Protestations he utterly denied FINIS The PREROGATIVE Of PARLIAMENTS In ENGLAND Proved In a Dialogue between a Counsellour of State and a Iustice of Peace Written by the worthy Knight Sir WALTER RALEIGH Dedicated to that part of the Parliament now assembled Preserved to be now happily in these distracted Times Published LONDON Printed for William Sheares Iunior in Westminster Hall 1657. To the KING Most gracious Soveraign THose that are supprest and helpelesse are commonly silent wishing that the common ill in all sort might be with their particular misfortunes which disposition as it is uncharitable in all men so would it be in me more dogge-like then man-like to bite the stone that strooke me to wit the borrowed authority of my Soveraigne misinformed seeing their armes and hunds that flang it are most of them already rotten For I must confesse it ever that they are debts and not discontentments that your Majesty hath laid upon me the debts and obligation of a friendlesse adversity farre more payable in all Kinds then those of the prosperous All which nor the least of them though I cannot discharge I may yet endeavour it And notwithstanding my restraint hath retrenched all wayes as well the wayes of labour and will as of all other imployments yet hath it left with me my cogitations then which I have nothing else to offer on the Altar of my Love Of those most gracious Soveraigne I have used some part in the following dispute between a Counsellour of Estate and a Iustice of Peace the one disswading the other perswading the calling of a Parliament In all which since the Norman Conquest at the least so many as Histories have gathered I have in some things in the following Dialogue presented your Majesty with the contentions and successes Some things there are and those of the greatest which because they ought first to be resolved on I thought fit to range them in the front of the rest to the end your Majesty may be pleased to examine your own great and Princely heare of their acceptance or refusall The first is that supposition that your Majesties Subjects give nothing but with adjuction of their own interest interlacing in one and the same act your Majesties reliefe and their own liberties not that your Majesties piety was ever suspected but because the best Princes are ever the least jealous your Majesty judging others by your self who have abused your Majesties trust The fear'd continuance of the like abuse may perswade the provision But this caution how ever it seemeth at first sight your Majesty shall perceive by many examples following but frivolous The bonds of Subjects to their Kings should alwayes be wrought out of Iron the bonds of Kings unto Subjects but with Cobwebs This it is most renowned Soveraigne that this trafficke of assurances hath been often urged of which if the Conditions had been easie our Kings have as easily kept them if hard and prejudiciall either to their honours or estates the Creditours have been paid their debts whith their own presumption For all binding of a King by Law upon the advantage of his necessity makes the breach it self lawfull in a King His Charters and all other instruments being no other then the surviuing witnesses of unconstrained will Princeps non subjicitur nifi sua voluntate libera mero motu certa Scientia Necessary words in all the grants of a King witnessing that the same grants were given freely and knowingly The second resolution will rest in your Majesty leaving the new impositions all Monopolies and other grievances of the people to the consideration of the House Provided that your Majesties revenue be not abated which if your Majesty shall refuse it is thought that the disputes will last long and the issues will be doubtfull And on the contrary if your Majesty vouchsafe it it may perchance be stiled a yeelding which seemeth by the sound to brave the Regalty But mose excellent Prince what other is it to th' eares of the Wise but as the sound of a trumpet having blasted forth a false Alarme becomes but common aire Shall the head yeeld to the feete certainly it ought when they are grieved for wisdome will rather regard the commodity then object the disgrace seeing if the feet lye in fetters the head cannot be freed and where the feet feele but their own paines the head doth not onely suffer by participiation but withall by consideration of the evill Certainly the point of honour well weighed hath nothing in it to even the ballance for by your Majesties favour your Majesty doth not yeeld either to any person or to any power but to a dispute onely in which the Proposition and Minor prove nothing without a conclusion which no other person or power can make but a Majesty yea this in Henry the third his time was called a wisedome incomparable For the King raised again recovery his authority For being in that extremity as he was driven with the Queen and his Children Cum Abbatibus Prioribus satis humilibus hospitia quaerere prandia For the rest may it please your Majesty to consider that there can nothing befall your Majesty in matters of affaires more unfortunately then the Commons of Parliament with ill successe A dishonour so perswasive and adventurous as it will not onely find arguments but it will take the leading of all enemies that shall offer themselves against your Majesties estate Le Tabourin de la paurete ne faict poinct de breuct of which dangerous disease in Princes the remedy doth chiefly consist in the love of the people which how it may be had held no man knowes better then your Majesty how to loose it all men know and know that it is lost by nothing more then by the defence of others in wrong doing The onely motives of mischances that ever come to Kings of this Land since the Conquest It is onely love most renowned Soveraign must prepare the way for your Majesties following desires It is love which obeyes which suffers which gives which stickes at nothing which Love as well of your Majesties people as the love of God to your Majesty that it may alwayes hold shall be the continuall prayers of your Majesties most humble vassall Walter Ralegh A DIALOGUE Between a COUNSELLOUR of STATE And a JUSTICE of PEACE COUNSELLOUR NOW Sir what think you of M. S. Iohns tryall in Star-Chamber I know that the bruit ranne that he was hardly dealt withall because he was imprisoned in the Tower seeing his disswasion from granting a Benevolence to the King was warranted by the Law JUSTICE Surely Sir it was made manifest at the hearing that M. S. Iohn was rather in love with his own letter he confessed he had seen your Lordships letter before hee wrote his to the Major of Marleborough and in your Lordships letter there was not a word whereto the Statutes by Mr. Sr. Iohn alleadged had reference for those Statutes did condemn the
relief the one half of the Woolls throughout England and of the Clergy all their Woolls after which in the end of the year he had granted in his Parliament at Westminster forty shillings upon every sack of Wooll and for every 30 wooll fels forty shillings for every last of leatherne as much and for all other merchandizes after the same rate The King promising that this years gathering ended he would thenceforth content himself with the old custome he had over and above this great aide the eight part of all goods of all Citizens and Burgesses and of other as of forreigne Merchants and such as lived not of the gain of breeding of sheep and cattell the fifteenth of their goods Nay my Lord this was not all though more then ever was granted to any King for the same Parliament bestowed on the King the ninth sheaf of all the corn within the Land the ninth fleece and the ninth lambe for two years next following now what think your Lordship of this Parliament COUNS. I say they were honest men IUST And I say the people are as loving to their King now as ever they were if they be honestly and wisely dealt withall and so his Majesty hath found them in his last two Parliaments if his Majestie had not been betrayed by those whom he most trusted COUNS. But I pray you Sir who shall a King trust if he may not rust those whom he hath so greatly advanced JUST I will tell your Lordship whom the King may trust COUNS. Who are they IUST His own reason and his own excellent Iudgement which have not deceived him in any thing wherein his Majesty hath been pleased to exercise them Take Councell of thine heart saith the book of Wisedome for there is none more faithfull unto thee then it COUNS. It is true but his Majesty found that those wanted no judgement whom he trusted and how could his Majestie divine of their honesties JUST Will you pardon me if I speak freely for if I speak out of love which as Solomon saith covereth all trespasses The truth is that his Majestie would never beleeve any man that spake against them and they knew it well enough which gave them boldnesse to do what they did COUNS. What was that JUST Even my good Lord to ruine the Kings estate so far as the state of so great a King may be ruin'd by men ambitious and greedy without proportion It had been a brave increase of revenue my Lord to have raysed 50000l land of the Kings to 20000l revenue and to raise the revenue of wards to 20000l more 40000l added to the rest of his Majesties estate had so enabled his Majestie as he could never have wanted And my good Lord it had been an honest service to the King to have added 7000l lands of the Lord Cobhams Woods and goods being worth 30000l more COUNS. I know not the reason why it was not done JUST Neither doth your Lordship perchance know the reason why the 10000l offer'd by Swinnerton for a fine of the French wines was by the then Lord Treasurer conferr'd on Devonshire and his Mistris COUNS. What moved the Treasurer to reject and crosse that raising of the Kings lands JUST The reason my good Lord is manifest for had the land been raised then had the King known when he had given or exchanged land what he had given or exchanged COUNS. What hurt had been to the Treasurer whose Office is truely to informe the King of the value of all that he giveth JUST So he did when it did not concerne himself nor his particular for he could never admit any one peece of a good Manour to passe in my Lord Aubignes book of 1000l and till he himself had bought and then all the remaining flowers of the Crowne were called out Now had the Treasurer suffer'd the Kings lands to have been raised how could his Lordship have made choice of the old â—ents as well in that book of my Lord Aubigne as in exchange of Theobalds or which he took Hatfield in it which the greatest subject or favorite Queen Elizabeth had never durst have named unto her by way of gift or exchange Nay my Lord so many other goodly Mannors have passed from his Majestie as the very heart of the Kingdome mourneth to remember it and the eyes of the Kingdome shedde teares continually at the beholding it yea the soul of the Kingdome is heavy unto death with the consideration thereof that so magnanimous a Prince should suffer himself to be so abused COUNS. But Sir you know that Cobhams lands were entayled upon his Cofens JUST Yea my Lord but during the lives and races of George Prook his children it had been the Kings that is to say for ever in effect but to wrest the King and to draw the inheritance upon himself he perswaded his Majestie to relinquish his interest for a pretty summe of mony and that there might be no counterworking he sent Prook 6000 l. to make friends whereof Lord Hume had 2000l back again Buckhurst and Barwick had the other 4000 l. and the Treasurer and his heires the masse of land forever COUNS. What then I pray you came to the King by this great consiscation IUST My Lord the Kings Majestie by all those goodly possessions Woods and goods looseth 500l by the year which he giveth in pension to Cobham to maintain him in prison COUNS. Certainly even in conscience they should have reserved so much of the land in the Crown as to have given Cobham meat and apparell and not made themselves so great gainers and the King 500l per annum looser by the bargain but it 's past Consilium non est eorum quae fieri nequeunt JUST Take the rest of the Sentence my Lord Sed consilium versatur in iis quae sunt in nostra potestate It is yet my good Lord in potestate Regis to right himself But this is not all my Lord And I fear me knowing your Lordships love to the King it would put you in a feaver to hear all I will therefore go on with my Parliaments COUNS. I pray do so and amongst the rest I pray you what say you to the Parliament holden at Iondon in the fifteenth year of King Edward the third IUST I say there was nothing concluded therein to the prejudice of the king It is true that a little before the sitting of the house the King displaced his Chancellour and his Treasurer and most of all his Iudges and Officers of the Exchequer and committed many of them to prison because they did not supply him with money being beyond the Seas for the rest the States assembled besought the King that the Lawes of the two Charters might be observed and that the great Officers of the Crowne might be chosen by Parliament COUNS But what successe had these petitions IUST The Charters were observed as before and so they will be ever and the other petition was rejected the King being
inhabitants that assisted the Lords in his Minority of the 17. shires which offence he had long before pardoned his blank Charters and letting the Realme to farme to meon persons by whom he was wholly advised increased the peoples hatred towards the present government IUST You say well my L. Princes of an ill destiny do alwayes follow the worst counsell or at least imbrace the best after opportunity is lost Qui consilia non ex suo corde sed alienis viribus colligunt non animo sed auribus cogillant And this was not the least grief of the subject in generall that those men had the greatest part of the spoil of the commonwealth which neither by virtue valour or counsell could adde any thing unto it Nihil est sordidius nihil crudelius saith Anto Pius quamsi Remp. iâ— arrode qui nihil in eam suo labore conferent COUNS. Indeed the letting to farm the Realm was very grievous to the subject IUST Will your Lordship pardon me if I tell you that the letting to farm of his Majesties Customes the greatest revenue of the Realm is not very pleasing COUNS. And why I pray you doth not the King thereby raise his profits every third yeare one farmer outbids another to the Kings advantage IUST It is true my Lord but it grieves the subject to pay custome to the subject for what mighty men are those Farmers become and if those Farmers get many thousands every yeare as the world knows they do why should they not now being men of infinite wealth declare unto the King upon oath what they have gained and henceforth become the Kings collectours of his Custome did not Queen Elizabeth who was reputed both a wise and juft Princesse after she had brought Customer Smith from 14000l a yeare to 42000l a yeare made him lay down a recompence for that which he had gotten and if these Farmers do give no recompence let them yet present the King with the truth of their receivings and profits But my Lord for conclusion after Bullingbrook arriving in England with a small troop Notwithstanding the King at his Landing out of Ireland had a sufficient and willing army yet he wanting courage to defend his right gave leave to all his Souldiers to depart and put himself into his hands that cast him into his grave COUNS. Yet you see he was depos'd by Parliament IUST Aswell may your Lordship say he was knock't in the head by Parliament for your Lordship knows that if King Richard had ever escaped out of their fingers that deposed him the next Parliament would have made all the deposers traitours and Rebels and that justly In which Parliament or rather unlawfull assembly there appeared but one honest man to wit the B. of Carlile who scorned his life and estate in respect of right and his allegiance and defended the right of his Soveraigne Lord against the Kings elect and his partakers COUNS. Well I pray goe on with the Parliaments held in the time of his successor Henry the fourth IUST This King had in his third year a subsedv and in his fift a tenth of the Clergy without a Parllament In his sixt year he had so great a subsedie as the House required there might be no record thereof left to posterity for the House gave him 20s of every Knights Fee and of every 20l. land 20d and 12d the pouud of goods COUNS. Yea in the end of this year the Parliament prest the King to annex unto the Crown all temporall possessions belonging to Church-men within the land which at that time was the third foot of all England But the Bishops made friends and in the end saved their estates IUST By this you see my Lord that Cromwell was not the first that thought on such a business And if King Henry the 8. had reserved the Abbeyes and other Church lands which he had given at the time the revenue of the Crown of England had exceeded the revenue of the Crown of Spaine with both the Indies whereas used as it was a little enriched the Crown served but to make a number of pettifoggers and other gentlemen COUNS. But what had the King in steed of this great revenue IUST He had a 15th of the Commons and tenth and a half of the Clergy and withall all pensions graunted by King Edward and King Richard were made void It was also moved that all Crown lands formerly given at least given by King Edw and King Richard should be taken back COUNS. What think you of that Sir would it not have been a dishonour to the King and would not his Successors have done the like to those that the King had advanced IUST I cannot answer your Lordship but by distinguishing for where the Kings had given land for services and had not been over reached in his gifts there it had been a dishonour to the King to have made void the graunts of his predecessors or his graunts but all those graunts of the Kings wherein they were deceived the very custome and policy of England makes them voyd at this day COUNS. How mean you that for his Majestie hath given a great deal of Land among us since he came into England and would it stand with the K. honour to take it from us again IUST Yea my Lord very well with the Kings honour if your Lordship or any Lord else have under the name of 100l land a year gotten 500l land and so after that rate COUNS. I will never believe that his Majesty will ever doe any such thing IUST And I believe as your Lordship doth but we spake e're while of those that disswaded the King from calling it a Parliament And your Lordship asked me the reason why any man should disswade it or fear it to which this place gives me an opportunity to make your Lordship answer for though his Majesty will of himself never question those grants yet when the Commons shall make humble petition to the King in Parliament that it will please his Majesty to assist them in his relief with that which ought to be his own which if it will please his Majesty to yeild unto the house will most willingly furnish supply the rest with what grace can his Majesty deny that honest suit of theirs the like having been done in many Kings times before This proceeding may good Lord my perchance prove all your phrases of the Kings honour false English COUNS. But this cannot concern many and for my self I am sure it concerns me little IUST It is true my Lord there are not many that disswade his Majestie from a Parliament CO. But they are great ones a few of which will serve the turn wel enough IUST But my Lord be they never so great as great as Gyants yet if they disswade the King from his ready and assured way of his subsistence they must devise how the K. may be elsewhere supplied for they otherwise â—â—nne into a dangerous fortune COUNS.
still called Impost because it was imposed after the ordinary rate of payement had lasted many years But we do now a dayes understand those things to be impositions which are raised by the command of Princes without the advice of the Common-wealth though as I take it much of that which is now called custome was at the first imposed by Prerogative royall Now whether it be time or consent that makes them just I cannot define were they just because new and not justified yet by time or unjust because they want a generall consent yet is this rule of Aristotle verified in respect of his Majestie Minus timent homines in justum pati à principe quem cultorem Dei putant Yea my Lord they are also the more willingly borne because all the world knows they are no new Invention of the Kings And if those that advised his Majestie to impose them had raised his lands as it was offered them to 20000l more then it was and his wards to asmuch as aforesaid they had done him farre more acceptable service But they had their own ends in refusing the one and accepting the other If the land had been raised they could not have selected the best of it for themselves If the impositions had not been laid some of them could not have their silks other pieces in farme which indeed grieved the subject ten times more then that which his Majestie enjoyeth But certainly they made a great advantage that were the advisers for if any tumult had followed his Majesty ready way had been to have delivered them over to the people COUNS. But think you that the King would have delivered them if any troubles had followed IUST I know not my Lord it was Machiavels counsell to Caesar Borgia to doe it and King H the 8. delivered up Empson and Dudley yea the same King when the great Cardinall Woolsey who governed the King and all his estate had by requiring the sixt part of every mans goods for the King raised a rebellion the King I say disavowed him absolutely that had not the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk appeased the people the Cardinall had sung no more Masse for these are the words of our Story The King then came to Westminster to the Cardinals Palace and assembled there a great Councell in which he protested that his mind was never to aske any thing of his commons which might sound to the breach of his Laws Wherefore he then willed them to know by whose means they were so strictly given forth Now my Lord how the Cardinall would have shifted himself by saying I had the opinion of the Iudges had not the rebellion been appeased I greatly doubt COUNS. But good Sir you blanch my question and answer me by examples I aske you whether or no in any such tumult the people pretending against any one or two great Officers the King should deliver them or defend them IUST My good Lord the people have not stayed for the Kings delivery neither in England nor in France Your Lordship knows how the Chancellour Treasurer and Chief Iustice with many others at severall times have been used by the Rebels And the Marshals Constables and Treasurers in France have been cut in pieces in Charles the sixt his time Now to your Lordships question I say that where any man shall give a King perilous advice as may either cause a Rebellion or draw the peoples love from the King I say that a King shall be advised to banish him But if the King do absolutely command his servant to do any thing displeasing to the Common-wealth and to his own perill there is the King bond in honour to defend him But my good Lord for conclusion there is no man in England that will lay any invention ether grievous or against law upon the Kings Majesty and therefore your Lordships must share it amongst you COUNS. For my part I had no hand in it I think Ingram was be that propounded it to the Treasurer IUST Alas my good Lord every poor waiter in the Custome-house or every promooter might have done it there is no invention in these things To lay impositions and sell the Kings lands are poor and common devices It is true that Ingram and his fellows are odious men and therefore his Majesty pleas'd the people greatly to put him from the Coffership It is better for a Prince to use such a kind of men then to countenance them hangmen are necessary in a common wealth yet in the Netherlands none but a hangmans sonne will marry a hangmans daughter Now my Lord the last gathering which Henry the seventh made was in his twentieth year wherein he had another benevolence both of the Clergy and Laity a part of which taken of the poorer sort he ordained by his testament that it should be restored And for King Henry the eight although he was left in a most plentifull estate yet he wonderfully prest his people with great payments for in the beginning of his time it was infinite that he spent in Masking and Tilting Banquetting and other vanities before he was entred into the most consuming expence of the most fond and fruitlesse warre that ever King undertook In his fourth yeare he had one of the greatest subsedies that ever was granted for besides two fifteens and two dismes he used Davids Law of Capitation or head money and had of every Duke ten marks of every Earl five pounds of every Lord four pounds of every Knight four marks and every man rated at 8l in goods 4. marks and so after the rate yea every man that was valued but at 401 paid 12d and every man and woman above 15. yeares 4d He had also in his sixt yeare divers subsedies granted him In his fourteenth their was a tenth demanded of every mans goods but it was moderated In the Parliament following the Clergie gave the King the half of their spirituall livings for one yeare and of the Laity there was demanded 800000l which could not be leavied in England but it was a marvellous great gift that the king had given him at that time In the Kings seventeenth yeare was the Rebellion before spoken of wherein the King disavowed the Cardinall In his seventeenth yeare he had the tenth and fifteenth given by Parliament which were before that time paid to the Pope And before that also the moneys that the King borrowed in his fifteenth yeare were forgiven him by Parliament in his seventeenth yeare In his 35. yeare a subsedy was granted of 4d the pound of every man worth in goods from 20s to 5l from 5l to 10l and upwards of every pound 2s And all strangers denisens and others doubled this summe strangers not being inhabitants above 16. yeares 4d a head All that had Lands Fees and Annuities from 20. to 5. and so double as they did for goods And the Clergy gave 6d the pound In the thirty seventh yeare a Benevolence was taken not voluntary but rated by