of the wars in France and the losse of Rochett he was them enforced to consent to the Lords in all they demanded in the tenth of his reigne he fined the City of London at 50000. marks because they had received Lewis of France in the 11. year in the Parliament at Oxford he revoked the great Charter being granted when he was under age and governed by the Earle of Pembroke and the Bishop of Winchester in this 11. year the Earles of Cornewall and Chester Marshall Edward Earle of Pembroke Gilbert Earle of Gloucester Warren Hereford Ferrars and Warwick and others rebelled against the King and constrained him to yeeld unto them in what they demaunded for their particular interest which rebellion being appeased he sayled into France and in his 15. year he had a 15th of the temporality and a disme and a half of the spirituality and withall escuage of every Knights fee. COUNS. But what say you to the Parliament of Westminster in the 16th of the King where notwithstanding the wars of France and his great charge in repulsing the Welsh rebels he was flatly denyed the Subsidy demanded IUST I confesse my Lord that the house excused themselves by reason of their poverty and the Lords taking of Armes in the next year it was manifest that the house was practised aganst the King And was it not so my good Lord think you in our two last Parliaments for in the first even those whom his Majesty trusted most betrayed him in the union and in the second there were other of the great ones ran counter But your Lordship spake of dangers of Parliaments in this my Lord there was a denyall but there was no danger at all but to returne where I left what got the Lords by practizing the house at that time I say that those that brake this staffe upon the King were overturned with the counterbuffe for he resumed all those lands which he had given in his minority he called all his exacting officers to accompt he found them all faulty he examined the corruption of other Magistrates and from all these he drew sufficient money to satisfie his present necessity whereby he not onely spared his people but highly contented them with an act of so great Iustice Yea Hubert Earle of Kent the chief Iustice whom he had most trusted and most advanced was found as false to the King as any one of the rest And for conclusion in the end of that year at the assembly of the States at Lambeth the King had the fortieth part of every mans goods given him freely toward his debts for the people who the same year had refused to give the King any thing when they saw he had squeased those spunges of the Common-wealth they willingly yeelded to give him satisfaction COUNS. But I pray you what became of this Hubert whom the King had favoured above all men betraying his Majesty as he did IUST There were many that perswaded the King to put him to death but he could not be drawn to consent but the King seized upon his estate which was great yet in the end he left him a sufficient portion and gave him his life because he had done great service in former times For this Majesty though he tooke advantage of his vice yet he forgot not to have consideration of his vertue And upon this occasion it was that the King betrayed by those whom he most trusted entertained strangers and gave them their offices and the charge of his Castles and strong places in England COUNS. But the drawing in of those strangers was the cause that Marshall Earle of Pembroke moved war against the King JUST It is true my good Lord but he was soon after slain in Ireland and his whole masculine race ten yeares extinguished though there were five Sons of them and Marshal being dead who was the mover and ring-leader of that war the King pardoned the rest of the Lords that had assisted Marshall COUNS. What reason had the King so to doe JUST Because he was perswaded that they loved his person and only hated those corrupt Counsellors that then bare the greatest sway under him as also because they were the best men of war he had whom if he destroyed having war with the French he had wanted Commanders to have served him COUNS. But what reason had the Lords to take armes JUST Because the King entertained the Poictovins were not they the Kings vassals also Should the Spaniards rebell because the Spanish King trusts to the Neapolitans Fortagues Millanoies and other Nations his vassals seeing those that are governed by the Vice-royes and deputies are in policy to be well entertained to be employed who would otherwise devise how to free themselves whereas being trusted and imployed by their Prince they entertain themselves with the hopes that other the Kings vassals do if the King had called in the Spaniards or other Nations not his Subjects the Nobilitie of England had reason of grief COUNS. But what people did ever serve the King of England more faithfully then the Gascoynes did even to the last of the conquest of that Duchie IUST Your Lordship sayes well and I am of that opinion that if it had pleased the Queen of Eng. to have drawn some of the chief of the Irish Nobilitie into Eng. and by exchange to have made them good free-holders in Eng. she had saved above 2. millions of pounds which were consumed in times of those Rebellions For what held the great Gascoigne firme to the Crown of England of whom the Duke of Espernon married the Inheritrix but his Earldome of Kendall in England whereof the Duke of Espernon in right of his Wife beares the Title to this day And to the same end I take it hath Iames our Soveraign Lord given Lands to divers of the Nobilitie of Scotland And if I were worthy to advise your Lordship I should think that your Lordship should do the King great service to put him in mind to prohibite all the Scottish Nation to alienate and sell away their inheritance here for they selling they not only give cause to the English to complain that the Treasure of England is transported into Scotland but his Majestie is thereby also frustrated of making both Nations one and of assuring the service and obedience of the Scots in future COUNS. You say well for though those of Scotland that are advanced and enriched by the Kings Majesties will no doubt serve him faithfully yet how their heires and successors having no inheritance to lose in England may be seduced is uncertain But let us go on with our Parliament And what say you to the denyall in the 26th year of his reigne even when the King was invited to come into France by the Earle of March who had married his Mother and who promised to assist the King in the conquest of many places lost IUST It is true my good Lord that a subsidie was then denied and the reasons are
Lords A contrained consent is the consent of a Captive and not of a King and therefore there was nothing done their either legally or royally For if it be not properly a Parliament where the subject is not free certainely it can be none where the King is bound for all Kingly rule was taken from the King and twelve Peeres appointed and as some Writers have it 24. Peeres to governe the Realme and therefore the assembly made by Iack Straw and other rebels may aswell be called a Parliament as that of Oxford Principis nomen habere non est esse princeps for thereby was the K. driven not only to compound all quarrels with the French but to have meanes to be revenged on the rebell Lords but he quitted his right to Normandy Anjou and Mayne COUNS. But Sir what needed this extremity seeing the Lords required but the confirmation of the former Charter which was not prejudiciall to the King to grant JUST Yes my good Lord but they insulted upon the King and would not suffer him to enter into his own Castles they put down the Purveyor of the meat for the maintenance of his house as if the King had been a bankrupt and gave order that without ready money he should not take up a Chicken And though there is nothing against the royalty of a King in these Charters the Kings of England being Kings of freemen and not of slaves yet it is so contrary to the nature of a King to be forced even to those things which may be to his advantage as the King had some reason to seek the dispensation of his oath from the Pope and to draw in strangers for his own defence yea jure salvo coronae nostrae is intended inclusively in all oathes and promises exacted from a Soveraigne COUNS. But you cannot be ignorant how dangerous a thing it is to call in other Nations both for the spoil they make as also because they have often held the possession of the best places with which they have been trusted JUST It is true my good Lord that there is nothing so dangerous for a King as to be constrained and held as prisoner to his vassals for by that Edward the second and Richard the second lost their Kingdomes and their lives And for calling in of strangers was not King Edward the sixth driven to call in strangers against the Rebels in Norfolke Cornwall Oxfordshire and elsewhere Have not the Kings of Scotland been oftentimes constrained to entertain strangers against the Kings of England And the King of England at this time had he not bin diverse times assisted by the Kings of Scotland had bin endangered to have been expelled for ever COUNS. But yet you know those Kings were deposed by Parliament JUST Yea my good Lord being Prisoners being out of possession and being in their hands that were Princes of the blood and pretenders It is an old Countrey Proverbe that Might overcomes Right a weak title that weares a strong sword commonly prevailes against a strong title that weares but a weak one otherwise Philip the second had never been Duke of Portugal nor Duke of Millayne nor King of Naples Sicily But good Lord Errores non sunt trahendi in exemplum I speak of regall peaceable and lawfull Parliaments The King at this time was but a King is name for Glocester Leicester and Chichester made choise of other Nine to whom the rule of the Realme was committed and the Prince was forced to purchase his liberty from the Earle of Leicester by giving for his ransome the Countey Pallatine of Chester But my Lord let us judge of those occasions by their events what became of this proud Earle was he not soon after slain in Evesham was he not left naked in the field and left a shamfull spectacle his head being cut off from his shoulders his privie parts from his body and laid on each side of his nose And did not God extinguish his race after which in a lawfull Parliament at Westminster confirmed in a following Parliament of Westminster were not all the Lords that followed Leycester disinheried And when that fool Glocester after the death of Leycester whom he had formerly forsaken made himself the head of a second Rebellion and called in strangers for which not long before he had cried out against the King was not he in the end after that he had seen the slaughter of so many of the Barons the spoil of their Castles and Lordships constrained to submit himself as all the survivers did of which they that sped best payed their fines and ransomes the King reserving his younger Son the Earledomes of Leycester and Derby COUNS. Well Sir we have disputed this King to the grave though it be true that he out-lived all his enemies and brought them to confusion yet those examples did not terrifie their successors but the Earle Marshall and Hereford threatned King Edward the first with a new War IUST They did so but after the death of Hereford the Earle Marshall repented himself and to gain the Kings favour he made him heir of all his Lands But what is this to the Parliament for there was never King of this land had more given him for the time of his raign then Edward the Son of Henry the third had COUNS. How doth that appear JUST In this sort my good Lord in this Kings third year he had given him the fifteenth part of all goods In his sixt year a twentyeth In his twelfth year a twentyeth in his fourteenth year he had escuage to wit forty shillings of every Knights Fee in this eighteenth year he had the eleventh part of all moveable goods within the Kingdome in his nineteenth year the tenth part of all Church livings in England Scotland and Ireland for six years by agreement from the Pope in his three and twentieth year he raised a taxe upon Wool and fels and on a day caused all the religious houses to be searched and all the treasure in them to be seized and brought to his coffers excusing himself by laying the fault upon his Treasurer he had also in the end of the same year of all goods of all Burgesses and of the Commons the 10th part in the 25th year of the Parliament of St. Edmundsbury he had an 18th part of the goods of the Burgesses and of the people in generall the tenth part He had also the same year by putting the Clergie out of his protection a fifth part of their goods and in the same year he set a great taxe upon Woolls to wit from half a marke to 40s upon every sack whereupon the Earle Marshall and the Earle of Hereford refusing to attend the King into Flanders pretended the greevances of the people Put in the end the King having pardoned them and confirmed the great Charter he had the ninth penny of all goods from the Lords and Commons of the Clergie in the South he had the tenth penny and in
Commissioners which because one of the Aldermen refused to pay he was sent for a souldier into Scotland He had also another great subsedy of six shillings the pound of the Clergy and two shillings eight pence of the goods of the Laity and four shillings the pound upon Lands In the second yeare of Edward the sixt the Parliament gave the King an aid of twelve pence the pound of goods of his Naturall subjects and two shillings the pound of strangers and this to continue for three yeares and by the statute of the second and third of Edward the sixt it may appear the same Parliament did also give a second aid as followeth to wit of every Ewe kept in severall pastures 3d of every weather kept as aforesaid 2d of every sheep kept in the Common 1d ob The House gave the King also 8d the pound of every woollen cloath made for the sale throughout England for three years In the third and fourt of the King by reason of the troublesome gathering of the poly money upon sheep and the tax upon cloath this act of subsedy was repeal'd and other relief given the King and in the seventh yeare he had a subsedy and two fifteens In the first yeare of Queen Mary tunnage and poundage were granted In the second yeare a subsedy was given to King Philip and to the Queen she had also a third subsedy in Annis 4. 5. Eliz. Reg Now my Lord for the Parliaments of the late Queens time in which there was nothing new neither head money nor sheep money nor escuage nor any of these kinds of payments was required but onely the ordinary subsedies and those as easily graunted as demanded I shall not need to trouble your Lordship with any of them neither can I inform your Lordship of all the passages and acts which have passed for they are not extant nor printed COUNS. No it were but time lost to speak of the latter and by those that are already remembred we may judge of the rest for those of the greatest importance are publick But I pray you deal freely with me what you think would be done for his Majesty If he should call a Parliament at this time or what would be required at his Majesties hands IUST The first thing that would be required would be the same that was required by the Commons in the thirteenth yeare of Hen. the eight to wit that if any man of the commons house should speak more largely then of duty he ought to do all such offences to be pardoned and that to be of record COUNS. So might every Companion speak of the King what they list IUST No my Lord the reverence which a Vassall oweth to his Soveraigne is alwaies intended for every speech howsoever it must import the good of the King and his estate and so long it may be easily pardoned otherwise not for in Queen Elizabeths time who gave freedome of speech in all Parliaments when Wentworth made those motions that were but supposed dangerous to the Queens estate he was imprisoned in the Tower notwithstanding the priviledge of the house and there died COUNS. What say you to the Scicilian vespers remembred in the last Parliament IUST I say he repented him heartily that used that speech and indeed besides that it was seditious this example held not The French in Scicily usurped that Kingdome they neither kept law nor faith they took away the inheritance of the Inhabitants they took from them their wives and ravished their daughters committing all other insolencies that could be imagined The Kings Majesty is the Naturall Lord of England his Vassals of Scotland obey the English Laws if they break them they are punished without respect Yea his Majesty put one of his Barons to a shamefull death for being consenting onely to the death of a Common Fencer And which of these ever did or durst commit any outrage in England but to say the truth the opinion of packing the last was the cause of the contention and disorder that happened COUNS. Why sir do you not think it best to compound a Parliament of the Kings servants and others that shall in all obey the Kings desires IUST Certainly no for it hath never succeeded well neither on the kings part nor on the subjects as by the Parliament before-remembred your Lordship may gather for from such a composition do arise all jealousies and all contentions It was practized in elder times to the great trouble of the kingdome and to the losse and ruine of many It was of latter time used by King Henry the eight but every way to his disadvantage When the King leaves himself to his people they assure themselves that they are trusted and beloved of their king and there was never any assembly so barborus as not to answer the love and trust of their King Henry the sixt when his estate was in effect utterly overthrown and utterly impoverished at the humble request of his Treasurer made the same known to the House Or other wise using the Treasurers own words He humbly desired the King to take his Staffe that he might save his wardship COUNS. But you know they will presently be in hand with those impositions which the King hath laid by his own Royall Prerogative IUST Perchance not my Lord but rather with those impositions that have been by some of your Lordships laid upon the King which did not some of your Lordships fear more then you do the impositions laid upon the Subjects you would never disswade his Majesty from a Parliament For no man doubted but that his Majesty was advised to lay those impositions by his Councell and for particular things on which they were laid the advice came from petty fellows though now great ones belonging to the Custome-House Now my Lord what prejudice hath his Majesty his Revenue being kept up if the impositions that were laid by the generall Councell of the Kingdome which takes off all grudging and complaint COUNS. Yea Sir but that which is done by the King with the advice of his private or privy Councell is done by the Kings absolute power IUST And by whose power it is done in parliament but by the Kings absolute power Mistake it not my Lord The three Estates do but advise as the privy Councell doth which advice if the King imbrace it becomes the Kings own Act in the one and the Kings Law in the other for without the Kings acceptation both the publick and private advices be but as empty Egg shels and what doth his Majesty lose if some of those things which concerns the poorer sort to be made free again and the Revenue kept up upon that which is superfluous Is it a losse to the King to be beloved of the Commons If it be revenue which the King seeks is it not better to take it of those that laugh then of those that cry Yea if all be conten to pay upon moderation change of the Species Is it