have in the making of other Laws from time to time been careful upon all occasions to erect and build to help to guard and protect their Liberties Rights and Priviledges together with the very great care which the Judges restraining all non obstantes of Acts of Parliament and Regal Dispensations unto what the Law allows or to the King 's particular Concernments do take in all their Judgments and Decisions Expositions Applications and Interpretations of Laws to assist and support the just Rights and Proprieties of the Subjects in their Lands and Estates and not in the least to prejudice them in their Common Assurances by Fines and Common Recoveries The Severity used by divers of our Kings in the Punishment of Briberies Extortions or Byassed and Illegal flattering Opinions of Judges The Oaths of the Lords and others of the King 's Privy Council who are usually the Greatest Noble and most concerned Men of Estate and Interest of the Nation Oath of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England well and truly to serve the King and his People and to do right to all manner of People according to the Law and Usages of the Realm Oaths of the Judges to do equal Law and execution of Right to all the King's Subjects rich and poor without having regard to any Person to deny no man Common Right by the King's Letters nor none other Mans nor for none other Cause Oaths of the King's Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve him and his People and as duly and hastily speed such Matters as any Man shall have against the King in the Law as they may lawfully do without delay or tarrying the Party for his lawful Process The Oaths of other Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve the King and his People and truly Counsel them Oaths of the Justices of Peace to do equal right to the Poor as to the Rich after the Laws and Customs of the Realm and Statutes thereof made Oaths of the Sheriffs to do right to Poor as well as Rich in all that belongeth to their Office to disturb no Man's Right nor to do wrong to any Man And the Oaths of the Escheators Clerks of the Chancery and Coroners with the Oaths of the Officers of Courts Under-Sheriffs and Bailiffs well and to execute Justice All which several Degrees of Men in the Nation would be as unwilling as any others to have the Lives Liberties and Estates of themselves and their Posterities or dearest Relations sacrificed to a lawless and unlimitted Power of their Kings and Princes And the Oaths of our Kings at their several Coronations to conserve the Liberties of the People and observe all the good Laws made by their Royal Progenitors and Predecessors with the Impossibility that ever the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled will consent to the abrogating of any of the aforesaid Laws and reasonable Customs be felones de se or deliver up themselves and their Posterities to the absolute Will and Pleasure of their Succeeding Kings and Princes may abundantly evidence how safely and securely the Property and Liberties of the People until Rebellion foolishly fancied Fears and Jealousies with their Discords distrust and plundering of one another shall put them under such another yoke as Oliver Cromwell had cheated them into may rest and are like inviolably to continue for ever protected against any the Incroachments of Arbitrary Power whilst they live under their King 's ancient Government Of which His late Majesty was so careful and so willing to dislodge all manner of Jealousies out of the Minds of his Subjects as he did in the Third year of his Reign give his Royal Assent as they call'd it unto their Petition of Right and made it an Act of Parliament wherein he not only Confirmed their Magna Charta and Charta Forestoe but the Act of Parliament assented unto by King Edward the First De Tallagio non Concedendo The Act of Parliament made in the First year of the Reign of King Edward the Third cap. 6. The Act of Parliament made in the 25 th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King That no Man should be compelled to make any Loans to the King against his will The Statutes of the 28 E. 3. ca. 3. 37 E. 3. ca. 18. 38 E. 3. ca. 9. 42 E. 3. ca. 3. 11 R. 2. ca. 9. 17 R. 2. ca. 6. and 1 R. 3. ca. 2. Charged all his Officers and Ministers to serve him according to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm as they tendered the Honour of his Majesty and the Prosperity of the Kingdom Banished as he hoped for ever all their Fears of the Infringing of their Liberties and given cause of Content to them and that Parliament to such a satiety such a fulness and nè plus ultra as unless they would have been Consortes Imperii and require to have a share in his Regality and Government there was no more to be asked or requested of him or granted by him Imprisoned shortly after in the Tower of London John Earl of Clare and the greatly Learned Selden for but having Copies in their Custody of some Florentine and Foreign Laws and Customs proposed by Sir Robert Dudley a Titular Duke of Tuscany to be imitated by him here in England as a means to raise Money by Impositions laid upon the People and caused his Attorney General to exhibit a Bill against them in the Star-Chamber for Disquieting his Subjects with Fears and Jealousies And was so ready from time to time to Condescend to their Infirmities and give Satisfaction to them in all their Concerns and Scruples as he suffered those two great Cases of the Habeas Corpus and the Ship Money wherein his necessary Prerogative for the good of himself and his People was not a little concerned to be publickly and solemnly argued in the Course and Method of the Laws in foro Contradictorio before the Judges and shewed no displeasure afterwards but much kindness unto Justice Hutton and Justice Croke who in the Case of the Ship Money had in their Arguments and Opinions delivered thereupon against him in the Exchequer Chamber dissented from all the rest and greater number of the Judges And His now Royal Majesty treading the good old Paths of Queen Elizabeth his Grandfather King James and his Royal Father doth in all Matters of difficulty in the absence of Parliaments where the Laws and Justice of the Nation are likely to be more than ordinarily concerned consult and advise with the Judges hath not long ago Superseded one of them for some harsh usage and discontent given to the Countrey in his Circuits and takes all the care he can to choose and make Judges and his Learned Council at the Law out of the most able honest experienced and eminent practisers of it and hath but lately in several of his Speeches in Parliament declared and promised that he would give his consent unto any good Laws
Michaelmas Term by a Select Grand Jury of the County of Middlesex cause an enquiry to be made although it were to be wished it might be after the antient manner by Articles delivered unto them in Writing to be distinctly answered unto Offences committed against the King and his Crown and Dignity of all Confederacies Champerties Maintenance Trespasses Extortions and Grievances done to the King's Subjects by any Arch-Bishops Bishops Dukes Earls Barons Servants Officers Coroners and Ministers of the King or by any other whatsoever of breach of the Peace denying of Bail on those who ought to be Bailed and of all manner of Oppressions and Grievances of the People When the numerous Justices of Peace in every County being as too many of them Baronets Serjeants and Men of Law Knights Elquires and Gentlemen of good Quality Families Estates and Education are Sworn and imployed not only to be Guardians and Conservators of the Peace of the King and his People to suppress Felonies Riots and the lower and most Common sort of Exorbitancies and Misdemeanors but to take Care of the Execution of many Laws and Statutes committed to their Trust and with the Method and Order appointed by our Laws and Ancient and reasonable Customs of presenting an Inquiry of Grievances by our many Court-Leets Sheriffs Tournes and County Courts Subordinate one under the other to the Superiour Courts of Westminster and they unto their Supream Authority the King It will be the Peoples own fault and neglect of their own Concernments if any Grievances or Oppression pass undiscernable uncomplained of or unpunished or if any Arbitrary Power or Extravagances do invade or break in upon the Nation who by the fence and care of our Laws and many times Confirmed Liberties which for more than 500 years last past have been building repairing and polishing to a perfection more than the Hebrew Greek or Roman Laws did ever attain unto the Laws which God himself made for that peculiar people only excepted And may if by our Sins and Provocations of God Almighty the Inspector of our unparallel'd Misdeeds and Punisher of them when his wrath shall be kindled and have no longer patience the Walls of our Happiness shall not be demolished our Liberties put to the Sword and our Laws led into Captivity be as safe as Humane Prudence and Laws can possibly make them More especially when our Courts of Justice at Westminster-Hall are governed by Judges and Men of great Wisdom and Integrity Sworn to observe the Laws and Judge according to their Direction and our Lawyers at the Bars freely permitted with fitting reference rightly to inform and plead their Clients Cases And the King 's high Court of Chancery the Officina Justiriae under the Teste me ipso of the Watchman under God of our Israel Superintending over them giveth Writs remedial to all that ask for them with helps for extraordinary Emergencies or to allay the Severity of Laws and makes it its business to punish and forbid Frauds and Oppressions The Masters of Chancery Annually stipended by the King formare Brevia originalia remedialia and to be Assistants subordinately to that High and Honourable Court in matters of Accompt and References The Rule of Chancery being ever since the Statute of Westm ' the second made in the 13 th year of the Reign of King Edward the First quod nullus recedat à Cancellaria sine remedio Concordent Clerici and the Officers and Clerks of the Chancery thereunto appointed are from time to time to do their utmost endeavours to provide Remedies for all that Complain Nè Justitia deficeret Conquerentibus And as to lesser Matters of Complaints and often Emergencies Pensioneth by good yearly Salaries 4 Learned and venerable Men of worth called Masters of Requests or Supplicationum libellorum who by turns and courses each Master being deputed to his Month have their audience Twice or oftener in that Time of the King to give Answers to their Petitions And the King in matters wherein any of his Rights and what appertaineth unto him are concerned gives his People leave by Petition or monstrans du droit Traverses oustre les mames c. to obtain what they can prove to be due unto them and where any of his Letters Patents are grievous and against the Law suffers them to be repealed by Writs of Scire facias brought against the Patentees And if any of the People should be so unhappy in the Intrigues or Difficulties of their Cases as they cannot be relieved by any of those provided Remedies from any supposed Arbitrary Power of their Prince or any Illegal oppressing Actions of one Subject against another they have the Liberty of Appeals from the Inferior Courts of Justice to the Superior and in Matters concerning breach of the Peace and of Misdemeanors within the Cognisance of the Justices of Peace may appeal from them to the Justices of Assize and from them to the King and his Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and if not by any of those ways to be relieved are in Cases not concerning Free-hold not debarred their Appeals to the King and his Privy Council where they are the King himself being very often present judiciously and deliberately heard upon all the Pleas and Arguments which the Councel Learned in the Law on both sides can make one against the other And Remedies also against all the Assaults of Grievances are not difficult to be come at in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Courts of Admiralty where when the Subjects Complaints cannot be remedied they do easily obtain the King's Commission of Delegates to other Judges and if that do not answer their Expectations may have a Commission of Adjuncts to other Judges to be added unto them And in these or other Courts where the Potency of the one part and the Poverty of the other hath disabled the weaker from attending the formalities of Justice or croud of many other Causes he may have a Commission ob lites dirimendas granted by the King out of his High Court of Chancery to some good and wise men to endeavor as much as they can a more speedy Remedy The Dermier Resort last Appeal ultimum refugium of the People in their seeking for Justice being so necessarily Inherent in the Crown as none but they that wear it can justly claim any Right unto it but have always been enjoyed not only by our British Saxon and Danish Kings before the Norman Conquest but all our Kings which Succeeded them And if there they find no help are like enough if therebe cause of Justice in their Complaints not to fail of Relief by Petition to the King when he is assisted with the advice of his Lords and Commons in Parliament All which with many other Laws and reasonable Customs Priviledges and Liberties like so many Cittadels Block-houses Out-works and Strong Castles and Forts which divers of our ancient and reasonable Customs and Acts of Parliament
whereof was by his own Confession an Irish Popish Priest and by the Assistance of their over-pow'ring Army voted down suppressed and shut up the House of Peers as useless and dangerous inforced themselves into a Republick and the Nation who by the Laws of God and the King and their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were bound as well as themselves to the contrary to Ingage never more to admit of a King and House of Lords and in some of their Answers to their Brethren of Scotland who urged and taxed them with some of their Promises concerning His late Majesty said that they hoped they would not make their Promises to be Obligations And in their Declaration Printed and Published to give Satisfaction to all the World that would believe them of the Reasons of their Actions and turning themselves into a Common-wealth endeavoured to assert that in all Promises a Tacite Condition and Proviso was ever to be understood as annexed unto them So always that they did not prejudice or inconvenience the Party promising And forgetting that they had prosecuted the late Earl of Strafford and caused him to be put to Death upon a pretence of his Subversion of Laws which he never did but they themselves really and frequently did Murdered their King Banished His now Majesty the Prince and the rest of his Children and used their utmost endeavors to Extirpate all the Royal Progeny scorned and abused the Laws tumbled tossed and ploughed up the Liberties Proprieties and Estates of the Loyal Party and made some Ignotos and invisible they themselves never knew and who were less to be understood than King Oberon and his Fairy Queen to be stiled the Keepers of the Liberties of England voted the Courts of Chancery King's-Bench Common Pleas and Exchequer to be dissolved and ordered the Records thereof to be destroyed and thrown into the River of Thames and were not all that while in dread of any Arbitrary Power and a Standing Army when to the great Charge of the People they could not think themselves safe without it But tamely suffered Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin and greatest of Hypocrites to put a trick upon them and teach them the Truth and Doctrine of Divine Retalliation by dissolving the Reliques of the over-long Parliament pulling out the remaining Members with Soldiers and Musquettiers and shutting up the Doors of that House of Commons and could for the Preservation of their ill-gotten Estates like Isachar bow down unto the burden and be well content to believe it to be no violation of the Privileges of Parliament no Arbitrary Power or Introduction to it nor any Destruction of the Liberties of the People and suffer him upon the 16 th of December 1653. in the presence of the Commanders and Officers of his Army attended by the miscalled Lords Commissioners of the pretended great Seal of England Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London divers of the over awed Judges of the Land and many other Persons said to be of Quality to declare himself by an Instrument in Writing of his own framing Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland Disannul and Abrogate the antient form of Parliaments constitute a New and Ordain that the Persons Elected to be Members for ever afterwards should be approved by the major part of his Council and the succeeding Protectors who were most of them Major Generals and Commanders in his Standing Army of Oppressors That an yearly Revenue should be raised settled and established for the maintaining of Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland for the Defence and Security thereof and a Convenient Number of Ships for guarding of the Seas besides Two hundred thousand Pounds per Annum for defraying the other necessary Charges and Expences of the Government Which Revenues were to be raised by the Customs and such other ways and means as should be agreed upon by him and his Council That the Lands Tenements Rents Royalties Jurisdictions and Hereditaments which remained unsold and undisposed by Acts or Ordinances of Parliament belonging to the Common-Wealth except the Forests and Chases and the Honors and Mannors appertaining thereunto the Lands of the Rebels in Ireland and the four Counties of Dublin Cork Kildare and Caterlaugh the Lands forfeited by the People of Scotland in the late Wars and the Lands of Papists and Delinquents in England who had not then Compounded should together with the Debts Fines Issues Amerciaments Penalties and Profits certain and casual due to the Keepers of the Liberties of England by Authority of Parliament be vested in the Lord Protector and his Successors Lord Protectors of the aforesaid Nations not to be aliened but by consent of Parliament which made him no less an yearly Revenue as some of his own Party did calculate it then Eighteen hundred Thousand Pounds sterling per Annum That for the preventing of Disorders and Dangers which might fall out both at Sea and Land he should have Power until the meeting of the first Parliament which was to be once in every Three years to raise Money for the purposes aforesaid And to make Laws and Ordinances for the Peace and welfare of these Nations which should be binding and in force until order should be taken in Parliament concerning the same That the exercise of the Chief Magistrate and the Administration of the Government over the said Countries and Dominions should be in the Lord Protector assisted with a Council not exceeding Twenty one or less than Thirteen That he should in the Intervals of Parliament dispose and order the Militia and Forces of the Three Nations for the Peace and good thereof with the advice and consent of the major part of his Council That the Number of 60 Elected and chosen or approved as aforesaid being easie enough to be tempted by Preferment or over-awed by a standing Army should be deemed a Parliament for the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland That he and every successive Lord Protector should take an Oath that he would not Violate or Infringe the matters and things contained in that Instrument of Government And when afterwards to prevent the Juries Scruples of Conscience and unwillingness to give their Verdicts against the Law and the King 's Loyal Party as he would have them erected in Westminster-Hall his High Court of Justice or Shambles as some of the People not unfitly termed it adorned with Red and Blood-demonstrating Colours to Try and Condemn such Innocent Persons as he should call Offenders not according to the Law but the unbounded rules of his vulgar Reason of State guided by a standing Army of 30000 Horse and Foot baffled and disgraced the Laws and reasonable Customs of England maimed and cut off as much as he could of it as Adonizedek did the Thumbs and Toes of his Captive Kings altered and destroyed all he could the form and rationality of the Proceedings thereof and caused the Writs and
England by Inheritance And their mutual Rancors and Displeasures with the grand Contests of them and their Parties to procure the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas de Tallagio non Concedendo were not healed without the Aids and Subsidies of his People The mis-government and mis-leading of King Edward the Second by his several Favorites Peirce Gaveston and the Spencers did not hinder him from the Supplies of his People King Edward the Third after a fifteenth of the Temporalty a twentieth part of the Goods of the Cities and Burroughs and a tenth of the Clergy granted unto him by Parliament in the Eighth year of his Reign having consumed much Treasure in his Wars made for the Kingdom of France which he claimed as his Inheritance wherein the English Nation more than for the Grandeur and Honour of their Prince were not much concerned but were jealous until an Act or Declaration of the King in Parliament was procured to the contrary that the Conquest of France might have caused England to have been afterwards dependant upon that greater Crown and Kingdom was notwithstanding the seizure and taking into his hands the Goods and Estates of three Orders of Monks viz. The Lombards Cluniacks and Cistertians and all the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Churches through England for the Holy War forced to revoke divers Assignations made for Payment of Moneys though he had received Three Millions of Crowns of Gold for the Ransom of John King of France whom his Son the Black Prince had taken Prisoner and was not put to lose any of his Honour Friends Estate or Interest for want of the necessary Assistance of his Subjects who for the maintenance of those and other his Wars were howsoever well content to give him half of the Laieties Wool and a whole of the Clergies and at another time the ninth Sheaf the ninth Fleece and ninth Lamb for two years and after many other Taxes and Aids granted in several Parliaments of his Reign and a Commission sent into every Shire to enquire of the value of every man's Estate The Treasure of the Nation being much exhausted found the People so willing to undergo that and other Burdens which those successful Wars had brought upon them as the Ladies and Gentlewomen did willingly Sacrifice their Jewels to the Payment of his Souldiers That Unfortunate Prince Richard the Second his Grandchild tossed and perplexed with the Greatness Ambition and Factions of his Uncles and the subtil underminings of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster the most powerful of them fatally continued and pursued by Henry of Bullingbrook his Son Duke of Hereford was not in all those his Distresses so unhappy but that although the Commons in Parliament had by their Petitions unto him complained That for want of good Redress about his Person and in his Houshold and Courts the Commons were daily pilled and nothing defended against the Enemy and that it would shortly undo him and the whole Estate yet they were so mindful of their Soveraign and themselves as they not only afforded him very great Aids and Assistances but in the Fourteenth year of his Reign the Lords and Commons in Parliament did Pray That The Prerogative of the King and his Crown might be kept and all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Royal Progenitors were And in the Fifteenth year of his Reign did in Parliament require him That He would as largely enjoy his Prerogative as any of his Progenitors notwithstanding any Statute and namely the Statute of Gloucester in the time of King Edward the Third the which Statute they utterly repealed out of their tender affection to the King King Henry the Fourth Fifth and Sixth although well understood to have been Kings de facto not de jure for so not seldom have been the Pleadings at the Law of their Acts of Parliament and although the later of those Kings being Crowned King of France in his Infancy and in Possession of that Kingdom was by his Meek and Pious rather than Prudent Government a great part of the Cause of the Bloody Contests betwixt the Two Houses of York and Lancaster which ruined very many of the Nobility and Gentry by taking their several Parties and were by their Discords the loss of all the Kingdom of France but Calice And that Richard Duke of York had in Parliament so claimed and wrestled for the Crown as he was declared Protector of the Kingdom of England enjoyed notwithstanding the care and good will of their Subjects upon all occasions either at home or abroad in times of Peace or War by their Contributions of Subsidies King Edward the Fourth in the brunt and hottest of the long continued bloody Contentions of the two great Houses and Families of York and Lancaster after nine Battels won by himself attested by his Surcoat of Arms which he wore therein hung up as a Trophy in the Cathedral Church of St. George at Windsor and his many struglings with King Henry the Sixth and his Party in losing and gaining the Crown again War with France and compelling the crafty Lewis the 11 th the King thereof to demand a Peace and consent to pay him 75000 Crowns towards his War Expences and a Tribute of 50000 Crowns yearly during the life of King Edward notwithstanding that he had in the second year of his Reign sate in a Michaelmas Term three days together in his Court of Kings Bench and gathered great Sums of Money of the People of England by his Privy Seal towards his Wars with the Scots and in the Seventh year of his Reign resumed by Act of Parliament all the Grants which he had made since he took Possession of the Realm raised great Sums of Money by Benevolences and Penal Laws had in the Eighth year of his Reign granted him by Act of Parliament two fifteens and a Demy and in the Thirteenth year of his Reign a Subsidy towards his Wars with France when the Actions Courage and Wisdom of Parliaments were so incertain as there was in the space of half a year one Parliament Proclaiming King Edward an Usurper and King Henry a Lawful King and another Proclaiming King Edward a Lawful King and King Henry an Usurper King Henry the Seventh although that he sometimes declared That he held the Crown as won in Battel by Conquest of King Richard the Third and at other times by his better Title from the House of York and his Marriage with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and avaritiously took all the ways possible for the enriching of his Treasury had divers great Aids and Subsidies granted unto him by Parliament King Henry the Eighth notwithstanding that he had after many great Subsidies and Aids both as to the Money and manner of Collecting it granted unto him his Heirs and Successors by several Parliaments and the first Fruits and Tenths of