Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A69845
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The Case of the forfeitures in Ireland fairly stated with the reasons that induced the Protestants there to purchase them.
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1700
(1700)
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Wing C912aA; Wing C1073; ESTC N61326
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17,514
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56
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is a King unless he have Power to Reward and Punish Some may be so warmed with a zeal for the Publick that without any hopes of reward they may fight for it and that so resolutely too that they neither will give nor ask quarter But there is not in all Men so much Vertue and Piety towards their Country Some are excited to perform great Things out of hopes of the same Reward that others have reap'd before them And if it should not lie in the power of the Prince to do it his Subjects may suffer greatly for want of their Services All the Lands that are in the King's Dominions are suppos'd to have been given by him and whenever he gave if any murmuring followed upon it the reason of it was not because he had not a right to give but because he gave away that which was necessary even to the support of his Family and 't will appear even from what this Author says That 't was then only that assumptions were thought of He tells us that the first Regular assumption was in the Reign of Henry the VIth He does not then approve of the assumption made by William Rufus who alienated many of the Crown-Lands and took them again to give to others Nor that of King Stephen who play'd the same trick of giving and taking to give again Nor that of Henry the II. who laid his hands upon the Regni reditus or dominia dispos'd of by King Stephen among his Followers Nor that of King Richard the 1st his Son who to furnish himself for his expedition to the Holy Land sold several parcels of the Crown Revenue and resum'd them afterwards These resumptions are exploded as irregular being made only by the Kings themselves who thought of their Gifts as the old Irish Proprietors do of their Estates That they cannot so dispose of them but that they still have still a good Title The Regular resumption made in the Reign of Henry the VIth when the occasion and circumstance of that Act are consider'd will I believe appear to be as little the purpose and very groundlesly produc'd for a precedent at this time The Act was made in the 28th year of Henry the VIth The occasion of it is very well known Sir John Fortescue then Lord Chief Justice of the Kings-bench tells us pag. 257 that that Prince had after he came to the Crown in Lordships Lands Tenements and Rents near hand to the fifth part of his Realm above the Possessions of the Church which was a greater Revenue he said than that of the King of France or the Sultan of Babylon or of any King that then Reigned over a Christian People This great Revenue had in his time been so wasted with extravagant Grants that 't was but a little more than the fifth part of what was necessary to defray the charge of his House for the necessary expences of his houshold besides all other ordinary charges came to 24000 l. yearly but the Revenue of the Crown was but 5000 l. per. ann as is set forth in the preamble of the Act. Besides the Commons tell the King that 't was made out in the former Parliament that the King was indebted 372000 l. This Sum which had swollen bigger now was a vast one as Money went in those days In this poor and low estate of Affairs when as a Reverend Person who liv'd in those times tells us vid. p. 355 The Revenues of the Crown were so rent away by ill Counsel that the King was forc'd to live DE TALLAGIIS POPVLI and was grown in debt 500000 l. when the poor Commons as they say in the Act by finding Victuals for his houshold c. were well nigh destroyed This first Regular Resumption as 't is call'd was enacted The occasion of it we see 'T was the low and miserable condition to which the Crown exhausted by extravagant Grants was reduc'd and the great Poverty of the Kingdom If this shou'd in good earnest be assigned for a reasonable and necessary cause of a resumption now our murmuring might be well reckoned among our other iniquities which we have reason to fear will pull down the Vengeance of God upon us But after all what was this Act does it contain any thing that gives the least colour of a precedent for that which is now propos'd Was it not made in favour of the King to get him bread Was he not to resume the Lands for the Crown Was there any invasion upon his Prerogative No 'T was not insinuated that he had not a right to make such Grants Sir John Fortescue then Chief Justice of the Kings-bench by whom our Author thinks this Law was modelled informs us how the King's Revenues were dispos'd of and the Crown impoverish'd And among other things says That some of the said livelihood HIS GOOD GRACE had given to such as served so notably that as their Renown will be Eternal so it did befit the King's Magnificence to make their Rewards Everlasting in their Heirs to his Honour and their perpetual Memory Here we have the opinion of a venerable and Learned Lawyer as he is justly call'd to assure us that 't was not only the right of the King but well becoming his Majesty to make Grants of Lands of the Crown to deserving Persons and their Heirs for ever And tho' a great many not so deserving had by their solicitations wrought themselves into his Possessions almost to the utter disherison of his Crown yet that worthy man in such a low and deplorable state of Affairs propos'd that they would give the King a subsidy to gratifie Persons in case of a resumption A plain demonstration of 〈◊〉 that 't was thought unreasonable then to pray the King to resume the Revenues of the Crown for this after so much noise that is made will appear to be the whole that either this or the following Acts do contain which he had profusely given away without enabling him in some sort to reprise the Persons whose Grants he should resume But in a Case so very plain what need many words In this Act there is no restraint upon the King he is pray'd to resume but this Prayer is in favour of himselfe that his baskets and coffers might be fuller There is no necessity laid upon him to enter into the Possessions of his Friends and together with them to ruin multitudes of his Subjects 'T is so far from this that the King when he agrees to the Petition and Resumption excepts all those that he shall be pleas'd to grant savings to And accordingly we find that besides 16 savings inserted by the Commons there were 185 made by the King Which abundantly shews what this Act of resumption was it shews it indeed to be a Regular one as the Author calls it and the Reader sees that 't is an excellent precedent for the present Bill Among other things concerning this Act the Author observes That the great Earl of SHREWSBVRY who