Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	lord_n	parliament_n	20,596	5	6.9552	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62230	Summus angliæ seneschallus, or, A survey of the Lord High-Steward of England his office, dignity, and jurisdiction, particularly the manner of arraigning a peer indicted of treason, or felony : in a letter to the Lords in the Tower ...	Saunders, Edmund, Sir, d. 1683.	1680 (1680)	Wing S745; ESTC R9936	19,870	38

that he would not desire to know their Opinions before-hand for him for they thought it should come before them in the King's-Bench judicially and then they would do that which of right they ought which the King approv'd of Besides the nature of their Oath requires it who are sworn that they shall well and lawfully serve our Soveraign Lord the King and his People in the Office of a Justice and that they shall do equal Law and execution of Right to all his Subjects QUERY X. Whether an Attainder of Treason way be falsified by the Plea of the Party SOL. A. 1. Mar. A Commission of Oyer and Terminer in London was directed to Sir Tho White Lord Mayor and to divers others reciting that where Sir Robert Dudley Knight 9 Jan. 1. Mar. was Indicted of High Treason before Thomas Duke of Nonfolk and fourteen other Commissioners in the County of Norfolk where in truth the Commission was directed to so many but the Indictment was taken before Eight of them only granting to them or any four of them Authority to receive the Indictment taken before fifteen Commissioners and to proceed thereupon as Special Justices of Oyer and Terminer by pretext whereof they proceeded and upon confession of the said Sir Rob. Dudley gave Judgment against him In this Case it was adjudged that Sir Rob. Dudley then Earl of Leicester might falsifie the said Attainder by Plea because it was void and conam non Judice for that the latter Commissioners had not power to proceed upon an Indictment taken before Eight but before Fifteen and so void The Party is not driven to his Writ of Errour but may falsifie the Attainder by Plea shewing the special matter which proveth it void ut supra In which case the party forfeiteth neither Lands nor Goods 'T is holden by some that if a person be attainted of High-Treason by the Common Law that no Writ of Errour should be brought for the reversal of that Attainder by reason of these words in the Stat. 33 H. 8. cap. 20. And if any person or persons shall be attainted of High-Treason by the course of the Common Law c. that every such Attainder by the Common Law shall be of as good strength value force and effect as if it had been done by Authority of Parliament But the contrary hereof was resolved at a Parliament holden A. 25. Eliz. that a Writ of Errour should be maintained for the reversal of Erroneous Attainders of High-Treason by the Common Law for that former Stat. is to be intended of lawful Attainders and not where there is any Errour in the same for by that of the Queen 't is provided That no Record of Attainder of any person or persons of or for any High-Treason where the party so Attainted is or hath been executed for the same shall be c. in any wise hereafter reversed undone avoided or Impeached by any Plea or for any Errour whatsoever QUERY XI Whether torture in case of Treason or Felony may be used by our Law SOL. Sir John Fortescue Chief Justice of England who wrote in commendation of our Common Laws preferreth the same for Government before the Civil Law and particularly that all tortures were against the Common Law expresly and he proceeds to shew the inconveniencies and mischiefs thereof by fearful examples to which Learned Author I refer your Lordships Cap. 22. It is against Mag. Charta Cap. 29. which says Nullus liber homo capiatur vel Imprisonetur c. aut aliquo modo destruatur nec super eum ibimus nec super eum mittemus nisi per legale Judicium Parium suorum vel per Legem Terrae And accordingly all the Ancient Authors are against the inflicting pains and tortures upon Prisoners before or after Attainder Co. 3. Inst f. 35. but such as answer the Judgment John Holland Earl of Huntingdon was by King H. 6. created Duke of Exeter and A. 26. H. 6. the King granted to him the Office of the Constableship of the Tower of London He and William de la Poole Duke of Suffolk with some others intended to have brought in the Civil Laws and for a beginning of the same the Duke of Exeter first brought into the Tower the Rack or Brake allowed in many cases by the Civil Law and for that reason it was called the Duke of Exeter's Daughter QUERY XII Whether the King under the Great Seal may command all Process in Criminal Causes to cease SOL. We find says Coke a Discharge of further proceeding directed to the Judges of the Court c. not by way of pardoning the offence but by the King's acknowledgment under the Great Seal of the Parties Innocence with Commandment to the Judges that in the former proceedings they shall altogether surcease whereupon the Court will award that the Party shall go sine Die and that there shall be no further proceedings against him William de Melton Archbishop of York was accused in the King 's Bench coram Rege Concilio suo in Anno 3. Ed. 3. for adherency to Edmond Earl of Kent in his Treasons whereunto the Arch-Bishop pleaded Not Guilty and after two Writs of Venire Facias awarded the King directed his Writ under the Great Seal to the Judges of the King 's Bench to this effect Licet Venerabilis Pater Willielmus Archiepiscopus Ebor Stephanus London Episcopus per Diversa Brevia Nostra coram Nobis ad sect am Nastram Implacitentur de eo quod ipsi Edmundo Comiti Cantiae adhasisse debuerant quia tamen praedict Archiepiscopus Episcopus de adhaesione praedicta omnino Immunes reputamus Vobis Mandamus quod Platitis praedict is coram Nobis ulterius tenend omnino superfedeatis Teste meipso c. The Award of the Court hereupon is very observable Viz. Cujus Brevis praetextu consideratum est quod praedictus Archiepiscopus eat inde sine die c. ulterius non procedatur versus eum Stephen Gravesend Pasch 4. E. 3. Rol. 5.3 Bishop of London was charged with the same offence in Parliament A. 3. E. 3. whence by Order of Parliament he was referred to the King 's Bench to be tryed where he pleaded Not Guilty and after was discharg'd as the Arch-Bishop It may be thought that accepting the Pardon might be an implication of their sault and therefore it run in a new strain but no man that is well advis'd says the great Oracle of the Law will refuse God's or the King's Pardon for in the King's displeasure there is death says the Holy Writ and who knows how often he offends and consequently stands in need of it But how far this Branch of the Prerogative may be extended and what qualifications it may admit belongs not to a private man to determine QUERY XIII Whether a Person can be Attainted of High-Treason by general words SOL. Where by due course of Law a man cannot be Attainted of High-Treason unless the Law fore-judge

reason alledged by some how truly let others judge is forasmuch as Archbishops and Bishops cannot pass in like cases upon the tryal of any other of the Peers their Lordships being prohibited by the Common and Ecclesiastical Laws to be Judges of Life and Death and this Tryal ought to be Mutual since the performance of it is upon their Honours without any Oath taken And hone by the way your Lordships may take notice how great regard the Law hath to the word of a Peer when spoken upon his Honour I need say no more upon this Topick I since your Lordships in that Excellent Poem A PARADOX against Liberty have exprest your thoughts so extremely well No Temporal Lord but only Lords of Parliament shall have this kind of Tryal and therefore the Eldest Son and Heir Apparent of a Duke in the life of his Father though he be called an Earl is excluded And this was the Case of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey Son and Heir Apparent of Thomas Duke of Suffolk in the 38. of H. 8. Likewise the Son and Heir Apparent of an Earl though he be called Lord or Baron and all the younger Sons of Kings are Earls by Birth though they have no other Creation yet shall they not be partakers of this or other Priviledges incident to the Lords of Parliament Those that are Barons of Ireland of Scotland Cok. Litt. 16. b. 3 Inst f. 30. 2 Inst f. 48. committing Treason c. in England shall not have their Tryal by Peers though they were born in England for they receive their Dignity from a King of their Nations If a Duke or other Noble man of France Spain Co. L. 7. Calvin's Case c. comes into England by the King 's safe Conduct in which the King stiles him Duke according to his Creation nevertheless in all proceedings in the King's Courts he shall not be stiled by his Name of Dignity much less a partaker of the Priviledge of this Tryal by Peers But if the King of England at this day create one of his Subjects of Scotland to be Viscount within England or by ordinary Summons under his Great Seal call him to the Upper House of Parliament and assign him a Place and to Vote there in his Great Council he shall be thereby a Peer of this Realm and enjoy all their Priviledges QUERY IV. What Witnesses are required in Indictments and Tryals of Treason or misprision of Treason SOL. By the Ancient Common Law one Witness or Accuser was not sufficient to Convict any person of High-Treason for in that case it was to be tryed before the Constable and Marshal by Combat but they have no Jurisdiction to hold Plea of any thing which may be determined by Common Law And that two Witnesses are requisite appears by the Books of Law and the Common Law herein is grounded upon the Law of God Mirr cap. 3. Ordin de Attaint Brad. L. 5. f. 354. 48 Ed. 3.30 35 H. 6.46 Fortescue c. 32. expressed both in the Old and New Testament Deut. 17. v. 6. Numb 35. v. 30. Deut. 19. v. 15. Matth. 18. v. 16. 2 Cor. 13. v. 1. and this seemeth more clear in the Tryal by Peers because they come not de aliquo Vicineto whereby they may take notice of the Fact in respect of Vicinity as other Jurors may do By the Stat. of 1 E. 6. c. 12. none shall be Indicted Arraigned Condemned or Convicted for any Treason c. for which the Offender shall suffer pains of Death Imprisonment loss or forfeiture of his Goods Chattels Lands or Tenements unless he be accused by two sufficient and lawful Witnesses or shall willingly without violence confess the Fact The same provision is made by 5 E. 6. wherein I must observe to your Lordships that two lawful Accusers in this Act are taken for two lawful Witnesses for by two lawful Accusers and accused by two lawful Witnesses as 't is in 1 E. 6. are Identical which word Accusers was used because two Witnesses ought directly to accuse that is charge the Prisoner for the Common Law respects none else and therefore lawful Accusers must be such as are allowed by Laws And thus 't was resolved by the Justices in the Case of the Lord Lumley Hill 14. El. for if they should not be taken according to the meaning aforesaid then there must be two Accusers by 5 E. 6. and two Witnesses Dyer f. 99. W. Thomas his Case by 1 E. 6. and the strange conceipt in 2 Mar. that one may be an Accuser by Hear-say was utterly denied in the Lord Lumley's Case And here since your Lordships did not make it a Query I shall not so strictly consider it whether the Testimony of a Forreigner may be admitted in case of Treason The Duke of Norfolk at his Arraignment said that nothing which was yet produced was of any moment against him save only the Bishop of Ross his Testimony and that by Opinion of Bracton was not to be admitted because he was a Forreigner to which Callin Lord Chief Justice answer'd that in such Causes as this the Testimony of Forreigners is of force and it lies in the Peers to attribute to Camb. El. A. 1572. or derogate from such Testimony as they shall think fit Where Bract. saith that an Alien born cannot be a Witness it is to be understood of an Alien Infidel for the Bishop of Ross being a Scot born was admitted to be a Witness and sworn 14 El. by Opinion of all the Justices Assistants If a person be accused by one Witness touching one fact and by another concerning another fact the one committed in Middlesex the other in Surrey he that swears the fact done in London joyned to the other Witness that swears to the fact done in Surrey shall be esteemed two sufficient Witnesses in case of Treason and so was it ruled by the Judges at the Old-Baily upon the Tryal of the Five Jesuits whitebread Harcourt Turner Fenwick and Gaven according to the Resolution in Sir H. Vane's Case at the King's-B Bar where one Witness prov'd the levying War in one County and the other prov'd the levying War in another County and so though they were but single Witnesses of single facts yet both coming up to the Indictment they were adjudged two sufficient Witnesses to maintain it QUERY V. Whether a Noble-man being Arraigned own challenge his Peers SOL. If the party an aigned says Coke be a Lord of Parliament and a Peer of the Realm and is to be tryed by his Peers he shall not challenge any of them for they are not sworn as other Jurors be but find the party guilty or not guilty upon their Paith or Allegiance to the King Cok 's Litt. 156. b. and they are Judges of the fact and every of them doth separately give his judgment beginning at the lowest Again Cok 's Litt. 294. a. he tells us that the four Knights Electors of the Grand Assize are not

the offence such he ought not to be Attainted by general words by Authority of Parliament as sometime hath been used but the Treason ought to be specially expressed seeing that the Court of Parliament is the Highest and most Honourable Court of Justice and ought to give Example to the Inferiour Magis Exemplis quam praeceptis ducimur QUERY XIV Whether a Subject of one Kingdom guilty of Treason flying into another Kingdom ought to be remitted to his own Soveraign SOL. It is holden and so it hath been resolved that divided Kingdoms under several Kings in League one with another are Sanctuaries for Servants or Subjects flying for safety and upon demand are not by the Laws and Liberties of Kingdoms to be delivered And this Opinion seems grounded upon the Law in Dout. c. 23. v. 15. Thou shalt not deliver unto his Master the Servant which is escaped from his Master unto thee When the Lord Paget and Arundel came into France Sir Edward Stafford Camb. El. 1584. Queen Eliz. Ambassadour there diligently observed them yet could by no means discover what they attempted he desir'd nevertheless of the French King that they with Morgan and other English who were practising against their Prince and Country might be removed out of France To which he received this answer That if they attempted any thing in France the King would punish them according to Law That all Kingdoms were free for Fugitives and that it was the great concernment of Kings to maintain every one the Priviledges of his own Kingdom That Queen Eliz had not long since received into her Kingdom Montgomery the Prince of Conde and others of the French Nation and that Sagury the King of Navarr's Embassadour was in England at this very time practising to move new troubles against the French King King H. 8. in the 28th year of his Reign being in League with the French King and in Enmity with the Pope who was in League likewise with France and had sent Cardinal Poole Embassadour to the French King of whom K. H. 8. demanded the said Cardinal being his Subject and Attainted of Treason and to that end caused a Treatise to be publisht that it ought to be done Jure Gentium sed non praevaluit Ferdinando King of Spain upon request made by H. 7. to have Edmond de la Poole Earl of Suffolk Attainted of High-Treason by Parliament A. 19. H. 7. at first intending to observe the Priviledge and Liberty of Kings in protecting such as came to him for succour and protection delivered him not yet in the end upon the earnest request of the King and his promise not to put him to death he caused the said Earl to be delivered up to the King who kept him in Prison and construing his promise to be but personal commanded his Son Henry after his death to execute him which he caused to be done in the fifth year of his Reign I shall add one more Example of a Remission out of Zouch Treat de Judicio inter Gentes Cum quidam Seywardus Scotus qui Mariam Scotorum Reginam veneno tollere conatus est in Anglia deprehenderetur Ed. Sextus Rex Angliae eum in manus Regis Galliae tradidit ut debito supplicio Remitteretur quod Nonnullis displicuit quia etsi ratio suadeat ut qui in Patria deliquit in Patria Puniatur aliter tamen de consuetudine quod Remissionem usurpatum est Having now run thorough the several Query's which your Lordships have thought fit to propose I Shall venture to set one step further and start Another of my Own with some Offers toward the Solution of which I will make an end Viz. QUERY XV. Whether in any Case it be Lawful for Subjects to Oppose their Prince SOL. It must be resolv'd in the Negative And that in any Case or upon any Pretence whatsoever it is utterly unlawful for Subjects joyntly or singly collectively or representatively to make any violent Opposition against their Soveraign or to Resist him either in an Offensive or a desensive way This Assertion you will find to be a Truth that is Consonant to Holy Writ Reverend Antiquity Sound Reason and to the Municipal Laws of the Land all the Sophistries and Argumentations that Seditious and corrupted men are able to produce to the contrary notwithstanding I. To begin with Holy Scripture It is clear from Deut. o. 17. v. 12. which commands the Israelites to put away evil from amongst them by bringing to Publique Justice all such Mutinous and Presumptious persons as refus'd to Obey the High Priest and the Judge that God imposed an Obligation even upon his own People not to Resist the Supreme Magistrate And v. 13. makes the Reason of this Severity to be to preserve the People from being Poyson'd in then Allegiance by the Malignity of such Examples That all the People under what Notion or Qualification soever may Hear and fear and do no more presumptuously The same express Warrant of the Word and to the self-same purpose there is in Joshua C. 1. v. 18. Whosoever he be says the Almighty speaking to him that doth rebel against thy Commandment and will not harken to thy words in all that thou commandest him he shall be put to death Saul is generally condemned for persecuting David and attempting upon his Life And yet though David had him twice at his mercy he was not to be prevail'd upon to do him any Harm 1 Sam c. 24. v. 6. and C. 26. v. 11. For who says he can lay his hand upon who can touch who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be Guilvless Now the Signification of the Scripture phrase Touch or stretch forth the hand against the Lords Anointed is of a Large Extent And the Guilt of this Horrid Crime may be incurr'd either by lifting up our heels in scorn against our King Psal 41. v 9. By taking up Arms in our own defence for whosoever Resisteth the Power Resisteth the Ordinance of God Rom. 13. By not bringing to light such Traiterous Conspiracies as we know to be forming against him Lev. 5. By not endeavouring to defend him when we see him in danger for Qui non vetat peccare cum possit jubet By striking at his Crown usurping upon his Prerogative or depriving him of his Revenue Jer. 18. v. 18 By Speaking or even Thinking evil of him for as the Tongue can strike without a Hand so the Heart can curse without a Tongue Or in a Word by any sort of indignity or out-rage offer'd either to his Authority or Person But to proceed Doth not Saint Paul enjoyn that every Soul be Subject to the Higher Powers for there is no Power but of God and they that Resist shall receive to themselves Damnation Nay and doth not Saint Peter also inculcate a Patient Toleration of injuries 1 Pet. 2. v. 19.20 21 22. and recommend unto our imitation the Example of