ended in the Cardinals turning to Mr. Welch and saying Well there is no more to do I trow you are one of the Kings Privy Chamber your Name is Mr. Welch I am contented to yield unto you but not unto the Earl without I see his Commission for you are a sufficient Commissioner in this behalf being one of the Kings Privy Chamber And in the 21 year of the Reign of that King such a care was taken to keep not only the Chaplains of the King Queen Prince and Princess or any of the Kings or Queens Children or Sisters but of the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Chamberlain Steward Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold from any prejudice whilst they attended in their Honourable Housholds and exempt them from the Penalty of Ten Pounds a Month whilst they should not be resident at their Benefices as they did by an especial Exception provide for their Indempnity therein And in the same year and Parliament the Chancellor Treasurer of England and the Lord President of the Kings Council are said to be attendant upon the Kings most Honourable Person And in the 24 year of his Reign some of his Servants having been impannelled and retorned upon Juries he signified his dislike of the same unto the Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas in these words Trusty and Right-well-beloved We greet you well Whereas we understand that all manner of your Officers and Clerks of both our Benches be in such wise priviledged by an ancient Custom that they be always excepted out of all manner of Impannels We considering that the Hedd Officers and Clerks of our Houshold by reason of the daily Business in our Service have been semblably excepted in time passed unto now of late that some of them have been retorned in Impannels otherwise then heretofore hath been accustomed We will and command you That in case any Hedd Officer or Clerk of our Houshold shall hereafter fortune to be put in any Impannel either by the Sheriff of our Còunty of Kent or by any Sheriff of any County within this our Realm for to be retorned before you without our special Commandment in that behalf ye upon knowledge thereof cause him or them so impannelled to be discharged out of the said Impannel and other sufficient Persons to be admitted in their place and that you fail not this to do from time to time as often as the case shall require as ye tender our pleasure Yeoven under our Signet at our Manor of Richmont the fourth day of October in the twenty fourth year of our Reign To our Trusty and Well-beloved the Chief Justices of both our Benches and to all other their fellows Justices of the same In the Act of Parliament made in the twenty fifth year of his Reign against excess of Apparel there was a Proviso That all Officers and Servants waiting and attending upon the King Queen or Princess daily yearly or quarterly in their Housholds or being in their Checque Roll may by the Licence of the King use or wear Apparel on their Bodies Horses Mules c. according to such Licence And not only King Henry the Eighth but his three Estates the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament in the 31 year of his Reign did so much attribute to the Kings Servants in Ordinary and the Honour of their Imployments as to grant by Act of Parliament That the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Council Lord Privy Seal the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Admiral of England Grand Master or Steward of the Kings most Honourable Houshold and Chamberlain should in Parliament Star-Chamber and all other Assemblies which was in no Kings Reign before allowed sit and be pláced above all Dukes except such as should happen to be the Kings Sons Brothers Vncles Nephews or Brothers or Sisters Sons That the Lord Privy Seal should sit atd be placed above the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Lord Admiral of England Grand Master or Lord Steward and the Kings Chamberlain and that the Kings Chief Secretary if he be of the Degree of a Baron should in Parliament and all other Assemblies sit and be placed before and above all other Barons and if he be a Bishop above all other Bishops not having any of the Offices above-mentioned Precedency amongst the English Nobility being heretofore so highly valued and esteemed as it was not seldom very much insisted upon And so as in the Reign of King Henry the sixth it was earnestly claimed and controverted betwixt John Duke of Norfolk and Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and in divers other Kings Reigns greatly contended for and stickled betwixt some of the Great Nobility The Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and the Steward thereof as appeareth by their Subscriptions as Witnesses unto sundry Charters of our former and ancient Kings not having been before allowed so great a Precedency as that Act of Parliament gave them or as that high Place Trust and Office of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England according to the Custom and Usage of former Ages in all or the most of the neighbour Kingdoms and Monarchies have justly merited who in the times of the ancient Emperors of Rome were as Gutherius noteth stiled the Quaestores Palatii and had in Vlpian's time who flourished in the Reign of Alexander Severus the Emperor antiquissimam originem an honourable and long-before original and so necessary in the then Administration of Justice as the Emperor Justinian that great Legislator and Compiler of Laws ordained That Divinae Jussiones Subscriptionem haberent gloriosissimi Quaestoris nec emissae aliter a Judicibus reciperentur quà m si subnotatae fuerint à Quaestore Palatii That the Imperial Mandates should be subscribed by the Chancellor who was sometimes stiled Justitiae Custos vox Legum Concilii Regalis particeps the Keeper or Repository of Justice the voice or mouth of the Laws and one of the Privy Council and those Mandates being sent not much unlike the Original Writs issuing out of our High Court of Chancery w th were then also called Breves were not to be received by the Judges unless they were signed by the Quaestor Palatii or Chancellor but subscribed their Names as Witnesses to Charters after Bishops Abbots and Barons as amongst many other instances may be given in that of Robert Parning Chancellor and of Randolf de Stafford Steward of the Houshold in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the third By a Statute made in the thirty second of the Reign of King Henry the eighth the Parliament did not think it unreasonable that there should be a Great Master of the Kings House and have all the Authority that the Lord Steward had By a Statute made in the thirty third year
Bench and Common Pleas for the time being or other two Justices in their absence may upon Bill or Information put to the said Chancellor for the King or any other have authority to call before them by Writ or Privy Seal the said misdoers By an Act of Parliament made in the 12th year of his Reign Perjury committed by unlawfull maintenance embracing or corruption of Officers in the Chancery or before the Kings Councel shall be punished by the discretion of the Lord Chancellor Treasurer both the Chief Justices and the Clerk of the Rolls and if the Complainant prove not or pursue not his Bill he shall yield to the party wronged his costs and damages By an Act of Parliament made in the 19th year of his Reign Ordinances made by Fellowships of Crafts are to be approved by the Chancellor Treasurer of England Chief Justice of either Benches or three of them or both the Justices of Assise in their Circuits where such Ordinances shall be made By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper may appoint two three or four persons to receive Toll or Custome and to imploy the same upon the repair of the Bridge of Stanes in the County of Middlesex and to yield accompt thereof By an Exception in an Act of Parliament made in the 14th and 15th year of his Reign touching Aliens and their taking of Apprentices any Lord of the Parliament may take and retain Estrangers Joyners and Glasiers in their service In the Act of Parliament made in the 21th year of his Reign prohibiting Plurality of Benefices and the taking of Farms under great penalties there are Exceptions for the Kings Chaplains not sworn of his Councel and of the Queen Prince or Princess and the Kings Children Brothers Sisters Vnkles or Aunts the eight Chaplains of every Archbishop six of every Duke five of every Marquess and Earl four of every Viscount and other Bishop the Chancellor and every Baron of England three of every Dutchess Marquioness Countess and Baroness being Widdows And that the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings House the Kings Secretary Dean of his Chappel the Kings Almoner and Master of the Rolls may have every one of them two Chaplains the Chief Justice of the Kings Bench one Chaplain the Warden of the Cinqueports for the time being the Brethren and Sons of all Temporal Lords may keep as many Benefices with Cure as the Chaplains of a Duke or Archbishop and the Brethren and Sons of every Knight may keep two Parsonages or Benefices with Cure of Souls And that the Widdows of every Duke Marquess Earl or Baron which shall take to Husband any man under the degree of a Baron may take such number of Chaplains as they might when they were Widdows and every such Chaplain have the priviledge aforesaid By an Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament a Commission was granted to Cutbert Bishop of London Sir Richard Brooke Knight Chief Baron of the Exchequer John More one of the Justices of the Kings Bench c. to assign how many Servants every Stranger shall keep within St. Martins le Grand London By an Act of Parliament made in the 23th year of his Reign Commissioners of Sewers to survey Streams Gutters Letts and Annoyances are to be named by the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer and two Chief Justices or any three of them and their Decree to bind the Kings and all mens Lands By an Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament the prices of the Tun Butt Pipe and Hogshead of French Wines Sack Malmsey shall be assessed by the Kings Great Officers By an Act of Parliament made in the 25th year of his Reign Butter Cheese Capons Hens Chickens and other Victuals necessary for mens sustenance are upon complaint of enhancing to be assessed by the Lord Chancellor of England Lord Treasurer the Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Privy Councel the Lord Privy Seal the Lord Steward the Lord Chamberlain and all other Lords of the Kings Councel the Treasurer and the Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable House the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Kings Justices of either Bench the Chancellor Chamberlains Vnder-Treasurer and the Barons of the Kings Exchequer or seven of them at the least whereof the Lord Chancellor the Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel or the Lord Privy Seal to be one By another Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament the prices of Books upon complaint made unto the King are to be reformed by the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer or any of the Chief Justices of the one Bench or the other by a Jury or otherwise By another Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament every Judge of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas the Chancellor and Chief Baron of the Exchequer the Kings Attorney and Sollicitor for the time being may have one Chaplain who may be absent from his Benefice and not resident By an Act of Parliament made in the 28th year of the Reign the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Councel Lord Privy Seal and the two Chief Justices of either Bench or any four or three of them are impowered by their discretions to set the prices of all Wines by the Butt Tun Pipe Hogshead Puncheon Tearce Barrel or Rundlet the pint of French Wine being then set at 1 d. per pinte By an Act of Parliament made in the 33th year of his Reign the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster Courts of Augmentations and First-Fruits Master of the Wards and Liveries Treasurer of the Kings Chamber and Treasurer of the Court of Augmentation and Groom of the Stool may each of them retain one Chaplain who may be absent from their Benefices provided they be twice a year at their Benefices with Cure of Souls by the space of eight dayes at a time By an Act of Parliament made in the 34th and 35th year of his Reign the Lords authorized by the Statute of 28 H. 8. cap. 14. to set the prices of Wines in gross may mitigate and enhance the prices of Wines to be sold by retail By an Act of Parliament made in the 37th year of his Reign for the settlement of Tithes betwixt the Parsons Vicars and Curates of London and the Inhabitants thereof the Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Councel Lord Privy Seal Lord Great Chamberlain of England with some of the Judges were chosen Arbitrators to make a final conclusion betwixt them which shall be binding by their Order under any six of their hands By an Act of Parliament made in the same year the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel Lord Privy Seal and the two Chief Justices or
three four or five of them are yearly to set the prices of Wines And upon refusal to sell after those rates the Mayor Recorder and two antient Aldermen of the City of London not being Vintners shall enter into their Houses and sell their Wines according to those rates By an Act of Parliament made in the 7th year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th no person having not Lands or Tenements or which cannot dispend above 100 Marks per annum or is not worth 1000 Marks in Goods or Chattels not being the Son of a Duke Marquess Earl Viscount or Baron shall keep in his house any greater quantities of French Wines then 10. Gallons By an Act of Parliament made in the same year the offenders in the Assise of Wood and Fuell if they be poor and not able to pay the Forfeiture may be by a Justice of Peace or any other of the Kings Officers put on the Pillory By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of Queen Mary if the Justices of Peace do not put the Act of Parliament in execution touching the repair of the Causway betwixt Sherborn and Shaftsbury in the Counties of Dorset and Somerset the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper shall upon request grant Commissions to certain discreet persons to do it And by an Act of Parliament made in the 43th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the mis-imployment of Lands Goods Chattels or Money given to Hospitals and Charitable uses are to be reformed by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster for the time being in their several Jurisdictions Which amongst many other may be some of the causes or reasons that the People of England and Commons in Parliament giving in former times as they ought to do those grand and more then ordinary respects and many more not here repeated unto the Great Officers of the Crown Royal Houshold and other the Servants of our Kings and Princes and lodging so many of their grand concernments in their care and trust did not trouble themselves or any of our Parliaments with any Petitions there being none to be found amongst the Records thereof against those antient rational just and legal Priviledges of the Kings Servants in Ordinary nor any Lord Steward Lord Chamberlain or other Officers of the Kings most Honourable House for allowing or maintaining it although there were some against Protections granted to some that were not the Kings Servants in Ordinary nor hath there been any Statute or Act of Parliament made to take away or so much as abridge those well deserved Priviledges which have in all ages and by so good warrant of right reason Laws of Nations and the Laws and reasonable Customes of this Kingdom appeared to be so much conducing to the Weal publique and the affairs and business of the Head or Soveraign For surely if there had been but the least suspicion of any Grievance in them meriting a remedy there would not have been such a silence of the peoples Petitioning or Complaints against it either by themselves or their vigilant and carefull Representatives in the Commons House in Parliament which heretofore seldom or never omitted the eager pursuit and Hue and Cry after any thing of Grievance which molested them And if there had been any such Petitions and Complaints in Parliament that Great and Honourable Court not giving any order or procuring any Act of Parliament against the Priviledges of the Kings Servants is and may be a convincing argument that such Complaints or pretended Grievances were causeless unfitting or not deserving the remedies required and will be no more an evidence or proof against what is here endeavoured to be asserted then the Petition of the Commons in Parliament in the 21th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. against the payment of 6 d. for the seal of every Original Writ in Chancery and 7 d. for the sealing of the Writs of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas which hath ever since been adjudged reasonable and fitting to be paid then the many Petitions against the antient legal and rational payment of Fines upon Original Writs in Chancery then the Petitions of Non-conforming Ministers then the many designed and desired Acts of Parliament not found to be reasonable or convenient and therefore laid by and miscarried in the Embrios or multitudes of other Petitions in our Parliaments or then the many late Petitions for an imaginary liberty of Conscience can or will be for what was desired and not thought fit at those or any other times to be granted Which antient Priviledge of the Kings Servants not to be Arrested without leave was not so limited to their Persons but that their Lands Estates and Goods participated also of that Privilege not to be molested by any Process or Suit of Law without Licence first obtained of the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings most honourable Houshold or unto such other great Officers therein to whose Jurisdiction it belonged CAP. IV. That the Priviledges and Protections of the Kings Servants in Ordinary by reason of his Service is and ought to be extended unto the Priviledged parties Estate both Real and Personal as well as unto their persons FOr if we may as we ought believe antiquity and its many unquestionable authorities and our Records which as to matters of fact judgements pleas writs therein allowed Records of Parliament and the Grants of our Kings by their Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England being the Publique Faith of the Kingdome from and under which most of the peoples Real Estates and Priviledges have had their originals and establishments not the falsely called Publique Faith which afterwards proved to be Bankrupt and was until then the Medea or Witch of the late incomparably wicked Rebellion were alwayes so impartial and credited as not to have their truth so much as suspected That Priviledge was not only indulged and allowed to their Persons but to their Lands and Estate also as will plainly appear by the course and Custome of the Law in former ages and amongst many others not here enumerated was not understood to have been either unusual or illegal in that which was granted to Sir John Staunton Knight By King Edward the 3 d. in the 29th year of his Raign in these words Omnibus ad quos c. Salutem considerantes grata laudabilia obsequia tam nobis quam Isabellae Reginae Angliae Matris nostrae charissimae per dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem-de Staunton impensa proinde Volentes personam ipsius Johannis suis condignis meritis exigentibus honorare ipsum Johannem Camerae nostrae militem familiarem quoad vixerit tam tempore quo extra curiam nostram absens quam tempore quo ibidem presens fuerit duximus retinendum Ac de gratia nostra speciali ipsum Johannem Terras Tenementa
and of great antiquity and authority in our Laws and very well deserving the respect is paid unto it being but a Collection of Writs out of the publick Records made and granted under the Kings Great Seal warranted either by the Common-Law or grounded upon some Acts of Parliament Protections have been granted under the Great Seal of England with a Supersedeas of all Actions and Suits against them in the mean time unto some that were sent into Forraign Parts or but into the Marches of Scotland or Wales or in Comitativa retinue of some Lord or Person of Honor employed thither in the Kings Service or unto such probably as were none of the Kings Servants in Ordinary or Domestick but as more fit persons were only sent as appeareth by the Writs upon some special and not like to be long lasting occasions with an exception only of certain Actions and Cases as in Writs of Dower for which Sir Edward Coke giveth us the Reason because the Demandant may have nothing else to live upon in Quare Impedits Quaere non Admisits or Assizes of Darrein Presentment for the danger of a lapse for not presenting within six months in Assizes of Novel Disseisin to restore the Demandant to his Freehold wrongfully entred upon and not seldom gave their Protections quia moraturus unto some Workmen Engineers or others imployed in the Fortification of some Castles or Fortress sometimes but as far as the Marches of Wales with a command that if they were incarcerati or imprisoned they should be forthwith released and at other times upon his Protections granted quia profecturus revoked his Protections because the party desiring to be protected did not go as he pretended upon the Kings message or business or having finished the Kings business imployed himself upon his own and upon better information that he did continue his imployment in his service revive it again sometimes sent his Writ to the Justices not to allow his Protection because the party protected did not go about the business upon which he was imployed and at other times sent his Writ to the Sheriffs of London to certifie him whether the party protected for a year did go in obsequium suum versus partes transmarinas in Comitativa c. upon the Kings business in the company and attendance of A. B. possibly some Envoy which makes it probable that the party protected was rather some Stranger than any of the Kings Servants and more likely to be in the cognisance of the Sheriffs of London than of the King or any of the Officers of his honourable Houshold as may appear by the subsequent words of the Writ which were an in Civitate nostra London moretur propriis negotiis suis intendendo whether he remain in the City and followeth his own business And not only granted such Protections but as was in those times held also to be necessary and convenient added a clause de non moleâ—tando of not troubling the party whilst he was thus imployed in his service homines terras c. his Lands Servants c. except or in regard of any of the aforesaid Pleas which were usually mentioned in the said Writ of Protection And if it were directed to the Sheriffs of London a clause by a rule of the Register was to be inserted dum tamen idem so as the protected person probably imployed in the victualing of a Town or Fort do satisfie his Creditors for Victuals bought of them And where the Protections appeared to be granted after the commencement of the Action did sometimes revoke them but if it were for any that went in a Voyage that the King himself did or other Voyages Royal or on the Kings Messages for the business of the Realm it was to be allowed and not revoked and the Kings Protections in that or any other nature had the favour and allowance of divers Acts of Parliament either in the case of such as were not their Servants or otherwise and had such respect given unto them by the Law and the Reverend Judges in Bractons time as he saith Cum breve Domini Regis non in se contineat veritatem in hoc sibi caveat Cancellarius if the matter be not true the Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England is to answer for it and quando quis Essoniaverit de malo veniendi quia in servitio Domini Regis admitti debet Essonium allocari dies dari dum tamen warrantum ad manum habet cum de voluntate Domini Regis non sit disputandum And King Edward the third did in the 33th year of his Reign by an Act of Parliament de Protectionibus concerning the repealing of Protections unduly granted by his Writ directed to all his true and faithfull Subjects now printed amongst the Statutes and Acts of Parliament and allowed the force and effect of an Act of Parliament as many other of the Kings Mandates Precepts or Writs antiently were declare that for as much as many did purchase his Protections falsly affirming that they were out of the Realm or within the four Seas in his service did provide That if their Adversaries would except or averre that they were within the four Seas and out of the Kings service in a place certain so that they might have well come and if it be proved against the Defâ—ndant it should be a default and if such Protection be on the Plaintiffs behalf he should lose his Writ and be amerced unto the King which can signifie no less then that a Protection granted where the party is really and truly in the Kings service should not be disallowed or refused which the Commons of England were used so little to disgust as that in the 47th year of the Reign of that King they did in Parliament only Petition that any having a Protection for serving in the Wars and do thereof fail by one month to the deceipt of the Kings people such Protection to be void To which the King only answered Let the party grieved come into the Chancery and he shall have remedy The Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the second ordained that no Protection with a clause of Volumus our will and pleasure is that he be not disturbed with any Pleas or Process except Pleas of Dower Quare Impedit Assise of Novel Disseisin last Presentation and Attaint and Pleas or Actions brought before the Justices Itinerant shall be allowed where the Action is for Victuals taken or bought upon the Voyage or Service whereof the Protection maketh mention nor also in Pleas of Trespass or of other Contract made before the date of the said Protection The Statute of the 13th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King which was made for that many people as well such as be not able to be retained in War for in those dayes divers of the Nobility and Gentry and
are not to stand in the way or obstruct the Rights or those to whom they were indulged or granted CHAP. XIX That those many other Immunities and Priviledgeâ— have neither been abolished or so much as murmured at by those that have yielded an assent and obedience thereunto although they have at some times and upon some occasions received some loss damage or inconveniences thereby FOr the Law which hath allowed them to be good and warrantable could not but apprehend that a possibility of loss and prejudice would come to others by them and our Kings and Princes did by their Laws bear a greater respect and took a greater care of the whole than of the less or of any parts of the greater and had a greater regard to the general and more universal than particulars where the latter as less considerable were to give way to the former as of the greater concernment and tendency to the weal of the Publick when as the Sun and the Moon by their happy influences in doing good to the universality of Mankind do sometimes we know occasion much evil and damage unto many men in particular one mans gain is anothers loss the benefit comfort and joy of one hapneth to be the grief and disappointment of another and the aggrandizing of some the lessening of others Lex ad particularia se non resert sed ad generalia The Law doth not intend to provide for particulars but generals Legis ratio non fit raro accidentibus Laws are not usually made for things which do seldom happen Et citius tolerare volunt privatum damnum quam publicum malum Will sooner tolerate a private and particular damage than a publick evil or grievance for the Priviledges granted to the City of London to be Toll-free in all Markets Fairs and Places of the Kingdom which makes them able to under-sell all others and to be Masters as now they are of all the Commerce and Trade of the Nation Their custom That no Attaint shall be brought of a Jury impannelled in London to enforce a Gentleman or Foreigner not Free of the City Arrested to give Bail or Surety by Freemen or Citizens That every Citizen or Freeman may devise Lands or Tenements in Mortmain or that any Man to whom Money is owing may Arrest any Man for Money upon a Bond or Bill before the Money be due or payable or Attach Moneys in another Mans hand within the City of one which oweth Money to the Debtor The forbidding Foreigners and Men not Free of the City to Work or keep Shop within the City or Liberties thereof That if any Freeman sufficient and able shall be summoned by a Serjeant of the Sheriff of the City to appear at Guildhall to answer a Plaint and make Default he shall be Amerced the grand Distress presently awarded and his Doors fastned and Sealed untill he shall come to answer and if it be testified that he hath broken the Sequestration shall be Arrested by his Body or if otherwise he is like to escape away or is not sufficient a Writ of Capias shall be awarded to take his Body or a Writ to Arrest and take his Goods That in a Writ of Dower the Tenant shall be three times summoned That a Citizens Wife can have no Estate in Lands devised unto her further than during her life The ancient and just Priviledges of the Clergy not to be tried before a Secular Judge for any criminal Matter nor be compelled to abjure if having committed Felony he flie to a Church and albeit he hath had his Clergy for Felony may have it again and shall not be Burned in the Hand nor have his Tythes or Horse distrain'd as he traveleth in any Civil action or matter whilst he hath other Goods not to have his Goods and Chattels to be distrained in his Fee or Estate of the Church for purveyance when it was required and is to be free from bearing any temporul Office and their Bodies not to be arrested or imprisoned upon a Statute Mechant although an Act of Parliament doth without exception of any Persons severely enjoyn it That Priviledge allowed to Knights by the ancient Laws of England which saith our Selden was that their Equitatura or Horse and Armor were priviledged from Executions of Fieri or Levari facias although they were to Levy the Kings Debts which the Law did so geratly favor as it is to be preferred before all other Mens and if he should dishonourably absent himself from the Kings Service when his aid was required and that all that he had was subject to an Execution yet one Horse was to be left him Propter dignitatem militiae in regard of the honour of Knighthood and such other of his Horses as were for his ordinary use were to be spared The exemption of divers Abbeys and Monasteries from the Jurisdictions and Visitations of their Diocesan or Metropolitan Bishops The Priviledges and Jurisdictions granted by King Edward the third in the 27th Year of his Reign to York Lincoln Norwich Canterbury Westminster and divers other Staple Towns to be free from purveyance and Cart-taking giving them liberty to hold Pleas by the Law-Merchant and not by the common Law of the Land That they should not implead or be impleaded before the Justices of the said Places in plea of Deâ—â— Covenant or Trespass concerning the Staple And that the Houses shall be let for reasonable Rents to be imposed by the Mayor of the Staple The Modus decimandi abatement or manner of Tythes being at the first a temporary favour or kindness continued and crept into a Custom and thence into a Law and Priviledge which hath carried away or choked a great part of the Clergies Tythes and Maintenance The abundance of Rights and Priviledges of Common of vicinage or appendant or of some stinted or not limited sorts in the Ground and Soyl of the Propritors throughout the Kingdom of Common of Estovers in some of their Woods the throwing of many Meadows open to have Common in some Woods for their Cattel after seven years growth and to Common upon the first day of every August the Custom of the Town of Wycombe in the County of Buckingham that any under the age of thirteen years might give or devise Lands and that no Tythes should be paid for any Wood in the Wild of Kent Together with the many Freedoms Franchises and Priviledges to be quit ab omni secta Shirarum Hundredorum all Suit Scot and Lot c. and Service to Sheriffs Courts and Hundreds which with very many others not here recited do necessarily appear to be as prejudicial to some part of the People who in the Weal-publick or some of their Posterities afterwards partaking or enjoying of the like Priviledges do or may find themselves abundantly recompenced may be as prejudicial to some as they are beneficial to many who may at the
Interpretation or Execution of the new that the Graecians had their Nomophilaces ad quos rerum gestarum consignatio pertinebat utextarent Monumenta Publica ad quae recurrere liceret quum aliqua in re majorum exemplum requireretur and that the Romans so greatly valued their old Records as they gave great Preferments and Honours to Flavius a Scribe or Notary And the Priviledge of a Curule Chaire for publishing and bringing some of them to light that all other Civilized Nations and even those of China and Japan have highly esteemed their Records and Memorials that in our Parliaments Courts of Justice and Chancery Records and precedents in any Matters or Cases of Difficulty are not seldome enquired after and directed to be searched that the Dates Clauses or Words of some Acts of Parliament and the Reports of Cases adjudged have been found to have been mistaken and rectified after by the Records That it is Felony to imbezill or corrupt a Record that Courts of Records are more Honoured and esteemed than those which are not and that the Law will not permit a Record to be averred against or much gainsaid And that such a care was taken of our Records by our Ancestors as the Commons of England did 〈…〉 Cause in their Petition of Parliament in the 46th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d stile them the peoples Evidence and pray to have upon their occasions a free and uninterrupted access unto them Our Kings have in several of their Reigns made allowances of Money and Expences for the Calendring and well ordering of them and caused them to be kept and preserved in places of strength and safety whereby to secure them from the fury of Wars or Fire or other destroying Casualties That if the Reports of cases adjudged upon Demurrers or special Verdicts and the responsa prudentum and carefull and well Studied Arguments of the Judges such as the Learned Mr. Plowdens Commentaries and the Reports of Dier Anderson Coke Crooke Hobart and other the Labours and Memorials of the venerable and learned sages of our Laws the Errors too often attending the Works and Labours of all Mankind only excepted do deserve their â—ust esteem and value and are a light and guide to the Reason and Judgement of Posterity and after Ages and the more when they have the assistance of the Records to back and Warrant them and that even Histories are the better when they keep in the sight and Company of Records and enjoy their Assistance And if in their Truth and Evidence they conduce much to that verity and certainty which ought to be in Histories our Records certainly cannot by any Reason or Rules of Prudence be believed or understood to be useless or unnecessary for the Study or asserting of the Truth and Rationality of our Laws and the Rules and Method thereof Nor are those Jewels of Time to be ranked with Romances or such Triviall things as may claim no more than a Cursory and careless reading when if carefully as they ought to be entred and kept they do give us the Certainty and Truth of matters of fact and do not seldome intimate or Illustrate the Causes and Reason thereof And may well deserve a better Credit than any Reports of cases adjudged or responsa prudentum some of which are but Opinions and Answers not seldom suddainly and unpremeditately given to the many times ill or untruly put State of the case or question by the Advocates and Lawyers at the Barr or than any of the most severe and impartial Histories which although they have been by the Wisest Major part of all Nations for many Ages past believed to be great and excellent Luminaries in their several Spheres and should be Testes veritatis yet if the Records of every Nation who have the happiness to have them being Tabulae Monumenta Publica the faithfull Registers of past Actions are allowed to be good to make Histories which are greater Strangers unto them than they should be and are too often written without any acquaintance with them that surely which crediteth and maketh them the better to believed is not less but more to be valued for a sad experience hath told us that the destroying of the Books of the old Philosophers by Aristotle and the former Books of the Civil Law by Justinian when he compiled his Code and Institutes and of our English Books and Manuscripts when Polidore Virgil and his History would not willingly suffer any other to be his Competitors did much obscure and hinder the Knowledge and light which is now more dark and hidden than otherwise it would have been And we may believe that if Records and faithfull and Antient Memorials had ever deserved as they never did to be slighted they might now be spared and admitted into their former reputation and not be made to truckle under Reports of Cases adjudged when our last twenty years Confusion have by the Knavery and Imposture of too many of the Stationers furnished out abundance of certain fragments of Laws and untrue and mistaken Reports and too many Histories of the World have suffered in the want of the most necessary Aid of Records when so great a part of the Knowledge of the first Ages of the World was washed away by the Deluge and the learning and Experience of many Ages after lost by the want of Letters which the Wars and the rude and unruly Behaviour of those early Generations would not admit and that to despise Records and Antiquities is to proclaim us as Tully the most excellent Roman Orator long ago said to be willing to be Children as of yesterday and to have no retrospect into the Wisdom of the Antients and experiences of past Ages teaching us wherein some have succeeded and others miscarryed is to put our selves into as short a Memory as that of the Thracians some of whom were Reported not to be able to number or reckon any further than four years or to make light incertain or loose traditions the most we can reach or attain unto and refuse the ante Acta vitae which were wont to be the faithfull guides and Conductors of our Actions to come and may render those who despise the old and only delight in new things to be in no better a Condition than some of the worthy and learned Assembly of the Royal Society of Gresham Colledge who by not heedfully considering old things have unhappily been drawn into the field and enforced to encounter with Mr. Henry Stubs his Animadversions wherein he undertakes to prove that some things which they thought to be new have been of a much more Early date So as whether Reports of Cases adjudged in Law be old or new well or ill taken both they and Histories are to acknowledge the Records to be their Superiours and that they are in all things the better for their acquaintance And those great Obligations must neither be denied or forgotten which our Laws
his Servants when he came to the House of the said Bogo in London and serued him with a Citation in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury enforced him to eat the Seal and Citation and the said Bogo de Clare pleading that he ought not to answer because it was not alledged that he was the doer thereof nor that his Servants did it by his Command nor were they named it was in that Record and pleading adjudged that although the Fact was committed by the Servants of the said Bogo yet quia Dominus Rex pred Transgressionem sic enormiter factam ut dicitur tum propter contemptum Sanctae ecclesie tum propter contemptum ipsi domino Regi in presentia sua videlicet infra virgam et in Parliamento suo factum propter malum exemplum temporibus futuris tum propter audaciam delinquendi sic de cetero aliis reprimendam permittere non vult impunitam in regard that the King would not suffer so foul an offence not only in contempt of the Church and of the King in his presence that is to say within the virge and in time of Parliament but for the boldness of the offence and the evil example in time to come to pass unpunished the said Bogo de Clare should answer the Fact at the Kings suit for that the offence was committed infra portam suam et per manupastos et familiares suos within the house of the said Bogo and by his Houshold Servants some of whom being named the said Bogo was commanded to bring them before the King and his Councel to abide by what should be ordered and decreed against them By the Statute or Act of Parlimaent made in the 28th year of that Kings Raign the King and Parliament may be understood not to intend that the Kings Purveyors or Servants of that nature should be tryed or punished for divers offences therein mentioned before other Tribunals than that of the great Officers of his Houshold and therefore ordained that for those Offences they should only be tryed and punished by the Steward and Treasurer of the Kings Houshold nor when by an Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament of what matters the Steward and Marshall of the Kings Houshold should hold Plea their Jurisdictions were confined to Trespasses only done within the Kings House and of other Trespasses done within the Virge and of Contracts and Covenants made by one of the House with another of the same House and in the same House and none other where And whereas before that time the Coroners of the Counties were not authorized to inquire of Felonies done within the Virge but the Coroners of the Kings House which never continueth in one place whereby the Felonies could not be put in exigent nor Tryal had in due manner It was ordained that in case of the death of men it should be commanded to the Coroner of the County that he with the Coroners of the Kings House should do as belongeth to his Office and enroll it and that the things which cannot be determined before the Steward of the Kings House where the Felons cannot be Attached or for other like cause should be remitted to the Common Law the King and Parliament can be rightly supposed thereby to intend that the Kings Domestiques or Houshold Servants should for Controversies amongst themselves of the nature before recited be compelled to attend or be subject to any other Jurisdiction when a Coroner of the Kings House was long before appointed to prevent it and it appeareth by that Act of Parliament it self that the matters therein mentioned were not to be remitted to the Common Law but where they could not be determined before the Steward of the Kings House The care and provision of which Act of Parliament to keep the cognisance of the Causes and Actions therein mentioned within the Jurisdiction of the Steward and Treasurer of the Kings House did neither abrogate any of the former Rights and Liberties of the King or his Servants nor by any reasonable construction or interpretation can be understood either to abolish and take them away or to intend to give a liberty to Arrest without licence any of the Kiags Servants in ordinary And an Act of Parliament being made in the same year that Common Pleas or Actions should not be holden in the Exchequer which was then kept in his Palace did by a Writ under the great seal of England directed unto the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer reciting that secundùm legem et consuetudines Regni according to the Law and customes of the Kingdom Common Pleas ought not there to be pleaded doth specially except nisi placita illa nos vel aliquem ministrorum nostrorum scaccarii specialiter tangant such Actions as did not especially concern him or any of his Ministers or Servants belonging unto his Exchequer and commanded an Action of debt for five pounds brought against one of thc Exchequer to be superseded and no further prosecuted and that the said Treasurer and Barons should on the Kings behalf declare to the Plaintiffe quod breve nostrum de debito sibi impetret si sibi viderit expedire that he should if he thought it expedient sue forth the Kings writ for the debt aforesaid which can import no less then a license preceding the obtaining of it and untill such Actions were to the large and very great benefit of the Subjects in a cheap and ordinary course to be obtained which in the morning and infancy of our common and municipal Laws were wont to be petitioned for and be not a little costly dilatory and troublesome as they which have made use of a friend to the King or a Master of Requests or Secretary of State may easily be perswaded to believe amounted to a greater trouble delay and expense of the Plaintiffs than now they are put unto to get leave of the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings House to Arrest any of the Kings Servants and that prudent Prince did certainly by that Act of Parliament touching the Exchequer not holding Common Pleas as little intend as did his Father King Henry the third by that Act that Common Pleas should not follow his Court that his Servants in ordinary should without leave or licence first obteyned be constreyned to neglect their Service and attendance and appear before other Tribunals For there is an antient Writ saith Sir Edward Coke to be found in the Register of Writs called de non residentia Clerici Regis of the non-residence of the Kings Clerk or Chaplain or attending in some Office in the Chancery directed to the Bishop of the Diocess in these words Cum Clerici nostri ad faciend in beneficiis suis residentiam personalem which was for the cure of Souls being the highest concernment and greater then that of appearing to an Action of debt or other Action dum in nostris immorantur obsequii◠compelli aut alià s
subjectionem Reverence and subjection and being then unarmed and his sword ungirt denoteth that he is never to be armed against or opposite to his Lord which by prosecuting or arresting any of his servants without leave he may well be deemed to do and in that faedere perpetuo as to them eternal league betwixt him and his Lord is not saith Bracton propter obligationem homagii by the obligation of his homage to do any thing quod vertatur domino ad exhaeredationem vel aliam atrocem injuriam which may turn to the disheriting of his Lord or other great injury which a sawcy and unmannerly arrest and haling of his servants to prison without licence first obtained hindring thereby his dayly and special service wherein his health safety and honor may be more than a little concerned endangered or prejudiced must needs by understood to be which if he shall do justum erit judicium quod amittat tenementum it will be just that he should lose his Land and our Writ of Cessavit per 〈◊〉 by which the Tenant if he perform not his services to his Lord within two years shall have his Land recovered against him redeemable only by paying the arrears of rents if any and undertaking to perform his services better for the future bespeaks the same punishment a certain conclusion will therfore follow upon these premisses that all such as did before the conversion of Tenures in socage hold the King their Lands immediately in Capite and by Knights service ought not to sue or molest any of his servants without license and although that inseparable Incident of the Crown and most Antient and noble Tenure of Chivalry and military service is now as much as an Act of Parliament can do it turned to the Plow or socage Tenure yet the fealty which is saith Sir Edward Coke included in every doing of homage which being done to a mesne Lord is always to have a Salva fide saving of the Tenants faith and duty to the King his heirs and Successors doth or should put all that are now so willing to hold by that tenure and to leave their Children and Estates to the greedy and uncharitable designs of Father-in-Laws under the conditions and obligations of fealty in mind or remembrance that by the fealty which they do or should swear unto the King and the oath of Allegiance which containeth all the Essential parts of homage and fealty which are not abrogated by that Act of Parliament for alteration of the Tenures in Capite and by Knights service into free common socage and the Oath of Supremacy to maintain and defend the Kings Rights Praeheminences and Jurisdictions cannot allow them that undutifull and unmannerly way of Arresting Molesting or Imprisoning any of the Kings Servants without leave or licence first had and that a Copyholder in Socage forfeits his Lands if he speak unreverent words of his Lord in the Court holden for the Mannor or goeth to any other Court wherely to intitle the Lord thereof to his Copyhold or doth replevin his Goods or Cattel upon a Distress taken by the Lord for his Rent or Service or refuse to be sworn of the Homage which in Copyhold Estates is not taken away by the Act of Parliament of 12 Car. Regis Secundi for the taking away of Homage upon Tenures in Capite and by Knights Service And where a Copyhold Tenant against whom a Recovery is bad cannot have a Writ of false Judgement he hath no other remedy but to petition the Lord to Reverse the Judgement nor can have an Assise against his Lord but may be amerced if he use contemptible words in the Court of the Mannor to a Jury or without just cause refuse to be of it that all the Lands of England are held immediately or mediately of the King that every Freeman of London besides the Oaths of Allegiâ—nce and Supremacy takes a particular Oath when he is made Free to be good true and obeysant to the King his Heirs and Successors and doth enjoy all the Liberties and Freedome of the City Trade and Companies by and under them And that they and all other Subjects his astricti Legibus which are under such Obligations cannot by their Homage Fealty Tenure of their Lands natural Ligiance under which they were born and Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy without violation of them and the hazard of their dreadfull consequences incroach upon those just and rational Rights and Priviledges of the Kings Servants confirmed by as many Acts of Parliament as our excellent Magna Charta of England hath been at several times after the making thereof at the granting of which King Henry the 3 d. took such care of his own Rights and Priviledges as by his Writ of Proclamation to the Sheriff of York wherein mention being made that he had granted to the people the Liberties mentioned in the Magna Charta which he would have to be observed he commanded him nevertheless that all his own Liberties and priviledges which were not specially mentioned and granted away in that Charter should be specially observed as they were used and accustomed in the times of his Auncestors and especially in the Raign of his Father King John For our allegiance due to the King being vinculâ—m arâ—tius a more strict tye betwixt the King and his Subjects ingaging the Soveraign to the Protection and just Government of his people and they unto a due Obedience and Subjection unto him by which saith the Custumary of Normandie â—i tenentur contra omnes homines qui mori possunt vivere proprii corporis praebere consilium adjuvamentum ei se in omnibus Innocuos exhibere nec ei adversantium partem in aliquo fovere to give him councel and aid against all men living and dying to behave themselves well towards him nor to take any ones part against him will leave such infringers of his Royal Rights and Piviledges inexcusable for the dishonour done unto him by Arresting Molesting or Imprisoning his Servants upon any Actions or Suit without leave or licence and at the same time when many of them do enjoy the Priviledges of HAMSOCNE a word and priviledge in use and practice amongst our Auncestors the Saxons or questioning and punishing of any that shall come into their House Jurisdiction or Territotory by the gifts grants or permission of the King or some of his Royal Progenitors deny or endeavour all they can to enervate the Rights and Liberties of him and his Servants when they may know that he and his Predecessors Kings and Queens of England have and ought to have an Hamsocne Ham in the Saxon Language signifying domus vel habitatio an house or habitation and Socne libertas vel immunitas a liberty immunity or freedom to question and punish any that shall invade the Liberties and Priviledges belonging to his House Palace and Servants vel aliquid aliud faciendum contra
no Vagabonds Masterless men Boyes or Idle persons be suffered to harbour in her Court Wherfore the Servants attending therein should not now be so much in the ill opinion causeless contempt of the Mechanick and vulgar part of the people for those which are ex meliore luto better born and more civilly educated cannot certainly so lose their way to a gratefull acknowledgement of their Princes daily protection and needed favours as to villifie or slight his Servants by imitating the sordid examples of a less understanding part of the people or want their due respects if it shall be rightly considered that our Ancestors and a long succession of former ages were not so niggard or sparing of their well-deserved respects When our Kings and Princes and the wiser part of their people supposed to be in Parliament did attribute so much unto them and so very much trust and confide in them as they did from time to time put no small power into their hands and leave no small concernments of themselves and the Kingdom to their prudence fidelity and discretion When the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who administreth the Oathes usually taken by the Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer of England Lords of the Kings most Honourable Privy Councel Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Rolls Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas Barons of the Exchequer Kings Attorney and Sollicitor General Serjeants at Law Masters of Requests and Chancery upon and before their admission into their several Places and Offices nominates and appoints the Custos Rotulorum and Justices of the Peace in every County of England Wales some few Franchises and Liberties excepted and by his largely extended Jurisdiction committed unto his trust doth by the Writs remedial of his Soveraign guide and superintend the Cisterns and Streams of our Laws those living waters which do chear and refresh our Vallies and make them to be as a watered Garden And with the two Lord Chief Justices Master of the Rolls the other Reverend Judges and the Masters of Chancery appointed to distribute the Kings Justice according to the laws and reasonable customs of the Kingdome have their Robes and Salaries allowed and are as Justice Croke acknowledged in his argument against the Ship-money as the Kings Councel at Law the chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas being as is mentioned in a Manuscrip of Henry Earl of Arundel copyed out of a book of George Earl of Shrowsbury Lord Steward of the houshold unto King Henry the seventh and King Henry the eighth communicated unto me by my worthy friend Mr. Ralph Jackson one of his Majesties Servants in ordinary a great Member of the Kings house for whose favour counsel and assistance in the Law to be shewed to the houshold matters and servants he taketh an yearly Fee by the Bâ—tler of England of two Tuns of Wine at two Terms of the year which is allowed in the Court of houshold When the Justices of Peace in every City and County are or should be the under Wheels in that excellently curiously framed Watch of the English Government as the late blessed Martyr King Charles the first when he so sadly forwarned the pulling of it in pieces by a mistaken Parliament and the Rebellious consequences of it not unfitly called it are at their quarter Sessions under his pay and allowance when the Assize of the bread to be sold in England was in the fourth year of the Reign of King John being thirteen years before his granting of Magna Charta ordained by the King by his Edict or Proclamation to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates set and an Assise approved by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz-Peter chief Justice of England the nas one of the Kings more especial Servants as to matters of justice resident and attendant in the Kings House or Palace and by the Baker of R. of Thurnam that Constitution and Assise being not at all contradicted by his Magna Charta or that of his Sons King Henry the 3 d. Which Assise of bread contained in a writing of the Marshalsea of the Kings house being by the consent of the whole Realm exemplified by the Letters Patents of King Henry the 3 d. in the 51 th year of his Raign was confirmed and said to be proved by the Kings Baker By an Act of Parliament made in the 9 th year of the Reign of that King if the King be out of the Realm the chief Justices one of which if not both were then residing and attending in the Kings Court were once in the year through every County with the Knights of the Shires to take Assises of Novel Disseisin and Mortdancester in which if there be any difficulty it was to be referred unto his Justices of the Bench there to be ended By an Act of Parliament made in the 6th year of the Reign of K. Edward the first Wine sold against the Assise was to be by the Mayor and Bayliffs of London presented before the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer who then resided in the Court or Palace of the King The Statute of Westminster the 2. made in the 13th year of the said Kings Reign mentioneth That the Kings Marshal is to appoint the Marshal of the Kings Bench and Exchequer the Criers and Virgers of that and the Court of Common Pleas which at this day is done by and under the Authority of the Earl Marshal of England who by his Certificate made by his Roll of a personal service in a Voyage Royal performed by those that held Lands or Offices in Capite and by Knight Service he discharged an Assessement of Esonage by Parliament superintendeth the cognisance and bearing of Armes of the Nobility and Gentry and the duty of the Heralds and Officers attending thereupon And with the Lord Great Chamberlain before the unhappy change of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service into Free and Common Socage introduce and bring unto the King such as were to do Homage unto him for their Baronies or Lands By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third and by the Kings Authority the Sheriffs of every County in England and Wales who are for the most part under the King the only Executioners of Justice in the Kingdom are three out of six for every County presented by the Judges of every Circuit the morrow after the Feast of All-Souls in every year to the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer Lord Steward the later of which at the beginning and opening of Parliaments is by his Office to administer the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy to every Member of the House of Commons in Parliament the Master of the Horse Lord
Chamberlain Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable Houshold Chancellor of the Exchequer with other of the Kings Privy Councel who together with the Justices of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer do out of the six for every County make choice of three who are in a written Bill by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England shortly after presented to the King who appointeth as he pleaseth one of every three presented unto him as aforesaid for every County to be Sheriff by his Letters Patents under the Great Seal for the year next following And by Authority of the King and his Laws the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England appointeth the Judges in every year their several Circuits maketh and dischargeth all Justices of the Peace And such Petitions as could not be dispatched before the end of Parliaments were frequently adjourned to be heard and determined by the Chancellor and presenteth to all Parsonages or Spiritual Benefices in the Kings right or gift which are under the value of 20 l. per annum according to the antient valuation All the Records in the Courts of Chancery Kings Bench and Common Pleas Justices of Assise and Goal delivery are to be safely kept by the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer which the Commons of England in Parliament in the 46th year of the Reign of King Edward the third did in their Petition to the King call the Peoples perpetual evidence and our Kings of England have therefore in several of their Reigns sent their Writs and Mandates to the Chief Justices of both the Benches to cause their Records for some times therein limited to be brought into his Treasury and entrusted with the Treasurer and Chamberlains thereof in whose custody the Standard for all the Weights and Measures of England is likewise kept By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third Sheriffs abiding above one year in their Offices may be removed and new ones put in their place by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking unto them the Chief Justices of the one Beneh or the other if they be present Escheators who were and should be of very great trust and concernment in the Kingdom betwixt the King and his people were to be chosen by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking into them the Chief Justices of the one Bench or the other if they be present but are since only made by the Lord Treasurer By a Statute made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. the Lord Privy Seal and other great Lords of the Kings Councel are appointed to redress in Parliament delayes and errours in Judgement in other Courts By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King the Chancellor and Treasurer were authorized to hear complaints and ordain remedies concerning gifts and rewards unjustly taken by Sheriffs Bayliffs of Franchises and their Vnder Ministers and also concerning mainteiners and embracers of Juries taking unto them the Justices and other Sage persons such as to them seemeth meet By an Act of Parliament made in the 31th year of the Reign of that King the Lord Chancellor and Treasurer shall examine erronious Judgements given in the Exchequer Chamber And the Chancellor and Treasurer taking to them Justices and other of the Kings Councel as to them seemeth shall take order and make Ordinances touching the buying and selling of Fish By several Acts of Parliament made in the 37th and 38th year of his Reign Suggestions made by any to the King shall be sent with the party making them unto the Chancellor there to be heard and determined and the Prosecutor was to be punished if he prove them not And that upon untrue suggestions the Chancellor should award damages according to his discretion By an Act of Parliament made in the 11th year of the Reign of King Richard the second the keeping of Assises in good Towns are at the request of the Commons in Parliament referred to the Chancellor with the advice of the Judges By an Act of Parliament made in the 13th year of his Reign in every pardon for Felony Murder or Treason the Chamberlain or Vnder Chamberlain was to endorse upon the Bill the Name of him which sued for the same By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of his Reign no man shall go or ride armed except the Kings Officers or Ministers in doing their Office By an Act of Parliament made in the first and second year of the Reign of K. Henry the 4th no Lord is to give any Sign or Livery to any Knight Esquire or Yeoman but the King may give his honourable Livery to his menial Knights and Esquires and also to his Knights and Esquires of his Retinue who are not to use it in their Counties but in the Kings presence The Constable and Marshall of England for the time being and their Retinue of Knights and Esquires may wear the Livery of the King upon the Borders and Marches of the Realm in time of War the Knights and Esquires of every Duke Earl Baron or Baneret may wear their Liveries in going from the Kings House and returning unto it and that the King may give his honourable Livery to the Lords Temporal whom pleaseth him And that the Prince and his menials may use and give his honourable Livery to the Lords and his menial Gentlemen By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 6th the Lords of the Councel may assign money to be coyned in as many places as they will A Letter of request may be granted by the Keeper of the Privy Seal to any of the Kings Subjects from whom Goods be taken by the King of Denmark or any of his Subjects By an Act of Parliament made in the tenth year of his Reign the Mayor of London shall take his Oath before the Treasurer of England and Barons of the Kings Exchequer wherein he shall be charged and sworn to observe all the Statutes touching Weights and Measures By an Act of Parliament made in the eleventh year of his Reign Fees Wages and Rewards due to the Kings Officers were not to be comprized within the Statute of Resumption made in the 28 th year of the Reign of the King By an Act of Parliament made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the 7th for punishments of Maintenance Embracery Perjuries Riots and unlawfull demeanors of Sheriffs and unlawfull Assemblies it was ordained That the Chancellor and Treasurer of England for the time being Keeper of the Kings Privy Seal or two of them calling unto them a Bishop and a Temporal Lord of the Kings most Honourable Councel and the two Chief Justices of the Kings
Tradesmen or Servants extraordinary And therefore the King having fewer Servants or Officers in ordinary than the Kings of France his Neighbours used to have who besides their numerous Guard have four Kings at Armes eight Masters of Request deux Maistres d'Hostel two Masters of the Houshold thirteen Pages of Honour and two hundred Gentlemen Pensioners c. and a far lesser number than many of his Royal Progenitors should not now be thought to have too many because he hath some extraordinary And although it is not hard or difficult to believe but that heretofore the Common people of England were sometimes troubled at the unruliness and misdoings of the Purveyors which were afterwards well prevented in the Reign of Q. Elizabeth by a Composition made with the several Counties what proportions of Provisions the City of London and every County should by equal charge and collection pay and deliver towards the support and maintenance of the Provision for the Kings Houshold yet notwithstanding they did in their duty and reverence unto the King and respect unto his Servants not think it reasonable or comely to arrest or trouble his Purveyors or Servants by any Arrest or Actions without asking his leave or licence But where they had any grievance by his Officers and Servants and the Laws in force would have given them their Actions and remedies were so unwilling to make use of those ordinary helps which the Laws were at all times ready to afford them as they would rather trouble the Commons in Parliament to petition in their behalf for a redress therein who could not but understand that where an Act of Parliament gives remedies either against the Kings Servants Barons Bishops or others it is to be more aut cursu solito in such wayes and manner if no other in particular be prescribed as the Laws and reasonable Customs of England will allow and not otherwise A prospect whereof and of our Kings of Englands care to protect their Servants in their Liberties and Priviledges as well as to do Justice unto the rest of their Subjects complaining of them in Parliament needs not be far to seek to those that will but retrospect and enquire into the ages past CHAP. XII That the Subjects of England had heretofore such a regard of the King and his Servants as not to bring or commence their Actions where the Law allowed them against such of his Servants which had grieved or injured them without a remedy first petitioned for in Parliament WHen in the 13th year of the Reign of King Edward the third the Commons petitioning the King in Parliament which they needed not to have done when the Law would have given them remedy without the trouble of petitioning the King in Parliament and they might by the Statute made in the 28th year of King Edward the first have pursued them as Felons That all Purveyors as well with Commission as without might be arrested if they make not present pay All that was answered unto it as if there were altogether an unwillingness to expose them to Arrests and with which the Commons seemed to be satisfied was That the Commissioners of Sir William Healingford and all other Commissioners for Purveyance for the King be utterly void In the 20th year of that Kings Reign the Commons in Parliament petitioning That payment be made for the last taking of Victuals The Kings answer was That order should be taken therein In the same year the Commons in Parliament petitioning the King That Purveyors not taking the Constables with them according to the Statutes of Westminster might be taken as Thieves and that the Judges of Assise or Justices of the Peace might enquire of the same The King only answered That the Statutes made should be observed In the 21th year of the said Kings Reign the Commons in Parliament not thinking it fitting that the Purveyors who did them wrong should be instantly laid hold of or troubled with Suits or Actions or the King and Queens Horses impounded which would be a less affront to Majesty than the arresting of his Servants did only petition That whereas the King and Queens Horses being carried from place to place in some Counties had Purveyance of Hay and Oats c. made for them That the said Horses might abide in some certain place of the Country and provision made for them there in convenient times of the year by agreement with the Owners of those Goods and that inquiry might be made of the ill behaviour of those Takers before that time and that by Commissions the Plaintiff or party grieved in that kind as well of wrongs heretofore done or hereafter to be done might have redress therein To which the King answered That he was well pleased that the Ordinances already made should be kept and Purveyance made for his best profit and ease of his people And in the same year the Commons having complained That whereas the King and his Councell had assented that Men and Horses of the Kings Houshold should not be Harbinged but by Bill of the Marshal of the House delivered to the Constable who should cause them to have good sustenance for themselves and their Horses as should be meet and before their departures should pay the parties of whom the Victuals were taken and if they did not their Horses should be arrested and that contrary thereunto they departed without payment when it seems they used so much civility to the Horses as not to arrest them did only pray that in every Bill mention be made of the number of Horses that no more but one Garson be allowed and that payment according to the Statute might be made from day to day Whereunto the King answered That that Article should be kept in all points according to the form of the Statute In the 28th year of the Reign of that King by an Act of Parliament not printed when it was enacted That no Purveyor arrested for any misdemeanor should have any Privy Seal to cause such as arrested him to come before the Councell to answer to the King when it seems the King and his Councell were unwilling to put the Kings Servants under the command of every mans pretended Action but the party grieved might have his remedy by the Common Law the utmost extent of that Statute did not include any other of the Kings Servants then his Purveyors And did so little disrelish Protections and the just grounds and reason thereof as in the 45th year of the Reign of King Edward the third the Commons in Parliament petitioned the King That such as remained upon the Sea-Coasts by the Kings commandment might have protection with the Clausa volumus which the King supposing to be too general or at that time unnecessary answered That the same would be to the apparent loss of the Commons In the 46th year of the Reign of that King the Commons petitioning the King in Parliament That whereas it was
with all the liberties and free customes to the said honour appertaining that of later granted to the Earl of Pembroke by King Edward the 6 th of the Earldome of Pembroke cum omnibus singulis praeheminentiis honori Comitis pertinentibus with all preheminencies and honors belonging to the honour and dignity of an Earl Et habere sedem locum vocem as all the grants and Creations of the later Earles do now allow and import in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis Consiliis nostrorum haeredum successorum infra regnum Angliis inter alios Comites and to have place vote or suffrage in the Parliaments or Councells of the King his heirs or successors amongst the Earles within the Kingdome of England nec non uti gandere omnibus singulis Juribus privilegiis praeheminentiis immunitatibus statui comitis in omnibus rite de I're pertinentibus quibus caeteri comites Regni Angliae ante haec tempora melius honorificentius quietius liberius usi gravisi sunt as likewise to use and enjoy all and singular rights priviledges immunities and preheminencies to the degree and state of an Earl in every thing rightly and by law appertaining as other Earles of the Kingdome of England best most honourably and freely have used and enjoyed all who the aforesaid antient honorable priviledges preheminencies and immunities granted and allowed the Nobility and Baronage of England those Sons and Generations of merit adorned by their ancestors vertue aswell as their own and the honors which their Soveraigns have imparted unto them have been ratified by our Magna Charta so very often confirmed by several Acts of Parliament and the Petition of Right in and by which the properties and liberties of all the people of England are upheld and supported and therefore the honors and dignities being personal Officiary or relating to their service and attendance upon the throne and Majesty Royal and conducing to the Honor Welfare and safety of the King and his people King Henry the 6 th may be thought to have been of the same opinion when the Commons in Parliament having in the 29 th year of his raign Petitioned him that the Duke of Sommerset Dutchess of Suffolk and others may be put from about his person he consented that all should depart unless they be Lords whom he could not spare from his person And in Askes Rebellion in Yorkshire in the latter end of the raigne of King Henry the 8 th the Commons complained that the King was not although he had many about him of great Nobility served or attended with Noble or worthy men And also the Lords Spiritual assembled in Parliament in the second year of the raigne of King Charles the Martyr when they Petitioned the King against the Inconveniences of some English mens being created Earles Viscounts and Barons of Scotland or Ireland that had neither residence nor estates in those Kingdomes did amongst other things alledge that it was a Shame to nobility that such persons dignified with the titles of Barons Viscounts c should be exposed and obnoxious to arrests they being in the view of the law no more then meer Plebejans and prayed that his Majesty would take some Course to prevent the prejudice and disparagement of the Peers and Nobility of this Kingdome who being more peculiarly under the protection of their Soveraigne in the enjoyment of their priviledges have upon any invasion thereof a more special addresse unto him for the Conservation thereof as in the case of the Earl of Northampton the twentieth day of June in the 13 th year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr against Edmond Cooper a Serjeant at Mace in London and William Elliot for arresting of him they were by the Lord Chamberlains warrant apprehended and committed to the Marshall and not discharged but by warrant of the Lord Chamberlain bearing date the third day of July next following and needs not seem unusual strange or irrational unto any who shall but observe and consult the liberties priviledges immunities and praeheminencies granted and permitted unto the Nobility of many other Nations and Countries aswell now as very antiently by their Municipal and reasonable customes and the civil or Caesarean laws CHAP. XVI That many the like priviledges and praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarian laws and the Municipall Laws and reasonable Customes of many other Nations granted and allowed to the nobility thereof WHen as the Hebrews who thought themselves the most antient wise and priviledged of the Sonnes of men had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuum principes Capita qui cum Rege sedentes partim consilia mibant partim Jus reddebant Princes of the Tribes under the King were the chief Magistrates and heads of the people attended the King sate with him as his Councel and assisted him in the making of laws of which the book of God giveth plentiful evidences Solomon had his Princes some of whom were set over his household Ahab had Princes of his Provinces Jehoram King of Israel leaned upon the hand of a Lord that belonged unto him And our Saviour Christ alludeth to the Princes of Israel the Elders and Judges of the people when he saith his twelve Apostles should after the Consummation of the world sit and Judge the twelve Tribes of Israel amongst the Graecians the nobility derived their honors from their Kings and Princes and by the lawes of Solon and the ten Tables were alwaies distinguished from the Common people and had the greatest honours and authorities and in all other Nations who live under Monarchs have been favoured and endowed therewith the old Roman Nobility refused to marry with the Ignoble as those of Denmark and Germany do now which our English descended from the later did so much approve of as they accompted it to be a disparagement to all the rest of the Family and Kindred to marry with Citizens or people of mean Extractions Julius Caesar when he feasted the Patricii or Nobility and the common people entertained the Nobility in one part of his Palace and the Common people in another and not denied some part of it even in the Venetian and Dutch Republick as amongst many other not here ennumerated Nobilis minus suâ—t puniendi quam ignobilis Noble men are not to be so severely punished as ignoble Nobiles propter debitum Civile vel ex causa aeris alieni non debent realiter citari vel in Carcerem duci are not for debts or moneys owing to be arrested or imprisoned propter furtum vel aliud crimen suspendio dignum laquei supplicio non sunt plectendi are not for Theft or any other Crime to be hanged and that priviledge so much allowed and insisted upon in the Republick or Commommon wealth of Genoar in the height of their envy or dislike of their Nobility as they did about the
come with them to sach Convocation often times and commonly be arrested molested and inquieted the King willing gratiously in that behalf to provide for the security and quieâ—ness of the said Prelates and Clergy at the supplication of the said Prelates and Clergie and by the assent of the great men and Commons in Parllament assembled did ordain and establish that all the Clergy hereafter to be called to the Convocation by the Kings writ and their servants and familiars should for ever hereafter fully use and enjoy such liberty or defenee in coming tarrying and retorning as the great men and commonly of the Realm of England called or to be called to the Kings Parliament did enjoy or were wont to enjoy or in time to come ought to enjoy In the 23. and 24 th year of the Raigne of that King the Commons in Parliament did pray the King that every person being of the Lords or Commons House having any assault or fray made upon him being at the parliament or coming or going from thence might have the like remedy therefore as Sir Thomas Parre Knight had which shews that in those days they did not endeavour to punish any breach of their priviledges by their own authority but made their addresse by their petitions unto the King as their Soveraigne and Supreme for his Justice therein To which the King answered the Statutes therefore made should be observed In the 28 th year of the said Kings Raigne It was at the request of the Commons in parliament for that William Taylebois of South Lime in the County of Lincoln Esq would in the Parliament time have slain Ralph Lord Cromwell one of the Kings Councel in the Pallace of Westminster Enacted that the said William Taylebois should therefore be committed to the Tower of London there to remain one year without bayle baston or Mainprize and that before his delivery he should answer unto the same In the 14 th and 15 th year of the Raign of King Edward the 4 th William Hide a Burgess of Parliament for the Town of Chippenham in Wiltshire being a Prisoner upon a Writ of Capias ad satisfaciendum obtained a Writ out of the Chancery to be delivered with a saving of the right of other men to have Execution after the Parliament ended notwithstanding the Pâ—ecedent of Sir William Thorpe Knight Speaker of the house of Commons in the 18 th year of the Raigne of the Raigne of King Henry the 6 th taken in Execution for a debt of 1000 l. at the suit of Richard Duke of York betwixt the adjournment and recess of that Parliament and could not be released so as a new Speaker was chosen in his place which may well be conjectered to have been so carried by the then overbearing power and influence of that Duke and his party great alliance and pretences to the Crown which that meek and pious King was not able to resist For in the 17 th year of the raigne of King Edward the 4 th at the petition of the Commons in Parliament the King with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal granted that John Atwill a Burgess of the City of Exeter condemned in the Exchequer during the Parliament upon eight several informations at the suit of John Taylor of the same Town should have as many Writs of Supersedeas as he would untill his coming home after the Parliament In the 35 th year of the Raigne of King Henry the 8 th Trewyniard a Burgess of Parliament being imprisoned upon an Utlary in an action of debt upon a Capias ad satisfaciendum was delivered by priviledge of Parliament allowed to be legal by the opinion of the Judges before whom that case of his imprisonment and release was afterwards debated and their reasons as hath been before remembred given for the same with which agreeth the precedent in the case of Edward Smalley a servant of Mr. Hales a member of Parliament taken in Execution in the 18 th year of the Raigne of Queen Elizabeth in the Report whereof made by the Committee of Parliament for his delivery it is said that the said Committee found no precedent for the setting at large any person in arrest but only by writ and that by diverse precedents on Record and perused by the said Committee it appeared that every Knight Citizen and Burgesse of the house of Commons in Parliament which doth require priviledge hath used in that case to take a corporal oath before the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England for the time being that the party for whom such writ is prayed came with him to the Parliament was his servant at the the time of the arrest made whereupon Mr Hale was directed by the house of Commons to make an oath before the Lord Keeper as aforesaid and to procure a warrant for a Writ of priviledge for his said servant howbeit the Lords in Parliament did in the Raigne of Queen Elizabeth usually of their own authority deliver their Servants out of Execution if arrested in Parliament time In the 27 th year of her Raigne a Member of the house of Commons having been served with a Writ of Subpaena issuing out of the Chancery and the house signifying to the Lord Keeper that it was against their priviledge he retorned answer that he could not submit to any opinion of the house concerning their priviledges except those priviledges were allowed in Chancery and would not recall the Subpaena With which accordeth Mr. VVilliam Pryn too violent an undertaker in the late times of usurpation to assert their phantosme or feigned soveraignty whereof he was then and since his Majesties happy restoration untill his death a member who having by the keeping of the Records in the Tower of London found the way to a better weighed and more sober consideration and cause enough if he would have well inspected himself and what he had formerly written to retract those many errors which an overhasty reading and writing had hurried him into hath in his animadversions upon Sir Edward Cokes 4 th part of his Institutes declared that the house of Commons in Parliament had untill the later end of the last Century assumed no Jurisdiction to themselves or their Committee of priviledges to punish breaches of priviledges but onely complained thereof to the King or the Lords in Parliament And therefore King James in an answer to a Petition of the House of Commons in Parliament in Anno Dom. 1622 was not in an error when he said that although we cannot allow of the stile calling your priviledges your antient and undoubted rights and inheriiance but could rather have wished that you had said that your priviledges were derived from the grace or permission of our Ancestors and us for most of them were from precedents which shews rather a tolleration then inheritance yet we are pleased to give you our royal assurance that as long as you contain
I could perceive trodden by any but Your Lordships most Humble Servant Fabian Philipps THE TABLE OR Contents of the Chapters THat there is a greater Honour due unto the Palace and House of the King Then unto any of the houses of his Subjects Chap. I. 4 That the Business and Affairs of the King about which any of his Servants or Subjects are imployed are more considerable and to be regarded then the Business and Affairs of any of the People Chap. II. 29 That the Kings Servants in ordinary are not to be denied a more than ordinary Priviledge or respect nor are to be compelled to appear by Arrest or otherwise in any Courts of Justice out of the Kings House without leave or Licence of the Lord Chamberlain or other the Officers of the Kings Houshold to whom it appertaineth first had and obteyned Chap. III. 38 That the Priviledges and Protections of the Kings Servants in ordinary by reason of his Service is and ought to be extended unto the Priviledged Parties Estate both real and Personal as well as unto their Persons Chap. IV. 244 That the Kings Servants whilst they are in his Service ought not to be Utlawed or Prosecuted in Order thereunto without leave or Licence first obteyned of the King or the great Officers of his most Honourable Houshold under whose several Jurisdictions they do Officiate Chap. V. 250 That the Kings established and delegated Courts of Justice to Administer Justice to his People are not to be any Bar or hindrance to his Servants in ordinary in their aforesaid Antient Just and Legal Rights and Priviledges Chap. VI. 289 That the King or the great Officers of his Houshold may punish those who do infringe his Servants Priviledges and that any of the Kings Servants in ordinary being Arrested without leave are not so in the Custody of the Law as they ought not to be released untill they do appear or give Bayl to appear and Answer the Action Chap. VII 310 That the aforesaid Priviledge of the Kings Servants in ordinary hath been legally imparted to such as were not the Kings Servants in ordinary but were imployed upon some Temporary and Casual Affairs abroad and out of the Kings House Chap. VIII 318 That the Kings granting Protections under the Great Seal of England to such as are his Servants in ordinary for their Persons Lands and Estates when especially imployed by him into the parts beyond the Seas or in England or any other of his Dominions out of his Palace or Virge thereof or unto such as are not his Domesticks or Servants in ordinary or extraordinary when they are sent or imployed upon some of his Negotiations Business or Affairs neither is or can be any Evidence or good Argument that such only and not the Kings Servants in ordinary who have no Protections under the Great Seal of England are to be Protected or Priviledged whilst they are busied in his Palace or about his Person Chap. IX 343 That our Kings some of which had more than his nâ—w Majesty hath have or had no greater number of Servants in Ordinary than is or hath been necessary for their Occasions Safety well being State Honour Magnificence and Majesty And that their Servants waiting in their Turns or Courses are not without leave or Licence as aforesaid to be Arrested in the Intervals of their waiting or Attendance Cap. X. 355 That the King being not to be limited to a number of his Servants in Ordinary is not in so great a variety of Affairs and contingencies wherein the publick may be concerned to be restrained to any certain number of such as he shall admit to be his Servants extraordinary Chap. XI 365 That the Subjects of England had heretofore such a regard of the King and his Servants as not to bring or commence their Actions where the Law allowed them against such of his Servants which had grieved or Injured them with ut a remedie first Petitioned for in Parliament Chap. XII 375 That the Clergy of England in the height of their Priviledges Encouragement and Protection by the Papall overgrown Authority did in many cases lay aside their Thunderbolts and Power of Excommunications appeals to the Pope and obtaining his Interdictions of Kingdoms Churches and Parishes and take the milder modest and more reverential way of Petitioning our Kings in Parliaments rather than turn the rigors of their Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws or of the Laws of England against any of the Kings Officers or Servants Chap. XIII 389 That the Judges in former times did in their Courts and Proceedings of Law and Justice manifest their unwillingness to give or permit any obstruction to the Service of the King and Weal Publick Chap. XIV 392 That the Dukes Marquesses Count Palatines Earls Viscounts and Barons of England and the Bishops as Barons have and do enjoy their Priviledges and freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment of their Bodies in Civil and Personal Actions As Servants extraordinary and attendants upon the Person State and Majesty of the King in Order to his Government Weal Publick and safety of him and his People And not only as Peers abstracted from other of the Kings Ministers or Servants in Ordinary Chap. XV. 413 That many the like Priviledges and Praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarean Laws and the Municipal Laws and Customs of many other Nations granted and allowed to the Nobility thereof Chap. XVI 445 That the Immunities and Priviledges granted and permitted by our Kings of England unto many of their People and Subjects who were not their Servants in Ordinary do amount unto as much and in some more than what our Kings Servants in Ordinary did or do now desire to enjoy Chap. XVII 466 That many of the People of England by the Grace and Favour of our Kings and Princes or along permission usâ—ge or prescription do enjoy and make use of very many Immunities Exemptions and Priviledges which have not had so great a Cause or Foundation as those which are now claimed by the Kings Servanes Chap. XVIII 489 That those many other Immunities and Priviledges have neither been abolished or so much as murmured at by those that have yeilded an Assent and Obedience thereunto although they have at some times and upon some Occasions received some Loss Damage or Inconveniences thereby Chap. XIX 494 That the Power and care of Justice and the distribution thereof is and hath been so Essential and Radical to Monarchy and the constitution of this Kingdom as our Kings of England have as well before as since the Conquest taken into their Cognisance divers Causes which their established Courts of Justice either could not remedie or wanted Power to determine have removed them from other Courts to their own Tribunals and propria authoritate caused Offenders for Treason or Felony to be Arrested and may upon Just and Legal Occasions respite or delay Justice Chap. XX. 503 That a care of the Honour and Reverence due unto the
have been permitted or are to Ride or come into the Castle Gate with his Hat on or covered Those vast Empires of the Ottoman or Turk Persians Mogor and King or Emperour of Japan are not without thosâ— or the like Reverences not only by their profound silences and observations more then ordinary in their Apartments and Retirements but by other Demonstrations of Honour and acknowledgements of Respect to their Soveraign Princes Houses or Palaces Nor are such or the like Reverences or Respects due to the Houses or Courts of kings unknown or disused even amongst the more Heathen and Barbarians who although they are too much conversant with Ignorance Rudeness and Incivilities are notwithstanding by the Principles Law and light of Nature guided and directed unto it In the City and Countrey which was the Queen of Sheba's the people do use such Reverence to the Kings Houses or Palaces as although the Gates do stand open no man dares presume to enter or to touch them Before any do come to the Court or Tent of Prete John Emperour or King of Ethiopia or the Abassines they do alight of their Horses and begin to do their accustomed Reverences stooping down with their right hand unto the ground and betwixt the Prete or Kings Tent and the Tent of the Judges no man passeth on Horse-back in Reverence to the King and his Justice but all do alight and go on foot When any do come to the first Hall of the King of the Maldives Palace who is King of thirteen Provinces and One thousand Isles where His guard are No Lord or Plebeian man woman or child dare go further except the Domestical Officers of the King and Queens and their Slaves and Servitors At the King of Achens Court in the East Indies before any man can come into the Kings Presence he must put of his Hose and Shooes hold the Palms of his hands together lift them above his head and bow with his body Amongst the rude and fierce Tartars he that hath been present with one that died was not to come into the house of the Mangu Chan within a year after The Barons and people who do come unto his Court do within half a Mile where the great Chan Resides make and continue a great silence a sign or token in the Eastern Countries of great Reverence every Baron carrying a little fair vessel to Spit in and after Covers it none daring to spit in the Hall into which before they do enter they put off their Buskins and put on Furre Buskins of white Leather giving the other to their Servants In the City of Nanquim is a Table of Gold wherein is written the Kings name in Memory of his Residence there which stands in the Palace Covered and being to be seen upon some of their Festival days covered all the Nobility of the City do go to do it Reverence In China and at Pequin they which are to pass by the Kings Palaces do descend and alight from their Horses and go on foot until they be passed Yea although the King doth not there reside and they do at other times make their Reverences unto the Kings Empty Throne And so much by the light of nature and the dusky and obscure glimmerings of it were the Palaces and Residences of their Kings and Princes Reverenced by the Mexicans a Populous Nation in the West Indies as all that were to come or appear before Montezuma their King or Emperour were except some Princes his kinsmen to come bare-foot Such therefore and so great Honours being so deservedly due to the Houses and Habitations of Kings and Princes the Affairs or business of the Soveraign Acted either within or without it are not certainly like Esau to be deprived of it's Blessing or what is appropriate or belonging to it but it ought as a very great truth to be subscribed unto by every one that will not abjure his own Reason the Laws and Reasonable Customes of England Prudence and Practice of all other Nations of Christendom and where ever the Light of Reason and Divine Wisdom have imparted their Glories that the business and affairs of the Kings-Servants in Ordinary are to be preferred and Take Place of the Affairs of any Subject or Private Person SECT II. That the Business and Affairâ— of the King about which any of His Servants or Subjects are Imployed are more considerable and to be Regarded then the Business and Affairs of any of His People WHen the General and Universal consisting of all the parts of a Body Politick and the Safety Care and Concernment of the whole must needs surmount any one or two or any Particulars or some Private mens necessities or occasions The brawls and controversies betwixt the Herdsmen of Lot and the Righteous Abraham for Pasture for their Flocks and Cattel were understood in that Particular to be no less then their Masters own Concernments And the Servants of every Master and consequently their business are by God himself and his never Erring Wisdom justly reckoned in the Tenth Commandment or Decalogue as a part of the Masters goods and Estate The Civil Law allows us to conclude that Servi rerum appellatione comprehenduntur Servants are accounted to be a part of the Masters Estate familiae significatione Servi includuntur and in a family Servants are included Familia continentur liberi homines bona fide servientes in a family are contained and intended Freemen aswel as Villains or Bond-men which serve therein Et familia unum quoddam Corpus constituit inde patimur Injuriam etiam per liberos uxorem servos etiam mercenarios nostros for a Family makes and constitutes a certain body and thereupon the Master of it may be said to be wronged in his Wife Children and Servants and sometimes in those which are hirelings And it was neither forbidden or disallowed by the Civil Law in Ancient times before better and more convenient Securities by Pactions and Obligations were found out Servos Ancillas tanquam bona Catalla oppignorare to Pawn or Deliver in Pledge their men Servants or maid Servants Our Saxon Laws intended no less when they did Ordain that every Lord or Master should be obliged to bring his Servant to Justice Our liber Censualis or Doomesday Book made about the 16 th year of the Raign of William the Conquerour as an Inquisition or extent of every mans Estate in the Kingdom both Real and Personal doth therein Reckon Servos Ancillas villanos as well Men-servants and Maid-servants as Villains or Bond-men And our Laws do allow an Action in the Masters name for the beating or wounding of a Servant per quod servitium servientis sui amisit whereby he lost the use or service of his Servant By the Laws of the Old Almains uniusquisque pacem habere debet ad ducem veniendo de illo revertendo Et nullus praesumat hominem de
duce venientem aut ad illum ambulantem in Itinere inquietare quamvis culpabilis sit no man ought to be molested in his journey or going to or from the Dukes Court although there might be any Action or Cause to trouble him By the Laws of the Lombards or Longobards si quis ex Baronibus nostris ad nos venire voluerit securus veniat illaesus ad suos revertatur nullus de Adversariis illi aliquam Injuriam in itinere aut molestiam facere praesumat If any of our Barons have an intent to come unto us he is safely to go and come and none of his adversaries are to do him in his Journey any wrong or Injury By some Laws made in the Raigns of the Emperors Charlemaigne and Lewis his Son nullus ad palatium vel in hostem pergens vel de Palatio vel de hoste rediens tributum quod transituras vocant solvere Cogatur That no man coming to his Palace or going against the Enemy or returning should be compelled to pay the Tribute called Passage-money The Tractatoria Evectiones allowed by the Western and Eastern Emperors that Stables and Provisions of Horse-meat and mans meat should be provided sumptu publico at the Peoples charge for such as Ride post Travailed or were sent upon the Emperors Affairs may inform us how great the difference is and ought to be betwixt the Kings Affairs and those of the Common People The Laws of the Wisigoths a People not then much acquainted with Civilities compiled about the year or Aera of our Lord 504 may teach us the value of Princes cares of their own and the Publick Affairs managed by their Servants or whosoever shall be imployed therein Quod antea ordinare oportuit negotia Principum postea populorum when they declared that the Affairs or concerment of the Prince ought to take place of those of the People Quia si salutare Caput extiterit rationem colligit qualiter Curare cetera membra possit because if it be well with the head it will be the better able to take care of the rest of the Members Et ordinanda primo negotia Principum tutanda salus defendenda vita sicquè in statu negotiis plebium ordinatio dirigenda ut eum salus componens prospicitur Regum fida valentibus teneatur salvatia populorum That in the first place the business of the Prince the safety of his life and the defence of his Person are to be heeded and the Affairs of the People so Ordered as whilst a sufficient provision is made for the safety of the Prince the good of the People may be established Of which our English Laws have such a regard as they would some few Cases only excepted dispence with any man 's not appearing or coming to Justice If he though not the Kings servant in Ordinary sent by His Attourney the Kings Writ of Protection signifying that he was sent or Imployed in the Kings Service That if any Archbishop Bishop Earl or Baron do come to the King by His Commandment passing by any of His Forrests he might notwithstanding the great severity of the Forrest Laws against such as did Steal or Kill any of the Kings Deer or Venison take or kill one or two in their going and return The Register of Writs doth bear Record that where one of the Kings Servants hath been returned of a Jury or Summoned probably to be a witness or upon some other occasion to attend some Inquisition or Inquest to be made in any other place then the Kings House or before any other Judges or Magistrates a Writ hath been sent under the Great Seal of England to excuse his absence because he was the same day to attend the Steward and Marshal of the Kings House about some affairs of the Houshold which may shew that the King had a mind aswel as reason not to permit the necessary attendance of His own Servants in or upon His Houshold occasions to be omitted to wait upon strangers or other mens busines in Courts or matters of Justice And the Law doth so much prefer the Kings business above the Common Peoples as that all Honor and Reverence is to be given to the Kings Privy Council For that as Sir Edward Coke saith they are partes Corporis Regis incorporated as it were with him are profitable Instruments of the State bear part of his cares and which is no more then what the Civil Law allows them when it terms them Administri Adjutores Adsessores helpers and Adsessors qui arcanis Principis interesse meruerunt in Contubernium Imperatoriae Majestatis adsciti and which deserve an Interess in the Princes secrets and affairs of State and are as Spartianus saith admitted as it were into the Society of Royal Majesty Where the body of a Debtor before the Statute of 25 of King Edward the third have by some been believed not to have been liable to Execution for debt at the Suit of a Common Person yet it was adjuged to otherwise in the Kings Case for that Thesaurus Regis est pacis vinculum Bellorum nervi for otherwise the King might want His Money or Treasure which is the Bond of Peace and Sinews of War Protections under the Great Seal of England have not only been granted by our Kings but allowed by their Judges to secure some Merchants Strangers from Arrests or Trouble in Corporibus rebus bonis in their Persons goods or Estates until the Debts and Money which they did owe the King should be satisfied and to suspend any Judgements or Executions had against them for other mens Debts until the King should be satisfied the monys due unto him And in the mean time taking them and their estate in their Royal Protection did prohibit any Process against them to be made in any of their Courts of Justice or that they should be Arrested or distrained for any debts or accompts the Kings debts not being satisfied And although by an Act of Parliament or Statute made in the 25 th year of the Raign of King Edward the third cap. 19. Their other Creditors might notwithstanding bring their Actions and Prosecute thereupon yet they were not by that Statute to have Execution upon any Judgements gained for their Debts unless they would undertake to pay the Debts due unto the King and then he should be authorized to sue for recover and take the Kings Debt and have Execution also for his own Debt the Preamble of that Statute mentioning that during such Protection no man had used or durst to implead such Debtors In the 8 th year of the Raign of King Henry the 6 th it was agreed in Parliament that all matters that touch the King should be preferred before all other as well in Parliament as in Council And no longer ago then in the 34 th and 35 th years of the Raign of King
Palace the Court of Justice therein kept being called Capitalis Curia Domini Regis the Kings chief Court where those Justices or Judges then sate and where the great Assize or Writs of Assize in pleas of Land happily succeeding in the place of the turbulent fierce and over-powring way of duels or waging of battels for the determination of pretended Rights were tryed Juries impanelled and a Fine passed and Recorded before the Bishops of Ely and Norwich and Ralph de Glanvile our Learned Author Justitiis Domini Regis et aliis fidelibus et familiaribus Domini Regis ibi tunc presentibus the Kings Justices and other of his Subjects and Houshold Assizes of novel desseisin and prohibitions to Ecclesiastical Courts awarded And was so unlikely to permit any Breach of his Servants just priviledges as he did about the 24th year of his Raign not only confirm all his Exchequer Servants Dignities and priviledges used and allowed in the Raign of King Henry the first his Grandfather but although Warrs and many great troubles assaulted him did when he laid an Escuage of a Mark upon every Knights Fee whereby to pay his hired Soldiers not at all charge his Exchequer Servants for that as the black Book of Exchequer that antient Remembrancer of the Exchequer priviledges informs us Mavult enim Princeps stipendiarios quam Domesticos Bellicis apponere casibus for the King had rather expose his hired men of Warre to the inconveniences thereof then his Domestique or Houshold Servants and being as willing as his Grandfather to free them from being cited or troubled before his delegated or Commissionated Courts of Justice or Tribunals would in all probability be more unwilling that those which more neerly and constantly attended upon his person health or safety should by any suits of Law be as to their persons or estates molested or diverted from it nor could there be howsoever any danger of arresting the Kings Servants in ordinary without leave or Licence first obtained in the after-Raigns of King Richard the first and King John when Hubert Walter Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England in the 6th year of the Raign of King John was likewise Lord Chief Justice of England And the now chief Courts of the Kingdome as the Chancery Kings-Bench Common-Pleas and Exchequer were radically and essentially in the King and in the distribution of Justice of the said Kings and their Royal Predecessors resided in their Council and great Officers in their Courts attending upon their Persons For many of the Suits and Actions at the Common Law and even those of the Court of Common Pleas untill the ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the third when it was by Act of Parliament forbidden to follow the Kings Court but to be held in loco certo a place certain in regard that the King and his Court were unwilling any more to be troubled with the Common Pleas or Actions betwixt private persons which were not the Kings Servants were there prosecuted And untill those times it cannot be less then a great probability that all the Trades-mens debts which were demanded of Courtiers and the Kings Servants were without Arrests or Imprisonments to be prosecuted and determined in the Court before the Steward and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and that the King who was so willing was so willing to ease his Subjects in their Common Pleas or Actions by freeing them from so chargeable an attendance which the prosecution of them would commonly if not necessarily require did not thereby intend that they should have a Liberty without leave or Licence first obtained to molest any of his Servants in ordinary in their Duty or Attendance upon his Royal person and Affairs by prosecuting Arresting imprisoning or compelling to appear before other Judges or Tribunals any of his Servants in ordinary Who in those times may well be thought to enjoy a freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment of their Bodies untill leave or Licence first obtained when Hugo de Patishul Treasurer unto King Henry the third in the nineteenth year of his Raign Philip Lovel in the 34th year of the Raign of that King and John Mansel Keeper of the great Seal of England in the 40th year of that Kings Raign were whilst they held their several other places successively Lord Chief Justices of England When the Court of Chancery being in the absence of Parliaments next under our Kings the Supreme Court for the order and distribution of Justice the Court of the Kings Bench appointed to hear and determine Criminal matters Actions of Trespass and Pleas of the Crown and the Court of Exchequer matters and Causes touching the King's Revenue were so much after the 9th year of the Raign of King Henry the third and the dispensing with the Court of Common Pleas from following the person of our Kings to their several Houses or Palaces or as their Affairs invited them to be sometimes Itinerant or resident in several other parts of the Kingdom did follow the King and were kept in their Houses or Palaces notwithstanding that when like the Sun in his Circuit distributing their Rayes and Comforts to all the parts of the Kingdome by turns they were according to their occasion of busines sometimes at York or Carlile in the North and at other times for their pleasures or divertisements kept their Courts or festivals at Glocester or Nottingham and their Parliaments sometimes at Marlebridge in Wiltshire or Ruthland in Wales or at Glocester or Lincoln For it may be evidenced by the Retorn or days given in Writs and antient Fines levied before the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster after the allowance or favour given to that Court not to be ambulatory and to the people not to be at so great trouble or charges as would be required to follow the King and his Court in a throng of Followers and other business for the obtaining of Justice in their suits or Actions as well small or often emerging as great and seldome happening the days of old also affirming it that the Kings Palace at Westminster in the great Hall where the Court of Common Pleas hath ever since dwelt some places thereunto adjoyning retaining at this day the Name of the Old Palace did not cease to be the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England untill that King Henry the 8th by the fall of the pompous Cardinal Woolsey the building of St. Jame's House and inclosing the now Park thereof with a brick wall made White-Hall to be his House or Palace but kept the name as well as business of the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England And the Courts of Chancery King's Bench and Exchequer did after the fixation of the Common Pleas or Actions of the people to a certain place in the Kings Palace at Westminster being then his more settled and constant habitation and Residence for his not a few
voluntatem illius qui debet domum vel curiam or by doing any thing saith an old Manuscript of Coxford Abby or Monastery which is against the will of the owner of the House or Court which King Henry the first in his Laws de Jure Regis concerning some particulars of his Prerogative and Regality did number amongst the rest and accompt to belong unto him and his Successors and in the perclose of that Law which in some Copies is mentioned to be made assensu Baronum Regni Angliae by the consent of the Barons of England it is said haec sunt Dominica placita Regis nec pertinent vicecomitibus apparitoribus vel ministris ejus sine diffinitis praelocutionibus in forma sua these are the Rights and Jurisdictions belonging to the King in his Demesne and do not belong to any Sheriffs Apparitors or their Bayliffs unless especially granted unto them By which and the HVSFASTENE an old course and custom amongst the Saxons which ordained that every house with their FOLGHERES Followers or Servants should be in Franco Plegio in some Franke pleg or Liberty where by the Courts held in those places or Justice there to be had any controversies betwixt them and others or wrongs done by or unto them might be determined the rule of the Civil Law which in many of the Customs or Municipal Laws of this and other Nations was the guide or Pole star which conducted them being that actio sequitur forum rei the Action to which our Common Laws have ever since in their Real and other actions much agreed is to be tryed in the Court where the person or lands of the party defendant are that before recited law of K. Edw. the Confessor which amongst other his highly valued Laws Enacted that Arch-bishops Bishops Earls Barons and all that had Soc a liberty of distributive Justice in their Lands or Territories and Sac a power to fine or punish such as were found guilty either by complaining without a cause or proved to have done wrong to another which gave or confirmed many a liberty or set the example of the succeeding Kings gratifying many of their Subjects with the like in making them tanquam Reguli little Princes within their own Estates or Dominions should have suas Curias Consuetudines their Courts and liberties in their view of Frank Pleg Court Leets and Court Barons and should have under their Jurisdiction etiam milites suos proprios servientes such as served them in wars or held of them by the service thereof or were their domestick or houshold servants Item isti suos Armigeros alios sibi servientes and the Esquires and servants likewise of their servants saith Bracton expounding that Law of King Edward the Confessor the King certainly should not be denied his own Franchise view of Frank-Pleg or jurisdiction to do Justice where either his service or servants were concerned or at least to be complained unto before any violent course of Law should be taken in other Courts against them for otherwise if the King should not have always had such a franchise view of his Frank Pleg or Laws or Customs Hospitii sui as Fleta terms them of his Royal House or Palace there would have been some vestigia foot steps or track to be found either in the Antient Monuments and Memorials of our Laws or of those of later ages or of some other time That the King had been an immediate or single Complainant by way of Action for any abuses only offered to his servants or contempts to his person or Royal Authority which by a long most just and necessary prescription as far as time with his Iron teeth hath left us any remembrances was always left and reserved to the authority and Jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberberlain of the Kings House and the Kings other great Officers who by the Messengers of the Kings Chamber who in such particulars have been as the Lictores Sergeants or Bayliffs pro ista vice upon such occasions to arrest and bring them to the Justice of the King in his Royal Court or Palace and must needs be as lawful or a great deal more in his own particular immediate concernment as it is for the Lord Keeper of the great seal of England or Lord Chancellor to direct the Kings Serjeant at Arms allowed to attend that great and illustrious Officer and Superintendent of the Chancery by himself or his Deputy to arrest and take into his chargeable custody the person of any that shall have committed any grand or reiterated contempt against the process orders or decrees of that honourable Court or for that or the Court of Common-pleas to make the Warden of the Fleets men or the Virgers or Tipstaves attending upon the said Courts or for the Courts of Kings Bench or Exchequer to make the Marshals or Tipstaves thereof to be the Lictores or Messengers of their punishments and displeasure or as the house of Peers in Parliament do make use of the Kings Usher of the black rod and the house of Commons in Parliament of the Kings Serjeant at Arms nor could it have been likely that the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings house who in the Reigns of our Kings Edward the first second or third and probably by foregoing and elder constitutions did in the absence of the Lord Chief Justice of England vicem gerere execute in the Kings Court as Fleta tells us the Office or place of the said Lord Chief Justice should not retain in the Government of the Kings Servants and Houshold so much power as might protect them from injuries or their Royal Master from contempts or neglects of Duties or respects to his person Palace or servants for who that hath not bid defiance to his own Intellect as well as the wisdom of former ages can pretend any shew or colour of Reason that the King should want the power or authority to do as the late blessed Martyr King Charles the first did in the apprehension of certain Watermen in the year 1632. and committing them to Bridewell for refusing to carry the French Ambassador by Water upon the complaint of the Kings Master of the Barge in the year 1634. for the apprehension of William Hockley a Hackney-Coachman for refusing to wait upon the French Embassador or of John Philpots Post-master of Rochester for dis-respects to Monsieur St. German the French Embassador or in the year 1636. for the arrest of John Clifford of Chelsey upon the Complaint of the Spanish Embassador or to cause one Robert Armstrong to be taken into custody by one of his Messengers in the year 1639. for arresting the Post-Master of St. Albans who it may be for ought the offender then knew was bringing some Packet or Letters to the King or his Lords of the Councel for the discovery of some impending dangers which would need as sudden a prevention as the Gunpowder once intended and near atchieved Treason or to
Bona Catalla sua quaecunque ac universos legales tenentes suos omnium singulorum maneriorum suorum in protectionem defensionem nostram suscepimus specialem The King to all unto whom these presents shall come sendeth greeting We considering the well accepted and laudable Services done as well unto us as our dear Mother Isabel Queen of England by our trusty John de Staunton and being therefore willing to honour him according to his deserts have made the said John a Knight of our Chamber and one of our Servants in Ordinary whilst he lives as well when he shall be absent as present And of our especial grace have taken into our special protection the said John de Staunton and all his Lands Tenements Goods and Chatels and likewise all his Tenants of his Manors Omnibus singulis nostris fidelibus tenore presentium firmiter inhibentes ne eisdem Johanni Terris Tenementis Bonis seu Catallis suis aut legalibus tenentibus maneriorum praedictorum malum molestiam prisas aut aliud impedimentum inferunt vel faciunt indebite vel injuste si quis eis injuriatum vel forissactum fuerit id eis debite reformari corrigi faciunt Streightly charging and prohibiting all our good Subjects that they do not unduly or unjustly endamage or molest the said John de Staunton his Lands Tenements Goods Chatels or his said Tenants and if any shall injure or wrong them therein that you do duly cause it to be reformed and amended And the Writs of Protection which our Kings of England have sometimes granted unto some which were imployed in their Service upon some special motives and reasons and were not his maenial or domestick Servants having been very often if not alwayes made and granted not only to protect the persons of such as were not the Kings Servants in Ordinary but specially imployed upon extraordinary occasions but de non molestando res terras tenementa homines which in the legal acceptation antiently signified their Tenants as well as their Maenial or Houshold Servants especially when instead of Rents or for some abatements made of them they Plowed and Sowed their Landlords Land Reaped their Corn and did many other Services belonging to Husbandry bona Catalla possessiones suas not to molest trouble or permit them to be troubled in their Estates Real and Personal Lands Tenements Servants Tenants Goods Chatels and Possessions and do agree with those priviledges which our Neighbour Princes of Europe and many other Nations have allowed their Servants And such or the like Protections are and have been an antient allowed priviledge not only to Foreign Embassadors but their Assistants Servants Goods and Chatels in the Dominions and Territories of Kings and Princes to whom they are sent and where they are resident Et sane quae potest tanta vis esse privilegii personae Legatorum si privilegium istis accessionibus non conceditur saith Albericus Gentilis And truly to what purpose will the priviledge of Embassadors be or enure if the Protection of their Estates as well as their persons should not attend their employments for where their persons may not be summoned cited or inforced to lay by or forsake his Service in the attendance upon the process of any of his Subordinate Courts of Justice there cannot by the rules of Common Justice and our Magna Charta that great piece of right reason and Justice be any Judgement had or obtained without appearane against them or any Execution thereupon against their Goods or Estate And it being so just and necessary for the Plaintiffs to demand Leave or Licence for the compelling of them to appear to their actions it will be as necessary becoming certainly to demand a second Leave or Licence to take out process of Execution upon any judgement obtained when as in the ordinaay course of our Laws and the intendment thereof every Plaintiff as the Records of our Courts of Justice will abundantly testifie is as it were by Petition to pray and ask leave to take out his Writ of Execution for that as the Judges may in their inferior Orbes sometimes find cause to Arrest or stay for a time some Judgements and Executions so certainly and much more in the Superior may the urgency of some present and necessary Service of the King and the Weal Publique the Kings Service and the publique being as inseparable as his Person and Authority Body Politique and Corporal require some pause or a Licence first to be demanded Such requisites and privileges drawn from the same Fountain of priviledges and reason being no otherwise in their effects then as to the joynt priviledges of Persons and Estates then the priviledges of Parliament and the Protections allowed unto the Peerage and Members of the House of Commons and their Maenial Servants in order to that publick affair and service of the King who doth not limit those favours only to their Persons and the personal service of their Servants attending upon them but do for that time comprehend and secure their Estates both Real and Personal and will not willingly permit so much as the minds of any of the Members of Parliament to be vexed by any disturbance of process or legal proceedings whilst they are employed and intended by Law to be only busied in those weighty occasions which they would be if the Real and Personal Estates of themselves or Servants which attended upon them were molested and troubled and therefore King Henry the 8th in his Speech to the Judges in the Case of his Servant Ferrers and a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament in the 33th year of his Raign said that his Learned Councel at Law had inform'd him that all Acts and Process coming out of any Inferiour Courts must for the time cease and give place to the Parliament as the highest of Courts and that whatsoever Offence or Injury is in Parliament time offered to the meanest Member of the House of Commons is to be adjudged as done both against the King and the whole Court of Parliament which was then assented unto by all the Judges of England then present saith Mr. Crompton and confirmed by divers reasons And well may it be so when it is and hath been not unusual for the Judges of the Court of Kings Bench or Common Pleas which do stand upon a less but legal Foundation to free or unattach Goods attached in the City of Lond. by their course or custom of Process of a man that had occasion to attend either of those Courts concerning some Suit or Suits there depending as to procure a Capias utlegatum against one c. and declare it to be a priviledge or liberty belonging unto those Courts in their several Jurisdictions to protect such persons in veniendo versus eandem Curiam ibidem morando inde ad propria redeundo absque arrestatione Corporum Equorum Bonorum seu Catallorum
laid by a Foreign Prince some English Merchants Estate had been destroyed or had their Ships or Goods taken at Sea by the Subjects of another Prince and only desired a Protection from the many times Unchristian-like fury of their Creditors untill by Letters of Reprisal or otherwise they might enable themselves to make them a just satisfaction and did but in the mean time like the innocent Doves fly to the shelter of the Rock of their Soveraign from the cruelty of the pursuing Hawk or when any imployed in the service of the King or for the good of the Nation although he be at the present neither protected or priviledged was by feigned or malicious Actions sought to be hindred or endamaged upon some reason or necessity and in all or either of those kinds have also been sparingly granted by King James and King Charles the Martyr unto some few particular men as to Philip Burlamachi and Pompeio Calandrini Natives and Merchants of Italy denizen'd and resident in England who had imployed in their services not only at home but in the parts beyond the Seas in the important affairs of ayding the Kings Allyes all the Estate and Credit which they had or could procure some if not many of which sort of Protections have not been nor are unusual in our Neighbour Countreys and in Brabant adversus Creditorum multi juges vexationes assultus to protect a Debtor against the cruelties assaults and vexations of some unmercifull Creditors quoties vel inclementia maris vel infortunio graviori demersi ad certum tempus solvere non possunt when by some great misfortunes by Sea or at Land they are not at the present able to pay whereof Hubert de Loyens in his Treatise Curia Brabantiae munere Cancellarii ejusdem of the Court of Brabant and the Office of the Chancellor of that Province gives the reason quoniam Reipublica interest subditos non depauperari sicut nec Principem cujus cum illis annexa causa est because it concerns the Weal-publick not to suffer the people nor likewise the Prince whose good or ill is annexed to theirs to be impoverished by which the poor Debtor obtains some respite and time either to pay or pacifie their enraged Creditors a custom and usage conveyed to them by Antiquity and deduced from the wisdom of the Grecians and Romans in their well ordered Governments and Commonwealths But those who might rest well satisfied with the wisdom as well as practice of our Laws are so unwilling to be undeceived and to quit their stubborn ignorance and affected errors as they will like some Garrison willing to maintain a Fort and hold out as long as they can when they can no longer defend it seek and hope to march out with better advantages in relinquishing or parting with it then they could by keeping of it and therefore will be willing to allow unto Strangers or those which the King imployeth upon Foreign or Extraordinary occasions and are not his Menial or Domestick Servants the Priviledges aforesaid so as they may exclude those that are immediately attending upon his service or the greater concernments of his person CHAP. IX That the Kings granting Protections under the Great Seal of England to such as are his Servants in ordinary for their Persons Lands and Estate when especially imployed by him into the parts beyond the Seas or in England or any other of his Dominions out of his Palace or Virge thereof or unto such as are not his Domesticks or Servants in ordinary or extraordinary when they are sent or imployed upon some of his negotiations business or affairs neither is or can be any evidence or good argument that such only and not the Kings Servants in ordinary who had no Protections under the Great Seal of England are to be protected or priviledged whilst they are busied in his Palace or about his Person WHich the men of Israel could so highly value as they disswaded King David from going in person with the Army against Absalom saying thou shalt not go forth for if we flee away they will not care for us neither if half of us dye will they care for us but now thou art worth ten thousand of us or as they shortly after said in their loyal contest with the men of Judah we have ten parts meaning the ten Tribes in the King which just esteem caused Davids three mighty men or Worthies think they had cause enough to adventure their lives to break through the Host of the Philistines and draw water out of the Well of Bethelem to bring it to David to satisfie but his thirst or longing to asswage it For if reason may be the guide or hold the Ballance and the cause be any thing of kin to the effect the more worthy and the greater is to be more respected than the less and the more necessary than that which is not so much necessary the heart and nobler parts more than the inferior and the person health and welfare of the King more than any Foreign Message or Imployment or any private mans concerns in any particular affair and that which is to be every day and night and continually more to be taken care of than that which is but accidental or temporary or upon seldom occasions for the salus populi cannot be suprema Lex nor the good and safety of the people be maintained or provided for if the King who is the Law-giver and by his Ministers and subordinate Magistrates the Laws executer and the Laws and peoples protector and defender be not so attended as he which is the Hâ—ad and better part of the Body Politick may be kept and preserved in safety and if Lex be summa ratio the quintessence or chief of reason and semper intendit rationem alwayes intends that which is reason we may not think it to be a paradox or any stranger to reason that the Persons and Estates of the Master of the Robes the Gentlemen and Grooms of his Majesties Bed-Chamber Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber Esquires of the Body Physicians in ordinary Gentlemen Vshers Gentlemen Pensioners Yeoman of the Robes Gentlemen and Yeomen of his Guards and those many other sorts of Servants and Attendants which are as the learned Causabon terms them servi ad manum or de interioribus Aulicis necessary Servants unto his person and often and daily attendants upon him or are otherwise necessary and becoming the Majesty of a King as the Great Officers of State Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer Lord Chamberlains the Lords of his most Honourable Privy Councel Secretaries of Estate Masters of Request c. being as Pasquier a learned French Advocate saith a la suitte le Roy joignantes a la personne de Prince attending the person of the King and should neither be absent or receive any impediment in their service should be as much
the Martyr the drawing aside of the curtain of State and the dispute of the Kings power of committing any one for contempts against him or his Authority which every Justice of Peace and Master of a Company of Trade in London can be allowed to do by the peoples misunderstanding of the Arcana Imperii secrets of State and necessary rules of government an unhappy fancy and spirit of opposition so intoxicated many of them as they have believed it to be law and right reason that if the King will not so soon as they would have him give leave to Arrest any of his Servants the Law and his Courts of Justice are to do it that if the King should by such a way of prosecution be inconvenienced by the want of their service it is by his own default in making so ill a choice of men indebted to attend him or if they being so Arrested cannot perform their duty he is to provide such as may better do it and if the King should cause any to be committed that had Arrested any of his Servants without licence they were upon his Habâ—as Corpus to be bayled by the Judges of some of the Courts of Law at Westminster and left at liberty to go to Law with him if they could tell how or to incourage as many as would follow that evil example to misuse his Royal Prerogative which without any stretching or dilating of it to the very confines or uâ—most bounds of its regal Jurisdiction is legally warranted by the design and reason of publique good the preservation of every mans estate and property and the good at one time or in something or other of him that thinks himself the most delayed or injured in his humour or expectation for it ought to be every where reason and so acknowledged that as long as there is a King and Supreme Governour who is to take care of the universality of the people subjected born or protected under his government he is not to want the means wherewith to do it and that in order thereunto his service must needs be acknowledged to be for publique good and the exemptions and privileges belonging thereunto no less than a Salus populi the great concernment of the peoples peace protection welfare and happiness and should be the Suprema Lex that great Law in and by which the means of goveâ—nment and the Royal Prerogative was and is founded and established and that such a cause built and sustained by the rules of right reason and justice ought to be every where reason and justly entituled to that Axiom manente causa non tollitur effectus the cause alwayes remaining constant and unalterable the effects and operation naturally from thence arising are necessarily to follow and be allowed and that the cause of priviledge claimed by our Kings the cause and fountain of all exemptions and priviledges so largely given to many of their people should not in the case of their own Servants have its course or passage stopt or diverted When from that Spring and those causes which have fertilized and gladded the Vallies of our Israel have sprung and arisen those necessary priviledges which the Nobility Peers and Baronage of England have antiently enjoyed in their personal freedome from Arrests or Imprisonment of their bodies in Civil Actions Pleas or Controversies and from Common Process or any Utlaryes which might trouble them or their high Estates not only for the reason given in the 11th year of the Reign of King Henry the fourth by Hull or Hulls that in Actions of Debt or Trespass a Capias will not lye against an Earl or any of like Estate because it is to be intended that they have Assets and a great Estate in Lands whereby they may be summoned and brought to answer or as many misled by that opinion do and would yet understand it But principally CHAP. XV. That the Dukes Marquesses Count Palatines Earls Viscounts and Barons of England and the Bishops as Barons have and do enjoy their privileges and freedome from Arrests or imprisonment of their bodies in Civil and Personal Actions as Servants extraordinary and Attendants upon the Person State and Majesty of the King in order to his Government Weal Publick and Safety of him and his people and not only as Peers abstracted from other of the Kings Ministers or Servants in Ordinary IN regard of their service to their Prince and a not seldome personal attendance upon him and the honour and dignities thereunto allowed and appertaining to those Illustrious and high born Dukes Marquesses Earls Peers and Nobility who are accounted to be as extraordinary Servants not as the word Extraordinary hath been of late times misused by applying it unto those who were but quasi Servi scarcely Servants or but listed and put into the Rolls of the Kings Servants when they are neither known to him or ever were or intended to be in his actual Service and honourable Attendants of their Prince as well in times of Peace as emergencies of War and as Generals or Commanders of their Armies in times of War and therefore the Emperour Justinian in his Letter or Epistle to Narses a great General or Commander of his Army mentions Aulus Anduatius C. Tubero to be sub Narsetis Ducatu as Souldiers under the conduct of Narses making the word Ducatus which in after ages only signifyed and was applyed to a Dukedom then to denotate no more than an Army or Command only of it And the Latine word Dux since used for Duke was as Sir Henry Spelman well observeth antiently nomen officiale a name of Office or Dux delegatus vel praefectus exercitus postea feudale by reason of the Lands which were annexed to its honour by reason of that service afterwards honorarium meerly Titular or honoured with that Title in being heretofore his Chieftaine or Leader of an Army And so were the Marquesses in those antient times who were as Capitanei Generals or great Commanders in the Empire or kingdome and were as to that by reason of their honorary possessions partakers in some sort of the Royal Dignity Whereby to defend the Frontiers the Title and Military Office thereof being about the year 1008. after the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour by the Emperour Henry sirnamed Auceps of the house of Saxony instituted to defend some of the Frontiers of Germany against the Incursions of the Hungarians was so little known or respected in England about the Reign of King Richard the second as he having created Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford Marquess of Dublin in Ireland and afterwards in the 21th year of his Reign John Beaufort Earl of Somerset Marquess of Dorset which dignity being afterwards taken from him by the tempest and change of those times in the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the fourth and the Commons in Parliament in the fourth year of that Kings Reign petitioning that he might be
Galfridum filium Petri gladio Comitatus Essex qui licet antea vocati essent Comites administrationem suarum Comitatuum habuissent tamen non erant accincti gladio Comitatus ipsa illa die servierunt ad mensam Regis accincti gladiis did upon the day of his Coronation gird William Marshal with the Sword of the Earldome of Striguil or Pembroke and Jeffery Fitz-Peter with the Sword of the Earldome of Essex who although they were before called Earls and had the government of their Earldomes yet until then were not invested or girt with the Sword of their Earldomes and the same day they waited upon the King as he sate at meat with their Swords girt about them and the service of our Earls and Nobility were held to be so necessary about their Soveraign in the Reign of King Edward the second as John de Warrenna Earl of Surrey had in the 14th year of that King a dispensation not to appear before the Justices Itinerant before whom in certain of his affairs he had a concernment in these words viz. Edwardus dei gratia Rex Angliae c. Justitiariis notris Itineratur in Com. Norff. Quia dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem de Warrenna Comitem Surrey quibusdam de causiis juxta latus nostrum retinemus hiis diebus per quod coram vobis in Itinere vestro in Com. praedicto personaliter comparere non potest ad loquelas ipsum in eodem Itinere tangentes prosequendi defendendi nos ex causa praedicta Indempnitati praefati Comitis provideri cupientes in hac parte vobis mandamus quod omnes praedictas loquelas de die in diem coram vobis continuetis usque ad Octabas Paschae prox futur Ita quod extunc citra finem Itineris vestri praedicti loquelae illae andiantur terminantur prout de jure secundum legem consuetudines regni nostri fuerit faciend Edward by the grace of God King of England c. to his Justices about to go the Circuit in our County of Norfolk sendeth greeting In regard that for certain causes we have commanded the attendance of John of Warren Earl of Surrey upon our person so as he cannoâ— personally appear before you in your Circuit to prosecute and defend certain actions or matters wherein he is concerned we desiring to indempnifie the said Earl therein for the cause aforesaid do command you that you do from day to day adjorn the said Pleas and Actions until eight dayes after Easter next so as you may according to the laws and custome of our Kingdome before the end of your said Circuit hear and determine the said matters or actions In which Writ the said Earl being descended from VVilliam de VVarrenna who marryed a daughter of King VVilliam Rufus was not stiled the Kings Cousin as all the Earls of England have for some ages past been honored either by the stile of Chancery or the Secretaries of State in a Curiality with which the more antient and less Frenchified times were unacquainted for notwithstanding an opinion fathered upon our learned Selden that in regard the antient Earls of England being the Cousins or of the consanguinity or affinity of William the Conqueror or many of the succeeding Kings those Earls that were afterwards created did enjoy that honourable Title of the Kings Cousin it will by our Records and such Memorials as time hath left us be evidenced and clearly proved that all the Earls which William the Conqueror and his Successors have created were not of their Kindred or Alliance and those that were of the consanguinity of our Kings and Princes as Awbrey de Vere the first Earl of Oxford whose Father Awbrey de Vere marryed the Sister by the half blood of William the Conquerour was neither in the grants of the Earldome of Oxford and office of Great Chamberlain of England by Maud the Empress or King Henry the second her Son stiled their Cousin nor William de Albiney formerly Earl of Sussex who marryed Adeliza Widdow of King Henry the first Daughter of Godfrey Duke of Lorrain in the grant of the Earldome Castle and Honour of Arundel by King Henry the second was termed that Kings Cousin neither in the recital in other grants wherein the great Earls of Leicester and Chester are mentioned is there any such intimation for in the first year of the Reign of King John William Marshall Earl of Pembroke William Earl of Salsbury and Ranulph Earl of Chester and Lincoln in the second year of King Henry the third had it not and in the Summons of Parliament Diem clausit extremum and other grants or writs of divers of the succeeding Kings in the former ages until about the Reign of King Edward the fourth where mention was made of some of those and other great Earls of this Kingdom there were none of those honorary Titles and it is not at this day in the ordinary Writs and Process where they are named either as Plaintiffs or Defendants and in France where those graces are in the Royal Letters and Missives frequently allowed to the greater sort of the Nobility howsoever the Queen Mother and Regent of France was about the year 1625. pleased in a Letter to the late George Duke of Buckingham to give him the honour to be called her Cousin very often omitted And those honours of attending their Kings and being near his person or being imployed in his Royal commands were so desirable by as many as could by their virtue antiently the Seminary and cause of all honour obtain it as they thought the service of their Prince not happiness enough unless their Heirs and after Generations as well as themselves might partake of the honour to do service unto him and therefore could be well content to have some of their Lands which some of our Kings of England gave them which they hoped to hold unaliened to them and their Heirs in Fee or in Tayl astrictae obliged and tyed also as their persons to those no inglorious services as the Earls of Oxford holding the Castle of Hedingham in the County of Essex and the Manor of Castle Campes in the Counties of Cambridge and Essex to them and their Heirs in Tayl by the Tenor and Service of being great Chamberlain of England and the Manors of Fingrith in the County of Essex and Hormead or Hornemead in the County of Hertford descended unto them by the Marriage of a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Sanford by the Service and Tenure of being Chamberlain to the Queens of England die Coronationis suae upon the dayes of their Coronation that of great Chamberlain of England being an Office distinct and separate from that of Chamberlain of the Kings House which was as appeareth by many Charters of our antient Kings and their Chamberlains Subscriptions thereunto as witnesses long before the grant of great Chamberlain of England and as then are now only
many great and high priviledges as not to be examined in an action of debt upon account but their Attorneys are permitted to be examined upon Oath for them not to be amerced or taxed but by their Peers secundum modum delicti according to the nature of their offence Et hoc per Barones de Scaccario vel coram ipso Rege and in such cases before only the Barons of the Exchequer or before the King himself if a Parkership be granted to an Earl without words to make a deputy he may do it by his Servants if a Duke Earle or any other of the Baronage do chase or hunt in any of the Kings Parkes the law for conveniency and in respect of his dignity will permit him so many attendants as shall be requisite to the dignity of his estate are not to be summoned to a Court Leet or Shire Reeves Turn or take their Oathes of Allegiance as all other Males above the age of 12 are to do neither they nor their Wives are where they cast an Esseine to make Oath as those which are under the degree of Barons ought to do of the truth of the cause alledged for their Essoine but are only to find pledges and if upon that Essoine allowed a default be made at the day appointed amertiandi sunt Plegii the pledges but not the Earles or Barons are to be amerced are exempted by the Seatute of the 5 th of Eliz. cap. 1. from taking the Oath of Supremacy for that the Queen as that Statute saith was well assured of the Faith of the Temporal Lords shall have the benefit of their Clergy in all cases but Murder and Poysoning are not to be put to the Rack or tortured nor to suffer death even in cases of Treason by the shamefull death of Hanging Drawing and affixing their Heads and Quarters in some publick places or as at Naples they execute common persons for such most execrable offences by beheading them and putting their Heads upon the Market-place and hanging afterwards the naked Corps in some pubblick place by one of their Toes but are by the favour and warrant of the King only beheaded and their bodies with their heads laid by permitted to be decently buried Shall not be tryed by any Ecclesiastical Courts but per Pares by their Peers for Non-conformity to Common-Prayer shall have Chaplains according to their several degrees and limitations of number who may hold two Benefices with cure When the Sheriff of a County is commanded to raise the posse comitatus the power of a County he is not to command the personal service of the Baronage or Nobility a Baron or a Noble man is not to pray that a Coroner may receive his accusation or to prove and approve his accusation or appeal in every point or to be disabled for want thereof When the King by Writ of Summons to Parliament Scire Facias or his Letters missive shall send for any of the Arch-bishops Bishops Earls or Barons to appear before him or give their attendance they may in their going or returning kill a Deer or two in any of his Forrests Chases and Parkes and carry them away a Capias ad satisfaciend lieth not against a Peer or Baron of England a Baron shall not be impannelled of a common Jury although it be for the service of the Country no Attachment for a contempt in not appearing or answering in Chancery lyeth against them their Lands parcel of their Earldoms Baronies or Honors being not to be contributary to the wages of Knights of the Shire or County wherein those Lands do lie are in cases of Felony or Treason to be tryed only by their Peers and their Wives are by a Statute made in the 20 th year of King Henry the 6 th to enjoy the like priviledge upon the Surety of the Peace prayed against a Baron he is not to be arrested by warrant from a Justice and upon a Supplicavit out of the Chancery shall give no surety but promise only upon his Honor A Defendant shall not have a day of Grace given him against a Lord of Parliament because he is supposed to attend the affairs of the publick a Baron shall not answer upon Oath to a Bill in Chancery or Equity but upon protestation of Honor nor in a verdict upon a Tryal by Peers for saith Crompton the Law makes so much account of the word of a Peer of the Realm when he speaks upon his honor though it be in Case or upon Tryal for life as it shall be believed a Baron shall not have a writ of Subpaena directed unto him but a Letter under the Hand and Seal of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England is not to be arrested or outlawed for Debt or any other personal action not criminal there being two Reasons saith our Law why the person of a Lord should not be arrested or outlawed for Debt or Trespass the one in respect of his dignity and the other in respect that the law presumes that they have sufficient lands and tenements by which they may be distreined in the Long Writ called the Prerogative Writ issuing out of the Exchequer to distreine the lands and goods of the Kings debtors or in default thereof to attach their bodies there is an express exception of Magnatum dominorum dominarum of the Nobility and their Ladies and the Office of Count or Earl was of great trust and confidence for two purposes the first ad consulendum Regi tempore pacis to councel assist and advise the King for the Weale publick in time of peace and the second ad defendendum Regem patriam tempore belli to defend their King and Country in time of War and by their power prowess and valour guard the Realm both which are the proper business of the Barons and the other Nobility as well as the Earls and in action of Debt Detinue or Trespass or in any other action reall or personal brought or commenced for or against any of the Nobility two Knights shall be impannelled on the Jury with other men of worth and by a late necessary and honorable care of the late Lord Chancellor and Master of the Rolls no Original Writ against any of the Nobility in a subsequent Term is permitted to be antedated or to take benefit of a precedent as is now commonly used against such as are not of the Peerage or Nobility Mr. Selden giving us the Rule that tenere de Rege in Capite per Baroniam to hold of the King in Capite and to have lands holden by Barony and to be a Baron are one and the same thing and Synonymies and not a few of our antient Writers and Memorialls have understood the word Baronia to signifie an Earldom or the lands appertaining thereunto which may make it to be more then conjectural that it
both Horse and Foot Garrisons and Commanders of Castles Towns or Forts and was believed to be necâ—ssary in the time of Justinian the Emperor Qui statuit milites conveniri tam in causis Civilibus quam Criminaelibus coram ducibus suis quod miles nisi a suo judice coerceri non possit that Soldiers should be cited and tryed aswell in causes civil as criminal before their Captains or Commanders And that a Soldier should not be compelled to appear before any other which was not in that time any new Edict or Ordinance but a Declaration of an antient law and custome in use amongst the Romans in the Infancy of their mighty Monarchy some hundred of years before the birth of our Redeemer as may be evidenced by Juvenal and what was in use and practise and accompted to be of antient institution in his time which was not long after the birth of our Saviour when he saith Legibus antiquis Casâ—â—erum more Camilli Servato miles ne vallum litiget extra Et procul a Signis justissima Centuriorum Cognitio est igitur de milite By antient laws and customes sacred held By great Camillus Soldiers were not to be compel'd To appear in Courts of Justice but in the Campe to abide And by their own Commanders to be try'd And from the like causes and considerations of the Kings service and safety of the Kingdome are allowed by our reasonable laws and customes the priviledges and franchises of the Cinque Ports that the Inhabitants within the liberties thereof do sue and are only to be sued in the courts thereof and the Kings ordinary Writs and Process do not run or are of any 〈◊〉 therein and such as are in certain special cases are only to be directed to the Constable of the Castle of Dover and the Warden of the Cinque Ports and those franchises were so allowable by law as the Abbot of Feversham in his time a man of great power and authority and armed with many and great priviledges of his own both Spiritual and Temporal being imprisoned by the Warden of the Cinque Ports for an offence committed therein for which the Arch-bishop of Canterbury citing the Kings Officers there into his Ecclesiastical Court the Record saith Quia secundum consuetudinem regni approbatam ratione juris Regii ministeri Regis pro aliquibus quae fecerunt ratione officii trahi non debeant Rex prohibuit Archiepiscopo Cantuar. ne volestari faciat ministros suos Dover de eo quod Abbatem de Feversham pro delicto suo incarcerassent per considerationem Curiae quinque portuum de Shepway in regard that by the custome of the Kingdome approved and the right and prerogative of the King the Kings Officers are not to be compelled to appear in other Courts the King prohibited the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he should not molest or trouble his Officers or servants at Dover for that by a judgement of the Court of the Cinque Ports holden at Shepwey they had imprisoned the Abbot of Feversham for an offence by him committed From the like causes and considerations of the Kings service and good of his household and servants the multitude of tenants heretofore of the Antient Demesnes of the Crown which were in the hands of King Edward the confessor or William the Conqueror for that as Sir Edward Coke saith they plowed the Kings Demesnes of his Maners sowed the same mowed his Hey and did other services of Husbandry for the sustenance of the King and his honorable household to the end that they might the better apply themselves to their labors for the profit of the King had the priviledge that they should not be impleaded in any other of the Kings Courts for any their lands or in actions of accompt Replevin ejectione firmae Writs of Mesne and the like where by common intendment the realty or title of lands may come in question are to be free and quit from all manner of Tolls in Fairs and Markets for all things concerning their husbandry and sustenance of Taxes and Tallages by Parliaments unless the Tenants in Antient Demesnc be specially named of contributions to the expences of the Knights of the Shire for the Parliament and if they be severally distreined for other services they may all for saving of charges joyne in a Writ of Monstraverunt albeit they be several Tenants and where they recover in any action are by the Laws of William the Conqueror to have double costs and damages From which Spring and fountain of priviledges in relation only to and for the concern of the Prince and Son and Heir apperant of the King of England and his revenue hath been derived those of the Court of Stanneries or jurisdiction over the Tyn Mines where by the opinion of Sir VVilliam Cordell Knight Master of the Rolls Sir James Dier Knight Cheif Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and Justice Weston no Writ of Error lyeth upon any judgment in that Court and by an act of Parliament made in the 50 th year of the raigne of King Edward the third and the grant of that King all Workmen in the Stanneries are not to be constrained to appear before any Justice or other Officers of the King his Heirs or Successors in any plea or action arising within the Stanneries unless it be before che Warden of the Stanneries for the time being Pleas of land life or member only excepted nec non recedant ab operibus suis per summonitionem aliquorum ministrorum seu heredum nostrorum nisi per summonitionem dicti custodis and should not depart from their said works or labors by reason of any Summons of the Officers of the King or his Heirs unless it be by the Summons of the aforesaid Warden were to be free as to their own goods from all Tolls Stallage Aides and Customes whatsoever in any Towns Havens Fairs and Markets within the County of Devon and that the VVarden aforesaid should should have full power and authority to administer Justice to all that do or should work in the Stannaries or any forreigners in and concerning any plaints trespasses contracts or actions except as is before excepted arising or happening within the Stannaries and that if any of the workmen be to be imprisoned they shall be arrested by the said Warden and kept in the prison of Lydeford and not else where untill according to the Law and custome of England they shall be delivered All which before mentioned Exemptions and Priviledges as effects flowing and proceeding from their true and proper causes may justifie those more immediate and proximate of the Kings Servants in Relation to his person and a greater concernment more especially when so many of the people of England can be well contented to enjoy not a few other immunities exemptions and priviledges which have had no other cause or foundation then the indulgence and favour
convenire Commanded the whole County without any delay to assemble together as well French as English and more especially such of the English as were skilful in the ancient Laws and Customs of England ubi Goisfredus Bishop of Constance in loco Regis saith the Leiger Book of Rochester vel vice Regis saith Eadmerus fuit Justiciam illam tenuit â—at Judge for or in the place or stead of the King as his Commissioner Hujus placiti multis testibus multisque rationibus determinatum finem postquam Rex audivit laudavit laudans cum consensu omnium principum suorum which could not be the Commons in Parliament as it is now formed or the then Commune Concilium the Parliament consisting of his Nobility Bishops and Peers who could not all of them be stiled Princes but were rather such of his greater sort of Nobility as were then attending upon him in his Court assembled and met together by his Command in that great and more than ordinary County-Court confirmavit ut deinceps incorruptus persevâ—raret â—irmiter praecepit the end of which Trial made by many Witnesses and Reasons being certified to the King he greatly approved it and by the consent of all his Princâ—s confirmed and strictly commanded it to be inviolably observed In the Reign of William Rufus his Son the Delegated Justice of the King in his Courts was so little believed not to be the Kings or the Judgments thereby or therein given not owned or understood to be given by the King as it was the Opinion as well as Complaint of Anselme Arch-bishop of Canterbury how justly or unjustly the Men of that Age when the Church-men were unruly and did not seldom forget themselves and their Benefactors did best know quod cuncta Regalis Curia pendebant ad nutum Regis nilque in ipsis nisi solum velle illius considerari That all matters in the Kings Court depended upon his Will and his onely Will was the Director thereof and whether the particular Interest of that stout and pious Prelate had therein misled his Judgment or no they must be too much unacquainted with our Laws reasonable Customs Annals Memorials Records and Accompts of Time and Transactions bigane and past as well as those of other Nations and the right origination or signification of the word Curia or Court and the no infrequent usage or acceptation thereof if they do not acknowledge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nuncupatur potestas Dominium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui potestate fretus est judiciumque exercet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi habitacula Domini That Curia signifieth Power and Dominion and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that exerciseth that Power in giving Judgment therein and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Habitation or Place of Residence of the Lord or Superior dicebatur autem Curia saith the judicious Sr. Henry Spelman primo de Regia seu palatio Principis inde de familia Judiciis in ea habitis ritu veterrimo it being at the first or more especially called Curia or the Court and took its Denomination by a most antient Usage or Custom from the Kings House or Palace and afterwards from their Houshold or Family and the Place where Kings did administer Justice And so untill Courts for the distribution of Justice were allow'd for the ease of Princes and better accommodation of their People out of their Houses or Palaces it will not be easie or possible to espy any essential difference as to the Place of doing Justice betwixt Curia Regis and Camera Regis the Court or Chamber of the King for after that some of our Courts of Justice in England by the indulgence of their Soveraigns ceased either to be ambulatory or resident in their Palaces those that have not bid a defiance to that universally allowed and entertained Maxim by all or most part of Mankind Qui facit per alium facit per se He that doth by another is truly and rightly said to have done it himself and are not resolved to encounter or be adversaries to all the right Reason which they can meet with or to pick up such weak and incogent Arguments as may make a shadow rather than substance of Truth or right Reason ought to confess that there is no real difference between the Kings doing of Justice in his own Person and cauâ—ing it to be done by others or betwixt the hearing of Causes or doing of Justice in the Hall or his Privy Chamber or any other Room of his House or Palace and that before and from the Conquest untill after the thirty eighth Year of the Reign of King Edward the Third whilst the Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench attended our Kings as well in their Courts as Progress to assist him in matters of Law and the Decision of Pleas of the Crown and such matters of Law as were not appropriate to the Decision of the Court of Common Pleas as it was then and hath been since constituted which did not leave the Kings Court or Palace untill King Henry the Third commanded it in the twentieth Year of his Reign to abide at Westminster Our Kings of England have in their own Persons heard some or many Causes and given divers Judgments in Aula in their Court or Palace in some Causes wherein they had the assistance of the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings-Bench and when they did not do it personally by reason of their frequent Divertisements Addresses of Ambassadors from Foreign Princes or in respect of the many great Affairs and Cares of State and Government which could not afford them the time or leisure to do it did cause it to be done by their Authority and by their constituted Justices who Vicaria Potestate by as it were a Deputation Lieutenancy or Assignation to those onely purposes represented them and were impowered to do it the Courts of Justice in William the Conquerors time being called Justicia Regis the Justice of the King and the Judges or Justices in the Reign of King Henry the Second Justiciae Regis in the abstract the Kings Judges or Justices For the Kings Justice or Superiority was never yet by any Law or Reason absolutely or altogether conâ—ined to his delegated Courts or authorized Judges or Justices or to any certain or determinate Place as that froward and powerful enough Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury could not but acknowledge when in a Parliament or Great Council holden in the Kings Court at Winchester by the Command of King William the Second or William Rufus in the Contest betwixt him and that King concerning that Archbishops resolution oâ— going to Rome and the Kings refusing to give him Licence divers of the Lords and Bishops passed in and out betwixt them and at last the Archbishop himself went in unto him to expostulate and debate the Matter with him And in the making of the Constitutions of Clarendon in
Prisoner in Newgate as he was leading by an Officer towards Guyhald by five persons and carrying him by force into the Sanctuary or Priviledge-place of St. Martins le Grand the Kings Free-Chappel being a Liberty of the Dean and Chapter and the Sheriffs of London having the same day taken out of the same Church of St. Martins the five men who rescued him and led them fettered to the Compter and thence chained by the Neck to Newgate complaint thereof being made to the King by the said Dean and Chapter for the violation of their Priviledges he sent his Writ to the Mayor and Sheriffs reciting that from a long time beyond the memory of man fugientes ad Capellam predictam pro immunitate ejusdem habend ' seu in eadem ex quocunque causa existentes residentes quieti fuerint Immunes sic esse debuerint debent ab omni Jurisdictione Arrestatione Impedimento sive Attachamento Majoris Vicecomitum Civitatis praedicta aut Officiariorum seu Ministrorum suorum quorumcunque pro tempore existentium those that fled to the Chappel aforesaid to enjoy the Priviledge thereof or being therein resident upon any cause or occasion whatsoever have used and ought to be quiet and free from the Jurisdiction Arrests Impediments or Attachments of the Mayor and Sheriffs of the City aforesaid or any their Officers or Ministers whatsoever for the time being and that notwithstanding the said Sheriffs had to the prejudice and detriment of the Churches Liberties and derogation of His Crown and Royal Dignity violently taken from thence John Knight John Reede Thomas Blackbourn William Janiver and Richard Moreys and committed them to Prison wherefore the King to preserve inviolably the said Rights Customs Immunities Liberties and Priviledges prout vinculo Juramenti in Coronatione astringitur as he is thereunto bound by his Coronation Oath enjoyned them that immediately after the Receipt of that Writ they should restore and deliver to the said Dean and Chapter or their Commissary the said Prisoners tam corpore quam bonis sicut eos prefati Vice-comites a Capella predicta abstraxerunt in their bodies and goods as the said Sheriffs took them from the said Chappel as aforesaid so as the said Dean and Chapter in eorum culpam seu defectum causam non habent sibi iterum conquerendi Et hoc sub Fide Ligeancia quibus teneantur nullatenus omittant by their default or neglect may have no more cause to complain again to the King And this under the Faith and Allegiance which they did owe unto him they were not to fail to perform Which Writ being by the Kings Command sent and delivered by John Earl of Huntington the said Sheriffs yet notwithstanding detained them in prison of which the King being informed ore tenus precepit he did by word of mouth command John Bishop of Bath his Chancellor and Ralph Lord Cromwel his Treasurer that they should go to the said St. Martins and upon Examination of the Parties hearing of Councel on both sides and due consideration of their several Charters Customs and Evidences certifie him what by Law was to be done therein who thereupon taking unto them John Hody and Richard Newton Chief Justices of both the Benches called before them the said Dean and Chapter Mayor and Sheriffs and heard both sides who gave to them in writing as well what could be alledged for the said Priviledges as against it which being duly understood by the said Chancellor Treasurer and Justices it was adjudged by the said Chancellor and Treasurer by the advice of the said Justices Quod personae predictae a Capella praedicta violenter abstractae restitui debeant ad â—andem tanquam ad locum plenaria libertate tam de Jure quam consuetudine gaudere debentem non de Civitate praedicta nec Majoris Vicecomitum Aldermannorum auâ— Officiariorum ejusdem Jurisdictioni seu districtioni Subject ' sed eisdem Immunitatibus Privilegiis Libertatibus quae Westmonasterium Beverly aut alius loâ—us privilegiatus in Anglia meliores â—abet tam de Jure quam consuetudine pro se precinctu ejusdem ad tuend ' quascunque personas pro quibuscunque causis Criminalibus sive Civilibus illuc confugientes gaudere debentem That the persons aforesaid violently drawn out of the Chappel aforesaid ought to be restored to the same place which of right and custom ought to enjoy their full Liberty and not to be subject to the Jurisdiction or Distrsss of the City aforesaid or the Mayor Sheriffs Aldermen or Officers of the same but to enjoy the said Immunities Priviledges and Liberties as Westminster Bevâ—rley or any other priviledged Place in England of right and custom ought to enjoy for them and their Precincts most largely had to protect and defend any persons flying thither for any causes Criminal or Civil And thereupon the King being informed of their Proceedings and what they found therein commanded his Chancellor that by his Writ directed to the Sheriffs of London that they should bring before him in his Chancery the Bodies of the said Prisoners taken out of the Chappel as aforesaid with the cause of their taking and detention who being brought by the Kings Command into his Chancery by the said Sheriffs they did there by the advice and consent of the Duke of Gloucester and of others of the Kings Council and by Order of the said Court discharge the said Prisoners who were there in the presence of the Sheriffs Recorder and Council of the said City ad hoc evocatorum Thome Collegge servienti Domini Regis ad arma personaliter liberati ibidem ad effectum quod idem serviens dictos Prisonarios eorum quemlibeâ—â—usque dictam Capellam Sanctuarium salvo secure adduceret eos ibidem de mandato Regio praefato Decano sive ejus Deputatis liberaret ibidem juxta libertates privilegiâ— immunitates predicta in Sanctuario predicto quam diu eis placeret moraturos thereunto especially called personally deliver'd unto Thomas Collegge the Kings Serjeant at Arms to the end that he might safely and securely bring the Prisoners to the said Chappel and Sanctuary and there by the Kings Command deliver them to the said Dean or their Deputies there to remain as long as they pleased according to the Liberties Priviledges and Immunities aforesaid which was done by the said Serjeant at Arms and a Certificate made by him to the said Chancellor Treasurer and Court of Chancery accordingly And he must be altogether composed of or addicted to Scruples and Doubts wherein he never desires to be satisfied and fit to sayl to Anticyra in pursuit of Hellebore who shall against so clear a Light and Evidence bestow his time and labours to vindicate and under-prop so manifest and notorious Errors or that shall deny the King a Judicial Power in His Courts of Justice and High Court of Chancery whence do almost daily issue his Writs remediall
suos ibidem et ad assignand ' Justic ' per Commissionem et ad Error ' corrigend per ipsum Episco pum vel alios Justiciar suos tam ad sectam Domini Episcopi quam aliorum praediâ—tus Willielmus replicavit quod non esset consonum rationi se ipsum de facto prosecutione proprijs fore Judicem cum proprie ad Regiam Majestatem in omnibus Causis ortis inter subditos Jurisdictio pertinet dinoscere et licet ad aliquam Personam per privilegium speciale de causa cognoscere indultum fuit si substitutus in exhibitione Justitiae defecerit Errorem per superiorem et non per substitut ' corrigi debet et super hoc dati sunt dies de termino in terminum To which he pleaded that no Writs were delivered to him at Durham and to that which was delivered unto him at Waltham he had returned that he is Count Palatine and Lord of the Royalty of the Lands called the Bishoprick of Durham and hath all the Rights and Regalities which do belong unto a Count Palatine and that Royalty there to be exercised by him and his Ministers and Justices that is to say hath a Coroner Chancellor and Court of Chancery and that the Kings Officers do not in any thing intermeddle therein and that the said Bishop as Count Palatine hath there likewise his Court and Justices of Common-Pleas as well real as personal and power to assign by Commission Justices to correct and reverse Errors committed by him or any of his Justices as well at his own Suit as others Unto which the said William replyed That it was not reason that he should be Judge of his own Actions when as properly it belonged to the Majesty of a King to determine of all Causes betwixt his Subjects And although he in favour granted to some Person a special priviledge to hear and determine Causes yet if any substituted by him do fail in the distribution of Justice the Errors shall be corrected by the Superior and not by the Substitutes whereupon further days were given from Term to Term. Nor was the Duties of Subjects so worn out but that so much respect was in those better Times given to our Kings Royal Protections granted to such as were not employed by them as the Laws and reasonable Customs oâ— England did allow the protected Persons in their Lands and Estates to bring their Actions against the Infringers or Disturbers thereof as in the Case of Roger de Limecote against the Sheriff of Liecester in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the First for disseising him of two Knights Fees Nicholas Talbot against William Prior of Dunstar in the eight and thirtieth year of the Reign of King Edward the Third of Walter Warr against Gervase Wretchey and John Parkey in the same year and of many others in the said Kings Reign and no Pleas in Bar or alledging Illegality put into the same but in others some collateral Pleas and Defences made by Releases or the like For those Lovers of their Countrey and honor of their Kings did not think as some would fondly and untruly assert that all the Royal Protections granted by them had at the first no better an Original or Foundation than an Imitation of the many Protections and Priviledges granted by our Kings and Princes to Bishops Monasteries and Religious Houses did not believe that our Kings could not respite for a while the payment of moneys due unto any of their Subjects or do as much as amounted to it when King Edward the Third in his Wars with France and great want of Moneys did about the thirteenth year of his Reign revoke divers Assignations for the payment of Moneys due unto private and particular persons until he should be better enabled to pay them And it was about the twelfth Year of the Reign of King James in the Grand Case of Boltons Complaint against the Lord Chancellor Ellesmeere adjudged in Parliament That upon a Bill called A Bill of Conformity exhibited in Chancery by a Debtor against his Creditors for not accepting of his Offer of as much satisfaction as he was able to give them and for refusing thereupon to permit him to enjoy his liberty the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England might by Injunctions prohibit and stay all Suits at the Common Law commenced by him or any such refractory Creditors For our Courts of Chancery Kings-Bench Common-Pleas and Exchequer have in their several subordinate Authorities not seldom mitigated and reduced the high and unreasonable Fines incertain demanded by divers Lords of Manors of their Copy-hold Tenants for their Admissions unto a more reasonable Rate of two years improved Value and enforced them to accept it And Sir Edward Coke in his Comment upon Magna Charta would not bring into the meaning of the Clause of Nulli negabimus vel differemus Justiciam That the King would not deny or delay Justice such Protections as do appear in the Register and are warranted by the Books of Law And although in the eighth year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth it was in transitu and by the way said by Cottesmore a Judge in the Case concerning the Priviledges of the University of Oxford That the King cannot grant that a man shall not Implead or have any Action against another Yet it was at the same time declared to be Law and right Reason by Babington a Judge That to a Lord of a Manor Conusance of all Trespasses done within his Lordship may be granted by the King and that a Plaintiff shall be bound to bring his Action accordingly and that in that Case the King hath not fore-closed him of his Action so as our Novelists and such as invent all the Oppositions they can against the just and legal Authority of their Sovereigns may do better to acknowledge that howsoever it was the opinion of some of the Judges in the Reign of King Henry the Sixth That if any should Arrest a man by the Kings Command when all men Arrested are so by the Authority of the King and his Writs or Process an Action of False Imprisonment might be brought against him that obeyed the Kings Command although it was done in the presence of the King Yet the whole Tenor and Meaning of that Case and that sudden Opinion arguendo or by way of instance deliver'd thereupon was no more but that such a Command ought to be attended with some Specialty or cause shewed And so little did the Judges of the Court of Kings-Bench in Trinity Term in the ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the Fifth intend or think it fit to subject to the humor of any froward or undutiful person the important Affairs and Service of the King As William Reedhead and Nicholas Hobbesson Purveyors for the King having taken forty Quarters of Malt for the Kings use for the Victualling
Crown from whence they had their first Original and Being and might by their every years Forfeitures since of too many of them by misusers or non-users take the advantage thereof And those of the better sort which have received the Honor of Knighthood and do enjoy the Dignity and respects thereof and in their Title of Knight or Cniht according to the Saxon and High and Low Dutch Languages do bear the signification of a Servant or attendant in Military affairs and so Uriah in the preface to the seven Paenitential Psalmes in King Henry the 8ths Primer is called King Davids Knight and Servant and our Knights were as Sir Henry Spelman hath informed us antiently reckoned amongst the Famulos Thanos Ministrâ—s Regis amongst the Kings special and more remarkable Servants and do or should enjoy the Priviledges not to be Decenners or Tithing men that they and their eldest sons should be exempted from being cited to appear in the Court Leets or Hundreds are as saith Camden called Equites aurati because antiently it was lawfull only for them to Guild and beautifie their Armor and Caparisons for their Horses with Gold and by the Statute made in the 8th year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th concerning only what things may be Guilded and what laid on with Silver Knights Spurs and all the Apparel which pertaineth to a Baron and above that Estate are allowed unto that noble Order when all others under the Penalty of 10 times the value are prohibited Were not saith the Lord Chancellor Egerton by the course of the Court of Star-Chamber to be examined upon any Interrogatories which might disparage them those that are to be chosen for every County which should be the Worthiest and Wisest men to be in the House of Commons in Parliament are to be milites gladiis cincti Knights in Assises of novel disseisin mort d'ancester attaint grand assise or in Writs of right two of the discreetest Knights of the Shire where the Justices shall come shall be associated unto them three are to be in Commissions of Oyer and Terminer to hear and determine forcible Entries rnd Outrages done in their County no man but a Knight was capable to be a Coroner antiently an eminent Officer of the Crown and Realm of England a plaint from a base and inferior Court could not be removed but by the Testimony of four Knights an Infant holding Lands by Knight Service made a Knight was antiently as to his person out of wardship or pupillage a Knight inhabitant or resorting to any City or Town Corporate wherein is Conusance of criminal Pleas is not to be impannel'd in any Jury for the Triall of any Capitall crime when the Sheriff had received Tallies of the Kings Debtors although he was an Officer of Trust and whose Retorne or Answer was much credited yet was not his Certificate into the Kings Exchequer of that Faith or Credit in the case aforesaid except the same were Fortified with one part of a Chirograph or Indenture Sealed and the hands of two Knights Testifying the same no Constable or Castelaine was to distraine a Knight for Castle-guard or to Execute that Service in his own Person because he is Priviledged to do it by the body of another and the like in Service of War in regard of the Dignity of Knighthood in every Commission to take the acknowledgment of a Fine to be levied of Lands a Knight ought to be one of the Commissioners in grand Assise and Writs de faâ—so judicio four Knights are to be Impannelled and not a less number in a Writ de perambulatione facienda and are so much valued and Intrusted above others as in Tryalls and Issues at Law where any of the Nobility or any Bishop is a party one Knight is to be of the Jury and are so more than many others Priviledged as their Armor and Horses as hath been before remembred are not to be taken in Execution there being so great an Honor appropriate and fixed to the degree of Knighthood as by the Law of Nations where their Knights are not also without many and great Priviledges an English Knight is not to be denyed that Honor Place and Reverence in all Forrein Kingdoms and Places where they shall have occasion to reside and Travell and are by other Nations as well as ours so much esteemed as they are not whilst they are Knights not to suffer any ignominous punishment and therefore S. Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell Knights in the later end of the Reign of King James were degraded before they under went the Infamy inflicted upon them And so much were our Knights respected by our Laws as Hakelinus filius Joscii Quatribusches was in the time of King Henry the 2d fined 100 l. then a great Sum of Money for striking a Knight and Moyses de Cantebridgia 40 Marks because he was present when the Knight was compelled to Swear that he would not complain of the Injury done unto him Sir Francis Tyas a Knight in the Reign of King Edward the first recovered five pounds Damages in Wakefeild Court in Yorkshire a-against one German Mercer for Arresting the Horse of one VVilliam Lepton that was his Esquire and causing him to be unattended the Court Roll mentioning it to be ad dâ—decus dampnum praedicti Francisci quia fuit sine Armigero to the disgrace and damage of the said Sir Francis because he wanted the Service of his Esquire and a Ribauld or Clown that should without cause strike a Knight was as Britton saith to be punishâ—d by the loss of his hand that did it every man should owe so much to their benefactors as not to deny the King those regards and respects which are due unto him when the contempt or misusage of them cannot have any better effect than a dishonor of the King himself or be without a Reflection upon their Master and a disparagement to his Regal Authority which all the Histories and Monuments of former times have loudly Proclaimed to be dangerous both to King and people and do not seldome happen when Majesty is either contemned or neglected They who have no other to flye unto for help in in case of a denyall of their own Priviledges and can by his Favor and Justice procure a Writ of secta ad Curiam when a man refuseth to perform his Suit either to the County or Court Baron or de secta ad molendinum against one that refuseth to Grind his Corn at the Lords Mill quare obstruxit against one who having a liberty to pass through his Neighbours ground cannot do it by the owners threatning to hinder it essendi quietum de thelonio in the case of Citizens and Burgesses of any City or Town who have a Charter or prescription to exempt them from Toll through the whole Realm a Writ de fine Annullando to annull a Fine levied of