senescalli marescalli manifestum dampnum non modicum and manifest prejudice of the Office of the aforesaid Steward and Mareschall and no small damage ad quorum officium non ad alium Summonitiones attachiamenta infra Palatium domini Regis pertineat faciend When as it belongeth to their Office or Places and not unto any other to make or cause summons or attachments within the Kings House or Palace etiam ad dampnum predict Comitis quinque mille librarum and likewise to the damage of the said Earl 5000 l. Whereupon the said Prior and Bogo confessing the Citation but pleading that they were ignorant that the place aforesaid was exempt and that they did not understand that any contempt was Committed against the King or any prejudice done to his Officers by the Citation aforesaid and in all things submitting unto the Kings grace good will and pleasure were Committed Prisoners to the Tower of London there to remain during the Kings Pleasure and being afterwards Bailed the said Bogo paid to the King a fine of 2000 marks and gave security to the Earl for 1000 l. which by the intercession of the Bishop of Durham and others of the Kings Counsel was afterwards remitted unto 100 l and the Prior was left to the Judgement or Proces of the Exchequer And upon a Citation served in the Kings Palace at Westminster in the 21 th year of the Raign of King Edward the first upon Joane Countess of Warren then attending the Queen upon a Libel of Divorce at the Suite of Matilda de Nyctford it was upon full examination of the Cause in Parliament adjudged the King being present in these words Quod praedictum Palatium Domini Regis est locus exemptus ab omni Jurisdictione ordinaria tam Regiae dignitatis Coronae suae quà m libertatis Ecclesiae Westmonaster maximè in praesentia ipsius Domini Regis tempore Parliamenti sui ibidem Ita quod Nullus summonitiones seu Citationes ibidem faciat praecipuè illis qui sunt de sanguine Domini Regis quibus major reverentia quam aliis fieri debet Consideratum est quod Officiar ' Committatur Turri London ibidem custodiatur ad voluntatem Domini Regis that the said Palace of the King is a place freed from all ordinary Jurisdiction aswel by reason of the Kings Crown and Dignity Royal as the Liberty of the Church of Westminster but more especially of the Kings presence in the time of Parliament so as none may presume to make summons or Citations there and especially to or upon those which are of the blood Royal to whom a greater Reverence then to others is due The Kings Palace at Westminster having as Sir Edward Coke saith the Liberty and Priviledge that no Citations or Summons are to be made with in it and that Royal Priviledge is saith he not only appropriated to the Kings Palace at Westminster but to all his Palaces where his Royal Person resides and such a Priviledge as to be exempted from all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Regiae dignitatis Coronae suae ratione by reason of His Crown and Kingly Dignity The Circuit of our Brittish Ocean the Promontories with the adjacent Isles or parts encompassing our Britain from the North of England by the East and South to the West vindicated by our great and eminently Learned Selden being called the Kings Chambers do justly claim and are not to be denied Dimissionem velorum a striking or louring of Sail by the Ships of other Nations in their passage by any of our Admirals or Ships of War heretofore submitted unto and acknowledged by our late causelesly contending Neighbours the Dutch and French and was not only done by those Nations and all other strangers Ships in their passage by and through our Seas but by them and our own Ships in their sailing upon the River of Thames by the Kings Palace or House at Greenwich though he be not present by striking their Topsail and Discharge of a Cannon or Gun seldom also omitted in other Countries by Ships that pass by any Royal-forts or Castles of Kings in Amity with them as at Croninbergh and Elsenor in or near the Baltick Sea And no small Civility or Respect was even in a Forreign Countrey or Kingdom believed to be belonging and appropriate to the Residence in and Palace of a King of England and was not denyed to our King Edward the first in the 14 th year of His Raign when he was as Fleta tells us at Paris in France in alieno territorio in the King of France his Dominions where one Ingelram de Nogent being taken in the King of England's House or where he was lodged at Paris with some Plate or Silver-dishes which he had stollen about him Rege Franciae tunc presente the King of France being then in the House the Court of the Castellan of the King of France claiming the Cognizance or Trial of that Thief after a great debate thereof had before the King of France and his Council it was Resolved Quod Rex Angliae illa Regia Praerogativa hospitii sui privilegio uteretur gauderet that the King of England should enjoy his Kingly Prerogative and the Priviledge of his House and that Thief being accordingly tried before Sir Robert Fitz John Knight Steward of the King of England's House was for that offence afterwards hanged at St. German lez Prees The Bedel of the University of Cambridge was though he asked pardon for it committed to the Gaol for Citing one William de Wivelingham at Westminster Hall door and Henry de Harwood at whose Suit it was prosecuted committed to the Marshal and paid 40 s. Fine Which necessary and due Reverence to the Kings Courts or Palaces being never denied unless it were by Wat Tyler or Jack Cade and the pretended Holy-rout of the Oliver Piggs bred that laudable custome of the best Subjects of England and all other mens going or standing uncovered in the Kings Chamber of presence even in those houses where he is not Resident Privy-chamber Bed-chamber and Galleries the being uncovered or bare-headed when the Scepter and Globe Imperial have been amongst the Kings Jewels and Plate kept in the Tower of London being accompted one of the Kings Palaces shewed unto any which have desired to see them which the Prince of Denmark as also the Embassador of the King of Sweden have not lately denied and allows not the Ladies Wives or Daughters of Subjects the Daughters of the King and the Wife of the Prince or Heir apparent only excepted to have their trains carried up in the aforesaid separate rooms of State nor a Lord of a Mannor to Arrest or Sieze his Villaine in the Kings presence forbids the Coaches of any but the Kings or the Queens or Heir apparents Wife or their Children or of Embassadors introduced in the Kings Coach from Kings or a Republique such as Venice who in regard
the Lord Percy now Earl of Northumberland Mr. Jermyn now Earl of S. Albans and Mr. Henry Piercy in the Privy Gallery or Lodgings with blew Ribbons tyed or hanging about the upper part of their Legs or Boots he was so displeased therewith as he would not be pacified until he had called for a pair of Scissers and had with his own hands cut or clipped them off And well might it be observed in England when the Vltima Thule and our less Civilized Neighbours of Scotland Infected with the Careless and over-bold behaviour of some of their late Presbyterian Clergy towards Royal Majesty are not without those dutyful respects of being bare and uncovered in the Presence Chamber or Chief Rooms of their Kings Palaces although they be absent and out of the Kingdom and when any Acts of Parliament are agreed upon the Kings high Commissioner Presiding in Parliament in his absence bringeth the Acts of Parliament to the Kings Chair of Estate upon which and a Velvet Cushion the Royal Scepter being laid the Lord Commissioner kneeling before it and touching it with the Scepter gives a Sanction and Authority unto those or any other Acts of Parliament in that Submiss and dutyful manner touched therewith and makes them to be of as great Validity as if they had been Ratified by the Royal Signature And with more or a greater Reason might Kings and Free-Princes claim a Veneration to their Palaces or Houses when Bishops Antiently had their Episcopia or Houses so Respected as a Synod or Council thought fit to Order it a too much or more then ordinary respect when they Decreed Suggerendum est ex Divino mandato intimandum Regiae Majestati ut Episcopium quod domus Episcopi appellatur Venerabiliter reverenter introeat c. It is to be declared and intimated to the Kings Majesty that he enter the Episcopium which is the House of the Bishop Reverently And not very long ago in the Raign of that Vertuous King Charles the first an Action of Battery being brought by Sir Francis Wortley Knight and Baronet against Sir Thomas Savile Knight afterwards Lord Savile and Earl of Sussex for assaulting and wounding him at Westminster Hall door one or both of them being then Parliament men the Jury gave a Verdict for Sir Francis Wortley with three thousand pounds Damages the Offence being aggravated to that height in regard that it was done so near or in the Face of the Court of Common Pleas the Judges then sitting which could have no greater or better reason for heigthning that offence then that it was done in that Ancient Palace of our Kings and the Place where the King Administred Justice to His People by His Judges who Represented His Authority in that their limitted Jurisdiction And but lately when sitting the Parliament in the moneth of December 1666 the Lord Saint John of Basing Eldest Son of the Marquess of Winchester being a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament had in Westminster Hall no Court of Justice then and there sitting pulled Sir Andrew Henly Knight by the Nose whereby he according to the opinion of Sir Edward Coke had forfeited his Lands Goods and Chattels although his reason offered for it that the offence was so punishable because it might tend ad impedimentum Justiciae to the hinderance of Justice was not alone sufficient for that it may more truly be understood to be propter venerationem loci for the Reverence and Respect due to the Kings House or Palace was so affrighted with the Penalty and consequence of that Offence as he procured the House of Commons who could not tell how to believe the unhappy heretofore unadvised and never to be proved Doctrine of the pretended Soveraignty of that House to go with their Speaker unto the King at Whitehall and intercede for his Pardon And shortly after at a Conference in the Painted Chamber betwixt the Lords and Commons in Parliament some hot words happening betwixt the Marquess of Dorchester and the Duke of Buckingham who upon the lye given him by the Marquess of Dorchester had pulled him by the Nose or plucked off his Peruque they were both Committed Prisoners to the Tower of London and within two days after upon their submission to the House of Peers Released but the Duke of Buckingham coming after to the Kings Court at Whitehall before he had asked leave of Him or His Pardon the King did forbid him the Court alleadging that howsoever the House of Peers in Parliament had pardoned him for the Offence Committed against them yet he had not forgiven him the Offence which he had Committed against him And in support of those Observations and honors so justly due unto the Place of His Royal Residences the Lord Chamberlain did lately cause a Constable to be Imprisoned for an Ignorant and Indiscreet pursuit of a French Lacquaie who had slain an Irish Foot-boy into Whitehal and as far as the Royal Lodgings of the Queen where he took him and shortly after deservedly Imprisoned one Mr. White a Merchant for bringing two of the Kings Marshals-men into the Privy-galleries and neer the Council-chamber-door the King sitting in Council bade them Arrest an Agent or Envoy of the Duke of Curlands and he would Indempnifie them Who were notwithstanding severely punished Which just and fitting observations due unto the Mansions of Kings and Princes Cromwel that Leader and Conductor of the Rable and Scumme of a Rebellious part of the people and grand contemner of all Authority but what himself had usurped and of all Ancient Orders Rites Customs and Usages did not think to be unbecoming that Eagles nest into which He and His devouring Harpyes had crept and the House wherein the Kings Honour lately dwelt when he Committed Sir Richard Ingoldsby then one of his Colonels but afterwards a Penitent and Loyal Subject of His Majesty that now is Prisoner to the Tower of London for striking one in the Stone-gallery at Whitehall And so unquestionable was a more then Common or Ordinary Honour and Respect to be given to the Houses and Courts of our Kings as some of our Ancient Nobility have by that honour which our Kings did Originally confer upon their Persons in the Grant of Earldoms and Honours gained by an Usage of Time and Custom some more then Common Priviledges to their Chief Houses Castles and Lands anciently belonging to their Earldoms So as their Lands belonging to their Earldoms have been exempted from the Contribution of the Wages of Knights of the Shire elected to be Parliament men and their Houses from any Search by any Constable or Ordinary Officer and in all or many of the Records or Memorials of the Kingdom have been frequently called or termed Honours as the Honours of Oxford Arundel Lincoln Leicester c. for the Lands belonging to those Earldoms and there is to this day a Custome at Arundel Castle that none but the Earl thereof the Soveraign and Heir apparent exempted
Palace the Court of Justice therein kept being called Capitalis Curia Domini Regis the Kings chief Court where those Justices or Judges then sate and where the great Assize or Writs of Assize in pleas of Land happily succeeding in the place of the turbulent fierce and over-powring way of duels or waging of battels for the determination of pretended Rights were tryed Juries impanelled and a Fine passed and Recorded before the Bishops of Ely and Norwich and Ralph de Glanvile our Learned Author Justitiis Domini Regis et aliis fidelibus et familiaribus Domini Regis ibi tunc presentibus the Kings Justices and other of his Subjects and Houshold Assizes of novel desseisin and prohibitions to Ecclesiastical Courts awarded And was so unlikely to permit any Breach of his Servants just priviledges as he did about the 24th year of his Raign not only confirm all his Exchequer Servants Dignities and priviledges used and allowed in the Raign of King Henry the first his Grandfather but although Warrs and many great troubles assaulted him did when he laid an Escuage of a Mark upon every Knights Fee whereby to pay his hired Soldiers not at all charge his Exchequer Servants for that as the black Book of Exchequer that antient Remembrancer of the Exchequer priviledges informs us Mavult enim Princeps stipendiarios quam Domesticos Bellicis apponere casibus for the King had rather expose his hired men of Warre to the inconveniences thereof then his Domestique or Houshold Servants and being as willing as his Grandfather to free them from being cited or troubled before his delegated or Commissionated Courts of Justice or Tribunals would in all probability be more unwilling that those which more neerly and constantly attended upon his person health or safety should by any suits of Law be as to their persons or estates molested or diverted from it nor could there be howsoever any danger of arresting the Kings Servants in ordinary without leave or Licence first obtained in the after-Raigns of King Richard the first and King John when Hubert Walter Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England in the 6th year of the Raign of King John was likewise Lord Chief Justice of England And the now chief Courts of the Kingdome as the Chancery Kings-Bench Common-Pleas and Exchequer were radically and essentially in the King and in the distribution of Justice of the said Kings and their Royal Predecessors resided in their Council and great Officers in their Courts attending upon their Persons For many of the Suits and Actions at the Common Law and even those of the Court of Common Pleas untill the ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the third when it was by Act of Parliament forbidden to follow the Kings Court but to be held in loco certo a place certain in regard that the King and his Court were unwilling any more to be troubled with the Common Pleas or Actions betwixt private persons which were not the Kings Servants were there prosecuted And untill those times it cannot be less then a great probability that all the Trades-mens debts which were demanded of Courtiers and the Kings Servants were without Arrests or Imprisonments to be prosecuted and determined in the Court before the Steward and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and that the King who was so willing was so willing to ease his Subjects in their Common Pleas or Actions by freeing them from so chargeable an attendance which the prosecution of them would commonly if not necessarily require did not thereby intend that they should have a Liberty without leave or Licence first obtained to molest any of his Servants in ordinary in their Duty or Attendance upon his Royal person and Affairs by prosecuting Arresting imprisoning or compelling to appear before other Judges or Tribunals any of his Servants in ordinary Who in those times may well be thought to enjoy a freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment of their Bodies untill leave or Licence first obtained when Hugo de Patishul Treasurer unto King Henry the third in the nineteenth year of his Raign Philip Lovel in the 34th year of the Raign of that King and John Mansel Keeper of the great Seal of England in the 40th year of that Kings Raign were whilst they held their several other places successively Lord Chief Justices of England When the Court of Chancery being in the absence of Parliaments next under our Kings the Supreme Court for the order and distribution of Justice the Court of the Kings Bench appointed to hear and determine Criminal matters Actions of Trespass and Pleas of the Crown and the Court of Exchequer matters and Causes touching the King's Revenue were so much after the 9th year of the Raign of King Henry the third and the dispensing with the Court of Common Pleas from following the person of our Kings to their several Houses or Palaces or as their Affairs invited them to be sometimes Itinerant or resident in several other parts of the Kingdom did follow the King and were kept in their Houses or Palaces notwithstanding that when like the Sun in his Circuit distributing their Rayes and Comforts to all the parts of the Kingdome by turns they were according to their occasion of busines sometimes at York or Carlile in the North and at other times for their pleasures or divertisements kept their Courts or festivals at Glocester or Nottingham and their Parliaments sometimes at Marlebridge in Wiltshire or Ruthland in Wales or at Glocester or Lincoln For it may be evidenced by the Retorn or days given in Writs and antient Fines levied before the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster after the allowance or favour given to that Court not to be ambulatory and to the people not to be at so great trouble or charges as would be required to follow the King and his Court in a throng of Followers and other business for the obtaining of Justice in their suits or Actions as well small or often emerging as great and seldome happening the days of old also affirming it that the Kings Palace at Westminster in the great Hall where the Court of Common Pleas hath ever since dwelt some places thereunto adjoyning retaining at this day the Name of the Old Palace did not cease to be the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England untill that King Henry the 8th by the fall of the pompous Cardinal Woolsey the building of St. Jame's House and inclosing the now Park thereof with a brick wall made White-Hall to be his House or Palace but kept the name as well as business of the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England And the Courts of Chancery King's Bench and Exchequer did after the fixation of the Common Pleas or Actions of the people to a certain place in the Kings Palace at Westminster being then his more settled and constant habitation and Residence for his not a few
Bench and Common Pleas for the time being or other two Justices in their absence may upon Bill or Information put to the said Chancellor for the King or any other have authority to call before them by Writ or Privy Seal the said misdoers By an Act of Parliament made in the 12th year of his Reign Perjury committed by unlawfull maintenance embracing or corruption of Officers in the Chancery or before the Kings Councel shall be punished by the discretion of the Lord Chancellor Treasurer both the Chief Justices and the Clerk of the Rolls and if the Complainant prove not or pursue not his Bill he shall yield to the party wronged his costs and damages By an Act of Parliament made in the 19th year of his Reign Ordinances made by Fellowships of Crafts are to be approved by the Chancellor Treasurer of England Chief Justice of either Benches or three of them or both the Justices of Assise in their Circuits where such Ordinances shall be made By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper may appoint two three or four persons to receive Toll or Custome and to imploy the same upon the repair of the Bridge of Stanes in the County of Middlesex and to yield accompt thereof By an Exception in an Act of Parliament made in the 14th and 15th year of his Reign touching Aliens and their taking of Apprentices any Lord of the Parliament may take and retain Estrangers Joyners and Glasiers in their service In the Act of Parliament made in the 21th year of his Reign prohibiting Plurality of Benefices and the taking of Farms under great penalties there are Exceptions for the Kings Chaplains not sworn of his Councel and of the Queen Prince or Princess and the Kings Children Brothers Sisters Vnkles or Aunts the eight Chaplains of every Archbishop six of every Duke five of every Marquess and Earl four of every Viscount and other Bishop the Chancellor and every Baron of England three of every Dutchess Marquioness Countess and Baroness being Widdows And that the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings House the Kings Secretary Dean of his Chappel the Kings Almoner and Master of the Rolls may have every one of them two Chaplains the Chief Justice of the Kings Bench one Chaplain the Warden of the Cinqueports for the time being the Brethren and Sons of all Temporal Lords may keep as many Benefices with Cure as the Chaplains of a Duke or Archbishop and the Brethren and Sons of every Knight may keep two Parsonages or Benefices with Cure of Souls And that the Widdows of every Duke Marquess Earl or Baron which shall take to Husband any man under the degree of a Baron may take such number of Chaplains as they might when they were Widdows and every such Chaplain have the priviledge aforesaid By an Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament a Commission was granted to Cutbert Bishop of London Sir Richard Brooke Knight Chief Baron of the Exchequer John More one of the Justices of the Kings Bench c. to assign how many Servants every Stranger shall keep within St. Martins le Grand London By an Act of Parliament made in the 23th year of his Reign Commissioners of Sewers to survey Streams Gutters Letts and Annoyances are to be named by the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer and two Chief Justices or any three of them and their Decree to bind the Kings and all mens Lands By an Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament the prices of the Tun Butt Pipe and Hogshead of French Wines Sack Malmsey shall be assessed by the Kings Great Officers By an Act of Parliament made in the 25th year of his Reign Butter Cheese Capons Hens Chickens and other Victuals necessary for mens sustenance are upon complaint of enhancing to be assessed by the Lord Chancellor of England Lord Treasurer the Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Privy Councel the Lord Privy Seal the Lord Steward the Lord Chamberlain and all other Lords of the Kings Councel the Treasurer and the Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable House the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Kings Justices of either Bench the Chancellor Chamberlains Vnder-Treasurer and the Barons of the Kings Exchequer or seven of them at the least whereof the Lord Chancellor the Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel or the Lord Privy Seal to be one By another Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament the prices of Books upon complaint made unto the King are to be reformed by the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer or any of the Chief Justices of the one Bench or the other by a Jury or otherwise By another Act of Parliament made in the same year and Parliament every Judge of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas the Chancellor and Chief Baron of the Exchequer the Kings Attorney and Sollicitor for the time being may have one Chaplain who may be absent from his Benefice and not resident By an Act of Parliament made in the 28th year of the Reign the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Councel Lord Privy Seal and the two Chief Justices of either Bench or any four or three of them are impowered by their discretions to set the prices of all Wines by the Butt Tun Pipe Hogshead Puncheon Tearce Barrel or Rundlet the pint of French Wine being then set at 1 d. per pinte By an Act of Parliament made in the 33th year of his Reign the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster Courts of Augmentations and First-Fruits Master of the Wards and Liveries Treasurer of the Kings Chamber and Treasurer of the Court of Augmentation and Groom of the Stool may each of them retain one Chaplain who may be absent from their Benefices provided they be twice a year at their Benefices with Cure of Souls by the space of eight dayes at a time By an Act of Parliament made in the 34th and 35th year of his Reign the Lords authorized by the Statute of 28 H. 8. cap. 14. to set the prices of Wines in gross may mitigate and enhance the prices of Wines to be sold by retail By an Act of Parliament made in the 37th year of his Reign for the settlement of Tithes betwixt the Parsons Vicars and Curates of London and the Inhabitants thereof the Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Councel Lord Privy Seal Lord Great Chamberlain of England with some of the Judges were chosen Arbitrators to make a final conclusion betwixt them which shall be binding by their Order under any six of their hands By an Act of Parliament made in the same year the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the Kings Councel Lord Privy Seal and the two Chief Justices or
three four or five of them are yearly to set the prices of Wines And upon refusal to sell after those rates the Mayor Recorder and two antient Aldermen of the City of London not being Vintners shall enter into their Houses and sell their Wines according to those rates By an Act of Parliament made in the 7th year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th no person having not Lands or Tenements or which cannot dispend above 100 Marks per annum or is not worth 1000 Marks in Goods or Chattels not being the Son of a Duke Marquess Earl Viscount or Baron shall keep in his house any greater quantities of French Wines then 10. Gallons By an Act of Parliament made in the same year the offenders in the Assise of Wood and Fuell if they be poor and not able to pay the Forfeiture may be by a Justice of Peace or any other of the Kings Officers put on the Pillory By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of Queen Mary if the Justices of Peace do not put the Act of Parliament in execution touching the repair of the Causway betwixt Sherborn and Shaftsbury in the Counties of Dorset and Somerset the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper shall upon request grant Commissions to certain discreet persons to do it And by an Act of Parliament made in the 43th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth the mis-imployment of Lands Goods Chattels or Money given to Hospitals and Charitable uses are to be reformed by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster for the time being in their several Jurisdictions Which amongst many other may be some of the causes or reasons that the People of England and Commons in Parliament giving in former times as they ought to do those grand and more then ordinary respects and many more not here repeated unto the Great Officers of the Crown Royal Houshold and other the Servants of our Kings and Princes and lodging so many of their grand concernments in their care and trust did not trouble themselves or any of our Parliaments with any Petitions there being none to be found amongst the Records thereof against those antient rational just and legal Priviledges of the Kings Servants in Ordinary nor any Lord Steward Lord Chamberlain or other Officers of the Kings most Honourable House for allowing or maintaining it although there were some against Protections granted to some that were not the Kings Servants in Ordinary nor hath there been any Statute or Act of Parliament made to take away or so much as abridge those well deserved Priviledges which have in all ages and by so good warrant of right reason Laws of Nations and the Laws and reasonable Customes of this Kingdom appeared to be so much conducing to the Weal publique and the affairs and business of the Head or Soveraign For surely if there had been but the least suspicion of any Grievance in them meriting a remedy there would not have been such a silence of the peoples Petitioning or Complaints against it either by themselves or their vigilant and carefull Representatives in the Commons House in Parliament which heretofore seldom or never omitted the eager pursuit and Hue and Cry after any thing of Grievance which molested them And if there had been any such Petitions and Complaints in Parliament that Great and Honourable Court not giving any order or procuring any Act of Parliament against the Priviledges of the Kings Servants is and may be a convincing argument that such Complaints or pretended Grievances were causeless unfitting or not deserving the remedies required and will be no more an evidence or proof against what is here endeavoured to be asserted then the Petition of the Commons in Parliament in the 21th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. against the payment of 6 d. for the seal of every Original Writ in Chancery and 7 d. for the sealing of the Writs of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas which hath ever since been adjudged reasonable and fitting to be paid then the many Petitions against the antient legal and rational payment of Fines upon Original Writs in Chancery then the Petitions of Non-conforming Ministers then the many designed and desired Acts of Parliament not found to be reasonable or convenient and therefore laid by and miscarried in the Embrios or multitudes of other Petitions in our Parliaments or then the many late Petitions for an imaginary liberty of Conscience can or will be for what was desired and not thought fit at those or any other times to be granted Which antient Priviledge of the Kings Servants not to be Arrested without leave was not so limited to their Persons but that their Lands Estates and Goods participated also of that Privilege not to be molested by any Process or Suit of Law without Licence first obtained of the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings most honourable Houshold or unto such other great Officers therein to whose Jurisdiction it belonged CAP. IV. That the Priviledges and Protections of the Kings Servants in Ordinary by reason of his Service is and ought to be extended unto the Priviledged parties Estate both Real and Personal as well as unto their persons FOr if we may as we ought believe antiquity and its many unquestionable authorities and our Records which as to matters of fact judgements pleas writs therein allowed Records of Parliament and the Grants of our Kings by their Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England being the Publique Faith of the Kingdome from and under which most of the peoples Real Estates and Priviledges have had their originals and establishments not the falsely called Publique Faith which afterwards proved to be Bankrupt and was until then the Medea or Witch of the late incomparably wicked Rebellion were alwayes so impartial and credited as not to have their truth so much as suspected That Priviledge was not only indulged and allowed to their Persons but to their Lands and Estate also as will plainly appear by the course and Custome of the Law in former ages and amongst many others not here enumerated was not understood to have been either unusual or illegal in that which was granted to Sir John Staunton Knight By King Edward the 3 d. in the 29th year of his Raign in these words Omnibus ad quos c. Salutem considerantes grata laudabilia obsequia tam nobis quam Isabellae Reginae Angliae Matris nostrae charissimae per dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem-de Staunton impensa proinde Volentes personam ipsius Johannis suis condignis meritis exigentibus honorare ipsum Johannem Camerae nostrae militem familiarem quoad vixerit tam tempore quo extra curiam nostram absens quam tempore quo ibidem presens fuerit duximus retinendum Ac de gratia nostra speciali ipsum Johannem Terras Tenementa
seu exemplar as a great and antient example worthy to be imitated whereof one waiting by the space of a month menseque finito adveniente alia prima domum redibat which being ended that returning home another succeeded the other two propriis quivis necessitatibus studentes commorabantur being busied about their own affairs tarried in the mean·time at home secunda itaque cohors mense peracto adveniente tertia domum redibat and the second Troop having served their month the third came into their places and the thirds course or time alotted being ended the first returned to his former attendance Et hoc ordine omnibus vitae praesentis temporibus talium vicissitudinum in Regali Curto rotatur administratio and in this manner all the life time of the said King and by such changes or courses was the service in his Royal Court administred And certainly no small number of Officers and Servants were heretofore thought to be sufficient in England to attend on our Kings and Princes when Hardi-Canutus King of England furnished Tables of meat for his Servants and all comers four times a day when Thomas Earl of Lancaster who was an Attendant himself upon the King had in the Reign of King Edward the second a Bishop and Barons officiating in his house 100 Knights and as many Esquires besides Officers and common Servants Bishops Earls and Lords in after ages rode and travelled with great Trains and Retinues Nicholas West Bishop of Ely in the Reign of King Henry the 8th had continually in his house 200 Servants Edward Earl of Darby 200 men in Checque-Roll in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and John Earl of Oxford although a well-deserving Ancestor of his that led the Vantguard of King Henry the 7th at the Battel of Bosworth-field was in that Kings after Halcyon dayes fined in a then great sum of money for attending him at his house with a very great Retinue did usually ride from his house in Essex to his house at London-Stone in London with 80 Gentlemen in Livery of Red or Tawny with Chains of Gold about their necks and 100 tall Yeomen in the like Livery to follow him without Chains but all wearing his Crest of the blew Boar embroydered on their left armes or shoulders so as in the difference betwixt the Majesty of a great and Soveraign Prince being as the Sun in our Firmament and the grandeur which his Nobility as the Stars in their lesser lights derived from it either did or should endeavour to support the measure or rule of proportion may evidence how necessary it is for a King to have an honourable and competent number of Servants when those that were so much inferior to the Majesty Power and Soveraignty of a free Prince could in their lesser Orbs not want a fitting number to attend upon the Honours which he or some of his Ancestors gave them when as by an Order of his late Majesty in the year of our Lord 1626. 40 Messengers of his Chambers were at all times to be ready to do his Majesty service and at all entertainments and receptions of Ambassadors many of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber are commanded to attend such of the Nobility as are appointed by the King to receive and conduct the Ambassadors unto him in so much as in the year 1636. eight Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber were appointed to attend the Earl of Lindsey to bring the King of Polands Ambassador to Hampton-Court and such multitudes and variety of cares and business which do attend a King and the consequences and grand concernments thereof so hugely different from any of their Nobility or Subjects may perswade us to allow our Saul to be as well in the number of their Houshold Servants as in all other things higher from the shoulders upwards than all or any of thâ—m and will better become him than those many which our murmurers were so well content to afford their Oliver the Protector of their intended slâ—very when by his Instrument so called of his Usurped Government he was to have two hundred thousand pounds per annum for defraying the necessary charges of the administration of Justice and other expences of the Government besides all the Kings Revenue which was left unfold being a considerable part thereof with the Fines Amerciaments and casual profits of the basely misused and despoiled Crown of England and a pay and constant yearly maintenance of Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland with a setled yearly Revenue for the maintenance of a convenient number of Ships for guarding of the Seas allowed unto him had his Chamberlain Treasurer and Comptroller of a better house than the Brew-house which he could not thrive in at Huntington his misâ—called Lords of his Privy Counsel Commissioners of his Great Seal Secretary of State his Turn-coat Heralds Serjeants at Armes Messengers of his Chamber Ushers and many other Servants and Officers belonging to his Counterfeit Highness and his Envoys and Ambassadors one of which could not be dressed out or sent with a lesser state and magnificence than 200 Attendants And the Lord Mayor of London being but a temporary and yearly Governour of that City and one of the lesser rayes of the Majesty of our Kings communicated to that annual Magistracy under them can be allowed for his state a Recorder Common Serjeant Chamberlain Townâ—Clerk Coroner Sword-Bearer Marshall Common Hunt Common Cryer Water-Bayliff and Under-Chamberlain four Clerks of his Mayors Court three Serjeant Carvers as many Serjeants of the Chamber a Serjeant and Yeoman of the Channel four Yeomen of the Water-side an Under Water-Bayliff two Yeomen of the Chamber three Meal-Weighers two Yeomen of the Wood-Wharfs the Sword-Bearers man the Common Hunts two men the Common Cryers man the Water-Bayliffs two men and the Carvers man some of which several Officers or Attendants do wait by turns or courses and hath one of the Kings Maces or Serjeant at Armes at some certain times of Solempnity attending upon him a resemblance of a House of Peers in his Court of Aldermen where the Recorder is the Prolocutor and a House of Commons in his Common Counsel both which upon occasions he calls and adjourns at his pleasure hath his Court of Conscience like a Chancery for equity and several Courts of Justice and when he goeth with above 60 Companies of all Trades in a kind of triumph of their Trade and Mysteries to take his Oath before the Barons of the Exchequer hath all the worship and attendance which his Towns-men or Citizens can help him unto every one of which Companies of Trade having some 20 some 45 some 120 Livery men some in their Gowns of Budge and others with Foines who at 20 or 28 l. a piece are willing to purchase a share of preheminence in the rule and ill ordering instead of better of their several Fraternities of Deceipts together with their Whiflers Marshals-men
is their dignity service and attendance upon the King and Weal publick more then any supposition of their great Estates sufficient to be distreined which hath founded and continued those just and warrantable liberties and priviledges unto them tam tacito omnium consensu usuque longaevo derived and come down unto us aswell from antiquity the law of Nations and the civil and Imperial laws which were no strangers unto us above 400 years after the comeing of our blessed Saviour Christ Jesus into the flesh or when Papinian the great civil Lawyer sate upon the Tribunal at York seven years together whilst the Emperor Severus kept his Court and was there Resident wherein are only to be found the Original g of many honorable rational and laudable customes of honour and Majesty used not only in England but all the Christian Kingdomes and Provinces of Europe quam Regni Angliae Institutis latisque quae in Juris necessitatemque vigorem jam diu transiit as our common and Municipal laws and Reasonable customes of England necessarily to be observed for if it could be otherwise or grounded only upon their sufficiencies of Estate whereby to be distreined every Rich Man or good Freeholder which differ as much from our Nobility as the Hombre's Rico's rich men without priviledges do in Spain from the Rico's Hombre's dignified and rich men might challenge as great a freedom from arrests especially when our laws do allow an action upon the case against a Sheriff or other which shall make a false Retorne that a Freeholder hath nothing to be distreined when he hath estate sufficient whereby to be summoned or distreined but it neither is nor can be so in the case of our Nobility and Baronage who are in times of Parliament to be protected by their Dignities and the high concernments of Parliamentary affairs from any molâ—station or disturbance by any Writs or Processe either in their Persons or Estates and are by some condiscention and custome in favour to such as may have cause of action against them in the vacancy of Parliaments and when their priviledge of Parliament ceaseth become liable to the Kings Writs or Processe yet not by any Processe of arrest or imprisoning of their persons but by Writs of Summons Pone per vades salvos taking some Pledge or Cattle that they shall appear and Distringes to distrein them by their Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels untill they do appear and answer to the action that which is retorned or levied thereupon being not retorned into the Exchequer or forfeit to the King if they do appear in any reasonable time unto which priviledge of Process the Bishops of England and Wales holding by Barony may justly claim or deserve to be admitted when as the Metropolitans having an Estate for life in their Bishopricks and Baronies ought not to have a Nihil habet retorned against in their several Provinces nor the Suffragan Bishops in their Diocesses nor have their dignities subjected to the violence of Arrests or sordid usage of prisons hindering the execution of their sacred Offices in the Government and daily occasions of the Church of God neither are any of the Baronage or Bishops of England to be distreined in their Journeys per equitaturam by their Horses or Equipage for any Debt or upon any other personal action whilst they have any other Goods or Chattels whereby to be distreined So as if any of the Temporal Baronage of England holding their Earldomes or Baronies in Fee or Fee Tail or for Life should by the prodigality of themselves or their Ancestors or by misfortunes troubles or vicissitudes of times as too many have been since their honors have not been as if rightly understood they ought to be accounted feudall and the Lands thereunto belonging as the lands of the Bishops and spiritual Barons unalienable be reduced to a weak or small Estate in lands or should have none as John afterwards King of England a younger son of King Henry the Second was who untill his father had conferred some honors and lands upon him was called Jean sans terre John without land yet they having a Freehold in their honors and dignities and the Dukes Marquesses Earles and Viscounts of England having at their Creations some support of honor by way of Pension or Annuity yearly paid unto them by the King and his Heirs and Successors annexed thereunto and not to be severed from it The antient Earles having the third peny or part of the Fines and Amercements due to the King out of the Counties of which they were Earles afterwards about the Raigne of King John reduced to 20 Maâ—kes per annum as all the later Earles and Viscounts now have and the Dukes and Marquesses a greater yearly annuity or Creation mony as 40 Marks or 40 l. per an And all the Nobility and Baronage of England having besides a Freehold in their honors and dignities and their houses nobly furnished some of them having above 20 thousand pounds per an lands of Inheritance many above 10 others 7 6 5 4. or 3 thousand pounds per annum lands of Inheritance in Taile or for Life and none unless it be one or two whose misfortunes have brought their Estates for Life or Inheritance something under one thousand pound per annum There can be neither ground or reason for any Sheriff upon any the aforesaid Writs awarded or made against any of them to retorne Quod nihil habet per quod summoniri possiit that he had nothing whereby to be summoned attached or distreined and if that could as it cannot rationally be truly or legally done yet the Judges sworn unto the observance of the laws and to do Justice unto all sorts of people cannot in any of their Courts award or cause Writs or Process of Capias against them to arrest or imprison their bodies upon any action of debt or other personal actions not criminal which makes an impossibility for any of them in civil actions to be outlawed And if they had neither Creation mony nor Lands Goods or Chattels which is neither rationally or probably to be either imagined or beleived yet they are not to be denied those honorable priviledge so antiently and by the laws of nations belonging to their high calling and dignities when as the antient Charters or Creations of Earls those later of some of our Dukes Marquesses Viscounts and Barons having words and clauses amounting to as much do grant them as in that antient one by King Henry the second to Earle Aâ—berick or Albercius de tere of the Earldome of Oxenfordscyre their honors ita libere quiete honorifice sicut aliquis comitum Angliae liberius quetius honorificieutius habet as freely and honorably as any Earl of England held his Earldome as that grant of the same King to William d'Abbiney of the Earldome of Arundell cum omnibus libertatibus liberis consuetudinibus predicto honori pertinentibus
the Reign of King Henry the Second when Thomas Becket the stubborn Archbishop of Canterbury having Judgement ready to be given against him by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in that Parliament or Great Council upon the Complaint of John Marshal for Injustice done unto him by the said Archbishop and his Defence heard Rex exigit Judicium The King demanded Judgement to be given against him But the Earls Barons and Bishops delaying of it and contending who as it hath been said in other cases should hang the Bell about the Cats Neck and begin the Vote or Sentence Rex hac audita de pronunciando Controversia motus est the King hearing the Controversie who should begin the Vote was displeased whereupon Henry de Blois Bishop of Winchester impositus dâ—cere tandem invitus pronunciavit being put to it to give his Vote did at length begin it In the second year of the Reign of King John that great Suit touching a Barony which William of Mowbray claimed against William of Stutuile which had depended from the Reign of King Henry the Second is said to have bin ended Consilio Regni voluntate Regis by the Kings Will and Advice of Parliament In the One and twentieth year of the Reign of King Henry the Third a Complaint being made to the King that Jordan Coventry one of the Sheriffs of London having by the Order of the Mayor and Aldermen of London arrested and taken divers persons that were offenders in Annoying the River of Thames with Kiddels upon Complaint made to the King he sent for the Mayor and Citizens and upon hearing of the Matter confirmed the Cities Jurisdiction convicted the Complainants Amerced every of them at Ten Pounds and adjudged the Amerciaments to the City In the Thirty eighth year of that Kings Reign upon a Quarrel betwixt some young men of that City and some of the Kings Servants the Londoners being despitefully used by them fell upon them and did beat them shrewdly who thereupon complaining to the King he Fined the Citizens to pay One thousand Marks In the one and fortieth year of his Reign being in the year 1256. he sate in the Court of Exchequer in Westminster Hall where he did make Orders for the Appearance of the Sheriffs and bringing in of their Accompts and Fined the Mayor Aldermen and Sheriffs of London for Oppression and Wrongs done by them who submitted themselves in that place to the King And if so and the Records and Memorials as well of the Court of Exchequer as of that City do speak it there can be nothing within the pale or verge of Reason or the fancy or imagination of any whose Intellectuals are not in a Lethargy to make it either possible or rational that the King himself had not then and there the Preheminence or Courtesie afforded him to give or pronounce the Order or Judgments or that the Soveraignty as the Law in more inferior matters betwixt party and party amongst private persons doth sometimes adjudge it should be at that instant or part of time in abeiance or suspence and operate nothing or that the Barons of the Exchequer could at that Time by intendment of Law be supposed to represent the King when he was personally present it being by the Law of Nations a constant usage and custom settled and approved in the most parts of Christendom that the Governors of Cities and Forts do at the coming and personal Presence of their Soveraign deliver unto him upon their knees the Keys thereof and in all obedienee and humility receive them and their Authority again upon their departure and re-delivery And it is not yet gone out of the memory of man that Sir William Cokain Knight Lord Mayor of London when King James in a Great Solemnity came to St. Pauls Church did at Temple-Bar deliver upon his knees unto him the Keyes and Sword of the City and carried a Mace before him Or that it would not be Contrarium in objecto a Parcel of Contradictions that Esse at one and the same instant of Time can be a non esse idem non idem ibi non ibi the King should be understood not to be there when he was there and to be there onely virtually and in power and not present when he was there in his Person as well as in his Power Or that He should sit and be there onely as an Auditor or Spectator Or as Sir Edward Coke said concerning King James his personally sitting in the Court of Star-Chamber to consult but not in Judicio in Judgement when the Law and the Reason of the Law and the Fact and the Records and Memorials thereof do give so full an evidence against that Pseudo Doctrine and ill-grounded Opinion which the Learned Lawyers and Judges in the Reign of King Henry the Third did so little believe As Bracton discoursing where Actions Criminal by the Laws and Customs as well before his Time as in the Reign of King Henry the Third were to be heard and adjudged expresly concludeth with a Sciendum est quod in Curia Domini Regis debent terminari cum sit ibi poena corporalis infligenda hoc coram ipso rege si tangat personam suam sicut Crimen laesae Majestatis vel coram Justiciariis ad hoc specialiter assignatis si tangat personas privatas It is to be known or certain that Actions Criminal ought to be tryed in the Kings Court and that before the King himself if as in cases of Treason they concern the Person of the King because there is a corporal punishment to be inflicted or before Justices specially thereunto assigned if they concern private persons And gives the reason vita vero membrum hominum sunt in manu Domini Regis vel ad tuitionem vel ad paenam cum deliquerint for the lives and members of all the Kings Subjects are in the hand of the King either to defend or punish Habet enim plures Curias in quibus diversae actiones terminantur illarum Curiarum habet unam propriam sicut Aulam Regiam Justiciarios Capitales qui proprias causas Regis terminant aliorum omnium per quaerelam vel per privilegium sive libertatem ut si sit aliquis qui implacitari non debeat nisi coram ipso Domino Rege for he hath many Courts in which divers Actions are to be tryed And of those Courts hath one of his own as that of the Kings Palace and hath Chief Justices who are to hear and determine the proper Causes of the King and of all others upon complaint or by reason of priviledge or liberty as where a man sued or prosecuted ought not to be impleaded but before the King For in vain were many since the Conquest exempted by Priviledge not to be tryed before any but the King himself if our Kings did never use nor could in person hear and determine
suos ibidem et ad assignand ' Justic ' per Commissionem et ad Error ' corrigend per ipsum Episco pum vel alios Justiciar suos tam ad sectam Domini Episcopi quam aliorum praediâ—tus Willielmus replicavit quod non esset consonum rationi se ipsum de facto prosecutione proprijs fore Judicem cum proprie ad Regiam Majestatem in omnibus Causis ortis inter subditos Jurisdictio pertinet dinoscere et licet ad aliquam Personam per privilegium speciale de causa cognoscere indultum fuit si substitutus in exhibitione Justitiae defecerit Errorem per superiorem et non per substitut ' corrigi debet et super hoc dati sunt dies de termino in terminum To which he pleaded that no Writs were delivered to him at Durham and to that which was delivered unto him at Waltham he had returned that he is Count Palatine and Lord of the Royalty of the Lands called the Bishoprick of Durham and hath all the Rights and Regalities which do belong unto a Count Palatine and that Royalty there to be exercised by him and his Ministers and Justices that is to say hath a Coroner Chancellor and Court of Chancery and that the Kings Officers do not in any thing intermeddle therein and that the said Bishop as Count Palatine hath there likewise his Court and Justices of Common-Pleas as well real as personal and power to assign by Commission Justices to correct and reverse Errors committed by him or any of his Justices as well at his own Suit as others Unto which the said William replyed That it was not reason that he should be Judge of his own Actions when as properly it belonged to the Majesty of a King to determine of all Causes betwixt his Subjects And although he in favour granted to some Person a special priviledge to hear and determine Causes yet if any substituted by him do fail in the distribution of Justice the Errors shall be corrected by the Superior and not by the Substitutes whereupon further days were given from Term to Term. Nor was the Duties of Subjects so worn out but that so much respect was in those better Times given to our Kings Royal Protections granted to such as were not employed by them as the Laws and reasonable Customs oâ— England did allow the protected Persons in their Lands and Estates to bring their Actions against the Infringers or Disturbers thereof as in the Case of Roger de Limecote against the Sheriff of Liecester in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the First for disseising him of two Knights Fees Nicholas Talbot against William Prior of Dunstar in the eight and thirtieth year of the Reign of King Edward the Third of Walter Warr against Gervase Wretchey and John Parkey in the same year and of many others in the said Kings Reign and no Pleas in Bar or alledging Illegality put into the same but in others some collateral Pleas and Defences made by Releases or the like For those Lovers of their Countrey and honor of their Kings did not think as some would fondly and untruly assert that all the Royal Protections granted by them had at the first no better an Original or Foundation than an Imitation of the many Protections and Priviledges granted by our Kings and Princes to Bishops Monasteries and Religious Houses did not believe that our Kings could not respite for a while the payment of moneys due unto any of their Subjects or do as much as amounted to it when King Edward the Third in his Wars with France and great want of Moneys did about the thirteenth year of his Reign revoke divers Assignations for the payment of Moneys due unto private and particular persons until he should be better enabled to pay them And it was about the twelfth Year of the Reign of King James in the Grand Case of Boltons Complaint against the Lord Chancellor Ellesmeere adjudged in Parliament That upon a Bill called A Bill of Conformity exhibited in Chancery by a Debtor against his Creditors for not accepting of his Offer of as much satisfaction as he was able to give them and for refusing thereupon to permit him to enjoy his liberty the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England might by Injunctions prohibit and stay all Suits at the Common Law commenced by him or any such refractory Creditors For our Courts of Chancery Kings-Bench Common-Pleas and Exchequer have in their several subordinate Authorities not seldom mitigated and reduced the high and unreasonable Fines incertain demanded by divers Lords of Manors of their Copy-hold Tenants for their Admissions unto a more reasonable Rate of two years improved Value and enforced them to accept it And Sir Edward Coke in his Comment upon Magna Charta would not bring into the meaning of the Clause of Nulli negabimus vel differemus Justiciam That the King would not deny or delay Justice such Protections as do appear in the Register and are warranted by the Books of Law And although in the eighth year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth it was in transitu and by the way said by Cottesmore a Judge in the Case concerning the Priviledges of the University of Oxford That the King cannot grant that a man shall not Implead or have any Action against another Yet it was at the same time declared to be Law and right Reason by Babington a Judge That to a Lord of a Manor Conusance of all Trespasses done within his Lordship may be granted by the King and that a Plaintiff shall be bound to bring his Action accordingly and that in that Case the King hath not fore-closed him of his Action so as our Novelists and such as invent all the Oppositions they can against the just and legal Authority of their Sovereigns may do better to acknowledge that howsoever it was the opinion of some of the Judges in the Reign of King Henry the Sixth That if any should Arrest a man by the Kings Command when all men Arrested are so by the Authority of the King and his Writs or Process an Action of False Imprisonment might be brought against him that obeyed the Kings Command although it was done in the presence of the King Yet the whole Tenor and Meaning of that Case and that sudden Opinion arguendo or by way of instance deliver'd thereupon was no more but that such a Command ought to be attended with some Specialty or cause shewed And so little did the Judges of the Court of Kings-Bench in Trinity Term in the ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the Fifth intend or think it fit to subject to the humor of any froward or undutiful person the important Affairs and Service of the King As William Reedhead and Nicholas Hobbesson Purveyors for the King having taken forty Quarters of Malt for the Kings use for the Victualling
Occasion what was the Reason the Lord Mayors Officers were not to be put upon such Offices and was answered with a Reason given because they were to attend him Replied do not you think that to be a Reason as much or more in my case as your own Must Westminster the Abby or Church whereof was first founded by King Lucius a Brittish King upon a piece of Land so incult as it was called Thorney or the Island of Thornes then accompted to be two miles distant from London measured it may be unto Ludgate and after the better building and enlarging thereof by King Edward the Confessor honoured as it hath been ever since Regum nostrorum sepultura Regalium repositorium with the usual and designed place of the Buriall of our Kings and the Custody and keeping of the Royal Vestments and Ornaments used at their Coronations an Honourable Office and Trust now Claimed and enjoyed by the Dean of that Collegiate Church confess and acknowledge that by the happy Neighbourhood of our Kings Royal Palace near adjoyning together with their High Court of Chancery Courts of Justice and Exchequer the receipt of their once great and largely extended revenue attending therein help and succour of the Royal Houshold and Hospitality and those Crums of Comfort Meat and Drink and Provisions not used fragments broken meat offall and wast of the Wine and Food which dayly came from the many plentifully furnish'd Tables and expence of Victuals of the Kings house Servants and retinue Fed and Nourrished many of her Families by which and many Priviledges granted unto her by our Kings is now from a shrub come to be as one of the Cedars of our Lebanon and augmented and encreased from a few scattered Cottages Sheds Booths and Tents about the Abby and the Kings house and Palace to a Village from a Village to a Town and from a Town to a City with a Pomerium Fauzburgs or Suburbs so large as it stretcheth it self from Tutlefields in a continued Building and Streets to Temple-Barre and the Inns of Court and in many other places is so contiguously joyned to London as it makes her self to be as it were her younger sister And must she not blush at the same time that any of her Inhabitants should Exercise or be guilty of so foul an Ingratitude as to Arrest without Licence any of the Servants of the King whose Royal Progenitors and Predecessors have nursed and brought her to that perfection And hath London like the Members of the body natural found herself as to her retayling Trade to be the better when it was nearer to the head and heart and did therefore so follow the warmth and hopes of Gain and increase of Trade and Imployment thereby as she hath swelled her Suburbs bigger than her self As although her Forreign Trade is brought unto her from the Sea and Eastward yet she hath immensly built her self as the ingenious Mr. Grant one of her Citizens hath of late observed Westwards to be as near as she could unto her Kings Palace and his Courts of Justice which not only daily receiveth the feet of many of the people of the Nation but of Strangers coming as far as ever the Sheban Queen did to Solomon Can any of her Citizens be so stupid or ingratefully ignorant as not to understand that that great City and the Commerce and Gain thereof which is now so highly valued by them is and hath been by the Neighbour residence of our Kings and Princes and their Courts of Justice so greatly as it appears to be enlarged and multiplied in their Inhabitants Riches variety and Excellency of her Artificers Magnificence State and Beauty of her Churches and Buildings And hath so much extended her Trade and Merchandise both by Land and Sea through all the Circuite and Travails of the Sun and to the utmost parts of the Earth as her multitude of Ships at Sea and a floating Forrest as it were of them daily or weekly going out and returning home upon the River of Thames hath made her one of the greatest Emporiums in the World and Glorious in the midst of many Waters in so much as she hath by her strength and Honour at Sea and her Might and Interest at Land Hang'd the Shield and Helmet in her set forth her Comelines and made her self not only the Mistress of the Trade of our Isles at home but of our many growing rich Plantations in America And can that City of London the magazine of Mechanick Arts and multitudes of People as it is at this day and taketh her self to be not a little honoured by being called the Emperial Chamber of our Kings of England Have so little acquaintance with the Dictates of reason and gratitude or a care of their own Interest as to forget the Founders and Cause of that their Plenty and Happiness and upon every little occasion of a Debt or money owing them to Worry take by the Throte Arrest and Imprison any of the Kings Servants with the Pay me what thou owest me when more than half of it and much of it unjustly was gained of the Debtor and at the same time refuse to pay unto the King the Master of that Servant the debt of Gratitude Duty Honour Reverence good Manners and Civility which they owed unto him either of which would have shewed them the way to complain unto him of such and indebted or ill dealing Servant and Petition for his leave or Licence to Arrest or out-law him before they do it When they that do so much and undutifully undervalue his Courts Servants and Royal residence and Neighbourhood may be assured by the Annalls and Histories of England that their Predecessors in the Reign of King Richard the 2d when their Forreign and home Trade was not the Tenth of what it is now as the small Revenue of the Customs in the latter end of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth will manifest when the highest improvement of her Care and Carmardens discovery could bring her Customs and Profits by Merchandise but to 50000 l. per annum were so sensible of that Kings removal of his Court from London displeasure and Indignation heightned by a Riot committed upon the Servants and house of the Bishop of Salisbury Lord Treasurer for that one of the Bishops Servants had taken a horse loafe out of a Bakers Basket as he passed along the Streets for which notwithstanding the Mayor and Aldermen had appeased the Tumult the Liberties of the City were seised into the Kings hands the Mayor Committed to the Castle of Windsor and the Aldermen and some other substantial Citizens to other Castles a Warden appointed to Governe the City as they deemed themselves in a lost and ruining Condition untill by the special Suit of the Duke of Gloucester they had procured the King upon the Payment of Ten thousand pounds and many rich gifts presented to him and the Queen to return to London where with great joy they
I could perceive trodden by any but Your Lordships most Humble Servant Fabian Philipps THE TABLE OR Contents of the Chapters THat there is a greater Honour due unto the Palace and House of the King Then unto any of the houses of his Subjects Chap. I. 4 That the Business and Affairs of the King about which any of his Servants or Subjects are imployed are more considerable and to be regarded then the Business and Affairs of any of the People Chap. II. 29 That the Kings Servants in ordinary are not to be denied a more than ordinary Priviledge or respect nor are to be compelled to appear by Arrest or otherwise in any Courts of Justice out of the Kings House without leave or Licence of the Lord Chamberlain or other the Officers of the Kings Houshold to whom it appertaineth first had and obteyned Chap. III. 38 That the Priviledges and Protections of the Kings Servants in ordinary by reason of his Service is and ought to be extended unto the Priviledged Parties Estate both real and Personal as well as unto their Persons Chap. IV. 244 That the Kings Servants whilst they are in his Service ought not to be Utlawed or Prosecuted in Order thereunto without leave or Licence first obteyned of the King or the great Officers of his most Honourable Houshold under whose several Jurisdictions they do Officiate Chap. V. 250 That the Kings established and delegated Courts of Justice to Administer Justice to his People are not to be any Bar or hindrance to his Servants in ordinary in their aforesaid Antient Just and Legal Rights and Priviledges Chap. VI. 289 That the King or the great Officers of his Houshold may punish those who do infringe his Servants Priviledges and that any of the Kings Servants in ordinary being Arrested without leave are not so in the Custody of the Law as they ought not to be released untill they do appear or give Bayl to appear and Answer the Action Chap. VII 310 That the aforesaid Priviledge of the Kings Servants in ordinary hath been legally imparted to such as were not the Kings Servants in ordinary but were imployed upon some Temporary and Casual Affairs abroad and out of the Kings House Chap. VIII 318 That the Kings granting Protections under the Great Seal of England to such as are his Servants in ordinary for their Persons Lands and Estates when especially imployed by him into the parts beyond the Seas or in England or any other of his Dominions out of his Palace or Virge thereof or unto such as are not his Domesticks or Servants in ordinary or extraordinary when they are sent or imployed upon some of his Negotiations Business or Affairs neither is or can be any Evidence or good Argument that such only and not the Kings Servants in ordinary who have no Protections under the Great Seal of England are to be Protected or Priviledged whilst they are busied in his Palace or about his Person Chap. IX 343 That our Kings some of which had more than his nâ—w Majesty hath have or had no greater number of Servants in Ordinary than is or hath been necessary for their Occasions Safety well being State Honour Magnificence and Majesty And that their Servants waiting in their Turns or Courses are not without leave or Licence as aforesaid to be Arrested in the Intervals of their waiting or Attendance Cap. X. 355 That the King being not to be limited to a number of his Servants in Ordinary is not in so great a variety of Affairs and contingencies wherein the publick may be concerned to be restrained to any certain number of such as he shall admit to be his Servants extraordinary Chap. XI 365 That the Subjects of England had heretofore such a regard of the King and his Servants as not to bring or commence their Actions where the Law allowed them against such of his Servants which had grieved or Injured them with ut a remedie first Petitioned for in Parliament Chap. XII 375 That the Clergy of England in the height of their Priviledges Encouragement and Protection by the Papall overgrown Authority did in many cases lay aside their Thunderbolts and Power of Excommunications appeals to the Pope and obtaining his Interdictions of Kingdoms Churches and Parishes and take the milder modest and more reverential way of Petitioning our Kings in Parliaments rather than turn the rigors of their Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws or of the Laws of England against any of the Kings Officers or Servants Chap. XIII 389 That the Judges in former times did in their Courts and Proceedings of Law and Justice manifest their unwillingness to give or permit any obstruction to the Service of the King and Weal Publick Chap. XIV 392 That the Dukes Marquesses Count Palatines Earls Viscounts and Barons of England and the Bishops as Barons have and do enjoy their Priviledges and freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment of their Bodies in Civil and Personal Actions As Servants extraordinary and attendants upon the Person State and Majesty of the King in Order to his Government Weal Publick and safety of him and his People And not only as Peers abstracted from other of the Kings Ministers or Servants in Ordinary Chap. XV. 413 That many the like Priviledges and Praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarean Laws and the Municipal Laws and Customs of many other Nations granted and allowed to the Nobility thereof Chap. XVI 445 That the Immunities and Priviledges granted and permitted by our Kings of England unto many of their People and Subjects who were not their Servants in Ordinary do amount unto as much and in some more than what our Kings Servants in Ordinary did or do now desire to enjoy Chap. XVII 466 That many of the People of England by the Grace and Favour of our Kings and Princes or along permission usâ—ge or prescription do enjoy and make use of very many Immunities Exemptions and Priviledges which have not had so great a Cause or Foundation as those which are now claimed by the Kings Servanes Chap. XVIII 489 That those many other Immunities and Priviledges have neither been abolished or so much as murmured at by those that have yeilded an Assent and Obedience thereunto although they have at some times and upon some Occasions received some Loss Damage or Inconveniences thereby Chap. XIX 494 That the Power and care of Justice and the distribution thereof is and hath been so Essential and Radical to Monarchy and the constitution of this Kingdom as our Kings of England have as well before as since the Conquest taken into their Cognisance divers Causes which their established Courts of Justice either could not remedie or wanted Power to determine have removed them from other Courts to their own Tribunals and propria authoritate caused Offenders for Treason or Felony to be Arrested and may upon Just and Legal Occasions respite or delay Justice Chap. XX. 503 That a care of the Honour and Reverence due unto the
should not be a refuge for any man that had committed Manslaughter unless he had first made satisfaction to God Almighty and abundantly recompenced the kinred of the slain and performed whatever was enjoyned him by the Bishop in whose Diocess it happened By the Laws of Hoell Dha or the good King Hoell of Wales made and ordained in or about the same year If any man made an affray or did strike in his Court he was to pay a double Dirvy or Mulct and the like for doing it in the Church whereas in other places it was but a single Dirvy or fine Ex quo disteni praefectus sive Oeconomus in Aula steterit post prandium in tribus festis Principalibus ponens in ea pacem Dei Regis Reginae optimatum Curiae pacem illaâ— transgredienti nusquam erit refugium Navt t' u ' omnium refugium after that the Steward of the Kings House shall appear in the Hall in the three principal Feasts of the year and causeth the Peace of God and the King Queen and Lords of the Court to be published he that breaks it shall be allowed no place of Refuge or Sanctuary nor shall any receive him si quis ergo refugium Regis omnium violaverit nec usquam nec ab unius refugio vel à reliquiis sanctorum defendi potest nisi ab Ecclesia If any therefore shall violate that Sanctuary or place of Refuge of the King he shall be no where or by any one Protected or by any Reliques of the Saints unless the Church shall Protect and defend him And say the same Laws Tria sunt sine quibus Rex esse non potest scilicet sacerdos ad missam celebrandam ad escas Regis potus benedicend Judex Curiae ad Causas discernendas ad danda consilia familia quoque ad negotia Regis parata Three things are so necessary for a King as he cannot be without them that is to say a Priest or Chaplain a Judge to hear Causes and give him Counsel and Servants to do the business of his family Et ubicumque sacerdos familiae Disteni Judex Curiae insimul fuerint ibi erit dignitas Curiae brevit llys Aula Regia licet Rex absens est and wheresoever the Chaplain of the Family and the Steward and Judge of the Court or Palace shall reside and be altogether there the Honour and Dignity of the Court shall be and it shall be esteemed and taken to be as the Kings Court although he be absent And so well did King Canutus the Dane who Raigned here about one hundred and twenty years after approve and allow of the before-mentioned Law made by King Alfred as he made another much to the like effect si quis in Regia dimicarit Capitale esset nisi quidem Rex hoc illi condonarit That it should be capital or death unto any that should fight in the Kings Palace unless the King should be pleased to pardon him Et nullae Citatioâ—â—â— vel summonitiones liceant fieri cuicunque infra palatium Regis Westminster King Henry the first about 275 years after the Raign of the before-mentioned Witlafe or Witlase King of the Mercians in his Charter or Grant to the Abbey of Winchester doth amongst other Priviledges free them de Placitis de omnibus quaerelis sicut terra illa ubi Domus mea sedet in Winton fuit unquam melius quieta from all Plaints and Actions Issuing out of other Courts as much as the Land where his own House or Palace stood in Winchester ever enjoyed which was then understood not to have been disturbed by them the said Charter being by Inspeximus afterwards in the 16 th year of the Raign of King Edward the fourth allowed and confirmed and in regard of the Honour due unto the Kings Houses or Palaces more then the Houses of any Subject or Private person they are by Law and Ancient Custom allowed a Circuit or compass of 12 miles round every way within the Virge whereof in matters appertaining to the Royall Houshold or Servants for Contracts made one with another in the same House and of Trespasses done within the Virge the Steward and Marshal of the Kings House and no Inferior or Commissionated Jurisdiction were to intermeddle Et nullae Citationes aut summonitiones liceant fieri cuicunque infra Palatium Regis Westminster No Citations or Summons are to be made in the Kings Palace at Westminster which until it was disused by the accession of Whitehall unto the Crown in the Reign of King Henry the eighth and after that appropriated to the Courts of Chancery Law Exchequer Dutchy of Lancaster Star-Chamber Court of Requests House of Commons in Parliament who do now sit in that part of it heretofore called S. Stephen's Chappel and the House of Peers in another part of that Ancient House or Palace of our Kings of England was their only House or Residence neer London and retains to this day so much of it's Ancient Priviledge of Freedom from Arrests as any man Arrested there in any Civil Action before or in the Virge of any of the said Courts then sitting although it be by Process Issuing out of any of the said Courts and he had no business before depending in any of them is propter reverentiam loci for Reverence to the Place to be presently without Bail or answering discharged and the Officer Arresting him Imprisoned or otherwise punished Insomuch as Edmond Earl of Cornwall coming to London to the Parliament holden in the 18 th year of King Edward the first and per medium majoris Aulae Westminster versus consilium domini Regis transisset passing through the great Hall at Westminster towards the Parliament ubi quilibet de regno pace domini Regis as the Parliament Roll mentioneth not only Peers or Parliament men licite pacifice venire negotia sua prosequi debet where every man of the Kingdom and in the Peace of the King may Lawfully and peaceably come and follow their business absque hoc quod aliquas citationes vel summonitiones ibidem admittat without being troubled with any Citations or summons complained of the Prior of the Holy-trinity London and Bogo de Clare who thereupon were attached to answer the King and Peter de Chanet Steward of the King Walter de Fanecurt Mareschal of the King whose Jurisdiction was thereby infringed the said Earl of Cornwall and the Abbot of Westminster for that the said Prior by the procurement of the said Bogo de Clare had cited the said Earl in the Hall aforesaid to appear before the Archbishop of Canterbury at a certain day and place to answer such things as should be objected against him to the manifest Contempt and Dishonour of the King and His damage 10000 l. prejudice of the Abbot of Westminsters Liberty and his Damage 1000 l. in prejudicium Officii predict
duce venientem aut ad illum ambulantem in Itinere inquietare quamvis culpabilis sit no man ought to be molested in his journey or going to or from the Dukes Court although there might be any Action or Cause to trouble him By the Laws of the Lombards or Longobards si quis ex Baronibus nostris ad nos venire voluerit securus veniat illaesus ad suos revertatur nullus de Adversariis illi aliquam Injuriam in itinere aut molestiam facere praesumat If any of our Barons have an intent to come unto us he is safely to go and come and none of his adversaries are to do him in his Journey any wrong or Injury By some Laws made in the Raigns of the Emperors Charlemaigne and Lewis his Son nullus ad palatium vel in hostem pergens vel de Palatio vel de hoste rediens tributum quod transituras vocant solvere Cogatur That no man coming to his Palace or going against the Enemy or returning should be compelled to pay the Tribute called Passage-money The Tractatoria Evectiones allowed by the Western and Eastern Emperors that Stables and Provisions of Horse-meat and mans meat should be provided sumptu publico at the Peoples charge for such as Ride post Travailed or were sent upon the Emperors Affairs may inform us how great the difference is and ought to be betwixt the Kings Affairs and those of the Common People The Laws of the Wisigoths a People not then much acquainted with Civilities compiled about the year or Aera of our Lord 504 may teach us the value of Princes cares of their own and the Publick Affairs managed by their Servants or whosoever shall be imployed therein Quod antea ordinare oportuit negotia Principum postea populorum when they declared that the Affairs or concerment of the Prince ought to take place of those of the People Quia si salutare Caput extiterit rationem colligit qualiter Curare cetera membra possit because if it be well with the head it will be the better able to take care of the rest of the Members Et ordinanda primo negotia Principum tutanda salus defendenda vita sicquè in statu negotiis plebium ordinatio dirigenda ut eum salus componens prospicitur Regum fida valentibus teneatur salvatia populorum That in the first place the business of the Prince the safety of his life and the defence of his Person are to be heeded and the Affairs of the People so Ordered as whilst a sufficient provision is made for the safety of the Prince the good of the People may be established Of which our English Laws have such a regard as they would some few Cases only excepted dispence with any man 's not appearing or coming to Justice If he though not the Kings servant in Ordinary sent by His Attourney the Kings Writ of Protection signifying that he was sent or Imployed in the Kings Service That if any Archbishop Bishop Earl or Baron do come to the King by His Commandment passing by any of His Forrests he might notwithstanding the great severity of the Forrest Laws against such as did Steal or Kill any of the Kings Deer or Venison take or kill one or two in their going and return The Register of Writs doth bear Record that where one of the Kings Servants hath been returned of a Jury or Summoned probably to be a witness or upon some other occasion to attend some Inquisition or Inquest to be made in any other place then the Kings House or before any other Judges or Magistrates a Writ hath been sent under the Great Seal of England to excuse his absence because he was the same day to attend the Steward and Marshal of the Kings House about some affairs of the Houshold which may shew that the King had a mind aswel as reason not to permit the necessary attendance of His own Servants in or upon His Houshold occasions to be omitted to wait upon strangers or other mens busines in Courts or matters of Justice And the Law doth so much prefer the Kings business above the Common Peoples as that all Honor and Reverence is to be given to the Kings Privy Council For that as Sir Edward Coke saith they are partes Corporis Regis incorporated as it were with him are profitable Instruments of the State bear part of his cares and which is no more then what the Civil Law allows them when it terms them Administri Adjutores Adsessores helpers and Adsessors qui arcanis Principis interesse meruerunt in Contubernium Imperatoriae Majestatis adsciti and which deserve an Interess in the Princes secrets and affairs of State and are as Spartianus saith admitted as it were into the Society of Royal Majesty Where the body of a Debtor before the Statute of 25 of King Edward the third have by some been believed not to have been liable to Execution for debt at the Suit of a Common Person yet it was adjuged to otherwise in the Kings Case for that Thesaurus Regis est pacis vinculum Bellorum nervi for otherwise the King might want His Money or Treasure which is the Bond of Peace and Sinews of War Protections under the Great Seal of England have not only been granted by our Kings but allowed by their Judges to secure some Merchants Strangers from Arrests or Trouble in Corporibus rebus bonis in their Persons goods or Estates until the Debts and Money which they did owe the King should be satisfied and to suspend any Judgements or Executions had against them for other mens Debts until the King should be satisfied the monys due unto him And in the mean time taking them and their estate in their Royal Protection did prohibit any Process against them to be made in any of their Courts of Justice or that they should be Arrested or distrained for any debts or accompts the Kings debts not being satisfied And although by an Act of Parliament or Statute made in the 25 th year of the Raign of King Edward the third cap. 19. Their other Creditors might notwithstanding bring their Actions and Prosecute thereupon yet they were not by that Statute to have Execution upon any Judgements gained for their Debts unless they would undertake to pay the Debts due unto the King and then he should be authorized to sue for recover and take the Kings Debt and have Execution also for his own Debt the Preamble of that Statute mentioning that during such Protection no man had used or durst to implead such Debtors In the 8 th year of the Raign of King Henry the 6 th it was agreed in Parliament that all matters that touch the King should be preferred before all other as well in Parliament as in Council And no longer ago then in the 34 th and 35 th years of the Raign of King
expresly provided that the Testimony of Servants should not be allowed in Criminal Matters there was an exception for the better sort of the Kings Servants King Ina who Raigned here over the West Saxons about the year of our Redeemer 712 amongst his Laws Suasu Heddae et Erkinwaldi Episcoporum suorum omnium Senatorum et natu majorum Sapientum populi sui in magna servorum dei frequentia by the advice of Hedda and Erkenwald his Bishops all his Senators Elders and wise men of his people and Commonalty attended by many of the Clergy did ordain several degrees of Mulct or punishment for breach of peace in Towns according to the qualities of the owners or Lords thereof videlicet in oppido Regis vel Episcopi pacis violatae paena 120 solidorum in oppido Senatoris seu Ealdormannes ruptae pacis 80 solidorum in oppido Cyninges Thegnes seu ministri Regis 60 solidorum et in oppido custodis pagant cujuscunque predia possidentis pacis tributae multa 35 solidorum censeatur that is to say In every Town of the King or a Bishop for breach of the peace 120 shillings in the Town of a Senator or Alderman 80 shillings in a Town of a Servant of the Kings 60 shillings and in the Town of the Bayliffe or Reeve of any other man having Lands 35 shillings Charles the great or Charlemain Emperor of the West and King of France who began his raign in the year 768 and after him the Emperor Lodovicus by his goodness and Piety sirnamed Pius or the Godly considering that in viros animosos plus honoris posse quam opum remunerationem that to men of Courage and Spirit Honor was more in esteem then Riches edicto mandaverunt ut ipsis in tota ditione sua honor haberetur did by their Edicts which in those more obedient times when Subjects were not so Critical as too many of us now are in their Princes Commands by a Torture of farre fetched or Irrational Interpretations put upon their just Authority in order to the Weal-Publick provide that in all their Dominions an Honour and respect should be given to their Domesticks or Servants And therefore Antiquity and the Learned Bignonius were not guilty of any Error when they adjudged that Dignitas Domestici the Dignity of the Kings Houshold Servants fuit non contemneâ—da was not to be contemned but was greatly honoured under the Raigns of the first and second Kings of France and about the Raign of Clodoveus or Lodovicus the 12th King of the first Race of the Kings of France who Raigned about the year of our Lord and Saviour 648. Inter praecipuos Regni ministros saepe enumerantur Comites Consiliarii Domestici et Majores Domûs c. Amongst the principal of whom were reckoned the Lord Steward Earls Counsellors of Estate Chancellor and Chamberlane the most Honourable and great men of the Kingdome who did sometimes in the Court attend the King in the hearing and determining of Causes and were with those great Officers of the Houshold accounted to be de Honestate palatii seu specialiter ornamento Regali a part of the Honor of the Kings Palace or Court and an Ornament to the Royal Dignity and the Domesticks and Servants of that great and vertuous Charlemain had that respect given unto them which a just consideration of the Honor of their Soveraign and concernment of the Weal-publique in his business or affairs had procured for them as Solebant subditi non modo reâ—ipere missos et legatos Principis Comites Duces et etiam ministros verum et viaticum eis pro unius cujusque dignitate praestare the people did use not only to receive the Kings or Princes Earls Dukes and their Attendants but to give them Entertainment according to their several degrees or qualities it having been ordained by him ut de missis suis vel de caeteris propter utilitatem suam Iter agentibus nullus mansionem eis contradicere praesumat that no man should presume to deny lodging and entertainment unto any imployed in his service King Alfred or Alured who began his Raign here about the year of our Lord 870 and had resident in his house the Sonns of many of his Nobility which did attend him did in that time of the more incult and fierce behaviour of the old English and Saxons and their Neighborhood with their Enemies the usurping Danes take care in the League or peace which he was constrained to make with King Guthrun the Dane to provide that in case of a Minister Regis incusatus as the Version or Translation renders it any Servant of the Kings accused for Homicide Et id Juris in omni lite and the same Law to be in every other Action or Suit there should be a Jury of 12 of the Kings Servants or if the party grieved should be the Servant of another King non nihil inferior not much inferior to the Kings probably intended of King Guthruns it should be tryed by undecim sui equales unumque Ministrum Regium by eleven of his Peers or Equals and one of the Kings Servants added unto them And it was then accompted such an honor to serve the King as our Learned Selden informs us he that that had a House with a Bell a Porters Lodge and was fit to be sent on his Princes Message or had a distinct Office in the Kings Court was accompted in those early daies as a Thainus or Nobilis a person or Honor. King Edward the Confessor whose Laws the vanquished English after the Conquest took to be so much a blessing as they hid them for preservation under the high Altar at Westminster and by the importunity of their prayers and tears procured King William the Conqueror to confirm and restore them did ordain that the Earls and Barons Et omnes qui habuerint sacham et socam Theam et Infangthiefe etiam milites suos et proprios servientes scilicet dapiferos pincernas Camerarios pistores et Cocos sub suo friburgo habeant et si cui foris facerent et Clamor vicinorum de eis assurgeret ipsi tenerent eos rectitudini in Curia sua And all those who had Courts Leete or Baron amongst their Tenants a priviledge granted by the King to have a Jurisdiction over their Tenants and to fine or Amerce such as failed to make good their Actions try and punish Theeves taken in their Mannors or Liberties to have Villains and Bond-men and a propriety in their Villains Lands or Goods and to have subject to their Mannors those that held of them by Knight-Service or were to attend them in the Warrs and their Domestique Servants as Sewers Butlers Chamberlains Bakers and Cooks should upon any wrong done to their Neighbors or Complaint made of them see right to be done unto them in their Courts and certainly he that gave them those Liberties to hear and determine
against the Legality of this Court in the Reigns of King Henry the seventh Henry the eighth Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth or since although Sir Edward Coke being unwilling to allow it to be a Court legally constituted as not founded by any Prescription or Act of Parliament hath thrown it under some scruples or objections with which the former Ages and Wisemen of this Nation thought not fit to trouble their Times and Studies that Court being not only sometimes imployed in the determining of Cases and Controversies irremedial in the delegated Courts of Justice out of the Palace Royal or by the Privy Council but concerning the Kings Domesticks or Servants in Ordinary as may be seen in the 33 year of the Reign of K. Henry the eighth in the Case of David Sissel of Witham in the County of Lincoln Plaintiff against Richard Sissel his Brother Yeoman of the Kings Robes for certain Lands lying in Stamford in the said County of Lincoln formerly dismissed by the Kings most Honourable Privy Council wherein the said David Sissel was enjoyned upon pain of Imprisonment to forbear any clamour further to be made to the Kings Grace touching the Premises In the second and third years of King Philip and Queen Mary Sir John Browne Knight one of the two Principal Secretaries to the King and Queens Majesties was a Plaintiff in that Court and in the thirteenth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Sir James Crofts Knight Comptroller of the Queens Majesties Houshold against Alexander Scoffeild for Writings and Evidences in the Defendants Custody And those great assistants Lords and Bishops Commissionated by the King as his Council or Commissioners did sometimes in that Court as in the thirtieth year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth superintend some Causes appealed aswell from the Lord Privy Seal as the Common Law and Sir John Russel Knight Lord Russel the same man or his Father being in an Act of Parliament in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth wherein he with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others were made Feoffees of certain Lands to the use and for performance of the Kings last Will and Testament stiled Master John Russel his Majesties Keeper of the Privy Seal was in that Court made a Defendant in the first year of the Reign of King Edward the sixth to a Suit Petition or Bill there depending against him although he was at that time also that Great and Ancient Officer of State called the Lord Privy Seal there having been a Custos Privati Sigilli a Keeper of the Privy Seal as early as the later end of King Edward the first or King Edward the second or the beginning of the Reign of King Edward the third about which time Fleta wrote nor was it then mentioned as any Novelty or new Office the Lord Privy Seal or Keepers of the Kings Privy Seal having ever since the eighteenth year of the Reign of King Henry the seventh if not long before until that fatal Rebellion in the later end of the Reign of that incomparable and pious Prince King Charles the Martyr successively presided and been Chief Judges in that Court which was not understood to be illegal in the twentieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when in a Case wherein George Ashby Esq was Complainant against William Rolfe Defendant an Injunction being awarded against the Defendant not to prosecute or proceed any further at the Common Law and disobeyed by the procurement of the said William Rolfe it was ordered That Francis Whitney Esq Serjeant at Arms should apprehend and arrest all and every person which should be found to prosecute the said Defendant contrary to the said Injunction and commit them to the safe custody of the Warden of the Fleet there to remain until order be taken for their delivery by her Majesties Council of that Court by Authority whereof the said William Rolfe was apprehended and committed to the Fleet for his Contempts but afterwards in further contempt the said William Rolfe's Attorney at the Common Law prosecuting a Nisi prius before Sir Christopher Wray then Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench against the Complainant in Guildhall London the said Attorney was then und there presently taken out of the said Court by the said Serjeant at Arms and committed to the Fleet. Nor by Sir Henry Mountà gue Knight Earl of Manchester who being the Son of a Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench was in Legibus Angliae enutritus in praxi legum versatissimus a great and well-experienced Lawyer and from his Labour and Care therein ascended to the Honour and Degree of Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench from thence to that of Lord Treasurer of England thence to be Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Privy Council and from thence to be Lord Privy Seal and for many years after sitting as Supreme Judge and Director of the Court of Requests in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr together with the four Masters of Requests his Assessors and Assistants in that Honourable and necessary Court Which Office or Place à Libellis Principis of Master of Requests having been long ago in use in the Roman Empire and those that were honoured therewith with maximorum culmine dignitatum digni men accounted worthy of the most honourable nnd eminent Imployments and that Office or Place so highly esteemed as that great and ever famous Lawyer Papinian who was stiled Juris Asylum the Sanctuary or Refuge of the Law did under the Emperor Severus enjoy the said Office to whom his Scholar or Disciple Vlpian afterwards succeeded and with our Neighbours the French summo in honore sunt are very greatly honoured quibus ab Aulâ Principis abesse non licet and so necessary as not at any time to be absent from the Court or Palace of the Prince The Masters of Requests are and have been with us so much regarded and honoured as in all Assemblies and Places they precede the Kings Learned Council at Law and take place of them and amongst other Immunities and Priviledges due unto them and to the Kings Servants are not to be enforced to undergo or take upon them any other inferior Offices or Places in the Commonwealth There being certainly as much if not a greater Reason that the King should have a Court of Requests or Equity and Conscience where any of his Servants or Petitioners are concerned as the Lord Mayor of London who is but the Kings Subordinate Governour of that City for a year should have a Court of Conscience or Requests in the City of London for his Servants or the Freemen and Citizens thereof The Rights and Conveniences of our Kings of England doing Justice to their Domestick or Houshold Servants within their Royal Palaces or Houses or the virge thereof and not remitting them to other Judicatures together
ended in the Cardinals turning to Mr. Welch and saying Well there is no more to do I trow you are one of the Kings Privy Chamber your Name is Mr. Welch I am contented to yield unto you but not unto the Earl without I see his Commission for you are a sufficient Commissioner in this behalf being one of the Kings Privy Chamber And in the 21 year of the Reign of that King such a care was taken to keep not only the Chaplains of the King Queen Prince and Princess or any of the Kings or Queens Children or Sisters but of the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Chamberlain Steward Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold from any prejudice whilst they attended in their Honourable Housholds and exempt them from the Penalty of Ten Pounds a Month whilst they should not be resident at their Benefices as they did by an especial Exception provide for their Indempnity therein And in the same year and Parliament the Chancellor Treasurer of England and the Lord President of the Kings Council are said to be attendant upon the Kings most Honourable Person And in the 24 year of his Reign some of his Servants having been impannelled and retorned upon Juries he signified his dislike of the same unto the Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas in these words Trusty and Right-well-beloved We greet you well Whereas we understand that all manner of your Officers and Clerks of both our Benches be in such wise priviledged by an ancient Custom that they be always excepted out of all manner of Impannels We considering that the Hedd Officers and Clerks of our Houshold by reason of the daily Business in our Service have been semblably excepted in time passed unto now of late that some of them have been retorned in Impannels otherwise then heretofore hath been accustomed We will and command you That in case any Hedd Officer or Clerk of our Houshold shall hereafter fortune to be put in any Impannel either by the Sheriff of our Còunty of Kent or by any Sheriff of any County within this our Realm for to be retorned before you without our special Commandment in that behalf ye upon knowledge thereof cause him or them so impannelled to be discharged out of the said Impannel and other sufficient Persons to be admitted in their place and that you fail not this to do from time to time as often as the case shall require as ye tender our pleasure Yeoven under our Signet at our Manor of Richmont the fourth day of October in the twenty fourth year of our Reign To our Trusty and Well-beloved the Chief Justices of both our Benches and to all other their fellows Justices of the same In the Act of Parliament made in the twenty fifth year of his Reign against excess of Apparel there was a Proviso That all Officers and Servants waiting and attending upon the King Queen or Princess daily yearly or quarterly in their Housholds or being in their Checque Roll may by the Licence of the King use or wear Apparel on their Bodies Horses Mules c. according to such Licence And not only King Henry the Eighth but his three Estates the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament in the 31 year of his Reign did so much attribute to the Kings Servants in Ordinary and the Honour of their Imployments as to grant by Act of Parliament That the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Council Lord Privy Seal the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Admiral of England Grand Master or Steward of the Kings most Honourable Houshold and Chamberlain should in Parliament Star-Chamber and all other Assemblies which was in no Kings Reign before allowed sit and be pláced above all Dukes except such as should happen to be the Kings Sons Brothers Vncles Nephews or Brothers or Sisters Sons That the Lord Privy Seal should sit atd be placed above the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Lord Admiral of England Grand Master or Lord Steward and the Kings Chamberlain and that the Kings Chief Secretary if he be of the Degree of a Baron should in Parliament and all other Assemblies sit and be placed before and above all other Barons and if he be a Bishop above all other Bishops not having any of the Offices above-mentioned Precedency amongst the English Nobility being heretofore so highly valued and esteemed as it was not seldom very much insisted upon And so as in the Reign of King Henry the sixth it was earnestly claimed and controverted betwixt John Duke of Norfolk and Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and in divers other Kings Reigns greatly contended for and stickled betwixt some of the Great Nobility The Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and the Steward thereof as appeareth by their Subscriptions as Witnesses unto sundry Charters of our former and ancient Kings not having been before allowed so great a Precedency as that Act of Parliament gave them or as that high Place Trust and Office of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England according to the Custom and Usage of former Ages in all or the most of the neighbour Kingdoms and Monarchies have justly merited who in the times of the ancient Emperors of Rome were as Gutherius noteth stiled the Quaestores Palatii and had in Vlpian's time who flourished in the Reign of Alexander Severus the Emperor antiquissimam originem an honourable and long-before original and so necessary in the then Administration of Justice as the Emperor Justinian that great Legislator and Compiler of Laws ordained That Divinae Jussiones Subscriptionem haberent gloriosissimi Quaestoris nec emissae aliter a Judicibus reciperentur quà m si subnotatae fuerint à Quaestore Palatii That the Imperial Mandates should be subscribed by the Chancellor who was sometimes stiled Justitiae Custos vox Legum Concilii Regalis particeps the Keeper or Repository of Justice the voice or mouth of the Laws and one of the Privy Council and those Mandates being sent not much unlike the Original Writs issuing out of our High Court of Chancery w th were then also called Breves were not to be received by the Judges unless they were signed by the Quaestor Palatii or Chancellor but subscribed their Names as Witnesses to Charters after Bishops Abbots and Barons as amongst many other instances may be given in that of Robert Parning Chancellor and of Randolf de Stafford Steward of the Houshold in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the third By a Statute made in the thirty second of the Reign of King Henry the eighth the Parliament did not think it unreasonable that there should be a Great Master of the Kings House and have all the Authority that the Lord Steward had By a Statute made in the thirty third year
Chamberlain Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable Houshold Chancellor of the Exchequer with other of the Kings Privy Councel who together with the Justices of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer do out of the six for every County make choice of three who are in a written Bill by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England shortly after presented to the King who appointeth as he pleaseth one of every three presented unto him as aforesaid for every County to be Sheriff by his Letters Patents under the Great Seal for the year next following And by Authority of the King and his Laws the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England appointeth the Judges in every year their several Circuits maketh and dischargeth all Justices of the Peace And such Petitions as could not be dispatched before the end of Parliaments were frequently adjourned to be heard and determined by the Chancellor and presenteth to all Parsonages or Spiritual Benefices in the Kings right or gift which are under the value of 20 l. per annum according to the antient valuation All the Records in the Courts of Chancery Kings Bench and Common Pleas Justices of Assise and Goal delivery are to be safely kept by the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer which the Commons of England in Parliament in the 46th year of the Reign of King Edward the third did in their Petition to the King call the Peoples perpetual evidence and our Kings of England have therefore in several of their Reigns sent their Writs and Mandates to the Chief Justices of both the Benches to cause their Records for some times therein limited to be brought into his Treasury and entrusted with the Treasurer and Chamberlains thereof in whose custody the Standard for all the Weights and Measures of England is likewise kept By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third Sheriffs abiding above one year in their Offices may be removed and new ones put in their place by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking unto them the Chief Justices of the one Beneh or the other if they be present Escheators who were and should be of very great trust and concernment in the Kingdom betwixt the King and his people were to be chosen by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking into them the Chief Justices of the one Bench or the other if they be present but are since only made by the Lord Treasurer By a Statute made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. the Lord Privy Seal and other great Lords of the Kings Councel are appointed to redress in Parliament delayes and errours in Judgement in other Courts By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King the Chancellor and Treasurer were authorized to hear complaints and ordain remedies concerning gifts and rewards unjustly taken by Sheriffs Bayliffs of Franchises and their Vnder Ministers and also concerning mainteiners and embracers of Juries taking unto them the Justices and other Sage persons such as to them seemeth meet By an Act of Parliament made in the 31th year of the Reign of that King the Lord Chancellor and Treasurer shall examine erronious Judgements given in the Exchequer Chamber And the Chancellor and Treasurer taking to them Justices and other of the Kings Councel as to them seemeth shall take order and make Ordinances touching the buying and selling of Fish By several Acts of Parliament made in the 37th and 38th year of his Reign Suggestions made by any to the King shall be sent with the party making them unto the Chancellor there to be heard and determined and the Prosecutor was to be punished if he prove them not And that upon untrue suggestions the Chancellor should award damages according to his discretion By an Act of Parliament made in the 11th year of the Reign of King Richard the second the keeping of Assises in good Towns are at the request of the Commons in Parliament referred to the Chancellor with the advice of the Judges By an Act of Parliament made in the 13th year of his Reign in every pardon for Felony Murder or Treason the Chamberlain or Vnder Chamberlain was to endorse upon the Bill the Name of him which sued for the same By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of his Reign no man shall go or ride armed except the Kings Officers or Ministers in doing their Office By an Act of Parliament made in the first and second year of the Reign of K. Henry the 4th no Lord is to give any Sign or Livery to any Knight Esquire or Yeoman but the King may give his honourable Livery to his menial Knights and Esquires and also to his Knights and Esquires of his Retinue who are not to use it in their Counties but in the Kings presence The Constable and Marshall of England for the time being and their Retinue of Knights and Esquires may wear the Livery of the King upon the Borders and Marches of the Realm in time of War the Knights and Esquires of every Duke Earl Baron or Baneret may wear their Liveries in going from the Kings House and returning unto it and that the King may give his honourable Livery to the Lords Temporal whom pleaseth him And that the Prince and his menials may use and give his honourable Livery to the Lords and his menial Gentlemen By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 6th the Lords of the Councel may assign money to be coyned in as many places as they will A Letter of request may be granted by the Keeper of the Privy Seal to any of the Kings Subjects from whom Goods be taken by the King of Denmark or any of his Subjects By an Act of Parliament made in the tenth year of his Reign the Mayor of London shall take his Oath before the Treasurer of England and Barons of the Kings Exchequer wherein he shall be charged and sworn to observe all the Statutes touching Weights and Measures By an Act of Parliament made in the eleventh year of his Reign Fees Wages and Rewards due to the Kings Officers were not to be comprized within the Statute of Resumption made in the 28 th year of the Reign of the King By an Act of Parliament made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the 7th for punishments of Maintenance Embracery Perjuries Riots and unlawfull demeanors of Sheriffs and unlawfull Assemblies it was ordained That the Chancellor and Treasurer of England for the time being Keeper of the Kings Privy Seal or two of them calling unto them a Bishop and a Temporal Lord of the Kings most Honourable Councel and the two Chief Justices of the Kings
Utlawed person could not be restored till he had been by the Court committed to the Prison of the Fleet for his contempts purchased and pleaded his Charter of Pardon from the King under the Great Seal of England and appeared to the Action when the King and his service and attendance was the only cause that he did not or could not attend or appear thereunto or put in Bayl to answer it when there was no danger of his absence or flying away from the Kings Service which is or ought to be not a little advantageous or beneficial unto him And when the Plaintiff at whose instance such a prosecution was made might with as much ease and as little charge and a far less expence of time have petitioned the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold and obtained a license to have taken his course at Law against him And if the Lord Chamberlain had given the Defendant a reasonable time or prefixion for the Plaintiffs satisfaction as his Lordship usually doth it would probably not have exceeded the time of six months which is by our Laws the shortest time wherein a Defendant can be Utlawed which as Bracton saith ought not to be suddenly done but to have five months warning or time given in regard of the severity thereof when a man is Utlawed and is thereby to forfeit bona catalla patriam amicos his Goods Chattels Countrey and profits of his Lands to be as an exile or banish'd man was not to be received or entertained by his Friends could not bring an Action for any thing due unto him untill the Utlary be reversed but was as antient as the Saxon times accounted to be a Friendless and Lawless man And it would be a great piece of incivility to prosecute such a Servant of the Kings in ordinary so busied and imployed about his person and not first of all to Petition for his license when in an ordinary way and with no great charge and a great deal sooner than the Defendants appearance to his Action can be enforced by an Utlary it might have been so easily procured and possibly the Kings great occasions and expence of money for the Publick and their defence and protection wherein the good and safety of that Plaintiff was amongst the rest included might be the cause that he could not pay such Servant in ordinary his wages and that such Servant could not so soon as he otherwise would have satisfied the party prosecuting there being no reason to be assigned by any whose exuberant phancies have not altogether divorced them from it that one that is but imployed upon a seldom and temporary imployment of the Kings and is not his Servant in ordinary nor the business he is imployed in so continually near and relating to his person should during that his temporary imployment and of a far less concernment as to go on a Message for him or in company of some Ambassador be priviledged during his absence in his Person Goods and Estate and a Servant in ordinary continually attending his Sacred Person should be only protected in his Person but not in his Estate or that the priviledges and immunities so antiently due and appropriate to his Servants in ordinary and near his person should be curtailed and have less allowed them than Strangers and such as are only imployed for some small time or occasion Or that the Utlawing of any of his Servants in ordinary should forfeit their so just Rights and Priviledges when as by the Law and reasonable Customs of the Kingdom they are not to be Utlawed or put in Process of Utlary without license or leave first asked and no man should be Utlawed or punished for a default of not appearing or have any Process of arrest or contempt awarded against him where he had a reasonable excuse or impediment or cause of Essoyne as by Inundation of Waters being sick or in the parts beyond the Seas or so great a one as the Service of the King for if Utlaries in such a case unduly obtained should cause a forfeiture of just and legal Customs and Priviledges any that had a mind to do a mischief to a supposed adversary might as well contrary to the Priviledges of Parliament in the time of Parliament find or make a pretence to Utlaw any of the Members of either of the Houses of Parliament and make that to be as it were a forfeiture of their Priviledges and a justification which they can never make out of the infringing of them and the Parliament-men of the House of Commons might be Utlawed persons which the Law forbids and by tacite and many times undiscerned Utlaries might lose and be deprived of their Priviledges And the parties offending or endeavouring such breaches of Priviledge should not take advantage de son tort of their own wrongs or tortious doings which our Common Law maxime doth abhorr and the Civil Law doth as little like or allow when its Rule is that Nemo commodum consequi debet ex suo delicto no man is to take profit by his offence against the Law For in vain should the Kings Servants be by the Constitution of Clarendon in the Reign of King Henry the second freed from Excommunications or the Ministers or Priests be by the Act of Parliament in the 50th year of the Reign of King Edward the third and the first year of the Reign of King Richard the second exempted from being arrested in the Church or Church-yard if an Utlary which being very antiently used in Criminal matters but not in Civil in Bractons time in the Reign of King Henry the 3d. taught the way and manner of it in Civil should be able to forfeit it or take them away for in and before that Kings Reign Bracton saith Videtur nulla esse Vtlagaria si factum pro quo quis Interrogatus est Civile sit non Criminale pro quo quis vitam amittere non deberet vel membra it seemeth there ought to be no Utlary where the Defendant or party is prosecuted for any Civil matter not Criminal wherein he was not to lose either life or members And very unbecoming the Majesty and Honour of a King it would needs be to have any of his Servants Utlawed and pursued with Process of Utlary whilst they are attending upon him and made to be as the out-cast and reproach of the people and not be able to protect them in their just Rights and Liberties or that any of our Kings Servants should Lupina capita gerere be as men wearing Wolves heads which was the antient mark or note of infamy of such as were Utlawed in Criminal matters instead of honourable Liveries or marks of the Kings Servants in ordinary When in the 6th year of the Reign of King Henry the 4th Roger Oliver the Son of John Oliver being in obsequio Regis in Comitiva Johannis Lardner Capitanei Castri de Oye in partibus Piccardiae pro munitione
course of Law its Process may inform us that the King hath notwithstanding such a power superintendency of Justice inherent in him over all the Courts of Justice high or low in the Kingdome as upon the Sheriffs retorn quod mandavit Ballivo libertatis that he made his Warrant to the Bayliff of such a Liberty to arrest such a Defendant and that the Bayliff nullam sibi dedit responsionem had made him no retorn nor answer he may thereupon by his Justices cause a Writ to be made to the Sheriff commanding him quod non omittat propter aliquam libertatem Ballivi libertatis c. quin capiat that he do not omit to enter into the said Bayliffs liberty and arrest the Defendant and may also when a Defendant is outlawed cause at the instance of the Plaintiff a Capias Vtlegat Writ to be made to take arrest the utlawed person with a non omittas propter aliquam libertatem power and authority to enter into any Liberty under the name of his Attorney General as an Officer intrusted with the making of the said Writs of Capias Vtlegatum and that Offices either granted by the King for term of Life or in Fee or Fee-Tayle are forfeitable by a Misuser or non user by not executing that part of the Kings Justice committed to the care and trust of the Officers thereof And so necessary was the Kings Supreme Authority heretofore esteemed to be in the execution and administration of Justice as in the Case between the Prior of Durham and the Bishop of Durham in the 34th year of the Reign of King Edward the first where amongst other things an information was brought in the Kings-Bench against the Bishop for that he had imprisoned the Kings Officers or Messengers for bringing Writs into his Liberty to the prejudice as he thought thereof and that the Bishop had said that nullam deliberationem de eisdem faceret sed dixit quod ceteros per ipsos castigaret ne de cetero literas Domini Regis infra Episcopatum suum portarent in Lesionem Episcâ—patus ejusdem he would not release them but would chastise them or any other which hereafter should bring any of the Kings Letters or Writs within his Bishoprick to the prejudice of the Liberties thereof And in the entring up and giving the Judgment upon that Information and Plea saith the Record Quia idem Episcopus cum libertatem praedictam a Corona exeuntem Dependentem habeat per factum Regis in hoc minister Domini Regis est ad ea quae ad Regale pertinent infra eandem libertatem loco ipsius Regis modo debito conservanda exequenda Ita quod omnibus singulis ibidem justitiam exhibere ipsi Regi ut Domino suo mandatis parere debeat prout tenetur licet proficua expletia inde provenientia ad usum proprium per factum praedictum percipiatur in regard that when the Bishop had the liberty aforesaid by the Kings Grant or Charter from the Crown and depending thereupon he is in that as a Servant or Minister of the Kings concerning those things which do belong unto the Kings Regality within the Liberty aforesaid to execute and preserve it in a due manner for and on the behalf of the King so as there he is bound to do Justice to all men and to obey the King and his Commands as his Lord and Soveraign although he do by the Kings Grant or Charter take and receive the profit arising and coming thereby Wherein the Judges and Sages of the Law as in those Ancient Times they did not unfrequently in matters of great concernment have given us the reason of their Judgment in these words Cum potestas Regia per totum Regnum tam infra libertates praedictas quam extra se extendant videtur Curiae toti Consilio Domini Regis quod hujusmodi imprisonamenta facta de hiis qui capti fuerunt occasione quod brevia Domini Regis infra libertatem praedictam tulerint simul cum advocatione acceptatione facti Et etiam dictis quae idem Episcopus dixit de Castigatione illorum qui brevia Regis extunc infra libertatem suam portâ—rent manifeste perpetrata fuerunt when as the power and authority of the King doth extend it self through all the Kingdome as well within Liberties as without it seemed to the Court and all the Kings Counsel that such imprisonments made of those which brought the Kings Writs within the Liberty aforesaid the Bishops justifying and avowing of the Fact and the Words which the Bishop said That he would punish all such as should bring any Writs to be executed in his Liberty were plainly proved Et propterea ad inobedientiam exhaereditationem Coronae ad diminutionem Dominii potestatis Regalis Ideo consideratum est quod idem Episcopus libertatem praedictam cujus occasione temerariam sibi assumpsit audacim praedicta gravamina injurias excessus praedictos perpetrandi dicendi toto tempore suo amittat Cum in eo quo quis deliquit sit de Jure puniendus Et eadem libertas Capiatur in manus Domini Regis Et Nihâ—lominus corpus praedicti Episcopi capiatur Wherefore because it tended to disobedience and a disherison of the Crown and diminution of the Kings Power and Authority It was adjudged that the Bishop for his rash presumption and boldness and for committing the aforesaid wrongs and injuries should forfeit his Liberty aforesaid for that every man is to be punished according to the nature of his offence And it was ordered That the Liberty should be seized and taken into the Kings hands and that the Body of the Bishop notwithstanding should be taken into Custody For the Kings Justice to which his Coronation Oath is annexed is inseparable from his Person so fixed to his Diadem and Regal Authority as it is not to be absolutely or any more then conditionally deputed and intrusted to any other or otherwise then with a reserve of the last Appeal and his Superiority and therefore King Edward the first in some of his Writs Commissions or Precepts saith that he but not his Judges was Deâ—itor Justitiae so a Debtor to Justice as not to deny it to any of his People complaining of the want of it and ad nos pertinet the care thereof belongeth to the King and to that end appointed his high Court of Chancery and his Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and required all the Officers Clerks of that Court to take care that pro defectu Justitiae nullus recedat a Cancellaria sine Remedio no man for want of Justice do go away from the Chancery destitute of remedy from whence also lyes an Appeal to the King himself in Parliament and in the Case of Sir William Thorpe Chief Justice of England in the 24th year of the Reign of King Edwardâ— the third being put
not to proceed in matters concerning his own particular without his being first consulted de Attornato languidi recipiendo to admit an Attorney for one that is sick Writs of Aâ—â—aint against Jurors falsly swearing in their Verdicts Writs de Aâ—sisa continuanda to continue the prâ—â—â—â—dings upon an Assise Audita querela to relieve one that is oppressed by some Judgment Statute or Recognisance Writs de Certioraâ—i de tenâ—re Indictamenti to be certified of the Tenor of an Indictment de Vtlagaria of an Utlary de tenore pedis Finis of the Tenor of the Foot of a Fine mittendo tenorem Assise in Evâ—â—entiam to send the Tenor of a Writ of Assise into the Chancery to be from thence transmitted by a Copy for Evidence into the Court of Exchequer Writs quod Justitiarii procedant ad captionem Assise impowring the Justices of Assise to procede in the taking of an Assise and his Commissions frequently granted in some special cases as Dedimus potestatem impowring the Judges or others to take the acknowledgements of Fines with many other kinds of Commissions a posse Comitatus ad vim Laicam amovendam to remove a force where a Parson or Minister is to be inducted into a Church or Benefice Commissions granted ob lites dirimendas to compose contentious suites of Law where the poverty of one of the parties is not able to endure them and the granting of a priviledge by some of our antient Kings to the Bishop and Citizens of new Sarum or Salisbury that the Iudges of Assize or Itinerants should in their circuits hold the Pleas of the Crown at that Town or City which King Edward the first did by his Writ or Mandates allow or cause to be observed and many more which might be here instanced which with the Laws and practice thereof and the reasonable customes of England do every where and abundantly evidence that the King doth not intrust his Courts of Justice or the Judges thereof with all his Regal power and all that with which he is himself invested in his politique capacity or hath so totally conveyed it unto them as to make them thereby the only dispensers of his justice but that the appeal or dernier ressort from all his Courts of Iustice is and resides in the King being the ultimate supreme Magistrate as from the inferiour Courts of Iustice in the Counties or Cities to the Superiour Courts of Iustice at Westminster-hall from the Court of Common-Pleas by Writ of Error to the Court called the Kings-Bench from that Court to the Parliament And as to some matters of Law fit to be tryed by action at Law from the Chancery unto the Kings-Bench or Courts of Common-Pleas or Exchequer reserving the equity when what was done there shall be returned and certified and even from the Parliament it self when Petitions there nepending could not in regard of their important affairs be dispatched to the high Court of Chancery and that appeals are made to the King in his high Court of Chancery from the Admiralty Court when as the process and proceedings are in the Name and under the Seal of the Lord Admiral and from the Prerogative Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury for proving of Wills and granting of Administration when the Process and proceedings are not in the Kings name but in the name and under the Seal of that Arch-bishop So as the Gentlemen of the long Robe who in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr argued against the Kings Prerogative for the just liberties of the people of England in the case of the Habeas Corpora's when they affirmed the meaning of the Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Edward the first where there was an Exception of such not to be Baylable as were committed by the command of the King or of his Justices to be that the Kings command was to be understood of his commands by his Writs or Courts of justice might have remembred that in former times his Authority by word of mouth or in things done in his presence in matters just and legal not contradicting the established rules customes and courses of his Courts of Justice and the power and authority wherewith our Kings have intrusted them was accompted to be as valid if not more than any thing done in his Courts of Justice witness that notable record and pleading aforesaid betwixt the Prior and Bishop of Durham in the 34 th year of the Reign of that by his own and his Fathers troubles largely experienced King Edward the first which was not long after the making of that Statute concerning such as were to be bayled or not to be bayled where it was said and not denyed to be Law quod Ordinatio meaning an award or something acknowledged in the presence of the King in praesentia Regis facta per ipsum Regem affirmata majorem vini habere debet quam finis in Curia sua coram justitiariis suis levatus that any Ordinance or acknowledgment made in the Kings presence and by him affirmed was to be more credited and to have a greater force then a Fine levied before his Justices in his Courts of Justice which may be a good Foundation and Warrant for several agreements and Covenants made betwixt private persons and ratified by the King under his Great Seal of England by inspeximus and confirmations by his allowance and being witness thereunto as that of Rorger Mortimer Lord of Wigmore with Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford for the Honor and Earldome of Oxfâ—rd and the great Estate and Revenueâ—belonging thereunto forfeited by the said Earl in taking part with the Barons against King Henry the third and many others which might be instanced and are plentifully to be found in many Agreements and Covenants made betwixt Abbots and Priors and their Covents and divers of the English Nobility and great men mentioned in Master Dugdales first and second Tomes or Parts of his Monasticon Anglicanum For it was resolved in Easter Term in the fourth year of the raign of Queen Elizabeth by the then Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas the Lord Chief Baron and Whiddon Browne and Corbet Justices Carus the Queens Serjeant and Gerrard her Attorney General upon a question put unto them by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England that in case of Piracy or other the like crimes the Queen might in the intervals or vacancy of a Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England by a necessity of doing Justice without a Commission granted unto others to do it punish such offenders although the Statute made in the 28th year of the raign of King Henry the 8th Ca. 15th doth direct Piracy to be tryed by Commission And it was allowed to be Law in a Case put by King James that where an Affray or Assault was made by any in the Kings presence the King
waiting or attendance ANd submit themselves and those their innovated formerly unheard of cavils and pretences to the power of truth and a conviction of those their great mistakings if they shall but examine the necessity as well as the reason of it for to a Soveraign Prince whose cares are to reach as far as his Monarchy there cannot be in respect of the multitude and various sorts of his daily and ever importuning affairs in the behalf of himself and the Weal-publick a few or small number to be imployed therein if there were neither Honour nor Majesty to be heeded or supported both which by an universal consent Law Custom and usage of Nations approved and subscribed unto by a general consent of the intellect and rational faculties of Mankind should be not only the desire and joy of the people which are to be ruled and governed by them but is a ready means help and stay unto their welfare peace and happiness of which the examples are as many as the ages past and the people and Kingdoms of it When Abraham although sometimes stiled a Prince but was no Soveraign Prince but a Sojourner in the Plain of Mamre had 318. Servants to go to Battel with him against his five Neighbour Kings who had taken and spoiled his Brother Lot David had together with the Princes and Rulers of the Tribes great numbers of Officers and Men of War Officers of his Houshold and Servants therein and over his Estate besides the twelve Captains which as his Guards did in every month of the year by turns and courses attend him and the safety of his person with four and twenty thousand fighting men Solomon his Son had twelve great Officers in their severally appointed Provinces to provide Victuals for the King and his Houshold by courses each man for his month and made the Children of Israel to be his men of War and his Servants and his Princes and his Captains and Rulers of his Chariots and his Horsemen had a thousand and four hundred Chariots and twelve thousand Horsemen which declared the number of his Servants not to be small petit or inconsiderable and were so well ordered as the Queen of Sheba with a great train coming from far to see his Glory and his Court when she did behold the meat of his Table the standing of his Servants as the Margin notes it the attendance of his Ministers and their Apparel and his Cup-bearers suffered under a Deliquium and failing of her spirit when he had such a state and magnificence to accompany his Regal power and so great a number of Servants to furnish out the glory and honour of his house and person Ahasuerus had seven Chamberlains as Solomon had more then one Cup-bearer and Esther had seven Maidens allowed to her The Western and Eastern divided Empires of Romes vastly extended Conquests glorying in their magnificence had to adorn the honour and state of their Emperors in their Houses and Palaces busied with multitudes of Civil affairs their Scholaes and Offices daily and hourly conversant in the attendance of their Persons Houshold or Civil imployments in every one of which although Alexander Severus the Emperor did lessen and contract them and ordained ut essent tâ—t homines in singulis Officiis quot necessitas postularet that there might be in every Office or imployment so many Servants as necessity required there wree of one and the same sort several ranks and orders amounting to as great a number as the Imperial port state and imployments might require and could not be small when they kept as we say open houses to â—eed or refresh those great numbers which came either to honour or petition their Princes had so many several Governours Procurators and Servants and so many several Houses and Palaces in their many Kingdoms and Provinces and sometimes made and set out so many Epulae and publick Feasts and many thousand Tables of them at one time to entertain comfort or please the people and to any that shall read the elaborate and learned Comment of Cuiacius upon the 10th 11th and 12th Codes or Books of Justinian Pancirollus notitia utriusque Imperii and the laborious and learned Book of Jacobus Gutherius of the various Offices and kinds of Services as well private as publick in the Houses and Palaces of the antient Emperors will not appear to be much if at all supernumerary Charlemaigne the Great King of France and Emperor of Rome as Hinckmarus Archbishop of Remes writeth who in the latter end of his Reign lived and was bred up in his Court had his several Servants and took a more then ordinary care pro honestate Palatii Regaâ—i Ornamento for the honour of his House or Palace and his Royal Ornaments singulis quibusque quotidianis necessitatibus occurrentibus every one in their station performing their several Offices and the Constitution of his house so laudable as multitudo congrua sine quâ— rationabiliter honeste esse non possit such a competent number or multitude was necessary in regard that otherwise the business of the Houshold or Palace could not be rationally or honourably done and care was to be taken ut semper esset ornatum Palatium Consiliariis condignis nunquam destitutum esset that the honour of the Kings house might be preserved and never want the advice and help of worthy Assistants and where he speaks of the number of Huntsmen and Falconers and their constant attendance within or without the Court saith Sensus in his omnibus talis erat ut nunquam Palatio tales vel tanti deessent ministri that the meaning was that there should never want such or the like Servants And imparts to us a further reason of such a number of Servants attending the Courts of Princes in those heroick times ut ex quacunque parte totius regni quicunque desolatus orbatus alieno aere oppressus injusta calumnia cujusque suffocatus seu caetera his similia maxime tamen de Viduis Orphanis unuscujusque secundum suam indigentiam vel qualitatem Dominorum vero misericordiam pietatem semper ad manum haberet per quem singuli ad pias aures Principis perferre potuissent that from all parts of the Kingdom whoever was distressed afflicted endebted or unjustly accused or the like especially Widdows and Orphans might according to their several necessities and qualities have some at hand to procure the mercy and piety of their Lords or Masters whereby every ones Petition or Complaint might come unto the gracious ears of the Prince King Aelfred or Alured who reigned here in the year of Christ 856. had in his Court a great and Princely attendance of Bishops Earls and Nobility Knights and Esquires and three Troops of Souldiers for the Guards of his Palace as if he had an intention somewhat to imitate David the King of Israel and Juda tanquam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Anno 1630. Herbert Croft Batchelor of Divinity now Bishop of Hereford and did not refuse divers of the Sons of the Nobility who sought to partake of the honour of access unto his Majesty and the more select rooms of State in his Court which in that of the Kings of Spain is not thought fit to be communicated but to some of their especial Attendants to be sworn Gentlemen Extraordinary of his Privy-Chamber as in the year 1631. the Lord Matravers eldest Son to Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey and Sir William Howard Knight of the Bath now Viscount Stafford his Brother and in the year 1638. the Earl of Kildare the first Earl of Ireland who could not be blamed for their inclinations or tendency to the center of Honour when as long before the Conquest or fatal period of our Saxon Ancestors King Alfred had many of the Sons of the Nobility educated and brought up in his Court and that noble and well becoming custom received and met with in many ages after so great an encouragement as the young Lords or Nobility had a constant Table or dyet in the Court untill in the Reign of King Edward the 6th the perswasions of a needless and unhappy parsimony did put an end to that part of the Royal munificence which King Henry the 3d. in some hundred years before would not in his greatest wants of daily necessaries occasioned by some of his unruly Barons when he took such relief as some Abbeys would afford him quit that part of the honour of his Court or Houshold nor did our late King of blessed memory deny the like honour of his Privy-Chamber to divers Gentlemen of note or great esteem in their Countries as Sir Arthur Capel Knight aâ—terwards Lord Capel that heroick and loyal Martyr for his King and the Fifth Commandment of his Heavenly King charged upon all Mankind in the Decalogue Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Son of Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings-Bench or Sir Thomas Roe Knight a learned and well experienced Embassador to the Mogor or Mogull that great Prince in the East-Indies and to several States and Kingdoms in Christendom Sir Fulk Hunkes Knight and Sir Ferdinando Knightley Knight two well experienced Commanders in the English Regiments in the Netherlands or United Provinces Sir Edward Dearing Knight one of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament in the year 1641. and unto Sir William Waller Knight who afterwards bitterly repented the vain-glory of being a Conqueror of some of his Soveraigns Forces endeavouring to defend him and their Laws and Liberties in the late Rebellion and to some others who could afterwards stain their formerly more loyal Families in that horrid Rebellion and imploy their time and Estates against their King which had â—o much honoured them or to admit into his service as a Servant Extraordinary Edmond Cooper a Drummer John Houghton a Chirurgeon or some excellent Picture-drawer as the famous Sir Anthony van Dike or some Foreign curious Engineer Gunsmith or other excelling Artificers who without some such encouragements would not have benefited our Nation with their skill and residence and was in that Prince of blessed memory and will be in our gracious Soveraign no less allowable than iâ— was in King David to take into his Family as an Extraordinary when his affection and gratitude prompted him unto it Chimham the son of the good old Barzillai when many of the Yeomanry of England have besides their Servants in ordinary some that are as extraordinary and work a great part of the year with them And the Nobility and Gentry of England sincâ— their restraint of giving Liveries by several Acts of Parliament to prevent the too freequent use of that in making of parties and factions in one of which viz. that of the first and second year of the Reign of King Henry the 4th cap. 21. it is provided as hath been mentioned That the King may give his Honourable Livery to his menial Knights and Esquires and also to his Knights and Esquires of his retinue who are not to use it in their Counties but in the Kings presence and the Prince and the Nobility coming unto the Court and returning from thence were specially excepted are not at this day debarred the moderate use of Liveries or some as extraordinary Servants to be imployed upon several occasions to retain unto them as the Lord Mayor of London is not without the attendance of Livery-men of the Companies or Fraternities of Trade or such as he shall select out of them in some grand Solemnities as the meeting or welcoming of the King to his City or Chamber of London at his return from a Progress or from Scotland to conduct into the City a Russian or Persian Embassador and it hath been ever accounted to be a Royal or honourable way of Espargne to have some to be extraordinary Servants without the charge of Bouche of Court or annual salaries to be alwayes in readiness at grand festivals or occasions and those Citizens of London and men of the Mysteries of gain and Trade who have aggrandized their Credits and Estates by the Sun-shine and warmth of the residence of the King and his Courts of Justice can when a little before they could busie themselves in needless murmurs and complaints against the Priviledges of the Kings Servants in ordinary and extraordinary think themselves to be no mean men in their Parishes and Companies if they can procure the favour to be admitted the Kings Servants extraordinary as he shall have occasion to be cozened in such Manufactures or Wares as their Trades afford in so much as it is become the preferment and ambition of one of every Trade great or little some few only excepted in the City of London to be entituled to be the Kings Servant as the Kings Grocer Brewer Apothecary Mercer Draper Silk-man Taylor Printer Stationer Bookseller Girdler a Trade now altogether disused Shoomaker Spurrier c. and are well contented to enjoy all the Priviledges appertaining to the Kings Servants as not to bear Offices in their Parishes or Custard-cram'd Companies and not to be arrested without licence And their Wives swelling into a tympany of Pride will be apt enough to think their former place and reputation too far beneath them and not let their Husbands purse have any rest or quiet untill they can be fine enough to go to the Court and see the Lords and Ladies their Husbands fellow Servants And they which cannot attain to that honour to be such a Servant of the Kings extraordinary for they cannot be truly said to be any thing more than the Kings Servants extraordinary when as he as to many of them hath no daily or but a seldom and occasional use of them and where he hath most it is not constantly or often do think it to be worth the utmost of their endeavours to obtain the honour and priviledge of being the Queens
Tradesmen or Servants extraordinary And therefore the King having fewer Servants or Officers in ordinary than the Kings of France his Neighbours used to have who besides their numerous Guard have four Kings at Armes eight Masters of Request deux Maistres d'Hostel two Masters of the Houshold thirteen Pages of Honour and two hundred Gentlemen Pensioners c. and a far lesser number than many of his Royal Progenitors should not now be thought to have too many because he hath some extraordinary And although it is not hard or difficult to believe but that heretofore the Common people of England were sometimes troubled at the unruliness and misdoings of the Purveyors which were afterwards well prevented in the Reign of Q. Elizabeth by a Composition made with the several Counties what proportions of Provisions the City of London and every County should by equal charge and collection pay and deliver towards the support and maintenance of the Provision for the Kings Houshold yet notwithstanding they did in their duty and reverence unto the King and respect unto his Servants not think it reasonable or comely to arrest or trouble his Purveyors or Servants by any Arrest or Actions without asking his leave or licence But where they had any grievance by his Officers and Servants and the Laws in force would have given them their Actions and remedies were so unwilling to make use of those ordinary helps which the Laws were at all times ready to afford them as they would rather trouble the Commons in Parliament to petition in their behalf for a redress therein who could not but understand that where an Act of Parliament gives remedies either against the Kings Servants Barons Bishops or others it is to be more aut cursu solito in such wayes and manner if no other in particular be prescribed as the Laws and reasonable Customs of England will allow and not otherwise A prospect whereof and of our Kings of Englands care to protect their Servants in their Liberties and Priviledges as well as to do Justice unto the rest of their Subjects complaining of them in Parliament needs not be far to seek to those that will but retrospect and enquire into the ages past CHAP. XII That the Subjects of England had heretofore such a regard of the King and his Servants as not to bring or commence their Actions where the Law allowed them against such of his Servants which had grieved or injured them without a remedy first petitioned for in Parliament WHen in the 13th year of the Reign of King Edward the third the Commons petitioning the King in Parliament which they needed not to have done when the Law would have given them remedy without the trouble of petitioning the King in Parliament and they might by the Statute made in the 28th year of King Edward the first have pursued them as Felons That all Purveyors as well with Commission as without might be arrested if they make not present pay All that was answered unto it as if there were altogether an unwillingness to expose them to Arrests and with which the Commons seemed to be satisfied was That the Commissioners of Sir William Healingford and all other Commissioners for Purveyance for the King be utterly void In the 20th year of that Kings Reign the Commons in Parliament petitioning That payment be made for the last taking of Victuals The Kings answer was That order should be taken therein In the same year the Commons in Parliament petitioning the King That Purveyors not taking the Constables with them according to the Statutes of Westminster might be taken as Thieves and that the Judges of Assise or Justices of the Peace might enquire of the same The King only answered That the Statutes made should be observed In the 21th year of the said Kings Reign the Commons in Parliament not thinking it fitting that the Purveyors who did them wrong should be instantly laid hold of or troubled with Suits or Actions or the King and Queens Horses impounded which would be a less affront to Majesty than the arresting of his Servants did only petition That whereas the King and Queens Horses being carried from place to place in some Counties had Purveyance of Hay and Oats c. made for them That the said Horses might abide in some certain place of the Country and provision made for them there in convenient times of the year by agreement with the Owners of those Goods and that inquiry might be made of the ill behaviour of those Takers before that time and that by Commissions the Plaintiff or party grieved in that kind as well of wrongs heretofore done or hereafter to be done might have redress therein To which the King answered That he was well pleased that the Ordinances already made should be kept and Purveyance made for his best profit and ease of his people And in the same year the Commons having complained That whereas the King and his Councell had assented that Men and Horses of the Kings Houshold should not be Harbinged but by Bill of the Marshal of the House delivered to the Constable who should cause them to have good sustenance for themselves and their Horses as should be meet and before their departures should pay the parties of whom the Victuals were taken and if they did not their Horses should be arrested and that contrary thereunto they departed without payment when it seems they used so much civility to the Horses as not to arrest them did only pray that in every Bill mention be made of the number of Horses that no more but one Garson be allowed and that payment according to the Statute might be made from day to day Whereunto the King answered That that Article should be kept in all points according to the form of the Statute In the 28th year of the Reign of that King by an Act of Parliament not printed when it was enacted That no Purveyor arrested for any misdemeanor should have any Privy Seal to cause such as arrested him to come before the Councell to answer to the King when it seems the King and his Councell were unwilling to put the Kings Servants under the command of every mans pretended Action but the party grieved might have his remedy by the Common Law the utmost extent of that Statute did not include any other of the Kings Servants then his Purveyors And did so little disrelish Protections and the just grounds and reason thereof as in the 45th year of the Reign of King Edward the third the Commons in Parliament petitioned the King That such as remained upon the Sea-Coasts by the Kings commandment might have protection with the Clausa volumus which the King supposing to be too general or at that time unnecessary answered That the same would be to the apparent loss of the Commons In the 46th year of the Reign of that King the Commons petitioning the King in Parliament That whereas it was
of King Henry the sixth the Commons in Parliament were so unwilling that their own concernments should hinder any of the Kings affairs as they did petition him That John Lord Talbot purposing to serve the King in his Warrs in France a Protection with the Clausa volumus might be granted unto him for a year and that by Parliament it might be ordained that it it be without the exception of Novel disseisin and to be put under the Great Seal of England with other Immunities whilst he be so in the Kings service which the King granted Provided that the said John Lord Talbot and Margaret his Wife Edward Earl of Dorset and others named should not enter upon any Lands whereof James Lord Barkly and Sir William Barkley his son were seised the first day of that Parliament or bring any Action concerning the same And so little desired the heretofore too powerfull Clergie of England to extend their power where they legally and inoffensively might do it CHAP. XIII That the Clergy of England in the height of their Pride and Superlative Priviledges Encouragements and Protection by the Papal over-grown Authority did in many cases lay aside their Thunderbolts and power of Excommunications appeals to the Pope and obtaining his Interdictions of Kingdomes Churches and Parishes and take the milder modest and more reverential way of petitioning our Kings in Parliaments rather than turn the rigors of their Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws or of the Laws of England against any of the Kings Officers or Servants AS they did in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third although by the Statute made in the 28th year of the Reign of King Edward the first making some Actions and Injuries which they then complained of to be Felony they might without their petitioning in Parliament have had ample and easie remedies petition the King in Parliament against some grievances and oppressions done by some of the Kings Servants to people of holy Church by his Purveyors and Servants amongst which were the abuses done by his Purveyors in taking the Corn Hay Beasts Carriage and other goods of the Arch-bishops Bishops Parsons and Vicars without the agreement and good will of the Owners and did thereupon obtain the Kings Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England which in the Parliament Roll is called a Statute and is as an Act of Parliament printed among the Acts of Parliament did declare That he took them and their possessions into the especial Protection of him and his Heirs and Successors and that they should not be any more so charged nor to receive into their houses Guests nor Sojourners of Scotland nor of other Countreys nor the Horses nor Dogs Faulcons nor other Hawks of the Kings or others against their will saving to the King the services due of right from them which owe to the King the same services to sustain and receive Dogs Horses or Hawks In a Parliamant in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the second although divers Laws in force had provided them remedies of course which needed no petitioning they did petition the King That they were upon every temporal suggestion arrestâ—d into the Marshalsea and paid for their discharge 6 s. 8 d. where a Layman payeth only 4 s. unto which the King did answer Let the party grieved complain to the Steward of the household and they shall have remedy And did in that but follow the patterns of Loyalty Prudence and self preservation cut out and left unto all true hearted Englishmen by their worthy and pious Ancestors and Predecessors who when the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which obliged all the Nobility and many thousands of the best part of the Gentry to follow their Prince to his Warrs abroad or defend him and his honour at home did in their duty to him and the care of their own estates and concernments with their numerous well-wishing and dutifull Tenants attending them follow him into the Warrs and Voyages Royal and remained there by the space of forty dayes at their own charges and afterwards as long as they lasted at the the Kings which must needs be a great obstruction to many mens Action or the recovery of their Debts or Rights and much better understand that universal Axiom and Rule of the Laws of Nature Necessity and Nations then the late ill advised Lord Mayor and some Citizens of London did who in the late dreadfull fire in the year of our Lord 1666. did to save the pulling down of a few houses to prevent the fury of a most dire and dismal fire and not a seventh part of their goods did see but too late the necessity of pulling down some houses and when they might have endeavoured it would allow it to be warrantable by the Lord Mayors order but not the Kings and in that fond dispute and his Timidity most imprudently suffer and give way to the burning down of many thousand houses and converting into ashes almost all that once great and flourishing City that privata cedere debent publicis every mans private affairs were to be laid aside and give place to the publick being the best way of self preservation And did not as they would do now rush upon Arrest or Imprison either the Kings Servants or such as were imployed by him or unto whom he had granted his Writs of Protection without asking leave of him but with a modesty and reverence becoming Subjects plicate him for a Revocation or if they did not or could not purchase it that way did sometimes become Petitioners in Parliament for some regulations in Protections granted upon some special and temporary imployments to such as were not his Servants in ordinary not for a total abolition or to take away that part of the Kings Prerogative in order to the Government and their own well being the answers whereunto shewed as much care in the King and his Councel as might be to give them content and satisfaction and at the same time not to depart from or lessen the Rights of the Crown more than was meerly necessary or in grace or savour for that particular time occasion or grievance to be granted or remitted unto them And no less carefull were the Judges in former ages in their delegated Courts and proceedings in Justice to pay their respects to the service of the King and likewise to his Servants or any other imployed therein CHAP. XIV That the Judges in former times did in their Courts and proceedings of Law and Justice manifest their unwillingness to give or permit any obstruction to the service of the King and Weal Publique WHen Bracton declares the Laws and Usage of the Kingdome to be in the Reign of King Henry the third and King Edward the first that Warrantizatur Essonium multipliciter quandoque per breve Domini Regis ubi non est necessitas jurare cum Dominus Rex hoc testatur per literas suas quod
the Martyr the drawing aside of the curtain of State and the dispute of the Kings power of committing any one for contempts against him or his Authority which every Justice of Peace and Master of a Company of Trade in London can be allowed to do by the peoples misunderstanding of the Arcana Imperii secrets of State and necessary rules of government an unhappy fancy and spirit of opposition so intoxicated many of them as they have believed it to be law and right reason that if the King will not so soon as they would have him give leave to Arrest any of his Servants the Law and his Courts of Justice are to do it that if the King should by such a way of prosecution be inconvenienced by the want of their service it is by his own default in making so ill a choice of men indebted to attend him or if they being so Arrested cannot perform their duty he is to provide such as may better do it and if the King should cause any to be committed that had Arrested any of his Servants without licence they were upon his Habâ—as Corpus to be bayled by the Judges of some of the Courts of Law at Westminster and left at liberty to go to Law with him if they could tell how or to incourage as many as would follow that evil example to misuse his Royal Prerogative which without any stretching or dilating of it to the very confines or uâ—most bounds of its regal Jurisdiction is legally warranted by the design and reason of publique good the preservation of every mans estate and property and the good at one time or in something or other of him that thinks himself the most delayed or injured in his humour or expectation for it ought to be every where reason and so acknowledged that as long as there is a King and Supreme Governour who is to take care of the universality of the people subjected born or protected under his government he is not to want the means wherewith to do it and that in order thereunto his service must needs be acknowledged to be for publique good and the exemptions and privileges belonging thereunto no less than a Salus populi the great concernment of the peoples peace protection welfare and happiness and should be the Suprema Lex that great Law in and by which the means of goveâ—nment and the Royal Prerogative was and is founded and established and that such a cause built and sustained by the rules of right reason and justice ought to be every where reason and justly entituled to that Axiom manente causa non tollitur effectus the cause alwayes remaining constant and unalterable the effects and operation naturally from thence arising are necessarily to follow and be allowed and that the cause of priviledge claimed by our Kings the cause and fountain of all exemptions and priviledges so largely given to many of their people should not in the case of their own Servants have its course or passage stopt or diverted When from that Spring and those causes which have fertilized and gladded the Vallies of our Israel have sprung and arisen those necessary priviledges which the Nobility Peers and Baronage of England have antiently enjoyed in their personal freedome from Arrests or Imprisonment of their bodies in Civil Actions Pleas or Controversies and from Common Process or any Utlaryes which might trouble them or their high Estates not only for the reason given in the 11th year of the Reign of King Henry the fourth by Hull or Hulls that in Actions of Debt or Trespass a Capias will not lye against an Earl or any of like Estate because it is to be intended that they have Assets and a great Estate in Lands whereby they may be summoned and brought to answer or as many misled by that opinion do and would yet understand it But principally CHAP. XV. That the Dukes Marquesses Count Palatines Earls Viscounts and Barons of England and the Bishops as Barons have and do enjoy their privileges and freedome from Arrests or imprisonment of their bodies in Civil and Personal Actions as Servants extraordinary and Attendants upon the Person State and Majesty of the King in order to his Government Weal Publick and Safety of him and his people and not only as Peers abstracted from other of the Kings Ministers or Servants in Ordinary IN regard of their service to their Prince and a not seldome personal attendance upon him and the honour and dignities thereunto allowed and appertaining to those Illustrious and high born Dukes Marquesses Earls Peers and Nobility who are accounted to be as extraordinary Servants not as the word Extraordinary hath been of late times misused by applying it unto those who were but quasi Servi scarcely Servants or but listed and put into the Rolls of the Kings Servants when they are neither known to him or ever were or intended to be in his actual Service and honourable Attendants of their Prince as well in times of Peace as emergencies of War and as Generals or Commanders of their Armies in times of War and therefore the Emperour Justinian in his Letter or Epistle to Narses a great General or Commander of his Army mentions Aulus Anduatius C. Tubero to be sub Narsetis Ducatu as Souldiers under the conduct of Narses making the word Ducatus which in after ages only signifyed and was applyed to a Dukedom then to denotate no more than an Army or Command only of it And the Latine word Dux since used for Duke was as Sir Henry Spelman well observeth antiently nomen officiale a name of Office or Dux delegatus vel praefectus exercitus postea feudale by reason of the Lands which were annexed to its honour by reason of that service afterwards honorarium meerly Titular or honoured with that Title in being heretofore his Chieftaine or Leader of an Army And so were the Marquesses in those antient times who were as Capitanei Generals or great Commanders in the Empire or kingdome and were as to that by reason of their honorary possessions partakers in some sort of the Royal Dignity Whereby to defend the Frontiers the Title and Military Office thereof being about the year 1008. after the Incarnation of our blessed Saviour by the Emperour Henry sirnamed Auceps of the house of Saxony instituted to defend some of the Frontiers of Germany against the Incursions of the Hungarians was so little known or respected in England about the Reign of King Richard the second as he having created Robert de Vere Earl of Oxford Marquess of Dublin in Ireland and afterwards in the 21th year of his Reign John Beaufort Earl of Somerset Marquess of Dorset which dignity being afterwards taken from him by the tempest and change of those times in the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the fourth and the Commons in Parliament in the fourth year of that Kings Reign petitioning that he might be
Officiate under them as their Deputies believed their Heirs and Lands to be blessed in the continuance and enjoyments of such Offices as might but sometimes bring them into the notice and affairs of the Prince and Emperours as the Baron of Papenheim in Germany and his Heirs to be Sub-Marshall to the Duke and Elector of Saxony the Baron of Limpurgh Vice-Butler to the King of Bohemia and the Baron of Falkenstem Vice-Chamberlain to the Elector of Brandenburgh who hath also an hereditary Marshall and the Electors of Mentz Colen and Triers the like and Christophorus Leisserus a Baron was Culinae Magister at the Coronation of the Emperour Mathias in Anno Domini 1612. The Viscounts a Title no longer ago than the Reign of King Henry the sixth as our great Selden saith turned into a Dignity Titular or Peerage being formerly and long after the Conquest but the Deputies of the Earls in their several Counties for the Administration of Justice with which the Earls were entrusted since câ—ntra distincts to the Title or Honour of Viscount and but a Sheriff or Officer of the Kings for the execution of Justice and so well liked of before that new Title of Viscounts was brought in betwixt the Earls and Barons of England as Hubert de Burgo afterwards Earl of Kent was in the Reign of King John not only Chamberlain to the King but at one and the same time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and the noble and antient Family of Cliffords accompted it as a favour of the Crown to be hereditary Sheriffs or Ministers of Justice in the County of Westmerland where they had Lands Baronies and honourable Possessions and having afterwards a greater honour by the Earldome of Cumberland conferred upon them disdained not to let the one accompany the other in the service of their Prince The Barons whether as the Judicious and Learned Sir Henry Spelman informs us they be feudall as gaining their honours by their Lands and Baronies given them to that purpose which in our Records and antient Charters are not seldome mentioned by the name of Honours as the Honours of Abergavenny Dudley c. or by Writs summoned to Parliament or by Patents created only into that Titular Honour either of which made a Tenure in Capite for otherwise they could not sit and enjoy their Peerage in Parliament the Kings greatest Councel are and antiently were accompted to be in their several Orbes Robur Belli the strength and power of Warr and as Barones or Vassalli Capitales men of greater estate or note than ordinary and were as the old Barones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Barangi wbo did with their Battel-Axes attend the Emperours of the East in their Courts or Palaces as their Guard sometimes on Foot and at othertimes on Horse-back and were as Codinus saith reckoned inter Honoratiores Officiales the most honourable Offices of the Court attending near the Emperours either at their Meat or Chappel or publick Addresses and in the Kingdome of Bohemia which is now no more than elective and where there are neither Dukes nor Marquesses and but few Earls the Title of Baron is of so high an esteem and the Barons of that Kingdome so jealous of any thing which might diminish it as when a Duke who is a Stranger comes to be there naturalized they do first oblige him to quit or renounce the using of his Title of Duke there and to content himself only with the Title of a Baron of Bohemia and saith Sir Henry Spelman sub Baronis appellatione recte veniunt our Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts are comprehended under the name of Baron Cum vel maximus as the experience and practice of our Laws and Kingdome will evidence principis sit Vassallus when the greatest of them is but a Liege-man and Vassâ—l of the King eique tenentur homagii vinculo seu potius Baronagii hoc est de agendo vel essendo Barone suo quod hominem seu Clientem praestantiorem significat and is by the Bond of his homage or Baronage to do all things as his Baron which signifieth to be his Liege-man and more extraordinary Subject holding his Lands of him upon those beneficiary gainful honourable conditions and depending upon him and his Patronage it being to be remembred that those honorary possessions and the owners thereof did by that dependency well deserve that encomium and observation which John Gower made of them about the Reign of King Richard the second that The Privilege of â—egalie was safe and all the Barony worshipt was in his Estate And it is well known that our antient Kings in all their Rescripts Grants or Charters unto Abbyes or any other of their people directed them Archiepiscopis Episcopis Comitibus Justiciariis Baronibus Vicecomitibus Ministris suis to their Arch-bishops Bishops Earls Barons Justices and Sheriffs and other their Ministers the word Ministris being in the language of the times not only since but before the Conquest not infrequently appropriate to the Kings houshold Servants as the Charters and Subscriptions of witnesses of many of our elder Kings will abundantly evidence and the Barones Majores stiled by our Kings not unfrequently in many of their Charters Barones suos Barones nostros Barones Regios their Barons and the Kings Barons as William de Percy and many other have been called though by such Charters they could be no more concerned in it than to be Assistant in the performance and obedience of the Royal Mandates and in many Acts of Parliament have been stiled the Kings Nobles or Nobility the Deâ—neâ— Thanes or Nobility saith the eminently and universally learned Selden denoting a Servant or Minister was as well before as sometimes since the Norman Conquest Officiary Personal and Honorary and the Possessions of the Thanes from whence our Barons and Baronies were derived were held by the Service of Personal Attendance Et certissimum est saith that great and eminent Antiquary Sir Henry Spelman that Barones Majores the greater Barons which hold of the King in Capiti Judiciis praefuere Aulae Regiae did usually sit and determine causes or controversies in the Kings Court or Palace as the Barons of the Coife in the Exchequer who were heretofore Earls and Barons of England do at this day in Westminster Hall judge and determine of matters concerning the Kings Revenues And as the Lords of Mannors in their Court Barons do admit none to be Judges in those little Courts but their Tenants who are Freeholders and which do immediately hold of them are stiled and said to be of the Homage and do subserviently manage and order their Affairs therein as very antiently they did consilio prudentum hominum militum suorum by their presentments and judgements so not much differing from the Laws and Customs of the Germans where by the Court of Peers are understood causarum Feudalium Judices
a Caesare constituti qui sine provocatione cognoscebant the Judges appointed by the Emperour to hear and determine without appeal matters concerning their Lands and Territories in the House of Peers in Parliament being the highest Court of the Kingdome of England none were there admitted or did administer Justice nisi qui proximi essent a Rege ipsique arctioris fidei homagii vinculo conjuncti but such as were near unto the King held of him in Capite and were therefore called Capitanei Regni as Sir Henry Spelman saith Captains of the Kingdome and Peers being obliged and bound unto him by Homage and Fealty that highest and most honourable Court of the Kingdome wherein the Judicative Power of Parliament under the King their Head and Chief resides for the lower house or Representative of the Commons are but as a Court of grand Enquest to exhibit the grievances of the Nation and the People who did choose them to represent them as their Procurators give their consent to the raising of moneys for publick occasions and benefit and the making of good Laws intended to be obeyed by them being constituted by the King their Head and Soveraign the Prince or Heir apparent Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons Arch-bishops Bishops and some of the greater Abbots and Pryors holding their Lands and Possessions of the King in Capite until they were dissolved the Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Councel Lord Treasurer Lord Privy Seal Lord Admiral Lord Chamberlain of England and of the Houshold Grand Master or Steward of the Kings house and the Kings Chief Secretary though no Barons assisted by the Learned and Reverend Judges of the Law and Courts of Justice at Westminster Hall who have no vote Masters of Chancery Clark of the Crown and Clark of that more Eminent part of the Parliament sitting in their several and distinct places according to their qualities and degrees upon benches or woolsacks covered with red cloth before the Kings Throne or Chair of Estate attended by the Kings Senior Gentleman Usher of the Presence Chamber called the black Rod to whom for or by reason of his attendance upon that honourable Assembly is and hath been antiently allowed annexed for his better support the little Park of Windsor with an house or lodge thereunto belonging of a good yearly value Serjeants at Arms Clarks of that higher house of Parliament as the members reverencing taking care for their Head and Soveraign the Only under God Protector of themselves and all their worldly concernments laws and liberties in which high and honourable Assembly the Archbishops and Bishops do enjoy the priviledge and honour of being present by reason of their Baronies which howsoever given in Frank Almoigne and as Elemosinary are holden in capite debent interesse judiciis curiae regis cum Baronibus are not to be absent saith the constitution or Act of Parliament made at Clarendon by K. Henry the second and that honourable Tenure being Servitium Militare a tye of duty and service to them as well as to the other Baronage any neglect therein was so penal unto them as the Lords in Parliament saith William Fitz Stephen cited by the learned Selden did in the Reign of King Henry the Second notwithstanding that Arch-bishops plea and defence wherefore he did not come to that great Councel or Parliament when he was commanded condemn the Ruffling and domineering Arch-bishop Tho. Becket in a great sum of money the forfeiture of all his moveable goods and to be at the Kings mercy guilty of high Treason for not coming to that high Court when he was cited and the reason given of that judgement for that ex reverentia Regiae Majestatis ex astrictione ligii homagii quod Domino Regi fecerat ex fidelitate observantia terreni honoris quemei Juraverat for that in the reverence and respect which he ought to have shewed to the Majesty of the King and by his homage made unto him and his Oath of Fealty sworn to observe and defend his Honour he ought to have come but did not and a Fine was afterwards likewise obout the Reign of King Edward the second imposed upon the Lord Bello-monte or Beaumont for not attending when he was summoned ad Consulendum Regi to give the King his Advice or Councel And certainly those great and many singular privileges and immunities given by our Kings the Fountains and Establishers of honours and the Offices and Imployments about their Sacred Persons appurtenant unto that noble and very Antient Degree and Titles of Episcopacy may easily invite the order of Bishops not to think it to be a disparagement to their Hierarchy when the dignity Royal of our Kings do as the Roman Emperours since the time of Constantine the Great necessarily require by turns or sometimes in every year the attendance of the Bishops in their Courts or Palaces and they are to be a la Suite du Roy pour honorer sa Majeste to be near the King for the honour of his Majesty when the King is the Guardian and Head of the Church and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury his Apocrisiarius which was an antient Office and Title of the Bishops afterwards appropriate to the Arch-bishop or Metropolitan who was in Palatio pro Ecclesiasticis negotiis excubare to oversee and take care of the Affairs of the Church in the Kings Court or Palace Capellanus Regis dictus omnibus praefuit negotiis ministris ecclesiae was stiled the Kings Chaplain presided and was under the King superintendent as to Ecclesiastical Affairs over all the business and Ministers of the Church and Chappel and in those things quae ad divinum Cultum in principiâ— aula pertinent precipua semper fuit cura atque sollicitudo Archiepiscopi which appertained to Gods worship in the Kings Palace the chief care and business thereof in the duties of Religion and holy Rites belongeth unto him and is in that particular but as the Kings special Chaplain not as Mathew Parker a learned and worthy Archbishop of that See in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when the Papal inflations were out of fashion would make the reason of those privileges to be because the Kings and Queens of Enggland were ejus speciales atque domesticos Parochianos his more especial Parishioners and the whole Kingdome howsoever divided into distinct Diocesses was but as one Parish though he could not be ignorant that the Arch-bishop of York and his Suffragan Bishops in one and the same Kingdome were none of his Parish nor was as Doctor Peter Heylin a right learned and dutiful Son of the Church of England by antient privilege of the See of Canterbury supposeth him to be Ordinary of the Court of his Majesties houshold being reckoned to be his Parishioners or of his Peculiar wheresoever the same shall be the Chancellor
or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England being by special privilege Visitor of all the Kings Chappels For the Kings Chappel and the Prelate of the Honourable Order of the Garter Dean and Sub-dean of the Chappel and all other Officers of that religious and excellently ordered Oratory being as a part of the Kings most Honorable Household when the extravagant and superaboundant power of the English Clergy by the Papal influency which had almost overspread and covered the Kingdome assisted many times by the Popes Italian or English Legates a latere such as were Ottobon and some Arch-bishops of Canterbury was in its Zenith or at the highest and sate as Jupiter the false God of the Heathens with his Triâ—â—lce or Thunder-bolts were not nor are at this day although the Doctrine and Rights therein are of no small importance to the Religion and Exercises thereof in the Kingdome subjected to the Visitation of any Bishops or Arch-bishops but of the King who as Sir Edward Coke also acknowledgeth is their only Ordinary And were heretofore so exempt from either the Popes or any Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction as King Johâ— did in the first year of his Raigne grant to Walter Biâ—starr for his service done Serjeantiam in Capella sua scilicet illâ—m quam Martinus de Capella tenuit tempere Henrici Regis patris sui praeterea medietatem Caparum Episcopalium Habendum tenendum de se Heredibus suis cum omnibus ad predictam Serjeantiam pertin the Serjeanty in his Chappel which Martin de Capella held in the time of his Father King Henry And also the Moiety of the Bishops Capes or Copes used therein to have and to hold together with the said Serjeanty of him and his Heirs And when all the Bishops of England which have been Chancellors or Keepers of the great Seal Chief Justices of England or Treasurer as some of them have been might understand that their more immediate service of the King brought them an accession of honour and were then in a threefold capacity First as the Servants and Ministers of the King Secondly as Bishops and Barons the duty whereof King Henry the 3 d. did so well understand as in the 48 th year of his Raigne travelling by Herefordshire into Wales and finding the Bishop of Hereford absent and many of that Clergy not resident he sent his Writ unto him commanding him to take more care of his Clergies residence and threatned otherwise to seize and take into his hands his Temporalties Et omnia quae ad Baroniam ipsius Ecclesiae pertinent and all other things which to the Barony of his Church or Bishoprick belonged And Thirdly as great Officers of Trust and State under him the later being so esteemed to be the worthiest as the Act of Parliament made in the 31 th year of the Raign of King Henry the 8 th how Lords in the Parliament should be placed did especially ordain that if a Bishop hapned to be the Kings Cheif Secretary he should sit and be placed above all other Bishops not having any the great Offices of State and Trust under the King in the said Act of Parliament mentioned and if the chief Secretary of the King were above the degree of a Baron he should sit and be placed above all other Barons being then and there present The Puisney Bishop attending in that high and honourable Court being by antient usage of that Court to pray every morning before the rest of that assembly during the Session of Parliament before they do proceed to any Consultations or business the other Bishops and the Arch-bishop of York who once contended with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury for the primacy taking it to be an honour to Officiate before the King or to be near him so as Edward Arch-bishop of York and Cuthbert Tunstall Bishop of Duresme being sent by King Henry the eight to signifie unto Queen Catherine the sentence of his divorce and they shortly after giving an accompt of her answer did in a joint Letter subscribe themselves Your Highnesses Obedient Subjects Servants and Chaplains and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury for the time being was by the Statutes or Orders of King Henry the eighth made at Eltham in the 17 th year of his Raigne ordered to be always or very often at Court and all the other Bishops aswell as the Arch-bishop believing themselves to be by sundry Obligations bound unto it are not seldome employed by our Kings in their several Diocesses and Jurisdictions as the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Ely and their Successors in their County Palatines and with the Arch-bishops and other Bishops are by the Kings appointment and Election to preach in his Chappel at Court in times of Solemn Festivals and Lent and in the Lord Chamberlaines Letter or Summons thereunto are required to be ready at the several times appointed to perform their service therein one of that antient and necessery order or Hirarchy being the Kings Almoner another the Deâ—n of his Chappel to govern and see good orders obsâ—rved therein the later whereof hath his lodgings in the Kings Courts or Pallace and untill the unhappy remitting of the Royal Pourveyance had his Beâ—che at Court or diet the Bishop of â—â—â—chester and his Successors to be Prelates of the 〈◊〉 another Clark of his Closset as the Bishop 〈◊〉 Oxford lately was to attend upon the King in the place where he sits in his Chappel or Oratory the presence of the Prince and an opportunity aâ—â—rare ejus purpuram to be often in their sight not by any Idolatreus worship but as the civil Law and usage of the Antients have interpreted it by an extraordinary reverence done to him by kneeling and touching the Hem or lower part of his purple or outward Garment and immediately after kissing his hand which was accounted saith Cuiâ—â—ius to be no small favour which the people and all the great men of the Eastern and Western Empires under their Emperors deemed to be a happiness as well as an honour as do the German Bishops Electors in their larger and more Princely Jurisdictions the Arch-bishop of Mente being Chanceller to the Empire for Germany and to have a priviledge to assist at the Coronation of the Emperors by puting the Crown upon his head the Arch-bishop of Cologne for Italy and the Arch-bishop of Tryers for France or rather for the Kingdome of Arles or Burgundy as well as to be Electors of the Emperors and their Successors So as our Laws which if a Bishop be riding upon his way will not enforce him to tarry and examine the ability of a Clark presented unto him though it may require hast and prevent a lapse or other inconvenience but his convenient leisure ought to be attended will allow an Earlâ— in respect of his dignity and the necessity of his attendance upon the King and the Weal Publick to make a Deputy Steward and gives our Nobility
are not to stand in the way or obstruct the Rights or those to whom they were indulged or granted CHAP. XIX That those many other Immunities and Priviledgeâ— have neither been abolished or so much as murmured at by those that have yielded an assent and obedience thereunto although they have at some times and upon some occasions received some loss damage or inconveniences thereby FOr the Law which hath allowed them to be good and warrantable could not but apprehend that a possibility of loss and prejudice would come to others by them and our Kings and Princes did by their Laws bear a greater respect and took a greater care of the whole than of the less or of any parts of the greater and had a greater regard to the general and more universal than particulars where the latter as less considerable were to give way to the former as of the greater concernment and tendency to the weal of the Publick when as the Sun and the Moon by their happy influences in doing good to the universality of Mankind do sometimes we know occasion much evil and damage unto many men in particular one mans gain is anothers loss the benefit comfort and joy of one hapneth to be the grief and disappointment of another and the aggrandizing of some the lessening of others Lex ad particularia se non resert sed ad generalia The Law doth not intend to provide for particulars but generals Legis ratio non fit raro accidentibus Laws are not usually made for things which do seldom happen Et citius tolerare volunt privatum damnum quam publicum malum Will sooner tolerate a private and particular damage than a publick evil or grievance for the Priviledges granted to the City of London to be Toll-free in all Markets Fairs and Places of the Kingdom which makes them able to under-sell all others and to be Masters as now they are of all the Commerce and Trade of the Nation Their custom That no Attaint shall be brought of a Jury impannelled in London to enforce a Gentleman or Foreigner not Free of the City Arrested to give Bail or Surety by Freemen or Citizens That every Citizen or Freeman may devise Lands or Tenements in Mortmain or that any Man to whom Money is owing may Arrest any Man for Money upon a Bond or Bill before the Money be due or payable or Attach Moneys in another Mans hand within the City of one which oweth Money to the Debtor The forbidding Foreigners and Men not Free of the City to Work or keep Shop within the City or Liberties thereof That if any Freeman sufficient and able shall be summoned by a Serjeant of the Sheriff of the City to appear at Guildhall to answer a Plaint and make Default he shall be Amerced the grand Distress presently awarded and his Doors fastned and Sealed untill he shall come to answer and if it be testified that he hath broken the Sequestration shall be Arrested by his Body or if otherwise he is like to escape away or is not sufficient a Writ of Capias shall be awarded to take his Body or a Writ to Arrest and take his Goods That in a Writ of Dower the Tenant shall be three times summoned That a Citizens Wife can have no Estate in Lands devised unto her further than during her life The ancient and just Priviledges of the Clergy not to be tried before a Secular Judge for any criminal Matter nor be compelled to abjure if having committed Felony he flie to a Church and albeit he hath had his Clergy for Felony may have it again and shall not be Burned in the Hand nor have his Tythes or Horse distrain'd as he traveleth in any Civil action or matter whilst he hath other Goods not to have his Goods and Chattels to be distrained in his Fee or Estate of the Church for purveyance when it was required and is to be free from bearing any temporul Office and their Bodies not to be arrested or imprisoned upon a Statute Mechant although an Act of Parliament doth without exception of any Persons severely enjoyn it That Priviledge allowed to Knights by the ancient Laws of England which saith our Selden was that their Equitatura or Horse and Armor were priviledged from Executions of Fieri or Levari facias although they were to Levy the Kings Debts which the Law did so geratly favor as it is to be preferred before all other Mens and if he should dishonourably absent himself from the Kings Service when his aid was required and that all that he had was subject to an Execution yet one Horse was to be left him Propter dignitatem militiae in regard of the honour of Knighthood and such other of his Horses as were for his ordinary use were to be spared The exemption of divers Abbeys and Monasteries from the Jurisdictions and Visitations of their Diocesan or Metropolitan Bishops The Priviledges and Jurisdictions granted by King Edward the third in the 27th Year of his Reign to York Lincoln Norwich Canterbury Westminster and divers other Staple Towns to be free from purveyance and Cart-taking giving them liberty to hold Pleas by the Law-Merchant and not by the common Law of the Land That they should not implead or be impleaded before the Justices of the said Places in plea of Deâ—â— Covenant or Trespass concerning the Staple And that the Houses shall be let for reasonable Rents to be imposed by the Mayor of the Staple The Modus decimandi abatement or manner of Tythes being at the first a temporary favour or kindness continued and crept into a Custom and thence into a Law and Priviledge which hath carried away or choked a great part of the Clergies Tythes and Maintenance The abundance of Rights and Priviledges of Common of vicinage or appendant or of some stinted or not limited sorts in the Ground and Soyl of the Propritors throughout the Kingdom of Common of Estovers in some of their Woods the throwing of many Meadows open to have Common in some Woods for their Cattel after seven years growth and to Common upon the first day of every August the Custom of the Town of Wycombe in the County of Buckingham that any under the age of thirteen years might give or devise Lands and that no Tythes should be paid for any Wood in the Wild of Kent Together with the many Freedoms Franchises and Priviledges to be quit ab omni secta Shirarum Hundredorum all Suit Scot and Lot c. and Service to Sheriffs Courts and Hundreds which with very many others not here recited do necessarily appear to be as prejudicial to some part of the People who in the Weal-publick or some of their Posterities afterwards partaking or enjoying of the like Priviledges do or may find themselves abundantly recompenced may be as prejudicial to some as they are beneficial to many who may at the
same time consider the damage which our Kings have suffered by their Grants to divers Abbeys as amongst others unto the Abbey of St. Edmonds-Bury in Suffolk which in a Plea betwixt that Abbot and the Bishop of Ely and his Steward in the sixth Year of the Reign of King Richard the First appeared by the Charters of King Edward the Confessor William the Conqueror and King Henry the First to be in general words all the Liberties which any King of England might grant the very large Priviledges of Common of Pasture and Estovers the later of which hath spoiled much of the Timber of the Kingdom in many vast Forrests and Chases their many deafforrestations and that of three Hundreds at once in the County of Essex at the Request and Petition of an Earl of Oxford their taking their Customs and Duties upon Merchandize Exported or Imported at small and priviledged Rates and manner of payment of Tonnage and Poundage and by the granting away of so many Franchises Exemptions Priviledges view of Frank Pleg and Liberties which the Commons in Parliament in the one and twentieth Year of the Reign of King Edward the Third thought to be so over-largely granted as they complained That almost all the Land was Enfranchised and Petitioned That no Franchise-Royal Land Fee or Advowson which belong or are annexed to the Crown be given or severed from it And so very many more Immunities Franchises and Priviledges which since have been indulged and granted to very many of the People which like the dew of the heavenly Manna which so plentifully covered the Camp of the Children of Israel and lay round about them have blessed many of the English Nation and their after Generations as the dew of Hermon and that which descended upon the Mountains of Zion And so many were those exemptions customs prescriptions and immunities Quae longi temporis usu recepta quaeque ratio vel necessitas suaserit introducenda rata stabilita fuerinâ— quasi tanto tempore principis consensu Judâ—cioque probata Which by a long accustomed use introduced by reason or necessity as the Learned Baldus saith concerning those which by the Civil Law and the Law of Nations have as approved by the consent and Judgment of the Prince been ratified and permitted as they would if faithfully and diligently collected as my worthy Friend Mr. Tho. Blount hath done very many of them in his Learned and laborious Nomo Lexicon not onely put Posterity in mind how very many and almost innumerable they are and how much they ought to be thankful for them but that their Forefathers did without any the least doubt or scruple believe that the Kings and Princes which granted them had power enough to do it And ought not to have their ways or passages stopped or blocked up by those Opinions of Sir Edward Coke and the rest of the Judges in contradiction of the late Learned Doctor Bancroft Arch-bishop of Canterbury in the case of Prohibitions argued and debated before King James and his Privy Council and Council Learned in the Law in Michaelmas Term in the fifth Year of his Reign that Rex non Judicat in Camera sed in Curia the King is to decide and determine the Causes and Controversies of his Subjects in his assigned and Commissionated Courts of Justice but not out of them or in his Palace Court or Chamber nor take any Cause out of his Courts and give Judgment upon it and that no King after the Conquâ—st ever assumed to himself to give Judgment in any Cause whatsoever which concerned the administration of Justice within the Realm and that the King cannot delay Justice or Arrest any Man neither Arrest any Man for suspicion of Treason or Felony as other of His Lieges may Wherein the Men of new Notions who in the Itch and Hope of Gain or the good will and applause of a Factious Party can like the after hated Ephori of Sparta upon all occasions oppose the Kings legal Rights and Prerogatives and thinking to satisfie others as well as themselves in making ill-warranted matters of Fact the Directors or Comptrollers of the Law may suspend their adoration of those Errors in that so called twelfth Report of Sir Edward Coke which being published since his Death have not that candor or fair dealing of Plowden's Commentaries or the Reports of the Lord Dyer or many other of his own Reports but concealing the Arguments and Reasons urged by the Opponents doth onely give us a Summary of his own and the other Judges Opinions which we hope may vanish into a mistake and meet with no better entertainment from those Reverend Judges and Sages of the Law if they were now in the Land of the Living to revise and examine those Opinions so Dogmatically delivered then a Retractation or Wish that they had never seen the Light or walked in the view of the Vulgar and advise those who would gladly make them the Patroni of so many ill Consequences as either have or may follow upon such Doctrines to build upon better Foundations and not to adhere so much unto them or any others though they should be willing to seem to be as wise therein as Socrates or Plato but rather subscribe to the Truth CHAP. XX. That the power and care of Justice and ihe distribution thereof is and hath been so essential and radical to Monarchy and the Constitution of this Kingdom as our Kings of England have as well before as since the Conquest taken into their Cognizance divers Causes which their established Courts either could not remedy or wanted power to determine have remoued them from other Courts to their own Tribunals and propria authoritate caused Offenders for Treason or Felony to be Arrested and may upon just and legal occasions respite or delay Justice WHen the King is Author omnis Jurisdictionis the Author of all Jurisdiction which is the specifica forma virtus essentialis Regis qua se nequit abdicare quamdiu Rex est neque vis illa summae ditionis potestatis Regiae dignitate citra pernitiâ—m ejus interitum separari distrahique potest Speciâ—ick form and essence of Kingly Majesty which the King cannot alienate or depart from as long as he is King nor may that Jurisdiction or supream Power be severed from the Regal Dignity without the ruine or destruction of the King as Mr. Adam Blackwood a Scotchman hath very well declared in his Book against Buchanan his Learned more than Loyal Countrey-man concerning the Magistracy Lords of Sessions and Judges in Scotland That all Judges and Magistrates Ne in Civilibus quidem causis nullam nisi munere beneficioque Regis sententiae dicendae nullam Juris judiciorum potestatem habent derived even in Civil Causes all their power and authority from the Kings Authority and without it had no power to give a Sentence or Judgment quicquid enim Magistratuum est quicquid judicium
Regibus obnoxium for what ever any Magistrates or Judges do is subject to his controll or superintendency Quicquid potâ—statis ditionis impâ—rii nacti sunt id receptum benignitati Regum praestare tenentur in quorum praesentia non sâ—cus evaneseit quam in meridiano sole stellarum fulgor quae coruscant in tenebris lucidissimis radiis mirum in modum scintillantes apparent Whatever Power or Jurisdiction they had was to be attributed to the Grant and Favor of the King in whose Presence it doth vanish and disappear as the brightness of the Stars which shine in the dark do at the shining or glory of the Sun Quemadmodum enim illae praesenti quicqued habent luminis soli foenerantur Ita Magistratuum potestas omnis vis imperium ubi praesto Rex est ad eum redit aquo profectum est for as they do borrow their light from the Sun so all the Power Force and Rule which the Magistrates have when the King comes or acts in his own Person do return to him from whom they received it and that if Kings do abstinere non tantum a sententiae dictione sed a foro ne Regiae dignitatis splendore judicum oculi perstringantur forbear from intermedling in their Courts of Justice it is that by the lustre of their Presence the Business of the Judges may not be hindred or disturbed Non igitur abs re tribunalia creatis a se Magistratibus relinqunt idque solemne Reges habent ut nunquam in orchestra conspiciuntur nisi quid momenti gravioris inciderit quod ipsorum authoritate absoluta summaque ditione potestate numine decidatur Wherefore it was not without cause that they did leave their Tribunals to Judges or Magistrates made or created by them and made it to be as a Custom duly to be observed not to appear themselves in their Courts of Justice unless some great matter of weight or moment hapned which required the aid or assistance of their supream and absolute Authority and that notwithstanding that James the fourth King of Scotland did in imitation of what he had learnt in France Institute a kind of supream Court and call'd it The Court of Sessions for determination of Causes like that of the Parliament of Paris and in Criminal matters made it to be without Appeal Quaedam vero quae majoris Exempli sunt regis cognitionem desideranâ— quae Scotorum Jurisperitorum vulgus puncta vocat sive Capita Coronae reservata cujusmodi sunt Majestatis raptuâ— incendii id genus aliorum But yet there were certain matters or things which the ordinary sort of Lawyers amongst the Scots called Points or Pleas of the Crown especially reserved to the Determination and Judgment of the King himself such as Treason Rape burning of Houses or the like which being in the Year of our Lord 1581 when Mr. Ad. Blackwood wrote that Loyal and Learned Treatise not denied to be good Law and right Reason in Scotland and of as long a Date or Original as about 300 years before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ was although it hath since the time that Mr. Blackwood wrote strangely deviated into the sullen surly and unwarrantable Doctrines and Practice of a factious and domineering Presbytery and other the heretofore Corahs Dathans and Abirams of Scotland Omnium regnorum perpetua lege more consuetudine receptum A received and well approved Law and Custom amongst all Nations and may seem to have been derived from the Council which Jethro many Generations after that an inundation of Sin had in the grand and most universal punishment of the Deluge washed away all Mankind but Noah and his Sons and Daughters in all but eight Persons and left them to tremble and stand amazed at his Justice and adore his Mercy gave to Moses his Son-in-law to ease himself of his continual toil and tiring labors From the Morning untill the Even in determining the Controversies of the People by constituting Judges over them and reserve to his own Decision and Judgment every great Matter Wherein it can not well accord with the rectified Reason of Mankind that Jethro had in that his Council any the least design to diminish the Superiority Right or Authority of Moses or that Moses by hearkning unto it did intend thereby to bereave himself of the dernier ressort ultimate Appeal and Authority with which God had entrusted him And those not to be contradicted sacred Records of the Almighty can assure us that not onely King David who is therein said to have been a Man after Gods own heart Solomon the wisest of Kings and the succeeding Kings of Israel and Judah but Ezra and Nehemiah who were but as Governors or Stadtholders under Artaxerxes over the remnant of the Captivity of the Jews did come close up to that advice of Jethro and adhere to those eternal Laws of right Reason Superiority and Rules of Government ever since observed in all or the greatest part of the Kingdoms of the habitable Earth amongst which our Kingdom of England and her early as well as later Inhabitants alterius orbis of this our other World for the Reasons and Authorities herein before declared and that which shall be added hereafter in confirmation thereof and the excellent and incomparable constitution and method of her Monarchy and Government which will manifest it self and be plainly evidenced to any who shall rightly inspect it is to be ranked and reckoned And may reduce to a better understanding all those who have taken up those Opinions on trust or a sleight or no examination that such a pattern of the Divine wisdom in his Theocraty and Monarchical Government of the promised Seed of Abraham is no way repugnant to those Rules of Government which have been not onely approved and practised by our British Saxon and Danish Kings before the Norman Success and Victory but continued by their Successors When King Canutus taught by the no seldom Petitions Appeals and Complaints of the People was about the Year 1016. enforced to make a Law That Nemo injuriis alterius Regi quaeratur nisi quidem in Centuria Justitiam consequi impetrare non potuit no Man should complain to the King of any wrong or injury done unto him unless he could not in the Century or Hundred-Couâ—t obtain any Remedy In that great and remarkable Pleading for three days together in the Reign of William the Conqueror at Pinnendene in Kent in the grand Controversie betwixt Lanfrank Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Odo Bishop of Bayeux the Kings half Brother for divers Mannors Lands and Liberties of that Arch-bishoprick of which the Bishop of Bayeux had disseised him although that King did upon special occasions sometimes hold his Commune Concilium or Parliament the King Prâ—cepit Comitatum totum absque morâ— considere homines comitatus omnes Francigenas praecipue Anglos in Antiquis legibus câ—nsuetudinibus peritos in unum
convenire Commanded the whole County without any delay to assemble together as well French as English and more especially such of the English as were skilful in the ancient Laws and Customs of England ubi Goisfredus Bishop of Constance in loco Regis saith the Leiger Book of Rochester vel vice Regis saith Eadmerus fuit Justiciam illam tenuit â—at Judge for or in the place or stead of the King as his Commissioner Hujus placiti multis testibus multisque rationibus determinatum finem postquam Rex audivit laudavit laudans cum consensu omnium principum suorum which could not be the Commons in Parliament as it is now formed or the then Commune Concilium the Parliament consisting of his Nobility Bishops and Peers who could not all of them be stiled Princes but were rather such of his greater sort of Nobility as were then attending upon him in his Court assembled and met together by his Command in that great and more than ordinary County-Court confirmavit ut deinceps incorruptus persevâ—raret â—irmiter praecepit the end of which Trial made by many Witnesses and Reasons being certified to the King he greatly approved it and by the consent of all his Princâ—s confirmed and strictly commanded it to be inviolably observed In the Reign of William Rufus his Son the Delegated Justice of the King in his Courts was so little believed not to be the Kings or the Judgments thereby or therein given not owned or understood to be given by the King as it was the Opinion as well as Complaint of Anselme Arch-bishop of Canterbury how justly or unjustly the Men of that Age when the Church-men were unruly and did not seldom forget themselves and their Benefactors did best know quod cuncta Regalis Curia pendebant ad nutum Regis nilque in ipsis nisi solum velle illius considerari That all matters in the Kings Court depended upon his Will and his onely Will was the Director thereof and whether the particular Interest of that stout and pious Prelate had therein misled his Judgment or no they must be too much unacquainted with our Laws reasonable Customs Annals Memorials Records and Accompts of Time and Transactions bigane and past as well as those of other Nations and the right origination or signification of the word Curia or Court and the no infrequent usage or acceptation thereof if they do not acknowledge that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nuncupatur potestas Dominium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 qui potestate fretus est judiciumque exercet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quasi habitacula Domini That Curia signifieth Power and Dominion and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that exerciseth that Power in giving Judgment therein and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Habitation or Place of Residence of the Lord or Superior dicebatur autem Curia saith the judicious Sr. Henry Spelman primo de Regia seu palatio Principis inde de familia Judiciis in ea habitis ritu veterrimo it being at the first or more especially called Curia or the Court and took its Denomination by a most antient Usage or Custom from the Kings House or Palace and afterwards from their Houshold or Family and the Place where Kings did administer Justice And so untill Courts for the distribution of Justice were allow'd for the ease of Princes and better accommodation of their People out of their Houses or Palaces it will not be easie or possible to espy any essential difference as to the Place of doing Justice betwixt Curia Regis and Camera Regis the Court or Chamber of the King for after that some of our Courts of Justice in England by the indulgence of their Soveraigns ceased either to be ambulatory or resident in their Palaces those that have not bid a defiance to that universally allowed and entertained Maxim by all or most part of Mankind Qui facit per alium facit per se He that doth by another is truly and rightly said to have done it himself and are not resolved to encounter or be adversaries to all the right Reason which they can meet with or to pick up such weak and incogent Arguments as may make a shadow rather than substance of Truth or right Reason ought to confess that there is no real difference between the Kings doing of Justice in his own Person and cauâ—ing it to be done by others or betwixt the hearing of Causes or doing of Justice in the Hall or his Privy Chamber or any other Room of his House or Palace and that before and from the Conquest untill after the thirty eighth Year of the Reign of King Edward the Third whilst the Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench attended our Kings as well in their Courts as Progress to assist him in matters of Law and the Decision of Pleas of the Crown and such matters of Law as were not appropriate to the Decision of the Court of Common Pleas as it was then and hath been since constituted which did not leave the Kings Court or Palace untill King Henry the Third commanded it in the twentieth Year of his Reign to abide at Westminster Our Kings of England have in their own Persons heard some or many Causes and given divers Judgments in Aula in their Court or Palace in some Causes wherein they had the assistance of the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings-Bench and when they did not do it personally by reason of their frequent Divertisements Addresses of Ambassadors from Foreign Princes or in respect of the many great Affairs and Cares of State and Government which could not afford them the time or leisure to do it did cause it to be done by their Authority and by their constituted Justices who Vicaria Potestate by as it were a Deputation Lieutenancy or Assignation to those onely purposes represented them and were impowered to do it the Courts of Justice in William the Conquerors time being called Justicia Regis the Justice of the King and the Judges or Justices in the Reign of King Henry the Second Justiciae Regis in the abstract the Kings Judges or Justices For the Kings Justice or Superiority was never yet by any Law or Reason absolutely or altogether conâ—ined to his delegated Courts or authorized Judges or Justices or to any certain or determinate Place as that froward and powerful enough Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury could not but acknowledge when in a Parliament or Great Council holden in the Kings Court at Winchester by the Command of King William the Second or William Rufus in the Contest betwixt him and that King concerning that Archbishops resolution oâ— going to Rome and the Kings refusing to give him Licence divers of the Lords and Bishops passed in and out betwixt them and at last the Archbishop himself went in unto him to expostulate and debate the Matter with him And in the making of the Constitutions of Clarendon in
such Causes as all the Kings and Princes of the civilized Part of the World have used to do And of small or no force or avail would be that Clause in our Magna Charta so hardly obtained by our Fore-fathers that the King Nulli negaret Justitiam vel Rectum should not deny Justice or Right unto any who demanded it and little deserving to be called or thought a Liberty if it were not within the reach of his Power and it would be a kind of Injustice to oblige or require him to do that which he could not Which the Reverend Judges and Sages of the Law in the eighteenth year of the Reign of King Edward the First were so unwilling to interpret to be out of his Power As when John Bishop of Winchester having granted unto him free Chace in all the Demesn Lands and Woods of the Prior and Covent of St. Swithen in Winchester and their Successors and being in the Kings Service in the Parts beyond the Seas and having his Protection for all his Lands Goods and Estate brought his Action wherein he did set forth the Kings Protection and his being as aforesaid in his Service against Henry Huse Constable of the Kings Castle at Portcester for that he had hunted in his aforesaid Chace and Liberty in contempt of the King and contrary to his aforesaid Protection whilest he was in his Service as aforesaid To which the said Henry Huse pleading that what he had done was lawful for him to do by reason of a Privilege belonging unto his said Place or Office of Constable of the Castle aforesaid and Issue being joyned thereupon the Court stayed it and delivered their Opinion That no Jury ought to be impannelled nor any Inquisition taken thereupon in regard that Inquisitio ista Domino Rege inconsulto tam propter Cartam ipsius Domini Regis porrectam quam nemo per inquisitionem patrie vel alio modo judicare debet nisi solus Dominus Rex quam ratione Ballivae predict ' que est ipsius Domini Regis ad quam predictus Hâ—nricus dicit libertatem predictam pertinere that such an Issue or Inquiry ought not to be the King not consulted or made acquainted therewith as well in respect of his Charter produced which none but the King by any Jury or Trial ought to Judge as in regard of the Liberty alledged by the said Henry to be belonging to the King Et dictum est partibus quod sequantur versus Dominum Regem quod precipiat procedere ad predict ' inquisitionem capiend ' si voluerit vel quod alio modo faciat voluntatem suam in loquela predict And the Parties were therefore ordered to attend and petition the King to command the Judges if he please that they proceed in the said Action or by some other way declare his Will and Pleasure concerning the said Action and is a good direction for Subjects to ask leave of the King before they Arrest or any way endeavor to infringe the Priviledge of his Servants In the twentieth year of the Reign of that King in a Case in the Court of Common-Pleas where William de Everois being Demandant had complained to the King that the Judges of that Court did delay to give Judgement and the Judges acknowledging that he had been long delay'd in regard that the said William required Seisin to be delivered unto him by a Contract made in the time of War which he denied Dictum est prefatis Justic ' quod ad judicium procedant prout facere consueverunt Et faciend ' est de seisina contractibus factis in tempore partes Guerre the King ordered the Judges that they should proceed to Judgement as they used to do and make an Order concerning the Seisin and Contracts had between the parties thereunto in the time of the War In the same year a Complaint being made to the King that Sir John Lovel Knight being Plaintiff before the Justices of the Court of Common-Pleas in a Writ which had long depended and was made in an unusual Form of the Chancery and the Defendant in the beginning of the Plea before Thomas of Weyland and his Associates the Justices of the said Court had put in his Plea of Abatement and Exceptions to the said Writ and prayed that it might be Entred upon the Rolls and Recorded which afterwards could not be found but in regard that Elias de Beckingham one of the Judges remembred the said Plea to whose onely memory a greater Credit is to be given than to the Rolls of the said Thomas of Weyland who with the rest of his Fellow Judges except the said Elias of Beckingham were formerly Fined and punished for other Misdemeanors Et idem Elias semper fideliâ— extiterit in servicio Regis fideliter se gesserit and the said Elias was always faithful and in the Service of the King did well behave himself And all the then Judges did agree that if a Writ of that Form should be brought unto them and pleaded in Abatement they would immediately quash it And for that non est Juri consonum quod per maliciam predict Thome sociorum suorum sibi adherentium qui Exceptiones Tenentis admittere noluerunt cum ipsum proposuerit tempore Competenti non allocaverunt per prout prefatum Eliam recordatum est It is not agreeable to Law that by the malice of the aforesaid Thomas and his Fellow Judges confederating with him who would not admit or allow of the Tenants Exceptions when it was in due time pleaded as by the said Elias was witnessed Dictum est Justic ' quod procedant ad Judicium super exceptione Tenentis prout fuerit faciend ' ac si in Recordo inveniretur The Judges were ordered to proceed to Judgment upon the Tenants Exception as it ought to be done if it had been recorded In the year next following William de Mere Sub-Escheator of the King in the County of Stafford and Reginaldus de Legh who was one of the sworn Justices of the King having an Information brought against them before the King and his Council the Justices of the Court of Kings-Bench for that after the death of Jeffery de Howâ—l who held Lands of Ralph Basset by Knight-service and the death of the said Ralph who had seized all the Lands of the said Jeffery and had in his life time the custody and marriage of William the son of Jeffery and dying seized of Lands holden of the King in Capite and of the custody of the said William and the Heir of the said Ralph being likewise under age and with the Lands of the said Ralph seized by the said Sub-Escheator he suffered the Heir of the said Jeffery without the Kings Writ to enter upon the Lands of the said Jeffery And the said Reginald de Legh by fraud and collusion betwixt him and the said Sub-Escheator took away the Heir of the said Jeffery and
were disseized by the said Earl John and thereupon the Court delivered their Opinion that what the King had done by word of mouth was more to be approved credited than what he had commanded by his Letters And our Bracton who ad vetera Judieia perscrutanda as he saith had used great diligence in the search and perusing of the Old Records of the Kingdom declareth the Law to be in his time That non debet esse Major in Regno suo there ought not to be any Superiour unto him in his Kingdom si autem ab eo petatur â—um breve non â—urrat contra ipsum locus erit supplicationi quod factum suum corrigat emendet but if he do not Justice when as no Writ can be had against him he is to be petitioned to do it quod quidem si non fecerit satis sufficit ei ad poenam quod Dominum expectet ultorem nemo quidem de factis suis praesumet disputare multo fortius contra factum suum venire which if he shall not do it will be enough to leave him to God for a punishment for no man is to presume to question or dispute his Actions much more to contradict any thing which he doth And since the Granting of the Great Charter of the Liberties of the People those Bounds which Regal Majesty hath been pleased to put to the Royal Prerogative it appeareth That in the first year of the Reign of King Edward the First it was adjudged and declared in the Court of Kings Bench Quod non est voluntas Regis quod Cartae suâ— concessae scilicet de Pardonatione Vitae tempore praetirito per ministros ipsius Regis disallocentur in prejudicium illorum quibus conceduntur that it is not the Kings pleasure that his Charters of Pardon for the time past shall be disallow'd to the prejudice of those to whom they are granted In the third and nineteenth year of that Kings Reign it was declared and allowed to be Law That Justiciarius non habet Jurisdictionem cognoscendi in aliqua loquela nec capiend ' aliquam Assisam nisi per Dominum Regem ad ipsius voluntatem si secus fecerit videtur Curiae quod de jure non fecerit That a Justice or Judge hath no Jurisdiction in any Plea or Action nor to try or take any Assise unless it be allowed or permitted by the King or by his Will and Pleasure and if the Justice or Judge shall do otherwise the Court was of opinion that by Law he could not do it In the nineth year of the Reign of that King it was adjudged That neque Barones quinque Portuum neque aliqui alii in Regno possunt clamare talem Libertatem quod non respondeant Domino Regi de contemptu sibi facto ubi Dominus Rex eos adjudicare voluerit Neither the Barons of the Cinque ports nor any other in the Kingdom can clame a Liberty not to be answerable to the King for any contempt where he will Call them to accompt for it In the eighteenth year of his Reign in the Case betwixt the Bishop of Carlisle and Isabell de Clifford and Idonea de Leybourne her Sister concerning the Advowson of a Church which he Claimed by a Feoffment thereof made by King Richard the First it was alleaged to be Law That nemini liceat Cartas Regias indicare nisi Regibus That no man ought to judge the Kings Charters but themselves In Hillary Term in the twentieth year of the Reign of that King in the great Case and Pleadingi betwixt the King and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford and Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex for that the said Earls had upon a Controversie betwixt them for Certain Lands in Brecknock and in the Marches of Wales armed their Tenants and with Banners displayed invaded each others Lands after the Kings prohibition when by a Commission granted to William Bishop of Ely William de Valence and others the King therein declared that although the said Earls should in the meane time agree yet if any thing should be attempted in prejudicium seu Contemptum vel etiam laesionem Coronae suae Dignitatis Regiae vel contra pacem c. post inhibitionem suam praedicto Com. Glouâ— pro statu et Jure Regis per predict Episcopum et sotios suos inde rei veritas inquireretur to the prejudice or in Contempt or hurt of his Crowne or Kingly Dignity or against the Peace after the Inhibition made to the Earl of Gloucester as aforesaid it should for the State and Right of the King be inquired by the Bishop and the rest of the Commissioners to the end the truth thereof might be found out it was in that Plea or Proceedings declared for Law and not at that time denyed Quod pro communi uâ—ilitate per Prerogativam suam in multis Casibus Rex est supra omnes leges consuetudines in Regno suo usitatas that the King is by his Prerogative in many Cases for common and publick good above the Law or any Customs used in the Realm and when exception was taken by the Earl of Gloucester to the Writ of Scire Facias which he alleaged ought to be a judicial Writ issuing out of a Process before had and not out of the Chancery as an original Writ Videtur it seemed saith the Record consilio Domini Regis to the Kings Councel which in that Case were the Judges of the Court of Kings Bench quod ex quo incumbit Domino Regi specialiter pro conservatione pacis suae et salvatione populi sibi Commissi quam cito rumor de tam enormi transgressione contra inhibitionem suam facta ad ipsum pervenerit in continenter debetur super hoc veritas inquiri per omnes vias quibus citius sine Juris offensa per breve illud propter exhibitionem celeris Justitiae unicuique indigenti praestando festimus patet remedium quam per aliquod aliud breve adhuc in casu isto provisum sive formatum ad intollerabilia mala evitand impediend veluti homicidia sacrilegia incendia depraedationes et alia enormia que preter mala prius illata emersisse potuerunt a casu nisi celerius remedium apponeretur in facto predicto That forasmuch as it specially concerneth the King for the keeping of the Peace and weal of his People committed to his charge as soon as ever he shall be informed of so great an offence against or contrary to his prohibition the truth thereof ought to be enquired by all the ways and meanes by which without contradiction or disturbance of the Law it may soonest be done and that by that Writ for the more speedy doing of Justice to every on that needed it there was a more speedy remedy afforded than by any other in that Case already formed or provided to prevent and
hinder such intollerable mischiefes as Manslaughter Sacriledge burning of Houses Spoils Depredations or Plunder and other enormities which besides the evils before Committed might happen or ensue if a sudden remedy in such a case should not be applyed Et etiam quod Dominus Rex qui est omnibus et Singulis de Regno suo Justitiae debitor non potuit in hoc casu nisi Injuriam Coronae sue intulisset dissimulasse quin concessisset breve per quod citius et celerius pervenire posset ad cognitionem veritatis rei pred â—um petitum â—uerit And likewise that the King who to all and every of the people of his Kingdom is a debtor of Justice and ought to do it could not in this case unless he should do an injury to his Crown dissemble or forbear the Punishment thereof or abstain from the granting of a Writ when it was required whereby he might the sooner come to the knowledge of the matter aforesaid and it was by the aforesaid Judges of the Kings Bench adjudged Quod breve predictum in casu isto in casibus consimilibus est necessarium et rationabile that the Writ aforesaid was in that Case and the like necessary and reasonable And as to what the Earl of Gloucester had alleaged that it ought to have been a Judicial Writ videtur consilio Domini Regis it seemed to the Judges that Dominus Rex a quo omnes ministri sibi subjecti recordum habent est superlativum et magis arduum recordum et supra omnes ministros suâ—s et processus et record rotulorum praecellens the King under whom all his ministers do derive their Authority to make their Records hath a more high and superlative Record excelling that of all his Ministers his Justices being by Sir Edward Cook so stiled Et etiam antequam Dominus Rex inhibet circumspicit et considerat Judicio interiori propter utilitatem communem ut evitetur deterius quod oriri possit et subsequi ex malo incepto nisi inhibitio interveniret et sic procedit inhibitio ex praemeditato Judicio conscientiae Domini Regis propter bonum pacis And also that the King doth before he maketh his inhibition forecast and consider within himself what may be done for the Weal publick to the end that he may prevent a worser evil or mischief which might arise or be the consequence of an evil beginning if he should not have made such an inhibition And therefore that Inhibition did proceed out of the Judgement and dictates of the Conscience of the King for the Peace and welfare of his Kingdom Contra quod Judicium si quis praesumpserit attemptare quanto citius et debitus possit habere processus ut super hoc convincatur veritas super delinquentem in hoc casu tanto honorabilius est Regi Majestati et regno et populo utilius et magis necessarium which Judgement if any shall resist or contradict by how much speedier a due Process may be had for the Conviction of the Offender by so much the more Honorable it is for the Kings Majesty and the more profitable and necessary for the People and Kingdom Per quod videtur in hac parte quod Inhibitio procedit proprie et Judicio aquo predictum breve quod vocatur Scire facias debite sumi potest maxime cum res supradictâ— specialius in hoc casu tangat Dominum Regem Coronam et Dignitatem quam aliam tertiam personam By which in this Cause it appeared to the Judges that the Inhibition was duely and well granted and had its Original from the Judgement of the King from which the aforesaid Writ which is called a Scire Facias was deduced especially when the matters aforesaid did more concern the King his Crown and Dignity than any third Person And it was the Opinion of the Judges of the Court of Kings-Bench in that before mentioned judgment in the three thirtith four thirtieth year of the Reign of that King in the Case betwixt the Prior and Bishop of Durham that any ordinance award or acknowledgement made in the Kings presence and by him affirmed was to be more believed and to have a greater force than a Fine levied before his Justices conformable to the Civil Law which saith that Principis dicto fides adhibenda plenissima si Officii ratione aliquis a se vel coram se actum vel gestum esse verbo vel literis attestatur An unquestionable Faith is to be given to what in the Office or Affairs of the King shall be done by or before Him attested by his Word or Letters In Trinity Term in the nineteenth year of the Reign of King Edward the second in a Writ of Novel Disseisin brought by Isabella the wife of Peter Crok after the Kings Writ of Prohibition to proceed Rege inconsulto obtained by the Bishop for that he pretended it to have been forfeited to the King and granted unto him saving the Reversion and She replying and issue being joyned and two hundred forty pound Damages given and the King having afterwards sent his Writ to Proceed and the Bishop bringing his Writ of Error and Errors being assigned amongst which one was that the King understanding that the Judges had taken the Assise and given Judgement had sent another Writ to Richard de la Rivere one of the Justices in the Commission commanding him that Si ita esset that if it were so he should send the Record and Process to the King and that the said Justices post receptionem brevis predict nullam potestatem in hac parte habentes ad predictum breve Regium nihil considerantes Erronice et minus rite processerunt ad Judicium predict reddend c. After the Receipt of the Writ aforesaid had no Power in that behalf but had erred in not regarding the Kings Writ and proceeded illegally unto which the said Isabella replying that after the taking of the Assise the King had sent his Writ which was inrolled in the Record that the Justices should Proceed Cum omni celeritate qua de Jure et secundum legem et consuetudinem Regni Angliae with as much speed as by the Law and Customs of England they might Quibus recitatis et plenius intellectis Record et brevibus predictis videtur Curiae quod ex quo pretextu illius brevis eis directi de procedendo ad Judicium c. Quod est de posteriori dato quam predictum breve de venire faciend Recordum et Processus c. Per quod breve de venire faciend c. Potestas Justic. eis extitit ablata nec in eadem brevi de procedendo ulla mentio fuit de allegatione ipsius Episcopi predicta nec de eo quod Dominus Rex alias eis mandavit quod post Captionem Assise predict ad Judicium inde reddend inconsulto Rege minime procederent ad Judicium predict
reddend erronice et sine warranto processerunt Upon view and due consideration of which Record and Writs aforesaid it appeared to the Court that the aforesaid Justices had by colour of the Writ of Procedendo which was of a later Date than the Writ of Venire Facias to cause the Record and Proceedings to be brought before the King and that by that Writ of Venire Facias the Power of Proceeding was taken from the aforesaid Justices nor in the said Writ of Procedendo was any mention made of the Bishops aforesaid Allegation nor of the Kings former Command that after the taking of the Assise they should not without Advising with the King Proceed to Judgement and that by such a giving of Judgement they had Proceeded Erroniously and without Warrant whereupon and other the Errors alledged the Judgement was Reversed and the Seisin of the Land adjudged to the Bishop In the third year of the Reign of King Edward the third the Bishop of Winchester being Attached to Answer the King Quare decessit a Parlemento tent ' apud novam Sarum absque licencia Regis contra inhibitionem Regis et in Regis contemptum Wherefore he departed from the Parliament Holden at New Salsbury without Licence of the King contrary to the Kings Inhibition and in Contempt of the King Episcopus dicit quod ipse est unus de Paribus Regni et Praelatis Regni et eis inest venire ad Parlementum Domini Regis summonit Et pro voluntate Domini Regis cum ipse placuerit Et dicit quod siquis eorum deliquerit erga Dominum Regem in parte aliqua in aliquo Parlemento debet corrigi emendari non alibi in minor Cur ' quam in Parlemento per quod non intendit quod Dominus Rex velit in Cur ' hic de hujusmodi transgressione contempt ' fact in Parlemento responderi c. To which the Bishop pleaded that he was one of the Peers and Prelates of the Kingdom and that they are to come to the Parliament of the King when they are summoned when he pleaseth and that if any of them should offend the King in any thing the King ought to correct or call them to accompt for it in Parliament and not elsewhere in any lesser Court. Wherefore he hoped that the King will for any such offence or contempt cause him to answer in Parliament To which the King's Attorney replyed Quod licet Regi de hujusmodi transgressione sectam facere vel delinquentem punire in quacunque Curia sibi placuerit c. Et Episcopus e contra ut prius ideo datus est dies That by Law the King may prosecute against a Delinquent in whatsoever Court he pleaseth which the Bishop denied as aforesaid and therefore further day was given c. King Edward the second having by his Letters Patents granted to Maurice Brownesword Officium Custod Vlnagij in Anglia postea ipsum inde amovit et conâ—ulit dictum Officium Nicholao Sherlock unde Mauricius per petitionem Regi porrectam in Bancum Regis missam petit quod dictum Officium ei restituatur The Office of the Aulnage in England and afterwards displaced him and granted the said Office to Nicholas Sherlock and Maurice Brownsword having thereupon exhibited his Petition to the King which prayed that the said Office might be restored unto him and the King having sent it to the Judges King Edward the third his Son notwithstanding in the fifth year of his raign misit breve suum Justic quod non vult ea irritari quae Pater suus in hoc fecit praecepit quod supersedeant quousque aliud inde ordinaverit c. sent his Writ to the Justices declaring that he would not have that to be made void which his Father had done and commanded them to proceed no farther therein untill his further order In a Judgment given in the Court of Kings Bench in Easter Term in the tenth year of the Raign of the aforesaid King upon a Taxation or Assesment upon the County of Hertford for the wages of Hoblers and Footmen It was declared Quod nihil renovandum seu emendand quod factum fuit per Regem that nothing was to be revoked or amended which was done by the King and in the same Term and year Super prolationem Recordorum Rotulorum Curiae al. Dominus Rex misit breve suum Justic mandando quod nihil agerent in prejudicium sâ—u ex hereditationem Domini Regis sed quod supersederent in negotio praedicto nihil inde faciendo inconsulto Rege upon producing of the Records and Rolls of the Court the King sent his Writ to the Justices commanding them that they should do nothing in his prejudice or disherison and that they should stay and proceed no further without advising with him In Easter Term in the forty sixth year of the Raign of King Edward the third Thomas Bishop of Durham was attached ad respondend tam Domino Regi quam Gulielmo sil Henr ' de Aslokey quare iâ— placito erroris in utlagaria ad sectam tam Katerine quae fuit Vxor Willi ' de Kilkenny quam ad â—ectam Dâ—iâ— Ept ' infra libertatem Episcopat ' Dunelm non misit Recordum ex Mandato Regis in Bancum Regis to answer the King as William the Son of Henry of Aslokey wherefore upon a Writ of Error brought to reverse an outlawry as well at the Suit of Katherine which was the Wife of William of Kilkenny as at the Suit of the Bishop within the liberty of the Bishoprick of Durham he had not sent the Records as the King had commanded into the Court of Kings Bench and upon a second Writ commanding him to do it or to shew cause which was delivered at his Castle of Auckland and a third Writ of the like Tenor delivered to the Bishop himself at Waltham Cross spretis mandatis record processus non misit nec causam significavit quare id facere noluit but disobeying the Kings commands had neither sent the Records and Process nor shewed any cause why he did it not Episcopus dicit quod nulla brevia ei liberavit apud Dunelm ' quod ad illud apud Waltham retornavit quod ipse est Comes Palatinus Dominus regalis cujusdam terrae vocat le Bishoprick de Durham habet omnia Jura regalia quae ad Comitem Palatinum Dominium regalem pertinent per se Justic ' Ministros suos ibidem excercenda ac Justic ' suos proprios viz. Coronatorem Cancellar Cancellariam brevia sua propria ibidâ— de Cancellaria sua emanantia quod ministri Domini Regis ad aliqua officia sua exercenda ibidem in aliquo ad omnia Com' placita se non intromittant realia et personalia quae ad comitem Palatinum pertinent infra terram praed ' quod habet Justic.
Laws of this Land said that it was an ordinary Complaint as well in the Temporal as the Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts that our Lawes were far otherwise interpreted than they were in former Ages and declared that the King by communicating his Authority to his Judges to expound his Lawes doth not thereby abdicate the same from himself but may assume it again unto himself when and as often as he pleaseth And was long before that so believed to be consistent with our Magna Charta the doing of Justice to his people and the dernier resort or ultimate Appeal as Saint Paul did unto Caesar and so desirable by those that could have remedy no where else as Reginald Basset having great Suites with William de Harecourt Thomas de Astley and other Knights that held of the Honor of Leicester did in the eleventh year of the Reign of King John give as an oblation two Palfreys to the King that the Cause might be heard before him wherein he got the better as appeareth by a Fine of 200 Marks the next year after paid into the Exchequer by the said Thomas de Astley pro falso clamore for not proceeding in his Suit or Claim against him For certainly in that great and most prudent Judgment and Justice of Solomon in the Case of the true and false Mother claiming the child when al Israel heard of the judgment which the King had judged and they feared the King for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him to do Judgement that so justly admired piece of Justice was as well and legally done in his House or Chamber as if it had been done by him in the Sanhedrim or any of his Courts of Justice In the evidencing whereof although the Arguments by me used and the Authorities cited may to the more learned and lesser part of the people seem to be too many needless or superfluous yet they may to others appear to be as profitable as necessary to undeceive or antidote all such who having a Magna Charta of their Fancies do metamorphose all they can our better Magna Charta and make their disobedience conveniences or interest the Standard and Rule of their obedience and may be more and more mislead or infected by the Errors of the opinions delivered for Law in the Case before recited of the Prohibitions and to wean them from those dangerous Antimonarchical Doctrines which they had suck'd in the late times of confusion when our Lawes and right Reason attending them and even Truth it self were by an usurped power false authority and â— mechanick and ignorant part of the people lead by a rebellious party persecuted banished or affrighted Wherefore they who do delight to oppose and cavil Regal Authority by gleaning all the objections which they can either frame or hear of and put the Law upon a Rack or Torture to wring and wrest out of it any thing that may help to accommodate their distempered and unruly Fancyes may think they are in the Road and High-way of Wisdom and Applause but will in the end whilst they forget the duty of Subjects to their King and the Commands of God to honour and obey him find themselves to be more than a little deceived and to be far enough out of it and might do better to hasten out of the sinful ways they walked in and the unsafety of the Paths they have trod and travelled in and help to still and put to silence rather than increase and foment those causeless complaints wherewith too many of our Nation surfetting upon happiness do too much affright and afflict themselves and others in their opposing the just priviledges and protection of the Kings Servants And remember that although there are few evils or not to be justified matters of Fact as well as those which have been good and vertuous which have not left some Vestigia records or precedents to after Ages and it hath not been unfitly said that Exempla illustraâ—t non probant that Examples may illustrate but not prove yet the precedents and examples which are founded and built upon Law Right Reason and Truth as these by us alleaged on the part of the Kings Servants have been are to be heeded and harkened unto and the contrary rejected That the instances and examples brought by me out of the Civil and Cesarean Laws ought to oblige as they do with many other Nations propter aequitatem in regard of the Equity and reasonableness thereof and more especially when ex jure gentium naturali ratione by the Law of Nations and Nature they are in the particulars by me endeavoured here to be asserted not only by them but our Common Laws and reasonable Customs of England to be justified and maintained And that it is and should be the Interest of all the good people of England to preserve the Honor of the King and that the Bonds of gratitude in a return of what they have in their Liberties and Priviledges received of him and his Royal Progenitors should perswade them not to deny unto him those just Rights which by Law do belong unto Him and his Servants CHAP. XXI That a care of the Honor and Reverence due unto the King hath been accompted and is and ought to be the Interest of all the People of England and that the Servants and retinue of a Soveraign Prinee who hath given and permitted to his Subjects so many large Liberties Immunities Exemptions and Priviledges should not want those Exemptions Immunities Customs and Priviledges which are so justly claimed by them FOR every man who hath not bound himself more than as an Apprentice to a Spirit or Custom of contradiction of Authority and made himself a slave to wickedness and a Companion of those that speak evil of Dignities may confess that it is and should be every mans Interest to observe the fifth Commandement of God in that Sacred and dreadfully pronounced Decalogue to Honor and reverence the King and common Parent and that St. Peter hath so conjoyned the Fear of God and Honor of the King as that the one cannot be without the other and it is obvious to every mans understanding that where there is Honor there seldome wants obedience and where there is an obedience Honor most commonly doth bear it Company so that if the Law of God Nature and Nations and the municipal Laws and Customs of all the Countreys Kingdoms and Common-Wealths of the World where Reason hath got any admittance have submitted unto and acknowledged a Majesty and more especial Honor to be due unto their Supreme and Soveraign si Majestas quasi major status dicitur quis non fatebitur majorem statum esse Regis in suo regno and if Majesty is so called in regard of a greater State and Degree who will not acknowledge that a King is greater than any in his Kingdome certae sunt saith Besoldus affectiones quae superioritatem concomitantur sine quibus
neque regnum salvum incolume neque regia vis dignitas elucescere possit there being certain properties or qualities requisite to a Superiority without which neither a Kingdome can be in any safety nor the Kingly Honour and Dignity can manifest or shew it self And if Judges and Magistrates have a kind of participation thereof imparted unto them by their Soveraign majore ratione regum eos constituentium hisque fascibus â—tque Majestate decorantium Regia Majestas nuncupabitur with greater reason Kings who adorned them with those Ensigns or resemblances as it were of Regality and bestowed it upon them are not to want or be without it the Majesty of Kings being so much appointed and approved by God himself as he made Corah Dathan and Abiram and their Children and favorers the dire examples of his wrath and punishment but for murmuring against Moses and Aaron and saying they took too much upon them and so imprinted a reverence and esteem of Kings in the hearts and minds of mankind as Joab King Davids general of his Army having fought against Raab of the Children of Ammon would not when he was ready to do it until he had invited David to come and have the Honor of taking it least that City should be afterwards called by the name of Joab that took it And Nebucadrezzar King of Babilon during the Captivity of Jehoiakim King of Judah could attribute so much to the Rights of Majesty in Kings as he spake kindly unto him and set his Throne above the Thrones of the Kings who were with him in Babilon Wherein certainly the sad hearted people of Israel in Captivity with him did take it to be their Duty as well as their Interest to rejoyce in that parcell of Humanity and Honor which was done unto him when as long before the Palatia or Curiae Palaces of their Kings were so highly Honored by them as the 122 Psalm of the Kingly Prophet David exhorted that people to Pray that Peace might be within the Walls and Prosperity within her Palaces The Glory and Honor of Solomon was accompted to be no less than the Interest Delight and Joy of the people of Israel when after his Feast upon the Dedication of the Temple and his Sacrifice of the Peace offerings they Blessed the King and went unto their Tents joyfull and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Loâ—d had done for David his Servant and for Israel his people The Romans so experimented the Honor of their Emperors living or dead to be the great Interest of their people as they that fled to their Statues were protected from their Pursuers whether it were in Civil matters or criminal The Germans their Successors in that Empire took it ill in the Reign of their Charles the fifth Emperour who was likewise King of Spaine that the Spanish Grandees or other of that Nobility did give so much Honor as they usually did to their Princes and Emperors cases of Treason only excepted And it was beleived to be so much an Interest of our English true hearted Ancestors to be as carefull as they were Jealous of the Honor of their Kings As when Anselme Archbishop of Canterbury would in the Reign of King William Rufus peevishly hold on his resolution of disparaging of it in going to Rome to the Pope for his Pall and confirmation the great men and almost all the Nobility of the Kingdom and the other Bishops Assembled in Parliament at Rockingham Castle concerning that obstinacy of Anselme the Bishops and and many of the Nobility declared unto that Archbishop then present that the whole Kingdom did complain of him that he sought to take away the Honor of the King his Crown and Dignity and delivered their opinions that Quicunque Regiae dignitatis consuetudines tollit coronam simul regnum tollit unum quippe sine alio decenter haberi non posse whosoever took away any thing from the Kings Regality and Dignity took away at the same time both his Crown and Kingdom for the one could not Honorably subsist without the other King Edward the 3d by the advice of the Lords and Commons in Parliament in the 13th year of his Reign did Ordain that in case the Keepers of the Priviledges of the Hospitlers should incroach upon the Kings Jurisdictions and offend the Kings Dignity they should beware from thenceforth that they usurpe not any Jurisdiction in prejudice of the King and his Crown and if they did their Superiors should be charged for their fact as much as if they had been convict upon their proper Act. In a Parliament holden in the two and fortieth year of the aforesaid Kings Reign it was declared by the Lords and Commons therein Assembled that they could not assent to any thing which tended to the disherâ—son of the King and his Crown to which they were sworn The Lords and Commons in Parliament in the 14th year of the Reign of King Richard the second did pray the King that the prerogative of him and his Crown may be kept and that all things done or attempted to the conâ—rary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Progenitors ever were and in the 15th year of his Reign did in Parliament again require that he would as lawfully as any of his Progenitors enjoy his Prerogative Richard Earl of Arundell in the 17 year of the Reign of the aforesaid unfortunate Prince did complain that John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster who was then moulding the Sesign which his Son afterwards accomplished by usurpation of the Throne did go Arm in Arm with the King and that it beseemed not the Dukes men to wear the same Color of Livery that the Kings did By an Act of Parliament made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the 7th the Officers or Tenants of the King were not to be retained by Liveries with others And divers of the great Nobility did in the Reign of King Henry the Eight make it one of their Articles of high Treason and great misdemeanors against Cardinal VVolsey the great ingrosser of that Kings favor and manager of his Authority for that he being suspected to have the French Pox had stood and talked so near the King as to breath in his face The extent and verge of whose Royal house or Palace at VVhitehall and the Liberties and Priviledges thereof were so little desired to be lessened or diminished as the Parliament did in the 28th year of his Reign Ordain that the Park of St. James and the street leading from Charing-cross to the Sanctuary-gate at Westminster and all the Houses Buildings Lands and Tenements on both sides of the same street or way from the said Crosse unto Westminster-hall scituate lying and being betwixt the water of the Thames on the East part and the said Park-wall on the VVest part and so forth thorough all
Crown from whence they had their first Original and Being and might by their every years Forfeitures since of too many of them by misusers or non-users take the advantage thereof And those of the better sort which have received the Honor of Knighthood and do enjoy the Dignity and respects thereof and in their Title of Knight or Cniht according to the Saxon and High and Low Dutch Languages do bear the signification of a Servant or attendant in Military affairs and so Uriah in the preface to the seven Paenitential Psalmes in King Henry the 8ths Primer is called King Davids Knight and Servant and our Knights were as Sir Henry Spelman hath informed us antiently reckoned amongst the Famulos Thanos Ministrâ—s Regis amongst the Kings special and more remarkable Servants and do or should enjoy the Priviledges not to be Decenners or Tithing men that they and their eldest sons should be exempted from being cited to appear in the Court Leets or Hundreds are as saith Camden called Equites aurati because antiently it was lawfull only for them to Guild and beautifie their Armor and Caparisons for their Horses with Gold and by the Statute made in the 8th year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th concerning only what things may be Guilded and what laid on with Silver Knights Spurs and all the Apparel which pertaineth to a Baron and above that Estate are allowed unto that noble Order when all others under the Penalty of 10 times the value are prohibited Were not saith the Lord Chancellor Egerton by the course of the Court of Star-Chamber to be examined upon any Interrogatories which might disparage them those that are to be chosen for every County which should be the Worthiest and Wisest men to be in the House of Commons in Parliament are to be milites gladiis cincti Knights in Assises of novel disseisin mort d'ancester attaint grand assise or in Writs of right two of the discreetest Knights of the Shire where the Justices shall come shall be associated unto them three are to be in Commissions of Oyer and Terminer to hear and determine forcible Entries rnd Outrages done in their County no man but a Knight was capable to be a Coroner antiently an eminent Officer of the Crown and Realm of England a plaint from a base and inferior Court could not be removed but by the Testimony of four Knights an Infant holding Lands by Knight Service made a Knight was antiently as to his person out of wardship or pupillage a Knight inhabitant or resorting to any City or Town Corporate wherein is Conusance of criminal Pleas is not to be impannel'd in any Jury for the Triall of any Capitall crime when the Sheriff had received Tallies of the Kings Debtors although he was an Officer of Trust and whose Retorne or Answer was much credited yet was not his Certificate into the Kings Exchequer of that Faith or Credit in the case aforesaid except the same were Fortified with one part of a Chirograph or Indenture Sealed and the hands of two Knights Testifying the same no Constable or Castelaine was to distraine a Knight for Castle-guard or to Execute that Service in his own Person because he is Priviledged to do it by the body of another and the like in Service of War in regard of the Dignity of Knighthood in every Commission to take the acknowledgment of a Fine to be levied of Lands a Knight ought to be one of the Commissioners in grand Assise and Writs de faâ—so judicio four Knights are to be Impannelled and not a less number in a Writ de perambulatione facienda and are so much valued and Intrusted above others as in Tryalls and Issues at Law where any of the Nobility or any Bishop is a party one Knight is to be of the Jury and are so more than many others Priviledged as their Armor and Horses as hath been before remembred are not to be taken in Execution there being so great an Honor appropriate and fixed to the degree of Knighthood as by the Law of Nations where their Knights are not also without many and great Priviledges an English Knight is not to be denyed that Honor Place and Reverence in all Forrein Kingdoms and Places where they shall have occasion to reside and Travell and are by other Nations as well as ours so much esteemed as they are not whilst they are Knights not to suffer any ignominous punishment and therefore S. Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Michell Knights in the later end of the Reign of King James were degraded before they under went the Infamy inflicted upon them And so much were our Knights respected by our Laws as Hakelinus filius Joscii Quatribusches was in the time of King Henry the 2d fined 100 l. then a great Sum of Money for striking a Knight and Moyses de Cantebridgia 40 Marks because he was present when the Knight was compelled to Swear that he would not complain of the Injury done unto him Sir Francis Tyas a Knight in the Reign of King Edward the first recovered five pounds Damages in Wakefeild Court in Yorkshire a-against one German Mercer for Arresting the Horse of one VVilliam Lepton that was his Esquire and causing him to be unattended the Court Roll mentioning it to be ad dâ—decus dampnum praedicti Francisci quia fuit sine Armigero to the disgrace and damage of the said Sir Francis because he wanted the Service of his Esquire and a Ribauld or Clown that should without cause strike a Knight was as Britton saith to be punishâ—d by the loss of his hand that did it every man should owe so much to their benefactors as not to deny the King those regards and respects which are due unto him when the contempt or misusage of them cannot have any better effect than a dishonor of the King himself or be without a Reflection upon their Master and a disparagement to his Regal Authority which all the Histories and Monuments of former times have loudly Proclaimed to be dangerous both to King and people and do not seldome happen when Majesty is either contemned or neglected They who have no other to flye unto for help in in case of a denyall of their own Priviledges and can by his Favor and Justice procure a Writ of secta ad Curiam when a man refuseth to perform his Suit either to the County or Court Baron or de secta ad molendinum against one that refuseth to Grind his Corn at the Lords Mill quare obstruxit against one who having a liberty to pass through his Neighbours ground cannot do it by the owners threatning to hinder it essendi quietum de thelonio in the case of Citizens and Burgesses of any City or Town who have a Charter or prescription to exempt them from Toll through the whole Realm a Writ de fine Annullando to annull a Fine levied of
duly observed that the Phisitians in London should have a Priviledge not to keep Watch or Ward nor to be chosen or bear the Office of Constable or to bear any Office in the City of London or Suburbs and any such Election to be void in all which the Weal Publick was not a little concerned And the Barber Chirurgions are likewise by an Act of Parliament made in the same Parliament exempt from bearing of Armour or to be put in any Watches or Enquests which the Weal Publick without that Priviledge could not otherwise have dispensed with Could Cromwell that accomplishment of wickedness and Hypocrisie and Mr. Shepheard whom he had hired to clip and misuse our Laws upon a pretence of reformation of them allow in their modell thereof that the Servants of his miscalled Protectorship should not be compelled to serve upon Juries at Assises or Sessions or to bear the Office of a Constable or Church Warden And shall the Kings Servants that are continually imployed in the Attendance Preservation Safeâ—y and well being of his Person and people being matters of the greatest concernment be excluded or thought not worthy of the like Could the Archbishoprick and many of the Successive Archbishops of York enjoy a liberty of Fridstoll Frithstow Frid in the Saxon signifying Peace and stol sedes Cathedrae and Stow locus Cathedra quietudinis pacis a Seat Chair or place of Peace which had this Inscription Haec sedes lapidea Freedstoll dicitur pacis Cathedra ad quam reus fugiendo perveniens omnimodam habet securitatem this Seat or Chair of Stone is called Freedstoll or the Chair of Peace to which any Offender flying is to have all manner of Refuge and Security an Immunity granted unto the Church of St. Peters in York and confirmed by King Henry the 7th in the fifth year of his Reign And there is in Glossopdale in the County of Darby a place upon a Hill or large Heath some distance from the Town yet known by the name of the Abbots Chair which probably might have been endowed with the like Immunity Or shall a Priest or person propter Privilegium Clericale in regard of his being in holy Orders not be distreined when he hath no lay Fee or upon an Attachment refuseth to find Pledges because he hath no lay Fee or hath one in the Prebend and the Ordinary nor the Sheriff although he hath a Warrant to enter the Liberty without the ordinary or Bishop and the Bishop himself cannot do it sine speciali praecepto Regis cum Canonicus adeo libere teneat prebendam suam de Ecclesia sicut ipse Episcopus Baroniam canonâ—ci sunt quasi unum corpus per se in Ecclesia without a special Precept or Warrant from the King for that a Canon or Prebend doth as freely hold his prebendary of the Church as the Bishop doth his Barony and the Canons are and do make a Body or Corporation by themselves in the Church Doth the King grant and allow Cognisance of Pleas or Causes to so many of his Subjects within their Franchises and Liberties with Fossis and furcis power to punish or hang in Crimâ—nal matters and shall he not have so much Cognisance of the matters and concernments of his houshold and maenial Servants as to have leave asked before they be Arrested or disturbed in his Service which is the only cause of the Priviledge which he grants and allows to his Courts of Justice and the Officers and Servants thereof Or can any man think it reasonable that the Bishop of Eâ—y should have Cognisance of Pleas arising in his Bishoprick and the Territories thereof or the Magistrates of the City of Salisbury to have the like and supersede Actions and Pleas depending in the Court of Kings-Bench or the Lord Maior of London have and enjoy the priviledge of not having any Attachment awarded against him out of the high Court of Chancery as in the case of Sr. John Robinson Knight whilst he was Lord Mayor of London and exercised that Annual office as the Kings Lieutenant or special Servant or that Mr. John Abdy an Alderman of London in Anno Dom. 1640 being the 16th year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr should by the Judges of the Court of Kings-Bench be allowed a Priviledg not to bear the Office of a Constable in Essex where he was many times resident at his Country-house within the Leet or mannor of Sir William Hicks Knight where by the Custome of that place every inhabitant or resiant was from house to house yearly by turnes to execute that office and upon a writ granted him directed to the Lord of the Mannor or his Steward to discharge him because he being an Alderman of London ought to be there resident the greatest part of the year and if absent may be fined all the Justices of that Court delivered their opinion that he ought to be discharged bâ— his priviledge as Attorneys attending in Courts of Justice are of such offices of Constablâ—s and other offices in the parish And although it was said that the Alderman might execute the office of Constable by deputy and his personal Attendance was not requisite by the Custome of the Mannor yet that exception was not allowed Or that Mr. Bacon A Barrester at Law of Grayes-Inn should in Trinity Term in Anno 1655. h by aforesaid Court upon view of the presidents in Francklin and Sir William Butlers Case and Bere and Jones his Case of the Midle-Temple have a priviledge allowed unto him in respect of his Barrestership and necessary attendance upon the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall to lay a transitory Action at Law in Middlesex when it was before laid in Northumberland and that it should not be reasonable for the King to allow his servants their aforesaid priviledges much more necessary and conducing to the weal publique May not the King as well Claim and enjoy a priviledge for his servants and their freedom from arrest without first obtaining his licence or within his virge of twelve miles compass or circumference of his Court which certainly was at the first intended by Law for more purposes then for the Jurisdiction of the Marshals or Marshalsea Court and may probably be believed to have been antiently used for an Asylum or place of peace or freedom from such kind of violences as arresting the Kings houshold servants without the Kings licence As the Universitie of Oxford doth by the grants of our Kings and their several acts of parliament in its large boundaries or precincts and the University of Cambridge the like within their Colledges Halls and Precincts for the better observation whereof in Oxford every Sheriff of the County of Oxford at his admission into his office is to take an oath that the Masters of the said Universites and their servants from Jnjuries and violences he shall keep and defend by all his Strength and power and the
received him with four hundred men on Horsback clad all in one Livery And by a sad experience if they have a mind to taste it and the King should not continue and make it to be as his Chamber Court or Palace but remove his Courts his Servants and Courts of Justice as King Edward the first did to York for Seven years together during his Wars with Scotland would too late repent the misusage of the Founders and cause of their happiness and acknowledge the Night and Shades to be long and cold when their Sun should remove his Walk or Tropick to enlighten and refresh another part of the World And would find themselves to be mistaken in their Accompt as well as Opinion if they should fancy that nothing can hurt their Trade unless the River of Thames should be carried away from them and may in time be so well Acquainted with the Error of those conceipts as to confess that they were built upon a very Tottering and failing Condition when they shall like men either of any retrospect to the Ages or Times past or prospect of what is coming or may surely happen but consider that in all the Reigns of our Brittish Saxon or Danish Kings or of those of the Norman Race untill the Reign of King Edward the third the Neighbourhood of their Thames brought them so little advantage as it was rather an Embrio than an Emporium or noted Town of Trade that from thence to the Erecting and Incouragement of the Staple Towns and Cities of Trade whereof Westminster was one By King Edward the third for the Advance of our Clothing and Wollen Manufacture which in a short time after by the Wars of Franâ—e or some other intervenient obstruction dwindled into a desuetude and London and her Blackwell-hall made to be the Mistress of that once flowrishing Trade the quieting of Wales and the Commerce with it after the Reign of King Henry the 4th the uniting of the Houses of York and Lancaster by King Henry the 7th the opening of the Passages to the East and West Indies Grants of many Fairs and Markets which have been since made the Trade of London which was not before much more than in its Bloom and Blossom is by the Power Alliance Leagues and Interest of our Kings and Forreign Princes and the many Immunities and Priviledges procured by them for our Merchants with Francâ— Spain Portugal Burgundie and the Netherlands the Russia or Moscovie Hause or Hamburgh East and West-India Trade with those of the English Colonies as Virginia Bermudus Barbados St. Christophers New-England Maryland Mevis and Siranam since arrived to that height or perfecton which hath like Tirus Enlarged Her Borders and made her the Merchant of many Isles and to be as the Ocean into which al the Rivers of the Land do run and hasten to pay their Tribute And in the greatest of her Pride and Glory should not be to learn that the Scheld could not after that the Heiresse of Burgundie had transferred her Court and residence into Spain That great and Famous Town of Trade was made a place of desolation and a wonder of what she was and that the residence and Court of the French Kings hath made Paris though an Inland City far di-distant from the Sea and washed only by the River Seyne not much acquainted with Ships or Navigation to be called domicilium Regis caput regni the Head and Chief of all the Towns and Cities of France le Roy ayant son domicile ou les Princes Pairs de France autres officiers de la Couronne doivent estre a la suâ—te du Roy the King having there his House or Palace and the Princes and Peers of France and other Officers of the Crown who ought to attend the Court of the King Do the Merchants of London who Trade into Spain Russia and many other parts of the World by the Care Power and Protection of our Kings and Princes and their chargeable Embassies to Forreign Princes and States enjoy a Priviledge and Freedom from Arrests of their Persons or Estates without a Complaint first made to their Consuls or Remedie endeavoured to be obtained by Application unto them and to have their Causes and Actions tryed before a Judge Conservator of their own Priviledges Do our Kings allow and cause those Consuls to Solicite and take a care to maintain and defend those Priviledges and Authorize their Embassadors residing in the Courts of any Kings Princes or Republicks to make it to be a part of their business to be assistant unto them Have the Magistrates of the City of London for more than 500 years together at their coming to the Cathedral Church of St. Paul at some of their greatest Festivals and Solemnities in every year untill our late times of Confusion in a gratefull remembrance of his Favours walk round about and visit the Grave-Stone or Burial place of William Bishop of London who procured some Liberties to be Granted by William the Conqueror to their City being not the half of those of a greater Consequence and Profit which have been since Granted unto them by King Henry the first King Richard the first King John King Henry the third King Edward the third King Richard the second King Edward the 6th and divers others of our Kings and Princes who gave unto them many more and greater Favours and Priviledges as the Shrevalty of Middlesex Liberty to choose every year their Mayor free Warren in a great Circuit about the City that every Sheriff should have two Clarks and two Serjeants and the City have a Common Seal that the Mayor should be Escheator and Justice of Gaol Delivery at Newgate that the Serjeants of the Mayor and Sheriffs should bear Maces of Silver and Guilt with the Kings Arms Engraven upon them the Aldermen should continue during their lives and not be removed without special Cause with the grant of the Borough of Southwark and Conservation of the River of Thames cum multis aliis c. and many more some of which were before recited Will not all those Benefits their Being their Happiness and the continuance of those blessings with their Trades at home and abroad be enough to put them in mind to shew a kindness respects and Civility due unto the Kings Servants and not to drown those many Favours Honours and Priviledges received from him and his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors in the dead Sea of a base and unworthy Ingratitude or imitate Jesurun who like an Heyser waxing fat kickt against the cause of it Or can they upon any Foundation or ground of Reason or probability think that if our Kings should not continue and make London to be as his Chamber Court or Palace but remove himself his Court and Servants to York Hull Oxford or Bristoll the Inhabitants thereof would not gladly pay him a greater Tribute of Duty and Thankfulnes than the not Arresting his Servanrs without licence first
obtained and would be no loosers but greater Gainers by it Do the Might and greatness of Princes and their power to give aids and Assistance where Alliance Interest or Leagues do require it or to retalliate Wrongs or Injuries done and received perswade a Priviledge and Civility to the Persons and Goods of the Embassadors and their Servants and retinue of one another although not bound thereunto by any Laws or Rules of Subjection or Allegiance And shall not a just fear Duty and Reverence of Subjects to their Kings and Princes Civility good Manners Gratitude Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Fear and Command of God and a dayly protection by the Kings Power Laws and Justice of themselves and their Estates Honour Reputation and all that can be of value unto them from Forreign and Domestick dangers wrongs or oppressions invite them to a forbearance of that Barbarous and undutifull way of Arresting any of his Servants without a complaint first made or licence procured to do it Or how can such a one or any of his Children without shame or confusion of Face beg or hope for Mercy or Pardon from the King for man-slaughter or some other offence mischance or forfeiture when but a week or a little before they have had so small a care of their Duty and respect unto him or their many Obligations as to disturb his Service and necessary Affairs and disparage his Servants and do all they can to ruine and undo them by an Arrest or Imprisonment without licence When at the same time they would readily subscribe to the reasonableness of the Kings delivering and freeing from Arrest the Lord Mayor of London punishing those that should do it If for permitting in the Strand or any other place out of his Liberty that the Cities Sword the Ensign or Mark of Honour given unto it within its proper Jurisdiction to be carri'd up he should be Arrested or if he or any of the Sheriffs or Aldermen should in their Passage to Whitehall to attend the King when he commanded them be Arrested upon any other Action Will not a Tenant to a Lord of a Mannor who receives not so great a protection from him nor hath so great a need of him as every Subject hath of the Kings Grace and Favour be thought by all his Neighbours to be more than a little out of his Wits that should adventure his displeasure by Arresting the Steward of his Court Valet de Chambre Coachman Butler Brewer Hors-keeper or any of his Servants without leave or licence or denial of Justice upon his Complaint first had And will they not be deemed to be more Mad that shall so far forget themselves and their duty to the King as to Arrest without licence any of the Servants of their Soveraign which is the only Rock of defence and Succour which they have to flee unto in all their distresses or for Mercy which is not seldome needed upon any Offences or transgressions against him or his Laws May not the King punish Contempts and breaches of Priviledges as well as those that do subordinately Act by the Authority of Him and His Laws or not cause as much to be done in Order to the proâ—ervation of their Authority and Jurisdictions as they usually do unto any that should disturb the necessity and duty of their places Or may not the King as supreme Magistrate cause any that shall transgress the limits of their obedience in Arresting his Servants without licence to be Arrested or Imprisoned for such an affront or contempt of Majesty and the Supreme Power when it hath been ordinarily done and justified by some Lords of Mannors and Liberties in the Case of Sheriffs and Bailiffs presuming to Arrest any man within their Liberty without a Writ of non Omittas propter aliquam libertatem or special Warrant where the Lord of the Mannor hath neglected to do it Or must the King when any wrong or injury shall be done to his Servants suffer such contempt to be remedyless and only say why do you do so who when he doth cause the undutifulness and unmannerliness of such Offenders to be punished by a few days gentle restraint cannot with any truth or Reason be said to have given away their Debts when at the most it is but a small delay and doth many times occasion them to be sooner and less chargeably paid than it would be with an Action or Suit and the many Animosities Vexations and Heats which do usually attend Actions or Suits at Law Did our Magna Charta prohibit or give away any of the Liberties and Priviledges of the King and his Servanâ—s which are necessary for the Support and just means of Government and that high Authority with which God and the Law have intrusted him Can the King by his Writ cause a man or his Cattel or Goods to be Arrested and taken in Withernam untill the person of a man or his Cattel or goods wrongfully Arrested be delivered or freed from restraint and shall it not be as lawfull for the King by Arresting or Imprisoning the Party that did or procured it to enforce the delivery of a Servant wrongfully or unduly Arrested without his leave or licence first obtained Is the Kings Service the only cause of the Priviledge of Parliament so operative and powerfull in its effects as a Member of the house of Commons newly elected is so entituled to his Priviledge as before his admission or Oath taken the Infringers thereof have been severely punished as it was upon great debate and Examination adjudged in Parliament in the Case of William Johnson a Burgesse of Parliament in the first year of the Reign of Queen Mary and the like for Arresting upon an Execution Sir Richard Fitzherbert Knight a Member of Parliament in the 34th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and that kind of Priviledge so Watched and Guarded and in all its parts and circumstances so taken care of and inviolably kept As it may not be renounced or quitted by any one Member without a breach of Priviledge to all the rest nor is any leave to be given upon Petition or any the most urgent necessities of a Plaintiff or Creditor to molest or Imprison any of them or their Servants during the Session of Parliament and the time of Priviledge allowed them before and after them And cannot the people of England be well content and think themselves to be in a better Condition when in the Case of the Priviledge of the Kings Servants they may in the time of Parliament or without have licence upon a reasonable time prefixed for satisfaction to take their course and proceed at Law against them Shall the Vallies rejoyce in their Springs and pleasant Fountains and the Spring or Fountain it self that distributeth those living and refreshing Waters have no part thereof Hath the Chamberlain of the Lord Mayor or City of London Power to commit a Freeman of that City to Ward So that he do