try the fitnesse of the block and take it up again before he would lay it down for good and all and so he did and before he layd it dow again he told the Executioner that he would give him warning when to strike by stretching forth his hands and then laid down his neck on the block stretching out his hands the Executioner struck off his head at one blow then took the head up in his hands and shewed it to all the people and said God save the King SIXTEENE QVERIES Propounded by the Parliament of Ireland to the Judges of the same Kingdome THat the Judges may set forth and declare whether the Inhabitants of this kingdome be a free people or whether they be to be governed onely by the antient common lawes of England II. Whether the Judges of the Land doe take the Oath of Judges and if so whether under pretext of any Acts of State Proclamation Writ Letter or direction under the great or privie Seale or privie Signet or Letter oâ—other commandement from the Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputie Justice Justices or other chiefe Governor or Governors of this Kingdome they may hinder stay or delay the suite of any subject or his judgement or execution thereupon if so in what cases and whether if they doe hinder stay or delay such suite judgement or execution what punishment they incurre by the Law for their deviation and transgression therein III. Whether the Kings Majesties privie Counsell either together or with the chiefe Governor or Governors of this Kingdome without him or them be a place of Judicature by the common Lawes where in case between party and party for Debts Trespasses Accounts Covenants possessions and title of Land or any of them and with them may be heard and determined and of what civill Causes they have jurisdiction and by what Law and of what force is their order or Decree in such cases or any of them IV. The like of the chiefe Governors alone V. Whether Grant of Monopolies be warrantable by the Law and of what and in what Cases and how and where and by whom are the Transgessors against such Grantees punishable and whether by Fine and mutilation of Members imprisonment losse and forfeiture of goods or otherwise and which of them VI. In what Cases the Lord Deputie or other chiefe Governors of this Kingdome and Counsell may punish by Fine imprisonment Mutilation of Members Pillory or otherwise they may sentence any to such the same or the like punishment for infrigeing the commands of any Proclamation or Monopolie and what punishment doe they incurre that doevote for the same VII Of what force is an Act of state or Proclamation in this Kingdome to bind the liberty goods possessions or inheritance of the natives thereof whether they or any of them can alter the common Law or the infringers of them lose their Goods Chattels or Leases or forfeit the same by infringing any such Act of State or Proclamation or both and what punishment doe the sworne Judges of the Law that are privie Counsellors incurre that vote for such Act and execution of it VIII Whether the subjects of this Kingdome be subiect to the Marshall Law and whether any man in time of peace no enemy being in the fields with displayed colours can be sentenced to Death if so by whom and in what cases if not what punishment doe they incurre that in time of peace execute Marshall Law IX Whether voluntary Oathes taken freely before Arbitrators or others for affirmance or disaffirmance of any thing or for the true performance of any thing be punishable in the Castle-Chamber or in any other Court and why and wherefore X. Why and by what Law and upon what Rule of policie is it that none is admitted to reducement in the Castle-chamber untill he confesse the offence for which he is censured when as Revera he might be innocent therof though subordined proofes or circumstances might induce him to be censured XI Whether the Judges of the Kings Bench and by what law doe or can deny the copies of Indictments of Fellony or Tyeason to the parties accused of Treason contrary to the statute of 42. Edw. 3. XII Whether the statute of Baltinglase take from the Subiâ—cts out-lawed for Treason though erroniously the benefit of his Writ of Error and how and by what meanes that blinâ— clause not warranted by the body of that Act came to be interted and by what Law is it countenanced to the diminution of the liberty of the subject XIII What power have the Barons and the Court of Exchequer to raise the respite of homage Arbitrarily to what value they please and to what value they may raise it and by what law they may distinguish betweene respite of homage upon the diversities of the true value of the Fees when as all Escuage is the same for great and small Fees and they apportionable by Parliament XIIII Whether it 's censurable in the subjects of this Kingdome to repaire into England to appeale to his Majesty for Redresse of Jnjuries or for other their accusers if so why and in what condition of persons and by what law XV. Whether Deanes and other Dignitanies of Cathedrall Churches be properly de mero jure donative by this King or not elective or collative if so why and by what law and whether the confirmation of a Deane de facto of the Bishops Grantee be good and valid in the law or no if not by what law XVI Whether the issuing of Quo Warranto's against Burroughes that antiently and recently sent Burgesses to the Parliament to shew cause why they sent Burgesses to the Parliament be legall CAPTAINE AVDLEY MERVINS SPEECH To the House of Commons in Ireland Mr. Speaker IT was equall care and policy in our Predecessours First to lay a foundation and then by a continued industry to build and perfect so glorious a fabrique as the house of Commons lawfull summoned by the Kings writ represents it selfe unto us at this day In which so elaborate and exquisite a structure being finished and crowned with those fruitfull and peace-speaking events may challenge by right the title of a Jubile To so great a modell with neate and provident husbandry they intend no lesse then sutable furniture which allowed pride disdaine to cloath it with any other but with what by his Majesties favour they had procured out of his owne store I meane those great and large priviledges which by severall acts of royall favor have bin dispensed annexed nay hypostatically united to the same Priviledges are the soule by which we move the Sinnes and Nerves by which we are compacted they are them by which we breath Priviledges for their birth allyed to the Kings Prerogative for their antiquity sacred for their strength so re-intrenched by common law fortified by statutes insconsed by precedents of all times that no man ever attempted their violation with impunity so that now and then it may be truly said The Kings
more to offer unto you But this one compriseth many It is a neast of waspes or swarm of vermine which have over-crept the land I mean the Monopoles and Polers of the people These like the Frogs of Aegypt have gotten possession of our dwellings and have scarce a room free from them They sup in our Cup they dip in our Dish they sit by our fire we finde them in the Dy fat wash-boule and Poudering tub they share with the Butler in his box they have marked and sealed us from head to foot Mr. Speaker they will not bate us a Pin we may not buy our own Cloathes without their brokage These are the Leeches that have suckt the Common wealth so hard that it is almost become hecticall And Mr. Speaker some of these are ashamed of their right names they have a vizard to hide the brand made by that good law in the last Parliament of King James They shelter themselves under the name of a Corporation they make by-laws which serve their turns to squeese us and fill their purses unface these and they will prove as bad Cards as any in the pack These are not petty Chapmen but wholesale men Mr. Speaker I have ecchoed to you the cryes of the kingdome I will tell you their hopes they look to Heaven for a blessing upon this Parliament they hang upon his Majesties exemplary piety and great justice which renders his eares open to the just complaints of his Subjects we have had lately a gratious assurance of it they are the wise conduct of this whereby the other great affaires of the Kingdome and this our grievance of no lesse import And this may go hand in hand in preparation and resolution Then by the blessing of God we shall return home with an Olive branch in our mouths and full confirmations of the priviledges which we received from our Ancestors and ow to our posterity which every freeborn English man hath received with the aire he breathed in These are our hopes These are our prayers Mr. BAGSHAW his speech in Parliament 7 die Novemb. 1640. Mr Speaker I Had rather Act then speak in those weighty businesses of the Kingdome which have been so excellently handled by these foure worthy Gentlemen that spake last and therefore I shall be short For when I look upon the Body of this goodly and flourishing Kingdom in matters of Religion and of our laws For like Hippocrates Twins they live and dye together I say when I behold these in that state and plight as they have been represented to us Flere magis libet quam dicere But this is our comfort Mr. Speaker that we are all met together for the welfare and happinesse of Prince and People And who knows whether this may not be the appointed time wherein God will restore our Religion as at the first and our laws as at the beginning The honour of a King consisteth in the weale of his people this undoubted maxime his Majesty hath made good by his late gracious speech and promise to us to redresse all our grievances to destroy the enemies of our Peace and plenty To make a people rich they must have ease justice Ease in their Consciences from the bane of Superstition from the intolerable burthen of innovation in Religion and from the racks and tortures of strange and new fangled Oaths They must be eased in their persons being liberi homines and not Vilanes All illegall arrests and imprisonment against Magna Charta being our greatest liberties They must be eased in their lands from Forrest where never any Deer fed from depopulations where never any Farm was decayed and from inclosures where never any hedges were set But must lastly be eased in their goods from their exactions and expilations of Pursevants and Apparitors of Projectors and Monopolists Humanarum Calamitatum mercatores as an ancient finely calls them and if the people have all these easements yet if they have not Justice they cannot subsist justice is to the Civill body as food to the naturall If the streams of Justice be by unrighteousnesse turned into Gall and Wormword or by cruelty like the Aegyptian waters be turned into blood those which drink of these brooks must needs dy and perish The Law saith that all Justice is in the King who is stiled in our book Fons Justitiae and he commits it to his Judges for the execution wherein he trusts them with two of the chiefest flowers which belong to his crown The administration of his justice and the exposition of his laws but he will not trust them without an Oath required of them by the Statute of 18 E. 31. Which is so strict and severe that it made a Judge whom I know though honest and strict yet to quake and tremble at the very mention of it The effect of the Oath is that they should doe equall law and execution of right to all the Kings Subjects poore aswell as rich without regard of any person That they should not deny to doe common right to any man by the Kings letters and for any other cause And in case such letters do that they proceed to do come the law notwithstanding such letters or for any other causes as they will answer to the King in bodies goods and lands how this Oath hath been performed we have seen and felt I need say no more But when I cast mine eyes upon the inferiour Courts of Justice wherein no such oath is required I meane the High Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts my soule hath bled for the wrong pressures which I have observed to have been done and committed in these Courts against the Kings good people especially for the most monstrous abuse of the Oath Ex Officio which as it is now used I can call no other than Carnificina Conscientiae I have some reason to know this that have been an Attendant to the Court these five yeeres for my selfe and a deare friend of mine sometimes Knight of our Shire for a meer triviall businesse that the most that could be proved against him was the putting on his hat in the time of Sermon Of which Court I shall say more and make good what I say when those ulcers come to be opened Mr. Speaker I say these foure worthies that spake before me have told you of our miseries but I cannot tell you of the remedies For things are come to that height that I may say as Livy sayd of the Roman state in his time Nec Vitia nostra scire possumus neâ— Remedia for no Laws will now doe us good Better Laws could not have been made then the Stat. of Monopolies against Projectors and the Petition of right against the infringers of liberties and yet as if the Law had bin the Author of them there hath been within these few years more Monopolies and infringment of liberties than hath been in any age since the Conquest and if all those vile Harlets as Queen Elizabeth
which time the sayd Iustice Seate was called by adjournment the sayd Iohn Lord Finch then Lord Chiefe Iustice of his Majesties Court of Common Pleas and was one of the Iudges assistants for them he continued by further unlawfull and unjust practices to maintaine and confirme the said verdict and did then and there being assistant to the Iustice in Eyre advise the refusal of the traverse offered by the County and all their evidences but onely what they should verbally deliver which was refused accordingly IV. That hee about the Moneth of November 1635. hee being then Lord Chiefe Iustice of the Common Pleas and having taken an oath for the due administration of Iustice to his Majesties Liege people according to the Lawes and statutes of the Realme contrived in opinion in haec verba when the good and safety c. and did subscribe his name to that opinion and by perswasions threats and false suggestions did solicite and procure Sir Iohn Bramstone Knight then and now Lord Chiefe Iustice of England Sir Humfrey Davenport Knight Lord chiefe Baron of his Majesties Court of Exchequer Sir Richard Hutton Knight late one of the Iustices of his Majesties Court of Common Pleas Sir Iohn Denham Knight late one of the Barons of his Majesties Court of Exchequer Sir William lones Knight late one of the Iustices of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir George Crock then and now one of the Iudges of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir Thomas Trevor Knight then and now one of the Barons of the Exchequer Sir George Vernon Knight late one of the Iustices of the said Court of Common Pleas Sir Robert Barkley Knight then and now one of the Iustices of the said Court of Kings Bench Sir Francis Crawly Knight then and now one of the Justices of the said Court of Common Pleas Sir Richard Weston Knight then and now one of the Barons of the said Court of Exchequer some or one of them to subscribe with their names the said opinion presently and enjoyned them severally some or one of them secresâ— upon their allegeance V. That he the fifth day of Iune then being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the said Court of Common Pleas subscribed an extrajudiciall opinion in answer to questions in a letter from his Majesty in haec verba c. And that he contrived the said questions and procured the said Letter from his Majesty and whereas the said Iustice Hutton and Iustice Crook declared to him their opinions to the contrary yet hee required and pressed them to subscribe upon his promise that hee would let his Majesty know the truth of their opinions notwithstanding such subscriptions which neverthelesse he did not make knowne to his Majestie but delivered the same to his Majesty as the opinion of all the Iudges VI. That hee being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the said Court of Common Pleas delivered his opinion in the Chequer Chamber against Master Hampden in the case of Ship-money that hee the said Master Hampdâ—n upon the matter and substance of the case was chargeable with the money then in question a Coppy of which proceedings the Commons will deliver to your Lordships and did solicite and threaten the said sudges some or one of them to deliver their opinions in like manner against Master Hampden and after the said Baron Denham had delivered his opinion for Master Hampden the said Lord Finch repaired purposely to the said Baron Denhams Chamber in Serjeants Inne in Fleetstreet and after the said Master Baron Denham had declared and expressed his opinion urged him to retract the said opinion which hee refusing was threatned by the said Lord Finch because hee refused VII That hee then being Lord chiefe Justice of the Court of Common Pleas declared and published in the Exchequer Chamber and westerne circuit where he went Judge that the Kings right to Ship-money as aforesaid was so inherent a right to the Crowne as an Act of Parliament could not take it away and with divers malicious speeches inveighed against and threatned all such as refused to pay Ship-money all which opinions contained in the foure five sixth Articles are against the Law of the Realme the Subjects right of property and contrary to former resolutions in Parliament and to the petition of right which said resolutions and petition of right were well knowne to him and resolved and enacted in Parliament when he was Speaker of the Commons house of Parliament VIII That hee being Lord chiefe Justice of the Court of Common Pleas did take the generall practice of that Court to his private Chamber and that hee sent warrants into all or many shires of England to severall men as to Francis Giles of the County of Devon Rebert Renson of the County of Yorke Attorneys of that Court and to divers others to release all persons arrested on any utlawry about 40. shillings fees whereas none by Law so arrested can be bailed or released without Supersedeas under seale or reversall IX That hee being Lord Chiefe Iustice of the Court of Common pleas upon a pretended suit begun in Michaelmas Terme in the 11. yeare of his Majesties Reigne although there was no plaint or Declaration against him did notoriously and contrary to all Law and Iustice by threats menaces and imprisonment compell Thomas Laurence an Executor to pay 19 pound 12 shillings and likewise caused Richard Bernard being onely over-seer of the last Will of that Testator to bee arrested for the payment of the said Money contrary to the advice of the rest of the Iudges of that Court and against thâ— knâ—wne and ordinary course of Iustice and his said Oath and knowledge and denyed his Majesties Subjects the common and ordinary Iustice of this Realme as to Mr. Liâ—â—rick and others and for his private benefit endammaged and ruined the estates of very many of his Majesties Subjects contrary to his oath and knowledge X. That hee being Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England and sworne one of his Majesties Privie Counsell did by false and malicious slanders labour to incense his Majestie against Parliaments and did frame and advise the publishing the Declaration after the dissolution of the last Parliament All which Treasons and misdemeanors above mentioned were done and committed by the said Iohn Lord Finch Baron of Fordwich Lord Keeper of the great Seale of England and thereby he the aforesaid Finch hath trayterously and contrary to his allegiance laboured to lay Imputations and Scandalls upon his Majesties government and to alienate the hearts of his Majesties liege people from his Majestie and to set a division betweene them and to ruine and destroy his Majesties Realme of England for which they doe impeach him the said Lord Finch Baron of Fordwich Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England of high Treason against our Soveraigne Lord the King his Crowne and Dignity of the misdemeanours above mentioned And the said Commons by Protestation saving to themselves the libertie of exhibiting at any time
it that it may quadrare with the great Charter of our liberties and the Laws of this Kingdom This Court hath for many yeers together ridden upon the back of the common Law Courts which ought to have been subservient to them Each river must be kept within its own bounds and it is unpossible to have two Suns shine together in one Firmament They have likewise many superfluous Courts which I conceive might very well be spared as their Officiall Courts and Commissary Courts Sir they are no better than cozening Lotteries where the Kings Subjects are detained of their moneyes and where their Judges and inferiour Officers do like Physitians that alway cure themselves though they destroy their patients I confesse I could willingly give my consent that they should keep their Chancellors Court and an Archdeacon Court if such limits and bounds were put upon them as by the wisedom of this House may easily be done The Chancellor is custos consciencie the Keeper of the Bishops conscience and the Archdeacon is oculus Episc the Bishops eye And as I would not take away their consciences or their eyes so I would not have them like Briarius have their finger in every businesse This Sir I have shortly presented you with my opinion that is that I am not willing it that should be referred to or committed upon the point of subversion but I am willing it should be referred upon the point of reformation And if the sence of the House shall run that way I doubt not but at the Commitree I shall make it manifest that my heart stands affected with as much zeal for the having a reformation as any man that sits within these walls DENSELL HOLLIS Esquior His speech at the deliverie of the Protestation to the LORDS May the fourth 1641. My Lords THe Kuights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons having taken into their consideration the present estate and condition of this Kingdome they finde it surrounded with variety of pernicious dangers and destructive designes practises and plots against the well being of it and some of those designes hatched within our owne bowells and Viper-like working our own destruction They finde Jesuits and Priests conspiring with ill ministers of State to destroy our Religion they finde ill ministers conioyn'd together to subvert the Lawes and liberties They finde obstructions of Justice which is the life-bloud of every State and having a free passage from the Soveraign power where it is as primarily seated as the life-bloud in the heart and there derived from the severall Judicatories or through so many veins into all the parts of this great collective Bodie doth give warmth and motion to every part and member which is nourished and inlivened by it But being once precluded stoppd and reared as the particular must of necessity faint and languish so must the whole frame of government be dissolved And consequently Soveraignty it selfe which as the heart in the body is primum movens ultimum moriens must dye and perish in the generall dissolution and all things as in the beginning in antiquum Chaos My Lords They finde the property of the Subject invaded and violated his estate rent from him by illegall taxations Monopolies and proiects almost upon every thing that is for the use of man not only upon superfluities but necessaries and that enrich the Vermine and Caterpillers of the Land and impoverishing good Subiects to take the meat from the Children and give it to Dogs My Lords if the Commons finde these things they conceive they must needs be ill counsels that have brought us into this condition These Counsels have put all into a combustion have discouraged the hearts of all true English men and brought two Armies into our bowels which is the Unlture upon Prometheus eats through and sucks and gnaws our very hearts out Hic Dolor sed ubi Medicina Heretofore Parliaments were the Catholicall the balm of Gilead which healed our wounds restored our spirits and made up the breaches of the Land But of late years they have been like the Fig-tree in the Gospel without effecacie without fruit onley destructive to their particular members who discharged their duties and consciences no way beneficiall to the Common-welth Nohis exitiale nec Reipublico profuturum As he saith in Tacitus being taken away still as Elias was with a whirle-wind never comming to any maturity or to their naturall end whereas they should be like the blessed old maâ— who dieth plenus dierâ—â—â— in a full ago after he had fought a good fight and overcomâ— all his enemies Or as the shâ—cke of wheat wâ—ich commeth in due season to fill our Garnaries with corn uphold our lives with the staffe of bread for Parliaments are our panis quotidianus our true bread all other waies are but Quelkachees which yeeld no true nourishment bread nor good blood The very Parliament which hath sate so long hath but beat the Ayre and strive against the streame I may truly say the wind and tyde hath still been against us The same ill counsell which first raised the storm and almost shipwrackt the Common-wealth they still continue they blow strong like the East wind that brought the Locusts over their Counsells crosse our designes cast difficulties in our way hinder our proceediâ—gs and make all that we do to be fruitlesse and ineffectuall They make us not masters of our busines and so not masters of many which have been the great busines of this Parliament that we might pay the Armies according to our promises and engagements For my Lords our not effecting of the good things which we have undertaken for the good of the Church and of the Common-wealth hath wounded our Reputation and taken off from our credit Is it not time then my Lords that we should unite and concentrate our selves in regard of this Anteparisiasis of hurtfull and malicious intentions and practises against us My Lords it is most agreeable to nature and I am sure most agreeable to reason in respect of the present coniuncture of our affairs for one main Engine by which our enemies work our mischief is by infusing an opinion and bâ—leiâ— into the world that we are not united among our selves But like Sampsons Foxes we draw severall wayes and tend to our severall ends To defeat the Counsels of these Achitophels which would involve us Our Religion our being our Lawes our liberties all that can be neere and deere unto an henest soule in one universall and generall desolation to defeat I say the Counsels of evill Achitophels the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons knowing themselves to be specially entrusted with the preservation of the whole and in their Conscience are perswaded that the dangers are so eminent as they will admit of no delay have thought fit to declare their united affections by entring into an assosciation amongst themselves and by making a solemne Protestation and vow unto their God that they will
sometimes to the great discomfort of many poore soules who for want of money can get no absolution 12 They claim their Office and Jurisdiction to be jure divino and doe exercise the same contrary to Law in their own names and under their own Seals 13 They receive and take upon them temporall Honours Dignities Places and Offices in the Common wealth as if it were lawfull for them to use both swords 14 They cognizance in their Courts and elswhere of matters determinable at the Common Law 15 They put Ministers upon Parishes without the Patrons and without the peoples consent 16 They doe yearly impose Oaths upon Churchwardens to the most apparent danger of filling the land with perjuries 17 They doe exercise Oaths Ex Officio in the Nature of an inquisition even unto the thoughts of mens 18 They have apprehended men by Pursevants without ciration or missives first sent they break up mens houses and studies taking away what they please 19 They doe aw the Judges of the Land with their greatnesse to the inhibiting of prohibition and hindering of Habeas Corpus when it is due 20 They are strongly suspected to be confederated with the Roman party in this Land and with them to be Authors Contrivers or Consenters to the present Commotions in the North and the rather because of a Contribution by the Clergy and by the Papists in the last year 1639. and because of an ill-named benevolence of six Subfidies granted or intended to be granted this yeare 1640. thereby and with these monies to ingage as much as in them lay the two Nations into blood It is therefore our humble and earnest prayer that all this Hierarchicall power may be totally abrogated if the wisdome of this Honourable House shall finde that it cannot be maintained by Gods word and to his glory And your Petitioners shall ever pray c. The Petition of the Citizens of London to both house of Parliament wherein is a Demonstration of their grievances together with their desires for Justice to be excuted upon the Earle of Strafford and other DELINQUENTS To the most Honorable Assembly of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament The humble Petition of divers Citizens of London SHeweth that notwithstanding his Majesties gracious Answer to the humble Petition of his Loyall Subjects in summoning this Parliament with the great care and endeavoured pains taken by both Houses for the removing the heavy Grievances in Church and Commonwealth whereof the Petitioners have already received some fruit for which they desire to return their most humble and utmost thanks yet neverthelesse they are inforced with all Humility to represent to this most Honourable assemblly some of these Obstructions which doe still hinder that freedome and fulnesse of Trade in this City they have formerly had which considering the numerous Multitude thereupon depending they conceive it not able comfortably to subsist As the unsetled Condition of the Kingdome even since the troubles in Scotland hath caused both strangers and also of our own who did furnish great summs of money to Use to call it in and remit much of it by Exchange unto Forraine pars and stands now in Expectation of what the issue of things may be The stopping money in the Mint which till then was accompted the safest place and surest staple in these parts in the world still doth hinder the importation of Bullyon the Scots now disabled to pay such debts as they owe to the Petitioners and others in the City and by reason of the oppressions exercised in Ireland their debts also are detained there The English Trade by reason of our generall distractions and fears is so much decayed that Country tradesmen can not pay their debts in London as formerly The great summs of money unduly taken by his Majesties Officers and Farmers for impositions upon Merchandize exported and imported and the want of reliefe in Courts of Justice against them The drawing out from the City great summs of money which is the life and spirit of Trade for his Majesties service in the North and being there imployed is not yet returned Besides all which from what strong and secret opposition the Petitioners know not they have not received what so much time and pains might give and cause to hope but still incendiaries of the Kingdoms and other notorious offenders remain unpunished the affaires of the Church notwithstanding many Petitions concerning it and long debate about it remains unsettled the Papists still armed the Laws against them not executed some of the most active of them still at Court Priests and Jesnits not yet banished the Irish Popish army not yet disbanded Courts of Justice not yet reformed and the Earle of Strafford who as now appears hath counselled the plundering of this City and putting it to fine ransome and said it would never be well till some of the Aldermen were banged up because they would not yeeld to illegall levies of moneys hath so drawn out and spent his time in his businesse to the very great charge of the whol Kingdome and his endeavour to obtain yet more all which makes us fear there may be practices now in hand to hinder the birth of your great endeavours and that we lie under some more dangerous plot then we can discover All which premisses with their fears and distractions growing there-from and from things of the like nature the Petitioners humbly offer to the most grave consideration of this most honorable assembly as being the true causes of decay of Trade discouragement of Tradesmen and of the great scarcity of monies with the consequences they labour under And do humbly pray that their said grievances may be redressed the causes of their fears removed Justice executed upon the said Earle and other incendiaries and offenders the rather in regard till then the Petitioners humbly conceive neither Religion nor their lives liberties or estates can besecured And as in duty bound they shall ever pray c. Subscribed to this Petition 20000. all men of good ranke and quality Sir John Wrayes Speech concerning Bishops 1641. THE first challenge for Lordly Primacy hath of old been grounded out of the great Charter by which they hold an Episcopall Primacy or Jurisdiction to be long to their state of Prelacy this is their temporall soundation and main object Here I demand of them unto what Church this great Charter was granted and whether it were not granted unto the Church of GOD in England Let the words of the Magna Charta decide this which are these Concessimus Deo proâ—nobis in perpetuum quod Ecclesia Anglicana libera sit habeat omnia Jura sua iutegra libertates suas illaesas Now by this Charter if it be rightly interpreted there is first provision made that honour and worship be yeelded unto God as truly and indeed belong unto him Secondly that not only such Rights and Liberties as the King and his Progenitors but also that such as
observe that our Saviour Christ as hee alwayes rejected all Civill judicature so on the other side he went up and downe healing mens bodies and otherwise doing good to their outward estate that his Doctrine might have a freer and fairer passage into their Soules For the corruption that I spoke of in the exercise of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction I doe not meane any personall corruption but a deviation or aberration from the prescript of the Divine Rule And though it bee not easie to finde what that is in all particulars yet it is not hard to say what it is not and that I doubt may prove our case indivors things Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction we know extendes either to the Clergy onely and consisteth in the Ordination Admission Suspension and deprivation of them or else it extendeth to the whole Church and consisteth in Excommunication and Absolution As to the Ordination Admission Suspension and Deprivation of Ministers we see how it is wholy at the pleasure of one man and that of one man proceeding in a manner Arbitrarily and that of one man whose interest is concerned in it that the doore shall be shut against able and painful preaching Ministers and a wide doore set open to such as are unable and unfit for that function many and great and dangerous evills arise from hence As first that there is a constant bate and fewd between the Ecclesiasticall State and the Civill betweene Prelates and Parliaments betweene the Canon Law and the Common Law betweene the Clergy and the Common-wealth arising from the Disproportion and Dissimilitude which is betweene the Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government however it may seeme to some to agree well enough but the truth is if we consider his Majesty as the Common-head over the Ecclesiasticall State as well as the Civill wee shall finde that in the exercise of all Civill jurisdiction in all Courts under his Majesty the power is not in any one or his Deputies and Commissaries as it is in the Ecclesiasticall Government in the severall Diocesses throughout this Kingdome If wee looke first upon the Highest and greatest Court the High Court of Parliament wee know that is a Councell and a great Councell too In like manner in the inferiour Courts of Westminster-Hal there are many Judges in the point of Law and more in matter of Fact wherein every man is judged by twelve of equall condition unto him I meane the Juries which are Iudges of the Fact both in causes Civill and Criminall And if we look into the Country we shall find the Sessions and Assizes and other Courts held not by any one but by divers Commissioners And in short in the Civill Government every man from the greatest to the least hath some share in the Government according to the Proportion of his Interest in the Common-wealth But in the Government of the Church all is in the hands of one Man in the severall Diocesses or of his Chancellors or Commissaries and he exacts Canonicall Obedience to his Pontificall Commands with a totall Exclusion of those that notwithstanding have as much share in the Church and consequently as much Interest in the Government of it as they have in that of the Common-wealth Sir untill the Ecclesiasticall government be framed something of another twist and be more assimilated unto that of the Common-wealth I feare the Ecclesiasticall government will bee no good neighbour unto the Civill but will be still a casting in of its leaven into it to reduce that also to a sole absolute and arbitrary way of proceeding And herein Sir I doe not beleeve that I utter Prophesies but what wee have already found and felt A second and that a great evill and of dangerous consequence in this sole and arbitrary power of Bishops over their Clergy is this that they have by that meanes a power to place and displace the whole Clergy of their Diocesse at their pleasure and this is such a power as for my part I had rather they had the like power over the Estate and persons of all within their Diocesse for if I hold the one but at the will and pleasure of one man I meane the Ministery under which I must live I can have but little or at least no certain joy nor comfort in the other But this is not all for if they have such a power to mould the Clergy of their Diocesses according to their pleasure wee know what an Influence they may have by them upon the people that in a short time they may bring them to such blindnesse and so mould them also to their owne wills as that they may bring in what Religion they please nay having put out our eyes as the Philistins did Sampsons they may afterwards make us grinde and reduce us unto what slavery they please either unto themselves as formerly they have done or unto others as some of them lately have beene forward enough to doe Now whether it be safe to walke upon Stilts on the top of the pinacles of the Temple upon so high precipices as are the matters of Religion and Conscience which may have also a dangerous Influence upon our civill liberties I leave it to your consideration for my part I should not thinke it safe that such a power should bee in any one man though you suppose him to be a very good man A third evill and that of dangerous consequence is that the doore is shut against able and painfull Preaching Ministers and a wide doore set open to those that are unable and unfit for that function and the Bishops interest is concerned in it that it should bee so Interest of honour Interest of profit and Interest of power Interest of credit for they see that those painfull Preachers carry away all the credit from them and they neither can nor will doe the like themselves they cannot by reason they are so intangled with the affaires of this world and civill jurisdiction they will not their great Dignities and Honours make them so stately that they thinke it is not Episcopall to preach often and on the other side they are so fat and live so much at their ease that through idlenesse they cannot bring their mindes unto it and so first ariseth envy against those that doe take paines and thence after springeth persecution In the next place their Interest is concerned in matter of profit for they suppose that if the credit of their Diana fall to the ground their gaine will after cease and that the people will thinke much that some men should take all the paines and other goe away with all the profit Lastly their Interest is concerned in it in poynt of power for they finde that neither such preaching Ministers nor their Auditors are so plyable to yield blinde Canonicall obedience as others are and so it concernes them in poynt of power to stop their mouthes And now it must needes follow by the rule of Contraries that it must be for their profit
under great penalties forbid all Parsons Vicars Curates Readers in Divinity c. to speake any other wayes of them then as they had defined by which meanes having seized upon all the Conduites whereby knowledge is convayed to the people how easie would it bee for them in time to undermine the Kings Prerogative and to suppresse the subjects liberty or both And now Sir I beseech you to consider how they have defined this high and great poynt they have dealt with us in matter of Divinity as the Judges had done before in matter of Law they first tooke upon them to determine a matter that belonged not to their Judicature but onely to the Parliament and after by their judgement they overthrew our propriety and just so have these Divines dealt with us they tell us that Kings are an Ordinance of God of Divine Right and founded in the prime Lawes of Nature from whence it will follow that all other formes of government as Aristocracies and Democracies are wicked formes of government contrary to the Ordinance of God and the Prime Lawes of Nature which is such new Divinitie as never read in any Booke but in this new Booke of Canons Mr. Speaker We all know that Kings and States and Iudges and all Magistrates are the Ordinances of God but Sir give mee leave to say they were the Ordinances of men before they were the Ordinances of God I know I am upon a great and high poynt but I speake by as great and as high a warrant if St. Peters chaire cannot erre as St. Peters Epistles cannot thus he teacheth us Submit your selfe to-every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it bee to the King as supreame or to the Governour as to him that is sent by him c. Sir It is worthy noting that they are Ordinances of men but that they are to be submitted unto for the Lords sake and truely their power is as just and their subjects allegeance as due unto them though we suppose them to bee first ordinances of men and then confirmed and established by Gods Ordinance as if wee suppose them to bee immediate Ordinances of God and so received by men But there was somewhat in it that these Divines aimed at I suppose it was this If Kings were of Divine Right as the Office of a Pastor in the Church or founded in the prime Lawes of Nature as the power of a Father in a Family then it would certainly follow that they should receive the fashion and manner of their government onely from the Prescript of Gods Word or of the Lawes of Nature and consequently if there bee no Text neither of the Old nor New Testament nor yet any Law of Nature that Kings may not make Lawes without Parliaments they may make Lawes without Parliaments and if neither in the Scripture nor in the Law of Nature Kings be forbidden to lay taxes or any kind of impositions upon their people without consent in Parliament they may doe it out of Parliament and that this was their meaning they expresse it after in plaine termes for they say that Subsidies and taxes and all manner of ayds are due unto Kings by the Law of God and of Nature Sir if they bee due by the Law of God and of Nature they are due though there be no act of Parliament for them nay Sir if they bee due by such a right a hundred acts of Parliaments cannot take them away or make them undue And Sir that they meant it of Subsidies and aids taken without consent in Parliament is clearely that addition that they subjoyne unto it that this doth not take away from the Subject the propriety hee hath in his goods for had they spoken of Subsidies and aydes given by consent in Parliament this would have been a very ridiculous addition for who ever made any question whether the giving Subsidies in Parliament did take away from the Subject the propriety hee hath in his goods when as it doth evidently imply they have a propriety in their goods for they could not give unlesse they had something to give but because that was alledged as a chiefe reason against Ship-mens and other such illegall payments levied upon the people without their consent in Parliament that it did deprive them of their right of propriety which they have in their goods these Divines would seem to make some answer thereunto but in truth their answer is nothing else but the bare assertion of a contradiction and it is an easie thing to say a contradiction but impossible to reconcile it for certainely if it bee a true rule as it is most true quod meum est sine consensu meo non potest fieri alienum to take my goods without my consent must needes destroy my propriety Another thing in this first Canon wherein they have assumed unto themselves a Parliamentarie power is in that they take upon them to define what is Treason besides what is determined in the statute of Treasons They say to set up any coactive independent power is treasonable both against God and the King the question is not whether it bee true they say or no but whether they have power to say what is Treason and what not But now Sir that I am upon this point I would gladly know what kinde of power that is which is exercised by Arch-Bishops Bishops Deanes Arch-Deacons c. Coactive certainely it is all the Kingdome feeles the lash thereof and it must needs bee independant if it be jure Divine as they hold it for they doe not meane by an independant power such a power as doth not depend on GOD. Besides if their power be dependant of whom is it dependant not of the King for the Law acknowledgeth no way whereby Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction can bee derived from his Majestie but by his Commission under the great-Scale which as I am informed they have not I speake not of the High Commission but of that jurisdiction which they exercise in their Archiepiscopall Episcopall Archidaconall Courts c. and therefore if their owne sentence bee just wee know what they are and what they have pronounced against themselves But Sir it were worth knowing what they aimed at in that independent coactive power which they terme popular I will not take upon me to unfold their meaning but wee know Doctor Beale had a hand in the making of these Canons and if wee apply his Paraphrase to the Text it may give us some clearenesse I remember amongst other notes of his this was one that he did acknowledge the Kings Supremacy but would joyne unto him an assistant viz. the people meaning this House which being the representative body of the COMMONS of England and claiming as it is so a share in the Legislative power Doctor Beale calleth this a joyning of an assistant to the King in whom soly hee placeth the power of making Lawes and that it is but of grace that he assumeth either the Lords or Commons
Righteousnesse For the other Oath de parendo juri Ecclisiae stando mandatis Ecclesiae though it make lesse noyse than the other yet it is not of lesse dangerous consequence If I remember well the Storie this was the Oath that the Pope made King John to take and when hee had sworne stare mandatis Ecclesiae the Pope commandid him to resigne his Kingdome to him and truely bee hee Gentle man or Nobleman or what ever else when hee hath once put his necke into this nouse his Ghostly Fathers may drag him whither they will for they have the quantity and the quality of the penance in their owne breast and if they shal enjoyne him to give any summe towards the building of a Church or the adorning of a Chappell he must pay it or if they should enjoyne him any servile or base action as there are not wanting examples of that kinde in the time of Popery they are sworne stare mandatis Ecclesiae and so cannot recede but must performe it Nay I dare not warrant any man from the rods of Henry the second or of Raymond of Tholouze what hath beene done may bee done I am sure the power is the same And that other Oath also though more usuall in practise and more confirmed by these new Canons which is administred to Church-wardens would bee looked into For it is hardly possible for them that take it not to be forsworne being they sweare to so many particulars that they cannot minde and to some that they cannot understand as how many Church-wardens are there in England that understand what Socinianisme is in case they be sworne to present the offenders against that Canon which concernes that matter I shall only adde a word or two concerning two Canons more which seeme to be Canons of Reformation The first is concerning Excommunication to bee pronounced onely by a Divine wherein it is alledged for the framers of these Canons that if they have not more Law on their sides yet they may seeme to have more reason For my part as in all other things I thinke they have so mended the matter that they have made it far worse for before that which was found fault with was this that a Lay-man did that which the grave Divine should have done and now the grave Divine must doe what ever the Lay-man would have done for the cognisance of the cause and the power of Iudicâ—ture is wholly in the Lay-man onely the grave Divine is to be his servant to execute his sentences and hath such a kinde of managing the spiritual sword allowed onely unto him as the Papists in some cases were wont to afford unto the civill Magistrate in respect of the Temporalâ— sword â—or as if the Civill sword by an implicite Faith had been pinned to the Lawn-sleeves they condemned men of Heresie and then delivered them over to the Secular power but what to doe Not to have any cognisance of the cause nor to exercise any power of judicature but onely to be their executioners and to burne the Heretick whom they had condemned and so they judged men excommunicate and then the Civill power was to send out Writs de excommunicato capiendo against them but one said well that the sword without cognisance of the cause and judgement was like Polyphemus without his eye it became violence and fury But being accompanyed with the eye of judgement it is equity and justice and surely where the Spirituall or Civill Governour is called upon to strike hee must be allowed to see and judge whom and wherefore he strikes otherwise he will be able to give but an ill accompt to God of the managing of the sword wherewith he is instructed The other Canon is the last Canon against vexatious Citations wherein they seeme to have some sence of the great grievances that poore people lye under by occasion of vexatious citations and molestations in Ecclesiasticall Courts and I verily believe that there is not a greater oppression in the whole Kingdome upon the poorer sort of people then that which proceedeth out of these Courts But now Sir let us see what provision they have made against it by this Canon They say because great grievances may fall upon people by citations upon pretence onely of the breach of that Law without any presentment or any other just ground that no citations grounded onely as aforesaid shall issue out except it be under the hand and Seale of the Chancellour Commissarie Arch-Deacon or other competent Judge so that if there be any sence in these words though there be no presentment at all nor any other just ground yet a citation may issue out so it be under the hand and Seale of the Chancellour Commissary or other competent Judge and the partie shall not be discharged without paying his fees nor have any reliefe by this Canon But suppose the Citation be not under the hand and Seale of any competent Iudge and that there was neither presentment nor any just ground for it shall he then bee dismissed without paying any fees No unlesse first contrary to the Law of Nature there being no presentment nor just ground of accusation against him he shall by his Oath purge himselfe of pretended breaches of Law and then too hee shall onely have the fees of the Court remitted but shall have no satisfaction for his troublesome and chargeable journey and for the losse of his time and being drawne away from his affaires Nay lest they should seeme to have beene too liberall of their favour they adde a proviso in the close of the Canon that this grace of theirs shall not extend to any â—rievous crime as Schisme Incontinency misbehavious in the Church or obstinate inconformity And what do they call misbehaviour in the Church If a man doe not kneele at the Confession or have his hat on when the Lessons are reading In like manner what doe they call obstinate inconformity If a man will not thinke what they would have him thinke if a man will not say what they would have him say if a man will not sweare what they would have him sweare if a man will not read what they would have him read if a man wil not preach what they would have him preach if a man will not pray what they would have him pray In short if a man will not doe what ever they would have him doe then hee is an inconformist and after that they have duely admonished him primo secundo tertio all in one breath then hee is contumacious then he is an obstinate Inconformist Now Sir my humble motion is that in consideration of all the premisses and what besides hath beene well laid open by others wee should proceed to dam these Canons not onely as contrary to the Lawes of the Land but also as containing sundry matters destructive of the rights of Parliaments and of the fundamentall and other principall Lawes of this Kingdome and otherwise of very dangerous consequence
hereafter any other accusation or impeachmens against the said Lord Finch and also of replying to the answer that the said Iohn Lord Finch shall make unto the said Articles or to any of them and of affering proofe of the premisses or any of their impeachments or accusations that shall be exhibited by them as the case shall according to the course of Parliaments require doe pray that the said Iohn Lord Finch Baron of Ford wich Lord Keeper of the Great Seale of England may be put to answer to all and every of the premisses and such proceedings examinations tryalls and judgements as may be upon every of them bad and used as is agreeable to Law and Iustice. The Lord FAULKLANDS second Speech Made the 14. of January after the reading of the Articles against the Lord FINCH THese Articles against my Lord Finch being read I may bee bold to apply that of the Poet Nil refert tales versus qua voce legantur and I doubt not but your Lordships must be of the same opinion of which the House of Commons appeares to have beene by the choyce they have made of me that the charge I have brought is such as needs no assistance from the bringer leaving not so much as the colour of a colour for any defence including all possible evidence and all possible aggravation that addition alone excepted which he alone could make and hath made I meane his Confession Included in his flight Here are many and mighty Crimes Crimes of Supererogation So that high Treason is but a part of his Charge pursuing him fervently in every severall condition being a silent Speaker an unjust Iudge and an unconscionable Keeper That his life appeares a perpetuall Warfare by Mines and by Battery by Batteil and by Stratagem against our fundamentall Lawes which by his own confession severall Conquests had left untoucht against the excellent constitution of this Kingdome which hath made it appeare unto strangers rather an Idea than a reall Common-wealth and produced the honour and happinesse of this to be a wonder of every other Nation and this wiâ—h unfortunate successe that as he alwayes intended to make our Ruines a ground of his advancement so his advancement the meanes of our further ruine After that contrary to the further end of his place and the end of that meeting in which he held his place hee had as it were gagg'd the Common-Wealth taking away to his power all power of Speech from that body of which he ought to have beene the Mouth and which alone can perfectly represent the condition of the people whom that onely represent which if he had not done in all probability what so grave and judicious an Assembly might have offered to the consideration of so gracious and just a Prince had occasioned the redresse of the grievances they then suffered and prevented those which we have since endured according to the ancient Maxime of Odisse quos laeferis he pursued this offence towards the Parliament by inveighing against the Members by scandalizing their proceedings by trampling upon their Acts and Declarations by usurping and devolving the right by diminishing abrogating the power both of that other Parliaments making them as much as in him say both uselesse and odious to his Majesty and pursued his hatred to this fountain of Iustice by corrupting the streames of it the Lawes and perverting the Conduit Pipes the Iudges He practiced the annibilating of Ancient and Notorious perambulations of particular Forrests the better to prepare himselfe to annihilate the Ancient and Notorious perambulation of the whole Kingdome the meeres and bounders betweene the liberties of the Subject and Soveraigne power he endeauoured to have all tenures in durante bene placito to bring all Law from his Majesties Courts into his Majesties brest he gave our goods to the King our lands to the Deere our liberties to his Sheriffes so that there was no way by which wee had not beene opprest and destroyed if the power of this person had beene equall with his will Or that the will of his Majestie had beene equall to his power He not onely by this meanes made us lyable to all the effect of an Invasion from within and by destruction of our Liberties which included the destruction of our propriety which included the destruction of our Industry made us lyable to the terriblest of all Invasions that of want and poverty So that if what hee plotted had taken Root and he made it as sure as his Declaration could make it what himselfe was not Parliament proofe in this wealthy and happy Kingdome there could have beene left no aboundance but of grievances and discontentment no satisfaction but amongst the guilty It is generally observed of the plague that the infection of others is an earnest and constant desire of all that are seized by it and as this designe resembles that disease in the ruine destruction and desolation it would have wrought so it seemes no lesse like it in this effect he having so laboured to make others share in that guilt that his solicitation was not onely his action but his workes making use both of his Authority his Interest and Importunity to perswade and in his Majesties Name whose Piety is knowne to give that Excellent prerogative to his person that the Law gives to his place not to be able to doe wrong to threaten the rest of the Iudges to signe opinions contrary to Law to assigne answers contrary to their opinions to give Iudgement which they ought not to have given and to recant Iudgement when they had given as they ought so that whosoever considers his care of and concernment both in the growth and the immortality of this project cannot but by the same way by which the wisest judgment found the true mother of the Child discover him not onely to have beene the Fosterer but the Father of this most pernicious and envious designe I shall not need to observe that this was plotted and pursued by an English man against England which encreaseth the Crime in no lesse degree than parricide is beyond Murther that this was done in the greatest matter joyned to the greatest Bond being against the generall liberty and publike propriety by a sworne Iudge and if that salt it selfe because unsavory the Gospell it selfe hath design'd whither it must be cast that he poysoned our very Antidotes and turned our Guard into a destruction making Law the ground of illegalitie that he used this Law not onely against us but against it selfe making it as I may say Felo de se making the pretence for I can scarce say the appearance of it so to contribute the utter ruine of it selfe I shall not need to say that either this or more can be of the highest kinde and in the highest degree of Parliamentary Treason a Treason which need not a computation of many severall actions which alone were not Treason to prove a Treason altogether and by
point at him as the Center from whence our miseries doe grow Let the Petition be read and let us enter upon the worke The second Speech of Sir Edward Deering Mr. Speaker YOu have many private particular Petitions give me leave by word of mouth to interpose one more generall which thus you may receive Gods true Religion is violently invaded by two seeming enemies but indeed they are like Herod and Pilate fast friends for the destruction of truth I meane the Papists for the one part and our Prelating Faction for the other between these two in their severall progresse I observe the concurrence of some few parallells fit as I conceive to bee represented to this Honourable House First with the Papists there is a severe Inquisition and with us as it is used there is a bitter High Commission both these Contra fas in s are Iudges in their owne case yet herein their Inquisitors are better than our High Commistioâ—ers they for ought I ever heard doe not Savirâ— in suos punish for delinquents and offenders such as professe and practice Religion according as it is established by the Lawes of the Land where they live But with us how many poore distressed Ministers nay how many scores of them in a few yeares past have beene suspended degraded and excommunicated not guilâ—y of the breach of any established Lawes The Petitions of many are here with us more are comming all their prayers are in Heaven for redresse Downe therefore with these Money-changers They doe confesse Commutation of Penance and I may therefore most justly call them so Secondly with the Papists there is a Mysterious Artifice I meane their Index Expurgatorius whereby they clip the tongues of such witnesses whose evidence they doe not like To these I parallel our late Imprimators Licensers for the Presse so handled that truth is supprest and popish Pamphlets flie abroad Cum privilegio witnesse the audacious Libells against true Religion written by Cossens D we Heylin Pocklington Mead Shelford Swan Roberts and many more I name no Bishops but I adde c. Nay they are already growne so bold in this new trade that the most learned Labourers of our ancient and best divines must bee new corrected and defaced with a Delineatur by the supercilious penne of my Lords young Chaplaine fit perhaps for the Technicall Arts but unfit to hold the Chaire for Divinity But herein the Roman Index is better than our English Licences they thereby doe prove the current of their owne established Doctrines a point of wisedome but with us our Innovators by this Artifice do alter our setled Doctrines nay they doe subinduce poynts repugnant and contrary and this I doe affirme upon my selfe to prove One parallell I have more and that is this Amongst the Papists there is one acknowledged Pope supreme in honour over all and in power from whose judgement there is no appeale I confesse Mr. Speaker I cannot altogether match a Pope with a Pope yet one of the ancient Titles of our English Primate was Alterius orbis Papa but thus farre I can goe ex ore suo it iâ— in Print hee pleads faire for a Patriarchall and for such a one whose Iudgement he before hand professeth ought to be finall and then I am sure it ought to bee unerring put these two together and you shall finde that the finall determination of a Patriarch will want very little of a Pope and then we may say Munato nomine de te fabula narratur he pleadeth Popeship under the name of a Patriarch and I much feare the end and top of his Patriarchall plea may be as that of Cardinall Poole his Predecessour who would have two heads one Caput Regale the other Caput Sacerdotale a proud parallell to set up the Myter above the Crowne But herein I shall bee free and cleare if one there must be be it a Pope be it a Patriarch this I resolve upon for mine own choyce Procul a love procul a fulmine I had rather serve one as far as Tyber then to have him come to mee so neare as the Thames a Pope at Rome will doe mee lesse hurt than a Patriarch may doe at Lambeth I have done and for this third parallell I submit it to the wisedome and consideration of this grave Committee for Religion In the meane time I doe ground my Motion upon the former two and it is this in briefe That you would be pleased to select a sub-Committee of 4.6.8.9 or 10. at the most and to impower them for the discovery of the great numbers of oppressed Ministers under the Bishops tyranny for these ten yeares last past we have the complaints of some but more are silent some are patient and will not complaine others are fearefull and dare not many dead and many beyond the Seas and cannot complaine And in the second place that the sub-Committee may examine the Printers what Bookes by bad licence have beene corruptly issued forth And what good Bookes have beene like good Ministers silenced clipped or cropped The worke I conceive will not be difficult but will quickly returne into your hands full of weight And this is my Motion The third Speech of Sir Edward Deering Mr. Speaker THis Morning is designed for the consideration of the late Canons and the former and of that which the Clergy have mis-called a benevolence I shall for the present onely touch the first of them and that is the Roman Velites wht did use to beginne the Battaile so shall I but valitande and skirmish whilst the maine Battaile is setting forwards The Pope as they say hath a triple Crown answerable thereunto and to support it hee pretendeth to have a threefold Law 1. The first that is Ius divinum Episcopacy by Divine Right and this he would have you thinke to bee the Crowne next his head which doth circle and secure his power our Bishops have in an unlucky time entred their Plea and presented their title to this Crowne Episcopacy by Divine Right 2 The second is Ius humanum Constantii donativum the gift of Indulgent Princes temporall power this Law belongs to his second or middle Crowne this is already pleaded for by our Prelates in print 3. These two Crowne being already obtained The Pope claimes and makes the third himselfe and sets it highest upon the top This Crowne also hath its Law and that is Ius Canonicum This Canon Law is of more use unto his Popeship if once admitted than both the other Iust so our Prelates from the pretended Divinity of their Episcopacy and from the temporall power granted them by our Princes would now obtrude a new Canon Law upon us They have charged the Canons to the full and never fearing they would requoyle into a Parliament they have rammed a prodigious and ungodly Oath into them the illegality and invalidity of these Canons is manifested by one short question viz. what doe you call the meeting wherein they were made Mr.
a few hard words against Iesuites all popery is countenanc'd Whosoever squares his actions by any rule either Divine or Humane hee is a Puritan Whosoever would be governed by the Kings Lawes he is a Puritan Hee that will not doe whatsoever other men would have him doe he is a Puritan Their great worke their Master-piece now is To make all those of the Religion to be the suspected party of the Kingdome Let us further reflect upon the ill effect these Courts have wrought what by a defection from us on the one side a separation on the other Some imagining whither we are tending made haste to turne or declare themselves Papists before hand thereby hoping to render themselves the more gracious the more acceptable A great multitude of the Kings Subjects striving to hold communion with us but seeing how far we were gone and searing how much further we wouâ—d goe were forc'd to flye the Land some into other inhabited Countries very many into Savago wildernesses because the Land would not bear them Do not they that cause these things cast a reproach upon the government Mr. Speaker let it be our principall care that these wayes neither continue nor returne upon us If wee secure our Religion wee shall cut off and defeat many Plots that are now on foot by Them and Others Beleeve it Sir Religion hath beene for a long time and still is the great designe upon this Kingdome It is a knowne and practic'd principle That they who would introduce another Religion into the Church must first trouble and disorder the government of the State that so they may worke their ends in a confusion which now lyes at the doore I come next Mr. Speaker to the Kings businesse more particularly which indeed is the Kingdomes for one hath no existence no being without the other their relation is so neere yet some have strongly and subtilly laboured a divorce which hath beene the very band both of King and Kingdome When foundations are shaken it is high time to looke to the building He hath no Heart no Head no Soule that is not moved in his whole man to look upon the distresses the miseries of the Common-wealth that is not forward in all that he is and hath to redresse them in a right way The King likewise is reduced to great straights wherein it were undutifulnesse beyond inhumanity to take advantage for him let us rather make it an advantage for him to doe him best service when he hath most need Not to seeke our owne good but in Him and with Him else wee shall commit the same crimes our selves which wee must condemne in others His Majesty hath clearely and freely put himselfe into the hands of this Parliament and I presume there is not a Man in this House but feeles himselfe advanc't in this high trust but if Hee prosper no better in our hands than he hath done in theirs who have hitherto had the handling of his affaires wee shall for ever make our selves unworthy of so gracious a confidence I have often thought and said that it must bee some great extremity that would recover and certifie this state and when thâ—t extremity did come Jt would be a great hazzard whether it might prove a remedy or ruine We are now Mr. Speaker upon that verticall turning poynt and therefore it is no time to palliate to foment our owne undoing Let us set upon the remedy wee must first know the Disease But to discover the deseases of the State is according to some to traduce the Government yet others are of opinion that this is the halfe way to the Cure His Majesty is wiser than they that have advised him and therefore hee cannot but see and feele their subverting destructive Counsells which speake lowder than I can speak of them for they ring a dolefull deadly knell over the whole Kingdome His Majesty best knowes who they are for us let the Matters bolt out the men their actions discover them They are men that talke largely of the Kings service have done none but their owne and that 's too evident They speake highly of the Kings power but they have made it a miserable power that produceth nothing but weaknesse both to the King and Kingdome They have exhausted the Kings revenew to the bottome nay through the bottome and beyond They have spent vast summes of money wastefully fruitlesly dangerously So that more money without other Counsells will be but a swift undoing They have alwayes peremptorily pursued one obstinate pernicious course First they bring things to an extremitie then they make that extremity of their owne making the reason of their next action seven times worse than the former and there wee are at this instant They have almost spoyled the best instituted Government in the world for Soveraignty in a King liberty to the Subject the proportionable temper of both which makes the happiest state for power for riches for duration They have unmannerly and slubbringly cast all their Projects all their Machinations upon the King which no wise or good Minister of State ever did but would still take all harsh distasteful things upon themselves to cleare to sweeten their Master They have not suffered his Majestie to appeare unto his people in his owne native goodnesse They have eclipsed him by their interposition althogh grosse condense bodies may obscure and hinder the Sun from shining out yet is hee still the same in his owne splendor And when they are removed all Creatures under him are directed by his light comforted by his beames But they have framed a superstitious seeming Maxime of State for their owne turne That if a King will suffer men to be torne from him hee shall never have any good service done him When the plaine truth is that this is the surest way to preserve a King from having ill servants abâ—ut him And the Divine Truth likewise is Take away the wicked from the King and his Throne shall be established Mr. Speaker Now wee see what the sores are in generall and when more particulars shall appeare let us be very carefull to draw out the Cores of them not to skin them over with a slight suppurating fâ—string Cure lest they breake out againe into a greater m schiefe consider of it consult and speake your min es It hath heretofore beene boasted That the King should never call a Parliament till he had no need of his people These were words of Division and malignitie The King must alwaies according to his occasions have use of his peoples Power Hearts Hands Purses The People will alwayes have need of the Kings Clemencie Iustice Protection And this Reciprocation is the strongest the sweetest union It hath bin said too of late That a Parliament will take away more from the King then they will give him It may well be said That those things which will fall away of themselves will enable the Subject to give him more than can be taken any way
Realme of England might be engaged in a Nationall and irreconciliable quarrell with the Scots 7. That to preserve himselfe from being questioned for those and other his traiterous courses hee laboured to subvert the right of Parliaments and the ancient course of Parliamentarie proceedings and by false and malicious slanders to incense his Majestie against Parliaments By which words counsels and actions hee hath traiterously and contrary to his allegiance laboured to alienate the hearts of the Kings Liege people from his Majestie to set a division betweene them and to ruine and destroy his Majesties Kingdomes for which they impeach him of high Treason against our Soveraigne Lord the King his Crown and dignitie 8. And he the said Earle of Strafford was Lord Deputie of Ireland and Lieutenant Generall of the Army there viz. His most excellent Majestie for his Kingdomes both of England and Ireland and the L. President of the North during the time that all and everie the crimes and offences before set forth were done and committed and hee the said Earle was Lieutenant Generall of all his Majesties army in the North parts of England during the time that the crimes and offences in the fifth and sixth articles set forth were done and committed 9. And the said Commons by protestations saving to themselves the libertie of exhibiting at any time here after any other accusation or impeachment against the said Earle and also of replying to the answers that hee the said Earle shall make unto the said articles or to any of them and of offering proves also of the premisses or any of them or any other impeachment or accusation that shall be exhibited by them as the cause shall according to the course of Parliaments require doe pray that the said Earle may be put to answer for all and every the premisses that such proceedings examinations trials and judgements may be upon everie of them had and used as is agreeable to Law and Iustice The further impeachment of Thomas Earle of Strafford by the Commons assembled in Parliament 1640 WHereas the said Commons have already exhibited Articles against the said Earle formerly expressed c. Now the said Commons doe further impeach the said Earle as followeth c. 1. That he the said Earle of Strafford the 21. day of March in the 8. yeare of his now Majesties Reigne was president of the Kings Counsell in the Northerne parts of England That the said Earle being president of the said Counsell on the 21. day of March a Commission under the great Seal of England with certaine Schedules of instructions thereunto annexed was directed to the said Earle or others the Commissioners therein named wherby amongst other things power and authority is limited to the said Earle and others the Commissioners therein named to heare and determine all offences and misdemeanors suits debates controversies and demaunds causes things and matters whatsoever therein contained and within certaine precincts in the said Northerne parts therein specified and in such manner as by the said Schedule is limited and appointed That amongst other things in the said instructions it is directed that the said President and others therein appointed shall heare and determine according to the course of proceedings in the Court of Starchamber divers offences deceits and falsities therein mentioned whether the same be provided for by the Acts of Parliament or not so that the Fines imposed be not lesse then by Act or Acts of Parliament provided for by those offences is appointed That also amongst other things in the said instructions it is diâ—ected that the said president and others therein appointed have power to examine heare and determine according to the course of proceedings in the Court of Chancery al manner of complaints for any matter within the said precincts as well concerning lands tenements and hereditaments either free-hold customary or coppy-holde as Leases and oter things therein mentioned and to stay proceedings in the Court of Common Law by Injunction or otherwise by all wayes and meanes as is used in the Court of Chancery And although the former Presidents of the said Counsell had never put in practise such Instructions nor haâ— they any such Instructions yet the said Earle in the moreth of May in the said 8. yeare and divers years following did put in practise exercise and use and caused to be used and put in practise the said Commission and Instructions and did direct and exercise an exorbitant and unlawfull power and jurisdiction on the persons and estates of his Majesties subjects in those parts and did disin-herit divers of his Majesties subjects in those parts of their inheritances sequestred their possessions and did fine ransome punish and imprison them and caused them to be fined ransomed punished and imprisoned to their ruine and destruction and namely Sir Conier Darcy Sir Iohn Bourcher and divers others against the Lawes and in subversion of the same And the said Commission and Instructions were procured and issued by the advice of the said Earle And he the said Earle to the intent that such illegall unjust power might be exercised with the greater licence and will did advise Counsell procure further directions in and by the said instructions to be given tha nâ— prohibition he granted at all but in cases where the said Counsell shall exceed the limits of the said instructions And that if any Writ of Habeas Corpus be granted the party be not discharged till the party performe the Decree and Order of the said Counsell And the said Earle in the 13. yeare of his now Majesties Reigne did procure a new Commission to himselfe and others therein appointed with the said Instructions and other unlawfull additions That the said Commission and Instructions were procured by the solicitation and advice of the said Earle of Strafford 2. That shortly after the obtaining of the said Commission dated the 21 of March in the 8 yeare of his now Majesties Reigne to wit the last day of August then next following he the said Earle to bring his Majesties liege people into a dislike of his Majestie and of his Governement and to terrifie the Iustices of the Peace from executing of the Lawes He the said Earle beeing then President as aforesaid and a Iustice of Peace did publiquely at the Assises held for the County of Yorke in the City of Yorke in and upon the said last day of August declare and publish before the people there attending for the administration of Iustice according to the Law in the presence of the Iustices sitting That some of the Justices were all for Law but they should finde that the Kings little finger should be heavier then the loynes of the Law 3. That the Realme of Ireland having been time out of minde anne xed to the Imperiall Crowne of England and governed by the same Lawes The said Earle being Lord Deputy of that Realme to bring his Majesties liege people of that Kingdome likewise into distike of his
Majesties government and intending the subversion of the fundamental Lawes and setled governement of that Realme and the distraction of his Majesties liege people there did upon the 30. day of September in the ninth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne in the Citie of Dublin the chiefe Citie of that Kingdome where his Majesties privie Counsell and Courts of Iustice doe ordinarily reside and whither the Nobility and Gentry of that Realme doe usually resort for Iustice in a publikâ— Speech before divers of the Nâ—bility and Gentry and before the Major Aldermen and Recorder and many Citizens of Dublin and other his Majesties Liege people declare and publish that Ireland was a conquered Nation and that the King might doe with them what he pleased and speaking of the Charters of the former Kings of England made to that Citie he further said that their Charters were nothing worth and did binde the King no further then hee pleased 4. That Richard Earle of Corke having sued out processe in course of Law for recovery of his possessions from which he was put by colour of an order made by the said Earle of Strafford and the Counsell Table of the said Realme of Ireland The said Earle of Strafford upon a paper petition without legall proceeding did the 20 day of February in the 11. yeare of his nâ—w Majesties Reigne threaten the said Earle of Corke beeing then a Peere of the said Realme to imprison him unlesse he would surcease his suit and said That he would have neither Law nor Lawyers dispute or question any of his orders And the 20. dâ—y of March in the said 11. year of the said Earle of Strafford speaking of an order of the said Counsell Table of that Realme in the time of King James which concerned a Lease which the said Earle of Corke claimed in certaine rectories or tithes which the said Earle of Cork alleaged to be of no force said That he would make the said Earle and all Ireland know so long as hee had the government there any Act of State there made or to bee made should bee as binding to the Subjects of that Kingdome as an Act of Parliament And did question the said Earle of Corke in the Castle Chamber upon pretence of the breach of the said order of Counsell Table and did sundry other times and upon sundry other occasions by his words and speeches arrogate to himselfe a power above the fundementall Lawes and established Government of that Kingdome and scorned the said Lawes and established government 5 That according to such his Declarations and Speeches the said Earls of S r ffoâ—d did use and exercise a power above â—nd against and to the subversion of the said fundame tall Laws and established government of the said Realme of Ireland exâ—ending such his power to the goods free holds inheritances liberties and lives of his Majesties Subjects in the said Realme viz. The said Earle of Sirâ—fford the twelfth day of December Anno Domini 1635. in the time of full peace did in the said Realme of Ireland give and procure to bee given against the Lord Mount Norris then and yet a Peere of Ireland and then Vice-Treasurer and receiver generall of the Realme of Ireland and one of the principall Secretaries of State and Keeper of the privy Signet of the said Kingdome a sentence of death by a Councell of warre called together by the said Earle of Strafford without any warrant or authority of Law or offence deserving any such punishment And hee the said Earle did also at Dublin within the said Realm of Ireland in the Month of March in the fourteenth yeare of his Majesties Reigne without any legall or due proceedings or tryall give or cause to bee given a sentence of death against one other of his Majesties Subjects whose name is yet unknowne and caused him to be put to death in execution of the said sentence 6 That the said Earle of Strafford without any legall proceedings and upon a paper Petition of Richard Ralstone did cause the said Lord Mount-Norris to be disseized and put out of possession of his free-hold and inheritance of his Mannor and Tymore in the Countrey of Armagh in the Kingdome of Ireland the said Lord Mount-Norris having beene two yeares before in quiet possession thereof 7 That the said Earle of Strafford in the Termâ— of holy Trinity in the thirteenth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne did cause a case commonly called the case of Tenures upon defective Titles to be made and drawne up without any juâ—y or tryall or other legall processe and without the consent of parties and did then procure the ludges of the said Realme of Ireland to deliver their opinions and resolutions to that case and by colour of such opinion did without any legal proceeding cause Thâ—mas Lord Dillon a Peeâ—e of the said Realme of Ireland to be put out of possession of divers Lands and Tenements being his free-hold in the Countrey of Mago and Rosecomen in the said Kingdome and divers other of his Majesties Subjects to be also put out of possession disseized of their free hold by colour of the same resolution without legall proceedings whereby many hundreds of his Majesties subjects were undone and their families utterly ruinated 8 That the said Earle of Strafford upon a Petition of Sir Iohn Gifford Knight the first day of February in the said thirteenth yeare of his Majesties reigne without any regall Processe made a Decree or Order against Adam Viscount Lofts of Elie a Peere of the said Realme of Ireland and L Chancellor of Ireland did cause the said Viscount to bee imprisoned and kept close prisoner on pretence of disobedience to the said Decree or order And the said Earle without any authority and contrary to his Commission required and commanded the said Lord Viscount to yeeld unto him the great Seale of the Realme of Ireland which was then in his custody by his Majesties command and imprisoned the said Chancellour for not obeying such his command And without any legall proceedings did in the same thirteenth yeare imprison George Earle of Kildare a Peere of Ireland against Law thereby to enforce him to submit his Title to the Mannor and Lordship of Castle Leigh in the Queens County being of great yearely value to the said Earle of Straffords will and pleasure and kept him a yeare prisoner for the said cause two moneths whereof hee kept him close prisosoner and refused to enlarge him notwithstanding his Majesties Letters for his enlargement to the said Earle of Strafford directed And upon a Petition exhibited in October 1635. by Thomas Hibbots against dame Mary Hibbots widdow to him the said Earle of Strafford the said Earle of Strafford recommended the said Petition to the Counsell Table of Ireland where the most part of the Counsell gave their vote and opinion for the said Ladie but the said Earle finding fault herewith caused an order to be entred against the said Lady and threatned her
seemes to be this particular case yet seeing that I am pressed by both Houses to give way to his because I will avoid the inconveniencie of giving so great discontent to my people as I conceive this Mercy may produce therefore I doe remit this particular Cause to both the Houses But I desire them to take into their consideration the inconveniencies as I conceive may upon this occasion fall upon my Subjects and other Protestants abroad especially since it may seeme to other States to be a severity which surprise having thus represented I think my selfe discharged from all ill consequence that may ensue upon the execution of this person FINIS To the Right Honourable the Commons House of Parliament The humble Petition of many of his Majesties Subjects in and about the Citie of London and severall Counties of the Kingdome THat wheras the government of Archbishops and Lord-Bishops Deanes and Archdeacons c. with their Courts and ministrations in them hath proved prejudiciall and very dangerous both to the Church and Common-wealth they themselves having formerly held that they have their jurisdiction or authority of humane Authority till of these later times being further perused about the unlawfulnesse that they have claymed their calling immediatly from the Lord JESVS CHRIST which is against the Lawes of this Kingdome and Derogatory to his Majestie and his State Royall And whereas the said government is found by wofull experience to be a maine cause and occasion of many foule evils pressures and grievance of a very high nature unto his Majesties Subjects in their owne Consciences liberties and â—st tes as in a Shedule of particulars hereunto annexed may in part appeare We therefore most humbly pray and beseech this Honourable Assembly the premisses considered that the said government with all its dependâ—nces roots and branches may be abolished and all lawes in their behalfe made voyd and the government according to Gods word may be rightly placed among us and we your humble Supplyants as in duty we are bound will daily pray for his Majesties long and happy raigne over us and for the prosperous successe of this High and Honourable Court of Parliament c. A Particular of the manifold Evils Pressures and Grievances caused practized and occasioned by the Prelates and their Dependants I. FIrst the subjecting and enclining all Ministers under them and their Authority and so by degrees exempting of them from the Temporall power whence followes II. The faint-heartednesse of Ministers to preach the truth of God lest they should displease the Prelates as namely the Doctrine of Predestination of Free-grace of Perseverance of Originall sinne remaining after Baptisme of the Sabbath the Doctrine against universall Grace Election for Faith fore-seene Free-will against Antichrist non-Residents humane Inventions of Gods worship all which are generally with-held from the peoples knowledge because not relishing to the Bishops III. The encouragement of Ministers to despise the temporall Magistracie the Nobles and Gentry of the Land to abuse the Subjects live contentiously with their neighbours knowing that they being the Bishops creatures they shall be supported IV. The restraint of many godly and able men from the Ministry and thrusting out of many Congregations their faithfull diligent and powerfull Ministers who lived peaceably with them and did them good onely because they cannot in Conscience submit unto and maintaine the Bishops needlesse devices nay sometimes for no other cause but for their zeale in Preaching or great Auditories V. The suppressing of that godly Designe set on foot by certaine Sects and sugred with many great gifts by sundry well-affected persons for the buying of Impropriations and placing of able Ministers in them maintaining of Lectures and founding of Free Schooles which the Prelates could not endure lest it should darken their glories and draw the Ministers from their dependance upon them VI. The great encrease of idle lewd and dissolute ignorant and erroneous men in the Ministry which swarme like the Locusts of Egypt over the whole Kingdome and will they but weare a Canonicall Coat a Surplisse a Hood bow at the name of JESVS and be zealous of Superstitious Ceremonies they may live as they list confront whom they please preach and vent what errours they will and neglect preaching at their pleasures without controule VII The discouragement of many from bringing up their Children in learning the many Schismes errors and strange opinions which are in the Church great Corruptions which are in the Universities the grosse and lamentable ignorance almost every where among the people the want of preaching Ministers in very many places both of England Wales the loathing of the Ministry and the generall defection to all manner of prophanenesse VIII The swarming of lascivious idle and unprofitable Books and Pamphlets Play-books and Ballads as namely Ovids fits of Love the Parliament of Women came out at the dissolving of the last Parliament Barnes Poems Parkers Ballads in disgrace of Religion to the encrease of all vice and withdrawing of people from reading studying and hearing the word of God and other good Books IX The hindring of godly Books to be Printed the blotting out or perverting those which they suffer all or most of that which strikes either at Poperie or Arminianisme the adding of what or where pleaseth them and the restraints of reprinting Books formerly lycensed without relycensing X. The publishing and venting of Popish Arminian and other dangerous Books and Tenets as namely that the Church of Rome is a true Church and in the worst times never erred in Fundamentals that the Subjects have no propriety in their Estates but that the King may take from them what hee pleaseth that all is the Kings and that he is bound by no Law and many other from the former whereof hath sprang XI The growth of Popery and encrease of Papists Priests and Jesuits in sundry places but especially about London since the Reformation the frequent venting of Crucifixes and Pop sh Pictures both engraven and printed and the placing of such in Bibles XII The multitude of Monopolies and Pattents drawing with them innumerable Perjuries the large encrease of Customes and Impositions upon Commodities the Ship-monies and many other great burthens upon the Common-wealth under which all groane XIII Moreover the Offices and Jurisdictions of Arch-bishopâ— Lord-Bishops Deanes Arch-Deacons being the same way of Church Government which is in the Romish Church and which was in England in the time of Poperie little change thereof being made except onely the head from whence it was derived the same Arguments supporting the Pope which doe uphold the Prelates and overthrowing the Prelates which doe pull downe the Pope and other reformed Churches having upon their rejection of the Pope cast the Prelates out also as Members of the Beast Hence it is that the Prelates here in England by themselves or their Diciples plead and maintaine that the Pope is not Antichrist and that the Church of Rome is a
bee bound together If this Treason had taken effect our Soules had been inthralled to the Spirituall Tyranny of Sathan our Consciences to the Ecclesiasticall Tyranny of the Pope our Lives our Persons and Estates to the Civill Tyranny of an arbitrary unlimited confused Government Treason in the least degree is an odious and a horrid Crime other Treasons are particular if a Fort bee betrayed or an Army or any other treasonable fact committed the Kingdome may out-live any of these this Treason would have dissolved the frame and beeing of the Common-wealth it is an Universall a Catholike Treason the venome and malignity of all other Treasons are abstracted digested sublimated into this The Law of this Kingdome makes the King to be the fountaine of Justice of Peace of Protection therefore we say the Kings Courts the Kings Judges the Kings Lawes The Royall Power and Majestie shines upon us in every publique blessing and benefit wee enjoy but the Author of this Treason would make him the fountaine of Injustice of Confusion of publike misery and calamitie The Gentiles by the light of Nature had some obscure apprehensions of the Deity of which they made this expression that hee was Deus optimus maximus an infinite goodnesse and an infinite greatnesse All soveraigne Princes have some Characters of Divinity imprinted on them they are set up in their dominions to bee Optimi Maximi that they should exercise a goodnesse proportionable to their greatnesse That Law terme Laesa Majestas whereby they expresse that which wee call Treason was never more thorowly fulfilled then now there cannot bee a greater laesion or diminution of Majestie then to bereave a King of the glory of his goodnesse It is goodnesse My Lords that can produce not onely to his people but likewise to himself honour and happiness There are Principalities Thrones and Dominions amongst the Divels greatness enough but being uncapable of goodness they are made uncapable both of honour and happinesse The Lawes of this Kingdome have invested the Royall Crowne with power sufficient for the manifestation of his goodness and of his greatness if more bee required it is like to have no other effects but povertie weaknesse and miserie whereof of late wee have had very wofull experience It is farre from the Commons to desire any abridgement of those great Prerogatives which belong to the King they know that their own Liberty Peace are preserved and secured by his Prerogative they will alwayes be ready to support and supply his Majesty with their lives and fortunes for the maintenance of his just and lawfull Power This My Mords is in all our thoughts in our prayers and I hope will so be manifested in our indeavours that if the proceedings of this Parliament bee not interrupted as others have beene the King may within a few moneths bee put into a cleare way of as much greatnesse plenty and glory as any of his Royall Ancestors have enjoyed A King and his People make one Body the inferiour parts conferre nourishment and strength the superiour sense and motion If there be an interruption of this necessary intercourse of bloud and spirits the whole Body must needs bee subject to decay and distemper therefore obstructions are first to bee removed before restoratives can be applyed This My Lords is the end of this Accusation whereby the Commons seeke to remove this person whom they conceive to have beene a great cause of the obstructions betwixt his Majesty and his People for the effecting whereof they have commanded mee to desire your Lordships that their proceedings against him may bee put into as speedy a way of dispatch as the courses of Parliaments will allow First that hee may bee called to answer and they may have liberty to reply that there may bee a quick and secret examination of witnesses and they may from time to time bee acquainted with the depositions that so when the cause shall bee ripe for Judgement they may collect the severall Examinations and represent to your Lordships in one entire Body the state of the Proofes as now by mee they have presented to you the state of the Charge Mr. PYM his SPEECH After the Articles of the Charge against Sr. GEORGE RATCLIFFE were read My LORDS BY hearing this Charge your Lordships may perceive what neere conjunction there is betweene this Cause and the Earle of STRAFFORDS the materials are for the most part the same in both the offences of the Earle moving from an higher Orb are more comprehensive they extend both to England and Ireland these except in one particular of reducing of England by the Irish Army are confined within one Kingdome the Earle is charged as an Authour Sir GEORGE RATCLIFFE as an Instrument and subordinate Actor The influences of superiour Planets are often augmented and inforced but seldome mitigated by the concurrence of the inferiour where merit doth arise not from well-doing but from ill the officiousnesse of ministers will rather adde to the malignity of their Instructions then diminish it that so they may more fully ingratiate themselves with those upon whom they depend In the crimes committed by the Earle there appears more haughtinesse and fiercenesse being acted by his owne principles those motions are ever strongest which are neerest the Primum mobile But in those of Sir GEORGE RATCLIFFE there seemes to be more basenesse and servility having resigned and subjected himselfe to bee acted by the corrupt will of onother The Earle of STRAFFORD hath not beene bred in the study and practice of the Law and having stronger lusts and passions to incite and lesse knowledge to restraine him might more easily be transported from the Rule Sir GEORGE RATCLIFFE in his naturall temper and disposition more moderate and by his education and profession better acquainted with the grounds and directions of the Law was carried into his offences by a more immediate Concurrence of will and a more corrupt suppression of his owne Reason and Judgement My Lords as both these have beene partners in offending so it is the desire of the Commons they may bee put under such tryall and examination and other proceedings of justice as may bring them to partake in a deserved punishment for the safety and good of both Kingdomes Mr SPEAKERS SPEECH At the presenting of these three BILLS viz. An Act For the shortning of Michaelmas Terme For the pressing of Mariners for the Kings Ships For the remainder of the six entire Subsidies May it please your most excellent Majesty THE great security of the Kingdome rests in the happy concurrence of the King and people in the unity of their hearts These joyned safety and plenty attends the Scepter but divided distraction and confusion as Bryers and Thorns overspreads and makes the Land barren No peace to the King No prosperity to the people The duties and affections of your subjects are most transparent most cleare in the cheerfull and most liberall contributions given to knit fast this union with
thereunto required by the House Or to adjourne the House upon any command whatsoever without the consent and approbation of the House it selfe were breaches and violations that highly impeached our priviledges And having passed the vote I conceive it were fit wee should now proceed a little further and consider of a way how to be repaired against them that have beene the violaters For Execution does animare Legem The putting of an old Law in Execution you know Mr. Speaker does oftentimes doe more good then the making of a new one As concerning the violations of the other sort done out of Parliament in Courts of Justice and at the Councell board where neither our persons nor our proceeding ought to have beene controlled or medled withall And as concerning matters of Religion and the property of our goods and estates there were divers things then likewise agreed upon by vote whereupon a conference was desired to have â—eene with the Lords But what interjections and rubs wee met withall by the way and how the Lords countervoted the precedency of our grievances and how our Speaker was taken away from amongst us and what an unhappy conclusion we had at the last the remembrance of it were a subject too sad to begin another Parliament wi hall Therefore Mr. Speaker I shall passe from what was done the last Parliament and come to what hath beene done since that Parliament ended M. Speaker there are some worthy Gentlemen now of this House that were members of the last Parliament that carried themselves in the matters and businesses then and there agitated and debated with great Wisedome and unexampled moderation But what had they at last for all their paines in attending the publique strince of the Common-wealth As soone as ever the Parliament was ended their Studies and Pockets were searched as if they had beene Fellons and Traytors and they committed to severall Goales with an intention I am confident of their utter ruine and destruction had they not fore-seene a danger approaching For Master Speaker if I be truly informed an information was drawne or at least directions given for the drawing of it against them in the Starre-Chamber Master Speaker there hath beene since the last Parliament a Synod and in that Synod a new Oath hath beene made and framed and enjoyned to be taken Master Speaker they might as wel have made a new Law and enjoyned the execution of that as enjoyned and urged the taking of the other not being established by Act of Parliament and in point of mischiefe the safety of the Common-wealth and the freedome and liberties of the Subject are more concerned in the doing of the one then if they had done the other The next exception I shall take to it is to the matter contained in the Oath it selfe Master Speaker they would have us at the very first dash sweare in a damnable Heresie that matters necessary to salvation are contained in the Discipline of our Church Whereas Master Speaker it hath ever beene the tenet of our Church that all things necessary to salvation are comprehended and contained in the Doctrine of our Church only And that hath alwayes beene used as an Argument untill this very present against Antidisciplinarians to stop their mouthes withall And therefore that for that reason they might with the lesse regret and offence conforme and submit themselves to the Discipline of our Church And Master Speaker for prevention in case the Wisedome of the State in this great Councell should at any time think fit to alter any thing in the government of our Church they would anticipate and fore-stall our judgements by making us sweare before-hand that wee would never give our consent to any alteration Nay Master Speaker they goe a little further for they would have us sweare that the government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops Deanes Archdeacons c. is Jure divino Their words are as of right it ought to stand Whereas Master Speaker wee meet not with the name of an Archbishop or a Deane or an Arch-deacon in all the new Testament And whatsoever may bee said of the Function of Bishops it is one thing But for their Jurisdiction it is meerely Humana institutione and they must thank the King for it As for their grosse absurd c. wherein they would have men sweare they know neither what nor how many fathome deepe There is neither Divinity nor charity in it and yet they would put that upon us Master Speaker what they meant and intended by this new Oath and their Booke of Canons and their Booke of Articles which they would have our Church-wardens sworne unto to enquire of and to present thereupon I must confesse I know not unlesse they had a purpose therein to blow up the Protestant Religion and all the faithfull professors of it and to advance their Hierarchie a step higher which I suppose we all feare is high enough already Master Speaker they have likewise in this Synod granted a benevolence but the nature of the things agrees not with the name for in plaine English it is six Subsidies to be paid by the Clergie in six yeares And the penalty they have imposed upon the refusers for none-payment is to be deprived of their Functions to be stripped of their free-hold and to be excommunicated and this Act of their Synod is not published amongst their Canons for which they might have some colourable seeming authority But it comes out in a Booke alone by it selfe in the Latine tongue supposing as I conceiue that Lay-men are as ignorant as they would have them And thus they think they dance in a Net And as in this so in most of their new Canons if they bee throughly considered any judicious man may easily discerne and perceive that they doe therein like Water-men that looke one way and rowe another they pretend one thing but intend nothing lesse And certainly Mr. Speaker in this they have flowne a high pitch For a Synod called together upon pretence of reconciling and setling Controversies and matters in Religion to take upon them the boldnesse thus out of Parliament to grant Subsidies and to meddle with mens Free-holds I dare say the like was never heard of before and they that durst doe this will doe worse if the current of their raging Tyrannie be not stopped in time Who are they Master Speaker that have countenanced and cherished Popery and Armianisme to that growth and height it is now come to in this Kingdome Who are they Master Speaker that have given encouragement to those that have boldly preached those damnable Heresies in our Pulpits Who are they Master Speaker that have given authoritry and licence to them that have published those Heresies in Print Who are they Master Speaker that of late dayes have beene advanced to any dignity or preferment in the Church but such as have beene notoriously suspitious in their Disciplines corrupt in their Doctrines and for the most part vitious in their
publike service as well to prove a sentence not then in rerum natura both Law and charity in a benigne construction of these two ends will allow the more favourable Another objection is whispered that the entrance is not found in the Clerk of the Parliaments Role This is no matter to the validity of his election for his priviledge commenced 40 dayes before the Parliament therefore this and the like are to be judged of as accidentia quae possunt abesse adesse sine subjecti interitu Truely Mr. Speaker my memory and lungs begin to prove Traytors to me Another objection if omitted may be judged by these of what strength and maturity they even as by the coynage of a penny one may iudge of a shilling What hinders then since here is waâ—er but that he may be baptized Here are no non obstant's to be admitted in his new Pattent of Denization the common law the Statute law the Canon the Civill law plead for his admittance the writ of election the exemplification of the Sheriffs return all presidents of all ages all reports plead for his admittance our fore-fathers Ghosts the present practice of Parliaments in England plead for his admittance the Kings successive commands command and confirm his admittance Away then Serieant and with the hazarding power of our Mace touch the Marshals gates and as if there were Divinity in it they will open and bring us our Olive branch of peace wrested from our stock that with welcome Art we may ingraft him to be nourished by a common root Thus the King shall receive the benefit of an able subject who is otherwise civiliter mortuus we enjoy the participation of his labour and posterity both ours and this CAPTAINE AVDLEY MERVINS Speech to the Lords in the Upper house in the Parliament March 40. 1640. Concerning the impeachment of Sir Richard Bolton Knight Lord Chancellor of Ireland Iohn Lord Bishop of Derry Sir Gerrard Lowther Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Sir George Ratcliffe Knight with high Treason by the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House My LORDS I Am commanded by the Knights Citizens and Bur-Burgesses of the Commons House to present unto you Irelands Tragedie the gray headed Common Lawes funerall and the Active Statutes death and obsequies this dejected spectacle answers but the prefiguring Type of Caesars murther wounded to the death in the Senate And by Brutus his bosome friend our Caesars image by reflexion even the fundamentall Lawes and Statutes of this Kingdome the sole means by which our estates are confirmed our liberties preserved our lives secured are wound to death in the Senate I mean in the Courts of Justice and by Brutus too even by those persons that have received their beings and subsistence from them so that here enters those inseparable first Twins Treason and Ingratitude In a plain phrase My Lords I tender unto you Treason High Treason such a Treason that wants nothing but words to expresse it To counterfeit the Kings Seale to counterfeit the Kings money it is Treason but this dyes with the individuall partie To betray a Fort is Treason but it dies with a few men To betray an Army is a Treason but it dyes with a limited number which may be reinforced again by politique industry To blow up both Houses of Parlament is Treason but succeeding ages may replant Branches by a fruitfull posterity but this High Treason which I do move in the name of the Houses of Commons charge and impeach Sir Richard Bolion Knight Lord Chancellour of Ireland and Sir Gerard Lowther Knight Lord Chief Iustice of the Common Pleas Iohn Lord Bishop of Derry Sir George Ratcliffe Knight is in its nature so far transcending any of the former that the rest seem to be but petty Larcenies in respect of this What is it to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome High Treason What is it with a contumacious malice to trample under feet the rich legacies of our forefathers purchased with sweat and expence I mean the Statute lawes what is it but High Treason What is it through an Innate Antipathie to the publick good to incarcerate the liberty of the Subject under the Iron and weighty chains of an arbitrary Government High Treason What is it since his Majestie the most amiable and delightful portraiture of flourishing and indulgent Justice to his Subjects to present him personated in their extrajudiciall censures and judgements but to possesse it possible the hearts of his loyall Subjects of this Kingdome That he is a bloody and devowring Tyrant and to provoke their never dying alleageance into a fatall and desperate Rebellion What is it to violate the sacred Graunts of many of his Majesties Progenitors Kings and Queenes of England confirmed under the broad Seale being the publique faith of this Kingdome by an extrajudiciall breath grounded upon no record What is it to insent a surreptitious clause forged by some servile brain in the preamble of our last Act of Subsidies by which the Kings most excellent Majesty and the Earl of Stofford are placed in one and the same sphear allowing them but equall influencies to nourish the alleageance of this Kingdome what is this but to extoll other then Regall Authority and to crucifie the Majestie of our most gracious Soveraign betwixt the two Theeves of Government Tyranny and Treason My Lords having such a full and lasting Gale to drive me into the depth of these accusations I cannot hereby steere and confine my course within the compasse of patience since I read in the first volumes of their browes the least of these to be the certain ruine of the Subject and if prov'd a most favorable Prologue to usher in the Tragedie of the Actors Councellers and Abetters herein What was then the first and main question it was the subvertion of the fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome let then magna Charta that lies prostrated besmeared and groveling in her own gore discount her wounds as so many pregnant and undeniable proofs mark the Epethite Magna 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirmed by 30. Parliaments in the succession of eight Kings the violation of which hath severall times ingaged the Kingdome of England in a voluntary sacrifice a Charter which imposeth that pleasant and welbecomming oath upon all Soveraigntie to vindicate and preserve the Immunitie thereof before the Crown incircle their Royall Temples in this oath of so high consequence and generall interest his Majesty doth in a manner levie a fine to his Subjects use for avoiding all fraudulent conveyances in the Administration of Justice And this oath is transplanted unto the Judges as the Feoffees in trust appointed between his Majestie and the Subject and sealed by his Majesties provident care with that imphaticall penalty that their estates and lives shall be in the Kings mercy upon the violation of the same either in whole or in part neither hath the deserved punishment for the breach of this oath
of their own harvest But now the poor mans Plough goes to surrow the Seas to build Ships we labour not for our selves but to feed the excressions of Nature things grown up out of the ruines of the naturall members Monopolists Sir these are Maxima vitalia Religion Iustice property The Heart the Head the Liver of this great body and these distempered or obstructed can the subordinate parts be free No sir the truth is all is so farre out of frame that to lay open every particular grievance were to drive us into despair of cure In so great confusion where to begin first requires not much lesse care than what to apply Mr. Speaker I know 't is a plausible motion to begin with setting Gods House in order first who presses that moves with such advantage that he is sure no man will gain-say him 'T is a welbecoming zeal to prefer Religion before our own affairs and indeed 't is a duty not to be omitted where they are in equall danger But in cure of the body politique or naturall we must prefer the most pressing exigents Physitians know that Consumptions Dropsies and such like lingering diseases are more mortall more difficult to cure then slight externall wounds yet if the least Vein be cut they must neglect their greater cures to stop that which if neglected must needs exhaust the stock of nature and produce a dissolution of the whole man A Defection from the duties of our Religion is a Consumption to any State no foundation is firm that is not laid in Christ The Deniall of Iustice the abridgement of our liberties is such an obstruction as renders the Common-wealth Leprous but the wounds in our property lets out the life-blood of the people The Reformation of Church-Government must necessarily be a work of much time and God be thanked the disease is not desperate We serve one God we believe in one Christ and we all acknowledge and professe one Gospel The difference is onely de modo we vary but in Ceremonies to reduce which to the Primitive Practice must be a work of great debate is not a work for us alone to settle The stop of Iustice can yet injure but particulars 'T is true there may be many too many instances of strange oppressions great oppressors but 't will be hard to judge the Conclusion Et sic de caeteris But take from us the propriety of our estates our subsistence we are no more a people This is that veyn which hath bin so deep cut so farre exhaust that to preserve our being we must doubtlesse stop this current Then settle Rules to live by when we are sure to live Mr. Speaker he that well weighes this little word Property or propriety in our estates will finde it of a large extent The Leeches that have suckt this blood have bin Excise Benevolences Loans Impositions Monopolies Military Taxes Ship-money cum multis aliis all which spring from one Root And is it not high time to grub up that root that brings forth such fruit Shall we first stand to lop the branches one by one when we may down with all at once He that to correct an evill tree that brings forth bad fruit shall begin at the master bough and so lop downwards is in danger to fall himself before the tree falls The safer and speedier way is to begin at the root and there with submission to better judgements would I lay the Axe The Root of most of our present mischiefs and the ruine of all posterity do I hold to be that extraiudiciall Iudgement I cannot say but rather doom delivered by all the Iudges under their hands out of Court yet recorded in all Courts to the subversion of all our Fundamentall Laws Liberties and Annihilation if not Confiscation of our estates That in case of danger the King may impose upon his subiects and that he is the â—ole Iudge of the danger necessity and proportion which in brief is to take what when and where he will which though delivered in the time of a gracious and mercifull Prince who we hope will not wrest it beyond our abilities yet left to the Interpretation of a succeeding Tyrant if ever this Nation be so fortunate to fall into the hands of such it is a Record wherein every man might reade himself a slave that reades it having nothing he can call his own all prostistute to the will of another What to do in such a case we are not to seek for precedents our Honorable Ancestors taught us in the just and exemplar punishments of chief Iustice Tresilian and his Complices for giving their judgements out of Parliament against the established Laws of Parliament how tender they were of us how carefull we ought to be to continue those Laws to preserve the Liberty of our Posterity I am far from maligning the person nor in my heart wish I the Execution of any man but certainly it shall be a Iustice well becoming this House to lay their Heads at his Maiesties mercy who laid us under his feet who had made us but tenants at will of our Liberties and Estates And though I cannot but approve of Mercy as a great Vertue in any Prince yet I heartily pray it may prove a Precedent as safe and usefull to this oppressed State as that of Justice Mr. Speaker blasted may that tongue be that shall in the least degree derogate from the glory of those Halcyon dayes our fathers enjoyed during the Government of that ever blessed never to be fogot Royall Elizabeth But certainly I may safely say without detraction it was much advantage to the peace and prosperity of her Raign that the great examples of Empson and Dudley were then fresh in memory The Civility of our Laws tell us that Kings can do no wrong and then is the State secure when Judges their Ministers dare do none Since our times have found the want of such examples 't is fit we leave some to posterity God forbid all should be thought or found guilty there are doubtlesse some Ring-leaders let us sift them out In publique Government to passe by the Nocent is equall injustice as to punish the Innocent An omission of that duty now will be a guilt in us render us sham'd in History curst by Posterity our gracious and in that act of voluntary Justice most glorious King hath given up to the satisfaction of his afflicted People the authors of their Ruines the power of future preservation is now in us Et qui non servat patriam cum potest idem facit destruenti patriam What though we cannot restore the damage of the Common-wealth we may yet repair the breaches in the bounds of Monarchy Though it be with our losse and charge we shall so leave our childrens children fenced as with a wall of safety by the restauration of our Laws to their ancient vigor and lustre 'T is too true and 't is to be feared the Revenues of the Crown sold out-right
would scarce remunerat the iniuries repay the losses of this suffering Nation since the pronouncing of that fatall sentence What proportionable satisfaction then can this Common-wealth receive in the punishment of a few inconsiderable Delinquents But 't is a Rule valid in Law approved in equity that Qui non habent in crumen Luant in Corpore And 't is without all question in policy exemplar punishments conduce more to the safety of a State than pecuniary reparations Hope of impunity lulls every bad-great-officer into security for his time and who would not venture to raise a Fortune when the allurements of honour and wealth are so prevalent if the worst is can fall be but Restitution We see the bad effects of this bold-erroneous opinion what was at first but corrupt Law by encouragement taken from their impunity is since become false Doctrine the people taught in Pulpits they have no property Kings instructed in that destructive principle that all is theirs and is thence deduc'd into necessary state-policy whispered in counsell That he is no Monarch who is bounded by any Law By which bad consequences the best of Kings hath bin by the infusion of such poysonous positions diverted from the sweet inclinations of his own Naturall Equity and Justice the very essence of a King taken from him which is preservation of his people and whereas Salus populi is or should be Suprema Lex the power of undoing us is masqu'd under the stile of what should be Sacred Royall Prerogative And is it not high time for us to make examples of the first authors of this subverted Law bad Counsell worse Doctrine Let no man think to divert us from the pursuit of Iustice by poysoning the clear streams of our affections with jealous sears of his Majesties Interruption if we look too high Shall we therefore doubt of Iustice because we have need of great Justice We may be confident the King well knows That his Iustice is the Band of our Allegiance That 't is the staffe the proof of his Soveraignty 'T is a happy assurance of his intentions of grace to us that our loyalty hath at last won him to tender the safety of his people and certainly all our pressures weighed this 12 yeers last past it will be found the passive loyalty of this suffering Nation hath our-done the active duty of all Times and Stories As the Poet hath it fortiter ille facit qui miser esse potest I may as properly say Fideliter fecimus we have done loyally to suffer so patiently Then since our Royall Lord hath in mercy visited us let us not doubt but in his Justice he will redeem his people Qui timidè rogat docet negare But when Religion is innovated our Liberties violated our Fundamentall Laws abrogated our modern Laws already obsoleted the propriety of our Estates alienated Nothing left us we can call our own but our misery and our patience if ever any Nation might iustifiably this certainly may now now most properly most seasonably cry out and cry aloud vel Sacra Regnet Iustitia vel Ruat Coelum Mr. Speaker the summe of my humble motion is that a speciall Committee may be appointed to examine the whole carriage of that Extraiudiciall iudgement Who were the Counsellors Soliciters and subscribers to the same the reasons of their Subscription whether according to their opinions by importunity or pressure of others whether proforma tantum And upon report thereof to draw up a charge against the guilty and then Lex Currat Fiat Iustitia A brief Discourse concerning the power of the Peers and Commons of Parliament in point of Iudjcature SIR to give you as short an account of your desires as I can I must crave leave to lay you as a ground the frame or first modell of this State When after the period of the Saxon time Harold had lifted himself into the Royall Seat the Great men to whom but lately he was no more equall either in fortune or power disdaining this act of arrogancy called in William then Duke of Normandy a Prince more active than any in these Western parts and renowned for many victories he had fortunately atchieved against the French King then the most potent Monarch in Europe This Duke led along with him to this work of glory many of the younger sons of the best families of Normandy Picardy and Flanders who as undertakers accompanied the undertaking of this fortunate man The Usurper slain and the Crown by war gained to secure certain to his posterity what he had so suddenly gotten he shared out his purchase retaining in each County a portion to support the Dignity Soveraign which was styled Demenia Regni now the ancient Demeans and assigning to others his adventures such portions as suited to himself dependancy of their personall service except such Lands as in free Almes were the portion of the Church these were styled Barones Regis the Kings immediate Freeholders for the word Baro imported then no more As the King to these so these to their followers subdivided part of their shares into Knights fees and their Tenants were called Barones Comites or the like for we finde as in the Kings Writ in their Writs Baronibus suis Francois Anglois the Soveraigne gifts for the most part extending to whole Counties or Hundreds an Earl being Lord of the one and a Baron of the inferiour donations to Lords of Town-ships or Mannors And thus the Land so was all course of Iudicature divided even from the meanest to the highest portion each severall had his Court of Law preserving still the Mannor of our Ancestors the Saxons who jura per pages reddebant and these are still tearmed Court-Barons or the Freeholders Court twelve usually in number who with the Thame or chief Lord were Iudges The Hundred was next where the Hundredus or Aldermanus Lord of the Hundred with the chief Lord of each Township within their limits iudged Gods people observed this form in the publike Centureonis decam Judicabant plebem omni tempore The County or Generale placitum was the next this was so to supply the defect or remedy the corruption of the inferiour Vbi Curiae Dominorum probantur defecisse pertinet ad vice comitem Provinciarum the Iudges here were Comites vice comites Barones Comitatus qui liberas in hoc terras babeant The last and supreme and proper to our question was generale placitum apud London universalis Synodus in Charters of the Conquerour Capitalis curia by Glanvile Magnum Commune consilium coram Rege magnatibus suis In the Rolles of Henry the 3. It is not stative but summoned by Proclamation Edicitur generale placitum apud London saith the book of Abingdon whether Epium Duces principes Satrapae Rectores Causidici ex omni parte confluxerunt ad istam curiam saith Glanvile Causes were referred Propter aliquam dubitationem quae emergit in comitatu cum
upon Bill or information and Cite such parties to appeare as stand accused of any misdemeanour and this was the Infancy of the Starchamber but afterwards the Starchamber was by Cardinall Woolsey 8 H. 8. raised to mans Estate from whence being now altogether unlimited it is grown a Monster and will hourely produce worse effects unlesse it be reduced by that hand which laid the foundation for the Statutes that are ratified by Parliament admit of no other than a repeale Therefore I offer humbly unto your Lordships these ensuing Reasons why it should be repealed First the very words of the Statute cleerly shew that it was a needlesse institution for it sayes they who are to Judge can proceed with no delinquent otherwise then if he were convicted of the same crime by due proces of Law And doe your Lordships holdth is a rationall Court that sends us to the Law and calls us to the Law and calls us back from it againe Secondly divers Judicatories confound one another in pessima republica plurimae Leges The second reason is from circumstance or rather à Consuetudine and of this there are many examples both domestique and forain but more particularly by the Parliaments of France abbreviated into a standing Committee by Philip the King and continued according to his Institution untill Lewis the eleventh came to the Crown who being a subtill Prince buried the volume in the Epitome for to this day when ever the three Estates are called either at the death of the old King or to Crown the new It is a common Proverb Allons voire Le van des Estates My Lords Arbitrary judgements destroy the Common Laws and in them the two great Charters of the Kingdome which being once lost we have nothing left but the name of liberty Then the last reason is though it was the first cause of my standing up the great Eclipse it hath ever been to the whole Nobility For who are so frequently vexed there as Peers and Noblemen and notwithstanding their appeale to this Assembly is ever good whilst that famous Law of the 4 Ed. 3. remaines in force for the holding of a Parliament once a year or more if occasion require yet who durst a year ago mention such a Statute without the incurring the danger of M. Kilverts persecution Therefore I shall humbly move your Lordships that a select Commitee of a few may be named to consider of the act of Parliament it selfe and if they shall thinke it of as great prejudice as I doe that then the house of Commons in the most usuall manner may be made acquainted with it either by Bill or conference who also happily thinke it a burthen to the Subject and so when the whole body of Parliament shall joyne in one supplication I am confident his Majestie will desire that nothing shall remaine in force which his people doe not willingly obey Lunae the 10. of May 1641. IT is this day ordered by the House of Commons now assembled in Parliament that the Lord Maior of London the Justices of Peace of Midlesex Westminster and the Liberties of the Dutchie of Lancaster and those of Surrey that are for the Burrough of Southwarke and the place adjoyning doe imploy their best endeavors to prevent that none of the Kings Subjects doe frequent the houses of any the Embassadors Somerset-house or St. James to heare Masse And that they give an accompt to this House of the Execution of this Order at all such times as by the said House they shall be required My Lord Finch his Letter to my Lord CHAMBERLAINE My most welbeloved Lord THe Interest your Lordship hath ever had in the best of my fortunes and affections gives me the Priviledges of troubling your Lordship with these few lines from one that hath now nothing left to serve you withall but his Prayers Those your Lordship shall never faile with an heart as full of true affection to your Lordship as ever any was My Lord it was not the losse of my place and with that of my fortunes nor being exiled from my deare Countrey and friends though many of them were cause of sorrow that afflicts but that which I most suffer under is that displeasure of the House of Commons conceived against me I know a true heart I have ever borne towards them and your Lordship can witnesse in part what wayes I have gone in but Silence and patience best becomes me with which I must leave my selfe and my Actions to the favourable construction of my Noble Friends in which number your Lordship hath a prime place I am now at the Hague where I arrived on Thursday the last of the last moneth where I purpose to live in a fashion agreeable to the poorenesse of my fortunes for my humbling in this world I have utterly cast off the thoughts of it and my aime shall be to learne to number my daies that I may apply my heart unto wisdome that wisdome that shall wipe all teares from mine eyes and heart and lead me by the hand to true happinesse which can never be taken from me I pray God of heaven blesse this Parliament with a happy both progresse and conclusion if my ruine may conduce but the least to it I shall not repine at it I truly pray for your Lordship and your Noble Family that God would give an increase of all worldly blessings and in the fulnesse of dayes to receive you to his glory if I were capable of serving any body I would tell your Lordship that no man should be readier to make knowne his devotion and true gratitude to your Lordship then Your Lordships most humble and affectionate poore kinsman and servant J.F. Hague Jan. 3. 1640. The Lord KEEPERS Speech TO HIS MAJESTIE at the Banquetting-house at White-hall in the name of both Houses May it please Your Majestie I Am to give your Majestie most humble and heartie thanks in the name of both houses of Parliament and this whole Kingdome for the speedy and gracious Royall assent unto the Bill Entitled An act for preventing of inconveniences happening by the long intermission of Parliaments which as it is of singular comfort and securitie for all your Subjects for the present so they are confident it will be of infinite honor and setlement of Your Majesties Royall Crowne and dignitie as well as comfort to their postiritie The Declaration of the Scots Commissioners to the House of Parliament touching the maintenance of their Army March the 16th 1640. IN the midst of other matters necessitie constraineth us to shew your Lordships that fourescore thousand pounds and above of the Moneys appointed for reliefe of the Northerne Countreys there is no more paid but 18000 l. the Country people of those Countreys have trusted the souldiers so long as they are become weary and unable to furnish them their cattell and victuall being so farre exhausted and wasted as it is scarce able to entertain themselves The Markets are decayed
the levying of the Subsidies the houses leave to your Majesties consideration It is found that Goodman the Priest hath been twice formerly committed and discharged That his residence now about London was in absolute contempt of your Majesties Proclamation as the Houses are credibly informed that he hath been sometimes a Minister in the Church of England and consequently is an Apostate both Houses are very sensible that any man should presume to intercede with your Majesty in a case of so high a nature They humbly desire that a speedy course may be taken for the due execution of the laws against the Priests and Jesuits that all mischiefes before mentioned may be timely remedied by your Majesties great wisdome And lastly that Goodman the Priest be left to the justice of the law The Earle of Straffords Letter to his most Excellent Majesty dated from the Tower the 4th of May 1641. May it please your sacred Majesty IT hath been my greatest griefe in all these troubles to be taken as a person which should endeavour to represent and set things amisse between your Majesty and your People and to give counsels tending to the disquiet of the three Kingdomes Most true it is that this mine own private Condition considered it had been a great madnesse since through your grations favour I was so provided as not to expect in any kind to mend my fortune or please my mind more then by resting where your bounteous hands had placed me Nay it is most mightily mistaken for unto your Majesty it is well known my poore and humble advises concluded still in this That your Majesty and your people could never be happy till there were a right understanding betwixt you and them no other means to effect and settle this happinesse but by the Counsell and assent of the Parliament or to prevent the growing Evils upon this state but by intirely putting your self in the last resort upon the loyalty and good affections of your English subjects Yet such is my misfortune this truth findeth little credit the contrary seemeth generally to be believed and my selfe reputed as some thing of Separation between you and your people under a heavier censure then which I am perswaded no Gentleman can suffer Now I understand the minds of men are more incensed against me notwithstanding your Majesty hath declared that in your princely opinion I am not guilty of Treason nor are you satisfied in your conscience to passe the Bill This bringeth me into a very great straight there is before me the ruine of my Children and family hitherto untouched in all the branches of it with any foule Crimes Here is before me the many ills which may befall your Sacred person and the whole Kingdome should your selfe and Parliament part lesse satisfied one with the other then is necessary for the preservation both of King and People Here are before me the things most valued most feared by mortall man Life or Death To say Sir that there hath not been a strife in me were to make me lesse man then God knoweth my infirmities give me And to call a destruction upon my selfe and young Children where the intentions of my heart at least have been innocent of this great offence may be believed will find no easie consent from Flesh and blood But with much sadnesse I am come to a resolution of that which I take to be best becomming me to look upon that which is most principall in it selfe which doubtlesse is the prosperity of Your sacred Person and the Common-Wealth infinitely before any private mans interest And therefore in few words as I put my selfe wholly upon the honour and justice of my Peers so clearly as to beseech your Majesty might please to have spared that declaration of yours on Saturday last and intirely to have left me to their Lordships so now to set your Majesties conscience at liberty I doe most humbly beseech your Majesty in prevention of mistakes which may happen by your refusall to passe this Bill And by this means remove praised be God I cannot say this accursed but I confesse this unfortunate thing forth of the way towards that blessed agreement which God I trust shall ever Establish between you and your subjects Sir my consent shall more acquit you herein to God then al â—he world can do besides To a willing man there is no injury done And as by Goâ—s grace I forgive all the world with a calmnes and meeknes of infinite Contentment to my dislodging soule So Sir to you can I give the life of this world with all the cheerfulnesse imaginable in the just acknowledgement of your exceeding favours And only beg that in your goodnesse you would vouchsafe to cast your gratious regard upon my poor Sonne and his three Sisters lesse or more and no otherwise then as their in present unfortunate Father may hereafter appeare more or lesse guilty of this death God long preserve your Majesty Your Majesties most faithfull and humble Subject and Servant STRAFFORD Tower 4 May 1641. The Petition of the EARLE of STRAFFORD unto the Lords before he Dyed To the Right Honourable the Lords Spirituall and Temporall in this present Parliament assembled THE humble Petition of Thomas late Earle of Strafford Sheweth that seeing it is the good will and pleasure of God that your Petitioner is now shortly to pay that duty which we allow to our fraile nature He shall in all Christian Patience and Charity conform and submit himselfe to your Justice in a comfortable assurance of the great Hope laid up for us in the Mercy and Merits of our Saviour blessed for ever Only he humbly craves to return your Lordships most humble thanks for your Noble Compassion towards those innocent Children whom now with his last blessing he must commit to the protection of Almighty GOD beseeching Your Lord-ships to finish your Pious intentions towards them And desiring that the reward thereof may be fulfill'd in You by him that is able to give above all we are able either to aske or think Wherein I trust the Honourable House of Commons will afford their Christian assistance And so beseeching your Lord-ships charitably to forgive all his omissions and infirmities he doth very heartily and truly recommend Your Lordships to the Mercies of Our Heavenly Father and that for his goodnesse he may perfect you in every good work Amen Tho. Wentworth Lord FAULKLANDS first speech in Parliament I Rejoyce very much to see this day and the want hath not lain in my affections but my lungs If to all that hath bind past I have not been as loud with my voice as any mans in the house yet truly my opinion is we have yet done nothing if we doe no more I shall add what I humbly conceive ought to be added as soone as I have said something with references to him that saies it I will first desire the forgivenesse of the House if ought I say seem to entrench upon anothers
Lord Sheffeild very differing from all that went before it being left out that they should enquire per sacramentum bonorum legalium hominum and to heare and determine secundum leges Angliae Relation being had only to the instructions which were the first instructions we can finde were sent thither though I told your Lordships there were some mentions of some In 1. Jac. I shall not trouble your Lordships with these Instructions nor with the other that followed in 14. Jacobi to the same man nor in 16 Jacobi when a new Commission was granted to my Lord Sunderland nor indeed with any till we come to these present Instructions and Commissions under which that part of the Kingdome groans and languisheth My Lord of Strafford came to that government in Decemb 4. Caroli and since the Commission hath been three severall times removed in the fist year in March in the eighth in Novemb. in the thirteenth year of his Majesties reigne into that Commission of 8. and 13. a new clause served in for the granting sequestring and establishing Possessions according to instructions crowded in a Masse of new exorbitant and intolerable power though our complaint be against this Commission it selfe and against the whole body of those instructions I shall not mispend your Lordships pretious time in desiring to have the whole read but shall presume to trouble your Lordships only with five or six of the instructions that by the vast irregularity of those your Lordships may judge how insupportable the whole burthen is I shall not trouble your Lordships with the nineth Instruction though it be but short which introduceth that miseram servitutem ubi jus est vagum incognitum by requiring an obedience to such ordinances and determinations as be or shall be made by the Councell Table or high Commission Court A grievance my Lords howsoever consuetudo peccantum claritas nobilitaverit hanc culpam of so transcendent a nature that your Lordships noble Justice will provide a remedy for it with no lesse care then you would rescue the life and blood of the Common-wealth Read the 19.22 23 24.29 and 30 I will not trouble your Lordships with reading more there being among them in the whole 58. Instructions scarce one that is not against or besides the Law Whether His Majesty may caution out a part of his Kingdome to be tryed by Commission though according to the rules of Law since the whole Kingdome is under the Laws and government of the Courts established at Westminster and by this reason the severall parts of the kingdome may be deprived of that priviledge will not be now the question that his Majesty cannot by Commission erect a new Court of Chancery or aproceeding according to the rules of the Star-chamber is most cleare to all who have read Magna Charta which allowed no proceedings nisiper legale judicium Parium per legem terrae for our Court of Chancery here by long usage and proscription is grown to be as it were lex terrae But my Lords the thircieth Instruction goes further and erects such an Empire such a Dominion as shall be lyable to no contrary The Courts of Westminster my Lords have superintendences over all inferiours Courts to regulate their jurisdictions if they exceed their limits As to hold Plea of greater value or the like in his exercise of Jurisdiction the Judges are sworn to grant and send prohibitions and to stop the granting of these prohibitions or to neglect them when they are granted is the greatest and boldest scorn of the Law and the Law-makers that can be imagined The Kings Courts at Westminster having been alwaies of that awfull and reverent esteem with inferiour Judges that the instances of such contempts against them are very rare and exemplary in the punishment The Bishop of Norwich in Trinity Term in the twentieth year of Edward the third in Rot. 289. in the common Pleas in Hilary Terme 21. in the Kings Bench was attached for disobeying a Prohibition at the suit of Stracill upon full and solemne dissension of the whole matter the Court resolved that the proceedings of the Bishop were inobedientiam diminutionem Domini potestatis Regiae authoritatis suae lectionem coronae suae exhereditationem manifestam c. As the words of the Records are and therefore adjudged the temporall tyes of the Bishop to be seised into the Kings hand and great very great dammages to be paid to Plaintiffes And whosoever gave directions for these stout Instructions might have remembred that no longer since then Michaelmas in the seventh year of Eliz. Rot. 31. an Attachment was granted against the Archbishop of Yorke then President of that Councell for forbidding the Goaler of Yorke to deliver one Lambert his Prisoner who was sent for by a habeas corpus from the Kings Bench and if they would have believed the resolution of all the Judges in England in Trinity Term in the 6 yeare of King James they would have known how unfit it had been to enlarge that Jurisdiction since most of their proceedings being of an inferiour nature to what they are now grown were then declared to be illegall and inconsistent with the liberty of the Subject And can such a Court as this my Lords deserve to live what a compendious abridgement hath Yorke gotten of all the Courts in Westminster Hall whatsoever sals within the cognizance or jurisdiction of either Courts here is compleatly determinable within that one Court at York besides the power it hath with the Ecclesiasticall and high Commission Courts What hath the good Northern people done that they only must be disfranchised of all their priviledges by Magna Charta and the Petition of Right for to what purpose serve these Statutes if they may be fined and imprisoned without Law according to the discretion of the commissioners what have they done that they and they alone of all the people of this happy Iland must be disinherited of their birth-right of their Inheritance For prohibitions writs of Habeas Corpus writs of errour are the birth-right the inheritance of the Subjects And 't is here worth your Lordships observation that to those many prohibitions which have been granted from above for till of late the court of Yorke had not the courage to dispose prohibitions nor indeed till our Courts here had not the courage to grant them T was never known that Court pleaded the Jurisdiction of their Councell which without doubt they would have done upon the advantage of many great persons in whose protection they have alwayes been had they not known the Law could not be misinterpreted enough to allow it Your Lordships remember the directions I mentioned of Magna Charta that all proceedings shall be per legale Judicium Parium per legem terrae now these Jurisdictions tell you you shall proceed according to your discretion that is you shall doe what you please onely that we may not suspect this discretion will be
gentler and kinder to us then the Law speciall provision is made no fine no punishment shall be lesse then by the law is appointed by no means but as much greater as your discretion shall think sit and indeed in this improvement we find Arbitrary Courts are very pregnant if the Law require my good behaviour this discretion makes me close Prisoner if the Law sets me upon the Pillory this discretion appoints me to leave my cares there But this proceeding according to discretion is no new expression 't was in the first Commission I told your Lordships of in the 31. Hen. 8. that they should proceed secundum legem consuetudinem Regni Angliae vel aliter secundum sanos discretiones vestras which in the interpretation of the Law and that is the best interpretation signifies the same thing to proceed according to discretion is to proceed according to Law which is summa discretio but not according to their private conceit or affection For talis discretio saies the law discretionem confundit and such a confusion hath this discretion in these Instructions produced as if discretion were onely removed from rage and fury no inconvenience no mischiefe no disgrace that the malice or insolence or curiosity of these Commissioners had a minde to bring upon that people but through the latitude and power of this discretion the poore people have felt this discretion hath been the quickesand which hath swallowed up their property their liberty I beseech your Lordships rescue them from this discretion Besides the charge that this Court is to his Majesty which is neer 1300. l. per annum your Lorâ—ships will easily guesse what an unsupportable burthen the many officers whose places are of great value the Atturnies Clarks Registers and above 1000. Sollicitors that attend the Courts must be to that people insomuch that in truth the Country seems to be divided into officers and dependants upon that Court And the people upon whom these officers of that Court prey and commit rapines as he said in Petronius Omnes hic aut captantur aut captant aut cadavere quae laterentur aut corni quae laterunt Truly my Lords these vexed worn-people of the North are not sutors to your Lordships to regulate this Court or to reform the judges of it but for extirpating these Judges and the utter abolishing this Court they are of Catoes minde who would not submit to Caesar for his life saying he would not be beholding to a Tyrant for injustice for it was injustice in him to take upon him to save a mans life over whom he had no power So these Gentlemen desire not to be beholding to this Court hereafter for injustice The very administration of injustice founded upon such illegall principles being a grievance and oppression to the subject First upon the whol matter the House of Commons is of opinion that the Commission and Instructions whereby the President and Councell of the North exercise a Jurisdiction is illegall both in the creation and execution Secondly that it is improfitable to his Majesty for besides so much neer thirteen hundred pound taken out of his Majesties revenues every year his Majesty loseth the great benefit would accrew to him upon writs and upon Fines upon Out-laws and other profits which redound to his Majesty out of his Court here And which I had almost forgot to tell your Lordships of that his Majesty may be sure to have benefit from that Court notable care is taken by the fiftty three Instructions And if any money remaines over and above all disbursements it shall be bestowed in providing Houshold-stuffe and furniture for the house where the Lord President and Councell use to be And lastly that it is inconvenient and grievous to His Majesties subjects of those parts And therefore they are humble Sutors to your Lordships and the house of Commons on this behalfe that since this people doe and have in all matters of duty and affection contend with the best of His Majesties subjects that they may not be distinguished from them in the manner of His Majesties Justice and protection since this Court originally instituted continued by his Majesty for the ease and benefit of his subjects is apparently inverted to the burthen and discomfort of them that your Lordships will joyn with the House of Commons in beseeching His Majesty that the present Commission may be revoked and no more such granted for the future A Speech of Master John White Counsellour concerning Episcopacy EPiscopacy as it stands in this kingdom comprehends in it in linea recta these foure degrees the Deacon the Presbyter the Bishop and the Archbishop Every Archbishop wades through every of these ordinarily Of the first and last we have no vestigium in the holy scriptures This Deacon may Preach and Baptize help the Presbyter to administer the Lords Supper Book of ordering of Deacons but may not consecrate the Elements in the Lords Supper contrary to the Scriptures by which Preach and Baptize is a full Commission for the exercise of all the ministeriall function Mat. 28.19 The Deacon mentioned in holy Scripture is the same in Office with our Church-warden to looke to the Church goods and the poore Acts 6. 1 Tim. 3. The Presbyter is of all hands acknowledged to be Jure Divino The Bishop is considerable in respect of his trayn and secondly in respect of himself His trayn are these first the Dean and Chapter called Prebends quia praeherent auxilium Episcopo and were originally ordained for his Counsell to advise him in difficulties in Religion and to advise him in and consent unto his dispositions of his possessions Cok. r. 3. Dean and Chapter of Norwiches case Secondly the Archdeacon is the oculus Episcopi to discover and punish offences spirituall and Ecclesiasticall within his limits manus Episcopi to present unto him such as are to be made Deacons and Presbyters and to induct such as he admits and institutes into Benefices Thirdly his Chancellors Vicars Generall Commissaries Officials Surrogates Registers Promotors and others belonging to his Cathedrals These be all meerly humane and may be taken away without offence to God or conscience if there appeare just cause for it The Bishop in respect of himselfe is considerable in his Barony and temporalties and his spiritualties The first is meerly Exgratia Regis and in this kingdome began 4. of William the Conquerour Case of tenures 35. a. And by vertue hereof they have had place in the house of Peers in Parliament 7. H. 8.1846 Kel it is resolved by all the Judges of England that the King may hold his Parliament by himselfe his temporall Lords and Commons without any Bishop for a Bishop hath not any place in Parliament by reason of his spiritualties but meerly by reason of his Baronry and accordingly acts of Parliament have been made 2 Rich. 3. cap. 3. and at divers other times They have usurped the name of Spirituall Lords
without a license Secondly they restrain him from preaching some doctrines as of predestination and others that overthrow Arminian tenets when his faithfulnesse in his Office requires he should keep nothing back This is read to the Presbyter upon his Ordination and his charge then given him is remarkable See the booke of ordering Priests but to shew them all the counsell of God Acts 10.27 Thirdly they will not suffer him to intermeddle in the discipline These usurpations I conceive are to be taken away and the Presbyter to be left free from them Secondly for the Episcopacy I conceive that first their Baronies and the intermedling of the Clergy in Civill Councels affaires and imployments ought to be taken from them First I conceive such Barâ— and intermedling is against the Law of God Christ refused to intermeddle in dividing inheritances though more able and fit for it then any Bishop Luke 12.13 and saith his Kingdome is not of the world John 18.36 and the Disciple is not above his Master Mat. 10.24 and Acts 6. The Apostles refuse to intermeddle in the Deacon or Churchwardens office though of all earthly imployments the neerest to the Church and the reason they give is remarkable for this purpose because they were to attend to Prayer and Administration of the word and therefore not meet for them to attend such secular matters and 2 Tim. 2.4 The Apostles laies down a rule in this case that nemo militans Deo se implicat negotiis hujus seculi and upon this ground even the Popes canon-Canon-laws are against these things as inconsistent with the ministeriall function And the due execution of the commission Goe preach and baptize is of it selfe burthen and work enough for any man whatsoever his gifts and parts be and made Paul though of a more excellent and able spirit cry out under the sense of the waight of it Who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2.16 Secondly it is against the fundamentall Laws of this Land whereby they that are within holy Orders Non est consonum quod ille qui salubri statui animarum piis operibus continue deservit ad insistendum in secularibus negâ—tiis compellatur vide the writ that they may the better attend upon and discharge their duties are not to be intangled with temporall businesse and therefore if any such be chosen to any temporall office the Law hath ordained a writ to discharge them thereof Reg. 187.6 The King may command the service of men in orders and then it is to be given him by naturall allegiance This rule admits two exceptions and both are in this case first except the service from that person be against the Law of God as here it is and then it is better obey God then man in praesentia majoris cessat potestas minoris Secondly if the service concern the Common-wealth and the person of whom it is required be not sufficient for it nor brought up unto it the command is against Law and the service not to be done if the King grant the Office of the Clarke of the Crown to one not brought up to it it is void and the service not to be intermedled withall by him 9 Ed. 4.56 Winters case Secondly that part of the Bishops spirituall office by which he claimeth superiority over Presbyters ought to be taken as I conceive from them as being against the will of God The Apostles questioning among themselves which should be the Superior are sharply reproved by our Saviour for it and he tels them plainly it shall not be so among them Mark 10.42 Luke 22.25 and Diotrophes 3 Job 9. is branded for it that he sought prehominence in the Church The mystery of iniquity in the Popish Hierarchy in the Presbyters exalting themselves began to work in the purest primitive times as we see in Diotrophes and Peters cavear 1 Pet. 5.3 and never left till it came to the Pope 2 Thes 2.4.7 the highest degree and top thereof By which it seems to me evident that to leave the pattern of Church government set down in the word of God to follow the examples of after ages upon a false cry of primitive times is to forsake the pure fountain and wallow in the muddy and corrupted streams of antichristian ambition Thirdly that part of the spirituall office of the Bishop whereby he is to instruct the people committed to his charge with the holy Scriptures as upon the 2 question put unto him at his Consecration he undertakes to doe ought as I conceive to be reduced to a possibility for him to performe it It is impossible for him to doe it to a whole Diocesse therefore he should be limited to some particular Congregation unto which he might perform this trust which requires sufficiency attendance and diligence Fourthly Ordination in the scriptures is ever expressed to be by them in the Church that had authority and were officers in the Church as Apostles Evangelists and after by the Presbytery 1 Tim. 4.14 2 Tim. 1.6 And a shadow of this remains in our Law Acts 14.23 Titus 1.5 6 7. for the Bishop only is not to lay hands upon the party to be ordained but the Presbyters there attending are to joyn with the Bishop therein Books of orde ring Priests This I conceive is not fit to be in the hands of any one ordinary officer in the Church the discerning of the gifts abilities and faithfulnesse of persons to be ordained Presbyters requiring great judgement care and circumspection Plus vident oculi quam oculus The like I say of deprivation Fiftly Excommunication by the Scriptures ought to be only in case of enormous offences and obstinacy in them and onely in the Congregation whereof the party to be Excommunicate is a member 1 Cor. 5.4 Tell the Church cannot be meant of one man Mat. 18.17 Diotrophes is branded for taking upon him alone to cast any out of the Church This also abused as well as usurped by the Bishop is to be reformed Sixtly Institution and induction are usurped by the Bishops upon the fundamentall Laws of this Kingdome by which the Patron after his Clerk was ordained did without any more invest him into the Church See Selden of tithes 86. And a relick of this we retain still in Churches that be donatives Seventhly The jurisdiction of tithes causes matrimoniall and causes testamentary in the times of the increasing power of the Pope when the Bishops thereby grew more formidable were taken from the Civill Magistrate to whom originally they belonged upon pretence that the tithes were Jure divino the Churches patrimony and Mariage a Sacrament and that the disposing the goods of the dead most properly belonged to him for the good of the soule in Purgatory to redeem it thence to whom the cure of the Soule appertained in his life time vide 2 R. 3. Testaments 4.11 H. 7.12 B. Plowden 279. B. Foxes c. Cok. rep 9.37 B. Heustoes case Dames rep 97. B.
for its owne defence against those be they Peeres or people that have abused it If we examine the Law well it will tell us what hath beene the reward of such ambitious men as have Monopolized and abused the Kings Authoritie what have beene the punishment of such as have betrayed the well meaning Subject to the Kings displeasure and his Princes Councell to his enemies what doe they deserve who have raised mountaines of Monopolies heapes of impositions oceans of grievances what have been the punishment of such as have belied Justice and their conscience and have made truth and honesty our of fashion And lastly If no penaltie be found for these sure there is some for such as have so disguised Religion in fantasticke dresses that Heaven andearth cannot be but angrie to see it and in their politique pride have beene so long moulding a new State and a new old Church for their owne advantage till they have by their too much order put all out of frame and made us objects of pitie and themselves of hate What if for these innovations we innovate an examplary punishment These are the ground-works of our miseries and surely Mr. Speaker there are too many of all these sorts which like envious clouds hinders us from â—he gracious shine our Sun intends us therefore for his great r lustre and our more assured comfort let us endeavour to remove these interposers that he may more freely see into his peoples bosomes and reade in their hearts firme characters of loyaltie and glad obedience which the practices of these later times have endeavoured to obliterate but in vaine I shall not dare to borrow one minute of you more but I shall alreadie end though I have just now begun If we consider the just extent of our grievances the deep search of which wound I leave to you better abilities and I beseech you think not that I sigh out these complaints undertaking to instruct the grave Councell of this great Assembly my infant advice presumes not to reach so high It is but to let you see how much the slightest parts of this abused Common-wealth is not only made sensible of our wrongs but what we feele is farre exceeded by the numberlesse number of our just feares which should have before this time utterly distracted us had not our great Phisition now at length applied his soveraigne remedie to keep up our fainting hopes by which we must either stand or fall Master Pyms Speech in PARLIAMENT 1640. THe distempers of this Kingdome are well knowne they need not repetition For though we have good Lawes yet they want their execution or if they are executed it is in a wrong sence I shall endeavour to apply a remedie to the breaches that are made and to that end I shall discover first the qualitie of the disease First There is a designe to alter Law and Religion the parties that effect this are Papists who are obliged by a maxime in their doctrine that they are not onely bound to maintaine their Religion but also to extirpate all others The second is their Hierarchie which cannot amount to the height they ayme at without a breach of our Law To which their Religion necessarily ioynes that if the one stands the other must fall Thirdly Agents and Pensioners to forraigne States who see we cannot comply to them if we maintaine our Religion established which is contrary to theirs here they intend chiefly the Spanish white gold works which are of most effect Fourthly Favourites such as for promotion prize not conscience and such are our Judges spirituall and temporall such are also some of our Councellors of State All these though severed yet in their contrivements they ayme at one end and to this they walke on four feet First discountenancing of Preachers and vertuous men they persecute under the law of purity Secondly Countenancing of Preachers of contrary dispositions Thirdly The negotiating with the faction of Rome by Preaching and to instructions to Preach of the absolute Monarchie of Kings Here follow severall Heads First The politicall interpretation of the Law to serve their turnes and thus to impose taxes with a colour of Law a Judge sayd it when a babe is corpus was payd for Secondly By keeping the King in continuall want that he may seeke to their counsells for r liefe to this purpose to keepe the Parliaments in distaste that their counsells may be taken The King by them is brought to this as a woman that used her selfe to poyson could not live with good meate Search the Chronicles and we see no King that ever used Parliaments was brought to this want Thirdly Arbitrary proceedings in Courts of Justice we have all Law left to the conscience of a single man All Courts are now Courts of conscience without conscience Fourthly Plotters to inforce a war between Scotland and us that when we had well wearied one another we might be both brought to what scorn they pleased The pertition wall is only unity Fiftly The suddaine dissolving of Parliaments and punishing of Parliament men all to affright us from speaking what we thinke One was committed for not delivering up the Petitions of the House then a declaration which slandered our Proceedings as full of lyes as leaves who would have the first ground to be our example And Papists are under appearance to the King his best Subjects for they contibute money to the War which the Protestants will not do Sixthly Another is Military by getting places of importance into the Papists hands as who are Commanders in the last Armie but they none more strong in Armes then they to whom their Armour is delivered contrary to the Statute Their endeavour is to bring in strangers to be Billited upon us we have had no accompt of the Spanish Navie and now our fear is from Ireland Lastly The next is Papisticall that proceeds of Agents here in London by whose desires many Monasteries and Nunneries here in London were erected Sir Thomas Baringtons Speech in Parliament 1640. My Lords WE have of late entred into consideration of the Petition of Right and the relation of it and upon good reason for it concernes our goods liberties and lives But there is a Right of higher nature that preserved for us farre greater things eternall life our soules yea our God himselfe a Religion derived to us from the King of Kings conferred to us by the Kings of this Kingdome enacted by Lawes in this place treading downe to us in the bloud of the Martyes and witnessed from Heaven by miracles even miraculous deliverances And this Right in the name of this Nation I this day require and claime that there may be a deepe and serious consideration of the relations of it I desire first that it may be considered what new paintings are layd on the old face of the Whore of Babylon to make the more lovely and to draw so many Suitors to her I desire that it may be considered how the Sea