ended in the Cardinals turning to Mr. Welch and saying Well there is no more to do I trow you are one of the Kings Privy Chamber your Name is Mr. Welch I am contented to yield unto you but not unto the Earl without I see his Commission for you are a sufficient Commissioner in this behalf being one of the Kings Privy Chamber And in the 21 year of the Reign of that King such a care was taken to keep not only the Chaplains of the King Queen Prince and Princess or any of the Kings or Queens Children or Sisters but of the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Chamberlain Steward Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold from any prejudice whilst they attended in their Honourable Housholds and exempt them from the Penalty of Ten Pounds a Month whilst they should not be resident at their Benefices as they did by an especial Exception provide for their Indempnity therein And in the same year and Parliament the Chancellor Treasurer of England and the Lord President of the Kings Council are said to be attendant upon the Kings most Honourable Person And in the 24 year of his Reign some of his Servants having been impannelled and retorned upon Juries he signified his dislike of the same unto the Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas in these words Trusty and Right-well-beloved We greet you well Whereas we understand that all manner of your Officers and Clerks of both our Benches be in such wise priviledged by an ancient Custom that they be always excepted out of all manner of Impannels We considering that the Hedd Officers and Clerks of our Houshold by reason of the daily Business in our Service have been semblably excepted in time passed unto now of late that some of them have been retorned in Impannels otherwise then heretofore hath been accustomed We will and command you That in case any Hedd Officer or Clerk of our Houshold shall hereafter fortune to be put in any Impannel either by the Sheriff of our Còunty of Kent or by any Sheriff of any County within this our Realm for to be retorned before you without our special Commandment in that behalf ye upon knowledge thereof cause him or them so impannelled to be discharged out of the said Impannel and other sufficient Persons to be admitted in their place and that you fail not this to do from time to time as often as the case shall require as ye tender our pleasure Yeoven under our Signet at our Manor of Richmont the fourth day of October in the twenty fourth year of our Reign To our Trusty and Well-beloved the Chief Justices of both our Benches and to all other their fellows Justices of the same In the Act of Parliament made in the twenty fifth year of his Reign against excess of Apparel there was a Proviso That all Officers and Servants waiting and attending upon the King Queen or Princess daily yearly or quarterly in their Housholds or being in their Checque Roll may by the Licence of the King use or wear Apparel on their Bodies Horses Mules c. according to such Licence And not only King Henry the Eighth but his three Estates the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament in the 31 year of his Reign did so much attribute to the Kings Servants in Ordinary and the Honour of their Imployments as to grant by Act of Parliament That the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Council Lord Privy Seal the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Admiral of England Grand Master or Steward of the Kings most Honourable Houshold and Chamberlain should in Parliament Star-Chamber and all other Assemblies which was in no Kings Reign before allowed sit and be pláced above all Dukes except such as should happen to be the Kings Sons Brothers Vncles Nephews or Brothers or Sisters Sons That the Lord Privy Seal should sit atd be placed above the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Lord Admiral of England Grand Master or Lord Steward and the Kings Chamberlain and that the Kings Chief Secretary if he be of the Degree of a Baron should in Parliament and all other Assemblies sit and be placed before and above all other Barons and if he be a Bishop above all other Bishops not having any of the Offices above-mentioned Precedency amongst the English Nobility being heretofore so highly valued and esteemed as it was not seldom very much insisted upon And so as in the Reign of King Henry the sixth it was earnestly claimed and controverted betwixt John Duke of Norfolk and Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and in divers other Kings Reigns greatly contended for and stickled betwixt some of the Great Nobility The Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and the Steward thereof as appeareth by their Subscriptions as Witnesses unto sundry Charters of our former and ancient Kings not having been before allowed so great a Precedency as that Act of Parliament gave them or as that high Place Trust and Office of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England according to the Custom and Usage of former Ages in all or the most of the neighbour Kingdoms and Monarchies have justly merited who in the times of the ancient Emperors of Rome were as Gutherius noteth stiled the Quaestores Palatii and had in Vlpian's time who flourished in the Reign of Alexander Severus the Emperor antiquissimam originem an honourable and long-before original and so necessary in the then Administration of Justice as the Emperor Justinian that great Legislator and Compiler of Laws ordained That Divinae Jussiones Subscriptionem haberent gloriosissimi Quaestoris nec emissae aliter a Judicibus reciperentur quà m si subnotatae fuerint à Quaestore Palatii That the Imperial Mandates should be subscribed by the Chancellor who was sometimes stiled Justitiae Custos vox Legum Concilii Regalis particeps the Keeper or Repository of Justice the voice or mouth of the Laws and one of the Privy Council and those Mandates being sent not much unlike the Original Writs issuing out of our High Court of Chancery w th were then also called Breves were not to be received by the Judges unless they were signed by the Quaestor Palatii or Chancellor but subscribed their Names as Witnesses to Charters after Bishops Abbots and Barons as amongst many other instances may be given in that of Robert Parning Chancellor and of Randolf de Stafford Steward of the Houshold in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the third By a Statute made in the thirty second of the Reign of King Henry the eighth the Parliament did not think it unreasonable that there should be a Great Master of the Kings House and have all the Authority that the Lord Steward had By a Statute made in the thirty third year
of King Henry the sixth the Commons in Parliament were so unwilling that their own concernments should hinder any of the Kings affairs as they did petition him That John Lord Talbot purposing to serve the King in his Warrs in France a Protection with the Clausa volumus might be granted unto him for a year and that by Parliament it might be ordained that it it be without the exception of Novel disseisin and to be put under the Great Seal of England with other Immunities whilst he be so in the Kings service which the King granted Provided that the said John Lord Talbot and Margaret his Wife Edward Earl of Dorset and others named should not enter upon any Lands whereof James Lord Barkly and Sir William Barkley his son were seised the first day of that Parliament or bring any Action concerning the same And so little desired the heretofore too powerfull Clergie of England to extend their power where they legally and inoffensively might do it CHAP. XIII That the Clergy of England in the height of their Pride and Superlative Priviledges Encouragements and Protection by the Papal over-grown Authority did in many cases lay aside their Thunderbolts and power of Excommunications appeals to the Pope and obtaining his Interdictions of Kingdomes Churches and Parishes and take the milder modest and more reverential way of petitioning our Kings in Parliaments rather than turn the rigors of their Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws or of the Laws of England against any of the Kings Officers or Servants AS they did in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third although by the Statute made in the 28th year of the Reign of King Edward the first making some Actions and Injuries which they then complained of to be Felony they might without their petitioning in Parliament have had ample and easie remedies petition the King in Parliament against some grievances and oppressions done by some of the Kings Servants to people of holy Church by his Purveyors and Servants amongst which were the abuses done by his Purveyors in taking the Corn Hay Beasts Carriage and other goods of the Arch-bishops Bishops Parsons and Vicars without the agreement and good will of the Owners and did thereupon obtain the Kings Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England which in the Parliament Roll is called a Statute and is as an Act of Parliament printed among the Acts of Parliament did declare That he took them and their possessions into the especial Protection of him and his Heirs and Successors and that they should not be any more so charged nor to receive into their houses Guests nor Sojourners of Scotland nor of other Countreys nor the Horses nor Dogs Faulcons nor other Hawks of the Kings or others against their will saving to the King the services due of right from them which owe to the King the same services to sustain and receive Dogs Horses or Hawks In a Parliamant in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the second although divers Laws in force had provided them remedies of course which needed no petitioning they did petition the King That they were upon every temporal suggestion arrestâ—d into the Marshalsea and paid for their discharge 6 s. 8 d. where a Layman payeth only 4 s. unto which the King did answer Let the party grieved complain to the Steward of the household and they shall have remedy And did in that but follow the patterns of Loyalty Prudence and self preservation cut out and left unto all true hearted Englishmen by their worthy and pious Ancestors and Predecessors who when the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which obliged all the Nobility and many thousands of the best part of the Gentry to follow their Prince to his Warrs abroad or defend him and his honour at home did in their duty to him and the care of their own estates and concernments with their numerous well-wishing and dutifull Tenants attending them follow him into the Warrs and Voyages Royal and remained there by the space of forty dayes at their own charges and afterwards as long as they lasted at the the Kings which must needs be a great obstruction to many mens Action or the recovery of their Debts or Rights and much better understand that universal Axiom and Rule of the Laws of Nature Necessity and Nations then the late ill advised Lord Mayor and some Citizens of London did who in the late dreadfull fire in the year of our Lord 1666. did to save the pulling down of a few houses to prevent the fury of a most dire and dismal fire and not a seventh part of their goods did see but too late the necessity of pulling down some houses and when they might have endeavoured it would allow it to be warrantable by the Lord Mayors order but not the Kings and in that fond dispute and his Timidity most imprudently suffer and give way to the burning down of many thousand houses and converting into ashes almost all that once great and flourishing City that privata cedere debent publicis every mans private affairs were to be laid aside and give place to the publick being the best way of self preservation And did not as they would do now rush upon Arrest or Imprison either the Kings Servants or such as were imployed by him or unto whom he had granted his Writs of Protection without asking leave of him but with a modesty and reverence becoming Subjects plicate him for a Revocation or if they did not or could not purchase it that way did sometimes become Petitioners in Parliament for some regulations in Protections granted upon some special and temporary imployments to such as were not his Servants in ordinary not for a total abolition or to take away that part of the Kings Prerogative in order to the Government and their own well being the answers whereunto shewed as much care in the King and his Councel as might be to give them content and satisfaction and at the same time not to depart from or lessen the Rights of the Crown more than was meerly necessary or in grace or savour for that particular time occasion or grievance to be granted or remitted unto them And no less carefull were the Judges in former ages in their delegated Courts and proceedings in Justice to pay their respects to the service of the King and likewise to his Servants or any other imployed therein CHAP. XIV That the Judges in former times did in their Courts and proceedings of Law and Justice manifest their unwillingness to give or permit any obstruction to the service of the King and Weal Publique WHen Bracton declares the Laws and Usage of the Kingdome to be in the Reign of King Henry the third and King Edward the first that Warrantizatur Essonium multipliciter quandoque per breve Domini Regis ubi non est necessitas jurare cum Dominus Rex hoc testatur per literas suas quod
Prisoner in Newgate as he was leading by an Officer towards Guyhald by five persons and carrying him by force into the Sanctuary or Priviledge-place of St. Martins le Grand the Kings Free-Chappel being a Liberty of the Dean and Chapter and the Sheriffs of London having the same day taken out of the same Church of St. Martins the five men who rescued him and led them fettered to the Compter and thence chained by the Neck to Newgate complaint thereof being made to the King by the said Dean and Chapter for the violation of their Priviledges he sent his Writ to the Mayor and Sheriffs reciting that from a long time beyond the memory of man fugientes ad Capellam predictam pro immunitate ejusdem habend ' seu in eadem ex quocunque causa existentes residentes quieti fuerint Immunes sic esse debuerint debent ab omni Jurisdictione Arrestatione Impedimento sive Attachamento Majoris Vicecomitum Civitatis praedicta aut Officiariorum seu Ministrorum suorum quorumcunque pro tempore existentium those that fled to the Chappel aforesaid to enjoy the Priviledge thereof or being therein resident upon any cause or occasion whatsoever have used and ought to be quiet and free from the Jurisdiction Arrests Impediments or Attachments of the Mayor and Sheriffs of the City aforesaid or any their Officers or Ministers whatsoever for the time being and that notwithstanding the said Sheriffs had to the prejudice and detriment of the Churches Liberties and derogation of His Crown and Royal Dignity violently taken from thence John Knight John Reede Thomas Blackbourn William Janiver and Richard Moreys and committed them to Prison wherefore the King to preserve inviolably the said Rights Customs Immunities Liberties and Priviledges prout vinculo Juramenti in Coronatione astringitur as he is thereunto bound by his Coronation Oath enjoyned them that immediately after the Receipt of that Writ they should restore and deliver to the said Dean and Chapter or their Commissary the said Prisoners tam corpore quam bonis sicut eos prefati Vice-comites a Capella predicta abstraxerunt in their bodies and goods as the said Sheriffs took them from the said Chappel as aforesaid so as the said Dean and Chapter in eorum culpam seu defectum causam non habent sibi iterum conquerendi Et hoc sub Fide Ligeancia quibus teneantur nullatenus omittant by their default or neglect may have no more cause to complain again to the King And this under the Faith and Allegiance which they did owe unto him they were not to fail to perform Which Writ being by the Kings Command sent and delivered by John Earl of Huntington the said Sheriffs yet notwithstanding detained them in prison of which the King being informed ore tenus precepit he did by word of mouth command John Bishop of Bath his Chancellor and Ralph Lord Cromwel his Treasurer that they should go to the said St. Martins and upon Examination of the Parties hearing of Councel on both sides and due consideration of their several Charters Customs and Evidences certifie him what by Law was to be done therein who thereupon taking unto them John Hody and Richard Newton Chief Justices of both the Benches called before them the said Dean and Chapter Mayor and Sheriffs and heard both sides who gave to them in writing as well what could be alledged for the said Priviledges as against it which being duly understood by the said Chancellor Treasurer and Justices it was adjudged by the said Chancellor and Treasurer by the advice of the said Justices Quod personae predictae a Capella praedicta violenter abstractae restitui debeant ad â—andem tanquam ad locum plenaria libertate tam de Jure quam consuetudine gaudere debentem non de Civitate praedicta nec Majoris Vicecomitum Aldermannorum auâ— Officiariorum ejusdem Jurisdictioni seu districtioni Subject ' sed eisdem Immunitatibus Privilegiis Libertatibus quae Westmonasterium Beverly aut alius loâ—us privilegiatus in Anglia meliores â—abet tam de Jure quam consuetudine pro se precinctu ejusdem ad tuend ' quascunque personas pro quibuscunque causis Criminalibus sive Civilibus illuc confugientes gaudere debentem That the persons aforesaid violently drawn out of the Chappel aforesaid ought to be restored to the same place which of right and custom ought to enjoy their full Liberty and not to be subject to the Jurisdiction or Distrsss of the City aforesaid or the Mayor Sheriffs Aldermen or Officers of the same but to enjoy the said Immunities Priviledges and Liberties as Westminster Bevâ—rley or any other priviledged Place in England of right and custom ought to enjoy for them and their Precincts most largely had to protect and defend any persons flying thither for any causes Criminal or Civil And thereupon the King being informed of their Proceedings and what they found therein commanded his Chancellor that by his Writ directed to the Sheriffs of London that they should bring before him in his Chancery the Bodies of the said Prisoners taken out of the Chappel as aforesaid with the cause of their taking and detention who being brought by the Kings Command into his Chancery by the said Sheriffs they did there by the advice and consent of the Duke of Gloucester and of others of the Kings Council and by Order of the said Court discharge the said Prisoners who were there in the presence of the Sheriffs Recorder and Council of the said City ad hoc evocatorum Thome Collegge servienti Domini Regis ad arma personaliter liberati ibidem ad effectum quod idem serviens dictos Prisonarios eorum quemlibeâ—â—usque dictam Capellam Sanctuarium salvo secure adduceret eos ibidem de mandato Regio praefato Decano sive ejus Deputatis liberaret ibidem juxta libertates privilegiâ— immunitates predicta in Sanctuario predicto quam diu eis placeret moraturos thereunto especially called personally deliver'd unto Thomas Collegge the Kings Serjeant at Arms to the end that he might safely and securely bring the Prisoners to the said Chappel and Sanctuary and there by the Kings Command deliver them to the said Dean or their Deputies there to remain as long as they pleased according to the Liberties Priviledges and Immunities aforesaid which was done by the said Serjeant at Arms and a Certificate made by him to the said Chancellor Treasurer and Court of Chancery accordingly And he must be altogether composed of or addicted to Scruples and Doubts wherein he never desires to be satisfied and fit to sayl to Anticyra in pursuit of Hellebore who shall against so clear a Light and Evidence bestow his time and labours to vindicate and under-prop so manifest and notorious Errors or that shall deny the King a Judicial Power in His Courts of Justice and High Court of Chancery whence do almost daily issue his Writs remediall
under His Seal and Teste Me Ipso directed to all His Courts of Justice And are as Bracton saith Formata ad similitudinem Regulae Juris framed by and according to the Rules of Law whiâ—h warranting many of the Proceeding thereof are in the Assize betwixt Wimbish and the Lord Willoughby in Trinity Term in the sixth year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth said and not denyed to be Law and the Act of the King but not of the Chancellor So as they who shall endeavour to impose upon other men that the King is not by Law presumed to be present in his Court of Kings Bench where the Records do mention the Judgements given therein to be coram Rege before the King as if he were personally present with the Judges of that Court who are assigned to assist Him may as to the Kings Power in matters of Justice and over the Judges and Courts delegated by Him do well to seek a reason which is justly to be feared will never be found why it should be Law or Reason for King Alfred in the discords or ignorance of his Subordinate Judges in the distribution of Justice to hear and determine the Causes Himself or for King Canutus long after to judge the Causes of such as complained unto him when our Bracton doth not at all doubt of it when he saith that the Judges nullam habent Authoritatem sed ab alio i. e. Rege sibi Commissam cum ipse qui delegat non sufficiat per se omnes Causas sive Jurisdictiones terminare they have no Authority but what they are intrusted with by the King who granted it when as he who delegated them is not able or sufficient by himself to hear aad determine all Causes in every Jurisdiction unto which our Register of Writs that Pharmacopeia Director and Magazine of Medicines and Remedies for many a Disease in the Estates and Affairs of the People which Justice Fitz Herbert in his Preface to his Book De Natura Brevium of the Nature of Writs calleth The Principles of the Law and the Foundation whereupon it dependeth and in Plowdens Commentaries is as to many things truly said to be the Foundation of our Laws and so Authentique as Brown Justice in the Case betwixt Willon and the Lord Barkley in the third year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth declared that all Writs were to pursue the Forms in the Register and it was enough to alledge so is the Register will easily assent and all our Books of the Law all the Practice and Usage of our Courts of Justice all our Records Close and Patent Rolls and our Kings hearing and determining of Differences betwixt the Common Law and Ecclesiastical Courts and Jurisdictions and their making of Orders to reconcile the Proceedings of the severall Judges thereof and the like betwixt the Admiralty Court and the Courts of Common Law ordered decided and agreed before King Charles the First and His Privy Council in the ninth year of His Reign the Judges in criminal Matters not seldom attending the King for a Declaration of His Will and Pleasure where a Reprieve Pardon or Stay of Execution shall be necessary will be as so many almost innumerable powerful and cogent Arguments to justifie it And a common and dayly Experience and the Testimony of so many Centuries and Ages past and the Forme used in our Writs of Scire Facias to revive Judgements after a year and a day according to the Statute of Westminster the 2. with the words Et quia volumus ea que in Curia nostra rite acta sunt debite executioni demandari because we would that those things which are rightly done in our Courts should be put in execution c. may bear witness of that Sandy Foundation Sir Edward Coke hath built those his great mistakings upon and those also that the King cannot propria Authoritate Arrest any man upon suspition of Treason or Felony when the Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Edward the First expresly acknowledgeth that the King may Arrest or cause men to be Arrested as well as His Chief Justice without distinction in ordinary and civil or criminal matters and when by the beforemention'd Opinions of Sir Christopher Wray Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench Sir Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas and of all the Judges of England delivered under their hands in the Four and thirtieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth it was acknowledged that She or the Lords of Her Privy Council might do it And in the before recited great Case of the Habeas Corpora in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr there was no question made but that the King might lawfully do it with a cause expressed in the Warrant And many a Nobleman and others hath in several of our Kings Reigns either upon suspition of Treason or Flagranti Crimine in or very near the acting of it or upon great Misdemeanors been Arrested by our Kings and Princes onely Command and sent Prisoners to the Tower of London As the Great Mortimer Earl of March by King Edward the Third the Pompous Cardinal Wolsey and Queen Ann of Bulloin by King Henry the Eighth the Duke of Northumberland by Queen Mary the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Essex by Queen Elizabeth for Treason Robert Earl of Somerset and his Lady committed for Felony Sir Tho. Overbury for refusing to go Ambassador when he was sent by King James Henry Earl of Oxford for striking up a Great Lords heels in a Solemnity of a great Feast when the French Ambassador was entertained in Westminster Hall for presuming to offer to wash his hands after the King had washed in the Basin which as Lord Great Chamberlain of England he had holden to the King Thomas Earl of Arundel for marrying the Lord Matravers his Son to the Sister of the Duke of Lenox and Richmond without his Licence and Philip Earl of Pembroke and the said Lord Matravers for striking and scuffling with one another in the House of Peers in Parliament and some others by King Charles the First and some by His now Majesty and our Parliaments have many times in some Charges brought against offenders of the Weal Publique petitioned our Kings and Princes to do it and many others have been so committed in the Reigns almost of all our Kings and Princes of which every Age and History of this our Kingdom can give plentiful Examples which we may believe to have been done by good and legal Warrant when in all our many Parliaments and Complaints of the People therein such Arrests and Imprisonments have not been in the number of any of their complained Grievances for otherwise what Power Writ Authority or Warrant of a Judge or Justice of Peace could have seiz'd upon that Powerful Mortimer and taken him in Notingham Castle out of the amorous Embraces of Queen Isabel the
Regale Necessarium OR The Legality Reason and Necessity OF THE Rights and Priviledges Justly Claimed by the Kings Servants And which ought to be allowed unto them By Fabian Philipps Seneca in Traged Octavia Act 2. Collecta vitia per tot Aetates diu In nos redundant Seculo premimur gravi Lucanus de Bello Civili lib. 9. Squalent Serpentibus Arva Durum iter ad Leges patriaeque ruentis amorem LONDON Printed for Christopher Wilkinson and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Black-Boy in Fleet-street over against St. Dunstans Church 1671. To the Illustrious and Right Honourable James Duke Marquess and Earl of Ormond one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councel Lord Steward of his Majesties most Honourable Houshold and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter And unto the Right Honourable Edward Earl of Manchester one of the Lords of his Majesties most Honourable Privy Councel Lord Chamberlain of his Majesties most Honourable Houshold and Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter My Lords WEre it not that these unhappy times have brought forth a sort of reasonless men whose humors and Phancies led by an ignorance or Interest makes them unwilling to submit to Laws and the necessary and just means and Rules of Government unless their understanding which in those quarrelling and contentious Sceptickes is little enough may be convinced and satisfied with the Reason thereof these my Labours might have seemed to be as needless as Physick for those which are in Health and to be little more than a quarrel with my own Shadow But they that hear the dayly complaints now more than ever made against the Legal and just Priviledges of the Kings Servants the affronts offered to the Majesty and Supreme Authority of the King by Arresting and Imprisoning them without leave first obteyned of the Lord Chamberlain of his most Honourable Houshold or those other great Officers therein to whom it appertayneth and by bringing of Writs of Habeas Corpus by those which have been taken and Arrested by the Kings Messengers for their contempts therein to be delivered by the subordinate Courts of Justice against the mind and Authority of the King that Commissionated them and those many disparaging contests which do arise thereupon with the unwarrantable Opinions now put to Nurse that the King cannot in such a case protect his Servants without a great delay or hindrance of the Execution of Justice that they being Outlawed may be Arrested whether he will or no And that he hath so conveyed his Justice to his Courts of Justice as he is not in the case of his Servants to intermeddle therein may I hope Apologize for my undertaking and endeavors to perswade them out of those and some other their great mistakings and Errors which may produce a neglect and slighting of Authority and many an unforeseen evil consequence In the management whereof I can call my most reserved and private thoughts to witness and they will therein I am confident acquit me that I have not built an Altar to flattery or made any design or hopes of preferment to be my guide or incitement thereunto but have done what I now present unto you only to maintain the Honour and respect which is due to our Soveraign Lord the King and his Servants casta mente manu accompanied with a principle and opinion that he deserves to be accompted the greatest of villaines that would make it his design to lessen or detract from any of the Kings Rights Prerogative and just means of Government and to be ever infamous that for any ends whatsoever would endeavor to diminish or take away any of the peoples Legal Rights Liberties and Priviledges And in that middle way and path of Truth and doing Right to all Parties have no intention to give any assistance for the defrauding or too much delaying of Creditors just debts or stopping the course of Justice in any the peoples Actions or Prosecutions of their rights or for remedies against Wrongs or Injuries done unto them by any indirect course or shelter for such as shall only pretend themselves to be the Kings Servants when they are not truly or really thereunto entituled In which my Labours if any shall undervalue the Authorities which I have brought from the Laws of Nations Customs or usage of all or the most of our Kings and Princes and the Civil Law that great repository of Reason and Prudence to fortifie my assertion of the Priviledges of the Kings Servants they may please to understand that they are principally derived from the Laws of Nations Civil Law and universal right Reason consonant and agreeable to our common Laws which have instructed and guided themselves by many a maxime and piece of right Reason which they have received from them Or shall say that the Records of this Kingdom which have been cited in Conformity thereunto are only fit to make a history but do serve for no proof as some of those of the long robe have with much Injury unto them and themselves and the Truth not long ago been pleased to say or that the old things are passed away those Antiquities are obsolete and little to be regarded Wee are now upon a new way the Law hath been much altered and changed and those evidences and venerable Monuments of Time being the vestigia and footsteps of antient Laws and Customs are not to be much respected And will adventure to vent such Doctrines or Opinions and make themselves as Gutherius a learned French Advocate complaineth guilty of the neglects of those very necessary and usefull parts of Learning and Knowledge which are to be found in the Treasuries of Time and Antiquities may upon better consideration find cause to believe that the Reason of Laws doth never Expire that the unerring Wisdom of the Almighty that Writ some Laws with his own Finger and commanded his beloved people of Israel to repeat them to their Children and after Generations to ask of the days that were past and which were before them since the day that God Created man upon the Earth and that Bildâ—d the Sâ—uhite one of Jobs Friends gave him no ill Counsel when he advised him to enquire of the former Age and prepare himself to the search of his fathers and enforceth it by a Reason that we are but of yesterday and know nothing because our days upon earth are a Shadow and the giver of all Wisdom did long after by his holy Spirit in the Prophet Jeremy enjoyn them to stand in the ways and see and ask for the old Paths that in the making of new Laws and the amending or correcting of the old The knowledge of those which have been altered repealed or laid aside is not a little necessary to the end that by the old we may see the necessity and perfection of the new and by the old how to avoid the failings which might happen in the
of the Kingdoms of Cyprus and Candie now under their Subjection are said to have Testé Couronné to come into the Court-yards with their Coaches which the little Republique of Genoa in Italy hath notwithstanding their contest for it been lately refused both in France and Spain in the latter whereof a Monarchy and Kingdom much inferior to England it is a great Honour amongst the Domesticks and Servants of that Court to be a Gentleman de la Boca for that such may attend the King at Dinner or Supper and have at other times a priviledge to come into the Rooms of the Palace as far as a certain Hall beyond which no man is to pass although there should be no Guards or Ushers to hinder it And no longer ago then in the month of December 1666 the Lady or wife of the Spanish Embassador in the Court of the Emperor of Germany at Vienna complaining of the Emperors High Chamberlain that she was denied by the guards to enter into the Anti-chamber of the Empress in her Chair or Sedan she was answered by him and informed also by a message from the Emperor that it was the custom of that Court not to permit the Empress her self that Liberty which very necessary regard and respects always had to the Courts or Houses of Soveraign Kings or Princes might besides their safeties which have not seldom been endangered by Brawls and Tumults swelled up into a multitude be the reason that in imitation or reviving of those old Laws of King Alfred and Canutus the Act of Parliament In the 33 th year of the Raign of King Henry the eight did ordain the loss of the Right hand of any striking or making blood-shed within any of the Kings Houses or Palaces or the virge thereof Noblemen or others striking only their Servants with a small stick or Wand for Correction or with any Tipstaff at a Triumph or in doing Service by the Kings Commandment or of any of his Graces Privy Council or head Officers excepted and that any such offences or Murders Manslaughters or malicious strikings should be tryed by a Jury of twelve of the Yeomen Officers of the Kings Houshold before the Lord Steward or in his absence before the Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold and Steward of the Marshalsea for the time being And so tender have our Kings and Princes been of the Honour of their Princely Palaces and Seats and habitations of Majesty as they would not permit their Mercy to have any thing to do with their Justice or to intercede for any mitigation of their just indignation against such as would but in the least let loose their passions or Indiscretion to violate it witness the case communicated unto me by my worthy friend Sir William Sanderson one of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Privy Chamber in Ordinary of Mr. Mallet in the Raign of Queen Mary who being a Gentleman Usher Quarter Waiter of the Presence-Chamber and having rebuked one Mr. Pierce a Messenger of the Chamber for some Negligence in the Queens Service and being rudely answered to avoid the punishment for striking him if he should draw or inforce blood did spit in his face upon knowledge whereof the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold without any complaint of Mr. Pierce committed Mr. Mallet to the Marshal and after some time punished him in this manner the Lord Chamberlain standing under the Cloth of State uncovered in the presence Chamber with the Officers of the Houshold and others about him Mr. Mallet kneeled down at the lowest step and his offence in Order to his sentence being read unto him by a Gentleman Vsher of the Presence with this Praeamble viz. For excercising that Jewish Inhumane Act of Spitting upon Master Pierce your fellow Servant in Court in the sight and presence of the Cloth of Estate against the Dignity of our Soveraign Lady the Queens Grace the Honour of the Court and the Authority and Power of the Lord Chamberlain To which Mr. Mallet being still upon his knees answered with an Humiliation sorrow and Submission and craved Pardon of the Queens Grace for his fault Whereupon the Lord Chamberlain lightly Rapping Mr. Mallet upon the Pate with his white Staff who craved pardon for offending the Authority and Power of the Court Represented by the Lord Chamberlain Mr. Pierce was appointed to wave a Cudgel over Mr. Mallets head in sign of satisfaction for the wrong received of him And that being done Mr. Mallet was fined in a summe of money to the Queen and after a day or two released After all which the Chaplains and Clergy complaining that the holy Church was scandalized for that Jewish Action Mr. Mallet was ordered to do Penance in the Chappel Royal in a White-sheet holding a Wax Taper burning during the Office of Divine Service and after those punishments Executed upon him permitted to complain against Mr. Pierce for neglecting the Queens Service and Mr. Pierce was for answering Mr. Mallet rudely turned out of his Waiting or place and came not in again until Mr. Mallet was pleased to make it his Sollicitation and Request And so great a Respect was always given to the Kings Palace or Court as it was holden to be a punishment and note of Infamy to be Prohibited it and was in the 18 th or 21 th year of the Raign of King James a part of the Sentence given in Parliament against Lionel Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England for Briberies and Extortions that he should never come within the Verge of the Kings Court. And that blessed Martyr King Charles was in the midst of His over-great Lenity or Meekness so careful to preserve the Honours and due Respects to His Palace and Court as when Doctor Craig one of His Physicians had in the Kings Chamber given Mr. Kirk one of the Grooms of His Bed-chamber some offensive words and Mr. Kirk meeting him the same day in some of the Court-lodgings had struck him with a blow of his Fist and Doctor Craig complaining of it unto the King and the King referring it unto the Lord Chamberlain of His Houshold who after Examination of the Fact Remitted the Punishment of the Offence to the King He did in much Indignation Banish Mr. Kirk from the Court into which he was more then a year before he could by the Intercession of the Duke of Buckingham then the Great and Principal Favourite be re-admitted And that Pious and Excellent Prince was so apprehensive of any disrespects to His House and Palace as meeting one day or night the Earl of Denbigh then Lord Fielding in his Masking Suit as he was passing through the Privy Galleries towards the Banquetting House stayed him and turned him back to go a more Common-way And was no less watchful to prevent any thing which might be prejudicial or derogatory to the honour of the Garter whereof he was Soveraign in the Palace or House where his Honour dwelt As when at another time finding
David's mighty men Captain of his Guard and others frequently found to be Attendants or Resident in the Houses or Palaces of Kings thorough the Current of Holy Writ And the Requisites belonging unto those which Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon required in the captive Children whom he intended to breed up in his Court that they should be well favoured skilful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding and such as had ability in them to stand in the Kings Palace may give us to understand how much Kings and Princes were concerned in the Honour or dishonour done unto their Servants and how greatly they were esteemed in former ages and that the Jews were not in an Errour when they and some of their Rabbins did ascribe so much Honour to the Servants and Service of the King or Soveraign as they conceived it to be de honore Regum ut tales ministri qui Aulae semel initiati sunt aliis vilioribus officiis extraneis postea nunquam contaminentur ut nemo utitur servis Ancillis vel ministris ejus nisi alius Rex ejus successor for the Kings Honour that those that had once served him should never be imployed in meaner business or afterwards serve any other then his Successor which may be the reason that their names were so punctually entered into the Register of the Kings Servants as Nehemiah could long after the many Captivities Tosses and Troubles of that Nation by the Divine Judgement and Indignation find in an old Register the Names and Genealogies of Solomon's Servants That mighty King Ahasuerus did but exercise his just Power of giving Honours and Rewards to his Servants when he advanced Haman and set his Seat above all the Princes which were with him and Commanded all His Servants which were in the Gate to Bow and do him Reverence And Haman being afterwards demanded by the King what should be done to the man whom the King delighteth to Honour little thinking that Mordecai whom he hated and was one of the meaner sort of the Kings Servants or any other then himself should be the better for it readily and without any doubt or scruple answered and said for the man whom the King delighteth to Honour Let the Royal Apparel be brought which the King useth to wear and the horse that the King rideth upon and the Crown Royal which is set upon his head And let the Apparel and Horse be delivered to the hand of one of the Kings most Noble Princes that they may Array the man withal whom the King delighteth to Honour and bring him on Horseback through the Street of the City and Proclaim before him Thus shall be done to the man whom the King delighteth to Honour with which the City of Shushan were so well contented as it is said that they rejoyced and were glad The next unto the King was Carshena Shethar Admatha Tarshish Meres Marsena and Memucan the seven Princes of Persia and Media being his seven Counsellors which saw the Kings face and which sate the first of his Kingdom Those that served Kings and Princes were allowed Ornaments and Apparel which the Common and Ordinary sort of People could neither claim nor merit and therefore that greatest Lord of the Earth and Master of Humility made an honourable mention of them when he concluded that they who were molliter vestiti and did wear soft Cloathing were in Kings Houses and the Emperour Theodosius above 300 and 30 years after our Saviour Chirst had left the earth and in an Edict or Proclamation forbidding the use of Silk Raiments to all people of what kind or profession whatsoever excepts himself and his Servants and saith solo Principi ejusque Domui dedicatur that the wearing of such apparel belonged only unto the Prince and those which attends him in his House By the Lex Julia a Law made by Julius Caesar tenetur tanquam reus laesae Majestatis qui Legatos Oratores Comitesque eorum all of them being but the several degrees of the Servants of Majesty pulsaverit which in the Language of those Laws and times and some after-ages signified an Arrest or Compulsion as well as an Assault or beating vel Injuria affecerit he should be guilty of high Treason which should Arrest Beat or wrong any Embassadors or Agents or any of the Soveraigns Attendants or Assistants The divers great and Honorable Offices and Imployments in the Houses of the Western and Eastern Emperors as the Comites sacri Palatii Comites sacrorum largitionum Magister Officiorum cum multis aliis c. Earls of the Sacred Palace Earls or great Officers of the Privy Purse Lord Steward of the Houshold Lord Chamberlain c. May perswade us to more then an opinion of the necessary Respects and Honours due unto them in the Exercise of their Offices and Places about their Soveraign The Guards of the Royal Palace of the Emperours of the West and East Privilegium retinebant had a Priviledge not to be Cited or Convened before any but their own Captains and Commanders The Fabricences or such as furnished the Magazines with armour nulli oneri Civitatis erant obnoxii were freed from publike Offices The Comes Domesticorum Equitum Peditum Earl or Commander of the Horse and Foot-Guard was the Protector Domesticorum Defender of the houshold Servants defunctorum quoque Parentum Domesticorum filii locum subibant etsi ob teneram aetatem armis apti non erant nihilominus Protectorum matriculis inscripti quaternas Annonas id est victum quatuor hominum accipiebant and the Sons of those Domestick Guards were to enjoy their places after their Fathers decease And if they were so young as not to be fit for it were notwithstanding to be entered into the Protectors Books or Registers and to have a proportion of diet or allowance fit for to feed them Claudius Augustus Caesar punished a Tribune of the people then though not so much as formerly a mighty Officer Darling and Favourite of them for beating of one of his Servants The Primicerius or Chief of the Emperours Bed-chamber and all other of the Bed-chamber were Exempted from the Tax of finding Horse or Souldiers or of giving Bail in any Action or Suite before the Magister Officiorum or Principal Officer in the Court so styled not unlike saith the Learned Cujacius to the Prevost de l' Hostell in France Et qui absunt Reipublicae causâ vacationem habent such as are Imployed about the Publike are to be Priviledged To the Praefecto Praetorii Orientis who was as it were the Captain of the Emperours Guard there were saith Pancirollus in His Court or Tribunal one hundred Advocates allowed qui Clarissimi spectabilis titulo gaudebant who enjoyed the Title of Noble and Illustrious and had great Immunities as from Publike works c. The Emperours Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius about the year of Christ
against the Legality of this Court in the Reigns of King Henry the seventh Henry the eighth Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth or since although Sir Edward Coke being unwilling to allow it to be a Court legally constituted as not founded by any Prescription or Act of Parliament hath thrown it under some scruples or objections with which the former Ages and Wisemen of this Nation thought not fit to trouble their Times and Studies that Court being not only sometimes imployed in the determining of Cases and Controversies irremedial in the delegated Courts of Justice out of the Palace Royal or by the Privy Council but concerning the Kings Domesticks or Servants in Ordinary as may be seen in the 33 year of the Reign of K. Henry the eighth in the Case of David Sissel of Witham in the County of Lincoln Plaintiff against Richard Sissel his Brother Yeoman of the Kings Robes for certain Lands lying in Stamford in the said County of Lincoln formerly dismissed by the Kings most Honourable Privy Council wherein the said David Sissel was enjoyned upon pain of Imprisonment to forbear any clamour further to be made to the Kings Grace touching the Premises In the second and third years of King Philip and Queen Mary Sir John Browne Knight one of the two Principal Secretaries to the King and Queens Majesties was a Plaintiff in that Court and in the thirteenth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Sir James Crofts Knight Comptroller of the Queens Majesties Houshold against Alexander Scoffeild for Writings and Evidences in the Defendants Custody And those great assistants Lords and Bishops Commissionated by the King as his Council or Commissioners did sometimes in that Court as in the thirtieth year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth superintend some Causes appealed aswell from the Lord Privy Seal as the Common Law and Sir John Russel Knight Lord Russel the same man or his Father being in an Act of Parliament in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth wherein he with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others were made Feoffees of certain Lands to the use and for performance of the Kings last Will and Testament stiled Master John Russel his Majesties Keeper of the Privy Seal was in that Court made a Defendant in the first year of the Reign of King Edward the sixth to a Suit Petition or Bill there depending against him although he was at that time also that Great and Ancient Officer of State called the Lord Privy Seal there having been a Custos Privati Sigilli a Keeper of the Privy Seal as early as the later end of King Edward the first or King Edward the second or the beginning of the Reign of King Edward the third about which time Fleta wrote nor was it then mentioned as any Novelty or new Office the Lord Privy Seal or Keepers of the Kings Privy Seal having ever since the eighteenth year of the Reign of King Henry the seventh if not long before until that fatal Rebellion in the later end of the Reign of that incomparable and pious Prince King Charles the Martyr successively presided and been Chief Judges in that Court which was not understood to be illegal in the twentieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when in a Case wherein George Ashby Esq was Complainant against William Rolfe Defendant an Injunction being awarded against the Defendant not to prosecute or proceed any further at the Common Law and disobeyed by the procurement of the said William Rolfe it was ordered That Francis Whitney Esq Serjeant at Arms should apprehend and arrest all and every person which should be found to prosecute the said Defendant contrary to the said Injunction and commit them to the safe custody of the Warden of the Fleet there to remain until order be taken for their delivery by her Majesties Council of that Court by Authority whereof the said William Rolfe was apprehended and committed to the Fleet for his Contempts but afterwards in further contempt the said William Rolfe's Attorney at the Common Law prosecuting a Nisi prius before Sir Christopher Wray then Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench against the Complainant in Guildhall London the said Attorney was then und there presently taken out of the said Court by the said Serjeant at Arms and committed to the Fleet. Nor by Sir Henry Mountà gue Knight Earl of Manchester who being the Son of a Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench was in Legibus Angliae enutritus in praxi legum versatissimus a great and well-experienced Lawyer and from his Labour and Care therein ascended to the Honour and Degree of Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench from thence to that of Lord Treasurer of England thence to be Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Privy Council and from thence to be Lord Privy Seal and for many years after sitting as Supreme Judge and Director of the Court of Requests in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr together with the four Masters of Requests his Assessors and Assistants in that Honourable and necessary Court Which Office or Place à Libellis Principis of Master of Requests having been long ago in use in the Roman Empire and those that were honoured therewith with maximorum culmine dignitatum digni men accounted worthy of the most honourable nnd eminent Imployments and that Office or Place so highly esteemed as that great and ever famous Lawyer Papinian who was stiled Juris Asylum the Sanctuary or Refuge of the Law did under the Emperor Severus enjoy the said Office to whom his Scholar or Disciple Vlpian afterwards succeeded and with our Neighbours the French summo in honore sunt are very greatly honoured quibus ab Aulâ Principis abesse non licet and so necessary as not at any time to be absent from the Court or Palace of the Prince The Masters of Requests are and have been with us so much regarded and honoured as in all Assemblies and Places they precede the Kings Learned Council at Law and take place of them and amongst other Immunities and Priviledges due unto them and to the Kings Servants are not to be enforced to undergo or take upon them any other inferior Offices or Places in the Commonwealth There being certainly as much if not a greater Reason that the King should have a Court of Requests or Equity and Conscience where any of his Servants or Petitioners are concerned as the Lord Mayor of London who is but the Kings Subordinate Governour of that City for a year should have a Court of Conscience or Requests in the City of London for his Servants or the Freemen and Citizens thereof The Rights and Conveniences of our Kings of England doing Justice to their Domestick or Houshold Servants within their Royal Palaces or Houses or the virge thereof and not remitting them to other Judicatures together
with the Duty and Respects never to be denied to Superiority in order more especially to Government being as well to be allowed unto our Kings and Princes and consistent with right Reason as it was in the more ancient times of the Empire or Rome when the Magister Officiorum or Steward of the Emperors House or Palace cui totius Palatii cura pertinuit to whom the whole care of their Houshold did appertain apud quem tam in Civilibus quà m Criminalibus causis respondere tenentur and before whom all the Servants of the Houshold were obliged to answer as well in Causes Civil as Criminal could do no less then incite and advise them so watchfully to guard the necessary and allowed Priveledges of their Servants warranted by the dictates of right Reason and our own Laws as well as the Laws and Customs of many of our neighbour Nations And therefore by an Act of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Richard the second confirmed by another in the twelfth it was ordained That those that raised horrible and false lies against the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons great Nobility and great Men of the Realm as also of the Chancellor Treasurer Clerks of the Privy Seal Stewards of the Kings House being the more special and eminent part of his Domestick Servants and those that did attend him and in ancient and more respectful Times and Ages to the Servants and Honour of Princes did wear no less a Title than Proceres Palatii Lords or Men of great eminency in the Palaces of Kings and Emperors Justices of the one Bench or the other and other great Officers of the Realm whereby debates and discords might arise betwixt the said Lords or the Lords and Commons should be taken and imprisoned until they had found him that first moved it and if they could not should be punished by the advice of the Kings Council And in the ninth year of his Reign John de Leicester one of the Clerks of the Chancery being sued in the Court of Common Pleas by the name of John de Sleford of the County of Leicester for a Debt of 24 l. 16 s. and after his Writ of Priviledge out of the Chancery which commanded the Justices of the said Court of Common Pleas to surcease any further proceeding in that Action being constrained to bring his Writ of Error to reverse a Judgment thereupon notwithstanding had against him the King pro eo quòd principale placitum loquelae praedictae ad cognitionem Cancellarii nostri nullius alterius juxta consuetudinem Cancellariae merè pertinet ex consequenti ejus accessarium ad eundem Cancellarium pertinere debet volentes Jurisdictionem Privilegium Consuetudinem hujusmodi à tam longo tempore obtenta approbata Illaesa firmiter observare in regard that the principal Plea or Suit aforesaid belonged only to the cognisance of his Chancellor and none other according to the custom of the Chancery and that by consequence the cognisance of the Accessary or any thing concerning the said principal Plea or Suit belonged to the Chancellors determination and was willing to preserve the said Jurisdiction Custom and Priviledge for so long a time continued and approved commanded the Record and Process aforesaid with all which thereunto appertained to be sent and certified into the Chancery that he might do thereupon as to Justice appertaineth In the 35 year of the Reign of King Henry the sixth the Abbot of Westminster having an Action depending in the Court of Common Pleas against one of the Yeomen of the Kings Buttery and an Essoin being cast and allowed that he was in the Kings Service the King at the day appointed and given by the Essoin sent his Writ of Privy Seal to the Justices of that Court to signifie that the Defendant was in his Service before the day given by the Essoin and at the same day and every time sithence By a Statute made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the seventh it was declared to be Felony for making Confederacies though not brought to effect or not so far as to an overt act our Laws declaring that affectus non punitur thoughts and intentions only are not to be punished to imagine the death of the King or of any Lord of this Realm or any other person sworn to the Kings Council Steward Treasurer or Comptroller of the Kings House by any of the Kings Houshold Servants and ordained That such Offences should be inquired by 12 sad men of the Cheque Roll of the Kings Houshold and determined before the Steward Treasurer and Comptroller or any two of them Which may evidence the intention of that King and his greater Council the Parliament to submit as little as might be such Offences of his Menial Servants unto the Judgment and Determinations of his Court of Kings Bench which otherwise was the most proper Court and means for the Trial thereof In the Reign of King Henry the eighth George Ferrers Gentleman his Servant and a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament being arrested and taken in Execution and Sir Thomas Moyle Knight then Speaker of the House of Commons and the Knights and Burgesses in Parliament assembled sending the Serjeant at Arms attending upon them to the Compter in Breadstreet in London where the said George Ferrers was detained a Prisoner to demand him the Officers of the City and others assaulted and grievously misused him of which a Complaint being made to the King he called before him all the Judges of the Kingdom declared unto them That he being Head of the Parliament and attending in his own Person upon the business thereof ought in reason to have Priviledge for him and all his Servants attending there upon him so as if Mr. Ferrers had been no Burgess or Member of Parliament but only his Servant that in respect thereof he was to have a Priviledge as well as any other To which all the Judges declaring their assent by Sir Edward Mountague Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings Bench the Grandfather of the now Earl of Manchester Lord Chamberlain of the Kings Houshold an Order was made to fine the Sheriffs of London punish the Riotors and deliver Mr. Ferrers out of Prison but in compassion of the Creditor an Order was made that he should not lose his Money for which he had taken him in Execution And so great a regard was in that Kings Reign had of the Gentlemen of his Privy Chamber as that great and imperious Favorite Cardinal Wolsey Archbishop of York being at Cawood Castle in Yorkshire arrested by the Kings command by the Earl of Northumberland attended by Mr. Welch one of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber of High Treason and being unwilling to obey the Earls Authority unless he would shew the Kings Commission for it which the Earl refused to do the Contest at the last
Liberties did commit to Prison one that had Arrested one of Her Servants without leave and the Creditor being shortly after upon his Petition released by the said Earl who blaming him for his contempt and misdemeanor therein and being answered by the Creditor that if he had known so much before hand he would have prevented it for that he would never have trusted any of the Queens Servants was so just as to inforce that Servant of the Queens to pay him presently or in a short time after the said debt And told him that if he did not thereafter take a better care to pay his Debts he would undo all the other of the Queens Servants for that no man would trust them but they would be constrained to pay ready money for every thing which they should have occasion to buy In the six and twentieth year of Her Reign Henry Seâ—kford Esq one of the Grooms of Her Majesties Privy Chamber being Complainant against William Cowper Defendant the Defendant was in open Court upon his Allegiance enjoyned to attend the said Court from day to day until he be otherwise Licenced and to stay and Surcease and no further prosecute or proceed against the Complainant in any Action at and by the Order of the Common Law And about the Seven and twentieth year of Her Reign some controversies arising betwixt the Lord Mayor and Citizens of London and Sir Owen Hopton Knight Lieutenant of the Tower of London concerning some Liberties and Priviledges claimed by the Lieutenant and his refusal of Writs of Habeas Corpora and that and other matters in difference betwixt them being by Sir Thomas Bromley Knight Lord Chancellor of England the Earl of Leicester and other the Lords of the Council referred unto the consideration of Sir Christopher Wray Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench Sir Edmond Anderson Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and Sir Gilbert Gerrard Knight Master of the Rolls they did upon hearing of both parties and their allegations Certifie under their hands that as concerning such Liberties which the Lieutenant of the Tower claimeth to have been used for the Officers and Attendants in the Tower some of them being of the Queens Yeomen of the Guard and wearing Her Livery Coates and Badges as they do now the Kings as not to be Arrested by any Action in the City of London and Protections to be granted unto them by the Lieutenant and his not obeying of Writs of Habeas Corpus They were of opinion that such Persons as are dayly Attendant in the Tower of London Serving Her Majesty there are to be Priviledged and not to be Arrested upon any plaint in London But for Writs of Execution or Capias Vtlagatum's which the Law did not permit without leave first asked the latter of which by the Writ it self brings an Authority in the Tenor and purport of it to enter into any Liberties but not specifying whether they intended any more than Capias Vtlegátum when it was only after judgement or such like they did think they ought to have no priviledge which the Lords of the Council did by an Order under their hands as rules and determinations to be at all Times after observed Ratifie and Confirm And our Learned King James well understanding how much the Weal Publick did Consist in the good Rules of Policy and Government and the support not only of His own Honor and just Authority but of the respects due unto his great Officers of State and such as were by him imployed therein did for the quieting of certain controversies concerning Precedence betwixt the younger Sons of Viscounts and Barons and the Baronets and others by an Ordinance or Declaration under the Great Seal of England In the tenth year of His Reign Decree and Ordain That the Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter the Privy Councellors of His Majestie His Heires and Successors the Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries the Chancellor and under Treasurer of the Exchequer Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster the Chief Justice of the Court commonly called the Kings Bench the Master of the Rolls the Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas the Chief Baron of the Exchequer and all other the Judges and Barons of the degree of the Coife of the said Courts Now and for the Time being shall by reason of such their Honourable Order and Imployment have Place and Precedence in all Places and upon all occasions before the younger Sons of Viscounts and Barons and before all Baronets any Custom Vse Ordinance or other thing to the Contrary Notwithstanding In the four and thirtieth year of Her Reign Sir Christopher Wray Knight Lord Chief Justice of Her Court of Queens Bench Sir Edmond Anderson Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and the rest of the Judges of the aforesaid Courts seeming to be greatly troubled that divers Persons having been at several Times committed without good cause shewed and that such Persons having been by the Courts of Queens Bench and Common Pleas discharged of their Imprisonments a Commandment was by certain great Men and Lords procured from the Queen to the Judges that they should not do the like thereafter all the said Judges together with the Barons of the Exchequer did under their hands Exhibit unto the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Burghley Lord Treasurer of England their Complaint or Remonstrance in these words viz. We Her Majesties Justices of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer desire your Lordships that by some good means some Order may be taken that her Highness Subjects may not be Committed or detained in Prison by Commandment of any Noble Man or Counsellor against the Laws of the Realm either else to help us to have access unto her Majesty to the end to become Suitors unto Her for the same For divers have been imprisoned for Suing Ordinary Actions and Suits at the Common Law until they have been constrained to leave the same against their Wills and put the same to Order albeit Judgement and Execution have been had therein to their great losses and griefs For the aid of which persons her Majesties Writs have sundry Times been directed to sundry Persons having the custody of such Persons unlawfully Imprisoned upon which Writs no good or Lawful cause of Imprisonment hath been returned or Certified Whereupon according to the Laws they have been discharged of their Imprisonment some of which Persons so delivered have been again Committed to Prison in secret places and not to any Common or Ordinary Prison or Lawful Officer or Sheriff or other Lawfully Authorised to have or keep a Goal So that upon Complaint made for their delivery The Queens Courts cannot tell to whom to Direct Her Majesties Writs And by this means Justice cannot be done And moreover divers Officers and Serjeants of London have been many Times Committed to Prison for Lawful Executing of Her Majesties Writs Sued forth
of Her Majesties Courts at Westminster and thereby Her Majesties Subjects and Officers so terrified that they dare not Sue or Execute Her Majesties Lawes Her Writs and Commandments Divers others have been sent for by Pursevants and brought to London from their dwellings and by unlawful Imprisonments have been constrained not only to withdraw their Lawful Suites but have been also compelled to pay the Pursevants so bringing such Persons great summes of money All which upon Camplaint the Judges are bound by Office and Oath to relieve and help By and according to Her Majesties Laws And where it pleaseth your Lordships to will divers of us to set down in what cases a Prisoner sent to Custody by Her Majesty or her Council is to be detained in Prison and not to be delivered by Her Majesties Court or Judges we think that if any Person be committed by Her Majesties Command from Her Person which may be understood to be so when it is by the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings house or other great Offâ—cers of the Houshold who are commonly Privy Councellors and do it by their Princes Authority or by Order from the Council Board And if any one or two of the Council Commit one for High Treason such Persons so in the Cases before Committed may not be delivered by any of Her Courts without due tryal by the Law and Judgement of acquittal had Nevertheless the Judges may award the Queens Writ to bring the Bodies of such Prisoners before them and if upon return thereof the causes of their Commitment be certified to the Judges as it ought to be then the Judges in the cases before ought not to deliver him but to remand the Prisoner to the place from whence he came which cannot conveniently be done unless notice of the cause in general or else in special be given to the Keeper or Goaler that shall have the custody of such a Prisoner In which Remonstrance or Address it doth not appear that any Commitments therein complained of were for Arresting any of the Queens Servants without leave first demanded or that any of the matters therein suggested were for that only cause or before Judgements or Execution obtained some of them being expresly mentioned to have been after Judgements and no certain evidence more than for what came directly unto those Learned Judges by the before mentioned Mandate of the Queen for the supposed grievances therein which though much be attributed to the well weighed wisdom of those grave Judges and that their Information had as much of Truth as without a hearing of all parties and legal Examination of Witnesses could be found in it cannot be presumed to be had in a judiciall way after Trials or Convictions but received and taken in from the murmur and Complaints of some Attorneys or Parties only concerned without hearing of the other side or parties or that it was so prevalent with the Queen as to make any Order or restraint or cause any Act of Parliament to be made for that purpose For it will not come within the Compass or Confines of any probability or reasonable construction that those Reverend and Learned Judges Sir Christopher Wray and Sir Edmond Anderson who together with Sir Gilbert Gerard Master of the Rolls had in the case betwixt the Lord Mayor and Citizens of London and Sir Owen Hopton Knight Lieutenant of the Tower of London In the seven and twentieth year of Her Raign which was but seven years before Certified under their hands unto Sir Thomas Bromley Knight Lord Chancellor and others of Her Privy Council that such persons as are daily attendant in the Tower serving Her Majesty the which was more remote from Her Person and Presence of Her Royal Residence or Palace at White-hall Were to be Priviledged and not to be Arrested upon any plaint in London but for Writs of Execution or Capias Utlagatum or such like they did think they ought to have no Priviledge And that Master Lieutenant ought to return every Habeas Corpus out of any Court at Westminster So as the Justices before whom it shall be returned as the cause shall require may either remand it with the body or retain the matter before them and deliver the body as Justice shall require would complain of Commitments of such as Arrested any of Her Servants without leave when it might be so easily had and the Lord Chamberlain of that time was likely to be as little guilty of enforcing Creditors to withdraw their Suits or loose their debts as the Lord Chamberlain and other great Officers of the Royal Houshold have been since or are now Nor do the words of that Information import or point at the Marshalsea of the Queens Court or Her Messengers to whom as the Kings Officers or Ministers of Justice the Queens Writ might have been brought or directed the sending of Pursevants there remonstrated being more likely to have been for some other Concernments and not for Arresting without leave which for ought that appears was never yet in foro Contradictorio upon any Cause or Action argued solemnly at the Bar and Bench adjudged to be a breach of any of the Laws of England or Liberties of the Subjects or not to be any good Cause of Arresting or Imprisoning such as in despite of Majesty would in ConContempt thereof make it their business especially when they needed not to do it to violate and infringe the Royal Jurisdictions and reasonable Customs of their Sovereign and Protector and the long ago and for many ages allowed Priviledges of their Servants And therefore William Earl of Pembroke L. Chamberlain of the Kings House a man very zealous for the Peoples Rights and Liberties may be believed not to have transgressed therein when he did about the latter end of the Reign of King James give His Warrant to one of the Kings Messengers of the Chamber to take into His Custody and bring before him one Mr. Sanderson for causing Sir Edward Gorge one of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber to be Arrested without Licence first obtained and being in the beginning of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr Lord Steward of the Kings most Honourable Houshold did commit a Clerk or Servant to a Serjeant at Law to the Prison of the Marshalsea for Arresting one of the Kings Servants without Licence and when he was bailed by the Judges upon a Writ of Habeas Corpus committed him again and being let at Liberty the second time upon a Writ of Habeas Corpus was again Committed by him and could not be Released until he had set at Liberty the Kings Servant And Philip Earl of Montgomery Lord Chamberlain of the King in His Most Honourable Houshold when he did the first day of November 1626. direct his Warrant to all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and Constables c. to permit Mr. Thomas Musgrave of Idnel in the County of Cumberland His Majesties Muster Master for the County of Westmerland to come
and barbarous manner carry and hale them along the streets to Prison being at noon day refusing to carry them first before a Magistrate as they ought to have done and as was by the said Gentlemen demanded however vpon calling some of the said parties complained of before us and entring into examination of the business we found in general that the carriage of the said Officers and their assistants had been such as was informed yet because the more particular inquiry thereof was a work not so fit to trouble the Board withal we have thought good therefore to refer the due examination thereof to your Lordship letting you to know that if as is conceived you understood of the miscarriage of the said Officers and past it over without reproof that you have wilfully failed both in discretion and duty for that you cannot be ignorant that the proper and usual way of proceeding in a case of this nature against his Majesties Servants had been not by committing them to Prisons but by an address or appeal to the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesties Houshold or in his absence to such other Principal Officers unto whom it appertains to give redress and therefore as the more we consider of it the more we marvel at the insolent carriage of your Officers and the Connivency of your Lordship and other the Chief Magistrates of the City So you are to know that His Majesty and this Board expects not only a good accompt from you in the examination and proceedings of the said Officers and others their assistants in this particular but that His Majestie expects and requires at your hands not as a Respect only but as a Duty that hereafter upon any the like occasions happening within the City concerning His Servants the proceedings against them be by Appeal and Information first to the Lord Chamberlain or in his absence to such other Principal Officers to whom it properly appertaineth and not by Commitments to Goals and Prisons at your pleasure And so we bid your Lordship very heartily Farewell From Whitehall the sixteenth of February 1628. Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer Lord President Lord High Chamberlain Earl Marshal Lord Steward Earl of Holland Earl of Danby Chancellor of Scotland Lord Viscount Dorchester Lord Viscount Wilmot Lord Newburgh To Sir Richard Deane Lord Mayor of London And in the year 1629 granted a warrant for the apprehension of Humphrey Worrall for the Arresting of one of His Majesties Pensioners In the year 1630 the like against Maurice Evans for serving a Subpoena in the Court against John Durson The like for the apprehension of Edward Clark and Samuel Farrier of Canterbury upon the complaint of Thomas Potter for abusing him being imployed in the Execution of a Warrant A Warrant for the Commitment of William Acheson to the Gatehouse for transgressing his Order in arresting Master Shaw and giving his Lordship no notice A Warrant for the apprehension of Tirrell and David Edwards upon the complaint of Richard Eyre for detaining his Horse A Warrant dated the two and twentieth day of November in the year aforesaid for the apprehension of Master Morgan Goodwin Master William Small Under Sheriff of Middlesex and Thomas Brook a Bayliff upon the complaint of Doctor Robotham for an arrest Whereupon they being apprehended did the five and twentieth day of that November procure an Habeas Corpora to be brought to Carter the Messenger to whose custody they were Committed and were thereupon Released but presently by another Warrant his Lordship committed them to the charge of William Wattes The Second of February in the same year the said Lord Chamberlain sent his letter unto the Sheriff of Middlesex in these words Sir I understand that Sir John Wentworth is arrested upon an Execution at the suite of one Beeston and now remaining in your Custody and that some others have Petitioned me wherein when I have found cause I have given way under my hand if any other which have not leave shall offer to bring any Actions against him I do expect and require that you forbear to receive or entertain them unless you see my hand for your Warrant As you will answer the contrary The twelfth of February 1630 granted a Warrant for the Commitment of Symon Hayton and William Taylor for charging the said Sir John VVentworth in Execution being under arrest upon leave granted In the year 1631 a Warrant for the apprehension of Richard Graunt Fowler and John Havit upon the complaint of William Burton a messenger of the Court of Wards The like for the apprehension of Samuel Twynne and Stephen Symons for the Arrest of Ralph Short a post Master A Warrant to apprehend Master Roger Vrmiseon an Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas upon the complaint of Mr. Edward Crofts for an arrest without leave A Warrant for the apprehension of Masier upon the complaint of Nicholas Sherman for distreyning of his goods for his not appearance at the Marsh Court at Greenwich A Warrant for the Commitment of Peter Price to the Marshalsea for serving a Subpoena upon Master George Ravenscroft in the Council Chamber at Whitehall A Warrant for the apprehension of Robert Champion a Serjeant in the Poultry Compter for taking a Prisoner from the Kings Messenger by a Writ probably an Habeas Corpus out of the Kings Bench. In the year 1632 a warrant for the apprehension of John Perkins a Constable for serving the Lord Chief Justice's Warrant upon John Beard in Saint James's Park A Warrant for the Commitment of Leonard Ward a Clark of the Court of Common Pleas and Potters a Bayliff to the Marshalseas for arresting of Edward Pigot a Groom extraordinary without leave A Warrant for the apprehension of John Bishop one of the Lord Mayors Officers In the year 1633 a warrant for the apprehension of Anthony Tompson Clark John Richardson and others for the arrest of George Nicholson a Yeoman of the Guard The like to apprehend Griffin Jones upon the complaint of John Heydon one of His Majesties Musicians for abusive Language given him as fidling Rogue c. The like to apprehend Arthur Toogood and Morgan Castle Butchers for assaulting Mr. Pitcarnes the Master of the Hawkes man The like for the apprehension of Geoffrey Brittingham Anthony Carnaby and William Marbury upon the Complaint of Robert Wood for Actions laid upon him without leave A Warrant to the Bayliff of Westminster to forbear to admit any Writs or Actions against Sir Henry Wotton Knight His Majesties Servant sworn in the year 1627 one of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Privy Chamber Extraordinary in the name of any Person or Persons whatsoever but such as shall have leave Granted unto them under the Lord Chamberlains hand In the year 1635 a Warrant for the apprehension of one Master Atkinson and divers others for the arresting of the Lord Rich being not long before sworn a Gentleman of the Kings Privy Chamber Extraordinary In the year 1636
concedit concedere videtur id sine quo res esse non potest when the Law granteth any thing it granteth the means without which the matter or thing could not be which the now Lord Mayor or London or some of the Sheriffs or Aldermen of that City thought to be Warrant sufficient for imprisoning if report be not mistaken a poor Cobler living in or near Fleet street for stumbling upon a piece of a Jest or Drollery and saying he thanked God he had dined as well as the Lord Mayor when his Lordships coming or being invited to dinner with the Reader and Society of the Inner Temple in or about the latter end of the Moneth of March 1668. had upon his claiming a liberty to have the Sword of the City born before him within the Liberties of the Temple caused some Tumult or Ryot begun as the Gentlemen of that Society alleaged by his own party the harmless Coblers curiosity had only perswaded him to leave his small subterranean Tenement shaded with his usual frontelet of a few old shooes to be amongst many other of the Neighbourhood a Spectator of that contention betwixt the Lord Mayor and that Inne of Court concerning its Privileges the one endeavouring to infringe and the other to defend the Temples very antient clearly to be evidenced privileges And many Justices of the Peace would be unwilling that their punishments by committing of men to prison for ill words mis-behaviours or sometimes by a but supposed affront given or used unto some of them for a Tobaccoe-pipe casually thrown out of the window of an Alehouse into a neighbor Justice of the Peace his Garden when unperceived by the Thrower he was walking therein should be adjudged to be without the bounds or limits of their Commissionated Authority nor should they or any other of the Kings Subjects refuse to subscribe to that well-known Axiom conseâ—ted unto by our Laws as well as the Law of Nations that derivativa potestas non potest esse major primitiva that a derivative power or authority cannot be greater than the power and authority which gave it And therfore it should neither be taken to be any over bold assertion vain imagination or inference weakly built conjecture or conclusion without premises that the servants of the Kings of England in ordinary ought not to be bereaved of their aforesaid Privileges and that all the Subjects of England are more then a little obliged to take a care that they should enjoy them when as every Male of England and Wales above the age of 12 years are to take and swear the Oath of Allegiance which was a law so long agoe instituted and ordained saith Sir Edw. Coke before the Conquest as King Arthur is by good Warrant believed to be the Author of it and all the People of England who since his Majesties happy restoration have sworn it and by that great tie and obligation did undertake to bear truth and faith unto him and his Successors of life and member and terrene honour and that they should neither hear or know of any damage intended unto him which they should not defend all which do take degrees of learning faculties in our Universities all Judges Serjeants at Law Justices of Peace Baristers at Law Mayors Sheriffs and Magistrates whatsoever under Sheriffs and their Deputies and all Bayliffs Officers and Clerks entrusted in any Court of Justice do not only take and swear the Oath of Allegiance but the Oath of Supremacy which is to defend the jurisdictions and privileges preheminencies and authorities of the King his Heirs and Successors annexed to their imperial Crown and dignity and by all those very binding and soul as well as body engaging obligations should in no case endeavour to impugne or obstruct which the arresting of his Servants in ordinary or his necessary attendants without leave or license first obtained doth assuredly do his so antient so legal and so long accustomed just Rights Jurisdictions Privileges and authorities inseparably incident and appurtenant to his Royal government it having been in the Reign of King Henry the 8 th one of the Articles against Cardinal Wolsey subscribed by the Lord Chancellor the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk diverse Earls Barons and some of the Kings Privy Councel that where it had been accustomed within the Realm that when Noblemen do swear their Houshold Servants the first part of their Oath hath been that they should be true Leigemen to the King and his Heirs Kings of England the same Lord Cardinal had omitted to do it Nor have those rational legal necessary and well grounded privileges of Kings or Princes Servants decursu Temporis by any change or long course of time been so discontinued antiquated or altered upon any pretence of grievance or inconveniencies whatsoever as not now to be extant and found in our Neighbour Nations and most other of the civilized parts of the world not only where the fear of God or honour of Princes have any thing to do but even amongst those which having not had light enough to know the true God have in their ignorance fancied and made to themselves Deities of their own imaginations When our Neighbours of France who were heretofore better acquainted with their Liberties than since they are or are likely to be did not think it to be a thing unreasonable that the King of France his servants in ordinary should enjoy those or the like immunities and privileges when non nisi venia prius impetrata without leave first obtained ab Architriclino sive Oeconomo hospitii regis from the Master of the Kings houshold as with us the Lord Steward or Lord Chamberlain neminem licet per Francorum leges in jus vocare in Palatio It was not lawful by the Laws of France to sue or arrest any in the Palace or belonging to the Kings houshold Pares Franciae praetoribus Regiis non subjiciantur The Peers of France are not to be tryed by the Kings ordinary Courts of Justice Et non ferebat nobilitas de feudis ab ignobili ullo judicari the Nobility of France will not endure that any thing concerning their Fieffs or Lands should be tryed and adjudged by any which were not of the Nobility In the year 1288. which was about the 24 th year of the Reign of our King Edward the first in the case of John Pompline it was in the Parliament of Paris adjudged that he being the Kings servant in ordinary ought not to pay any Assessment And the like in the year 1311. in the Raign of King Philip the fair of France which was about the 4 th year of the Raign of our King Edward the second in the case of Baldwin and Proger Et Philippi pulchri constitutione ad Architriclinum sive Oeconomum actionalium personalium jurisdictio pertinebat quae a ministris Regiis omniumque criminum cognitionem sibi vendicabat quae in Comitatu
no Vagabonds Masterless men Boyes or Idle persons be suffered to harbour in her Court Wherfore the Servants attending therein should not now be so much in the ill opinion causeless contempt of the Mechanick and vulgar part of the people for those which are ex meliore luto better born and more civilly educated cannot certainly so lose their way to a gratefull acknowledgement of their Princes daily protection and needed favours as to villifie or slight his Servants by imitating the sordid examples of a less understanding part of the people or want their due respects if it shall be rightly considered that our Ancestors and a long succession of former ages were not so niggard or sparing of their well-deserved respects When our Kings and Princes and the wiser part of their people supposed to be in Parliament did attribute so much unto them and so very much trust and confide in them as they did from time to time put no small power into their hands and leave no small concernments of themselves and the Kingdom to their prudence fidelity and discretion When the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who administreth the Oathes usually taken by the Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer of England Lords of the Kings most Honourable Privy Councel Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Rolls Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas Barons of the Exchequer Kings Attorney and Sollicitor General Serjeants at Law Masters of Requests and Chancery upon and before their admission into their several Places and Offices nominates and appoints the Custos Rotulorum and Justices of the Peace in every County of England Wales some few Franchises and Liberties excepted and by his largely extended Jurisdiction committed unto his trust doth by the Writs remedial of his Soveraign guide and superintend the Cisterns and Streams of our Laws those living waters which do chear and refresh our Vallies and make them to be as a watered Garden And with the two Lord Chief Justices Master of the Rolls the other Reverend Judges and the Masters of Chancery appointed to distribute the Kings Justice according to the laws and reasonable customs of the Kingdome have their Robes and Salaries allowed and are as Justice Croke acknowledged in his argument against the Ship-money as the Kings Councel at Law the chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas being as is mentioned in a Manuscrip of Henry Earl of Arundel copyed out of a book of George Earl of Shrowsbury Lord Steward of the houshold unto King Henry the seventh and King Henry the eighth communicated unto me by my worthy friend Mr. Ralph Jackson one of his Majesties Servants in ordinary a great Member of the Kings house for whose favour counsel and assistance in the Law to be shewed to the houshold matters and servants he taketh an yearly Fee by the Bâ—tler of England of two Tuns of Wine at two Terms of the year which is allowed in the Court of houshold When the Justices of Peace in every City and County are or should be the under Wheels in that excellently curiously framed Watch of the English Government as the late blessed Martyr King Charles the first when he so sadly forwarned the pulling of it in pieces by a mistaken Parliament and the Rebellious consequences of it not unfitly called it are at their quarter Sessions under his pay and allowance when the Assize of the bread to be sold in England was in the fourth year of the Reign of King John being thirteen years before his granting of Magna Charta ordained by the King by his Edict or Proclamation to be strictly observed under the pain of standing upon the Pillory and the rates set and an Assise approved by the Baker of Jeoffry Fitz-Peter chief Justice of England the nas one of the Kings more especial Servants as to matters of justice resident and attendant in the Kings House or Palace and by the Baker of R. of Thurnam that Constitution and Assise being not at all contradicted by his Magna Charta or that of his Sons King Henry the 3 d. Which Assise of bread contained in a writing of the Marshalsea of the Kings house being by the consent of the whole Realm exemplified by the Letters Patents of King Henry the 3 d. in the 51 th year of his Raign was confirmed and said to be proved by the Kings Baker By an Act of Parliament made in the 9 th year of the Reign of that King if the King be out of the Realm the chief Justices one of which if not both were then residing and attending in the Kings Court were once in the year through every County with the Knights of the Shires to take Assises of Novel Disseisin and Mortdancester in which if there be any difficulty it was to be referred unto his Justices of the Bench there to be ended By an Act of Parliament made in the 6th year of the Reign of K. Edward the first Wine sold against the Assise was to be by the Mayor and Bayliffs of London presented before the Treasurer and Barons of the Exchequer who then resided in the Court or Palace of the King The Statute of Westminster the 2. made in the 13th year of the said Kings Reign mentioneth That the Kings Marshal is to appoint the Marshal of the Kings Bench and Exchequer the Criers and Virgers of that and the Court of Common Pleas which at this day is done by and under the Authority of the Earl Marshal of England who by his Certificate made by his Roll of a personal service in a Voyage Royal performed by those that held Lands or Offices in Capite and by Knight Service he discharged an Assessement of Esonage by Parliament superintendeth the cognisance and bearing of Armes of the Nobility and Gentry and the duty of the Heralds and Officers attending thereupon And with the Lord Great Chamberlain before the unhappy change of the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service into Free and Common Socage introduce and bring unto the King such as were to do Homage unto him for their Baronies or Lands By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third and by the Kings Authority the Sheriffs of every County in England and Wales who are for the most part under the King the only Executioners of Justice in the Kingdom are three out of six for every County presented by the Judges of every Circuit the morrow after the Feast of All-Souls in every year to the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Privy Seal Lord Treasurer Lord Steward the later of which at the beginning and opening of Parliaments is by his Office to administer the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy to every Member of the House of Commons in Parliament the Master of the Horse Lord
Chamberlain Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings most Honourable Houshold Chancellor of the Exchequer with other of the Kings Privy Councel who together with the Justices of both Benches and Barons of the Exchequer do out of the six for every County make choice of three who are in a written Bill by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England shortly after presented to the King who appointeth as he pleaseth one of every three presented unto him as aforesaid for every County to be Sheriff by his Letters Patents under the Great Seal for the year next following And by Authority of the King and his Laws the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England appointeth the Judges in every year their several Circuits maketh and dischargeth all Justices of the Peace And such Petitions as could not be dispatched before the end of Parliaments were frequently adjourned to be heard and determined by the Chancellor and presenteth to all Parsonages or Spiritual Benefices in the Kings right or gift which are under the value of 20 l. per annum according to the antient valuation All the Records in the Courts of Chancery Kings Bench and Common Pleas Justices of Assise and Goal delivery are to be safely kept by the Treasurer and Chamberlains of the Exchequer which the Commons of England in Parliament in the 46th year of the Reign of King Edward the third did in their Petition to the King call the Peoples perpetual evidence and our Kings of England have therefore in several of their Reigns sent their Writs and Mandates to the Chief Justices of both the Benches to cause their Records for some times therein limited to be brought into his Treasury and entrusted with the Treasurer and Chamberlains thereof in whose custody the Standard for all the Weights and Measures of England is likewise kept By an Act of Parliament made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third Sheriffs abiding above one year in their Offices may be removed and new ones put in their place by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking unto them the Chief Justices of the one Beneh or the other if they be present Escheators who were and should be of very great trust and concernment in the Kingdom betwixt the King and his people were to be chosen by the Chancellor Treasurer and Chief Baron of the Exchequer taking into them the Chief Justices of the one Bench or the other if they be present but are since only made by the Lord Treasurer By a Statute made in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the 3d. the Lord Privy Seal and other great Lords of the Kings Councel are appointed to redress in Parliament delayes and errours in Judgement in other Courts By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King the Chancellor and Treasurer were authorized to hear complaints and ordain remedies concerning gifts and rewards unjustly taken by Sheriffs Bayliffs of Franchises and their Vnder Ministers and also concerning mainteiners and embracers of Juries taking unto them the Justices and other Sage persons such as to them seemeth meet By an Act of Parliament made in the 31th year of the Reign of that King the Lord Chancellor and Treasurer shall examine erronious Judgements given in the Exchequer Chamber And the Chancellor and Treasurer taking to them Justices and other of the Kings Councel as to them seemeth shall take order and make Ordinances touching the buying and selling of Fish By several Acts of Parliament made in the 37th and 38th year of his Reign Suggestions made by any to the King shall be sent with the party making them unto the Chancellor there to be heard and determined and the Prosecutor was to be punished if he prove them not And that upon untrue suggestions the Chancellor should award damages according to his discretion By an Act of Parliament made in the 11th year of the Reign of King Richard the second the keeping of Assises in good Towns are at the request of the Commons in Parliament referred to the Chancellor with the advice of the Judges By an Act of Parliament made in the 13th year of his Reign in every pardon for Felony Murder or Treason the Chamberlain or Vnder Chamberlain was to endorse upon the Bill the Name of him which sued for the same By an Act of Parliament made in the 20th year of his Reign no man shall go or ride armed except the Kings Officers or Ministers in doing their Office By an Act of Parliament made in the first and second year of the Reign of K. Henry the 4th no Lord is to give any Sign or Livery to any Knight Esquire or Yeoman but the King may give his honourable Livery to his menial Knights and Esquires and also to his Knights and Esquires of his Retinue who are not to use it in their Counties but in the Kings presence The Constable and Marshall of England for the time being and their Retinue of Knights and Esquires may wear the Livery of the King upon the Borders and Marches of the Realm in time of War the Knights and Esquires of every Duke Earl Baron or Baneret may wear their Liveries in going from the Kings House and returning unto it and that the King may give his honourable Livery to the Lords Temporal whom pleaseth him And that the Prince and his menials may use and give his honourable Livery to the Lords and his menial Gentlemen By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of the Reign of King Henry the 6th the Lords of the Councel may assign money to be coyned in as many places as they will A Letter of request may be granted by the Keeper of the Privy Seal to any of the Kings Subjects from whom Goods be taken by the King of Denmark or any of his Subjects By an Act of Parliament made in the tenth year of his Reign the Mayor of London shall take his Oath before the Treasurer of England and Barons of the Kings Exchequer wherein he shall be charged and sworn to observe all the Statutes touching Weights and Measures By an Act of Parliament made in the eleventh year of his Reign Fees Wages and Rewards due to the Kings Officers were not to be comprized within the Statute of Resumption made in the 28 th year of the Reign of the King By an Act of Parliament made in the third year of the Reign of King Henry the 7th for punishments of Maintenance Embracery Perjuries Riots and unlawfull demeanors of Sheriffs and unlawfull Assemblies it was ordained That the Chancellor and Treasurer of England for the time being Keeper of the Kings Privy Seal or two of them calling unto them a Bishop and a Temporal Lord of the Kings most Honourable Councel and the two Chief Justices of the Kings
out and Sealed by Officers and Clerks of the Court whence they issued without the privity or knowledge of the King or his Lord Chancellour or Keeper of the Great Seal of England or the Judges of the Court of Common-Pleas and that if those Writs which now and for many yeers past to the great ease of the people have been made in an ordinary way and course at smal rates and charges as anciently as the Raign of King John and King Henry the third should have been made by the privity of the Chancellour or Chief-Justice or of the King himself or granted upon Motion or Petition and read and recited in the Kings presence or in Court by or before the Chancellor or Chief-Justice when such Actions Writs or Complaints were few and seldome yet when afterwards they should appear to be mistaken too sodainly or erroniously granted or that the King or the Court have as in humane affairs it may often happen been misinformed or deceived therein such Writs or Process surprize or mistake may be revoked and rectified and the Writs and proceedings thereupon contradicted by the King or his Authority as hath been done in the Writs of Supersedeas to the Barons of the Exchequer to stay their proceedings in Common-Pleas or to the Marshalsea of matters wherein they have no Jurisdiction that known Rule of Law declaring the Kings Letters Patents of the Grant of Lands to a man in Fee or Fee Tayl to be void where the King is deceived in his Grant or as King Henry the 3d. superseded his Writ de Excommunicato capiendo to Arrest or take an excommunicated person because he was circumvented in the granting of the Writ or made void his Conge d' Eslire to the Priory of Carlisle confirmed an election upon a former Conge or licence or as is often done by that common usual way of Supersedeas made by the King upon matters ex post facto or better information or by his Justices and Courts of Justice by Writs of Supersedeas quia improvide or Erronice or datum est nobis intelligi in regard of misinformation Error or better information or in the vacating of Recoveries Judgments discharging Actions for abuse of the Courts or ill obteining of them or their Writs Process freeing of prisoners taken Arrested by Writs or Process not duly warranted And that such an indirect and feigned prosecution of the Kings Servants to the Utlary designed only to abridge the King of his regal Rights forfeit and annul the Priviledges of his Servants and obstruct and hinder his service and attendance aswell deserves a punishment as that which was usual in our Laws in the Reigns of King Henry the 3d. and King Edward the 1. for indirect recoveries or Judgments obtained by a malitious surprize falshood or non-Summons as the ensuing Writ will evidence Rex vic Salutem praecipimus tibi quod habeas coram Justitiariis nostris c talem petentem scilicet ad audiend Judicium suum considerationem Curiae nostre de hoc quod ipse per malitiam manifestam falsitatem fecit disseysiri talem de tanta Terra cum pertinentiis c. Et unde cum ipse B nullam haberet summonitionem optulit se idem A versus eum itaqd terra capta fuit in manum nostram semel secundo per quani defalt idem A terram illam recuperavit desicut illa defalta nulla fuit ut dic catalla ipsius B in eadem terra tunc inventa ei occasione praedâ—cta ablata eidem sine dilatione reddi facias restitui Praecipimus etiam tihi qd habeas coram c. ad eundem Terminum A B per quos summonitio prima facta fuit in Curia nostra Testata praeterea quatuor illos per quorum visum terra illa capta fuit in manum nostram per quos captio illa testificata fuit in Curia nostra c. etiam illos per quos secunda summonitio facta fuit testata ad certificandum Justitiarios nostros de praedictis Summonitionibus Captionibus Et habeas ibi hoc breve Teste c. The King to the Sheriff talis loci County or place sendeth greeting We command you That you have before our Justices c. such a Demandant that is to say to hear the Judgement Order of our Court in regard that he by malice and manifest fraud caused such a one the Tenant to be disseised of so much Land with the appurtenances c. whereupon when the said E the Tenant or Defendant had no Summons the said A the Plaintiff or Demandant did so prosecute that Action that the Land was taken into our hands a first and second time by which default the said A recovered the Land whereas there was no default as was alledged and took the Goods and Chattels of the said B then found upon the Land and taken from him by that means We command you that without delay you cause the same to be rendred and restored unto him that you also have before our Justices at the same time A and B by whom the first Summons was made and certified into our Court c. and likewise those by whom the second Summons was made whereby our said Justices may of the aforesaid Summons and Captions be certified and have you there this Writ Witnesse c. Or that which King Richard the Second did in Parliament in the fifteenth yeer of his Raign inflict upon Sir VVilliam Bryan for procuring a Bull of the Pope to be directed unto the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to excommunicate some that had broken his house and carried away his Writings by committing him prisoner to the Tower of London that fact and doing of his being by the Lords in Parliament adjudged to be prejudicial to the King and in Derogation of his Laws such and the like artifices and devices being so much disliked by the Commons in Parliament in the 39th yeer of the Raign of King Henry the sixth as they complained by their Petition to the King Lords that VValter Clerke one of their Members a Burges for the Town of Chippenham in the County of VVilts had been outlawed and put in Prison and prayed that by the assent of the King and Lords he might be released and their Member set at Liberty Or that which King Henry the eighth did in the Case of Trewynnard a Burgess of Parliament imprisoned upon an Utlary after Judgment in delivering him by his Writ of Priviledge which upon an Action afterwards brought against the Executors of the Sheriff and a Demurrer was resolved by the Judges to be legal And therefore Philip late Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery Lord Chamberlain of his late Majesties Houshold should not be blamed for causing in the yeer of our Lord one thousand six hundred thirty and seaven one Isaac VValter to
seu exemplar as a great and antient example worthy to be imitated whereof one waiting by the space of a month menseque finito adveniente alia prima domum redibat which being ended that returning home another succeeded the other two propriis quivis necessitatibus studentes commorabantur being busied about their own affairs tarried in the mean·time at home secunda itaque cohors mense peracto adveniente tertia domum redibat and the second Troop having served their month the third came into their places and the thirds course or time alotted being ended the first returned to his former attendance Et hoc ordine omnibus vitae praesentis temporibus talium vicissitudinum in Regali Curto rotatur administratio and in this manner all the life time of the said King and by such changes or courses was the service in his Royal Court administred And certainly no small number of Officers and Servants were heretofore thought to be sufficient in England to attend on our Kings and Princes when Hardi-Canutus King of England furnished Tables of meat for his Servants and all comers four times a day when Thomas Earl of Lancaster who was an Attendant himself upon the King had in the Reign of King Edward the second a Bishop and Barons officiating in his house 100 Knights and as many Esquires besides Officers and common Servants Bishops Earls and Lords in after ages rode and travelled with great Trains and Retinues Nicholas West Bishop of Ely in the Reign of King Henry the 8th had continually in his house 200 Servants Edward Earl of Darby 200 men in Checque-Roll in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and John Earl of Oxford although a well-deserving Ancestor of his that led the Vantguard of King Henry the 7th at the Battel of Bosworth-field was in that Kings after Halcyon dayes fined in a then great sum of money for attending him at his house with a very great Retinue did usually ride from his house in Essex to his house at London-Stone in London with 80 Gentlemen in Livery of Red or Tawny with Chains of Gold about their necks and 100 tall Yeomen in the like Livery to follow him without Chains but all wearing his Crest of the blew Boar embroydered on their left armes or shoulders so as in the difference betwixt the Majesty of a great and Soveraign Prince being as the Sun in our Firmament and the grandeur which his Nobility as the Stars in their lesser lights derived from it either did or should endeavour to support the measure or rule of proportion may evidence how necessary it is for a King to have an honourable and competent number of Servants when those that were so much inferior to the Majesty Power and Soveraignty of a free Prince could in their lesser Orbs not want a fitting number to attend upon the Honours which he or some of his Ancestors gave them when as by an Order of his late Majesty in the year of our Lord 1626. 40 Messengers of his Chambers were at all times to be ready to do his Majesty service and at all entertainments and receptions of Ambassadors many of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber are commanded to attend such of the Nobility as are appointed by the King to receive and conduct the Ambassadors unto him in so much as in the year 1636. eight Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber were appointed to attend the Earl of Lindsey to bring the King of Polands Ambassador to Hampton-Court and such multitudes and variety of cares and business which do attend a King and the consequences and grand concernments thereof so hugely different from any of their Nobility or Subjects may perswade us to allow our Saul to be as well in the number of their Houshold Servants as in all other things higher from the shoulders upwards than all or any of thâ—m and will better become him than those many which our murmurers were so well content to afford their Oliver the Protector of their intended slâ—very when by his Instrument so called of his Usurped Government he was to have two hundred thousand pounds per annum for defraying the necessary charges of the administration of Justice and other expences of the Government besides all the Kings Revenue which was left unfold being a considerable part thereof with the Fines Amerciaments and casual profits of the basely misused and despoiled Crown of England and a pay and constant yearly maintenance of Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland with a setled yearly Revenue for the maintenance of a convenient number of Ships for guarding of the Seas allowed unto him had his Chamberlain Treasurer and Comptroller of a better house than the Brew-house which he could not thrive in at Huntington his misâ—called Lords of his Privy Counsel Commissioners of his Great Seal Secretary of State his Turn-coat Heralds Serjeants at Armes Messengers of his Chamber Ushers and many other Servants and Officers belonging to his Counterfeit Highness and his Envoys and Ambassadors one of which could not be dressed out or sent with a lesser state and magnificence than 200 Attendants And the Lord Mayor of London being but a temporary and yearly Governour of that City and one of the lesser rayes of the Majesty of our Kings communicated to that annual Magistracy under them can be allowed for his state a Recorder Common Serjeant Chamberlain Townâ—Clerk Coroner Sword-Bearer Marshall Common Hunt Common Cryer Water-Bayliff and Under-Chamberlain four Clerks of his Mayors Court three Serjeant Carvers as many Serjeants of the Chamber a Serjeant and Yeoman of the Channel four Yeomen of the Water-side an Under Water-Bayliff two Yeomen of the Chamber three Meal-Weighers two Yeomen of the Wood-Wharfs the Sword-Bearers man the Common Hunts two men the Common Cryers man the Water-Bayliffs two men and the Carvers man some of which several Officers or Attendants do wait by turns or courses and hath one of the Kings Maces or Serjeant at Armes at some certain times of Solempnity attending upon him a resemblance of a House of Peers in his Court of Aldermen where the Recorder is the Prolocutor and a House of Commons in his Common Counsel both which upon occasions he calls and adjourns at his pleasure hath his Court of Conscience like a Chancery for equity and several Courts of Justice and when he goeth with above 60 Companies of all Trades in a kind of triumph of their Trade and Mysteries to take his Oath before the Barons of the Exchequer hath all the worship and attendance which his Towns-men or Citizens can help him unto every one of which Companies of Trade having some 20 some 45 some 120 Livery men some in their Gowns of Budge and others with Foines who at 20 or 28 l. a piece are willing to purchase a share of preheminence in the rule and ill ordering instead of better of their several Fraternities of Deceipts together with their Whiflers Marshals-men
restored to that dignity he humbly upon his knees besought the King that he might not be restored to that which was so novel and strange The Earls or Counts of England antiently and before those dignities came to be granted for life or hereditary were as to matters of justice and government of Provinces as the Dukes Officiary and before the Norman Conquest were as our learned Selden observed sometimes Synonimously entituled Dux or Dukes as the Dukes were sometimes styled only Comites or Earls and signifyed men of Officiary dignities or Councellors of State about their Prince and Soveraign and were called Comites quia a Comitatu vel Familia Principis erant in regard of their dayly or often attendance upon the King or relating to his House or Family quasi in laborum principalium curarumque consortium assumpti a principibus qui per eos maxima quaeque gravissima negotia expedire consueverant and as more especially imployed to assist their Kings and Princes in their publique cares and labours and the dispatch of their most weighty affairs that custom or usage being Aeno Taciti when Tacitus wrote his Book or Annals and Agricola his Son-in-law wrote his book de moribus Germanorum of the Customs Manners of the Germans amongst the Germans about the Reign of the Emperour Domitian where the Comites Earls or Graven were Regum suorum Comites atque Adsessores sacra vice Judicantes Jura per pagos vicosque reddiderint were Attendants upon their Kings sate in the Courts of Justice as Assistants unto them did as their Delegates distribute Justice not only there but in all the Towns and Villages Et ex more antiquis Germanis passim usitato ex precipua Nobilitate illos sumebant qui provinciis munitioribus locis imperitarent and it was a custom amongst the old Germans every where used to choose out of the chief Nobility such as might govern the Provinces and places of most concernment Et Verus Imperator confecto Bello Parthico Provincias Comitatibus suis regendas dedit and Verus the Emperour after his warr ended with the Parthians made certain of his great men or followers his Comites governours of his Provinces who might also without an overstreining conjecture which is not here endeavoured to be asserted but is only left to the further enquiry and disquisition of the learned be called Comites in imitation probably or resemblance of the fidus Achates and Comites faithfull Attendants of the warlike and afflicted Eneas from whence the Romans we and many other Nations have believed their discenâ—s and originals not a little honoured and in the darkness and obscurity of former times and ages was the Gades ne plus ultra and farthest reach of many of the Europaean Brittish and Western Nations Genealogies were tanquam administri adjutores Consilii ac rerum participes proceres Palatii habentur as Ministers of State coadjutors and partakers of their Princes Counâ—el and Affairs and the most noble of the Empire attending upon the Emperors So as Marcellinus was said to be Comes Justiniani a near attendant upon the person and affairs of the Emperour Justinian who Reigned about the year of Christ 520. and were so entituled saith Loyseau a learned and considerable French Author pour ce que les Empereurs esloyent contrainctes faire plusieurs voyages pour mainteniâ— ceste grande estendue de leur Empire appelloient Comites leurs Compagnons ceux qui les accompanoient suivoyent for that the Emperors being constrained to make many voyages to maintain and keep in order that great extent of their Empire termed those which accompanyed and followed them Comites or their Companions as Julius Caesar was before contented to call his Souldiers Commilitones or fellow Souldiers de sorte que Comitatâ—s Comites estoient a Eux proprement ce que nous disons icy la Court les Courtisons and Comitatus antiently signified ipsam Aulam familiam Principis the Palace or Court of the Prince and Earldome and Counts or Comites properly signified that which we call the Court or Courtiers saith L' Oysean nom qui en â—in soulz Constantin fut un titre de haute dignite attribue particulierement aux principaux Officers de l' Empire a name which at length under Constantine came to be a Title of great dignity particularly attributed to the principal Officers of the Empire As the Comites Praetorii sacri Patrimonii Consistorii Domesticorum Peditum Equitum rei privatae largitionum portus Riparum Earls of the Sacred Palace or Steward or Master of the household or Court of the casual Revenue as a Lord Treasurer of the Privy Councel of the Guards of Horse and Foot of the private expences or privy purse the tributes rewards or bounties of the Aquaeducts Havens Lymits or Borders of Rivers Comes Stabuli Constable or Earl Marshall Comes Castrensis sacri Palatii Captain of the guards Comes Africae Comes Britanniae Comes littoâ—is Saxonici per Brittanniam Earl of Africk Earl of Brittain and Earl of the Saxon Shores in or by Brittain Comes limitum Italiae Earl of the Borders of Italy Comes Illirici Hispaniarum Orientis Earl of Illiria or Sclavony and the East And unto them and other Earls gave many great and noble Privileges and Immunities and were accompted by the Civil Law to be as the Emperors more especial Servants or Domesticks Et inter Cubicularios recensetur Comes Domorum and the Earl or Master of the Houshold though imployed in Cappadocia farr from the Imperial Coure was reckoned as of the Emperors Bed-chamber as was likewise the Comes Sacrae Vestis Earl or Master of the Wardrobe had their Legions Palatine and Comitacenses Regiments or Brigades under the Ensigns of the Counts Palatine and unto them and other Earls gave many great and noble Privileges and Immunities entertaining them in some honourable Offices in their Courts and Palaces and afterwards upon their merit and diligence therein did assign them as there was occasion to the Government of Provinces wherein they as the Dukes Marquesses and Earls had at the first but a grant or estate durante bene placito at the pleasure of the Prince or for a certain number of years afterwards for life and after that in the declension of the Empire or the Soveraign Authority sometimes by Usurpation or Custom and very often per sacros Codicillos by Grants or Letters Patents enlarged to an Estate in Tayl or Fief Masculine or of Inheritancâ— to them and their Heirs who being by those Titles of Honor and Military and Civil Offices and charges dayly or frequently conversant about the safety of the Soveraign and his people were justly accompted to be in all or most of the ages and civilized Nations Decus Gloria Imperii the Splendor and Glory of Majesty and Empire
signified by the Emblems or Figures of the Lyons guarding or supporting of Solomons Throne and astonishing Royalty Which most laudable custom was not only observed in the time of the Western and Eastern Emperors but of the Franks Goths Longobards and other Northern Nations who imitated them And from such honourable services and employments about Emperors Kings and Princes likewise were derived Count Palatines whom they found a kind of necessity to institute when they understood their other Subjects to be troubled that none but Romans had those honours and dignities conferred upon them and their Courts and Palaces appeared to be solitary and unfrequented and therefore opened the doors of honour to their Subjects of other Nations and Provinces as appears by the after usage of the Roman and Grecian Emperors and made and ordained Comites sacri Falatii Count Palatines which the Title of Count Palatine given by Charlemaine to Antholinus will further evidence and the Count Palatines of the Empire of Germany as Pasquier that learned Advocate of France hath remarked had their names from their Offices Superintendencies and Places which they antiently held au tour des Empereurs de Rome de la Suitte des Empereurs and in their service and attendance as Crmites Palatii were in Comitativa Principis in the Retinue of the Emperors which in the elder times were so reverenced and respected as it was not unfrequently in many Laws and good Authors stiled Sacra as meriting a veneration due unto Gods Vicegerents Et ipsa Principis Aula residentia and the Court and Palace of the Prince was saith Marquardus Freherus sometimes known by the name of Comitatus sacer comitatus a place of reverence more especially appropriate to honor and men deserving it and the French Kings Court is by the modern French at this day tearmed Comitatus and in the time of Charlemaine and his Son Hludowick Kings of France the Earls were tanquam Judices Judges in their several Earldomes or Provinces qui post Regem populum regere debent who next under the King as the Dukes did in their several Dukedoms were to govern the people necesse est ut tales instituantur qui sine periculo ejus qui â—os constituit quos sub se babent cum justitia aequitate gubernare officium adimplere procurent there being a necessity that such should be appointed who without danger of those who constituted or deputed them may have under them such as may govern them with Justice and Equity and do what belongeth to them And our Earls and English Nobility were of the like Character Esteem and Subserviency to our Kings and Princes when in the time of Bertulphus King of the Mercians who Reigned in England in the year of our Lord 851. such of them as had not as Sir Henry Spelman saith constant Offices or places in the Kings Court tenebantur ex more obsequii vinculo antiquissimo as also were the other Baronage in tribus maximis festivitatibuus Christi scilicet natalitiis Sancti Paschatis Pentecostes Regi Annuatim adesse cum ad curiam personam ipsius exornandum tum ad consulendum de negotiis regni statuendum que prout fuerat necessarium were by most antient custome and tye of obedience at three of the greatest Feasts in every year that is to say at Christmass Easter and Whitsontide to attend at the Kings Court as well for the honour of his Person and Court as to advise and councel him as there should be occasion in the weighty affairs of the Kingdom which saith that great light and restorer of our English Antiquities gave at the first an original and beginning to our great Councels afterwards and now called Parliaments and Johannes Saresburiensis stiled all the great Officers of the English Court Comites Palatini Earls or Lords of the Palace Royal at least such as being Earls were also honoured with the greater Court Dignities and had relation to the Dignities and Privileges of our English Nobility Such service and attendance of the Nobility upon the person and affairs of their Soveraign being not unusual in the dayes of Jehoiakim King of Judah when Michaiah the son of Gemariah found all the Princes sitting in the Kings house in the Scribes chamber and standing besides the King when the Roll of Baruch was read When the great King Ahasuerus made a Feast unto all his Princes and his servants the power of Persia and Media the Nobles and Princes of the Provinces being before him and he shewed the honour of his Excellent Majesty he advised concerning the misbehaviour of his Queen Vaschi with the wise men which knew the times for so was the Kings manner towards all that knew law and judgement and with the seven Princes of Persia and Media which saw the Kings face and sate the first in the Kingdome And those Officiary Dignities Honors and Privileges of the English Nobility were so consonant to the Law of Nations and the usage and customs of the Empire as in Anglia tam ante quam post Conquestore Wilhelmum Normannum Comites seu Graviones Justitiarii hisque cum ad privata quam publica judicia suis fuere in comitatibus and not only before but for sometimes after the Norman Invasion did under their Kings preside and govern the Justice of that County or Territory of which they were Earls and had allowed unto them the Tertium denarium Third penny or part of the fines and amerciaments and the customs and some other casual profits belonging to the Crown in their several Counties as our Selden a most universally learned and judious Lawyer hath in the Earldoms of Chester and Oxford observed and for some of the Ages succeeding the Norman atchievment have been Chief Justices of Englund as in the Reign of King Stephen Awbrey de Vere Earl of Guisnes Father of Awbrey de Vere the first Earl of Oxford Robert de Bellomont or Beaumont Earl of Leicester in the Reign of King Henry the 2d and Geoffrey Fitz-Peter Earl of Essex in the Reigns of King Richard the first and King John our Bracton acknowledging that our Earls and Nobility were upon occasions to attend upon the person of their Sovereign Prince calleth our Earls Comites a Comitando sive a Socieâ—ate from or by reason of their accompanying or attendance upon the person of the Prince saith dici possunt Consules Reges enim tales sibi associant ad consulendum and our Nation was not without its Local Count Palatines who had greater authorities and profits in their Counties and Jurisdictions than other Earls as those of Chester Lancaster Pembroke and the Palatineships belonging to the Bishopicks of Durham and Ely And Hoveden our old Annals and Selden that Monarch of Letters do tell us that King John die Coronationis suae accinxit Willielmuw Marescallum gladio Comitatus de Striguil
holden at the good will and pleasure of our Kings and Princes And Time in his long Travels hath not yet so let fall and left behind him those reverential duties and personal services of our Dukes Earls and Baronage as to invite a disuse or discontinuance of them when they have of late time not only when Summoned perform'd several Ministerial Offices as at the Coronation of our Kings but at other great Solemnities and Festivals as at the Feast of Saint George Where in the year 1627. being the third year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr the Lord Percy afterwards Earl of Northumberland carryed the Sword before the King the Lord Cavendish and Wentworth bearing up his Trayn the great Basin was holden by the Earls of Suffolk Devonshire Manchester and Lindsey the Earl of Devonshire the same day serving as Cupbearer the Earl of Cleveland as Carver the Lord Savage as Sewer none of the Knights of the Garter that day officiating In the year of our Lord 1638. the Earls of Kent Hartford Essex Northampton Clare Carlisle Warwick Dover St. Albans and the Viscount Rochford were summoned by the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings houshold to attend at the instalment of the Prince Knight of the Garter and in the year 1640. amongst other young Noblemen appointed to attend the King at his going to the Parliament the Duke of Buckingham Earl of Oxford and Lord Buckhurst did bear up his Trayn The Earls of Leicester had the Office of Steward of England distinguished from and not so antient as the Steward of the Houshold who injoyed but an incertain estate of during pleasure annexed to the Earldom of Leicester and accounted as parcel of it William Marshal Earl of Pembroke to be Earl Marshal of England Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex to be Constable of England and to hold some principal part of their Lands and Estates by Inheritance in Fee or in Tayl by the Tenure of those very honourable Offices and Services as the Manor of Haresfield in the County of Gloucester per servitium essendi Constabular Angliae by the Service of being Constable of England and the Offices of Earl Marshal and Constable were distinct and antiently exercised in the Kings Court as Marescalcia Curiae Constabularia Curiae were afterwards as the Learned Sir Henry Spelman conceived by some extent and enlargement gained of their Jurisdictions or rather by the Tenure of some of their Lands separately stiled Constable and Earl Marshals of England leaving the Office or Title of Sub-Marshal or Knight-Marshal to exercise some part of the Office of the Earl-Marshals Jurisdictions as more appropriate to the Kings House or Courts of Justice some antient Charters of our Kings of England before the Reign of King Henyy the second and some in his Reign after his grant of the Constableship of England was made by him to Miles of Gloucester informing us by the Subscriptions of Witnesses that there was a Constable during the Kings pleasure and sometimes two besides the Constable of England who claimed and enjoyed that Office by Inheritance The Custody of the Castle of Dover and the keeping of the Cinque-Ports were granted by King Henry the sixth to Humphrey Duke of Buckingham and the Heirs Males of his body The Earls of Oxford for several Ages and the now Earl of Lindsey descending from them as Heir General now being Stewards Keepers or Wardens of the Forest of Essex and Keepers of King Edward the Confessors antient Palace of Havering at the Bower in the said County to him and his Heirs claimed and enjoyed from a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Badlesmere and he from a Daughter and Coheir of Thomas de Clare And some of our Nobility believed it to be no abasement of their high birth and qualities to be imployed in some other Offices or Imployments near the person or but sometimes residence of the King as to be Constable of his Castle or Palace of Windsor as the late Duke of Buckingham was in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr and Prince Rupert that now is or Keeper of the Kings house or Palace of VVoodstock and Lieutenent of VVoodstock Park as the late Earl of Lindsey was for the term of each of their natural lives And some illustrious and worthy Families as that of the Marshals Earls of Pembroke Butler now Duke of Ormond the Chamberlains antiently descended from the Earl of Tancarvil in Normandy who was hereditary Chamberlain of Normandy to our King Henry the first and our Barons Dispencers have made their Sirnames and those of their after Generations the grateful Remembrancers of their very honourable Offices and Places under their Soveraign it being accounted to be no small part of happiness to have lands given them to hold by grand Serjeanty some honourable Office or attendance upon our Kings at their Coronation as to carry one of the Swords before him or to present him with a Glove for his right hand or to support his right hand whilst he held the Virge Royal claymed by the Lord Furnivall or to carry the great Spurrs of Gold before him claymed by John Hastings the Son and Heir of John Hastings Earl of Pembroke or to be the Kings Cupbearer claymed by Sir John de Argentine Chivaler And some meaner yet worthy Families have been well content to have Lands given unto them and their Heirs to hold by the Tenures of doing some personal Service to the Kings and Queens of England at their Coronations the Service of the King or Prince being in those more virtuous times so welcome to all men and such a path leading to preferment as it grew into a Proverb amongst us not yet forgotten No Fishing to the Sea no Service to the King And was and is so much a Custome of Nations as in the German Empire long before the Aurea Bulla the Golden Bull or Charter of Charles the 4th Emperour was made in the year 1356. being about the middle of the Reign of our King Edward the third and not a new Institution as many have mistaken it as is evident by the preamble and other parts of that Golden Bull which was only made to preserve an Unity amongst the seven Electors and better methodize their business and Elections The Princes Electors were by the Tenure of their Lands and Dominions to perform several services to the Emperor and his Successors As the Prince Elector or Count Palatine of the Rhine was to do the service of Arch Sewer of the Empire at the Coronation of the Emperour or other great Assemblies the Duke of Saxony Stall Master or Master of ths Horse the Marquess of Brandenburgh Chamberlain the King of Bohemia Cup-bearer and in Polonia at this day Sebradousky the now Palatine of Cracow claimeth and enjoyeth by Inheritance the Office or Place of Sword-bearer to the Crown or King of Poland And so highly and rightly valued were those Imployments and Offices as they that did but
Officiate under them as their Deputies believed their Heirs and Lands to be blessed in the continuance and enjoyments of such Offices as might but sometimes bring them into the notice and affairs of the Prince and Emperours as the Baron of Papenheim in Germany and his Heirs to be Sub-Marshall to the Duke and Elector of Saxony the Baron of Limpurgh Vice-Butler to the King of Bohemia and the Baron of Falkenstem Vice-Chamberlain to the Elector of Brandenburgh who hath also an hereditary Marshall and the Electors of Mentz Colen and Triers the like and Christophorus Leisserus a Baron was Culinae Magister at the Coronation of the Emperour Mathias in Anno Domini 1612. The Viscounts a Title no longer ago than the Reign of King Henry the sixth as our great Selden saith turned into a Dignity Titular or Peerage being formerly and long after the Conquest but the Deputies of the Earls in their several Counties for the Administration of Justice with which the Earls were entrusted since câ—ntra distincts to the Title or Honour of Viscount and but a Sheriff or Officer of the Kings for the execution of Justice and so well liked of before that new Title of Viscounts was brought in betwixt the Earls and Barons of England as Hubert de Burgo afterwards Earl of Kent was in the Reign of King John not only Chamberlain to the King but at one and the same time Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and the noble and antient Family of Cliffords accompted it as a favour of the Crown to be hereditary Sheriffs or Ministers of Justice in the County of Westmerland where they had Lands Baronies and honourable Possessions and having afterwards a greater honour by the Earldome of Cumberland conferred upon them disdained not to let the one accompany the other in the service of their Prince The Barons whether as the Judicious and Learned Sir Henry Spelman informs us they be feudall as gaining their honours by their Lands and Baronies given them to that purpose which in our Records and antient Charters are not seldome mentioned by the name of Honours as the Honours of Abergavenny Dudley c. or by Writs summoned to Parliament or by Patents created only into that Titular Honour either of which made a Tenure in Capite for otherwise they could not sit and enjoy their Peerage in Parliament the Kings greatest Councel are and antiently were accompted to be in their several Orbes Robur Belli the strength and power of Warr and as Barones or Vassalli Capitales men of greater estate or note than ordinary and were as the old Barones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Barangi wbo did with their Battel-Axes attend the Emperours of the East in their Courts or Palaces as their Guard sometimes on Foot and at othertimes on Horse-back and were as Codinus saith reckoned inter Honoratiores Officiales the most honourable Offices of the Court attending near the Emperours either at their Meat or Chappel or publick Addresses and in the Kingdome of Bohemia which is now no more than elective and where there are neither Dukes nor Marquesses and but few Earls the Title of Baron is of so high an esteem and the Barons of that Kingdome so jealous of any thing which might diminish it as when a Duke who is a Stranger comes to be there naturalized they do first oblige him to quit or renounce the using of his Title of Duke there and to content himself only with the Title of a Baron of Bohemia and saith Sir Henry Spelman sub Baronis appellatione recte veniunt our Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts are comprehended under the name of Baron Cum vel maximus as the experience and practice of our Laws and Kingdome will evidence principis sit Vassallus when the greatest of them is but a Liege-man and Vassâ—l of the King eique tenentur homagii vinculo seu potius Baronagii hoc est de agendo vel essendo Barone suo quod hominem seu Clientem praestantiorem significat and is by the Bond of his homage or Baronage to do all things as his Baron which signifieth to be his Liege-man and more extraordinary Subject holding his Lands of him upon those beneficiary gainful honourable conditions and depending upon him and his Patronage it being to be remembred that those honorary possessions and the owners thereof did by that dependency well deserve that encomium and observation which John Gower made of them about the Reign of King Richard the second that The Privilege of â—egalie was safe and all the Barony worshipt was in his Estate And it is well known that our antient Kings in all their Rescripts Grants or Charters unto Abbyes or any other of their people directed them Archiepiscopis Episcopis Comitibus Justiciariis Baronibus Vicecomitibus Ministris suis to their Arch-bishops Bishops Earls Barons Justices and Sheriffs and other their Ministers the word Ministris being in the language of the times not only since but before the Conquest not infrequently appropriate to the Kings houshold Servants as the Charters and Subscriptions of witnesses of many of our elder Kings will abundantly evidence and the Barones Majores stiled by our Kings not unfrequently in many of their Charters Barones suos Barones nostros Barones Regios their Barons and the Kings Barons as William de Percy and many other have been called though by such Charters they could be no more concerned in it than to be Assistant in the performance and obedience of the Royal Mandates and in many Acts of Parliament have been stiled the Kings Nobles or Nobility the Deâ—neâ— Thanes or Nobility saith the eminently and universally learned Selden denoting a Servant or Minister was as well before as sometimes since the Norman Conquest Officiary Personal and Honorary and the Possessions of the Thanes from whence our Barons and Baronies were derived were held by the Service of Personal Attendance Et certissimum est saith that great and eminent Antiquary Sir Henry Spelman that Barones Majores the greater Barons which hold of the King in Capiti Judiciis praefuere Aulae Regiae did usually sit and determine causes or controversies in the Kings Court or Palace as the Barons of the Coife in the Exchequer who were heretofore Earls and Barons of England do at this day in Westminster Hall judge and determine of matters concerning the Kings Revenues And as the Lords of Mannors in their Court Barons do admit none to be Judges in those little Courts but their Tenants who are Freeholders and which do immediately hold of them are stiled and said to be of the Homage and do subserviently manage and order their Affairs therein as very antiently they did consilio prudentum hominum militum suorum by their presentments and judgements so not much differing from the Laws and Customs of the Germans where by the Court of Peers are understood causarum Feudalium Judices
a Caesare constituti qui sine provocatione cognoscebant the Judges appointed by the Emperour to hear and determine without appeal matters concerning their Lands and Territories in the House of Peers in Parliament being the highest Court of the Kingdome of England none were there admitted or did administer Justice nisi qui proximi essent a Rege ipsique arctioris fidei homagii vinculo conjuncti but such as were near unto the King held of him in Capite and were therefore called Capitanei Regni as Sir Henry Spelman saith Captains of the Kingdome and Peers being obliged and bound unto him by Homage and Fealty that highest and most honourable Court of the Kingdome wherein the Judicative Power of Parliament under the King their Head and Chief resides for the lower house or Representative of the Commons are but as a Court of grand Enquest to exhibit the grievances of the Nation and the People who did choose them to represent them as their Procurators give their consent to the raising of moneys for publick occasions and benefit and the making of good Laws intended to be obeyed by them being constituted by the King their Head and Soveraign the Prince or Heir apparent Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons Arch-bishops Bishops and some of the greater Abbots and Pryors holding their Lands and Possessions of the King in Capite until they were dissolved the Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Councel Lord Treasurer Lord Privy Seal Lord Admiral Lord Chamberlain of England and of the Houshold Grand Master or Steward of the Kings house and the Kings Chief Secretary though no Barons assisted by the Learned and Reverend Judges of the Law and Courts of Justice at Westminster Hall who have no vote Masters of Chancery Clark of the Crown and Clark of that more Eminent part of the Parliament sitting in their several and distinct places according to their qualities and degrees upon benches or woolsacks covered with red cloth before the Kings Throne or Chair of Estate attended by the Kings Senior Gentleman Usher of the Presence Chamber called the black Rod to whom for or by reason of his attendance upon that honourable Assembly is and hath been antiently allowed annexed for his better support the little Park of Windsor with an house or lodge thereunto belonging of a good yearly value Serjeants at Arms Clarks of that higher house of Parliament as the members reverencing taking care for their Head and Soveraign the Only under God Protector of themselves and all their worldly concernments laws and liberties in which high and honourable Assembly the Archbishops and Bishops do enjoy the priviledge and honour of being present by reason of their Baronies which howsoever given in Frank Almoigne and as Elemosinary are holden in capite debent interesse judiciis curiae regis cum Baronibus are not to be absent saith the constitution or Act of Parliament made at Clarendon by K. Henry the second and that honourable Tenure being Servitium Militare a tye of duty and service to them as well as to the other Baronage any neglect therein was so penal unto them as the Lords in Parliament saith William Fitz Stephen cited by the learned Selden did in the Reign of King Henry the Second notwithstanding that Arch-bishops plea and defence wherefore he did not come to that great Councel or Parliament when he was commanded condemn the Ruffling and domineering Arch-bishop Tho. Becket in a great sum of money the forfeiture of all his moveable goods and to be at the Kings mercy guilty of high Treason for not coming to that high Court when he was cited and the reason given of that judgement for that ex reverentia Regiae Majestatis ex astrictione ligii homagii quod Domino Regi fecerat ex fidelitate observantia terreni honoris quemei Juraverat for that in the reverence and respect which he ought to have shewed to the Majesty of the King and by his homage made unto him and his Oath of Fealty sworn to observe and defend his Honour he ought to have come but did not and a Fine was afterwards likewise obout the Reign of King Edward the second imposed upon the Lord Bello-monte or Beaumont for not attending when he was summoned ad Consulendum Regi to give the King his Advice or Councel And certainly those great and many singular privileges and immunities given by our Kings the Fountains and Establishers of honours and the Offices and Imployments about their Sacred Persons appurtenant unto that noble and very Antient Degree and Titles of Episcopacy may easily invite the order of Bishops not to think it to be a disparagement to their Hierarchy when the dignity Royal of our Kings do as the Roman Emperours since the time of Constantine the Great necessarily require by turns or sometimes in every year the attendance of the Bishops in their Courts or Palaces and they are to be a la Suite du Roy pour honorer sa Majeste to be near the King for the honour of his Majesty when the King is the Guardian and Head of the Church and the Arch-bishop of Canterbury his Apocrisiarius which was an antient Office and Title of the Bishops afterwards appropriate to the Arch-bishop or Metropolitan who was in Palatio pro Ecclesiasticis negotiis excubare to oversee and take care of the Affairs of the Church in the Kings Court or Palace Capellanus Regis dictus omnibus praefuit negotiis ministris ecclesiae was stiled the Kings Chaplain presided and was under the King superintendent as to Ecclesiastical Affairs over all the business and Ministers of the Church and Chappel and in those things quae ad divinum Cultum in principiâ— aula pertinent precipua semper fuit cura atque sollicitudo Archiepiscopi which appertained to Gods worship in the Kings Palace the chief care and business thereof in the duties of Religion and holy Rites belongeth unto him and is in that particular but as the Kings special Chaplain not as Mathew Parker a learned and worthy Archbishop of that See in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when the Papal inflations were out of fashion would make the reason of those privileges to be because the Kings and Queens of Enggland were ejus speciales atque domesticos Parochianos his more especial Parishioners and the whole Kingdome howsoever divided into distinct Diocesses was but as one Parish though he could not be ignorant that the Arch-bishop of York and his Suffragan Bishops in one and the same Kingdome were none of his Parish nor was as Doctor Peter Heylin a right learned and dutiful Son of the Church of England by antient privilege of the See of Canterbury supposeth him to be Ordinary of the Court of his Majesties houshold being reckoned to be his Parishioners or of his Peculiar wheresoever the same shall be the Chancellor
many great and high priviledges as not to be examined in an action of debt upon account but their Attorneys are permitted to be examined upon Oath for them not to be amerced or taxed but by their Peers secundum modum delicti according to the nature of their offence Et hoc per Barones de Scaccario vel coram ipso Rege and in such cases before only the Barons of the Exchequer or before the King himself if a Parkership be granted to an Earl without words to make a deputy he may do it by his Servants if a Duke Earle or any other of the Baronage do chase or hunt in any of the Kings Parkes the law for conveniency and in respect of his dignity will permit him so many attendants as shall be requisite to the dignity of his estate are not to be summoned to a Court Leet or Shire Reeves Turn or take their Oathes of Allegiance as all other Males above the age of 12 are to do neither they nor their Wives are where they cast an Esseine to make Oath as those which are under the degree of Barons ought to do of the truth of the cause alledged for their Essoine but are only to find pledges and if upon that Essoine allowed a default be made at the day appointed amertiandi sunt Plegii the pledges but not the Earles or Barons are to be amerced are exempted by the Seatute of the 5 th of Eliz. cap. 1. from taking the Oath of Supremacy for that the Queen as that Statute saith was well assured of the Faith of the Temporal Lords shall have the benefit of their Clergy in all cases but Murder and Poysoning are not to be put to the Rack or tortured nor to suffer death even in cases of Treason by the shamefull death of Hanging Drawing and affixing their Heads and Quarters in some publick places or as at Naples they execute common persons for such most execrable offences by beheading them and putting their Heads upon the Market-place and hanging afterwards the naked Corps in some pubblick place by one of their Toes but are by the favour and warrant of the King only beheaded and their bodies with their heads laid by permitted to be decently buried Shall not be tryed by any Ecclesiastical Courts but per Pares by their Peers for Non-conformity to Common-Prayer shall have Chaplains according to their several degrees and limitations of number who may hold two Benefices with cure When the Sheriff of a County is commanded to raise the posse comitatus the power of a County he is not to command the personal service of the Baronage or Nobility a Baron or a Noble man is not to pray that a Coroner may receive his accusation or to prove and approve his accusation or appeal in every point or to be disabled for want thereof When the King by Writ of Summons to Parliament Scire Facias or his Letters missive shall send for any of the Arch-bishops Bishops Earls or Barons to appear before him or give their attendance they may in their going or returning kill a Deer or two in any of his Forrests Chases and Parkes and carry them away a Capias ad satisfaciend lieth not against a Peer or Baron of England a Baron shall not be impannelled of a common Jury although it be for the service of the Country no Attachment for a contempt in not appearing or answering in Chancery lyeth against them their Lands parcel of their Earldoms Baronies or Honors being not to be contributary to the wages of Knights of the Shire or County wherein those Lands do lie are in cases of Felony or Treason to be tryed only by their Peers and their Wives are by a Statute made in the 20 th year of King Henry the 6 th to enjoy the like priviledge upon the Surety of the Peace prayed against a Baron he is not to be arrested by warrant from a Justice and upon a Supplicavit out of the Chancery shall give no surety but promise only upon his Honor A Defendant shall not have a day of Grace given him against a Lord of Parliament because he is supposed to attend the affairs of the publick a Baron shall not answer upon Oath to a Bill in Chancery or Equity but upon protestation of Honor nor in a verdict upon a Tryal by Peers for saith Crompton the Law makes so much account of the word of a Peer of the Realm when he speaks upon his honor though it be in Case or upon Tryal for life as it shall be believed a Baron shall not have a writ of Subpaena directed unto him but a Letter under the Hand and Seal of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England is not to be arrested or outlawed for Debt or any other personal action not criminal there being two Reasons saith our Law why the person of a Lord should not be arrested or outlawed for Debt or Trespass the one in respect of his dignity and the other in respect that the law presumes that they have sufficient lands and tenements by which they may be distreined in the Long Writ called the Prerogative Writ issuing out of the Exchequer to distreine the lands and goods of the Kings debtors or in default thereof to attach their bodies there is an express exception of Magnatum dominorum dominarum of the Nobility and their Ladies and the Office of Count or Earl was of great trust and confidence for two purposes the first ad consulendum Regi tempore pacis to councel assist and advise the King for the Weale publick in time of peace and the second ad defendendum Regem patriam tempore belli to defend their King and Country in time of War and by their power prowess and valour guard the Realm both which are the proper business of the Barons and the other Nobility as well as the Earls and in action of Debt Detinue or Trespass or in any other action reall or personal brought or commenced for or against any of the Nobility two Knights shall be impannelled on the Jury with other men of worth and by a late necessary and honorable care of the late Lord Chancellor and Master of the Rolls no Original Writ against any of the Nobility in a subsequent Term is permitted to be antedated or to take benefit of a precedent as is now commonly used against such as are not of the Peerage or Nobility Mr. Selden giving us the Rule that tenere de Rege in Capite per Baroniam to hold of the King in Capite and to have lands holden by Barony and to be a Baron are one and the same thing and Synonymies and not a few of our antient Writers and Memorialls have understood the word Baronia to signifie an Earldom or the lands appertaining thereunto which may make it to be more then conjectural that it
with all the liberties and free customes to the said honour appertaining that of later granted to the Earl of Pembroke by King Edward the 6 th of the Earldome of Pembroke cum omnibus singulis praeheminentiis honori Comitis pertinentibus with all preheminencies and honors belonging to the honour and dignity of an Earl Et habere sedem locum vocem as all the grants and Creations of the later Earles do now allow and import in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis Consiliis nostrorum haeredum successorum infra regnum Angliis inter alios Comites and to have place vote or suffrage in the Parliaments or Councells of the King his heirs or successors amongst the Earles within the Kingdome of England nec non uti gandere omnibus singulis Juribus privilegiis praeheminentiis immunitatibus statui comitis in omnibus rite de I're pertinentibus quibus caeteri comites Regni Angliae ante haec tempora melius honorificentius quietius liberius usi gravisi sunt as likewise to use and enjoy all and singular rights priviledges immunities and preheminencies to the degree and state of an Earl in every thing rightly and by law appertaining as other Earles of the Kingdome of England best most honourably and freely have used and enjoyed all who the aforesaid antient honorable priviledges preheminencies and immunities granted and allowed the Nobility and Baronage of England those Sons and Generations of merit adorned by their ancestors vertue aswell as their own and the honors which their Soveraigns have imparted unto them have been ratified by our Magna Charta so very often confirmed by several Acts of Parliament and the Petition of Right in and by which the properties and liberties of all the people of England are upheld and supported and therefore the honors and dignities being personal Officiary or relating to their service and attendance upon the throne and Majesty Royal and conducing to the Honor Welfare and safety of the King and his people King Henry the 6 th may be thought to have been of the same opinion when the Commons in Parliament having in the 29 th year of his raign Petitioned him that the Duke of Sommerset Dutchess of Suffolk and others may be put from about his person he consented that all should depart unless they be Lords whom he could not spare from his person And in Askes Rebellion in Yorkshire in the latter end of the raigne of King Henry the 8 th the Commons complained that the King was not although he had many about him of great Nobility served or attended with Noble or worthy men And also the Lords Spiritual assembled in Parliament in the second year of the raigne of King Charles the Martyr when they Petitioned the King against the Inconveniences of some English mens being created Earles Viscounts and Barons of Scotland or Ireland that had neither residence nor estates in those Kingdomes did amongst other things alledge that it was a Shame to nobility that such persons dignified with the titles of Barons Viscounts c should be exposed and obnoxious to arrests they being in the view of the law no more then meer Plebejans and prayed that his Majesty would take some Course to prevent the prejudice and disparagement of the Peers and Nobility of this Kingdome who being more peculiarly under the protection of their Soveraigne in the enjoyment of their priviledges have upon any invasion thereof a more special addresse unto him for the Conservation thereof as in the case of the Earl of Northampton the twentieth day of June in the 13 th year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr against Edmond Cooper a Serjeant at Mace in London and William Elliot for arresting of him they were by the Lord Chamberlains warrant apprehended and committed to the Marshall and not discharged but by warrant of the Lord Chamberlain bearing date the third day of July next following and needs not seem unusual strange or irrational unto any who shall but observe and consult the liberties priviledges immunities and praeheminencies granted and permitted unto the Nobility of many other Nations and Countries aswell now as very antiently by their Municipal and reasonable customes and the civil or Caesarean laws CHAP. XVI That many the like priviledges and praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarian laws and the Municipall Laws and reasonable Customes of many other Nations granted and allowed to the nobility thereof WHen as the Hebrews who thought themselves the most antient wise and priviledged of the Sonnes of men had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuum principes Capita qui cum Rege sedentes partim consilia mibant partim Jus reddebant Princes of the Tribes under the King were the chief Magistrates and heads of the people attended the King sate with him as his Councel and assisted him in the making of laws of which the book of God giveth plentiful evidences Solomon had his Princes some of whom were set over his household Ahab had Princes of his Provinces Jehoram King of Israel leaned upon the hand of a Lord that belonged unto him And our Saviour Christ alludeth to the Princes of Israel the Elders and Judges of the people when he saith his twelve Apostles should after the Consummation of the world sit and Judge the twelve Tribes of Israel amongst the Graecians the nobility derived their honors from their Kings and Princes and by the lawes of Solon and the ten Tables were alwaies distinguished from the Common people and had the greatest honours and authorities and in all other Nations who live under Monarchs have been favoured and endowed therewith the old Roman Nobility refused to marry with the Ignoble as those of Denmark and Germany do now which our English descended from the later did so much approve of as they accompted it to be a disparagement to all the rest of the Family and Kindred to marry with Citizens or people of mean Extractions Julius Caesar when he feasted the Patricii or Nobility and the common people entertained the Nobility in one part of his Palace and the Common people in another and not denied some part of it even in the Venetian and Dutch Republick as amongst many other not here ennumerated Nobilis minus suâ—t puniendi quam ignobilis Noble men are not to be so severely punished as ignoble Nobiles propter debitum Civile vel ex causa aeris alieni non debent realiter citari vel in Carcerem duci are not for debts or moneys owing to be arrested or imprisoned propter furtum vel aliud crimen suspendio dignum laquei supplicio non sunt plectendi are not for Theft or any other Crime to be hanged and that priviledge so much allowed and insisted upon in the Republick or Commommon wealth of Genoar in the height of their envy or dislike of their Nobility as they did about the
libertatis privilegij praedictorum laesionem manifestam to the prejudice of the rights of the Crown and violation of the liberty and priviledge aforesaid hujusmodi vijs modis quibus poterint praecanere libertatem privilegia sua praedicta manu tenere cupientes And that they were desirous by all the ways and means they could to hinder such doings so prejudicial unto them and were resolved to maintain the Liberties and Priviledges of the Crown And not be able to protect his Houshold and domestick Servants in whose daily service and continual attendance both our Kings and their Subjects were more concerned than they could be by any the service or attendance of the Officers or Clerks in the Court of Chancery Which the Lords in Parliament did so well understand to be a Right inherent and due unto Royal Majesty as in the three and fortieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth they did in the Case of William Huggen one of the Queens Servants arrested upon an Execution send the Gentleman-Usher attending upon their House to the Prison of the Fleet to bring him before them and upon view of Precedents of some of their own Servants delivered though none of any the Kings or Queens did in conformity to the reason thereof cause the Plaintiff upon the Defendants promise to pay him to release him and the Under-Sheriff being committed to the Fleet was three days after upon his Petition discharged And in the first year of the Reign of King James The Earl of Suffolk Lord Chamberlain of the Kings House did procure Nicholas Reading one of his Majesties Servants arrested by an Execution at the Suit of Sir Edward Hales to be brought before the Lords in Parliament by a Writ of Habeas Corpus and so by the Plaintiffs consent released the Order mentioning that such an Arrest was contrary to the honor and priviledge of that Court. Or that not only the Judges of the superior Courts the Justices of Peace can as they have done it antiently and commonly imprison men for Contempts of them or their written Orders or verbal Commands without which they power could not Tueri Jurisdictionem uphold that Authority which the King had given them but the Constables of every Parish in London whose Offices and Authority at the first were saith the judicious and learned Lambard but as the fingers to the hands or body of the Constable of England a great Officer of the King and his Crown can in their Night-watches command better men than themselves to the Compters or London Prisons there to lodge the remainder of the night among the debauched or unruly sort of people calld Rats or Night-walkers but for angring his worship or not believing that he is a Prince of the Night the Kings Image and none of the smaller parcels of mortality and shall have so much connivence at his no seldom committed Follies as no other Habeas Corpus shall be granted to the injured person thn a submissive paying of his Fees of imprisonment and procuring himself as well as he can to be discharged by the greater discretion of the Lord Mayor or an Alderman before whom he is the next morning to be brought with his not to be discerned Fault or offences and if he should seek afterwards to be recompenced for such an affront is to expect as little favour as may be for himself and as much as may be for his adversary And that the King under whose Power and Authority they acted should not be able by his own immediate command or the Warrant of some of the great Officers of his Crown or Houshold to punish by imprisonment any contempts committed against himself and his soveraign power by the arresting of his domestick and houshold Servants without Licence who are neare unto his person and imployed in his hourly or daily service or attendance or that his power and Authority should not be efficacious or valid in his own case or immediate concernment and should be valid and sufficient to punish such as either contemned or abused his Justices and Servants extraordinary who are more remote from his person in the administration of his Justice As when Eustace de Parles and his brother were by King Edward the first in the one and twentieth year of his Reign committed to the Tower of London for abusing and striking in Westminster Hall William de Bereford one of his Justices of his Court of Common-Pleas And King Edward the third by his Justices and Authority punished the Bayliffs of Ipswich by the Forfeiture and Loss of their places seised the Liberties of the Town and delivered the Custody thereof to another during the Kings pleasure and made the Bayliffs of the Town to deliver in Court their Staves of Office for that they had suffered an unruly multitude to feast and revel with certain Malefactors condemned by the Justices of Assize and after their departure made a Mock game of them in sitting upon the Tribunal and Fining them and their Clerks Or that any should think it reasonable or no disservice of the King or his not to be incumbred Affairs to arrest any of his Houshold Servants without a Licence first obtained And shall at the same time decry or declaim against the Arresting of a Judge sitting in his delegated Court of Justice or travelling in the Circuit by and under the Kings Commission at the Suit of any private person or the Arresting and Imprisonment of an Admiral or Vice-Admiral going to Sea or a Commander or Governor of a Castle Fort or Garison upon the like occasion and think it reasonable that the King in reference to the Weal-publique in those his affairs and concernments should by priviledge protect and shelter them A right understanding whereof and of that which hath been before alleaged and the reasons supporting those Judgments of the not ignorant or unworthy but very learned grave and upright Judges in those former Ages and Times and of the Duties Honor and Respects which were and ought to be paid to the Soveraignty just and necessary means of Government assented unto by our Lawes and reasonable Customs of England and in praxi observantia junioris Aevi in the practise and course of Law in the succeeding Ages not denied by any positive or well interpreted Law may grant a Proeibition and give a Checque or Restraint to those opinions so of late hatch'd and hug'd against too many of the Actions of Authority in order to Government and the Weal-publique the necessity of preventing Evils before they happen or diverting abating or lessening them after they are happened and invite them to forsake their overmuch adoration of Sir Edware Cokes aforesaid Errors and believe Sir Thomas Ridley a Doctor of the civil Lawes and no stranger to our Common-Lawes who no longer ago than the beginning of the Reign of King James in his Book intituled A view of the Civil Ecclâ—siastical and Temporal