do owe unto the Records of of this Kingdom and our great Seldens Intimacy and familiarity with them by whose learned Labours and Observations we have had the benefit of the disdiscovery and dispelling of many an Error and of the Illustration of many difficult and dark Notions and places in our Laws by which his great insights and inquiries into the English Records and Antiquities and the Seuerest part of the Learning of our Common Laws and the Civil Law and Laws of many Nations he became enabled and was as a learned Forreigner hath justly stiled him a Dictator or mighty man of Learning to giving aid and assistance tanquam de Throno sapientiae to the republick and Posterity of good Letters and Learning his Knowledge therein being so singularly exquisite Surmounting and Supereminent as he was not unfitly said to be decus gloria gentis Anglorum and if Nature could have so long have kept him from the fate of Mortality ought to have survived many Centuries more and have continued his admired Course in Learning untill the period and end of the World for that as Sir John Vaughan Knight now Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas his contemporary and most intimate associate in those more severe Recherces and choice pieces of Learning and Antiquities hath since his death bemoaning the loss and want of such a Treasury of Learning not long since well expressed it Debuit cum mundo mori it was too great a loss to the World and after Generations that he should dye before it for although the neglect of Records and Antiquities which might have a greater veneration than this Age is willing to bestow upon it have of late been so much undervalued as to be termed rusty and motheaten and those which do give them their true esteem and value superstitious Porers and Doters upon them So as the laborious Learned and well deserving Antiquarie Mr. William Dugdale was not without Premisses to Warrant his Conclusion when with some regret mixt with facetiousness he said that for any man in these Times to busie himself in the old Records or to spend his Time Candle in the search sifting of Antiquity it would by the little incouragements which have been given unto it amount unto as small a Profit or Purpose as to set up and keep a shop to sell old fashon'd Hose Trunk-Breeches and long wasted Dublets and expect to gain by it To so great a mispris and scorn are those usefull inquiries and Lamps of Learning fallen into when as they do draw out of the pit and devouring Jawes of Time many a pretious and hidden Truth and are not seldome the only rescuers of it and was better respected when old Marculfus Wrote his Formulae's Pancirollus his deperdita and when Brissonius and Pasquier Camden Selden Linden brogius our Learned Sir Henry Spelman and Mr. Dugdale and many other Worthies not here ennumerated made it their Business to discover them and the very Learned Sir Robert Cotton was at so great an Expence of Money and Time to Redeem so many as he did from the Captivity of an everlasting Oblivion which hath taken away and concealed many a Truth from the former Generations this present Age which are to come and to dig in those hidden Mines of incomparable Treasure But when the scorners of this Age shall have surfeited with the villifying of the Wisdom of the former and the Experiences of men and times past which Solomon in the high and not to be valued Price which he did put upon Wisdom and the Incouragement which he gave to the Study and search after the Riches and Treasures thereof would never have advised them unto They or some other after them may learn to forsake that grand piece of resolved folly by what this Nation and the Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland have so greatly suffered in the late time of Rebellion and Confusion by some of our Lawyers and too many of our Nation not understanding the Rights and Prerogative of the King which the old Records of the Kingdom did and will always abundantly witness and by too many of the Inferior Clergies Ignorance of the Ecclesiastical Histories and Primitive times which did not a little contribute unto it and believe that the greatest disservice which can be done to Princes to endeavour to advance their Prerogative beyond the Laws of the Land right Reason and the necessary and just means of Government and that on the other side they are small Friends or rather great Enemies to the Publick that will go about to perswade the People or entitle them to more Liberties than the Laws well interpreted will allow them that there is a Justice to be done to the King in giving unto him that which belongeth unto him and in not denying his just and Legal Rights as well as a Justice to be done by him in what shall concern his people and their Liberties That there is a Majesty due to Kings and that the Rights of their Courts Palaces and Servants are neither to be neglected or continued And therefore if the Romans those great Champions and Patrons of Libertie were so Jealous and Watchfull in the Preservation of the Honours and respects due unto Magistracy and Superiority as their Consul Fabius would rather for the time forget the Honour due and payable from a Son to his Father of which that Nation were great observers than relinquish any thing of it and commanded by a Lictor or Officer his Aged Father Fabius the Renowned preserver of Rome in a Publick assembly to alight from his Horse and do him the Honour due unto his present Magistracy which the good old man although many of the People did at the present dislike did so much approve as he alighted from his Horse and embracing his Son saidâ— Euge fili sapis qui intelligis quibus imperes quam magnam Magistratum imperes I may give my self an Assurance that your Lordships will with greater reason make it your endeavours not only to preserve the Rights of Majesty but the Rights and Priviledges of those great and Honourable Offices and places which you hold under the King our Soveraign and be as willing as your great and Honourable Predecessors in those Offices were to transmit them to their Successors in no worse condition than they found them Which that it may equally be done in that particular of the Kings Servants just Rights and Priviledges is the only design of the ensuing vindication of them and the Honour and respect due unto our Soveraign and submitted to you Lordships Judgment and Consideration humbly intreating your Lordships to pardon any the Errors or failings therein which in the haste of the Press my desire to keep pace with it when I was crebris intermissionibus aliorum negotiorum incursionibus frequenter interpellatus might easily happen and more especially in an undertaking of that Nature nullius ante trita pede being a Path never before as
Complaints against any of their Menials and Servants cannot rationally be supposed to be willing or intend to abridge himself of the like William the Conqueror in his Law entituled de hominum Regis privilegio of the priviledge belonging to his Tenants ordained That si qui male fecerint hominibus illius Ballivae et de hoc sit attinctus per Justitiam Regis which for a great part thereof was then administred in his House or Palace foris factura sit dupla illius quam alius quispiam foris fecerit That if any one should do wrong unto them and be thereof Convict by the Kings Justice the forfeiture of the Offender should be double to what should be paid upon the like offence unto any other who being afterwards known by the name of Tenants in antient Demeasne were so exempt from being retorned as Jury men either at Assizes or Sessions as where they were so retorned in the 26 year of the Raign of King Edward the first they did recover every man forty shillings damage against the Bayliffe that retorned them Et Domus Regis and the House of the King saith King Henry the first in his Laws is where he is Resident Cujuscunque feudum vel Mansio sit whose ever the Land or the House be and that wise King who for his wisdome had the Character or name of Beauclerk as an Affix to his Royal Title did not then take it to be derogatory to the beloved Laws of Edward the Confessor or his grand design of pleasing a lately discontended and subdued people or setling the English Crown unjustly detained from his elder Brother Robert upon himself and his posterity to allow the Exchequer Priviledges quód de Scaccario residentes Clerici et omnes alii ministri ibidem ministrantes sive enim de Clero sint sive Regia Curia assident ex mandato ad alias quaslibet causas extra scaccarium sub quibuscunque Judicibus non evocenter That the Officers of the Exchequer which was then kept in the Kings House or Palace and many of them and the Clerks thereof as Sir Henry Spelman saith his menial and domestick Servants Clerks and all other the Ministers there whether belonging to the Clergy or the Kings Court or which do sit there by his Command shall not be cited or compelled to appear for any causes whatsoever out of the Exchequer or before any Judges or Judge Etquod iidem de Communibus Assises sect Comitat. hundred et Cur. quibuscunque tam de et pro dominiis suis quam de et pro feodis suis Ac etiam de Murdris scutagiis vigiliis et Danegeld And that they should be freed and exempted from common Assizes suit of County Courts hundred Courts or any Courts whatsoever as well for or concerning their Demesn Lands as for their Fees or Lands which they held of others which would otherwise after two years have made a forfeiture and could not have been dispensed withal Murders Escuage Watch and ward and Danegeld publique Taxes which were not but by special favour to have been acquitted Et quod Barones et qui ad Scaccarium resident de quibuscunque provision seu provisoribus et aliis solutionibus nomine consuetudinis pro quibuscunque victual suae domus in quibuscunque urbibus Castellis et locis Maritimis empt Ac de solutione Theoloniae sive Toluet liberi et quieti esse debent and that the Barons and those which reside in the Exchequer should not be charged with the payment of Toll in any City or place Et quod non debent implacitari alibi quam in Scaccario quamdiu idem Scaccarium fuerit apertum and that they should not be impleaded any where but in the Exchequer when it shall be open which is not only all the Term times but eight daies before every Term. Si vero judex sub quo litigant sine sit Ecclesiasticus sive forensis legis hujus ignarus ab jam dicta die convocationis ad Scaccarium citaverit quemlibet eorum et absentem forte per sententiam possessione sua vel quonius Jure spolaverit authoritate principis et ratione sessionis revocabitur in eum statum causa ipsius in quo erat ante citationem But if the Judge whether Ecclesiastical or of the Common Law being ignorant of the opening of the Exchequer should cite any of them and in their absence give sentence against him and take away from any of them any of their Rights or Possessions by vertue of the Kings Authority and their sitting the Cause or sentence shall be forthwith revoked and reduced into the State it was before the Citation And were so greatly favoured and taken care of as si quilibet etiam magnus in regno in consulto animi calore conviciis lascesserit If any great man of the Kingdome should rashly or in anger revile any of them he was to pay a fine for it or if any other should reproach or doe them any wrong they should be punished and when that King had been ill advised and perswaded to charge the Lands of the Barons of the Exchequer with the payment of Taxes in regard that they as was by some envious persons then alleag'd did receive Salaries and Wages or Liveries or diet at the Court for their sitting and that some of them pro officio suo fundos habent et fructus eorum hinc ergo gravis jactura fisco provenit having Lands and Revenues given them also for it which was a great loss to the Kings Treasury or Exchequer But the King afterward experimenting that evil Counsel and growing weary of it et nil ducens Jacturam modici aeris respectu magni honoris and not valuing the loss of a little mony so much as the loss of a great Honour ordained that Jure perpetuo by a constant Law and decree they should as formerly be free from Taxes and in his Laws for the good of the Kingdome declaring his Kingly Rights and Prerogative which he solus et super omnes homines habet in terra sua as King of England had and was to enjoy and above all men in his Kingdome commodo pacis et securitatis institutione retenta reserving a fit provision for the publique peace and security did amongst many of his Royal Prerogatives mention de famulis suis ubicunque occisis vel Injuriatis the punishment of such as any where should slay or injure any of his Houshold Servants in any place whatsoever Et qui in Domo vel familia regis pugnabit such as should fight in the Kings House And limiting the extent of the Jurisdiction of the Marshall of his Houshold declared it in these words nam longe debet esse pax Regis a porta sua ubi residens erit the peace of the King ought to extend a great way from the gate of his House where he shall be resident not much unlike that of the 12 miles circuit of the Verge
both Horse and Foot Garrisons and Commanders of Castles Towns or Forts and was believed to be necâ—ssary in the time of Justinian the Emperor Qui statuit milites conveniri tam in causis Civilibus quam Criminaelibus coram ducibus suis quod miles nisi a suo judice coerceri non possit that Soldiers should be cited and tryed aswell in causes civil as criminal before their Captains or Commanders And that a Soldier should not be compelled to appear before any other which was not in that time any new Edict or Ordinance but a Declaration of an antient law and custome in use amongst the Romans in the Infancy of their mighty Monarchy some hundred of years before the birth of our Redeemer as may be evidenced by Juvenal and what was in use and practise and accompted to be of antient institution in his time which was not long after the birth of our Saviour when he saith Legibus antiquis Casâ—â—erum more Camilli Servato miles ne vallum litiget extra Et procul a Signis justissima Centuriorum Cognitio est igitur de milite By antient laws and customes sacred held By great Camillus Soldiers were not to be compel'd To appear in Courts of Justice but in the Campe to abide And by their own Commanders to be try'd And from the like causes and considerations of the Kings service and safety of the Kingdome are allowed by our reasonable laws and customes the priviledges and franchises of the Cinque Ports that the Inhabitants within the liberties thereof do sue and are only to be sued in the courts thereof and the Kings ordinary Writs and Process do not run or are of any 〈◊〉 therein and such as are in certain special cases are only to be directed to the Constable of the Castle of Dover and the Warden of the Cinque Ports and those franchises were so allowable by law as the Abbot of Feversham in his time a man of great power and authority and armed with many and great priviledges of his own both Spiritual and Temporal being imprisoned by the Warden of the Cinque Ports for an offence committed therein for which the Arch-bishop of Canterbury citing the Kings Officers there into his Ecclesiastical Court the Record saith Quia secundum consuetudinem regni approbatam ratione juris Regii ministeri Regis pro aliquibus quae fecerunt ratione officii trahi non debeant Rex prohibuit Archiepiscopo Cantuar. ne volestari faciat ministros suos Dover de eo quod Abbatem de Feversham pro delicto suo incarcerassent per considerationem Curiae quinque portuum de Shepway in regard that by the custome of the Kingdome approved and the right and prerogative of the King the Kings Officers are not to be compelled to appear in other Courts the King prohibited the Arch-bishop of Canterbury that he should not molest or trouble his Officers or servants at Dover for that by a judgement of the Court of the Cinque Ports holden at Shepwey they had imprisoned the Abbot of Feversham for an offence by him committed From the like causes and considerations of the Kings service and good of his household and servants the multitude of tenants heretofore of the Antient Demesnes of the Crown which were in the hands of King Edward the confessor or William the Conqueror for that as Sir Edward Coke saith they plowed the Kings Demesnes of his Maners sowed the same mowed his Hey and did other services of Husbandry for the sustenance of the King and his honorable household to the end that they might the better apply themselves to their labors for the profit of the King had the priviledge that they should not be impleaded in any other of the Kings Courts for any their lands or in actions of accompt Replevin ejectione firmae Writs of Mesne and the like where by common intendment the realty or title of lands may come in question are to be free and quit from all manner of Tolls in Fairs and Markets for all things concerning their husbandry and sustenance of Taxes and Tallages by Parliaments unless the Tenants in Antient Demesnc be specially named of contributions to the expences of the Knights of the Shire for the Parliament and if they be severally distreined for other services they may all for saving of charges joyne in a Writ of Monstraverunt albeit they be several Tenants and where they recover in any action are by the Laws of William the Conqueror to have double costs and damages From which Spring and fountain of priviledges in relation only to and for the concern of the Prince and Son and Heir apperant of the King of England and his revenue hath been derived those of the Court of Stanneries or jurisdiction over the Tyn Mines where by the opinion of Sir VVilliam Cordell Knight Master of the Rolls Sir James Dier Knight Cheif Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and Justice Weston no Writ of Error lyeth upon any judgment in that Court and by an act of Parliament made in the 50 th year of the raigne of King Edward the third and the grant of that King all Workmen in the Stanneries are not to be constrained to appear before any Justice or other Officers of the King his Heirs or Successors in any plea or action arising within the Stanneries unless it be before che Warden of the Stanneries for the time being Pleas of land life or member only excepted nec non recedant ab operibus suis per summonitionem aliquorum ministrorum seu heredum nostrorum nisi per summonitionem dicti custodis and should not depart from their said works or labors by reason of any Summons of the Officers of the King or his Heirs unless it be by the Summons of the aforesaid Warden were to be free as to their own goods from all Tolls Stallage Aides and Customes whatsoever in any Towns Havens Fairs and Markets within the County of Devon and that the VVarden aforesaid should should have full power and authority to administer Justice to all that do or should work in the Stannaries or any forreigners in and concerning any plaints trespasses contracts or actions except as is before excepted arising or happening within the Stannaries and that if any of the workmen be to be imprisoned they shall be arrested by the said Warden and kept in the prison of Lydeford and not else where untill according to the Law and custome of England they shall be delivered All which before mentioned Exemptions and Priviledges as effects flowing and proceeding from their true and proper causes may justifie those more immediate and proximate of the Kings Servants in Relation to his person and a greater concernment more especially when so many of the people of England can be well contented to enjoy not a few other immunities exemptions and priviledges which have had no other cause or foundation then the indulgence and favour
now and for many ages past allowed and gave the reason of it multis sane respectus esse debet ac multa diligentia ne quis pacem Regis infringat maxime in ejus vicinia for that there ought to be a more than ordinary respect had thereunto and much diligence used that none should break the Kings peace more especially so near his House which must of necessity and by all the rules of Reason and Interpretation of Laws and the meaning of the Law-giver be only understood to referre unto the peace and quiet of his own House and Servants and not unto the Kings care of the publique and universal peace of the Kingdome which was not be streightned or pend up in so narrow a room or compass when as many of his other Laws did at the same time provide for the universal peace and this only aimed at the particular peace and tranquillity of himself and his Family Nor can it appear to have been any intention of that foresighted and considerate Prince that any Sheriffes or Bayliffs should upon all occasions false or malitious or trivial suggestions presume to Arrest and hale from his Palace or Service any of the necessary Attendants upon his Person Majesty and Honour or be the sawcy and irreverent Infringers of their peace which by that Law Intituled De pace Curiae Regis the peace of the Kings Court or Palace he took so great a care to preserve At the Parliament of Clarindon holden by King Henry the Second in Anno Dom. 1164. When that Prince's troublesome Raign was afflicted with the Rebellion of his Sons and Domineering of a Powerful Clergy backt by the Papal power and Insolency it was not thought to be either unreasonable or illegal when Excommunications which the lofty Clergy of those times were not willing to have clipped or limited and the Thunderbolts fear or fury thereof did farre exceed any effect or consequence of an utlary to ordain That Nec aliquis Dominicorum Ministrorum Regis excommunicetur nec terrae alicujus eorum sub Interdicto ponantur nisi prius Dominus Rex si in terra fuerit Conveniatur That none of the Kings Servants or Officers be excommunicated or their Lands interdicted untill the King if he be in the Kingdome be first Attended And the reason of this Law was saith Sir Edward Cook for that the Tenures by grand Serjeanty and Knights service in Capite were for the Honour and defence of the Realm and concerning those that served the King in his Houshold their continual Service and attendance of the King was necessary And Glanvil who was Lord Chief Justice of England and wrote in the Raign of King Henry the second or of King Richard the first of the antient Laws and Customs of England if that Book as some have thought were not written rather in his name then by him howsoever it is ancient and allowed both here and in Scotland to be very Authentick saith that Per servitium Domini Regis rationâ—biliter essoniare potest et cum in Curia probatur hoc essonium et admittitur remanebit loquela sine die donec constiterit â—um ab illo servitio domini Regis rediisse Vnde hi qui assidue sunt in servitio Domini Regis Cui necessitates omnes forenses cedunt to which all other businesses or occasions saith the Learned Spelman in his gloss upon Essoines are to give place ut Servientes ipsius hoc Essonio non gaudebunt Ergo circa eorum personas observabitur solitus cursus Curiae et Juris ordo That a Defendant or Tenant being in the service of the King may rationally be essoyned or for that time be excused and when the Essoyne or excuse is proved in Court and admitted the Action or plea shall be without day and suspended untill it shall happen that he be retorned out of the Kings Service but those that be in the Kings daily Service as his ordinary Servants are not to be allowed such an Essoyne or excuse therefore as to their persons the accustomed course of the Court and order of Law is to be observed but doth not declare what that solitus Curfus Curiae et juris ordo that accustomed course and order of Law in case of the Kings Servants in ordinary then was Or whether their priviledge was not so great and notorious as not to need any Essoine Yet as the Law then was saith that where sometimes both the Plaintiffe and the Defendant did not appear but made default tunc in Domini Regis voluntate vel ejus Justitiariorum erit si voluerint versus utrumque contemptum Curiae vel falsum clamorem prosequi then it shall be in the good pleasure of the King or his Judges if they will prosecute either against the Defendant for his Contempt or against the Plantiffe for his not Prosecution By which again the King was at his liberty to protect or priviledge his Servant in ordinary if the Law had not allowed them any such priviledge as well as to grant his Writ directed to the Judges ad warrantizandum to allow or receive an Essoine for one that was in servitio Regis in his Service recited by Glanvil with an Ideo vobis mando quod pro absentia sua illius diei non ponatis in defaltam nec in aliquo sit perdens therefore I command our Kings not then in their mandates writs or Patents speaking in the plural number as we and us c. You that you enter not a default against the Defendant or Tenant for his absence or not appearing at the day appointed and that he be not damnified thereby And in that Kings Raign and the beginning of the Raign of King Richard the first whilst Chief Justice Glanvil attending his Court and Justice his Warrs in the Holy Land died at Acon and in all those foregoing times and ages it was not probable that any Inroads should be made upon that antient just and rational priviledge of the Kings Domestiques or other Servants in ordinary for that some of the Stewards and great Officers of the Kings most honourable Houshold who had under their several Kings the protection as well as Government of the Servants in ordinary of the Royal Family as Prince Henry the eldest Son of King Henry the second and William Longchampe in the first year of the Raign of King Richard the first Lord Chancellour of England were whilst they held their several other places in the Kings Courts successively Lord Chief Justices of England and attended in the Kings Court. And it appeareth by Glanvil that Actions or Summons or Attachments of Debt and other process were then not infrequently directed to the Sheriffe of the County where the Defendant dwelt made retornable coram me i.e. Domino Rege vel Justitiis meis i.e. Justitiis suis before the King or his Justices in the abstract apud Westmonasterium at Westminster i.e. The Kings House or
cause in the same year Richard Horne of Watton in the County of Oxford to be arrested and taken into custody upon the complaint of Mr. Hiorne Deputy Steward of VVoodstock for not only refusing to furnish horses to carry the Kings Venison to Court he being Constable and required and of duty ought to do it but for reproachful and ill language or as was done not long before or after in his Reign by a Warrant under the hand of the L. Chamberlain for the apprehension of one that had spoiled or killed a Mastiff of the Kings when as our Laws have not yet had any prescript form or writs remedial for any of those or the like accidents at the Kings suit only for it would be no small disparagement to the Majesty of a King and supreme of such an antient Empire not to have power enough to redress complaints of that nature or to be enforced to put Embassadors to be Petitioners to his inferiour and delegated Courts of Justice which no Monarchy Kingdom or Republique in Christendom was ever observed to suffer to be done for that which their Superiors according to the Law of Nations ever had and should have power to grant without them for when our Laws which do not permit the King as a Defendant to be commanded in his own name under his own Seal and by his own writs or as a Plaintiff to supplicate those whom he commissionated to do Justice in his name and by his authority to all the meanest of his Subjects to do a parcel of Justice to himself when he wanted no remedies by his own Messengers or Servants to imprison any that should offend against his dignity and authority and in matters of his Revenue or for contempt of his Royal authority can by seisures or distress office or inquisitions process of his Courts of Exchequer Chancery Kings Bench Common-Pleas and Dutchy of Lancaster c. give himself a remedy is not to prosecute in any Actions at Law as common persons are enforced to do for our Kings should not certainly be denied their so just and legal rights when by their Office and dignity Royal they are the principal Conservators of the Peace within their own Dominions and by their Subordinate authority the Judges of their Courts of Record at Westminster and the Justices of Assize can and do legally punish and command men by word of mouth to be Imprisoned or taken into Custody by their Tipstaves Virgers Marshals or by the Warden of the Fleet or his men attending them when the Lord Steward of the Kings Houshold Earl Marshal and Constables of England are by their Offices Conservators and Justices of the Peace in all places of the Realm and the Steward of the Marshalsea within the virge by that derived authority can do the like and all the Justices of Peace in England were and are authorised by him who hath or should have certainly a greater power than any Justice of Peace who may by Law award a man to prison w ch breaketh the peace in his presence or appoint his servant to serve or execute his Warrant or cause by word of mouth to be arrested or imprisoned the person offending for contempts or an offender being in his presence to find security for the Peace and by the Common Law cause Offenders against the Peace to be punished by corporal punishments not capital as whipping c. when a Sheriff of a County and the Majors and head Officers of Cities and Towns Corporate do the like under and by the power given them by grants of the King and his Progenitors when the Steward of the Sheriffs Turn or a Leet or of a Court of Piepowder may commit any to ward which shall make any affray in the presence of any of them when the Lord Mayor of London whose Chamberlain of that City hath a power appropriate to his Office of Chamberlain to send or commit any Apprentices of London upon complaint of their Masters or otherwise to the Prison of the Compters or to punish and reform such disobedient Servants though the younger Sons of Baronets Knights Esquires of Gentlemen and sometimes the elder Sons of decayed or impoverished Esquires or Gentlemen who should have a greater respect given unto them then those of Trades men Yeomandry or lower Extractions by cutting and clipping their hair if too long and proudly worn or cause them to be put into a place well known in Guildhall London Called Little Ease where to a great Torment of their bodies they cannot with any ease sit lie or stand or by sometimes committing them to Bridewell or some other place there to be scourged and whipt by a Bedel or some persons disguised for no man can tell where to find or discern any reason that the King should not upon extraordinary occasions have so much power and coertion in his high and weighty affairs of government protection of his people and procuring and conserving their peace welfare and happiness as a Stâ—ward of a Court Leet or the Lord thereof in their far less affairs of Jurisdictions by punishing of Bakers and Brewers by that very ignominioâ—s and now much wanted use of the Pillâ—ry and Tumbrel in the later whereof the Offender was to be put in a Cathedra or ducking stool placed over some stinking and muddy pool or pond and several times immerged in it or that by any law or reasonable custom our Kings of England are to have a more limited power in matters of punishment government or a less power than the Masters Wardens of that petty and lower most the late erected Company or Corporation of the Midlers only excepted Company or Corporatioâ— of the Watermen who acting under the Kings authority can fine the Master Watermen for offences committed against by-laws of their own making and imprison them without Bail or Mainprize for not paying of it and cause their Servants for offences against their Masters to be whipt and punished at their Hall by some vizarded and invisible Tormentors or less than the power and authority of a Parish and most commonly illiterate and little to be trusted Constable who may upon any affray or breach of the Peace in his presence or but threatning to break the peace put the party offending in the stocks or keep him at his own house until he find sureties of the peace or less than those necessary military powers and authorities exercised in Armies Garrisons or Guards by inflicting upon offenders that deserve it the punishment of running the Gantlet riding the wooden horse c. or in maritime affairs by beating with a Ropes end ducking under the main yard c. when as the Powers given by God Almighty to his Vicegerent the King and Supreme Magistrate and the subordinate and derivative power concredited by him to his delegated and commissionated inferiour Magistrates are not debarred that universal and well-grounded maxim of Law and Right Reason Quando Lex aliquid
Familiae Regiae cum inter se tum vel adversus alios controversiae in Consilio Procerum Populi disceptantur the controversies of suits which is to be understood where the Judicium or Tribunal in Aula Caesarea in the Emperors Court cannot compose them of the Emperors family brought eithâ—r by or against them are to be heard or decided in the Diets of other publike meetings of the States of the Empire At Florence Siena and Pisa in Italy no man may arrest or commence a suit against a Courtier Souldier or Estranger without a special Licence from an Officer of the great Dukes Court thereunto appointed In the very large Dominions of the Ottoman Empire such as receive any wages or pay coming from the Exchequer or have any Office depending on the Crown are commonly free from the least Injury to be offered unto them when such as offend therein are sure to be severely punished Those sons of Winter rudeness the Russians or Moscovites can in their small commerce with Latine or other learning and the better manners of their neighbour and other Nations so well understand the Privileges or respect of Kings and Princes Embassadors who are therein but as their especial Servants or Messengers as when in the Earl of Carliles Embassy from our Soveraign King Charles the second thither to the Tzar or Emperor of Moscovy in the year 1664. a Gentleman of Plescoe having seized or distreyned two Horses belonging to the Embassadors Train which he had found in the night to have broken into his Pastures the Governor or Plescoe was no sooner enformed thereof but he apprehended the Gentleman and sent him bound to the Embassador to beg his life which upon his acknowledgement of the indiscretion of the fact was easily pardoned by the Embassador the King of Sweden not denying those respects which are due ro Embassadors when in an Embassy into Sweden in the same year he did at the Embassadors request release out of prison one of the Embassadors servants that had in a Duel slain a German Colonel of the Embassadors retinue The People of Holland and their confederate Provinces who do so fondly dream of their freedoms do not think their so hardly gained liberties lost or retrenched when for the military part of their Illustrious Princes of Orange or Stadtholders Domestiques or any of those they call the States general servants being the greatest part of their Menials they cannot Arrest and prosecute any of them at Law before leave petitioned for and obtained and as for any other of their servants not imployed in the War or any of those many several sorts of Officers and Offices appurtaining thereunto there are enough of that Nation can tell that their Greffiers or Process makers can although they are to make out their Mandates and Process ordinarily and in common forms without a special order of the Judge or Recht Heer so easily find the way to a Biass or partiality as to deny it in the case of any of their Superiors Domestiques until they have a special order for it which after a tedious attendance is not to be gained until the matter or debt complained of be referred and put to certain vreede mackers Peace-makers or Arbitrators who can toss the Case in a Blanket and make the Plaintiff a Labyrinth of delays which at long treading shall only bring him to a Mandate and a tyring chargeable and tedious prosecution at their Law against such a pâ—otected seemingly unprotected servant Nor is it rationally to be believed that the servants attending upon the person or in the Court of the Emperor of China whose Dominions are as Samedo saith as big as Spain France Italy Germany the Belgicque Provinces and Great Brittain where the Mandarines his great Officers of State Lord Lieutenants or Governors of Provinces are by the common people so highly reverenced as they are as they pass almost ador'd in all places the people passing in the Streets alighting off their horses or coming out of their Chairs or Sedans when they meet them do not enjoy as great a Privilege as the Servants in ordinary of our English Kings do claim to be free from Arrests or suits in Law before leave or licence first obtained of some of the superiour Officers of his Court or Houshold wherein there are nine Tribunals called Kicu Kim particularly appointed for matters of controversies which concern the Servants In those largely extended Empires of Japan Persia Industan and all the African and Asiatique Kingdoms and Dominions where the power and will of the Princes are their Laws the fear and obedience of their Subjects are so very great and their reverence so extraordinary as they do honour and esteem them as Demi-Gods and have so great a respect of their Chancellors Privy Councellors great Officers of State and servants implyed by them no man can so much mis-use his reason or understanding as to harbor any thought or imagination that the servants of those Emperors or Princes are at any time without leave or license arrested or prosecuted at Law And well might our Kings and Princes and all other Soveraign Kings and Princes understand the mis-usage and disgrace of their servants to be Crimen immunitae Majestatis no small crime or lessning of Majesty and an abuse and disparagement to themselves when the Romans with whom their neighbours the Sabines scorned to Ally or marry in regard of their then ignoble race and originals could in the height and grandeur of their all-conquering Republique after so many liberties obtained by taking them from others creat and constitute Majestatem populi Romani a Majesty so called of their faction breeding inconstant and popular government and accuse Rabirius Posthumus of Crimen laesae Majestatis high Treason for that being a Citizen of Rome he had contra morem majorum the usage and custom of the Romans made himself a Servant or Lacquey to Ptolomy King of Aegypt at Alexandria whereby to procure some money to be paid which was there owing unto him Neither are those that stand before our Kings and Princes or attend upon their persons or near concernments of their Royal Houshold as Servants in ordinary to be ranked amongst the multitude or put under an ordinary Character when reason of State reputation of Princes and the usage and custom of Nations have always allowed distinctions and respects proper and peculiar unto them For so much difference was alwayes betwixt the servants of the Kings of England who by the irradiation of Majesty and Regal Resplendency are not without some participation or illustration of it as they were always allowed a precedency before the greatest part of their Subjects not of the Nobility and Clergy for the Grooms of the Kings Bed-chamber doe take place of any Knight whether he be the Kings servant or not and a Knight being the Kings Servant is to take place of any Knight which is not the Kings servant in ordinary the
no Vagabonds Masterless men Boyes or Idle persons be suffered to harbour in her Court Wherfore the Servants attending therein should not now be so much in the ill opinion causeless contempt of the Mechanick and vulgar part of the people for those which are ex meliore luto better born and more civilly educated cannot certainly so lose their way to a gratefull acknowledgement of their Princes daily protection and needed favours as to villifie or slight his Servants by imitating the sordid examples of a less understanding part of the people or want their due respects if it shall be rightly considered that our Ancestors and a long succession of former ages were not so niggard or sparing of their well-deserved respects When our Kings and Princes and the wiser part of their people supposed to be in Parliament did attribute so much unto them and so very much trust and confide in them as they did from time to time put no small power into their hands and leave no small concernments of themselves and the Kingdom to their prudence fidelity and discretion When the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who administreth the Oathes usually taken by the Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer of England Lords of the Kings most Honourable Privy Councel Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Rolls Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas Barons of the Exchequer Kings Attorney and Sollicitor General Serjeants at Law Masters of Requests and Chancery upon and before their admission into their several Places and Offices nominates and appoints the Custos Rotulorum and Justices of the Peace in every County of England Wales some few Franchises and Liberties excepted and by his largely extended Jurisdiction committed unto his trust doth by the Writs remedial of his Soveraign guide and superintend the Cisterns and Streams of our Laws those living waters which do chear and refresh our Vallies and make them to be as a watered Garden And with the two Lord Chief Justices Master of the Rolls the other Reverend Judges and the Masters of Chancery appointed to distribute the Kings Justice according to the laws and reasonable customs of the Kingdome have their Robes and Salaries allowed and are as Justice Croke acknowledged in his argument against the Ship-money as the Kings Councel at Law the chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas being as is mentioned in a Manuscrip of Henry Earl of Arundel copyed out of a book of George Earl of Shrowsbury Lord Steward of the houshold unto King Henry the seventh and King Henry the eighth communicated unto me by my worthy friend Mr. Ralph Jackson one of his Majesties Servants in ordinary a great Member of the Kings house for whose favour counsel and assistance in the Law to be shewed to the houshold matters and servants he taketh an yearly Fee by the Bâ—tler of England of two Tuns of Wine at two Terms of the year which is allowed in the Court of houshold When the Justices of Peace in every City and County are or should be the under Wheels in that excellently curiously framed Watch of the English Government as the late blessed Martyr King Charles the first when he so sadly forwarned the pulling of it in pieces by a mistaken Parliament and the Rebellious consequences of it not unfitly called it are at their quarter Sessions under his pay and allowance when the Assize of the bread to be sold in England was in the fourth year of the Reign of King John being thirteen years before his granting of Magna Charta ordained by the King by his Edict or Proclamation to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates set and an Assise approved by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz-Peter chief Justice of England the nas one of the Kings more especial Servants as to matters of justice resident and attendant in the Kings House or Palace and by the Baker of R. of Thurnam that Constitution and Assise being not at all contradicted by his Magna Charta or that of his Sons King Henry the 3 d. Which Assise of bread contained in a writing of the Marshalsea of the Kings house being by the consent of the whole Realm exemplified by the Letters Patents of King Henry the 3 d. in the 51 th year of his Raign was confirmed and said to be proved by the Kings Baker By an Act of Parliament made in the 9 th year of the Reign of that King if the King be out of the Realm the chief Justices one of which if not both were then residing and attending in the Kings Court were once in the year through every County with the Knights of the Shires to take Assises of Novel Disseisin and Mortdancester in which if there be any difficulty it was to be referred unto his Justices of the Bench there to be ended By an Act of Parliament made in the 6th year of the Reign of K. Edward the first Wine sold against the Assise was to be by the Mayor and Bayliffs of London presented before the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer who then resided in the Court or Palace of the King The Statute of Westminster the 2. made in the 13th year of the said Kings Reign mentioneth That the Kings Marshal is to appoint the Marshal of the Kings Bench and Exchequer the Criers and Virgers of that and the Court of Common Pleas which at this day is done by and under the Authority of the Earl Marshal of England who by his Certificate made by his Roll of a personal service in a Voyage Royal performed by those that held Lands or Offices in Capite and by Knight Service he discharged an Assessement of Esonage by Parliament superintendeth the cognisance and bearing of Armes of the Nobility and Gentry and the duty of the Heralds and Officers attending thereupon And with the Lord Great Chamberlain before the unhappy change of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service into Free and Common Socage introduce and bring unto the King such as were to do Homage unto him for their Baronies or Lands By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third and by the Kings Authority the Sheriffs of every County in England and Wales who are for the most part under the King the only Executioners of Justice in the Kingdom are three out of six for every County presented by the Judges of every Circuit the morrow after the Feast of All-Souls in every year to the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer Lord Steward the later of which at the beginning and opening of Parliaments is by his Office to administer the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy to every Member of the House of Commons in Parliament the Master of the Horse Lord
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
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
their Servants were accustomed to be retained by the King to serve in his Wars as others by the testimonial of the Governors of the Marches Captains of Garrisons Admirals and others did purcbase Protections with a clause of Volumus or Quia profecturus because he was going in the Kings service after a Plea was commenced against them whereby to delay the said Plea and after do not go into the said service ordained That no Protection with a clause Quia profecturus be allowed after the Suit commenced before the date of the Protection if it be not in a Voyage that the King himself goeth or other Voyages Royal or in his Messages for the business of the Realm But saith that Act of Parliament it is not the intention of this Statute but that the Protection with the clause Quia moraturus because the party protected abideth in the Kings service be allowed in all cases as it was before that time And if any tarry in the Country without going to the service for which he was retained over a convenient time after that he hath any Protection or return from the same service if the Chancellor be thereof duly informed he shall repeal such Protection as it hath been used before that time In the 9th year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th Protections were granted to them that were in the Kings service in Normandy and France or which should pass with him into France By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th and 15th years of the Reign of King Edward the 4th it was ordained that the like Protections as were granted by an Act of Parliament made in the 9th year of the Reign of King Henry the 5th cap. 3. to such as were then in the Kings service in Normandy or France or would pass with that warlike King Henry the 5th into France should be observed and avail for all such as should pass over with him By a Statute made in the 6th year of the Reign of King Henry the 6th there was a rehearsal and confirmation made of the aforesaid Statute in the 9th year of King Henry the 5th touching Protections granted to those who were in Wars in Normandy or France which extended it further then the preciser time of their present service And by an Act of Parliament made in the 8th year of the Reign of that King there was only to be excepted in all the Protections of such as should go with the King into France Writs of Assise of Novel Disseisin King Henry the 7th in the 4th year of his Reign did by an Act of Parliament grant Protections unto all which then were or after should be in the Kings service in Britany together with certain Immunities granted to the Feoffees Executors and Heirs of them which should dye in the service which was more than a personal protection And by another Act of Parliament made in the 7th year of his Reign did ordain That every person that should be in the Kings wages beyond the Sea or on the Sea should have a Protection By an Act of Parliament made in the 11th year of the Reign of the said King Henry the 7th mentioning in the Preamble That it is not reasonable but against all Laws reason and good conscience that the Kings Subjects going with their Soveraign Lord in Wars attending upon him in his person or being in other places by his commandment within or without his Land as some of his menial Servants may possibly whilst he is absent from his Palace either in the Kingdom or without any thing should lose or forfeit for doing their true duty and service of Allegiance it was enacted That no manner of person or persons whatsoever he or they be that attend upon the King and Soveraign Lord of this Land for the time being in his person and do him true and faithfull Allegiance in the same which certainly his Houshold and menial Servants are understood to do or be in other places by his commandment in his Wars within this Land or without be convict or attainted of High Treason nor of other offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwise by any Process of Law whereby to lose or forfeit life lands possessions or rents goods chattels or any other things but be for that deed utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss and any Act or Process of Law contrary thereunto to be void And King Henry the 8th did likewise by an Act of Parliament enact That they which were or should be in the Kings Wars beyond the Seas or upon the Sea should have a Protection of Quia profecturus or moraturus cum clausula volumus as aforesaid Such or the like Protections being held to be so necessary in the former ages when the people of England not enjoying under the Papal Tyranny so great an happiness and liberties as they have done since the Reformation were so little of kin to the murmuring Israelites as they troubled not the ears of their Kings or their Courts of Justice with complaints against Protections when there was no deceit in the obtaining of them or abuse in the use of them when in the third year of the Reign of King John a Protection was granted by him unto one Peter Barton the son of Peter Barton then living or residing in Poictou parcel of his French Dominions for his Goods and Estate as well as for his person as his Father had the day that he died and commanded all his Bayliffs and Officers in that Country to protect and defend thâ—m sicut servientem suum quousque sibi servierit as his Servant for so long time as he should serve him Robert de Ver qui de licentia Regis peregre profecturus est in terram Hierusalem habuit liter as patentes de prâ—tectione sine clausula duraturas per trienninm had the Kings Protection for three years without any clause or exception and Gerard de Rodes travelling to the same place had a Protection with a clause quod quietus esset de secta Comitatuum Hundredorum de omnibus placitis quaerelis exceptis placitis de Dote unde nihil habet assisa Novae Disseisinae Vltimae praesentationis Ecclesiarum duraturas quamdiu idem Gerardus fuerit in peregrinatione praedicta that he should not be molested with any Suits in the County Courts and Hundreds and with any other Pleas and Actions except Actions or Pleas of Dower Assises of Novel Disseisin and the last presentation unto Churches to remain in force as long as the said Gerard should continue in his travels or Pilgrimage as aforesaid and a Protection granted by King Edward the first in the first year of his Reign to Robert de Plessetis sine clausula without any clause or condition to endure untill Easter then next following and the like unto Hugh de Weston who had the Kings license to travel to Rome to endure untill Michaelmass
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
signified by the Emblems or Figures of the Lyons guarding or supporting of Solomons Throne and astonishing Royalty Which most laudable custom was not only observed in the time of the Western and Eastern Emperors but of the Franks Goths Longobards and other Northern Nations who imitated them And from such honourable services and employments about Emperors Kings and Princes likewise were derived Count Palatines whom they found a kind of necessity to institute when they understood their other Subjects to be troubled that none but Romans had those honours and dignities conferred upon them and their Courts and Palaces appeared to be solitary and unfrequented and therefore opened the doors of honour to their Subjects of other Nations and Provinces as appears by the after usage of the Roman and Grecian Emperors and made and ordained Comites sacri Falatii Count Palatines which the Title of Count Palatine given by Charlemaine to Antholinus will further evidence and the Count Palatines of the Empire of Germany as Pasquier that learned Advocate of France hath remarked had their names from their Offices Superintendencies and Places which they antiently held au tour des Empereurs de Rome de la Suitte des Empereurs and in their service and attendance as Crmites Palatii were in Comitativa Principis in the Retinue of the Emperors which in the elder times were so reverenced and respected as it was not unfrequently in many Laws and good Authors stiled Sacra as meriting a veneration due unto Gods Vicegerents Et ipsa Principis Aula residentia and the Court and Palace of the Prince was saith Marquardus Freherus sometimes known by the name of Comitatus sacer comitatus a place of reverence more especially appropriate to honor and men deserving it and the French Kings Court is by the modern French at this day tearmed Comitatus and in the time of Charlemaine and his Son Hludowick Kings of France the Earls were tanquam Judices Judges in their several Earldomes or Provinces qui post Regem populum regere debent who next under the King as the Dukes did in their several Dukedoms were to govern the people necesse est ut tales instituantur qui sine periculo ejus qui â—os constituit quos sub se babent cum justitia aequitate gubernare officium adimplere procurent there being a necessity that such should be appointed who without danger of those who constituted or deputed them may have under them such as may govern them with Justice and Equity and do what belongeth to them And our Earls and English Nobility were of the like Character Esteem and Subserviency to our Kings and Princes when in the time of Bertulphus King of the Mercians who Reigned in England in the year of our Lord 851. such of them as had not as Sir Henry Spelman saith constant Offices or places in the Kings Court tenebantur ex more obsequii vinculo antiquissimo as also were the other Baronage in tribus maximis festivitatibuus Christi scilicet natalitiis Sancti Paschatis Pentecostes Regi Annuatim adesse cum ad curiam personam ipsius exornandum tum ad consulendum de negotiis regni statuendum que prout fuerat necessarium were by most antient custome and tye of obedience at three of the greatest Feasts in every year that is to say at Christmass Easter and Whitsontide to attend at the Kings Court as well for the honour of his Person and Court as to advise and councel him as there should be occasion in the weighty affairs of the Kingdom which saith that great light and restorer of our English Antiquities gave at the first an original and beginning to our great Councels afterwards and now called Parliaments and Johannes Saresburiensis stiled all the great Officers of the English Court Comites Palatini Earls or Lords of the Palace Royal at least such as being Earls were also honoured with the greater Court Dignities and had relation to the Dignities and Privileges of our English Nobility Such service and attendance of the Nobility upon the person and affairs of their Soveraign being not unusual in the dayes of Jehoiakim King of Judah when Michaiah the son of Gemariah found all the Princes sitting in the Kings house in the Scribes chamber and standing besides the King when the Roll of Baruch was read When the great King Ahasuerus made a Feast unto all his Princes and his servants the power of Persia and Media the Nobles and Princes of the Provinces being before him and he shewed the honour of his Excellent Majesty he advised concerning the misbehaviour of his Queen Vaschi with the wise men which knew the times for so was the Kings manner towards all that knew law and judgement and with the seven Princes of Persia and Media which saw the Kings face and sate the first in the Kingdome And those Officiary Dignities Honors and Privileges of the English Nobility were so consonant to the Law of Nations and the usage and customs of the Empire as in Anglia tam ante quam post Conquestore Wilhelmum Normannum Comites seu Graviones Justitiarii hisque cum ad privata quam publica judicia suis fuere in comitatibus and not only before but for sometimes after the Norman Invasion did under their Kings preside and govern the Justice of that County or Territory of which they were Earls and had allowed unto them the Tertium denarium Third penny or part of the fines and amerciaments and the customs and some other casual profits belonging to the Crown in their several Counties as our Selden a most universally learned and judious Lawyer hath in the Earldoms of Chester and Oxford observed and for some of the Ages succeeding the Norman atchievment have been Chief Justices of Englund as in the Reign of King Stephen Awbrey de Vere Earl of Guisnes Father of Awbrey de Vere the first Earl of Oxford Robert de Bellomont or Beaumont Earl of Leicester in the Reign of King Henry the 2d and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter Earl of Essex in the Reigns of King Richard the first and King John our Bracton acknowledging that our Earls and Nobility were upon occasions to attend upon the person of their Sovereign Prince calleth our Earls Comites a Comitando sive a Socieâ—ate from or by reason of their accompanying or attendance upon the person of the Prince saith dici possunt Consules Reges enim tales sibi associant ad consulendum and our Nation was not without its Local Count Palatines who had greater authorities and profits in their Counties and Jurisdictions than other Earls as those of Chester Lancaster Pembroke and the Palatineships belonging to the Bishopicks of Durham and Ely And Hoveden our old Annals and Selden that Monarch of Letters do tell us that King John die Coronationis suae accinxit Willielmuw Marescallum gladio Comitatus de Striguil
and the Responsa prudentum of their Commissionated Justices and the Reasonings and Dictates of those Disciples of refined Reason and how wide also is the difference betwixt Deliberation and things spoken of a sudden betwixt Arguments solemnly made both at the Bar and at the Bench and that which passeth from them obiter or in transitu hastily and without any premeditation or in passage or as circumstantial to some other matter or when it was not subjectum Argumenti the subject or material part of the Argument but came in as foreign or was not the principal Design thereof or was but as some of the Law Reports do mention other things to have been spoken onely ad mensam as they sate at Dinner or Supper or in their private Conferences or per Auditum by Hear-say or Report of another coming in from a Court or Business at Law where they that made the Report were not present neither were those Sons of Wisdom ignorant that Laws were to be so subservient to Government as not to incumber the just means thereof and the Power and Authority which should protect and take care of it For although Kings and Princes ought in performance of their Oaths taken at their Coronation to make the Methods and Rules of their Governments where Justice and Reason shall perswade it to come up as near as they can Legum suarum praescripto to the minde and direction of their established and allowed Laws and reasonable Customs of the Kingdom and moderate and guide their Power as Bracton saith to the right end for which it was ordained yet the Suprema Lex Salus Populi ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat the Supream Law to heed above all things next to the will and commands of the Almighty King of Kings the safety of the People and Weal Publique committed to their charge wherein their own is not a little concern'd being not to be neglected enjoyns the care and observation of that great Principle in the Eternal Laws of Nature and right Reason that there ought to be in all Kings Princes and Governors such a Power and Means extraordinary as may answer the purpose of Government procure Justice relieve Necessities and repel any the Incursions of Dangers which present Laws or the greatest fore-cast could never provide or before-hand arm against when Time Necessities or Hazards imminent cannot tarry for the popular or long deliberations or assent of a Multitude who can sooner bring upon themselves a ruining and fatal Discord than procure any help at present and that to oblige Government to a close and pertinacious adhering to Laws or Rules already established which can yield them no relief or at the most none at present may be as inconvenient and destructive as to limit a Captain Master or Pilot of a Ship going to Sea what Orders and no other he must observe when Pirates or Enemies assaults unlooked for the Furies of the merciless Windes and Seas or those many other Misfortunes of which the Seas do produce as great a plenty as they do variety shall rush or break in upon him and must of necessity require other helps or directions and cannot always sayl by Card or Compass or in sight of a conducting Pole-Star but most sometimes for the preservation of himself the Ship and Passengers lowr his Sayls cut his Cables or Main-mast or throw Goods over-board to be recompensed by those whose good and safety was procured by it Or might be as fatal as it would be to an Army when a General or Commander of it shall be pinnion'd and fetter'd with Instructions or Authorities ill calculated and must not go beyond them when their Cares Arts and Stratagems are not to be before-hand prescribed by Laws Instructions or Rules of War but are to be used and practised as Occasions Opportunities Advantages or Disadvantages Successes Dangers or Misfortunes shall advise And therefore if we look down from the hills of Time into the valleys of the Ages past and take a view of the Laws and Constitutions of our Princes the Records and Monuments of their Justice distributed by themselves or the Judges their Substitutes the weight of the Reasons of their Judgements therein and the Obedience which the People have from Age to Age readily paid unto them they that will not wilfully sacrifice to a peevish Obstinacy may see cause enough for our Kings as well to make use of extraordinary Helps and Remedies in order to Justice and the Weal Publique as their delegated Judges have done by that which they call Office and Discretion or course of Court and Equity of Statutes in many Causes too many to be here instanced when the Laws would too much streighten them or not permit them to do that which Justice would require or expect at their hands to believe that the no unfaithful or unlearned Judges in the former Ages did not incroach upon the Liberties of the People or wanted a Warrant of right Reason when they had such a veneration and respect to the Prudence of divers of our Princes their Reason and Necessities of State and the preservation of the People and in doing of Justice as in the sixth year of the Reign of King Richard the First Adam of Benningfield and Gundreda his Wife having brought a Writ of Dower against Robert Mallivell and Pavie his Wife for seven Carves of Land in Raveneston with the Appurtenances in the County of Nottingham of which the said Gundreda had a Fine levied unto her in the Court of King Henry by Robert Mallivell Father of the said Robert Mallivell and thereof produced the Chirograph and alledged that the said Robert the Son had disseized them in the War or Rebellion of Earl John the Kings Brother and was with him in the War against the King at Kingeshage and that by reason of the Seisin of the said Robert by the said Earl John the Land was taken into the Kings hands as Hugh Bardo witnessed but the said Robert pleaded that he paid a Fine to the King for it and for that Land to have his Lands again and for that produced the Kings Letters to the Sheriff of Nottinghamshire who attested the truth thereof Et Dominus Cancellarius dicit quod ipse accepit ab ore Domini Regis quod ipse redderet Seisinam terrarum omnibus illis qui disseisiti fuerunt per Comitem Johannem dicit quod ratum habeâ—ur quod ipsi disseisiti fuerunt per Comitem Johannem inde consideratum est quod magis ratum habetur quod Dominus Rex ore precipit quam quod per literas mandavit quod Adam Gundreda habeant Seisinam suam and the Lord Chancellor witnessed that he was commanded by the King by word of mouth that he should make Livery of their Lands to all which were disseized by the said Earl John which would have required a good Warrant in a matter concerning so many and said that it was proved that they
of the Town of Harfleet in France from William Atkin he brought his Action of Trespass against them for the taking away of fifty quarters of Malt from him Unto which as touching the supposed Trespass and ten quarters of Malt they pleaded Not Guilty and took Issue thereupon And as to the forty quarters of Malt residue pleaded and produced the Kings Letters Patents dated the twentieth of January in the third year of his Reign and that he thereby did Assign them joyntly or severally to take a thousand quarters of Malt for the Victualling of the said Town of Harfleet where-ever it might be found as well within Liberties as without the Lands of the Church onely excepted upon reasonable payment by the King for the same and to provide sufficient Carriage by Land or Water to the City of London And in regard that they had notice that the said William Atkin might well bear and afford the same beyond his necessary Occasions and did sell divers quantities of Malt in the Markets The said William Reedhead and Nicholas at the time of the pretended Trespass did to the use of the King as aforesaid take the said forty quarters of Malt charged the said William Atkin on the Kings behalf by vertue of the Kings said Letters Patents that he should carry the same to London and deliver it to Robert Barbet who should pay him as well for the said forty quarters of Malt as for the carriage thereof which Robert Barbet was assigned by the Kings Letters Patents to receive it for the use of the King and transport it to Harfleet and to make full payment for the said Victualling of the Town aforesaid and that the said William Atkin did carry the said Malt to the said Robert and received of him full payment for twenty quarters of the said Malt and the carriage thereof and that the said Robert Barbet assigned the said William Atkin within six moneths after to be paid for the said other twenty quarters at London which forty quarters of Malt so taken as aforesaid for the Kings use came to his use at Harfleet aforesaid unde non intendunt quod Cur. hic in loquela predicta ad prosecutionem predicti Will. ulterius versus eos procedere velit ipso Domino Rege inconsulâ—o petunt auxilum de ipso Rege quod eis per Cur Concessum est Wherefore they hope that the Court will no farther proceed in that Action until the Kings pleasure shall be known and do pray the Aid of the King therein which by the Court was granted unto them Et super hoc dies dat est partibus predictis coram Domino Rege in statu quo usque xv scil Michaelis ubicunque c. Et dictum est prefato Willielmo quod interim sequatur penes Dominum Regem de licentia habend ad procedend ulterius in loquela predicta si c. Et dies dat ut supra usque Oct. Hillarii inde per seperales dies Terminos usque Octab. scil Michaelis Whereupon Day was given unto the parties aforesaid in the state or manner as now it is until fifteen days after Michaelmas And the said William Atkin was commanded that in the mean time he should petition the King for leave or licence to proceed if he would in the Action At which day time was further given to the parties aforesaid in manner as aforesaid until eight days after St Hillary and the said Wil. Atkin was commanded that he should petition the King if he would for leave as aforesaid At which day and time day was given to the parties in manner as aforesaid until Easter Term then next following and the said William Atkin commanded if he would to petition the King as aforesaid At which time further day was given to the parties aforesaid until Trinity Term next following and the said William Atkin commanded to petition the King as aforesaid At which time further day was given to the parties aforesaid until eight days after Michaelmas and the said William Atkin was commanded to petition the King as aforesaid And no further Proceedings were had thereupon as appeareth by the Roll where otherwise it would have been entred Neither could our less contentious turbulent Fore-fathers probably be willing to give lodging or entertainment to any such vain and unwarrantable conceits as do now too frequently attempt an invasion upon the Lex Regia of their Soveraign or necessary and legal Rules or Methods of Government or the very Attendance upon the Person of the King and his many times indispensable Affairs in order to the good and safety of his People or that upon Licence demanded to prosecute any Action at Law against any of his Servants it should be any such delay of Justice as to furnish out their supposed matters of Grievance or Complaint that a little time or respite should be given to any of the Kings Servants either to give satisfaction or answer the Action When Bracton in the Reign of our King Henry the Third declared it to be no new or evil Law or Custom of the Kingdom that in the Kings Commissions to the Justices Itinerant or Assizes there was an Exception of Causes wherein qui profecti sunt in servitio nostro those which were gone or sent in the Kings service were concerned or that such a reasonable part of time or respite given should nurse up or encourage any disccontent when the Judges in an Action depending in the Court of Common-Pleas against one that was none of the Kings servants or employed by him were in the Cases of an Essoyn de male lecti of sickness to cause a View to be had of the sick Person and if really sick to assign him a reasonable time to arise and appear before them or if he had been viewed and had malum transiens an intermitting Disease or if a Languor or Languishing were testified and such an Essoin were cast before the Justices Itinerant in their Circuits where they had no power to receive any such Essoin mittere possint ad ipsum ut faciat Attornatum they might send to him which could not be done suddenly to make an Attorney to answer for him Or that our Kings should be able to Protect and Priviledge such of the Clergy as in former times were as Clerks or Officers in Chancery employed in his Service as to send notwithstanding the then great power of the Bishops their Diocesans his Writs De non Residentia of dispensing with their Non-residence upon their Benefices and command them as hath been before remembred not to be sequestred for their Absence whilest they were employed in their Service or if sequestred to unsequester them or if Fined by any Ecclesiastical or Church Censures that such Fines should not belevied which was in those times not believed either by the Layety or the Clergy themselves to be illegal And in the later of the said Writs that such a sequestration was in juris Coronae
coming to Rome to see the Emperor Nero was Commanded to lay by his Sword which he refusing as supposing it to be dishonourable to himself was rather contented to have it as it was nailed in the Scabbard it being a Custome at Rome Nè quis in domo seâ— Palatio principis arma deferret sine ejusdem permissione that no man in the Palace of the Prince was without his Licence to Wear a Sword although in other Places it was dishonourable for a Souldier not to Wear a Sword By a Constitution or Law of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinianus the one of the West and the other of the East made about the year of Christ 385. Consecratae sibi aedes id est Inclita palatia ab omnium privatorum usu communi habitatione exceptae fuerunt The consecrated Houses set apart for the Emperors that is to say their Illustrious Palaces were not to be made use of by any private person or to be inhabited by them And many Ages after Theodoricus King of the Gothes and Romans though descended from a Rude and Barbarous Nation who were more used to Cottages then Courts Stiles his Palace Potentiae Imperii decora facies the Representation or Beauty of the Power of his Empire Cum Legatis sub admiratione the wonder of Forraign Embassadors Et prima fronte talis Dominus esse Creditur quale ejus habitaculum comprobatur and the Master of the House and his Honour and Reputation is measured by his House By the old Almaine Laws made in the Raign of Clotharius King of France In the year of our Lord 560. Si quis in Curte Ducis hominem occiderit â—ut illic ambulantem aut inde revertentem triplici were gildo eum solvat If any should slay a man in the Dukes Court in his going or coming thither or his return from thence he was to forfeit as much as the were gild or mulct for the amends should amount unto By the Laws of the old Baivarians or Bavarians confirmed by Dagobert King of France In the year of our Lord 633. Si quis in Curte Ducis scandalum commiserit ut ibi pugna fiat per superbiam suam vel ebrietatem quidquid ibi factum fuerit omnia secundum legem component propter stultitiam suam in publico componat quadraginta solidos si servus est alicujus qui haec commisit manus perdat nullus unquam in Curte Ducis presumat scandalum committere If any shall do or Commit in the Dukes Court any thing which is scandalous and shall make any quarrel by his Pride or Drunkenness he shall according to the Law compound for it and pay forty shillings for his folly and if he be a Servant which did it shall loose his hand For no man is to presume to do any thing scandalous in the Dukes Court. By the Laws of the Longobards Written or compiled about the year of our Redeemer 637. Si quis in Consilio vel in quolibet conventu scandalum commiserit noningentis solidis sit culpabilis Regi si quis intra palatium ubi Rex praeest scandalum perpetrare praesumpserit animae suae incurrat periculum aut animam suam redimat si obtinere potuerit à Rege If any shall do any Scandalous Act in the Council or Assembly he shall be fined nine hundred shillings to the King If in the Kings Court or Palace his life shall be in danger to be lost Unless he can obtain the Kings pardon a less fine if it be in the City where the King is not Resident and more in a City where he is And so much honour was not only in the Civil Law and Rescripts of the Emperors but of the Gothish and other Northern Nations attributed to the house of the Emperors or Kings as it was frequently stiled Divina Domus which wiâ—hout any suspicion of Idolatry might well be afforded unto the House or Residence of God's Vicegerents when holy Writ sticks not to say they are tanquam Dii as Gods Which occasioned Witlafe or Witlase King of the Mercians being some of the Provinces in England now known by the name of Gloucestershire Worcestershire Oxfordshire Staffordshire and many other of the Neighbour Counties when about the year of our Lord 825. he made a Confirmation to the Abby of Croyland in Lincolneshire where he had hid and saved himself when he fled from his Enemies of all their Landâ— and granted them many Priviledges ratified by a Concilium Pan Anglicum or Parliament holden at London the 26 day of May Anno Dom. 833. By Egbert King of the West Saxons and Witlase King of the Mercians to give them a Priviledge that Quicunque in Regno suo pro quocunque delicto reus vel legibus obnoxius Whosoever in his Kingdom guilty of any oâ—fence or obnoxious to the Laws should fly to the Abby or Island of Croyland he should be there free from any Arrest or pursuit sicut in Asylo vel in Camera Regis propria as in a Sanctuary or in the Kings own Chamber then understood not to be likely to be molested with any Arrest or Imprisonment of any that were attending in it And put our wise and prudent King Alfred who sate in the Royal Throne of our Brittaine about the year of our Lord 877. In the more incult and fierce behaviour of our English and Saxon Ancestors who thought his House deserved a Priviledge not allowed to Ordinary or Subjects houses in minde to make a Law as Mr. Lambard in his Latine Version of our Saxon Laws reciteth it Sapientum adhibito Consilio by the advice of his wise men much like a Parliament qui in Regia Aula dimicarit ferrumvè distrinxerit Capitor Regem penes arbitrium vitae necisque ejus esto That he that should fight or draw his Sword in the Kings Palace or Court should be taken or punished with death or otherwise as the King pleased Which if the Annals of Winchester may as they ought to be credited were but the Laws of the Brittons translated into â—he Saxon Language by the assistance probably of Asser Menevensis or of S. David's a Britton who was invited to his Court by that worthy Prince and made as it were one of his Domesticks or Maenials The Courts and Palaces of our Ancient Kings being likewise such Asylums or Priviledged places as by a Law made by King Edmond who Raigned in the year of our blessed Lord 940. Si quiâ— ad Templum Oppidumvè Regium confugerit eumque alius oppugnarit damnovè affecerit he which should hurt or molest any that fled to the Temple or the Kings House should be punished but withal enacted that non fore ei qui sanguinem humanum effuderit suffugio domum meam ni prius Deo ac Caesi cognatis cumulatè satiffecerit praeterea impleverit quodcunque ei ab Episcopo in cujus Dioecesi acciderit imperatum the Kings House
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
David's mighty men Captain of his Guard and others frequently found to be Attendants or Resident in the Houses or Palaces of Kings thorough the Current of Holy Writ And the Requisites belonging unto those which Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon required in the captive Children whom he intended to breed up in his Court that they should be well favoured skilful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding and such as had ability in them to stand in the Kings Palace may give us to understand how much Kings and Princes were concerned in the Honour or dishonour done unto their Servants and how greatly they were esteemed in former ages and that the Jews were not in an Errour when they and some of their Rabbins did ascribe so much Honour to the Servants and Service of the King or Soveraign as they conceived it to be de honore Regum ut tales ministri qui Aulae semel initiati sunt aliis vilioribus officiis extraneis postea nunquam contaminentur ut nemo utitur servis Ancillis vel ministris ejus nisi alius Rex ejus successor for the Kings Honour that those that had once served him should never be imployed in meaner business or afterwards serve any other then his Successor which may be the reason that their names were so punctually entered into the Register of the Kings Servants as Nehemiah could long after the many Captivities Tosses and Troubles of that Nation by the Divine Judgement and Indignation find in an old Register the Names and Genealogies of Solomon's Servants That mighty King Ahasuerus did but exercise his just Power of giving Honours and Rewards to his Servants when he advanced Haman and set his Seat above all the Princes which were with him and Commanded all His Servants which were in the Gate to Bow and do him Reverence And Haman being afterwards demanded by the King what should be done to the man whom the King delighteth to Honour little thinking that Mordecai whom he hated and was one of the meaner sort of the Kings Servants or any other then himself should be the better for it readily and without any doubt or scruple answered and said for the man whom the King delighteth to Honour Let the Royal Apparel be brought which the King useth to wear and the horse that the King rideth upon and the Crown Royal which is set upon his head And let the Apparel and Horse be delivered to the hand of one of the Kings most Noble Princes that they may Array the man withal whom the King delighteth to Honour and bring him on Horseback through the Street of the City and Proclaim before him Thus shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to Honour with which the City of Shushan were so well contented as it is said that they rejoyced and were glad The next unto the King was Carshena Shethar Admatha Tarshish Meres Marsena and Memucan the seven Princes of Persia and Media being his seven Counsellors which saw the Kings face and which sate the first of his Kingdom Those that served Kings and Princes were allowed Ornaments and Apparel which the Common and Ordinary sort of People could neither claim nor merit and therefore that greatest Lord of the Earth and Master of Humility made an honourable mention of them when he concluded that they who were molliter vestiti and did wear soft Cloathing were in Kings Houses and the Emperour Theodosius above 300 and 30 years after our Saviour Chirst had left the earth and in an Edict or Proclamation forbidding the use of Silk Raiments to all people of what kind or profession whatsoever excepts himself and his Servants and saith solo Principi ejusque Domui dedicatur that the wearing of such apparel belonged only unto the Prince and those which attends him in his House By the Lex Julia a Law made by Julius Caesar tenetur tanquam reus laesae Majestatis qui Legatos Oratores Comitesque eorum all of them being but the several degrees of the Servants of Majesty pulsaverit which in the Language of those Laws and times and some after-ages signified an Arrest or Compulsion as well as an Assault or beating vel Injuria affecerit he should be guilty of high Treason which should Arrest Beat or wrong any Embassadors or Agents or any of the Soveraigns Attendants or Assistants The divers great and Honorable Offices and Imployments in the Houses of the Western and Eastern Emperors as the Comites sacri Palatii Comites sacrorum largitionum Magister Officiorum cum multis aliis c. Earls of the Sacred Palace Earls or great Officers of the Privy Purse Lord Steward of the Houshold Lord Chamberlain c. May perswade us to more then an opinion of the necessary Respects and Honours due unto them in the Exercise of their Offices and Places about their Soveraign The Guards of the Royal Palace of the Emperours of the West and East Privilegium retinebant had a Priviledge not to be Cited or Convened before any but their own Captains and Commanders The Fabricences or such as furnished the Magazines with armour nulli oneri Civitatis erant obnoxii were freed from publike Offices The Comes Domesticorum Equitum Peditum Earl or Commander of the Horse and Foot-Guard was the Protector Domesticorum Defender of the houshold Servants defunctorum quoque Parentum Domesticorum filii locum subibant etsi ob teneram aetatem armis apti non erant nihilominus Protectorum matriculis inscripti quaternas Annonas id est victum quatuor hominum accipiebant and the Sons of those Domestick Guards were to enjoy their places after their Fathers decease And if they were so young as not to be fit for it were notwithstanding to be entered into the Protectors Books or Registers and to have a proportion of diet or allowance fit for to feed them Claudius Augustus Caesar punished a Tribune of the people then though not so much as formerly a mighty Officer Darling and Favourite of them for beating of one of his Servants The Primicerius or Chief of the Emperours Bed-chamber and all other of the Bed-chamber were Exempted from the Tax of finding Horse or Souldiers or of giving Bail in any Action or Suite before the Magister Officiorum or Principal Officer in the Court so styled not unlike saith the Learned Cujacius to the Prevost de l' Hostell in France Et qui absunt Reipublicae causâ vacationem habent such as are Imployed about the Publike are to be Priviledged To the Praefecto Praetorii Orientis who was as it were the Captain of the Emperours Guard there were saith Pancirollus in His Court or Tribunal one hundred Advocates allowed qui Clarissimi spectabilis titulo gaudebant who enjoyed the Title of Noble and Illustrious and had great Immunities as from Publike works c. The Emperours Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius about the year of Christ
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
extensive power of the chief Justice of England then so stiled to the placita only coram Domino Rege tenenda assignata as the Letters Patents or Commissions of the other Judges of the Court of Kings Bench are to this day to such matters as properly concerned Criminal matters the Crown and Dignity thereof and the peace of the Kingdome the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster being the only true and proper Jurisdiction Commissionated to hear the Common-Pleas and Actions for Lands and reall and personal Estate or Civill matters concerning and between Subjects one with another where the contracts or matters complained were not made or done in the Kings House or Palace or Virge thereof by the Kings Servants within the same House to be heard and determined coram Rege ubicunque fuerit in Angliâ before the King wheresoever he should be in England And there was so much care taken by King Edward the second and his Councill of such as were in his Service or imployed in his Affairs as when in the ninth year of his Raign It was enquired or debated in Parliament in what case the Kings Letters should be sent to discharge an Excommunicate person the King decreed as the words of that Law or Act of Parliament do witnesse that hereafter no such Letters should be suffered to go forth but in case where it is found that the Kings Liberty is prejudiced by the Excommunications which in those times were the fulmina or most terrilbe Thunderbolts and Terrors of the English Clergy And it being in the same Parliament complained of that the Barons of the Exchequer claiming by their priviledge that they ought to make answer unto no Complaynant out of the same place did extend their priviledge unto Clerks abiding there called unto orders or unto residence and inhibit ordinaries that by no means or for any cause so long as they be in the Exchequer or in the Kings Service they should not call them to accompt the answer was made by the King it pleaseth our Lord the King that such Clerks as attend in his Service if they offend shall be correct by their Ordinaries which was a protection and priviledge as greatly contenting them as the Kings protection or any priviledge of that nature Like as other but so long as they are occupied about the Exchequer they shall not be bound to keep residence in their Churches With this Addition saith the transcriber of that Act of Parliament of new by the Kings Councill which if understood of the Kings Privy Councill was without doubt ratified and approved by the Parliament that greater Council viz. The King and his Ancestors time out of mind have used that Clerks imployed in his service during such time as they are in service shall not be compelled to keep residence in their Benefices And such things as be thought necessary for the King and the Common-wealth ought not to be prejudicial to the liberty of the Church where we have in and by a Parliament which was alwaies intended as it ought to be a collected wisdome and care of the Nation a clear exposition of those words of Bracton quòd servitium domini Regis nulli debet esse damnosum nec debet esse tenenti and of Fleta nulli debet esse damnosum nec injuriosum the service of the King or any thing done in consequence thereof ought not to be esteemed a wrong or Injury to the Subjects The like priviledge for many Nations doe in their Laws and Constitutions not seldome follow the light of reason in the observation of Neighbours good Examples having not above six years before been allowed by Philip surnamed the fair King of France to the Chaplains and Clerks of the Kings and Queens of France Fleta who as our great and excellently learned Selden saith was an Anonymus or Author without a name but a Lawyer and as is by some supposed to have been at the time of the writing of his book a Prisoner in the Fleet and therefore gave it the name of Fleta by the mention of certain Statutes made in the 13th year of the Raign of King Edward the first as also of the Statutes made at Winchester and Westminster and a record in the 17th year of the Raign of that King is beleeved to have written his book in the latter end of the Raign of King Edward the second or the beginning of the Raign of King Edward the third saith that by a Statute made at Glocester in the sixth year of the Raign of King Edward the first if a Defendant were essoyned of the Kings service and do not bring his warrant at the day given him by his Essoyne he shall recompence the Plaintiffe for his Journy 20 s. or more after the discretion of the Justices and shall be grievously amerced to the King which alloweth that if the Kings warrant be brought that the Defendant is in the Kings Service that Statute not mentioning whether in ordinary or Domestique Service or extraordinary such a Warrant should be received and held good the rule of Law being that exceptio firmat regulam in casibus non exceptis Cases not excepted are alwaies within the protection and meaning of that Law which doth not except them and declares it to be then the Law that a man may be excused in a Court of Justice quod Clameum non apposuerit per servitium Regis quod nulli debet esse damnosum dum tamen docuerit quod venire non potuit ut si occupatus fuit per Custodiam Castri vel alio modo in servitio suo detentus et impeditus that he did not enter his Claim to land within a year and a day by reason of the Kings service which ought not to be prejudicial to any body so as he doe make it appear that he could not come as if he were imployed in the Custody of a Castle or any other way hindered by the Kings Service In the Chapter or discourse de Exceptionibus coram senescallo Marescallo Regis of the Exceptions of a Defendant to be used or taken in an Action brought or commenced before the Steward or Marshall of the King hath these words Item dicere poterit quod non est obligatus ad districtionem senescalli likewise he may say that he is not obliged or bound to obey the process or command of the Steward in the Bond taken for the payment of the money by a Clause inserted which was then not unusual as it appears by his next precedent Chapter that the Debtor should be obliged upon non-payment to appear or have the Action or matter determined before the Kings Steward or Marshall and etsi non obligetur ad districtionem senescalli hoc sibi prodesse non debet though he be not obliged specially in the Bond or obligation to the process or power of the Steward that will not availe the Defendant eò quod est de hospitio Regis et in
servitio suo continuo et quo casu respondebit vel indefensus remanebit et pro convicto habebitur quia per servitium Regis essoniari poterit alibi ubique in infinitum for that he is of the Kings Houshold and continually in his service and in that case must answer or not defending himself will be convicted when as he might otherwise in any other Court or Place have Essoined or excused himself as often as he pleased et servitium Regis nulli debet esse damnosum nec injuriosum being the very words of Bracton beforementioned and the Kings Service ought not to be a wrong or damage unto any And is notwithstanding of opinion that a defendant may be by his Essoin excused ex causâ necessariâ et utili aut causâ reipublicae for a necessary cause or occasion and where the good of the Commonwealth is concerned as surely it must be understood not to be in the safety well being and daily attendance upon the Person of the King as much or very neer the instance or case by him there put Si eat cum Rege in exercitu if he go in the Army with the King as all King Davids Servants did when he marched against his rebellious Son Absolom and as most or very many of the Servants of Kings and Princes do use to be ad patriae defensionem cùm ad hoc teneatur vel per praeceptum Regis when he goeth with the King to War for the defence of his Countrey being obleiged thereunto by the Tenure of his Lands or the Kings Commandement And having said that Pleas of Debt do belong unto the Court of Common Pleas concludes Sunt tamen causae speciales quae alibi terminantur ex permissione Principis per querelam coram senescallo Aulae ut in Scaccario cum causa fuerit Regi necessaria videlicet ne Ministri sui de Scaccario ab obsequio suo continuo quicquam impediantur There are notwithstanding some Causes which by the leave or good pleasure of the Prince are by Plaint to be determined before the Steward of the Houshold as also in the Exchequer when it shall concern the King that his Officers or Servants be not in their Business hindred So as then and for some time after it was not likely that any Inroads should be made upon that just and rational Priviledge of the Kings Servants For howsoever that even in those more frugal and thrifty days some of the Kings Menial and Houshold Servants might not then be so beforehand as it is now termed or so far from being indebted but that some Moneys or Debts might be demanded of them or there might be some occasion of Complaints or Actions to be brought against them Yet there appears not any probability or foundation for it that the Liberties and Priviledges of the Kings Servants were for many years after the twenty eighth year of the Reign of King Edward the First which limited all Actions before the Steward and Marshal of the Kings House to such Contracts and Actions only as were or should be made betwixt one of the Kings Servants with any other of his Servants disturbed or unsecured or that the Kings Servants were for many years after molested or troubled with the severe and disgraceful way of Imprisonments now used when the Chancellors and the Justices of the Kings Bench were by an Act of Parliament in the same year enjoyned to attend the King and his Court and to be there à latere tanquam famulantes always neer him and as Domestiques saith the Learned Sir Henry Spelman so that as the words of that Statute are the King might have at all times neer unto him some that be learned in the Laws which be able duely to order all such matters as shall come unto the Court at all times when need shall require Which the Chancellor and in all lâ—kelihood the Chief Justice did not neglect for saith Sir Henry Spelman Such Causes as nulli constitutorum Tribunalium rite competerent ad Palatium seu oraculum Regni were not limited to the determination or judgment of other Tribunals came to the Kings Palace as to the Oracle of the Kingdom and yet then the King was not without his more than one Attorneys or Procurators who were men learned in the Law And King Edward the third was so unwilling that his Servants should be drawn before other Tribunals as by a Statute made in the fifth year of his Reign where it was ordained That in Inquests to be taken in the Kings House before the Steward and Marshal that they should be taken by men of the County thereabouts to avoid it may be partiality and not by men of the Kings House there is an Exception of Contracts Covenants and Trespasses made by men of the Kings House of the one part and the other and that in the same House And the Chancellors of England were in former times so or for the most part Resident in the Kings Court and accounted as a part of his Family as until the making of the Act of Parliament in the 36 year of the Reign of King Edward the Third which did restrain the Pourveyance to the Kings and Queens Houses only and did forbid it to be made for other Lords and Ladies of the Realm the King did use to send his Writs to the Sheriffs of the Counties where they had occasion to make any Pourveyance for the Chancellor his Officers and Clerks some whereof as their Clerici de primâ formâ now called the Masters of Cbancery were ad Robas had and yet have an yearly allowance for their Robes or Liveries commanding them to be assistant to their Pourveyors the Chancery Clerks being in the 18th year of that Kings Reign so accompted to be a part of his Servants and Family as a Complaint or Petition being exhibited in Parliament by all the Clerks of the Chancery That whereas the Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England ought to have cognisance of all Pleas and Trespasses done unto or by any of the Clerks of the Chancery Thomas de Kislingbury Draper of London had forged the best word they would then bestow upon a Writ or Action not commenced as it ought to be by Original Writ issuing out of the Chancery a Bill of Trespass against Gilbert de Chishull one of the Clerks of the Chancery whereby to take away from the King and his Chancellor the Cognisance of the said Action which belonged unto them contre Common Ley de la Terre against the Common Law of the Land did by a Serjeant of the Mace in London arrest and imprison him in the House of John de Aylesham one of the Sheriffs of London and although the King sent a Supersedeas commanding the Plaintiff to surcease his prosecution there and that he prosecute the said Gilbert de Chyshull in Chancery if he have any cause of Action against him the Sheriffs of London
with the Duty and Respects never to be denied to Superiority in order more especially to Government being as well to be allowed unto our Kings and Princes and consistent with right Reason as it was in the more ancient times of the Empire or Rome when the Magister Officiorum or Steward of the Emperors House or Palace cui totius Palatii cura pertinuit to whom the whole care of their Houshold did appertain apud quem tam in Civilibus quà m Criminalibus causis respondere tenentur and before whom all the Servants of the Houshold were obliged to answer as well in Causes Civil as Criminal could do no less then incite and advise them so watchfully to guard the necessary and allowed Priveledges of their Servants warranted by the dictates of right Reason and our own Laws as well as the Laws and Customs of many of our neighbour Nations And therefore by an Act of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Richard the second confirmed by another in the twelfth it was ordained That those that raised horrible and false lies against the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons great Nobility and great Men of the Realm as also of the Chancellor Treasurer Clerks of the Privy Seal Stewards of the Kings House being the more special and eminent part of his Domestick Servants and those that did attend him and in ancient and more respectful Times and Ages to the Servants and Honour of Princes did wear no less a Title than Proceres Palatii Lords or Men of great eminency in the Palaces of Kings and Emperors Justices of the one Bench or the other and other great Officers of the Realm whereby debates and discords might arise betwixt the said Lords or the Lords and Commons should be taken and imprisoned until they had found him that first moved it and if they could not should be punished by the advice of the Kings Council And in the ninth year of his Reign John de Leicester one of the Clerks of the Chancery being sued in the Court of Common Pleas by the name of John de Sleford of the County of Leicester for a Debt of 24 l. 16 s. and after his Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery which commanded the Justices of the said Court of Common Pleas to surcease any further proceeding in that Action being constrained to bring his Writ of Error to reverse a Judgment thereupon notwithstanding had against him the King pro eo quòd principale placitum loquelae praedictae ad cognitionem Cancellarii nostri nullius alterius juxta consuetudinem Cancellariae merè pertinet ex consequenti ejus accessarium ad eundem Cancellarium pertinere debet volentes Jurisdictionem Privilegium Consuetudinem hujusmodi à tam longo tempore obtenta approbata Illaesa firmiter observare in regard that the principal Plea or Suit aforesaid belonged only to the cognisance of his Chancellor and none other according to the custom of the Chancery and that by consequence the cognisance of the Accessary or any thing concerning the said principal Plea or Suit belonged to the Chancellors determination and was willing to preserve the said Jurisdiction Custom and Priviledge for so long a time continued and approved commanded the Record and Process aforesaid with all which thereunto appertained to be sent and certified into the Chancery that he might do thereupon as to Justice appertaineth In the 35 year of the Reign of King Henry the sixth the Abbot of Westminster having an Action depending in the Court of Common Pleas against one of the Yeomen of the Kings Buttery and an Essoin being cast and allowed that he was in the Kings Service the King at the day appointed and given by the Essoin sent his Writ of Privy Seal to the Justices of that Court to signifie that the Defendant was in his Service before the day given by the Essoin and at the same day and every time sithence By a Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the seventh it was declared to be Felony for making Confederacies though not brought to effect or not so far as to an overt act our Laws declaring that affectus non punitur thoughts and intentions only are not to be punished to imagine the death of the King or of any Lord of this Realm or any other person sworn to the Kings Council Steward Treasurer or Comptroller of the Kings House by any of the Kings Houshold Servants and ordained That such Offences should be inquired by 12 sad men of the Cheque Roll of the Kings Houshold and determined before the Steward Treasurer and Comptroller or any two of them Which may evidence the intention of that King and his greater Council the Parliament to submit as little as might be such Offences of his Menial Servants unto the Judgment and Determinations of his Court of Kings Bench which otherwise was the most proper Court and means for the Trial thereof In the Reign of King Henry the eighth George Ferrers Gentleman his Servant and a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament being arrested and taken in Execution and Sir Thomas Moyle Knight then Speaker of the House of Commons and the Knights and Burgesses in Parliament assembled sending the Serjeant at Arms attending upon them to the Compter in Breadstreet in London where the said George Ferrers was detained a Prisoner to demand him the Officers of the City and others assaulted and grievously misused him of which a Complaint being made to the King he called before him all the Judges of the Kingdom declared unto them That he being Head of the Parliament and attending in his own Person upon the business thereof ought in reason to have Priviledge for him and all his Servants attending there upon him so as if Mr. Ferrers had been no Burgess or Member of Parliament but only his Servant that in respect thereof he was to have a Priviledge as well as any other To which all the Judges declaring their assent by Sir Edward Mountague Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench the Grandfather of the now Earl of Manchester Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold an Order was made to fine the Sheriffs of London punish the Riotors and deliver Mr. Ferrers out of Prison but in compassion of the Creditor an Order was made that he should not lose his Money for which he had taken him in Execution And so great a regard was in that Kings Reign had of the Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber as that great and imperious Favorite Cardinal Wolsey Archbishop of York being at Cawood Castle in Yorkshire arrested by the Kings command by the Earl of Northumberland attended by Mr. Welch one of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber of High Treason and being unwilling to obey the Earls Authority unless he would shew the Kings Commission for it which the Earl refused to do the Contest at the last
Regis admittebantur and by an Ordinance made by the said King the cognisance of all personal actions commenced by any of the Kings Servants did appertain to the said Master of the houshold who claimed likewise the Trial of all Criminal matters committed in the Kings House Philip King of France called the Long in the year 1317. which was about the 10 th year of the Raign of our King Edward the second did command that Taxes or Assessments taken from three of his servants should be restored unto them which was consented unto by his Parliament and by a decree in Parliament the next year after it was ordained that Omnes Domestici Regis administri pronunciantur immunes ab omni commeatuum vectigalibus quos ad necessitatem usum suum apportari curant all the Kings houshold servants should not pay any Taxes for the provisions which they bought or provided for their necessary uses or occasions In a Decree of that Parliament made in the Raign of their King Charles the 5 th called Charls the wise in the cause of Silvester Cornelius the Kings Almoner in the year 1367. which was about the 41 th year of the Raign of our King Edward the 3. it was adjudged that Domestici officiarii immunitate gauderent a vectigalibus the Kings houshold servants should be freed from Taxes By an Edict made by K. Charles the 6. of France ratified by Parliament in the year 1408. which was about the 5. year of the Raign of our K. Henry the 5 th It was ordained Vt qui ministri Regis viginti Annos aut amplius ministraverint vacantes a ministerio stipendia tamen habeant that those which had served the King 20 years or more should though they left their service have their wages continued Immunitas ab indictionibus subsidiariis omnibus attributa domesticis Regum officiis de praediorum suorum fructibus cum approbatione Parliamenti a privilege freedom was granted by the aforesaid King Charls the 6. from all subsidies to be charg'd upon any of the Kings houshold Servants by allowance of Parliament in the year 1411. which was in or about the 8 th year of our King Henry the 5 th By a Letter of Lewis the 11 th who raigned in France in the time of our King Edward the 4 th sent to the Parliament and Registred therein that King required ut primo loco suorum officialium causas judicet nisi contendentium sit ipsius aut Reginae domesticus in quo casu se moveri jubet ut exponat de eo voluntatem suam that in the first place they should hear and determine the causes of their own Officers unless one of the parties should be the King or Queens servant in ordinary and in such a Case commands that he be first moved and his pleasure thereupon declared Francis the first King of France in Anno 1525. which was about the 16 th year of our King Henry the 8 th sent his Declaration to that Parliament wherein he ordained that his Mothers houshold servants should enjoy the like privileges as his Officers and servants did and another Declaration to that Parliament in the year 154â— quod officiales domesticos commensales suos ab omnibus tributis Indictionibus pensitationibus etiamque Canone in quinquaginta peditum millia praestando Immunes erunt that all his Domestick Officers Houshold servants should not be charged with any Taxes or Tributes or with Assessments towards the payment of 50000 foot men and a like Declaration in the year following de simili immunitate officiis Reginae domesticis commensalibus attributa of the like privileges to the Officers and Houshold servants of the Queen seconded by a Declaration of Henry the second King of France Registred in Parliament in the year 1548. which was about the second year of our King Edward the 6 th of the Privileges of the Kings Domestick and Houshold servants and the like to the Domesticks and servants of Elianor the Widow Queen In which Kingdom also notwithstanding an ordinance made at Moulins about the year of our Lord 1566. which was about the 8 th year of the Raign of our Queen Elizabeth the Masters of Requests are not to be arrested or imprisoned for debt until four months expired after legal notice In the year 1626. the King of France sending the Marshal de Bassompierre his extraordinary Embassador into England to reconcile some differences betwixt our late Royal Martyr King Charles the first and his Royal Consort the Queen concerning the discharge and sending away most of her servants of the French Nation attending upon her contrary as was pretended to the Marriage Contract for some insolences and misdemeanors not to be tolerated and that great Embassador bringing in his Retinue Father Sancy a Popish Priest whom our King had no respect for in regard of some ill offices supposed to be done betwixt him and his Royal Consort the Queen was no sooner come to Gravesend but he had an express Order from our King to send back the Father Sancy who was in his ill opinion and could not be endured to which the Embassador returning an Answer that he was one of his Domesticks and humbly intreating his Majesty not to intermeddle therein said that the example alleged of Mr. Walter Mountague who being in the Retinue of our Embassador Sir Dudley Carleton in France was upon the command of the French King in like manner dismissed was not to be any rule or reason in his case and that howsoever our English Ambassador Carleton permitted it he would rather lose his life than suffer such an affront to be done unto him whereupon the Lord Conway principal Secretary of State after his coming to the Court bringing him a message from the King that he would not give him audience although he had promised it unless he would first send Father Sancy back into France the Embassador replyed that it would be in vain that his Majesty should desire any such thing of him parce que absolument il ne le feroit ponit que si il ne vouloit plus donner audience il retourneroit vers son roy for that he was absolutely resolved not to do it and if he might not have his Audience he would return home without it and notwithstanding that he was extremely pressed by some of our Ministers of State who alleaged that the Kings honor reputation was engaged therein continued his Refusal for that the Father Sancy came along with him by order of his King and the Queen Mother whereupon the Embassador having certified his King of France of the proceedings therein did not long after by a Letter under his own hand receive his approbation for what he had done In the Empire of Germany the Domestique servants of the Emperor are not bereaved of the Privileges of servantâ— attending upon the person as well as the publick cares of their Soveraigns when the
and Mountainous petty Cantons or Republiques who not long ago having massacred all their Nobility and eternally as they hope prohibited the race of them from enjoying any Offices or Imployments in their Armies or Republiques and can boastingly answer inquisitive strangers or passengers with nos non habemus Nobiles we have no Nobility can notwithstanding all their Military Barbarities pay those fitting and well-becoming civilities and due regards to the Ambassadors of Foreign or Neighbour Potentates And may give us to understand that the honours given to Ambassadors do not conclude that there are no respects due to the Servants in ordinary of the Kings and Princes which sent them But that the honour and respect of the Kings manifested in the respect to their Servants is not the cause and foundation of that which is so punctually required and given to Ambassadors When it is as certain that great and often discontents and quarrels have been raised and kindled in the affairs and businesses not only of Nobility and men of great Estates and Eminency but of the vulgar and meaner sort of people for injuries done to their Servants who have been very unwilling to bear or put it up Which the Civil Law and the Custom of many Nations believed to be warranted by that Axiom or Rule that Domini pati dicuntur injurias qui suis fiunt servis Masters do partake and suffer in the injuries done to their Servants And amongst the Jews as their Rabbins expound their Laws were for the time they dwelt with them â—undi instar as setled a Propriety as the Lands which they enjoyed From which our Laws of England do not dissent when they adjudged that injuriam patitur quis per alios quos habet in familia sua sicut per servientes servos in contumeliam suam fuerint verberati vulnerati vel imprisonati quatenus sua interfuerit operibus eorum non caruisse that a man may have wrong done him in those of his Family as in the reproach done unto him by the beating wounding or imprisoning of his Servants whereby he loseth their service A due consideration whereof and that the honour and respect of Kings is and ought to be manifested in the respect to their Servants probably was the cause which made William Walworth that valiant and brave Lord Mayor of London in the Reign of King Richard the second not able to withhold his loyal passion and indignation from knocking down with his Mace Wat Tyler the Rebel in the head of a mighty and unruly Army of Clowns for abusing and making Sir John Newton Knight one of the Kings Servants sent on a Message to him to stand bare before him on foot whilst he sate on horseback So as the people of England may in a less light than the New Lanthorn or Light men do now pretend unto discern a reason for a greater respect to be given unto the Kings Servants in Ordinary than of late they have given when it is to no other or no less than the Servants of Gods Vicegerent some of which enobled by their Birth or Creation others by their Offices Enobleissantaes enobling them as the Treasurer or Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable Houshold who when they do happen as many times not to be of the Nobility are ipso facto at the instant of the conserring those Offices upon them or shortly after made to be of the Kings Privy Councel and with the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England President of the Kings Councel Lord Privy Seal Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Admiral of England Great Master or Steward and Chamberlain of the Kings most Honourable Houshold have in this Kingdom as hath been used in other Nations been stiled the Officers of the Crown And our King Henry the 7th taking a care that his Servants should be as well born as virtuously educated did call and elect to the service and attendance of his Privy Chamber the Sons of his Nobility and Gentlemen of the best houses and alliance in most of the Shires of England and Wales And King Henry the 8th his Son did by his Ordinances for Regulation of his Houshold called the Statutes of Eltham made by the advice of his Privy Councel in the 17th year of his Reign command That no Servant be kept by any Officers within the Court under the degree of a Gentleman and that none be admitted into his Majesties service but sueh as be likely persons and fit for promotion and that it should be lawfull to all the Kings Counsellors the King and Queens Chamberlains Vice-Chamberlains and Captain of the Guard the Master of the Horse and Henchmen and the six Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber to keep every of them one Page to attend upon him in the Court so alwayes that he be a Gentleman born well apparelled and conditioned That the six Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber should be well languaged expert in outward parts and meet and able to be sent on familïar Messages or otherwise to outward Princes as the case shall require and charged the Great Officers of his Houshold in their several Offices and Places that none should be admitted into any Place within his House and especially those which beginning in low rooms and places and are accustomed by course to ascend into higher but such as be of good towardness likelihood behaviour demeanour and conversation and as nigh as they could should have respect that they be Personages of good gesture countenance fashion and stature so as the Kings House which is requisite to be the mirrour and example of all other within his Realm may be furnished of Ministers elect tryed and picked for the Kings Honour as to good reason and congruence doth appertain And by other Orders made in the 33th year of his Reign That no Officer of the Houshold should keep any Servant within the House under the degree of a Gentleman and such as should be honest and of good behaviour And by his Proclamation commanded That no Vagabonds Masterless Rascals or other Idle persons should come and harbour in the Court. And as he had a great respect for his Great Officers of State so he had no small one for his more inferiour Servants when in the Orders appointed for his Tables at meat in his Royal House he did ordain that the Lord Great Chamberlain at his three Messes of meat should have sitting with him the Vice-Chamberlain Captain of the Guard Cup-bearers Karvers Sewers to the King Esquires of the Body Gentlemen Huissers and Sewers of the Chamber The Master of the Horse to have the Equirries and Avenors to sit with him and Gentlemen Pensioners as many as can sit And Queen Elizabeth in the first and third year of her Reign intending as the Preamble thereof declared to follow the Godly and Honourable Statutes of Houshold of her Noble Progenitors did by her Proclamation streightly charge and command That
unto the Court and submit himself unto the Law which he did and was put to his fine gave sureties to pay it Which proofs and arguments touching the subordination of the Judges or their Courts of Justice are not nor ever were intended for the reverend Judges and Sages of the Law or the Students Professors and Practisers thereof whose learning and Judgments neither scrupled or needed it but unto those vulgar and mechanick busie headed and unquiet part of the People qui nesciunt se ignorare will not own any ignorance when they are most ignorant but will be sure to dislike every thing which they do not understand because they take their measures by the shortlines of their vulgar take and incomprehensive capacities which makes them to be so restless and unsatisfied in their mistakings and so lincked and wedded unto them I had not been so large in clearing that particular which unto some may seem more then requisite but that it may justly be feared that those opinions or impressions if not disâ—odged and fully convinced may as those long agoe condemned Heresies and Errors in the Church did in our late distractions and distempers rise up again under the pretence of new notions and gain a kind of Succession too like a perpetuity And therefore every man may without any the Incumbrances of doubts or controversies be assured CHAP. VII That the King or the great Officers of his Houshold may punish those that doe 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 WHen it must or should be acknowledged that notwithstanding that by the Statutes made in the 37th and 38th years of the Reign of King Edward the third untrue Suggestions made to the King and his Councell were prohibited and to be punished and that by a Statute made in the 42 d. year of the Reign of that King no man was to be brought to answer any accusation to the King without praesentment before Justices or matter of Record yet matters extraordinary or suggestions which had truth or evidence to accompany them were not by any of those Acts of Parliament forbidden and howsoever that by a Statute or Act of Parliament made in the 17 th year of the Reign of King Charls the Martyr the Kings Privy Councel were restrained from intermedling in matters concerning Freeholds and the Properties of the Subject which comprehends many of the matters which may concern any man brought before them or accused yet there is no restraint of Arrests or sending for Delinquents by the Kings Messengers or prohibition against the right use of them or the high and super eminent authority of the King and the Lords of his Honourable Privy Councel in cases to prevent Duells and make abortive dangers and inconvenient to the publique punish Riots unlawfull Assemblies and misdemeanors beyond the reach and Authority of Justices of the Peace many other emergencies who may certainly as legally make use of Messengers or Serjeants at Arms to compell disobedient and refractory persons to appear before them as the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England by or under the Kings authority doth now and hath long agoe used to do in cases of contempt of the Processe of that Court after an Attachment with Proclamation and Commission of Rebellion or as the Lord Privy Seal did usually in the Court of Requests after the like Processe could not apprehend or take the person contemning his authority or not appearing before him for unto what purpose shall that honourable and venerable Assembly who Sir Edward Coke saith are Profitable instruments of the State and do bear part of the Soveraignâ— cares and imploy their time and endeavors in the Execution of the Duty of their Oathes and Places and that great trust incumbent upon them if they may not enjoy a coercive Power which the Judices paedanei petty Judicatures and even the Pye-Powder Courts of the Kingdome do enjoy or should make it their business to baffle their own authority and only send for People to come unto them when they please or when they are come before them do what they please but should within their Conusance and Jurisdiction according to a Maxime and Rule of the Civil Law well allowed and entertained by our Common-Law Cum aliquid conceditur id quoque concedi videtur sine quo id efficere non potest when any Jurisdiction or authority is granted that also which should support and attend it seemeth to be granted with it have as great a power of coercion to attend their authority as the Parliament the greater and more extraordinary Councel under the King and Head thereof is allowed and all other Councels in all the Kingdomes and Republiques of Christendome and are not therefore to be denied a just and competent Power to attend them in the administration of the affairs or business of the King intrusted unto them or to be debarred their inspection into all the affairs of the Kingdom concerning the good welfare of the King his People upon casualties accidents and cases extraordinary reformations of abuses by the Kings Edicts or Proclamations and in the deficiency of Laws in matters or things not foreseen or provided for by Laws which cannot be either so prophetick or comprehensive as to supply or give a Remedy to all things but must leave many things to ragione di Stato reason of State and the cares of our Pater Patriae Father of his Countrey and Kingdome to provide against necessities otherwise irresistable which can neither at all times tarry for the calling of a Parliament or the suffrages of it or be communicated unto the vulgar especially in unquiet or cloudy times when our Peace the blessing of our Nation cannot either enjoy her self or impart her comforts to the People without the more then ordinary vigilance of the King and his Privy Councell where the King himself is very often present especially in the absence of that as ancient as the Raign of King Edward the third then and many ages after well regulated Court of Star-Chamber many of whose Judges were the Kings Privy Councell the King himself being there rarely or seldome present and of that necessary Court of the High Commission preventing and watching over such abuses or misdemeanors as might either scandalize or disturbe the peace and good order of holy Church and such as served at the Altar And certainly that formerly great power and authority which resided in the Steward or Major-domo of the Kings Houshold who as Fleta hath recorded it enjoyed in the Reign of King Edward the first such an extraordinary power as he did vicem gerere exercise as it were the Office of Deputy to the Lord Chief Justice of England whose Office and place
such an entercourse betwixt England and Rome and our Kings had so much ado to guard the Rights and Priviledges of themselves and their people from the Papal attempts and usurpations and many of our Kings had in their possession Normandy Aquitain and in other Provinces of France divers Forts and Castles they might well have occasions of sending many that were not of the Houshold which were better to be spared then those of whom they had daily use of occasion of service and that where the Protections were quia moraturus it was not seldom mentioned to be about fortifying a Castle or Town or providing Victuals for them or an Army and may rather be deemed to be none of the Houshold for that in the Register of Writs some Protections are revoked by the King because they pretended to go when they were commanded but did not or followed their own occasions and affairs not the Kings which cannot be easily understood of the Kings Servants in ordinary who in those dayes would not be willing to absent themselves from such profitable and eminent services and imployments And Sir Edward Coke in his greatest aversion to the just Rights and Regalities of the Crown is positive that besides the Kings general Protection of his loyal Subjects there is a particular Protection of two sorts the one to give a man an Immunity and freedom from all Actions or Suits the second for the safety of his person Servants and Goods Lands and Tenements whereof he is lawfully possessed from violence unlawfull molestation or wrong the first is of right and by Law and the second sort are all of Grace saving one and that the Kings Protection so as it be under the Great Seal of England as well moraturus as profecturus upon any mans going or abiding in the Kings service must be regularly to some place out of the Realm of England and that in some Actions as in a Scire facias upon Recoveries Fines Judgements c. In a Writ upon the Statute of Labourers although by the Statute made in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th cap. 15. and the Statute made in the 5th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth cap. 4. no Protection is to be allowed and in a Writ of Deceit notwithstanding the rule of Law is that fraudi aut dolo Lex non patrocinatur Deceit is not to be favoured a Protection doth lye And that the Kings Protections are to be brought to the Courts of Justice where the Action is laid be they Courts of Record or not of Record and not to the Sheriff or any other Officer or Minister and are allowable not only unto men of full age but within age and for Countesses and women as nutrix lotrix or obstetrix Nurses of the Kings Children the Midwife to the Queen or Laundresses of the King or Queen Protections do lye and have been allowed where Essoines do not and denyeth not but a man having a Protection Quia moraturus and returning from beyond Sea only to provide Ammunition Habiliments of War Victuals or other necessaries for the Kings service and be arrested or imprisoned he shall enjoy the benefit of his Protection and denyeth not but that some Protections Quia nolumus because we will not that he should be molested may be granted by the King of grace and gives his opinion that where it is pro negotiis regni for the concern or business of the Kingdom jura publica ante ferenda privatis private mens actions are to give way or yield to the publick and private mens Actions and Suits must be suspended for a convenient time where it is pro bono publico the Weal-publick as certainly the necessary attendance of his Servants in ordinary either for his honour conveniency health or safety do relate unto and concern the peoples good and safety the protection of their lives and estates and the well being of themselves and their posterity and all that can be dear or near unto them And such kind of Protections of Servants in ordinary or extraordinary may be as consistent with Law or Reason as a Writ of Rege inconâ—ulto commanding a forbearance of proceedings in the case of one of the Kings Servants arrested or prosecuted at Law without leave first obtained should not be awarded as the Law and practice thereof is well contented to do it where the King is in Reversion or hath any Title to the thing or matter in demand which may be done at the prayer or request of the party concerned or of the Kings Councel or ex officio Curiae by the Court it self and as well as the Justices allowed a Supersede as to stay an Assise where the Defendant was in the service of the King in his Wars beyond the Seas or to stay Suits against divers Tenants in Northumberland upon Writs of Cessavit to forfeit their Lands for non-payment of their Rents and performing their services to their Lords in regard of the then Wars with the Scots untill the War should be ended or to save a default of the Tenant or Defendant and to adjourn the Suit or Action to another day or where one is convict of redisseisin and taken or arrested by a Capias the King commanded by his Privy Seal that no Process should issue and if any should issue that they should surcease and the Writ was thereupon staid For surely had not such or the like Protections been heretofore accounted to have been as legal as they were warrantable and usual there would not have been an Act of Parliament made in the 5th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. to forbid the allowance of them in Writs of Attaint against Jurors or in Writs of Novel Disseisin and is the first Act of Parliament which did in any case absolutely deny the allowance of the Kings Protection imitated and followed by the Act of Parliament made in the 13th year of the Reign of King Richard the 2d to prohibit Protections in the case where upon a default of the particular Tenant in a real Action he in the reversion is to be received to plead in a Suit commenced against him and the Act of Parliament and Penal Law made in the 23th year of the Reign of King Henry the 6th against such of the Kings Purveyors as did take Provisions from the people without paying for them and many an Act of Parliament and Penal Law from thence unto this present Which Protections or Tabulae â—utelares have been by Law and may be granted for a reasonable time unto any of the Kings Debtors untill the Kings Debt be paid with liberty given to their Creditors to proceed in the mean time but not to take out any Writs of Execution or to some that in unruly and troublesome times obtained their salva Guardia or Protection propter quosdam Aemulos where force or incivilities were feared or where upon sudden and unexpected Embargoes
ultra mare because they were then beyond the Seas or that if the King had sent beyond the Seas any of his Privy-Chamber or Bed-Chamber as hath been not seldom done by-divers of our Kings and Princes to some Foreign Prince or Potentate for the greater credit of their Messages as Balak King of Moab did long before the World was gray or hoary headed when after he had sent Messengers unto the Prophet Balaam and he refused to come unto him he sent yet again Princes more Honourable then they not thinking it fit or honourable to imploy any below stairs or the inferior sort of their Houshold Servants or their Barber as Lewis the 11th of France did in his unfortunate Espargne or saving of charges when he sent him as an Agent or Envoy to the great Inheretrix of Burgundy and the 17. Netherland Provinces which brought him a reproach and loss of those grand expectations which he might otherwise probably have compassed and saved millions of money some hundred thousand mens lives and the trouble and disquiet of the greatest part of Christendom in the since seeking in vain to obtain those rich Countries by Conquest which that Marriage and a more solemn Embassy might have more easily gained such Bed-Chamber man or Gentleman of the Kings Privy-Chamber should have the immunity or freedom not to be arrested or molested by reason of any Actions or Suits at Law whilst he was thus imployed because it was per praeceptum Regis by the Kings command fuit in obsequio Regis and was in his service and yet when he was come and returned to his place and attendance in the Kings Bed-Chamber or Privy-Chamber where he did before daily officiate and was in obsequio Regis per praeceptum Regis in the Kings service unless it could be then understood to be any either reason or sence to believe that he was not in the service of the King or by his appointment when if truth and reason might as they ought to do consort together it was evident he was must be arrested or imprisoned without the Kings leave or license as if he were not of the Kings Bed-Chamber or Privy-Chamber or any of the Kings Servants or if the granting of a Protection by the King to an Earl or any other of the Nobility whilst he was imployed in his Wars or affairs as many have been in Foreign parts should at his return into England be debarred of his priviledge not to be Utlawed or Arrested by Process or Writ of Capias or that Ambassadors sent from hence unto Foreign Kings or Princes without any Writ of Protection which hath ever been thoughâ— needless to be granted unto them should not when they come home enjoy those Immunities and Priviledges were before their going or after their return appropriate and justly due unto them Or that the King may not with as great or greater reason or cause of kindness unto himself and his Servants as well grant his Writs of Protection unto his Servants in ordinary as he hath done unto some Strangers or Foreign Merchants or unto the Prior of an Hospital or some other person with a nolumus or command not to molest or permit to be troubled their persons lands goods or possessions and a suscepimus in protectionem defensionem taking them into his defence or protection or that the service or attendance of his Domesticks or Servants in ordinary either in relation to his person or his affairs subservient thereunto which do concern him and in him the Publick safety and welfare should not claim a greater regard then other more remote And should heretofore be a Supersedeas to some of his Servants elected to serve for the people of their Country in Parliament which with the House of Peers and presence and authority of the King makes it to be the Highest Court of Justice in the Kingdom and next unto the King who is the head life and being of it their greatest and most darling concernment far exceeding any or the most part of Imployments in the Kings extraordinary occasions either at home or abroad which hath been the usual subject matters of the Kingâ— Protections under the Great Seal of England and not now be able or allowed to receive a just and fitting respect and priviledge in his more subordinate and ordinary Courts of Justice When as in the 7th year of the Reign of King Richard the second James Barners being elected a Member of Parliament was discharged by the Kings Writ and a new Writ caused to be made for another election quia est de retinentia Regis familiaris unus Militum Camerae Regis because he was of the Kings Retinue one of his Houshold Servants and one of the Knights of his Chamber attending in or near unto it and in the same year Thomas Morvile was discharged of his election into the House of Commons in Parliament which was superseded quia est de retinentia charissimae Dominae Matris nostrae Johannae Principissae Walliae for that he was in the service or retinue of his Mother the Princess of Wales But that and all which hath been said and evidenced will it seems not yet be enough to remove the pride of heart of such as take a delight to arrest and imprison the Kings Servants and Attendants without license or leave first granted for Debts or other Actions to which they are entituled or perswade them to abandon that unmannerliness and an Objection which they have lately found out as they think to support it That if the number of the Kings Servants were less there would not be so many to demand their Priviledges or cause their Creditors to complain against them and that if any of the Kings Servants in ordinary be so without leave or license arrested or imprisoned whereby the King should or might lose their service he was to provide others in their places And that any of the Kings Servants in ordinary waiting upon him by turns or courses for some of them do not may without leave or license be arrested in the intervals of their waiting or attendance which undutifull and uncivilized opinions too near of kin to the Principles of Wat Tyler and Jack Cade and their Clownish Associates might have been laid upon the Levelling Dunghill and ought to be buried with their illiterate and ungodly Levelling Principles which hath so long afflicted this Nation and so greatly helped to ruine and undo the peace and happiness of it the Adjutants or Authors whereof may upon a more sober and modest enquiry easily find CHAP. X. That our Kings some of which had more then his Majesty now hath have or had no greater number of Servants in ordinary then 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 license as aforesaid to be arrested in the intervals of their
Galfridum filium Petri gladio Comitatus Essex qui licet antea vocati essent Comites administrationem suarum Comitatuum habuissent tamen non erant accincti gladio Comitatus ipsa illa die servierunt ad mensam Regis accincti gladiis did upon the day of his Coronation gird William Marshal with the Sword of the Earldome of Striguil or Pembroke and Jeffery Fitz-Peter with the Sword of the Earldome of Essex who although they were before called Earls and had the government of their Earldomes yet until then were not invested or girt with the Sword of their Earldomes and the same day they waited upon the King as he sate at meat with their Swords girt about them and the service of our Earls and Nobility were held to be so necessary about their Soveraign in the Reign of King Edward the second as John de Warrenna Earl of Surrey had in the 14th year of that King a dispensation not to appear before the Justices Itinerant before whom in certain of his affairs he had a concernment in these words viz. Edwardus dei gratia Rex Angliae c. Justitiariis notris Itineratur in Com. Norff. Quia dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem de Warrenna Comitem Surrey quibusdam de causiis juxta latus nostrum retinemus hiis diebus per quod coram vobis in Itinere vestro in Com. praedicto personaliter comparere non potest ad loquelas ipsum in eodem Itinere tangentes prosequendi defendendi nos ex causa praedicta Indempnitati praefati Comitis provideri cupientes in hac parte vobis mandamus quod omnes praedictas loquelas de die in diem coram vobis continuetis usque ad Octabas Paschae prox futur Ita quod extunc citra finem Itineris vestri praedicti loquelae illae andiantur terminantur prout de jure secundum legem consuetudines regni nostri fuerit faciend Edward by the grace of God King of England c. to his Justices about to go the Circuit in our County of Norfolk sendeth greeting In regard that for certain causes we have commanded the attendance of John of Warren Earl of Surrey upon our person so as he cannoâ— personally appear before you in your Circuit to prosecute and defend certain actions or matters wherein he is concerned we desiring to indempnifie the said Earl therein for the cause aforesaid do command you that you do from day to day adjorn the said Pleas and Actions until eight dayes after Easter next so as you may according to the laws and custome of our Kingdome before the end of your said Circuit hear and determine the said matters or actions In which Writ the said Earl being descended from VVilliam de VVarrenna who marryed a daughter of King VVilliam Rufus was not stiled the Kings Cousin as all the Earls of England have for some ages past been honored either by the stile of Chancery or the Secretaries of State in a Curiality with which the more antient and less Frenchified times were unacquainted for notwithstanding an opinion fathered upon our learned Selden that in regard the antient Earls of England being the Cousins or of the consanguinity or affinity of William the Conqueror or many of the succeeding Kings those Earls that were afterwards created did enjoy that honourable Title of the Kings Cousin it will by our Records and such Memorials as time hath left us be evidenced and clearly proved that all the Earls which William the Conqueror and his Successors have created were not of their Kindred or Alliance and those that were of the consanguinity of our Kings and Princes as Awbrey de Vere the first Earl of Oxford whose Father Awbrey de Vere marryed the Sister by the half blood of William the Conquerour was neither in the grants of the Earldome of Oxford and office of Great Chamberlain of England by Maud the Empress or King Henry the second her Son stiled their Cousin nor William de Albiney formerly Earl of Sussex who marryed Adeliza Widdow of King Henry the first Daughter of Godfrey Duke of Lorrain in the grant of the Earldome Castle and Honour of Arundel by King Henry the second was termed that Kings Cousin neither in the recital in other grants wherein the great Earls of Leicester and Chester are mentioned is there any such intimation for in the first year of the Reign of King John William Marshall Earl of Pembroke William Earl of Salsbury and Ranulph Earl of Chester and Lincoln in the second year of King Henry the third had it not and in the Summons of Parliament Diem clausit extremum and other grants or writs of divers of the succeeding Kings in the former ages until about the Reign of King Edward the fourth where mention was made of some of those and other great Earls of this Kingdom there were none of those honorary Titles and it is not at this day in the ordinary Writs and Process where they are named either as Plaintiffs or Defendants and in France where those graces are in the Royal Letters and Missives frequently allowed to the greater sort of the Nobility howsoever the Queen Mother and Regent of France was about the year 1625. pleased in a Letter to the late George Duke of Buckingham to give him the honour to be called her Cousin very often omitted And those honours of attending their Kings and being near his person or being imployed in his Royal commands were so desirable by as many as could by their virtue antiently the Seminary and cause of all honour obtain it as they thought the service of their Prince not happiness enough unless their Heirs and after Generations as well as themselves might partake of the honour to do service unto him and therefore could be well content to have some of their Lands which some of our Kings of England gave them which they hoped to hold unaliened to them and their Heirs in Fee or in Tayl astrictae obliged and tyed also as their persons to those no inglorious services as the Earls of Oxford holding the Castle of Hedingham in the County of Essex and the Manor of Castle Campes in the Counties of Cambridge and Essex to them and their Heirs in Tayl by the Tenor and Service of being great Chamberlain of England and the Manors of Fingrith in the County of Essex and Hormead or Hornemead in the County of Hertford descended unto them by the Marriage of a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Sanford by the Service and Tenure of being Chamberlain to the Queens of England die Coronationis suae upon the dayes of their Coronation that of great Chamberlain of England being an Office distinct and separate from that of Chamberlain of the Kings House which was as appeareth by many Charters of our antient Kings and their Chamberlains Subscriptions thereunto as witnesses long before the grant of great Chamberlain of England and as then are now only
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
with all the liberties and free customes to the said honour appertaining that of later granted to the Earl of Pembroke by King Edward the 6 th of the Earldome of Pembroke cum omnibus singulis praeheminentiis honori Comitis pertinentibus with all preheminencies and honors belonging to the honour and dignity of an Earl Et habere sedem locum vocem as all the grants and Creations of the later Earles do now allow and import in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis Consiliis nostrorum haeredum successorum infra regnum Angliis inter alios Comites and to have place vote or suffrage in the Parliaments or Councells of the King his heirs or successors amongst the Earles within the Kingdome of England nec non uti gandere omnibus singulis Juribus privilegiis praeheminentiis immunitatibus statui comitis in omnibus rite de I're pertinentibus quibus caeteri comites Regni Angliae ante haec tempora melius honorificentius quietius liberius usi gravisi sunt as likewise to use and enjoy all and singular rights priviledges immunities and preheminencies to the degree and state of an Earl in every thing rightly and by law appertaining as other Earles of the Kingdome of England best most honourably and freely have used and enjoyed all who the aforesaid antient honorable priviledges preheminencies and immunities granted and allowed the Nobility and Baronage of England those Sons and Generations of merit adorned by their ancestors vertue aswell as their own and the honors which their Soveraigns have imparted unto them have been ratified by our Magna Charta so very often confirmed by several Acts of Parliament and the Petition of Right in and by which the properties and liberties of all the people of England are upheld and supported and therefore the honors and dignities being personal Officiary or relating to their service and attendance upon the throne and Majesty Royal and conducing to the Honor Welfare and safety of the King and his people King Henry the 6 th may be thought to have been of the same opinion when the Commons in Parliament having in the 29 th year of his raign Petitioned him that the Duke of Sommerset Dutchess of Suffolk and others may be put from about his person he consented that all should depart unless they be Lords whom he could not spare from his person And in Askes Rebellion in Yorkshire in the latter end of the raigne of King Henry the 8 th the Commons complained that the King was not although he had many about him of great Nobility served or attended with Noble or worthy men And also the Lords Spiritual assembled in Parliament in the second year of the raigne of King Charles the Martyr when they Petitioned the King against the Inconveniences of some English mens being created Earles Viscounts and Barons of Scotland or Ireland that had neither residence nor estates in those Kingdomes did amongst other things alledge that it was a Shame to nobility that such persons dignified with the titles of Barons Viscounts c should be exposed and obnoxious to arrests they being in the view of the law no more then meer Plebejans and prayed that his Majesty would take some Course to prevent the prejudice and disparagement of the Peers and Nobility of this Kingdome who being more peculiarly under the protection of their Soveraigne in the enjoyment of their priviledges have upon any invasion thereof a more special addresse unto him for the Conservation thereof as in the case of the Earl of Northampton the twentieth day of June in the 13 th year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr against Edmond Cooper a Serjeant at Mace in London and William Elliot for arresting of him they were by the Lord Chamberlains warrant apprehended and committed to the Marshall and not discharged but by warrant of the Lord Chamberlain bearing date the third day of July next following and needs not seem unusual strange or irrational unto any who shall but observe and consult the liberties priviledges immunities and praeheminencies granted and permitted unto the Nobility of many other Nations and Countries aswell now as very antiently by their Municipal and reasonable customes and the civil or Caesarean laws CHAP. XVI That many the like priviledges and praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarian laws and the Municipall Laws and reasonable Customes of many other Nations granted and allowed to the nobility thereof WHen as the Hebrews who thought themselves the most antient wise and priviledged of the Sonnes of men had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuum principes Capita qui cum Rege sedentes partim consilia mibant partim Jus reddebant Princes of the Tribes under the King were the chief Magistrates and heads of the people attended the King sate with him as his Councel and assisted him in the making of laws of which the book of God giveth plentiful evidences Solomon had his Princes some of whom were set over his household Ahab had Princes of his Provinces Jehoram King of Israel leaned upon the hand of a Lord that belonged unto him And our Saviour Christ alludeth to the Princes of Israel the Elders and Judges of the people when he saith his twelve Apostles should after the Consummation of the world sit and Judge the twelve Tribes of Israel amongst the Graecians the nobility derived their honors from their Kings and Princes and by the lawes of Solon and the ten Tables were alwaies distinguished from the Common people and had the greatest honours and authorities and in all other Nations who live under Monarchs have been favoured and endowed therewith the old Roman Nobility refused to marry with the Ignoble as those of Denmark and Germany do now which our English descended from the later did so much approve of as they accompted it to be a disparagement to all the rest of the Family and Kindred to marry with Citizens or people of mean Extractions Julius Caesar when he feasted the Patricii or Nobility and the common people entertained the Nobility in one part of his Palace and the Common people in another and not denied some part of it even in the Venetian and Dutch Republick as amongst many other not here ennumerated Nobilis minus suâ—t puniendi quam ignobilis Noble men are not to be so severely punished as ignoble Nobiles propter debitum Civile vel ex causa aeris alieni non debent realiter citari vel in Carcerem duci are not for debts or moneys owing to be arrested or imprisoned propter furtum vel aliud crimen suspendio dignum laquei supplicio non sunt plectendi are not for Theft or any other Crime to be hanged and that priviledge so much allowed and insisted upon in the Republick or Commommon wealth of Genoar in the height of their envy or dislike of their Nobility as they did about the
year of our Saviour 1220 displace the learned Jacobus Baldwinus a Doctor of the Civil Law and removed him from his place of Praetor or Lord Chief Justice into which they had elected him for that he had caused a Noble man to be hanged when as â—atrio Statuto strangulationis ignominia eximuntur nobiles a Noble man was by their Laws not to be put to death in so ignominious a manner and thereupon enacted by a Law that from thenceforth no Doctor of Law should be admitted into the Office or place of Praetor Hispanus nobilis jure Regio Hispaniarum ex Nobilitatis privilegio in Carcerem mitti non potest nec in ipsius armis equo recte fit executio A Spanish Noblemen is not by the Kingly law and Prerogative of the King of Spain and tbe priviledge of his nobility to be imprisoned or his Arms or Horse taken in Execution by the Laws of Poland and of Flanders a Noble man is not to be imprisoned but taken into custody by the Magistrate or Judge in their houses or confined to some City or place until the debt demanded or Action be satisfied or by plea discharged in depositionibus attestationibus testimoniis ferendis magis creditur Nobilibus quam Ignobilibus in attestations or testimonies Noble men are more to be credited then ignoble ac etiam cum de illorum re agitur even when it is in their answers or own concernments ad officia secularia magis quam plebei assumuntur are sooner to be preferred to secular Offices and imployments then such as are ignoble reverenter sunt salutandi are to be reverently saluted ad omnem occursum illis assurgendum caput revelandum de via decedendum c. men are to rise unto them at their coming towards them uncover their heads or give them way or place for in doing them honour the Prince or King that gave them the honour is honoured Si in judiciis comparent Index qui in Hungaria in causis nobilium non nisi nobilis eos salutare ad sedendum aliquo humiliori loco iuvitari debet if he appear in any Court of Justice the Judge who in Hungary in the causes of any of the Nobility is likewise to be a Noble man is to salute them and invite them to sit in some place beneath the Tribunal Non verbo sed in scriptis sunt citandi are not to be cited by word of mouth but by writing de calumnia personaliter jurare non tenentur are not to take in any action the Oath de Calumnia that the action is not meerly brought in malice or for contention injuria nobilibus illata longe aliter aestimatur quam ea quae ignobili infertur an injury done unto them is more then to one which is ignoble torqueri non debent ought not to be put upon the Rack or tortured Offendens Consiliarium principis incurrit crimen Majestatis quando offenderetur in odium contemptum siu principis he which hurteth or offendeth a Councellor of the Prince our Temporal Baronage being so in Parliament by Inheritance committeth Treason if it be done in hatred or contempt to the Prince And the reason given for the high esteem of Nobility and those more then ordinary favours and priviledges granted and imparted unto them and the Baronage of the Empires of Rome Germany and many Neighbour Kingdomes are that they are de familia Principis accompted as a part of the Families of the Emperors and Kings unum cum ipso faciant corpus unum Consistorium are as one body and incorporate inhaerere principi dicuntur sicut stellae firmamento soli are said to attend the Prince as the Stars in the firmament do the Sun radii solares solem and as the Rayes or Beams of the Sun do accompany it The Emperours Honorius Theodosius declaring that immunitate digni sunt quos sui lateris comitatus illustrat that they which had the honour to attend and be near their persons deserved to be priviledged Poloni Nobiles cum de illorum vita honore agitur non ab alio quam ipsom Rege Judicari possint non nisi consulto principe sunt puniendi the Nobility of Poland in any matter concerning their life and honour are only to be tryed by the King and are not to be punished unless the Prince be first consulted and do approve thereof Et Barones apud Gallos non aliorum Judicio subsisti poterant in prima instancia quam Nobilium Seneschallorum ad quos Idcirco illorum causae maxime feudales remissae fuisse leguntur apud Jo. Tilleum recollectorum Franciae regum And the French Baronage are in the first instance to to subject to no other Court or Judgement then that of the Nobility and Stewards appointed by the King and therefore their causes especially such as concerned their feudal estates or honorary possessions were as appeareth by John Tilly thither remitted Et ab omni aevo Nobilium Galliae fuit specâ—ale privilegium ut omnes eorum cause semper essent reservatae singulari Regis Supremi eorum principis salvo guardia protectioni jurisdictioni And it was in all ages a special priviledge of the French Nobility to be under the Guard Protection and Jurisdiction of their Soveraigne Atque hinc Ballivorum antiqua Institutio quod illi essent esse deberent tanquam custodes conservatores omnium jurium privilegiorum nobilibus competentium and from thence came that antient institution of Bailiffs Judges or officers specially appointed who were ought and were to be as Guardians and conservators of all the rights and priviledges appertaining to the Nobility Et nobiles non minus privilegiati favorabiles quam familiares domestici principum vel Officialium And the Nobility are there to be no less priviledged and savoured then the Servants and domestiques of the King or any of his Officers the distinction betwixt the Nobility and common people of all the Kingdoms and Nations of the Earth being so universal As in China the Mandarines being the Nobility and Governors of Provinces cannot be imprisoned but for heinous faults have two Maces of Silver carried before them in the streets and none are to cross the streets whilst they pass along and all men are to give way unto them Montezeuma Emperor of Mexico in the West-Indies ordained that the Noblest men of his Empire should live in his Palace would have none of the Plebeyans but Knights in any office in his Court who had priviledge to carry Gold and Silver wear rich Cotton and use painted and gilt vessels which the common people might not And even the most wild and barbarous of mankind inhabiting the Earth in those Countries and places where the glimmerings of nature and civility could give any admission have so every where acknowledged an honor due to their nobility as upon
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
under His Seal and Teste Me Ipso directed to all His Courts of Justice And are as Bracton saith Formata ad similitudinem Regulae Juris framed by and according to the Rules of Law whiâ—h warranting many of the Proceeding thereof are in the Assize betwixt Wimbish and the Lord Willoughby in Trinity Term in the sixth year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth said and not denyed to be Law and the Act of the King but not of the Chancellor So as they who shall endeavour to impose upon other men that the King is not by Law presumed to be present in his Court of Kings Bench where the Records do mention the Judgements given therein to be coram Rege before the King as if he were personally present with the Judges of that Court who are assigned to assist Him may as to the Kings Power in matters of Justice and over the Judges and Courts delegated by Him do well to seek a reason which is justly to be feared will never be found why it should be Law or Reason for King Alfred in the discords or ignorance of his Subordinate Judges in the distribution of Justice to hear and determine the Causes Himself or for King Canutus long after to judge the Causes of such as complained unto him when our Bracton doth not at all doubt of it when he saith that the Judges nullam habent Authoritatem sed ab alio i. e. Rege sibi Commissam cum ipse qui delegat non sufficiat per se omnes Causas sive Jurisdictiones terminare they have no Authority but what they are intrusted with by the King who granted it when as he who delegated them is not able or sufficient by himself to hear aad determine all Causes in every Jurisdiction unto which our Register of Writs that Pharmacopeia Director and Magazine of Medicines and Remedies for many a Disease in the Estates and Affairs of the People which Justice Fitz Herbert in his Preface to his Book De Natura Brevium of the Nature of Writs calleth The Principles of the Law and the Foundation whereupon it dependeth and in Plowdens Commentaries is as to many things truly said to be the Foundation of our Laws and so Authentique as Brown Justice in the Case betwixt Willon and the Lord Barkley in the third year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth declared that all Writs were to pursue the Forms in the Register and it was enough to alledge so is the Register will easily assent and all our Books of the Law all the Practice and Usage of our Courts of Justice all our Records Close and Patent Rolls and our Kings hearing and determining of Differences betwixt the Common Law and Ecclesiastical Courts and Jurisdictions and their making of Orders to reconcile the Proceedings of the severall Judges thereof and the like betwixt the Admiralty Court and the Courts of Common Law ordered decided and agreed before King Charles the First and His Privy Council in the ninth year of His Reign the Judges in criminal Matters not seldom attending the King for a Declaration of His Will and Pleasure where a Reprieve Pardon or Stay of Execution shall be necessary will be as so many almost innumerable powerful and cogent Arguments to justifie it And a common and dayly Experience and the Testimony of so many Centuries and Ages past and the Forme used in our Writs of Scire Facias to revive Judgements after a year and a day according to the Statute of Westminster the 2. with the words Et quia volumus ea que in Curia nostra rite acta sunt debite executioni demandari because we would that those things which are rightly done in our Courts should be put in execution c. may bear witness of that Sandy Foundation Sir Edward Coke hath built those his great mistakings upon and those also that the King cannot propria Authoritate Arrest any man upon suspition of Treason or Felony when the Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Edward the First expresly acknowledgeth that the King may Arrest or cause men to be Arrested as well as His Chief Justice without distinction in ordinary and civil or criminal matters and when by the beforemention'd Opinions of Sir Christopher Wray Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench Sir Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas and of all the Judges of England delivered under their hands in the Four and thirtieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was acknowledged that She or the Lords of Her Privy Council might do it And in the before recited great Case of the Habeas Corpora in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr there was no question made but that the King might lawfully do it with a cause expressed in the Warrant And many a Nobleman and others hath in several of our Kings Reigns either upon suspition of Treason or Flagranti Crimine in or very near the acting of it or upon great Misdemeanors been Arrested by our Kings and Princes onely Command and sent Prisoners to the Tower of London As the Great Mortimer Earl of March by King Edward the Third the Pompous Cardinal Wolsey and Queen Ann of Bulloin by King Henry the Eighth the Duke of Northumberland by Queen Mary the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Essex by Queen Elizabeth for Treason Robert Earl of Somerset and his Lady committed for Felony Sir Tho. Overbury for refusing to go Ambassador when he was sent by King James Henry Earl of Oxford for striking up a Great Lords heels in a Solemnity of a great Feast when the French Ambassador was entertained in Westminster Hall for presuming to offer to wash his hands after the King had washed in the Basin which as Lord Great Chamberlain of England he had holden to the King Thomas Earl of Arundel for marrying the Lord Matravers his Son to the Sister of the Duke of Lenox and Richmond without his Licence and Philip Earl of Pembroke and the said Lord Matravers for striking and scuffling with one another in the House of Peers in Parliament and some others by King Charles the First and some by His now Majesty and our Parliaments have many times in some Charges brought against offenders of the Weal Publique petitioned our Kings and Princes to do it and many others have been so committed in the Reigns almost of all our Kings and Princes of which every Age and History of this our Kingdom can give plentiful Examples which we may believe to have been done by good and legal Warrant when in all our many Parliaments and Complaints of the People therein such Arrests and Imprisonments have not been in the number of any of their complained Grievances for otherwise what Power Writ Authority or Warrant of a Judge or Justice of Peace could have seiz'd upon that Powerful Mortimer and taken him in Notingham Castle out of the amorous Embraces of Queen Isabel the
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
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
operate or deserve to be a Cause to Priviledge themselves their Estates or Maenial Servants from Arrest or disturbance and such a Priviledge in Parliament in the time of an Adjournment which hath sometimes continued for several Months should be allowed and thought reasonable when their business which was the cause of it was all that time in suspence or abayance and that the King who granted and allowed those Priviledges should not enjoy the like for his own Servants who are dayly busied in the Safety Honour and attendance of his Person and the great Affairs of the Kingdom and that such a Cause should produce that effect for them and their Servants and the King who desireth but the like effect or production from one and the same Cause should not enjoy it for his own Servants and that â—adem ratio should not in the Kings Case as well as in the Case of any of his Subjects produce and be a Cause of the like Law or Liberty who doth not claim the Hearing of those causes where the Plaintiffs are not his Servants as the King of France who by his Commissions of Commitimus Impowers a Court to hear and determine Causes and concernments of his Servants but only that they should ask leave before they proceed against them in any of his Courts of Justice which the Plaintiffs shall make choice of Shall the Generall or Commander of the Armies or Guards Forts or Garrisons of the King and the Admirall of a Navy or Ships have a power not to permit any of their Officers or Souldiers to be Arrested or Imprisoned without Licence first obtained and shall the Servants of the King in the attâ—ndance upon his Sacred Person in the Watch and Care of them and the Publick Welfare as well in the time of War and Peace which not seldome disapoints the horrid effects of a people-tormenting War not have a like Priviledge Are the superiour Courts of Justice not blamed when the Judges thereof by the Kings Authority can supersede Actions in Inferiour Courts many times but upon the pretence of Actions depending in their Superiour Courts as to reverse an Utlary or the like in eundo redeundo when it is not every day or all days or but some hours business or can the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas Priviledge the Serjeants at Law and forbid that they should be Sued in any other Court when they do plead at other Courts as well as in the Court of Common Pleas and are so numerous as if one by an Arrest or Impriment should not be able to move or plead his Clients business the Client having all the Writings in his own or his Attorneys custody may have and retain another Serjeant at Law who can as well understand his business to look unto it and not only protect them but the Clerks of the Serjeants at Law and in the Vacation and at their Chambers far distant from Westminster Hall when the business of the Law and Courts of Justice are laid to sleep and take their rest and that the Justices of that and other the Superiour Courts can by the Kings and not their own immediate Authority Priviledge Prothonotaries and all other Officers and Clerks of their several Courts and their Clerks when they have or may have other Clerks to do their business And the Warden of the Fleet Cryers and Tipstaves in times of Vacation and as there shall be occasion Unattach Goods and discharge Bonds and Sureties given for Appearance when there cannot be any just cause or necessity untill the Term ensuing for their attendance and Priviledges and keep from Arrest by the Inferiour Courts their Attorneys who are no Members of their Superiour Courts and even the Attorneys Clarks And not only allow that Priviledge to the immediate Officers of their Courts but extend it unto their Clarks that are subservient unto them and not deny it as hath been before remembred unto a Filacers horskeeper Their Writs of Priviledge in the Kings name declaring and publishing that such breaches of Priviledge are in nostri â—ontemptum curiae nostrae in Contempt of the King and his Court that such Priviledged person eundo redeundo in going and coming to his Courts oâ— Justice is and ought to be sub protectione nostra under the Kings protection tam ex Regia dignitate quam ex antiqua consuetudine as well in regard of his Dignity as by antient Custom is to be Ptiviledged Did Justice Vernon one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas in the time of Vacation when a man indebted having to an Action given special Bail before him at his Chamber in Serjeants-Inne in Chancery-lane and coming out of the Gate was Way-laid and Arrested by some Serjeants at Mace or Catchpoles of London and Arrested upon some other mans Action lay down made an Out-cry and refused to be their Prisoner of which the Judge being informed commanded the Catchpoles and Prisoner to be brought to his Chamber where they being something Surly and refusing to deliver him he threw of his Gown and taking one of them by the shoulder whereof I was an eye Witness did so shake him and threaten to commit him and his fellow Catchpoles as he enforced them to release the Prisoner and suffer him to escape And shall not the King who is the Constituent Principle and primum incipiens the only cause suppoâ—t and maintenance as well as giver of all Immunities Exemptions Franchises and Priviledges of the Kingdom Not be able to do as much as those unto whom he hath granted and permitted it and protect and Priviledge his Domestick Servants or men imployed by him but like an old Isaac over liberal to a Craving Jacob have nothing in reserve of Priviledges or Favors for his Servants who have attended our David when he was in all his Troubles and deserved better than many a participation of his Blessings or shall his Subjects like the Sullen and Selfish Nabal have so little regard of him or his Servants that do help to guard their flocks as to receive his Benefits and make notwithstanding their grumbling Ingratitude and refractory Humours the only Retorn or acknowledgment of them Hath he and his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors as the Grecian Monarchs and Common-Wealths antiently used to do from whence the Romans after they had shut their Temple of Janus and made their Military Glories impart some of their Honour to the more Civil Imployments and gown also learned it taken such a care to protect Honour and Priviledge his Ministers of Justice and their subordinate Officers in the Courts thereof whilst they officiate in his Service therein Did the Wisdom of our King and Parliament in the 32d year of the Reign of King Henry the 8th think it no inconvenience but a benefit to the people that the greater and more necessary concerns should give may to the lesser when they Ordained which hath been ever since
of the Kingdoms of Cyprus and Candie now under their Subjection are said to have Testé Couronné to come into the Court-yards with their Coaches which the little Republique of Genoa in Italy hath notwithstanding their contest for it been lately refused both in France and Spain in the latter whereof a Monarchy and Kingdom much inferior to England it is a great Honour amongst the Domesticks and Servants of that Court to be a Gentleman de la Boca for that such may attend the King at Dinner or Supper and have at other times a priviledge to come into the Rooms of the Palace as far as a certain Hall beyond which no man is to pass although there should be no Guards or Ushers to hinder it And no longer ago then in the month of December 1666 the Lady or wife of the Spanish Embassador in the Court of the Emperor of Germany at Vienna complaining of the Emperors High Chamberlain that she was denied by the guards to enter into the Anti-chamber of the Empress in her Chair or Sedan she was answered by him and informed also by a message from the Emperor that it was the custom of that Court not to permit the Empress her self that Liberty which very necessary regard and respects always had to the Courts or Houses of Soveraign Kings or Princes might besides their safeties which have not seldom been endangered by Brawls and Tumults swelled up into a multitude be the reason that in imitation or reviving of those old Laws of King Alfred and Canutus the Act of Parliament In the 33 th year of the Raign of King Henry the eight did ordain the loss of the Right hand of any striking or making blood-shed within any of the Kings Houses or Palaces or the virge thereof Noblemen or others striking only their Servants with a small stick or Wand for Correction or with any Tipstaff at a Triumph or in doing Service by the Kings Commandment or of any of his Graces Privy Council or head Officers excepted and that any such offences or Murders Manslaughters or malicious strikings should be tryed by a Jury of twelve of the Yeomen Officers of the Kings Houshold before the Lord Steward or in his absence before the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold and Steward of the Marshalsea for the time being And so tender have our Kings and Princes been of the Honour of their Princely Palaces and Seats and habitations of Majesty as they would not permit their Mercy to have any thing to do with their Justice or to intercede for any mitigation of their just indignation against such as would but in the least let loose their passions or Indiscretion to violate it witness the case communicated unto me by my worthy friend Sir William Sanderson one of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Privy Chamber in Ordinary of Mr. Mallet in the Raign of Queen Mary who being a Gentleman Usher Quarter Waiter of the Presence-Chamber and having rebuked one Mr. Pierce a Messenger of the Chamber for some Negligence in the Queens Service and being rudely answered to avoid the punishment for striking him if he should draw or inforce blood did spit in his face upon knowledge whereof the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold without any complaint of Mr. Pierce committed Mr. Mallet to the Marshal and after some time punished him in this manner the Lord Chamberlain standing under the Cloth of State uncovered in the presence Chamber with the Officers of the Houshold and others about him Mr. Mallet kneeled down at the lowest step and his offence in Order to his sentence being read unto him by a Gentleman Vsher of the Presence with this Praeamble viz. For excercising that Jewish Inhumane Act of Spitting upon Master Pierce your fellow Servant in Court in the sight and presence of the Cloth of Estate against the Dignity of our Soveraign Lady the Queens Grace the Honour of the Court and the Authority and Power of the Lord Chamberlain To which Mr. Mallet being still upon his knees answered with an Humiliation sorrow and Submission and craved Pardon of the Queens Grace for his fault Whereupon the Lord Chamberlain lightly Rapping Mr. Mallet upon the Pate with his white Staff who craved pardon for offending the Authority and Power of the Court Represented by the Lord Chamberlain Mr. Pierce was appointed to wave a Cudgel over Mr. Mallets head in sign of satisfaction for the wrong received of him And that being done Mr. Mallet was fined in a summe of money to the Queen and after a day or two released After all which the Chaplains and Clergy complaining that the holy Church was scandalized for that Jewish Action Mr. Mallet was ordered to do Penance in the Chappel Royal in a White-sheet holding a Wax Taper burning during the Office of Divine Service and after those punishments Executed upon him permitted to complain against Mr. Pierce for neglecting the Queens Service and Mr. Pierce was for answering Mr. Mallet rudely turned out of his Waiting or place and came not in again until Mr. Mallet was pleased to make it his Sollicitation and Request And so great a Respect was always given to the Kings Palace or Court as it was holden to be a punishment and note of Infamy to be Prohibited it and was in the 18 th or 21 th year of the Raign of King James a part of the Sentence given in Parliament against Lionel Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England for Briberies and Extortions that he should never come within the Verge of the Kings Court. And that blessed Martyr King Charles was in the midst of His over-great Lenity or Meekness so careful to preserve the Honours and due Respects to His Palace and Court as when Doctor Craig one of His Physicians had in the Kings Chamber given Mr. Kirk one of the Grooms of His Bed-chamber some offensive words and Mr. Kirk meeting him the same day in some of the Court-lodgings had struck him with a blow of his Fist and Doctor Craig complaining of it unto the King and the King referring it unto the Lord Chamberlain of His Houshold who after Examination of the Fact Remitted the Punishment of the Offence to the King He did in much Indignation Banish Mr. Kirk from the Court into which he was more then a year before he could by the Intercession of the Duke of Buckingham then the Great and Principal Favourite be re-admitted And that Pious and Excellent Prince was so apprehensive of any disrespects to His House and Palace as meeting one day or night the Earl of Denbigh then Lord Fielding in his Masking Suit as he was passing through the Privy Galleries towards the Banquetting House stayed him and turned him back to go a more Common-way And was no less watchful to prevent any thing which might be prejudicial or derogatory to the honour of the Garter whereof he was Soveraign in the Palace or House where his Honour dwelt As when at another time finding