Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	certain_a	king_n	time_n	2,645	5	3.5256	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96413	The rights of the people concerning impositions, stated in a learned argument; with a remonstrance presented to the Kings most excellent Majesty, by the Honorable House of Commons, in the Parliament, An. Dom. 1610. Annoq; Regis Jac. 7. / By a late eminent judge of this nation.	Whitelocke, James, Sir, 1570-1632.; England and Wales. Parliament. House of Commons.	1659 (1659)	Wing W1995C; Thomason E1647_3; Thomason E2143_3	49,868	133

return paying the Subsides Customs and other profits reasonably due Upon the words of this Law was great advantage taken in this that besides Custom and Subsidy which comprehend all the certain and ordinary duties the King hath upon the wares and goods of Merchants there are other profits spoken of to be due These they affirm cannot be understood but of Impositions by the King without assent of Parliament To this I answer if they were not duties due to the King besides Custom and Subsidy which might satisfie the intention of these words this objection might have had some colour in it but it is plain that besides these two there are other profits due to the King upon Merchants goods as Scavage Tonage and the like And you shall finde a Petition in Parliament Rot. Par. 50. E. 3. nu 163. 50. E. 3. against the raising of these above the old rate The eighth Law is 15. E. 3. stat 2. c. 5 E. 3. Stat. 2. cap. 5. whereby it is enacted that every Merchant may freely buy and sell and pass the Sea with their Merchandizes of Wooll and all other things paying the Custom of old time used according to the Statute made in the last Parliament in Midlent which was the Stat. 14. E. 3. stat 2. cap. 2. This Law doth expresly exclude the novelty of Impositions The ninth Law is that 18. 18 E. 3. stat 1. c. 3 E. 3. stat 1. ca. 3. whereby it is enacted That the Sea be open to all manner of Merchants to pass with their Merchandizes where it shall please them The tenth is 27. E. 3. stat 2. c. 2 27. E. 3. stat 2 cap. 2 for the assurance of Merchants-strangers and other the King doth will and grant for him and his Heirs that nothing shall be taken over the due Customs not taken of them to his use by colour of suit or in other manner against their wills The eleventh is 38. E. 3. cap. 2. 38. E. 3. cap. 2. that all manner of Merchants aliens and Denizens may buy and sell all manner of merchandizes and freely carry them out of the Realm paying the Customs and Subsidies thereof due The last is 22. H. 8. cap. 8. 22. H. 8. cap. 8. by which it was enacted that Tables should be set up in Ports by which the certainty and very duty of every Custom Toll and Duty or sum of money to be demanded and required of Wares and Merchandizes shall and may plainly appear and be declared to the intent that nothing be exacted otherwise then in old time hath been used and accustomed By this late Law it appeareth that the judgment of the whole Parliament was at that time That nothing was due upon Wares and Merchandizes but that which which was certain and had been antiently due by which Impositions are excluded whose qualities are novelty and incertainty as being set on as present occasion moveth and proportioned for quantity and other circumstances as the will of the King directeth These are the Laws which I conceive most directly tend to the restraining the Kings of England from the exercise of that irregular power of imposing at the first offered by them to be put in execution yet not pressed as their right and never practised but upon opposition of the whole State and at last deserted and given over until of late as by that which followeth in the fourth place will appear My fourth and last assertion is Custom 4 That this practise of imposing without assent of Parliament is contra morem Majorum In this I will make an historical perlustration of the times past whereby I will discover and make known what passages have been in this business in this Kingdom and especially in the high Court of Parliament for the space of 300 years and more last past since the beginning of the reign of E. 1 sithence which time and not before this Kingdom hath grown into the glory and reputation of foraigne traffique And as a worthy Gentleman of the Kings learned Councel made certaine considerations upon this question framed and strengthened out of the greatness of his wit and reason so I grounding my self upon the practice of former times which is the safest rule whereby to square the right both of King and people in this Common-wealth where their right is jus consuetudinarium a right that groweth by use and practice I will propose unto you certaine observations out of the action and experience of former times untill the raignes of the two late Queenes by which you may the better ground and frame your judgements in the determination of the right in this question My first observation is in point of circumstance that there never was any Imposition set but in time of actuall war and duplicatis vexillis they were set on very rarely and sparingly but for a short time and that certaine and definite and upon some few commodities and that by the assent of the Merchants that were to beare the burthen In our time the occasion not so sensible the continuance to be perpetual the number many hundreds almost no kinde of Commodity spared I will give you some few Instances of these circumstances out of the Records themselves The maletole of Wooll set on by King E. 22. E. 1. orig Scacc. Rent Thes 22. E. 1. mem Scac. R. Thes T. Mich. Rot. parl 17. E. 3. nu 28. 1. which gave the occasion of the Stat. 25. yeare of his raigne was given by Merchants The Record saith Mercatores gratanter concesserunt in subsidium guerrae Regis It further sheweth it was for his necessity of Warre which then was great also For the time of F. 3. there need not many instances for his whole raigne was almost an actuall warfare As in the sixt year of his raigne for his war in Scotland and Ireland In the thirteenth year of his raigne for his war in France severall Impositions were set on In the seventeenth year of E. 3. the Record in the Tower mentioneth that forty shillings Imposition was upon a sacke of Wooll by the grant of Merchants Rot. parl 50. E. 3. nu 38. and it was in the time of VVar. In the twentieth yeare of King E. 3. it appeareth in the Record that the Imposition then put upon VVools was by the assent of Merchants for two years for the necessity the King had in his passage over the sea to recover his right and to defend the Realme My second observation is Never any Imposition was set on by the King out of Parliament but complaint was made of it in Parliament and not one that ever stood after such complaint made but remedy was afforded for it Et quod Rex inconsulto fecit consulto revocavit his Soveraigne power controlled his subordinate In which it is a thing very notable that the King in no one Case ever claimed or so much as ever named his right or prerogative which no doubt would have been

adjourn it thither again where it gave occasion of a good Law to be made to prevent the like Grants and to make them void notwithstanding any Judgment given upon them and to make such Judgments also void The Statute is 9 E. 3. c. 1. And in the Parliament Rolls 9. E. 3. c. 1. Every Alien and Denizen may carry his Merchandise where it pleaseth him notwithstanding any Charter granted or Judgment thereupon 16 17. R. 2. 2 H. 4. num 109. we finde a notable Record which gives warrant for the proceeding in Parliament in this manner as hath been in this Case notwithstanding the Judgment in the Exchequer and declares to the Kingdom that notwithstanding the great wonder made by some men nothing hath been done in this business by those that serve in the Parliament but in imitation of their worthy Predecessors in the like case In the second year of H. 4. the Commons shew that in the time of R. 2. by the means of John Waltham Bishop of Salisbury Treasurer of England wrongfully without authority of Parliament and by reason of a Judgement given in the Exchequer 16 17. R. 2. by the Barons there against certain Merchants of Bristol and other places passage had been taken for Wines otherwise then in ancient times had been and therefore they prayed they might pay their prise Wines in the manner they had used to pay notwithstanding any Judgment given in the Exchequer or other Ordinance made by the said Treasurer contrary to the antient usage which Petition the King granted and the Judgment thereupon became void and the prisage Wine hath been paid contrary to the Judgment ever since In 1. El. Dier 165. 1. El. Dier 265. upon the complaint made by the Merchants of the impositions set upon Cloth by Queen Mary by her absolute power without assent of Parliament The Cause was thought too weighty to be decided in any one Court but as it appeareth in the Book it was referred to all the Judges of England who divers times had conference about it So it may well be there is nothing against it in our year Books for there is nothing of it Another Objection was this which was made in the last argument viz. That Custom is originally due by the Common Law of England it can then have no other ground or cause but meerly by the Kings royal Prerogative as a right and duty originally belonging to his Crown which if it be it must necessarily follow he may impose for that is but the exercising of that right To prove this was alleadged the case 39. 39 E. 3.13 E. 3.13 by which case it appeareth that King John had a Custom of eight pence on a Tun of Wine in the Port of Southampton but the Book doth not tell you that the King had it by prerogative and he might have it as well otherwise as by prescription or convention which shall rather be intended by reason of the certainty of the sum paied for if it were by prerogative he might take sometimes more sometimes less at his will the right being indefinite and the quantity limited onely by his own discretion A common person may have such a custom certain as 18. El Dier 352. The Mayor of London hath the twentieth part of Salt brought into the City by Aliens 18 El. Dier 352 which is a great Imposition but is good by prescription originally and hath received greater strength since by Acts of Parliament made for the confirmation of the Liberties and Customs of the City of London So it appeareth that John of Britain had Custom of the ships that arrived at his Port of Little Yarmouth Dier 43. worth twenty pounds per annum And these instances do inefer that a Custom may be otherwise then by prerogative and therefore it is no good argument to conclude the King had such a custom Therefore he had it by Prerogative The Book in 30. H. 8. Dier 43. 30 Hen. 8 Dier 43. was much pressed on this point which saith that Custom belonged to the King at Common Law and doth instance in Wooll Wooll-fells and Leather begun at the Common Law but abridged by the Statute of 14 E. 3. ca 21. stat 1. 14 Ed. 3. c. 21. stat but this appeareth to be a great error and mistaking in the Book for we do finde that that Custom of Woolls Wooll-fells and Leather was begun by a Grant in Parliament as appeareth in Statute 15 E. 1. cap. 7. The words be granted to us by the Commonalty aforesaid and the last mention before was that the King had granted to the Bishops Earls Barons and all the Commonalty of the Land c. Novemb. 3. Ed. 1. The Kingrecited in his Letter Patents That Prelati magnates ac tota communitas mercatorum Regni granted this new Custom And so the ground and motive of that opinion being false all grounded upon that must needs be erroneous It was objected That the King holdeth at this day the encrease of four pence in the pound over due Custom paid by Merchants Aliens according to the purport of the Charta mercatoria 31 E. Rot. char 31. E. 1. num 42. in Turri 1. by meer right of Prerogative at the Common Law for by that Grant of the Merchants he cannot hold it they being no Body Politick at the time of the Grant and therefore the Grant is meerly void to binde in succession and yet the Merchants Aliens do pay it at this day It is agreed That by the Common Law a contract with a number not incorporate bindeth not succession but we must take notice that they by whom that Grant was made of the augmentation of Custom by three pence in the pound and other encreases 31. E. 1. were Merchants Aliens who by the Law of Merchants and Nations may contract to bind their successors in matters of Traffick For their contracts are not ruled by the Common Law of the Land but by the Law of Nations per legem Mercatoriam as the Book case is 3. Ed. 4.10 and there was a good consideration given them by the King for this encrease of Custom as discharge of prise Wines for two shillings the Tun and other Immunities which all Merchants Aliens hold and enjoy at this day by force of that contract made 31 E. 1. For a stranger paieth now but two shillings the Tun for prisage whereas it standeth an Englishman in much more so as the rule of commutative Justice maketh the contract available to the King against the Merchants because he parteth with part of his prisage to the Merchant and maketh it available to the Merchant against the King because he giveth him encrease of Custom above that is due by Law But the Statute of 27 E. 3. cap. 26. 27 E. 3. cap. 26. heretofore cited doth make this point clear without scruple which confirmeth the Charter of 31. E. 1. entirely and by that the encrease of Custom by three