to London about His Majesties special Service and that being performed to return without any their let molestation or Impediment The eighteenth of November 1626 in the case of Robert With and Susan His Wife who had Petitioned him for leave to take the benefit of His Majesties Laws against one Mr Burton and obteined his Lordships Order for their Relief therein if he gave them not satisfaction within three moneths after the sight thereof yet being after given to understand that the said Mr. Burton who was but a Surety and in that respect deserved some Commiseration had offered them very reasonable satisfaction which was refused his Lordship being desirous to understand the Nature of the debt with the qualities and reasons of Master Burtons offers and their refusal did refer the Examination thereof unto Sir Robert Rich and Sir Charles Caesar Knights two of the Masters of the Chancery to mediate an Accord betwixt them or otherwise to Certifie and Report the true state of the business betwixt them and in the mean time required them as they would answer the contrary at their peril that they forbear to make use of his former Order or any other whatsoever the which for that purpose he did utterly revoke and annihilate The three and twentieth of November 1626 being the second year of the Reign of that pious King Charles the Martyr John Durat and William Garnat were by the said Lord Chamberlains warrant apprehended by a Messenger of the Kings upon the complaint of Thomas Wadlow The sixth day of December in the same year the said Lord Chamberlain granted his Warrant for the apprehension of Henry Cartar Bayard a Serjeant and John Wright his Yeoman upon the complaint of Mr. Simpson the Queens Jeweller The ninteenth day of January in the same year Thomas Marten Haberdasher of London was by the like Authority apprehended at the Complaint of Captain Fortescue The eighth of May 1627 in the third year of His said Majesties Reign James Palmer of Leicester was by a like Warrant apprehended upon the complaint of Henry Stanford a Yeoman of the Guard The sixteenth of July 1627 a Warrant was granted by the said Lord Chamberlain to apprehend Francis Hawker a Cook and William Fulk Servant to Mr. Howard upon the Complaint of Joane Hewet whose husband being Servant to Mr. Boreman His Majesties Locksmith and employed by him in His Majesties Service was by them hurt and wounded The seventeenth of July 1627 the said Lord Chamberlain sent his Letter unto Mr. Atkinson for the respiting of an Order probably for a Licence to take his course at Law against one Mr. Thomas Wood until the end of Michaelmas Term 1627 withal advising him to forbear all further Prosecution against the said Master Wood or that he should hear further from his Lordship The fifteenth of September 1627 a Warrant signed by the said Lord Chamberlain was directed unto all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs c. not to hinder or molest Dixi Hickman Esq Gentleman Usher to the Queen of Bohemia whilst he was here Imployed about Her Service The thirtieth of September 1627 a Warrant was granted by him for the apprehension of William Wiltshire Under Sheriff of Hampshire and Robert Prime aliâs Island a Bayliff upon the complaint of Sir George Hastings and being the tenth of November following thereupon committed to the Marshalseys and endeavouring to procure his release by an Habeas Corpus the said Lord Chamberlain Issued out another Warrant bearing Date the nine and twentieth of that November to detein him with Certificate that his first Commitment and that warrant for his Commitment was by his Majesties Special Commandment The twelfth day of October in the aforesaid year granted his Warrant for the apprehension of one Andrews a Constable of Petty France upon the complaint of one Ward Yeoman of the Guard The two and twentieth of January next following for the apprehension of Francis Foster and divers others for Arresting of John Smith His Majesties Girdler The tenth of March next following wrote his letter to the Lord Mayor Sheriffs and Recorder of York in the behalf of Robert Metham a sworn Messenger in Ordinary appointed to attend upon the Receiver of Yorkshire upon his Complaint for being there Arrested without leave In the year of our Lord 1628 granted his Warrant for the apprehension of Richard Harris Thomas Rosse of Leaden-hall-street London Merchants John Offley of Hampshire and a Servant to the Clerk of the Peace for Middlesex upon the Complaint of Francis de Champer Did write his letter to the Lord Mayor of London acquainting him with the Arrests and Imprisonments of Mr. George Morgan and others of his Majesties Servants and desired his Lordship to give notice to the Sheriffes of London and other Officers in London that they forbear to Arrest or Imprison His Majesties Servants without acquainting his Lordship therewith who promised upon such occasions to do Justice Grant a Warrant for the apprehension of Robert Armstrong for the Arresting of the Post Master of Saint Albans And the like to apprehend William Martin of Itham in the County of Kent upon the Complaint of Anthony Hobbes one of the Yeomen of the Guard for an Attachment of his Horse and a Warrant or Letter to discharge the Apprentices of the King and Queens Watermen from being Imprest for Sea Service in these words viz. Whereas I understand that some of the Apprentices and Servants of the King and Queens Water-men have lately been Imprest for His Majesties Service at Sea These are to require you Immediately upon the sight hereof to cause them to be released and discharged And that hereafter you forbear to Imprest them the said Water-men or their Servants they being Obliged unto a daily Attendance upon His Majesties Person and the Queens And for so doing this shall be your Warrant And the sixteenth day of February in the same year after His Majesties assent by Act of Parliament unto the Petition of Right which was the six and twentieth day of June in the year aforesaid upon an abuse committed upon the Persons of Mr. Nicholas Laneir and other His Majesties Servants in Ordinary by haling them to Prison in an unwarrantable and barbarous manner the Lords of His Majesties Privy Council amongst which was the Lord Keeper Coventrey did by their Letter to Sir Richard Deane then Lord Mayor of London greatly blame him for the permitting of the same in the words following viz. AFter our Hearty Commendations to your Lordship Whereas it is come to the knowledge of His Majesty and this Board that upon a light Affray or Breach of Peace fallen out in the Exchange wherein Master Nicholas Laneir and other His Majesties Servants in Ordinary mentioned in the Petiâ—ion which we send you inclosed happened to be interessed That the Constables and other Officers who came under pretense of Keeping the Peace did by colour of their Office notwithstanding they knew them to be His Majesties Servants in an unwarrantable
and barbarous manner carry and hale them along the streets to Prison being at noon day refusing to carry them first before a Magistrate as they ought to have done and as was by the said Gentlemen demanded however vpon calling some of the said parties complained of before us and entring into examination of the business we found in general that the carriage of the said Officers and their assistants had been such as was informed yet because the more particular inquiry thereof was a work not so fit to trouble the Board withal we have thought good therefore to refer the due examination thereof to your Lordship letting you to know that if as is conceived you understood of the miscarriage of the said Officers and past it over without reproof that you have wilfully failed both in discretion and duty for that you cannot be ignorant that the proper and usual way of proceeding in a case of this nature against his Majesties Servants had been not by committing them to Prisons but by an address or appeal to the Lord Chamberlain of His Majesties Houshold or in his absence to such other Principal Officers unto whom it appertains to give redress and therefore as the more we consider of it the more we marvel at the insolent carriage of your Officers and the Connivency of your Lordship and other the Chief Magistrates of the City So you are to know that His Majesty and this Board expects not only a good accompt from you in the examination and proceedings of the said Officers and others their assistants in this particular but that His Majestie expects and requires at your hands not as a Respect only but as a Duty that hereafter upon any the like occasions happening within the City concerning His Servants the proceedings against them be by Appeal and Information first to the Lord Chamberlain or in his absence to such other Principal Officers to whom it properly appertaineth and not by Commitments to Goals and Prisons at your pleasure And so we bid your Lordship very heartily Farewell From Whitehall the sixteenth of February 1628. Lord Keeper Lord Treasurer Lord President Lord High Chamberlain Earl Marshal Lord Steward Earl of Holland Earl of Danby Chancellor of Scotland Lord Viscount Dorchester Lord Viscount Wilmot Lord Newburgh To Sir Richard Deane Lord Mayor of London And in the year 1629 granted a warrant for the apprehension of Humphrey Worrall for the Arresting of one of His Majesties Pensioners In the year 1630 the like against Maurice Evans for serving a Subpoena in the Court against John Durson The like for the apprehension of Edward Clark and Samuel Farrier of Canterbury upon the complaint of Thomas Potter for abusing him being imployed in the Execution of a Warrant A Warrant for the Commitment of William Acheson to the Gatehouse for transgressing his Order in arresting Master Shaw and giving his Lordship no notice A Warrant for the apprehension of Tirrell and David Edwards upon the complaint of Richard Eyre for detaining his Horse A Warrant dated the two and twentieth day of November in the year aforesaid for the apprehension of Master Morgan Goodwin Master William Small Under Sheriff of Middlesex and Thomas Brook a Bayliff upon the complaint of Doctor Robotham for an arrest Whereupon they being apprehended did the five and twentieth day of that November procure an Habeas Corpora to be brought to Carter the Messenger to whose custody they were Committed and were thereupon Released but presently by another Warrant his Lordship committed them to the charge of William Wattes The Second of February in the same year the said Lord Chamberlain sent his letter unto the Sheriff of Middlesex in these words Sir I understand that Sir John Wentworth is arrested upon an Execution at the suite of one Beeston and now remaining in your Custody and that some others have Petitioned me wherein when I have found cause I have given way under my hand if any other which have not leave shall offer to bring any Actions against him I do expect and require that you forbear to receive or entertain them unless you see my hand for your Warrant As you will answer the contrary The twelfth of February 1630 granted a Warrant for the Commitment of Symon Hayton and William Taylor for charging the said Sir John VVentworth in Execution being under arrest upon leave granted In the year 1631 a Warrant for the apprehension of Richard Graunt Fowler and John Havit upon the complaint of William Burton a messenger of the Court of Wards The like for the apprehension of Samuel Twynne and Stephen Symons for the Arrest of Ralph Short a post Master A Warrant to apprehend Master Roger Vrmiseon an Attorney of the Court of Common Pleas upon the complaint of Mr. Edward Crofts for an arrest without leave A Warrant for the apprehension of Masier upon the complaint of Nicholas Sherman for distreyning of his goods for his not appearance at the Marsh Court at Greenwich A Warrant for the Commitment of Peter Price to the Marshalsea for serving a Subpoena upon Master George Ravenscroft in the Council Chamber at Whitehall A Warrant for the apprehension of Robert Champion a Serjeant in the Poultry Compter for taking a Prisoner from the Kings Messenger by a Writ probably an Habeas Corpus out of the Kings Bench. In the year 1632 a warrant for the apprehension of John Perkins a Constable for serving the Lord Chief Justice's Warrant upon John Beard in Saint James's Park A Warrant for the Commitment of Leonard Ward a Clark of the Court of Common Pleas and Potters a Bayliff to the Marshalseas for arresting of Edward Pigot a Groom extraordinary without leave A Warrant for the apprehension of John Bishop one of the Lord Mayors Officers In the year 1633 a warrant for the apprehension of Anthony Tompson Clark John Richardson and others for the arrest of George Nicholson a Yeoman of the Guard The like to apprehend Griffin Jones upon the complaint of John Heydon one of His Majesties Musicians for abusive Language given him as fidling Rogue c. The like to apprehend Arthur Toogood and Morgan Castle Butchers for assaulting Mr. Pitcarnes the Master of the Hawkes man The like for the apprehension of Geoffrey Brittingham Anthony Carnaby and William Marbury upon the Complaint of Robert Wood for Actions laid upon him without leave A Warrant to the Bayliff of Westminster to forbear to admit any Writs or Actions against Sir Henry Wotton Knight His Majesties Servant sworn in the year 1627 one of the Gentlemen of His Majesties Privy Chamber Extraordinary in the name of any Person or Persons whatsoever but such as shall have leave Granted unto them under the Lord Chamberlains hand In the year 1635 a Warrant for the apprehension of one Master Atkinson and divers others for the arresting of the Lord Rich being not long before sworn a Gentleman of the Kings Privy Chamber Extraordinary In the year 1636
Anno 1630. Herbert Croft Batchelor of Divinity now Bishop of Hereford and did not refuse divers of the Sons of the Nobility who sought to partake of the honour of access unto his Majesty and the more select rooms of State in his Court which in that of the Kings of Spain is not thought fit to be communicated but to some of their especial Attendants to be sworn Gentlemen Extraordinary of his Privy-Chamber as in the year 1631. the Lord Matravers eldest Son to Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey and Sir William Howard Knight of the Bath now Viscount Stafford his Brother and in the year 1638. the Earl of Kildare the first Earl of Ireland who could not be blamed for their inclinations or tendency to the center of Honour when as long before the Conquest or fatal period of our Saxon Ancestors King Alfred had many of the Sons of the Nobility educated and brought up in his Court and that noble and well becoming custom received and met with in many ages after so great an encouragement as the young Lords or Nobility had a constant Table or dyet in the Court untill in the Reign of King Edward the 6th the perswasions of a needless and unhappy parsimony did put an end to that part of the Royal munificence which King Henry the 3d. in some hundred years before would not in his greatest wants of daily necessaries occasioned by some of his unruly Barons when he took such relief as some Abbeys would afford him quit that part of the honour of his Court or Houshold nor did our late King of blessed memory deny the like honour of his Privy-Chamber to divers Gentlemen of note or great esteem in their Countries as Sir Arthur Capel Knight aâ—terwards Lord Capel that heroick and loyal Martyr for his King and the Fifth Commandment of his Heavenly King charged upon all Mankind in the Decalogue Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Son of Sir Thomas Richardson Knight Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Kings-Bench or Sir Thomas Roe Knight a learned and well experienced Embassador to the Mogor or Mogull that great Prince in the East-Indies and to several States and Kingdoms in Christendom Sir Fulk Hunkes Knight and Sir Ferdinando Knightley Knight two well experienced Commanders in the English Regiments in the Netherlands or United Provinces Sir Edward Dearing Knight one of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament in the year 1641. and unto Sir William Waller Knight who afterwards bitterly repented the vain-glory of being a Conqueror of some of his Soveraigns Forces endeavouring to defend him and their Laws and Liberties in the late Rebellion and to some others who could afterwards stain their formerly more loyal Families in that horrid Rebellion and imploy their time and Estates against their King which had â—o much honoured them or to admit into his service as a Servant Extraordinary Edmond Cooper a Drummer John Houghton a Chirurgeon or some excellent Picture-drawer as the famous Sir Anthony van Dike or some Foreign curious Engineer Gunsmith or other excelling Artificers who without some such encouragements would not have benefited our Nation with their skill and residence and was in that Prince of blessed memory and will be in our gracious Soveraign no less allowable than iâ— was in King David to take into his Family as an Extraordinary when his affection and gratitude prompted him unto it Chimham the son of the good old Barzillai when many of the Yeomanry of England have besides their Servants in ordinary some that are as extraordinary and work a great part of the year with them And the Nobility and Gentry of England sincâ— their restraint of giving Liveries by several Acts of Parliament to prevent the too freequent use of that in making of parties and factions in one of which viz. that of the first and second year of the Reign of King Henry the 4th cap. 21. it is provided as hath been mentioned That the King may give his Honourable Livery to his menial Knights and Esquires and also to his Knights and Esquires of his retinue who are not to use it in their Counties but in the Kings presence and the Prince and the Nobility coming unto the Court and returning from thence were specially excepted are not at this day debarred the moderate use of Liveries or some as extraordinary Servants to be imployed upon several occasions to retain unto them as the Lord Mayor of London is not without the attendance of Livery-men of the Companies or Fraternities of Trade or such as he shall select out of them in some grand Solemnities as the meeting or welcoming of the King to his City or Chamber of London at his return from a Progress or from Scotland to conduct into the City a Russian or Persian Embassador and it hath been ever accounted to be a Royal or honourable way of Espargne to have some to be extraordinary Servants without the charge of Bouche of Court or annual salaries to be alwayes in readiness at grand festivals or occasions and those Citizens of London and men of the Mysteries of gain and Trade who have aggrandized their Credits and Estates by the Sun-shine and warmth of the residence of the King and his Courts of Justice can when a little before they could busie themselves in needless murmurs and complaints against the Priviledges of the Kings Servants in ordinary and extraordinary think themselves to be no mean men in their Parishes and Companies if they can procure the favour to be admitted the Kings Servants extraordinary as he shall have occasion to be cozened in such Manufactures or Wares as their Trades afford in so much as it is become the preferment and ambition of one of every Trade great or little some few only excepted in the City of London to be entituled to be the Kings Servant as the Kings Grocer Brewer Apothecary Mercer Draper Silk-man Taylor Printer Stationer Bookseller Girdler a Trade now altogether disused Shoomaker Spurrier c. and are well contented to enjoy all the Priviledges appertaining to the Kings Servants as not to bear Offices in their Parishes or Custard-cram'd Companies and not to be arrested without licence And their Wives swelling into a tympany of Pride will be apt enough to think their former place and reputation too far beneath them and not let their Husbands purse have any rest or quiet untill they can be fine enough to go to the Court and see the Lords and Ladies their Husbands fellow Servants And they which cannot attain to that honour to be such a Servant of the Kings extraordinary for they cannot be truly said to be any thing more than the Kings Servants extraordinary when as he as to many of them hath no daily or but a seldom and occasional use of them and where he hath most it is not constantly or often do think it to be worth the utmost of their endeavours to obtain the honour and priviledge of being the Queens
do owe unto the Records of of this Kingdom and our great Seldens Intimacy and familiarity with them by whose learned Labours and Observations we have had the benefit of the disdiscovery and dispelling of many an Error and of the Illustration of many difficult and dark Notions and places in our Laws by which his great insights and inquiries into the English Records and Antiquities and the Seuerest part of the Learning of our Common Laws and the Civil Law and Laws of many Nations he became enabled and was as a learned Forreigner hath justly stiled him a Dictator or mighty man of Learning to giving aid and assistance tanquam de Throno sapientiae to the republick and Posterity of good Letters and Learning his Knowledge therein being so singularly exquisite Surmounting and Supereminent as he was not unfitly said to be decus gloria gentis Anglorum and if Nature could have so long have kept him from the fate of Mortality ought to have survived many Centuries more and have continued his admired Course in Learning untill the period and end of the World for that as Sir John Vaughan Knight now Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas his contemporary and most intimate associate in those more severe Recherces and choice pieces of Learning and Antiquities hath since his death bemoaning the loss and want of such a Treasury of Learning not long since well expressed it Debuit cum mundo mori it was too great a loss to the World and after Generations that he should dye before it for although the neglect of Records and Antiquities which might have a greater veneration than this Age is willing to bestow upon it have of late been so much undervalued as to be termed rusty and motheaten and those which do give them their true esteem and value superstitious Porers and Doters upon them So as the laborious Learned and well deserving Antiquarie Mr. William Dugdale was not without Premisses to Warrant his Conclusion when with some regret mixt with facetiousness he said that for any man in these Times to busie himself in the old Records or to spend his Time Candle in the search sifting of Antiquity it would by the little incouragements which have been given unto it amount unto as small a Profit or Purpose as to set up and keep a shop to sell old fashon'd Hose Trunk-Breeches and long wasted Dublets and expect to gain by it To so great a mispris and scorn are those usefull inquiries and Lamps of Learning fallen into when as they do draw out of the pit and devouring Jawes of Time many a pretious and hidden Truth and are not seldome the only rescuers of it and was better respected when old Marculfus Wrote his Formulae's Pancirollus his deperdita and when Brissonius and Pasquier Camden Selden Linden brogius our Learned Sir Henry Spelman and Mr. Dugdale and many other Worthies not here ennumerated made it their Business to discover them and the very Learned Sir Robert Cotton was at so great an Expence of Money and Time to Redeem so many as he did from the Captivity of an everlasting Oblivion which hath taken away and concealed many a Truth from the former Generations this present Age which are to come and to dig in those hidden Mines of incomparable Treasure But when the scorners of this Age shall have surfeited with the villifying of the Wisdom of the former and the Experiences of men and times past which Solomon in the high and not to be valued Price which he did put upon Wisdom and the Incouragement which he gave to the Study and search after the Riches and Treasures thereof would never have advised them unto They or some other after them may learn to forsake that grand piece of resolved folly by what this Nation and the Kingdoms of Ireland and Scotland have so greatly suffered in the late time of Rebellion and Confusion by some of our Lawyers and too many of our Nation not understanding the Rights and Prerogative of the King which the old Records of the Kingdom did and will always abundantly witness and by too many of the Inferior Clergies Ignorance of the Ecclesiastical Histories and Primitive times which did not a little contribute unto it and believe that the greatest disservice which can be done to Princes to endeavour to advance their Prerogative beyond the Laws of the Land right Reason and the necessary and just means of Government and that on the other side they are small Friends or rather great Enemies to the Publick that will go about to perswade the People or entitle them to more Liberties than the Laws well interpreted will allow them that there is a Justice to be done to the King in giving unto him that which belongeth unto him and in not denying his just and Legal Rights as well as a Justice to be done by him in what shall concern his people and their Liberties That there is a Majesty due to Kings and that the Rights of their Courts Palaces and Servants are neither to be neglected or continued And therefore if the Romans those great Champions and Patrons of Libertie were so Jealous and Watchfull in the Preservation of the Honours and respects due unto Magistracy and Superiority as their Consul Fabius would rather for the time forget the Honour due and payable from a Son to his Father of which that Nation were great observers than relinquish any thing of it and commanded by a Lictor or Officer his Aged Father Fabius the Renowned preserver of Rome in a Publick assembly to alight from his Horse and do him the Honour due unto his present Magistracy which the good old man although many of the People did at the present dislike did so much approve as he alighted from his Horse and embracing his Son saidâ— Euge fili sapis qui intelligis quibus imperes quam magnam Magistratum imperes I may give my self an Assurance that your Lordships will with greater reason make it your endeavours not only to preserve the Rights of Majesty but the Rights and Priviledges of those great and Honourable Offices and places which you hold under the King our Soveraign and be as willing as your great and Honourable Predecessors in those Offices were to transmit them to their Successors in no worse condition than they found them Which that it may equally be done in that particular of the Kings Servants just Rights and Priviledges is the only design of the ensuing vindication of them and the Honour and respect due unto our Soveraign and submitted to you Lordships Judgment and Consideration humbly intreating your Lordships to pardon any the Errors or failings therein which in the haste of the Press my desire to keep pace with it when I was crebris intermissionibus aliorum negotiorum incursionibus frequenter interpellatus might easily happen and more especially in an undertaking of that Nature nullius ante trita pede being a Path never before as
Palace the Court of Justice therein kept being called Capitalis Curia Domini Regis the Kings chief Court where those Justices or Judges then sate and where the great Assize or Writs of Assize in pleas of Land happily succeeding in the place of the turbulent fierce and over-powring way of duels or waging of battels for the determination of pretended Rights were tryed Juries impanelled and a Fine passed and Recorded before the Bishops of Ely and Norwich and Ralph de Glanvile our Learned Author Justitiis Domini Regis et aliis fidelibus et familiaribus Domini Regis ibi tunc presentibus the Kings Justices and other of his Subjects and Houshold Assizes of novel desseisin and prohibitions to Ecclesiastical Courts awarded And was so unlikely to permit any Breach of his Servants just priviledges as he did about the 24th year of his Raign not only confirm all his Exchequer Servants Dignities and priviledges used and allowed in the Raign of King Henry the first his Grandfather but although Warrs and many great troubles assaulted him did when he laid an Escuage of a Mark upon every Knights Fee whereby to pay his hired Soldiers not at all charge his Exchequer Servants for that as the black Book of Exchequer that antient Remembrancer of the Exchequer priviledges informs us Mavult enim Princeps stipendiarios quam Domesticos Bellicis apponere casibus for the King had rather expose his hired men of Warre to the inconveniences thereof then his Domestique or Houshold Servants and being as willing as his Grandfather to free them from being cited or troubled before his delegated or Commissionated Courts of Justice or Tribunals would in all probability be more unwilling that those which more neerly and constantly attended upon his person health or safety should by any suits of Law be as to their persons or estates molested or diverted from it nor could there be howsoever any danger of arresting the Kings Servants in ordinary without leave or Licence first obtained in the after-Raigns of King Richard the first and King John when Hubert Walter Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England in the 6th year of the Raign of King John was likewise Lord Chief Justice of England And the now chief Courts of the Kingdome as the Chancery Kings-Bench Common-Pleas and Exchequer were radically and essentially in the King and in the distribution of Justice of the said Kings and their Royal Predecessors resided in their Council and great Officers in their Courts attending upon their Persons For many of the Suits and Actions at the Common Law and even those of the Court of Common Pleas untill the ninth year of the Reign of King Henry the third when it was by Act of Parliament forbidden to follow the Kings Court but to be held in loco certo a place certain in regard that the King and his Court were unwilling any more to be troubled with the Common Pleas or Actions betwixt private persons which were not the Kings Servants were there prosecuted And untill those times it cannot be less then a great probability that all the Trades-mens debts which were demanded of Courtiers and the Kings Servants were without Arrests or Imprisonments to be prosecuted and determined in the Court before the Steward and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and that the King who was so willing was so willing to ease his Subjects in their Common Pleas or Actions by freeing them from so chargeable an attendance which the prosecution of them would commonly if not necessarily require did not thereby intend that they should have a Liberty without leave or Licence first obtained to molest any of his Servants in ordinary in their Duty or Attendance upon his Royal person and Affairs by prosecuting Arresting imprisoning or compelling to appear before other Judges or Tribunals any of his Servants in ordinary Who in those times may well be thought to enjoy a freedom from Arrests or Imprisonment of their Bodies untill leave or Licence first obtained when Hugo de Patishul Treasurer unto King Henry the third in the nineteenth year of his Raign Philip Lovel in the 34th year of the Raign of that King and John Mansel Keeper of the great Seal of England in the 40th year of that Kings Raign were whilst they held their several other places successively Lord Chief Justices of England When the Court of Chancery being in the absence of Parliaments next under our Kings the Supreme Court for the order and distribution of Justice the Court of the Kings Bench appointed to hear and determine Criminal matters Actions of Trespass and Pleas of the Crown and the Court of Exchequer matters and Causes touching the King's Revenue were so much after the 9th year of the Raign of King Henry the third and the dispensing with the Court of Common Pleas from following the person of our Kings to their several Houses or Palaces or as their Affairs invited them to be sometimes Itinerant or resident in several other parts of the Kingdom did follow the King and were kept in their Houses or Palaces notwithstanding that when like the Sun in his Circuit distributing their Rayes and Comforts to all the parts of the Kingdome by turns they were according to their occasion of busines sometimes at York or Carlile in the North and at other times for their pleasures or divertisements kept their Courts or festivals at Glocester or Nottingham and their Parliaments sometimes at Marlebridge in Wiltshire or Ruthland in Wales or at Glocester or Lincoln For it may be evidenced by the Retorn or days given in Writs and antient Fines levied before the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster after the allowance or favour given to that Court not to be ambulatory and to the people not to be at so great trouble or charges as would be required to follow the King and his Court in a throng of Followers and other business for the obtaining of Justice in their suits or Actions as well small or often emerging as great and seldome happening the days of old also affirming it that the Kings Palace at Westminster in the great Hall where the Court of Common Pleas hath ever since dwelt some places thereunto adjoyning retaining at this day the Name of the Old Palace did not cease to be the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England untill that King Henry the 8th by the fall of the pompous Cardinal Woolsey the building of St. Jame's House and inclosing the now Park thereof with a brick wall made White-Hall to be his House or Palace but kept the name as well as business of the Palace or Mansion House of our Kings of England And the Courts of Chancery King's Bench and Exchequer did after the fixation of the Common Pleas or Actions of the people to a certain place in the Kings Palace at Westminster being then his more settled and constant habitation and Residence for his not a few
against the Legality of this Court in the Reigns of King Henry the seventh Henry the eighth Edward the sixth Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth or since although Sir Edward Coke being unwilling to allow it to be a Court legally constituted as not founded by any Prescription or Act of Parliament hath thrown it under some scruples or objections with which the former Ages and Wisemen of this Nation thought not fit to trouble their Times and Studies that Court being not only sometimes imployed in the determining of Cases and Controversies irremedial in the delegated Courts of Justice out of the Palace Royal or by the Privy Council but concerning the Kings Domesticks or Servants in Ordinary as may be seen in the 33 year of the Reign of K. Henry the eighth in the Case of David Sissel of Witham in the County of Lincoln Plaintiff against Richard Sissel his Brother Yeoman of the Kings Robes for certain Lands lying in Stamford in the said County of Lincoln formerly dismissed by the Kings most Honourable Privy Council wherein the said David Sissel was enjoyned upon pain of Imprisonment to forbear any clamour further to be made to the Kings Grace touching the Premises In the second and third years of King Philip and Queen Mary Sir John Browne Knight one of the two Principal Secretaries to the King and Queens Majesties was a Plaintiff in that Court and in the thirteenth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Sir James Crofts Knight Comptroller of the Queens Majesties Houshold against Alexander Scoffeild for Writings and Evidences in the Defendants Custody And those great assistants Lords and Bishops Commissionated by the King as his Council or Commissioners did sometimes in that Court as in the thirtieth year of the Reign of King Henry the eighth superintend some Causes appealed aswell from the Lord Privy Seal as the Common Law and Sir John Russel Knight Lord Russel the same man or his Father being in an Act of Parliament in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth wherein he with the Archbishop of Canterbury and others were made Feoffees of certain Lands to the use and for performance of the Kings last Will and Testament stiled Master John Russel his Majesties Keeper of the Privy Seal was in that Court made a Defendant in the first year of the Reign of King Edward the sixth to a Suit Petition or Bill there depending against him although he was at that time also that Great and Ancient Officer of State called the Lord Privy Seal there having been a Custos Privati Sigilli a Keeper of the Privy Seal as early as the later end of King Edward the first or King Edward the second or the beginning of the Reign of King Edward the third about which time Fleta wrote nor was it then mentioned as any Novelty or new Office the Lord Privy Seal or Keepers of the Kings Privy Seal having ever since the eighteenth year of the Reign of King Henry the seventh if not long before until that fatal Rebellion in the later end of the Reign of that incomparable and pious Prince King Charles the Martyr successively presided and been Chief Judges in that Court which was not understood to be illegal in the twentieth year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when in a Case wherein George Ashby Esq was Complainant against William Rolfe Defendant an Injunction being awarded against the Defendant not to prosecute or proceed any further at the Common Law and disobeyed by the procurement of the said William Rolfe it was ordered That Francis Whitney Esq Serjeant at Arms should apprehend and arrest all and every person which should be found to prosecute the said Defendant contrary to the said Injunction and commit them to the safe custody of the Warden of the Fleet there to remain until order be taken for their delivery by her Majesties Council of that Court by Authority whereof the said William Rolfe was apprehended and committed to the Fleet for his Contempts but afterwards in further contempt the said William Rolfe's Attorney at the Common Law prosecuting a Nisi prius before Sir Christopher Wray then Lord Chief Justice of the Queens Bench against the Complainant in Guildhall London the said Attorney was then und there presently taken out of the said Court by the said Serjeant at Arms and committed to the Fleet. Nor by Sir Henry Mountà gue Knight Earl of Manchester who being the Son of a Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench was in Legibus Angliae enutritus in praxi legum versatissimus a great and well-experienced Lawyer and from his Labour and Care therein ascended to the Honour and Degree of Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench from thence to that of Lord Treasurer of England thence to be Lord President of the Kings most Honourable Privy Council and from thence to be Lord Privy Seal and for many years after sitting as Supreme Judge and Director of the Court of Requests in the Reign of King James and King Charles the Martyr together with the four Masters of Requests his Assessors and Assistants in that Honourable and necessary Court Which Office or Place à Libellis Principis of Master of Requests having been long ago in use in the Roman Empire and those that were honoured therewith with maximorum culmine dignitatum digni men accounted worthy of the most honourable nnd eminent Imployments and that Office or Place so highly esteemed as that great and ever famous Lawyer Papinian who was stiled Juris Asylum the Sanctuary or Refuge of the Law did under the Emperor Severus enjoy the said Office to whom his Scholar or Disciple Vlpian afterwards succeeded and with our Neighbours the French summo in honore sunt are very greatly honoured quibus ab Aulâ Principis abesse non licet and so necessary as not at any time to be absent from the Court or Palace of the Prince The Masters of Requests are and have been with us so much regarded and honoured as in all Assemblies and Places they precede the Kings Learned Council at Law and take place of them and amongst other Immunities and Priviledges due unto them and to the Kings Servants are not to be enforced to undergo or take upon them any other inferior Offices or Places in the Commonwealth There being certainly as much if not a greater Reason that the King should have a Court of Requests or Equity and Conscience where any of his Servants or Petitioners are concerned as the Lord Mayor of London who is but the Kings Subordinate Governour of that City for a year should have a Court of Conscience or Requests in the City of London for his Servants or the Freemen and Citizens thereof The Rights and Conveniences of our Kings of England doing Justice to their Domestick or Houshold Servants within their Royal Palaces or Houses or the virge thereof and not remitting them to other Judicatures together
ended in the Cardinals turning to Mr. Welch and saying Well there is no more to do I trow you are one of the Kings Privy Chamber your Name is Mr. Welch I am contented to yield unto you but not unto the Earl without I see his Commission for you are a sufficient Commissioner in this behalf being one of the Kings Privy Chamber And in the 21 year of the Reign of that King such a care was taken to keep not only the Chaplains of the King Queen Prince and Princess or any of the Kings or Queens Children or Sisters but of the Lord Chancellor Lord Treasurer Chamberlain Steward Treasurer and Comptroller of the Kings Houshold from any prejudice whilst they attended in their Honourable Housholds and exempt them from the Penalty of Ten Pounds a Month whilst they should not be resident at their Benefices as they did by an especial Exception provide for their Indempnity therein And in the same year and Parliament the Chancellor Treasurer of England and the Lord President of the Kings Council are said to be attendant upon the Kings most Honourable Person And in the 24 year of his Reign some of his Servants having been impannelled and retorned upon Juries he signified his dislike of the same unto the Justices of the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas in these words Trusty and Right-well-beloved We greet you well Whereas we understand that all manner of your Officers and Clerks of both our Benches be in such wise priviledged by an ancient Custom that they be always excepted out of all manner of Impannels We considering that the Hedd Officers and Clerks of our Houshold by reason of the daily Business in our Service have been semblably excepted in time passed unto now of late that some of them have been retorned in Impannels otherwise then heretofore hath been accustomed We will and command you That in case any Hedd Officer or Clerk of our Houshold shall hereafter fortune to be put in any Impannel either by the Sheriff of our Còunty of Kent or by any Sheriff of any County within this our Realm for to be retorned before you without our special Commandment in that behalf ye upon knowledge thereof cause him or them so impannelled to be discharged out of the said Impannel and other sufficient Persons to be admitted in their place and that you fail not this to do from time to time as often as the case shall require as ye tender our pleasure Yeoven under our Signet at our Manor of Richmont the fourth day of October in the twenty fourth year of our Reign To our Trusty and Well-beloved the Chief Justices of both our Benches and to all other their fellows Justices of the same In the Act of Parliament made in the twenty fifth year of his Reign against excess of Apparel there was a Proviso That all Officers and Servants waiting and attending upon the King Queen or Princess daily yearly or quarterly in their Housholds or being in their Checque Roll may by the Licence of the King use or wear Apparel on their Bodies Horses Mules c. according to such Licence And not only King Henry the Eighth but his three Estates the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament in the 31 year of his Reign did so much attribute to the Kings Servants in Ordinary and the Honour of their Imployments as to grant by Act of Parliament That the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord President of the Kings Council Lord Privy Seal the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Admiral of England Grand Master or Steward of the Kings most Honourable Houshold and Chamberlain should in Parliament Star-Chamber and all other Assemblies which was in no Kings Reign before allowed sit and be pláced above all Dukes except such as should happen to be the Kings Sons Brothers Vncles Nephews or Brothers or Sisters Sons That the Lord Privy Seal should sit atd be placed above the Great Chamberlain Constable Marshal and Lord Admiral of England Grand Master or Lord Steward and the Kings Chamberlain and that the Kings Chief Secretary if he be of the Degree of a Baron should in Parliament and all other Assemblies sit and be placed before and above all other Barons and if he be a Bishop above all other Bishops not having any of the Offices above-mentioned Precedency amongst the English Nobility being heretofore so highly valued and esteemed as it was not seldom very much insisted upon And so as in the Reign of King Henry the sixth it was earnestly claimed and controverted betwixt John Duke of Norfolk and Richard Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and in divers other Kings Reigns greatly contended for and stickled betwixt some of the Great Nobility The Lord Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal of England and the Chamberlain of the Kings House and the Steward thereof as appeareth by their Subscriptions as Witnesses unto sundry Charters of our former and ancient Kings not having been before allowed so great a Precedency as that Act of Parliament gave them or as that high Place Trust and Office of Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England according to the Custom and Usage of former Ages in all or the most of the neighbour Kingdoms and Monarchies have justly merited who in the times of the ancient Emperors of Rome were as Gutherius noteth stiled the Quaestores Palatii and had in Vlpian's time who flourished in the Reign of Alexander Severus the Emperor antiquissimam originem an honourable and long-before original and so necessary in the then Administration of Justice as the Emperor Justinian that great Legislator and Compiler of Laws ordained That Divinae Jussiones Subscriptionem haberent gloriosissimi Quaestoris nec emissae aliter a Judicibus reciperentur quà m si subnotatae fuerint à Quaestore Palatii That the Imperial Mandates should be subscribed by the Chancellor who was sometimes stiled Justitiae Custos vox Legum Concilii Regalis particeps the Keeper or Repository of Justice the voice or mouth of the Laws and one of the Privy Council and those Mandates being sent not much unlike the Original Writs issuing out of our High Court of Chancery w th were then also called Breves were not to be received by the Judges unless they were signed by the Quaestor Palatii or Chancellor but subscribed their Names as Witnesses to Charters after Bishops Abbots and Barons as amongst many other instances may be given in that of Robert Parning Chancellor and of Randolf de Stafford Steward of the Houshold in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Edward the third By a Statute made in the thirty second of the Reign of King Henry the eighth the Parliament did not think it unreasonable that there should be a Great Master of the Kings House and have all the Authority that the Lord Steward had By a Statute made in the thirty third year
a certificate for Sir Gilbert Houghton Knight one of the Kings Servants enumerating Particular Priviledges for every of the Kings Servants viz. Not to be arrested without leave first obtained not to be warned or summoned to attend at Assizes or Sessions not to be impannelled upon enquests or juries not to serve in the Train bands nor to be chosen in Offices c. In the year 1637 a warrant for the apprehension of Francis Grove of Southwark Grocer upon the complaint of the Earl of Morton Captain of the Guard for sending his warrant being in Commission for the New Corporation for certain Yeomen of the Guard in Ordinary to compell them to serve in Person with their Arms. The like for the apprehension of Isaac Walter in Kent upon the complaint of Henry Hodsal a Yeoman of the guard for undue molestation of him by suing of him to the Utlary and seeking satisfaction in extremity upon his Goods and Chattels without detaining his person The like against Ezechiel Johnson Clerk and John VVilcox an Officer of the Lord Mayor of London for an Arrest of Master Grimsdich of the Great Wardrobe without leave A warrant for the apprehension of Alderman Andrews and of Kenelme Smith and John VVright Officers of the Sheriffs of London for the arresting of Mr. Laurence Hilliard Smith and VVright being thereupon Committed to the Marshalsea And in the same year a Petition of one James Goodland against John All of VVapping concerning a Debt of 400 l. pretended to be owing to him by the said John All was answered by the said Lord Chamberlain in these words I desire Mr. Reeve to call John All before him and to enjoyn him to take some speedy course for the satisfaction of this debt for which if he cannot prevail with him he is to let me understand so much whereupon I will take further Order In the year 1638 a Warrant was granted by the said Lord Chamberlain for the apprehension of Thomas Tyrrill Gent. VVilliam Wrynne his servant Thomas Parker a Constable Thomas Drew a Bricklayer and Edward Spooner all of the Town of Newington upon the complaint of Tucker one of the Yeomen of the Guard for being by them set in the Stocks Granted a warrant for the apprehension of Marriot Hewes and Carter Marshall's men for the arresting of one Mr. Beiston His Majesties Servant without leave And the like for the apprehension of Robert Howse and Christopher Bagehot Constables in VVare Thomas Swinsteed Post Master and George his Brother for setting Robert Redbury Harbinger for the Huntsmen of the Buck-hounds in the Stocks who appearing were committed and afterwards Released In the year 1639 a warrant was granted by the said Lord Chamberlain for the apprehension of VVilliam Barker and other Bayliffs for the arresting of Robert Vnderwood a VVarder of the Tower of London and Ordered to pay him charges which they consented unto The like against Ralph Atkinson of Brainford and Edward Rabone a Marshals man for arresting of Mr. Thomas Lisle the Princes Barbor Extraordinary And the like against Edmond Griffin of Cheapside and Richard Stersaker for arresting of Mr. VVilliam Harbert In the year 1640 a warrant was granted by the said Lord Chamberlain for the apprehension of Jeoffrey Sharpe Hugh Osborne and William Sympson upon the complaint of Mr. Man one of the Kings Chaplains for an arrest The like to apprehend Humphrey Lea Ralph Reason and Henry Wickliffe for arresting and taking in Execution the goods of David Porrel without leave And the like for the apprehension of Charles Steward and William Wyamford upon the complaint of William Lenet a Yeoman of the Guard for an abuse and affront in the Streets That Excellent Prince under whose authority he acted being not only careful to maintain His Servants just Priviledges but to avoid any ill consequences which might happen by any abuse thereof being in the year of our Lord 1631 informed that one Thomas Barnes having been sworn one of the Grooms of His Majesties Chamber in Ordinary upon a pretence that he was one of the Company of Players who had a licence to Practice under the name of the Queen of Bohemia's Players whereas in truth the said Barnes was by Profession a Carpenter nor did profess the quality of a Stage Player but was dishonestly and sinisterly obtruded upon the said Lord Chamberlain by the false and fraudulent Suggestion of one Joseph Moore that followed business in the name of the said Company out of a corrupt end to derive unto himself a benefit by entitling the said Barnes unto the Priviledge and Protection of His Majesties Service and did most Injuriously seek to defraud men of their just debts had drawn men to be bound with him for great summes of money and exposed them to the danger of Imprisonment to the end therefore that His Majesties Service might be purged from the stain of so dishonest and foul proceedings the said Lord Chamberlain was commanded by His Majesty to call the said Barnes and discharge and dismiss him and cause his name to be blotted and razed out of the list of His Majesties Servants All or many of which upon due consideration had may shew the necessity aswell as legality of the cares of the said Chamberlain by and under His late Majesties Authority Anciently and by a long prescription of many ages vested in his and other the Honourable Offices of the Kings most Honourable Houshold And might more fully have been manifested if many of the Books of State Court Memorials and Records had not in the latter end of the Raign of King James been lost by the fire which at that time burnt the Signet-Office and other buildings and Repositories thereof at Whitehall and by other Books of that most Honourable House If those Sons of Spoil Plunder and Rapine the godless party of pretending holiness in the late confusions and Rebellion when the Frogs not by the hardening of our late blessed Kings heart but his too much trust and condescentions and the Almighties permission did go up and come into that house and into our Kings Bedchamber and into the houses of his servants and upon his people When our England was a valley of slaughter all the beauty of the Daughter of our Zion was departed the grievous revolters and those which walked with slanders and our adversaries were the chief in that desolate and by them misused palace had not left any more then three little Books of the Lord Chamberlains Registry against their wills conceal'd and rescued from the year 1625 being the first year of the Raign of His late Majesty of blessed Memory until the year of our Lord 1641. When our miseries and troubles began to craul and ingender In which small remains those most just and necessary priviledges of the Kings Servants contained which reason of State the Soveraignty of Princes can neither want nor suffer to be disused do amongst other things appear to have been so moderately
of King Henry the sixth the Commons in Parliament were so unwilling that their own concernments should hinder any of the Kings affairs as they did petition him That John Lord Talbot purposing to serve the King in his Warrs in France a Protection with the Clausa volumus might be granted unto him for a year and that by Parliament it might be ordained that it it be without the exception of Novel disseisin and to be put under the Great Seal of England with other Immunities whilst he be so in the Kings service which the King granted Provided that the said John Lord Talbot and Margaret his Wife Edward Earl of Dorset and others named should not enter upon any Lands whereof James Lord Barkly and Sir William Barkley his son were seised the first day of that Parliament or bring any Action concerning the same And so little desired the heretofore too powerfull Clergie of England to extend their power where they legally and inoffensively might do it CHAP. XIII That the Clergy of England in the height of their Pride and Superlative Priviledges Encouragements and Protection by the Papal over-grown Authority did in many cases lay aside their Thunderbolts and power of Excommunications appeals to the Pope and obtaining his Interdictions of Kingdomes Churches and Parishes and take the milder modest and more reverential way of petitioning our Kings in Parliaments rather than turn the rigors of their Canon or Ecclesiastical Laws or of the Laws of England against any of the Kings Officers or Servants AS they did in the 14th year of the Reign of King Edward the third although by the Statute made in the 28th year of the Reign of King Edward the first making some Actions and Injuries which they then complained of to be Felony they might without their petitioning in Parliament have had ample and easie remedies petition the King in Parliament against some grievances and oppressions done by some of the Kings Servants to people of holy Church by his Purveyors and Servants amongst which were the abuses done by his Purveyors in taking the Corn Hay Beasts Carriage and other goods of the Arch-bishops Bishops Parsons and Vicars without the agreement and good will of the Owners and did thereupon obtain the Kings Letters Patents under the Great Seal of England which in the Parliament Roll is called a Statute and is as an Act of Parliament printed among the Acts of Parliament did declare That he took them and their possessions into the especial Protection of him and his Heirs and Successors and that they should not be any more so charged nor to receive into their houses Guests nor Sojourners of Scotland nor of other Countreys nor the Horses nor Dogs Faulcons nor other Hawks of the Kings or others against their will saving to the King the services due of right from them which owe to the King the same services to sustain and receive Dogs Horses or Hawks In a Parliamant in the first year of the Reign of King Richard the second although divers Laws in force had provided them remedies of course which needed no petitioning they did petition the King That they were upon every temporal suggestion arrestâ—d into the Marshalsea and paid for their discharge 6 s. 8 d. where a Layman payeth only 4 s. unto which the King did answer Let the party grieved complain to the Steward of the household and they shall have remedy And did in that but follow the patterns of Loyalty Prudence and self preservation cut out and left unto all true hearted Englishmen by their worthy and pious Ancestors and Predecessors who when the Tenures in Capite and by Knight Service which obliged all the Nobility and many thousands of the best part of the Gentry to follow their Prince to his Warrs abroad or defend him and his honour at home did in their duty to him and the care of their own estates and concernments with their numerous well-wishing and dutifull Tenants attending them follow him into the Warrs and Voyages Royal and remained there by the space of forty dayes at their own charges and afterwards as long as they lasted at the the Kings which must needs be a great obstruction to many mens Action or the recovery of their Debts or Rights and much better understand that universal Axiom and Rule of the Laws of Nature Necessity and Nations then the late ill advised Lord Mayor and some Citizens of London did who in the late dreadfull fire in the year of our Lord 1666. did to save the pulling down of a few houses to prevent the fury of a most dire and dismal fire and not a seventh part of their goods did see but too late the necessity of pulling down some houses and when they might have endeavoured it would allow it to be warrantable by the Lord Mayors order but not the Kings and in that fond dispute and his Timidity most imprudently suffer and give way to the burning down of many thousand houses and converting into ashes almost all that once great and flourishing City that privata cedere debent publicis every mans private affairs were to be laid aside and give place to the publick being the best way of self preservation And did not as they would do now rush upon Arrest or Imprison either the Kings Servants or such as were imployed by him or unto whom he had granted his Writs of Protection without asking leave of him but with a modesty and reverence becoming Subjects plicate him for a Revocation or if they did not or could not purchase it that way did sometimes become Petitioners in Parliament for some regulations in Protections granted upon some special and temporary imployments to such as were not his Servants in ordinary not for a total abolition or to take away that part of the Kings Prerogative in order to the Government and their own well being the answers whereunto shewed as much care in the King and his Councel as might be to give them content and satisfaction and at the same time not to depart from or lessen the Rights of the Crown more than was meerly necessary or in grace or savour for that particular time occasion or grievance to be granted or remitted unto them And no less carefull were the Judges in former ages in their delegated Courts and proceedings in Justice to pay their respects to the service of the King and likewise to his Servants or any other imployed therein CHAP. XIV That the Judges in former times did in their Courts and proceedings of Law and Justice manifest their unwillingness to give or permit any obstruction to the service of the King and Weal Publique WHen Bracton declares the Laws and Usage of the Kingdome to be in the Reign of King Henry the third and King Edward the first that Warrantizatur Essonium multipliciter quandoque per breve Domini Regis ubi non est necessitas jurare cum Dominus Rex hoc testatur per literas suas quod
holden at the good will and pleasure of our Kings and Princes And Time in his long Travels hath not yet so let fall and left behind him those reverential duties and personal services of our Dukes Earls and Baronage as to invite a disuse or discontinuance of them when they have of late time not only when Summoned perform'd several Ministerial Offices as at the Coronation of our Kings but at other great Solemnities and Festivals as at the Feast of Saint George Where in the year 1627. being the third year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr the Lord Percy afterwards Earl of Northumberland carryed the Sword before the King the Lord Cavendish and Wentworth bearing up his Trayn the great Basin was holden by the Earls of Suffolk Devonshire Manchester and Lindsey the Earl of Devonshire the same day serving as Cupbearer the Earl of Cleveland as Carver the Lord Savage as Sewer none of the Knights of the Garter that day officiating In the year of our Lord 1638. the Earls of Kent Hartford Essex Northampton Clare Carlisle Warwick Dover St. Albans and the Viscount Rochford were summoned by the Lord Chamberlain of the Kings houshold to attend at the instalment of the Prince Knight of the Garter and in the year 1640. amongst other young Noblemen appointed to attend the King at his going to the Parliament the Duke of Buckingham Earl of Oxford and Lord Buckhurst did bear up his Trayn The Earls of Leicester had the Office of Steward of England distinguished from and not so antient as the Steward of the Houshold who injoyed but an incertain estate of during pleasure annexed to the Earldom of Leicester and accounted as parcel of it William Marshal Earl of Pembroke to be Earl Marshal of England Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex to be Constable of England and to hold some principal part of their Lands and Estates by Inheritance in Fee or in Tayl by the Tenure of those very honourable Offices and Services as the Manor of Haresfield in the County of Gloucester per servitium essendi Constabular Angliae by the Service of being Constable of England and the Offices of Earl Marshal and Constable were distinct and antiently exercised in the Kings Court as Marescalcia Curiae Constabularia Curiae were afterwards as the Learned Sir Henry Spelman conceived by some extent and enlargement gained of their Jurisdictions or rather by the Tenure of some of their Lands separately stiled Constable and Earl Marshals of England leaving the Office or Title of Sub-Marshal or Knight-Marshal to exercise some part of the Office of the Earl-Marshals Jurisdictions as more appropriate to the Kings House or Courts of Justice some antient Charters of our Kings of England before the Reign of King Henyy the second and some in his Reign after his grant of the Constableship of England was made by him to Miles of Gloucester informing us by the Subscriptions of Witnesses that there was a Constable during the Kings pleasure and sometimes two besides the Constable of England who claimed and enjoyed that Office by Inheritance The Custody of the Castle of Dover and the keeping of the Cinque-Ports were granted by King Henry the sixth to Humphrey Duke of Buckingham and the Heirs Males of his body The Earls of Oxford for several Ages and the now Earl of Lindsey descending from them as Heir General now being Stewards Keepers or Wardens of the Forest of Essex and Keepers of King Edward the Confessors antient Palace of Havering at the Bower in the said County to him and his Heirs claimed and enjoyed from a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Badlesmere and he from a Daughter and Coheir of Thomas de Clare And some of our Nobility believed it to be no abasement of their high birth and qualities to be imployed in some other Offices or Imployments near the person or but sometimes residence of the King as to be Constable of his Castle or Palace of Windsor as the late Duke of Buckingham was in the Reign of King Charles the Martyr and Prince Rupert that now is or Keeper of the Kings house or Palace of VVoodstock and Lieutenent of VVoodstock Park as the late Earl of Lindsey was for the term of each of their natural lives And some illustrious and worthy Families as that of the Marshals Earls of Pembroke Butler now Duke of Ormond the Chamberlains antiently descended from the Earl of Tancarvil in Normandy who was hereditary Chamberlain of Normandy to our King Henry the first and our Barons Dispencers have made their Sirnames and those of their after Generations the grateful Remembrancers of their very honourable Offices and Places under their Soveraign it being accounted to be no small part of happiness to have lands given them to hold by grand Serjeanty some honourable Office or attendance upon our Kings at their Coronation as to carry one of the Swords before him or to present him with a Glove for his right hand or to support his right hand whilst he held the Virge Royal claymed by the Lord Furnivall or to carry the great Spurrs of Gold before him claymed by John Hastings the Son and Heir of John Hastings Earl of Pembroke or to be the Kings Cupbearer claymed by Sir John de Argentine Chivaler And some meaner yet worthy Families have been well content to have Lands given unto them and their Heirs to hold by the Tenures of doing some personal Service to the Kings and Queens of England at their Coronations the Service of the King or Prince being in those more virtuous times so welcome to all men and such a path leading to preferment as it grew into a Proverb amongst us not yet forgotten No Fishing to the Sea no Service to the King And was and is so much a Custome of Nations as in the German Empire long before the Aurea Bulla the Golden Bull or Charter of Charles the 4th Emperour was made in the year 1356. being about the middle of the Reign of our King Edward the third and not a new Institution as many have mistaken it as is evident by the preamble and other parts of that Golden Bull which was only made to preserve an Unity amongst the seven Electors and better methodize their business and Elections The Princes Electors were by the Tenure of their Lands and Dominions to perform several services to the Emperor and his Successors As the Prince Elector or Count Palatine of the Rhine was to do the service of Arch Sewer of the Empire at the Coronation of the Emperour or other great Assemblies the Duke of Saxony Stall Master or Master of ths Horse the Marquess of Brandenburgh Chamberlain the King of Bohemia Cup-bearer and in Polonia at this day Sebradousky the now Palatine of Cracow claimeth and enjoyeth by Inheritance the Office or Place of Sword-bearer to the Crown or King of Poland And so highly and rightly valued were those Imployments and Offices as they that did but
with all the liberties and free customes to the said honour appertaining that of later granted to the Earl of Pembroke by King Edward the 6 th of the Earldome of Pembroke cum omnibus singulis praeheminentiis honori Comitis pertinentibus with all preheminencies and honors belonging to the honour and dignity of an Earl Et habere sedem locum vocem as all the grants and Creations of the later Earles do now allow and import in Parliamentis publicis Comitiis Consiliis nostrorum haeredum successorum infra regnum Angliis inter alios Comites and to have place vote or suffrage in the Parliaments or Councells of the King his heirs or successors amongst the Earles within the Kingdome of England nec non uti gandere omnibus singulis Juribus privilegiis praeheminentiis immunitatibus statui comitis in omnibus rite de I're pertinentibus quibus caeteri comites Regni Angliae ante haec tempora melius honorificentius quietius liberius usi gravisi sunt as likewise to use and enjoy all and singular rights priviledges immunities and preheminencies to the degree and state of an Earl in every thing rightly and by law appertaining as other Earles of the Kingdome of England best most honourably and freely have used and enjoyed all who the aforesaid antient honorable priviledges preheminencies and immunities granted and allowed the Nobility and Baronage of England those Sons and Generations of merit adorned by their ancestors vertue aswell as their own and the honors which their Soveraigns have imparted unto them have been ratified by our Magna Charta so very often confirmed by several Acts of Parliament and the Petition of Right in and by which the properties and liberties of all the people of England are upheld and supported and therefore the honors and dignities being personal Officiary or relating to their service and attendance upon the throne and Majesty Royal and conducing to the Honor Welfare and safety of the King and his people King Henry the 6 th may be thought to have been of the same opinion when the Commons in Parliament having in the 29 th year of his raign Petitioned him that the Duke of Sommerset Dutchess of Suffolk and others may be put from about his person he consented that all should depart unless they be Lords whom he could not spare from his person And in Askes Rebellion in Yorkshire in the latter end of the raigne of King Henry the 8 th the Commons complained that the King was not although he had many about him of great Nobility served or attended with Noble or worthy men And also the Lords Spiritual assembled in Parliament in the second year of the raigne of King Charles the Martyr when they Petitioned the King against the Inconveniences of some English mens being created Earles Viscounts and Barons of Scotland or Ireland that had neither residence nor estates in those Kingdomes did amongst other things alledge that it was a Shame to nobility that such persons dignified with the titles of Barons Viscounts c should be exposed and obnoxious to arrests they being in the view of the law no more then meer Plebejans and prayed that his Majesty would take some Course to prevent the prejudice and disparagement of the Peers and Nobility of this Kingdome who being more peculiarly under the protection of their Soveraigne in the enjoyment of their priviledges have upon any invasion thereof a more special addresse unto him for the Conservation thereof as in the case of the Earl of Northampton the twentieth day of June in the 13 th year of the Raign of King Charles the Martyr against Edmond Cooper a Serjeant at Mace in London and William Elliot for arresting of him they were by the Lord Chamberlains warrant apprehended and committed to the Marshall and not discharged but by warrant of the Lord Chamberlain bearing date the third day of July next following and needs not seem unusual strange or irrational unto any who shall but observe and consult the liberties priviledges immunities and praeheminencies granted and permitted unto the Nobility of many other Nations and Countries aswell now as very antiently by their Municipal and reasonable customes and the civil or Caesarean laws CHAP. XVI That many the like priviledges and praeheminences are and have been antiently by the Civil and Caesarian laws and the Municipall Laws and reasonable Customes of many other Nations granted and allowed to the nobility thereof WHen as the Hebrews who thought themselves the most antient wise and priviledged of the Sonnes of men had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tribuum principes Capita qui cum Rege sedentes partim consilia mibant partim Jus reddebant Princes of the Tribes under the King were the chief Magistrates and heads of the people attended the King sate with him as his Councel and assisted him in the making of laws of which the book of God giveth plentiful evidences Solomon had his Princes some of whom were set over his household Ahab had Princes of his Provinces Jehoram King of Israel leaned upon the hand of a Lord that belonged unto him And our Saviour Christ alludeth to the Princes of Israel the Elders and Judges of the people when he saith his twelve Apostles should after the Consummation of the world sit and Judge the twelve Tribes of Israel amongst the Graecians the nobility derived their honors from their Kings and Princes and by the lawes of Solon and the ten Tables were alwaies distinguished from the Common people and had the greatest honours and authorities and in all other Nations who live under Monarchs have been favoured and endowed therewith the old Roman Nobility refused to marry with the Ignoble as those of Denmark and Germany do now which our English descended from the later did so much approve of as they accompted it to be a disparagement to all the rest of the Family and Kindred to marry with Citizens or people of mean Extractions Julius Caesar when he feasted the Patricii or Nobility and the common people entertained the Nobility in one part of his Palace and the Common people in another and not denied some part of it even in the Venetian and Dutch Republick as amongst many other not here ennumerated Nobilis minus suâ—t puniendi quam ignobilis Noble men are not to be so severely punished as ignoble Nobiles propter debitum Civile vel ex causa aeris alieni non debent realiter citari vel in Carcerem duci are not for debts or moneys owing to be arrested or imprisoned propter furtum vel aliud crimen suspendio dignum laquei supplicio non sunt plectendi are not for Theft or any other Crime to be hanged and that priviledge so much allowed and insisted upon in the Republick or Commommon wealth of Genoar in the height of their envy or dislike of their Nobility as they did about the
Prisoner in Newgate as he was leading by an Officer towards Guyhald by five persons and carrying him by force into the Sanctuary or Priviledge-place of St. Martins le Grand the Kings Free-Chappel being a Liberty of the Dean and Chapter and the Sheriffs of London having the same day taken out of the same Church of St. Martins the five men who rescued him and led them fettered to the Compter and thence chained by the Neck to Newgate complaint thereof being made to the King by the said Dean and Chapter for the violation of their Priviledges he sent his Writ to the Mayor and Sheriffs reciting that from a long time beyond the memory of man fugientes ad Capellam predictam pro immunitate ejusdem habend ' seu in eadem ex quocunque causa existentes residentes quieti fuerint Immunes sic esse debuerint debent ab omni Jurisdictione Arrestatione Impedimento sive Attachamento Majoris Vicecomitum Civitatis praedicta aut Officiariorum seu Ministrorum suorum quorumcunque pro tempore existentium those that fled to the Chappel aforesaid to enjoy the Priviledge thereof or being therein resident upon any cause or occasion whatsoever have used and ought to be quiet and free from the Jurisdiction Arrests Impediments or Attachments of the Mayor and Sheriffs of the City aforesaid or any their Officers or Ministers whatsoever for the time being and that notwithstanding the said Sheriffs had to the prejudice and detriment of the Churches Liberties and derogation of His Crown and Royal Dignity violently taken from thence John Knight John Reede Thomas Blackbourn William Janiver and Richard Moreys and committed them to Prison wherefore the King to preserve inviolably the said Rights Customs Immunities Liberties and Priviledges prout vinculo Juramenti in Coronatione astringitur as he is thereunto bound by his Coronation Oath enjoyned them that immediately after the Receipt of that Writ they should restore and deliver to the said Dean and Chapter or their Commissary the said Prisoners tam corpore quam bonis sicut eos prefati Vice-comites a Capella predicta abstraxerunt in their bodies and goods as the said Sheriffs took them from the said Chappel as aforesaid so as the said Dean and Chapter in eorum culpam seu defectum causam non habent sibi iterum conquerendi Et hoc sub Fide Ligeancia quibus teneantur nullatenus omittant by their default or neglect may have no more cause to complain again to the King And this under the Faith and Allegiance which they did owe unto him they were not to fail to perform Which Writ being by the Kings Command sent and delivered by John Earl of Huntington the said Sheriffs yet notwithstanding detained them in prison of which the King being informed ore tenus precepit he did by word of mouth command John Bishop of Bath his Chancellor and Ralph Lord Cromwel his Treasurer that they should go to the said St. Martins and upon Examination of the Parties hearing of Councel on both sides and due consideration of their several Charters Customs and Evidences certifie him what by Law was to be done therein who thereupon taking unto them John Hody and Richard Newton Chief Justices of both the Benches called before them the said Dean and Chapter Mayor and Sheriffs and heard both sides who gave to them in writing as well what could be alledged for the said Priviledges as against it which being duly understood by the said Chancellor Treasurer and Justices it was adjudged by the said Chancellor and Treasurer by the advice of the said Justices Quod personae predictae a Capella praedicta violenter abstractae restitui debeant ad â—andem tanquam ad locum plenaria libertate tam de Jure quam consuetudine gaudere debentem non de Civitate praedicta nec Majoris Vicecomitum Aldermannorum auâ— Officiariorum ejusdem Jurisdictioni seu districtioni Subject ' sed eisdem Immunitatibus Privilegiis Libertatibus quae Westmonasterium Beverly aut alius loâ—us privilegiatus in Anglia meliores â—abet tam de Jure quam consuetudine pro se precinctu ejusdem ad tuend ' quascunque personas pro quibuscunque causis Criminalibus sive Civilibus illuc confugientes gaudere debentem That the persons aforesaid violently drawn out of the Chappel aforesaid ought to be restored to the same place which of right and custom ought to enjoy their full Liberty and not to be subject to the Jurisdiction or Distrsss of the City aforesaid or the Mayor Sheriffs Aldermen or Officers of the same but to enjoy the said Immunities Priviledges and Liberties as Westminster Bevâ—rley or any other priviledged Place in England of right and custom ought to enjoy for them and their Precincts most largely had to protect and defend any persons flying thither for any causes Criminal or Civil And thereupon the King being informed of their Proceedings and what they found therein commanded his Chancellor that by his Writ directed to the Sheriffs of London that they should bring before him in his Chancery the Bodies of the said Prisoners taken out of the Chappel as aforesaid with the cause of their taking and detention who being brought by the Kings Command into his Chancery by the said Sheriffs they did there by the advice and consent of the Duke of Gloucester and of others of the Kings Council and by Order of the said Court discharge the said Prisoners who were there in the presence of the Sheriffs Recorder and Council of the said City ad hoc evocatorum Thome Collegge servienti Domini Regis ad arma personaliter liberati ibidem ad effectum quod idem serviens dictos Prisonarios eorum quemlibeâ—â—usque dictam Capellam Sanctuarium salvo secure adduceret eos ibidem de mandato Regio praefato Decano sive ejus Deputatis liberaret ibidem juxta libertates privilegiâ— immunitates predicta in Sanctuario predicto quam diu eis placeret moraturos thereunto especially called personally deliver'd unto Thomas Collegge the Kings Serjeant at Arms to the end that he might safely and securely bring the Prisoners to the said Chappel and Sanctuary and there by the Kings Command deliver them to the said Dean or their Deputies there to remain as long as they pleased according to the Liberties Priviledges and Immunities aforesaid which was done by the said Serjeant at Arms and a Certificate made by him to the said Chancellor Treasurer and Court of Chancery accordingly And he must be altogether composed of or addicted to Scruples and Doubts wherein he never desires to be satisfied and fit to sayl to Anticyra in pursuit of Hellebore who shall against so clear a Light and Evidence bestow his time and labours to vindicate and under-prop so manifest and notorious Errors or that shall deny the King a Judicial Power in His Courts of Justice and High Court of Chancery whence do almost daily issue his Writs remediall
and unfitting a course or method of Government For can any man that is Master of the least grain of Reason or Prudence think it safe for a Kingdom so to restrain if it could be a Soveraign Prince when a person in time of Pestilence or otherwise shall with a Plague-Sore running upon him come into the presence of the King who in case of Leprosie when it was more frequent than now it is can for the preservation of His People from the infection thereof make His Writ de Leproso amovendo command the Leper to be removed to some other place that He should have no power to bid any of His Servants to cause him to be taken away or put in prison Or that King James when his Life was assaulted by the Assassinate which Earl Gowrey had appointed to murther him did transgress any Law of Scotland Nature or Nations when he did arrest and struggle with him until the loyal Sir John Ramsey came to his Rescue Or that that prudent Prince after his coming into England did break any Law of England Nature or Nations or not perform the Office of a King when by his own Authority he did without sending to the Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench or a Justice of Peace for his Warrant cause Sir Thomas Knivet and others to apprehend Guydo Faux but some minutes before the Match should have been secretly and undiscovered laid in order to the firing of the Gunpowder and other Matterials which were shortly after to take fire for the accomplishment of the intended treason of him and his wicked Complices to destroy the King Prince Nobility and the Chiefest of his People assembled in Parliament and all that were in or near the Cities of London and Westminster by the Gunpowder Plot of blowing up the Houses of Parliament And whether a King may not in the like case of Contempt or Danger as well do it as he may do where a Souldier prest in the Kings Service upon a Certificate by the Captain into the Chancery being the Watch-Tower or Treasury of the Kings Justice that he absented himself send his Writ or Mandate to one of his Serjeants at Arms to take him which Sir Edward Coke saith may be done per Legem terrae by the Law of the Land and may upon a Certificate of an Abbot or Prior into the Chancery do the like by his Writ to the Sheriff to take a man professed in Religion that is Vagrant and alloweth it to be Lex Terrae a Legal Process so to do in honorem Religionis in honour and respect to Religion or may not as wel imprison a man for a Contempt as Discharge him Or why He may not Arrest or cause any man to be Arrested for Felony or Treason or but suspition thereof when Sir Edward Coke is of opinion any man may do in the Kings Name upon a common Fame or Voice or Arrest a man by warranty of Law and of his own Authority which woundeth another dangerously or keepeth company with a notorious Thief whereby he is suspected or if the King shall not upon necessity or extraordinary occasions be enabled to do it for that supposed rather than any reason at all that he ought not so to do in regard that no man can have an Action against Him for any wrong or injury done unto him by the King How have our Lawes and reasonable Customes for many Centuries and Ages past submitted unto and not at all complained of the Kings Seizure of Lands but suspected to be forfeited or of Lands aliened without Licence or pardon of Alienation and the like Or why should not our Kings have as much liberty as the holy King Edward the Confessour might have had if he would to have commanded a Thief to be apprehended for stealing in the Royal Lodgings when he bad him onely be gone lest Hugeline his Chamberlain should come in and take him Or as legally as King Edward the Third and his Council did commit one that was found arm'd in his Palace to the Marshalsea whence he could not be bayl'd or deliver'd until the Kings Will and Pleasure should be known Or as it was adjudged in the thirty nineth year of the Reign of King Henry the Sixth when in an Action of Trespass the Defendant justified the doing thereof by the Command of the King when he was neither Bayliff nor Officer of the Kings and it was adjudged by the Judges that he might so do without any Deed or Writing shewed for it or if they should mistake in their Arrests or Imprisonments of suspected Traytors or Felons should not have as much liberty as a Justice of Peace hath in criminal matters or as the Judges have in his Courts of Justice in civil Actions where the parties that mistake or bring their Actions where they should not or Arrest one man in stead of another are onely punished with Costs of Suit or Actions of False Imprisonment but not the Judges or Justices of Peace for howsoever some Flatterers when King Richard the Third having murthered his Nephews and usurped the Crown and sate one day in the High Court of Chancery had in some of the Pleadings or Causes heard before him alledged that the King could do no wrong and some of our Lawyers have since so much believed it as they have reduced it into a kind of Maxime and given it a place in some of their Arguments Reports Yet Bracton in the Reign of King Henry the Third and Justice Stamford in the Reign of Queen Mary did believe the King might unwillingly by Himself or His Officers or Ministers do wrong and declared the Law to be both in Bractons and Stamfords time that in such Cases the Subjects where they have any matter of Complaint or Grievance need not want their legal Remedies by Traverse Monstrans de Droit or Petition the reason of the latter being as Stamford saith because the Subject hath no other Remedy against the King but to supplicate him by Petition for the Dignity sake of the Person And a late Experience hath told us how a Dispute betwixt our two Houses of Parliament whether a Great Person accused of Delinquency might be Arrested and put under Custody before his Charge or Accusation could be made ready gave the Party opportunity to escape into the Parts beyond the Seas and the Disputants leisure and time enough to agree of the matter And it should be remote enough from any the suspition of Errour or over-credulity for any man to think an Arrest or Imprisonment by the immediate Command of the King in the case of Treason or Felony or but suspition of either of them not to be as legal as that of a Justice of Peace made by a Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England in his Name and by his Authority derived under him And those who will take out Sir Edward Coke's before mentioned Lessons and enter themselves into
duly observed that the Phisitians in London should have a Priviledge not to keep Watch or Ward nor to be chosen or bear the Office of Constable or to bear any Office in the City of London or Suburbs and any such Election to be void in all which the Weal Publick was not a little concerned And the Barber Chirurgions are likewise by an Act of Parliament made in the same Parliament exempt from bearing of Armour or to be put in any Watches or Enquests which the Weal Publick without that Priviledge could not otherwise have dispensed with Could Cromwell that accomplishment of wickedness and Hypocrisie and Mr. Shepheard whom he had hired to clip and misuse our Laws upon a pretence of reformation of them allow in their modell thereof that the Servants of his miscalled Protectorship should not be compelled to serve upon Juries at Assises or Sessions or to bear the Office of a Constable or Church Warden And shall the Kings Servants that are continually imployed in the Attendance Preservation Safeâ—y and well being of his Person and people being matters of the greatest concernment be excluded or thought not worthy of the like Could the Archbishoprick and many of the Successive Archbishops of York enjoy a liberty of Fridstoll Frithstow Frid in the Saxon signifying Peace and stol sedes Cathedrae and Stow locus Cathedra quietudinis pacis a Seat Chair or place of Peace which had this Inscription Haec sedes lapidea Freedstoll dicitur pacis Cathedra ad quam reus fugiendo perveniens omnimodam habet securitatem this Seat or Chair of Stone is called Freedstoll or the Chair of Peace to which any Offender flying is to have all manner of Refuge and Security an Immunity granted unto the Church of St. Peters in York and confirmed by King Henry the 7th in the fifth year of his Reign And there is in Glossopdale in the County of Darby a place upon a Hill or large Heath some distance from the Town yet known by the name of the Abbots Chair which probably might have been endowed with the like Immunity Or shall a Priest or person propter Privilegium Clericale in regard of his being in holy Orders not be distreined when he hath no lay Fee or upon an Attachment refuseth to find Pledges because he hath no lay Fee or hath one in the Prebend and the Ordinary nor the Sheriff although he hath a Warrant to enter the Liberty without the ordinary or Bishop and the Bishop himself cannot do it sine speciali praecepto Regis cum Canonicus adeo libere teneat prebendam suam de Ecclesia sicut ipse Episcopus Baroniam canonâ—ci sunt quasi unum corpus per se in Ecclesia without a special Precept or Warrant from the King for that a Canon or Prebend doth as freely hold his prebendary of the Church as the Bishop doth his Barony and the Canons are and do make a Body or Corporation by themselves in the Church Doth the King grant and allow Cognisance of Pleas or Causes to so many of his Subjects within their Franchises and Liberties with Fossis and furcis power to punish or hang in Crimâ—nal matters and shall he not have so much Cognisance of the matters and concernments of his houshold and maenial Servants as to have leave asked before they be Arrested or disturbed in his Service which is the only cause of the Priviledge which he grants and allows to his Courts of Justice and the Officers and Servants thereof Or can any man think it reasonable that the Bishop of Eâ—y should have Cognisance of Pleas arising in his Bishoprick and the Territories thereof or the Magistrates of the City of Salisbury to have the like and supersede Actions and Pleas depending in the Court of Kings-Bench or the Lord Maior of London have and enjoy the priviledge of not having any Attachment awarded against him out of the high Court of Chancery as in the case of Sr. John Robinson Knight whilst he was Lord Mayor of London and exercised that Annual office as the Kings Lieutenant or special Servant or that Mr. John Abdy an Alderman of London in Anno Dom. 1640 being the 16th year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr should by the Judges of the Court of Kings-Bench be allowed a Priviledg not to bear the Office of a Constable in Essex where he was many times resident at his Country-house within the Leet or mannor of Sir William Hicks Knight where by the Custome of that place every inhabitant or resiant was from house to house yearly by turnes to execute that office and upon a writ granted him directed to the Lord of the Mannor or his Steward to discharge him because he being an Alderman of London ought to be there resident the greatest part of the year and if absent may be fined all the Justices of that Court delivered their opinion that he ought to be discharged bâ— his priviledge as Attorneys attending in Courts of Justice are of such offices of Constablâ—s and other offices in the parish And although it was said that the Alderman might execute the office of Constable by deputy and his personal Attendance was not requisite by the Custome of the Mannor yet that exception was not allowed Or that Mr. Bacon A Barrester at Law of Grayes-Inn should in Trinity Term in Anno 1655. h by aforesaid Court upon view of the presidents in Francklin and Sir William Butlers Case and Bere and Jones his Case of the Midle-Temple have a priviledge allowed unto him in respect of his Barrestership and necessary attendance upon the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall to lay a transitory Action at Law in Middlesex when it was before laid in Northumberland and that it should not be reasonable for the King to allow his servants their aforesaid priviledges much more necessary and conducing to the weal publique May not the King as well Claim and enjoy a priviledge for his servants and their freedom from arrest without first obtaining his licence or within his virge of twelve miles compass or circumference of his Court which certainly was at the first intended by Law for more purposes then for the Jurisdiction of the Marshals or Marshalsea Court and may probably be believed to have been antiently used for an Asylum or place of peace or freedom from such kind of violences as arresting the Kings houshold servants without the Kings licence As the Universitie of Oxford doth by the grants of our Kings and their several acts of parliament in its large boundaries or precincts and the University of Cambridge the like within their Colledges Halls and Precincts for the better observation whereof in Oxford every Sheriff of the County of Oxford at his admission into his office is to take an oath that the Masters of the said Universites and their servants from Jnjuries and violences he shall keep and defend by all his Strength and power and the