Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	court_n	king_n	writ_n	2,416	5	9.3359	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88233	A plea at large, for John Lilburn gentleman, now a prisoner in Newgate. Penned for his use and benefit, by a faithful and true well-wisher to the fundamental laws, liberties, and freedoms of the antient free people of England; and exposed to publick view, and the censure of the unbyassed and learned men in the laws of England, Aug. 6. 1653.	Faithful and true well-wisher to the fundamental laws, liberties, and freedoms of the antient free people of England.; Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1653 (1653)	Wing L2158; Thomason E710_3; ESTC R207176	34,122	24

Act of Parliament But as for the said Generals and the said Major-General Harisons dissolving the late Parliament by force against their own consents and thereby against several Acts of Parliament afore mentioned partly of their own making committing high-treason against the apparent letter of a known printed and declared Law before their fact committed out of which evil action as it is in it self simply considered though it be granted that that God that can and hath brought light out of darkness and order out of confusion and good out of evil may out of it by his wisdom power and omnipotencie bring abundance of good to this poor nation of England yet already it hath visibly produced this grand mischief and evil viz. to give the said General a colourable pretence of a Necessity of his own making and creating to assume unto himself all the Civil powers in the Nation into his own hands and thereby not onely to make slaves if he please of all his own private souldiers in subjecting them to Tryals for their lives by Military or arbitrary Discipline in times of peace when all the Courts of Justice for administring the Law are or ought to be open which is expresly against the Petition of Right and the declared end wherefore the Wars were engaged in against the late King but also of the free people of England that have fought as heartily and faithfully for the preservation of their Liberties and Freedoms as himself who have already thereby lost two of the chiefest of their fundamental rights and freedoms viz. First to have Taxes layd upon them by the General with the advice of his Military Officers all of whom at most are but the peoples hired and payd servants to kill the Weasels and Polecats that would destroy their Liberties which is not onely contrary to the express tenour of that most excellent Law as the late Parliament in their remarkable Declaration of March 17. 1648. calls it of the Petition of Right which expresly sayth That no Taxes Ayds or Contributions whatever shall by any person or persons or any Authority whatsoever be layd or levyrd upon the people but by common consent of their chosen Deputies or Trustees in Parliament ass●mbled for that end See also the Lord Cooks 4 part Institutes chap. High Court of Parliament fol. 14 34. and by the Statute made in the late Parliament in the 17 yeer being anno 1641 of the late King intituled An Act for declaring unlawful and void the late proceedings touching Ship money The Judgement of the Judges in that case is declared null and void and against the right of Proprieties although their judgements were grounded upon these plausible Questions viz. That when the good and safety of the Kingdom in general is concerned and the whole Kingdom in danger Whether the King might by writ under the Great Seal of England command all the Subjects of his Kingdom at their charge to provide and furnish such number of Ships with Men Victuals and Munition and for such a time as the King should think fit for the defence and safeguard of the kingdom from such peril and danger and Whether by Law the King might compel the doing thereof in case of refusal or ●●f●actari●ss And whether that the King who was then a far more legal Magistrate then the Lord General Cromwel now is were no● the sol● judge both of the danger and wi●●n and ●ow the same is to be prevented and avoided According to which grounds and reasons all the justices of the said Courts of K●ngs Bench and Common pleas and the said Barons of the Exchequer having been formerly con●ul●●d with by his Majesties command had set their hands to an extrajudicial Opinion expressed to the same purpose That he might and yet notwithstanding all this thus decreed and adjudged by all the judges all such Ship-writes and all proceedings thereupon are by King Lords and Commons in full legal and free Parliament declared that they were and are contrary and against the Laws and Statutes of this Realm and the Petition of Right made in the third yeer of the Reign of his Majesty that then was And it is there further declared and enacted by the Authority aforesaid That all and every the particulars prayed or desired in the said Petition of Right shall from henceforth be put in execution accordingly and shall be firmly and strictly holden and observed as in the same Petition they are prayed and expressed And that all the said Judgements and Proceedings about the said Ship money be vacated and cancelled One of the makers of which Law was the said Oliver Cromwel now Lord General and also one of the impeachers of the said Ship money-Judges of high-treason for arbitrary subverters of the free people of England's fundamental Laws Liberties and Proprieties Secondly the General with whom of his Officers by his will he is pleased to joyn with him hath not onely by their late forcible dissolving of the late Parliament assumed the whole Civil power of the Nation into his own hands by means of which already by his Declaration with the advice of his Office●s of the 9 of June 1653. he hath arbitrarily layd a Tax of Sixscore thousand pounds per month upon the free people of England by which all their proprieties are confounded and destroyed For by the same Rule that he lays Sixscore thousand pounds Tax a month upon the people he may when he pleaseth lay six Millions a month upon them and so ad infinitum and ingross into his own coffers and hands and his Officers not onely all the peoples treasure but also their whole lands and estates as Joseph did the slavish Egyptians unto Pharaoh Gen 47. but that which is worse he hath not onely there by created a president to destroy all their proprieties but his chusing the people Legislators or Law-makers though it 's possible the men may prove in their actions the justest men in the Nation and denying those that never forfeited their Liberties in their lives that inherent and natural right he hath created a president to destroy their Laws Liberties and Lives and absolutely subject them to his will and mercy which crimes put together are in the eye of the Law the highest Treason that ever I read any transgressor in the Nation charged with ever since it became a Politick Society or Nation and an act that the highest of three Tyrants or Conquerors either under the Romanes Saxons Danes or Normans durst never attempt to put in execution By means of which he hath given away the just and honest Cause betwixt the King and Parliament and done as much as in him hath to make all those murderers that have since the beginning of the late Civil war engaged in the Parliament-quarrel against the late King his actions as evidently as the ●un declaring it was not in the least for the securing of the people 's incroached upon Liberties and Freedoms that he and his accomplices took up Arms

A PLEA at large For JOHN LILBVRN Gentleman now a prisoner in NEWGATE Penned for his use and benefit by a faithful and true well-wisher to the Fundamental Laws Liberties and Freedoms of the antient free people of England and exposed to publick view and the censure of the unbyassed and learned men in the Laws of England Aug. 6. 1653. JOhn Lilburn Gent. now prisoner at the Bar saith That he having heard the Charge contained in the Indictment now read unto him at the Bar for Plea thereunto he saith That it appeareth by the Act of Parliament of Jan. 30. 1651. That upon the 15 of January 1651 a judgement was given in Parliament against one Lieut. Col. John Lilburn in the Act named for high Crimes and Misdemeanours by him committed as by the same appears for which the Fines and other punishments were promulgated against him mentioned in the said Act. But the said John Lilburn now prisoner at the Bar saith That the said John Lilburn in the said Act named and he the now prisoner at the Bar be not one and the self same person for that he the now prisoner at the Bar is a free-born English Gentleman and never was legally Charged Indicted and convicted either by the Parliament or any other Court of Judicature being a Court of Record in the English Nation or Commonwealth And he saith that the Parliament being dissolved and by the Law of Parliament in all dubious cases there being no other way to render the sense and meaning of the Parliament being a body politick but by Vote of Parliament he saith it is now impossible if the Speaker himself and all the individual members of the said Parliament should upon their oaths be produced at the Bar yet it is impossible by all their oaths in Law to prove the John Lilburn now prisoner at the Bar to be that Lieut. Col. John Lilburn that the said Parliament in the said Act of banishment meant because by the Law of Parliament there is no other way in all dubious cases to render the sense of Parliament but by the solemn Vote of the Parliament fitting as a Parliament and passing it thereupon as a body politick And the prisoner at the Bar further saith Neither was there any Judgement given in Parliament against him the now prisoner at the Bar for high Crimes and Misdemeanours mentioned in the said Act upon the said fifteenth of Jan. 1651. Votes and Resolves being not in the least any Judgements in Law but at most only preparatives to more serious solemn and judicious things that are to follow them for what at most are they or can they in Law be called or stiled can they in any sense be stiled Judgements No it s impossible because they are no such things in themselves for I resolve to go to such a place on such a day and it may be within an hour after I resolve to the contrary is this a Judgement No Vantrump the Dutch Admiral resolved at the last Sea-fight or the last sea-fight before that to beat the English Navy but when he came throughly to try it he was not able to do it was therefore his resolve a Judgement or the act of beating the English Fleet ever the more done because he resolved it No and therefore John Lilburn Gent. the now prisoner at the Bar saith again That a Resolve at most is but a preparative to the doing or perfecting of a more solemn act as for instance a vicious man resolves to lye with his neighbours wife is that an act therefore ever the more done because he resolves it No for it may be for all his resolve he will never be able to accomplish it or do the act whiles he breaths Again the Lord himself in Exod. 32. resolved to destroy and root out the children of Israel for making them a golden Calf and worshipping it when Moses was in the Mountain yet that resolve never came to a Judgement nor never was executed Again David in the second of Samuel and the seventeenth resolved to build God a house yet God would not let it be done by him because he was a man of blood but it was done by his son Solomon was that resolve therefore a Judgement or ever the more to be esteemed so because David resolved it no not in the least And the prisoner at the Bar further saith that it is in Law Equity or Reason impossible that a Judgement in any legal Court of England should be past against a free-born Englishman and that man dayly forth coming and never to hear read nor see any of the proceedings anteceding the said Judgement and never summoned by any legal processes to any legal proceedings nor called to any legal Bar whatsoever and demanded according to Law what he could say for himself why Judgement should not be past against him Neither did the prisoner John Lilburn now at the Bar ever in all his life time by kneeling at the Bar of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England lately sitting at Westminster ever acknowledge that the said Parliament in Law ever had in all their life times any the least jurisdiction in the world to sentence him in any kinde or to fine imprison or banish him or any other free-born Englishman of England though never so mean that are none of their members or immediate officers for any crimes whatsoever which is not by Law in the least within their power upon any pretence whatsoever As John Lilburn the prisoner at the Bar hath fully and undenyably proved by Law in his Plea upon the Writ of Habeas Corpus before the late Judges of the Kings Bench viz. Judge Bacon and Judge Rolls upon the eighth of May 1648. as in that printed Law-Argument Entituled The Laws funeral it is fully to be read in pag. 8 9 10 11. All crimes whatsoever being for him onely and solely to be heard determined and judged at the Common Law and nowhere else all treasons being only to be tryed at the Common law by a Jury of twelve legal men of the neighbourhood as expresly appeareth by the Statute of 1 Hen. 4. chap. 10. and the 1 of May chap. 1. 2 of Mary chap. 10. and so are all misdemeanours or breaches of peace though it be in affronting beating or wounding which is much more then by papers disgracing any Parliamentman for that 's expresly to be tryed by the Kings or now as it is called upper bench as clearly appears by the fifth of Hen. 4. chap. 6. and the 11. of Hen. 6. cha 11. Yea although a Sheriff by law is to pay a hundred pound to the King or now as they are called To the Keepers of the Liberties of England and to suffer a yeers imprisonment c. without Baile or Maineprise for every false return of a Knight of the shire that he makes yet by law the House of Commons in former time were not in the least to be Judges in this very business so immediately

might not be question for any thing he advised according to his conscience But saith Mr. Pym p. 11. he that will have the priviledges of a Counsel must keep within the just bounds of a Counsellor those matters are the proper subjects of counsel wihch in their times and occasions may be good or beneficial to the King or Commonwealth But such Teasons as these the subversion of the Laws violation of liberties they can never be good or justifiable by any circumstances or occasions and therefore saith he his being a Counsellor maketh his fault much more hainous as being committed against a great trust and in page 12. he answers another excuse of his which was that what he did he did with a good intention It s true saith Mr. Pym Some matters that are hurtful and dangerous may he accompanied with such circumstances as may make it appear useful and convenient and in all such cases good intentions will justtifie evil counsel but where the matters prepounded are evil in their own nature such as the matters are with which the Earl of Strafford is charged viz. to break a publick saith to subvert laws and Government they can never be justified by any intentions how specious or good soever they pretended see in Mr. Steels answer to Duke Hambletons objection in the like case in his case stated pag. 12. 13. 14. The prisoner at the Bar shall close all at present with this plea viz. that although by the said unjust Act of Banishment the Act it self doth authorize all Judges Maiors Sheriffs Bayliffs and all other Officers as well Military as Civil in their respective places to be aiding and assisting in apprehending viz. the said banished Lieut. Col. John Lilburn yet it authorizeth none of them in the least to arraign try condemn and execute the said John Lilburn mentioned in the said Act and therefore by reason of the insufficiencie of the said Act in that very particular although John Lilburn Gent. now prisoner at the bar were that Lieut. Col. John Lilburn mentioned in the said Act of Banishment as with confidence for the just and legal reasons at the beginning of this Plea mentioned he doth a vow he is not yet in regard the Parliament is dissolved that made the said Act which in reason by reason of the said insufficiency of the said Act cannot otherwise be supposed but as they past the Act of Banishment themselves against the John Lilburn therein mentioned and meant so they resolve to o reserve onely to themselves the final judging and condemning of him which cannot be now without their sitting again And that in special and extraordinary acts of Parliament as the aforesaid Act of Banishment is there ought in law to be plain evident and full words especially when it doth concern life to demonstrate and express who shall finally put the said Acts in execution And that this is Law the same Parliament that made the foresaid Act of Banishment doth in several Acts since fully justifie this the prisoner at the Bar's averment of several of their Acts of Parliament as particularly that of Aug. 2. 1650. intituled An Act to prohibit all commerce and traffique between England and Scotland and enjoyn the departure of the Scots ou● of this Commonwealth In the Preamble or beginning of which the mischievous designes of the Scotish nation are declared and their compelling of England to make war upon them In the body of which Act it is declared for the raking off as the Act saith all pretence of ignorance and enacted That all and every person or persons within this Commonwealth of England or the Dominions thereof that shall from and after the 5 of August 1641 use hold or maintain any correspondency or intelligence with any person or persons of the Scotish nation c. or shall abet assist countenance or encourage the said Scotish nation or any other per●on or persons adhering to them in their war against the Parliament and Commonwealth of England or shall go o● send or cause to be sent or conveyed any men mon●ys horse arms ammunition or other fu●niture of war plate goods or merchandise or other supply whatsoever in●o Scotland or any ports or places thereof c. all and every such person or persons so offending without such license as is therein mentioned shall be adjudged as Traytors to this Commonwealth and shall undergo all the pains penalties and forfeitures as in case of high-tr●ason And although the Scots were at present as great enemies to the Parliament as the Parl. could imagine any persons in the world could be and the offences aforementioned of any of them against this nation as criminous and the time as arbitrary a time being a time of war as could be imagined yet the Parliament would be so just even to strangers and aliens and people or a forraign nation as not to leave them arbitrary for their transgressions to be punished by whom were pleased first to lay hold of it but in ample and plain words fixeth upon the persons that are to do it or execute it therefore the Act expresly saith The same offences shall be enquired of tryed judged and determined by the Commissioners for the high Court of Justice lately established in such manner and form as other offences already reserved to the power and cognizance of that Court are to be hdard and determined And in the second part of the Act the makers of it come to declare it treason for any person or persons of the Scotish nation without such license as is therein mentioned to be found within the Lines of Communication after Aug. 10. 1631. And in the third place the matter of the said Act makes it high treason for any person or persons of the Scotish nation without license as is therein mentioned to stay within the limits of the Commonwealth after Sept. 1. 1651. Yet the prisoner at the bar as he saith before doth now avow that the said Parl. that made the said Act would be so just men unto strangers and aliens and people of a forraign nation as not to leave them arbitrary for their transgressions to be punished by whom were pleased first to lay hold on them but in ample and plain words fixeth upon the persons that are to do it or execute it and therefore the Act again expresly saith That the said offences and treasons shall be proceeded against by the said Commissioners of the high Court of Justice who are required to give Judgement and Sentence of death against offenders And every person and persons so found guilty of the said offences shall suffer the pains of death as traytors and enemies in such manner as the said Commissioners shall adjudge and appoint And the same ample and full words as in that special Act for suppressing of Incest Adultery c. which by plain and evident words doth refer the punishment of the offenders therein named to the next Assizes or Goal-delivery to be held for the said County where the fact is committed And the very self-same particular words are in the Act intituled An Act against several atheistical blasphemous and execrable Opinions derogatory to the honour of God and destructive to humane society to refer the punishment of all the transgressors thereof at common law before the Justices of Assize or Goal-delivery as by the Acts themselves doth more fully appear unto which the prisoner at the bar for more safety referreth himself And lastly the prisoner at the bar for his final plea saith That Lieut. Col. John Lilburn indicted in the said Indictment now read is none of the prisoner at the bar's name and so he is not the party mentioned in the said Indictment now read All which premises he is ready to prove for good Law and therefore humbly prays the judgement of the Court before he put himself upon any further Tryal July 13. 1653. John Lilburn Gentleman