Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A46957
|
Notes upon the Phœnix edition of the Pastoral letter Part I / by Samvel Johnson.
|
Johnson, Samuel, 1649-1703.
|
1694
(1694)
|
Wing J835; ESTC R11877
|
45,073
|
120
|
Battery more I remember my Lord Russel was mightily pleased with the Courage of the Citizens at that time and particularly of Alderman Cornish who slighted these Preparations against them by saying they might indeed do some Dammage to some of their Chimneys I need not mention the Intended Cittadel of Chelsey-College to straiten the City on that Side nor their greatest Cittadel of Westminster-Hall where they had perverted all Law and plainly put a stop to it by dismissing a Grand Jury before their time At the Notorious Case of Fitz Harris my Lord was present for which Serjeant Pemberton can give the best Reasons because he reserved them at that time and no doubt they are improved by this and brought up a Fashion which we do not find in the Year-Books for Judges to give no Reasons for their Judgments As to the Case of the City Charter it was so very plain that I desired Sir George Treby now Lord Chief Justice who was to argue for it to use only this short Argument to carry Magna Charta in one Hand and a Penknife in the other and to desire the Court to cut out the Chapter of Magna Charta where the Rights of the City of London and the other Vills and Burghs and Cinque-Ports are confirmed and when their hand was in to make but one Business of it and to cut out all the rest I am sure the City of London will give me leave to say that they and their Chamber which was the best Fund in England was at that time broke and when it will be repaired I know not but they may easily know whom to sue for Dilapidations and in what High Court that ought to be done And the ready way is to Extend the Estates of all those that treacherously destroyed that City and made it the finest Village in Europe and saluted the King King of London as if he had not been compleat King of it till it was Ruin'd I need not mention their Standing Guards in time of Peace of which the Parliament-men used to say There go our Masters and so they had reason after Sir Iohn Coventry's usage and which all the great Lawyers of England declared to be Illegal from the first and such a Force upon the Nation as the Law abhors The Lord Chief Justice Vaughan had the Honesty and Courage to tell my late Lord Macclesfield so though he then Commanded and was at the Head of them My Lord very honourably remembered this as an Instance of that Great Man's Integrity And who that ever had the Honour of knowing the last Great Man can ever forget His But the Guards became more Formidable afterwards when an Undertaker offered with a Thousand of their Horse of which they had always more to go and conquer the City of London in a contemptuous manner and when with their Detachements and filling up again with new Men they could at any time Form an Army They had likewise their Nursery of Tangier within call and when they saw their time it came over Ever since the last Sentence that passed upon me I am somewhat out of conceit with the Name of Guards For having made as Honest an Address to the Army as the World can shew any thing and being run down for it as a High Misdemeanour I took my Exceptions to the Information amongst other things that there was no averrment of any Army in it and I said there could be no such thing because it was Contrary to the Law of England Whereupon both the Attorney General Sawyer and the Court of King's-Bench said that the Camp at Hownslow-Heath was not an Army but only the King's Guards I replied that I thought they were too far off for Guards and too great a Number To which the Lord Chief Justice Herbert answered that the King wanted a Greater Number to Defend him from my Papers At which I could only smile to see a Rag or two of the Press made a Pretence to keep up a Great Army But as I intimated before Guards shall be an Army and an Army shall be Guards when such Men think fit Aristotle in his Politicks is very severe upon Guards and says That it is the Mark of a King 's turning Tyrant if he require a Guard and says further that if a King demand a Guard to defend him against his People his People ought to demand a Guard to defend them against him And it is very plain that the Additional Guards of Horse and Foot in the two last Reigns for there were never any before but the Band of Pensioners and the Band of Archers now Yeomen who were the Antient Establishment for the Preservation of the King's Person were not intended for the King's Preservation for that was done to their hand but to awe the Nation to animate Judges in false Judgments and to back Officers in illegal Proceedings for where the Law would not hold out in the way of a Legal Writ it was as well supplied by an Arbitrary Command and two or three Files of Musketteers I will name but one thing more which was Occasioned by the Bill of Exclusion That Bill was carried Nemine Contradicente several times in the House of Commons but when it came in the Westminster Parliament to be carried up by my Lord Russell to the House of Lords it was so ill received there â—hat the Bishops were for throwing it out to rights However after a Reading and after a Debate which lasted till about Midnight it was thrown out That Learned Nobleman the Great Earl of Essex was pleased to tell me what Arguments he insisted upon in that Debate The first was that the Regality of England was an Office concerning which the 17 th Chapter of King Edward the Confessor's Laws is wholly spent and it is so Declared to be in Many Acts of Parliament as low as Queen Mary's Time and that a Woman as well as a Man might be invested with the Regal Office Hereupon he said that a Person Unqualified as all the World knew the Duke of York was could not be admitted to that Office Upon discourse about this I remember his Lordship was pleased to take down Lambert's Saxon Laws and shew me several Particulars in that 17 th Chapter which I had forgot His second Argument was to prove that if the Duke of York had Unqualified himself for that High Office as he plainly had for the meanest Office in England then the Parliament had undoubtedly Power to foreclose him and set aside his Remainder in the Crown because they had Power to do more This he said was the known Law of England and agreed upon by the Lord Chancellor More and Richard Rich then Sollicitor General and afterwardsâ— Lord Rich as a First established Principle upon which they argued about the Supremacy It stands thus in the Record as we have it p. 421. of the Lord Herbert's History The Sollicitor Demanded if it were enacted by Parliament that Richard Rich should be King and