Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	offence_n	peace_n	session_n	2,850	5	9.9973	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63255	The triumphs of justice over unjust judges exhibiting, I. the names and crimes of four and forty judges hang'd in one year in England, as murderers for their corrupt judgments, II. the case of the Lord Chief Justice Trefilian, hang'd at Tyburn, and all the rest of the judges of England (save one) banisht in K. Rich. the 2ds time, III. the crimes of Empson and Dudley, executed in K. Henry the 8th's days, IV. the proceedings of the ship-money-judges in the reign of K. Charles the first, V. diverse other presidents both antient and modern : to which is added VI. the judges oath, and some observations thereupon, humbly dedicated to the Lord Chief Justice Scroggs.	Philo-Dicaios.	1681 (1681)	Wing T2297; ESTC R3571	28,282	42

Iudgments were not given till the 15 of Feb. following which is a Quarter of a Year 'T is also to be observed That several of these Iudges were very unwilling to give their Corrupt Opinions but were menaced and violently drawn thereunto by the Duke of Ireland and others And at their Trials they severally Alledged That in part Violence had been offered to their Persons because they had deferred the delivery of their Opinions But as Fear or Cowardice is no Plea for delivering up of the Forts or Bulwarks of the Kingdom so neither is it for basely betraying our Rights and Liberties These Allegations of being threatned from their Duty could not excuse them from the Rope but how much more then do they deserve it who shall presume to do as bad things or worse without any Menaces at all but wilfully and presumptuously purely out of their own base inclinations But Tresilian was not the onely Iudge which our English History even since the Conquest mentions to have been executed for irregular Practices For in the Reign of King Henry the Seventh a Wise but Avaritious Prince there were two Gentlemen of the Long Robe that for private Interest and to serve the Kings present Turn were ready to dispence with their Oaths and the known Fundamental Laws But as they liv'd hated during his time so they died unlamented under his Successor being given up a necessary Sacrifice to Publick Iustice. Their Names were Sir Richard Empson Knight and Edmund Dudley both saith Sir Richard Baker fol. 247. Lawyers and both of them Barons of the Exchequer and Iustices of the Peace throughout England Dudley of a good Family but Empson the Son of a Sieve-maker So true is that Remark of the Poet Mendico asperius nihil est cum surgit ad Altum There is no Person in the World more Haughty or an Apter Tool for Oppression than a Beggars Bratt or some base Mechanick Butcherly Off-spring when undeservedly flush't with Preferment The King made odd Use of these Two Instruments They turn'd sayes Baker Law into Rapine And most certain it is that many ill Things they did But the better to colour their vile Practises a Statute was Provided to Justify their Invasions on the Liberties and Properties of their Fellow-Subjects We will give you an Account of this Matter in the very Words of that Great Oracle of our Law Sir Edward Cook But first hear how Sir Richard Baker in his Chronicle fol. 247. represents them Their Manner was saith he to cause divers Subjects to be Indicted of Crimes and then presently to Commit them and not Produce them to their Answer but suffer them to Languish long in Prison and by sundry Artificial Devices and Terror extort from them great Fines which they termed Compositions and Mitigations Neither did they towards the End observe so much as the Half-Face of Justice in Proceeding by Indictment but sent forth their Precepts to Attach Men and Convent them before Themselves and some Others at their private Houses and there shuffle up a Summary Proceeding by Examination Without Tryal by Iury assuming to themselves to deal both in Pleas of the Crown and Controversies Civil Then did they also use to Enthral and Charge the Subjects Land with Tenures in Capite by finding False Offices refusing upon divers Pretexts and Delayes to admit Men to Traverse those False Offices Nay contrary to all Law and Colour they maintain'd That the King ought to have the Half of Mens Lands and Rents during the Space of full Two Years for a Pain in case of Outlawry They would likewise Ruffle with Jurors and enforce them to Find as they would Direct And if they did not then Convent Imprison and Fine them These and many other Courses they had of Preying upon the People and had ever a Rabble of Promoters and Leading Jurors at their Command so as they could have any Thing found either for Fact or Valuation Thus far the Historian Now take the Relation of the Reverend Judge Cook in his ever-valuable Works Commenting in the Second Part of his Institutes on that GOLDEN Nine and Twentyeth Chapter of Magna Charta which being of Inestimable Value I take it for granted no True English Man will any more grudge the Reading than I do the Recital of it and I wish it might every Market-Day be repeated with a Speaking-Trumpet in every Town and Corporation of this Kingdom The Words run thus Nullus Liber Homo c. No Free-Man shall be Taken or Imprisoned or Disseised of his Free-Tenement or Liberties or Free-Customs or be Out-law'd or Exil'd or in any manner Destroy'd Nor will we pass upon him nor send any to pass upon him But by the Lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land We will Sell to none we will Deny to none nor to any delay Justice or Right Discoursing I say upon this most Comprehensive Text the Corner-Stone of all our English Freedoms my Lord Cook 2 Instit fol. 51. thus expresses himself Against this Antient and Fundamental Law and in the Face thereof I find an Act of Parliament made 11 H. 7. Cap. 3. That as well Justices of Assize as Justices of the Peace without any Finding or Presentment by the Verdict of Twelve Men upon a bare Information for the King before them made should have full Power and Authority by their Discretions to Hear and Determine all Offences c. And Fourth Part Instit fol. 39. he gives a further Account of and Recites this Act thus There was an Act of Parliament made in the 11 H. 7. which had a Fair Flattering Preamble pretending to avoid divers Mischiefs which were 1. The High Displeasure of Almighty God 2. The great Let of the Common-Law And 3. The great Let of the Wealth of this Land And the Purview of that Act tended in the Execution contrary Ex Diametro viz. To the Displeasure of Almighty God The great Let nay the utter Subversion of the Common-Law and The great Let of the Wealth of this Land Which Act followeth in these Words THe King our Soveraign Lord calling to his Remembrance That many good Statutes and Ordinances be made for the Punishment of Riots and unlawful Assemblies Reteinders in giving and receiving of Liveries Signs and Tokens unlawfully Extortions Maintenances Imbracery Excessive taking of Wages contrary to the Statute of Labourers and Artificers the Vse of unlawful Games Inordinate Apparel c. to the displeasure of Almighty God c. notwithstanding that generally by the Iustices of the Peace in every Shire within this Realm in the open Sessions it is given in Charge to inquire of many Offences committed c. and divers Inquests thereupon straightly Sworn and Charged before the said Iustices to inquire of the Premisses and therein to present the Troth which they letted to be sound by Imbracery Maintenance Corruption and Favour by occasion whereof the said Statutes be not nor cannot be put in due Execution For Reformation whereof

Votes being Transmitted by the Commons to the House of Lords Their Lordships did Concur therein And on Fryday the 26. of February 1640. It was Ordered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the High Court of Parliament Assembled That the Lord-Keeper or Master of the Rolls the Two Lord Chief Justices and the Lord Chief Baron and likewise the Chief Clerk of the Star-Chamber should bring into the Upper House of Parliament the Records of the Judgment against Mr. Hampden concerning Ship-Money in each of those several Courts and that a Vacat thereof should be made And that a Copy of the Judgment of the Parliament concerning the Illegality thereof should be Delivered to the several Judges of Assize and that they should be required to Publish the same in all the Circuits Which on the 27. of the same February was done accordingly the said Records being Vacated and the Rolls Cross'd with a Pen in the House of Lords and Subscribed with the Clerk of the Parliament's Hand And soon after several of the before-named Judges were Impeached for the same in Parliament And not daring to stand the Shock some of them as the Lord Chief Justice Finch Fled beyond the Seas and others Absconded And soon after came on the Unnatural Civil-Wars so Destructive to King and Kingdom which though no way Justifiable yet it cannot be denyed but they were not a little Occasion'd and the Animosities of the People blown into an Untameable Flame by these base Traiterous Proceedings of those Sycophant Judges And Woe unto those say Sacred Oracles by whom Offences come However after so many dismal Experiences and fair Warnings and the Miraculous Restauration of His present Majesty our Gracious Soveraign whom God long Preserve a Prince of Incomparable Lenity and Good-natur'd beyond Example it might be hoped that none Preferr'd to the Publick Seats of Justice durst to have Acted ●o contrary to His Royal Incimations as to violate those Laws which He Himself has Sworn to Maintain and Intrusted them to Administer Yet so Base and Extravagant are some as even to abuse the Favours of the Best of Princes and puff't up with Preferment will take no Admonition from the Falls of their Head-strong Predecessors but still presume to sully those Ermins the Emblems of Innocency and Integrity which they wear and adventure on the same Destructive Precipices You have heard how heinously our Prudent Ancestors resented the Violation of their Liberties though by an Act in Tryals of the Free-born People of England Without Iuries Next to which is the Ruffing Hectoring and Over-awing of Juries For What real Difference is there betwixt allowing no Juries at all and Menacing them into a Compliance contrary to Law and their own Consciences with the Corrupt Humours and Time serving Interests of ill Judges Of this Crime the Lord Chief Justice Keeling about the Year 1666. a Time when God's General Judgments on this Sinful Land might have awakened them to greater Circumspection and Uprightness was not only Guilty but Question'd for the same even by That very Parliament which was never extraordinarily Celebrated for bringing Publick Vermine to Punishment Yet such a Sense they had of these ill Practises that in their Journal we find the following Votes on this Occasion Die Mecurii 11º Decembris 1667. THE House Resuming the Hearing of the rest of the Report touching the Matter of Restraint upon Juries and upon the Examination of divers Witnesses in several Cases of Restraints put upon Juries by the Lord Chief Justice Keeling Resolved as followeth First That the Proceedings of the said Lord Chief Justice in the Cases now Reported are Innovations in the Tryals of Men for their Lives and Liberties and that he hath used an Arbitrary and Illegal Power which is of dangerous Consequence to the Lives and Liberties of the People of England and tends to the Introducing of an Arbitrary Government Secondly That in the Place of Judicature the Lord Chief Justice hath Undervalued Vilified and Contemned Magna Charta the great Preserver of our Lives Liberties and Property Thirdly That he be brought to Tryal in Order to Condign Punishment in such Manner as the House shall judge most Fit and Requisite And again Die Veneris 13º Decembris 1667. Resolved THat the Precedents and Practice for Fining or Imprisoning of Jurors for Giving their Verdicts is Illegal Here you see the ill Practices of that Chief Justice were Branded in Parliament and he was ordered to be Prosecuted though by reason of the Houses being Prorogued and he himself not long after Dying in Discontent we do not find there were any further Proceedings made therein At the Sessions for London Sept. 1670. William Penn and William Mead Two of the People commonly called Quakers being Indicted For that they the Fourteenth of August before did with others to the Number of Three Hundred in Grace-Church-Street Unlawfully and Tumultuously Assemble c. by reason whereof a great Tumult did there happen in Contempt of the King great Disturbance of the Peace Terror of the People c. And the Jury after having been several times sent back and kept close from the Saturday till the Monday Morning bringing them in Not Guilty Sir John Howel then Recorder of London presumed to Fine the said Jury Forty Marks a Man and to Lye in Prison till paid Being thus in Custody Edward Bushel one of the said Jury-Men brought his Habeas Corpus in the Court of Common-Pleas and upon a long Argument it was Adjudged by the whole Court That the said Fining and Commitment was Illegal Whereupon the said Bushel was Discharged and left to bring his Action for False Imprisonment against the said Recorder Which Case is Reported by Vaughan at that time Chief Justice of the said Court in his Reports Licensed and Approved of by the present Lord Chancellor of England Sir William Scroggs since Lord Chief-Justice of the King 's Bench my Lord North Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas and all the Judges of England But as to the Illegality of any Courts Imposing upon Menacing Fineing or Imprisoning Juries see a small Treatise Entituled The English-Man's Right Printed for R. Janeway 1680. and another called The Grand Iury-Man's Oath and Office Explained Sold by Langley Curtis on Ludgate-Hill both well worthy the Perusal of every True English-Man What Proceedings have been since or rather are at this instant pendent against Judges for Hectoring of Juries and other Illegal Arbitrary Proceedings are too fresh in every Bodies Memory to need a Recital Instead of which I shall rather Insert the Form of the Oath Taken by Judges at their first Admittance to that Office which runs as follows The OATH of a JUDGE In Dorso Claus ' de Anno 20. Edw. 31. Part. Prima YE shall Swear That Well and Truly ye shall Serve our Sovereign Lord the King and His People in the Office of Justice And that ye shall Counsel our Sovereign Lord the King in His Needs And that ye shall not give any

forsomuch that before this time the said Offences Extortions Contempts c. might not nor as yet may be conveniently Punished by the due Order of Law except it were first found and presented by the Verdict of Twelve ●●en thereto duely Sworn who for the Causes before Recited will not find nor present the Truth wherefore be it by the Advice and Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled and by Authority of the same Enacted Ordained and Established That from henceforth as well the Iustices of Assize as the Iustices of the Peace in every County of the said Realm upon Information Note it was to be without any Presentment or Indictment found by any Grand or Petty Jury for the King c. shall have full Power Authority by their Discretion to hear determine all Offences c. Here you see Matters were left to be determined by Judges and Justices Without Iuries in a Summary Chancery-Method only according forsooth to their Discretion Yet still there was a Proviso THat no such Information should extend to Treason Murder or Felony nor to any other Offence for which any Person should lose Life or Member Nor to lose by or upon the same Information any Lands Tenements Goods or Chatteis to the Party making the same Information Which deserves Particular Notice Yet observe how the same Reverend Lord Coolt in the Place before-cited descants on this Act. By Pretext saith he of this Law Empson and Dudley did commit upon the Subject unsufferable Pressures and Oppressions and therefore this Statute was Justly soon after the Decease of Henry the Seventh Repeal'd by an Act of Parliament 1 H. 8. Cap. 8. A good Caveat to Parliaments to leave all Causes to be measured by that Golden and Strait-Mete-Wand of the Law and not to the incertain and crooked Cord of Discretion It is not almost Credible continues the same Judicious Author to fore-see when any Maxim or Fundamental-Law of this Realm He means as to this particular Case Tryals per Pais that is by Juries is Altered what dangerous Inconveniences do follow Which most expresly appears by this Most Vnjust Strange Act For hereby not only Empson and Dudley themselves but such Justices of Peace Corrupt Men as they caused to be Authorized Committed most grievous and heavy Oppressions and Exactions Grinding of the Faces of poor Subjects by Penal Laws be they never so Obsolete or unfit for the Time Suppose for a Parallel in our Times putting the Statutes against Popish Recusants in Execution against Protestant Dissenters at a Juncture when Popery was just ready to over-run us all by Information only without any Presentment or Tryal by Jury being The Antient Birth-Right of the Subject But to Hear and Determine the same by their Discretion These and other like Oppressions and Exactions by or by Means of Empson and Dudley and their Instruments brought Infinite Treasures to the King's Coffers whereof the King in the End with great Grief and Compunction Repented This Statute of 11 H. 7 We have Recited and shewed the Inconveniencies thereof to the end that the like should never hereafter be attempted in any Court of Parliament And that others might avoid the Fearful End of these Two Time-Servers Empson and Dudley Thus far that Oracle of our English Laws Wherein be pleased to observe First That he sticks not to call even an Act of Parliament most Vnjust and Strange And in the Second Part of his Institutes fol. 51. Vnjust and Injurious because it Altered a Fundamental-Law of the Realm viz. Denyed Tryal by Juries a most Essential Part of English Freedom and never to be parted with Secondly Observe what became of these Two Wicked Men though they had such a Colour of Law to bear them out They were in the Beginning of the Reign of King Henry the Eighth first Indicted for other base Practises in Finding of False Offices for the King to the Dammage and Disherison of His Subjects Which Indictment ran as follows see Cook 's Instit Part the Fourth fol. 198. Juratores praesentant quod Richardus Empson nuper de London Miles c. In English thus THe Jurors present That Richard Empson late of London Knight late Counsellor of the most Excellent Prince Henry the Seventh late King of England on the Tenth Day of May in the Twentyeth Year of the said late King and divers Times before and after at London c. Not having God before his Eyes but as the Son of the Devil imagining the Honour Dignity and Prosperity of the said late King and the Prosperity of His Kingdom of England not at all to Value or Regard But to the end that he might obtain to be a more Singular Favourite of the said late King whereby he Himself might be made a Noble or Great Man and Govern the whole Kingdom of England at his Pleasure Falsly Deceitfully and Treasonably Subverting the La●y of England did amongst other Things the Day and Year afore-said at London in the Parish and Ward afore-said procure and cause to be found divers false Inquisitions and Offices of Intrusions and Alienations of divers Leige-Subject's Mannors Lands and Tenements that they held the Mannors Lands and Tenements in those Inquisitions specified of our Lord the King in Capite or otherwise when in Truth it was not so And afterwards when the said Leige-Subjects of our Lord the late King would have tendered and alledged Traverses to the said Inquisitions in the Court of Him the said late King according to the Law of England they could not be admitted to those Traverses But he the said Richard Empson debar'd and delay'd them from the same 'till they had agreed with him to pay divers Great and Insupportable Fines and Redemptions as well for the Profit of the said late King as for the proper private Advantages of him the said Richard to the great Impoverishment of the said Subjects And that the said Richard the Day and Year afore-said in the Parish and Ward afore-said and several Times before and after divers Leige-Subjects of the said late King holding of out said Lord the King divers Mannors Lands and Tenements by Knight's-Service and themselves being by the Death of their Ancestors under Age and so in the Wardship of the King by Reason of their Tenure when they came to lawful Age and ought to have had due Livery of their Mannors Lands and Tenements according to the Custom and Law of England and would have Prosecuted the same according to the Course of Chancery did refuse them so to do and totally deny and erclude until they had made with him the said Richard divers great Fines and Redemptions more than they could bear as well for the Gain of the said late King as for the private Benefit of him the said Richard Whereby many of the said late King's People were by such Grievances and Vnjust Extortions many wayes vered Insomuch that the Subjects of the said late