lie if ever God for our sins should permit them to proceed For they of the Faction cannot fish in the waters of Monarchy they would have a Senate with Oligarchs over it in stead of a Monarch For the Narrator saith we ought not to use the word Parliament now but the word Convention is better Nor is it any part of the Faction's business to be content with the Established Religion or Liberty and Property these are words which they know how to make use of by sprinkling them as flowers of Rhetorick in all their Writings and Discourses they work upon the People with them as Witches do with Charms Characters and Spells to bewitch the Multitude with an opinion against the Court and that all is in danger that way and that themselves are the onely Patrons and Patriots when in the mean time they onely tickle them like Trouts with these things to catch them and enslave them to their own designes and humours for pulling the Government in pieces which is the only Bulwark of Religion Liberty and Property For as the King well saith before without this there will be neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety left to any man The Truth whereof we found by woful experience which ensued after the very same Witchcrafts had bereaved the people of their Senses in FORTY ONE to run headlong into Civil Wars which lasted so long till Twenty yeers Suffering under loss of Religion Liberty Property Safety Government and all made them long and sigh after their Soveraign Lord again as the onely Restorer Look back then once again upon those short Heads of His Majesties Speech with an impartial eye and you have in view so many demonstrations of Wisdom Moderation Tenderness for this Parliament and the future being of Parliaments in their ancient Legal state as also of Love and Kindness towards his People that more cannot be utter'd by Man to cast out the devil of Jealousie and keep it from haunting the Houses of this people any more His Majestie in one of the Heads saith to this effect That without keeping within the compass of the Government as the Laws have stated every part of it viz. in a delicate Medium betwixt the Regal Prerogative and the Parliamentary Right and Liberty of the people so as both may be preserved entire unto Kings and unto Parliaments in their several Stations neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety nor Parliaments can be maintain'd The Reason is plain because the Law of the land which is the Band that ties all together being once broken by any one of the Parties they immediately fall asunder and will easily be cleft into a thousand pieces and the Parliamentary Constitution not easily be restored as it appeared upon the FORTY ONE Divisions for Twenty yeers together Experience saith the Proverb is the Mistress of Fools Must we always then be Fooling for new Experiments of our old Foolery One would think we should have been wiser by this time than to suffer the same Faction to inchant us any more But because a better Description of Kingly and Parliamentary Interest of Government cannot be had than what was described by the Pen of His Majesties Royal Father in His Answer to the Nineteen Propositions presented to him by that Parliament of the Faction anno 1642. June 2. let me here set it down in regard it will be the best Informer of posterity what to do in like Cases to prevent future Troubles that may arise again through mens acting old Cheats over and over His words are these There being Three kindes of Government among men Absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having particular inconveniences the experience and wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded our Government in England out of a Mixture of all Three as to give this Kingdom so far as Humane wisdom can provide the Conveniencies of the Three without the Inconveniencies of any One as long as the Balance hangs even between the Three Estates and while they run joyntly on in their proper Chanels begetting verdure and fertility in the Meadows on both sides and while there is no overflowing of either on either side to raise a Deluge or Inundation In this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons chosen by the People all having free Votes and particular Priviledges The Government according to our Laws is trusted to the King with power of Treaties of War and Peace of making Peers of chusing Officers and Counsellers for State Judges for Law Commanders for Forts and Castles giving Commissions for raising men to make War abroad or to provide against Invasions or Insurrections at home Benefit of Confiscations power of Pardoning and some more of the like kinde are placed in the King And this Monarchy thus regulated having this power to preserve that Authority without which it would be disabled to preserve the Laws in their force and the Subjects in their Liberties and Properties is intended to draw to him such a Respect and Relation from the Great Ones as may hinder the Ills of Division and Faction and procure such a Fear and Reverence from the People as may hinder Tumults Violence and Licentiousness Again that the Prince may not make use of this high and perpetual Power to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it and make use of the name of Publike Necessity for the gain of his private Favourites and Followers to the detriment of his People the House of Commons an excellent Conserver of Liberty but never intended for any Share in the Government or for the chusing of them that should govern is soly intrusted with the first Proposition concerning levies of Moneys which are the sinews of Peace as well as War and with the Impeaching of those who for their own ends though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten Command of the King have violated that Law which he is bound when he knoweth it to protect and to the protection of which they were bound to Advise him at least not to serve him in the contrary And the Lords being trusted with a Judiciary power are an excellent Skreen and Bank between the Prince and the People to assist each against any Incroachments of the other and by just Judgements to preserve that law which ought to be the Rule of every one of the Three I would not have transcribed this but that I conceive it impossible to make a more excellent Delineation of the several Concerns of the King and his Subjects in the Constitution of our English Government that every one may understand what is their due by Law and how Monstrous the Demands were in those Nineteen Propositions the first of which was That those Lords and others of your Majesties Privie Council and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas may be put from your Privie Council and from those Offices and Employments excepting such as
what fine subtil Suppositions they grounded their matchless Confidence They supposed and that most politickly That a whole Nation had lost its memory of things past the Parliament its Loyalty the Court its Vnderstanding the King all care of his Crown and his People's Interest the Clergie their care of the Church the Citie their Prudence the Country their Senses and that one little Rook had run away with all the wisdom and honesty in the Land and that downright Treacheries petty Cunnings and plain Knaveries may pass in this Age to entitle a man to the reputation of Politick Prudence which ought to be reverenced as a glorious Beam of Divine wisdom which never shines but in generous and faithful Spirits and is never to be found but in the Temples of true Honour and Vertue They supposed moreover very cunningly That Monarchies which used of old to last about Five hundred years could not live now above Twenty And that one and the same People might in one and the same Age be cheated with the same Tricks And that to bring this about three Kingdoms with three or four gay Speeches turned into Printed Paper-kites might be led in a string as the Boys are by theirs and that no other Kite of the same Strain could be found to encounter ' em They supposed likewise That if a Lord or two would but turn Tenants in the City and drive a Trade of Popularity upon the Old Exchange their Lordships being better metal than ordinary Citizens might be less liable to Breaking and that they could not chuse but thrive though every Body knew they were going to set up with no better Stock of Interest and Wit than of those that had broken before ' em They yet more wittily supposed That whereas our old World was as they thought to have been drown'd again all their Creatures though of different kinds and enemies to each other would most tamely and lovingly concur into the New Ark Also that in the midst of this Flood the Citie and Kingdom might be set on fire provided it were by Parliament-Wildfire and that then they might ring the Bells backward with a Rope of Sand and that when the Combustion should be over they might safely put in execution their pious Project of raising a new Fabrick as good and lasting as the former Republican with the most elegant mixture of all manner of Sects every jot as agreeable for building Castles in the air as lays of Ginger-bread and Marble with untemper'd Morter And for a final Crowning of the whole work they once more supposed That for carrying on the World again after all this destruction there might be a coupling of Beasts of Mortal Antipathies to replenish the Land So much for Drolling with our Politick Drolls for this kinde of Dress very well becomes ' em Now in good earnest for Animadversion And here I know not which end to begin at the Subjects are so many which is strange for I thought this kinde of work would have been over that the Faction would have been taken down by the late Correction But behold incorrigible Malice against the whole Government and new Attempts in Print a swarm of Pamphlets to revive their Designe and seduce the People Some printed a little before and one so late as since the time of the Battel of the Prince of Orange You may remember the business of the first PACQUET was to strip the Faction out of all their Fine Pretences and Projects which were delicately laid for Storming the Government and the Lines of Circumvallation were drawn in Print after the Model of their Master-Engineers in FORTY ONE they began also to make their Approches after the same manner They first fell upon the Episcopal Quarter and to that end they charged their Pamphlets here with all manner of Scandals against the Bishops and sent them to their Friends in the Country Next they fell upon the Kings Court His Favourites and the chief Officers of State not sparing the King Himself and then upon His High Court of Parliament using all manner of Devices to embroil the two Houses and so entangle Affairs that one Session was frustrated after another so that no Publike Business could be dispatched nor Supplies be had to answer the most urgent Necessities of the King and Kingdom by which means the present Parliament was made in a manner useless and the Word was given out to the Multitude to make an Out-cry for a new One All which Contrivances are to bear Date from the time of one small States-man's being turn'd out of Service as hath been already sufficiently manifested He and his Complotters cut out all this work before this last February-Session others that became troublesome after the Parliament then sat down were but his Journey-men For then seeing he had failed in all the former Inventions to skrue on a New Parliament by breaking the neck of this some Friends that had been pettifogging among Half-witted Lawyers undertook to furnish him with Weapons that is to say Arguments drawn out of Old Statutes which have lain Dormant some Hundreds of years without execution or notice to prove this Parliament null or Dissolved because they cannot bring it to their Bow and that a luckie new one so much long'd for by the Faction ought to be called forthwith they being confident to carry away the Bell at new Elections to create a House of Commons that shall do their Business one way and the King 's another or not at all In pursuance whereof they have sent abroad other new Pamphlets which I now shall make bold to encounter as they come in my way though 't is reported one or two of them were written by one Lord and that by another Lord the rest were promoted to the Penning and then to the Press in a private corner The first remarkable Pamphlet sent abroad with intent to break the Neck of this Parliament is entituled Some Considerations upon the Question Whether the Parliament is dissolved by its Prorogation for Fifteen Months And the Title-page further saith that the two Statutes upon which this Question depends are 4 EDW. 3. Cap. 14. Item it is accorded That a Parliament shall be holden every yeer once and more often if need be 36 EDW. 3. Cap. 10. Item for maintenance of the said Articles and Statutes and redress of divers Mischiefs and Grievances which daily happen a Parliament shall be holden every yeer as another time was ordained by Statute ANIMADVERSION From these Statutes the substance of what the Author argues is That if the King be obliged by Law to hold a Parliament once every yeer then he ought to call a new one every yeer And if so then he cannot Prorogue one Parliament above the Term of a yeer But the last Prorogation of this present Parliament having been for Fifteen Months which is Three Months beyond what the ancient Law and Custom allows for one Parliaments sitting Therefore that Prorogation being contrary to those Statutes
Bottom he and the rest of them do build their Argumentations and the high-flown flourishes of discourse which they so diligently Print and spread abroad to deceive the weaker unwary People and intoxicate them with disaffection to this Parliament and to the lawful Prerogative and Government of His Majesty But if they can make no better Squibs than this to blow up a Parliament they had best give it over for the King not being bound up by Law within a yeer he is at liberty to Prorogue beyond the limit of a yeer and so the Fifteen Months Prorogation was and is good though it hath been seldom that there have been so long Prorogations For that is no Argument against the Wisdom and Power of the King to exceed some days or months if He seeth in prudence it be pro bono Publico and that urgent Reasons of State do require it and there is nothing in all our Law that speaks a syllable to the contrary if rightly consider'd Therefore to unwinde the Bottom which the Dissolver hath entangled let me with assurance determine this Point which is the Standard by which you may measure all that they have said or can say If those two Statutes did not confine the Parliament's sitting to Twelve months then the Kings Proroguing His Parliament to Fifteen months was no violation of the said Statutes If no Statute be thereby violated then the Prorogation was and is good If so then the Parliament is as firm in Being as ever any Prorogued Parliament was or can be and consequently the Laws which they have made or shall make after the Prorogation are as perfect and obligatory upon us as any other Laws that ever were made in this Nation And 't is no question a Crime little less than an endeavour at the Subversion of Parliament for any persons by Speeches or Prints in or out of the Houses to carry on a Designe of arguing a Dissolution of this thereby to perswade the People against Obedience and Submission to it Nor can this Assertion of mine be construed as if I maintained any thing in derogation of that Freedom of speech which ought to be had in Parliament and which I count absolutely necessary for the Debate and the Dispatch of the Grand Affairs But then that freedom of speech ought to be qualified with so much Modesty and Reverence as not to run to such licentious discourse as the Laws make Criminal for next to downright Treasonous discourse none can be worse than that which tends to the Violent Dissolution of a Parliament that is to say without the King's consent or against His will What then do they deserve who have been such busie Speech-makers both in and out of Parliament to bring that End about against the King's consent and against the Laws Or that shall presume to do it hereafter seeing the two Houses have given their Judgment in the Case contrary to the interpretation of all Factious Penmen and Talkers But the Dissolver goes further than this and takes upon himself the person of the People of England and in their Name falls to downright threatning of both Houses of Parliament in the following words DISSOLVER Pages 9 and 10. This we say not Gentlemen by way of acknowledgment that you are in a Legal capacity now to do us either good or hurt for your day is done and your power expired but that you may not like a Snuff smell ill after you are out For the reason why we more particularly direct our selves to you is because of the Character you have born that therefore you should not seem so much as to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law That so however you have lived yet all may say and witness for you that you died well and made a worthy End If not we hope the whole Nation will strictly observe every man among you that to sit a little longer yet would sacrifice to this Prorogation the very best of Laws and in them all the Laws and Liberties of England The two Statutes of EDW. 3. were declared to be in force by your Selves in the Sixteenth yeer of the King in the new Triennial Act then passed and we are sure there hath been no new Parliament since to Repeal them ANIMADVERSION What need this phrentick impertinent Clause here at last seeing that no man affirms those two Statutes to be Repealed Let them stand for ever as Laws to shew that as we had and have a Right to a frequencie of Parliaments so also that the King hath a Right of Prerogative to judge whether there be need of having them so often as every yeer And thus much is to be understood also by the tenour of the new Triennial Act passed by this Parliament to prevent Inconveniences hapning by the long intermission of Parliaments for they name the two Statutes of Edward the Third but make no mention of a Right to Parliaments once every yeer the words of the Act referring to those Statutes being these onely because by them Parliaments are to be held very often which is the very same that I grant and affirm to be the meaning of the said Statutes and their not affirming a jot more than I do implieth that they understood them no otherwise than I do in general terms for a Declarative Frequencie but whether within a yeer or oftner they say not a word touching which it is to be presumed they would not have been silent if they had understood it to be the Right of the People to have had certain Parliaments yeerly whenas the Statutes declare not absolutely but onely with condition IF NEED BE. And because all mouthes should be stopped and no room left for an Objection which ill-minded heads or jealous may make and is made use of by these our Factious Book-makers viz. that our having of Parliaments is by this means left to the King's pleasure when he please to judge them needful behold there is no reason for such objecting because the nature of His power to judge I maintain not to be absolute whether we shall have Parliaments or not but whether it be needful to have one or more so oft as within every yeer Therefore the high Wisdom of this present Parliament is to be magnisied in contriving that new Triennial Act in such a manner as prevents all the frivolous Objections that may be made by any other persons For in the later end of the Act they pray in these words That it may be Declared and Enacted And be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That hereafter the Sitting and Holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above Three years at the most but that within Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within Three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments OR IF THERE BE OCCASION MORE OFTEN your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for Calling Assembling
Hereditarily invested with all the Rights of Government of which this sort of Judicatory power is a principal Wherefore the Reason of the ancient frequencie being out of date long since it was well done by this Parliament upon new Reason more suitable to the Condition and Temper of this Age to ascertain us of holding Parliaments in the future with frequencie more convenient for us However 't is worth the observation what his Master-ship doth grant that Non-user may antiquate Acts of Parliament and make them lose their Force if the Reason of them fail or if by change of time they become a Publike Mischief As for the Reason of King Edward's Act I have shewn already that his Parliament had nothing in their Reason of making them that savours of the Old Custom of yeerly frequencie otherwise than with Condition there shall be need nor do they contain any sence that gives us cause to plead that they are antiquated or to desire an antiquation of them because to Repeal them would be an Injury to the King But next let me adde this that in the two late Triennial Acts it is implied that in these days things are alter'd to such a pass that there was high Reason to be no longer bound to the ancient Custom of that Annual frequencie which his Mastership pleads for and thereby you have the Determination of two whole Parliaments the FORTY ONE Parliament and this Parliament that the Reason of the said Custom at Common law fails and that publike Inconveniences if not publike Mischief would follow if it were practised in our time or else 't is in reason to be supposed they never would have alter'd it Therefore seeing his Mastership doth admit what I have made evident in the foregoing part of this Discourse that there hath been a Non-user of King Edward's two Statutes in any such sence as he and his fellows do impose they having never been so put in practice by Edward himself or by any succeeding King to this day we with all assurance conclude that a pleading of Non-user is a good Plea against the two Statute's being in force for such an absolute yeerly frequencie as the Faction doth insinuate into the mindes of the people Especially when two Parliaments before-nam'd have judged that Reason of publike Good and Convenience now lies against having them so frequent as within a yeer and that the time of Three yeers is soon enough unless there be need Nothing then but a spirit of Sedition or Treason would have fixed such a Construction as these men have lately made upon the said Statutes with a mighty Clamour as if Noise would carry it among reasonable men But their Construction being every way proved naught all the Arguments founded upon that Bottom do necessarily fall and Master Bencher and the rest of the Disputants ought to be tried before a Bench of Academian Sophisters that they may be brought under Correction for that wretched Beggery A Begging of the Question A way then with the Questions with which he stuffs up all the rest of his Book because they are grounded upon the same sad account of Petitio Principii and so are altogether impertinent to the Point in hand till they can better prove their own Construction of the two Statutes to be a right one or that those Statutes were at any time since their making put in use and practice upon supposal of any such absolute Meaning as he and his Fellow-writers would fasten upon them His Questions follow BENCHER 1. Whether the Statutes for yeerly Parliaments may be dispensed with by the King 's Soveraign Power and Prerogative being as some say onely Counsels and Advices to the King not obligatory ANIMADVERSION Who are those some that say so If any did they talkt as idly as Master Bencher writes and as little to the purpose for his Mastership hereupon starts up an invidious Question Whether the King may dispence with Laws and Statutes I rather suppose the SOME that say so never were men of God's making but mere men of straw set up by Master Bencher for a Tryal of his own Skill in Confutation and Conquest and to entertain his Majesties subjects with Supposals that there is strange Doctrine at Court in matter of Law that so himself may take occasion to lug in a long discourse to prove the Negative that his Majestie cannot dispence But know once for all that there is none under heaven who can be more tender of the currencie of Law and Legal Constitutions than the King Himself is especially such as are Parliamentary and it would be the joy of the Faction if they could really finde Him otherwise or if they could by any Tricks of State such as were shewn in several Sessions of Parliament before last February-Session play in upon Him the necessity of having recourse to that Supreme Law the Idol of the FORTY ONE Parliament Salus Populi suprema lex to save Himself and his People from such Confusions and Destructions as the Counsels of the Faction if they proceed will bring upon us I may well call it the Idol of that Parliament considering how they abused that Maxime in a causless using it against his Majesties Father perfidiously pleading the Safety of the People to justifie whatsoever they did as confidently as if the People could have been saved no other way if they had kept within the Bounds of Ordinary law But the ordinary path of Law is that which his Majestie desires to walk in and to prove the Truth of this we need onely to recollect the past Provocations given Him by the late extravagances of some men which would have provoked any Prince less patient to other Courses than he hath taken to secure Himself his Affairs his Friends and the Interest of his Crown And as to that point of the Prorogation he did not thereby assume to Himself any power to dispence with the Laws relating to the Course of Parliament but kept within the bound of Law as is abundantly proved Therefore the dragging in this Question of yours must needs be very impertinent as well as maliciously meant good Master Bencher and so are all the vile Inferences that you have made thereupon to catch the People BENCHER 2. His Second Point under question is Whether the Kings dismission of the Parliament without any day set for their return and their continuing so beyond a yeer be a Dissolution or whether such a failer in Time onely may by Act of Law dissolve a Parliament even against the Will of the King ANIMADVERSION So so All is out now The main Point they drive at is to Dissolve the Parliament against the Will of the King but what pretence hath the Bencher for declaring it Dissolved Not a tittle more than what was alledged by the DISSOLVER He said Dismission of a Parliament sine Die amounts to a Dissolution But how comes it that the Fifteenth of February the day to which the Parliament was prorogued or dismissed
is reckoned to be No day They prove this as fast as Hops because it is to be reckoned No day in construction of Law in regard it exceeded three months beyond the term of Twelve and beyond Twelve no Parliament can by Law live and dying at the yeers end it cannot be made alive again by Prorogation This is a very fine and quick dispatch but 't is to be answer'd too as fast as Hops now that King Edward and his Statutes meant no such quick Births and sudden Deaths of Parliaments as these men would perswade us so that notwithstanding all the Clouds that some persons raised about it the 15th of February appear'd a fair day in Law and to all other intents and purposes and it gave us day-light enough to discern the vanity and folly of the Faction and its chiefest Advocates with their matchless Confidence grounded upon the Construction of no better Lawyers than Master Bencher himself and his fellows appear to be viz. pitiful Logicians Lack-learning Lawyers for they are his own words which in pag. 22. he frankly bestows upon all Gentlemen of the long Robe that are of less malice and more understanding Therefore his Friend the new-elected Member may come up to Town if he please for the Body to which he belongs is yet alive and like to continue in good Health notwithstanding all the endeavours that have been used to put it out of temper Thus far I have been giving you the utmost that hath been argued by all the Three books which the Projecting Faction have hitherto proclaimed to be unanswerable But now you see a very little Learning in Law they having no Law on their side goes a great way with them They are better at Vp-cry and Out-cry and Down-cry and just so much Construction of Law and Gospel as will serve to beat up Drums in the Pulpit for that is the way of doing their work without Wit or Reason And therefore I was willing to spend the more time about those Books that I might not omit any one thing in them that is considerable that so the World may see how small cause they have for all their Clamour and that the Parliament did Justice when they condemned so many of these Prints as came to their hands to be fired by the hand of the Hang-man The next Pamphlet that comes to hand is a Thing that pretends to little of Argument but takes occasion from the Imprisonment of the Four Lords to rail at and revile and scandalize the whole Government most sufficiently especially the Parliament in the most odious terms that could be invented It is Intituled A Narrative of the cause and manner of the Imprisonment of the Lords now close Prisoners in the Tower of London And it is intended to walk abroad among the People to perswade them that their Lordships suffer Martyrdom for maintaining the Nation 's Rights and Liberties whereas the very Truth is they are but one mans Martyrs being misled by him 'T is a little leven that leveneth the whole lump Behold how great a matter a little fire kindles Can a man take fire into his bosome and not be burnt Nay though it be but a small Squib it will do the Feat if it be not well put out especially on the return of Gunpowder-Treason-days Therefore I will be so charitable as not to think that all the Four Lords had a hand in this malicious work My reason is It can hardly consist with a Man of Honour unless he be one that hath often forfeited it to be petitioning his Prince and at the same time to be plotting a Libel against Him It was about the time that the Petition was deliver'd to the King at Newmarket in April last that this Printed Narrative came to my hand and after perusal finding it was full fraught with Revenges and Falsities it proved the occasion of my now taking Pen in hand to cure all the Tetters of State that are to be cured with Ink of which none is so virulent and Corrosive as this We expect to see it more openly published as soon as the Faction shall finde the lucky day they hope for but in the mean while the Books are kept in and ready dormant all except those which they craftily convey in private to inflame their Party in City and Country against this Parliament It begins thus NARRATIVE On Thursday the 15th of February the Parliament as they call themselves or the Convention as I hear others generally call them met And at the same time a vast number of people filled Westminster-Hall the Court of Requests the Painted Chamber the Lobbies and all places neer the Parliament-house that the like was never seen upon the Meeting of this or of any other Parliament in our memory They did earnestly desire and expect they would declare themselves to be No Parliament ANIMADVERSION There was little difference betwixt the number of people at the opening of that February-Session and the number that went to be at the Opening of other Sessions of Parliament But how weak soever this Narrator's Memory be I and Thousands more can remember and the Citie of London can and will remember what they got by it when it began to be Flowing water of Rebellion with the same Faction in 1641 what a mighty Inundation of the Multitude they sent down to Westminster to fill that Hall and besides the Lobbies Court of Râ—quests Court of Wards and Painted Chamber that whole Citie White-hall the Strand and All was filled with a Mad Crew crying out upon King Evil Counsellors Bishops French and English Popery Fears Jealousies and Grievances And as Cats are let blood in the Ear many times by old women to cure the Shingles so the whole Posse of Sermoning Matrons the chief Garison of the Presbyterian Clergie made a Sally out o' th' Citie and went down also to bleed Strafford and Canterbury as the onely means to cure all our Evils I should not mention these things but that I am forced with grief of heart to it now that I see the same Humours would be preached about anew by the same impenitent restless Faction if they could but cheat the Old men again who saw and cannot forget these things so easily but the Faction now delude the Younger men who never saw yet a Bleeding nor the sport of Bear-baiting the King's Ministers and Privie Counsellers in whom lies all His Safety at such a season I remember what some of the Leaders then said Have we got him to part with Strafford Then he must deny us nothing the rest at Court being frighted will fall in with us to save themselves and so it proved too true of too many of them that for their childrens sakes I forbear the naming But by this means those Leaders got the Foot-ball before 'em and the King was fain to run for it but could never recover it And then what got the Nation by it I think we all know but that the young men of
Homilies the 39 Articles and her Doctrine as it relates either to God Religion or the Civil obedience due to the King and the whole Government of State and the Security of all these by an Oath of Allegeance If his Lordship thought that the Law allowed either Peers or Commons such a liberty of speech why did he bustle so diligently and briskly as I have been told to promote a Bill not long since against the ancient way of Tryal of Peers Every body then smelt a Rat in the Case and smiled at his Lordships wise Providence and his secret intent of speaking and acting beyond Compass upon the open Stage and therefore I did not wonder when I did read afterwards in the Pamphlet intituled Debates and Arguments for Dissolving this Parliament c. which was reported to be his that his Lordship was very angry at the House of Commons for throwing out the said Bill of Trial when it was sent down to them and tells the Commons p. 6. They certainly were grown very high in their own opinion and had a very low esteem for the Lords when they neglected their best friends in the House of Peers and did almost with scorn refuse that Bill intituled For the more fair and equal Tryal of Peers I never saw the Bill yet therefore can say nothing more of it onely I cannot but take notice that in the same page and in many other parts of that Print a through-revenge is plentifully bestowed upon the Honour of the House of Commons Nothing would then serve the Turn but they must be turned out of doors Dissolved and a new one presently call'd an instance clear enough for discovery out of whose Quiver this Arrow of Dissolution was first shot and of great probability who set on the Writers since against the Prorogation to break the neck of this Parliament and in it all the hopes of the Loyal part of the Nation And if that aforenamed were the Print of his Lordship I might reckon up out of it and another Print stitcht to the tail of it the most virulent Scandals that could be raked together to prepare that House for the rage of the Rabble But the Narrator having sum'd up in few words the sence of the Author I leave him here because the Narrative it self will give the House that short Cut by and by In the mean while if freedom of speaking in Parliament and after that of Printing All and more than All that is of more perhaps than was spoken be to be construed and extended at this rate know that the old Customs and Laws Parliamentary in England know no such matter A freedom of speech in Debate is that which every Speaker by ancient Custom after the House of Commons hath chosen him and presented him to the King doth petition for to the King on the behalf of all the Members of that House and it was never yet denied by any of our Kings The Lords also in their House do claim it by Birthright for to what end do they meet if they may not freely debate matters without which 't is impossible to come to any Resolution about them May his hand rot off then that shall write a word against it But withal we are to understand there are Bounds Rules and Laws of speaking in either House of Parliament for the Law of Parliaments ever supposeth that the Members ought to keep within the compass of those Bounds and observe those Rules both as to the matter spoken and the manner of speaking Every Member hath a Right to be heard and heard out what he hath to say but then when he hath done the House to which he belongs hath power to judge whether he hath spoken ill or not and if ill then they are the proper Judges to dispose of him to punishment according to his desert And this the Law supposeth they will always do they being interested and intrusted with such Necessary Power and Priviledge for the good of the King and Kingdom Now this is the Case of the most Noble House of Peers They have as to the committing of the Four Lords to the Tower not done it because they spake for they heard out with great patience what they had to say but because they judged what their Lordships had spoken against the Being of this Parliament was of most pernicious Consequence against the Safety and Good of the King and Kingdom And to say no more of this the House was so unanimous in concurring to their Commitment after a debate and consideration of the matter as will appear upon search of the Books of that House that it was with great odds of number carried by the Temporal Lords alone without reckoning in the Bishops or the number of Proxies And the Narrator himself confesseth this was agreed on after a full Hearing of all that could be said by the four Lords themselves or their few Friends only he mingles many ill-favour'd Reflections and false Insinuations in his Relation NARRATIVE It had been he saith moved also by the Duke of Buckingham that the Opinion of the Judges might be declared in the Point ANIMADVERSION All Reverence be given to the Judges in due time and place This was an arduous Point of a Superlative Nature touching the very Life and Being of a Parliament in a conspiring Factious Season infinitely above those ordinary points of Law touching which that House is wont sometimes to consult my Lords the Judges when their Lordships conceive they have need to consult them But this was so plain a Case to their Lordships that having the Judicatory right and power in their own hands and in so transcendent an Occasion it had been a strange thing to have yeelded to such a Motion merely to gratifie those whom they had judged Offenders Nor was it to be supposed that the Judges would have undertaken to opinionate about so Supreme a Question wherein the Safety of all the Concerns of Crown and State were involved fit onely for the Supreme Judicature to consider NARRATIVE It was the next day urged by some Lords in the behalf of the Four Lords that three several times viz. 1 Hen. 7. 1 Qu. Mary 1 Qu. Eliz. the very same Debate was in Parliament yet no man questioned for moving it ANIMADVERSION Whether those Debates were the same or not let the world judge when as the Narrator himself confesses it was only about the Forms of the Writs that summoned the Parliament that the Question in those days was But this Question made now was about the validity of a Prorogation and the very being of a Parliament after it I do not finde in my Lord Cook 's Treatise about the High Court of Parliament that the length of a Prorogation beyond a Years time can dissolve it or that a small flaw in the Form of the Writ of Summons can invalidate a Parliament But if it were so that it could yet that is not within the Case of this Parliament whose Writ of