custome of the House of Lords was that when any Bills or messages were sent to them the Lord Keeper and some of the Lords were to â—rise from their places and from thence to go unto the Barr and receive the said Bills or messages but contrarywise when any answer is to be delivered by the Lord Keeper in the name and behalf of the Lords the Commons sent were to stand at the Barr and the Lord Keeper is to receive the Bills or answer the messages with his head covered and all the Lords were to Keep their places with which the Lower House was satisfied and the same order hath been ever since observed accordingly Anno 39. Eliz. There being in former times a custom in the house of Commons to have a bill read before the house did arise the same could not now be done at that time because her Majesty and the upper House had adjourned the Parliament untill Saturday Sennight at Eight of the Clock in the Morning which being signified by their Speaker he said all the Members of the House might depart and so they did Eodem Anno. At the ending of the Parliament after they had given the Queen subsidies and prayed her assent to such laws as had passed both Houses she gave the Royall assent to 24 publick Acts and 19 private but refused 48 Bills which had passed both the Houses Anno 43. Eliz. John Crook Esq. Recorder of London being chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament disabling himself desired the Queen to command the House of Commons to choose another but his excuse received no allowance The Lord Chief Justice of the Queens bench and Common pleas together with the Lord Chief Baron and Attorney Generall were ordered to attend a Committee of Lords and Bishops Sr John Popham Lord Chief Justice Francis Gaudy one of the Justices of the Kings bench George Kingsmill one of the Common pleas Dr Carew and Dr Stanhop were constituted Receivers of petitions for Gascoigne and other lands beyond the Seas Sr Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas Sr William Peryam Lord Chief Baron Thomas Walmisley one of the Justices of the Common pleas Dr Swale and Dr Hone. Tryers of petitions of England the Archbishop of Canterbury Marquis of Winchester Earls of Sussex Lord Marshall Lord Admirall and Steward of the Queens Houshold Earls of Nottingham and Hertford Bishops of London Durham and Winchester Lords Zouch and Cobham calling unto them the Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and the Queens Serjeants at Law Great fault was found by many of the House of the factouring and bribing of too many of the Justices of the Peace and it was by one of the members alleadged that the five bills â—arely passed against Swearing Drunkenness and for the making of good Ale would be as much worth to those kind of Justices of the Peace as a Subsidy and two Fifteens Mr Conisby Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers complained that forasmuch upon the breach of any Priviledge of that House he only was to be employed and not the Serjeant at Arms the House ordered a Committee to consider of Presidents and settle it a motion was made by the Lord Keeper and approved of by the Lords that the Ancient course of the House might be kept by certifying the Excuses for the absence of any of the Peers by the Peers and not by others The House being offended with Sr Walter Rawleigh for some words and crying to the Barr Mr Brown a Lawyer stood up and said Mr Speaker par in parem non habet Imperium we are as members of one body and we cannot Judge one another whereupon it being put to the question it was resolved in the negative that he should not stand at the Barr. The Speaker of the House of Commons at the ending of the Parliament of 44. Eliz. humbly desired of the Queen that certain Acts may be made Laws by her Royall assent which giveth life unto them Unto which the Lord Keeper answered that as touching her Majesties pioceeding in the making of Laws and giving her Royall assent that should be as God directed her Sacred Spirit and delivered her Majesties commandement that as to the Commons proceedings in the matter of her Prerogative she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully observe and that she understood they did but obiter touch her Prerogative and no otherwise but by humble petition but she well perceived that private respects are privately masked under publique pretences Admonished the Justices of the Peace some whereof might probably be of the House of Commons that they should not deserve the Epithetes of prowling Justices Justices of Quarrells who counted Champerty good Conscience Sinning Justices who did suck and consume the good of this Commonwealth and likewise all those who did lye if not all the Year yet at the least Three Quarters of the Year in the City of London Anno 43. Eliz. One Mr Leigh of the House of Commons complained that whilst the Speaker of the House of Commons was presented to the Queen he was denyed entrance into the House of Peers which the Lords excused by saying it was the ignorance of some of the Grooms or attendance in the choosing of a Speaker Mr Knolls the Comptroller alleaged that it was not for the State of the Queen to permit a confused multitude to speak unto her when it might often happen that one or some might move or speak that which another or some or many would contradict or not allow The Queen being sate in her State in the House of Lords the House of Commons were sent for to present their Speaker who in a modest pretence of disability prayed her Majesty to command the House of Commons to choose one more able but had it not allowed And she in her grant of freedom of speech gave a caution not to do it in vain matters verbosities contentions or contradictions nor to make addresses unto her but only in matters of consequence and prohibited their retaining or priviledging desperate debtors upon pain of her displeasure and desired a Law might be made to that purpose Which done the Lord Keeper said for great and weighty causes her Highness's pleasure was that the Parliament should be adjourned untill the Fryday following At which time the House of Commons did appoint a Minister every morning before the House sate to officiate and use a set form of prayer specially ordained to desire Gods blessing upon their Councells and preserve the Queen their Sovereign The Ancient usage of not coming into the House of Commons with spurs was moved by the Speaker to be observed others moved that they might not come with Boots and Rapiers but nothing was done therein Sr Robert Wroth a Member of the House of Commons did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Sr Andrew Noel Sheriff of Rutlandshire having returned himself to be a Knight of the shire for that
Domesticis illis vell Senescallis illis Cubiculariis illo Comite Palatii vel reliquis quam pluribus Nostris fidelibus resideremus ibique veniens ille illum interpellavit cum diceret c. Upon which words viz. Una cum Dominis Patribus Nostris Episcopis the Learned Bignonius Commenting saith Hi enim in Iudiciis Regi assidebant ut etiam notavit Tillius qui rectè Curiae seu Parliamenti originem hinc deducit illudque ita durasse usque ad Philippi Vallesy tempora qui amplissimum Parisiensem Senatum à Comitatu Consistorio Principis separatum edicto constituit Hujus quoque Judicii Episcopis Proceribus adstantibus forma refertur Antiquitatum Fuldentium Lib. 1. Anno Dominicae Incarnationis 838. Jnd. 1. 18. K L. Julii facta est Contentio Gozboldi Hrabani Abbatii coram Imperatore Ludovico filiis ejus Ludovico Carolo necnon Principibus ejus in Palatio apud Niomagum oppidum constituto de Captura c. Presentibus Trugone Archiepiscopo Otgario Archiepiscopo Radolto Episcopo c. Adalberto Comite Helphrico Comite Albrico Comite Popone Comite Gobavuino Comite Palatii Ruadharto similiter Comite Palatii Innumerabilibus Vassallis Dominicis So did the Referendarii Masters of Requests or Chancery the Senescallus Palatii the Cubicularii And Bignonius moreover declareth Domestica dignitas fuit non Contemnenda sub prima secunda Regum nostrorum familia nam inter praecipuos Regni Ministros Domesticisaepe enumerantur in praefatione Leg ' Burgundion ' Sciant itaque Optimates Comites Consiliarii domestici Majores domus nostrae cum munera in Judicio accipere prohibeantur eos quoque Judicasse dici potest sic Leg ' Ribuar ' tit Go. Ut optimates Majores domus domestici Comites Grafiones Cancellarii vel quibuslibet gradibus sublimati in provincia Ribuaria in Judicio residentes munera ad Iudicium per vertendum non recipiant Hos etiam Regi Judicanti adsedisse probat Marculfus ipse lib. 4. dum inter Ministros officiales qui Regi adsiderent domesticos recenset Neither were the Writs of Summons to the Peers and Lords Spiritual and Temporal in that fatal 49th Year of the Raign of that unfortunate Prince King Henry the Third though many Ages before Accustomed to be Summoned to their Soveraign's great Councells framed upon any better Foundation than Force and Partiality when a Rebellious part of the Baronage of England had by the Success of their Rebellion made him and the Prince his Son his Brother Richard Earl of Cornewall King of the Romans and his Son with many of the Loyal Baronage and other his faithful Subjects Prisoners on purpose to create an Oligarchy in Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and some few others of their triumphant and seduced Party and fix in themselves a Conservatorship and domineering Power over the rest of the Peers and Nobility and their fellow Subjects especially the Commons left in a full assurance of Slavery and hopeless of any thing more than to be Assistant to the everlasting Ambition and variable Designs of others SECT XIV That those enforced Writs of Summons to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal accompanied with that then newly devised Engine or Writ to elect Knights Citizens and Burgesses to be present in Parliament were not in the usual and accustomed Form for the Summoning the Lords Spirituall and Temporal to the Parliament FOR the eminently Learned Selden hath informed Us That the most ancient Writ of Summons that he hath seen was no Elder than the 6th Year of the Raign of King John directed to the Bishop of Salisbury Commanding him to come and Summon all the Abbots and Convential Priors in his Diocess to do the like viz. Mandamus vobis rogantes quatenus omni occasione dilatione post positâ sicut Nos honorem Nostrum diligitis sitis ad nos apud London die Dominicâ proximé ante Ascensionem Domini Nobiscum tractaturi de magnis arduis negotiis nostris communi Regni utilitate Quin super his quae a Rege Franciae per Nuntios Nostros suos Nobis mandata sunt unde per Dei gratiam bonum sperare vestrum expedit habere concilium aliorum Magnatum terrae nostrae quos ad diem illum locum fecimus convocari vos etiam ex parte Nostrâ vestrâ Abbates Priores conventuales totius Diocesis citari faciatis ut concilio praedicto interfint sicut diligunt Nos communem Regni utilitatem T. c. The Roll that hath this Writ hath no Note of Consimile to the rest of the Barons as is usual in other close Rolls of Summons to Parliament but it appears in the Body of it that the rest were Summoned and that there was a Parliament in the same year And another close Roll in the Raign of the same King and in the same year hath a Writ in these words viz. Rex Henrico Mandavimus tibi quod in fide quam Nobis debes sicut Nos Corpus honorem nostrum diligis omni occasione dilatione postpositis sis ad Nos apud Northampton die dominica prox ' ante Pentecosten parat ' cum equis armis aliis necessariis ad Movendum nobis cum Corpore nostro standum nobiscum ad Minus per duos quadrag ' ità quod infrà terminum illum à Nobis non recedas ut te in perpetuum in grates Scire debeam T. R. c. And out of a close Roll of the 26th Year of King Henry the Third cites a Writ of Summons in these words Henricus c. Reverendo in Christo Patri Waltero Eboracensi Archiepiscopo Mandamus vobis quatenùs ficut Nos honorem nostrum pariter vestrum diligitis in fide quâ Nobis tenemini omnibus aliis negotiis omissis sitis ad Nos apud London à die sancti Hillarii in quindecim dies ad tractandum Nobiscum unà cum caeteris Magnatibus nostris quos similiter fecimus convocari de arduis negotiis nostris statum nostrum Totius Regni nostri specialiter tangentibus hoc nullatenus omittatis T. Meipso apud Windlesorum 14. die Decembris Subscribed with Eodem modo Scribitur omnibus Episcopis Abbatibus Comitibus Baronibus And that the First that he found accompanied with the other circumstances of a Summons to Parliament as well for the Commons as the Lords is in the 49 h. Year of the Reign of King Henry the Third in the Form before-mentioned which by the Dates of the Writs were by Sir William Dugdale first of all Discovered or taken notice of to be during the said King's Imprisonment by which he calls both the Earls and Barons to Westminster no such words as the Commons being called appearing either in the Exemplar or Transcription of the former
that nothing was done upon their Petitions and therefore prayed that they might be answered before the Parliament ended It appeareth by divers Answers to Petitions in Parliament that the Kings Councel unto whom they were committed did but report what they thought fit to be done for Answer prout Anno 15. E. 3. n. 17. where it is said our Lord the King caused the same Answers to be given to the said Petitions the which together with the Petitions were reported in full Parliament Eodem Anno it was answered Our Lord the King commanded Answers to be made the which put into writing were reported before our Lord the King and the Prelates and other Grandees Anno 17. E. 3. It seemeth to the Councel that it be done Anno 18. E. 3. Divers Petitions of the Commons being exhibited a Memorandum was entred viz. Unto which Petitions it was answered by the King and the Grandees as to the second Article Soit cestipetition granted To the third Article il plaist au Roy c. To the eight Article il plaist au Roy au Son conseil quae se soit To the eleventh il plaist au Roy c. To the 12th Article Soient les Statutes sur ceo faites tenus c. Anno eodem the Answer was It is assented by our Lord the King the Earls Barons Justices and other Sages of the Law that the things above written be done in convenable manner according to the prayer of the Commons in a long Petition of theirs against provisions from Rome whereunto the Bishops durst not assent Eodem Anno the Commons exhibited their Petitions which were answered drawn into a Statute sealed and delivered unto them Sedentibus before the Parliament ended in the same Parliament also the Parliament exhibited their Petitions which were answered sealed and delivered unto them sitting the Parliament which was not usual for the Statutes were most commonly made after the end of the Parliament The Answer to one of the Clergies Petitions in this Parliament was accord est pur assent du conceil Unto which may be added those of the 20th year of the Raign of King Edward the third which concerned the Pope to which Answers the Praelates who were of that Committee not daring to agree the opinion of the temporal Lords and the Judges were only reported viz. It seemeth to the Earls Barons and other Sages Lay-men of the Kings Councel c. Anno 21. E. 3. il Semble a conseil qu'il faut faire pour grand bien si plaist au Roy as grandes du terre Eodem Anno It seemeth unto the King the Praelates and the Grandees that the Custom stand in force the Commons having petitioned that the Custom of the Cloth made in England might be taken away Anno 25. E. 3. It seemeth to the Councel that such enquires cease if it please the King Eodem Anno It seemeth to the Councel that the Laws heretofore ordained ought to suffice for that this Petition is against the Law of the Land as well as against the holy Church It seemeth to the Councel that it ought not to be granted the Petition being that no Capias Excommunicat should issue before a Scire facias to the party Et al. hujusmodi c. Eodem Anno It was answered It is not the interest of our Lord the King nor of the Grantz Anno 28. E. 3. n. 33. It seemeth to the Lords and to the Grands that the Petition is reasonable Eodem Anno It is answered Let the Common Law used stand for the Lords will not change it Anno 30. E. 3. The Petition of the Commons touching Chaplains Wages had two answers The Archbishops and Bishops at the motion of the King and Grandees have ordained c. And therefore the King and the Grandees have ordained c. Those two Answers are recited almost ad verbum the Prelates first and then the Temporal Lords considered of the Answer Anno 47 E. 3. It was answered The King and the Lords have yet no will to change the Common Law Eodem Anno The Commons do require that every mans Petition be answered Anno 2. R. 2. apud Glocester le Roy del assent des Praelats Dukes Countz Barons de les Commons de son Royalme ad ordeigne c. The Commons having petitioned that all manner of Merchants might have free Traffick here And the like Answer was made to their Petition in Anno 3 R. 2 n. 37. 38. In 16. R. 2. Upon a Petition of Robert de Mull and his Wife touching the discharge of a Fine the King answered Soyent au Roy car ceo nest petition du Parlement In Anno 20. R. 2. Robert Mull petitioned the Commons stiling them by the title of honourable and Sage Commons in Parliament praying them to be discharged of a Fine to the King imposed upon him and supplicating them to make Relation thereof to the Parliament and alledging that his Bill or Petition had been put upon the file the last Parliament which doth prove that there was no standing Committees then appointed by the Commons in Parliament 2 H. 4. The King by Advice of the Lords in Parliament hath committed this Petition to his Councel Eodem Anno upon a Petition of the Commons for removing of Stanks and Milks generally it was answered It seemeth to the King and to the Lords that this Petition sounds in disherison of the King and of the Lords and others wherefore let the Statutes before made be held and kept Eodem Anno It is assented and accorded by the King and Lords c. Anno 2. H. 5. The King by the assent of all the Lords granteth c. Touching the Petition for taking of Tithe of great Wood contrary to the Statute of 4 E. 3. whereupon the Judges were of sundry opinions It was answered because the matter of the Petitioners demands required great and mature deliberation the King therefore would that it be adjourned and remitted to the next Parliament and that the Clerk of the Parliament cause this Article to be brought before the King and the Lords at the beginning of the next Parliament for declaration thereof to be made In the 2d year of the Raign of King Henry the sixth the King by the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons granted the contents of their Petition in all points Divers other Answers given do prove Debates to have been in Parliament upon Petitions betwixt the Lords and the Kings Councel And saith Mr. Noy that grand and very Attorney General to King Charle 〈…〉 the Martyr who unhappily died before his Royal 〈◊〉 had so much need as he had afterwards of his great abilities or who ever was the careful Examiner of many of the Parliament Rolls and Compiler of that Manuscript which is honoured with his name there can be no question made of those or the
advice whereupon after four days deliberation with the Lords fearing the lengthning of the Wars by Truces refused to advise touching the same The King on the other side received their Petitions but answered them not and therefore the next Parliament the Commons petitioning for Answers conditioned with the King in their grants of the Subsidy to have Answers to their former Petitions and those also which were delivered in the present Parliament and although they were entred in several Rolls as if they had been answered in each Parliament they were all answered in the latter And the use and practice was to enter none but such as had been read In the 6th year of the Raign of King E. 3. it being demanded of the Lords and Commons on the behalf of the King whether he should stay until the business of Parliament were finished or take his Journey in hast into the North they advised him to go hastily into the North and to appoint another time for the dispatch of the business of the people upon their Petitions The Parliament giving a very great Subsidy to the King a condition was assented unto that the Petitions of the Commons should be granted upon which requests and conditions by Commandment of our Lord the King by the assent of the Praelates Earls Barons and Commons a Committee of Praelates Earls Barons the Treasurer some of the Judges and ten Knights of the Shires six Citizens and Burgesses whom the Commons should chuse to sit from day to day as also concerning the Petitions of the Clergy and put the same into a Statute The which Archbishops Bishops and others having heard and tried the said requests by Common assent and accord caused the Points and Articles to be put into a Statute the which our Lord the King by the assent of all in the said Parliament commanded to be ingrossed sealed and firmly to be kept throughout the whole Realm Divers things are entred in the Parliament Rolls which had not the consent of the Commons for that they might have been concluded by the King and the Lords without them yet none such could have been entred but those which were determined in the open house and not privately at a Committee The Answers to the Commons were appointed to be read Sedente Curia and a Committee appointed to prepare the Answers to the rest after Easter and so the Clerk having only read those that were answered the Parliament ended saith the Record in Lent Shortly after upon the examination of the Subsidy that it would not answer the expectation he hastily summoned a Magnum concilium in Octabis Trin. following Where after a further grant of a Subsidy the Petitions which were not answered the last Parliament being read before the King Grands and Commons the King gave them leave to depart and so ended the Councel One of the last Parliament against Impositions upon Woolls without assent of Parliament is made into a Statute And happily it was answered at the Councel and not at the Parliament And if that very age interpreted it to be legally done we must do so also saith that learned Commentator Anno 47 E. 3. where the Commons having delivered their Petitions and desired Answers it was told them that it pleased the King if any of them would stay to attend and have Answers of their Petitions that the rest might depart and it was not unusual in those times for the Commons to have leave to depart and yet the Lords to stay and dispatch business afterwards and the same reputed to be done in Parliament prout Anno 6. E. 3. Gregory n. 16. 6 E. 3. Hill n 7. in fine 1 R. 2. n 41. 137. The Commons did pray the King that he would advise to do that ease unto his people which he may well do And Anno 18. E. 3. do pray that the Statute of Westminster the 2d may be declared to which the King answered Let the Justices and other Sages be charged to advise of this point until the next Parliament They pray that the Statute for the Kings presentment within three years c may stand Whereunto it was answered probably by the Lords let the King be advised and do further by advice of his Councel that which he shall will to be done Eodem Anno they do pray that sufficient men be made Sheriffs and abide but one year as hath been ordained and that the said Office be not granted for life or in fee. Whereunto the King answered as touching the first point let the Statute be kept as touching the 2d the Councel will advise the King that it be not done for they be advised that it is against the Statute And note saith that learned Observator that the King was then beyond the Seas and the Lords would not give a direct answer in his absence to what concerned his power to grant an Office in fee. The Commons shew that the Scots entred England in the Kings absence and pray that the Prisoners taken in the Battel at Durham may be so ordered as the damage and danger happen not again To which was answered the King will advise therein with his Grands and by their advice ordain that which shall be for the best and so do as the Commons shall be out of doubt of that which they suppose by the help of God Which being a matter of State the Lords would not conclude without the King but leave it to himself and his Privy Councel They pray that no Royal Franchises Lands Fees Advowsons which belong to the Crown or are annexed to it be given away or severed Unto which was answered The King will advise with his good Councel that nothing shall be done in this case unless it be for the honour of himself and the Realm Eodem Anno they do pray whereas holy Church ought to have free Elections the Pope doth now begin to give Abbies and Pryories by Resignations c. That the King would ordain Remedy therein by advice of his Councel Whereunto was answered the King will advise with his good Councel The Commons do shew that whereas the men of the Navy have assented to all Taxes currant in the Land yet their Ships are taken and many lost in the Kings Service without any recompence given unto them Wherefore they pray that the King would be pleased to ordain thereof Remedy To which was answered Le Roys ' avisera Which being a Petition coram Rege concerning him and their Wages and Recompence the Lords referred it wholly unto his Majesty Anno 22. E. 3. they do pray that no Appeals be received of any Apellors of Fellony done out of the County where he is imprisoned To which the King answered that will be to make a new Law whereof the King is not advised as yet Anno 25. E. 3. they Petition against the payment of Tithe-Wood Unto which was answered the King and his Councel will advise of this
Status pro Stallo Monachorum Cannnicorum in Ecclesia Galbertus in vita Caroli Com. Flandr n. 72. Status simul sedes Fratrum dejectae sunt Idem n. 98. Inter columnas quippe solarii specula Status suos ex scriniorum aggoribus cumulis scamnorum prostituerant Stephanus Tornacensis Epist. 12. Assignetis ei statum in Choro sicut habere solet sedem in Capitulo Locum in Refectorio statutum de Installatione Canonicorum Bononiensium in Morinis Assignaturque sibi status in Choro secundum qualitatem capacitatem recepti locus in Capituli For they must have no small influence upon the minds and reason of mankind as well as that which they designed to have upon the Estates of those that would be so credulously foolish as to believe them to be a third Estate to be added unto the former two very ancient Estates in times of Parliament viz. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal and it must be a strong and strange kind of delusion as much or more enchanting than the Magicians or Southsayers of Egypt that could not expound the meaning of Pharaohs dreams or far exceed the Art of the Painter that made Zeuxis Grapes so very semblable or like unto them as the Birds were made Fools and essayed to eat them or how should or would be self created Estates think themselves to be such Estates when if any such could have been or ever had been they must rather have been the Estates or such Estates that sent them but not to be such Estates but only as their Procurators Attorneys or Deputies or what an efficacious strange Art must it be that could when miracles have been long ago ceased make a shadow pass for a Substance those that are at home no such Estates but they that were only sent are no sooner once admitted in Parliament but suddenly and ex se they become parts of that they would call the third Estate when they that sent and helped to make them Members of Parliament know of no such Grandeur or title bestowed upon them how or by whom when they were in Drink or Fudled at the time of the Election or Drinking Cheating day of various and senseless bribing bargaining partialities shamefully exercised in those our late times of Rebellion and Confusion when some that were Electors the Sheriff of the County being not himself to be Elected but commanded to cause the Election fairly to be made of Burgesses for Cities or Towns justly sending Knights of the Shires Citizens or Burgesses to Parliament not having a freehold Estate under forty shillings per Annum is at the same time thrashing in another Mans Barn or at Plow or at some dayly servile labour and neither he or his High-Crown-Hatted-Wife knew of any such honour fallen upon them or how such an hic or ubique Estateship vested in him or how he that is represented should be less in degree or honour than he that sent and helped him to be Elected and it will be difficulty enough for the third Estate Asserters to assail them from Perjury and Treason in their endeavouring to usurp upon their Soveraign and to be coordinate with him or to free them from the forfeiture of their Lands and Estates unto their Mesne Lords And it is very probable that King Henry the third in the 52 year of his Raign and his Parliament did not intend to make the Common sort of People or smaller part of the Nation to be equal with the Archbishops Bishops Abbots Priors Earls Barons and Religious Men and Women who were by that Statute exempt from coming to the Sheriffs turn or being ranked with them as Estates the Sheriffs turns being as Sr. Edward Coke saith ordinarily composed of the Bayliffs of Lords of Manors Servants and other Common sort of people that Court having no Jurisdiction to try any Action other than under forty Shillings value And there could not certainly be a greater parcel of wickedness credulity and ignorance hardly to be decerned or distinguished how they or any of their Adherents can harbour or give any entertainment to the least Embrio or parcel of opinion that all or any of the Members in the House of Commons in Parliament are a third Estate when they themselves did so little believe it as in their frequent Petitions in Parliament unto their Kings they could give themselves no greater a Title than your Pauvrez Communs your Leiges and being asked their advice in Parliament touching some especial matters denied to give it themselves but referred it unto the Councel of his Lords Spiritual and Temporal at another time refused because they had no Skill or knowledge in the affairs of Peace or War the principal parts of government and in the 13th year of the Raign of King Edward the third upon that Kings demand of an unusual Tax upon the Common people as they thought prayed leave to go into their several Counties to consult those that sent and returned again with an Assent and Answer And when King Henry the fourth appeared to be offended with them came sorrowfully before him and humbly begged his pardon could not as it appears in several of our Parliament Records when the protection of themselves their Posterities and Estates were deeply concerned give their Kings and Princes any Aids or Subsidies without the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal that in the Raign of King Henry the fourth could not protect Sir Thomas Hexey one of their Members from an Accusation and Punishment by the King that in the Raign of King Henry the sixth could not support their own Clerk and in the Raigns of several of our Kings have been enforced to pray Aid of them by their Writs out of their Chancery to protect themselves and Moenial Servants in time of Parliaments That Queen Mary caused 39. of their Members to be indicted in the Court of Kings Bench for being absent from Parliament wherein none of them though Plowden a very learned Lawyer was one durst adventure to plead or insist upon any their pretended Soveraignty of Parliament or that they were a third Estate or part thereof That Queen Elizabeth one of the greatest and most vertuous of Princess that ever weilded a Scepter and sate in our English Throne could upon no greater an offence of Bromley and Welsh two of the Knights of the Shire for the County of Worcester then endeavouring to Petition the House of the Lords to joyn with them to supplicate her Majesty to declare her Successor did forbid them to go to the Parliament but keep their Chambers and shortly after committed them Prisoners in the Tower of London and did not long after sitting the Parliament Arraign and try in her Court of Kings-Bench for High Treason Doctor Parry a Member of Parliament and caused him to be drawn hanged and quartered and may read that in 16 R. 2. in an Act of Parliament made against Provisions at Rome under a Penalty of
Praemunire the Commons by the name of the Commons of England three times repeated not stiling themselves a third Estate petitioned the King that the Estates viz. The Lords Spiritual and Temporal herein acknowledging the Praelates to be of great use to the King might declare their resolutions to stand to and abide by the King and had never presumed so high as publickly to print and declare that the Soveraignty is inherent and radicated in the people if they had not plundered or sequestred the Devils Library of Hellish Inventions Tricks and new found devices or met with some manuscript of them at some Auction a Trick of trade newly found out by the Stationers And likewise prayed the King and him require by way of Justice that he would examine the Lords Spiritual and Temporal severally and all the Estates in Parliament to give their opinion in the cases aforesaid whereupon the said Archbishops Bishops and Praelates being severally examined made their Protestations that they could not deny or affirm that the Pope had power to excommunicate or translate Bishops or Praelates but if any such thing be done by any that it is against the Kings Crown and dignity And the Lords Temporal being severally examined answered that the matters aforesaid were clearly in derogation of the Kings Crown and Dignity And likewise the Procurators of the Lords Spiritual being severally examined answered in the name and for their Lords as the Bishops had done whereupon the King by the Assent aforesaid and at the request of the Commons did ordain and Enact the said Statute of Praemunire And might be assured that in Holland the united Provinces the chief of the confederate Estates with those that represent the Reistres Schaff or Nobility do usually sit at the Hague in Holland many times go home or send to the Towns and places they represent to receive their orders or approbation who sometimes send their Deputies unto the Estates at the Hague with their resolutions so as there is a wide and great difference betwixt those which our ambitious high-minded parcel of people that would be called Estates and those that are the true and real Estates of the principality of Ghelders and County of Zutphen Earldoms and Counties of Holland Zealand Utrecht and Friziss Omland and the Eu and Lovers who did so unite and confederate themselves together with all those that would allye and unite with them as they promised not to infringe or break any of each of their Priviledges or Immunities which our Members of the House of Commons in Parliament have largly done by ejecting turning out and imprisoning one another putting others in their places and making them receive their illegal Sentences and unjust Judgments upon their knees neither shall raise or make any Taxes or Imposts upon each other without general consent which ours would be so stiled Estates have as largely done as 48 Millions of English Money have amounted unto and in case any thing be done to the contrary it shall be null and void the Lords Lieutenants and Governors of the said several Provinces and Stadtholders thereof and all the subordinate Magistrates and Officers should from time to time take their Oaths to perform the same and the Governors of the Cities Towns Places in the said united Provinces do in especial cases send unto their Stadtholders their Assent or Ratifications before any thing be acted which our pretending third Estates did not do when they arraigned and murdered their King at the suit of the people when that blessed Martyr King Charles the first asserted that they were not a tenth part of the people and he might truly have said that there were not above one in every 200 of the deluded people of many Millions of his Subjects Cromwels Souldiers and Army and the murdering Judges only excepted and not all of them neither that desired his death or being so wickedly used And can never find any reason record or president to warrant the imprisoning securing or secluding as they have lately called it any of their own Members nor are to judge of the Legality or Illegality of the Election of their Members nor of any the pretended breach of their Priviledges of which the King and Lords were anciently the Judges as is evident by 16 R. 2. n. 6. 12 R. 2. n. 23. 1 H. 4. n. 79. 4 H. 4. n. 19 20. 5 H. 4. n. 71. 78. ca. 5. 8 H. 4. n. 13. Brook Parliament 11. 8 H. 6. n. 57. 23 H. 6. n. 41. 31 H. 6. n. 27 28. 36. 14 E. 4. n. 55. 17 E. 4. n. 36. cum multis aliis but were always Petitiouers to the King for Publick Laws and redress of grievances or in the case of private persons but very seldom petitioned unto and then but by sometimes the Upholsters and Merchant adventurers of London and though they had the free Election of their Speakers granted yet they were to present them to the King who allowed or refused them and sometimes caused them to chuse another never did or could of right administer an Oath to witnesses or others to be examined by the whole House of Commons as the Lords in their subordinate Judicative power usually did had no Vote nor Judicature in Writs of Errour brought in Parliament returnable only before and to be judged by the King and his House of Lords nor yet in criminal Causes upon impeachments wherein the Lords are only subordinate to their Soveraign to be Judges So as the improbability impossibility and unreasonableness of the super-governing power and pretended Supremacy of the House of Commons in Parliament will be as evident as the Absurdity and Frenzy thereof will appear to be by all our Records Annals Historians and Memorials which will not only contradict the follies of those that are so liberal to bestow it upon them but may give us a full and undeniable assurance that the representing part of part of the Commons of England in Parliament from their first Original in 49 H. 3. when their King was a Prisoner to a part of his Subjects they could then represent none but Rebels did not certainly believe themselves to be either one of the 3. Estates of the Kingdom or co-ordinate with their King when in the first year of the Raign of King Edward the second as Walsingham a Writter of good accompt then living and writing after the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. hath reported the people seeking by the help of the Bishops and Nobility to redress some grievances which did lye heavily upon them ad Regem sine strepitu accedentes rogant humiliter ut Baronum suorum Conciliis tractare negotia regni velet quibus a periculis sibi regno imminentibus non solum cautior sed Tutior esse possit And when they had any cause of complaint or any grievances cast or fallen upon them by their fellow Subjects or thrown or imposed one upon another did not
Durham Earls of Northampton Arundel Warwick Oxford Suffolk and Hugh le Despenser Lord of Glamorgan to the whole so misnamed Estate of Parliament when the King could not be one of them not at all being present purporting that whereas the King at his Arrival at Hoges in Normandy had made his Eldest Son the Prince of Wales Knight he ought to have of the Realm forty Shillings for every Knights Fee which they all granted and took Order for the speedy levying thereof 25 E. 3. Sir John Matravers pardon was confirmed by the whole missettled Estates whereof the King could not be accompted any of them for he granted the pardon 28 E. 3. Richard Earl of Arundel by Petition to the King praying to have the Attainder of Edmond Earl of Arundel his Father reversed and himself restored to his Lands and Possessions upon the view of the Record and and the said Richard Earl of Arundels Allegation that his Father was wrongfully put to death and was never heard the whole Estates saith that ill Translator adjudged he was wrongfully put to Death and Restored the said Earl to the benefit of the Law which none could do but the King who was petitioned and having the sole interest in the forfeiture was none of those which were wrongfully called the whole Estates 37 E. 3. Where it is said that at the end of the Parliament the Chancellor in the presence of the King shewed that the King meant to execute the Statute of Apparel and therefore charged every State to further the same the King could not be understood to charge himself After which he demanded of the whole Estates so as before mistaken whether they would have such things as they agreed on to be by way of Ordinance or of Statute they answered by way of Ordinance for that they being to take benefit thereby might amend the same at their pleasure And so the King having given thanks to all the as aforesaid miscloped Estates for their pains taken licensed them to depart which should be enough to demonstrate that the Granter and Grantees were not alone or conjoynt and that the King giving thanks to the Estates did not give it to himself 42 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury on the Kings behalf gave thanks to the whole in the like manner mis-termed Estate for their Aids and Subsidies granted unto the King wherein assuredly the Archbishop of Canterbury did not understand the King to be any part of the whole Estate which the King gave thanks unto The Commons by their Speaker desiring a full declaration of the Kings necessity require him to have consideration of the Commons poor Estate The King declared to the Commons that it was as necessary to provide for the safety of the Kings Estate as for the Common-wealth Anno 6. Regis Richardi 2. after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named Commandment was given that all persons and Estates which imported no more being rightly understood than conditions or sorts of men miscalled as aforesaid should the next day have the cause of summoning the Parliament declared 11 R. 2. The Parliament was said to have been adjourned by the common Assent of the whole Estates the first time of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being called the Estates without or with the Commons joyned with them no such names or words appellations or Titles were either known or in use nor any such words or Titles as Estates being to be found in the Originals or Parliament Rolls before Anno 11 R. 2. for no more appeareth in the Original than in and under these expressions viz. Et mesme le vendredi auxint a cause ce fest solempnite de pasch estoit a progeno ii coveient le Roi les Seigneurs tautx autres entendre a devotion le Parlement coe assent le toutz Estats le Parlement estoit continez del dit vendredi tanque Lindy lendemain de la equinziesme de Pasch adonquez prochem ensuent commandez per le Roy a toutz les Seigneurs Communs du dit Parlement Quils seroient a Westminster le dimengo en la dite quinzieme de pascha a plustaid sur ceo noevelles briefs furent â—aiots a toutz les Seigneurs somons au dit parlement de yestre a la dite quinzieme sur certaine peine a limiter per les Seiguro qui seroient presents en dit Parlement a la quinzieme avant dite le quel Limdy le dit Parlement fust recommence tenat son cours selont la request des Communs grant de nostre Seigur le Roi avant ditz And then but the inconsiderate hasty new created word of the Clerks in a distracted time when the great Ministers of State in two contrary Factions to the ruin of the King and many of themselves as it afterwards sadly happened were quarrelling with each other and all the Bishops so affrighted as they were enforced to make their Protestation against any proceedings to be made in that so disturbed a Parliament In Anno 21. R. 2. The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England taking his Theme or Text out of Ezechiel Rex unius omnibus erat proved by many Authors that by any other means than by one sole King no Realm could be well governed For which cause the King had assembled the Estates in Parliament to be informed of the rights of his Crown withheld which Oration afterwards was to the same effect seconded by Sir John Bussey Knight Speaker of the House of Commons King Richard the second being as a Prisoner in the Tower of London made the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Hereford his Procurators to publish his Rem 〈…〉 of the Kingdom to the whole Estates Which whether at at that time distinguished or divided into three doth not appear viz. into Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons could not comprehend the King who was not to be present but gave the direction and authority to his said Procurators and could never have been understood to have been present or one of them himself or to have made such a prosecution against or for himself After the claim made unto the Crown of England in Parliament by Henry Duke of Lancaster and a consultation had amongst the Lords and Estates not expressing that the Commons were a 3d. or any part thereof it being then altogether improbable that King Richard the 2d or any other representing for him was there present and to make one of the said pretended Estates as much out of the reach of probability that King Richard himself was one or a Person then acting against himself the Duke of Lancaster himself then affirming that the Kingdom was vacant And when the Usurping King Henry the 4th openly gave thanks to the whole Estates wherein is plainly evidenced that himself neither was or could be understood to be then or at any other time one of the said Estates The first day of the Parliament the Bishop of London
the Kings Brother and Chancellor of England in the behalf of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of calling the Parliament and taking for his Theme Multitudo Sapientum learnedly resembled the Government of the Realm to the Body of a man the Right-hand to the Church the Left-hand to the Temporalty and the other Members to the Commonalty of all which Members and Estates the King not deeming himself to be one was willing to have Councel The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England by the Kings commandment declaring the cause of the Summoning the Parliament and taking for his Theme Regem honorificate shewed them that on necessity every Member of mans Body would seek comfort of the Head as the Chief and applyed the same to the honouring of the King as the Head And in that his Oration mentioning the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses giveth them no Title of Estates but the Kings Leiges In the presence of John Duke of Bedford Brother of the King Lieutenant and Warden of England and the Lords and Commons the Bishop of Durham by his commandment declared that the King willed that the Church and all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not include the King It was ordained that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties without the words Concessimus which could not comprehend the King who granted it to them but not to himself The Chancellor at the first assembling of the Parliament declared that the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which must be intended to others that were his Subjects and not to himself that was none of them The Archbishop of York Chancellor of England declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties in which certainly he well knew that the Person willing or granting was not any of the Persons or Estates to whom he willed and granted that they should enjoy their Liberties The Duke of Gloucester being made Guardian or Keeper of England by the King sitting in the Chair the Archbishop of York being sick William Linwood Doctor of Laws declaring the cause of summoning the Parliaâ—ent said that the King willed that every Estate should enjoy their due Liberties which properly enough might be extensively taken to Military men and Soldiers the Gentry Agricolis opificibus all sorts of Trades Labourers Servants Apprentices Free-holders Copy-holders Lease-holders single Women and Children Tenants at Will and which never were themselves Estates but the several sorts and degrees thereof wherein if any Law Reason or Sense could make the King to be comprehended an inextricable problem or question would everlastingly remain unresolved who it was that so willed or granted The King sitting in his Chair of State John Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the Bishops Lords and Commons by the Kings Commandment declared the causes of summoning the Parliament taking for his Theme or Text the words sussipiant montes Pacem Colles Justitiam divided it into three parts according to the three Estates by the Hills he understood Bishops and Lords and Magistrates by little Hills Knights Esquires and Merchants by the People Husbandmen Artificers and Labourers By the which third Estates by sundry Authorities and Examples he learnedly proved that a Triple Political vertue ought to be in them viz. In the first Unity Peace and Concord In the second Equity Consideration Upright Justice without maintenance In the third due Obeysance to the King his Laws and Magistrates without grudging and gave them further to understand the King would have them to enjoy all their Liberties Of which third Estates the Chancellor in all probability neither the King or they that heard him did take or believe the King himself to be any part The 15th day of August the Plague beginning to increase the Chancellor by the Kings Commandment in the presence of the 3 Estates the Clerks Translator or Abridger being unwilling to relinquish their Novelty or Errors of which the commonest capacity or sense can never interpret the King to be one Prorogued the Parliament until the Quindena of St. Michael The Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of the Summons of Parliament said that the King willed that all Estates should enjoy thâ—â— Liberties which might intitle the King to be the Party willing or granting but not any of the Parties who were to take benefit thereby It was enacted by the whole Estates which may be understood to be the King Lords Spiritual and that the Lords of the Kings Councel none of theirs should take such order for the Petition of the Town of Plymouth as to them should seem best Letters Patents being granted by the King to John Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury of divers Mannors and Lands parcel of the Dutchy of Lancaster under the Seal of the Dutchy were confirmed by the whole Estates for the performance of the last Will and Testament of King H. 5. though it was severed from the Crown and was no part of the concernment thereof nor had any relation to the Publick or any Parliamentory Affairs the King himself that granted the Letters Patents could not be interpreted to be one of those whole Estates which were said to have confirmed them By the whole Estates were confirmed King Henry the 6th Letters Patents of the Erection and Donation of Eton Colledge and also of Kings Colledge in Cambridge with the Lands thereunto belonging which might well conclude the King although he being the Donor could not be believed to be any part of the whole Estates who by their approbation are said to have confirmed his Letters Patents The Chancellor in the name of all the Lords in the presence of the King protested that the Peace which the King had taken with the French King was of his own making and will and not by any of the Lords procurations the which was enacted And it was enacted that a Statute made in the time of King H. 5. that no Peace should be taken with the French King that then was called the Dolphin of France without the assent of the three Estates of both Realms should be utterly revoked and that no Person for giving Counsel to the Peace of France be at any time to come impeached therefore which may demonstrate that neither the Dolphin of France nor the King of England were then accompted to be any part of the several 3. Estates of the said Kingdoms The King by his Chancellor declared that he willed that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties it cannot be with any probability supposed that either he or his Chancellor intended that himself was one of the said Estates The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King gave thanks in his behalf to the 3. Estates wherein no
pour contempt upon our Kings and Princes and not cause them to wander in the Wilderness where there is no way but offer up our daily Prayers unto God to send help to our Jacob in all his many difficulties Elenchus Capitum OR THE CONTENTS Of the Sections or Chapters § 1. THat our Kings of England in their voluntary summoning to their Great Councils and Parliaments some of the more Wise Noble and Better part of their Subjects to give their Advice and Consent in matters touching the publick good and extraordinary concernment did not thereby create or by any Assent express or tacite give unto them an Authority Coordination Equality or share in the Legislative power or were elected by them page 1 § 2. Of the Indignities Troubles and Necessities which were put upon King John in the enforcing of his Charters by the Pope and his then domineering Clergy of England joyned with the Disobedience and Rebellion of some of the Barons encouraged and assisted by them p. 7 § 3. Of the succeeding Iealousies Animosities Troubles and Contests betwixt King John and his over-jealous Barons after the granting of his Charters and his other transactions and agreements with them at their tumultuous meeting at Running Mede with the ill usages which he had before received of them during all the time of his Raign p. 26 § 4. The many Affronts Insolencies and ill Usages suffered by King Henry 3. until the granting of his Magna Charta Charta de Foresta p. 29 § 5. Of the continued unhappy Jealousies Troubles and Discords betwixt the Discontented and Ambitious Barons and King Henry 3. after the granting of his Magna Charta Charta de Foresta p. 36. § 6. That the Exceptions mentioned in the King of France's Award of the Charter granted by King John could not invalidate the whole Award or justify the provisions made at Oxford which was the principal matter referred unto him p. 58 § 7. Of the evil Actions and Proceedings of Symon de Montfort and his Rebellious partners in the name of the King whilst they kept him and his Son Prince Edward and divers of the Loyal Nobility Prisoners from the 14th of May in the 48th year of his Raign until his and their delivery by the more fortunate Battle at Evesham the â—th day of August in the 49th year of his tormented Raign p. 66 § 8. Of the Actions of the Prince after his Escape his success at the Battle of Evesham Release of the King his Father and restoring him to his Rights p. 98 § 9. Of the proceedings of King Henry 3. after his Release and Restauration until his death p. 100 § 10. That these new contrived Writs of Summons made by undue means upon such a disturbed occasion could neither obtain a proper or quiet sitting in Parliament or the pretended ends and purposes of the Framers thereof and that such an hasty and undigested constitution could never be intended to erect a third Estate in the Kingdom equal in power with the King and his great Councel the House of Peers or consistent with the pretended Conservatorships or to be coordinate with the King and his Great Councel of Peers or to be a Curb to any of them or themselves or upon any other design than to procure some money to wade through that their dangerous Success p. 108 § 11. Of the great Power Authority Command and Influence which the Praelates Barons and Nobility of England had in or about the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. when he was a Prisoner to Symon Montfort â—d these Writs of Election of some of the Commons to Parliament were first devised and sent to summon them And the great power and Estate which they afterwards had to create and contain an Influence upon them p. 122 § 12. That the aforesaid Writ of Summons made in that Kings name to elect a certain number of Knights Citizens and Burgesses the probos homines good honest men or Barons of the Cinque Ports to appear for or represent some part of the Commons of England in Parliament being enforced from King Henry 3. in the 48th and 49th year of his Raign when he was a Prisoner to Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and under the power of him and his party of Rebellious Barons was never before used in any Wittenagemots Mikel-gemots or great Councels of our Kings or Princes of England p. 147 § 13. That the Majores Barones Regni and Spiritual and Temporal Lords with their Assistants were until the 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. and the constrained Writs issued out for the election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses whilst he was a Prisoner in the Camp or Army of his Rebellious Subjects the only great Councels of our Kngs. p. 151 § 14. That these enforced Writs of Summons to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal accompanied with that then newly devised Engine or Writ to Elect Knights Citizens and Burgesses to be present in Parliament were not in the usual and accustomed form for the summoning the Lords Spiritual and Temporal to the Parliament p. 204 § 15. That the Majores Barones or better sort of the Tenants in Capite Iustly and Legally by some of our Ancient Kings and Princes but not by any positive Law that of the enforced Charter from King John at Running Mede being not accounted to be such a Law were distinguished and separated from the Minores or lesser sort of the Tenants in Capite p. 207 § 16. That the General Councels or Courts mentioned before the Rebellious meeting of some of the English Baronage and the constraint put upon King John at Running Mede or before the 49th of Henry 3. were not the Magna Consilia or generale Consilium Colloquium or Communia Consilia now called Parliaments wherein some of the Commons as Tenants in Capite were admitted but only truly and properly Curiae Militum a Court summoning those that hold of the King in Capite to acknowledge Record and perform their Services do their Homage and pay their Releifs c. And the Writ of summons mentied in the Close Rolls of the 15th year of the Raign of King John was not then for the summoning of a great Councel or Parliament but for other purposes viz. Military Aids and Offices p. 218 § 17. That the Comites or Earls have in Parliament or out of Parliament Power to compel their Kings or Soveraign Princes to yield unto their â—onsults Votes or Advices will make them like the Spartan Ephori and amount to no more than a Conclusion without praemisses or any thing of Truth Law or Right Reason to support it p. 229. § 18. Of the methods and courses which King Edward the first held and took in the Reformation and Cure of the former State Diseases and Distempers p. 286. § 19. That the Sheriffs are by the Tenor and Command of the Writs for the Elections of the Knights of the Shires and Burgesses of
of France until he were absolved and had confirmed unto them their Liberties whereupon the King much against his will was constrain'd to submit to the present pressure and necessity sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who were yet in France promising them present restitution and satisfaction under the Hands and Seals of 24 of his Earls and Barons undertaking for the performance thereof according to the form of his Charter and Agreement made and granted in that behalf and the better to prepare them to give him their assistance directed the ensuing Letter to meet them in these words Rex Venerabili in Christo Patri S. Dei gratiâ Cant ' Archiepiscopo totius Angliae Primati sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinali omnibus suffraganeis suis Episcopis cum eo existentibus Johannes eadem gratiâ Rex Angliae c. mandamus vobis quòd cùm veneritis in Angliam scientes quòd jamdiù vos expectavimus adventum vestrum desideravimus unde in occursum vestrum mittimus fideles nostros Dominum H. Dublin ' Archiepiscopum J. Norwici Episcopum W. Com' Arundel Mattheum filium Herberti W. Archidiaconum Huntindon rogantes quatenùs ad nos venire festinetis sicut praedicti fideles nostri vobis dicent T. meipso apud Stoaks Episcopi primo die Julii Whereupon Pandulphus with the Archbishop and the rest of the exiled Clergy upon his confiscation of their Estates forthwith came over and found him at Winchester who went forth to meet them and on his knees with Tears received them beseeching them to have Compassion on him and the Kingdom of England and being thereupon Absolved with great Penitence Weeping and Compunction accompanied with the Tears of the many Beholders did Swear upon the Evangelists to Love Defend and Maintain Holy Church and the Ministers thereof to the utmost of his Power that he would renew the good Laws of his Predecessors especially those of King Edward abrogating such as were unjust would Judge all his Subjects according to the just Judgment of his Court which was then and for many Ages before composed only of the King and his Nobility Bishops and Lords Spiritual with his great Officers of State and such Assistants as he would please to call unto it and that presently upon Easter next following he would make plenary satisfaction for whatsoever had been taken from the Church Which done he went to Portsmouth with intention to pass over into France committing the Government of the Kingdom to the Bishop of Winchester and Jeffrey Fitz-Peter Justiciar a man of a Generous Spirit Learned in the Laws and Skilful in Government who were also to take the Councel of the Archbishop of Canterbury The Souldiers being numerous and wanting Money to attend him desired to be Supplied out of his Exchequer which he refusing to do or wanting it in a great rage with his private Family took Shipping and put forth to the Isle of Jersey but seeing none of his Nobles and others followed him according to their Tenures and Homage was forced having lost his opportunity of the Season to return into England where he gathered an Army with intention to Chastise the Lords who had so forsaken him having for the like Offence some years before taken by way of Fine a great sum of Money Quòd noluerunt eum sequi ad partes transmarinas ut haereditatem amissam recuperaret But the Archbishop of Canterbury followed him to Northampton urging him that it was against his Oath taken at his Absolution to proceed in that manner against any man without the Judgment of his Court to whom the King in great wrath replyed that he would not defer the business of the Kingdom for his pleasure seeing Lay Judgment appertained not to him and marched to Nottingham The Archbishop followed him and plainly told him that unless he would desist he would Excommunicate all such as should take Arms against any before the releasing of the Interdiction and would not leave him until he had obtained a convenient day for the Lords to come to his Court which shortly after they did And a Parliament was assembled at St. Pauls in London wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury produced the said Charter of King Henry I. whereby he granted the ancient Liberties of the Kingdom of England according to the Laws of King Edward with those emendations which his Father by the counsel of his Barons had ratified upon the reading whereof gaudio magno valdè saith Matthew Paris they greatly rejoyced and swore in the presence of the Archbishop that for those Liberties viso tempore congruo si necesse fuerit decertabunt usque ad mortem Archiepiscopus promisit eis fidelissimum auxilium suum pro posse suo sic confederatione facta inter eos colloquium solutum fuit The Pope advertised of those disturbances by his Bull directed Baronibus Angliae but not to those Bishops displaying the Banner of his supposed Authority which had encouraged and animated and caused them to persist therein stiling those Quaestiones novitèr suscitatas grave dispendium parituras did prohibit under the pain of Excommunication all Conspiracies and Insurrections from the time of the Discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium which had been quieted Apostolica autoritate admonished them Regem placare reconciliare exhibentes ei servitia consueta which They and their Predecessors had done unto Him and his Predecessors and if they had any thing to require of him they should not ask it insolenter sed cum reverentia preserving his Regal Honour and Authority that so they might the more easily obtain what they desired and assured them that he would desire the King that he should be kind to them and admit their just Petitions But the Barons persisting in their armed Violence and Rebellion against the King notwithstanding that weather-beaten Prince had for shelter taken upon him the Cross and War for the recovery of the Holy-Land then so called the Pope in July following sent his Bull to the universality of the Barons Bishops and Commonalty of England wherein reciting that the Barons had sent their Agents unto him and that he had commanded the Archbishops Bishops and Archdeacons ut conspirationes conjurationes praesumptas from the the time of the discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium that they should Apostolic à autoritate forbid them by Excommunication to proceed any farther therein and enjoyn the Barons to endeavour to pacifie the King and reconcile themselves unto him and if they had any thing to demand of him it should be done conservando sibi Regalem Honorem exhibendo servitia debita quibus ipse Rex non debebat absque Judicio spoliari And that he had commanded the King to be admonished and enjoyned as he would have remission of his sins graciously to give them a safe conduct and receive their just Petitions ita si quod fortè non posset inter eos concordia provenire
his Castles of Killingworth Northampton Nottingham and Scarborough and the Castellanies or Governours sworn to obey them and after a general pardon granted to them and all their adhaerents mutual Oaths should be taken on both sides in solemn manner for the inviolable observing the Articles and the King's Letters Patents sent to all the Sheriffs of the Kingdom to cause all men of what degree soever within their several Shires to swear to observe those Laws and Liberties granted by his Charter and was compell'd so far to suffer those Conservators to proceed in their Conservatorships as in the same yearthey took their Oaths to perform those their new Offices the Earls of Arundel Gloucester and Warren with Hubert de Burgh and many Barons and great men took their Oaths also to obey and assist them But in the mean time Gloucester and Spencer being the chief of the Twenty-four Conservators did draw the entire managing of the Kingdom into their own hands compel the King to summon a great Councel at London where the authority of the Twenty-four Conservators was deliver'd over unto themselves and it was ordained that Three of them at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of the Castles and other business of the Kingdom with those of the Chancellor Justiciar and Treasurer and of all Offices great and small and bound the King to loose and renounce to them their legal Obedience whensoever he should infringe his Charters which might as unto a great part of them be certainly believed to have been the very spawn and breed of those long-after-reviv'd high and mighty Nineteen Propositions which were endeavour'd to have been enforced upon the late Blessed Martyr King CHARLES and of the late design'd Association in the Reign of His Son King CHARLES II. But that hoped pacification being made saith the Historian Jealousies and Discontents did again kindle and break out on both sides the one part to keep what they had undutifully gained and the other to get loose of what for fear he had too much yielded unto the King wanting none to enflame the perturbations and anguish of his mind to tell him that he was now a King without a Kingdom a Lord without Dominion and a Subject of his Subjects the Discords like a Wound or Sore ill-cur'd fester'd again and broke out SECT III. Of the succeeding Jealousies Animosities Troubles and Contests betwixt King John and his over-jealous Barons after the granting of his Charters and his other Transactions and Agreements with them at their tumultuous meeting at Running-Mead with the ill usages which he had before received of them during all the time of his Reign HE retir'd into the Isle of Wight whence by Agents sent to Rome he procured a definitive Sentence to condemn and nullifie what was done and the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who kept about the City of London and under colour of Tournments and other Martial exercises invited as many other as they could to their assistance but did not seek to surprize his Person or intercept his Agents although they had strength to do it but only to enjoy those Liberties which they had spoiled and discredited by gaining them by violence wherein the fear of the power of an enraged Prince made them the more desperately careful to defend themselves and finish their designs whilst the King tarried three months in the Isle of Wight whence the Bishop of Worcester Chancellor of England Bishop of Norwich with others were sent with his Seal to procure Foreign Forces and to bring them to Dover whither after some small prizes taken by him and he returning his Agents abroad brought him an Army of Foreigners from Gascony Lovaine Poicteau and Brabant many of them being his French Subjects with whose help notwithstanding the loss of 40000 Men Women and Children who were drowned at Sea as they were bringing unto him by Hubert de Burgh from Calice He besieged and took Rochester Castle marched over most part of the Kingdom and within half a year got in all the Barons Castles even to the borders of Scotland and was Master of all England except the City of London which he would not adventure upon in regard of the Barons united Forces which lay near unto it marched to St. Albans where he proclaimed the Pope's Excommunication of the Barons who seeing Themselves and their Wives and Children like to be ruined and depriv'd of their Estates which were given away to strangers desperately fell into another extreme solicited Lewis the French King's Son to take upon him the Crown of England wherein they promised by a free Election to invest him and to send Pledges for the performance which Message being well received a Parliament was called at Lyons by Philip the Father of Lewis and the business resolved upon whilst Lewis besides the hop'd-for the title of Election by those trusty Conservators of the Peoples Liberties for their own particular Interest more than the Peoples supposed that he had another title from his Wife Blanch Daughter of the Sister of the prosecuted King In whose behalf the Pope wrote to the King of France not to invade the King of England but rather to defend him in regard he was a Vassal of the Roman Church and the Kingdom by reason of Dominion appertaining unto it whereunto the King of France answered probably by the advice of the contending English Baronage That the Kingdom of England never was nor is nor ever shall be the Patrimony of St. Peter That King John was never lawfull King thereof and if he were he had forfeited it by the Murder of his Nephew Arthur for which he was condemned in his Court and could not give it away without the consent of the Barons who were bound in an Oath to defend the same and if the Pope should maintain this errour it would be a pernicious example Wherewith the Pope's Agents departing unsatisfied Lewis sent his Commissioners to Rome to declare his Rights and justifie his undertaking sets forth from Callis with 600 Ships and 80 other Vessels and landed with his Army at Sandwich King Iohn being then at Dover who upon notice of his great power and distrusting his Mercenaries committed the keeping of Dover Castle to Hubert de Burgh forsook the Field and with it himself and retired first to Worcester and after to Gloucester whereby Lewis having subdued the whole County of Kent Dover excepted came to London where he was joyfully received of the Barons and upon his Oath taken to restore their Laws and recover their Rights had Homage and Fealty done unto him Guallo the Pope's Agent follow'd the King to Gloucester shews him the Pope's care of him pronounced Excommunication against Lewis and all that took part with him Notwithstanding which small comforts in so many and great extremeties pressing hard upon him most of his Mercenaries left him and either returned into their own Countreys with such spoils as they had gotten or betook
correction or explicacation mad therein So as that meeting and re-referrence proved to be only an essay for a pacification For that haughty Earl Montfort hated the King and endeavouring all he could his destruction so thwarted all his actions and domineer'd over him as the King told him openly That he feared him more than any Thunder or Tempest in the world Being not pleased with what had been proposed at that revisionary Treaty for what concerned his own particular interest and satisfaction would rather bleed and embroil the Nation than acquiesce in those excellent Laws and Liberties which the King had granted in his Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta which like two Jewels of inestimable price in her ears did help to bless secure and adorn our BRITANNIA whilst She sate upon Her Promontory viewing and guarding Her British-Seas and did therefore draw and entice as many as he could to go along with his envy malice ambition and designs With which Ordination Sentence and Award of the King of France against the Barons many were notwithstanding so well satisfied with the King and so ill with Symon Montfort's proud and insolent demeanour as they withdrew themselves from the rebellious part of the Barons and although some for a while staggered in their Opinions and Loyalty because though the King of France condemned the provisions made at Oxford yet he allowed King John's Charter whereby he left as they pretended the matter as he found it for that these Provisions as those Barons alledged were grounded upon that Charter But a better consideration made many to dispence with their ill-taken Oaths and return to their Loyalty as Henry Son of the Earl of Cornwall Roger de Clifford Roger de Leybourne Hamo L'Estrange and others And it is worthy a more than ordinary remarque that that King of France and his Councel upon view and hearing of so many Controversies and Tronsactions betwixt our King Henry III. and his rebellious Barons could not be strangers to the former and latter attempts ill-doings and designs of that Party of the English Baronage did so little approve thereof and of their Parliamentary Insolencies and Oxford Provisions as his Grand-child or Successor Philip le Bel King of France who reigned in the time of our Edward I. did within less than forty years after Pour oster saith l'Oyseau a very learned French Author de la suitte le Parlement qui lors estoit le conseil ordinaire des Roys voir leur faisoit Teste bien sauvent luy oster doucement la cognossance des affaires d'Estat to the no great happiness as it afterwards proved of the French Nation erigea un cour ordinaire le rendit sedentaire a Paris dont encore il a retenu ce teste de son ancienne institution qu'il verifie homologue les Edicts du Roy. And now the doors of Janus Temple flew quite open the Prince with Lewellin Prince of Wales Mortimer and others invade and enter upon the Lands of Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and some of the opposite Nobility and the Earl of Leicester was as busie on the other side in seizing Gloucester and Worcester Whereupon the King doubting Montfort's approach to London being not yet ready for him works so as a mediation of Peace was assay'd upon condition that all the Castles of the King should be delivered to the keeping of the Barons the provisions of Oxford inviolably observed all strangers by a certain time should avoid the Kingdom except such as by a general consent should be held faithful and profitable for the same Here saith the Historian was a little pause which seemed but a breathing in order unto a greater rage The Prince fortifies victuals and garrisons Windsor Castle And the King to get time summoned a Parliament at London where he won many Lords to his party and with them Richard Earl of Cornwal his Brother King of Almaine Henry his Son William Valence with the rest of his Brethren marches to Oxford whither divers Lords of Scotland repair unto him as Iohn Comyn Iohn Baliol Lords of Galloway Robert Bruce and others with many English Barons Clifford Percy Basset c. from thence with all his Forces went to Northampton took Prisoner young Symon Montfort with fourteen other principal men thence to Nottingham spoiling the Possessions appertaining to the Barons in those parts The Earl of Leicester draws towards London to recover and make good that part of his greatest importance and seeks to secure Kent and the Ports which hastens the King to stop his proceedings and to succour the Castle of Rochester which he besieged whereby Success and Authority growing strong on the King's side the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester in behalf of themselves and their Party write unto the King humbly protesting their Loyalty alledge that they opposed only against such as were enemies to Him annd the Kingdom and had bely'd them unto which the King returned answer that Themselves were the perturbers of him and his State enemies to his Person and sought His and the Kingdoms destruction and therefore defy'd them the Prince and the Earl of Cornwal sending likewise their Letters of defyance unto them who doubting the hazard of a Battel send the Bishops of London and Worcester their former encouragers unto the King with an offer of 30000 Marks for damage done in those Wars so as the Provisions of Oxford might be observed Which not being condescended unto or thought fit to be allowed Montfort with his Partners seeing no other means but to put all to the hazard of a Battel made himself more ready than was expected placed on the side of an Hill near Lewis where the Battel was to be fought certain Ensigns without men which seemed afar off to be Squadrons ready to second his men whom he caused all to wear White Crosses both for their own notice and signification of the candour and innocency of his cause which he desired to have believed to be only for Justice And as Rebels first assaulting their King unexpectedly began to charge his Forces who were divided into three parts The first whereof was commanded by Prince Edward the King's Son William de Valence Earl of Pembroke and John Warren Earl of Surrey and Sussex the second by the King of Almaine and his Son Henry and the third by the King himself The Forces of the Barons ranged in four parts whereof the first was led by Henry de Montfort and the Earl of Hereford the second by Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford Iohn Fitz-John and William of Mount-Chency the third by the Londoners and Richard Segrave and the fourth by Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester himself and Thomas de Pelvesion And both sides fighting with as great manhood as fury the Prince and his Batalion cum tanto impetu in hostes irruil so beat and routed those that stood against him as he made them give back many
praefato Rege Franciae redire versus Terram Sanctam in subsidium ejusdem prout MÃ gis noveritis convenire Teste Rege apud Westm ' 6 o die Februarii And tired with the many Troubles with which the Rebellious and unquiet Spirits of too many of his Subjects had from his Infancy never ceased to torment him exchanged his earthly Habitation for a better before his Son could hear of his Death or return to take possession of his Kingdom and Inheritance And although he against his Will left behind him the first Original or Draught of a Constitution or Design of an House or Convocation now called an House of Commons in Parliament which can claim no better an Extraction then it's Birth and first Procreation from a Force and Duress of Imprisonment put by a Rebellious Army upon their vanquished Soveraign whilst he was in dread of the life of Himself and his Son and his Brother and his Son for more than a year and a quarter and led about and made to say and do and yeild unto every thing which they would have him That afflicted Prince did not after the battle of Evesham during all the Time of his Raign which continued about Eight years after make use of that kind of Writs of Summons or of that Form for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to let in the Tide of the Vulgar with their Ignorance upon his highest and greatest Councel And those new-contrived Writs of Summons could not in all probability obtain a quiet Sitting or accommodate the pretended Ends and Purposes of the Framers thereof neither be intended to erect a third Estate nor agree with the constrained Conservatorships or other their Designs otherwise than to maintain those Rebellious Barons in the Powers that they had usurped SECT X. That those new contrived Writs of Summons made by undue Means upon such a disturbed Occasion could neither obtain a proper or quiet Sitting in Parliament or the pretended Ends and Purposes of the Framers thereof and that such an hasty and indigested Constitution could never be intended to erect a third Estate in the Kingdom equal in power with the KING and his great Councel the House of Peers or consistent with the pretended Conservatorships or to be co-ordinate with the KING and his great Councel of Peers or to be a curb to any of them or themselves or upon any other design then to procure some Money to wade through that their dangerous Success IN regard that very many of the Counties and a great part of England as most of the Northern much of Wales and the Marches thereof under the Influence and Power of Valence Earl of Pembroke Mortimer Clare Earl of Gloucester Clifford Le Strange and other Welsh Lords Marchers and of John Balioll and other of the Northern Barons joyned to the Power and Influence of Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester after his forsaking of Montfort neither could or were like to come unto that so packed Parliament for Richard Earl of Cornewall had very many Borough Towns in that County Wales and its thirteen Shires and the largely priviledged Earldom of Chester sent no Knights or Burgesses to sit in the House of Commons in Parliament either then or before or since until by an Act of Parliament made in the later end of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth they were Authorised to be Elected for that Purpose Warren Earl of Surrey and Sussex was not in those Counties destitute of many Ferrers Earl of Darby falling off from Montfort could not but in the large extent of his Estate drew away very many of their well-Wishers Followers Friends Allies Tenants or Dependants and such as held of them by Knights Service and in Soccage or Burgage and many Knights Citizens and Burgesses to be so elected except those in London and Westminster if any did then appear to have been chosen as not dareing to come to that kind of New Parliament without a Convoy Although the Power of the Earl of Oxford one of their Associates in the County of Essex was then very great whilst they were almost daily and hourly haunted and tormented in their minds and Estates with Jealousies Fears and Dangers and the often sad and dolorous tidings of Devastations Slaughters Plunders and Sequestrations that misused King himself not being able to have any of his Servants or Subjects that he had sent for to come unto him without a Convoy to defend them from Spoil and Pillage And the exactest Search that hath been or can be made cannot find any formal or certain Sitting of a Parliament any Writs or Indentures returned any Session Act or thing done in that so newly framed Parliament when the minds of the Rebels themselves were so tormented and distracted with Fears and Cares to preserve themselves and their Royal Booty as they could neither be safe in keeping of him or restoring him to his Liberty for that the abused Lyon patient for a while against his Will once let loose might remember past Injuries and tear them in Peices and no Act or Memorial can be seen of any more than the Petition of two of the Knights Elected for the County of York and their Allowance of Wages where the Rebellious Party seemed to be most powerful no Burgesses of the many Towns and Boroughs in that large County at all it seems then Appearing or Petitioning by a Tax or Levy made upon that County which created the first President or Custom of giving Wages unto Knights of the Shires no other Knights of the Shires or Burgesses of Townes if there were or had been any Elected then demanding the like Allowance and that which was allowed the said Yorkshire Knights was partly for Expences supposed in their helping to guard the maritime parts to keep out Strangers or the Kings own Subjects in his several Provinces of France from coming from the parts beyond the Seas to assist him no Journal or Record of any Petitions made or Grievances exhibited Conferences Debates Decisions Acts Orders or Ordinances and that one that was made was only to engage and cozen as many as they could of the Bishops and Clergy into their own Design And therein none of the Commons or men of that Election do seem at all to trouble their Heads or be named as Actors or Consenters therein for it is expresly said to be provided Per Commun assentement du Roy des Prelaz des Contes des Barons de la tere a fermete en tesmoinaunce le Roy les hauz Hommes de la tere ont mis leur Seus neither doth there appear to to have been any Prorogation or Adiournment thereof And there was like to have been no small want of Money when Symon de Montfort and his Partners especially after the Earl of Gloucester's Sullennes and Departure from them to maintain and keep together so instable a People and so great a number for the guard of their Royal Prisoners and their own
homages or pay for the respite of them and to give the Lord to understand what alienations had been made of the lands holden of him whereby to Entitle him and those that did hold of him to the benefit of the Statute of Quia Emptores terrarum And altogether dissimular to that of the Parliament first begun with those few of the Commons which adventured to come unto it in Anno. 49. H. 3. when he was a Prisoner in the custody of Montfert Earl of Leicester a powerful rebell discontinued and interrupted as rebellious designs ought to be after his release untill King Edw. the 1. found it convenient to make use of that kind of writ of Summons to ballance the then swelling power of some of his over-Unweildy Baronage For in the former or those great Councells or Parliaments that were before the 49th Year of the Reign of King H. 3d. the Lords Spiritual and Temporall took upon them the care charge of the Commons as included in themselves as their Subjects they being by that then first kind of Writ only Elected to consent yield Obedience to such things as the Lords not themselves should ordain for had it been as it never was otherwise it would have been altogether ungatory and ridicule to allow a power to the Commons to ordain when they were impowred only to assent unto and obey and cannot at all be understood to obey and be subservient to that which themselves had Decreed the Lords Spirituall and Temporall untill the King had given unto what was advised by them his Royall sanction and assent being not at all obliged to any Obedience thereunto And untill the statute de Tallagio non concedendo without the Assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the Commons in Parliament Assembled was by King E. 1. assented unto had nothing to do in the granting of ayds and subsidies in Parliament Concurrently with the Lords Spirituall and Temporall in the aforesaid Writ of 18. H. 3. is said to be for to supply their own necessities as well as the Kings But in the Military Courts which were as aforesaid Summoned by King John or any other of our Kings before 49. H. 3. the Knights or those that held in Capite or Knights-Service that should fail to do their Services was to forfeit their Lands so holden and be in the Kings Mercy or pay Escuage which though it were to be assessed by Parliament was not then Understood to be a Parliament Composed of an House of Commons but a Parliament after the Ancient way consisting only of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall the Kings Great Officers of State Judges and Councell Which our Kings and their Councell both generall and speciall were not ignorant of either as to its right use or necessity for publique good or preservation When King John being rightly informed and in fear enough of an Invasion intended by the King of France his profest and known enemy et de omnibus quae in transmarinis partibus agebatur edoctus did not only inbreviare omnes naves universis portubus totius Angliae per brevia sua sed alias literas universis Vicecomitibus regni sui misit et direxit sub hac forma Johannes Dei gratia Rex Angliae c. Summone per bonos Summonitores omnes Barones Milites omnes liberos homines servientes vel quicunque sint vel de quocunque teneant qui arma habere debent vel arma habere possint qui homagium nobis vel ligeantiam fecerunt quod sicut nos seipsos omnia sua diligunt sint apud Doveram ad Instans clausum Paschae bene parati cum equis armis cum toto posse suo ad defendendum caput nostrum capita sua terram Angliae quod nullus remaneat qui arma portare possit sub nomine Culvertagii perpetuae servitatis when both in England and France nihil magis quam opprobrium significavit Et unusquisque sequatur dominum suum qui terram non habent arma habere possint illuc veniant ad capiendum solidatas nostras tu omnem attractum victualium omnia mercata ballivarum tuarum venire facias ut sequantur Exercitum nostrum Ita quod nullum mercatum de ballivis tuis alibi teneatur tuipse tunc sis ibi cum predictis Summonitoribus scias quod scire volumus quomodo venerint de ballivis tuis qui venerint qui non videas quod tu Ita efforciate venias cu 〈…〉 equis armis haec Ita exequatis ut inde ad corpus tuum nos capere debeamus tu inde habeas rotulum tuum ad nos certificandum qui remanserunt Whereupon saith that Historian his ergo literis per Angliam divulgatis convenerunt ad maritima in locis diversis homines diversae conditionis et aetatis sed cum per dies pauces tantae multitudini victus defuisset remiserunt ad propria principes militiae ex inormi vulgo copiosam Multitudinem milites solummodo servientes liberos homines cum Balistariis sagittariis juxta maritima retinentes omnibus igitur congregati ad pugnam aestimati sunt in exercitu apud Barham dâ—nam inter milites electos servientes strenuos bene armatos sexaginta millium virorum fortium quibus si er ga Regem Angliae defensionem patriae cor fuisset anima una non fuisset princeps sub coelo contra quem regnum Angliae se non defenderet And it was no mervail to the people of England who then had not learned to be affraid or make Bug-bears of publique good or kick and winch at every thing that tended that way when King Edward the first in the 24th Year of his Reign Citari fecit omnes qui sibi servitium debebant caeterosque omnes qui viginti libratas terrae amplias tenebant ut parati essent Londoniis in festo sancti Petri ad vincula cum equis armis transfretaturi cum eo Regis stipendiis militaturi And do very much differ from a Writ to Summon the Lords Spirituall and Temporall to Parliament as ad colloquium or consulendum does from coming parati cum equis armis which the Ancient cares and usage of Parliaments since that over-powerfull and unhappy designs of some unruly Barons coming in Arms to the Parliament at Oxford in the 42. Year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. and the sad consequences thereof taught our Kings to take heed of it ever after by prohibiting the coming to Parliaments with Arms and differs no less from the purpose tenour or purport of the Writs or Commissions to elect Knights of the Shires Citizens and Burgesses which had their first Originall and Commencement to come to our Parliaments in Anno. 49. of King Henry the 3. when that King was a Prisoner to an Army of Rebells was not
Year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. and for many ages past and are and should be no more then as Sr Edward Coke saith a Grand Enquest as men that were most Cognisant that best knew the grievances of their Countries with what might be their proper remedies and their abilities or disabilities to aid their Sovereign and assist the publick good being the truest most intelligent and most considerate Judges of their own Interest and the right and only use of their being Elected appeareth by the use and reason thereof to be no other in Parliaments then Informers of grievances and are to be Petitioners for Laws or Remedies When it is Judicis Officium that is to say the Suprema potestas which in England was never yet proved or rightly understood to reside in the People or any other then the King and in valde dubiis opinionibus in quibus non appareat quae sit magis communis rationes quae ex utraque parte efficaces adducuntur Trutinare non est dubitare de iis quae lege vel apertaratione monstrantur Qua propter opinio quaelibet contralegem veram rationem vana est And if any should be so wild or gone out of their reason as to endeavour to make an Assent to be aequivalent or as much as an innate Authority or any Effect of a Superiority or so much as a resemblance thereof they may as well undertake to assert that the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of Engl. had power to create Edward the black-Prince Son and heir apparent of King Edward the 3d Prince of Wales and to give him the Principality thereof because that great and victorious King in the 11th year of his Reign did grant it unto him concilio et concensu Praelatorum Comitum Baronum Communitatum Regni sui non suorum Angliae in generali Parliamento when in the preamble thereof he declared that he did it de serenitate Regalis praeeminencia and the Commons in Parliament in the 50th year of the Reign of that King after that the Archbishop of Canterbury had spoken much in the commendation of Richard de Burdeaux Son and heir of Edward late Prince of Wales Son and heir apparent of the Realm did with one voice pray the Lords so ignorant were they then of their own supposed co-ordination and so over-valuing the power of the Lords that they would make him Prince of Wales as his father was Who answered that it lay not in them but in the King so to do but promised to be Mediators for him So as they who would pretend to such a large representation of the people are to remember that they can give no power but such as they are themselves justly and by law entitled unto as Subjects obeying in their Elections the words intention and true meaning of their Sovereign who did cause them to be Elected to come unto his Parliament with a consenting performing and obeying power only but not an equall coordinate or Superior and that it hath been a ruled and allowed case thorough all the Nations of the World and the Ages thereof that nemo plus juris dare potest quam in se ipso habet And however that prudent Prince King Edward the 1st did for the avoiding of some troubles which a remnant of his and his fathers unquiet Barons would have put upon him and his people whom he was bound to protect condescend to that Act of Parliament that no Tallage or aid should be granted without the consent of the Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons Knights Citizens Burgesses and Freeholders of the land put himself and them under the frailty of the good and kind will and intentions of a part of his subjects yet he could not find either any cause or reason to doubt or suspect that they or any of their posterity should so little follow the conduct or manage of their understanding the care of their self-preservation and the prevention of the ruine of their private in the publick as not to submit to that known and almost every where approved rule or Aphorisme of wisdom that Publica privatis anteponenda sunt and that of the Poet Tunc tuares agitur paries cum proximus ardet Or that any if not an enemy to himself his posterity and his Country as much as a Traytor to his King would in a case of publick necessity when every man was as greatly concerned to defend themselues their King Country and posterities by a giving giving a timely aid and assistance ai if it had been pro Aris focis and Hannibal had been at Porta's have been either forward or backward to gard and relieve themselves their King and Country and not make hast to imitate the Romans who at other times Factious and Seditions enough would not suffer the more prudent Fabious the preserver of his and their Country even in the mioest of their discontents and murmurings that he made no more hast to fight and beat the enemy to want their help either with men or money When as Bornitius saith Quicquid boni homo Civisque habet possidet quod vivit libere vivit quod bene quod Beate omniumque rerum bonorum usu interdum etiam copia ad voluptatem utitur fruitur totum hoc beneficium Reipublicae civilique ordini acceptum est reserendum And that omnis homo res singularum in Republica conservari nequeant nifi conservetur Respub sive communis adeoque singuli sui causa impendere videntur qnicquid conferunt in publicum usum And St Chrysostome was of the same opinion when he said that ab antiquis temporibus communi omnium sententia principes a nobis sustinere debere visum est ob id quod sua ipsorum negligentes communes res curare universumque suum otium adeo impendunt quibus non solum ipsi sed quae nostra sunt salvantur And Zechius saith Regi competunt ratione excellentiae ejus dignitatis quae Regalia dicuntur and that multa adjumenta sunt ei necessaria ut dominium totum externa tueri valeat With whom accordeth Bodin informing us that Sine majestatis contemptu fieri non potest ea res enim peregrinos ad principem aspernandum subditos ad deficiendum excitare consuevit For surely it was never rightly understood that their Membership of the House of Commons in Parliaments did abridge or lessen the Superiority of their Sovereign as may be evidenced by the procedures and affairs of all the Parliaments of England from the beginning of their admission thereunto untill the late unhappy distempers thereof It having been by long experience Tried and found to be in Government a Policy as successfull as prudentiall to gain in the making of Laws the approbation and good-liking as much as may be of those that are to obey and be guided by them to the end that they may the more
quibusdam Magnatibus aliis de Concilio suo super dictis negotiis in brevi specificat eis ibidem plenius exponend tractaturi suumque concilium impensuri ulteriusque facturi quod ibidem de communi concilio assensu contigerit ordinari and that the Sheriff as likewise the Sheriffs of all the other Counties of England were commanded to certify the names of the Merchants sic eligendorum with a severe admonition in the latter end of the said Writ of Summons viz. sciens procerto quod fi dicti Mercatores de discretioribus ditioribus ut praedicitur eligendi ad dictos diem locum non habueris te ab ofsicio tuo amovere teque tanquam expeditionem negotionum nostrorum praedictorum impedieras de impeditione hujusmodi culpabilem invenire absque difficultate aliqua faciemus Teste Edwardo Duce Cornubiae Domino de Cestria filio nostro charissimo Custode Angliae apud Kennington Et Eodem Anno Strangers have been sometimes admitted into the House of Peers after a Summons to be Receivers and Tryers of Petitions but did not sit The Commons at the beginning of every Parliament are sent for out of the House of Commons to come to the Bar of the House of Lords where the Lord Chancellor if he be present or in his absence one of the Lord Chief Justices or an Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and sometimes the Lord Treasurer and in 9. H. 6. Linwood a Doctor of Law in the sickness of a Lord Chancellor declared in the behalf of the King or his Lieutenant the cause at large of the Summons of Parliament commanded them to elect and present their speaker the Writs of Summons making sometimes a short mention thereof and many times none at all In 17th E. 3. the cause of Summons was begun to be declared by the Chancellor but pursued by Sr Bartholomew Burghurst concerning the Kings Actions in France 15. E. 3. The King denied the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury to come into the Parliament-House untill he had answered certain Articles objected against him in the Exchequer and then also refused him entrance untill at the last at the intercession of the Lords he was admitted In Anno 16 of his Reign Prince Edward his son Duke of Cornewall and Custos regni with others of the Councell summoned a Parliament in his fathers name to grant him an aid being then in his Wars beyond the Seas The King in the 18th year of his Reign sent his Writs of Summons to a Parliament to treat of the affairs of the Kingdom with these words nobiscum si praesentes fuerimus ibidem seu cum deputandis a nobis si abesse nos contigerit Eodem Anno Writs were issued for the Electing of two Knights for every County without mention of any Citizens Burgesses and in some no manucaptors for the Elected retorned and were to appear at London but before the day appointed come another Writ came to appear at Sarum Eodem Anno The King being offended at the small appearance of the parliament on Monday commanded it to be adjourned untill the next day The Receivers and Tryers being named because the prelates and other grandees were not come on Tuesday the parliament was adjourned untill the Thursday on which day the cause of Summons was declared 20. E. 3. On Fryday the Commons delivered in their petitions which were considered by the Lords upon Saturday Sunday and Monday next following and on that Monday they were Dissolved In the 21st Year of his Reign he declared in his Writs to Summon that parliament that he did call them not to give him Money or Supplies but only to enquire after wrongs done to the people Eodem Anno the Commons having long continued together desire an answer to their Bill leur deliverance Anno 24. E. 3. The King sending his Writs to Elect 2 Knights of every County and 2 Burgesses of every City and Borough caused a Clause to be inserted that none should be placitatores querolarum manutentores aut ex hujusmodi quaestu vincentes In 26. E. 3. the King issued out Writs to the Sheriffs of every County in England to elect one Knight for every County to come to the parliament and sent his Writs to the Mayors and Bailiffs of Burgess Towns not to the Sheriffs as at other time to retorn 1 Citizen for every City and 1 Burgess for every Borough except London whose Sheriffs were commanded to Elect 2 Citizens giving the reason why no more then 1 for other places ut Homines ab ista occupatione Audumpnalo quo nirus possimus retrahomus Anno 27. E. 3. Sent hrs Writs to the Sheriff to Elect de assensu Com. only 1 Knight and to the Sheriffs of London the Mayor and Bayliffs of all other Boroughs that used to send Burgesses to Parliament to Elect and retorn 2 Citizens and Burgesses apiece for the Statute of the Staple made in the same year ca. 3. hath these words viz. Whereas good deliberation had with the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons and great men of the Country that is to say of every County one for all the Countys and of the Commons of Cities and Boroughs Anno 28. E. 3. the cause of Summons was first declared before the names of the Receivers and Tryers were published Eodem Anno the King issued his Writs to all the Sheriffs of England to cause 2 Knights of every Shire to come to the Parliament at Lincoln to confirm the perambulation of the Forrests and particularly enjoyned to Summon the Knights Elected the last Parliament but if dead or unable to come to Elect others in their places and the Sheriff for Oxford and Barkshire receiving only a mandate to elect Knights for Oxfordshire did notwithstanding retorn two for Berkshire in this manner Et quia Com. Berks. est in ballia mea licet perambulatio in eodem facta fuit observata pro eo quod in isto brevi continetur quod colloquium in Parliamento tractandum erit Super aliis negotiis praefatum Regem tangentibus Ideo gratis elegerunt duos milites quorum nomina c. Anno 29. E. 3. the Chief Justice declared that the Kings pleasure was that the Cause of Summons should be declared by Mounsieur Walter de Manny and so it was yet the Chief Justice managed the Parliament business in the House of Peers as Speaker for presently after Mounsieur de Manny's discourse he called the Commons to advise thereof and make ready their Petitions In the 34 year of his Reign sent his Writs to all the Sheriffs to cause to appear in Parliament all Collectors of the Tenths and Fifteenths granted to him in Parliament for paying his Forces by Land and Sea for the Kingdoms defence to be restored again to the payers in case no such expences should be made and all Arrayers of Souldiers to give an account of all Moneys received and disbursed
of hearing to be heard in the Starr-Chamber the morrow after the Lords were content not to sit that Morning provided that it be not drawn into a precedent but that the House being the Supream Court may sit upon a Starr Chamber day notwithstanding the absence of the Lord Chancellor Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Treasurer the Lords of the Privy-Councell great Officers of State the two Lord Chief Justices and Lord Chief Baron who do use to attend that Court and the next Starr-Chamber day the other part of the Lords House did sit in the forenoon The Lords that were absent and could not appear upon Summons of Parliament were excused if they could obtain a license of the King otherwise they were amerced as in 31. H. 6. a Duke was to be amerced 100 l. an Earl 100 Marks and a Baron 40 l. If they came not upon Summons to Parliament If the King be present in person when the cause of Summons is declared the Lord Chancellour doth first remove from his place which is on the Kings Right hand behind the Chair of Estate and conferreth privately with his Majesty And that ceremony is ever to be observed by the Lord Chancellour or those that are appointed by the King to officiate in that particular for him before he speak any thing in Parliament when the King is present The cause of which ceremony saith Mr Elsing seeming to be that as none but the King can call a Parliament so none but the King can propound or declare wherefore it was called If the King be represented in Parliament by Commission the Lord Chancellor sits on the Wool-sack after the Commission read the Commissioners go to the seat prepared for them on the Right side of the Chair of Estate then the Lord Chancellour ariseth conferreth with the Commissioners returns to his place on the Wool-sack and there declareth the cause of the Summons or Commission as was done in 28 Elizabeth The Warrants of the King for the making of the Writs of Summons to Parliaments have been divers some times per breve de privato sigillo but commonly per ipsum Regem concilium Anno 32. H. 8. Acts of Parliament were said to have been enacted with the assent of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the Parliament was continued by divers short prorogations and was by his Graces Authority dissolved 33. H. 8. In the Acts of Parliament no mention was made of advice or assent 34. 35. H. 8. The like Proxies were in the 20th Year of the Reign of King James under the hand and seal of an absent Lord upon a lawfull impediment signifying the Kings license in the form ensuing pro se nomine suo de super quibuscunque causis exponend seu declarand tractand tractatibus quae hujusmodi mihi factis seu faciendis concilium nomine suo impendend statutisque etiam ordinationibus quae ex maturo deliberati judicio dominorum tam spiritualium quam temporalium in eodem Parliamento congregat inactitari seu ordinari contigerint nomine suo cousentiendum eisdemque si opus fuerit subscribend caeteraque omnia singula quae in praemissis necessaria fuerint seu quo modo libet requisita faciend exercend in tam amplis modo forma prout ego ipse facere possem aut deberem si praesens personaliter interessem ratum gratum habens habiturus quicquid dictus procurator statuerit aut fecerit in praemissis A proxy cannot be made to a Lord that is absent himself The Lord Latimer made his proxy which although the Clerk of the House of Peers received it was repealed by the Lord Chancellour for that the Lord Latimers deputy or procurator was absent for if he to whom the proxy is made be absent the proxy is void neither can it be transferred by the proxy to another as was adjudged in the case of the Lord Vaux 18 Jacobi Our Kings since the force put upon King Henry the 3d by some Rebellious Barons at a Parliament at Oxford in Anno 42 of his Reign at the beginning of every Parliament by publick proclamation did use to prohibit the coming with Arms. Not any of the Kings Serjeants at Law were Summoned to Parliament untill the Tenth of Edward the Third when Robert Parning William Scot and Simon Trevise Servientés Regis were Summoned by special Writs unto 2 Parliaments after which none were Summoned untill the 20th of E. 3. Robert de Sodington Capitalis Baro Scaccarii was the First and only Baron of the Exchequer who was Summoned to Parliament as one of the Kings Councell in 12. E. 3. The Kings Attorney Generalls whose Office and impolyment was as ancient as 7. E. 1. when William de Gisilham enjoyed it and Gilbert de Thorneton was in 8. E. 1. his Attorney Generall had their First Writ of Summons in the 21. 30. 36. Henrici 8. Those that succeeded them never wanting the like priviledges And the Kings Sollicitors generalls have been in like manner Summoned The Writs of Summons to the Lords are returned and delivered to the Clark of their House those with their Indentures for the Election of members for the House of Commons to the Clark of the Crown in Chancery The Clergy of the convocation in Parliament are Elected by virtue of the Kings Writs of Summons to the Bishops and their precepts but not by any from the Sheriffs The Master of the Rolls if not Elected a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament hath a Writ of Summons to attend in the House of Lords The Masters of Chancery as necessarily appertaining to the Lord Chancellour or Keeper of the Great Seal of England have neither Writ nor patent yet do there attend The Bill or Act of Parliament signed for the Beheading the Earl of Strafford much against the will of King Charles the Martyr was by Commission And divers adjournments and prorogations in the Reign of King Charles 2d have been sometimes by Commission and at other times by proclamations The Commons were never Elected to come to Parliament before the 49th Year of King H. 3. and his imprisonment and then and from the 21st Year of the Reign of King E. 1. did but as the Lesser lights follow that greater of the Sun and could not possibly be sent for or caused to be Elected without the Peers then Summoned and convened for that they were only to consent unto and do such things as the King by the advice of the Lords Spirituall and Temporall should there ordain if the Lords were not Summoned to be there at the same time or sitting The Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold was Summoned to sit in the House of Peers in 25. 27. 28. E. 3. Masters of Ships and some Scots have for advice been Summoned to attend the House of Lords Ever since the making of the Statute of 5. Eliz. every Knight Citizen Burgess and Port Baron Elected or to
like Answers that they were conclusive but only reported unto them to have their opinion first and then their assent by vote after deliberation which should necessarily precede their assent and the Answerers were properly the Lords in the Kings name And the Debate was in the Kings presence for saith he I have seen the fragments of the journal tempore H. 7. which directly sheweth that the King himself was present at the Debate of divers Bills or Petitions that were exhibited to the Commons and the Parliament being kept in the Kings house and near his own lodgings The Commons Petition that the Sheriffs be allowed in their accounts for Liberties c. Unto which was answered The Lords were not advised to assent unto that which may turn to the decrease of the antient Farms of the Realm or damage of the Crown for ever seeing the King is within his tender Age. The Commons exhibited two Bills against the Ryots of Cheshire and Wales c. To which was answered by the assent of all the Lords and Peers when all the Lords and Peers in Parliament were charged in the Kings behalf whereupon they have of their own good grace and free will promised to aid according to their power In the 18th year of the Raign of King Edward third divers Answers were made accord c. not naming by whom and some were general with only let this Petition be granted yet the Statute touching Pleas to be held before the Marshal doth expound the practice of that age when it saith that the King by the assent of the Praelates great men and the Commons granted the same In the Act for moderation of the Statute concerning Provisors the Commons are named and the Lords wholly omitted and yet in the next Parliament Anno 2. H. 4. upon a complaint of the Commons that the said Act was not truly entred the Lords upon examination granted by the King upon protestation that it should not be drawn into example and the King remembring that it was well and truly done as it was agreed upon in Parliament did affirm that it was truly entred taking no exceptions at the said omission but said it was entred au maniere come il fuest parlz accords par le Roy es Commons Anno 17 E. 3. The Commons petitioning that Children born beyond the Seas might be inheritable of Lands in England that Statute was not inrolled in the same year the Archbishop of Canterbury demanded of all the Praelates and Grandees then present whether the Infants of our Lord the King being born beyond the Seas should be inheritable in England the which Praelates and Grandees being every one examined by himself gave their Answers that the Kings Children are inheritable wheresoever they be born but as touching the Subjects Children born out of the Kings Service they doubted and charged the Judges to consider thereof against the next Parliament the Petition was entred in the Parliament Roll. The Commons do pray that where many Parceners use an Action Auncestrel and some are summoned and have served their Writs alone without naming the others who have recovered and in the same manner that it may be done of Jointenants To which the King answered il sue al conseil qu'il foit faire par le mischeif qu' ad esteentiels cas lieur heirs And therefore saith Mr. Noy Let the Lawyers puruse those Parliament Rolls viz. 17 20 21 22 29 40 46. 51 E. 3. wherein no Statutes at all were made Annis 47 and 50 E. 3. Statutes were made yet very many of the Petitions were not granted but omitted and doubts not but they will find divers granted which demanded Novelley and yet not observed for Law because they were omitted in the Statute and that therefore the Commons have petitioned for some of the same things again in subsequent Parliaments which they would not have done except touching Magna Charta if they had had the grant of their former Petitions been in force In the 11th year of the Raign of King H. fourth The Commons do pray that no Chancellor Treasurer c. nor no other Officer Judge or Minister of the Kings taking fees or wages of him do take any manner of gift or brocage of any man upon a grievous pain To which was answered le Royle voet which being entred in the Parliament Roll in the margent was written Respectuatur per dominum principem concilium whereby it was not made into a Statute nor ever observed for a Law In the same year they Petition against Attorneys Prothonataries and Filacers which being likewise granted and entred in the Parliament Roll hath in the margent also written the like Respectuatur and so no Statute made thereon at any time But in the next Parliament 13 H. 4. The Clerks and Attorneys exhibiting their Petition to repeal that of 11 H. 4. did alledge that the Petition and Answer if they be enacted in manner aforesaid into a Statute and put in execution would be grievous insupportable and impossible and therefore prayed a modification To which was answered Let the Petition touching the Prothonataries and Filacers be put in suspence until the next Parliament and in the mean time let the Justices be charged to inter-commnne of this matter and report their advice therein And the reason is because an Ordinance is of a lower nature than a Statute and cannot repeal a Statute which is of an higher and that Ordinances of Parliament are seldom published by Proclamation as the Statutes were whereby the Subjects might know how to direct their actions The Statute of 15 E. 3. being never used or put in practice was repealed by a bare Ordinance in the next Parliament In the Statutes or Acts of Parliament concerning London Anno 28. E. 3. and Anno 38. E. 3. and Cap. 6. concerning Coroners and Takers of Wood Cap. 7. concerning Sheriffs Anno. 25. E. 3. Cap. 1. concerning Pourveyors and Cap. 4. concerning Attachments and Cap. 2. concerning Treasons the assent of the Lords in the Parliament Rolls is wholly omitted and yet the Statutes the best Interpreters do mention their Assent In the 21 E. 3. the Commons pray that the Petitions delivered in the last Parliament be dispatched and answered this Parliament without any delay c. To which the King answered The shortness of the time will nor suffer that those things be dispatched before Easter and therefore it pleased the King that those other things be dispatched The King in Anno 22. of his Raign greatly prospering in his Wars in France and besieging Calice sent unto his Parliament in England to demand a Subsidy putting them in mind of their promise to aid him in those Wars with their bodies and their purses whereupon they granted him two fifteens the King shortly after informing them of more successes and that he had granted to the King of France a Truce and demanding another Subsidy and to make them the more willing thereunto required their
be done for the shortness of time Eodem Anno Pray the Commons that where a man is attainted at the Suit of the Party for Trespass done against the Peer and the Trespasser taken and let by the Marshal and his Marshals to Mainprise or at large they be charged with the Damages To which the King answered To put an Issue to this Article in manner as they pray it would be to make a new Law the which the King is not advised yet to do The Commons do pray That the Issues and Amerciaments of the Green Wax be certainly expressed in the Estreats and that the Sheriffs be allowed in their Accompts for the Hundreds granted from the Crown which Petitions were referred to the next Parliament for that the King had no leisure or no intent to make Statutes thereof at any time The Roll of the Parliament of 34 E. 3. is lost In the 17th year of the said Kings Raign the Commons do pray the King to desire the Parliament to consider how he might gain the Arrears of the first year and be put in a way for to gain the second year of the said Aid with less grievance to the People But the Lords and Commons were so exasperated by the Excommunication threatened by the Archbishop of Canterbury against them all because the King would not admit him into the Parliament and that they required a Declaration to be first made and agreed upon that the Peers of the Land whether Officers or not be not bound to answer the Kings Suit but in Parliament and it was a whole week before the King would agree unto it All which time the Archbishop demanded entrance standing upon his right as primus Par Angliae and required to be admitted upon pain of Excommunication At the last the said Declaration being first agreed upon by a special Committee of the Lords the King granted it and presently upon the same day the Archbishop was admitted who demanded Tryal by his Peers But as touching the Aid for the King the Lords and Commons incensed by the Clergy flatly answered that if the conditions of the grant in Anno 14. were not performed they would pay none After which the Laity and the Clergy exhibited their Petitions as the manner then was severally but petitioning the one for the other as they never did since or before except in Anno 25. E. 1. when the Popish Clergy had put that great and Victorious King also to the like plunge and their Petitions being answered by the Kings Councel who were the standing Committee for that purpose but the Lords and Commons disliked thereof and obtained a Special Committee of themselves to consider of the same which being reported and well liked a Statute was made thereupon by a Committee of the Grands and Commons which being read before the King and Sealed with his great Seal and delivered to the Grands and Commons divers of the Kings Councel as the Treasurer some of the Justices of both Benches the Steward of his House and the Chamberlain were sworn upon the Cross of Canterbury to observe the same as much as to them belonged but yet the said Councellors Treasurer and Justices made their Protestation that they assented not to the making of the said Statute nor to the form thereof neither could they keep the same if they were contrary to the Laws and Usages of the Realm which they were sworn to observe which disorderly Parliament ending in May and the King intending not to suffer the said Statute to be put in Execution summoned his great Councel to meet at London in July following to Repeal the same but there were so many of the Praelates called thereunto although the Archbishop was omitted that he could not effect his desire therein wherefore he summoned another great Councel to meet at Westminster about Michaelmas following whereby the Assent of the Earls Barons and other wise men not warning any Praelates the said Statute was repealed In which Statute so Repealed there will appear to have been many inconveniences both to the King and his People if it had continued in force The 2d Chapter whereof touching Tryal by Peers swerved very much from the true meaning of Magna Charta cap. 26. Nullus liber homo c. For that appointeth his Tryal to be by his Peers but restrains it not unto any place whereas this limits the Tryals of the Peers of the Land to be in Parliament only which would be very inconvenient to the King to wait for a Parliament for every Offence and very troublesom to the Commons to be so often troubled thither and no way beneficial for the Temporal Lords for they whether in Parliament or out of Parliament were ever to be tried per Nobiles Pares The 4th Chapter had Clauses that the King should place New Officers when they fall but by accord of the Grands which shall be nearest in the Country which is directly against the dignity of the King to be thus limited in the choice of his Officers and prove as inconvenient to the Subject if those Grands should not be men of Merit That the King shall take all Offices except the Judges c. into his hands the 3d day of every Parliament and the Officers be put to answer every complaint and if they be attainted shall be judged by the Peers in Parliament and the King shall cause Execution to be pronounced and be done accordingly without dclay which is altogether unjust and against all Right and Reason and against the Law to put any man out of his place before Judgment and Conviction and against the Right and Dignity of the Crown to bind the King to Execute the judgment of the Peers And it is observable that it was not in the Petition but was added afterwards by the Committee who drew up the Answer to the same and so was the 4th Clause penned by the said Committee much more beneficial for the Subjects than was in the Petitions or Answers Which particulars well considered no man can blame the King for his dissimulation at that time and his Repeal of that Statute In the Parliament of 18 E. 3. where the King having summoned a former Parliament in the year before and therein pacified the Lords and Commons so well as they all agreed that the said Statute made in the 15th year of his Raign should be Repealed and taken away and loose the name of a Statute for as much as it is prejudicial and contrary to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and to the Rights and Praerogatives of the King But for that some Articles were comprised in the said Statute which were reasonable and according to the Law and Reason It was accorded by our Lord the King and his Commons that of such Articles and others accorded in this present Parliament a new Statute be made by the advice of the Justices and other Sages and held for ever And no Statute being made the Commons prayed
being abused by his Officers that which was paid so spent as little came to his hands so as for want of money he was enforced to accept of a Truce when he was in probability of a great Victory if not of the Conquest of all France whereupon returning suddenly he fell first upon the Officers who excusing themselves laid the blame upon the Collectors which caused the King to send out strickt Commissions to enquire thereof But he was most incensed against the Archbishop of Canterbury who had encouraged him to those Wars willing him to take no care for treasure because he would himself see him abundantly furnished by the said Subsidy which failing and the King understanding that the Pope sided with the French mistrusted the Praelates in general but especially the Archbishop and reprehended him sharply for it who presently complained of manifold violences against the Liberties of the Church and English Nation comprehended in Magna Charta and thus the Clergy incensed the Commons against the King and the Commissioners which he had appointed to enquire of the abuses of the Collectors who had enquired of divers matters in Eyre beyond the limits of their Commissions which bred such ill humours in the Lords and Commons as when in the 15th year of his Majesties Raign when he had in Parliament shewed the necessity of the French Wars and that the Aid granted him the year before was withheld and ill spent by his Officers and therefore desired the Parliament to consider how Malefactors might be punished and the Law kept in equal force both to Poor and Rich the Commons delivered up their advice in writing for a Commission to be directed to the Justices in each Shire d' Oyer Terminer these matters in general But the King the Praelates and Grandees thought fit to add Articles of the said enquiry and therefore they delivered unto the Commons certain Articles which were ordained by the said Praelates and Grandees for them to advise and give their Assent The which being viewed and examined by them they assented that good Justices and Loyal be assigned to hear and determine all the things contained in the said Articles for the profit of our Lord the King The Assent of the Lords is many times omitted to be entred and so likewise hath many times been that of the Commons In the same year the Commons exhibited their Petitions for the confirming of a Statute made in the 15th year of the said Kings Raign which was general n. 26. And in general for all Statutes and the other special n. 27. for that in particular And yet in the same 17th year an Ordinance was entred n. 23. viz. Item accordez est assentuz that the Statute made at Westminster in the Quindena of Easter in the year of the Raign of our Lord the King the 15th be wholly repealed and gone and loose the name of a Statute which was without any mention either of Lords or Commons In the 30th year of the Raign of the said King the Dukes Earls Barons and Commons conferring together by the Kings order touching the Exactions of the Pope in the White-Chamber now called the Court of Requests assented if it please the King Anno Eodem in the 9 10 11 12. Chapters of Statutes made in that year upon several Ordinances entred in the Rolls of that year n. 27 28 29. no mention is made therein either of the Lords Assent or the Commons though both are mentioned in the Praeamble of the Statutes Anno 2. H. 4. The cruel Bill for the burning of Hereticks beginning in the Lords House and exhibited by the Clergy was written in Latine and so was the long Answer to the same and all and one in the same phrase and no mention made of the Commons Assent Anno Eodem a Bill was exhibited by the Clergy into the Lords House against a Bull from the Pope to discharge the Possessions of the Cistertian Monks from the payment of Tythes which being there answered was carried to the Commons by the Archbishop of Canterbury himself to have their Assent and told them that the King and the Lords were attended upon with the Answer to the same and afterwards the Commons came before the King and the Lords in Parliament and made divers requests and amongst others shewed that the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered them the Petition touching the order of Cistertians to which Answer the said Commons agreed Eodem Anno the Commons did shew that whereas the King had ordained a Staple at Bruges in Flanders Merchant strangers did by Land or Sea bring their Wooll thither to the great profit and encrease of the price of Wooll coming thither the Town of Bruges hath for their own profit forbidden the bringing of Wooll thither as they were wont to do to the great damage of the Merchants of England and of all the Commons whereof they do pray Remedy Unto which was answered It is advised by the Praelates Grandees and Commons of this Realm that the Pention is reasonable The Commons Petition against the Subsidy of 40 s. for every sack of Wooll granted by the Merchants Unto which was answered for that our Lord the King for great necessity which yet endureth and appears greater from day to day did do it which being shewed to the Grandees and Commons in this Parliament assembled on the Kings behalf the said Lords and Commons by Common Assent have granted the said Subsidy The Parliaments or great Councels were heretofore very short and dispatched in a few days having the matters which were alwaies extraordinary appointed or declared by the King to be treated of And there are divers Answers to Petitions which cross or add to the prayers of the Commons whereunto their Assent is not specified and yet the Statutes thereupon made do mention it For the price of Wines a report of a former Statute is not in the Petition but in the Answer only And it should be remembred that although the House of Commons in Parliament have been often of late times only said to have been the representing of some part of the Commons of England those that were as aforesaid Elected and admitted into the Parliament have in their Petitions to their Kings for Redress of Grievances stiled themselves no otherwise then your Pravrez Communs and Leiges yet it was never intended or could be of all the Freeholders or people of England or in the Latitude of the word represented which is over extended § 26. What is meant by the word Representing or if all or how many of the People of England and Wales are or have been in the Elections of a part of the Commons to come to Parliament represented FOR the Nobility the Proceres and Magnates and the Bishops and many Abbots and Pryors were always Summoned apart to our Parliaments and never represented by the Commons the consent of the Universality of the People being in and before the 49th year of
said to be per Dominum Regem And a second of the same date and tenor with a perclose said to have been per Dominum Regem magnum Concilium John Pechies pardon for whom that House of Commons in Parliament was said to intercede only mentioneth that it was precibus aliquorum Magnatum 15 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury before the King and Lords humbling himself before the King desired that where he was defamed through the Realm he might be arraigned before his Peers in open Parliament Unto which the King answered that he would attend the Common Affairs and afterward hear others 5 H. 4. The King at the request of the Commons affirmeth the Archbishop of Canterbury the Duke of York the Earl of Northumberland and other Lords which were suspected to be of the confederacy of Henry Percy to be his true Leige-men and that they nor any of them should be impeached therefore by the King or his Heirs in any time ensuing 9 H. 4. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented a Bill on the behalf of Thomas Brooke against William Widecombe and required Judgment against him which Bill was received and the said William Widecombe was notwithstanding bound in a 1000 pound to hear his Judgment in Chancery And the many restorations in blood and estate in 13 H. 4. and by King E. 4. and of many of our Kings may inform us how necessary and beneficial the pardons and mercy of our Kings and Princes have been to their People and Posterities The Commons accuse the Lord Stanley in sundry particulars for being confederate with the Duke of York and pray that he may be committed to prison To which the King answered he will be advised And Pardons before Indictments or prosecution have not been rejected for that they did anticipate any troubles which might afterwards happen For so was the Earl of Shrewsburys in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth for fear of being troubled by his ill-willers for a sudden raising of men without a warrant to suppress an insurrection of Rebels Lionell Cranfeild Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England being about the 18th year of King James accused by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for great offences and misdemeanours fined by the King in Parliament to be displaced pay 50000 l. and never more to sit in Parliament was in the 2d year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr upon his Submission to the King and payment of 20000 l. only pardoned of all Crimes Offences and Misdemeanors whatsoever any Sentence Act or Order of Parliament or the said Sentence to the contrary notwithstanding For whether the accusation be for Treason wherein the King is immediately and most especially concerned or for lesser Offences where the people may have some concernment but nothing near so much or equivalent to that of the Kings being the supreme Magistrate the King may certainly pardon and in many pardons as of Outlaries Felonies c. there have been conditions annexed Ita quod stent recto si quis versos eos loqui voluerit So the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr to prevent any dangerous questions touching the receiving of Fines and other Proceedings in Chancery sued out his Pardon The many Acts of Oblivion or general Pardon granted by many of our Kings and Princes to the great comfort and quiet of their Subjects but great diminution of the Crown Revenue did not make them guilty that afterwards protected themselves thereby from unjust and malicious Adversaries And where there is not such a clause it is always implyed by Law in particular mens cases and until the Soveraignty can be found by Law to be in the People neither the King or his people who by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are to be subordinate unto him are to be deprived of his haute ex basse Justice and are not to be locked up or restrained by any Petition Charge or Surmise which is not to be accompted infallible or a truth before it be proved to the King and his Council of Peers in Parliament and our Kings that gave the Lords of Mannors Powers of Soke and Sake Infangtheif and Outfangtheif in their Court Barons and sometimes as large as Fossarum Furcarum and the incident Power of Pardons and Remissions of Fine and Forfeitures which many do at this day without contradiction of their other Tenants enjoy should not be bereaved of as much liberty in their primitive and supream Estates as they gave them in their derivatives And though there have been Revocations of Patents during pleasure of Protections and Presentations and Revocations of Revocations quibusdam certis de causis yet never was there any Revocation of any Pardon 's granted where the King was not abused or deceived in the granting thereof For in Letters Patents for other matters Reversals were not to be accounted legal where they were not upon just causes proved upon Writs of Scire facias issuing out of the Chancery and one of the Articles for the deposing of King Richard 2d being that he revoked some of his Pardons The recepi's of Patents of Pardon or other things were ordained so to signifie the time when they were first brought to the Chancellour as to prevent controversies concerning priority or delays made use of in the Sealing of them to the detriment of those that first obtained them And the various forms in the drawing or passing of Pardons as long ago His testibus afterwards per manum of the Chancellour or per Regem alone per nostre Main vel per manum Regis or per Regem Concilium or authoritate Parliamenti per Regem Principem per Breve de privat sigillo or per immediate Warrant being never able to hinder the energy and true meaning thereof And need not certainly be pleaded in any subordinate Court of Justice without an occasion or to purchase their allowance who are not to controul such an Act of their Sovereign Doctor Manwaring in the fourth of sixth Year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr being grievously fined by both Houses of Parliament and made incapable of any place or Imployment was afterwards pardoned and made Bishop of St. Asaph with a non obstante of any Order or Act of Parliament So they that would have Attainders pass by Bill or Act of Parliament to make that to be Treason which by the Law and antient and reasonable Customs of England was never so before to be believed or adjudged or to Accumulate Trespasses and Misdemeanors to make that a Treason which singly could never be so either in truth Law right reason or Justice May be pleased to admit and take into their serious consideration that Arguments a posse ad esse or ab uno ad plures are neither usual or allowable and that such a way of proceeding will be as much against the Rules of Law Honour and Justice as of Equity and good
vain Fears such as in constantem virum cadere non possunt should not be permitted to affright our better to be imployed Imaginations unless we had a mind to be as wise as a small and pleasant Courtier of King Henry the Eighths who would never endure to pass in a Boat under London-Bridge lest it should fall upon his Head because it might once happen to do so Our Magna Charta's and all our Laws which ordain no man to be condemned or punished without Tryal by his Peers do allow it where it is by Confession Outlawry c and no Verdict Did never think it fit that Publick Dangers such as Treason should tarry where Justice may as well be done otherwise without any precise Formalities to be used therein For although it may be best done by the advice of the Kings greatest Council the Parliament there is no Law or reasonable Custom of England either by Act of Parliament or without that restrains the King to do it only in the time of Parliament When the Returns Law-Days and Terms appointed and fixt have ever given place to our Kings Commissions of Oyer and Terminer Inquiries c. upon special and emergent occasions And notwithstanding it will be always adviseable that Kings should be assisted by their greatest Council when it may be had yet there is no Law or Act of Parliament extant or any right reason or consideration to bind Him from making use of His ordinary Council in a Case of great and importunate necessity For Cases of Treason Felony and Trespass being excepted out of Parliament first and last granted and indulged Priviledges by our and their Kings and Princes there can be no solid Reason or cogent Argument to perswade any man that the King cannot for the preservation of Himself and His People in the absence or interval of Parliaments punish and try Offenders in Cases of Treason without which there can be no Justice Protection or Government if the Power of the King and Supream Magistrate shall be tyed up by such or the like as may happen Obstructions So that until the Honourable House of Commons can produce some or any Law Agreement Pact Concession Liberty or Priviledge to Sit and Counsel the King whether he will or no as long as any of their Petitions remain unanswered which they never yet could or can those grand Impostors and Figments of the Modus tenendi Parliamenta and the supposed Mirror of Justice being as they ought to be rejected when the Parliament Records will witness that many Petitions have for want of time most of the ancient Parliaments not expending much of it been adjourned to be determined in other Courts as in the Case of Staunton in 14 E. 3. and days have been limited to the Commons for the exhibiting of their Petitions the Petitions of the Corbets depended all the Raigns of King Edward the First and Second until the eleventh year of Edward the Third which was about sixty six years and divers Petitions not dispatched have in the Raign of King Richard the Second been by the King referred to the Chancellor and sometimes with a direction to call to his assistance the Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law and the Commons themselves have at other times prayed to have their Petitions determined by the Councel of the King or by the Lord Chancellor And there will be reason to believe that in Cases of urgent necessity for publick safety the King is and ought to be at liberty to try and punish great and dangerous Offenders without His Great Council of Parliament The Petitions in Parliament touching the pardoning of Richard Lyons John Peachie Alice Peirce c and a long process of William Montacute Earl of Salisbury were renewed and repeated again in the Parliament of the first of Richard the Second because the Parliament was ended before they could be answered Anno 1. of King Richard the Second John Lord of Gomenez formerly committed to the Tower for delivering up of the Town of Ardes in that Kings time of which he took upon him the safe keeping in the time of King Edward the Third and his excuse being disproved the Lords gave Judgment that he should dye but in regard he was a Gentleman and a Baronet and had otherwise well served should be beheaded but Judgment was howsoever respited until the King should be thereof fully informed and was thereupon returned again to the Tower King Henry the Second did not tarry for the assembling a Parliament to try Henry de Essex his Standard-bearer whom he disherited for throwing it down and aftrighting his Host or disheartning it 16 E. 2 Henry de bello monte a Baron refusing to come to Parliament upon Summons was by the King Lords and Council and the Judges and Barons of the Exchequer then assisting committed for his contempt to Prison Anno 3 E. 3. the Bishop of Winchester was indicted in the Kings-Bench for departing from the Parliament at Salisbury Neither did Henry the Eight forbear the beheading of His great Vicar General Cromwell upon none or a very small evidenced Treason until a Parliament should be Assembled The Duke of Somerset was Indicted of Treason and Felony the scond of December Anno 3. 4. Edwardi 6. sitting the Parliament which began the fourth day of November in the third year of His Raign and ended the first day of February in the fourth was acquitted by his Peers for Treason but found guilty of Felony for which neglecting to demand his Clergy he was put to Death In the Raign of King Philip and Queen Mary thirty nine of the House of Commons in Parliament whereof the famous Lawyer Edmond Plowden was oneâ— were Indicted in the Court of Kings-Bench for being absent without License from the Parliament Queen Elizabeth Charged and Tryed for Treason and Executed Mary Queen of Scots her Feudatory without the Advice of Parliament and did the like with Robert Earl of Essex her special Favourite for in such Cases of publick and general Dangers the shortest delays have not seldom proved to be fatally mischievous And howsoever it was in the Case of Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury in the fifteenth year of the Raign of King Edward the Third declared that the Peers de la terre ne doivent estre arestez ne mesnez en Jugement Si non en Parlement par leur Pairres yet when there is no Parliament though by the Law their Persons may not then also be Arrested at a common persons Suit they may by other ways be brought to Judgment in any other Court And Charges put in by the Commons in the House of Peers against any of the Peers have been dissolved with it For Sir Edward Coke hath declared it to be according to the Law and reasonable Customs of England followed by the modern practice that the giving any Judgment in Parliament doth not make it a Session and that such Bills as passed in either or
that granted them and was to be vouched to warranty which was in common and ordinary matters very usual in our Laws and reasonable Customs and therefore to him only as the Grantor and Protector of their Parliament Priviledges and not to themselves the gratitude and acknowledment was only due And the House of Commons until this our present unruly Age or Century did not adventure to take upon themselves or endeavour by any pretended Authority of their own to punish any the violators of their aforesaid Priviledges but supplicated Aid of their Kings and Princes that were the donors and granters of them And therefore in the Raign of King Henry the fourth it was adjudged that as the Record witnesseth Videtur Cur. quod non For in Anno 8 H. 6. William Lark a Servant of William Wild Burgess of Parliament being arrested upon an Execution during the Parliament the Commons petitioned the King to give order for his discharge and that no Lords Knights Citizens or Burgesses nor their Servants coming to the Parliament may be Arrested during the Parliament unless it be for Treason Felony or Breach of the Peace The King granted the first part of the Petition Et quant al residue le Rei sa avisera The Commons prayed that Edmond Duke of Somerset Alice Poole the late Wife of William Poole Duke of Suffolk William Bishop of Chester Sir John Sutton Lord Dudley the Lord Hastings James de la Barre one of the Kings Secretaries and 20 or 22 Knights and Esquires particularly named amongst which was Thomas Kemp Clerk of the House of Commons which the Commons themselves and their own Clerk had not them found to be either a Liberty or Priviledge of their own to punish might be banished from the King during their Lives and not to come within twelve Miles of the Court for that the People do speak evil of them To which the King answered He is of his own meer motion contented that all shall depart unless only the Lords and a few of them whom he may not spare from his presence and they shall continue for one year to see if any can duly impeach them In Anno 31 H. 6. The Commons made a Request to the King and Lords that Thomas Thorp their Speaker and Walter Roil a member of their house who were in Prison might be set at liberty according to their Priviledges The next day after the Duke of York who was then a Rival for a long time but after a publick Competitor for the Crown and President of the Parliament came before the Lords not the Commons and shewed that in the vacation of the Parliament he had recovered damage against the said Thomas Thorp in an action of trespass by Verdict in the Exchequer for carrying away the goods of the said Duke out of Durham House for the which he remained in Execution and prayed that he might continue therein Wherein the Councel of the Judges being demanded they made Answer it was not their part to Judge of the Parliament which was Judge of the Law wherein surely they might rather have said what they should have most certainly have believed then as Sir Edward Coke did long after that the King was principium caput finis Parliamenti and only said that a general Supersedeas of Parliament there was but a special supersedeas in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the Commons House ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony Surety of the Peace or for a condemnation before the Parliament After which the Lords determined that the said Thomas Thorp should remain in execution and sent certain of themselves to the Commons who then had so little power to free themselves from Arrests and imprisonment as they could not deliver their own Speaker out of Prison but were glad to follow the direction of the King and Lords to chuse and present unto the King another Speaker the which they did and shortly after certain of the Commons were sent to the Lords to declare that they had in the place of the said Thomas Thorp chosen for their Speaker Thomas Charleton Esquire Walter Clark a Burgess of Chippenham in the County of Wilts being committed to the Prison of the Fleet for divers condemnations as well to the King as to others was discharged and set at Liberty at the Petition of the Commons to the King and Lords without Bail or Mainprise At the Petition of the Commons William Hill a Burgess of Chippenham aforesaid being in Execution in the Kings-Bench was delivered by a Writ of the Chancery saving the Plaintiffs right to have Execution after the Parliament ended It was enacted by the universal Vote and Judgment as well of the Commons as the Lords that John Atwil a Burgess for Exeter being condemned during the Parliament in the Exchequer upon 8 several informations at the suit of John Taylor of the same City shall have as many Supersedeas as he will until his returning home King Henry 8. in the case of Trewyniard a Burgess of Parliament imprisoned upon an Outlawry after Judgment caused him to be delivered by a Writ of Priviledge upon an Action brought against the Executors and a demurrer it was resolved by the Judges to be Legal George Ferrers Gent. servant of the King and a Burgesse of Parliament being arrested in London as he was going to the Parliament-house by a Writ out of the Court of Kings Bench in execution at the Suit of one White for the sum of 200 markes being the debt of one Walden which arrest being signifyed to Sir Tho. Moyle Knight Speaker of the House of Commons and to the Knight and Burgesses there an order was made that the Serjeant of the Mace attending the Parliament should go to the Compter and Demand the Prisoner which the Clerks and Officers refusing from stout words they fell to blows whereof ensued a fray not without hurt so as the said Serjeant was forced to defend himself with his Mace and had the Crown thereof broken off by bearing off a stroak and his Servant struck down which broil drawing thither the 2 Sheriffs of London who did not heed or value the Serjeants complaint and misusage so much as they ought but took their Officers parts so as the Serjeant returning without the Prisoner informed the Speaker of the House of Commons how rudely they had entertained him who took the same in so ill part that they all together some of whom were the Kings privy Councel as also of the Kings privy Chamber resolved to sit no longer without their Burgess but left their own house and went to the House of Peers and declared by the mouth of their Speaker before Sir Thomas Audley Knight then Lord Chancellor and all the Lords Judges there assembled the whole matter such no Estates they believed themselves to be who Judging the contempt to be very great referred the punishment thereof to
without any wiser Body to regulate or take care of their Actions would deem it to be a brave Sport and Liberty to play with the Fire until they had set the whole House on fire and burnt themselves into the bargain and if after he had by his practice and study of the Common Law which was nothing but our Feudal Laws too much forgotten or unknown unto those that would be called our Common Lawyers and gaining 10000 l. per Annum Lands of Inheritance made his boast that he had destroyed the so fixed and established Deeds of Entail and the Wills and Intent of the Donors as nothing of Collusion Figments or other Devices should prejudice and no Gentleman or Lover of Honour Gentry or Families would ever have had an hand in such a destruction Levelling Clowning Citizening and Ungentlemanning all or too many of the Ancient Families of England And if he could have lived to have seen or felt the tossing plundering and washing in Blood three great and flourishing Kingdoms would have wept bitterly and lamented or with Job have cursed the hour or time of his birth that he should ever have given the occasion or been Instrumental in the promoting or being a Contributor unto those very many dire Confusions and Disasters that after happened for if he had well read and weighed the History and Records both before shortly after the gaining of that Act of Parliament de Tallagio non concedendo without the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament Assembled and how much that great and prudent Prince King Edward the first was pressed and pinched when his important affairs caused his sudden transfrecation by the overpowering party of three of his greatest Nobility viz. Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford and Bigod Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of England all whom and their Ancestors had been advanced to those their Grandeurs by him and his Royal Progenitors had so catched an advantage upon him and were so merciless in their demands as they not only would not allow him a saving of his Jure Regis very usual and necessary in many of our Kings and Princes grants as well in the time of Parliaments as without but enforced an Oath upon him which he took so unkindly as he was constrained shortly after to procure the Pope to absolve him of for that it had been by a force put upon him which a Protestant Pope might have had a Warrant from God Almighty so to have done but did after his return into England so remember their ill usage of him as he seized their three grand Estates and made the two former so well to be contented with the regaining of his favour as Bohun married the one of his Daughters and Clare the other without any portions with an Entail of their Lands upon the Heirs of the Bodies of their Wives the Remainder to the Crown laid so great 〈…〉 Fine and Ransom upon Bigod the Earl Marshal as he being never able to pay it afterwards forfeited and lost all his great Estate and be all of them so well satisfied with his doings therein as they were in the 34th year of his Raign glad to obtain his Pardon with a Remissimus omnem Rancorem And they and Sir Edward Coke might have believed that that very prudent Prince might with great reason and truth have believed his Regality safe enough without a Salvo Jure Regis when the Law and Government it self and the Good and Interest of every Man his Estate and Posterity was and would be always especially concerned in the necessity aid and preservation of the King their common Parent appointed by God to be the Protector of them And our singularly learned Bracton hath not informed us amiss when he concluded that Rex facit Legem in the first place Lex facit Regem in the second giveth him Authority and Power to guard that Regality which God hath given him for the protection of the People committed to his charge who are not to govern their King but to be governed by him and should certainly have the means to effect it for how should he have power to do it or procure his People to have a Commerce or Trade with their Neighbour People or Princes if he as their King had not any or a just Superiority over them c. and must not for all that have and enjoy those Duties Rights and Customs which not only all our Kings Royal Progenitors but their Neighbour Princes and even Bastard and self-making Republiques have quietly and peaceably enjoyed without the Aid and Assistance of any the Suffrage of the giddy Rabble and vulgar sort of the People controuling in their unfixt and instable Opinions those of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the wiser and more concerned part of the People of which and the Rights and Customs due and payable to our Kings and Princes Sir John Davies a learned Lawyer in the Raign of our King James the first hath given us a learned full and judicious Account which well understood might adjudge that Petition of Right to deserve no better an entertainment than the Statute of Gloucester made in 15 E. 3. which by the Opinion of the Judges and Lords Spiritual and Temporal was against the Kings Praerogative and contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England and ought not to have the force and strength of a Statute and Sir Edward Coke might have remembred that in the Raign of King Edward the Third the Commons of England did in Parliament complain that Franchises had for time past been so largely granted by the King that almost all the Land was enfranchised to the great arreirisment estenisement of the Common Law which they might have called the Feudal Law and to the great oppression of the People and prayed the King to restrain such Grants hereafter unto which was answered The Lords will take order that such Franchises as shall be granted shall be by good Advice And that if by any Statute made in the 25th year of the Raign of King Edward 3. it was ordained that no man should be compelled to make any Loan to the King against his will because such Laws were against Reason and the Franchise of the Land that Statute when it shall be found will clearly also appear to be against our Ancient Monarchick Government Fundamentally grounded upon our Feudal Laws that our Magna Charta Charta de Foresta are only some Indulgence and Qualification of some hardship or Rigour of them that the Excommunication adjudged to be by the Statute of 25 E. 1. ca. 4. And the aforesaid dire Anathema's and Curse pronounced in that Procession through Westminster-Hall to the Abbey Church of Westminster against the Infringers of those our Grand Charters are justly and truly to be charged upon the Violaters and Abusers of our Feudal Laws and
of his Aerarium or Treasury without which no King or Prince can be safe or great and protect and defend himself and his people from Injuries and Contempt which put all together may give Gods appointed watchman of our Israel besides their more weighted and occasional business in Parliament scarcely time to slumber or sleep or enjoy his natural refreshments or divertisements without the addresses and Importunities of his almost always wanting and complayning Subjects which they that will be at leisure to peruse all the orders of himself and his privy Councel and treasury References upon Petitions in the Secretary of State and Master of the Requests Books and the Reports and Returns thereof with all that are contained in the patent close Rolls fine and liberate Rolls of every year besides the Writs Remedial granted out of the Chancery from which no man as our Laws say is to return sine Remedio those of the Common or Ordinary sort in every year amounting to no smaller a number than eighty Thousand in a year which by Law were anciently intended not to have been granted but by immediate Petitions to the King howsoever are now dispatched of Course as it hath long been by his Majesties not a few subordinate Officers very much to the ease and relief of his People who have so long enjoyed those benefits and accommodations as those Writs of Course without the trouble either of our Kings or their more especial Court of Parliaments as Anciently as King Canutus Raign who began his Raign in the year of our Lord 1016. and from thence so continued until the Raign of King John wherein a Writ of Novel diseisin is noted in the Margin of a Roll to be de cursu from whence the Cursistors in Chancery have taken and do yet keep their Name not a Cursitando as Fleta who wrote about the Raign of King Edward the 2d terms them Juvenes pedites little Lads who carried and fetcht Writs to and from the Great Seal but Clerici de Cursu mentioned in the Oath ordained to be given unto them in Parliament in Anno 18. E. 3. Insomuch as when Simon de Montfort that Married the Sister of King John and either his Father or himself had about that time been the destruction of the Protestant Albigenses and Waldenses in France did in the time of the Imprisonment of King H. 3. and his Son Prince Edward whom he and his Rebellious Partners had taken Prisoners in the Battle at Lewes take an especial care that in the absence of Thomas de Cantilupo the Kings Chancellor the Kings great Seal being committed to the Trust of Ralph de Sandwich Keeper of the Kings Wardrobe assisted by Hugh le Despencer Justiciar of England and Peter de Montfort two special Rebels to be kept until the return of the Chancellor and that the said Ralph should Seal brevia de Cursu but those which were de praecepto were to be Sealed in their presence And when that Rebellion was afterwards broken and Simon de Montfort and the most of his Rebel partners were slain at the more fortunate Battle at Evesham and the King restored to his Regality and Rights of government he and his Successors afterward did in all their Parliaments enjoy the power and authority of Monarchs in their great Councels or Assemblies of Parliament wherein by reason of their great and important affairs in War a in France Scotland and Wales they could not be able to be personally present but summoned and held their no long lasting Parliaments by their Lieutenants or Guardians of the Kingdom for the short continuance thereof § 31. That our great Councels or Parliaments except Anciently at the three great Festivals viz. Christmas Easter and Pentecost being ex more summoned and called upon extraordinary emergent occasions could not either at those Grand and Chargeable Festivals or upon Necessities of State or Publick Weal and preservation ex natura rei continue long but necessarily required Prorogations Adjournments Dissolutions or Endings FOR extraordinary occasions being not common or ordinary and the Summons or calling of fit and well capacited Persons to those venerable or great Councels of Parliament for purposed sometimes especily Limitted and Declared to be for Advice and Aid not in omnibus arduis only but in quibusdam arduis concerning the defence of the King his Kingdom and the Church always howsoever declared by the King himself or such as he appointed and there being other great and little Courts enough in the Kingdom to dispatch and administer Justice it could not but put our Kings and Princes in mind not to trouble their highest Court for small and trivial Affairs but to believe that Canutus an Ancient King of this Nation who began his Raign in Anno Domini 1001. had reason by an express Law to prohibit the troubling of him or his Parliament or greatest Councel with small matters when they might with more ease less delay expences and attendance be determined at home or in their proper Courts or Places in these words videlicet neme de injuria alterius Regi quaeritur nisi quidem in Centuria Justitiam consequi aut impetrare non potest Centuria autem Cominus quisque ut quidem par est intersit aut saltem debito absentiam luat supplicio and that Law might well be said to have been made by that King sapientum Concilio which might occasion the use of Receivers and Triers of Petitions constantly appointed by the King or his House or Councel of Peers until our late times of Rebellion and Confusion that great Councel or Court never being intended by our Kings or their Laws to be a standing often or continual Court for ordinary Affairs The wisdom of our Kings and their House of Peers having often rejected and not given any Remedies to Petitioners that might more properly be relieved in Inferiour Courts For King Offa in the year 787. after the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ had a 2d Session in his great Councel And therefore as all Parliaments have had very urgent and necessary causes of Calling and Summoning them by their Kings so they were to have their continuance and duration proportionable to the Business and Affairs for which their Advice Assent or Approbation were required and even in the Ecclesiastical Councels begun as early after the Incarnation of our blessed Redeemer Jesus Christ as the year 446. The many Secular Businesses as making of Laws and redressing of Grievances in and by the Presence and Assistance of our Kings and many of the Nobility continued until the Norman Conquerour who separated the Ecclesiastical and Civil Jurisdictions one from the other and the Attendance upon Parliaments were not a little troublesom and chargeable to the Spiritual and Temporal Baronage and therefore the Ancient Custom of our Saxon Kings was more easy and less burdensom unto the Prelates and Nobility when it required their constant and annal Attendance
Grammar or Construction of Reason or Sense will ever be able to comprehend the King The 17th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3 Estates which is surely to be understood to consist of other Persons separately and distinct from the King Prorogued the Parliament until the 20th day of January then next ensuing at Westminster and upon the 28th day of April was likewise Prorogued to the 5th day of May next following The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said that the Kings pleasure was that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not signifie that the King himself was one of those Estates to whom he granted that favour The 25th day of December the Chancellor in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates by the Kings Commandment giving thanks to the 3. Estates the King being then by the Chancellor or any other Master of Reason or Common Sense not understood to be any one of the 3. Estates to whom the thanks were given dissolved the Parliament An Act of Parliament was made wherein was declared that King Edward the 4th was the undoubted King of England from the 4th day of March last before and that all the Estates yielded themselves obeysant Subjects unto him and his Heirs for ever the late never to be maintained Doctrine of the pretended co-ordination of the House of Commons in Parliament as Subjects with their Soveraign in Parliament and the Government being not than that established or ever to be evidenced otherwise then God hath ordained a co-ordination betwixt the King and his Subjects which is that the People as Subjects should obey their King and the King as their Soveraign Protect Rule and Govern them and affirmed the Raign of King Henry the 4th to be an Intrusion and only Usurpation The Chancellor the King sitting in his Royal State in the presence of the Lords and Commons made an Eloquent Oration wherein he declared the 3. Estates to comprehend the Governance of the Land the preheminence whereof was in the Bishops the second to the Lords Temporal which the learned and men of that Age and other Chancellors understood to be no other than two separate and distinct Estates the one Temporal and the other Spiritual and the King to be Superiour The Bishop of London Chancellor of England in the presence of the King and the 3. Estates the King being none of them but Superior over them all Prorogued the Parliament to the 6th of June ensuing For where the Abridger or Mr. Pryn possessing himself to be the Rectifier or Corrector amongst his other faults and mistakings in his Epitomizings made it to be in the Parliament Rolls of 6 Edwardi 3. that many failing to come to the Parliament upon the Summons of the King did put a charge upon the whole Estate by a reassembly he will find neither words or matter for it All that appears of the Title of Estates in the Parliament and Statute Rolls of that year is no more than the Prelats grants gentz du Commune or les Prelats Counts Barons gentz des Countez gentz de la Commune No whole Estate mentioned in the Parliament Roll all that is said n. 42. is no more than a les requests des grantz come de ceuâ— de la Commune de le Clergie That which is translated the Estate of the King is no more in the Parliament Roll n. 5. than les beseignes nostre seigneur le Roy de son Royame Where the Abridger saith the Parliament was to treat and advise touching the Estate de nostre Seigneur le Roy le Governement le salnette de sa terre d' Angleterre de son people relevation de lour Estate there is no other mention of Estates than the Prelatz grantz Commons de son roiame and charged les Chinalers des Countes and Commons to assemble in the Chamber de Pinct A quel Jour vindrent les Chivalers des Counties autres Commons and gave their advice in a Petition in the form ensuant a tres excellent or tres honorable Seigneur les gentz de vostre Commun soy recommandent a vous obeysantment en merciant se avant come leur petitesse powre suffice de tant tendrement pervez a quer maintenir la pees a la quiete de vostre people c. Et en maintenance des autres Leyes as autres Parliaments devant ces heures grantees vostre poure Commons sil vous plaist sa gree semble a la dite Commune totes autres choses poent suffisantement estre rewelez Terminez en Bank le Roy Commune Bank devant Justices as Assises prendre nisi les delayes nient covenable soient aggregez oustez ore a ce Parliament per estatut En. Ro. Parl. 18. E. 3. Where the King desired the names of the absent Lords that he might punish them there is no mention of the Clergy or Commons or of any Estates and the King afterwards desiring their advice touching his Treaty with France charged the Prelats Countz Barons et Communs to give their advice therein Which they all did without naming themselves or being stiled Estates The Kings Letters of Credence sent out of France to his Parliament in England were directed a toutes Erchevesquis evesques Abbes Priours Counts Barons toutz autres foialx le Roy vendront au dit Parlement troter sar les beseignes le Roy whereupon he demanded an Aid of the said Prelats grantz Communs And the Lords without the Title of Estates having granted it the Chivalers des Counties Citizens Burges des Cities Burghs Prioront de avoir avisement entre eux and in Answer thereunto delivered a Petition unto the King for redress of Grievances not by the name of the Estates but a nostre Seigneur le Roy a son conseil 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 gentz de la Communes de sa terre ausi bien des 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Counties Where it was supposed that a Pardon was granted and a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to Sir John Matrevers of all his Lands by the whole Estates there appeareth no more in the 〈…〉 ment Roâ—â— than that he Petitioned A nostre Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil wherein he recited that Restitution had been granted de poiar royal nostre Seigneur le Roy par bor accord 〈◊〉 Common assent des Prelatz Co 〈…〉 es Barons de son Roialme par plusieurs causes appearing in the 〈…〉 ings Charter of Pardon and prayed quil p 〈…〉 st a nostre dit Seigneur le Roy a son bon conscil par la boâ—dance de sa Noble Seignorie granter la restitution scisdite pâ—usse estre ore renovelle en cest Parlement quelle Petition lue fut respondue
of a contrived Parliament to govern the King when that gentle fictitious modus is content to allow the King a Salvo dom Regi et ejus Consilio quod ipsi hujusmodi Ordinaciones of 6. 3. or 1. of the Committee Postquam scripta fuerint examinare emendare valeant si hoc facere sciant valeant Ita quod hoc fiat tunc ibidem in pleno Parliamento de assensu Parliamenti Et non retro Parliamentum which last clause saith Mr. Pryn quite spoils Altars and contradicts what the Community of twelve six or three had ordained And King Edward the confessor whom the many foregoing and after ages have justly and truly reported and esteemed to be neither Oliver Cromwel or the mistaken Sir Edward Coke with their several modi tenendi Parliamenta did not find either of them in his Recherches amongst all the Laws of the Mulumtians Mercian Saxon and Danish Laws and other ancient Customs used in England in his time when he was Monarch thereof and Vicarius Summi Regis ordained Laws concilio Baronum Angliae leges 68 Annos sopitas excitavit excitatas reparavit reparatas decoravit decoratas confirmavis confirmatas vero vocantur Leges Edwardi Regis non quod ipse primo eas adinvenisse dicitur sed cum praetermissa fuissent oblivioni penitus dedita a diebus avi sui Edgari qui 17 Annis regnavit ipse Edwardus quia Justa erant honesta a profunda Abyssu extravit as if he had pulled them out of some Holes Vauts or Cranyes eas revocavit ut suas observandas contradidit wherein there is nothing at all that may be subservient to the wildest kind of Interpretation of a modus tenendi Parliamentum which in the case of so great Rational and Fundamental general Councel as a Parliament could not be beleived to be omitted in the making and framing K. Edward the Confessors Laws nor can they be conceived or believed to be made at one time but at several times during his Raign and in these although there are extant a very great commendation of the usefulness of the Law of Friborghs or Tithings there is not a word or any thing to be understood of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament being a third Estate For it appears in Anno 1244 in a Parliament holden at London the King consulted with the Bishops apart the Earls and Barons apart and the Abbots and Priors apart about the Popes not performing his promise concerning his removal of the grievances of the Kingdom where were none of the Common people either as a third Estate or otherwise which was before his imprisonment in the 48th year of his Raign by some of his Rebellious Barons and in all his Raign before there is often mention of his Bishops Earls and Barons Magnates and Grand Conseil but nothing at all of Commons or a formed House of Commons until the 49th year of his Raign and not long before at a Parliament assembled totam Nobilitatem Angliae For before the 42 year of that Kings Raign Nobiles Angliae tam viri Ecclesiastici quam seculares met in a Parliament at London Ita quod nunquam tam populosa multitudo ibi antea visa fuit where the King informing them of his necessities and requiring an aid they not any Commons but the Lords Spiritual and Temporal began to be very querelous and remembring old grievances as they called them demanded the Justiciary Chancellor and Treasurer might be chosen by the Common Councel of the Kingdom which by the Records and Annalists was never understood to be any other than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament summoned to give their advice to the King as the greatest men of wisdom and Estates in whom that and the obedience of the Common people were Justly included the choice of which great Offices of State Sir Edward Cokes modus tenendi Parliamentum having not then peeped into the World to help to disturb it the Lords Spiritual and Temporal then alledged to appertain unto them not unto the Vulgar or Common people and had been Justly and anciently due unto them ab antiquo Justum consuetum which had no longer a date than the enforced Charter of King John at Running Mede and the collateral strange security at the same time given for the 25 Conservators of the Liberties of the people to maintain its antiquity than something less than 42 years before which propositions the King denying that Councel was dissolved without any Claim of the common peoples third Estateship or being an Essential or constituent part of the Parliament or to have votum decisivum therein There was no such Modus tenendi Senatum or Parliamentum then so stiled when the Roman Empire began its rise for shortly after though their Stile or Title was Senatus populusque Romanus yet their Historians tell us that they had their Patritii and Menenius Agrippa when the Rabble Vulgus or Common people had made an Insurrection or mutiny and gone tumultuously into the Mount Aventine knew better how to bring them again into their Wits by a pleasant well understood fable or Apologue of the head Members Belly and Paunch in their Bodies natural and our Republican 3 Estate men might read and understand that those Common peoples Votes or Dictates were able to reach no further than their Plebiscita and never could arrive unto a Senatus consultum that when Julius Caesar came into our Brittain before the Incarnation of our Redeemer and that Nation had planted Colonies here they left us no Modus tenendi Senatum neither did Agricola Governor here for the Roman Colonies who had taught our Nation the use of the Roman Gown and Civilities teach them the modus tenendi Parliamentum or Senatum which Sir Edward Coke dreamed of or inform them that the Common people were a third Estate or had an inhaerent Soveraignty in them In all the Laws of Dunwallo Mulumtius there was no mention of Law for a modus tenendi Parliamentum or in those of Mercia Regina Britonum or in the time of the Heptarchy of the Saxon Kings or of King Ethelbert who raigned here in the year after Christ 568. Neither in the Laws of King Ina who raigned in England about the year 712. Or in the Laws of King Alured who began his Raign in Anno 871. and ended in Anno 900. and declares that he had ordained collected and put them together Atque easdem literis mandavit quorum bonam certe partem Majores sui religiose coluerunt mulâ—a etiam sibi digna videntur quae sibi observari melius commoda videbantur ea consulto sapientum partim antiquanda partino Innovanda videbantur curavit At quoniam temeritatis videatur ex suis ipsius decretis quenquam literarum monumentis consignare tum etiam se quidem apud posteros Justitiae suae fidem quae se magni fecerit
set on fire about his Ears at once that of Ireland incited by his condescensions to that of Scotland and that of England as busy as the worst but gaining more by it when the King had to pacify all given them license by an Act of Parliament to continue in Parliament without adjourning proroguing or dissolving until those great Sums of Money should be satisfied and Ireland quieted which they never intended but hindred and perplexed all they could although he offered to go thither in Person himself which they would not consent unto for fear least he should thereby get Arms and Power into his own hands to frustrate their wicked design which that Republican wicked party durst never offer to Oliver Cromwell the Protector of their supposed Liberties with any the least of those monstrous conditions by them called Priviledges but could tamely suffer him to make his own Instrument of Government alter the Course of Parliament with more or less Members of the House of Commons in Parliament pull out and imprison diverse Members of that House and shut up the Doors constitute a new House of his mechanick and ordinary Commanders instead of a House of Lords after the Republican partty had made such an Act of Parliament as they could that none should have benefit of the Laws who did not take an oath of engagement not to have any more a King or House of Lords And to be disappointed as little as they could possibly in those their intentions made all the hast they could to fire their Beacons of personal Plots and dangers against themselves the great Patriots of the Kingdom and Weal publick as they had done before against Popery and therefore incredible Plots and Conspiracies were discovered by one of their Members who had an especial faculty therein and likewise by others as a Plaister taken from the sore of a man infected therewith and brought by an Incognito in a Letter to Mr. John Pym the Lord Digby seen at Kingston upon Thames with four Horses in a Coach in a warlike manner Horses kept and trained under ground and a dangerous design to blow up the River Thames with Gunpowder whereby to drown the Parliament Houses with many the like ridiculous fopperies to affright the easy to be deluded silly Vulgar and engage them in a Rebellion and were in the mean time to be secured themselves by a guard for which they â—eâ—tioned the King who ordered the Justices of Peace to command the Constables of that division to furnish one but that would not accommodate their purposes nothing would help forward their more than ordinary designs than a guard by the Trained Bands of the City of London by turns which being granted by the King suddenly after the Citizens Wives were so afraid of the danger oâ— the Tower of London as they could not lye dry in their Beds and the Lieutenant of the Tower must be displaced and a more confiding one put in to give them content that never intended to be satisfied Which being done the Pulpits of the Prebyterian Scotized Clergy flaming and the Printing Presses Stationers and Cryers in the Streets as busy in the publishing the Harangues of the House of Commons Members in proclaiming the imaginary grievances and he was a small man at Arms that had made and published no more than one or two such Speeches mean while Protestations were ordered to be made in every Parish of England and Wales to defend the King and the Protestant Religion the King going into London in his Coach hath a Paper thrown into it with a writing thereupon To your Tents O Israel the many Rude â—eople of the adjoyning Hamlets came in droves to the Parliament crying No Bishops and for Justice and as they pass by Whitehall Gate and knock at it desire to speak with the King who sends unto the Students of the Inns of â—ourt with some Captains and Commanders to attend him as a supplemary Guard who came and had a Diet and Table provided for them the Bishops do leave the House of Peers with a protestation patterned with one in 11 R. 2. that they could not sit there in safety for which they were all made Prisoners in the Tower of London but were all afterwards released except Matthew Wren Bishop of Ely who remained there sequestred from his Bishoprick for something more than 13 years without knowing for what cause or crime until his late Majesties happy Restauration Mr. Henry Martin a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament more fearing the Anger of his Mistress than his God or King begins in Parliament to declaim against the King saying that he was not fit to Raign or Govern and moved that all the Regal Ornaments customarily lodged in the Abby of Westminster under the custody of the Dean and Chapter thereof might be seised one Mr. Parker made hast to make himself an Observator of the Rebellious way with dislocated Maximes abused and wrested out of their proper meaning and Interpretations viz. Quod efficit tale est magis tale the King is Major singulis but minor universis salus populi est suprema Lex which although Learnedly answered by the more Loyal Orthodox Party to an ample Conviction that should be could not satisfie or stop the designed Confederacy and Rebellion but the ten Judges of the twelve that gave their Opinions in the case of Mr. Hambden against him concerning the Ship-money for the King were by the Parliaments Order put out of their Offices and Places Justice Berkly one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench taken Prisoner as he was sitting by the Usher of the Black Rod attending the House of Peers after which Mr. Denzal Hollis came to the House of Lords and with greater boldness than assurance claimed the Militia and Power of the Sword to appertain of Right to the People and Mr. Pryn writes and Publishes his Book of the Supremaey of Parliaments seconded by Mr. John Whites Book entituled a Politick Chatechism undertaking to prove by our Laws the Resistibility and Forcing the Power of our Kings to be Vested in the People and the Judges were commanded by the Parliament without the King to declare to the People in their Circuits that the Militia is and ought to be in the Parliament as the Representative of the People which was never before done read seen or heard of in England which all the Judges obeyed but my honoured Friend the worthy Sir Thomas Mallet one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench who not forgetting his very Ancient and Noble discent plainly and resolutely at every place in his next Circuit declared it in all his Charges to be in Law de Jure Coronae suae in the King and for his so exemplary Loyalty was in the last place of that Circuit by Sir Richard Onslow Knight a Member of the Commons House in Parliament with a Troop of Horse as he was sitting upon the Bench at Kingston upon
Thames Arrested and carried Prisoner to the Tower of London and the Wind and Tyde of fear and self-preservation did then so impetuously drive Sir Edward Littleton the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who some years before when he was a young Man made it a part of his Praise or Olympick Game to prove by Law that the King had no Law to destrain men esse Milites and Sir John Banckes Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas that they joyned with the then Illegal concurrent Votes of too many of the House of Peers that the Militia which was the Right and Power of the Sword and Jus divinum gladii and the totum aggregatum and support of the Government was in the People when our Learned Bracton hath truly informed us that in Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo Arma videlicet Leges quibus utrumqne bellorum pacis recto possit gubernari utrumque enim istorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam Res militaris possit esse in tuto quam ipsae Leges usu Armorum praesidio possent esse servatae si autem Arma defecerint contra hostes Rebelles Inimicos sic erit Regnum indefensum si autem Leges sic exterminabitur justitia nec erit qui justum faciet Following therein that opinion of Justinian the Emperour in his Institutes And did declare not like men that had taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy before they were admitted into that House that if any Person whatsoever wherein the King or his Command ought to have been excepted shall offer to arrest or detain the Person of any Member of that House without first acquainting their House or receiving further Order from that House that it is Lawful for any such Member or any Person to assist him and to stand upon his and their guard and defence and to make resistance according to the protestation taken to defend the Priviledges of Parliament which was neither to commit or maintain Treason or make that without the Kings Authority to be Treason that never was their intollerable haughty Priviledges so incompatible and inconsistent with Monarchy demanded by the Petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament the 14th day of December 1641. can never be able to withstand the dint and force of the Law and Right Reason if a Quo Warranto should be brought against them Whereupon the King the 4th day of January 1641. coming into the House of Commons in Person no such Company attending with Pistols at the Door as was untruly reported and being sate in the Speakers Chair said he was sorry for the occasion of coming unto them Yesterday he had sent a Serjeant at Arms to apprehend some that were accused of High Treason whereunto he expected Obedience and not a Message and that he must declare unto them that in case of High Treason no Person hath a Priviledge And therefore he was come to know if any of these Persons accused were here for so long as those Persons accused for no slight crime but for Treason were there he could not expect that that House could be in the Right way which he heartily wishes and therefore he came to tell the House that he must have them wheresoever he can find them but since he sees the Birds are flown he doth expect from them that they should send them unto him as soon as they return thither But assures them in the word of a King he never did intend any force but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way for he never meant any other which they might easily have done when they had his own Serjeant at Arms attending that Honse for no other than such like purposes The next day being the 5th day of January 1641. notwithstanding that Treason Felony and Breach of the Peace were always by the Laws of England and Customs of their Parliaments exempt and never accompted to be within the Circuit of any Parliament Priviledge for otherwise Parliaments and great Assemblies well Affected or ill Affected would be dangerous unto Kings they declare the Kings coming thither in Person to be an high breach of the Rights and Priviledge of Parliament and inconsistent with the Liberty and Freedom thereof and therefore adjourned their sitting to the Guildhall in London which they should not have done without the Kings Order that a special Committee of 24 should sit there also concerning the Irish Affairs of which number was Sir Ralph Hopton that after got out of their wicked errors and fought and won sundry glorious Battels for the King against those Parliament Rebels and some few more of that their Committee deserted their Party And the Writ sent by King Edward the first to the Justices of his Bench by Mr. Pulton stiled a Statute made in the 7th year of his Raign might have sufficiently informed them and all that were of the profession of the Law in the House of Commons in Parliament that in a Parliament at Westminster the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of the Realm have said that to the King it belongeth and his part is through his Royal Seignory streightly to defend force of Arms and all other force against his Peace at all times which shall please him and to punish them which shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and therefore they are bound to aid him as their Soveraign Lord at all times when need shall be and therefore commanded the Justices to cause those things to be read before them in the said Bench and there Inrolled The before confederated national Covenant betwixt England and Scotland being by Ordinance of Parliament for so they were pleased to call their no Laws confirmed under a penalty that no man should enjoy any Office or Place in the Commonwealth of Engl. and Ireland that did not Attest and Swear it which the King prohibiting by his Proclamation sent unto London the bringer whereof was hanged the King certainly informed of the traiterous practices and other misdeameanors of the Lord Kimbolton and his aforesaid Associates did as privately as possible with the Prince Elector Palatine his Nephew and no extraordinary attendance go in person to the House of Commons to seize them because his Serjeants at Arms durst not adventure to do it who having notice of it by the Countess of Carlisles over-hearing his whispering to the Queen and suddenly sending them notice thereof were sure to be absent wherein he being disappointed did afterwards by his Attorney General exhibit Articles of High Treason and other Misdemeanors against them 1. That they had traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom and deprive the King of his Legal Power and place on Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power which shortly after proved wofully true and for many years after so continued 2. That they have endeavoured by many foul aspersions upon his Majesty
3. n. 36. 50. and 59. Ro. Parl. 22. E. 3. n. 13. Ro. Parl. 25. E. 3. n. 37. Ro. Parl. 21. E. 3. n. 21. Ro. Parl. 13. E. 3. n. 〈◊〉 Ro. Parl. 37. E. 3. n. 33. Ro. Parl. 45. E. 3. n. 29. Ro. Parl. 50. E. 3. n. 123. Ro. Parl. 51. E. 3. n 22 23. Ro. Parl. 11. H. 4. n. 28. Ro. Parl. 11. H. 4. n. 63. Ro. Parl. 15. E. 3. n. 114. 40. Ro. Parl. 21. E. 3 n. 8. 〈◊〉 9 E. 3. Ro. Parl. E. 3. Ro. Claus. 5 E. 3. m. 2. indors Ro. Parl. 21. E. 3. n. 13. Ro. Parl. 21. E. 3. n. 47. Ro. Parl. 22. E. 3. n. 20. and 21. Ro Parl. 4â— E 3. n 24 25. Ro. Parl. 18. E. 3. in dors n. 49. Ro. Parl. 4. H. 4. n. 95. Ro. Parl. 5. H. 4. n. 22. Ro. Claus. 12. E. 2. m. 5. Ro. Parl. 18. E. 3. Ro. Parl. 2. H. 4. n. 48. Ro. Parl. 25. E. 3. m. Ro. Parl. 37. E. 3. m. 34. cap. 16. Ro. Parl. 41. E. 3. 51. E. 3. m. 5. 1. R. 2. Pryns fourth part of Parliament Writs 508. 510. 512. 513. ibid. 329 330 490 491 Ro. Parl. 1 R. 2. Re 〈…〉 of Writs and Pryns fourth part of Parliament Writs 431 432. 52 H. 3. c. 10. Considerations touching Laws positive and of necessity Martinius Budaeus Ro. Pat. 12. R. 2. parte 2. in dorso Pryns Animadversions upon Cokes 4 Institutes 332 333 643 647 1199 1200. Cromptons Jurisdiction of Parliament Marsellaer de Legatis Camdens Annals of Queen Elizabeth Tempore H. 4. Selden tit honor Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts tit Parliament Cokes twelve Reports in the Countess of Shrewsbury's Case Ob Countess of Ri in his 6th Report Ro. Parl. 13. E. 3. Cooks fourth part of Institutes tit Parl. Ll. Canuti Ll. Edwardi Co 〈…〉 or p. 19. Ll. H. 1. Rot. Claus. 5. E. 2. in dorso 〈◊〉 15 Mat. Paris Ro. Claus. 16. H 3 m 4. 3. Ro Patent 17 H 〈◊〉 m 11. 〈◊〉 Ro. Claus. 35 H 3 n. 6. â—at Paris Rot. pat 50. E. 3. Rot. pat 51. E. 3. Rot. Claus. 51. E. 3. Rot. pat 1 H. 4. Rot. pat 15. E. 3. Rot. pat 5. H. 4. Rot. pat 9. H. 4. Rot. pat 38. H. 6. Exect Collection of Remonstrances Declarations and Messages betwixt his late Majesty and the Parliament Printed by Order of the Commons in Parliament 24. March 1642. Ll. Caruti Rot. Parl. 21 R. 2. Pryns 4 part of his Register of Parliament Writs Pryns Animad upon Cokes 4 Instit. Rot. Parl. Cokes Institutes Cokes 4 part of the Institutes Tit. Parliament Rot. parl 7 E. 1. Ll. Canuti 16 Ll. Inae 6. 1 H. 4. cap. 14. Rot. Parl. 28. H. 6. n. 16 17. Rot Parl. 5. E. 3. n. 8. 22 R. 2. In the Abridgment of the Parliament Records in English said to be done by Sir Robert Cotton Rot. Parl. 1 H. 4. n. 109. 111. Rot. Parl. 5 E. 3. n. 17. Rot. Parl. 4. E. 3. n. 16. Rot Parl. 5. E. 3. Rot. parl at R. 2. Esther ca. 1 3 5 8. 1 Reg. 3. Bracton Cokes Instit. 2. 315. Tenenda non Tollenda per Fabian Philipps Miscalled Recompence per eundem Ligeancia Lugens pereundem Mr. Francis Moores Reports Richards Case 764. F. de Admin Cod. de pre imposs Cit. de Legibus different Reinoldus Curicke de privilegiis ca. 3 45. 46. ca. 4 52. 53. R. de Caricke ca privilegiis Dr. Brady in his History of England from the first Entry of the Romans until the Raign of King Henry the third and Lambart L L. Edwardi Confessor 12. Esiber cap. 1. 3. 5. 8. 8. H. 6. Elsings anuncient and modern manner of holding Parliaments in Ergland 172. 39 H. 6. 31 H. 6. Ro. Parl. Cokes 4th part Institutes tit Parliament 39 H. 6. n. 9. 12 E. 4. n. 55. 17 E. 4. Anno 28. 29. H. 8. §. 18. 34 H. 8. Comptons Jurisdiction of Courts Tit. Parliament 8 Eliz. in the Journal of the House of Commons Et Elsings Annaent and modern manner of holding Parliaments in England 199 200 201. Pryns Animadversions upon Sir Edward Cokes 4th part of the Institutes Brodon de Legibus Consuetudinibus Angliae 34 E. 1. cap. 1. Cap. 5. Sir John Davies concerning the Kings Customs and the Statute de Tallagio non concedendo Rot. Parl. 21 E. 3. Eginard en la vie de Charlemaigne 25 E. 1 ca. 4. Eginard en la vie de Charlemaine 1 R. 3. ca. 2. 3 Car. p 〈…〉 i. Perot Scalig. lib. 4. Poetic Donatuc D. lib. tit 1. 4. and in Instit. lib. 1. tit 5. L. F. de Statum bom § 1. Lib. 〈◊〉 tit 17. Leg. 4. F. de usu fruct peâ— l. 4. Seneca Mâ—â—tiâ—ii Lexicon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Du Frâ—sâ—â— Gibieâ—â— de Libertate Dei Creaturae Reynoldus Curick de Privilegiis p. 22. Iudem cap. 4. p. 52. 53. â—1 24 H. 8. ca. 10. Sir John Spelman in vita Aelferdi Regis Et Mat. Paris L. L. Canuti 9 H. 3. ca. 11. Ro. Parl. 18 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 20 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 21 E. 3. Ro. Parl 22 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 8 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 15 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 17 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 25 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 45 E. 3. 1 Reg. ca. 3. v. 6 8 9. L. L. Canuti Ro. Claus. Johannis Selden dissert ad Fletam Fleta ca. 13. 18 E. 3. L. L. Canuti 16. Pryns Collection of the Ancient Parliaments Seldeni notae in histor Eadmeri Sir John Spelman in viea â—â—redi Regis A â—ales Eginard 〈…〉 〈◊〉 de 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A 〈…〉 〈◊〉 p 〈…〉 765. 736. 64. Ro. Parl. 4. E 3. Pryns Collection of the Ancient Parliaments 9 H. 2. Daniel in the Life of King H. 2. 20 H. 2. 33 H. 2. Daniel ibidem 110. Walsingham Ypodigm Neustriae Hovedon parte posteriore Mat. Paris 247. Mat. Paris Daniel in the Life of King Henry 3. Mat. Paris 5 E. 2. 〈◊〉 17. Ro. Claus. dors 18 E. 2. Ro. Claus. in dors m. 15. Exodus ca. 12 ca. 19. Ibidem ca. 18. Elsings Ancient and Present manner of holding Parliaments in England 4. E. 3. ca. 19. 36 E. 3. ca. 10. Ro. Parl. 50. E. 3. 1 R. 2. 6 E. 3. 13 E. 3. 20 E. 3. 21 E. 3. 25 E. 3. 〈◊〉 E. 3. 〈◊〉 E. 3. 〈◊〉 E. 3. R. 2. H. 4. H. 5. H. 6. E. 4. R. 3. H. 7. H. 8. E. 6. Mar. Eliz. Jac. Car. 1. Exact Collection of Proceedings in the Parliament from the 3d. of November 1640. until the Moneth of June 1641 16 Car. 1. Spelmanni Glossar Du Fresne Glossar 52 H. 3. ca. 10 Cokes 4th part Institutes Walsingham Hypodigma Neustriae in vita E. 1. Ro. Parl. C 〈…〉 s 3d part Institutes 19 R. 2. Aitzema's Re volutions of the United Provinces Mr. William Pryn. Cokes 4th part Institutes Walsingham Hist. E. 2. p. 97. Walsingham in Histor. E. 1. 71. Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts tit Parliament The Kings Answer to the Parliament 〈◊〉 in 〈◊〉 Col 〈…〉 tions Pryns Preface to the exact of the â—ecord in the Cromptons Jurisdictions of Courts and Cokes 4 Institutes Republick of Venice Seldens Titles of Honour Ro. Parl. 6. E. 3. 8. E. 3. Dr. Brady in his History of England from the Roman British Saxon Danish and Norman times until 49 H. 3. 14 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 15. E. 3. 4 R. 2. H. 4. 9. H 4. Ro. Parl. 5. H. 5. 1 H. 6. 4 H. 6. 6 H. 6. 9 H. 6. 11 H. 6. 18 H. 6. 24 H. 6. 25 H. 6. 28 H. 6. 29 H. 6. 33 H. 6. 38 H. 6. 1 E. 4 E. 4. 14 E. 4. 15 E. 3. 17 E. 3. Ro. Parl. 20. E. 3. Ro. Parl. 40. E. 3. n. 16. 42 E. 3 n. 7. 8. Ro. Parl. 4. R. 2. Ro. Parl. 6. R. 2. Chroms Litchfield L. L. Edward Confessors Rushworths Historical Collections or Pryns confuted modus 〈◊〉 Parliament Selden tit honor part 2. pag. 613. Pryns confutation of that 〈…〉 dus p. 601. Heywoâ—d Townâ—send Reports of the four last years of Queen Elizabeths Raign Ro. Parl. 11 H. 6. Ro. Parl. 11. 12 H. 6. m. 11. Declaratio Ordinum Hollandie West-Frisiâ— Printed at Leyden 1655. Spelman Glossar Dr. Brady in his History of those times Pryns confutation of the fabulous modus tenendi Parliamentum in his brief Register of Parliament Writs L. L. Edwardi Confessor Dr. Brady's compleat History of England until the end of the Raign of King Henry the third p. 594. 610. Livy Tacitus in vita Agricolae L. L. Aluredi L. L. Edwardi Regis Dr. Brady's History of England p. 610. 611. Ro. Parl. 11 R. 2. Rushworths Historical Collections Reynoldus Curick Du Fresne glossar Gibieuf de libertate dei Creatur Ro. Parl. Dr. Brady's History of England Quadilogus Plutarch in vâ—â—a Solonis Petrus Cunaeus de Republica H 〈…〉 m LL. Athelstani Dr. Brady's History of England Seldens tit Honor Mat. Paris Dr. Bradys History of England p. 457. Ro. pat 17. Johann m. 20. dors Ro. pat 17. Johannis m. 23. in Dors. Pryns 4th part of the Register of Parliamentary Writs Ro. Parl. 1 E. 4. Petition of the Lords and Commons to his Majesty at Hampton Court 14th of December 1641. Petition to the House of Commons Husbands Collections of Proceedings in Parliament Pryns Soveraignty of Parliaments John Whites Politick Catechism Henr. de Bracton in proâ—â—io 7 E. 1. The 19 Propositions sent unto the King the 2d of June 1642. Rushworths Historical Collections Genesis ca. 41. v. 43. Esther ca. 6. v. 8 9. Copy of the Bill of Exclusion in the paper seized in the Earl of Shaftsbury's Closet in Anno 1681. Animadversions on a Book called the Theory of the Earth Dr. Brady in the History of King Henry the third Hookers Ecclesiastical Policy Isaack Walton in vita â—jasdem Mat. Paris LL. Edwardi Confessor Chronicon Lâ—â—â—â—fâ—ildeâ—s Custumâ—s de Bâ—â—taigne â—n Fâ—â—ncep 136. 137. 8â— 138.