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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29997	The Duke of Buckingham's speech, spoken in the House of Lords, Feb. 15th, 1676, proving that the Parliament is dissolved; Speech spoken in the House of Lords, Feb. 15th, 1676, proving that the Parliament is dissolved	Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 1628-1687.	1677 (1677)	Wing B5333; ESTC R19978	8,183	16

it most certainly limits it to be within a year Well then but it is said again If that Prorogation be null and void then things are just as they were before and therefore the Parliament is still in being My Lords I confess there would be some weight in this but for one thing which is that not one word of it is true for if when the King had Prorogued us we had taken no notice of the Prorogation but had gon on like a Parliament and had Adjourn'd our selves De die in diem then I confess things had been just as they were before But since upon the Prorogation we went away and took no care our selves for our Meeting again if we cannot meet and Act by virtue of that Prorogation there is an impossibility of our meeting and acting any other way One may as properly say that a man who is kill'd by Assault is still alive because he was killed Unlawfully as that the Parliament is still alive because the Prorogation was Unlawful The next Argument that those are reduc'd to who would maintain this to be yet a Parliament is that the Parliament is Prorogued Sine die and therefore the King may Call them again by a Proclamation In the first part of this Proposition I shall not only agree with them but also do them the favour to prove that it is so in the eye of the Law which I never heard they have yet done For the Statutes say That a Parliament shall be holden once vvithin a year and the Prorogation having put them off till a day without the year and consequently excepted against by the Law that day in the eye of the Law is no day at all that is Sine die and the Prorogation might as well have put them off till so many months after Dooms-day and then I think no body would have doubted but that it had been a very sufficient Dissolution Besides My Lords I shall desire your Lordships to take notice that in former times the usual way of Dissolving Parliaments was to Dismiss them Sine die For the King when he Dissolved them used to say no more but that he desired them to go home till he sent for them again which is a Dismission Sine die Now if there were forty ways of Dissolving Parliaments if I can prove this Parliament has been Dissolved by any one of them I suppose there is no great need of the other thirty nine Another thing which they much insist upon is that they have found out a President in Queen Elizabeth's time when a Parliament was once Prorogued three days beyond a year In which I cannot chuse but observe That it is a very great confirmation of the Value and Esteem all people ever had of the forementioned Acts of Edvvard the Third since from that time to this there can but one President be found for the Proroguing a Parliament above a year and that was but for three days neither Besides my Lords This President is of a very Odd kind of nature For it was in the time of a very great Plague when every Body of a suddain was forced to run away one from another and so being in haste had not leisure to calculate well the time of the Prorogation though the appointing it to be within three days of the year is an Argument to me that their Design was to keep within the Bounds of the Acts of Parliament And if the mistake had been taken notice of in Queen Elizabeth's time I make no question but She would have given a lawfull Remedy to it Now I beseech your Lordships what more can be drawn from the shewing this President but only that because once upon a time a thing was done illegally therefore your Lordships should do so again now Tho' My Lords under favour Ours is a very different Case from theirs for this President they mention was never taken notice off and all Lawyers will tell you that a President that passes Sub Silentio is of no Validity at all and will never be admitted in any Judicial Court where 't is Pleaded Nay Judge Vaughan saies in his Reports That in Cases vvhich depend upon Fundamental Principles from vvhich Demonstrations may be dravvn Millions of Presidents are to no purpose Oh but say they you must think prudentially of the Inconveniencies which will follow upon it For if this be allowed all those Acts which were made in that Sessions of Parliament will be then Void Whether that be so or no I shall not now examine But this I will pretend to say That no man ought to pass for a prudential person who only takes notice of the Inconveniencies of one side it is the part of a wise man to examine the Inconveniences of both sides to weigh which are the greatest and to be sure to avoid them And My Lords to that kind of Examination I willingly submit this Cause for I presume it will be easie for your Lordships to judge which of these two will be of the most dangerous consequence to the Nation either to allow that the Statutes made in that particular Sessions in Queen Elizabeth's time are Void which may be easily confirmed at any time by a lawful Parliament Or to lay it down for a Maxime That the Kings of England by a particular Order of theirs have Povver to break all the Lavvs of England vvhen they please And My Lords with all the Duty we owe his Majesty it is no disrespect to him to say That his Majesty is bound up by the Lavvs of England For the Great King of Heaven and Earth God Almighty himself is bound by his own Decrees And what is an Act of Parliament but a Decree of the Kings made in the most Solemn manner it is possible for him to make it that is with the consent of the Lords and Commons It is plain then in my Opinion that we are no more a Parliament and I humbly conceive your Lordships ought to give God thanks for it since it has pleased him thus by his Providence to take you out of a condition wherein you must have been entirely useless to his Majesty to your selves and the whole Nation For I do beseech your Lordships if nothing of this I have urged were true what honourable Excuse could we find for our acting again with this House of Commons Except we could pretend to such an exquisite art of forgetfulness as to avoid calling to mind all that passed between us the last Sessions and unless we could have also a faculty of teaching the same Art to the whole Nation What opinion could they have of us if it should happen that the very same men who were so earnest the last Sessions for having this House of Commons Dissolved when there was no question of their lawful sitting should be now willing to joyn with them again when without question they are Dissolved Nothing can be more dangerous to a King or a People than that Laws should be made by an Assembly of which there can be a doubt Whether they have power to make Laws or no And it would be in us so much the more unexcusable if we should overlook this Danger since there is for it so easie a Remedy A Remedy which the Lavv requires and which all the Nation longs for The Calling of a Nevv Parliament It is That only can put his Majesty into a possibility of receiving Supplies That can secure to your Lordships the Honour of Sitting in this House like Peers and of being serviceable to your King and Country and That can Restore to all the People of England their undoubted Rights of Chusing Men frequently to represent their Grievances in Parliament Without this all we can do would be in vain the Nation might languish a while but must Perish at last We should become a Burden to our Selves and a Prey to our Neighbours My Motion therefore to your Lordships shall be that we humbly Address our selves to his Majesty and beg of him for his own sake as well as for all the Peoples sakes to give us speedily a Nevv Parliament That so we may unanimously before it is too late use our utmost Endeauours for his Majesty's Service and for the Safety the Wellfare and the Glory of the English Nation THE END Whil'st another Lord was speaking the Duke took a Pen and wrote this Sylogism And then appealed to the Bishops Wether it were not a True Sylogism And to the Judges Whether the Propositions were not True in Lavv The Sylogism IT is a Maxime in the Lavv of England That the Kings of England are so bound up by all Statutes made pro bono Publico that every Order or Direction of theirs contrary to the Scope and full Intent of any such Statute is Void and Null in Lavv But the last Prorogation of the Parliament vvas an Order of the King 's contrary to an Act of Edward the Third made for the greatest Common Good Viz. The Maintenance of all the Statutes of England and for the Prevention of the Mischiefs and Grievances vvhich daily happen Wherefore the last Prorogation of the Parliament is Void and Null Lavv.

THE DUKE OF Buckingham's SPEECH Spoken in the House of LORDS FEB 15 th 1676. Proving that the PARLIAMENT is DISSOLVED Whose Suffering's Svveet since Honour doth Adorn it Who Slights Revenge not that he Fears but Scorns it Amsterdam 1677. THE DUKE OF Buckingham's SPEECH c. My Lords I Have often troubled your Lordships with my Discourse in this House but I confess I never did it with more trouble to my self than I do at this time For I scarse know how I should begin what I have to say to your Lordships On the one side I am afraid of being thought an Unquiet and a Pragmatical Man for in this Age every man that cannot bear every thing is called Unquiet and he who does but ask Questions tho' about those matters for which he ought to be most concern'd is look'd upon as Pragmatical On the other side I am more afraid of being thought a Dishonest Man and of all men I am most afraid of being thought so by my self for every one is best Judge of the integrity of his own Intentions And though it does not alwayes follow that he is Pragmatical whom others take to be so yet this never failes to be true That he is most certainly a Knave who takes himself to be so No body is answerable for more Understanding than God Almighty has given him and therefore though I should be in the wrong if I tell your Lordships plainly and truly what I am really convinced of I shall behave my self like an Honest Man For it is my Duty as long as I have the Honour to Sit in this House to hide nothing from your Lordships which I think may concern either his Majesties Service your Lordships Interest or the Good and Quiet of the People of England The Question which in my Opinion does now lie before your Lordships Is not what we are to do but Whether at this time we can do any thing as a Parliament It being very clear to me That the Parliament is Dissolved And if in this Opinion I have the misfortune to be mistaken I have another misfortune joyned to it A desire to maintain this Argument with all the Judges and Lawyers in England and leave it afterwards to your Lordships to decide Whether I am in the Right or no. This my Lords I speak not out of Arrogance but in my own Justification Because if I were not througly convinced that what I have now to urge were grounded upon the Fundamental Laws of England and that the not pressing it at this time might prove to be of a most dangerous consequence both to his Majesty and the whole Nation I should have been loath to start a Notion which perhaps may not be very agreeable to some People And yet my Lords when I consider where I am who I now speak to and what was spoken in this Place about the time of the last Prorogation I can hardly believe that what I have to say will be distastful to your Lordships I remember very well how your Lordships were then displeased with the House of Commons and I remember too as well what Reasons they gave you to be so It is not so long since but that I suppose your Lordships may easily call to mind that after several odd passages between us your Lordships were so incensed that a motion was made here for to address to his Majesty about the Dissolution of this Parliament And tho it fail'd of being carried in the Affirmative by two or three Voices yet this in the Debate was remarkable That it prevail'd with much the Major part of your Lordships that were here present and was only over-power'd by the Proxies of those Lords who never heard the Arguments What Change there has been since either in their Behaviour or in the state of our Affairs that should make your Lordships change your Opinion I have not yet heard And therefore if I can make it appear as I presume I shall that by Law the Parliament is Dissolved I presume your Lordships ought not to be offended at me for it I have often wondred how it should come to pass that this House of Commons in which there are so many Honest and so many worthy Gentlemen should yet be less respectful to your Lordships as certainly they have been than any House of Commons that ever were chosen in England and yet if the matter be a little enquired into the reason of it will plainly appear For my Lords the very nature of the House of Commons is changed They do not think now that they are an Assembly that are to return to their own homes and become Private men again as by the Laws of the Land and the Antient Constitution of Parliaments they ought to be but they look upon themselves as a standing Senate and as a number of men pickt out to be Legislators for the rest of their whole Lives And if that be the case my Lords they have reason to believe themselves our Equals But my Lords it is a dangerous thing to try new Experiments in a Government Men do not foresee the ill Consequences that must happen when they go about to alter those essential parts of it upon which the whole Frame of the Government depends as now in our Case the Customs and Constitutions of Parliament For all Governments are artificial things and every part of them has a dependance one upon another And as in Clocks and Watches if you should put Great VVheeles in the place of Little ones and Little VVheels in the place of Great ones all the Fabrick would stand still So we cannot alter any one part of a Government without prejudicing the motions of the whole If this my Lords were well considered people would be more cautious how they went out of the old honest English way and method of proceedings But it is not my business to find Faults and therefore if your Lordships will give me leave I shall go on to shew you why in my opinion we are no Parliament The Ground of this Opinion of mine is taken from the antient and unquestionable Statutes of this Realm and give me leave to tell your Lordships by the way That Statutes are not like VVomen for they are not one jot the worse for being Old The first Statute I shall take notice off is That in the fourth year of Edvvard the Third Chap. 14 thus set down in the printed Book Item It is accorded That a Parliament shall be holden every year once and more often if need be Now though these words be as plain as a Pike-Staff and that no man living that is not a Scholar could possibly mistake the meaning of them yet the Grammarians of those dayes did make a shift to explain that the words If need be did relate as well to the words Every year once as to the words more often and so by this Grammaticall Whimsey of theirs had made this Statute to signify just nothing at all For this