Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A26164
|
Additions answering the omissions of our reverend author
|
Atwood, William, d. 1705?
|
1681
(1681)
|
Wing A4166; ESTC R9859
|
18,503
|
48
|
Great Councils formerly as then does not take in the full meaning but is to say nothing being the Commons manifestly assert their right as when they declared that they had ever been a Member of Parliament and as well Assenters as Petitioners And what force does it bring to the Doctors Assertion that the Commons answer in the same form of Speech conceiv'd by the Barons Which he thinks worthy of great Letters is that an Argument that the Commons did not think that they ought to have been parties He himself grants that King John resigned before them that came upon a Military Summons that is as all who ought to come were concluded by them that came before all his Barons wherefore nothing wanted to the Confirmation but the Consent of the Commons And if the Commons were then an essential part of the Great Council they might come in Person unless the change in 49 H. 3. can be shewn to have been any otherwise than in the bringing in a Representation of them 7. By the Charter of H. 1. for the King 's dominica necessaria or de arduis Regni all the Counties and Hundreds that is the Freeholders the Suitors at those Courts were to be summon'd to the Great Council as it had been in the time of the Confessor when there repaired to the Great Folcmote or General Council held once a year all the Peers Knights and Freemen at least Freeholders of the Kingdom 8. For demonstration that libere tenentes came to the Great Councils in their own Persons and as Members King John before the passing of his Charter writes to the Milites Fideles the last of which takes in all the libere tenentes and tells them that if it might have been done he would have sent Letters to every one of them wherefore these Members whose right is here acknowledged were single individual persons for they could not have been summoned to come by Representation in the case of such particular Writs or Letters unless the Representation were setled before the Summons which is not to be supposed These Arguments all but the last which the Doctor has supplied me with arise out of my former Treatise and I take it that this which the Doctor has occasioned will yield a few more without pressing 9. Since William the First was no Conqueror it follows that the Great Folcmote or General Council in the Saxon times where to be sure all Proprietors of Land were to be Members could not have been turn'd into an Assembly of the Kings Tenents upon the old legal Title and without a Conquest there was no other And as there must have been a vast number of the Proprietors whom the Kings immediate Tenents could not oblige so they must have been Members of those Councils which laid any general Charge and that with the same priviledges the Tenents in Capite who came in Person had 10. Though demonstration it self will not satisfie unreasonable men yet not to mention more I shall urge the Authority of the Legier Book of Ely before cited the great Antiquity of the hand writing of which is beyond all exception to persuade the Doctor that my Notion is far from being precarious Since that M. S. shews that King Stephen consulted about the State of the Kingdom not only with the Bishops Abbots Monks and inferior Clergy but with the Plebs and they in an infinite number Concilio adunato Cleri populi Episcoporum atque Abbatum Monachorum Clericorum Plebisque infinitae multitudinis c. de statu Regni cum illis tractavit This single instance is sufficient to prove that the Primates Primores Proceres Magnates and Nobiles were not the Constituent parts of Great Councils in the Reigns of W. the 1st H. 1st King Stephen H. 2. R. 1st according to his restrictive and limited understanding and exposition of these words and phrases but that the CLERUS and POPULUS the general words which often comprehend all the Members signifie as well as Great Men the Common Freeholders as at this day nor need I examine his Book any farther but I hope the Doctor a man of that known integrity as his excellent Book expresses him to be will now make good his promise to be of my opinion when I should evince that Common Freeholders had this great priviledge 11. The Lords right of answering for their Tenents being founded in the imaginary feudal right which is made to extend only to Tenents by Knights Service the Socagers being free from that Law could not be charged without their own consent and that given by word of their own mouths if they pleased 12. The Authority cited by Mr. Cambden and approved of by our Author as well as by me shews that the only change in the Great Council was in leaving out of the special Summons what Earls and Barons the King pleased but the right of all other Barons as Singular Persons to share in the Legislature was preserv'd by the alia illa brevia by which the Representatives for the Counties came and being all the Members of the Great Councils but Citizens and Burgesses or all such Barons as aforesaid came before the change in their own Persons and no new kind of Members were then Created and yet there was a substantial alteration a new Government fram'd and set up this alteration must consist in the Commons or Barones Minores their being put to Representatives when before they came Personally 13. I could bring many Arguments from the Doctor as besides others that the Vniversitas Militiae or qui militare servitium debebant that is as Record explains Ma. Paris the Fideles besides Milites were Members of Parliament but I may spare farther proof till he gives me fresh occasion 14. And possibly then amongst his other marvellous discoveries I may have time to animadvert a little more largely upon his fancy that the Suitors in the County Court were all Tenents in Military Service except Barons both in the Saxon and Norman times by the way you must understand that the Barons were not Tenents in Military Service though they held in Capite by Knights Service And that William the the First made no alteration of the Government for Tenents by Military Service were the only legal men and the only Members of the Great Council before But as Tenents in Capite and their Tenents in Military Service were of the Great Councils in Person all the Suitors at the County Court who were according to the Charter of H. 1. qui liberas habent terras in each County respectively were there in Person as Members Though not relating to the foundation of my Essay according to him who makes the Question about the Conquest not directly to reach the Controversy between us I may make a little sport with his Arguing that William 1st gave whole Counties to his Followers under
the Staple made the 21 of E. 3. to which the answer is very obvious that they made only Ordinances not Laws and that these were Magna Consilia taken in a sense totally different from the Generalia Concilia or Parliaments and all this appears above the power and subtilty of our learned Doctors Evasions in that the Record cited by himself in the 26 E. 3. calls the Assembly they are Summon'd to Concilium only and an Act of Parliament in the twenty eight of that King calls what was done in the twenty seven Ordinances and that meeting a Great Council Magnum Concilium but such a Council it was and its Resolutions such meer Ordinances the distinction of which from Acts is well known that that very next Parliament finds it needful to confirm and give them the force of a Law Agreeably to this the Earl Marshal in that grand Case in the 3 H. 6. pleads that though a determination hadde be made against the said Earl Marshall in great Council though he hadde be of full age that might not disherit him without Authority of Parliament these are uncontrollable evidences and proofs against him let him to save the great Credit of his Learning answer them if he can But who is the new Government-Maker and new Parliament-Maker perhaps one might know from himself when he has considered a little better and then he may think the Government as 't is now establisht nighly concern'd in his Errors Perhaps 't will be said I injure this good man in imputing to him a design in relation to the present Government Since he owns that the most excellent great Council and goes to prove it evidently from Records received its perfection from the Kings Authority and time But 't is obvious that its Perfection must be meant of such its Perfection as his Book allows and he would make evident but what is that That Lords should to the time of his excellent discoveries be Summon'd to Parliament or past by at the Kings pleasure and that if the King pleas'd he might Summon one Knight for a County one Citizen for a City one Burgess for a Burgh and those nam'd to the Sheriff And this design will be very evident if we observe his aery ambuscade to return his own phrase and meer juggle in joyning the Kings Authority and time together we think we have something but by an Hocus Pocus Trick 't is gone for admit that its Perfection were such as we say it has at this day viz. for Lords to come of Right in their own Persons and that the Commons should send Representatives of their free Choice Yet let us see what setlement he gives this Great Council for which purpose we must divide the two Authorities which sometimes may differ And 1. Suppose that though time would preserve that power which the Great Council exercises a King would hereafter take it all to himself and make Laws by a Council of his own chusing or without any If the Doctor allows this power doubtless the next Parliament will thank him 2. Suppose that without or against the Kings Authority time only would establish this Great Council can this be done He that affirms it surely will be no great friend to Prerogative nor understands he that Maxim Nullum tempus occurrit Regi And one of these must be clos'd with 'T will be objected that I am as injurious to Prerogative in arguing that some Lords may have a Right of Prescription to come to the Upper-House But I think no sober man will deny that there is a right either from Writs alone or from Writs as prescribed to and 't is strange that it should not be against Prerogative to urge a right from one Royal Concession and yet it should be to urge it from many but farther if they who had no right to come in Person or be Represented in Parliament should by colour of Prescription put themselves upon the King for Counsellors this were derogatory to the Prerogative But if there be a natural right for Proprietors of Land with whom some say is the ballance of power within this Nation to be interested in the Legislature which I 〈◊〉 not affirm Or if there be such a positive right not only from the Laws for frequent Parliaments which suppose such to be Members as had been but more particularly from the Law received in the 4th of William the First and by positive Law or Custom the King us'd to send special Writs for some general for others the Prescribing to special Writs which is not of Substance as to the Legislative Interest is no diminution of Prerogative because no more in effect is out of the King than was before which is that this man should one way or other have a share in the Legislature If this Solution of mine will not pass I cannot help it I am sure the Law for a right grounded upon one or more Special Writs of Summons stands fast though the reason of it should be above my reach Having run through a Book so ill-natur'd to the Government and so impotent in its setled anger as that which some may think to have no other design than that of exposing Mr. Petyt and me the one for Artifice unhandsom dealing with and false application of Records c. the other amongst other things for Ignorance Confidence and Cheating his Readers I may hope notwithstanding the disparity of years and the dignity of his place to be very excusable in using our Answerer with no more respect When a man renders himself cheap by his folly and yet meets with many so weak that they are discipled by him to notions of dangerous and pernicious consequence to the State Ridentem dicere verum Quis vetat In summing up the Product of his many years labours which my Preface charges him with perhaps it may be thought that I omitted one considerable Head however I leave to others if they think fit to add for a seventh That both Lords and Commons may be depriv'd of all Shares or Votes in making of Laws for the Government of the Kingdom when ever any future King shall please to resume the Regality Some perhaps may add an eighth That the Parliaments are nothing but Magna Concilia such as are called only to Advise upon what shall be given in direction but no consent of theirs required to make the Kings determination a binding Law And Vice Versa every Great Council such as that call'd to York is a Parliament FINIS Against Jani c. p. 1. Ib. p. 113. and 114. Jani c. p. 26. Quid a new Paragraph He adds such to Cases to render it obscure Jani c. p. 26. Na. So if a sum in gross were laid upon them Viz. To such payment as Tallage Against Jani c. p. 113. Indeed he would take in more places Na. the King did perhaps require a certain sum after a general Ordinance made by