Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	court_n	king_n	plea_n	3,508	5	9.7258	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87640	The new Returna brevium or the law returned from Westminster and restored in brief to its native, antient, and proper habitation, language, power, puritie, integritie, cheapness, briefness, plainness. Rescued out of the sacrilegious hands, barbarous disguises, ænigmatical intricacies, lucrative constructions, extorted verdicts, fals judgments, & bribeful executions of her perjured impostors, fals interpreters, iailers, catchpols, attorneys, &c whereunto is added the Petition of Right, granted by Parliament in the 3 year of King Charls, and confirmed by this (although to bee found in larger volumes) for cheapness to the generalitie to inform themselvs what is their rights. Written by John Jones of the Neyath in com. Brecon Gent.	Jones, John, of Neyath, Brecon.	1650 (1650)	Wing J972; Thomason E1411_2; ESTC R202637	18,638	94

of more English men then all the Wars Plagues and Famine vvhich reigned in their times destroyed vvithout them Witness their Statutes made and mainteined against Magna Charta for their murthering of Debtors in Prisons vvith tortures and famine vvhen their extortions and their Gaolers have left them no means to buy bread And for the unlavvfull divorcing scattering and starving of their Wives and Children by the bargain and robbing their Creditors of those means that should pay their Debts in part or all and for protecting of Cheators that take their Prisons for Sanctuaries to leav so much of other mens estates with the right owners curs and their heirs to their posteritie as their Judges and Gaolers extortions and their own riot cannot consume in their owne time As also their last Acts formerly mentioned for releas of Prisoners which intangle their bodies and souls more then before And many other Statutes to intricate the Laws with such contrarieties as none but such as have the Genius of their makers can reconcile which when it is don tendeth wholly to make themselvs great and rich and the People their slaves and beggers For Remedie whereof it is to be desired in the name and right of the publick that the Hous would bee pleased to bee swept and clensed of such cobs and cob-webs and to vote and vomit out of the sanctifi'd bowells of that sacred Senate those execrable excrements that poison their intrailes and deliver them to publick Justice which their ravenous lives and extorted possessions suffice not to satisfie but may in Gods mercie appeas his wrath stay his Judgement and expiate this Land of that wickedness which they have wrought among us and accumulated upon us This don The work followeth and teacheth it self how it would be don as aforesaid declaring it self that frustrà fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauclora vain is the labor of many workmen where few may serv the Turn with far less charge and more conveniencie And breiflie vain expenceful and too burthensom to this Common-wealth are the severall Courts hereafter mentioned upstarted over us one after another since the first publishing of Magna Charta as Heresies sprung immediately after if not with the first preaching of the Gospel viz. Out of the Court lately called the King's Bench issued the Common-Pleas and the Eschequer which took their leav of it in Magna Charta and left it to follow the King and so I conceiv it ought to do still for that there is no use rightly to bee made of it but to hear and determine the Pleas of the Crown which the Lord Coke upon Magna Charta saith were wont to bee determined by Stewards in their Leets Sheriffs in their Turns Recorders in Corporations and countrey Judges in Signiories which had jura Regalia all which now Justices of Peace having more power in matters determinable by common Law then Justices in Eire had if rid of the sovereigntie usurped over them by their fellow-Justices their Certioraries c. may eas of much labor Moreover the chief Justice of this Court ought to bee but the King's deputie by writ and no King in beeing no such Deputie can bee Hugh de Burgo Earl of Kent chief Justice under King Henry the 3d took his oath with his Master to observ and maintein Magna Charta and soon after persuading the King to break it became the first Perjurer of his place in that point as the Lord Cook upon Art sup Chart. declareth at large Since which time the practice of this Court beeing but to murther debtors over whom it hath no jurisdiction and consequently perjurie and injurie to the Common-wealth why may it not bee spared as well as the King While as saith the Lord Cook afore-said all Majors c. have the Law to guide them and now Englished unto them where then can bee the desect of Justice but in the Justices as before that will not execute them since it is Law it self that the Laws are to bee interpreted so that there shall bee no failer of Justice to the people And few or no Laws besides Magna Charta and it's confirmations will serv to do that without those superfluous number of volumes which Lawyers have contrived for their own Reports of Cases and crastie disputes arguments and cavils pass'd among them but to bee used by such as have minde and leisure to read them as Divines may the Works of the wantonest Poëts to pick out their flowers for their Pulpits and leav their scurrilities to others of their Autor's genius Or as Interludes in which all parts were not all bad and though all prohibited to bee publickly acted yet may Terence bee read in Schools And may not those Statutes that relate to the Justices of either Bench c. bee executed without them aswel as those that relate to the Bishops are without them And this Court thus spared will spare the Common-wealth in fees and extortion above five hundred thousand pound per Annum besides unknown bribes and their known salarie of 4000 ll per Annum as Sir John Lenthal and his 4000 prisoners or thereabouts between Thule and Callicute and Mt Henley with his hoste of Scribes whose Van is at Michaël's mount and Rear at Barwick if convented and compell'd to consess truth can declare at large The Chancerie was no Court of Judicature nor personated by a Lawyer but commonly by a Monk or Bishop as wee have seen lately in England and Ireland whose office was to follow the King with the Seal and to seal Writs gratis at the King 's cost as the Lord Coke affirmeth and Rast fol. 65. citeth the Statute of Art super chart and sheweth that the breaches of those Articles were the first thing given to the power of the Chancellor to judg of who beeing likely a a Bishop had charge as a Bishop by virtue thereof to excommunicate the breakers thereof In the 36th year of the reign of King Edward first cap. 4 to from which little fountain sprung that Nilus that ever since overfloweth all England not onely once every seven years but seven times at least in every year The Chancerie a Court of Conscience forsooth raised upon pretence of equitie and relief to such as complained of oppressions against the breakers of this Statute which vvas the first confirmation of Magna Charta and no sooner thus raised but it despised both its raiser and the caus extolled it self and overtopped all the Courts of England disusing to grant the antient Commissions in Eire to vvhom their Counties chose and of Oyer and Terminer to any that had occasion to use them as lavvful vvas according to Fitz Herbent Nat. brev fo 112. and Cromp. s p. fol. 51. and all Writs to any vvithout excessive sees and extortion contrarie to all laws the Oath of a Judg and the practice of the office it self as it was formerly gratis and neglecting to send Magn. Char. to every Sheriff yearly to bee read

four times in full Counties and to every Church to bee read twice yearlie And the writ set down by the Lord Cook to bee issuable to all Sheriffs to apprehend all subverters of the Law and to commit them to the common Gaol which I consess is politickly forborn least Chancellors and and the rest of their brother Judges should bee taken for the chiefest delinquents in that kinde and carried from Westminster to Newgate as I dare swear they have often deserv'd But when I consider how ready their supersedease's are to Sheriffs Justices of Peace c. when they pleas and their Injunctions to stay Suits at common Law most proper to bee determined there and the disregard they make of the late Statute of 15 to Hen. 6. 4 to which forbiddeth them such matters I confess no need they have to fear Sheriffs to displeas them but marveil how they can bee so uncharitable as to separate mercie which they call equitie from Justice beeing that as Justice without equitie is merciless rigor so Equitie without Justice if any such could bee would bee an unjust iniquitie and both these notwithstanding they would seem to divide Equitie from Justice are found individuals in Chancerie as Equitie and Justice were in Courts of common Law before Chancerie was and so ought to bee still as Mercie and Justice ever were and will bee in the individual trinumine chief Justice of heaven and earth whose mercie is above all his works but Chancellor's works are commonly above all mercie when they can finde no time normeans to end any Caus till both parties finde the end of their money and their time lost to gain Lordships to Chancellors and their Heirs for who saw a Lord Chancellor but had a Lord Baron at least to his heir except Sr Francis Bacon and who saw againer to himself or his heir by a Suit in Chancerie except it might bee John Johns the cunning Merchant or one that had less right to land then Keeper Coventrie could think fit to purchase in his man's name and yet gained a precious decree against the right owner Wherefore this two door'd ordoubleleav'd Court of Chancerie and Rolls beeing most pernicious to this Common-wealth which it generally beggereth to enrich it self by encroaching upon all mens liberties and drawing all those matters to Westminster which might bee decided at home with far more speed justice equitie and conveniencie and less charge pains and attendance to both parties where they are best known or to bee known in their own Court Let this Court bee spared with the other and the Common-wealth will bee further spared of the treble charge of the former yearly as the Warden of the Fleet and his prisoners as numerous as the Kings-bench men and the numberless Armado of Chancerie Caterpillars can sufficiently witness if they pleas whereof one thousand pounds per annum would bee a competent salarie for a Keeper of the Seal and fiftie pounds per annum for his man to attend it And another thousand pounds per annum to ten Clerks to do the office of six antiently blew bonnets two thousand pound per ann a piece or more with allowance of Parchment ink wax candles firing lodging and a fit office to write all necessarie Writs for all the Common-wealth And the Clerkships of the Crown and Hanaper may bee united in one person as in Ireland they were in Mr Edgworth and since in Mr Carleton who may bee thought worthie of five hundred pound per annum and all accommodation for his office without anie fees and fortie pound per annum a piece for three under Clerks to assist him to dispatch all businesses belonging to either of the said offices without fees likewise The Court of Common pleas at Westminster would bee as wel spared as anie for that all Common-pleas are common to all Courts in Cities and Counties and ought to bee tried there as the Lord Co. upon Magn. Char. on the Countie Court confesseth which sparing would spare the Common wealth per annum no less then the greatest of the former two The Court of Exchequor reduced to it's proper jurisdiction officers and fees concerning the publick Revenues may bee continued for that service onely and suffice to maintein the Warden of the Fleet and som of his men to walk between the Fleet and the Court to guard Chequer-Accomptants to their Quietus and this would spare the Kingdom another Ten thousand pound per an as the Wardens of the Fleet the two Remembrancers and Mr Long can tell Courts and Justices of Assizes Nisi priùs and Gaole-deliveries are as necessarie for England as Landlopers for the Netherlands where the Boars claw their backs and their dogs bite their shins for their intrusions or as droans are to Bee-hives whence the Bees have good caus to chace them for devouring their honey For all matters of Assizes and Nisi priùs belong to Countie Courts Hundred-Courts Courts Baron and Corporation Courts as the Lord Coke confesseth as aforesaid and Cromp. affirmeth in his jurisdiction of Courts fo 240. and matters of Gaole-deliverie belong to Sheriffs turns Leets and Sessions of the peace as the said Autors affirm and the Commissions of the peace and Charters of Corporations can prove and warrant Wherefore those three Courts spared as well they may and ought the Common wealth will bee further spared of two annual Visitations of severall swarms of Westminster locusts the charge whereof I refer to the consideration of them that bear it and usually pay it The Court of the Marshalsey raised to that exorbitancie that King James and King Charls did may and ought to follow their fortunes and their housholds and more I shall not say of it but that it is full of extortion and injustice being never owned by Law beyond the verge and that being vanished with the Kings person so ought that Court. The sparing of this Court would spare the Commonwealth a great deal of charge more then I can calculate but Mr Say an honorable Member of the House may advertise the rest thereof with the advice of Mr Serjeant Green and others late Judges and officers of that Court. The sparing of all these Courts and the charge thereof amounting to if not surmounting three millions per annum and the confirmation of Mag. Cart. and the Petition of Right once more by this Parliament would also spare to the Commonwealth and its better service the lives and imployments of many thousands of able men wrongfully imprisoned for debt and convert the lives and imployments many thousands of Attornies Sollicitors Gaolers Catchpols Decoyes Setters c. to better uses both for their souls and bodies and for the publick benefit Then Sheriffes Turns Hundred Courts Leets Court Baron Sessions of peace and Corporation-Courts restored to their ancient and right jurisdiction which fall to them of themselvs which when those aforesaid are taken away would be all-sufficient and onely necessary to hear and determine all the causses of England

THE NEW Returna Brevium Or the LAW returned from WESTMINSTER And restored in brief to its Native Antient and Proper Habitation Language Power Puritie Integritie Cheapness Briefeness Plainness Rescued out of the Sacrilegious hands barbarous disguises aenigmatical intricacies lucrative constructions extorted verdicts fals Judgments bribeful Executions of her perjured Imposlors fals Interpreters Iailers Catchpols Attorneys c Whereunto is added the Petition of Right granted by Parliament in the 3 year of King Charls and confirmed by this Although to bee found in larger Volumes for cheapness to the Generalitie to inform themselvs what is their Rights Written by John Jones of the Neyath in Com. Brecon Gent. Micha 6. v. 8. He hath shewed thee O Man what is good And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God LONDON Printed by William Du-gard Anno Dom. 1650. TO The right Honorable Oliver Crumwell LORD Lievtenant of IRELAND c. Heroïck Sir LOng and earnest have been the desires and praiers of many thousands of faithfull hearts for your safe and happie return into England which God for his own glorie your honor and our comforts hath now opportunely brought to pass with such testimonies of his blessings upon your actions manifested by your successes in his battails as may beejustly terrible to all his and your Enemies and truly joyfull to all his servants and your friends of whom it is to be feared that as God hath but few firm in his election so you have but few faithful in your assistance Be pleased therefore that it may bee inquired in the Assembly vvhose promises to your self and your dependants vvhose Votes in publick and Vovves in private have most vvilfully failed you and yours I shall not presume to inquire vvhat breaches have bin made of performances in matters most nearly concerning you and your Armie best knovvn to your self but vvhat hath been performed of those promises made to you and your Armie for the relieving of your daily Orators Prisoners for Debt vvrongfully restreined contrary to Magna Charta and all the true Lavvs of the Land vvhich men sitting in Parliament publickly profess and have often svvorn to maintein what ridiculous Acts even those men have made to delude you and your Orators their own and all Gods people to cross those Laws more then before and to support their extortions mercenarie practices in all the waies of Injustice in an higher measure than their Predecessors what Justice can be expected from such Justicers what merci can bee exspected from God to continue upon that Land that shall suffer such Mountibanck-mock-lawes to live much more to sit and bee Legis-lators amongst them oh let such buyers sellers of Law Justice bee thrown out of the Temple and the Hous of the Lord bee purged of such abominations The valiant and Religious Patriot Colonel Pride in your absence indeavoured to work som proportion of grace into those men to foresee and prevent their own confusion but the Adders would not hear O make them Sir make these subtile Serpents innocent against their wills unsting them unskin them for their Cases are far more precious then their Carkases I have here following demonstrated their uselessness in this Common-wealth which may it pleas your honor to peruse at your leisure protect in your favor correct in your wisdom and Act in your Justice so God shall further prosper you your posteritie the Commonwealth honor you and them and with the rest of your Orators and theirs I shall bee ever yours to Command during life John Jones THE NEW Returna Brevium OR The Law returned from WESTMINSTER c. DIvers are the Speeches of divers Contrivers of a pretended Reformation of the Law of England according to the diversitie of their opinions and self-ends premised therein for the effecting whereof they would have their several Propositions disputed som for Alterations others for Additions others for Substractions all for Corrections but few or none knowing how to mend Magna Chart. more then Magnificat nor really studying but how to marr both Observ how the work directeth it self how it would bee don For as saith the Mirrour of Justice written by Horn in King Ed. the 1. his time pa. 8. It was ordeined viz. by King Alphred long before Mag. Chart. or the Norman Conquest that Right should be don from 15 dayes to 15 dayes before the King and his Iudges and from moneth to moneth in the Counties if their largeness required not a longer time And that every three weeks right should bee administred in other Courts And every free Tenant had ordinary Iurisdiction c. And before pa. 1. The Sheriffs and Bayliffs caused the Free Tenants of their Bailywicks to meet at the Counties and hundreds at which Justice was so don that every one so judged his Neighbor by such judgement as a man could not els-where receiv in the like cases until such time as the Customs of the Realm were put in writing and certainly established And although a Free-man commonly was not to serv without his assent neverthe-less it was assented unto that Free Tenants should meet together in the Counties Hundreds and Lord's Courts if they were not specially exempted to do such Suits and there they judged their Neighbors And again pa. 8. It was ordeined That every Plaintiff have a remedial Writ from the King who reserved all Pleas of the Crown and above 40 s to himself to his Sheriff in this form Questus est nobis c. viz Complaineth to us A. that B doth him such and such wrong Wee therefore committing to thee our Turn in this behalf command thee to hear and determine that caus Their Jurors were Iudges And why do Judges now at Westminster that can bee no more absolute Judges by their Commissions then Recorders of Cities by their Charters Sheriffs in Counties and Stewards in liberties were by their Writs at this time when Free English men understood their laws then known and practised in English usurp more then those Judges did or these ought viz. to bee more then onely pronouncers of the substance of Jurors verdicts aswell for Law as Fact which pronunciation is and ought to be but as a Declaration of Kings assents to the due execution of that Law which they and their people agreed upon in the great Charter and its confirmation to let the people know by these Judges that then were and still are and ought to bee called the Kings or the States as authorised by their Writs and Commissions to pronounce their Masters consents for their parts to convict the partie guiltie as the Judges of the people viz. the Jurors do by their verdicts which are or ought to bee their true sayings both for Law and fact for the peopl'es part their own which consents of Kings or States now called Judgements because a ful conviction of the guiltie of both parts if denied or delayed after verdicts

reserving Appeals to such as shall have caus to Parliament or Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer to bee assigned as Fitz H. and Cromp. affirm anciently lawful and usual proof being made first of the partialitie or injustice of the proper Court and no bare accusation allegation or presumption to serv for the issuing of such Commissions as now is used Except causes proper for Coroners Escheators Pipe powder Courts Clerks of the Market of whose misdemeanors Justices of Peace have power to hear determine but not to hinder in due execution of their Offices which are all necessarie in their kinds in every Countie and specially Coroners and Clerks of the Market the first for discovering of murthers c. whereof God requireth an exact account as Scriptures and Reynolds History sufficiently witness And the other for the punishing of frauds in weights and measures which Solomon saith are abominations to God yet nothing more common amongst us the more fearfull his judgements upon us without timelie repentance and future amendment And for the superintending of the defaults of those that have power to correct such offences and do not All these Courts Officers and Offices that are thus necessarie will bee no more chargable to the Common-wealth hereafter then alwaies they have been hrretofore but as useful now as ever and more profitable to the Common-wealth now then ever before becaus that in this time of Reformation these Officers as others beeing chosen of approved persons for their Integritie will endeavour like their Superiours the amendment of all offences which they have power to chastize whereas their Predecessors imitating their Superiors to their own ruine intended their own private gain by publick transgressions and to that end increased iniquities in themselvs and others If any offer to plead or object the customs and usages modernly observed time out of minde against this reducement and restauration of the Law and its practice to their antient usages I ansvver Mala Consuetudo non est observanda An evil custom is not to bee continued and Customs against Lavv are unlavvfull to be used And to vvhat end is Reformation but to take avvay such customs And Statutes lately made to support them by those that raised and used them for their own gain others dammage contrarie to all the Laws of God and Man and especially of Magna Charta and its confirmations vvherein appear the right and Primitive customs and usage of this land agreeable to them claiming therefore to bee restored as in Justice they ought and the other to bee abolished as likevvise they ought And being com to speak of antient Customes to bee restored modern to bee abolished I cannot chuse but remember the Poor as most men do in the last place for it vvas a custom as antient as Christianitie for Christians to give lands moneys and goods in a large measure to relieve the poor till Monks Friers and other Abbey-lubbers as unsatiable as idle dulled mens charities with their continual beggings in the name of the poor and grew sacrilegious robb'd spittles made that which was common to the poor as well as themselvs proper to themselvs and gave out of that which was none of their own for assistance to countenance that Sacriledge the first Fruits Tenths c. to the Pope who had as much right thereunto by their gift as the Devil and consequently King Henry the 8th as much as the Pope and his successors whether Kings or States as much as hee Whosoever conceive's I write too boldly or speak too plainly herein let him read not onely Histories forraign and domestick but the Records and Statutes extant and in force amongst us videlicet That of Carlile de Asportatis Religiosorum 35 to Ed. 1. And that de terris Templariorum 17o. Ed. 2 And those of the dissolutions of Henr. the 8th between which first last hee may finde manie more to inform his conscience so that his heart may think his tongue speak and pen write much more then I do in this matter All that I desire is that the poor may be looked upon if not with an eie of pitie yet with an eie of wisdom taking notice that if the wedg of Achan bee not enquired for discovered and recovered the Nation may rue it And that Popes Kings Bishops c. that cared not how lean they made the poor while they might make themselvs fat with their provisions and those that exspected their reversions have caus by this time to bee sensible of their Sacriledg And that therefore the Spirit of Reformation would bee manifested in the works of Charitie and if such as have griped the patrimonie of the Church into their claws can finde in their hearts to restore to the poor no part of that interest which all the said Statutes and manie more and all the writings of the Fathers and manie of our own modern Bishops who unjustly detained all they could from them abundantly confess and testifie they ought to have in all Ecclesiastical possessions not as the Alms of the Incumbents but as their own rights by the express wills and donations of of the Primitive Founders of Churches Hospitals c. and other devout Donors and Benefactors to such places from time to time so excessively bountiful to the Clergie and Corporations for the poors sake that the Statutes of Mortmain were made to restrain them All which notwithstanding the Clergie possessed no less then a third part of England and France as Sir Walter Rawleigh and Sir Nathanael Brent have written but not to their own uses as they wickedly converted it but as Administrators to and for the poor as the same Autors all the Fathers and Littletons Tenures de frank Almonie and Tenant in common sufficiently witness Yet may the Parliament bee pleased that Commissions for charitable uses bee granted to discreet persons throughout England and Wales not without Fees wages and accommodations for themselves and their Officers competent for their attendance in that service and loss of time in their own affairs being Charitiie beginneth at home and no man can or ought to neglect his own charge to follow others profit gratis which mkaeth the Commission now in London and elswhere ill executed as the distressed of Ireland by wofull experience can lamentably verifie Nor let the number for a Court exceed 3 for the eas of the charge which must bee either charitably allowed and paid by the State or deducted as the late Lord Privie Seal in the book of order approved by the Councell Table 6 to Car. and the Additional Act for the Sabbath c. declare to be lawfull for prosecutors out of the poor's right Nor let such Commissions be limitted by the Statute of 43 Eliz. 4. as now it is which Statute appeareth by its exceptions and jurisdictions reserved to Bishops and Chancellors to bee a Prelatical Chancerized confederacie to delude and defraud the poor at their pleasures witness the heaps of lost labored decrees made