Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	king_n	lord_n	sergeant_n	4,053	5	11.1212	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A75604	The arraignment and conviction of Mervin Lord Audley, Earle of Castlehaven, (who was by 26. peers of the realm found guilty for committing rapine and sodomy) at Westminster, on Monday, April 25. 1631. By vertue of a commission of oyer and terminer, directed to Sir Thomas Coventry, Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England, Lord high Steward for that day, accompanied with the judges. As also the beheading of the said Earle shortly after on Tower Hill.	Castlehaven, Mervyn Touchet, Earl of, 1592?-1631.	1643 (1643)	Wing A3743; Thomason E84_2; ESTC R20942	7,427	16

The true portraiture of the Earle of Castlehaven The Lords that were his Peeres sate on each side of a great Table covered with greene whose names are as followeth 1. The Lord Weston Lord Treasurer 2. Earle of Manchester Lord Privy Seale 3. Earle of Arundel and Surrey Marshall 4. Earle of Pembroke and Montgomery Lord Chamberleyn 5. Earle of Kent 6. Earle of Worcester 7. Earle of Bedford 8. Earle of Essex 9. Earle of Dorset 10. Earle of Leicester 11. Earle of Salisbury 12. Earle of Warwicke 13. Earle of Carlisle 14. Earle of Holland 15. Earle of Danby 16 Viscount Wimbleton 17. Viscount Conaway 18. Viscount Wentworth 19. Viscount Dorchester 20. Lord Piercy 21. L Strange 22. Lord Clifford 23. Lord Peter 24. Lord North. 25. L Howard 26. Lord Goring THE ARRAIGNMENT AND CONVICTION OF MERVIN Lord AVDLEY Earle of Castlehaven who was by 26. Peers of the Realm found guilty for committing Rapine and Sodomy at Westminster on Monday April 25. 1631. By vertue of a Commission of Oyer and Terminer directed to Sir Thomas Coventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England Lord high Steward for that day accompanied with the Iudges As also the beheading of the said Earle shortly after on Tower Hill LONDON Printed for Tho Thomas 1642. THE ARRAIGNMENT OF The Earle of Castlehaven THomas Lord Coventry Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England was for this day Lord high Steward of England who brought the Commission into the Court and after an Oyez gave it to the Serjeant at Armes who gave it to Sir Thomas Fanshaw to reade who reads it and then the usher of the blacke Rod kneeled downe to my Lord and presented him with a white rod. He had seven great Maces carried before him when hee came into the Court hee sate in a chaire of State there attended him a Harald at Armes The Judges sate before the Lords on each side of the table whose names were 1. Sir Nicholas Kide Lord chiefe Justice of England 2. Sir Thomas Richardson Lord chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas. 3. Sir Humphrey Davenport Lord chiefe Baron 4. Baron Denham 5. Judge Iones 6. Judge Hutton 7. Judge Whitlocke 8. Judge Crooke the Kings learned Counsell 9. Serjeant Crew Master Attorney generall Master Solicitor Sir Iohn Finch Sir Thomas Fanshaw Clarke of the Crowne After the Commission was read and the st●ffe received by the Lord high Steward he commanded an Oyez to be made and after gave licence to all the Peeres of the Realme to put on their hats and then all the Lords were called by their names and answered particularly to them Then was the Lieutenant called to bring forth his prisoner who sate by the Common Pleas and hee brought him to the barre with divers of the Guard attending upon him where he had a place in manner of a pew lined with geat velvet and the Lieutenant another adjoyning to it and when he had done his obeysance to the Lord Steward and the rest of the Lords who also returned it to the Lord high Steward spoke to him to this effect My Lord Awdley the King hath understood both by report and the verdict of divers Gentlemen of quality that you stand impeach●d of divers great and haynous crimes and to try if they be true he brings you here this day to triall doing like the Almighty King in the 18. of Genesis that sent downe to see whether their sinnes were so grievous as the cry of them and Kings on earth can have no better paterne to follow then the Kings of heaven the Soveraigne Gods Vicegerent on earth hath commanded that you should be tried this day and the desire of his Majesty is your try all should be as equall as equity it selfe And because the crimes that come this day before you may in some breed detestation and the person in others compassion first lay these two aside and let your reason sway your judgement and your head your heart And therefore these Peeres who are your Peeres and who have as noble justice in their hearts as noble blood in their veynes are this day to try you therefore if you be innocent speake without feare and bee sure those that accuse you shall not escape free But if you be faulty I advise you to give honour to God and the King and confesse your fault for it is no vaine confidence nor subtilty that can hide the truth therefore if truth touch you at the heart and your conscience is a thousand witnesses and God is greater then both stand not against it and if you doe not God will put into the hearts of those noble persons to finde it out and doe that is just The Lord Awdley said I have beene a close prisoner these six months without friends and without Counsell and am but of a weak speech at the best and therefore I desire to have the liberty of having a Counsell to speake for me My Lord high Steward said For your imprisonment to you it hath beene a speciall favour for you have had time enough more then ever any man had that hath beene committed for such offences and more favour then ever any man that came to this bar and you demand nothing that the law can allow you but you shall have it but for your demand I must move it to the Judges and they shall satisfie you in it or in any other thing you require Then he propounded it to the Judges who answered that in criminall causes counsell is not to be allowed but for matter of law hee may Sir Thomas Fanshaw read the Indictment and asked him whether he was guilty or not Lord Audley answered not guilty Sir Thomas Fanshaw said how wilt thou be tried L. Audley answered by God and my Peers The Lord high Steward said the prisoner is indicted of rape and sodomy by two indictments and htah pleaded not guilty and it is my duty to charge you to stand to the triall of it and you are to judge of it as they are to be proved by evidence and you are to ballance it This cause may cary in it in some pity in others detestation both of which ought to be put into the ballance for a graine on either side may sway the scale but reason must rule your affections and your heads your hearts you are to give an attentive eare and then weigh equally that the scale may leane the right way and the Judges will assist you in point of law which if you doubt one may propound it to me and I to them or of the prisoner this your Lordships are to doe without corporall oath The law conceiveth you of such that you will do that for justice which others doe for their oath and therefore admits of no challenge God direct you to it Master Attorny said my Lord high Steward and it please your Grace there are two Indictments against Martin Lord Audley the first for Rape the second for Sodomy the prisoner is honourable the crimes

dishonorable of which hee is indicted if it falls out to be true which is to be left to triall I dare he bold to say never Poet invented nor Historiographer writ of any so foule though Suetonius hath curiously set out the vides of some of the Emperors which had absolute power and that might make them fearelesse of any maner of punishment and besides were heathens and knew not God yet none of them came neere this Lords crime this is a crime of that rarity in our nation that wee seldome know of the like and the other that we scarse heare of it but they are of that pestilential nature that if they be not punished they will draw from heaven heavy judgements upon this Kingdome I can speake with comfort that all my time both in his Majesties royall Fathers life and since he came to his Crowne I never had occasion to speake in this place against any Peere of the Realme before now and God knowes I doe it now with sorrow and I hope I shall not have occasion to doe so much againe but his Majesty who is the patterne of vertue not onely as King but in his person also in whom it is hard to judge whether hee excell most in Justice or Mercy but I rather thinke in Mercy for he would have my Lord Audley the prisoner at Barre heard with as much favour as such a crime as this can bee when he first heard it he gave strict accoumpt that the triall should bee searched that his throne and people should be cleared from so grievous sins and therefore he was indicted in his owne Countrey according to the law by Gentlemen of worth The Bill is found and now he is brought to this Barre to be tried by his honourable Peeres such as of whose wisedome and sincerity there can bee no question but to have an honourable hearing And first I shall beginne with the indictment of Rape Bracton tells us of King Athelstons law before the conquest if the party were of no chast life but a whore yet there may bee a ravishment but it is a good plea to say she was his concubine In an indictment of Rape there is no time of prosecution necessary for nullum tempus occurrit regi but in case of an appeale of Rape if the woman did not prosecure in convenient time it will barre her for the crimen sodomiticum our law had no knowledge of it till 15. H. 8. by which statute it was made fellony and in this there is no more question but onely whether it bee crimen sodomiticum fine penetratione and the law the 5. of Elizabeth sets downe in generall words and there the law doth not distingish neither must we I know you will bee curious how you give the least mitigation of so abhominable a sinne which brought such plagues after it as we may see in Gen. 18. Judges 14. Rom. 1. But my Lords it seemed to me strange at the first how a noble man of his quality should lust to such abhominable sins but when I found he had given himselfe over to lust and find that nemo repente sit pessimus and that if men once habit themselves in ill it is no marvell if they fall into any sinne and that he was constant in noreligion but in the morning would be a Papist in the afternoone a Protestant I shall bee bold to give your Grace a reason why hee became so ill he beleeved not God then what may not a man runne into but I find things beyond imagination for I find his intentions bent to have his wife naught which the wickedest man that ever I heard of before would have vertuous and godly how bad soever himselfe be and him lewd to his owne wife if she love him she must love Henry Skipwith whom he loves above all and not in any honest love but in a dishonest he gives his reason by Scripture she was now subject to him and therefore if she did ill at his command it was not her fault but his and he would answer it he lets this Skipwith who he calls his favourite spend of his purse 500. l' per annum and if his wife or daughter would have any thing though necessary they must lie with Skipwith and have it from him and not otherwise also telling Skipwith and his daughter that he had rather have a child by him then by any body else But this thing I had rather should come out of the mouthes of the witnesses then from me The severall Examinations and Depositions before the Lords Walter Bigges Examination ANtill was a Page to Sir Henry Smith and had no meanes when he came to my Lord Audley he entertained him for a Page eight yeares and then let him keepe horses in his ground by which I thinke he inriched himselfe 2000 .l ' but he never sat at the table with him till he had married his daughter then gave him to the value of 7000 .l ' Henry Skipwith was sent from Ireland by my Lord to be a Page to my Lady his Father and Mother were very meane folkes there he spent out of my Lords meanes 500 .l ' per annum and he gave him at one time 1000 .l ' and hath made divers deeds of lands to him My Lord was at first a Protestant after the buying of Fountaine turn'd his religion Lord Audley his Examination HE saith Henry Skipwith had no meanes when hee came to him and that he had given him 1000 .l ' and that Skipwith did lie with him when he was straightned in roome and that hee gave a farme of 100 .l ' to Antil that married his daughter and at other times to the valew of 7000 .l ' and that there was one Blawdma in his house 14. daies and bestowed an ill disease there and therefore he sent her away Lord high Steward said I advise you not to deny those things which are cloerly proved for then the Lords will give lesse credit to the rest you say The Countesses examination THe first or second night after we were married Antil came to his bed side whilest we were in bed and the Lord spake lasciviously to her and told her her body was his and that if she loved him shee must love Antil and if shee lay with any man with his consent it was not her fault but his Hee would make Skipwith come naked into her chamber and bed and delighted in calling up his servants making them shew their privities and her looke on and commended those that had the largest Broadway lay with her whilst she made resistance and my Lord held her hands and one of her feet and she would have killed her selfe afterwards with a knife but that hee tooke it from her and before that act of Broadway shee had never done it He delighted to see the act done and made Antil come into the bed to them and lye with her whilst he might see it and that she cryed out Fitz Patricks