Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A48156
|
A letter to a friend, about the late proclamation on the 11th of December, 1679, for further proroguing the Parliament till the 11th of November next ensuing
|
|
1679
(1679)
|
Wing L1637; ESTC R9259
|
8,884
|
16
|
the Proclamation and the KING by that says that having many weighty Reasons not yet convenient for us to know or else to be sure he would acquaint us with them he is resolved the Parliament shall on the 26th of January be prorogued till the 11th of November next Now I pray let me make some few short remarks hereupon as they are plainly obvious to every understanding Person and I will then submit my self to your Judgements for the reasonabless of what I say I. Can you find any thing that proves the Parliament is by this Proclamation de facto prorogued till November next If no as I am sure you cannot why are you then so clamorous and positive as to affirm it is II. The Proclamation is but declarative of what the KING intends to do on the 26th of January because of the many weighty Reasons that move him to do so but do you think if before the time of their meeting next month the KING should have more weighty Reasons both for number and quality to induce him to the contrary and to oblige him to change his Resolution that he would not because the Royalword was gone forth our Laws are not like to those of the Medes and Persians which alter not and surely much less may we imagine that Proclamations are irrevocable III. To be sure the KING will be very well advised indeed before he actually prorogues his Parliament for so long a time as a twelve moneth because he knows then that how urging soever the occasion may be to require him to have his Parliament sit sooner yet they cannot in the Interval of prorogation sit legally to do any thing but in a preparatory way in ordine ad c. to have things so much the more ready against the opening of the Parliament and therefore they must be extroardinary weighty Reasons that shall oblige him to run the hazard of so great an Inconvenience which is no other way remediable but by a present dissolution of this and calling of a new Parliament and that too will take up a good deal of time in issuing forth the Writs and waiting for the proper Court days to elect Members IIII. Though the KING at the time of his issuing out this Proclamation saw nothing that could out-weight those Reasons betwixt than and the 26th of January and therefore not to put his Parliament-men to unnecessary charges by their long and wearisome Journies up to Town with their Numerous Servants to wait on them says in great affection as well as condescention That we will not at the said six and twentieth day of January expect the attendance of any but only such as being inor about the City of London and Westminster may attend the making the said Prorogation The said Proclamation Yet if every Member of Parliament the Lords Spiritual and temporal and every of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons who represent in Parliament all the Communalty of England should be at the expence and trouble of coming up to Town Co. 2. Inst 157. to appear in their respective houses and should than and there * Eritis insuperahiles si fueritis inseparabiles unanimously resolve immediately to send unto his Majesty according to the 13. Car. 2 c. 5. before ever they should be called up to the Lord's house tenn of the Noble Lords from that house in their own Names and in the names of all the other their Fellow-Peers and the House of Commons likewise to send tenn of the chief of their Members to his Majesty in their own Names and in the names of all the Commons of England and they severally to cast themselves at his Majesties feet and with the utmost humility and sence of duty and loyalty plainly and briefly to lay open before him the great danger his Royal person is in from the present Plots influences villanous designs and bloudy conspiracies of the Papists as also that of the Protestant Religion and the ancient well established Government of this his Kingdome and all his Majesties Protestant Subjects and likewise humbly to beg as ever he regards the preservation of those since they were now so happily met together to consult de arduis urgentibus negotiis Regni that his Majesty would be gratiously pleased to let the Parliament continue to fit that so he might thereby come to the knowledge of the steadiness of their loyalty and affection for his service till they had effected these great things which would make him the most fear'd of Princes in this life and his Name hereafter glorious in Chronicle and which would most undoubtedly be to the Infinite Joy and satisfaction of all his loving and dutiful Subjects if I say they should all thus meet and do can any one imagine that he would resolutely withstand such an earnest prayer and so universally put up to him by his whole Realm let none offer to believe it for nothing can truely be the Subjects interest and felicity that is Independant on the King 's and where all join in hands and hearts for the real good peace and prosperity of his sacred person and his Kingdom sure he cannot but gladly hear he will not but affectionately grant Jacob strove and wrestled in prayer and did prevail accordingly 32 Gen. And although God had resolved Hezekiah's death and to that end sent his Prophet Isaiah to tell him of it as for certain from him with a thus saith she Lord set thine House in order for thou shalt dye and not live and here 's a reduplication of the same thing to denote as it were the Impossibility of the reversal yet when Hezekiah pray'd unto the Lord and beseeched him to remember how he had walk'd and what he had done and wept sore before him in prayer by way of an ardent importunity that his life might be prolonged God was wrought upon by his unfeigned request and he sent his Prophet again to him saying the Lord the God of David thy Father hath heard thy prayer he hath seen thy tears and he will add unto thy days fifteen years Nay he granted him more than his Petion for he likewise promised to deliver both him and his City out of the hands of the King of Assyria and that he would be the defence of that City and to put it out of all manner of question that he should not be so good as his word he assured it by a sign of bringing the shadow of the degrees which was gone down in the Sunn-dyall of Ahaz tenn degrees back-ward All which you may read in 38 1s from the first to the 9th verse But this is not by any way of Application because Almighty God did hearken to Hezekiah's prayer and was intreated of him to add a further continuance to his life notwithstanding his seeming fixed resolution then to put a period to his day here on earth that therefore the people might come tumultuously and seditiously to offer up their
Petitions to his sacred Majesty upon all occasions when any particular discontented freagues should possess their heads far be it from me to have the least of such a thought for I would perish rather than maintain it but yet methinks since it is possible that KINGS may be mislead by the false suggestions and informations of evil Consellors to act in some things contrary to their own Royal interest and the peace and prosperity of their truely Loyal Subjects provided they do not sin against any of the Common or Statute Laws of this Realm by joining in Petitions for the Alteration of the Laws c. they need not be denied the making of their Addresses to him in an humble and befitting manner for these two Reasons 1. Because nothing can be more significative of the people's great and undoubted dependence on him for the redressing of all their grievances than such a low and becoming prostration 'T is the highest duty and reverence that can be paid him and that which 2. Does most assimilate him to God himself who as he is the most absolute supream being both of Heaven and Earth in his infinite wisdome hath found out no other way for us by which to perform our utmost submission and allegiance to Him than by this of prayer and fervent supplication we can but fall down upon our Knees when we would pay our highest adorations to the King of Kings and He in that tender mercy which is over all his works hath made that to be our greatest duty and sence of devotion which is our most exalted felicity what then can be more advancing of glory to an earthly KING and what can be more expressive of deep humility in a subjected people than such dutiful incurvations in an observance of those Laws of which he hath gratiously been pleased to oblige himself to be the defendour as well as of the Faith And therefore to conclude if there be any like to Thomas Woolsey whom in 7. H. 8. was made Cardinal and grew into the heigth of his Authority and favour with the King and hates both Parliaments and Common Laws the principal means to keep Greatness in order and due subjection as he did Co. 2. Inst fol. 626. as it is contained in his Indictment which he confessed of record that he intended to use the very words of the Record antiquissimas Angliae leges penitus subvertere enervare universumque hoc Regnum Angliae ejusdem Regni populum legibus Imperialibus vulgò dictis legibus civilibus earundem Legum Canonibus imperpetuum subjugare subducere c. and for the execution of his intended Plot he was the means that but one Parliament was holden in 14. years viz. from the 7. year to the 21. of H. 8. I say if any in this particular be like to the Cardinal I pray God in great mercy to this Nation grant that such wicked and damnable designs may some way or other be disclosed to his Sacred Majesty that they may speedily receive the due deserts of such a treachery For the ends of Parliaments are 1. Regni Melioratio the common good of the Kingdom the Parliament being as my Lord Coke says the Commune Concilium and 2. Exhibitio justitiae plenior Co. Inst 2.280 for nothing is more glorious and necessary than the full execution of Justice and as for the Common-Laws of England the Nobility have ever had them in great estimation and reverence as their best birth right and so have the Kings of England id fol. 97. as their principal Royalty and right belonging to their Crown and Dignity This made H. 1. that noble King Sirnamed Beauclark to write to Pope Pasehal thus Chart. H. 1. Notum habeat Sanctitas vestra quod me vivente auxiliante Deo dignitates usus Regni nostri Angliae non imminuentur si Ego quod absit in tantâ me dejectione ponerem Optimates mei totus Angliae populus id nullo modo pateretur Both which those Miscreants would utterly destroy by causing a perpetual absence of Parliaments and by making the Common Laws of England to truckle to the Canons of the Civil Laws of Rome FINIS