to the King at Oxford to be treated upon by the Earl of Northumberland William Pierrepont Esq Sr. Wil. Armin Bulstrode Whitlock Esq their Commissioners There was nothing desired or proposed for the taking away of the Court of Wards or changing of Tenures but did conclude that if that which then was desired of the King should be granted the Royalty greatnes of his Throne would be supported by the loyal and bountyfull affections of his people their Liberties and Priviledges maintained by his Majesties protection and Justice They were no part of the Bills or Acts of Parliament sent to the King at Oxford in order to a peace in July 1648. No part of the Demands or Bills or Acts of Parliament proposed by the Parliament in the Treaty at Vxbridge betwixt them and the King 23 Novemb. 1644. And there was so litle of grievance or inconvenience or none at all to be found in Tenures in Capite and by Knight service by reason of any accidents for naturally or originally there can be none at all proved to be in them As notwithstanding the Vote of the House of Commons in Parliament made the 20 th day of September 1645. Which being less then an Embrio and no more then an opinion of the Major part of that House a recens assensio velleity desire or intention only which our Laws take no notice of was left to an after more mature deliberation when an Act of Parliament should be brought in upon it have gone through all its necessary requisites formalities and debates the Parliament it self were so litle resolved or beleiving any Grievance to be in them as the Lords and Commons by their Ordinance of the first day of November 1645. did ordain that the Master and Councel of that Court should proceed in all things belonging to the Jurisdiction of that Court according to Law And the House of Commons shortly after viz. the fourth day of November 1645. being informed that by reason of a Vote passed in that House the 20 th day of September 1645. that the Court of Wards should be taken away diverse Wardships Liveries Primer seisins and Mesne rates which theretofore fell and happened were not compounded for as they ought to be It was declared that all of them which have happened or shall fall or happen before the Court of Wards shall be put down by the Parliament shall be answered to the Common-wealth and the Master and Councel of that Court were required to proceed accordingly so as it extended not to any whose Auncestors being Officers or Souldiers have been slain or died in the service of the Parliament But the 24 th of February 1645. upon occasion of a debate concerning the Wardship of the Son of Sir Christopher Wray who dyed as they said in the service of the Parliament an Ordinance was brought in and made by the Lords and Commons for the taking away of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which saith one of their allowed Mercuries was first given to the Crown for defence of the Kingdom but the Parliament would take care for other supplies But that Ordinance notwithstanding was so little liked of as that without the giving satisfaction which they promised to the Nobility Gentry and Mesne Lords for the losse of their Tenures by Knight service and satisfaction to the most part of the Officers of the Court of Wards it was no more or not much thought of but lay from that time in a slumber untill the first of August 1647. when the mighty Mechanicques of the Army driven on by their ignorant and seditious Agitators who were but the Engines of Cromwell's lurking and horrid designs had by their Remonstrances like Wolves cloathed in Sheep-skins bleated and seemed to thirst only after godly and purified Reformations and Hewson the Cobler and Pride the Drâ—yman and others of the Colledge of their nâ—w â—apientia busying themselves in State as well as Parliament affairs and thombing the Scriptures and the English Translations of Livy and Plutarch at the wrong end thought every one of themselves to be no less than a Solon and Lycurgus admired Agrarian Laws and other old exploded grievances dreamed they were excellent Politiques and not knowing our good old Laws but suspecting them as well they might to be averse and no well-wishers to their ungodly and worse than Machiavillian devices did all they could to destroy them root and branch and at the same time when in their new-New-England Phrase they held forth a more than ordinary Care of the Kings Honour and Dignity and the freedom rights and interests of the seduced people proposed or commanded rather that the Ordinance for taking away the Court of Wards and Liveryes be confirmed by Act of Parliament provided his Majesties Revenues be not damnified therein nor those that held Offices in the same left without Reparation some other way Which howsoever it were to the remaining and small part of that Parliament who durst not say it but found themselves under a force which against many of their willâ— had undertaken to be their Guard and safekeeping a motive or spur enough to make them put that Vote and ordinance against the Court of Wards and Liveries inâ—o an Act as they would call it of Parliament after 10000 l. given paid to the Master of the Court of Wards for the loss of his place 5000 l. to Sr. Roland Wandesford Atturney General of that Court 6000 l. to Sr. Benjamin Rudiard Surveyer General 3500 l. to Charles Fleetwood late Governour of the destroying Committee of Safety for his supposed loss by the Receiver Generals place of that Court which he pretended he ought to enjoy by a Sequestration from Sr. Will. Fleetwood his Brother who was then attending his Master the King at Oxford and to Mr. Bacon 3000 l. for a pretended loss of his Office for the making and ingrossing of Licences or pardons for alienation all of them but Sir Roland Wandesford being Members of Parliament it did without any mention made or remedy provided for those only supposed Evils in Tenures in Capite and Chivalry in the Billsor intended Acts of Parliament which were sent to the King the 3 of March 1647. when he was at Holmby under a restraint fall asleep for many years after and left all other to expect their satisfaction upon the Parliaments promises and further proceedings And there was so little cause for putting that Sentence in execution against them in the judgment opinion of some of the most knowing sort of the Arraigners of antiquity and the actions of their more understanding fore-fathers as Mr. Nathaniel Bacon in his Historical discourses of the uniformity of the Government of England under the Britain Saxon Danish Norman and other Kings of this Isle until the reign of King E. 3. published in Anno 1647. and in his 2 part from King E. 2. until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth printed in Anno 1651. in a
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
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
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
have taken it for an addition of Honour and not any lessening to be knighted And had no cause at all to dislike such military Tenures which were not called vassalage as Common People may now mistake the word but from vassus or Cliens qui pro beneficio accepto fidem suam autori benificii obligat or from Gesell a German word which signifieth Socius or Commilito a fellow Souldier the name and profession reason and cause of it being so honourable and worthy Or to deem them to be burthens which were at the first intended and taken to be as gifts and favours which none of the sons of men who are Masters of any sense or reason do use to find fault with but may well allow them to be very far distant from Slavery when as Servitude is properly quum quod acquiritur servo acquiritur Domino when that which is gained or acquired by the servant is justly and properly the Lords and a freeman is contra-distinguished by quod acquirit sibi acquirit in that which he gaineth is his own or hath a property in it and that among the Southern Nations a more gentle and merciful bondage being paternd by that of Abraham and his successors the Patriarchs and allowed by the rules and government of God dura erat servitus Dominorum imperia gravia service or the condition of Servants was hard and the severity of Masters great who had potestatem vitae necis power of life and death over their Servants who having nothing which they could call their own but their misery were put to maintain their Masters out of their labours and enduring vilissima et miserrima ministeria all manner of Slaveries ab omni Militia arcebantur were not suffered to know or have the use of Arms apud Boreales tamen gentes justior suit semper servitus et clementior but amongst the Northern Nations there was a more just and gentle usage of their Servants for that they did devide their Lands Conquests amongst their Souldiers and Servants pactionibus interpositis inter Dominum et servientem de mutua Tutela upon certain agreements betwixt them for mutual defence Which made our English as well as other Nations abundantly contented with it as may appear by the acquiescence of them and the Normans under the Norman and next succeeding Kings and of Edward the Confessors Laws and other English customes retaining them the reckoning of it amongst their liberties fighting for them and adventuring their lives and all that they had at the making of Magna Charta and in the Barons wars wherein those great spirits as Mr. Robert Hill saith so impatient of tyranny did never so much as call in question that great and antient prerogative of their Kings or except against Tenures escuage releifs and other moderate and due incidents thereof The care taken in the Parliament of 52 H. 3. to prevent the deceiving of the Lords of their wardships by fraudulent conveyances or Leases of 18 E. 10. in the making of the statute of Quia emptores terrarum that the Feoffees or Purchasers of Lands holden of mesne Lords should hold by such services and Customes as rhe Feoffor did hold the Registring and Survey of Knights Fees by H. 2. H. 3. E. 1. E. 3. and H. 6. Escuage Aydes and Assessements in Parliament and the Marshals Rolls in time of War and necessity The esteem antiently held of the benefits and liberties accrewed by them insomuch as many have by leave of their Lords changed their Socage Tenures into Knights service and thought themselves enfranchised thereby The value put upon them by the Commons of England in the Parliament of 6. H. 4. when they petitioned the King in that Parliament that all Feoffements of Lands and Tenements holden by Knight service and done by Collusion expressed in the Statute of Marlbridge might upon proof thereof be utterly void The opinion of Chief Justice Fortescue in the raign of H. 6. in his Book de laudibus legum Angliae commending them as most necessary as well for the Common-wealth as for those and their Heirs who held their Land by such Tenures The retaining of it by the Germans who did as most of the Northern Nations saith Bodin libertatem spirare only busie themselves to gain and keep their liberty and from the time of their greatest freedom to rhis present and now also could never tell how to find any fault with them Their Princes Electors of the Empire and the Emperial Cities or Hanse townes who take thrmselves to be as free as their name of freedom or liberty doth import not at this day disdaining or repining at them the Switzers in their greatest thoughts of freedom taking their holding of the Empire in Capite to be no abatement of it The use of them by the antient Earles and Governours of Holland Zealand and West-freezland who having been very successful in their Wars without the use of Tenures in Capite or knights service but finding that ipsa virtus amara alioqui per se atque aspera praemiis excitanda videretur simul uti fisco ac Reipublicae consulerâ—tur saith Neostadius that the hardship of vertue needed to be sweetened with some rewards that the old custom of the Longobards in creating and reserving Tenures in Capite and by knights service would be not only a saving of Charges to their Treasury but a good and benefit to their Provinces or Common-wealth did create and erect such or the like Tenures And to this day by the Scotish Nation in a time and at the instant of their late obtaining if they could be thankful for them of all manner of liberties and freedom do sufficiently evince them to be as far from Slavery as they are always necessary Wherein if the primitive purpose and institution of Tenures in capite knight service and Socage be rightly considered every man may without any violence or Argument used to his reason or Judgment if self-conceitedness and obstinacy doe not choke or disturb his Intâ—lâ—â—ctuals Easily conclude whether if it were now 〈…〉 Choice he would not rather take Land by a Service or Condition only to go to warr with the King or his mesne Lord when Wars shall happen which in a Common course of accidents may happen but once or not at all in his life time then not tarry with him above forty days or less according to his proportion of Fee or Land holden to have escuage of his own Tenants if they shall refuse to go also in person with him and to have his heir if he chanced to die which in times of less Luxury happened not so often but once perhaps in three or four descents to be left in his minority to be better educated than he could have been in his life time married without disparagement and himself as well as his own Childrens estates protected Or accept of a Mannor freely granted him
shillings for a whole Knights Fee and after that rate proportionably ibm 35. If the Guardian maketh a Feoffement of the Wards Lands he shall have a Writ of Novel disseisin and upon recovery the Seisin shall be delivered to the next friend and the Guardian shall loose the Wardship 3. E. 1. ca. 47. Usurpation of a Church during the minority of the Heir shall not prejudice him 13 E. 1.5 Admeasurement of Dower shall be granted to a Guardian and the Heir shall not be barred by the suite of the Guardian if there be collusion 13 E. 1.7 Next Friends shall be permitted to sue if the Heir be â—loyned 13 E. 1.15 If part of the Lands be sold the services shall be apportioned Westmr. 3.2 Escheators shall commit no waste in Wards Lands 28 E. 1 18. If Lands without cause be seised by the Escheator the Issues and Mesne profits shall be restored 21 E. 1.19 where it is found by Inquest that Lands are not holden of the King the Escheator shall without delay return the possession Stat de Escheatoribus 29 E. 1. Escheators shall have sufficient in the places where they Minister to answer the King and his People if any shall complain 4 E 3.9.5 E. 3 4. Shall be chosen by the Chancelour Treasurer and chief Baron taking unto them the chief Justices of the one bench and the other if they be present and no Escheator shall tarry in his office above a year 14 E. 3.8 A Ward shall have an action of waste against his Guardian and Escheators shall make no waste in the Lands of the Kings wards 14 E. 3 13. Aid to make the Kings Son a Knight or to marry his Daughter shall be in no other manner then according to the Statute thereof formerly made 25 E. 3 11. Traverses of offices found before Escheators upon dyings seised or alienations without licence shall be tried in the Kings Bench 34 E. 3 14. An Escheator shall have no Pec of wood fish or venison out of the wards Lands 38 E. 3 13. An Idempnitate nominis shall be granted of another mans Lands seised by an Escheator 37 E 1.2 No Escheator shall be made unless he haue twenty pounds Land per annum or more in Fee and they shall execute their offices in proper person the Chancellor shall make Escheators without any Gift or Brokage and shall make them of the most lawful men and sufficient 12 R. 2.2 An Escheator or Commissioner shall take no Inquest but by such persons as shall be retorned by the Sheriff they shall retorn the offices found before them and the Lands shall be let to farm to him that tendereth a Traverse to the office 8 H. 6.16 Inquisitions shall be taken by Escheators in good Towns and open places and they shall not take above forty Shillings for finding an office under the penalty of forty pounds 23 H. 6 17. Women at the age of fourteen years at the time of the death of their Ancestors without question or difficulty shall have Livery of their Lands 39 H. 6.2 No office shall be retorned into any of the Kings Courts by any Escheator or Commissioner but which is found by a Jury and none to be an Escheator who hath not forty markes per annum above all reprises the Jurors to have Land of the yearly value of forty shillings within the Shire the Forman of the Jury shall keep the Counter part of the Inquisition and the Escheator must receive the Inquisition found by the Iury as also the offices or Inquisitions shall be received in the Chancery and Exchequer 1 H. 8 ca. 8. Lands shall be lâ—t to farme to him that offereth to traverse the office before the offices or Inquests retorned or within three Months after 1 H. 8 ca. 10. the respite of Homage of Lands not exceeding five pounds per Annum to be but eight pence the yearly value of Lands not exceeding twenty pounds per annum to be taken as it is found in the Inquisition except it by examination otherwise appear to the Master of the Wards Surveyer Atturney or Receiver General or three of them or that it shall otherwise appear and be declared in any of the Kings Courts No Escheator shall sit virtute officii where the Lands be five pounds per annum or above the Escheator shall take for finding of an office not exceeding five pounds per annum but six Shillings eight pence for his Fee and for the writing of the office three Shillings four pence for the charges of the Jury three Shillings and for the officers and Ministers of any Court that shall receive the same Record two shillings upon pain of five pounds to the Escheator for every time so offending the Master and Court shall have power to moderate any Fines or Recognisances 33 H 8.22 The Heir of Lands not exceeding five pounds per annum may sue his General Livery by warrant only out of the Court of wards although there be no Inquisition or office found or certified The Interest of every lesser Tenant for Term of years Copy-holder or other person having interest in any Lands found in any office or Inquisition shall be saved though they be not found by office The Heir upon an aetate probanda shall have an oustâ—e le maines and the profits of his Lands from the time that he comes to age and if any office be untruely found a Traverse shall be allowed or a Monstrans de Droit without being driven to any petition of right though the King be entitled by a double matter of Record A Traverse to an office shall be allowed where a wrong Tenure is found an ignoramus â—ound of a Tenure shall not be taken to be any Tenure in Capite and upon a Traverse a Scire facias shall be awarded against the Kings Patentee 2 and 3 E 6. ca. 8. And if there had been any certain or common grievances or so much as a likelyhood of any to have risen or happened by such Tenures and benefits which many were the better for and had no reason at all to find fault with w ch many more were striving to deserve of the Kings of England the Nobility great men of this Kingdom the Parliaments that have been ever since the 8 th year of the reign of H. 3. would not have made so many Acts of Parliament for their establishment or tending to their preservation if we should believe as it cannot be well denyed that Parliaments have been sometimes mistaken and enacted that which they have afterwards thought fit to repeal Yet it comes not within the virge or compass of any probability that Parliaments where all grievances are most commonly represented should for almost four hundred years together in a succession of many Kings Parliaments enact or continue grievances instead of remedies neither find those Tenures to be inconvenient or not fit to be continued or so much as complain of them but as if they were blessings of a
ages in the Managing Collecting and Improveing of the Kings Revenue in England whether certain or casual The strict Inquiries Orders and the care of every thing which might make a profit or prevent a damage which made some of the Kings of England to be so litle wanting money as King Canutus as the Abby Book of Ramsey hath recorded it was able out of his Hanaper or travailing Trunk when he lodged at Vassington in Northamptonshire to lend the Bishop Etheruus who sâ—bita pulsus occasione had a great occasion to use it good store of money And that in William the Conquerours time and in the height of his plenty and prosperity no repairs of Castles and Houses were made but upon accompt by Oath Inquiries were made by some of the succeeding Kings and their Officers after windfalen trees a few trees were not given nor Cheverons nor Rafters allowed towards the repairing of a Grange or Farm without the warrant of the great Seal of England Judges commanded to look to the Fines imposed in the Eyreâ— or Circuits and in all the Eyres Circuits a Clark who kept particular Rolles or Duplicates of the Judges Rolles or Records of their Proceedings was for the King especially appointed and attended and as smal a sum as 2 d. accompted for a Deodand Nor was any thing as far as Humane vigilance Industry or Providence might foresee prevent or remedy suffered to be done or continue that might endammage or lessen the Royal Revenue which King Henry the 3 d. could so watch over as the Court of Exchequer hath sometimes seen him there sitting and taking his own accompts Which kinds of wariness and care have been so much disused or neglected by many of his Successors as though by time and the course thereof the alteration of the value of mony Coyne from twenty pence the ounce to five shillings a peny the ounce of Silver the prizes rates of Provision and Commodities to be bought with it almost yearly raised and inhaunced and the more chargeable way of living which followed thereupon might have put them in mind to have given lesse or demanded more for what was justly their own when as in the 14 th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3 d. 40 shillings per diem was thought by the King and his Councel to be a royal and sufficient expence for Edward Baliol King of Scots his train whilst he tarried at London and 6 s. per diem when he travailed And in the reign of King H. 6. Medow-ground in Leicestershire was valued but at eight pence an Acre and that as appears by a Remonstrance made in Parliament in or about the 11 th year of the reign of that King who was King in possession of France as well as of England now not above 227 years agoe he did right worshipfully as the Record saith maintain the charge of his houshold with sixteen thousand pounds Sterling per annum and could not then defray it with less than Twenty four thousand pounds per annum which now cannot well be done under ten times as much when an Annuity or Pension of ten pounds or twenty marks per annum which was then sufficient for the Kings better sort of Servants is now scarce enough for a Foot-man and the most ordinary sort of inferior Servants Did notwithstanding not lessen their bounty or raise the Rents or Rates of their Revenues but permitted their Escheators in matters of Tenures and Wardships to adhere unto their former courses and find the value of the Lands in their Offices or Inquisitions at the old or small yearly values the rule which the Escheators took for the finding of the values of the Lands upon Inquisitions being at the highest but the tenth part of the true yearly value which was the guide also for the rate of the primer seisins where they were to be taken as much lower as the unwarrantable kindness of too many of those which were trusted and should have looked better unto it could perswade them The Feodaries also upon their Surveys seldom raising the yearly value to more than about a third part of such a gentle value as he should be entreated to adde to that which the Jurors and Escheators had friendly found it So as somtimes a Mannor of above one hundred pounds per annum was found but at thirteen shillings four pence per annum and other times if mingled with other lands of a great yearly value at no more than forty shillings per annum And no longer agoe than in the reign of King Chaâ—les the first above one thousand poundâ— per annum hath been found to be but of the yearly vaâ—ue of twenty Marks And an Estate consisting of very few Mannors and as few Coppyholders but most in Fâ—rms and demâ—snes upon an improved and almost racked Rent worth six thousand pounds per annum found at no greater yearly value than one hundred eighty three pounds eleven shillings which is lesse than the thirtieth parâ— â—hough the Escheators with Knights and Gentlemen and sometimes men of greater mark and quality were Commissioners the Jurors made up somtimes of Gentlemen and most commonly of substantial Freeholders and all of them such as might better have understood an Oath who takeing an ill custom to be warrant enough for a bad Conscience did when they were by the Writ to enquire upon their Oaths de vero Annuo valore of the true yearly value of the Lands thâ—nk that they did honestly and well enough to find it at a very small or low yearly value because they were sure it was weâ—l worth so much Neither were the paymâ—nts o◠〈◊〉 of Homage so troublesom as to make a complaint of when as by an Order made in 13 Eliz. by virtue of her privy Seal by the Lord Burghley Lord Treasurer and the Chancellour and Barons of the Exchecquer which the Lords and Commons of England in primo Jacobi did pray and procure to be enacted by Parliament It was after such an easy and old fashioned rate or value of the Lands as it was but in every fifth Term to be paid in the Exchecquer by a rate and apportionment and might have been saved by an actual doing of Homage as was antiently used to be done upon their Livery and first coming to their Lands and their respit of Homage and howsoever may as well be taken to be a favour as they do of their mesne Lords or one to another in paying three shillings four pence per annum as a quit Rent for respit of suit of Court And that it was therein and thereupon also enacted that no processe ad faciendum Homagium or fidelitatem scire facias Capias or distresse should issue out of the Exchequer but upon a good ground And that the Clerks of the Treasurers Remembrancer in the Exchequer shall pay all issues that any shall loose after he hath paid ordinary Fine for respite of Homage
vel quibuscunque illatis a multis retroactis temporibus et omnia inquisita sub sigillis suis inclusa secum coram Baronagio ad tempus sibi per breve praefixum Four Knights men of known worth and wisdom loving and beloved of their Countryes to enquire what grievances or oppressions the smaller sort of people suffered by the greater and also of all injuries and â—â—ongs done by any person whatsoever either lately or formerly and to certifie it under their Seals to the Barronage which what ever they were or if ever or never recorded for they have not for ought appears been certified or recorded no Record or Historian of that or the after times have said that Tenures in Capite and by Knights service were thereupon retorned to be oppressive or so much as inconvenient Neither are to be found amongst any of those huge heaps of evils which Mathew Paris that sower and honest Monk of St. Albons who lived in those times and especially remarked them hath delivered to posterity The 24 Reformers or Conservators of the Kingdom in that Kings Reign appointed by the Baronage never intimated any thing of their dislike of that honourable institution It was not complained of upon the refusal of Roger Bigod Earl of Norfolk Marshall of England Humphry Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Glocester and Hertford great and mighty men and of Princely Estates to go at the Command of King E. 1. unto his Wars at Gascony upon pretence that the warning was to short whereby the Kings displeasure was so much incurred aâ— Bohun and Clare to escape the Seisure and forfeiture of their Lands and to purchase his favour again were glad each of them to marry one of his Daughters without any Dowry and surrender their Earldoms Honors Offices and Lands unto him take back Estates thereof in Tayle to them and the Heirs of their Bodies upon their wives to be severally begotten and Bigot surrendring also to him his Earledom and Marshals rod together with all his Lands and taking Back a grant of an Estate for life in his honors and Lands the reversion to the King if he should not have any Issue of his Body begotten the King in Parliament pardoned them and John de Ferrariâ—s and other Earls Barons Knights and Esquires and all other of their fellowship confederacy and Bond and all that held twenty pounds Land Per annum whether in chief of the King or other that were appointed at a certain day to pass over with him into Flanders their rancour and evil will and all other offences committed against him Were not in the Roll of general grievances which the Arch-Bishops Bishops Eaâ—ls Barons and Commons sent him when he was at the Sea side ready to take shipping into Gascoigne concerning his Taxes and other impositions Neither any vestigia or footsteps to be found of any grievance by them in that grand search or inquiry by the Commissions of Traile Baston in or about the 33 of E. 3. after intruders into other mens Lands exactions and oppressions or in the presentments in the Eyres when the Justices thereof in several Kings reigns carefully travailed into the several Counties and places of England and found out and returned the complaints and oppressions of every County and where the Natives themselves the witnesses cannot be supposed to be so much their own enemies as to conceal the Countries oppressions the Jurors were solemnly charged to present them upon their Oaths and if they should omit to do it had the malice of their Neighbours to watch accuse their Perjuries and the severity of the Judges to punish any failings in their duty Or in the Reformation which the Lords Ordainers as they were afterwards called in or about the fifth year of the Raign of King E. 2. pretended to make in that unadvised Commission which he granted them for the Government of the Kingdome No pretence or so much as a murmur against them by the Reformers in Wat Tylers and Jack Straws commotion when they were so willing to overthrow and extirpate all the Nobility and Gentry which should withstand their rude and unruly designs of making all Bondmen free and taking away Villenage and of making Wat Tyler and several other of their party Kings in several Counties and to devise what Laws they listed Or by Jack Cade or Captain Mend-all as he falsely stiled himself when many a grievance was picked up to colour his Rebellion in the reign of King H. 6. but could find nothing of that for a garnish of his Roguery Or Robert Ket the Tanner in the reign of King E. 6. sitting in judgment amongst the Rabble under his tree as they called it of Reformation where Tenures and Wardships being so obvious and every where insisted upon they would not probably have omitted them out of the Roll or list of their complaints if there could have been but a supposition or dream of any grievance in them which being the more noble beneficial and better sort of Tenures may better deserve an approbation of the People and Parliaments of England than Tenures in Villenage which by an Act of Parliament in 25 E. 3.18 may be pleaded and a Villain seized though a libertate probaâ—dâ— be depending And it was enacted in the Parliament of 9 R. 2.2 that if Villaines fled into places infranchised and sued their Lords their Lords should not be barred thereby and by an Act Parliament in 8 H. 6.11 that a Villain should not be admitted or put to be an Apprentice in the City of London and by an Act of Parliament in 19. H. 7.15 If any Bond-man purchase Lands and convey away the Lands the Bond-man being â—estui que use of thâ—se Lands they shall be seised by the Lord. Nor did the Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. which provided that none should be constrained to find men of Armes Hâ—blers nor Archers but by common assent and grant made in Parliament mistake when it inserted a saving and exception of all those that held by such services Neither did the Commons in the Parliament of 5 R. 2. upon the Repeal in Parliament of the Manumissions of Bond-men extorted from the King by Wat Tyler and his Rout or men of Reformation think they did themselves or those they represented any hurt when they cryed with one voyce that the Repeal was good and that at their request the Repeal was by whole assent confirmed Tenures in Capite and by Knights service were not complained of in the Parliament of 13 R. 2. though the Commons in Parliament had prayed and were allowed that euery man might complain of the oppression of what person or Estate soever without incurring the pain of the Statute of Gloucester which under great penalties prohibited false Newes and Lies of the Nobility and great men of the Realm Chancellor Treasurer Justices of both Benches and other great
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
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
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
tenendi Parliamentum so beleived to be true that King John caused it when he sent our English Laws into Ireland to be exemplified and sent thither under the Great Seal of England it is said that every Earldom consisteth of 21 Knights Fees and every Barony of 13 Knights Fees and a third part of a Knights Fee and were of such a value and esteem as they were wont heretofore to bring Actions and Assizes for them and their Homage and Services And so litle lesse in France as the wealth of that great and populous Kingdom is not as may be rationally supposed enough to purchase of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom the transmutation of their Fiefs nobles into the Roturier or Feifs ignobles nor are the Princes or Nobility of Germany likely to be perswaded out of their antient Rights and Tenures into that of the Boors or common sort of People The Nobility and Gentry of England when their Military Tenures and Dependencies shall be taken from them will not upon necessities of War and Danger according to the Tenures of their Lands their Homages and Oaths of Allegiance and their natural and legal Allegiance be able to succour or heâ—p their Prince and Father of their Country their Defender and Common Parent as they have heretofore done when as they stoutly and valiantly helped to guard their Standard and Lions but for want of those which held Lands of them and the Tenures by Knight service will be forced to abide with Gilead beyond Jordan and not be able to imitate their noble Ancestors nor each or any of them bring to his Service three Bannerets sixty one Knights and one hundred fifty four Archers on Horseback as Thomas de Bello campo Earl of Warwick did to E. 3. in anno 21. of his Raign at the Seige of Caleis or as the Earl of Kildare did to King E. 3. in the 25 th year of his Raign when he besieged Calice when he brought one Banneret six Knights thirty Esquires nineteen Hoblers twenty four Archers on Horseback and thirty two Archers on foot It will take away the subjection of the Bishop of the Isle of Man who holdeth of the Earl of Derby as King of the Isle of Man and not of the King of England and therefore cometh not to Parliament Take away from the King Nobility and Gentry who have Lands holden by Knight service all Escheats of such as die without Heirs or forfeit or be convicted of Felony and the Kings Annum diem vastum year day and wast where the Lands are holden of Mesne Lords the Escheats of those that held of Kings imediately being so considerable as the Castle of Barnard in Cumberland and the Counties of Northumberland and Huntington which the Kings of Scotland sometimes held of England came again to the Crown by them and the power which King Edward 1. had to make Baliol King of Scots and to determine the competition for that Kingdom was by reason it was held of him the Earldoms of Flanders and Artois were seised by Francis the 1. as forfeited being Fiefs of the Crown of France Flanders and many other Provinces forced to submit themselves upon some controversies to the Umpirage of France of whom they held Enervate at least if not spoil our original first Magna Charta which was grante by H. 3. tenendum de se heredibus suis and all our Liberties and the many after confirmations of that Magna Charta will be to seek for a support if it shall be turned into Socage the Libâ—rties also of the City of London all other antient Cities and Boroughs and such as antiently and before 9 H. 3. did use to send Burgesses unto Parliament Alter if not destroy the Charter of K. R. 1. granted to the City of London for their Hustings Court to be free of Toll Lastage through all England and all Sea-Ports with many other Priviledges which were granted to be held of the King and his Heirs and the same with many other immunities granted confirmed by King John with a Tenure reserved to him and his Heirs for where no Tenure is reserved nor expressed though it should be said absque aliquo inde reddendo it shall be intended for the King and the Law will create a new Tenure by Knight service in Capite A Socage Tenure for Cities and Boroughs which have no Ploughs or intermedle not with Husbandry will be improper when as there is not any fictio juris or supposition â—in Law which doth not sequi rationem so follow reason or allude unto it as to preserve the reason or cause which it either doth or would signify but doth not suppose things improper or which are either Heterogeneous or quite contrary Put into fresh disputes the question of precedency betwixt Spain England which being much insisted upon by the Spaniard at the treaty of peace betwixt the two Kingdoms in anno 42. of Q. Eliz. at Calice occasioned by the contests of the Embassadour of Spain and Sir Henry Nevil Embassadour for England it was argued or adjudged that England besides the arguments urged on its behalf viz. Antiquity of Christian Religion more authority Ecclesiastical more absolute authority Political eminency of royal dignity and Nobility of blood ought to have precedency in regard that it was Superiour to the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland and the Isle of Man which held of iâ— that Spain had no Kingdom held in Fee of it but was it self Feudatory to France and inthral'd by oath of Subjection to Charles the fifth King of France in anno 1369. holds a great part of the Netherlands of France Arragon both the Indies Sicily Granado and Navarre Sardinia Corsica and the Canary Islands of the Pope Portugal payeth an annual Tribute to him and Naples yearly presents him with a white Spanish Genner and a certain Tribute Lessen and take away the honour of the King in having the principality of Wales Kingdom of Ireland Isle of Man Isles of Wight Gernesey and Jersey holding of England as their Superiour in Capite Enervate or ruine the Counties Palatine of Chester Lancaster Durham and Isle of Ely if the Tenures should be Levelled into Socage Very much damnifie all the Nobility and Gentry of England who hold as they have antiently divers Mannors and Lands or Offices by grand Serjeanty as for the Earls of Chester which belongeth to the Princes of Wales and the eldest Son of the King to carry before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Curtana to be Earl Marshal of England and to lead the Kings Host to be Lord great Chamberlain of England which is claimed by the Earl of Oxford to carry the Sword called Lancaster before the King at his Coronation due to the Earl of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man to be grand Faulconner or Master of the Hawks claimed by the Earl of Carnarvon and the Kings Champion at his Coronation claimed
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
worthily reckoned to be honoris species exercitium nobile proprium nobilium a degree or part of honor a noble exercise and proper breeding for Nobility hinc militum nomen in Jure feudali pro nobili usurpatur and thence a Knight was in the feudal Laws taken and used for a Nobleman and though Hector Boethius calleth equites Barons speaking of those that paid for Wardship and releifs to Malcolme the King of Scots yet Sir Henry Spelman is cleerly of opinion that Miles quem ea tempestate Baronem vocabant non a militari cingulo quo equites creabantur sed a militari feudo quo alâ—â—s possessor libere tenens nuncupatus est nomen sumpsit that a Knight which in those â—imes they called a Baron was not so called from the Military Belt or Girdle by which they were created but took his title or denomination from the Knights Fee of which he was otherwise caâ—led Possessor or free Tenant had jus Annulorum amongst the Romans a right to wear Rings and was gradus ad Senatorium a step or means to be a Senator For Nobilium Ordo pro seminario munerum praecipuorum habetur quia liberaliter educati sapientiores esse censentur saith Besoldus the degree of Nobilitie hath been accompted to be the foundation or original of the greatest Offices or places for that being liberally and more then ordinaryly educated they were judged to be the wisest and therefore Comites or Earls being antiently in the reign of the Emperour Charlemain which was in anno Christi 806. if not long before praefecti Provinciarum qui Provincias Administrabant the Governours of Countries and Provinces under their Emperours and Kings were with Dukes also and Barons not only in France in those times but in Germany also afterwards inserted or put into the Matricula or Roll of the States of the Empire in Comitijs jus suffragij habuerunt and had voice or judicature in their Dyets or greatest Assemblies which corresponds with that more antient Custom amongst the Hebrewes in Gods once peculiar Commonwealth where the Princes of the twelve Tribes summo Magistratui in consilijs assidebant did assist the chief Magistrate in their great Counsels and Arumaeus as well as many other is of opinion that it was libertatis pars a great part of the peoples Liberties foâ— their good that deliberatio oâ—dinum consiliâ— authoritate quorum periculo res agitur suscipitur qui apud Principem in mâ—gna gâ—â—cia suâ—â— in those great Counsels Resolves should be made by those who should be inâ—â—ressed or pertakers in any dangers or misfortunes which should happen thereupon jure Comitiorum una perpetua privativa est mediata subjectio qua qui infectus est nec Comitiorum particeps esse potest That it is a Rule or Law in such Assemblies that those that sit there or have voice and suffrage in it are to hold immediately of the Empire and the Reasons of the first Institution of the Parliament of France composed of the Nobility by the antient Kings of France and King Pepin was as Pasquier that learned Advocate of France observeth in partem solicitudinis to assist their Kings for the better management of the Affairs of Government who did thereby communicate les Affaires publiques a leurs premiers et grandes seigneurs come si avec la monarchie ils eussent voulu entre mesler l'ordre d'vne Aristocratie et Governement de plusiâ—urs personnages d'honneâ—r the publique affairs to their chief and greatest Lords to the end to intermingle and blend with Monarchy the order and manner of an Aristocratie and Government by many personages of Honour et ne se mettre en hain des grandâ—s Seigneurs Potentats and not to draw upon them the envy of their great and mighty men Et â—estans les grands Seigneurs â—insi loâ—s unis se composa un corps general de toutes les Princes et Governeurs par l' advis desquels se viudereient non seulement les differents qui se presenteroient entre le Roy et eux mais entre le Roy et ses Subjects And the great Lords being so united composed and made one general body of all the princes and Governours of Provinces by whose advice and council not only the differences which should happen betwixt the King and them but between the King and his Subjects might be determined Et estoit l' usance de nos anciens Roys telle qu' es lieux ou la necessite les sumomioit se uvidojent ordinairement les affaires par assemblees generales des Barons and it was the usage of the antient French Kings in all cases of necessity most commonly to consult of their affairs in the general Assemblies of their Barons and accordingly by the directions of reason or of that and the more antient Governments amongst the Greekes in their great Council of Amphiction or of the Romans in their Senate our Saxon Kings did in Anno 712. which was almost one hundred years before the raign of the Emperour Charlemâ—in call to their Assemblies and great Councels for the enacting of Laws and redressing of Griveances their regni Scientissimos et Aldermannos Aldermen Earls or Governours of Provinces the wisest most knowing of the Kingdome thereâ—ore after the Conquest King John did at the request of the Barons not to call to his Parliaments the Barones minores the men of lesser estates which hoâ—d also in Capite promise under his great Seal Ut Archiepiscopos Abbares Comites et majores Barones Angliae sigillatem per literas summoniri faceret that he would severally summon to Parliaments the Arch-Bishops Abbotts Earls and greater Barons of England and that the lesser Barons were summoned or sat in Parliament falsum esse ipsa ratio suadet saith the no less Judicious than Learned Sr. Henry Spelman reason it self will not allow for a Truth when as there was as he observeth ingens multitudo a great number et plus minus 30000 quos nullo tecto convocari poterat and no less then 30000 which no one house was able to contain Quemadmodum itaque saith he nequâ— Barones ipsi consiliavè majores neque minores quempiam in Curiis suis ad Judicia ferenda de rebus sui Dominij admittant nisi Vassallos suos qui de ipsis immediate tenent hoc est milites suos et tenentes libere ita in summa Curia totius Regni nulli olim ad Judicia et Consilia administranda personaliter accersendi erant· nisi qui proximi essent a Rege ipsique arctioris fidei homagii vinculo conjuncti hoc est immediate vassalli sui As therefore neither the greater nor lesser Barons do admit any in their Courts to advise them or meddle with matters of Judicature concerning things belonging to their Estate or Jurisdiction but their Tenants and such as hold immediately of
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
Coppy-holder of that Mannor and those Patent Lords doe by their Patents hold their Honor and Dignities in Capite though it be not expressed in their Paâ—ents and should pay as great a Releif as the other Earls and Barons doe by Tenure for no man can sit there but as a Tenant in Capite and acknowledging his Soveraign unless a Coordination should be supposed and that dangerous Doctrine again incouraged nor can these by Creation sit if the House should be dissolved by the change of the others Tenures for that they were but Adjuncts and Associates of them Which was so well understood by Sir Edw. Coke to be a shaking if not an over-turning of the foundation of that high and most honourable Court or Judicatorie as in the Parliament of the 18 â—h year of King James in the proposition which was then on foot to change the Tenures in Capite and by Knight service into free and common Socage he and some of the old Parliament men advised a Proviso to be inserted in that intended Act of Parliament that the Bishops notwithstanding that their Baronies should be holden in Socage should continue Lords of Parliament and in our late times in that great inundation of mistaken Liberty when the outrage of the vulgar and common people greedily pursued the dictates of their ignorance and fancie and that after the House of Lords had been shut up and voted to be uselesse and dangerous the persons of the Barons of England which the Law and the reasonable and antient as well as modern Customes of England did never allow to be arrested were arrested and haled to Prison In the seeking a remedy wherof some of the Baronage pleading their Priviledge it was in Easter Term 1650. in the Kings or upper Bench in the argument of the Countess of Rivers Case argued and urged that all Tenures as well as the House of Lords were taken away so that the Court holding that the Priviledge was not allowable for that she never had reference to the Parliament or to do any publique service the Cause was adjourned Wherefore seeing that the custom of a Court is the Law of a Court and the interrupton of a Custom Prescription or Franchise very dangerous and Cessante causa tollitur effectus the cause or foundation taken away the effect or building faileth that a Lord of a Mannor is not able to create a Mannor or make a Lease-holder or Tenant of one Mannor to enjoy the same priviledges which he did formerly be incorporate a Tenant in another Mannor a House with a Common Appendent or which was before belonging unto it once pulled down though built up again looseth its Common and Prescription or if a Coppy-hold estate come to the Lord by Forfeiture Escheat or otherwise if he make a Lease or otherwise it is no more grantable by Copy of Court Roll or make a Feoffment upon condition and after enter for the Condition broken it shall not be regranted by Copy And if a man hath libertyes by Prescription take letters Patents of them the matter of the Record drowns or takes away the prescription as was held in 33 H. 8. tit precription Br. 102. c. Or if as in the Acts of Parliament for the dissolution of the Monasteries the King shall be before the Tenures be ordained to be in free and common Soccage made or derived to be in the actual Seâ—sin and Possession of all the Lands There will be cause and reason enough to make a stand or a pause and inquire further into it For if the subversion of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service will not totally or at once ruine and dissolve the House of Peers in Parliament or put upon it a new constitution it will not be good certainly to leave that House and most high and Honourable Court and all its just Rights and Privileges which hath already so much suffered by the Assaults and Batteries of Faction and vulgar Frenzies to an after question of moote point whether or no it be not dissolved or put upon a new Foundation And must needs be very dangerous when as one of the three Estates under the King which is Supream and not Coordinate viz. the Bishops and Lords Spiritual being lopt off the second which is the Lords Temporal shall be but either suspected or doubted to have a being and the third which is the House of Commons shall upâ—â— the next advantage or distemper of that paâ—â—y which lately gained so much by â— supposing it to be the Soveraign bâ—â—ancied â—o be above both it and the King who as the head is above them both and too much gratifie that late illegal and unwaâ—rentable opinion and practice of the Soveraignty of the House of Commons in Parliament or that they alone are the Parliament of England Destroy the hopes and rights of the Bishops being the third Estate in Parliament of ever being restored or admitted again into it from which after a force and a protestaâ—ion solemnly made against it twelve of them imprisoned for making of it they were by an Act of Parliament in an 17. Car. Regis primi prohibiting them as well as all other Clergy men to intermeddle in any temporal affairs or proceedings excluded the House had all their Estates afterwards by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons without being cited or heard and without the Kings consent and after his going from the Parliament and in the midst of a War and Hostilities betwixt them confiscated and taken from them by the taking away of Tenures per Baroniam being the only cause and reason of their sitting there and constituting them a third Estate will now after his Majesties happy restoration when the waves and rage of the people are so calmed and ceased as the Halcyon is preparing to build her nest be more then ever made to be altogether impossible Hinder and restrain our Princes from recovery of Foreign Rights a necessary inlarging their Dominions making an offensive War or pursuing a flying or like to be recruited Enemy which in keeping a Kingdom in peace and plenty or maintaining the Commerce thereof will be according to the rules of policy and good Government as necessary as that of Davids revenging upon the Ammonites the affronts done to his Embassadors the Wars of our Edward the third or H. 5. in France of the great Gustavus King of Sweden in Germany or the now King of Denmarks and Marquesse of Brandenburghes Wars upon Charles late King of Sweden And when any of those occasions or necessities shall offer themselves or inforce a forinsecum serviciuâ— or service in foreign wars shall have none but Auxiliaries Hirelings to go along with them when as several Acts of Parliament do prohibit the enforcing Hoblers which were a kind of light horsemen Archers Trained Bands and common Souldiers to go out of their Countries unlesse it be in cases of necessity which the common people know not
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
Seisins and Liveries and all other incidents belonging to the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service be reserved and continued to the King and Mesne Lords and the Mariages of the Wards be put to a just apportionment and rate not to boxing or bidding with every pretender or such as shall be procured on purpose and was thought by the Sons of Rapine to be a parcel of godliness according to two years present value of the Estate and a moderate Rate or Rent for the Lands And if that they do not like to sue or be sued in that Court may do it either in the Exchequer or Chancery and try which of those Courts they shall like the better There being no Reason to be shown why Wardships Rents and Marriage Money should not be paid as quietly or without the Noise or Clamour of Oppressioon by some orderly Course to be taken in the collecting of it as the first Fruits of Arch-bishoppricks Bishoppricks and all the Clergyes Benefices which was at first derived from the Popes Usurpations and afterwards setled in the Crown or as the Tenths of all the Monasteryes and Religious Lands which by Act of Parliament were setled in the Crown for the Support and Maintenance thereof And now all the Lines are come in and meet in one Center we may aske the Days that are past and demand of the Sons of Novelty how it should happen or where the Invisible Cause or Reason lurketh that a People at least too many of them not long agoe covenanting whether his late Majesty would or no to preserve his Honor Rights and Iurisdâ—ctions and calling God to witness that they had no Intention to diminish them should presse or perswade the King to part with the vitals of his Regalitie or let out the blood thereof to take in water instead of it which that learned John Earl of Bristol who in his many Travails and Embassies to forrein Princes had observed the several Strengths Policyes and defects of Governments of all the Kings and Princes of Christendom could think no otherwise of that high and just Prerogative of Kings then that to discharge the Tenures in Capite would be consequently to discharge them of their Service to the Crown When as their can be neither Cause nor Reason to make any such Demands and that all the Lords of Mannors in England who may already find the Inconveniences of making too many small sized Freeholders and I wish the Kingdom may not feel it in the Elections of Parliament men and Knights of the Shire as well as it doth already by the Faction and Ignorance of such as choose Burgesses in Towns and Corporations who many times choose without eyes ears or understanding would not be well content to have the many perplexed and tedious Suits at Law betwixt them and their troublesome Tenants about Customs and Fines incertain which in every year do vex and trouble the Courts in Westminster Hall or that which the late feavorish Fancies of some would call Norman Slaveryes should be either a Cause that they must be forced or over intreated to part with their Copy-hold Estates Herryots Fines for Alienations and all other Incidents thereunto belonging or that it would be a good Bargain to have no Compensation or Recompence at all for them or no more than after the Rate of what might Communibus Annis one year with another be made of them Whenas to have the intended Recompence for the Court of Wards paid as is now proposed by a part of the Excise or Curses of the People or to have the poor bear the burden of the rich or those to bear the Burden of it which are not at all concerned in any such purchase or Alteration and will be an Act which can have no more Justice or Equity in it then that the payment of First-Fruits which is merely Ecclesiastical should be distributed and charged for ever upon the Layety and the other part of the People as well as the Clergy That the Tenths which the Layety and some of the Clergy do now contentedly pay should be communicated and laid upon all the Kingdom in general in a perpetuity That the draining or maintaining the Banks and Sluces and Misfortunes many times of the Fenns in Lincolnshire and other particular Places should be charged upon the Estaâ—es of all the men in England that could not be concerned either in profit losse or Dâ—nger Or that in the enclosing of Commons or in Deafforrestations the Commoners should have their Compensation paid by all men in City Town and Country for that which was not 〈…〉 nor was ever like to be any Gain or Aâ—vaâ—tage to them Or that the losses of Merchants by Shipwâ—acks Pirates or letters of Reprisal should be repaired and born by all the rest of the people that went no partnership or gain with them Or which way the people of England should think it to be for their good or safety that as it was in the dayes of Saul there should not be a Sword or Spear in Israel that the Lords of England whose great Auncestors helped to maintain all our Liberties being in Parliament in the 20 th year of King H. 3. pressed by the Bishops to Enact that Children born before Matrimony when their Parents after married should be legitimate answered Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae we will not change the Lawes of England should not take the overturning so many of the Fundamental Lawes and Liberties of the Kingdome to be the ruine or destruction of it to be of a greater concernment And that the King will not think it to be a most Christian as well as an Heroick answer of John King of France when he was a Prisoner in England to our King E. 3. and was denied his Liberty unless he would amongst other things doe Homage for the Realm of France and acknowledge to hold it of England That he must not speak to him of that which he neither ought nor would doe to Alienate a Right Inalienable that he was resolved at what price soever to leave it to his Children as he had received it from his Auncestors that affliction might well ingage his person but not the inviolable right of the Crown where he had the honour to be born over which neither Prison nor Death had any power and especially in him who should hold his life well employed sacrificing it for the Immortal preservation of France And that the people of England should not rather imitate the wisdome as well as goodness of the Elders of Israel when as Benhadad not content with Ahabs Homage had demanded unreasonable things of him Say unto the King hearken not unto him nor consent But remember that it was their fore-Fathers which in a Parliament of King E. 3. holden in the 42 th year of his raign declared that they could not assent to any thing in Parliament that tended to the disherison of the King and his Crown to which they were sworn
them into Tenures in Socage That by the Civil Law that universal and great Rule of Reason Imperatoriam Majestatem non solum armis decoratam sed etiam legibus oportet esse Armatam ut utrumque Tempus et Bellâ—rum et pacis recte possit gubernari The Imperial Majesty or Power ought not only to be adorned strengthened with Armes the power thereof but with Lawes to the end that as well in time of War as Peace he may rightly govern And that therefore we may well tremble and shake at the name of Innovations and desiring to find the way again into the old Paths of Peace Plenty and Security Have cause enough to say as the learned Grotius did concerning Holland only changing the word Respublica into a better of a Kingdom that multum debemâ—s majoribus nostris qui acceptam a primis conditoribus Rempublicam per se egregiam nostro vero ingenio nostrisque studiis aptissimam pace servatam bello recuperatam nobis reliquere we owe much to our Ancestors who having received the Common-wealth which is excellent in it self and fited to our Customes and manners from those which first founded it and left us to enjoy in peace what they had recovered in War nostrum est si nec ingrati nec imprudentes esse volumus Rempublicam constanter tueri quam ratio suadet probant experimenta commendat Antiquitas And if we would not be ingratefull or unjust wee ought to defend that Kingdome and Government which Reason perswadeth us unto Experiments approve Antiquity commendeth Collapsa ruent subductis tecta columnis FINIS Hollands Case in Cokeâ— 4 Reports Fortescue de laudibus Legum Anglâ—ae (a) Genes 21.23 (b) Hooker Ecclesiastic Polit. lib. 1. (c) Gellius lib. 1. cap. 13. (d) Budâ—us in Annotat. ad Pandect (e) Oldendorpius (f) Oldendorpius (g) Craig de Feudis (h) Cujacius de seudis lib. 1. (i) Gerardus Niger in Cujacio lib. de feudis (i) Craig de origine fâ—udorâ—m dâ—eg 4. (k) Câ—ke 1. parte Instâ—t so 1. b. (l) Spelmans gloss p. â—58 (m) Selden tit Hon. p. 692 693. (n) Spelman gloss (o) LL. Ed. Confessor cap. 35. (p) Lambert fo â—35 (q) Spelman gloss in verbo fidelitatis (r) Bodin cap. 7. (s) Besoldus discurs Polit. p. 74 Spelman gloss p. 254 256. Alber. Gentilis p. 696. (t) Mat. Paris 100. (u) Bartoâ—uâ— de testibus (w) Sr. John Ferâ—e glory of generosity 78. (x) Selden tit â—on 783.784 roâ— Magâ— H. 2. 39 E. 3 Bracton Chap. de appell de mayhems (y) Selden tit hon ca. 5.784 (z) M. S. Mr. Rob. Hill concerning Tenures (a) 52 H. 3. Stat. Marlâ—bridge (b) 18 E. 1. Quia emptores c. (c) Somner de Gavelkind 60. (d) Rot. Parl. 6 H. 4. (e) Fortescue de laudibus legum Angliae ca. 44. Cornel Neosâ—ad de Feudi juris scripti Hollandici West Frisicique successione ca. 2.4 et 5. (h) Rot. Parl. 1 R. 2 n. 16. (i) Rot. Parl. 9 H. 4. n. 46. (h) Hugo Gotius de antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae edit an 1630. 53. L. noâ— dubito ss de Captivis (l) Sigonius de â—ntiquo jure Civiâ—â—n Rom. 54.97 et de Repub. Athen. 47.4 Plutarch in vita Solonis (m) Perionius de Rom. et Gâ—aeâ— Magistrat (n) â—â—kam â—ap quae per solam consuetudinem c. Coke 1 part inâ—â—it cap. 5. 〈◊〉 117. (o) Capiâ—â—a itinâ—ris in vet magn Charta 157 158. Coke 4. part institutes tit Câ—r Ward (p) Glanvil lib 12 cap. 9 10 Register 4 59 Coke magna Charta cap. 10. (q) instructions King Jâ—mes in Anno 1622. (q) Daniel 168. (r) Lib. Caenobij dâ— Ramsey Sect. 114. et Spelmans glossar in verâ—â— Fiscus (s) Claus. 3â— H. 3. (t) Plaâ—it 〈◊〉 3 E. 3. Rot. 58. (u) 46 E. 3 par Parl. 2 in 20 34. (w) 23 H. â— Escaet (x) Mat. Paris 849. (y) Mat. Paris 100â— (z) Parl. 4 Car. primi (a) Daniels History (b) in lib. nigro Scaccarij Spelmans glâ—ssar in verbo firma (c) Master of the Wards Oath (d) 32 H. 46. (e) Attorney of the Wards Oath (f) Auditors Oath (g) Escheators Oath (h) Math Paris 101. (i) Spelmans glossar 416. et Daniel 189. (k) Chronic Leichfeldense (l) Continuation Floren. Wigorâ— et Sr. Roger Twisden in prâ—fat ad leges Willielmi 1. (m) M. S. Cottoniana (n) York vincent Catalogue of English Nobility (o) M. S. inter L. L. Regis Edwardi (p) Mat Paâ—is 99. 100. (q) Mat. Paris 100. (r) Mat. Paris (r) Mat. Paris 977. (s) Pat. 30. E. 1. (t) Walsingham ypodigmâ— Nâ—uster 487. (u) Claus. 30. E. 1â— (w) parl E. 1 (x) Daniels Histoâ—y 195. (y) 25 E. 3.1 (z) Rot Parl. 5 R. 2.11 14. (a) Rot Parl. 13. R. 2 n. 45. (b) Declarat Lords and Commons in Collect. Parliament declarations 386 390. (c) 1 H. 8. cap. 12. Coke 4. part Institutes 197. (d) 1 Jacobi 5. (e) Sr. Francis Bacons speech in Parliament in 7. Jacobi touching a Composition to be made for Tenures in Capite (f) 1 Caâ— primiâ— (g) Coke 4. part Institutes tit Court of Wards 193 (h) Coke 4. Institutes lib. ruâ— Scac. (i) Exact Collections of the King and Parlament Declaratioâ—s 8. (k) Exact Collectâ—ons of the King and Parliament Declarations 8. (l) Exact Collection of the Kâ—nâ—s and Paâ—â—â—amâ—nts Dâ—â—lâ—rations 307. (m) Exact Collection of the Kings and Parliaments Declarations and Messages 308. (n) Exact Collect. of the Kâ—ngs and Parliament Declarations 850.856.857 (*) Propositions sent by the Parliament to the King at Oxford 1 of Febâ—uary 1642. (*) Proposals agreed upon by the Council of the Army to be tendred to the Commissioners of the Parliament residing with the Army 1 August 1647. (p) Nat. Bacons historical Discourses of the Kings of England 202.254.296 in 2 part 241. (q) Naâ— Bacons historical discourses of the Kings of England 219. (r) Petition of advice of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament in An â—657 1 Chronic. 12.23 29 30 33. 1 Chonic 27.1 Deut. 17.12 (s) 2 Chroniâ— 8.7.8 (t) 2 Chron 17.2.3 10. 2 Palip 17.2.10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Lib. 1.81 (w) 1 Sam. 14.52 x 1 Chronic. 26.31 32. (y) Nehemiah 4.15 16 19 20 11. v. 1.14 (z) 2 Sam. 23.8 (a) 1 Reg. 10.4 5. (b) Esther 1.10.14 (c) Cromptons Iurisdiction of Couts (d) Lib. rub in Scac. et Camden Brit 523. (w) Camden Brit. 353. (x) Lambard perambulation of Kent 362 (y) Camden Brit. 505. (r) Camden Brit. 463. in 4â—â— (s) Camden Brit. 505. (t) Ro. â—in 11 E. 2. Cokeâ— 1 part Instit. 70. (u) Camden Brit. 530. (y) Camden Brit. 361. (a) Camden Brit. 604. (b) Lambards Perambulation of Kent (c) Barn Brisson in Basilic lib. 6. tit 13. (d) 21 E. 3. â—3 45 E. 3. â—â— (e) Iudges 5.23 (f) 2 Sam 11 11. (g) 2 Sam. 19.31 32 33.35 36. (h) Charta H. 1. et Regis Iohannis