Selected quad for the lemma: justice_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
justice_n	king_n	law_n	right_n	3,390	5	7.1155	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88232	The picture of the Councel of State, held forth to the free people of England by Lievt. Col. John Lilburn, Mr Thomas Prince, and Mr Richard Overton, now prisoners in the Tower of London. Or, a full narrative of the late extra-judicial and military proceedings against them. Together with the substance of their several examinations, answers and deportments before them at Darby house, upon the 28. of March last.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.; Prince, Thomas.; Overton, Richard, fl. 1646.	1649 (1649)	Wing L2154; Thomason E550_14; ESTC R204431	45,344	56

against us and after they were turned out I was called in next and the dore being opened I marched into the Room with my hat on and looking about me I saw divers Members of the House of Commons present and so I put it off and by Sergeant Dendy I was directed to go neer M. Bradshaw that sate as if he had bin Chairman to the Gentlemen that were there present between whom and my self past to this following effect Lieut. Col. Lilburn said he here are some Votes of Parliament that I am commanded by this Councel to acquaint you with which were accordingly read and which did contain the late published and printed Proclamation or Declaration against the second Part of Englands New Chains discovered with divers instructions and an unlimitted power given unto the Councel of State to find out the Authors and Promoters thereof After the reading of which M. Bradshaw said unto me Sir You have heard what hath bin read unto you and this Councel having information that you have a principal hand in compiling and promoting this Book shewing me the Book it self therefore they have sent for you and are willing to hear you speak for your self Well then M. Bradshaw said I If it please you and these Gentlemen to afford me the same liberty and priviledge that the Cavaliers did at Oxford when I was arraigned before them for my li●●… for levying War in the quarrel of the Common-wealth against the late King and his Party which was liberty of speech to speak my mind freely without interruption I shall speak and go on but without the Grant of liberty of speech I shall not say a word more to you To which he replyed That is already granted you and therefore you may go on to speak what you can or will say for your self if you please or if you will not you may hold your peace and with draw Well then said I M. Bradshaw with your favour thus I am an Englishman born bred and brought up and England is a Nation Governed Bounded and Limitted by Laws and Liberties and for the Liberties of England I have both fought and suffered much but truly Sir I judge it now infinitely below me and the glory and excellency of my late actions now to plead merit or desert unto you as though I were forced to fly to the merit of my former actions to lay in a counter-scale to weigh down your indignation against me for my pretended late offences No Sir I scorn it I abhor it And therefore Sir I now stand before you upon the bare naked and single account of an Englishman as though I had never said done or acted any thing that tended to the preservation of the Liberties thereof but yet have never done any act that did put me out of a Legal capacity to claim the utmost punctilio benefit and priviledge that the Laws and Liberties of England will afford to any of you here present or any other man in the whole Nation And the Laws and Liberties of England are my inheritance and birth-right And in your late Declaration published about four or five daies ago wherein you lay down the grounds and reasons as I remember of your doing Justice upon the late King and why you have abolished Kingly Government and the House of Lords you declare in effect the same and promise to maintain the Laws of England in reference to the Peoples Liberties and Freedoms And amongst other things therein contained you highly commend and extol the Petition of Right made in the third yeer of the late King as one of the most excellent and gloriest Laws in reference to the Peoples Liberties that ever was made in this Nation and you there very much blame and cry out upon the King for robing and denying the people of England the benefit of that Law and sure I am for I have read and studied it there is one clause in it that saith expresly That no Free-man of England ought to be adjudged for life limb liberty or estate but by the Laws already in being established and declared And truly Sir if this be good and found Legal Doctrine as undoubtedly it is or else your own Declarations are false and lyes I wonder what you Gentlemen are For the declared and known Laws of England knows you not neither by names nor qualifications as persons endowed with any power either to imprison or try me or the meanest Free-man of England And truly were it not that I know the faces of divers of you and honour the persons of some of you as Members of the House of Commons that have stood pretty firm in shaking times to the Interest of the Nation I should wonder what you are or before whom I am and should not in the least honor or reverence you so much as with Civil Respect especially considering the manner of my being brought before you with armed men and the manner of your close sitting contrary to all Courts of Justice M. Bradshaw it may be the House of Commons hath past some Votes or Orders to authorise you to sit here for such and such ends as in their Orders may be declared But that they have made any such Votes or Orders is legally unknown to me I never saw them It s true by common Fame you are bruted abroad and stiled a Councel of State but its possible common Fame in this particular may as well tell me a ly as a truth But admit common Fame do in this tell me a truth and no ly but that the House of Commons in good earnest have made you a Councel of State yet I know not what that is because the Law of England tells me nothing of such a thing and surely if a Councel of State were a Court of Justice the Law would speak somthing of it But I have read both old and new Laws yea all of late that it was possible to buy or hear of and they tell me not one word of you and therefore I scarce know what to make of you or what to think of you but as Gentlemen that I know I give you civil respect and out of no other consideration But if you judge your selves to be a Councel of State and by vertue thereof think you have any power over me I pray you shew me your Commission that I may know the better how to behave my self before you M. Bradshaw I will not now question or dispute the Votes or Orders of the present single House of Commons in reference to their power as binding Laws to the people yet admit them to be valid legal and good their due circumstances accompanying them yet Sir by the Law of England let me tell you what the House Votes Orders and Enacts within their walls is nothing to me I am not at all bound by them nor in Law can take any cognisance of them as Laws although 20. Members come out of the House and tell me such things are done till they