Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	common_a	error_n	writ_n	3,288	5	9.7175	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54692	The reforming registry, or, A representation of the very many mischiefs and inconveniences which will unavoidably happen by the needless, chargeable, and destructive way of registries proposed to be erected in every county of England and Wales, for the recording of all deeds, evidences, bonds, bills, and other incumbrances : written in the year 1656 when Oliver and the Levelling-party made it their design to ruine monarchy ... / by Fabian Philipps.	Philipps, Fabian, 1601-1690.	1662 (1662)	Wing P2014; ESTC R14829	37,868	105

to some one or every of these Superior Courts as to several respects whereby with less charge to the people or trouble to those Courts to collect and make up their Registers out of the Records if there could be any need of it as the Clerk of the Pipe and Exchequer Remembrancers are order'd by Act of Parliament to do one out of anothers Rolls or Office the Decrees and Recognisances in the Chancery and Exchequer and the Judgments in the Courts of Upper Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster must by this new and unpractised way of Registers be certified out of those Superior and Grand Courts of the Nation to those who are neither Courts of Record nor intend to be in any subordination to them with a great deal of unnecessary charge and trouble to the people to procure Exemplications under the Seal of the said Courts or authentick and sworn Copies of Records of them the latter whereof being to be delivered by the Plaintiffs or those that obtained the Judgments or their Attorneys or any other interessed therein may produce many inconveniences and send them to and from all parts of the Nation one as far as from Kent to Westchester and another from Oxford to York to Lincoln and upon three several Judgments had at London as it many times happens upon one Bond for payment of money wherein three or four several men of three several Additions or Residence do stand bound to send into Wales Northumberland Devonshire Cornwal or the like to have them entred in the proper Registries where also Judgments in personal and transitory Actions against men who have neither Lands or any fixed Residence in one County more then in another and write themselves of several places will be so much the more difficult in the search and finding them As Fisty two Shire Towns are most commonly farther distant from those that must go unto them and at all times not a little remote one from another and not so easie or expedite a search as it would be with the Registers or at the Chappel of the Rolls in Chancery the Prothonotary of the Court of Upper Bench the three Prothonotaries of the Court of Common Pleas and in the Pipe and Two Remembrancers Offices in the Exchequer the Office for Probate of Wills the Fine Office and Clerk of the Warrants and the Statute Office who are all of them constantly to be found most part of the Vacation and all the Term times within less then a mile of one another at London without sending any one on purpose thither Or if the Plaintiffs or the Superior Courts whose Judgments and Decrees once entred and inrolled cannot by the Judges themselves be stayed or arrested without a Writ of Error in Courts of Common Law and a Bill of Review upon a Decree in Chancery and are sworn not to deny any man Common Right shall be ordered to transmit or certifie Copies of such Judgments or Decrees with an Injunction That they shall not be otherwise valid or put in execution will not onely be unparalelled and unpresidented and against the Oath of the Judges and Common Right and Justice but render those ancient and superior Courts to be but as half Courts of Record and their Judgments but Interlocutory or as Offices onely of Inquest and Inquiry and the Registries to be in effect and power as their Superiors Mean while the people having obtained any Judgments or Decrees in those Courts concerning Lands or Personal Estate sh●ll by this new way of Registries be if there shall be no provision or exception for such Cases necessitated and put to another needless charg● and trouble of transmiting Copies of 〈…〉 and Decrees which by a 〈…〉 Composition or Agreement whi●h happens so often as there is not one Judgment in every twenty in a year considered one with another which stands unsatisfied or unagreed or remains as an Incumbrance for three Terms after do come to be either useless or not at all to be put in execution or be disabled by such restraints to take Executions upon such Judgments which are not satisfied though it be against a flying Debtor or a wasting estate or to acknowledge satisfaction upon any such Judgments until they shall be transmitted to the Registries where unless all Releases Satisfactions and Payments either in part or in whole upon Judgments shall be also entred Which with the other troubles of Registring will be enough to keep all the men and people of the Nation from the danger of falling into the Lethargy or sleeping sickness they may receive mens moneys for Searches and Certificates but never be able to give a certainty or truth of what shall be desired of them Bonds Bills and other Writings which are now usually made upon all occasions and at all convenient times and places in above Nine thousand Parishes Sundays onely excepted and many of them in half or a quarter of an hours space with great dispatch and ease to the people cannot if they must be Registred be made now or done as formerly without both the parties travelling together to the Registry or meeting at 1. or more Shiretowns in fifty two to acknowledge and enter them which may be Forty Thirty Twenty or Ten miles off from the place where the Contracts were made and will so trouble every mans ordinary and formerly easie enough affairs and business in that kinde as to make them to be no less then extraord nary Incumbrances and too much discover every mans Estate and double every mans misery and wants in taking away his credit which might by degrees be a means to help him out of it Unlock and throw open every mans Closet or place wherein he keeps his Writings and Evidences and expose them for the Registers Fees to the view of every one that shall have a desire to see and take Copies of them which the Chancery and other Courts would not suffer to be done or so much as to be seen or read by their adversaries unless at hearings or tryals nor their Counsel Attorneys or Solicitors to be examined as witnesses against them or to discover what they had seen or understood by their Writings or Evidences Mens wives may by this means be as privy as themselves to their Estate and Evidences which wise and good men many times finde fitting to conceal from them to the end that they may not lavish and be the more irregular in their desires and expences And their children more prodigal and wasteful and less careful to please their Parents or to be governed by them in their Marriages when they shall know what is before-hand setled upon them Those that have good Estates will be rendred so more then needs to be visible as the Taxers or Assessment-men shall be sure to over-rate them for although there be found such Deeds or Conveyances or Bonds or Bills made unto them which may seem as a good Estate or Income they cannot or at

per pound for the other hundred besides other charges Which Writ of Extent being returned and filed in the Petibag is the Warrant for a Liberate directed to the Sheriff to give possession of the Land extended which is but many times the beginning of a greater charge in bringing Audita Quaerela's or Bills in Chancery When as it is in every year to be proved and acknowledged for a truth That of Eight hundred Actions or Writs issuing forth of the Court of Common Pleas or Upper Bench in a year in some one particular County for Debt upon Bonds or Bills or in some other Personal Actions there are no Warrants taken out to Arrest above Six hundred of them in regard of the Defendants speedy Agreement and of those Six hundred not above Three hundred are Arrested or come to enter their appearance and of those not above a half come to plead or make any defence and not the on half of them do afterwards come to tryal at the Assises and not a fifth part of those do come to move in Arrest of Judgment or sue out Writs of Error or put in Bills in Chancery And those that do not proceed so far as to Arrest do not put the Plaintiff or Defendant to so much as Ten shillings a peice charges the second sort including the former charges not Twenty shillings a piece if the Defendant be not a desperate fighter and hard to be taken and the third sort if there be no special or long Pleadings not above Thirty shillings in all and the fourth sort or such as come to tryal not above four or five pounds with all the charges reckoned together besides that of Witnesses or extraordinary Counsel so little is the expence of time and money in the present way or course of suing upon Bonds and Bills and other Personal Actions And so much is like to be the delay and charges and vexation of that which some would so willingly have to succeed it But if the trouble and charge of Certificates into the Chancery and suing out of Audita Quaerela's and such a generation of Suits as are like to happen by such a severe kinde of Securities shall be endeavored to be prevented by making every Registry to be a Court of Record and to have something to hear and determine as well as to Write and Register CHAP. VI. Of new Courts or Judicatories to be erected in every County to hear and determine Causes THere will be then Fifty two Judicatories or Inferior Courts more then are already erected one of which to be added to every County in England and Wales will come before they will be welcome or wanted for every Shire in England hath already the Summer and Winter Assises Quarter Sessions four times in every year County Courts every moneth Sheriffs Turns Courts Leet and Baron and weekly or three weeks Courts in its City or Towns Corporate amounting in every County to no less then Two hundred one with another which being in the wisdom of former ages and some hundreds of years past and every years experience since sound to be in their due limits and bounds very necessary and useful do make as many Law-days and meetings for the people as they have need of To help which new Courts or Judicatories to work or business if Bonds and Bills which they would have the Registring of or any other of the Causes or Matters which are and have hitherto been from time to time dispatched by the Courts at Westminster when they had before the Wars and Troubles of these later times almost half as much or as many again as they have now with good content and conveniency to the people and to all who have had occasion to seek for or attend their Justice if those that are ignorant or peevishly self-conceited or discontented because their desires or unjust expectations have been frustrated in some Actions or Suits which they prosecuted or defended would but let Reason or Truth be judge of their Mistaken-apprehensions and not lay their own or other mens errors or failings upon the Courts or Judges shall be transferred and carried into these County Judicatories from the more knowing and Superior Courts and Judges at Westminster who besides their well-known learning and justice in all Causes which are brought before them may for an evidence or testimony of the peoples approbation of them call to witness the many causes which for many ages together and in every year are and have been removed from the Inferior Courts to the Superior for want of Justice and the many Juries and Tryals at their Bars which by consent both of Plaintiffs and Defendants are yearly and termly brought from the Counties as well near as remote to be heard by the more learned sort of Judges and Courts And put unto the Judgment and determination of the less or very little or not at all able or knowing will stop up the ways of the places of the paths where Wisdom and Justice made their constant habitation deprive and take away if they shall not be impowred to try by Juries from every man so much of his part and interest in Magna Charta as the want of his tryal by his Peers or a Jury will come to put the spear of the mighty into the hands of those that are not able to weild or manage it inforce the people to inquire of the blind and deaf the way to make an end of their controversies by carrying their causes to such as are not able to judge or determine them which may after the expence of much money time and labor yield them as good a Crop or Harvest as Ulysses had when he counterseited himself to be mad by Ploughing the Sand or Shore with his strange kinde of Cattle and sowing of Salt instead of Corn. Or if the Sheriffs Turns and County Courts shall be put into the power and care of those Judicatures That ancient and necessary Officer of Justice and the execution of the Law will be made either to be as nothing or but the one half of what it was formerly and ought to be and the whole frame of that ancient and useful Jurisdiction put into disorder or dissolved or if the Hundred Courts Leet and Baron will take away the inheritance right and property of the Lords of Manors and the necessary relations and dependences which are and ought to be betwixt them and their Tenants contrary to Magna Charta and the whole tenor of our Laws and Liberties Or if these new Judicatories shall as the Systeme-makers had for the setting up of others not long ago contrived be made up of several parts or pieces and torn or taken out of that goodly order and frame of our Laws and Body Politick or as the Romans did in their original contempt and poverty in the getting the Sabine and Neighbor Virgins to be their Wives sally out upon other Jurisdictions and Ravish and take to themselves what

to some few in particular yet such a Registring will certainly besides many other evils attending it revive and raise Controversies betwixt adversaries or such as have been the former owners or inheritors of the Lands make and multiply Suits which were never intended or incourage others to project or make designs upon men and their Estates and so breed and multiply Informers as few mens Estates or Titles shall be free from such kinde of Vermin and welwishers to themselves more then to the Commonwealth And if no other troubles shall break in that way lessen or take away the credit of those who were before reputed to have had a good Title to their Lands and Estates especially when the late Wars and Plundrings have lost or taken away a great part if not all of mens ancient and later Deeds and Evidences and where some shall appear to be Registred and others found to be wanting Or if they could be found or produced will many times be to seek for those that did seal or execute them whereby to have them acknowledged and registred Or when those that should be vouched to Warranty or sued in a Warrantia Charta or to perform Covenants shall be gone beyond Seas or dead or insolvent and no witnesses to be found that can tell or remember any thing of the contents or verification of them The want whereof may be a way to raise again when courage and necessity shall meet together the old way long ago laid asleep and disused by our now more safe then formerly keeping our Records and Evidences of gaging Battel in a Writ of Right and fighting by themselves or Champions To which and many more troubles and inconveniences which may be hereafter sadly experimented there will also be too large an Addition If all Bonds Bills Leases Releases Feoffments Contracts in writing and whatsoever writings else which may prove or happen to be Incumbrances upon Real and Personal Estates must also be Registred CHAP. V. Of the Registring of all Bonds Bills Leases Releases Feoffments Contracts in Writing and all other Writings executed which may incumber Real and Personal Estates FOr it will as to the Debts and Recognisances Fines Port-Bonds Obligations which have the force of Statutes Staple and Accompts due to the King or Supream Magistrate which by their many Priviledges Powers and Severities may bring great Incumbrances and Troubles upon such as shall deal with such Debtors or Accomptants by way of purchase or lending of money And as to Wills and Testaments which by disposing charging of Lands may sometimes obstruct or lessen the Estates and Assurances of Purchasers Decrees in Chancery and the Exchequer Fines and Recoveries Judgments Statutes and Recognisances raise a new and unnecessary charge upon the people upon a pretence onely that Incumbrances of Mens Estates and Lands cannot now be so readily found in Twelve or thirteen places in London within half a mile one of another as they hope they will be by their supposed better Registring or Kalendring of them in above Fifty several Shire-Towns some thirty some one hundred and twenty and the least twenty miles distant one from another For the Debrs and Accompts due to the Supream Magistrate and their discharges are already entred and inrolled in the Court of Exchequer attended by the Clerk of the Pipe and his great Roll the Two Remembrancers the Tally and Pell and Auditors Offices and need not to be twice Inrolled and Registred Wills and Testaments are Registred in Books of Parchment fairer and better kept then any Records of the Nation and for a small Fee or Recompence laid open to the view of such as shall have occasion to seek for any thing in them Fines are exactly and without any difficulty to be found in the Fine Office and Recoveries in the Clerk of the Warrants Office in the Court of Common Pleas the Decrees in Chancery fairly entred by sworn Registers and their Clerks in Books of Orders and so methodically kept and Kalendred as the search hath nothing at all of hardship in it and are if the Clerks of the Six Clerks do but their duty inrolled afterwards in Parchment and carried to the Chappel of the Rolls where they are most orderly kept and easie to be found the Recognisances acknowledged in that Court being with as little charge and labor to be found in the Inrollment Office and after they are Inrolled carried in and laid up amongst the Publick Records thereof The Recognisances taken before the Justices of the Peace are or ought to be duly certified into the Quarter Sessions and entred with the Clerks of the Peace of the several Counties Statutes not Merchant are orderly to be found in the Statute Office Decrees of the Exchequer entred into Books and kept by particular Clerks in the two Remembrancers Offices and the Judgments of that Court are as the Judgments are in the Courts of Upper Bench and Common Pleas at Westminster duly entred and recorded in their several Rolls or Records in Parchment and for such as are in the Courts of Upper Bench and Common Pleas entred upon Posteas and after Verdicts have their particular Clerks of the Judgments to enter and give accompt of them The Searches in all which several places making no great charge to the people some whereof are to be had for nothing others for Four pence some Eight pence others Twelve pence and the greatest not exceeding Sixteen pence which in a general search though all those Twelve or Thirteen London Offices and places will not altogether be so much as the charge of a Man and Horse for one days journey for a single search to a Registry if not much above twenty miles distance But if there could be any reason to enter and inrol them over again and put them into Fifty two several places and distances so far of from one another or to perswade or enjoyn people not to look for them where with most ease and less charge they are to be found The Clerks or Registers of such new erected Offices if either they or their business could be for the good of the Common-wealth will be too much exempted and at liberty if they shall not according to the Law and Rule of Right Reason hitherto observed be constituted and made to be under the Survey or Control and sworn as Officers or Clerks of some of the Superior Courts As the Clerks of the Tower Records and Chappel of the Rolls are of the Master of the Rolls the Custos Brevium of the Upper Bench of the Judges of that Court the Custos Brevium and all other Officers of the Court of Common Pleas are of their Judges the Two Remembrancers and Clerks of the Pipe by Act of Parliament and the Chamberlain of the Exchequer and the Keeper of Doomsday Book and divers ancient and miscellaneous Records of great value are of the Lord Treasurer Chancelor and Barons of the Exchequer For if they shall not be incorporate and subordinate

they can get and no way belongs to them will by all or any of those ways not onely vex and turmoil all sorts of people and bereave them as the Members of the Body Politick of the daily care influence and communication of Justice which they used and ought to receive from the head and supream Authority in a place so near unto it and those that sit at the Helm of Government of that termly intelligence which they should have and cannot well be without at London and Westminster concerning the due Administration and Distribution of Justice besides an half yearly inspection into the due execution of Justice in the several Counties of the Nation and the peoples content and satisfaction in it by the Assises wherein the Judges of the Superior Courts like so many Stars and Planets in our Firmament do keep their circuits and courses but give them stones instead of bread and grievances instead of remedies Especially if they shall be guided and managed by ignorant though honest well-meaning men or by tradesmen whom the Athenians and Romans those wise and great Common wealths-men of the World did never think fit to imploy in the Administration of Justice or some small practised or unmolested Doctors of Physick or men of a contrary Profession to that which should be the rule of their Judgment Town Clerks or such who think they can understand better then write or read Committee or Lawyers Clerks or such as shall be but Balbutientes or Novi●es in the Laws or very little or not at all furnished with the knowledge experience or practise thereof or be assisted by Sid●smen of their own capacities or such as being phantastick or self-conceited shall think they speak Law or Reason or do Justice when none but such as speed well by their doing the contrary can be of that opinion and would perhaps do right if they could understand the way unto it which to such men will not be very easie whilest like those ignorant Judges which Plato long ago complained of they sit as men astonished in the hearing of any difficult matter and are to be taught by others and for want of knowledge in themselves or how to distinguish betwixt right and wrong do not know how to judge of that which is said or pleaded before them but whilest every one of them must have his own discourse and speak his sense as they call it will be sure too often to leave the Point and Reason and Truth of the Case like some house or place infected with the Plague and a Cross and Lord have mercy upon us put upon it and rail against the Law because it puzzleth them and the Lawyers for troubling them as one of a Country Committee not long ago said with their many Reasons And misuse their power and make it Arbitrary in not doing what they might or should do doing many things they should not do and doing every thing they would do in making their Orders as their Vulgar Reason or the Byas of partiality or ignorance shall carry them or if one or more should happen to be Lawyers and the major part none their knowledge can go no further then their Votes or what they shall be able to perswade their misunderstanding or not at all understanding Companions unto Mean while the people who are sure to suffer by it are after a great expence of Money and abundance of Delays Attendance and Trouble which are usually to be found in such Courts of later Edition sent home with the sad stories of their grievances and complaints ready to make Affidavit That Ignorance in the Administration of Justice is an Accumulation of Evils the fruitful parent of many grievances and a mighty oppressor Which will not be all the evils and mischiefs neither which are like to come along with it For this their design of cutting as it were the Moon into Stars and erecting these Registries and little Tribunals will by degrees remove into them the business and being of the City of London and Courts at Westminster which hath hitherto by the Justice and Trade of the Nation residing in it and a concourse of all people and Nations been made to be in that flourishing condition which it was in at the beginning of the late Wars in a more near and especial manner then to the more remote parts of the Nation communicated her riches and increase to above twelve neighboring and adjacent Counties who by the raising of their Land and Commodities and a daily and nightly vent in sending of it thither have double or treble improved their Lands in their yearly Rents and values and will not onely bring a great loss destruction and ruine to the City and Suburbs consisting of above Three and forty thousand Houses above half whereof with the several Families and Inmates which are in the Suburbs being almost two parts in three of the number do depend onely or very much upon the termly meetings at the Courts of Justice but impoverish and make a general disturbance in all the parts and Counties of the Nation as well near unto it as remote Which are so incorporate and concerned in it as they that know how the Trade and Money of London is diffused and communicated to and over every part of this Nation and that there is not a City or Shire-town except Bristol and Hull but hath most of their Wares and Commodities from thence and most of that upon day or trust and that there is not a Mercer or Shopkeeper or Innkeeper in all other Cities and Borrough and little Villages but are furnished with their Wines and Commodities and are as tributary unto them and depend upon their welfare cannot deny but if London sink they are not like to swim or if London perish they are not like to be without the taste or sense of some of their miseries For no man can rationally imagine or believe that after such a ruine or distruction of this great Emporium and onely Town of Trade of the Three Nations of England Scotland and Ireland and the taking away or lessening the Courts of Justice at Westminster the Commerce or Trade of the Nation can live or subsist in the Cantons or little pieces of Trade or Judicatories which shall be erected out of it or that it can produce any better effect then the laying waste of the glory of the Nation and the leading into Captivity the Laws and Liberties of the People or that half of the Fifty two Shire-towns or any of them can be so conveniently scituated as to have business and trade enough to draw all the people and commodities from all parts of the Nation to them or that Lincolnshire Fens or Buckingham or Northamptonshire Pastures or Essex and Suffolk Hertfordshire Kent and Surrey should or can finde in any of their adjacent Shire-towns or Registries the hundred part of the vent which they now have for Cattle Sheep Wool Hides Corn Malt Butter and Cheese