introduced amongst us that Distinction long after about the Raign of our King John of the Barones majores those that were Ministri Regis and held great Possessions only of the King for long before the Conquest they were called Thaines Barons or Lords who were Honorary and the Minores middle Thaines or Valvasores who were only feudal and held all or much of others or lesser parts of the King and by Canutus's Laws there appears to have been in those times Thani infimae conditionis In Germany saith Schwederus there are two sorts The First that do hold of the Empire immediately The Second mediately of others and that in the diversity of Opinions amongst the Learned whether the word Baron be derived from the Hebrew Greek Latine Spanish or French the Germans have been content with theit own word or original Baar which signifieth Frey or liber homo Barones are liberi Domini Frey Heeren Et Baro signifieth virum dignitate praecellentem So as that exquisitely Learned Du Fresne in his Gloss upon the words Barones Parliamenti saith In Anglia Scotia qui vulgò Lords of Parliament vocantur ij sunt ex Majoribus Baronibus qui à Rege undè pendent ad Parliamentum sive concilium publicum diplomatibus Regiis evocantur nam constat in Anglia ut in Francia non omnes qui à Rege praedia sua immediatè tenebant ad Parliamenta admissos nam nimius esset numerus eorum sed illos tantum qui proximi essent a Rege dignitate vassallorum numero caeteros anteirent prout etiam in ipsis Baronum feudis factitatum And defining a Barony saith it is Praedium à Rege nudé pendens vel maius praedium vel feudum Cassanaeus taketh it to be Quaedam dignitas habens quandam praeeminentiam inter solos simplices Nobiles Tiraquel by good Authority of rectified experimented Reason Laws and ancient Customs saith Leges sanciri debent a Principibus etiam Nobilium concilio quod plane ostendit Virgilius de Aceste Rege loquens Gaudet regno Treianus Acestes Indicitque forum Patribus dat Jura vocatis Id est Leges sancit Jura distribuit vocatis ad id Patribus id est Senatoribus L'Oyseau defining Seigneuries saith they are Publique ou prives and that les droits praerogatives des grandes Seigneuries a scavoir les Duchez Marquisats Comtez Principautez dont le premier est qu'elles ne relevent que du Roy encore que de leur nature elles deuvoient relever immediatement de la Couronne C'est pourquoi les Feudistes les appellent Feuda regalia ou Regales dignitates tit ' de Feud encore non tant pour ce qu'elles participent aux honeurs des souverainetez que de leur d'autant qu'elles sont vrays Fieffs du Roiaume ne pouvant relever d' autre Seigneurie Et tout ainsi que ces Capitaines s' aydoient de leurs vassaux en la guerre aussi faisoient ils en les Justices principalement aux causes d' importance qu' ils Iugoient par leur advis pour ceste raison ils les appelloient Pairs Cour C'est a dire Pairs au Compaignons de leur Cour de Justice Saith le Seigneurie privee n' induit point de puissance publique and concludeth and proveth it to be un Erreur d' penser qu' aux livres de Fieffes Valvasores Regni seu Majores valvasores fussent ceux qui tenoient leurs Fieffs a Capitaneis Regni nempe a ducibus Marchionitibus And were had in such a Veneration and Respect as when in the first Year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth an Act of Parliament was made that every Member of the House of Commons should before the Lord Steward of the King Queen or her Successors Houshold or his Deputy for the time being before they sit or be admitted by his Oath taken upon the Holy Evangelists testify and declare That the Queens Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other Her Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and renounce all Foreign Jurisdiction of any Foreign Prelate Prince or Potentate whatsoever And promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors or United and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm From the taking of which Oath the Lords Temporal and all of or above the degree of a Baron were by that Act of Parliament of 5. Eliz. exempted for that the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of her High Court of Parliament Although of that High and Honourable Assembly of the House of Peers all that hold Offices under our Kings as the Lords Chancellour Treasurer Steward great Chamberlain and Chamberlain of the Houshold Constable Earl Marshal Lord Privy-Seal Secretaries of State and all that receive Creation-Money of him as Earls Viscounts Marquesses and Dukes and all the Assistants as Judges Masters of Chancery and the Barons in that high Court of Judicature Subordinate to the King may find themselves comprized and obliged in and by that Act of Primo Eliz. ca. 1. as the Arch-Bishops and Bishops are For it may everlastingly with great assurance of Certainty and Truth be affirmed That our Parliaments or great Councells have in their Constitutions Formes Customes and Usages altogether or for the most part followed and imitated those of the Almans Saxons and Ancient Francks when Marculfus who lived in the Year after the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ Six Hundred and Sixty now something more than One Thousand Years when Clodouaeus the Son of Dagobert of the Merovignian and first Race of the Kings of France ruled as it will be Evident by the Writ of Summons thereunto Entituled Prologus de Regis Judicio cum de Magna re duo causantur simul in the form or words ensuing or the cause of Summoning or Calling the Parliament as our Kings have many Times done in their Writs of Summons to their Parliaments Viz. Cui Dominus regendi curam Committit cunctorum Jurgia diligenter examinatione cum rimari oportet ut juxta propositionum vel responsionum alloquia inter alterutrum salubris donetur sententia quo fiat ut nodos causarum vivacis mentis acumen coerceat ubi praelucet Justitia illuc gressum deliberationis imponat Ergo nos in Dei nomine ibi in Palatio nostro ad universorum Causas recto Judicio terminandas una cum Dominis Patribus nostris Episcopis vel cum plurimis Optimatibus Nostris patribus illis Referendariis illis
made out of the Chancery for a new Election if none had been before made by the Dean and Chapter of the Diocess or afterwards for the Kings allowance of an Election to be made by the Dean and Chapter and a restitution thereupon of the Temporalities And Fitz-Herbert a learned Judge hath informed us that if a Dean and Chapter should elect a Bishop without the Kings assent and after make a Certificate thereof to the King he may assent thereunto or refuse to do it if he please and if he do assent thereunto a speciall writ is to be made to some Person to take his Fealty and to restore unto him his Temporalities in the form aforesaid And our Kings have not only done it in the Election of Coroners and Verdurers but in matters of an higher nature viz. the Election of Members of the Commons in Parliament in the Case of Sr Thomas Camois Banneret which saith Mr Elsing did not as a Baron antiently use to serve as a Member in the house of Commons in Parliament as appeareth by the Kings writ directed to the Sheriff of Surrey for a new Election in the Stead of the said Sr Thomas Camois wherein the reason is expressed in these words Nos animadvertentes quod hujusmodi Banneretti ante haec tempora in milites Comitatus ratione alicujus Parliamenti minime consueverunt eligi And was afterwards as a Baron summoned into the House of Peers in Parliament and the Kings servants have likewise had exemtions as when James Barners was discharged quia de retinentia Regis familiaris unus militum Camerae Regis The servants of the Queen and Prince enjoying also the like Priviledges For the same year there appeareth to have been an exemtion and discharge of Thomas Morvill Quia est de retinentia Charissimae Dominae matris nostrae Johannae Principissae Walliae A Verdurer being Chosen in a forrest beyond Trent and the King upon a Suggestion made in Chancery that he had not Lands and Tenements Sufficient within the Limits of the Forrest nor was resident therein having Caused another de à ssensu Comitatus to be elected did upon better Information by the Justice of that Forrest that he had Lands and Tenements sufficient and was fit for the place supersede the later Writ and Commanded that he that was formerly elected should be permitted to execute the said Office In the first year of the Reign of King Edward the 1st the King being Informed that one Matteville having been elected Coroner of Essex de assensu Comitatus officium praedictum explere non potuit sent his Writ to the Sheriff of Essex to elect per assensum Comitatus one that should be able to execute that office with a Command to Certifie the name of the party to be so elected which a King that is sui Juris and not governed by those he should govern might surely better do then a private man who is never denyed the refusall of one elected that is not fit for the ends and purposes for which he was Chosen as if a Carpenter should by a mistake of a friend or servant be hired or employed to do the work or business of a Farrier or a Farrier of an Apothecary And it should be no otherwise when all the Laws of the World where right reason and morality have any Influence or any thing to do have ordained and allowed a retorn or attempt to be given of Writs Proces Mandates or Precepts well or evill executed unto those that had authority to grant them and how they had been observed and obeyed which was the only reason end and design of such retornes and attempts to be given thereof In the yearly nomination and appointment of Sheriffs of the Counties of England and Wales the Judges of the severall Circuits do elect six whom they think fit to be Sheriffs for every County which upon Consideration had by the Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the great seal of England Lord Treasurer diverse of the Lords of the Kings Privy-Counsell some Officers of his Household and the aforesaid Justices being reduced to three for every County their names are to be presented to the King who Chooseth One for every County who is afterwards Sworn and made Sheriffs by his Letters-Patents the former being discharged and not seldom upon better Information given to the King altered and another named by him the Mayor and Sheriffs of London and the Mayor of Oxford being elected according to their Charters are to be Yearly presented and Sworn before his Barons of the Exchecquer before they can Execute or Intermeddle in their Offices and a Sheriff hath some hundred years ago been amerced and in misericordia quia retornavit elegit alios quam milites in brevi de Assiza And with the same reason and rule of Justice it hath been done in the undue and Illegall Elections of some Members of the House of Commons in Parliament upon Complaint made by remedies provided in the 36th year of the Reign of King Edward the third as may be evidenced by the view and consideration of the Records ensuing in these words viz Rex Vicecomiti Lanc. salutem quia super Electione facta de militibus pro Communitate Com. praedict pro ultimo Parliamento nostro in Com. praedict venientibus maxima alteratio facta existit nos ea de Causa volentes super electione praedicta plemius certiorari tibi praecipimus quod habita in pleno Com. tuo super electione praedict Cum militibus allis probis hominibus de Communitate dict Com. de Liberatione Informatione diligentibus utrum viz. Edwardus Laurence Mathaeus de Risheton qui in brevi nostro de Parliamento praedicto tibi directo retornati fuerunt pro militibus dicti Com. electi fuerint an alii si per deliberationem Informationem hujusmodi inveneris ipsos de Communi assensu totius Com. pro militibus dicti Com. electos fuisse tunc habere facias eisdem Edwardo Matheo decem octo libras duodecem Solid pro expensis suis veniendi ad Parliamentum praedict ibidem morando ex inde ad propria redeundo viz. pro quadraginta septem diebus utroque praedictorum Edwardi Laurentii Capiente per diem quatuor solidos si alii pro militibus ejusdem Com. electi fuerint tunc nos de nominibus eorum sub sigillo tuo in Cancellaria nostra reddas certiores hoc breve nobis remittens Teste Rege Decimo Septimo die Novembris per ipsum Regem But it seems that took no effect for Mr Pryn in his Marginall note saith that they made no retorn as they ought to have done so early did the design of a factious popularity to provide for themselves begin to take root by the calling of an intended Elected part of the Common People of England into the great Councell thereof as the Tenor of the
all the returns of the Writs of Election for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses from the 21st Year of the Reign of King E. 1. during the residue of his Reign for before no Manucaptors or pledges for Knights or Burgesses elected to come to Parliament were given in for those Knights that were elected in Anno 49. H 3. for the County of York and from thence during the Reign of King E. 2. E. 3. R. 2. H. 4. and 5. and thence until after the 33. of King Henry 6. and had after their Elections actuall and formall Indentures or instruments of procuration mutually Signed and Sealed by the Sheriff and the Electors or Assentors and Elected which were with the Writs of Election returned and filed amongst the records of the King in his Chancery having their procurations or powers inserted in the perclose of the indenture made betwixt the Sheriff and the Electors some being named instead of many Dante 's Concedentes eisdem the parties Elected plenam sufficientem potestatem pro se communitate praedict ad faciend consentiend iis quae tunc ibidem de communi concilio regni Domini Regis favente Domino ordinari contigerint super negotiis in dicto brevi specificat and notwithstanding their election and one part of the Indenture with the procuration therein returned with the Writ to the King in his Chancery were not accompted members of the House of Commons in Parliament untill their admittance by the Kings Allowance and Authority as it was upon a great debate adjudged in the 35 Elizabeth in the House of Commons in Parliament in the Case of Fits-Herbert in which the two eminent Lawyers Anderson and Coke afterwards successively Lord Chief Justices of the Court of Common Pleas were as Members personally present and in a Parliament holden in the 18 Year of the Reign of King Edward 3. the King was angry that the Convocation of the Clergy appeared not and charged the Archbishop of Canterbury to punish them for their defaults and said he would do the like to the Parliament In the 5 year of the Reign of King Richard 2. Members Elected were by an Act of Parliament to appear upon Summons or be amerced or otherwise punished according as of old times hath been used to be done in the said case unless they may reasonably and honestly excuse them to the King and in 1st and 2d Philip and Mary 39 of the Members of the House of Commons saith Sr Edward Coke whereof Mr Edmond Plowdon the famous Lawyer was one who pleaded that he was continually present at that Parliament and traversed that he did not from thence depart in contempt of the King and Queen and of the said Court had an Information exhibited against them by the aforesaid King and Queen for not appearing in Parliament according as they were Summoned cannot be admitted in the House of Commons in Parliament before they shall have taken the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy before the Lord Steward of the King's Houshold or his Deputy under a forfeiture or penalty nor depart from the Parliament without License and when admitted are Petitioners for License to choose and present their Speaker to the King who in their behalf prayeth to be allowed access to his Majesty freedom of speech and from Arrest of themselves and their menial servants during the time of their attendance have Wages allowed them by the King to be paid by their Commonalties in eundo morando redeundo according to longer or shorter distances or abode their Speaker being by the King also allowed Five Pounds per diem besides other perquisites appertaining to his place are but Petitioners have receivers and tryers of their petitions assigned by the King or by the Lord Chancelour de per liu and days were seldom prefixt and limited for exhibiting of them which were many times rejected with a non est petitio Parliamenti endorsed for that it was more proper for inferior Courts and sometimes for their hast or Importance of the King's Affairs were ordered to be answered in Chancery are no Court of Judicature or Record were not accustomed to draw or frame Acts of Parliament which they assent unto but leave them to be formed by the Judges and the King 's learned Councel at Law and not seldom after Parliaments ended most of the former Acts of Parliament being drawn and framed upon petitions or specifying to be at the request of the Lords and Commons or of the Commons only or that the King Willed Commanded Prohibited Provided or Ordained can make no proxies and are but a grand enquest of the Kingdom are not Authorized to give or administer any Oath never did or are to do it but are to send such Witnesses as are to be sworn to take their Oaths in the House of Peers and the Members of the House of Commons or their Speaker Jointly or severally cannot administer an Oath unto any of their fellow Members or any of the Commons whom they would represent for that would be to administer it unto themselves which Juries and men Impanelled in Enquests are never permitted to do but are to receive their Oaths from a Superior Authority and none but the King or such as have been Commissionated by him are impowred to give Oaths which hath allways put a necessity upon the House of Commons when any Witnesses are to be examined before them to produce and send them first to be sworn and take their Oaths in the House of Lords and they cannot adjourn or prorogue without the King 's special order and command nor were ever Summoned by themselves legally to come to Parliament without the Lords Spiritual and Temporal but as to their Meeting and Continuance were to follow their King in his House of Lords as the Moon and the Stars those Common people of the Sky do the Sun could not punish heretofore an offence or delinquency against themselves or any of their Members without an Order first obtained from the King or his Lord Chancellor have sometimes Petitioned the Lords in Parliament to intercede with the King to remit his displeasure conceived against them in the times of Henry the 4 few Petitions were directed to the King and his Councel some were to the King alone and some to the Lords alone and some to the Commons only saith Mr. Elsing and if they were Petitions of Grace the Commons only wrote thereupon soit baile as Seigneurs per les a Roy or soit per le a Roy per les Seimurs the other were sent up to the Lords without any directions the Judges the Kings Learned Councel in the Law prepared all answers to the Petitions of the Commons all Petitions directed to the King were to be considered by the Judges and his Councel at Law and by them prepared for the Lords if need were by the Commons who sometimes Petitioned
the King that some of the Lords might be sent to confert with them at all their conferences with them do stand uncovered whilst the Lords dosit covered when any of their Members are by the King's grace and favour created Barons or Earls and called into the House of Peers are to receive others to be Elected in their places cannot of or by themselves redress undue Elections could not go home without licence of the King nor have their Wages levied and paid by their countrys without his Order and Writs And being with those requisites and precautions come unto the Parliament to do and consent unto such things as by the King and the Lords Spirituall and temporall should be in Parliament ordained did not Certainly sit in one Room Chamber or Place together But whither they did sit in one and the same house or Place or not will but little contribute to the extravagant fancies of our now State-Moulders SECT XXIII That the Members of the House of Commons being Elected and come to the Parliament as aforesaid did not by Virtue of those Writs of Election sit together with the King and the Lords Spirituall and Temporall in one and the same room or place and that if any such thing were as it never was or is likely to be proved it cannot conclude or inferr that they were or are cor-ordinate or had or have an equall power in their Suffrages and decisions WHich they may dream of from the beginning of the World unto the End thereof and never be able to Evidence and if it had been so will be such an ill Shaped argument that the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament are thereby to be believed to be co-ordinate with the King and House of Peers or superior unto either of them as any one that was but within a little of a madman would be ashamed to propound or put it to the decision of the over-circumspect inhabitants of Gotham For who but such disciples or proselites can find the way to imagine or believe that when King William Rufus dined at his Marble table where the Court of King's-hencb now sitteth in his large Westminster-Hall and his Nobility and many of his Court attendants sat at their meat at their many lower table in the same hall could perswade themselves or others to suppose an equality in degrees and Power or that the King because they did all sit but in one room or House was no more then co-ordinate with them For in the grand feasts of the Inns of Courts Houses Colleges or Societies for the study of our Law the Judges Benchers Barristers and utter Barristers are not so ill used as to be in danger of any the like argument because one Common hall or room contained them all and the honor of the King or his Privy Councel are not diminished because there are greater or lesser degrees amongst them sitting in one and the same Councell Chamber Howsoever if they will keep their words and promise to acquiesce in proofs that are negative to what they are so willing to affirm and should be sufficient to convince their insane conclusions they need not want them when Mr Pryn and many good Anthors will give us large and abundant evidences to manifest the errors of such their fond and reasonless assertions For in the very many Councels or Parliaments of our Kings reckoned by Mr Pryn from Anno Domini 673. unto the 1st Year of King John there were no Knights Citizens or Burgesses for the Commons as he positively and confidently affirmed either Summoned Elected to those many Councells or Parliaments or present at any of them and being not there at all there needs not to have been any question or controversy whether they Sate in one House or Room together And when King John in the 17th Year of his Reign at the Meeting and Rebellious Convention at Running-Mede of some of his unruly Baronage which some of the Liberty Coyners would imagine to be a Parliament where those Barons were in the head of a mighty Army of their own Party and the King had but a very few unarmed attendants with him Mathew Paris saith they did in that conference or treaty for a Peace seorsim considere and notwithstanding that Sr Edward Coke hath without any good Warrant averred that the Lords and Commons in Parliament Sate together and that the surest mark of the division of both Houses was when the House of Commons had at the first a continual Speaker which he mistakenly refers to Ro. Parl. 50. E. 3. m. 8. wherein a Loyal Learned Gentleman hathâ— against his will by misinformation been led into an Error that our three Estates the King excepted as they have been sometimes and but sometimes called in our Records State together and that our Records bear Witness that they according to the French custom have sate in one House or Room that is to say the Lords Spirituall and Temporall within the Barrand the Commons without for Mr Pryn in his Animadversions upon that and other of his Errors saith that the King's Writs to Summon the Prelates and Peers interesse nobiscum cum caeteris Praelatis Magnatibus Proceribus Regni sui did not intend the Commons Knights or Burgesses tractaturi vestrumque concilium impensuri neither did in all probability direct or intend that the Commons should joyn or sit with them as both the Writs and practice have ever since evidenced and that all that that Roll of 50. E. 3. doth import is but that the Commons came to the Lords House and had sometimes conference with them but that they sate or debated together is no way proved but contsadicted by many Parliament Rolls as Parl. 5. E. 3. Nu. 5. compared with Nu. 6. E. 3. Si aleront mesme les Praelats Procurators de Clergy par eux mesmes les ditz Counties Barons Grauntz par eux mesmes whose report being drawn up and then read before the King les Prelatz Chivalers de Counties les gentz des Commun furent pleysantz a eux touz par nostre Seigneur le Roy Prelatz Countes Barons autres Grauntz auxuit par les Chivalers des Countes Gentz des Commun furent pleinement assentuz accordez at a Parliament in the 6th Year of the said King he requiring the advice of his Parliament touching the French affairs and his voyage thither they treated and deliberated C'est assavoir les Prelatz par eux mesmes les ditz Countes Barones autres grauntz par eux mesmes auxuit les Chivalers des Countes par eux mesmes and then gave their advice so in the Parliament reassembled at York in the Utas of St Hillary in the same Year the Prelates Earls Barons and great men by themselves et les Chevalers des Countes Gentz des communs par eux mesmes treated of the business propounded unto them and in the Parliament holden at York
Burgesses resorting to continuing at and returning diversis vicibus the Parliament was thrice adjourned from one day to another before it sate by reason that sundry Sheriffs had not returned their Writs divers of the Lords and Commons were not come and there arose a great quarrell betwixt the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Northumberland who came attended with many Thousand armed men of his Tenants and followers to the Parliament which caused the King to adjourn it from Monday to Tuesday thence to Wednesday and from thence to Saturday untill all were come and the quarrell being pacified betwixt those great Lords from the 8th Nov. to 15 Decemb. by reason of the approach of the feast of Christmas and the Queens arrival from beyond the Seas for her intended marriage from thence to the 24th of January many of them in the mean time returning home thence untill Monday following and from that time untill the 23d of February Before the 1st Writ of Summons could be executed a 2d came to prorogue that Parliament In 7. R. 2. a Parliament being Summoned to meet at new Sarum on the 20th day of Aprill being Fryday it was twice adjourned untill the Wednesday and Thursday following because divers of the Lords were not come and many of the Sheriffs had not returned their Writs 21. R. 2. The Parliament was adjourned from Westminster to Shrewsbury began the Monday next after the Exaltation of the Holy Cross at Westminster and at Shrewsbury the 15th of St Hillary In 1st H. 4. The Writ for the Election of Commons had this clause Nolumus autem quod tu seu aliquis alius Vicecomes Regni nostri seu aliquis alius homo ad legem aliqualiter sit electus whence it was called the Lay-mans Parliament or indoctum Parliamentum By the Statute of 7 and 8. H. 4. a clause was added in the Writ Et electionem tuam in pleno Comitatu tuo factam distincte aperte sub sigillo tuo sigillis eorum qui electioni illi interfuerunt nobis in Cancellaria nostra not into the House of Commons or House of Peers ad diem locum in brevi contentum certisices indilate The Receivers and Tryers of petitions in Parliament which were nominated in the beginning of every Parliament were Prelates Nobles and Judges and sometimes the Lord Chancellour and Treasurer and if need required antiently the Clerks of the Chancery In two Parliaments of King Henry the 6th the Chancellours place was supplied by the Kings verbal Authority In 9. H. 6. The Chancellour to whom it appertained ratione officii sui to declare the cause of the Summons of Parliament being sick the Duke of Gloucester the Kings protector appointed Dr Linwood a Doctor of Civill and Canon Law to declare the cause of the Summons of that Parliament In the Title of the Act of Parliament 18. 23. 27. 31. 33. H. 6. E. 4. And 14. E. 4. It is mentioned to be by the advice and assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporal and the Commons and in 20. H. 6. By the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and at the request of the Commons as it had been in the 25 of H. 6. where Bristoll was exempted by a Charter of King Henry the 6th from sending any more then 2 Homines or Burgesses to Parliaments 7 or 8 Ports Summoned and in like manner admitted by the only Writ to Summon the Cinque Ports 1. H. 7. Acts of Parliament were mentioned to have been made by the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons 2. H. 7. By the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons In 3 4. H. 7. the like 11. H. 7. By the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons Anno 12 the like 19 the like In the r. 3. 4. H. 8. Acts of Parliament were said to have been made by the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and Commons and in 5. 6. 7. 14. 15. 23. H. 8. 1. H. 8. The Abbot of Crowland was licensed to be absent by the Lord Chancellour and Lord Treasurer signifying the Kings pleasure And howsoever that the Kings verbal license was sufficient yet they that had obtained that favour had for the most part a formal license under his hand and if not ready to be produced testimonialls thereof by some Lord or others that could witness it And so continued untill 28 or 31. H. 8. But afterwards neither licenses or testimonialls were required only it satisfied that the proxies or procurations mentioned the Kings license which no man could be presumed to do unless he had had it Anno 1. Henrici 8. Ex mandato Domini Regis Quia Domini Spirituales absentes in convocatione occupati sunt continuavit Parliamentum usque in diem Crastinum the Lord Chancellor being then a Bishop and absent also and although some one or two of the Temporall Lords then sate in the House of Peers it was but to receive Bills Which continued untill 7. H. 8. In which Year the Lord Chancellour did the day before continue the Parliament unto the day after In the same Year 30 November Dominus Cancellarius propterea quod Domini Spirituales in convocatione in crastino die occupandi continuavit praesens Parliamentum usque in diem lunae and many of the Parliament Rolls and Journalls of King Henry the 8th being not to be found And from the 17th H. 8. untill the 25th there does not appear to have been any Journalls although severall Parliaments sate in the 21. 22. 23. 24 Years of his Reign 20. H. 8. No mention was made of the advice or consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporall or Commons The like in 25 and 26. 27. 28. 31. H. 8. 25. H. 8. There is a memorandum in the Journalls of the House of Peers Decretum est quod Domini Spirituales in convocatione diebus Martis Veneris prox sequen ex tunc die Veneris donec secus melius videtur versari possent proceres sequentibus diebus sine impedimento quotidie circa dimiâ—ietat horae octavae ante meridiem in locis consuetis simul convenirent ad tractandum consulendum circa Republicae negotia And after in the same Parliament the Fryday was changed into the Wednesday in every week Eodem Anno In the Reign of H. 8. Wednesday being a Starr-Chamber day and Friday a convocation of the Bishops of the house of Peers was by the Chancellor adjourned to the Saturday following and in Queen Elizabeths days when the Starr-Chamber days were setled to be upon Wednesdays the Parliament did not sit upon those days in the Term time which was constantly observed says Mr Elsing all the time of King James untill the 18th Year of his Reign when upon Tuesday the 24th day of Aprill upon a motion made in the House of Peers that there was a great cause in the middle
signified to the Speaker of the House of Commons that in some things they had spent more time then needed but she perceived some men did it more for their satisfaction then the necessity of the thing deserved Misliked that such irreverence was shewed towards her Privy Councellors who were not to be accompted as Common Knights and Burgesses of the House that are Councellors but during the Parliament whereas the others are standing Councellors and for their Wisdom and great service are called to the Councell of State Had heard that some men in the case of great necessity and aid had seemed to regard their Country and made their necessities more then they were forgetting the urgent necessity of the time and dangers that were now eminent she would not have the people feared with reports charged them that the Trained Bands should be ready and well supplied thanked them for their subsidies and assured them that if the Coffers of her Treasure were not empty and the revenues of the Crown and other Princely ornaments could supply her wants and the charge of the Realm she would not in the words of a Prince have now charged them or accepted what they gave After which the Queen sitting in her Chair of State amongst other things speaking of the injustice of the King of Spains Wars and the Justice of her own said I heard say that when he attempted his last Invasion some upon the Sea coast forsook their Towns flew up higher into the Country and left all naked and exposed to his entrance but I swear unto you by God if I knew those persons or any that shall do so hereafter I will make them know and feel what it is to be so fearfull in so urgent a cause Declared unto them that the subsidy which they gave her was not so much but that it is needfull for a Prince to have so much allways lying in her Coffers for your defence in time of need and not to be driven to get it when we should use it Upon which the Clerk of the Parliament having read the Queens acceptance and thanks for the subsidies given did upon the reading of the pardon pronounce the thanks of the House in these words les Prelates Seigneurs Communes en ce Parlement assembles au nom de toutz vous autres Subjects remerc erent tres humblement vostre Majesty prient a Dieu que il vous donne en sante bonne vie longue The assent of the Sovereign is never given to a bill of subsidy because it is the guift of the Subject nor to an Act of generall pardon for that is the Kings free guift after which ended followed the dissolution of the Parliament in these words Dominus Custos magni sigilli ex mandato dominae Reginae tunc praesentis dissolvit praesens Parliamentum The names of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses are at the beginning of the Parliament delivered to the Clerk of the Crown who always attends in the House of Lords and entred into his book After the Lord Keepers speech ended her Majesty calling him unto her commanded him to give the Lower House Authority to choose their Speaker and present him the Thursday following unto which day he adjourned the Parliament At which day Sr Edward Coke Knight being chosen and admitted Speaker the Queen allowed his petitions for access unto her Majesty privileges and liberty of speech with a caution that they should not speak irreverently either of the Church or State and then the Lord Keeper by the Queens command adjourned the Parliament untill the Saturday following When the House of Commons being again assembled Mr Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley delivered a petition to the Lord Keeper therein desiring the Lords of the Upper House to be supplicants with them of the Lower unto her Majesty for the entailing of the Succession to the Crown whereof a bill was ready prepared With which her Majesty being highly displeased charged the Councell to call the parties before them whereupon Sr Thomas Heneage sent presently for them commanded them to forbear going to the Parliament and not to go out of their severall lodgings and the day after they were called before the Lord Treasurer Burleigh the Lord Buckhurst and Sr Thomas Heneage who informing them how highly her Majesty was offended told them they must needs commit them Mr Wentworth was sent prisoner to the Tower Sir Henry Bromley and one Mr Stevens to whom he had imparted it and Mr Welch the other Knight of the shire for Worcestershire to the Fleet. A bill being offered by Mr Morris Attorney of the Court of Wards against the usage of Ecclesiasticall discipline by the Prelates with an intent that the House might be suitors to her Majesty to allow it he was sent for to the Court and committed to the keeping of Sir John Fortescue a Parliament man And she sent for the Speaker and by him sent a message to the House of Commons which he did not omit to deliver in her very words that it was in her and her power to call Parliaments it was in her power to end and determine the same and it was in her power to assent or dissent to any thing done in Parliament And her Majesties pleasure being by the Lord Keeper delivered unto them that it was not meant that they should meddle with matters of State or causes Ecclesiasticall she wondred that any should be of so high a Commandment to attempt a thing contrary to that which she had so expressly forbidden and therefore with this she was highly displeased and charged the Speaker upon his Allegeance that if any such bill be exhibited not to receive it An Act was sent up by the Commons to the Lords who amended somewhat therein but what they amend cannot be altered by the Commons but the Lords will give their reasons for such their amendment The Commons complaining of a Breach of Privilege that the Lord Keeper did in the behalf of the Lords give answers unto their messages and did not come down unto hose that were sent to the Bar after a great debate and much advice and consultation it was resolved that the Lord Keeper or Lord Chancellour ought to sit in his place covered when he gave them answers and that if it had been lately otherwise done it was by error and mistake but ought not which then Lordships by Mr Attorney Generall and Serjeant Harris signifying to the Lower House desired them to send some of their House to receive their Lordships answer whereunto they seemed to assent and returned some of their Knights and Burgesses with those that beâ—ore demanded satisfaction to receive their answer which being declared unto them they by the mouth of Sr William Knolles one o◠〈◊〉 House of Commons protested that they had no Commission to receive an answer in that form after which upon a conference betwixt both Houses upon great debate and arguments it was resolved that the order and
custome of the House of Lords was that when any Bills or messages were sent to them the Lord Keeper and some of the Lords were to â—rise from their places and from thence to go unto the Barr and receive the said Bills or messages but contrarywise when any answer is to be delivered by the Lord Keeper in the name and behalf of the Lords the Commons sent were to stand at the Barr and the Lord Keeper is to receive the Bills or answer the messages with his head covered and all the Lords were to Keep their places with which the Lower House was satisfied and the same order hath been ever since observed accordingly Anno 39. Eliz. There being in former times a custom in the house of Commons to have a bill read before the house did arise the same could not now be done at that time because her Majesty and the upper House had adjourned the Parliament untill Saturday Sennight at Eight of the Clock in the Morning which being signified by their Speaker he said all the Members of the House might depart and so they did Eodem Anno. At the ending of the Parliament after they had given the Queen subsidies and prayed her assent to such laws as had passed both Houses she gave the Royall assent to 24 publick Acts and 19 private but refused 48 Bills which had passed both the Houses Anno 43. Eliz. John Crook Esq. Recorder of London being chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament disabling himself desired the Queen to command the House of Commons to choose another but his excuse received no allowance The Lord Chief Justice of the Queens bench and Common pleas together with the Lord Chief Baron and Attorney Generall were ordered to attend a Committee of Lords and Bishops Sr John Popham Lord Chief Justice Francis Gaudy one of the Justices of the Kings bench George Kingsmill one of the Common pleas Dr Carew and Dr Stanhop were constituted Receivers of petitions for Gascoigne and other lands beyond the Seas Sr Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas Sr William Peryam Lord Chief Baron Thomas Walmisley one of the Justices of the Common pleas Dr Swale and Dr Hone. Tryers of petitions of England the Archbishop of Canterbury Marquis of Winchester Earls of Sussex Lord Marshall Lord Admirall and Steward of the Queens Houshold Earls of Nottingham and Hertford Bishops of London Durham and Winchester Lords Zouch and Cobham calling unto them the Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and the Queens Serjeants at Law Great fault was found by many of the House of the factouring and bribing of too many of the Justices of the Peace and it was by one of the members alleadged that the five bills â—arely passed against Swearing Drunkenness and for the making of good Ale would be as much worth to those kind of Justices of the Peace as a Subsidy and two Fifteens Mr Conisby Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers complained that forasmuch upon the breach of any Priviledge of that House he only was to be employed and not the Serjeant at Arms the House ordered a Committee to consider of Presidents and settle it a motion was made by the Lord Keeper and approved of by the Lords that the Ancient course of the House might be kept by certifying the Excuses for the absence of any of the Peers by the Peers and not by others The House being offended with Sr Walter Rawleigh for some words and crying to the Barr Mr Brown a Lawyer stood up and said Mr Speaker par in parem non habet Imperium we are as members of one body and we cannot Judge one another whereupon it being put to the question it was resolved in the negative that he should not stand at the Barr. The Speaker of the House of Commons at the ending of the Parliament of 44. Eliz. humbly desired of the Queen that certain Acts may be made Laws by her Royall assent which giveth life unto them Unto which the Lord Keeper answered that as touching her Majesties pioceeding in the making of Laws and giving her Royall assent that should be as God directed her Sacred Spirit and delivered her Majesties commandement that as to the Commons proceedings in the matter of her Prerogative she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully observe and that she understood they did but obiter touch her Prerogative and no otherwise but by humble petition but she well perceived that private respects are privately masked under publique pretences Admonished the Justices of the Peace some whereof might probably be of the House of Commons that they should not deserve the Epithetes of prowling Justices Justices of Quarrells who counted Champerty good Conscience Sinning Justices who did suck and consume the good of this Commonwealth and likewise all those who did lye if not all the Year yet at the least Three Quarters of the Year in the City of London Anno 43. Eliz. One Mr Leigh of the House of Commons complained that whilst the Speaker of the House of Commons was presented to the Queen he was denyed entrance into the House of Peers which the Lords excused by saying it was the ignorance of some of the Grooms or attendance in the choosing of a Speaker Mr Knolls the Comptroller alleaged that it was not for the State of the Queen to permit a confused multitude to speak unto her when it might often happen that one or some might move or speak that which another or some or many would contradict or not allow The Queen being sate in her State in the House of Lords the House of Commons were sent for to present their Speaker who in a modest pretence of disability prayed her Majesty to command the House of Commons to choose one more able but had it not allowed And she in her grant of freedom of speech gave a caution not to do it in vain matters verbosities contentions or contradictions nor to make addresses unto her but only in matters of consequence and prohibited their retaining or priviledging desperate debtors upon pain of her displeasure and desired a Law might be made to that purpose Which done the Lord Keeper said for great and weighty causes her Highness's pleasure was that the Parliament should be adjourned untill the Fryday following At which time the House of Commons did appoint a Minister every morning before the House sate to officiate and use a set form of prayer specially ordained to desire Gods blessing upon their Councells and preserve the Queen their Sovereign The Ancient usage of not coming into the House of Commons with spurs was moved by the Speaker to be observed others moved that they might not come with Boots and Rapiers but nothing was done therein Sr Robert Wroth a Member of the House of Commons did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Sr Andrew Noel Sheriff of Rutlandshire having returned himself to be a Knight of the shire for that
the Commonalty of great Yarmouth the which Bills with the Indorsements thereupon made by the Lords were also on the Filace Divers Bills are there mentioned to be delivered and some mentioned to have been answered as happily all were saith that diligent Observator by the Lords of his Majesties Councel after the Parliament ended And therefore no marvel if all the Answers were not read on the last day of the Parliament when some of them were not made until after the Parliament ended and there is a Petition directed to the thrice redoubted Lord the King in these words following viz. Supplie vos Leiges the Praelates Dukes Earls Barons Commons Citizens Burgesses and Merchants of the Realm of England For Magna Charta to be confirmed unto them and for a general pardon setting down the Articles thereof whereof many were granted and many qualified as the King and his Councel pleased to answer the same And it was not the use and practise of those times to keep back any Answer that was justly displeasing to the King and his Councel much less any other For in Anno 11. H. 4. The Commons petition that none of the Kings Officers may receive any gift c. To which the King answered le Roy le veult In the same year a Petition of the Commons concerning Attorneys was granted by the King and both the Petitions and Answers were ingrossed in the Parliament Roll together with the rest which shews plainly that they were Read on the last day of the Parliament for the Royal Assent Yet notwithstanding the Kings Councel so misliked them that when the Clerk attended with the Roll of that Parliament for the drawing up of that Statute as the manner was those two Petitions and Answers were not thought good to be inserted in the Statute and therefore they did write in the Margent of the said Roll against the same these words Respectuatur per Dominum Principem Concilium which is written with another hand si non antea le Roy le veult answered to a Petition of the Commons without a Statute made there is only an Ordinance The Commons complain of Commissions granted to enquire of divers Articles in Eyre generally which have not been heretofore granted without Assent of Parliament and of the proceedings of the Justices therein contrary to the Law in assessing Fines without regard to the Quality of the Trespass To which was answered The King is pleased that the Commissions be examined in his presence In the 21th year of the Reign of King E. 3. the Commons pray that their Petitions for the Common profit and for amendment to have of mischiefs may be answered and indorsed in Parliament before the Commons so as they may know the Indorsement and thereby have Remedy according to the Ordinance of Parliament In the 37th year of the Raign of King E. 3. the Chancellor demanded of the Commons the last day of the Parliament after the Answers given to the Petitioners were Read if they would have the things so accorded mys par void ' Ordinance ou de Statute qui disoient qui bone est le matere les choses par voydes Ordinances nemy per Statut issint est fait And yet those were no otherwise drawn up into an Ordinance than only by entring the Petitions and Answers in a Parliement Roll. In the 9th year of his Raign the Articles of the Clergy being answered they procured the same Articles and Answers to be exemplified in such sort as they were entred in the Roll of Parliament which is lost without penning the same in any other form and were afterwards published under the great Seal of England with an Observari volumus In the Raign of the same King it was accorded that no Grand of the Land or other of what Estate or degree soever do make prizes or carriages for the houses of the King Queen or their Children and that by Warrant shall make payment thereof and it was ordained by Statute that that Accord be cryed and published in Westminster Hall And our Lord the King and his Councel willeth the same accord be cryed where it behoveth So as where they prayed the publishing thereof at Westminster Hall only the King and his Councel added the publishing thereof in London and elsewhere And the close Rolls of that year do declare that it was published in all the shires of England When an Ordinance had its first motion and being in the House of Lords in Parliament and agreed on and was drawn in the form of an Act of Parliament it was afterwards to receive the Assent of the Commons in Parliament In divers Parliaments when the Commons Petitioned for a Novel Ley which the Lords were willing enough to yield unto and the King to grant yet for that the King intended not to make any Statute that Parliament those Petitions have been deferred to another time and divers others which did not demand a new Law were granted and reputed for good Ordinances or Acts of Parliament As when in 21 E. 3. The Commons prayed that in Writs of Debt or Trespass if the Plaintiff recover damages against the Defendant that he have Execution of the Lands which the Defendant had the day in which the Writ was purchased Unto which the King answered This cannot be done without a Statute whereupon the King will advise with his good Councel and further do that which shall seem best for his people In the same year the Commons do shew that whereas before these times it hath been used that if Lands had been given to a man and his Wife and the Heirs of their Bodies issuing and the one dies no Issue having been had betwixt them the other may commit Wast without being impeached thereof that it may please our Lord the King to ordain thereof Remedy and that in such case a Writ of Wast be ordained To which the King answered Demurge entre les autres Articles dont novel ley est demandez Eodem Anno Shew the Commons that whereas a Writ of Possession doth not lye of Tenements deviseable though they be not devised to the great damage of all the Commons that it would please our Lord the King and his good Councel to ordain by Statute that Writs of Possession my lye and hold place as well of Tenements deviseable in case where they are not devised as of others and that there be saved to the Tenants their Answers in case that they be devised Whereunto the King answered Let it remain amongst the other Articles whereof a New Law is demanded In the 22d year of the Raign of the same King they do pray that for that many are disinherited by non Claim although they have good Right and namely those who are not learned in the Law that non Claim be gone and utterly taken away To which the King answered This would be to make a New Law which thing cannot
or his Servant he shall upon declaration have a Warrant signed by the Speaker to obtain a Writ of Priviledge after which as on the same day follows a special Entry of a Vote of the House of Commons in these words For that William Ward Burgess of Lancaster had obtained a Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery without a Warrant from the House it is committed to Mr. Mason Mr. Hare and Serjeant Morgan to examine and certify whence it is apparent saith Mr. Pryn their old friend that the House of Commons in that age did not use to enlarge their Arrested and Imprisoned Members by their Serjeant at Mace and own Orders but only by special Writs of Priviledge issued out of the Chancery under the great Seal of England according to the practice and usage of former ages that the House was first to be informed of the Arrests and thereupon to order their Speaker not to grant a Warrant directed to the Lord Chancellor not as their Subordinate or Coordinate Soveraigns to Issue a Writ of Priviledge to them if he saw cause and in case of Servants of a Member of an House of Commons in Parliament Arrested or Imprisoned the Master was upon his corporal Oath to prove that he was his real moenial Servant who came along with and attended on him before he could be released by a Supersedeas and Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery being the Court of the King not of the House of Commons in Parliament one Member of the House of Commons in Parliament assaulting another is a breach of Priviledge and of the Peace for which he may be imprisoned until he find Sureties of the Peace and in the case of George Ferrers a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament reported by Mr. Crompton the House it self appealed to King Henry the 8th for his deliverance And although they do represent some part of the Commonalty yet it is within limits and boundaries so little to be transgressed as our Laws constant Customs and Usage of Parliament have una voce constantly affirmed that there can be no allowance of Priviledge of Parliament in cases of Treason Felony or Trespass And being so subordinate and tyed up as to themselves by our Laws antient Customs and Usages and their own Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy ought not surely to think that the power of representing for some can be by a limited Commission or Procuratorship enlarged to all that an Authority to represent in the doing of one single Act or consenting thereunto can give them a liberty to do what they please in every other matter and even in contraries against duties enjoyned by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and that when antiently and of long continuance now altogether disused they were to give Sureties or Pledges to their Counties or places to perform their trusts it was not to imprison sequester starve or ruine or make Rebels Traitors those that gave them their Letters of Attorney Substitutions or Procurations and cannot but understand that an Attorney or Transgressor wilfully damnifying those that commissionated them are by common Law Reason and Equity damna resarciri and make amends that jure gentium Leagues even made by Embassadours in the behalf of their Princes that sent them contrary to their Mandates or Instructions have not seldom been avoided or altered and that it was adjudged in the case of Mendoza the Spanish Embassadour plotting Treason here against Queen Elizabeth that he was not to be allowed the priviledge of an Embassador for that Illiciti non est mandatum For did they represent those that within their bounds they did truly and properly represent they could not Arrogate a power without the King to unelect or remove those that came thither elected by their own Counties Cities and Burroughs not by any power or Authority of their own but by virtue of their Kings Writs nor order the Clerk of the Crown the Kings Officer and none of theirs to raze their names out of the Record a matter which our Laws and Parliaments themselves have ordained to be without exception highly Criminal and it may be an everlasting problem how the Members chosen by one County or City should be put out by another that were strangers or Forreign unto their Election and were not commissionated to expel or justle out one another for so might Cornwal Wiltshire and the County of Sussex who do claim a multiplicity of Members in the House of Commons in Parliament be praedominant and out-do all the rest in benefiting themselves or hindring whom they list or by what Authority they do now of late for before or in the Raigns of King Henry the 8th Edward 6. Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth King James King Charles the Martyr and all their Royal Progenitors and Predecessors ever since this Kingdom was and hath been and should be a Monarchy of above One Thousand years it hath been never heard of that strangers whom they would be thought to represent and sometimes their own Members or those they do not represent must when they receive their sentence or censure as it is stiled from them who have no judicative power but were only Elected ad faciendum consentiendum unto those things which should be ordained by the King by or upon the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament constrain to receive their sentence of expulsion if they be Members or punishment if otherwise upon their knees unless they will claim to be a Soveraignty which their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy all our Laws Records and Journals of Parliament and our Annals and Histories and the Usage and Customs of Neighbour Nations Kingdoms and Republiques have hitherto contradicted or if it shall be said that it is in regard that the King is supposed to be virtually there and always believed to be present our Laws Records Annals and Reason and Truth will make hast to confute them that it would be absurdissimum ab omni ratione remotum nullo Exemplo in Anglia usitatum for that the King is we hope no Commoner or Member of the House of Commons in Parliament who come thither as his Subjects and sworn to obey him and his Successors under their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy was not Elected at all or to be there for his Place and his Throne and Chair of State is in his House of Peers in Parliament to whom he sends which he usually doth in the time of Parliament to come to receive his Commands and Directions and cannot surely at one and the same time be supposed to be in two places or to send for himself to come out of the House of Commons to himself into the House of Peers to hear what himself would say unto himself for when in other cases it hath been said that the King is by our Laws intended to be vertually or personally present in his Courts of Justice it it is not personaliter but
authoritative where Sentences or Judgments are not received upon the knees neither in the Ecclesiastical Courts where the Bishops in the name of God and as the Church do only give their sentences and make their decrees without the Majesty or Ceremony of kneeling unto them to be performed by those that are concerned to obey the Condemnation it may be a Quaere harder to unriddle than many of those of Sphinx how it can consist with the reason of such a repraesentation that they whom they would seem to represent should be Petitioners unto themselves and that if any of the County or place represented shall commit any offence against any single Member of the House of Commons representing for another County or place as for breach of priviledge or for words c. The persons of the other Province or place must be punished and come upon their knees and not they that represented them a Warrant sent by their Speaker for the Kings Writ to the County City or place to Elect another in that House and might have done much better to have hindred it Or if any Freeholder Gentleman or Clown that Elected them were not before accustomed to be kneeled unto as by an adoration how these enlightened over-lofty Members can compel men to adore and kneel unto them under a colour of Representation when those that they would have believe that their new-found Representation with an adoration designed to be entailed upon them would have been ashamed to have it to be done unto them and durst never claim or own it in their own Counties or places that Elected them and might be abundantly satisfied that neither the Kings Writs or their Election Indentures Letters of Attorney Procurations or any Praescription or supposed Priviledge of Parliament could entitle them unto such a kind of Majesty or how they that are no Judicature or Court of Record and have no power to give or administer an Oath to Witnesses can escape the blame or censure of Magna Charta and all the Laws Right Reason and Rules of Justice and Equity to be Parties and Judges in their own Cases or enforce their fellow Subjects and not seldom of better Births and Extractions to receive upon their knees with adorations their unjust dooms and sentences when better tryed Criminals in the Court of Kings Bench where the King as a Judge is supposed to sit himself do not likewise in his other Courts receive their Judgements upon their knees but only when they receive the Kings pardon in rendring their thanks unto him But should rather remember that the Angel in the Apocalipse would not suffer St. John to kneel unto him and that the often sawcy Plebs or Vulgus of Rome could be content with the Exorbitant power of their Tribuni Plebes in their Intercessions for Laws without any the adoration of kneeling nor are there to be found any Records or Presidents in England or any scrap of Law or Reason that any of our Kings in their licensing any of the Speakers of the House of Commons should give them any Power or Priviledge to Eject any of their fellow Members and make them on their knees receive uncivil and ungentleman-like words such as Mr. Williams a late Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament was pleased to say unto Sir Robert Peyton Knight being commanded and enforced to receive his Lawless Ejectment upon his knees in these words Go thou worst of men the House hath spewed the out or after such an Insolence to require the Kings Clerk of the Crown to make out a Warrant in the Kings name to Elect another Member in his place And our England nor any other civilized part of the World have yet found such a Parcel of Representatives or Deputies that can think themselves so to be entituled as the Author of the Character of a Popish Successor in this Kingdom of England hath been pleased to grant unto them to that which they would willingly stile their own Royal Inheritance and Sacred Succession of Power when they are not as Embassadors Repraesenting Princes sent unto or Treating with Princes but as Procurators or Attorneys employed by those that are nor ever were more than Subjects their ne plus ultra Or by what Art or refined Chymistry was such a Majesty entailed or infused into them when Kelsy a Body or Bodice-maker and Barebone a Fanatick Letherseller were Members or what or whose Charters or Letters Patents have they to entitle them thereunto when Sir Edward Coke a learned Lawyer gives them no greater Title than that of a grand Enquest and Mr. William Pryn that adventured Body and Soul for them and with great mistakings joyning them in a Supremacy conjoynt with the House of Peers in Parliament abundantly found fault with them in taking too much upon them in other matters when those designs of Majesty were not arrived or let down from Heaven as the figment of the Anciliae at Rome was believed to be or how could the Commons in Parliament charge as they did so unjustly and wickedly King Charles the first for coming unarmed without any Guard to seize Pym Hambden Haselrig and the rest of the five Members and Kimbolton then and long after guilty of High Treason if he were then in the House of Commons in his Politick or personal Capacity a distinction which the Master of Hypocrisy and Lyes had taught them when in several of his Battels in the defence of himself and his Loyal Subjects Weemes a prefidious Scot and others Levelled their Cannons at him with Perspective Glasses to be sure to hit him a Method which David had not learned when he found Saul sleeping and was afraid to touch or kill the Lords Anointed and never left persecuting him until they had cut off his Head and murdered him in both his Capacities which did not serve for a Plea in the case of Cook Hugh Peters and other his justly condemned Murderers who had not then the Impudence to plead or rely upon such a parcel of devilism when they might know that the Politick and personal capacity of a King or any subordinate Magistrate were so conjoint and inseparable as in articulo mortis that part of Kingship or Magistracy could not be severed from the natural unless it were in such an apparent and publick manner as in the self-deposing and Renunciation of our King Richard the 2d of Charles the 5th Emperor of Germany retiring into a Monastery or as some of the ancient Kings and Princes of France were when they were cheated of their Kingly Power and forced to be shaven as Monks and put into a Monastery And that notwithstanding the House of Commons new-fashioned way of their own framing since the Raign of Queen Elizabeth of making their own Committee to find out and determine such Priviledges as they would claim and have they might have discovered that in the Court of Kings Bench in the case of Richard Chedder a Servant to a Member of the
acquiruntur In concessione Privilegiorum observari debet ne contra Jus divinum possumus morale ejusque abolitionem quicquam indulgeat vel largiatur which would so have been if the parties supposed to have been Priviledged should extend them against their King and Gods Vicegerent And it neither was or could be by any Rule of Law or Right Reason any Priviledge granted unto any Members of the House of Commons in Parliament by any of our Kings to their Speaker or otherwise that any of our Kings and Princes should not upon any occasion of High Treason Felony or breach of the Peace personally enter into the House of Commons and cause to be Arrested any of the Members thereof when Queen Elizabeth caused Dr. Parry one of their Members to be Arrested sitting the Parliament for High Treason and tryed condemned and executed for it by Sentence of her Justices in the Court of Kings Bench at Westminster §. 29. Neither could they claim or ever were invested by any Charter or grant of any of our Kings or Princes or otherwise of any such Priviledge or Liberty nor was or is in England any Law or Usage or Custom that a Parliament sitting cannot be prorogued or dissolved as long as any Petition therein exhibiteth remained unanswered or not determined IT being never likely to have been so in a well-constituted government of a Kingdom built constituted upon sound solid principles of Truth Right Reason as ours of England is to have either often or always Ardua to be considered of or of those Arduorum quaedam most especially concerning the defence of the Kingdom and Church of Eng. which were not only to make an Act for the killing of Crows of Paving of Streets or that ex se or per se naturally or properly it could be or ever was in any Regal government in the Earth any Law or Custom to perpetuate or everlastingly to hold a Parliament a thing altogether unknown and unpractised by our English Monarchs who thought it enough at three great Festivals in every year to be attended with their Praelates Nobility and Grandees viz. at Christmas Easter and Pentecost and inquire into the State of affairs of the Kingdom which many times did occasion as much of Advice and Conference amounted as to a Parliament some addresses upon home emergencies being then made for Remedies of evils happened or as fires been to be prevented private petitions seldom interposing if in the inferiour Courts of Justice they might otherwise have Redress for that had been expresly forbidden by a Law of King Canutus and those Sumptuous Feasts and Solemnities being of no longer duration than the Festivals themselves And in so many inferior Courts that gave Remedies the people had no need to trouble themselves or their Kings in Parliament with Petitions especially when in the 9th year of the Raign of King H. 3. A peculiar Court was granted by our Magna Charta and Erected to give Remedies to all the peoples Actions Complaints not Criminal with a lesser charge and attendance in an ordinary and more expedite course and when they came with Petitions proper as they thought for Parliaments they were to be tryed by Bishops and Barons thereunto by the King appointed who by the advice of the Chancellor Treasurer Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law were if they thought fit to receive them or otherwise to reject them with a non est Petitio Parliamenti and they that were received were many times referred by the King to his Privy Councel and sometimes with an Adeat Cancellariam and at other times with a farther Examination to the Justices of the Courts from whence the complaints did arise or with a respectuatur per dominum principem or referred to the Judges as against the multitude of Attorneys as in the Raign of King Henry 4. And Petitions were not seldom answered with there is a Law already or the King will not depart from his Right And when the Acts of Parliament were made in the 4th and 36th years of the Raign of King Edward 3. wherein he granted that Parliaments should be holden once in every year if need be the Petitions of the people could not avoid the like Limitations or Tryals of them as the Laws required Certain Petitions having been exhibited by the Clergy to the King it was agreed by the King Earls Barons Justices and other wise men of the Realm that the Petitions aforesaid be put in sufficient form of Law A time was appointed to all that would exhibit any Petitions The first part of a Petition the King granted and to the rest he will be advised The Commons did pray that the best of every Countrey may be Justices of Peace and that they may determine all Felonies to which was answered for the 2d the King will appoint Learned Justices they pray that the 40 s. Subsidy may cease Unto which was Answered the King must first be moved They pray that the King may take the Profits of all other Strangers Livings as Cardinals and others during their Lives Unto which was answered the King taketh the profits and the Councel the Kings privy Councel hath sent their Petitions to the King who was then busied in his Wars in France The Commons did pray that all Petitions which be for the Common profit may be delivered in Parliament before the Commons so as they may know the Indorsement and have Remedy according to the ordinance of Parliament unto which was given no Answer The Commons having long continued together to their great Costs and mischief desire Answer to their Bill which in the Parliament Language signified no more than a Petition leur deliverance The Commons petitioned against the falshood of such as were appointed Collectors for 2000 Sacks of Wooll To which was answered This was answered in the last Parliament and therefore Commandment was given to execute the same And the like Answer given ut prius to their Petition touching Robbers and Felons They pray that all Petitions in this present Parliament may be presently answered To which 〈◊〉 answered by the King after Easter they shall be answered The Parliament in Anno 6. E. 3. began upon Monday but forasmuch as many of the Peers and Memb 〈…〉 were not come the assembly required the continuance of the Parliament until the 5th of Hillary next following which was granted The Commons praying the King to grant a pardon for the debts of King John and King Henry the third for which process came dayly out of the Exchequer The King answered he will provide Answer the next Parliament No Parliament being after summoned until Anno 13. of his Raign when the Lords granting to the King the 10th Sheaf of all the Corn of their demesns except of their bound Tenants the 10th fleece of Wooll and the 10th Lamb of their own store to be paid in two years and would that the
the Romans those Cordatissimi Mortales as the learned Pettus Cunaeus hath stiled them and most watchful of their Priviledges the wary long lasting Republick of Venice or the later Confederates of the United Provinces ever trouble themselves or any other with such reasonless incredible Whimsies it being impossible that Subject and Soveraignty should constare vel consistere in uno eodenque Subjecto neither when Jeroboam drew away the Ten Tribes of Israel from the Obedience of Rehoboam and made as the Holy Scripture saith all Israel to sin was there any such opinion amongst their Cabalistical Doctrines The Republicks of Venice Holland could not be capable of Leagues and Treaties with Monarch and Forreign Princes as unto War and commerce nor the little Common-wealths of Genoa and Geneva or those many Imperial free Cities or Towns in or near Germany or the Electors of the Empire or the Hanse Towns should they give entertainment unto such Fancies and Fopperies as a Soveraignty in the people neither would the Cantons of of Helvetia or Switzerland think themselves well used to be obliged to such a Parcel of unpracticable folly And if those Egregious Cavillators can find no way of retreat for those their notorious follies but to fly for Succour unto praescription that will if they could as they will never be able to prove it yeild them as little comfort for a Rebellious electing of some few Members into the House of Commons first formed as unto a small number of them during the Imprisonment of King Henry the third by Montforts Army of Rebels that would not mount unto a Prescription quia mala fide and if it could have come up to any thing like a Prescription there would be no reason or need for an Election of Members to be in the House of Commons in Parliament by the Sheriffs by the Mandate or Warrant of the Kings Writs or how could a party drawn out of such a pretended inhaerent Soveraignty in the people rationally subsist when those their untruly supposed Rights or Priviledges cannot upon the most exact enquiry be found or discerned amongst all the Records Charters and Patents of our Kings and Princes or those of any of our Neighbour Nations of Christendom or of any other Nation White Black or Tawncy but do plainly contradict it and declare the quite contrary and will manifest it to be the greatest Cheat and Villany that ever was put upon the Sons and Daughters of mankind either as unto a pretended inhaerent Soveraignty or a third Estate or the figment of a Modus tenendi Parliamentum Or how could any of our Kings Rightly and Justly stile them a third Estate when they could not choose a Speaker without their License nor leavy their Wages without his Writs directed to the Sheriffs for that purpose nor punish any that had arrested any of them or their maenial Servants whilst they attended the King in their Service for him and their own good and at all conferences either in their own House or in the House of Peers were to stand uncovered when the Lords sate covered could not grant Tax or Aid without the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and in King Edward 1. His Raign and some of our after Kings have refused to intermeddle or give advice in matters of Peace and War but desired that the Councel of the Lords as the most able might be taken therein In the 34 and 35. H. 8. the Knights and Burgesses of Chester had no title of Estates but the same King in the Act of Parliament declaring in what Order and Manner the Lords should sit in the House of Peers in Parliament made no appointment for or concerning any of the House of Commons as if they had been no Essential part of Parliament that in the great case of Mr. George Ferrars a Member of the House of Commons as wel as a Servant of that Kings upon a complaint that he had been imprisoned and the Kings Serjeant at Arms attending their Speaker was beaten and abused the House of Commons in Parliament complained to the House of Lords who remitted it to them again and no remedy or punishment could be had until it came to the King himself who without any mention or Title given unto them of a third Estateship was pleased to grant it And in Queen Maries Raign 39. of their Members were Indicted by her for not attending the Parliament yet none either claimed a third Estateship or to be tryed by their Peers Queen Elizabeth imprisoned some and at several times charged them and their Speaker not to intermeddle with matters of Church or State but all the Masters of any Understanding Reason or Common sense ought to understand them to be no other than Petitioners and her Leige-men And it is well known that King James in his Instructions to his Son Prince Henry and his learned answer to Cardinal Peronius does assert the Jus Regium to be the Right of Kings from God immediately without any notice taken of a third Estate But if those Kingly Government or Monarchy Reformers would but give their contemplations and designs some little Respite they might easily perceive the frailty of the Materials out of which they mould would the Members of the House of Commons into a third Estate and might find Evidenee Records Reason and Law enough if they have not forsworn them to desist from such an impossibility And it might better become their own busying themselves in the government of the Kingdom wherein they have no manner of skill or knowledge to consult the consequences and the Events and having no knowledge of the causes Mediume contengencies or treacheries too much or too often attendant in Princes affairs not seldom also miscarrying for the Sins of the people or of some Jonas in the Ship deserving a punishment ought more seriously to weigh and consider how little the people of England will think themselves hereafter beholding or obliged unto them when in a popular and aboundance of Ignorance accompanied with sin and wiekedness they advised King Charles the Second to dissolve by Act of Parliament these Nerves and Sinews of the Crown which the Judges of England in the Raigns of King James the first and King Charles the first upon several consults have declared to be so inseparable to the Crown of England as the most potent and binding Act of Parliament that could be made will never be able to disunite them when they have thereby against their wills converted those Tenures of Honour and safety to their King and Protection peace and plenty to his people and the Releifs and Herriots due and payable to the King into a Chimney-Money granted afterwards by another Act of Parliament and what a profitable bargain they have made by forfeiture of all the Lands which they held by and under their Feudal Laws converted into Socage when by a Law made by King Athelstan ever plow Land in Socage was to find in Service
the hands or clutches of their Wolves Foxes and Harpies Birds or Beasts of prey mean while the King labouring by many Princely Answers to their Messages Letters and Proclamations to keep them from the Witchcraft of Rebellion the more they galloped into it and nominate the Earl of Essex to be their General and a great contribution of Plate and Money as before hath been mentioned to bring the King home to his Parliament who might have been more ready than they had he not been encompassed without any cause or provocation with as many Treasons Plots Falsehoods and Treacheries as he had Hairs upon his Head and Beard with no small want of Money and Friends in the midst of his three once flourishing Kingdoms flaming and on fire about his Ears which could not otherwise have brought such an accumulation of evils upon him And being somewhat supplied by many of his Exchecquer Receivers who brought unto him Remainders of Moneys upon their Accompts John Pym excepted that was the Kings and his Fathers Receiver in Arrear about 22 years and could not be at leisure lest he should thereby hinder the managing of his Treason against the King and so would have made a trusty Chancellor of the Exchecquer for the King marched as well as he could toward his Loyal Subjects of Wales whither to hinder and distress him the Earl of Essex with his Army of Rebels way-laying him at Edge-hill in Warwickshire where Loyalty and Rebellion fighting a bloody Battel and Robert Earl of Lindsey the Kings General being hurt and carried away Prisoner to Warwick Castle shortly after died his Son the Lord Willoughby offering himself an Hostage being not according to the Laws of War accepted and the Rebels Cannons levelled against the brow of the Hill where the King and the Prince sat but being disappointed left the Field and retired to Warwick and the King keeping it all that night the next day marched to Banbury and took it from thence fixed himself at Oxford to which very many Parliament Men that were Loyal retired and kept a true Parliament howsoever the Rebels made shift to get by parcels to London where they Publish how near they were to gain the Victor◠of which they could have given a greater eertainty of the Lord Wharton had not hid himself in a Saw-pit and Stephen Marshal a Factious Minister had not mistaken himself when in his Parish Pulpit at Finching field in Essex he had related an impudent Lye in the hearing of one that had been in that Battel that he had pickt up Bullets in his Velvet Cap to help the Rebels Souldiers when a Souldier that heard him so preach could have proved that he at another time had confessed that he was so affrighted that he had run away four or five Miles from the place where the Battel had been before he knew where he was after which they were so unwilling to forsake their Treasonable hopes as they rallyed and ingaged all the Friends the Devil could help them unto insomuch as the War grew more and more fierce as at the Kings Besieging of Gloucester the effascinated Citizens of Londons Trained Bands came to raise the Siege a sharp Fight was at Newbury where they were beaten and Weemes a Scotish Cannoneer taken Prisoner whilst he was levelling at the Person of the King in a Bloody Fight at Copreby Bridge where the Rebels had the worst and yet Weemes was pardoned and left to do more mischief when all he could say was in Gude Faith his Heart was to the King And the King was from place to place so victorious as he drove the Parliament Rebels by the help of his Nephews Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice and the gallant Conduct of Sir Ralph Hopton and the Greenviles and the courage of the Cornish men for which they had the Kings thanks publickly read and Registred in the Churches the Earl of Essex and his Rebel Parliamentarians were so driven and penn'd up at Lestichiel in Cornwal as their whole Army Cannon and Amunition Bag and Baggage were seized and the Earl of Essex and some other Commanders enforced to shift and save themselves in a Cock-boat Sir William Balfour getting away with some of the Horse notwithstanding all which and that that over-tender hearted Prince had experimented more than once their Rebellion was inexorable and that neither his Protestation upon the Sacrament nor the word stamped upon his Coyn for Religion and the Priviledges of Parliament could make them forsake their Rebellious Principles could not forbear to bring them if possible out of that sin of Witchcraft but when he might with a victorious Army have beaten them at Bramford did by some that were hired to betray 〈◊〉 Councels for by that time they had as much lea 〈…〉 the Art of Bribery as they had the glosses of Rebellion rouse their obdurate and feared Souls with Messages for Peace and divers Royal Ministers and Citizens of London had petitioned them to make Peace with the King who sent the Earls of Southampton and Dorset unto their then called House of Peers who were answered and received uncivilly enough as to their own Persons and the King their Master that sent them Printed and Published intercepted Letters betwixt the King and the Queen and relying more upon their confederating Brethren of Scotland than upon their God and the King his Vicegerent in all hast sent to invite them to come unto their Aid which they did and before they went home had 300000 l. Sterling paid unto them for their Rebel Assistance which putting a stop to the Kings Victories especially in that unfortunate Battel at Naseby and afterwards at Marston Moore by a misintelligence at the later betwixt Prince Rupert and the Earl of Newcastle the King condescended to a Treaty by Commissioners at Uxbridge where no other reason could be accepted but as if the King had been a Subject and they his Soveraign they appeared willing to transfer unto their Scotish Brethren a great part if not all of the Kingdom of Ireland every attempt and self-defence of the King and his Loyal Party bringing no better comfort than dispair he gave license to his good Subjects to retire into the Parliament Quarters or unjust Dominion and compound for their supposed forfeitures which much encreased their Treasure and Power for fighting against the King when they fought for him against his Rebels as if the King and they had been but one Incorporation and themselves the head and the King could be a Rebel to himself and them at the same time and Wat Tyler or Jack Cade or the late Massinello had Authority to make themselves Soveraigns which they had not impudence enough to adventure for it must needs appear to all Mankind to be a Gipsy jugling trick or Proteisme never before heard of in any part of the World The Noble Earl of Scarsdale refusing to compound but retiring home did ever after cloath himself in Sackcloth and every day to his death make a
aforesaid Kings Some of them having long intervals and discontinuances for Ashperton in Devonshire had it's first election in 26. E. 1. and it's 2d not untill 8. H. 5. which made above 120. Years though by the Knavery Corruption and arbitrary power of Sheriffs and the ambitious designs of some that desired to be elected members of the House of Commons and the long after introducing of those of Wales Cheshire Durham and New-wark the number of all the Members of that honourable Assembly were in Mr Cromptons Time who lived and wrote in the later end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth but 441. since increased to 500. or thereabouts During the Reign of King Edward the 1st there were but 70 Cities and Boroughs besides the Cinque Ports which elected and sent Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament of which number 7 made only one election and return of Burgesses In the Reign of King E. 2. there were precepts issued by Sheriffs for 19 Boroughs viz. Great Marlow in the County of Buck. Lescard and Lestithiel in Cornwall Bradneston in Devonshire Melcombe and Weymouth in Dorsetshire Ravensey and Rippon in Com. Eborum Stortford in Hartfordshire Witney in Com. Oxon Axbrigge Chard in Somersetshire Lichfield in Staffordshire Kingston in Surrey Greenested Midhurst in Sussex Cricklade Mere and Old Sarum in Wiltshire which never elected or returned Burgesses before and two precepts issued out to other new boroughs viz. Dunstable Glastonbury Aulton and Christchurch which made no elections or returns thereon Under the long Reign of King Edward the 3d there were Writs or Sheriffs precepts directed to 19 new boroughs and elections made to serve in his Parliaments or great Councels viz. Ely in Cambridgeshire for one great Councel only Barnstable Dartmouth with Hardennesse thereunto annexed Fremington Modbury Tavestock in Devonshire Poole in Dorsetshire Malden in Essex Bromyard Ledbury Ros in Herefordshire Barkhamsted in Hertfordshire Botolph in Lincolnshire for two great Councels only Dunster Langport Monteacute Stoke Curcy Were in Somersetshire and New Castle under line in Staffordshire besides precepts issued to Hodon and Richmond two new boroughs in Yorkshire who made no election or return thereupon and saith Mr Pryn neither of those ever sent Citizens or Burgesses to Parliaments or great Councels before that King's Reign for ought he could find by Records or History And as for the Ports of Dover Roâ—ney Sandwich and Winchelsey in Kent Hastings Hythe and Rye in Sussex there are no original Writs of Summons found for the election of any of their Members during the Reigns of King E. 1. or 2. In the Reigns of King Richard the 2d Henry the 4th and 5th there were no Writs or precepts to any new boroughs to send Burgesses to Parliament About the middle of the Reign of King Henry the 6th there were only Writs and precepts issued out for 5 new boroughs in 2 Counties to attend the King in Parliament as Members in the House of Commons namely Gatton in Surrey Heytesbury Hindon Westbury and Wooton Basset in Com. Wilts During the Reign of King Edward the 4th there was only one new borough Grantham in Lincolnshire who never sent any in the former Kings Reigns Since which 14 new boroughs in Cornwall namely Camilford Castlelowe Foway Graundpond St Germans St Ives Kelington St Marie's Newport St Michael Portlow Prury Saltash Bosseney and Tregonney with the boroughs of Aylesbury and Buckingham in the County of Bucks Cockermouth in Cumberland University of Cambridge Bearealston in Devonshire Corfe Castle in Dorsetshire Harwich in Essex Alderburgh Boroughbrigge Knaresbrough Thrusko in Com. Eborum Cirencester and Tewkesbury in com Gloucester Maidstone and Quinborough in Kent Botolph in Lincolnshire as to sending Burgesses to Parliament Clitheroe Liverpool Wigan in Lancashire Westminster in Middlesex which never sent one Burgess to Parliament though many have been holden in it until long after the Reign of King Edward the 4th Brackley Higham-Ferrers Peterborough in Northamptonshire East-Recford in Nottinghamshire Chester Thetford in Norfolk Barwick Morpeth in Northumberland Banbury and the Univesity of Oxford in Oxfordshire Haslemore in Surry Tamworth in Staffordshire Bishops-castle Ludlow Wenlock in Shropshire Minched in Somersetshire Christ-church Lymington Newport Newtown Peterfield Stockbride Whitchurch Yarmouth St Edmondsbury Eye Sudbury in Suffolk Beaudly Evesham in the County of Worcester in all 64. Committing the Knights Cities and Boroughs of Chester and Wales erected by Act of Parliament Annis 27. 36. and 38. H. 8. are all new and for the most part the Universities excepted very Mean Poor inconfiderable Boroughs set up by the returns and corrupt practices of Sheriffs and ambitious Gentleman which will be sufficiently evidenced by the Sheriffs frequent returns of nullum dederunt responsum non sunt aliae Civitates neque Burgi in balliva mea or in com praedict aut non curant mittere saith a Sheriff of Northumb. in 6. E. 2. or nulli electi ratione belli in 8. E. 2. or as in Northumb. in the 10th Year of the Reign of E. 3. or as in the 8th Year of the Reign of E. 2. when the Sheriff of Northumb. returned quod omnes milites de balliva sua non sufficiunt ad defensionem Marchiae and to the town of Newcastle upon Tyne quod omnes Burgenses villae praedicta non sufficiunt ad defensionem villae in the 1. E. 3. the Communitatas Com. Northumb. respondet quod ipsi per inimicos Scottae adeo sunt distracti quod non habent unde Solvere expedsas duobus militibus proficissuris ad tractatum concilium apud Lincoln tenendum and the Bayliffs of Newcastle upon Tyne returned quod ipsi tam enervantur circa salvam custodiam villae praedictae quod neminem possunt de dicta villa carere So little were the former ambitions or designs of the Gentry or Common people of the Counties or Shires to be Members of the House of Commons in Parliament as Knights of the Shires or as Burgesses of Cities or Towns Corporate from the 49th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 3d unto the later end of the Reign of King Henry the 5th in the course or circle of time of about 280. Years But all those the Royal cares and condescensions of King Edward the 1st to pacify a discontented part of his people and eradicate a deeply rooted Commotion and Rebellion did too soon or quickly after the expiration of the aforesaid 280. Years deviate and degenerate from the former intentions and design of those his Writs of Summons SECT XXI Who made themselves Electors for the choosing of Knights of the Shires to be Members of the House of Commons in Parliament after the 21st Year of the Reign of King Edward the 1st contrary to the Tenor of his aforesaid Writs of Summons made in the 22d Year of his Reign for the Election of Knights of the Shire and Burgesses to come to the Parliaments and great Councels of several of our Kings and Princes afterwards FOr so
be Elected to be a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament is to take before he be admitted to sit therein or have any voice as a Knight Citizen or Burgess of or in the House of Commons an Oath upon the Evangelists before the Lord Steward or his deputy that he doth testify and declare That the Queens Majesty her Heirs and Successors is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other her Highness's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall things or causes as Temporall and renounce all Foreign Jurisdiction of any Foreign Prelate Prince or Potentate whatsoever And promise that from henceforth he shall bear Faith and true Allegeance to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors and to his power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperiall Crown of this Realm Queen Elizabeth in the 31st Year of her Reign did by the advice of her Privy-Councell and of the Justices of both her Benches and other of her learned Councell prorogue and adjourn the Parliament from the 12th of November 1588. to the fourth of February then next following from which day it was continued till the Thursday following post meridiem Wherein divers of the Bishops Earls Barons Justices and masters of Chancery were Receivers and Tryers of petitions The Bishops all but 7 named each of them 2 Proctors 7 Temporall Lords sent their proxies Such as were meer attendants in the House of Peers were sometimes made joint Committees with the Lords in severall matters The Commons presenting their Speaker to the Queen he was admitted with a caution not to use in that House irreverent Speeches or to make unnecessary addresses to her Majesty and the Chancellour by Command of the Queen continuavit praesens Parliamentum usque diem Sabbati prox hora nona When the Lords sent to pray a conference with the Commons and it is assented unto one of the Judges were allways named to attend the Lords Committees In a bill for setling a jointure for the Wife of Henry Nevill Esq. Wherein all former conveyances were to be cancelled the Lords ordered that the deeds should be sealed up and brought into their house to the end that they might be redelivered again uncancelled in case the Queen should resuse to sign the Act of Parliament the House of Commons by their Speaker desired her Majesties assent to such Statutes as had been provided by both Houses Upon her gracious generall Act of Pardon les Prelats Seigneurs Commons en Parlement en nom de toutes voz autres Subjects remercient tres humblement vostre Majeste The Queens Sollicitor generall being Elected a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament they desired the Lords that he might come into the House of Commons and sit with them which was assented unto and performed In the Year 1588. and 31st of her Reign when she had most need of her Subjects aid and good will upon the Petition of the Commons against some grievances of the Purveyors and her Court of Exchecquer she answered by their Speaker that she had given orders to her Lord Steward to redress any Complaints of her purveyance and that she had as much skill and power to rule and govern her own House as any of her Subjects whatsoever to rule and govern theirs without the help of their Neighbours and would very shortly cause a collection to be made of all the Laws already made touching Pourveyance and of all the constitutions of her Houshould in that case and would thereupon by the advice of her Judges learned Councell set down such a formall plot or method before the end of that present session of Parliament as should be as good better for the ease of her subjects then what the house had attempted without her privity in which they would have bereaved her Majesty of the honour glory and commendation thereof and that she had in the 10th year of her Reign caused certain orders and constitutions to be drawn for the due course of such things in her Court of Exchequer as her Subjects seem to be grieved at And so after a Generall Pardon and some bills passed the Lord Chancellour by her Majesties command dissolved the Parliament Anno 35th the Lord Keeper by her Majesties command declared the necessity of publick aides how little the Late Subsides amounted unto by Reason of the ill gathering desired the time might not be Mispent in long orations Speeches and verbosities which some men took delight in Receivers and Tryers of Petitions were named and some Proxies delivered Their Speaker Sr Edward Coke in his Speech remembred the Queen of her speech to the last Parliament that many came thither ad consulendum qui nesciunt quid Sit consulendum and prayed that she would give her assent to such Bills as should be agreed upon The Lord Keeper in his reply alleadged that to make more laws might seem Superfluous and to him that might ask Quae causa ut crescunt tot magna volumnia legum It may be answered in promptu causa est crescit in orbe malum And after upon further instructions received from her Majesty declared that Liberty of Speech was granted but how far was to be thought on there be two things of most necessity wit and speech the one exercised in invention the other in speaking priviledge of speech is granted but you must know what priviledge you have not to speak every one what he listeth or what cometh in his heart to utter but your priviledge is to say yea or no wherefore Mr Speaker her Majesties pleasure is that if you perceive any idle heads which will not Stick to hazzard their own estates which will meddle with reforming of the Church and transforming of the Common-Wealth and do exhibit any bills to such purpose that you receive them not untill they be viewed and considered of by those who it is fitter should consider of such things and can better judge of them The daily continuing or adjorning of the Parliament was Dominus Custos magni Sigilli continuavit praesens Parliamentum After a bill for setling the lands and Estate of Sr Francis Englefeild attainted of high Treason in Parliament had been ordered by the House of Commons to be ingrossed the Lords did hear Councell on the part of Englefeilds heirs and afterwards passed it In the case of repealing of certain uses in a deed concerning the Estate of Sr Anthony Cook of Rumford in the County of Essex after the bill had been 3 times read in the House of Lords and assented unto a Proviso was added of Saving the Queens right with a note entred that it should not hereafter be used as a praecedent Acts or bills of Generall pardon do passe both Houses with once reading The Lord-Keeper by her directions
County it was adjudged by the House of Commons to be void because it was against the Tenor and exception of the Writ and that he ought to be Fined In the debate whither the Speaker should send his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown for the Election of a Burgess it was answered by one of that House and not contradicted that since 26. Eliz. he did ex officio send his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown who is to certifie the Lord Keeper and so make the Warrant Sr Francis Hastings a member going down the Stairs a Page offering to thrust him was brought to the Barr and committed but was the next day upon the motion of Sr Francis and his submission upon his knees released some of the House moved to send him to a Barbers to have his hair cut because it was too long but others disswaded it as a matter not becoming the gravity of the House Sr Walter Rawleigh declared that the Queen had sold her jewels the money lent her by her Subjects was yet unpaid she had sold much of her Lands spared money out of her own purse and apparell for her peoples sakes and for his own part wished that they would bountifully according to their Estates contribute to her Majesties necessities as they now stand Mr Townsend one of the Members declared in the House of Commons that they were Summoned and called as a grand Jury of the Land though not upon their Oaths yet upon their conscience and was not contradicted Sr Edward Hobby said it was always the custom of the House of Commons to have their Warrant for the Election of a new Member directed by their Speaker to the Clark of the Crown But Sr Francis Hastings said that the Lord Keeper had in private informed him that he had rather have it made to himself then to any inferior Minister Sr Edward Hobby said that the Parliament being the highest Court was to Command all other Courts A bill being brought in for explanation of the Common Law concerning the Queens Letters-patents and certain Monopolies Mr Spicer a Burgess of Warwick said that bill might touch the prerogative Royall which was as he had learned so transcendant as the eye of the Subject may not aspire thereunto and therefore be it far from him that the State and prerogative Royall of the Prince should be tyed by him or the Act of any other Subject Mr Francis Bacon said for the prerogative royall of the Prince for his part he ever allowed it and is such as he hoped should never be discussed the Queen is our Sovereign hath both a restraning and enlarging liberty of her Prerogative that is hath power by her patents to set at liberty things restrained by Statute Law by Non obstante's of Penall Laws or otherwise and by her Prerogative to restrain things that are at liberty as by her Letters-Patents for new inventions license for transportation c. But Mr Speaker pointing to the bill said this is no stranger in this place but a stranger in this vestment the use hath been ever by petition to humble our selves to her Majesty and by petition to desire to have the grievances redressed especially when the remedy toucheth her in Right or Prerogative If her Majesty make a patent or a Monopoly to any of her servants that we must cry out against but if she grants it to a namber of Burgesses or a Corporation that must stand and that forsooth is no Monopoly I say and I say again that we ought not to deal or meddle with or judge of her Majesties Prerogative I wish every man therefore to be carefull of this point Mr Lawrence Hyde said I do owe a duty to God and Loyalty to my Prince I made it the Bill and I think I understand it far be it from this heart of mine to write anything in prejudice or derogation of her Majesties Prerogative Royall and the State Mr Serjeant Harris moved that the Queen might be petitioned by the House in all Humility Mr Francis Moor afterwatds Serjeant Moor said he did know the Queens Prerogative was a thing curious to be dealt with Sr George Moor said We know the power of her Majesty cannot be restrained by any Act why therefore should we thus talk Admit we should make the Statute with a non obstante yet the Queen may grant a Patent with a non obstante to cross it Mr Spicer said He was no Apostate but should stick to his former faith which was that it should be by way of Petition and that a course by Bill would neither be gratum nor tutum Mr Davies said God had given power to absolute Princes which he attributeth to himself Dixi quod Dii estis and as he attributes unto them he hath given unto them Majesty Justice and Mercy Majesty in respect of the Honour that a Subject oweth unto his Prince Justice in respect he can do no Wrong and therefore the Law is in First H. 7. the King cannot commit a disseisin Mercy in respect he giveth leave to his Subjects to right themselves by Law Mr Secretary Cecill said I am a Servant to the Queen and before I would speak or give any consent to a case that should debase her Sovereignty or abridge it I would wish my tongue cut out of my Head I am sure there were Law-Makers before there were Laws if you stand upon Law and dispute her Majesties Prerogative hear what Bracton saith Praerogatium nemo audeat disputare for my own part I like not such courses should be taken and you Mr Speaker should perform the charge which her Majesty gave unto you at the beginning of this Parliament not to receive Bills of this nature for her Majesties ears be open to all our grievances and her hands stretched out to every mans petition All which worthy and dutyfull expressions of duty and Loyalty to their Sovereign were made by Mr Spicer Mr Francis Bacon Sr Robert Cecill Sr George Moor Serjeant Francis Moore Sr Walter Rawleigh and others without any neglect of the good of the publick or the Office of Members of the House of Commons Elected only upon their Princes Writs and Warrants ad faciendum consentiendum to those things which should be by their Soveregn ordained by the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall in Parliament assembled without any question or contradiction made thereupon or calling them to the Bar Imprisoning them in the Tower of London excluding them the House or making them ask pardon upon their knees with other exorbitances which some of their Successors have too often usurped to ask pardon of their fellow Members who did not at all represent those that Elected them who were not wont to call everything that suited not with their fancies to be an Error against the sence or Tyde of the House or to be sent to the prison of the Tower of London none of their prison or under their command or Authority without their
Soveraigns privity or order being far without the Bounds or reach of their Commission or purpose of it and an incroachment upon the regall power was in the House of Commons in Parliament used until the Late distemper thereof or for their late Speaker Mr Williams when Sr Robert Peyton one of their Members was for some matter which they would create to be criminall brought upon his knees and adjudged to be expelled the House and to receive his sentence from their Speaker in no smoother an expression or language then Go thou cursed thou worst of men the House of Commons hath spewed thee out when they and others may know that the House of Peers do never use by themselves to exclude any of their members without the order and concurrence of their Sovereign and in case of Treason Upon the great debate of Monopolies as they called them granted by the Queen a list being brought into the House she having notice thereof sent for the Speaker and declared unto him that for any patents granted by her whereby any of her Subjects might be grieved or oppressed she would take present order for reformation thereof her Kingly Prerogative was tender and therefore desired them not to speak or doubt of her carefull reformation but that some should presently be repealed others suspended and none put in execution but such as by a Tryall at Law should appear to be for the good of the people which he reporting to the House to his unspeakable joy as he said and comfort but thereupon Secretary Cecill said that there was no reason all should be revoked for the Queen meant not to be swept out of her Prerogative And therefore gave them a caution for the future to believe that what soever is subject to a publick exposition cannot be good and said that Parliamentary matters were ordinarily talked of in the streets that the time was never more apt to disorder or make ill interpretations of good meanings and thought those persons would be glad that all Sovereignty were turned into Popularity we being here but the popular bouch and our liberty but the liberty of the Subject if any man in the House speak wisely we do him great wrong to interrupt him if foolishly let us hear him out we shall have the more cause to tax him and I do heartily pray that no member of this House may plus verbis offendere quam concilio inuare Mr Francis Moore moved that the Speaker in the name of the House might give thanks to her Majesty for setting at liberty her Subjects from the thraldom of those monopolies and crave pardon for any extravagancy of words in that House Mr Wingfield wept and said his heart was not able to conceive or his tongue express the joy that he had in that message but his opinion and Mr Francis Moore and Mr Francis Bacon's were against the making of the Apology for that would be to accuse themselves of a fault when they had committed none and being put to the vote it was by the whole House agreed that the Speaker should return the Queen their humble thanks Mr Donald wished that her gracious message might be recorded in their books others that it might be in Letters of Gold others in their Hearts Mr Secretary Cecill said there is not any soul living deserves thanks in this cause but our Sovereign Mr Francis Bacon said he had served as a member in 7 Parliaments and never knew but two committed to the Tower the one was Mr Arthur Hall for saying that the Lower House was a new Person in the Trinity and the other was Parry for making a seditious speech in the House When the thanks were given by the Speaker she said She was the person that still yet under God had delivered them and trusted that by his Almighty power she should be the Instrument to protect them Declared to the Speaker of the House of Commons that she rejoyced not so much to be a Queen as a Queen over so thankfull a people Sir George Belgrave was complained 〈◊〉 for procuring himself to be elected Burgess of Leicester by appearing in a blew coat with the Earl of Huntingtons cognisance for which the Queens Attorney Sr Edward Coke exhibited in the Earl of Huntingtons name an Information at the Queens suite in the Star-Chamber Mr Bacon said there never were but 2 articuli super chartas the one when the Sword was in the Commons hands the other Articuli Cleri when the Clergy of the land bore sway Some bill being brought in concerning monopolies which had been formerly by the Queen redressed Sr Edward Hobby said If we will be dealing herein by petition will be our only course this is a matter of Prerogative and this no place to dispute it Upon the bill concerning the transport of Iron ordnance Mr Cary said we take it for an use in the House that when any great and weighty matter or bill is here handled we straightway say it toucheth the Prerogative and that must not be medled withall and by that we come here to do our Country good bereave them of that good help we might administer unto them To which Mr Speaker replyed qui vadit plane vaditâ—sane let us lay down our griefs in the preamble of the bill and make it by way of petition Mr Francis Hastings said How swiftly and sweetly her Majesty apprehended our griefs I think there is no Subject but knoweth for us then to deal in a matter so highly touching her Prerogative we shall not only give her Majesty just cause of offence but to deny our Proceeding by bill Sr George Moor disliked the proceeding by bill Mr Laurence Hyde said that he saw no reason but we may proceed by bill and not touch her Prerogative her Majesty is not more carefull and watchfull of her Prerogative then H. 8. E. 6. were and then there was no doubt or mention made of Prerogative Mr Comptroller said in duty we should proceed to speak unto the Queen by wny of petition and not by way of bill or contestation we must note that her self and her Prerogative will not be forced and I do not hold this course by bill to fiand either with respect or duty In the debate concerning the Earl of Huntingtons bill in the Star-chamber sitting the Parliament against Sr George Belgrave for indirectly making himself a Burgess in Parliament some of the House moving for a conference with the Lords about it Mr Dale said id possumus quod dejure possumus and that the safest way would be a conference Mr Tate said it will not be good to pry too near into her Majesties Prerogative by examining Informations exhibited in the Star-Chamber Mr Cary said that the custom of the House of Commons was when they wanted any Record to send their Warrant to the Lord Keeper to grant a Certiorari to have the Record brought into the House in Ferrers case in the Reign of King Henry the
8th who being a Member of the House of Commons and Imprisoned the House of Commons made an address to the King for his release when they could not do it by their own power Mr Speaker said I am to deliver unto you her Majesties commandement that for the better and more speedy dispatch of causes we should sit in the afternoon and that about this day sennight her Majesties pleasure is this Parliament shall be ended At a conference with the Lords their Lordships told the Commons they would not have their Judgment prejudicated and in that conference of the House of Commons stiled themselves the Lower House There was saith Justice Hussey a whole Alphabet of paenall Laws in the time of King Henry the 7th Mr Mountague said The praerogative Royall is now in Question which the law hath over allowed and Maintained Serjeant Heale speaking somewhat that displeased the Generality of the House they all made an humming and when he began to speak again they did the like whereupon the Speaker stood up and said It is a great disorder that this should be used for it is the antient use of this House for every man to be Silent when any one Speaketh and he that is Speaking should be Suffered to deliver his mind without interruption Sr Edward Hobby upon the debate of a bill brought in for the peoples more diligent repair to Church whether the Church-Wardens were the more proper to certifie the defalters said that when her Majestie did give us leave to chuse our Speaker She gave us leave to chuse one out of our own number Mr Onslow the Clark of the House of Commons in Parliament being Sick the House gave his man leave to officiate for him every Members contributing 12d apeice for his support In the case of Belgrave depending in the Court of Star-Chamber upon an Information brought by Sir Edward Coke her Majesties then Artorney General prosecuted by the Earl of Huntington for wearing his Livery to make himself a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament after several Motions Debates and Disputes in the House of Commons a Conference was concluded to be had with the Lords thereupon the rather for that it had been said that the Lords in Parliament were reported to have directed the said Bill to be exhibited in the Star-Chamber one of their House being concerned therein and a day appointed by the Lords accordingly which failing and revived again by a motion of one of the Members of the house of Commons in their own House and the matters limitted whereupon it should consist first touching the offence committed by Mr. Belgrave whether it was an Infringement of the Liberty of the House of Commons and for the first that the Commons would do nothing therein until a Conference with them for the 2d to know the reasons of their Lordships appointment of the Information and to bring it to some end Mr. Speaker at another day certifying a message from the Lords concerning some other matters Sir Edward Hobby said We attended the Lords that morning which was appointed touching the Information against Mr. Belgrave who in the end concluded that forasmuch as it concerneth them as the House of Commons Priviledges they desired some time to consult and they would send us word of their Resolutions and some days after a Copy of the Information against Belgrave was sent to the House of Peers unto them under the hand of the Clerk of the Star Chamber by them and Sir Edward Hobby with some Bills but nothing appeareth to have been done touching the said Information against Belgrave In the mean time a servant of Mr. Huddleston a Knight of the Shire for Cumberland being arrested in London upon a Writ of Execution the Plaintiff and Serjeants denying to release him because it was after Judgment they were upon complaint to the House committed to Prison the Serjeant released paying the Serjeant at Arms Fees and the Plaintiff paying them as well as his own was ordered to remain three days in the Serjeants Custody For a like Judgment was cited to have been given by the House of Commons in the case of the Baron of Wilton in that Parliament Upon Thursday December the 7th Sir Edward Hobby shewed that the Parliament was now in the wain and near ending and an order was taken touching the Information delivered to this house viz. the House of Commons in Mr. Belgraves case but nothing done therein and as it seemeth by not taking out the Process no Prosecution of the Cause is intended against the said Mr. Belgrave he thought it fit because the chief Scope of the said Information seemeth to be touching a dishonour offered to this House that it would please the House that it might be put to the question being the original and first horrid fashion of their afterward altogether course or manner of voting and making their own pretended Liberties whether he hath offended this House yea or no If he hath he desireth to be censured by you and if he hath not it will be a good motive to this Honourable House here present who are Judges in this Court and yet he might have remembred what long and learned debates and disputes there had lately been amongst themselves whether the Custom of that House was or had been in cases of grievance to proceed by Bill or Petition to the Queen and it was resolved that it was the most proper and dutiful way to proceed by Petition which was done accordingly in clearing the Gentleman of that offence when it came before them which had then no higher esteem in Sir Edward Hobbyes opinion than to be previous to an after disquisition which that Law and the Queens Writ and the Election of that part of the people that brought them thither neither did or could give them any greater authority than ad faciendum consentiendum to do and perform that which the King and Lords in Parliament should ordain to be done and performed and when all should be rightly considered was an offence too often by more than one or once since practised to procure a Membership indirectly in an House of Commons in Parliament committed by Mr. Belgrave that should as little have been countenanced as there was any just or legal Warrant for it wherein Mr. Comptroller said I know the Gentleman to be an honest Gentleman and a great Servant to his Prince and Countrey I think it very fit to clear him I wish it may be put to the Question I will be ready to vouch your sentence for his offence when it comes there but if any other matter appears upon opening the Cause with that we have nothing to do Mr. Secretary Cecil who had not long before said in the same House he was sorry to see such disorder and little do you know how for disorder this Parliament is taxed I am sorry I said not slandered I hoped that as this Parliament began gravely and with Judgment
we should have ended modestly and at least with discretion I protest I have a Libel in my pocket against the proceedings of this Parliament could when he came to speak of Mr. Belgraves aforesaid offence say he had heard it spoken of diversly but for his own part he was more apt to move against Mr. Dyet a Member of that House that drew the Information in the Court of Star-Chamber against Mr. Belgrave that he should be well punished for seeking to diminish the Praerogative of the Court a power or word never before believed to be proper or applicable to the House of Commons in Parliament by praying Aid of the Court of Star-Chamber for an offence done to us this Court sitting which complexedly with the House of Peers in Parliament hath been and ought to be stiled a Court but not separately as to its own constitution or practice And desired that Mr. Belgrave may be cleared here which will be a good Inducement not to censure him heavily there Mr. Ravenscroft said we ought not proceed against a Fellow member until he be called It is not apparent to us that he made the Information it is under Mr. Attorneys hand and therefore ought to be intended his for now it is upon Record under his hand against which we can receive no Averment by speech of others but by the Gentleman 's own words viva voce And so there was no more said of that matter But it was put to the question whether he should be cleared of the offence to the House yea or no and all cryed I I I only young Mr. Francis Grantham who gave a great No at which the House laught and he blusht Some of the Members of the House of Commons observed and found fault that when the Members were Voting the contradicting party went out of the House leaving the affirming party in the House they that remained did it more to continue and abide in their places than for any affection they had to the Vote of the other and there might be also a great mistake in the temputation of the whole number of the Members when some never came at all or tarried but a little while many others were strugling in or out about their own Domestick or particular Affairs Upon Friday December the 18th Anno. Dom. 1601. as the Speaker was going to the House in the morning the Queens General Pardon was delivered unto him which he took and delivered into the House which they sent back again because it was not brought according to course an haughtiness not usual or comely for those that were to receive such vast benefits by it The Collection for the Clerk of the Houses Servant supplying his Masters place at 12 d. each Member amounted unto 25 l. which was after the number of 500 Members Afterwards Mr. Attorney General assisted by Dr. Cary on the right hand and Dr. Stanhop on the left brought to the House her Majesties free and general Pardon and delivered also to the House their Subsidy-Bill for the grant of four entire Subsidies Eight Fifteenths and Tenths the Subsidy of the Clergy was sent in a Roll according to the usual Acts whereunto Sir Edward Hobby took exceptions because it was not sent in a long Skin of Parchment under the Queens Hand and Seal so it was sent back again and then the other was sent The Lord Keeper upon the Speakers Speech at the ending of the Parliament said That Laws were to have the Queens Royal Assent as God should direct her Sacred Spirit that she saith touching their proceeding in the matter of her Praerogative that she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully and that she understood they did obiter touch her Praerogative and not otherwise but by humble Petitions and therefore that thanks that a Princess may give to her Subjects she willingly yieldeth but now she well perceiveth that private respects are privately masked under publick pretences as for the grant of the Subsidies and the manner of giving the Subsidies it was not persuasive or by persuasive Inducements it was speedy freely and of Duty with great Contentment that no Prince was ever more unwilling to exact or receive any thing from the Subject then she our most Gracious Soveraign for we all know she never was a greedy Grasper nor strait-handed keeper and therefore she commanded him to say that you had done plentifully dutifully and thankfully And added also an admonition to the Justices of Peace many of which probably were Members there present that they would not deserve the Epethites of prowling Justices Justices of quarrels who counted Champerty good Conscience Justices who did suck and consume the Wealth and good of the Commonwealth and also to those who do lye if not all the year yet at least three quarters of the year at London and after some Bills or Acts of Parliament signed with la Royne se voult or come il est desire and some others with la Royne savisera dissolved that Parliament in Anno 1601. Which may be justly accompanied with the Observations and Annotations of that eminent and learned Lawyer Mr. William Noy Attorney General of that pious Prince and Martyr King Charles the first who was by death arrested and called out of this World before his Royal Masters Persecution and ever to be detested Murder and in all probability if he had then been living would have done more towards the rescue of his Royal Person and Government than all these silent Lawyers that crouched under the burdens of the Rebellious miscalled Common-wealth and their Man of sin Oliver Cromwell that afterwards cheated them of their Prey In former times especially since the admittance of Commons elected to Sit in our great Councils in Parliament all the Acts of Parliament were framed and drawn up upon the Petitions of the Parliament and the Kings Answers thereunto by the Judges and the Kings learned Council at Law compendiously and very often after the ending of the Parliament or some good part of time afterwards and if any thing were oversliped by the Commons a clause was added to help the same But on the other side after the Petitions and Answers were read and the Royal Assent given Additions contrary to the meaning of the Commons have been added and sometimes somewhat omitted All Bills commonly called Petitions were most usually exhibited by the Commons it being their part petere leges as best knowing what was amiss At the making of the Statute of Merton in Anno 20. H. 3. concerning Trespasses in Parks and Ponds the answer was it is not yet discussed for the Lords demanded the imprisonment of the offenders therein and the King denyed it wherefore it was deferred Some Petitions were formerly indorsed coram Rege against which the Commons petitioned in 6 E. 3. n. 31. for that nothing was done upon their Petitions and therefore prayed that theirs might be answered before the Parliament ended Some Bills have been exhibited in their
could neither give or intend for nil dat qui non habet as being never able to give them complextly or singly their diversities of Powers or Interests present or to come other than such as the intent and purport of their Writs of Election Commissions allowed when the Devil with a pair of Spectacles cannot find in their Indentures or Procurations any Commission either by the King or those that Elected them other than to do and perform such things as the King by the advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament should ordain but not to make War against their King and Murder him Plunder and destroy their fellow Subjects and Masters that elected and sent them for better purposes neither can they or any of their Record-massacring Champions ever be able to prove that the Lords Spiritual or Temporal did or could transfer unto them their power representative in Parliament which without the Authority of the King that gave it is not transferrable And when there were but 170 Counties Cities and Towns that sent Knights Citizens and Burgesses to Parliament in the latter end of the Raign of King Edward the First were but almost one Part of three that could be truly esteemed Representers of many of the Commons too many having been since only added by corruption of Sheriffs and otherwise it could never be intended or at all possible or so much as probable as all could be Freeholders or otherwise within the true meaning and intention of the word Representation or represent applied to the House of Commons or any particular member thereof was until our late Factious and Seditious Times never found in any of our Parliament Rolls Records or Memorials which hath lately been made to be very large and drawn into a factious and seditious extent and interpretation For the Parliament being only the Kings great Councel not of the people his Subjects upon special emergent occasions concerning the weal publick in the defence of the Kingdom and Church all offences committed against the Members of either of the Houses siting the Parliament or in their coming or returning are by Law to be prosecuted and punished in the behalf of the King and in his name and by his only Regal Authority and the Prison of the Tower of London is the Kings by a long possession but none of the peoples as it was adjudged in the Raign of Edward the 1st in the case of the priviledge of the Earl of Cornwal and long after that viz. In the latter end of the Raign of King Henry the 8th in the case of the Lord Cromwel and Tailbois and in the extraordinary forcible Riot and Trespass committed in the 12th year of the Raign of K. Richard 2. upon the Goods Lands and Servants of one of the Knights of the Shire of Cumberland sitting the Parliament whereupon that King upon his complaint directed a Writ or Commission to enquire and certify the Fact directing the Sheriff of Westmorland by a Jury of his County to attend them therein and those that were found offenders to arrest and bring coram nobis concilio nostro not the House of Commons in Parliament in Quindena sancti Michaelis with a nos talia si fuerint relinquere nolentes impunita upon which Mr. Pryn observeth that the King upon that complaint did not presently send for the Offenders in Custody by a Serjeant at Arms as the Commons of late times have done And did the more as he saith urge that Record and Precedent to rectify the late irregularities of sending for persons in Custody upon every motion and suggestion of a pretended breach of priviledge to their extraordinary vexations and expence before any legal proof or conviction of their guilt against the great Charter and all ancient precedents and proceedings in Parliament further evidenced by him to appertain only to the King by the Commons own Petitions from time to time in several Parliaments in the Raigns of Henry the 4th Henry the 6th and Edward the 4th in the cases of Chodder Atwil Dome Colyn c. And that it was expresly resolved and declared to belong only to the King by his Writs of Priviledge supersedeas habeas corpora issued out of the Court of Chancery to deliver members of Parliament or their Servants imprisoned or taken in execution against the Priviledge of Parliament for in the great Debates and Arguments in the House of Commons in the case of Fitz-Herbert in the 35th year of the Raign of Queen Elizabeth when Sir Edward Coke was Speaker it was at the last concluded that it was meet that the whole matter should be brought before them by an Habeas corpus cum causa issued out of the Chancery and there to be returned since no Writ of Habeas Corpus nor yet of priviledge could be returned into the House of Commons but only into the Chancery or Lords House as Writs of Error were whereupon the Speaker attending the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England pressed for a special Habeas Corpus with a clause to be inserted therein that Fitz-Herbert existens de Parliamento captus suit c. with a recital of the cause of priviledge who upon conference with the Judges would not Assent thereunto and resolving not to depart from the usual form issued out the Writ to the Sheriff returnable in Chancery who bringing the Body of the Prisoner and certifying the cause of his imprisonment the Lord Keeper sent the Sheriffs return of the Habeas corpus to the Commons House the Chancery men who brought it being ordered to read it which they did with the Writ thereunto annexed whereupon Mr. Dalton argued that the House had no power to deliver him he being not arrested sedente Parliamento but before it sate and that in a point of Law whether in this case he ought to be priviledged the Commons House ought not to pass any Vote therein but ought to advise with and receive instructions from the Judges of the Realm whether in this case by the Law they could grant Priviledge which being seconded by Sir Francis Bacon and thirded by Sir Edward Coke it was ordered that Fitz-Herbert should appear and be heard by his Councel the next morning and that the advice of the Judges should be had therein which being bad the Judgment of the House was that he was not to have Priviledge for three causes First because he was in Execution taken the same day of his Election Secondly because it was at the Queens suit which was the grand Reason Thirdly because he was taken neither sedente Parliamento nec eundo nec redeundo and Mr. Pryn likewise humbly conceived that in case of any Member of Parliament Arrested their only legal Means and Remedy was and is by a Writ of priviledge out of the Chancery In the Journal of the House of Commons in Parliament Anno 6. E. 6. There is an Order entred that if any Member require priviledge for him
House of Commons in Parliament being in his coming to Parliament beaten and wounded by one John Savage the Record declareth that videtur cur quod non est necesse quod Inquiratur per patriam quae dampna praedictus Richardus Chedder qui venit ad Parliamentum in Comitiva c. Et verberatus vulneratus fuit per Johannem Savage sustinuit occasione verberationis set magis cadit in discretionem Justic Ideo per discretionem cur consideratum est quod dictus Richardus recuperet dampna sua ad centum marc similiter centum marc And though he was a Servant to a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament was committed to the Marshal quousque sinem faciat cum Domino Rege per minatoriis datis Juratoribus appunctuat ad inquirend And if there had been any Priviledge due to the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament besides and other than that which their Speakers do at their admittance by our Kings and Princes claim in their behalf being no more than freedom of Access to their Persons and from arrest of their Persons and moenial Servants ever since or in the 22 year of the Raign of King Edward the first for in the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry the third when that King was a Prisoner to Simon Montfort and his Partner Rebels those few that were sent as Members of that not to be called a Parliament claimed not any Priviledges from the beginning of our verily long lasting Monarchy until that their distempered and unhappy framed Writ for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to come to Parliament in 49 H. 3. nor can it be made appear that any of the Commons were before ever Elected to come as Members of Parliament the Writs ex gratia Regis allowed for the Levying of their Wages being no Priviledge given by the King but rather the Gift and Wages of the Counties and Places that Elected them And the Priviledges of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal besides those of the Earls and higher Degrees of the Nobility whose Patents and Charters about the Raign of King Richard the 2d gave them their Priviledges of having vocem locum sedem in Parliamento concilio generali Regis and before had their Titles of Earls by a Charter of the third penny or part of the Fines and Amerciaments of the County of Oxford as the Creation of Alberick de vere Earl of Oxford by King Henry the 2d hath demonstrated and some Authentick Historians have told us that King John made two Earls per Investituram cincturae gladii who waited upon him immediately after as he sate at dinner gladiis cincti and by reason of the Grandeur and Honour of their Estates and Priviledge to advise their King needed no protection from Arrests and their Ladies and Dowagers do enjoy the like Priviedges and when they should in extraordinary affairs be summoned to Parliament to be advised withal by our Kings whereunto when they were travelling through any of his Forrests they might kill a Deer so as they or any of them gave some of the Keepers notice thereof by blowing of an Horn and leaving a piece thereof hanging upon a Tree A Baron may speak twice to a Bill in Parliament in one day when a Member of the House of Commons can but once they neither need or choose any Speaker for the Chancellor or the Keeper of the Kings great Seal of England is the only Speaker of that House where the King doth not do it himself or commissionates some other to officiate in the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keepers place or time of sickness Every Baron or other Lord of Parliament in any Action where the Defendant pleadeth he is no Baron it shall not be tryed at the Common Law or by Jury nor by Witnesses but by Record their Bodies shall not be arrested and neither Capias or Exigent shall be awarded against them and their bodies are not subject to torture in causa laesae Majestatis Are not to be sworn in Assises Juries or Inquests if any Servant of the King in Checque Roll compass the Death of a Baron or any of the Kings Privy Councel it is Felony in any Action against a Baron in the Court of Common Pleas or any of the Courts of Justice two Knights are to be impannelled of the Jury he shall have a day of grace shall not be tryed in cases of Treason or Felony or misprision of Treason but by their Peers and such as are of the Nobility who are not sworn but give their verdict only upon their honour super fidem ligeantiam domino Regi debitam and by an Act of Parliament made by Queen Elizabeth are exempt from the taking of the Oath of Supremacy which the Members of the House of Commons are ordained to take before their admittance the Writs of Summons to a Parliament are directed only to themselves who are not Elected as the Members of the House of Commons who are but as the Attorneys and Procurators for those that sent them ad faciendum consentiendum to do and obey what the Lords shall ordain who sub fide ligeancia Domino Regi debita do represent only for themselves and the cause saith Sir Edward Coke of the Kings giving the Nobility so many great Priviledges is because all Honour and Nobility is derived from the King who is the true fountain of Honour and Honours the Nobility also two was as 1. Ad consulendum and anciently gives them Robes 2dly A Sword Ad defendendum Regem Regnum and the Oath of Allegiance is and ought to be imprinted in the heart of every Subject scil Ego verus fidelis ero veritatem praestabo Domino Regi de vita membro de terreno honore vivendum moriendum contra omnes gentes c. Et si cognoscam aut audiam de aliquo damno aut malo quod domino Regi evenire poterit revelabo c. And their Wives and Dowagers enjoy the same Priviledges in the time of Parliament and without and their Sons and Daughters a praecedency which those of the House of Commons have not the Lords can in case of Absence by the Kings License make their proxy but the Members of the House of Commons cannot the Lords at any conference with the Members of the House of Commons do sit covered but the Commons do all the while stand uncovered the Lords have a certain number of Chaplains in time of Parliament and with a Priviledge of enjoying more than one Benefice but the Members of the House of Commons none the Lords in the case of breach of Priviledge by arresting any of their Moenial Servants in the time of Parliament do by their own order punish the offenders which the House of Commons should not without the assistance of the King by his Writ out of his Court of Chancery the Lords and some others
vain Fears such as in constantem virum cadere non possunt should not be permitted to affright our better to be imployed Imaginations unless we had a mind to be as wise as a small and pleasant Courtier of King Henry the Eighths who would never endure to pass in a Boat under London-Bridge lest it should fall upon his Head because it might once happen to do so Our Magna Charta's and all our Laws which ordain no man to be condemned or punished without Tryal by his Peers do allow it where it is by Confession Outlawry c and no Verdict Did never think it fit that Publick Dangers such as Treason should tarry where Justice may as well be done otherwise without any precise Formalities to be used therein For although it may be best done by the advice of the Kings greatest Council the Parliament there is no Law or reasonable Custom of England either by Act of Parliament or without that restrains the King to do it only in the time of Parliament When the Returns Law-Days and Terms appointed and fixt have ever given place to our Kings Commissions of Oyer and Terminer Inquiries c. upon special and emergent occasions And notwithstanding it will be always adviseable that Kings should be assisted by their greatest Council when it may be had yet there is no Law or Act of Parliament extant or any right reason or consideration to bind Him from making use of His ordinary Council in a Case of great and importunate necessity For Cases of Treason Felony and Trespass being excepted out of Parliament first and last granted and indulged Priviledges by our and their Kings and Princes there can be no solid Reason or cogent Argument to perswade any man that the King cannot for the preservation of Himself and His People in the absence or interval of Parliaments punish and try Offenders in Cases of Treason without which there can be no Justice Protection or Government if the Power of the King and Supream Magistrate shall be tyed up by such or the like as may happen Obstructions So that until the Honourable House of Commons can produce some or any Law Agreement Pact Concession Liberty or Priviledge to Sit and Counsel the King whether he will or no as long as any of their Petitions remain unanswered which they never yet could or can those grand Impostors and Figments of the Modus tenendi Parliamenta and the supposed Mirror of Justice being as they ought to be rejected when the Parliament Records will witness that many Petitions have for want of time most of the ancient Parliaments not expending much of it been adjourned to be determined in other Courts as in the Case of Staunton in 14 E. 3. and days have been limited to the Commons for the exhibiting of their Petitions the Petitions of the Corbets depended all the Raigns of King Edward the First and Second until the eleventh year of Edward the Third which was about sixty six years and divers Petitions not dispatched have in the Raign of King Richard the Second been by the King referred to the Chancellor and sometimes with a direction to call to his assistance the Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law and the Commons themselves have at other times prayed to have their Petitions determined by the Councel of the King or by the Lord Chancellor And there will be reason to believe that in Cases of urgent necessity for publick safety the King is and ought to be at liberty to try and punish great and dangerous Offenders without His Great Council of Parliament The Petitions in Parliament touching the pardoning of Richard Lyons John Peachie Alice Peirce c and a long process of William Montacute Earl of Salisbury were renewed and repeated again in the Parliament of the first of Richard the Second because the Parliament was ended before they could be answered Anno 1. of King Richard the Second John Lord of Gomenez formerly committed to the Tower for delivering up of the Town of Ardes in that Kings time of which he took upon him the safe keeping in the time of King Edward the Third and his excuse being disproved the Lords gave Judgment that he should dye but in regard he was a Gentleman and a Baronet and had otherwise well served should be beheaded but Judgment was howsoever respited until the King should be thereof fully informed and was thereupon returned again to the Tower King Henry the Second did not tarry for the assembling a Parliament to try Henry de Essex his Standard-bearer whom he disherited for throwing it down and aftrighting his Host or disheartning it 16 E. 2 Henry de bello monte a Baron refusing to come to Parliament upon Summons was by the King Lords and Council and the Judges and Barons of the Exchequer then assisting committed for his contempt to Prison Anno 3 E. 3. the Bishop of Winchester was indicted in the Kings-Bench for departing from the Parliament at Salisbury Neither did Henry the Eight forbear the beheading of His great Vicar General Cromwell upon none or a very small evidenced Treason until a Parliament should be Assembled The Duke of Somerset was Indicted of Treason and Felony the scond of December Anno 3. 4. Edwardi 6. sitting the Parliament which began the fourth day of November in the third year of His Raign and ended the first day of February in the fourth was acquitted by his Peers for Treason but found guilty of Felony for which neglecting to demand his Clergy he was put to Death In the Raign of King Philip and Queen Mary thirty nine of the House of Commons in Parliament whereof the famous Lawyer Edmond Plowden was oneâ— were Indicted in the Court of Kings-Bench for being absent without License from the Parliament Queen Elizabeth Charged and Tryed for Treason and Executed Mary Queen of Scots her Feudatory without the Advice of Parliament and did the like with Robert Earl of Essex her special Favourite for in such Cases of publick and general Dangers the shortest delays have not seldom proved to be fatally mischievous And howsoever it was in the Case of Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury in the fifteenth year of the Raign of King Edward the Third declared that the Peers de la terre ne doivent estre arestez ne mesnez en Jugement Si non en Parlement par leur Pairres yet when there is no Parliament though by the Law their Persons may not then also be Arrested at a common persons Suit they may by other ways be brought to Judgment in any other Court And Charges put in by the Commons in the House of Peers against any of the Peers have been dissolved with it For Sir Edward Coke hath declared it to be according to the Law and reasonable Customs of England followed by the modern practice that the giving any Judgment in Parliament doth not make it a Session and that such Bills as passed in either or
King himself or in any Nation of the World that any History or Record hath been able to give us an account and yet in the Verdict and return thereupon made faithfully written and Recorded by two Bishops there is not a word or syllable or any the least mention or intimation of that modus tenendi Parliamentum or any the pretended Rights or Priviledges of Parliament in those our late infatuated and rebellious times so quarrelled and grasped without any manner of evidence and colour and although in the beginning of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr he could in the House of Commons in Parliament weep and lament with tears the supposed dangers with many he knew not what to call them fears and jealousies and procured many of his Fellow Members to bear him Company did take care out of his modus tenendi Parliamentum to bless after Ages with a parcel of its levelling Doctrine which might make the broken pieces of the Monarchy of England never able without God's mercy to be cemented or put together again but remain incurable by that means and help more than ordinary which Mr. Selden thinks was written long after the Norman Monarchy and the Title of it is so false that it too much disparageth the Treatise And that fictitious modus hath six distinct pretended Estates wherein Sir Edward Coke was pleased to allow our King to be Caput Principium finis Parliamenti whom all other mistakers the Bill or Instrument that made Richard 3. an usurping King made but three Estates two or three of which degrees or States never sat in Parliament before or during the Conquerors Raign nor many years after saith Mr. Pryn Et pacem non habet in suo gradu as that modus is pleased to allow him Et ita Rex solus est primus gradus 2. gradus est ex Archiepiscopis Episcopis Abbatibus Prioribus aliis Clericis qui Baronias tenent 3. gradus est ex procuratoribus Cleri 4. gradus est ex Comitibus Baronibus aliis magnatibus proteribus tenentibus ad valenciam Comitatus Baroniae 5. gradus est de militibus Comitatuum 6. gradus est de Civibus Burgensibus ita est Parliamentum de sex gradibus sciendum est quod licet aliquis dictorum quinque graduum post Regem absens sit dum tamen omnes praemonici sint per rationabiles summonitiones Parliamentum censetur esse plenum And that special Engine or Machine of the Devil could not fail of a great effect in the furnishing out and palliating that damnable and hypocritical Rebellion which for almost fifty years last past hath miserably infatuated and ruined England with damage and mischiefs in abundance to Ireland and Scotland and the loss almost of some hundred thousand mens lives and the ruin of very many Families unto which that modus tenendi Parliamentum was a compleat directory and to all our Rebellious Confusions and Troubles after happening and introducing the Murder of the Blessed King Charles the Martyr And was not like to produce any better consequence than the dislocating and tearing in pieces a most happy kind of Government and transferring a well established Monarchy into the said fatality of an Anarchy no where to be found amongst all the Monarchies of Christendom or any other parts of the World or any the Ideas of Plato or any Legislators of the World Sir Thomas Moores Utopia or that which Gonzagua and his Geese found in that of the World in the Moon or that which would not long have satisfied Wat Tiler Jack Cade John of Leyden Massinello or the Rabble of their State menders or Propagators of their Rambling Fancies one part of which modus hath this special Doctrine Et sciendum est quod duo milites qui veniant ad Parliamentum pro ipso Comitatu vocem habent in Parliamento in concidendo contradicendoquam Majores Comites Angliae eodem modo procuratores Cleri unius Episcopatus Majorem vocem habent in Parliamento si omnes sint concordes quam Episcopus ipse hoc in omnibus quae ad Parliamentum concedi negari vel fieri debent ex hoc patet quod Rex potest tenere Parliamentum in Comunitate Regni sui absque Episcopis Comitibus Baronibus dum tamen summoniti sint ad Parliamentum licet nullus Episcopus Comes vel Baro ad summonitionem venerint quia olim nec fuerat Episcopus Comes nec Baro adhuc tunc Reges tenuerunt Parliamenta sua sed aliter est e contra licet Communitates Cleri Laici summoniti essent ad Parliamenta sicut de Jure debent propter aliquas Causas venire nollent ut si praetenderent quod Rex non regeret eos sicut et assignaret specialiter in quibus Articulis eos non rexerat Parliamentum nullum est omnino at their will and pleasure licet omnes Archiepiscopi Episcopi Comites Barones eorum pares cum Rege interessent a large Priviledge if Sir Edward Coke were alive to see if he could with a Torch Fanatically lighted it authenticated as such Charters used to be with many Witnesses for a farthing or small Candle will never be able to do it and it seems that that part of the modus or the residue of that incredible Tale or Story was not ready at hand when he was Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament when Queen Elizabeth charged him to tell that House that it was only in her Power to Summon Prorogue Adjourn and Dissolve Parliaments which he without any contradiction of what she had spoken unto him faithfully related unto them and they as little denied et ideo oportet quod omnia quae affirmari vel informari concedi vel negari aut fieri debeat per Communitates Parliamenti concedi quae est ex tribus gradibus sive generibus Parliamenti scilicet ex procuratoribus Cleri Militibus Comitatibus Burgensibus qui repraesentant totam Communitatem Angliae non de magnatibus quia quilibet eorum est pro sua propria persona ad Parliamentum pro nulla alia And that levelling Doctrine will want a confirmation in a Record of 11 H. 6. the original whereof is only thus Memorandum quod octavo die Julii Anno Regni Henrici Regis post Conquestum undecimo ipso dom Rege in Parliamento suo apud Westmonasterium tunc convocato sede sua Regia in Camera depicta residente praesentibus etiam tunc ibidem illustrissimis Principibus Bedford Gloucester ducibus ac Reverendissimo in Christo Patre Henr. Cardinal Angliae caeterisque quam pluribus Prelatis Proceribus Communibus Regni Angliae ad Parliamentum praedict authoritate regia convocatus venerabilis pater Johannis Episcop Bathon Wellen Cancellarius Angliae causam Summoniconis ejusdem Parliamenti ex ipsius domini Regis mandato egregio assumens pro suo
Thames Arrested and carried Prisoner to the Tower of London and the Wind and Tyde of fear and self-preservation did then so impetuously drive Sir Edward Littleton the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who some years before when he was a young Man made it a part of his Praise or Olympick Game to prove by Law that the King had no Law to destrain men esse Milites and Sir John Banckes Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas that they joyned with the then Illegal concurrent Votes of too many of the House of Peers that the Militia which was the Right and Power of the Sword and Jus divinum gladii and the totum aggregatum and support of the Government was in the People when our Learned Bracton hath truly informed us that in Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo Arma videlicet Leges quibus utrumqne bellorum pacis recto possit gubernari utrumque enim istorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam Res militaris possit esse in tuto quam ipsae Leges usu Armorum praesidio possent esse servatae si autem Arma defecerint contra hostes Rebelles Inimicos sic erit Regnum indefensum si autem Leges sic exterminabitur justitia nec erit qui justum faciet Following therein that opinion of Justinian the Emperour in his Institutes And did declare not like men that had taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy before they were admitted into that House that if any Person whatsoever wherein the King or his Command ought to have been excepted shall offer to arrest or detain the Person of any Member of that House without first acquainting their House or receiving further Order from that House that it is Lawful for any such Member or any Person to assist him and to stand upon his and their guard and defence and to make resistance according to the protestation taken to defend the Priviledges of Parliament which was neither to commit or maintain Treason or make that without the Kings Authority to be Treason that never was their intollerable haughty Priviledges so incompatible and inconsistent with Monarchy demanded by the Petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament the 14th day of December 1641. can never be able to withstand the dint and force of the Law and Right Reason if a Quo Warranto should be brought against them Whereupon the King the 4th day of January 1641. coming into the House of Commons in Person no such Company attending with Pistols at the Door as was untruly reported and being sate in the Speakers Chair said he was sorry for the occasion of coming unto them Yesterday he had sent a Serjeant at Arms to apprehend some that were accused of High Treason whereunto he expected Obedience and not a Message and that he must declare unto them that in case of High Treason no Person hath a Priviledge And therefore he was come to know if any of these Persons accused were here for so long as those Persons accused for no slight crime but for Treason were there he could not expect that that House could be in the Right way which he heartily wishes and therefore he came to tell the House that he must have them wheresoever he can find them but since he sees the Birds are flown he doth expect from them that they should send them unto him as soon as they return thither But assures them in the word of a King he never did intend any force but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way for he never meant any other which they might easily have done when they had his own Serjeant at Arms attending that Honse for no other than such like purposes The next day being the 5th day of January 1641. notwithstanding that Treason Felony and Breach of the Peace were always by the Laws of England and Customs of their Parliaments exempt and never accompted to be within the Circuit of any Parliament Priviledge for otherwise Parliaments and great Assemblies well Affected or ill Affected would be dangerous unto Kings they declare the Kings coming thither in Person to be an high breach of the Rights and Priviledge of Parliament and inconsistent with the Liberty and Freedom thereof and therefore adjourned their sitting to the Guildhall in London which they should not have done without the Kings Order that a special Committee of 24 should sit there also concerning the Irish Affairs of which number was Sir Ralph Hopton that after got out of their wicked errors and fought and won sundry glorious Battels for the King against those Parliament Rebels and some few more of that their Committee deserted their Party And the Writ sent by King Edward the first to the Justices of his Bench by Mr. Pulton stiled a Statute made in the 7th year of his Raign might have sufficiently informed them and all that were of the profession of the Law in the House of Commons in Parliament that in a Parliament at Westminster the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of the Realm have said that to the King it belongeth and his part is through his Royal Seignory streightly to defend force of Arms and all other force against his Peace at all times which shall please him and to punish them which shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and therefore they are bound to aid him as their Soveraign Lord at all times when need shall be and therefore commanded the Justices to cause those things to be read before them in the said Bench and there Inrolled The before confederated national Covenant betwixt England and Scotland being by Ordinance of Parliament for so they were pleased to call their no Laws confirmed under a penalty that no man should enjoy any Office or Place in the Commonwealth of Engl. and Ireland that did not Attest and Swear it which the King prohibiting by his Proclamation sent unto London the bringer whereof was hanged the King certainly informed of the traiterous practices and other misdeameanors of the Lord Kimbolton and his aforesaid Associates did as privately as possible with the Prince Elector Palatine his Nephew and no extraordinary attendance go in person to the House of Commons to seize them because his Serjeants at Arms durst not adventure to do it who having notice of it by the Countess of Carlisles over-hearing his whispering to the Queen and suddenly sending them notice thereof were sure to be absent wherein he being disappointed did afterwards by his Attorney General exhibit Articles of High Treason and other Misdemeanors against them 1. That they had traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom and deprive the King of his Legal Power and place on Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power which shortly after proved wofully true and for many years after so continued 2. That they have endeavoured by many foul aspersions upon his Majesty
who had been Receiver of the Kings Money and had not accounted for it in Twenty years was once endeavoured to be pleased by being made Chancellor of the Exchequer Hollis one of the Secretaries of State Sir Arthur Haselrig and William Strode were to be put into great places one to be Governour of the Prince and the other as a Secretary and there being no special Office for the Lord Kimbolton the hopes of their being better Subjects and Councellors than the former begat their after Rebellion for which three Kingdoms and the ruin and desolation thereof with the life of the Blessed Martyr King Charles the first might have been spared if that Treason had been punished by Law the King having been informed that some of the well-willers to the Scotish Rebellion had before hand conveyed away their Estates the next care to be taken being to take away the Life of Thomas Earl of Strafford who was General of the Army of the King in the North against the Scots who coming up to London to accuse Pym and the rest of the five Members so called found as he was knocking at the door of the House of Peers Mr. Pym gotten in accusing him of High Treason upon which he being Arraigned was Acquitted when he was guilty of no Treason but they of abundance but that not giving satisfaction to their wicked designs they invented a way to have him again Arraigned upon a Bill in Parliament at the Suit of the Commons of England which was the first Bill in Parliament of that kind in writing that ever was before to Interest and proclaim the House of Commons to be Co-ordinate and a third Estate including the King to be in or ex se one of them many of the Preachers were found fault with for Arminianism and other Doctrines by those that understood them as little as they did the Word of God that they preacht up the Kings Power and Prerogative and Doctor Manwarring voted by the House of Commons in Parliament to be punished and sequestred whom the King afterwards made a Bishop Mr. William Pryn Mr. Henry Burton and Dr. Bastwick justly sentenced in the Court of Star Chamber the first having his Ears nailed unto the Pillory and all of them severally imprisoned in remote places were insolently voted out of Prison an attempt never before adventured upon by an House of Commons in Parliament and no such things as previous votings in order to the fixing or carrying on evil designs were ever before used to be made in any of our Kings or Princes Raigns and were by multitudes of factious Londoners of the most Common sort intermingled brought in a seditious procession on Horseback through the Streets with Rosemary in their Hats or Hands Mr. Pryn shortly after made a busy and fiery Member of Parliament the two former whereof were fanatically reported to have had miracles or visions seen upon the occasion of that they called their sufferings Bills were put upon the Corners of the Streets in London to invite People to give a meeting upon a certain day at Grocers Hall in London to some Members of the House of Commons in Parliament to prepare Petitions unto themselves some Troops of Factious Ministers made themselves the Conductors out of several Counties of many a simple Innovator with Papers in their Hats signifying no more than something they knew not what against Popery the Porters of London must put on their Sunday Cloaths and carry to the House of Commons printed Petitions against the Kings enjoying the Militia where they were only informed that it was against Watermen of London's carriying of Trunks all the Boys in a Free School at Stamford in Lincolnshire enticed by the naughty School-Master to subscribe their names to a Petition against Bishops with other numberless Cheats and trciks to make fears and jealousies and breed a Rebellion which might proceed as much as it could to break in peices never as they hoped to be repaired again our Ancient and flourishing Monarchy the King maketh a progress into his Kingdom of Scotland where they beg and importune him for the small Demesne Crown Lands which he had left and when he would have reserved enough to have defrayed the charge of his house keeping whilst he remained there they would not trust him with the Money for fear he should provide Arms with it when in the mean time a Rebellion was begun in Ireland with a Massacre from whence when he returned to London he was received by all the Citizens with the Hosanna of a Great seeming Joy but suddenly after ill managed by some Lords and Commons in Parliament their then too great Idol in a most Hypocritical way of a Remonstrance bearing Date the 14th day of December 1641. at Hampton Court wherein with all zeal and faithfulness unto His Majesty acknowledging his Royal favour and Protection to be a great blessing and security unto them for the enjoying of all these publick and private Priviledges and Liberties and whensoever any of them shall be invaded or broken And because the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament are the Birthright and Inheritance not only of themselves but the Kingdom but every one of his Subjects is interessed that is as to his protection only whilst they are his Subjects do honour and obey him are so simpliciter but not secundum quid the maintenance and preservation whereof doth very highly conduce unto the publick peace and prosperity of His Majesty and all His People they conceive themselves more especially obliged with all humbleness and care and constancy of Resolution to endeavour to maintain and defend the same as in an easie to be conceived manner of threatning Amongst other the Priviledges of Parliament they do declare that it is their undoubted Right that His Majesty ought not to take notice of any matter in agitation and debate in either Houses of Parliament but by their Information which would not only contradict but overturn the Reason Constitution Records and Annals of all our Nation And that he ought not to propound any condition provision or limitation in any Bill or Act in debate or preparation in either of both Houses of Parliament or to manifest or declare his consent or dislike of the same before it be presented to His Majesty in the course of Parliament so as they would have their King to be as a Mute until they shall have finished all they would for otherwise one Interval might thwart another how shall such a King be Master of a Judgment or have any or was God to be prayed unto to give his Judgment to the King or unto the People or by what Rule of Right Reason should the King being of full age and sanity of mind not be permitted the right use of the Faculties of his Soul And that the King ought not to conceive displeasure against any man for such Opinions and Propositions as shall be delivered in such debate it belonging to the several Houses of Parliament
respectively which had their Original contradistinct Powers and Customs to judge and determine such Errours and Offences in Words or Actions that shall be committed by any of their Members in the handling or debating any matter depending which was contradicted by Queen Elizabeth when she charged the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament not to intermeddle in matters of Church or State or receive any Bills of that nature and severely punished some Members that attempted to do otherwise Yet they complained in their so strange a claim of those their never to be found Priviledges that they were to their great grievance broken by the Kings endeavouring to put a Salvo Jury to their Bill or Act of Parliament forbiding the pressing of Souldiers at that instant when there was so great an occasion for the Wars in Ireland and went much higher than the great Earls the Constable and Earl Marshal of England and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester did when in a Parliament of King Edward the first they denyed him his accustomed Salvo Jure where he or his Privy Councel or Councel at Law adjudged it necessary And therefore humbly intreated his Majesty by his Royal Power and Authority whereof it may 〈◊〉 they would leave him as little as possibly they couldâ— to protect them in those and all other their Priviledges of Parliament And for the time to come would not interrupt the same and that they may not suffer in his Majesties favour when he should be so greatly obliged unto his Subjects as to restore again to his knowledge and Judgment after the end of such a Parliament never before known in England or any other Nation of the Christian World such a kind of Priviledge neither being possible to be found or heard of on Earth or amongst the Antipodes or in the discovery which Gonzagua's Geese made of the Countrey of the Moon where the Servants are reported to govern the Masters and the Children their Parents And that his Majesty would be pleased to nominate those that have been his Advisers that they may receive such condign Judgment as may appertain unto Justice And this his most faithful Councel shall advise and desire as that which will not only be a comfort to themselves but of great advantage to his Majesty by procuring such a confidence between him and his People as may be a Foundation of honour safety and happiness to his Person and Throne And probably had never adventured to fly so high a pitch if some of the Lords and Commons in Parliament had not upon the Scotch petitioning Rebellion and entring into England borrowed 150000 l. upon their several personal securities to pay their quarters whilst they were here which Parliament Manacles of their King would have amounted to more than the aforesaid Sir Edward Cokes figment of a modus tenendi Parliamentum used as he beleived in Edward the Confessors time And in the absence of Parliaments might have the Name and Title of King until they should make an occasion to Print a Remonstrance against him or arraign him And as a Prologue to their intended Remonstrance the next day they seeming not a little to congratulate his safe coming from Scotland did beseech him to give more Life and Power to the faithful Councel of his Parliament and being necessitated to make a Declaration of their grievances and the corruption of some of his Bishops especially such as are in a near trust and employment about him and were divers of them of his Privy Councel and about the Prince his Son and have thereby a dangerous operation in his Councel and Government in this time of a preparation for War betwixt his Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland which was then but procured and fomented by confederacy Insurrection of the Papists and Bloody Affairs in Ireland for prevention whereof they have ingaged themselves and their Estates in the sum of 150000 l. Sterling or thereabouts for the necessary supply of his Majesty in his dangerous Affairs therefore they prayed 1. That he would concur with the desires of his Parliament for the depriving the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament which was the one half of that grand Fundamental of the Laws and Government of England in the House of Peers in Parliament and abridge their immoderate power usurped over the Clergy to the hazard and prejudice of the Laws Liberty and Religion of his Subjects and the taking away oppression in Church Government and Discipline punishing such Loyal Subjects as join together in Fundamental Truths against the Papists and by the oppressions of unnecessary Ceremonies 2. Remove from his Councel all the promoters thereof and to imploy such persons in his great Affairs and trust as his Parliament may conside in which was to govern him both in times of Parliament and without when he hath at his Coronation taken his Oath to govern according to his Laws not any of the Peoples 3 That he would not alienate any of the forfeited Irish Lands which begot good bargains for some of the ungodly contrivers when they after purchased their Rebel perjured Soldiers arrears for xvj d. per pound Which being fulfilled they his most great and faithful Councel upon these conditions â—â—all by the blessing of God as they would have it cheerfully undergo the expence of the War and apply themselves to such other means and Councels as shall support him and make him glorious both at home and abroad In order whereunto the contrary way they did the 15th day of December 1641. notwithstanding his earnest request unto them print and publish it wherein besides some of their own or their instigators unquiet Spirits ambitious or evil designs to misuse and Govern their Soveraign plainly appearing may be seen and the many greivances of their own making in the oppressing of each other and undertaking to determine of matters and Mysteries of State and the Arcana's and necessities of State of which they could not possibly without necessary Praecognita's be competent Judgâ—s they made a great addition to that prologue to their subsequent Rebellion and abominable consequence of the murder of that excellently pious Prince insomuch is it may be over and over again a wonder to be ranked amongst the greatest in what untrodden or dark inaccessible Caverns of the Earth these unknown and never accustomed Priviledges of the Parliaments of England could lurk or lye hidden when in all the Conservatorships of liberties devised at Running Mede forced upon King John the â—ovisions made at Oxford in the Raign of King Henry the 3d. neither any thing in the Raigns of King Edward the 2d 3. 4. and Richard 2d Henry 4 5 6. Richard the 3d the Usurper Henry the 7th King Henry 8. E. 6. Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth and and King James had never such shackles desired or claimed to be put upon any of them unto which those Parliament Remonstrants were the more incouraged by that oppressed Princes having his three Kingdoms