ten degrees backward upon their Dyal they knew it That Abner gave good Counsel to Asahel not to pursue a valianter man than himself and a Captain of the Host but lay hold on one of the young men and take his Armour 2 Sam. 2.21 they knew it Yet they had shuffled the Cards that they knew they should win somewhat by the Hand for if the Bishop gave no Answer to this Challenger he was baffled and posted upon every Gate about London for a Dastard If he return'd them their own again then pull him to the Stake and worry him in the Star-chamber where he was struggling for Life at this time in which fatal juncture the King must be told that he was an Enemy to the Piety of the Times and the Good Work in hand So that this Spaniel was to put up the Fowl that the Eagle might fall upon the Quarry But it was soon decided for rather than forsake a good Cause and a good Name Lincoln chose to use his Pen to maintain his innocent Letter though malicious Subtlety had made it manifest that nothing could fall so moderately from him in that cause which would not be subject to perverse exposition The Athenians had deserted their old Philosophy Cum imminente periculo major salutis quà m dignitatis cura fuit Justin lib. 5. Therefore a Mind that was not degenerous had rather provide for Dignity than Safety None writes better than Budaeus upon such a case de Asse lib. 1. fol. 10. Tanta fuit vis numinis ad stylum manum urgentis ut periclitari malis quà m rumpi degeneri patientiâ Some divine Spirit did so strongly stir him up to write that he had rather run any hazard than smother such an Injury with cowardly Patience 98. I have cleared the rise of the Controversie which follows That a Letter of the Bishop's was sent to some few persons nine years before to stop a Debate in a private Parish and to make Peace in the place This was published by Dr. Heylin with a Confutation and censur'd for Popular Affectation Disaffection to the Church Sedition and for no better than No Learning And the Plot was as Concurrencies will not let it be denied to pop out this Pamphlet when the Bishop's Cause in Star-chamber was now ripe for hearing And this was the Pack-needle to draw the Whip-cord of the Censure after it But what was this about Take the Substance or rather the Shadow that was contended for out of the Letter in an Abstract The Vicar of Grantham P. T. of his own Head and never consulting the Ordinary had removed the Communion-Table to that upper part of the Chancel which he called the Altar-place where he would officiate when there was a Communion and read that part of Service belonging to the Communion when there was none And when the People shewed much dislike at it because it was impossible as they alledg'd that the 24th part of the Parish should see or hear him if he officiated in that place he persisted in his way and told them he would build an Altar of Stone upon his own cost at the upper end of the Quire and set it with the ends North and South Altar-wise and six it there that it might not be removed upon any occasion A Complaint being made against this by the Alderman and a multitude of the Town the Bishop contented himself at first to send a Message to the Magistrate and the Vicar that they should not presume either the one or the other of them to move or remove that Table any more otherwise than by special direction of him and his Chancellor that in his Journey that way he would view the place and accommodate the matter according to the Rubrick and Canons There being no certain day set when the Bishop would come the Inhabitants of Grantham prevented him and came with open cry to Bugden against the Vicar who was among them at the Hearing Some Heat and sharp Impeachments against each other being over the Bishop did his best to make them Friends and supp'd them together in his great Hall while himself retired to his Study and bade them expect that he would frame somewhat in a thing so indifferent to him to give them content against the Morning So he bestowed that night in writing and made his Papers ready by day As the Panegyrist said to Constantine of such Celerity Quorum igneae immortales mentes mintâ—â—e sentiunt corporis moras p. 303. The Secretary gave a short Letter to the Alderman in which that which concerns the case in hand is this little That his Lordship conceived that the Communion-Table when it is not used should stand in the upper end of the Chancel not Altar-wise but Table-wise But when it is used either in or out of the time of Communion it should continue in the place it took up before or be carried to any other place of Church or Chancel where the Minister might be most audibly heard of the whole Congregation What can a Critick in Ceremonies carp at herein What else but that the end and not the side of the Table should stand toward the Minister when he perform'd his Liturgy Is this all And must a Controversie as big as a Camel be drawn through the Eye of this Needle But more of the same comes after in a larger Script which the Bishop at the same time willed to be delivered to the Divines of the Lecture of Grantham to be examined by them upon their next meeting-day that their Vicar being one of their company might read the Contents and take a Copy for his own use if he would but to divulge it no further Herein the Bishop derives his Conceptions from the Injunctions Articles and Orders of the Queen from the Homilies and Canons from Reports out of the Book of Acts and Monuments and from the Rubricks of the Liturgy and shews out of these that the Utensil on which the Holy Communion is celebrated ought not to be an Altar but a joyned Table that the Name of Table is retained by the Church of England and the other of Altar laid aside that the Table without some new Canon is not to stand Altar-wise in parish-Parish-Churches and the Minister be at the North end thereof but Table-wise and he must officiate at the North side of the same that this Table when holy Duties are not in performing at it must be laid up in the Chancel but in the time of Service to be removed to such a place of Church or Chancel the over-sight of Authority appointing it wherein he that officiates may be most conveniently seen and heard of all They that would peruse the whole Letter are referred to it in Print but the sum of it is already laid before them And the Author was so little over-weening tho' in a frivolous case that he prays the Divines to whom he sent it that if they found mistakings in his Quotations or had met with any Canons
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
or improper to him and his Calling he is to be Acquitted by a formal Pardan as an Innocent but if he were acting in Indebitâ materia when he did it then it is to be gathered that God did give him up to that mischance that he might be disciplined for his Extravagancy by the Censure of the Church Now take the Illation That the Arch-Bishop fell into this Misfortune being unduly employed many Synods having prohobited Hunting to all Species of the Ministry Maldonatus lib. 2. de Sacr. p. 254. Quod nonnulli dicum irregularom esse Saccrdotom qui dâ—ns operam â—nationi juod illi non licebat homimm intersecit putans se feram intersicere falsum esi Sir H. Martin answered That Employment in undue matter is to be understood of Evil simply in it self Non de malo quia prohibitum not in a thing clearly lawful if it were not prohibited Are Clerks restrained from Hunting No wonder So they are by some Synodical Rules from playing at Tennis What mean such austere Coercions Nothing but to keep them from excess of Pleasure and Idieness which turn to be Avocations of their Studies and Attendance on the Church of Christ That in particular Hunting is no Unpriestly Sport by the Laws of England may thus be proved For every Peer in the higher House of Parliament as well Lords Spiritual as Temporal hath Permission by the Charta de Forcstà when after Sunmons he is in his Journey to the Parliament and not else to cause an Horn to be sounded when he travels through any of the King's Forests and to kill a brace of Bucks signification being given of his Intent to the Verdurers 78. The King had persect knowledge how these Things were discuss'd He saw that whether the Person of the Arch-Bishop were tainted by this Fact or not yet his Metropolitical Function was unsettled in many men's Opinions he heard that the Acts of Spiritual Courts were unsped and came to no end till Sentence were pronounced one way or other by the Supreme Authority Therefore a Commission was directed from His Majesty to ten Persons to meet together for this purpose about the beginning of October These were the Lord-Keeper the Bishops of London Winton and Rochester the Elects of Exeter and St. Davids Sir Harry Hâ—bart Lord-Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas Sir John Dodderidge one of the Justices of the Kings-Bench Sir H. Martin Dean of the Arches and Dr. Steward esteemed the Papinian of Doctors-Commons These began to lay their Heads together upon the Third of October and then Conser'd upon the manner of their Proceeding The Lord Hobart and Sir H. Martin affecting that his Grace should send Counsel to Plead before them from which the rest dissented First Because no such Privilege was allowed him in the King's Letters directed to the Commissioners Secondly Because the Honour of the King and the Seandal of the Church which as yet made the adverse Party have no Counsel on their side Thirdly Because His Majesty required Information from those ten upon the nature of this Fact relying upon their Knowledge Learning and Judgments but not referring the Matter to their final Decision and Determination Indeed their Work to prevent Excursions was laid out in three Questions which they were commanded to Resolve and to Act no further And those were Debated till the 27th of that Month and in the end Decided with great Disagreement of Opinions The first Question Whether the Arch-Bishop were Irregular by the Fact of Involuntary Homicide The two Judges and the two Civilians did agree That he was not Irregular and the Bishop of Winton who was a strong Upholder of Incontaminate Antiquity coming to the same sense said He could not conclude him so The other five held He was Irregular The second Question Whether that Act might tend to a Scandal in a Church-man The Bishop of Winton the Lord Hobart and Dr. Steward doubted All the rest Subscribed That there might arise from such an Accident Scandalum acceptum non datum a Scandal taken but not given The third Question How my Lord's Grace should be restored in case the King should follow the Decision of those Commissioners who had found him Irregular All agreed it could no otherwise be done then by a Restitution from the King In the manner they varied The Bishop of Wiâ—châ—sâ—er Lord Hobart Dr. Steward were of one mind to have it done immediately from the King and from him alone in the same Patent with the Pardon The Lord-Keeper Bishops of London Rochester Exon and St. Davids to be directed to some Bishops by a Commission from the King to be transacted in a foâ—mal Absolution Church-wise Manu Clericali Judge Dodderidge and Sir Harry Maâ—â—in were willing to have it done both ways for abundant Caution The whole Business was submitted to His Majesty to determine it who took the shortest course to shew Mercy Sprevit caelestis animus humana consilia as Velleius said of C. Caeâ—ar So by his Broad-Seal He assoiled the Arch-Bishop from all Irregularity Scandal or Infamation pronouncing him to be capable to use all Metropolitical Authority as if that sinistrous Contigency in spilling Blood had never been done A Princely Clemency and the more to be Extoll'd because that Arch-Bishop was wont to dissent from the King as often as any man at the Council-Board It seems he loved him the better for his Courage and Sincerity For it was he that said to Jo. Spotswood Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews telling His Majesty That if he wrote an History of the Church of Scotland to which Labour he was appointed he could not approve of his Mother in all things that she did Well says the King speak the Truth and spare not Words after Salomon's Praise which are Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver 79. But because when our Arch-Bishop's Unfortunateness was recent it appeared far worse to some scrupulous Ecclesiastics then it did in process of time therefore the Lord-Keeper with the two other Elects cast themselves at His Majesties Feet and besought Him That since they had declared before God and the World what they thought in that dubious Case they might not be compel'd by wounding their Consciences to be Consecrated by him but be permitted to receive that Solemnity from some other Bishops which was warrantable by His Majesties Laws This was easily granted and the Lord-Keeper was Consecrated in the Chappel of King Henry the Seventh at Westminster on the 11th day of November following by the Bishops of London Worcester Ely Oxford Landaff And the Elects of Sarum Exeter St. Davids in the Chappel of the Bishop of London's Palace Nov. 18. by the same Reverend Fathers From hencesorth the suspicion of the Irregularity was brought asleep and never waken'd more Mr. H. L. is quite mistaken pag. 71. of his History ' It is true the Arch-Bishop an 1627. was Commanded from his Palaces of Lambeth and Croydon and sent to a Moorish House in Kent called Foord but not as he conceives
their Clutches that by Arms or cunning Treaties do Usurp it But the way and Manner in Discovering the Couchant Enemy in preserving that handful of our Friends in laying down some Course of Diversion and the like you do most wisely and modestly refer to the proper Oracle His Majesties Wisdom and Deep Counsel Yea but I must tell you Mr. Speaker Vinci in amore turpissimum the King cannot endure to be outvyed by his People in Love and Courtesies What you in Duty do refer to him his Majesty in Confidence of your Wisdom and Loving Assections returns upon You. You say you would have the King betake him to sound Counsel You are his Counsel Consilium magnum his Main and Principal Counsel It is very true That since the begining of Harry the 8th the Kings of England have reserved those Matters to their own Conisance and Resolution But it is as true that from Harry the First until that Harry the Last our Kings have in every one of those Questions Repaired to and received Advice of their Parliaments Id verum quod primum Our Master means to follow the former Precedents His Majesty Commands me to yield unto you Hearty Thanks for your just Resentments of his Sufferings in this Cause and to tell you withall that because the main of the Expedition is to be born by the Persons and Purses of the People whom you do represent He is pleased to accept of the Advice of the House of Commons concerning the finding out of this secret Enemy the re-inforcing of our remaining Friends and by what kind of Diversion we shall begin the Enterprize And God the Holy Ghost be present with you in all your Consultations 184. In the Ninth Place That Well of Wood our Navy Royal wherewith you well observed this whole Island to be most strongly fortified we must all attribute the well Rigging and good Condition of it to the great Cost Care and Providence of his Sacred Majesty Hic tot sustinuit hic tanta negotia solus And yet as that Carver that beautified the Temple of Diana although he wrought upon other Mens Charges was suffered notwithstanding to engrave his own Name in some eminent Places of the Building So surely can it be denied by Envy it self but that most Noble Lord who is now a compleat Master in his Art and hath spent his seven years Studies in the Beautifying of the Navy should have a glorious Name enstamped thereupon though in a sitting Distance from his Lord and Master whose Princely Majesty A longe sequitur vestigia semper adorans Lastly For the Reformation of Ireland this I am bidden to deliver Pliny commending the Emperor Trajan to the utmost reach of Eloquence says That the most laudable and most remarkable Point in all his happy Government was That his Care was not consined to Italy alone but Instar solis like the Beams and Influence of the Sun it shed it self to many other Countries Surely his Majesty's Providence is of a large Extent for where the Sun scarce darteth his Beams his Majesty hath shined most gloriously by the Execution of wholsome Laws engrafting Civility and Planting true Religion And let this be our Soveraign's Comfort that though this poor Kingdom though never so reformed shall add very little to his Crown of Temporal Majesty here on Earth it will be an Occasion of an immense Access to his Crown of Glory hereafter in Heaven And now for your four Petitions Mr. Speaker his Majesty grants them all in one Word What Priviledge Liberty Access or fair Interpretation was ever yielded to the Members of that House his Majesty grants them to the Knights and Burgesses now assembled fully and freely without the least Jealousie Qualification or Suspicion I will only add a Memorandum out of Valerius Maximus to cut an even Thred between King and People Quid Cato sine Libertate Quid libertas sine Catone What is Wisdom without Liberty to shew it And what is Liberty without Wisdom to use it 185. Hitherto the King spake to the People by the Lord Keeper's Mouth and then the House rose All rejoyced that such gracious Concessions were returned to Mr. Speaker's Motions which were the Beam that held up the insequent Counsels till the Roof was covered with Agreement And it took the more that it was inlaid with such Mosaick Work not to the Eye but to the Ear by a perfect Orator It was the greatest and the knowingest Auditory that this Kingdom or perhaps the World afforded whose general Applause he carried away to as much as Modesty could desire Isocrates extolling the famous Acts of Evagoras before the full Celebrity of the Athenians exulted that Evagoras was approved by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose good Opinion was more honorable to him than all the Earths beside It was a happy sight at that time to see the Patriots of both Houses depart with Hands held up to God and with Smiles in their Looks that you might think they said one to another as the Princes of the Congregation and the Heads of the Thousands of Israel said to the Children of Reuben and Gad c. This day we perceive that the Lord is among us Jos 22.31 The Lord Keeper was summoned in three days after to a fresh Business and a larger Task than the former So fine a Tongue was sure not to want Work The Lords and Commons were brought into the Banqueting-House at White-Hall Feb. 24. where the Duke of Buckingham spake unto them leading them into the Maeanders of the Spanish Treatise and lead them out of them by the Clew of his own Diligence as he spared not to give himself the Honour of it For this time he was the Alcibiades that pleased the Common-wealth His Zeal and unremovable Pertinacy not to cope with the Spaniard in any Proposition unless the Prince Elector might be brought into his own Land again with an honorable Post liminium did enter inwardly and into the Marrow of all pitiful Affections But when he unfolded how strong the Prince was to the Principles of the right Faith and how attendant and dutious himself was to see that no Emissaries should poyson his Highness's Heart the general Suffrage was that the Prince had march'd valiantly like a Captain of Holy Truth and that the Duke deserved a great Name as a Lieutenant that maintained the Cause of God under him For it was ever easie to strike the good People of England half blind with the Dazling of Religion So much did the Parliament thirst for the Report of this Narration that it was imposed on the Lord Keeper to make it the next day All that might be done was that he took him to his Memory and to his Pen and drew up three Sheets of Paper upon it in a fast and scarce legible Hand He must proceed by the Pattern My Lord Duke's Oration was the only part of Speech he must follow and like a wise Man whatsoever he thought he must make
that he might not faint The most that was disliked in the Letter was that it warn'd the Secretary that he was like to hear himself nam'd among the Grievances of the ensuing Parliament Wherein he did not fail It was no hard thing to Prognostick such a Tempest from the hollow murmuring of the Winds abroad There was not such a Watch-man about the Court as the Keeper was to espy Discontents in the dark nor any one that had so many Eyes abroad in every corner of the Realm What hurt was it Nay Why was it not call'd a Courtesie to awaken a Friend pursued by danger out of prudent Collections Says a wise Senator Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem Judex esse bonus non potest qui suspicione certâ non movetur He is no sound judge of Rumors that gleans not up a certain Conclusion out of strong Suspicions 6. To speak forward After the Queen had been receiv'd with much lustre of Pomp and Courtship which had been more if a very pestilentious Season in London and far and wide had not frown'd upon publick Resorts and full Solemnities a Parliament began Stay a while and hear that in a little which concerns much that followed This is the highest and supereminent Court of our Kings The University of the whole Realm where the Graduates of Honour the Learned in the Laws and the best Practicers of Knowledge and Experience in the Land do meet Horreum sapientiae or the full Chorus where the Minds of many are gather'd into one Wisdom And yet in five Parliaments which this King call'd there was distance and disorder in them all between him and his People Amabile est praeesse civibus sed placere difficile as Symmachus to his Lord Theodosius Our Sovereign had not the Art to please or rather his Subjects had not the Will to be pleased And we all see by the Event that God was displeas'd upon it If he had won them or they had won him neither had been losers Pliny's Fable or Story of the Two Goats Lib. 8. c. 50. Suits the Case The Two Goats met upona narrow Bridge the one laid down his Body for the other to go over him or both had been thrust into the River In the Application who had done best to have yielded is too mysterious to determine Both or either had done well But now we see and shall feel it I believe it is not Love nor Sweetness nor Sufferance that keeps a Nation within the straits of due Obedience it must be Power that needs not to entreat The Scepter can no more than propound the Sword will carry it This Truth was once little worn but now it is upon our backs and we are like to wear it so long till we are all Thread-bare Thucyd. lib. 2. says of Theseus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theseus govern'd Athens being as potent as wise His Wisdom taught the Athenians to keep a good pace but Awe and Potency did bridle and compel them to suffer their Rider or else they would have thrown him King Charles knew how to govern as well as Theseus But he was not so stout I am sure not so strong His Condition in the present stood thus When he was Prince he was the Messenger and the Mediator from the Parliament to extort a War against Spain from his Father Of which Design he was but the Lieutenant before is now become the Captain He sets the Action on foot and calls for Contribution to raise and pay an Army Instead of satisfaction in Subsidies two alone granted towards the charge of the great Funeral past and the Coronation to come they call for Reformation in Government One lifts up a Grievance and another a Grievance and still the Cry continues and multiplies As they spake with many Tongues so I would they could have taken up Serpents and felt no harm The plain Sense of it is those subtile Men of the lower House put the young King upon the push of Necessity and then took advantage of the Time and that Necessity They had cast his Affairs into want of Money and he must yield all that they demanded or else get no Money without which the War could not go on Here was the Foundation laid of all the Discontents that followed A capite primùm computrescit piscis says the Proverb If they had answer'd with that Confidence and Love as was invited from them England had not sat in sorrow as at this day And I will as soon die as retract these words that all Affairs might have been in a most flourishing Estate if the People in that or in any Parliament had been as good as the King Optimos gubernatores hand mediocriter etiam manus remigum juvat Symmach p. 128. The Pilot spends his breath in vain if the Oar-men will not strike a stroke A good Head can do nothing without their Hands If I should hold yet that this King was to be blam'd in nothing I should speak too highly of Humane Nature They that pass through much business cannot choose but incur Errors which will fall under Censure yet it were better under Pardon The most that aggrieved the Council of Parliament was that the King's Concessions for the good of the People came not off chearfully He wanted a way indeed to give a Gift and to make it thank-worthy in the manner of bestowing A small Exception when one grave Sentence from his Mouth did mean more reality than a great deal of Volubility with sweetness and smiling to which I confess they had been fortunately used But when all is done as the Poets say The Muses sing sweeter than the Syrens and a sullen something is better than a gracious nothing 7. And these are instead of Contents For the Chapter that is the business of the Capitol follows The Parliament began and the whole Assembly stood before the King So there was a day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord Job 1.6 but there was another thrust in among them What his Majesty spake than is printed more then once It was not much but enough it was not long but there wanted nothing Good Seed it was yet it came not up well although it was water'd with two showers of Eloquence by the Lord-Keeper the first directed to the Lords and Commons the other to Sir Thomas Crew the Speaker Which will tell the Reader more Truth than is yet come abroad whom I would have to remember Baronius's Caution in his Epistle to the first Tome of his Annals Nihil periculosius est in historiâ quà m cuivis scribeâ—â— in quâcunqae re fidem habere But hear what the King willed to be publish'd to his Parliament by the Mouth of his great Officer My Lords and Gentlemen all YOU have heard his Majesty's Speech though short yet Full and Princely and rightly Imperatorious as Tacitus said of Galbas Neither must we account that Speaker to be short Qui materiae immoratur that keeps himself
Members an ordinary Punishment of the Goths and Vandals who then lived in Spain but never heard of here with us of many years before the Reign of Hen. II and therefore not sitly pressed to drive Bishops from sitting as Peers in the case of the Earl of Strafford who is not to be sentenc'd to any mutilation of Members True it is that in the Council it self being the Eleventh Council of Toledo Can. 6. they are forbidden Quod morte plectendum sit sententiâ propria judicare to sentence in any Cause that is to be punish'd with Death Whereas in the Fourth Council of Toledo Can. 31 under Sisinandus not long before held anno 633 it is said That the Kings do oftentimes commit to Priests and Bishops their Judicature Contra quoscunque Majestatis obnoxios against all Treasons howbeit they are directed not to obey their King in this particular unless they have him bound by Oath to pardon the Party in case they shall find reason to mediate for him And thus the Canon-Law went in Spain but no where else in Christendom in that Age. 148. But these Bishops at Westm travelled not so far as Toledo to fetch in this Canon into their Synod but took it out of Gratian then in vogue for he lived in the time of Hen. Beu-clerk Grandfather to this Hen. II. who in the second part of his Decrees Cap. de Clericis saith thus Clericis in sacris ordinibus constitutis ex concil Tolet. Judicium sanguinis agitaro non licet And so this Canon was fetch'd from Spain into these other parts of Europe above four hundred years after the first making thereof upon this occasion Pope Gregory the Seventh otherwise called Hildebrand who lived in the time of William the Conqueror having so many deadly Quarrels against Hen. IV. Emperor of Germany to make his part good and strong laid the first ground which his Successors in their Canons closely pursued to draw the Bishops and other great Prelates of Germany France England and Spain from their Lay-Soveraigns and Leige-Lords to depend wholly upon him and so by colour and pretence of Ecclesiastical Immunities withdrew them from the Services of their Princes in War and in Peace and particularly from exercising all Places of Judicature in the Civil Courts of Princes to the which Offices they were by their Breeding and Education more enabled than the martial Lay-Lords of that rough Age and by their Fiefs and Baronies which they held from Kings and Emperors particularly bound and obliged And therefore you shall find that whereas the Bishops of this Island before the Conquest did still joyn with the Thanes Aldermen and Lay-Lords in the making and executing of all Laws whatsoever touching deprivation of Life and mutilation of Members Yet soon after when the Norman and English Prelates Lanfrank Anselm Becket and the rest began to trade with Rome and as Legati nati to wed the Laws and Canons cried up in Rome and to plant them here in England they withdrew by little and little our Prelates from these Employments and Dependencies upon the Kings of England and under the colour of Exemptions and Church-Immunities erected in this Land an Ecclesiastical Estate and Monarchy depending wholly upon the Pope inhibiting them to exercise secular Employments or to sit with the rest of the Peers in Judicatures of Life and Members otherwise than as they list themselves and hence principally did arise those great heats between our Rufus and Anselm which Eadmer speaks of and those ancient Customs of this Kingdom which Hen. II. pressed upon Becket in the Articles of Clarendon that the Prelates ought to be present in the King's Courts c. Which Pope Alexander a notable Boutefeu of those times in the Church of God did tolerate though not approve of as he apostyles that Article with his own Hand to be shewn to this day in the M. S. extant in the Vatican Library And although I shall not deny but the Popes did plead Scripture for this Inhibition as they did for all things else and allude unto that place 2 Tim. 3.4 which they backed with one of the Canons of the Apostles as they call them the seventh in number Yet it is clear their main Authority is fetch'd from this obscure Synod of Toledo where eighteen Bishops only were convened under Bamba the Goth who of a Plowman was made a King and of a King a Cloyster'd Monk as you may see in the History of Rodericus Santius par 2. c. 32. This is all the goodly Ground that either Gratian in his Decrees or Innocent III in the Decretals or Roger Hoveden in his History alledges against the Ecclesiastical Peers their sitting as Judges in Causes of Blood to wit this famous Gothish Council of Toledo The first that planted this Canon here in England was Stephen Langton a Cardinal the Pope's Creature as his Holiness was pleased to stile him in his Bull and thrust upon the See of Canterbury by a Papal Provision where he continued in Rebellion against his Soveraign as long as King John lived This Archbishop under colour of Ecclesiastical Immunity for so this Canon is marshall'd by Linwood at Osney near Oxford did ordain Ne quis Clericus beneficiatus vol in sacris Ordinibus constitutus praesumat interesse ubi judicium sanguinis tractatur vel exerceatur And this is the first Canon broach'd in this Kingdom to this effect that of Othobone being subsequent in time and a meer Foreign or Legantine Constitution See it at large in Linwood Constit lib. 3. ad sinem And by vertue of a Branch of this very Constitution the now Archbishop two years since sined the Bishop of Gloucester in the High-Commission because he had given way in time of Pestilence only that a Sessions a Judgment of Blood might be kept in a sacred place which was likewise inhibited in this Canon But this admits of a multitude of Answers First 149. Quod haec dictio Clericus ex vi verbi non comprehendit Episcopum Linwood lib. 3. de locat is conductis Secondly the irregularity incurr'd by Judicature in Causes of Blood is only Jure positivo and therefore dispensable by the Pope saith Covarruvias in Clemen si furiosus p. 2. com 5. n. 1. and here in England is dispens'd with in Bishops by the King who in his Writs or Summons to the Parliament commands the Lords Spiritual without any exception of Causes of Blood to joyn in all Matters and Consultations whatsoever with the Temporal Peers of the Kingdom their Summons being unto them a sufficient Dispensation so to do And Othobon himself inhibiting other Clerks to use these Secular Judicatures hath a Salvo to preserve the Priviledges of our Lord the King whereby he may use any of their Services in that kind when he shall see cause Tit. ne Clerici Juris saec exerceant And Linwood upon that Text doth instance in the Clerks of the Chancery and others Nor are these Writs that summon the
Garbage That is in plain English the Priest must no longer receive Obligations from either King or Lords but wholly depend upon his Holy Fathers the Pope of Rome and the Pope of Lambeth or at least wise pay him soundly for their Dispensations and Absolutions when they presume to do the contrary In the mean time here is not one word or shew of Reason to inform an understanding man that persons in Holy Orders ought not to terrisie the Bad and comfort the Good to repress Sin and chastise Sinners which is the summa totalis of the Civil Magistracy and consequently so far forth at the least to intermeddle with Secular Affairs And this is all that I shall say touching the Motive and Ground of this Bill and that persons in Holy Orders ought not to be inhibited from intermeddling in Secular Astairs either in point of Divinity or in point of Conveniency and Policy 163. The second Point consists of the Persons reflected upon in this Bill which are Archbishops Bishops Parsons Vicars and all others in Holy Orders of which point I shall say little only finding these Names huddled up in an Heap made me conceive at first that it might have some relation to Mr. 〈◊〉 Reading in the Middle Temple which I ever esteem'd to have been very inoffentively deliver'd by that learned Gentleman and with little discretion question'd by a great Ecclesiastick then in Place for all that he said was this That when the Temporal â—ords are more in Voices than the Spiritual they may pass a Bill without consent of the Bishops Which is an Assertion so clear in Reason and so often practis'd upon the Records and Rolls of Parliament that no man any way vers'd in either of these can make any doubt of it nor do I though I humbly conceive no Preâ—ident will be ever sound that the Prelates were ever excluded otherwise than by their own Folly Fear or Headiness For the point of being Justices of Peace the Gentleman confesseth he never meddled with Archbishops nor Bishops nor with any Clergyman made a Justice by His Majesty's Commission In the Statute made 34 Edw. 3. c. 1. he finds Assignees for the keeping of the Peace one Lord three or four of the most valiant men of the County the troublesome times did then so require it And if God do not bless us with the riddance of these two Armies the like Provision will be now as necessary He finds these men included but he doth not find Churchmen excluded no not in the Statute 13 Rich. II. c. 7. that requires Justices of Peace to be made of Knights Esquires and Gentlemen of the Law of the most sufficient of each County In which words the Gentleman thinks Clerks were not included and I clearly say by his favour they are not excluded nor do the learned Sages of the Law conceive them to be excluded by that Statute If the King shall command the Lord Keeper to fill up the Commissions of each County with the most sufficient Knights Esquires and Gentlemen of the Law shall the Lord Keeper thereupon exclude the Noblemen and the Prelates I have often in my days received this Command but never heard of this Interpretation before this time So that I cannot conceive from what ground this general Sweepstake of Archbishops Bithops Parsons Vicars and all others in Holy Orders should proceed I have heard since the beginning of my Sickness that it hath been alledg'd in this House that the Clergy in the Sixth of Edw. 3. did disavow that the Custody of the Peace did belong to them at all and I believe that such a thing is to be sound among the Notes of the Privileges of this House but first you must remember that it was in a great Storm and when the Waters were much troubled and the wild People unapt to be kept in order by Miters and Crosier-staves But yet if that noble Lord shall be pleased to cast his Eye upon the Roll it self he shall find that this poor Excuse did not serve the Prelates turns for they were compelled with a witness to defend the preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom for their parts as well as the Noblemen and Gentry And you shall find the Ordinance to this effect set down upon that Roll. I conclude therefore with that noble Lord's favour that the sweeping of all the Clergy out of temporal Offices is a motion of the first impression and was never heard in the English Common-wealth before this Bill 164. I come in the third place to the main part of this Cause the things to be severed from all men in Holy Orders which are as I told you of three kinds 1. Matters of Free-hold as the Bishops Votes in Parliament and Legislative Power 2. Matters of Favour to be a Judge in Star-chamber to be a a Privy-Councillor to be a Justice of Peace or a Commissioner in any Temporal Affairs 3. Mixt Matters of Free-hold and Favour too as the Charters of some Bishops and many of the ancient Cathedrals of this Kingdom who allow them a Justice or two within themselves or their Close as they call it and exempt those grave and learned men from the Rudeness and Insolency of Tapsters Brewers Inn-keepers Taylors and Shoe-makers which do integrate and make up the Bodies of our Country-Cities and Incorporations And now is the Ax laid to the very Root of the Ecclesiastical Tree and without your Lordships Justice and Favour all the Branches are to be lopt off quite with those latter Clauses and the Stock and Root it self to be quite grubb'd and digged up by that first point of abolishing all Vote and Legislative Power in all Clergymen leaving them to be no longer any part of the People of Rome but meer Slaves and Bond-men to all intents and purposes and the Priests of England one degree interiour to the Priests of Jerâ—boam being to be accounted worse than the Tail of the People Now I hope no English-man will doubt but this Vote and Representation in Parliament is not only a Freehold but the greatest Freehold that any Subject in England or in all the Christian World can brag of at this day that we live under a King and are to be govern'd by his Laws that is not by his arbitrary Edicts or Rescripts but by such Laws confirmed by him and assented to by us either in our proper Persons or in our Assignees and Representations This is the very Soul and Genius of our Magna Charta and without this one Spirit that great Statute is little less than litera occidens a dead and useless piece of Paper You heard it most truly opened unto you by a wise and judicious Peer of this House that Legem patere quam ipse tuleris was a Motto wherein Alexander Severus had not more interest than every true-born Englishman No Forty-shillings-man in England but doth in person or representation enjoy his Freedom and Liberty The Prelates of this Kingdom as a Looking-glass
and Representation of the Clergy a third estate if we may speak either with Sir Edw. Coke or the ancient Acts of Parliament have been in possession hereof these Thousand years and upward The Princes of the Norman Race indeed for their own ends and to strengthen themselves with Men and Money erected the Bishopricks soon after the Conquest into Baronies and left them to sit in the House with their double Capacities about them the latter invented for the profit of the Prince not excluding the former remaining always from the beginning for the profit and concernment of the poor Clergy and the State Ecclesiastical which appears not only by the Saxon Laws set forth by Mr. Lambert and Sir H. Spelman but also by the Bishops Writs and Summons to Parliament in use to this very day We have many President upon the Rolls that in vacancy of Episcopal Sees the Guardian of the Spirituals though but a simple Priest hath been called to fit in this Honourable House by reason of the former Representation and such an Officer I was my self over that See whereof I am Bishop some 25 years ago and might then have been summoned by Writ to this Honourable House at that very time by reason of keeping the Spirituality of that Diocess which then as a simple Priest I did by vertue of the aforesaid Office represent And therefore most noble Lords look upon the Ark of God's Representative that at this time floats in great danger in this Deluge of Waters If there be any Cham or unclean Creature therein out with him and let every man bear his own Burden but save the Ark for God and Christ Jesus sake who hath built it in this Kingdom for saving of People And your Lordships are too wise to conceive that the Word and Sacraments the means of our Salvation will be ever effectually received from those Ministers whose Persons shall be so vilified and dejected as to be made no Parcels or Fragments of this Common-wealth No faith Gregory the last Trick the Devil had in this World was this that when he could not bring the Word and Sacraments into disgrace by Errors and Heretical Opintens he invented this Project and much applauded his Wit therein to cast Slight and Contempt upon the Preachers and Ministers And my noble Lords you are too wise to believe what the common people talk that we have a Vote in the election of Knights and Burgesses and consequently some Figure and Representation in the noble House of Commons They of the Ministry have no Vote in these Elections they have no Representation in that Honourable House and the contrary Assertions are so slight and groundless as I will not offer to give them any answer And therefore R. Hon. Lords have a special care of the Church of England your Mother in this point And as God hath made you the most noble of all the Peers of the Christian World so do not you give way that our Nobility shall be taught henceforth as the Romans were in the time of the first and second Punick Wars by their Slaves and Bond-men only and that the Church of God in this Island may come to be served by the most ignoble Ministers that have ever been seen in the Christian Church since the Passion of our Saviour And so much for the first thing which this Bill intends of sever from Persons in Holy Orders viz. Votes and Representations in Parliament The next thing to be severed from them by this Bill is of a meaner Mettal and Alloy sittings in Star-Chamber sittings at Council-Table sitting in the Commissions of Peace and other Commissions of Secular Affairs which are such Favours and Graces of Christian Princes as the Church may have a being and subsistence without them The Fartunes of our Greece do not depend upon these Spangles and the Soveraign Prince hath imparted and withdrawn these kind of Favours without the envy or regret of any wise Ecclesiaâ—ical Persons But my noble Lords this is the Case our King hath by the Statute restored unto him the Headship of the Church of England and by the Word of God he is Custos utriusque tabulae And will your Lordships allow this Ecclesiastical Head no Ecclesiastical Senses at all No Ecclesiastical Person to be consulted withal not in any circumstance of Time and Place If Cranmer had been thus dealt withal in the minority of our young King Josias King Edward the Sixth of pious memory what had become of the great Work of our Reformation in this flourishing Church of England But I know before whom I speak I do not mean to Dine your Lordships with Coleworts the harsh Consequents of this Point your Lordships do understand as well as I. The last Robe that some Persons in Holy Orders are to be stript of hath a kind of Mixture of Freehold and Favour of the proper Right and Graces of the King which are certain old Charters that some few Bishops and many Ancient and Cathedral Churches have purchased and procured from the ancient Kings before and since the Conquest to inable them to live quiet in their own Precincts and close as they call it under a Justice or two of their own Body without being abandoned upon every slight occasion to the Injuries and Vexations of Mechanical Tradesmen of which your Lordships best know those Country Incorporations do most consist Now whether these sew Charters have their Foundation by Favour or by Right I should conceive under your Lordships savour it is neither Favour nor Right to take them away without some just Crime objected and proved For if they be abused in any particular Mr. Attorney-General can find an ordinary Remedy to repair the same by a Writ of Ad quod damnum without troubling the two Houses of Parliament And this is all I shall speak to this Point 165. And now I am come to the fourth part of this Bill which is the manner of Inhibition heavy every way heavy in the Penalty heavier a great deal in the Incapacity For the weighing of the Penalty will you consider I beseech you the small Wyres that is poor Causes that are to induce the same and then the heavy Lead that hangs upon those Wyres It is thus If a natural Subject of England interessed in the Magna Charta and Petition of Right as well as any other yet being a Person in Holy Orders shall happen unfortunately to Vote in Parliament to obey his Prince by way of Counsel or by way of a Commissioner be required thereunto then he is presently to lose and forfeit for his first offence all his means and livelyhood for one year and for the second to forfeit his Freehold in that kind for ever and ever And I do not believe that your Lordships ever saw such an heavy weight of Censure hang upon such thin Wyres of Reason in an Act of Parliament made heretofore This peradventure may move others most but it does not me It is not the Penalty