Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	henry_n	king_n	pope_n	16,586	5	6.9376	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44187	A letter of a gentleman to his friend, shewing that the bishops are not to be judges in Parliament in cases capital	Holles, Denzil Holles, Baron, 1599-1680.	1679 (1679)	Wing H2461; ESTC R204379	41,325	145

themselves separately from the other L ds which would make another Estate but they do not only not vote apart by themselves the whole body of them together but even that body is divided and separated within it self one part from another For the two Archbishops give their Votes after all the Nobility have given theirs and the rest of the Bishops between the Barons and the Viscounts so that the Barons excepted all the rest of the Peers Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts divide the Archbishops from the Bishops If then they be an Estate it is an Estate within an Estate like a Nest of Boxes one within another which how agreeable it is to reason let any man judge Besides would it be for the honour of the House of Lords that two Estates must be put together to keep the ballance even with the House of Commons who are but one Estate and that their two should signifie no more than that one And most clearly it would be a great disparagement to the Peerage of the Kingdom the Temporal Lords and would make them to be a poor Estate that another Estate must be joyned to them to make up their Negative voice and set them upon even ground with the House of Commons But this is further to be said were the Bishops one of the Three Estates a Parliament could not be held without them no Law no Act of Parliament could be made if the Major part of the Bench of Bishops did not agree to it but we know it to be otherwise in point of fact Parliaments have sate without a Bishop and Acts of Parliament have been made the Bishops dissenting and our Law-Books say it may be so in point of Law That it hath been so Bishop Iewel acknowledges it in his Defence of the Apology of the Church of England p. 522. he bids you read the Statutes of Ed. 1. and you will find that in a Parliament solemnly holden by him at St. Edmunds Bury the Archbishops and Bishops were quite shut forth and yet the Parliament held on and good and wholsom Laws were there enacted the Record saying Habito Rex cum suis Baronibus Parliamento Clero excluso c. The King holding a Parliament with his Barons and excluding the Clergy c. Crompton hath this likewise in his Book of Courts under the Title Parliament p. 19. b. So certainly that King did not believe his Clergy to be a Third Estate of his Parliament or he would never have left them out for it must necessarily have followed that his Parliament would have been lame and imperfect But doubtless he knew the Law to be as all the Judges of England said it was in Henry the Eighths time when the question was as the Title of the Book Case runs in Keilways Reports p. 180. b. Lou Supreme Iurisdiction perteigne al Roy ou al Pape To whom the Supreme Iurisdiction belongs to the King or the Pope For that hath still been in competition between the Crown and that Clergy I mean the Popish Clergy It is in Dr. Standishes Case 7 H. 8. p. 184. b. Les Iustices disoient que nostre Sr. le Roy poit assez bien tener son Parlement per luy ses Temporal Seigniors per ses Commons tout sans les Spirituals Seigniors car les Spiritual Seigniors nont ascunt place en le Parlement chamber per reason de lour Spiritualtie meis solement per reason de lour Temporal possessions The Iudges said That our Lord the King might well enough hold his Parliament by himself and the Lords Temporal and his Commons wholly without Lords Spiritual for the Lords Spiritual have no place in Parliament by reason of their Spiritualty but by reason of their Temporal possessions that is holding their Lands their Temporal possessions in nature of Baronies sicut Baroniam as it is in the Constitutions of Clarendon not that they were truly and really Barons enobled in bloud but by their Tenure of such Land dignified to sit in Parliament and do the King service there as the Temporal Lords by their Tenure were bound to do For this was the Policy of William the First he divided all the Lands that escheated to him by his conquest into so many Knights Fees and so many Knights Fees he erected into a Barony the Temporalties of Bishops likewise and so of many Abbots and Priors he erected into Baronies all to hold of him in Capite and upon account of those Baronies both the Temporal Lords and the Spiritual Lords not only Bishops but also those Abbots and Priors had of right place in Parliament and were bound to serve him there Now I would ask if they all holding by one Tenure and by that Tenure sitting in Parliament could possibly be imagined to be two different Estates Certainly they could not be then two different Estates for they were all Feodal Barons And what hath since hapned to make a difference The change hath been only this The Temporal Lords holding so by their Tenure grew so numerous that King Iohn put them into two ranks of Barones Majores and Barones Minores and only the Majores had Writs of Summons to come to Parliament Afterwards in Richard the Seconds time Barons were created by Patent and so had Place and vote in Parliament I ask now if it be probable nay if it be possible that this should alter the constitution of Parliament that that House which before consisted but of one of the Estates should now be divided into two Estates They are still qualified to be Members of Parliament as before a Baron sate as a Baron an Earl as an Earl Being made by Patent or by Writ or by holding such a proportion of Land alters not the case as to their sitting in Parliament for it is being of such a degree which makes them Peers of Parliament how they rose to that degree is not material And what should make the Lords Spiritual who have received no change in their being called to be Members of that House to be now an Estate by themselves which they were not before I profess I see not the least colour of reason to think there should be any change but as they were in the beginning so they are still no other than Fellow Members of that House with the Temporal Lords and together make up one House But this is also to be considered that if the Bishops were a Third Estate of Parliament not only the Parliament could not be held without them but nothing could pass in Parliament that at least the Major part of them should not assent to But so far from that not only what we find in the Journals of former times but daily experience tells us that Acts have passed not only when the Major part of that Bench was against them but many times when the whole Bench was strongly of another mind 20 R. 2. The Bishops upon occasion of the Statute of Provisors enter a Protestation against whatsoever