Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
judgement_n	king_n	parliament_n	treason_n	2,197	5	9.2136	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41174	A just and modest vindication of the proceedings of the two last parliaments	Jones, William, Sir, 1631-1682.; Ferguson, Robert, d. 1714.	1682 (1682)	Wing F741; ESTC R14950	42,088	51

and Authority of the King and some Prosecutors who earnestly pressed the Lords thereunto upon pretence of speedily avenging the blood of the former King and his Uncle So that the judgement was given at the Kings suit in a way not warranted by the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law of the Kingdom Surely when the Lords blood was suffered to cool they had reason to desire something might be left upon Record to preserve them for the future from being put upon such shameful work though such a case as the Murder of a King should again happen as it seems they did not fear to be pressed in any other so to violate the Laws But Thirdly There is not a word in the Record that imports a restriction of that lawful Jurisdiction which our Constitution placeth in the Lords to try Commoners when their cases should come before them lawfully at the suit of the Commons by Impeachment There is no mark of an intention to change any part of the ancient Government but to provide against the violation of it and that the Law might stand as before notwithstanding the unlawful Judgment they had lately given So that the question is still the same whether by the Law of the Land that is the Law and Custom of Parliament or any other Law the Lords ought to try Commoners Impeached by the Commons in Parliament as if that Record had never been And we cannot think that any man of sence will from that Record make an argument in this point since it could be no better than to infer that because the Lords are no more to be pressed by the the King or at his suit to give Judgement against Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land when they are not Impeached in Parliament therefore they must give no Judgment against them at the suit of the Commons in Parliament when they are by them Impeached according to the Laws and Customs of Parliament But if such as delight in these cavils had searched into all the Records relating unto that of the 4 Edw. 3. They might have found in the 19 of the same King a Writ issued out to suspend the Execution of the Judgment against Matrevers because it had been illegally passed And the chief reason therein given is that he had not been Impeached and suffered to make his defence But it was never suggested nor imagined that the Lords who judged him had no Jurisdiction over him because he was a Commoner or ought not to have exercised it if he had been Impeached Nor was it pretended that by Magna Charta he ought to have been tryed only by his Peers the Laws of the Land therein mentioned and the Laws and Customs of Parliaments being better known and more reverenced in those dayes than to give way to such a mistake They might also have found by another Record of the 26. of the same King that by undoubted Act of Parliament Matravers was pardon'd and the Judgment is therein agreed by the Lords and Commons to have been illegal and unjustly passed by the violent Prosecution of his Enemies but it is not alledged that it was coram non judice as if the Lords might not have judged him if the proceedings before them had been legal But as the sence and proceedings of all Parliaments have ever been best known by their practice The objectors might have found by all the Records since the 4 Edw. 3. that Commoners as well as Lords might be and have been Impeached before Lords and judged by them to Capital or other punishments as appears undenyably to every man that hath read our Histories or Records And verily the concurrent sence and practice of Parliaments for so many Ages will be admitted to be a better interpretation of their own Acts than the sense that these men have lately put upon them to encrease our Disorders But to silence the most malicious in this point let the famous Act of the 25 of Edw. 3. be considered which hath ever since limited all inferior Courts in their Jurisdiction unto the Tryal of such Treasons only as are therein particularly specified and reserved all other Treasons to the tryal and judgment of Parliament So that if any such be committed by Commoners they must be so Tryed or not at all And if the last should be allowed it will follow that the same fact which in a Peer is Treason and punishable with death in a Commoner is no Crime and Subject to no punishment Nor doth Magna Charta confine all Trials to common Juries for it ordains that they shall be Tryed by the Judgement of Peers or by the Law of the Land And will any man say the Law of Parliament is not the Law of the Land Nor are these words in Magna Charta superfluous or insignificant for then there would be no Tryal before the Constable or Marshal where is no Jury at all There could be no Tryal of a Peer of the Realm upon an Appeal of Murder who according to the Law ought in such cases to be tried by a common Jury and not by his Peers And since the Records of Parliaments are full of Impeachment of Commons and no instance can be given of the rejection of any such Impeachment it is the Commons who have reason to cite Magna Charta upon this occasion which provides expresly against the denyal of Justice And indeed it looks like a denyal of Justice when a Court that hath undoubted Cognisance of a Cause regularly brought before them shall refuse to hear it But most especially when as in this case the Prosecutors could not be so in any other Court so as a final stop was put to their suit though the Lords could not judicially know whether any body else would prosecute else-where This proceeding of the Lords looks the more odly because they rejected the Cause before they knew as Judges what it was and referred it to the ordinary Course of Law without staying to hear whether it were a matter whereof an inferior Court could take Cognisance There are Treasons which can only be adjudged in Parliament and if we may collect the sense of the House of Commons from their debates they thought there was a mixture of those kind of Treasons in Fitz-Harris's case And therefore there was little reason for that severe suggestion that the Impeachment was only designed to delay a Trial since a compleat examination of his Crime could be had no where bu● in Parliament But it seems somewhat strange that the delaying of a Tryal and that against a professed Papist charged with Treason should be a matter so extreamly sensible For might it not be well retorted by the People that it had been long a matter extreamly sensible to them that so many Prorogations so many Dissolutions so many other Arts had been used to delay the Trials which His majesty had often desired and the Parliament prepared for against five professed Popish Lords charged

now pretty sensible Being warned by this experience they grew more cautious than ever and therefore that the Treason which they were to set on Foot might look as unlike a Popish Design as was possible they fram'd a Libel full of the most bitter invectives against Popery and the Duke of York It carried as much seeming zeal for the Protestant Religion as Coleman's Declaration and as much care and concern for our Laws as the Penners of this Declaration would seem to have But it was also filled with the most subtile insinuations and the sharpest expressions against His Majesty that could be invented and with direct and passionate incitements to Rebellion This Paper was to be conveyed by unknown Messengers to their hands who were to be betray'd and then they were to be seized upon and those Libels found about them were to be a confirmation of the Truth of a Rebellion which they had provided Witnesses to swear was designed by the Protestants and had before prepared men to believe by private whispers And the credit of this Plot should no doubt have been soon confirmed by speedy Justice done upon the pretended Criminals But as well laid as this contrivance seems to be yet it spoke it self to be of a Popish extraction 'T is a policy the Jesuites have often used to divert a storm which was falling upon themselves Accordingly heretofore they had prepared both Papers and Witnesses to have made the Puritans guilty of the Gunpowder Treason had it succeeded as they hoped for The hainous nature of the Crime and the greatness of the Persons supposed to be concern'd deserved an extraordinary examination which a Jury who were only to enquire whether Fitz-Harris was guilty of framing that Libel could never make and the Commons believed none but the Parliament was big enough to go through with They took notice that the zeal or courage of inferiour Courts was abated and that the Judges at the Trial of Wakeman and Gascoign however it came to pass behaved themselves very unlike the same men they were when others of the Plotters had been Tryed They had not forgot another Plot of this nature discovered by Dangerfield which though plainly proved to the Council yet was quite stifled by the great deligence of the Kings Bench which rendred him as an incompetent Witness Nor did they only fear the perversion of Justice but the misapplication of Mercy too For they had seen that the Mouths of Gadbury and others as soon as they began to confess were suddainly stopt by a gracious Pardon And they were more jealous than ordinary in this case because when Fitz-Harris was inclined to Repentance and had begun a Confession to the surprize of the whole Kingdom without any visible cause he was taken out of the lawful Custody of the Sheriffs and shut up a close Prisoner in the Tower The Communs therefore had no other way to be secure that the Prosecution should be effectual the judgment indifferent and the Criminal out of all hopes of a Pardon unless by an ingenuous Confession he could engage both Houses in a powerful Mediation to His Majesty in his behalf but by impeaching of him They were sure no Pardon could stop their suit though the King might release his own Prosecution by his Pardon Hitherto the Proceedings of the Commons in this business could not be lyable to exception for that they might lawfully Impeach any Commoner before the Lords was yet never doubted The Lords themselves had agreed that point when the day before they had sent down the Plea of Sir William Scroggs to an Impeachment of Treason then depending before them And they are men of strange confidence who at this time of day take upon them to deny a Jurisdiction of the Lords which hath been practised in all times without controul and such a fundamental of the Government that there could be no security without it Were it otherwise it would be in the power of the King by making Commoners Ministers of State to subvert the Government by their contrivances when he pleased Their greatness would keep them out of the reach of ordinary Courts of Justice and their Treasons might not perhaps be within the Statutes but such as fall under the cognisance of no other Court than the Parliament and if the People might not of Right demand Justice there they might without fear of punishment act the most destructive villanies against the Kingdom As a remedy against this evil the Mirrour of Justice tells us that Parliaments were ordained to hear and determine all Complaints of wrongful Acts done by the King Queen or their Children and such others against whom common Right cannot be had elsewhere Which as to the King is no otherwise to be understood than that if he erre by illegal personal Commands or Orders he is to be admonished by Parliament and Addressed unto for remedy but all others being but Subjects are to be punished by Parliaments according to the Laws of Parliaments If the ends were well considered for which Parliaments were ordained as they are declared in the Statute Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statues viz. Magna Charta c. a Parliament shall be holden every year by them as well as by the forgoing ancient Authority none could be deceived by the Parliament Rol. of 4 Ed. 3. Where it is mentioned as accorded between the King and his Grands that is his Lords that Judgement of death given by the Peers against Sir Simon de Beresford Matrever and others upon the Murder of King Ed. 2. and his Uncle should not be drawn into example whereby the Peers might be charged to judge others than their Peers contrary to the Law of the Land if such a case should happen For whereas from this Record some would perswade us that the Lords are discharged from judging Commoners and that our ancient Government is alter'd in this case by that Record which they say is an Act of Parliament The stile and form of it is so different from that which is used in Acts of Parliament that many are inclined to beleive it to be no other thing than an agreement between the King and the Lords But to remove all future scruples in the case let it be admitted to be an Act of Parliament and if there be nothing accorded in it to acquit the Lords from trying Commoners Impeached before them by the Commons in Parliament then we hope that shame will stop their mouths who have made such a noise against the Commons with this Record First it is evident from the Roll it self with other Records that the Lords did judge those Commoners contrary to the Law of the Land that is at the instance of the King and the Prosecution of their Enemies without the due course of the Law or calling them to make their defence and for ought appears without legal Testimony Secondly It is evident that they were driven upon this illegal proceeding by the Power