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A93441 The antiquity & original of the Court of Chancery and authority of the lord chancellor of England being a branch of Serjeant Snagg's reading, upon the 28 chapter of Magna Charta, at the Middle Temple, in Lent, 13 Eliz. : with his congratulatory epistle, (by way of preface) to the Lord Chancellor Hatton, in 29 Eliz. Snagg, Robert. 1654 (1654) Wing S4381A; ESTC R42651 18,654 95

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THE ANTIQUITY ORIGINAL Of the COURT of CHANCERY And AUTHORITY of the LORD CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND BEING A Branch of Serjeant Snagg's Reading upon the 28 Chapter of Magna Charta at the Middle Temple in Lent 13 Eliz. WITH His Congratulatory Epistle by way of Preface to the Lord CHANCELLOR Hatton in 29 Eliz. Major haeredit as à Legibus quam à parentibus Cicero LONDON Printed for Henry Seile over against Saint Dunstans Church in Fleetstreet 1654. To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners for Custody of the Great Seal of England My Lords WHat an eminent and a learn'd Professor of the Laws of England heretofore in Manuscript presented to an Honourable Predecessor of your Lordships at his first entrance to that high place Be pleased to give a Puisnè leave to present in print unto your Lordships at your Investiture A small fragment I confess yet such I hope as will appear neither unworthy of your approbation nor improper for your Patronage and Protection The subject-matter as well of the Authors Epistle as of his Readers observations being a little Map and Modell of your Lordships great Office and Jurisdiction and rarely to be found in our printed Authorities which peradventure may be the Reason why that antient and excellent Judicatory hath lately met with such great Envy and Opposition Learning having no other Enemy but Ignorance and most Men being naturally inclin'd to apprehend amisse of that they comprehend not Though it will not be denied but that any Court of Iustice in England may admit of Regulation My Lords I shall not say any thing for the Piece it speaks Reason and can best speak for it self I shall only crave your Honours pardon for this great presumption of Your Lordships Most humbly devoted T. L. To the Right Honourable Sir Christopher Hatton Knight Lord Chancellor of England Robert Snagg an Apprentice of the Common Laws of that Realm wisheth all increase of Grace Mercy and Peace Honour and Prosperity in this World and perfect Felicity in the World to come WHen Right Honourable it came to my course to Read in the Middle Temple after I had there continued a Puisnè full 20 years and more for so they are called till they Read and then I was to become an Apprentice of the Common Law and in my Reading to deliver to my Fellows of that House such Notes as I had collected in the course of my Study that I thought to be most profitable to be opened for the exercise and use of Law in our time And whē I had looked into some other mens Travels that had Read before me and other Writers and found many several Conceipts and sundry Incertainties touching the Commencement of our Law and whence it came and what it was and I thought it as meet as Tully teacheth that it should be understood Quid est de quo disputetur as to enter into argument of particular cases which were to be decided thereby which is the manner of that exercise well known to your Lordship as one that entred by that Gate into the happy and honourable Course of life that God of his great Goodness hath most graciously led you in from Grace to Grace and Honor to Honor to the highest Honor and most absolute Office that is in England under her Majesty who is immediate in all Dignity Honor and Authority under God in this Land But when I had considered according to my capacity of all the Reports that be in print of the practice of the Law and of some other that I have I could find no certainty of the Commencement of it what it was nor whence it came For some said it was the Custom of Normandy that the Conquerour brought in and placed here Some that it came out of Germany brought by those people that were called Angli that came hither to inhabit of whō this Land took the name of Angolia and the Law the name of Lex Angliae which savoured more of Reason that is the ground of our Law And some imagined one thing and some another But that great learned Judge Mr. Littleton in his first Book satisfied me that it could neither be the Law of Normandy nor of any other Country in Germany nor elsewhere but peculiar to this Land For he saith That Tenant by the Courtesy of England is to hold the Land if his Wife die during his life by the Law of England is called Tenant by the Courtesy of England for this that this is not used in any other Realm but only in England whereof I collected that if the same Law had been in any other Realm that Tenure by the Law had likewise been there And I found in stories that presently after the Conquest there were divers Insurrections not only of the people that did rise without Reason but of divers of the Nobility of the best sort who endured Famin and that so far as they did ear the vilest vermin yea and the utter overthrow of their Houses and Posterity And all their cause was but to be restored to their antient Laws Liberties And that civil dissention continued long for that cause and the Nobility without restitution of them would not yield to their Kings as men that shewed themselves to be made of the right English mould ready to endure any pain and loss rather than the loss of their native Laws Liberties and to subject themselves to the Will-government of their new Lords and new Laws that the Conqueror brought in and the pleasures and oftentimes the displeasures of their Kings who did all and took all as pleased themselves under pretence of their Prerogative which Prerogative rightly used and truly understood is a thing most honorable to the Crown and not prejudicial to the Law nor hurtful to the Realm nor any Subjects lawful Interest or Liberty But that Will-government in the Kings discontentment in the Nobility continual Wars within the Realm continued until K. Henry the 3. who being by that time by divers descents purged and purified by our English Air and by Education after the order of our Nation and so become English and of a better nature than the Aliens and their offspring of love to his subjects was content to allow Englishmen their English Laws And thereupon the 10th day of Febr. in the 9th year of his Reign granted under his great Seal the Great Charter thereby to restore the Laws of the Land the Liberties of the Subjects and to limit his Prerogatives so as they should be prejudicial to neither But after kindled as it seemed by the heat of his youth he continued not in that good mind but infringed the same Charter and chose his Will for his direction as others his late Predecessors had don and left that Law of the Land which he had granted to be Restored and Revived Whereupon 40 years wars after that followed between him and his Barons as they be generally Termed though the greatest Earls others