design to make all or most of the Actions of those our Kings and Princes and the Nobility and Clergy in their several reigns for at all of them like one of the Ephori sitting in Censure rather than Judgement upon the Spartan Kings and Government and the Acts of Parliament made in the several Reigns of those Kings he aimed and flung his Fancies clad in a sober Stile and Gravity rather than any Truth or Reason by pretending that they were made and contrived only under their influence to be arbitrary and oppressive to the freeborn people of this Nation for which he got several Preferments under Oliver the Protector of our burdens miseries Though if the Records and Journals of our Parliaments may be credited as certainly they ought to be before him most if not all of our Acts of Parliament were granted and assented unto by our Kings upon the Petitions of the Commons representing the people in Parliament as â—alsoms and great Remedies and redresses of all that they could complain of deliverances from the oppressions frauds and deceipts of one another and prevention of evils which might happen to them and their posterities wherein our Kings have almost in every Parliament given away many diminished very much of their own just legal Rights and prerogatives by granting and confirming their Liberties and Estates with such an infranchisement and freedom as no Nation or people under Heaven now enjoyes And when as heretofore in former Parliaments they gave to their Kings Princes many times too unwillingly any aydes or Subsidies were sure besides the blessings which accrewed to them by many good Laws and wholesome Acts of Parliament to gain a great deal more by their Acts of grace and general pardons only then the aids and Subsidies did amount unto Unlesse it were in the Reign of King H. 8. when the Abby Lands were granted unto him in the raign of King E 6. when the Chanterie remaining peices of those religious Lands were given to him wherein only the Founders and the religious to whom they properly belonged were the only loosers and yet by reason of King H. 8. his Endowments and erection of the Bishoppricks of Oxford Peterborough Chester Gloucester and Bristol the Colledge of Christ-Church in Oxford and the Deanary of Westminster Deanries and Prebends of Canterbury Winchester Worcester Chester Peterburgh Oxford Ely Gloucester Bristol Carlile Durham Rochester and Norwich and his large gifts and grants to divers of the Nobility who had formerly been the Founders or great Benefactors to many of the Abbyes and Prioryes and also to other of his people and the grants of E. 6. Queen Eliz. and King James considered very little of those Lands and Revenues doe at this time continue in the Crown And our many Acts of Parliament against Mortmaines without the Kings Licence Provisions by the Pope or any appeales to be made to him under the most severe penalties of Premunire the Act of Parliament taking away the Popes Supremacy the fineing and putting the Clergy of the Provinces of Canterbury and York under Premunires by King H. 8. An Oath of Renunciation of all fealty and appeales to the Pope an Engagement to observe all Lawes made against his Power the losse of 72 Mannors or Lordships out of the Revenues of the Arch-bishopprick of York and of sundry great Mannors and Possessions taken from the Sees of Canterbury Ely and London The demolishing and dissolution of Religious Houses 3845. Parochial Churches being more than a third part of all the Churches in England impropriated and gotten into the hands of the Laity many of the Vicarages confined to the small and pittiful maintenance of some 20 l. per Annum others 10 and some but 6 l. per An. several Acts of Parliament made in the reigns of several other Kings and Princes clipping the Clergies Power in making Leases or chargeing their Benefices with Cure restraining their taking of Farms forbidding Pluralityes intermedling as Commissioners in Lay or Temporal Affairs or to make Constitutions in their Synods or Convocations without the Kings Assent may declare how little power for some hundreds of years past the Clergy of England have before or since the Reformation either encroached upon or been able to get or keep Finds not in his mistaken Censures and Distortions of most of the Acts of our Kings and Parliaments to make way in the deluded peoples minds for the erecting of Olivers Protean and Tyranical Government Any fault with the erection of the Court of Wards and Liveries nor with Tenures or Wardships but justifying them sayes that the relief paid by the Tenant upon the death of his Ancestor was in memorial of the first Lords favour in giving him the Land and was first setled in the Saxons times that the Law of Wardship may seem more antiently seated in this Kingdom than the Normans times that Wardship was a fruit of the Service of the Tenant and for the defence of the Kingdom Which that Parliament or the following Conventions or Assemblies made no hast to overturn or take away until Oliver Cromwel that Hyaena or Wolf of the Evening having filled the Kingdom with Garrisons several Regiments of Horse and Foot amounting to 30000. men which were to be constantly maintained at the peoples charge to keep them quiet in their slavery had upon the humble petition and advice of that which he called his Parliament acknowledging with all thankfulness the wonderful mercies of God in delivering them from that Tyranny and Bondage both in their Spiritual and Civil Governments which the late King and his party which in a Fog or Mist of sin and delusion they were pleased most injuriously to averre and charge upon them designed by a bloody War to bring them under when as then they were under none and all but the gainers by the spoyles of those Wars have since had more Burdens Grievances and Taxes entailed upon them then ever was in any Nation in Christendome allowed him in a constant Revenue for support of the Government and the safety and defence of the Nations of England Scotland and Ireland a yearly Revenue of thirteen hundred thousand pounds whereof ten hundred thousand pounds for the Navy and Army which far exceeded thaâ— which accrewed to the Crown or Kings of England by Wardships Tenures and Ship-mony which were but casual and upon necessity and but at some times or seldome and alwayes less by more than eight parts in ten of those justly to be complained of awful and yearly Asessements Procured the Assembly or Parliament so called in Anno 1657. to awake that sleeping Ordinance and dresse it into an Act as he called it of Parliament wherein It was without any Cause or Grievance expresâ— or satisfaction given or promised to those that remained the loosers by it enacted that the Court of Wards and Liveries and all Wardships Primer seisins and Oustre le maines and all other charges incident and arising for
Wigorniensis mentioned by that learned Knight Sr. Roger Twisden in his preface to the Laws of William the Conquerour published by the eminently learned Mr. Selden informs us did importune Maud the Empresse ut eis Edwardi Regis Leges observare liceret quia optimae erant That the Laws of King Edward might be observed because they were the best And when William the Conquerour ordered the Rents and Revenues of such as held of him to be paid into the Exchequer it was non simpliciter nec haeres ab hereditate nec ut ab ipso haereditas tollitur sed simul cum haereditate sub Regis custodia constitutus tempâ—râ— pupillaris aetatis Not to take away the Inheritance but to keep and educate him during his Minority For It could be no inconvenience to the publick welfare of the Nation to have the Children of the best ranck and quality for such were then the Tenants in Capite and by Knight service virtuously and nobly educated in Arts and Arms whereby to be enabled to do their Prince and Country service and their Lands and Estates in the interim to be protected and defended from Neighbour or other injuries Nor to be married to their own degree or a nobler quality when as by the means of intermarriages betwixt the Saxons Normans as between Lucia the Sister of Morchar Earl of Northumberland a Saxon and Juo Talbois a great Norman Baron and betwixt Ralph de waiet a Saxon by a British or Welch Woman Emme the Daughter of William Fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford by which he was by the Conquerour made Earl of the East Angles And many more which might be instanced their mutual discontents and animosities calming into reconciliations and friendships had the like effect as the tye and kindness of the intermarriages had not long before in King Ina's time who himself marrying with Guala a British woman his Lords and great men intermarrying with the Welch Scots their Sons also marrying with their Daughters the Nation became to be as Gens una one people in a near consociation and relation and the Norman H. 1. afterwards found it to be not unsuccessefull in his own marriage with Matilda the Daughter of Malcolm King of Scots by the Sister or Niece of Edgar Atheling of the Saxon Royal line It was no grievance when the Charter of Liberties which was the original of a great part of our after Magna Charta was granted to the people of England by K. H. 1. who is therein said omnes malas consuetudines quibus Anglia opprimebatur auferre to abolish all the evil customs with which England was oppressed when it would have been strange that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service should remain as a part of the Kings just prerogative and be so well liked of and approved consilio consensu Baronum By advice and consent of the Barons if there had been any grievance originally or naturally in them Nor so much as a Semblance of it in the reign of H. 2. when a general Inquisition was made per Angliam cui quis in servitio seculari de jure obnoxius teneretur thorough England What secular or temporal services due by Law were not performed And as little in the Parliament at Clarendon in the same Kings reign where in the presence of the King Bishops Earls Barons and Nobility facta fuit recognitio sive recordatio cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis viz. Henrici Avi sui aliorum quae observari debâ—bant in Regno ab omnibus teneri A recapitulation and rehearsal was made of some of the Customs and Liberties of their Ancestors and of the King that is to say of King H. 1. and others which ought of all to be observed and kept in the Kingdom in which there was nothing against the Feudal Laws or Tenures in Capite and by Knights service but many expressions and allowances of them And if otherwise it would have been something strange that the issue and posterity of those Barons should in King Johns time adventure all that could be dear or near unto them to gain the Liberties granted by H. 1. with some addition and never grudge that King the same Prerogative when as hazarding the forfeiture of their own Magna Charta of Heaven to gain a Magna Charta on Earth for their posterities They had greatly over-powered their King at Running Mede where their Armies stood in procinctu acie Facing one another Pila minantia pilis Threatning death and distruction to each other or would so willingly have hung up their Shields and Launces and returned to their peace and obedience by accepting of that Magna Charta if they had not taken it to be as much for their own defence the good of the Kingdom as it was for his nor so willingly afterwards in the reign of King Henry the 3 d. his Son have clad themselves in Steel made a Combination and bouâ—d themselves by oath one to another never to submit to a peace until they had a just performance of what his Father had granted them endured the Popes then direful Fulminations and never rested until the King himself had confirmed that Magna Charta by a most solemn oath in procession with the Bishops who with lighted Tapers in their hands anathematiz'd all the infringers thereof if Tenures in Capite and the enableing their Prince to defend them had not been a part of their own Liberties nor could they be imagined to be otherwise when as by an Act of Parliament also of that King the great Charter was to be duely read in all Counties of England and Writs and Letters were sent to all the Sheriffs of England commanding them by the oaths of twelve Knights of every County to enquire what were the antient Rights and Liberties of the People no return was ever made that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service either were or could be any obstructions to them or that so often bloodily contested and too dearly purchased Magna Charta nor was it any publique grievance when as in the Parliament of 26 H. 3 in a great contest betwixt him and the Baronage and great men of England touching his ill Government and diverse exactions and oppressions the profits which he had by his Tenures and Escheats were said to have been sufficient to have kept him from a want of mony and oppressing his Subjects Nor in Anno 42. H. 3. when the King upon those great complaints and stirres betwixt him and the then Robustious and sturdy Barons of England occasioned by his misgovernment which busied the people with Catalogues of grievances he by his Writs or Commissions appointed in every County of England Quatuour milites qui considerarent quâ—t et quantis granaminibus simpliciores a fortioribus opprimuntur et inquirent diligenter dâ— singulis quaerelis et injurijs a quocunque factis
Officers of the Bench made in the second year of the King Nor was there so much as an Apprehension of any evil in them in the Parliament of 4 H. 4. where the Commons pray that The Act of Parliament of the 1 of E. 3. that none shall be distrained to go out of their Counties but only for the Cause of necessity of suddain coming of strange Enemies into the Realm and the Statute made in the 18 th year of the Reign of the said King That men of Armes Hoblers and Archers chosen to go in the Kings Service out of England shall be at the Kings wages from the day that they do depart out of the Counties where they were chosen and also that the Statute made in the 25 th year of the Raign of the said King that none be compelled to find Men of Arms Hoblers nor Archers other than those which hold by such services unlesse it be by common assent and grant made in Parliament be firmly holden and kept in all points it was upon the granting of their desires and an Act of Parliament made for that purposâ— as the Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament against the Kings Commission of Array in an 1642 mentioneth especially provided that by force or colour of the said supplication nor of any Statute thereupon to be made the Lords nor any other that have Lands or Possessions in the Counties of Wales or in the Marches thereof shall in no wise be excused of their Services and Devoires due of their said Lands and Possessions nor of any other Devoier or things whereunto they or any of them be especially bound to the King though that the same Lords and others have other Lands and Possessions within the Realm of England nor that the Lords or other of what Estate or Condition soever they be that hold by Esâ—uage or other Services due to the King any Lands and Possessions within the said Realm be no way excused to do their Services and Devoirs due of the said Lands and Possessions nor that the Lords Knights Esquires nor other Persons of what Estate or Condition they be which hold and have of the Grant or Confirmation of the King Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or other yearly profits be not excused to do their Services to the King in such manner as they are bound because of the Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or Profits afâ—resaid And might challenge their quietus est or Proclamation of acquittall when there were no complaints made against them in the former ages when there were so many Taxes laid upon Knights Fees as 20 shillings then a great sum of money as much almost as 20 markes is now upon every Knights Fee imposed by King R. 1. toward his ransome 26 s. 8 d. upon every Knights Fee by King Iohn and another also of the same sum towards his expedition into Wales 20 s. upon every Knights Fee towards his Charges in Normandy an Escuage of 20 s. upon every Knights Fee to be paid the one half at Easter and the other at Michaelmas besides the Escuage which he had upon the marriage of his Sister Isabel to the Emperor Frederick two Escuages imposed by H. 3. and an Escuage upon the marriage of his Daughter the Lady Margaret to Alexander King of Scots 20 s. of every Knights Fee by H. 4. the many services in person done by those which held in capite and Knights Service in forinseco servitio in all the expeditions and Wars in France from the time of the Norman Conquest to the end of the Raign of E. 4. and at home in the Wars betwixt England and Wales and betwixt England and the Scots where very many Inhabitants of the Counties of Cumberland Westmeâ—land and Northumberland that held by Cornage a kind of Knight Service to blow a horn upon the invasion or incursion of the Scots and to help to repell them and had their Lands sometimes at the Will of the Lords conferred and given to the younger and more lusty Sons who were able to undergo that service could before King James his accession to the Crown of England the pacification of the English and Scottish hostilities placing them under one obedience scarce rest in their beds by reason of the Scots sudain or nightly alarmes and depredations driving or stealing their Cattell and spoiling all that they had And in all the troubles of England before and since the Barons Wars upon any Rebellions and inquietudes of the people when those that held by Knight service were frequently and hastily summoned to come to the King cum Equis Armis and the great charges trouble hazard and expences which the Lords Mâ—sne were put unto by Assessements of Escuage and otherwise And that immediately upon the death of the Kings Tenants in capite by Knight Service the Escheators did usually seise not only the Lands of the greatest of the Nobility Gentry and meaner men But the Stock and Cattell upon their grounds and the Goods in their Houses insomuch as their Executors were many times constrained to Petition and obtain the Kings Writs and Allowance to have the Stock and personal Estate delivered unto them And yet no complaints made at all against those Tenures or necessary defences of the Kingdome nor against Tenures by grand or Petit Serjeanty in the thirty confirmations of our Magna Charta upon as often Breaches to be supposed of it Never complained off in the making of thirty six Acts of Parliament concerning Wardships and Tenures in the several times and Ages from 8 H. 3. to this present nor at the making of the Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. for the erection of the Court of Wards Nor in so many thousand Petitions which have been in 186. several Parliaments for almost four hundred years last past or before 9 H. 3. or ever since this nation could remember any thing either in our Parliaments Micel-gemots Wittena-gemots conventus sapientum or Magna Concilia where all the Grievances and Complaints of the people not to be remedied else where came as to the Pool of Bethesda for help and relief and wherein if any in some one or more Parliaments should so much neglect their duty and the more than ordinary business and concernments of their Kings themselves and Countries with which they were intrusted and to which their Oaths of Allegiance if nothing else must needs be their Monitors it cannot without a supposition and belief which will never be able to find entertainment in any rational mans understanding be imagined that the whole Nation for so many Ages past and in so many Assemblies of those that should be the Sons of Wisdome should be bound up under such a fate of Stupidity or Ignorance as to represent those that were sick and not know of it or that all or any of them should propter imbecillitatem vel pernegligentiam by a to be pitied weakness or negligence not either seek or
find the way to the ears or audience of so many worthy and just Kings and Princes as this Kingdom hath been happy in who would have been as willing to give a remedy as they could have been to seek it if there had been any ground or cause for it that so many Petitions of small concernments or of no greater consequence than for the paving of Streets killing of Crows not taking of young Herns out of their nests without license of the owner of the ground and the like should get admittance and cause Acts of Parliament to be made thereupon and that of Tenures in Capite if any grievance could at all be found in them and of so long a continuance which usually makes light burthens to be heavy should be so dipped in a Lethe or Oblivion as not at all to be remembred Which had nothing at all of grievance in their essence or being understood of them in the making of the Statute of 1 H. 8. against Empson and Dudley by whom the Kings Subjects had been sore hurt troubled and greived in causing untrue Offices to be found retorning of Offices that never were found and in changing Offices that were found No Grievance perceived to be in them in Primo Jacobi when in the Statute concerning Respites of Homage there was a Proviso that in case it shall be thought fit for the true knowledge and preservation of the Tenures appertaining to the Crown and so ordered in the open Court of Exchequer that proces should issue out of the said Court against any came not within the Suspition or Jealousy of a Grievance when in the Parliament of 7. Jacobi Regis Sr. Francis Bacon then his Majesties Sollicitor in his speech as one of the House of Commons in Parliament to the Lords in Parliament perswading them to joyn with the Commons to Petition the King to obtain liberty to treat of a Composition with his Majesty for Wards and Tenures acknowledged in the name of that Parliament that the Tree of Tenures was planted into the Prerogative by the Antient Common Law of England fenced in and preserved by many Statutes and yeildeth to the King the fruit of a great Revenue and that is was a noble Protection that the young Birds of the Nobility and good Families should be gathered and clucked under the Wings of the Crown Nor in Primo Car. primi in the Act of Parliament touching the rating of Officers Fees in the Exchequer upon pleadings of Licences or Pardons for Alienations when the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled did declare that the Kings Tenures are a Principal flower of the Crown which being in England the safety and protection of the people cannot be said or proved to be adorned by their sorrows and miseries and ought not to be concealed And that in the petition of Right in 3 Car. primi wherein all the Grievances and Burdens of the Subjects and breaches of Laws and Liberties that any way concerned them or their Posterities were enumerated and remedies for the future establishment of the quiet and happines of the people propounded and granted Tenures in Capite and Knight service with their incidents were not reckoned or accounted as Grievances though all that troubled the people were at that time so largly thought and beleived to be redrest as a publick joy upon the Kings granting of that Petition of Right was commanded to be celebrated by the Musique and ringing of Bells in every Parish Church of the Cities of London and Westminster which vied each with other who should proclaim and tell their joyes the loudest And the blaze of numberless Bonfires representing the flame of the peoples affection towards a most gracious Soveraign seemed to turn the sullen night into a morning or day which the Sun beams had newly guilded whilst Alecto and her Sister Furies despairing in their hopes of kindling a sedition and bringing the miseries of a Civil War upon us had thrown by their Torches and employed their Hellish griefs in the tearing of their Snakie loâ—ks Were no Sirtes or Rocks to shipwrack or hurt the people when Sr. Edward Coke who was so willing to have Tenures in Capite and Knight service to be changed into Tenures by Fealty only as of some of the Kings Honors and all their Incidents as Wardships primer seisin Licences of Alienation c. taken away and recompenced by a greater yearly profit then was then had or received by them and a rent to be inseperably annexed to the Crown with some necessary Covenants and Privisoes as he hoped that so good a motion as had been made in the Parliament of 18 Jacobi tending as he thought to the Honor and Profit of the King and his Crown for ever and the quiet and freedome of his Subjects and their Posterities would one way or other by the grace of God and Authority of Parliament take effect and be established could not but acknowledge between Anno 3. Car. Regis primi and the 12 th year of his raign that the Objection that Wardship was a Badge of servitude which would be a Grievance indeed and of the greatest Magnitude was groundless and without a Foundation for that the King by taking money for the marriage of the Ward doth it not as for a Ransome but taketh such moderate sums of money as in respect of the quality and state of the Ward He or She all circumstances considered is able to pay and in regard thereof hath the protection of the Court of Wards during Minority And giving Tenures by Knight service no worse a Character than the Wisdome of Antiquity for his Iustification therein citeth a place out of the Red Book in the Exchequer where it is said that mavult enim princeps domesticos quam Stipendiarios Bellicis apponere casibus the King had rather be served by his own Subjects than Hirelings or Stipendary Souldiers No Scylla or Charybdis taken to be in them in the Parl. of 17. Car. prim at the making of the Act for the better raising and levying of Souldiers for the present defence of the Kingdomes of England and Ireland wherein it being said that by the Laws of this Realm none of his Majesties Subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to goe out of his Country to serve as a Souldier in the Wars they excepted cases of necessity of the sodain coming in of strange enemies into the Kingdome or where they be otherwise bound by the Tenure of their Lands or Possessions In the Remonstrance of the House of Commons 15. December 1641. and that unhappy Amasse and collection of Complaints against the Government the Tenures themselves were not so much as complained of but the exceeding of the Jurisdiction of the Court of Wards that thereby the estates of many Families were weakned some ruined by excessive Fines for Composition for Wardships exacted from them which if in some few particulars where the Estate it self was weak or incumbred with
Debts or charge of Children connot rationally conclude or argue the Fines to be excessive no more than a common weight or burden which may easily be born or carried by any man in health doth make it to be of a greater weight or burden because another man by reason of sicknesse or other disabilities is not able to bear or stand under it or that a reasonable or small rent which Tenants are to pay to their Landlords is therefore too much or unreasonable because a poor or decayed Tenant cannot so well bear or pay it as he was wont or as one that is thriving or before hand might doe That all Leases of above One hundred years were made to draw Wardships contrary to Law when as such or the like Collusions were by the Statute of Marlebridge prohibited and the Parliament was mis-informed for long Leases under 500. years were not made by that Court lyable to Wardships and that undue proceedings were used in the finding of Offices to make Jurors find for the King which was but to adjorne or bind them over to the Bar of the Court of Wards in case that there was any doubt of the Law or Evidence Or when the Lords and Commons in Parliament the second day of June 1642. by the nineteen Propositions which were as they alleaged for the establishment of the Kings honour and safety and the wâ—lfare and â—ecurity of his Subjects and Dominions and being granted would be a necessary and effectual means to remove those jealousies and differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt him and his people and procure both his Majesty and them a constant course of honour peace and happiness Did propose petition and advise that the Lord high Constable of England Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England Lord Treasurer Lord privy Seal Earl Marshal Lord Admiral Warden of the Cinque Ports cheif Governour of Ireland Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Wards Secretaries of State two cheif Justices and cheif Baron may alwayes which shewed they had no desire for the present or the future to take away the Tenures in Capite and by Knight service be chosen by approbation of both Houses of Parliament Did not conceive them to be any Disease or Gangreen in the Body Politique at the making of the 2 d. Declaration of the Lords Commons in Parliament dated the 12 th of January 1642. Concerning the Commission of Array occasioned by a book then lately published Entituled his Majesties answer to the Declaration of both Houses of Parliament concerning the said Commission of Array Printed and Published by the care of Mr. Samuel Brown then and now a Member of the House of Commons wherein many Arguments being used and if they had been grievances would not have become the Parliament to have urged or pressed them as an argument against the Kings having power to raise men by his Commissions of Array and were then so little denyed to be for the necessary defence of the King and his Subjects as they were rather taken by that Parliament to be as the hands and Arms of the bodie politique worthy a continuance perpetuity and very well deserving the good opinion which the Parliament then had of them in the expressions following We deny that there is an impossibility of defence without such power viz. the Commissions of Array And affirm that the Kingdom may be defended in time of danger without issuing such Commissions or executing such power For we say that the Law hath provided several ways for provision of Arms and for defence of the Kingdom in time of danger without such Commissions 1. All the Tenures that are of his Majestie by Barony Grand Seâ—jeanty Knight service in Capite Knight service and other like Tenures were all originally instituted for the defence of the Kingdom in time of War and danger as appears by the Statute of 7 E. 1. of Mortmain which saith servitia quae ex hujus modi feodis dâ—bentur ad defensionem Regni ab initio provisa fuerunt vide Chart. H. 1. irrotulat in libro Rubro Scac. Coke Instit. 75. Bracton 36.37 Britton 162.35 H. 6.41 Coke 8.105 Coke 6. â— Instit. 1 part 103. These Tenures in the Conquerours time were many and since they are much increased and these are all bound to find men and arms according to their Tenures for the defence of the Kingdom 2. As those Tenures are for the defence of the Kingdom so the Law hath given to his Majestie diverse Priviledges and Prerogatives for the same end and purpose that with the profits of them he should defend himself and his people in times of danger of which his Majestie is and always hath been in actual possession since his accesse to the Crown For the defence of the Kingdom his Majestie haâ—h the profits oâ— Wardships Lâ—veries Primer seisins Marriages Reliefs Fines for Alienation Customs Mines Wrecks Treasure trove Escheats Forfeitures and diverse others the like casual profits That by these he may be enabled to defend the Kingdom and that he enjoying them his Subjects might enjoy their Estates under his Protection free from Taxes and Impositions for defence Therefore it is declared 14 E. 3. chap. 1. That all the profits arising of an aid then granted to the King by his people And of Wards Marriages Customes Escheats and other profits riseing of the Realm of England should â—e spent upon the safeguard of the Realm of England on the Wars in Scotland France and Gascoigne and no places elsewhere during the Wars And the Lords and Commons in Rich. 2 time knowing the Law to â—e so did as appears â—y the Parliament â—olls 6 Rich. â— m. 42 passe a â—etition that the King would live oâ— his own Revenues and that the Wards Marriages Reliefs Forâ—â—itures and other profits of the Crown might be kept to be spent in the Wars for the defence of the Kingdom 3. If the said Tenures and casual profits rising by his Prerogative will not serve for defence but more help is necessary by the fundamental Lawes and Constitutions of this Kingdom his Majestie is intrusted with a power to summon Parliaments as often as he pleases for defence of himself and his people when his ordinary Revenues will not serve the turn And there is no other legal way when the others are not sufficient but this and this last hath been ever found by experience the most sure and successefull way for supply in time of imminent danger for defence of the Kingdom and to this the Kings of this Realm have in times of danger frequently had recourse A main end why Parliaments are called is for defence of the Kingdom and that other Supplies thâ—n thâ—se before mentioned cannot be made without a Parliament Nor was there any publique or general damage so much as supposed to be in them the first of February 1642. when in the propositions sent by those Lords Commons which remain'd in Parliament
the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by agreement and composition made betwixt the said Earl and Boniface Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in the raign of King H. 3. by the service of four Knights Fees and to be high Stewards and high Butlers to the Arch-Bishops of that See at their Consecration taking for their service in the Stewardship seven competent Robes of Scarlet thirty gallons of Wine thirty pound of Wax for his light livery of Hay and Oates for eighty Horse for two nights the Dishes and Salt which should stand before the Arch-Bishop in that Feast and at their departure the dyet of three dayes at the cost of the Arch-Bishop at four of his then next Mannors wheresover they would So that the said Earls repaired thither but with fifty Horse and taking also for the Office of Butlership other seven like Robes twenty gallons of Wine fifty pound of Wax like livery for sixty Horses for two nights the Cup wherewith the Arch-Bishop should be served all the empty Hogsheads of Drink and for six Tun of Wine so many as should be drunk under the Bar all which services were accordingly performed by Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford at the Inâ—hronization of Robert Winchelsey Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and by the same Earl to Arch-Bishop Reignolds by Hugh Audley afterwards Earl of Gloucester to John Stratford Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by the Earl of Stafford to whom the Lordship of Tunbridge at length came to Simon Sudbury Arch-Bishop of that See and by Edward Duke of Buckingham to William Warham Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and executed the Stewardship in his own person and the Butlership by his Deputy Sr. Thomas Burgher Knight No disparagement to the Knightly family of the Mordants in the County of Essex that they hold the Mannor of Winslowes in Hempsteed in the said County of the Earls of Oxford by the service of a Knights Fee and to be his Champion and to come to the Castle of Hedingbam the day of the Earls mariage riding in compleat harness to Defie or bid Battel to any that should deny him to be Earl of Oxford and to see what order was kept in the Hall there which Robert Mordant Esq performed in his own person the 14 th day of December in the 14 th year of the raign of Queen Eliz. being the day of Edward Earl of Oxford's marriage though it was not there solemnized Or to Sr. Giles Allington the Auncestor of the now Lord Allington to hold his Mannors called Carbonnels and Lymberies in Horsed in the County of Cambridge by the service of a Knights Fee and a half and to attend upon the Earl the day of his marriage and to hold his stirrop when he goeth to horseback which service he performed in person at White-Hall the 14 th day of December in the 14 th year of the raign of Queen Eliz. being the marriage day of the said Edward Earl of Oxford in the presence of the Earls of Bedford Huntington and Leicester the Lord William Howard Lord Chamberlain of the Queens houshold and the Lord Burleigh c. Those Dreams or Fancies of Grievances by Tenures in Capite and Knight Service were never presented in those thousands of Court Leets or Law daies which twice in every year now for almost 600 years since the Conquest and very long before made it a great part of their businesse to enquire upon oath of Grievances Extortions and Oppressions Nor in those yearly grand enquests to the like purpose which have been twice in every year for many hundreds of years past by the oath of the most sufficient Knights Gentlemen and Free-holders of the County of Middlesex It neither was nor is nor can by any reasonable intendment be taken to be a grieveance to do or perform that which by the Laws of God Nature and Nations the Laws reasonable Customs and the fundamental Laws of England hath so often and through all times and ages and the memory of man and Records which are monumenta veritatis vetustatis ever been allowed repeated and confirmed in Parliament without the least of any contradiction or repeal and is but upon necessity and occasion to defend the King themselves their Country Friends and Neighbours and to do that which every Gentleman and such as are e meliori Luto of the more refined Clay and better born bred than the vulgus or common sort of people would be willing to do as that learned French Lawyer Bâ—issonius well observeth Qu' en la necessite de guerre toutes lâ—s gentilz hommes sont tenus de prendre les Aâ—mes pâ—ur la necessite du Roy That in necessity of War every Gentleman is bound to take Arms and go to the Wars for the defence of the King which by our Laws of England is so to be encouraged as it is Treason to kill any man that goeth to aid the King in his Wars and is no more than what the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy doth bind every Englishman unto though they should tarry in the Camp more than forty days or not have Escuage or any allowance of their charges from their own Tenants and is but that duty which Deborah and Baruch believed that every Subject was bound to perform when they cursed Meroz not as some of our Pulpit Incendiaries did when they traiterously inverted the Text to encourage the people to fight against their King in that they came not forth to battel to help the Lord against the mighty and the loyal Uriah would not forget when the King himself could not perswade him to go into his own House to eat and to drink and lye with his Wife when the Ark and Judah and Israel abide in Tents and his Lord Joab and the Servants of his Lord were incamped in the open field and which the good old Barzillai in the rebellion of Absolom against his King and Father David thought was incumbent upon him when he could not bring his loyal mind to think it to be enough to provide the King of sustenance while he lay at Mahanami unlesse when he himself was fourscore years old and could not taste what he eat or drank he also should come down from Rogelim and go as he did with his Son Chimham over Jordan with the King to conduct him and would not accept of the Kings offer or reward to live with him at Jerusalem which those that hold in England their Lands and goodly Revenues by those beneficial Tenures in Capite of a free guift and in perpetuity may be said to do and have more also then was offered Barzillai for the remainder of an old and worn-out life but sayes why should the King recompence it with such a reward And is but the performance of the original contracts made betwixt the kind Donors and the thankful Tenants and the observing of faith and promises which is the ingens vinculum and next unto the Divine Providence the grand support of the world
and be admitted Turn the Tenures in Capite which are only so called from the duty of Homage and the acknowledgement of Soveraignity and Headship in the King into a Tenure in Socage which is so far from acknowledgeing the King to be chief or to ingage as the other doth their Lands to do him service as it is but a Tenure as it were a latere is no more then what one Neighbour may acknowledge to hold or doe to another for his Rent or money be a Lease for a Life or one or more years or as Tenant at will and levels and makes rather an equality then any respect of persons which if ever or at all reasonable or fit to be done is in a democratical or popular way of Government but will be unexampled and is not at all to be in Monarchy may make many of the people which are not yet recovered out of a gainful Lunacy to beleive they were in the right when they supposed themselves to be the Soveraigns Ireland which in the subverting Olivers time was to have their Swords by the like Tenure turned into Plow-shares though their warres and taxes were never intended to leave them was to pay but 12000 l. per annum to turn their better Tenures Conditions into worse will if they be not come again to their wits expect the like prejudicial bergain Bring many inconveniences and mischiefs to the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland if their Tenures in Capite and Knight service and those which are holden of them as Mesn Lords shall as ours be taken away with their services and dependencies Licences of Alienation benefits of Investitures infeodations and the like it being amongst others as a reason given for Wardships in that Kingdom in the Laws of Scotland in the reign of their Malcombe the 2. which was before the Conquerours entring into England Ne non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates to the end that the King should have where-withall to defend the Kingdom And a letting loose of a fierce and unruly people who are best of all kept in awe order by a natural long well enough liked subjection to their Mesne Lords and Superiours into a liberty which cannot be done without a disjointing and over-turning all the Estates of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom and may like our late English Levellers either endeavour to do it or bring themselves and the whole Nation to ruine by a renversing of the fundamental Laws and that antient order and constitution of that Kingdom wherein the estates and livelyhood of all the Nobility and Gentry and better part of the people are hugely concerned And besides a great damage to the King in his Revenues and profits arising out of such Tenures if not recompenced by some annual payment Will howsoever take away that antient Homage and acknowledgement of Superiority which from that Kingdom to this of England cannot be denyed to be due and to have been actually and antiently done and presidented and not in one but several ages fidem obsequium ut vassallos Angliae Regibus superioribus dominis jurejurando promisisse to have done their Homage and Fealty as vassals to our English Kings and bound themselves by oath thereunto as namely to Alfred Edgar Athelstane William the Conqueror William Rufus Maud the Empresse Henry the second and Edward the first the later of whom with all the Baronage of England in a Letter to the Pope did upon the search of many Evidences and Records stoutly assert it Will be no small damage and disturbance to the Kings other Regalities and Prerogatives and in the Tenures of the Cinque Ports who are to provide fifty ships for the guarding of the Seas and the Town of Maldon in Essex one the Town of Lewis in Sussex as the Book of Doomsday informeth where King Edward the Confessor had 127 Burgesses in dominio eorum consuetudo erat si Rex ad Mare custodiendum sine se suos mittere voluisset de omnibus hominibus cujuscunque terrae fuissent colligebant 20 sâ—lidos hos habebant qui in manibus arma custodieâ—ant had 127 Burgesses in his demeâ—ne of the King and when he sent any of his men to guard the Seas they were to gather 20 s. a man which was to be given to those that manned the Ships in Colchester where the custom then was that upon any expedition of the Kings by Sea or Land every house was to pay six pence ad victum soldariorum Regis towards the quarter or livelyhood of the Kings Souldiers and likewise prejudice him in his grand and Petit Serjeanties and many thousand other reservations of honour and profit by and upon Tenures in Capite and Knight service which revived and called out of their Cells wherein those that are to do and pay them are content they should sleep and take their rest for ever would go near to make and maintain an Army with men and Provisions The King when the Tenures in Capite shall be taken away shall never be able to errect his Standard and to call thereunto all that hold Lands Fees Annuities and Offices of him to come to his assistance according to the duty of their Tenures and the Acts of Parliament of 11 H. 7. chap. 18. And 19. H. 7. chap. 1. of forfeiting the Lands and Offices holden of him under the penalties which was the only means which the late King his Father had to protect as much as he could himself and his Subjects or to manifest the justice of his Cause in that War which was forced upon him and was very useful and necessary heretofore for the defence of the Kings of England and their People and proved to be no otherwise in the Bellum Standardi so called in the reign of King Stephen where some of the Barons of England and some of the English Gentry gathered themselves to the Royal Standard and repelled and beat the King of Scotland and in several Kings reigns afterwards repulsed the Scotch and Welch Hostilities and Invasions and at Floddon Field in King H. 8 ths time when the Duke of Norfolk and his Son the Earl of Surrey and diverse of the Nobility and Gentry which accompanied them vanquished and slew the King of Scots The benefit whereof the Commons of England had so often experimented as in diverse Parliaments they Petitioned the King and Lords to cause the Lord Marchers and other great men to repair into their Counties and defend the borders and was so necessary in France to assemble together the Bans and Arrierebans which were but as our Tenants in Capite as it helped King Charles the 7 th of France to recover that Kingdom again out of the hands and possession of our two Henries the 5. and 6. Kings of England And if any Rebellion or Conspiracy shall hereafter happen When Cum saepe coorta Seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus Fury and Rage of
them that is Freeholders and such as hold by Knight Service So in the great Court of all the Kingdome none were antiently personally called to give Judgement and advâ—se therein but such as were near to the King and bound and obliged to him by a greater Bond and Tye of Faith and Homage that is to say his immediate vassals Barones nempe cujuscunque generis qui de ipsi tenuere in Capite ut videndum est in breve de summonitione wherein they are summoned in fide homagio quibus tenentur in the Faith and Homage by which they held partim in charta libertatum Regis Johannis and Barons of any kind whatsoever which held of him in Capite as may appear by the Writs of Summons to Parliament the Charter of King John Hence the Barons of England are in our laws said to be Nati Consiliarij born Counsellors of State and Baro signifying Capitalem Vassallum majorem qui tenetur Principi Homagij vinculo seu potius Baronagij hoc est de agendo vel essendo Baronem suum quod hominem seu clientem praestantiorem significat A Baron who is a chief or Capital Vassal is bound to his Prince by the Bond of Homage or rather Baronage which is to be his Baron or man or more considerable Clyent and makes a threefold dvision of Barons who by Bracton are called Potentes sub Rege great or mighty men under the King Barones hoc est robur belli and Barons which is as much to say as the strength of War into feudal or by prescription 1. Qui a priscis feodalibus Baronibus oriundi suam prescriptione tuentur dignitatem which being discended from Antient feudal Barons do continue their dignity by prescription 2. Rescriptitios qui brevi Regio evocantur ad Parliamentum which are called to Parliament by the Kings Writs 3. Diplomaticos which are by Letters Patents and Creation and that Barones isti Feodales nomen dignitatem suam ratione fundi obtinuerunt those Feudal Barons doe hold their dignity by reason of their Lands and Tenures and that Episcopi suas sortiuntur Baronias sola fundorum investitura Bishops are Barons only by investiture of their Baronies Lands and Temporalties And the most excellently Learned Mr. Selden who was well known to be no stranger to the old and most choice Records and Antiquities of the Kingdome doth not doubt but that the Bishops and Abbots did sit in Parliament and were summoned thither only as Barons by their Tenures per Baroniam and in his Epistle to Mr. Augustine Vincent concerning his Corrections of Yorkes Catalogue of Nobility doth most learnedly prove it by many Instances besides that in â—he Case of Thomas Becket Arch-bishop of Canterbury in 11 H. 2. and the claime made and allowed in Parliament in 11 R. 2. by all the Bishop Abbots and Priors of the Province of Canterbury which used to sit in Parliament that de Jure et consuetuâ—ine Regni Angliae all Bishops Abbots Priors and other Prelates whatsoever per Baroniam Domini Regis tenentes holding of the King by Barony were Peers of the Parliament which agreeth with the opinion of Stamford that the Bâ—shops ne ont lieu en Parlement eins in respâ—ct de lour possessions annexes a lour dignities have no plaâ—e in Parliament but in respect of their Possessions annexed to their Dignities and that Mr. Camden saith that divers Abbots and other spiritual men formerly summonned by writ to Parliament were afterwards omitted because they held not by Barony and that it was mentioned and allowed to be good Law in a Parliament of King E. 3. que toutes les religieuses que teignent per Barony soient tenus de vener au Parlement that all the religious which hold by Barony are to be summoned to Parliament And as to the temporal Barons doth besides what he alleageth of the Thanes or Barons of England in the Saxon times that they held by personal service of the King and that their honorary possessions were called Taine-Lands and in the Norman times after denoted by Baronies and the eminent and noted Case of the Earls of Arundel claiming and allowed to be Earls of Arundel by reason of their holding or Tenure of Arundel Castle and Sir John Talbots being Lord Lisle ratione Dominij et Manerij de Kingston Lisle doth by 22 E. 3 fo 18.48 E. 3. fo 30. other good Authorityes conclude that the Tenure of a Barony is the main principal Cause of the Dignity that 130 temporal Barons by Tenure were called by several writs to assist the King cum equis Armis with horse and Armes and the spiritual being about 50 were called ad habendum servicium suum and that the greatest number of Barons during all that time were by Tenure that the most part of the Barons by Tenure and Writ untill the middle of the Raign of King R. 2. and those that were called by Writ were such as had Baronyes in Possession that the honorary possessions of Earls were called Honors and reckoned as part of their Earldoms which were holden in Capite the chief Castle or seat of the Earls or Barons were called Caput Comitatus seu Baroniae the head or chief of the Earldom or Barony and that in this sence Comitatus integer is used for a whole Earldom in the grand Charter and Bracton and Servicium quarte partis Comitatus for the fourth part of an Earldom that Hugh de Vere Earl of Oxford Magnavile Earl of Essex and divers other antient Earles were Cingulo Comitatus Gladio Comitatus cincti girt with the Girdle or sword of their Earldoms which he conceiveth to be an Investiture All which may by the Records of this Kingdom be plentyfully illustrated by very many instances and by the Rolls of the Constables and Marshals of England in which upon the March of the Army of King E. 1. towards Scotland in the 28 year of that King Humfridus de Bohun Comes Hereford Essex Constabularius Angliae recognovit per os Nichoâ—ai de Segrave Baneretti sui locum suum tenentis se acquietari per servitium suum per Corpus suum in Exercitu presenti Scotiae pro Constabularia in Comitatu Hereford Humfry de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England declared by Sir Nicholas Segrave his Baneret and Lieutenant that he was to be acquitted for the Constabulary in the County of Hereford where it seems some Manors or Lands in that County were annexed to the said Office or held by grand Serjeanty by the Service of himself in the Army for Scotland I tem idem Comes recognovit per eundem Nicholaum Servitium trium feodorum Militum faciendum in dicto Exercitu pro Comitatu Essex per Dominos Iohannem de Ferrariis Henricum de Bohun et Gilbeâ—tum de Lindsey milites Also the said Earl acknowledgeth by the said Sir Segraveâ—â—e â—â—e Service of
innocent as useful Tenures in Capite and Knight service of bettering the condition of the Commonwealth and people increasing their Liberties and content and to maintain and keep them in a most happy peace and plenty which will never be done if the Sword and Scepter of the King shall only be like the Ensignes and Ornaments of Regality and made only to represent a Majestie there will another difficulty stand in the way and meet the design of doing it by Act of Parliament and offer this question to consideration Whether an Act of Parliament and the consent of the House of Peers the desire of all the Commons and People of England which must be understood to be signified by their Representatives and the Roy le veult the King giving life and breath and being to it can in the great power and respect which ever hath been by the Law and justly ought to be always attributed unto it Take away Tenures in Capite and by Knight service grand and Petit Sejeanties Homage and all other incidents belonging unto them or the right which the Nobility and Gentry and mesne Lords have to enjoy their Tenures by Knight service the incidents thereunto belonging Which howsoever that in many other things it hath been said that Consensus tollit errorem Conventiâ— vincit Legem Consents and Agreements are more binding then Law will by the Laws of God and Nature and Nations and the Laws of this Kingdom and the opinion of some eminent and learned Sages and Lawyers thereof be resolved in the Negative viz. CHAP. VII That Tenures in Capite and by Knight service holden of the King and the Homage and Incidents thereunto appertaining and the Right of the Mesne Lords cannot be dissolved or taken away by any Act of Parliament FOR that Gods Law and the Law of Nature and Nations have taken care not only to preserve the Rights of Soveraignity and the means and order of Government but the Rights property of every particular Subject do prohibit all injustice it is a Maxime or Aphorism undeniable that Laws made against the Word of God the Laws of Nature or which are impossible or contra bonos more 's right Reason or natural Equity will be void in themselves be the Seal or Stamp of Authority never so eminent And therefore if as the Law hath often determined that the Kings Charters are void and not pleadable by Law when they are repugnant to the Laws Acts of Parliament Maxims and reasonable Customs of the Realm that it is not in the Kings power by his Charter or last Will and Testament to grant away the Crown of England to another Prince or Potentate as it was resolved in the Case of the supposed grant of King Edward the Confessor to William Duke of Normandy and that grant of King John to the Pope to hold England and Ireland of him and that notwithstanding the grant made by William the Conquerour to Hugh Lupus of the Earldom of Chester tenendum per gladium and ita libere as the King himself did hold England the Earldom of Chester was holden of the King that the grant of King H. 2. to the Monks of St. Bartholomews in London that the Prior the Monks should be as free in their Church as the King was in his Crown was adjudged to be void for that the Prior and the Monks were but Subjects and that by the Law the King may no more denude himself of his Royal Superiority over his Subjects then his Subjects can renounce or avoid their subjection to their King and the reason why such or the like grants of the King by his Charter are void is not in regard it was granted without the consent of the people in Parliament but that it was in disherison of his Crown and disabling himself to govern or if he should by his grant exempt a man from paying his Debts or maintenance of hise Wife and Children the joyning of the Lords and Commons with him in an Act of Parliament would not make such a Law to be binding or obligatory And therefore the King cannot saith Dier release or grant a Tenure in Capite to any Subject Dier 44. when King Edward the 3 d. granted to the Black Prince his Son the grant of the Dutchy of Cornwal all Wards Marriages and Reliefs non obstante the Kings Prerogative it was adjudged that the Prince could not seise a Ward which held of the Kings Ward because it belonged to the King by his Prerogative And in 2 R. 2. Robert de Hauley Esquire being arrested and pursued upon an Action of Debt in Westminster Abby where he took Sanctuary was in the tumult slain at the high Altar when the Priest was singing high Masse And the offence and breach of priviledge as it was then pretended to be complained of in Parliament by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the rest of the Prelates and Clergy and prayed that due satisfaction and amends might be made of so horrible a fact It was opposed by the Lords and Commons and they vouched Records and called to witness the Justices and others that were learned in rhe Lawes of the Land that in the Church of England it hath not been accustomed nor ought to have Immunity for Debt or Trespass or other Cause whatsoever except for Crime only And certain Doctors of Divinity Canon and Civil Lawes being thereupon sworn and examined before the King himself to speak the plain truth said upon mature and sound deliberation that in case of Debt Accompt or Trespass where a man is not to lose life or member no man ought to have Immunity in holy Church and said further in the highest expressions those times could afford that God saving his Perfection the Pope saving his Holiness nor any King or Prince can grant such a priviledge and that if the King should grant such a priviledge the Church is and ought to be favoured and nourished ought not to axcept of it whereof offence or occasion of offence may arise for it is a sin and occasion of offence saith the Record to delay a man willingly from his Debt or the just recovery of the same And if an Act of the Commons alone or of the Lords alone or of both together cannot amount to an Act of Parliament the King himself cannot grant away his Regality or Power or means of governing by his Charter or any Act which he can singly doe his concurrence with both the Lords and Commons can no more make an Act to confirme that which should not be done or granted then his own grant or Charter could have done or than if he and the House of Commons only had made an Act As it appeareth by the Ordinance which the Lords Ordainers so from thence called did obtain from Edward 2. whereby he delegated much of his Regal Authority unto them which was afterwards complained of in Parliament made void and the Authors or Lords Ordainers
Tenenda non Tollenda OR The Necessity of Preserving TENURES IN CAPITE and by KNIGHT-SERVICE VVhich according to their first Institution were and are yet a great part of the Salus Populi and the Safety and Defence of the King as well as of his People TOGETHER With a Prospect of the very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which by the taking away or altering of those Tenures will inevitably happen to the KING and his KINGDOMES By Fabian Philipps Esq Claudian Lib. 2. Ne pereat tam priscus Honos qui portus honorum Semper erat nullo Sarciri Consule Damnum LONDON Printed by Thomas Leach for the Author and are to be sold by Abel Roper at the Sign of the Sun in Fleetstreet 1660. To the Right Honourable Sir Edward Hide Knight Baron of Hindon and Lord Chancellor of England My Lord EVery man who hath not been out of his Wits or his own Country or like the Poet Epimenides who is said to have slept more than Twenty years And hath but understood or experimented the many Miseryes and Confusions which our new Reformers and Modellers of Government who like unskilful Architects cannot amend a part of an house without overturning the whole Fabrick upon the heads of the Owners have treated the Faction and Ignorance of too many of the seduced people of this Kingdom withal And sitting by the Waters of Babylon had not forgot Jerusalem or but remembred the happinesse of the Condition we before enjoyed under a gratious and pious Prince in an Antient and for many ages past most happy Monarchy and with Tears of Joy welcommed it again in the Return of his sacred Majesty and all our peace and plenty from a sad and long oppressing Captivity must needs think himself obliged not only to pray for the Peace of our Syon but to endeavour all he can to uphold the Kings Rights and Jurisdictions Who being our Lex viva and guarding Himself us and our Laws is with them the sure support of us and all that is or can be of any Concernment to us and our Posterityes And therefore when we are taught by our Laws and the sage Interpreters and Expounders thereof That every Subject hath an Interest in the King as the Head of the Weâ—le Publick and as the inferior Members cannot estrange them selves from the Actions or Passions of the head no lesse can any Subject make himself a Stranger to any thing which toucheth the King or their supreme Head And that not a few but very many knowing and able men are of opinion not ushered in by Fancy or first Notions but well weighed and built with Reason and good Authorities that the exchanging of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service for a constant yearly payment of 100000 l. will level the Regality and turn the Soveraignty into a dangerous popularity and take away or blunt the Edge of the Sword by which his Majesty is to defend his people I could not but conceive it to be my Duty and a failer of my Duty and Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy not to do it to offer to consideration the antiquity and right use of Tenures in this and other Kingdoms that they are no Slavery nor Grievance how from a project in the beginning of the Raign of King James it came to trouble several Parliaments the small benefits will come to the Subjects by altering those Tenures and the many Inconveniences and Mischiefs which will inevitably follow and that it is such a flower of the Crown as the power of an Act of Parliament and consent of the King and his Nobility and people cannot take away wherein though I may well say it is a matter as Livy said of his undertaking to write the Roman History Immensi Operis and that the disquisition of it requiring greater Abilities than I can lay any claim unto and the excellent Order heretofore used that all Books of the Law or very much concerning it should be perused and allowed by the Reverend Judges of the Law before they should be Printed and published might have been enough to have made me either to desist or have attended their approbation Yet when the good intentions of many Parliament men of the House of Commons to make the King a constant Revenue were so busy to prepare an Act of Parliament to dissolve those more useful and honourable Tenures into a Socage which will never arrive to the Salus Populi they aim at I have like some well-wishing Roman to his Countries good in my Cares and fear least any thing should hurt dislocate or disturb that well ordered and constituted Government under which our Progenitors enjoyed so much Honor Peace und Plenty hasted Currente Calamo to a modest inquiry into the grounds and motives for the dissolution of them and the Court of Wards and an examination of that to be prepared Act in the General for as to the Preamble Clâ—uses or Provisoes they are not permitted to be seen before the Act passeth the Rogatio Legum as it was amongst the Romans being not here in use in some cases as it may be wished it were and when none else would publiquely endeavour to rescue them have without any Byasse or partiality as well as I could represented what hath been the right use of them and what may be the Inconveniences if they should be changed or altered and that they are not guilty of the charge which is supposed but never will be proved against them And confesse that it deserved a better Advocate than my self who having attempted to do it horis Succâ—sâ—vis interturbationes rerum am Conscious to my self that much more might have been said for it and that the matter was capable of a better form and might have appeared in a better dresse if my care to do something as fast as I could had not for want of time hindred me from doing what I might But I hope that your Lordship who hath trod the Pathes of Affliction and in the attendance and care of a persecuted Monarchy and an Afflicted most Gracious Prince who hath born the burthen of His own Sorrows Troubles as well as of a Loyal party that Suffered wiâ—h for Him and His Royal Father have in Your Travails and residence in many Kingdoms and parts beyond the Seas viewed and seen the Fundamentals and Order of other Kingdoms the Policies and good Reiglements of some and the Errors and Infirmities of others will with your learned Predecessor the Chancellor Fortescue in the Raign of King Henry the 6â—h the more admire and love the Laws and excellent Constitutions of England which as a Quintessence of right reason may seem to have been Limbecked and drawn out of the best of Laws and choice of all which might be learned out of other Nations or the Records or Treasury of Time and find reason enough to be of the opinion of that well knowing Statesman that non minime erit regno accommodum ut Incolae
and so may be proved by any of their Acquittances Neither were the Rates for Licences of Alienations burdensom when they were paid by the rich and improving and most commonly advantage taking purchasors or by the gainers by the settlement or alteration of Lands or Estates and are in passing Fines not usually above a thirtieth part and so after an antient un-improved small yearly value as six thousand pounds per annum hath within three years last past paid but a little above one hundred and twenty pounds for a Composition or Licence of Alienation Which with other of the Kings casual profits by a long remissenesse and usage of some ages past whilst the people to save their own Purses and favour one another choosing the open Rode and track and following the precedents and too common use of under valuations which hath ever been and is the great obstructor and diminisher of royal Revenues would as much as they could never forsake or go much out of it as is visible enough in the Escuageâ— upon Knights Fees and valuatioÌ„s in several ages Kings reigns in that of a tenth in 36 H. 3. demanded in Parliament to be paid out of all the Ecclesiastical Revenues after the full yearly value where adjuncto magnae verbâ— offensionis as Mathew Paris tells us it was taken the worse in regard it was required to be taxed non secundum estimationem pristinâ—m sed secundum â—stimationem noâ—am ad inquisitionem strictissimam not according to the former estimation or rates but a nâ—w and most severe valuation was not at all granted And in a Parliament at Bury in 5â— H. 3. the Clergy denyed to be rated by the Laity or Justa alta taxatione By a just high valuation Sed tantum ut taxatio staret antiqua But only that the old taxation might stand nor was it much otherwise in the rates of fifteens and other proportions of taxes granted by Parliaments though somtimes ordered to be assessed upon oath the greatest tye and obligations that can be laid upon men and their Consciences wherein litle or more then a tenth or smal part was paid or collected of the true yearly value But like a numerous family of Children spending much wanting much and drawing all that they can from the kind and self-denying common parent together with the bounty and munificence which Kings and Princes are not seldom necessitated unto in the way of Government and care of the generality would never be brought to any just valuation or improvement no more than that of customs for goods exported or imported at the rate of twelve pence in the pound and for the subsidies given by Parliament whereupon no more was used to be paid than two shillings or two shillings eight peâ—ce in the pound for Moveables Debts defalked and 4 s. in the pound and most commonly not so much according to the yearly value of Lands Rents Annuities or other yearly profits after an easy and accustomed great undervaluation no more than that of Tenths and first Fruits or of Taxations or Valuations of Benefices in the Kings Books at the tenth or fifth of the true yearly value though every age of one or two ages last past and every thirty or twenty years in the age of Century in which we now live have hugely raised the yearly value of Lands every one striving who shall do it most in their own particular Estates And if there were not as there are so very many plain and evident Demonstrations of it may well be believed to be possible when the publick though made up of the private is dayly gnawed and preyed upon by the private and every one lurches and takes what he can from the Publique to add to his private when the numberlesse Number of the Private is more than the Head or Monarch when the people are to assesse themselves and will ease one another when interest and partiality are the Loadstones that attracts and the Cards and Compasses which the most of men do sail by every man is a well-wisher to the Publique but very few well-doers every one pretends good unto it but intend if not all yet a great deal more unto themselves and do make it their businesse to be the Kings Cozens though they are not of the blood-Royal and by the help of bad Consciences and no good affection to the publique or Common-weale do think no more evil to be in such purloinings than to fetch or take water from a great River or stones or gravel from a vast and high Mountain And the Nobility and Gentry and most of the Land-Lords in England have for many years last past in the publick Assessements which were made to maintain the miseries and iniquityes of our latter times to their cost and grievance experimented that where the Tenants were to pay for their Stock they could so order it as to lay the most of the Burden upon the Land-Lords upon pretences that they had but a small Stock of Cattle when it was in their power not only to undervalue what they had but to lessen or make it more any Fair or Market-day before or after Wherby and the effects which best discovers the truth and intention of all men and their matters be their pretences never so plausible much coloured or varnished over the Conclusion will necessarily follow the Premises that the outsides and noyse of great ayds and Subsidyes have been always a great deal more than the reality of them that the Kings and Queens of England have always had in their Revenues fair blossomings or Bloomes but little more than the Tenth of it hath come to be fruits or gatherings into their Treasuries witnesse if there were nothing else to prove it the great and more than treble or a better Improvement which hath been lately made of them since they came to be wrongfully possessed by private men and that the Revenues of the Kings and Princes of England could never yet arrive to the Fate of great Rivers which fertilizeing all the Neighbouring shores and carrying many a great Burden and Vessel which dayly sail to and fro upon them are notwithstanding so farre from emptying or impairing themselves as the further they run they are sure enough to be made greater by an Addition of many little Brooks and great Rivers which fall into them But by a continual emptying and deflux must of necessity sink it self into a great decay and deficiency when as that which was accounted Providence and good Husbandry in King H. 2. or H. 1. if Samuel Daniel and others be not mistaken to change his Rent Provisions of Corn Victuals which in every County was paid in Specie into yearly Rents or Summs of money because conâ—luebat ad Regis Curiam Multitudâ— Coloâ—orum oblatis vomeribus in signum deficientis Agriculturae A Multitude of Plow-men and Husband-men occasioned probably by the many vast Demeasns Commons Woods and Forrests which then
to charge the Heir An Heir may now be disinherited by the frowardness of an aged Father Instigated by the cunning and practise of a Step-mother whereas a third part could not have before been conveyed or given from him In Socage Tenures there will be nothing for the defence and safety of his Majesties Kingdome Person and People when every man shall be holding his Plow or be supposed to hold by it but the moyety of the Excise of Ale and Beer to the value of one hundred thousand pounds per annum The Kingdom will upon occasion of war or invasion lose the ready defence and personal service of the Nobility who held per Baroniam or as Tenants in Capite and of many worthy and able men Knights Esquires Gentry and other sufficient Freeholders and men of good Estate and Reputation well educated and fitted for war and compleatly armed on Horse-back not like to be Run-aways or treacherous which hold the remainder and yet to be discovered Knights Fees or any part thereof in an ordinary course of defence for forty days service which in those times and after the manner and way of war and the Militia then used was time enough to determine all or a great part of the unhappy controversies of War by and out of so many several Estates than at twenty pounds per annum since improved to two or three hundred pounds per annum with not a few of their Tenants Friends Servants and Attendants going along with them and may call or summon them to go with· him out of the Kingdom in case of a diversive War or otherwise which by the Statutes of 1 E. 3.8 E. 3.25 E. 3. 4 H. 4. 17 Car. he cannot do to Hoblers Archers Footmen or the Train Bands but in case of necessity and suddain comming of Foreign Enemies into the Realm and would have been sure of a gallant Army of Horse which being the more active and ready part of an Army fittest for charge or retreat forage or traversing a Country is by the French whose Nobless in War are presently on Horse-back and make it their Ioy and subsistence to appear in the defence of their King and Country found to be a great part of the Successe in war as well as the Persians have done who hath many times overcome the Turk by the strength of Horse as the Hungarians and Poles have often done And the Germans and Italians did heretofore make great use of their Nobility in Wars and made their Armies to consist most of Horse for that they presumed quod in Equestri militia praevalerent nobiles that the Nobility would do best and prevail when they served on Horseback for as the great Estates of England were held by Knight Service so it was most performed on horseback and such as found or furnished out Horses in War were to be men of Gentility and value and did in person go with their Prince or their Lieutenant and until H. 5. Time Gentlemen which every high Constable and Mechanique now thinks it to be too little to usurp the Title of were not distinguished by any Title of addition but by their forinsecum servitium which was Knight Service and in Kent where they claimed Gavelkind were never put under that kind of partition It must needs be very prejudicial to the King who is to protect his people and to his people who are to be protected by him when as the King that hath none or very few Inland Castles Citadels or places of strength as Holland Flanders France Italy Germany most Nations have to retard the March of an Enemy landed untill he can summon or call together his Subjects and Forces and cannot at once or upon a suddain be able to raise so many men as may be able to incounter or vanquish him in the Field Shall have no Legions or standing parts of an Army as Oliver and his Son Richard had paid at the charge of the publique to rally and unite at pleasure redresse Rebellions Repel and Oppose an Enemy and if need be visit him at home and make his Country rather than his own Sedem Belli the Stage of War to indure the Spoyles Plundrings Insolencies and free quartering of Souldiers But shall when the Floods shall rore and lift up their voice his Enemies compasse him in on every side and there be none to help him be as a Prince disarmed and left to intreat and expect the good will of his people or the care which they will be pleased to take for themselves in the first place for him at leasure hoping that they will not devide into parties of factions call or summon a Parliament which will take up forty days or six weeks and give the Enemy all that while the mastery of the field and time enough to make up all his advantages and in the mean time must not so much as require aid of them who have had their lands freely given them or of those who hold Offices or Annuities under him for the performance of their Homages Oaths Fealties Contracts Promises and grateful acknowledgments and when the Parliament are met must tarry until the majority of opinions shall agree how and in what manner he shall be helped which will not if it should be agreed upon the second or third day but useth not to be in so many weeks be speedily furnished when the mony must be first raised which in the late necessity of disbanding and paying of Souldiers could not be finished in two or three months and the men after leavied armed and cloathed which where the Enemy shall in the mean time have gained some Forts Passages or Counties will not be so ready a way or help at hand as the use of Tenures in Capite which like so many Garrisons invisibly dispersed but no way oppressing their several Neighbourhoods are upon the score of gratitude as well as loyalty quickly called out and imbodied which made the Kingdom have the lesse use of Forts Castles to be able in the Raign of King Stephen by agreement betwixt him and Henry the second to demolish at once 1150 Castles Will loose also his Homage of his Tenants in Capite and by Knight service being the Seminary and root of the Oath of Allegiance and the Genus or original of Fealty which saith Sir Edward Coke is a part of Homage and is so much saith Sir Henry Spelman a part of Homage as a release of Fealty is a discharge of Homage which the Oaths of Allegiance and Fealty the duty of them being now by the delusions of Satan too much disused and strangely Metamorphosed into factions will though the Oaths of Allegiance and Fealty should faile remain fixed and radicated in the Tenures of Lands in Capite and by Knight Service and when they concurre do altogether if rightly observed make a threefold Cord which will not easyly be broken and were therefore by as careful as wise Antiquity
three Knights Fees to be performed in the said Army for the Earldom of Essex which shews also that then those Antient Earldoms of England were no other then by Tenure and Feudal by John de Ferrers Henry de Bohun and Gilbert de Lindsey Knights And in the same Constables Roll and at the same time Walter de Langton Bishop of Câ—ventry and Liâ—chfield recognovit et offert Servitium duorum Feudorum militum pro Baronia sua faciendum per dominos Robertum Peverel et Robertum de Watervile milites acknowledged and offered the service of two Knights Fees to be performed for his Baronie by Sir Robert Peverel and Sir Robert Watervile Knights Mr. Selden is aâ—so of opinion that to hold of the King in Capite to have Possessions as a Barony to be a Baron and sit with the rest of the Barons in Parliament are according to the Laws of those Times Synonimies And upon this and no other ground or foundation is built that as noble and illustrious as it is antient Pairage of the 12 pairs of France all of whom even the Earldom of Flanders now in the hands of the King of Spain do hold in Capite or Soveraignty of the French King and that great and eminent Electoral Colledge in Germany and the mighty Princes thereof are no other than Tenants in Capite and holding their vast Terrytories of the Empire by grand Serjeanry and have feuda antiqua concessa acquisita generi familiae connexam habentes Principatibus et Territoriis suis dignitatem Electoralem and have an antient Fee or Territory granted and acquired to their Issue and Family and a dignity Electoral annexed to their Principalityes and Territoryes And it cannot with any reason or Authority be said or beleived that the late Charles King of Sweden could by the Treaty or Pacification at Munster have been made a Prince of the Empire or have had place or voice in their Diets if he had not had the Bishopprick of Breme and other Lands and Provinces as Fiefs of the Empire in his Possession to have made him a member thereof and that the Prince Elector Palatine who by reason of that Territory justly claimeth the Vicariat of the Empire had never been made the eighth Elector if he had not had part of the Palatinate which he now enjoys For certainly if the care and wisdom of our Progenitors or Ancestors could not think it fitting to compose that high Court of Judicature of Strangers or grant them an Inheritance in it which had no Lands or Possessions to make them a concernment and to be more careful of the good of the Kingdom as Oliver or Dick of the Addresses would have done their Mungrel Scotch that had no Lands at all in England but a stock of Knavery but would rather bring in such as had the best Estates and holden by the most noble and serviceable Tenures in order to the defence of their King and Country and were the most honourable wise and understanding then such as had been Servants or of a low extraction race of mankind by their folly and whimsies had not long agoe tossed and tumbled about poor England like a Foot-Ball which may call to our remembrance that opinion or a lage of the Antients that Jupiter subdâ—xit servis dimidium mentis that God would not allow â—ervants or men litle better or rudely and ignorantly educated any more then to be half witted some of our late Levellers at the same time making a difference betwixt the antient great Estates of the Peers and Barons of England and that lesser which they now enjoy to be an objection against the House of Peers in Parliament for that now as they mistakenly surmised they could not as formerly be a banck or ballance betwixt the King and the people And howsoever that the temporal Barons as well those which were since the middle of the reign oâ— R. 2. created by Patent to be unum Baronum Angliae as in Sir John Beauchamps Patent to be Baron of Holt or as many later to have loâ—um voâ—em et sedem in Parliamento to have voice and place in the Parliament as those that hold per Baroniam and that those that hold per Baroniam and were Barons by Tenure do not come to Parliament but when they are summoned by the Kings Writ as the Bishops also do not and as in the Earl of Bristols Case was adjudged in the late Kings time are to have their Writs of Summons ex debito justitiae as of right due unto them yet a first second or third Summons which is only and properly to give notice when and where the Parliament beginneth cannot as Mr. William Prynne hath learnedly proved any way make or intitle any man which shall be so summoned to be a Peer or Baron that is not a Baron by prescription or was not created nor doth that Clause in the Patents of Creation doe or operate any more then that such new created Barons who are also Tenants in Capite and as all the other Barons doe ought to do their Homage shall be one of the Barons in Parliament have voyce and place there deny that they that sit there by Tenure and per Baroniam doe not sit there and enjoy their Honors and Dignities as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam or that those that come in by patent amongst them doe enjoy their places as incorporated and admitted amongst them and not as Tenants in Capite and being added to them do help to continue the Society or Court though they be not of one and the same Original or Constitution as Prebâ—nd added â—o a Cathedral Church may make them to be of the old Constitution but takes it not away and as the grant of King H. 8. to the Abbot of Tavestock quod sit unus de Spiritualibus et Religiosis dominis Parliamenti could not have altered his former and better condition if he had held any Lands per Baroniam And though the Creations by Patents may well enough sustain the priviledges of those that sit and were introduced by it yet the greater number or as many of the Earls and Barons as hold per Baroniam such as the Earls of Arundel and Oxford Lords Berkley Mowbray Abergaveny Fitz walter Audley De la ware and that great number which were before R. 2. and were not created by letters Patents and had not the Clause of locum vocem et sedem in Parliamento will lose their Peerage and right of sitting in Parliament if the other doe not when as their Patents giving them sedem vocem et locum in Parliamento doe but entitle them to be of that House whereof the other Earls and Barons were and to be but as the former Barons were which hold per Baroniam and in Capite As if a Lord of a Mannor could create a man to be one of his Coppy-holders he should be no otherwise then as a
their winding Sheets It will be against the Peoples Oaths of Supremacy to desire to purchase of or diminish the Kings Rights and Jurisdictions And against their own safety to weaken the hands and power of their Prince that should protect and defend them and commit the trust of protecting and defending the oppressed poor to the oppressing Rich the Chickens to the Kites the harmless Lambs to the cunning Foxes or greedy Wolves the weak and the Innocent to such as shall endeavour to hurt them and charge and burden themselves and their Posterities with a Rent and excise for mischiefs and inconveniences enough in perpetuity Take away that power and ready means of protecting and defending them and that which should enable him to procure according to his Coronation Oath to the Church of God and the Clergy and people firm peace and unity in God according to his power and to administer indifferent and upright Justice by forsaking a certain willing way of defence for a constrained or incertain by taking away the best for so much of it of all defences for that which in the very birth of it is justly feared to be the worst Draw a Curse rather than any expected blessing or happinesse upon all such Tenures in Capite and by Knight service as by seeking to purchase their Homages and obedience to their Prince and a better and long experimented and prosperous way of defence of themselves posterity shall seek or endeavour to break the reiterated oaths and contracts of all their Ancestors to be but a part for a short time of the general defence of the Kingdom like a Life-guard at hand to skirmish and make head against an Enemy untill a Parliament can be called and have time to consult of the means or the whole Nation summoned for help and imbodied will be a perjury more sinful then that of the Children of Israel to the deceitful and turn-coat Gibeonites and may be more severely punished by God Almighty upon the hereafter withering Estates of those men and their generations who shall not only break their own oaths and faith but the oaths and faith also of their more grateful Ancestors who would never have done it Will make our common people which were wont like the lesser Wheels in a well ordered watch to be governed by the greater or superior to run themselves into as many blessings as they did in these last twenty years when they wrested the Sword out of their Kings hands and by the power of those two great Devils Interest Reformation in the abuse and not right use of the words which may well wear the name of those Devils which were called Legion to cut murder pillage and rob the honest and loyal part of the the people lasciviendo in quaerelas quaestiones playing the wantons in their complaints and evil practices which they found to be so beaten a track or rode of prosperity to the journeys end of their wickedness complain of every thing that likes not their fancies or ignorance and from Wardships and Tenures return again in their ingratitude to God and man to their late design of taking away Tithes Coppyholds by enforcing the Lords to take a year or two years purchase for the rights of their Mannors Copyhold Estates from thence to the Act of Parliament intended in our Reformers late deformations to abate Rents where the Landlords were not so well affected as the Tenants to make or maintaine War against their Soveraign And if there had nothing been said or written as we hope there is sufficient to justify the Innocency or right use of Tenures in Capite and by Knight service it had been enough as it was to the vertuous Seneca to be persecuted and put to death by Nero who loved all Ill and hated all Good that Cromwel that Minotaure to whom in his Labâ—rinth of Subtilties Hypocrisy and abused Scripture our Lawes and Liberties were daily sacrificed by the Flattering Addresses of a company of Knaves or Fooles very well know after he had cut down the Royal Oak and blasted all the lofty Pines and Firres in Druina's Forrest procured an Act for renouncing and disannulling the Title of our now most graciovs Soveraign and his Brothers to the Crown of England and their Fathers Dominions and all other which should pretend any Title or Claim from by or under them or any of them how much it concerned his most wicked purposes of establishing that which should be called a Common-wealth under His and his posterities Protectorship and most Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government by a perpetual standing Army of 30000. Horse and Foot an intollerable Excise and monthly Assessements to pay them set up the other or tother House instead of a House of Peers made up for the most part of Mechanicks transformed into Colonels and Major Generalls and some other who might have been better Englishmen then to have been catched in the Trap of Ambition or Titles made the wrong way By which he might check the growing Factions in the House of Commons and destroy their pretended Soveraignity Tax and Rack the estates of all men and more then a Grand Seignior or Turk ever durst adventure upon Command as he should please the Bodies and Souls of the people take away every Surculus or little Sprigs that might grow out of the remaining Sap of that mighty Tree and every thing that might either contribute to it or remain but as Reliques of the Regal Estate and peoples happiness did by an Ordinance as he called it of himself and his Council the 12 th of April 1654. not only ordain an Union betwixt the two Kingdoms but that all the Nation of Scotland should be discharged of all Fealty Homage and Allegiance which is or should be pretended to be due to his Majesty that now is and that neither he nor any of his Royal Brothers or any deriving from the late King should hold Name Title and Dignity of King of Scotland and that all Herritors Proprietors and Possessors of Lands in Scotland should hold their Lands of their respective Lords by and under their accustomed yearly Boones and Annual services without rendring any Duty or Vassallage and discharged them of all military services and well knowing that their old Customes being taken away the Court-Barons would also fail did by another Ordinance erect new Court-Barons for them And having made store of Slaves in that Kingdome made all the hast he could to compleat his wickednesse in this and did the 17 th day of September 1656. procure his houses of Parliament or good will and pleasure rather to doe as much for England and take away all Tenures in Capite by Knight service and all Homages and Reliefs not only do all he could to destroy the heirs thereof but cut the Nerves let out the blood of a most noble antient Monarchy But if there could be any hopes in the Exchange of those
punished for it hath been clearly asserted by eminent and learned Judges and Sages of the Law as the Lord cheif Justice Hobart Sr. Francis Bacon and Sr. Jonh Davis Attorney General to King James in Ireland that the Superlative power of Parliaments above all but the King is in some things for restrained as it cannot enact things against Right Reason or common Right or against the Lawes of God or Nature that a man shall be Judge in his own Case as that the King shall have no Subsidies whereby to defend himself and his people that Children shall not obey their Parents and the like And that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service are of so transcendent a nature and so radically in the Crown and Fundamental Lawes as no Act of Parliament can take it away or alter it and are so inseperable as Sr. John Davis saith that in a Parliament holden in England in the latter end of the raign of King James it was resolved by the House of Commons that the Wit of man could not frame an Act of Parliament whereby all Tenures of the Crown might be extinguished And Judge Hutton who in the Case of the Ship-money would allow the King no more Prerogative then what could not be denyed him did publicquely deliver it for Law which in that great and learned Assembly of Judges and Lawyers was not contradicted that Tenures in Capite are so inseperable in the Crown as the Parliament will not nor cannot sever them and the King cannot release them And such is the care for the defence of the Kingdome which belongeth inseperably to the King as Head or supream Protector so as if any Act of Parliament should enact that he should not defend the Kingdome or that he should have no aides from his Subjects to defend the Realm such Acts would not bind but would be void because they would be against all natural Reason And Judge Crooke also doth in his Argument against the Ship-money wherein he concurred with Justice Hutton alleage that if a statute were made that a King should not defend the Kingdome it were void being against Law and Reason And when a Parliament is called by the Kings Writ to preserve his Kingdom and Magna Charta so little intends that any future Parliament should alter or take away any Liberties granted or confirmed thereby or any fundamental Laws which are incorporate with the essence of Government as it hath been by several confirmations of it enacted that all Laws hereafter to be made to the contrary shall be Null and void and with good reason as to the King and Mesne Lords in the changing of their Tenures into Socage when as ex contractu obligatio and ex obligatione Actio should as well hold in those benificial pactions which were in the Creation of those Tenures betwixt the King Lords and Tenants as in Bonds Bills and Assumpsits or any other contracts whatsoever And is so great a part of right Reason in the opinion of Forreigners and according to the Law of Nature and Nations as in the German Empire though it hath heretofore lost much of its power and authority by the greatnesse of some of the Princes and the many Liberties and Priviledges granted to Cities Towns its remaining Prerogatives notwithstanding are said to be Jura Majestatis instar puncti divisionem non recipientia adeoque Imperatoris personae cohaerent ut nec volens ijs se abdicare aut alium in consortium vocare possit so inseperable as they are capable of no division and do so adhere unto the Emperors person as he cannot if he would renounce or transferre them over to any other And Bodiâ— that understood France very well saith that Si Princeps publica praedia cum imperio aut jurisdictione eo modo fruenda concesserit quo ipse fruetur etiam si Tabulis jura Majestatis excepta non fuerunt ipso jure tamen excepta judicantur if the King shall grant any of his Lands to hold as freely and with as much power and jurisdiction as he himself enjoyed it the jura Majestatis or Regalities are always adjudged and taken to be excepted though there be no reservation or exception in the Letters Patents And the Parliament of Paris were so careful of the Kings Rights in Governing as when Francis the first had granted to the Queen his Mother a Commission to pardon and restore condemned persons it declared that such a grant quum sine Majestatis diminutione communicari non possit seeing it could not be granted without diminution of his Royal Authority was void thereupon the Queen Mother intermedled no more therein The Conclusion WHen all therefore which can be but pretended against Tenures in Capite and by Knight service shall be put together and said and done they will come to no more then this The general Assessements for men and Horses and necessaries for War whether men will or no are a service incumbent upon every mans estate though they bought and purchased their Lands the Knight service which is now complained of is but where their Lands were given them for that purpose and ex pacto voluntate by Agreement For it hath allwayes been accompted to be no less than reason that qui sentit commodum sentire debet et onus the Rose and the Prickle must goe together and he that hath the profit may be well contented to doe something for it especially when it is no more then what he did agree to doe and beleived it to be a favour And if they now take those Lands to be a burden may if they please give themselves an ease by retorning of them to those that gave it And should not be murmured at or complained of when as those that live near the Sea doe live under a Charge or Imposition which is annual and sometimes very great upon all And in Holland are commanded and ordered yearly by the Dijck Graven or Magistrates appointed for that purpose to repair and amend their Sea walles Or as it is also in England by Direction of Law and Commissions of Sewers and doe but in that though their Lands were dearly paid for and not freely given as those doe which hold their Lands by Knight service and defend themselves by defending others And it will ever be a Rule and Maxime in Loyalty as well as in Law and right Reason that by the Lawes of God Nature and Nations as well as of England there is and ought to be a natural Allegiance to the King that Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy doe enjoyn every Subject to defend his Prince and his just Rights and Jurisdictions And that the safety of every man in particular and his own discretion should advise him to it unless they will think it to be wisdome in the Citizens of Constantinople who in the Seige thereof would rather keep their money and riches for the Turks to plunder then help