Raign of King Richard the Second when the Dukes Earls and Barons were Created by Letters Patents of our Kings the Names of the Barons to be Summoned in Parliament were Written from the King 's own Mouth at his Direction and Command and in that agreeth with Mr. Elsing who saith It was ad libitum Regis for surely none but the King can Summon a Parliament and that was the reason that Henry the Fourth having taken King Richard the Second his Leige and Lord Prisoner the 20th day of August in the 21st Year of his Raign did cause the Writ of Summons for the Parliament wherein he obtained the Crown to bear Date the 19th day of the same Month for the Warrant was Per ipsum Regem Concilium and himself to be Summoned by the Name of Henry Duke of Lancaster SECT XIII That the Majores Barones regni and Spiritual and Temporal Lords with their Assistants were until the 49th Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third and the constrained Writs issued out for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses whilst he was a Prisoner in the Camp or Army of his Rebellious Subjects the only great Councel of our Kings FOr the Barons of England viz. the Lords Spiritual and Temporal with some other wise and selected Men which our Kings did anciently and upon Occasions call into that Assembly were the Great Council of the Kingdom and before and from the Conquest until a great part of the Raign of King Henry the Third in whose dayes saith Mr. Elsing it is thought the Writs for Election of Knights and Burgesses were framed made the Great Councel of the Kingdom and under the name of Barons not only the Earls but the Bishops also were comprehended for the Conqueror Summoned the Bishops to those great Councels as Barons and in the Writ of Summons made as aforesaid in the Captivity and Troubles of King Henry the Third we find the Bishops and Lords with some Abbots and Pryors to be the Councellors and the Commons only called to do perform and consent unto what should be ordained And Mr. Selden and Sir Henry Spelman have by divers Instances and warrantable Proofs declared unto us That the Bishops and Lords only were admitted into the Wittenagemots or great Councels which were wont in and after the Raigns of the Saxon Kings to be kept at the three great Festivals in the Year viz. Easter Whitsontide and Christmass when the Earls and Barons came to pay their Respects and Reverence to their Soveraign and give an Account of what was done or necessary to be known or done in their several Provinces and Charges and what was fit to be Consulted thereupon and were then accustomed to meet and Assist their Kings and Soveraigns with their Advice and Counsel Which was so constantly true as Antecessores Comitis Arundel solebant tenere manerium de Bylsington in com' Kanc. quod valet per Annum 30. l. per Serjeantiam essendi Pincernam Domini Regis in die Pentecostes Ela Comitissa Warwick tenuit manerium de Hoke Norton in com Oxon quod est de Baronia de Oyley de Domino Rege in capite per Serjeantiam scindendi coram domino Rege die Natalis Domini habere Cultellum domini Regis de quo scindit Roger de Britolio Farl of Heresord being in Armes and open Rebellion against King William the Conqueror taken Prisoner and Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment wherein though he frequently used many scornsul and contumelious words towards the King yet he was pleased at the Celebration of Faster in a solemn manner as then was usual to send to the said Earl Roger then in Prison his Royal Robes who so disdained the Favour that he forth with caused a great Fire to be made and the Mantle the inner Surcoate of Silk and the upper Garment lined with precious Furs to be Burnt which being made known to the King he became displeased and said Certainly he is a very proud Man who hath thus abused me but by the Brightness of God he shall never come out of Prison as long as I live which was fulfilled In Anno 1078 William Rufus tenuit curiam in natali domini apud London Rex Anglorum Willielmus cognomento Rufus gloriose curiam suam tenuit ad Natale apud Gloverniam ad Pascham apud Wintoniam apud Londonias ad Pentecosten Et hic Concessus Ordinum regni saith Sir John Spelman Sive totius regni Repraesentatio quod intelligere convenit ab Alfredo certis quidem vicibus ijs ordinariis non quasi ejusdem formae celebritatis esset cujus hodierna Comitia quae Parliamentum vulgò dicuntur sed ut quantum est in Anglia terrarum tunc aut unum omninò Regis erat aut Comitun ejus atque Baronum qui sub illis agros colerent eos Clientelari atque precario jure possederint ut qui toti ab nutu dominorum penderent ità quicquid ab isto tempore ab Rege Comitibus ejus atque Baronibus constitutum est toto regno sancitum erat velut ab ijs transactum quibus in caeteros suprema absoluta potestas esset adeoque reliquorum seu clientium mancipiorum jura includeret Episcopos quod attinet hi magnis hisce Concilijs nunquam non intersuerunt suisque suffragijs leges sanxerunt nam praetereà illud quod ob seculares fundos Barones vel ob ipsum sacerdotis honorem sacrosancti censebantur eâ infuper sapientiâ plerumque praestabant ut non tantùm suffi agia Procerum aequiparârint sed actis omnibus venerationem atque pondus addiderint ab hoc Regis instituto manavit uti videtur mos ille posteris Saxonibus non inusitatus ut concilia Episcoporum atque Magnatum tèr quotannis celebrarentur nempe ad Domini Natales Pascha atque Pentecosten ad consultandum de arduis regni negotijs neque id uno semper eodemque loco sed ubicunque res posceret licet ferè ubi Rex cum Aulicis ageret praesens And in our Parliaments as well Modern as Ancient had a deliberative Power as the most Learned Selden hath informed us in advising their Kings in Matters of State and giving their Assent in the making of Laws and a judicial subordinate Power to their Kings in giving of Judgment in Suits or Complaints brought before them in the House of Lords or that Magna Curia Universitas regni as Bracton stiles it and whither in his time Causes were for difficulty adjourned from the other Courts of the Kingdom unto which no Remedies could otherwise be given and saith Mr. Elsing All Judgments are given by the Lords as aforesaid and not by the Commons And that very ancient long experimented and well approved Custom appeareth not to have been discontinued or forgotten when in the Parliament holden in the first Year of the Raign of King Henry the
quod ministeriales praedicti de hospitio Domini Regis debent interesse in Curiâ Domini Regis cum Paribus Franciae ad judicandum Pares tunc praedicti Ministeriales judicaverant praedictam Comitissam Flandriae cum Paribus Franciae Wherein our Ancestors without any Arrest or Decree of Parliament did rather give than take the Pattern when their Bishops as Chancellors of our Kings very often and in a continued Series from the Raign of King Edward the Confessor who was not without his Reinbaldus Regiae dignitatis Vice-Câ—ncellarius when Maurice Bishop of London was Chancellor to William the Conqueror in the first Year of his Raign and other Bishops have in that high and great Office severally from thence succeeded unto the 29th of Edward the First and not a few of the other Bishops have been Treasurers and Secretaries of State and by that Right alone besides their Spiritual Rights and Temporal Baronies did sit as Peers in that great Assembly together with the Lord Privy-Seal Constable Marshal and Great Chamberlain of England Lord Steward Chamberlain of the Houshold with the Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons of England which do Illustrate that greatest of our Kings Councels attended with such of the Judges and other Assistants as their Soveraigns shall be pleased to call or permit to Sit therein Neither could those grand Officers claim a Right to be accounted by them or any others Equal or Co-ordinate with them or their Superiours or to have any Vote in the House of Peers in Parliament by their sitting there it being in the Act of Parliament made in the 31st Year of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth Entituled How the Lords in Parliament shall be placed wherein it being expressed That it appertained to his Prerâ—gative Royal to give such Honor Reputation and Place to his Câ—uncellors and other his Subjects as shall be seeming to his excellent Wisdome It was specially mentioned That the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the King's Councel Lord Privy-Seal or Chief Secretary that shall be under the degree of a Baron of the Parliament are to give no Assent or Dissent in the Parliament And it is likewise remarkable That in the Title of that Act of Parliament and all along and thorough the Body thereof the House of Peers is only stiled the Parliament and no mention is therein at all made of the House of Commons in Parliament nor any Care or Order taken for their Degrees or sitting in Parliament Neither do any of our Parliament Rolls Records or Authentick ancient Historians mention that our Kings were in those their great Councels limited or accustomed to call all their Barons thereunto Nor until the latter end of the Raign of King Richard the Second had voluntarily obliged themselves to Summon thither the Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts unto those their great Councels And when it hath been truly said that Omne Majus continet in se Minus it will not be easy to believe That the Minus doth or should Continere in se Majus For in Anno 23 Edward the First there were but Sixty-three Earls and Barons Summoned and in the same Year upon another Summons but 45. King Edward the Second did not Summon all the Earls and Barons In the 6 E. 3. the like M. 22 E. 3. 6 R. 2. 11 R. 2. the like King Edward the 3d. in the 9th Year of his Raign Summoned but five Earls and Eleven Barons In the 10th E. 3. the Parliament Writs of Summons were directed but unto Fourteen of the Temporal Barons with a Memorandum entred that Brevia istis Magnatibus immediatè praescriptis directa essendi ad Parliamentum praedictum remissa fuerint concilio Regis pro eò quòd quidam ex eis in partibus Scotiae quidam ex eis in partibus transmarinis existant adnullanda 15 E. 3. there were Summoned but 26 of all sorts 16 E. 3. But a very few 21 E. 3. but 22. 45 E. 3. but thirteen Earls and Barons and not many to diverse Parliaments after the great Commune Generale Concilium rightly understood being but Synonyma's of the word Parliament and of latter times they which were in the King's Displeasure have had their Summons but with a Letter from the Lord Chancellour or Lord Keeper commanded not to come but to send a Proxy In Anno 46 E. 3. and diverse years in the Raign of King Henry the 5th few Earls and Barons were Summoned for that many of them were then busied in the Warrs of France But in the Parliament in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr John Earl of Bristol being denyed his Writ petitioned to the House of Peers for it whereupon he had it without any intercession of the House of Peers but withal a Letter from the Lord Keeper signifying his Majesties Pleasure that he should send his Proxy and forbear to come whereupon he petitioned the Parliament again shewing That that Letter could not discharge him from coming for that the Writ commanded him to come upon his Allegiance but that point was not then debated for the said Earl was presently sent for as a Delinquent and charged with High Treason the Majores Barones being men of the best Estate Extraction and Abilities and better sort of the Tenants in Capite by antient Law and Custome of the Kingdom being to be only Summoned according to the very old custome of the Romans probably learnt from thence who as Sigonius writes did in legenâ—o Senatores make choise of them according to their Birth Age Estate and Magistracy well exercised and performed And could be no less then well warranted by a constant well experimented long approved and applauded Usage thereof for more than fourteen hundred Years attested by the industrious Labours of Mr. William Pryn and others and for the times before the Conquest and the Learned Collections of Sir Robert Filmer and others since the Norman Invasion fortified by such Records which in themselves are never found to lie as the teeth of devouring Time hath left us seconded by unquestionable antient authentick classical Authors which might silence those disputes Factious and Foolish opinions and cavils which in the latter part of this last unquiet Century or age have been stirred up against that very Antient and Honourable Assembly or House of Peers which all the former ages neither durst or did lift an hand or heel against or so much as maligne or bark at So greatly are our most degenerate wickedly hypocritical worser Times altered from what they were or should be and the only Recital of whose long and Antient Successions through their so many several gradations may abundantly satisfie any that are not before so prepossessed as to resolve never to be satisfied with any thing that looks but like Truth or Reason if they shall but read as they ought to do the ensuing Series or Catalogue Wherein they may find that in the Bud or Blossom of
the Commonalty of great Yarmouth the which Bills with the Indorsements thereupon made by the Lords were also on the Filace Divers Bills are there mentioned to be delivered and some mentioned to have been answered as happily all were saith that diligent Observator by the Lords of his Majesties Councel after the Parliament ended And therefore no marvel if all the Answers were not read on the last day of the Parliament when some of them were not made until after the Parliament ended and there is a Petition directed to the thrice redoubted Lord the King in these words following viz. Supplie vos Leiges the Praelates Dukes Earls Barons Commons Citizens Burgesses and Merchants of the Realm of England For Magna Charta to be confirmed unto them and for a general pardon setting down the Articles thereof whereof many were granted and many qualified as the King and his Councel pleased to answer the same And it was not the use and practise of those times to keep back any Answer that was justly displeasing to the King and his Councel much less any other For in Anno 11. H. 4. The Commons petition that none of the Kings Officers may receive any gift c. To which the King answered le Roy le veult In the same year a Petition of the Commons concerning Attorneys was granted by the King and both the Petitions and Answers were ingrossed in the Parliament Roll together with the rest which shews plainly that they were Read on the last day of the Parliament for the Royal Assent Yet notwithstanding the Kings Councel so misliked them that when the Clerk attended with the Roll of that Parliament for the drawing up of that Statute as the manner was those two Petitions and Answers were not thought good to be inserted in the Statute and therefore they did write in the Margent of the said Roll against the same these words Respectuatur per Dominum Principem Concilium which is written with another hand si non antea le Roy le veult answered to a Petition of the Commons without a Statute made there is only an Ordinance The Commons complain of Commissions granted to enquire of divers Articles in Eyre generally which have not been heretofore granted without Assent of Parliament and of the proceedings of the Justices therein contrary to the Law in assessing Fines without regard to the Quality of the Trespass To which was answered The King is pleased that the Commissions be examined in his presence In the 21th year of the Reign of King E. 3. the Commons pray that their Petitions for the Common profit and for amendment to have of mischiefs may be answered and indorsed in Parliament before the Commons so as they may know the Indorsement and thereby have Remedy according to the Ordinance of Parliament In the 37th year of the Raign of King E. 3. the Chancellor demanded of the Commons the last day of the Parliament after the Answers given to the Petitioners were Read if they would have the things so accorded mys par void ' Ordinance ou de Statute qui disoient qui bone est le matere les choses par voydes Ordinances nemy per Statut issint est fait And yet those were no otherwise drawn up into an Ordinance than only by entring the Petitions and Answers in a Parliement Roll. In the 9th year of his Raign the Articles of the Clergy being answered they procured the same Articles and Answers to be exemplified in such sort as they were entred in the Roll of Parliament which is lost without penning the same in any other form and were afterwards published under the great Seal of England with an Observari volumus In the Raign of the same King it was accorded that no Grand of the Land or other of what Estate or degree soever do make prizes or carriages for the houses of the King Queen or their Children and that by Warrant shall make payment thereof and it was ordained by Statute that that Accord be cryed and published in Westminster Hall And our Lord the King and his Councel willeth the same accord be cryed where it behoveth So as where they prayed the publishing thereof at Westminster Hall only the King and his Councel added the publishing thereof in London and elsewhere And the close Rolls of that year do declare that it was published in all the shires of England When an Ordinance had its first motion and being in the House of Lords in Parliament and agreed on and was drawn in the form of an Act of Parliament it was afterwards to receive the Assent of the Commons in Parliament In divers Parliaments when the Commons Petitioned for a Novel Ley which the Lords were willing enough to yield unto and the King to grant yet for that the King intended not to make any Statute that Parliament those Petitions have been deferred to another time and divers others which did not demand a new Law were granted and reputed for good Ordinances or Acts of Parliament As when in 21 E. 3. The Commons prayed that in Writs of Debt or Trespass if the Plaintiff recover damages against the Defendant that he have Execution of the Lands which the Defendant had the day in which the Writ was purchased Unto which the King answered This cannot be done without a Statute whereupon the King will advise with his good Councel and further do that which shall seem best for his people In the same year the Commons do shew that whereas before these times it hath been used that if Lands had been given to a man and his Wife and the Heirs of their Bodies issuing and the one dies no Issue having been had betwixt them the other may commit Wast without being impeached thereof that it may please our Lord the King to ordain thereof Remedy and that in such case a Writ of Wast be ordained To which the King answered Demurge entre les autres Articles dont novel ley est demandez Eodem Anno Shew the Commons that whereas a Writ of Possession doth not lye of Tenements deviseable though they be not devised to the great damage of all the Commons that it would please our Lord the King and his good Councel to ordain by Statute that Writs of Possession my lye and hold place as well of Tenements deviseable in case where they are not devised as of others and that there be saved to the Tenants their Answers in case that they be devised Whereunto the King answered Let it remain amongst the other Articles whereof a New Law is demanded In the 22d year of the Raign of the same King they do pray that for that many are disinherited by non Claim although they have good Right and namely those who are not learned in the Law that non Claim be gone and utterly taken away To which the King answered This would be to make a New Law which thing cannot
the King to have the Answers to their Petitions in writing in manner of a Patent under the great Seal of England for every County City and good Town one Patent for the comfort of the People which the King granted by the advice of the Praelates and Grands most of which were the Judges Officers of State and Privy Councellors of the King which Patent was sealed and entred in the Patent Roll under which was written la Charter ensealer pour les Communs After which the King summoned three Parliaments in 20 21 and 22. But no Statute was made in either of them The next Statute was made in Anno 25 E. 3. in which year the King had two Parliaments and Statutes made but mention nothing by whom they were made only the Commons do pray that the Petitions reasonably prayed by the Commons be granted confirmed and sealed before the departure of the Parliament And in the same Parliament n. 43. The Commons praying that the Statute made the last Parliament touching Reservations be published and put in Execution Unto which the King answered Let the Statute be viewed and recited before the Councel and if need be in any point let it be better declared and amended as the Statute of the King and the Realm be kept By which it appeareth that the Councel penned the Statutes Anno 27. E. 3. The King summoned a great Councel whither many Commons were sent and it was agreed that the Ordinances of the said Councel should be recited in the next Parliament Anno 28. E. 3. n. 16. The Commons prayed that the Ordinances of the Staple and all the other Ordinances made at the last great Councel which they have seen with great deliberation be affirmed in this Parliament and held for a Statute to endure for ever Unto which the King and Lords agreed with one mind so always that if any thing be to be put out let it be done in Parliament when need shall be and not in any other manner And accordingly there is an Addition at the end of the first Chapter against Provisors as in the Statute Roll and Print but not in rot Concilii Anno 27. nor yet in the Parliament Roll de Anno 28. E. 3. That whole Addition seeming to be added by the Councel alone and yet shewed to the Parliament for their consent before the said Statute was published And it is observable by that of 27 E. 3. n. 43. and this of 28 E. 3. n. 16. That the Statutes were most usually made long after the Parliament ended although in the Parliaments of 14 15. and 18 E. 3. they were engrossed and sealed in the time of Parliament sedente curia Statutes were made when some of our Kings were beyond Sea which happened often in the Raigns of E. 3. and H. 5. Anno 25. E. 1. a Parliament was held at London when the King was in Flanders by his Son Edward and the Statute made therein was put into the form of a Charter or Patent Anno 13. E. 3. were two Parliaments whilst the King was beyond the Seas but no Petitions or Statutes in either Anno 14. E. 3. a Parliament was holden in the Kings absence beyond the Seas by his Son Edward Duke of Cornwal Guardian of England but no Petition of the Commons nor Statute Anno 23. E. 3. a Parliament was held in the Kings absence by Lyonell the Kings Son Guardian of England and divers Petitions of the Commons were then answered but no Statute made thereof Anno 51. E. 3. the King could not be present at the beginning of the Parliament but granted a Commission to Richard Prince of Wales to begin the same Et ad faciendum ea quae pro nobis et per nos facienda fuerint And yet the Lords went to the King lying sick at Sheene the day before the Parliament ended where he gave his Royal Assent unto the Answers made unto the Petitions and commanded them to be read the next day in full Parliament but yet no Statute was made thereon notwithstanding the Commission for the Commission was but for matters to be done in Parliament as the words Ibidem facienda fuerint do import Anno 8. H 5. a Parliament was held in England by Humfrey Duke of Gloucester the King being then beyond the Seas wherein the Commons petitioned n. 16. That whereas it had been told them by divers Lords in this Parliament that the Petitions to be delivered to the Duke of Gloucester Guardian of England shall not be ingrossed before they be first sent beyond the Seas to our Soveraign Lord the King to have therein his Royal Assent and Advice wherefore may it please the said Lord Duke to ordain by authority of this present arliament That all the Petitions delivered by the Commons to the said Duke in the Parliament be answered and determined within this Realm of England during the said Parliament and if any Petition remain not answered and determined during the said Parliament that they be held for void and of none effect and that this Ordinance be of force and hold place in every Parliament to be held in the Realm in time to come To which was answered Soit avise per le Roy. Howsoever it may be conceived that all the Petitions with the Answers were sent to the King for his Advice and Assent which of them should be in the Statute and which not for in that Statute consisting of three Chapters which was made that year there are only two of the answers to their Petitions determined that is made into the said Statute viz. pet n. 4. in the 2d cap. and pet n. 7. in the 3 cap. The Commons did not Petition for any thing contained in the 5th cap. neither is there any thing recorded thereof in that Parliament Roll although one other of the Commons Petitions n. 15. for Women Aliens the Widows of Englishmen to have Dower was granted absolutely and the Petition n. 8. against Retail of sweet Wines altogether and the Petition n. 9. That Gascoign Wine should not be sold for above 6 d. the Gallon were granted with be it as is desired if it please the King Yet neitheir of these Petitions are in the Statute The usual time for making the Statutes was after the the end of every Parliament yea after the Parliament Roll was engrossed Anno 3. R. 2. The Temporal Lords met in the great Councel after the Parliament was ended where the Clerk read unto them the Enrolment of the Ordinance in that Parliament touching the power of the Justices of the Peace At which time it is probable the Statute was made and that Ordinance quite altered Anno 11 H. 4. n. 28. and 63. The Petitions and their Answers agreed on in Parliament are entred in the Roll with the rest which past into the Statute of that year and in the margent was written with another hand Respectuatur per dominum Principem concilium and neither of those are in the
said to be per Dominum Regem And a second of the same date and tenor with a perclose said to have been per Dominum Regem magnum Concilium John Pechies pardon for whom that House of Commons in Parliament was said to intercede only mentioneth that it was precibus aliquorum Magnatum 15 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury before the King and Lords humbling himself before the King desired that where he was defamed through the Realm he might be arraigned before his Peers in open Parliament Unto which the King answered that he would attend the Common Affairs and afterward hear others 5 H. 4. The King at the request of the Commons affirmeth the Archbishop of Canterbury the Duke of York the Earl of Northumberland and other Lords which were suspected to be of the confederacy of Henry Percy to be his true Leige-men and that they nor any of them should be impeached therefore by the King or his Heirs in any time ensuing 9 H. 4. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented a Bill on the behalf of Thomas Brooke against William Widecombe and required Judgment against him which Bill was received and the said William Widecombe was notwithstanding bound in a 1000 pound to hear his Judgment in Chancery And the many restorations in blood and estate in 13 H. 4. and by King E. 4. and of many of our Kings may inform us how necessary and beneficial the pardons and mercy of our Kings and Princes have been to their People and Posterities The Commons accuse the Lord Stanley in sundry particulars for being confederate with the Duke of York and pray that he may be committed to prison To which the King answered he will be advised And Pardons before Indictments or prosecution have not been rejected for that they did anticipate any troubles which might afterwards happen For so was the Earl of Shrewsburys in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth for fear of being troubled by his ill-willers for a sudden raising of men without a warrant to suppress an insurrection of Rebels Lionell Cranfeild Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England being about the 18th year of King James accused by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for great offences and misdemeanours fined by the King in Parliament to be displaced pay 50000 l. and never more to sit in Parliament was in the 2d year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr upon his Submission to the King and payment of 20000 l. only pardoned of all Crimes Offences and Misdemeanors whatsoever any Sentence Act or Order of Parliament or the said Sentence to the contrary notwithstanding For whether the accusation be for Treason wherein the King is immediately and most especially concerned or for lesser Offences where the people may have some concernment but nothing near so much or equivalent to that of the Kings being the supreme Magistrate the King may certainly pardon and in many pardons as of Outlaries Felonies c. there have been conditions annexed Ita quod stent recto si quis versos eos loqui voluerit So the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr to prevent any dangerous questions touching the receiving of Fines and other Proceedings in Chancery sued out his Pardon The many Acts of Oblivion or general Pardon granted by many of our Kings and Princes to the great comfort and quiet of their Subjects but great diminution of the Crown Revenue did not make them guilty that afterwards protected themselves thereby from unjust and malicious Adversaries And where there is not such a clause it is always implyed by Law in particular mens cases and until the Soveraignty can be found by Law to be in the People neither the King or his people who by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are to be subordinate unto him are to be deprived of his haute ex basse Justice and are not to be locked up or restrained by any Petition Charge or Surmise which is not to be accompted infallible or a truth before it be proved to the King and his Council of Peers in Parliament and our Kings that gave the Lords of Mannors Powers of Soke and Sake Infangtheif and Outfangtheif in their Court Barons and sometimes as large as Fossarum Furcarum and the incident Power of Pardons and Remissions of Fine and Forfeitures which many do at this day without contradiction of their other Tenants enjoy should not be bereaved of as much liberty in their primitive and supream Estates as they gave them in their derivatives And though there have been Revocations of Patents during pleasure of Protections and Presentations and Revocations of Revocations quibusdam certis de causis yet never was there any Revocation of any Pardon 's granted where the King was not abused or deceived in the granting thereof For in Letters Patents for other matters Reversals were not to be accounted legal where they were not upon just causes proved upon Writs of Scire facias issuing out of the Chancery and one of the Articles for the deposing of King Richard 2d being that he revoked some of his Pardons The recepi's of Patents of Pardon or other things were ordained so to signifie the time when they were first brought to the Chancellour as to prevent controversies concerning priority or delays made use of in the Sealing of them to the detriment of those that first obtained them And the various forms in the drawing or passing of Pardons as long ago His testibus afterwards per manum of the Chancellour or per Regem alone per nostre Main vel per manum Regis or per Regem Concilium or authoritate Parliamenti per Regem Principem per Breve de privat sigillo or per immediate Warrant being never able to hinder the energy and true meaning thereof And need not certainly be pleaded in any subordinate Court of Justice without an occasion or to purchase their allowance who are not to controul such an Act of their Sovereign Doctor Manwaring in the fourth of sixth Year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr being grievously fined by both Houses of Parliament and made incapable of any place or Imployment was afterwards pardoned and made Bishop of St. Asaph with a non obstante of any Order or Act of Parliament So they that would have Attainders pass by Bill or Act of Parliament to make that to be Treason which by the Law and antient and reasonable Customs of England was never so before to be believed or adjudged or to Accumulate Trespasses and Misdemeanors to make that a Treason which singly could never be so either in truth Law right reason or Justice May be pleased to admit and take into their serious consideration that Arguments a posse ad esse or ab uno ad plures are neither usual or allowable and that such a way of proceeding will be as much against the Rules of Law Honour and Justice as of Equity and good
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
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 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
being crowded into King John's Charter were never either granted or confirmed by King Henry III. Edward I. or any of our succeeding Kings nor as Sir Henry Spelman repeating the same omissions saith is therein that of paying the Debts of the Deceased probably of those that died leaving their Heirs in Ward to the Jews and others although Matthew Paris so much mistakes as to affirm that those Charters of King John and his Son Henry III. were in nullo dissimiles Which well-interpreted could signifie no more than that King John in his great necessities and troubles pressing upon his Tenants in capite the great Lords and others by taxing them proportionably according to their Knights Fees they endeavoured by those Charters all that they could to restrain him from any such Assesments which should go further then a reasonable aid unless in the cases there excepted and aim'd at no more then that a Common-Councel which was not then called a Parliament should be summon'd not annually of all Archbishops Bishops Abbots Earls and greater Barons and all the Tenants in capite being those that were most concerned therein nor as our Parliaments now but only as to their aids and services as Tenants in capite were upon forty days notice to appear at the same time and place given in general by the King's Sheriffs and Bailiffs sic factâ submonitione negotium procedat ad diem assignatam secundum consilium eorum qui prae sentes fuerint quamvis non omnes submoniti venerint and could not be intended of our now House of Commons in Parliament many years after first of all and never before introduced or constituted that praefiction of Forty days probably first creating that opinion which can never arrive unto any more then that every summons of such a Councel or Meeting was to be upon so many days notice or warning which Mr. Pryn upon an exact observation of succeeding Parliaments hath found to be otherwise much of the boisterousness haughty and long after unquiet minds of some of those unruly Barons being to be attributed to the over-strained promises and obligations of William the Conquerour before he was so to his Normans and other Nations that adventured with him upon an agreement and Ordinance made in Normandy before his putting to Sea which the King of France had in the mean time upon charges and great allowances made unto him undertaken to guard and long after by the command of King Edward III. then warring in France in the 20th year of his Reign was by Sir Barth Burghersh and others sent from thence in the presence of the Keeper or Guardian of England and the whole Estate declared in Parliament as a matter of new discovery and designs of the French happened in the traverse and success of those wars which probably might make the Posterity of some of them although the Ancestors of most of them had been abundantly recompenced by large shares of the Conquest Gifts and Honours granted by the Conquerour to a more than competent satiety extended to the then lower Ranks of his Servants Souldiers or Followers as that to de Ferrariis the Head afterwards and chief of a greater Estate and Family in England than they had in Normandy and might be the occasion of that over-lofty answer of John de Warrennis Earl of Surrey in his answer to some of the Justices in Eyre in the Reign of King Edward I. when demanded by what warrant he did hold some of his Lands and Liberties he drawing out a rusty Sword which he did either wear or had brought with him for that purpose said By that which he helped William the Conquerour to subdue England so greatly to mistake themselves as to think which the Lineage of the famous Strongbow Earl of Pembroke and some eminent Families of Wales in the after-Conquest of Ireland never adventured to do that the Ancestors of them and others that left their lesser Estates in Nòrmandy to gain a greater in England to be added thereunto had not come as Subjects to their Duke and Leige-Lord but Fellow-sharers and Partners with him which they durst not ever after claim in his life-time or the life of any of his Successors before in the greatest advantages they had of them or the many Storms and Tempests of State which befel them but might be well content as the words of the Ordinance it self do express That they and their Progenies should acknowledge a Sovereignty unto the Conquerour their Duke and King and yield an Obedience unto him and his far-fam'd Posterity as their first and continued Benefactors And those their Liberties and Priviledges freely granted by those Charters and not otherwise to be claimed were so welcome and greatly to be esteemed by the then Subjects of England as they returned him their gratitude and thankfulness for them in a contribution of the fifteenth part of all their Moveables with an Attestation and Testimony of the Wiser more Noble and Powerful part of the Kingdom viz. the Archbishop of Canterbury Eleven other Bishops Nineteen Abbots Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice Ten Earls John Constable of Chester and Twenty-one Barons men of Might and great Estates amongst which there were of the contending and opposite Party Robert Fitz Walter who had been General of the Army raised and fighting against his Father the Earls of Warren Hereford Derby Warwick Chester and Albemarl the Barons of Vipont and Lisle William de Brewere and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford who afterwards fought against that King and helped to take him Prisoner That those Charters were given and granted unto them and other his Subjects the Free-men of his Kingdom of his own free will and accord And as to that of being not condemned without Answer or Tryal which in the infancy of the World was by the Creator of all Mankind recommended to its imitation as the most excellent Rule and Pattern of Justice in the Tryal and Sentence of Adam and Eve in Paradise are not to be found enacted or granted in King Edward the Confessor's Laws or the Charters or Laws of King Henry I. the people of England having no or little reason much to value or relie upon the aforesaid Charters of King John gained indirectly by force about two years after his as aforesaid constrained Resignation of his Kingdom of England and Dominion of Ireland to hold of the Pope and Church of Rome by an yearly Tribute being not much above Thirty years before and not then gone out of memory SECT V. Of the continued unhappy Iealousies Troubles and Discords betwixt the discontented and ambitious Barons and King Henry III. after the granting of his Magna Charta and Charta de Forestâ ALmost two years after which the King in a Parliament at Oxford declaring himself to be of full age and free to dispose of the affairs of the Kingdom cancelled and annulled the Charter of the Forests as granted in his
Project Four Abbesses to help them to Cordials in that languishing State of Loyalty they then were in The Earls and Barons were then and long after Great and Noble by Descent Birth Extraction Lands Estate Alliance Command Power and Authority not a few of them by Consanguinity or Affinity deriving their Progeny from the lines of several of their Kings and Princes and much of their Honors and Support from their Bounty and Munificence as they were pleased to dispence them by their influence favors or bounty for great and heroick Actions and Services done for them and the Weal publick and their Authority could not be small either in the Fear or Force of it when at the time of the Norman Conquest all the Lands and Services thereunto belonging of the Kingdom were either the Kings in Demesne or in the Possession of those Great Men and Commanders unto whom he had granted them and that again distributed by them to their Servants Friends or Followers to hold by Knights Service Soccage Copy-hold Leases for Years or Villenage with some Services imposed as going in Person to War to defend them and their Soveraign Castle-guard Carre and Manuopara and the consented unto Reservations or willing Oblations of doing much of their works of Husbandry in the hopes of their Justice in their little Courts or petit Soveraignties Protection and Assistance against the injuries and oppression of wrong Doers and the Comfort of a large and free Hospitality and Charitable uses together with the Foundation and Endowments of many Abbies Priories and religious Houses which obliged both the secular and regular Clergy to love and honour them and the liberi homines or Freeholders were as unto many of them only such as had been manumissed and had from the condition of Servants or Villaines attained unto the degrees of libertini or ingenui or so fortunate as to have some small Parcells of Lands in Fee simple or Tail or for life by Gift Purchase Marriage or Copy-hold granted and given by them most of the Saxon race being so unhappy as to be content to become Tenants to the Conquerours of their own Lands whilst the Nobility and Great Men being more desirous of Service than Money or Rents granted the Service of Men or Tenants that held by Knights Fees or Service or parts thereof one unto another which in those times were in so high Esteem and of such a Value as Ten Knights Fees were reckoned a Satisfaction for a Release of the Claim of that great Office of High Steward of England in Fee by Roger Bygott Earl of Norfolk and his Heirs to Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester Seven and a half whereof being paid King Henry the Third upon a Reference of the Controversy betwixt the said Earles unto him made his Award That the said Symon should Execute the said Office of High Steward and the said Roger should bring his Action for the other Two Knights Fees and a half and the English Nobility having all the great offices and places of Honour of the Kingdom and about the Persons of their Kings with their Influence Power and Authority in their great Councels or Parliaments and thereby the Opportunities of pleasing and displeasing hurting or helping whom they would were as to many of them and not a few of the common People like the righteous Job in his Prosperity when they came out to the Gates of the City the Eares that heard them blessed them the Eyes that saw them gave Witness unto them they delivered the Poor that cryed and the Fatherless and them that had none to help them the Blessing of those that were ready to perish came upon them they caused the Widdows hearts to sing for joy were Eyes to the blind Feet to the lame and Fathers to the poor brake the Jawes of the Wicked and pluckt the Spoyl out of their Mouths their Root was spread out by the Waters and the Dew lay all night upon their Branches they gave ear unto them waited and kept silence at their Councel And could not be slighted or taken to be Benefits of a small size or esteem but to be very great and worthy the seeking and obtaining when Threescore and Ten Thousand Knights Fees every one of which being then no small Estate either as to the extent of the Lands or the Value thereof as Ordericus Vitalis who lived in the time of the Conqueror hath numbred them or but about Thirty two Thousand as Mr. Selden believeth were given by William the Conqueror to his Nobility Great Men and Followers to be holden of him his Heirs and Successors in Capite and all the other Lands of the Kingdom except those large quantities which were King Edward the Confessor as appertaining to the Crown of England and what else he kept in his own Possession and Demesne and besides what he endowed and founded divers Abbys Monasteries Priories and Nunneries withal to hold of him and his Heirs and Successors in Capite and by Knights Service were again as unto a great part thereof distributed and granted by his Nobility great Men and Followers to their Dependants Servants Tenants and Friends to hold of them by Knight-Service Which drawing to it by the Feudal Laws part of the fundamental Laws of England and incorporated therein Wardships no Slavery Burden or Grievance if rightly used or understood but a Protection Comfort and Benefit as well publick as private Reliefs Education Protection and Marriage of their Heirs in their Minority which was the greatest Concernment of their Families did put and render the Commonalty under the Patronage and Tutelage of the Nobility and great Men Subordinate to the King their Soveraign and common Parent which many other Nations and the greatest Pretenders and Enjoyers of Liberties in the Christian World have not onely deemed but experimented to be an Happiness Insomuch as if it were to be tryed by the Suffrage and Experience of our English Ancestors if they could from the Dead be produced and heard to speak in the Affairs and Case of England and a due Consideration had of the Security had and long enjoyed by the Northern parts thereof by the Tenures by Cornage assisted by that of Knight-Service and Capite and the Residence of the Baronage of those Countryes against the dayly and nightly Incursions and Spoil of their then ill Neighbours the Picts and Scots which amounted unto as much or more than the costly Wall and Fortifications which the Romans built and provided against them together with the Safety and Guard which a great part of England hath been often defended by the Lords Marchers against the Hostilities and Unquietness of the Welch it 's former Owners would bring us in a verdict of O felices bona si sua nôrint Which must needs attract the Love good Will Fear Awe and Obedience of the People who so well understood their own conditions and that of the Nobility as to believe that to quarrel or be
disobliging unto any of them was to fall foul or out of the favour of all their great Alliances Friends Kindred numberless Tenants Servants Retainers Dependants and well-Wishers many of which being their own Relations Friends or Kindred might either help on and bring upon them a most certain and inevitable Ruine or put their small and fainting Estates into a languishing Condition when any the least Offences taken or given would be sure to effect it in the Displeasure of those who until the Reign of King Edward the First and some Ages after were so high and potent As that Ferrers Earl of Darby an Opposite to King Henry the Third in the Baron's Wars had Twenty Lordships in Barkeshire Three in Wiltshire in Essex Five in Oxfordshire Seven in Warwickshire Six in Lincolnshire Two in Buckinghamshire Two in Gloucestershire One Herefordshire Two Hantshire Three Nottinghamshire Three Leicestershire Thirty-Five Derbyshire One Hundred and Fourteen Staffordshire Seven of which was Chedley a parcel whereunto that part of Staffordshire appertained and besides had the Castle and Borough of Tudbury in that County together with many Advowsons Patronages c. and Knights Fees holding of him in those and other parts of England An Ancestor of Gilbert de Gaunt a partaker of the Norman Conquest another Opposite of King Henry the Third had in the Conquerors Survey One Lordship in Barkshire Three in Yorkshire Six in Cambridgeshire Two in Buckinghamshire One in Huntingtonshire Five in Northamptonshire One in Rutland One in Leicestershire One in Warwickshire Eighteen in Nottinghamshire One Hundred and Thirteen in Lincolnshire with Folkingham which was the Head of his Barony besides Knights Fees of those that held of him Patronages and Advowsons Fairs Markets Assize of Bread and Beer Pillory and Tumbrel c. Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester was in the right of Amicia one of the Sisters and Co-heirs of Robert Fitz Parnel a Norman Earl of Leicester Lord high Steward of England in Fee an Office of Large Authority and Esteem had in Warwickshire Sixty-Four Lordships in Leicestershire Sixteen in Wiltshire Seven in Northamptonshire Three in Gloucestershire One besides many Knights Fees of those that held of him Advowsons Patronages Fairs Markets and the priviledges of Pillory Tumbrel and the Assize of Bread and Beer The Earl of Gloucester and Hartford had Thirty-Eight Lordships in Surrey Thirty-Five in Essex Three in Cambridgeshire Halling and Bermeling Castle in Kent Haresfeild in Middlesex Sudtime in Wiltshire Leviston in Devonshire Ninety-Five in Suffolke besides Thirteen Burgages in or near Ipswich of which Clare was one from whence that Family took their Surname or it from them had the Town and Castle of Tunbridge in Kent the Castle of Brianels in the County of Gloucester and whilst the King and his Son Edward were Prisoners at Lewis obtained a Grant under the Great Seal of all the Lands and large Possessions of Iohn Warren Earl of Surrey to hold at the King's Pleasure except the Castles of Rigate and Lewis was one of the Chief that extorted a Commission from the King authorizing Stephen Bishop of Chichester Symon Montfort and himself to nominate Nine as well Prelates as Barons to manage all things according to the Laws and Customes of the Kingdom until the Determinations should be made at Lewis and others which they better liked should take Effect Awbrey de Vere in the general Survey of William the Conqueror had Cheviston now Kensington Geling and Emingford in com Hunt Nine Lordships in Suffolk Fourteen in Essex whereof Colne Hengham and Bentley were part in Warwickshire Six in Leicestershire Fourteen in Northamptonshire Six in Oxfordshire Two and in Wiltshire Ten a Descendant of whom had in the Raign of King Stephen together with Richard Basset Justice of England custodiam Comitatus and executed the Sheriffs Offices of Surrey Cambridge Huntington Essex Hartford Northampton Leicester Norfolk Suffolk Buckingham and Bedford had by the Grant of Maud the Empress and King Henry the Second her Son by inheritance the Earldom of Oxford granted unto him and his Heirs and Mannor and Castle of Caufeild in the County of Essex and the Office of Lord Great Chamberlain of England in Fee with the Castles of Hengham or Hedingham and Campes to be holden by that Service and divers other Lands and Possession of a great yearly Value had before the Fourth Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third by the Marriage of the Daughter and Heir of the Lord Bulbeck many Mannors and Lands in the Counties of Buckingham and Cambridge and by the Marriage of the Daughter and Heir of Gilbert Lord Sanford the Inheritance of divers Mannors and Lands in the Counties of Essex and Hartford and a Grant in Fee to be Chamberlain to the Queen die Coronationis suae with divers Priviledges and One Hundred Knights Fees holden of them one whereof was by the Heirs of Mordaunt for Lands in Essex to come compleatly Armed as Champion to the Heir of the Family and Earls of Oxford in the great Hall of Hedingham Castle upon the day of his Nuptials to defy and fight with any that should deny him to be Earl of Oxford and another for the Mannor of Horseth in the County of Cambridge holden by the Family of Allington now the Lord Allington of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Service of holding the Earl of Oxford's Stirrop die nuptiarum which was actually performed in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth the day of the Marriage of Edward Earl of Oxford with the Daughter of the Lord Burghley Roger Bygod in the Conquerors Time did possess Six Lordships in Essex and One Hundred Seventeen in Suffolk had a Grant in the Raign of King Henry the Second of the Mannors of Ersham Walsham Alvergate and Aclay and the Honour of Eye in the County of Suffolk the Custody of the Castle of Norwich and a Grant of the Office of high Steward of England to hold and enjoy in as ample manner as Roger Bygod his Father had held it in the time of King Henry the First was Earl Marshal of England by Inheritance and had thereby a great Command and Authority in the King's Armies and all his Martial Affairs registred in his Marshals Rolls those many Thousands who as Tenants in Capite came into the Army to perform their Service by which also they were enabled to receive Escuage after of those that were their Under-tenants and held of them and did not come to do their Service was in times of Peace as in War to appease Tumults to Guard the King's Palace distribute Liveries and Allowances to the Officers thereof attend at the doing of Homages have a Fee of every Baron made a Knight and to receive of every Earl doing Homage a Palfry and Furniture Hugh de Montfort Ancestor of Peter de Montfort one of the Twenty-Four enforced Conservators for the Kingdom in the said Raign of King Henry the Third had in the general Survey Twenty-Eight
Mannors in Kent besides a large proportion of Rumney Marsh Sixteen in Essex Fifty-one in Suffolk and Nineteen in Norfolk a Descendant of whom had in 12. Henry the Second holden of him Ten Knights Fees and a Fourth part de veteri feoffamento and was seized of the Mannor of Wellesborne in com Leic which Peter had in 12 Henry the Third the Mannor of Beldesert in Comitat ' Stafford in Anno 35 Henry the Third was Governor of Horeston Castle in Derbyshire in Forty-One Warden of the Marches of Wales towards Montgomery and also of the Castles of Salop and Bruges was Sheriff of the Counties of Salop and Stafford and so likewise for the next ensuing Year had the Custody of the Castles of Bruges and Ellesmere in Anno 47. Henry the Third was Governor of the Castles of Corff and Shirburne and of the Castle and Mannor of Seggewick and was in Anno 49. Eiusdem Regis made by that King 's Imprisoned Seal Governor of Whittenton Castle in Shropshire Gilbert de Segrave the Son of Hereward held the Mannor of Segrave in Com' Leic ' with the Fourth part of a Knight's Fee had a Grant of the King of the Lands of Stephen de Gaunt in the Counties of Lincolne and Leicester in the 5th of Henry the Third was Sheriff of the Counties of Essex and Hartford and the Two next ensuing Years in the 6th of Lincolnshire for Three parts of the Year and to the 8th in 11th Henry the Third Sheriff of Buckingham and Bedfordshire and continued until the 18th in the 10th of Henry the Third was a Justice itinerant for Nottingham and Derby-shires purchased Mount Sorrel in the County of Leicester in the 16th Henry the Third had the Custody of the Castle of Northampton and of the Counties of Buckingham Bedford Warwick and Leicester for the term of his Life taking the whole Profits of all those Counties for his Support in that Service excepting the ancient Farms which had been usually paid in the Exchequer with the Encrease which in King Henry the Seconds time had been answered for them was Chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas in 2d Henry the Third when upon the removal of Hubert de Burgh he was made Cheif Justice of England and had likewise the Mannor of Almonsbury in com' Huntington Hugh Despencer was in the Eighth Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third constituted Sheriff of the Counties of Salop and Stafford Governor of the Castles of Salop and Bridgenorth in the 10th of Henry the Third Sheriff of Berkshire and Governor of Wallingford Castle and in the 17th of Bolsoner Castle in com' Derby in 44th was by the rebellious Barons made Chief Justice of England after the Battle of Lewes Governour of Oxford Castle in Suffolk the Devises in Wiltshire Oxford and Nottingham Castle Bernard in the Bishoprick of Durham and one of the Twenty-Four Conservators for managing the Affairs of the Realm was seized of the Mannor of Ryhal in com' Rotel ' Leghere and Wykes in com' Essex Bernewell in com' Northampton Wycomb in com' Buck ' Soham in com' Cant ' Berewick Winterborne Basset in com' Wilts Speke in com' Berk whose Grand-child Hugh le Despencer in the Raign of King Edward the Second was possessed of no less than Fifty-Nine Lordships in several Counties Twenty-Eight-Thousand Sheep One Thousand Oxen and Steers Twelve Hundred Kine with their Calves Sixty Mares with their Colts Two Years old One Hundred Sixty draught Horses Two Thousand Hogs Three Hundred Bullocks Sixty Tuns of Wine Six Hundred Bacons Eighty Carkases of Martilmas Beef Six Hundred Muttons in the Larder Ten Tuns of Cider with Armes Plate Jewels and ready Money to the value of Ten Thousand Pounds Thirty-Six Sacks of Wool besides a Library of Books Humfrey de Bohun whose Descendant joyned with the Barons against King Henry the Third had in Anno 12. Henry the Second Thirty and a half Knights Fees de veteri feoffamento and Nine and a half de novo was Earl of Hereford and Constable of England by descent from his Mother his Son Henry de Bohun answered Fifty Marks and a Palfreâ— to the King for Twenty Knights Fees belonging to the Honor of Huntington had the Earldom of Essex and a very great Estate of Lands belonging thereunto descended unto him by Maud Countess of Essex his Mother together with a great Estate of Lands which came unto her from Isabel third Daughter and Co-heir of William Earl of Gloucester had likewise Lands in Haresfeild in com' Glouc ' holden by the service of Constable of England the Mannors of Shudham and Wâ—tnorst Kineton in com' Hunt ' and Walden in com' Essex Vescy one of the Barons against King Henry the third was at the time of the Norman Conquest seized of one Mannor in com' Northtamp ' two in Warwickshire seven in the County of Lincoln nine in Leic ' the Castles and Baronies of Alnewick in com' Northumberland and Multon in com' Eboru ' had besides vast Possessions bestowed on him by King Henry the first the Mills of Warner Bodele and Spilsham with eleven Mannors divers Lands and Tenements in the City of York and whatsoever he held of David King of Scotland and Henry his Son the Arch-Bishop of York Bishop of Duresme of the Earl of Richmond Geffry Estcland and Richard fitz Paine Roger de Moubray William Fossard William Paganell the Earl of Albemarle Roger de Clare Gilbert de Gant Roger de Beauchampe Henry de Campaine Ralph the Son of Bogan the Earl of Chester Abbess of Berking William de Sailley and of all the Fee of Thurstane the Son of Robert de Mansfeild had likewise the Mannors of Ellerton and Cansfeild and was Governour of the Castle of Bamburgh in com' Northum ' seized of the Mannors of Brentune Propertime Pecheston and Sornneston Burgh and Knaresburgh in the County of York Barony of Halton and Constabulary of Chester a Descendant whereof had in the Raign of King Henry the Second twenty Knights Fees de veteri feoffamento and many de novo that held of him had in 32d Henry the third in the Right of Agnes his Wife one of the Daughters of William de Ferrers Earl of Derby partition of the Lands in Ireland which did belong to William Marshal Earl of Pembroke Whose Ancestor had in the 2d Henry the Second Lands of a great Yearly value in Westcombe Marleburgh and Criâ—l in com' Wilts ' given unto him by the King with the Office of Earl Marshal and all other Lands holden of him in England or else-where had a Grant of the Mannor of Boseham in com' Suff ' with the Lastage and Hundred the Lordships of Westive and Bodewin with the Hundred of Bodewin all the Lands which the Earl of Eureux held in England except the Mannor of Marlow all the Lands of Hugh de Gournay lying in the Counties of Norfolk and Suff ' Kaule and Castre and all the Lands of Hugh
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
sed sic eas accepi quemadmodum judicaverunt omnes Optimates Regni Anglorum to wit in a full Parliament which then consisted only of the King and his Nobility Anno Domini 944. King Edmond granted many large liberties and the Mannor of Glastonbury to the Abby thereof cum concilio consensu Optimatum suorum made it seems saith Mr. Pryns in Parliament and a clear evidence that the Nobles of that age were the Kings great Councel and Parliament without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses of which he found no mention in History or Charters Anno 948. there was a Parliament or Councel holden at London under King Edred Cùm universi Magnates Angliae per Regium edictum Summoniti tà m Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates quà m caeteri totius Angliae Proceres Optimates Londini convenissent ad tractandum de negotiis publicis totius Regni in which Parliament no Knights Citizens or Burgesses are said to have been present Anno 965 or 970. King Edgar with his Mother Clito his Successor the King of Scots both the Archbishops caeterisque Episcopis omnibus Regni proceribus Subscribed his Charter granted to the Abby of Glastonbury communi Episcoporum Abbatum Primorumque concilio generali assensu Pontificum Abbatum Optimatum suorum concilio omnium Primatum suorum without any Commons present assistants and attendants only excepted Anno 975. King Edgar and his Queen Elferus Prince of Mercia Ethelinus Duke of the East-Angles Elfwold his Kinsman Arch-Bishop Dunstan cum caeteris Episcopis Abbatibus Bricknotho Comite cum Nobilitate totius Regni held a Councel at Winchester without any Commons Anno 977. in the Councel of Calne under King Edward omnes Anglorum Optimates were present together with the Bishops and Clergy but no Knights or Burgesses for ought is Recorded Anno Christi 1009. by King Ethelreds Edict Universi Anglorum Optimates at Eanham acciti sunt convenire not the Commons A Parliament was Summoned by King Edward the Confessor concerning Earl Godwyn at Gloucester where Totius Regni Proceres etiam Northumbriae Comites tunc famosissimi Sywardus Leofricus omnisque Anglorum Nobilitas convenêre Et Anno 1052. at London Rex omnes Regni Magnates ad Parliamentum apud London tunc fuerunt Mr. Pryn declaring his Opinion That the former and ancient Parliaments consisted of our Kings and their Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses Summoned to Assist or Advise with them or to Assent unto what they Enacted or Ordained In the 25th Year of his Raign granted Lands and Liberties to Saint Peters Church at Westminster Cum concilio decreto Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum Comitum aliorumque suorum Optimatum And from the Conquest until that forced something like but not to be accounted a Parliament in the 49th Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third divers Learned good Authors Summae incorruptae fidei no diminishing or additional Record-makers have assured and given Posterity and after Ages such an exact Account of our Parliaments as will leave no ground or foundation of Truth or Reason for any to believe That an Elected part of the Commons were before that Imprisonment of King Henry the Third in the 49th Year of his Raign made or Summoned to be a part of our English great Councels or Parliaments The Charter of William the Conqueror to the Abby of Battel was made Assensu Lanfranci Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Stigandi Episcopi Cicestrensis Concilio etiam Episcoporum Baronum suorum And that great Conqueror had in the 4th Year of his Raign Concilium Baronum suorum confirmavit Leges Edwardi Confessoris posteaque Decreta sua cum Principibus constituit In the 10th or 11th Year of his Raign Episcopi Comites Barones Regni Regiâ potestate ad universalem Synodum pro causis audiendis tractandis convocati fuerunt Separated the Courts Temporal from the Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Communi concilio concilio Archiepiscoporum suorum caeterorum Episcoporum Abbatum omnium Regni sui and in the Register of Winchelsey Arch-Bishop of Canterbury it is Recorded That Rex Angliae Gulielmus Conquestor in concilio Archiepiscoporum Abbatum omnium Procerum Regni did forbid the Leges Episcopales to be used in any Hundred or other secular Courts And in the 21st Year of the Raign of King Edward the Third Mr. Selden saith There is mention made of a Great Councel holden under the said King William wherein all the Bishops of the Land Earls and Barons made an Ordinance touching the Exemption of the Abby of Bury from the Bishops of Norwich In that great and notable Pleading for three Dayes together at Pynnendon in Kent in the Raign of King William the Conqueror who as Mr. Selden repeats it out of the Leiger Book or Register of the Church of Rochester Anglorum regnum armis conquisivit suis ditionibus subiugavit in the great Controversy betwixt Lanfranc Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and Odo Bishop of Baieux and Earl of Kent the Conquerors half Brother for many great Mannors Lands and Liberties of a great yearly Value which Lanfranc claimed to appertain to his Arch-Bishoprick of which that potent Norman Bishop and Earl had injustly disseized him the King commanded the whole County without any delay to Assemble together as well French as English and more especially such as were well Skilled and Learned in the ancient Laws and Customs of England as Gosfridus Episcopus Constantiensis qui in loco Regis fuit justitiam illam tenuit Elnothus Episcopus de Rovercestria Aegelricus Episcopus de Cicestria Vir antiquissimus legum terrae Sapientissimus qui ex praecepto Regis advectus suit ad ipsas antiquas legum Consuetudines discutiendas edocendas in una Quadrigâ Ricardus de Tonebregge Hugo de Monte Forti Gulielmus de Acres Haymo Vicecomes alij multi Barones Regis ipsius Archiepiscopi aliorum Episcoporum homines multi whose Decisions made by many Witnesses Evidences and Reasons being certified to the King Laudavit laudans cum consensu omnium Principum suorum confirmavit ut deinceps perseveraret firmitèr praecepit Upon a Rebellion of Rafe de Guader a Norman made Earl of Norfolk by the Conqueror Confederating with some discontented English whilst he was absent in Normandy upon Notice thereof given hasted into England where omnes ad Curiam suam Regni Proceres convocavit legitimos Heroes in fide probatos Unto which may be added That in the Agreement betwixt King William Rufus and Robert Duke of Normandy his elder Brother touching his Claim to the Kingdom of England being of great Concern to the People wherein the King assured to the Duke All that he could Claim from his Father except England it is said Pactum juramento confirmârunt duodecim Principes nomine Regis and 12. Barones nomine Ducis In the 2d Year
of King William the Second there was a great Councel De cunctis Regni principibus and another which had all the Peers of the Kingdom In the 7th Year of his Raign was a great Councel or Parliament so called at Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire Episcopis Abbatibus cunctisque Regni Principibus coeuntibus and a Year or two after the same King De statu Regni acturus called thither by his Command his Bishops Abbots and Peers of the Kingdom Anno 1106. Robert Duke of Normandy coming into England and seeking to be reconciled to his Brother King Henry the First which could not at Northampton be effected Magnatibus regni ob hoc Londonium edicto Regis convocatis the King by fair Words and Promises so frustrated the Dukes designs as Omnium corda sibi inclinavit ut pro ipso contra quemlibet usque ad capitis expositionem dimicarent Dux in Normanniam iratus perrexit Rex ipsum secutus est usque in Herchebrai Castellum trahens secum omnes ferè Proceres Normanniae Andegaviae robur Angliae Britanniae ut ipsum debellaret The Emperour having sent Ambassadors unto him to request his Daughter Maud in Marriage Tenuit ità que Rex apud Westmonasterium in Pentecosten Curiam suam quâ nunquam tenuerat splendidiorem wherein the Marriage was concluded Anno Domini 1114. Rex Anglorum Henricus fecit omnes suae potestatis Magnates as if there were no need of Commons which were then believed to be included in them fidelitatem jurare Willielmo filio suo At the Coronation of which King who had usurped his said elder Brothers Kingdom and stood in fear of his better Title it was said That all the People of the Kingdom of England were present but the Laws and Charter then made were Per commune concilium Baronum suorum confirmed and that Charter was attested by Mauritio Londoniensi Episcopo Willielmo Wintoniensi electo Odoardo Herefordiensi Episcopo Henrico Comite Simone Comite Waltero Gifford Comite Robert de Monti forti Rogero Bigod aliis multis Et factae sunt tot Chartae quot sunt Comitatus in Anglia Rege jubente positae in Abbatiis singulorum Comitatuum ad Monumentum In the 3d. Year of his Raign the Peers of the Kingdome were called without any mention of the Commons and Orders were at another great Councel made Consensu Comitum Baronum Florentius Wigorniensis saith that Lagam Edwardi Regis reddidit cum illis emendationibus quibus eam Pater suus emendavit concilio Baronum suorum After whose Death King Stephen having Usurped the Crown of England which did not at all belong unto him and Fought stoutly to keep it Concilium congregavit de statu Reipublicae cum Proceribus suis tractare studuit Anno Domini 1153 Justitiâ de Caelo prospiciente diligentiâ Theobaldi Archiepiscopi Cantuar ' aliorum Episcoporum regni King Stephen having no Issue Facta est concordia betwixt him and Henry Duke of Normandy after King Henry the Second who was by King Stephen acknowledged In conventu Episcoporum allorum Optimatum wherein it was accorded That Duke Henry saith Mathew Paris should Succeed him in the Kingdom Stephen only enjoying it for his Life if he should have no Children ex concessione Ducis Henrici ità tamen confirmata est pax quòd ipse Rex Episcopi praesentes cum caeteris Optimatibus regni no Commons jurarent quòd Dux post mortem Regis si ipsum superviveret Regnum fine contradictione aliqua obtineret King Henry the Second in the 10th year of his Raign held a great Councel or Parliament at Clarendon where some of the Customes and Constitutions of the Kingdom were Recognized which was an Assembly only of Prelates and Peers Anno 1118. in a Peace or League made betwixt him and Philip King of France it was agreed That in any Matters of Difference afterwards ariseing betwixt them they should abide by the Award of three Bishops and three Barons to be Elected on the King of France his part and the like on the King of Englands Anno Gratiae 1272. Venit Oxenford in generali Concilio ibidem celebrato constituit Johannem filium suum Regem in Hybernia concessione confirmatione Alexandri summi Pontificis in eodem concilio venerunt ad Regem Resus filius Gryphini Regulus de South-Wales David filius Owini Regulus de North-Wales qui Sororem ejusdem Regis Angliae in uxorem duxerat Cadwallanus Regulus de Delmain Owanus de Kavillian Griffinus de Bromfeld Madacus filius Gerverog alii multi de Nobilioribus Gualliae omnes devenêrunt homines Regis Angliae patris fidelitatem ei contra omnes homines pacem sibi regno servandam juraverunt In eodem concilio dedit Dominus Rex Angliae praedicto Reso filio Griffini terram de Merionith David filio Owani terram de Ellismore Deditque Hugoni de Lasci ut supradictum est in Hybernia totam Midam cum-pertinentiis pro servitio centum militum de ipso Johanne filio suo Chartam suam ei inde fecit And being to return an Answer to the Popes Letter inviting him to take upon him the Croysado and succour the Holy Land assembled a Parliament at London ubi dominus Rex Patriarcha Jerusalem Episcopi Abbates Comites Barones Angliae but no Knights Citizens or Burgesses thereof saith Mr. Pryn Willielmus Rex Scotiae David frater ejus cum Comitibus Baronibus terrae suae convenerunt Anno Domini 1162. without leave of Parliament or People Fecit jurare fidelitatem Henrico filio suo de haereditate suâ inter omnes Magnates Regni Thomas Cancellarius primus fidelitatem juravit salvâ fide Regi patri quamdiù viveret regno praeesse vellet In the 22d Year of his Raign held a great Councel at Nottingham by Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons At Windsor Communi concilio with Bishops Earls and Barons And the like afterwards at Northampton King Richard the 1st held shortly after his Coronation upon the invitation of the King of France and his undertaking to do the like a great Councel or Parliament cum Comitibus Baronibus suis qui Crucem susceperant in generali Concilio constituti apud Londonias taking their Oaths for the recovery of the Holy Land hasting thither and passing into Normandy Elianor Regina mater Richardi Regis with whom he had left the care of the Kingdom and Alays Soror Phillippi Regis Franciae Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Norwich Durham Winchester Ely Salisbury Chester Geffry the Kings Brother elected Archbishop of York and John Earl of Morton the Kings Brother shortly after transfretârunt de Anglia in Normanniam per mandatum Domini Regis habito cum illis concilio Dominus Rex statuit Willielmum Episcopum Eliensem Cancellarium
suum Justitiarium Angliae Granted to Hugh Bishop of Durham Justitiam à fluvio Humbri usque ad terram Regis Scotiae made his Brothers John Earl of Morton and Geffry elect Archbishop of York to swear tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis that they would not come into England within three Years then ensuing nisi per licentiam illius but suddenly after released his Brother John of his Oath and gave him leave to return into England taking his Oath quòd fidelitèr ei serviret In Crastino Exaltationis Sanctâ— Crucis apud Pipewel Archiepiscoporum Episcoporum aliorum Magnatum suorum fretus concilio benignè concessit Galfrido fratri suo Archiepiscopatum Eborum circa dies istos iturus ad Terram sanctam per concilium Magnatum suorum Gerardum Archiepiscopum Auxisnem Richardum de Canvill c. Justiciarios constituit super totum navigium Angliae Normanniae Britanniae Pictaviae Et tradidit illis Chartam suam in hac forma Richardus Dei gratia Rex Anglorum omnibus hominibus suis per mare ad Terram sanctam ituris salitem Sciatis Nos de proborum concilio virorum has Justitias statuisse being certain severe Sea Laws illas Consuetudines ab omnibus observandas quòd singuli Justitiariis obedirent fecit Sacramento confirmari Eodem tempore in the Kings absence ad instanciam Comitis Johannis fratris ipsius Regis convenerunt apud Pontem de Leodune inter Radingum Windeleshores ad colloquium Magnates Angliae de magnis arduis Regis Regni negotiis tractatur ' in crastino autem tà m Archiepiscopus Rothomagensis quà m Eboracensis Episcopi omnes apud Radingum convenerunt colloquio interessent The Bishop of Roan being sent thither by the King to take and give him an account thereof Anno Domini 1290. Rex Anglorum Richardus ad natale Domini fuit in Normanniam apud Burum ibi tenuit solenne festum cum Primatibus terrae illius post natale habitum est Colloquium betwixt the Kings of France and England where the Expedition was agreed upon and a Peace made and sworn betwixt the two Kingdoms and the Comites Barones utriusque Regni none of the Commons did swear That they would remain faithful to both the Kings and make no Warr until fourty dayes after their return and the Archbishops and Bishops utriusque Regni juraverunt to denounce sentence of Excommunication against the Transgressors In which Warrs in the East for recovery of the Holy Land after many glorious Victories obtained against the Infidels King Richard being shipwrackt and with a small company escaping cast upon the Territories of the envious Duke of Austria his incensed Aemulator for that he had caused his Standard which he had set up before his at the taking of the Town of Joppa to be taken downe and thrown into a Jakes was discovered way-laid taken and delivered or sold to the Emperour of Germany for 60000l of Silver ad pondus Coloniensium And the Emperour to whom his Brother John who had in his Absence endeavoured to usurp his Kingdomes and with the King of France his Confederate offered great summs of Money whereof the latter would have paid 50000 Marks of Silver and the former 30000 to have him detained Prisoner detesting their Practises and shewing to King Richard their Letters after much Respects and Kindness to such a magnanimous Prisoner agreed to take for his Ransom 140 thousand Marks of the same kind of Money which he paid to the Duke of Austria without any thing to be paid for the Expenses of himself or any other but an Oath was first taken by the Bishops Dukes and Barons that as soon as the Money should be paid continuò liber proprium regrederetur ad regnum which being together with the Emperours Letter published in England by the Bishop of Ely his Chancellor suddenly after Exiit edictum à Justiciariis Regis ut omnes Episcopi Clerici Comites Barones Abbatiae Prioratus quartam partem Redituum suorum ad redemptionem Regis conferrent insuper ad illud Pietatis opus Calices aureos argenteos sustulerunt And upon his delivery by the Archbishops of Mentz and Cologne into the hands of Queen Elianor his Mother on the behalf of the Emperour gave Sureties or pledges until all the Money should be paid Walter Archbishop of Roan Savarick Bishop of Bath Baldwin de Wac alios multos filios Comitum Baronum suorum de pace servanda Imperatori Imperio suo omni terrae suae dominationis The Bishop of Norwich dimidium pretij de Calicibus sumpsit de rebus habitis Regi donavit and the Cistertian Monks being alwayes before by Priviledge freed from any Contributions Bona sua universa ad Regis redemptionem dederunt Anno gratiae 1200. King Richard being dead Rex Francorum Philippus Rex Anglorum Johannes inter Wailan Butavius castella ad colloquium convenerunt ubi convenit inter eosdem Reges cum concilio Principum utriusque Regni quòd Ludovicus filius Regis Francorum haeres duceret in uxorem filiam Aldefonsi Regis Castellae Neptem Regis Johannis Rex Anglorum pro hoc matrimonio contrahendo daret Ludovico cum nepte sua nomine Blanca in maritagio Civitatem Ebroicarum cum toto comitatu insuper 30000 marcarum Argenti Rex Johannes post completa negotia in partibus transmarinis transfretavit in Angliam veniens autem Londonias apud Westmonasterium Huberto Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi Magnatibus Regni praesentibus Gaufridus Archiepiscopus Eborqcensis cum Rege pacificatus est quo tempore Rex Johannes significavit Willielmo Regi Scotorum ut veniret ad eum ad Lincolniam ut ibidem de jure suo sibi satisfaceret in Crastino sancti Eadmundi Ubi convenerunt Rex Anglorum Johannes Rex Scotorum Willielmus cum universa Nobilitate tà m Cleri quà m populi utriusque Regni whence he directed his Writ to the Barons and those which did hold of him in Capite to come unto him with Horse and Armes to Northampton die Dominiâ—â proximè ante Pentecosten in formâ sequente Rex c. Henrico c. Mandamus tibi quòd in fide quam Nobis debes ficut Nos corpus honorem Nostrum diligis omni occasione dilatione postpositis sis ad Nos apud Northampton die dominica proximè ante Pentecosten paratus Equis Armis aliis necessariis ad movendum cum corpore Nostro standum Nobiscum ad minus per duas quadragesimas ità quòd infra terminum illum à Nobis non recedas ut tibi in perpetuum in grates seire debeamus T. c. And in the same year Summoned the Peers but no Commons to a great Councel or Parliament not for Military Aid in these words Rex c. Episcopo Sarum Mandamus vobis
lands and Estates where our Laws do give unto them the benefit accrewing And the honourable Peers and Judges in that Court subordinate unto the King may as to matters therein determinable be the better content therewith for that not being Sworn nor punishable as Judges in other Courts are and in what they do advise therein they neither are or can be punishable in a judicio colloquiale wherein as Paulus Screrbic hath said in his Statua Poloniae Judex in colloquiis aut Regis praesentia judicans argui de male judicato non potest And the word KUPIA as Sir Henry Spelman saith with the Greeks and Romans signifying potestas dominium and the Lord or owner of it qui potestate fretus est judiciumque exercet and the place habitaculum domini the residence or Court of the Lord or Superior ubi sana rei narratio placitum forenses vocant dicebatur autem Curia primo de Regia palatio principis inde de familia judiciis in ea habitis ritu veterrimo or the place where Kings did administer Justice surely Kings were not therein to be co-ordinate or any less then Superior And the very Learned Sir John Spelman the Son of that Excellent Learned Father writing the Life of King Alured or Alfred hath together with the unquestionable historical part and truth of the relation given us the observation that Et Comitum potestatem ad huc minuebat nam neque iis integra restabat negotiorum bellicorum tractatio Horum enim magna pars Heretochiis sive Ducibus inferioribus a plebe in Comitiis suis Electis Committebatur Hi enim recensionibus meditationibis armorumque lustrationibus praefuerunt milites in Centuriis suis coeuntes ad locum toti exercitui destinatum deducebant in bellis demum Ducum inferiorum officiis fungebantur Prout e legibus boni Edwardi aliisque locis facile colligitur Haec institutio cum a populo non Comitibus Ductores hi eligebantur non parum e Comitum potentia abstulit Comitibus ergo quorum potentia Regibus semper maxime formidabilis relinquebatur ordinaria potestas in Comitiis Comitativis praefidendi in bellis sui Comitatus militibus imperandi in Curia sive Comitatu Regis conciliis publicis suo rumque negotiis attendendi mandata Regia subditis suis communicandi quod mira celcritate post novam hanc imperii institutionem factum est Et quidem si Aelfredi nostri vestigiis posteriores Regis institissent neque tot Seditiones ortae neque tantum Sanguinis in bellis Civilibus exhaustum neque Regis ipsi toties temporibus subsequentibus periclitati fuissent Sed tam bene constituta partim bella Civilia quae statim post ejus obitum recrudescentia pene omnibus legibus executionem impediebant videantur Edvardi senioris querelae lege quarta Danique post renovatas invasiones sub canuto victores maxime vero Normanni labefactarunt Gulielmus enim sive ut Magnates in invasione regni hujus maxima momenta pro meritis pactis etiam remuneraret sive ut Anglos dominio suo efficacius subderet nobilibus suis Normannis maximam potentiam que postea tot malorum origo indulsit Henricus vero primus quantum potuit leges Aelfredi nostri instituta revocavit sed tempora consuetudinesque perversae omnia quae expedire poterant inferri non patiebantur And the authority of our Kings in Parliament were not only in the Ages before but in King Alfreds or Alureds time Superior and Super-eminent in his great Councells over his Subjects as Asser Menevensis living in his Court and Writing his Life after his Death saith that Saepissimo in concionibus Comitum praepositorum ubi pertinacissime inter se dissentiebant ita ut pene nullus eorum quicquid a Comitibus praepositis judicatum fuisset verum esse concederet qui pertinaci dissensione obstinatissimo compulsi Regis subire judicium singuli subarrabant and when Appeals and Writs of Error came before him from his Earls or Ealdermen saith Mr. Selden out of Asser Menevensis when he found Error and Injustice committed by them would Sharply reprove them For in our Monarchicall Government with the ancient long continued and well-experimented existence and constitution of the House of Peers and Peerage in the Kingdom of England the Common People were so subordinate to the Baronage and Peers as the Commons were allways understood by our Kings and our Laws and the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and by the Common People themselves to be comprehended in and under the Baronage who did for them and as they were included in them very often in our great Councells and Parliaments grant or deny aids or Subsidies and in their behalf without the Commons themselves speaking or advising alledge their poverty and disability and the Popes and Forreign Neighbour Princes in their letters and rescripts understanding it no otherwise of which Mathew Paris and Thomas of Walsingham authors of great credit living in the Reign of King Henry the 3d. and King Edward the 1st his Son have afforded us plentiful instances And all things rightly observed or Considered could not give any one the least of reason or colour of it for if our Comites Burones Bracton not mentioning the Bishops who then had great power if not too much over our Kings and Princes there then being no Dukes Marquisses and Viscounts whom our Kings then used not to create though there were many Dukes or said to be in the time of the Saxons before the Norman Conquest who by our fundamentall Laws enjoyed all their authority Subordinate unto their Parliaments and Great Councells might forfeit their Lives Estates and Lands holden of them in Capite which was the only Measure of punishment in England before the Act of Parliament in the 25th Year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. was made which did at the request of the Lords and Commons the Bishops not mentioned declare what should afterwards be attempted and punished as High Treason against him and his Heirs or for Counterfeiting his Great Seal which did or should bear record of the Laws and Actions and Kingly Government of our Kings Princes there having not been in that Act of Parliament or any Act of Parliament or Laws of our Brittish Saxon Danish or Norman before or since tacitly or expressly for the abolishing or taking away our Feudall Laws and Customs or that ever to be wailed unhappy Act of Parliament made by his now Majesty King Charles the 2. for the taking away of the Court of Wards and Liveries by reason of his tenures in Capite and of all homage and fealty drawn and prepared by a Learned Lawyer and a Member of that House of Commons in Parliament Dreaming of a Common-Wealth untill their man of Sin Oliver Cromwell was pleased to awake them who was in his profession well known to have been eminently skilled in
the Crown of Scotland amongst which was Erick King of Norway and received the homage of the King thereof and in his Claim to the Superiority strongly Asserted it when the Pope had by his Letter unto him mediated on the behalf of the King of Scotland and claimed that Kingdom And was so watchfull over his own Rights and what belonged to his Crown and Dignity as upon an appeal from John Baliol King of Scotland and his Parliament to the Parliament and Court of the K. of England unto which when he was Summoned personally to appear before him appearing sate with him in Parliament was Suffered no longer to sit by him but untill the Cause came to be heard when he was cited by an Officer to leave his Seat and Commanded to stand at the Barr appointed for pleading which he having no mind to do craved leave to answer by his procurator but was denied and as a Feudatory made to arise and descend to the Barr and defend his own Cause before him as his Superiour Which by the Ancient feudall Fundamentall Laws of England without the assistance of any other of our Laws concerning Treason might have excused and Justified our excellently virtuous Queen Elizabeth in her unwilling Tryall Condemning Beheading and putting to Death Mary Queen of Scotland her Feudatory not only for Usurping the Arms and Title of the Crown of England but plotting after her flying for Refuge unto her and her Kingdom of Scotlands Superior for Resuge to bereave her of her Kingdom of England and the Dominions thereof by her intended Marriage of the Duke of Norfolk for which he was likewise condemned and Executed for Treason In the same Year by his Writ commanded to be arrested Susurrones publicos predicatores contra personam Regis In the 7th year of his reign upon occasion of false rumours sent his Commissioners into severall Counties of the Kingdom ad inquirendum qui dicebant Regem inhibuisse ne quis blada sua meteret vel prata sua falcaret quod omnes tales sine dilatione in prisona custodiantur douec authores suos invenerint tunc liberent authores in prisona custodiant donec pro deliberatione corum mandatum habuerint Speciale In the 13th Year of his Reign for a fine of 20 Marks paid by W. gave him a respite de se militem faciendo Et a pres il fut amerce per les Justices itinerant parceo q'il ne leur monstre son Charter In the 10th Year of his Reign granted authority to Signify his assent to a future Abbot And in the same year impowred Edmond Earl of Cornwall to admitt in his name the Mayor of Oxon when the commonalty of the town should present him and the like for the Mayor and Sheriffs of London In the 12th Year of his Reign granted to the Citizens of London power to make Sheriffs of London and Middlesex In the 13th Year of his Reign directed his Writts to the Sheriffs in the words ensuing cum de consuetudine regni qui habent 20 libratas terrae vel feodum militis valens 20 libratas terrae vel feodum militis valens 20 libratas per annum distringerentur ad arma militaria suscipiendum nos ob servitium c. in Wallia a communitate regni nostri volumus quod non habentes tantas libratas terrae non distringantur Ordained that in Parliament certain Bishops Lords and Other their Assistants should be named of that Honourable Assembly of Parliament at the very beginning thereof which for many Ages after hath been duly observed to be receivers and tryers of the Petitions Complaints and Desires of his People to be exhibited therin whether properly to be there determined or in the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall or other inferior Courts In the 14th and 16 Years of his Reign made his cousin Edmund Earl of Cornwall custos regni Spared not in his Court of Kings-bench Robert the Son of William de Glanvile and Reginald the Clark of the said William for delivering at Norwich a Panell of the Kings Writs which the King 's Coroner ought to have brought Banished his Son Prince Edward from his Court Presence for 6 Months for giving reproachfull words to a great Officer of his Court or Houshold Caused the Prior of the Holy Trinity in London and Bogo de Clare a man of great power and reputation to be arrested at his suit by Peter de Chanet Steward of his houshold and Walter de Fancourt Marshall of the King for citing Edmond Earle of Cornewall to appear before the Archbishop of Canterbury as he was passing thorough Westminster-Hall to the Parliament whereupon the Prior and Bogo after some pleadings in the said case submitting themselves uuto the King's Grace Will and Pleasure were committed to the Tower of London there to remain during his Will and Pleasure and being afterwards Bailed the said Bogo paid to the King a Fine of 2000 Marks and gave security to the Earl for 1000. which by the interposition of the Bishop of Durham and others of the King's Councell was afterwards remitted unto 100 l. and the Prior was left to the Judgment and process of the Court of Exchecquer In the 20th Year of his Reign praecepit singulis vice Comitibus per Angliam Justic. Cestr. quod proclamari facerent quod omnes qui habent 40. libratas terrae in feodo haereditate sumerent militaria arma In that and the Year following seized the Lands of those that would not take that Degree and made speciall respites to some during their lives Caused his Justices to certify into the Exchecquer at the return out of their Circuits by particular Rolls under their own Names the Fines and amerciaments set imposed and forfeited upon Actions of trespass rescous deceit attaints non est factum or salse Pleas untrue avowries appeals of Murder felony manslaughter meyheim Contempts and attachments upon process out of any of his Courts of Justice abuse of the Law Fictitious actions and vexatious Suits Non-suits in Actions reall and personall or when but part was found for the Plaintiff or Defendant which were in those Days as much for the advance and well ordering of Justice as they were for the Kings profit who took such a care not to have it neglected as by his Writ without an Act of Parliament he prefixt his Justices certain times for the causing the said Monies to be levied when their own then little Wages or Salaries were to be paid out of it which made them to be so exact therein as there was no fault deserving a Just Punishment could escape the Eyes and Ears apprensions and Watch of his regulated Justices insomuch as Offenders were Fined or amerced pro falso clamore or quia non invenerunt pleg for Deceipts Sheriffs for not returning of Writs Jurors for not appearing or pro falsa appretiatione or giving verdicts before
encouraging and rewarding merit and Service for the good of the publick greatly and too much wasted and exhausted ever have been perswaded to have released so much as was done of the Tenures in Capite by a factious part of the people who designed to undermine the Monarchical Estate of the Government Or by some of the more Loyall advisers who either by ignorance or otherwise did not well understand Monarchy and the Government Or the sad and ever to be lamented Consequences and Effects that have already followed and will hereafter fatally ensue the change of the Tenure in Capite and by Knight Service to release and turn those Nerves and Sinews of the Government ligaments and ties of the Crown the Chariots and Horsmen of our Israels Glory Strength and support of it and the Loadstone of the Subjects obedience into free and common Soccage Wherein much more heed was to have been taken then formerly for that the Militia and the Sovereignty and Power of our Kings much whereof were lodged and incorporated therein were founded and built upon the Tenures in Capite and by Knights Service the Basis Foundation Life Blood Animall Spirits Soul Essence and support thereof and had not long before been by an Horrid and Hypocritical Rebellion wrested out of the hands of the late blessed Martyr King Charles the 1st by abuse and misconstruction of the Laws false arguments and the fear and flagging of some of his most Eminent Justices and Lawyers who were too little acquainted with the Feudall Laws and Laws of Nations the Records Annalls and Histories of the Kingdom and the Monarchicall Government thereof Which too much encouraged and assisted the Rebellion against him together with the murder and destruction of him and many Thousands of his Loyall and more Dutifull Subjects that fought for him Notwithstanding all which the aforesaid cares condescensions of that prudent Prince King Edward the 1. hoping for the best and not suspecting the worst In the 25th Year of his Reign requiring Bohun Earl of Hereford and Constable of England and other the Barons to go with him to the Wars in Gascoigny and Bygod Earl Marshall of England likewise refusing unless the King himself would go in Person the King swears ye shall go or Hang and the Earl answered he would neither go nor Hang and so without leave departed the King notwithstanding proceeded in his Voyage to Flanders the two Earls of Hereford and Norfolk assemble many Noblemen and other their friends to the number of 30 Bannerets so as they were 1500 men at Arms and stood upon their Guard and the King being ready to take Ship the Archbishops Bishops Earls Barons and Commons sent him a Roll of the Grievances of his Subjects in Taxes Subsidies and other imposicions with his seeking to force their services by unlawfull courses to which the King answered that he could not alter any thing without the advice of his Councell who were not now about him and therefore required them that seeing they would not attend him in his journy which they absolutely refused to do though he went in person unless it were into France and Scotland that they would yet do nothing in his absence prejudiciall to the Crown promising at his return to set all things in good order but being afterwards enforced to send for more Supplies of Mony ordained a Parliament to be held at York and to the End he might not be disappointed of aid condesended to all such Articles as were demanded concerning the great Charter promising from thenceforth never to charge his Subjects otherwise then by their consent in Parliament Seized the moneys in the Popes Bankers hands to relieve his and the publick necessities gave protections from arrest and troubles in their Estates to them that should have paid it otherwise and notwithstanding the Popes Anger and Threats not in those days easily to be adventured upon did not pay and refund it within 2 or 3 Years after Seized also and took at his own price the Wools which the Merchants then had in the Ports ready to be transported and all the Lands and Great Estates of Bohun Earl of Hereford and Clare Earl of Gloucester and upon the Marriage of his Daughter the Lady Elizabeth to the first with a Gift in Tayl to them the reversion in the Crown and the like to Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford by Marriage of his Daughter the Lady Joan restored them in tail as aforesaid unto them and made not only the said Humfrey de Bohun Roger Bygod Earl Marshall whom upon second failings he afterward confiscated and all others who had joined with him in refusing to serve him in his warrs according to the tenure of their lands to be glad and well content with his generall pardon In the same year granted to Hugh Kent de Galvy in Ireland and the Heirs Males of his body the liberty of enjoying the benefit of the English laws in terra sua Hyberniae as the writ ensuing wlll evidence viz. Rex omnibus ballivis fidelibus suis in Hybernia ad quos c. Salutem volentes Hugoni Kent de Galvy Hyberniae gratia facere specialem concedimus ei pro nobis haeredibus nostris quod ipse liberi sui de corpore ipsius Hugonis legitime procreati procreandi hanc habeant libertatem quod ipsi posteri eorum de extero in terra nostra Hyberniae tam in morte quam in vita legibus consuetudinibus utantur Auglicanis firmiter inhibentes ne quis eos contra hanc concessionem nostram injuste vexet in aliquo vel perturbet in cujus c. Teste Rege apud Gillingham 25 die Martii per ipsum Regem And by his letters patents constituted Johannem de Breton Custos or Warden of the City of London as followeth viz. Rex omnibus ballivis fidelibus suis ad quod c. sciatis quod dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem le Breton constituimus custodem civitatis London ad amerciandos Aldermannos alios quoscunque de civitate praedicta qui ad rationabilem praemonitionem Seu Summonitionem custodis ejusdem pro negotiis nos Civitatem illam tangentibus venire contempserent etiam ad Vicecomites Civitatis praedict ipsorum Clericos ac ministros mercedem sui Officii capientes cum super hoc modo debito convicti fuerint juxta quantitatem delictorum suorum castigandos puniendos quantum necesse fuerit quatenus sua discretio de jure viderit faciendum specialem tenore praesentium committimus potestatem quam diu nos placuerit durando in cujus c. Having before in the 13 or 14th Year of his Reign fined Gregory de Rokesly Mayor of London for that he renounced the Mayoralty and delivered the Common Seal of the Mayoralty or City to Stephen de Ashren aliis de Communitate London sine licencia ipsius Regis for which he
expresly prohibited cannot be supposed to be the concern or interest of all the People deserving or requiring satisfaction or especially provided for by Law to have satisfaction unless it could by any probability or soundness of Judgment be concluded that all the People of England besides Wives Children or near Kindred and Relations the necessity of publick Justice and deterring Examples are or should be concerned in such a never to be fancied Appeal of the People And it will be very hard to prove that one or a few are all the People of England or if they could be so imagined are to be more concerned than the King who is sworn to do Justice unless they would claim and prove a Soveraignty and to be sworn to do Justice which though they had once by a villanous Rebellion attacked until Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin cheated them of it for God would never allow them any such power or priviledge or any Title to the Jesuits Doctrine which some of our Protestant Dissenters their modern Proselites have learned of them that the King although he be singulis major is minor universis And it is no denial of Justice in the House of Peers to deny the receiving of an Impeachment from the House of Commons when they cannot understand any just cause or reason to receive it and the Records Rolls Petitions and Orders of Parliament will inform those that will be at the pains to be rightly and truly directed by them that Petitions in Parliament have been adjourned modified or denied and that in the Common or Inferior Courts of Justice Writs and Process may sometimes be denied superseded or altered according to the Rules of Justice or the circumstances thereof And our Records can witness that Plaintiffs have petitioned Courts of Justice recedere a brevi impetrare aliud And it cannot be said that the King doth denegare Justitiam when he would bind them unto their ancient legal well experimented forms of seeking it in the pursuing their Rights and Remedies hinders them in nothing but seeking to hurt others and destroy themselves For Justice no otherwise denied should not be termed Arbitrary until there can be some solid reason proof or evidence for it When it is rather to be believed that if the Factious Vulgar Rabble might have their Wills they would never be content or leave their fooling until they may obtain an unbounded liberty of tumbling and tossing the Government into as many several Forms and Methods as there be days in the year and no smaller variety of Religions And by the Feudal Laws which are the only Fundamental Laws of our Government and English Monarchy those many parts of the Tenants that held of their Mesne Lords in Capite could not with any safety to their Oaths and Estates Authorise any of their Elected Members of the House of Commons in Parliament to accuse or charge any of the Baronage of England in the House of Peers in Parliament although every Tenant in his Oath of Vassalage to his Mesne Lord doth except his Allegiance to the King and would be guilty of Misprision of Treason if he should conceal it by the space of twenty and four hours and if any of the Elected would or should avoid such Misprision of Treason in the not performance of his Duty and Oath of Allegiance it would require a particular Commission to his own Elected Members and is not to have it done by way of a general Representation when there is not to be discerned in the Kings Writ or in the Sureties or Manucaptors matters or things to be performed or in the Indentures betwixt the Sheriff and the Electors and Elected any word of Representation or any thing more than ad faciendum consentiendum iis to assent and obey do and perform such things as the King by the Advice of the Lords in Parliament shall ordain and if they would make themselves to be such Representers were to have a particular and express Commission to charge or impeach any one of themselves or of the House of Peers with Treason or any other high Misdemeanours And they must be little conversant with our Records that have not understood that the Commons have many times received just denials to their Petitions and that some have not seldom wanted the foundations of Reason or Justice That many of their Petitions have adopted the Concerns and Interests of others that were either Strangers unto them or were the Designs of some of the grand Nobility who thought them as necessary to their purposes as Wind Tide and Sails are to the speeding of a Ship into the Port or Landing-places of their Designs For upon their exhibiting in a Parliament in the 28 year of the Raign of King Henry the Sixth abundance of Articles of High Treason and Misdemeanours against William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk one whereof was that he had sold the Realm of England to the French King who was preparing to invade it When they did require the King and House of Lords that the Duke whom not long before they had recommended to the King to be rewarded for special services might be committed Prisoner to the Tower of London the Lords and Justices upon consultation thought it not reasonable unless some special Matter was objected against him Whereupon the said Duke not putting himself upon his Peerage but with protestation of his innocency only submitting himself to the Kings mercy who acquitting him from the Treason and many of the Misdemeanours and for some of them by the advice of the Lords only banished him for five years And that thereupon when the Viscount Beaumont in the behalf of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal required that it might be Inrolled that the Judgment was by the Kings own Rule not by their Assent and that neither they nor their Heirs should by this Example be barred of their Peerage No Protestation appears to have been made by any of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for or on the behalf of the Commons Or by the Commons for themselves So as a different manner of doing Justice can neither truly or rationally be said to be an absolute denial of Justice and was never believed to be so by the Predecessors of the House of Commons in Parliament in our former Kings Raigns when some hundreds of their Petitions in Parliament have been answered There is a Law already provided or let the old Law stand or the King will provide a covenable or fitting remedy And is not likely if it were as it is not to be any Arbitrary Power or any temptation or inducement thereunto to produce any Rule or incouragement to the exercise of an Arbitrary Power in the Inferiour Courts when there is none so weak in his Intellect but may understand that different Courts have several Boundaries Methods and Forms of Proceedings and that the Kings extraordinary great Court and Councel in His House of Peers although very just and
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
and stablish for him and his heirs and Successors by the Assent of the Praelates Earls Barons and Commons wherein if the Commons had in themselves an inhaerent Right of Soveraignty they would neither have been troubled with any such fears of the French Government or needed any such provision against it of his Realm of England in this present Parliament in the 14th year of his Raign of England and first of France that by the cause or Colour of his being King of France and that the said Realm to him pertaineth or that he came to be named King of France in his Stile or that he hath changed his Seal or Arms nor for the Commandments which he hath made or shall make as King of France his said Realm of England nor the people of the same of what Estate or condition they shall be shall not at any time to come be put in Subjection nor in obeysance of him or his Heirs nor Successors as Kings of France nor be subject or obedient but shall be free and quit of all manner of obeysanee as they were wont to be in the time of his Progenitors For that Trick or Engine of metamorphosing the Soveraignty of the King into that of the people and by excluding the Bishops and Lords Spiritual out of the House of Peers in Parliament unto which ab ultimo Antiquitatis seculo since Christianity abolished Paganisme they were as justly as happily entituled and put our Kings and their Regalities in their places whereby to create unto themselves a co-ordination and from thence by the Intrigues of Rebellion a Soveraignty in themselves which was not in the former and better Ages ever entertained or believed by our Parliaments when no Original pact or agreement hath been or can yet be discovered how or when the House of Commons came to be entituled unto their pretended inherent Soveraignty or to be seized thereof by their representation of the people or from whom they had it or who gave it unto them when it may be believed God never did it for he that never used or was known to contradict himself hath in his holy word declared and said per me Regis regnant which should not be misinterpreted and believed to be conditionally if the people should approve or elect them for which the Gentlemen of Egregious Cavillations if they would be believed should search and see if in all the Books of God and Holy Writ they can find any revocation of what God himself hath said and often declared for an undeniable truth or that he ever discharged and renounced it by as infallible Acts and Testimonies But if any one that believes Learning and the inquires after Truth Right Reason and what our impartial Records and Historians will justify how or from whence that Aenigna or mystical peice of Effascina of the Members of the House of Commons making themselves to be a 3 Estate of the Kingdom and a Creed of the late Factioâ—s and Rebelling ever to be deplored Parliament or from what Lernean Lake or Spawn of Hydras came It may besides the Pride and Ambition of many that were the fomenters or Nurses of them be rationally 〈◊〉 understood to have none other source or Original besides don Lancifer himself then for Sir Edwards Cokes unhappy stumbling upon his reasonless admired forged Manuscript and Imposture called Modus tenendi Parliamentum in Anglia in King Edward the Confessors Raign there having been neither any Author or Record as Mr. Pryn hath truly observed to Justify or give any credit thereunto but was as he hath abundantly proveâ— a meer Figment and Imposture framed by Richard Duke of York 31. and 32. H. 6. by the Commons Petition and the Duke of Yorks Confederates by the Rebellion and Insurrection of Jack Cade and his Rebellious levelling party to make him that Duke of York Protector and Defender of the People which ended in the dethroning of King Henry 6. and though Mr. Hackwel of Lincolns-Inne a learned Antiquary hath adventur'd to say that he hath seen an Exemplification of a Record sent from England into Ireland to establish Parliaments there after the form or Method of that Modus yet when the learned Archbishop Usher pressed him much to see it he could neither shew the exemplication nor the Record it self neither of which are yet to be seen in England or Ireland only Sir Edward Cokes Copy remains but when or from whence he had it he was never yet pleased to declare 13. E. 3. At the request of the whole Estate which may most certainly have been thought to have been made to the King not to themselves those Articles were made Statutes and the Conditions were read before the King and the Chancellor Treasurer Justices of both Benches Steward of the Kings Chamber and others were all sworn upon the Cross of Canterbury to perform the same 17. E. 3. The cause of summoning the Parliament being declared amongst the other things to be touching the Estate of the King who was often absent in the Wars of France and for the good government which they whom the erring Abridger hath stiled the 3 Estates viz. 1. The Lords Spiritual 2. The Lords Temporal 3. The Commons in Parliament were to consult of so as if the Commons could be a third Estate the King and his Estate and the government were necessarily and only then and always to be understood and believed to be the 4th Estate principal Superior and Independent 18. E. 3. At which Parliament and Convention sundry of the Estates saith that ill Phrasing Abridger or Translator whoever he was were absent whereat the King was offended and charged the Archbishop of Canterbury for his part to punish the defaults of Clergy and he would do the like touching the Parliament whereof Proclamation was made and being not absent was neither likely to be angry with himself or resolving to punish himself The Chancellor in full Parliament declaring the cause of summoning the Parliament viz. The Articles of the Truce with the French King the breaches in particular thereof the whole Estates mistakenly so stiled were willed the King that willed or commanded being no part of them unless it could be believed that himself willed or commanded himself as well as others to advise upon them give their opinion thereof by the Monday next following 20 E. 3. After the reading of the Roll of Normandy and that the King of France his design to extirpate the English Nation the Messengers that were sent by the King required the whole Estate no such Title being in the Original whereof the King could then be no part if it was said to be the whole Estate without him for he could not be with them when he was absent in France and had sent his Messengers unto them to be advised what Aid they would give him for the furtherance of his Enterprise And Mr. John Charleton one of the Messengers aforesaid likewise bringing Letters from the Bishop of
Corone soient sustretz on amemuser a sin que par lour bon advis discretion tiel remedie puisse estre mis le Roy puisse esteer en sa libertie ou poir Commune ses Progenitors out este devant lui duissent de droit non obstante ascun ordinance an contrarie anisi le Roy as Tenez les governera in which Speech of the Chancellors no man as it is sufficiently probable did then â—nderstand the King to be a part of the Estates he was speaking unto who if they could then in a time of Faction and Trouble of State that had then affrighted and disturbed the greatest part of the Nation have had any thought or imagination that their King was so comprehended in that Novel word Estates had a fair opportunity to have entred their claim to that Triumviracy or never to be proved Co-ordination or which would be beyond a lurking Soveraignty for the Common People to resort when they please and were in the same Parliament afterwards so little elated with the expression of the Clerk of the House of Peers in the entry of the Record of the Kings vacating of the Earl of Arundels Pardon par assent de touz le Estats du Parlement as they made their Protestation and prayed the King that it might be Inrolled that it was not their intent ou volunte to impeach or accuse any Person in that Parliament sans Congie du Roy and if they had been any such Estates as some of late would entitle them unto did not perceive themseves to have been then so great or in Partnership with their Soveraign or above him And thereupon the Chancellor by the Kings command likewise declared that nostre Seigneur le Roy considerant coment plusieurs hantes offenses mesfaits outestre faitz par le people de son Roialme en contre leur ligeance l' estat nostre Seigneur le Roy la loie de la terre devants ces heures dont son people esciet en grant perill danger de leie lour corps biens voullant sur ce de sa royalle benignite monstre 〈◊〉 faire grace a son dit people a fyn quils ayent le greindre corage 〈◊〉 volonte de bien faire de leur mieux porter devors le Roy en temps avenir si voet grante de faire ease quiete salvation de â—on dit people une generalle pardon a ces liges forsâ—ris certaines pointz limitez par le sonuant la suiâ—e al partie forspris cyn quont persones queux plaira au Roy nomez touz ceux qui serront Empeshez en ce present Parlement dit oustre que le dit Roy voet que plein dâ—oit Justice soyent faitz a Chastun de ses liges qui en voilent complandre en cest Parlement ad ordinez assignez Receivers Triers des Petitions en cest Parlement And did in pursuance thereof in full Parliament excuse the Duke of Yorke the Bishop of Worcester Sir Richard le Scroop then living William late Archbishop of Canterbury Alexander late Archbishop of York Thomas late Bishop of Exeter and Michael late Abbot of Walton then being dead of the â—xecution and intent of the â—ommission made in the tenth year of his Raign as being assured of their Loyalty and therefore by Parliament restored them to their good name And Sir Edward Coke might have bestowed a better gift unto the Laws and Lawyers of England and his native Countrey than that Pandoras Box or Circes inchantment in his doted upon or so much admired modus tenendi Parliamenta which he at an adventure not knowing himself from whence that Bastard came but was as a Foundling so young left in the streets as it could neither declare who was its Father or Mother and that which was something marvelous none had the luck to find it and in charity pay for the nursing of it as himself and the Name of that nurse as unknown as the Father or Mother or progenitors thereof and made himself so much assured of it as if he had been present when that Modus supposed to have been made by 〈…〉 ing Edward the Confessor was read before King William the Conqueror and approved by him could not forbear but his fourth part of the Institutes or Comment upon Littleton but he must frequently use it but transmitted into Ireland to be there observed in King Henry the seconds Raign which there as little to be found Recorded and Authenticated or Legitimated as it hath been in England as hath been before mentioned and grew so over-fond of it as he hath as he thought done no little piece of Service to after Ages to insert it as an especial part or undiscernable point or parcel of Law although he might have seen that Mr. Selden would not not oblige himself or his Readers to walk along with him in his over-credulity and all our Records both of England and Ireland and all our Historians and Annalists as well Coaeval as of nearer times as Ordericus Ingulphus Vicalis Eadmerus Malmesbury Simon Dunelmensis Hovedon Huntingdon Florentius Wigornensis Nubugensis Matthew of Westminster Matthew Paris Trevisa Chronica Johannis Brompton Walsingham Giraldus Cambrensis Matthew Parkers Antiquitates Ecclesiae Brittanicae Hollinshead Daniel Speed Fox Spelman and many others cited by Mr. Pryn in his manifest Proofs Evidence Conviction Discovery and Refutation of that modus tenendi Parliamenta to be full of Falsities Forgeries and Errors a fabulous Legend and meer Imposture to furnish out Jack Cades Rebellion in the latter end of the Raign of King Henry the 6. for the advance of Richard Duke of Yorks Title to the Crown of England and if there had been such a modus it may be more than an ordinary wonder that the Conquered and Inslaved People of England should precibus fletibus beg of the Conqueror Sir Edward the Confessors Laws whereupon he Anno quarto regni sui Angliae caused to be summoned concilio Baronum suorum per universos regni Angliaeâ— Consulatus Angliae Nobiles sapientes in sua lege eruditos ut eorum leges Jura 〈◊〉 consuetudines ab ipsis audiret Electi igitur de singulis eorum patriae Comitatibus viri duodecim Jure Jurando primum coram Rege confirmaverunt ut quoad possent recto tramice incedentes nec ad dextram nec ad sinistram divertentes legum suarum consuetudinum sancita patefacerent nihil praetermittentes nihil addentes nihil praevaritando mutantes a ligibus igitur sanctae matriis Ecclesiae sumentes exordium quantum per eam Rex et Regnum solidum subsisâ—ens haberet fundamentum leges libertates pacem ipsius confirmati sunt there never having been before or since such a solemn Jury either in the Raigns of our Brittish Roman Saxon Danish and Norman Kings or their many succeeding Kings or Princes sworn and impannelled by a
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