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A59386 Rights of the kingdom, or, Customs of our ancestors touching the duty, power, election, or succession of our Kings and Parliaments, our true liberty, due allegiance, three estates, their legislative power, original, judicial, and executive, with the militia freely discussed through the British, Saxon, Norman laws and histories, with an occasional discourse of great changes yet expected in the world. Sadler, John, 1615-1674. 1682 (1682) Wing S279; ESTC R11835 136,787 326

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suites for them but not to sit as Judges For as the Commentator addeth they could not depute or make Attornies in a place and act judicial I will not I cannot say the Commons of England cannot choose or constitute their Judges but this I say or believe their delegates ought to be exceeding Curious I had almost said exceeding Scrupulous in making Judges and in bounding them to law and Justice both in way as well as End I must again repeat it That it may not seem enough to settle Judges just and wise and good Nor only to provide that they may do what is just I speak of end but men are men and ought in cases of such consequence to have their Way their Rule and Square by which they must proceed to be prescribed in their Patents or Commissions that they may do justly too as well as what is just To me it seemeth to be reason or the law of nature unto men that the Supreme Court should so limit all inferiours that it may not be left at large to their list or pleasure to condemn or sentence without Hearing Accusation Witness or without such Process and Tryal as shall be clear and plain and so prescribed in the Patent or Commission If it be not so done and expressed I know not what appeal can be but from the Court before Judgment For what appeal what writ of Error or what Plea can a man frame upon their Judgment who have no Rule no way of process prescribed and so cannot Err Transgress or Exceed their commission no not if they should without all accusation proof or witnesses condemn one to be sliced and fryed with exquisite tortures They are Judges but unlimited in way of Process infinite and purely Arbitrary No they are Men and so they must be Rational and Iust which was presupposed by them that gave so vast power They may be Iust indeed and so they should but yet no thanks for this to their Commission if it do not bound and limit out their way and manner of Process as it doth their work and Object or their End which was the wont of English Parliaments who were Just and wise themselves that they did see or fear it might be possible for their Committees to be most Unjust and Arbitrary if they were not most exactly limited Of all Commissions none were more curiously drawn and Pointed out by our Ancestors than those of especial Oyer and Terminer because the cases were not only heinous so they ought to be but such as for some extr ordinary cause emergent seemed to be as it were Extra Iudicial and such as could not stay and abide the usual process of the settled Courts of Justice Yet of these also did our Fathers take most especial care that they might be Iust in Way as well as End and that they might not be too High in Iustice for it seems that they had also learned an usual saying of the Antients Summum jus est injuria So that in divers of the Saxons Laws we find High Iustice Summum Ius to be as much forbidden as Injustice And I should tremble at it as an ill Omen to hear Authority commanded the the Kings Bench or any other Court should be now Stiled the Bench of High-Iustice For in Iustice the higher men goe up the worse or so at least it was esteemed by our Ancestors Their constant limitation was in every such Commission Thus and thus you shall proceed but still according to the Laws and Customs of England Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Angliae and no otherwise that is as Fortescu will say you shall be pittiful in Iustice and more merciful then all the world besides this Kingdom And if such a limitation were not expressed this was enough to prove the Commission Unjust and Illegal which is so well known to all Lawyers that I need not cite N. B. or the Register Commissions or Scrogs's case in Dyer or so many elder cases in Edward the 3 d. Henry the 4 th and almost all Kings Reigns Nay in King Iames among the great debates of Uniting Scotland to England when it was driven up so close that instead of Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Angliae it might be Secundum Legem Consuetudinem Brittanniae It was resolved by all Judges that there could not be that little change but of one word that doth so limit such Commissions but by consent of Parliament of both Kingdoms And in divers Parliaments of Ed. 1. Ed. 3. Hen. 4 th there were many Statutes made to limit all Commissions of Oyer and Terminer as that they must never be granted but before and to some of the Iudges of the Benches or of the Grand Eyre Nor those to be named by Parties but by the Court And with this usual Restriction according to the known clause of the Statute of Westminster the 2 d. in the Reign of Edward the 1 st But the Printed Statute must be compared with the Roll and with the 2 d of Ed. the 3 d. for else there may be in this as in other Printed Acts a great mistake by leaving out or changing one particle for that Clause except it be for heinous offence hath such influence into all the words before that by the known Common Law a Supersedeas doth lye to such Commissions quia non enormis Transgressio as the Register may teach us And although by Law there may be granted a Commission of Association with a Writ of Admittance of others to the Iudges assigned for Oyer and Terminer yet in all those Commissions and Writs the Rule must be prescribed quod ad Iustitiam pertinet and that also according to the Law and Custom of the Kingdom which is so much the Law of Nature that I need not wonder at the great Judg who in all his Institutes and so many Reports maketh those words absolutely necessary to the work of a Lawful Commission And for more prevention or Redress of injustice and Arbitrary Process were our Ancestors so punctual in requiring Records of all Proceedings in the Courts of Justice which is so agreable to Reason and the Law of Nature That the whole Parliament of England as I humbly conceive cannot it self proceed in matters of highest concernment but by Record Much less can it Licence other Courts to be without or above Record in such Affairs It is so well known to be the custom of the Kingdom that I shall not need to shew it in the Statute of York in Edw. 2d and many others in affirmance of the great Charter nisi per Legem Terrae But by the Law of the Land And in Edw. 3d. it was in full Parliament declared to be the Law of the Land that none should be put to answer but upon presentment before Iustices or matter of Record And the 2d of Westminster is very punctual in requiring Records for all legal exceptions as well as other matters and provideth that in case an Exception should not
Henry the first the Descent of divers Nations of Europe from the Trojans in Huntingdon and Hoveden But it may be considered what this State and Parliament hath oft owned of Brute and the Trojan Story not only in the grand Moot of the Dependance of Scotland on England ever since King Brute which beside all Records in the Exchequer is at large in Walsinghams Edward the first and the Survey of Normandy as also in the Laws of the Confessor cap. 35. To which I might add the Trojan Reliques Statues Tablets and Pictures in all the Brittish Danish Saxon English Wars found here in Cornwall Wales and other Parts besides our Troy Novant or new Troy the old Trojan Roman name of this Famous City of the Troinovantes in the Roman Writers Trinobantes now London since the time of Lud's building a Gate and changing this Cities Name But for leaving out the Name of Troy some were so much offended that it came to a great Contest and Quarrel couched in Verse from others by the old Gildas and translated by the Famous Nennius of Bangor escaping that bloody Massacre Who hath also left us an old History yet to be seen in MS. collected as himself saith from the Brittish and Scottish Records and from the old Roman Annals which were then found relating the Pedigree of Brute or Britto some will have him Brotos and some Brutus from Aeneas to Rome and his bringing some Trojan Reliques hither by the way of Gaul where he also saith he built the City of Turons or Tours much as Monmouth and others have the Story though I could never find it in Homer or any of the Ancients by them cited for Turons Yet I find the same Nennius confessing that the Brittish Annals had another descent of their Brute or Britto from Japhet obtaining Europe for his Portion with the Brittish Isles of which Noahs Will in Eusebius or other old Fragments came alone from whence the Almans and Francks besides our Britto Father to the Brittains whose Genealogy through twenty Descents to Noah and Adam he saith he had from the Tradition of those who lived here in Primis Britanniae Temporibus So that if we may not believe Taliessin the British Bard of Trojans coming hither with their Brute yet we may peruse his Scholar or the Merlin that foretold the Name of Brute should come again upon this Island whether in the Scottish Union or in the Welsh returning to their Lost Dominions I dispute not nor how this Island came so like to Somothrace so near a Kin to Troy in Rites of Worship or in other Customs as of old some did observe especially in those concerning Ceres or Proserpina so famous here that in the old Argonauts the Brittish Isles are stiled the Court or Palace of Ceres and yet this might be for other Reasons But although I cannot deny some Trojan customs among us yet I know not why I should grant that Trojan Succession to the Crown which so many do assert when as themselves do yield the same Trojans to be Brittans and those Brittans of whom we spake before And besides the Brittish Gavelkinde and all before themselves do also relate their own Brute parting his Kingdom among his three Sons and again the Crown parted between the two Sons of Madan two of Gorbodio two of Molmutius two of Lud so near a Kin to him that Caesar found Elected King by Common-Council And I must believe those who assert the Trojan Crown to go by Succession yet I know not why I may not also believe so many good or better Writers of the Trojan Common-Council or Parliament and their Power in Peace and War with all things else that might concern the King or Kingdom which great Council did consist of Princes or Nobles and Elders of the People Of which Trojan Parliament we read in Apuleius Socrates Daemon and in Homer Virgil Dictys and most ancient Dares who lived also in our Britain if good Bale deceive us not which yet is not so certain as that he was Translated or Paraphrased in Latin Verse by Ioseph of Exon or Iscan our Countrey-Man as many of his Verses speak although that Elegant Poem be ascribed to Cornelius Nepos as by him Dedicated to Salust in the times of the great Commerce between Rome and Britain which produced so many famous Brittish Romans beside Constantine Helen and the modest Claudia of whom St. Paul speaketh and Martial in several places maketh her a British Woman I will not insist upon their Election of Emperors or Generals by a kind of Lot in Dictys nor will I deny but the Trojans were severe enough to all Traitors whose dead Bodies also were denyed Burial if we may believe all from the Illiads but the Odysses may also afford us the very same Punishment for Tyrants whom they hated as much as the Grecians Nor will the Patrons of Succession or Prerogative find more encouragement among the Grecians than among the Trojans though I cannot deny but they do rightly observe many Grecian Customs among the Britains nor will I deny to our Ancestors both Greek Philosophers and Greek Schools besides Bladud's at Stamford and other Places I could easily believe these Islands to be known to the Grecians long before the Romans of whom Lucretius is the first that I yet know speaking of Britain but it was described by Polibius though our great Herald seem to forget it who might learn it from the Carthaginians trading hither and by Eratosthenes Dicaearcus Pithaeas and Artemidorus if I be not deceived from Strabo that I say nothing of the old Argonauts ascribed to Orpheus naming Ireland and describing Britain or of the Book of the World in Aristotles Works where Albion and Ferne are Brittish Isles mentioned also in Dyonisius and very famous for their Mines of Tin or Lead whence the name of Cassiterides of which Herodotus and others of the Ancients What was the Grecian Genius towards their Kings doth not only appear in their Supercilious Ephori Eye-brows or the Left eye of Greece but in the Right Eye or Athens of which much might be spoken from all the Greek Historians besides their Laws or Politicks of Plato and his Schollars long before the Attick Laws Collected by Petitus that I say nothing of Aristophanes or any of their Poets But how much our Ancestors owed to the Grecians I do not find expressed by any most of our Plays much of our Works and somewhat of our Laws seemeth to be Grecian The Genius of a State is seen in Plays some think rather than in Work they are Passions and as Lovers Pulses which do shew the Soul much quicker than do Words or Actions and the Greek Scenes were Passions or Sufferings of Princes rather than their Actions and a Tyrants blood was thought the Richest and fattest Sacrifice to please the People and appease their Gods but Interludes must be Corrected much and then they may both Moralize and Methodize the best Historians and may be