any dare to say That they pare off some rights or pluck some flowers from the Kings Imperial Crown I suppose not How comes it to pass then that the Bishops jurisdiction does Whatsoever may be alledged in defence of the other may be said and it may be something more too in justification of this And know moreover That proceedings in these Temporal distinct jurisdictions go much further upon the persons of men than those of any Ecclesiastical Court does even to the imprisoning of them and in all of them except that of the University to the inflicting of capital punishments And it deserves our further observing what the great Lawyer Sir Edward Coke sayes touching this very thing Albeit the proceedings and process in the Ecclesiastical Courts be in the Name of the Bishops c. It followeth not therefore that either the Court is not the Kings or that the Law whereby they proceed is not the Kings Law for taking one example for many every Leet and View of franck pledge holden by a subject is kept in the Lords Name and yet it is the Kings Court and all the proceedings therein are directed by the Kings Laws and many subjects in England have and hold Courts of Record and other Courts and yet all their proceedings be according to the Kings Laws and customs of the Realm De jure Regis Eccles p. 39. The Learned Bishop Sanderson has convincingly demonstrated That Citations and Decrees in the Bishops Name no way encroacheth on the Kings Authority and that they who urge the contrary have this meaning rather to do the Bishops hurt than the King service and that their affections so far as by what is visible we are able to judge are much what alike towards both His Book called Episcopacy not prejudicial to Regal power p. 3 4. Bishops proceedings in Ecclesiastical Courts under the Name Stile and Seal of the Bishop See this largely discussed and declared to be warrantable by Law by my Lord Coke's comment on the Statute of Marriage 32 Hen. 8. p. 685 686 687. But this Objection is taken up again and urged with new force from hence That in the First year of King Edward the Sixth it was by Statute Enacted That the Bishops should make their processes in the Kings Name and that their Seals should be the Kings Arms. This Statute sayes Mr. Rastall was repealed 1 Mariae 1. And that Statute not being revived by Queen Elizabeth in her Reign all proceeded well enough without danger But in the first Parliament of King James there passed an Act for continuing and reviving divers Statutes and for repealing of some others 1 Jaccb c. 29. Into the body whereof a clause was cunningly conveyed for the repealing of that Statute of the Reign of Queen Mary by which King Edward 's stood repealed Upon this account it was that a little before our late turbulent confusions in England this very thing was urged against the Bishops and their proceedings were declared to be bold usurpations and encroachments on the Prerogative Royal and violations of the Law But as it is usual where men are prepossessed against any thing they are apt to run into many mistakes about the sâ—me It happened so in this very matter Much â—â—lse was raised much stir made hereupon by the Antiâ—prelatical party as if the Bishops who had given themselves out to be the most zealous assertors were indeed become the onely dangerous impugners of the Kings Prerogative That now they were deprehended in the very design and therefore must needs fall having no plea to make for themselves and having the mischief of their own visible and illegal actings witnessing against them At this rate their Adversaries vaunted and fore-judged them and no doubt as matters went in those times the severest animadversion that could have followed hereupon would have been made if further proceedings therein had not been seasonably prevented by the wisdom of a pious and prudent Prince For the Blessed King Charles the First having beee made acquainted what advantage these forward and busie people were designing to make hereof to the overthrow of His Ecclesiastical Courts and the Bishops His Judges in them He did as Dr. Heylin reports in the life of Archbishop Laud p. 342. call together in the year 1637 the two Lords Chief Justices the Lord Chief Baron and the rest of the Judges and Barons and propounds to them these three following particulars to be certified of 1. Whether processes may not issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the Name of the Bishops 2. Whether a Patent under the Great Seal be necessary for the keeping of Ecclesiastical Courts and enabling Citations Suspensions Excommunications and other censures of the Church 3. Whether Citations ought to be in the Kings Name and under His Seal of Arms And the like for Institutions and Inductions to Benefices and corrections of Ecclesiastical Offences And the like for Visitations whether an express Commission or Patent under the Great Seal of England were requisite To which three Proposals the said Judges unanimously on the First of July in the fore mentioned year concurred and certified under their Hands By Answering to the First thing propounded affirmatively and to the other two negatively And that the fore-mentioned Statute of Edward the Sixth is not now in force Whereupon the King issues out His Proclamation wherein having first taxed the libellous Books and Pamphlets published against the Bishops and after a recital made of these proceedings He concludes the Proclamation thus That His Majestie thought good with the advice of His Council that a publick Declaration of these the opinions of His Reverend and Learned Judges being agreeable to the judgement and resolution of former times should be made known to all His Subjects as well to vindicate the legal proceedings of His Ecclesiastical Courts and Ministers from the unjust and scandalous imputation of invading or intrenching on His Royal Prerogative as to settle the minds and stop the mouths of all unquiet spirits That for the future they presume not to censure His Ecclesiastical Courts or Ministers in these their just and warranted proceedings And hereof His Majesty admonisheth all His subjects to take warning as they will Answer the contrary at their peril c. * Resolutions unanimously given by all the Judges and the Earons of the Exchequer saith my Lord Coke are for matters of Law of Highest Anthority next unto the Court of Parliament Sir Edward Coke 2 Instit p. 618. But some mens minds will not be satisfied with any thing of this nature yet are willing to embrace what is fortified with Parliamentary Authority Both therefore to gratifie them and more throughly to confirm the matter in hand we have also this Parliamentary Authority to offer unto them For although by an Act of Parliament in the Seventeenth year of King Charles the First all jurisdiction Ecclesiastical was quite abrogated and annulled I speak in respect of England for here in Ireland no such Act
Supremacy is in him there can therefore lie no Praemunire at this day against any man exercising Jurisdiction subordinately under the King which every Ecclesiastical Judge both doth and acknowledges himself to do See to this purpose Dr. Cosen in his Apol. p. 1. cap. 18. Sir Tho Ridley ut supra Dr. Cowell in the word Praemnnire Whatsoever sayes he is now wrought or threatned against the Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical by colour of the same Statute of Praemuniâ—e is but in emulation of one Court to another and by consequent a derogation to that Authority from which all Jurisdiction is now derived and the maintenance whereof was by those Princes especially purposed Nam cessante ratione cessat Lek Sir Thomas Smith a person of great judgment one who well understood His Sovereigns Right and Prerogative and wouâ—d not detract any thing in the least manner from it declares his sense herein after this manner Verum in praesentiarum Curia Christianitatis perinde atque caeterae omnes virtutem vim authoritatem imperium jurisdictionemque suam praeterquam Serenissimae Majesti Diademâ—ti Regio post immortalem Deum Potestati aut Principi accepta resert Nemini Id si verum esse concedas quod esse constat verissimum tum Sanctioni Statuariae de Praemunire nullus per Angliam locus relinquitur quando alibi quam in Curia Regis ac Reginae jus nullum dicitur De Repub Anglicana lib. 3. cap. 11. There is a certain word indeed in that Statute viz. alibi the Court of Rome or elsewhere and this word is supposed to be meant of and refer to Bishops Courts So I read that Fitz. herbert a great Lawyer reporteth it Tit. praemunire num 5. Howbeit saving all respect to so great a Lawyer yet this is judged by many grave and learned persons see those before mentioned to be a forced and groundless construction made thereof The word it self is of an ambiguous and variable signification it may refer to the Bishops Consistories and it may as well not refer to them it may refer to any Forreign Courts and Judicatories and any other Courts of these Kingdoms that are not Courts of common Law * So it seems it may refer to the Court of Admiralty in my Lord Coke's opinion 4. Instit cap. 22. or any Courts whatsoever most agreeable to the purport of that Statute wherein any thing is done in derogation of the Regality of our Lord the King it is a slippery and uncertain word none can take sure hold of it no determinate and precise meaning can be affixed to it This word then being so doubtful and uncertain and the penalty of this Statute being so severe as Imprisonment during life for feiture of Goods Lands Chattels Tenements Ejection out of the Kings favour and protection and since the noted Rule is this in poenalibus causis benignius interpretandum est L. 145. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Reg. Juris parag finali Now it would be so far from a benigne as to prove indeed a most rigorous sentence to pronounce the falling under so great a penalty on occasion of this expression so full of ambiguity and uncertainty May I presume with the good leave of the Learned in the Municipal Laws of this Kingdom to interpose my conjecture concerning this word Alibi or elsewhere for where there is ambiguity there is room for conjecture I have the ground of what I have to say from Dr Cosen Apol. p. 1. cap. 18. It was in the sixteenth year of King Richard the second that this Statute was Enacted that was in the year of our Lord One thousand three hundred ninety and three at which time and for some time after the Schism about creating of Popes which is reckoned and so called the Twenty ninth Schism Isaacksons Cronolog p. 353. was very rife and hot in agitation Boniface the Ninth was at Rome and Clement called the Seventh made by the French Cardinals was at Avignion in France here was at the same time as had been before two Popes actually exercising Papal Jurisdiction both making Cardinals and both striving to extend their power and authority so far that other Kingdoms as well as the places where they were resident might be under the influence thereof Now so it was that this Statute of Praemunire being intended for the utter exclusion of all Forreign Authority it might be judged necessary to cut off all intercourse betwixt the Kings Subjects and the Popes Consistory whether at Rome or elsewhere and that Processes and other judicial Writs as well dated from Avignion or any other place as from Rome might make the purchasers and pursuers of them liable to the penalties intended by that Statute But there is something further alledged here That although the Ecclesiastical Courts as now established are not in the general intent included within this Statute yet then surely they are when causes belonging to the Temporal Courts are by Ecclesiastical Judges retained and proceeded in I know it passes as a very current Opinion among many That for an Ecclesiastical Judge to deal in any cause not belonging to his Jurisdiction is Praemunire Great is the Authority that bears up this Opinion and for the greatness sake of the Authority many are the Adherers to it In my Lord chief Baron Boltons Justice of the Peace cap. praemunire There is first a recital of the several Statutes concurring in and concerning this crime then follows certain Book cases or resolutions as his Lordship expresses it added for the better explanation of those Statutes One of the said cases is to this effect viz. the 21. Note that the words of the Statute are in Curia Romana vel alibi which is intended in Curia Episcopi And therefore if a man be Excommunicated or profecuted in the Spiritual Court for a thing which appertains to the common Law he that prosecutes such a Suit is in case of praemunire for this there is alledged in the margent 5 Ed. 4. fo 6. Before I was stopped with what is thus set down and what I find affirmed by others to the same effect I was ready to say That it must be a very forc't streining of that Statute that will be able to wring such a sense out of it But who am I that I should oppose my obscure meaness to the authority of so great a person May I have fair leave therefore to offer only a few things to be considered of touching this matter in behalf of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and the Judges belonging to the same And first whereas it is said that by the word alibi in the Statute is intended Curia Episcopi I refer the Reader to what has been before spoken of this particular thing and further I may now seasonably notifie one thing observable in the very Statute it self that may lead us by a more certain hand to perceive what this word alibi has a reference to and what it has not For whereas in the aforesaid Statute of
the ancient state thereof and is so far from damnifying the Prerogative Royal that it mainly asserts and vindicates the same It might perhaps be doubted That different Jurisdictions in one Kingdom and those exercised by persons of different professions though deriving from one Supreme Head would rather cause than prevent many inconveniencies and those inconveniencies so bad in their nature as to detract from rather than adde to the Supreme Magistrates Dignity and Prerogative as namely by introducing confusion and disorder in the management of both and in the causes and matters to be managed in them and occasioning continual jealousies and distastes betwixt the persons appointed to manage them observed by my Lord Bacon's Advancement of Learning Aphor. 96. But in truth no such ill Effects do follow hereupon for distinct Jurisdictions exercised by persons of several orders and professions in these Kingdoms and vested with authority from the Supreme Magistrates so to do though juridical proceedings therein be different from the ordinary form and prescribed coursel of the Common Law argues unplenitude not a defect of power an advancing of it not derogating from it in that Supreme Magistrate granting the same his great wisdom and prudence in a determinate stating the nature and bounds of each Jurisdiction the appropriating certain causes to be heard and determined in them respectively commanding all His Subjects to give due obedience thereunto in such causes as are limited to those Courts and which any Subject may be concerned in And as both derive from soito depend upon him in an equal poise as to the Authority belonging to each so that all the supposed inconveniencies are sufficiently provided against And the ordering all these things in this set manner is an effect of the Kings high Prerogative enabling him so to do and is both by Custom and Law among us allowed of * The King is the indifferent Arbitrator in all Jurisdictions as well Spiritual as Temporal and it is a Right of His Crown to distribute to them that is to declare their bounds Lord Hobbarts Reports Dr. Jame 's Case observe with me these following instances The Kings Majesty is plyased to confirm a peculiar Jurisdiction granted by His Royal Progenitors to the two Universities of Cambridge and Oxford The Chancellor of each University or his Commissary administer Justice according to the Civil Law and the Customs and Statutes of the University where the persons at variance together are Students or one of them at least is such insomuch as in personal Actions for Debt matters of Accounts or any Contracts made within their own Precincts and in some criminal matters likewise none of them may be called to Westminster Hall but the cognizance thereof belongs to the Chancellor of the said University or his Commissary as is before said If any Appeals be made from Sentences given in any such Trials they are first interposed to the Regents last of all to the Kings Majesty himself Cowell Interp. in verbo Privilege Dr. Duck ut supra sect 30. Will any man now say That the Exercise of this power is intrenching on the Kings Prerogative because His great Courts at Westminster are not applied to and a Jurisdiction distinct from and independent upon them is exercised Surely no because the Exercise of this power is granted by Royal Charter it proceeds from it depends upon it is done in an acknowledgment of the Kings Supreme Power and Prerogative There is a Court of great Dignity and Honour called the Court of the Constable and Earl Marshal of England Herein are determined all Contracts touching Deeds of Arms out of the Realm as Combats Blazons of Armory and the right of bearing Arms c. proper to particular Families the manner of proceeding in this Court is according to the form of the Civil Law * L. Coke Jurisdiction of Courts ca. 17. the use and authority of which is of great sway herein Appeals that are interposed from any definitive sentence in this Court are brought to the Kings Majesty Himself not to His Chancellor the municipal Law is altogether secluded from hence Justice is administred Delinquents are punished without any relation to that or the Judges thereof yet the Kings Prerogative is not infringed by the exercise of this Jurisdiction because it is derived from the King I might add here the Court of the Admiralty the peculiar Jurisdiction exercised within the Cinque Ports by the Lord Warden thereof In these Courts matters both civil and criminal are tryed according to the course prescribed by the civil Law but in the following Leafs I shall have occasion more distinctly to write something relating to these matters and respectively to these two Courts Now as it is in these different Jurisdictions they derive from the King His Subjects are bound by command from Him to obey the Authority thereof if they refuse to obey by poenal coercions proper to each they may be compelled to it yet still the Royal Prerogative is not any whit diminished nor the Rights of the Crown at all impaired hereby As it is thus I say in the distinct Jurisdictions so it is in the exercise of Episcopal Jurisdiction in the Ecclesiastical Courts And now I have uttered thus much I perceive my self beginning to walk on a narrow slippery ridge where a steep precipice is on each side The danger of falling on one hand is least I abase the Prerogative so low as to subject the King in Ecclesiastical causes and matters under the Resolves and Decisions of Classical Assemblies * Huic Disciplinae omnes orhis principes Monarchas fasers suos submittere parere necesse est Travers Disciplin Ecclesiast p. 142 143. Bishop White in his Preface to his Treatise concerning the Sabbath as the Presbyterians do or bring Him in subordination to the Bishop of Rome as the Papists do The danger on the other hand is the over-exalting of the Prerogative so that it might be thought we attribute to the King as sometimes the Papists object to us a power to exercise Sacerdotal Offices in the Church to inflict censures * And yet our Law attributes much in this particular and that very highly to the King Reges Sacro olco unctâ— spiritualis Jurisdictionâ—s sunt capaces 33 Edw. 3. Ayde de Roy. 107. Coke Cawdrie's case p. 16. c. Now to walk even and steddy betwixt these two dangerous downfalls is that which must be endeavoured and therefore whereas we own and solemnly recognize the Kings Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters and causes it is to be understood according to the sense and meaning set down in the words of the 37th Article of the Church of England and also in the Article of the Church of Ireland concerning civil Magistrates The Kings Majesty hath the chief Government of all Estates Ecclesiastical and Civil within His Dominions see Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions set forth in the first year of Her Reign Now this Supremacy keeps the King above all
was ever made nevertheless at the happy Restauration of our Gracious Sovereign that now is viz. Anno Dom. 1660. The said Act of the 17. of King Charles the First is repealed and that was Anno decimo tertio Caroli Secundi and in that Act of Repeal it is thus declared That the said Act of the 17. of King Charles the First notwithstanding All Archbishops Bishops and all others exercising Ecclesiastical jurisdiction may proceed determine sentence execute and exercise all manner of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and all censures and coercions appertaining and belonging to the same before the making of the Act before recited in all causes and matters belonging to Ecclesiastical jurisdiction according to the Kings Majesties Ecclesiastical Laws used and practised in this Realm in as ample manner form as they did might lawfully have done before the making of the said Act. This Act is indeed attended with three Provisoes The first is concerning the High-commission Court which is excepted from having any revival or force or authority given to it or to the erection of any other such like Court by commission hereby The second Proviso is concerning the Oath called the Oath ex Officio which is excepted against and forbid to be tendred or administred unto any in the exercising of any Spiritual jurisdiction The third Proviso is to limit and confine the power of Ecclesiastical Judges in all their proceedings to what was and by Law might be used before the year 1639. observe the year mentioned to be 1639 which plainly includes allows and confirms King Charles the First His Proclamation in the year 1637. In this clause and branch of this Statute provision is also made against any confirmation to be given to the Canons made Anno 1640. These particulars onely excepted and here provided against all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as to it's exstensiveness in all causes of Spiritual cognizance over all persons of what quality and degree soever they be or in what Office soever they are in those causes is firmly ratified and established Bartolus his Rule is truly applicable here Exceptio firmat Regulam in non-exceptis But let all this be granted will the Excepters say that proceedings in Ecclesiastical Courts against private persons either in matters of instance or correction are not entrenching on the Prerogative Royal yet the case is otherwise when such proceedings are bent upon publick Officers as Mayors and Sheriffs c. because they are vested with the Kings Authority and nearly represent His Person They are His Ministers and Dispensers of Justice and by such proceedings against them publick affairs might be hindred of their dispatch and the Kings business not be executed I Answer there is no otherwise in this case For if the matter be justifiable that is if the cause any such proceeding is begun upon do belong to Ecclesiastical cognizance then the Spiritual Jurisdiction in the Bishops management reaches such publick Officers as well as others and that without invading or in the least violating the Kings Prerogative If occasions so require Ecclesiastical censures may be inflicted on them as well as on any other of the Kings subjects that do offend And yet the doing of that will not be a censuring the King in Effigie as some have with very little reason and but too much passion affirmed Observe we what may be done and adjuged against such publick Officers in the Kings Temporal Courts A Mayor and Sheriffs may be impleaded before the Kings Temporal Judges in causes Civil The people of Waterford may remember one or two instances hereof very lately when the School-master there sued the Mayor and Sheriffs before the Lords Justices of Assize for detaining the Salary they had contracted to pay him A Mayor of any City or Corporation may be arrested may during the time of his Mayoralty be sued to an Out-lawry in the Kings Temporal Courts The Kings Temporal Judges may upon contempts convent Mayors before them and occasion so requiring commit them to prison It is not long since that a case in Waterford was coming near this when in one Whaley's cause a Writ of Error was brought from the Court of the Kings Bench This the Mayor refusing to obey and complaint thereof being made to the Court a Pursuivant was ordered to attach the Mayor and bring him before the Judges there to answer his contempt which undoubtedly would have been done if the Execution of that Order had not been seasonably prevented by an Affidavit made to this effect That the Mayor did not refuse to obey the said Writ of Error but onely deferred the admitting of it until he sate judicially in Court the same having been before privately exhibited to him By this means that proceeding was stopped which else would have manifested that the Mayor of Waterford is not so absolute but is indeed under controll and may be convented and punished by the Kings temporal Judges without any affront done to the King in Effigie or to his power and authority which he the said Mayor in his proper station and within his own Precinct does bear And that Sheriffs even while they are in the exercise of their Office may be proceeded against in the Kings Temporal Courts none can be ignorant of that understands the practice of those Courts and remembers there is such a Court as the Exchequer or has undergone the Office of a Sheriff A Sheriff by the Statute of Westminster 1. cap. 9. Anno tertio Edvardi primi for not doing his Duty and for concealing of Felons may be fined and imprisoned One Bronchard in Queen Elizabeths time being Sheriff had an Information Exhibited in the Star-chamber against him for returning one that was not chosen a Knight of the Parliament Abridgement of the Reports of the Lord Dyer 425. A Sheriff of Barkshire was committed to the Fleet and fined by the Court of Common Pleas for unjust taking of Fees Brownloes Reports second part p. 283. I doubt not but the Learned in the Municipal Laws are able to furnish out plenty of instances of this kind Well then Mayors and Sheriffs may be Impleaded may be Out-lawed may be Arrested may be Fined may be Imprisoned in the Kings Temporal Courts by from and before his Temporal Judges And in all these Inflictions here 's no Fining no Arresting no Out-lawing no Imprisoning no Attaching the King in Effigie nor any intrenching upon his Authority from himself to his subordinate civil Officers Here 's no hindring the dispensing of Justice no obstructing the Kings business nor letting the execution of His Majesties service in the hands of these publick Officers that is at all dreaded hereby And pray How then comes it to pass that the case is not the same when in matters of Ecclesiastical cognizance the Kings Ecclesiastical Judge in his Ecclesiastical Courts proceeds against such persons by penalties proper and usually inflicted therein Is not the Kings Authority in His Ecclesiastical Courts in matters belonging to them as forcible and
displeased thereat for as one Historian informs us * Mat. Paris Anno 1250. p. 777. and he a Votary to the Pope in another case hapning but two years before viz. in the 36th year of this Kings Reign and which this passage must undoubâ—edly refer to Non sine redargutione peritorum haec fecit Dominus Rex quod scilicet conquestus fuerit super haec Domino Papae The Pope to be sure was forward enough to engage himself in the concerns of Princes and so would make himself more officious to gratifie the King than was needful whereas the provision which by the Laws was made against any such encroachments and the Kings own Regal power to put the same Laws in execution would have given him better relief than any indult or dispensation from the Pope could do Well upon the Reasons before specified prohibitions issued out from King Henry to keep the Bishops from censuring his Officers but notwithstanding them still they would be encroaching on the Kings Rights in his temporal Courts and so they continued to the time of King Edward the first the son and immediate successor of the former King and thence proceeded the issuing of that Kings prohibitory mandates Requiring and commanding the Bishops not to Excommunicate his Bayliffs and Officers without his previous Licence and Order That is as by what is to be collected from the state of affairs in these times until the King fully understood the nature of the cause these Officers and Bayliffs were convented upon for as I declared before they were often censured and excommunicated because they opposed the Popish encroachments on the Kings temporal Rights therefore the King would understand the true grounds of such proceedings that if the matter were of civil concernment his Officers might be freed from such vexatious and unjust prosecutions but if it appeared to be of Ecclesiastical cognizance they were then delivered up to the Jurisdiction thereof This I conceive to be the very genuine and true meaning hereof for these reasons first because it is consonant to the end and purport of other Writs of the like nature the Author has not recited these Records at large which if he had done very probably something plainly directing to this conception might have been found therein Moreover by the Statute called prohibitio formata de Statuto Articuli Cleri * Which Stature had â—eâ—â—â—ence to certain Articles of the Clergy â—â—h biâ—ed in Parlâ—ament hold Anno 51. Hen. 3. made the beginning of King Edwards Reign The spiritual Jurisdiction is not at all restrained subjectively that is respectively to persons being of this or that condition or quality but only objectively as to causes namely such as had been usurped before by the spiritual Courts Lastly this is made good also from approved practice in this very Kings Reign as will appear by this remarkable story that now follows Thomas the Noble Earl of Lancaster had to wife Alice only Daughter and Heir of Henry Earl of Lincoln at the same time John Earl of Warren was married to King Edward the first his Neece yet the said Earl Warren by great force and strong hand caused the said Alice Countess of Lancaster to be fetched from the Earl of Lancasters house in Canford in Dorset shire and in great pomp and bravery in despight of the Earl of Lancaster to be brought to him to his Castle of Ryeâ—gate in Surrey where they lived in open advowtry John Langton was then Bishop of Chichester and Chancellor of England and being a man of a brave spirit and fearing not the face of great men according to his office and duty he called the said Earl Warren in question for the said shameful and open Adultery and by Ecclesiastical censures Excommunicated him for the same as he well deserved sayes my Lord Coke who reports this Story * Expâ—fâ—â—ion on the Statute called Articuli super Chartas Anno 28 Edvard 1. page 573. This hapned about the 29th year of King Edv. 1. and surely is an instance proper to inform us what the right state of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction was then and that supposing the matter to be indeed belonging to the Ecclesiastical Tribunal no person of greatest dignity under the King nor any others in civil office and place of power are exempted from it nor did the Kings prohibitory Writs give any such exemption Thus it was while the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction did de facto stand divided from the Crown and before our Kings re-assumed their Rights in the same But forasmuch as now there is an entire Union of both jurisdictions in one supream King and Governour the exercise of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is certainly at least as extensive as full and as Universal now as it was before And whereas the obtaining and having the Kings leave and licence to the inflicting any censures on His Bayliffs and Officers is mentioned in those prohibitory Writs whence it may be inferred that admitting Ecclesiastical judges may proceed against and censure occasion so requiring it the Kings Officers in civil powers yet the Kings leave and order so to do must first be had and obtained To this I say that now by the right constitution of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction and as the exercise thereof is derived from the Crown the Kings leave and licence in the whole procedure thereof is implicitely indeed yet as truly and certainly had and obtained as if a particular and express mandate from the King were issued out upon each several cause civil or criminal that belongs to the cognizance thereof The Eâ—clesiastical judge acts by a power as immediately derived from the King as any Temporal Judge does The Bishop is as amply and compleatly Commissionated for the Exercise of Ecclesiastical jurisdiction both subjectively and objectively in foro Externo contentioso which Commission passes in His Majesties Letters Patents for Restauration of the Temporalities as any other Temporal Judge in any of the Kings Temporal Courts And upon this account it is as truly affirmed That nothing is done in the Ecclesiastical Court Rege inconsulto as the same is said concerning the Temporal Court Habet Rex diversas Curias in quibus diversae Actiones terminantur sayes Bracton and he lived in one of these Kings Reign viz that of King Henry 3d whence Sir Edward Coke draws this conclusion That the King hath committed and distributed all his whole power of Judicature to several Courts of Justice and in this he refers to Ecclesiastical Courts as well as Temporal And from the Statute 24 Hen. 8. cap. 2. he declares thus That the Laws Ecclesiastical and Temporal were and yet are administred adjudged and executed by sundry Judges * His Jurisdiction of Courts cap. 7. p. 70. c. Hence is that saying That the King does judge by his Judges Thus in matters of Ecclesiastical cognizance the King judges by His Ecclesiastical Judges and whatsoever persons are any way concerned therein and impleaded in the Ecclesiastical Court the