Conservators without any election of a part or moity of them by the King and to be upon occasion of any breach or offence done by the King or his Justiciar ergà aliquem in aliquo vel aliquem articulorum pacis vel securitatis which clearly divides the security or Conservatorships from the Articles of Peace and Charters compelled at Running-Mead as far asunder as a disjunctive or matters of another nature sense or purpose could effect reduced to four and that which was referred to the King of France neither King John's Charter nor the collateral enforced security by the power of a Rebellious and unruly Army when he had but seven Knights to stand by him and was over-aw'd by a Clergy claiming to be independant of him and out of the power and coertion of his Laws had the Pope's Legate at their elbow and his afrighting pretence of God-like Omnipotency with their threatning to excommunicate him and his Councellors and all that should adhere unto him And as if that had not been enough practising and plotting with a discontented powerful party of the Barons against him But singly and seperately that which was the present Controversie cardo quaestionis were the provisions made at Oxford where per mensem integrum persistebant consilits armis of which and the reference to the French King thereupon Henry Knighton an Author much enclin'd to the contending part of the Baronage gives us an account in these words Publicatis Statutis executioni demandatis displicuerunt multa Regi paenituit eum sic jurâsse sed quia resistere non potuit ex arrupto dissimulavit ad tempus cùmque elapso anno non videret se ut promiserant à debitis relevari which Henry Knighton affirmeth they promised sed magis Onerari in multum condoluit missis ad Papam Nuntiis quoad sacramentum praestitum absolutionis beneficium consecutus est quoad se suos omnes absolvit etâ—am Papa indifferenter omnes ab eodem juramento ut citiùs inter se in vinculo pacis unirent siatimque absolutione opteniâ resilivit Rex à praemissis convocato Parliamento suo Oxoniae quaestionem movit magnatibus suis se quantùm ad provisiones tenendas callidè quidem inductum seductum in super quod ad sacramentum praestitum pro se suis universalitèr omnibus absolutionis benificium generalitèr impetrâsse unde petiit se ad omnia restituti sicut antiquitùs esse consuevit At illi qui convenerant Comes scilicet Leicestrensis Symon de Montforti Comes Gloucestriae Gilbertus de Clara Humfridus de Boun juvenis Comes Ferarensis Barones etiam quam plurimi scilicet Dominus filius Johannis Dominus Henricus de Hastinges Dominus Galfridus de Lucy Johannes de Vescy juvenis Dominus Nicholaus de Segrave Hugo le Spencer Robertus de Vesponte no Commons pro se siquidem suis sequacibus unanimitèr respenderunt quòd provisiones ad quas juramento astricti fuerant usque in finem vitae tenere voluerunt eò quòd pro utilitate Regis Regni communiter editae fuerant confirmatae Dumque vota sua sic mutassent in varia impacata recedere voluissent quidam Episcopi aderant qui interposuerunt partes suas ità quòd ipsis aliis amicis communibus sic cum difficuliate mediantibus compromiserunt partes utrimque se velle stare in omnibus arbitrio Regis Franciae Qui quidem Rix auditis hinc inde propositis diligenter ponderatis decrevit in fine Regi Angliae exhaereditationem fieri manifestam unde Statuta eorum quasi omnia reprobavit eidem Regi statum pristinum restitui imponens aliis silentium quantum ad jura Regalia ordinanda Motique Magnates indignantes necesserunt stare nolentes ejus arbitrio â—ò quòd pro Rege omnia Rex ipse adjudicavit Wherein the Charters of King John either as to the Forests or concerning the other Lands Liberties and Estates of the Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons and Free-men of England or any the controversies raised thereupon do not appear to be any part of the matters referred to the King of France's arbitration neither are in his award thereupon mentioned in the transcript thereof remaining amongst His Majesty's Records or declared by Matthew Paris or Henry Knighton to be any parcel of the controversies referred unto him or inducing the same for the Charter of King John therein by Matthew Paris said to be excepted is in the singular number and distinguishable from that of the Forests and cannot howsoever in any probability be intended to be the aforesaid collateral over-binding security nor could that be comprehended under that notion for the Charters granted by King John have nothing therein of the after-provisions made at Oxford which were not in his said Charters mentioned nor can be accounted the same when they were not then existent but were framed hatched and brought forth forty-three years after the Charters gain d at Running Mead which were not the same with that seperate and collateral bond or unfitting security wherein the King besides those Charters did covenant to expell all aliens and strangers out of the Kingdom omnes ruptarios breakers of the peace thereof some of which were therein particularly named qui sunt ad nocumentum Regni granted a general pardon omnibus Clericis Laicis of all offences committed by reason of the said troubles and discords from Easter before which was in the â—6th year of his Reign to the making of that pacification and moreover gave unto them the Letters Testimonials and Patents of the Archbishops of Canterbury and Dublin Pandulphus the Pope's Legate and other Bishops super securitate ista concessionibus praedictis the Charters being only a grant of the King 's to to the Bishops Earls and Barons and the rest of the Freemen and Subjects of England not as if they were before free and exempt from the just Monarchical and Regal Government but contra-distinguished from Bond-men and Bond-women Copy-holders Servants c. which needed no Oaths from the Grantees or those which might be glad to receive the Benefits and Liberties granted thereby For the contrivance of that fatal and too-long-lasting Seminary of Sedition and Discord betwixt the King and those Barons and that unfitting security to pacifie their unbecoming jealousies being no part of the Charters granted by King John were but as covenants and promises extorted from an over affrighted and distressed Prince and were not the same upon which the provisions of Oxford were founded nor incorporate in them So that the provisions made at Oxford must needs be those and none other which the King of France and his Parliament and great Council upon so grand and deliberate a hearing declared to be null and void as derogatory to Kingly Government and amounting to a total dis-herison of the King therein and if they were not those provisions the maintainers
Christianity in this our British Isle whither with divers good Authors we believe that King Lucius who is said to lie buried at Winchester did in the year 156 after the Birth of our Redeemer or in the year 185 186 or 187. write his Letter to Pope Eleutherius to transmit unto him the Roman Laws it is allowed by Sir Henry Spelman to have been written Rege Proceribus Regni Britanniae and that Faganus and Dervianus two Doctors being sent by Eleutherius to King Lucius Baptized him cum regulis populum Baptizant Clerum ordidinant 3. Metropolitanos 28. Episcopos instituunt Rex Ambrosius Aurelius ut memoriale Procerum Britanniae quos Hengistus Saxonesque sui complices nefanda proditione in monte Ambrosij qui nunc vulgò Stohenge dicitur trucidaverant 480. Consul ' Barones aeternum fieret praegrandes Lapides qui ibidem in borum memoriam usque in praesens positi sunt ab Hybernia cum magna manu Germano suo Uther illuc transmisso deportari fecit qui câ—â—n allati fuissent congregati sunt in monte Ambrosij edicto Regis magnates eum Clero cum magno honore dictorum nobilium sepulturam prepararent In the Charter of King Aethelbert confirming his Grant of the Land given to the Church of St. Pancrase in the Year 605. It is mentioned to have been done consensu venerabilis Augustini Archiepiscopi ac Principum suorum Et Decreta judiciorum ordinavit juxta exempla Romanorum concilio sapientum and when Edwin King of Northumberland was perswaded to be a Christian it is said that he consulted cum principibus conciliariis suis. Anno Dominicae incarnationis Aethelbertus Rex in fide roboratus Catholica unà cum beata regina filioque ipsorumque Eadbaldo ac Reverendissimo praesule Augustino caeterisque Optimatibus terrae solemnitatem natalis Domini celebravit Cantuariae convocato igitur ibidem communi concilio tà m Cleri quà m populi In Anno Domini 673. a Parliamentary Councel was holden at Hertford presentibus Episcopis ac Regibus Magnatibus universis but not any Knights Citizens Burgesses or Commons as we read of saith Mr. Pryn. A great Councel or Parliament was held at Becanfeld where Wythred King of Kent was present Anno 694. In like manner where none but the Peers were present The like Anno 710. at Worcester but without any Commons The like in the Councel at Cliff Anno 747. holden by Ethelbaldus King of Mercia omnibus Regni sui principibus ducibus being present but not one Knight or Burgess mentioned The like in Anno 787. at Colchuth coram Offa Rege suis magnatibus convenerunt omnes principes tà m Ecclesiastici quà m seculares Anno Domini 793. King Offa held a Councel at Verulam wherein the King suorum Magnatum acquiescens concilio took a journey to Rome Anno 794. after his return Celebrated two Councels the one at Colchyth where were present nine Kings twenty-five Bishops twenty Dukes but no House of Commons the other at Verolam Congregato apud Verolamium Episcoporum Optimatum concilio About the year 796. Cynewolf King of West Sex held a Councel where he wrote to Lullus Bishop of Mentz touching matters of Religion unà cum Episcopis suis nec non cum caterva Satraparum Anno 800. Kenulf King of Mercia called to the Councel at Clovesha omnes Regni sui Episcopos Duces Abbates cujuscunque dignitatis viros where there was no mention of any Commons Anno 816. at the Councel of Colechyth Caenulf King of Mercia was present cum suis principibus ducibus optimatibus but not a Syllable of Knights or Burgesses present About the year 822. in the Councel of Cloveshâ— where Beornulf King of Mercia Wilfred Archbishop Omniumque dignltatum optimates Ecclesiasticarum Secularium were present but no Knights of Counties or Burgesses Anno 824. another Councel was held by the same King at the same place assidentibus Episcopis Abbatibus Principibus Merciorum universis but no Commons for ought appears the King Archbishops Bishops and Dukes Subscribing their Names to the decrees there made About the same time a Councel called Pan-Anglicum or for all England was holden at London Praesentibus Egberto Rege West Saxonum Withlasio Rege Merciorum utroque Archiepiscopo caeterisque Angliae Magnatibus who Subscribed it Anno Domini 838. a Concilium Pan-Anglicum was holden at Kingston where King Egbert and his Son Ethelwolph were present cum Episcopis Optimatibus but not a word mentioned of the Commons Assent or Dissent Anno 850. A Councel was holden at Beningdon Praelatis proceribus Regni Merciae under King Bertulf when Lands were Setled and Confirmed by them to the Abbey of Crowland without the Assent or Mention of any Commons Anno Domini 851. In a Councel held at Kingsbury under King Bertulf Praesentibus Ceolnotho Archiepiscopo Doroberniae caeterisque Regni Merciae Episcopis Magnatibus without Knights or Burgesses Anno 855. There was a Councel or Parliament of all England held at Winchester where Ethelulf King of West-Sex Beorred King of Mercia and Edmond King of East-Sex were present together with the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York Caeterisque Angliae Episcopis Magnatibus wherein King Ethelwolf Omnium praelatorum principum suorum gratuito concilio without any Knights or Burgesses gave the Tithes of all the Lands and Goods within his Dominions a matter of no small Concernment to all his Subjects in their Estates and Proprieties to God and the Church which hath continued ever since in Force through all England Betwixt the Year 871. which was the beginning of King Alureds Raign and the end of which was in Anno Christi Domini 900. that excellent and prudent Prince Collected and Corrected divers Laws made by the Saxon Kings his Predecessors omitting others consulto sapientum Prudentissimorume suis consiliis usus edicit eorum observationem which was probably so done in a great Councel or Councels which were afterwards called Parliaments which in that so generally an unlearned age cannot be understood to be less than the Magnates of the Kingdom Bishops and Barons And the like is to be said of the Prudentum concilium given to Edoard who began his Reign in Anno 900. and ended it in Anno 924 and as much is to be believed of the Councel or Parliament of King Aethelstan who began his Raign in Anno 924 and ended it in the year 940. who besides what is mentioned in the making of his Laws that he did it prudenti Ulfheline Archiepiscopi aliorumque Episcoporum suorum concilio did about the year of our Lord 930. by his Charter give divers Lands to the Abby of Malmesbury in one of which Charters or Grants there was a Postscript or Subscription in these words Sciant sapientes Regionis Nostrae non has prefatas terras me injustè rapuisse rapinas Deo dedisse
suum Justitiarium Angliae Granted to Hugh Bishop of Durham Justitiam à fluvio Humbri usque ad terram Regis Scotiae made his Brothers John Earl of Morton and Geffry elect Archbishop of York to swear tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis that they would not come into England within three Years then ensuing nisi per licentiam illius but suddenly after released his Brother John of his Oath and gave him leave to return into England taking his Oath quòd fidelitèr ei serviret In Crastino Exaltationis Sanctâ— Crucis apud Pipewel Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum aliorum Magnatum suorum fretus concilio benignè concessit Galfrido fratri suo Archiepiscopatum Eborum circa dies istos iturus ad Terram sanctam per concilium Magnatum suorum Gerardum Archiepiscopum Auxisnem Richardum de Canvill c. Justiciarios constituit super totum navigium Angliae Normanniae Britanniae Pictaviae Et tradidit illis Chartam suam in hac forma Richardus Dei gratia Rex Anglorum omnibus hominibus suis per mare ad Terram sanctam ituris salitem Sciatis Nos de proborum concilio virorum has Justitias statuisse being certain severe Sea Laws illas Consuetudines ab omnibus observandas quòd singuli Justitiariis obedirent fecit Sacramento confirmari Eodem tempore in the Kings absence ad instanciam Comitis Johannis fratris ipsius Regis convenerunt apud Pontem de Leodune inter Radingum Windeleshores ad colloquium Magnates Angliae de magnis arduis Regis Regni negotiis tractatur ' in crastino autem tà m Archiepiscopus Rothomagensis quà m Eboracensis Episcopi omnes apud Radingum convenerunt colloquio interessent The Bishop of Roan being sent thither by the King to take and give him an account thereof Anno Domini 1290. Rex Anglorum Richardus ad natale Domini fuit in Normanniam apud Burum ibi tenuit solenne festum cum Primatibus terrae illius post natale habitum est Colloquium betwixt the Kings of France and England where the Expedition was agreed upon and a Peace made and sworn betwixt the two Kingdoms and the Comites Barones utriusque Regni none of the Commons did swear That they would remain faithful to both the Kings and make no Warr until fourty dayes after their return and the Archbishops and Bishops utriusque Regni juraverunt to denounce sentence of Excommunication against the Transgressors In which Warrs in the East for recovery of the Holy Land after many glorious Victories obtained against the Infidels King Richard being shipwrackt and with a small company escaping cast upon the Territories of the envious Duke of Austria his incensed Aemulator for that he had caused his Standard which he had set up before his at the taking of the Town of Joppa to be taken downe and thrown into a Jakes was discovered way-laid taken and delivered or sold to the Emperour of Germany for 60000l of Silver ad pondus Coloniensium And the Emperour to whom his Brother John who had in his Absence endeavoured to usurp his Kingdomes and with the King of France his Confederate offered great summs of Money whereof the latter would have paid 50000 Marks of Silver and the former 30000 to have him detained Prisoner detesting their Practises and shewing to King Richard their Letters after much Respects and Kindness to such a magnanimous Prisoner agreed to take for his Ransom 140 thousand Marks of the same kind of Money which he paid to the Duke of Austria without any thing to be paid for the Expenses of himself or any other but an Oath was first taken by the Bishops Dukes and Barons that as soon as the Money should be paid continuò liber proprium regrederetur ad regnum which being together with the Emperours Letter published in England by the Bishop of Ely his Chancellor suddenly after Exiit edictum à Justiciariis Regis ut omnes Episcopi Clerici Comites Barones Abbatiae Prioratus quartam partem Redituum suorum ad redemptionem Regis conferrent insuper ad illud Pietatis opus Calices aureos argenteos sustulerunt And upon his delivery by the Archbishops of Mentz and Cologne into the hands of Queen Elianor his Mother on the behalf of the Emperour gave Sureties or pledges until all the Money should be paid Walter Archbishop of Roan Savarick Bishop of Bath Baldwin de Wac alios multos filios Comitum Baronum suorum de pace servanda Imperatori Imperio suo omni terrae suae dominationis The Bishop of Norwich dimidium pretij de Calicibus sumpsit de rebus habitis Regi donavit and the Cistertian Monks being alwayes before by Priviledge freed from any Contributions Bona sua universa ad Regis redemptionem dederunt Anno gratiae 1200. King Richard being dead Rex Francorum Philippus Rex Anglorum Johannes inter Wailan Butavius castella ad colloquium convenerunt ubi convenit inter eosdem Reges cum concilio Principum utriusque Regni quòd Ludovicus filius Regis Francorum haeres duceret in uxorem filiam Aldefonsi Regis Castellae Neptem Regis Johannis Rex Anglorum pro hoc matrimonio contrahendo daret Ludovico cum nepte sua nomine Blanca in maritagio Civitatem Ebroicarum cum toto comitatu insuper 30000 marcarum Argenti Rex Johannes post completa negotia in partibus transmarinis transfretavit in Angliam veniens autem Londonias apud Westmonasterium Huberto Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi Magnatibus Regni praesentibus Gaufridus Archiepiscopus Eborqcensis cum Rege pacificatus est quo tempore Rex Johannes significavit Willielmo Regi Scotorum ut veniret ad eum ad Lincolniam ut ibidem de jure suo sibi satisfaceret in Crastino sancti Eadmundi Ubi convenerunt Rex Anglorum Johannes Rex Scotorum Willielmus cum universa Nobilitate tà m Cleri quà m populi utriusque Regni whence he directed his Writ to the Barons and those which did hold of him in Capite to come unto him with Horse and Armes to Northampton die Dominiâ—â proximè ante Pentecosten in formâ sequente Rex c. Henrico c. Mandamus tibi quòd in fide quam Nobis debes ficut Nos corpus honorem Nostrum diligis omni occasione dilatione postpositis sis ad Nos apud Northampton die dominica proximè ante Pentecosten paratus Equis Armis aliis necessariis ad movendum cum corpore Nostro standum Nobiscum ad minus per duas quadragesimas ità quòd infra terminum illum à Nobis non recedas ut tibi in perpetuum in grates seire debeamus T. c. And in the same year Summoned the Peers but no Commons to a great Councel or Parliament not for Military Aid in these words Rex c. Episcopo Sarum Mandamus vobis
incepit a quarto die Aprilis Anno. Regni dicti patris nostri 48 quando vexillis explicatis exivit cum exercitu suo ab Oxonia versus Northt duravit continue usque Sextum decimum diem Septembris Anno Regni dicti patris nostri xl nono quando apud Wyntouiam pacem suam post bellum de Evesham in presentia Baronum suorum qui ibidem convenerant firmari fecit clamari no Commons or Knights or Burgesses representing for them Provisium fuit etiam ne aliquis amittteret vitam vel membra pro Roberiis aut homicidiis aut aliis commissis sub specie guerrae per illos qui contradictum patrem nostrum erant a quarto die Junii Anno Regni ejusdem patris nostri xlvii quando illi vexillis explicatis primo per terram suam incedentes roberias homicidia incarceraciones tam personis Ecclesiasticis quam secularibus fecerunt usque ad predictum tempus quo ab Oxonia versus Northt cum exercitu suo recessit De aliis autem quae tempore illo sub specie guerrae non fiebant haberetur tempus illus velnd tempus pacis A tempore autem supradicto quo apud Winton pacem suam firmari fecit clamari curreret Lex pro ut tempore pacis currere consuevit Ita tamen quod illi qui fuerint apud Axeholm sive apud Kenill vel Insula Elyens vel apud Cestrefeld vel postmodum apud Suwerk observaretur plene pax sua prout eam habere deberent sive per dictum de Kenileworth sive per privilegia sua de pace sua sibi concessa De illis autem qui cum Com. Gloverniae in ultima turbatione fuerunt observaretur pax facta inter dictum patrem nostrum ipsum Com. Ita quod a tempore quo dicto Comes recessit a Wall versus London usque ad diem quo recessit a Civitate praedict non procederent Justic. contra ipsum vel eos qui erant in parte sua Et hoc de illis tantummodo intelligeretur De depredationibus autem utrobique factis tempore praedicto observaretur hoc quod pace inter dictum patrem nostrum ipsum Comitem facta continetur Et ideo vobis mandamus quod hec omnia in prefato Itinere diligenter observari faciatis T. R. apud Kickleton xix die Marc. 6. E. 1. He commanded the Sheriffs to distrain every man that had 20 l. per Annum in Land or a whole Knights Fee of the liâ—e value and hold of him in Capite milites esse debent ad arma militaria within such a Time a nobis suscipiend which was like a Nursery for military affairs for the continuance of those gallant necessaries for publique Defence in and by the obligations of their Tenures wherein a great part of our Fundamentall Laws Oaths of Allegeance Loyalty and Duties of Subjects do subsist And by an Inquisition taken in the same Year at Launceston in Cornwall by a Commission out of his Court of Exchecquer it was found by a Jury that Dominus ratione Regiae dignitatis Coronae suae habet privilegium quod nullus in Regno suo aliquo qui sit de Regno Angliae alieni homagium sine fidelitatem facere debeat vel aliquis hujusmodi homagium vel fidelitatem ab aliquo recepire debeat nisi facta mentione de fidelitate domino Regi debita eidem Dominus Regi observanda Episcopus Exon adfuit contrarium c. Et in contemptu c. Et le Evesque mis a respond And like a second Justitian did cause John le Breton one of the Justices of the King's-bench Or as others have written Bishop of Hereford to compile in his name a Book of the Laws and Customs of England wherein the King directring the Book to all the People which were under his protection par la Soufrance de Dieu saith for that peace could not be without Laws he had caused those which had been heretofore used in his Realm to be put in Writing which he Willed and Commanded should be Observed in all England and Ireland en toutz pointz Sauve a nous de repealer de eunoiter d' amander a toutz les faitz que nous verron que bon a nous serra par l'assent de nos Countes de nos Barons autres de nostre Conceil Sauve les usages a ceux que prescription de temps oul autrement use en taint que leur usages soyent mys discordants a droiture in which Book and the Droits de Roy there is no mention made of the Election and Summoning of Knights of the Shires Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament By his Edict or Proclamation prohibited the burning of Seacole in London and the Suburbs thereof for avoiding its noysom Smoak and without any Act of Parliament divided Wales into Shires and ordained Sheriffs there as was used in England caused some London Bakers not making their bread as they ought to be drawn upon Hurdles and 3 men for rescuing a prisoner arrested by an Officer to have their right hands cut off by the Wrists Fined without advice or assent of Parliament which might well be so understood to have been so upon the Act of Parliament in Anno 3 of his Reign ordained that such offenders should be ransomed and Punished at the Kings Will and Pleasure Sr Ralph Hengham Chief Justice of his Bench 7000 Marks Sr John Lovetot Chief Justice of the Common Pleas 3000 Marks Sr William Brompton 6000 Marks Sr Solomon Rochester or Roffey 4000 Marks Sr Richard Boyland as much Sr Thomas Sodenton 2000 Marks Sr William Saham 3000 Marks Roobert Littlebury Clark Master of the Rolls 1000 Marks Roger Leicester no less Henry Bray Escheator and Justice of the Jews 1000 Marks Sr Adam Stratton Chief Baron of the Exchequer 34000 Marks and Thomas de Weyland being the greatest delinquent and of the greatest substance could not be so easily excused but was Banished and had all his Goods and Estate Confiscate to the King only John de Metingham Elias de Beckingham two of the itinerant Judges to their eternall honour saith Henry Spelman appearing Guiltless and Righteous in that severe and Kingly examination and Justice purged his Courts of Justice and the Officers and clarks thereof from Bribery and extortion banished the usury of the Jews hanged 297. of them for abusing the Coyn and Money of the Kingdom curbed the pretended Independent power of the Clergy Clipped their Jurisdictions and upon their refusall to pay Tallage towards his Wars Seized many of their Temporallities put them out of the protection of his Laws and Justice and caused them to be excluded out of one of his Parliaments untill their Submission whom he had by wofull experience understood to have had too great an Influence upon some of the unquiet Nobility Made himself the Arbitrator and Umpire betwixt the many great Pretenders to
the Kings Brother and Chancellor of England in the behalf of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of calling the Parliament and taking for his Theme Multitudo Sapientum learnedly resembled the Government of the Realm to the Body of a man the Right-hand to the Church the Left-hand to the Temporalty and the other Members to the Commonalty of all which Members and Estates the King not deeming himself to be one was willing to have Councel The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England by the Kings commandment declaring the cause of the Summoning the Parliament and taking for his Theme Regem honorificate shewed them that on necessity every Member of mans Body would seek comfort of the Head as the Chief and applyed the same to the honouring of the King as the Head And in that his Oration mentioning the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses giveth them no Title of Estates but the Kings Leiges In the presence of John Duke of Bedford Brother of the King Lieutenant and Warden of England and the Lords and Commons the Bishop of Durham by his commandment declared that the King willed that the Church and all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not include the King It was ordained that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties without the words Concessimus which could not comprehend the King who granted it to them but not to himself The Chancellor at the first assembling of the Parliament declared that the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which must be intended to others that were his Subjects and not to himself that was none of them The Archbishop of York Chancellor of England declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties in which certainly he well knew that the Person willing or granting was not any of the Persons or Estates to whom he willed and granted that they should enjoy their Liberties The Duke of Gloucester being made Guardian or Keeper of England by the King sitting in the Chair the Archbishop of York being sick William Linwood Doctor of Laws declaring the cause of summoning the Parliaâ—ent said that the King willed that every Estate should enjoy their due Liberties which properly enough might be extensively taken to Military men and Soldiers the Gentry Agricolis opificibus all sorts of Trades Labourers Servants Apprentices Free-holders Copy-holders Lease-holders single Women and Children Tenants at Will and which never were themselves Estates but the several sorts and degrees thereof wherein if any Law Reason or Sense could make the King to be comprehended an inextricable problem or question would everlastingly remain unresolved who it was that so willed or granted The King sitting in his Chair of State John Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the Bishops Lords and Commons by the Kings Commandment declared the causes of summoning the Parliament taking for his Theme or Text the words sussipiant montes Pacem Colles Justitiam divided it into three parts according to the three Estates by the Hills he understood Bishops and Lords and Magistrates by little Hills Knights Esquires and Merchants by the People Husbandmen Artificers and Labourers By the which third Estates by sundry Authorities and Examples he learnedly proved that a Triple Political vertue ought to be in them viz. In the first Unity Peace and Concord In the second Equity Consideration Upright Justice without maintenance In the third due Obeysance to the King his Laws and Magistrates without grudging and gave them further to understand the King would have them to enjoy all their Liberties Of which third Estates the Chancellor in all probability neither the King or they that heard him did take or believe the King himself to be any part The 15th day of August the Plague beginning to increase the Chancellor by the Kings Commandment in the presence of the 3 Estates the Clerks Translator or Abridger being unwilling to relinquish their Novelty or Errors of which the commonest capacity or sense can never interpret the King to be one Prorogued the Parliament until the Quindena of St. Michael The Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of the Summons of Parliament said that the King willed that all Estates should enjoy thâ—â— Liberties which might intitle the King to be the Party willing or granting but not any of the Parties who were to take benefit thereby It was enacted by the whole Estates which may be understood to be the King Lords Spiritual and that the Lords of the Kings Councel none of theirs should take such order for the Petition of the Town of Plymouth as to them should seem best Letters Patents being granted by the King to John Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury of divers Mannors and Lands parcel of the Dutchy of Lancaster under the Seal of the Dutchy were confirmed by the whole Estates for the performance of the last Will and Testament of King H. 5. though it was severed from the Crown and was no part of the concernment thereof nor had any relation to the Publick or any Parliamentory Affairs the King himself that granted the Letters Patents could not be interpreted to be one of those whole Estates which were said to have confirmed them By the whole Estates were confirmed King Henry the 6th Letters Patents of the Erection and Donation of Eton Colledge and also of Kings Colledge in Cambridge with the Lands thereunto belonging which might well conclude the King although he being the Donor could not be believed to be any part of the whole Estates who by their approbation are said to have confirmed his Letters Patents The Chancellor in the name of all the Lords in the presence of the King protested that the Peace which the King had taken with the French King was of his own making and will and not by any of the Lords procurations the which was enacted And it was enacted that a Statute made in the time of King H. 5. that no Peace should be taken with the French King that then was called the Dolphin of France without the assent of the three Estates of both Realms should be utterly revoked and that no Person for giving Counsel to the Peace of France be at any time to come impeached therefore which may demonstrate that neither the Dolphin of France nor the King of England were then accompted to be any part of the several 3. Estates of the said Kingdoms The King by his Chancellor declared that he willed that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties it cannot be with any probability supposed that either he or his Chancellor intended that himself was one of the said Estates The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King gave thanks in his behalf to the 3. Estates wherein no
his elder Brother Geffry's Son being at that time not able to carry it he would endeavour to obtain the Crown and therefore the safer way to prevent confusion was that the Land should rather make him King than he make himself and that the Election would be some tie upon him Or in or by the Books if extant which that King is said to have wrote entituled Leges pro Republicâ 2d Statuta Regalia 3d. in the Epistle which he wrote Ad Innocentium Papam contra Stephanum Langton Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem 4th Ad Stephanum Cantuariensem Episcopum 5th Ad Innocentium Papam contra Barones 6th Ad Londinenses pro Praetor 7th Super Charta Obligatoria Which if the devouring teeth of Time or corruptions of their Originals have not met with them might if perused be believed to make no opposition to that which should be in a well-ordered Regal Government Or in or by the Charter at Running Mead called Magna Charta Charta de Forestae wrested and enforced from him by a mighty Army of too many of the Barons of England with their innumerable adherents upon their Oaths solemnly taken upon the Altars never to desist until they had obtained a grant of their Laws and Liberties which they pretended to have been violated which saith Daniel the Historian might be wished to have been gained by those unruly Barons in a better manner Or by any of our Laws or any of the Charters or Liberties granted by any of our Kings or Princes before or after SECT II. Of the Indignities Troubles and Necessities which were put upon King JOHN in the enforcing of his Charters by the Pope and his then Domineering Clergy of England joyned with the Disobedience and Rebellion of some of the Barons encouraged and assisted by them THat unfortunate Prince so ill used by Hubert Walter Archbishop of Canterbury in the beginning of his Reign and as bad by Philip King of France who had given the Honour of Knighthood unto Arthur the Son of King John's elder Brother and taken his Homage for Anjou Poicteau Touraine Maine and the Dutchy of Normandy with an endeavour to make it the most advantageous for himself in regard that King John had neglected to do his Homage for those Provinces being Members of the Crown of France And in the third year of his Reign imposing 3 s. upon every Plough-land for discharge of a Dowry of 30000 Marks to be given in marriage with his Niece Blanch the collecting whereof the Archbishop of York opposed in his Province for which and refusing to come upon summons to his Treaty in France seizing his Temporalities the Archbishop Interdicted the whole Province of York and Excommunicated the Sheriff Into which County the King with his Queen Isabel afterwards making their Progress in their Journey towards Scotland and exacting great Fines of Offenders in his Forests the Archbishop his Brother refused him Wine and the Honour of the Bells at Beverly A reconciliation was notwithstanding made betwixt them by the mediation of four Bishops and as many Barons with a great sum of money and a promise to reform excesses on both parts When the King upon Easter after his return from the North was again Crowned at Canterbury and with him his Queen by the Archbishop Hubert and there the Earls and Barons of England were summoned to be ready with Horse and Armour to pass the Seas with him presently after Whitsontide but they holding a Conference together at Leicester by a general consent sent him word that unless he would render them their Rights and Liberties they would not attend him out of the Kingdom whereupon he required of them security by the delivering up unto him the principal of their Castles and began with William de Albany for his Castle of Belvoir who delivered unto him his Son as a Pledge but not the Castle And the King with the King of France being after solicited by the Popes Legate obtained a Subsidy of the fortieth part of all their Subjects Revenues for one year by way of Alms to succour the Holy Lands for the levying whereof in England Geffery Fitz-Peter Justiciar in England sent out his Writs by way of request and perswasion not as of due or by co-action to avoid example Howsoever the King of France declared for Arthur to whom he married his youngest Daughter required King John to deliver up unto him all his Provinces in France and by a peremptory day summon'd him to appear personally at Paris to answer what should be laid to his charge and abide the Arrest of his Court which he refusing was by sentence adjudged to lose all which he did hold in France of that Crown who thus beset with the King of France on the one side and his Nephew Arthur and the Barons of Anjou on the other who laid siege to Mirabel defended by Eleanor Mother of King John who by her intermedling turbulent and unquiet spirit had done him no good with great expedition relieved it by defeating the whole Army carrying away Prisoners Earl Arthur Hugh le Brun all the Barons of Anjou and 200 Knights Whereupon Arthur being shortly after murdered in Prison and the deed laid to his charge with the cruel execution of many of his Prisoners it so exasperated the Nobility of Britain and Poicteau as they all took Arms against him and summon'd him to answer in the Court of Justice of the King of France which he denying was condemned to forfeit the Dutchy of Normandy which his Ancestors had held by the space of 300 years and of that and all his other Provinces in France became wholly dispossest And with that disastrous success returning into England charged the Earls and Barons with the reproach of his losses in France and fined them to pay the fourth part of all their Goods for refusing their aid to which the feudal Laws and their tenures had obliged them Neither spared he the Church or Commonwealth in the like Imposition of which Geffery Fitz-Peter Justiciar of England was Collector for the Laity and Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury for the Clergy Which being not enough to supply his occasions for War in France where great Estates of many of the English Nobility then lay a Parliament was convoked at Oxford wherein was granted two Marks and a half of every Knights Fâ—e for Military Aid the Clergy promising to do the like on their part In anno 8o. of his Reign another Imposition was laid of the 13 th part of all the moveables of the Clergy and Laity which was again opposed by the Archbishop of York who solemnly accursed the Receivers thereof within his Province and departed out of the Kingdom Unto which also was added a miserable breach betwixt Legiance and Authority for Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury being dead a great controversy happened betwixt the King and the Pope upon the Monks of Canterbury's who were sent about it to Rome election of Stephen Langton a Cardinal who
though an English-man born had been bred in France and an adhaerent to that King Being thus elected and consecrated by the Pope at Viterbium in Italy the election of the Bishop of Norwich whom the King had procured to be elected being made void and those Monks and the rest of the Agents sent home with the Popes Letters exhorting the King benignly to receive Stephen Langton and charging the Monks remaining at Canterbury by virtue of holy Obedience to obey the Archbishop in all Temporal and Spiritual matters With which the King being greatly displeased seized upon all which the Monks had who with their Prior hasted away to Flanders And writing a sharp Letter to the Pope concerning the wrong done unto him in making void the election of Gray Bishop of Norwich and advancing Stephen Langton a man unknown to him and which was more to his prejudice without his consent gave him to understand that he would stand for the liberties of his Crown to the death constantly affirming that he could not revoke the election of the Bishop of Norwich and that if he were not righted therein he would stop up his passages of his Subjects to Rome and if necessity required had in his Kingdom of England and other his Dominions Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates of so sufficient Learning as they needed not to beg Justice and Judgment of Strangers Unto which as angry a Letter being returned and two Monks who were staid at Dover having been sent from Rome to demand his assent for the election of Stephen Langton admonished him to endeavour to give him and the Church their Right and not to cast himself into those difficulties from whence he could not easily release himself since He in the end must overcome to whom all knees bow in Heaven Earth and Hell whose Vicegerency here below he exercised Neither was it safe for him to repugn God and the Church for which the glorious Martyr and Bishop Thomas Becket shed his Bloud especially since his Father and Brother late Kings of England have in the hands of the Legates of the Apostolick See abjured which the Records and Memorials of England do with great clearness contradict that as he pleased to call it Impious Custom And when he was informed how the King had proceeded against the Church of Canterbury sent his Mandates to the Bishops of Ely London and Worcester to exhort him to reform himself and if they found him contumacious to interdict the whole Kingdom and if that would not correct him would lay a severe hand on him Which they being ready to obey with tears beseeching him that he would call home the Archbishop and the Monks of Canterbury and avoid the scandal of interdiction The King in a great Passion against the Pope and Cardinal interrupting their Speech Swore that if they or any other should dare to put the Kingdom under Interdiction he would presently send all the Clergy of England to the Pope and confiscate their Goods and that if any of Rome should be found within any part of his Land he would cause their Eyes to be put out their Noses cut over fierce punishments long before usually and indifferently inflicted upon offending Criminals Laicks and Clergy by our Saxon and Norman Ancestors much before and sometimes since the time of our William the Conquerour and so sent home that by those marks they might be known of other Nations charging the Bishops moreover presently to avoid his presence as they would avoid their own danger Of which the Pope being certified by those Bishops the whole Kingdom was shortly after interdicted all Ecclesiastical Sacraments and Offices except Confession Extream Unction and Baptism of Children seized and Dead were put into the Earth without Priest or Prayer the King by his Sheriffs and Ministers commanded all Prelates and their Servants to depart the Kingdom confiscated all the Revenues of the Bishopricks Abbyes and Priories many of the Prelates getting into the Monasteries as places priviledged And not forgetting the Indignities Hardships Necessities and ill usages which had been undutifully put upon him by some of his Barons with the Domineering of the Pope his Legates and Clergy whilst like a Tennis-Ball he had been betwixt them tost from one hand Wall and Racket to another with the great oppressions which had been laid upon him by the Clergy of one part and some of his unruly Barons on the other the discords of the former more encouraging the latter by the Popes Excommunication and Interdicting his Kingdom did the better to prevent the revolt of his Subjects which might follow upon his breach with the Church send with a Military power to all the great men of the Kingdom to give Pledges for the assurance of their Fidelity wherein some of them gave satisfaction by sending their Sons Nephews or nearest of Kin amongst whom William de Brause a great Baron being sent unto his Lady too sharply giving an answer before her Husband could do it That the King should have none of her Son to keep that was so ill a keeper of his own Brothers Son Arthur but her Lord reprehending her for it returned his answer That he was ready if he had offended to satisfy the King without any Pledge according to the judgment of his Court and that of his Peers The King displeased with the Londoners removed his Exchequer to Northampton marched with an Army to make War against the King of Scotland and that business appeased in his return back caused all the Inclosures in his Forests to be laid open The Pope seeing that he would not yield proceeded to an Excommunication of his Person which did put him into a desperate rage against the Clergy who durst not execute the Popes Mandate for many days after which Excommunication of the King was accompanied with that of the Emperour Otho his Nephew and all the Estates of Germany and the Roman Empire were absolved from their Obedience and Fidelity But the King having gained great Treasure from the Iews made a Voyage into Ireland where receiving the Homage of many and reducing much of that Country to his obedience ordained the same to be governed by the Laws and Customs of England the contests whereof were not then fully settled making the Coin and Money thereof to be there Currant and leaving John Grey Bishop of Norwich to be Justiciar and there after three Months stay returned into Wales which had Rebelled reduced them to Obedience taking 28 of the Children of their best Families for Pledges Whence returning in the 13th year of his Reign he required and had of every Knight that attended not his Army in that Expedition two Marks and at Northampton received the Popes Agents Pandulphus and Durandus who were sent to make a Peace betwixt the Kingdom and Priesthood too many of whom in matters against the King were seldom at odds by whose exhortation and the consideration of the State of the Kingdom he consented that the Archbishop
and all the exiled Bishops and Monks of Canterbury should in peace return to their own but refused to make satisfaction for their Goods taken away They depart unsatisfied which made the Pope more Imperious to constrain him to do whatsoever he desired and to that end Absolved all his Subjects upon what occasion soever from all their obedience strictly forbidding them under pain of Excommunication Board Councel and Conference Who preparing to suppress an Insurrection of some of the Welsh had intelligence that if he proceeded therein he would either be killed or betrayed whereupon he returned to London required Pledges of the Nobility and had them Eustace de Vescy and Robert Fitz-Walter being accused of the Conspiracy fled the one into Scotland the other into France and the Pope pronouncing the Kings absolute Deposition from the Regal Government of the Kingdom wrote to the King of France a perfidious dangerous enemy of King John's That as he looked to have remission of his Sins he should take the charge upon him to expel him out of the Kingdom of England and possess the same to Him and his Heirs for ever and sent Letters to the Princes and great Men of other Nations That they should aid the King of France in the dejection of that contumacious King of England in revenge of the Injuries done to the Universal Church granting like remission of their Sins as if they undertook the Holy War The King of France thereupon making great preparations against him and with that Commission the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other exiled Bishops with Pandulphus the Popes Legate being sent unto him private instructions were given by the Pope to Pandulphus his juggling Legate at his returning into England out of the King of France's great Army prepared against him that if upon the Preparation and Forces gathered by the King of France for his dejection he could work the King of England to such conditions as he should propound Absolution and Restauration should be granted unto him Who thus distressed not only granted restitution and satisfaction of whatever had been taken from the Archbishop and Monks of Canterbury and the Bishops of London Bathe and Lincoln who were fled into France to the Archbishop but also laid down his Crown Scepter Sword and Ring the Ensigns of his Regality at the feet of Pandulphus as a Livery and Seizin of the Kingdom of England to the Pope and submitted himself to the judgment and mercy of the Church which being two days after or as some have written six restored unto him upon an agreement made at the receiving thereof upon his Oath Non sine dolore saith Matthew Paris tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis in praesentia Pandulphi se judicio sanctae Ecclesiae pariturum sexdecim cum eo Comites Barones ex potentioribus Regni in animam ipsius Regis juraverunt Quod si fortè facti paeniteret ipsi eum pro possibilitate compellerent And thereupon convenerunt decimo tertio die Maii apud Doveriam viz. die Lunae proximo ante Ascensionem Domini Rex Pandulphus cum Comitibus Baronibus turba multa nimis no House of Commons certainly ubi in pacis formam unanimitèr consenserunt And in the King's Name and under his Seal it was declared by the Title of Iohannes Dei Gratiâ not of the Pope or People and four of the Barons viz. William Earl of Salisbury his Brother Reginald Earl of Boloigne William Earl of Warren and William de Ferrariis juraver ant in animam suam i. e. Regis That they should bonâ side in every thing observe that Peace and Agreement And he did likewise solemnly and absolutely swear stare mandato Domini Papae to stand to the will and command of the Pope and his Legate or Legates aforesaid in all things for not doing whereof he was excommunicated by him and that he should not molest Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury William Bishop of London Eustace Bishop of Ely Giles Bishop of Hereford Iosceline Bishop of Bath Hubert Bishop of Lincoln the Prior and Monks of Canterbury Robert Fitz-Walter whose Castle of Baynard in or near London the King had before seized with all his other Lands and Estate proclaiming him a Traytor and Eustace de Vescy with all other Clarks and Laicks which had adhaered unto them but continue in a firm peace and good accord with them and should publickly take his Oath before the said L gate or his Delegate that he should not hurt or cause them to be molested in their Persons Lands Goods or Estates but should receive them into his grace and favour and pardon all their Offences not hinder the said Archbishops and Bishops in their jurisdictions and execution of their Office but they might fully execute their Authority as they ought and should grant to the Pope Archbishops and Bishops his Letters Patents thereof upon Oaths to be taken by the Bishops Earls and Barons and their Letters Patents given that they would firmly and truly hold and keep the said Peace and Agreement and if he by himself or others should infringe it they in the behalf of the Church should oppose the Violators of the said Peace and Agrement and he should lose the benefit of the Custody of their Churches in the vacancy thereof and if he could not perswade others to keep the last part of the Oath that is to say by himself or others should contradict or go against it they should put in execution the power of the Church and Apostolick Command and did by his Letters Patents further oblige himself to quit and renounce all his Rights and Patronage which he had in any of the Churches of England and the said Letters Patents should be transmitted and delivered to the said Archbishop and Bishops before their coming into England the said Archbishop and Bishops with a Salvo honore Dei Ecclesiae giving caution by their Oaths and Letters Patents that neither they nor any on their behalf should attempt or do any thing against his Person or Crown whilst he observed and secured unto them the Peace and Agreement as aforesaid And as to what was taken from them should make unto them full Restitution with Damages for all that had been done as well to Clerks as Laicks intermedling in those Affairs not only as to their Goods and Estates but all Liberties which should be preserved unto them and to the Archbishop and Bishop of Lincoln from the time of their Consecrations and to all others from the time of the aforesaid Discords nor should there be any hindrance to the living or dead by any of his grants or promises before made neither should he retain any thing by way of Service due unto him but only the Services which should hereafter be due unto him all Clerks and Laicks imprisoned upon that occasion should be restored to Liberty And the King should presently after Absolution given to him by him that should do it cause to be
delivered to the said Archbishop Bishops and Monks of Canterbury 8000 l. Sterling in part of Restitution of what had been taken from them and pay their Debts and Charges in returning to England that is unto Stephen Archbishop of Canterbury 2500 l. William Bishop of London 750 l. Eustace Bishop of Ely as much Iosceline Bishop of Bath and Hubert Bishop of Lincoln the like several Sums of Money and to the Prior and Monks of Canterbury 1000 l. That as soon as the Peace should be allowed and accepted by them he should restore unto them all the Moveables which he had taken from them publickly revoke the Interdict or Outlamry so called made and pronounced against Ecclesiastical Persons and protest that it did not at all belong unto him so to do And that therefore he should not do it but revoke the Outlawing of any of the Laity that had taken their part and remit all that he had received from any Ecclesiastical man praeter Regni consuetudinem Ecclesiae libertatem and that if any questions should arise concerning the Damages done it should be determined upon proofs by the Legate or Delegate of the Pope All which being done the Popes Sentence and Interdict should be taken off and discharged And if any doubts should arise touching any other parts of the Articles of Agreement and any which were material or substential should happen that could not be determined by the Legate or Delegates of the Pope by the Peoples consent they should be referred to the Popes Arbitration and that whatsoever he should Decree might be observed Dated 13 die Maii apud Doveram Rebus sic expeditis and the matter so ended and agreed upon convenerunt iterum Rex Anglorum Pandulphus cum ' proceribus Regni apud domum militum Templi juxta Doveram decimo quinto dâ—e Maii in vigilia Dominica Ascensionis ubi idem Rex juxta quod Romae fuerat sententiarum resignavit Coronam suam cum Regiis Angliae Hiberniae in manu Domini Papae cujus vices tum gerebat Pandulphus memortus factâ autem resignatione dedit Papae et ejus Successoribus Regna praedicta quae Charta confirmavit in these words viz. Johannes Dei gratiâ Rex Angliae c. omnibus Christi fidelibus hanc Chartam inspecturis salutem in Domino Universitate vestrae per hanc Chartam sigillo nostro munitam volumus esse notum quòd cùm Deum Matrem nostram sanctam Ecclesiam offenderimus in multis perindè divinâ misericordiâ plurimùm indigeamus nec quid dignè offerre possimus pro satisfactione Deo Ecclesiae debita facienda nisi nosmet ipsos humiliemus Regna nostra volentes nos ipsos humiliare pro illo qui se pro nobis humiliavit usque ad mortem gratiâ sancti spiritûs inspirante non vi interdicti nec timore coacti sed nostrâ bonâ spontaneâque voluntate ac communi consilio Baronum nostrorum conferimus liberè concedimus Deo sanctis Apostolis ejus Petro Paulo sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Matronae nostrae ac Domino Papae Innocentio ejusque Catholicis successoribus totum Regnum Angliae totum Regnum Hiberniae cum omni jure pertinentiis suis pro remissione omnium peccatorum nostrorum totius generis nostri tà m pro vivis quà m pro defunctis amodò illa ab eo Ecclesia Romana tanquam secundarius recipientes tenentes in praesentiâ prudentis viri Pandulphi Domini Papae Subdiaconi familiaris Exindè praedicto Domino Papae Innocentio ejusque Catholicis Successoribus Ecclesiae Romanae secundum subscriptam formam fecimus juravimus homagium ligium in praesentiâ Pandulphi Si coram Domino Papa esse poterimus eidem faciemus Successores nostros Haeredes de Uxore nostrâ in perpetuum obligantes ut simili modo summo Pontifici qui pro tempore fuerit Ecclesiae Romanae sine contradictione debeant sidelitatem praestare homagium recognoscere Ad indicium autem hujus nostrae perpetuae obligationis concessionis volumus stabilimus ut de propriis specialibus redditibus nostris praedictorum Regnorum pro omni servito consuetudine quae pro ipsis facere debemus salvis por omnia denariis beati Petri Ecclesia Romana mille marcas Esterlingorum percipiat annuatim in Festo scilicet Sancti Michaelis quingentas marcas in Pascha quingentas septingentas scilicet pro Regno Angliae trecentas pro Regno Hiberniae Salvis Nobis Heredibus Nostris Iustitiis Libertatibus Regalibus Nostris Que omnia sicut superscripta sunt rata esse volentes atque firma obligamus Nos Successores Nostros câ—ntra non venire st Nos vel aliquis successorum Nastrorum contra hec attentare presumpserit quicunque ille fuerit nisi rite commoâ—itus resipuerit cadat à jure Regni Et hee charta obligationis concessionis Nostre Teste meipso apud domum militum Templi juxta Doveram coram H. Dublinensi Archiepiscopo Johanni Norwicensi Episcopo Galfrido filto Petri W. Comite Sarisberiae Willielmo Comite Penbroke R. Comite Bononiae W. Comite Warenne S. Comite Winton W. Comite Arundel W. Comite de Ferrariis W. Briwere Petro filio Hereberti Warino filio Geroldi 15 o die Maii anno Regni Nostri quarto decimo Charta itaque Regis in scriptum ut dictum est redacta tradidit eam Rex Pandulpho Romam Papae Innocentio deferendam continuò cunctis videntibus homagium fecit subscriptum Ego Johannes Dei gratia Rex Angliae Dominus Hiberniae ab hac hora in anteà fidelis ero Deo beato Petro Ecclesiae Romanae Domino meo Papae Domino Innocentio ejusque successoribus Catholicè intrantibus non ero in facto in dicto consensu vel consilio ut vitam perdant vel membra vel mala captione capiantur eorum damnum si sic vero impediam remanere faciam si potero alioquin eis quam citus potero intimabo vel tali personae dicam quam eis credam pro certo dicturam Consilium quod mihi crediderint per se vel per nuntios suos seu literas suas secretum tenebo ad eorum damnum nulli pandam me sciente Patrimonium beati Petri specialiter Regnum Angliae Regnum Hiberniae adjutor ero ad tenendum defendendum contrà omnes homines pro posse meo Sic meo adjuvet Deus haec sancta Evangelia Amen Acta autem sunt haec ut praedictum est in vigilia Dominicae Ascencionis praesentibus Episcopis Comitibus Magnatibus supradictis Pandulphus autem pecuniam quam in Arrham subjectionis Rex contulerat sub pede sua conculcavit Archiepiscopo dolente reclamantis After which the Nobility refuse to aid the King in his wars to assist the Earl of Flanders against the King
of France until he were absolved and had confirmed unto them their Liberties whereupon the King much against his will was constrain'd to submit to the present pressure and necessity sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who were yet in France promising them present restitution and satisfaction under the Hands and Seals of 24 of his Earls and Barons undertaking for the performance thereof according to the form of his Charter and Agreement made and granted in that behalf and the better to prepare them to give him their assistance directed the ensuing Letter to meet them in these words Rex Venerabili in Christo Patri S. Dei gratiâ Cant ' Archiepiscopo totius Angliae Primati sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinali omnibus suffraganeis suis Episcopis cum eo existentibus Johannes eadem gratiâ Rex Angliae c. mandamus vobis quòd cùm veneritis in Angliam scientes quòd jamdiù vos expectavimus adventum vestrum desideravimus unde in occursum vestrum mittimus fideles nostros Dominum H. Dublin ' Archiepiscopum J. Norwici Episcopum W. Com' Arundel Mattheum filium Herberti W. Archidiaconum Huntindon rogantes quatenùs ad nos venire festinetis sicut praedicti fideles nostri vobis dicent T. meipso apud Stoaks Episcopi primo die Julii Whereupon Pandulphus with the Archbishop and the rest of the exiled Clergy upon his confiscation of their Estates forthwith came over and found him at Winchester who went forth to meet them and on his knees with Tears received them beseeching them to have Compassion on him and the Kingdom of England and being thereupon Absolved with great Penitence Weeping and Compunction accompanied with the Tears of the many Beholders did Swear upon the Evangelists to Love Defend and Maintain Holy Church and the Ministers thereof to the utmost of his Power that he would renew the good Laws of his Predecessors especially those of King Edward abrogating such as were unjust would Judge all his Subjects according to the just Judgment of his Court which was then and for many Ages before composed only of the King and his Nobility Bishops and Lords Spiritual with his great Officers of State and such Assistants as he would please to call unto it and that presently upon Easter next following he would make plenary satisfaction for whatsoever had been taken from the Church Which done he went to Portsmouth with intention to pass over into France committing the Government of the Kingdom to the Bishop of Winchester and Jeffrey Fitz-Peter Justiciar a man of a Generous Spirit Learned in the Laws and Skilful in Government who were also to take the Councel of the Archbishop of Canterbury The Souldiers being numerous and wanting Money to attend him desired to be Supplied out of his Exchequer which he refusing to do or wanting it in a great rage with his private Family took Shipping and put forth to the Isle of Jersey but seeing none of his Nobles and others followed him according to their Tenures and Homage was forced having lost his opportunity of the Season to return into England where he gathered an Army with intention to Chastise the Lords who had so forsaken him having for the like Offence some years before taken by way of Fine a great sum of Money Quòd noluerunt eum sequi ad partes transmarinas ut haereditatem amissam recuperaret But the Archbishop of Canterbury followed him to Northampton urging him that it was against his Oath taken at his Absolution to proceed in that manner against any man without the Judgment of his Court to whom the King in great wrath replyed that he would not defer the business of the Kingdom for his pleasure seeing Lay Judgment appertained not to him and marched to Nottingham The Archbishop followed him and plainly told him that unless he would desist he would Excommunicate all such as should take Arms against any before the releasing of the Interdiction and would not leave him until he had obtained a convenient day for the Lords to come to his Court which shortly after they did And a Parliament was assembled at St. Pauls in London wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury produced the said Charter of King Henry I. whereby he granted the ancient Liberties of the Kingdom of England according to the Laws of King Edward with those emendations which his Father by the counsel of his Barons had ratified upon the reading whereof gaudio magno valdè saith Matthew Paris they greatly rejoyced and swore in the presence of the Archbishop that for those Liberties viso tempore congruo si necesse fuerit decertabunt usque ad mortem Archiepiscopus promisit eis fidelissimum auxilium suum pro posse suo sic confederatione facta inter eos colloquium solutum fuit The Pope advertised of those disturbances by his Bull directed Baronibus Angliae but not to those Bishops displaying the Banner of his supposed Authority which had encouraged and animated and caused them to persist therein stiling those Quaestiones novitèr suscitatas grave dispendium parituras did prohibit under the pain of Excommunication all Conspiracies and Insurrections from the time of the Discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium which had been quieted Apostolica autoritate admonished them Regem placare reconciliare exhibentes ei servitia consueta which They and their Predecessors had done unto Him and his Predecessors and if they had any thing to require of him they should not ask it insolenter sed cum reverentia preserving his Regal Honour and Authority that so they might the more easily obtain what they desired and assured them that he would desire the King that he should be kind to them and admit their just Petitions But the Barons persisting in their armed Violence and Rebellion against the King notwithstanding that weather-beaten Prince had for shelter taken upon him the Cross and War for the recovery of the Holy-Land then so called the Pope in July following sent his Bull to the universality of the Barons Bishops and Commonalty of England wherein reciting that the Barons had sent their Agents unto him and that he had commanded the Archbishops Bishops and Archdeacons ut conspirationes conjurationes praesumptas from the the time of the discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium that they should Apostolic à autoritate forbid them by Excommunication to proceed any farther therein and enjoyn the Barons to endeavour to pacifie the King and reconcile themselves unto him and if they had any thing to demand of him it should be done conservando sibi Regalem Honorem exhibendo servitia debita quibus ipse Rex non debebat absque Judicio spoliari And that he had commanded the King to be admonished and enjoyned as he would have remission of his sins graciously to give them a safe conduct and receive their just Petitions ita si quod fortè non posset inter eos concordia provenire
in curia sua per Pares eorum secundum Regni consuetudinem atque Leges mota deberet discordia Barones ipsi sua non expectata responsa should not presume contra Dominum suum arma movere temeritate nefaria seeing the King had taken upon him the Cross for the recovery of the Holy-Land so as it might seem quod conspirationem inhierint detestandam ut eum taliter de Regno possint ejicere violare their homage and fidelity sworn to the King quod quà m crudele sit actu horrendum auditu cum pernitiosi materia sit causa suis temporibus in audita manifestè cognoscit quicunque judicis utitur ratione and therefore as he ought to make peace for the King of England who was his Vassal and specially needed his protection commanded the Bishops and their Suffragans that unless the said Barons and their Adherents should within eight days after the receipt of his Bull or Letters omni cavillatione postposità surcease their doings they should excommunicate them omni appellatione remota interdict their Lands Churches and Estates and every Sunday publish and declare it nè igitur propter quosdam perversos universitatis sinceritas corrumpatur commanded and exhorted them in remissionem peccatorum injungentes quatenus praefato Regi adversus perversores hujusmodi they should give all fitting aid and favour scientes pro certo quòd si Rex ipse remissus esset aut tepidus in ea parte nos i. e. Papa Regnum Angliae non pateremur in tantam ignominiam deduci cùm sciamus per Dei gratiam possumus talem insolentiam castigare But the Quarrels going on more and more the King sent his Procurator or Agent to Rome and the discontented Barons theirs who did urge saith John Mauclerc the King 's trusty Agent in a Letter written from thence unto him that the Magnates Angliae scilicet Boreales ut praedicti Nuntii dicunt Papae omnes Barones Angliae instantèr supplicant quòd cùm ipse sit Dominus Angliae he should diligently admonish and if need should be compel him to observe the ancient Liberties grantted by Him and his Ancestors Charters and confirmed by his Oath and did likewise alledge quòd cùm ille à praedictis Baronibus inde requisitus fuisset in Epiphaniâ Domino apud London spreto proprio juramento non tantum libertates suas antiquas consuetas eis concedere contemptuously refused unless they would promise etiam per Chartas suas darent quod nunquam de caetero tales libertates from Him vel Successoribus suis exigerent quòd omnes Barones praeter Dominum Winthon Comitem Cestriae Willielmum Brewere hoc facere renuerent Supplicaverunt autem Domino Papae quòd ipse super his eis provideret cùm satis constet ei quòd ipsi audactèr pro libertate Ecclesiae ad mandatum suum would oppose the King quod he had granted an annum redditum Domino Papae Ecclesiae Romanae and exhibited and done alios honores ei Romanae Ecclesiae non sponte nec ex Devotione imò ex timore coactione who thus perplexed assayed all he could to pacifie Pope Innocent by his Letter written unto him complaining that the Barons of England who were devoted unto him before he had surrendred and subjected his Realm unto him had since for that very reason as they publickly alledged when it mentioned it to have been done Consilio Baronum suorum and many of the principal of them had been witnesses to that dishonourable Grant taken Arms against him as he expressed it in these words cum Comites Barones Angliae nobis devoti essent antequam nos nostram terram Dominio vestro subjicere curassemus extunc in nos specialiter ab hoc sicut publice dicunt violenter insurgent earnestly desired his protection aid and assistance and sent his Agents unto him to confirm his Charters granted to Queen Berengaria Widow of King Richard I. not to deliver or grant any new Charter of the Kingdom of England wherein Samuel Daniel may be understood to have been mistaken for Mr. Pryn in his late Historical Collections of that King's Reign and Matthew Paris do give no such account of it whereupon Nicholas Bishop of Tusculan being sent into England congregavit consilium in urbe Londinensi apud Sanctum Paulum ubi congregatis Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Prioribus Comitibus Baronibus aliis ad interdicti negotium spectantibus Forty Thousand Marks were agreed to be paid to the Archbishops and Monks of Canterbury and the rest of the exiled Clergy and the Bishops of Winchester and Norwich Sureties for Thirteen Thousand Marks of it remaining unpaid The King being absolved the Interdict which had continued six years three months and fourteen days to the great damage and loss of the Church and Clergy was discharged and taken off The Barons notwithstanding that Clergy-pacification assembled themselves at St. Edmundsbury where they consulted of the late produced Charter of King Henry I. and swore upon the High-Altar That if the King refused to confirm and restore unto them their Liberties they would make war upon him until he had satisfied them therein agreed that after Christmas they would petition him for the same and in the mean time would provide themselves of Horse and Arms to be ready if he should start from his Oath made at his Absolution for the confirmation of those Liberties and compel him to satisfiee their demands After which time they came in a Military manner to the King lying at the New-Temple urgeing their desires with great vehemency who seeing their inclinations and resolution answered he would take consideration thereof until Easter following Howsoever these Lords continued their resolution mustered their Forces at Stamford wherein were said to have been 2000 Knights besides Esquires with those that served on foot and from thence marched towards Oxford From whence the King sending unto them the Archbishop of Canterbury William Marescal Earl of Pembroke to demand of them What were those Laws and Liberties which they required whereof a Schedule being shewed and by the Commissioners delivered to the King he after the reading thereof in great indignation asked Why the Barons likewise did not demand the Kingdom and swore that he never would grant those Liberties whereby to make himself a Servant Upon which answer returned those Barons seizing some of his Castles march'd towards Northampton which they besieged constituted Robert Fitz-Walter their General whom they stiled Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church took the Castle of Bedford whither the Londoners sent their private Messengers with offers to joyn with them and deliver up the City to be guarded by them unto which they repairing were joyfully received and had it delivered unto them ubi Baronibus favebans divites pauperis obloqui saith Matthew Paris metuebant from whence daily encreasing in
his Castles of Killingworth Northampton Nottingham and Scarborough and the Castellanies or Governours sworn to obey them and after a general pardon granted to them and all their adhaerents mutual Oaths should be taken on both sides in solemn manner for the inviolable observing the Articles and the King's Letters Patents sent to all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom to cause all men of what degree soever within their several Shires to swear to observe those Laws and Liberties granted by his Charter and was compell'd so far to suffer those Conservators to proceed in their Conservatorships as in the same yearthey took their Oaths to perform those their new Offices the Earls of Arundel Gloucester and Warren with Hubert de Burgh and many Barons and great men took their Oaths also to obey and assist them But in the mean time Gloucester and Spencer being the chief of the Twenty-four Conservators did draw the entire managing of the Kingdom into their own hands compel the King to summon a great Councel at London where the authority of the Twenty-four Conservators was deliver'd over unto themselves and it was ordained that Three of them at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of the Castles and other business of the Kingdom with those of the Chancellor Justiciar and Treasurer and of all Offices great and small and bound the King to loose and renounce to them their legal Obedience whensoever he should infringe his Charters which might as unto a great part of them be certainly believed to have been the very spawn and breed of those long-after-reviv'd high and mighty Nineteen Propositions which were endeavour'd to have been enforced upon the late Blessed Martyr King CHARLES and of the late design'd Association in the Reign of His Son King CHARLES II. But that hoped pacification being made saith the Historian Jealousies and Discontents did again kindle and break out on both sides the one part to keep what they had undutifully gained and the other to get loose of what for fear he had too much yielded unto the King wanting none to enflame the perturbations and anguish of his mind to tell him that he was now a King without a Kingdom a Lord without Dominion and a Subject of his Subjects the Discords like a Wound or Sore ill-cur'd fester'd again and broke out SECT III. Of the succeeding Jealousies Animosities Troubles and Contests betwixt King John and his over-jealous Barons after the granting of his Charters and his other Transactions and Agreements with them at their tumultuous meeting at Running-Mead with the ill usages which he had before received of them during all the time of his Reign HE retir'd into the Isle of Wight whence by Agents sent to Rome he procured a definitive Sentence to condemn and nullifie what was done and the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who kept about the City of London and under colour of Tournments and other Martial exercises invited as many other as they could to their assistance but did not seek to surprize his Person or intercept his Agents although they had strength to do it but only to enjoy those Liberties which they had spoiled and discredited by gaining them by violence wherein the fear of the power of an enraged Prince made them the more desperately careful to defend themselves and finish their designs whilst the King tarried three months in the Isle of Wight whence the Bishop of Worcester Chancellor of England Bishop of Norwich with others were sent with his Seal to procure Foreign Forces and to bring them to Dover whither after some small prizes taken by him and he returning his Agents abroad brought him an Army of Foreigners from Gascony Lovaine Poicteau and Brabant many of them being his French Subjects with whose help notwithstanding the loss of 40000 Men Women and Children who were drowned at Sea as they were bringing unto him by Hubert de Burgh from Calice He besieged and took Rochester Castle marched over most part of the Kingdom and within half a year got in all the Barons Castles even to the borders of Scotland and was Master of all England except the City of London which he would not adventure upon in regard of the Barons united Forces which lay near unto it marched to St. Albans where he proclaimed the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who seeing Themselves and their Wives and Children like to be ruined and depriv'd of their Estates which were given away to strangers desperately fell into another extreme solicited Lewis the French King's Son to take upon him the Crown of England wherein they promised by a free Election to invest him and to send Pledges for the performance which Message being well received a Parliament was called at Lyons by Philip the Father of Lewis and the business resolved upon whilst Lewis besides the hop'd-for the title of Election by those trusty Conservators of the Peoples Liberties for their own particular Interest more than the Peoples supposed that he had another title from his Wife Blanch Daughter of the Sister of the prosecuted King In whose behalf the Pope wrote to the King of France not to invade the King of England but rather to defend him in regard he was a Vassal of the Roman Church and the Kingdom by reason of Dominion appertaining unto it whereunto the King of France answered probably by the advice of the contending English Baronage That the Kingdom of England never was nor is nor ever shall be the Patrimony of St. Peter That King John was never lawfull King thereof and if he were he had forfeited it by the Murder of his Nephew Arthur for which he was condemned in his Court and could not give it away without the consent of the Barons who were bound in an Oath to defend the same and if the Pope should maintain this errour it would be a pernicious example Wherewith the Pope's Agents departing unsatisfied Lewis sent his Commissioners to Rome to declare his Rights and justifie his undertaking sets forth from Callis with 600 Ships and 80 other Vessels and landed with his Army at Sandwich King Iohn being then at Dover who upon notice of his great power and distrusting his Mercenaries committed the keeping of Dover Castle to Hubert de Burgh forsook the Field and with it himself and retired first to Worcester and after to Gloucester whereby Lewis having subdued the whole County of Kent Dover excepted came to London where he was joyfully received of the Barons and upon his Oath taken to restore their Laws and recover their Rights had Homage and Fealty done unto him Guallo the Pope's Agent follow'd the King to Gloucester shews him the Pope's care of him pronounced Excommunication against Lewis and all that took part with him Notwithstanding which small comforts in so many and great extremeties pressing hard upon him most of his Mercenaries left him and either returned into their own Countreys with such spoils as they had gotten or betook
his to come into England but such only as the King and the Lords should like The Poictovins landing at Boloign had much-a-do to gain passage into their own Countreys by reason that Henry de Montfort Son to the Earl of Leicester whose power was very great in France had followed them thither Rumours were spread amongst the people in England that the Earl of Gloucester was attempted to have been poyson'd and one of his Servants executed upon no other proof but presumption and every one that would complain of the Poictovins wanted no encouragement Richard Gray whom the Lords had made Captain of the Castle of Dover intercepted as much as he could of what the Poictovins carried over and enriched himself thereby The new Chief-Justice Hugh Bigod Brother to the Earl Marshal being chosen in the last Parliament by publick voice procured an order that four Knights in every Shire should enquire of the poor oppressed by great men and certifie the same to the Baronage under their hands and seals which were never found to have been certified And made an Order that no man should give any thing besides Provisions for Justice or to hinder the same and that both the corrupter and corrupted should be grievously punished Notwithstanding which pretended care the Lords enforceing the service of the King's Tenants which dwelt near unto them were as totidem Tyranni furnished the especial Fortresses of the Kingdom with Garrisons of their own sworn to the common State and took the like assurance of all Sheriffs Bailiffs Coroners and other publick Ministers with strict Commissions upon Oath to examine their behaviour And to make the King and his actions the more odious and their own more popular it was rumoured that the King's necessities must be repaired out of the Estates of his people and he must not want whilst they had it Whereupon the King to defend himself from such scandals was constrained to publish his Declaration to desire the people to give no credit to such false suggestions for that he was ready to defend all Rights and Customs due unto them Howsoever Montfort Gloucester and Spencer who had by the late constitution of the twenty-four Conservators drawn the entire managing of the Kingdom into their hands enforced the King to call a Parliament at London where the authority of the twenty-four Conservators was placed in themselves and order taken that three at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of Castles and other business of the Kingdom of the Chancellor Chief-Justiciar Treasurer and all other Officers great and small and bound the King to release to them their legal Obedience whensoever he infringed his Charter In the mean time the Earl of Cornwal King of the Romans being dispossest of that Kingdom or not well liking it returning into England the Barons send to know the cause of his coming and require of him an Oath before he should land not to prejudice their late established Orders of the Kingdom which he sternly refused saying He had no Peer in England being the Son and Brother of a King and was above their power and if they would have reformed the Kingdom they ought first to have sent for him and not so presumptuously have attempted a business of so high a nature The Lords upon return of such an answer sent to guard the Ports came strongly to the Coast prepared to encounter him and the King Queen and their Son Edmond in a more loving manner go to Dover to receive him but neither they nor the Earl of Cornwal were by them permitted to enter into the Castle for that it was the chief Fortress of the Kingdom But finding the Earl of Cornwal's Train small they suffered him to land and did upon his promise to take the propounded Oath bring him and the King into the Chapter-house at Canterbury where the Earl of Gloucester standing forth in the midst in the presence of the King called forth the Earl not by the name of King but Earl of Cornwal who in reverend manner coming forth took his Oath That he would be faithful and diligent with the Barons to reform the Kingdom by the counsel of wicked persons over-much disordered and to be an effectual Coadjutor to expel Rebels and disturbers of the same under pain of losing all the Lands which he held in England After which both parties strengthening themselves all they could the King for the assurance of the King of France ex praecepto consilio Domini Regis Angliae totius Baronagii sent the Earls of Gloucester Leicester Peter de Subaudia John Mansel and Robert Walerand to the Parliament of Paris de arduis negotiis Regna Angliae Franciae contingentibus carrying with them a resignation of the Dutchy of Normandy and the Earldoms of Anjou Poicteau Turaine and Mayne for which the King of France was to give him three hundred thousand pounds with a grant of all Guyen beyond the River of Garonna all the River of Xantoigne to the River of Charente and the Counties of Limosin and Quercy to him and his Successors dong his Homage and Fealty to the Crown of France as a Duke of Aquitain and a Peer of that Kingdom After whose return Montfort as he had incensed others so had he those that animated him against the King as Walter Bishop of Worcester and Robert Bishop of Lincoln who enjoyned him upon the remission of his sins to prosecute the cause unto death affirming that the peace of the Church of England would never be established but by the Sword But the people being oppressed and tired at length with those commotions part-takings and discords which by the provisions wrested from the King at Oxford and so many mischiefs and inconveniencies had harassed and almost ruined them and did help to increase rather than decrease those troubles and controversies which afflicted the Nation it having never been easie to bring those that were to be governed to rule with any modesty or moderation those that had enjoyed a governing power in authority established and appointed by God in a well-temper'd Monarchy and succession for many Ages or those that were to govern to obey the giddy and unjust dictates of those who were to obey them or to unite in any contenting harmony the various ambitions envies revenges hatreds partialities self-interests and designs of many or a multitude or such enforcements and contrivances to be lasting durable or pleasing and that all could not well rule or agree how to do it The King and Queen keeping their Christmas in the Tower of London cum suis consiliariis saith Matthew Paris elaboratum fuit tam à Regni Angliae pontificibus quam à Regni Franciae ut pax reformaretur inter Regem Angliae Barones ventumque est ad illud ut Rex Proceres se submiserunt ordinationi Regis Franciae in praemissis provisionibus Oxoniae nec non pro depraedationibus damnis utrobique
of any such opinion are to shew what other provisions made at Oxford in the Reign of King Henry III. were referred unto him or condemned by him It being not to be understood by any that will not make their ignorance self-conceitedness designs and evil purposes to be the rules of their reason that the exception of King John's Charter was to be extended to the collateral security and when they have sweat and laboured at it beyond any the rules of Reason and Learning will never be able to entice or draw any religious good wise or learned men to subscribe to such a paradox That twenty-five Conservatorships should be intended or understood to be only Twenty-four and those subcommitted to Four that the King 's putting into his rebellious Barons hands four of the strongest Castles which he had as pledges and security with power for all that would to take Oaths to distrain and take arms and set the common people upon him were or are within the true meaning or construction of that Magna Charta or that it was ever within the meaning intention or words of that Magna Charta granted by him unto his Subjects to be holden of him and his heirs in capite that the word or notion of Liberties mentioned therein should or could beget a Law Rule or Custom that those that were the Grantees and to be governed should rule their Governours which no where appeareth to be consonant to that Reason Iustice and Order which God Himself praescribed and gave as a rule for the better ordering of the Sons of men and all their Generation or that the granter of those Liberties in those Charters did thereby ever intend or so express or understand that by the grant of those Liberties and Benefits the Subjects of England were entituled to a Right or Authority to govern their King and if he do not therein behave himself according to the Interests or Votes of a giddy multitude who are as seldom to be pleased as they are to be brought into one and the same opinion humour interest or design should be vested with a power or authority to compel him When no Histories Annals or Records of the Nation or Writer new or old except such as had been fooled and infatuated by Jesuitical Principles fitted and dress'd up for some wickedly silly Presbyters and Fanaticks in the time of that popular Frenzy in England betwixt the years 1640 and 1661 and drank deep of that Circaean Cup and intoxicated themselves with the ungodly gains of Rebellion against their Sovereign by Murder Plunder and Sequestration of Him and their more loyal and honest fellow-Subjects can tell us any News of such Rights and Liberties or inform us where any such were granted duly registred or authenticated other than in or by the Records or Memorials of Wat Tyler Jack Cade Ket and their Rabble-rout Nor was it probable that so great a Council of wise or learned men should in the penning or wording the King of France's aforesaid decree or award in or with the exception of King John's Charter so much err if they had understood that it had made void the whole award or that the Pope would have confirmed a nothing or such an award as should signifie no more or that the opposite Barons would have taken it so ill or believed that it had been so much against them as Henry Knighton related it That the King of France had awarded all for the King if they had not understood the aforesaid provisions made at Oxford to have been ipso facto null and void neither can it by any men of Law Reason or Learning be adjudged that that award could be as to the whole a nullity by reason of that exception when the civil or Caesarean Law that excellent method of universal reason by which the greatest part of the world was then before and ever since contented to be guided hath taught us that exceptii est quaedam exclusio quae interponi actioni cujusque rei solet ad excludendum id quod in intentionem condemnationem vè deductum est For excipere propriè est detrahere exceptio est quae partem aliquam de universo Actoris jure detrahat And these Laws have declared that exceptio obscura nihil est momenti obscurè excipere est nihil excipere And our English Laws and reasonable Customs have allowed us to say and believe that exceptio firmat regulam in casibus non exceptis that a matter or thing not excepted is the more strengthened and confirmed by what is excepted and severed from it But it seems saith Mr. Pryn that that award of the King of France was not full and satisfactory to all parties although the King's permission thereupon afterwards made chargeth the dissatisfaction on the Barons part whom to content as well as he could he and the Barons by mutual consent did by their Letters Patents submit as he said that award to H. Bishop of London H. le Despencer Justiciar of England Bartholomew Earl of Anjou Cousin-jerman to the King of France and the Abbot of Beck to amend or correct by way of addition or detraction in or to the said award whatever they should judge meet for the settling and securing of Peace And the King was so great a lover of Peace and well-wisher of the good of his people as after he had granted unto them more Liberties than they could claim and in modesty could ask of a Sovereign that would preserve that Superiority and those Rights which God had given Him for His own and the Peoples good which can never be without an Obedience of Subjects and a care of a Prince to protect them by doing justice to Himself as well as to Them and was so willing to give them satisfaction in any thing just or reasonable to be desired as he was content to wave and lay aside the advantage which he fairly gained by the aforesaid award or ordinance of the King of France in defence and maintenance of his own just Rights and therein of his means to govern and protect them which no Prince in Christendom at that time would have done and at the same time adventure the censure or ill will of a neighbour Potent Prince that would not take it kindly to have an award made with so much Justice Judgment and care to be reviewed by a part of his People and such as were no friends to the Rights of Kings and had been long in opposition to their King and encouraged a long and lasting Rebellion against him and by such a new reference or review subjecting himself to the Excommunication and Ecclesiastical Censures of the Pope's Legate by which He and his Kingdom had already so greatly suffered Yet in that so great a Storm and Tempest of State would not so much injure Himself his Dignity and occasional or necessary emergent affairs of Government as not to provide that they should not so much as speak treat or
praesentibus ad hoc vobis his quos vobiscum ducetis salvum securum conductum as much as a Prisoner could aford praebemus in cujus c. Teste Rege apud Sanctum Paulum London Sexto pie Junii Upon the twenty seveneth day of July Anno 48o. of his Reign being at St. Pauls in London a Letter was written to the King of France in these words Regi Franciae Rex Angliae Salutem serenitatis vestrae Literas per Willielmum Charles militem nostrum nobis porrectas receperimus inter caetera contimentes quod vobis multum complaceret qùod firmam utilem pacem nobis Regno nostro ad honorem Dei nostri cum Baronibus nostris haberemus qùod aliquos de concilio vestro usque Bonon mittetis ad diem Veneris ante assumptionem beatae Mariae quòd ipsis tunc intendentes sitis prope celsitudini vestrae quantas possumus gratiarum referimus actiones per hoc manifestè perpendentes quòd circà commodum honorem nostrum nec non tranquillitatem pacem Regni nostri solliciti estis intenti nos autem die Jovis prox post festrum Sancti Petri ad vincula erimus apud Dover ita quòd nuntii nostri Baronum nostrorum dicta die Veneris 〈…〉 ud Bonon Domino concedente ad tractand faciend de dictâ— pace pâ—â—â—â— nobis significâstis quia negotium istud tam coeteros Principes quam Nos tangit in ordinatione pacis praedict ' ad honorem Dei nostri Haered ' nostrorum honori indempnitati ac tranquillitati Regni nostri liberalitèr benignè si placet providere velitis Teste Rege apud Sanctum Paulum London Vicesimo septimo die Julii Within three dayes after being the Thirtyeth of Iuly in the same Year a Letter was sent in the Name of that Captive King to Simon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford who were the Chief of the Party who had subdued taken and kept him Prisoner in the Form following viz. Rex dilectis fidelibus suis Simoni de Monteforti Com' Leicestr ' Gilberto de Clare Com' Glocestr ' Hertford ' Salutem Cum nupertr anscriptum literarum Domini Regis Franciae quod vobis pridiè transmisimus manifestè perpendere possitis quod si cum praesato Rege a special friend of their own Party aliis de partibus transmarinis tractatum pacis habere debeamus oportet quod solempnes Nuncii de Concilio nostro vestro as if they were Partner Kings sint apud Bonon ' die Veneris prox post festum Sancti Petri ad vincula scilicet die Veneris ante Assumptionem Beatae Mariae in occursu Nunciorum praesati Regis quòd Nos ipso die vel die Jovis praecendenti simus apud Dover sicut praefato Regi de concilio Magnatum qui sunt nobiscum litteratoriè significavimus vos propter brevitatem temporis distantiam locorum personaliter vix adesse possitis tempestivè vos rogamus quatenus statu Regni nostri mandato praesati Regis Franciae periculis quae nobis Regno nostro ex prorogatione dicti negotii poterunt imminere diligenter pensatis visis literis provideritis de Nuntiis solempnibus idoneis usque Bonon ' mittendis ad dâ—em Veneris supradictum cum eis ad Nos mittatis dilectum fidelem nostrum Petrum de Monteforti the Earl of Leicester's near Kinsman a most insolent domineering Adversary cum formâ potestate tractandi firmandi pacem melius salubrius fuerit faciend ' mittatis etiam ad Nos aliquos ad eundum nobiscum usque Dover ad concilium impendendum responsum Nuntiis euntibus redeuntibus nobiscum de concilio vestro faciendum quousque personaliter veniatis quia praesens negotium summam et inestimabilem requirit Celeritatem eò quòd tempus breve est ultra modum vos ambo si quomodo fieri possit vel alter vestrum statim visis literis ad nos veniatis et si Edwardus filius noster èt Henricus de Almaine nepos noster nobiscum essent apud Dover certi sumus quòd celerem et satis bonam pacem haberemus et ideò si placet ipsos tanquam Obsides in statum quo nunc sunt ib ' venire Fac. T. c. XXX die Iulii Upon the 4 th day of September in the same year and time of the King's Imprisonment all that he could do was upon his Petition as the Record slovenly and undutifully intimateth to get licence that Henry the Son of Richard King of Almaine who was kept as a Prisoner in Dover Castle as a Pledge for his Father might go into France to treat with that King their Old Confederate and Friend for a Peace to be made betwixt the King and his Barons upon his Oath to do no prejudice to the disloyal Barons and that he might abide there until the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin at Night or within two or three days after upon a new Licence of those Barons and Bayl given by the Envoys or Embassador of the King of France resident in England that he should not be detained in France upon an undertaking also of the said Henry de Alemannia to forfeit all his Lands and Possessions which he had or might have in England by Inheritance or otherwise and to be utterly deprived thereof and the several Bonds or Recognisances severally given of the Bishops of London Lincolne Worcester Winchester Chichester Coventry and Lichfield with the Bishop Elect of Bath in 20000 Marks in Silver a piece that he should return and rendeâ— himself a Prisoner as aforesaid as the Record thereof in the Words ensuing doth testifie Rex omnibus c. Cum dilectus et fidelis noster Henricus filius Regis Almannia Germanus noster Charissimus sub custodia dilecti et fidelis nostri Henrici de Monteforti Constabularis castri nostri Dovoriae sub certâ formâ Obses constitutus suisset pro pace Regni nostri conservanda et ad Petitionem nostram pro pace inter Nos et Barones nostros praelocuta tractanda pleniùs et finienda ad Dominum Regem Franc. Illustrem in partes proficisceretur transmarinas idem Henricus Almannia obtenta ab eis quibus Obses datus fuerat super praedictis transfretandi licentia in praesentia nostra et venerabilium Patrum H. London R. Lincoln W. Wigorn ' J. Winton ' S. Cicest ' R. Covent ' et Lich ' W. Say ' Episc. et W. electi Bathon ' promisit bonâ fide et tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis juravit quod cum omni studio et diligentiâ pacem praedictam procurabit et nihil omninò faciat vel proponat verbo vel facto vel aliquo alio modo clà m vel palà m quod possit esse contra pacem praedictam seu per quod pax
those Writs of Summons to Parliaments to be made Howbeit most certain it is saith Sir William Dugdale That those Writs of Election made in the Name of King Henry the Third to send Knights and Burgesses to the Parliament were by a Force put upon his Great Seal of England as much as upon himself when they had him as a Prisoner of War in their Custody and kept him so as our Chronicles Historians and Annals have Recorded it for an Year and a quarter carrying him about with them to countenance their rebellious Actions for the Battle of Lewis wherein he was made a Prisoner was upon the 14th of May in the 48th and that of Evesham which released him the 4th day of August in the 49th Year of his Raign And there is no Testimony or Record to be found of any other the like Writ of Election made afterwards untill the 22d Year of King Edward the First although there were several Parliaments or Magna Concilia convocated and held in the mean time and if our Ancestors had not been so misled and abused by the Rebels in the Raign of King John and his Son King Henry the Third there are enough yet alive who can sadly remember how a more transcendantly wicked hypocritical Party have since adventured to make out and frame until they had Murthered him counterfeit Writs Commissions and Summons of Parliament in the Name of our Religious King CHARLES the Martyr and make as much as they could His Royal Authority to Fight against His Person And there is no Certainty or pregnant Evidence saith Mr. William Pryn who being a Lawyer and a long and ancient Member of the House of Commons in Parliament did so much adore the Power and Preheminence thereof as adventuring the Loss of his Estate Body and Soul with them therein could find no better a Foundation or Pedigree to bestow upon them than the Captivity and Imprisonment of a distressed unfortunate King but saith That there were not any Knights Citizens Burgesses or House of Commons in the Confessors or Conquerors Raigns or any of our Saxon or Danish Kings nor before the latter end of King Henry the Third's Raign for although Polydore Virgill and others do refer the Original of our Parliaments to the Council holden at Salisbury in the 16th Year of King Henry the First there is not one Syllable in any of our ancient Historians concerning Knights Citizens and Burgesses present in that Councel as saith the Learned Sir Henry Spelman in these words viz. Rex perindè qui totius regni Dominus est Supremus regnumque universum tà m in personis Baronum suorum quà m è subditorum Ligeancia ex jure Coronae suae subjectum habet Concilio assensu Baronum suorum Leges olim imposuit universo regno consentire inferior quisque visus est in persona Domini sui Capitalis prout bodiè per Procuratores Comitatûs vel Burgi quos in Parliamento Knights and Burgesses appellamus Habes morem veteram quem Mutâsse ferunt Henricum Primum Anno regni sui sextodecimo plebe ad concilium Sarisberiense tunc accitâ haec vulgaris opinio quam typis primus sparsit Polydorus Virgilius acceptam subsequentes Chronâ—graphi nos ad authores illius seculi prouocamus And refuting that Opinion by Neubrigensis who lived about that time and relates the purpose of that Great Councel in these words Facto concilio eidem Filiae suae susceptis vel suscipiendis ex eis nepotibus ab Episcopis Comitibus Barombus omnibus qui alicujus videbantur esse momenti and likewise by Florentius Wigorniensis Eadmerus and Huntington further saith Ludunt qui Parliamenta nostra in his quaerunt sine ut sodes dicam collegisse mecentenas reor conciliorum coitiones tenoresque ipsos plurimorum ab ingressu Gulielmi 1 mi ad excessum Henrici 3 i existentium nec in tanta multitudine de plebe uspiam reperisse aliquid ni in his delituer it Seniores sapientes populi which he conceives to be only Aldermanni Sapientes or Barones Magnates regni not the Commons And it hath been well observed by the learned Author of the Notae Adversaria in historiam Mathaei Parisiensis That in the ancient Synods before the subduing of England by William Duke of Normandy conficiebantur chartae donationum publicae de gravaminibus Reipublicae brevitèr inter Regem Magnates Episcopos Abbates consultabatur id enim tunc dierum erat Synodus quod nunc ferè Parliamentum nisi quod non rogabantur leges per plebiscita nec sanciebantur Canones per suffragia minoris Cleri And was as novel and new as it was unexpected no such Writ having ever before been framed or made use of to such or any the like purpose And Mr. Selden likewise saith That the Earls and Barons mentioned or directed by those compelled then Writs of Summons to come to that pretended Parliament were only the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Oxford Derby Norfolk Roger de Sancto Johannis Hugh le Despencer Justiciar ' Angliae Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Robert Basset G. de Lucy and Gilbert de Gaunt Of which the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Norfolk Oxford and Derby were notoriously known to have been in open Armes and Hostility against the King The whole Number of the Temporal Lords therein named not amounting unto more than Twenty-Three with a Blank left for the Names of other Earls and Barons which have not been yet inserted or filled up And all the other which were in that constrained Writ of Summons particularly and expresly named were no other than H. de le Spencer Justicar ' Angliae John Fitz-John Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Rafe Basset de Drayton Henry de Hastings Geffery de Lucie Robert de Roos Adam de Novo Mercato Walter de Colvill and Robert Basset de Sapcott which together with the then Bishops of London and Worcester Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and Steward of England H. de Boun juvenis Peter de Monteforti S. de Monteforti juvenes Baldwin Wake William le Blond William Marescallus Rafe de Gray William Bardolff Richard de Tany or Tony and Robert de Veteri Ponte made up the Number of the opposite Party to that King in the aforesaid Reference to the King of France And Mr. Selden hath observed That the Preambles of the ancient Parliament-Writs for the Snmmoning of the Baronage sometimes so varied that some eminent occasions of the calling of the Parliament were inserted in the Writs to the Spiritual Barons that were not in those to the Temporal and often times no more than a general and short Narrative of our King's Occasion of having a Parliament with much variation in the Writs of that nature with many differences of slighter Moment expressed and sometimes in all a Clause Against coming attended with Armes and that until the middle of the
quod ministeriales praedicti de hospitio Domini Regis debent interesse in Curiâ Domini Regis cum Paribus Franciae ad judicandum Pares tunc praedicti Ministeriales judicaverant praedictam Comitissam Flandriae cum Paribus Franciae Wherein our Ancestors without any Arrest or Decree of Parliament did rather give than take the Pattern when their Bishops as Chancellors of our Kings very often and in a continued Series from the Raign of King Edward the Confessor who was not without his Reinbaldus Regiae dignitatis Vice-Câ—ncellarius when Maurice Bishop of London was Chancellor to William the Conqueror in the first Year of his Raign and other Bishops have in that high and great Office severally from thence succeeded unto the 29th of Edward the First and not a few of the other Bishops have been Treasurers and Secretaries of State and by that Right alone besides their Spiritual Rights and Temporal Baronies did sit as Peers in that great Assembly together with the Lord Privy-Seal Constable Marshal and Great Chamberlain of England Lord Steward Chamberlain of the Houshold with the Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons of England which do Illustrate that greatest of our Kings Councels attended with such of the Judges and other Assistants as their Soveraigns shall be pleased to call or permit to Sit therein Neither could those grand Officers claim a Right to be accounted by them or any others Equal or Co-ordinate with them or their Superiours or to have any Vote in the House of Peers in Parliament by their sitting there it being in the Act of Parliament made in the 31st Year of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth Entituled How the Lords in Parliament shall be placed wherein it being expressed That it appertained to his Prerâ—gative Royal to give such Honor Reputation and Place to his Câ—uncellors and other his Subjects as shall be seeming to his excellent Wisdome It was specially mentioned That the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the King's Councel Lord Privy-Seal or Chief Secretary that shall be under the degree of a Baron of the Parliament are to give no Assent or Dissent in the Parliament And it is likewise remarkable That in the Title of that Act of Parliament and all along and thorough the Body thereof the House of Peers is only stiled the Parliament and no mention is therein at all made of the House of Commons in Parliament nor any Care or Order taken for their Degrees or sitting in Parliament Neither do any of our Parliament Rolls Records or Authentick ancient Historians mention that our Kings were in those their great Councels limited or accustomed to call all their Barons thereunto Nor until the latter end of the Raign of King Richard the Second had voluntarily obliged themselves to Summon thither the Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts unto those their great Councels And when it hath been truly said that Omne Majus continet in se Minus it will not be easy to believe That the Minus doth or should Continere in se Majus For in Anno 23 Edward the First there were but Sixty-three Earls and Barons Summoned and in the same Year upon another Summons but 45. King Edward the Second did not Summon all the Earls and Barons In the 6 E. 3. the like M. 22 E. 3. 6 R. 2. 11 R. 2. the like King Edward the 3d. in the 9th Year of his Raign Summoned but five Earls and Eleven Barons In the 10th E. 3. the Parliament Writs of Summons were directed but unto Fourteen of the Temporal Barons with a Memorandum entred that Brevia istis Magnatibus immediatè praescriptis directa essendi ad Parliamentum praedictum remissa fuerint concilio Regis pro eò quòd quidam ex eis in partibus Scotiae quidam ex eis in partibus transmarinis existant adnullanda 15 E. 3. there were Summoned but 26 of all sorts 16 E. 3. But a very few 21 E. 3. but 22. 45 E. 3. but thirteen Earls and Barons and not many to diverse Parliaments after the great Commune Generale Concilium rightly understood being but Synonyma's of the word Parliament and of latter times they which were in the King's Displeasure have had their Summons but with a Letter from the Lord Chancellour or Lord Keeper commanded not to come but to send a Proxy In Anno 46 E. 3. and diverse years in the Raign of King Henry the 5th few Earls and Barons were Summoned for that many of them were then busied in the Warrs of France But in the Parliament in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr John Earl of Bristol being denyed his Writ petitioned to the House of Peers for it whereupon he had it without any intercession of the House of Peers but withal a Letter from the Lord Keeper signifying his Majesties Pleasure that he should send his Proxy and forbear to come whereupon he petitioned the Parliament again shewing That that Letter could not discharge him from coming for that the Writ commanded him to come upon his Allegiance but that point was not then debated for the said Earl was presently sent for as a Delinquent and charged with High Treason the Majores Barones being men of the best Estate Extraction and Abilities and better sort of the Tenants in Capite by antient Law and Custome of the Kingdom being to be only Summoned according to the very old custome of the Romans probably learnt from thence who as Sigonius writes did in legenâ—o Senatores make choise of them according to their Birth Age Estate and Magistracy well exercised and performed And could be no less then well warranted by a constant well experimented long approved and applauded Usage thereof for more than fourteen hundred Years attested by the industrious Labours of Mr. William Pryn and others and for the times before the Conquest and the Learned Collections of Sir Robert Filmer and others since the Norman Invasion fortified by such Records which in themselves are never found to lie as the teeth of devouring Time hath left us seconded by unquestionable antient authentick classical Authors which might silence those disputes Factious and Foolish opinions and cavils which in the latter part of this last unquiet Century or age have been stirred up against that very Antient and Honourable Assembly or House of Peers which all the former ages neither durst or did lift an hand or heel against or so much as maligne or bark at So greatly are our most degenerate wickedly hypocritical worser Times altered from what they were or should be and the only Recital of whose long and Antient Successions through their so many several gradations may abundantly satisfie any that are not before so prepossessed as to resolve never to be satisfied with any thing that looks but like Truth or Reason if they shall but read as they ought to do the ensuing Series or Catalogue Wherein they may find that in the Bud or Blossom of
sed sic eas accepi quemadmodum judicaverunt omnes Optimates Regni Anglorum to wit in a full Parliament which then consisted only of the King and his Nobility Anno Domini 944. King Edmond granted many large liberties and the Mannor of Glastonbury to the Abby thereof cum concilio consensu Optimatum suorum made it seems saith Mr. Pryns in Parliament and a clear evidence that the Nobles of that age were the Kings great Councel and Parliament without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses of which he found no mention in History or Charters Anno 948. there was a Parliament or Councel holden at London under King Edred Cùm universi Magnates Angliae per Regium edictum Summoniti tà m Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates quà m caeteri totius Angliae Proceres Optimates Londini convenissent ad tractandum de negotiis publicis totius Regni in which Parliament no Knights Citizens or Burgesses are said to have been present Anno 965 or 970. King Edgar with his Mother Clito his Successor the King of Scots both the Archbishops caeterisque Episcopis omnibus Regni proceribus Subscribed his Charter granted to the Abby of Glastonbury communi Episcoporum Abbatum Primorumque concilio generali assensu Pontificum Abbatum Optimatum suorum concilio omnium Primatum suorum without any Commons present assistants and attendants only excepted Anno 975. King Edgar and his Queen Elferus Prince of Mercia Ethelinus Duke of the East-Angles Elfwold his Kinsman Arch-Bishop Dunstan cum caeteris Episcopis Abbatibus Bricknotho Comite cum Nobilitate totius Regni held a Councel at Winchester without any Commons Anno 977. in the Councel of Calne under King Edward omnes Anglorum Optimates were present together with the Bishops and Clergy but no Knights or Burgesses for ought is Recorded Anno Christi 1009. by King Ethelreds Edict Universi Anglorum Optimates at Eanham acciti sunt convenire not the Commons A Parliament was Summoned by King Edward the Confessor concerning Earl Godwyn at Gloucester where Totius Regni Proceres etiam Northumbriae Comites tunc famosissimi Sywardus Leofricus omnisque Anglorum Nobilitas convenêre Et Anno 1052. at London Rex omnes Regni Magnates ad Parliamentum apud London tunc fuerunt Mr. Pryn declaring his Opinion That the former and ancient Parliaments consisted of our Kings and their Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses Summoned to Assist or Advise with them or to Assent unto what they Enacted or Ordained In the 25th Year of his Raign granted Lands and Liberties to Saint Peters Church at Westminster Cum concilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque suorum Optimatum And from the Conquest until that forced something like but not to be accounted a Parliament in the 49th Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third divers Learned good Authors Summae incorruptae fidei no diminishing or additional Record-makers have assured and given Posterity and after Ages such an exact Account of our Parliaments as will leave no ground or foundation of Truth or Reason for any to believe That an Elected part of the Commons were before that Imprisonment of King Henry the Third in the 49th Year of his Raign made or Summoned to be a part of our English great Councels or Parliaments The Charter of William the Conqueror to the Abby of Battel was made Assensu Lanfranci Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Stigandi Episcopi Cicestrensis Concilio etiam Episcoporum Baronum suorum And that great Conqueror had in the 4th Year of his Raign Concilium Baronum suorum confirmavit Leges Edwardi Confessoris posteaque Decreta sua cum Principibus constituit In the 10th or 11th Year of his Raign Episcopi Comites Barones Regni Regiâ potestate ad universalem Synodum pro causis audiendis tractandis convocati fuerunt Separated the Courts Temporal from the Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Communi concilio concilio Archiepiscoporum suorum caeterorum Episcoporum Abbatum omnium Regni sui and in the Register of Winchelsey Arch-Bishop of Canterbury it is Recorded That Rex Angliae Gulielmus Conquestor in concilio Archiepiscoporum Abbatum omnium Procerum Regni did forbid the Leges Episcopales to be used in any Hundred or other secular Courts And in the 21st Year of the Raign of King Edward the Third Mr. Selden saith There is mention made of a Great Councel holden under the said King William wherein all the Bishops of the Land Earls and Barons made an Ordinance touching the Exemption of the Abby of Bury from the Bishops of Norwich In that great and notable Pleading for three Dayes together at Pynnendon in Kent in the Raign of King William the Conqueror who as Mr. Selden repeats it out of the Leiger Book or Register of the Church of Rochester Anglorum regnum armis conquisivit suis ditionibus subiugavit in the great Controversy betwixt Lanfranc Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Odo Bishop of Baieux and Earl of Kent the Conquerors half Brother for many great Mannors Lands and Liberties of a great yearly Value which Lanfranc claimed to appertain to his Arch-Bishoprick of which that potent Norman Bishop and Earl had injustly disseized him the King commanded the whole County without any delay to Assemble together as well French as English and more especially such as were well Skilled and Learned in the ancient Laws and Customs of England as Gosfridus Episcopus Constantiensis qui in loco Regis fuit justitiam illam tenuit Elnothus Episcopus de Rovercestria Aegelricus Episcopus de Cicestria Vir antiquissimus legum terrae Sapientissimus qui ex praecepto Regis advectus suit ad ipsas antiquas legum Consuetudines discutiendas edocendas in una Quadrigâ Ricardus de Tonebregge Hugo de Monte Forti Gulielmus de Acres Haymo Vicecomes alij multi Barones Regis ipsius Archiepiscopi aliorum Episcoporum homines multi whose Decisions made by many Witnesses Evidences and Reasons being certified to the King Laudavit laudans cum consensu omnium Principum suorum confirmavit ut deinceps perseveraret firmitèr praecepit Upon a Rebellion of Rafe de Guader a Norman made Earl of Norfolk by the Conqueror Confederating with some discontented English whilst he was absent in Normandy upon Notice thereof given hasted into England where omnes ad Curiam suam Regni Proceres convocavit legitimos Heroes in fide probatos Unto which may be added That in the Agreement betwixt King William Rufus and Robert Duke of Normandy his elder Brother touching his Claim to the Kingdom of England being of great Concern to the People wherein the King assured to the Duke All that he could Claim from his Father except England it is said Pactum juramento confirmârunt duodecim Principes nomine Regis and 12. Barones nomine Ducis In the 2d Year
of King William the Second there was a great Councel De cunctis Regni principibus and another which had all the Peers of the Kingdom In the 7th Year of his Raign was a great Councel or Parliament so called at Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire Episcopis Abbatibus cunctisque Regni Principibus coeuntibus and a Year or two after the same King De statu Regni acturus called thither by his Command his Bishops Abbots and Peers of the Kingdom Anno 1106. Robert Duke of Normandy coming into England and seeking to be reconciled to his Brother King Henry the First which could not at Northampton be effected Magnatibus regni ob hoc Londonium edicto Regis convocatis the King by fair Words and Promises so frustrated the Dukes designs as Omnium corda sibi inclinavit ut pro ipso contra quemlibet usque ad capitis expositionem dimicarent Dux in Normanniam iratus perrexit Rex ipsum secutus est usque in Herchebrai Castellum trahens secum omnes ferè Proceres Normanniae Andegaviae robur Angliae Britanniae ut ipsum debellaret The Emperour having sent Ambassadors unto him to request his Daughter Maud in Marriage Tenuit ità que Rex apud Westmonasterium in Pentecosten Curiam suam quâ nunquam tenuerat splendidiorem wherein the Marriage was concluded Anno Domini 1114. Rex Anglorum Henricus fecit omnes suae potestatis Magnates as if there were no need of Commons which were then believed to be included in them fidelitatem jurare Willielmo filio suo At the Coronation of which King who had usurped his said elder Brothers Kingdom and stood in fear of his better Title it was said That all the People of the Kingdom of England were present but the Laws and Charter then made were Per commune concilium Baronum suorum confirmed and that Charter was attested by Mauritio Londoniensi Episcopo Willielmo Wintoniensi electo Odoardo Herefordiensi Episcopo Henrico Comite Simone Comite Waltero Gifford Comite Robert de Monti forti Rogero Bigod aliis multis Et factae sunt tot Chartae quot sunt Comitatus in Anglia Rege jubente positae in Abbatiis singulorum Comitatuum ad Monumentum In the 3d. Year of his Raign the Peers of the Kingdome were called without any mention of the Commons and Orders were at another great Councel made Consensu Comitum Baronum Florentius Wigorniensis saith that Lagam Edwardi Regis reddidit cum illis emendationibus quibus eam Pater suus emendavit concilio Baronum suorum After whose Death King Stephen having Usurped the Crown of England which did not at all belong unto him and Fought stoutly to keep it Concilium congregavit de statu Reipublicae cum Proceribus suis tractare studuit Anno Domini 1153 Justitiâ de Caelo prospiciente diligentiâ Theobaldi Archiepiscopi Cantuar ' aliorum Episcoporum regni King Stephen having no Issue Facta est concordia betwixt him and Henry Duke of Normandy after King Henry the Second who was by King Stephen acknowledged In conventu Episcoporum allorum Optimatum wherein it was accorded That Duke Henry saith Mathew Paris should Succeed him in the Kingdom Stephen only enjoying it for his Life if he should have no Children ex concessione Ducis Henrici ità tamen confirmata est pax quòd ipse Rex Episcopi praesentes cum caeteris Optimatibus regni no Commons jurarent quòd Dux post mortem Regis si ipsum superviveret Regnum fine contradictione aliqua obtineret King Henry the Second in the 10th year of his Raign held a great Councel or Parliament at Clarendon where some of the Customes and Constitutions of the Kingdom were Recognized which was an Assembly only of Prelates and Peers Anno 1118. in a Peace or League made betwixt him and Philip King of France it was agreed That in any Matters of Difference afterwards ariseing betwixt them they should abide by the Award of three Bishops and three Barons to be Elected on the King of France his part and the like on the King of Englands Anno Gratiae 1272. Venit Oxenford in generali Concilio ibidem celebrato constituit Johannem filium suum Regem in Hybernia concessione confirmatione Alexandri summi Pontificis in eodem concilio venerunt ad Regem Resus filius Gryphini Regulus de South-Wales David filius Owini Regulus de North-Wales qui Sororem ejusdem Regis Angliae in uxorem duxerat Cadwallanus Regulus de Delmain Owanus de Kavillian Griffinus de Bromfeld Madacus filius Gerverog alii multi de Nobilioribus Gualliae omnes devenêrunt homines Regis Angliae patris fidelitatem ei contra omnes homines pacem sibi regno servandam juraverunt In eodem concilio dedit Dominus Rex Angliae praedicto Reso filio Griffini terram de Merionith David filio Owani terram de Ellismore Deditque Hugoni de Lasci ut supradictum est in Hybernia totam Midam cum-pertinentiis pro servitio centum militum de ipso Johanne filio suo Chartam suam ei inde fecit And being to return an Answer to the Popes Letter inviting him to take upon him the Croysado and succour the Holy Land assembled a Parliament at London ubi dominus Rex Patriarcha Jerusalem Episcopi Abbates Comites Barones Angliae but no Knights Citizens or Burgesses thereof saith Mr. Pryn Willielmus Rex Scotiae David frater ejus cum Comitibus Baronibus terrae suae convenerunt Anno Domini 1162. without leave of Parliament or People Fecit jurare fidelitatem Henrico filio suo de haereditate suâ inter omnes Magnates Regni Thomas Cancellarius primus fidelitatem juravit salvâ fide Regi patri quamdiù viveret regno praeesse vellet In the 22d Year of his Raign held a great Councel at Nottingham by Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons At Windsor Communi concilio with Bishops Earls and Barons And the like afterwards at Northampton King Richard the 1st held shortly after his Coronation upon the invitation of the King of France and his undertaking to do the like a great Councel or Parliament cum Comitibus Baronibus suis qui Crucem susceperant in generali Concilio constituti apud Londonias taking their Oaths for the recovery of the Holy Land hasting thither and passing into Normandy Elianor Regina mater Richardi Regis with whom he had left the care of the Kingdom and Alays Soror Phillippi Regis Franciae Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Norwich Durham Winchester Ely Salisbury Chester Geffry the Kings Brother elected Archbishop of York and John Earl of Morton the Kings Brother shortly after transfretârunt de Anglia in Normanniam per mandatum Domini Regis habito cum illis concilio Dominus Rex statuit Willielmum Episcopum Eliensem Cancellarium
himself again to the Tower of London Cum suis Conciliariis Edwardo filio suo cum Magnatibus foris remanente sed tandem interveniente Regina vix quibusdam concordati Magnatibus in pacis anplexibus invicem sunt suscepti and the King relying upon the Popes Absolution and the promise of the King of France unà cum suis Magnatibus sibi se velle succurrere manu forti coming to Winchester displaced the Chancellor and Justice made by the Baronage novos creavit pro suo beneplacito In the 47th Year of his Raign keeping his Christmass with the Queen in the Tower of London Elaboratum est tà m à Regni Angliae Pontificibus quà m à Praelatis Regni Franciae that there might be a Peace betwixt the King of England and his Barons Ventumque est ad illud ut Rex Proceres not the Commons se ordinationi Regis Franciae in praemissis provisionibus Oxoniae submitterent Whereupon in Crastino sancti Vincentij congregato Ambianis populo penè innumerabili Rex Franciae Lodovicus coram Episcopis Comitibus aliisque Francorum proceribus the King of England and his Queen Boniface Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Peter Bishop of Hereford and all or most of the Magnates of England before named no Commons which submitted to the reference on both sides Solennitèr dixit sententiam pro Rege Angliae contra Barones statutis Oxoniae provisionibus ordinatioâ—ibus obligationibus penitùs annullatis hoc excepto quòd antiquae Chartae Regis Johannis Angliae universitati concessae per illam sententiam in nullo intendebat penitùs derogare which Award both Parties having solemnly bound themselves by Oath to abide by Simon Earl of Leicester and his Complices refused to obey it for that as they pretended the Provisions made at Oxford were founded upon that Charter of King John So as the troubles and discontents continuing and breaking out into open Wars betwixt the King and his never to-be-contented Barons the Battel of Lewes shortly after followed wherein the King was taken and for a long time detained Prisoner the King of France and his Barons after a great part of his Design satisfied by getting a Release of the Dutchy of Normandy giving him no manner of Aid at all nor after the more successful Battle of Evesham had by the Escape and Valour of his Son the Prince reinvested him in his Kingly Rights that King of France and his Father before him playing the Foxes betwixt the King and his Father King John in their Troubles with their unruly and rebellious Barons for their French advantages Anno 50. of his Raign kept his Christmass at Northampton with his Queen the King of Almaine and Ottobone the Popes Legate cum exercitu formidabili Anno 51. kept his Christmass at Oxford with the Queen and the Popes Legate multisque Magnatibus ubi after the ancient course of our English Kings at that and the other Two great Festivals of the Year to hold their great Councels diligentèr tractatum est de pace reformanda inter Comitem Gloverniae Rogerum de Mortuo Mari Circa tempus istud Rex citari fecit Comites Barones Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates omnes qui communitèr militare servitium sibi debentes ut apud Sanctum Edmundum cum equis armis sufficientèr instructi convenirent ad impetendum eos qui contrà pacem Regiam occupaverunt insulam Elyensem but the Earl of Gloucester refusing to come the Earl of Warren and William de Valentia were sent unto him qui illum ad Parliamentum venire moverent ab adunatis qui ad Parliamentum citati fuerunt praeter rebelles where primò principalitèr Rex Legatus required the Bishops to consent to the Articles or Demands before recited Anno 54. of his Raign the King and Queen cum Regni principibus kept their Christmas at Eltham So as that honourable Title of Barons and those that have a just Claim or Right thereunto is not to be trampled upon and thrown amongst the Community but contra distinguished from them when Baro saith The largely Learned Du Fresne a French Man Sieur or Baron du Cange was in Persius time amongst the Romans of no greater esteem than Servus militum and by Isidorus were termed or no better stiled than Ministri mercenarii qui serviunt acceptâ mercede yet apud Graecos nominantur Barones quòd sint fortes in laboribus Barus enim dicitur gravis quód sit fortis Glossae M. S. Baro Gr ' Lat ' vir fortis unde Barones Barones igitur Ministri appellati non modo Persii Isidori aevis sed etiam longè postea siquidem Barones regios Ministros vocatos qui ex Regis familia erant unde non mirum si traductam hanc vocem ad viros Magnates passim legamus qui principibus ipsis obsequia ministeria sua praestabant seu ex officii ratione seu ex beneficio ac feudis quae ad ejusmodi obsequia impendenda iis indidem conferri solebant Quinetiam ab ipsa Augustini tempestate Barones dicti videntur viri nobiles Principum obsequiis servitio addicti vel certè viri Militares qui primos tenebant locos in aulis Regum as those Words of his do Evidence where he saith Vbinam est Caesaris corpus praeclarum ubi caterva Baronum ubi Principes aut Barones Quibus in locis ij fortè fuerunt qui in obsequiis Principum versabantur ità ut numerosum eorum ac Nobilem famulatum indicare voluerit Augustinus Quemadmodum autem famulos homines vulgò appellabant Ita Franci omnes Boreales populi postquam Galliam invasêre vel Italiam Barones quosvis viros nominârunt as their Salique Ripuar Aleman and Longobard Laws Constitutiones Sicul. Capitulars of Charlemaine and Hinckmarus in his Epistles have informed us The Barones Regum Angliae were the Magnates qui de domo familia Regis sunt vel certè majores Regis Vassalli qui de illo praedia sua nudè tenent Adelwaldus was one of King Edward the Confessors which Florentius Wigornensis and the Book of Ramdsey do stile Minister Regis The Barons of Almaigne from which Nation our Saxon Ancestors being descended brought unto us many of their Customs made a two-fold difference amongst their Barons Alii dicuntur simplices Barones alii semper Barones semper Baro is esse fertur qui à nullo horum feudum habet sed alii ab ipso adeòque liber est ut nulli ad fidelitatis astringitur juramentum insomuch as it was a very ancient Custome and Observance amongst the Germans not to allow the Title or Dignity of Baron unto any that were not Born of such a Frey Heeren Father and Mother but those who were on the Mothers part descended from an ordinary Tenant holding by Military Service of others they would by no means call Barons but Debaronized them which in time might have
Writs or in that which Mr. Elsing hath left unto the World In formâ praedictâ subscribitur Abbatibus Prioribus subscriptis c. without any Christian Names or Additions formerly used Sub data apud Woodstock 14. die Decembris In formâ praedictâ mandatum est Comitibus aliis Subscriptis dat' apud Woodstock viz. Comiti Leicester Comiti Glou ' Comiti Norff ' Marescal ' Angliae Comiti Oxon ' Comiti Derby Rogero de sancto Johannis Hugo de Spencer Justiciar ' Angliae Nich ' de Segrave Johanni de Vescy Robert Basset G de Lucie Gilbert de Gaunt of which the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Norfolk Oxford and Derby were notoriously known to be in open Armes and Hostility against the King the whole number of the Temporal Lords therein named not amounting unto more than Twenty-Three with a Blanck left for the names of other Earls and Barons which have not been yet inserted or filled up And all the other which were in that constrained Writ of Summons particularly and expressly named were no other than H de le Spencer Justiciar ' Angliae John Fitz John Nicholaus de Segrave John de Vescy Rafe Basset de Drayton Henry de Hastings Geffery de Lucy Robert de Roos Adam de novo Mercato Walter de Câ—lvill and Robert Basset de Sapcott those which together with the then Bishops of London and Worcester Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and Steward of England H. de Boun Juvenis Peter de Monte forti S. de Monte forti Juvenes Baldwin Wake William le Blond William Marescallus Rafe de Gray Will ' Bardoff ' Richard de Tany or Tony Robert de â—â—teri Ponte made up the Number of the opposite Party to the King in the aforesaid Reference to the King of France And Mr. Selden hath observed That the Preambles sometimes so varied that some eminent Occasions of the calling of the Parliament were inserted in the Writs to the Spiritual Barons that were not in those to the Temporal and oftentimes no more than a general and a short Narrative of the Resolution of having a Parliament with much variation in the Writs of that nature with many Differences of slighter Moment sometimes against making of Proxies and at other times a Licence to make them and sometimes in all a Clause against coming attended with Armes and saith That until the middle of the Raign of King Richard the Second when Dukes Earles and Barons were created by Letters Patents of our Kings that the names of the Barons to be Summoned to Parliament were Written from the King's Mouth at his Direction and Command and in that agreeth with Mr. Eâ—sing who saith it was ad libitum Regis for surely none but the King can Summon a Parliament and that is the Reason that Henry the Fourth having taken King Richard the Second his Leige Lord Prisoner the Twentieth of August in the 21st Year of his Raign did cause the Writ of Summons for the Parliament wherein he obtained the Crown to bear Date the Nineteenth day of the same Month and the Warrant to be per ipsum Regem Concilium and himself to be Summoned by the name of Henry Duke of Lancaster And the Warrants have been divers sometimes per breve de privato sigillo but commonly per ipsum Regem or per ipsum Regem Concilium SECT XV. That the Majores Barones or better sort of the Tenants in Capite Justly and Legally by some of our Ancient Kings and Princes but not by any positive Law that of the enforced Charter from King John at Running Mede being not accounted to be such a Law were distinguished and separated from the Minores or lesser sort of the Tenants in Capite FOR it could be no design in the Framers or Contrivers of his Charter to make any distinction betwixt the Majores or Minores Barones of the Kingdom or to leave to Posterity a definition of either of them or a Rule for after Ages for that would have unpolitickly very much disturbed and distracted that rebellious Assembly at Running Mede or could be likely to obtain any more thereby as to their meeting in our Kings great Councels the word Parliament being not then in use amongst us than to have a Common Councel shortly called to settle the manner of Assessment of Aides upon Knights Fees and to that only end to Summon the Tenants in Capite which were not all of that sort being not the Majores or Magnates then and yet understood by our Nation to be the Barons long before and ever since at the good Will and Pleasure of our Kings usually Called and Summoned by them to their Great Councels upon urgent Occasions the Majores Barones being to be there present to advise thereupon Which for after Assemblies of that nature constantly to be holden would have been very Numerous Troublesom Chargeable and Dangerous if the Tenants in Capite had been Threescore Thousand as Ordericus Vitalis hath Recorded them or but Thirty Two Thousand as our great Selden hath more probably estimated them And although the Learned Sir Henry Spelman was enclined to believe that the distinction betwixt the greater and lesser Baronage had its Foundation in that Charter and the Learned Cambden from a very good Authority as he thought asserted That King Henry the Third Post Magnas perturbationes enormes vexationes inter ipsum Symonem de Monte forti ex tanta multitudine quae seditiofa turbulenta fuit Optimates quosque rescripto ad Comitia evocaverit yet Mr. Selden saith That in all that he hath met with since the making of that Charter he found no mention of any Interest which those other Tenants in Chief eo nomine had in our Kings Great Councels or Parliaments who doubtless were the Persons that were excluded from it and was perswaded to give little Credit unto the Author cited by Mr. Cambden but rather to conclude That not long after that grand Charter of King John like enough in that time some Law was made that induced the utter Exclusion of all Tenants in Chief from Parliaments besides the Ancient and Great Barons and Baronies which Mathew Paris saith King Henry the Third reckoned to be Two Hundred and Fifty and such other as the King should in like sort Summon and that there were Barons by Writ as well as Barons by Tenure cites a Testimony out of Mathew Paris who speaking of King Henry the Third saith That in the Twenty Nineth Year of his Raign Rex edicto publicè proposito de submonitione generaliter factâ fecit certificari per totam Angliam ut quilibet Baro tenens ex Rege in Capite haberet prompta parata Regali praecepto omnia servitia Militaria quae ei debentur tam Episcopi Abbates quà m Laici Barones Barons holding in Capite as if some held not so which must be such as were Barons by Writ only
and testify that the Land is holden of them and that without taking away the Fealty and repealing the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy the Duty and Oaths of the Subjects remained as they did whilst they held their Land in Capite and by Knight Service Which probably as may sadly be lamented could never have hapned if the later men of the Law in England had not by the space of something more then Forty Years last past leaped over as it may be feared they have overmuch done the successive learned labours and Books in a long process of Time in the Reign of our Regnant Kings and Princes divers Judges and Sages of our Laws Recording from Time to Time Cases Judgments Decrees and Dicisions maturely and Deliberately adjudged therein But too much neglected those guidings better guides and faithfull Directors the Civill and Feudall Laws and suffred their Studies and practice to be imployed and incouraged in the Factious Seâ—iâ—ious Rebellious principles of those Times by following the gross Mistakes of Sr Edward Coke in his Discontent malevolence and Ill will unto the necessary and legall Regalities of the Crown and Idolizing as he did those grand parcells of forgery and Imposture entitled the Mirrour of Justice and the Modus tenendi Parliamentum and their neglecting the readings of Glanvile Bracton and Britton and other good Authors And the Civil Law was the Parent and Mother of many of the maximes and principles of that which is now called our Common Law And those men of the Law who without Books subsistence or Estates when they went beyond the Seas with their Sovereign and had not there the opportunities of the Knowledge or help of the Records of the Kingdom that might have been their best Instructers were for the most part but Young Gentlemen Born and Bred in the times of our Distempered Parliaments as those were that Tarried here who walked along with the Rebellion too much adhered unto them and came Weather-beaten again with his Majesty had understood as they might have done the Originall Foundation and Continuance of our Monarchick Government But King Edward the 1. who had passed over and overcome so many Hardships Difficulties Misfortunes and Storms of State was so unwilling to be afraid of a part of his Unquiet Baronage or to Humour the popularity and ignorance of any of the Common People or to be in fear of them or of any their Factious or Seditious Machinations making what hast his affairs would permit to return into England where his father having by his Death escaped the restless conflicts of a long and troublesome Reign and his Exequies and Ceremonies of buriall performed Róbertus Kilwarby Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus Gilbertus de Claro Comes Gloverinae a man that had been in Armes and opposite enough against his father and himself in the former convulsions of State and John Warren Earl of Surrey saith Samuel Daniel went up to the High Altar cum aliis Praelatis ac Regni proceribus Londiniis apud novnm Templum convenerunt Edwardum absentem Dominum suum Ligeam recognoverunt paternique Successorem honoris ordinaverunt assensu Reginae non Populi and before his return into England John Earl Warren and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester in the Abby Church of Westminster sware unto him Fealty without asking leave of the People and proclaimed him King although they knew not whether he were Living or Dead caused a new great Seal to be made and appointed six Commissioners for the Custody of his Treasure and Peace whilst he remained in Palastine where by an Assassin feigning to Deliver Letters unto him he received 3 Dangerous Wounds with a poysoned knife then said and believed to have been cured by the Love of his Lady that Paragon of Wives and Women who sucked the Poyson out of the Wound when others refused the adventure and after 3 Years Travail from the time of his setting forth many conflicts and Disappointments of his aids and Ends left Acon well fortified and manned and returned homewards in which as he travailed he was Royally feasted by the Pope and princes of Italy whence he came towards Burgundy where he was at the foot of the Alpes met by Divers of the English Nobility and being Challenged to a Tournament by the Earl of Chalboun a man of extraordinary Renown Successfully hazarded his Person to manifest his valour thence came again into England with the great advantages of his Wisdom Courage and Reputation assisted by the memory of the fortunate Battle at Evesham and his Actions in the East SECT XVIII Of the Methods and Courses which King Edward the 1. held and took in the Reformation and Cure of the Former State Diseases and Distempers KIng Edward the 1st was together with his Queen Crowned at Westminster by Robert Archbishop of Canterbury Alexander King of Scotland and John Duke of Britanny attending that Solemnity which being finished he shortly after forced Leoline Prince of Wales who had taken part with Montfort against his Father King Henry the third to do him Homage and after a Revolt imprisoned and beheaded him did the like to his brother David and United Wales as a Province to England made the Statute of Snowden considered and perused their Laws allowed some repealed others collected some and added new as he well might there do for the Prince or King which Governed Wales had always used so to do and appointed one to give his assent to the Election of Bishops and Abbots And when The Pope demanded 8 yeares arreares for the rent or tribute of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland enforced from King John did by his letter answer that his Parliament was dissolved before it came and that sine Praelatis et Proceribus communicato concilio sanctitati suae super praemissa non potuit respondere et Jurejurando in coronatione suam praestito fuit obstrictus quod jura Regni sui servabit illibata nec aliquod quod diadema tangat Regni ejusdem no such clause or promise being in the Coronation Oath ut nihil absque illorum requisito concilio faceret Sent to Franciscus Accursius Docto of laws resident at Bononia in Italy the son of the famous Accursius the Civil lawyer to come with his wife family into England by his writ to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire commanded him to deliver unto the said Doctor Accursius the King 's manor house and castle of Oxford then no mean place for him and his wife to Inhabit Did so imitate the wisdom and providence of the Roman and Caesarean laws as Augustus Caesar and other of the Succeeding Emperours had done as he gave unto men learned in the laws which was more for the peoples good then in their suits and actions at law to court and live under the protection and humours of their popular Patroni's libertatem respondendi to give councell and advice to their clients in their concernments at law and
commandeth that such things be no more done from henceforth And if any Officer of Fee doth it his Office shall be taken into the Kings hands It is provided and agreed that the King of his Office shall from henceforth grant attaints upon Enquest in Plea of Land or Freehold In the several limitations of prescription in severall Writs which might be to many very prejudicial it was in like manner provided that in a Writ of right none should presume to declare of the seisin of his Ancestor further or beyond the time of King Richard the 1st Writs of Partition and Novell Desseisin of the first voyage of King Henry Father of the King into Gascoigne Writs of Mort d' Auncestor of Cosinage Ayel et Nuper obiit of the Coronation of the sâ—id King Henry and not before That one plea shall be decided by the Justices of the King's Bench before another be commenced it is provided also and commanded by the King In an Act touching the Tenants plea in a Writ of Dower and at what time Assizes shall be taken it was declared that forasmuch as the King hath ordained those things unto the honor of God and Holy Church and for the Common-Wealth and remedy of such as be grieved he would not that at any other time it should turn into prejudice of himself or of his Crown but that such right as appertains unto him should be saved in all points and forasmuch as it is great Charity to do right unto all men at all times when need should be it was provided by the assent of the Praelates that Assizes of Novell Disseisin Mortd auncestor and Darrein presentment should be taken in Advent Septuagesima and Lent even as well as Enquests may be taken and that at the Speciall request of the King made unto the Bishops In the 4th Year of his Reign caused an Eatenta Maneriorum or Survey as to his particular Royal Revenue much like unto that of William the Conquerors of his Castles Houses Buildings Demesne-Lands Copyhold Commons Parks Forests Woods Asserts Tenants Cottages Pleas and Perquisites of the Counties Churches and the values thereof and of Heriots Fairs Markets Escheats Customs Rents Services Fishings Freeholders Woods Rents of Assize Tenures in Soccage or by Knights-Service Forreign Works and Customes Perquisites of Courts Fines and all other Casualties Declared by a Statute de Officio Coronatoris the Duties of a Coroner and enquiries to be made by them In the matter of Bigamy published and declared certain constitutions before him and his Councel and commanded them to be stedfastly Observed in the presence of certain Reverend Fathers Bishops of England and others of the Kings Councel to which the Justices as all the Kings Councel did agree Cap. 1. In what Cases aid shall be granted of the King in what not it is said that it is agreed by the Justices and other Learned men of the Kings Councel of the Realm which heretofore have had the rule and practise of Judgments that where a Feoffment was made by the King with a Deed thereupon if another person by a like Feoffment and Deed be bound to Warranty the Justices could not heretofore have proceeded any further neither yet do proceed without the Kings Command And it seemeth also they could not proceed in other cases wherefore they shall not surcease by occasion of any Grant Confirmation or Surrender but after advertisement made thereof to the King they shall proceed without delay Ca. 4. Concerning purprestures upon the Kings Lands to be reseised If any do complain of such Reseisins he shall be heard as right requireth 6. E. 1. In an Act concerning a man killing another in his own defence or by misfortune it is said the King commanded In Ca. 10. that the husband and wife being impleaded shall not fourch by Essoin that act of Parliament is said to be the Statute of the King In the same year an Exposition and alteration of the Statute of Gloucester in divers articles and points was made by the King and his Justices by the Kings Letters-Patents dated at Gloucester In the foregoing statutes or Articles whereof videlicet ca. 1. it is said to have been provided in ca. 3. Established the like in Ca. 4. in 5. and 6. provided and the like in the 8. and the offenders shall be greivously amerced to the King In the Statute of Gloucester ca. 14. where it is ordained that a Citizen of London shall recover in an Assize damages with the land it is said the King of his speciall grace granteth and the Barons of the Exchequer and Treasuâ—er shall be commanded And in severall statutes and Articles there made did afterwards by the advice of his Justices make in some of them divers expositions alterations and additions in several materiall parts or Points 7. E. 1. by his Writ directed to the Justices of his Bench Signified that it was accorded that at the next Parliament by the councell and assent of the Prelats Earls and Barons provision should be made that none should come to Parliaments Treaties or Assemblies with force and arms and in the next Parliament after the said Treaty the Prelates Earles Barons and the Commonalty of the Realm Comprised in the Votes and suffrages of the Prelats Earls and Barons there assembled to take order of that business have said that to the King it belongeth and on his part it is through his Royall Seigneury Strictly to defend by force of armour and all other force against his peace at all times when it shall please him and to punish those which shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and hereunto they are bound to aid him as their Sovcreign Lord at all seasons as need should be and commanded the same to be read before him in his Bench and there enrolled In the Statute of Mortmaine made in the same Year that no Lands should be aliened in Mortmaine upon pain of the forfeiture thereof it is mentioned that the King for the profit of his Realm minding to provide a convenient remedy by the advice of his Prelates Earls Barons and others of his Subjects being of his Councel hath provided and ordained c. 10. E. 1. in the Statute of the Exchecquer touching the recovery of the Kings Debts the King by his Writ directed to the Treasurer Barons and Chamberlains of the Exchecquer for the Indempnity of him and his People Willed and Provided Anno. 1â— E. 1. in the Statute of Acton Burnell made for recovery of Debts the King for himself and by his Councel hath Ordained and Established In the Statute of Entails that the Will of the Donor should in all things be performed Ca. 1. which was of a grand Concern to all the Nobility Gentry and Freeholders of England in their Dignities Families Lands and Estates and the transmitting them to Posterity it is said wherefore our Lord the King perceiving how necessary and expedient it should be
Domino donante Rex non solum Mercor sum sed omnium provinciarum quae generali nomine Angli dicuntur did grant Cumberhto 10. Cassatas terrae cui ab antiquis nomen est indicum Husmerat juxta fluvium â—tur subscribed with ✚ Ego Aethelbald Rex Britaniae propriam donationem confirmavi subscripsi ✚ Ego Unor Episcopus consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Unilfridus Episcopus jubente Aethelbaldo Rege subscripsi ✚ Ego Aethelric subre gulus atque Comes Gloriosissimi principis Aethelbald huic donationi consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ibrorsi magnus Abbatis consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Heardberht frater atque dux praefati Regis consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ebbella consensum accommodans subscripsi ✚ Ego Onec Comes subscripsi ✚ Ego Oba consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Sigibrid consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Bercot consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Ealdoult consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Caila consensi subscripsi ✚ Ego Pedo consensi subscripsi And the meer consent of a Tenant to his Landlords or Lords grant by Attornment doth not encrease or enlarge his former estate but is only a consent and agreement unto that grant or as an obliging taking notice thereof And where an Archdeacon Dean and Chapter are Summoned to Parliament act tractandum they neither did do or can claim any other power beyond their obedience to what should be ordained by their Superiors The choice or Election of a Verdurer in a Forrest by the Kings Writ doth not make those that did it the owners thereof and the Election of a Coroner by the like Authority to collect and take care of the Kings rights and profits did never yet truly and rationally signify that the Electors were the Masters of them neither doth the assent of the Freeholders in a Court-Baron or Leet devest the Lord of the Manor or Court-Leet of any part of his Right Propriety or Jurisdiction therein For to assent in the aforesaid enforced Statute de Tallagio non concedendo without the assent of the Prelates Earls Barons and Commons of England viz. That Tallage or Aid shall be taken or leavied by the King or his Heirs in his Realm without the assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the Land which Tallages were the prises as Walsingham mentioneth taken de bobus vaccis frumentis bladis coriis purveyance taken against his preparation for Warrs in Flanders de quibus tota Communitas Angliae gravabatur but was never granted and intended either in words express or tacite to give either unto the House of Peers or Commons Jointly or severally a Negative Vote or deniall or a Legislative power but only to free themselves from those Tallages and Prises complained of which had such a force and obligation upon them and placed in them such a reverence and awfull respect to their King and head as they did subordinately not seldom obtain their Kings Leters-Patents to license or impower them Talliare Tenentes suos de dominico suo And although the Commons in Parliament in the 2 year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th had in the Advantage which they suppose they might sasely adventure upon in a Time of Usurpation assumed and arrogated to themselves a Legislative co-ordinate power in the making of Laws which other then Petitionary as Subjects to their King none of their predecessors before or since the 48th year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. ever had or obtained untill the last Horrid Rebellion in 1642. when they would make heedless and headless ordinances instead of Statutes or Acts of Parliament without their King and would not forsake their madness untill they had Murthered that Blessed Martyr King Charles the I. yet the answer of King Henry the 5th to that Petition and claim did so manifestly deny to give any allowance thereunto as one of their greatest Champions and Underminers of our Fundamental manarchick Laws could afford without prejudice to his the grounded cause to give posterity that Kings answer thereunto but concealed it as a conviction not to be devulged to their seduced Proselites For in the making of a Bishop wherein the King is acknowledged by the laws of England truth and Right reason to be the only true and proper cause of making him a Bishop and the impositions of hands by some of the Presbyters Subservient unto him in his Diocess which was but Ceremoniall and much less then the ornaments of Aarons garments in his multifarious priestly Attire and could never make or ordain him a Bishop without the King or give him Livery of the Lands appertaining to the Bishoprick neither doth any Law or right reason of any Nation or the dictates of holy Writ enable any to believe that the assent of the Woman or Wife in the holy Rites of Matrimony could or should ever entitle her unto a command and superiority over her Husband or Annihilate the Decree of Almighty God in the framing and forming of Man and Woman kind and order of the subservient government of the World And it would be an Engine mathematicall or contrivance Worth the Enquiry or finding out if it could be possible how to settle or make our most excellently composed Monarchick Government usefull in its Legislative power if the Houses of Peers and Commons in Parliament should disagree who but their King and Superior can or could be able to reconcile their discording Votes Opinions or Resolves For our Records Histories Annals and National Memorialls have never yet found or so much as mentioned any Laws Statutes or ordinances made in Parliament or out without le Roy le voult or his fiat or grant or the grant and assent of the Custos Regni or his Lieutenant Commissionated by him made by an House of Peers or Commons or party of them as it were in Parliament untill the Devil in a Religious habit taught it unto the last most horrid of incomparable Rebellions or that any House or number of Peers ever did or attempted to do any such thing or matter without the Kings le Roy le veult fiat assent or ratification or that of his Castos Regni or Lieutenant Commissionated by him Except that which was done by Symon Montfort and his Rebell partners in Annis 48. 49. Henry the 3 against that distressed over powred Prince when they had taken and kept him a prisoner for more then a Year and by fear and by force issued out Writs in his name for an Original of an House of Commons in Parliament and owned and acted what they would have him or constrained him to do in his name and as by his sole authority neither as Ego Rex meus or Senatus populus quoÌ„ Anglicanus neither can the Eyes of any far-seeing Linx or Lynceus or any Perspicuity clearness or strength of sight or the greatest of industry search or scrutiny whatsoever of our
to be held in the Bishoprick of Durham and the Northern parts did within a few days after the appointing of the sitting of the Parliament send his Writ to command him that omitting his holding of the Assizes he should in person be at Westminster at the day appointed hoc sicut indignationem nostram grave dampnum vestrum vitare volueritis nullo modo omittatis T. R. apud Windsore 17 die Septembris per breve de privato sigillo In the 8th Year of his Reign sent his Writ to Thomas Earl of Lancaster that omnibus aliis praetermissis he should be present at the Parliament wherein amongst the Barons the Judges and others were Summoned per ipsum Regem In the 18th Year of his Reign having Summoned the Earl Marshal to be at a Parliament to be holden at Winchester Secunda Dominica Quadragesima proxime futura and being informed by some of the Nobility that by reason of the shortness of time they could not sufficiently provide themselves did prorogue the Parliament to Octabis Paschae prox futur there to consult about the Defence of Aquitaine and his passage In the 20th Year of his Reign he Summoned a Parliament to be at Westminster to treat with the King if he should be there or in his absence with the Queen and the Prince his Son In the 2d Year of King Edward the 3d the Sheriff of Yorkshire sending his precepts to Richmond and Rippon to Elect Burgesses they answered they were not bound to Elect any and would avoid the charge of their expences In the 3d Year of his Reign Termino Paschae the Bishop of Winchester was Indicted in the Kings bench for departing from the Parliament at Salisbury Anno 4. Edwardi 3. the King Summoned Thomas Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of England his Uncle to the Parliament with these words in the end thereof viz. quod si quid absit propter absentiam vestram dicta negotia contigerit retardari ad vos prout convenit graviter capiemus Having called a Parliament to consult about the affairs of Acquitain and Summoned the Archbishops Bishops c. to the aforesaid Parliament and a peace by the French Embassadors being made in the mean time de assensu Praelatorum Comitum Baronum did by his Letters or Writs signify to them his pleasure that they should not come Commanded the same Knights and Burgesses that had been at the Parliament at London quibusdam certis de causis recesserunt to appear at a Parliament at Westminster seu alios ad hoc idoneos In the 6th Year of his Reign by reason of some stirrs in the North-parts of England Summoned a Parliament at York commanding them to be personally there giving them notice quod propter arduitatem negotiorum praedictorum cessante impedimento legitimo praesentia vestra carere non possumus ista vice And Summoned the Prelates and Nobles to a Parliament at the same place and signified that he would not admit of any Proxies and the Archbishop of Canterbury with some Bishops not appearing to the King 's great disappointment he did by a Writ of resummons directed to the said Archbishop 17 other Bishops 13 Abbots 40 Magnatibus aliis therein-named reciting that he had demanded an ayd and advice of the Prelates Peers and Knights of the shires then present who deliberato concilio responsum dederunt quod in tam arduis negotiis sine Archiepiscopi aliorum Praelatorum Magnatum Procerum praesentia concilium assensum praebere non possent nec debent did earnestly supplicate him to continue and prorogue that Parliament ad diem Mercurii in Octabis Sancti Hillarii tunc prox Sequen interim ceteros Praelatos Proceres tunc absentes convocari faceremus ac nos quanquam hujusmodi dilatio nobis damnosa periculosa plurimum videatur eorum petitione in hac parte annuentes Parliamentum praedictum usque ad Octavas praedict duximus continuandum seu prorogandum ac Praelatis Magnatibus Militibus Civibus Burgensibus injunximus quod tunc ibidem interfuerint quacunque excusatione cessante ac omnibus aliis praetermissis ne igitur contingat quod absit dicta negotia ad nostri Regni nostri dampnum dedecus per vestri seu aliorum absentiam ulterius prorogari vobis in fide dilectione quibus nobis tenemini sub periculo quod incumbit districte injungendo mandamus quod omni excusatione cessant sitis personaliter apud Eborum in dictis Octabis nobiscum cum caeteris Praelatis Magnatibus dicti Regni nostri super dictis negotiis tractatur vestrum concilium impensur sciatis quod si per vestram contigerit dicta negotia quod absit ulterius retardari dissimulare non poterimus quin ad vos exinde sicut convenit graviter capiemus Teste Rege apud Eborum 11. die Decembris In the same Year on a Saturday the House of Commons had leave to depart and were commanded to attend untill the next day on which the Parliament was Dissolved In the several Parliaments of 6. Edwardi 3. and 2â— E. 3. the cause of Summons was declared by those that were appointed to do it by the King 's verball Command only and not by any Commission In the Year next following Receivers and Tryers of petitions were appointed par nostre Seigneur le Roy son Concill which Mr Elsing understood to be the Kings Privy-Councell 11. E. 3. an extraordinary Writ of Summons was sent to the Sheriff of the County of Stafford concerning an aid granted by the Clergy of the Diocess of Coventry and Lichfield of 20 d. upon every Mark given to the King to free them from the oppression of the laity in violently seizing upon their Wools. 14. E. 3. The Commons prayed that the Writs to the Sheriffs for the Election of Knights for the shires might have the clause que deux miltz valuez Chivalers de Countez soient esleuz envoyez ad prochein Parliament pour la Commune si que nul d'eux ne soit Viscount ou autre Minister Which was agreed unto and in the Summons of Parliament and Writs for the Electing of Knights of the shires was inserted that they should Elect deux Chivalers ceynct des Espees de chescun Countie pour estre en mesme le Parlement and thereupon the next Writ was quod de dicto Comitatu duos Milites gladiis cinctos elegi facias which continueth to this day although many times Esquiresand no Knights are chosen and by the indulgence of our Kings admitted when in a Dedimus potestatem to take a fine it will not be allowed Eodem Anno the Sheriff of Northampton was commanded quod venire fac to the Parliament de villa Northampton quatuor de corpore Comitatus sui sex Mercatores de discretioribus ditioribus Mercatoribus villae Com. praedictorum cum
custome of the House of Lords was that when any Bills or messages were sent to them the Lord Keeper and some of the Lords were to â—rise from their places and from thence to go unto the Barr and receive the said Bills or messages but contrarywise when any answer is to be delivered by the Lord Keeper in the name and behalf of the Lords the Commons sent were to stand at the Barr and the Lord Keeper is to receive the Bills or answer the messages with his head covered and all the Lords were to Keep their places with which the Lower House was satisfied and the same order hath been ever since observed accordingly Anno 39. Eliz. There being in former times a custom in the house of Commons to have a bill read before the house did arise the same could not now be done at that time because her Majesty and the upper House had adjourned the Parliament untill Saturday Sennight at Eight of the Clock in the Morning which being signified by their Speaker he said all the Members of the House might depart and so they did Eodem Anno. At the ending of the Parliament after they had given the Queen subsidies and prayed her assent to such laws as had passed both Houses she gave the Royall assent to 24 publick Acts and 19 private but refused 48 Bills which had passed both the Houses Anno 43. Eliz. John Crook Esq. Recorder of London being chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament disabling himself desired the Queen to command the House of Commons to choose another but his excuse received no allowance The Lord Chief Justice of the Queens bench and Common pleas together with the Lord Chief Baron and Attorney Generall were ordered to attend a Committee of Lords and Bishops Sr John Popham Lord Chief Justice Francis Gaudy one of the Justices of the Kings bench George Kingsmill one of the Common pleas Dr Carew and Dr Stanhop were constituted Receivers of petitions for Gascoigne and other lands beyond the Seas Sr Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas Sr William Peryam Lord Chief Baron Thomas Walmisley one of the Justices of the Common pleas Dr Swale and Dr Hone. Tryers of petitions of England the Archbishop of Canterbury Marquis of Winchester Earls of Sussex Lord Marshall Lord Admirall and Steward of the Queens Houshold Earls of Nottingham and Hertford Bishops of London Durham and Winchester Lords Zouch and Cobham calling unto them the Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and the Queens Serjeants at Law Great fault was found by many of the House of the factouring and bribing of too many of the Justices of the Peace and it was by one of the members alleadged that the five bills â—arely passed against Swearing Drunkenness and for the making of good Ale would be as much worth to those kind of Justices of the Peace as a Subsidy and two Fifteens Mr Conisby Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers complained that forasmuch upon the breach of any Priviledge of that House he only was to be employed and not the Serjeant at Arms the House ordered a Committee to consider of Presidents and settle it a motion was made by the Lord Keeper and approved of by the Lords that the Ancient course of the House might be kept by certifying the Excuses for the absence of any of the Peers by the Peers and not by others The House being offended with Sr Walter Rawleigh for some words and crying to the Barr Mr Brown a Lawyer stood up and said Mr Speaker par in parem non habet Imperium we are as members of one body and we cannot Judge one another whereupon it being put to the question it was resolved in the negative that he should not stand at the Barr. The Speaker of the House of Commons at the ending of the Parliament of 44. Eliz. humbly desired of the Queen that certain Acts may be made Laws by her Royall assent which giveth life unto them Unto which the Lord Keeper answered that as touching her Majesties pioceeding in the making of Laws and giving her Royall assent that should be as God directed her Sacred Spirit and delivered her Majesties commandement that as to the Commons proceedings in the matter of her Prerogative she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully observe and that she understood they did but obiter touch her Prerogative and no otherwise but by humble petition but she well perceived that private respects are privately masked under publique pretences Admonished the Justices of the Peace some whereof might probably be of the House of Commons that they should not deserve the Epithetes of prowling Justices Justices of Quarrells who counted Champerty good Conscience Sinning Justices who did suck and consume the good of this Commonwealth and likewise all those who did lye if not all the Year yet at the least Three Quarters of the Year in the City of London Anno 43. Eliz. One Mr Leigh of the House of Commons complained that whilst the Speaker of the House of Commons was presented to the Queen he was denyed entrance into the House of Peers which the Lords excused by saying it was the ignorance of some of the Grooms or attendance in the choosing of a Speaker Mr Knolls the Comptroller alleaged that it was not for the State of the Queen to permit a confused multitude to speak unto her when it might often happen that one or some might move or speak that which another or some or many would contradict or not allow The Queen being sate in her State in the House of Lords the House of Commons were sent for to present their Speaker who in a modest pretence of disability prayed her Majesty to command the House of Commons to choose one more able but had it not allowed And she in her grant of freedom of speech gave a caution not to do it in vain matters verbosities contentions or contradictions nor to make addresses unto her but only in matters of consequence and prohibited their retaining or priviledging desperate debtors upon pain of her displeasure and desired a Law might be made to that purpose Which done the Lord Keeper said for great and weighty causes her Highness's pleasure was that the Parliament should be adjourned untill the Fryday following At which time the House of Commons did appoint a Minister every morning before the House sate to officiate and use a set form of prayer specially ordained to desire Gods blessing upon their Councells and preserve the Queen their Sovereign The Ancient usage of not coming into the House of Commons with spurs was moved by the Speaker to be observed others moved that they might not come with Boots and Rapiers but nothing was done therein Sr Robert Wroth a Member of the House of Commons did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Sr Andrew Noel Sheriff of Rutlandshire having returned himself to be a Knight of the shire for that
names which they agreed not unto as in Anno 21. E. 4. 3. concerning exceptions of Villenage where the Commons in their Petition afterwards alledged it to be expresly against the Laws and Customs of the Land and therefore prayed the King and his good Council to prevent the mischiefs which might happen by that Petition and maintain the good Laws and Customs of the Land in his time and the times of his Ancestors by the sages of the Law used and without having regard to the Petitions of any singular Persons to the overthrow and open undoing of the Law of the Land The Commons prayed that the Petitions which were delivered by them in the last Parliament and by our Lord the King Prelates and Grandees of the Land answered and granted be held and the answers before granted not changed by any Bill delivered in this Parliament in the name of the Commons or of any other for the Commons do not avow any such Bill Unto which was answered another time the King by the advice of the Prelates and Grandees caused to be answered the Petitions of the Commons touching the Laws of the Land that the Laws had and used in times past nor the process used hereafter cannot be changed without making thereon a new Statute the which thing to do the King would not then nor yet can intend for divers reasons but as soon as he can intend it he will take the Grandees and Sages of his Council about him and Ordain upon such Articles and others touching the amendment of the Law by their Advice and Council so as reason and equity shall be done to all his Leiges and Subjects Anno 25. E. 3. Item priontles Commons that for no Bill especially of singular Persons no Statute heretofore ordained be changed nor other process made upon the Execution of the Statutes which hath not been used in times past About which time or not long before the Commons did use to present their Bills or Petitions to the Re ceivers of Petitions appointed by the King by one select Messenger no constant Speaker it seems being then made use of or Mace or Ensigns of Honour carried before him by one of the Kings Serjeants at Arms granted or allowed by the King of which honourable circumstances Mr. Pryn acknowledgeth he could find no original accompanied with divers other of the House which probably saith Mr. Noy might produce such or the like inconveniencies A Subsidy was granted upon condition that their Petitions and grievances might be received the next day in Parliament and hasty remedies ordained which being promised the Commons were ordered to deliver their Petitions to the Clerk of the Parliament then intended and understood to be of the House of Peers which was done accordingly Anno 21. E. 3. The Commons advised four days on the Kings charge for their advice to be given touching the French War wherein at last they desired to be excused Anno 22. E. 3. Granted an Aid upon condition that their Petitions of the last Parliament and of this might be dispatched in the presence of four or six of the Commons and afterwards delivered their Petitions to the Clerk of the Parliament Anno 29. E. 3. The cause of Summons being declared on the Wednesday for a speedy Aid the Commons were commanded to give their answer upon the Friday following and in the mean time to make ready their Bills and Petitions on which day after a short parlance with the Lords they granted the Subsidy and exhibited their Petitions before the King Anno 42. E. 3. Were charged to make ready their Petitions and to deliver them upon the Wednesday following Anno 43. E. 3. Being commanded to deliver their Petitions prayed day until the Saturday following and then presented the same Anno 47. E. 3. The King requiring a speedy Aid commanded untill it should be agreed that all business in the Parliament should in the mean time be suspended Petitions of the Commons were not alwaies delivered in Parliament to the Receivers of Petitions but sometimes delivered publickly to the Lords themselves sitting in their upper House unless sometimes when the Lords had finished the charge given them by the King and had no occasion to sit dailiy in their House then they were delivered to the Clerk of the Parliament Petitions also were sometimes in Parliament directed to be delivered to the Lord Chancellor who might of himself give them such Remedies as the ordinary course of the Chancery would The King usually gave the Answers unto Bills exhibited by the Commons with le Royle veult or le Roy's advisera to ordinary Petitions in the granting or denying The petition of the Commons in 22 E. 3. was answered by our Lord the King the Prelates and the Grandees of the Land In 28 E. 3. Some by the Lords alone And in the 2d R. 2. n. 47. some answered by the assent of the Commons as 18. E. 3. to the 18 Article Anno 29. E. 3. n. 22. Some refered to the Kings great Councel as 22 E. 3. n. 18. 28 E. 3. n. 43. Others answered by the Kings Councel alone as Anno 17 E. 3. n. 52. 10 E. 3. n. 28. 25 E. 3. n. 27. Some referred to the King himself as 22 E. 3. n. 9. 29. E. 3. n. 18. 20 E. 3. n. 17. 16 R. 2. n. 32. 1 H. 4. n. 118. The Judges and the Kings learned Councel in the Law and the Lords of the Kings privy Councel were antiently the standing Committees for to consider and examine Bills or Petitions but the Judges and the Kings learned Councel at Law do now only attend the Lords in their Committees All Bills and petitions in Parliament were formerly directed to the King and his Councel Anno 20. E. 3. the Petitions of the Commons were brought before the Grandees of the Councel Anno. 27. E. 3. the Commons pray that their Petitions may be answered the which our Lord the King made to be read and answered by the Prelates Grandees and others of his Councel The Chancellor telleth the Commons that the King would ordain certain Lords and others after Easter who should Sit upon the points of their Petitions not answered at that time The Judges are summoned to Parliament ad tractandum cum concilio for so it was explained Anno 4. E. 3. the praeamble of the Statute de Bigamies mentioneth the presence of certain reverend Fathers Bishops of England and others of the Kings Councel Anno 17. E. 3. the Parliament was adjourned before Receivers and Triers of Petitions were appointed Although a time was before limited for the delivery of Petitions and the Commons were charged touching the maintenance of Peace c. Petitions were sometimes answered by a Select number of the Kings Councel and at other times all as the King pleased Some Petitions were formerly indorsed coram Rege against which the Commons petitioned in 6 E. 3. n. 31. For
said to be per Dominum Regem And a second of the same date and tenor with a perclose said to have been per Dominum Regem magnum Concilium John Pechies pardon for whom that House of Commons in Parliament was said to intercede only mentioneth that it was precibus aliquorum Magnatum 15 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury before the King and Lords humbling himself before the King desired that where he was defamed through the Realm he might be arraigned before his Peers in open Parliament Unto which the King answered that he would attend the Common Affairs and afterward hear others 5 H. 4. The King at the request of the Commons affirmeth the Archbishop of Canterbury the Duke of York the Earl of Northumberland and other Lords which were suspected to be of the confederacy of Henry Percy to be his true Leige-men and that they nor any of them should be impeached therefore by the King or his Heirs in any time ensuing 9 H. 4. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented a Bill on the behalf of Thomas Brooke against William Widecombe and required Judgment against him which Bill was received and the said William Widecombe was notwithstanding bound in a 1000 pound to hear his Judgment in Chancery And the many restorations in blood and estate in 13 H. 4. and by King E. 4. and of many of our Kings may inform us how necessary and beneficial the pardons and mercy of our Kings and Princes have been to their People and Posterities The Commons accuse the Lord Stanley in sundry particulars for being confederate with the Duke of York and pray that he may be committed to prison To which the King answered he will be advised And Pardons before Indictments or prosecution have not been rejected for that they did anticipate any troubles which might afterwards happen For so was the Earl of Shrewsburys in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth for fear of being troubled by his ill-willers for a sudden raising of men without a warrant to suppress an insurrection of Rebels Lionell Cranfeild Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England being about the 18th year of King James accused by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for great offences and misdemeanours fined by the King in Parliament to be displaced pay 50000 l. and never more to sit in Parliament was in the 2d year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr upon his Submission to the King and payment of 20000 l. only pardoned of all Crimes Offences and Misdemeanors whatsoever any Sentence Act or Order of Parliament or the said Sentence to the contrary notwithstanding For whether the accusation be for Treason wherein the King is immediately and most especially concerned or for lesser Offences where the people may have some concernment but nothing near so much or equivalent to that of the Kings being the supreme Magistrate the King may certainly pardon and in many pardons as of Outlaries Felonies c. there have been conditions annexed Ita quod stent recto si quis versos eos loqui voluerit So the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr to prevent any dangerous questions touching the receiving of Fines and other Proceedings in Chancery sued out his Pardon The many Acts of Oblivion or general Pardon granted by many of our Kings and Princes to the great comfort and quiet of their Subjects but great diminution of the Crown Revenue did not make them guilty that afterwards protected themselves thereby from unjust and malicious Adversaries And where there is not such a clause it is always implyed by Law in particular mens cases and until the Soveraignty can be found by Law to be in the People neither the King or his people who by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are to be subordinate unto him are to be deprived of his haute ex basse Justice and are not to be locked up or restrained by any Petition Charge or Surmise which is not to be accompted infallible or a truth before it be proved to the King and his Council of Peers in Parliament and our Kings that gave the Lords of Mannors Powers of Soke and Sake Infangtheif and Outfangtheif in their Court Barons and sometimes as large as Fossarum Furcarum and the incident Power of Pardons and Remissions of Fine and Forfeitures which many do at this day without contradiction of their other Tenants enjoy should not be bereaved of as much liberty in their primitive and supream Estates as they gave them in their derivatives And though there have been Revocations of Patents during pleasure of Protections and Presentations and Revocations of Revocations quibusdam certis de causis yet never was there any Revocation of any Pardon 's granted where the King was not abused or deceived in the granting thereof For in Letters Patents for other matters Reversals were not to be accounted legal where they were not upon just causes proved upon Writs of Scire facias issuing out of the Chancery and one of the Articles for the deposing of King Richard 2d being that he revoked some of his Pardons The recepi's of Patents of Pardon or other things were ordained so to signifie the time when they were first brought to the Chancellour as to prevent controversies concerning priority or delays made use of in the Sealing of them to the detriment of those that first obtained them And the various forms in the drawing or passing of Pardons as long ago His testibus afterwards per manum of the Chancellour or per Regem alone per nostre Main vel per manum Regis or per Regem Concilium or authoritate Parliamenti per Regem Principem per Breve de privat sigillo or per immediate Warrant being never able to hinder the energy and true meaning thereof And need not certainly be pleaded in any subordinate Court of Justice without an occasion or to purchase their allowance who are not to controul such an Act of their Sovereign Doctor Manwaring in the fourth of sixth Year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr being grievously fined by both Houses of Parliament and made incapable of any place or Imployment was afterwards pardoned and made Bishop of St. Asaph with a non obstante of any Order or Act of Parliament So they that would have Attainders pass by Bill or Act of Parliament to make that to be Treason which by the Law and antient and reasonable Customs of England was never so before to be believed or adjudged or to Accumulate Trespasses and Misdemeanors to make that a Treason which singly could never be so either in truth Law right reason or Justice May be pleased to admit and take into their serious consideration that Arguments a posse ad esse or ab uno ad plures are neither usual or allowable and that such a way of proceeding will be as much against the Rules of Law Honour and Justice as of Equity and good
Prelats Counts Barons autres gentz du Parlement did in full Parliament as the Record it self will evidence Petition the King to restore the said Edmond Mortimer to his Blood and Estate which were to remain unto him after the death of his said Father to whom it was answered by the King in these words Et sur ce nostre Seigneur le Roi charge a les ditz Prelats Countes Barons en leur foies ligeance queux ils lui devoient de puis ce que le Piere nostre Seigneur le Roi que ore est estoit murdre per le dit Counte de la Marche person procurement a ce quil avoit mesmes comdevant sa mort que eux eant regarda le Roi en tiel cas lui consilassent ce quil devoit faire de reson audit Esmon filz le dit Counte les queux Prelats Countes Barons autres avys trete entre eux respondirent a nostre Seigneur le Roi de Common assent que en regard a fi horrible fait comme de murdre de terre leur Seigneur lige quen faist unques ne avoient devant en leur temps ne nes devant venir en le eyde de dieu quils ne scavoient uncore Juger ne conseiller ceque seroit affaire en tiel cas Et sur ce prierent a nostre Seigneur le Roi quils poierent ent aver avisement tanque au proche in Parlement la quelle priere le Roi ottroia sur ce prierent outre que nostre Siegneur le Roi feist au dit Esmon sa bone grace a quoi il respond quil lui voloit faire mes cella grace vendroit de lui mesmes Sir Thomas de Berkeley who Sir William Dugdale in his Book of the Baronage of England found and believes to have been a Baron being called to account by the King for the murder of his Father King Edward the Second to whose custody at his Castle of Barkeley he was committed not claiming his Peerage but pleading that he was at the same time sick almost to death at Bradely some miles distant and had committed the custody and care of the King unto Thomas de Gourney William de Ocle ad eum salvo custodiendi and was not guilty of the murder of the King or any ways assenting thereunto Et de illo posuit se super Patriam had a Jury of twelve Knights sworn and impannelled in Parliament who acquitted him thereof but finding that he had committed the custody of the King to the aforesaid Thomas de Gournay William de Ocle and that the King extitit murderatus a further day was given to the said Sir Thomas de Berkeley de audiendo Judicio suo in prox Parliamento and he was in the interim committed to the custody of Ralph de Nevil Steward of the Kings Houshold At which next Parliament Prierent les Prelatz Countes Barons a nostre Seigneur le Roi on the behalf of the said Sir Thomas de Berkeley that he would free him of his Baylor Mainprize whereupon the King charging the said Prelats Counts and Barons to give him their advice therein Le quel priere fust ottroia puis granta nostre Seigneur le Roi de rechef a leur requeste que le dit Mons'r Thomas ses Mainpernors fusseient delivres discharges de lure mainprise si estoit Jour donne a dit Thomas de estre en prochein Parlement which proved to be a clear Dismission for no more afterwards appeareth of that matter Neither after a fierce Impeachment in the said Parliament of 21 R. 2. against Thomas Arundel Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England of High Treason upon which he was by that injured Prince condemned and banished when as the Record saith Les dits Countz prierent au Roi ordenir tiel Jugement vers le dit Ercevesque come le cas demande le Roi sur ceo Recorda en le dit Parlement que le dit Ercevesque avoit este devant lui en presence de certeines Seigneurs confessor que en la use de la dite Commission il sey mesprise lui mist en la grace du Roi surquoi the Judgment was given against the said Archbishop that he should be banished and forfeit all his Lands Goods and Estate when in the first year of the Raign of the usurping King H. 4. that Archbishop not tarrying long in Exile the minds of the Commons became so setled on the prevailing side that there was so small or no opposition made by them against him as the Duke of York and Earl of Northumberland and others of the Blood of the said Archbishop of Canterbury did in Parliament pray the King that the said Archbishop might have his recovery against Roger Walden for sundry Wasts and Spoils done by him in the Lands of the said Archbishoprick which the King granted and thanked them for their motion The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England at the assembling of the Parliament taking his Text out of the Prophecy of Ezekiel Rexerit unus omnibus alledging the power that ought to be in Soveraign Kings and Princes whereby to govern and the Obedience in Subjects to obey and that all alienations of his Kingly Priviledges and Prerogatives were reassumable and to be Repealed by his Coronation-Oath Pour quoi le Roi ad fut assembler le Estatz de Parlement a cest faire pour estre enformer si ascun droitz de sa Corone soient sustretz ou amemuser a sin que par leur bon advis discretion tiel remedie puisse estre mis que le Roi puisse esteer en sa libertie ou poir Comme ses Progenitors ont este devant lui duissent de droit non obstante ascun ordinance au contraire ainsi le Roi as Tener Et les governera whereupon the Commons made their Protestation and prayed the King that it might be Inrolled that it was not their intente ou volunte to Impeach or Accuse any Person in that Parliament sans congie du Roi And thereupon the Chancellor by the Kings command likewise declared That Nostre Seigneur le Roi considerant coment plusieurs hautes offenses mesfaits on t estre faitz par le People de son Roialme en contre leur ligeance l' Estat nostre Seigneur le Roi la loie de la terre devant ces heures dont son People estiet en grant perill danger de leie leur corps biens voullant sur ce de sa royalle benignite monstre fair grace a son dit People a fyn quilz ayent le greindre corage volonte de bien faire de leure mieux porter devors le Roi entemps avenir si voet grante de faire ease quiete salvation de son dit People une generalle Pardon a ces liges forspries
upon their Soveraign at his Court at the three great Feasts of the year viz. Christmas Easter and Whitsontide as the excellently Learned Sir John Spelman hath informed us where the Bishops might give an accompt as in so many Parliaments which needed no Summons Prorogations or Adjournments for it was not to be doubted but that almost every man might understand when those Grand Feasts or Solemnities began or ended what had been done or was to be done in their several Diocesses and the Earls within their several Counties and Provinces of which Anciently they had a Subordinate Government and were to render accompts thereof When though not praecisely the very same in number as to the Festivals of the year wherein our Old King Alfred and many of our succeeding Kings and Princes used to be yearly attended by their Bishops Earls and Nobility whereby they might the better often understand the Circumvolutions and various Accidents in their Kingdom in every year might have some resemblance with that of the great Charles or Charlemain the hugely as Eginard who was his principal Secretary witnesseth powerful valiant and vertuous King of France which Kings Daughter Bertha our Saxon King Ethelbert is said to have married and at her Instance upon the preaching of Augustine the Monk to have converted himself and all his Subjects to the Christian Faith and Religion and celebrated with great Solemnity and Magnificence the great Festivals of Christmas and Easter which with the addition of another being the Feast of Pentiost was never omitted to be sumptuously kept by all our succeeding Kings until the latter end of the Raign of our K. H. the 3d. The French with great Solemnity holding their Parl. or great Coun at their 2 great Festivals of Christmas Easter Unless any other great Affairs caused them to summon those their great Councels at other times which coming after the Raign of 〈…〉 H. 3. to be 10 laid aside by reason of their many voyages into Normandy long lasting often Wars with France or Scotland troubles discords at home as Parliaments especially when after the 48th year of the Raign of King Henry the third the attendance upon Parliaments was much more troublesom to the Commons in Parliament after their admissions into that great assembly though they had their charges and expences in going tarrying and returning allowed them by King Edward the first which was first begun 〈◊〉 mon Montfort and his rebellious partners only in 〈◊〉 H. 3. When the King was their Prisoner in the 〈◊〉 two Knights of the Shire for the County of York wh 〈…〉 those that were afterwards permitted to be present by 〈◊〉 Edward 1. in the 22 year of his Raign and in the Raign of our succeeding Kings did esteem it to be a damage to to them in their other employments affairs and loss of time better becoming their capacities until the impressions and effassinations of Pride Fear Flattery Ambition and Self-Interest had within a small time after their aforesaid admission into Parliament incited or inticed them to be packt by Roger Mortimer Earl of March in the Raign of King E. 2. to Grant Aids to help to advance his wicked and accursed purposes as is expressed in one of the Articles and Charges against the said Earl in the 4th year of the Raign of King E. 3. or to set up for a Trade or Factory for themselves or their Friends or such as they could purchase as a lamentable experience hath of late years told us And we find no such Doings or Factorings before that or 49. of King Henry the 3d. For King Athelstone held a Parliament at Exeter and the succeeding Saxon and Danish Kings Summoned and held their Parliaments at several places and Dissolved and Met again as their occasions and the more weighty and extraordinary Affairs of the Kingdom required The Norman Conquerour and William Rufus and Henry the 1. other than at their aforesaid Grand Festivals did neither restrain themselves to certain times or places either as to the Summoning Continuing Proroguing or Adjourning of their more than common or ordinary business which requiring short Councels and an hasty Prosecution or putting into Actions what their deliberate Advices had resolved upon could necessarily produce no long continuances but were not seldom without Prorogations or Adjournments as Mr. Pryn and all our Ancient and Contemporary Writers and Historians have plentifully testified In the 9th year of the Raign of King Henry the 2d A Parliament was called at Westminster where by reason of the frowardness of the Archbishop Becket and his Suffragan Bishops the King was displeased and the Parliament ended In the 20th year of the Raign of that King he called a general Assembly of the Bishops and Nobility at Clarendon where John of Oxford the Kings Clerk was President of that Councel and a charge was given for the King that they should call to memory the Laws Ecclesiastical of his Grandfather King Henry the 1st and to reduce them to writing which was done the Archbishop and Bishops putting their Seals thereunto and taking much against the Arch-bishops will their Oaths to observe them In the 33th year of his Raign a Councel of Bishops Abbots Earls Barons both of the Clergy and Laity was holden at Gaynington sub Elemosinae titulo vitium rapacitatis included therein saith Walsingham requiring Aid towards the Wars of Jerusalem the Kings of England and France resolving to go thither in Person the King of England taking upon him and wearing the white Cross. A Parliament was called at Nottingham by King Richard the first after his return from his Captivity which continued but four days a Parliament in 7. Johannis a great Councel or Parliament was holden at London and Adjourned to Reading whither the King not coming at the day appointed it was three days after Adjourned to Wallingford In the Raign of King Henry the 3d. His Great Councels or Parliaments were many times Prorogued or Adjourned in whose Raign the Popes Nuncio Summoning the Praelates of England to give an Aid to the Pope they excused themselves and alledged that the King was sick and the Arch-bishops and Bishops were absent and that sine iis respondere non possunt nec debent whereupon the Nuncio endeavouring to adjourn that Convocation they refused to come again after Summons without the Kings License in 6 H. 3. a Parliament 7. a Parliament in 8. a 3. Anno 10. a 4th Anno 11. a 5th a Parliament in 16. another in 17. Anno 19. a Parliament Anno 21. a Parliament Anno 22. a Parliament Anno 25. a Parliament Anno 28. 2 Parliaments Anno 35. a Parliament 36. a Parliament 37. a Parliament in 38. another being called in Easter Term which by reason of the absence of some Lords who pretended they were not Summoned according to Magna Charta was Prorogued to Michaelmas following Anno 42. another Parliament at London
Durham Earls of Northampton Arundel Warwick Oxford Suffolk and Hugh le Despenser Lord of Glamorgan to the whole so misnamed Estate of Parliament when the King could not be one of them not at all being present purporting that whereas the King at his Arrival at Hoges in Normandy had made his Eldest Son the Prince of Wales Knight he ought to have of the Realm forty Shillings for every Knights Fee which they all granted and took Order for the speedy levying thereof 25 E. 3. Sir John Matravers pardon was confirmed by the whole missettled Estates whereof the King could not be accompted any of them for he granted the pardon 28 E. 3. Richard Earl of Arundel by Petition to the King praying to have the Attainder of Edmond Earl of Arundel his Father reversed and himself restored to his Lands and Possessions upon the view of the Record and and the said Richard Earl of Arundels Allegation that his Father was wrongfully put to death and was never heard the whole Estates saith that ill Translator adjudged he was wrongfully put to Death and Restored the said Earl to the benefit of the Law which none could do but the King who was petitioned and having the sole interest in the forfeiture was none of those which were wrongfully called the whole Estates 37 E. 3. Where it is said that at the end of the Parliament the Chancellor in the presence of the King shewed that the King meant to execute the Statute of Apparel and therefore charged every State to further the same the King could not be understood to charge himself After which he demanded of the whole Estates so as before mistaken whether they would have such things as they agreed on to be by way of Ordinance or of Statute they answered by way of Ordinance for that they being to take benefit thereby might amend the same at their pleasure And so the King having given thanks to all the as aforesaid miscloped Estates for their pains taken licensed them to depart which should be enough to demonstrate that the Granter and Grantees were not alone or conjoynt and that the King giving thanks to the Estates did not give it to himself 42 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury on the Kings behalf gave thanks to the whole in the like manner mis-termed Estate for their Aids and Subsidies granted unto the King wherein assuredly the Archbishop of Canterbury did not understand the King to be any part of the whole Estate which the King gave thanks unto The Commons by their Speaker desiring a full declaration of the Kings necessity require him to have consideration of the Commons poor Estate The King declared to the Commons that it was as necessary to provide for the safety of the Kings Estate as for the Common-wealth Anno 6. Regis Richardi 2. after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named Commandment was given that all persons and Estates which imported no more being rightly understood than conditions or sorts of men miscalled as aforesaid should the next day have the cause of summoning the Parliament declared 11 R. 2. The Parliament was said to have been adjourned by the common Assent of the whole Estates the first time of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being called the Estates without or with the Commons joyned with them no such names or words appellations or Titles were either known or in use nor any such words or Titles as Estates being to be found in the Originals or Parliament Rolls before Anno 11 R. 2. for no more appeareth in the Original than in and under these expressions viz. Et mesme le vendredi auxint a cause ce fest solempnite de pasch estoit a progeno ii coveient le Roi les Seigneurs tautx autres entendre a devotion le Parlement coe assent le toutz Estats le Parlement estoit continez del dit vendredi tanque Lindy lendemain de la equinziesme de Pasch adonquez prochem ensuent commandez per le Roy a toutz les Seigneurs Communs du dit Parlement Quils seroient a Westminster le dimengo en la dite quinzieme de pascha a plustaid sur ceo noevelles briefs furent â—aiots a toutz les Seigneurs somons au dit parlement de yestre a la dite quinzieme sur certaine peine a limiter per les Seiguro qui seroient presents en dit Parlement a la quinzieme avant dite le quel Limdy le dit Parlement fust recommence tenat son cours selont la request des Communs grant de nostre Seigur le Roi avant ditz And then but the inconsiderate hasty new created word of the Clerks in a distracted time when the great Ministers of State in two contrary Factions to the ruin of the King and many of themselves as it afterwards sadly happened were quarrelling with each other and all the Bishops so affrighted as they were enforced to make their Protestation against any proceedings to be made in that so disturbed a Parliament In Anno 21. R. 2. The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England taking his Theme or Text out of Ezechiel Rex unius omnibus erat proved by many Authors that by any other means than by one sole King no Realm could be well governed For which cause the King had assembled the Estates in Parliament to be informed of the rights of his Crown withheld which Oration afterwards was to the same effect seconded by Sir John Bussey Knight Speaker of the House of Commons King Richard the second being as a Prisoner in the Tower of London made the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Hereford his Procurators to publish his Rem 〈…〉 of the Kingdom to the whole Estates Which whether at at that time distinguished or divided into three doth not appear viz. into Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons could not comprehend the King who was not to be present but gave the direction and authority to his said Procurators and could never have been understood to have been present or one of them himself or to have made such a prosecution against or for himself After the claim made unto the Crown of England in Parliament by Henry Duke of Lancaster and a consultation had amongst the Lords and Estates not expressing that the Commons were a 3d. or any part thereof it being then altogether improbable that King Richard the 2d or any other representing for him was there present and to make one of the said pretended Estates as much out of the reach of probability that King Richard himself was one or a Person then acting against himself the Duke of Lancaster himself then affirming that the Kingdom was vacant And when the Usurping King Henry the 4th openly gave thanks to the whole Estates wherein is plainly evidenced that himself neither was or could be understood to be then or at any other time one of the said Estates The first day of the Parliament the Bishop of London
Grammar or Construction of Reason or Sense will ever be able to comprehend the King The 17th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3 Estates which is surely to be understood to consist of other Persons separately and distinct from the King Prorogued the Parliament until the 20th day of January then next ensuing at Westminster and upon the 28th day of April was likewise Prorogued to the 5th day of May next following The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said that the Kings pleasure was that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not signifie that the King himself was one of those Estates to whom he granted that favour The 25th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates by the Kings Commandment giving thanks to the 3. Estates the King being then by the Chancellor or any other Master of Reason or Common Sense not understood to be any one of the 3. Estates to whom the thanks were given dissolved the Parliament An Act of Parliament was made wherein was declared that King Edward the 4th was the undoubted King of England from the 4th day of March last before and that all the Estates yielded themselves obeysant Subjects unto him and his Heirs for ever the late never to be maintained Doctrine of the pretended co-ordination of the House of Commons in Parliament as Subjects with their Soveraign in Parliament and the Government being not than that established or ever to be evidenced otherwise then God hath ordained a co-ordination betwixt the King and his Subjects which is that the People as Subjects should obey their King and the King as their Soveraign Protect Rule and Govern them and affirmed the Raign of King Henry the 4th to be an Intrusion and only Usurpation The Chancellor the King sitting in his Royal State in the presence of the Lords and Commons made an Eloquent Oration wherein he declared the 3. Estates to comprehend the Governance of the Land the preheminence whereof was in the Bishops the second to the Lords Temporal which the learned and men of that Age and other Chancellors understood to be no other than two separate and distinct Estates the one Temporal and the other Spiritual and the King to be Superiour The Bishop of London Chancellor of England in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates the King being none of them but Superior over them all Prorogued the Parliament to the 6th of June ensuing For where the Abridger or Mr. Pryn possessing himself to be the Rectifier or Corrector amongst his other faults and mistakings in his Epitomizings made it to be in the Parliament Rolls of 6 Edwardi 3. that many failing to come to the Parliament upon the Summons of the King did put a charge upon the whole Estate by a reassembly he will find neither words or matter for it All that appears of the Title of Estates in the Parliament and Statute Rolls of that year is no more than the Prelats grants gentz du Commune or les Prelats Counts Barons gentz des Countez gentz de la Commune No whole Estate mentioned in the Parliament Roll all that is said n. 42. is no more than a les requests des grantz come de ceuâ— de la Commune de le Clergie That which is translated the Estate of the King is no more in the Parliament Roll n. 5. than les beseignes nostre seigneur le Roy de son Royame Where the Abridger saith the Parliament was to treat and advise touching the Estate de nostre Seigneur le Roy le Governement le salnette de sa terre d' Angleterre de son people relevation de lour Estate there is no other mention of Estates than the Prelatz grantz Commons de son roiame and charged les Chinalers des Countes and Commons to assemble in the Chamber de Pinct A quel Jour vindrent les Chivalers des Counties autres Commons and gave their advice in a Petition in the form ensuant a tres excellent or tres honorable Seigneur les gentz de vostre Commun soy recommandent a vous obeysantment en merciant se avant come leur petitesse powre suffice de tant tendrement pervez a quer maintenir la pees a la quiete de vostre people c. Et en maintenance des autres Leyes as autres Parliaments devant ces heures grantees vostre poure Commons sil vous plaist sa gree semble a la dite Commune totes autres choses poent suffisantement estre rewelez Terminez en Bank le Roy Commune Bank devant Justices as Assises prendre nisi les delayes nient covenable soient aggregez oustez ore a ce Parliament per estatut En. Ro. Parl. 18. E. 3. Where the King desired the names of the absent Lords that he might punish them there is no mention of the Clergy or Commons or of any Estates and the King afterwards desiring their advice touching his Treaty with France charged the Prelats Countz Barons et Communs to give their advice therein Which they all did without naming themselves or being stiled Estates The Kings Letters of Credence sent out of France to his Parliament in England were directed a toutes Erchevesquis evesques Abbes Priours Counts Barons toutz autres foialx le Roy vendront au dit Parlement troter sar les beseignes le Roy whereupon he demanded an Aid of the said Prelats grantz Communs And the Lords without the Title of Estates having granted it the Chivalers des Counties Citizens Burges des Cities Burghs Prioront de avoir avisement entre eux and in Answer thereunto delivered a Petition unto the King for redress of Grievances not by the name of the Estates but a nostre Seigneur le Roy a son conseil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentz de la Communes de sa terre ausi bien des 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Counties Where it was supposed that a Pardon was granted and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sir John Matrevers of all his Lands by the whole Estates there appeareth no more in the 〈…〉 ment Roâ—â— than that he Petitioned A nostre Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil wherein he recited that Restitution had been granted de poiar royal nostre Seigneur le Roy par bor accord 〈◊〉 Common assent des Prelatz Co 〈…〉 es Barons de son Roialme par plusieurs causes appearing in the 〈…〉 ings Charter of Pardon and prayed quil p 〈…〉 st a nostre dit Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil par la boâ—dance de sa Noble Seignorie granter la restitution scisdite pâ—usse estre ore renovelle en cest Parlement quelle Petition lue fut respondue
endorse par les Seigneurs autres grantz du Parlement quil semble an conscil la Chartre doit estre renovelle entre en roule du Parlement est de Record sil plest au Roy pour ceo mesme cesse Petition fust pius monstre au Roy il ad ottroie aussint est ottroio per la Commune soit la dite Chanre renovelle per accord de tut le Parlement entre en roule de meisme le Parlement en le meliour mannere pourra estre pour bone gremdre assurance del estat le dit Johan in and by which the King repealing the Judgment given against him in Parliament Judicio predicto non obstante saith only nos ad requisitionem praedicti Johannis pro majori securitate status ipsius Johannis de assensu praelatorum ducum Comitum Baronum Comitatis Regni nostri Angliae in praesenti Parliamento nostro existentium restitutionem praedictam ratisicamus c. The Archbishop of Canterbury and those many Suffragan Bishops and Clergy of his Province not at that time deeming themselves to be an Estate Soveraign or Governing either in or out of Parliaments when in that Parliament they Petitioned unto him in this manner a nostre Seigneur le Roy supplient ses humbles Chapelleius Symon par divine soefrance Erchevesque de Canterbury ses frereres Evesques de sa Province par eux tote le Clergie quil pleise a nostre dit Seigneur le Roy pour le reverence de dieu et de Sainte Eglise et a sa benignite a eux granter et confirme totes les liberties et privileges et droits grantez et donez par lui et ses nobles progenitors avant ses heires a sainte Eglise par leur Chartres Estatuts et Ordinances c. Where it was in the Translation mistakenly said that the King gave thanks to the whole Estate and licensed them to depart The Record is only et si faict mercia le Roy as Prelatz grantz et Communs de leur venir et leur bone port en Parlement et leur done congie a departir et issint finist le Parlement Anno 42. E. 3. When the English Abridgment or Translation saith that the Archbishop of Canterbury on the 〈…〉 ings behalf gave thanks to the whole Estate for their Aids and Subsidies The original in the Parliament Roll is no more than et le Samedy suant les Communs esteanuts en la dite chambre Blanche fueront charges quils faissent leur Petitions et quilles baillerent le meskerdy sumant Et le Lundy Suant les Prelatz grantz en mesme la Chambre esteant fut monstrez a eux par lerchevesque coment le Roy leur mercie de grant Cuer de plusieurs aides quils lui avoeint faitz et meement des darreine aide quils lui facerent en le darrein Parlement des Subsides et Customs a lui grants de Leynes Quiers et Peaux lanuz pour un temps et ce fut il que le grant fust chargrant a son people nient moins per vint an demora au profit ou encres de lui per cause des grant chargez et payements faits et sustemis â—y bien a Caleis Guines Pontiff et ses autres terres de la come d' Irland et la marche de escoce que leur plat par tant avoir consideration a son Estat et honeur eta sgrantz charges que lui avoient faire et sustenue deners le marche d' Escoce pour la salvation dicelle pour cause qui semble plus la guerre qui pees par les respons des Escetz Sur que les choses les Prelatz et grantz en deliberation plein ove les Communs de une accord granterent a nostre Seigneur le Roy en aide de son et honeur somner et gardez et les grants custages que lui coment faire et mettre par diverse voies les Subsides et Customs de laynes c. par deux Aus prochein ensuant qui passe hors du dit roialme After which followed the Petitions des Commons without any Title of Estate The Chancellor on the Kings behalf commanded the Prelats Seigneurs and Commons there being to continue there until le besoignes del Roy were finished and not to depart without License and the Commons do in their Petitions stile themselves no otherwise than voz pouvrez et liges Commons Item prient la Clergie And the Commons made their Declaration in these and no other words a nostre Seigneur le Roy et a son conscilpar la Commune d' Angleterre Item prie le Commune at coine ils se sentent de jour en autres our agenses estre grievez par pluralitez des guerre as constage importables et plese nostre Seigneur le Roy et son sage conseil ordonne ent remede qur tieuxchargez autre porter la Commune ne purra en nul manere susteiner Unto which the King answered le Roy le faâ—â—e volunters ses honeurs et Estat â—ondâ—z salvez all which put together do not declare the Commons to be a third Estate and no ways agreeth with the Abridgers Translation that the Commons by their Speaker requiring the King to have consideration of their poor Estate He answered that it was necessary to provide as well for the safety of his own Estate as for the Common-wealth Where the Abridger or Corrector Translates after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named commandment was given that all Persons and Estates should return the next day to hear the cause of Summoning the Parliament declared The original saith no more than Touz ensemblez en my des Prelats et Seigneurs avant duz appellez eux Chancellor Terminer Seneschall Chamberlaine et les Sergeantz le Roy quat il beseignera et tiendrout lour place â—n la Chambre Mercalfe Et le Roy vous commande et vour retornez le de maine per temps pur avoir declaration en place especial manere sur les causes des le somonce avant dite et en oultre le Roy commande a touz et avoient la dite somonce quils vieguent de jour en autre audit Parlement et quils ne se absentent mye en de protentdycell sans especial congie de lui sur peril q' appont The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England at the assembling of the Parliament taking his Text out of the Prophecy of Ezekiel Rex erit unus omnibus alledging the Power that ought to be in Soveraign Kings and Princes whereby to Govern and the Obedience in Subjects to Obey and that all alienations of his Kingly Priviledges and Prerogatives were reassumable and to be repealed by his Coronation Oath pour quoi le Roy ad fat assembler de Estatz de Parlement a cest faire pour estre enformez si ascun droitz de sa
upon occasion of War binos ornatos atque instructos Equites when by converting all the Tenures in Capite that of the Peers and Grand Serjeants excepted into Socage they have given the King a greater Revenue than they intended far exceeding the Revenue of the tenures in Capite the honour of the King and safety of himself and the people excepted And that in those early times none were imployed in Commissions or Places of trust by our Kings and their Laws but Knights holding by Tenure in Capite immediately or mediately that King Henry the 2d in some of his Laws declared none to be liberi Homines but those that were Military and that if the Socage men or Tenants of all the Possessors of Lands and Tenements now in England and Ireland must be in no better a capacity than as Villani Servi Bordarii Cotarii and Tenants at will under domineering Landlords and be shut out of the blessings of our Magna Carta and Carta de Foresta and left as the people were in the Raign of William the Conqueror William Rufus and Henry the first to the dire punishments cases of Treason and Felony only excepted of plucking out of Eyes and cutting off the Genitals Legs or Noses of the Offenders And it might be a meet question among the Heralds upon what foundation more than 1000 Knights Baronets do now stand seeing that Ireland is turnd into a Socage Tenure when the first original of them was to find in Capite so many men at Arms in the Kings Service And having with the Prophet Jeremy called cried out and advised many of my friends stare super vias antiquds inquirere veritatem I lament and bewail that the Monarchy of England that for more than 1600 years last past hath been so great glorious amongst her Neighbour Nations and hath in this our last Century of years been so unhappy ever since the beginning of the Raign of King John when Hubert Archbishop of Canterbury had in his Oration at the Coronation of that infortunate King declared to the Nobility and people there assembled that he was created King by the Election of the people and being reprehended and blamed for it by some of the Nobility was at that Instant or before that Assembly forced to excuse that inadvised Speech as well as he could by saying he had so done it as knowing his force nature it might induce him to govern the more orderly although he might have known that the Kingdom of England was hereditary and that King Richard the first had by his last Will and Testament devised it unto him with all other his Dominions and caused the Nobility there present to swear fealty unto him Which poyson so thrown into our Body Politick and by degrees creeping into it may well be believed to have so fixed the venom thereof as it hath from age to age been the original Cause and fomenter of the very many mischiefs and discords some Intervals of quiet intervening that have until the late long Parliament Rebellion and the Murder of King Charles the first and ever since unto this very day by those unhappy discords hapned in our Parliaments General Consiliums Colloquiums or conferences betwixt our Kings and Princes and a select number of his Subjects for mutual Aids in a general and reciprocal concernment the best and most happy constitution that ever was or could be practised in any Kingdom if it could have escaped that Series malorum Concatenation of discords that have of late been too often their Concomitants either by some aversions to Loyalty or by the Grand mistakes in the practise thereof and by the Common people making the Parliaments of later times to be as their King and he that is and should be their King little more than an extraordinary fellow Subject A Right observation and accompt whereof may from one unto the other lead us to the late blessed Martyrs fatal Murther and that Pestiferous Doctrine that did over much intice the Vulgus and ignorant part of the people that there is and ought to be an Inhaerent Right of Soveraignty in the people it being not unuseful for after ages to know and understand the same with the beginnings and progress thereof which for ought appears had its first original from Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury who had in the troublesome Raign of King Henry the second and at the time of the making the Assise and Constitutions at Clarendon such a peevish ambition and unwarrantable loftiness of Spirit as after the King had in the presence of the said Archbishop and all the Bishops Earls and Barons of England received their Recognitions and promises to perform and obey them they were sent unto the Pope to have his approbation who returned them to some with an hoc damnavit toleravit as unto others And Stephen Langton Archbishop of Canterbury promoted by the Pope against the will of King John discovering as a singular rarity the Charter of the liberties granted by King Henry the first did so please some discontented Barons as they swore upon the Altar they would live and dye in the obtaining those beneficial Laws and Liberties begot a Spirit of unquietness in them which could not be allayed until the said Avitae consuetudines recognized and all ratified by King Henry the second his his Grandson by the constitions â—at â—arendon which begetting some little quiet broke out again in a worse manner upon his Son King John in the constraint and unkingly force put upon him at Running Mede where those tumultuous Barons w 〈…〉 a great Army in battel Array the better to attain their said Charter of liberties had promised to pay debts but never intended it And were so faithless and unwilling to be his Subjects as what they by force extorted from that oppressed Prince could never truly and properly merit the name or title of a Charter although he himself had been constrained so to call it and the King of France in his Exception to his award made as aforesaid many years after had so stiled it yet those undutiful doings of theirs were disliked by divers of the Bishops that had been the Popes and those Rebellious Barons Favourites who it seems did so little intend what they ought to do and undertook as some of the Bishops could not deny to certify as followeth Omnibus Episc. sidelibus Stephanus De igra Cant. Archiep. Primas Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Card. Henr. Dublin Archieq Will. London Petrus Winton Joscelin Bathon Glaston Hugo Lincoln Walter Wigorn. Will. Coventr Richardus Cicestr Magister pond Domini papae Subdiaconus familiaris Salutem Noverit Universitas vestra quod quando facta fuit pax inter donum Regem Johannem Barones Angliae de discordia inter eas orta lidem Barones nobis presentibus audientibus promiserunt dom Regi quod quamcunque securitatem haberi vellet ab iis pace illa observanda ipsi
respectively which had their Original contradistinct Powers and Customs to judge and determine such Errours and Offences in Words or Actions that shall be committed by any of their Members in the handling or debating any matter depending which was contradicted by Queen Elizabeth when she charged the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament not to intermeddle in matters of Church or State or receive any Bills of that nature and severely punished some Members that attempted to do otherwise Yet they complained in their so strange a claim of those their never to be found Priviledges that they were to their great grievance broken by the Kings endeavouring to put a Salvo Jury to their Bill or Act of Parliament forbiding the pressing of Souldiers at that instant when there was so great an occasion for the Wars in Ireland and went much higher than the great Earls the Constable and Earl Marshal of England and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester did when in a Parliament of King Edward the first they denyed him his accustomed Salvo Jure where he or his Privy Councel or Councel at Law adjudged it necessary And therefore humbly intreated his Majesty by his Royal Power and Authority whereof it may 〈◊〉 they would leave him as little as possibly they couldâ— to protect them in those and all other their Priviledges of Parliament And for the time to come would not interrupt the same and that they may not suffer in his Majesties favour when he should be so greatly obliged unto his Subjects as to restore again to his knowledge and Judgment after the end of such a Parliament never before known in England or any other Nation of the Christian World such a kind of Priviledge neither being possible to be found or heard of on Earth or amongst the Antipodes or in the discovery which Gonzagua's Geese made of the Countrey of the Moon where the Servants are reported to govern the Masters and the Children their Parents And that his Majesty would be pleased to nominate those that have been his Advisers that they may receive such condign Judgment as may appertain unto Justice And this his most faithful Councel shall advise and desire as that which will not only be a comfort to themselves but of great advantage to his Majesty by procuring such a confidence between him and his People as may be a Foundation of honour safety and happiness to his Person and Throne And probably had never adventured to fly so high a pitch if some of the Lords and Commons in Parliament had not upon the Scotch petitioning Rebellion and entring into England borrowed 150000 l. upon their several personal securities to pay their quarters whilst they were here which Parliament Manacles of their King would have amounted to more than the aforesaid Sir Edward Cokes figment of a modus tenendi Parliamentum used as he beleived in Edward the Confessors time And in the absence of Parliaments might have the Name and Title of King until they should make an occasion to Print a Remonstrance against him or arraign him And as a Prologue to their intended Remonstrance the next day they seeming not a little to congratulate his safe coming from Scotland did beseech him to give more Life and Power to the faithful Councel of his Parliament and being necessitated to make a Declaration of their grievances and the corruption of some of his Bishops especially such as are in a near trust and employment about him and were divers of them of his Privy Councel and about the Prince his Son and have thereby a dangerous operation in his Councel and Government in this time of a preparation for War betwixt his Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland which was then but procured and fomented by confederacy Insurrection of the Papists and Bloody Affairs in Ireland for prevention whereof they have ingaged themselves and their Estates in the sum of 150000 l. Sterling or thereabouts for the necessary supply of his Majesty in his dangerous Affairs therefore they prayed 1. That he would concur with the desires of his Parliament for the depriving the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament which was the one half of that grand Fundamental of the Laws and Government of England in the House of Peers in Parliament and abridge their immoderate power usurped over the Clergy to the hazard and prejudice of the Laws Liberty and Religion of his Subjects and the taking away oppression in Church Government and Discipline punishing such Loyal Subjects as join together in Fundamental Truths against the Papists and by the oppressions of unnecessary Ceremonies 2. Remove from his Councel all the promoters thereof and to imploy such persons in his great Affairs and trust as his Parliament may conside in which was to govern him both in times of Parliament and without when he hath at his Coronation taken his Oath to govern according to his Laws not any of the Peoples 3 That he would not alienate any of the forfeited Irish Lands which begot good bargains for some of the ungodly contrivers when they after purchased their Rebel perjured Soldiers arrears for xvj d. per pound Which being fulfilled they his most great and faithful Councel upon these conditions â—â—all by the blessing of God as they would have it cheerfully undergo the expence of the War and apply themselves to such other means and Councels as shall support him and make him glorious both at home and abroad In order whereunto the contrary way they did the 15th day of December 1641. notwithstanding his earnest request unto them print and publish it wherein besides some of their own or their instigators unquiet Spirits ambitious or evil designs to misuse and Govern their Soveraign plainly appearing may be seen and the many greivances of their own making in the oppressing of each other and undertaking to determine of matters and Mysteries of State and the Arcana's and necessities of State of which they could not possibly without necessary Praecognita's be competent Judgâ—s they made a great addition to that prologue to their subsequent Rebellion and abominable consequence of the murder of that excellently pious Prince insomuch is it may be over and over again a wonder to be ranked amongst the greatest in what untrodden or dark inaccessible Caverns of the Earth these unknown and never accustomed Priviledges of the Parliaments of England could lurk or lye hidden when in all the Conservatorships of liberties devised at Running Mede forced upon King John the â—ovisions made at Oxford in the Raign of King Henry the 3d. neither any thing in the Raigns of King Edward the 2d 3. 4. and Richard 2d Henry 4 5 6. Richard the 3d the Usurper Henry the 7th King Henry 8. E. 6. Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and and King James had never such shackles desired or claimed to be put upon any of them unto which those Parliament Remonstrants were the more incouraged by that oppressed Princes having his three Kingdoms
the provisions Derogatory to Kingly Government made at Oxford in the Raign of King Henry the third and constrained of King Edward the second And might have happened into a question unanswerable what mischief our Magna Charta or Charta de Foresta had done unto our Nation or upon what other cause or reason those excellent Laws were granted by our King Henry the 3d and so dearly beloved as they thought themselves utterly undone if they had not with the 15th part of their Moveables obtained them eisdem modo forma without any substraction or addition the same which have been continued confirmed by their several Kings and Princes above thirty times and was such a caution in one of their Parliaments as the Bishops in their several Diocesses were impowered to Anathematize all the Infringers thereof and King Henry the 3d in that direful Procession was constrained to walk through Westminster-Hall the Abby-Church of Westminster with all the Bishops Earls Barons and Nobility of England and Wales holding burning Tapers in their hands the King only refusing after the reading of the aforesaid Magna Charta's freely granted by that King and likewise that enforced upon King John his Father and throwing down their Tapers wishing that the Souls of the Infringers thereof might so burn and fry in Hells everlasting fire being such a cursed obligation as was never enforced upon any King or Prince by their people in any Nation of the World and might if Right had been done unto that distressed King have been deeply censured in foro Animae gratitudinis And if those Magna Charta's have been such a darling of the people as they seemed to value it as their Blood and Estates how could they fall so much out of their love as they would do all that they could to be rid of them as if they had been Circe's Swine tearing them in peices when they are for the most part a compleat System or figure of our Antient Monarch Feudal Laws and every Chapter therein loudly proclaim them to be no otherwise And what have we got in Recompence of the overturning of our beneficial and ever to be praised Feudal Laws but the forfeitures of all our Lands and Estates if God and the King should be extream and mark what is done amiss Or can any man of Learning Reason or Understanding or any but one that is or hath been mad without Lucid Intervals believe that St. Edward the Confessors Laws have not deduced their Original for the most part if not all from the Feudal Laws when by the solemnest and greatest Jury of the World impannelled by King William the Conqueror they appeared sine dolo malo ingenio to be no other than our Feudal Laws by which the Soveraignty did appear to be in the King not the People by which our Kingdom had been Governed and did bear as near a resemblance thereunto as one Hen Egg doth or can unto another in shape or figure And what strange kind of Imaginary Soveraignty radically or otherwise at any time was believed to reside in the people when the Pope and his Legate Pandulphus made our affrighted King John to do homage by laying down his Crown and Scepter at the feet of his Legate multum dolente Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi saith Matthew Paris nor was the Tribute paid or thought fit to be paid thereupon for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland though demanded of King Henry the third his Son or Edward the first his Grandson but by all our Kings and Princes neglected it being an allowed Maxime in our Law that Angliae Rex nunquam moritur which could not be if all the People had been understood to have been Soveraigns Or can any man believe that our English Ancestors did not think St. Edward the Confessors said Laws to be tantum sacrae when they hid them under his Shrine in the Church of Westminster-Abby and afterwards precibus fletibus obtained of him to be Governed by them Which William the Conqueror would not have granted until he had by the aforesaid grand Jury examined and compared them per sapientes viros in Lege eruditos and the People of England and Wales have ever since being about 619 years never believed their Lives Estates and Posterities to be in any kind of safety if the Conqueror and all the succeeding Kings and Princes did not at their several Coronations take their Oaths to observe most especially St. Edward the Confessors Laws which they never failed to do and hath been so taken both by his late Majesty and this our present King And it would be a strange forgetfulness of Duty and our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy upon which and no other our Feudal Laws are built to forget them and the care of our Souls which the Britaignes in Armorica in France could never do since the dread and fear of the cruel Invasion of the Scots and Picts making them forsake their Native Countrey of England and retire where they now are where they yet retain their Antient Feudal Customs used in England which is that Ligeance est ordinaire en tous fiefs la quelle de sa nature emporta obeyssance du vassal foy homage autre les droits devoirs contenus en l'infeodation anciens advouz tenures L'homage lige ce fera en ceste forme scavoir que le vassal l' Espee Esperons ostez teste nue ayant les mains entre celles de son Seigneur se enclynant dira telles paroles mon Seigneur Je deviens vostre home Lige pour telles choses lesquelles Je releve tien de vous ligement en tiel vostre fief Seigneurie lesquelles choses me sont advenues par tels moyens a cause de quoi Je vous doy la foy homage lige vous promittes par ma foy serment vous estre Loyal feable porter l' honneur obeysance envers vous me gouverner aynsi que noble homage de foy lige doit faire envers son Seigneur Le Seigneur respondra come sensuit vous devenus mon home pour rayson de tales choses par vous dites de choses en tel me promittant que vous me serra feal obeysant home vassal si que vostre fief le requier le Subject respondra Je le promets ainsi lors le Seigneur dira Je vous y recen sauf mon droit de l' autrui Insomuch as when all the aforesaid concurrences of the Laws of God and Man Records and Annals Truth and rectified Reason shall be united and laid together he must be an ill Subject and a very great INfidel that cannot with great assurance believe that the Blessed Martyr King Charles the first and his late Royal Majesty and our now Gracious Soveraign have been much wronged in their Regal Rights Revenue and Authority and had as their Blessed Father been made likewise Martyrs if