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A56162 The first and second part of A seasonable, legal, and historicall vindication and chronological collection of the good old fundamentall liberties, franchises, rights, laws of all English freemen ... wherein is irrefragably evinced by Parliamentary records, proofs, presidents, that we have such fundamentall liberties, franchises, rights, laws ... : collected, recommended to the whole English nation, as the best legacy he can leave them / by William Prynne of Swainswick, Esquire.; Seasonable, legal, and historical vindication of the good old fundamental liberties, franchises, rights, properties, laws, government of all English freemen. Part 1-2 Prynne, William, 1600-1669. 1655 (1655) Wing P3954; ESTC R19429 161,045 206

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to settle Religion in the purity thereof TO MAINTAIN THE ANCIENT and FUNDAMENTALL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME TO PRESERVE THE RIGHTS and LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT to lay hold on the first opportunity of procuring a safe and well grounded peace in the three Kingdoms and to keep a good understanding between the two Kingdomes of England and Scotland according to the grounds expressed in the Solemn League and Covenant And lest these generals should not give a sufficient satisfaction we have thought fit to the end men might no longer be abused in a misbelief of our intentions or a misunderstanding of our actions to make a further enlargement upon the particulars And first Concerning Church-Government c. because we cannot consent to the granting of an Arbitrary and unlicensed Power and Jurisdiction to neer ten thousand Judicatories to be erected within this Kingdome and this demanded in such a way as is not consistent with the FVNDAMENTAL LAWS and GOVERNMENT OF THE SAME c. Our full resolutions still are sincerely really and constantly to endeavour the Reformation of Religion in the Kingdome of England and Ireland in Doctrine Worship and Government according to the word of God and the example of the best Reformed Churches and according to the Covenant WE ARE SO FARRE FROM ALTERING THE FUNDAMENTAL GOVERNMENT OF THIS KINGDOME BY KING LORDS and COMMONS that we have onely desired that with the consent of the King such Power may be settled in the TWO HOVSES without which we can have no assurance but that the like or greater mischiefs than those which God hath hither to dilivered us from may break out again and engage us in a second and more destructive war whereby it plainly appears Our intentions are not to change the Antient Frame of Government within this Kingdome but to obtain the end of the Primitive Institution of all Government The safety and weal of the People not judging it wise or safe after so bitter experience of the bloody consequence of a pretended Power of the Militia in the King to leave any colourable authority in the same for the future attempts of introducing AN ARBITRARY GOVERNMENT OVER THIS NATION We do declare That we will not nor any by colour of any Authority derived from us shall interrupt the ordinary course of Justice in the severall Courts of Judicatories of this Kingdome nor intermeddle in the cases of private interest other where determinable unlesse it be in case of male-Administration of Justice wherein we shall see and provide that Right be done and punishment inflicted as there shall be occasion ACCORDING TO THE LAWS OF THE KINGDOME Lastly Whereas both Nations have entred into a Solemn League and Covenant we have and EVER SHALL BE VERY CAREFULL DULY TO OBSERVE THE SAME that as nothing hath been done SO NOTHING SHALL BE DONE BY US REPUGNANT TO THE TRUE MEANING AND INTENTION THEREOF c. WHO WILL NOT DEPART FROM THOSE GROUNDS AND PRINCIPLES upon which it was framed and founded Though the generality of the afterwards secured and secluded Majority of the House of Commons endeavoured constantly to make good this Declaration in all particulars yet how desperatly the garbled Minority thereof continuing in power after their Seclusion prevaricated apostatized and falsified their Faith herein in every particle in the highest degree we cannot but with greatest grief of heart and detestation remember to the subversion ruine of our King Lords Commons Kingdome Parliaments Fundamentall Laws Government and the peoples Liberties c. almost beyond all hopes of restitution or reparation in humane probability without a miracle from heaven The Lord give them grace most seriously to consider repent of and really sincerely reform it now at last and to make it the principle subject of their prescribed publike Humiliations Fasts and Lamentations as God himself prescribes Isa 58. 5 6 7 8. Jer. 34. 8. to 22. Ezech. 19. 1. 14. Hos 10. 3 4. and not still to adde drunkennesse to thirst lest they bring them to temporall and eternal condemnation for it in Gods own due time and engender endlesse Wars Troubles Taxes Changes Confusions in our Kingdomes as they have hitherto done and will do till all be restored to their just Rights Powers Places Possessions and Liberties By this full Jury of Parliamentary Authorities to omit many others of like or inferiour nature and lesse moment it is undeniable That the people of England have both ancient Fundamentall Rights Liberties Franchises Laws and a Fundamental Government which like the Laws of the Medes and Persians neither may nor ought to be altered or innovated upon any pretence but perpetually maintained defended with greatest care vigilancy resolution and he who shall deny or oppugn it deser●●s no refulation by further arguments since it is a received Maxime in all Arts Contra Principia negantem non est disputandum but rather demerits a sentence of Condemnation and publike execution at Tyburn as a Common Enemy Traitor to our Laws Liberties Nation it being no lesse than a transcendent crime and High Treason by our Laws for any person or persons secretly or openly to attempt the undermining or subversion of our fundamental laws rights Liberties Government especially by fraud treachery force or armed power and violence the later part of my first proposal which I shall now confirm by these twelve following Presidents and Evidences corroborating likewise the former part That we have such Fundamental laws liberties rights franchises and a fundamental Government too In the fifth year of King Richard the second the vulgar rabble of people and villains in Kent Essex Sussex Norfolk Cambridge-shire and other Counties under the Conduct of Wat Tyler Jack Straw and other Rebels assembling together in great multitudes occasioned at first by the new invented Tax of Poll-money granted by Parliament and the over-rigorous levying thereof on the people by the Kings Officers though nothing so grievous as our Excises Contributions new Imposts now so long exacted without any legal Grant in true free and full English Parliaments resolved by force and violence to abrogate the law of Villenage with all other laws they disliked formerly setled to burn all the Records kill and behead all the Judges Justices and men of law of all sorts which they could get into their hands to burn and destroy the Inns of Court as they did then the new Temple where the Apprentices of the law lodged burning their Monuments and Records of Law there found to alter the tenures of lands to devise new laws of their own by which the Subjects should be governed to change the ancient Hereditary Monarchicall Government of the Realm and to erect petty elective Tyrannies and Kingdomes to themselves in every shire A project eagerly prosecuted by some Anarchicall Anabaptists Jesuits Levellers very lately and though withall they intended to destroy the King at last and all the Nobles too when they had gotten sufficient power yet at first to
greatest pretenders to publike Liberty Law and the ●heifest inveighers against Arbitrary Regal Tyranny and Power which never publikely established such arbitrary illegal Tryals and new Butcheries of Christian English Freemen by any law and may fall to imitate them in future Ages by their example Each of these I intend to prosecute in distinct Chapters in their order CHAP. 1. 1. For the first of these That the Kingdome and Freemen of England have some ancient Hereditary Rights Liberties Priviledges Franchises Laws and Customs properly called FVNDAMENTAL and likewise a FVNDAMENTALL GOVERNMENT no wayes to be altered undermined subverted directly or indirectly under pain of High Treason in those who shall attempt it especially by fraud force or armed power I Shall confirm the first part of it by these ensuing punctual Authorities of moment against those traiterous late published Pamphlets which professedly deny it and endeavour a totall abrogation of all former Lawes to set up a New modell and Body of the law to rule us for the future according to their pleasures The first is the expresse words of the great Charters of the Liberties of England granted by King John Anno 1215. in the 16 year of his Reign Regranted and confirmed by King Henry the third in the 9 year of his Reign and sundry times afterwards and by King Edward the first in the 25 and 28 years of his reign Wherein these three Kings successively by their several grand Charters under their great Seals did grant give and confirm to all the Nobility is and ever shall be far from the thoughts and intents of all good Kings Governours and Parliament who bear a sincere care and affection to the Subjects of England to alter or innovate them 3. That by these ancient good Laws Priviledges and customs not only the Kings Regall Authority but the peoples Security of lands livings and priviledges both in general and particular are preserved and maintained 4. That by the abolishing or altering of them it is impossible but that present confusion will fall upon the whol state and frame of this Kingdom Which I wish all Innovators and New Modellers of our Lawes and Government would now at last lay seriously to heart and the whole Kingdome and English Nation sadly consider who have found it an experimental truth of late years and no imaginary seigned speculation 3. The third is The Remon●trance of the whole House of Commons in Parliament delivered in Writing to King James in the Parliament of 7. Jacobi Anno 1610. which begins thus To the Kings most Excellent Majesty Most Gracious Soveraign Whereas we your Majesties most humble Subjects the Commons assembled in Parliament having received first by Message and since by speech from your Majesty a Command of restraint from debating in Parliament your Majesties Right of imposing upon your Subjects Goods exported out of or imported into this Realm yet allowing us to examine the grievance of these Impositions in regard of quantity time and other circumstances of disproportion thereto incident We your humble Subjects nothing doubting but that your Majesty had no intent by that command to infring the ancient and fundamentall Rights of the Liberty of PARLIAMENT in point of exact discussing of all matters concerning them and their Possessions Goods and Rights whatsoever Which yet we cannot but conceive to be done in effect by this Command Do with all humble Duty make this Remonstr●nce to your Majesty First we hold it an Ancient general and undoubted Right of Parliament to debate freely all matters which do properly concern the Subject and his Right or Estate which freedome of debate being once fore-closed the essence of the Liberty of Parliament is withall dissolved c. Here the whole House of Commons in a speciall Remonstrance to King James printed and published by Order of a Committee of the House of Commons for licensing of Books dated 20 Maii 17. Caroli 1641. Declare resolve vindicate and maintain one principal ancient fundamentall general undoubed right of the Liberty of Parliament against the Kings intrenchment on it Of which should they be but once fore closed the Essence of the Liberty of Parliament is withall dissolved And peradventure it may not be unworthy the most serious disquisition of the next ensuing nominal or real Parliament to examine whether some clauses and restrictions in the 9. 12. 14. 16 17. 21. 22. 24 25. 27. 30. 32 33. 36 37 38 39 40. Articles or strings of the New Instrument intituled The Government of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions thereunto belonging as it was publikely declared at Westminster the 16. day of December 1653 c. do not as much nay far more intrench upon the ancient Fundamental General undoubted Rights and Liberty of Parliament and parliamentary free debates to the dissolution of the Essential liberty of all future Parliaments as this Command of King James did or as the Bishops late Canons imposed on the Clergy in and by the Convocation Anno 1640. ever did and this clause in their c. Oath then made now imitated by others who condemned it I. A. B. do swear that I will never give my consent to alter the Government of this Church by Arch-bishops Bishops Deans and Arch-Deacons c. as it stands now established and as by right it ought to stand Which clause and Oath imposed onely on the Clergy-men Resolved by the whole House of Commons and Peers too in Parliament without one dissenting voice December 16. 1640. to be a most dangerous illegal Oath contrary to the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and to the Fundamental Laws and Statutes of the Realu● c. and of dangerous consequence the contriving whereof was objected to the late Archbishop of Caterbury in his original Articles of High Treason for which amongst other things he lost his head The fourth is the notable Petition of Grievances of the whole House of Commons in Parliament presented to King James in the seventh year of his Reign after their Vote against his Right to levy Impositions on goods imported or exported without assent and grant of Parliament in these ensuing words The Policy of this your Majesties Kingdomes appropriates unto the Kings of this Realm with assent of Parliament as well the Soveraign power of making Laws as that of taxing or imposing upon the Subjects Goods or Merchandises wherein they have justly such a property as may not without their consent be altered or changed this is the cause that the people of this Kingdome as they have ever shewed themselves faithfull and loving to their Kings and ready to aid them in all just occasions with voluntary contributions so have they been ever careful to preserve their own Liberties and Rights when any thing hath been done to prejudice or impeach the same And therefore when their Princes either occasioned by war or by their own bounty or by any other necessity have without consent of
cloak their intentions from the people they took an Oath of all they met Quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent that they should keep Allegiance and Faith to the King Commons Yea Wat Tyler demanded a Commission from the King to behead all Lawyers Escheaters and others whatsoever that were learned in the laws or communicated with the law by reason of their Office conceiving in his minde that this being brought to passe all things afterwards would be ordered according to his own and the common peoples fancy And he made his vaunt putting his hand to his own lips That before scure dayes came to an end ALL THE LAWS OF ENGLAND SHOULD PROCEED FROM HIS MOUTH Which some of late times seem to speak not only in words but deeds by their manifold new laws and Edicts repealing or contradicting our old This their resolution and attempt thus to alter and subvert the Laws and Government upon full debate in the Parliament of 5. R. 2. n. 30. 31. was declared to be High-Treason against the King and the Law for which divers of the chief Actors in this Treasonable Designe were condemned and executed as Traitors in severall places and the rest enforced to a publike submission then pardoned Let these imitators now remember this old President 2. In the Parliament of 11. R. 2. as appears by the Parliament Rols and printed Statutes at large three Privy Councellours the Archbishop of York the Duke of Ireland and the Earl of Suffolk the Bishop of Exeter the Kings Confessor five Knights six Judges whereof Sir Robert Tresylian Chief Justice was one Blake of the Kings Councel at Law Vsk and others were impeached and condemned of High Treason some of them executed as Traitors the rest banished their lands and goods forfeited and none to endeavour to procure their pardon under pain of Felony for their endeavouring to overthrow a Commission for the good of the Kingdome contrary to an Act of Parliament by force of Arms and opinions in Law delivered by these temporizing Judges and Lawyers to the King through threats and terrour at Nottingham Castle tending to subvert the Laws and Statutes of the Realm overthrow the Power Priviledges and proceedings of Parliament and betray not all the House of Lords but only some of the Lords of Parliament Which Judgement being afterwards reversed in the forced and packed Parliament of 21. R. 2. was reconfirmed in the Parliament of 1 H. 4. c. 3 4 5. and the Parliament of 21. R. 2. totally repealed and adnulled for ever and hath so continued Read Statut. at large 3. In the Parliament of 17 R. 2. n. 20. and Pas 17 R. 2. B. Regis Rot. 16. Sir Thomas Talbot was accused and found guilty of High Treason for conspiring the death of the Dukes of Glocester Lancaster and other Peers who maintained the Commission confirmed by Act of Parliament 10. R. 2 and assembling people in a warlike manner in the County of Chester for effecting of it in destruction of the estates of the Realm and the Laws of the Kingdome 4. In the 29. year of King Henry the sixth Jack Cade under a pretence to REFORM alter and abrogate some laws Purveyances and Extortions importable to the Commons whereupon he was called JOHN AMEND ALL drew a great multitude of Kentish people to Black-heath in a warlike manner to effect it In the Parliament of 29 H. 6. c. 1 this was adjudged High Treason in him and his Complices by Act of Parliament and the Parliament of 31. H. 6. c. 1. made this memorable Act against him and his Imitators in succeding ages worthy serious perusal and consideration by all who tread in his footsteps and over-act him in his Treasons Whereas the most abominable Tyrant horrible odious and errant FALSE TRAYTOR John Cade calling himself sometimes Mortimer sometime Captain of Kent which Name Fame Acts and Feats be to be removed out of the speech and minde of every faithfull Christian man perpetually falsly and traiterously purposing and imagining the perpetuall destruction of the KINGS PERSON and FINAL SVBVERSION OF THIS REALM taking upon him ROYALL POWER and gathering to him the Kings People in great number BY FALSE SVBTIL IMAGINED LANGVAGE and seditiously made a stirring Rebellion and insurrection VNDER COLOVR OF JVSTICE FOR REFORMATION OF THE LAWS OF THE SAID KING robbing slaying spoiling a great part of his faithfull people Our said Soveraign Lord the King considering the premises with many other which were more odious to remember by advice and assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and at THE REQUEST OF THE COMMONS and by Authority aforesaid Hath ordained and established that the said John Cade shall be had named and declared A FALSE TRAYTOR to our said Soveraign Lord the King and that all his Tyranny Acts Feats false Opinions shall be voided abated adnulled destroyed and put out of remembrance for ever And that all Indictments and things depending thereof had and made under the power of Tyranny shall likewise be void adnulled abated repealed and holden for none and that the blood of none of them be defiled nor corrupted but by the Authority of the said Parliament clearly declared for ever And that all Indictments in time coming in like case under power of Tyranny Rebellion and stirring had shall be of no regard or effect but void in Law And all the Petitions delivered to the said King in his last Parliament holden at Westminster the sixth day of November the 29. of his Reign against his minde by him not agreed shall be taken and put in Oblivion out of Remembrance undone voided adnulled and destroyed for ever as a thing purposed against God and his Conscience and against his Royal estate and preheminence and also DISHONORABLE and UNREASONABLE 5. In the 8 year of King Henry the 8. William Bell and Thomas Lacy in the County of Kent conspired with Thomas Cheney the Hermite of the Queen of Fairies TO OVER THROW THE LAWS AND CUSTOMS OF THE REALM for effecting whereof they with 200 more met together and concluded upon a course of raising greater forces in Kent and the adjacent Shires This was judged High Treason and some of them executed as Traitors Moreover it was resolved by all the Judges of England in the reign of Henry 8. that an Insurrection against the Statute of Laborers or for the inhansing of Salaries and wages or against any Statute or to remove Councellors or to any other end pretending Reformation of their own heads was TREASON and a levying war against the King BECAVSE IT WAS GENERALLY AGAINST THE KINGS LAW and the Offenders took upon them THE REFORMATION THEREOF which Subjects by gathering of power ought not to do 6. On December 1. in the 21. year of King Henry the 8. Sr. Thomas Moore Lord Chancellour of England with fourteen more Lords of the Privy Councel John Fitz-James Chief Justice of England and Sir Anthony Fitz-Herbert Herbert