Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A92231
|
Three great questions concerning the succession and the dangers of popery fully examin'd in a letter to a Member of this present Parliament.
|
M. R.
|
1681
(1681)
|
Wing R50; ESTC R229912
|
34,686
|
24
|
they were rejected the usages of their own Countrey and the effects of their Princes will in their stead imposed upon the people who Stomaching their being thus enslaved after long grumblings and often calling to be ruled by the Laws of holy Edward they had by firs the restoration of them in great measure especially in the first Harry's days the better to secure his Usurpation But that not continuing at length a Rebellion broke forth produced the confirmation of them in the great Charter or Magna Charta which in the main as the best Lawyers will tel you is nothing else but the repetition or examplification of their old Ordinances and ever since have been the foundation of all our Statutes According to these the people were to be Governed Liberty and Property secured against the incroachments of invaders and Justice to be distributed in the several Shares or Shires of England as in Germany where Tacitus tells us Jura per pagos reddebant For to make their conditions most easie the controversies were to be determined in their own Voisinage by the Hundreder or Lord of the Mannor from whom they might appeal to the Comes or Lord of the Countie who with the assistance of several Aldermanni or Hundreders pronounced sentence Upon this Custom is founded our Judges of Assizes and the several Justices of the Peace their Assessors From this Countie Court the last final Appeal was to the Great Council after the Conquest called by the name of Parliament and composed of the great Lords Spiritual and Temporal assembled in the presence of the King when and where he was pleased to summon them To this general meeting came from all the parts of the Kingdom as manie as were aggrieved either by themselves or their Attorneys or Lawyers And hence it is that we so often find it mentioned not only in Spelman but in Hoveden Malmsbury Marthew Paris and the rest of the Monkish Writers that to this Curia Magna did resort the Princes Lords and Chief men and Causidici ab omni parte Regni From whence arose the mistake in after Ages as if those Lawyers who were only the Attournies and Pleaders of their Clients Causes made any part of the great Council unto which the Commons whatsoever Mr. Bacon Petit or any former Writers can say of their Jurisdiction were not admitted till the latter end of Henrie 3. raign when he observing the difficulties under which his Father had long struggled wisely allow'd them such a constitution and particular Priviledges of their own as might serve to Counterballance the Power of the Lords grown so exorbitant that without due poising and equal Liberation no otherwise to be done It must of necessity endanger the overthrow of the Monarchie and the disturbance of the whole Nation He is therefore to be accounted the first Author of our present Parliamentary usages and after his prescript they to this day receive their Summons and their beeing and yet if we narrowly look into the matter we shall finde they are more altered in Fashion than in substance notwithstanding their often gaining both upon the Crown and the Lords by the Kings first allowance of their management of the purse-string of the Kingdom for the Lords House alone was made and still continues the Court of Judicature the ultimate decider of Appeals where according to their first institution no original Cause was to take place to the house of Commons he has left the first motions of Grants Aids or Subsidies who represent the People now as the Lawyers did before and cannot in Propriety of speech as well as of Justice be called by other name nor allowed greater Power than of Attorneys The write sayes plainly The Lords are to advise and deliberate with the King upon certain weighty affairs of state the Commons to consent do what in such cases the King shal thereupon enact whence it clearly follows that their Power depends wholly upon the Princes pleasure and reaches ex instituto no further than to the matters by him propounded and therefore could not intermeddle with any thing else without his Permission The Commons then were called together to represent the peoples grievances to pray and receive redress as the King with the advice of the Lords should ordain and to signifie so much to the several places for which they serve Printing not being then found out and promulgation being of absolute necessitie to the obligation of all positive constitution To this Council the people flock'd as their business or their humour led them in confus'd multitudes representing by petition their grievances the Lords appointing a Select number of their own first to consider whither they were fit to be propounded to the rest the ground of our present Committees The Commons attending bare-headed for the Resolutions consented to them as do Plaintiffs and Defendants to the Judges decisions in the Courts of Westminster-Hall Hen. 3. as was said before to lessen the power of the Lords and bring a confused Assembly to a Regular meeting ordained everie Shire City and Burrough to send two Knights and two Burgesses as Attorneys for the others yet till sometime after they had no constant Speaker nor those priviledges of which length of time and concessions of Kings have given them possession But as neither nor both Houses have any original Right or Power but as all Creatures do upon the Almighty so their Lives depend upon the Breath of the Princes Nostrils and with his Call or Command come into or go out of the World so has the King on the other side condescended and promised That he will not without their Consents and Approbations repeal old nor make any new Statutes but more particularly in thirty three Parliaments he has confirmed the Foundation of all Magna Charta the boundaries of their Libertie and his Prerogative and in three declar'd it so much unalterable that any Act of Parliament or Judgement made or given contrary to it shall be and is hereby made ipso facto null and void And that with good reason for this being the Summary of all ancient Laws and Customs and the exact Rule and Measure of Right and Wrong as well between the King and his Subjects as between one another made or confirmed anew by the unanimous consent of every individual Person of full years at the first coming into the Kingdom and submitting to the Government of Hengist and his Successors and conformable to the Laws of Nature of Nations Quod tibi non vis fieri alteri non feceris ought without dispute to remain sacred and inviolable and to be imprinted in the minds of all free-born Subjects and carried about with them in their understandings as the Phylacteries of old in the Garments of the Jews By all which 't is plain that as the Kings Image and Inscription makes the Coin so his Approbation or Fiat makes the Laws current and consequently the supreme Legislative Power is solely vested in him