of Wards and Liveries with other the Premises And all Tenures of any Lands holden of the King or any others shall be turned into free and Common Socage and be discharged of all Homage Escuage Voiages Royal Wardships and Aide Pour file marier pour faire fitz Chivaler livery ouster le maine all Statutes repealed concerning the same all Tenures hereafter to be created by the King his Heirs or Successors shall be in free and Common Socage Provided that that Act extend not to take away Rents certain Herriots or Suits of Court belong ing to any other Tenures taken away or altered by that Act or other Services incident to common Socage or any Releifes due and payable in cases of free and common Socage or of any Fines for Alienations holden of the King by any particular Customes of Lands and Places other then of Lands holden immediately of the King in Capite Nor extend unto any Tenures in Franck Almoigne or by Copy of Court Roll honorary Services by grand Serjeanty other then what are before dissolved or taken away Provided that this Act nor any thing therein contained shall infringe or hurt any Title of Honour feodal or other by which any person hath or may have right to sit in the Lords House in Parliament as to his or their Title of Honour or Sitting in Parliament and the Priviledges belonging to them as Peers And that that Act extend not to any the Rights and Priviledges of His Majesty in his Tynn Mines in Cornewal In recompence whereof the King shall have the Excise of Ale Beer Perry and Syder Strong and Distilled Waters setled by that or some other Act of Parliament touching the Excise upon the King during his Life and a Moyety only after his death to His Heirs and Successors And are by Sir Henry Spelman said to be non solùm jure positivo Sed Gentium quodammodo Naturae not only by positive but the Laws of Nations and Nature Especially when it was not to arise from any compulsory incertain way or involuntary Contribution or out of any personal or movable Estate cases of Relief only excepted but to fix and go along with the Lands as an easy and beneficial Obligation and Perpetuity upon it and was so incorporate and inherent as it was upon the matter a Co-existence or Being with it Glanvil and Bracton being of Opinion with the Emperour Justiniam that the King must have Armes as well as Laws to govern by and not depend ex aliorum Arbitrio and therefore the Prelates Earles and Commonalty of the Realm did in a Parliament in the 7th Year of the Raign of King Edward the 1st declare it to be necessarily belonging unto him and to none other Judge Hutton in his Argument in the case of the Shipmony in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr and diverse other Learned Judges and Lawyers have declared Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service to be so inseparable from the Crown as not to be aliened or dissolved by any Act or Authority of Parliament Some of whom could not forget that a Design having been presented and offered unto King James when the Scots had by their importunityes much enfeebled the Royal Revenue by some who neither understood our Fundamental Laws or the Constitution of our Government and having considerable Estates in the County of York and Bishoprick of Durham and being Members of the House of Commons in Parliament and mischievous enough in the long Rebellious Parliament a Revenue of Two hundred thousand pound per Annum to dissolve his Courts of Wards and Liveries and release his Tenures in Capite and by Knights Service and the King liked so well of those Hopes of augmenting his overwasted Revenue as he with Promises of great Rewards to the Designers ordered a Table to be purposely kept at White-Hall for them untill they had brought their undertakings to perfection unto which the Reverend Judges being summoned by the King to deliberate and give their Opinions could find neither Law or right Reason for the taking away of those Tenures with their incidents even by an Act of Parliament Insomuch as the Design and Table were laid down and no more thought of until the unhappy Fate and Misery of forsaking and destroying Fundamentals did so drive it on afterwards as it hath done by our abandoning the old ways and the Truths thereof into those very many Misfortunes which it hath brought us into already and will more and more into the Prophet Jeremiah's Lamentations And so greatly resembled that very antient way of the great Councels or Parliaments in France drawn and derived from their Ancestors the Francks and other their Northern Progenitors in and of that Kingdom long before there inhabiting until the miseries brought by the English Conquests and their own Divisions upon that people by those Warrs and their seeking in the interim to govern their Kings and Domineer over them in the midst of their Troubles Necessities and Disabilities to protect them had constrained some of their after Kings as Lewis the 11th one of their Kings to find the way to govern so Arbitrarily as they have since done with a continual so limited Parliament as it signifieth little more than an extraordinary Court of Justice and verify the Edicts of his prerogative Power with a car tel est nostre plaisir Insomuch as those kind of Tenures and beneficial Mutualites might not improbably have been here introduced by the Saxons from one and the same or a like Radix or Original before the Normans Atcheivements and Acquests either here or in France or by what they had learned or practised of the Feudal Laws in the Empire or after the Normans had brought England their long before Compatriots into subjection and in the Reigns of some of their after Kings continued Masters of Normandy Aniou Aquitaine Mayne and Poicteau and of so many other great parts and Provinces of the French Dominions as in process of time they gained a full Possession of the residue and in a short time after lost them all by our own Domestick Ambitions and Discords So as one Egg of the same kind cannot commonly be more like in it's external Form and Likeness to an other then the antient and ever-to-be-approved Method of our and their former great Councels or Parliaments were Wherein may warrantably without any suspicion of an Arbitrary Government be vouched and called the learned Sieur du Fresne a man of vast Reading and Litterature and not only Learned in all the Roman and Northern Antiquities but in our Old English Saxon Laws and the allowed classical and veritable Authors and Writers of our Nation and to whom the Learned Works of our Glanvil Bracton Littleton Fortescue Coke Stamford Spelman and Selden were no Strangers when in his Glossary or Comment upon the word Pares he represents unto us the Figure or lively Picture of our own ancient Customes and Usages in our great Councels
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
The Tenants in Chief being by those Differences distinguished in their Titles Possessions and Reliefs were so much less in Honor than the greater Barons who had several Writs at every Summons and all the ancient Circumstances of the Title of Baron still remaining to them It was the less difficult for those greater Barons to Exclude the rest wholly at length from having any Interest in the Parliaments of that Time under the name of Tenants in Chief only And although in somewhat a different and much inferiour manner to the Majores Barones their Number Greatness of Provinces and Estates or near Alliance in Blood unto the Crown is not much unlike the distinction made in France of the Douze Pairs not exclusively to the other Baronage which our Mathew Paris and their own Authors will Evidence were not only before but are there to this day continued as a Degree of Honor different from the Barones Minores or the Vulgus or Common People much inferior to that lesser Baronage yet the Annalls and Records of France are not yet accorded of the precise time of the first Institution of their twelve Pairs lately Augmented to a much greater number For Du Fresne is of Opinion That in the Year 1179. which was the 25th Year of the Raign of our King Henry the Second there was no certain number of the Peers of France Narrat quippe Rogerus Hovedenus Willielmum Archiepiscopum Remensem eundem Regem unxisse Remis ministrantibus ei in illo officio Willielmo Turonensi Biturocensi Senonensi Archiepiscopis fere omnibus Episcopis regni Henricum vero Regem Angliae de jure ducatus Normanniae coronam auream qua coronandus erat Philippus Philippum Comitem Flandriae gladium regni praetulisse alios vero Duces Comites Barones praeivisse Secutos diversos diversis deputatos officiis according to the long before used custom of the English at the Coronation of their Kings where divers of the greatest Officiary and Nobility as the Constable Marshall Steward and Great Chamberlain of England cum multis aliis One Nation learning of Another their Customs and Usages did conceive it to be an Honour fixt in their Families by Grand Serjeanty Et Rigordus eandem Coronationem peractam ait astante Henrico Rege Angliae ex una parte coronam super caput Regis Franciae ex debita subjectione humiliter portante cum omnibus Archiepiscopis Episcopis caeterisque regni principibus ex quibus patet saith Du Fresne caeteros Episcopos qui pro Franciae Paribus habentur ea quae hodie non assecutos ministeria in ea Solemnitate Proinde hand improbanda forte sententia qui Parium Francicorum duodecim virorum definitum fuisse tradunt a S. Ludovico Rege quos inter est Iohannes a Leidis lib. 22. ca. 7. itaque Sanctus Ludovicus Rex Franciae ordinavit in regno Franciae constituens inde collegium seu capitulum qui haberent ardua regni tractare Scilicet 6 Duces 6 Comites de Ducibus sunt tres Episcopi de Comitibus sunt etiam tres Episcopi And L'Oiseau a Learned French-man giveth us an account of the Erection of the 12 Pairs of France in these Words ils furent choisis selon la plus vray semblable opinion par Loys le Ieune du tout a la maniere des anciens Pairs de fief dont parlent les livres de fieffs et ont aussi toutes les mesmes charges qu' eux a Scavoir d' assister leRoy en Son investiture qui est son sacre coronement et de juger avec luiles differens des vassaux du Royame ont les uns les autres este ainsi appellez non pas pour estre agaux a leur seigneur mais pour estre Pairs compagnons entr ' eux seulement come l' explique un ancien Arrest donne contre le Comte de Flandres au Parlement de Toussaints 1295. rappâ—rte par du Tillet Ce fut pourtant un trait non de ieune mais de sage Roy lors que les Duc's Com'tes de France avoient usurpe le souverainete presque entiere pour empescher qu' ils ne se separassent tout a faict du Royaume d'en choisir douze des plus mauvais les faire Officiers principaux commemembres inseperables de la couronne a fin de les ingager par un interest particulier a la maintenir en son integriâ—e mesmea empescher la des union des autres moindres qu' eux moyen que les Allemans ont aussi tenu pour la conservation de l' Empire par la creation des 7 Electeurs Which in process of Time being long afterwards done by the Aurea Bulla might not improbably have been instituted in some imitation of the douze Pairs du France And in Anno 1226. being the 30th year of the Reign of our Henry the 3d the Earl of Flanders and the Earl of Boloigne complaining that their Lands had been Seized and taken away without the judgement of the 12 Peers as by the Laws of France they as was alledged ought and when those their greivances were redressed they would attend at the Coronation howsoever Blanch the Queen Regent although the Duke of Burgundy Earl of Champaigne St Paul Britain fere omnes nobiles ad Coronam who may probably be understood such as more particularly did hold by some grand Serjeanties to be performed at the Inauguration of their Kings did by the Counsell of the Popes Legat cause her Son Lewis to be Crowned without them And when St. Lewis the French King so called whose Saintship in our Barons wars had cost England very dear could in a seeming friendly Entertainment of our King Henry the 3d at Paris wish with an Outinam duodecim Pares Franciae had not done as they did in the forfeiture of Normandy mihi consentirent certe amica essemus indissolubiles but did at the same time adde Baronagium and might have understood that that judgment against King John denyed by the English to have any justice in it was not given by the 1â— Peers against him as Duke of Normandy for he was one of the principall of them himself and was neither present or heard But whither that or their Offices to be performed at the Coronation of their Kings gave the rise or ground of that especiall Peerage the time when being something uncertain for Du Fresne doubting of it declareth that quando the Pairs of France redacti fuerunt ad duodenarium numerum non omnino constaet inter Scriptores sane in confesso esse debat ab ipso seudorum origino vassallorum Coronae Franciae controversias a Paribus suis fuisse judicatas Anno. 1216. which was the 17th year of the Raign of our King John numerus Parium Franciae non fuit definitus And that distinction of the Majores Barones Minores Barones
his Castles of Killingworth Northampton Nottingham and Scarborough and the Castellanies or Governours sworn to obey them and after a general pardon granted to them and all their adhaerents mutual Oaths should be taken on both sides in solemn manner for the inviolable observing the Articles and the King's Letters Patents sent to all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom to cause all men of what degree soever within their several Shires to swear to observe those Laws and Liberties granted by his Charter and was compell'd so far to suffer those Conservators to proceed in their Conservatorships as in the same yearthey took their Oaths to perform those their new Offices the Earls of Arundel Gloucester and Warren with Hubert de Burgh and many Barons and great men took their Oaths also to obey and assist them But in the mean time Gloucester and Spencer being the chief of the Twenty-four Conservators did draw the entire managing of the Kingdom into their own hands compel the King to summon a great Councel at London where the authority of the Twenty-four Conservators was deliver'd over unto themselves and it was ordained that Three of them at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of the Castles and other business of the Kingdom with those of the Chancellor Justiciar and Treasurer and of all Offices great and small and bound the King to loose and renounce to them their legal Obedience whensoever he should infringe his Charters which might as unto a great part of them be certainly believed to have been the very spawn and breed of those long-after-reviv'd high and mighty Nineteen Propositions which were endeavour'd to have been enforced upon the late Blessed Martyr King CHARLES and of the late design'd Association in the Reign of His Son King CHARLES II. But that hoped pacification being made saith the Historian Jealousies and Discontents did again kindle and break out on both sides the one part to keep what they had undutifully gained and the other to get loose of what for fear he had too much yielded unto the King wanting none to enflame the perturbations and anguish of his mind to tell him that he was now a King without a Kingdom a Lord without Dominion and a Subject of his Subjects the Discords like a Wound or Sore ill-cur'd fester'd again and broke out SECT III. Of the succeeding Jealousies Animosities Troubles and Contests betwixt King John and his over-jealous Barons after the granting of his Charters and his other Transactions and Agreements with them at their tumultuous meeting at Running-Mead with the ill usages which he had before received of them during all the time of his Reign HE retir'd into the Isle of Wight whence by Agents sent to Rome he procured a definitive Sentence to condemn and nullifie what was done and the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who kept about the City of London and under colour of Tournments and other Martial exercises invited as many other as they could to their assistance but did not seek to surprize his Person or intercept his Agents although they had strength to do it but only to enjoy those Liberties which they had spoiled and discredited by gaining them by violence wherein the fear of the power of an enraged Prince made them the more desperately careful to defend themselves and finish their designs whilst the King tarried three months in the Isle of Wight whence the Bishop of Worcester Chancellor of England Bishop of Norwich with others were sent with his Seal to procure Foreign Forces and to bring them to Dover whither after some small prizes taken by him and he returning his Agents abroad brought him an Army of Foreigners from Gascony Lovaine Poicteau and Brabant many of them being his French Subjects with whose help notwithstanding the loss of 40000 Men Women and Children who were drowned at Sea as they were bringing unto him by Hubert de Burgh from Calice He besieged and took Rochester Castle marched over most part of the Kingdom and within half a year got in all the Barons Castles even to the borders of Scotland and was Master of all England except the City of London which he would not adventure upon in regard of the Barons united Forces which lay near unto it marched to St. Albans where he proclaimed the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who seeing Themselves and their Wives and Children like to be ruined and depriv'd of their Estates which were given away to strangers desperately fell into another extreme solicited Lewis the French King's Son to take upon him the Crown of England wherein they promised by a free Election to invest him and to send Pledges for the performance which Message being well received a Parliament was called at Lyons by Philip the Father of Lewis and the business resolved upon whilst Lewis besides the hop'd-for the title of Election by those trusty Conservators of the Peoples Liberties for their own particular Interest more than the Peoples supposed that he had another title from his Wife Blanch Daughter of the Sister of the prosecuted King In whose behalf the Pope wrote to the King of France not to invade the King of England but rather to defend him in regard he was a Vassal of the Roman Church and the Kingdom by reason of Dominion appertaining unto it whereunto the King of France answered probably by the advice of the contending English Baronage That the Kingdom of England never was nor is nor ever shall be the Patrimony of St. Peter That King John was never lawfull King thereof and if he were he had forfeited it by the Murder of his Nephew Arthur for which he was condemned in his Court and could not give it away without the consent of the Barons who were bound in an Oath to defend the same and if the Pope should maintain this errour it would be a pernicious example Wherewith the Pope's Agents departing unsatisfied Lewis sent his Commissioners to Rome to declare his Rights and justifie his undertaking sets forth from Callis with 600 Ships and 80 other Vessels and landed with his Army at Sandwich King Iohn being then at Dover who upon notice of his great power and distrusting his Mercenaries committed the keeping of Dover Castle to Hubert de Burgh forsook the Field and with it himself and retired first to Worcester and after to Gloucester whereby Lewis having subdued the whole County of Kent Dover excepted came to London where he was joyfully received of the Barons and upon his Oath taken to restore their Laws and recover their Rights had Homage and Fealty done unto him Guallo the Pope's Agent follow'd the King to Gloucester shews him the Pope's care of him pronounced Excommunication against Lewis and all that took part with him Notwithstanding which small comforts in so many and great extremeties pressing hard upon him most of his Mercenaries left him and either returned into their own Countreys with such spoils as they had gotten or betook
Canterbury in the behalf of the State of his Oath made and taken by others for him upon the Peace made with Lewis for confirmation of the Liberties of the Kingdom for which the War was begun with his Father without which the whole State would again fall assunder and they would have him to know it betimes to avoid those miserable inconveniencies which might happen William Brewere a Councellor urging it to have been acted by constraint and therefore not to be performed Notwithstanding which it was at that time being the 7th year of his Reign promised by the King to be ratified and a Commission was granted by Writs unto Twelve Knights in every Shire to examine What were the Laws and Liberties which the Kingdom enjoyed under his Grandfather and return the same by a certain day which saith the learned and judicious Sir Henry Spelman were never returned or could not be found In the mean time the Earls of Albemarl Chester and divers of the Nobility assemble together at Leicester with intent to remove from the King Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justiciar and other Officers that hindred their motion but the Archbishop of Canterbury by his Spiritual Power and the rest of the Nobility being careful to preserve the Peace of the Kingdom stood to the King and would not suffer them to proceed therein so as they were constrained to come in and submit themselves And the King in Parliament resumed such alienations as had been made of the Lands appertaining to the Crown by any of his Ancestors to the end he might live of his own and not be chargable to the People The next year after being the 8th year of his Reign another Parliament was holden at Westminster where the King required the Fiftieth part of all the movables both of the Clergy and Laity but Mat. Paris more probably saith the Fifteenth for the recovering of those parts in France which had been held from the Crown being one and the same which is said in Magna Charta to have been granted as a grateful acknowledgment for the grant of their Liberties which though it concerned the Estates of most of the Nobility that had Lands therein would not be yielded unto but upon confirmation of their Liberties atque his in hunc diem prosecutis Archiepiscopus concilio tota Episcoporum Comitum Priorum habita deliberatione Regi dedere responsum quod Regis petitionibus gratunter ad quiescerent si illas diu petitas libertates concedere voluisset annuit itaque Rex cupiditate ductus quod petebant Magnates Chartisque protinus conscriptis Regis sigillo munitis in the next year after for the Charters themselves bear date in the 9th year of his Reign And the several Charters or Copies thereof were sent to the Sheriffs of every County and Twelve Knights were out of every County chosen to divide the Old Forests from the New and lay open all such as had been afforested since the first Coronation of King Henry II. Although at the same time or a little before or after it some of the Nobility who had formerly crowned Lewis of France King and had been the cause of King John's death for which they were banished the Realm endeavouring to return into England and to set up again the French King's Interest and domineer over the King and his faithful Councellors by circumventing Pope Honorius Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice of England the Earl of Chester and seven other of the King's Councellors sent an Epistle to the Pope desiring him to assist the King and them and prevent those dangerous Plots and Designs And the King having sent also his Proctors to Rome upon the like occasion they returned him an account of a new Confederacy betwixt his discontented Barons and the French King to invade England and dispossess him of the Crown thereof adding thereunto quod Gallici praedicabant omnibus quod majores Angliae obsides offerebant de reddendo siâ—i terram â—um primo venire curaret ad illam adjicientes Si aâ—iquid in curia Romana contra voluntatem Regis Franciae attemptaretur incontmenter Rex transfretaret in Angliam Nor could any such authority accrue to them in or by those Charters called Magna Charta and Charta Forestae granted by King Henry III. his Son which were in very many things but the exmeplaria or patterns of that of King John in the like method and tenour containing very many Liberties and great Priviledges which were by King Henry III. as those Charters do declare of his own free accord granted and confirmed in the 9th year of his Reign to his Subjects and People of England Liberis hominibus Free-men or Free-holders for otherwise it would have comprehended those multitudes of Villains Bondmen and Bond-women which the Nation did then and long after employ and make use of and those very many men accounted by the Laws of England to be as dead men viz. Monks Fryers Priors and Abbots to be holden to Them and their Heirs of Him and his Heirs for ever But in those Charters or his confirmation of them in the 21st and 28th year of his Reign could not procure to be inserted or recorded those clauses which they had by their terrours gained from his Father in these words viz. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponam in Regno nostro nisi per commune consilium Regni nostri ad corpis nostrum redimendum ad primogenitum filium nostrum militem faciendum ad primogenitam filiam nostram semel maritandam ad hoc non fiet nisi rationabile auxilium simili modo fiat de auxiliis de Civitate Londinensi quod omnes aliae Civitates Burgi Villae Barones de quinque portubus omnes portus habeant omnes libertates omnes liberas consuetudines suas Et ad habendum commune concilium Regni de auxiliis assidendis aliter quam in tribus casibus praedictis scutagiis assidendis submoneri faciemus Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates Comites majores Barones Regni singillatim per literas nostras Et praetereà faciemus submoneri in generali per Vicecomites Ballivos nostros omnes alios qui in capite tenent de nobis ad certum diem scilicet ad terminum quadraginta dierum ad minus ad certum locum in omnibus literis submonitionis illius causam submonitionis illius exponemus sic facta submonitione negotium procedat ad diem assignatum secundum consilium eorum qui praesentes fuerint quamvis non omnes submoniti Nos non concedimus de caetero alicui quod capiat auxilium de liberis hominibus suis nisi ad corpus suum redimendum ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem ad primogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam ad hoc non fiat nisi rationabile auxilium but were constrained to omit altogether and forgo those clauses and provisions which
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
that the Orders concluded in Parliament were not observed in the levying and disposing of the Subsidy and over-strict courses had been taken in the valuation of mens Estates William Valence the Queens Uncle was grown the only man with him and nothing was done without him the Earl of Provence his Father a poor Prince was invited to come into England to participate of the Treasure and Riches thereof Symon de Montfort a French man born banished out of France by Queen Blanch was entertained in England preferred secretly in marriage with the King's Sister Widow of William Earl of Pembroke the great Marshal made Earl of Leicester and Steward of England in the right of his Mother Amice Daughter of Blanchmains Earl of Leicester Which incensing many of the Nobility and in them not a few of the common people did begin to raise a Commotion wherein they procured Richard Earl of Cornwal Brother to the King and Heir-apparent the King having then no Child to head their Party and manage their Grievances which amongst many pretended were That he despised the counsel of his natural Subjects and followed that of the Pope's Legate as if he had been the Pope's Feudatory Upon which harsh Remonstrance the King having sent to sound the affections of the Londoners found them to be against him Summoned a Parliament in the 22d year of his Reign at London whither the Lords came armed both for their own Safety and to constrain him if he refused to the keeping of his promises and reformation of his courses wherein after many debatements the King taking his Oath to refer the business according to the order of certain grave men of the Kingdom Articles were drawn sealed and publickly set up under the Seals of the Legate and divers great Men But before any thing could be effected Symon Montfort working a Peace for himself with the Earls of Cornwal and Lincoln with whom he and the other Barons had been before displeased the Earl grew cold in the business which the other Lords perceiving nothing more was at that time done Symon Norman called Master of the King's Seal and said to be Governour of the affairs of the Kingdom had the Seal taken from him and some others whom the Nobility maligned displaced And in the same year an Assassinate attempting to kill the King as he was in Bed instigated thereunto by William de Marisco the Son of Jeffrey de Marisco was for the Fact drawn in pieces with Horses and afterwards hang'd and quarter'd And some years after the King having a Son born his Brother the Earl of Cornwal having likewise Issue did by permission of the State which before he could not obtain undertake the Cross and with him the Earl of Salisbury and many other Noblemen The Earl of March the Queen-Mother and certain Lords of Poicteau incited the King to make a War with France to which some of the English who claimed Estates therein were very willing but the matter being moved in Parliament a general opposition was made against it the great expences thereof and the ill suceess it lately had and it was vehemently urged That it was unlawful to break the Truce made with the King of France who was now too strong for them notwithstanding many of the Peers in the hopes of recovering their Estates so prevailed as an Aid demanded for the same was granted but so ill resented by others as all the King's supplies from the beginning of his Reign were particularly and opprobriously remembred as the Thirteenth Fifteenth Sixteenth Thirtieth and Fortieth part of all mens Movables besides Carucage Hydage Escuage Escheats Amerciaments and the like which would as they said be enough to fill his Coffers in which considerations also and reckonings with the Pope's continual exactions and the infinite charge of those who undertook the Holy War were not omitted besides it was declared how the Thirtieth lately levyed being ordered to be kept in certain Castles and not to be issued but by the allowance of some of the Peers was yet unspent the King no necessary occasion for it for the use of the Commonwealth for which it was granted and therefore resolutely denyed to grant any more whereupon he came himself to the Parliament and in a submissive manner craving their aid urged the Popes Letter to perswade them thereunto but by a vow made unto each other all that was said was not able to remove their resolutions insomuch as he was driven to get what he could of particular men by Gifts or Loans and took so great a care of his poorer Subjects at or about the same time as he did by his Writ in the 23d year of his Reign command William de Haverhul and Edward Fitz-Odo That upon Friday next after the Feast of St. Matthias being the Anniversary of Eleanor Queen of Scotland his Sister they should cause to be fed as many Poor as might be entertained in the greater Hall of Westminster and did in the same year by another Writ command the said William de Haverhull to feed 15000 Poor at St. Peters in London on the Feast-day of the Conversion of St. Peter and 4000 Poor upon Monday next after the Feast of St. Lucie the Virgin in the great Hall at Westminster And for quiet at home whilst he should be absent in France contracted a marriage betwixt his youngest Daughter Margaret and Alexander eldest Son of Alexander III. King of Scotland but his expedition in France not succeeding his Treasure consumed upon Strangers the English Nobility discontented and by the Poictovins deceiving his Trust in their not supplying him with money he was after more than a years stay the Lords of England leaving him constrained to make a dishonourable Truce with the King of France and to return having been relieved with much Provisions out of England and Impositions for Escuage a Parliament was in the 28th year of his Reign assembled at Westminster wherein his Wars the revolt of Wales and Scotland who joyned together and the present occasions of the necessary defence of the Kingdom being pressed nothing could be effected without the assurance of Reformation and the due execution of Laws whereupon he came again himself in person and pleaded his own necessities but that produced no more than a desire of theirs to have ordained that four of the most grave and discreet Peers should be chosen as Conservators of the Kingdom and sworn of the Kings Council both to see Justice observed and the Treasure issued and ever attend about him or at least three or two of them That the Lord Chief-Justiciar and Lord Chancellor should be chosen by the general voices of the States assembled or else be of the number of those four and that there might be two Justices of the Benches two Barons of the Exchequer and one Justice for the Jews and those likewise to be chosen by Parliament that as their Function was publick so should also be their Election At which time the
praefatae sententiae ligentur omnes venientes contrà libertates contentas in ehartis communium libertatum Angliae de foresta omnes qui libertates Ecclesiae Angicanae temporibus Domini Regis Praedecessorum suorum Regum Angliae optentas usitatas scienter malitiosè violaverint aut infringere praesumpserint omnes illi qui pacem Domini Regis Regni perturbaverint similiter omnes qui jura libertates Domini Regis Regni diminuere infringere seu immutare praesumpserint quòd omnes venientes contrà praemissa vel eorum aliqua ignoranter legitimè moniti infra quindenam post monitionem praemissam dictam transgressionem non emendaverint ex tunc praedictae sententiae excommunicationis subjacebunt ità tamen quod Dominus Rex transgressionem illam per considerationem curiae suae faciat emendari sciendum autem quod si in scriptis super eadem sententia à quibuscunque confectis seu conficiendis aliud vel alitèr appositum vel adjectum fuerit aut articuli aliqui alii in eis contenti inveniantur Dominus Rex praedicti Magnates omnes communicatas populi protestantur publicè in praesentiâ venerabilium patrum B. Dei Gratiâ Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi totius Angliae Primatis nec non Episcoporum omnium in eodem colloquio existentium quòd in ea nunquam consenserunt nec consentiunt sed de plano eis contradicunt praetere à praefatus Dominus Rex in prolatione praefat ' sententiae omnes libertates consuetudines Regni sui autiquas usitates Dignitates jura Coronae suae ore proprio specialiter sibi Regno suo salvavit excepit In cujus rei memoriam in posterum veritatis testimonium tà m Dominus Rex quam praedicti Comites ad instantiam aliorum Magnatum Populi praesenti scripto sigilla sua apposuerunt Gascoign a great Province in France having been before the King had any Son granted by him by the counsel of the Lords to his Brother Richard Earl of Cornwal who was there received as their Lord and so continued until the King had Issue of his own after which revoking his Grant and conferring it upon his Son Edward the Earl though he were deprived of his Possession not being willing to forgo his Right the King in great displeasure commanded him to resign his Charter which he refusing to do the Citizens of Burdeaux were commanded to take and imprison but would not adventure thereon Notwithstanding money being offered and like to effect more than his command the Earl in danger to be surprized came over into England whereupon the King assembled the Nobility of Gascoign promised them 30000 Marks to renounce their homage and fealty to his Brother which being not accepted he sent Symon Montfort Earl of Leicester a rough and martial man in revenge thereof to be their Governour under him for six years and furnished him with 1000 Marks in order thereto whom Montfort by a stern Government so discontented as they and the Archbishop of Burdeaux accused him of heinous Crimes which was a cause of Montford s sending for over And the King resolute in maintaining the Gascoigners that sturdy Earl Montfort who had forgotten that he was an Alien himself and had received of the King large Gifts Preferments and Honours both in France and England unto whom the Earl of Cornwal with the discontented part of the English Baronage joyning complained as much of the Aliens viz. William of Valence Earl of Pembroke Guy de Lusignan the King's half-brothers by his Mother and the many French and Poictovins that over-much governed him and his Counsels as they did again complain of the breach of the Great Charter which was seldom omitted out of the Reer of their grievances which at last came to such an undutiful contest as Montfort upbraiding the King with his expenceful service wherein he alledged he had utterly consumed his Estate and said that he had broken his word with him the King in great rage told him That no promise was to be observed with an unworthy Traytor wherewith Montfort rose up and protested that he lyed in that word and were he not protected by his Royal Dignity he would make him repent it The King commanded his Servants to lay hold of him which the Lords would not permit wherewith Montfort growing more audacious the King told him He never repented of any thing so much as to have permitted him to enter into his Kingdom and to have honoured and instated him as he had done But shortly after the Gascoigns being again encouraged by the King against Montfort and that Province given to his Son Edward and Montfort sent thither a Governour again though with clipt wings grows enflamed as much as the Gascoigns were one against another but Montfort by his great Alliance with France overcame them who in the 38th year of the King's Reign being discharged of the Government retired from thence and refusing an offered entertainment by the French King returned into England where the King besides Gascoigny having given Ireland Wales Bristol Stamford and Grantham to the Prince and consumed all that ever he could get in that and the former expeditions which he had made which was reckoned to have cost him Twenty seven hundred thousand pounds which were said to have been more than the Lands endeavoured to have been regained were worth if they were to be sold. A Parliament was called in Easter-Term following which brought a return of grievances and complaints of the breach of Charters and a demand for former pretended rights in electing the Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer whereupon after much debate to no purpose the Parliament was prorogued until Michaelmas next after when likewise the King's motion for money was disappointed by reason of the absence of many Peers being not as was alledged summoned according to Magna Charta In the mean time the Pope to destroy Manfred Son to the Emperour Frederick who was in possession of the Kingdom of Sicily and Apulia sent the Bishop of Bononia with a Ring of investiture of the Kindom of Sicily to Edmond the King's second Son with the hopes of which his Praedecessor Innocent IV. had before deluded the King himself And the King being offered to be absolved from his Oath of undertaking the holy Wars so as he would help to destroy Manfred the Emperour Frederick's Son who being Victorious had no mind to be so ill used The Legate returned with great gifts and a Prebendary of York but could not obtain his design of collecting the Tenths in England Scotland and Ireland to the use of the Pope and the King for that the Clergy growing jealous m that the 〈…〉 g and the Pope were confederate therein protested rather to lose their Lives and Livings than to be made a prey to either the Pope in the mean time having upon that vain hope cunningly wrapt him in an obligation of 15000 Marks Upon
totum Regnum for he said that his Ancestors omnium Baronum fere Normannorum Antecesseres Norwigenses exticissent Et quod de Norwicis olim venissent Et hac Authoritate leges eorum cum profundioses honestiores omnibus aliis essent prae caeteris Regni sui Legibus asserebat se debere sequi observare and the Saxon Laws being in the Saxon language and he and his Normans for some Generations past alltogether speaking French written in another Idiome and manner could not be thought so soon well to understand Quippe cum aliaerum legibus Nationum Britonum scilicet Anglorum Pictorum Scotorum praeponderassent as if he or his Normans having so lately Conquered the Kingdom of England and he had after some time returned into Normandy whether he had Carried some of the most Potent of the English Nobility as Pledges and Hostages And after some tarrying there and time expended in the setling of his Affairs returned into England where he found some Mutinies and Rebellions might not in a mind wholly imployed in the Study of War Glory be allowed some parcell of Ignorance or so much as to make him his Norman Adventurers mistake not understand that the Feudall Laws and those of Norway were the same for the most part with the Laws of the Saxons or their Praedecessors or their often invading and contending neighbors the Picts and Scots or the Saxons so impoverished and affrighted as not to be able to declare unto him that the Laws of St Edward the Confessor were the same which the Conquerers Compatriots the Norwigians were governed by or might not so well as they should have understood their own Laws or the Feudal Laws which their Northern or German Ancestors had so much affected to be ruled and governed by more especially when those Laws so Sacred of St Edward the Confessor had by reason of some discords in England layne as it were hid and asleep about Sixty Eight yeares from the Reign of King Edgar untill the Reign of King Edward the Confessor Which the Conqueror himself had then only as the learned Sr Roger Twisden saith ut melius unicuique administraret Anglicam locutiorem Saâ—egit ediscere Et in perceptione hujus durior aetas illum compescebat endeavoured to learn which Verdict or Carefull Enquiry in the poor Conquered Englishman's greatest Concernments in this world next unto their greatest in the next being presented to him he Concilio habito precatu Baronum granted their Petition Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury and Maurice Bishop of London Scripserunt propriis manibus omnia ista praedicta per praeceptum praedicti domini Regis Gulielmi Et ex illo igitur die multa Authoritate veneratae et per universum regnum Corroboratae et Observatae sunt prae ceteris patriae legibus leges Edwardi Regis Sancti Insomuch as King William the Conqueror upon a better understanding that those Laws of St Edward were one and the same or very near of kindred unto the Norway or Danish Laws had not only given and distributed amongst his great Officers and Soldiers Seventy Thousand Knights Fees in lands of a great value to be holden of him his Heirs and Successors in Capite but in his own Laws afterwards made other Feudall Laws as additions thereunto as de Clientari seu Feudorum Jure Ingenuorum Immunitate Ca. 55. de Clientum seu vassallorum praestationibus Ca. 58. nequis Dominio suo debitas suas praestationes substrahat Ca. 34. de foemina granida quae capitali supplicio damnatur Ca. 35. which was a Law either before or since brought hither by the Phenitians or Roman Colonies de relevio eorum qui Clientes pendent c. 40. And in the decretis made by him it is mentioned that cum principibus suis constituit post Conquisitionem Angliae not Constituerunt that next unto the Reverence of God and Faith in Christ he would have inviolably observed and kept pacem securitatem Concordiam Judicium Justiciam inter Anglos Normannos similiter inter Francigenes Britones Walliae Cornubiae Pithos Scotos Albaniae Similiter Francas Insulicolas omnium Insularum provinciarum quae pertinent ad Coronam dignitatem ad defensionem observationem ad honorem Regis infra omnes sibi subjectos per universam Regni Britania firmiter inviolabiliter Statuimus etiam ut omnes liberi homines fide Sacramento affirment quod intra extra universum Regnum quod olim vocabatur Regnum Britanniae Willielmo Regi Domino suo fideles esse volunt Terras et Honores suos omni sidelitate ubique servare cum eo contra Inimicos Alienigenas defendere volumus Et hoc firmiter precipimus Concedimus ut omnes liberi homines totius Monarchiae Regni nostri praedicti habeant teneant terras suas possessiones bene in pace ab omni exactione injusta ab omni tallagio Ita quod nihil ab eis exigatur vel capiatur nisi servitium suum liberum quod de Jure nobis facere debent facere teneantur prout Statutum est eis illas a nobis datum Concessum Jure Haereditario in perpetuum per Comune Concilium totius Regni nostri Statuimus firmiter praecipimus ut omnes Comites Barones milites servientes universi liberi homines totius Regni nostri praedicti habeant teneant se semper bene in armis equis ut decet oportet quod sint semper prompti parati ad servitium suum integrum nobis explendum et peragendum cum semper opus abfuerit secundum quod nobis debent in feodis tementis suis sicut illis statuimus per Commune Concilium Regni nostri praedicti illis dedimus Concedimus in feudis Jure haereditario hoc praeceptum non sit violatum ullo modo super forisfacturam plenam statuimus etiam firmiter praecipimus ut omnes liberi homines totius Regni praedicti which could not be understood to have been any other then his Norman Commanders and Nobility for the most part if any English sint fratres conjurati ad Monarchiam nostram ad Regnum nostrum pro viribus suis facult atibus contra omnes pro posse suo defendendum viribus servandum pacem dignitatem nostram Coronae nostrae integrum observandum ad Judicium rectum Justitiam constanter modis omnibus pro posse suo sine dolo sine dilatione faciendum Which being made at London was without any limitation or restraint as to the number of Days wherein the Service was to be performed or how long to be at their own Wages or their Kings was not at all expressed in that Kings originall Grant Law or Constitution for although the Fortune or Fate of a War in those bold
by them for that the Soldiers and Mariners were not paid And to appoint one honest man out of every County to come along with them to see and examine their accounts 37. E. 3. The cause of the Summons was first declared before the names of the Receivers and Tryers were published according to the use at this day and of all Parliaments since 29. E. 3. And it is said in the end of the shewing the cause of the Summons Et outre le dit Roy volt que si nul se sent greever mett avent son petition en ce Parlement ci ne avoir convenable report sur ce ad assignee ascuns de ses Clercks en le Chancellarie Recevoirs des ditzpetitions In eodem Anno Proclamation was made in Westminster Hall by the Kings command that all the Prelates Lords and Commons who were come to the Parliament should withdraw themselves to the painted Chamber and afterwards on the sâ—m◠〈◊〉 there being in the same chamber the Chancellor Treasurer 〈◊〉 some of the Prelates Lords and Commons Sr Henry Greeâ— the Kings Chief Justice told them in English much of the French Language being then made use of in the Parliament-Rolls and Petitions that the King was ready to begin the Parliament but that many of the Prelates Lords and Commons who were Summoned were not yet come wherefore he willeth that they should depart and take their ease untill Monday Anno 40. E. 3. The Lord Chancellor concluded his speech touching the Summons The Kings will is que chescun que ce sont grievez mett devant sa petition a ces sont assignez per lui de ces recevoir aussi de les triers Six days were not seldom allowed for receiving and trying petitions which were sometimes prolonged two or three days ex gratia Regis and the reason supposed for such short prefixions was because the sitting of Parliaments in former times continued not many days Toriton a Town in Devonshire was exempted from sending of Burgesses to Parliament and so was Colchester in 6. R. 2. in respect of new making the walls and fortifying that Town for Five Years In divers Writs of Summons of King Edward 3. He denied to accept of proxies ea vice 6. 27. And 39. E. 3. Proxies were absolutely denied ista vice 6. R. 2. And 11. R. 2. The like with a clause in every of those Writs of Summons legitimo cessante impedimento Anno 45. E. 3. Ista vice being omitted a clause was added Scientes quod propter arduitatem negotiorum Procuratores seu excusationem aliquam legittimo cessante impedimento pro vobis admittere nolumus and thereupon the Lords that could not come obtained the Kings License and made their proxies and although at other times they did make Proxies without the Kings License yet in such cases an Affidavit was made of their sickness or some other Lawfull impediment as in 3. 6. 26. And 28. H. 8. The antient form and way of such Licenses in 22d E. 3. being in French and under the Kings Privy-Seal as Mr Elsing hath declared and therein the Abbot of Selby's Servant was so carefull as he procured a Constat or Testimoniall under the Kings Privy-seal of his allowance of the said procuration and another was granted to the said Abbot in 2. H. 4. under the signet only Eodem Anno The Parliament having granted the King an ayd of 22 s. and 3 d. out of every parish in England supposing it would fully amount to Fifty Thousand Pounds but the King and his Councell after the Parliament dismissed finding upon an examination that the rate upon every parish would fall short of the summ of mony proposed for that supply did by his Writs command the Sheriffs of every County to Summon only one Knight for every County and one Citizen and Burgess for every City and Borough that had served in the said Parliament for the avoiding of troubles and expences to appear at a Councell to be holden at Winchester to advise how to raise the intended summ of money Anno 46. E. 3. An ordinance being made that neither Lawyer or Sheriff should be returned Knights of the shire the Writs received an addition touching the Sheriff only which continues to this day viz. Nolumus autem quod tu vel aliquis alius Vicecomes shall be Elected but the King willeth that Knights and Serjeants of the best esteem of the County be hereafter returned Knights in the Parliament Eodem Anno There was no Judges Summoned to the Parliament In Anno 50. Some particular Knights were specially commanded by the King to continue in London 7 days longer then others after the Parliament ended to dispatch some publique affairs ordained by Parliament and had wages allowed for those 7 days to be paid by their Countries Some being sent from Ireland to attend the Parliament a Writ was sent by the King to James Boteler Justice of Ireland to leavy their expences upon the Commonalty of that Kingdom which varied from those for England After the bill which in the usuall language and meaning of those times signified no more then a petition delivered the Chancellour willed the Commons to sue out their Writs for their fees according to the custom after which the Bishops did arise and take their leaves of the King and so the Parliament ended Anno 51. E. 3. the Prince of Wales representing the King in Parliament Sate in the Chair of State in Parliaments after the cause of Summons declared by the Lord Chancellour or by any others whom the King appointeth he concludes his speech with the Kings Commandment to the House of Commons to choose their Speaker who being attended by all the House of Commons and presented by them unto sitting in his Chair of Estate environed by the Lords Spirituall and Temporall hath after his allowance and at his retorn and not before one of the Kings maces with the Royall armes thereupon allowed to be carried before him at all time dureing the Parliament with one of the Kings Serjeants at armes to bear it before him and to attend him during the time of his Speakership Anno 1. Richardi 2. The Parliament beginning the 13th of October was from time to time continued untill the 28th of November then next ensuing and the petitions read before the King who after answers given fist bonement remercier les Prelats Seigneurs Countes de leur bones graundez diligences faitz entouz l'Esploit de dites besognes requestes y faitzpur commun profit de leur bien liberal done au liu grantez en defens De tout le Roialme commandant as Chivaliers de Contes Citizens des Citeos Burgeys des Burghs quils facent leur suites pour briefs avoir pour leurs gages de Parlement en manere accustumes Et leur donast congie de departir In a Parliament of 5. R. 〈◊〉 there were severall adjournments and the Knights and
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
illatis who had been so good a friend to the rebellious Barons and so great a favourer of them as after his expulsion out of England whither they had invited him toaid and assist them against K. John and an agreement made with K. Henry III. his Son to restore unto him the Dutchy of Normandy and the other Provinces which he had from him in France as he denied to re-deliver them until the Liberties claimed by the English Barons his old Friends should be confirmed unto them by whose Quarrels with their Sovereigns he had gained many great advantages to the wrong and damage of the Crown of England And was all the while a very great enemy both to the King and his Father who notwithstanding was with the Prince his Son Richard Earl of Cornwal King of the Romans with others of the Loyal Nobility of the Kings part and the contending Rebellious Lords of the other side by mutual Oaths tactis sacrosanctis Evangeliis in the 47th year of his Reign did undertake to perform and abide by his award so as it were made and pronounced betwixt that and the Feast of Pentecost then next ensuing unto which none of the Commons of England do appear to have been parties Whereupon the King of France taking upon him the said arbitration congregato in crastino sancti Vincentii Ambiomis populo penè innumerabili coram Episcopis Comitibus aliisque Francorum proceribus solemniter dedit sententiam pro Rege Angliae contra Barones Statutis Oxoniae provisionibus ordinationibus ac obligationibus penitus annullatis hoc excepto quod antiquas Chartas Regis Johannis Angliae universitati concessas per illam sententiam in nullo intendebat penitùs derogare And made his award accordingly in writing an exemplification or authentick Copy whereof is yet to be seen amongst the Records in His now Majesty's Treasury at Westminster Quae quidem exceptio Comitem Leicestriae coeteros qui habebunt sensus exercitatos saith Matthew Paris compulit in praeposito tenere firmitèr Statuta Oxoniae que fundata fuerant super illam Chartam Et eo tempore redierint à Francia qui Parliamento Regis Francia interfuerant Rex videlicet Angliae Henricus Regina Eleanora Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis Bonifacius Petrus Herefordensis Episcopus Johannes Mansel qui Baronibus saith that Monk of St. Albans mala quanta potuerunt non cessabant machinari Which exception could neither absolve them from their Oaths so solemnly taken to perform the award which the King of France had made or purge them from their former and after Rebellions against King Henry III. or their ill usage of him SECT VI. That the Exceptions mentioned in the King of France's award of the Charter granted by King John could not invalidate the whole award or justifie the provisions made at Oxford which was the principal matter referred unto him FOr that the contrivance of the twenty-four Conservators and what else was added thereunto by the aforesaid Provisions and constrained Ordinances made at Oxford was never any part of the Magna Charta or the Charta de Foresta enforced from King John but a security seperate and collateral thereunto framed and devised at the same time for the better observation and performance of those Charters which the preamble of that security of which Matthew Paris hath at large left unto posterity an exemplar may abundantly evidence in the words following viz. Cum autem pro Deo ad emendationem Regni nostri ad melius sopiendam discordiam inter nos Barones nostros haec omnia concessimus volentes ea integra firma stabilitate gaudere facimus concedimus eis securitatem subscriptam viz. quod Barones eligant viginti quinque Barones de Regno nostros quos voluerint c. and doth greatly differ both in the material and formal parts thereof from the provisions afterwards enforced at Oxford as by a just collation and comparison of that collateral security with those provisions may appear where care is taken but for twenty-four Conservators twelve to be chosen by the King and twelve by those factious Lords who would likewise engross to themselves and their party the nomination of the Chancellor Treasurer two Chief-Justices two of the Justices of both the Benches and Barons of the Exchequer and have the making of the Chief-Justice of the Iews to which the King and his Son the Prince were sworn but to the Running-Mead unkingly shackles or security the King and those masterly Barons were only sworn and that not thought sufficient without some principal Castles of the Kings were to be put into hands of those Conservators and that upon complaint made to the King or his Chief-Justice if reformation were not made within a time limited the Conservators and the common people were to distrain gravere eum which would amount to a licensed Rebellion with a salvis personis only of the King and his Queen and Children all the great men of the Kingdom and the common people and as many as would being also to take their Oaths to be aiding and assisting to those Conservators in a kind or much resembling the late ASSOCIATION who were themselves to take their Oaths well and truly to execute their multiplied Kingships and clip as much as they could the more just Authority and Rights of their Sovereign But in those of Oxford there was so much kindness shewed to themselves and care taken of their own tender consciences as not to be sworn at all and must needs be an excellent contrivance for the invisible good of the Kingdom and a rare performance of their Homage Fealty and Oaths of Allegiance to take the power and authority from a King which should enable him to perform his Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta freely granted unto them and put it into their own hands to break those Charters and his Oaths and to protect and do Justice unto his people as oft as their malice ambitious envies avarice revenge interests designs corruptions or domineering passions of themselves and their Wives being not a few in number and their numerous adhaerents should incite or persuade them unto and were so confident of their over-ruling party no provision being at all made in those which were made at Oxford if any discords should arise in the election of the one twelve or the other or in the continuance of their agreements together shares or parts in the Government of their King and fellow-Subjects as believing that the power of the twelve Barons chosen by themselves would be either praedominant over the twelve which were to be named by the King or their newly-usurped authority would be so complaisant and well-pleasing unto all the twenty-four as flattery fear or interest would so quiet any to be supposed discords as they should not need to fall out at a Feast or divide disturb or destroy themselves by Factions the security given at Running-Mead ordaining only twenty-five
themselves if not commanded or otherwise by their Tenures obliged be willing to do as that Learned French Lawyer Brissonius well observeth Qu'en la necessitie de Guerre toutes les Gentilz hommes sont tenus de prendre les Armes pour la necessitie du Roy which by our Laws of England is so to be encouraged as it is Treason to kill any Man that goeth to Aid the King and is no more than what the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy do bind every English-man unto although they should tarry in the Camp more than Forty Dayes or not have Escuage or any Allowance of their Charges from their own Tenants And the People of the Counties and Cities as well as the smaller Towns or Boroughs which were to delegate or commission them and make them wise enough to give their Assent in that great and solemn Assembly and Councel of the King and His Prelates Baronage Lords Spiritual and Temporal unto what they should ordain in quibusdam not in omnibus arduis high and extraordinary Matters concerning the King Church and Kingdom not in ordinary or common were only or more especially to take into their Consideration and inform the State Commerce Interest and Affairs Abilities or Disabilities of the Countries Places to supply their Soveraign's occasions some of those Burgesses Elected and sent from poor Fisher-Maritime-Towns the most prudent Observers of whom might have done Aristotle good service in his Enquiries not of the Politicks but of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea or some of the lesser Genery or over-grown Yeomanry as might instruct Varro or Columella in the design of writing their Books de Re Rusticâ or the well lined plausible Dweller in some inconsiderable Villes or a small number of Houses little better than Cottages with a fair Inn with two carved or gilded Sign Posts and a St. George on Horse-back unmercifully killing the Dragon and the Inhabitants Men of no more Language Wit or Learning than was scarcely sufficient to manage their vulgar mechanick Employments might have been more useful in the Parliament of the Twenty-Seventh Year of the Raign of King Edward the Third when the Statutes of the Staple and the Staple Cities and Towns so greatly concerning the after happening Golden-Fleece-flourishing-wollen-Trade and Manufacture in England and the enriching those Cities and Towns were made and enacted And the Consent or Advice therein of the vulgar or ignoble part of the Free-holders might have been more requisite in the making and framing the Act of Parliament in the Twenty-Third Year of the Raign of the aforesaid King touching Labourers and Servants or that long after made by Queen Elizabeth in the Fifth Year of her Raign limiting the Wages of Servants Artificers and Workmen as being likely to be more sensible and to give good Instructions in their own Concernments than in those of their Superiours their Land-lords viz. The King Nobility Bishops Gentry irelgious Houses Colledges Universities Deaneries Praebendaries Hospitals Corporations and Companies of Trades c. Those that were Boroughs were not then so many or half so big as they have been since by our King 's Royal Favours in the granting of Fairs and Markets unto them with divers other Immunities and Priviledges c. Nor had gained so great Additions to their Buildings and former extent by their Scituation or Neighbourhood to some great Town or City of Trade and the Inhabitants of them Men only conversant in the evil Arts of Trade and with Demetrius the Silver-Smith ready to do more for Diana's Temple than St. Paul's Preaching and lay out that little Understanding that they have in taking some Lands to Farm near adjoyning and being as little acquainted as may be with State-Policy or any thing out of the reach of their Neighbourhood will be as unfit to know or discern wise Men as the Corydons Hobby-nolls country Carters or Mechanicks are or would be to Elect or give their Votes or Suffrages for the taking of the degrees of Doctors Masters or Batchelors of Arts in our Universities or as Brick-laiers would be to give their direction and advice in the Building Rigging Tackle Steering and Sailing of a Ship Or to give a liberty to the Boys to choose their School-Master and direct what Methods he should use in the governing of them or to the Common People to elect and choose the King 's Privy Council or to have Votes or Suffrages in the making or repeal of such Laws as the variety of their Humours Interests Envies Ambitious Ignorances and Whimsies should perswade them to obey or be ruled by or such as may consist with all of them together or as much as for that very instant or moment of Time may agree with every Man 's particular Fancy Interests Occasion Advantage Will or Pleasure or of those that shall awe flatter bribe delude fool or seduce them Or in the Hurry and Distraction which Rebel-Armies and Gatherings of a misled or cheated Part of the People in such a Collection use to be might probably think it necessary and greatly conducing to their present self Advantages to procure them that were under the influence of their Power then very formidable or of the Tenancy or dependance of themselves or the rest of the Baronage whom they were labouring by Force Fear Flattery or other seducing and evil Arts to entice and draw into their Party to consent for the present to the Advice or Petitioning for the Confirmation or Establishment of the constrained Provisions made at Oxford and their Conservatorships which the King of France had not long before solemnly in his aforesaid Arbitration condemned and annulled For the Engine or Knack of the Twenty-Four Conservators to govern them and the King and Kingdom Twelve as it was sometimes proposed to be chosen by the King and Twelve by the victorious Rebels after confined to a much smaller Number as their Power and usurped Authority in a short time after gave them the Liberty and Occasion could never be thought to be with any intention to continue that new Model or Frame of Parliament any longer than pro hâc vice until the imprisoned King and Prince should be released and the Disturbances of the Kingdom quieted as those Writs of Simon and Peter de Montfort's own framing and putting under the King's Name and Seal did if they might be credited seem to import But were rather convened for Simon de Montfort's particular Ambition and Establishment nor could otherwise be interpreted to amount to any more than the most likely to have been the dismal Effects thereof the Destruction of the King and his Family Subversion of the ancient fundamental Laws and Customs of the Nation and Change of our ancient Monarchy into an Oligarchy And must either be understood not to have known at all the fundamental Usages Customes Priviledges of the Praelates Nobility and Great Men of the Realm in their King 's great Councels or Parliaments when they were thereunto Summoned
those Writs of Summons to Parliaments to be made Howbeit most certain it is saith Sir William Dugdale That those Writs of Election made in the Name of King Henry the Third to send Knights and Burgesses to the Parliament were by a Force put upon his Great Seal of England as much as upon himself when they had him as a Prisoner of War in their Custody and kept him so as our Chronicles Historians and Annals have Recorded it for an Year and a quarter carrying him about with them to countenance their rebellious Actions for the Battle of Lewis wherein he was made a Prisoner was upon the 14th of May in the 48th and that of Evesham which released him the 4th day of August in the 49th Year of his Raign And there is no Testimony or Record to be found of any other the like Writ of Election made afterwards untill the 22d Year of King Edward the First although there were several Parliaments or Magna Concilia convocated and held in the mean time and if our Ancestors had not been so misled and abused by the Rebels in the Raign of King John and his Son King Henry the Third there are enough yet alive who can sadly remember how a more transcendantly wicked hypocritical Party have since adventured to make out and frame until they had Murthered him counterfeit Writs Commissions and Summons of Parliament in the Name of our Religious King CHARLES the Martyr and make as much as they could His Royal Authority to Fight against His Person And there is no Certainty or pregnant Evidence saith Mr. William Pryn who being a Lawyer and a long and ancient Member of the House of Commons in Parliament did so much adore the Power and Preheminence thereof as adventuring the Loss of his Estate Body and Soul with them therein could find no better a Foundation or Pedigree to bestow upon them than the Captivity and Imprisonment of a distressed unfortunate King but saith That there were not any Knights Citizens Burgesses or House of Commons in the Confessors or Conquerors Raigns or any of our Saxon or Danish Kings nor before the latter end of King Henry the Third's Raign for although Polydore Virgill and others do refer the Original of our Parliaments to the Council holden at Salisbury in the 16th Year of King Henry the First there is not one Syllable in any of our ancient Historians concerning Knights Citizens and Burgesses present in that Councel as saith the Learned Sir Henry Spelman in these words viz. Rex perindè qui totius regni Dominus est Supremus regnumque universum tà m in personis Baronum suorum quà m è subditorum Ligeancia ex jure Coronae suae subjectum habet Concilio assensu Baronum suorum Leges olim imposuit universo regno consentire inferior quisque visus est in persona Domini sui Capitalis prout bodiè per Procuratores Comitatûs vel Burgi quos in Parliamento Knights and Burgesses appellamus Habes morem veteram quem Mutâsse ferunt Henricum Primum Anno regni sui sextodecimo plebe ad concilium Sarisberiense tunc accitâ haec vulgaris opinio quam typis primus sparsit Polydorus Virgilius acceptam subsequentes Chronâ—graphi nos ad authores illius seculi prouocamus And refuting that Opinion by Neubrigensis who lived about that time and relates the purpose of that Great Councel in these words Facto concilio eidem Filiae suae susceptis vel suscipiendis ex eis nepotibus ab Episcopis Comitibus Barombus omnibus qui alicujus videbantur esse momenti and likewise by Florentius Wigorniensis Eadmerus and Huntington further saith Ludunt qui Parliamenta nostra in his quaerunt sine ut sodes dicam collegisse mecentenas reor conciliorum coitiones tenoresque ipsos plurimorum ab ingressu Gulielmi 1 mi ad excessum Henrici 3 i existentium nec in tanta multitudine de plebe uspiam reperisse aliquid ni in his delituer it Seniores sapientes populi which he conceives to be only Aldermanni Sapientes or Barones Magnates regni not the Commons And it hath been well observed by the learned Author of the Notae Adversaria in historiam Mathaei Parisiensis That in the ancient Synods before the subduing of England by William Duke of Normandy conficiebantur chartae donationum publicae de gravaminibus Reipublicae brevitèr inter Regem Magnates Episcopos Abbates consultabatur id enim tunc dierum erat Synodus quod nunc ferè Parliamentum nisi quod non rogabantur leges per plebiscita nec sanciebantur Canones per suffragia minoris Cleri And was as novel and new as it was unexpected no such Writ having ever before been framed or made use of to such or any the like purpose And Mr. Selden likewise saith That the Earls and Barons mentioned or directed by those compelled then Writs of Summons to come to that pretended Parliament were only the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Oxford Derby Norfolk Roger de Sancto Johannis Hugh le Despencer Justiciar ' Angliae Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Robert Basset G. de Lucy and Gilbert de Gaunt Of which the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Norfolk Oxford and Derby were notoriously known to have been in open Armes and Hostility against the King The whole Number of the Temporal Lords therein named not amounting unto more than Twenty-Three with a Blank left for the Names of other Earls and Barons which have not been yet inserted or filled up And all the other which were in that constrained Writ of Summons particularly and expresly named were no other than H. de le Spencer Justicar ' Angliae John Fitz-John Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Rafe Basset de Drayton Henry de Hastings Geffery de Lucie Robert de Roos Adam de Novo Mercato Walter de Colvill and Robert Basset de Sapcott which together with the then Bishops of London and Worcester Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and Steward of England H. de Boun juvenis Peter de Monteforti S. de Monteforti juvenes Baldwin Wake William le Blond William Marescallus Rafe de Gray William Bardolff Richard de Tany or Tony and Robert de Veteri Ponte made up the Number of the opposite Party to that King in the aforesaid Reference to the King of France And Mr. Selden hath observed That the Preambles of the ancient Parliament-Writs for the Snmmoning of the Baronage sometimes so varied that some eminent occasions of the calling of the Parliament were inserted in the Writs to the Spiritual Barons that were not in those to the Temporal and often times no more than a general and short Narrative of our King's Occasion of having a Parliament with much variation in the Writs of that nature with many differences of slighter Moment expressed and sometimes in all a Clause Against coming attended with Armes and that until the middle of the
any Patern or to have any resemblance with the Writs of Summons framed by Simon Montfort and his rebell-party in the time of the Imprisonment of King Henry the 3d in the 49th year of his Reign having no other then these words viz. Rex vit Oxon precipimus tibi quod omnes milites ballivae tuae qui Summoniti fuerunt esse apud Oxon ad nos a die omnium Sanctorum in quindecim dies venire facias cum armis suis corpora vero Baronum sine armis similiter Et quatuor discretos milites de Comitatu tuo illuc venire facias ad nos ad eundem Terminum ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri meipso Westmonaesterium 7. die Novembris and not the 15th as Mr. Selden hath mis-recited the dates thereof Et eodem modo Scribitur omnibus vice Comitibus Which writs he saith seemeth to be a Summons to Parliament at Oxford by the Strangest Writ of Summons and without example that he had been and was ever-willing to prove the distinction betwixt the Barones Majores Minores to have its originall or foundation about that Time Whereunto pace tanti viri I may not subscribe for that it is more likely to be but a military Summons much of that roll being busied in Writs of Summons of Array to the Ports and others against a feared approaching invasion of the French to whom the Pope had given the Kingdom of England and so many Tenants in Capite would have made too great a number to appear in a Parliament or Great Councell and have been much fitter for a Muster and to come with Arms was not Parliamentary and there was nothing like a distinction in that Writ or Summons betwixt the Majores and Minores Barones for they held in Capite also as all the other did and the quatuor milites out of every County might all or some of them hold in Capite and if it had been to a Parliament the Barons would have had particular Writs of Summons directed unto them and the Praelates also who were usually Summoned at the same time and as other of the Baronage would have taken it ill to be driven to their Duties by Sheriffs Authorized by Writs of Venire facias and Samuel Daniell much disagreeing with Mathew Paris therein gives the reason of those Writs and that intended great assembly to have been only the great care of King John to gather all the Force and Strength he could to march with him to Dover to resist the French and to that end having before Summoned all Earls Barons Knights and who else could bear Arms to be ready at Dover presently upon Easter furnished with Horse Armour and all Military Provision to defend him themselves and the Kingdom against the intended invasion under the penalty of Culverage which was perpetuall Shame and Servitude Whereupon so great numbers came as for want of Sustenance being returned home he retained only some of the more able sort which amounted to the number of 60000. and some of the writs or Commissions of Array sent to the Ports had a clause therein unusquisque sequatur Dominum suum Et qui terram non habent arma habere possint as Mathew Paris hath it illuc veniant ad capiendum solidatas Regis and the words Corpora vero Baronum sine armis in the writts of resummons of the more speciall part of the men formerly summoned having nothing of the penalty of Culverage might be well understood to be that the Barons who were not to be arrayed by Sheriffs amongst Common Soldiers were in such a case of extremity to be desired to be there sine armis to encourage and lead on those that held of them And they with the quatuor milites discretos were besides ad loquendum cum Rege which being to be without Burgesses and not ad faciendum consentiendum to those things which the King and his Councell of Praelates and Barons should ordain can arrive to no nearer a resemblance of the forced writts of the Elections of some of the Commons to come to a Parliament in the 49th year of the Reign of King Henry the 3d then 4 Knights of every shire without Burgesses do unto 2. with as many Burgesses out of every City and Burrough some Citys having a County appertaining unto it but are not many and sending four whereof 2 were to be for the Connty and 2 for the City and as little resembling in the business or matters for which they were to come as ad loquendum de negotiis regni cum Rege doth with ad faciendum consentiendum to such things as the King and his Councell of Barons Lords Spirituall and Temporall should in Parliament advise and ordain In the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. when no Acts of Parliament are found to have been then made that King directed his writ to the Sheriffs of Devonshire and unto all his Sheriffs of the Counties and Shires of England quod venire faciat usque Oxon A die Iovis prox post nativitatem sancti Johannis in tres Septimanas Archiepiscopes Episcopes Abbates Priores Barones Com omnes milites libere tenentes omnes alios qui servitium nobis debent equis Armis cum fideli nostro Will. Marist aliis Magnatibus de Consilio nostro quae eis praeteperimus hoc sicut honorem suum sui Indempnitatem diligunt nullatenus omittant teste Com. apud Glouc. And in a writ directed to the Sheriff of Berks Commanded him quod venire fac usque Oxon. die Dominica prox post festum sancti Petri ad vincula totum servitium quod Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates viri religiosi Com. Baron Omnes alii de Balliva tua quaecunque fuerint nobis debent venire fac illuc ad diem illum similiter omnes illos de Baliva tua qui non sunt homines praeditorum per Catalla eorum alia Jurati sunt promptos paratos ad eundum in servitium nostrum quae eis praecepimus quae c. T. apud Oxon. So as it may with some confidence be asserted that the Commons of England otherwise then comprehended in the authority Votes and Suffrages of the Nobility and Bishops had before the imprisonment of H. 3. as aforesaid no Summons by election or otherwise to come unto the great Councels or Parliaments of our Kings or Princes Wherefore they must be more then a little confident of their art in tentering other mens Judgments and Opinions to affirm with any probability that the Commons or any elected number of them either in the now mode of Election or that which had its first creation in the imprisonment of King Henry the 3. otherwise then as he or the former Kings did sometimes use as they pleased to call some of the more Wise and Able of them for Advice or Information as King John did
small a reall dependance upon them or so great a part of their Kingdoms of England and Ireland converted into free and Common Soccage the tenures in Capite in Ireland being about that Time with the like exceptions converted into free and common Soccage as England disastrously also was the Isles of Man Wight Garnsey and Jarsey the two latter being parts of Normandy together with the American Plantations as Virginia Bermudas Barbados Jamaica and New England and many other our West Indian Plantations escaping that part of the greatest wound that could be given to our Ancient Monarchy And how dangerous and prejudicial a misconstruction of the Statutes de Usilus in possessionem transferendis might be both unto the King and his Subjects if he should be accompted to have been a trustee for the his people and it was a wonder that the late Lord Chief Justice Hale should in that Act turning all into Free and Common Soccage not take a Care to abolish the Releifs being a Duty long before the Conquest payable to his Majesties Royal Progenitors but leave them with an Exception of all Releifs and Herriots Fees Rents Escheats Dower of the 3d part Fines Forfeitures and such as are and have been usually paid in free and Common Soccage Maymed and mangled the Monarchy and Government as much if not more then Adonibezeg a King of Canaan did the Seventy Kings whom he had taken Prisoners and cut off their great Toes and Thumbs for no other advantage then to undermine the beautifull and goodly Structure of our Government built and supported by and upon these great Pillars and excellent fundamentalls which like an House built upon a Rock was able to resist any the winds and Storms for many Ages past leave us as a house built upon the Sands ready to drop into it's own Infallible ruines which could not be so Rebuilt or Reduced to it's former Strong and Goodly Structure by reserving to the King and his Successors the Reliefs and Herriots nor will arise to any recompence although it might be a great value together with the Excise of Ale Beer and Sider added thereunto which hath helpt to bring in or increase as the opinion of the Doctors of Physick have informed us that Epidemick now more then ever Praedominant Scorbutique Disease making rich the only false-dealing Brewers Alehouse-keepers and Impoverishing the Common People Consideratis Considerandis in his Majesties necessary and inevitable Expences more then ever was or can be easily or before-hand calculated And it may be hoped that it was neither intended by that no Phanatique preparer or framer of that undermining Act of our Monarchick Government or any Assenters or Advisers of it or his Majesty that gave the breath of life unto it and was as the Anima or Soul otherwise animating a liveless body did ever intend to abridge or deny himself the Sovereignty of our Brittish Seas or their tenures in Capite holden of none but himself and God the Antemurale or Walls thereof and with our Ships travelling in or out upon them as the Safety Strength Power Riches and Honour of the Nation or to be ranked or accompted as a tenure in Common Soccage free ab omnibus servitiis when it was never accompted to be any part or within the verge of the Court of Wards and Liveries The Seas belonging to our King of England's Sovereignty having been never under the Courts of Wards and Liveries or any of its Incidents or appurtenances or within its cognisance and this newly found out device or extraordinary way of Soccage or tenure by the Plow free ab omnibus servitiis was never nor can be fit for the Seas unless they that cunningly have been so fond of it can make it to be fit or proper or to any purpose or profit to adventure to Plow up the Seas with Plows drawn by Horses or Oxen and by that means of Plowing up the Seas make the Seas to yeild and deliver up all their Riches Plate Gold Silver and Jewells which misfortunes of Shipwrack have before 2000 Years if not more in the Epoche or age of our long continued Monarchy far exceeding the Gold of Ophir and the value of all the Lands of England if they were now to be sold the former admitting a greater Decay then the Latter Our Brittish Seas having always been in subordination to our Kings and Princes under the Separate Government of the Lord Admiralls Court of Admiralty Vice and Rere Admiralls Deptford-House and the Cares of the Cinque-Ports many other Sea-Ports Light-Houses and Maritime Laws c. Whereby our Kingdom hath been greatly enriched by its Trade and Marchandise carried further then the Roman Eagles ever Flew and as far as the four great quarters or parts of the Habitable World do extend or stretch themselves unto and the Sun ever shined upon And if it had not been upon the Design of blowing up or Disarming our Monarchy together with as much as they could of the Kings Regall Rights for the Defence of Himself they would not have attacqued the Militia or laboured to Destroy it when Glin Serjeant at Law a busy Enemy of our Monarchy and another Serjeant at Law whose name for his great parts and abilities I silence heartily wishing that he would before he Dye add repentance to his treasury and great stock of Learning in the employing of it Otherwise then it should have been in that so called long and Hypocriticall Wars Rebellions False Doctrines together with his Misdoings in the drawing and forming the Act of Oblivion and Generall Pardon the greatest and largest in extent and gift that ever any of our Kings and Princes gave unto the greatest and most in number of their Subjects wherein he acquitted these numberless Offenders that never pardoned any of his or his Blessed Fathers Loyal Party any or but small things but retained every thing which they had taken from them by Plundering Taxes Sequestrations Decimations and spoil of Woods and Timber which should have been an assistance to the building of their burnt or demolished Houses or Castles and the building of Ships the wooden walls of our Seas and the Carriers out and the bringing home of our Merchandise In the Preamble whereof It was declared that whereas severall Treasons Murders and Crimes had been committed and done by Colour of Commissions or Power granted unto them by his Majestie or his two Houses of Parliament as if any Treason could in Law be committed by any Commission or Order of the King or his Royall Father the Blessed Martyr and the Framers of that Act of generall Pardon could not but remember that many that Assisted his Late Majesty came upon his Proclamation and setting up his Standard at Nottingham Castle under the obligation of their Tenures in Capite and the Duty of their Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy and others for hire by great Sums of Money lent him by that Loyall and Prudent old Earl of Worcester Grandfather
would condescend to please the People which Some of them or those that would make use of them began to be too fond of and therefore could hardly bring himself to please them in that kind especially when he could perceive the Nobility Disliking and averse unto it Howsoever with some Confidence believing it to be beyond any fear or Imagination that any Danger to the English Monarchy and Government so Anciently rationally and well founded according to the Laws of God Nature and Nations Laws of the Land and reasonable Customes thereof could happen thereunto by the election of a part of the People Subordinate to the Nobility and Baronage as well Spirituall as Temporall adstricti legibus and obliged by their Tenures in Capite Homage and Fealty in the strongest manner that the Wisdom and Care of Mankind could devise as bonds never to be shaken off and a tye upon their Estates Bodies and Souls by their Oaths of Allegiance Tenures and Forfeiture of their Lands to be true and faithfull to their King and those which they held of or that they or any of their Posterities could be so ingratefull for benefits received from the Crown and his Progenitors from Generation to Generation as to be so unmindfull of their often repeated Homages and Oaths of Allegeance as when they were Summoned only to perform and obey what the King and his Lords Spirituall and Temporall in his greatest Councell should adjudge meet to be done for the Publique Good and to stand as Petitioners in the outward Courts should by Insinuations from some priviledges and the Power granted unto them and others for that purpose and only end of contributing necessary aids for their Kings for the defence of themselves and their Defenders by gradations and the over indulgence of their Kings and Princes and the advantages of catcht opportunities creep into the Arcana Imperii and snatching the thunderbolts and authority of the Sovereign out of his hands make themselves too busy with the supream power themselves that should be governed to be the unruly and unreasonable Governors of their King and Gods Vice-Gerent Who might have thought himself and his Successors to have been in some condition of Safety when the Summons to Parliament were to be only by his Writs and Authority and the Sheriffs who were not the Parliaments Officers but the Kings and by the Law Sworn unto him not unto both or either of the Houses in Parliament and strictly bound to observe and Execute his Writs and Mandates made himself content to allow some things of that way or course which had been before unduly and Illegally contrived and therefore did as it appeareth alter and change it into a more legall and just way with different methods enough as he thought to make them and after Ages understand that it was his only right to do it and that they were to be no more then consenters obedient and ready to do and perform what the Lords Spiritual and Temporal should in Parliament advise wherein he was to be the sole Director Ratifier and Ordainer and to be at his Disposing in the Summoning and Calling them together as to Time Place Continuance Proroguing Adjourning or Dissolving any such or the like Assemblies and that he in all things to be done therein was as their Sovereign to have his Granting Directive and Negative Voice and in the sending out of his Writs of Summons for any Great Councells or Parliaments to vary in the circumstances orders or limitations or additions as his occasions for the Weal publick should require with such other variations as might signify his care to prevent future Evils or impending Dangers and reserve to him and his successors the long ago just rights of the best tempered Monarchy in the Universe And for the better method and order to be used in his House of Lords and Peers whom he had Summoned and made use of in his great Councels and Parliaments untill that time without the Commons or any Procurators on their behalf in the making of divers Laws and Statutes of very great Concernment to them and the Weale Publick And to make the Councells and Assistance of the Wiser and better part of his People more Effectuall and in a better order then that which the rebellious part of his and his Fathers ill-affected Baronage had neither well provided for themselves or them did whilst he was content to admit into the fitting and necessary Secrets and intimacy of his great Councells a select part of them to be duly chosen by his Writts and commands as to Time Occasion and Place resolve to give after ages to understand that he did notwithstanding reserve to himself as his Royal Progenitors had Anciently done when they only Summoned the Prelates and Peers to their Great Councells his and their most undoubted rights and power of Summoning Proroguing Adjourning or Dissolving those Assemblies and the sole and only affirmative or negative voice in the making of Laws as being the only breath Life and being thereof Did at his being in Goscoigne in the Twenty Second year of his Reign send his Writs of Summons to Summon divers great Lords as well French as English being in number Sixty one amongst whom were Roger de Moubray William Trussel Symon Basset Theobald de Verdon c. habere colloquium tractatum with him in England ubicunque fuerit in a much Differing form then those of Henry the 3 his as aforesaid Imprisoned Father And Directed his Writ to the Sheriff of Northumberland in these Words viz. Rex c. Vice Comiti Northumbriae Salutem tibi praecipimus quod de Comitatu praedicto duos milites de qualibet Civitatem ejusdem Comitatus duos Cives de quolibet Burgo duo Burgenses de discretioribus ad laborandum potentioribus sine dilatione eligi eos ad nos ubicunque in Regno nostro fuerimus venire facias it a quod dicti milites plenam sufficientem potestatem pro se communitate Comitat praedicti duos Cives Burgenses pro se communitate civitatum Burgorum praedict divisum ab ipsis tunc ibidem habeant ad consulendum consentiendum pro se communitate illa his quae Comites Barones proceres de Regno nostro ordinabunt c. T. Rege octavo die Octobris alltogether Different from the Writs made out and enforced from his Father King Henry the 3. During his Imprisonment in Anno 49 of his Reign Consimilia brevia diriguntur singulis aliis Vicecomitibus Angliae And in the same Year and the next Day after sent another Writ to the same Sheriff in these words Cum nuper tibi praeceperimus quod duos milites de discretioribus ad laborandum tunc potentioribus ejusdem Comitatus de consensu ejusdem eligi eos ad nos usque Westmonasterium in crastino Sancti Martini proximo futuro cum plena potestate pro se tota Communitate
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