur the pain contained in the Statute of 8 H. 6. which is to 8 H. 6. cap. 7. forfeit 100 l. to the King and suffer Note The difference of the Value of 100 l. then and 100 l. now for K. H. 8. left to his Two Daughters by his Will no more than 10000 l. a piece who were afterwards Queens of England a Years Imprisonment without Bail or Mainprize and moreover shall forfeit and pay to every Person so chosen Knight Citizen or Burgess and not duly returned or to any other Person who in default of any such Knight Citizen or Burgess will sue 100 l. more to be recover'd by Action of Debt against the said Sheriff or his Executors The publick Detestation and Abhorrence of pack'd Returns of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament or Administrators with his or their Costs in such case dispended inwhich Action the Defendant shall not wage his Law nor have any Essoign allowed And in the same manner at every time that any Mayor and Bailiffs or Bailiff or Bailiffs where no Mayor is shall return other than those who be chosen by the Citizens and Burgesses of the Cities or Buroughs where such Elections shall be made they shall incur and forfeit to the King 40 l. and moreover 40 l. to the Person so chosen and not returned to be recovered in manner as aforesaid by such Person chosen or any other who in their Default will sue for the same One would imagine that after such an Act as this was made it should scarce ever be attempted by any to invade our Liberties especially in a point that so nearly concerns the Salvation of all our Interests For as the old Lord Treasurer Burleigh who was accounted the greatest Statesman that ever this Nation had was often heard to say That England could hardly ever be ruined unless it were by her own Parliaments so we need never to fear that Parliaments will undo us unless we suffer ourselves to be cozen'd into Slavery by being cheated out of our Best and Highest Rights I mean †Prince of Orange's Declaration our Entire Freedoms of Electing such for our Representatives with whom we can with confidence trust our Religion Lives Honours Liberties Estates and Posterity But if the Nation shall at any time hereafter be so careless as to permit a pack'd House of Commons to be put upon her she may then indeed be given up as an easie Prey to the Arbitrary Pleasure and Lust of those contriving Managers of her Ruin and what will still add Weight and Aggravation to her Misery as she falls with Scorn so she will fall unpitied to all Christendom Thus was that weak Prince King Henry the Sixth 23 H. 6. 38 H. 6. call'd the Coventry Parliament imposed upon by his evil Councellors and Favourites but fifteen years after the making of this last mentioned Statute and what were the miserable Effects thereof you shall hear the Parliament of the next Year following at Westminster declare in these words That divers seditious and evil disposed Persons having no regard 39. H. 6. cap 1. Rastalls Stat. fol. 287. to the Dread of God nor to the Damage of the prosperous Estate of the King nor his Realm sinisterly and importunely did labour with the King to summon a Parliament to be holden at his City of Coventry the 20th day of the Month of November the 38th year of his Reign only to destroy certain of the great Nobles faithful and lawful Lords and Estates of the King's Blood and other of the faithful Liege-people of the Realm of England for the great Rancour Hatred and Malice which the said Seditious Persons of long time have had against them And of their greedy and insatiable Covetousness to have the Lands Hereditaments Possessions Offices and Goods of the said Lords and faithful Liege-people by which sinister labour certain Acts Statutes Ordinances against all good Faith and Conscience in the said Parliament were made finally to destroy the said lawful Lords Estates and Liege-people and their Issues as well Innocents as other and their Heirs for ever which Parliament was unduly summoned and a great part of the Knights for divers Counties of this Realm and many Burgesses and Citizens for divers Buroughs and Cities in the same appearing were named Returned and accepted some of them without due and free Election some of
could reasonably and honestly excuse himself he should be amerced and otherwise punished according as of old times had been used to be done within the Realm And if any Sheriff should from thenceforth be Sheriffs negligence in making Returns negligent in making his Returns of Writs of the Parliament or leave out of the said Returns Or Omission any Cities or Burroughs which were bound and of old times wont to come to Parliament he should be punished in the manner as was accustomed to be done in the said Case in time past The Parliament was anciently Adjourned of course till a Further day because that several of the Lords and Commons were not come up nor their Writs returned and the declaring the Causes of calling it was usually deferred till they were all come up and appeared as you may see in several places of Cotton's Abridgment of Records For instance 6 E. 3. n. 5. 13 E. 3. Cotton's Abridg Sparsim n. 5. 15 E. 3. n. 4 5. 17 E. 3. n. 2. 20 E. 3. n. 5 6. 21 E. 3. n. 4. 22 E. 3. n. 1. 25 E. 3. n. 1. 42 E. 3. n. 1. 51 E. 3. n. 3. 2 R. 2. n. 1. 4 R. 2. n. 1 2. 5 R. 2. n. 65. 6 R. 2. n. 1. 9 R. 2. n. 1. 9 H. 4. n. 1 2. The Parliament was adjourned because sundry of the Commons House made default and were absent So careful were our Prudent Ancestors to have a Full Representative of the whole Kingdom whenever a Parliament was to meet before they would proceed to act in any publick business to prevent all Surprises that might be feared from any Party whatsoever but especially in the making and enacting of publick and general Laws and giving of Subsidies and Aids to the Crown for they well remembred the good old Rule of their Predecessors quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur King James the First in a Message sent down to the Journ Dom Com. Die Veneris 27 Feb. 4. Jac. 1. An. Dom. 1606. House of Commons said to this effect That every Member who did serve for a Town or a Shire his Attendance and Service in the House was a very great Duty and that the Departure or Absence of Any Member of the House of Commons was a greater Contempt than Any Nobleman's Departure who served only for himself And the Reason is very plain and obvious for it was not only necessary that Both Houses should be full at their first Meeting but that they should continue so to be as long as the Parliament it self continued and this appears by a Declarative Statute made in the 6th Hen. 8. which says that Forasmuch as commonly 6 H. 8. cap. 16. in the end of Every Parliament divers and many great and weighty Matters as well touching the Pleasure Weal and Surety of the King as the Common-weal of the Realm and Subjects thereof are to be Treated Communed of and by Authority of Parliament to be Concluded so it is that divers Knights of Shires Citizens for Cities Burgesses for Burroughs and Barons for the Cinque-Ports long time before the end of the Parliament of their own Authorities depart and go home into their Countries whereby the said great and weighty matters are many times greatly delayed Therefore it was provided by the said Act That Rast Statutes 429. 6 H. 8. cap. 16. no Knight Citizen Burgess or Barons of the Cinque Ports that for the future should be Elected to come or be in any Parliament should depart from the Parliament nor absent themselves from the same without the License of the Speaker and Commons in Parliament assembled to be entred upon Record in the Book of the Clerk of the Parliament upon pain to lose all those Sums of Money which he or they should or ought to have had for his or their Wages And that all the Counties Cities and Burroughs whereof any such Person should be Elected and the Inhabitants of the same should be clearly discharged of the said Wages against the said Person and Persons and their Executors for evermore But to return to what this may seem to be a digression from King Richard the Second through the unconfined Flattery of his Ambitious Favourites being driven on to fierce and violent Ruptures with the other Great Men of the Land who opposed the Male-administration of those Publick Enemies to the King and Kingdom 's Peace Tho. Walsing Histor Angl. fol. 329. and Happiness and being to call a Parliament in the Eleventh Year of his Reign was advised to Summon all the Sheriffs of England unto Nottingham-Castle and to enquire of them what Power they could raise for him in every County against those Great Men that Closetting advised by the Kings Chief Ministers did so oppose both him and his beloved Minions and charged them ut Ipsi nullum Militem de pago vel Schira permitterent eligi nisi quem Rex ejus Concilium elegissent Whereunto the Sheriffs answered That all the Commons favoured those Great Men neither was it in Mr. Prinns Plea for the Lords and House of Peers p. 384 385. their Power to raise any Army or Force in that Cause De Militibus eligendis dixerunt Communes velle tenere consuetudines Vsitatas quae volunt quod à communibus Milites eligantur Whereupon they were dismissed Upon that the King soon after issuing out Writs to the Sheriffs to elect Knights and Burgesses for the Parliament inserted this strange and unusual Clause into Rot. Claus 11 R. 2. m 24. dorso them that they should chuse such men as were in debatis modernis magis indifferentes But the King being quickly after informed by his Councel that that Clause in those Writs was an illegal Clause sent out New Writs to supersede those other wherein it was declared by him Dictam Clausulam viz. in Debatis modernis magis indifferentes contra formam Electionis antiquitùs usitatae ac contra Libertatem Dominorum Rot. Claus 11 R. 2. m 23. dorso Communitatis Regni Angliae eatenus obtentam existere But notwithstanding all this his Favourites suae pelii timentes as Tho. Walsingham's words are to protect and cover themselves from the common and deserved Justice of the Nation perswaded him so highly to invade the Ancient Form of Elections and the Liberties of the Lords and Commons and you know Sir that the People of England have in all Ages been celebrated for their firm Adherence to their good Old Liberties and Priviledges that at last it became one of the †Vide Cotton's Abridg. of Rec. 1 H. 4. fo 386. n. 18. 33 Articles for which he was Deposed It begins thus Artic. 19. Item licet de Statuto Consuetudine Regni Although by the Statute and Custom of the Realm Prin's Plea for the Lords p. 438. in the calling together of every Parliament the People in singulis Comitatibus Regni debeat esse Liber ad
Officer of London which did the Arrest called Taylor with Four Officers to Newgate where they remained Three Days and then delivered not without humble Suit of the Mayor of London and other their Friends And the Proceedings of the Commons in this case of Ferrers in maintaining the Priviledges 〈◊〉 Hollinsh Chron. ◠1584. of their House was not only commended even by King Henry the Eighth himself but was also confirmed by divers Reasons by the Lord Chief Justice Mountague and assented unto by all the rest of the Judges But to return to the Case before us of the Sheriffs of York and Others It was upon that whole matter Ordered That Thompson and Henlow pay the Charges of Witnesses brought up about the Proof of the said Election and that shall not be discharged from the Serjeant till they pay their Fees and Four Gentlemen of the House are to moderate and set down the Charges in certain And it is Ordered That they shall be committed to the Serjeant till they make their Submission at the Bar and acknowledg their faults on their Knees and read a Submission As for the Submission to be made at York it was through great Favour remitted by the House To these few Instances out of several others which might be collected from the Journals of the Commons House give me leave to superadd the Case of the Borough of Stochbridge which happened in the last Parliament and I find it thus set down in their Printed Votes 8. Mr. Grey reports from the Committee of Priviledges 8. Votes of the H. of Commons Primo Will. Mariae no. 19. Veneris 15 die Nov. 1689. and Elections the Case touching the Election of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Stockbridge in the County of Southampton that there had appeared very undue practices in giving and promising several Sums of Money for procuring Voices at the said Election whereupon the said Committee had come to Three Resolutions viz. Resolved 1. That William Mountague Esquire is not duly Elected a Burgess to serve in this present Parliament for the said Borough 2. That William Strode Esquire is not duly elected a Burgess to serve in this present Parliament for the said Borough 3. That the said Election is a void Election To all which Resolves the House agreed Ordered That Richard Hewes Bailiff of Stockbridge in the County of Southampton Page Robinson Gate-house and Samuel Hall of Stockbridge aforesaid be sent for in Custody of the Serjeant at Arms attending this House for giving and taking Bribes at the said Election Resolved That William Mountague Esquire be disabled from being Elected a Burgess to serve in this present Parliament for the said Borough of Stockbridge The Question being put That William Strode Esquire be disabled in like manner it passed in the Negative A Debate arising touching the Disfranchising of the said Borough for ever hereafter from sending Burgesses to Parliament and instead thereof that Two more Knights of the Shire be chosen for the County of Southampton Resolved That the Debate be adjourned A Petition of Hewes and other Inhabitants of Stockbridge in Custody of the Serjeant at Arms attending Idem no. 29. Mercurii 27 die Nov. 1689. the House was read wherein they acknowledge their Offence in promising several sums of Money for Votes and other undue practices at the late Election there and crave Pardon of the House for the same And the Petitioners being called in and severely reproved by Mr. Speaker for their said Offences were discharged paying their Fees The next day a Petition of Page Robinson in Idem N o 30. Custody of the Serjeant at Arms attending this House was read wherein he acknowledged his Offence in giving Bribes for procuring Voices at the late Election at Stockbridge and craved the Pardon of the House for it And he being called in and severely reproved by Mr. Speaker for his said Offence was discharged paying his Fees And it was Ordered That Mr. Speaker issue his Warrant to the Clerk Idem N o. 44. die Sabbati 14. Decembris of the Crown for a New Writ for electing a Burgess for Stockbridge in the County of Southampton in the room of Mr. Mountague Thus Sir you see though our Parliaments have not yet sufficiently provided for the Regulating Elections by a General and Publick Law yet the House of Commons as an Ancient Right of their very Essence and Being from which they cannot depart have still upon Complaints made to them of foul Practices in getting the Returns of Members to serve in Parliament that have not been duly chosen always taken care to inflict suitable Punishments upon the Offenders to shew their Dislike and Abhorrence of their Crimes And I hope if it shall be proved that any notorious and scandalous Pranks have been played to get a Party of Men into your House either by Fraud or Force or whatever other unwarrantable Pretence not allowed by the Laws of this Realm that shall be ready to foment Differences create Disagreements K.'s Sp. to both Houses of Parl. 21 March 1689 90. in your Councels and disturb or delay your speedy and unanimous Proceedings upon the necessary Matters before you for the Peace and Settlement of the Nation you will make it your special Care to summon all such Criminals to your Bar and upon Conviction to give them the Justice due to their Demerits that the Acknowledgement of their Faults the Repentance for them and humble Submission to the Righteousness of your Censures may be as publick in their respective Counties Cities and Burroughs as their bold Invasions have been upon the Indubitable Rights and Priviledges of the Subject contrary to the Tenour Mag. Chart. 9 H 3. cap. 9. Spelm. Glossar i◠Magna Charta fol. 374. of the Great Charter of the Liberties of England Augustissimum Anglicarum Libertatum Diploma Sacra Anchora as Sir Henry Spelman justly calls it which says That the City of London shall have All the Old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have Moreover We will and grant That ALL OTHER Cities Burroughs Towns and the Barons of the Five Ports and all other Ports shall have All their Liberties and Free Customs There is a very useful Treatise lately published called Lex Parliamentaria in the Appendix whereof we read Lex Parliam pag. 319. this remarkable Note That the Chancellor cannot examine Returns to Parliament and the Reason is because thereby the County may lose the Freedom of their Elections And the Book says That by such means the King with his Council might make any Man whom they would to be of the Parliament-house against the Great Charter and the Liberties of England Now Sir as that can never be too often inculcated which ought never to be forgotten I must beg the favour to re-mind you of one thing which You and I have several times discoursed of formerly because it equally concerns the Ancient Rights of both Lords and Commons in giving their concurring Assents to the Making and Enacting of Statutes which some Sycophanting Scriblers have in this last Age been industriously labouring to deprive and rob them both of for the Advance of an Absolute and Despotick Monarchy And that is 1. That this Great Charter was not purely and meerly an Emanation of Royal Grace and Bounty which the People of England could not pretend any Right unto before but it was a restoring to them such Liberties as had been ravished from them by an usurped and encroached Power as you may observe by several Expressions in this Charter viz. Sua Jura their Rights Libertates suas their Liberties which shews plainly That they were possessed of them before and that therefore this was but a Restitution or Confirmation of them For which as my L. Coke's words 2 Inst fol. 77. are the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons Knights Freeholders and other the King's Subjects Citizens and Burgesses assembled in Parliament gave unto the King one fifteenth part of all their Movable Goods which proveth That as the Fifteenth was granted by Parliament so was this Great Charter also granted by Authority of the same 2. And that this was a * 28 E. 3. cap. 1. 36 E. 3. cap. 1. Littleton sect 108. 12 E. 4. cap. 7. Rot. Stat. 25 E. 1. m. 38. vid. 2. Instit 525. Idem 526. Statute and made 1. Per Commune Assent de tut le Roialme en temps le Roy Henry nostre Piere by the common Assent of all the Realm in the time of King Hen. 3. that is saith my Lord Coke by Authority of Parliament Or 2. As the Statute of the 15 Edw. 3. more particularly Rot. Parl. 15 E. 3. n. 50. dorso expresses the constituent Parts of the Makers of it scilicet that it was made par Seignieur le Roy Piers la Commune de la terre by the King Peers and Commons of the Land I will give you at present no further trouble but only assure you That in whatsoever you shall please to command according to the utmost extent of my Capacity you shall always find me SIR Your most Obedient Servant c.