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
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
Pope sending his Legate with a large power to exact money for himself his Agent was disgracefully returned with an answer That the Kingdom was poor the Church in debt and it was of a dangerous consequence to the State to be exposed to the will of the Pope and therefore seeing a General Councel was shortly to be held at Lyons if the Church would be relieved it were fit to be done by a general consent of that Councel And the Emperour Frederick at the same time by his Letters to the King which were openly read desiring as he had often before That the Pope might have no supplies ou of England for that therewith he did oppress him by seizing upon his Castles and Cities appertaining to the Empire notwithstanding his often submissions desire of Peace and offers to refer the cause to the arbitration of the Kings of England and France and the Baronage of both Kingdoms and entreating that he might not receive a detriment whence as a Brother and Friend he expected a favour added that if the King would be advised by him he would by power free the Kingdom from that unjust Tribute which Pope Innocent III. and other Popes had laid upon it Which pleasing the Assembly the business took up so much time as the design of a share in the Government something like if not worse then a Co-ordination meeting with no concessions or effect they only granted an Aid to the King for the Marriage of his Daughter 20 s. of every Knights Fee not without much ado and repetition of all his former Aids although at the same or much about that time they could not be ignorant that he had by his Writ commanded Hugh Gifford and William le Brun that upon Friday next after the Epiphany they should cause to be fed in the Hall at Windsor ad bonum focum omnes pueros pauperes egenos quos invenire poterint ita quod aula impleatur si tot inveniantur The Charters were again ratified which confirmation is printed in the perclose or latter-end of those in the 9th year of that persecuted Prince after a proposal of Conservators and election of Judges and Lord Chancellors rejected which was urged and much insisted upon After which and his return from an expedition with great charges into Scotland a Parliament was summoned where he moved for an Aid against an Insurrection in Wales and for money to supply his wants and pay his Debts which were so great as he could not stir out of his Chamber for the clamour of those to whom he ow'd money for Wine Wax and other necessaries of House-keeping which wrought so little as to his face they denied to grant him any thing and enquiry being made what Revenues the Romans and Italians had in England they found them to have been annually 60000 Marks which being notified to the General Councel at Lyons the Pope was so vexed therewith as he was said to have uttered these words The King begins to Frederize it is fit that we make an end with the Emperour that we might crush these pety Kings for the Dragon once destroyed these lesser Snakes will soon be trodden down In the 32d year of his Reign a Parliament being convoked he was upon requiring another aid sharply reproved for his breach of promises and it was alledged that his Judges were sent in Circuit under pretence of Justice to fleece the people that his needless expences amounted to above 800000 l. and advising him to recal the old Lands of the Crown and pull them from his Favourites enriched with the Treasure of the Kingdom told him of his Oath made at his Coronation Complained that the Chief-Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer were not made by the Common-Councel of the Kingdom according as there were in the time of his Magnificent Predecessors although they could not at the same time deny him that Right which was justly due unto him that he had by his Writs commanded the said William de Haverhul and Edward of Westminster quod singulis diebus à die natalis domini usque ad diem circumcisionis computatis illis duobus diebus impleri faciant magnam aulam Regis de pauperibus and in the same year by his Writ commanded William de Haverhul his Treasurer and Edward Fidz-Odo to feed upon the day of Edward the Confessor pauperes in magna aula Westmonasterium sicut fieri consueverunt ipsis Monachis Pittanciam eodem die sicut consueverunt faciant The King promised redress but nothing was effected so that after sundry meetings and much debate the Parliament was prorogued until Midsummer following and at the next Session he tells them that they were not to impose a servile condition upon him or deny him that which every one of them might do to use whom they pleased as Counsel Every Master of a Family might place or displace what Servants he pleased Servants were not to judge their Masters nor Subjects their Prince or hold them to their conditions and that he that should so encline to their pleasures should not be their King but as their Servant And being constrained to furnish his wants with the sale of his Plate and Jewels his Crown of Gold and Edward the Confessor's Shrine and with great loss received money for them enquired who had bought them whereunto answer being made that the City of London had bought them That City said he is an inexhaustible Gulf if Octavius ' s Treasure were to be sold they would surely buy it Howsoever being besides constrained to borrow 20000 l. of the City of London he wrote to every Noble-man and Prelate apart to borrow money but got little the Abbot of Ramsay lent him 100 l. but the Abbot of Burgh could not spare him so much although the King told him It was more Alms to give unto him than to a beggar that went from door to door The Lords in the 4th year of his Reign assembled again at London and pressed him with his promises that the Chief-Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer should be constituted by the general Councel of the Kingdom but by reason of the absence of the Earl of Cornwal nothing was done therein The King demanding aid of his Prelates and Nobility assembled in Parliament they by agreement amongst themselves stoutly denied it which greatly troubling him he shewed them the Note or Roll what moneys some few Abbots had lent unto him with an Ecce how little it was with which not being able to remove their fixed resolutions he with some anger expostulating told them Ero nè perjurus juravi sacramento intransgressibili transfretans jura mea in brachio extento à Rege Francorum reposcam quod sine capioso thesauro qui à vestra liberalitate procedere debet nequaquam valeo and that not prevailing called aliquos sibi familiares affatus eos dit quid perniciosius exemplum aliis praebetis vos qui Comites Barones Milites strenui estis
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
themselves if not commanded or otherwise by their Tenures obliged be willing to do as that Learned French Lawyer Brissonius well observeth Qu'en la necessitie de Guerre toutes les Gentilz hommes sont tenus de prendre les Armes pour la necessitie du Roy which by our Laws of England is so to be encouraged as it is Treason to kill any Man that goeth to Aid the King and is no more than what the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy do bind every English-man unto although they should tarry in the Camp more than Forty Dayes or not have Escuage or any Allowance of their Charges from their own Tenants And the People of the Counties and Cities as well as the smaller Towns or Boroughs which were to delegate or commission them and make them wise enough to give their Assent in that great and solemn Assembly and Councel of the King and His Prelates Baronage Lords Spiritual and Temporal unto what they should ordain in quibusdam not in omnibus arduis high and extraordinary Matters concerning the King Church and Kingdom not in ordinary or common were only or more especially to take into their Consideration and inform the State Commerce Interest and Affairs Abilities or Disabilities of the Countries Places to supply their Soveraign's occasions some of those Burgesses Elected and sent from poor Fisher-Maritime-Towns the most prudent Observers of whom might have done Aristotle good service in his Enquiries not of the Politicks but of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea or some of the lesser Genery or over-grown Yeomanry as might instruct Varro or Columella in the design of writing their Books de Re Rusticâ or the well lined plausible Dweller in some inconsiderable Villes or a small number of Houses little better than Cottages with a fair Inn with two carved or gilded Sign Posts and a St. George on Horse-back unmercifully killing the Dragon and the Inhabitants Men of no more Language Wit or Learning than was scarcely sufficient to manage their vulgar mechanick Employments might have been more useful in the Parliament of the Twenty-Seventh Year of the Raign of King Edward the Third when the Statutes of the Staple and the Staple Cities and Towns so greatly concerning the after happening Golden-Fleece-flourishing-wollen-Trade and Manufacture in England and the enriching those Cities and Towns were made and enacted And the Consent or Advice therein of the vulgar or ignoble part of the Free-holders might have been more requisite in the making and framing the Act of Parliament in the Twenty-Third Year of the Raign of the aforesaid King touching Labourers and Servants or that long after made by Queen Elizabeth in the Fifth Year of her Raign limiting the Wages of Servants Artificers and Workmen as being likely to be more sensible and to give good Instructions in their own Concernments than in those of their Superiours their Land-lords viz. The King Nobility Bishops Gentry irelgious Houses Colledges Universities Deaneries Praebendaries Hospitals Corporations and Companies of Trades c. Those that were Boroughs were not then so many or half so big as they have been since by our King 's Royal Favours in the granting of Fairs and Markets unto them with divers other Immunities and Priviledges c. Nor had gained so great Additions to their Buildings and former extent by their Scituation or Neighbourhood to some great Town or City of Trade and the Inhabitants of them Men only conversant in the evil Arts of Trade and with Demetrius the Silver-Smith ready to do more for Diana's Temple than St. Paul's Preaching and lay out that little Understanding that they have in taking some Lands to Farm near adjoyning and being as little acquainted as may be with State-Policy or any thing out of the reach of their Neighbourhood will be as unfit to know or discern wise Men as the Corydons Hobby-nolls country Carters or Mechanicks are or would be to Elect or give their Votes or Suffrages for the taking of the degrees of Doctors Masters or Batchelors of Arts in our Universities or as Brick-laiers would be to give their direction and advice in the Building Rigging Tackle Steering and Sailing of a Ship Or to give a liberty to the Boys to choose their School-Master and direct what Methods he should use in the governing of them or to the Common People to elect and choose the King 's Privy Council or to have Votes or Suffrages in the making or repeal of such Laws as the variety of their Humours Interests Envies Ambitious Ignorances and Whimsies should perswade them to obey or be ruled by or such as may consist with all of them together or as much as for that very instant or moment of Time may agree with every Man 's particular Fancy Interests Occasion Advantage Will or Pleasure or of those that shall awe flatter bribe delude fool or seduce them Or in the Hurry and Distraction which Rebel-Armies and Gatherings of a misled or cheated Part of the People in such a Collection use to be might probably think it necessary and greatly conducing to their present self Advantages to procure them that were under the influence of their Power then very formidable or of the Tenancy or dependance of themselves or the rest of the Baronage whom they were labouring by Force Fear Flattery or other seducing and evil Arts to entice and draw into their Party to consent for the present to the Advice or Petitioning for the Confirmation or Establishment of the constrained Provisions made at Oxford and their Conservatorships which the King of France had not long before solemnly in his aforesaid Arbitration condemned and annulled For the Engine or Knack of the Twenty-Four Conservators to govern them and the King and Kingdom Twelve as it was sometimes proposed to be chosen by the King and Twelve by the victorious Rebels after confined to a much smaller Number as their Power and usurped Authority in a short time after gave them the Liberty and Occasion could never be thought to be with any intention to continue that new Model or Frame of Parliament any longer than pro hâc vice until the imprisoned King and Prince should be released and the Disturbances of the Kingdom quieted as those Writs of Simon and Peter de Montfort's own framing and putting under the King's Name and Seal did if they might be credited seem to import But were rather convened for Simon de Montfort's particular Ambition and Establishment nor could otherwise be interpreted to amount to any more than the most likely to have been the dismal Effects thereof the Destruction of the King and his Family Subversion of the ancient fundamental Laws and Customs of the Nation and Change of our ancient Monarchy into an Oligarchy And must either be understood not to have known at all the fundamental Usages Customes Priviledges of the Praelates Nobility and Great Men of the Realm in their King 's great Councels or Parliaments when they were thereunto Summoned
great Barons and Lords Spiritual and Temporal could not imagine would ever be able either to forget the Good which they and their Fore-Fathers had received and they and their after-Generations were like to enjoy under them or get loose from those many great Ties and Obligations of a never-to-be-forgotten Gratitude which they had upon them but thought themselves very secure from any danger that might happen by any of their Incroachments or Usurpations by placing any Power or but a Semblance of Authority for once in the lower Ranks of the People nor could have believed that the common People of England after their solemn Protestations to preserve them and the Government could after the Murder of their King in their last horrid Rebellion have Voted them to be useless and dangerous and being unwilling to leave any of the Divels their Masters business unfinished did solemnly enforce the deluded Seditious People under as many severe Penalties as they could lay upon them not any more to submit to any Government by a King and House of Lords to whom our Kings had given no Power to make their own Choice but lodged and onely entrusted it in the Sheriffs many of which the rebellious Barons had by Usurpation of the King's Authority provided before hand to be at this present of their own Party or were like to be so or under their Awe and Guidance wherein they were perceived by the King some Years before upon their ill-gained Provisions at Oxford to have been very diligent in making Sheriffs of their own Party those great Offices being in those times and many Years before and some few Years after alwayes put into the Hands and Trust of the Baronage or Men of great Estate and Power Whose Number by Tenures and Summons by Writs to our King 's great Councels or Parliaments Creations or Descents accounted in the Raign of King Henry the Third to be no less than Two Hundred and Forty if not many more and like the tall and stately Cedars of our Nation might well deserve the Titles of Proceres and Magnates especially when many or most of them were in their Greatness Goodness and Authority in their several Stations like the Tree which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his Vision high and strong The height whereof reached to the Heaven the leaves were fair and the fruit thereof much the beasts of the field had shadow under it and the fowles of the heaven dwelt in the boughs thereof and as ex pede Herculem the Length and Greatness of Hercules's Foot declared the vast Proportion and Magnitude of the residue of his Body it was easy to compute how little were then the Common People how great the Nobility whom the Brittaines ancient Inhabitants of our Isle as the Learned Francis Junius the Son of the no less Learned Francis Junius hath observed justly stiled them Lhafords Lords and their Wives Lhafdies Ladies because they usually gave Bread and Sustenance to those that wanted it gave License of Marriage to the Widdows of their Thanks by Knight Service punished their Tenants so holding their Lands by Writ Cessavit per Biennium and a Forfeiture if not redeemed was Entituled to a Writ of Contra formam Collationis for not performing the Duties and Offices of their Endowments and the large Revenues and Emoluments appropriated thereunto And with the many Accessions and Devolutions of other Mannors Lands Revenues Estates Baronies Titles of Honour and Offices of State by Marriages Descents in Fee or remainders in Fee-tail munificent Guifts and Grants of their Kings and Princes upon Merit and great Services done for them and their Country or by Purchases guarded by the strength of the Statute De donis Conditionalibus made in the 13th Year of the Raign of King Edward the First with the Tye and Obligation of their Tenures and the Restraints of Alienation made them to be such Grantz Magnates as the common People did in their Disseisins Intrusions and Outrages done one unto another which in the elder times were very frequent colour and Shelter those Injuries by or under some Title or Conveyances made unto some of the Nobility or great Men of the Kingdom which caused some of our Kings to grant out Commissions of Ottroy le Baston vulgarly called Trail Baston to find out and punish such Evil doings and by the making of some of our later Laws to restrain the giving of Liveries so as until the Writs of Summons granted by King Edward the First in the 22d Year of his Raign to Elect some Knights of the Shires Citizens and Burgesses to give their Assent in Parliaments to such Laws and Things as by the advice of his Lords Spiritual and Temporal should advise should by him be ordained there having been an Intermission of those or the like kind of Writs of Summons from the first Contrivance thereof in the time of the Imprisonment of King Henry the Third in the 49th Year of his Raign it was and ought to be believed as a matter or thing agreeable to Truth right Reason and the Laws and Records of the Kingdom that the Commons and Freeholders of England were long before and for many Ages past as ancient as the British Empire and Monarchy were to be no part of our Great Councels or Parliaments were never Summoned or Elected to come thither but had their Votes and Estates and well Being as to those great Councels included in the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and as to their assent or dissent good or ill liking represented by them and retaining their well deserved Greatness were so potent and considerable as Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester could after the Battle of Evesham where he had Fought for the King March with a formidable Army composed for the most part of his own Servants Tenants Reteiners and Dependants from the Borders of Wales to London quarrel and capitulate with his King that had been but a little before extraordinary Victorious and with John Warren Earl of Surrey did after the Death of King Henry the Third before the Return of his Son Prince Edward from the Wars in the Holy-Land to take the Crown upon him at the Solemnization of the Funeral of the deceased King in the abbey-Abbey-Church of Westminster with the Clergy and People there Assembled without their License and Election go up to the high Altar and swear their Fealty to the absent King Edward the First his Son So beloved feared and followed as the great Earl of Warwick was said in some of our Histories to have been the Puller down and Setter up of Kings could with the Earl of Oxford in the dire Contests betwixt King Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fourth for the Crown of England rescue and take by force King Henry the Sixth out of the Tower of London where he was kept a Prisoner attend him in a stately and numerous Procession to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul the one carrying up his Train and the other
of Dr Watts his Edition of Matthew Paris to have truths â—nâ—y registred to Posterity have not freed us from the Discrepancy amongst our Ancient Writers as unto matters of Fact as well as of opinion and reasons given thereof and even in that plain dealing Monk of St Albans matters of Consequence have been omitted though he was King Henry the 3. his Historiographer which others have recorded and some things recited that others have omitted and it will ever be impossible to reconcile the every where apparent differences amongst Ancient Authors as to things done when non omnia possumus omnes hath been truly said one man may know all and others but some part one thinks it not necessary to record some things and others the Contrary and quot Homines tot sententiae our English Chronicles written by Hollingshead Grafton Fabian Stow and Sr Richard Baker have not been Written with one and the same Pen memory or Intelligence And it is likely that all or most of them have not given us the true relation of the Cause or misfortune of the firing or burning of the Famous High Steeple of St Pauls Cathedrall in London and a great part of an Hundred Years hath passed whilst the People have entertained a belief that the height of that Steeple and Lightning had been the Cause of it untill a Plummers Boy grown up to a very old man did upon his death-bed Confess that it was his own Carelessness that did it by leaving of Fire amongst the Chipps that helped to melt the Lead whereby the Steeple and Church fell on Fire and that untill then he durst not reveal it And our great Selden may suffer the World to believe that in his most excellent book of mare Clausum to prove the Dominion of the Brittish Seas to appertain unto our Kings of England he hath Discovered more then ever was known or Written of before by any Author and of many other his learned Recherches in all the parts of the most Severe and hidden learning through the Western and Eastern Languages opening and Discovering of many of the Rich mines of Knowledge learning which untill his Industrious labours had Blessed the World with the Knowledge thereof had yet probably lain as it were buried and Concealed And certainly were that Summus ille vir great man of Learning now Living he would Ingeniously Confess that that even in his own times our great Physitian the Learned Doctor Harvey hath Discovered and made it to be Confessed and Believed without any Contradiction of the Learned in the Medicinall Art that the blood in the body of a man doth Circulate unto the Heart which Gallen Hypocrates Avicen Averroes or any the Medici Physitians and Anatomists Pancirello and his learned Commentator Salmuthius that Travailed so much in the search of the Occultia nova reperta of the World from the Creation thereof never met withall or were able to Demonstrate as he hath done and Mr Selden must of necessity permit it to be likewise believed that our English Annalists Historians and records will witness that before the Reign of King Edward the 1. and that grand Parliament or congress of him and the aforesaid Christian Kings mentioned by Fleta our Henry the 2. King of England did not only resume and call back to the Revenues of his Crown divers Manors Lands and Hereditaments which his Royall Predecessors had aliened but King Edward the 1. Henry the 4th 6th and Edward the 4th did the like For Choppinus in his book de antiquo Dominio Regum Francia hath given us the Reason and necessity thereof and our Parliament Rolls can evidence that the Commons of England have complained that our Kings have granted away to their Subjects too many of the Liberties belonging to the Crown of England and it was one of the Articles Exhibited against the Rebelliously deposed King Richard the 2. that he had aliened certain Manors and Lands of the Crown And the Actions and Proceedings of King Edward the 1. after his return into England and that aforesaid Congress and Meeting of so many Christian Kings and Princes must of necessity greatly Corroborate and Confirm Fleta's before-mentioned assertion when the great Actions of that Prince after that he came into England may evidence that he was Diligent and Carefull in the performance of what he undertook and understood rationally to be done in his own Kingdoms and Provinces and might well think that many of the aforesaid other Kings and Princes would have done the like if some other evenements or disturbances as the long continued Wars in France and the Aurea Bulla in the Empire of Germany had not lessened or hindred their resolutions So as our excellently learned Mr Selden may give me and others leave to say That when Fleta recited that Dreadfull Procession Imposed and put upon King Henry the 3. to walk through Westminster Hall to the Abby Church of Westminster Cursing and Condemning to Hell the Violaters of Magna Charta and Charta de Forresta and saith it was done in praesentia assensu Regis Henrici Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Abbatum Priotum Comitum-Baronum magnatum Regni Angliae he doth not mention King Johns Charter being read as Mathew Paris and Samuel Daniel have related or of the Record before specified of the Kings speciall saving of his Regalities and it happened well that none of the Predecessors or Progenitors of the House of Commons in the Parliament of 1641. and their Continuators through all that long and fatall Rebellion the most Ingrate and greatest Infringers of Magna Charta and Charta de Forresta and as great over-turners of Reason Laws Religion and Truth and the English Nation and the sense Construction and true meaning of the words heretofore used or misused therein as ever was or hath been in any Nation Countrey or Kingdom or at the Confusion of Languages at the building of the Tower of Babell or amounting to all the Nonsence that hath ever since been spoken by or amongst mankind in an everlasting Spirit of Contradiction to Reason Truth and the Laws of the Land And Fleta a Contemporary Lawyer under that valiant and prudent Prince hath likewise recommended to After Ages that res sacras Coronae fuere liber Homo paâ— Jurisdictio muri portae Civitatis quae nullo dari debeant And that res quidem Coronae sunt antiqua maneria Regis Homagia libertates hujusmodi quae non alienentur tenentur Rex ea revocare secundum provisionem omnium Regum Christianorum apud montem pessulam mompellier in Languedock Anno Regni Regis Edwardi fil Regis Henrici quarto Et si de Escaetis suis perinde debeant ad valenciam nec valebit deforciantibus longi temporis praescriptio diuturnitas enim temporis tantum in hoc Casu magis Injuriam auget quam minuit cum constare debeat singulis quod hujusmodi libertates de Jure naturali vel gentium ad Coronam tantum
or Common Freeholder or the Widdows or Feme Soles of any of them resides or is incorporate in that one Knight of a Shire or how much in the other Knight of the Shire when by the Kings Writs there were to be no more than two and by Oliver Cromwels the Usurpers Writs there was as many as six and when in his Time of Villany two English Earls Knights of the Kings Honourable Order of the Garter sate as Members of that which was miscalled the House of Commons in Parliament although it might well deserve the Question of what Nation they were or Riddle my Riddle what is this how much of them were Earls or Commons or what Epiccen or Hermophrodite kind of men they were or whom if not very Rebels they did then and there represent Or whether the Knights and Burgesses of England and Wales as they were admitted into the House of Commons from the 48th and 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. until the Raign of King Henry the 7th did or could represent for Ireland Gastoign the Isles and other Dominions of our Kings and sometime Scotland for which until then there were Receivers and Triers of Petitions particularly appointed for those other Dominions and places or who did represent for Wales the Bishoprick of Durham before there were Knights of the Shires and Burgesses allowed by our Kings or for the Town of Newark upon Trent so lately priviledged by his now Majesty or whether they do in one entire and complexed Body represent for all the Commons of England when as the Journals Parliament Rolls and Memoriols can inform us that sometimes the City of London as also other particular places have separately petitioned the King and not at all Times in a generality name and behalf of all the Commons of England Servants Mechanicks and Labourers c. which being no Freeholders or Electors can never be understood to have given any of the Members of the House of Commons any procurations jointly or separately to give any consent or represent for them in Parliament So that whatsoever hath or shall be done or acted in Parliament either for Lease or Copyholders villani Bordarii Mechanicks Labourers Servants c. Neither is or can be obliging to those multitudes otherwise than by the Soveraign power of the King when by the Energy and Vertue of his Royal Assent that which was before but an Embrio comes to be aminated and have as it were a Life and a Soul breathed or put into it by his sanction or giving it the force of a Law by his and no others Act of Parliament further than the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Assent or Approbation of the Commons in Parliament assembled Or how they can by or with any Law Right Reason Construction propriety of Speech or Grammar be said or believed to represent those of the Commons of England whom they have many times accused and take upon them to imprison or punish When our Parliaments have been or should be founded upon the Feudal Laws our Monarchick best of Governments and there could be no Election of Members of the House of Commons to come to Parliament ad faciendum consentiendum iis which the King by the advise of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should there ordain not in omnibus in all matters for that was the proper care and business of our Kings and Princes and their private Councel by whose advice the Writs of Summons issued out under the Kings great Seal of England to Summon the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to a Parliament to consult not de omnibus or de omnibus arduis but de quibusdam arduis and until the 49th of King Henry 3. when Simon Montforts Rebellious Parliament and his Counterfeit Writs of Election of Members to be a then endeavoured to be constituted House of Commons in Parliament received its first foundation and gave the occasion and encouragement to many Rebellions and Mischiefs afterward and from the 21 and 22 E. 1. until that gave it some rectifyed allowance unto such a kind of Election and Convention of Members in an House of Commons in Parliament to be assembled the so Elected Members of Commons of Parliament could neither meet or assemble until there were Writs of Summons issued out to assemble the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as Peers not unto the King but one unto the other in Parliament for when the Lords Spiritual and Temporal are not to be assembled by the Kings Writs of Summons the Commons cannot be Elected to attend the King and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for to meet without so much as unto Markets or Fairs or Indulgent allowance of our Kings would be a breach of the Kings Peace which should be so sacred and ever was accompted to be of so great a concernment unto him and his people as when he pardoned any of his offending Subjects against his Laws the ancient forms of our Kings pardons were only without enumerating or particular specification of the Crimes damus concedimus pacem nostram and gives us the reason that all our Parliaments as well relating either to the upper or lower House do specially except Treason Felony or breach of Peace which seemeth certainly to be no other than a necessary Clause added by our Kings in their priviledges of Parliament And otherwise it would be an unread unheard unintelligible mixture of a Supremacy or Soveraignty that a King deriving his Soveraignty only from God and his People and Subjects sworn unto him by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and obliged unto him for their Estates and Self-preservation at the same time be invested with a Soveraignty which is to be certainly placed amongst the most puzling Riddles of Madam Sphinx and none of the over-turning Republicans can give us no manner of solution until all the Vulgus or Rabble multitude of the World can be persuaded to be of one mind and for many years continue therein and all impossibles come to be possible And there cannot be a greater absurdity offered to the Common Intellect or understanding of mankind than to endeavour to perswade them that there is a plurality of Soveraigns and that all the Subjects of England do or can represent the King and are his Soveraigns or that he is the Subject or general Servant of so many Millions of people as he is rightfully King of and are sworn unto him by the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy but are conditionally only his Subjects until some fair opportunity to Arraign him at the suit of his own Subjects cut off his head and extirpe him and his Illustrious Family by no other Warrant than to set up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ who never yet gave them any Order or Authority to attempt any such egregious Villany And should not have been so locked up in their Morphaeus commonly erring wandring dreams or imaginations as to think that two or three necessary priviledges only
Ancient Form of Government who ought better to assert them and that the Coronation-Oaths of all our many Kings and Princes swearing to maintain the Laws of King Edward the Confessor which have for those many Ages past so highly satisfied and contented the Common People and good Subjects of England do enjoin no other than our Kings and Princes strict observation of the Feudal Laws and their Subjects Obedience unto him and them by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and his and their Protection of them in the performance thereof and from no other Laws or Customs than the Feudal Laws have our Parliaments themselves derived their original as Eginard Secretary unto Charles the Great or Charlemain who Raigned in the year after our blessed Saviours Incarnation 768. consisting of Lords Spiritual and Temporal if not long before had their more fixt beginning How then can so grave and learned a Professor of our Laws and after an eminent Administrator of the Laws and Justice of the Kingdom so either declare to the World that he hath not at all been acquainted with our Feudal Laws but gained a great Estate out of a small in a Government and Laws he knew no Original thereof and make many things to be grievances of the People which are but the Kings Just Rights and Authority and the Peoples Duty and their grievances in doing or suffering their Duties to be done as if disobedience which in our Nation hath too often hapned were a Franchise of the Land and a Right to be Petitioned for by the People But howsoever Mr. Will. Pryn being better awake could be so kind a Friend unto the truth as to give us notice that the Abridger of the Parl. Records left out much of what he should have mentioned viz. The Prelates Dukes Earls Barons Commons Citizens Burgesses Merchants of England in the Parliament Petitioned the King not only for a Pardon in general and of Fines and Amerciaments before the Justices of Peace not yet Levyed in special but they likewise subjoin a memorable request saith Mr. Pryn omitted by the Abridger that in time to come the said Prelates Earles Barons Commons Citizens and Burgesses of the Realm of England may not henceforth be charged molested nor grieved to make any Common Aid or sustein any charge unless it be by Common Assent of the Prelates Dukes Lords and Barons and other People of the Commons of the Realm of England as a Benevolence or Aid given to their King in his want of Money wh 〈…〉 h King Henry the 3d. sometimes had when he went from Aboey to Abbey declaring his Necessities and King Richard the Third that Murthered his Brothers Sons to Usurp the Crown flattered the People they should no more be troubled with when it was never 〈…〉 ked before the Raign of King Henry 3d or 〈◊〉 by any of our Kings or Princes until the urgent Necessities of our blessed Martyr for the preservation of his People caused him once to do it Or such as the imprisoning of some few wealthy Men as obstinately refused to lend him 〈…〉 e and small Sums of Money because they would force him to call such a Reforming and Ruining Parliament as that which not long before hapned in Anno 1641. Or such as their heavily complained of Charges levied upon the People by the Lord Lieutenants or Deputy Lieutenants in some seldom Musters or Military Affairs which a small acquaintance with our Feudal Laws might have persuaded the Gentlemen of the misnamed Petition of Right to have been lawful or that some imprisoned were not delivered upon Writs of Habeas Corpus when there were other just Causes to detain them at least for some small time of Advice And if they will adventure to be tryed by Magna Charta will be no great gainers by it for Magna Charta well examined notwithstanding the dissolution of the Tenures in Capite is yet God be thanked holden in Capite and loudly proclaims our Feudal Laws to be both the King and the Peoples Rights and disdains to furnish any contrivances against their Kings who were the only free givers and granters thereof And the Statute of 28 E 3. And all or the most of our Acts of Parliament do and may ever declare the usefulness of our Feudal Laws and that Reverend great Judge might have spared the complaints of Free-quartering of Land-Soldiers and Marriners or of punishing Offenders by Martial Law and will hardly find any to commend him or any Lawyer for their proficiency in their amassing together so many needless complaints And that in full Parliament The King then lying sick at Sheene whereof he died and divers of the Lords and Commons in Parliament coming unto him with Petitions to know his pleasure and what he would have done therein nor no Imposition put upon the Woolls Woolfels and Leather having as they might think as great an opportunity and advantage as the three great Barons Bobun Clare and Bigod had when they forced the Statute aforesaid de Tallagio non concedendo upon King Edward the first and would not suffer him to insert his Salvo Jure Regis or any the Annaent Custom of Wooll half a Mark and of three hundred Woolfels half a Mark and of one Last of Skins one Mark of Custom only according to the Statute made in the 14th year of his Raign saving unto the King the Subsidy granted unto him the last Parliament for a certain time and not yet Levied Unto which the King gave answer That as to that that no Charge be laid upon the People without common Assent The King is not at all willing to do it without great necessity and for the defence of the Realm and where he may do it with Reason For otherwise all Monarchies may be made Elective and the Will and great Example and Approbation of God disappointed where the Subjects and People will not be so careful of their own preservation as to help their King when his and their Enemy hath invaded the Kingdom and the People may as often as they please change or depose their Kings when they shall resolve to stand still and not help to aid him as the cursed and bitterly cursed Moroz did and be as wise to their own destruction as the Citizens of London were in the late general Conflagration of their City or a foolish fear of breaking Magna Charta which could never be proved to have been any cause of it they would to save and keep unpulled down or blown up ten houses and save some of their goods leave that raging and merciless Fire to burn twenty thousand houses in their City and Suburbs And it was no bad Answer also that that great and victorious King Edward the third as sick as he was made likewise unto that other part of their Petition that Impositions be not laid upon their Woolls without Assent of the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons and other People of the Commons of his Realm That there was a
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
themselves they with a parcel of conscience not of God did treat with the particular Lenders of the Money to King James and for ten l. or a very little in every hundred comed and took up their Privy Seals but were unwilling to trouble the King with the thoughtâ—s thereof to the damage of him and disherision of the Crown of England and being taken notice of and complained of a Commission was granted unto the Lord ottington Sir Henry Vane and Sir Charles Harbord the Kings Surveyor to enquire thereof and certify the King thereof wherein they were so kind hearted and the matters so managed as noâ—hing more was heard thereof but the City of London continueth in possession of the said Manors and Lands or have spent the same in assisting the late horrid Rebellion against him and together with it the CityOrphans Mony for which it hath been reported they are willing to pay them by composition after the rate of 6d per. ponnd caused a Bill to be exhibited by his Attorney General in his Court of Starr Chamber against John Earl of Clare and Mr. Selden for having only in their Custody two Books or Manuscripts directed unto him by Sir Robert Dudley an Englishman living in Florence and stiling himself a Titular Duke of that Countrey endeavouring to instruct him in the method of raising Money by a Tax upon all the Paper and Parchment to be used in England caused Sir Giles Allington to be fined in the High Commission Court for Incest and the Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven to be arraigned in the Court of Kings Bench for Sodomy whereupon after Tryal by his Peers he was Condemned and Beheaded suffered a great Arcanum Imperii in his Praerogative in taxing or requiring an Aid of Ship Money or for setting out a Navy of Ships when the Kingdom was in danger to be disputed in the Exchecquer Chamber by Lawyers and Judges which King Henry the fourth of France by a constant Rule in State Policy would never yeild to have done imitated by Queen Elizabeth who in some of her Charters or Letters Patents as unto Martin Forbisher a great Sea-Captain declared de qua disputari nolumus upon the case or question of 10 s. charged upon Mr. Hamdens Estate in Buckinghamshire of 4000 l. p. Annum wherein all that could be raked out of or by the Records of this Kingdom was put together by Mr. Oliver St. John and Mr. Robert Holborn theformer being after made Cheif Justice of the Court of Common Pleas by Hambden and the Rebel party and the later taking Arms for the King faithfully adhered unto him whereupon that cause coming to be heard all that could be argued for the not paying or paying of it of twelve Judges that carefully considered the Arguments and gave their opinions there were ten concurred in giving Judgment for the King and only two viz. Justice Hatton and Justice Crooke who having before under their hands concurred with all the other and suffered their subscriptions to be publickly inrolled in their several Courts at Westminster could find the way to be over-instrumental in setting our Troy Town all in Flames whilst that pious Prince being overburdened with his own more than common necessities did not omit any part of the Office of a Parens Patriae but taking more care for his People than for himself too many of whom proved basely and wickedly ingrateful called to accompt Lionel Cranfield whom he had made Earl of Middlesex and Lord Treasurer of England fined him in vast sums of money ordered him during his life never more to sit in the House of Peers in Parliament received a considerable part of his Fine and acquitted him of the residue And being desirous as his Father was to unite the Kingdom of Scotland in their Reformed Religion as the more happy Church of England was both as unto Episcopacy and its Liturgy that attempt so failed his expectation as a mutiny hapned in the Cathedral Church of Edenburgh and an old Wife sitting upon a Stool or Crock crying out that she smelt a Pape at her Arse threw it at the Ministers Head whereupon a great mutiny began and after that an Insurrection which to pacify the King raised a gallant Army of Gentry and Nobility with all manner of warlike provision and marched unto the Borders but found them so ill provided for defence as they appeared despicable yet the almost numberless Treacheries fatally encompassing that pious King persuading him not to beat or vanquish them when he might so easily have done it he returned home disbanding his Army and a close Favourite of Scotland was after sent to pacify them but left them far more unruly than before shortly after which Philip Nye a Factious Minister that should have been of the Church of England but was not with some other as wicked Persons were from England delegated to Scotland to make a Coâ—enant of Brotherly Rebellion against the King and accordingly the Scots being well assured that their Confederates in England would not hurt them marched into England with a ragged Army with Petitions to the King and Declarations of Brotherly Love unto too many of their Confederates seised by the cowardise or carelesness of the Inhabitants the Town of Newcastle upon Tine notwithstanding a small Army ill ordered was sent to defend it better than they did so as the Scotch Petitioning Army quartering there and in the Northern parts the King hastening thitherwards with Forces was persuaded to summon at Rippon a great Council of many of his Nobility whither too many of them that came being more affected to the Scotch Army that came like the Gibeonites with old Shoes and mouldy Bread were allowed to be free-quartered and a Parliament suddenly to be summoned at London whereby to raise money for the discharge of their Quarters Army charges in the mean time the Scotch their Commissioners with their Apostle Alexander Henderson have license to visit London where they are lamented feasted and visited and almost adored as much as St. Paul was amongst the Macedonians or the Brethren who cryed up their holy Covenant and Religion to be the best the Church of England with her Ceremonies Common Prayers and Potage not to be compared unto it the Parliament would help all and the Scots Commissioners were so popular and in request as they seemed for that time to govern both the City of London and Parliament and by their peace pride and plenty had generated Sedition and Faction and that combustible matter in England burst into a Fire which could not be quenched the Kings Privy Council could not please the five Members nor Kimboltons Ambition and Envy be satisfied without being made a great Officer of State but proved after to be a general of some associated Counties against the King God might be worshipped with a thriving Conscience and the people taken care for by plundering Sequestration Decimation Killing Slaying or Impoverishing the Common Wealth or Weal Publick Pym
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-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
the Divine Providence of God had not in favour unto a sinful People prevented those very often attempts of Villany And may put us thus preserved from a ruin and confusion impending upon a Nation as unto too many of them nursed and enriched by plain or palliated Disloyalty seeing his now Royal Majesty his Indulgent Brother and Pious Father have taken their Coronation Oaths to observe the good Laws of King Edward the Confessor which are the same with our so often confirmed Magna Charta's and Charta de Foresta the Blessings of this Nation and ordained by Act of Parliament to be read in all the Cathedral Churches of England and Wales the Infringers whereof have been as aforesaid so bitterly Anathematized And that the Honour Dignity and Strength of the Nation may no longer remain Ecclipsed and that our weakness in the want of our most Honourable and Ancient Monarchick Fundamental Feudal Laws may not be told or made use of in Gath and Askalon and that our King may not be without the means to defend himself and his People and avoid the disadvantages and damages which Forreign Princes and his Allies may put upon him in all his Leagues and Treaties with them concerning his Imperial and Monarchick Crown and Dignity and in matters of Commerce wherein all his People are not a little concerned and that there is now more reason and necessity than ever was that the Temporal Nobility the principal and most concerned part of the Nation should as they did in a Parliament at Merton publickly and seriously declare that noluerunt mutare Leges Angliae Collapsa ruunt subductis tecta Columnis Moribus antiquis stant res Britannae viresque FINIS Thucidides Regale Necessarium per Fabian Philipps Plowdens Commentum Fabian Philipps Regale Necessarium c. Mich. 18. E. 3. coram Râ—gt Mich. 19. E. 3. coram Rege Ro. 161. Bracton in proâ—â—io Additament Mat Paris Dr. Brady in Histor. H. 3. in Appendix 221. 222. Dr. Stillingfleets Origines Brittannicae a Dr. Duck De authoritate Juris Civilis Romanorum Lib. 2. Spelman Conal 35. c. 8. Sect. 14. 16. Chronicon Io. Brompton 956. Selden Dissert ad Fletam c. 4. sect 4. b Sir J. Spelman de vita Aelfredi Regis 8. R. Ep. Chalâ—edon Nich. Smith appendix 190. doctissimae Annot. in lib. ejusdem Iohn Spelman 6. c Chronicon J. Brompton 788. d Dr. Duck lib. 2. c. 8. sect 14. 16. e LL Inae Reg. in legib Saxon per Ab. Whelock W. Lambard Latin reddit f Chronic. Joh. Brompton 700. g LL Alluredi Regis h Balaeus Jâ— Spelm. de vita Aelfredi Regis 166. i LL Edwardâ— Regis k LL Aethelstani Regis l LL Edmunds Regis m Dr. Duck de authorit Iuris civilis Rom. li. 2. c 8. sect 16. n Sammes Brit Antiq. iâ—â—str 100 101 102 103. n Sammes Brit Antiq. iâ—â—str 100 101 102 103. o Jo. Spelman in vita Aelfredi 124. ex Ingulfo p LL Edgari Regis Cook in Praefat 4. relat q LL Ethelredi Regis r LL Canuti R s LL Edwardi Reg. Confess t Tit. l. x Noricorum Danor in Britannâ—a u Chron. Lech seldense x LL Guilielmi Regis Conqu Matt. Paris y Tit. 95. z Seldeni notae spicilegium ad eadmerum 167. a Spelman gloffar in legib Reg. H. 1. b Mat. Paris 240 241. c Mat. Paris 21. d Spelman glossar in diatriba de Magâ—â— Charta e Balaeus de scriptoribâ—â— Anglix 93. f Dugdale's Origmes Juridiciales 17. g Chronicon Jo. Bromton 62. h Spelman's glossor i Mat. Paris 197. k Daniel 127. l Balaeus de scriptoribus Anglicis 102. m Sam. Daniel in the Life of King John n Daniel 129. o Daniel 130. p Daniel 131. q Ibidem 132. r Daniel 135. s Daniel 137. t Daniel 138. u Matt. Paris 134. 235. x Mat Paris 236 237. y Daniel 139. 140. z Râ—claus 15 Johannis part 2. m 8. dorso z Matt. Paris 226 and 239. Daniel 139. a Matt. Paris 212. h Matt. Paris 240. 241. Daniel 140. t Pat. 16 Johannis m. 1. Dorso d Anno 16 Johannis in Alba Turre London e A. 16 Johan in turre Lond. f Ro ' pat 17. Johannis in 16. in dorso 3. g Ro ' pat 17 Johan in 16 in dorso h Pryn's History of K. John 34 35. i Mat. Paris ad annos 14 15 16 17 Johan k Mat. Paris 249. l Daniel 140 141. m Daniel 143. Matt. Paris 244. 255. o Charta Reg. Johannis in Mat. Paris 254 255 256 257 258 259 260. p Balaeus de scriptoribus Angliae 102. Polydor vir gil lib. 15. q Cokes 1 part Institut 108 159. Vide L. I. Edwardi Confessor cart L. L. s Matt. Paris 161. 162. Daniel 145. u Daniel 149 147. x Ranulphus Cestrenfis Henry de Knighton Caxton's Chronicle y Pryns history of the Pope's Usurpation in England in the Reign of King John 36. z y Pryns Animadversions upon the 4th part of Cokes Instit. * Daniel 148 149. * Daniel 150 151. * M. Par. 323. * 9 H. 3. * Pryns history of the Pope's Usurpation in England 6 8. * Epist in turre Lond. inter Record ibid. * ibid. fo 61. * Inter recordd anno 8 H. 3. in turre â—ondon * Magna Charta 9 H. 3. * Spelman's glossar ' 376. * Mat. Paris * Pryn's Animadversions upon Coke's 4. part of the Institutes * M. Par. 257. * Pryn's Animadversions upon Coke's 4. part of the Institutes * Tabulae censuales Angliae Or Dooms-day-book Dugdale's Baronage 〈◊〉 â—ome â—it Warren Earl of Surrey and Ferrers Earl of Derby and his Preface to the Antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated * Magna Charta 9 H. 3. c. 31. * 9 H. 3. c. 29. * Mat. Paris 380. Spelman glossar ' 331 332. * Daniel 154. * Daniel 157. * Anno 21 H. 3. * Daniel 157. â—Ro ' Cart. 21. H. 3. m. 7. * Mat. Paris 458 459. Matthew of Westminster 249 Pryn's hist. of the Pope's Usurpation in England â—Ro'clause 23 H. 3. m 14. 18 80. a Daniel 161. b Ro ' claus 28 H. 3. c Ro ' claus 32 H. 3. m. 15. d Daniel in the life of K. H. 3. 164 165. e Daniel 165. Ro ' pat 35 H. 3. m. 6. f Mat. Paris 580 581 583. Mat. Par. 812 15. Ro ' clause 37 46 H. 3. h Mat. Paris i Mat. Paris 758 811 812. Ro ' claus 37 46 H. 3. k Pryns hist. col of the Pope's Usurpation in England 107. Daniel in the life of K. H. 3. l Ro ' pat 37 H. 3. m. 12. in dorso n Mat. Par. 977. in additament is o Spelmans Glos 〈…〉 p Mat. Parit q Mat. Westminster r Daniel 177. s Mat Paris 983. t Mat. Paris 986. Daniel 178. u M. Paris 992 w Mat. Paris 992. x Inter Recorâ— in recept ' scienti apud Camerar y Mat. Paris 261. z Hen. Knight de
to my self that our seri Nepotes some others hereafter walking recto tramite in the like search and path of truth as I have done might add more assistance thereunto and may be permitted to say as St. Paul in another case did of himself that if I have had in so long an age and perambulation of time any acquaintance or conversation at all with my self mine own heart and Actions which many that have known me so long in my various careful and sorrowful passages of life occasioned by many the ingratitudes and ill dealings of some great families and others that should have dealt better with me in may testify my always constant and adventurous Loyalty to my Soveraigns without any the least fainting or haesitation will or may believe that I have neither lied or sought for preferment or any thing that could look otherwise than the sincerity of my heart and an unshaken and unbiassed love to Truth and Loyalty to my King and Countrey And can truly say and aver with many witnesses to confirm it that my long observations ever since the year 1628. until now compleating almost full 46 years of the said persecutions disloyalties misusages and sufferings of King Charles the Martyr in order and design to his Murder and the many Plots afterwards intended against his late Royal Majesty King Charles the second and his now Sacred Majesty and my Researches into the Records and Antiquities of this and other Nations concerning the Just Rights and Praerogatives of our Kings and Princes for the publick good and the avoiding the manifold miseries and damage that attend the Witchcraft and Madness of Rebellion and to the end that I might recal into the right way of truth those very many Noble learned grave and pious men that perfectly hated Rebellion and yet by fear or force going along with the Tide to secure themselves and Estates as well as they could and with the Vulgus and Rabble that had cut the reformed Church of England into no less than 160 Sects or new fashioned Religions and so far strayed from their Mother the reformed Church of England as they ran out of their Wits as much as their Religion so that they could not stop themselves in that their mad Career until they came to an opinion that it was Religion to be Rebellious and that Rebellion or Sedition for any thing called Religion was or at least ought to be warrantable by some or other word of God when by his new light they should be enabled to discover it hath given me like old Barzillai no quiet until I had done my duty unto God my King and my Countrey and posterity and brought what help I could unto our much injured and persecuted David in these now published Truths wherein I have as carefully as I could without the purchase of other mens Writings or Manuscripts at Auctions as too many our Lurching yet Learned enough Authors have done weighed all particulars in the Ballance of Truth Law and Right Reason and without any opiniatrete have left my self to the Judicious throughly impartial Readers and Tryers of those my carefully considered Labours wherein I shall be willing to rectify and submit to any truths when justly and rationally proved and be ashamed in the least to imitate those impudent Contrariants of truth and Right reason our Laws Annals and Records who although in their Books and Writings against our ever maintainable truths whilst they are in the acting and perpetrating the greatest Injuries imaginable unto them can offer to forsake their evil Impostures grounded Fancies and Opinions yet can after they have been publickly examined tryed and convicted of several gross Impostures and falsifications by the undeniable evidence of the Records themselves which they cited and referred themselves unto not like to those better men of Confessions and Retractations but being unwilling it seems either to perform their promises to their Readers or imitate the more honest examples of better men have thought it to be more correspondent unto their evil designs not to discourage their Disciples to persist in their egregious falshoods and unlearned foolish reasonless senseless and inconsequential arguments because they have wickedly made it their Interest and business to advocate the Devils cause by his and their evil Methods and Impostures And may find that they have by a Factious and Seditious Ignorance and over-bold adventure enticed many good men and Lawyers out of the paths of truth into an horrid Confusion and Rebellion for which they may suffer in the next World unless they can furnish their gross mistakes with some invisible or misinterpreted Record that every man may fancy and frame a new and better Government of the Kingdom and carve and make his own Religion and Idocize and propagate their own vain imaginations and selflreated ignorant Fancies instead of Laws and Records And should do better to stand and consider that the advice of the Prophet Jeremy that should not be thought to have spoken vain untrue or foolish Councel to stand upon the old ways and enquire after the ways of truth was not to do what you can to blind or sophisticate truth put her into disguises and transform her into as many shapes as may consort with the ugly designs of Faction and Rebellion and call to mind better than they do how diffusive and infectious the sin of Rebellion is that every of our evil Examples Doctrines or Perswasions tending thereunto such an evil especially as Sedition or Rebellion are by God chargeable also upon their accompt And that at the great Audit before an all knowing God there will be a multitude of consequential Evils besides their own particular sins which may be enough charged upon them when it will be too late to say one unto another as St. Paul did to his Innovators O ye foolish Galathians who hath bewitched you And amongst those many motives and obligations of Duty and Loyalty Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy to my Soveraign and compassion unto those multitudes that have erred and gone astray to the end that I might give an accompt of the trust reposed in me particularly and solely by his late Majesty under his sign Manual bearing date the 30th day of September in the 28th year of his Raign with full power and Authority to search and take Copies of all or any might be found concerning his Royal Rights which was seconded by an order of the Right Honourable Arthur Earl of Anglesey then Lord Privy Seal Mr. Henry Coventry and Sir Joseph Williamson his then Secretaries of State and Sir George Carteret being all of his Majesties Privy Council who did by their order dated the 3d. of July 1677. direct and authorize Sir William Dugdale since Garter King at Arms Elias Asbmole Esquire and my self in pursuance of his Majesties Order dated the 23. of February 1675. authorizing the aforesaid Lords of his Councel to examine the State and Condition of the Records in the Tower of London and consider what is
of such Assistance as his Majesties and the publick Records of the Kingdom unto which for more than 45 years I have been no Stranger and my own private Library could afford me wherein I cannot be without hope but something considerable may appear in my Labours that do not in his but walking together in the inquiries after our Fundamental Laws have not contradicted but concurred with each other in the Rescue and discovery of the truth of our Ancient and excellent Government and that which I have done might have been more exact if I had not by the no small disturbances of my own affairs and the common Falshoods and Delays of most of the Printers been greatly hindred so as I was in some part thereof to endure the disadvantage of writing as the Printing Press went and therein also could not escape several discouragements and can as Livy that grand Historian of the Roman Empire hath truly said of his Enterprise that it was res magna Ardua with great sincerity say with the learned Bracton perpetuae memoriae commendium postulans a Lectore ut diligenter legat bene consideret si quid super fluum aut perperam in hac opere invenerit illud corrigat aut emendet cum omnia habere in memoria Et in nullo peccare divinum sit potuis quam humanum And with the learned Dr. Barlow Bishop of Lincoln to the like purpose as unto what he wrote against the Church of Rome that if he had miscited or quoted added or omitted any thing or matter willingly against the truth Errors of misinterpretation or definition and of the Printers only excepted I shall be willing to reform any humane frailties or frrors of that kind that shall so appear unto any considerate impartial Reader that do not read it here and there a little runing over as the Irish do their Bogs or as some others do after dinner and in afternoons Nap or Slumber or by Indexes so as I may not prejudice that grand truth concerning the Just Rights of the Imperial Crown of England and the Doctrine of the reformed Church of England against all the Engines of Rebellion Falsities Cavillations and Impostures that have been made use of against it and all their Loyal and Learned Propugnators that have done so worthily in our Israel to defend them Wherein if any shall object and think I have been too copious and fewer words and more labour might have been spared they that have been conversant with Books or the learned or be themselves learned should know that a little may be enough to some when a great deal will not be so for others especially where the Arch Enemy of Mankind hath sown and planted Weeds such as Henbane and Night Shade in our G 〈…〉 dens amongst our wholsom Herbs and Flowers the Lillies of the Vallies and the Roses of Shaâ—on which will require much time and labour and more than a few words to eradicate or pull them up or a few most clear demonstrations to a numerous party the more is the pity that for the space of almost Fifty years last past have been strangely effascinated and infatuated and yet like well of it because they have enriched themselves by turning Religion into Rebellion and Rebellion into a part of that which never was any part of Religion extravagant Religion is now made Liberty and Liberty and Religion too much turned into Rebellion And our Laws and long approved good Monarchick Government having by a seditious party of Rebels abusing the Right power and use of Parliaments diverted our Antient Just and True Laws out of their proper course and channel wherein they had blessed both our Kings and their People I am not unlike to escape the rash or envious censure of some that either have not read throughly as they ought or misread or not understood our genuine proper and true Laws therefore should be content with the duty of those that have made it their endeavour either to vindicate the Rights of their King or relieve a too much neglected unvalued truth and be as much blamed as the Bishop Elect of Winchester was in the time of the troubles and Imprisonment of King Henry the 3d. by some of his overgrown Nobility when they wrote unto the Pope as bitterly as they could against him for maintaining the justice of his Kings cause and when it may be heard of or read by some of our long missed Lawyers that have for almost 50 years been suckled or nursed up in a contrary practice may take it to be a bet ter way and more agreeable to their genuine at least to their profit and humor of the present times to do as Demetrius the Silver smith did unto St. Pauls Doctrine rather cavil and say something against it to no purpose then any thing concerning truth or cogent Arguments yet it must be adventured with a melioraspero and that the errors and mistakes of too many of our men of Law and others may no longer as it were successively afflict our Nation that the subjects may learn understand and practise the duty of Allegeance and Supremacy and not be so much out of their wâ—es as to believe that there ever was a Treason committed by a King or Emperour against their people or that the Members of the House of Commons in 〈◊〉 proceeding beyond their Limits and the King 〈◊〉 â—oples Commission ought to be accompted the reasion of the People but that so many Advocates and Lawyers as England is and hath been abundantly replenished with should rather make it their business strongly upon all occasions to defend their â—ings Rights which every man would expect of his stipended Lawyer as the Advocates of other Kingdoms never failed to do Or can any man adventure to say or think that the All-knowing Never-erring God did not intend to keep his word but made one Vicegerent after that he had made or promised it unto another or ever made the Common People his Vicegerent or any King or Prince subject to their ignorances mutabilities and Passions to be Arraigned and Murdered when they pleased at the suit of the People for Treason committed against them or if any Nation Record or History did or could ever furnish out such an example when the Murder of our Prince did so stink and was more than ordinarily abhorred and detestable as besides many learned men in Forreign parts publickly writing and declaiming against it the Czars or Czar of that great Empire of Russia or Moscovia were so sensible of it as he banished and seized many of the English Merchants and their goods and effects to the ruin of many of them for no other cause than that as he said they had been Traytors unto their King and had Murdered him though they were then men of great Loyalty and were not then Resident in England and see and read Milton over much learned in the School of his Master the Devil and our infatuated Regicides
the Parliament Cities and Burrough-Towns the only Iudges under the King who are fit and unfit to be Members in the House of Commons in Parliament and that the Freeholders and Burgesses more than by a just and impartial Assent and Information who were the fittest were not to be the Electors p. 371. § 20. Of the small numbers of Knights of the Shires and Burgesses which were Elected and came in the Raign of King Edward the first upon his aforesaid Writs of Election and how their numbers now amounting unto very many more were after encreased by the corruption of Sheriffs and the Ambition of such as desired to be Elected p. 382. § 21. Who made themselves Electors for the chusing of Knights of the Shires to be Members of the House of Commons in Parliament after the 21st year of the Raign of King Edward the first contrary to the Tenor of his aforesaid Writs of Summo 〈…〉 made in the 22 year of his Raign for the Election of Knights of the Shire and Burgesses to come to the Parliaments and great Councils of several of our Kings and Princes afterwards p. 387. § 22. Of the Actions and other Requisites by the Law to be done by those that are or shall be Elected Knights Citizens and Burgesses to attend our King in their great Councils or Parliaments praecedent and praeparatory to their admission therein p. 388. § 23. That the Members of the House of Commons being Elected and come to the Parliament as aforesaid did not by vertue of those Writs of Election sit together with the King and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in one and the same Room or Place and that if any such thing were as it never was or is likely to be proved it cannot conclude or infer that they were or are co-ordinate or had or have an equal power in their Suffrages and Decisions p. 393. § 24. What the Clause in the Writs for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to come unto the Parliament ad faciendum consentiendum do properly signifie and were intended by the said Writs of 〈◊〉 to be Members of the House of Cowmons in Parliament p. 398. § 25. Of the many variations and alterations of our Kings Writs of Summons to their great Councels or Parliaments excluding some and taking in others to be assistant in that high and Honourable Court with its Resummons Revisions drawing of Acts of Parliament or Statutes dy the Judges or the Kings learned Councel in the Laws and other Requisites therein necessarily used by the sole and individual authority of our Kings and Princes p. 411. § 26. What is meant by the word Representing or if all or how many of the people of England and Wales are or have been in the Elections of a part of the Commons to come to Parliament Represented p 548. § 27. That no Impeachment by all or any of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament or of the House of Peers in Parliament hath or ever had any authority to invalidate hinder or take away the power force or effect of any the pardons of our Kings or Princes by their Letters Patents or otherwise for High Treason or Felony Breach of the Peace or any other crime or supposed Delinquency whatsoever p. 573. § 28. Of the protection and priviledge granted unto the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament by our Soveraign Kings and â—rinces during their Attendance and Employments in their great Councils of Parliament according to the Tenor and purport of their Commissions p. 607. § 29. Neither they claim or ever were invested by any Charter or Grant of any of our Kings or Princes or otherwise of any such Priviledge or Liberty nor was or is in England any Law or Usage or Custom that a Parliament sitting cannot be Prorogued or Dissolved as long as any Petition therein exhibited remaineth unanswered or not determined p. 633. § 30. That in those Affairs peculiar only to so great and venerable an Assembly which should not be trivial or proper to lower and lesser Iurisdictions assigned for the determining of lesser matters for the publick ease and benefit our Kings and Princes have a greater burden and care upon them as Gods Vicegerents besides that of Parliaments to manage and take care of the Kingdom for the benefit and good of themselves and their people p. 637. § 31. That our Great Councils or Parliaments except anciently at the three great Festivals viz. Christmas Easter and Pentecost being ex more summoned and called upon extraordinary emergent occasions could not either at those grand and chargeable Festivals or upon necessities of State or Publick Weal and preservation ex natura rei continue long but necessarily required Prorogations Adjournments Dissolutions or endings p. 641. § 32. That Parliaments or Great Councels de quibusdam arduis concerning the defence of the Kingdom and Church of Enggland neither were or can be fixed to be once in every year or oftner they being always understood and believed to be by the Laws and Ancient and reasonable Customs of England ad libitum Regis who by our Laws Right Reason and all our Records and Annals is and should be the only Watchman of our Israel and the only Iudge of the necessity times and occasion of Summoning Parliaments p. 650. § 33. That all or any of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament are not properly or by their original constitution intended or otherwise entituled or properly truly justly lawfully seized or to be stiled or termed Estates neither are to be so understood or believed to be and being to be no otherwise than subject to a Temporary Election and by the Authority of their Kings Writs paid their Wages and Charges by those that sent and elected them can have no Iust or Legal Right thereunto p. 656 § 34. A Series or accompt of the many Seditions Rebellions and Discords that have successively happened since the beginning of the Raign of King Henry 2. to our succeeding Kings and Princes until this present Age wherein we now live by mistaken and never to be warranted principles p. 717. A Vindication of the Antient and Present Establish'd Government of the Kingdom of ENGLAND under our Kings and Monarchs appointed by GOD from the Opinion and Claim of those that without any Warrant or ground of Law or Right Reason the Laws of God and Man Nature and Nations and the Records thereof would have it to be Originally deriv'd from the People Co-ordinate with the Houses of Peers and Commons in Parliament or by their Election SECT I. That our KINGS of ENGLAND in their voluntary Summoning to their Great Councels and PARLIAMENTS some of the more Wise Noble and better part of their Subjects to give their Advice and Consent in Matters touching the Publick Good and Extraordinary Concernment did not thereby Create Or by any Assent Express or Tacite give unto Them an Authority Co-ordination Equality or Share in the Legislative
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
complaint of the Gascoigns who were under the Government of the Prince that their Wines were taken away by the King's Officers without due satisfaction and the Prince thereupon addressing himself to his Father in their behalf and the Officers in excuse of themselves informing the King that the Prince took upon him to do Justice therein when it belonged not to him the King was put in a great rage and said Behold my Son and my Brother are bent to afflict me as my Grand-father King Henry II. was And being put to his shifts to supply his necessities came himself into his Exchequer and with his own mouth pronounced and made Orders for the better bringing in of his Revenues Farms and Amerciaments under severe penalties that every Sheriff which appeared not yearly there in the Octaves of St. Michael with his money as well of his Farms and Amerciaments as other dues for the first day should be amerced five Marks for the second ten for the third fifteen and for the fourth should be redeemed at the King's pleasure all Cities and Freedoms to be amerced in the same manner and the fourth day making default were to lose their Freedoms the Sheriffs amerced five Marks for not distraining upon every man that having 20 l. Lands per annum came not to be made Knight unless he had before been freed by the King And by examinations of measures of Ale and Wine Bushels and Weights got some small sums of money and about the time of Richard Earl of Cornwal's going to Germany where he was by the privity and approbation of the Councel of State in England elected King of the Romans called a Parliament where bringing his Son Edmond clad in an Apuleian-habit he said Behold my Son Edmond whom God hath called to the dignity of Regal Excellency how fitting and worthy is he of your favour and how inhumane were it in so important a necessity to deny him counsel and aid and shewed them how by the advice and benignity of the Pope and the Church of England he had for the obtaining of the Kingdom of Sicily bound himself under the penalty or covenant of losing the Kingdom of England in the sum of 150000 Marks and had obtained the Tenth of the Clergy of all their Benefices for three years according to the new rates without deduction of expences besides their first-fruits for three years whereupon after many excuses of poverty they promised upon the usual condition of confirmation of Magna Charta to give him 32000 Marks But that not satisfying The next year another Parliament was holden at London where he pressing them again for money to pay his debts the Lords told him plainly They would not yield to give him any thing and if he unadvisedly bought the Kingdom of â—icilly and was deceived in it he was to blame himself therein And repeating their old grievances the breach of his promise contempt of the power of the Church and the Charter which he had solemnly sworn to observe with the insolency of Strangers especially of William de Valence who most reproachfully had given the lye to the Earl of Leicester for which he could not upon complaint to the King have right done him how they abounded in Riches and himself so poor as he could not repress an Insurrection of the Welsh The King thereupon promised by his Oath taken upon the Tomb of St. Edward to reform all his errours But the Lords in regard the business was difficult got the Parliament to be adjourned to Oxford and in the mean time the Earls of Gloucester Hereford the Earl Marshal Bigod Spencer and other great men confederated and provided by strength to effect their desires The King driven into necessities did the better to appease those often-complain'd-of grievances when his own were burthen enough by his Writs or Commissions sent into every County of England appoint quatuor milites qui considerarent quot quantis gravaminibus simpliciores à fortioribus opprimuntur inquirent diligenter de singulis querelis injuriis à quocunque factis vel à quibuscunque illatis à multis retroactis temporibus omnia requisita sub sigillis suis se cùm Baronagio ad tempus sibi per breve praefixum certificent which by any Record or History do not appear saith Sir Henry Spelman to have been ever certified And to obtain money procured the Abbot of Westminster to get his Convent to joyn with him as his surety in a Bond for 300 marks sent Simon Paslieu his trusty Councellor with Letters to other Monasteries to do the like but they refused And the Prince participating in the wants of his Father was for want of money constrained to mortgage the Towns of Stanford Benham and other Lands to William de Valence So that upon the aforesaid adjournment and meeting of the Parliament at Oxford in the 42d year of his Reign brake out those great discontents which had been so long in gathering whither the Lords brought with them great numbers of their Tenants by Knights-Service which were many followers dependants and adhaerents upon a pretence of aiding the King and going against the Welsh where after they had secured the Ports to prevent Foreign aids and the Gates of the City of London with their oaths and hands given to each other not to desist until they had obtain their ends began to expostulate their former Liberties and require the performance according to the Oaths and Orders formerly made the Chief-Iusticiar Chancellor and Treasurer to be ordained by publick choice the twenty four Conservators of the Kingdom to be confirmed twelve by the election of the Lords and twelve by the King with whatsoever else might be advantageous for their own security Whereupon the King seeing their strength and in what manner they required those things did swear again solemnly to the confirmation of them and caused the Prince to take the same Oath Of which Treasonable Contrivances Matthew of Westminster an ancient English Historian of good credit hath recorded his opinion in these words Haec de provisionibus imò de proditionibus Oxon dicta sufficiant And here yet they would not rest the King's Brethren the Poictovins and all other strangers were to be presently removed the Kingdom cleared of them and all the Peers of the Land sworn to see it done The Earl of Cornwal's eldest Son refusing to take the Oath without leave of his Father was plainly told That if his Father would not consent with the Baronage in that Case he should not hold a Furrow of Land in England In the end the King's Brethren and their followers were despoiled of all their fortunes and banished by order under his own hand with a charge not to pass with any Money Arms or Ornaments other than such as the Earls of Hereford and Surrey should allow and appoint with an injunction to the City of Bristol or any other Ports not to permit any strangers or Kinsmen of
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
Fidus Achates the Trinoda necessitas or expedtitiones castrorum pontium reparationes From which the Bishops and Clergy by themselves or others were not to be excused raysing of Forces at the Countries Charges which the preservation of their Lands that were given them for that service besides the obligations of their Oaths and gratitude strictly oblige them unto making provisions for the War for the Victuals and the Wages of Military Men as well at Home as in Forreign Expeditions for the defence of the Kingdom and State together with the Arrogationes Auctoritatem dare l. 2. F. de adopt Sect. c. 1. or give licence to adopt as our King Stephen did King Henry the II. Which together with our Licences Pardon of Alienation and Fines paid for the neglect thereof Courts-Leet and Baron Ancient demesne Free and Copyholders and Fines certain or uncertain at the Will of the Lord Prescription of Ancient Custome and Usage not mala in se villani Bordarii manucaption Satis datio or Baile Fribergh Tithings Sheriffs Turnes or County-Courts Hundred-Courts and our Communia Concilia or Parliaments upon Urgent and Special occasions concerning the defence of the Kingdom and Church of England and the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to be had therein Wardships Marriage Advowsons Patronage of Churches License of Widdows of Tenants in Capite to Marry Seizures Ouster les maines Liveries or Investitures Primer seizen forfeiture of portion upon marriage tendered and refused respite of homage Priority in Suing for Debts Ann. Diem Vastum Power to amend wave or charge his Demurrer to Imploy Coroners Escheators and Feodaries Issues aut diem clausit extremum stay other Mens Actions with a Rege Inconsulto Kings Silver or Money to be paid pro Licentia Concordandi Writs of per que Servitia cessavit per Biennium de Coronatore eligendo de advocatione and the Assessments of Escuage quare impedit de viridario eligendo in Parliament Writs of Couge de Eslire Evesque Writs of Recordare or Accedas ad Cariam Writs of Prohibition distringas de Excommunicato Capiendo our Juries or Tryals in matters of Controversies per pares our Writs de Odio Atia ne injuste vexes Writs of Novell Disseisiu or of Entry and Redisseisin or Triall by Battell or Judicium Dei fire deal or Ordial Writts de Nativo habendo Certiorari de Proprietate probanda cum multis aliis mentioned in that authentique book of our Laws called the Register of Writs and even almost the whole frame and Context of our Laws do besides the Laws and Statutes made by our Kings and Princes and the reasonable Customes and Usages of the People indulged or allowed by them plainly bear and declare the Idea Effigies and lively Portraict of the Feudall Laws Planted and established as they ought to be in this our heretofore more happy Islands distinguishing Estates in Lands granted inter feudum nobile plebeium From the former of which our Nobility and Bishops have derived their Privileges of Freedom from Common Process of Arrest and even the widdows of the Nobility together with the precedency of the Sons and Daughters of them And our Kings have enjoyed the privilege of protecting the persons of their servants from personall arrests which they may certainly as Justly and lawfully do as the members of the house of Commons and their Servants And that of the House of Peers in Parliament do and have none in the Times of Parliament and it should not be unobserved or unknown by or unto our later Lawyers of England that the ancient and usuall forms of our Declarations and Pleadings at Law have been and are that the Plaintiffs or Defendents were or are Seized in dominico suo ut de feodo Simplici aut Talliato and that our Laws have or had ab antiquissimis Seculis or ages a great mixture of the Feudal Laws which the people esteemed to be a part of their happiness untill this our last mad age of Rebellion Faction and Sedition had taught our English Copy-holders to esteem their Tenures to be a Norman Slavery wherein the Charity and good-will of their Landlords have continued to their generations yet notwithstanding have by length of time converted their kindnesses into a villanous Custome of Ingratitude And as the Civill Law had before done inter patrones et Clientes the patritii or Nobility esteemed it to be a Disparagement to intermarry with the vulgar who could not for a long time and without much Strugling be admitted into the Magistracy as Livy and other good Roman Historians have assured us but were as a Seperate part of the people glad to be content with their Tribuni plebis to Intercede with the Senate to make good and wholsome Laws or abate the rigour or Severity of any of them so far were they from ambition or any designs of Intermedling above their Incapacitated Spheres or Incroaching upon the Kinâ—â—y Government as if Simon Montford and his Fellow-Rebells had by force put upon King Henry the 3d. in the 49th year of his Reign taught them the way unto it not as he did by force but by degrees and sly Insinnuations working upon the Indulgence or necessities of their princes but might have tarryed long enough and beyond the longest period of time before our Feudal Laws would have given them so much as a leave or licence to attempt it However if that will not do those Novillists or hatchers of new unwarrantable doctrines will to work again limbeck their Fancies to vent the only Vapours of such imaginations or what can be Extracted as some Elixir Proprietatis Elixir Vitae or Salutis to be purchased at their own others costly enough rates and prices so as they may be instrumentall and subservient to their Wicked and Seditious Designs of Subverting the Monarchy and Deluding the People And their men of more Faction then Wifdom Law Right Reason or Evidence SECT XVI That the General Councels or Courts mentioned before the Rebellious meeting of some of the English Baronage the constraint put upon King John at Running Mede or before the 49. of H. 3. were not the Magna Consilia or Generale consilium Colloquium or Communia Consilia now called Parliaments wherein some of the Commons as Tenants in capito were admitted but only truly and properly Curiae Militum a Court Summoning those that hold of the King in Capite to acknowledge record and perform their services do their homage and pay their reliefs c. and the writ of Summons mentioned in the close Rolis of the 15th year of the Reign of K. John was not then for the summoning of a great Councell or Parliament but for other purposes viz. Military Aids and Offices WHich withall their Strains Conjectures or Alchimy of abused Wit will never be able to make the Writ which Mr Selden found in the close Role of the 15th year of the Reign of King John to be
his Subjects Untill in that much mistaken Erroneous Act of Parliament said to have been made in Feb. 1645. by some of the Lords Commons of that which should not have been called a Parliament when they made War had like strange Subjects and Advisors beaten away their King neither had there been any design of abrogating the Tenures in Capite or of that kind in all the Brittish Roman Saxon Danish or Normam times to annull or dissolve so strong and solid a Foundation as our Feudall Laws nothing in the Rebellion Force and strange unkingly restrictions Articles and agreements put upon King John at Running Mede no grievance by the Tenures in Capite or by Knight-service certified upon any the Writs sent by King Henry the 3. unto all the Sheriffs of the Counties and Cities of England and Wales to Elect 4 Knights of every County and City to certify to the King and his Baronage their Grievances nothing in the forced Parliament and Oaths upon King Henry the 3. and his Son Prince Edward in the 42. Year of his Reign nothing in his direfull procession and waâ—king with his Parliament of Praelates and Nobility throuâ—h Westminster Hall unto that Abby Church with burning Tapers Curses and Anathema's against the Infringers of Magna Charta and Charta de Forresta then and yet holden in Capite with many of our Liberties Fundamentall and Feudall Laws therein contained nothing desired or ordered to be taken away of them or any of them no mention of them in the arbitration or award made by the King of France betwixt that King and his Rebell Barons or when Simon Montfort and his Partners kept him in their powerfull Army a Prisoner about a Year or a Quarter no Complaints or grievances against those Tenures in Capite in all those multitudes of other supposed grievances nothing in the Petition of Right and 30 times confirmation of Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta as if they could never have enough of them nor Reformation desired in and through all the Clownish Rebellions and Insurrections in England in the Times of Wat Tiler John Ball Jack Cade Ket and others And therefore whilst these Underminers of our long lived Monarchy and in that their own happiness have gratified their fond feavourish fancies in procuring a Dissolution of as many as they could of our Tenures in Capite for all if any they could not with the Costly expence of 48. Millions sterling in mony besides an uncomptable and unvalued damage of four hundred thousand Men Women and Children slain or Massacred whole families ruined or for ever Crpled Heaven angry and incensed Hell gaping Religion torn in more then one hundred pieces and all for want of the Care Provision and Protection that the despised Mother Church of England like the Voice that was heard in Ramah Rachel mourning for her Children that they were not our Shames Published in the Streets of Gath and Askalon in the Time of its peace and the Sins of Rebellion and Witchcraft have as the Egiptian Locusts covered overspread the face of our heretofore fruitfull Island And the Protection and Provision usually made by our Tenures in Capite for Younger Children as well as the Eldest affords them no better a care then to leave them when the Mother is after the Fathers Death by some Debaucht Rooking or Gamiug Coxcomb made a fool of and Married again as very often they will are like Lambs left as a Prey unto the Wolves or Foxes the Second Husbands who if the Mother have Children by him will be as too many are well content to help to Fricasse the first husbands Children to make Portions or Estates for the Second so as if it be Enquired where is now the Court of Wards and Liveries which hath been so pretendedly without any Just Cause at all complained of they may find every where a Court of Wards and Liveries lamentably governed by the Fathers in Law of England Wales and Ireland They might do well to make more hast then they have done to repentance consider how much more then nothing at all the Nation was beholding to those overtures as much as they could of the Monarchy Tenures in Capite have been to those Commonwealth Erecters have deserved of the People and those whom they pretended to represent in Parliament when instead of bread they have given them Stones and of Fishes Scorpions and to shew the profoundness of their wisdom did as wisely as those that attempâ—ed to drown the Eel when upon a great serious consult they may Easily discover no better effects or fruit of their overchargeable expences enforced upon the people to their own great and Villanous gain and the ruin spoil and inestimable damage of our 3 before that most happy flourishing redoubtable Kingdoms When that Act of Parliament for taking away the Tenures in Capite doth but as much as it could convert them into Free and Common Socage without any mention of pro omnibus servitiis and the Law made by King Ina who Reigned here from the year of our Savior 923. untill after some part of the Year 940. which is not specially repealed by that Act of destroying as much as it was able the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service did ordain that Scutarorum nullus ex pelle ovina Scutafabricatur qui secus fecerit 30 solides mulctator pro singulo quoque aratrobinos alat quisque ornatos atque instructos Equites and in a Tenure in Free and Common Socage Fealty is a duty and service inseparable as Littleton saith and signifieth although as he putteth the Case is in the Ceremony of the doing thereof sometimes different from homage for when the Tenant doth fealty unto his Lord he shall hold his hand upon a Book and shall Swear that he shall be faithfull and true to his Lord and shall bear him faith for the Lands which he holdeth of him and fealty is derived a fidelitate Feltman bestowing upon an originall of the like nature a fide and Escuage draweth unto it homage and Homage draweth unto it fealty for fealty is incident to every manner of Service unless it be in the Tenure of Franck-Almoigne and the Tenures in Capite and by Knights Service some only excepted being transferred into Free and Common Socage without saying per fidelitatem tantum pro omnibus servitiis may notwithstanding the forebidding or rejection of of Homage and all other Incidents of Tenures in Capite and by Knights Service render the fealty incident unto free and Common Socage by our Laws to amount unto as much as that which the framer of that Act of Parliament hoped to extinguish by Converting those Tenures in Capite as much as he could into Tenures in pede which should have been beleived to have been very fundamental and dangerous to alter when the wisdom of the English and Scottish Commissioners authoris'd by an Act of Parliament in the Reign of King James
the Reign of King Henry the 3d included in the King and the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Tenants and Knights Fees of the Lords Temporal and Spiritual not a few were not represented when with those and their dependancies they so over-powered King H. 3. in a Parliament at Oxford as to inforce him to yield unto those Provisions which afterwards proved to be the fatal Incentives of an ensuing bloody War and the Seminary of many Commotions and Contests betwixt some of our Succeeding Kings and their Subjects in their after Generations those only excepted being Tenants Paravail who held their Lands subordinately of the Tenants that were mean to those that held their Lands of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal the Majores Barones holding of the King in Capite with multitudes almost innumerable of Copy-holders Lease-holders Tenants at Will or Sufferance Villani or Bordarii le menu peuple et de busse condition were exempted by Order of Parliament as represented by them and no other and always used to be so the almost numberless Herd of Monks Fryers and Religious Persons and their Revenues Servants Tenants and Dependants were not nor could be represented but freed by the Kings Orders in Parliament from payment of the Commoners Wages that came to Parliament by two several necessary sorts of Priviledges and Immunities instead of many more which they claimed the Religious and Monastick People of the Nation with their very large Possessions and Revenues before the dissolution of them in the Reign of King Henry the 8th and King Edward the 6th being rationally to be accounted little less than a full 4th part of the Lands of the Kingdom the Secular Clergy always giving Subsidies apart by themselves being almost 10000 were represented by the Bishops or Convocation of the Clergy the Tenants in Antient demesne or of the great number of the Tenants of the Kings Annaent demesne proper and largely extended Royal Revenue that should be which before they were Granted or Aliened away by our Kings like Indulgent Common Parents to their almost every days craving Subjects and People or in Rewarding and Incouraging publick and great Services done or to be done for the Common-wealth or Publick good which were very large and diffusive through all the parts of the Nation and the Clerks of the Chancery Beneficiate as most of them Antiently were and the Judges Kings Council and Officers attending the Honourable House of Peers in the like condition and should be exempted although by length of Time Custom Indulgence or Permission they have been since the Original of the House of Commons in the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry the 3d. which was then no more than our Embrio and from thence discontinued until the 22d year of the Raign of King Edward the first charged and made contributary to publick Aids and Necessities and the largely Priviledged County Palatine of Lancaster having heretofore comprehended in it the three great Earldoms of Leicester Derby and Lincoln with their largely extended Revenues was not at the first represented but did forbear the sending of Members the remainder whereof is now a great part of the Kings Revenue the whole County Palatine of Chester with Wales and its Provinces had none until the Raign of King Henry the 8th nor the County Palatine of Durham and the Burrough of Newark upon Trent until some few years ago Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots Pryors Religious Men and Women and all that have hundreds of their own as very many have by Grant from the Crown are by the Statute of 42 H. 3. exempted from coming to the Sheriffs Torn or County Court and so not intended to be Electors or Elected The Kings very large should be Demesne Lands and Crown Revenue and that of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the many other before mentioned exempted And the Records of the House of Peers in Parliament have often told us that many times when the Commons gave Subsidies they did it by the Assent of the Lords Spitual and Temporal And as a very Learned Divine of the Church of England there being many Pseudo-Protestant Divines that are not of it hath well remarked there is no Subject of the Kingdom of England represented in Parliament by the Commons thereof but as subordinate to the King and to join with him and the Lords in their As-Assent and Approbation not against him or either of them in our Kings and Soveraign Princes making of Laws for the good of the Kingdom For Repraesentare is no more than locum implore autoritate vel vicaria potestate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ita iotis est exhibere vi quà dam juris praesentiam ejus qui revera non est Budaeus definit esse repraesentationem per figuram facere imaginario visu rem ipsam repraesentare locum implere loco sistere loco praesentis sistere repraesentatio quaedam imaginaria And being but Commissioners special Attorneys or Procurators of some part of the Lay-Commonalty and Freeholders not of the Copy-holders Lease-holders Villains or Bondmen Servants or Apprentices could not by their Indentures Letters of Attorney or Procurations with any reason truth understanding or propriety of speech be believed to represent for them that never delegated or authorised them or to Act beyond the purpose or design of those that Elected sent or imployed them nor can make it to be any thing more than an aenigma or Riddle with some hidden and inveloped sense or meaning not to be comprehended in the genuine obvious or proper meaning sense or construction of the word Repraesent for who can without a great weakness failing or Error in his Judgment think that they could by any tentering or straining of the word make all the several kinds of people that sent them in obedience to the direction of their Kings Writs or Orders to impower them whilst they sate in the House of Commons in Parliament to Sentence Condemn Fine Arrest Imprison Banish or Sequester any of those that they pretended to represent when the Praedecessors of those that would be Masters of such a Latitude did in Parliament in the 42d year of the Raign of King Edward the third when a Tax or Aid was proposed for the King being the first and only end for which they were elected and sent make it their request to the King to give them leave to go home to their several Countries and places to advise before hand with those that sent them Otherwise the Pledges or Sureties which every Member of the House of Commons being to give their County and place whom they would represent as their Procurators or Attorneys are to be well heeded and cautiously taken for pledges or security well watched in their doings and not left to trick and purchase to themselves by unlawful Encroachments an Arbitrary and Illegal Soveraignty which the Laws of the Land never allowed them and their Masters the Counties and places that sent them
Duty and Allegiance they are obliged to attend their Soveraign and come to the General Consult of a Parliament so is it to be considered that the Speculator and Prorector of our Kingdom and Nation under God just allowances being always to be made of natural rests and refreshments and competent care of health cannot be Master if he could of much time whilst he is to encourage and maintain the Publick Good of his People and Guard them from any evils or inconveniences which do or might assail them in his care and distribution of Justice in all the complaints and Petitions of a numerous and mighty People in the issuing out of Writs Edicts and Proclamations which do every day and hour in the year almost imploy his Ministers of State and substituted in their several stations and qualifications Sundays and the grand Festivals in every year not always escaping and the not to be expressed almost perpetual cares of a Kingly and Monarchick Government largely attested by the many Patent Charter and Clause Rolls brevia Regis Rescripts Commissions Certioraris Writs of ad quod dampnum Inquisitions cum multis aliis in the Raigns of our Kings and Queens now lodged and preserved in the Tower of London the Exchequer and the Treasures thereof with the Records of the other Courts with what else could be rescued from the ravage of War and Time together with the Memorials of their Secretaries of State Privy Councel Table Books referrences and the returns thereof hearings of causes complaints and orders and redresses thereof with a necessary Inspection and Survey in and of all the affairs and conditions of his people and their well or ill being when the cares of government were so accompted to be an heavy burden for Moses in his conduct of an affrighted and oppressed people of Israel driven out of Egypt with six hundred thousand men on foot besides Women and Children with their Flocks and Herds in their travelling and unsetled condition through the wilderness towards their hopes in the Promised Land of Canaan with murmuring enough in the hearing and determining of their Suits and Complaints one against another raised in Jethro his Father-in-Law such a compassion of his Labour and Toil therein as he told him he would surely wear away both himself and the People and therefore Councelled him only to reserve hard matters unto himself and appoint out of the People able Men such as fear God and love the Truth hating Covetousness to Judge the People in smaller matters Wherein they that shall rightly consider the cares of Kings and Princes and the trouble of preserving and doing good to a far greater number of People not seldom as unto too many against their Wills may think themselves to be happy under the Protection of Gods Vicegerent and bound to obey with cheerfulness his Providence therein and that it was never intended by our less murmuring and more grateful Ancestors to make perpetual extraordinaries or a standing Court of Parliament which could not fall within the Reason Necessity or Practise of any good or rational Government and if it could as it never can must of necessity tear in pieces our happy best Established Monarchy and Sacrificing it to an inexorable misery leave our Posterities to be tossed and driven in and upon the Waters of Strife Self-interest and Vain Imaginations and in the fear without any cause of an Arbitrary Power of our Kings never like to happen over-hastily and madly run into the Arbitrary Power of a multitude or some prevailing Party of plundering and pretending Reforms amongst them many of which is and will be the worst of all Arbitraries of a Rude Ignorant Unreasonable and Senseless multitude with the greatest certainties of miseries as fatally as inevitably likely to happen §. 32. That Parliaments or great Councels de quibusdam arduis concerniug the defence of the Kingdom and Church of England neither were or can be fixed to be once in every year or oftner they being alwaies understood and believed to be by the Laws and ancient and reasonable Customs of England ad libitum Regis who by our Laws Right Reason and all our Records and Annals is and should be the only watchman of our Israel and the only Judge of the necessity times and occasion of summoning Parliaments FOR notwithstanding that by an Act of Parliament made in the 4th year of the Raign of King Edward 3. It was accorded that a Parliament should be holden once in every year and more often if need be And in an other Act of Parliament made in the 36th year of the Raign of the aforesaid King Edward it is said that for the maintenance of the Articles and Statutes made in the said Parliament of the 36th and redress of divers mischiefs and grievances which dayly happen a Parliament shall be holden as at other times was appointed by a Statute yet the latter Act of Parliament was but with reference to the former and that imparted no more than that a Parliament shall be holden once in every year and more often if need be and howsoever that in the 50th year of the Raign of that King the Commons renewed their petition that a Parliament might be holden that Knights of the Parliament might be chosen by the whole Counties and that the Sheriffs might likewise be without brocage in Court the King only answered to the Parliament there are Statutes made therefore to the Sheriffs there is answer made to the Knights it is agreed that they shall be chosen by common consent of every County and in Anno Primo R. 2. petitioned the King that a Parliament might be yearly holden in a convenient place to redress delays in Suits and to end such Cafes as the Judges doubt of which the Consequences after will shew were only to be at the pleasure and will of the King as his prudence care and necessity of himself and the publick good should necessarily advise if the true Interpretation of both those Acts of Parliament could as it never can bear any other signification for although that which next followed that Act of Parliament made in the 4th year of the Raign of that King was in the next year after yet that which succeeded that was in Anno 6 and not printed For the Parliament was for a few days Adjourned and being after holden at York was for a short time likewise Prorogued and afterwards the Assembly being not come was Adjourned until the 5th of St. Hillary next following at York and from thence again to a Reassembly at the same place at the end of which Re-assembly the Commons had License to depart and the Lords were commanded to attend him the next day at which time the Parliament was Dissolved The Duke of Cornwal the Kings Eldest Son as Guardian of England by the Kings Letters Patents held the Parliament at Westminster and a memorandum made to Summon the Parliament at the 5th of St. Hillary
the Mazorites to understand their own Language and by creeping themselves into that which our Rebel Innovates would have called a third Estate made themselves the Governing Essential and Constituent part of the Parliament the generale Consilium or Colloquium of the Nation in arduis not in omnibus but quibusdam being the most useful wholesome and profitable in and through all the Christian World and so experimented where they are kept in their due and proper Limits and Boundaries in a due Obedience to their Kings and Soveraigns and cause as many as they can to believe them that they as representing the People who never trusted them to any or the like purpose have an Inherent Right of Soveraignty in themselves to accuse depose or murder their Kings and Elect or Choose another turn a Monarchy into a Republick or Common-wealth when there had not been in England within the memory of any true Record or impartial History any one before framed by a Factious and Unquiet Party of Rebels in Parliament under the basest of Hypocrisy that ever was practised in the World upon the pretence of setting Christ upon his Throne And could not be content until they had without any cause raised a Rebellion against their pious Prince and murdered him forced from the People to maintain those their ungodly doings by Taxes as much as amounted unto 48 Millions of Sterling Money besides the vast sums of Money and Riches gained by the extorted Fines and Compositions from the Kings Loyal Party at Goldsmiths and Haberdasher's Halls in London the one for the 20th part of their Estates and the other for compounding for their supposed forfeiture for fighting to defend their King against his Rebels and their Plunderings Sequestrations and Decimations of those with whom they had before compounded besides a Tax for six Months of every House-keeper in London and its vast Lines of Communication for as much as their weekly Diet amounted unto with Money borrowed upon that which they would call the Publick Faith which cheat brought that Godless Party into their Repository of the Guild-Hall in London abundance of Money Plate Rings Jewels Silver Bodkins and Thimbles many of whom after those villainous Wars and Rebellions something appeased being in Poverty have been the constant Attenders at the House of Commons doors in Parliament to enquire for Madam Publick Faith's Habitation but could never be able to find it and besides all these wickednesses could not think they had done enough until they had added unto their many sins that no small sin of Sacriledge by Sequestring the Orthodox Ministers Imprisoning of the Bishops and sale of their and the Deans and Chapters Prebends and Cannons Lands and their Woods and Possessions Banishing and every way Impoverishing them shutting up all or many of the Church doors in Wales upon pretence of Reforming or Propagating Religion but gathering the Tithes into their own Purses sale of the King Queen and Princes Houses and Rich Moveables and of all their Lands and Revenues the Coats of their Yeomen of the Guard and the Plate in their Royal Chappels Allen a Goldsmith and Member of that House of Commons picking out and exchanging the Jewels out of the Kings Crown and putting in counterfeit plundered and sold much of the Lands and Goods of the Nobility displaced the Masters of Colledges and Halls in both the Universities without shewing any cause more than that they would put in another of their own Party and began to gape and lick their Lips after a like Reformation of their Lands and Revenues tore up the Brass upon Monuments upon the ground and made Money of them because there was inscribed upon them Orate pro nobis and broke those Glass windows that had any Pictures or Images in them for fear of Superstition made a Stable for Horses in the Cathedral of St. Pauls in London where heaps of dung might be as high as the Roof and Sawyers seen sawing in the Grave where the Bishop of London was buried that obtained the City of Londons Charter of their Liberties from William the Conqueror for which their more grateful Successive Mayors and Aldermen at great solemnities never failed at their coming to that Cathedral in a kind of Procession to walk about it And the Othodox Clergy of the Church of England calumniated by Mr. John White a Lawyer of the late seditious Edition who being a Chairman appointed by a Committee of Parliament to relieve those that they would call plundered Ministers being the Factious Antichurch party did so order the matter as to put out all the Orthodox Ministers and taking his Notes and Examinations in Characters was able to interpret them how he pleased and upon the Accusation of a Cobler at Lambeth that the Learned Dr. Featly had Preached false Doctrine he must be turned out of his Benefice and imprisoned at Lambeth wherein besides many other if not all he or his Notes were shrewdly mistaken when one Mr. Clopham a Minister was for Adultery Ejected when it was proved that by a fall from his Horse he was so disabled in his Genitals as he could not be guilty of it And the Ecclesiastical plunder Masters were to take a more than ordinary care that when their small comcompassion had been pleased to allow the Sequestred Ministers Wives and Children a 5th part of their Husbands Benefices that they should have as little and as hardly as could be of it when after they had tired themselves with their Petitions to the upper and lower Committees they had obtained an Order for that their small pittance found no other comfort after that they had travelled forty or fifty or more miles unto one that should pay it then one who being more merciful and candid than the rest was pleased to shew a small common or private almost invisible note or mark in the Order that they should not obey it Mean while about 100 of Sequestred Ministers of the West parts of England could have no better a place provided for them than to be imprisoned at Lambeth House but a little before notoriously infected with the Plague and ordered an Alderman of London whose Son is yet living to attend them with two Culverings or small pieces of Cannon ready charged to fire upon them as they were in the Chappel serving God and hearing Doctor Featly preach unto them where they had perished if God had not in mercy provided an escape for them And if this were or could be proved or justified to be a work for such a third Estate as that modus tenendi Parliamentum was so willing to provide for our Laws having in their Subordination to Gods Laws and not opposite unto them been truly believed and said to have been derived from Right Reason yet that is always to be understood to be so when it hath received the Sanction of the King and are not agitated by the various wills interest and fancies of the People next unto madness And it might amuse and
Secretaries of State two Chief Justices and Chief Baron not being to be ranked with the Peers may always be chosen by the approbation of both Houses of Parliament the House of Commons being never before accompted equal with the House of Peers in Birth Honour Wisdom Education Alliance or Estate and in the Intervals of Parliament by the Assent of the Major part of the Councel in such manner as was before expressed in the choice of Councellors which in a matter of a much less consequence in the Government of the Kings Houshold was so little endured by the Nobility of England in the 10th year of the Raign of King Richard the 2d as it was adjudged an incroachment upon Regal Authority and high Treason and some great Lords suffered in their Persons and Estates for it and others glad to receive their Pardons for being confederate or Privy thereunto 4. That he or they unto whom the Government or Education of his Children shall be committed shall be approved by both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament by the Major part of his Council in such manner as was before expressed in the choice of Councellors and that all such Servants as are now about them against whom both Houses shall have any just exception shall be removed which before they had disclaimed as Mr. Rushworths Historical Collections Printed and allowed by them not long before had informed us 5. That no Marriage shall be concluded or treated for any of his Children with any Forreign Prince or any Person whatsoever abroad or at home without the consent of the Parliament under the penalty of a Praemunire unto such as shall conclude or treat any Marriage as aforesaid which they had as aforesaid disclaimed and the said penalty shall not be pardoned or dispenced with but by the consent of both Houses of Parliament that lower House never having before or since any power of pardoning or dispensation nor that higher without the Sanction or Authority of their Soveraign 6. That the Laws in force against Jesuits Priests Papists and Recusants be put in execution without any Toleration or Dispensation to the contrary and that a course may be enacted by Authority of Parliament to hinder them from making any disturbance in the State or Law by Trusts or otherwise 7. That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Lords may be taken away so long as they continue Papists and that his Majesty would consent to such a Bill as shall be drawn for the Education of Children of Papists by Protestants in the Protestant Religion which was to take away the Priviledge of Barons holding by Tenure without conviction for Treason and of Earls Viscounts Marquesses or Dukes which ever since the beginning of the Raign of King Richard the 2d were by that and all succeeding Kings Letters Patents to have vocem locum sedem in Parliamentis 8. That his Majesty would be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made of the Church Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise wherein they do intend to have consultation with Divines as is expressed in their Declaration to that purpose and that his Majesty will continue his best assistance unto them for raising of a sufficient maintenance for Preaching Ministers through the Kingdom when there was no want of the Orthodox more Loyal and better sort and that his Majesty would be pleased to give his consent to Laws for the taking away of Superstitions and Innovations and of pluralities and scandalous Ministers which in their accompt were only of the Church of England and Loyal 9. That his Majesty would be pleased to rest satisfied with the course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for the ordering of the Militia until the same shall be further setled by a Bill and that his Majesty would be pleased to recal his Proclamations and Declarations against the Ordinance made by the Lords and Commons concerning it which was to take away the Tenures the Power of the Sword and defence of his People 10. That the Members of either Houses of Parliament as have during the time of this present Parliament been put out of any Places or Offices may either be restored to their Place or Office or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the Petition of that House whereof he or they are Members 11. That all Privy Counsellors and Judges may take their Oath the form thereof to be agreed on and setled by Act of Parliament for the maintaining of the Petition of Right which was in many things more than ever they could claim or ever had or could by Law have any Right unto and of certain Statutes made by this Parliament which shall be mentioned by both Houses of Parliament as if they were in all Duty and Loyalty bound to make him a glorious King thought they could never have unking'd him enough and brought him to their murdering ever to be abhorred Tribunal and that an inquiry of all the Breaches and Violations of all those Laws may be given in charge by the Justices of the Kings Bench and by the Justices of Assize in their Circuits and Justices of the Peace at their Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law 12. That all the Judges and Officers placed by approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their places quam diu se bene gesserint 13. That the Justice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it And that all persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the sentence of Parliament 14. That the general Pardon offered by his Majesty may be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament 15. That the Forts and Castles of this Kingdom may be put under the Command and Custody of such persons as his Majesty shall appoint with the approbation of his Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament with the Major part of the Council in such manner as is before expressed in the choice of Councellors 16. That the extraordinary Guards and Military Forces attending his Majesty may be removed and discharged and that for the future he will raise no such Guards or extraordinary Forces but according to the Law in case of Actual Rebellion or Invasion an Imposition and Vassalage was never put upon any thing that was like a King in Christendom for the Kings of Scotland whilst seperate from England and did homage to our Kings had when there was cause enough of fear and jealousie as now there was none no such unkingly Vassalage put upon him King David had 24000 men for his Guard who every Month came up to Jerusalem and our Saxon King Alured had his Guards by monthly courses 17. That his Majesty would be pleased to enter into a more strict Alliance with the States of the united Provinces and States of the Protestant Religion for the defence and
3. Daniels Hist. 184. 191 192. Statute Coronatoris Anno 4. E. 〈◊〉 Statute de Bigamis eodem Anno. Statute of the Exchequer or Ruthland Westminster 2. 13. E. 1. ca. 16. Quia Emptores terr 18. E. ca. 1. Inter record apud recept Socii tempore E. 2. 18. E. 1. 27. E. 1. 28. E. 1. 30. E. 1. 33. E. 1. Daniel in the Life of King E. 1. 3. E. 1. Ro Claus 〈◊〉 9. Seldens t is of honor Ro part 1. mo E. 4. Ro. Vascon 22. E. 1. Recneil de tons les traiter entre les potentats de l'Europe a Nimegne Coke Comment â—up Littleton 1 part Instit. ca 5. tit Socage Walsingham Hist. E. Sa. Daniel Hist. E. 1. Daniel in the Life Reign of King E. 1. Plowdens Comment in le case inter Buâ—kley Rico Thomas 3. E. 1. Ro Claus m 9. vide Seldens tit of honor Ro. pa. 4. E. 1. m. 35. Seldeni dissertatio ad Fletam 526. For sterus de juris prudentia Rom. 3. E. 1 ca 29. Ro. Claus. 3. E. 2. Ro. pat de An. 3. E. 1. m. 10. de Statutis legend proclamand in Cum. Cest alibi 4. E 1. ro cart m 3. parte 17. aut potius parte 3. m. 37. Clause Anno 4. 〈◊〉 1. m. 15. dorso Dugdales or juâ—idic 56. c. Seldeni noiae in Hengham Breton 6. E. 1. Britton 1 ca. 15. 19. Sir Richard Bakers Chronicle Speeds Hist. of Great Britain Speeds Hist. of England in the Reign of King Edward the 1st and Spelmans glos in catalog Justiciar Walsingham ypodigma Neustria 491 492. 493. 494. 7. E. 1. ro pat m. 13. 1. E. ro claus m. 1. 10. E. 1. ro pat m. 2. 20. E. 2. ro pat m. 4. 12. E. 1. ro Cart. m. 3. 13. E. 1. ro Claus. m. 9. 13. E. 1. Mich. 18. E. 1 Norf. ro 46. placit Parl. 18. E. 1. n. 4. Râ—leyâ— placit Parl. 6. 7. Pryns aurum Regin ro claus 20. E. 1 ro fin m. 25. ro pat ejusdem anntâ—m 5. 17. Cokes 8. report Beechers case in Anno. 6. Jac. rot Justâ—itin tempore E. 1. inter record apud recept Scrii de tempore E. 1. praliâ—a in itinere apud Glou. tempâ—â—â— H. 2. ro I. 242. Spelmans glos in diatriâ—a de Justi Anglia 334. Pryn in his Preface to the abridgement of the records in the Tower of London Dugdales Baronage Ro. vascon 22. E. 1. Ro. Claus. 22. E. 1. 〈◊〉 6. in dorso Claus. 23. E. 1. m. 9. in Claus. 23. E. 1. m. 2. in dorso Sam. Daniel in the Life of King E. 1. Ro Clause tempore E 1. Sam. Daniel in viea ejusdem Regis Ro pat 25 E. 1. parte prima 〈◊〉 9. Ro pat 25. E. 1. parte 1. in 3. 13. vel 14. E. 1. ro 8. E. 2. Ro. Claus 25. E. 1. Speeds History of England in the Life of King Edward the 1. Ro. Claus. 30. E. 1. m. 13. Walsingham Ipodigma Neustria 491. 492. 493 494. 495. Speeds Chronicle 654. Walsingham Ipodigma Neu. Hist. E. 1. M. S. Sr John Divies argument upon the question of Impositions Walsingham in vita E. 1. p. 50. Pryn's 4. pâ— of a Register of Parliament Writs 22. 23. Ryleys placit Parl. 43. 44. Ro. Claus. 33. E. 〈◊〉 m. 13. Cedul ordinat per Dominum regem de stabilitate terrae Scotiae Mich. 33. 34. E. 1. ro 103. in banco Regis In placitis adjudicat tempore E. 1. in banco regis coram rege Wallia Ro. Claus. 34. E. 1. m. 11. in dorso Mich. 33. 34. E. 1. coram regero 71. Mich. 34. E. 1. incipiend ro 113. Coram rege concilio in banco regis Ib. 46. Ib. 48. 56. 57. Ib. 51. Walsingham Hist. Angliae sub E. 1. p. 55. 56. 57. Walsingham ib. 60. 61. Midd. 〈◊〉 Anno. 35. E. 1. Walsingham Hist. E. 1. F. 89. 3. E. 1. ca. 1. Ca. 2. Ca. 5. Ca. 6. Ca. 13. Ca. 14. Ca. 29. Ca. 37. Ca. 38. Ca. 45. Ca. 48. Exposition of the Statute of Glocester Ca. 4. Ca. 5. Ca. 6. Walsingham Hist. E. 1. 75. 76. Ca. 2. Ca. 3. Ca. 4. Ca. 6. Ca. 7. Ca. 8. Ca. 9. Ca. 10. Ca. 11. Ca. 12. Ca. 13. Ca. 14. Ca. 15. Ca. 16. Ca. 17. Ca. 18. Ca. 19. Ca. 20. 33. F. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ca. 3. Ca. 4. Ca 5. Ca. 6. Ca. 2. Ca. 3. Ca. 4. Dr. Brady in his Answer to Mr. Petitâ— Essential and Constituent Rights of the House of Commons in Parliament fo 117. Et ro 10. E. 1. Ro. Scotiae abinde ad 19. E. 1. Ro. Scutag 31. E. 1. m. 2. Dugdales Origines Juridic Catalog Justic. Leges Anglo-Saxoniae translatae per Abrahâ—◠〈◊〉 Whilocuâ— Brompton legibus S â—icis Ch 〈…〉 Liâ—hfielden LL. Gulielmi Conquest In Bagâ— de Quo Warranto in R 〈…〉 l. extract de vereditis Civit. London pro Rege tempore E. 1. 3. E. 1. ca. 39 Cokes 4th Institutes ca. 55. tit Parliament fo 6. Elsiugs ancient and present manner of hâ—lding Parliaments ca. 1. 57. Cromptous Jurisdictien of Courts 11. Pryns brevia Parliamentaria redi viva 145. 148. Daltouâ— officium Vicecomitum 417. 〈◊〉 Cokes 4 pars Instituts 〈◊〉 parliament Dier fo 6â— Plowdens Com ment in the Case of the Earl of Leicester Register of Writs 177. Register of Writs Fitz-Herberts nat bre 170. E. 1. 3. Articuli Cle. 2. 25. Register of Writs in the Case of an Abbot 294. Burnetts hist. of the reformation of the Church of England 1. part 11. Ro. Claus. 4. E. 3. Fitz-Herberts natura brevium 170. Elsings ancient present manner of holding Parliaments in England Ca. 1. 65. 66. Ro. Claus. 7. R. 2. in dorso m. 32. Ro. Claus. 7. R. 2. 28. Register of Writs 177. 178. 1. 〈◊〉 1. Ro. Claus. 1. part Claus 36. E. 3. m. 2. 3. in dorso Pryns 4 part Regist. of Parliamentary Writs 259. 260. 261. Idem in his Plea for the House of Lords 394. 395. Sir Robert Filmers Patriarcha or the natural power of Kings p. 60. Pryn's brevia Parliamentaria rediviva 223. 224. 225. 2â—6 〈◊〉 §. 8. Pryn's brevia Parliamentar rediviva 226. 227. Crompton's Jurisdiction of Courts tit Parliament Pryn's brevia Parliamentar rediviva 64. 229. 265. Ro. Parl. 4. 5. 36. E. 3. Pryn's bre 〈…〉 Parliamentâ—ria rediviva 152. 153. 154. Pryn's brevia Parliamentarrediviva 28. 143. Pryn's brevia Parliamentar 315. Pryn's brevia Parliamentâ—â— rediviva 227. 305. Pryn's brevia parl rediviva Ro. parl 18. E. 3. 5. R. 2. ca. 4. Cokes 4th institutes 6. H. 8. ca. 16. 1. El. 1. ca. 5. El. 1. 3. Jac. Ro. parl 4. E. 3. passim in regnis subsequentium regum 40. E. 3. Essings manner of holding Parliaments 213. Pryns animadversions upou Cokes 4 institutes tst Parliament Ms. of Mr. Noy Cokes 4 〈…〉 institutes Elsings ancient and modern way of holding
without any wiser Body to regulate or take care of their Actions would deem it to be a brave Sport and Liberty to play with the Fire until they had set the whole House on fire and burnt themselves into the bargain and if after he had by his practice and study of the Common Law which was nothing but our Feudal Laws too much forgotten or unknown unto those that would be called our Common Lawyers and gaining 10000 l. per Annum Lands of Inheritance made his boast that he had destroyed the so fixed and established Deeds of Entail and the Wills and Intent of the Donors as nothing of Collusion Figments or other Devices should prejudice and no Gentleman or Lover of Honour Gentry or Families would ever have had an hand in such a destruction Levelling Clowning Citizening and Ungentlemanning all or too many of the Ancient Families of England And if he could have lived to have seen or felt the tossing plundering and washing in Blood three great and flourishing Kingdoms would have wept bitterly and lamented or with Job have cursed the hour or time of his birth that he should ever have given the occasion or been Instrumental in the promoting or being a Contributor unto those very many dire Confusions and Disasters that after happened for if he had well read and weighed the History and Records both before shortly after the gaining of that Act of Parliament de Tallagio non concedendo without the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament Assembled and how much that great and prudent Prince King Edward the first was pressed and pinched when his important affairs caused his sudden transfrecation by the overpowering party of three of his greatest Nobility viz. Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford and Bigod Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of England all whom and their Ancestors had been advanced to those their Grandeurs by him and his Royal Progenitors had so catched an advantage upon him and were so merciless in their demands as they not only would not allow him a saving of his Jure Regis very usual and necessary in many of our Kings and Princes grants as well in the time of Parliaments as without but enforced an Oath upon him which he took so unkindly as he was constrained shortly after to procure the Pope to absolve him of for that it had been by a force put upon him which a Protestant Pope might have had a Warrant from God Almighty so to have done but did after his return into England so remember their ill usage of him as he seized their three grand Estates and made the two former so well to be contented with the regaining of his favour as Bohun married the one of his Daughters and Clare the other without any portions with an Entail of their Lands upon the Heirs of the Bodies of their Wives the Remainder to the Crown laid so great 〈…〉 Fine and Ransom upon Bigod the Earl Marshal as he being never able to pay it afterwards forfeited and lost all his great Estate and be all of them so well satisfied with his doings therein as they were in the 34th year of his Raign glad to obtain his Pardon with a Remissimus omnem Rancorem And they and Sir Edward Coke might have believed that that very prudent Prince might with great reason and truth have believed his Regality safe enough without a Salvo Jure Regis when the Law and Government it self and the Good and Interest of every Man his Estate and Posterity was and would be always especially concerned in the necessity aid and preservation of the King their common Parent appointed by God to be the Protector of them And our singularly learned Bracton hath not informed us amiss when he concluded that Rex facit Legem in the first place Lex facit Regem in the second giveth him Authority and Power to guard that Regality which God hath given him for the protection of the People committed to his charge who are not to govern their King but to be governed by him and should certainly have the means to effect it for how should he have power to do it or procure his People to have a Commerce or Trade with their Neighbour People or Princes if he as their King had not any or a just Superiority over them c. and must not for all that have and enjoy those Duties Rights and Customs which not only all our Kings Royal Progenitors but their Neighbour Princes and even Bastard and self-making Republiques have quietly and peaceably enjoyed without the Aid and Assistance of any the Suffrage of the giddy Rabble and vulgar sort of the People controuling in their unfixt and instable Opinions those of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the wiser and more concerned part of the People of which and the Rights and Customs due and payable to our Kings and Princes Sir John Davies a learned Lawyer in the Raign of our King James the first hath given us a learned full and judicious Account which well understood might adjudge that Petition of Right to deserve no better an entertainment than the Statute of Gloucester made in 15 E. 3. which by the Opinion of the Judges and Lords Spiritual and Temporal was against the Kings Praerogative and contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England and ought not to have the force and strength of a Statute and Sir Edward Coke might have remembred that in the Raign of King Edward the Third the Commons of England did in Parliament complain that Franchises had for time past been so largely granted by the King that almost all the Land was enfranchised to the great arreirisment estenisement of the Common Law which they might have called the Feudal Law and to the great oppression of the People and prayed the King to restrain such Grants hereafter unto which was answered The Lords will take order that such Franchises as shall be granted shall be by good Advice And that if by any Statute made in the 25th year of the Raign of King Edward 3. it was ordained that no man should be compelled to make any Loan to the King against his will because such Laws were against Reason and the Franchise of the Land that Statute when it shall be found will clearly also appear to be against our Ancient Monarchick Government Fundamentally grounded upon our Feudal Laws that our Magna Charta Charta de Foresta are only some Indulgence and Qualification of some hardship or Rigour of them that the Excommunication adjudged to be by the Statute of 25 E. 1. ca. 4. And the aforesaid dire Anathema's and Curse pronounced in that Procession through Westminster-Hall to the Abbey Church of Westminster against the Infringers of those our Grand Charters are justly and truly to be charged upon the Violaters and Abusers of our Feudal Laws and