Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A75434
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An answer to the Lord Digbies speech in the House of Commons; to the bill of attainder of the Earle of Strafford, the 21th. of Aprill. 1641. Written by occasion of the first publishing of that speech of his Lordships. And now printed in regard of the reprinting of that speech.
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1641
(1641)
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Wing A3420; Thomason E198_3; ESTC R11361
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12,154
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27
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his Lordships owne Not to the law of Nature which in any case where the safety of the whole commeth into question doth not bind it selfe from ordering in the great world that light things shall descend heavy ascend In the little that the whole man upon consultation shall consent to the cutting off of a gangren'd hand or foot though the former bee contrary to that Common Law whereby elementall bodyes are governed in their motions And the latter against that dictate of Nature which inclineth each member to have a compassionate care of the preservation of another so strongly that except in a like case no part nor the rest of the whole may nor can consent to such a mutilation Not to the Law of the Land For in that very Statute of 25. Edw. 3. Cap. 2. whereby Treasons were first declared there is a passage which doth quite overthrow his Lordships distinction and rules squared to his present purpose as is yet plainer by divers subsequent statutes if I understand English and there be no more but that and a little right reason requisite to understand Statute law as there ought to bee I will here transcribe the severall passages wherein I observe that some or all of the latter Statutes are repealed but that is not materiall to the purpose for which I cite them 25. Ed. 3. Cap. 2. And because that many other like Cases of treason may happen in time to come which a man cannot thinke nor declare at this present time It is accorded that if any other Case supposed Treason which is not above specified doth happen before any Justices the Justices shall tarry without geing to judgement of the Treason till the Case be shewed and declared before the King and his Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or Felony 21. Rich. 2. Cap. 3. And that this Statute shall extend and hold place as well to them which be judged or attainted for these foure points of the said Treason in this present Parliament as of them which shall be judged or attainted in the Parliament in time to time of any of the foure points of Treason afore said 8. Hen. 6. cap. 6. And that this ordinance extend as well to such hurnings made after the first day of the raigne if our Soveraigne Lord the King till this time as to burnings to be made in time to come 22. Hen. 8. cap. 9. And that the said Richard Roose for the said murther and poysoning of the sard two persons as is aforesaid by authority of this present Parliament shall stand and bee attainted of High treason And because that detestable offence now newly practised and committed requireth condigne punishment for the same It is ordained and enacted by Authority of this present Parliament that the said Richard Roose shall therefore be boyled to death His offence was poysoning a Pot of Pottage By all which I conceive it to be elcere as the Noon-day that the Parliaments of England have heretofore as now used to looke backward as well as forwards if the occasion required it And so that his Lordships distinction hath no ground in the Law of the Land And truly it hath is little in the law of God For in that we reade that Moses and Aaron and all the Congregation to whom the man that was found gathering sticks on the Sabbath day was brought at first indeed did only put him in ward because it was not yet declared what should be done to him But when it was declared they then stoned that same man to death for that former fact by a Law made a posteriori The very same proceeding was held with the sonne of the Israelitish woman whose Father was an Egyptian for blaspheming or cursing for he was also stoned to death a posteriori and a generall Law declared upon the occasion that as wel the stranger as he that is borne in the Land when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord shall be put to death This furnisheth an Answer to the Objection I have heard made to the former Instance that the gatherer of sticks on the Sabbath was put to death by a speciall direction from God which may no more bee drawne into example now then Abrahams going about to sacrifice his Sonne For not to divert into that Question whether that Declaration of God Almightie ought to have beene a direction to the Jewes to punish the breach of the Sabbath with death which for ought appeares was not so understood by them unlesse Nehemiahs threatning Neh. 13.21 may be taken in that sence I humbly conceive that by the generality of the Law which ordained that Blasphemy should be punished with death it is plaine that the execution of that Mungrell Egyptian Jew for that sinne was not extraordinary And from both those Instances that by the example of the God of Heaven it is lawfull for the Assembly of Gods on Earth to put offenders to death for Crimes desorving capitall punishment though committed before they were declared to bee such And it may be so much may also be gathered from that famous place Deut. 17.9.10 which I referre to further consideration Lastly his Lordships owne Rule in his speech for the Tryenniall Parliament is this That the King out of Parliament hath a limitted a circomscribed Jurisdiction But waited on by his Parliament no Monarch of the East is so absolute in dispelling grievances For it is well knowne that if any man how great soever doe once become a publique grievance That is to say A dangerous and insupportable Minister to the State those Easterne Monarchs doe not use to stand upon punctilios of Lawes made or to be made no nor so much as upon the formality of legall proceedings Wherein there hath beene more either right or favour shewed to the Lord Strafford by the King and his Parliament then I beleeve ever was to any like Offender in the whole world before him which I 〈◊〉 to his Majesties and their eternall glory and praise I know well what may bee replyed by so me others not by the Lord Digby of the dangerousnesse of this last mentioned doctrine of his and am as sensible thereof as another man But I doe humbly conceive that there is yet more danger in the Lord Digbies fore-rehearted doctrine And that all that is in the last recited being also as I take it more conformable to the Law of the Land may be prevented by some good Ordinances otherwise needful to be made which is an Argument I must not digresse into here In summe I hope ere this it is plaine that in stead of the Prayer his Lordship made it had beene more needfull for him to have prayed to God to keepe him from making distinctions where God himselfe hath made none which his Lordship knoweth is not well pleasing to God and must needs have observed to have beene the originall of many great divisions and combustions in the Church and so might now have beene in this State if God
abuse of the sword of Iustice without the use of any other on the Princes part if the Lawes of the land and of the Religion professed in it bind the people from drawing their swords in maintenance of their liberty and shall their obedience to God and the King and their Lawes leave them without hope or means of redresse by the same Lawes or what sufficient redresse and reparation can be made then if the result of a hundred such wicked judgements and Counsels shall be onely a great misdemeanour and a hundred misdemeanors cannot make a felony nor a hundred Felonies amount to a Treason according to the Lord Straffords position maintained publikely at his tryall I wish the Lord Digby had longer ruminated upon his ill digested judgement in this point before he put it over for good I proceed to the next words They are And this designe of force not appearing all his other wicked practises cannot amount so high with me Wherin if by this designe his Lordship meane the particular designe of bringing the Irish Army into England then is the consequence most inconsequent For sure if the Lord Strafford had not he might have had some other designe upon this Kingdome that would have amounted to hight treason in the Lord Digbies eye or if by this design his Lordship intend generally the designe of using force then sure it was made plaine enough to his Lordship at the tryall that the Lord Strafford did more then designe the using of force to the subversion of more then one of the fundamentall Lawes of England and Ireland having actually levied warre upon the Kings liege people to constraine obedience to his illegall summons and orders upon Paper-petitions and to raise moneys upon them against their wills But his Lordship saith Hee can find a more naturall spring from whence to derive those and all his other Crimes then from an intention to bring in Tyranny and to make his owne posterity as well as ours slaves As from revenge from pride from Avarice from passion from insolence of nature Is it possible that so sharpe a wit as the Lord Digbyes that can so quickly espy the mishap of any argument brought forth against the Lord Strafford should not see this misconception of his own in his excuse Shall no man be a Traytor that can find another more naturall spring from whence to derive his treasonable designes and actions then from an intent to commit Treason Then the Lord Strafford would not have beene a Traytor with the Lord Digby though hee had brought the Irish Army into England if that action had originally flowed from one of the foresaid Springs as I beleeve it would have done Then his Lordship may absolve many and I am sure will one of the Gun-powder Traytors whose son hath found so much Princely compassion and favour from his Majestie and the King his Father upon I beleeve a well-grounded opinion that the Fathers designe to have destroyed the King his Master proceeded not from any malicious mind to his sacred person but was derived from his zeale to his Religion a purer spring then any of those his Lordship hath found out to wash the Lord Strafford which certainly have beene the springs of all the fowlest treasons in the world And as for the Lord Straffords respect to his posteritie since the Lord Digby knoweth no man better that we are all deceived with a shew of good in every sinne we are drawne into by him who hee thinketh gave the Lord Strafford the application of his rare abilities And that not only many Ministers of State are easily engaged to bee Instruments of overthrowing the Common-wealth and glory of Kingdomes so they may advance themselves and their Families to riches and honour because that in so doing they imagine they get more in their private fortunes then they lose in their parts of the publike But even the wisest Princes themselves have by this deceit been drawne into the same errour as Philip the second of Spaine and Lewis the eleventh of France For an error it was in them and may bee demonstrated to have been so as farre as Politique matters are capable of demonstration Nay since the Lord Digby avoweth that the consideration of his posteritie did not hold the Lord Strafford himselfe from becomming the grand Apostate to the Common-wealth not only in opinions but by falling from them to practises as high as tyrannicall as any subject ever ventured on and such as made him the most dangerous Minister the most insupportable to free subjects that can bee Charactered I know not why his Lordship should esteeme it so sure a preservative against the Treason he hath suffered for I had almost said justly and so doth his Lordship For he doth not say but the Lord Strafford was worthy to dye and perhaps worthier then many a Traytor He doth not say but his words counsells and actions have beene proved to be such as may direct the King and Parliament to enact that the like shall be Treason for the future but only prayeth God to keepe him from giving judgement of death on any man or of ruine to his innocent posterity upon a Law made a Posteriori So that if his Lordship may be freed from this scruple of Conscience there is hope that hee may change his opinion and be brought a Posteriori to declare his agreeing in judgement with himself and the so much greater part of the House of Commons And that I shall now hope to doe by shewing him a fallacy in the second and last ground of his Argument The fallacy lyeth in this that his Lordship doth divide those things in his consideration which God hath joyned and in doing this will needs be wiser then the State and Lawes hee liveth under which no man ought to be unlesse they thwart the Law of God This hee doth where he faith There is in Parliament a double power of life and death by Bill a Judiciall power and a Legaslative that the measure of the one is what is legally just of the other what is prudentially and politiquely fit for the good and preservation of the whole but these may not be confounded in judgement we may not piece up want of legallity with prudentiall fitnesse And truly if his Lordship had but added these words Except some Case as yet wholly omitted or not yet sufficiently declared come to be judged in Parliament I should have fully assented to his whole discourse in this point But in either of those Cases to deny unto that representative Body the High Court of the Kingdome a liberty to doe any thing not unjust in it selfe though not as yet legally declared to bee just for the preservation of that greater body it represents when according to the sincere and dispassionate judgement of Prudence and Policy it cannot be sufficiently secured by Lawes already made is neither agreeable to the Law of Nature nor of the Land nor of God nor to a rule of