Wigorniensis mentioned by that learned Knight Sr. Roger Twisden in his preface to the Laws of William the Conquerour published by the eminently learned Mr. Selden informs us did importune Maud the Empresse ut eis Edwardi Regis Leges observare liceret quia optimae erant That the Laws of King Edward might be observed because they were the best And when William the Conquerour ordered the Rents and Revenues of such as held of him to be paid into the Exchequer it was non simpliciter nec haeres ab hereditate nec ut ab ipso haereditas tollitur sed simul cum haereditate sub Regis custodia constitutus tempâ—râ— pupillaris aetatis Not to take away the Inheritance but to keep and educate him during his Minority For It could be no inconvenience to the publick welfare of the Nation to have the Children of the best ranck and quality for such were then the Tenants in Capite and by Knight service virtuously and nobly educated in Arts and Arms whereby to be enabled to do their Prince and Country service and their Lands and Estates in the interim to be protected and defended from Neighbour or other injuries Nor to be married to their own degree or a nobler quality when as by the means of intermarriages betwixt the Saxons Normans as between Lucia the Sister of Morchar Earl of Northumberland a Saxon and Juo Talbois a great Norman Baron and betwixt Ralph de waiet a Saxon by a British or Welch Woman Emme the Daughter of William Fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford by which he was by the Conquerour made Earl of the East Angles And many more which might be instanced their mutual discontents and animosities calming into reconciliations and friendships had the like effect as the tye and kindness of the intermarriages had not long before in King Ina's time who himself marrying with Guala a British woman his Lords and great men intermarrying with the Welch Scots their Sons also marrying with their Daughters the Nation became to be as Gens una one people in a near consociation and relation and the Norman H. 1. afterwards found it to be not unsuccessefull in his own marriage with Matilda the Daughter of Malcolm King of Scots by the Sister or Niece of Edgar Atheling of the Saxon Royal line It was no grievance when the Charter of Liberties which was the original of a great part of our after Magna Charta was granted to the people of England by K. H. 1. who is therein said omnes malas consuetudines quibus Anglia opprimebatur auferre to abolish all the evil customs with which England was oppressed when it would have been strange that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service should remain as a part of the Kings just prerogative and be so well liked of and approved consilio consensu Baronum By advice and consent of the Barons if there had been any grievance originally or naturally in them Nor so much as a Semblance of it in the reign of H. 2. when a general Inquisition was made per Angliam cui quis in servitio seculari de jure obnoxius teneretur thorough England What secular or temporal services due by Law were not performed And as little in the Parliament at Clarendon in the same Kings reign where in the presence of the King Bishops Earls Barons and Nobility facta fuit recognitio sive recordatio cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis viz. Henrici Avi sui aliorum quae observari debâ—bant in Regno ab omnibus teneri A recapitulation and rehearsal was made of some of the Customs and Liberties of their Ancestors and of the King that is to say of King H. 1. and others which ought of all to be observed and kept in the Kingdom in which there was nothing against the Feudal Laws or Tenures in Capite and by Knights service but many expressions and allowances of them And if otherwise it would have been something strange that the issue and posterity of those Barons should in King Johns time adventure all that could be dear or near unto them to gain the Liberties granted by H. 1. with some addition and never grudge that King the same Prerogative when as hazarding the forfeiture of their own Magna Charta of Heaven to gain a Magna Charta on Earth for their posterities They had greatly over-powered their King at Running Mede where their Armies stood in procinctu acie Facing one another Pila minantia pilis Threatning death and distruction to each other or would so willingly have hung up their Shields and Launces and returned to their peace and obedience by accepting of that Magna Charta if they had not taken it to be as much for their own defence the good of the Kingdom as it was for his nor so willingly afterwards in the reign of King Henry the 3 d. his Son have clad themselves in Steel made a Combination and bouâ—d themselves by oath one to another never to submit to a peace until they had a just performance of what his Father had granted them endured the Popes then direful Fulminations and never rested until the King himself had confirmed that Magna Charta by a most solemn oath in procession with the Bishops who with lighted Tapers in their hands anathematiz'd all the infringers thereof if Tenures in Capite and the enableing their Prince to defend them had not been a part of their own Liberties nor could they be imagined to be otherwise when as by an Act of Parliament also of that King the great Charter was to be duely read in all Counties of England and Writs and Letters were sent to all the Sheriffs of England commanding them by the oaths of twelve Knights of every County to enquire what were the antient Rights and Liberties of the People no return was ever made that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service either were or could be any obstructions to them or that so often bloodily contested and too dearly purchased Magna Charta nor was it any publique grievance when as in the Parliament of 26 H. 3 in a great contest betwixt him and the Baronage and great men of England touching his ill Government and diverse exactions and oppressions the profits which he had by his Tenures and Escheats were said to have been sufficient to have kept him from a want of mony and oppressing his Subjects Nor in Anno 42. H. 3. when the King upon those great complaints and stirres betwixt him and the then Robustious and sturdy Barons of England occasioned by his misgovernment which busied the people with Catalogues of grievances he by his Writs or Commissions appointed in every County of England Quatuour milites qui considerarent quâ—t et quantis granaminibus simpliciores a fortioribus opprimuntur et inquirent diligenter dâ— singulis quaerelis et injurijs a quocunque factis
Debts or charge of Children connot rationally conclude or argue the Fines to be excessive no more than a common weight or burden which may easily be born or carried by any man in health doth make it to be of a greater weight or burden because another man by reason of sicknesse or other disabilities is not able to bear or stand under it or that a reasonable or small rent which Tenants are to pay to their Landlords is therefore too much or unreasonable because a poor or decayed Tenant cannot so well bear or pay it as he was wont or as one that is thriving or before hand might doe That all Leases of above One hundred years were made to draw Wardships contrary to Law when as such or the like Collusions were by the Statute of Marlebridge prohibited and the Parliament was mis-informed for long Leases under 500. years were not made by that Court lyable to Wardships and that undue proceedings were used in the finding of Offices to make Jurors find for the King which was but to adjorne or bind them over to the Bar of the Court of Wards in case that there was any doubt of the Law or Evidence Or when the Lords and Commons in Parliament the second day of June 1642. by the nineteen Propositions which were as they alleaged for the establishment of the Kings honour and safety and the wâ—lfare and â—ecurity of his Subjects and Dominions and being granted would be a necessary and effectual means to remove those jealousies and differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt him and his people and procure both his Majesty and them a constant course of honour peace and happiness Did propose petition and advise that the Lord high Constable of England Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England Lord Treasurer Lord privy Seal Earl Marshal Lord Admiral Warden of the Cinque Ports cheif Governour of Ireland Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Wards Secretaries of State two cheif Justices and cheif Baron may alwayes which shewed they had no desire for the present or the future to take away the Tenures in Capite and by Knight service be chosen by approbation of both Houses of Parliament Did not conceive them to be any Disease or Gangreen in the Body Politique at the making of the 2 d. Declaration of the Lords Commons in Parliament dated the 12 th of January 1642. Concerning the Commission of Array occasioned by a book then lately published Entituled his Majesties answer to the Declaration of both Houses of Parliament concerning the said Commission of Array Printed and Published by the care of Mr. Samuel Brown then and now a Member of the House of Commons wherein many Arguments being used and if they had been grievances would not have become the Parliament to have urged or pressed them as an argument against the Kings having power to raise men by his Commissions of Array and were then so little denyed to be for the necessary defence of the King and his Subjects as they were rather taken by that Parliament to be as the hands and Arms of the bodie politique worthy a continuance perpetuity and very well deserving the good opinion which the Parliament then had of them in the expressions following We deny that there is an impossibility of defence without such power viz. the Commissions of Array And affirm that the Kingdom may be defended in time of danger without issuing such Commissions or executing such power For we say that the Law hath provided several ways for provision of Arms and for defence of the Kingdom in time of danger without such Commissions 1. All the Tenures that are of his Majestie by Barony Grand Seâ—jeanty Knight service in Capite Knight service and other like Tenures were all originally instituted for the defence of the Kingdom in time of War and danger as appears by the Statute of 7 E. 1. of Mortmain which saith servitia quae ex hujus modi feodis dâ—bentur ad defensionem Regni ab initio provisa fuerunt vide Chart. H. 1. irrotulat in libro Rubro Scac. Coke Instit. 75. Bracton 36.37 Britton 162.35 H. 6.41 Coke 8.105 Coke 6. â— Instit. 1 part 103. These Tenures in the Conquerours time were many and since they are much increased and these are all bound to find men and arms according to their Tenures for the defence of the Kingdom 2. As those Tenures are for the defence of the Kingdom so the Law hath given to his Majestie diverse Priviledges and Prerogatives for the same end and purpose that with the profits of them he should defend himself and his people in times of danger of which his Majestie is and always hath been in actual possession since his accesse to the Crown For the defence of the Kingdom his Majestie haâ—h the profits oâ— Wardships Lâ—veries Primer seisins Marriages Reliefs Fines for Alienation Customs Mines Wrecks Treasure trove Escheats Forfeitures and diverse others the like casual profits That by these he may be enabled to defend the Kingdom and that he enjoying them his Subjects might enjoy their Estates under his Protection free from Taxes and Impositions for defence Therefore it is declared 14 E. 3. chap. 1. That all the profits arising of an aid then granted to the King by his people And of Wards Marriages Customes Escheats and other profits riseing of the Realm of England should â—e spent upon the safeguard of the Realm of England on the Wars in Scotland France and Gascoigne and no places elsewhere during the Wars And the Lords and Commons in Rich. 2 time knowing the Law to â—e so did as appears â—y the Parliament â—olls 6 Rich. â— m. 42 passe a â—etition that the King would live oâ— his own Revenues and that the Wards Marriages Reliefs Forâ—â—itures and other profits of the Crown might be kept to be spent in the Wars for the defence of the Kingdom 3. If the said Tenures and casual profits rising by his Prerogative will not serve for defence but more help is necessary by the fundamental Lawes and Constitutions of this Kingdom his Majestie is intrusted with a power to summon Parliaments as often as he pleases for defence of himself and his people when his ordinary Revenues will not serve the turn And there is no other legal way when the others are not sufficient but this and this last hath been ever found by experience the most sure and successefull way for supply in time of imminent danger for defence of the Kingdom and to this the Kings of this Realm have in times of danger frequently had recourse A main end why Parliaments are called is for defence of the Kingdom and that other Supplies thâ—n thâ—se before mentioned cannot be made without a Parliament Nor was there any publique or general damage so much as supposed to be in them the first of February 1642. when in the propositions sent by those Lords Commons which remain'd in Parliament
to hold of the King by an honourable service of grand Serjeanty Then to hold in Socage and be â—yed to do yearly and oftner some part of Husbandry or drudgery upon his Lords Land for nothing or pay an annual Rent besiâ—â—â— many other serviâ—e payments duties as for Rent Oats rent Timber rent Wood Malâ— rent Hoâ—y rent for fishing liberty to Plow at certain seasons and the like And if they had been esteemed or taken to be a bondage the Commons of Eng. certainly in the Parliament of 1 R. 2. Would not by their Speaker have commended the Feats of Chivalry shewed to the King that thereby the people of England were of all Nations renoumed and how by the decay thereof the Honour of the Realm was and would dayly decrease Or in 9 H. 4. Petitioned the King that upon seisure of the Lands of such as be or should be attainted or grants of such Lands by the King the services therefore due to other Lords might thereupon be reserved The good and original benefit whereof derived to the Tenant from the King or mesne Lord that first gave the Lands and the consideration that by the taking of that a way every one was in all justice equity to be restored to his primitive propriety and that which was his own and so to reduce the Lands to the Heirs of those that at first gave them restraining them might be in all probability the reason that not only Capite and Knight service Tenures but Copyhold other Tenures and estates also having as much or more pretence or fancy of servitude in them were never so much as petitioned against in Parliament to be utterly taken away Some instance whereof may be had in that of Villinage which being the heaviest and most servile of all kind of Tenures though some thousand Families in this Kingdom there being antiently some Tenants in villenage belonging almost to every Mannor by desueâ—ude expiration of that course of Tenures now esteeming themselves nothing less were never in any Parliament desired to be abolished Bracton Fâ—eta other antient Authors in our English Laws alleging it to be de jure Gentium and that nihil detrahit libertaâ—i is not to be reckon'd a servitude much less surely then are Tenures in Capite and Knight service which the learned Grotius in the utmost that he could in his Book de antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae alleage for the freedom and independency of the Hollanders though he could not deny but that the German Emperours did claim them to hold in vassalage or as a Feiff oâ— the Empire will not allow to be any derogation from their liberty but concludes quod etsi optinerent non eo desinerent Hollandi esse liberi cum ut Proculus egregie demonstrat nec Clientes liberi esse desinant quia Patronis dignitate pares non sunt unde liberi feudi orta est appellatio That if it should be granted it would make the Hollanders not to be free when as Proculus very well demonstrateth Clients or vassails did not cease to be free because they are not equall to their Patrons in dignity whence the name or Term of franck Fee was derived and Sr. Henry Spelman saith quemadmodum igitur omnibus non licuit feudum dare ita nec omnibus accipere as it was not lawful for every one to give lands to hold of him so it was not allowed to every one to take prohibentur enim ignobiles servilisque conditionis homines et quidem juxta morem Heroicis seculis receptum munera subire militaria for ignoble and men of servile condition according to the usage of Heroick times were â—orbid to attempt military Offices and Imployments as may be evidenced also in those antient Customes and usages of those grand eminent Commonwealths of Rome and Athens in the latter of which notwithstanding the opinion of those who deny the use of Tenures by military service to have been in Greece before the time of Constantine Porphyrogenneta it appears that Solon had long before made a second classis or degree of such as could yearly dispend three hundred Bushels of Corn other liquid fruits were able to find a Horse of service called them Knights Soli igitur saith judicious Spelman nobiles feudorum susceptibiles erant quod praeâ—â—usticis et ignobilibus longe agiliores habiti sunt ad tractanda arma regendamque militiam And therefore the Nobility and Gentry were only capable of such Fees or Tenures in regard that they were more agile and fitter for the use of Arms and military Government and Order and was therefore called by the French heritages nobles et liberis et ingâ—nuis solummodo competunt a noble inheritance and only belonged to men that were free born and of ranâ—k and quality And wereâ—no longer ago than in Anno Dom. 1637. in the argument of the case of 〈◊〉 Ship-mony in the Exchecquer Chamber so little thought to be a Slavery to the people or any unjust or illegal prerogative of the Kings as Mr Oliver St. John none of the reverend and learned Judges of England then contradicting it alleaged them to be for the defence of the Realm and that they were not ex provisâ—one hominis not of mans provision but ex provisione legis ordained by Law and that the King was to have the benefit that accrewed by them with Wardships primer seisins Licences of Alienation and Reliefs as well to defend his Kingdom as to educate his Wards Nor can they be accounted to be a Bondage or Slavery unless we should fancy which would like a dream also vanish when men shall awake into their better senses and reason that those ornaments in peace and strength in time of war which have been for so many ages and Centuries since King Inas time which was in an 721 now above 940 years agoe and may have beene long before that ever accompted to be harmlesse and unblameable and in King Edgars Time by a Charter made by him unto Oswald Bishop of Worcester said to be constitutione antiquorum temporum of antient time before the date of that Charter were an oppression that all rankes and sorts of the People should endure a slavery and not know nor feel it nor any of the contemporary writers antient or modern take notice of it that the Peers of this Kingdom should be in Slavery and not know or believe it The The gentry of the Kingdom should be as worshipful Slaves and not understand or perceive it And the Commons of the Kingdom what kind of Slaves it should please any without any cause to stile them That Honours Gifts and Rewards Protection Liberties Privileges and Favours to live well and happily of free gift and without any money paid for the purchase should be called a Bondage when as a Tenure in Socage ut in condemnatos ultrices manus â—â—ttant ut alios suspendio aliâ—s membrâ—rum
injury and gratitude and due acknowledgement for Subsistance Lively-hood and Liberty be made a cause of complaint every thing that gives the people not a Liberty to undoe cheat and ruine one another be called though it never deserved it a grievance it must and may well remain a wonder never to be satisfied how Tenures in Capite and by Knight service which until these distempered times had no complaint made of them nor could ever be proved to be any publique or general mischief or inconveniences for seldom or as to some particulars there may be in the best of Institutions or the most eminent or excellent of sublunary thingsâ— or actions something of trouble or molestation should after so long an approbation of so many ages past without any reason given other then by a bargain for increase or making a constant Revenue to lessen the Majesty and just power of our Kings which the Parliament will certainly endeavour all they can to uphold be now so unlucky as to be put and inclosed in the Skin of a Bear baited under the notion of a grievance and cryed down by a few and not many of the people as many other legal and beneficial constitutions have lately been by the vote and humour only of the common-people or a ruining Reformation which as to that particular was first occasioned by CHAP. IV. How the design of altering Tenures in Capite and Knight Service into Socage Tenures and dissolving the Court of Wards and Liveries and the Incidents and Revenue belonging thereunto came out of the Forges of some private mens imaginations to be afterwards agitated in Parliament OLD Sir Henry Vane the Father of young Sir Henry Vane who helped to steal away the Palladium of our happinesse and under the colour of sacrificing to Minerva or a needlesse Reformation was instrumental in bringing the Trojan Horse into our Senate like the crafty Sinon taught the people weary of their own happiness how to unlock him and to murder one another and massacre our Religion Laws and Liberties And Sir John Savil whose Son the Lord Savil afterwards Earl of Sussex was too busie and active in the hatching of our late Wars and troubles and some other men of design and invention perceiving about the first or second year of the reign of King Iames that his Revenue and Treasure by his over bounty to his people of Scotland and their necessitous importunities and cravings which is too much appropriate to that Nation were greatly exhausted did to sâ—rue themselves into some profitable actions and imployments upon a pretence of raising the King a constant Revenue of two hundred thousand pounds per annum propose the Dissolving of the Court of Wards and Liveries and the changing of Tenures in Capite and by Knight service into free and common Socage the only attempt and businesse whereof bringing some of them out of their Countries and colder stations into the warmth of several after Court preferments which like the opening of Pandoras Box proved afterwards to be very unhappy fatal to the most of all the kingdom but themselves and those that afterwards traded in the miseries and ruine of it It was in that Parliament after a large debate resolved saith Justice Iones in his argument of the Ship-money by the whole Parliament that such an Act to take away the Prerogative of Tenures in Capite would be void because it is inherent in the Crown it being again in the seventh year the eighteenth year of the reign of that King earnestly afterwards moved desired to be purchased of him and the King ready to grant it recomending it to the Parliament it was then found upon advice consultation with all the Judges of England to be of prejudicial consequence to the Subject as well as impossible in regard that all Lands as well as persons in the Kingdom being to acknowledge a Superiority if the old Tenures should be put down a new of a like nature might be again created and the recompence given for it still continue in the Crown as may be instanced in the Dane-gelt which continued here in England till the reign of King H. 1. long after this Nation was freed from the Danes and the Alcavalas or Cruzadas in Spain being a kind of Taxes there used and if new Tenures should not be created the old perhaps might be again assumed And with good reason was then denyed when King James was heard to tell his Son the late King Charles That such an yearly Revenue as was offered in lieu of those Tenures might make him a rich Prince but never a great and when so many Troops and Brigades of evils do march in the Rear or Company of that design which was so per se and non parâ—il as the necessity of Robert Duke of Normandies raising of money for want whereof he pawned that Dutchy for ten thousand pounds sterling to enable him in his voyage to Jerusalem to recover the holy Land the imprisonment troubles of K. Richard 1. in his return from thence and his ransom of one hundred thousand marks of silver raised by twenty shillings upon every Knights Fee the fourth part of the Revenues of the Clergy as well as the Laity with the tenth of their goods and the Chalices and Treasure which may tell us how litle money and more honesty England was then able to furnish of all the Churches taken as well here as in the Territories beyond the Seas to make up the sum those necessities which King John had upon him the great want of mony which his Son King H. 3. endured in the Barons wars when he was forced after sale of Lands and Jewels to pawn Gascoigne after that his Imperial Crown and Jewels to supply his wants having neither credit to borrow nor any more things to pawn could not deny his wants the gaging of the Jewels and Ornaments of St. Edwards Shrine and in the end as Sir Robert Cotton if he were the Author of the short view of the long life and reign of that King observeth not having means to defray the Dyet of his Court was constrained to break up House and as Mathew Paris saith with his Queen and Children cum Abbatibus Prioribus satis humiliter hospitia prandia quaerere to demand entertainment and Dyet at some Abbies and Priories and confessed to the Abbot of Peterburgh when he came to borrow money of him majorem Elâ—emosinam fâ—re sibi juvamen pecuniare quam alicui ostiatim mendicanti that it would be a greater act of Charity to lend or give him money then to one that begs from door to door Could never perswade them to any such remedies worse then their diseases nor did the unruly Barons of King H. 3. when they had him or his Father K. John at the most disadvantages ever demand it of them or any English man untill the beginning of the reign of King James
the broaching of this project ever adventure to ask or give such demands any room or entertainment in their imaginations and is more then the Athenians and Romans ever aimed at who in all their popular and restlesse turmoils seditions and agitations by the people or their Tribunes concerning the Agrarian Laws and making and changing of many other Laws and several forms of Government did never seek to take away or root out those long lasting monuments of benefits and the acknowledgements and returns of gratitude which ought to be made of them More then the people of France in those hard Conditions which they would have put upon the Daulphine of France afterwards Charles the fifth of France in the troubles and imprisonment of his Father King John in England in the Raign of our King Edward the third and the strange and insolent behaviour of the Citizens of Paris towards him when the Provost or Mayor put his own hood half blew half red upon his head compelling him to wear his Livery did all that day wear the Daulphines being of a brown black embrodered with gold in token of his Dictatorship did ever demand nor did in those great afflictions wants which were upon Charles the seventh when he was reproached by his Subjects and the English had so much of France in their possession in the Raign of our King H. 5. and King H. 6. who by their numerous Armies and the gallantry of their nobility and Tenants in Capite and by Knight Service were Masters of the Field as well as of that Crown as he was in disgrace called the King of Berry being a small Province wherein he made what shift he could to defend himself when his Table failed him so that he eat no more in publick but sparingly in his Chamber attended by his domestical Servants had pawned the County of Gyan for mony ever require to be discharged of their Homages and Tenures and the duties and incidents which belonged to them Neither did the Justices or domineering Officers of State in Arragon in their height and extravagancy of power which for some time until by its own weight their Tyranny or the subtile politique patience of their Kings it came to be dissolved into the Royal proper Rights of that Crown Government they excercised over their Kings ever make that to be any part of it nor did the wants of John King of Arragon when he had pawned the County of Roussilion to Lewis the eleventh King of France nor of Ferdinand the Second Emperor when within these forty years in those devouring and destroying Wars of Germany when the pale horse of death and the red of destruction rid up to the bridles in blood he pawned Lusatia and Silesia to the Duke of Saxony and the upper Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria beget any such motion of the people or Condiscention of their Princes And that unhappy project and design had in all probability no more disquieted our old Albion or Brittain sitting upon a Rock mediis tranquilla in undis in the midst of all our late Storms and Tempests which had broken the bag of Eolus getting loose vied with the raging waves of a distempered Sea who should be most destructive and play the Bedlam Had not a necessity of the Parliament in An. 1645. and their want of mony to maintain their Wars put them again in mind of that way of raising mony all other that could be almost thought upon as far as the mony which should be spared by one meal in every family in a week having been before put in Execution so dangerous and of fatal consequence are sometimes but the attempts or beginning of designs and then as the vote tells us the house of Commons having received the report from the grand Committee which was ordered to consider of raising of monyes for supply of the whole Kingdom after some debate thereupon ordered that the Court of Wards and Liveries with the Primer Seisins Oustres les maines and all other profits arising by the said Court should be fully taken away and be made null and voyd And that the Sum of one hundred thousand pounds per Annum should be raised in this Kingdom instead of the Revenue thereof to be disposed for the good of this Kingdom and that the proceedings of the said Court should continue Statu quo prius untill an Ordinance for taking away the said Court and paying the yearly Sum of 100000 l. be brought in and past both Houses Which might well have been forborn when no general or extraordinary and not otherwise to be prevented evils but only want of mony for ought yet appears did or could perswade them unto it for a Subversion of so grand a Fundamental of the Government Regality and Laws will never be able to avoid the dangerous consequences which will inevitably follow thereupon and though it should be done by Act of Parliament will but produce and usher in many numberlesse mischiefs and inconveniences to the King Kingdom Nobility Gentry and the most substantial and considerable part of the people And will never be recompenced by the benefits hoped for or which may happen by the intended dissolution of that Court and alteration of those Tenures which in the prospect or event will appear if so many to be no more than these Chap. V. The Benefits or Advantages which are expected by the people in the putting down of the Court of Wardes and Liveryes and changeing the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service into free and common Socage BY taking away the Service of Warre without the Kingdom when the King or his Lieutenant goeth to warre for forty dayes bearing the Charge of a man and Horse and the payment of Escuage to be assessed by Parliment if he neither go nor send one in his place Respites of Homage petit Serjeanties Fines for Alienation Wardships and payments of Fines for the marriage of the Heirs in minority a rent for the Lands in the interim Reliefs primer seisins Oustre les maines Mesne Rates Liveries and assignment of Widdow Dower The troublesome and powerfull process of the Exchequer costly and long pleadings of their Evidences to avoid seisures for not sueing out Licences of Alienation thereby enforcing them to procure pardons and to plead them Costly Attendance upon Escheators and Feodaries finding of Offices or Inquisitions post mortem producing and finding if the party hath a mind to it of their Evidences Compositions chargeable passing and obtaining grants of the custody of the body and Lands of Wards Trouble and charge of Writs of diem clausit extremum quae plura melâ—us inquirendum Processe of privy Seals Messengers Informations Bills Demurrers as the Case may happen Answers Traverses Replications Rejoynders Commissions Examinations Depositions of Witnesses Orders Hearings Decrees Injunctions all which are but to help to recover or defend the Wards rights and if not in that Court would be
and be admitted Turn the Tenures in Capite which are only so called from the duty of Homage and the acknowledgement of Soveraignity and Headship in the King into a Tenure in Socage which is so far from acknowledgeing the King to be chief or to ingage as the other doth their Lands to do him service as it is but a Tenure as it were a latere is no more then what one Neighbour may acknowledge to hold or doe to another for his Rent or money be a Lease for a Life or one or more years or as Tenant at will and levels and makes rather an equality then any respect of persons which if ever or at all reasonable or fit to be done is in a democratical or popular way of Government but will be unexampled and is not at all to be in Monarchy may make many of the people which are not yet recovered out of a gainful Lunacy to beleive they were in the right when they supposed themselves to be the Soveraigns Ireland which in the subverting Olivers time was to have their Swords by the like Tenure turned into Plow-shares though their warres and taxes were never intended to leave them was to pay but 12000 l. per annum to turn their better Tenures Conditions into worse will if they be not come again to their wits expect the like prejudicial bergain Bring many inconveniences and mischiefs to the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland if their Tenures in Capite and Knight service and those which are holden of them as Mesn Lords shall as ours be taken away with their services and dependencies Licences of Alienation benefits of Investitures infeodations and the like it being amongst others as a reason given for Wardships in that Kingdom in the Laws of Scotland in the reign of their Malcombe the 2. which was before the Conquerours entring into England Ne non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates to the end that the King should have where-withall to defend the Kingdom And a letting loose of a fierce and unruly people who are best of all kept in awe order by a natural long well enough liked subjection to their Mesne Lords and Superiours into a liberty which cannot be done without a disjointing and over-turning all the Estates of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom and may like our late English Levellers either endeavour to do it or bring themselves and the whole Nation to ruine by a renversing of the fundamental Laws and that antient order and constitution of that Kingdom wherein the estates and livelyhood of all the Nobility and Gentry and better part of the people are hugely concerned And besides a great damage to the King in his Revenues and profits arising out of such Tenures if not recompenced by some annual payment Will howsoever take away that antient Homage and acknowledgement of Superiority which from that Kingdom to this of England cannot be denyed to be due and to have been actually and antiently done and presidented and not in one but several ages fidem obsequium ut vassallos Angliae Regibus superioribus dominis jurejurando promisisse to have done their Homage and Fealty as vassals to our English Kings and bound themselves by oath thereunto as namely to Alfred Edgar Athelstane William the Conqueror William Rufus Maud the Empresse Henry the second and Edward the first the later of whom with all the Baronage of England in a Letter to the Pope did upon the search of many Evidences and Records stoutly assert it Will be no small damage and disturbance to the Kings other Regalities and Prerogatives and in the Tenures of the Cinque Ports who are to provide fifty ships for the guarding of the Seas and the Town of Maldon in Essex one the Town of Lewis in Sussex as the Book of Doomsday informeth where King Edward the Confessor had 127 Burgesses in dominio eorum consuetudo erat si Rex ad Mare custodiendum sine se suos mittere voluisset de omnibus hominibus cujuscunque terrae fuissent colligebant 20 sâ—lidos hos habebant qui in manibus arma custodieâ—ant had 127 Burgesses in his demeâ—ne of the King and when he sent any of his men to guard the Seas they were to gather 20 s. a man which was to be given to those that manned the Ships in Colchester where the custom then was that upon any expedition of the Kings by Sea or Land every house was to pay six pence ad victum soldariorum Regis towards the quarter or livelyhood of the Kings Souldiers and likewise prejudice him in his grand and Petit Serjeanties and many thousand other reservations of honour and profit by and upon Tenures in Capite and Knight service which revived and called out of their Cells wherein those that are to do and pay them are content they should sleep and take their rest for ever would go near to make and maintain an Army with men and Provisions The King when the Tenures in Capite shall be taken away shall never be able to errect his Standard and to call thereunto all that hold Lands Fees Annuities and Offices of him to come to his assistance according to the duty of their Tenures and the Acts of Parliament of 11 H. 7. chap. 18. And 19. H. 7. chap. 1. of forfeiting the Lands and Offices holden of him under the penalties which was the only means which the late King his Father had to protect as much as he could himself and his Subjects or to manifest the justice of his Cause in that War which was forced upon him and was very useful and necessary heretofore for the defence of the Kings of England and their People and proved to be no otherwise in the Bellum Standardi so called in the reign of King Stephen where some of the Barons of England and some of the English Gentry gathered themselves to the Royal Standard and repelled and beat the King of Scotland and in several Kings reigns afterwards repulsed the Scotch and Welch Hostilities and Invasions and at Floddon Field in King H. 8 ths time when the Duke of Norfolk and his Son the Earl of Surrey and diverse of the Nobility and Gentry which accompanied them vanquished and slew the King of Scots The benefit whereof the Commons of England had so often experimented as in diverse Parliaments they Petitioned the King and Lords to cause the Lord Marchers and other great men to repair into their Counties and defend the borders and was so necessary in France to assemble together the Bans and Arrierebans which were but as our Tenants in Capite as it helped King Charles the 7 th of France to recover that Kingdom again out of the hands and possession of our two Henries the 5. and 6. Kings of England And if any Rebellion or Conspiracy shall hereafter happen When Cum saepe coorta Seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus Fury and Rage of
War shall burn And the Ignoble to the worst side turn Must be left to hire his Souldiers or Assistance out of the Rascallity Debauched and Ruder sort of People and such as know neither how to fight or be faithful if his Treasory or yearly Income upon such an increased Revenue can do it when as without the necessity of his Subjects preserving their own Lands and Estates by performing the duties and service of their Tenures the money which the late King could have procured could never have brought any considerable number of men to his Standard of whose fidelity being Hirelings and such of the Vulgar and ignoble part of the people as had neither courage virtue or Estate or such as for a litle more pay would either have deserted or betrayed him nor could he be so certain and assured as he was in the aid and assistance of that of the Nobility and Gentry and better part of the people virtuously educated and descended from worthy Ancestors furnished out and ready to attend him with the hazâ—râ— of all their Estaâ—â—s and Foâ—â—uâ—es and whose great Souâ—s â—ctâ—d by a nobler principle made them scorn to stoop to any unworthy Actions basenâ—sse or villany which caused our brave King H. 5. after the Batteâ— at Agencourt in a Muster or Leavy which he was to make of Souldiers to passe with him into France publiquely to Proclaim that none should presume to go with him for then they needed no other impressing but the obligation of their Tenures and glory and honour of serving their Prince and Country but such as were Gentlemen and had Tunicas armoâ—um did bear Arms except such as had served him at the Battel of Agencourt though they had none For if a War which will be sure to loose no opportunities but pick cull its advantages should break out before the rent day or the monyes can be gathered he cannot likely want distresses or misfortunes either for himself or his people when they shall not have wherewith to hire an Army And failing of a necessary defence and assistance at Land for want of his Tenures in Capite and Knight service shall also loose the help of his Ships and Navy at Sea And if the King or any of his Successors should be so happy as to have money in their Treasury which as the course and charge of War is now must be no small sums to hire provide and continue an Army it may be seized on as his Revenues and all the money in the Exchequer and much of his Plate and Houshold stuffe were in the late Wars and if he could be so well before hand as to have any Magazines may have that as easily taken from him as his Magazines at Hull and the Tower of London were when his Tenures per Baroniam and in Capite and by Knight service were not Can have no manner of assurance that when any sedition or commotion of the people shall be bred or increased by the practise of some great men or inticements of any of the Clergy and a Bellum flagrans or a War as suddain and unexpected as it shall be dangerous shall breake out not only in one but several parts of the Nation that the people or most vulgar and common sort of Hirelings will especially in a frenzy or humour of sedition be hired or drawn to fight for him by a small and inconsiderable pay and the support of an Hospital when their wounds shall bring them into it or a small allowance which the statute allows wounded Souldiers until they be cured or maimed Souldiers which are incurable shall be so very disproportionate to their danger and hazards When the hireing also of common Souldiers upon a suddain and in case of necessity will if he could get them be more chargeable and difficult then when he was to be served and defended in his Wars by men of worth and quality under the ingagement of their Lands and Tenures which made our former Kings besides those aids and safeguards by Tenures of Lands to stipend and pension certain of their Nobility and Gentry whom they found most proper and fit to serve them by Indenture with so many men at Armes or Souldiers as for instance Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick retained in 46 E. 3. by Indenture to serve the King in his Wars beyond Seas for one whole year with 100 men at Arms of which number himself to be one 160 Archers 2 Bannerets 30 Knights and 77 Esquires a tryal or proof whereof would easily have manifested the difference betwixt the one way the other if when the late King in his march or expedition against the Covenanting Scots in An. 1639. had such a gallant Army as he had of his English Nobility Gentry had disbanded them taken as well as he could in their rooms only milites Gregarij or Tirones common and mercenary Souldiers And may expose him in any distresse when his mony or hirelings shall fail him to that disloyal and rebellious late opinion too much entertained and taken in by Newtrals double dealing or time serving people that where the King cannot protect them their Oaths and Consciences gives them a liberty to make the best bergain they can for themselves Take away also the foundation of the House of Peers in Parliament whom the Laws and Records of the Kingdom do prove to sit there only as Tenants in Capite and per Baroniam which well might be the grand foundation of so noble a Senate when as amongst the Romans their Senators were Lecti in senatum ex equestri ordine chosen into the Senate out of the degree of Knighthood and even by Brutus in his Consulship and great endeavours to restore that people to their Liberty was so approved as that many ages after Perseus Macedoniae Rex apud Livium lib 42. Equites Romanos appellat principes juventutis seminarium Senatus calleth in Livy the Roman Knights the Princes or Flower of the youth and the Nursery of the Senate and saith that inde lectos in patrum numerum they where thence chosen to be Senators and ex veteri instituto the Custom was as Isiodore saith that when the Senators Sons came to be of Age they were not to be admitted into the Senate until they were Knighted And Alexander Severus the Emperor would not assumere libertos in equestrem ordinem ordain or make Yeomen or such as were nâ—wly 〈◊〉 to be Knights or give 〈◊〉 as he did Lands to hold by Knight 〈◊〉 dicens quod seminarium 〈◊〉 Equestrem â—sse locum that it was the seminary for the Senate amongst the Germans who were as jealous to keep their Honor as they were their Liberties Nobiles vocati Ritter id est Servator Noblemen were termed Ritters which signifieth a Saviour or Defender quod virtute fortitudine servent patriam because by their vertue and manhood they defended their Country amongst whom the degree of Knighthood is
punished for it hath been clearly asserted by eminent and learned Judges and Sages of the Law as the Lord cheif Justice Hobart Sr. Francis Bacon and Sr. Jonh Davis Attorney General to King James in Ireland that the Superlative power of Parliaments above all but the King is in some things for restrained as it cannot enact things against Right Reason or common Right or against the Lawes of God or Nature that a man shall be Judge in his own Case as that the King shall have no Subsidies whereby to defend himself and his people that Children shall not obey their Parents and the like And that Tenures in Capite and by Knight service are of so transcendent a nature and so radically in the Crown and Fundamental Lawes as no Act of Parliament can take it away or alter it and are so inseperable as Sr. John Davis saith that in a Parliament holden in England in the latter end of the raign of King James it was resolved by the House of Commons that the Wit of man could not frame an Act of Parliament whereby all Tenures of the Crown might be extinguished And Judge Hutton who in the Case of the Ship-money would allow the King no more Prerogative then what could not be denyed him did publicquely deliver it for Law which in that great and learned Assembly of Judges and Lawyers was not contradicted that Tenures in Capite are so inseperable in the Crown as the Parliament will not nor cannot sever them and the King cannot release them And such is the care for the defence of the Kingdome which belongeth inseperably to the King as Head or supream Protector so as if any Act of Parliament should enact that he should not defend the Kingdome or that he should have no aides from his Subjects to defend the Realm such Acts would not bind but would be void because they would be against all natural Reason And Judge Crooke also doth in his Argument against the Ship-money wherein he concurred with Justice Hutton alleage that if a statute were made that a King should not defend the Kingdome it were void being against Law and Reason And when a Parliament is called by the Kings Writ to preserve his Kingdom and Magna Charta so little intends that any future Parliament should alter or take away any Liberties granted or confirmed thereby or any fundamental Laws which are incorporate with the essence of Government as it hath been by several confirmations of it enacted that all Laws hereafter to be made to the contrary shall be Null and void and with good reason as to the King and Mesne Lords in the changing of their Tenures into Socage when as ex contractu obligatio and ex obligatione Actio should as well hold in those benificial pactions which were in the Creation of those Tenures betwixt the King Lords and Tenants as in Bonds Bills and Assumpsits or any other contracts whatsoever And is so great a part of right Reason in the opinion of Forreigners and according to the Law of Nature and Nations as in the German Empire though it hath heretofore lost much of its power and authority by the greatnesse of some of the Princes and the many Liberties and Priviledges granted to Cities Towns its remaining Prerogatives notwithstanding are said to be Jura Majestatis instar puncti divisionem non recipientia adeoque Imperatoris personae cohaerent ut nec volens ijs se abdicare aut alium in consortium vocare possit so inseperable as they are capable of no division and do so adhere unto the Emperors person as he cannot if he would renounce or transferre them over to any other And Bodiâ— that understood France very well saith that Si Princeps publica praedia cum imperio aut jurisdictione eo modo fruenda concesserit quo ipse fruetur etiam si Tabulis jura Majestatis excepta non fuerunt ipso jure tamen excepta judicantur if the King shall grant any of his Lands to hold as freely and with as much power and jurisdiction as he himself enjoyed it the jura Majestatis or Regalities are always adjudged and taken to be excepted though there be no reservation or exception in the Letters Patents And the Parliament of Paris were so careful of the Kings Rights in Governing as when Francis the first had granted to the Queen his Mother a Commission to pardon and restore condemned persons it declared that such a grant quum sine Majestatis diminutione communicari non possit seeing it could not be granted without diminution of his Royal Authority was void thereupon the Queen Mother intermedled no more therein The Conclusion WHen all therefore which can be but pretended against Tenures in Capite and by Knight service shall be put together and said and done they will come to no more then this The general Assessements for men and Horses and necessaries for War whether men will or no are a service incumbent upon every mans estate though they bought and purchased their Lands the Knight service which is now complained of is but where their Lands were given them for that purpose and ex pacto voluntate by Agreement For it hath allwayes been accompted to be no less than reason that qui sentit commodum sentire debet et onus the Rose and the Prickle must goe together and he that hath the profit may be well contented to doe something for it especially when it is no more then what he did agree to doe and beleived it to be a favour And if they now take those Lands to be a burden may if they please give themselves an ease by retorning of them to those that gave it And should not be murmured at or complained of when as those that live near the Sea doe live under a Charge or Imposition which is annual and sometimes very great upon all And in Holland are commanded and ordered yearly by the Dijck Graven or Magistrates appointed for that purpose to repair and amend their Sea walles Or as it is also in England by Direction of Law and Commissions of Sewers and doe but in that though their Lands were dearly paid for and not freely given as those doe which hold their Lands by Knight service and defend themselves by defending others And it will ever be a Rule and Maxime in Loyalty as well as in Law and right Reason that by the Lawes of God Nature and Nations as well as of England there is and ought to be a natural Allegiance to the King that Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy doe enjoyn every Subject to defend his Prince and his just Rights and Jurisdictions And that the safety of every man in particular and his own discretion should advise him to it unless they will think it to be wisdome in the Citizens of Constantinople who in the Seige thereof would rather keep their money and riches for the Turks to plunder then help
themselves or their Emperour with it make thereby themselves their posterity Slaves to the enemy of Christendome then put it to the right use of defending their Prince themselves and Posterities And will all resolve in this a defence of the King his people will be eternally necessary an ordinary a speedy a ready a willing and the most ingageing obliging way will be better then that which shall be extra-ordinary a far off and to seek or be enforced And the most ready means for a defence and at hand must needs be the most proper and beneficial for upon that ground Kings have their Treasuries Armories and Arsenals which Republicques are content to imitate Our Constables and Justices of Peace in England being as standing Officers and Guardians of the Peace are more for the safety of the people when they are made before hand to be ready upon any breach of peace then if they were to seek or to be made afterwards and iâ— would be no dimunition of the strength or defence of the Kingdome to have the Nobility and Gentry of England by the Tenure of their Lands as it were listed and undertaking upon all occasions to serve their Prince and defend their Country for the smallest understandings can find the way to determine that it will be better and more easie for the Subject to have the King and their Country served by a Knight service in acknowledgment of great Estates only given them for that purpose than to have 10 or 12000 men provided by the Subjects by a constant Pole money and Assessement upon them and their Heirs for a ready Guard and Assistance for the defence and safeguard of the Country as well as of the King which the Danes after their late so great misfortunes and miseries by the incursions furious attempts of the Swedes have learnt to be wisdome have therefore lately bound themselves and their posterities to maintain a guard of 10 or 12000 men to be paid by a Pole or Assessement And unless the divine light of reason and that which hitherto hath been called wisdome have altered their courses and resolved that which is retrograde and quite contrary to be the better the most safe and natural way will be as it ever hath been to have our men at Arms to be Natives rather than Forreigners such as are of the better sort and bred and educated in Feats of armes rather then such as have neither skill nor courage and such as have Lands and Estates of their own to make a concernment rather than such as have none Better to have the Nobility and Gentry who are bred and trained up in War and understand the necessity and causes of a War to be ingaged in the defence of the Kingdom than the vulgus who are often called and too often experimented and best know how they came to deserve it mobile imperitum vulgus a Beast of many heads and without a Superiour or Governours are â—it only to attempt again the building of Babel wherein if they were all of one language they would for want of agreement or wit either totally miscarry in the building or make it to be an unimitablepeice of deformity For it was certainly no fault in Abraham that he had 318 Servants born in his own house to Arm in a case of necessity to rescue his Brother Lot Nor in David that he had Servants to passe before him to War Or when he well understood that the Children of Israel when they had no King and every one followed his own Imaginations were often delivered into the hands of the Midianites Philistims many of the Nations round about them and that Deborah Baruch having undertaken to releive them were enforced to pronounce a Curse against thosâ— that came not to help the Lord against the mighty when Reuben had great devisions did abide amongst the Sheep-folds Dan remained in Ships and Ashur continued by the Sea-Shore And that he had tasted of the fickleness infidelity of the men of Judah Israel in the Rebellion of Absalom did though they were afterwards so kind unto him as to wrangle with the men of Judah for bringing him home to his Kingdom and not giving them a share in the honor of it not think it to be repugnant to the good and safety of the people to settle a strong well formed Militia and to have a Life-guard of 24000 valiant men to attend by months and courses the safety of his person and his peaceable Government which must needs be better than to be left to the humor of the people to go or not to goe with their Prince to war as the wind of their Interest or faction shall blow them which may make such kind of aids in the greatest of necessities to be hardly compassed And the Delectus of the Roman Souldiers in their growing greatnesse and most virtuous condition of that State or Commonwealth before their course and custom of Patronage Clyentelage had taken root and gained approbation and their often Mutinies and refuseing nomina dare to list or Inroll themselves unless usury might be lessoned and Lawes cut out to their Fancies hath told us how like Egiptian Reeds such a away of raising men to defend the King themselves and the Kingdome will be to those that shall most trust or leane upon it So that then the Gorgons head and the Bugg-beare of the Tenures in Capite and Knight Service being only the marriages and puting the Wards Estates under a rent whilst they shall be in minority if rationally considered with allowance of the seldome happening of it or but once in three or four descents and two yeares value being allowed upon the death of every Tenant in Socage or Coppy-hold Estates at the admission of every one of their Heirs will with their reliefs and herriots possibly make the accompt of the mony and charge of the wardship to be something equal if not a great deal lesse Which howsoever may be removed or made to be more familiar and better understood or born if the Tenants in Capite and by Knight Service shall be exempted from all other Taxes or Assessements for War but what belongs to their Service as by Law they antiently were and ought to be the Wards nor their Estate during that time being never heretofore charged with any such Assessements as our late Tax-Masters have laid upon the People when as the fifth and many times the third part of the Wards yearly Rents besides a fifth part of the value of their real estate and a twentieth of the personal and revenew enforced taken from them to maintain Iniquity would have saved more mony than the Wardships cost Or if that will not still the causelesse out-cry that the Licence of Alienation which as well as in Capite by Knight Service are by the Custom of many Manors to be paid in Socage and the Homages Grand and Petit Serjeanties Reliefs Primer
Tenenda non Tollenda OR The Necessity of Preserving TENURES IN CAPITE and by KNIGHT-SERVICE VVhich according to their first Institution were and are yet a great part of the Salus Populi and the Safety and Defence of the King as well as of his People TOGETHER With a Prospect of the very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which by the taking away or altering of those Tenures will inevitably happen to the KING and his KINGDOMES By Fabian Philipps Esq Claudian Lib. 2. Ne pereat tam priscus Honos qui portus honorum Semper erat nullo Sarciri Consule Damnum LONDON Printed by Thomas Leach for the Author and are to be sold by Abel Roper at the Sign of the Sun in Fleetstreet 1660. To the Right Honourable Sir Edward Hide Knight Baron of Hindon and Lord Chancellor of England My Lord EVery man who hath not been out of his Wits or his own Country or like the Poet Epimenides who is said to have slept more than Twenty years And hath but understood or experimented the many Miseryes and Confusions which our new Reformers and Modellers of Government who like unskilful Architects cannot amend a part of an house without overturning the whole Fabrick upon the heads of the Owners have treated the Faction and Ignorance of too many of the seduced people of this Kingdom withal And sitting by the Waters of Babylon had not forgot Jerusalem or but remembred the happinesse of the Condition we before enjoyed under a gratious and pious Prince in an Antient and for many ages past most happy Monarchy and with Tears of Joy welcommed it again in the Return of his sacred Majesty and all our peace and plenty from a sad and long oppressing Captivity must needs think himself obliged not only to pray for the Peace of our Syon but to endeavour all he can to uphold the Kings Rights and Jurisdictions Who being our Lex viva and guarding Himself us and our Laws is with them the sure support of us and all that is or can be of any Concernment to us and our Posterityes And therefore when we are taught by our Laws and the sage Interpreters and Expounders thereof That every Subject hath an Interest in the King as the Head of the Weâ—le Publick and as the inferior Members cannot estrange them selves from the Actions or Passions of the head no lesse can any Subject make himself a Stranger to any thing which toucheth the King or their supreme Head And that not a few but very many knowing and able men are of opinion not ushered in by Fancy or first Notions but well weighed and built with Reason and good Authorities that the exchanging of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service for a constant yearly payment of 100000 l. will level the Regality and turn the Soveraignty into a dangerous popularity and take away or blunt the Edge of the Sword by which his Majesty is to defend his people I could not but conceive it to be my Duty and a failer of my Duty and Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy not to do it to offer to consideration the antiquity and right use of Tenures in this and other Kingdoms that they are no Slavery nor Grievance how from a project in the beginning of the Raign of King James it came to trouble several Parliaments the small benefits will come to the Subjects by altering those Tenures and the many Inconveniences and Mischiefs which will inevitably follow and that it is such a flower of the Crown as the power of an Act of Parliament and consent of the King and his Nobility and people cannot take away wherein though I may well say it is a matter as Livy said of his undertaking to write the Roman History Immensi Operis and that the disquisition of it requiring greater Abilities than I can lay any claim unto and the excellent Order heretofore used that all Books of the Law or very much concerning it should be perused and allowed by the Reverend Judges of the Law before they should be Printed and published might have been enough to have made me either to desist or have attended their approbation Yet when the good intentions of many Parliament men of the House of Commons to make the King a constant Revenue were so busy to prepare an Act of Parliament to dissolve those more useful and honourable Tenures into a Socage which will never arrive to the Salus Populi they aim at I have like some well-wishing Roman to his Countries good in my Cares and fear least any thing should hurt dislocate or disturb that well ordered and constituted Government under which our Progenitors enjoyed so much Honor Peace und Plenty hasted Currente Calamo to a modest inquiry into the grounds and motives for the dissolution of them and the Court of Wards and an examination of that to be prepared Act in the General for as to the Preamble Clâ—uses or Provisoes they are not permitted to be seen before the Act passeth the Rogatio Legum as it was amongst the Romans being not here in use in some cases as it may be wished it were and when none else would publiquely endeavour to rescue them have without any Byasse or partiality as well as I could represented what hath been the right use of them and what may be the Inconveniences if they should be changed or altered and that they are not guilty of the charge which is supposed but never will be proved against them And confesse that it deserved a better Advocate than my self who having attempted to do it horis Succâ—sâ—vis interturbationes rerum am Conscious to my self that much more might have been said for it and that the matter was capable of a better form and might have appeared in a better dresse if my care to do something as fast as I could had not for want of time hindred me from doing what I might But I hope that your Lordship who hath trod the Pathes of Affliction and in the attendance and care of a persecuted Monarchy and an Afflicted most Gracious Prince who hath born the burthen of His own Sorrows Troubles as well as of a Loyal party that Suffered wiâ—h for Him and His Royal Father have in Your Travails and residence in many Kingdoms and parts beyond the Seas viewed and seen the Fundamentals and Order of other Kingdoms the Policies and good Reiglements of some and the Errors and Infirmities of others will with your learned Predecessor the Chancellor Fortescue in the Raign of King Henry the 6â—h the more admire and love the Laws and excellent Constitutions of England which as a Quintessence of right reason may seem to have been Limbecked and drawn out of the best of Laws and choice of all which might be learned out of other Nations or the Records or Treasury of Time and find reason enough to be of the opinion of that well knowing Statesman that non minime erit regno accommodum ut Incolae
ejus in artibus sint experti quod domus regia sit tanquam gymnasium supremum nobilitatis regni schola quoque Strenuitatis probitatis morum quibus regnum honoretur floret ac contra Irruentes securatur hoc revera bonum accidisse non pottuisset regno illi Si nobilium filâ—i Orphani Pupilli per pauperes amicos parentum suorum nutrirentur and greatly approve as he did of our Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which have heen since better ordered and more deserve that and a better commendation and to put forth your hand to rescue them who have hitherto as great Beams peices of Tymber or Pillars helped to bear up and sustain the Fabrick of our Antient and Monarchical Government and have no other fault but that they are misunderstood and misrepresented to the vulgar who by making causelesse complaints multiplying them have done of late by our Laws and best Constitutions as the Boys are used to do when they hunt Squirrels with Drums shouts and Noyses And that your Lordship who is able to say much more for that Institution and Right use of Tenures will be pleased to accept of my good Intentions and pardon the Imperfections of London 23. November 1660. Your Lordships most Humble Servant Fabian Philipps THE CONTENTS CHAP. I. OF the antiquity and use of Tenures in Capite and by Knight service in England and other Nations page 1. CHAP. II. The holding of Lands in Capite and by Knight service is no Slavery or Bondage to the Tenant or Vassals 12. CHAP. III. Tenures of Lands in Capite and by Knight service are not so many in number as is supposed nor were or are any publique or general Grievance 29. CHAP. IV. How the design of altering Tenures in Capite and by Knight service into Socage Tenures and Dâ—ssolving the Court of Wards and Liveries and the Incidents and Revenue belonging thereunto 〈◊〉 out of the Forges of some private mens imagiâ—â—â—ions to be afterwards agitated in Parliaâ—â—nt 145. CHAP. V. The Benefits or Advantages which are expected â—y the people in putting down of the Court of wards â—nd Liveries and changing the Tenures in Capiâ—e and by Knight service into free and common Sâ—cage 154. CHAP. VI. The great and very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will happen to the King and Kingdom by taking away Tenures in Capite and Knight service 157. CHAP. VII That Tenures in Capite and Knight service holden of the King and the Homage and Incidents thereunto appertaining and the right of the Mesne Lords cannot be dissolved or taken away by any Act of Parliament The Conclusion 258. Errata's or Faults escaped in Printing by the hast of the Presse PAge 1 line 1 leave out and p. 2 l 28 for be read by p. 6 l 12 for or Knights r and Knights p. 8 l 16 leave out that ib. r in Capite and Knight service p. 9 l 25 for where r were p. 17 in the margent leave out the quotation note p. 21 l 18 r. his enfant p. 23 l 23 r. be the lesse free p. 24 l 26. for was r. were p. 36. l 12 r them 20 H. 3.6 p. 38 l 3 for E 1 r. E 3. p. ib. l 6. r person 42 E 3.5 p 40. l 31. for of r. or p. 43. l 18. r thought to p. 54 l. 16. leave out and. p. 68 l. 14 leave out was p· 81 l. 12 for aâ— r. in p. 82 l. 15 for E. 3 r E 1. p. 100 l. 7 for 1648 r. 1643. p. 111 l. 2 leave out his p. 125 l. 1 for Episcopium r Episcopum ib. l 18. r hold by ib. l. 23 r nor could 126. l 12 for â—e r. to p. 131 l 32. r For it p. 13â— l. 1 leave out Lawes after the. ib. l. 2 leave out the. ib. l. 15 for and r. for p. 135 l 6. r or by p. 136 l. 14 for and â— which p. 138 in the margent leave out Litletons quotation p. 140 l. 13 leave out an p. 154 l. 10 r. Grand and Petit. p 159. in the margent for XI r II. p. 162. against l 12 in the margent put V. ib. against l 33. put VI. p. 163. l 4. for Protections r Portions ib. in the margent against l 8 put VII ib. against â— 20 put VIII p. 164 l 4. for and r shall ib. in the margent against l 15 put IX p. 165 against l 33. put X. p. 166 against l 5. put XI ib. against l. 10 put XII ib. against l 14 put XIII ib. against l 26. put XIV p. 17 r l. 15 for amore r. more p. 174 in the margent for Olbertus r. Obertus p. 183 in margent for Lovelaces r. Loâ—es p. 184 l. 16. leavo out in p. 185 l. 32. leave out they p. 187 l. 9. for enernate r enervate ib. l 24. for displaced r. displayed p. 192 l. 15. leave out if not recompensed by some Annual payment p. 194 l. 8. r. under the penalties of ibib l 9. leave out under the penalties p. 212 l 22. r be a Baron ibib leave out of Holt. p. 217 l. 2. for derived r. deemed p. 222 in the margent against l. 15 put L. p. 241 in the margent against l 6. put LXIV p. 24â— against l 4 put LXV p. 246. against 26 put LXXII p. 247. l 4. for know r knowing p. 254. l 20 r which is ib. 28 r and theâ— p. 255 l 24 r or that p. 259 l 18. for it r them ib. l 23 leave out upon all p. 268. l 4. leave out and. p. 269 l 15 r or toâ— p. 274. l 33 for of r if p. 275. l 11 leave out would ruine◠〈◊〉 l 13 r Baronies would be ruined CAP. I. Of the Antiquity and use of Tenures in capite and by Knight service in England and other Nations THe Law of Nature that secret and great Director under God and his Holy Spirit of all mens Actions for their safety and self preservation by the Rules or Instinct of Right Reason and the Beams of Divine Light and Irradiations So far as those Laws of Nature are not contrary to positive and Humane Laws which are alwayes either actively or passively to be obeyed having in the beginning of time and its delivery out of the Chaos made and allowed Orders and distinctions of man-kind as they have been found to be more Rich Wise Virtuous Powerful and Able than others therfore the fitter to Protect Defend and do good unto such as wanted those Abilities Endowments and constituted ordained the faith and just performances also of Contracts Promises and Agreements and the acknowledgements of benefits and favours received being no strangers to those early dayes when the Patriarch Abraham had leave given him by Abimelech King of Gerar to dwell in the Land where it pleased him and that Abimelech in the presence of Phicol the chief Captain of his Host who took himself to have some concernment in it required an
under them and if any evil happened unto them either endured it with them or willingly ventured their lives with them others attribute it to the Saxons ubi jus antiquissimum feudorum semper viguit et adhuc saith the learned Craig religiose observatur where the feudal Laws were and are yet most religiouâ—ly observed and Cliens and Vasallus in matters of Fâ—wds and Tenures are not seldome in the Civil Law and very good Authors become to be as Synonimes and used one for the other And the later Grecians since the Raign of Constantine Porphyrogenneta in the East and the Roman Emperors in the West before since the Raign of Charlemain or Charles the great were not without those necessary defences of themselves and their people And such a general benefit and ready and certain way of ayd and help upon all emergencies in the like usage of other Nations making it to be as a Law of Nations There hath been in all or most Kingdoms and Monarchies of the World as well Heathen as Christian a dependency of the Subject upon the Prince or Soveraign and some duties to be performed by reason of their Lands and Estates which they held under their Protection and in many of them as amongst the Germans Saxons Franks and Longobards and several other Nations descending from them Tenures in capite and Knight service were esteemed as a foundation and subsistency of the right and power of Soveraignty and Government and being at the first precariae ex domini solius arbitrio upon courtesie at the will only of the Prince or Lord were afterwards Annales from year to year after that feuda ceperunt esse vitalia their Estates or Fees became to be for life and after for Inheritance So as by the Law of England we have nâ—t properly Allodium saith Coke that is any Subjects Land which is not holden of some Superior and that Tenures in capite appear not to be of any new institution in the book of Doomsday or in Edward the Confessors dayes an 1060. in King Athelstans an 903. in King Canutus his Raign in King Keâ—ulphus his Raign an 821. or in King Ina's Raign an 720. In Imitation whereof and the Norman no slavish Laws and usages which as to Tenures by the opinion of William Roville of Alenzon in his Preface to the grand Customier of Normandy were first brought into Normandy out of England by our Edward the Confessor the Customs Policies of other People and Kingdoms prudent Antiquity having in that manner so well provided by reservation of Tenures for the defence of the Realm William the Conquerour sound no better means to continue and support the Frame and Government of this Kingdom then upon many of his gifts and grants of Land the most part of England being then by conquest in his Demeasne to reserve the Tenures and Service of those and their Heirs to whom he gave it in Capite and by Knight Service and if Thomas Sprot and other antient Authors and Traditions mistake not in the number of them for that there were very many is agreed by the Red Book in the Exchequer and divers Authentiques created 60215 Knights Fees which with their Homage incidents and obligations to serve in Wars with the addition of those many other Tenures by Knights service which the Nobility great men and others besides those great quantities of Lands and Tenements which they and many as well as the King and others our succeeding Princes gave Colonis Hominibus inferioris notae to the ordinary and inferior sort of people to hold in Socage Burgage and Petit Serjeantie reserved upon their guifts and grants to their Friends Followers and Tenants who where to attend also their mesne Lords in the service of their Prince could not be otherwise then a safety and constant kind of defence for ever after to this Kingdom And by the Learned Sir Henry Spelman said to be due non solum jure positivo sed gentium quodammodo naturae not only by positive Law but the Law of Nations and in some sorts by the Law of Nature Especially when it was not to arise from any compulsary or incertain way or involuntary contribution or out of any personal or moveable estate but to fix and go along with the Land as an easy and beneficial tye and perpetuity upon it and is so incorporate and inherent with it as it hath upon the matter a co-existence or being with it and Glanvil and Bracton are of opinion that the King must have Arms as well as Laws to Govern by and not depend ex aliorum Arbitrio it being a Rule of Law that quando Lex aliquid concedit id concedit sine quo res ipsa esse non potest when the Law granteth any thing it granteth that also which is necessary and requisite to it And therefore the old oath of Fealty which by Edward the Confessors Laws was to be administred in the Folcmotes or assemblyes of the People once in every year Fide et Sacramento non fracto ad defendendum regnum contra Alienigenas et Inimicos cum Domino suo Rege et terras et honores illius omni fidelitate cum eo servare et quod illi ut Domino suo Regi intra et extra regnum Britanniae fideles esse volunt by faith and oath inviolable to defend the Kingdome against all strangers and the Kings Enemies and the Lands and dignity of the King to preserve and be faithful to him as to their Lord as well within as without the Kingdom of Britain which was not then also held to be enough unlesse also there were a tye and obligation upon the Land and therefore enacted that debeant universi liberi homines secundum feodum suum secundum tenementa sua arma habere illa semper prompta conservare ad tuitionem Regni servicium Dominorum suâ—rum juxta preceptum Domini Regis explendum peragendum every free man according to the proportion of his Fee and Lands should have his Arms in readinesse for the defence of the Kingdom and Service of their Lords as the King should command And it was by William the Conqueror ordained quod omnes liberi homines fide et Sacramento affirment quod intra extra universum Regnum Willielmo Regi Domino suo fideles esse volunt terras honores suos omni fidelitate ubique servare cum eo contra Inimicos Alieniginas defendere that all Free-men should take an Oath that as well within as without the Realm of England they should be faithful to their King and Lord and defend every where him and his Lands Dignity and Estate with all faithfulnesse against his Enemies and Foreiners Et Statuit firmiter precepit ut omnes Comites Barones Milites Servientes Teneant se semper in Armis in Equis ut decet oportet quod
Lands as much sometimes as amounted to a third part of a Shire or County were in the Nobilities or great mens possessions some of whom held of the King a 100 or more Mannors and had as many Knights Fees holden of them besides some Castles Forrests Parks and Chases or that the two Escheators which were many times all that were in England the one on this side the other beyond Trent did not nor could not so carefully look to the death of the Kings Tenants which the Statute of 14 E. 3. ca. 8. complaineth of or that the smaller sort of Lands in Capite or mean mens estates were not so much looked after And yet the old Records of the Kingdome do speak a great deal of care and looking after every part of the Kings Revenew the not mentioning in deeds or conveyances of whom or how the Land was holden the more frequent use of Feoffements with Livery seisin in former times which being not Inrolled hindred or obstructed the vigilance of the Escheators and Feodaries their sleepinesse in permitting where any one Mannor or parcel was holden in Capite many other Mannors or Lands of the same Tenure to be found in the same Inquisition by an Ignoramus of the Tenure services the craft industry of many if not most men to evade and elude as much as they can the Law or any Acts of Parliament though when they are sometimes catched they dearly pay for it Or by some other cause or reason not yet appearing many of the said Knights Fees are lost and never to be discovered the Offices post mortem now extant in the Tower of London being in the last year of the reign of King H. 3. in the beginning of whose reign they first began to be regularly found and recorded but 187. in an 35. E. 1 153. in an 20 E. 2 52. of the succeeding Kings untill the end of E. 4. when such Tenures were most valued and respected are in every year but few in number sometimes less than 200 and many times not above 300 in the most plentiful years of those times And of the Knights Fees Lands holden in Capite and by Knight service which are now to be discovered in the greatest diligence of Escheators their better looking unto them in this last Century of years where there hath been an Escheator for the most part in every County to look to the Tenures and Wardships there will not upon exact search thereof appear to be in an 21 Jac. Regis any more than 71.22 Jac. 73 in 2 Car. Regis primi 112 in 3 Car. Regis primi 85. Custodies wardships granted under the great Seal of England which in Wardships of any Bulk or concernment doe most commonly pass that way leaving those of ordinary and lesser value to passe only under the Seal of the Court of Wards and Liveryes in an 10 Car. primi not above 450 offices post mortem some of which did only entitle the King to a Livery are to be found filed returned in an 11 Car. Regis not above 580 which may give us some estimate of the small number which now remains of that huge number which former ages writers talked of that after that rate if there be 10000 Knights Fees holden in Capite there is scarce a twentieth part falls one year with another to make any profit or advantage to the King by Wardships Marriage Reliefs primer seisin c. Nor are there unless by some unluckiness or accidents commonly above one in every three or four discents in a Family holding in Capite which do die and leave their Heirs in minority then also it is either more of less chargeable to the Family as the Males shall be nearer unto or more remote from their full age of 21 or the Females to their age of 16 some of the supposed Inconveniences being prevented by an earlier marriage of the Inheritrixes or the Kings giving the honour of Knighthood to some of the Males in their minoritie which dispenseth with the value of their marriages And yet those Tenures Wardships and incidents thereunto though so antient legal and innocent in their use and institution were not without the watchful eye and â—are of Parliaments to prevent or pluck up any Grievances which like weeds in the best of Gardens or per accidens might annoy or blemish those fair flowers of the Crown Imperial as that of 9 H. 3 that the Tenant by Knight Service being at his full age when his Ancestor dyeth shall have his inheritance by the old relief according to the old custom of the Fees the Statute of Merton in anno 9 H. 3 ca 2. and 3 E. 1 ca 2â— the Kings Tenant being at full age shall pay according to the old custom that is to say five pounds for a Knights Fee or lesse according to proportion ca 4 and 5. The Keeper of the Lands of the Heir within age shall not take of the Lands of the Heir but reasonable issues customs and services without distruction and wast of his men and goods shall keep up the Houses Parks Warrens Ponds Mills and other things pertaining to the Lands with the issues of the Lands and deliver the Lands to the Heir when he comeâ—h of full age stored with Plowes and all other things at least as he recieved them ca 7. A Widdow shall have her Marriage inheritance and tarry in the chief house of her Husband forty days after her Husbands death with reasonable Estovers within which time her Dower shall be assigned if it were not assigned before The Wards shall not be married to Villains or other as Burgesses where they be disparaged or within the age of fourteen years or such age as they cannot consent to mariage and if they do and their Friends complain thereof the Lord shall loose the Wardship and all the profits that thereof shall be taken and they shall be converted to the use of the Heirs being within age after the disposition and provision of their Friends for the shame done unto them a Writ of Mortd'auncester shall be allowed to the Heir with dammages against the Lord that keepeth his Lands after he is of full age Heirs within age shall not loose their Inheritance by the neglect or wilfulnesse of their Guardians 52 H. 3. cap 7 and 16. The Lord shall not after the age of fourteen years keep a Female unmarried more than two years after and if he do not by that time marry her she shall have an Action to recover her Inheritance without giving any thing for her Wardship or Inheritance 3 E. 1 ca. 22. A Writ of Novel disseisin shall be awarded against any Escheator that by colour of his Office shall disseise any of his freehold with double dammages and to be grievously amerced Westmr. 1.3 E. 1 cap. 24 In aid to make the Son of the Lord a Knight or to marry the Daughter there shall be taken but twenty
shillings for a whole Knights Fee and after that rate proportionably ibm 35. If the Guardian maketh a Feoffement of the Wards Lands he shall have a Writ of Novel disseisin and upon recovery the Seisin shall be delivered to the next friend and the Guardian shall loose the Wardship 3. E. 1. ca. 47. Usurpation of a Church during the minority of the Heir shall not prejudice him 13 E. 1.5 Admeasurement of Dower shall be granted to a Guardian and the Heir shall not be barred by the suite of the Guardian if there be collusion 13 E. 1.7 Next Friends shall be permitted to sue if the Heir be â—loyned 13 E. 1.15 If part of the Lands be sold the services shall be apportioned Westmr. 3.2 Escheators shall commit no waste in Wards Lands 28 E. 1 18. If Lands without cause be seised by the Escheator the Issues and Mesne profits shall be restored 21 E. 1.19 where it is found by Inquest that Lands are not holden of the King the Escheator shall without delay return the possession Stat de Escheatoribus 29 E. 1. Escheators shall have sufficient in the places where they Minister to answer the King and his People if any shall complain 4 E 3.9.5 E. 3 4. Shall be chosen by the Chancelour Treasurer and chief Baron taking unto them the chief Justices of the one bench and the other if they be present and no Escheator shall tarry in his office above a year 14 E. 3.8 A Ward shall have an action of waste against his Guardian and Escheators shall make no waste in the Lands of the Kings wards 14 E. 3 13. Aid to make the Kings Son a Knight or to marry his Daughter shall be in no other manner then according to the Statute thereof formerly made 25 E. 3 11. Traverses of offices found before Escheators upon dyings seised or alienations without licence shall be tried in the Kings Bench 34 E. 3 14. An Escheator shall have no Pec of wood fish or venison out of the wards Lands 38 E. 3 13. An Idempnitate nominis shall be granted of another mans Lands seised by an Escheator 37 E 1.2 No Escheator shall be made unless he haue twenty pounds Land per annum or more in Fee and they shall execute their offices in proper person the Chancellor shall make Escheators without any Gift or Brokage and shall make them of the most lawful men and sufficient 12 R. 2.2 An Escheator or Commissioner shall take no Inquest but by such persons as shall be retorned by the Sheriff they shall retorn the offices found before them and the Lands shall be let to farm to him that tendereth a Traverse to the office 8 H. 6.16 Inquisitions shall be taken by Escheators in good Towns and open places and they shall not take above forty Shillings for finding an office under the penalty of forty pounds 23 H. 6 17. Women at the age of fourteen years at the time of the death of their Ancestors without question or difficulty shall have Livery of their Lands 39 H. 6.2 No office shall be retorned into any of the Kings Courts by any Escheator or Commissioner but which is found by a Jury and none to be an Escheator who hath not forty markes per annum above all reprises the Jurors to have Land of the yearly value of forty shillings within the Shire the Forman of the Jury shall keep the Counter part of the Inquisition and the Escheator must receive the Inquisition found by the Iury as also the offices or Inquisitions shall be received in the Chancery and Exchequer 1 H. 8 ca. 8. Lands shall be lâ—t to farme to him that offereth to traverse the office before the offices or Inquests retorned or within three Months after 1 H. 8 ca. 10. the respite of Homage of Lands not exceeding five pounds per Annum to be but eight pence the yearly value of Lands not exceeding twenty pounds per annum to be taken as it is found in the Inquisition except it by examination otherwise appear to the Master of the Wards Surveyer Atturney or Receiver General or three of them or that it shall otherwise appear and be declared in any of the Kings Courts No Escheator shall sit virtute officii where the Lands be five pounds per annum or above the Escheator shall take for finding of an office not exceeding five pounds per annum but six Shillings eight pence for his Fee and for the writing of the office three Shillings four pence for the charges of the Jury three Shillings and for the officers and Ministers of any Court that shall receive the same Record two shillings upon pain of five pounds to the Escheator for every time so offending the Master and Court shall have power to moderate any Fines or Recognisances 33 H 8.22 The Heir of Lands not exceeding five pounds per annum may sue his General Livery by warrant only out of the Court of wards although there be no Inquisition or office found or certified The Interest of every lesser Tenant for Term of years Copy-holder or other person having interest in any Lands found in any office or Inquisition shall be saved though they be not found by office The Heir upon an aetate probanda shall have an oustâ—e le maines and the profits of his Lands from the time that he comes to age and if any office be untruely found a Traverse shall be allowed or a Monstrans de Droit without being driven to any petition of right though the King be entitled by a double matter of Record A Traverse to an office shall be allowed where a wrong Tenure is found an ignoramus â—ound of a Tenure shall not be taken to be any Tenure in Capite and upon a Traverse a Scire facias shall be awarded against the Kings Patentee 2 and 3 E 6. ca. 8. And if there had been any certain or common grievances or so much as a likelyhood of any to have risen or happened by such Tenures and benefits which many were the better for and had no reason at all to find fault with w ch many more were striving to deserve of the Kings of England the Nobility great men of this Kingdom the Parliaments that have been ever since the 8 th year of the reign of H. 3. would not have made so many Acts of Parliament for their establishment or tending to their preservation if we should believe as it cannot be well denyed that Parliaments have been sometimes mistaken and enacted that which they have afterwards thought fit to repeal Yet it comes not within the virge or compass of any probability that Parliaments where all grievances are most commonly represented should for almost four hundred years together in a succession of many Kings Parliaments enact or continue grievances instead of remedies neither find those Tenures to be inconvenient or not fit to be continued or so much as complain of them but as if they were blessings of a
vel quibuscunque illatis a multis retroactis temporibus et omnia inquisita sub sigillis suis inclusa secum coram Baronagio ad tempus sibi per breve praefixum Four Knights men of known worth and wisdom loving and beloved of their Countryes to enquire what grievances or oppressions the smaller sort of people suffered by the greater and also of all injuries and â—â—ongs done by any person whatsoever either lately or formerly and to certifie it under their Seals to the Barronage which what ever they were or if ever or never recorded for they have not for ought appears been certified or recorded no Record or Historian of that or the after times have said that Tenures in Capite and by Knights service were thereupon retorned to be oppressive or so much as inconvenient Neither are to be found amongst any of those huge heaps of evils which Mathew Paris that sower and honest Monk of St. Albons who lived in those times and especially remarked them hath delivered to posterity The 24 Reformers or Conservators of the Kingdom in that Kings Reign appointed by the Baronage never intimated any thing of their dislike of that honourable institution It was not complained of upon the refusal of Roger Bigod Earl of Norfolk Marshall of England Humphry Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Glocester and Hertford great and mighty men and of Princely Estates to go at the Command of King E. 1. unto his Wars at Gascony upon pretence that the warning was to short whereby the Kings displeasure was so much incurred aâ— Bohun and Clare to escape the Seisure and forfeiture of their Lands and to purchase his favour again were glad each of them to marry one of his Daughters without any Dowry and surrender their Earldoms Honors Offices and Lands unto him take back Estates thereof in Tayle to them and the Heirs of their Bodies upon their wives to be severally begotten and Bigot surrendring also to him his Earledom and Marshals rod together with all his Lands and taking Back a grant of an Estate for life in his honors and Lands the reversion to the King if he should not have any Issue of his Body begotten the King in Parliament pardoned them and John de Ferrariâ—s and other Earls Barons Knights and Esquires and all other of their fellowship confederacy and Bond and all that held twenty pounds Land Per annum whether in chief of the King or other that were appointed at a certain day to pass over with him into Flanders their rancour and evil will and all other offences committed against him Were not in the Roll of general grievances which the Arch-Bishops Bishops Eaâ—ls Barons and Commons sent him when he was at the Sea side ready to take shipping into Gascoigne concerning his Taxes and other impositions Neither any vestigia or footsteps to be found of any grievance by them in that grand search or inquiry by the Commissions of Traile Baston in or about the 33 of E. 3. after intruders into other mens Lands exactions and oppressions or in the presentments in the Eyres when the Justices thereof in several Kings reigns carefully travailed into the several Counties and places of England and found out and returned the complaints and oppressions of every County and where the Natives themselves the witnesses cannot be supposed to be so much their own enemies as to conceal the Countries oppressions the Jurors were solemnly charged to present them upon their Oaths and if they should omit to do it had the malice of their Neighbours to watch accuse their Perjuries and the severity of the Judges to punish any failings in their duty Or in the Reformation which the Lords Ordainers as they were afterwards called in or about the fifth year of the Raign of King E. 2. pretended to make in that unadvised Commission which he granted them for the Government of the Kingdome No pretence or so much as a murmur against them by the Reformers in Wat Tylers and Jack Straws commotion when they were so willing to overthrow and extirpate all the Nobility and Gentry which should withstand their rude and unruly designs of making all Bondmen free and taking away Villenage and of making Wat Tyler and several other of their party Kings in several Counties and to devise what Laws they listed Or by Jack Cade or Captain Mend-all as he falsely stiled himself when many a grievance was picked up to colour his Rebellion in the reign of King H. 6. but could find nothing of that for a garnish of his Roguery Or Robert Ket the Tanner in the reign of King E. 6. sitting in judgment amongst the Rabble under his tree as they called it of Reformation where Tenures and Wardships being so obvious and every where insisted upon they would not probably have omitted them out of the Roll or list of their complaints if there could have been but a supposition or dream of any grievance in them which being the more noble beneficial and better sort of Tenures may better deserve an approbation of the People and Parliaments of England than Tenures in Villenage which by an Act of Parliament in 25 E. 3.18 may be pleaded and a Villain seized though a libertate probaâ—dâ— be depending And it was enacted in the Parliament of 9 R. 2.2 that if Villaines fled into places infranchised and sued their Lords their Lords should not be barred thereby and by an Act Parliament in 8 H. 6.11 that a Villain should not be admitted or put to be an Apprentice in the City of London and by an Act of Parliament in 19. H. 7.15 If any Bond-man purchase Lands and convey away the Lands the Bond-man being â—estui que use of thâ—se Lands they shall be seised by the Lord. Nor did the Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. which provided that none should be constrained to find men of Armes Hâ—blers nor Archers but by common assent and grant made in Parliament mistake when it inserted a saving and exception of all those that held by such services Neither did the Commons in the Parliament of 5 R. 2. upon the Repeal in Parliament of the Manumissions of Bond-men extorted from the King by Wat Tyler and his Rout or men of Reformation think they did themselves or those they represented any hurt when they cryed with one voyce that the Repeal was good and that at their request the Repeal was by whole assent confirmed Tenures in Capite and by Knights service were not complained of in the Parliament of 13 R. 2. though the Commons in Parliament had prayed and were allowed that euery man might complain of the oppression of what person or Estate soever without incurring the pain of the Statute of Gloucester which under great penalties prohibited false Newes and Lies of the Nobility and great men of the Realm Chancellor Treasurer Justices of both Benches and other great
Officers of the Bench made in the second year of the King Nor was there so much as an Apprehension of any evil in them in the Parliament of 4 H. 4. where the Commons pray that The Act of Parliament of the 1 of E. 3. that none shall be distrained to go out of their Counties but only for the Cause of necessity of suddain coming of strange Enemies into the Realm and the Statute made in the 18 th year of the Reign of the said King That men of Armes Hoblers and Archers chosen to go in the Kings Service out of England shall be at the Kings wages from the day that they do depart out of the Counties where they were chosen and also that the Statute made in the 25 th year of the Raign of the said King that none be compelled to find Men of Arms Hoblers nor Archers other than those which hold by such services unlesse it be by common assent and grant made in Parliament be firmly holden and kept in all points it was upon the granting of their desires and an Act of Parliament made for that purposâ— as the Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament against the Kings Commission of Array in an 1642 mentioneth especially provided that by force or colour of the said supplication nor of any Statute thereupon to be made the Lords nor any other that have Lands or Possessions in the Counties of Wales or in the Marches thereof shall in no wise be excused of their Services and Devoires due of their said Lands and Possessions nor of any other Devoier or things whereunto they or any of them be especially bound to the King though that the same Lords and others have other Lands and Possessions within the Realm of England nor that the Lords or other of what Estate or Condition soever they be that hold by Esâ—uage or other Services due to the King any Lands and Possessions within the said Realm be no way excused to do their Services and Devoirs due of the said Lands and Possessions nor that the Lords Knights Esquires nor other Persons of what Estate or Condition they be which hold and have of the Grant or Confirmation of the King Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or other yearly profits be not excused to do their Services to the King in such manner as they are bound because of the Lands Possessions Fees Annuities Pensions or Profits afâ—resaid And might challenge their quietus est or Proclamation of acquittall when there were no complaints made against them in the former ages when there were so many Taxes laid upon Knights Fees as 20 shillings then a great sum of money as much almost as 20 markes is now upon every Knights Fee imposed by King R. 1. toward his ransome 26 s. 8 d. upon every Knights Fee by King Iohn and another also of the same sum towards his expedition into Wales 20 s. upon every Knights Fee towards his Charges in Normandy an Escuage of 20 s. upon every Knights Fee to be paid the one half at Easter and the other at Michaelmas besides the Escuage which he had upon the marriage of his Sister Isabel to the Emperor Frederick two Escuages imposed by H. 3. and an Escuage upon the marriage of his Daughter the Lady Margaret to Alexander King of Scots 20 s. of every Knights Fee by H. 4. the many services in person done by those which held in capite and Knights Service in forinseco servitio in all the expeditions and Wars in France from the time of the Norman Conquest to the end of the Raign of E. 4. and at home in the Wars betwixt England and Wales and betwixt England and the Scots where very many Inhabitants of the Counties of Cumberland Westmeâ—land and Northumberland that held by Cornage a kind of Knight Service to blow a horn upon the invasion or incursion of the Scots and to help to repell them and had their Lands sometimes at the Will of the Lords conferred and given to the younger and more lusty Sons who were able to undergo that service could before King James his accession to the Crown of England the pacification of the English and Scottish hostilities placing them under one obedience scarce rest in their beds by reason of the Scots sudain or nightly alarmes and depredations driving or stealing their Cattell and spoiling all that they had And in all the troubles of England before and since the Barons Wars upon any Rebellions and inquietudes of the people when those that held by Knight service were frequently and hastily summoned to come to the King cum Equis Armis and the great charges trouble hazard and expences which the Lords Mâ—sne were put unto by Assessements of Escuage and otherwise And that immediately upon the death of the Kings Tenants in capite by Knight Service the Escheators did usually seise not only the Lands of the greatest of the Nobility Gentry and meaner men But the Stock and Cattell upon their grounds and the Goods in their Houses insomuch as their Executors were many times constrained to Petition and obtain the Kings Writs and Allowance to have the Stock and personal Estate delivered unto them And yet no complaints made at all against those Tenures or necessary defences of the Kingdome nor against Tenures by grand or Petit Serjeanty in the thirty confirmations of our Magna Charta upon as often Breaches to be supposed of it Never complained off in the making of thirty six Acts of Parliament concerning Wardships and Tenures in the several times and Ages from 8 H. 3. to this present nor at the making of the Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. for the erection of the Court of Wards Nor in so many thousand Petitions which have been in 186. several Parliaments for almost four hundred years last past or before 9 H. 3. or ever since this nation could remember any thing either in our Parliaments Micel-gemots Wittena-gemots conventus sapientum or Magna Concilia where all the Grievances and Complaints of the people not to be remedied else where came as to the Pool of Bethesda for help and relief and wherein if any in some one or more Parliaments should so much neglect their duty and the more than ordinary business and concernments of their Kings themselves and Countries with which they were intrusted and to which their Oaths of Allegiance if nothing else must needs be their Monitors it cannot without a supposition and belief which will never be able to find entertainment in any rational mans understanding be imagined that the whole Nation for so many Ages past and in so many Assemblies of those that should be the Sons of Wisdome should be bound up under such a fate of Stupidity or Ignorance as to represent those that were sick and not know of it or that all or any of them should propter imbecillitatem vel pernegligentiam by a to be pitied weakness or negligence not either seek or
find the way to the ears or audience of so many worthy and just Kings and Princes as this Kingdom hath been happy in who would have been as willing to give a remedy as they could have been to seek it if there had been any ground or cause for it that so many Petitions of small concernments or of no greater consequence than for the paving of Streets killing of Crows not taking of young Herns out of their nests without license of the owner of the ground and the like should get admittance and cause Acts of Parliament to be made thereupon and that of Tenures in Capite if any grievance could at all be found in them and of so long a continuance which usually makes light burthens to be heavy should be so dipped in a Lethe or Oblivion as not at all to be remembred Which had nothing at all of grievance in their essence or being understood of them in the making of the Statute of 1 H. 8. against Empson and Dudley by whom the Kings Subjects had been sore hurt troubled and greived in causing untrue Offices to be found retorning of Offices that never were found and in changing Offices that were found No Grievance perceived to be in them in Primo Jacobi when in the Statute concerning Respites of Homage there was a Proviso that in case it shall be thought fit for the true knowledge and preservation of the Tenures appertaining to the Crown and so ordered in the open Court of Exchequer that proces should issue out of the said Court against any came not within the Suspition or Jealousy of a Grievance when in the Parliament of 7. Jacobi Regis Sr. Francis Bacon then his Majesties Sollicitor in his speech as one of the House of Commons in Parliament to the Lords in Parliament perswading them to joyn with the Commons to Petition the King to obtain liberty to treat of a Composition with his Majesty for Wards and Tenures acknowledged in the name of that Parliament that the Tree of Tenures was planted into the Prerogative by the Antient Common Law of England fenced in and preserved by many Statutes and yeildeth to the King the fruit of a great Revenue and that is was a noble Protection that the young Birds of the Nobility and good Families should be gathered and clucked under the Wings of the Crown Nor in Primo Car. primi in the Act of Parliament touching the rating of Officers Fees in the Exchequer upon pleadings of Licences or Pardons for Alienations when the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled did declare that the Kings Tenures are a Principal flower of the Crown which being in England the safety and protection of the people cannot be said or proved to be adorned by their sorrows and miseries and ought not to be concealed And that in the petition of Right in 3 Car. primi wherein all the Grievances and Burdens of the Subjects and breaches of Laws and Liberties that any way concerned them or their Posterities were enumerated and remedies for the future establishment of the quiet and happines of the people propounded and granted Tenures in Capite and Knight service with their incidents were not reckoned or accounted as Grievances though all that troubled the people were at that time so largly thought and beleived to be redrest as a publick joy upon the Kings granting of that Petition of Right was commanded to be celebrated by the Musique and ringing of Bells in every Parish Church of the Cities of London and Westminster which vied each with other who should proclaim and tell their joyes the loudest And the blaze of numberless Bonfires representing the flame of the peoples affection towards a most gracious Soveraign seemed to turn the sullen night into a morning or day which the Sun beams had newly guilded whilst Alecto and her Sister Furies despairing in their hopes of kindling a sedition and bringing the miseries of a Civil War upon us had thrown by their Torches and employed their Hellish griefs in the tearing of their Snakie loâ—ks Were no Sirtes or Rocks to shipwrack or hurt the people when Sr. Edward Coke who was so willing to have Tenures in Capite and Knight service to be changed into Tenures by Fealty only as of some of the Kings Honors and all their Incidents as Wardships primer seisin Licences of Alienation c. taken away and recompenced by a greater yearly profit then was then had or received by them and a rent to be inseperably annexed to the Crown with some necessary Covenants and Privisoes as he hoped that so good a motion as had been made in the Parliament of 18 Jacobi tending as he thought to the Honor and Profit of the King and his Crown for ever and the quiet and freedome of his Subjects and their Posterities would one way or other by the grace of God and Authority of Parliament take effect and be established could not but acknowledge between Anno 3. Car. Regis primi and the 12 th year of his raign that the Objection that Wardship was a Badge of servitude which would be a Grievance indeed and of the greatest Magnitude was groundless and without a Foundation for that the King by taking money for the marriage of the Ward doth it not as for a Ransome but taketh such moderate sums of money as in respect of the quality and state of the Ward He or She all circumstances considered is able to pay and in regard thereof hath the protection of the Court of Wards during Minority And giving Tenures by Knight service no worse a Character than the Wisdome of Antiquity for his Iustification therein citeth a place out of the Red Book in the Exchequer where it is said that mavult enim princeps domesticos quam Stipendiarios Bellicis apponere casibus the King had rather be served by his own Subjects than Hirelings or Stipendary Souldiers No Scylla or Charybdis taken to be in them in the Parl. of 17. Car. prim at the making of the Act for the better raising and levying of Souldiers for the present defence of the Kingdomes of England and Ireland wherein it being said that by the Laws of this Realm none of his Majesties Subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to goe out of his Country to serve as a Souldier in the Wars they excepted cases of necessity of the sodain coming in of strange enemies into the Kingdome or where they be otherwise bound by the Tenure of their Lands or Possessions In the Remonstrance of the House of Commons 15. December 1641. and that unhappy Amasse and collection of Complaints against the Government the Tenures themselves were not so much as complained of but the exceeding of the Jurisdiction of the Court of Wards that thereby the estates of many Families were weakned some ruined by excessive Fines for Composition for Wardships exacted from them which if in some few particulars where the Estate it self was weak or incumbred with
example of Magistracy put any grievance upon the people when as in the re-building of Ierusalem and to repell the Enemies and hinderers thereof there being as much necessity to defend a City or Commonwealth after it is built or established as it can be in the building framing or repairing of it he ordered the one half of the servants to work and the other to hold the Spears the shields Bows and Habergeons and every one of the builders had his Sword girded by his side and the Nobles were appointed when the Trumpeter should sound that stood by Nehemiah because they were separated one from another to resort thither unto him upon occasion of â—ight or danger and did after their work finished cause the Rulers of the people to dwell at Jerusalem and out of the rest of the people by lot to bring one of every Tribe to inhabit and dwell in there such as were valiant or mighty men of valour and had for overseers the principal and most eminent men and Zabdiel the Son of one of the mighty men David did not turn aside from God nor bind heavy burdens upon the people because he had mighty men about him and that Joshebbassebet the Tachmonite sate like a Constable or Marshal of England chief amongst the Captains nor did Solomon bruise the broken Reeds because he had many Princes and great Officers under him as Benajah the Son of Jehoiada who served his Father David and was Captain over his Guard was over the Host Azariah the Son of Nathan over the Officers like as in England a Lord great Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold Zabud the Son of Nathan Principal Officer and Aâ—ishar as a Treasurer or Comptrouler over the Houshold none of which could take it for any injury to enjoy those great Offices and places during the Kings pleasure but would have esteemed it to have been a greater favour if they had a grant for life and most of all and not to be complained of to have it to them and to their Heirs or after Generations for that all good things and blessings by a natural propension and custom amongst the Sons of men are very desireable to be continued and transmitted to posterity and the sacred Volumes have told us that it is a reward of wisdom and vertue to stand before Princes Nor was it any dishonour to the men of Judah and people of Israel that the Queen of Sheba wondring even to astonishment at the Attendance of Solomons Servants and Ministers and his Cup bearers or Butlers as the Margin reads it pronounced them happy that stood continually before him Or to the Subjects of Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over an hundred and seventeen Provinces that besides his seven Chamberlains or Officers of honour he had the seven Princes of Persia and Media which saw the Kings face and sate the first in the Kingdom Nor any to our heretofore happy Nation enjoying in a long Series and tract of time an envied peace and plenty under famous and glorious Kings and Princes that they did give Places Castles Mannors and Lands of great yearly values to certain great and well-deserving men and their Heirs to serve in great Imployments Solemnities and Managements of State-affairs to the honour of their Soveraigns and the good safety of the People in the Offices of great Chamberlain high Steward Constable or Marshal of England chief Butler of England and the like For when the guift of the Land it self was a great kindness it must needs be a greater to have an honourable Office Imployment annexed to it that an act of bounty done by a Prince in giving the Land should oblige the claim or receiving a far greater in the executing of that Office or Attendance which belonged to it And could have nothing of affinity to a burden when as besides the original guift of the Lands which were very considerable and to be valued many of those personal services by grand Serjeanty were not unprofitable or without the addition or accession of other Bounties and Priviledges as the guift to the Lord great Chamberlain of forty yards of Crimson Velvet for his Robes upon the Coronation day the Bed and furniture that the King lay in the night before the silver Bason and Ewer when he washed his hands with the Towels and Linnens c. The Earl Marshal to have the granting of the Marshals and Ushers in the Courts of Exchecquer and Common Pleas with many other guifts and Priviledges and Dymock who holds some of his Lands by the service of being the Kings Champion and to come upon the Coronation day into Westminster-Hall on Horse-back compleatly armed and defie or bid battel to any that shall deny him to be rightful King of England is to have the Kings best Horse and were not in the least any charge to the people or laid upon them as Cromwel did the stipends of his mock Lords or Officers of his imaginary Magnificence to be paid out of the publick Purse or Taxes as were the self created Lords of his Counsel who had 1000 l. per an for advising him how to fool the people build up himself by the wickedness of some and ruines of all the rest or as the Lord so called Pickering or Chamberlain of his Houshold and the quondam would be Lord Philip Jones who was called the Comptrouler of his Household had to buy them white staves to cause the people to make way and gape upon them No Prejudice to the Common-wealth that the Beauchamps Earls of Warwick did hold Land by right of inheritance to be Panterer at the Kings Coronation and to bear the 3 Sword before him the Duke of Lancaster before that Dutchy came again into the possession of the Kings of England to bear before him the sword called Curtana or the Earls of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man to bear before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Lancaster which Henry the 4 th did wear when he returned from exile into England or for the Earl of Arundel to be chief Butler of England the day of the Coronation No disfranchisement to the City of London that some Citizens of London chosen forth by the City served in the Hall at the Kings Coronation assistants to the Lord chief Butler whilst the King sits at Dinner the day of his Coronation and when he enters into his Chamber after Dinner and calls for Wine the Lord Mayor of London is to bring him a Cup of Gold with Wine and have the Cup afterwards given to him together with the Cup that containes water to allay the Wine and that after the King hath drunck the said Lord Mayor and the Aldermen of London are to have their Table to Dine at on the left hand of the King in the Hall Or to the Barons of the Cinque Ports who claim are allowed to bear at the Kings Coronation a Canopy â—f cloth
of Gold over him with four Staves and four Bells at the four corners every Staff having four of those Barons to bear it Also to Dine and sit at the Table next to the King on his right hand in the Hall the day of his Coronation And for their Fees to have the said Canopy of Gold with the Bells and Staves Or that at the Coronation of Eliâ—nor Wife to King Henry the third Marchiones de Marchia Walliae videlicet Joannes filius Alani Radulphus de mâ—râ—uo mari Joannes de Monmouth et Walterus de Clifford nomine Marchiae jus Marchiae esse dicebant hastas argenteas inveniendi et las deferendi ad sustentandum pannum Sericum quadratum purpureum in Coronatione Regum et Reginarum Angliae The Lords Marchers of Wales videl Iohn Fitz Alan Rafe de Mortimer Iohn de Monmouth and Walter de Clifford in behalf of the Marches did claim and alleage it to be their right to provide silver Spears or Launces and with them to bear or carry a four square Canopy of Purple Silk over the Kings and Queens of England at their Coronation For those Tenures in grand serjeanty were ever as in all reason they deserved to be accompted to be so honourable as some have made it their Sir-name as the noble Earls of Ormond in Ireland descended from an antient and worthy English Family have done who carry in their Coat of Armes or part of their now marks of honour or bearing the Symbols or remembrance of the Office of cheif Butler in Ireland which with the prisage which is a part of it hath by King E. the 3 d. been granted to the Ancestors of the now Marquesse Earl of Ormond by Inheritance and a Knightly and good Family of the Chamberlaines in England do account it no dishonour to have been descended from thâ— Earls of Tankervile who were Chamberlains to our King H. 1. in Normandy And some branches of the noble Family of the Grey's of Wilton being antient Barons of England holding the Mannor of Waddon in Buckinghamshire of the King per servitium custodiendi unum Gerfalconem Domini Regis by the service of keeping a Gerfalcon of the Kings do use or bear as a badge or marque of honour in their Armes a Gerfaulcon the Mannor of Wymondley in the County of Hertford being holden of the King by Grand serjeanty of giving to the King the first Cup of Wine or Beer upon the day of his Coronation The Family of Argentons being by the marriage of a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Fitz Tece become at the Conquest the possessors of it have thought it honourable saith Camden to bear in their Shields in memory thereof three Cups argent in a feild Gules No oppression to the people of England to be kept safe in their peace and plenty from the Incursions of Foreign Enemies when William the Conquerour fortified Dover a strong and principal Bulwark betwixt England and France with whom we had then continual Wars or Jealousies and gave to Iohn Fines then a Noble Man of great prowesse and fidelity the Custody of that and the rest of the Cinque-Ports with 56 Knights Fees willing him as that Learned Antiquary Mr. Lambard tells us to communicate some parts of that gift to such other valiant and trusty persons as he should best like of for the more sure conservation of that most noble and precious Fort and Castle Who thereupon imparting liberally out of those Lands to eight worthy Knights viz. William of Albrance Fulbert of Dover William Arsick Geffery Peverel William Mainemouth Robert Porthe Robert Crevequer and Adam Fitz-Williams bound them and their Heirs by Tenure of their Lands received of the King to maintain 112 Souldiers amongst them which were so devided by Months of the years as five and twenty of them were continually to watch and ward within the Castle for their several parts of time and all the rest ready upon necessity each of which eight Knights had their several Charges in several Towers and Bulwarks and were contented as well they might at their own dispence to maintain and repair the same Of whom diverse of the Towers and Bulwarks do yet or did but in Queen Elizabeths reign bear their names No inconvenience or mischief to the publique that the Castle and Barony of Abergavenny in Monmouthshire was holden by John Hastings per Homâ—gâ—â—m Wardam Maritagium cum accideâ—it sâ— guerra fuerit inter Regem Angliae Principem Walliae deberet custodire patriam de Over went sumptibus proprijs meliori modo quo poterit pro commodo suo utilitate Regis defensione Regni Angliae by Homage Ward and Marriage when it should happen and if War should be between the King of England and the Prince of Wales was to guard at his own charges the Country called Over went the best way that he could for his profit and benefit of the King and defence of the Kingdom of England No cause of complaint to the Town or antiently called City of Leicester for that veteri Instituto by antient Custom they were to furnish the King with twelve Burgesses or Townsmen when he went to War and iâ— per Mare in Hostes ibat mittebant quatuor Equos usque Londinum ad arma comportanda vel alia quae opus essent he went by Sea were to send four Horses as far as London to carry his Arms or other necessaries Nor to the Town of Warwick to be enjoyned by Tenure to send twelve of their Burgesses or Towns-men with their King to War and qui monitus non ibat centum solidos Regi emendabat he which was summoned and did not go was to forfeit pay one hundred shillings to the King And cum contra Hostes per Mare ibat Rex quatuor Botesuenas vel quatuor libras denariorum mittebant when the King should bo by Sea against his Enemies should furnish four Boat-Swains or Marriners or send four pounds in money No harm done to give Lands at Seaton which Sr. Richard Rockslye Knight did hold by Serjeanty to be vantrarius Regis the Kings fore-footman when he went into Gascoigne donec per usus fuit parisolutarum precij 4d untill he had worn out a pair of Shoes of four pence then the price of a pair of Shooes for a worthy man not 4 s. 6. or 5 s. as they are now Or Lands to another to furnish duos Aâ—migeros two Esquires to march in his Vant-Guard upon occasion of War with the Welch Or that the Princes of Wales ab antiquis temporibus very antiently did hold that Principality and part of Brittain of the Kings of England in Capite by Military or Knight Service and that upon that ground only as he was a leige man and subject of England Leoline Prince of Wales was for raising of War against his Superior Lord imprisoned and hanged or beheaded by King E. 1. and the Principality of Wales
with as much or more cost and trouble as in other Courts Extents Seisures Accompts before Auditors Surcharges and Exceptions Fees to Auditors and their Clarks Concealment of Wardships vexatioâ—s chargeable hunting after them and the cunning search and Inquisition which is made after them by the Escheators Feodaries or Informers busie and malicious Adversaries which is not often and but where the parties endeavour to deceive the King and the Court and evade the Law and the extremities put upon them by granting it and the Mesne rates to the fierce discoverers or such as seek profit out of other mens troubles and afflictions Restraints from felling of Timber without Licence of the Court begetting the charges of motions the attending upon the Court and their many Officers A constant and certain yearly Revenue of eighty thousand pounds per annum or so much more as the Revenue shall fall short of twenty thousand pounds per annum which the alienation office now yields to be added to it will be duely answered and paid to his Majesty which will with all charges expences deducted as is alleaged be as much as was yearly gained to the Crown by the Court of Wards and Liveries or any dependances thereof against which if there shall be opposed and put into the other end of the ballance these inconveniences following they will weigh very much the heavier CHAP VI. The great and very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will happen to the King and Kingdom by the taking away of Tenures in Capite and Knight Service FOR that Lands in Socage will if the Mothers be alive during the minority of the heirs most commonly fall until the age of fourteen years into their Guardianships who as all women which have an estate considerable either real or personal in their own right or their Childrens do more then nine in every ten unleâ—â— which seldome happens they shall be such good women and loving as for their love to their Children and dead Husband to deny themselves their expected content by a second Husband by the temptations and flatteries of younger Brothers or men of decayed Estates transire ad secundas nuptias marry again all too often within the first year which the Civil Law reserved for the time of their mourning or retirednesse from worldly pleasures and do too commonly bring the Childrens Estate to be as a Sawce to the hungry enough appetite of a Father in Law who being many times as good a Guardian to the Children as the Woolf or Fox is to the Lambs will be sure if he do not spend both the Mothers and Childrens Estates and bring them to beggery to be gnawing and put many a lurch and trick upon them Which might be the Reason that the prudent Romans were so little willing that the Mothers of any Children should after their Husbands death be the Guardians of them as they had a Custome that the Mothers themselves should be in perpetua Tutela in a perpetual Wardship or Guardianship for Cicero would have it that Mulieres propter infirmitatem Consilii Women though of full Age should by reason of their unfitnesse to govern or give Counsail be in Tutorum Potestate have Tutors assigned them and the Judicious Cato declared it openly in publicae Concione in a publique Speech concerning the Oppian Law that Majores nostri nullam nè privatam quidem rem agere Faeminas â—ine Auctore vâ—luerùnt Their Ancestors did not permit Women to meddle not so much as in private affairs without a Director or Overseer And Vlpian tells us that Lege Atilia sancitum ut mulieribus et pupillis Tutores non habentibus a Praeâ—ore et majore parte Tribunorum darentur It was enacted by the Atilian Law That the Praetor or Lord Chief Justice and the greater part of the Tribunes should appoint Guardians to such Women and Children as had none And if the Mothers should either make themselvs or be allowed by the Magistrate as one way or the other it will be most likely to be the Guardians before the Heirs age of 14. or if at 14 the Children should be left as they must to chuse their Guardians themselves the Fear and Awe of the Mothers or their second Husbands Inticements and Kindnesse but for that instant will in all probability induce them to chuse no other so whether before the age of 14 or after it is likely to be no otherwise but that where the Mothers are living marryed again the self-seeking and purloyning Father in Lawes of the Kingdom will be the Guardians and where there are a second Brood of Children which will not be seldom the Estates of the Children of the first Husband shall be sacrificed by the Mothers Consent or permission to the benefit of the second Children whose Father making much of the Mother or flattering her finds it to be no hard matter to make her as willing to it as himself and if she would hinder or doth not like it can but steal her sighs and weep and lament in a Corner for that which she may wish wer otherwise but cannot help it when she is Sub potestate viri Under the Power of a second Husband And if not granted to the Mother or her second Husband but to the Friends of that side which cannot inherit which where the Mother is not an heir must of necessity be to her kindred it will not then also escape another common often and sadly experimented fault or evil that the affections and care which doth usually assist and incourage honest and fair Dealings will not be so much in the kindred on the Mothers side which is but taken out of their Family and transplanted into that of the Fathers where the Mother her self is to forget her Fathers house and kindred nor equal that affection care and obligation which is on the part of the Fathers kindred to preserve that Family which weares their Name as well as their Blood And whether the Guardian in Socage shall be Tutor Testamentarius ordained by the Fathers last Will and Testament or a Pretore datus appointed by a Judge will not arrive to any better Fate or Condition than that where there be Executors or Administrators in personal Estates or Trustees in Real or Personal for Children and minors or for payment of debts who can many times neglect and forget the dying requests of Parents on their death Beds to to be careful of their Children and their own imprecations that God should do so and so to their own Children if they should not perform the trusts and let out their Consciences Hackney to the Devil to find ways to deceive and wrong them of whom and many other such Guardianships and faithlesse performances of trusts our Courts of Law and Equity do dayly heare more Complaints of fraudes and cosenings than they can either easily find out or remedy Which with that also of Father in Laws do in a woful experience exceed
invented to fasten Subjects to their Duty any one of which cannot now with any safety to the King or his Kingdom and people be separated or disjointed more especially that of Homage for that former ages understood the Obligation of self Preservation and Interest to be more binding than Oaths as Salmuthius in his learned and accurate Comment upon Pancirollus well noteth Ut amore humani ingenii pro illis habeant maximam Curam in quibus suam vident esse positam Substantiam That men most commonly take most care of that wherein their Lands and Estates are concerned which that antient Committee-man and old Sequestrator the Devil well understood when he got an Order or Permission to ruine the Righteous Job in his Estate and our last twenty years can inform us how impotent and unable Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Protestations National Covenants with hands lifted up to heaven calling God to witnesse Loyalties hot and fiery Zeals and pretences of Religion setting up of Christ and his Interest and walking with God in the more as it was wrongfully called refiâ—â—ed way of his worship to resist or stand in the way of Interest Dangers Hazards Self-seeking and Self-having in this world but nothing at all in the better Which the reserving of Fealty or its being always to be taken upon Tenures in Socage and as well upon Leases for years as Estates of freehold and inheritance will not remedy when as Sir Henry Spelman hath well observed Fealty though it be taken upon Oath is not so obligatory as Homage though it be not taken upon Oath for that the Words of Homage are devenio homo vester ab hac die in posterum de vita de membro de terreno honore verus fidelis vobis ero fidem vobis portabo ob terras quas a vobis teneo I become from this day forward your man of life member and earthly honour and shall be faithful and bear faith unto you for the Lands which I hold of you And is not so awful binding as that which was used in the British or Saxon times or shortly after the Conquest viz. ad defendendum Regnum contra alienigenas contra inimicos una cum Domino suo Rege terras honores cum omni fidelitate cum eo servare quod illi intra extra Regnum fidelis esse voluit intra extra Regnum defendere that is to defend the Kingdom against Foreigners and Enemies within and without the Kingdom and with the King to defend his Lands and Honours with all fidelity and would be faithful to the King within and without the Kingdom that that which is prescribed by the Statute of 17 E. 2. in which also the form and words of the Homage is declared and expressed ever since used viz. Quod vobis ero fidelis et legalis et fidem vobis feram de tenementis quae de vobis teneo et legaliter vobis faciam Consuetudines et servitus quae vobis facere debeo ad terminos assignatos ut deus me adjuvet that I shall be faithful and loyal and faith bear to you for the Tenements which I hold of you and shall lawfully doe and perform to you all Customes and Services which I ought to doe at the Tearms assigned So God me help is far lesse obliging and comprehensive and so litle in the opinion of the Tenants or Fealty makers as sufficit plerunque As Sr. Henry Spelman saith si pactos redditus exoluerit sectamque Curiae Domini ex more praestiterit Domini autem non milit at nec armis cingitur they most commonly think it extendeth but to pay the rents agreed upon and doe the accustomed suit and service to their Lords Court Which in the Civil Law form of an Oath of Fealty used in the parts beyond the Seas in this manner viz. Ego juro ad sancta dei Evangelia quod a modo in antea ero fidelis ei ut vassallus domino nec id quod mihi sub nomine fidelitatis commiserit pandam alii ad ejus detrimentum me sciente I swear upon the holy Evangelists that from henceforth I shall be faithfull to him id est the Lord as a vassal to his Lord nor shall willingly discover to another any secret which under the name of Fealty he shall commit unto me was taken and found to be so slender a tye or obligation as Alia de novo super fidelitatis juramento inventa forma et utentium consuetudine quae hodie When Obertus de Orto wrote his books de feudis in omni curia videtur obtinere a new form of the Oath of fidelity was found and invented and is used saith he almost in every Court and approved by those that used it Scilicet ego Titius juro super haec sancta dei Evangelia quod ab hac hora in antea usque ad ultimum diem vitae meae ero fidelis tibi Caio domino meo contra omnem hominem where it is to a mesne Lord excepto Imperatore vel Rege I Titius doe swear that from this hour to the last day of my life I shall be faithful to thee Caius my Lord against all men except the Emperour or the King which saith the great Cujacius by reason that the genuine sence or meaning of the words would not be so well understood by ignorant men haec adijci solet other clauses words were used to be added which amounted to as much as the duty of one that doth homage for Lands holden by Knights service which Cujacius thought to be necessary enough quod plaerique fidem sibi promitti satis non habent nisi et fidei partes muniaque specialiter enumerentur veleo maxime si quid contra ea fecerint ut non possint negare se commisisse in Jusjurandum et feudum amisisse for that they did not think it to be enough to have fealty promises made unto them unless the duties and parts thereof should be especially enumerated to the end more especially that iâ— they should doe any thing contrary therunto they should not be able to deny that they had broken their Oath and forfeited their Fee and Lands so litle were they satisfied with the slight or general words formerly used in the Oathes of fealty though in more just and honest times about the reign of Charles the great Emperour the word fidelis or a fealty did contain in it howsoever not expressed a promise de tuenda vita et honore domini et si quid aliud specialiter jurejurando exprimi solet to defend the life and honour of the Lord and every thing else which was specially expressed in the Oath so great a care was taken to make the first intentions and promises of those that had those Fees given them to come up and be answerable to the good will and expectations of those that gave them And therefore it may
prove to be of evil consequence if any of our new Socage men should like the Snakes thinking themselves the younger by casting off their Skins fancy in their old or the next factious humour they shall meet with that they are only to pay their rent and doe the services belonging to their Lands but are not bound to pay that principal part of their natural as well as sworn Allegiance to take Armes to defend the King and the Kingdome more especially when they shall hold their Lands in libero et communi Socagio et pro omnibus servitiis per fidelitatem tantum in free and common Socage by fealty for all services which may be more than a litle prejudicial to the Kingdome and the salus populi safety of the people so much fought for as was pretended to exchange the men of Armes and such as are fit for war as the Tenures in Capite doe truly and not feignedly import for those that shall claim exemption from wars and are by all nations understood to be the unfittest for it when those that by Tenure of their Lands and by reason of their Homage and Fealty were alwayes ready and bound to doe it and those that by a fealty not actually or but seldome taken will suppose themselves not to be bound at all unto it but being most disloyal will as some thousands of Phanatiques have lately done imagine themselves to be most faithful and where the Knight Service men were to forfeit their Lands so holden if they did not doe their service within two years or pay Escuage assessed by Parliament if they went not when they were summoned or sent another in their stead the new or old Socage men shall be under no manner of penalty of forfeiture at all Which may seem to be the cause that England and all other Civilized and well constituted Nations Kingdoms did put that value upon Homage of which there is some likeness of Fealty also in that of the Princes mighty men of Israel and all the Sons likewise of King David submitting themselvs at his command unto Solomon giving the hand under Solomon as the margent renders like that Oath of Abrahams Steward as they understood it to be of the Essence of Soveraignty the great Assistant and preserver of it and the Bond of Obedience fixed and radicated in the interest of mens Estates kept in and guarded by their fear of loosing them And made our Kings so highly prize the Homages of their Subjects and conceive them to be the Liaisons or fastenings that kept their Crowns fast upon their heads as King H. 2. when he had unadvisedly made his Son Henry King in his life time caused the English Nobility to do Homage unto him and R. 1. returning out of Captivity had found that his Brother Iohn had almost stollen into his Throne caused himself to be Crowned the second time and took the Homages of his Nobility and our Kings have been heretofore so careful as alwayes at their Coronation to take the Homages of their Nobility and after a vacancy of a Bishoprick not to restore the Temporalties until the succeeding Bishop shall have done his Homage And appears to be no lesse valued by Foreign Princes when as Phillip King of France would and did to his cost refuse to receive the Homage of our King E. 3. by proxie but compelled him to do it in his own person for the Dutchy of Aquitain and an Arch-Duke of Austria was constrained in person to do his Homage to the King of France between the hands of his Chancellor for Flan-Flanders and the now Emperor of Germany hath lately and most industriously travailed through many of his Dominions and Kingdoms to receive the personal Homages of the Princes and Nobility thereof and not omitted to go to Gratz and Carinthia to have it as formally as really done unto him And was such a Jewel in their Crowns as they could sometimes to pacifie the greatest of their troubles by the Seditions and Rebellions of their Subjects find no greater or fitter a pawn or security to assure the performance of their promises and agreements than an absolving their Subjects from their Homage and Obedience which were as Synonimes or of one and the same signification in case of Breach of promises as our King Henry the 3 d. did in his necessities to Richard Marshal Earl of Pembroke that he should be freed from his Homage Si rex pactum suum violaret if the King should break his agreement and as the Antient Earls of Brabant are said to have done in their Reversals or Grants to their Subjects if they should infringe their Liberties or Privileges Which the seditious party that deposed King Richard the 2 d. knew so well to be a grand Obligation or Tye which Kings had upon their Subjects as they put themselves to the trouble of inventing a new trick of Treason solemnly in the name of the three Estates of the Kingdom viz. Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons to renounce their Homages Fealties and Allegiance and all Bonds Charges and Services belonging thereunto which would have been to as little purpose as it was contradictory to all the Rules of Right Reason and Justice if they had not forced the distressed imprisoned King by a publick instrument upon Oath to absolve all his Subjects a Juramento fidelitatis homagiis omnique vinculo ligeanciae from their Oaths of Fealty and Homage and all Bonds of Allegiances and to swear and promise never to revoke it and is so precious inestimable of so high a nature so useful and of so great a value as nothing but the Kingdom it self can be equivalent unto it And our Nobility did so esteem of the Homage and Service of their Tenants and build as is were their Grandeur and Power upon it as they did antiently grant one to another Homagium Servicium of such and such Tenants Maud the Empresse gave to Earl Alberick de vere servicium decem militum the Service of ten Knights An Earl of Leicester gave to Bygod Earl of Norfolk ten Knights Fees which after the manner of those times may with reason enough be conceived to be only the Homage and Service of so many for the purchase of the Office of Lord high Steward of England and John Earl of Oxford in the Reign of H. 7. did at his Castle of Hedingham in Essex actually receive the Homages of many worthy Knights and Gentlemen that held of him May very much prejudice in their Dignities and Honors as well as Estates the antient Earls and Barons of this Kingâ—om by taking away Tenures in capite changeing them and Knight service Tenures into Socage when as the Earls of Arundel do hold the Castle and Rape of Arundel which is the Honor and Earldom it self by the Service of 84. Knights Fees the Earldom of Oxford is holden by the Service of 30 Knights Fees and that by a modus
tenendi Parliamentum so beleived to be true that King John caused it when he sent our English Laws into Ireland to be exemplified and sent thither under the Great Seal of England it is said that every Earldom consisteth of 21 Knights Fees and every Barony of 13 Knights Fees and a third part of a Knights Fee and were of such a value and esteem as they were wont heretofore to bring Actions and Assizes for them and their Homage and Services And so litle lesse in France as the wealth of that great and populous Kingdom is not as may be rationally supposed enough to purchase of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom the transmutation of their Fiefs nobles into the Roturier or Feifs ignobles nor are the Princes or Nobility of Germany likely to be perswaded out of their antient Rights and Tenures into that of the Boors or common sort of People The Nobility and Gentry of England when their Military Tenures and Dependencies shall be taken from them will not upon necessities of War and Danger according to the Tenures of their Lands their Homages and Oaths of Allegiance and their natural and legal Allegiance be able to succour or heâ—p their Prince and Father of their Country their Defender and Common Parent as they have heretofore done when as they stoutly and valiantly helped to guard their Standard and Lions but for want of those which held Lands of them and the Tenures by Knight service will be forced to abide with Gilead beyond Jordan and not be able to imitate their noble Ancestors nor each or any of them bring to his Service three Bannerets sixty one Knights and one hundred fifty four Archers on Horseback as Thomas de Bello campo Earl of Warwick did to E. 3. in anno 21. of his Raign at the Seige of Caleis or as the Earl of Kildare did to King E. 3. in the 25 th year of his Raign when he besieged Calice when he brought one Banneret six Knights thirty Esquires nineteen Hoblers twenty four Archers on Horseback and thirty two Archers on foot It will take away the subjection of the Bishop of the Isle of Man who holdeth of the Earl of Derby as King of the Isle of Man and not of the King of England and therefore cometh not to Parliament Take away from the King Nobility and Gentry who have Lands holden by Knight service all Escheats of such as die without Heirs or forfeit or be convicted of Felony and the Kings Annum diem vastum year day and wast where the Lands are holden of Mesne Lords the Escheats of those that held of Kings imediately being so considerable as the Castle of Barnard in Cumberland and the Counties of Northumberland and Huntington which the Kings of Scotland sometimes held of England came again to the Crown by them and the power which King Edward 1. had to make Baliol King of Scots and to determine the competition for that Kingdom was by reason it was held of him the Earldoms of Flanders and Artois were seised by Francis the 1. as forfeited being Fiefs of the Crown of France Flanders and many other Provinces forced to submit themselves upon some controversies to the Umpirage of France of whom they held Enervate at least if not spoil our original first Magna Charta which was grante by H. 3. tenendum de se heredibus suis and all our Liberties and the many after confirmations of that Magna Charta will be to seek for a support if it shall be turned into Socage the Libâ—rties also of the City of London all other antient Cities and Boroughs and such as antiently and before 9 H. 3. did use to send Burgesses unto Parliament Alter if not destroy the Charter of K. R. 1. granted to the City of London for their Hustings Court to be free of Toll Lastage through all England and all Sea-Ports with many other Priviledges which were granted to be held of the King and his Heirs and the same with many other immunities granted confirmed by King John with a Tenure reserved to him and his Heirs for where no Tenure is reserved nor expressed though it should be said absque aliquo inde reddendo it shall be intended for the King and the Law will create a new Tenure by Knight service in Capite A Socage Tenure for Cities and Boroughs which have no Ploughs or intermedle not with Husbandry will be improper when as there is not any fictio juris or supposition â—in Law which doth not sequi rationem so follow reason or allude unto it as to preserve the reason or cause which it either doth or would signify but doth not suppose things improper or which are either Heterogeneous or quite contrary Put into fresh disputes the question of precedency betwixt Spain England which being much insisted upon by the Spaniard at the treaty of peace betwixt the two Kingdoms in anno 42. of Q. Eliz. at Calice occasioned by the contests of the Embassadour of Spain and Sir Henry Nevil Embassadour for England it was argued or adjudged that England besides the arguments urged on its behalf viz. Antiquity of Christian Religion more authority Ecclesiastical more absolute authority Political eminency of royal dignity and Nobility of blood ought to have precedency in regard that it was Superiour to the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland and the Isle of Man which held of iâ— that Spain had no Kingdom held in Fee of it but was it self Feudatory to France and inthral'd by oath of Subjection to Charles the fifth King of France in anno 1369. holds a great part of the Netherlands of France Arragon both the Indies Sicily Granado and Navarre Sardinia Corsica and the Canary Islands of the Pope Portugal payeth an annual Tribute to him and Naples yearly presents him with a white Spanish Genner and a certain Tribute Lessen and take away the honour of the King in having the principality of Wales Kingdom of Ireland Isle of Man Isles of Wight Gernesey and Jersey holding of England as their Superiour in Capite Enervate or ruine the Counties Palatine of Chester Lancaster Durham and Isle of Ely if the Tenures should be Levelled into Socage Very much damnifie all the Nobility and Gentry of England who hold as they have antiently divers Mannors and Lands or Offices by grand Serjeanty as for the Earls of Chester which belongeth to the Princes of Wales and the eldest Son of the King to carry before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Curtana to be Earl Marshal of England and to lead the Kings Host to be Lord great Chamberlain of England which is claimed by the Earl of Oxford to carry the Sword called Lancaster before the King at his Coronation due to the Earl of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man to be grand Faulconner or Master of the Hawks claimed by the Earl of Carnarvon and the Kings Champion at his Coronation claimed
Tenures in Capite and finding of Offices wherein the Evidences being produduced and many Times found did not only find but declare what Estate the deceased was seised of and if the truth did not then appear which could hardly be hid when as the Jury were commanded by the Writ of Diem clausit extremum to inquirâ— upon their Oaths of what Estate the last Ancestor dyed seised of and that the vigilancy and cares of the Feodaries and Escheators who were also to be present to attend them would cause them to be the more careful and if the fraud of the Heir should be able to make its way or escape thorough them the Estate found in the Office would after prove to be an Evidence against them and either overthrow or perplex the Knavery of such wicked designs The Recompence of 100000 l. per Annum if it could be raised without Injustice or the breach of the Laws of God Nature and Nations and our oftentimes confirmed Magna Charta and the inforcing of 19 men in every 20 to bear burdens which nothing at all appertains to them will not be adaequate to the losse of a great part of the Kings Revenue which did serve for the maintenance of his Crown and Dignity and to exempt and ease the Subjects of extraordinary Taxes and Assessements which the Necessity of Princes for the good and Defence of the Kingdom must otherwise bring upon them Nor to the want of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service the Services Incidents belonging unto them being a certain and never failing Defence of himself and the Kingdom Castle-guard Licence of Alienations giving him notice and continuing him safe in the Change of his Tenants being so necessary to Government as some have been grievously fined for alienating their Lands in Capite without it Mariage Dependancy of the Heirs which hold of him Livery and Reliefs Grand Serjeantyes and a great part of the Honour and Priviledges which all other neighbour Kings ond Princes are neither desired to part with nor can he perswaded so much to lessen themselves and their Regalities For gold and Silver and precious Stones or any thing lesse than the whole Kingdom of England it self is not of value or to be compared to the Honour of a King and the homage and duty of his Subjects the Gratitude Faith and Promises of their Ancestors which should descend to them with the Lands holden by those Tenures whenas Omnes habent Causam a primo et ex tunâ— non ut ex nunc are bounden to the Cause which obliged their first Ancestor and Progenitor and are to consider that it is now as it was then a most ready means and help which did and doth naturally and kindly arise for the Defence of themselves and the Kingdom for as it is not the weight of an inestimable Dyamond or Ruby that makes either of them to be better than a Flint or any other Stone but the lustre vertue and scarcenesse of them and that a greater poise or weight of a man makes not a Solomon an Alexander Sir-named the great or an Aristotle but that all men and things are to be esteemed according to the vertues and Excellencyes which are in them so it will not be the yearly Profit in money which was made of the Wardships primer Seisins Liveryes and Incidents which belong to those Tenures but the Homage Dutie gratitude and necessary Attendance in War not only of those that held immediatly of the King but those that were the mediate Tenants and came also with the immediate the grand and mutual Tye betwixt the King and his people and the Regality Prerogative intrinsical and true worth and value of them when there should be any use of those necessary Defences of the King and his Kingdom in making a diversive War or succouring his Friends and Allies which are not seldom or were in more heroick times justly accounted to be as Outworks Ante Murales or Bulwarks of the Kingdom that the Rate which is now offered for those Tenures are but like a Tender or Offer to give the weight in Gold for an incomparable not to be got again and unvaluable Meddal or for Aarons Brest-Plate Moses rod or the Scepters of Princes if they could have been purchased at all and by weight It will be as unsafe as unusual to take money or Turn into a Rent that which in its first Institution and a happy long and right use which was made of it was only intended for a defence of the Kingdom when the King is not likely to be any â—aver by it and shall not gain 90000 l. per Annum his own Income by Licences of Alienation deducted for the clear Profit of the Court of Wards which the Lord Cottington when he was Master of that Court did but a year before the Troubles make as much by it besides the many great and royal Prerogatives which he shall lose to gain more mischiefs and Inconveniencyes to himself his People then at the present can be instanced or numbred The giving the King a Recompence by an yearly Rate amounting to one hundred thousand pounds per Annum to be charged upon all mens Lands Tenements and Hereditaments holden in Capite or Socage by Copy-hold Leases for Lives or Tenants at Will or for yeares will be against right Reason Justice and Equity as well as unwarranted by any hitherto Law or Custom of England to make 19 parts of 20 for so much if not more will probably be the odds that were not liable to Wardships or any imagined Inconveniences which might happen thereby not only to bear their proportionable part of the general Assessements for War but a share also in the burden of others where it could never be laid upon them and wherein they or the major part of them by more than two in three have no Lands in Fee simple Fee taile or by Leases for 100 years or any longer Term nor are never like to be purchasers of any Lands at all and if they had mony to do it are not likely to buy Inheritances if inheritances not Capite or Knight Service Lands when there is by more than 9 parts in 10 of Socage or Copy-hold Lands to be purchased were not nor are like to be in any danger of Wardships or under any fear or Apprehensions of it and render the Capite Land three or four years purchase dearer than it was wont to be and the Socage Lands three or four years purchase the cheaper only to free the Nobility Gentry and men of greatest Riches and Estates in the Kingdom which are subject to those small Burdens which are only said to be in Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service Or if laid upon the Moyety of the Excise upon Ale Beer Syder and Coffee c. or any other native or Inland Commodity will fall upon those that have no Land as well as those which have as upon Citizens Mechanicks Children
that in a Parliament holden in the 14 th year of the raign of King Richard the 2 d. the Lords and Commons did pray the King that the Prerogative of Him and his Crown may be kept and that all things done or attempted to the contrary may be redressed and that the King might be as free as any of his Progenitors were which the King granting gave to it the force and power of an Act of Parlaiment And consider that the innovation of Laws or change of Customs are dangerous and as St Augustine saith non tam utilitate if there were any profit in them prosunt quam Novitâ—â—e perturbant do more hurt than good by their Novelty that it will be unsafe to take away or dig up foundations that where the inconveniences in the old Laws are not apparant and the conveniences to come by the new not infallible or not likely to deceive our expectation of them it will be perilous to change our Laws more perilous when they be many and most of all when they be fundamental That the more Power and Might is in the King to defend us the better will be the Ends which by the Means is intended and that therefore in the Parliament of 7 E. 1. the Prelates Earls Barons and the Commonaltie of the Realm did acknowledge that to the King it belonged of his Royal Signory streightly to defend force of Armour and all other force against the Peace and to punish them which shall do contrary according to the Laws and usages of the Realm and thereunto were bound to ayd their Soveraign Lord at all Seasons when need shall be that to make a Captain of a Cripple or a Constable which should keep the Peace in a Parish and be ready to repell any violence which should be offered to the Inhabitanâ—s to be blind or Bed-rid would not answer the End or bâ— for the Safety of those that expect it from him And that his Majesties opinion expressed in his Message or Declaration from Breda before his return into England is and ever will be a maxime composed of very great reason and truth that his Majesties just rights are the best preserver of the peoples Liberties And may believe before it be too late that to take away Tenures in Capite and introduce the inconveniences before mentioned will be but as a Prologue or usher to Levelling and the gate or entrance to the Agrarian Devices and the supposed Saints taking possession of the Estates of those which they call the wicked And that the laying by of Tenures in Capite and their services and making use of Mercenary and Mechanick Souldiers may help us to as many miseries and follies as we have pertaked of in our late troubles from our Servants make them to become our Masters and by inureing them to insolencies against others teach them how to domineer over the people which shall be their pay-Masters after that over Parliaments garbling and purging the House pulling out and putting in whom they please turn Legislators and Remonstrance makers from their head quarters make themselves not the Repairers of Breaches but the makers and causers of them ingrosse all the places and imployments of the Kingdom throw down Laws and Government create out of themselves and their own Party Mayors Generals to tyranize awe the people and abuse their Laws and Liberties and play the fools at Coffee-Houses with disputing and discoursing of Rotas and Balloting Boxes and which of their Whimsies and ignorant contrivances would best make a Government Committ Perjuries in abundance and make their oaths more changeable and lesse to be trusted then the Wind or Weather or a Lillies Almanack and make it their only businesse to enslave and insult over the people and Metamorphose them into as many shapes of baseness perjuries Hipocrisies dissembling and wickednesse as poverty hope of gain or to get or preserve estates though it be but to have Poliphemus his curtesie to be last of all ruined fear or flattery or an accursed ambition to raise an estate out of other mens miseries could perswade or draw them unto That the taking away of Tenures in Capite by Knight service is not desired by any universal or general Petition at all of the People that not one in every 20 of those that are concerned hold by those Tenures nor one in every 100 of those that hold by other Tenures and are not concerned do desire it That the injudicial and inconsiderate desires of a very few of the common people who doe sometimes as they have many times done in our late troubles and too late repented it out-do Children in asking Stones instead of Bread and Serpents for Fishes are not to be hearkened unto that the Surfets upon Liberty are many times very dangerous may prove as fatal unhappy though granted or asked with the best of intentions as that of giving great Sums of money to the Scots in the begining of our unhappy Wars calling their invasion a brotherly assistance or that of giving Liberty to the long Parliament not to dissolve without their consent That if Augustus Caesar when by his great Prudence he had put the broken peices of the Roman Republick which was Civilibus Discordiis lacerata wofully torn with civil Discords into a well composed Monarchy and blest the Empire a great part of the World with an universal Peace could find no better a way to fix and make it lasting then to put many of the Souldiers under a Gratitude and Concernment to love and cherish it by giving them Lands for Life or Inheritance to engage them to their former Duties when occasion should happen which saved the Charge and Trouble on all sides as well to the conquered as the conquering in maintaining Roman Legions made up of a Medley or Gallimausry of all manner of Nations It cannot now be good when the long lasting Monarchy of England hath been lately and lamentably torn into peeces to make up a Common-wealth could never be agreed upon to alter or take away a Course of constant and ordinary defence which hath been for so many Ages past the happy Support of this Antient Monarchy And that it could not have been any bad or likely to be unsuccessefull Policy but a means of an Establishment of our late Souldiers and Controullers had in the Allowance of their cheap purchases been tyed to Tenures by Knight Service for the Defence of the Kingdom as the late King of Sweden was to hold of the Empire by the Treaty of Munster And if that Bracton who was a Lord Chief Justice in the Reign of King H. 3. was of opinion that by a paâ—tition of Earldoms and Baronies deficeret Regnum quod ex Comitatibus Baronijs dicitur esse constitutum would ruine the Kingdom which is constituted of Earldoms and Baronies he would now certainly foresee greater Mischiefs and Inconveniencies in the taking away of Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service or changeing