conservandas quidem statim quid inventum fuit quod valdè cum Feudo convenit Genes ' 14. 4. 2. paralip 36. 13. Jerem. 52. 3. Xenophon Cyropaid ' l. 2. pr ' Nec tamen Feudum fuit sed Clientela res apud Turcas hodiè notissima qui non alio modo multos Reges principes sibi nexos cogunt de Germanorum moribus Predidit Tacitus lib. 1. 14. Quod principem defendere tueri praecipuum Comitum fuerit saramentum Et hi Exigunt principis sui liberalitate illum bellatorem Equum illam Cruentam victricemque frameant Feudum vetus feudum novum Vetus quod ab abscondentium aliquo Novum quod ipse ab aliquo adquisivit Caesar intelligitur apud Germanos in hoc feudo semper Exceptus 2. F. 56. apud Gallos Rex in Ligio pater non exceptus quia id datur ab eo qui Superiorem non agnoscit cui si insidiatur vasalli pater Domino subiectus crimen perduellionis Principibus comittit Vasallus Domino Reverentiam Honorem debet ejusque Commodo augere atque damna infecta avertere obligatus est In Feuda Concedendis Ordo hominum non attenditur nam Superiores ab inferioribus Feuda accipiunt Et per vicariam personam Insiurandum accipiunt inter politicos Caesar Reges Feuda dare possunt Duces Marchiones Principes Comites Barones Feuda dare possunt etiamsi Caesari aut Regi subjecti sunt Maiora sunt autem Regalia quae ad statum reipubl ' administrationem nec non summi Principis decus pertinent and à Cicerone are said to be Iura Majestatis à Livio Jura Imperij sunt autem majora Regalia Leges condere easque si dubia sint Interpretari Lib. 8. Sect. 1. C. Duces Principes Comites Barones Equites Nobiles Creare l. 5. de Dignat ' facere Notarios Doctores Comites Palatinos Spurios facere Legitimos Novel 89. 9. veniam oetatis indulgere constituere summum tribunal Justitiae à quo appellari non potest Jus vitae necis pardonare Jus Civitatis dare Monetam cudere plenissimam Tuitionem tribuere quam Sauvegard dicunt instituere Cursores publicos qui Celeriter dispositis Equis Epistolas ferunt nunc Postas vocant Bellum indicere Pacem cum hoste foedus cum Exteris pangere Academias vel Vniversitatem literarum condere Legatos mittere ad alios principes Magistratus creare eosque confirmare Jurisdictionem atque Imperium tà m merum quà m mixtum dare Comitia universorum Imperij aut reipub ' ordinum Indicere l. 1. pr ' F. Religionis Orthodoxae tuitio Concilia Synodos cogere Ecclesiae Ministros Instituere confirmare malè viventes removere indicere â—â—rias Habent etiam Regalia Minera quae sunt Commoda quae ex rebus publicis ratione Imperij capiuntur Armandia id est Potestas fabricandi arma armamentariorum cogendi viae publicae cum ratione Tuitionis contra Latrones tum ratione Refectionis tum ratione Jurisdictionis tum quoque ejus quod in illis nascitur Flumina publica navigabilia ex quibus fiunt navigabilia modo quo viae publicae ad regalia pertinent Portus vel Vectigal quod pro Ingressu in portum aut portus transitu pendunt Ripatica sive vectigalia pro riparum earumque munitione vectigalia quae hodiè Tollen Conveyen Licenten dicuntur quae praestantur pro mercibus exportandis importandis bona vacantia bona damnatorum ob Perduellionem aliudâ—e crimen ex quo hodiè publicatio eorum fit Angariae Parangariae id est Praestationes operarum Currum nec non navium quae ad usum publicum rusticis subiectis imperantur extraordinaria Collatio sive Contributio Argentariae id est auri Argentique fodinae quae in provincia sunt Piscatio in flumine publico nec non Venatio utriusque concedendi Potestas Decimae ex Carbonum lapidumque fodinis Salinarum reditus omnis Thesaurus vbique repertus Judaeos recipere Fodrum pro Exercitu principis Anergariae sive hospitium Militum Aulicorum condere Illustria Gymnasia condicere Dividitur Feudum in Ligium non Ligium illud est quando vasallus domino fidem adpromittit contra omnes nullo excepto mortali Non Ligium est si Excipiuntur nonnulli contra quos dominum adiuvare non cogitur De Jure Domini directi Dominus directus Jus ratione seudi tà m in re quà m ad rem sed amplius personam habet Vasallus operas praestare suis sumptibus debet si à Domino monitus fuerit ad Jus dominij Laudemium pertinet est honorarium quod principis dominio administris penditur All which Regalia and Prerogatives of our Kings and Soveraign Princes have been founded upon the feudal Laws attending the Monarchy of England And so greatly were our Kings and Princes in this our Monarchy of England sollicitously careful to maintain and conserve their Subjects Tenures of their Lands immediately or mediately holden of them and the Dependencies and Obedience of their Subjects unto them and therein their own as well as their Soveraigns Good and Preservation as King Henry the Second caused throughout the Kingdom a Certificate to be made not by the Hear-say or slight Information of the Neighbourhood or partialities of Juries but by the Tenants themselves in Capite or by Knight-Service whether Bishops Earls Barons and great or smaller Men by how many whole or parts of Knights Fees they held their Lands and by what other particular Services and what de veteri novo Feoffamento and caused those Certificates to be truly Recorded in the Court of Exchequer in a particular Book called the Red-Book which either as to its Original or several exact and authentick Copies thereof as Sir William Dugdale hath assured me were not burnt or lost in the dreadful Fire of London in Anno 1666. and those Tenures and Engagements of those Tenants were so heedfully taken Care of as our Kings ever since the Raign of King John had Escheators in every County the Lord Mayor of London being alwayes therein the Kings Escheator who amongst other particular Charges and Cares appertaining to their Offices have been Yearly appointed to look after them and the Bishops Earls and Barons especially since the Constitution and Election of the Court of Wards and Liveries by King Henry the Eighth were not without their Feodaries in the several Concernments of their private Estates as our Kings had in every County as to their more universal or greater which together with the respites of Homages which the Lord Treasurers Officer of the Remembrancer in the Court of Exchequer was to Record as appeareth by a Statute or Act of Parliament made in the 7th Year of the Raign of King James and our Learned and Loyal Littleton who was a Justice of the Court of Common-Pleas in the 14th Year
quod ministeriales praedicti de hospitio Domini Regis debent interesse in Curiâ Domini Regis cum Paribus Franciae ad judicandum Pares tunc praedicti Ministeriales judicaverant praedictam Comitissam Flandriae cum Paribus Franciae Wherein our Ancestors without any Arrest or Decree of Parliament did rather give than take the Pattern when their Bishops as Chancellors of our Kings very often and in a continued Series from the Raign of King Edward the Confessor who was not without his Reinbaldus Regiae dignitatis Vice-Câ—ncellarius when Maurice Bishop of London was Chancellor to William the Conqueror in the first Year of his Raign and other Bishops have in that high and great Office severally from thence succeeded unto the 29th of Edward the First and not a few of the other Bishops have been Treasurers and Secretaries of State and by that Right alone besides their Spiritual Rights and Temporal Baronies did sit as Peers in that great Assembly together with the Lord Privy-Seal Constable Marshal and Great Chamberlain of England Lord Steward Chamberlain of the Houshold with the Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts and Barons of England which do Illustrate that greatest of our Kings Councels attended with such of the Judges and other Assistants as their Soveraigns shall be pleased to call or permit to Sit therein Neither could those grand Officers claim a Right to be accounted by them or any others Equal or Co-ordinate with them or their Superiours or to have any Vote in the House of Peers in Parliament by their sitting there it being in the Act of Parliament made in the 31st Year of the Raign of King Henry the Eighth Entituled How the Lords in Parliament shall be placed wherein it being expressed That it appertained to his Prerâ—gative Royal to give such Honor Reputation and Place to his Câ—uncellors and other his Subjects as shall be seeming to his excellent Wisdome It was specially mentioned That the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Lord President of the King's Councel Lord Privy-Seal or Chief Secretary that shall be under the degree of a Baron of the Parliament are to give no Assent or Dissent in the Parliament And it is likewise remarkable That in the Title of that Act of Parliament and all along and thorough the Body thereof the House of Peers is only stiled the Parliament and no mention is therein at all made of the House of Commons in Parliament nor any Care or Order taken for their Degrees or sitting in Parliament Neither do any of our Parliament Rolls Records or Authentick ancient Historians mention that our Kings were in those their great Councels limited or accustomed to call all their Barons thereunto Nor until the latter end of the Raign of King Richard the Second had voluntarily obliged themselves to Summon thither the Dukes Marquesses Earls and Viscounts unto those their great Councels And when it hath been truly said that Omne Majus continet in se Minus it will not be easy to believe That the Minus doth or should Continere in se Majus For in Anno 23 Edward the First there were but Sixty-three Earls and Barons Summoned and in the same Year upon another Summons but 45. King Edward the Second did not Summon all the Earls and Barons In the 6 E. 3. the like M. 22 E. 3. 6 R. 2. 11 R. 2. the like King Edward the 3d. in the 9th Year of his Raign Summoned but five Earls and Eleven Barons In the 10th E. 3. the Parliament Writs of Summons were directed but unto Fourteen of the Temporal Barons with a Memorandum entred that Brevia istis Magnatibus immediatè praescriptis directa essendi ad Parliamentum praedictum remissa fuerint concilio Regis pro eò quòd quidam ex eis in partibus Scotiae quidam ex eis in partibus transmarinis existant adnullanda 15 E. 3. there were Summoned but 26 of all sorts 16 E. 3. But a very few 21 E. 3. but 22. 45 E. 3. but thirteen Earls and Barons and not many to diverse Parliaments after the great Commune Generale Concilium rightly understood being but Synonyma's of the word Parliament and of latter times they which were in the King's Displeasure have had their Summons but with a Letter from the Lord Chancellour or Lord Keeper commanded not to come but to send a Proxy In Anno 46 E. 3. and diverse years in the Raign of King Henry the 5th few Earls and Barons were Summoned for that many of them were then busied in the Warrs of France But in the Parliament in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr John Earl of Bristol being denyed his Writ petitioned to the House of Peers for it whereupon he had it without any intercession of the House of Peers but withal a Letter from the Lord Keeper signifying his Majesties Pleasure that he should send his Proxy and forbear to come whereupon he petitioned the Parliament again shewing That that Letter could not discharge him from coming for that the Writ commanded him to come upon his Allegiance but that point was not then debated for the said Earl was presently sent for as a Delinquent and charged with High Treason the Majores Barones being men of the best Estate Extraction and Abilities and better sort of the Tenants in Capite by antient Law and Custome of the Kingdom being to be only Summoned according to the very old custome of the Romans probably learnt from thence who as Sigonius writes did in legenâ—o Senatores make choise of them according to their Birth Age Estate and Magistracy well exercised and performed And could be no less then well warranted by a constant well experimented long approved and applauded Usage thereof for more than fourteen hundred Years attested by the industrious Labours of Mr. William Pryn and others and for the times before the Conquest and the Learned Collections of Sir Robert Filmer and others since the Norman Invasion fortified by such Records which in themselves are never found to lie as the teeth of devouring Time hath left us seconded by unquestionable antient authentick classical Authors which might silence those disputes Factious and Foolish opinions and cavils which in the latter part of this last unquiet Century or age have been stirred up against that very Antient and Honourable Assembly or House of Peers which all the former ages neither durst or did lift an hand or heel against or so much as maligne or bark at So greatly are our most degenerate wickedly hypocritical worser Times altered from what they were or should be and the only Recital of whose long and Antient Successions through their so many several gradations may abundantly satisfie any that are not before so prepossessed as to resolve never to be satisfied with any thing that looks but like Truth or Reason if they shall but read as they ought to do the ensuing Series or Catalogue Wherein they may find that in the Bud or Blossom of
introduced amongst us that Distinction long after about the Raign of our King John of the Barones majores those that were Ministri Regis and held great Possessions only of the King for long before the Conquest they were called Thaines Barons or Lords who were Honorary and the Minores middle Thaines or Valvasores who were only feudal and held all or much of others or lesser parts of the King and by Canutus's Laws there appears to have been in those times Thani infimae conditionis In Germany saith Schwederus there are two sorts The First that do hold of the Empire immediately The Second mediately of others and that in the diversity of Opinions amongst the Learned whether the word Baron be derived from the Hebrew Greek Latine Spanish or French the Germans have been content with theit own word or original Baar which signifieth Frey or liber homo Barones are liberi Domini Frey Heeren Et Baro signifieth virum dignitate praecellentem So as that exquisitely Learned Du Fresne in his Gloss upon the words Barones Parliamenti saith In Anglia Scotia qui vulgò Lords of Parliament vocantur ij sunt ex Majoribus Baronibus qui à Rege undè pendent ad Parliamentum sive concilium publicum diplomatibus Regiis evocantur nam constat in Anglia ut in Francia non omnes qui à Rege praedia sua immediatè tenebant ad Parliamenta admissos nam nimius esset numerus eorum sed illos tantum qui proximi essent a Rege dignitate vassallorum numero caeteros anteirent prout etiam in ipsis Baronum feudis factitatum And defining a Barony saith it is Praedium à Rege nudé pendens vel maius praedium vel feudum Cassanaeus taketh it to be Quaedam dignitas habens quandam praeeminentiam inter solos simplices Nobiles Tiraquel by good Authority of rectified experimented Reason Laws and ancient Customs saith Leges sanciri debent a Principibus etiam Nobilium concilio quod plane ostendit Virgilius de Aceste Rege loquens Gaudet regno Treianus Acestes Indicitque forum Patribus dat Jura vocatis Id est Leges sancit Jura distribuit vocatis ad id Patribus id est Senatoribus L'Oyseau defining Seigneuries saith they are Publique ou prives and that les droits praerogatives des grandes Seigneuries a scavoir les Duchez Marquisats Comtez Principautez dont le premier est qu'elles ne relevent que du Roy encore que de leur nature elles deuvoient relever immediatement de la Couronne C'est pourquoi les Feudistes les appellent Feuda regalia ou Regales dignitates tit ' de Feud encore non tant pour ce qu'elles participent aux honeurs des souverainetez que de leur d'autant qu'elles sont vrays Fieffs du Roiaume ne pouvant relever d' autre Seigneurie Et tout ainsi que ces Capitaines s' aydoient de leurs vassaux en la guerre aussi faisoient ils en les Justices principalement aux causes d' importance qu' ils Iugoient par leur advis pour ceste raison ils les appelloient Pairs Cour C'est a dire Pairs au Compaignons de leur Cour de Justice Saith le Seigneurie privee n' induit point de puissance publique and concludeth and proveth it to be un Erreur d' penser qu' aux livres de Fieffes Valvasores Regni seu Majores valvasores fussent ceux qui tenoient leurs Fieffs a Capitaneis Regni nempe a ducibus Marchionitibus And were had in such a Veneration and Respect as when in the first Year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth an Act of Parliament was made that every Member of the House of Commons should before the Lord Steward of the King Queen or her Successors Houshold or his Deputy for the time being before they sit or be admitted by his Oath taken upon the Holy Evangelists testify and declare That the Queens Majesty is the only Supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other Her Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal and renounce all Foreign Jurisdiction of any Foreign Prelate Prince or Potentate whatsoever And promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Lawful Successors and to my Power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Queens Highness her Heirs and Successors or United and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm From the taking of which Oath the Lords Temporal and all of or above the degree of a Baron were by that Act of Parliament of 5. Eliz. exempted for that the Queens Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assured of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of her High Court of Parliament Although of that High and Honourable Assembly of the House of Peers all that hold Offices under our Kings as the Lords Chancellour Treasurer Steward great Chamberlain and Chamberlain of the Houshold Constable Earl Marshal Lord Privy-Seal Secretaries of State and all that receive Creation-Money of him as Earls Viscounts Marquesses and Dukes and all the Assistants as Judges Masters of Chancery and the Barons in that high Court of Judicature Subordinate to the King may find themselves comprized and obliged in and by that Act of Primo Eliz. ca. 1. as the Arch-Bishops and Bishops are For it may everlastingly with great assurance of Certainty and Truth be affirmed That our Parliaments or great Councells have in their Constitutions Formes Customes and Usages altogether or for the most part followed and imitated those of the Almans Saxons and Ancient Francks when Marculfus who lived in the Year after the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ Six Hundred and Sixty now something more than One Thousand Years when Clodouaeus the Son of Dagobert of the Merovignian and first Race of the Kings of France ruled as it will be Evident by the Writ of Summons thereunto Entituled Prologus de Regis Judicio cum de Magna re duo causantur simul in the form or words ensuing or the cause of Summoning or Calling the Parliament as our Kings have many Times done in their Writs of Summons to their Parliaments Viz. Cui Dominus regendi curam Committit cunctorum Jurgia diligenter examinatione cum rimari oportet ut juxta propositionum vel responsionum alloquia inter alterutrum salubris donetur sententia quo fiat ut nodos causarum vivacis mentis acumen coerceat ubi praelucet Justitia illuc gressum deliberationis imponat Ergo nos in Dei nomine ibi in Palatio nostro ad universorum Causas recto Judicio terminandas una cum Dominis Patribus nostris Episcopis vel cum plurimis Optimatibus Nostris patribus illis Referendariis illis
custome of the House of Lords was that when any Bills or messages were sent to them the Lord Keeper and some of the Lords were to â—rise from their places and from thence to go unto the Barr and receive the said Bills or messages but contrarywise when any answer is to be delivered by the Lord Keeper in the name and behalf of the Lords the Commons sent were to stand at the Barr and the Lord Keeper is to receive the Bills or answer the messages with his head covered and all the Lords were to Keep their places with which the Lower House was satisfied and the same order hath been ever since observed accordingly Anno 39. Eliz. There being in former times a custom in the house of Commons to have a bill read before the house did arise the same could not now be done at that time because her Majesty and the upper House had adjourned the Parliament untill Saturday Sennight at Eight of the Clock in the Morning which being signified by their Speaker he said all the Members of the House might depart and so they did Eodem Anno. At the ending of the Parliament after they had given the Queen subsidies and prayed her assent to such laws as had passed both Houses she gave the Royall assent to 24 publick Acts and 19 private but refused 48 Bills which had passed both the Houses Anno 43. Eliz. John Crook Esq. Recorder of London being chosen Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament disabling himself desired the Queen to command the House of Commons to choose another but his excuse received no allowance The Lord Chief Justice of the Queens bench and Common pleas together with the Lord Chief Baron and Attorney Generall were ordered to attend a Committee of Lords and Bishops Sr John Popham Lord Chief Justice Francis Gaudy one of the Justices of the Kings bench George Kingsmill one of the Common pleas Dr Carew and Dr Stanhop were constituted Receivers of petitions for Gascoigne and other lands beyond the Seas Sr Edmond Anderson Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas Sr William Peryam Lord Chief Baron Thomas Walmisley one of the Justices of the Common pleas Dr Swale and Dr Hone. Tryers of petitions of England the Archbishop of Canterbury Marquis of Winchester Earls of Sussex Lord Marshall Lord Admirall and Steward of the Queens Houshold Earls of Nottingham and Hertford Bishops of London Durham and Winchester Lords Zouch and Cobham calling unto them the Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer and the Queens Serjeants at Law Great fault was found by many of the House of the factouring and bribing of too many of the Justices of the Peace and it was by one of the members alleadged that the five bills â—arely passed against Swearing Drunkenness and for the making of good Ale would be as much worth to those kind of Justices of the Peace as a Subsidy and two Fifteens Mr Conisby Gentleman Usher of the House of Peers complained that forasmuch upon the breach of any Priviledge of that House he only was to be employed and not the Serjeant at Arms the House ordered a Committee to consider of Presidents and settle it a motion was made by the Lord Keeper and approved of by the Lords that the Ancient course of the House might be kept by certifying the Excuses for the absence of any of the Peers by the Peers and not by others The House being offended with Sr Walter Rawleigh for some words and crying to the Barr Mr Brown a Lawyer stood up and said Mr Speaker par in parem non habet Imperium we are as members of one body and we cannot Judge one another whereupon it being put to the question it was resolved in the negative that he should not stand at the Barr. The Speaker of the House of Commons at the ending of the Parliament of 44. Eliz. humbly desired of the Queen that certain Acts may be made Laws by her Royall assent which giveth life unto them Unto which the Lord Keeper answered that as touching her Majesties pioceeding in the making of Laws and giving her Royall assent that should be as God directed her Sacred Spirit and delivered her Majesties commandement that as to the Commons proceedings in the matter of her Prerogative she is persuaded that Subjects did never more dutifully observe and that she understood they did but obiter touch her Prerogative and no otherwise but by humble petition but she well perceived that private respects are privately masked under publique pretences Admonished the Justices of the Peace some whereof might probably be of the House of Commons that they should not deserve the Epithetes of prowling Justices Justices of Quarrells who counted Champerty good Conscience Sinning Justices who did suck and consume the good of this Commonwealth and likewise all those who did lye if not all the Year yet at the least Three Quarters of the Year in the City of London Anno 43. Eliz. One Mr Leigh of the House of Commons complained that whilst the Speaker of the House of Commons was presented to the Queen he was denyed entrance into the House of Peers which the Lords excused by saying it was the ignorance of some of the Grooms or attendance in the choosing of a Speaker Mr Knolls the Comptroller alleaged that it was not for the State of the Queen to permit a confused multitude to speak unto her when it might often happen that one or some might move or speak that which another or some or many would contradict or not allow The Queen being sate in her State in the House of Lords the House of Commons were sent for to present their Speaker who in a modest pretence of disability prayed her Majesty to command the House of Commons to choose one more able but had it not allowed And she in her grant of freedom of speech gave a caution not to do it in vain matters verbosities contentions or contradictions nor to make addresses unto her but only in matters of consequence and prohibited their retaining or priviledging desperate debtors upon pain of her displeasure and desired a Law might be made to that purpose Which done the Lord Keeper said for great and weighty causes her Highness's pleasure was that the Parliament should be adjourned untill the Fryday following At which time the House of Commons did appoint a Minister every morning before the House sate to officiate and use a set form of prayer specially ordained to desire Gods blessing upon their Councells and preserve the Queen their Sovereign The Ancient usage of not coming into the House of Commons with spurs was moved by the Speaker to be observed others moved that they might not come with Boots and Rapiers but nothing was done therein Sr Robert Wroth a Member of the House of Commons did in his own particular offer 100 l. per Annum to the Wars Sr Andrew Noel Sheriff of Rutlandshire having returned himself to be a Knight of the shire for that
that granted them and was to be vouched to warranty which was in common and ordinary matters very usual in our Laws and reasonable Customs and therefore to him only as the Grantor and Protector of their Parliament Priviledges and not to themselves the gratitude and acknowledment was only due And the House of Commons until this our present unruly Age or Century did not adventure to take upon themselves or endeavour by any pretended Authority of their own to punish any the violators of their aforesaid Priviledges but supplicated Aid of their Kings and Princes that were the donors and granters of them And therefore in the Raign of King Henry the fourth it was adjudged that as the Record witnesseth Videtur Cur. quod non For in Anno 8 H. 6. William Lark a Servant of William Wild Burgess of Parliament being arrested upon an Execution during the Parliament the Commons petitioned the King to give order for his discharge and that no Lords Knights Citizens or Burgesses nor their Servants coming to the Parliament may be Arrested during the Parliament unless it be for Treason Felony or Breach of the Peace The King granted the first part of the Petition Et quant al residue le Rei sa avisera The Commons prayed that Edmond Duke of Somerset Alice Poole the late Wife of William Poole Duke of Suffolk William Bishop of Chester Sir John Sutton Lord Dudley the Lord Hastings James de la Barre one of the Kings Secretaries and 20 or 22 Knights and Esquires particularly named amongst which was Thomas Kemp Clerk of the House of Commons which the Commons themselves and their own Clerk had not them found to be either a Liberty or Priviledge of their own to punish might be banished from the King during their Lives and not to come within twelve Miles of the Court for that the People do speak evil of them To which the King answered He is of his own meer motion contented that all shall depart unless only the Lords and a few of them whom he may not spare from his presence and they shall continue for one year to see if any can duly impeach them In Anno 31 H. 6. The Commons made a Request to the King and Lords that Thomas Thorp their Speaker and Walter Roil a member of their house who were in Prison might be set at liberty according to their Priviledges The next day after the Duke of York who was then a Rival for a long time but after a publick Competitor for the Crown and President of the Parliament came before the Lords not the Commons and shewed that in the vacation of the Parliament he had recovered damage against the said Thomas Thorp in an action of trespass by Verdict in the Exchequer for carrying away the goods of the said Duke out of Durham House for the which he remained in Execution and prayed that he might continue therein Wherein the Councel of the Judges being demanded they made Answer it was not their part to Judge of the Parliament which was Judge of the Law wherein surely they might rather have said what they should have most certainly have believed then as Sir Edward Coke did long after that the King was principium caput finis Parliamenti and only said that a general Supersedeas of Parliament there was but a special supersedeas in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the Commons House ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony Surety of the Peace or for a condemnation before the Parliament After which the Lords determined that the said Thomas Thorp should remain in execution and sent certain of themselves to the Commons who then had so little power to free themselves from Arrests and imprisonment as they could not deliver their own Speaker out of Prison but were glad to follow the direction of the King and Lords to chuse and present unto the King another Speaker the which they did and shortly after certain of the Commons were sent to the Lords to declare that they had in the place of the said Thomas Thorp chosen for their Speaker Thomas Charleton Esquire Walter Clark a Burgess of Chippenham in the County of Wilts being committed to the Prison of the Fleet for divers condemnations as well to the King as to others was discharged and set at Liberty at the Petition of the Commons to the King and Lords without Bail or Mainprise At the Petition of the Commons William Hill a Burgess of Chippenham aforesaid being in Execution in the Kings-Bench was delivered by a Writ of the Chancery saving the Plaintiffs right to have Execution after the Parliament ended It was enacted by the universal Vote and Judgment as well of the Commons as the Lords that John Atwil a Burgess for Exeter being condemned during the Parliament in the Exchequer upon 8 several informations at the suit of John Taylor of the same City shall have as many Supersedeas as he will until his returning home King Henry 8. in the case of Trewyniard a Burgess of Parliament imprisoned upon an Outlawry after Judgment caused him to be delivered by a Writ of Priviledge upon an Action brought against the Executors and a demurrer it was resolved by the Judges to be Legal George Ferrers Gent. servant of the King and a Burgesse of Parliament being arrested in London as he was going to the Parliament-house by a Writ out of the Court of Kings Bench in execution at the Suit of one White for the sum of 200 markes being the debt of one Walden which arrest being signifyed to Sir Tho. Moyle Knight Speaker of the House of Commons and to the Knight and Burgesses there an order was made that the Serjeant of the Mace attending the Parliament should go to the Compter and Demand the Prisoner which the Clerks and Officers refusing from stout words they fell to blows whereof ensued a fray not without hurt so as the said Serjeant was forced to defend himself with his Mace and had the Crown thereof broken off by bearing off a stroak and his Servant struck down which broil drawing thither the 2 Sheriffs of London who did not heed or value the Serjeants complaint and misusage so much as they ought but took their Officers parts so as the Serjeant returning without the Prisoner informed the Speaker of the House of Commons how rudely they had entertained him who took the same in so ill part that they all together some of whom were the Kings privy Councel as also of the Kings privy Chamber resolved to sit no longer without their Burgess but left their own house and went to the House of Peers and declared by the mouth of their Speaker before Sir Thomas Audley Knight then Lord Chancellor and all the Lords Judges there assembled the whole matter such no Estates they believed themselves to be who Judging the contempt to be very great referred the punishment thereof to
Thames Arrested and carried Prisoner to the Tower of London and the Wind and Tyde of fear and self-preservation did then so impetuously drive Sir Edward Littleton the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England who some years before when he was a young Man made it a part of his Praise or Olympick Game to prove by Law that the King had no Law to destrain men esse Milites and Sir John Banckes Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas that they joyned with the then Illegal concurrent Votes of too many of the House of Peers that the Militia which was the Right and Power of the Sword and Jus divinum gladii and the totum aggregatum and support of the Government was in the People when our Learned Bracton hath truly informed us that in Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo Arma videlicet Leges quibus utrumqne bellorum pacis recto possit gubernari utrumque enim istorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam Res militaris possit esse in tuto quam ipsae Leges usu Armorum praesidio possent esse servatae si autem Arma defecerint contra hostes Rebelles Inimicos sic erit Regnum indefensum si autem Leges sic exterminabitur justitia nec erit qui justum faciet Following therein that opinion of Justinian the Emperour in his Institutes And did declare not like men that had taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy before they were admitted into that House that if any Person whatsoever wherein the King or his Command ought to have been excepted shall offer to arrest or detain the Person of any Member of that House without first acquainting their House or receiving further Order from that House that it is Lawful for any such Member or any Person to assist him and to stand upon his and their guard and defence and to make resistance according to the protestation taken to defend the Priviledges of Parliament which was neither to commit or maintain Treason or make that without the Kings Authority to be Treason that never was their intollerable haughty Priviledges so incompatible and inconsistent with Monarchy demanded by the Petition of the Lords and Commons in Parliament the 14th day of December 1641. can never be able to withstand the dint and force of the Law and Right Reason if a Quo Warranto should be brought against them Whereupon the King the 4th day of January 1641. coming into the House of Commons in Person no such Company attending with Pistols at the Door as was untruly reported and being sate in the Speakers Chair said he was sorry for the occasion of coming unto them Yesterday he had sent a Serjeant at Arms to apprehend some that were accused of High Treason whereunto he expected Obedience and not a Message and that he must declare unto them that in case of High Treason no Person hath a Priviledge And therefore he was come to know if any of these Persons accused were here for so long as those Persons accused for no slight crime but for Treason were there he could not expect that that House could be in the Right way which he heartily wishes and therefore he came to tell the House that he must have them wheresoever he can find them but since he sees the Birds are flown he doth expect from them that they should send them unto him as soon as they return thither But assures them in the word of a King he never did intend any force but shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way for he never meant any other which they might easily have done when they had his own Serjeant at Arms attending that Honse for no other than such like purposes The next day being the 5th day of January 1641. notwithstanding that Treason Felony and Breach of the Peace were always by the Laws of England and Customs of their Parliaments exempt and never accompted to be within the Circuit of any Parliament Priviledge for otherwise Parliaments and great Assemblies well Affected or ill Affected would be dangerous unto Kings they declare the Kings coming thither in Person to be an high breach of the Rights and Priviledge of Parliament and inconsistent with the Liberty and Freedom thereof and therefore adjourned their sitting to the Guildhall in London which they should not have done without the Kings Order that a special Committee of 24 should sit there also concerning the Irish Affairs of which number was Sir Ralph Hopton that after got out of their wicked errors and fought and won sundry glorious Battels for the King against those Parliament Rebels and some few more of that their Committee deserted their Party And the Writ sent by King Edward the first to the Justices of his Bench by Mr. Pulton stiled a Statute made in the 7th year of his Raign might have sufficiently informed them and all that were of the profession of the Law in the House of Commons in Parliament that in a Parliament at Westminster the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of the Realm have said that to the King it belongeth and his part is through his Royal Seignory streightly to defend force of Arms and all other force against his Peace at all times which shall please him and to punish them which shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of the Realm and therefore they are bound to aid him as their Soveraign Lord at all times when need shall be and therefore commanded the Justices to cause those things to be read before them in the said Bench and there Inrolled The before confederated national Covenant betwixt England and Scotland being by Ordinance of Parliament for so they were pleased to call their no Laws confirmed under a penalty that no man should enjoy any Office or Place in the Commonwealth of Engl. and Ireland that did not Attest and Swear it which the King prohibiting by his Proclamation sent unto London the bringer whereof was hanged the King certainly informed of the traiterous practices and other misdeameanors of the Lord Kimbolton and his aforesaid Associates did as privately as possible with the Prince Elector Palatine his Nephew and no extraordinary attendance go in person to the House of Commons to seize them because his Serjeants at Arms durst not adventure to do it who having notice of it by the Countess of Carlisles over-hearing his whispering to the Queen and suddenly sending them notice thereof were sure to be absent wherein he being disappointed did afterwards by his Attorney General exhibit Articles of High Treason and other Misdemeanors against them 1. That they had traiterously endeavoured to subvert the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom and deprive the King of his Legal Power and place on Subjects an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Power which shortly after proved wofully true and for many years after so continued 2. That they have endeavoured by many foul aspersions upon his Majesty
being crowded into King John's Charter were never either granted or confirmed by King Henry III. Edward I. or any of our succeeding Kings nor as Sir Henry Spelman repeating the same omissions saith is therein that of paying the Debts of the Deceased probably of those that died leaving their Heirs in Ward to the Jews and others although Matthew Paris so much mistakes as to affirm that those Charters of King John and his Son Henry III. were in nullo dissimiles Which well-interpreted could signifie no more than that King John in his great necessities and troubles pressing upon his Tenants in capite the great Lords and others by taxing them proportionably according to their Knights Fees they endeavoured by those Charters all that they could to restrain him from any such Assesments which should go further then a reasonable aid unless in the cases there excepted and aim'd at no more then that a Common-Councel which was not then called a Parliament should be summon'd not annually of all Archbishops Bishops Abbots Earls and greater Barons and all the Tenants in capite being those that were most concerned therein nor as our Parliaments now but only as to their aids and services as Tenants in capite were upon forty days notice to appear at the same time and place given in general by the King's Sheriffs and Bailiffs sic factâ submonitione negotium procedat ad diem assignatam secundum consilium eorum qui prae sentes fuerint quamvis non omnes submoniti venerint and could not be intended of our now House of Commons in Parliament many years after first of all and never before introduced or constituted that praefiction of Forty days probably first creating that opinion which can never arrive unto any more then that every summons of such a Councel or Meeting was to be upon so many days notice or warning which Mr. Pryn upon an exact observation of succeeding Parliaments hath found to be otherwise much of the boisterousness haughty and long after unquiet minds of some of those unruly Barons being to be attributed to the over-strained promises and obligations of William the Conquerour before he was so to his Normans and other Nations that adventured with him upon an agreement and Ordinance made in Normandy before his putting to Sea which the King of France had in the mean time upon charges and great allowances made unto him undertaken to guard and long after by the command of King Edward III. then warring in France in the 20th year of his Reign was by Sir Barth Burghersh and others sent from thence in the presence of the Keeper or Guardian of England and the whole Estate declared in Parliament as a matter of new discovery and designs of the French happened in the traverse and success of those wars which probably might make the Posterity of some of them although the Ancestors of most of them had been abundantly recompenced by large shares of the Conquest Gifts and Honours granted by the Conquerour to a more than competent satiety extended to the then lower Ranks of his Servants Souldiers or Followers as that to de Ferrariis the Head afterwards and chief of a greater Estate and Family in England than they had in Normandy and might be the occasion of that over-lofty answer of John de Warrennis Earl of Surrey in his answer to some of the Justices in Eyre in the Reign of King Edward I. when demanded by what warrant he did hold some of his Lands and Liberties he drawing out a rusty Sword which he did either wear or had brought with him for that purpose said By that which he helped William the Conquerour to subdue England so greatly to mistake themselves as to think which the Lineage of the famous Strongbow Earl of Pembroke and some eminent Families of Wales in the after-Conquest of Ireland never adventured to do that the Ancestors of them and others that left their lesser Estates in Nòrmandy to gain a greater in England to be added thereunto had not come as Subjects to their Duke and Leige-Lord but Fellow-sharers and Partners with him which they durst not ever after claim in his life-time or the life of any of his Successors before in the greatest advantages they had of them or the many Storms and Tempests of State which befel them but might be well content as the words of the Ordinance it self do express That they and their Progenies should acknowledge a Sovereignty unto the Conquerour their Duke and King and yield an Obedience unto him and his far-fam'd Posterity as their first and continued Benefactors And those their Liberties and Priviledges freely granted by those Charters and not otherwise to be claimed were so welcome and greatly to be esteemed by the then Subjects of England as they returned him their gratitude and thankfulness for them in a contribution of the fifteenth part of all their Moveables with an Attestation and Testimony of the Wiser more Noble and Powerful part of the Kingdom viz. the Archbishop of Canterbury Eleven other Bishops Nineteen Abbots Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice Ten Earls John Constable of Chester and Twenty-one Barons men of Might and great Estates amongst which there were of the contending and opposite Party Robert Fitz Walter who had been General of the Army raised and fighting against his Father the Earls of Warren Hereford Derby Warwick Chester and Albemarl the Barons of Vipont and Lisle William de Brewere and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford who afterwards fought against that King and helped to take him Prisoner That those Charters were given and granted unto them and other his Subjects the Free-men of his Kingdom of his own free will and accord And as to that of being not condemned without Answer or Tryal which in the infancy of the World was by the Creator of all Mankind recommended to its imitation as the most excellent Rule and Pattern of Justice in the Tryal and Sentence of Adam and Eve in Paradise are not to be found enacted or granted in King Edward the Confessor's Laws or the Charters or Laws of King Henry I. the people of England having no or little reason much to value or relie upon the aforesaid Charters of King John gained indirectly by force about two years after his as aforesaid constrained Resignation of his Kingdom of England and Dominion of Ireland to hold of the Pope and Church of Rome by an yearly Tribute being not much above Thirty years before and not then gone out of memory SECT V. Of the continued unhappy Iealousies Troubles and Discords betwixt the discontented and ambitious Barons and King Henry III. after the granting of his Magna Charta and Charta de Forestâ ALmost two years after which the King in a Parliament at Oxford declaring himself to be of full age and free to dispose of the affairs of the Kingdom cancelled and annulled the Charter of the Forests as granted in his
correction or explicacation mad therein So as that meeting and re-referrence proved to be only an essay for a pacification For that haughty Earl Montfort hated the King and endeavouring all he could his destruction so thwarted all his actions and domineer'd over him as the King told him openly That he feared him more than any Thunder or Tempest in the world Being not pleased with what had been proposed at that revisionary Treaty for what concerned his own particular interest and satisfaction would rather bleed and embroil the Nation than acquiesce in those excellent Laws and Liberties which the King had granted in his Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta which like two Jewels of inestimable price in her ears did help to bless secure and adorn our BRITANNIA whilst She sate upon Her Promontory viewing and guarding Her British-Seas and did therefore draw and entice as many as he could to go along with his envy malice ambition and designs With which Ordination Sentence and Award of the King of France against the Barons many were notwithstanding so well satisfied with the King and so ill with Symon Montfort's proud and insolent demeanour as they withdrew themselves from the rebellious part of the Barons and although some for a while staggered in their Opinions and Loyalty because though the King of France condemned the provisions made at Oxford yet he allowed King John's Charter whereby he left as they pretended the matter as he found it for that these Provisions as those Barons alledged were grounded upon that Charter But a better consideration made many to dispence with their ill-taken Oaths and return to their Loyalty as Henry Son of the Earl of Cornwall Roger de Clifford Roger de Leybourne Hamo L'Estrange and others And it is worthy a more than ordinary remarque that that King of France and his Councel upon view and hearing of so many Controversies and Tronsactions betwixt our King Henry III. and his rebellious Barons could not be strangers to the former and latter attempts ill-doings and designs of that Party of the English Baronage did so little approve thereof and of their Parliamentary Insolencies and Oxford Provisions as his Grand-child or Successor Philip le Bel King of France who reigned in the time of our Edward I. did within less than forty years after Pour oster saith l'Oyseau a very learned French Author de la suitte le Parlement qui lors estoit le conseil ordinaire des Roys voir leur faisoit Teste bien sauvent luy oster doucement la cognossance des affaires d'Estat to the no great happiness as it afterwards proved of the French Nation erigea un cour ordinaire le rendit sedentaire a Paris dont encore il a retenu ce teste de son ancienne institution qu'il verifie homologue les Edicts du Roy. And now the doors of Janus Temple flew quite open the Prince with Lewellin Prince of Wales Mortimer and others invade and enter upon the Lands of Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and some of the opposite Nobility and the Earl of Leicester was as busie on the other side in seizing Gloucester and Worcester Whereupon the King doubting Montfort's approach to London being not yet ready for him works so as a mediation of Peace was assay'd upon condition that all the Castles of the King should be delivered to the keeping of the Barons the provisions of Oxford inviolably observed all strangers by a certain time should avoid the Kingdom except such as by a general consent should be held faithful and profitable for the same Here saith the Historian was a little pause which seemed but a breathing in order unto a greater rage The Prince fortifies victuals and garrisons Windsor Castle And the King to get time summoned a Parliament at London where he won many Lords to his party and with them Richard Earl of Cornwal his Brother King of Almaine Henry his Son William Valence with the rest of his Brethren marches to Oxford whither divers Lords of Scotland repair unto him as Iohn Comyn Iohn Baliol Lords of Galloway Robert Bruce and others with many English Barons Clifford Percy Basset c. from thence with all his Forces went to Northampton took Prisoner young Symon Montfort with fourteen other principal men thence to Nottingham spoiling the Possessions appertaining to the Barons in those parts The Earl of Leicester draws towards London to recover and make good that part of his greatest importance and seeks to secure Kent and the Ports which hastens the King to stop his proceedings and to succour the Castle of Rochester which he besieged whereby Success and Authority growing strong on the King's side the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester in behalf of themselves and their Party write unto the King humbly protesting their Loyalty alledge that they opposed only against such as were enemies to Him annd the Kingdom and had bely'd them unto which the King returned answer that Themselves were the perturbers of him and his State enemies to his Person and sought His and the Kingdoms destruction and therefore defy'd them the Prince and the Earl of Cornwal sending likewise their Letters of defyance unto them who doubting the hazard of a Battel send the Bishops of London and Worcester their former encouragers unto the King with an offer of 30000 Marks for damage done in those Wars so as the Provisions of Oxford might be observed Which not being condescended unto or thought fit to be allowed Montfort with his Partners seeing no other means but to put all to the hazard of a Battel made himself more ready than was expected placed on the side of an Hill near Lewis where the Battel was to be fought certain Ensigns without men which seemed afar off to be Squadrons ready to second his men whom he caused all to wear White Crosses both for their own notice and signification of the candour and innocency of his cause which he desired to have believed to be only for Justice And as Rebels first assaulting their King unexpectedly began to charge his Forces who were divided into three parts The first whereof was commanded by Prince Edward the King's Son William de Valence Earl of Pembroke and John Warren Earl of Surrey and Sussex the second by the King of Almaine and his Son Henry and the third by the King himself The Forces of the Barons ranged in four parts whereof the first was led by Henry de Montfort and the Earl of Hereford the second by Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester and Hertford Iohn Fitz-John and William of Mount-Chency the third by the Londoners and Richard Segrave and the fourth by Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester himself and Thomas de Pelvesion And both sides fighting with as great manhood as fury the Prince and his Batalion cum tanto impetu in hostes irruil so beat and routed those that stood against him as he made them give back many
in their Minds and Estates Discontents of the vanquisht Nobility Absence and feared Insurrections of that and a great part of the Baronage and People that were not in the Battle on either side and the Decov cunningly inserted in their Writs of Summons to a kind of Parliament of their own framing that Pax Reformata fuit betwixt him and the Barons Benedictus sit Deus enticed many that either Fear or Flattery perswaded to be on the Stronger and Prevailing Side to make their Peace with them and either to Joyn with them or stand aloof off and enjoy as well as they could their large Possessions and Estates which in those times could draw many Tenants and Followers after them And being Jealous of the Affections Power and Strength of John Balioll and Peter de Brus with certain other Lords of Scotland Robert de Nevil and some of the Northern English Barons a Writ in the King's Name was also the 24 th day of that December sent unto them to come to London but without any certain Day or mention that they were there to Treat cum Praelatis Comitibus or cum coeteris Magnatibus de arduis negotiis Regni and not mixt with other Affairs as the former or after Form of Summons to Parliament or those great Councils were accustomed to be with a more than ordinary safe Conduct for their Persons and Security in the interim for their Lands and Estates in the form following viz. Rex Johanni de Bailol Petro de Brus Roberto de Nevil Eustachio de Bailol Steph. de Menill Gilberto Haunsard Rad ' filio Ranulphi Ad ' de Gensenr ' Roberto de Stotevil de Atton ' sociis suis partium borealium Salutem Cùm Karissimus filius Edwardus primogenitus noster pro Pace in Regno nostro assecurandâ Obses deputatus extitisset jam sedatâ benedictus Deus turbatione praedictâ super liberatione ejusdem salubritèr providendâ plena securitate tranquillitatis pacis ad honorem Dei utilitatem totius Regni Nostri firmandâ finalitèr complenda per quod vobiscum volumus habere tractatum super praemissis aliis negotiis Nostris arduissimis pluries vobis mandaverimus quòd ad Nos veniretis Nobiscum super specialibus negotiis Nostris colloquium habituri quod hucusque facere distulistis de quo miramur quà m plurimùm movemur vobis iteratò mandamus firmitèr injungentes quòd omnibus negotiis praetermissis ad Nos London sine omni dilatione veniatis Nobiscum super praemissis locuturi hoc sicut Nos Honorem Nostrum vestrum diligitis nullo modo omittatis ut securius ad Nos venire possitis mittemus dilectum fidelem nostrum Johannem de Burgo seniorem ad conducendum vos salvo securè sicut in Literis nostris patentibus quas idem Johannes super hoc habet plenius continâ—tur mandavimus etiam dilectis fidelibus nostris Johanni de Vescy Henrico de Hastinges Joh ' de Eynill Adi de Novo Mercato aliis fidelibus nostris cum eis in partibus illis existentibus quòd à gravaminibus molestiis dampnis seu injuriis vobis aut hominibus vest is si ad Nes veneritis inferendis penitùs desistant In cujus c. Teste Rege apud Wodest ' vicesimo quarto die Decembris And the 26 th day of that December Symon Montfort and his Confederates wanting the Council and Assistance of the Bishop of Norwich and not knowing what to do either with the Old Lyon or the Young directed a Writ unto him in the King's name in these words viz. Rex Episcopo Norwicen ' Cùm post gravia turbationum discrimina dudum habita in Regno nostro karissimus filius Edwardus Primògenitus Noster pro Pace in Regno Nostro assecuranda firmanda Obses traditus extitisset jam sedatâ benedictus Deus turbatione praedictâ super deliberatione ejusdem salubritèr providenda plena securitate tranquillitatis pacis ad honorem Dei utilitatem totius Regni Nostri firmanda totalitèr complenda ac super quibusdam aliis Regni Nostri negotiis quae sine consilio vestro aliorum fidelium Magnatum nostrorum nolumus expediri cum eisdem tractatum habere Nos oporteat vobis mandamus rogantes in fide dilectione quibus Nobis tenemint quòd omni occasione postpositâ negotiis aliis praetermissis sitis ad nos London in Octabis Sancti Hillarii proximè futuris Nobiscum cum praedictis fidelibus Magnatibus nostris quos ibâ—dem vocari fecimus super praemissis tractaturi concilium vestrum impensuri hoc sicut nos honorem nostrum vestrum nec non ad communem Regni Nostri tranquillitatem diligitis nullatenùs omittatis Teste Rege apud Wod ' vicesimo sexto die Decembris And believing it to conduce much unto their naughty purposes to have the Cinque-Ports who were by their Tenures obliged to furnish out yearly a certain number of Ships for the safeguard of the Kingdom and Seas appertaining thereunto to be so much at their Devotion and Command as to hinder any Ayd which might come from any of the King's subjects and dominions in France for the Rescue of the King and Prince out of their Imprisonment and Captivity from which they never intended to Release them until they had Despoiled him of all or the greatest part of his Regalities The Writ following was the 20 th day of the then next following Month of January directed unto the Barons and Bailiffs of the Cinque-Ports to do that which they never did before as followeth c. Rex Baronibus Ballivis portus sui de Sandwico salutem Cum Praelati Nobiles Regni Nostri tà m pro negotio Liberationis Edwardi Primogeniti Nostri quà m prò aliis Communitatem Regni Nostri tangentibus ad instans Parliamentum nostrum quod erit London in Octabis Sancti Hillarii convocari fecimus ubi vestrâ sicut aliorum fidelium nostrorum praesentiâ plurimùm indigemus vobis mandamus in side dilectione quibus Nobis tenemini firmitèr injungentes quòd omnibus aliis praetermissis mittatis ad Nos ibidem quatuor de legalioribus discretioribus Portus vestri quòd sint ibidem in Octabis praedictis Nobiscum cum Praelatis Magnatibus Regni Nostri tractaturi super praemissis concilium impensuri hoc sicut honorem nostrum vestrum communem utilitatem Regni Nostri diligitis nullatenùs omittatis Teste Rege apud Westm ' Vicesimo die Januarii Similiter mandatum est singulis Portubus being within the very Octavies of St. Hillary The First day of February in the year and time of the King's Imprisonment as aforesaid some discords and disturbances continuing in the University of Cambridge amongst the Students and Schollars which was begun three years before and some Endeavours used to remove that
those Writs of Summons to Parliaments to be made Howbeit most certain it is saith Sir William Dugdale That those Writs of Election made in the Name of King Henry the Third to send Knights and Burgesses to the Parliament were by a Force put upon his Great Seal of England as much as upon himself when they had him as a Prisoner of War in their Custody and kept him so as our Chronicles Historians and Annals have Recorded it for an Year and a quarter carrying him about with them to countenance their rebellious Actions for the Battle of Lewis wherein he was made a Prisoner was upon the 14th of May in the 48th and that of Evesham which released him the 4th day of August in the 49th Year of his Raign And there is no Testimony or Record to be found of any other the like Writ of Election made afterwards untill the 22d Year of King Edward the First although there were several Parliaments or Magna Concilia convocated and held in the mean time and if our Ancestors had not been so misled and abused by the Rebels in the Raign of King John and his Son King Henry the Third there are enough yet alive who can sadly remember how a more transcendantly wicked hypocritical Party have since adventured to make out and frame until they had Murthered him counterfeit Writs Commissions and Summons of Parliament in the Name of our Religious King CHARLES the Martyr and make as much as they could His Royal Authority to Fight against His Person And there is no Certainty or pregnant Evidence saith Mr. William Pryn who being a Lawyer and a long and ancient Member of the House of Commons in Parliament did so much adore the Power and Preheminence thereof as adventuring the Loss of his Estate Body and Soul with them therein could find no better a Foundation or Pedigree to bestow upon them than the Captivity and Imprisonment of a distressed unfortunate King but saith That there were not any Knights Citizens Burgesses or House of Commons in the Confessors or Conquerors Raigns or any of our Saxon or Danish Kings nor before the latter end of King Henry the Third's Raign for although Polydore Virgill and others do refer the Original of our Parliaments to the Council holden at Salisbury in the 16th Year of King Henry the First there is not one Syllable in any of our ancient Historians concerning Knights Citizens and Burgesses present in that Councel as saith the Learned Sir Henry Spelman in these words viz. Rex perindè qui totius regni Dominus est Supremus regnumque universum tà m in personis Baronum suorum quà m è subditorum Ligeancia ex jure Coronae suae subjectum habet Concilio assensu Baronum suorum Leges olim imposuit universo regno consentire inferior quisque visus est in persona Domini sui Capitalis prout bodiè per Procuratores Comitatûs vel Burgi quos in Parliamento Knights and Burgesses appellamus Habes morem veteram quem Mutâsse ferunt Henricum Primum Anno regni sui sextodecimo plebe ad concilium Sarisberiense tunc accitâ haec vulgaris opinio quam typis primus sparsit Polydorus Virgilius acceptam subsequentes Chronâ—graphi nos ad authores illius seculi prouocamus And refuting that Opinion by Neubrigensis who lived about that time and relates the purpose of that Great Councel in these words Facto concilio eidem Filiae suae susceptis vel suscipiendis ex eis nepotibus ab Episcopis Comitibus Barombus omnibus qui alicujus videbantur esse momenti and likewise by Florentius Wigorniensis Eadmerus and Huntington further saith Ludunt qui Parliamenta nostra in his quaerunt sine ut sodes dicam collegisse mecentenas reor conciliorum coitiones tenoresque ipsos plurimorum ab ingressu Gulielmi 1 mi ad excessum Henrici 3 i existentium nec in tanta multitudine de plebe uspiam reperisse aliquid ni in his delituer it Seniores sapientes populi which he conceives to be only Aldermanni Sapientes or Barones Magnates regni not the Commons And it hath been well observed by the learned Author of the Notae Adversaria in historiam Mathaei Parisiensis That in the ancient Synods before the subduing of England by William Duke of Normandy conficiebantur chartae donationum publicae de gravaminibus Reipublicae brevitèr inter Regem Magnates Episcopos Abbates consultabatur id enim tunc dierum erat Synodus quod nunc ferè Parliamentum nisi quod non rogabantur leges per plebiscita nec sanciebantur Canones per suffragia minoris Cleri And was as novel and new as it was unexpected no such Writ having ever before been framed or made use of to such or any the like purpose And Mr. Selden likewise saith That the Earls and Barons mentioned or directed by those compelled then Writs of Summons to come to that pretended Parliament were only the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Oxford Derby Norfolk Roger de Sancto Johannis Hugh le Despencer Justiciar ' Angliae Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Robert Basset G. de Lucy and Gilbert de Gaunt Of which the Earls of Leicester Gloucester Norfolk Oxford and Derby were notoriously known to have been in open Armes and Hostility against the King The whole Number of the Temporal Lords therein named not amounting unto more than Twenty-Three with a Blank left for the Names of other Earls and Barons which have not been yet inserted or filled up And all the other which were in that constrained Writ of Summons particularly and expresly named were no other than H. de le Spencer Justicar ' Angliae John Fitz-John Nicholas de Segrave John de Vescy Rafe Basset de Drayton Henry de Hastings Geffery de Lucie Robert de Roos Adam de Novo Mercato Walter de Colvill and Robert Basset de Sapcott which together with the then Bishops of London and Worcester Symon de Montfort Earl of Leicester and Steward of England H. de Boun juvenis Peter de Monteforti S. de Monteforti juvenes Baldwin Wake William le Blond William Marescallus Rafe de Gray William Bardolff Richard de Tany or Tony and Robert de Veteri Ponte made up the Number of the opposite Party to that King in the aforesaid Reference to the King of France And Mr. Selden hath observed That the Preambles of the ancient Parliament-Writs for the Snmmoning of the Baronage sometimes so varied that some eminent occasions of the calling of the Parliament were inserted in the Writs to the Spiritual Barons that were not in those to the Temporal and often times no more than a general and short Narrative of our King's Occasion of having a Parliament with much variation in the Writs of that nature with many differences of slighter Moment expressed and sometimes in all a Clause Against coming attended with Armes and that until the middle of the
Nerves Sinews and Ligaments of the Crown and head of our body Politick and in the doing thereof also might have bereaved the Nation of the ancient and honourable assistance of the House of Peers in Parliament which of Ancient and long time Immemoriall have been as they should ought to be the firm strong pillars supports of our Monarchick Government had not the Earls of Oxford and Strafford Magnanimously as a Prologue to its Restauration come to the House then called the House of Commons in Parliament wherein that great Monck that Unus homo nobis qui cunctando restituit rem was then admitted a member guarded with his own so warily conducted Army out of Scotland before his Majesties happy Restauration and the way had been prepared for it and calling him unto the Door of that house demanded as Peers their Rights and priviledges to have their house of Peers doors opened which upon his Majesties Blessed Father's murther that so misnamed house of Commons in Parliament had shut up and Voted to be Useless and Dangerous which he instantly of himself Ordered to be opened without any Act Order or Vote of Parliament into which they went and sat untill they gained more of their Loyall Party to help to fill their House again which by Degrees was shortly after especially after his Majesties Landing and Coming to London Replenished and Restored as their King and Sovereign was And the Nation had notwithstanding by that Framer of that aforesaid ever to be deplored Act of Parliament been deprived of that only part of our Parliament Subordinate unto their King from the beginning of our very ancient Monarchy and as it ought ever to be till the 49th Year of K. Henry the 3. when he was a Prisoner unto Simon Montfort and his Army of Rebells and not before When some Commons were in that Rebellion Elected to be as a part of Parliament and to sit in a Seperate Lower House ad faciendum consentiendum iis which the King and Lords should think fit or necessary to Ordain had it not been rescued and prevented by the Care of the Lord Viscount Stafford and the Barons of Abergavenny and Dudley awakened by the Book a little before Printed and Published entituled Tenenda non Tollenda who caused a Proviso to be inserted in the said Act of Parliament that nothing therein contained should be extended or prejudiciall to the Rights and Priviledges and Honours of the Peers in Parliament or any that held by Grand Serjeanty c. And having by their good will left as few Spears or Swords as they could in our Israel to help to protect or defend it could notwithstanding readily find the way to that Ingratefull River Lethe and Sin of unthankfullness which God and all good men do not only Abhorr but the most fierce and Savage Beasts of the Field and Fowls of the Air do detest and could not be fully satisfied untill they could add unto the Kings evil Bargain the taking away of the Royal Pourveyance which amounted unto no Smaller a damage unto him then Ninety or One Hundred Thousand Pounds per Ann. it being in the 35th Year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Estimated in the Saving of the houshold expences 25000 l. per Ann. communibus Annis in the 3. Year of the Reign of King James 40000 l. per Ann. And in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr at the most not above 50000 l. per Ann. Communibus Annis But whether more or less is not to be found in the receipt or Yearly Income of the Moyety of the dayly ceasing pretended Recompence by the Excise arising unto no more then one Hundred and Fifty Thousand Pounds deducting the no little charges in the Collection thereof and in taking away of that 50 l. per Ann. for the Royall Pourveyance brought upon the King no less a Damage then One Hundred Thousand Pounds per Ann. And cannot by the most Foolish of the People Lunaticks out of their Intervalls Ideots very small Infants and Children only excepted be with any manner of Colour or Shadow of reason believed to be any thing near a Compensation singly for the Pourveyance and a great deal less for that inestimable Jewell of the Crown the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service the later a principall part of the support of the Sovereignty and the former of the Crown For that the Power Might and Majesty that resideth therein is unvaluable and not to be Ballanced by any thing that is not as much the Pourveyance being in the Fourth Year of the Reign of King James held to be such an Inseparable adjunct of the Crown and Imperiall Dignity and some few Years after believed by the Incomparable Sr Francis Bacon Lord Chancellor of England to be a necessary support both in Law and Politiques in other Nations as well as our own hath told us is such a Sacra Sacrorum as Baldus and Individua as Cynus termeth them which Jurisconsultorum Communi quodam decreto by an uncontroverted opinion of all Lawyers nec cedi nec distrahi nec abalienari a Summo Principe cannot as Bodin saith be granted or released nor by any manner of way aliened or witholden from the Sovereign Prince nec ulla quidem temporis dinternitate praescribi posse nor by any length of time prescribed against him and therefore by Besoldus called Imperii Majestatis Jura bona Regni conjuncta incorporate seu Coronae unita quae princeps alienare non potest the Rights and Empire of Majesty and the goods and part of the Crown so Incorporate and annexed unto it as the Prince cannot alien which for the Subjects to attempt would not be much different from an endeavour to restrain a Prince by Law against the Law of God bonos more 's which by the opinion of the Learned Bacon the Lord Chief Justice Hobart and Judge Hutton would be Void and of none Effect for the presents and good will of Inferiors to their Superiors is one of the most ancient and Noble Customs which mankind hath ever practised and began so with the Beginning and Youth of the world as we find the Patriarch Jacob sending his Sons to his then unknown Son Joseph besides the Mony which he gave them to buy Corn a Present of the best Fruits of the Country a little Balm a little Honey Spices Mirrh Nutts and Almonds The Persians in their Kings Progresses did munera offerre neque vilia neque exilia neque nimis pretiosa nec magnifica bring them Presents neither Pretious nor Contemptible from which etiam Agricolae Opifices Workmen and Plowmen were not freed in the bringing Wine Oxen Fruits and Cheeses and the first Fruits of what the Earth brought forth quae non tributa sed doni loco consebantur which were not accompted to be given as tributes but oblations and free Gifts which made the poor Persian Synetas when he met with Artaxerxes and his
said to be per Dominum Regem And a second of the same date and tenor with a perclose said to have been per Dominum Regem magnum Concilium John Pechies pardon for whom that House of Commons in Parliament was said to intercede only mentioneth that it was precibus aliquorum Magnatum 15 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury before the King and Lords humbling himself before the King desired that where he was defamed through the Realm he might be arraigned before his Peers in open Parliament Unto which the King answered that he would attend the Common Affairs and afterward hear others 5 H. 4. The King at the request of the Commons affirmeth the Archbishop of Canterbury the Duke of York the Earl of Northumberland and other Lords which were suspected to be of the confederacy of Henry Percy to be his true Leige-men and that they nor any of them should be impeached therefore by the King or his Heirs in any time ensuing 9 H. 4. The Speaker of the House of Commons presented a Bill on the behalf of Thomas Brooke against William Widecombe and required Judgment against him which Bill was received and the said William Widecombe was notwithstanding bound in a 1000 pound to hear his Judgment in Chancery And the many restorations in blood and estate in 13 H. 4. and by King E. 4. and of many of our Kings may inform us how necessary and beneficial the pardons and mercy of our Kings and Princes have been to their People and Posterities The Commons accuse the Lord Stanley in sundry particulars for being confederate with the Duke of York and pray that he may be committed to prison To which the King answered he will be advised And Pardons before Indictments or prosecution have not been rejected for that they did anticipate any troubles which might afterwards happen For so was the Earl of Shrewsburys in the Raign of Queen Elizabeth for fear of being troubled by his ill-willers for a sudden raising of men without a warrant to suppress an insurrection of Rebels Lionell Cranfeild Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer of England being about the 18th year of King James accused by the Lords and Commons in Parliament for great offences and misdemeanours fined by the King in Parliament to be displaced pay 50000 l. and never more to sit in Parliament was in the 2d year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr upon his Submission to the King and payment of 20000 l. only pardoned of all Crimes Offences and Misdemeanors whatsoever any Sentence Act or Order of Parliament or the said Sentence to the contrary notwithstanding For whether the accusation be for Treason wherein the King is immediately and most especially concerned or for lesser Offences where the people may have some concernment but nothing near so much or equivalent to that of the Kings being the supreme Magistrate the King may certainly pardon and in many pardons as of Outlaries Felonies c. there have been conditions annexed Ita quod stent recto si quis versos eos loqui voluerit So the Lord Keeper Coventry in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr to prevent any dangerous questions touching the receiving of Fines and other Proceedings in Chancery sued out his Pardon The many Acts of Oblivion or general Pardon granted by many of our Kings and Princes to the great comfort and quiet of their Subjects but great diminution of the Crown Revenue did not make them guilty that afterwards protected themselves thereby from unjust and malicious Adversaries And where there is not such a clause it is always implyed by Law in particular mens cases and until the Soveraignty can be found by Law to be in the People neither the King or his people who by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy are to be subordinate unto him are to be deprived of his haute ex basse Justice and are not to be locked up or restrained by any Petition Charge or Surmise which is not to be accompted infallible or a truth before it be proved to the King and his Council of Peers in Parliament and our Kings that gave the Lords of Mannors Powers of Soke and Sake Infangtheif and Outfangtheif in their Court Barons and sometimes as large as Fossarum Furcarum and the incident Power of Pardons and Remissions of Fine and Forfeitures which many do at this day without contradiction of their other Tenants enjoy should not be bereaved of as much liberty in their primitive and supream Estates as they gave them in their derivatives And though there have been Revocations of Patents during pleasure of Protections and Presentations and Revocations of Revocations quibusdam certis de causis yet never was there any Revocation of any Pardon 's granted where the King was not abused or deceived in the granting thereof For in Letters Patents for other matters Reversals were not to be accounted legal where they were not upon just causes proved upon Writs of Scire facias issuing out of the Chancery and one of the Articles for the deposing of King Richard 2d being that he revoked some of his Pardons The recepi's of Patents of Pardon or other things were ordained so to signifie the time when they were first brought to the Chancellour as to prevent controversies concerning priority or delays made use of in the Sealing of them to the detriment of those that first obtained them And the various forms in the drawing or passing of Pardons as long ago His testibus afterwards per manum of the Chancellour or per Regem alone per nostre Main vel per manum Regis or per Regem Concilium or authoritate Parliamenti per Regem Principem per Breve de privat sigillo or per immediate Warrant being never able to hinder the energy and true meaning thereof And need not certainly be pleaded in any subordinate Court of Justice without an occasion or to purchase their allowance who are not to controul such an Act of their Sovereign Doctor Manwaring in the fourth of sixth Year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr being grievously fined by both Houses of Parliament and made incapable of any place or Imployment was afterwards pardoned and made Bishop of St. Asaph with a non obstante of any Order or Act of Parliament So they that would have Attainders pass by Bill or Act of Parliament to make that to be Treason which by the Law and antient and reasonable Customs of England was never so before to be believed or adjudged or to Accumulate Trespasses and Misdemeanors to make that a Treason which singly could never be so either in truth Law right reason or Justice May be pleased to admit and take into their serious consideration that Arguments a posse ad esse or ab uno ad plures are neither usual or allowable and that such a way of proceeding will be as much against the Rules of Law Honour and Justice as of Equity and good
vain Fears such as in constantem virum cadere non possunt should not be permitted to affright our better to be imployed Imaginations unless we had a mind to be as wise as a small and pleasant Courtier of King Henry the Eighths who would never endure to pass in a Boat under London-Bridge lest it should fall upon his Head because it might once happen to do so Our Magna Charta's and all our Laws which ordain no man to be condemned or punished without Tryal by his Peers do allow it where it is by Confession Outlawry c and no Verdict Did never think it fit that Publick Dangers such as Treason should tarry where Justice may as well be done otherwise without any precise Formalities to be used therein For although it may be best done by the advice of the Kings greatest Council the Parliament there is no Law or reasonable Custom of England either by Act of Parliament or without that restrains the King to do it only in the time of Parliament When the Returns Law-Days and Terms appointed and fixt have ever given place to our Kings Commissions of Oyer and Terminer Inquiries c. upon special and emergent occasions And notwithstanding it will be always adviseable that Kings should be assisted by their greatest Council when it may be had yet there is no Law or Act of Parliament extant or any right reason or consideration to bind Him from making use of His ordinary Council in a Case of great and importunate necessity For Cases of Treason Felony and Trespass being excepted out of Parliament first and last granted and indulged Priviledges by our and their Kings and Princes there can be no solid Reason or cogent Argument to perswade any man that the King cannot for the preservation of Himself and His People in the absence or interval of Parliaments punish and try Offenders in Cases of Treason without which there can be no Justice Protection or Government if the Power of the King and Supream Magistrate shall be tyed up by such or the like as may happen Obstructions So that until the Honourable House of Commons can produce some or any Law Agreement Pact Concession Liberty or Priviledge to Sit and Counsel the King whether he will or no as long as any of their Petitions remain unanswered which they never yet could or can those grand Impostors and Figments of the Modus tenendi Parliamenta and the supposed Mirror of Justice being as they ought to be rejected when the Parliament Records will witness that many Petitions have for want of time most of the ancient Parliaments not expending much of it been adjourned to be determined in other Courts as in the Case of Staunton in 14 E. 3. and days have been limited to the Commons for the exhibiting of their Petitions the Petitions of the Corbets depended all the Raigns of King Edward the First and Second until the eleventh year of Edward the Third which was about sixty six years and divers Petitions not dispatched have in the Raign of King Richard the Second been by the King referred to the Chancellor and sometimes with a direction to call to his assistance the Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law and the Commons themselves have at other times prayed to have their Petitions determined by the Councel of the King or by the Lord Chancellor And there will be reason to believe that in Cases of urgent necessity for publick safety the King is and ought to be at liberty to try and punish great and dangerous Offenders without His Great Council of Parliament The Petitions in Parliament touching the pardoning of Richard Lyons John Peachie Alice Peirce c and a long process of William Montacute Earl of Salisbury were renewed and repeated again in the Parliament of the first of Richard the Second because the Parliament was ended before they could be answered Anno 1. of King Richard the Second John Lord of Gomenez formerly committed to the Tower for delivering up of the Town of Ardes in that Kings time of which he took upon him the safe keeping in the time of King Edward the Third and his excuse being disproved the Lords gave Judgment that he should dye but in regard he was a Gentleman and a Baronet and had otherwise well served should be beheaded but Judgment was howsoever respited until the King should be thereof fully informed and was thereupon returned again to the Tower King Henry the Second did not tarry for the assembling a Parliament to try Henry de Essex his Standard-bearer whom he disherited for throwing it down and aftrighting his Host or disheartning it 16 E. 2 Henry de bello monte a Baron refusing to come to Parliament upon Summons was by the King Lords and Council and the Judges and Barons of the Exchequer then assisting committed for his contempt to Prison Anno 3 E. 3. the Bishop of Winchester was indicted in the Kings-Bench for departing from the Parliament at Salisbury Neither did Henry the Eight forbear the beheading of His great Vicar General Cromwell upon none or a very small evidenced Treason until a Parliament should be Assembled The Duke of Somerset was Indicted of Treason and Felony the scond of December Anno 3. 4. Edwardi 6. sitting the Parliament which began the fourth day of November in the third year of His Raign and ended the first day of February in the fourth was acquitted by his Peers for Treason but found guilty of Felony for which neglecting to demand his Clergy he was put to Death In the Raign of King Philip and Queen Mary thirty nine of the House of Commons in Parliament whereof the famous Lawyer Edmond Plowden was oneâ— were Indicted in the Court of Kings-Bench for being absent without License from the Parliament Queen Elizabeth Charged and Tryed for Treason and Executed Mary Queen of Scots her Feudatory without the Advice of Parliament and did the like with Robert Earl of Essex her special Favourite for in such Cases of publick and general Dangers the shortest delays have not seldom proved to be fatally mischievous And howsoever it was in the Case of Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury in the fifteenth year of the Raign of King Edward the Third declared that the Peers de la terre ne doivent estre arestez ne mesnez en Jugement Si non en Parlement par leur Pairres yet when there is no Parliament though by the Law their Persons may not then also be Arrested at a common persons Suit they may by other ways be brought to Judgment in any other Court And Charges put in by the Commons in the House of Peers against any of the Peers have been dissolved with it For Sir Edward Coke hath declared it to be according to the Law and reasonable Customs of England followed by the modern practice that the giving any Judgment in Parliament doth not make it a Session and that such Bills as passed in either or
expresly prohibited cannot be supposed to be the concern or interest of all the People deserving or requiring satisfaction or especially provided for by Law to have satisfaction unless it could by any probability or soundness of Judgment be concluded that all the People of England besides Wives Children or near Kindred and Relations the necessity of publick Justice and deterring Examples are or should be concerned in such a never to be fancied Appeal of the People And it will be very hard to prove that one or a few are all the People of England or if they could be so imagined are to be more concerned than the King who is sworn to do Justice unless they would claim and prove a Soveraignty and to be sworn to do Justice which though they had once by a villanous Rebellion attacked until Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin cheated them of it for God would never allow them any such power or priviledge or any Title to the Jesuits Doctrine which some of our Protestant Dissenters their modern Proselites have learned of them that the King although he be singulis major is minor universis And it is no denial of Justice in the House of Peers to deny the receiving of an Impeachment from the House of Commons when they cannot understand any just cause or reason to receive it and the Records Rolls Petitions and Orders of Parliament will inform those that will be at the pains to be rightly and truly directed by them that Petitions in Parliament have been adjourned modified or denied and that in the Common or Inferior Courts of Justice Writs and Process may sometimes be denied superseded or altered according to the Rules of Justice or the circumstances thereof And our Records can witness that Plaintiffs have petitioned Courts of Justice recedere a brevi impetrare aliud And it cannot be said that the King doth denegare Justitiam when he would bind them unto their ancient legal well experimented forms of seeking it in the pursuing their Rights and Remedies hinders them in nothing but seeking to hurt others and destroy themselves For Justice no otherwise denied should not be termed Arbitrary until there can be some solid reason proof or evidence for it When it is rather to be believed that if the Factious Vulgar Rabble might have their Wills they would never be content or leave their fooling until they may obtain an unbounded liberty of tumbling and tossing the Government into as many several Forms and Methods as there be days in the year and no smaller variety of Religions And by the Feudal Laws which are the only Fundamental Laws of our Government and English Monarchy those many parts of the Tenants that held of their Mesne Lords in Capite could not with any safety to their Oaths and Estates Authorise any of their Elected Members of the House of Commons in Parliament to accuse or charge any of the Baronage of England in the House of Peers in Parliament although every Tenant in his Oath of Vassalage to his Mesne Lord doth except his Allegiance to the King and would be guilty of Misprision of Treason if he should conceal it by the space of twenty and four hours and if any of the Elected would or should avoid such Misprision of Treason in the not performance of his Duty and Oath of Allegiance it would require a particular Commission to his own Elected Members and is not to have it done by way of a general Representation when there is not to be discerned in the Kings Writ or in the Sureties or Manucaptors matters or things to be performed or in the Indentures betwixt the Sheriff and the Electors and Elected any word of Representation or any thing more than ad faciendum consentiendum iis to assent and obey do and perform such things as the King by the Advice of the Lords in Parliament shall ordain and if they would make themselves to be such Representers were to have a particular and express Commission to charge or impeach any one of themselves or of the House of Peers with Treason or any other high Misdemeanours And they must be little conversant with our Records that have not understood that the Commons have many times received just denials to their Petitions and that some have not seldom wanted the foundations of Reason or Justice That many of their Petitions have adopted the Concerns and Interests of others that were either Strangers unto them or were the Designs of some of the grand Nobility who thought them as necessary to their purposes as Wind Tide and Sails are to the speeding of a Ship into the Port or Landing-places of their Designs For upon their exhibiting in a Parliament in the 28 year of the Raign of King Henry the Sixth abundance of Articles of High Treason and Misdemeanours against William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk one whereof was that he had sold the Realm of England to the French King who was preparing to invade it When they did require the King and House of Lords that the Duke whom not long before they had recommended to the King to be rewarded for special services might be committed Prisoner to the Tower of London the Lords and Justices upon consultation thought it not reasonable unless some special Matter was objected against him Whereupon the said Duke not putting himself upon his Peerage but with protestation of his innocency only submitting himself to the Kings mercy who acquitting him from the Treason and many of the Misdemeanours and for some of them by the advice of the Lords only banished him for five years And that thereupon when the Viscount Beaumont in the behalf of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal required that it might be Inrolled that the Judgment was by the Kings own Rule not by their Assent and that neither they nor their Heirs should by this Example be barred of their Peerage No Protestation appears to have been made by any of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for or on the behalf of the Commons Or by the Commons for themselves So as a different manner of doing Justice can neither truly or rationally be said to be an absolute denial of Justice and was never believed to be so by the Predecessors of the House of Commons in Parliament in our former Kings Raigns when some hundreds of their Petitions in Parliament have been answered There is a Law already provided or let the old Law stand or the King will provide a covenable or fitting remedy And is not likely if it were as it is not to be any Arbitrary Power or any temptation or inducement thereunto to produce any Rule or incouragement to the exercise of an Arbitrary Power in the Inferiour Courts when there is none so weak in his Intellect but may understand that different Courts have several Boundaries Methods and Forms of Proceedings and that the Kings extraordinary great Court and Councel in His House of Peers although very just and
acquiruntur In concessione Privilegiorum observari debet ne contra Jus divinum possumus morale ejusque abolitionem quicquam indulgeat vel largiatur which would so have been if the parties supposed to have been Priviledged should extend them against their King and Gods Vicegerent And it neither was or could be by any Rule of Law or Right Reason any Priviledge granted unto any Members of the House of Commons in Parliament by any of our Kings to their Speaker or otherwise that any of our Kings and Princes should not upon any occasion of High Treason Felony or breach of the Peace personally enter into the House of Commons and cause to be Arrested any of the Members thereof when Queen Elizabeth caused Dr. Parry one of their Members to be Arrested sitting the Parliament for High Treason and tryed condemned and executed for it by Sentence of her Justices in the Court of Kings Bench at Westminster §. 29. Neither could they claim or ever were invested by any Charter or grant of any of our Kings or Princes or otherwise of any such Priviledge or Liberty nor was or is in England any Law or Usage or Custom that a Parliament sitting cannot be prorogued or dissolved as long as any Petition therein exhibiteth remained unanswered or not determined IT being never likely to have been so in a well-constituted government of a Kingdom built constituted upon sound solid principles of Truth Right Reason as ours of England is to have either often or always Ardua to be considered of or of those Arduorum quaedam most especially concerning the defence of the Kingdom and Church of Eng. which were not only to make an Act for the killing of Crows of Paving of Streets or that ex se or per se naturally or properly it could be or ever was in any Regal government in the Earth any Law or Custom to perpetuate or everlastingly to hold a Parliament a thing altogether unknown and unpractised by our English Monarchs who thought it enough at three great Festivals in every year to be attended with their Praelates Nobility and Grandees viz. at Christmas Easter and Pentecost and inquire into the State of affairs of the Kingdom which many times did occasion as much of Advice and Conference amounted as to a Parliament some addresses upon home emergencies being then made for Remedies of evils happened or as fires been to be prevented private petitions seldom interposing if in the inferiour Courts of Justice they might otherwise have Redress for that had been expresly forbidden by a Law of King Canutus and those Sumptuous Feasts and Solemnities being of no longer duration than the Festivals themselves And in so many inferior Courts that gave Remedies the people had no need to trouble themselves or their Kings in Parliament with Petitions especially when in the 9th year of the Raign of King H. 3. A peculiar Court was granted by our Magna Charta and Erected to give Remedies to all the peoples Actions Complaints not Criminal with a lesser charge and attendance in an ordinary and more expedite course and when they came with Petitions proper as they thought for Parliaments they were to be tryed by Bishops and Barons thereunto by the King appointed who by the advice of the Chancellor Treasurer Justices and the Kings Serjeants at Law were if they thought fit to receive them or otherwise to reject them with a non est Petitio Parliamenti and they that were received were many times referred by the King to his Privy Councel and sometimes with an Adeat Cancellariam and at other times with a farther Examination to the Justices of the Courts from whence the complaints did arise or with a respectuatur per dominum principem or referred to the Judges as against the multitude of Attorneys as in the Raign of King Henry 4. And Petitions were not seldom answered with there is a Law already or the King will not depart from his Right And when the Acts of Parliament were made in the 4th and 36th years of the Raign of King Edward 3. wherein he granted that Parliaments should be holden once in every year if need be the Petitions of the people could not avoid the like Limitations or Tryals of them as the Laws required Certain Petitions having been exhibited by the Clergy to the King it was agreed by the King Earls Barons Justices and other wise men of the Realm that the Petitions aforesaid be put in sufficient form of Law A time was appointed to all that would exhibit any Petitions The first part of a Petition the King granted and to the rest he will be advised The Commons did pray that the best of every Countrey may be Justices of Peace and that they may determine all Felonies to which was answered for the 2d the King will appoint Learned Justices they pray that the 40 s. Subsidy may cease Unto which was Answered the King must first be moved They pray that the King may take the Profits of all other Strangers Livings as Cardinals and others during their Lives Unto which was answered the King taketh the profits and the Councel the Kings privy Councel hath sent their Petitions to the King who was then busied in his Wars in France The Commons did pray that all Petitions which be for the Common profit may be delivered in Parliament before the Commons so as they may know the Indorsement and have Remedy according to the ordinance of Parliament unto which was given no Answer The Commons having long continued together to their great Costs and mischief desire Answer to their Bill which in the Parliament Language signified no more than a Petition leur deliverance The Commons petitioned against the falshood of such as were appointed Collectors for 2000 Sacks of Wooll To which was answered This was answered in the last Parliament and therefore Commandment was given to execute the same And the like Answer given ut prius to their Petition touching Robbers and Felons They pray that all Petitions in this present Parliament may be presently answered To which 〈◊〉 answered by the King after Easter they shall be answered The Parliament in Anno 6. E. 3. began upon Monday but forasmuch as many of the Peers and Memb 〈…〉 were not come the assembly required the continuance of the Parliament until the 5th of Hillary next following which was granted The Commons praying the King to grant a pardon for the debts of King John and King Henry the third for which process came dayly out of the Exchequer The King answered he will provide Answer the next Parliament No Parliament being after summoned until Anno 13. of his Raign when the Lords granting to the King the 10th Sheaf of all the Corn of their demesns except of their bound Tenants the 10th fleece of Wooll and the 10th Lamb of their own store to be paid in two years and would that the
the Kings Brother and Chancellor of England in the behalf of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of calling the Parliament and taking for his Theme Multitudo Sapientum learnedly resembled the Government of the Realm to the Body of a man the Right-hand to the Church the Left-hand to the Temporalty and the other Members to the Commonalty of all which Members and Estates the King not deeming himself to be one was willing to have Councel The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England by the Kings commandment declaring the cause of the Summoning the Parliament and taking for his Theme Regem honorificate shewed them that on necessity every Member of mans Body would seek comfort of the Head as the Chief and applyed the same to the honouring of the King as the Head And in that his Oration mentioning the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Knights Citizens and Burgesses giveth them no Title of Estates but the Kings Leiges In the presence of John Duke of Bedford Brother of the King Lieutenant and Warden of England and the Lords and Commons the Bishop of Durham by his commandment declared that the King willed that the Church and all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which could not include the King It was ordained that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties without the words Concessimus which could not comprehend the King who granted it to them but not to himself The Chancellor at the first assembling of the Parliament declared that the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties which must be intended to others that were his Subjects and not to himself that was none of them The Archbishop of York Chancellor of England declaring the cause of Summoning the Parliament said the King willeth that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties in which certainly he well knew that the Person willing or granting was not any of the Persons or Estates to whom he willed and granted that they should enjoy their Liberties The Duke of Gloucester being made Guardian or Keeper of England by the King sitting in the Chair the Archbishop of York being sick William Linwood Doctor of Laws declaring the cause of summoning the Parliaâ—ent said that the King willed that every Estate should enjoy their due Liberties which properly enough might be extensively taken to Military men and Soldiers the Gentry Agricolis opificibus all sorts of Trades Labourers Servants Apprentices Free-holders Copy-holders Lease-holders single Women and Children Tenants at Will and which never were themselves Estates but the several sorts and degrees thereof wherein if any Law Reason or Sense could make the King to be comprehended an inextricable problem or question would everlastingly remain unresolved who it was that so willed or granted The King sitting in his Chair of State John Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the Bishops Lords and Commons by the Kings Commandment declared the causes of summoning the Parliament taking for his Theme or Text the words sussipiant montes Pacem Colles Justitiam divided it into three parts according to the three Estates by the Hills he understood Bishops and Lords and Magistrates by little Hills Knights Esquires and Merchants by the People Husbandmen Artificers and Labourers By the which third Estates by sundry Authorities and Examples he learnedly proved that a Triple Political vertue ought to be in them viz. In the first Unity Peace and Concord In the second Equity Consideration Upright Justice without maintenance In the third due Obeysance to the King his Laws and Magistrates without grudging and gave them further to understand the King would have them to enjoy all their Liberties Of which third Estates the Chancellor in all probability neither the King or they that heard him did take or believe the King himself to be any part The 15th day of August the Plague beginning to increase the Chancellor by the Kings Commandment in the presence of the 3 Estates the Clerks Translator or Abridger being unwilling to relinquish their Novelty or Errors of which the commonest capacity or sense can never interpret the King to be one Prorogued the Parliament until the Quindena of St. Michael The Bishop of Bath and Wells Chancellor of England in the presence of the King Lords and Commons declaring the cause of the Summons of Parliament said that the King willed that all Estates should enjoy thâ—â— Liberties which might intitle the King to be the Party willing or granting but not any of the Parties who were to take benefit thereby It was enacted by the whole Estates which may be understood to be the King Lords Spiritual and that the Lords of the Kings Councel none of theirs should take such order for the Petition of the Town of Plymouth as to them should seem best Letters Patents being granted by the King to John Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury of divers Mannors and Lands parcel of the Dutchy of Lancaster under the Seal of the Dutchy were confirmed by the whole Estates for the performance of the last Will and Testament of King H. 5. though it was severed from the Crown and was no part of the concernment thereof nor had any relation to the Publick or any Parliamentory Affairs the King himself that granted the Letters Patents could not be interpreted to be one of those whole Estates which were said to have confirmed them By the whole Estates were confirmed King Henry the 6th Letters Patents of the Erection and Donation of Eton Colledge and also of Kings Colledge in Cambridge with the Lands thereunto belonging which might well conclude the King although he being the Donor could not be believed to be any part of the whole Estates who by their approbation are said to have confirmed his Letters Patents The Chancellor in the name of all the Lords in the presence of the King protested that the Peace which the King had taken with the French King was of his own making and will and not by any of the Lords procurations the which was enacted And it was enacted that a Statute made in the time of King H. 5. that no Peace should be taken with the French King that then was called the Dolphin of France without the assent of the three Estates of both Realms should be utterly revoked and that no Person for giving Counsel to the Peace of France be at any time to come impeached therefore which may demonstrate that neither the Dolphin of France nor the King of England were then accompted to be any part of the several 3. Estates of the said Kingdoms The King by his Chancellor declared that he willed that all Estates should enjoy their Liberties it cannot be with any probability supposed that either he or his Chancellor intended that himself was one of the said Estates The Archbishop of Canterbury Chancellor of England in the presence of the King gave thanks in his behalf to the 3. Estates wherein no
set on fire about his Ears at once that of Ireland incited by his condescensions to that of Scotland and that of England as busy as the worst but gaining more by it when the King had to pacify all given them license by an Act of Parliament to continue in Parliament without adjourning proroguing or dissolving until those great Sums of Money should be satisfied and Ireland quieted which they never intended but hindred and perplexed all they could although he offered to go thither in Person himself which they would not consent unto for fear least he should thereby get Arms and Power into his own hands to frustrate their wicked design which that Republican wicked party durst never offer to Oliver Cromwell the Protector of their supposed Liberties with any the least of those monstrous conditions by them called Priviledges but could tamely suffer him to make his own Instrument of Government alter the Course of Parliament with more or less Members of the House of Commons in Parliament pull out and imprison diverse Members of that House and shut up the Doors constitute a new House of his mechanick and ordinary Commanders instead of a House of Lords after the Republican partty had made such an Act of Parliament as they could that none should have benefit of the Laws who did not take an oath of engagement not to have any more a King or House of Lords And to be disappointed as little as they could possibly in those their intentions made all the hast they could to fire their Beacons of personal Plots and dangers against themselves the great Patriots of the Kingdom and Weal publick as they had done before against Popery and therefore incredible Plots and Conspiracies were discovered by one of their Members who had an especial faculty therein and likewise by others as a Plaister taken from the sore of a man infected therewith and brought by an Incognito in a Letter to Mr. John Pym the Lord Digby seen at Kingston upon Thames with four Horses in a Coach in a warlike manner Horses kept and trained under ground and a dangerous design to blow up the River Thames with Gunpowder whereby to drown the Parliament Houses with many the like ridiculous fopperies to affright the easy to be deluded silly Vulgar and engage them in a Rebellion and were in the mean time to be secured themselves by a guard for which they â—eâ—tioned the King who ordered the Justices of Peace to command the Constables of that division to furnish one but that would not accommodate their purposes nothing would help forward their more than ordinary designs than a guard by the Trained Bands of the City of London by turns which being granted by the King suddenly after the Citizens Wives were so afraid of the danger oâ— the Tower of London as they could not lye dry in their Beds and the Lieutenant of the Tower must be displaced and a more confiding one put in to give them content that never intended to be satisfied Which being done the Pulpits of the Prebyterian Scotized Clergy flaming and the Printing Presses Stationers and Cryers in the Streets as busy in the publishing the Harangues of the House of Commons Members in proclaiming the imaginary grievances and he was a small man at Arms that had made and published no more than one or two such Speeches mean while Protestations were ordered to be made in every Parish of England and Wales to defend the King and the Protestant Religion the King going into London in his Coach hath a Paper thrown into it with a writing thereupon To your Tents O Israel the many Rude â—eople of the adjoyning Hamlets came in droves to the Parliament crying No Bishops and for Justice and as they pass by Whitehall Gate and knock at it desire to speak with the King who sends unto the Students of the Inns of â—ourt with some Captains and Commanders to attend him as a supplemary Guard who came and had a Diet and Table provided for them the Bishops do leave the House of Peers with a protestation patterned with one in 11 R. 2. that they could not sit there in safety for which they were all made Prisoners in the Tower of London but were all afterwards released except Matthew Wren Bishop of Ely who remained there sequestred from his Bishoprick for something more than 13 years without knowing for what cause or crime until his late Majesties happy Restauration Mr. Henry Martin a Member of the House of Commons in Parliament more fearing the Anger of his Mistress than his God or King begins in Parliament to declaim against the King saying that he was not fit to Raign or Govern and moved that all the Regal Ornaments customarily lodged in the Abby of Westminster under the custody of the Dean and Chapter thereof might be seised one Mr. Parker made hast to make himself an Observator of the Rebellious way with dislocated Maximes abused and wrested out of their proper meaning and Interpretations viz. Quod efficit tale est magis tale the King is Major singulis but minor universis salus populi est suprema Lex which although Learnedly answered by the more Loyal Orthodox Party to an ample Conviction that should be could not satisfie or stop the designed Confederacy and Rebellion but the ten Judges of the twelve that gave their Opinions in the case of Mr. Hambden against him concerning the Ship-money for the King were by the Parliaments Order put out of their Offices and Places Justice Berkly one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench taken Prisoner as he was sitting by the Usher of the Black Rod attending the House of Peers after which Mr. Denzal Hollis came to the House of Lords and with greater boldness than assurance claimed the Militia and Power of the Sword to appertain of Right to the People and Mr. Pryn writes and Publishes his Book of the Supremaey of Parliaments seconded by Mr. John Whites Book entituled a Politick Chatechism undertaking to prove by our Laws the Resistibility and Forcing the Power of our Kings to be Vested in the People and the Judges were commanded by the Parliament without the King to declare to the People in their Circuits that the Militia is and ought to be in the Parliament as the Representative of the People which was never before done read seen or heard of in England which all the Judges obeyed but my honoured Friend the worthy Sir Thomas Mallet one of the Justices of the Court of Kings Bench who not forgetting his very Ancient and Noble discent plainly and resolutely at every place in his next Circuit declared it in all his Charges to be in Law de Jure Coronae suae in the King and for his so exemplary Loyalty was in the last place of that Circuit by Sir Richard Onslow Knight a Member of the Commons House in Parliament with a Troop of Horse as he was sitting upon the Bench at Kingston upon
and stablish for him and his heirs and Successors by the Assent of the Praelates Earls Barons and Commons wherein if the Commons had in themselves an inhaerent Right of Soveraignty they would neither have been troubled with any such fears of the French Government or needed any such provision against it of his Realm of England in this present Parliament in the 14th year of his Raign of England and first of France that by the cause or Colour of his being King of France and that the said Realm to him pertaineth or that he came to be named King of France in his Stile or that he hath changed his Seal or Arms nor for the Commandments which he hath made or shall make as King of France his said Realm of England nor the people of the same of what Estate or condition they shall be shall not at any time to come be put in Subjection nor in obeysance of him or his Heirs nor Successors as Kings of France nor be subject or obedient but shall be free and quit of all manner of obeysanee as they were wont to be in the time of his Progenitors For that Trick or Engine of metamorphosing the Soveraignty of the King into that of the people and by excluding the Bishops and Lords Spiritual out of the House of Peers in Parliament unto which ab ultimo Antiquitatis seculo since Christianity abolished Paganisme they were as justly as happily entituled and put our Kings and their Regalities in their places whereby to create unto themselves a co-ordination and from thence by the Intrigues of Rebellion a Soveraignty in themselves which was not in the former and better Ages ever entertained or believed by our Parliaments when no Original pact or agreement hath been or can yet be discovered how or when the House of Commons came to be entituled unto their pretended inherent Soveraignty or to be seized thereof by their representation of the people or from whom they had it or who gave it unto them when it may be believed God never did it for he that never used or was known to contradict himself hath in his holy word declared and said per me Regis regnant which should not be misinterpreted and believed to be conditionally if the people should approve or elect them for which the Gentlemen of Egregious Cavillations if they would be believed should search and see if in all the Books of God and Holy Writ they can find any revocation of what God himself hath said and often declared for an undeniable truth or that he ever discharged and renounced it by as infallible Acts and Testimonies But if any one that believes Learning and the inquires after Truth Right Reason and what our impartial Records and Historians will justify how or from whence that Aenigna or mystical peice of Effascina of the Members of the House of Commons making themselves to be a 3 Estate of the Kingdom and a Creed of the late Factioâ—s and Rebelling ever to be deplored Parliament or from what Lernean Lake or Spawn of Hydras came It may besides the Pride and Ambition of many that were the fomenters or Nurses of them be rationally 〈◊〉 understood to have none other source or Original besides don Lancifer himself then for Sir Edwards Cokes unhappy stumbling upon his reasonless admired forged Manuscript and Imposture called Modus tenendi Parliamentum in Anglia in King Edward the Confessors Raign there having been neither any Author or Record as Mr. Pryn hath truly observed to Justify or give any credit thereunto but was as he hath abundantly proveâ— a meer Figment and Imposture framed by Richard Duke of York 31. and 32. H. 6. by the Commons Petition and the Duke of Yorks Confederates by the Rebellion and Insurrection of Jack Cade and his Rebellious levelling party to make him that Duke of York Protector and Defender of the People which ended in the dethroning of King Henry 6. and though Mr. Hackwel of Lincolns-Inne a learned Antiquary hath adventur'd to say that he hath seen an Exemplification of a Record sent from England into Ireland to establish Parliaments there after the form or Method of that Modus yet when the learned Archbishop Usher pressed him much to see it he could neither shew the exemplication nor the Record it self neither of which are yet to be seen in England or Ireland only Sir Edward Cokes Copy remains but when or from whence he had it he was never yet pleased to declare 13. E. 3. At the request of the whole Estate which may most certainly have been thought to have been made to the King not to themselves those Articles were made Statutes and the Conditions were read before the King and the Chancellor Treasurer Justices of both Benches Steward of the Kings Chamber and others were all sworn upon the Cross of Canterbury to perform the same 17. E. 3. The cause of summoning the Parliament being declared amongst the other things to be touching the Estate of the King who was often absent in the Wars of France and for the good government which they whom the erring Abridger hath stiled the 3 Estates viz. 1. The Lords Spiritual 2. The Lords Temporal 3. The Commons in Parliament were to consult of so as if the Commons could be a third Estate the King and his Estate and the government were necessarily and only then and always to be understood and believed to be the 4th Estate principal Superior and Independent 18. E. 3. At which Parliament and Convention sundry of the Estates saith that ill Phrasing Abridger or Translator whoever he was were absent whereat the King was offended and charged the Archbishop of Canterbury for his part to punish the defaults of Clergy and he would do the like touching the Parliament whereof Proclamation was made and being not absent was neither likely to be angry with himself or resolving to punish himself The Chancellor in full Parliament declaring the cause of summoning the Parliament viz. The Articles of the Truce with the French King the breaches in particular thereof the whole Estates mistakenly so stiled were willed the King that willed or commanded being no part of them unless it could be believed that himself willed or commanded himself as well as others to advise upon them give their opinion thereof by the Monday next following 20 E. 3. After the reading of the Roll of Normandy and that the King of France his design to extirpate the English Nation the Messengers that were sent by the King required the whole Estate no such Title being in the Original whereof the King could then be no part if it was said to be the whole Estate without him for he could not be with them when he was absent in France and had sent his Messengers unto them to be advised what Aid they would give him for the furtherance of his Enterprise And Mr. John Charleton one of the Messengers aforesaid likewise bringing Letters from the Bishop of
Durham Earls of Northampton Arundel Warwick Oxford Suffolk and Hugh le Despenser Lord of Glamorgan to the whole so misnamed Estate of Parliament when the King could not be one of them not at all being present purporting that whereas the King at his Arrival at Hoges in Normandy had made his Eldest Son the Prince of Wales Knight he ought to have of the Realm forty Shillings for every Knights Fee which they all granted and took Order for the speedy levying thereof 25 E. 3. Sir John Matravers pardon was confirmed by the whole missettled Estates whereof the King could not be accompted any of them for he granted the pardon 28 E. 3. Richard Earl of Arundel by Petition to the King praying to have the Attainder of Edmond Earl of Arundel his Father reversed and himself restored to his Lands and Possessions upon the view of the Record and and the said Richard Earl of Arundels Allegation that his Father was wrongfully put to death and was never heard the whole Estates saith that ill Translator adjudged he was wrongfully put to Death and Restored the said Earl to the benefit of the Law which none could do but the King who was petitioned and having the sole interest in the forfeiture was none of those which were wrongfully called the whole Estates 37 E. 3. Where it is said that at the end of the Parliament the Chancellor in the presence of the King shewed that the King meant to execute the Statute of Apparel and therefore charged every State to further the same the King could not be understood to charge himself After which he demanded of the whole Estates so as before mistaken whether they would have such things as they agreed on to be by way of Ordinance or of Statute they answered by way of Ordinance for that they being to take benefit thereby might amend the same at their pleasure And so the King having given thanks to all the as aforesaid miscloped Estates for their pains taken licensed them to depart which should be enough to demonstrate that the Granter and Grantees were not alone or conjoynt and that the King giving thanks to the Estates did not give it to himself 42 E. 3. The Archbishop of Canterbury on the Kings behalf gave thanks to the whole in the like manner mis-termed Estate for their Aids and Subsidies granted unto the King wherein assuredly the Archbishop of Canterbury did not understand the King to be any part of the whole Estate which the King gave thanks unto The Commons by their Speaker desiring a full declaration of the Kings necessity require him to have consideration of the Commons poor Estate The King declared to the Commons that it was as necessary to provide for the safety of the Kings Estate as for the Common-wealth Anno 6. Regis Richardi 2. after Receivers and Triers of Petitions named Commandment was given that all persons and Estates which imported no more being rightly understood than conditions or sorts of men miscalled as aforesaid should the next day have the cause of summoning the Parliament declared 11 R. 2. The Parliament was said to have been adjourned by the common Assent of the whole Estates the first time of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal being called the Estates without or with the Commons joyned with them no such names or words appellations or Titles were either known or in use nor any such words or Titles as Estates being to be found in the Originals or Parliament Rolls before Anno 11 R. 2. for no more appeareth in the Original than in and under these expressions viz. Et mesme le vendredi auxint a cause ce fest solempnite de pasch estoit a progeno ii coveient le Roi les Seigneurs tautx autres entendre a devotion le Parlement coe assent le toutz Estats le Parlement estoit continez del dit vendredi tanque Lindy lendemain de la equinziesme de Pasch adonquez prochem ensuent commandez per le Roy a toutz les Seigneurs Communs du dit Parlement Quils seroient a Westminster le dimengo en la dite quinzieme de pascha a plustaid sur ceo noevelles briefs furent â—aiots a toutz les Seigneurs somons au dit parlement de yestre a la dite quinzieme sur certaine peine a limiter per les Seiguro qui seroient presents en dit Parlement a la quinzieme avant dite le quel Limdy le dit Parlement fust recommence tenat son cours selont la request des Communs grant de nostre Seigur le Roi avant ditz And then but the inconsiderate hasty new created word of the Clerks in a distracted time when the great Ministers of State in two contrary Factions to the ruin of the King and many of themselves as it afterwards sadly happened were quarrelling with each other and all the Bishops so affrighted as they were enforced to make their Protestation against any proceedings to be made in that so disturbed a Parliament In Anno 21. R. 2. The Bishop of Exeter Chancellor of England taking his Theme or Text out of Ezechiel Rex unius omnibus erat proved by many Authors that by any other means than by one sole King no Realm could be well governed For which cause the King had assembled the Estates in Parliament to be informed of the rights of his Crown withheld which Oration afterwards was to the same effect seconded by Sir John Bussey Knight Speaker of the House of Commons King Richard the second being as a Prisoner in the Tower of London made the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Hereford his Procurators to publish his Rem 〈…〉 of the Kingdom to the whole Estates Which whether at at that time distinguished or divided into three doth not appear viz. into Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons could not comprehend the King who was not to be present but gave the direction and authority to his said Procurators and could never have been understood to have been present or one of them himself or to have made such a prosecution against or for himself After the claim made unto the Crown of England in Parliament by Henry Duke of Lancaster and a consultation had amongst the Lords and Estates not expressing that the Commons were a 3d. or any part thereof it being then altogether improbable that King Richard the 2d or any other representing for him was there present and to make one of the said pretended Estates as much out of the reach of probability that King Richard himself was one or a Person then acting against himself the Duke of Lancaster himself then affirming that the Kingdom was vacant And when the Usurping King Henry the 4th openly gave thanks to the whole Estates wherein is plainly evidenced that himself neither was or could be understood to be then or at any other time one of the said Estates The first day of the Parliament the Bishop of London