Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	francis_n	sir_n	william_n	36,923	5	8.8615	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49982	An account at large of the Right Honourable the Earl of Danby's arguments at the Court of King's-bench at Westminster, upon his Lordship's motion for bail, the 27th day of May, term. pasch, 1682 together with the judges answers and the Earl's replyes, as they were then truly taken.	Leeds, Thomas Osborne, Duke of, 1631-1712.; England and Wales. Court of King's Bench.	1682 (1682)	Wing L918; ESTC R863	28,531	31

his Lordship's being Bailed His Lordship did thereupon say that this also was particular in his Case and he did believe there was scarce a Precedent in the World of the King's Prisoner and at the King's Suit not being Bailed when there hath been the King's Consent to it unless where the Prisoner hath not been able to find sufficient Security for his Appearance to abide his Trial. For that the two only Justifiable Grounds for the Continuance of Restraint by the Law are either for keeping the Party from being able to doe any harm by his being at Liberty of which the King is the best Judge or for securing the Party to abide the Judgement of the Law in which the Court ought to have good satisfaction and so they might have sufficiently in his Case He said that the Precedent would be no less strange and new against the King than against himself if they should not permit him to be Bailed under such Circumstances For he had heard that the Law did admit of no Absurdity Now he did desire to know how any thing could in reason be more absurd on behalf of the King than if the King's Prisoner and at the King's Suit should be kept in Prison by any of the King's Courts against the King's Will Or how said he can any thing be more dangerous to the Subject or be a plainer failure of Justice whatever may be pretended to the contrary than to say that there can be any such restraint of English liberty as cannot obtain so much as Bail but by the leave of the House of Lords When that House can neither meet but when the King pleases nor can never sit longer than he pleases So that to say a Man shall be a close Prisoner I mean by that a Prisoner without Bail for Bail it self is Imprisonment in the Eye of the Law till he shall be discharged by the House of Lords is to say that a man shall be a Prisoner during the King's pleasure which was the Great Grievance complained of when the Petition of Right was granted and that was thought to have fully and for ever Redressed that Grievance But if after so many heats and disputes which our Ancestors have had with the Crown about their Liberties this Doctrine should now be admitted for Law We would seem to endeavour as much as in us lies to bring it to this Conclusion and be our own Felo's De se That the King shall have a way found out by our selves and without his seeking how he may Imprison any Man or number of Men when he pleases in a Parliamentary way and by Dissolving that Parliament he may keep them as long as he pleases in a Prison without remedy But that he shall neither have power to Relieve us himself by his own Authority nor by his Courts of Justice So as in short by this Doctrine The King should only have power to hurt his Subjects as much and as long as he pleases but should not be able to doe them any Right if he would and then we shall have Magna Charta and the Petition of Right Reverss'd instead of receiving that benefit by them which the Kings of England have been so Gracious as to give us and all the Learned Writers upon those happy Laws of Liberty have told us we are secure under at all times and against all Accidents whatever He then begg'd leave to observe to his Lordship what he found in my Lord Chief Justice Coke's Comments upon Magna Charta who said that the words Nulli Vendemus Nulli Negabimus aut Differemus Justitiam vel Rectum are spoken in the Person of the King who in Judgment of Law is always present and repeating the said words in all his Courts of Justice And therefore says he every Subject in the Realm may at all times have remedy by the course of the Law and may have Justice done Freely fully and Speedily without delay for that Delay is a Sort of Denial The said Lord Coke observes further that those words of Magna Charta are fully Expounded by latter Statutes viz. 20 E. 3. c. which do direct that there shall be no delay nor hindrance of speedy Justice to any man neither by any Seal nor by any Order nor any Writ whatsoever neither from the King nor from any other nor by any other Cause Now whatever may be said out of other Considerations he said no Man can deny but that there is great delay of Justice to say no worse of it to any Man who through no neglect of his own can neither get Trial nor Bail in above three years although his Crimes were never so great And he said he durst be confident that the Makers of Magna Charta did believe they had secured all English Men from ever being under the possibility of such a Danger and that he made no question at all but that by Law we are so He said that the said Lord Coke does say in his Comment upon the 15 th W. 1 o. where he speakes of what things are Baileable and what are not and names Treason amongst the things not Baileable that is says he such offences shall not be Replevied by the Sheriff but all or any of these he saith may be Bailed in the King 's Bench. And he said he had also some of the present Judges opinions to shew in this point which he desired to Reade out of a Copy of the Lords Journal viz. 23d Decem. 1678 the Question being put whether the Lord Treasurer should withdraw 't was carried in the Negative and on the 27th of the said December the Question being put whether the Earl of Danby Lord High Treasurer who stands Impeached by the House of Commons should be Committed It was Resolved in the Negative And it was the same day proposed to the Judges whether the Judges can Bail any Person in Case of Misprission of Treason wherein the King's life is concern'd To which Sir William Scroggs Lord Chief Justice of the King 's Bench Sir Francis North Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas Justice Windham Justice Jones and other of the Judges then present gave severally their Opinions that the Court of King's Bench may take Bail for High-Treason of any kind if they see cause He cited the Lord Coke also in his Comment on the 24 th W. 2 o. where he says that it is a Rule in Law Quod Curia Regis non debet Deficere Conquerentibus in Justitia Exhibenda And the reason of this is that a failure of Justice may be prevented which he frequently says is Abhorred by the Law So as it appears that The Law Abhors all failure of Justice and he said that if such failure do appear in his Case or any Man 's else no Order can license such Failure nor no Court can Justify the not giving Relief against it and he said he should either make such failure appear or his Lordship meaning the Lord Chief Justice would

and half after his Imprisonment that he was not a Week without Endeavours used by strange People to get to speak with him and such as he had reason often to suspect to be Knights of the Post amongst whom the story of one Magrath another Irish Man he said was notably remarkable in his endeavour under pretence of kindness to have made him their Tool to prove that Sir Edmund-Bury Godfrey had killed himself but he said he had the good fortune immediately to detect that Villany as he hoped yet to live to doe of some others but that in the mean time he foresaw that he was always to be a particular Object of the malice of such men so long as he was left under this Confinement from which he saw no hopes to be relieved but by that Court where the Law Directs every English man to come for Justice that is oppress'd in his Liberty He said he hoped his Lordship would forgive him for having been a little tedious on that Subject of Sir Edmund-Bury Godfrey because his Reputation had been so much Exposed in that particular and before that Court. After his discharge from that Indictment he said there seemed to be a probability of the Call of a Parliament in some short time and whenever he could give himself the least hopes of that he resolved to trouble no other place But that now he had not the least prospect of that kind and that he had been a Prisoner above three years and yet could safely swear he was without the knowledge to that day for what real Crimes he was Committed only he knew that the name of Treason had been laid to his Charge without saying wherein the Treason consisted He said he came therefore now to that Court as the only proper place for all Persons to resort to for their Liberty and he was sorry that he was put to the great disadvantage of speaking in his own Cause but because he saw the last time he was there that some fault seemed to be found with his Councils for urging things which seemed to relate to matters of Parliament although upon a due consideration of his request there is nothing in it which does touch their Jurisdiction he had chosen rather to rely upon the Courts pardoning his defects than put any further hardships upon those Gentlemen who had been his Council to whom he had been more beholden than they had been to him for that they had undergone some unheard-of rebukes already in another place for offering to be of Council with him though in matters of Law which he believed had never been heard of but in his Case and he hoped that when all his Circumstances shall have been well considered he shall be the last English man that will ever have so many hardships put upon him as will appear to be through every part of his Case In the first place he said that he had been both Accused and Committed without any Oath or Affidavit made against him for any Crime whatever Which had been in the Case of no other Lord but himself and he did believe of no other Man Secondly That there was no particular Treason mention'd in the Articles against him only the word TRAITEROVSLY had been applyed to things which were not Treason if they had been true as was then declared by Sir William Jones the King's Attorney and he said there were good store of Witnesses to prove that when it could not be maintained by Argument in the House of Commons that any of the Crimes mention'd against him were Treason It was answered by one of the long Robe there who would not have spared to have assigned the Treason had there been any that however they ought to give the title of High-Treason to the Articles for that otherwise they would dwindle to nothing when they came into the House of Peers Now in the Impeachments of the other Lords not to meddle with the Truth or Falsity of their Accusers they were Charg'd with the highest Treasons in Name and upon Oaths made against them Thirdly When a short day was set by the Lords for his being heard and that he appeared that day accordingly his Council was then Threatned if they did dare to plead matter of Law for him Which he said was never heard of before in any Man's Case whatever nor in the worst of times Fourthly He said if all the Articles had been true against him and had been Treason he had his Majesty's Pardon which he then shewed to the Court and demanded the benefit of it saying that that did pardon both his Crimes if he were Guilty of any and his Imprisonment and yet that both that Pardon and he had been Prisoners together for above three years of which he said he durst confidently affirm that his was the first Precedent since the Conquest Fifthly He set forth that he had not only his Majesty's Pardon but that there had been his Majesty's Declaration of it in his Speech to his two Houses of Parliament together with a Declaration of his Innocency and a Declaration that he would give him his Pardon ten times over if that were defective either in matter or form And in this also he said that his Case was not only particular from any others but that such Declarations of the King's Intentions to Pardon although the formal Pardons have not been obtained have heretofore been alone a ground to procure Bail at least when the Party has been the King's Prisoner and at the King's Suit which he supposed was not doubted in his Case Sixthly He said that he had not only been thus Committed and thus detained for above 40 Months but he had been kept a Prisoner without any prosecution for the greatest part of that time which is another sufficient ground by the Law for Bail But instead of a restraint Ad Custodiam he said he had undergone punishments greater than the Crimes alledged against him could have deserved if they had been true both by the length of his Imprisonment which was agreed to be a sufficient Ground for Bail both by the King's Council and the Prisoner's in the Arguments on the Grand Habeas Corpus 3º Car. as also in Melvin's Case 1º Car. and in Sir Tho. Darnell's and other Cases By the Inconvenience of his Accommodations in the Prison for above two years and a half of the time By two most dangerous Sicknesses in the Prison And By the loss of divers of his Family since his being in Prison who would some of them most certainly not have been in those places where they have been lost had he been at liberty He said he was informed that his Majesty had been again pleased to give his Directions to Mr. Attorney to give his Consent a second time to his Bail and he did beg leave to ask Mr. Attorney if it were so Whereupon Mr. Attorney did stand up and say that he had his Majesty's Directions to give his Majesty's Consent again to