which time the sayd Iustice Seate was called by adjournment the sayd Iohn Lord Finch then Lord Chiefe Iustice of his Majesties Court of Common Pleas and was one of the Iudges assistants for them he continued by further unlawfull and unjust practices to maintaine and confirme the said verdict and did then and there being assistant to the Iustice in Eyre advise the refusal of the traverse offered by the County and all their evidences but onely what they should verbally deliver which was refused accordingly IV. That hee about the Moneth of November 1635. hee being then Lord Chiefe Iustice of the Common Pleas and having taken an oath for the due administration of Iustice to his Majesties Liege people according to the Lawes and statutes of the Realme contrived in opinion in haec verba when the good and safety c. and did subscribe his name to that opinion and by perswasions threats and false suggestions did solicite and procure Sir Iohn Bramstone Knight then and now Lord Chiefe Iustice of England Sir Humfrey Davenport Knight Lord chiefe Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer Sir Richard Hutton Knight late one of the Iustices of his Majesties Court of Common Pleas Sir Iohn Denham Knight late one of the Barons of his Majesties Court of Exchequer Sir William lones Knight late one of the Iustices of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir George Crock then and now one of the Iudges of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir Thomas Trevor Knight then and now one of the Barons of the Exchequer Sir George Vernon Knight late one of the Iustices of the said Court of Common Pleas Sir Robert Barkley Knight then and now one of the Iustices of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir Francis Crawly Knight then and now one of the Justices of the said Court of Common Pleas Sir Richard Weston Knight then and now one of the Barons of the said Court of Exchequer some or one of them to subscribe with their names the said opinion presently and enjoyned them severally some or one of them secresâ— upon their allegeance V. That he the fifth day of Iune then being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the said Court of Common Pleas subscribed an extrajudiciall opinion in answer to questions in a letter from his Majesty in haec verba c. And that he contrived the said questions and procured the said Letter from his Majesty and whereas the said Iustice Hutton and Iustice Crook declared to him their opinions to the contrary yet hee required and pressed them to subscribe upon his promise that hee would let his Majesty know the truth of their opinions notwithstanding such subscriptions which neverthelesse he did not make knowne to his Majestie but delivered the same to his Majesty as the opinion of all the Iudges VI. That hee being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the said Court of Common Pleas delivered his opinion in the Chequer Chamber against Master Hampden in the case of Ship-money that hee the said Master Hampdâ—n upon the matter and substance of the case was chargeable with the money then in question a Coppy of which proceedings the Commons will deliver to your Lordships and did solicite and threaten the said sudges some or one of them to deliver their opinions in like manner against Master Hampden and after the said Baron Denham had delivered his opinion for Master Hampden the said Lord Finch repaired purposely to the said Baron Denhams Chamber in Serjeants Inne in Fleetstreet and after the said Master Baron Denham had declared and expressed his opinion urged him to retract the said opinion which hee refusing was threatned by the said Lord Finch because hee refused VII That hee then being Lord chiefe Justice of the Court of Common Pleas declared and published in the Exchequer Chamber and westerne circuit where he went Judge that the Kings right to Ship-money as aforesaid was so inherent a right to the Crowne as an Act of Parliament could not take it away and with divers malicious speeches inveighed against and threatned all such as refused to pay Ship-money all which opinions contained in the foure five sixth Articles are against the Law of the Realme the Subjects right of property and contrary to former resolutions in Parliament and to the petition of right which said resolutions and petition of right were well knowne to him and resolved and enacted in Parliament when he was Speaker of the Commons house of Parliament VIII That hee being Lord chiefe Justice of the Court of Common Pleas did take the generall practice of that Court to his private Chamber and that hee sent warrants into all or many shires of England to severall men as to Francis Giles of the County of Devon Rebert Renson of the County of Yorke Attorneys of that Court and to divers others to release all persons arrested on any utlawry about 40. shillings fees whereas none by Law so arrested can be bailed or released without Supersedeas under seale or reversall IX That hee being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the Court of Common pleas upon a pretended suit begun in Michaelmas Terme in the 11. yeare of his Majesties Reigne although there was no plaint or Declaration against him did notoriously and contrary to all Law and Iustice by threats menaces and imprisonment compell Thomas Laurence an Executor to pay 19 pound 12 shillings and likewise caused Richard Bernard being onely over-seer of the last Will of that Testator to bee arrested for the payment of the said Money contrary to the advice of the rest of the Iudges of that Court and against thâ— knâ—wne and ordinary course of Iustice and his said Oath and knowledge and denyed his Majesties Subjects the common and ordinary Iustice of this Realme as to Mr. Liâ—â—rick and others and for his private benefit endammaged and ruined the estates of very many of his Majesties Subjects contrary to his oath and knowledge X. That hee being Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England and sworne one of his Majesties Privie Counsell did by false and malicious slanders labour to incense his Majestie against Parliaments and did frame and advise the publishing the Declaration after the dissolution of the last Parliament All which Treasons and misdemeanors above mentioned were done and committed by the said Iohn Lord Finch Baron of Fordwich Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England and thereby he the aforesaid Finch hath trayterously and contrary to his allegiance laboured to lay Imputations and Scandalls upon his Majesties government and to alienate the hearts of his Majesties liege people from his Majestie and to set a division betweene them and to ruine and destroy his Majesties Realme of England for which they doe impeach him the said Lord Finch Baron of Fordwich Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England of high Treason against our Soveraigne Lord the King his Crowne and Dignity of the misdemeanours above mentioned And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the libertie of exhibiting at any time
publike service as well to prove a sentence not then in rerum natura both Law and charity in a benigne construction of these two ends will allow the more favourable Another objection is whispered that the entrance is not found in the Clerk of the Parliaments Role This is no matter to the validity of his election for his priviledge commenced 40 dayes before the Parliament therefore this and the like are to be judged of as accidentia quae possunt abesse adesse sine subjecti interitu Truely Mr. Speaker my memory and lungs begin to prove Traytors to me Another objection if omitted may be judged by these of what strength and maturity they even as by the coynage of a penny one may iudge of a shilling What hinders then since here is waâ—er but that he may be baptized Here are no non obstant's to be admitted in his new Pattent of Denization the common law the Statute law the Canon the Civill law plead for his admittance the writ of election the exemplification of the Sheriffs return all presidents of all ages all reports plead for his admittance our fore-fathers Ghosts the present practice of Parliaments in England plead for his admittance the Kings successive commands command and confirm his admittance Away then Serieant and with the hazarding power of our Mace touch the Marshals gates and as if there were Divinity in it they will open and bring us our Olive branch of peace wrested from our stock that with welcome Art we may ingraft him to be nourished by a common root Thus the King shall receive the benefit of an able subject who is otherwise civiliter mortuus we enjoy the participation of his labour and posterity both ours and this CAPTAINE AVDLEY MERVINS Speech to the Lords in the Upper house in the Parliament March 40. 1640. Concerning the impeachment of Sir Richard Bolton Knight Lord Chancellor of Ireland Iohn Lord Bishop of Derry Sir Gerrard Lowther Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Sir George Ratcliffe Knight with high Treason by the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House My LORDS I Am commanded by the Knights Citizens and Bur-Burgesses of the Commons House to present unto you Irelands Tragedie the gray headed Common Lawes funerall and the Active Statutes death and obsequies this dejected spectacle answers but the prefiguring Type of Caesars murther wounded to the death in the Senate And by Brutus his bosome friend our Caesars image by reflexion even the fundamentall Lawes and Statutes of this Kingdome the sole means by which our estates are confirmed our liberties preserved our lives secured are wound to death in the Senate I mean in the Courts of Justice and by Brutus too even by those persons that have received their beings and subsistence from them so that here enters those inseparable first Twins Treason and Ingratitude In a plain phrase My Lords I tender unto you Treason High Treason such a Treason that wants nothing but words to expresse it To counterfeit the Kings Seale to counterfeit the Kings money it is Treason but this dyes with the individuall partie To betray a Fort is Treason but it dies with a few men To betray an Army is a Treason but it dyes with a limited number which may be reinforced again by politique industry To blow up both Houses of Parlament is Treason but succeeding ages may replant Branches by a fruitfull posterity but this High Treason which I do move in the name of the Houses of Commons charge and impeach Sir Richard Bolion Knight Lord Chancellour of Ireland and Sir Gerard Lowther Knight Lord Chief Iustice of the Common Pleas Iohn Lord Bishop of Derry Sir George Ratcliffe Knight is in its nature so far transcending any of the former that the rest seem to be but petty Larcenies in respect of this What is it to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome High Treason What is it with a contumacious malice to trample under feet the rich legacies of our forefathers purchased with sweat and expence I mean the Statute lawes what is it but High Treason What is it through an Innate Antipathie to the publick good to incarcerate the liberty of the Subject under the Iron and weighty chains of an arbitrary Government High Treason What is it since his Majestie the most amiable and delightful portraiture of flourishing and indulgent Justice to his Subjects to present him personated in their extrajudiciall censures and judgements but to possesse it possible the hearts of his loyall Subjects of this Kingdome That he is a bloody and devowring Tyrant and to provoke their never dying alleageance into a fatall and desperate Rebellion What is it to violate the sacred Graunts of many of his Majesties Progenitors Kings and Queenes of England confirmed under the broad Seale being the publique faith of this Kingdome by an extrajudiciall breath grounded upon no record What is it to insent a surreptitious clause forged by some servile brain in the preamble of our last Act of Subsidies by which the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Earl of Stofford are placed in one and the same sphear allowing them but equall influencies to nourish the alleageance of this Kingdome what is this but to extoll other then Regall Authority and to crucifie the Majestie of our most gracious Soveraign betwixt the two Theeves of Government Tyranny and Treason My Lords having such a full and lasting Gale to drive me into the depth of these accusations I cannot hereby steere and confine my course within the compasse of patience since I read in the first volumes of their browes the least of these to be the certain ruine of the Subject and if prov'd a most favorable Prologue to usher in the Tragedie of the Actors Councellers and Abetters herein What was then the first and main question it was the subvertion of the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome let then magna Charta that lies prostrated besmeared and groveling in her own gore discount her wounds as so many pregnant and undeniable proofs mark the Epethite Magna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirmed by 30. Parliaments in the succession of eight Kings the violation of which hath severall times ingaged the Kingdome of England in a voluntary sacrifice a Charter which imposeth that pleasant and welbecomming oath upon all Soveraigntie to vindicate and preserve the Immunitie thereof before the Crown incircle their Royall Temples in this oath of so high consequence and generall interest his Majesty doth in a manner levie a fine to his Subjects use for avoiding all fraudulent conveyances in the Administration of Justice And this oath is transplanted unto the Judges as the Feoffees in trust appointed between his Majestie and the Subject and sealed by his Majesties provident care with that imphaticall penalty that their estates and lives shall be in the Kings mercy upon the violation of the same either in whole or in part neither hath the deserved punishment for the breach of this oath
offences were contrived committed perpetrated and done at such time as the said Sir Richard Bolton Sir Gerard Lowther and Sir George Radcliffe Knights were privy Counsellors of State within this Kingdom and against their and every of their oathes of the same at such times as the said Sir R. Bolton Kt. was Lord Chancellor of Ireland or chief Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer within this Kingdom and Sir Gerard Lowther Knight was Lord chief Justice of the said Court of Common Pleas and against their Oathes of the same and at such time as the said John L. Bishop of Derry was actuall Bishop of Derry within this Kingdom and were done and speciated contrary to their and every of their allegiance severall and respective oathes taken in that behalf IV. For which the said Knights Citizens and Burgesses do impeach the said Sir Richard Bolton Lord Chancellor of Ireland Iohn L. B. of Derry Sir Gerard Lowther Kt. L. chief Justice of his Majesties said Court of Common Pleas and Sir George Radcliffe Kt. aforesaid and every of them of high Treason against our Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity The said Knights Citizens and Burgesses by Protestation saving to themselves the liberty of exhibiting at any time hereafter any accusation or impeachment against the said Sir Rich. Bolton Iohn L. Bishop of Derry Sir Gerard Lowther and Sir George Radcliffe aforesaid and every of them and also of replying to them and every of their answers which they and every of them shall make to the said Articles or any of them and of offering proof also of the premisses or of any other impeachment or accusation as shall be by them exhibited as the case shall according to the course of Parliament require And the said Knights Citizens and Burgesses do pray that the said Sir Richard Bolton Knight Lord Chancellor of Ireland Iohn Lord Bishop of Derry Sir Gerard Lowther Knight Lord chief Justice of his Majesties said Court of Common Pleas and Sir George Radcliffe Knight and every of them be put to answer to all and every of the premisses and that all such Proceedings Examinations Triall and Iudgement may be upon them and every of them had and used as is agreeable to Law and Justice Copia vera Signed PHILIP PHERNESLY Cler. Parliamenti Sir Thomas Wentworths speech XXij d. Martij 1627. MAy this dayes resolution be as happy as I conceive the proposition which now moves me to rise is seasonable and necessary for whether we shall look upon the King or the people it did never more behove this great Physitian the Parliament to effect a true consent towards the parties then now This debate carryes with it a double aspect towards the Soveraign towards the Subject though both innocent both injured both to be cured In the representation of injuries I shall crave your attention in the Cures I shall beseech your equall cares and better judgements surely in the greatest humility I speak it these illegall waies are marks and punishments of indignation The raising of Leavies strengthned by Commission with unheard of instructions the billetting of Souldiers by Lievetenants without leave have been as if they could have perswaded Christian Princes nay Worlds the right of Empire had been to take a way by strong hand and they have endeavoured as far as was possible for them to do it This hath not been done by the King under the pleasing shade of whose Crown I hope we shall ever gather the fruits of Justice but by Projectors They have extended the prerogative of the King beyond the just Center which was the sweet harmony of the whole They have rent from us the light of our eyes inforced a company of Guests worse than the Ordinaries of France vitiated our wives and daughters before our faces brought the Crown to greater want than ever it was by anticipating the Revenue and can the Shephard be thus smitten and the flock not scattered They have introduced a Privie Counsell ravishing at once the Spheers of all ancient government imprisoning us without Bail or Bond. They have taken from us what shall I say indeed what have â—hey left us all mean of supplying the King and ingratiating our selves with him taking up the roots of all propriety which if it be not seasonably set into the ground by his Maiesties hand we shâ—ll have instead of beauty baldnesse To the making of them whole I shall apply my self and propound a remedy to all these diseases by one and the same thing hath the King and people been hurt and by the same must they be cured to vindicate what New things No. Our ancient sober vitall liberties by reinforcing of the ancient Lawes made by our Ancestors by setting such a Character upon them as no licentious spirit shall dare hereafter to enter upon them And shall we thinke this away to break a Parliament Nâ— Our desires are modest and iust I speak truly both for the interest of the King and People If we enjoy not those it will be impossible to relieve him Therefore let us never fear that they shall not be accepted by his goodnesse Wherefore I shall descend to my motions which conconsists of four parts two of which have relation to the persons two to the propriety of goods for the persons the freedome of them from imprisoning Secondly from employments abroad contrary to the ancient customes for our goods that no leavies may be made but in Parliament Secondly no billetting of Souldiers It is most necessary that these be resolved that the Subiects may be secured in both Then for the manner in the second place it will be fit to determine it by a Grand Committee Sir Thomas Wentworths Speech 21. of Aprill Anno 1628. Right wise Right worthy TOo many instigations importune the sequell of my words First the equitie of your proceedings Secondly the honesty of my request for I behold in all your intendments a singularity grounded upon discretion and goodnesse and your consultations steered as well by Charity as extremity of justice This order and method I say of your procedings together with the importunity offered of the Subject in hand have emboldned me to solicite an extension of the late granted protections in generall The lawfulnesse and honesty of the propositions depends upon these two particulars I. The present troubles of the parties protected having run themselves into a further and almost irrecoverable hazards by presuming upon and feeding themselves with the hopes of a long continuing Parliament II. Let the second be this consequence That that which is prejudiciall to most ought to minister matter of advantage to the rest sith then our interpellations and disturbances amongst our selves are displeasing almost to all if any benefit may be collected let it fall upon those for I think the breach of our Session can befriend none but such nor such neither but by means of the grant before hand And because it is probable that his Majesty may cause a Remeeting
of many a 14th in the silver and a 25th part in all the gold they after shall receive so shall the Nobilitie Gentry and all other landed men in all their former setled Rents Annuities Pensions and sums of money the like will fall upon the labourers and workemen in their statute wages And as their receipts are lessened hereby so are their issues increased either by improving all prices or disfurnishing the Market which must necessarily follow for in the 5th of Edw. 6th 3º Mary 4 to Eliz. as appeareth by their Proclamations That a Rumour only of alteration caused such effects punishing the author of such reports with Imprisonment and Pillory It cannot be doubted but the proiecting of such a change must be of far greater consequence and danger to the State and would be wished that the Actors and authors of such disturbances in the Common-wealth at all times hereafter might undergo a punishment proportionable It cannot be held I presume an advise of best iudgement that layeth the losse upon our selves and the gain upon our enemies for who are like to be in this the greatest thrivers is not visible that the strangers who support or money for bullion our own Gold-smiths who are their Brokers and the Hedgminters of the Netherlands who tearmed them well will have a fresh and full trade by this abasements And we do not the Spanish King our greatest enemy a greater favour than by his who being Lord of these commodities by his West-Indies we shall so advance them to our impoverishment for it is not in the power of any State to raise of the price of their own but the value that their neighbours set upon them experience hath taught us that the enfoebling of Coyn is but a shift for a while as drinke to one in a dropsie to make him swell the more but the state was never thorowly cured as we saw in Henry the Eighths time and the late Queens untill the Coyn was made rich again I cannot but then conclude my honorable Lords that if the proportion of Gold and Silver to each other be wrought to that purity by the advice of the Artists that neither may be too rich for the other that the Mintage may be reduced to some proportion of neighbour parts and that the issue of native commodities may be brought to over-ballance the entrance of the forraigne we need not seek any shift but shall again see our trade to flourish the Mint as the pulse of the Common-wealth again to bear and our Materialls by Industry to be Mynes of Gold and Silver which we all wish and work for supported unto us and the honor of Justice and Profit of his Maiesty Certain general Rules collected concerning Money and Bullion out of the late Consultation at Court GOld and silver hath a two fold estimation in the extrinsique as they are moneys and Princes measures given to his people and this is a Prerogative of Kings in the Intrinsique they are commodities valewing each other according to the plenty or scarcity and so all other commodities by them and that is the sole power of Trade The measure in a Kingdome ought to be constant It is the Justice and honor of the King for if they be altered all men at that time are deceived in the precedent contracts either for lands or moneys and the King most of all for no man knoweth either what he hath or what he oweth This made the Lord Treasurer Burleigh in Anno 1573. when some Projectors had set on foot a matter of that nature to tell them that they were worthy to suffer death for attempting to put so great a dishonor upon the Queen and detriment and discontent on the people for to alter this publike measure is to leave all the Markets of the Kingdome unfurnished and what will be the mischiefe the Proclamation of 5. and 6. 3o. Mary and 4th of Eliz. will manifest when but a rumor produced that effect so farre that besides the faith of the Princes to the contrary delivered in their Edicts they were inforced to cause the Magistrates in every Shire respectively to constrain the people to furnish the Market to prevent a mutiny To thinke then this measure at this time short is to raise all prices or to turn the measure or money now current into disuse and Bullion for who will depart with any when it is by seven more in the hundred in the masse then the now moneys and yet of no more value in the Market Hence the necessitie of it will follow that there will not of a long time be Minted of the new to drive the exchange of the Kingdome and so all trade at one instance at a stand and in meane time the Markets unfurnished and thus far as money is a measure Now as it is a commoditie it is respected and valued by the intrinsique qualitie and first the one mettall to the other All commodities are priced by plenty or scarcity by dearenesse or cheapnesse the one to the other If then we desire our silver to buy gold as it hath lately been we must let it it be the cheaper and lesse in proportion valued and so contrary for one equivalent proportion in both will bring in neither we see the profit there of the unusuall quantitie of gold brought lately to the Mint by reason of the price we rate it at above all other Countries and gold may be bought too dear to furnish then this way the Mint with both is impossible And at this time it was apparantly proved both by the best Artists and marchants most acquainted with the Exchange in both the examples of the Mint-masters in the Rix-dolor and Royall of Eight that silver here is of equall valew and gold above with forreine parts in the intrinsique but that the fallacie presented to the Lords by the Mint-masters is only in the nomination of extrinsique qualitie But if we desire both it is not the raysing the valew that doth it but the balancing the Trade for we buy more then we sell of all other commodities be the money never so high priced we must part with it to make the disproportion even if we sell more then the contrary will follow And this is plain in Spanish necessities for should that King advance to a double his Royall of Eight yet needing it by reason of the barrennesse of his Country more of forreign wares then can countervaile by exchange with his wares he must then part with his money and gain the more by enhaunsing his coyn but he payeth a higher price for the commodities he buyeth if this work of raysing be his own But if we shall make improvement of gold and silver being the Staple-commodities of this Kingdome we then advancing the the price of his abase to him our own commodities To shape this kingdome to the fashion of the Netherlands were to frame a Royall Monarchie by a society of Marchants their Country is a continuall Faire and so
Ratcliffe was not the man alone but others joyned with him in that Assembly and I am sure my Lord of Strafford moved it for the breach of Parliament I shall addresse myselfe to the body of his answere Now give me leave my Lords that I may open the nature of this great offence My Lords it is a charge of Treason which is a Treason not ended or expired by one single Act but a trade enured by this Lord of Strafford ever since the Kings favor hath been bestowed upon him My Lords it hath two parts to deprive us that which was good And secondly to bring in a Tyrannicall government it takes away the Lawes of the Land and it hath an arbitrary government bounded by no law but what my Lord of Strafford pleaseth It is the law my Lords which we reverence and cheerefully render to our gracious Soveraigne The Law as it is the ground of our libertie so it is the distribution of Iustice My Lords in all this my Lord of Strafford hath endeavoured to make them uncapable of any benefit it is true my Lords that Treason against the person of a Prince is high Treason and the highest Treason that can be to man but it falls short of this Treason against the State When blessed King Iames was taken to heaven he commended the lawes to his sonne our gracious Soveraigne But my Lords if such a design as this should take effect that the law of Iustice shouldbe taken from the Throne we are without hope of ever seeing happy dayes power is not so easily laid downe unlesse it be by so good and just a Prince as we have My Lord of Straffords accusation is conveyed into twenty eight Articles and I shall but touch the heads that wee shall insist upon and I thinke the best way to this is to consider what he did before he went into Ireland what then and what since He hath encroached jurisdiction where none was taking upon him a power to repell the lawes and to make new lawes and in domineering over the lives and goods and what ever else was the subjects My Lords this he hath not done onely upon the meaner sort but upon the Peeres and auncient Nobilitie and what may your Lordships expect but the same measure at his hands here as they have found there when he committed any to prison if a Habeas Corpus were granted the Officers must not obey and if any Fine were put upon the Officer for refusing them there was a command that he should bee discharged so that he did not onely take power to himselfe but the Scepter of Iustice out of the Kings hand When he was a member of the house of Commons it was his owne motion all Ministers of state should serve the King according to the lawes which he hath broken himselfe He doth as much as say that Fines shall not be payed by Officers if in this they fulfill his commands but those that release a prisoner upon a Habeas Corpus shall finde his displeasure My Lords if this had been a single Act we should not have accused him of high Treason but this hath beene his common course and this we present to your Lordships consideration The next thing is that in the North the people attending for Iustice you shall see what a dishonour he flung upon the sacred Majestie of the King that did advance him some of the Iustices saith he are all for Law but they shall finde that the Kings little fingers is heavier then the Loynes of the Law My Lords what a sad speech was this and what sad Accidents happened upon it you all know and he said in a solemne speech That Ireland was a conquered Nation and that the King might do with them what he would their Charters were nothing worth they did binde the King no longer then he pleased Surely you may see what hee would do if he had power but we hope never such counsell shall have acceptation in so gracious an Eare as our Soveraignes and he doth not stay in words but proceeds to Actions when a Peere of the Kingdome was expelled the Kingdome for suing at Law for recovering of his Right he saith he would have Ireland know that neither Law nor Lawyers should question any thing that he ordered My Lords he goes higher for when there was an occasion to speake of an Act of State he said it should bee as binding as an Act of Parliament My Lords he cannot goe higher then this hee tells them in Parliament they were a Conquered Nation and they must expect the usage of a Conquered Nation The Lord Mountnorris for a few words that fell from his mouth spoken privately at his Table had a Counsell of warre called against him and was judged to death My Lords it is no marvaile that he saie That the Kings little finger should be so heavie when his little too was so heavie to tread downe a Peere under his foote My Lords he makes Lawes of himselfe and hee makes a difference in matters of Iustice betweene the poore and the rich but when he hath executed his power upon the poore he will fall upon the rich My Lords he hath made that which was worth but five shillings to the value of twenty and my Lords by this he doth in effect take away what ere this commoditie is worth he saith he doth it for the Kings gaine but we shall make it appeare that the Crowne hath lost and he hath gained And for the Commodity of Flax my Lords it is but a Womans Commodity but yet it is the staple Commodity of Ireland Now my Lords this Commondity he hath gotten wholly into his owne hands for he made such a Proclamation that it should be used in such wayes as the Women could not doe it and if it were not used in such ways that it should bee seised upon no he doth not onely put impositions upon the Subject but take away the goods too and thus he hath levyed warre against the Kings Subjects and this is his course that if a Decree were made by him and not obeyed there issued a warrant to Souldiers that they should make Garrison and that they should goe to the houses of those that were pretended to be disobedient My Lords they have killed their sheep and their Oxen and bound their horses and took them Captives till they have rendered obedience which is expressely contrary to Law for it saith If any man set horse or foot upon the Kings Subject in a Military way it is high Treason My Lords it doth not onely oppresse them in their estates but provoke and incite his Majesty to lay downe his mercy and goodnesse and to fall into an offensive war against his Subjects and to say they are Rebels and Traytors He tels his Counsell that the Parliament having forsaken the King and the King having tryed the Parliament hee might use other wayes to procure money to supply his necessities My Lords the same day
studied Speech I come to speake my heart and to speake it clearely and plainely and then leave it to your clemencie and Justice and I hope if any thing shall slip from me to work contrary to my meaning or intention disorderly or ill placed you will be pleased to make a favourable construction and leave me the liberty of explanation if there shall be any but I hope there shall be no cause for it I hope for my affection in Religion no man doubteth me what my education what and under whom for many yeares is well knowne I lived neere 30 yeares in the Society of Grayes Inn and if one that was a reverend Preacher in my time Doctor Sibbs were now alive hee were able to give testimony to this House that when a party ill affected in Religion sought to weary him and tyer him out hee had his chiefest encouragement from me I have now Master Speaker been 15 yeares of the Kings Councell from the first houre to this minute no man is able to say that ever I was Author Advisor or Consentor to any project It pleased the King my gracious Master after I had served him divers yeares to preferre mee to two places to be chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas and then Keeper of his great Seale I say it in the presence of God I was so far from the thought of the one and from the ambition of the other that if my Master his grace and goodnesse had not been I had never enjoyed those Honours I cannot tell Master Speaker nor I doe not know what particulars there are that may draw me into your disfavour or ill opinion and therefore I shall come very weakly armed yet to those that either in my owne knowledge or by such knowledge as is given me and not from any in this House I shall speake somewhat that I hope being truth and accompanied with clearenesse and ingenuity will at last procure some allay of that ill opinion which may perhaps be conceived of me Master Speaker I had once the Honour to sit in the place that you doe from the first time I came thither to the unfortunate time I doe appeale to all that were here then if I served you not with candor Ill office I never did to any of the House good offices I have witnesses enough I did many I was so happy that upon an occasion which once happened I received an expression and testimony of the good affection of this House towards me For the last unhappy day I had a great share in the unhappinesse and sorrow of it I hope there are enough doe remember no man within the walls of this House did expresse more symptomes of sorrow griefe and distraction then I did After an adjournment for two or three dayes it pleased his Majestie to send for me to let me know that he could not so resolve of things as hee desired and therefore was desirous that there might be an adjournment for some few dayes more I protest I did not then discerne in his Majestie and I beleeve it was not in his thoughts to think of the dissolving of this Assembly but was pleased in the first place to give me a command to deliver his pleasure to the House for an adjournment for some few dayes till the Monday following as I remember and commanded me withall to deliver his pleasure that there should be no further speeches but forth with upon the delivery of the Message come and wait upon him hee likewise commanded me if questions were offered to be put upon my Alleageance I should not dare to doe it how much I did then in all humblenesse reason with his Majestie is not for me here to speake onely thus much let me say I was no Author of any counsell in it I was onely a person in receiving commission I speake not this as any thing I now produce or doe invent or take up for my owne excuse but that Which is knowne to divers and some Honourable persons in this house to be most true All that I will say for that is humbly to beseech you all to consider That if it had beene any mans cause as it was mine betweene the displeasure of a gracious King and the ill opinion of an Honourable Assembly I beseech you lay all together lay my first actions and behaviour with the last I shall submit to your Honourable and favourable constructions For the Shipping businesse my opinion of that cause hath layne heavy upon me I shall clearely and truly present unto you what every thing is with this protestation that if in reckoning up my owne opinion what I was of or what I delivered any thing of it be displeasing or coÌ„trary to the opinion of this House that I am farre from justifying of it but submit that and all other my actions to your wisedomes and goodnesse Master Speaker the first Writs that were sent out about Shipping businesse I had no more knowledge of it and was as ignorant as any one Member of this House or any man in the Kingdome I was never the Author nor Advisor of it and will boldly say from the first to this houre I did never advise nor counsell the setting forth of any Ship-writs in my life Master Speaker it is true that I was made chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas some foure dayes before the Ship-writs went out to the Ports and Maritine places as I doe remember the 20 of October 1634. they doe beare Teste and I was sworne Justice the 16 of October so as they went out in that time but without my knowledge or privity the God of heaven knowes this to be true Master Speaker afterwards his Majestie was pleased to command my Lord chiefe Justice of the Kings Bench that then was Sir Thomas Richardson and chiefe Baron of the Exchequer that now is and my selfe then chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas to take into consideration the Presidents then brought unto us which we did and after returned to his Majestie what we had found out of those Presidents It is true that afterwards his Majestie did take into consideration that if the whole Kingdome were concerned that it was not reason to lay the whole burthen upon the Cinque Ports and Maritine Townes Thereupon upon what ground his Majesty took that into his consideration I doe confesse I doe know nothing of it His Majesty did command my Lord chief Justice that now is my Lord chiefe Baron and my selfe to returne our opinions whether when the whole Kingdome is in danger and the Kingdome in generall is concerned it be not according to Law and reason that the whole Kingdome and his Majestie and all interessed therein should joyne in defending and preserving thereof This was in time about one 1634. In Michaelmas Terme following his Majesty commanded â—e to goe to all the Judges and require their opinions in particular He commanded mee to doe it to every one and to charge them upon their
This it was Master Speaker His advising the King to employ the Army of Ireland to reduce England This I was assured would be proved before I gave my consent to his accusation I was confirmed in the same beliefe during the prosecution and fortified in it most of all since Sir Henry Vaines preparatory examinations by the assurances which that worthy member Mr. Pymme gave me that his Testimony would be made convincing by some notes of what passed at the Junto concurrent with it which I ever understanding to be of some other Counsellour you see now prove but a Copie of the same Secretaries notes discover'd and produc't in the manner you have heard and those Such disioynted fragments of the venemous part of discourses no results no conclusions of Counsels which are the onely things that Secretaries should register there being no use at all of the other but to accuse and to bring men into danger But Sir this is not that which overthrowes the evidence with mee concerning the Army of Ireland nor yet that all the rest of the Iunto upon their oathes remember nothing of it But this Sir which I shall tell you is that which works with mee under favour to an utter overthrow of his evidence as unto that of the Army of Ireland Before whil'st I was a prosecutor and under tye of Secrecie I might not discover any weakenesse of the cause which now as a Judge I must Master Secretary was examined thrice upon Oath at the preparatory Committee The first time he was questioned to all the Interrogatories and to that part of the seventh which concernes the Army of Ireland he said positively in these words I cannot charge him with that But for the rest he desires time to recollect himselfe which was granted him Some dayes after he was examined a second time and then deposes these words concerning the Kings being absolved from rules of government and so forth very clearely But being prest to that part concerning the Irish Army againe can say nothing to that Here wee thought wee had done with him till divers weeks after my Lord of Northumberland and all others of the Junto denying to have heard any thing concerning those words of reducing England by the Irish Army it was thought fit to examine the Secretary once more and then he deposes these words to have beene said by the Earle of Strafford to his Majestie You have an Army in Ireland which you may imploy here to reduce or some word to that sence this Kingdome Mr. Speaker these are the circumstances which I confesse with my Conscience thrust quite out of dores that grand Article of our charge concerning his desperate advice to the King of employing the Irish Army here Let not this I beseech you be driven to an aspersion upon Master Secretary as if he should have sworn otherwise then he knew or beleeved hee is too worthy to doe that onely let thus much be inferr'd from it that hee who twice upon Oath with time of recollection could not remember any thing of such a businesse might well a third time misremember somewhat and in this businesse the difference of one Letter here for there or that for this quite alters the case the latter also being the more probable since it is confest of all hands that the debate then was concerning a warre with Scotland and you may remember that at the Bar he once said to employ there And thus Mr. Speaker I have faithfully given you an account what it is that hath blunted the edge of the Hatchet or Bill with me towards my Lord of Strafford This was that whereupon I accused him with a free heart prosecuted him with earnestnesse and had it to my understanding beene proved should have condemned him with innocence Whereas now I cannot satisfie my conscience to doe it I professe I can have no notion of any bodies intent to subvert the Lawes treasonably or by force and this designe of force not appearing all his other wicked practises cannot amount so high with me I can finde a more easie and more naturall spring from whence to derive all his other Crimes then from an intent to bring in Tyrannie and to make his owne posterity as well as us Slaves as from revenge from Pride from Avarice from Passion and insolence of Nature But had this of the Irish Army been proved it would have diffused a complexion of Treason over all it would have beene a With indeed to bind all those other scattered and lesser branches as it were into a Faggot of Treason I doe not say but the rest may represent him a man as worthy to dye and perhaps worthier then many a Traytor I doe not say but they may justly direct us to Enact that they shall be Treason for the future But God keepe mee from giving judgement of death on any Man and of ruine to his innocent Posterity upon a Law made â posteriori Let the mark be set on the dore where the Plague is and then let him that will enter dye I know Master Speaker there is in Parliament a double power of life and death by Bill a judiciall power and a Legislative the measure of the one is what 's Legally just of the other what is prudentially and politickly fit for the good and preservation of the whole But those two under favour are not to be confounded in Judgement Wee must not peece up want of Legality with matter of convenience nor the defailance of prudentiall fitnesse with a pretence of legall Justice To condemne my Lord of Strafford judicially as for Treason my conscience is not assured that the matter will bear it And to doe it by the Legislative power my reason consultively cannot agree to that since I am perswaded neither the Lords nor the King will passe the Bill and consequently that our passing it will be a cause of great divisions and combustions in the State And therefore my humble advice is that laying aside this Bill of Attainder we may think of another saving only life such as may secure the State from my Lord of Strafford without endangering it as much by division concerning his punishment as he hath endangered it by his practices If this may not be hearkned unto let me conclude in saying that unto you all which I have throughly inculcated to mine owne conscience upon this occasion Let every man lay his hand upon his heart and sadly consider what we are going to doe with a breath either justice or murther justice on the one side or murther heightned and aggravated to its supreamest extent For as the Casuists say that he who lyes with his sister commits incest but he that marries his sister sinnes higher by applying Gods Ordinance to his crime So doubtlesse he that commits murther with the sword of Justice heightens that crime to the utmost The danger being so great and the case so doubtfull that I see the best Lawyers in diametrall opposition concerning it
enacted as fulgura ex vitrio or as bugbears to inforce the obedience of Children no my Lords the just execution of it upon their Predecessors though in breaches not so capitall might have warned them to have strangled their ill born resolutions in the Cradle before they now proclaim their infancie and petition for their punishment Witnesse Sir Thomas Weyland his banishment confiscation of his goods and lands only for his mercenarie Justice contrary to his oath who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the time of Edward the first Witnesse Sir William Thorpe Cheif Iustice of the Kings Bench in the time of Edward the third who was adjudged to be hanged because he had broken the Kings oath made unto the people wherewith he was intrusted in the Roll. Now my Lords though Magna Charta be sacred for antiquity though its confirmation be strengthned by oath though it be the proper Dictionarie that expounds meum tuum and assignes a Subiect his birth right yet it only survives in the Rolls but now miserable rent and torn in the practice These words Salvo cantenemento live in the Rolls but they are dead in the Castle Chamber These words Nullus liber bujus ejicitur è libero sue tenemento in praejudicium parium live in the Rolls but they are dead where property and free-hold are determined by paper Petitions These words Nulli vendemus nulli differemus Justitiam live in the Rolls but they are dead when the Suites Iudgements and excecution of the Subiect are wittingly and illegally suspended retarded and avoyded Shall we desire to search the mortall wounds inflicted upon the Statute Lawes who sees them not lying upon their death bed stab'd with Proclamations their primitive and genuine tenures escheated by Acts of State and strangled by Monoplies Will you surveigh the liberties of the Subiects every prison spues out illegad attachments and commitments every Pillory is dyed with the forced bloud of the Subiects and hath ears though not to hear yet to witnesse this complaint Do you doubt of the defacement of the amiable Offices of his Maiesties most transplendent and renowned Iustice and grace let then that Microcosme of Letters Patents confirmed under his Maiesties and his Predecessors broad Seale of the Kingdome being the publique faith thereof and yet unchristened by frivolous and private opinions rise up in iudgement let the abortive Iudgement of the tenure in Capite where no tenure was exprest nay let the Hereticall and Traiterous opinions where the Tenure was exprest yet to draw in all by Markets and Faires granted in the same Patents rise up in Iudgements What glasse hath this unhappy divided Kingdome from his Maiesties presence and andience to contemplate the fair and ravishing form of his royall intentions in but in the cleer and diaphanous administration of his Iustice and what do these traytrous and illegall practise ayme at but in affront to his Maiesty which we most tenderly resent and discontent to his Subiects to multiply as by a Magick glasse the royall dispensation of his favours into the ugly and deformed visage of their suppression of the liberties devastations of the estates and the deprivation of the lives of his loyall Subiects so that it may be sayd Regali Capiti cervicem consul equinanâ— Jungere sic vellet variasque inducere plumas My Lords these ought to be considered with as serious an eare as they were practised by mischievous experiments Inquire of the Netherlands why their fields are growne fertile by the inundation of bloud why the pensive Matrons solemnize too too frequent funeralls of their Husbands and issue and they will answer you it was for the preservation of their hereditary Lawes which Tyranny would have innovated This Kingdome personated in the sable habit of a widdow with dishelved hayrs seems to Petition your Lordships that since she is a Mother to most of us yet cerâ—ainly a Nurse unto us all that you would make some other for redresse of her Tyrannicall oppression These persons impeached resemble the opacious body of the earth interposed to eclipse that light and vigour which the solar aspect of Maiesty would communicate unto his Subiects They imitate the fish Sepia that vomits a darke liquor out of her mouth to cloud the waters for her securer escape They are those to whom the keyes have been committed yet they have barred the door to them that knoc't They are those unnaturall Parents that give their children stones in stead of bread and scorpions for fish Was it for this purpose that the royall authority scituated them in these eminent places that like Beacons upon high Hills they should discover and proclaim each innovation and stratagem against the publique weale whilest they in the mean time imploy therein fire to publique Incendiary or like Ignes fatui seduce the easie and beleeving Traveller into pits and unexpected Myres Were they sworne to seale their damnation and not their confirmation of our libertie estates and lives Shall a man be censured for perjury in that breach of his private Faith and those be justifiable in Treason aggravated by perjury against the dignity of the Crownes and publique faith of the Kingdomes No my Lords the grave judicious and mature examination and deserved punishment of these traiterous proceedings will speak these times as glorious to posterity in their information as they are now lamented in their persecution The bloud-thirsting sword of an hostile enemy by a timely union and a defensive preparation may be prevented The thin rib'd Carcasse of an universall famine may have his consumption restored by a supply from our neighbouring Nations The quick spreading venome of infectious pestilence may be prevented by Antidotes and qualified by phisicall remedies But this Catholick grievance like a snake in the most verdant walks for such are the unblemished lawes truly practised stings us to death when we are most secure and like the Kings evill can only be cured by his Majesties free and gracious permission of our modest and gentle proceedings for his vindication and our preservation therein concluded Spencer and Gamston who have left their names monumentally odious for the evill counsell they fed the Kings ear with yet did possibly advantage their own friends while these dart their envie and Treason for a common Center equally touching the bounds of every superficies for as concerning the valide estates they have illegally overthrown when the Lawes by your Lordships industry receive their native vigour they will re-assume their confirmation but the estates happily in themselves legall that they have in an extrajudiciall forme established will haste as speedily to their dissolution so that Judas-like they betray their best friends with a kisse My Lords I cannot finde any surviving Cronologie of times this season to be parallel'd with all circumstances which makes me view the Records amongst the infernall spirits to finde if match't there I might extenuate their facts where 1. they appear like the false spirit sent
in the North yet I dwell in England Sir BENJAMIN RUDYERDS Speech concerning the QUEENS Joynture Jan. 1640. Mr. SPEAKER GOD hath blessed the Queens Majestie with a blessed Progeny already whereby she hath relieved and fortified this Kingdome which may put us in minde in a fit time to provide according to their birth and interest Shee is the daughter of a great and famous King she is the wife of our King which to us includes all expressions But in one thing Mr. Speaker her Majestie is singular in that she is the Mother to the greatest Prince that hath beene borne amongst us above these hundred yeers which cannot but work a tendernesse in us The Queene likewise may be another Instrument of happinesse to us in her good affection to Parliaments by a good hansell in this And I beleeve we shall see effects of it for it neerly and wisely concernes her Majestie even in all the Relations that are most deare to her to contribute her best Assistance to Uphold the Government and greatnesse of the kingdome By which meanes also the king will be better enabled to make a further enlargement of his bounty towards her in some degree proportionable Wherefore Mr. Speaker it will become this House to shew our cheerfulnesse in passing of the Bill Articles against Doctor Piercie Bishop of Bath and Wells exhibited by Mr. James Minister within his Diocesse 1 HEE hath Ex officio convented mee before him for having two Sermons preached in my Church on Michaelmas day to the great disturbance hinderance of the sale of the Church Ale as his Lordship pretended and further examined me upon Oath whether I had not the said Sermons preached for the same purpose and intent admonishing me for the future neither to preach my selfe nor suffer any other to preach in my Cure in the afternoon of either the Lords-day or holy dayes 2 I heard him say to his Register That whereas Information had been given concerning certain Ministers that they expounded upon the Catechisme this Information was too narrow to catch them and therefore it should have runne thus that they Catechised or expounded upon the Catechisme Sermon-wise and then they would have been obnoxious to censure 3 At the meeting to elect Clerks of the Convocation he threatned to send forth Censures of the Church against all that would not pay in the Benevolence late granted in the late Synod within a fortnight after the second day of November last past And further at the said election his sonne gave eight single voyces two as Arch-Deacon of Bath two as Prebend of the Church of Wells two as Parson of Buckland Saint Mary two as Vicar of Kingsbury and many others also there present gave as many double voyces as they had Benefices and Dignities against which one Mr. Rosnell protested saying that it was illegall The Bishop replyed that they gave in severall capacities and thereupon commanded him silence saying that he was a young man 4. That upon the meer Information of Mr. Humphry Sydenham Rector of Buckington that in a certain Sermon Preached at the Visitation of the Arch Deacon of Taunton I bespattered the Clergie The Bishop summoned me before him down to Wells and there objected unto mee that I had preached a scandalous Sermon wherein I had cast some aspersions on some of the Clergy Upon which charge I proferd to bring in an exact Copy of the Sermon I preacht and to depose that I spake neither more nor lesse then was contained in the said Copy This the Bishop would not accept of saying that he would not have the Ministers who came to witnesse against mee troubled with a second journey One of my Proctors desired time till the next Court day for me to give in my answer the Bishop commanded him to hold his Peace and the other Proctor though he was retained by me had received a Fee never opened his mouth pretending unto me that because the Bishop was so highly displeased with mee he durst not appeare in my behalf being denyed time to give in my answer at the next Court day I desired respit untill the afternoon this also was denyed In fine contrary to the rules of their own Court he examined witnesses against me and proceeded to Censure me before he received my full answer he would not heare the answer which I could give to the Articles objected to me which I proferd to give and which he had by oath required me to give further by vertue of the oath he administred unto me he questioned me not only concerning matters of outward fact but also concerning my most secret thoughts intentions and aymes Moreover whereas the witnesses confessed that I only said in the foresaid Sermon that some put the Scriptures into a staged dresse the Bishop perswaded them that that expression was equivalent with the Article objected that some mens Sermons were Stage Playes and they by his perswasion swore down right that I saidsome mens Sermons were Stage Playes The Doctor made an Act and Order that I should make publique retractation which I refused to doe and appeald unto the Arches But upon either the Bishops or M. Sidenhams Information my Procter Hunt renounced my appeale and Sir John Lambe dismissed the same cause without hearing unto the Bishop againe 5 The Churchwardens of my Parish by order from the Bishop were enjoyned to turn the Communion Table and place it Altar-wise c. Now they that they might neither displease the Bishop nor transgresse against the Rubrick of the Liturgie made it an exact square Table that so notwithstanding the Bishops order the Minister might still Officiate at the North side of the Table M. Humphry Sydenham informed against this and upon Information the Bishop sent to view it and upon his view he certified the Bishop that it was like an Oyster Table whereupon the Bishop ordered the Churchwardens to make a new one 6 Upon M. Humphry Sydenhams Information that M. John Pym was a Parliamenteer the Bishop would not suffer me any longer to sojourn in his house although before such Information he gave me leave And when I demanded of some of his servants the reason why his Lordship had thus changed his minde they told me that his Lordship was informed by M. Sydenham that M. Pym was a Puritane The Lord Andevers speech in March 1640. concerning the Star-Chamber MY Lords since your Lordships have already looked so farre into priviledges of Peers as to make a strict inquisition upon forraign honours Let us not destroy that among our selves which we desire to preserve from strangers And if this greivance I shall move against have slept till now It is very considerable lest custome make it every day more apparent than other your Lordships very well know there was a Statute framed 3 Hen. 7. Authorizing the Chancellor Treasurer and Privy Seale and the two Chiefe Justices calling to them one Bishop and a temporall Lord of the Kings Councell to receive complaints
more to offer unto you But this one compriseth many It is a neast of waspes or swarm of vermine which have over-crept the land I mean the Monopoles and Polers of the people These like the Frogs of Aegypt have gotten possession of our dwellings and have scarce a room free from them They sup in our Cup they dip in our Dish they sit by our fire we finde them in the Dy fat wash-boule and Poudering tub they share with the Butler in his box they have marked and sealed us from head to foot Mr. Speaker they will not bate us a Pin we may not buy our own Cloathes without their brokage These are the Leeches that have suckt the Common wealth so hard that it is almost become hecticall And Mr. Speaker some of these are ashamed of their right names they have a vizard to hide the brand made by that good law in the last Parliament of King James They shelter themselves under the name of a Corporation they make by-laws which serve their turns to squeese us and fill their purses unface these and they will prove as bad Cards as any in the pack These are not petty Chapmen but wholesale men Mr. Speaker I have ecchoed to you the cryes of the kingdome I will tell you their hopes they look to Heaven for a blessing upon this Parliament they hang upon his Majesties exemplary piety and great justice which renders his eares open to the just complaints of his Subjects we have had lately a gratious assurance of it they are the wise conduct of this whereby the other great affaires of the Kingdome and this our grievance of no lesse import And this may go hand in hand in preparation and resolution Then by the blessing of God we shall return home with an Olive branch in our mouths and full confirmations of the priviledges which we received from our Ancestors and ow to our posterity which every freeborn English man hath received with the aire he breathed in These are our hopes These are our prayers Mr. BAGSHAW his speech in Parliament 7 die Novemb. 1640. Mr Speaker I Had rather Act then speak in those weighty businesses of the Kingdome which have been so excellently handled by these foure worthy Gentlemen that spake last and therefore I shall be short For when I look upon the Body of this goodly and flourishing Kingdom in matters of Religion and of our laws For like Hippocrates Twins they live and dye together I say when I behold these in that state and plight as they have been represented to us Flere magis libet quam dicere But this is our comfort Mr. Speaker that we are all met together for the welfare and happinesse of Prince and People And who knows whether this may not be the appointed time wherein God will restore our Religion as at the first and our laws as at the beginning The honour of a King consisteth in the weale of his people this undoubted maxime his Majesty hath made good by his late gracious speech and promise to us to redresse all our grievances to destroy the enemies of our Peace and plenty To make a people rich they must have ease justice Ease in their Consciences from the bane of Superstition from the intolerable burthen of innovation in Religion and from the racks and tortures of strange and new fangled Oaths They must be eased in their persons being liberi homines and not Vilanes All illegall arrests and imprisonment against Magna Charta being our greatest liberties They must be eased in their lands from Forrest where never any Deer fed from depopulations where never any Farm was decayed and from inclosures where never any hedges were set But must lastly be eased in their goods from their exactions and expilations of Pursevants and Apparitors of Projectors and Monopolists Humanarum Calamitatum mercatores as an ancient finely calls them and if the people have all these easements yet if they have not Justice they cannot subsist justice is to the Civill body as food to the naturall If the streams of Justice be by unrighteousnesse turned into Gall and Wormword or by cruelty like the Aegyptian waters be turned into blood those which drink of these brooks must needs dy and perish The Law saith that all Justice is in the King who is stiled in our book Fons Justitiae and he commits it to his Judges for the execution wherein he trusts them with two of the chiefest flowers which belong to his crown The administration of his justice and the exposition of his laws but he will not trust them without an Oath required of them by the Statute of 18 E. 31. Which is so strict and severe that it made a Judge whom I know though honest and strict yet to quake and tremble at the very mention of it The effect of the Oath is that they should doe equall law and execution of right to all the Kings Subjects poore aswell as rich without regard of any person That they should not deny to doe common right to any man by the Kings letters and for any other cause And in case such letters do that they proceed to do come the law notwithstanding such letters or for any other causes as they will answer to the King in bodies goods and lands how this Oath hath been performed we have seen and felt I need say no more But when I cast mine eyes upon the inferiour Courts of Justice wherein no such oath is required I meane the High Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts my soule hath bled for the wrong pressures which I have observed to have been done and committed in these Courts against the Kings good people especially for the most monstrous abuse of the Oath Ex Officio which as it is now used I can call no other than Carnificina Conscientiae I have some reason to know this that have been an Attendant to the Court these five yeeres for my selfe and a deare friend of mine sometimes Knight of our Shire for a meer triviall businesse that the most that could be proved against him was the putting on his hat in the time of Sermon Of which Court I shall say more and make good what I say when those ulcers come to be opened Mr. Speaker I say these foure worthies that spake before me have told you of our miseries but I cannot tell you of the remedies For things are come to that height that I may say as Livy sayd of the Roman state in his time Nec Vitia nostra scire possumus neâ— Remedia for no Laws will now doe us good Better Laws could not have been made then the Stat. of Monopolies against Projectors and the Petition of right against the infringers of liberties and yet as if the Law had bin the Author of them there hath been within these few years more Monopolies and infringment of liberties than hath been in any age since the Conquest and if all those vile Harlets as Queen Elizabeth
price of moneys must rise and fall to fit their occasions we see this by raising the Exchange of Franckford and other places of their usuall time of the Marts This frequent and daily change in the Low-Countries of their moneys is no such injustice to any there as it would be here for there they being all Merchants or mechanicks they can rate accordingly their labour and their Ware whether it be Coyne or other merchandize to the present condition of their own money in Exchange And our English Merchants to whose profession it properly belongeth do so according to their just intrinsique valew of their forreign Coyn in all barter of commodities or Exchange except usance which we that are rated and tyed by the extrinsiques measure of moneys in all our constant reckonigs and annuall bargains at home cannot do And for us then to raise our Coyn at this time to equall their proportions were but to render our selves to a perpetuall incertainty for they will raise upon us daily them again which we of course shall follow else receive no profit by this present change and so destroy the Policie Justice honor and tranquilitie of our State for ever To the Right Honourable the Lord Deputy The â—â—mble and just Remonstrance of the Knights Cittizens and Burgesses in Parliament assembled SHewing that in all ages since the happy subjection of this Kingdome to the Imperiall Crowne of England it was and is a principall study and Princely care of his Majesty and his most noble Progenitors Kings and Queens of England and Ireland to the vast expence of treasure and blood That their loyall and dutifull people of this Land of Ireland beeing now for the most part derived from Brittish Ancestors should be governed according to the municipall and fundamentall Lawes of England That the statute of Magna Charta or the great Charter of the liberties of England and other laudable lawes and statutes were in severall Parliaments heere enacted and declared that by the means thereof of the most prudent benign government of his Majestie his Royall Progenitors this Kingdome was untill of late in its growth a flourishing estate whereby the said people were heretofore enabâ—ed to aâ—â—iver their humble and naturall desires to comply with his Majesties Princely and royall occasions by their free gift of 150. thousand pounds sterling and likewise by another free gift of 120. thousand pounds more during the government of the Lord Viscount Faulkland and after by the gift of 40. thousand pounds and their free and cheerefull gift of siâ—â— intire Subsidies in the tenth yeare of his Majesties Reignâ— which to comply with his Majesties then occasions signified to the then house of Commons they did allow should ammount in the Collections unto 2 hundred and fifty thousand pounds although as they confidently believe if the Subsidies had been levyed in a moderate Parliamentary way they would not have amounted to much more then halfe the sum aforesaid besides the foure intire Subsidies graunted in this present Parliament Soe it is may it please your Lordship by the occasion of insuing and other grievances and Innovations though to his Majesty no considerable profit this Kingdome is reduced to that extreame and universall poverty that the same is lesse able to pay 2 Subsidies then it was hertofore to satisfie all the before-recyted great payments his Majesties most faithfull people of the Land do conceive great fears that the said grievances and consequences thereof may be hereafter drawne into presidents to be perpetuated upon their posterity which in their great hopes and strong beliefe they are perswaded is contrary to his Royall and Princely intention towards his said people of which greivances are as followeth 1 First the generall apparant decay of Trades occasioned by the new and illegall raising of the booke of rates and impositions upon native and other Commodities exported and imported by reason whereof and of extreame usage and censures Merchants are beggered both and disinabled and discouraged to Trade and some of the honourable persons who gaine thereby often Iudges and parties And that in the conclusion his Majesties profit thereby is not considerably advanced 2. The arbitrary decision of all civill causes and controversies by paper petitions before the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Deputy and infinite other Iudicatories upon references from them derived in the nature of all actions determinable at the Common Law not limited into certaine time cause season or thing whatsoever And the consequences of such exceeding by immoderate and unlawfull fees by Secretaries Clarkes Pursivants Serjeants at Armes and otherwise by which kinde of proceedings his Majesty looseth a considerable part of his revenue upon originall writs and other wise and the Subject looseth the benefit of his writ of Error bill of reversall vouchees and other legall and just advantages and the ordinary course and Courts of Iustice declined 3. The proceedings in civill causes at Counsell board contrary to the Law and great Charter not limited to any certaine time or season 4 That the Subject is in all the materiall parts thereof denyed the benefit of the Princely graces and more especially of the statute of limitations of 21. of Iac. Graunted by his Majesty in the fourth yeare of his Raigne upon great advice of Counsell of England and Ireland and for great consideration and then published in all the Courts of Dublin and in all the Counties of this Kingdome in open assizes whereby all persons doe take notice that contrary to his Majesties pious intentions his Subjects of this land have not enjoyed the benefit of his Majesties Princelie promise thereby made 5. The extrajudiciall avoyding of Letters Pattents of estates of a very great part of his Majesties subjects under the great Seale the publique faith of the Kingdome by private opinions delivered at the Counsell board without legall evictions of their estates contrary to the law and without president or example of any former age 6. The Proclamation for the sole emption and uttering of Tobacco which is bought at every low rates and uttered at high and excessive rates by meanes whereof thousands of families within this Kingdome and of his Majesties Subjects in severall Ilands and other parts of the West Indies as your Petitioners are informed are destroyed and the most part of the coyn of this Kingdome is ingross ed into particular hands Insomuch as the petitioners do conceive that the proffit arising and engrossed thereby doth surmount his Majestyes revenue certain or cosuall within this Kingdome and yet his Majesty receiveth but very little profit by the same 7. The universall and unlawfull increasing of Monopolies to the advantage of a few to the disprofit of his Majesty and Impoverishment of his people 8. The extream and cruell usage of certain late Commissioners and other stewards the Brittish Farmers and Inhabitants of the City and County of London Derry by meanes whereof the worthy Plantation of that Country is almost destroyed and the
sometimes to the great discomfort of many poore soules who for want of money can get no absolution 12 They claim their Office and Jurisdiction to be jure divino and doe exercise the same contrary to Law in their own names and under their own Seals 13 They receive and take upon them temporall Honours Dignities Places and Offices in the Common wealth as if it were lawfull for them to use both swords 14 They cognizance in their Courts and elswhere of matters determinable at the Common Law 15 They put Ministers upon Parishes without the Patrons and without the peoples consent 16 They doe yearly impose Oaths upon Churchwardens to the most apparent danger of filling the land with perjuries 17 They doe exercise Oaths Ex Officio in the Nature of an inquisition even unto the thoughts of mens 18 They have apprehended men by Pursevants without ciration or missives first sent they break up mens houses and studies taking away what they please 19 They doe aw the Judges of the Land with their greatnesse to the inhibiting of prohibition and hindering of Habeas Corpus when it is due 20 They are strongly suspected to be confederated with the Roman party in this Land and with them to be Authors Contrivers or Consenters to the present Commotions in the North and the rather because of a Contribution by the Clergy and by the Papists in the last year 1639. and because of an ill-named benevolence of six Subfidies granted or intended to be granted this yeare 1640. thereby and with these monies to ingage as much as in them lay the two Nations into blood It is therefore our humble and earnest prayer that all this Hierarchicall power may be totally abrogated if the wisdome of this Honourable House shall finde that it cannot be maintained by Gods word and to his glory And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. The Petition of the Citizens of London to both house of Parliament wherein is a Demonstration of their grievances together with their desires for Justice to be excuted upon the Earle of Strafford and other DELINQUENTS To the most Honorable Assembly of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament The humble Petition of divers Citizens of London SHeweth that notwithstanding his Majesties gracious Answer to the humble Petition of his Loyall Subjects in summoning this Parliament with the great care and endeavoured pains taken by both Houses for the removing the heavy Grievances in Church and Commonwealth whereof the Petitioners have already received some fruit for which they desire to return their most humble and utmost thanks yet neverthelesse they are inforced with all Humility to represent to this most Honourable assemblly some of these Obstructions which doe still hinder that freedome and fulnesse of Trade in this City they have formerly had which considering the numerous Multitude thereupon depending they conceive it not able comfortably to subsist As the unsetled Condition of the Kingdome even since the troubles in Scotland hath caused both strangers and also of our own who did furnish great summs of money to Use to call it in and remit much of it by Exchange unto Forraine pars and stands now in Expectation of what the issue of things may be The stopping money in the Mint which till then was accompted the safest place and surest staple in these parts in the world still doth hinder the importation of Bullyon the Scots now disabled to pay such debts as they owe to the Petitioners and others in the City and by reason of the oppressions exercised in Ireland their debts also are detained there The English Trade by reason of our generall distractions and fears is so much decayed that Country tradesmen can not pay their debts in London as formerly The great summs of money unduly taken by his Majesties Officers and Farmers for impositions upon Merchandize exported and imported and the want of reliefe in Courts of Justice against them The drawing out from the City great summs of money which is the life and spirit of Trade for his Majesties service in the North and being there imployed is not yet returned Besides all which from what strong and secret opposition the Petitioners know not they have not received what so much time and pains might give and cause to hope but still incendiaries of the Kingdoms and other notorious offenders remain unpunished the affaires of the Church notwithstanding many Petitions concerning it and long debate about it remains unsettled the Papists still armed the Laws against them not executed some of the most active of them still at Court Priests and Jesnits not yet banished the Irish Popish army not yet disbanded Courts of Justice not yet reformed and the Earle of Strafford who as now appears hath counselled the plundering of this City and putting it to fine ransome and said it would never be well till some of the Aldermen were banged up because they would not yeeld to illegall levies of moneys hath so drawn out and spent his time in his businesse to the very great charge of the whol Kingdome and his endeavour to obtain yet more all which makes us fear there may be practices now in hand to hinder the birth of your great endeavours and that we lie under some more dangerous plot then we can discover All which premisses with their fears and distractions growing there-from and from things of the like nature the Petitioners humbly offer to the most grave consideration of this most honorable assembly as being the true causes of decay of Trade discouragement of Tradesmen and of the great scarcity of monies with the consequences they labour under And do humbly pray that their said grievances may be redressed the causes of their fears removed Justice executed upon the said Earle and other incendiaries and offenders the rather in regard till then the Petitioners humbly conceive neither Religion nor their lives liberties or estates can besecured And as in duty bound they shall ever pray c. Subscribed to this Petition 20000. all men of good ranke and quality Sir John Wrayes Speech concerning Bishops 1641. THE first challenge for Lordly Primacy hath of old been grounded out of the great Charter by which they hold an Episcopall Primacy or Jurisdiction to be long to their state of Prelacy this is their temporall soundation and main object Here I demand of them unto what Church this great Charter was granted and whether it were not granted unto the Church of GOD in England Let the words of the Magna Charta decide this which are these Concessimus Deo proâ—nobis in perpetuum quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit habeat omnia Jura sua iutegra libertates suas illaesas Now by this Charter if it be rightly interpreted there is first provision made that honour and worship be yeelded unto God as truly and indeed belong unto him Secondly that not only such Rights and Liberties as the King and his Progenitors but also that such as
for its owne defence against those be they Peeres or people that have abused it If we examine the Law well it will tell us what hath beene the reward of such ambitious men as have Monopolized and abused the Kings Authoritie what have beene the punishment of such as have betrayed the well meaning Subject to the Kings displeasure and his Princes Councell to his enemies what doe they deserve who have raised mountaines of Monopolies heapes of impositions oceans of grievances what have been the punishment of such as have belied Justice and their conscience and have made truth and honesty our of fashion And lastly If no penaltie be found for these sure there is some for such as have so disguised Religion in fantasticke dresses that Heaven andearth cannot be but angrie to see it and in their politique pride have beene so long moulding a new State and a new old Church for their owne advantage till they have by their too much order put all out of frame and made us objects of pitie and themselves of hate What if for these innovations we innovate an examplary punishment These are the ground-works of our miseries and surely Mr. Speaker there are too many of all these sorts which like envious clouds hinders us from â—he gracious shine our Sun intends us therefore for his great r lustre and our more assured comfort let us endeavour to remove these interposers that he may more freely see into his peoples bosomes and reade in their hearts firme characters of loyaltie and glad obedience which the practices of these later times have endeavoured to obliterate but in vaine I shall not dare to borrow one minute of you more but I shall alreadie end though I have just now begun If we consider the just extent of our grievances the deep search of which wound I leave to you better abilities and I beseech you think not that I sigh out these complaints undertaking to instruct the grave Councell of this great Assembly my infant advice presumes not to reach so high It is but to let you see how much the slightest parts of this abused Common-wealth is not only made sensible of our wrongs but what we feele is farre exceeded by the numberlesse number of our just feares which should have before this time utterly distracted us had not our great Phisition now at length applied his soveraigne remedie to keep up our fainting hopes by which we must either stand or fall Master Pyms Speech in PARLIAMENT 1640. THe distempers of this Kingdome are well knowne they need not repetition For though we have good Lawes yet they want their execution or if they are executed it is in a wrong sence I shall endeavour to apply a remedie to the breaches that are made and to that end I shall discover first the qualitie of the disease First There is a designe to alter Law and Religion the parties that effect this are Papists who are obliged by a maxime in their doctrine that they are not onely bound to maintaine their Religion but also to extirpate all others The second is their Hierarchie which cannot amount to the height they ayme at without a breach of our Law To which their Religion necessarily ioynes that if the one stands the other must fall Thirdly Agents and Pensioners to forraigne States who see we cannot comply to them if we maintaine our Religion established which is contrary to theirs here they intend chiefly the Spanish white gold works which are of most effect Fourthly Favourites such as for promotion prize not conscience and such are our Judges spirituall and temporall such are also some of our Councellors of State All these though severed yet in their contrivements they ayme at one end and to this they walke on four feet First discountenancing of Preachers and vertuous men they persecute under the law of purity Secondly Countenancing of Preachers of contrary dispositions Thirdly The negotiating with the faction of Rome by Preaching and to instructions to Preach of the absolute Monarchie of Kings Here follow severall Heads First The politicall interpretation of the Law to serve their turnes and thus to impose taxes with a colour of Law a Judge sayd it when a babe is corpus was payd for Secondly By keeping the King in continuall want that he may seeke to their counsells for r liefe to this purpose to keepe the Parliaments in distaste that their counsells may be taken The King by them is brought to this as a woman that used her selfe to poyson could not live with good meate Search the Chronicles and we see no King that ever used Parliaments was brought to this want Thirdly Arbitrary proceedings in Courts of Justice we have all Law left to the conscience of a single man All Courts are now Courts of conscience without conscience Fourthly Plotters to inforce a war between Scotland and us that when we had well wearied one another we might be both brought to what scorn they pleased The pertition wall is only unity Fiftly The suddaine dissolving of Parliaments and punishing of Parliament men all to affright us from speaking what we thinke One was committed for not delivering up the Petitions of the House then a declaration which slandered our Proceedings as full of lyes as leaves who would have the first ground to be our example And Papists are under appearance to the King his best Subjects for they contibute money to the War which the Protestants will not do Sixthly Another is Military by getting places of importance into the Papists hands as who are Commanders in the last Armie but they none more strong in Armes then they to whom their Armour is delivered contrary to the Statute Their endeavour is to bring in strangers to be Billited upon us we have had no accompt of the Spanish Navie and now our fear is from Ireland Lastly The next is Papisticall that proceeds of Agents here in London by whose desires many Monasteries and Nunneries here in London were erected Sir Thomas Baringtons Speech in Parliament 1640. My Lords WE have of late entred into consideration of the Petition of Right and the relation of it and upon good reason for it concernes our goods liberties and lives But there is a Right of higher nature that preserved for us farre greater things eternall life our soules yea our God himselfe a Religion derived to us from the King of Kings conferred to us by the Kings of this Kingdome enacted by Lawes in this place treading downe to us in the bloud of the Martyes and witnessed from Heaven by miracles even miraculous deliverances And this Right in the name of this Nation I this day require and claime that there may be a deepe and serious consideration of the relations of it I desire first that it may be considered what new paintings are layd on the old face of the Whore of Babylon to make the more lovely and to draw so many Suitors to her I desire that it may be considered how the Sea
but shew you a way of remedie by shewing you my cleer intentions and some marke that may hinder this good worke I shall willingly and cheerfully concur with you for the Reformation of all Innovations both in Church and Common-wealth and consequently that all Courts of Justice may be reformed according to Law For my intentions is cleerly to reduce all things to the best and purest times as they were in the time of Queen Elizabeth Moreover whatsoever part of my Revenue shall be found illegall or heavy to my Subjects I shall be willing to lay down trusting in their affections Having thus cleerly and shortly set down my intentions I will shew you some rubs and must needs take notice of some very strange I know not what terme to give them Petitions given in the name of divers Counties against the established government of the Church and of the great threatnings against the Bishops that they will make them to be but a Cipher or at least taken away If some of them have incroached too much upon the Temporaltie if it be so I shall not be unwilling these things should be redressed and reformed as all other abuses according to the wisdome of former times so farre I shall go with you no farther If upon serious debate you shall shew that Bishops have some Temporall Authority not so necessary for the government of the Church and upholding Episcopall Jurisdiction I shall not be unwilling to desire them to lay it down but this must not be understood that I shall any way consent that their voice in Parliament should be taken away for in all the times of my Predecessors since the Conquest and before they have enjoyed it I am bound to maintain them in i as one of the fundamentall Institutions of this Kingdome There is one other Rock you are on not in substance but in service and the forme is so essentiall that unlesse it be reformed will split you on that Rock There is a Bill lately put in concerning Parliaments The thing I like well to have frequent Parliaments but for Sheriffes and Constables to use my Authoritie I can no wayes consent unto But to shew that I desire to give you content in substance as well as in shew that you shall have a Bill for doing thereof so that it do not trench neither against my Honor neither against the ancient Prerogatives of the Crowns concerning Parliaments Ingeniously confesse often Parliaments is the fittest means to keep correspondencie betweene Me and my People that I doe so much desire To conclude now all that I have shewen you the state of my Affairs My own cleere intentions and the Rocks I would have you shun To give you all contentment you shall likewise finde by these Ministers I have or shall have about me for the effecting of these my good intentions which shall redouble the peace of the Kingdome and content you all Concerning the conference you shall have a direct answer on Monday which shall give you satisfaction The Kings speech to both Houses of Parliament in the Lords House at the passing of the Bill for a Trieniall Parliament the 16th of November 1640. MY Lords and you the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons you may remember when both Houses were with Me at the Banquetting House at Whitehall I did declare unto you two Rocks I wished you to eschew this is the one of them and of that consequence that I thinke never Bill passed here in this House of more favour to the Subjects then this is and if the other Rocke be as happily passed over as this shall be at this time I do not know what you can aske for ought I can see at this time that I can make any question to yeeld unto Therefore I mention this to shew unto you the sence that I have of this Bill and obligation as I may say that you have to me for it for hitherto to speake freely I have had no great incouragement to doe it if I should looke to the outward face of your actions or proceedings and not looke to the inward intentions of your hearts I might make question of doing it Hitherto you have gone on in that which concernes your selves to amend and yet those things that meerly concernes the strength of this Kingdom neither for the State nor my own particular This I mention not to reproach you but to shew you the state of things as they are you have taken the Government almost in peeces and I may say it is almost off the hinges A skilfull Watchmaker to make cleane his Watch he will take it a sunder and when it is put together it will go the better so that he leave not forth then one pin in it Now as I have done all this on my part you know what to do on your parts and I hope you shall see cleerly that I have performed really what I expressed to you at the beginning of this Parliament of the great trust I have of your affections to me and this is the great expression of trust that before you do any thing for me that I do put such a confidence in you HIS MAJESTIES Letter to the Lords on the behalf of the Earle of Strafford sent by the PRINCE My Lords I Did yesterday satisfie the Justice of the Kingdome by passing of the Bill of Attainder against the Earle of Strafford but mercie being as inherent and inseparable to a King as Justice I desire at this time in some measure to shew that likewise by suffering that unfortunate man to fulfill the naturall course of his life in a close imprisonment yet so that if ever he make the least offer to escape or offer directly or indirectly to meddle in any sort of Publique businesse especially with me either by Message or Letter it shall cost him his life without further Processe This if it may be done without the discontentment of my People will be an unspeakable contentment to me To which end as in the first place I by this Letter do earnestly desire your approbation and to endeare it the more have chosen him to carry it that of all your House is most dear to me So I desire that by a conference you will endeavour to give the House of Commons contentment Likewise assuring you that the excuse of mercy is no more pleasing to me then to see both Houses of Parliament consent for my sake that I should moderate the severity of the Law in so important a case I will not say that your complying with me in this my intended mercie shall make me more willing but certainly t' will make me more cheerfull in granting your just grievances But if no lesse than his life can satisfie my People I must say fiat justitia Thus again recommending the consideration of my intentions to you I rest Whitehall the 11th of May 1641. Your unalterable and affetionate Friend CHARLES R. If he must dye it were charity to
Reprieve him till Satterday May 11th 1641. THis Letter all written with the Kings own hand the Peers this day received in Parliament delivered by the hand of the Prince It was twice read in the House and after serious and sad consideration the House resolved presently to send 12. of the Peers Messengers to the King humbly to signifie that neither of the two intentions expressed in the Letter could with duty in them or without danger to himselfe his dearest Consort the Queene and all the young Princes their Children possibly be advised With all which being done accordingly the reasons shewed to his Maiesty He suffered no more words to come from them but out of the fulnesse of his heart to the observance of Justice and for the contentment of his people told them that what he intended by his Letter was with an if if it may be done without discontentment of his People if that cannot be I say againe the same that I writ fiat justitia My other intention proceeding out of charity for a few dayes respite was upon certain information that his Estate was so distracted that it necessarily required some few dayes for setlement thereof Whereunto the Lords answered their purpose was to be Suitors to his Maiesty for favour to be shewed to his innocent Children and if himselfe had made any provision for them that the same might hold This was well liking to his Maiesty who thereupon departed from the Lords at his Maiesties parting they offered up into his hands the Letter it selfe which he had sent but He was pleased to say my Lords what I have written to you I shall content it be Registred by you in your House In it you see my minde I hope you will use it to my honor This upon returne of the Lords from the King was presently reported to the House by the Lord Privy Seal and ordered that these Lines should go out with the Kings Letter if any copy of the Letter were dispersed THAT BISHOPS ought not to have Votes in PARLIAMENT 1 BEcause it is a very great hinderance to the exercise of their Ministeriall Function 2 Because they doe vow and undertake at their Ordination when they enter into holy Orders that they will give themselves wholly to that Vocation 3. 4 Because Counsells and Canons in severall Ages do forbid them to meddle with secular affairs because 24 Bishops have dependancie on the two Archbishops and because of their Canonicall obedience to them 5 Because they are but for their lives and therefore are not fit to have legislative power over the honors inheritance persons and liberties of others 6 Because of Bishops dependancie and expecting translations to places of great profit 7 That severall Bishops have of late much incroached upon the consciēnces and liberties of the Subjects and they and their Successors will be much incouraged still to incroach and the Subjects will be much discouraged from complaining against such incouragements if 26 of that Order be to be Judges of those complaints the same reason extends to their legislative power in any Bill to passe for the regulation of their power upon any emergent inconveniencie by it 8 Because the whole number of them is interessed to maintaine the jurisdiction of Bishops which hath beene found so grievous to the three Kingdomes that Scotland hath utterly abolished it and multitudes in England and Ireland have petitioned against it 9 Because Bishops being Lords of Parliament it setteth too great a distance betweene them and the rest of their Brethren in the Ministry which occasioneth pride in them discontent in others and disquiet in the Church To their having Votes a long time Answ If inconvenient Time and usage are not to be considered with Law-makers some Abbots voted as anciently in Parliament as Bishops yet are taken away Therefore the Bishops Certificate to plenary of Benefice and loyalty of Marriage the Bill extends not to them For the secular Jurisdictions of the Deane of Westminster the Bishops of Durbam and Ely and the Archbishop of Yorke which they are to execute in their owne persons the former reasons shew the inconveniencies therein For their Temporall Courts and Jurisdictions which are executed by their Temporall Officers the Bill doth not concerne them The Lord Keepers Speech in the Upper House of Parliament Novemb. 3. 1640. My Lords ANd you the Knights Cittizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons you have been summoned by His Majesties Gracious Writ under the great Seal of England and you are here this day assembled for the holding of a Parliament The Writ tels you t is to treat and consult of the High Great and weighty affairs that concern the estate and safety of the Kingdom It tels you true that since the Conquest never was there a time that did more require and pray for the best advice and affection of the English people It is ill viewing of objects by viewing them in multiplying Glasse and it is almost as mischievous in the speech of such a broken Glasse which represents but to the half The onely and the perfect way is to look in a true Mirror I will not take upon me to be a good looker in it I will onely hold it to you to make use of it The Kingdom of England is this multiplying Glasse you may there see a State which hath flourished for divers hundred yeers famous for time of peace and warre glorious at home and ever considerable abroad A Nation to whom never yet any Conqueror gave new Laws nor abolished the old nor would this Nation ever suffer a Conqueror to meddle with their Laws no not the Romanes who yet when as they subdued all the people made it part of the Conquest to leave their Laws in triumph with them For the Saxons Danes and the Normans if this were a time to travell into such particulars it were an easie task to make it appear that it never changed the old established Lawes of England nor ever brought in any new so as you have the frame and constitution of a Common-wealth made glorious by antiquity And it is with States as with persons and families certainly an interrupted pedigree doth give lustre It is glorious in the whole frame wortth your looking upon long and your consideration in every part The King is the head of the Common-wealth the Fountain of Justice the life of the Law He is anima deliciae legis Behold Him in His glorious Ancestors that have so swayed the Scepter of the Kingdome Behold Him in the high attributes and the great prerogatives which so ancient and unalterable Laws have given and invested him with Behold Him in the happy times that we have so long lived under His Monarchiall government For His excellent Majesty that now is our most Gratious Soveraign you had need wipe the Glasse and wipe your eyes and then you shall truely behold him a King of exemplary Pietie and Justice and a King of rare endowments and
Majesties government and intending the subversion of the fundamental Lawes and setled governement of that Realme and the distraction of his Majesties liege people there did upon the 30. day of September in the ninth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne in the Citie of Dublin the chiefe Citie of that Kingdome where his Majesties privie Counsell and Courts of Iustice doe ordinarily reside and whither the Nobility and Gentry of that Realme doe usually resort for Iustice in a publikâ— Speech before divers of the Nâ—bility and Gentry and before the Major Aldermen and Recorder and many Citizens of Dublin and other his Majesties Liege people declare and publish that Ireland was a conquered Nation and that the King might doe with them what he pleased and speaking of the Charters of the former Kings of England made to that Citie he further said that their Charters were nothing worth and did binde the King no further then hee pleased 4. That Richard Earle of Corke having sued out processe in course of Law for recovery of his possessions from which he was put by colour of an order made by the said Earle of Strafford and the Counsell Table of the said Realme of Ireland The said Earle of Strafford upon a paper petition without legall proceeding did the 20 day of February in the 11. yeare of his nâ—w Majesties Reigne threaten the said Earle of Corke beeing then a Peere of the said Realme to imprison him unlesse he would surcease his suit and said That he would have neither Law nor Lawyers dispute or question any of his orders And the 20. dâ—y of March in the said 11. year of the said Earle of Strafford speaking of an order of the said Counsell Table of that Realme in the time of King James which concerned a Lease which the said Earle of Corke claimed in certaine rectories or tithes which the said Earle of Cork alleaged to be of no force said That he would make the said Earle and all Ireland know so long as hee had the government there any Act of State there made or to bee made should bee as binding to the Subjects of that Kingdome as an Act of Parliament And did question the said Earle of Corke in the Castle Chamber upon pretence of the breach of the said order of Counsell Table and did sundry other times and upon sundry other occasions by his words and speeches arrogate to himselfe a power above the fundementall Lawes and established Government of that Kingdome and scorned the said Lawes and established government 5 That according to such his Declarations and Speeches the said Earls of S r ffoâ—d did use and exercise a power above â—nd against and to the subversion of the said fundame tall Laws and established government of the said Realme of Ireland exâ—ending such his power to the goods free holds inheritances liberties and lives of his Majesties Subjects in the said Realme viz. The said Earle of Sirâ—fford the twelfth day of December Anno Domini 1635. in the time of full peace did in the said Realme of Ireland give and procure to bee given against the Lord Mount Norris then and yet a Peere of Ireland and then Vice-Treasurer and receiver generall of the Realme of Ireland and one of the principall Secretaries of State and Keeper of the privy Signet of the said Kingdome a sentence of death by a Councell of warre called together by the said Earle of Strafford without any warrant or authority of Law or offence deserving any such punishment And hee the said Earle did also at Dublin within the said Realm of Ireland in the Month of March in the fourteenth yeare of his Majesties Reigne without any legall or due proceedings or tryall give or cause to bee given a sentence of death against one other of his Majesties Subjects whose name is yet unknowne and caused him to be put to death in execution of the said sentence 6 That the said Earle of Strafford without any legall proceedings and upon a paper Petition of Richard Ralstone did cause the said Lord Mount-Norris to be disseized and put out of possession of his free-hold and inheritance of his Mannor and Tymore in the Countrey of Armagh in the Kingdome of Ireland the said Lord Mount-Norris having beene two yeares before in quiet possession thereof 7 That the said Earle of Strafford in the Termâ— of holy Trinity in the thirteenth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne did cause a case commonly called the case of Tenures upon defective Titles to be made and drawne up without any juâ—y or tryall or other legall processe and without the consent of parties and did then procure the ludges of the said Realme of Ireland to deliver their opinions and resolutions to that case and by colour of such opinion did without any legal proceeding cause Thâ—mas Lord Dillon a Peeâ—e of the said Realme of Ireland to be put out of possession of divers Lands and Tenements being his free-hold in the Countrey of Mago and Rosecomen in the said Kingdome and divers other of his Majesties Subjects to be also put out of possession disseized of their free hold by colour of the same resolution without legall proceedings whereby many hundreds of his Majesties subjects were undone and their families utterly ruinated 8 That the said Earle of Strafford upon a Petition of Sir Iohn Gifford Knight the first day of February in the said thirteenth yeare of his Majesties reigne without any regall Processe made a Decree or Order against Adam Viscount Lofts of Elie a Peere of the said Realme of Ireland and L Chancellor of Ireland did cause the said Viscount to bee imprisoned and kept close prisoner on pretence of disobedience to the said Decree or order And the said Earle without any authority and contrary to his Commission required and commanded the said Lord Viscount to yeeld unto him the great Seale of the Realme of Ireland which was then in his custody by his Majesties command and imprisoned the said Chancellour for not obeying such his command And without any legall proceedings did in the same thirteenth yeare imprison George Earle of Kildare a Peere of Ireland against Law thereby to enforce him to submit his Title to the Mannor and Lordship of Castle Leigh in the Queens County being of great yearely value to the said Earle of Straffords will and pleasure and kept him a yeare prisoner for the said cause two moneths whereof hee kept him close prisosoner and refused to enlarge him notwithstanding his Majesties Letters for his enlargement to the said Earle of Strafford directed And upon a Petition exhibited in October 1635. by Thomas Hibbots against dame Mary Hibbots widdow to him the said Earle of Strafford the said Earle of Strafford recommended the said Petition to the Counsell Table of Ireland where the most part of the Counsell gave their vote and opinion for the said Ladie but the said Earle finding fault herewith caused an order to be entred against the said Lady and threatned her
duty and allegiance to keepeâ—t secret Master Speaker it was never intended by his Majesty so professed by him at that time and so declared to all the Judges that it was not required by him to be such a binding opinion to the Subject as to hinder him from calling it in question nor to be binding to themselves but that upon better reason and advise they may alter it but desired their opinions for his owne private reason I know very well that extrajudiciall opinions of Judges ought not to be binding But I did think and speake my heart and conscience freely my selfe and the rest of the Judges being sworne and by our Oaths tyed to counsell the King when he should require advise of us that we were bound by our oaths and duties to returne our opinions I did obey his Majesties command and doe here before the God of heaven avow it I did never use the least promise of preferment or reward to any nor did use the least menacy I did leave it freely to their owne consciences and liberty for I was left the liberty of my owne by his Majesty and had reason to leave them the liberty of their owne consciences And I beseech you be pleased to have some beliefe that I would not say this but that I know the God of heaven will make it appeare and I beseech you that extravagant speeches may not move against that which is a positive and cleare truth Master Speaker in the discourse of this as is betweene Judges some small discourses sometimes yet never any cause wherein any Judges conferred that were so little conference as between me and them Master Speaker against a Negative I can say nothing but I shall affirme nothing unto you but by the grace of God as I affirme it to be true so I make no doubt of making it appeare to be so This opinion was subscribed without Solicitation there was not any man of us did make any doubt of subscribing our opinion but two Master Justice Hutton and Master Iustice Crooke Master Iustice Crooke made not a scruple of the thing but of the introduction for it was thus That whereas the Ports the Maritine Towns were concerned there according to the Presidents in former times the charge lay on them So when the Kingdome was in danger of which his Majesty was the sole Iudge whether it was not agreeable to Law and reason the whole Kingdome to beare the charge I left this case with Iudge Crooke The next Terme I spake with him hee could give me no resolution because hee had not seene the Writs in former times but did give his opinion that when the whole Kings dome was in danger they of the defence ought to be borne by all So of that opinion of his there was no need of a Solicitation I speake no more here than I did openly in my argument in the Chequer Chamber This is the naked truth for Master Iustice Hutton he did never subscribe at all I will onely say this that I was so farre from pressing him to give his opinion because he did ask time to consider of it that I will boldly say and make it good that when his Majesty would have had him sometimes sent for to give his opinion I beseeched his Majesty to leave him to himselfe and his conscience and that was the ill office I did The Iudges did subscribe in November or December 1635. I had no conference nor truly I think by accident any discourse with any of the Iudges touching their opinions for till February 1636 there was no speech of it for when they had delivered their opinions I did returne according to my duty to my Master the King and delivered them to him in whose custody they be in In February 1636 upon a command that came from his Majesty by one of the then Secretaries of State the Iudges all assembled in Grayes-Inn we did then fall into a debate of the case then sent unto us and wee did then returne our opinion unto his Majesty there was then much discourse and great debate about it Mine opinion and conscience at that time was agreeable to that opinion I then delivered I did use the best arguments I could for the maintainance of my opinion and that was all I did It is true that then at that time Master Iustice Hutton and Master Justice Crooke did not differ in the maine point which was this When the Kingdome was in danger the charge ought to be borne by the whole Kingdome But in this point whether the King was the sole Judge of the danger they differed So as there was betweene the first subscription and this debate and consultation some 15 moneths difference It is true that all of them did then subscribe both Justice Hutton and Justice Crooke which was returned to his Majestie and after published by my Lord Keeper my predecessour in the Star-chamber For the manner of publishing it I will say nothing but leave it to those whose memories wil call to mind what was then done The reason of the subscription of Iustice Hutton and Iustice Crooke though they differed in opinion grew from this that was told them from the rest of the Iudges That where the greater number did agree in their vote the rest were involved and included And now I have faithfully delivered what I did in that businesse till I came which was afterwards to my argument in the Exchequer Chamber for the question was A scire facias issued out of the Exchequer in that case of Master Hampdens of which I can say nothing for it was there begun and afterwards rejourned to have advice of all the Iudges Master Speaker among the rest according to my duty I argued the case I shall not trouble you to tell you what my argument was I presume there are Copies enough of it onely I will tell you there are foure things very briefly what I then declared First concerning the matter of danger and necessity of the whole Kingdome I professe that there was never a Judge in the Kingdome did deliver an opinion but that it must be in a case of apparant danger When we came to an argument of the case it was not upon a matter or issue but it was upon a demurrer Whether the danger was sufficiently admitted in pleading and therefore was not the thing that was in dispute that was the first degree and step that led unto it I did deliver my selfe as free and as cleare as any man did that the King ought to governe by the positive Lawes of the Kingdome that hee could not alter nor change nor innovate in matters of Law but by common consent in Parliament I did further deliver that if this were used to make a further revenue or benefit to the King or in any other way but in case of necessity and for the preservation of the Kingdome The judgement did warrant no such thing My opinion in this businesse I did in my
conclusion of my argument submit to the judgement of this House I never delivered my opinion that mony ought to be raised but Ships provided for the defence of this Kingdome and in that the Writ was performed And that the charge ought not to be in any case but where the whole Kingdome was in danger And Master Justice Hutton and Master Iustice Crooke were of the same opinion with me I doe humbly submit having related unto you my whole carriage in this businesse humbly submitting my selfe to your grave and favourable censures beseeching you not to think that I delivered these things with the least intention to subvert or subject the common Law of the Kingdome or to bring in or to introduce any new way of government it hath bin farre from my thoughts as any thing under the heavens Master Speaker I have heard too that there hath bin some ill opinion conceived of me about Forrest businesse which was a thing farre out of the way of my study as any thing I know towards the Law But it pleased his Majesty in the sicknesse of Master Noy to give some short warning to prepare my selfe for that imployment When I came there I did both the King and Common-wealth acceptable service for I did and dare be bold to say with extreame danger to my selfe and fortune some doe understand my meaning herein run through that businesse and left the Forrest as much as was there A thing in my judgement considerable for the advantage of the Common-wealth as could be undertaken When I went downe about that imployment I satisfied my selfe about the matter of perambulation There were great difficulties of opinions what perambulation was I did arme my selfe as well as I could before I did any thing in it I did acquaint those that were then Iudges in the presence of the noble Lords with such objections as I thought it my duty to offer unto them If they thought they were not objections of such waight as were fit to stirre them I would not doe the King that disservice They thought the objections had such answers as might well induce the like upon a conference with the whole Country admitting mee to come and conferre with them the Country did unanimously subscribe It fell out afterwards that the King commanded me and all this before I was chiefe Iustice to goe into Essex and did then tell me he had beene enformed that the bounds of the Forrest were narrower then in truth they ought to be and I did according to his command I will here professe that which is knowne to many I had no thought or intention of enlarging the bounds of the Forrest further then H. and that part about it for which there was a perambulation about 26 Edward 4. I desired the Country to confer with me about it if they were pleased to doe it and then according to my duty I did produce those Records which I thought fit for his Majesties service leaving them to discharge themselves as by Law and Justice they might doe I did never in the least kind goe about to overthrow the charter of the Forrest And did publish and maintaine Charta de Foresta as a sacred thing and no man to violate it and ought to be preserved for the King and Common-wealth I doe in this humbly submit and what I have done to the goodnesse and Justice of this House FINIS Mr. Herbotle Grimstones second Speech in Parliament the 18. of December 1640. Master Speaker THere hath been presented to the house a most faithfull and exact report of the conference wee had with the Lords yesterday together with the opinion of the Committees that we imployed in the service that they conceaved it fit that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be sequestred and I must second the motion And with the favour of this House I shall be bold to offer my reasons why I conceive it more necessary wee should proceed a little further then the desire of a bare sequestration onely Master Speaker long Introductions are not suitable to waâ—ghty businesses wee are now fallen upon the great man the Archbishop of Canterbury looke upon him as hee is in highnesse and he is the Stye of all pestilentiall filth that hath infected the State and Government of this Common wealth Looke upon him in his dependances and he is the man the onely man that hath raised and advanced all those that together with himselfe have beene the Authors and Causers of all our ruines miseries and calamities wee row groane under Who is it but he only that hath brought the Earle of Strafford to all his great places and imployments a fit spirit and instrument to act and execute all his wicked and bloudy Designes in these Kingdomes Who is it but hee onely that brought in Secretary Windibank into this place of service of trust the very Broker and Pander to the Whore of Babylon Who is it Master Speaker but hee onely that hath advanced all our Popish Bishops I shall name but some of them Bishop Manering the Bishop of Bath and Wells the Bishop of Oxford and Bishop Wren the least of all these birds but one of the most uncleane ones These are the men that should have fed Christs Flock but they are the Wolfes that have devoured them the Sheepe should have fed upon the Mountaines but the Mountaines have eaten up the Sheepe It was the happinesse of our Church when the Zeale of Gods house eat up the Bishops glorious and brave Martyrs that went to the Stake in defence of the Protestant Religion but the Zeale of the Bishops hath beene onely to persecute and eat up the Church Who is it Master Speaker but this great Archbishop of Canterbury that hath sitten at the helme to steere and to mannage all the projects that have beene set on foot in this Kingdome this tenne yeares last past and rather then hee would stand out he hath most unworthily trucked and chafered in the meanest of them as for instance that of Tobacco wherein thousands of poore people have beene stripped and turned out of their Trades for which they have served as Apprentizes wee all know he was the Compounder and Contracter with them for the Licences putting them to pay Fines and a fee Farme rent to use their Trade certainly Master Speaker hee might have spent his time much better and more for his Grace in the Pulpit then thus sherking and raking in the Tobacco-shops Master Speaker we all know what he hath been charged withall here in this house crimes of a dangerous consequence and of a transcendent nature no lesse then the subversion of the Government of this Kingdome and the alteration of the Protestant Religion and this is not upon bare information onely but much of it is come before us already upon cleare and minifest proofes and there is scarce any grievance or complaint come before us in this Place wherein we do not find him intermentioned and as it were twisted into
would come to nothing and this letter was read and presented unto us His Lordship represented N. H. that the Commissioners and all the Lords had engaged themselves faithfully and truly to declare to the Parliament the distresse of the Counties Hee declared that it was far from their Lordships purpose to move any supply of money from the House of Commons but to lay the cause before them and to leave it to their wisedome averring certainly that if some course were not taken the whole kingdome would be put into disorder Armies would not starve retiring was not yet as hee thought in the thoughts of the Scots Therefore they must plunder and destroy or advance into Yorkeshire and so into England to seeke subsistence the prevention whereof did highly import the King and kingdome His Lordship proposed another no lesse worthy of consideration to the whole kingdome But if the Scots Army were provided of a competency for the ease of those Counties it were very strange there should not an equall care be had for mainteining the Kings Army that stands before them He said the Scots Army was strong and powerfull and little other resistance against it but the impediments of an Army marching in winter But whether it were fit for a kingdome to bee trusted to accidents of Frosts with a people bred in Swedland and cold Countreys hee left to their discretion His Lordship confessed that the Scots had made great protestations and with great execrations averred that they had no intent to advance forward but returne when they shall have received satisfaction Yet their Lordships did not conceive that the kingdome should relye upon promises or protestations Many accidents might happen when a Nation come from a farre Countrey to a better should bee told the businesse they come about was just and their quarrell good who finding themselves in a fat pasture may pick quarrells which their Leaders if they should goe about to prevent them of the reward of their vertue and valour Upon these grounds his Lordship presented to the generall consideration the supply of his Majesties Army that it bee not disbanded which if it should come to passe Yorkeshire and other parts of England were left to the Scots discretion His Lordship said Hee durst not say the Scots would not come forward but that it was in their power if they would and therefore hee recommended this representation to the whole body of the kingdome to prevent furture dangers Hee concluded with a prayer to Almighty God to direct the hearts of all the kingdome and to give a blessing onely able to remove the great distractions so many and so grievous as under which since the Conquest this kingdome never laboured There were presented unto mee two papers more the one being Instructions from Newcastle to Sir Thomas Hope and others concerning the contribution the other an account of Arreers from the eleventh of September to the twentieth of November which were all read unto us nor doe I know how or to what use to imploy them Mr. RIGBYES SPEECH In answer to the LORD KEEPERS last SPEECH 1640. Master SPEAKER THough my Judgement prompts mee to fit still and be silent yet the duty I owe to my King my Countrey and my Conscience moves me to stand up and speake Master Speaker had not this Syren so sweet a tongue surely hee could never have effected so much mischiefe to this kingdome you know Sir optimorum putrefactio pessima the best things putrefied become the worst and as it is in the naturall so in the body politick and what 's to be done then Master Speaker wee all know ense recidendum est the sword Justice must strike nè sinceratruhatur Master Speaker it is not the voice non vox sed votum not the tongue but the heart and actions that are to be suspected for doth not our Saviour say it Shew mee thy faith by thy workes O Man Now Master Speaker hath not this kingdome seene seene say I nay felt and smarted under the cruelty of this mans Justice so malicious as to record it in every Court of Westminster as if hee had not beene contented with the enslaving of us all unlesse hee entailed it to all posterity Why shall I beleeve words now cum factum videam Shall we be so weake men as when wee have beene injured and abused will be gained againe with faire words and complements Or like little children when we have beene whipt and beaten bee pleased againe with sweet meats Oh no there be some birds in the Summer of Parliament will sing sweetly who in the Winter of Persecution will for their prey ravenously fly at all upon our goods nay seize upon our persons and hath it not beene with this man so with some in this assembly Master Speaker it hath beene objected unto us that in Judgement wee should thinke of mercy and Bee yee mercifull as your heavenly Father is mercifull now God almighty grant that we may be so and that our hearts and Judgements may be truly rectified to know truly what is mercy I say to know what is mercy for there is the point Master Speaker I have heard of foolish pitty foolish pitty doe we not all know the effects of it and I have met with this Epithete to mercy Crudelis misericordia and in some kind I thinke there may be a cruell mercy I am sure that the spirit of God said Be not pitifull in Judgement nay it saith Bee not pitifull of the poore in Judgement if not of the poore then a Latiori not of the rich there 's the Emphasis We see by the sett and solemne appointments of our Courts of Justice what provision the wisedome of our Ancestors hath made for the preservation honour and esteeme of Justice witnesse our frequent Termes Sessions and Assises and in what pompe and state the Judges in their Circuits by the Sheriffes Knights and Justices and all the Countrey are attended oft-times for the hanging of a poore thiefe for the stealing of a hog or a sheep nay in some Cases for the stealing of a penny and Justice too in terrorem and now shall not some of them be hanged that have rob'd us of all our propriety and sheered at once all our sheepe and all we have away and would have made us all indeed poore Bellizarasses to have begged for halfe-pennies when they would not have left us one penny that wee could have called our owne Let us therefore now Master Speaker not be so pitifull as that wee become remisse not so pitifull in Judgement as to have no Judgement but set the deplorable estate of Great Brittain now before our eyes and consider how our most gracious Soveraigne hath beene abused and both his Majesty and all his Subjects injured by these wicked Instruments for which my humble motion is that with these particulars wee become not so mercifull as to the generality the whole kingdome wee grow mercilesse Fiat Justitia Mr. VVALERS SPEECH
resolutions NOte That because some doubts were raised by severall persons out of the Commons House concerning the meaning of these words contained in the Protestation lately made by the Members of that House viz. The true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England against all Popery and Popish Innovations within this Realme contrary to the same Doctrine The House of Commons did declare That by those words was and is meant only the publick Doctrine professed in the said Church so farre as it is opposite to Popery and Popish Innovations And that the said words are not to be extended to the maintaining of any forme of Worship Discipline or Government nor of any Rites or Ceremonies of the Church of England MY Lords The House of Commons have commanded me to present unto your Lordships this Protestation Every member in that House hath made it not one refusing it and they have sent it unto your Lordships with an assurance of your Lordships concurrence in the same zeale and affection for the publick safety And it is their desire your Lordships would likewise make the same Protestation which I humbly leave to your Lordships wisdomes Directions for more orderly making of the foresaid Protestation IT is thought fit that the Protestation which the Parliament late y made be taken by the Citie of London in the severall Parish Churches in the afternoon of some Lords day after Sermon before the Congregation bee dissolved by all Masters of Families their sons and men-servants in manner and forme following viz. First That forthwith notice of this intention bee given to the Minister Church-wardens and some other mee persons of each Parish in London Liberties and adjacent Parishes and some of them to give notice to the rest of the Parishioners Secondly That the Minister be entreated if he please to acquaint his Parish in his Sermon either forenoon or aftternoon with the nature of the businesse more or lesse as hee shall think fit for the better and more solemne taking of the said Protestation or if the Minister refuse it that some other bee intreated to preach that will promote the businesse or if neither of these may bee had that some other convenient course bee taken by some well affected to the businesse to stay the Parish and communicate the matter to them Thirdly That the Minister or Ministers of every Congregation first take it in his or their owne person reading the said Protestation in so distinct a voyce that all present may conveniently hear it and that all the Assembly present doe make the same Protestation distinctly after this manner every man taking this Protestation into his hand IA. B. doe in the presence of Almighty God freely and heartily promise vow and protest the same which the leading person took naming the person Fourthly That there be a Register Book wherin every man taking this vow or Protestation subscribe his name with his owne hand or mark and that the names bee taken of such as doe refuse the same Fifthly That all the Parishioners abovesaid whether in Towne or out of Towne be earnestly requested to bee present at their owne Parish Church in the afternoon of that Lords day whereon it shall be taken that every man may take it in their owne place and if any bee necessarily absent that they may bee desired to take it the next Lords day after or so soon as may bee with conveniency Sixthly and lastly That all whom it doth not immediately concerne bee earnestly requested to depart FINIS Mr. Grimstons Speech in the High Court of Parliament M. SPEAKER THese Petitions which have beene now read they are all Remonstrances of the generall and universall grievances distempers that are now in the State and Government of the Church and Commonwealth and they are not them alone But his Majesties gracious Expressions the first day of Parliament that calls me up to speak at this present contrary to my owne Intentions Mr. Speaker his Majestie who is the head of the body politique and the Father of the Common-wealth hath complained first declaring his sensiblenesse of our sufferings and amongst other things hath put us in mind of our grievances and hath freely left it to our selves for our redresse and repaire therein to begin and end as we shall think fit And this drawes mee on with much cheerefulnesse and zeale to contribute my poore endeavours to so great a work And Mr. Speaker I conceive it will not be altogether impertinent for your direction and guidance in that great place which by the favour of his Majestie and this House you now possesse a little to recollect our selves in the remembrance of what was done the last Parliament and where we ended It will likewise be very considerable what hath bin done since that Parliament and who they are that have beene the Authors and Causers of all our miseries and distractions both before and sithence Mr. Speaker the last Parliament as soone as the House was setled a Subsidiarie ayd and supply was propounded and many Arguments used to give the precedencie before all other matters and Considerations whatsoever On the other side a multitude of Complaints and Grievances of all sorts aswell concerning our Eternall as our Temporall estates were presented and put in the other ballance The wisedome of that great Councell waighing both indifferently and looking not onely upon the dangers then threatneâ— from Scotland which are now upon us but likewise taking into their consideration the Condition and Constitution of the present government here at home concluded that they were in no capacity to give unlesse their grievances were first red ressed and removed For Mr. Speaker it then was and still is most manifest and apparent that by some judgements lately obtained in Court of Justice and by some new wayes of Government lately st rted up amongst us the Law of property is so much shaken that no man can say he is Master of any thing But all that we have wee hold as Tenants by courtesie and at will and may be stripped of it at pleasure Yet Mr. Speaker desirous to give his Majestie all possible satisfaction and contentment as well in the manner of supply for expedition as in the substance and matter of it wee confined and limitted our selves but to three particulars onely and to such matters as properly and naturally should have reference and relation to those three heads 1. The first was the priviledges of Parliament 2. The second matters of Religion 3. The third the propriety of our goods and Estates And we began with the first as the great Ark in which the other two Religion and property are included and preserved Mr. Speaker the violations complained of the last Parliament touching our priviledges were of two sorts either such as had beene done in Parliament or out of Parliament Concerning the violations of the first sort it was resolved by vote that the Speaker refusing to put a question being
thereunto required by the House Or to adjourne the House upon any command whatsoever without the consent and approbation of the House it selfe were breaches and violations that highly impeached our priviledges And having passed the vote I conceive it were fit wee should now proceed a little further and consider of a way how to be repaired against them that have beene the violaters For Execution does animare Legem The putting of an old Law in Execution you know Mr. Speaker does oftentimes doe more good then the making of a new one As concerning the violations of the other sort done out of Parliament in Courts of Justice and at the Councell board where neither our persons nor our proceeding ought to have beene controlled or medled withall And as concerning matters of Religion and the property of our goods and estates there were divers things then likewise agreed upon by vote whereupon a conference was desired to have â—eene with the Lords But what interjections and rubs wee met withall by the way and how the Lords countervoted the precedency of our grievances and how our Speaker was taken away from amongst us and what an unhappy conclusion we had at the last the remembrance of it were a subject too sad to begin another Parliament wi hall Therefore Mr. Speaker I shall passe from what was done the last Parliament and come to what hath beene done since that Parliament ended M. Speaker there are some worthy Gentlemen now of this House that were members of the last Parliament that carried themselves in the matters and businesses then and there agitated and debated with great Wisedome and unexampled moderation But what had they at last for all their paines in attending the publique strince of the Common-wealth As soone as ever the Parliament was ended their Studies and Pockets were searched as if they had beene Fellons and Traytors and they committed to severall Goales with an intention I am confident of their utter ruine and destruction had they not fore-seene a danger approaching For Master Speaker if I be truly informed an information was drawne or at least directions given for the drawing of it against them in the Starre-Chamber Master Speaker there hath beene since the last Parliament a Synod and in that Synod a new Oath hath beene made and framed and enjoyned to be taken Master Speaker they might as wel have made a new Law and enjoyned the execution of that as enjoyned and urged the taking of the other not being established by Act of Parliament and in point of mischiefe the safety of the Common-wealth and the freedome and liberties of the Subject are more concerned in the doing of the one then if they had done the other The next exception I shall take to it is to the matter contained in the Oath it selfe Master Speaker they would have us at the very first dash sweare in a damnable Heresie that matters necessary to salvation are contained in the Discipline of our Church Whereas Master Speaker it hath ever beene the tenet of our Church that all things necessary to salvation are comprehended and contained in the Doctrine of our Church only And that hath alwayes beene used as an Argument untill this very present against Antidisciplinarians to stop their mouthes withall And therefore that for that reason they might with the lesse regret and offence conforme and submit themselves to the Discipline of our Church And Master Speaker for prevention in case the Wisedome of the State in this great Councell should at any time think fit to alter any thing in the government of our Church they would anticipate and fore-stall our judgements by making us sweare before-hand that wee would never give our consent to any alteration Nay Master Speaker they goe a little further for they would have us sweare that the government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops Deanes Archdeacons c. is Jure divino Their words are as of right it ought to stand Whereas Master Speaker wee meet not with the name of an Archbishop or a Deane or an Arch-deacon in all the new Testament And whatsoever may bee said of the Function of Bishops it is one thing But for their Jurisdiction it is meerely Humana institutione and they must thank the King for it As for their grosse absurd c. wherein they would have men sweare they know neither what nor how many fathome deepe There is neither Divinity nor charity in it and yet they would put that upon us Master Speaker what they meant and intended by this new Oath and their Booke of Canons and their Booke of Articles which they would have our Church-wardens sworne unto to enquire of and to present thereupon I must confesse I know not unlesse they had a purpose therein to blow up the Protestant Religion and all the faithfull professors of it and to advance their Hierarchie a step higher which I suppose we all feare is high enough already Master Speaker they have likewise in this Synod granted a benevolence but the nature of the things agrees not with the name for in plaine English it is six Subsidies to be paid by the Clergie in six yeares And the penalty they have imposed upon the refusers for none-payment is to be deprived of their Functions to be stripped of their free-hold and to be excommunicated and this Act of their Synod is not published amongst their Canons for which they might have some colourable seeming authority But it comes out in a Booke alone by it selfe in the Latine tongue supposing as I conceiue that Lay-men are as ignorant as they would have them And thus they think they dance in a Net And as in this so in most of their new Canons if they bee throughly considered any judicious man may easily discerne and perceive that they doe therein like Water-men that looke one way and rowe another they pretend one thing but intend nothing lesse And certainly Mr. Speaker in this they have flowne a high pitch For a Synod called together upon pretence of reconciling and setling Controversies and matters in Religion to take upon them the boldnesse thus out of Parliament to grant Subsidies and to meddle with mens Free-holds I dare say the like was never heard of before and they that durst doe this will doe worse if the current of their raging Tyrannie be not stopped in time Who are they Master Speaker that have countenanced and cherished Popery and Armianisme to that growth and height it is now come to in this Kingdome Who are they Master Speaker that have given encouragement to those that have boldly preached those damnable Heresies in our Pulpits Who are they Master Speaker that have given authoritry and licence to them that have published those Heresies in Print Who are they Master Speaker that of late dayes have beene advanced to any dignity or preferment in the Church but such as have beene notoriously suspitious in their Disciplines corrupt in their Doctrines and for the most part vitious in their
lives And who are they Master Speaker that have overthrown our two great Charters Magna Charta and Charta de Forresta What imposition hath beene laid downe or what Monopoly hath beene damned in any Court of Justice since the last Parliament Hath not ship-money Coale and conduct money and money for other Military charges beene collected and leavied with as great violence as ever they were in violation of our liberties confirmed unto us in our Petition of Right notwithstanding all our supplications and complaints the last Parliament And who are they Master Speaker that have caused all those dangerous Convulsions and all the desperate unnaturall bloudy distempers that are now in our body politique Master Speaker I will tell you a passage I heard from a Judge in the Kings-Bench There was a poore man committed by the Lords for refusing to submit unto a project and having attended a long time at the Kings-Bench Barre upon his Habeas Corpus and at last pressing very earnestly to be bayled The Judge said to the rest of his brethren Come Brothers said he let us Baile him for they begin to say in the Towne that the Judges have overthrowne the Law and the Bishops the Gospell Master Speaker I would not be misunderstood in what I have said for there are some of both functions and professions that I highly honour and reverence in my heart for their wisedomes and integrities But Master Speaker I may say it for I am sure we have all felt it that there are some of both functions and professions that have beene the Authors and causers of all the Miseries Ruines and Calamities that are now upon us Master Speaker This is the Age This is the Age Master Speaker that hath produced and brought forth Achitophells Hammans Woolsies Empsons and Dudlies Tricilians and Belknapps Vipers and Monsters of all sorts And I doubt not but when his Majestie shall be truly enformed of such matters as we are able to charge them withall wee shall have the same Justice against these which heretofore hath beene against their Predecessors in whose wicked steps they have trodden And therefore Master Speaker to put our selves into a way for our redresse and reliefe I conceive it were fit that a Committee might be named to take these Petitions that have now beene read and all others of the like nature into their considerations to the end that the parties grieved may have just repaire for their grievances and that out of them Lawes may be contrived and framed for the preventing of the like mischiefs for the future FINIS THE LORD DIGBYES SPEECH IN THE HOVSE of Commons to the Bill of Attainder of the Earle of STRATFORD the 21. Aprill 1641. Master Speaker WE are now upon the point of giving as much as in us lies the finall Sentence unto death or life on a great Minister of State and Peere of this Kingdome Thomas Earle of Strafford a name of hatred in the present age by his Practices and fit to be made a terror to future Ages by his punishment I have had the honour to bee imployed by the House in this great businesse from the first houres that it was taken into consideration it was a matter of great trust and I will say with confidence that I have served the House in it with industry according to my ability but with most exact faithfulnesse and secrecie And as I have hitherto discharged my duty to this House and to my Country in the progresse of this great Cause so I trust I shall doe now in the last period of it to God and to a good conscience I doe wish the peace of that unto my selfe and the blessings of Almighty God to mee and my posterity according as my judgement on the life of this man shall be consonant with my heart and the best of my understanding in all integrity I know well Master Speaker that by some things I have said of late whilest this Bill was in agitation I have raised some prejudices upon me in the cause Yea some I thank them for their plaine dealing have beene so free as to tell me that I suffered much by the backwardnesse I have shewne in this Bill of Attainder of the Earle of Strafford against whom I had beene formerly so keene so active Mr. Speaker I beg of you and the rest but a suspension of judgement concerning me till I have opened my heart unto you freely and clearly in this businesse Truely Sir I am still the same in my opinions and affections as unto the Earle of Srafford I confidently beleeve him the most dangerous Minister the most insupportable to free Subjects that can be character'd I beleeve his practises in themselves as high as tyrannicall as any Subject ever ventured on and the malignity of them hugely aggravated by those rare abilities of his whereof God hath given him the use but the Devill the application In a word I beleeve him stil that grand Apostate to the Common-wealth who must not expect to be pardoned it in this world till hee be dispatch'd to the other And yet let mee tell you Master Speaker my hand must not be to that dispatch I protest as my Conscience stands enformed I had rather it were off Let me unfold unto you the Mysterie Master Speaker I will not dwell much upon justifying unto you my seeming variance at this time from what I was formerly by putting you in mind of the difference betweene Prosecutors and Judges How misbecomming that fervour would be in a Judge which perhaps was commendable in a Prosecutor Judges we are now and must put on another Personage It is honest and noble to be earnest in order to the discovery of Truth but when that hath beene brought as farre as it can to light our judgement thereupon ought to be calme and cautious In prosecution upon probable grounds we are accountable onely for our industry or remisnesse but in judgement we are deeply responsable to God Almighty for its rectitude or obliquity In cases of life the Judge is Gods Steward of the parties bloud and must give a strict account for every drop But as I told you Master Speaker I will not insist long upon this ground of difference in mee now from what I was formerly The truth on 't is Sir the same ground whereupon I with the rest of the five to whom you first committed the consideration of my Lord of Strafford brought downe our opinion that it was fit he should be accused of Treason upon the same ground I was engaged with earnestnesse in his prosecution and had the same ground remained in that force of beliefe with me which till very lately it did I should not have beene tender in his condemnation But truly Sir to deale plainly with you that ground of our accusation that spurre to our prosecution and that which should be the basis of my judgement of the Earle of Strafford as unto Treason is to my understanding quite vanisht away
into the mouth of the Prophet to Abab to speak delusions to subvert the host of God The most vehement and trayterous encounter of Sathan is lively deci hered in the true example of Job where first I observe the dismologie he overthrowes not Jobs Magna Charta he dâ—sseizes him not of his inheritance nor dispossesses him of his Leases but only disrobes him of some part of his personall estate when he proceeds to infringe Jobs liberty he doth not pillorie him nor cut off his ears nor bore him through the tongue he only spots him with some ulcers here Sathan stains when these persons by their traiterous combinations envie the very bloud that runs unspilt in our veines and by obtruding bloody Acts damn'd in the last Parliament will give Sathan size ace and the Dice at Irish in inthralling the lives of the Subjects by their arbitrary Judicature I would not my Lords be understood to impute to the Judges and infallibilitie of error nor in impeaching these to traduce those whose candor and integrity shine with more admired lustre then their white furres who like trophees of virgin-virgin-justice stood fixt and unmov'd in the rapid torrent of the times while these like strawes and chips plai'd in the streams untill they are devolv'd in the Ocean of their deserved ruine No my Lords humanum est errare and the Law allowes Writs of Error and arrest of Judgement but where there is crassa ignorantia against their Oath against the Fundamentall Elementary and known Lawes of the Kingdome Nay my Lords where it is rather praemeditaâ—a malitia where there is an emulating policie who should raze and embessell the Records in the practique that are for the tender preservation of our liberties estates and lives seeking only to be glorious in a nationall destruction as if their safety were only involved in our ruine there I have command to pitty but not excuse them To kill a Judge quatenus a Judge is not Treason but to kill a Judge sitting in the place of Iudicature is Treason not for that the Law intends it out of any malice against the party but for the malice against the Law where then can an intensive or an extensive malice be exprest or implyed against the Law then the practicall dialect of these persons impeach't speaks with a known and crying accent The Benjamites slang stones with their left hands yet they would not misse a hairs breadth these extrajudiciall proceedings are slung with the left I meane they are sinistrious and imprint their blacke and blew marks more certaine and more fatall for that they may say Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris Though these things be familiar unto us yet I cannot but admire how this unproportionable body of Iudicature should swell up into such a vast and ulcerous dimension but why should I considering this excentrick motion of the body of the Law had his birth obscure resembling the tares that were sowed in the night time but here is the difference they were sowne by the enemy in the absence of the Master but these are sowne by the Grand-masters themselves purposely to overtop and choak the expected Harvest Innovations in Law and consequently in government creep in like heresies in Religion slily and slowly pleading it the end a sawcy and usurp't legitimacy by uncontrol'd prescription My Lords this is the first sitting and I have onely chalked out this deformed body of high Treason I have not drawn it at length least it might fright you from the further view thereof in conclusion it is the humble defire of the Commons that the parties impeached may be secured in their persons sequestred from this House from the Counsell Table and all places of Iudicature as being Civiliter mortui that they may put in their answers to the Articles ready now to be exhibited against them and that all such further proceedings may be secretly expedited as may be sutable to Iustice and the precedents of Parliaments so his Majesty may appeare in his triumphant goodnesse and indulgency to his people and his people may be ravisht in their dutifull and cheerefull obedience and loyalty to his Maiesty your Lordships may live in Records to Posterity as the instrumentall reformers of those corrupted times and that the Kingdome and Common-wealth may pay an amiable sacrifice in retribution and acknowledgement of his Maiesties multiplyed providence for our preservation herein Articles of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses in the Parliament assembled against Sir Ric Bolton Kt. Lord Chancellor of Ireland John Lord B. of Derry and Sir Gerard Lowther Kt. L. Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Common-Pleas and Sir George Radcliffe Kt. in maintenance of the accusation whereby they and every of them stand charged with high Treason FIrst that they the said Sir Richard Bolton Knight Lord Chancellor of Ireland John L. Bishop of Derry Sir Ger. Lowther Kt. Lord Chief Justice of his Majesties Court of Common-Pleas and Sir George Radcliffe Knight intending the destruction of the Common-wealth of this Realm have trayterously confederated and conspired together to subvert the Fundamentall Laws and Government of this Kingdom and in pursuance thereof they and every of them have trayterously contrived introduced and exercised an arbitrary and tyrannicall Government against Law thorowout this Kingdom by the countenance and assistance of Thomas Earl of Strafford then chief Governour of this Kingdom II. That they and every of them the said Sir Richard Bolton Kt. L. Chancellor of Ireland John L. Bishop of Derry Sir Gerard Lowther Kt. L. chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Sir George Radcliffe Kt. have trayterously assumed to themselves and every one of them regall power over the goods persons lands and liberties of his Majesties Subjects in this Realm and likewise have maliciously perfidiously and trayterously given declared pronounced and published many false unjust and erroneous opinions Judgements Sentences and Decrees in extrajudiciall manner against Law and have perpetrated practised and done many other trayterous and unlawfull acts and things whereby as well divers mutinies seditions and rebellions have been raised as also many thousands of his Majesties liege people of this Kingdom have been ruined in their goods lands liberties and lives and many of them being of good quality and reputation have been utterly defamed by Pillory mutilation of members and other infamous punishments By means whereof his Majesty and the Kingdom have been deprived of their service in Juries and other publike imployments and the generall trade and traffique of this Island for the most part destroyed and his Majesty highly damnified in his customes and other revenues III. That they the said Sir Rich. Bolton John L.B. of Derry Sir Ger. Lowther K. and Sir G. Radcliffe and every of them the better to preserve themselves and the said Earl of Strafford in these and other trayterous courses have laboured to subvert the rights of Parliament and the ancient course of Parliamentary proceedings all which
this next Michaelmas Let thither also reach their prescribed time for liberty And that till then their protections shall remain in as full vertue and authority as if the Parliament were actually sitting To the Right Honorable the LORD Deputie SHewing that in all ages past since the happy subiection of this Kingdome to the imperiall Crown of England it was and is a principall study and Princely care of his Maiesty and his most Noble Progenitors Kings and Queens of England and Ireland to the vast expence of Treasure and bloud that their loyall and dutifull people of this land of Ireland being now for the most part derived from the Brittish Ancestor should be governed according to the municipiall and fundamentall lawes of England that the Statute of Magna Charta or the great Charter for the liberties of England and other laudable lawes and Statutes were in severall Parliaments here enacted and declared that by the means thereof and of the most prudent and benigne government of his Maiestie and his royall Progenitors this Kingdome was untill of late in its growth to a flourishing estate whereby the said people were hertofore enabled to answer their humble and naturall desires to comply with his Maiesties Royall and Princely occasions by the free gift of 150000 l. ster and likewise by another gift of 120000 l. ster more during the government of the Lord Viscount Faulk-land and after by the gift of 40000. l. and their free and chearfull gift of 6. entire Subsidies in the 10. year of his Maiesties Reign which to comply with his Maiesties then occasions signified to the then H. of Commons they did allow should amount in the collections unto 250000. l. although as they confidently beleeve if the sayd Subsidies had not been levied in a moderate Parliamentary way they would not have amounted to much more than half the said sum besides the four entire Subsidies granted in this present Parliament So it is may it please your Lordship that by the occasion of the ensuing and other grievances and innovations though to his Maiestie no considerable profit this Kingdome is reduced to that extreme and universall poverty that the same is now lesse able to pay a Subsidie then it was heretofore to satisfie all the before recited great payments and his Maiesties most faithfull people of the same do conceive great fears that the grievances and the consequences therof may hereafter be drawn into precedents to be perpetuated upon their posterity which in their great hopes and strong belief they are perswaded is contrary to his Maiesties Royall and Princely intention towards his said people some of which said grievances are as followeth I. First the generall and apparent decay of Trades occcasioned by the new and illegall raysing of the book of Rates and Impositions as xii d. a piece custome for Hides bought for 3.4 or 5. s. and many other heavie Impositions upon native and other commodities exported and imported by reason thereof and of the extream usage and sensures Marchants are beggered and both disinabled and discouraged to trade and some of the honorable persons who gain thereby are often Iudges and parties and that in conclusion his Maiesties profit therby is not considerably advanced II. Secondly the arbitrary decision of all civill causes and controversies by paper petitions before the Lord Lievetenant and Lord Deputy and infinite other Iudicators upon references from them derived in the nature of all actions determinable at the Common-law not limited unto certain times seasons causes and things whatsoever and the consequence of such proceedings by receiving imomoderate and unlawfull fees by Secretaries Clerkes Pursivants Serjants at Armes and otherwise by which kinde of proceedings his Majesty loseth a considerable part of his Revenue upon originall writs and otherwise and the Subject loseth the benefit of his writ of error Bill of reversall vouchers and other legall and just advantages and the ordinary course and Courts of Justice declined III. Thirdly the proceedings in civill causes at the Councell boord contrary to the law and great Charter and not mitted to any certain time or season IV. Fourthly that the Subject is in all the materiall parts thereof denyed the benefit of the principall graces and more especially of the Statute of Limitations of the 21. Jan. granted by his Majesty in the 4 year of this Reign upon great advice of the Counsell of England and Ireland and for great consideration and th n published in all the Courts of Dublin and in all the Courts of this Kingdome in open Assizes whereby all persons do take notice that contrary to his Majesties plous intention his Subiects of this Land have not enioyed the benefit of his Maiesties Princely promise thereby made V. Fiftly the extraiudiciall avoyding of Letters Patents of estates of a very great part of his Maiesties Subiects under the great Seale the publique faith of the Kingdome by private opinions delivered at Councell Boord without legall Evictions of their estates contrary to the Law and without precedent or example of any former age VI. Sixtly the Proclamation for the sole exemption and uttering of Tobacco which is bought at very low Rates and uttered at high and excessive Rates by means wherof thousands of Families within this Kingdome and of his Maiesties subiects in severall Islands and other parts of the West Judies as your Petitioners are informed are destroyed and the most part of 〈◊〉 Coyne of this Kingdome is ingrossed into particular hands Insomuch that your Petitioners do conceive that the profit arising and ingrossed thereby doth surmount his Maiesties Revenues certaine and casuall within this Kingdome and yet his Maiestie receiveth but very little profit by the same VII Seventhly the unusuall and unlawfull increasing of Monopolies to the advantage of few to the disprofit of his Maiesty and the impoverishment of his people VIII Eighthly the extream and cruell usage of certain late Commissioners and other towards the Brittish Farmers and Inhabitants of the City and County of London-derry by meanes whereof the worthy plantation of that Country is almost destroyed and the Inhabitants are reduced to great poverty and many of them forced to forsake the Country the same being the first and most usefull Plantation in the large Province of Vlster to the great weakning of the Kingdome in this time of danger the sayd Plantation being the principall strength of those parts IX Ninthly the late erection of the Court of high Commission for causes Ecclesiasticall in these necessitous times the proceedings of the sayd Court in many causes without legall warrant and yet so supported as prohibitions have not been obtained though legally sought for and the excessive fees exacted by the ministers thereof and the incroaching of the same upon the iurisdiction of other Ecclesiasticall Courts of this Kingdome X. Tenthly the exorbitant and Barbarous Fees and pretended Customes exacted by the Clergie against the Law some of which have beene formerly represented to your Lordship XI Eleventhly the
Petitioners do most heartily bemone that his Maiesties services and profits are much more impaired than advanced by the grievances aforesaid And the Subsidies granted in the last Parliament having much increased his Maiesties Revenue by the buying in of Grants and otherwise and that all his Maiesties debts then due in this Kingdome were satisfied out of the sayd Subsidies and yet his Maiesty is of late as your Petitioners have beene inform'd in the House of Commons become indebted in this Kingdome in great sums and they do therefore humbly beseech that an exact account may be sent to his Maiesty how and in what manner his treasure issued XII Twelfthly the Petitioners do humbly coâ—ceive great and iust fears at a Proclamation published in this Kingdome in Anno Dom. 1635. prohibiting men of quality or estate for to depart this Kingdome into England without the Lord Deputies License whereby the Subiects of this Kingdome are hindered and interrupted from free accesse and addresse to his sacred Maiesty and Privie Counsell of England to declare their iust grievances or to obtaine remedie for them in such sort as their Ancestors have done in all ages since the Reigne of King Henry the second and great Fees exacted for every of the said Licenses XIII Thirteenthly that of late his Maiesties late Attourny generall hath exhibited informations against many ancient Burroughs of this Kingdome into his Mai sties Court of Exchequer to shew by what warrant the sayd Burroughes who heretofore sent Burgesses to the Parliament should send the sayd Burgesses to the Parliament And thereupon for want of an answer the sayd Priviledge of sending Burgesses was seized by the sayd Court which proceedings were altogether Coram non Judice and contrary to the Lawes and Priviledges of the House of Parliament and if way should be given thereunto might tend to the subversion of Parliaments and by consequence to the ruine and destruction of the Common-wealth and that the House of Commons hath hitherto in this present Parliament bin deprived of the advice and Counsell of many profitable and good members by means thereof XIV Fourteenthly that by the powerfulnesse of some ministers of State in this Kingdome the Parliament in its members and actions hath not his naturall freedome XV. Fifteenthly that the fees taken in all the Courts of Iustice in this Kingdome both Ecclesiasticall and Civill and by other inferiour Officers and Ministers are so immoderately high that it is an unspeakable burthen to all his Maiesties Subiects of this who are not able to subsist except the same be speedily remedied and reduced to such a moderation as may stand with the condition of this Realme And lastly That the Gentry Merchants and other his Maiesties Subiects of this Kingdome are of late by the grievances and pressures aforesayd and other the like very neere to ruine and destruction And Farmers of Customes Customers Waiters Searchers Clearks of unwarrentable proceedings Pursevants and Gaolers and sundry others very much inriched whereby and by the slow redresse of the Petitioners grievances his Maiesties most faithfull and dutifull people of this Kingdome do conceive great feares that their readinesse approved upon all occasions hath not been of late rightly represented to his Maiesty For Remedy whereof the said Petitioners do humbly and of Right beseech your Lordship that the grievances and pressures may be speedily redressed And if your Lordship shall not think sit to afford us present relief therein that your Lordship may admit a select Committee of this House of persons un interessed in the benefit arising the aforesaid grievances to be licensed by your Lordship to repaire to his sacred Maiesty in England for to pursue the same and to obtain fitting Remedies for their aforesaid and other iust grievances and oppressions and upon all iust and honorable occasions they will without respect of particular interest or profit to be raised thereby most humbly and readily in Parliament extend their utmost indeavours to serve his Maiesty and comply with his Royall and Princely occasions And shall pray c. A Speech against the Judges per Ignotum quendam Mr. Speaker IT was a custome among the Romans who as by their power they once gave laws so by the happy successe of their long flourishing Government might they well give examples to all the world that in their Senates the yongest men spake first partly that they might not have their weaker notions anticipated by the more knowing Senators And partly that the Senate might not be diverted from the mature resolutions of the more ancient by the interposition of the younger men They as all free States ever allowing free members to expresse themselves according to their severall capacities And me thinks 't was a happy Method So your opinions and inclinations of the Assembly being discovered and ripened to resolution by such gradations the sentences of the Sages sounded as Iudgements not orations their wisedome and gravity put a seasonable Period to others perhaps otherwise endlesse discourses Their precedent encourges me who worst may to break the Ice Children can lay their fingers on the Sore point out their pain and Infant Graduates in Parliament may groan out the grievances of a diseased Common-wealth but they must be Doctors in the Art of Government that can apply apt remedies to recover it Mr. Speaker Ancient and approved hath been that parallell of the body politique with the body naturall 'T is the part of their Patients in either distempered to impart freely their griefs to the Physitians of the body or state if they expect a cure This Common-wealth is or should be but one body This house the great Physitian of all our maladies and alas Mr. Speaker of what afflicted part shall we poor Patients complain first Or rather of what shall we not complain Are we not heart-sick Is there in us that which God requires unity purity and singulari y of heart Nay is not Religion the soul of this body so miserably distracted that I speak it with terrour of heart 't is to be feared there is more confusion of religions amongst us then there was of tongues at the subversion of Babell And is it not then high time that we understand one another that we were reduc'd to one Faith one Government Sir Is the Head whole The sear of Government and Justice the Fountain from whose sweet influence all the inferiour members of this body should receive both vigour and motion Nay hath not rather a generall Apoplexy or Palsie taken oâ—shaken all our members Are not some dead Others buried quick Some dismembred all disordered by the diversion of the course of Justice Is the Liver Natures Exchequer open from whose free distribution each limb may receive his proper Nutriment or rather is it not wholly obstructed Our property taken from us So that it may properly be said of us Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra our Ancestors drunk the juyce of their own Vines reap'd and eat the fruit
the making of this Act and as if this Act had never been had or made Saving alwayes unto all and singular persons and bodies politique and corporall their Heirs and Successors others than the said Earl and his heirs and such as claim by from or under him all such right title and interest of in and to all and singular such of the said Lands Tenements and Hereditaments as he they or any of them had before the first day of this present Parliament any thing herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding Provided that the passing of this present Act and his Maiesties assent thereunto shall not be any determination of this present Sessions of Parliament but that this present Sessions of Parliament and all Bills and matters whatsoever depending in Parliament and not fully enacted or determined And all Statutes and Acts of Parliament which have their continuance untill the end of this present Session of Parliament shall remain continue and be in full force as if this Act had not been The first Speech concerning the the right of Bishops to sit in Parliament May 21. 1641. My Lords I Shall take the boldnesse to speak a word or two upon this subject first as it is in it self then as it is in the consequence For the former I think he is a great stranger in Antiquity that is not well acquainted with that of their sitting here they have done thus and in this manner almost since the conquest and by the same power and the same right the other Peers did and your Lordships now do and to be put from this their due so much their due by so many hundred yeers strengthned and confirmed and that without any offence nay pretence of any seems to me to be very severe if it be jus I dare boldly say it is summum That this hinders their Ecclefiasticall vocation an argument I heare much of hath in my apprehension more of shadow then in substance in it if this be a reason sure I am it might have been one six hundred yeers ago A Bishop my Lords is not so circumscribed within the circumference of his Diocesse that his sometimes absence can be termed not in the most strict sense a neglect or hindrance of his duty no more than that of a Zievetenant from his Count y they both have their subordinate Ministers upon which their influences fall though the distance be remote Besides my Lords the lesser must yeeld to the greater good to make wholesome and good Lawes for the happy and well regulating of the Church and Common-wealth is certainly more advantagious to both then the want of the personall execution of their office and that but once in three years and then peradventure but a moneth or two can be prejudiciall to either I will go no further to this which experience hath done so fully so demonstratively And now my Lords by your Lordships good leave I shall speak to the consequence as it reflects both on your Lordships and my Lords the Bishops Dangers and inconveniencies are ever best prevented è longinquo this president comes neer to your Lordships and such a one mutato nomine de vobis Pretences are never wanting nay sometimes the greatest evils appeare in the most faire and specious out-sides witnesse the Shipmony the most abominable the most illegall thing that ever was and yet this was painted over with colour of the Law what Bench is secure if to alleage be to convine and which of your Lordships can say then he shall continue a member of this House when at one blow twenty six are cut off It then behoves the Neighbour to look about him cum proximus ardet Vcalegon And for the Bishops my Lords in what condition will you leave them The House of Commons represents the meanest person so did the Master his slave but they have none to do so much for them and what justice can tie them to the observation of those Lawes to whose constitution they give no consent the wisdome of former times gave proxies unto this House meerly upon this ground that every one might have a hand in the making of that which he had an obligation to obey This House could not represent therefore proxies in roome of persons were most justly allowed And now my Lords before I conclude I beseech your Lordships to cast your eyes upon the Church which I know is most dear and tender to your Lordships you will see her suffer in her principall members and deprived of that honor which here and throughout all the Christian World ever since Christianity she constantly hath enjoyed for what Nation or Kingdome is there in whose great and publike assemblies and that from her beginning she had not some of hers if I may not say as essentiall I am sure I may say as integrall parts thereof and truly my Lords Christianity cannot alone boast of this or challenge it only as hers even Heathenisme claims an equall share I never read of any of them Civill or Barbarous that gave not thus much to their Religion so that it seems to me to have no other originall to flow from no other spring than Nature it selfe But I have done and will trouble your Lordships no longer how it may stand with honor and justice of this House to passe this Bill I most humbly submit unto your Lordships the most proper and only Juges of them both The second Speech about the lawfulnesse and convenieny of their intermedling in Temorall Affaires My Lords I Shall not speake to the Preamble of the Bill that Bishops and Clergie men ought not to intermeddle in temporall offairs For truly my Lords I cannot bring it under any respect to be spoken of Ought is a word of relation and must either refer to humane or divine Law to prove the lawfulnesse of their intermedling by the former would be to no more purpose than to labour to convince that by reason which is evident to sense It is by all acknowledged The unlawfulnesse by the latter the bill by no means admits of for it excepts Universities and such persons as shall have honour descend upon them And your Lordships know that circumstance and chance alter not the nature and essence of a thing nor can except any particular from an universall proposition by God himself delivered I will therefore take these two as granted first that they ought by our Law to intermeddle in temporall affairs secondly that from doing so they are not inhibited by the Law of God it leaves it at least as a thing indifferent And now my Lords to apply my self to the businesse of the day I shall consider the conveniency and that in the severall habitudes thereof but very briefly first in that which it hath to them meerly as men qua tales then as parts of the Common-wealth Thirdly from the bâ—st manner of constituting laws and lastly from the practice of all times both Christian and Heathen Homo sum nihil humanum
called them that have been the Authors of those Evils and the Troublers of our Israel doe go unpunished it will never be better with us for now during Parliament like frozen Snakes their poyson dryes up but let the Parliament dissolve and then their poyson melts and scatters abroad and doth more hurt then ever What then must be done Why what the Playster cannot doe must be done by the Law Ense recidendum est ne pars sincera trahatur I can not better English it then in the words of a King Let them be cut of in their wickednesse that have framed mischiefe as a Law My conclusion Mr. Speaker is this Let the wofull violation of the State of Monopolies and the Petition of Right be made Felony or Premunire at the least but yet in the interim let them be made examples of punishment who have been the Authors of all those miseries according to the Counsell of Salomon Take away the wicked from before the King and his Throne shall be Established in Righteousnesse To the right Honorable the Lords Spirituall and Temporall in the high Court of Parliament assembled The humble Petition of Thomas Earle of Strafford his Majesties Lievtenant Generall of Ireland Most humbly sheweth THat in obedience to your Lordships order and in due respect and acknowledgment of your noble justice you vouchsafed this your Petitioner the other day he now expresseth in writing that humble request that he then made concerning the examining of witnesses which with your Lordships favor was this 1 That there might be no admission of any examination of witnesses in the cause till your Petitioner hath put in his answer to the charge of Treason exhibited against him 2 That after answer no witnesses should be examined before your Petitioner had the names of such witnesses delivered unto him by your Lordships order to the intent as by his Councell he should be advised he might either except against such witnesses or crosse-examine them 3 That before either of these two points should be over-ruled against your Petitioners your Lordships would be honorably pleased to heare him by his Councell at the Barre to shew cause why he humbly conceives his desires herein to be just and reasonable Finally your Petitioner humbly craves your Lordships remission if his Petition be not so formall as it ought and might be had he the help of Councell And shall ever with all expression of duty and thankfulnesse retaine in full memory your Lordships most honourable Justice and noble respects to your Petitioner the other day and pay your Lordships the duties of this whole life for the same and alwayes and unfainedly pray for your most noble Lordships increase of all everlasting honour and happinesse Concerning the Prices of Wine c. Die Mercurii Maii 26. 1641. UPon the whole matter of the Report It was resolved upon the question 1 That the Patent for the payment of 40 shillings per Tun on the Wines by the Merchants is illegall in the creation and a grievance 2 That the imposition of a penny on a quart on French Wines and two pence on a quart on Spanish Wines is a grievance 3 That the Patent of the imposition of 40 shillings per Tun is a grievance in the execution 4 That Alderman Abel and Master Richard Kilvert are the principall Projectors both in the creation and execution of this illegall imposition of 40 shill per Tun. Resolved upon the question That there shal be a Bill prepared declaring the offences of Alderman Abel and Richard Kilvert to the end they may be made exemplary Resolved c That a select Committee be named to examine who were the Referrers Advisers Sharers Complotters and Contractors and those that have received any bribe or benefit by this Patent and who drew the Patent Resolved c. That the Proclamation dated the 15th of July in the 14th yeare of the King prohibiting the Wine-Coopere to buy and sell Wine is illegall and against the liberty of the Subject Resolved c. That the Decree-made in the Star-chamber in December 1633. prohibiting retailing Vintners to dresse meat in their own houses to sell againe to guests is illegall and against the liberty of the Subject Sir Thomas Rowe his Speech at the Councell Table touching Brasse-Mony or against Brasse-Money with many notable observations thereupon July 1640. MY Lords since it hath pleased this Honorable table to command amongst others my poore opinion concerning this waighty proposition of money I must humbly crave pardon if with that freedome that becometh my duty to my good and gracious Master and my obedience to your great commands I deliver it so I cannot my Lords but assuredly conceive this intended project of infeobling the Coyn will trench very far both into the honor of Justice and profit of my Royall Master All estates do stand Magis faâ—â—a quam vi as Tacitus saith of Rome And wealth in every Kingdome is one of the essentiall marks of their greatnesse and is best expressed in the measures and purity of their moneys Hence it was that so long as the Romane Empire a pattern of the best Government held up their glory or greatnesse they ever maintained with little or no change the standard of their Coyn but after the loose time of Commodus had led in need by excesse and so by that shift of changing the standard the Majesty of that Empire fell by degrees And as Vopiscus saith the steps by which that State descended were visible most by the generall alteration of their Coynes and there is no surer simptomes of consumption in State then the corruption of the Money What Renowne is left to the Posterity of Edw. 1. in amending the standard both in puritie and weight from that of elder and barbarous times it must needs stick as a blemish upon Princes that do the contrary Thus we see it was with Hen. 6. who after he had begun with abaiting the measures he afterwards fell to abasing the matter and grâ—nted Commission to Missend and others to practise Alcamie to serve his Mint The extremity the State in generall felt by this agrievance besides the dishonor it layd upon the person of the King was not the least disadvantage his disloyall kinsman tooke to ingrace himselfe into the peoples favours to his Soveraigns Reign When Hen. the 8th had gained as much of power and glory abroad of love and obedience at home as ever any he suffered a losse by this Rock When his Daughter Queene Elizabeth came to the Crowne she was happier in Councell to amend that error of her Father for in a memoriall of the Lord Treasurer Burleighs his hand I finde that he and Sir Thomas Smith a grave and learned man advised the Queen that it was the Crown and the true wealth of her selfe and people to reduce the standard to the antient party and purity of her great Grandfather Edward the 4th and that it was not the short end of wits nor starting holes
submit it to your Lordships wisdome and goodnesse and seeing there is no malignity in it nor prejudice to the state That your Lordship would vouchsafe me your favour and protection and preserve me from perishing Callis January 11. 1640. Your Lordships most humble and faithfull though much distressed servant Fran. Windebanck The Lord Andevers speech concerning the pacification the 6 of March. My Lords I Did lately move your Lordships that the breach of the pacification might be speedily reviewed as the â—num necessarium and truly my opinion at that time is yet nothing altered although upon better thoughts me thinks it would first be known who did actually engage us in these fruitles dissentions and so derive the mischiefe from some originall For my Lords the kingdome cannot now long stant at gaze or undergoe new burthens Wherefore what is to be done if you intend it should prosper must presently receive life from the whole people otherwise we shall expire in a dream and when the successe differs from expectation it is not enough to cry quod non put ar am My Lords the wiseman saies there is a proper season for all things under the Sun and we often finde the experiment in naturall bodies which are voluntarily weakned to recover strength yet with a restriction to such bounds and limits as the Physitian prescribes himself and truly I think it is your Lordships case at this point either to consider what should further be done then is already or else how to get out of those labyrinths we now are in lest the words of the Psalmist come home to our selves Vendidisti populum sinepretio My Lords I am confident the House of Commons doth throughly see both into the prejudice and vast expence that these two armies lay upon the land and undoubtedly so many Gentlemen of worth as sit there will have tender eyes upon the Commonweale It will therefore become your Lordships to second them in your way and whilest they apply to publique wounds the care of this house may search the intestines for if they be not cleansed it will be but a superficiall Cure and break out againe My Lords it seems the Earle of Strafford and the Archbishop of Cant. have gone the high waies of iniquity and every one knows how to trace them but Mines under ground are most considerable which unlesse they be likewise found out may at any time spring and supplant the whole fabrick of all our labours Let us then examine this fantastick warre ab initio lest as the Duke of Burgundy made a few Sheepskins the cause of his quarrel so we shall find those sheets of paper sent under the name of a Liturgy and book of Canons were but the Mopsas of the story to divert our eyes from the main designe Therefore my humble motion shall be for a selected Committee of no great number who may have power from the House to begin ab origne mali revise every mans negotiations who was either an Actor or Counsellor since the first appearance of those troubles in Scotland and that they may examine the Scottish Counsell upon such Articles as the heavy pressure of this Kingdome shall upon common fame administer unto them By the Major The Order of the House of Commons to the Lord Major for the due observing the Sabbath day IT is this day ordered by the House of Commons the Aldermen and Citizens that serve for the City of London shall intimate to the Lord Major from this House that the Statutes for the due observing of the Sabbath be put in execution And it is further ordered that the like intimation from this House be made to the Justices of Peace in all the Counties of England and Wales And the Knights of the Shire of the severall Counties are to take care that the Copies of this Order be accordingly sent to the Justices of Peace in the severall Counties FOasmuch as the Lords Day commonly called Sunday is of late much broken and prophaned by a disorderly sort of People in frequenting Taverns Ale-houses and the like and putting to sale victuall and other things and exercising unlawfull games and pastimes to the great dishonor of God and reproach of Religion whereof the House of Commons now assembled hath been pleased to take notice and by their order intimation hath been given unto me that the Statutes for the due observing of the Sabbath be put in execution These are therefore in his Majesties name to will and require you forthwith upon the sight hereof that you give strict charge and command unto all and every the Churchwardens and Constables within your Ward that from henceforth they doe not permit or suffer any person or persons in the time of divine service or at any other time upon the Sunday to be drinking or playing in any Tavern Inne Tobacco-shop Ale-house or other victualling house whatsoever nor suffer any Fruiterer Milkwoman or Hearbwomen to stand with fruit milk herbs or any other Victuall or Wares in any the streets lanes or allies within your ward or any other wayes to put those things or any other to sale upon the Sunday at any time of the day or in the evening not to permit or suffer any Person or Persons to use or exercise upon that day any unlawfull exercises and Pastimes within your ward and that expresse charge be given to every keeper of any Tavern Inne Cookshouse Tobaccohouse Alehouse or any other tipler or victualler whatsoever within your ward that hereafter they receive not or suffer to remain any person or persons whatsoever as their guests or customers to tiple eate drinke or take Tobacco in their houses upon any Sunday other then that Inholders may receive their ordinary guests or Travellers and such like who come to remain for a time in their Inne for dispatch of their necessary businesse And if any person or persons shall be found offending in the premisses that then they be brought before me the Lord Major or some other of his Majesties Justices of Peace to the end they may receive such punishment as to justice shall appertaine And hereof not to faile as you will answer the contrary at your perill This thirteenth of Aprill 1641. Occasionall Speeches made in the House of Commons this Parliament 1641. Concerning Religion Novemb. 12. 1640. Mr. SPEAKER IT was well observed by my Lord Keeper that a multiplying Glasse may deceive but the right English Glasse of the Common-wealth never In which I discern so comely and active a Motion that out of all question some great work is here to be done some thing extraordinary is here to be decreed or else God and the King beyond all our expectations at the last breath would never so soon have cemented us again to meet in in this great Councell Mr. Speaker What an happy sight will it be to see the King and his People accord A threefold cord is not easily broken and I hope King Charles his threefold Kingdomes shall never
be so divided as to breake in peeces Mr. Speaker God knows the divisions of great Brittain have halfe untwisted our long Union and I feare that God is angry with our Nationall lukewarme temper The zeale of his house hath not kindled that flame in our hearts which our seeming good actions have blown abroad much like the walking of a Ghost or livelesse body which affrights many but pleaseth no beholder Omnia honesta opera voluntas inchoat It is the heart or will which gives the beginning to every good action and I hope our constant resolutions will be to settle religion in his splendor and purity by pulling Dagon from the Altar and whipping the Buyers and Sellers out of the Temple Pars prima bonitatis est velle fieribonum The first part of goodnesse is to have the will of being good God knows all our hearts and takes notice of our inward resolutions and for what ends we come hither if to propagate and advance his glory and Gospel blessed shall this Parliament and Nation be and then most happy we whose God is the Lord all things shall work together for our good For Mr. Speaker he that turns the hearts of Kings like the rivers of waters will make the King and his kingdomes all of one mind Long live King Charles the Great and his numerous Royall Issue to defend the true faith which will protect and keep him and his safe in his fathers Throne Never King gave more full content to his people than his Majesty now hath done and I hope never subjects came with better hearts and affections to their King and Countrey then we doe let it then appeare M. Speaker by our outward actions and practise that our inward obedience both of heart and hand is true loyall and currant coyn not false nor counterfeit for Nemo veraciter dicit volo qui non facit illud quod potest no man truly saies I am in will and heart resolved unlesse according to his ability he endeavor to perform his resolution which to speak the hearts of us all in this renowned Senate I am confident is fully fixed upon the true reformation of all disorders innovations in Church or religion and upon the well uniting and close rejonting of the now dis-located great Brittaine For let me tell you Mr. Speaker that God be thanked it is but out of joynt and may be yet well set by the skilfull Chirurgions of this Honorable House to whose loving and Christian care and to whose tender and upright hands I leave it onely with this Aviso let brotherly love continue and be constant and of good courage for the keeper of Israel who neither slumbers nor sleeps who delivered us from Romes November powder-blast will no doubt still preserve his Annoynted our gracious King and us his loyall Subjects from all dangers of fire or sword For Si Deus nobiscum quis contra nos Upon the Scotch Treaty January 21. 1640. Mr. Speaker THere is no malady more destructive to the naturall or politick body than the mal Caduque or falling sicknesse nor is there any Physitian or compound more to be esteemed than that which can cure it in either M. Speaker this unknown remedy if we be wise to apply it and take the receipt with all the ingredients without any scruple of distast I am confident the recovery will be perfect and the whole body of great Britaine safe and sound Mr. Speaker the happy Union of Scotland and England hath thus long ever since flourished in interchangeable blessings of plenty and mutuall love and friendship But of late by what fatall disasters and dark underminings we are divided and severed into Scotish and English Armies let their well composed preambles speake for mee which I wish were printed as an excellent embleme of brotherly love that discovers who hath wounded us both and how each should strive to help the other in distresse seeing their and our Religion and Lawes lie both at stake together Thinke of it what you will Noble Senate their subsistence is ours we live or die rise or fall together Let us then finde out the Boutefaux of this Prelaticall warr and make them to pay the shot for their labour who no doubt long for nothing more than that we should breake with them who worship but one God and serve but one Master with us Nor need we feare that they intend to dispossesse the English of their inheritance or freehold being ready to withdraw their forces upon reasonable terms referring their demands of reparation for losses to the justice and courtesie of this House which I assure my self will give both a bountifull cheerfull and speedy supply in this case of necessity for Bis dat qui citò dat is the best motto or motion at this time Upon the Impeachment of the Lord Strafford and Canterbury c. February 26. 1640. Mr. Speaker I Take it we have now sate in this great Councell 15. or 16. weeks a longer time than any Parliament hath done these many yeers God hath given us a faire and blessed opportunity if we lay hold of it and call to minde the best Motto for a Parliament which is Non quam diu sed quà m benè Mr. Speaker We have had thus long under our Feathers many Estriges Egges which as some observe are longest in hatching but once hatched can digest Iron and we have many Irons in the fire and have hammered some upon the anvill of justice into nayles but we have not struck one stroak with the right hammer nor riveted one nayle to the head Mr. Speaker God forbid we should be cruell or vindicative to any but let us take heed we be not so to our selves and them the sent us if we doe not mend our pace and so run as we may obtaine Mr. Speaker I hope we shall make good the work we have undertaken and win that prize and goale we aime at else if we faile in this our pursuit of justice it is time to look about us for then I feare that we our selves shall hardly scape scot-free It will not be our fixe Subsidies that will help us unlesse we be good husbands and cut off all superfluous charges disband all needlesse Armies and dis-arme all Papists and banish all Priests and Jesuits and then we shall thrive and prosper Provided alwayes that we deny our selves and trust not too much in the arme of flesh but be carefull to preserve brotherly love and concord lest discord and faction break divide and ruine us but I hope God will make us all of one minde and one publick spirit that as we are descended from that ancient and noble English quiver we may prove our selves a right sheafe of English Arrows well united well feathered and sharply piled for publick use stoutly to defend and preserve the publick good and safety of this famous Iland of great Britaine and that is my humble prayer and motion Upon the Straffordian knot March 10.
Lord Sheffeild very differing from all that went before it being left out that they should enquire per sacramentum bonorum legalium hominum and to heare and determine secundum leges Angliae Relation being had only to the instructions which were the first instructions we can finde were sent thither though I told your Lordships there were some mentions of some In 1. Jac. I shall not trouble your Lordships with these Instructions nor with the other that followed in 14. Jacobi to the same man nor in 16 Jacobi when a new Commission was granted to my Lord Sunderland nor indeed with any till we come to these present Instructions and Commissions under which that part of the Kingdome groans and languisheth My Lord of Strafford came to that government in Decemb 4. Caroli and since the Commission hath been three severall times removed in the fist year in March in the eighth in Novemb. in the thirteenth year of his Majesties reigne into that Commission of 8. and 13. a new clause served in for the granting sequestring and establishing Possessions according to instructions crowded in a Masse of new exorbitant and intolerable power though our complaint be against this Commission it selfe and against the whole body of those instructions I shall not mispend your Lordships pretious time in desiring to have the whole read but shall presume to trouble your Lordships only with five or six of the instructions that by the vast irregularity of those your Lordships may judge how insupportable the whole burthen is I shall not trouble your Lordships with the nineth Instruction though it be but short which introduceth that miseram servitutem ubi jus est vagum incognitum by requiring an obedience to such ordinances and determinations as be or shall be made by the Councell Table or high Commission Court A grievance my Lords howsoever consuetudo peccantum claritas nobilitaverit hanc culpam of so transcendent a nature that your Lordships noble Justice will provide a remedy for it with no lesse care then you would rescue the life and blood of the Common-wealth Read the 19.22 23 24.29 and 30 I will not trouble your Lordships with reading more there being among them in the whole 58. Instructions scarce one that is not against or besides the Law Whether His Majesty may caution out a part of his Kingdome to be tryed by Commission though according to the rules of Law since the whole Kingdome is under the Laws and government of the Courts established at Westminster and by this reason the severall parts of the kingdome may be deprived of that priviledge will not be now the question that his Majesty cannot by Commission erect a new Court of Chancery or aproceeding according to the rules of the Star-chamber is most cleare to all who have read Magna Charta which allowed no proceedings nisiper legale judicium Parium per legem terrae for our Court of Chancery here by long usage and proscription is grown to be as it were lex terrae But my Lords the thircieth Instruction goes further and erects such an Empire such a Dominion as shall be lyable to no contrary The Courts of Westminster my Lords have superintendences over all inferiours Courts to regulate their jurisdictions if they exceed their limits As to hold Plea of greater value or the like in his exercise of Jurisdiction the Judges are sworn to grant and send prohibitions and to stop the granting of these prohibitions or to neglect them when they are granted is the greatest and boldest scorn of the Law and the Law-makers that can be imagined The Kings Courts at Westminster having been alwaies of that awfull and reverent esteem with inferiour Judges that the instances of such contempts against them are very rare and exemplary in the punishment The Bishop of Norwich in Trinity Term in the twentieth year of Edward the third in Rot. 289. in the common Pleas in Hilary Terme 21. in the Kings Bench was attached for disobeying a Prohibition at the suit of Stracill upon full and solemne dissension of the whole matter the Court resolved that the proceedings of the Bishop were inobedientiam diminutionem Domini potestatis Regiae authoritatis suae lectionem coronae suae exhereditationem manifestam c. As the words of the Records are and therefore adjudged the temporall tyes of the Bishop to be seised into the Kings hand and great very great dammages to be paid to Plaintiffes And whosoever gave directions for these stout Instructions might have remembred that no longer since then Michaelmas in the seventh year of Eliz. Rot. 31. an Attachment was granted against the Archbishop of Yorke then President of that Councell for forbidding the Goaler of Yorke to deliver one Lambert his Prisoner who was sent for by a habeas corpus from the Kings Bench and if they would have believed the resolution of all the Judges in England in Trinity Term in the 6 yeare of King James they would have known how unfit it had been to enlarge that Jurisdiction since most of their proceedings being of an inferiour nature to what they are now grown were then declared to be illegall and inconsistent with the liberty of the Subject And can such a Court as this my Lords deserve to live what a compendious abridgement hath Yorke gotten of all the Courts in Westminster Hall whatsoever sals within the cognizance or jurisdiction of either Courts here is compleatly determinable within that one Court at York besides the power it hath with the Ecclesiasticall and high Commission Courts What hath the good Northern people done that they only must be disfranchised of all their priviledges by Magna Charta and the Petition of Right for to what purpose serve these Statutes if they may be fined and imprisoned without Law according to the discretion of the commissioners what have they done that they and they alone of all the people of this happy Iland must be disinherited of their birth-right of their Inheritance For prohibitions writs of Habeas Corpus writs of errour are the birth-right the inheritance of the Subjects And 't is here worth your Lordships observation that to those many prohibitions which have been granted from above for till of late the court of Yorke had not the courage to dispose prohibitions nor indeed till our Courts here had not the courage to grant them T was never known that Court pleaded the Jurisdiction of their Councell which without doubt they would have done upon the advantage of many great persons in whose protection they have alwayes been had they not known the Law could not be misinterpreted enough to allow it Your Lordships remember the directions I mentioned of Magna Charta that all proceedings shall be per legale Judicium Parium per legem terrae now these Jurisdictions tell you you shall proceed according to your discretion that is you shall doe what you please onely that we may not suspect this discretion will be
and Liberties were of late more pressing than we were able to bear That our Complaints and Supplications for redresse were answered at last with the terrors of an Army That after a pacification greater preparations were made for war whereby many Acts of Hostility were done against us both by Sea and Land The Kingdome wanted administration of Justice and we constrained to take Arms for our defence That we were brought to this extreme and intolerable necessity either to maintain divers Armies upon our Borders against Invasion from England or Ireland still to be deprived of the benefit of all the Courts of Justice and not onely to maintain so many thousands as were spoyled of their ships and goods but to want all Commerce by Sea to the undoing of Merchants of Saylors and many other who lived by Fishing and whose Callings are upholden from hand to mouth by Sea trade Any one of which evils is able in a short time to bring the most potent Kingdome to Confusion Ruine and Desolation how much more all the three at one time combined to bring the Kingdome of Scotland to be no more a Kingdome Yet all these behoved We either to endure and under no other hope than of the perfect slavery of our selves and our posterity in our souls Lives and means Or to resolve to come into England not to make any Invasion or with any purpose to fight except we were forced God is our Judge our actions are our witnesses and England doth now acknowledge the truth against all suspicions to the contrary and against the impudent lies of our enemies but for our relief defence and preservation which we could finde by no other means when we had essayed all means and had at large expressed our pungent and pressing necessities to the Kingdome and Parliament of England Since therefore the war on our part which is no other but our coming into England with a Guard is defensive and all men do acknowledge that in common equity the defendant should not be suffered to perish in his just and necessary defence but that the persuer whether by way of Legall processe in the time of Peace or by way of violence and unjust invasion in the time of war ought to bear the charges of the defendant We trust that your Lordships will think that it is not against reason for us to demand some reparation of this kinde and that the Parliament of England by whose wisedome and justice we have expected the redresse of our wrongs will take such course as both may in reason give us satisfaction and may in the notable demonstration of their Justice serve most for their own honour Our earnestnesse in following this our Demand doth not so far wrong our fight and make us so undiscerning as not to make a difference between the Kingdome and Parliament of England which did neither discerne nor set forward a Warre against us And that prevalent faction of Prelates and Papists who have moved every stone against us and used all sorts of means not onely their Counsells Subsidies and Forces but their Church Canons and Prayers for our utter ruine which maketh them obnoxious to our just accusations and guilty of all the losses and wrongs which this time past we have sustained Yet this we desire your Lordships to consider That the States of the Kingdome of Scotland being assembled did endeavour by their Declarations Informations and Remonstrances and by the proceedings of their Commissioners to make known unto the Councell Kingdome and Parliament of England and to forewarn them of the mischief intended against both Kingdomes in their Religion and Liberties by the Prelates and papists to the end that our Invasion from England might have been prevented if by the prevalency of the faction it had been possible And therefore we may now with the greater reason and confidence presse our Demand that your Lordships the Parliament the Kingdome and the King himself may see us repaired in our losses at the cost of that faction by whose means we have sustained so much dammage And which except they repent we finde sorrow recompenced for our grief torments for our toyl and an infinite greater losse for the Temporall losses they have brought upon a whole Kingdome which was dwelling by them in peace All the devices and doings of our common enemies were to bear down the truth of Religion and the just liberties of the Subjects in both Kingdomes They were confident to bring this about one of two wayes Either by blocking us up by Sea and Land to constrain us to admit their will for a law both in Church and Policy and thus to make us a precedent for the like misery in England or by their Invasion of our Kingdome to compell us furiously and without order to break into England That the two Nations once entred into a bloody Warre they might fish in our troubled waters and catch their desired prey But as we declared before our coming We trusted that God would turn their wisedome into foolishnesse and bring their devices upon their own pares by our Intentions and Resolutions to come into England as among our Brethren in the most peaceable way that could stand with our safety in respect of our common enemies to present our petitions for setling our peace by a Parliament in England wherein the intentions and actions both of our adversaries and ours might be brought to light The Kings Majesty and the Kingdome right informed The Authors and Instruments of our divisions and troubles punished All the mischiefs of a Nationall and doubtfull warre prevented and Religion and Liberty with greater peace and amity than ever before established against all the craft and violence of our enemies This was our Declaration before we set our England from which our deportments since have not varied And it hath been the Lords wonderfull doing by the wise counsels and just proceedings of the Parliament to bring it in a great part to passe and to give us lively hopes of a happy conclusion And therefore we will never doubt but that the Parliament in their wisedom and iustice will provide that a proportionable part of the cost and charges of a work so great and so comfortable to both Nations be born by the Delinquents there that with the better conscience the good people of England may sit under their own Vines and Fig-trees refreshing themselves although upon our great pains and hazard yet not altogether upon our cost and charges which we are not able to bear The Kingdome of England doth know and confesse that the innovation of religion and liberties in Scotland were not the principall designe of our common enemies but that both in the intention of the workers whose zeal was hottest for setling their devices at home and in the condition so the work making us whom they conceived to be the weaker for opposition to be nothing else but a leading case for England And that although by the power of God which
abilities of nature and what he hath got by acquisition depth of judgement quicknesse of apprehension unparaleld moderation in great Councels and great affaires such as you my Lords that had the happinesse to attend Him at the Councell of the Peeres at York to your great joy and comfort can witnesse and after ages will remember to His eternall honour and same For His just and pious Government I dare boldly say that if any under Him as our Instrument have had the distributing of justice to His people have not done as they ought the fault is their own and they have done contrary to the Royall Nature and expresse Command of our Gratious Soveraign from whom I have often learned this golden Rule and Maxim he serves me best that serves me with honesty and integrity Behold Him in another part of Himself in His dearest comfort our Gracious Queen the mirror of Vertue from whom since Her happy arrivall here now above three lustres of yeetes never any Subject record other then gratious and benigne Influence and I dare a vow as She is neerest and dearest to our Soveraign so there is none whose affections and endeavours His Majesty onely excepted hath or doth or can cooperate more to the happy successe of this Parliament and the never to be equalled joy and comfort of a right understanding between the King and His people Behold Him in His best image our excellent young Prince and the rest of the Royall and lively Progeny in whom we cannot but promise to our selves to have our happinesse perpetuated From the Throne turn your eyes upon the two supporters of it on the one side the Stemne of honour the Nobility and Clergy on the other side the Gentry and Commons Where was there or is there in any part of the world a nobility so numerous so magnanimous and yet with such a temper that they neither ecclipse the throne nor overtop the people but keep in a distance fit for the greatnesse of the Throne Where was there a Common-wealth so free and the ballance so equally held as here And certainly so long as the beam is so held it cannot be otherwise in right Anglis if you turn the line never so little it groweth quickly accute or obdure and so in States the least deviation makes a great change But His Majesties great wisedome and goodnesse and the assistance of the Honourable Assembly I do not doubt will be a means to make us stear between the Teophick of moderation that there be no declension from the poole of severity I am by His Maiesties Command to relate to you some proceedings since the last Assembly here You may remember the Summer preceding this last His Majesty went with an Army into the North ingaged in honour so to do by reason of the câ—urses that were taken by divers of the Subjects in Scotland in the prejudice of Monarchy and rendring lesse glorious this Kingdom I know not under what pretence but all that time they came very neer England with an Army so neer that it was believed they would have then entred and invaded the Kingdome They did professe the contrary neither did they want remonstrations and declarations to infuse this opinion into the hearts of His Majesties people before it would by the effects What their intentions from the beginning were His Maiestie by His goodnesse and wisedome settled a Peace and made a pacification at Barwick upon which both Armies were disbanded which pacification and every Article of it His Maiesty for His part hath been so far from violating that whensoever any question shall be made of it shall plainly and clearly appear it was His care to see it in all things performed On the contrary those Subiects of His not contented with that grace which His Maiesty then gave them in those Articles of pacification they have strained them beyond the bounds and limits of the intention and meaning but they over and above attempted and acted divers things so prejudiciall to Monarchy and contrary and repugnant to the Law and settled constitution and usage of that Kingdome that His Maiesty could not in honour continue at it This being made known unto His Maiesty and to His Privy Councell by those who best knew the State and affairs of that Kingdom and that were most trusted and imployed by His Maiesty His Maiesty by the unaminous consent of His Privy Councell resolved to raise an army to reduce them to their modest and iust condition of true obedience and subiection to defend this Kingdome from all damage and danger that by their means how specious soever they shaddow their pretences they might fall upon it His Maiesty then foresaw and foretold that the raising of an Army at this time was but to stand upon their own defence as they professed and they had an intention to enter this Kingdome and to seize upon some place of importance and eminency and His Maiesty in particular named Newcastle Had His Maiesty then had means and money aswell as he had certain knowledge of their intentions I do beleeve that these calamities that have fallen upon that Town and the Counties adioyning had been prevented Perhaps the misinterpretation of His Maiesties intentions and the misunderstanding of His actions and I am a fraid the two benigne interpretation of the attempts actions and professions of the Subiects in Scotland added sâ—me impediment to that which the most of us I hope have lived to repent of His Maiesty howsoever wâ—nt in Person to the North to see His Army ordered and to take care for the safety and defence of this Kingdom asmuch as he possible could He had not long been there but that which he foresaw and foretold fell out for the Scots passed with their Army the Rivers Tweed and Tine and seized upon Newcastle which of what importance it is you all know And that they force contribution of the Counties of Noâ—thumberland and the Bishoprick of Durbâ—m besides many other spoiles and distructions that were committed His Maiesty well considering of what weight and importance this was and then having neither time nor place to call this assembly of Parliament He did resolve as had been frequently used to summon a great Councell of all the Peeres that by their advice and assistance there might be some interruption given to the calamity that was likely to spread over the whole Kingdome And commanded Writs to issue accordingly That was not done to prevent but to prepare for a Parliament It was not to clash or entor fire with this assembly by acting or ordering any thing which belongeth to this high and supream jurisdiction but onely to give their assistance for the present to render things more fit for this great assembly That His Maiesties intention was so it is cleer for before ever any petition was delivered or ever any speech of petition for a Parliament His Maiesty had resolved to call one The Lords understood It so will plainly appear by the