Agitation of the self-same Cause Bishops it seems may be Witnesses to kill outright but may not sit in the Discussion of the Cause to help in Case of Innocency a distressed Noble man whereas the very Gothish Bishops who first invented this exclusion of Prelates from such Judicatures allow them to Vote as long as there is any hope left of clearing the party or gaining of Pardon Concil Tolet. 4. can 31. And by the beginning of that Canon observe the use in Spain in that Age Anno Dom. 633 as touching this Doctrine Saepe Principes contra quoslibet Majestatis obnoxios sacerdotibus negotia sua committunt You shall find it in the fourth Tome of Binius his last Edition of the Councils pag. 592. Lastly in the Case of Arch-Bishop Abbots all the great Civilians and Judges of this Kingdom as Dr. Steward Sir Henry Martin the Lord Chief Justice Hoâ—barâ— and Judge Doderidge which two last were well vers'd in the Canon Law delivered positively that all Irregularities introduced by Canons upon Ecclesiastical Persons concerning matters of Blood were taken away by the Reformation of the Church of England And were repugnant to the Statute of 25 of Henry 8. as restraining the Kings most just Prerogative to imploy his own Subjects in such functions and Offices as his Predecessors had done and to allow them those Priviledges and Recreations as by the Laws and Customs of this Realm they had formerly enjoyed Notwithstanding the Decree de Clerico venatore or the Constitution Ne Clerici saecularem jurisdictionem exerceant or any other in that kind The only Objection which appears upon any Learning or Record against Church-mens Voting in this Kingdom in Causes of Blood are two or three Protestations entred by the Bishops amongst the Records of the upper House of Parliament and some few passages in the Law-Books relating thereunto The Protestation the Lords now principally stood upon is that of William Courtney Arch-Bishop of Canterbury 11º Ric. 2. inserted in the Book of Priviledges which Mr. Selden Collected for the Lords of the upper House In the Margen whereof that passage out of Roger Hoveden whereof we spake before about Clergy-mens agitation of Judgments of Blood is unluckily inserted and for want of due Consideration of this point and some suspition of partial carriage in the Bishops in the Case of the Earl of Strafford hath been eagerly pressed upon the Bishops by some of the Lords in such an unusual and unaccustomed manner that if the Bishop of Lincoln who offered to speak unto this Objection had not voluntarily withdrawn himself he and the rest of the Bishops had been without hearing Voted out of the House in the Agitation of a Splinter of that Cause of the Earl of Strafford which came not neer any matter of Blood An Act never done before in that Honourable House and now Executed suddenly without the least Consideration of the merit of the Cause The only words insisted upon in this Protestation in question are these Because in this present Parliament certain matters are agitated whereat it is not Lawful for us according to the Prescript of Holy Canons to be present And by and by after they say these matters are such in the which nec possumus nec debemus interesse we neither can nor may be present This is the Protestation most stood upon for that of Arch-Bishop Arundel 21 Rich. 2. at what time the Bishops going forth left their Proxies notwithstanding with the lay-Lay-Lords and consequently continued present in Judicature in the eye and Construction of the Law it is not so full and ample as this of Courtney's And therefore I must apply my Answers to this Protestation principally which are diverse and fit to be weighed and understood First I do observe that Bishops never Protested or withdrew in Cases of Blood but under the unsteddy Reign of Richard the Second only Never before never after the time of that unfortunate King from the Conquest to this present Parliament for ought appeareth in Record or History And that one Swallow should make us such a Spring and one Omission should create a Law or Custome against so many Actions of the English Prelates under so many Kings before so many Kings and Queens after that young Prince seems unto me a strange Doctrine Especially when I consider that by the Rules of the Civil and Canon Law a Protestation dies with the Death of him that makes it and is Regularly vacuated and disannulled Per contrarium actum subsequentem protestationem by any one subsequent Act varying from the tenour of the said Protestation Reg. juris Jo. Baptist. Nicolai par 2. Now that you may know how the Prelates carryed themselves in this Point and actually voted in Causes of Treason and sometimes to Blood before Richard the 2 d I refer me to what I cited before out of Mr. Selden and he out of Stephanides concerning Thomas a Becket Condemned by his Peers Ecclesiastical and Temporal about 15 of Henry the 2 d Arch-Bishop Stratford acquitted of high Treason in Parliament by four Prelates four Earls and four Barons under Edward the 3 d. Antiquitates Britanniae pag. 223. 4 Edward 3 Roger de Mortimer Berisford Travers and others adjudged Traytors by the Earls Barons and Peers 16º Edward 3. Thomas de Berkley was acquitted of Treason in pleno Parliamento c. And especially I refer me to that Roll of 21 Rich. 2 no. 10. 50 Which avers that Judgments and Ordinances in the time of that Kings Progenitors had been avoided by the absence of the Clergy which makes the Commons thereto pray that the Prelates would make a Procurator by whom they might in all Judgments of Blood be at the least legally if they durst not be bodily present in such Judgments And then for the practice sithence the Reign of Rich. the 2 d In the first of Henry the 4 th the Commons thank the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for their good and rightful Judgment in freeing the Earl of Northumberland from Treason 3 of Henry the 5 th the Commons pray a Confirmation of the Judgment given upon the Earl of Cambridge by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 5 of Henry the 5 th Sir John Oldcastle is Attainted of Treason and Heresie by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 28 of Henry the 6 th the Duke of Suffolk charged with Treason before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 31 Henry the 6 th the Earl of Devon and so down to the Earl of Bristols Case wherein 22º Maij. 1626. ten Bishops are joyned with ten Earls and ten Barons in the disquisition and agitation of that supposed Treason I leave it therefore to the Judgment of any indifferent man whether these Protestations made all under one Kings Reign and dying with the Parties that made them can void a Right and Custom grounded by a continual Practice to the contrary in all other Tryals that have been sithence the Conquest to this present Parliament Secondly it is fitting we
of Treason in the Person of Becket Stephanides is my Author for this who was a Chaplain and follower of that Arch-Bishop The Barons say saith that Author you Bishops ought to pronounce Sentence upon your selves we are Layicks you are Church-men as this fellow is being his fellow Priests and fellow Bishops To whom some one of the Bishops replyed this belongs rather to you my Lords than to us for this is no Ecclesiastical but a Secular Judicature We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons Nos Barones vos Barones hic pares sumus We Barons and you Barons are all Peers in this place And in vain it is that you should labour to find any difference at all in our Order or Calling c. see this M. S. cited by Mr. Seldens Titles of honour the 2d Edition pag. 705. And thus the Custom continued until the 21 year of the same King Henry 2 at what time that Provincial Synod was kept at Westminster by the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and some few of his Suffragans which Roger Haveden mentions in his History pag. 543. And it seems Gervasius Dorobernensis which is a M. S. I have not seen The quoting of this Monk in the Margen of that Collection of Priviledges which Mr. Selden by Command had made for the upper House of Parliament is the only ground of stirring up this question against the Bishops at this present intended by Mr. Selden for a Priviledge for Bishops not for a Priviledge for the Lay-Peers to be pressed against Bishops The Canon runs thus It is not Lawful for such as are Constituted in Holy Orders Indicium Sanguinis agitare to put in Execution Judgments of Blood And therefore we forbid that they shall either in their own Persons Execute any such mutilation of Members or Sentence them to be so acted by others And if any such Person shall do any such thing he shall be deprived of the Office and Place of his Order and Function We do likewise forbid under the peril of Excommunication that no Priest be a Secular Sherif or Provost Now this is no Canon made in England much less Confirmed by Common Law or assented unto by all the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury or by any one of the Province of York but Transcribed as appears by Hovedens Margen out of a Council of Toledo which in the time That Council is supposed to be held to wit the year of our Lord 660 was the least Kingdom in Spain and not so big as York-shire and consequently improper to reigle all the World and especially this remote Kingdom of England Besides that as this poor Monk sets it down it doth Inhibit Church-men from being Hang-men rather than from being Judges or at the most from being Judges to Condemn men to be thus mutilated and mangled in their Members An ordinary punishment of the Gothes and Vandals who then lived in Spain but never heard of here with us of many years before the Reign of Henry 2d And therefore not fitly pressed to drive Bishops from sitting as Peers in the Case of the Earl of Strafford who was not to be Sentenced to any mutilation of Members True it is that in the Council it self being the 11th Council of Toledo and the 6th Canon they are forbidden quod morte plectendum est Sententiâ propriâ judicare to Sentence in any Cause that is to be punished by Death Whereas in the 4th Council of Toledo under Sisinandus held not long before Anno Dom. 633. Canon 31 It is said that the Kings do oftentimes commit to Priests and Bishops their Judicature contra quoslibet Majestatis obnoxios against all Traytors howbeit from that time forward they are directed not to obey their King in this particular unless they have him bound by Oath to Pardon the party in Case they shall find Reason to mediate for him And thus the Canon Law went in Spain but nowhere else in Christendom in that Age. But these Bishops at Westminster travailed not so far as Toledo to fetch in this Canon into their Synod but took it out of Gratian then in vogue for he lived in the time of Henry Beauclark Grand-Father to this Henry the 2d who in the 2d part of his Decrees Cap. Clericis saith thus Clericis in Sacris ordinibus constitutis ex Concilio Toletano judicium sanguinis agitare non licet And so this Canon was fetch'd from Spain into these other parts of Europe five hundred years after the first making thereof upon this occasion Pope Gregory the 7th otherwise called Hildebrand who lived in the time of William the Conqueror having so many deadly quarrels against Henry the 4th Emperor of Germany to make his party good and strong laid the first ground which his Successors in their Canons closely pursued to draw the Bishops and other great Prelates of Germany France England and Spain from their Lay-Soveraignes and Lay-Lords to depend wholly upon him and so by Colour and Pretence of Ecclesiastical Immunities withdrew them from the Services of their Princes in War and Peace and particularly from Exercising all places of Judicature in the Civil Court of Princes To the which Offices they were by their breeding and Education more enabled than the Martial Lay-Lords of that rough Age and by their Fiefes and Baronies which they held from Kings and Emperors particularly Bound and Obliged And therefore shall you find that whereas the Bishops of this Island before the Conquest did still joyn with the Kings and Elder-men Lay-Lords in the making and executing of all Laws whatsoever touching deprivation of Life or mutilation of Members yet soon after when the Norman and English Prelates Lanfranc Anselm Becket and the rest began to Trade with Rome and as Legati nati to Wed the Laws and Canons cryed up in Rome and to plant them here in England they withdrew by little and little the English Prelates from those imployments by and dependances upon the Kings of England And under the Colour of Exemptions and Church Immunities erected in this Land an Ecclesiastical Estate and Monarchie depending wholly upon the Pope inhibiting them to exercise Secular Imployments or to sit with the rest of the Peers in Judicatures of Life and Member otherwise than as they list themselves And hence principally did arise those great heats between our Rufus and Anselm which Edmerus speaks of and those Antient Customs of this Kingdom which Henry the 2d pressed upon Becket in the Articles of Clarindon that the Prelates ought to be present in the Kings Courts c. Which Pope Alexander a notable Boutefeu of those times in the Church of God did tolerate though not approve of as he apostyles that Article with his own hand to be shewed to this day in the M. S. extant in the Vatican Library And although I shall not deny but the Popes did pretend Scripture for this Inhibition as they did for all things else and allude unto that place 2 Tim. 3.4 which
know the Nature of a Protestation which some peradventure may mistake Protestatio est animi nostri declaratio juris acquirendi vel conservandi vel damnum depellendi causa facta saith Spigelius Calvin and all the Civilians No Protestation is made by any man in his Wits to destroy his own Right and much less another mans but to acquire or preserve some Right or to avoid and put off some Wrong that was like to happen to the party or Parties that make the Protestation As here in Courtneys Protestation the Prelates in the first place conceive a Right and Power they had voluntarily to absent themselves whilst some matters were treated of at that time in that House of Lords which by the Canon Law the breach whereof the Popes of Rome did in those times vindicate with far more severity than they did the transgressions of the Laws of God they were not permitted to be present at and all this not for want of Right to be there in all Causes but for honesty and preservation of their Estates as it is in the Act of Parliament 11 Rich. 2. In the second place they did preserve their former Right as Peers which they still had though voluntarily absenting of themselves More solito interessendi considerandi tractandi ordinandi definiendi all things without exception Acted and Executed in that Parliament And in the Last place they protest against any loss of Right of being or Voting in Parliament that could befal them for this voluntary absenting of themselves at this time And where in this Protestation is there one word to prejudice their Successors or to authorize any Peer to Command his fellow Peer called thither by more Antient prescription of time and by the same Writs of Summons that himself is to withdraw and go out from this Common Council of the Kingdom Thirdly we do not certainly know what these matters were whereat Arch-Bishop Courtney conceived the Prelates neither could nor ought to be present These matters are left in loose and general words in that Protestation Some conceive indeed it was at the Condemnation of Tressilian Brambre the Lord Beauchamp and others See Antiquit. Brit. pag. 286. But the notes of Priviledges belonging to the Lords collected by Mr. Selden do with more reason a great deal assign this going forth of the Prelates to be occasioned by certain Appeals of Treason advanced in that Parliament by the Duke of Glocester against Alexander Arch-Bishop of York whom the Popish Canons of those times as you know exempted as a Sacred Person from the cognisance of King or Parliament and therefore the rest of the Bishops as the squares went then neither could nor ought to be present and parties to break upon the Exemptions Immunities and Priviledges of that great Prelate But the Earl of Strafford is not the Arch-Bishop but the President of York and to challenge any such Exemptions and Immunities from the cognisance of the King or Parliament amounts at this time to little less than Treason and therefore is thâ—â— Protestation very unseasonably urged to thrust out any Protestant Prelate from Voting in Parliament Lastly a Protestation in the Civil or Canon Law for the Law of this Land knoweth it not is but a Testation or Witnessing before-hand of a mans own mind or Opinion whereby we that Protest provide to save and preserve our own Right for the time to come It concludes no man besides our selves no Stranger to this Act no Heir no Successor but if it be admitted sticks as inherent in the Singular and individual Person until either the Party dies or the Protestation be withdrawn and revoked And therefore what is a Protestation made by William Courtney to William Laud or by Thomas Arundel to bind Thomas Morton And what one Rule in the Common Law of the Land in the journal Book or in the Records of the Town can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and Voting in Causes of Blood They were sometimes by the great favour of the King the Lords and the Commons not otherwise permitted to absent themselves never before this time Commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause whatsoever that was agitated in Parliament So our Law-Books say that the Prelates by the Canon Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be Tryed which is enough to shew their Right thereunto 10 Edward the 4 th fol. 6. B. placit 17. And that it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to Vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford pleas of the Crown fol. 59. The Canon Law saith Stamford in a distinct and separated Notion and therefore not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common Law or the Law of this Land Objection But the Bishop of Lincoln and Bishop Andrews before him did alwayes forbear to Vote in Causes of Blood and did voluntarily retire out of the House when this Cause of the Earl of Strafford came to any serious Agitation Neither putting this withdrawing of the Prelates to any Vote nor offering to enter any Protestation Answer That Bishop had no opportunity to enter Protestations which you shall never find to have been offered by the Prelates but in Plein Parliaments when the three Bodies are together And his voluntary withdrawing of himself he may live to Repent him of if he shall hereafter be questioned for the same at the Kings-Bench or elsewhere He was called thither by his Writ which he did not so easily Obtain to sit and not to withdraw himself from Parliament when he pleased Besides his extraordinary Obligations to the Lords at this time whom he could not offend without great suspicion of high Ingratitude He is the first Prelate that ever was fetched out of the Tower and brought to sit in Parliament by the Black-Rod And therefore we are not so much to consider that Prelates Opinions or Actions in this kind as the reasons he gave for the same which as I have heard them Rehearsed are to speak modestly of them no Demonstrations His first and main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. the 2 d. That it is the Honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood The French word Honesteté signifies decency and Comliness as though it were a Butcherly and loathsome matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an Imaginary decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Ignorance in the dark Fog and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a Shaven Crown to depend upon their Holy Father the Pope to Plead Exemptions and to refuse to Answer for Felonies in the Kings Courts c. All these Particulars were esteemed in those dayes the Honesteté of the Clergy and such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. the
2 d. to absent themselves when they listed from this Assembly of the Estate contrary to the Kings Commands in the Writs of Summons and to the duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Howbeit they shewed more Courtesie or more Wit at the least than our present Prelates for they never offered to retire themselves in those dayes before their Protestation was benignly received and suffered to be entred upon the Parliament Roll by the King and the Lords and the House of Commons The Second Reason of this Prelate is of the same Nature and built upon a Medium of Sands which is soon undermined and washed away That although he doubted not of the Legality or Comliness of an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to Vote in a Judgment of Blood as they do continually in the passing of all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament yet because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian World so to do he thought it better to avoid Scandal and the talk of other Nations That there being in the High Courts of Parliament and Star-Chamber Judges enough besides the Prelates they might without any prejudice to King or Countrey forbear Voting in these Judicatures Somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently of mercy rather than of Judgment Who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens hearts to receive the Comfort of the Gospel But this Prelate cannot but know that these Canons that Oppose the Kings Prerogative are taken away in the Kingdom of England by the Statute of 25 Henry the 8 th which they are not elsewhere And this Bishop if he have not forgot it was taught all this in the Case of Irregularity pursued against Arch-Bishop Abbots when this Bishop fearing the Censure of the Sorbonists in Paris refused to be Consecrated by Abbots unless he the said Abbots would procure himself absolved from that Irregularity which he had Contracted in killing a man by Chance-medly which he was enforced at the last to do this other Prelate being then in his rising and warm Blood and liking better of many good Benefices than of one mean Bishoprick refusing stiffly to be made Bishop of Lincoln upon any other Condition For Bishops making of Procurators in Causes of Blood IT doth not appear that Bishops ever made Protestations or withdrew in Cases of this Nature before the 11th nor after the 21 st of Rich. the 2 d. And yet the Attainders in the 11 th year are afterwards ratified by the Consent of the Lords Spiritual 11 Rich. 2. as you see by their Act of consent Rott 11 Rich. 2. no. 38. And the Printed Statutes And in his twenty first year they made Procurators first Thomas Percy in Writing 21 Rich. 2. no. 9. where you have his Proxie set down in Latine and then Scrop Earl of Worcester by word of mouth As the Roll is 21 Rich. 2. no. 50. where Scrop gives Sentence in the like Causes by vertue of that Procuration as the Roll saith And that this Proxie of the Prelates was not left with a Lay-man for the dispatch of other Civil Causes only but for Judgments of Blood also it is appealed to all Histories and Law-Books that have been Written from that time to this present day Thomas of Walsingham Lived under Henry the 6 th and he saith that it was exacted of the Prelates for it was not their own seeking as you may see upon the Rolls that because they could not be present in Judgments of Blood their Procurator upon the like occasion might assent unto such a Business Walsing in Rich. 2. pag. 354. So likewise in his Hypodigma Neustria pag. 550. Littleton Lived under Edward the 4 th and he pronounceth for himself and all his fellow Judges That the Lords Spiritual who cannot consent to the Death of a man shall make a Procurator in the Parliament before the Steward is to proceed to gather Votes c. The Year-Book 10 Ed. the 4 th no. 17. Stamford Lived under Henry the 8th Edward the 6 th Queen Mary And he saith clearly That when a Peer is Indicted of Treason or Felonie in Parliament the Lords Spiritual shall make a Procurator for them Stam. Pleas of the Crown lib. 3. pag. 153. Mr. John Selden Lives still than whom peradventure there Lived not an abler Lawyer in both the Laws from the 21 st of Richard the 2 d to this day And he saith that the Clergy by reason of the Canon Laws not the Common Laws absented themselves sometimes from such Judgments and committed their whole Interest for the time to a Lay-Proxie Tit. of Honour 2 d part pag. 704. Lastly for the Canon-Law in this point it is not only dispensed withal by the Kings Summons to his Prelates but by the Lords themselves in this very Cause of the Earl of Strafford by their examining of the two Arch-Bishops and a Bishop for Witnesses in the said Cause which is no less forbidden in the Canon Law than to Judge in Causes of Blood Lyndwood Fol. 146. pag. 2. When the effect of this Paper was opened and the Records and all the Books produced by the Bishop of Lincoln who had been in the Tower to search the said Records the Lords declared and ordered that they would use no Proxies of their own in this Tryal with a Salvo of their Right against any other time And thereupon the said Bishop finding the Inclination of the House and Timidity of his Brethren offered the like Declaration with the like Salvo in point of Right for the Lords the Bishops which was accepted of and entered into the Book the Bishop of Lincoln dictating the same THE Bishop of Lincoln's ARGUMENTS That Bishops ought not to Vote in Parliament With the Answers thereunto Arg. I. BEcause it is a very great hindrance to the Exercise of their Ministerial Function Answer 1. It is not so much hindrance as their conveneing in General Councils Synods Convocations Assemblies Classes and the like in all the Churches Reformed or otherwise 2. It is propter majus bonum Ecclesiae 3. The Apostles unnecessarily put themselves to more hindrances to work for their livelyhood Acts 20.24 1 Thes. 2.9 2 Thes. 3.8 Arg. II. Because they do vow and undertake at their Ordination when they enter into Holy Orders that they will give themselves wholly to that Vocation Answer 1. This Vow and undertaking in Ministers Ordination is quite mistaken the words are in the Bishops exhortation not in the Ministers Answer 2. The Bishop hopes they will give themselves wholly to that and not to any other Trade or Vocation 3. Wholly in a Moral and not in a Mathematical sense that will admit of no Latitude Arg. III. Because Councils and Canons in several Ages do forbid them to meddle in Secular Affairs Answer 1. Councils and Canons against Bishops Votes in Parliament were never in use in this