Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	chief_a	lord_n	plea_n	5,523	5	9.8646	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60879	A brief history of the succession collected out of the records, and the most authentick historians, written for the satisfaction of the Earl of H.	Somers, John Somers, Baron, 1651-1716.	1681 (1681)	Wing S4638; ESTC R11938	27,921	19

first Marriage was unlawful Queen Mary and if the second was unlawful Queen Elizabeth must necessarily have been Illegitimate I cannot but observe one passage to our present purpose which I meet with in the time of Queen Mary Sir Edward Montague first Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Mores Reports 827. 828. and afterwards of the Kings Bench one who had the reputation of the ablest and wisest Lawyer of his Age being accused to have drawn the Will of Edward the Sixth whereby that Queen was to have been disinherited and being in great danger upon that account drew up a State of his own case and therein sets forth that the great reason which prevailed with him to obey the King in that particular and upon which he did still rely for his indemnity was that if Queen Mary came to the Crown Eullers Church-History lib. 8. fol. 5. she took it by force of the Act of Parliament which did limit it to her in Remainder so that she came in as a purchaser and not in privity of estate to her Brother and consequently could not punish Treasons or offences committed in his time I must needs also observe that in the Articles made upon the Marriage of Q. Mary with Ph. of Spain which were confirmed by Act of Parliament 1 Mar. Parl. 2. cap. 2. the several Crowns and Territories of Philip are distributed part to Charles the Infant of Spain part to the Issue of the intended Marriage Whereby it does appear not only what opinion all Europe had of the power of an English Parliament but also that by the consent of the Estates of other Realms Crowns might be limited and disposed out of the ordinary course of Descent In the first year of Queen Elizabeth The Parliament recognize her Title to the Crown 1 Eliz. c. 3. with express Relation to the Statute 35 H. 8. which invests it in her and the heirs of her Body and do enact that the Limitation made by that Statute shall stand and remain as Law for ever and all Sentences 1 Eliz. c. 5. Judgements and Decrees to the contrary are declared to be void and appointed to be cancell'd And the several offences which are made Treason by another Statute in the same year are all restrain'd to the Queen and the Heirs of her Body only The Parliament intending to extend that new security no further than her Estate in the Crown which she took by that Parliamentary limitation did extend In her Thirteenth year it was Enacted 13 Eliz. c. 1. Rast Treason 27. That if any person claim Title to the Crown for himself or any other during her Life or shall not upon Demand acknowledge her Right He shall be disabled during his Life to have the Crown in Succession as if he were naturally Dead And to affirm Right of Succession in such claimer or usurper after Proclamation made of such claim or usurpation is made Treason Nor does the Statute stop there but makes it Treason during the life of the Queen and forfeiture of all Goods and Chattels after her decease to affirm that the Queen with and by the Authority of Parliament is not able to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown of this Realm and the Descent Limitation Inheritance and Government thereof or that this or any other Statute made by Parliament with the Queens assent is not or ought not to be for ever of sufficient force to bind and Govern all persons their Rights and Titles that may claim any Interest or Possibility in or to the Crown in Possession Remainder Inheritance Succession or otherwise It were well if some rash men who presume in their discourses to restrain the power of the Parliament that is the King Lords and Commons in the great business of the Succession would be so wise as to remember this Act which is still in force and the penalty to which they subject themselves by such sawey Talk That incomparable States-man the Lord Burleigh had another kind of opinion of the Security which an Act of Parliament could give his Royal Mistress Compleat Ambassad fol. 219. by making the Scottish Queen the Popish Successor of that time unable and unworthy of the Succession as appears in a Letter which he wrote about this time to Sir Francis Walsingham then Ambassadour in France In the Twenty Seventh year of Queen Elizabeth 27 Eliz. cap. 1. it was enacted that if any Invasion was made or Rebellion or other thing tending to the hurt of Her person by or for or with the privity of any one who should or might pretend Title to the Crown and the same should be adjudged in such manner as that Law appoints then every person against whom such Judgment should be given should be excluded and disabled for ever to have or claim the Crown And that the Subjects of this Realm lawfully might by all forcible and possible means pursue all such offenders And their Issues assenting or privy thereto are in like manner disabled and to be pursued And this Act was made in pursuance of an Association enter'd into by the People in the vacancy of Parliament out of their great zeal for the preservation of the life of that excellent Princess By vertue of his Statute Mary Queen of Scotland was afterwards executed Strangways Hist of Mary Queen of Scotland fol. 179. as appears by the Commission for her Tryal King James her Son who was a wiser Prince and not wholly govern'd by Priests as his Mother was though he had the same pretences that she had yet never disputed his Right or set on foot any Title during the life of the ever Renowned Queen though she would never suffer him to be declared her successor He was too wise to incur the like disability as his Mother had done and to contest a Title Establisht by Parliament After Queen Elizabeths Death The Act of Recognition made upon King James his coming to the Crown doth particularly insist upon that Title which was raised by Act of Parliament to Henry the Seventh and the Heirs of his body and that immediately upon the Queens decease the Crown descended and came to King James so that you see the Title of Queen Elizabeth is again acknowledged by Parliament And the entail made by the Statute of 35 H. 8. being spent upon her death without Issue King James comes in as next Heir to the old entail made the first year of Henry the Seventh Thus have I set down before you the whole course of the English Succession as plainly as truly and as briefly as is possible I shall leave every man to make his own observations on this Historical Deduction But this one observation I believe all men must make from it That it hath been the constant opinion of all ages that the Parliament of England had an unquestionable power to Limit Restrain and Qualify the Succession as they pleased and that

to it frequently In the 25th year of his Reign an Act passed St. 25 H. 8. cap. 22. wherein the Parliament say they were bounden to provide for the perfect surety of the Succession they did not certainly reckon themselves bound to do a thing that was not in their Power And then they take notice of the great Mischiefs and Effusions of Bloud which had happened by reason of the doubtfulness of the true Title and for the avoiding of all future Questions do Enact That the Imperial Crown of this Realm shall be to King Henry 8th and the Heirs of his Body Lawfully begotten on Queen Anne and the Heirs of the Bodies of such several Sons respectively according to the course of Inheritance and for default of such Issue then to the Sons of his Body in like manner and upon failure of such Issue then to the Lady Elizabeth and after her to any other Issue in Tail and then the Remainder is limited to the right Heirs of Henry the 8th By the same Statute every Subject at his full Age is oblig'd to take an Oath to defend the Contents of it and the refusal is made Misprision of Treason And the next Parliament 26 H. 8. c. 2. which was held in the year following does particularly Enact an Oath for that purpose Some few years after these Acts were Repealed 28 H. 8. Rast Crown 4. and the Parliament Entailed the Crown upon the King and the Heirs of his Body by Queen Jane And Power is given the King for want of Issue of his Body to dispose of the Succession by his Letters Patents or his last Will. It is also made Treason if any Usurp upon those to whom it is so appointed Here the Parliament do not only use their power of changing the Succession but they Delegate it to another And in the thirty fifth Year of this King's Reign 35 H. 3. cap. 1. the Parliament by another Act take notice of the great and high Trust which the Subjects had in him in putting into his hands wholly the Order and Declaration of the Succession Yet the King being then ready to go into France they do Enact that after his Death and the Death of Prince Edward without Issue the Crown should be to the Lady Mary and the Heirs of her Body but both subject to such Conditions as the King should limit by his Letters Patents or by his last Will sign'd with his Hand And if the Lady Mary performed not those Conditions that then the Crown should go to the Lady Elizabeth as if the Lady Mary had been dead without Issue and if the Lady Elizabeth neglected to perform such Conditions then it should go to such other Person as the King should appoint in the same manner as before as if the Lady Elizabeth had been dead without Issue And Authority is given to him by his Letters Patents or his last Will signed with his own Hand to appoint the Crown to remain to such Person or Persons and for such Estate and under such Conditions as he should please An Oath also for observing this Statute is appointed and it is made Treason to refuse it or to disturb or interrupt any Person to whom it is limited by this Act or should be by the King pursuant to the Power given him thereby This is abundantly sufficient to prove That it was the universal Opinion of that Age That the Succession was wholly under the Controul of Parliament who not only limited it as they pleased themselves but subjected it to Conditions and to the Appointments of others But the thing was in its own Nature so evident that they who had the greatest Reason and were most concern'd to do it did never presume to question the Power of a Parliament in this Point Lethington Burn. Hist Reform Collect. 268. Secretary of Scotland in a Letter of his written to Sir William Cecill then Secretary of State here wherein he argues in behalf of the Title of his Mistriss Mary Queen of Scots to succeed Queen Elizabeth against a pretended Disposition made by the last Will of Henry the Eighth to his Neece the Lady Frances Daughter to the French Queen if his own Issue fail'd says of these Statutes that gave the King Power to dispose of the Crown That they were against Equity to disinherit a Race of Forreign Princes and that they were made in an abrupt Time as he terms it but yet he confesses that since the thing was done it was now valid and unavoidable unless some Circumstances did annihilate the Limitation and Disposition made by King Henry's Will And so he proceeds to prove that the power which was given to the King by these Statutes was not pursued which it ought to have been most strictly and in a precise Form for that the King never signed the Will but that his name set to it was forged Nay I will venture to say that in all the Books which were written to support the Claim of the Scottish Queen against King Henries Will though the whole power and wealth of the Guises were employed to set every wit at work on that Design there was never any stress laid upon it Treatise of the Title of Queen Mary to the Succession pag. 38 39. c. lib. 2. Dodd Engl. Lawyer pag. 8. or so much as a pretence that these Acts of Parliament were void or ineffectual in themselves In that Discourse which was published by Philips and composed by Sir Anthony Brown one of the Justices of the Common Pleas who was in judge Dodderidges opinion a person of an incomparable sharpness of Wit There was all the help that learning either in Divinity Civil or Common Laws could give yet there the Authority of the Parliament in the case and the validity of these Statutes is all along admitted Indeed they endeavour to put some other construction upon the Statutes but their great Argument is That King Henry as King had no power to dispose of the Crown and therefore these Laws only gave him an Authority and made him only as it were a Commissioner and therefore as all other Authorities especially being in Derogation of the course of the Common Line was to be strictly followed They allow that he had sufficient power to Devise and that he might Honourably have used that Power but that he ever did exercise that Authority is the thing denyed But it is time for us to go on Edward the Sixth succeeded his Father and took upon him a power which surely no King ever had to dispose of his Crown by the Will But that disposition serving to no other purpose but to the Ruine of the Lady Jane Gray His Sister Queen Mary first and after Queen Elizabeth enjoy'd the Crown according to the Limitation of the Statute 35 H. 8. c. 1. and that one of them had no other Title must be agreed by all For Queen Catherine was alive at the time when Elizabeth was born so that if the