Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	assent_n	king_n	royal_a	3,228	5	8.0365	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A34178	The Compleat statesman demonstrated in the life, actions, and politicks of that great minister of state, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury : containing an account of his descent, his administration of affairs in the time of Oliver Cromwell, his unwearied endeavours to restore His Most Sacred Majesty, his zeal in prosecuting the horrid Popish Plot, several of his learned speeches during his being Ld. Chancellor, his two commitments to the Tower, the most material passages at his tryal, with many more considerable instances unto His Lordships going for Holland.	Dunton, John, 1659-1733.	1683 (1683)	Wing C5658; ESTC R35656	48,139	160

Si●… John Duncomb In the Afternoon of the same day the Earl of Shaftesbury was visited by Prince Rupert with divers other great Lords at Exeter House where they gave his Lordship Thanks for his Faithful and Honourable Discharge of that great Employment Thus this mighty Minister who had to the universal satisfaction of all good Men been raised to that degree of Interest in his Masters favour without a murmur laid all his Honours at his Masters Feet and was observed not to abate of the chearfulness of his Temper upon the loss of his honorary Employment I shall conclude this part with a touch of this Earl's Character which saith His choice Sagacity Strait solv'd the Knot that subtle Lawyers tied And through all Foggs discern'd th' oppressed side Banish'd delays so this noble Peer Became a Star of Honor in our Sphere A needful Atlas of our State c. The 16th of Feb. 1676. The Honourable Earl of Shaftesbury was sent a Prisoner to the Tower by Order of the House of Lords There were at the same time committed the E. of Salisbury and the L. Wharton The Form of the Warrant for their Commitment was as followeth Ordered by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled That the Constable of His Majesties Tower of London His Deputy or Deputies shall receive the Bodies of James Earl of Salisbury Anthony Earl of Shaftesbury and Philip Lord Wharton Members of this House and keep them in safe Custody within the said Tower during His Majesties pleasure and the pleasure of this House for their High Contempts Committed against this House And this shall be sufficient Warrant on that behalf To the Constable of the Tower J. Browne Cler. Par. The 27th and 29th of Jan. 1677. The E. of Shaftesbury was brought to the King's-Bench-Bar upon the Return of an Alias Habeas Corpus directed to the Constable of the Tower where the Council for the Earl prayed that the Return might be filed and the Friday following appointed for Debating the sufficiency of the Return and my Lord was remanded until that day On Friday the Earl was brought into Court again and his Council argued the Insufficiency of the Return After Mr. Williams Mr. Wallop Mr. Smith had shewed divers weighty Reasons in behalf of the Earl that that Court might relieve him they were opposed by the Solicitor General and the Attorney General who brought divers Instances why that Court could not discharge a person Committed by Parliament whereupon the Earl of Shaftesbury is said to have spoke to this purpose My Lords I did not intend to have spoken one word in this business but something hath been objected and laid to my Charge by the King's Council Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor that enforceth me to say something for your better satisfaction They have told you that my Council in their Arguments said That this Court was greater than the House of Peers which I dare to Appeal to your Lordships and the whole Court that it was never spoken by them I am sure it was not by any direction of mine What is done by my Council and by me is that this is the most proper Court to resort unto where the Liberty of the Subject is concerned The Lord's House is the Supream House of Judicature in the Kingdom but yet there is a Jurisdiction that the Lord's House does not meddle with The King's Council hath mentioned as a wonder that a Member of the Lord's House should come hither to diminish the Jurisdiction of the Lords I acknowledge them to be Superiour to this or any other Court to whom all Appeals and Writs of Errour are brought and yet there are Jurisdictions that they do not Challenge and which are not natural to them or proper for them They claim not to meddle in Original Causes and so I might mention in other things and I do not think it a kindness to any Power or Body of Men to give them some Power that is not natural or proper to their Constitutions I do not think it a kindness to the Lords to make them Absolute and above the Law for so I humbly conceive this must do if it be adjudged that they by a General Warrant or without any particular Cause Assigned do Commit me or any other man to a perpetual and indefinite Imprisonment And my Lords I am not so inconsiderable a person but what you do in my Case must be Law for every man in England Mr. Attorney is pleased to say I am a Member of the Lord's House and to lay weight on the word Member It is true I am one of them and no man hath a greater Reverence or Esteem for the Lords than my self but my Lords I hope my being a Peer or a Member of either House shall not lose my Priviledge of being an English man or make me to have less Title to Magna Charta or the other Laws of English Liberty My Opinion is not with one of my Council who argued very learnedly that the Passing an Act by the King 's Royal Assent can make a Session because the usual promise was not in it It was without any Instruction of mine to mention that point The King's Council tells your Lordships of the Laws and Customs of Parliament and if this were so I should submit but this Case of mine is primae Impressionis and is a new way such as neither Mr. Attorney nor Mr. Solicitor can shew any President of and I have no other Remedy or place to Apply to than the way I take Mr. Attorney confesseth that the King's pleasure may Release me without the Lords If so this Court is Coram Rege this Court is the proper place to determine the King's pleasure This Court will and ought to Judge of an Act of Parliament void if it be against Magna Charta much more may Judge an Order of the House that is put in Execution to deprive any Subject of his Liberty And if this Order or Commitment be a Judgment as the King's Council affirms then it is out of the Lords hands and properly before your Lordships as much as the Acts which were lately Passed which I presume you will not refuse to Judge of notwithstanding that the King's Atorney General saith this Parliament is still in being I take it something ill that Mr. Attorney tells me I might have Applied elsewhere My Lord I have not omitted what became my Duty toward the King for besides the Oath of Allegiance I took as a Peer or an English man there is something in my Breast that will never suffer me to depart from the Duty and Respect that I owe him but I am here before him he is alwaies supposed to be here present and he alloweth his Subjects the Law My Lord They speak much of the Custom of Parliament but I do affirm there is no Custom of Parliament that ever their Members were put out of their own Power and the Inconveniencies of it will be endless Mr.

to the Tryal of the said Earl and shall therefore now hasten to the Meeting of the Parliament at Oxford where Business of as high nature was agitated as ever came before the consideration of a Parliament no less than the preservation of the King's Majesty the Protestant Religion and the good people of England all which were now as much as ever Invaded by the Bloody Designs of the Papists This Parliament met the 21th of March 1681. in the Convocation-House at Oxford The House of Lords Sare in the Geometry School where was a Throne and State Erected for His Majesty in which His Majesty being Seated in His Royal Robes declared himself to both Houses to the Effect following That the unwarrantable Proceedings of the last House of Commons were the reason of his parting with them for that he who would never use Arbitrary Government himself would not suffer it in Others That whoever calmly considered the Assurances he had renewed to that last Parliament and what he had Recommended to them His Forein Alliances the Examination of the Plot and the Preservation of Tangier and reflect upon their unsuitable Returns might rather wonder at his Patience than that he grew weary of their Proceedings that it was his Interest and should be his Cause as much as Theirs to Preserve the Liberty of the Subject the Crown not being safe when that is in danger That by Calling this Parliament so soon he let them see that no Irregularities of Parliament should make him out of love with them by which means he gave them another opportunity to provide for the Publick Security and had given one Evidence more that he had not neglected his part That he hoped the ill Success of former Heats would dispose them to a better Temper That as for the further prosecution of the Plot Trial of the Lords c. he omitted to press them as being obvious to consideration and so necessary for the Publick Safety But desired them not to lay so much weight upon any One Expedient against Popery as to determine that all other were ineffectual That what he had so often declared touching the Succession he should not recede from But that to remove all reasonable fears that might arise touching the possibility of a ` Popish Successor if means could be found out that in such a case the Administration should remain in Protestant hands he should be ready to hearken to any such Expedient by which Religion might be secured and Monarchy not destroyed Lastly He advised them to make the known and Establisht Laws of the Land the Rule and Measure of their Votes The 22th the Commons having chosen their Speaker presented him to His Majesty in the Lords House Little beside was done until the 25. when the House considered an Act for Repeal of the Act 35 Eliz. which had passed both Houses in the last Parliament but had not been tendered to His Majesty for his Royal Assent A conference was desired with the Lords as to matters relating to the constitution of Parliaments in passing of Bills Another Message was ordered to be sent to the Lords to put them in mind that the Commons had form●…ly by their Speaker demanded Judgment of High Treason at their Bar against the Earl of Danby and therefore to desire their Lordships to appoint a day to give Judgment against him the said Earl upon the said Impeachment The same day the Examination of Edward Fitz-Harris relating to the popish Plot was read in the House upon which the said Examination was ordered to be Printed the said Fitz-Harris to be impeached at the Lords Bar and a Committee appointed to draw up Articles against him But the House of Lords rejected the Impeachment of Mr. Fitz-Harris whereby a stop was put to their proceedings And on the 28th in the morning the Commons were sent for to the House of Lords where His Majesty told them That their Beginnings had been such that he could expect no good success of this Parliament and therefore His Majesty thought fit to dissolve them And my Lord Chancellor having declared them dissolved His Majesty came the same night to White-Hall I must beg the Readers pardon if he think I have in this Relation deviated from my Theam which was the Earl of Shafton but nothing of a popish Plot hath been yet brought upon the stage wherein he hath not been level'd at he certainly knowing how destructive the Interest of the Papists is to the Government and People of England hath set himself to the hazard of his Life and Family to oppose them The next thing that appeared on the Booksellers stalls was a paper with this Title The Protestation of the Lords Upon rejecting the Impeachment of Mr. Fitz-Harris giving for Reasons why it was the undoubted Right of the Commons so to do because great Offences that influence the Parliament were most effectually determined in Parliament nor could the complaint be determined any where else For that if the party should be indicted in the Kings-Bench or any other inferiour Court for the same offence yet it were not the same suit an Impeachment being at the suit of the People but an Indictment at the suit of the King Besides that they conceived it to be a denial of Justice in regard that the House of Peers as to Impeachments proceeding by vertue of their Judicial not their Legislative Power could not deny any suitor but more especially the Commons of England no more than the Courts of Westminster or any other inferiour Courts could legally deny any suit or criminal cause regularly brought before them Signed according to the Printed Copy by the following Peers Monmouth Kent Huntingdon Bedford Salisbury Clare Stamford Sunderland Essex Shaftesbury Maclefield Mordant Wharton Paget Grey of Wark Herbert of Cherbury Cornwallis Lovelace Crew Finding the Earl of Shaftesburys Name amongst the other Noble Peers and Patriots I thought it not improper to insert the copy in this place it being the last Act of that great Man upon the publick stage For since that time he hath rather been passive as will further appear by the remaining Discourse We shall only remember that at his return from Oxford the Earl left a massy piece of Plate as a Gift to Baliol Colledg as also did that Heroick Prince James Duke of Monmouth which will be to posterity a Testimony of their Magnificence and Bounty And now to return to what remains for the finishing this Tragical story I shall mention only what is already printed either in Captain Wilkinson's Information Colledg's Trial or else is matter of Fact or set forth in the Trial of this great Peer himself Only I cannot omit that on the 15th of Aug. 1681. Mrs. Fitz-Harris gave a deposition upon Oath that her Husband a little before his Execution not only told her what great offers he had made him if he would at first have charged that Infamous and Treasonable Libel for which he was after executed on this worthy Peer

people have no claim of Property or Right in themselves or any thing else for he hath now declared that the peoples choice cannot give any man a Right to sit in Parliament but the Right must be derived from his gracious Will and Pleasure with that of his Councellors and his Clerks Ticket only must be their evidence for it Thus hath he exalted himself to a Throne like unto God's as if he were of himself and his power from himself and we were all made for him to be commanded and disposed of by him to work for him and serve his Pleasure and Ambition A little after there is an Instance of Chief-Justice Tresilian who was executed at Tyburn in the time of Richard the Second for advising the King that he might at any time dissolve the Parliament and command the Members to depart under the penalty of Treason Divers other Protestations were contained in that Instrument against the Arbitrariness and Tyranny of that proceeding and in conclusion they declare they will 〈◊〉 ●…t their complaints before the Lord against their powerful Oppressors hoping he will redeem his people out of the hands of wicked and deceitful Men. This protestation was signed by One hundred and seventeen persons whereof Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper the present Earl of Shaftesbury was one and many others of great Loyalty and Integrity some whereof are since dead and others still alive in great Honour and Office By this may be easily discerned the Opinion he had of the Illegal and Arbitrary proceedings of O. C. and how much of the sufferings of the Loyal Party would have been prevented had that point of a free Parliament been then gained His Majesties Restauration must have been the natural consequence of it The constant correspondence he always kept with the Royal Party and that almost to the hazard of his Life and Family are sufficient Testimonies of his sincerity to his Masters Interest and Service His House was a Sanctuary for distressed Royalists and his correspondence with the Kings Friends though closely managed as the necessities of those times required are not unknown to those that were the principal managers of His Majesties Affairs at that time This made that great Politician O. C. so apprehensive of this great Assertor of his Countries Rights and Opposer of Arbitrary Government and Enthusiasm that though his vast Abilities were known at least to equal the ablest Pilot of the State yet we cannot find him amongst the Creatures of his Cabinet or Council nor amongst the Eleven Major Generals to whom the Care of the Nation was committed No their Principles their Aims and Designs were incompatible one was for Subverting the other for Maintaining the Antient standing Fundamentals of the Nation which once dissolved it were impossible but an universal Deluge of Confusion Blood and Rapine must ensue This made our brave Patriot with divers of the Heroick English Race to the utmost oppose the growth of a Protectorian Power So that we find Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper accused before the Parliament in the year 1659. for keeping Intelligence with the King and for having provided a Force of Men in Dorsetshire to joyn with Sir George Booth in attempting to restore and bring His Majesty that now is to His Rightful Throne Many persons of great note were imprisoned on the account of this Plot and amongst the rest Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper who though at that time one of the Commissioners of the Army and a Member of the House of Commons yet was complained of to the Parliament for a great Manager of the Design and although no man knew better how to obviate the Reasons of the House and plead his own Cause yet was with great difficulty cleared and discharged of that Imputation by the House of Commons The Eyes of the great States-men were so much upon him that he was one of those Loyal Persons mentioned by Baker in his Chronicle whereof the Council of State was composed in which List we find General Monk to be the foremost and that Council the Chronologer calls men of Integrity and well affected to Kingly Government And he that will but consider how soon His Majesties Restauration ensued upon the Election of this Council will have good reason to be of the same Opinion And in the 673 page we find him to be one of the Nine of the Old Council of State who sent that encouraging Letter to the said General to promote his undertaking for the Advantage of the Three Nations Again we find him in the List of that Council of State consisting of Thirty Nine upon whom an Oath was endeavoured to be Imposed for the Abjuration of the Royal Line but by the Influence of Sir Anthony Ashly Cooper and General Monk upon Coll. Morly that Oath was opposed in Council as being a snare and against their Consciences This was strongly pleaded by the Soberer part of the Council whereof this great Patriot was one and so an end was put both to that Oath and to the Council Nor is it in the least unknown to persons then in being how much his Advice influenced the Councils of those times He was the person that was particularly singled out of the whole Council by Commissary Clargis in Novemb. 1659. and had communicated to him a dangerous Design tending to Involve the Nation in further trouble which this Honourable person imparted to the Council of State This-was that great Council that complied with General Monk in that great Revolution of Restoring His Majesty And if that great Action were the occasion of a candid construction put on all the former Actings of the General why they should not have the same Candour for this Noble person I think none can determine His Employment at this time was in places of the highest Trust and Importance an undeniable Testimony of the great Opinion the then great Mininers had of his Loyalty as well as known Ability for the Management of the then Intrieate and close Designs A further prospect will be taken of his Concurrence with Gen. Monk in that Important Juncture if we remember that his Regiment was one of the first that declared for the Parliament and General Monk in March 165●… So zealous was he in putting all his strength to the turning the great Wheel of State At the time of His Majesties Restauration as a most signal Testimony of His Majesties good Sentiments of his former Actions he was Advanced to be one of the first Rank in His Majesties most Honourable Privy Council and was placed above His Majesties Royal Brother the Duke of Gloucester and even Gen. Monk himself whom His Majesty used to call his Political Father And about three daies before His Majesties Coronation he was in the Banquetting-house created Baron Ashly of Wimbourn St. Giles's and another addition of Honour was conferred on him viz. Lord Cooper of Paulett And at last in the year 1672. he was made Earl of Shaftesbury at the same time when Duke Lauderdale