his to come into England but such only as the King and the Lords should like The Poictovins landing at Boloign had much-a-do to gain passage into their own Countreys by reason that Henry de Montfort Son to the Earl of Leicester whose power was very great in France had followed them thither Rumours were spread amongst the people in England that the Earl of Gloucester was attempted to have been poyson'd and one of his Servants executed upon no other proof but presumption and every one that would complain of the Poictovins wanted no encouragement Richard Gray whom the Lords had made Captain of the Castle of Dover intercepted as much as he could of what the Poictovins carried over and enriched himself thereby The new Chief-Justice Hugh Bigod Brother to the Earl Marshal being chosen in the last Parliament by publick voice procured an order that four Knights in every Shire should enquire of the poor oppressed by great men and certifie the same to the Baronage under their hands and seals which were never found to have been certified And made an Order that no man should give any thing besides Provisions for Justice or to hinder the same and that both the corrupter and corrupted should be grievously punished Notwithstanding which pretended care the Lords enforceing the service of the King's Tenants which dwelt near unto them were as totidem Tyranni furnished the especial Fortresses of the Kingdom with Garrisons of their own sworn to the common State and took the like assurance of all Sheriffs Bailiffs Coroners and other publick Ministers with strict Commissions upon Oath to examine their behaviour And to make the King and his actions the more odious and their own more popular it was rumoured that the King's necessities must be repaired out of the Estates of his people and he must not want whilst they had it Whereupon the King to defend himself from such scandals was constrained to publish his Declaration to desire the people to give no credit to such false suggestions for that he was ready to defend all Rights and Customs due unto them Howsoever Montfort Gloucester and Spencer who had by the late constitution of the twenty-four Conservators drawn the entire managing of the Kingdom into their hands enforced the King to call a Parliament at London where the authority of the twenty-four Conservators was placed in themselves and order taken that three at the least should attend at the Court to dispose of the custody of Castles and other business of the Kingdom of the Chancellor Chief-Justiciar Treasurer and all other Officers great and small and bound the King to release to them their legal Obedience whensoever he infringed his Charter In the mean time the Earl of Cornwal King of the Romans being dispossest of that Kingdom or not well liking it returning into England the Barons send to know the cause of his coming and require of him an Oath before he should land not to prejudice their late established Orders of the Kingdom which he sternly refused saying He had no Peer in England being the Son and Brother of a King and was above their power and if they would have reformed the Kingdom they ought first to have sent for him and not so presumptuously have attempted a business of so high a nature The Lords upon return of such an answer sent to guard the Ports came strongly to the Coast prepared to encounter him and the King Queen and their Son Edmond in a more loving manner go to Dover to receive him but neither they nor the Earl of Cornwal were by them permitted to enter into the Castle for that it was the chief Fortress of the Kingdom But finding the Earl of Cornwal's Train small they suffered him to land and did upon his promise to take the propounded Oath bring him and the King into the Chapter-house at Canterbury where the Earl of Gloucester standing forth in the midst in the presence of the King called forth the Earl not by the name of King but Earl of Cornwal who in reverend manner coming forth took his Oath That he would be faithful and diligent with the Barons to reform the Kingdom by the counsel of wicked persons over-much disordered and to be an effectual Coadjutor to expel Rebels and disturbers of the same under pain of losing all the Lands which he held in England After which both parties strengthening themselves all they could the King for the assurance of the King of France ex praecepto consilio Domini Regis Angliae totius Baronagii sent the Earls of Gloucester Leicester Peter de Subaudia John Mansel and Robert Walerand to the Parliament of Paris de arduis negotiis Regna Angliae Franciae contingentibus carrying with them a resignation of the Dutchy of Normandy and the Earldoms of Anjou Poicteau Turaine and Mayne for which the King of France was to give him three hundred thousand pounds with a grant of all Guyen beyond the River of Garonna all the River of Xantoigne to the River of Charente and the Counties of Limosin and Quercy to him and his Successors dong his Homage and Fealty to the Crown of France as a Duke of Aquitain and a Peer of that Kingdom After whose return Montfort as he had incensed others so had he those that animated him against the King as Walter Bishop of Worcester and Robert Bishop of Lincoln who enjoyned him upon the remission of his sins to prosecute the cause unto death affirming that the peace of the Church of England would never be established but by the Sword But the people being oppressed and tired at length with those commotions part-takings and discords which by the provisions wrested from the King at Oxford and so many mischiefs and inconveniencies had harassed and almost ruined them and did help to increase rather than decrease those troubles and controversies which afflicted the Nation it having never been easie to bring those that were to be governed to rule with any modesty or moderation those that had enjoyed a governing power in authority established and appointed by God in a well-temper'd Monarchy and succession for many Ages or those that were to govern to obey the giddy and unjust dictates of those who were to obey them or to unite in any contenting harmony the various ambitions envies revenges hatreds partialities self-interests and designs of many or a multitude or such enforcements and contrivances to be lasting durable or pleasing and that all could not well rule or agree how to do it The King and Queen keeping their Christmas in the Tower of London cum suis consiliariis saith Matthew Paris elaboratum fuit tam à Regni Angliae pontificibus quam à Regni Franciae ut pax reformaretur inter Regem Angliae Barones ventumque est ad illud ut Rex Proceres se submiserunt ordinationi Regis Franciae in praemissis provisionibus Oxoniae nec non pro depraedationibus damnis utrobique
though an English-man born had been bred in France and an adhaerent to that King Being thus elected and consecrated by the Pope at Viterbium in Italy the election of the Bishop of Norwich whom the King had procured to be elected being made void and those Monks and the rest of the Agents sent home with the Popes Letters exhorting the King benignly to receive Stephen Langton and charging the Monks remaining at Canterbury by virtue of holy Obedience to obey the Archbishop in all Temporal and Spiritual matters With which the King being greatly displeased seized upon all which the Monks had who with their Prior hasted away to Flanders And writing a sharp Letter to the Pope concerning the wrong done unto him in making void the election of Gray Bishop of Norwich and advancing Stephen Langton a man unknown to him and which was more to his prejudice without his consent gave him to understand that he would stand for the liberties of his Crown to the death constantly affirming that he could not revoke the election of the Bishop of Norwich and that if he were not righted therein he would stop up his passages of his Subjects to Rome and if necessity required had in his Kingdom of England and other his Dominions Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates of so sufficient Learning as they needed not to beg Justice and Judgment of Strangers Unto which as angry a Letter being returned and two Monks who were staid at Dover having been sent from Rome to demand his assent for the election of Stephen Langton admonished him to endeavour to give him and the Church their Right and not to cast himself into those difficulties from whence he could not easily release himself since He in the end must overcome to whom all knees bow in Heaven Earth and Hell whose Vicegerency here below he exercised Neither was it safe for him to repugn God and the Church for which the glorious Martyr and Bishop Thomas Becket shed his Bloud especially since his Father and Brother late Kings of England have in the hands of the Legates of the Apostolick See abjured which the Records and Memorials of England do with great clearness contradict that as he pleased to call it Impious Custom And when he was informed how the King had proceeded against the Church of Canterbury sent his Mandates to the Bishops of Ely London and Worcester to exhort him to reform himself and if they found him contumacious to interdict the whole Kingdom and if that would not correct him would lay a severe hand on him Which they being ready to obey with tears beseeching him that he would call home the Archbishop and the Monks of Canterbury and avoid the scandal of interdiction The King in a great Passion against the Pope and Cardinal interrupting their Speech Swore that if they or any other should dare to put the Kingdom under Interdiction he would presently send all the Clergy of England to the Pope and confiscate their Goods and that if any of Rome should be found within any part of his Land he would cause their Eyes to be put out their Noses cut over fierce punishments long before usually and indifferently inflicted upon offending Criminals Laicks and Clergy by our Saxon and Norman Ancestors much before and sometimes since the time of our William the Conquerour and so sent home that by those marks they might be known of other Nations charging the Bishops moreover presently to avoid his presence as they would avoid their own danger Of which the Pope being certified by those Bishops the whole Kingdom was shortly after interdicted all Ecclesiastical Sacraments and Offices except Confession Extream Unction and Baptism of Children seized and Dead were put into the Earth without Priest or Prayer the King by his Sheriffs and Ministers commanded all Prelates and their Servants to depart the Kingdom confiscated all the Revenues of the Bishopricks Abbyes and Priories many of the Prelates getting into the Monasteries as places priviledged And not forgetting the Indignities Hardships Necessities and ill usages which had been undutifully put upon him by some of his Barons with the Domineering of the Pope his Legates and Clergy whilst like a Tennis-Ball he had been betwixt them tost from one hand Wall and Racket to another with the great oppressions which had been laid upon him by the Clergy of one part and some of his unruly Barons on the other the discords of the former more encouraging the latter by the Popes Excommunication and Interdicting his Kingdom did the better to prevent the revolt of his Subjects which might follow upon his breach with the Church send with a Military power to all the great men of the Kingdom to give Pledges for the assurance of their Fidelity wherein some of them gave satisfaction by sending their Sons Nephews or nearest of Kin amongst whom William de Brause a great Baron being sent unto his Lady too sharply giving an answer before her Husband could do it That the King should have none of her Son to keep that was so ill a keeper of his own Brothers Son Arthur but her Lord reprehending her for it returned his answer That he was ready if he had offended to satisfy the King without any Pledge according to the judgment of his Court and that of his Peers The King displeased with the Londoners removed his Exchequer to Northampton marched with an Army to make War against the King of Scotland and that business appeased in his return back caused all the Inclosures in his Forests to be laid open The Pope seeing that he would not yield proceeded to an Excommunication of his Person which did put him into a desperate rage against the Clergy who durst not execute the Popes Mandate for many days after which Excommunication of the King was accompanied with that of the Emperour Otho his Nephew and all the Estates of Germany and the Roman Empire were absolved from their Obedience and Fidelity But the King having gained great Treasure from the Iews made a Voyage into Ireland where receiving the Homage of many and reducing much of that Country to his obedience ordained the same to be governed by the Laws and Customs of England the contests whereof were not then fully settled making the Coin and Money thereof to be there Currant and leaving John Grey Bishop of Norwich to be Justiciar and there after three Months stay returned into Wales which had Rebelled reduced them to Obedience taking 28 of the Children of their best Families for Pledges Whence returning in the 13th year of his Reign he required and had of every Knight that attended not his Army in that Expedition two Marks and at Northampton received the Popes Agents Pandulphus and Durandus who were sent to make a Peace betwixt the Kingdom and Priesthood too many of whom in matters against the King were seldom at odds by whose exhortation and the consideration of the State of the Kingdom he consented that the Archbishop
of France until he were absolved and had confirmed unto them their Liberties whereupon the King much against his will was constrain'd to submit to the present pressure and necessity sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops who were yet in France promising them present restitution and satisfaction under the Hands and Seals of 24 of his Earls and Barons undertaking for the performance thereof according to the form of his Charter and Agreement made and granted in that behalf and the better to prepare them to give him their assistance directed the ensuing Letter to meet them in these words Rex Venerabili in Christo Patri S. Dei gratiâ Cant ' Archiepiscopo totius Angliae Primati sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinali omnibus suffraganeis suis Episcopis cum eo existentibus Johannes eadem gratiâ Rex Angliae c. mandamus vobis quòd cùm veneritis in Angliam scientes quòd jamdiù vos expectavimus adventum vestrum desideravimus unde in occursum vestrum mittimus fideles nostros Dominum H. Dublin ' Archiepiscopum J. Norwici Episcopum W. Com' Arundel Mattheum filium Herberti W. Archidiaconum Huntindon rogantes quatenùs ad nos venire festinetis sicut praedicti fideles nostri vobis dicent T. meipso apud Stoaks Episcopi primo die Julii Whereupon Pandulphus with the Archbishop and the rest of the exiled Clergy upon his confiscation of their Estates forthwith came over and found him at Winchester who went forth to meet them and on his knees with Tears received them beseeching them to have Compassion on him and the Kingdom of England and being thereupon Absolved with great Penitence Weeping and Compunction accompanied with the Tears of the many Beholders did Swear upon the Evangelists to Love Defend and Maintain Holy Church and the Ministers thereof to the utmost of his Power that he would renew the good Laws of his Predecessors especially those of King Edward abrogating such as were unjust would Judge all his Subjects according to the just Judgment of his Court which was then and for many Ages before composed only of the King and his Nobility Bishops and Lords Spiritual with his great Officers of State and such Assistants as he would please to call unto it and that presently upon Easter next following he would make plenary satisfaction for whatsoever had been taken from the Church Which done he went to Portsmouth with intention to pass over into France committing the Government of the Kingdom to the Bishop of Winchester and Jeffrey Fitz-Peter Justiciar a man of a Generous Spirit Learned in the Laws and Skilful in Government who were also to take the Councel of the Archbishop of Canterbury The Souldiers being numerous and wanting Money to attend him desired to be Supplied out of his Exchequer which he refusing to do or wanting it in a great rage with his private Family took Shipping and put forth to the Isle of Jersey but seeing none of his Nobles and others followed him according to their Tenures and Homage was forced having lost his opportunity of the Season to return into England where he gathered an Army with intention to Chastise the Lords who had so forsaken him having for the like Offence some years before taken by way of Fine a great sum of Money Quòd noluerunt eum sequi ad partes transmarinas ut haereditatem amissam recuperaret But the Archbishop of Canterbury followed him to Northampton urging him that it was against his Oath taken at his Absolution to proceed in that manner against any man without the Judgment of his Court to whom the King in great wrath replyed that he would not defer the business of the Kingdom for his pleasure seeing Lay Judgment appertained not to him and marched to Nottingham The Archbishop followed him and plainly told him that unless he would desist he would Excommunicate all such as should take Arms against any before the releasing of the Interdiction and would not leave him until he had obtained a convenient day for the Lords to come to his Court which shortly after they did And a Parliament was assembled at St. Pauls in London wherein the Archbishop of Canterbury produced the said Charter of King Henry I. whereby he granted the ancient Liberties of the Kingdom of England according to the Laws of King Edward with those emendations which his Father by the counsel of his Barons had ratified upon the reading whereof gaudio magno valdè saith Matthew Paris they greatly rejoyced and swore in the presence of the Archbishop that for those Liberties viso tempore congruo si necesse fuerit decertabunt usque ad mortem Archiepiscopus promisit eis fidelissimum auxilium suum pro posse suo sic confederatione facta inter eos colloquium solutum fuit The Pope advertised of those disturbances by his Bull directed Baronibus Angliae but not to those Bishops displaying the Banner of his supposed Authority which had encouraged and animated and caused them to persist therein stiling those Quaestiones novitèr suscitatas grave dispendium parituras did prohibit under the pain of Excommunication all Conspiracies and Insurrections from the time of the Discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium which had been quieted Apostolica autoritate admonished them Regem placare reconciliare exhibentes ei servitia consueta which They and their Predecessors had done unto Him and his Predecessors and if they had any thing to require of him they should not ask it insolenter sed cum reverentia preserving his Regal Honour and Authority that so they might the more easily obtain what they desired and assured them that he would desire the King that he should be kind to them and admit their just Petitions But the Barons persisting in their armed Violence and Rebellion against the King notwithstanding that weather-beaten Prince had for shelter taken upon him the Cross and War for the recovery of the Holy-Land then so called the Pope in July following sent his Bull to the universality of the Barons Bishops and Commonalty of England wherein reciting that the Barons had sent their Agents unto him and that he had commanded the Archbishops Bishops and Archdeacons ut conspirationes conjurationes praesumptas from the the time of the discords inter Regnum Sacerdotium that they should Apostolic à autoritate forbid them by Excommunication to proceed any farther therein and enjoyn the Barons to endeavour to pacifie the King and reconcile themselves unto him and if they had any thing to demand of him it should be done conservando sibi Regalem Honorem exhibendo servitia debita quibus ipse Rex non debebat absque Judicio spoliari And that he had commanded the King to be admonished and enjoyned as he would have remission of his sins graciously to give them a safe conduct and receive their just Petitions ita si quod fortè non posset inter eos concordia provenire
Raign of King Richard the Second when the Dukes Earls and Barons were Created by Letters Patents of our Kings the Names of the Barons to be Summoned in Parliament were Written from the King 's own Mouth at his Direction and Command and in that agreeth with Mr. Elsing who saith It was ad libitum Regis for surely none but the King can Summon a Parliament and that was the reason that Henry the Fourth having taken King Richard the Second his Leige and Lord Prisoner the 20th day of August in the 21st Year of his Raign did cause the Writ of Summons for the Parliament wherein he obtained the Crown to bear Date the 19th day of the same Month for the Warrant was Per ipsum Regem Concilium and himself to be Summoned by the Name of Henry Duke of Lancaster SECT XIII That the Majores Barones regni and Spiritual and Temporal Lords with their Assistants were until the 49th Year of the Raign of King Henry the Third and the constrained Writs issued out for the Election of Knights Citizens and Burgesses whilst he was a Prisoner in the Camp or Army of his Rebellious Subjects the only great Councel of our Kings FOr the Barons of England viz. the Lords Spiritual and Temporal with some other wise and selected Men which our Kings did anciently and upon Occasions call into that Assembly were the Great Council of the Kingdom and before and from the Conquest until a great part of the Raign of King Henry the Third in whose dayes saith Mr. Elsing it is thought the Writs for Election of Knights and Burgesses were framed made the Great Councel of the Kingdom and under the name of Barons not only the Earls but the Bishops also were comprehended for the Conqueror Summoned the Bishops to those great Councels as Barons and in the Writ of Summons made as aforesaid in the Captivity and Troubles of King Henry the Third we find the Bishops and Lords with some Abbots and Pryors to be the Councellors and the Commons only called to do perform and consent unto what should be ordained And Mr. Selden and Sir Henry Spelman have by divers Instances and warrantable Proofs declared unto us That the Bishops and Lords only were admitted into the Wittenagemots or great Councels which were wont in and after the Raigns of the Saxon Kings to be kept at the three great Festivals in the Year viz. Easter Whitsontide and Christmass when the Earls and Barons came to pay their Respects and Reverence to their Soveraign and give an Account of what was done or necessary to be known or done in their several Provinces and Charges and what was fit to be Consulted thereupon and were then accustomed to meet and Assist their Kings and Soveraigns with their Advice and Counsel Which was so constantly true as Antecessores Comitis Arundel solebant tenere manerium de Bylsington in com' Kanc. quod valet per Annum 30. l. per Serjeantiam essendi Pincernam Domini Regis in die Pentecostes Ela Comitissa Warwick tenuit manerium de Hoke Norton in com Oxon quod est de Baronia de Oyley de Domino Rege in capite per Serjeantiam scindendi coram domino Rege die Natalis Domini habere Cultellum domini Regis de quo scindit Roger de Britolio Farl of Heresord being in Armes and open Rebellion against King William the Conqueror taken Prisoner and Condemned to perpetual Imprisonment wherein though he frequently used many scornsul and contumelious words towards the King yet he was pleased at the Celebration of Faster in a solemn manner as then was usual to send to the said Earl Roger then in Prison his Royal Robes who so disdained the Favour that he forth with caused a great Fire to be made and the Mantle the inner Surcoate of Silk and the upper Garment lined with precious Furs to be Burnt which being made known to the King he became displeased and said Certainly he is a very proud Man who hath thus abused me but by the Brightness of God he shall never come out of Prison as long as I live which was fulfilled In Anno 1078 William Rufus tenuit curiam in natali domini apud London Rex Anglorum Willielmus cognomento Rufus gloriose curiam suam tenuit ad Natale apud Gloverniam ad Pascham apud Wintoniam apud Londonias ad Pentecosten Et hic Concessus Ordinum regni saith Sir John Spelman Sive totius regni Repraesentatio quod intelligere convenit ab Alfredo certis quidem vicibus ijs ordinariis non quasi ejusdem formae celebritatis esset cujus hodierna Comitia quae Parliamentum vulgò dicuntur sed ut quantum est in Anglia terrarum tunc aut unum omninò Regis erat aut Comitun ejus atque Baronum qui sub illis agros colerent eos Clientelari atque precario jure possederint ut qui toti ab nutu dominorum penderent ità quicquid ab isto tempore ab Rege Comitibus ejus atque Baronibus constitutum est toto regno sancitum erat velut ab ijs transactum quibus in caeteros suprema absoluta potestas esset adeoque reliquorum seu clientium mancipiorum jura includeret Episcopos quod attinet hi magnis hisce Concilijs nunquam non intersuerunt suisque suffragijs leges sanxerunt nam praetereà illud quod ob seculares fundos Barones vel ob ipsum sacerdotis honorem sacrosancti censebantur eâ infuper sapientiâ plerumque praestabant ut non tantùm suffi agia Procerum aequiparârint sed actis omnibus venerationem atque pondus addiderint ab hoc Regis instituto manavit uti videtur mos ille posteris Saxonibus non inusitatus ut concilia Episcoporum atque Magnatum tèr quotannis celebrarentur nempe ad Domini Natales Pascha atque Pentecosten ad consultandum de arduis regni negotijs neque id uno semper eodemque loco sed ubicunque res posceret licet ferè ubi Rex cum Aulicis ageret praesens And in our Parliaments as well Modern as Ancient had a deliberative Power as the most Learned Selden hath informed us in advising their Kings in Matters of State and giving their Assent in the making of Laws and a judicial subordinate Power to their Kings in giving of Judgment in Suits or Complaints brought before them in the House of Lords or that Magna Curia Universitas regni as Bracton stiles it and whither in his time Causes were for difficulty adjourned from the other Courts of the Kingdom unto which no Remedies could otherwise be given and saith Mr. Elsing All Judgments are given by the Lords as aforesaid and not by the Commons And that very ancient long experimented and well approved Custom appeareth not to have been discontinued or forgotten when in the Parliament holden in the first Year of the Raign of King Henry the
Christianity in this our British Isle whither with divers good Authors we believe that King Lucius who is said to lie buried at Winchester did in the year 156 after the Birth of our Redeemer or in the year 185 186 or 187. write his Letter to Pope Eleutherius to transmit unto him the Roman Laws it is allowed by Sir Henry Spelman to have been written Rege Proceribus Regni Britanniae and that Faganus and Dervianus two Doctors being sent by Eleutherius to King Lucius Baptized him cum regulis populum Baptizant Clerum ordidinant 3. Metropolitanos 28. Episcopos instituunt Rex Ambrosius Aurelius ut memoriale Procerum Britanniae quos Hengistus Saxonesque sui complices nefanda proditione in monte Ambrosij qui nunc vulgò Stohenge dicitur trucidaverant 480. Consul ' Barones aeternum fieret praegrandes Lapides qui ibidem in borum memoriam usque in praesens positi sunt ab Hybernia cum magna manu Germano suo Uther illuc transmisso deportari fecit qui câ—â—n allati fuissent congregati sunt in monte Ambrosij edicto Regis magnates eum Clero cum magno honore dictorum nobilium sepulturam prepararent In the Charter of King Aethelbert confirming his Grant of the Land given to the Church of St. Pancrase in the Year 605. It is mentioned to have been done consensu venerabilis Augustini Archiepiscopi ac Principum suorum Et Decreta judiciorum ordinavit juxta exempla Romanorum concilio sapientum and when Edwin King of Northumberland was perswaded to be a Christian it is said that he consulted cum principibus conciliariis suis. Anno Dominicae incarnationis Aethelbertus Rex in fide roboratus Catholica unà cum beata regina filioque ipsorumque Eadbaldo ac Reverendissimo praesule Augustino caeterisque Optimatibus terrae solemnitatem natalis Domini celebravit Cantuariae convocato igitur ibidem communi concilio tà m Cleri quà m populi In Anno Domini 673. a Parliamentary Councel was holden at Hertford presentibus Episcopis ac Regibus Magnatibus universis but not any Knights Citizens Burgesses or Commons as we read of saith Mr. Pryn. A great Councel or Parliament was held at Becanfeld where Wythred King of Kent was present Anno 694. In like manner where none but the Peers were present The like Anno 710. at Worcester but without any Commons The like in the Councel at Cliff Anno 747. holden by Ethelbaldus King of Mercia omnibus Regni sui principibus ducibus being present but not one Knight or Burgess mentioned The like in Anno 787. at Colchuth coram Offa Rege suis magnatibus convenerunt omnes principes tà m Ecclesiastici quà m seculares Anno Domini 793. King Offa held a Councel at Verulam wherein the King suorum Magnatum acquiescens concilio took a journey to Rome Anno 794. after his return Celebrated two Councels the one at Colchyth where were present nine Kings twenty-five Bishops twenty Dukes but no House of Commons the other at Verolam Congregato apud Verolamium Episcoporum Optimatum concilio About the year 796. Cynewolf King of West Sex held a Councel where he wrote to Lullus Bishop of Mentz touching matters of Religion unà cum Episcopis suis nec non cum caterva Satraparum Anno 800. Kenulf King of Mercia called to the Councel at Clovesha omnes Regni sui Episcopos Duces Abbates cujuscunque dignitatis viros where there was no mention of any Commons Anno 816. at the Councel of Colechyth Caenulf King of Mercia was present cum suis principibus ducibus optimatibus but not a Syllable of Knights or Burgesses present About the year 822. in the Councel of Cloveshâ— where Beornulf King of Mercia Wilfred Archbishop Omniumque dignltatum optimates Ecclesiasticarum Secularium were present but no Knights of Counties or Burgesses Anno 824. another Councel was held by the same King at the same place assidentibus Episcopis Abbatibus Principibus Merciorum universis but no Commons for ought appears the King Archbishops Bishops and Dukes Subscribing their Names to the decrees there made About the same time a Councel called Pan-Anglicum or for all England was holden at London Praesentibus Egberto Rege West Saxonum Withlasio Rege Merciorum utroque Archiepiscopo caeterisque Angliae Magnatibus who Subscribed it Anno Domini 838. a Concilium Pan-Anglicum was holden at Kingston where King Egbert and his Son Ethelwolph were present cum Episcopis Optimatibus but not a word mentioned of the Commons Assent or Dissent Anno 850. A Councel was holden at Beningdon Praelatis proceribus Regni Merciae under King Bertulf when Lands were Setled and Confirmed by them to the Abbey of Crowland without the Assent or Mention of any Commons Anno Domini 851. In a Councel held at Kingsbury under King Bertulf Praesentibus Ceolnotho Archiepiscopo Doroberniae caeterisque Regni Merciae Episcopis Magnatibus without Knights or Burgesses Anno 855. There was a Councel or Parliament of all England held at Winchester where Ethelulf King of West-Sex Beorred King of Mercia and Edmond King of East-Sex were present together with the Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York Caeterisque Angliae Episcopis Magnatibus wherein King Ethelwolf Omnium praelatorum principum suorum gratuito concilio without any Knights or Burgesses gave the Tithes of all the Lands and Goods within his Dominions a matter of no small Concernment to all his Subjects in their Estates and Proprieties to God and the Church which hath continued ever since in Force through all England Betwixt the Year 871. which was the beginning of King Alureds Raign and the end of which was in Anno Christi Domini 900. that excellent and prudent Prince Collected and Corrected divers Laws made by the Saxon Kings his Predecessors omitting others consulto sapientum Prudentissimorume suis consiliis usus edicit eorum observationem which was probably so done in a great Councel or Councels which were afterwards called Parliaments which in that so generally an unlearned age cannot be understood to be less than the Magnates of the Kingdom Bishops and Barons And the like is to be said of the Prudentum concilium given to Edoard who began his Reign in Anno 900. and ended it in Anno 924 and as much is to be believed of the Councel or Parliament of King Aethelstan who began his Raign in Anno 924 and ended it in the year 940. who besides what is mentioned in the making of his Laws that he did it prudenti Ulfheline Archiepiscopi aliorumque Episcoporum suorum concilio did about the year of our Lord 930. by his Charter give divers Lands to the Abby of Malmesbury in one of which Charters or Grants there was a Postscript or Subscription in these words Sciant sapientes Regionis Nostrae non has prefatas terras me injustè rapuisse rapinas Deo dedisse
of King William the Second there was a great Councel De cunctis Regni principibus and another which had all the Peers of the Kingdom In the 7th Year of his Raign was a great Councel or Parliament so called at Rockingham Castle in Northamptonshire Episcopis Abbatibus cunctisque Regni Principibus coeuntibus and a Year or two after the same King De statu Regni acturus called thither by his Command his Bishops Abbots and Peers of the Kingdom Anno 1106. Robert Duke of Normandy coming into England and seeking to be reconciled to his Brother King Henry the First which could not at Northampton be effected Magnatibus regni ob hoc Londonium edicto Regis convocatis the King by fair Words and Promises so frustrated the Dukes designs as Omnium corda sibi inclinavit ut pro ipso contra quemlibet usque ad capitis expositionem dimicarent Dux in Normanniam iratus perrexit Rex ipsum secutus est usque in Herchebrai Castellum trahens secum omnes ferè Proceres Normanniae Andegaviae robur Angliae Britanniae ut ipsum debellaret The Emperour having sent Ambassadors unto him to request his Daughter Maud in Marriage Tenuit ità que Rex apud Westmonasterium in Pentecosten Curiam suam quâ nunquam tenuerat splendidiorem wherein the Marriage was concluded Anno Domini 1114. Rex Anglorum Henricus fecit omnes suae potestatis Magnates as if there were no need of Commons which were then believed to be included in them fidelitatem jurare Willielmo filio suo At the Coronation of which King who had usurped his said elder Brothers Kingdom and stood in fear of his better Title it was said That all the People of the Kingdom of England were present but the Laws and Charter then made were Per commune concilium Baronum suorum confirmed and that Charter was attested by Mauritio Londoniensi Episcopo Willielmo Wintoniensi electo Odoardo Herefordiensi Episcopo Henrico Comite Simone Comite Waltero Gifford Comite Robert de Monti forti Rogero Bigod aliis multis Et factae sunt tot Chartae quot sunt Comitatus in Anglia Rege jubente positae in Abbatiis singulorum Comitatuum ad Monumentum In the 3d. Year of his Raign the Peers of the Kingdome were called without any mention of the Commons and Orders were at another great Councel made Consensu Comitum Baronum Florentius Wigorniensis saith that Lagam Edwardi Regis reddidit cum illis emendationibus quibus eam Pater suus emendavit concilio Baronum suorum After whose Death King Stephen having Usurped the Crown of England which did not at all belong unto him and Fought stoutly to keep it Concilium congregavit de statu Reipublicae cum Proceribus suis tractare studuit Anno Domini 1153 Justitiâ de Caelo prospiciente diligentiâ Theobaldi Archiepiscopi Cantuar ' aliorum Episcoporum regni King Stephen having no Issue Facta est concordia betwixt him and Henry Duke of Normandy after King Henry the Second who was by King Stephen acknowledged In conventu Episcoporum allorum Optimatum wherein it was accorded That Duke Henry saith Mathew Paris should Succeed him in the Kingdom Stephen only enjoying it for his Life if he should have no Children ex concessione Ducis Henrici ità tamen confirmata est pax quòd ipse Rex Episcopi praesentes cum caeteris Optimatibus regni no Commons jurarent quòd Dux post mortem Regis si ipsum superviveret Regnum fine contradictione aliqua obtineret King Henry the Second in the 10th year of his Raign held a great Councel or Parliament at Clarendon where some of the Customes and Constitutions of the Kingdom were Recognized which was an Assembly only of Prelates and Peers Anno 1118. in a Peace or League made betwixt him and Philip King of France it was agreed That in any Matters of Difference afterwards ariseing betwixt them they should abide by the Award of three Bishops and three Barons to be Elected on the King of France his part and the like on the King of Englands Anno Gratiae 1272. Venit Oxenford in generali Concilio ibidem celebrato constituit Johannem filium suum Regem in Hybernia concessione confirmatione Alexandri summi Pontificis in eodem concilio venerunt ad Regem Resus filius Gryphini Regulus de South-Wales David filius Owini Regulus de North-Wales qui Sororem ejusdem Regis Angliae in uxorem duxerat Cadwallanus Regulus de Delmain Owanus de Kavillian Griffinus de Bromfeld Madacus filius Gerverog alii multi de Nobilioribus Gualliae omnes devenêrunt homines Regis Angliae patris fidelitatem ei contra omnes homines pacem sibi regno servandam juraverunt In eodem concilio dedit Dominus Rex Angliae praedicto Reso filio Griffini terram de Merionith David filio Owani terram de Ellismore Deditque Hugoni de Lasci ut supradictum est in Hybernia totam Midam cum-pertinentiis pro servitio centum militum de ipso Johanne filio suo Chartam suam ei inde fecit And being to return an Answer to the Popes Letter inviting him to take upon him the Croysado and succour the Holy Land assembled a Parliament at London ubi dominus Rex Patriarcha Jerusalem Episcopi Abbates Comites Barones Angliae but no Knights Citizens or Burgesses thereof saith Mr. Pryn Willielmus Rex Scotiae David frater ejus cum Comitibus Baronibus terrae suae convenerunt Anno Domini 1162. without leave of Parliament or People Fecit jurare fidelitatem Henrico filio suo de haereditate suâ inter omnes Magnates Regni Thomas Cancellarius primus fidelitatem juravit salvâ fide Regi patri quamdiù viveret regno praeesse vellet In the 22d Year of his Raign held a great Councel at Nottingham by Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons At Windsor Communi concilio with Bishops Earls and Barons And the like afterwards at Northampton King Richard the 1st held shortly after his Coronation upon the invitation of the King of France and his undertaking to do the like a great Councel or Parliament cum Comitibus Baronibus suis qui Crucem susceperant in generali Concilio constituti apud Londonias taking their Oaths for the recovery of the Holy Land hasting thither and passing into Normandy Elianor Regina mater Richardi Regis with whom he had left the care of the Kingdom and Alays Soror Phillippi Regis Franciae Baldwin Archbishop of Canterbury the Bishops of Norwich Durham Winchester Ely Salisbury Chester Geffry the Kings Brother elected Archbishop of York and John Earl of Morton the Kings Brother shortly after transfretârunt de Anglia in Normanniam per mandatum Domini Regis habito cum illis concilio Dominus Rex statuit Willielmum Episcopum Eliensem Cancellarium
then untill after a long intervall of time in Anno. 22. E. 1. re-continued sub eadem fo 〈…〉 a which was in no other Tenour or to any other purpose then ad faciendum consentiendum iis to those matters or things which the King by the Councell and advice of the Peers viz. the Lords Spirituall and Temporall should ordain and although there have been ab ultima antiquitate great Councells or Parliaments Now although not formerly called Parliaments in this Nation or Kingdome yet they were not materially or formally the same and if it could be proved that the members thereof consisted of 3. Estates besides the King their Sovereign Lord before the 49th Year of the Reign of King Henry the 3. which all our Parliament Records do deny yet they that were admitted or came under the Elections illegally forced Writs and designs of Montfort and his rebellious partners by their then only newly contrived House of Commons can never entitle themselves to the same Origene Identity purpose and usage of our former Parliaments before that House of Commons in Parliament were admitted to consent unto and do what the King by the advice of his Lords Spiritualand Temporall therein should Ordain And there might be allways reason enough found that there should be a distinction betwixt the great Councells of Parliament which were not only for extraordinary emergencies touching the defence of the Kingdom and Church and redress of grievances in Civill affairs and contingencies and that which was for Military aids and services for saith our old and learned Bracton in Rege qui recte regit necessaria sunt duo haec Arma videlicet leges quibus utrumque tempus Bellorum pacis recte possit gubernare utrumque enim illorum alterius indiget auxilio quo tam militaris res possit esse in tuto quam ipsae leges usu Armorum praesidio possint esse servatae Si autem Arma defecerint contra hostes rebelles indomitos sic erit regnum indefensum sic autem leges sic exterminabitur Justicia nec erit qui rectum faciet Judicium And our Kings whose Royal Progenitors had heretofore all the Lands in England holden of them in Capite might in their greater concernments better deserve to keep their seperate and particular Military Courts for aids and services then those many of their Subjects do that would be unwilling not to be allowed to do it in their own Estates which had no other fountain or originall then the bounty and indulgence of their Kings and Princes and Bracton hath inform'd us that quod ille homagium suum facere debet obtentu reverentia quam debet domino suo adire debet dominum suum ubicunque inventus fuerit in regno vel alibi si possit commode adiri Et non tenetur dominus quaerere suum tenentem And in the homage Secundum quosdam there is to be salva fide debita domino Regi haeredibus suis. Et quod faciet servitium debitum domino suo haeredibus suis non debet homagium facere privatium sed in loco publico communi coram pluribus in Comitatu Hundredo vel Curia ut si forte tenens per malitiam homagium vellet dedicere possit dominus facilius probationem habere de homagio facto servitio recognito Which with the aid of tenures and feudall Laws and the homage services due from the Subjects to the Crown their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and our many and excellent Laws for self-preservation and publique safety did so firm and fix the Militia and Jus gladii in our Kings and Princes ordained and appointed by God for the execution of Justice Defence and Protection of the People their Religion Persons Lives Laws Liberties and Estates as they that would by perverted wrested and falsly concluded arguments overturn our Government and have Labour'd by all the Shifts and Falsities which the Devill and his Imps could contrive and furnish to Propagate their Designs and Principles of Wickedness and Confusion may find that all the Laws Records Annalls and Historians of the Kingdom do assert and prove the Jus gladii to appertain to none but our Kings and that the attempt to take it from them hath been ever accompted and punished as a Rebellion And that they are not Masters of their Wits or are Lunatiques without intervalls that can think their Industry and Pains well bestowed to go about to prove that there ought to be or ever was an Allegiance Oath or Homage made or taken to the People universally considered or was unto them due or could be by any right rule of Law Custom or Right Reason claimed by them or any way appropriate unto them Unto which well known and allways due Rights of our Kings and Princes were very subservient those great aids and support of the Kingdom the Knights fees and lands held of our King in Capite the strength and honour whereof could neither well be preserved called upon or certified unto our Kings in their Exchecquer as the book called the Red-book in that Court kept only for that purpose will inform us without an often Summoning those necessary and useful Courts or keeping them from a disuse which heretofore were wont to serve as Prognostiques or Indications or a feeling of the strength and pulse of the Kingdom by our Kings and Princes the careful Phisitians thereof the neglect whereof by the dissolution of the Abbies Monasteries and religious Houses and those large quantities of lands being no less then a fourth part of the Kingdom and the parcelling thereof into small quantities afterwards granted with a tenure in Soccage and our Kings granting of other great quantities of the Monastick Manors and lands to be holden in free and Common Soccage of the King as of his Manor of East Greenwitch together with the carlesness of the Court of Wards and Liveries and the Eascheators and Feodaries of the after ages so little minding their Duties and Oaths as if one parcell of lands were by a Jury found to be holden in Capite they were well content to suffer all the rest to pass with a per quae servitia ignorant and the carelesness in the levying of Fines and not suing out of Writs in such cases accustomed called per quae servicia which if the tenures in Capite and by Knight service had not been so ever to be lamented unhappily exchanged for a moyety after the Kings decease of a corrupt and unwholsome Drunken Excise those Terms in Capite with their Military aids and services the quondam strength and glory of our Kings and Nobility would have dwindled and shrunk into a consumption and Tabes of our heretofore Gigantine body politique and have for a great part by themselves without the so often murmuring and unwilling taxes and assessments been too weak or feeble to preserve their grandeur and protect and defend them and their peoples properties trades and
Ancient Form of Government who ought better to assert them and that the Coronation-Oaths of all our many Kings and Princes swearing to maintain the Laws of King Edward the Confessor which have for those many Ages past so highly satisfied and contented the Common People and good Subjects of England do enjoin no other than our Kings and Princes strict observation of the Feudal Laws and their Subjects Obedience unto him and them by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy and his and their Protection of them in the performance thereof and from no other Laws or Customs than the Feudal Laws have our Parliaments themselves derived their original as Eginard Secretary unto Charles the Great or Charlemain who Raigned in the year after our blessed Saviours Incarnation 768. consisting of Lords Spiritual and Temporal if not long before had their more fixt beginning How then can so grave and learned a Professor of our Laws and after an eminent Administrator of the Laws and Justice of the Kingdom so either declare to the World that he hath not at all been acquainted with our Feudal Laws but gained a great Estate out of a small in a Government and Laws he knew no Original thereof and make many things to be grievances of the People which are but the Kings Just Rights and Authority and the Peoples Duty and their grievances in doing or suffering their Duties to be done as if disobedience which in our Nation hath too often hapned were a Franchise of the Land and a Right to be Petitioned for by the People But howsoever Mr. Will. Pryn being better awake could be so kind a Friend unto the truth as to give us notice that the Abridger of the Parl. Records left out much of what he should have mentioned viz. The Prelates Dukes Earls Barons Commons Citizens Burgesses Merchants of England in the Parliament Petitioned the King not only for a Pardon in general and of Fines and Amerciaments before the Justices of Peace not yet Levyed in special but they likewise subjoin a memorable request saith Mr. Pryn omitted by the Abridger that in time to come the said Prelates Earles Barons Commons Citizens and Burgesses of the Realm of England may not henceforth be charged molested nor grieved to make any Common Aid or sustein any charge unless it be by Common Assent of the Prelates Dukes Lords and Barons and other People of the Commons of the Realm of England as a Benevolence or Aid given to their King in his want of Money wh 〈…〉 h King Henry the 3d. sometimes had when he went from Aboey to Abbey declaring his Necessities and King Richard the Third that Murthered his Brothers Sons to Usurp the Crown flattered the People they should no more be troubled with when it was never 〈…〉 ked before the Raign of King Henry 3d or 〈◊〉 by any of our Kings or Princes until the urgent Necessities of our blessed Martyr for the preservation of his People caused him once to do it Or such as the imprisoning of some few wealthy Men as obstinately refused to lend him 〈…〉 e and small Sums of Money because they would force him to call such a Reforming and Ruining Parliament as that which not long before hapned in Anno 1641. Or such as their heavily complained of Charges levied upon the People by the Lord Lieutenants or Deputy Lieutenants in some seldom Musters or Military Affairs which a small acquaintance with our Feudal Laws might have persuaded the Gentlemen of the misnamed Petition of Right to have been lawful or that some imprisoned were not delivered upon Writs of Habeas Corpus when there were other just Causes to detain them at least for some small time of Advice And if they will adventure to be tryed by Magna Charta will be no great gainers by it for Magna Charta well examined notwithstanding the dissolution of the Tenures in Capite is yet God be thanked holden in Capite and loudly proclaims our Feudal Laws to be both the King and the Peoples Rights and disdains to furnish any contrivances against their Kings who were the only free givers and granters thereof And the Statute of 28 E 3. And all or the most of our Acts of Parliament do and may ever declare the usefulness of our Feudal Laws and that Reverend great Judge might have spared the complaints of Free-quartering of Land-Soldiers and Marriners or of punishing Offenders by Martial Law and will hardly find any to commend him or any Lawyer for their proficiency in their amassing together so many needless complaints And that in full Parliament The King then lying sick at Sheene whereof he died and divers of the Lords and Commons in Parliament coming unto him with Petitions to know his pleasure and what he would have done therein nor no Imposition put upon the Woolls Woolfels and Leather having as they might think as great an opportunity and advantage as the three great Barons Bobun Clare and Bigod had when they forced the Statute aforesaid de Tallagio non concedendo upon King Edward the first and would not suffer him to insert his Salvo Jure Regis or any the Annaent Custom of Wooll half a Mark and of three hundred Woolfels half a Mark and of one Last of Skins one Mark of Custom only according to the Statute made in the 14th year of his Raign saving unto the King the Subsidy granted unto him the last Parliament for a certain time and not yet Levied Unto which the King gave answer That as to that that no Charge be laid upon the People without common Assent The King is not at all willing to do it without great necessity and for the defence of the Realm and where he may do it with Reason For otherwise all Monarchies may be made Elective and the Will and great Example and Approbation of God disappointed where the Subjects and People will not be so careful of their own preservation as to help their King when his and their Enemy hath invaded the Kingdom and the People may as often as they please change or depose their Kings when they shall resolve to stand still and not help to aid him as the cursed and bitterly cursed Moroz did and be as wise to their own destruction as the Citizens of London were in the late general Conflagration of their City or a foolish fear of breaking Magna Charta which could never be proved to have been any cause of it they would to save and keep unpulled down or blown up ten houses and save some of their goods leave that raging and merciless Fire to burn twenty thousand houses in their City and Suburbs And it was no bad Answer also that that great and victorious King Edward the third as sick as he was made likewise unto that other part of their Petition that Impositions be not laid upon their Woolls without Assent of the Prelates Dukes Earls Barons and other People of the Commons of his Realm That there was a
themselves to the service of their Countrey-men But he was not yet so forsaken for that he had power enough to infest though not to subdue his enemies and some faith was found amongst many of his Subjects that well executed their trusts Dover Castle with a small company held out against all the Force which Lewis could bring against it Windsor Castle did the like against the Barons Nottingham and Lincoln Castles made resolute resistance The most fertil places of the Kingdom as about Gloucester the Marches of Wales Lincolnshire Cambridgeshire Norfolk Suffolk Essex Kent and all about London were the stages of the War and the Ruins of the Kingdom were every where heard and felt which continuing all that Summer about the latter-end of October then next following that distressed King oppressed with as many sorrows as enemies and a grief conceived for the loss of his Carriages and other necessaries of War sunk in the Sands passing the Washes betwixt Lyn and Boston fell sick of a burning Feaver taken as some writers have recorded it by a surfeit of eating Peaches and drinking new Ale out of a Cup with the Venom prick'd out of a Toad put into it given him by a Monk at Swinsted Abbey in Lincolnshire who after leave given by the Abbot and assoiled or absolved from the doing thereof was content to poyson himself as he did and bringing the Cup unto the King sitting at meat said Wassail for never in all your lyfe drancke yee of so goode a Cuppe To whom the King said drincke Monch which he doing and the King having drunk a great draught did set down the Cup. The Monk retired into the Infirmatory where his Bowels brake assunder The King finding himself ill at ease and his Belly beginning to swell and being told that the Monk was dead commanded the Table to be taken away and a Truss to be provided for him of which vulgata fama Ranulphus Cestrensis Henry de Knighton the Book of St. Albans printed by Caxton in the year 1502. in his Chronicle and Mr. William Pryn in his late History of the Pope's Usurpations in England in the Reign of King John have given a probable account though many of the Monks and the then Romish Clergy fatned and grown great by the Pope's and their extravagant and never-to-be-proved Authority over Kings and Kingdoms were so unwilling to acknowledge it as they did all they could to stifle and over-cast with Lies the Truth of it Whence in great weakness he who was so little enclined to Paganism or the Religion of Miramolin King of Africk Morocco and Spain or guilty of sending Embassadors unto him after or before the surrender of his Kingdoms to the Pope with an offer to be his Tributary and of his Religion of which saith Mr. Pryn upon a most diligent search no vestigia or manner of evidence is to be found amongst the Records of this Kingdom it being a meer scandal and slanderous invective forged against him to make him odious was conveyed to Newark where after he had received the Eucharist and taken order for the succession of his Son Henry he departed this life and was buried at Worcester and such a care was taken by the Abbot of Swinsted for the safety of the poysoning Monk's Soul as five Monks until the dissolution of that Abbey which was 300 years after were from time to time stipended to sing a Requiem for it SECT IV. The many Affronts Insolencies and ill usages suffered by King Henry III. until the granting of his Magna Charta and Charta de Forestae WHich tragical end of King John although it much altered the state of the Kingdom yet not as to the miseries and troubles thereof for King Henry his Son being solemnly crowned as a King by Succession and not Election was committed to the care and tutelage of Marescal Earl of Pembroke as Good and Wise as he was Great a main Pillar of the Father and a Preserver of the Crown to his Son who with Guallo the Pope's Legate the Bishops of Winchester Bath and Worcester did work all means to bring the Barons to an accord excommunicated Lewis and his adhaerents and caused great satisfaction in the minds of some who before were disgusted with the insolency of the French and the more upon the confession of one of the Nobility of France who upon his death-bed touch'd with compunction revealed the intention of Lewis to enslave or extinguish the English Nation whom he thought not fit to be trusted in regard that they had forsaken their Sovereign Lord which wrought so great an aversion in the English as they who before were afraid for the shame of inconstancy and the danger of their Sons and Pledges carried into France and there remaining did now resolve to relinquish their Homage and sworn Fidelity and forsake him and made as much hast to send him out of England as they did to call him into it So as after a years trouble with his Wars and Depraedations and all the help the City of London could give him he was enforced to come to an accord quit the Kingdom take 15000 Marks for the charges of his Voyage abjure his claim to the Kingdom promise by Oath to procure as far as in him lay his Father to restore all such Provinces in France as appertained to the Crown of England and when he came to be King to resign them in a peaceable manner King Henry taking an Oath and for him the Legate and Protector to restore to the Barons and other his Subjects all their Rights and Heritages with their Liberties for which the Discords began between the late King and his People whereupon a general Pardon was granted and all Prisoners freed on both sides Lewis after so long abode with his Army in England being honourably attended to Dover departed the Kingdom and about Michaelmas after upon the death of his Father was received and crowned King of France and Guallo the Legate well paid for his Negotiation returning to Rome carried with him 12000 Marks a great sum of money in those times And no sooner had that provident Protector of the Kingdom the Earl of Pembroke quieted the many troubles of the Nation but as much wanted as greatly lamented by the People he dyed The Bishop of Winchester with many other great Councellors being made Protectors of the young King and his Kingdoms but the King of France being after requested to make restitution of what he had usurped answered That what he had gotten by the forfeiture of King John upon an accusation of murdering his Nephew Arthur right Heir to the Crown of England he would hold Howsoever Peace being made with Scotland to whose King the King's Sister being married Wales revolted and an Insurrection being made in Ireland did put the King to much trouble and charge who being come to some years of understanding was in a Parliament holden at London put in mind by the Archbishop of
Canterbury in the behalf of the State of his Oath made and taken by others for him upon the Peace made with Lewis for confirmation of the Liberties of the Kingdom for which the War was begun with his Father without which the whole State would again fall assunder and they would have him to know it betimes to avoid those miserable inconveniencies which might happen William Brewere a Councellor urging it to have been acted by constraint and therefore not to be performed Notwithstanding which it was at that time being the 7th year of his Reign promised by the King to be ratified and a Commission was granted by Writs unto Twelve Knights in every Shire to examine What were the Laws and Liberties which the Kingdom enjoyed under his Grandfather and return the same by a certain day which saith the learned and judicious Sir Henry Spelman were never returned or could not be found In the mean time the Earls of Albemarl Chester and divers of the Nobility assemble together at Leicester with intent to remove from the King Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justiciar and other Officers that hindred their motion but the Archbishop of Canterbury by his Spiritual Power and the rest of the Nobility being careful to preserve the Peace of the Kingdom stood to the King and would not suffer them to proceed therein so as they were constrained to come in and submit themselves And the King in Parliament resumed such alienations as had been made of the Lands appertaining to the Crown by any of his Ancestors to the end he might live of his own and not be chargable to the People The next year after being the 8th year of his Reign another Parliament was holden at Westminster where the King required the Fiftieth part of all the movables both of the Clergy and Laity but Mat. Paris more probably saith the Fifteenth for the recovering of those parts in France which had been held from the Crown being one and the same which is said in Magna Charta to have been granted as a grateful acknowledgment for the grant of their Liberties which though it concerned the Estates of most of the Nobility that had Lands therein would not be yielded unto but upon confirmation of their Liberties atque his in hunc diem prosecutis Archiepiscopus concilio tota Episcoporum Comitum Priorum habita deliberatione Regi dedere responsum quod Regis petitionibus gratunter ad quiescerent si illas diu petitas libertates concedere voluisset annuit itaque Rex cupiditate ductus quod petebant Magnates Chartisque protinus conscriptis Regis sigillo munitis in the next year after for the Charters themselves bear date in the 9th year of his Reign And the several Charters or Copies thereof were sent to the Sheriffs of every County and Twelve Knights were out of every County chosen to divide the Old Forests from the New and lay open all such as had been afforested since the first Coronation of King Henry II. Although at the same time or a little before or after it some of the Nobility who had formerly crowned Lewis of France King and had been the cause of King John's death for which they were banished the Realm endeavouring to return into England and to set up again the French King's Interest and domineer over the King and his faithful Councellors by circumventing Pope Honorius Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice of England the Earl of Chester and seven other of the King's Councellors sent an Epistle to the Pope desiring him to assist the King and them and prevent those dangerous Plots and Designs And the King having sent also his Proctors to Rome upon the like occasion they returned him an account of a new Confederacy betwixt his discontented Barons and the French King to invade England and dispossess him of the Crown thereof adding thereunto quod Gallici praedicabant omnibus quod majores Angliae obsides offerebant de reddendo siâ—i terram â—um primo venire curaret ad illam adjicientes Si aâ—iquid in curia Romana contra voluntatem Regis Franciae attemptaretur incontmenter Rex transfretaret in Angliam Nor could any such authority accrue to them in or by those Charters called Magna Charta and Charta Forestae granted by King Henry III. his Son which were in very many things but the exmeplaria or patterns of that of King John in the like method and tenour containing very many Liberties and great Priviledges which were by King Henry III. as those Charters do declare of his own free accord granted and confirmed in the 9th year of his Reign to his Subjects and People of England Liberis hominibus Free-men or Free-holders for otherwise it would have comprehended those multitudes of Villains Bondmen and Bond-women which the Nation did then and long after employ and make use of and those very many men accounted by the Laws of England to be as dead men viz. Monks Fryers Priors and Abbots to be holden to Them and their Heirs of Him and his Heirs for ever But in those Charters or his confirmation of them in the 21st and 28th year of his Reign could not procure to be inserted or recorded those clauses which they had by their terrours gained from his Father in these words viz. Nullum scutagium vel auxilium ponam in Regno nostro nisi per commune consilium Regni nostri ad corpis nostrum redimendum ad primogenitum filium nostrum militem faciendum ad primogenitam filiam nostram semel maritandam ad hoc non fiet nisi rationabile auxilium simili modo fiat de auxiliis de Civitate Londinensi quod omnes aliae Civitates Burgi Villae Barones de quinque portubus omnes portus habeant omnes libertates omnes liberas consuetudines suas Et ad habendum commune concilium Regni de auxiliis assidendis aliter quam in tribus casibus praedictis scutagiis assidendis submoneri faciemus Archiepiscopos Episcopos Abbates Comites majores Barones Regni singillatim per literas nostras Et praetereà faciemus submoneri in generali per Vicecomites Ballivos nostros omnes alios qui in capite tenent de nobis ad certum diem scilicet ad terminum quadraginta dierum ad minus ad certum locum in omnibus literis submonitionis illius causam submonitionis illius exponemus sic facta submonitione negotium procedat ad diem assignatum secundum consilium eorum qui praesentes fuerint quamvis non omnes submoniti Nos non concedimus de caetero alicui quod capiat auxilium de liberis hominibus suis nisi ad corpus suum redimendum ad faciendum primogenitum filium suum militem ad primogenitam filiam suam semel maritandam ad hoc non fiat nisi rationabile auxilium but were constrained to omit altogether and forgo those clauses and provisions which
that the Orders concluded in Parliament were not observed in the levying and disposing of the Subsidy and over-strict courses had been taken in the valuation of mens Estates William Valence the Queens Uncle was grown the only man with him and nothing was done without him the Earl of Provence his Father a poor Prince was invited to come into England to participate of the Treasure and Riches thereof Symon de Montfort a French man born banished out of France by Queen Blanch was entertained in England preferred secretly in marriage with the King's Sister Widow of William Earl of Pembroke the great Marshal made Earl of Leicester and Steward of England in the right of his Mother Amice Daughter of Blanchmains Earl of Leicester Which incensing many of the Nobility and in them not a few of the common people did begin to raise a Commotion wherein they procured Richard Earl of Cornwal Brother to the King and Heir-apparent the King having then no Child to head their Party and manage their Grievances which amongst many pretended were That he despised the counsel of his natural Subjects and followed that of the Pope's Legate as if he had been the Pope's Feudatory Upon which harsh Remonstrance the King having sent to sound the affections of the Londoners found them to be against him Summoned a Parliament in the 22d year of his Reign at London whither the Lords came armed both for their own Safety and to constrain him if he refused to the keeping of his promises and reformation of his courses wherein after many debatements the King taking his Oath to refer the business according to the order of certain grave men of the Kingdom Articles were drawn sealed and publickly set up under the Seals of the Legate and divers great Men But before any thing could be effected Symon Montfort working a Peace for himself with the Earls of Cornwal and Lincoln with whom he and the other Barons had been before displeased the Earl grew cold in the business which the other Lords perceiving nothing more was at that time done Symon Norman called Master of the King's Seal and said to be Governour of the affairs of the Kingdom had the Seal taken from him and some others whom the Nobility maligned displaced And in the same year an Assassinate attempting to kill the King as he was in Bed instigated thereunto by William de Marisco the Son of Jeffrey de Marisco was for the Fact drawn in pieces with Horses and afterwards hang'd and quarter'd And some years after the King having a Son born his Brother the Earl of Cornwal having likewise Issue did by permission of the State which before he could not obtain undertake the Cross and with him the Earl of Salisbury and many other Noblemen The Earl of March the Queen-Mother and certain Lords of Poicteau incited the King to make a War with France to which some of the English who claimed Estates therein were very willing but the matter being moved in Parliament a general opposition was made against it the great expences thereof and the ill suceess it lately had and it was vehemently urged That it was unlawful to break the Truce made with the King of France who was now too strong for them notwithstanding many of the Peers in the hopes of recovering their Estates so prevailed as an Aid demanded for the same was granted but so ill resented by others as all the King's supplies from the beginning of his Reign were particularly and opprobriously remembred as the Thirteenth Fifteenth Sixteenth Thirtieth and Fortieth part of all mens Movables besides Carucage Hydage Escuage Escheats Amerciaments and the like which would as they said be enough to fill his Coffers in which considerations also and reckonings with the Pope's continual exactions and the infinite charge of those who undertook the Holy War were not omitted besides it was declared how the Thirtieth lately levyed being ordered to be kept in certain Castles and not to be issued but by the allowance of some of the Peers was yet unspent the King no necessary occasion for it for the use of the Commonwealth for which it was granted and therefore resolutely denyed to grant any more whereupon he came himself to the Parliament and in a submissive manner craving their aid urged the Popes Letter to perswade them thereunto but by a vow made unto each other all that was said was not able to remove their resolutions insomuch as he was driven to get what he could of particular men by Gifts or Loans and took so great a care of his poorer Subjects at or about the same time as he did by his Writ in the 23d year of his Reign command William de Haverhul and Edward Fitz-Odo That upon Friday next after the Feast of St. Matthias being the Anniversary of Eleanor Queen of Scotland his Sister they should cause to be fed as many Poor as might be entertained in the greater Hall of Westminster and did in the same year by another Writ command the said William de Haverhull to feed 15000 Poor at St. Peters in London on the Feast-day of the Conversion of St. Peter and 4000 Poor upon Monday next after the Feast of St. Lucie the Virgin in the great Hall at Westminster And for quiet at home whilst he should be absent in France contracted a marriage betwixt his youngest Daughter Margaret and Alexander eldest Son of Alexander III. King of Scotland but his expedition in France not succeeding his Treasure consumed upon Strangers the English Nobility discontented and by the Poictovins deceiving his Trust in their not supplying him with money he was after more than a years stay the Lords of England leaving him constrained to make a dishonourable Truce with the King of France and to return having been relieved with much Provisions out of England and Impositions for Escuage a Parliament was in the 28th year of his Reign assembled at Westminster wherein his Wars the revolt of Wales and Scotland who joyned together and the present occasions of the necessary defence of the Kingdom being pressed nothing could be effected without the assurance of Reformation and the due execution of Laws whereupon he came again himself in person and pleaded his own necessities but that produced no more than a desire of theirs to have ordained that four of the most grave and discreet Peers should be chosen as Conservators of the Kingdom and sworn of the Kings Council both to see Justice observed and the Treasure issued and ever attend about him or at least three or two of them That the Lord Chief-Justiciar and Lord Chancellor should be chosen by the general voices of the States assembled or else be of the number of those four and that there might be two Justices of the Benches two Barons of the Exchequer and one Justice for the Jews and those likewise to be chosen by Parliament that as their Function was publick so should also be their Election At which time the
other the Lords Marchers soon raise a powerful Army multitudes of the Counties of Hereford Worcester Salop and Chester coming to his aid took the Castle and City of Worcester had the Castle of Monmouth delivered unto him which he demolished surprized the Town of Kenilworth in Warwickshire whither young Simon de Montfort had brought up many of the Northern Barons of that Party to the number of 20 Banners took no less than Thirteen of the chief of them young Simon and others escaping into the Castle In the mean time the said Symon Earl of Leicester carrying the King along with him as his Prisoner upon Lammas day being the first day of August receiving intelligence that the Prince was at Worcester and not knowing that Kenilworth was taken marched towards Evesham about break of the day on purpose to meet with those Barons which his Son had brought out of the North of which the Prince being advertised advanced speedily after him and got betwixt him and Kenilworth Mortimer and the Earl of Gloucester so disposing the Forces which they commanded as that he was almost invironed Seeing himself therefore in that streight he forthwith drew out his men and prepared for Battell it being then the Nones of August and ascending the Hill discovered Prince Edward and his Army on the top thereof which was divided into three parts the first led by Himself the second by the Earl of Gloucester the third by Mortimer the business being so ordered that no other Colours appeared then the Banner of young Symon and the rest taken at Kenilworth which caused the Earl to suppose that many of them had been of his own Party but upon further View he understood the contrary for the Prince afterwards took down those Colours and instead of them erected his own and the Earl of Gloucesters Banners on the one side and Mortimers towards the West which unexpected sight caused such a Discouragement in the Army of the Barons as that the Welsh betook themselves to flight and the rest being over-powerd were totally routed so that few escaped the Slaughter Of those who were Slain and not taken Prisoners were as to the Principal Persons Symon de Monfort Earl of Leicester himself whose Head Hands and Feet being cut off were sent to the Lady Mortimer then at Wigmore Castle Henry de Montfort his Eldest Son Hugh le Dispencer then Justice of England Ralph Basset of Drayton Thomas de Astely Peter de Montfort William de Mandeville John de Beauchamp of Bedford Guy de Baliol and divers other persons of Quality with a multitude of the common Sort Of those that were wounded and taken Prisoners the Chief were Guy de Montfort a younger Son of the said Symon de Montfort John Fitz-John Humphry de Bohun the younger John de Vescy Peter de Monfort Junior and Nicholas de Segrave And it was said that when the Earl of Leicester discerned the Form of the Princes Battalia he swore by the Arm of St. James his usual Oath they have done discreetly but this they have learned of me let us therefore commend our Souls to God because our Bodies are theirs and encouraging his men told them they were to Fight for the Law of the Land yea the Cause of God and Justice and advising Hugh le Despencer Ralph Basset and some others to flie and reserve themselves for better times they refused so to do but rather chose to die with him Who although he was an Arch-Rebell and in that a Pest or Plague unto the Nation yet the deluded People could not think it enough to honour and follow him in his Life time but would in the Fame of his supposed Miracles have worshipped him for a Saint after his Death if the King had not prohibited them SECT IX Of the Proceedings of King Henry the Third after his Release and Restauration until his Death THE long imprisoned and sadly misused King thus happily released out of his Thraldome but yet with the Loss of some of his Own as well as too much of his Subjects Blood by a Wound casually received in the battle was now rid of his Jaylor whom he feared and hated as he said himself more than any man living and he that before was forced to write and speak as Montfort and the rebellious Barons would dictate unto him obey their Orders as soon as they were proposed declare his Son and Loyal Subjects Rebels and the Rebels his most faithful Councel could like a Bird out of the Snare of the Fowler when he was at liberty and had escaped their Tyranny give them their proper Names and Titles call their whole business a Rebellion and made them glad to receive their Pardons under the Character of his Enemies as in the Pardons of John Fitz-John Basset and others and with the Victorious Prince the Redeemer of him and the Kingdom went to Winchester where a Parliament being convoked all who adhered to Simon de Montfort were disinherited and their Estates conferred upon others at the King's pleasure the Liberties of London forfeited and taken from them in which year that valiant Prince his Son as Mat. Paris hath recorded it fought a single Combat with Adam de Goâ—rdon the Out-law near Farneham where finding him in the Woods and personally engaging with him the fight continued so long and with such Animosity and Courage on both sides as they as well as the Spectators marvailing at each others extraordinary unwearied Valour the sturdy Out-law was at last content upon the Prince's offer to procure his Pardon to throw down his Arms and was restored to Favour and his former Estate And the King notwithstanding the Success at the Battle of Evesham and his Advantages gained thereby continuing his Endeavours to free his Kingdom from the Danger Damage and Disturbance of any further Rebellion having gathered together a formidable Army treated upon Hostages given with young Simon de Montfort for a Peace to be granted unto him as to his own particular and for the delivering up of the Castle of Kenilworth wherein he had despitefully behaved himself by cutting off the hand of one of his Courriers whom he had intercepted and sending it unto him in a ridiculous jeeâ—ing manner not only from himself but some of his Complices that were forfeited and disherited But they that were in the Castle denying to surrender it either to the King or Symon in regard that they were intrusted by the Countess of Leicester who was beyond the Seas and without her Order they would not do it In the mean time whilst the King besieged Killingworth Castle which held out half a year a great Party of those that were disherited growing desperate retired to the Isle of Ely which they did begin to fortifie and from thence making Incursions into the adjacent parts did great Mischief Which to repress â—aith Mathew Paris citantur Communium Communes ad â—os vallandos eorum egressum impediendum which in great numbers
commanded them to send unto him Ten or Twelve of their most honest and discreet Citizens to satisfie the rest of the City that He had been privy unto all that had been done in His Name and to the end that they might be better informed of his Will and Pleasure if there had been any Members of Parliament for the City there already with him Elected or Attending For certainly they that had strugled so much and contended to blood for a Twenty-four Conservatorships reduced during the Kings Imprisonment to Nine after to Four of the more special Rebellious Undertakers would be loath to part with that Power and false Authority which they had so desperately gained And the business for which the Knights and Burgesses were desired by them to be elected and called together to treat with the Prelates and Nobles of the Kingdom whom the King as they would have it believed had caused to be summoned and called to a Parliament which was to be holden in Octabis S ti Hillarii then next coming as well concerning the Delivery of his Son Prince Edward out of Prison where he remained a Pledge or Hostage for the King as for other matters touching the common Good of the Kingdom in which the presence of them and other Loyal men as the Writ said was requisite and were in fide dilectione in which they were bound unto the King to be there to treat of such things as the King by the Advice of his Prelates and Barons should for the common Profit of the Kingdom ordain as they tendered his and their Honours a word by the Customes and Curialities of England not in these or many ages after usual or appropriate to the Commons Burgesses or Tradesmen of England And was an Import beyond the understanding and reach of the Capacity of the Vulgar and if it could have been thought to have been fitting or necessary for that instant Emergency could not with any Reason or true Judgment be supposed to have been proper Advisers for any afterward Matters of State weighty or grave Deliberations upon which the Safety and Welfare of the whole Nation was to have any dependance as if that Prince Edward or any other Prince our Kings Eldest Son had for all Ages to come been supposed to be Prisoners or Hostages for their Father Neither could such a device be in any Probability long or any thing near everlastingin the very Design it self or Meaning of the Contrivers for that even after they were to a Despair utterly overthrown at the battle of Evesham and the Dictum Pardons and Compositions made at Kenelworth the Earl of Gloucester upon a renewed Discontent raised Forces and demanded the Observation of the Provisions made at Oxford which amongst other things for the Conservatorships which he alledged the King had promised at the Battle of Evesham and very likely if at all after the battel ended and some of the disherited Lords that had fled to the Isle of Ely and forcibly withheld the possession thereof from the King did amongst other their Demands make it to be one of their Propositions that the Provisions of Oxford might be observed And that kind of Summons made in and by the Name of a Captive King when He was a Prisoner could not by any Rule of Law or Reason have been then added to our ancient fundamental Laws and made to be a fundamental Law as ancient as the Government upon which the House of Peers and a great part of the Monarchy was built nor such a third Estate or Constitution of a different Nature and after so long an Interval of time made to be co-ordinate with it which the Provisions at the forced Parliament at Oxford if any such thing as a Co-ordination in a House or Society of Elected Commons had then been in Actu or rerum natura or in any Being or Existence before the framing of those Provisions did annihilate and seem never to intend And if such a Novel great Councel Parliament or Convocation could have met with any Success which in regard of Discords Rebellions Hostilities Jealousies and Fears then busying and disturbing the Kingdom was every where embarassed and incumbred with Dangers and Troubles the King and His Brother the Prince His Son with many of the Loyal part of the Baronage imprisoned and the remaining part of them either Fled or under the power of their and the Kingdomes Enemies could have taken Root or gained any Fixation no small Contests and Dissentions arising betwixt the Earls of Leicester and Gloucester and their several Adherents two of the greatest Supports of the Faction as it usually happeneth saith Daniel in Confederacies where all must be pleased or all the knot will break about their Dividends private and particular Agreements It could not easily or at all receive any Entertainment in the Reason or Understanding of Mankind or which is much less any colour of it or less than that in any Man's Imagination or Conjecture not mad or distempered that such a numerous part of the Commons as to the Burgesses to be elected out of the vulgar rude rash giddy and apt-to-be-partial and easily misled affrighted or flattered sort of the People should produce any good Effect either to themselves or the publick when too many of them were or would be likely to be most commonly altogether illiterate and of such as could escape that unhappy Character but few that had ever looked in at the Threshold or Door of good Learning and Policy and fewer that had spent any or much of their time in it but addicted themselves or imployed most of their Thoughts upon the Cares of managing their own Estates Husbandry Trade or other necessaries of Livelihood more proper for the common and inferior Ranks of the People upon whom very many sad and often Experiments have for many Ages and Centuries before deservedly fixed and imposed the indeleble Marks of Mobile prosanum scelestum Vulgus and given Us a lamentable Account of many of their mad and reasonless Advices willful and head-long Actions to the Destruction not only of their Superiours and those that would or should guide them but of themselves and all that have had to do with them or any ill governed Assembly Sr let-loose Multitude of Men. Which without good Accidents and much Difficulty to boot are seldom Governed or brought within the bounds or compass of well digested Reason and Prudence especially if they sit for any long time to hatch or brood Factions or Partialities Envies Ammosities Self-interests over-strained Liberties Authorities Priviledges and taking too much upon them And there could not be any or much good Event expected to happen to the Councels of Princes or the Weal publick either as to the Secrecy the life of Councels Consultive or Active part of them Or to those rebellious Lords themselves who as the Case then stood with them were concerned to order the business as much as they could for their own Preservation and
them were the common People or that the Nobility were intended to be a part of them but rather that their Wills and Actions were wholly submitted to the Peerage reformare voluissent Regnum deformatum me deberent primùm accersire In Crastino post ejus adventum in Angliam intraverunt Magnates Capitulum Cantuariense so great a Power had they then over their Tenants and the Common People ducentesque reverenter Reges Angliae Alemanniae the Earl of Gloucester stans in medio called out the King of Almaine by the name of the Earl of Cornewall to take the Oath for a general Reformation of the Kingdom Eodem Anno being 43. Henry the Third Congregati sunt Nobiles Angliae Londini prout inter se prius condixerant whither came quidam de secreto Regis Francorum concilio Decanus Bituricensis ubi non modicè tractatum fuit de negotio inter duos Reges Franciae Angliae quid in partibus transmarinis actum fuerit exinde probatum After which a Monk of St. Albans ex parte Regis Reginae Magnatibus Angliae finding the King Queen Magnatibus Scotiae in their Parliament and informing them of the cause of his coming ex parte Regis Reginae Baronum Angliae requested that the King and Queen would not fail to come into England to treat of Matters of great Concernment and Secrecy with much difficulty obtained Letters Patents from the King Queen and Nobility of Scotland Communitèr sigillatas tà m sigillo Regis quà m omnium Magnatum Scotiae ad Regem Angliae totam communitatem wherein they granted their Request dummodo se facerent Rex Angliae Magnates which explains the extent and true meaning of the preceding words Tota Communitas Angliae de scripto suo sibi prius promisso securos and returned by him Domino Regi Angliae Reginae Magnatibus terrae Literas commendatorias and did shortly after send the Earl of Bochan and other honourable Commissioners to Treat with the King of England ejus Concilio who at their coming speaking with the said Monk Nullam in publico super expeditione negotij erga Regem Regni communitatem which may in this place well be understood to intend the Baronage reliquerunt redeuntes Certificationem Eodem Anno ex concilio domini Regis Franciae Angliae totius Baronagij the Earls of Clare and Leicester John Mansell Peter de Sabaudia and Robert Wallerand were sent ad Parliamentum Magnum Regis Francorum pro pluribus negotiis regna Franciae Angliae contingentibus carrying with them a Charter or Resignation from their King to the King of France and Letters of Credence to compose with that King and his Councell super negotiis without the Commons or their Consents inter eosdem Reges eorum regna diu agitatis but for that the Countess of Leicester refused to resign that part which she held or claimed in Normandy infecto negotio cachinnantibus Francis redierunt In the mean time the Almaines perceiving how little their King elected was respected in England returned home saying Ex quo compatriotae sui ipsum non venerantur nos ipsum quomodo honoribus prosequemur And in his Absence elected another Eodem Anno King Henry the Third in Franciam transfretavit and required Restitution to be made of the Provinces in France unjustly taken away from his Father King John and detained from him unto which the French answered That the Donation of Normandy was not free but by force extorted by Rollo so as the King if he had a mind to regain it having not Money to raise an Army and especially when he did see his own Subjects ready to make War against him was enforced to yield to a Peace that pro 300000 Turonensibus parvis restitutione terrarum in France unto him ad valorem 20000 librarum in Gasconia the King was to resign and release to the King of France his Dutchy of Normandy and County of Anjou ex tunc literarum suarum abbreviavit titulum ut nec Ducem Normanniae nec Comitem Andegaviae se vocaret And fearing that he had committed Perjury in taking the Oath to observe the Provisions enforced from him at Oxford sent secretly to the Pope for an Absolution Eo tempore Symon de Monte Forti Comes Legriae Richardus de Clare Comes Gloverniae Nicholaus filius Johannis Johannes filius Galfridi multique Nobiles ipsis adhaerentes convenerunt Oxoniae equis armis sufficientèr instructi finalitèr Staâ—uentes aut mori pro pace patriae aut pacis eliminare Patriae turbatores whither came also the Bishop Elect of Winchester William de Valentia and the rest of the Poictovins stipati Magna caterva satellitum fautorum but when they understood that the English Nobility intended eos vocare standum judicio pro suis nequam factis simul communitèr jurandum cum eis ad observandum provisiones they fled to the Castle of Whitesey whither the Barons pursued them and fearing that the Bishop Elect of Winchester would carry his Complaints to Rome against them sent four Knights as their Agents to Rome with Letters under their Hands and Seals not of the Commons to complain of the Injuries which the Bishop had done to the Kingdom and the Justices itinerant of the King were at Hereford prohibited to proceed for that as was alleadged it was against the Provisions made at Oxford Anno 45. Henry the Third the King retired to the Tower of London and caused all the Citizens of London above the Age of Twelve Years to Swear unto him Fealty and made Proclamation that all that would come as Souldiers to serve him should be paid the Barons came with great Forces to the Walls of the Tower lodging in the City the Absolution being come and Prince Edward not accepting it which the Magnates not the Multitude or Commons taking notice of missis Nuntiis humilitèr rogabant ut communitèr juramentum praestitum inviolabilitèr observare vellet si quid displiceret eisdem ostenderet ad emendandum Qui nequaquam acquiescens durè minacitèr respondens dicens quòd eis à Conventione deficientibus non amplius adquiesceret sed unusquisque deinceps propriis defensionibus provideret tandèm quibusdam mediantibus it was agreed that Two should be chosen on the King's part and Two on the Barons no Commons mentioned and the Arbitrators were if they could not agree to choose a Third but by reason of Prince Edwards late return from beyond the Seas and that being returned and informed what strange Councels had been given his Father was so Angry as he absented himself from him and adhering to the Barons saith the Continuator of Matthew Paris in hac parte prout juraverat fitque conjuratio inter eos quòd malos Conciliarios eorum fautores adquirerent à Rege pro viribus alongarent which the King understanding betakes
unto the now Duke of Beaufort and by men leavyed and sent unto him from Wales in his Majesties March as far as Shrowsbury towards him the better to enjoy and be near the great assistance which he promised and performed without which and the Ancient and Legall aid and help of his tenures in Capite and by Knight-service he could not have made any defence for Himself or his Loyal Subjects but might have been taken and Imprisoned by the Sheriffes of every shire or County thorough which he was to pass in his Journey to York with his eldest Son the Prince whom they would likewise have seised upon when he was by the Faction and their Hunters driven and pursued as it were thither for Refuge as a Partridge hunted upon the Mountains from his Parliament when he had no Provision of Arms Men or Money And the Rebell-Party of that Parliament had formed and beforehand made ready a great and powerfull Army without any manner of want of Money and a seduced party of his People to march against him And our Feudall Laws were so little despised unknown or unusuall in this Kingdom as our Magna-Charta and Charta de Foresta more then 30 times confirmed by Acts of Parliament and the Petition so called of Right will appear to have no other source or Fountain as to the most of the many parts thereof then the Feudall Laws And they must be little Conversant in the reading practice and usage thereof demonstrable in and through our Records and Authentique Annalls and Historians that will not confess and believe it when they shall so manifestly almost every where see the vestigia and tracks thereof and our Saxon Laws faithfully translated and rendred unto us by the labours and industry of our learned Lambard and Abraham Whelock Arabick professor in the University of Cambridge and the glossary of our Learned Sr Henry Spelman may aboundantly be found to declare that they had for the most part no other Progenitors And could not be understood to amount unto no less then the greatest and strongest Fortifications that any Kingdom could have though not so guarded by the Sea as our Islands of Great Brittain are and have been when Seventy Thousand Horsmen gravi Armatura or not meanly Armed should as the manner of those Times were without much disturbance to their other affairs be sodainly ready upon any Emergencies of Wars Intestine or Forreign without Pay or Wages under the greatest obligations Divine and Humane to defend their Kings themselves and their Estates which in more valiant and plain dealing Times did in no longer part of time commonly determine the fate or fortune of a Kingdom as to a great part of the Event or success of a War And was so necessary to the Defence of the King and People as our William the Conqueror that did not bring but found the Feudall Laws here in England may be thought to have been very willing to have strengthend his Conquests here when he distributed amongst his great Officers in the Army his Soldiers as much of his Conquered Lands as Ordericus Vitalis hath related it Seventy Thousand Knights Fees who in regard of their service for the defence of the King had a Privilege by the Kings Writ for them and their Tenants to be free ab omni Talagio from all Taxes which priviledge or acquittal saith Sr Edward Coke discontinued Of which our Feudall Laws the Brittains the more ancient Inhabitants of England as well as the Brittains in America in France now known by the name of the Duchy of Brittain cannot be believed to have been Ignorant when the Father of our Victorious Arthur King of Brittain was a Beneficiarius and held his Lands in Cornwall of the King in Capite unto whose Kingdom were appendant the large Dominions of Norway and the Islands ultra Scanriam Islandiam Ireland Curland Dacia Semeland Winland Finland Wareland Currelam Flanders omnes alias terras Insulas Orientalis Oceani usque Russiam Et iu Luppo etiam posuit orientalem metam Regni Brittania multas alias Insulas usque Scotiam usque in Septentrione quae sunt de appendicis Scaniae quae Noricena dicitur and that Kingdom of Brittain had so large an Extent and the King of Brittain such a directum Dominium therein that upon an exact Search and inquiry into the Memorialls Antiquities Annalls and Historians thereof it was evident that in the Times of Ely and Samuel after the Siege and Destruction of Troy Brute came into this Island called it by his name and divided his Kingdom to his 3 Sons Loegria now called England to his Eldest Albania since called Scotland came to the 2 and Cambria or Wales unto his 3 Son Camber after whom was Arthurus Rex Britonium famosissimus Who subdued a great part of France and those his Noble Acts were not unknown unto some of the Roman Poets and Historians and the Laws used here in his Time may with great reason be understood to have been the same which the English or Saxons our later Ancestors Fletibus Precibus with supplications washed in Tears obtained of the Norman Conqueror to be left unto them as King Edward the Confessors Laws for his Justice and Holiness reputed to have been a Saint and together with the Mercenlage or Laws made by Mercia a Queen of Mercia or the Borders or Confines of Wales ought to be esteemed the same aggregate Laws which K. William the Conqueror of the Brittains Saxons and Normans after they had began to Intermarrie and were become as it were Populus unus Gens una were certified by the greatest most universall and most Solemn Jury and verdict that ever was Impannelled or made use of in England and under the strictest and severest Charge not by Judges delegate but by the King himself and a Conquering King that had omnia Jura et terras in manu sua which he did Consilio Baronum suorum in Anno quarto Regni sui cause to be Summoned through all the Shires Counties of England of out of the Nobiles sapientes et in Lege cendites ut eorum Leges et Jura et Consuetudines ab ipsis audiret Whereupon in singulis totius patriae Comitatibus a Jury of 12 men qualified as aforesaid Jure Jurando coram ipso Rege before the King himself no ordinary Judge but the Highest under God quo ad possent recto tramite incidentes neither turning on the Right hand nor the Left legum suarum Consuetudinum suarum patefacerent neither omitting or adding any thing by fraud or praevarication yet the King seeming better to approve of his Norway and Danish Laws which in many things affinitate Saxonum seemed to be the same with the Norway Laws except in some small difference in the heightning of the Fines and Forfeitures which when the King had heard read unto him maxime appreciutus est proecepit ut Obsequerentur per
pertineaut And that great King was so more then ordinarily carefull of the rights and Honor of his Crown and Regall authority which had been too much depressed and misused by the Rebellion of Simon Montfort and some Rebellious Barons and his fathers Imprisonment with the Wars and Hardships put upon them did so well provide against any the like troubles and Convulsions of State as in his return through France and abode for some time in Aquitain where he was Sumptuously feasted by the King of France he took an especiall care when he did Homage to him for Aquitain and some other Dominions he held of him in that Kingdom to limit it only unto them and except Normandy where he expended much time in the Setling of his affairs But howsoever Summus ille viz our Mr Selden was of opinion that so remarkable a provision and Monarchical Resolution of our King Edward the first and so many Emperors and Christian Kings and Princes to conserve the rights of their Crowns reported by Fleta was Prodigious and taken too much upon trust and an over facile credulity of our Carceratus Fleta as he termed him because resumptions of the Sacred Patrimonies aliened had been used here in England long before and not used at or about the same Time by Rodulphus primus the Emperor of Germany when he granted to Pope Gregory the 10th Bononia in Italy et latifunda circum quaque amplissima quae ante Imperii Romani pars insignis and permitted to be aliened to the Pope who was not then so easy to be resisted and that Choppinus and those many great and learned Doctors of the Law that had written and argued so much concerning those kind of alienations and our own Historians had been altogether silent therein yet that Decus Anglorum gentis might in his great recherches of our English Records Laws and Annalls have found that our King Edward might have been believed to have taken such Councel either from his former calamities in his his fathers Time or by a generall Consult with some or all of those Christian Princes or their Legates for that he was no sooner arrived in his own Kingdom and Dominions but he began to busy himself as much as his other great Cares and Variety of troubles would Suffer him to do in the allaying the Unquietness of the Disturbances which Humfrey do Bohun Constable of England Rigor Bigod Earl Marshall of England Gilbert de Clare Earl of Glocester and many other the remains of his fathers more then Cammon Distresses and in his Wars with Scotland and annexing the Rights and Superiority of it to his Crown of England in the placing displacing of the Kings and Heirs thereof a Regality Superlative not to be neglected and an effect pertinent enough to that Monarchick Universall consult when in the fourth year of his Reign an Enquiry was made of all the Manors and Lands Tenements Parks Buildings Woods Tenants Commons Pastures Pawnage Honey Herbage and all other profits of Forrests Waters Moors Marshes Heaths Turbury and Wasts and how much it was worth by the year Mills Fishings Common and severall Freeholders and Copyholders by what Service they did hold their Land by Knight Service or in Socage and what reliefs what Customary Tenants and by what works or Service they did hold what rents of Assise what Cotages and Curtilages and what rents they do pay by the Year what pleas and exquisites of the Counties and of the Forrests and what they were worth by the Year what Churches of what Yearly value and who was the Patron with the yearly value of Herriotts Fairs Markets Escheats Customes Services fore Time Works and Customs and w 〈…〉 tâ—e pleas and perquisites of Courts Fines all other Casualties were worth by the Year or may fall by any of those things an Inquisition much resembling that of the Norman villains enquest in the Book of Domesday or that which long before preceded it called the Roll of Winchester and in his elaborate recherches of all the Ancient Records Annalls Historians Manuscripts and Memorialls of the Brittish Saxon Scotish and English Nations for the clear Evidence and manifestation of his Undoubted Right to Jus Superioritatis oftke Kingdom of Scotland And in the same Year what things a Coroner should enquire of purprestures or usurpation upon any of the Kings Lands and that they should be reseised A Statute of the Exchecquer touching the recovery of the Kings Debts made in Anno 10. E. 1. A Cessavit per Biennium to be brought by the Chief Lord with a forfeiture upon him that neglecteth to do his service by the space of 2 Years In Anno 17. Fined 10 of 12 of his Judges accused and indicted of taking Bribes and very great summs of Mony Statute of quia Emptores terrarum that the Feoffs shall hold his lands of the Chief Lord and not of the Feoffer And afterwards caused the Judges at their return out of their Circuits to rectify in rolls of Parchment all Fines and amercements due unto him and ordered them to receive only their then small Wages thereout curbed the Clergy that denied to give him Aids and forbad them to come to his Parliament which was holden untill their Submission with a Clero Excluso and granted his Writs contra Impugnatores Jurium Regis made 2 Statutes of Quo Warranto in 18. E. 1. that every man should shew cause how he claimed or held his Liberties Ordinatio de libertatibus perquirendis 27. E. 1. Statute of Wards and Reliefs Anno. 28. E. 1. Another Statute of Quo Warranto Anno. 30. E. 1. Ordinatio Forrestae Anno. 33. E. 1. So that pace tanti viri with all the honor and reverence that can or ought to be given to Mr Selden that Dictator of Universal Solid Learning it may be said that our Fleta which was by him so well esteemed as to have been published and caused to be printed with his learned dissertations and Comment thereupon might well have escaped his scruples and distrust when in that great Kings travail from Hierusalem or out of Aba homewards he was royally feasted by the King of Sicily one of the aforesaid Confederate Christian Kings the Pope and divers Princes of Italy And when the Pope had afterwards demanded 8 Years arrears of him for an Yearly tribute of 1000. Marks for the Kingdom of England and Ireland enforced from King John did by his letter answer that the Parliament was dissolved before his letter came unto his hands and that sine Praelatis Proceribus no Commons therein mentioned comunicato Concilio sanctitati suae super praemissis non potuit respondere Jurejurando in Coronatio sua prestita fuit astrictus quod Jurat regni sui servabit illibata nec aliquid quod Diadema tangit regni ejusdem no such Oath or Promise being in the Coronation Oath ut nihil abusque illorum requisito Concilio
and testify that the Land is holden of them and that without taking away the Fealty and repealing the Oaths of Allegeance and Supremacy the Duty and Oaths of the Subjects remained as they did whilst they held their Land in Capite and by Knight Service Which probably as may sadly be lamented could never have hapned if the later men of the Law in England had not by the space of something more then Forty Years last past leaped over as it may be feared they have overmuch done the successive learned labours and Books in a long process of Time in the Reign of our Regnant Kings and Princes divers Judges and Sages of our Laws Recording from Time to Time Cases Judgments Decrees and Dicisions maturely and Deliberately adjudged therein But too much neglected those guidings better guides and faithfull Directors the Civill and Feudall Laws and suffred their Studies and practice to be imployed and incouraged in the Factious Seâ—iâ—ious Rebellious principles of those Times by following the gross Mistakes of Sr Edward Coke in his Discontent malevolence and Ill will unto the necessary and legall Regalities of the Crown and Idolizing as he did those grand parcells of forgery and Imposture entitled the Mirrour of Justice and the Modus tenendi Parliamentum and their neglecting the readings of Glanvile Bracton and Britton and other good Authors And the Civil Law was the Parent and Mother of many of the maximes and principles of that which is now called our Common Law And those men of the Law who without Books subsistence or Estates when they went beyond the Seas with their Sovereign and had not there the opportunities of the Knowledge or help of the Records of the Kingdom that might have been their best Instructers were for the most part but Young Gentlemen Born and Bred in the times of our Distempered Parliaments as those were that Tarried here who walked along with the Rebellion too much adhered unto them and came Weather-beaten again with his Majesty had understood as they might have done the Originall Foundation and Continuance of our Monarchick Government But King Edward the 1. who had passed over and overcome so many Hardships Difficulties Misfortunes and Storms of State was so unwilling to be afraid of a part of his Unquiet Baronage or to Humour the popularity and ignorance of any of the Common People or to be in fear of them or of any their Factious or Seditious Machinations making what hast his affairs would permit to return into England where his father having by his Death escaped the restless conflicts of a long and troublesome Reign and his Exequies and Ceremonies of buriall performed Róbertus Kilwarby Cantuariensis Archiepiscopus Gilbertus de Claro Comes Gloverinae a man that had been in Armes and opposite enough against his father and himself in the former convulsions of State and John Warren Earl of Surrey saith Samuel Daniel went up to the High Altar cum aliis Praelatis ac Regni proceribus Londiniis apud novnm Templum convenerunt Edwardum absentem Dominum suum Ligeam recognoverunt paternique Successorem honoris ordinaverunt assensu Reginae non Populi and before his return into England John Earl Warren and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester in the Abby Church of Westminster sware unto him Fealty without asking leave of the People and proclaimed him King although they knew not whether he were Living or Dead caused a new great Seal to be made and appointed six Commissioners for the Custody of his Treasure and Peace whilst he remained in Palastine where by an Assassin feigning to Deliver Letters unto him he received 3 Dangerous Wounds with a poysoned knife then said and believed to have been cured by the Love of his Lady that Paragon of Wives and Women who sucked the Poyson out of the Wound when others refused the adventure and after 3 Years Travail from the time of his setting forth many conflicts and Disappointments of his aids and Ends left Acon well fortified and manned and returned homewards in which as he travailed he was Royally feasted by the Pope and princes of Italy whence he came towards Burgundy where he was at the foot of the Alpes met by Divers of the English Nobility and being Challenged to a Tournament by the Earl of Chalboun a man of extraordinary Renown Successfully hazarded his Person to manifest his valour thence came again into England with the great advantages of his Wisdom Courage and Reputation assisted by the memory of the fortunate Battle at Evesham and his Actions in the East SECT XVIII Of the Methods and Courses which King Edward the 1. held and took in the Reformation and Cure of the Former State Diseases and Distempers KIng Edward the 1st was together with his Queen Crowned at Westminster by Robert Archbishop of Canterbury Alexander King of Scotland and John Duke of Britanny attending that Solemnity which being finished he shortly after forced Leoline Prince of Wales who had taken part with Montfort against his Father King Henry the third to do him Homage and after a Revolt imprisoned and beheaded him did the like to his brother David and United Wales as a Province to England made the Statute of Snowden considered and perused their Laws allowed some repealed others collected some and added new as he well might there do for the Prince or King which Governed Wales had always used so to do and appointed one to give his assent to the Election of Bishops and Abbots And when The Pope demanded 8 yeares arreares for the rent or tribute of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland enforced from King John did by his letter answer that his Parliament was dissolved before it came and that sine Praelatis et Proceribus communicato concilio sanctitati suae super praemissa non potuit respondere et Jurejurando in coronatione suam praestito fuit obstrictus quod jura Regni sui servabit illibata nec aliquod quod diadema tangat Regni ejusdem no such clause or promise being in the Coronation Oath ut nihil absque illorum requisito concilio faceret Sent to Franciscus Accursius Docto of laws resident at Bononia in Italy the son of the famous Accursius the Civil lawyer to come with his wife family into England by his writ to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire commanded him to deliver unto the said Doctor Accursius the King 's manor house and castle of Oxford then no mean place for him and his wife to Inhabit Did so imitate the wisdom and providence of the Roman and Caesarean laws as Augustus Caesar and other of the Succeeding Emperours had done as he gave unto men learned in the laws which was more for the peoples good then in their suits and actions at law to court and live under the protection and humours of their popular Patroni's libertatem respondendi to give councell and advice to their clients in their concernments at law and
patroum Item ibidem Anno Domini nongentesimo vicisimo Sexto Rex Angliae Adolstanus denirit Regem Scotiae Cententium iterim sub se permisit Regno Item Edradus frater Adolstani Rex Angliae dericit Sates norhambro qui se submiserunt ei fidelitatem Juraverunt Item ibidem Edgarus Rex Angliae superavit Renadum filium Alpini Regem Scotorum Et ex tunc factus est Rex quatuor regnium scilicet Angliae Scotiae Daciae Norwegiae Item sovetus Edwardas regum Scotiae dedit Malcolmo filio Regis Cumbrorum de se tenendum Item Willielmus Bastard Anno regni sui Sexto vicit Malcolmum Regem Scotiae accepit ab eo Sacramentum fidelitatis Caused special Commissioners from Scotland to attend him and the Lords of England in Parliament about setling the peace and Military affairs in Scotland where it was assented to by the King that a Parliament should be called in Scotland by the Kings Writ out of his Chancery there in which Parliament the commonalty of that Kingdom should elect Ten Persons for themselves to come to the King and his Parliament at London pro tota communitate terrae Scotiae the Scots Commissioners Petitioning the King that those ten Persons might have their Costs and expences to be leavied by two or three lawful men specially to be elected by the Commons by the view and advice of the Guardian and Chamberlain of Scotland which the King granted with an order that duo legales homines citra mare Scotiae duo legales homines ultra mare Scotiae eligentur ad hujusmodi expensas assidendas levandas per visum concilium custodis regni Scotiae Camerarii wherein as Mr Pryn well observeth they were not to be as sitting Voting Members but as Proxies and Commissioners to Treat with the King and English Parliament concerning Scottish affairs only And so great Regard was had to the words and Testimony of this great Prince as it was in his time not denyed to be law that Ordinatio Meaning an award or something acknowledged in the King's presence per ipsum Regem affirmat Majorem vim hahere debet quam finis in Curia sua coram Justiciariis suis levatus Agreeable to which was the Opinion of the Judges also in his time in these words videtur concilio Regis quod Dominus Rex a quo omnes ministri sibi Subiecti habeant recordum est Superlativum Magis arduum recordum super omnes ministros suos processus recordum praecellens not at all disagreeing with the great reverence and Regard which the good Subjects of this Kingdom have never failed to give unto the hands and great Seals of their King's and Princes which by many inspeximus's have made a record that was so Obliterate and Unintelligible as it was no Record before and given a New life and Resurrection to many a Custome Right and Liberty which otherwise would have been lost and buried in the Rubbidge of time Commanded the Sheriffs of Lincoln to leavy the expences of the Knights of that Shire in eundo morando redeundo de mandato suo venientibus prout aliis in casu consimili consuevit Punished by his Justices of his Bench William de Brewse a great and powerfull Baron for giving Reproachfull words to Roger de Hengham a Baron of the Exchecquer after he had there given a judgement against him and followed him as he was going from the Court and reviled him with gross and bitter words who in those times were frequently in their records said and understood to be de concilio Regis and ordered that the said William de Brewse should go without his sword a very great dishonour to a Baron bareheaded a banco ipsius Domini Regis ubi placitr tenentur in aula Westmonaster per medium aulae praedictae cum curia plena fuerit usque ad Scaccarium ibidem veniam petat a praefato Rogero ut gratiam sibi faciat de dedecore transgressione sibi fact postea pro contemptu facto Domino Regi curiae suae Commirtatur turri London ibidem moraturus ad voluntatem Domini Regis Was so carefull of his Superiority and Jurisdictions as he would not suffer either it or his Justice to be sullied in the administration or execution thereof as in the case betwixt the Pryor and Bishop of Durham in the 34th Year of his Reign he caused an Information to be brought in his Court of King's Bench against the Bishop for that he had Imprisoned his Officers or Messengers for bringing Writs into his Liberty and that the Bishop had said that nullam deliberationem de eisdem faceret sed dixit quod caeteros per ipsos castigaret ne de caetero litteras Domini Regis infra Episcopatum suum portarent in laesionem Episcopatus ejusdem in the entring up of which Information Plea and Judgement thereupon the record saith quia idem Episcopus cum libertatem praedictam a Corona exeuntem dependentem per factum Regis in hoc minister Domini Regis est adea quae ad Regale pertinet infra eandem libertatem loco ipsius Regis modo debito conservanda exequenda ita quod omnibus singulis ibidem justitiam exhibere ipsi Regi ut Domino suo mandatis parere debeat prout tenetur licet proficua expletia inde provenientia ad usum proprium per factum praedictum percipiatur Wherein the Judges and Sages of the Law as in those ancient times they did frequently in matters of great Concernments have given us the reason of their Judgement in these words Cumpotestas Regia per totum regnum tam infra libertates praedictas quam extra se extendant videtur Curiae toti concilio Domini Regis quod hujusmodi imprisonamenta facta de his qui capti fuerunt occasione quod brevia Domini Regis infra libertatem praedictam tulerint simul cum advocatione acceptatione facti etiam dictis quae idem Episcopus dixit de castigatione illorum qui brevia Regis ex tunc infra libertatem suam portarent manifeste perpetrata fuerunt Et propterea ad inobedientiam exhaereditationem Coronae ad dimunitionem dominii potestatis Regalis ideo consideratum est quod idem Episcopus libertatem praedictam cujus occasione temerariam sibi assumpsit audaciam praedictae gravamina injurias excessus praedictos perpetrandi dicendi toto tempore suo amittat cum in eo quo quis deliquit sit de jure puniendus eadem libertas capiatur in manus Domini Regis nihilominus corpus praedicti Episcopi Capiatur And that often distressed prudent Prince was so Unwilling to forsake the old Paths of Truth and the good ways and Rules of the English in their great Councels for Extraordinary affairs wherin a long and very Ancient Gray headed series
appointed by the King are in every Parliament Tryers of the Petitions of the Commons but they are not of any Petitions to the King and House of Lords the Commons not being to be allowed petitioning to themselves and our Kings often refusing to grant what was required where any had offended and broken the Priviledge of the House of Lords or committed any Treason or misdemeanor against the King and many times upon a charge of the House of Commons they were to receive their sentence at the Bar of the House of Lords kneeling but never in the House of Commons until the late new-fashion'd Rebellion and fancied Soveraignty of the people which God never gave them and the Devil cannot allow them after a Parliament ended and leave given by the King to depart the Commons do Petition the King for his Writs to the Counties and places that sent them to pay them their wages which the House of Peers never did And a strange representation partial much disordered and disjointed it was when 45 Members in the time of a Rebellious and Parliamentary confusion ejected 400 of their better conditioned fellow Members and have since taken upon them when their Soveraign hath with some restrictions given them proper and necessary liberty of Speech in the discussing of matters pertinent and becoming the reason and business for which they were called to deny innocent liberty to their Partners chosen and intrusted by other parts of the Nation not at all depending upon them but Elected sent and intrusted by their fellow Subjects Arraign and Murder their Pious King at the Suit of the People when they neither could or did give them any Order or Authority to do vote and make a War against him his Loyal and their fellow Subjects to the Ruine and Destruction of above two hundred thousand and punish others as their Votes shall carry it receive upon their knees their Sentence sometimes to be imprisoned in the Tower of London sent thither only by their Speakers Warrant or expelled the House with a Warrant for the Kings Writ to Elect another and no man can tell whence that power was is or could be derived unto them either by Warrant of the Laws of God Nature or Nations or the Laws and reasonable Customs of England or of any Forreign Senates or Councels to disprove approve or remove or punish one another or how they can underprop that their beloved Authority when many times the Major part of the Members were absent in person and many of those that are present and have no mind to concur were either wanting in their courage or that for which they were Elected and what with those that were absent and tarryed in their Countries or were in London and come late to the House or stayed there but a very short time there is seldom the one half or so many of them as could make a Major part of them understand to give an energy or certain establishment to what within the limits and bounds of their constitution should be agreed unto or by what Rule of Law or rectified reason any that are represented should be condemned by those that represent them not for that but for better other purposes Or how they can be said to represent the People that sent them in the matter of Parliament Priviledges when they that they represent are not to partake of their Freedom from Arrests Troubles of Suits c. for themselves and Moenial Servants or how do they represent in their properties when there is no such thing in their Writs Commissions or Procurations and they did in the 13th year of the Raign of King Edward the 3d ask leave of the King to go home to their several Countries and Places to confer with those that sent them concerning a Tax or Subsidy required or how they can be said to represent for all that sent them and call themselves one of the three Estates of the Kingdom if any can tell how to believe them when they whom they would represent are not nor ever were Estates c. If the People had a Soveraignty Vested and Inhaerent in them should be no more when they are in Parliament but as a Grand Enquest as Sir Edward Coke saith to some only purposes but to many and the most of their business but as Petitioners for Redress of Grievances or if they could by any right or construction be understood to be Soveraigns when they can do nothing there or have admittance until they shall have taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy to their King and Soveraign or can demonstrate how many kinds of Soveraigns there be and which is on Earth the Single and Sole Soveraign under God or when or how came all the People they would represent to be Soveraigns or how can they be Soveraigns after they have taken their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy unto their King and Prince and his Heirs and Successors their only very not Fictitious Soveraign and how it happeneth that they have in many of their Petitions in Parliament stiled themselves your Pourez Leiges the Commons of England if they at that time had any part of Soveraignty in them and were not all Poor neither or when sometimes in the Raign of King H. 6. or in his Absence or Infancy their Petitions were directed unto them by the Title of Sages Senators tres Honourable Seignieurs or how they could as representatives of the Commons be Petitioned unto by any of the Commons For that would have been as absurd to have been Petitioners to themselves or to have been believed to be all Wise or Honourable or that all they represented could by any kind of Grammar Reason or Sense be understood to have been sent as Soveraigns or were ever so understood to be by those that Elected or sent them they should when they were to go home to those that delegated them were not to depart without the Kings License and then did not neglect to Petition the King for Writs to be paid their Wages by the Countries or Places that employed them and if any Sheriff had levied their Wages with an overplus for himself they that were so wronged have complained to the Kings Justices in Eyre and have been remedied But were never found to complain to their unintelligible Soveraigns or to have any process from them to levy their Expences or to Petition to have them paid out of the Lands Estates of those that sent them or was granted by any Order or Procurations of those that sent them Or if all the people of England who are and should be certainly to be known and Ranked according to their several degrees and qualities unless all should be levelled into a Lump informity or menstrosity Higeldy Pigheldy all Fellows at Football it might put Heraldry it self at a stand or out of its wits to distinguish how much of a Knight of a Shire is a Duke Marquess Earl Viscount Baron Knight Esquire Gentleman Yeoman
Parliament and that learned and pacifique Prince having been much tempted thereunto in his great want of Money by an offer of 200000 l. per annum which was more than the whole profits of the Excise upon Ale Beer Cider Coffee c. All the Salaries Cheats Charges and Allowances Filchings Lurches and False Accompis deducted could or did amount unto that kind of Revenue being since his late Majesties death to be no more than a moyety thereof And these Tenures in Capite were so inherent in the Crown of England as divers of the learned Judges of England in their Arguments in the Exchequer-Chamber in the Raign of King Charles the Martyr made no Scruple to assert that the Tenures in Capite were of so high a nature that they could not be taken away by any Act of Parliament And to take away from our Kings and Princes the love and honour of the people as well as they had done the Tenures in Capite the Nerves and Sinews of our Monarchick Government it was the especial work and design of those Enemies of our former happiness to take away also the Honour of his Crown and Hospitality and could not think they had done all their work until they had thrown the Pourveyance into the bargain of the Tenures in Capite which nothing but the value of the Kingdom it self could make an Equivalent recompence or purchase and the unhappy contrivers thereof might have put a better value upon it when in Michaelmas Term in the third year of the Raign of King James the first all the Judges of England did certify that it was a Praerogative of the King at the Common Law and that all the Statutes which have been made to correct abuses in the Purveyances took not away the Purveyances but confirmed them Et qui tollit Iniquitatem firmat proprietatem confirmat usum And all those mischiefs done by one that unhappily might have taken more heed of an Assembly which some flatteringly called the Collected Wisdom of the Nation when he could not well esteem them so to be when by Fudling Drinking Bribing and all the base Cheats imaginable they had procured themselves to be made Members of that much miscalled Parliament And yet after his late Majesties miraculous restoration being advanced unto great preferments and at the last a Grand Minister of State did so think well of his own doings as he publickly at the Table of Sir Harbottle Grimston Master of the Rolls in Chancery-Lane in the hearing of many worthy persons Sir Nicholas Strode John Hern Esquire and others one of them yet living ready to testify it what a most especial Service he had done for the King and Kingdom when he was a Member in Parliament and known to be the Kings Sollicitor General by a motion without any the Kings privity or direction to dissolve and destroy the Tenures in Capite and accept a Recompence for them which Serjeant Glyn a former Grand Rebel to his Majesty and after his Restauration crept in as the most of them did and got to be Members of Parliament was ready to assist by the offer of a Recompence by an Excise upon Ale Beer Sider and Coffee a Limb of that Dutch Devil which they had made use of in their Rebellion and time of his late Majesties and now Majesties persecution At which the Company standing amazed and Sir Nicholas Strode said that he should never have fought for the late blessed Martyr or come to his setting up his Standard at Nottingham if he could have foreseen it the most of the Nation at that time and almost ever since verily believing that it had been the folly and evil doing of Sir Edward Hyde the late Lord Chancellor afterwards Earl of Clarendon and therefore was sufficiently railed upon Cursed and Banned for it and yet he was so Faultless and Innocent therein as it can be witnessed by the now Earl of Clarendon his Son Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and Lord privy Seal in the Kingdom of England that this overbold presumptuous motion of a Servant and Councel at Law of that unfortunate weather-beaten Prince not being at all informed how or by whom the project came to be first hatched or moved his late Majesty calling together his privy Councel and advising upon that most unhappy proposition wherein the Rebel Parliament in February 1647. had made some Vote Act or Ordinance against the aforesaid Tenures under the notion of the Court of Wards being but two years before his Royal Fathers Murther and Oliver Cromwel had made some Act of his Worships miscalled Parliament some few years after as it behoved for the destruction of those Tenures in Capite when he intended as much as he could to take away the Kingship and Monarchy until he could make himself fit to govern a foolish besotted rebellious people they having before not at all made any mention or request to have the said Court of Wards put down or the Tenures in Capite by their High and mighty 19 Propositions nor were any complaints of grievances made thereby nor in all our Parliament Records or Journals or Historians since or before the Raigns of King Edward the Confessor and William the Conqueror doth there appear to have been any Petitions in Parliament against them neither in that as it were intended deposing Remonstrance of the 15th of December 1641. wherein nothing was omitted that might injure or calumniate per fas aut nefas the Kings Authority or Government there appears to have been nothing against either the Tenures in Capite or Court of Wards And it can be proved that the Royal Martyr during his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight had designed that if ever he came again to his Rights he would upon all his Crown or Chequer Leases reserve some military Services notwithstanding all which his late Majesties great want of present Money and some setled Revenue perswaded him to hearken more than otherwise his own great Judgment would have done The Earl of Radnor was much against their dissolution alledging that the constitution it self was good and was not in it self to be cast away by any Male-administration Sir Geffery Palmer was very much for the preservation of the Tenures and so were many other and the Lord Chancellor Clarendon very much and so greatly as he called to the said Sollicitor General and said will you also put down the Pourveyances saying with some passion by God we seem to be against the late Commonwealth and yet are acting for it And his late Majesty was so unwillingly drawn to be in Love with that ever to be deplored Parliament contrivance to decapitate the Monarchy and not only that but Ireland and render all the Inferiour part thereof to be in a paralitique or dead palsical over-benummed in its Members as before that Act passed he sent for one Mr. Darnel an ancient and experienced Clerk and Attorney in the Court of Wards and Liveries to propose some expedient for the Regulation of
words following in a Parenthesis viz. but never intended to have any share in the government And they that heretofore did take it for an especial honour to wear many of the Peers and Nobilities Liveries and glad to be reteyners to them were so modest as to be unwilling to assume the Title of an Estate in Parliament when in Parliament conferences passing of Bills Messages or other occasions the House of Peers sate covered that third Estate if it could be so called stood and are to stand uncovered And Mr. Pryn one of their greatest Champions that did more than he should to magnify their Customs and Priviledges was at length constrained to acknowledge that in all the Parliaments of King Edward the third Richard the second Henry the fourth fifth and sixth Edward the fourth and Richard the third the Commons in Parliament never claimed nor exercised an such Titles or Jurisdictions as of late years have been usurped by them or given unto who never until they ran mad with Rebellion who never presumed or pretended to make Print or Publish any Act Ordinance or order whatsoever relating to the People or their own Members without the King and Lords Assent and Concurrence never attempted to impose any Tax Tallage Charge Excise or Duty upon the people without the King and Lords consent never adventured to appoint any Committee or subcommittee to hear and determine any particular business or complaint without the report thereof to the whole House of Commons without the privity or Assent of the House by way of transmission or impeachment to their superior Authority and Judicature of the House of Peers never attached fined imprisoned or censured any person by their own authority without the Lords as they have hundreds of late years done And that very famous Ancient and Great Republick of Venice Crowning their Doge with an Imaginary Crown for Venice and two other real and very Crowns the one for Cyprus and the other for Candy both Kingdoms revera in their actual possession yet as the lesser in the greater bound up and captivated under a strange diversity of Forms and Cantons hath not the Priviledge to read a Letter without the Privity or overlooking of the grand Consiglio or Venetian Nobility hath besides their many great Varieties and Fragments of Magistracy Offices and Parts of Governments cut into as many Parcels as they can to give every one as much Relish and hopes as their largely extended dominions can afford are not without at the first 150 since augmented into the number of 3000 of those which they stile Nobility and makes a principal part of the first quality or concern in their government as our Bishops and Lords Temporal the former being Barons as much as the latter for their lives although not as the latter in Fee or Fee-Tail and amongst the many particles or pieces of their mangled government can allow their Doge to be the Superior and more than Co-ordinate with all or any of the Avogardoit di Communite the Pregadi that are to guide their chief affairs of Estate and consist of 120 Noblemen some whereof have their rights of the Lottery or Balloting Box their greatest Councel consists of the Doge Consiglieri the Consiglio di dioci the third Consigliera de bassa the three Lords of the Raggioni Vecchio the three Lords of the Raggioni Nuevo the Cattaveri or the Inquisitors of truth the two Censori the three Provisori delli dieci Savii or special wisemen and that which should be the wonder the Colledge of the Savii are to have no Vote in the Pregadi and they of the Pregadi can take no resolution except there be in it four Consiglieri or at least 60 of the Nobility be of the Quorum or that they do ordinarily give order to their Embassadors in all parts of the World whither they have been sent to Register and give an accompt to their State or Senate or whatever they can be called of the the several forms of government in other Nations and Kingdoms and yet omitting the Feudal the best of all governments happily experimented in the most of their Neighbour Nations and Kingdoms so pertinatiously as they do and have such an hotch potch or Gallimaufry of mixtures as we say in England as if they were again to be dislocated or taken in pieces that great republick planted betwixt the two great Empires of the West and East would in all probability be on a sudden in as great misery distress and confusion or greater than it was when they fled from the Ravage and Fury of the Huns and Vandals into the Arms and Bosom of the Gulf of the Adriatique Sea and Mr. Selden hath informed us that in England in the Saxons time and long after the middle Thanes and the Valuasers were not honorary as the greater Thegnes or Barons were And it may be worthy our observation that although Mr. Pryn in his careful recapitulation before mentioned of the Lords Spiritual the Bishops and the Earls and Barons the Lords Temporal excluding the Commons until after th 49th year of the Raign of King Henry 3. doth altogether negatively conclude that there were no Commons then present yet when he comes to rectify as he calleth it the mistakes of the abridger doth in Anno 5. E. 3. relate that the Estates in full Parliament do agree that they shall not retain sustain or avow any Felons or Breakers of Houses which the King having commanded before is truly and properly to be understood of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal And in another place of the said record mentioneth that the whole Estate prayed the King to be gracious unto Edward the Son of Roger Mortimer Earl of March which could not inforce the King to be one of the Estates or that there were any other or more Estates than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Anno 6. E. 3. were Proclaimed the Articles agreed in the last Parliament and 1 2 3. in another Parliament intended to be at York it is said that most of the Estates were absent Sir Jeffry le Scroop by the Kings Command shewed the cause of summoning the Parliament but for that most of the Estates were absent which might consist only of Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the King ordained new Writs of Summons to be issued In a reassembly at York in the same year Articles of the last Parliament were proclaimed by the Steward and Marshal of the King and the Commons not then said Estates had license to depart and the Lords commanded to attend until the next day at which time the Parliament was dissolved In Anno 8. E. 3. It was petitioned that no pardons be granted unto outlawed persons by any Suggestions or means but only by Parliament To which the King answered the Statutes made shall be observed That all men may have their Writs out of the Chancry paying nothing but the fees for the Seals without any fine
according to the great Charter nulli vendemus Justitiam unto which the King answered such as be of course shall be so and such as be of grace the King will command the Chancellour to be therein gracious Neither doth it appear that the Lords Spiritual who in the Raign of King Stephen held three several Councels in Secular Affairs and of King Henry the 2d were sundry times Mediators employed by him in Treaties betwixt him and the King of France or that the Lords Temporal the other part of the House of Peers and Baronage of England subordinate under their King and Soveraign did ever take esteem or believe the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament jointly or separately to be a 3d. Estate of the Kingdom for they neither had or enjoyed that Title or supposed Power In Anno 17. of King John in the Rencounter or Rebellion at Running Mede when in a pacification there made with some of his robustious Barons it was agreed that if the Conservators none of them which were then nominated to be the Conservators of the Kingdom being then called the Estates could not obtain a just performance of that constrained agreement by a complaint made unto the King or his Chief Justice of the Kingdom populus not then dreamed to be a 3d. Estate might â—um pravare with a salvo or exception to the Persons of him his Wife and Children do it and were not so imagined to be when the Popes Legat had by his Excommunication of that King and Interdiction of the use of Christianity in the whole Nation constrained him to do Homage to the Pope by an Investiture of the Sword Crown and Scepter and an yearly Tribute of 1000 Marks for the Kingdom of England and Ireland to the Church and See of Rome that Engine or Trick of Soveraignty Inhaerent in the People or a 3d. Estate representing for them in Parliament not then being thought necessary for a ratification of those that would magnifie themselves with that Factious and Fictitious Title of a 3d. Estate which they durst not adventure to make use of or mention in our Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta freely granted by King Henry the 3d. his Son and that more than thirty times Confirmations for the first whereof they believed they had made a good bargain when they had given unto that King the 15th part of their moveables and were not a 3d. Estate or called so in the 42 year of the Raign of that King when the Derogatory Act of Parliament to Kingly Government was enforced from him at Oxford in the 42 year of his Raign Anno 13. E. 3. The Bishop of Durham and Sir Michael de la Poole came from the King with a Message to the whole Estates which probably were then none other than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal concerning his Victories atchieved in France The Lords upon the Kings want of Money grant to the King the tenth Sheaf of Corn their Bond or Bond-Tenants excepted their 〈…〉 h Fleece of Wooll and 〈…〉 h Lamb for two years the Commons then not stiled Estates require time to go into their Countries to advise with those that sent them the Commons not Estates return their Assent and make several demands with a request that the Sheriffs of every County may in the next Summons to Parliament return two Knights girt with Swords A general Proclamation was made that all Persons having Charters of Pardon should resort to the Sea-coast for the Kings Service upon pain to forfeit the same The Commons do give the King for his Relief 30000 Sacks of Wooll upon conditions expressed in a pair of Indentures whereupon the Lords promised to send to the King to know his pleasure after long Debating the Commons promise to give presently to the King 2500 Sacks of Wooll so as if the King liked the conditions aforesaid the same should run in payment if not they would freely give it to him Remembrances of things not finished in one Parliament to be done in another They granted unto the King the ninth of their Grain Wooll and Lamb for two years to be Levyed out of all Towns-men the ninth of their Goods of such as dwelled in Forests and Wasts a Fifteenth upon condition the King would grant their Petitions contained in a Schedule so willing were the Commons to obtain and get what they could from the King and so little did they think themselves to be a 3d. Estate or an entire or any part of Soveraignty Sundry Bishops Lords and Commons were appointed daily to sit until they had reduced the aforesaid Grant into the form of a Statute and was agreed upon by the King and the whole Estates which could not be expounded that the King was one of those Estates or the other any more than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal leaving the Commons to be no more than they were in suis gradibus no 3d. Estate which beginneth To the Honour of God c. And such Articles as were to continue but for a time the King exemplified under the great Seal Know ye that with our Bishops Earls c. Certain Bishops and Lords requiring to be saved harmless against the Duke of Brabant for great sums of Money wherein they stood bound for the King if the Duke of Cornwal married not the Daughter of the said Duke which was granted and all which Letters Patents were inrolled in Chancery And for that the King in his Stile was named King of France and had changed his Arms whereby The Abridger of the Parliament Rolls or Records or Mr. Pryn the Rectifier or misuser of them hath given us a curtailed Abbreviation of the Parliament Remembrances in 14 E. 3. wherein all that the Abridger or Rectifier was pleased to give us was that Subjects were no longer bound to him than as King of France the Kings Letters Patents of Indempnity were granted beginning Edwardus c. Know ye that where some people intend c. When as in the Printed Statute according to the Parliament Record for so it may better be understood to have been the Abridger or Rectifier so miscalled might have seen that the King by the Title of King of England and France and Lord of Ireland by his Letters Patents under the great Seal of England reciting that whereas some people did think that by reason the Realm of France was devolved to him as Right Heir of the same and for as much as he is King of France the Realm of England should be put in Subjection of the King and of the Realm of France in time to come he having regard to the Estate of his Realm of England and namly that it never was nor ought to be in Subjection to the obeysance of the Kings of France which for the time have been nor of the Realm of France and willing to provide for the Surety and Defence of the Realm of England and of the Leige people of the same doth will and grant
amaze all the men of Law and Learning in the Kingdom of England how Sir Edward Coke that hath been attempted to be a man of so great knowledge and experience in the Law and entrusted with so many weighty Charges and Offices in our Laws as Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas and afterwards of the Court of Kings Bench and so great a Collector and Remembrancer of the cases and judgments in the Law with their various forms and entries should have so often read in his so greatly beloved Book of Littleton the Chapters of Homage and Homage Auncestrel and Escuage assessed in our Parliaments could think it to be the Common Law of England and that by which it had for many Centuries past been Governed and not to be by its true and original Name and Nation as well here as in all the other parts of the Christian World the Feudal Law and what else where those Feudal Laws used in England which our Learned Sir Henry Spelman and Dr. Zouch Mr. of Alban-Hall in Oxford so largely directly mentioned to have their beneficial Use and Residence amongst us allowed and repeated by the very learned the Sieur du Fresne a Baron of France and other good Authors and Historians And if those premises cannot be enough to satisfy us Sir Edward Coke if he were alive might do well to instruct us what Law that Homage and Escuage appertained unto And if there were any other Laws that this Kingdom was governed by when and by whom they were introduced and of how long continuance for it may be hoped that our Sons of Novelty will not be so impudent as to offer to obtrude upon the World the Follies and Villanies of Wat Tiler and Jack Cade our late pretended Rebuplicans or their cheating Instrument maker Oliver Cromwel Or upon what other Laws than Feudal are our Magna Charta and Charta de Foresta supported and as often as thirty times in several of our Parliaments confirmed when all our many English Rebellions troubles of State and Commotions either at home at abroad have left it as a quiddam Sacrum more than the safe guarded vestal fire amongst the Romans or can shew us in any of our Records Annals or holy Writ wrested or misinterpreted that the Dernier Resort or Appeal hath been or ought to be in the people unless they can make themselves or any others believe that there was something or more revealed to them than was in the Scripture or Holy Prophets for there was no third Estate under our Kings to assist their Councels in Parliaments subordinate unto them put upon them nor intended to be by the 25 Conservators enforced upon King John in the Rebellious Parliament and Battle at Running Mede afterwards reduced to four or when their Captain General Robert Fitz-Walter was stiled Mariscallus Exercitus dei Ecclesiae Anglicanae neither in Anno 42. H. 3. being over-powered by some of his Rebellious Barons where those 25 Conservators were turned into 24 the one half to be nominated by the King the other by the contending party at the Parliament at Oxford or when that afterwards adjudged derogatory Parliament to Kingly Authority was referred by King Henry the third and the Rebellious Barons unto the Arbitration of the King of France or sworn to abide it none of the Rebellious party were entituled Estates or in that after Rebellion and detaining King Henry the 3 and prince Edward his Son about a year and a quarter they would not adventure to form or imitate a general Councel in that captive Kings name those few that came were not called or intended to be a 3 Estate in an House of Commons nor in any of the many Rescripts or Mandates which Symon Montfort and his partner Rebels made in their Captive Kings name nor in any Parliament after his Release or in the Parliament of King Edward the first when he was pleased to suffer some of the Commons Elected by his Writs to attend in the House of Commons in Parliament neither had they the boldness in all his long Raign of 35 years or in the 17 or 18 years of King Edward the second or the fifty one years of King Edward the third or in the Raign of King Richard the 2 until the Title of Estates crept in as aforesaid and Mr. Pryn made himself after the Creator of them in his misused rectifying And having as they thought turned the Tables the wrong way in calling our Feudal Laws the Common Laws which indeed they are should be and a long time have been have so far put them out of their Right place Order and Station as they think they have changed our Feudal Laws which are should be the only Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom and Government thereof into a quite contrary and too many of our Lawyers have been so willing to forget them as they had rather now of late make us believe if they could the tricks of Attorneys to be our Common Laws than our more Ancient Legal Rational and Fundamental Feudal Laws Insomuch that one that thinks himself no small one hath of late been pleased to say very considerately as he thought that the Study and Knowledge of Antiquities was but like the picking up of Old Iron in the London Streets or Kennels As if the Prophet Jeremy had either mistaken or lost the Commission which our Alwise and Omniscient God had given him when he advised us Stare super vias antiquas inquirere veritatem and such Lawyers of a late Edition might find themselves hard put to it to answer the question how or from whence proceeded or were derived our Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which have for so many ages past been legally taken and enjoyned and do and ought yet to continue if not from an ancient Fundamental Feudal Laws from what other Laws of God or man were they derived or any the various Customs or Usages of either Heathen or Christian fixt or established by by any other rational Custom or Usage or unfixt and left only to the divers Interests Occasions and Contingencies of every mans particular Interest and Affairs and can never be ascertained how long they shall continue in one and the same mind and good liking and where the Systeem of these Laws Usages or Customs are or may be found or what Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy have been sworn unto or upon them Whether upon the Old Custom of England of wrastling or choosing King and Queen at the Epiphany or Twelft Night at Christmas And if they would be a 3 governing Estate may think themselves not a little beholding unto such as can either think or believe that they are or ought to be so in love with them as to trust them as formerly they had done and could tell their Brethren of Scotland that their promises were but conditional and did very lovingly alter order their man of sin Oliver Cromwel to beat subdue and after their Laws and Religion
of a contrived Parliament to govern the King when that gentle fictitious modus is content to allow the King a Salvo dom Regi et ejus Consilio quod ipsi hujusmodi Ordinaciones of 6. 3. or 1. of the Committee Postquam scripta fuerint examinare emendare valeant si hoc facere sciant valeant Ita quod hoc fiat tunc ibidem in pleno Parliamento de assensu Parliamenti Et non retro Parliamentum which last clause saith Mr. Pryn quite spoils Altars and contradicts what the Community of twelve six or three had ordained And King Edward the confessor whom the many foregoing and after ages have justly and truly reported and esteemed to be neither Oliver Cromwel or the mistaken Sir Edward Coke with their several modi tenendi Parliamenta did not find either of them in his Recherches amongst all the Laws of the Mulumtians Mercian Saxon and Danish Laws and other ancient Customs used in England in his time when he was Monarch thereof and Vicarius Summi Regis ordained Laws concilio Baronum Angliae leges 68 Annos sopitas excitavit excitatas reparavit reparatas decoravit decoratas confirmavis confirmatas vero vocantur Leges Edwardi Regis non quod ipse primo eas adinvenisse dicitur sed cum praetermissa fuissent oblivioni penitus dedita a diebus avi sui Edgari qui 17 Annis regnavit ipse Edwardus quia Justa erant honesta a profunda Abyssu extravit as if he had pulled them out of some Holes Vauts or Cranyes eas revocavit ut suas observandas contradidit wherein there is nothing at all that may be subservient to the wildest kind of Interpretation of a modus tenendi Parliamentum which in the case of so great Rational and Fundamental general Councel as a Parliament could not be beleived to be omitted in the making and framing K. Edward the Confessors Laws nor can they be conceived or believed to be made at one time but at several times during his Raign and in these although there are extant a very great commendation of the usefulness of the Law of Friborghs or Tithings there is not a word or any thing to be understood of the Members of the House of Commons in Parliament being a third Estate For it appears in Anno 1244 in a Parliament holden at London the King consulted with the Bishops apart the Earls and Barons apart and the Abbots and Priors apart about the Popes not performing his promise concerning his removal of the grievances of the Kingdom where were none of the Common people either as a third Estate or otherwise which was before his imprisonment in the 48th year of his Raign by some of his Rebellious Barons and in all his Raign before there is often mention of his Bishops Earls and Barons Magnates and Grand Conseil but nothing at all of Commons or a formed House of Commons until the 49th year of his Raign and not long before at a Parliament assembled totam Nobilitatem Angliae For before the 42 year of that Kings Raign Nobiles Angliae tam viri Ecclesiastici quam seculares met in a Parliament at London Ita quod nunquam tam populosa multitudo ibi antea visa fuit where the King informing them of his necessities and requiring an aid they not any Commons but the Lords Spiritual and Temporal began to be very querelous and remembring old grievances as they called them demanded the Justiciary Chancellor and Treasurer might be chosen by the Common Councel of the Kingdom which by the Records and Annalists was never understood to be any other than the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament summoned to give their advice to the King as the greatest men of wisdom and Estates in whom that and the obedience of the Common people were Justly included the choice of which great Offices of State Sir Edward Cokes modus tenendi Parliamentum having not then peeped into the World to help to disturb it the Lords Spiritual and Temporal then alledged to appertain unto them not unto the Vulgar or Common people and had been Justly and anciently due unto them ab antiquo Justum consuetum which had no longer a date than the enforced Charter of King John at Running Mede and the collateral strange security at the same time given for the 25 Conservators of the Liberties of the people to maintain its antiquity than something less than 42 years before which propositions the King denying that Councel was dissolved without any Claim of the common peoples third Estateship or being an Essential or constituent part of the Parliament or to have votum decisivum therein There was no such Modus tenendi Senatum or Parliamentum then so stiled when the Roman Empire began its rise for shortly after though their Stile or Title was Senatus populusque Romanus yet their Historians tell us that they had their Patritii and Menenius Agrippa when the Rabble Vulgus or Common people had made an Insurrection or mutiny and gone tumultuously into the Mount Aventine knew better how to bring them again into their Wits by a pleasant well understood fable or Apologue of the head Members Belly and Paunch in their Bodies natural and our Republican 3 Estate men might read and understand that those Common peoples Votes or Dictates were able to reach no further than their Plebiscita and never could arrive unto a Senatus consultum that when Julius Caesar came into our Brittain before the Incarnation of our Redeemer and that Nation had planted Colonies here they left us no Modus tenendi Senatum neither did Agricola Governor here for the Roman Colonies who had taught our Nation the use of the Roman Gown and Civilities teach them the modus tenendi Parliamentum or Senatum which Sir Edward Coke dreamed of or inform them that the Common people were a third Estate or had an inhaerent Soveraignty in them In all the Laws of Dunwallo Mulumtius there was no mention of Law for a modus tenendi Parliamentum or in those of Mercia Regina Britonum or in the time of the Heptarchy of the Saxon Kings or of King Ethelbert who raigned here in the year after Christ 568. Neither in the Laws of King Ina who raigned in England about the year 712. Or in the Laws of King Alured who began his Raign in Anno 871. and ended in Anno 900. and declares that he had ordained collected and put them together Atque easdem literis mandavit quorum bonam certe partem Majores sui religiose coluerunt mulâ—a etiam sibi digna videntur quae sibi observari melius commoda videbantur ea consulto sapientum partim antiquanda partino Innovanda videbantur curavit At quoniam temeritatis videatur ex suis ipsius decretis quenquam literarum monumentis consignare tum etiam se quidem apud posteros Justitiae suae fidem quae se magni fecerit