Parliament followes To the High and Honorable the Parliament of England The humble Petition of Eusebius Andrewe Esquire close prisoner in the Tower of London Sheweth THat your petitioner hath been by a confederate pack of setters wrought into action which abstracted from their circumstances render him liable to your justice and this done not without their further hope that your petitioner as they supposed had interest to have drawn divers persons of quallity and fortune into the same entanglement That failing of that part of their aime the said confederates did betray your petitioner to the honorable Council of State by whose warrant he hath bin 16 weeks a strictly close prisoner without a fortune of his own the access of friends or means of substance allowed and is like to perish by his wants before it be distinguisht by a publick Tryal whether he be a fitter object for the applying of your justice or your mercy That he is hereby disabled to be accountable to the service of God the duty to his family and friends and to those who give him credit for bread And in case he should be call'd from such his close restraint to his tryal must be destitute and deprived of all fair means of making his reasonable defence which however it may sute with pollicy will not be consistent with Religion and Honour Your petitioner having for releif in the premises by all opportune addresses and by four petitions improtunely solicited and sought the said Council of State without answer In the deep sence of his pressing sufferings humbly appealeth to this high Court casting himself wholly thereupon and as humbly prayeth 1. That you would prevent your Justice by your mercy and admit him to sue out his pardon upon security given for his future good demeanor to the State in this Commonwealth 2. That if that be too great a favour you would grant him licence to depart the Common wealth he engaging not to act or contrive ought to the disservice of the State 3. That if he be not thought capable of either but that he must receive a publick tryal he may have a convenient time of preparation after a quallifying of his imprisonment 4. That in the mean time he may have the liberty of the Tower and resort of his friends and that by your order his debt for livelyhood incurred in his close restraint may be discharged In all which your petitioner is ready to submit to the will of God whose providence hath put Justice and mercy into your present dispensing And shall ever pray The humble Answer of Eusebius Andrewe Esquire in his defence to the proceeding against him before the Honorable the High Court of Justice presented 16th day of Aug. 1650. THe said respondent with the favour of this honorable Court reserving and praying to be allowed the benefit and liberty of making further Answer offereth to this honorable Court First That by the Statute or Charter stiled Magna Charta which is the fundamental Law and ought to be the standard of the Laws of England confirmed above thirty times and yet unrepealed it is in the 29th Chapter thereof Granted and Enacted 1. That no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned or be disseised of his free hold or liberties or free custome or be out-lawed or exiled or be any otherwise destroyed nor we shall not pass upon him nor condemn him but by a lawful Judgment of his Peeres and by the Laws of the Land 2. We shall sell to no man nor deferr to any man Justice or right Secondly That by the Statute of 42 of Edward 3d. Cha. 1. 1. The Great Charter is commanded to be kept in all the points And 2. It is enacted that if any Statute be made to the Contrary that shall be holden for none which Statute is unrepealed The Respondent observeth that by an Act of the 26 of March 1650. Entitled an Act for establishing an High Court of Justice Power is given to this Court to Try Condemn and cause Execution of Death to be done upon the Freemen of England according as the Major number of any 12 of the Members thereof shall judg to appertain to justice And thereupon the Respondent doth humbly inferr and offereth for law That the said Act is diametrically contrary unto and utterly inconsistent with the said Great Charter and is therefore by the said recited Statute to be holden for none That it can with no more reason equity or justice hold the value and reputation of a Law the said Statute before recited being in force then if contrary to the second clause in that 29th Chap. of Magna Charta it had been also enacted that Justice and Right shall be deferred to all freemen and sold to all that will buy it Thirdly That upon premising by the Petition of Right 3d Car. that contrary to the great Charter Tryals and Executions had been had and done against the Subjects by commissions Martial c. It was therefore prayed and by the Commission enacted That 1. No Commissions of the like nature might be thenceforth issued c. and that done 2. To prevent least any of the Subjects should be put to death contrary to the Laws and Franchise of the Land The Respondent humbly observeth and affirmeth That This Court is though under a different stile in Nature and in the proceedings thereby directly the same with a Commission Martial the Freeman thereby being to be tryed for life and adjudged by the major number of the Commissioners sitting as in Courts of Commissioners Martial was practised and was agreeable to their constitution and consequently against the Petition of Right in which he and all the freemen of England if it be granted there be any such hath and have right and interest and he humbly claims his right accordingly Fourthly That by he Remonstrance 15 of December and the Declaration 17 January 1641. The benefit of the Laws and ordinary Courts of Justice are the subjects Birth-rights By the Declarations of the 12th July and 16th October 1642. the preservation of the laws and the due administration of justice are owned to be the justifying cause of the warr and the ends of the Parliaments affaires managed by their swords and Councils And Gods curse is by them imprecated in case they should ever decline those ends By the Declaration of 17 Apr. 1646. promise was made not to interrupt the course of Justice in the ordinary Courts thereof By the Ordinance or Votes of non-addresses Jan. 1648. it is assured of the Parliaments behalf That Though they lay the King aside yet they will govern by the laws and not interrupt the course of Justice in the ordinary Courts thereof And thereupon the Respondent humbly inferreth and affirmeth That The constitution of this Court is a Breath of that publick faith of the Parliments exhibited and pledged in the Declarations and votes to the Freemen of England And upon the whole matter the Respondent saving as aforesaid doth humbly
affirme for law and claime as his right That this Court in defect of the validity of the Act by which it is constituted hath not power against him or to press him to a farther Answer That by vertue of Magna Charta the Petition of Right and the before recited Remonstance and Declarations he ought not to be proceeded against by this Court but by an ordinary Court of Justice and to be tryed by his Peeres And prayes That this his present Answer and Salvo may be accepted and registred and that he may be tryed by his Peeres accordingly Eus. ANDREWE The farther and second Answer of Eus Andrewe Esq to the Honorable the High Court of Justice presented the 16th day of Aug. 1650. THe said Respondent with the favour of this Honorable Court reserving and praying to be allowed the benefit and liberty of making further Answer if it shall be adjudged necessary in all humbleness for present answer offereth to this honorable Court That by the letter and genuine sense of the Act entituled An Act for establishing an High Court of Justice the said Court is not quallified to try a free man of England and such the Respondent averreth to be for life in case of Treason First For that 1. The said Court is not constituted a Court of Record and but upon Record cannot at all have that accompt of their freeman which Kings were wont to have of their Ministers of Justice 2. The Free man and such who are and may be concerned in him can have no Record to resort unto by which to preserve the rights due to him and them respectively viz of 1. A Writ of Error in case of erroneous judgment due by the Presidents Pasch 39 Ed. 3. fol. of Gaunts case 4. Ed. 3. Rot. Parl. Num. 13. Count de Arundels case 42. Ed. 3. Rot. Par. Nu. 23. Sr. Jo. of Lees case 2. A plea of anterfoyes acquit in Case of new question for the same fact the right to which and the necessity of such Record appears by Wetherel and Darlyes Case 4. Rep. 35. Eliz. Vaux his case ibidem 33 Eliz. 3. A being enlarged upon acquital as is the freemans due by the Stat. 14. Hen. 6. and the Case thereupon grounded Dyer fol. 120 and abridg fo. 33. 4. A Writ of Conspiracy against those who have practised the betraying the life of the Respondent not to be brought before acquital no acquital but upon Record as appeareth by The Poultiers Case 9 Rep. fol. 55. This Court is to determine at a day without accompt of their proceedings have power to try judg and cause execution but not to acquit or to give enlargment so that the nocent are thereby punishable the innocent not preservable the injured and betrayed not vindicable which are defects incompatible with a Court of Justice and inconsistent with Justice it self and with the Honours of a Christian nation and Common-wealth Secondly for that the members of this Court are by the Act directed to be sworne 1. Not in conspectu populi for the freemans satisfaction 2. Not in words of indifferency and obliging to equallity 3. In words of manifest Partiallity viz. You shall swear that you shall well and truely according to the best of your skill and knowledg execute the several powers given unto you by this Act The Respondent humbly offers That 1. The Court in their capacity of Tryers ought in reason to have been appointed by their constitution to have been sworn as Tryers in full Court according to the practise in all equall wayes of Tryall 2. The Court as Commissioners of Oyre and Terminer being authorized by the Act to hear and determine should in like reason be appointed an oath such as is usual for persons so qualified as provided 18. Edw. 3. viz. You shall swear that well and lawfully you shall serve our Lord the King and his people mutatis mutandis in the office of Justice c. and that you deny to no man common right c. Or some Oath equivalent at least to that of a Justice of Peace Dalton fol. 13. I A. B. do swear that I will do equall right and according to my best wit cunning and power after the laws and customes of the land and the Statutes thereof made c. 3. The Court in the capacity of tryers should in reason be obliged by an oath of as equitable sence as that usually administred to Jurors viz. You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make between our Soveraigne Lord the King mutatis mutandis and the prisoner at the Barr so help you God Whereas when this Court shall as it is now constituted have condemned the freeman the Respondent or other by applying their skill and knowledg to their power whether justly or not the oath by them taken is not in the letter broken as to be exactible by man though God will provably have a better accompt And therefore upon the whole matter premised the Respondent saving as before offers for law and reason that the honorable Court the high Court of Justice is not by the letter and proper sence of the words of the Act by which it is constituted qualified in respect of the preobjected defects to pass upon him for his life upon a charge or crimination of high Treason And humbly prayes that this his second Answer and Salvo may be received and registred and that he may be tryed as in his former answer he prayed Eus. ANDREW The farther and third Answer of Eusebius Andrewe Esquire to the Honorable the High Court of Justice presented the 16 day of Aug. 1650. THe said Respondent with the favour of this honorable Court reserving and praying to be allowed the benefit and liberty of making further answer if it shall be adjudged necessary in all humbleness for present Answer offereth to this honorable Court That First It is his right if he must admit this Court to be duly and legally established and constituted as to their being a Court to be tryed by his Peeres men of his own condition and neighborhood 2. It is within the power of the Court by the letter and sence of the Act or at least as being not repugnant to the Act to try him by such his Peeres c. First That it is his right to be so and only so tryed appears by Magna Charta Ca. 29. 25 Edw. 1. Ca. 1. and 2. 5 Edw. 3. Ca. 9. 25. Edw. 3. Ca. 2. and 4. 28. Edw. 3. Ca. 4. 37. Edw. 3. Ca. 18. 42. Edw. 3. Ca. 3. By all which Statutes made in full Parliament consisting of the head and all the members actually as well as virtually this the Respondents right is maintainable and demandable and the contrary proceedings thereunto are To be held for none and redressed c. To be held for voyd and error c. So that If the laws and Courts were not obstructed in the cases of some sort of freemen of England the whole proceeding
to try the matter and men yet those Commissions do not restrain the Commissioners to proceed only against those persons and upon those particular crimes which the common fame hath rendred Hac vice to be Tryable but run in general terms and with general enablement to try all manner of Treasons Felonies c. And the Reason is 1. For that it might possibly fall out that a grand Jury will not find the Bill against Jo. at style and if not the Commissioners are sent down without their arrant if only directed to try J. S. 2. It may fall out that where there are Treasons or Felonies commited by Jo. St. they may be accompanied with misprisions or misdemeanors in Jo. O. And if the particular crime of Treason and the particular person of J. S. be only authorised to be enquired of then the Commissioners can do but half their work And therefore this Commissionary power of yours My Lord the ordinary Courts being not obstructed and you limited to particulars is so far against the Common Law and usage that it is against common and vulgar reason and pardon that I must say it savours more of a Snare then of a Law and more of a warrant of Arbitrary Execution then of an enablement to and for a judicial and legal Proceeding or Tryal The Fifth Argument My Lord In all Courts of Justice as there is supposed to be an equality intended to such as shall fall under their Cognizance and Enquiry which is a principle of merality innate as well as a practical Policy so there have always in this Nation at least beyond memory or indeed record to the contrary been certain Oaths Obligatory and of indifference administred to Persons either enquiring of or passing judgment against or upon the Subjects in all cases whatsoever and the same thing is but necessary in your Lordships and this Court to be done if at all you will proceed in so weighty a matter as life against which I make this exception 1. If you are at all sworn you are not sworn in Conspectu and if you will be my Jury and my Judges also I ought to have a satisfaction that you are so sworn Had you been only my Judges and constituted after the ordinary manner and to ordinary ends I would have taken your being sworn for granted 2. If you are sworn and to no other words of an oath then what are comprised in the Act which my self and all men else will easily believe you are not then you are not sworn to any manner of Equality The words are You shall swear that you shall well and truly according to the best of your skill and knowledge execute the several powers given unto you by this Act I beseech your Lordship that I may compare these words with the Oath of Judges in England when it was a Kingdome The words Pertinent only are these You shall swear that well and lawfully you shall serve our Lord the King and his people in the office of Justice c And that you deny to no man common Right by the Kings letters or none other mans nor for none other cause c. I A. B. do swear that I will do equal right c. according to my best Wit Cunning and Power after the Laws and Customs of the Land and the Statutes thereof made c. My Lord these will concern you as my Judges to consider how little the stiles agree how far your Oath is in respect of these unobligatory and consequently unsatisfactory to the persons which are or shall be concerned 1. As to the first yours contains no such words of Equality 2. As to the second oath yours hath such words as skill and knowledg holding some resemblance with those of wit cunning and power But my Lord if your words were as well usher'd and as well paged as those it were some satisfaction viz. To do equal right according c. After the laws and customes of the Land and the Statutes thereof made My Lord as you are my Tryers also as well as my Judges I beseech you to observe the oath of a Juror and the difference in sence in letter I know for the dignity sake it ought to differ You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make between our Soveraigne Lord the King and the prisoner at the Barr c. I presume it is still the same mutatis mutandis Truly my Lord when I look upon your enablement to try the matters and persons which and whom you are to try you have power to destroy and not to save though â—o spare yet not to acquit or discharge and your obligation by oath to execute that power according to your best skill and knowledg I must needs say and it is apparant that when you have destroyed me you have discharged all the duty that man can exact from you though God will have a better reckoning and in stead of being tryed by sworne Jurors and adjudged by sworne Justices my self and all who are or may fall into my condition are to be tryed by our sworn Adversants I might have said sworne enemies and we cannot in reason expect more Justice then when the Son layes the wager the Mother keeps stakes and the Father is Judg in a point of controversie More and better you may do more or better we cannot by any light of reason expect The Sixth Argument BUt my Lord if all this be but wind against a Rock and move you to no declining of the exercise of your Power though against my right yet certainly my Lord where your power and my right may be consistent you will not stretch your power to the taking away of my right but rather by giving me my right magnifie your power This I may reasonably expect It is my right granting you to be my Judges to be tryed by my Peers the good men of my neighbourhood and it is in your power if your power be not inward to try me so That this is my right I must revisit Magna Charta Nisi per legale Judicium Parium suorum The Law of Edward 1. having confirmed the great Charter saith And we will that if any judgment hereafter be given contrary to the Poynts of the Charter aforesaid by the Justices or by any other our Ministers that hold Plea before them against the Poynts of the Charter it shall be undone and holden for naught And upon this very Law or Clause a writ of error was brought by the Earl of Lancaster for the misattainder of his brother whose Heyre he was and in that the Poynts were two and upon them both judgement given for a reversal 1. Quod non fuit araniatus ad responsionem positus tempore pacis eo quod cancellaria alia Caria Regis fuerant aperta in quo lex fiebat unicuique prout fieri consuevit Attinctus 2. Quod condemnatus sivi adjudicatus
King Henry the Third The great Hugh Speneer in the raign of Edward the second was banisht but for rashly counselling against the Encounter la forme de la granda Charter And to draw downwards yet one Kings Reign and to the point to which I would apply I find in the 42 year this great Charter was not only barely confirmed and commanded to be kept in all the points for those are the words But to prevent any alteration of it is enacted That if any Statute be made to the contrary that shall be holden for none By this Magna Charta it is granted and Enacted too if my Lord Cook say true who saith it is a Statute as well as a Charter being made by Assent and Authority of Parliament That No Freeman shall be taken or Imprisoned or be disseised of his Free-hold or Liberties or Free-customes or be outlaw'd or exiled or any otherwise destroyed nor shall not pass upon him nor condemn him but by lawfull judgment of his Peers and by the Law of the Land We shall sell to no man nor deferr to man either Justice or Right If this be Truth and Law which I have in these particulars promised to you then my Lord give me leave to take notice That by that Act by which you are constituted a Court of Justice you are authorized to try the Freemen of England not per Pares upon or for offences against Articles and the punishment to reach to life as the Major part of any 12 of the Commissioners shall judg to appertain to justice Laying these together a Posting Rider may Read that these Lawes are diametrically opposite and consequently inconsistent The latter hath its doom inherent by its innate contrariety to the former and is a building a superstructure so unsutable to the foundation that if it had not a double edged support it need no help to be demolisht but would fall I know not whether to say sua mole or sua pensilitate The Constitutors of this Law are Gladiis cincti and therefore as I am not in opportune place to speak to them so there is somthing of danger to speak too freely to them but my Lord your Lordship as you are in this place are I am sure ought to be like the Escochions of Princes with their addopted Supporters Knowledg and Conscience and if you are I am confident you will doubt of your Commission or warrant to proceed against me and compel me to preserve an inch of life by giving away mine and my Countrymens Liberty in condescending to a Plea and Tryal in this contra-legal way and by power of this Act The second Argument My Lord I Shall further beg leave to call to your memory the Petition of Right which was made the business of the Parliament at the time when it was preferred and received the Royal assent must never be forgotten by those who hold in esteem the care of Parliaments and gracious concessions of Kings In the Proeme or leading part of that Petition the Statute of Magna Charta is instanced as to this particular tryal for life by proper Courts with other the Laws and Statutes some of which I have cited and the rest shall upon another point in their place and as it is complained that proceedings had been by Commissioners Martial when and where if by the Laws and Statutes of the land they had deserved death by the same Laws and Statutes also they might and by no other laws ought to have been judged so is it prayed and accordingly enacted That no Commissions of like nature may be henceforth issued to any person or persons whatsoever to be executed c. and this to prevent least by colour of them any of the Subjects should be destroyed or put to death contrary to the laws and franchize of he Land My Lord 1. The Commissions Martial were not evil in respect of the persons commissioned being as this power is to you so those alwayes given to persons of quality and learning but the evil of them were their Proceedings by their own will and opinion being themselves the Judges and the Jury offices incompatible and inconsistent with the peoples Liberties by the former Laws become their rights when your Lordships shall read the Act by which you now sit I am confident you will grant this power to be of the same nature though not under the same name and consequently in that Petition complained of in supposition that such might be and enacted against in Terminis that none such should be 2. For that you are called by the Act Commissioners and yet have no Commission but the Act it self whereas you should in regard you are not a Court of Record in your selves have Commissions returnable at a day into some Court of Record where your proceedings might be extant and visible as you are now constituted you have a day prefixed to determine in but that being come you are to vanish your vestigia will be as inperceptible to the times and men to come as the trace of a Swallow in the Air which is inconsistent with the honour and justice of any Kingdome or of any Christian Commonwealth For that you have only by this Act a bare and single power to adjudg and cause execution to be done in case you shall judg it to appertain to justice but you have no power if you think it appertain to justice to acquit and upon acquittal to discharge the person tryed as is the law expresly in my Lord Diar and in the year-book of Edw. 4. grounded upon the Statute of Henry the 6th 14 of his reign Ca. 1. That Justices of Nisi prius who are Commissionary Justices shall have power of all the cases of felony and of Treason to give their Judgment as wel where a man is acquit of felony of treason as where he is thereof attainted at the day and place where the Inquisition Inquest and Jury shall be taken and then from thenceforth to award execution to be made by force of the same judgments which in an acquitted mans case can only be enlargement But my Lord you have only power if you can to reach my life if in your opinion deserving it but not to reach me out of Prison so that if you kill me not here with the sword of Justice you must leave me in worse hands to be buried alive in restraint and want Which all is against the laws of Nature and Nations and particularly of this land that are all so ballanced and poysed as that they have equall regard to the delivery and freeing the Innocent as to the condemnation of the nocent And Isadore in his Etimologies sayes of a law thus Erit autem lex honesta justa possibilis secundum naturam et consuitudinem patriae Loco temporique conveniens necessaria et utilis manifesta quoque nê aliquid incantum per obscuritatem captione contineat nullo privato commodo
sed per communi civium ultilitate conscripta And as laws should be so should Courts and the dispenseâ—… of laws be But my Lord if this Court must be granted to be a Court your selves can make no more of it then a Court ex parte and set up to serve a particular end with the privation of the common utility and liberty however usher'd with a preamble of an other stile of preservation of peace and prevention of wart but Thucidides will tell you my Lord in his fourth book That Turpius est his qui impia tenent insidiare honesto pertextu quam insidiosâ mallevolentiâ uti nam violentia videtur aliquid furis habere propter potentiam â fortunâ datam sed fraus tantum ab injustitia oritur The Third Argument BUt my Lord if your Lordship be in your judgment and conscience satisfied that the Act it self in and as to its constitution is good and valuable and impowereth you sufficiently to proceed against me some way then Argumenti ergo dato sed non juris ergo concesso that it is a law or an Act and that all those Ordinances are out of doores yet I pray your Lordships leave that I may make evident to your Lordship that you are not hereby constituted a Court capable in defect of the very letter of the Act to pass upon any man and consequently not upon me in matter of life or where life may may be the concernment 1. For reason you are not constituted a Court of Record which is absolutely necessary having life and forfeiture of lands in your charge First For the State that they may have an account not in their Council-chamber but upon Record what is become of the matter in issue and of the person put upon his Tryal 2. For the Freeman of England that in case he be acquitted of the crime wherewith he shall stand charged before this Court he might at all times resort to the Record upon any new question for the same Fact in any other Court holding Pleas of that nature by which Record to plead his Auterfoyes acquitte and to make his defence as also to preserve his estate Si non legalment aquitte eu le Poulters Case 9. R. Benegist demant acquittal nul req si non de Record as also my benefit a writ of Conspiracy To come nearer our own times the like cause to complain and the same redress is given in the Act for abolishing of the Star-chamber upon the grounds and reasons drawn from these Laws the Innovations and Invadings upon which as being Fundamentals was a great part of the substance of the grand Remonstrance communicated to the whole World against the late King by the Press The charges against he Earl of Strasford and the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury The interest of the Subject in these laws was cryed up to be so precious as that it had influence even to the absolving of all old Oathes and the imposing of new and to bring to adventure Estate and Life and soul rather then to be usurped or in the least intrenched upon Four several Declarations of the present Parliament have entitulated the subject to them and to the benefit of the ordinary Courts of Justice as their Birthright I have owned the preservation of them to be the Cause of the War and the ends of their affairs managed by their Swords or Councels and Gods curse is by them imprecated in case they should ever decline the Ends My Lord We have the Parliaments word and promise not to interrupt the course of Justice in the ordinary Courts And in the Ordinance of Non addresses to the late King they say Though they lay the King aside yet they will Govern by the Laws and not interrupt the Course of Justice in the Ordinary Courts thereof My Lord I am entitulated to all these Laws and these Promises and Declarations and if this Court proceed against me those notwithstanding the Ordinary Courts of Justice being open and unobstructed I am robbed and divested of them all and in me the Freemanry of England are all despoyled at the Parliaments will according to this president disployleable and may with Mr. Stampsord in his Pleas of the Crown take up this saying It will serve for a Lamentation Misera servitus est ubi jus est vagum incognitum The Fourth Argument THomas Acquinus who though a Papist is not the less worthy to be vouched where not Religion but Pollicy is the thing in question Sayth That Lex est regula mensura actuum agendorum vel omittendorum not Actorum and Omissorum And St. Paul says Concupiscentian nesciebam nisi lex diceret non concupisces My Lord your Authority is in two several places to proceed against as Traytors such who have broken the Articles before they were made viz. Whosoever hath or shall I lot Contrive or Endeavour c. Whatsoever Officer c. hath or shall desert their trust c. shall dye without mercy And thus my Lord the end of Laws and Law-makings is perverted which are not meerly to punish offenders but to prevent offences which amongst Christian men was never otherwise done but by way of premonition by laws first Interdictory and then Subpenatory The Earl of Strafford did and very reasonably take it unkindly and so exprest himself upon his Trial That a neglected Law should lie moulding amongstold parchments 200. years unused and unexercised and at last brought out to measure his passed Actions by or to use his own words To lye like a Coal raked up in the ashes to be at pleasure blown into a flame and to make him and his family the first fewel to feed it Truly if he had seen these Articles as he felt after somwhat like them he would have cried out and but modestly enough That it is not the mending of the fault but the destruction of the person which is manifestly defigned in these Articles of Retrospection Disusage of a law is some excuse for him who falls into a transgression but the non existence of a Law is a Justification to the greatest offence And my Lord as you are to look backward to Actions done before the Law made so you are to take Cognizance of offenders against two former Acts which make the Crimes therein certain in the matters of fact fault and punishment and if they be lawes they must be deemed part of the lawes of the Land and desireable and dispensable by the ordinary Courts of the Land in cases Criminal for extraordinary Courts of that king have long since even by the Parliament of which this is the sarviving part been denied And although it is true that when some particular fact is committed by some one or more particular persons against the laws Crimiâ—al it often falls and properly enough that especial Commissions of Oyre and Terminer are for some urgent and expedient reason issued
fuit absque araniamento seu responsione seu legali judicio Parium Contra legem contra tenorem Magnae Chartae The like reversals and upon the like reasons have been had In the Count de Arundels Case In Sir John of Lees Case It is provided That no man from thenceforth should be attached by any accusation nor fore-judged of life nor of limb nor his lands c. against the form of the great Charter and the law of the land My Lord our fathers saw a Parliament and reaped the blessing of it which was called Benedictum Parliamentum which hath circumscribed the loose interpreters of Treasons to a standard and not left it to be Individium vagum and there it is said That persons guilty of high Treason and my charge is not for less must be provably attaint of open deed by people of their own condition And again it is accorded assented and established That from henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to the King or his Councel unless it be by indictment or presentment of his good and lawfull people of his neighbourhood where such deeds be done in due manner or by process made by writ Original at the common Law Nor that none be ousted of his Franchises or of his Free-hold unless he be duly brought to answer and forejudged of the same by the course of Law and if any thing be done against the same it shall be redressed and holden for none It is Assented and Established for the good governance of the Commons that no man be put to answer without presentment before Justices or matter of Record or by due Process and Writ original according to the old law of the Land and if any thing from henceforth be done contrary it shall be void in Law and holden for error My Lord That it is my right to be tryed by a Jury of 12 men de vicineto is evident and it is as evident that if you otherwise proceed with me if law were not out of fashion you would but weave Penelopes Web and one days judgment would be unravel'd by the next days Writ of Error But after-games for Life are dangerous and for Estate I have no great cause to be solicitous but my right is my duty to preserve as in relation to my self and my honour to keep it if it may be from being in my president taken also from my Countrymen the free-men if any such be now of England who have equal reason though they may be wanting some of them of the same reasons wherewith to defend it That your Lordship may proceed by Jury for ought is said or contained in your Act to the contrary 1. I pray consider the before recited laws are all unrepealed and therefore if this law intend to oppose those laws it should have repealed them or at least have afforded a slight non abstante or have given the Subject the comfort of a hac vice tantum that we might not have thought our selves rob'd of all but only plundered of a part of our right for necessity and experience sake or at least have given us the favour of the Earl of Straffords Act that it should never be drawn into example but I am sure in this Act that proceeding against him is super-exampled 2. I desire you would consider your qualification you are made Commissioners and that of Oyre and Terminer and those are not proceeders in their own proper natural and habitual constitution and practises upon and acording to their own judgments in matters of fact you are in these words viz. Required to hear and determin c. constituted Commissioners of Oyre and Terminer 3. You are authorised to proceed to Tryal Condemnation Execution c. but you are not restrained to the manner of such proceedings to Tryal exclusively as to Tryal per Pares but left to do the manner of the Tryal as well as the Judgment or Execution as you or the major part of you or 12 of you shall judge to appertain to justice And if such major part shall think fit to proceed by Presentment and Jury doubtless such your proceeding is no Premunire against the power given you by the Act but is justifiable to fall within the letter of the Act and that without a strained construction 4. And if when you may lawfully I mean by your own law if Argumenti ergo it be granted a law try me by a Jury and will not then my Lord pardon me that I must aver that you take from me and in me from the communalty of England three great priviledges Franchise and Rights to which I and they are by the known ancient and unabrogated unrepealed and constantly practized laws entitulated which will be neither equitable nor honorable for you to do 1. You take away the benefit of challenge which I might make to a Jury or Jurors And that is contrary to my right which is given me by the Common Law In favorem vitae to challenge in case of high Treason for I go no less 35 peremptorily and for reason of challenge Sans Number This was adjudged in 32 Henry 6. abridged by Fitz Herbert fol. 26 per Challeng where 8 Jurors were sworne the rest challenged a new return made and those 8 returned and though formerly allowed and sworn yet challenged and adjudged good The like allowed in Hill 1. Ja. in the Cases of Sir Walt Rawleigh and Brooks If this benefit were allowed me my Lord to except or Challenge the whole Court who are in number and in quality my tryers as a Jury are I should not need to be peremptory in my challenge being furnished with abundant reason A Jury of Middlesex will be no more nor less if what I am accused to have endeavored should take effect and therefore are not less concerned I cannot say the same of the Court or if I should I should not be believed and he that but whispers against Diana at Ephesus makes all the Crafts-men his enemies 2. The second benefit and right which by denying me a Tryal per Pares you take from me is the benefit of seeing hearing and counterquestioning the witnesses produced against me which in such way of Tryals ought to be viva voce That such is the law Mr. Stamford averreth in his Pleas of the Crown And In treason two sufficient witnesses by the Stat. of Edward the sixth sufficiently in relation to their quality and to the fulness of their testimony Sir Edward Cooke an Author as authentick as any puts this for law in his expositions of the words in the Statutes for Treason Provablement attaint Because the punishment was great the proof should be punctual not upon presumptions or inferences or straines of wit but upon good and sufficient proofes And this he makes good by the Authority of Stamford and the several Statutes of Philip and Mary
damn my soul to preserve my estate or repaire my wrong by a contra-legal and contra-evangelical engagement This was sufficient reason owned and justified by the Parliament for their substraction of obedience {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} by their Declarations and Ordinances 2. Fealty or personal engagement I have given none viz. 1. I have not taken the Protestation of May 1642. 2. I have not taken the solemn Oath and Covenant yet if I had I might have justified my Actions by them 3. I have not taken the negative Oath because my oath of Allegiance from which no man can absolve me is a negative to that c. 4. I have not taken the present engagement much more against my oath of Allegiance then the negative oath If I had had so little conscience as to have taken them I would have had so much as to have kept them and the State cannot in reason expect from me or any other that we should take a second when we see no conscience made of keeping the first and to take a third the first and second being broken without other dispensation then Power which like Alexanders sword cuts the * knot which it can not untye Neither hath any man assurance if he should take the last engagement that he should have liberty to keep it longer then the fancie of the State held to the now new fashion of Government And therefore I stand clear as a down-right subject of England to stand or fall by the Common Laws of England and if they will deny me that they deny my Birth-right which is equally righteous and no more just then to deny me my estate my calling my abode my means of right Secondly As to my action at Linton I justifie my self by the late 1. Kings Commission which my accuser knowes I had and under which he was by the same King constituted my Major 2. a What was done was so done when he who gave me the Commission was in being and oppressed by injurious imprisonment and what I did was in order to his enlargement from his Thraldome and restorement to his lawfull power which was that to which my duty as a Subject by my oath of Allegiance did bind me in general termes and the duty of my qualification in particular obligation It was done before the now reputed Parliament were or pretended to be the Supreme Authority of the Nation or had assumed the power of Government or were fram'd into a State consequently I am not answerable to them for any opposition to them further then the Common Law binds to Parliaments without their head hand or defective in their members as to such offence if it be one this Court is not qualified to take any cognizance Thirdly As to the design concerning the surprise of the Isle of Ely it was but a bare discourse or communication and no formal design said agreed unto nor person engaged in it so much as by promise And in Cases of conspiracy against the lives of Kings there were some statutes made that very words and communication should be reputed I reason but all repealed or expired And not thought fit by wisdome of Law-makers having indisputable power to make Laws to be revived since the dayes of Q. Mary notwithstanding those very many treasons hatched designed against Queen Elizabeth and King James c. If in the highest point of treason communication be not treason against lawful Princes certainly an affection where the offence such as it is is of a far inferiour nature of it self so it had a far inferior object or subject concerning whom such discourse was holden Fourthly As to my supposed corresponding with the King the Lord Hopton and Earle of Cleveland if true it was so long since as that it fals not within compase of this Courts Commission to try being confin'd to infant matters of a year old and my charge not exhibited to the Court of Justice before Munday the 15 of July My last letter received from Lord Hopton beats date at the Hague 18. or 28. of June and was received in two dayes into Sussex Fifthly As to the Drawing Signing Sealing of the engagement it consists of several branches That De facto I did it and must not deny it because I have confessed it which was more their needed to them who knew it without enquiry for I dare averr that they had their instrument by them imployed and cherisht in betraying me to it And have some years past had a man in my bosome to watch me and my motions which I did affirm to the Lord President and he not denyed but said it was no more then did become any State to do who had so much cause to hold an active man in suspect as they had me having never come in and laid down the Cudgels but held to my principles and was ready upon every occasion to take fire And this I will prove if I have legal or because that word is worne out of use fair dealing from the Court And Out of that I may justly inferr what will be visible enough that it is the States Act and but my consent and they in no danger of me but that I should preserve my self from their new laws into the lapse of which I was not otherwise or by any other action fallen As to the parts of it 1. It consists of an oath of secresie 2. An owning of Charles the Second to be such 3. A resolution to endeavour to make him such 4. A crimination of the State under the names of Rebels and opposers who would not have him to be such To these as they are rankt The oath of Secresie hath relation only as to the not discovering the co-engagers in that resolution the resolution it self being not Treason the oath of keeping secret that resolution is not greater then the thing resolved 1. The thing resolv'd was to endeavour but was nor an actual endeavoring 2. If it were an actual endeavouring yet it can only be supposed that it must be endeavoured by a warr to be levied and the endeavour to levy a warr never actually leavyed is not treason against the King against whom only and his relations by our old laws which are Laws a treason can be committed and petty-treason I am not accused for That a bare intention resolution or engagement to levy a warr is not treason I report my self to my Lord Cooke who tels us and he is a man of credit in his Book printed and allowed for law by the Houses when they were two that a conspiracy and this engagement amounts not to so much but rather to an intention only to conspire to raise a warr as hath been said and so resolv'd is no treason by the Act of Edward the third until the warr levyed as within or to be reached by those words in that law overt Act and if it were not treason