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
A88156	An anatomy of the Lords tyranny and iniustice exercised upon Lieu. Col. Iohn Lilburne, now a prisoner in the Tower of London. Delivered in a speech by him, Novem. 6. 1646. before the honorable Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to consider of the priviledges of the commons of England: the originall copy of which, he in obedience to the order and command of the said Committee, delivered in writing to the hands of Col. Henry Martin, chairm-man of the said Committee: Nov. 9. 1646 and now published to the view of all the commons of England, for their information, & knowledge of their liberties and priviledges.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1646 (1646)	Wing L2080; Thomason E362_6; ESTC R201211	18,985	23

Iune 1646. and the Charge not brought in till the 10. of Iuly 1646 which is a most illegall and unjust thing in any Court whatsoever 2. I beseech you observe that almost all and the principall things layd to my charge are pretended crimes committed not before my being brought to their barre to answer a Charge but afterwards namely in the time of an unjust and provokeing imprisonment and therefore a great injustice it is as any can be in the world to force a man to dance attendance at their Barre to answer a Charge before they have filed one against him or have so much as the pretence of a crime to lay to his charge and then arbitrarily and illegally to commit a man to a tyrannicall imprisonment there by extraordinary provocations to necessitate and force a man as it were to commit slips and fallings that thereby they may pick a hole in his coate because they had none before and then fall upon him and destroy him and this in every particuler hath been the Lords dealing with me which I humbly conceive to be the height of tyranny and injustice Now Mr. Martin I humbly intreate you to read the sentence for upon the 10. Iuly there issued out an order to bring me up againe to their barre the next day to heare my Charge read which was accordingly put in execution Now Sir you having read the sentence I shall humbly crave leave first to make some observations upon it and then secondly to go on methodically with the matter of fact And first I beseech you observe that the 10. Iune 1646. I was summoned to attend their Lordships in their House and the 11. Iune 1646. I there appeared and was then committed by them to Newgate the 16. of the same moneth I appealed to the Right Honourable the House of Commons as my legall and proper Iudges who accepted read approved and committed my appeale to a speciall Committee and yet notwithstanding the 22. of the same moneth the Lords command the Keeper of Newgate to bring me up to their barre and there upon the 23. day I was committed close prisonet to Newgate till the 10. Iuly 1646. at which time my Charge was brought into the Lords House and not before which was a moneth after the first processe or warrant issued out for me All which proceedings besides their not having any legall Iudicature at all over mee are erroneous and illegall and principally in these two points First because I was summoned before any Charge was recorded which proceedings are point blanke against the expresse Statutes of 9. H. 3. 29. 5. E. 3. 9. 25. E. 3. 4. 28. E. 3. 3. which expresly say that none shall be imprisoned nor put out of his free hold nor of his franchises nor free customs unlesse it be by the law of the Land which is that none shall be taken by Petition or suggestion made to our Lord the King or to his Councel unlesse it be by inditement or presentment of his good and lawfull people of the same neighbourhood where such deeds be done in due manner or by processe made by Writ originall at the common law c. which Statutes are confirmed by the petition of Right and by the Statute for abolishing the Star-Chamber made this present Parliament And indeed regularly both in law and equity the Declaration or bill ought to be filed or recorded before any writ or processe ought to issue against the defendant or party accused either in civill or criminall causes and the write warrant or processe ought to containe the matter of the declaration bill or petition and this appeares cleerly in every writ as the learned in the law informe me set forth by the Register and Fitzherberts natura brevium and that every English bill either in Chancery Exchequer or Star-Chamber doth pray that processe of sub-pena be awarded against the defendant which proves that processe orders or Warrants ought not to be awarded or granted against any man out of any Court of Justice whatever till his charge be recorded against him in the same Court and sutable to this is your own doctrine in your own Declarations Booke Decl. page 38 39 278 845. Secondly I beseech you observe that all the Lords proceedings with me after my appeale to the honourable house of Commons are void in Law because by my appeale to the proper Jurisdiction which is only your House the Lords are outed of their Jurisdiction or conusans of the plea the cause being removed by the Appeale their judgment was thereby determined or at least suspended being but the effect of the cause before them till such time as the Appeal is determined the Appeal being a supersedas to the Lords further proceeding in the same cause and they ought not to have proceeded any further at all but to give them as much as by any just colour or claime they can challenge they ought not any further to have gone on without the privity licence and direction of the honourable house of Commons and therefore all their proceedings with me especially since my Appeal to your honourable house are coram non judice and therefore void and erroneous And I further conceive under favour that the Lords proceedings with me after your House had accepted of my Appeal is as great an affront and indignity offered to the majesty honour and greatnesse of your house the absolute supream derivative power of all the Commons of England the original and absolute fountain of all power therein as their proceedings are unjust towards me destructive to the lawes and liberties of England Again I beseech you observe that in their Articles the originall and chief supposed crime that they charge me with is for scandalizing the Earl of Manchester a Peer as they call him of the Kingdome Now may it please you to take notice that I say if his conscience had not been guilty told him that it was possible I might justly and groundedly have proved much more against him then I lay to his charge in my printed Epistle to Judge Reeve c. hee would never have shunned and avoided the known law of the Kingdome which sufficiently proves a remedy for him in case I had scandalized him as appeares by the statutes of 3. E. 1 33. 27. E. 3. ●8 38. E. 3. 9. 42 E. 3. 3. 2 R. 2. 5. 12. R. 2. 11 17. R. 2. 16. which expresly command that if any man scandalize any of the great men of the kingdome he shall be taken and kept in custody or put in security till he prove what he saith and in case he cannot then he shall incur the same pain that the other should have had if he were attainted and that processe of the law be made against them without being taken and imprisoned against the great Charter and other statutes but his leaving the common common and just road of the kingdom that sufficiently provides for his reparation if innocent argues his knowledge

humbly beseech and most earnestly intreat you not to delay me in my report to your House but to do it speedily for me that so I may know what to trust to and may not by you from whom I may justly seek Justice as my right and due and not as a boon be delayed any longer having bin already long enough delayed it being almost five moneths since I first made my Appeal unto you For truly I must plainly and ingenuously tell you went not the lacombes of strength and assistance from God the more my condition would be insupportable and not any longer with patience to be stoop't unto by me for it cannot but be known to divers of you that for almost this ten yeares together I have never been free from the lashes and destroyings of the Grand Prerogative-men of this kingdome that have ruled and governed by no other law then that of their own will and yet to this day never received a penny by way of reparation for all the wrongs and injuries that I from them have sustained although I have spent divers hundreds of of pounds in indeavouring the procurement of it and my reparations for my sufferings at the hands of the Star-Chamber Judges sticks in your house at this very day which I humbly intreat this honourable Committee when this my businesse is reported to the house to put them in mind of and besides my late extraordinary expences and my shortnesse of pay for my faithfull and successfull service with my grand adversary the Earle of Manchester and the present extraordinary chargeablenesse of my imprisonment in the Tower c. renders my condition an extraordinary object of your present reliefe For although I have not paid all the great summes demanded as fees in that place yet because I have found civility and humanity from my Keeper for my own accommodation and ease-sake I have weekly been I think very liberall unto him I am sure beyond my present ability besides the charge of my own diet and family c. which I hope that when your Honorable House hath adjudged my cause which I am confident according to law cannot goe amisse with me and thereby given me ground to present them with my bill of charges they will not onely cause the Lords to pay it me again but also ample reparations for my hard and unjust sufferings without which although you evacuate the sentence and set my person at liberty I shall think that I scarce have justice to the half having but meerly the shell without the kirnell But if the greatnesse of the Lords by reason of the distractions of the present times shal stick in my way as an hinderance therof give me leave humbly to tell you that the Commons of England are bound by you in a Protestation to maintain their liberties and to stand to all those that defend them yea and to bring those that endeavour their destruction to condigne punishment In which regard I am resolved by the strength of God in a just and legal way with all earnestnesse to desire through City and Countrey the joynt assistance of all in England that are not willing to be slaves to joyn with mee in a grand petition to your House for the obtaining of my just and honest desires against the Lords And truly Sir I must venture life and all that I have upon it For can it appeare just to you that the Lords should cry out against the King their Lord and Master for injustice and cruelty yea and draw their swords against him and yet be more unjust themselves As to goe no further then my very case for sure I am it was the Kings constant custome to provide diet lodging and pay the fees of all those he committed to the Tower but the Lords for no cause in law at all have committed me thither and put me upon it to pay all the vast extravagancies there for fees c. yea and that for tormenting and destroying me Surely Sir they will never be so unjust but when they know it is demanded as a just and legall right but largely in good currant coyn to repay me the which if they be so unjust as to refuse I hope you will be so just and true to your trust according to that sufficient power and authority that is in you to compell them And Sir I humbly crave reparations from all their instruments that with and upon me have out-stript the bounds of the Law in executing their meere malicious wills upon me And under facour I am very confident the Lieutenant of the Tower will bee found guilty in this particular which I have the more ground to presse upon him then the Jaylors of Newgate For to bee hardly and inhumanly dealt withall from such bloody men as they are commonly reported to be is no wonder but to receive the like measure nay and worse from the hands of Col. Francis West my fellow-citizen who out-stript his orders a man who hath been in the field with his sword in his hand pretending to adventure his life for the preservation of the lawes and liberties of England is that that amazeth me that he should so farre forget himselfe as so furiously to fall upon me to torment undoe and destroy me for no other cause but for being true to my principles and the generall and publick interest of the Kingdome in standing for the Lawes and Liberties thereof against those that would destroy them and which action renders him to me to be one of the unworthiest of the sonnes of men especially of those that would bee reputed to have the principles of an honest man in him Now Sir to conclude all having sufficiently intrenched upon your patience I make my most humble sute unto this honourable Committee That when you make my Report unto the house seeing as you tell me you are principally to report matter of Fact not matter of law in point of the Lords Jurisdiction by means of which it may be in your house many Objections may be raised against me for my carriage and expressions before the Lords I therefore humbly intreat you to acquaint the house That it is my most humble desire unto them that seeing this businesse is of so great concernment not only to me but also to your selves yea and to the whole Kingdome that I may have that honour and justice to be called to their Bar and there have a faire open and publique hearing according to Law and Justice and I doubt not but by my self singly by law and unquestionable authority against all the Procters the Lords can fee in England to plead for them to make it cleer as the Sun that shines at Noon-day that the Lords have no jurisdiction at all over me in the case now in controversie betwixt us and that my carriage and expressions before them was but the cordiall demonstrations of a sound and single-harted man who knowes himself bound in duty and conscience to God himself and

his country to the utmost of my endeavours to defend and maintain his Rights and Liberties which is as justifiable by the Law of this Kingdome and in the eyes of all understanding men as for a true and just man to draw his sword and to cut a Theefe or Rogue that sets upon him upon the high-way on purpose to rob him of his life and goods And if after such a hearing before your honourable house it shall appear to their judgments and understandings that I have wronged the Lords in generall or the Earl of Manchester or Col. King in particular which two are the principall causes of all my present trouble and against whom are two Grand charges in your house as I judge them of no lesse then high treason commitmitted against the Kingdom which as I humbly conceive the justice of the Kingdom requires should come to a finall determination I shall with all willingnesse and cheerfulnesse submit to what punishment shall be just for them to inflict upon me and I hope that by this faire offer you will be provoked with the strength of resolution to deal impartially betwixt the Lords and me without fear punish those where the just fault is especially considering that you in your most excellent Declaration of the 17. April 1646 published by you to the view of the whole kingdome have solemnly declared That you will preserve the Rights and Liberties of the people and abolish the exercise of arbitrary power and so provide for the safety and weal of the people which is as you say the end of the primitive institution of all government And therefore in the behalf of my self and all the Commons of England I most humbly beseech and entreat his thonourable Committee to improve all the interest you have in the house of Commons to make good unto us this their own just and honest Declaration I beseech you heare me but one word more which I intreat you well to observe that the Lords have joyned with you in severall Declarations in which the Kings Oath is printed which I read in the Book Decl. pag. 268.713.714 where you and they declare positively and back it with many strong arguments That the King by his Coronation-Oath is bound to passe such lawes as his people shall chuse and if so then he hath no power in him to give a law unto the people or impose a law upon them much lesse can hee give a power to the Lords his meer creatures made by his will pleasure for them to oppose or give a Law unto the people and I am sure if they have a legislative power in them to do what they please and so by the authority of that presumed to do with mee as they did I am sure by the established Law of the Kingdom they have no power at all not in the least to do with me as they have done And therefore I humbly entreat you to presse home unto your House the Lords usurpations and incroachments upon our common rights that so they may effectually curbe them as in Justice they ought For Sir that which addes sorrow to all my sorrowes is this that I suffer all these inhumanities and illegall usages during the time of the sitting of a free Parliament and yet can have no effectuall redresse in five moneths time though earnestly sought for Alas Sir the Parliament is the English-mans legall last refuge and if that faile us to speak as men we are undone unlesse God set his power at work to work miracles and raise up meanes for our preservation And Sir if the Lords dare thus tyrannize over the free Commons of England in time of Parliament that used to be the fear and dread of Offendors what is it that they will not do unto us out of a Parliament Therefore again I most earnestly beseech this honourable Committee to remember them and improve all your interest to punish or at least effectually to curbe them for which as well as for your present patience in hearing me so largely I shall both now as well as formerly remain oblieged to improve my best and utmost ability for the preservation of the just supreame interest power and authority of your honourable House Esa 48.10 Behold I have refined thee but not with silver I have chosen thee in the fulnesse of affliction Job 23.10 When he hath tryed me I shall come forth as gold Novemb. the 9. 1646. JOHN LILBURN Reader thou art requested to take notice of two faults committed in the printing of this Booke the first in page 2. line 1. left out and also what passed betwixt my L. Wharton and my self the 2. in p. 5. l. 26. where thou shalt find these words a Commitment lawful viz. to be in the 28. line which ought to be placed at the end of the 26. line as thou mayst easily perceive For other faults if thou meet with any impute them not unto the Authour who could not be at the correcting hereof but in love to him amend them Vale. FJNJS

of his owne guilt or else he would never have betaken himself to an extraordinary meanes and especially in such a place where himself is chiefe Judge in his own cause and there against me by a kind of a legislative and unlimitted power of Judicature which is not in them especially singly neither can they take them in the highest capacity that ever law estated them in proceed to determine any thing out of the way of the known and established lawes by any arbitrary or discretionary Rules when there is a known law in the case And I am sure it is a received Maxime in law That where remedy may be had by an ordinary course in Law the party grieved shall never have his recourse to extraordinaries And Sir under favour to speak truly the Parliament properly are not nor ought not to meddle with causes betwixt party party that are decideable at common-law they being the supream Judicature of the Kingdome and the last refuge to appeale to by the people in case of injustice else-where and so may properly be called Judge of Judges rather then Judge of particular parties and causes My last observation upon the sentence that I shall humbly entreat you to take notice of is this That although by the 14 Chap. of Magna Charta it is declared that a free-man shall not be amer●ed or fined for a small fault but after the manner of the fault and for a great fault after the greatnesse thereof saving to him his contenement or countenance and a merchant likewise saving to him his Merchandize And any other villain then the Kings shall be likewise amerced saving his wainage or teame and none of the said amerciaments shall be assessed but by the oath of honest and lawfull men of the vicinage But I beseech you observe the Lords had no oath of any honest man what ever against me nor one word of my own confession of any guiltinesse of any crime whatsoever but a constant resolution manifested to maintain the lawes and liberties of the kingdome against their usurpations for which just honest and legall action and for no other they unrighteously unjustly and barbarously sentenced me not saving to me my contenement or countenance or leaving me some reasonable proportion after their Fines or Amercement to live upon in the quality or condition I had done before but they amerced or find me at four thousand pounds which is divers thousands of pounds more then either I am worth or ever was in my life Now I beseech this honourable Committee to observe that by this sentence the unrighteous cruell Lords have done as much as in them lyes every hour of time to put me into such a condition that I shall be liable to have all the estate that I have in the world taken from me to satisfie this unjust Fine and so leave nothing for me my wife and small children to live upon nay and that which is worse then all this the greatnesse of the Fine is much more then I can satisfie So that in case all that little that I have should be seized upon yet there is such abundance would remain behind which would rob me of all credit whatsoever for who will be so unwise as to lend a man money that is thousands of pounds worse then nothing which is my case by this Fine But yet this is not at all for they commit me for 7. years the age of a man in the eye of the Law a prisoner to the extraordinary chargeable Prison of the Tower where I cannot earn one penny nor it being no through-fare for me to beg a penny to live upon Now Sir laying all these things together I beseech you consider whether in the intention of the Lords I be not exposed to miseries and torments worse then death it selfe for either by their intentions I must perish by hunger and famine or else be forced to eat my wife and children or any other that I can over-come and what is this but the height of tyranny and cruelty and a torment worse then any death in the world for saith Jerem. in his Lamentations Better is he that dyes by the sword then he that dyes by famine and he gives the reason because there is a speedy end of the pain of him that dyes by the sword but he that dyes by hunger and famine pines away and is in a continuall torment alwayes dying and wishing and longing for death And undoubtedly Sir this is my condition by the intention of the Lords Now Sir having with your patience made these obseruations I humbly desire to goe on with the matter of fact Which is that upon the tenth of July when Serjeant Finch brought in my Charge into the House of Peeres they that day made an Order to command the Sheriffs of London the next day to bring me up to their Bar to hear my Charge The copy of which warrant I have not in regard the Sheriffe contrary to law refused to give it me although I sent to him to desire it and I having formerly told the Jaylors of Newgate I could not nor would not go up to the Lords Bar by vertue of their own Warrāt without a forcible compulsion The Sheriffes sent about 30. or 40. of the attenders upon the Hangman when he goes to doe execution at Tiburn to carry me up to the Lords Bar. And being in the Painted chamber I desired Mr. Brisco one of my Keepers and Tormenters to to goe and tell the Lords from me that seeing they had the impudency and boldnesse to tread the Lawes and Liberties of England under their feet and did so contemne and under-value the authority of the Honorable House of Commons to whom I had appealed as yet to goe on in their illegall courses with mee with whom by Law they had nothing to doe I must bee forced in the highest nature I could to contemne and despise their proceedings and therefore was resolved not to come to their Bar without a forcible compulsion and to come in with my hat upon my head and to stop my eares when they read my Charge in detestation and bearing witnesse against their usurpations and injustice So away hee went But I was compeld in and being brought up to the Bar I was commanded to kneele which I absolutely refused And then my Lord of Manchester my grand adversary who hath for these two or three yeares thirsted after my blood for no other crime but that I was faithfull and active in executing the trust reposed in me for the good of the Parliament and Kingdom he I say as speaker of the House of Lords commanded the Clerk to read me my Charge which he began to do At which I stopped my eares with my fingers till such time as I perceived the Clerks lips to leave moving Wherupon I was commanded to with-draw and after some distance of time I was called in again and was again commanded to kneele but I told them My Lords