when he came down out of the Mount from his conference with him to be abated or lessened but shewed his care of it in the severe punishment of the gain-saying of Corah Dathan Abiram and their saying that Moses took too much upon him and is and ever hath been so essentiall very necessary to the preservation of Authority and Government and the Subjects and People under it as Saul when he had incurred the displeasure of God and his Prophet Samuel desired him not to dishonour him before the People And David when he heard how shamefully his Embassadours had been abused by the King of Ammon ordered them to stay at Jericho untill their beards were grown out The Romans who being at the first but Bubulci and Opiliones a rude Company oâ— Shepheards Herdsmen and were looked upon as such a base and rude Rabble as the Sabines their Neighbours scorned to marry or be allyed with them did afterwards in their growing greatness which like a torrent arising from a small assembly of waters did afterwards overrun and subdue the greatest part of the habitable World hold their Consuls in such veneration as they had as Cicero saith magnum nomen magnam speciem magnam majestatem as well as magnâ—m potestatem as great an outward respect and veneration as they had authority and were so jealous and watchfull over it as their Consul Fabius would rather lay aside the honour due unto his Father from a Sonne of which that Nation were extraordinary obseâ—vers then abate any thing of it and commanded his aged Father Fabius the renowned rescuer and preserver of Rome in a publique Assembly to alight from his Horse and do him the honour due unto his present Magistracy which the good old man though many of the people did at the present dislike it did so approve of as he alighted from his horse and embracing his Son said Euge fili sapis qui intelligis quibus imperes quam magnum magistratum susceperis my good Son you have done wisely in understanding over whom you command and how great a Magistracy you have taken upon you And our Offa King of the Mercians in An. Dom. 760 an Ancestor of our Sovereign took such a care of the Honour and Rights due unto Majesty and to preserve it to his Posterity as he ordained that even in times of Peace himself and his Successors in the Crown should as they passed through any City have Trumpets sounded before them to shew that the Person of the King saith the Leiger Book of St. Albans should breed both fear and honour in all which did either see or hear him Neither will it be any honour for Christians to be out-done by the Heathen in that or other their respects and observances to their Kings when the Romans did not seldome at their publique charge erect costly Statues and Memorialls of their gâ—atitude to their Emperours make chargeable Sacrifices ad aras in aedibus honoris virtutis in their Temples of Honour and Virtue could yearly throw money into the deep Lake or Gulfe of Curtius in Rome where they were like never to meet with it again pro voto salute Imperatoris as Offerings for the health and happiness of their Emperouâ—s and all the City and Senate Calendis Januarii velut publico suo parenti Imperatori strenas largiebant did give New years-gifts to the Emperour as their publick Parent bring them into the Capitol though he was absent and make their Pensitationes or Composition for Pourveyance for their Emperours to be a Canon unalâ—erable Or by the Magnesians and Smirnaeans who upon a misfortune in Warre hapned to Seleucus King of Syria could make a League with each other and cause it to be engraven in Marble pillars which to our dayes hath escaped the Iron Teeth of time majestatem Seleuci tueri conservare to preserve and defend the Honor and Majesty of Seleucus which was not their Sovereign or Prince but their Friend and Ally Nor any thing to perswade us that our Forefathers were not well advised when in their care to preserve the honor of their King and Country they were troubled and angry in the Reign of King H. 3. that at a publick Feast in Westminster-Hall the Popes Legate was placed at the Kings Table in the place where the King should have sate or when the Baronage or Commonalty of England did in a Parliament holden at Lincoln in the Reign of King Edward the First by their Letters to their then domineering demy-God the Pope who was averse unto it stoutly assert their Kings superiority over the Kingdome of Scotland and refuse that he should send any Commissioners to Rome to debate the matter before the Pope in Judgement which would tend to the disherison of the Crown of England the Kingly Dignity and prejudice of the Liberties Customes and Laws of their Forefathers to the observation and defence of which they were ex debito prestiti juramenti astricti bound by Oath and would not permit tam insolita praejudicialia such unusuall and prejudiciall things to be done against the King or by him if he should consent unto it Or when the Pope intending to cite King Edward the Third to his Court at Rome in Anno 40 of his Reign to do homage to the See of Rome for England and Ireland and to pay him the Tribute granted by King John the whole Estates in Parliament did by common consent declare unto the King that if the Pope should attempt any thing against him by process or other matter the King with all his Subjects should with all their force resist him And in Anno 42 of King Ed. 3. advised him to refuse an offer of peace made unto him by David le Bruse King of Scotland though the Warâ—es and frequent incursions of that Nation were alwayes sufficiently troublesome chargeable so that he might enjoy to him in Fee the whole Realm of Scotland without any subjection and declared that they could not assent unto any such Peace to the disherison of the King and his Crown and the great danger of themselves Or that William Walworth he gallant Mayor of London whose fame for it will live as long as that City shall be extant was to be blamed when he could not endure the insolency of the Rebel Wat Tyler in suffering a Knight whom the King had sent to him to stand bare before him but made his Dagger in the midst of his Rout and Army teach his proud heart better manners Or Richard Earl of Arundelâ—nd â—nd Surrey did more then was necessary when as he perceiving before hand the after accomplished wicked designe and ambition of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster and titular King of Leon and Castile did before the downfall of that unhappy Prince King Richard the Second complain in Parliament that he did sometimes go arme in arme with the King and make
those that adhaered unto him and having destroyed the Sheep can now as if they were innocent appear in Sheeps clothing enforce those that rebelled against him and his Royall Father to compound as King H. 3. did his Rebellious People all but the unhappy Robert Ferrers Earl of Derby the Heirs of Simon de Mountfort Earl of Leicester and some few others for their pardons or redemption of their forfeited Lands by his Commission or dictum de Kenelworth according to the nature of their several Delinquencies so as the greatest Fines should not exceed five years and the lowest not be less then two years of the then true yearly value of their Lands and Estates Neither as the late pretended Parliament and Oliverian Tormentors of all that were good did in a more severe manner when they forfeited and would not permit many of the Loyall Party at all to compound and constrained the rest to compound for a supposed fighting against the King when it was well known that they did really fight and suffer for him made them to pay great and excessive Fines some according to a third and others a half of the full yearly value of their Lands and Estates and others in what arbitrary way they pleased for their personal Estates and moneyes due unto them And after they had proceeded so farre in the ruining of them and granted them a slender Act of Oblivion choaked with a great many of Provisos did upon the loyall Attempts of some of them to recall their King and Liberties Decimate and make those also that had not therein offended their Masterships of Sin and Rebellion to pay and compound for a Tenth of their Estates as if Loyalty had been a sin and like that of Adam the first Inhabitant in the world been to be punished in all the loyall Party and their Generations squeese their Estates or require any Contributions or Summes of money of them more then of all the Loyall Party towards the payment of many hundred thousand pounds sterling in Arrear to themselves and the Souldiers which had been before imployed to ruine him when after his most happy Restauration he was contented for the quiet and welfare of the Nation to pay it out of his own Revenues the publick and generall Contributions Nor did in his Act of Parliament for a generall Pardon and Indempnity insert any Proviso for their good adhaering towards him and his Royall Crown and dignity or compel them as is usually done in cases of Pardons for Felony or Manslaughter to find Sureties for their better behaviour towards him and his People But gave way unto his extraordinary mercy and compassion to a People who in the Career of their Sins Rebellion and Rapine could not find the way to pity the sad condition of their Souls Bodies and Estates and in all that concerned the good and welfare of his People was willing to imitate and remember that Maxime of his blessed father the Martyr that the Peoples Liberties did strengthen the Kings Prerogative and that the Kings Prerogative is to defend the Peoples Liberties And was lately heard to say that he would not if he might be absolute or not restrained in many things by the Laws which he or his Royall Progenitors had made or granted that the Laws of England were the bâ—st Laws in the world that if the wisest men in the world had been appointed to make Laws they could have made no better and that if they had not been made he would most willingly make the same again How little would be gained to the people by denying him the Pourveyance or Compositions for them who hath a just most antient and legall right to those their small Retributions if he should restrain the bitings and oppression of their Markets and Merchandize or by his removing his Residence and Courts of Justice from Westminster make London and her twelve adjacent Counties viz. Middlesex Kent Surrey Sussex Southampton Essex Hertford Bedford Cambridge Huntington Buckingham and Northamptonshires to loose more then forty times as much every year by it Although he should not abate or bring down the rates of Rents and Provisions so low as King Edward the Sixth did intend to do when to satisfie some of the discontented Commons and People in Armes and Rebellion against him he did undertake that there should be an Act of Parliament in the next ensuing Parliament to lessen and reduce the Rents of Lands scarce half so high and unreasonable as now they are to what they had been forty years before And how unequal it would be that the People should by infringing of the Lawes and by the improvement and high rack of their Lands and Commodities take advantage of their own doing of wrong unto others and that the Citizens of London and the Inhabitants of the twelve adjacent Counties should desire his Residence to be so near his Chamber of London and make him by the taking away of his Pourveyance so great a looser by it when if like the Sun in the Firmament he should diffuse and carry his light and heat to all the parts of his Kingdom and not make London and its neighbouâ—ing Counties an East or West-Indies and the rest of the Kingdome to be as a Greenland either by removing his Courts and Residence to Worcester or Ludlow towards Wales or to York the People of London and the neighbouring Counties would as soon lament his absence and removall as he would find the ease and benefit of it as his Royall Father King Charles the Martyr did in the year 1640 when he was at Newcastle with his Court and Army in the Borders of Scotland where the rate or price which he allowed at London for the Provisions of his Houshold according to the Compositions for the Pourveyance appeared to be so much above the Market rates as the People brought it in so plentifully as he was enforced by his Proclamation to forbid the bringing in of such an overplus And may to their cost hereafter believe that they shal be as little gainers by that small yearly sum of mony which they do but think they shall save by the not paying the Compositions for the Pourveyance or by the Kings acquitall of it as they have been or may be in his release of his Tenures in Capite and by Knights service when they dream of that which may be imagined to be a benefit but when they are waking will never be found to be so and will in the yearly expence or accidents of the better and richer part of the People in the charges of finding Offices defraying the Fees of Escheators and Feodaries many Writs Process and Suits in that which was the Court of Wards and Liveries and their payment of Rents Compositions for Wardships will not be enough to satisfie or set against the very many great oppressions mischiefs and inconveniences which since the taking away of that Court and the Tenures in Capite and by Knights service have
minxerit in patrios â—ineres as one who had pisssed upon his Fathers or Countries Ashes and as Murderers or Adulterers denyed them the Sanctuary if they sought it of the Church And when the Kings Royal Progenitors have taken so much care to prevent the decay of Tillage as by the Statute of 25 H. 8. cap. 13. to ordain that no man should keep more then two hundred sheep upon any land taken to farme and for the increase of Tillage plenty and cheapness of Corn did by the Statute of 2 Ed. 6. cap. 13. ordain that no Tithes should be paid for wast or Heath ground improved unto Tillage untill seaven years after the improvement by the Statute of 4 Jac. cap. 11. made a Provision for Meadow and Pasture and the necessary maintenance of husbandry and tillage in the Manors Lordships and Parishes of Merden alias Mawerden Boddenham Wellington Sutton St. Michael Sutton St. Nicholas Marton upon Lugg and the Parish of Pipe in the County of Hereford by the Statute of 7 Jac. cap. 11. That none should spoil corn and grain by untimely Hawking and by another Statute in the same Parliament That Seâ—-sands might in Devonshire and Cornwall be fetched from the sea to manure Lands paying reasonable duties for the passage through or by other mens Lands with Boats and Barges And the Assize of Bread throughout the whole Kingdome is by the Statute and Ordinance of 51 H. 8. to be yearly made and regulated by the Baker of the Kings house do take all the care they can that the Bread for his Houshold and Oats and Provender for his horses may be at the dearest rates and a great deal more then any of his Subjects do pay And although he and his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors have made the best provisions they could for the breed of Cattle and cheapness of meat by the Statute of 24 H. 8. cap. 9. forbidding the killing of weanling Calves under the age of two years That a milch Cow by the Statute of 2 3 Philip and Mary should be kept for every sixty Sheep and a Calf reared for every 120 Sheep By an Act of Parliament in 8 Eliz. cap. 3. That no Sheep should be transported and by several Acts of Parliament and otherwise encouraged the drayning of huge quantities of Fenne Lands and the imbanking of Marshes and Lands gained from the Sea and his now Majesty hath of late to help the breeders and sellers of Cattle in their reasonable prices thereof prohibited by an Act of Parliament the bringing in of any Cattle which were heretofore usually and yearly brought into England in great heards out of Scotland and Ireland and doth yearly by his Royal Edicts and Proclamations as many of his noble Progenitors Kings and Queens of England have usually done enjoyned the strict observation of the Lent will notwithstanding for want of his Pourveyance or much of his houshold Provisions as they ought to be served in kind constrain him to pay in ready money intollerable dear rates and prices for that which his Officers have occasion to buy for the Provision of his Household Who speed no better when they buy or provide his Fish of those who might have had so much duty and honesty as to afford it cheaper when his Royall Predecessors by the Statutes of 13 E. 1. cap. 47. and 13 R. 2. cap. 19. ordained severe penalties upon those that do take and destroy Salmons Lampries or any other Fish at unseasonable times or destroy the spawn of Fish By the Statute of 22 Ed. 4. cap. 2. That Salmons Herrings and Eâ—les be duly packed By the Statute of 11 H. 7. cap. 23. That Englishmen may import and bring into England Fish taken by Forreigners By the Statute of 2 Ed. 6. cap. 6. that no Officer of the Admiralâ—y should exact any thing of them which travailed for Fish By the Statute of 5 Ellz. cap. 6. Fishermen and Mariners shall not be compelled to serve as Souldiers upon the Land or upon the Sea but as Mariners except in case of Enemies or to subdue Rebellions By the Statute of 13 Eliz. cap. 10. allowed Sea-fish and Herring to be transported in English Ships with cross sails without payment of Customes By the Statute of 39 Eliz. cap. 10. ordained Aliens to pay for salted Fish and salted Herrings to be brought by them into England such Customes as shall be imposed in forreign parts upon the salted Fish and Herrings brought thither by Englishmen And our now gracious Soveraign mainteyns a great Navy to assert and defend his Dominion and his Subjects sole right of Fishing in the British Seas and hath of late in the midst of his own wants for the better encouragement of his People to seek their own good and that which our British Seas will plentifully afford them given all his Customes inward and outward for any the retorns to be made by the sale of Fish in France Denmark and the Baltick Seas for seaven years from the first entrance into the intended Trade of Fishing And when the Mayor of Kingstone upon Hull or his Officers can at the same time obteyn of them better penyworths and according to the directions of the Statute of 33 H. 8. cap. 33. have so good a Pourveyance allowed them as they can take of all Fishermen priviledged for every last of Herring xxd. for every hundred of salt Fish iiii d. for every Last of Sprats viii d. of every person not priviledged for every Last of Herring iâ— s. iiii d. for every hundred of Salt-fish iiii d. and for every Last of Sprats viii d. as they did before the making of the said Statute And when our Laws which have their life and being from the King and his Royall Progenitors have by the Statutes of 3 and 4 Ed. 6. cap. 22. and 2 and 3 Philip and Mary cap. 5. provided that the prices of Butter and Cheese be not enhaunced nor any transported without licence That the prices of Ale and Beer shall bâ—â—he Statute of 23 H. 8. be assessed at reasonable rates and the Barrels and Kilderkins gauged That Spices and Grocery Ware shall by the Statute of 1 Jac. cap. 19. be garbled and not mingled That Woods by the Statute of 35 H cap. 17. 13 Eliz. cap. 5. shall not be converted into Tillage or Pasture And by the Statutes of 7 Ed. 6. cap. 7. 47. cap. 14. that an Assize shall be kept as to the measures only of Coal Tallwood Billeâ—s and Faggots And some of our Princes have given by their Charters many great Liberties Immunities to the Companies of Brewers and Woodmongers And King James did in or about the 11 th year of hâ—s Râ—ign upon his granting of some priviledges to the Town and Colleries of Nâ—wcastle upon Tyne cause the Host-men or Oast-men of Newcastle to covenant to and with the King which they have seldome or never at all observed yearly to serve the City of London and places adjacent with Sea-coals