the Second year of King Henry the Fourth An Assize shall be maintainable against the King 's Patentee of Lands without any title found for the King by Inquisition By an Act of Parliament made in the 4 th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King a special Assize shall be maintainable against a Disseisor by force Riots Routs and unlawful Assemblies are forbid by a Statute made in the 13 th year of the aforesaid King's Reign and the Justices of Peace near adjoyning Impowred to hear and determine the Offences and if they cannot are to certifie the King and his Council thereof By an Act of Parliament made in the second year of the Reign of King Henry the 5 th Commissions are to be from time to time awarded to Inquire of the defaults of the Justices of Peace Justices of the Assize Sheriffs and under-Sheriffs in not suppressing and punishing the same By an Act of Parliament made in the first year of King Richard the Third the Justices of Peace may let Prisoners to mainprize that are Arrested or Imprisoned for light suspition of Felony or by Malice and no Sheriff or other Officer shall seize the Goods of a Prisoner until he be attainted By an Act of Parliament made in the 23 th year of the Reign of King Henry the Eighth A Jury Convicted of giving a false Verdict if it be for any thing demanded above the value of Forty pounds and concerneth not the Jeopardy of a man's life shall forfeit Twenty pounds a piece the one half to the King and the other to the Party that will sue for the same and Five pounds a piece if the thing demanded be under the value of Twenty pounds and every one of them in the one Case and the other make fine and ransom by the discretion of the Judges before whom such false Verdict was given never after be of any Credence nor their Oaths accepted in any Court By an Act of Parliament made in the 32 year of the said King wrongful disseifin shall be no dissent in Law except the Disseisor shall have been five years in quiet Possession without entry or continual Claim of those who have lawful Title thereunto The Barons of the Exchequer are by an Act of Parliament made in the 33 th year of the aforesaid King Authorized by Bills of Equity in the Exchequer Chamber to acquit discharge or moderate all Recognizances Debts Detinues Trespasses Wastes Deceipts Defaults Contempts and Forfeitures Treasons Murders Felonies Rights Titles and Interest as well of Inheritance as Free-hold only excepted according to Equity and good Conscience By an Act of Parliament made in the 5 th and 6 th year of the Reign of King Edward the Sixth Great Penalties were laid upon those that should buy or sell Offices concerning the Administration of Justice or any Offices belonging to the King all Contracts Bonds Promises Covenants and Bargains to be void both as to the Buyer and Seller and the taker of any Gift or Promise to forfeit his Nomination and Interest therein By an Act of Parliament made in the 31 th year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth Three Proclamations shall be made in every Action Personal where an Exigent is awarded and the Defendant before the allowance of any Writ of Error or Reversal of the Utlary shall be bound to answer the Plaintiff and satisfie the Condemnation By an Act of Parliament made in the 43 th year of the Reign of the aforesaid Queen Every Sheriff Under-Sheriff or other Person making any Warrant for the Summons Arrest or Attaching of any Person or their Goods to appear in any of the Courts of Westminster or procuring it without Original Writ or Process to warrant the same being Convicted thereof shall be Imprisoned without Bail or Mainprize until they shall have paid the party grieved Ten pounds with all his other Damages and Twenty pounds a piece for their Offence to the Queen and for the avoiding of Vexatious Actions where any recovery is had for Debt or Damages for less than Forty shillings or not above no more Costs shall be awarded by the Judge than the Debt or Damages recovered And by the Law Writs of Habeas Corpus una Cum die Causa Captionis are granted by the Courts of King's-Bench or Common Pleas when any are Imprisoned by the King or any other without Cause shewed to be Bailed if the Cause shall not appear to be Just and Legal And if any Man Imprison any of the King's Subjects without just Cause or enter upon or take away any of their Estates against the Tenor of our Magna Charta and Charta Forestae and many of our other excellent Laws and reasonable Customs he may although it be by the King's Command if not legal be punished for the same And our Magna Charta and Liberties are so Bulwarked and Fortified as every man may have reason enough to be assured That the People of England and Wales cannot upon any Emergencies and Violations of Laws want relief or Redress When the Justices in Eyre Instituted by King Henry the Second to ride their Circuits until they were by King Edward the Third changed into those of Assizes who in their Vernal and Autumnal Circuits carrying the King's Justice and Care of it into every Shire and County of England and Wales to prevent as much as might be their Travels and Expences to seek it farther from home did amongst many other Articles and Matters concerning the King and his People give in Charge to the Grand Juries of the several Cities and Counties of their Circuits which were Men of good Estates Knowledge Experience and Concerns Sworn to present what they should be charged to Inquire of and direct them to Inquire and present false Weights and Measures Lands seized into the King's hands which ought not to be seized or being ordered to be restored were not of those that were amerced without reasonable Cause and not according to the Offence or by their Peers without a saving to their Contenement a Merchant without a saving to him his Merchandize and a Villain without saving his Waynage and not by the Oaths of good and lawful Men of the Neighborhood if any Earls and Barons were amerced but by their Peers and after the manner of their Offences and if any Man of the Church be amerced otherwise than according to his Lay-Tenement and after the quantity of his Offence and by the Statute of Marleborough made in the One and fiftieth year of King Henry the Third of all other the breaches of the Laws and Liberties granted by Magna Charta and the Charter of the Forrest and other Articles and Matters to be Inquired of given unto them in Writing and upon their Oaths to answer distinctly what they did know Affirmatively or Negatively When the Judges of the Court of King's Bench who do yet retain the power of Justices in Eyre do in every Easter and
have a mind to Imitate such a self-ruining madness the dire Events and many heavy and remediless Calamities which fell upon the over-sparing and cautious Constantinopolitans who denying their Emperor a necessary and fitting Aid to defend them as well as himself made the Turks Master of all Greece so renowned heretofore for Learning and that City and the Riches of it a twentieth or a very small part whereof might have disappointed all the Tyranny Bondage and Slavery which they have ever since been under and are according to Humane Judgement like to continue to the end of the World in no better a Condition And now that Hannibal is ad Portas Dangers on all sides encompassing and crowding in upon us we should neither forsake our selves and good old England which will surely be worth the saving nor so much mistake that which was ever accompted to be Reason Wisdom and Forecast as to undervalue the prospect and the cares of Prevention laugh at them as Pedantick Fopperies or the dotage of a Decrepit World and like Jonas displeasing his God fall asleep in the midst of a Tempest But rather make hast to return to our selves and set before us the Wisdom and Examples of our Ancestors and Predecessors who in the care of themselves and of the Private and Publick not separate but joyned together as well as of their Kings and Soveraigns would not be deterred by any Statemisfortunes or Irregularities or tempted by their Jealousies or Fears to suffer themselves as the Members and smaller parts of the Body to languish and be destroyed by neglecting the Head and the Security and Safety thereof or by not paying their Duty and Reverence to their Kings hate and ruine themselves which in all their Discontents and Murmurings against their Kings and Government the Anxieties or Commotions of their Minds and Passions or the Dispairs which had sometimes seized upon them they did so much seek to avoid as they did not refuse them Aids in all their Wars and Troubles Domestick and Foreign King Henry the Second who after a very great and general Act of resumption of the Aliened Crown Revenue some whereof had been granted by himself had discontented many of his great Nobility when all his Sons had Rebelled Warred and taken Arms against him wanted not a supply by Escuage from his Subjects of England to reduce them to Obedience and make his Wars in France King Richard the First being unfortunately in his Return Incognito from his warlike and glorious Expedition to Jerusalem made Prisoner by an unworthy Surprize of the Duke of Austria and the German Emperor enforced as some of our Historians have reported for his Deliverance to invest the former of them with the Superiority of his Kingdom of England by the delivering of his Hat unto him which the Emperor in the presence of divers of the Nobility of Germany and England returned unto him to hold the Kingdom of him by the Annual Tribute of Fifty thousand pound Sterling and his Brother John Usurping the Crown in his absence and Plotting with the Emperor and the King of France his mortal Enemy to continue him a Prisoner during his Life both Laiety and Clergy notwithstanding that he had by the perswasion of the Clergy more than of the Laiety been ingaged in that very Expensive War did so strain themselves to redeem the Person of their King the Kingdom and People at that time being secure enough from Foreign Invasions as they raised and paid One hundred and fifty thousand Marks in pure Silver of Cologn weight then a very great Sum of Money by Twenty Shillings imposed upon every Knights Fee the fourth part of the Revenue of the Laiety and the like of the Clergy a tenth of their Goods all or most the Chalices and Treasure of the Church being then also not a little sold to make up the Sum So as William Petit or Newbrigensis who wrote his Book in that time saith Ferè exmunita pecuniis Anglia videretur England seemed to be almost emptied of all her Money and the like courses were held for raising that then great Sum of Money in all his Dominions beyond the Seas King John likewise having resum'd much of his Crown-Lands Murdered as was suspected his Nephew Arthur the right Heir to the Crown and thereby forfeited the Dutchy of Normandy to the King of France of whom he held it and in those many Troubles and Distresses which were cast upon him by his unruly Baronage constrained to acknowledge to hold his Kingdoms of England and Dominion of Ireland of the Pope and his Successors in Fee-Farm under the yearly Rent of One thousand Marks per Annum Charged his Earls and Barons with the Losses which he had sustained in France Fined and made them pay a seventh part of all their Goods had Two marks and a half granted unto him by the Parliament out of every Knight's Feé and within a year after a thirteenth part of all the Moveables and other Goods as well of the Clergy as of the Laiety King Henry the Third his Son resum'd all the Lands alien'd from the Crown had so great Troubles entail'd upon him by the Contests of his boisterous Baronage with his Father as Lewis the French King's Son was called in by some of them received their Homage and had London and a great part of the Kingdom delivered up and put into his Possession but upon better Consideration was afterwards sent home again by those that Invited him and the Barons of England having so little accorded with their Native King as several Battels were fought betwixt them in one of which the King himself was taken Prisoner and in another released by the Valour of the Prince his Son the managers of that Rebellion Slain and their multitude of Partizans reduced to Obedience being a great part of the Kingdom by their Compounding with his Commissioners at Kenelworth to give him Seven years Purchase of the yearly value of their Lands which amounted to a very great Sum of Money for a Pardon for their Offences and a Redemption of their Estates the Subjects and People of this Nation did howsoever in order to their own Preservation besides the fifteenth part of all their Goods for his Grants of Magna Charta and Charta Forestae not deny him their Aids of Scutage Fifteenths and Tenths there being scarce a year wherein there was not a Parliament and seldom any Parliament without a Tax King Edward the First notwithstanding his Writs of Quo Warranto brought against all the Nobility Great Men Gentry and others of England Cities and Burroughs Claiming Liberties and Priviledges wherein he did put them strictly to prove them either by Grant or Prescription seized and confiscated the Estates of the Earls of Gloucester Hereford and Norfolk Men of great Might and Power for their refusing to go and serve him in his Wars beyond the Seas the Earl of Hereford being Constable and the Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of
England by Inheritance And their mutual Rancors and Displeasures with the grand Contests of them and their Parties to procure the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas de Tallagio non Concedendo were not healed without the Aids and Subsidies of his People The mis-government and mis-leading of King Edward the Second by his several Favorites Peirce Gaveston and the Spencers did not hinder him from the Supplies of his People King Edward the Third after a fifteenth of the Temporalty a twentieth part of the Goods of the Cities and Burroughs and a tenth of the Clergy granted unto him by Parliament in the Eighth year of his Reign having consumed much Treasure in his Wars made for the Kingdom of France which he claimed as his Inheritance wherein the English Nation more than for the Grandeur and Honour of their Prince were not much concerned but were jealous until an Act or Declaration of the King in Parliament was procured to the contrary that the Conquest of France might have caused England to have been afterwards dependant upon that greater Crown and Kingdom was notwithstanding the seizure and taking into his hands the Goods and Estates of three Orders of Monks viz. The Lombards Cluniacks and Cistertians and all the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Churches through England for the Holy War forced to revoke divers Assignations made for Payment of Moneys though he had received Three Millions of Crowns of Gold for the Ransom of John King of France whom his Son the Black Prince had taken Prisoner and was not put to lose any of his Honour Friends Estate or Interest for want of the necessary Assistance of his Subjects who for the maintenance of those and other his Wars were howsoever well content to give him half of the Laieties Wool and a whole of the Clergies and at another time the ninth Sheaf the ninth Fleece and ninth Lamb for two years and after many other Taxes and Aids granted in several Parliaments of his Reign and a Commission sent into every Shire to enquire of the value of every man's Estate The Treasure of the Nation being much exhausted found the People so willing to undergo that and other Burdens which those successful Wars had brought upon them as the Ladies and Gentlewomen did willingly Sacrifice their Jewels to the Payment of his Souldiers That Unfortunate Prince Richard the Second his Grandchild tossed and perplexed with the Greatness Ambition and Factions of his Uncles and the subtil underminings of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster the most powerful of them fatally continued and pursued by Henry of Bullingbrook his Son Duke of Hereford was not in all those his Distresses so unhappy but that although the Commons in Parliament had by their Petitions unto him complained That for want of good Redress about his Person and in his Houshold and Courts the Commons were daily pilled and nothing defended against the Enemy and that it would shortly undo him and the whole Estate yet they were so mindful of their Soveraign and themselves as they not only afforded him very great Aids and Assistances but in the Fourteenth year of his Reign the Lords and Commons in Parliament did Pray That The Prerogative of the King and his Crown might be kept and all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Royal Progenitors were And in the Fifteenth year of his Reign did in Parliament require him That He would as largely enjoy his Prerogative as any of his Progenitors notwithstanding any Statute and namely the Statute of Gloucester in the time of King Edward the Third the which Statute they utterly repealed out of their tender affection to the King King Henry the Fourth Fifth and Sixth although well understood to have been Kings de facto not de jure for so not seldom have been the Pleadings at the Law of their Acts of Parliament and although the later of those Kings being Crowned King of France in his Infancy and in Possession of that Kingdom was by his Meek and Pious rather than Prudent Government a great part of the Cause of the Bloody Contests betwixt the Two Houses of York and Lancaster which ruined very many of the Nobility and Gentry by taking their several Parties and were by their Discords the loss of all the Kingdom of France but Calice And that Richard Duke of York had in Parliament so claimed and wrestled for the Crown as he was declared Protector of the Kingdom of England enjoyed notwithstanding the care and good will of their Subjects upon all occasions either at home or abroad in times of Peace or War by their Contributions of Subsidies King Edward the Fourth in the brunt and hottest of the long continued bloody Contentions of the two great Houses and Families of York and Lancaster after nine Battels won by himself attested by his Surcoat of Arms which he wore therein hung up as a Trophy in the Cathedral Church of St. George at Windsor and his many struglings with King Henry the Sixth and his Party in losing and gaining the Crown again War with France and compelling the crafty Lewis the 11 th the King thereof to demand a Peace and consent to pay him 75000 Crowns towards his War Expences and a Tribute of 50000 Crowns yearly during the life of King Edward notwithstanding that he had in the second year of his Reign sate in a Michaelmas Term three days together in his Court of Kings Bench and gathered great Sums of Money of the People of England by his Privy Seal towards his Wars with the Scots and in the Seventh year of his Reign resumed by Act of Parliament all the Grants which he had made since he took Possession of the Realm raised great Sums of Money by Benevolences and Penal Laws had in the Eighth year of his Reign granted him by Act of Parliament two fifteens and a Demy and in the Thirteenth year of his Reign a Subsidy towards his Wars with France when the Actions Courage and Wisdom of Parliaments were so incertain as there was in the space of half a year one Parliament Proclaiming King Edward an Usurper and King Henry a Lawful King and another Proclaiming King Edward a Lawful King and King Henry an Usurper King Henry the Seventh although that he sometimes declared That he held the Crown as won in Battel by Conquest of King Richard the Third and at other times by his better Title from the House of York and his Marriage with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and avaritiously took all the ways possible for the enriching of his Treasury had divers great Aids and Subsidies granted unto him by Parliament King Henry the Eighth notwithstanding that he had after many great Subsidies and Aids both as to the Money and manner of Collecting it granted unto him his Heirs and Successors by several Parliaments and the first Fruits and Tenths of
of any of their Kings and Princes at once with an Addition afterwards of another Pardon or Abolition of a lesser size for Offences and Forfeitures since committed and did not only restore unto all the Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England and Wales their forfeited Charters Privileges and Liberties but enlarged and gave unto many of them more than they had before And was so unwilling to Punish those that had done him and his Royal Father Mother Brothers Sisters those almost impossible to be forgotten or forgiven most execrable Villanies as he not only Pardoned but gave them profitable Employments who to their shame cozened him all they could and moulded themselves into a Faction of Repeating as many Impieties as they had been guilty of before and was so over Clement and forgiving as he imployed and did not Punish one that was proved to have said after His Majestie 's escape from the Battel of Worcester That if he had been taken he ought to have been stripped stark Naked led through the Streets with a Bridle thrust through an hole bored in his Nose Whipped at a Carts tail and afterwards Hanged Are not to be very angry or take it ill if they be charged with Partiality or Injustice or as great a Reproach as our Blessed Saviour bestowed upon the over-quick-sighted fault-finding Pharisee who could espy a mote as he thought in another's eye but not see a beam in his own but rather retire into themselves and upon a more strict Examination of their past evil Actions abhor themselves in dust and ashes cover their heads with shame weep repent and resolve to walk retrograde and persist no more in the gain-saying of Corah Datham and Abiram wherein they perished When they who would make every body as much afraid as they themselves do seem to fear an Inclination in His Majesty to an Arbitrary Power which he never did or is willing to exercise can almost every day joyn with others in Complaints of the no few of the Subordinate Magistrates usurping it against the mind and direction of the King and his Laws over their fellow Subjects by their Irregular courses Condemning and many times Imprisoning without Jury Trial legal Hearing or Proceedings And easily discern an yearly Custom of an illegally over-strained Power in the Lord Maiors of London Electing and Drinking unto many or more than needs in the Choice of two to be Sheriffs of London and Middlesex for the ensuing year and imposing and taking great Fines of the Refusers unto whom he needed not to have Drank whereby to gain some Thousands of Pounds yearly for the Fines of such as were unwilling or unfit to bear the Charge or Expence of those Offices and Imprison and Constrain them to pay them which are seldom less than 4 or 500 l. upon every such Refuser As if some fatal and successive Annual or fit of Thirst or kind Drinking was at a certain Time of every year to fall upon the Lord Maiors of that City to Drink more often and unto more than he should do And they that shall happen to be so imposed upon are sure to be out of hopes of getting themselves discharged of Imprisonment for not paying the Fine by Writs of Habeas Corpus and Bail which if the King should do every year in the Choice of Three presented unto him to serve as Sheriffs in all other Counties and Places of England and Wales no other City or Place therein making use of such a kind and loving Device to raise Moneys the Habeas Corpora Bells would Ring in all the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall and His Majesty would be troubled with the noise thereof And no small Arbitrary Power in their Courts of Orphants in London by Imprisoning a young Man in Newgate without Bail or Mainprise that had lawfully Married a City Orphant and his Father in like manner for contriving it And we may often hear and observe in the Guilds Fraternities and Companies of Trade and their Mysteries in the City of London an almost unbounded over absolute Power in their By-Laws which should be perused as it is more than a little probable they are not or but very seldom or cursorily by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Treasurer and the two Lord Chief Justices and allowed by them or any three of them to be according to the Law together with their giving of unlawful Oaths imposing of Taxes Quarteridges or Fines and Assessements as they please upon the Poorer sort of the Companies of Trades supernumerating their Livery Men in their Companies in making them to be twice as many as they were wont to be and inforcing them to Pay 20 or 25 l. a Man and be at the Charge of a reverend Gown faced with Furrs of Foynes or Budge and Imprison Men for not obeying them and their grinding superfluous Orders The Exactions and Arbitrary Power of the Church-Officers in the City of London and its overgrown Suburb Parishes in the Renting of Pews and Seats in the Churches making Strangers pay great and double Fees for Tolling the Passing Bell and Ringing of a Peal when there was no such Matters taking great Fees for Burying of the Dead in the Church or Chancel near an Husband Wife Father or Mother Brother or Sister where before they have lain there a quarter of a year or a little time they are sure to be taken up again and flung into a Common Vault to lodge amongst those that were Buried far cheaper conniving at or permitting the Parish Clerks Sextons or Grave-makers to sell the broken and sometimes pillaged Coffins of the Dead to be made fewel for fire or Bake-houses cozening the Living and Dead feasting and fatning themselves upon every small Consultation and Parish meeting for the good as they call it or little Business of the Parish as for the putting out a Bastard or Foundling or poor Parish Child to a Beggar to beg with and trouble the Streets withal at a low weekly rate and take the advantage to themselves of reckoning by a greater which have been the cause of such short Memories in Parish Politicks and Governments as the Accompt of a Legacy of Three hundred Pounds per Annum as they may be now demised in Houses and Tenements in a London Suburb Parish for as many hundred years ago for the Building of the Church yet standing upon its old Ruins is so vanished as it is not at all to be found and a royal Charity of One hundred and Twenty pounds given in the year 1625. by King Charles the Martyr in a Time of Pestilence could never be heard of and the Church wardens or Collectors of a near London Parish have been so over-watched for the good of the Parish and thereby rendred so sleepy or Lethargick as they could not good People as they would be thought to be tell which way One Thousand or Two Thousand pounds have escaped out of the Accompt and the fault