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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
power_n	king_n	law_n	legislative_a	6,899	5	12.8932	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26301	An account of what past on Monday the 28th of October, 1689, in the House of Commons, and since at the King's-Bench-Bar at Westminster, in relation to the Earl of Castlemaine	Castlemaine, Roger Palmer, Earl of, 1634-1705.; England and Wales. Court of King's Bench.	1690 (1690)	Wing A436; ESTC R1917	9,102	20

AN ACCOUNT OF What past on Monday the 28 th of October 1689. In the HOUSE of COMMONS And since at the King's-Bench-Bar at WESTMINSTER In Relation to the Earl of CASTLEMAINE LONDON Printed for Matthew Granger 1690. AN ACCOUNT OF What past on Monday the 28th of October 1689. in relation to the Earl of Castlemaine c. THE Attorney General being on Saturday the 26 th of October 1689. inform'd that the Earl of Castlemaine Sr. Edward Hales and other Prisoners of the Tower were brought by their Habeas Corpus to the Hall to be bail'd desir'd to know the Pleasure of the House in that Affair who order'd that they should presently be all sent for to their Bar which was done accordingly Only the said Earl was not there for he remain'd still in the Tower having it seems made use of no such Writ However the House directed the Governour to bring him up as he did the Monday following And then the Speaker said to this Effect Mr. Speaker to my Lord. MY Lord the House having understood That You went Embassador to Rome and also took your place at the Board as a Privy Councellor without taking the Oaths which are great Crimes and against Law They have sent for you to know what you have to say for your self His Lordship's Answer IT cannot Mr. Speaker but put me into more then an ordinary Confusion when I find my self in this place as a Criminal especially seeing through the whole course of my Life the Glory and Welfare of England has been my chief Aim and Endeavour You are pleas'd Sir to lay so great a Charge upon me that without shuffling or impertinence I might ask time to consider it Yet since I well know how much you value your time and since time also may make what I say suspected more of Artifice then Candor I shall now without further delay let you and this great Assembly see where so many of Birth and Quality are met how far I am from deserving either censure or reproach But Mr. Speaker before I go further I must humbly beg these few Favours of you First that you would Pardon all Tautologies or want of Method as beginning perchance in the middle and ending again where I should have begun Secondly That you would not take any advantage at my Answers for I shall be Ingenuous to the utmost and hesitate at nothing you shall ask And Lastly if through inadvertency or hast I should say what might shock you that you would not stand upon the rigor of the Words but upon the sincerity and clearness of my Explanation Be pleas'd then to know Sir I was so far from seeking this Employment that I did not so much as dream it was design'd me And when I knew it I us'd my utmost endeavour to avoid it My ignorance of the Kings Intentions appears by this that in the Year I went to Rome returning out of the Country according to my usual custom after Michaelmas I found a Protestant a Person of Note at my House who told me that before I spoke with any Man he was to bring me to my Lord Sunderland and from thence I was to go to his Majesty Nor would he scarce afford me time to put my self in a tollerable order to attend them My Lord Sunderland soon hinted to me what the Kings intentions were And when I recurr'd to his Friendship I had this Answer or Words to this purpose That if Subjects should refuse their Kings Service in every thing that was troublesom or Contre-Coeur all Kings would be in an ill Condition that my request was beyond his Power and that he believed I should find his Majesty very positive and so I did Mr. Speaker I 'l assure you Nay to satisfie you yet more fully of my backwardness to this Journey can you think Sir that I that had been at Rome more then once that had seen the Grandeur of so many Roman Embassies and knew they exceeded in Splendor and Expence three times those to any Crown'd Head whatsoever should not be extraordinarily concern'd at an Employment which had for its Subsistance as the Lords of the Treasury well known no other Establishment then that to Spain or France which being 100 l. a week amounts only to 5200 Pounds per. annum Having thus Sir shew'd you how little fond I was of the thing let me now with Submission ask you what could I otherwise do in my Circumstances For first I call all that 's Good to witness I never heard of Law against it nor know of any to this very day And yet on the other side I was not only Commanded by the King but knew his Royal and Legal Power of Commanding the Service of his Subjects and most particularly in Embassies as appears by many old Examples Nay by a fatal one in this very Century I mean the Case of Overbury to which no body here I 'm sure is a stranger In the next place Sir what did I go to Rome for Why only with a Letter with a Complement from a profest and open Catholic King to his Holyness as all Princes of that Communion do in the beginning of their Respective Reigns Besides Mr. Speaker as I know no Law that forbad my Obedience so I must needs say and this without cramping or putting any Bounds to the Legislative Power that no such Law can be made For Sir the Pope is a very considerable Temporal Prince whose Territories border on two Great Seas the Miditerranean and Adriatic If then our Merchants should be by storm or other necessities driven into his Ports if English-men should be surpriz'd by any Roman Party as they travel in a Neighbouring Country shall our Government not to mention a hundred other greater accidents want Power to send a Messenger to Ransom and Compound for them What Law therefore was there ever yet fram'd or can be enacted let the Commerce or Intercourse between Nations be never so much broken and prohibited but that a Commander in Chief a General and much more a King may beat a Parley dispatch a Trumpet nay send and receive Letters as often as occasion does require Now Mr. Speaker for Religion I neither had any Commission concerning it nor Transacted with his Holyness about it And as no body ever did or could lay any thing of that nature to my charge so for some confirmation of it I will appeal even to the Aqua fresca Houses of Rome and to all the Protestant Gentlemen of our Nation there during my Embassie for though what I tell you Sir be a Wonder yet the Honourable Persons who have resided in those parts know it to be true that for a Dish of Chocolate or a Dish of Limonade one may know the measures and particulars of an Embassy in that City as well as we do what passes within these Walls at our Coffee-houses I am sure my under Servants have often smil'd at the Grimaces and Mysteries which my Secretaires us'd in the

every thing that I believe nay that I am certain I should not have taken them had they been offer'd So that I do acknowledge the Omission a fault against Law Here the Speaker thinking that his Lordship had made an End desir'd him to withdraw but being inform'd that he had not done He excus'd the Interruption and then his Lordship went on I say Mr. Speaker I acknowledge this a fault against Law were there not several things of weight that will I hope justify me to you And here Sir I must entreat you not to conceive that I come now to defend or make good the Dispensing Power but only to shew you how necessarily I was driven and induc't to the aforesaid Omission for Mr. Speaker in controversies and disputes what can one doe but recur either to his own Observation or to the opinion of learn'd Men and Professors in the Science In the first place then when I began to examine my self as to the Right the King claim'd and asserted I saw Non obstantes deem'd Legal which signified to me Dispensing I found the Power of continuing Sheriffs own'd for many Ages to be undoubted Law and yet I knew there was a positive Statute against it Nay I remember'd an Act which I my self had in this House given my Vote and Consent to viz. That about the Regulation of Carriages and Waggons Or if this be not the exact Title I must beseech you to Pardon my Treacherous Memory and 't is I 'le assure you the only Traytor I ever yet succoured or supported I say Sir I remember'd this very Act almost as soon as made suspended by Charles the 2 d's Proclamation without the least Question or Murmur and I took so much notice of it as to make even then this Reflection and I do assure you upon my Honour 't is true That though our Monarchs could not impose and abrogate Laws o themselves yet they had the Power I perceiv'd to respite them In the second place Mr. Speaker if I went abroad I mean if I consulted the Thoughts and Sentiments of others I found not only Great Men of the long Robe but the Judges also themselves declaring in favour of this Prerogative And the interpretation or determination of these Sages was always told me to be Law till a new Law or a new Explanation should be enacted What would you then Mr. Speaker have me to do who was call'd to the Board by the King who could not in Conscience take the Oaths and yet had no reason to think I committed in not taking them a Crime seeing the Law was thus openly expounded and publisht And now Sir since I have been forc't to mention my Religion which I know is a legal Fault and of a high Nature I must not forget also to celebrate the Goodness of this House which has pardon'd the Fault even in the solemnest Way and by the solemnest Act that ever past since Magna Charta to wit The great Act of Oblivion Give me leave Sir to say this too for I can justly do it That being so faithful and so true an Englishman I neither should nor could I am sure have ever during my Life offended my Country but in my Religion Pardon also I humbly beseech you this digression and together with it the Incoherences and Disjunctions all along Nor shall I any ways doubt of it since you so well know how uneasy and troublesome a long discourse which my Circumstances have now required must needs be to one that wants both Eloquence and Practice But Mr. Speaker to return where I left and so conclude How Sir I pray you and I demand it again of you with great respect could I think the Omission as I said of the Oaths a breach of the Laws when our Guides who had the Laws in their keeping told us explicitely and without reserve the said Oaths were not necessary Shall I then suffer that had neither Buoy nor Mark to direct me certainly no for if there were a fault 't is not I must suffer but the Judges and those knowing and deputed Pilots that hung out it seems the wrong Flag and Signal I have Sir but one Word more to trouble you with and this I speak in behalf of all here Nay in behalf of all the People of England That if I now undergo your Severity and that single Persons notwithstanding the Determinations and Judgments of our Courts of Justice must be still responsible No Man can be safe no Man can be rest for no body that acts can know as accidents will often happen whether he be Innocent or Guilty Mr. Speaker I am in great disorder for imposing thus on your Patience and especially seeing I must yet presume to do it one thing more occurring to me as I hope for your further Service or at least Satisfaction And 't is to let you know how I came to be a Prisoner and why I continued so thus long Be pleas'd then Sir that I tell you that as soon as the King first left White-Hall I thought it decency to go out of Town and therefore three days after I took Coach for Montgomery-shire where of late I us'd to reside in the Summer time On the Borders of that Country at a small Corporation called Oswestree I was first stopt by the Rabble and afterwards detain'd with a strong Guard at my Inn by the Major though no body as he confest made any Oath against me and tho he had no orders as he said from London for it Nay after a Months restraint he deny'd me my Liberty upon Bail notwithstanding two Neighbouring Lawyers whom I sent for assur'd him he could not justify the refusal by Law I do not Sir complain of any Incivility either from him or the People for I was us'd with respect enough But I judge it extreamly fit to let you see how the Liberty of a Subject was willfully invaded by a Magistrate and how little conscious I was of any Guilt since instead of flying I went to a place where I was known by every body In fine Mr. Speaker after a confinement of Seven Weeks I was sent for up and brought hither by a Party of Horse Nor was I ever question'd or examin'd by any body but kept upon the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act at a Messengers House for Three Months And when the said Act was suspended the last time I was Committed by my Lord Shrewsberry's Warrant to the Tower for Suspicion of treasonable Practices His Lordship having ended retir'd with the Serjant at Arms to his Room where after a little stay he was sent for in again And then the Speaker told him That since he said his Journey to Rome was with a Letter of Civility to a Temporal Prince and not about Religion The House to be more fully satisfied of it desir'd to see his Instructions To which his Lordship thus answer'd I hope Mr. Speaker though I shall readily acknowledge my own natural Weakness you

will not yet think me so imprudent as that in a time of such troubles and distraction I would keep Papers by me and especially about Rome to render my self lyable to every malicious Man's Extravagancy and Comment This therefore caus'd me Sir the Night before I went towards Wales to burn all Papers that came to hand and truly some amongst the rest that I have since wanted Nay this I can also justly aver that I remember not now one Word of those Instructions having I 'm confident never read them twice only this I remember they were Things of Course Words of Form and needed no further consideration Yet Sir that you may plainly see my Sincerity and how far I am from any design of illuding and deceiving you I shall shew you how you mayretrieve them when I tell you that Mr. Monstevens brought them me and that they were drawn as I take it by Mr. Bridgman For I 'm certain they came from my Lord Sunderland's Office But my Lord reply'd the Speaker had you no private Instructions None Answered his Lordship What none at all said Mr. Speaker again None I 'le assure you Sir reply'd his Lordship unless the Kings Orders to demand a Cardinals Cap for Prince Reinaldo of Este were private instructions Nor do I certainly know whether those Commands were in my foremention'd Instructions or whether I had them by Word of Mouth My Lord said the Speaker I have another question to ask you to wit who of the long Robe told you of the Kings Power of Dispensing and that there was no necessity of taking the Oaths I am Sir answer'd his Lordship infinitely troubled if I have through want of Care or by any improper Expression given you occasion to misapprehend me For I never askt any particular Man of that Profession about this Affair But my meaning was and I hope my words are not contrary to my meaning that the said Power was manifestly and openly declar'd to be Law by Judges and Lawyers So that I deem'd it no Solecism in Discourse to mention it as if they themselves had told it me Then his Lordship retir'd again and after a long Debate the House past this Order That the Earl of Castlemaine stand committed to the Tower by a Warrant from this House for High Treason for endeavouring to reconcile this Kingdom to the See of Rome and for other High Crimes and Misdemeanors As soon as his Lordship was inform'd of this Vote he entreated a Member to let the House know that he had a Word or two more to trouble them with So that being brought in the Speaker told him that the House having notice he had something further to acquaint them with was very willing to hear him Mr. Speaker reply'd his Lordship I have nothing more to say about the former Matters but understanding your Pleasure I thought it my Duty to let you know how the custom of the Tower as to Prisoners is chang'd for in course heretofore unless there were a particular Order of State to the contrary they had the Liberty of the Tower that is to say they could walk about at seasonable hours with a Warder But now as soon as one is committed though it be upon bare suspicion as I was he is confin'd to his Lodging and hindred from the Consolation of seeing his Friends till after much solicitation and trouble leave be granted by the Secretaries Therefore Sir being morally certain that I shall be confin'd again assoon as I return I humbly desire the Favour of this Freedom It being also what I hitherto enjoy'd after I had been restrain'd for some days in the aforementioned Manner This said his Lordship went out and then was carried to the Tower where he was made a close Prisoner as he foretold though what he moved occasion'd the following Vote That a Committee be appointed to bring in a Bill for the better regulating the Imprisonment of the Subjects of this Kingdom and to settle the Fees of Goalers And it was likewise referr'd to them to examine into the abuses of Goalers towards their Prisoners which have been heretofore Committed On Wednesday the 5 th of the following February His Lordship mov'd for his Habeas Corpus and was brought by the Lord Lucas the present Governour of the Tower to Westminster on the 10 th So that appearing at the King's-Bench his Commitments were read and Mr. Attorney having nothing to object against his being Bail'd the Court awarded it upon the Security of Thirty Thousand Pounds that is to say a Recognisance of Ten Thousand from himself and Five Thousand a piece from his four Sureties which were John Earl of Bath Thomas Earl of Aylisbury Thomas Earl of Sussex and Charles Lord Landsdown FINIS