Selected quad for the lemma: authority_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
authority_n	king_n	power_n	supreme_a	7,138	5	8.8346	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49986	The arguments of the Right Honourable the Earl of Danby the second time, at the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, upon his lordship's motion for bail, the 29th day of June, term. Trin. 1682	Leeds, Thomas Osborne, Duke of, 1631-1712, defendant.	1682 (1682)	Wing L922; ESTC R11803	14,163	15

the Order of the House of Lords were revoked or not For it is an Order of a Superiour Court which will still be a Superiour Court though the Order were burnt and yet that must be enough to keep one in Prison by this Rule for that there would still be no other remedy though the Order were repealed But My Lord the Warrant of Commitment shews the Lords Directions to be contrary to this Opinion for I can shew several Instances of Warrants which run some to be kept till further order of that House others to be kept till they shall be discharged by the House and others to be kept till the pleasure of the House be further signified and others during the pleasure of that House But my Warrant is till I am discharged by due course of Law Now I doubt not but if the Lords had thought those words had not given a latitude for relief elsewhere they would have worded the Warrant otherwise and instead of saying by due course of Law would have said till I were discharged by that House if the Lords had thought there had been no other remedy by Law but by that House But My Lord the Lords will not act any thing above the Law they will keep every thing within the compass of the Law and I am sure that there cannot be a better Example to follow than the Example of those wise and great Men of that great Court and I desire it may be followed and not contradicted For by this Doctrine truly My Lord Liberty it self would not only be utterly lost but to make the Riddle the greater and the manner more ridiculous it would be lost and yet no body invade it For the King he consents to my Bail if he hath any power so he does not intend to deprive me of my Liberty The Lords would for their own sakes and Justice sake if it were in their power to meet and have time to sit so long as to take the Case of a single Person into consideration do me justice either in discharging or trying me So that in my Case here is a Subject of England imprisoned by no body and yet no Power upon Earth can relieve me Shew me an example of this in any Nation under the Sun but this that there wants a power in the Government to relieve a Prisoner at all times if it would and I will be satisfied Nay My Lord the very Spanish Inquisition is more reasonable than this for though the Cause may be unjust that they commit a Man for and their usage of him may be very severe while he is there yet the Inquisitors if they please can deliver him there is no Prisoner in the World but can be delivered by some power or other but me and My Lord this is a Rule that must be for every Man in England as well as me and I am not so inconsiderable but that my fate may be made a President of note The Opinions My Lord that were given by the Judges in the Case of Ship-money appear far more tolerable in my Opinion than this for I know there is no Man but had rather have a Sentence pass't against his Estate which he may recover again than have it passed against his Liberty which he may never have and which is more valuable than any Estate Besides where is the Justice of the Nation and what a shame would it be to our Laws and to our Government that it could be said of this Countrey that a Man might be punished by Imprisonment in England where the Government is not Arbitrary for seven Years or more and at last be found guilty of no Offence and what satisfaction could be in nature given to that Man I say if that Man could have a Crown given him it could not make him satisfaction for the loss of his Liberty all his life which may be the Consequence of this Doctrine and my Lord there are Precedents good store where Men have suffered sufficiently for their Judgments against the Liberty and Property of the Subject but I never found one that suffered in the Defence either of the one or the other I have shewn I think sufficiently what can be meant either in my Case or any other by a Cause depending in Parliament when there is no Parliament as also how much Inferiour Courts do meddle with things of much an higher nature than Bail will be Insomuch that truly I should think it might be sufficient to say no more than I have said But I do not know what may be sufficient in my Case and therefore my Lord you must Pardon me if I do put you in mind of a Case wherein you have gone to the merits of the Cause it self when Depending in Parliament It is Fitz-Harris his Case and I know very well what Answers will be given me as that that was a Case rejected by the Lords and that it was not the same Treason for which he was Impeached and other things that I could mention but I know your Lordship will speak by the Record of the Court of which I have here a Copy and the Record is that which must satisfie the World an hundred years hence by which it will appear to them that he was Impeached and Tryed and Condemned depending that Impeachment for he made that his Plea and Mr. Attorney General demurring to it the Court must take the matter pleaded as confessed and allow'd and this being so I should think there should be no scruple made in the point of Bail or if there should there must certainly be very great hardship in one case or the other and must be very dissicult to be answered But to Conclude besides all this I am the King's Prisoner and I have the King's Pardon and if I cannot get to be Bailed there is not only a defect of Jurisdiction in this Court but a defect of the Regal Authority and Power of the Kings of England to administer Justice to their Subjects which was never heard of I think and I hope I shall never live to hear of it Especially from the King 's Supreme Ordinary Court of Justice And that My Lord that must make this Case the more unhappy at this time is that we live in days wherein his Majesty's Prerogatives are so much brought in question For what Prerogative hath He which is more undoubted than his power of Pardoning and yet you see that brought in question to the utmost and those that are the ablest Men that speak against that power do laugh at the little small Triflers who object that the King may Pardon before Impeachment and after the Sentence be given but not betwixt those times They laugh at this and tell you that he cannot Pardon at all and it is easily perceived that if they could reach their design they would have it understood That Treason may be committed against the People and by that Doctrine another High Court of Justice may be set up and the King

think your Lordship your self does take it to be yet it is but an Adjournment that is objected and if the Parliament were but under an Adjournment I would not have troubled your Lordship But this is not the Case for though sometimes the King may Adjourn this or any other Court of Westminster by reason of some extraordinary occasion as in Case of a Pestilence or something of that nature and I know there have been Presidents of it yet my Lord these are upon Extreordinary occasions and it is not to be thought nay I am very certain that his Majesty will never do any thing that shall deprive his Subjects of any of those Rights the Law allows them So that in one Case the Law obliges that the Termes should be kept four times a Year and that then the Court shall sit if there be not extraordinary occasions to hinder it But in the other Case of a Parliament the King lies under no oblihation nor restraint when he shall call or whether he will call it and therefore the Inequality of the comparison is sufficiently apparent And besides this It is as unknown how long a Parliament shall sit as when it is to sit Insomuch that I take all this But to have offered additional Arguments on my s●de shews how little the Arguments are that can be brought against me I think it makes out to me and to all English men that no man ought to lye under such an Indefinite restraint as I do and truly my Lord I thought I shewed more respect to the Court in giving a more General answer to this Objection as I did before then I can do now by being so particular For the second Objection viz. That I am not Indefinitely imprisoned for that when the King will please to call a Parliament I would have a remedy there and therefore I must wait till the King will call a Parliament Truly my Lord perhaps your Lordship may know the mind of the King or his Ministers better than I do But if you do not I am sure no man but the King can tell whether I shall have remedy then or no for by the experience of three Parliaments that have been called since I was a Prisoner it hath appeared that I have had no Remedy Therefore I should be very glad to see this matter any better proved then it hath been that I am not Indefinitely Imprisoned but if this cannot be proved neither but that I must wait till the King shall please to call a Parliament and when he shall call a Parliament I shall be no more certain of my Remedy than hitherto I have been truly then I shall need no other Council but your Lordship to prove I am under an Indefinite Imprisonment and that any man in England may be so when the King pleases and how any Doctrine can be more Arbitrary then that or less to be desended by Law when ever that matter shall be brought into question Others then either your Lordship or I must be Judges and those who will be parties so much concerned in this question for their own sakes as well as the publick that I believe there is small doubt to be made how they will then decide this question My Lord If it should then be found that this would hold water and should be maintained for good Doctrine truly I think there would need no other Arbitrary power to be set up to make men quit this Country For as to any mans Liberty it might be equal to him whether he lived under the French Government or under the Grand Signiors Government as under a Government so Arbitrary as this Doctrine alone would make ours And therefore I make no doubt my Lord but that you will be very careful how you give it us for Law As I should be very sorry that there should be any such Arbitrary Doctrine taught to set the Kings Prerogative higher or greater than it ought to be by Law or then this King desires so I should be as sorry that the King should not have that right which duly belongs to him which is a Right and Power at all times to administer Justice to his Subjects and which I never heard denied to the Kings of England nor I hope I never shall And my Lord I must say that the preservation of that Right to the King would take away all pretences for any of these dangerous and new Doctrines for if the King may administer Justice at all times to his Subjects as it hath been the care of Parliaments and by Magna Charta it self that he should there is no reason left for any of those things to be started or put upon us 'T is true indeed that the King cannot make Laws without a Parliment but I did never hear in my whole Life but that he could administer Justice without his Parliament and if he could not his Subjects would be in a miserable Condition for surely it would be a very hard Case if his Subjects could have no hopes of being righted by their Soveraigns Authority either by himself or in his Courts in all Cases and at all times The House of Peers in Parliament 't is true is his greatest Court but they Sit only by Vertue of the King 's Writ and if the King should dye which I hope I shall never live to see they would not then be a Court of Justice nor any Court at all and therefore my Lord in this Question the Royal Authority and the Subjects Liberties are so involved that what Judgment soever shall be given must pass upon the one as well as upon the other and cannot possibly be divided The third Objection that was made is That this Cause of mine is depending in Parliament which is a Superior Court to this and that the Supream Court having laid its hands upon me therefore this Court cannot intermeddle My Lord There is no man living that hath a greater Reverence for that Supreme Court than I have or that will go further than I will to defend it in all the Rights and Priviledges that belong to it by Law Nay my Lord I have so much a greater Esteem for that Court because I am sure it will neither suffer me nor any man living to go unpunish'd that shall transgress the Law or that shall go about any way to make them Transgressors of the Law or to make them such as would be restrainers of the English Liberties beyond what the Law permits They have shewed the contrary when it was offered to them by a Bill from the House of Commons that they would have no such absolute Authority put into their hands over the Liberties of the Subject but did then refuse it so that to say that Supreme Court hath laid its hands upon any mans Liberty in England further than the Law permits would be to put an unjust Odium upon the House of Lords to the Nation instead of doing them right and therefore I must needs