Council who argued very learnedly that the passing an Act by the Kings Royal Assent can not make a Session because the usual Promise was not in it It was without any instruction of mine that he mentioned that Point The Kings Council tells your Lordships of the Laws and Customs of Parliaments 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 my self to than the way I take Mr. Attorney confesseth that the Kings Pleasure may Release me without the Lords if so this Court is Coram Rege This is the proper place to determine the Kings Pleasure This Court will and ought to judge of an Act of Parliament null and 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 Mr. Attorney General saith this Parliament is yet in being yet I take it something ill that he tells me I might have applied elsewhere My Lords they speak much of the custom of Parliament but I do affirm there is no custom of Parliament that ever their own Members should be put out of their own power and the inconveniences will be endless Mr. Attorney was pleased easily to ansiver the Objection of one of my Council if a great Minister be so committed he hath the Cure of a Pardon a Prorogation or a Dissolution But if the Case should be put why forty Members or a greater number may not as well be taken away without Remedy in any of the King's Courts he will not so easily answer And if there can be no relief in this Case no Man can foresee what will be hereafter I desire your Lordships well to consider what Rule you make in my Case for it will be a president that may in future Ages concern every Man in England My Lord Mr. Attorney saith you either can release or remand me I differ from him in that Opinion I do not insist upon a Release I have been a Prisoner above five Months already and came hither of necessity having no other way to get my Liberty and therefore am very willing to tender your Lordship Bail which are in or near the Court as good as any are in England either for their Estate or Quality and I am ready to give any sum or member My Lords this Court being now possest of this business I am now your Prisoner The Court having heard all that could be said pro and con on both sides delivered their Opinions Seriatim one of the Judges indeed was not there in Person but he adventured hower to shew the exactness of his Justice to depute Judge Jones to speak for him when it came to his turn and declare although he had not heard what his Lordships Council or himself could say that it was his Opinion his Lordship ought to be remanded and the rest of the Court unanimously concurring with the Opinion of their absent Brother he was by them remanded back again to the Tower according And thus his Lordship being denied redress in the Court of Kings-Bench remained a Prisoner in the Tower until the February following and then on the fourteenth of that Month the Parliament being then sitting he presented a Petition to the House of Lords wherein he makes a very humble submission both to His Majesty and the House of Peers but they objecting against the Petitions he had presented to His Majesty as not having made a satisfactory acknowledgment of his Crimes after some debate rejected this Petition Whereupon the weak condition he was then brought into by his confinement requiring speedy enlargement he presented another Petition to His Majesty and likewise to the House of Lords in both which he renued his Supplication to be released from his imprisonment And not only acknowledged with all humble submission That his endeavouring to maintain the Parliaments being Dissolv'd was an ill advised Action and so must every Man acknowledg who will strive in vain to sail against Wind and Tide but in the most submissive Terms assured them that he was ready to make what further acknowledgment and submission they should require and that in the way and manner too which they should please to direct yet unfortunate Earl he could not obtain his Liberty upon these Terms neither another pretence being then laid hold on for the prolonging his Imprisonment Which was the horrid Crime of endeavouring his enlargment by applying himself to the Court of Kings-Bench in order to his being admitted to Bail And yet a certain Gentleman in the World who had at that time a mighty influence upon Affairs and improved this imaginary fault as much as possible to the prejudice of the Earl hath since that time been himself guilty of the supposed Crime And not only so but hath rendred himself also more pertinacious therein by his reiterated applications to that Court to take Bail for him His Lordships Second Petition to the House of Lords was as follows To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled The humble Petition of Anthony Earl of SHAFTSBVRY Sheweth THat your Petitioner on the 16th of February 1676. was committed Prisoner to the Tower of London by your Lordships because he did not obey your Lordships Order where he hath continued in close confinement to the great decay of his Health and danger of his Life as well as prejudice of his Estate and Family In all humble Obedience therefore unto your Lordships he doth acknowledge That his endeavouring to maintain that this Parliament is Dissolved was an ill advised Action for which he humbly begs the Pardon of the King's Majesty and of this most Honourable House and doth in all humble Duty and Observance to your Lordships beseech you to believe that he would not do any thing willingly to incur your displeasure Wherefore your Petitioner in all humble Duty and Obedience both to His Majesty and your Lordships hath made his humble submission and acknowledgment in his most humble Petition unto the Kings most Sacred Majesty and is ready to make his further submission to His Majesty and this Honourable House according to the direction thereof And he doth most humbly implore your Lordships that you will be pleased to restore him to your favour and discharge him from his Imprisonment And your Petitioner c. SHAFTSBVRY THis Petition being read the Lord Chancellor acquainted the House that His Majesty had received a Third Petition from the Earl of Shaftsbury more submissive than the two former But His Majesty understanding
this Project they next procured young Tongue Son to Dr. Tongue to prove that his Father the Earl of Shaftsbury and Oates invented the Popish Plot Whereupon one of the Lords of the Council asked him If they contrived Coleman's Letters too To which he could make no reply and indeed the whole business was so weak and ridiculous that it effected nothing more than the depressing the Wretch that was to have been the Evidence of it under the weight of his own Guilt he being committed to the King's-Bench where he hath ever since remained Besides their publick Designs they had several secret Projects and Artifices to accomplish his Ruine As forging of his Hand and other such like base and villanous Arts as appears by their intercepting Letters directed to his Lordship and after having incerted Treason in them in a hand as near the Original as they could possibly counterfeit transmitted them to such hands as would certainly acquaint our Ministers of State therewith but more especially a certain Gentleman who had commanded a Regiment of Horse in the Service of his late Majesty for whose sake and his present Majestie 's he suffered the loss of all that he had writ to the Earl about relieving him against the Gout with which he was much afflicted whose Letter was intercepted the person that writ it lived at that time in the Frengch King's Dominions and after they had added to it an account that the Writer was able to furnish the Earl with Forty thousand men from France to oppose the D. Y's Interest it was then convey'd to some of the French Ministers of State presuming they would send a Copy of it hither but by an over-ruling Providence the Letter was strangely return'd into the Gentleman's own hands whereby the mischief they intended was prevented His Majesty having prorogued the Parliament his Lordship together with the Earls of Huntington Clare Stamford c. the Lords North and Grey Chando's Grey Howard and Herbert being introduced to his Majestie 's Presence by his Highness Prince Rupert presented the following Petition and Advice to His Majesty SIR VVE are here to cast our selves at your Majestys feet being Ten of the Peers of Your Realm of England and in our own Names and in the Names of several others of our fellow Peers do humbly beg That Your Majesty would consider the great Danger Your Royal Person is in as also the Protestant Religion and the Government of these Your Nations We humbly pray that in a time when all these are so highly concerned Your Majesty will effectually use Your Great Council the Parliament SIR Out of the deepest sence of Duty and Loyalty to Your Majesty we offer it as our humble Advice and earnest Petition that the Parliament may sit at the time appointed and that Your Majesty would be Graciously pleased to give publick Notice and Assurance thereof that the minds of Your Majestys Subjects may be settled and their fear removed To this Petition and Advice His Majesty answered He would consider of what they had offered and told them that he heartily wished all other people were as solicitous for the peace and good of the Nation as he was and ever would be However he was pleased soon after to Prorogue the Parliament from the 26th of January till the 11th of November following About this time his Lordship was visited with a violent and dangerous fit of Sickness and his recovery was somewhat doubted of but Heaven was pleased to spare him to be a further Scourge and Terrour to the Papists those common Pests of Christendom and sworn Enemies to His Majesty and the English Nation The Romanists having tryed so many ways and different methods for accomplishing his Ruine resolved to try a new Stratagem for the effecting thereof viz. The tampering with Dugdale to retract his Evidence concerning the Popish-plot and endeavour to prevail with him to withdraw himself into some place beyond the Seas and leave a Writing behind him wherein he was to retract all he had sworn against the Papists and pretend that the occasion of his Retraction was an extream trouble and anguish of Conscience for having so unjustly and wickedly injured the Papists and procured the shedding of innocent blood affirming that it was by the instigation of his Lordship and other Protestants of unblemished Loyalty to His Majesty upon whom he was moreover to six the Odium of a Presbyterian Plot not only against the Papists but against His Majesties Person and Government But the mischief of it was they had not then Debauched his Conscience perswaded him to question the Truth of God's Omnisciency or wholly Erradicated the Beleif of a Deity out of his mind and thereby render him hardy enough to undertake so Barbarous a Work without any kind of Hissitation Wherefore being touched with some Remorse at so horrid a Villany he gave an account of the business to his Lordship and some others and so that design suffered the same fate with the rest and produced no other effect than exposing the malice of his Enemies and the informing him what he must live in a dayly expectation of from those indefatigable wretches and purchasers of Perjury by offers of two Thousand Pounds and promises of other Rewards and Gratitudes A Sum so considerable and Arguments so powerful and irresistable that it would have been a rarity much more amazing and would infinitly have transcended any of those called The Seven Wonders of the World if they should alwaies have been so unhappy as not to meet with some Profligate Villain or other who would upon those considerations engage to Swear whatsoever they should dictate and even defie the Almighty and storm Heaven it self to gain so immence a Treasure and acquire a Fortune so far above what their Birth or Education ever gave them a Prospect of In December 1680. he was present at and assisted in the trying William Viscount Stafford upon an Impeachment of the House of Commons for Ploting and Conspiring with the Pope and his Emissaries to Murther the King exterpate the Protestant Religion and subvert the Government of these Kingdoms and after a fair Tryal his Lordship with the Majority of the Peers sound him Guilty of the Treason whereof he stood Impeached upon which he received Sentence to be Hang'd Drawn and Quarter'd the rigour whereof was remitted by the Gracious Pleasure of His Majesty And not long after he was beheaded on a Scaffold erected for that purpose on Tower-Hill On the 10th of Jannuary His Majesty Prorogued the Parliament and on the 18th they were Dissolved by Proclamation and a New one summoned to meet at Oxford on the 21 st of the following March which being looked upon by his Lordship and divers others of the Nobility and Gentry to be ominous and attended with much hazard and danger and was afterwards really found to be so by some To prevent which the Earl joyned with several Noblemen in presenting a humble Petition and Advice full of Tenderness
and Affection Duty and Loyalty to His Majesty's Person and Government humbly requesting that the Parliament summoned to meet at Oxford might be Graciously permitted to meet and sit at Westminster It was presented to His Majesty by the Earl of Essex who acquainted the King with the design and intent of their Petition in the following words May it please Your Majesty THe Lords here present together with divers other Peers of the Realm taking notice that by your late Proclamation Your Majesty hath Declared an Intention of calling a Parliament at Oxford and observing from Histories and Records how unfortunate many such Assemblies have been when called at a place remote from the Capital City as particularly the Congress in Henry the Seconds time at Clarendon Three several Parliaments at Oxford in Henry the Thirds time and at Coventry in Henry the Sixths time with divers others which have proved very fatal to those Kings and have been followed with great mischief to the whole Kingdom And considering the present posture of Affairs the many Jealousies and Discontents which are among the People we have great cause to apprehend that the Consequences of the sitting of a Parliament now at Oxford may be as fatal to Your Majesty and the Nation as those others mentioned have been to the then Reigning Kings and therefore we do conceive that we cannot answer it to God to Your Majesty or to the People if we being Peers of the Realm should not on so important an occasion humbly offer our Advise to Your Majesty that if possible Your Majesty may be prevailed with to alter this as we apprehend unseasonable Resolution The Grounds and Reasons of our Opinion are contained in this our Petition which we humbly present to Your Majesty To the Kings most excellent Majesty The humble Petition and Advice of the Lords undernamed Peers of the Realm Humbly sheweth THat whereas Your Majesty hath been pleased by divers Spechees and Messages to Your Houses of Parliament rightly to present to them the dangers that threaten Your Majesties Person and the whole Kingdom from the mischievous and wicked Plots of the Papists and the suddain growth of a forreign Power unto which no stop or remedy could be provided unless it were by Parliament and an Vnion of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects in one Mind and one Interest And the Lord Chancellor in pursuance of Your Majesties Commands having more at large demonstrated the said dangers to be as great as we in the midst of our fears could imagine them and so pressing that our Liberties Religion Lives and the whole Kingdom would certainly be lost if a speedy provision was not made against them And Your Majesty on the 21st of April 1679. having called unto Your Council many Honourable and Worthy Persons and Declared to them and to the whole Kingdom That being sensible of the Evil Effects of a single Ministry or private Advice or forreign Committee for the general Direction of Your Affairs Your Majesty would for the future refer all things unto that Council and by the constant Advice of them together with the frequent use of Your great Council the Parliament Your Majesty was hereafter resolved to govern the Kingdom We began to hope we should see an end of our Miseries But to our unspeakable grief and sorrow we soon found our expectations frustrated the Parliament then subsisting was Prorogued and Dissolved before it could perfect what was intended for our relief and security And tho' another was thereupon called yet by many Prorogations it was put off till the 21st of October past and notwithstanding Your Majesty was then again pleased to acknowledge that neither your Person nor your Kingdom could be safe till the Matter of the Plot was gone through It was unexpectedly Prorogued on the 10th of this Month before any sufficient Order could be taken therein All their just and pious endeavours to save the Nation were overthrown the good Bills they had been industriously preparing to Vnite Your Majesties Protestant Subjects brought to nought The discovery of the Irish Plots stifled The Witnesses that came in frequently more fully to Declare that both of England and Ireland discouraged Those forreign Kingdoms and States who by a happy Conjunction with us might give a check to the French Powers disheartned even to such a despair of their own security against the growing greatness of that Monarch as we fear may enduce them to take New Resolutions and perhaps such as may be fatal to Vs the Strength and Courage of our Enemies both at home and abroad encreased and our selves left in the utmost danger of seeing our Country brought into utter desolation In these extremities we had nothing under God to comfort us but the hopes that Your Majesty being touched with the groans of your perishing People would have suffered Your Parliament to meet at the day unto which it was Prorogued and that no further interruption should have been given to their proceedings in order to their saving of the Nation But that failed us too so then we heard that Your Majesty had been prevailed with to Dissolve it and to call another to meet at Oxford where neither Lords nor Commons can be in safety but will be dayly exposed to the Swords of the Papists and their Adherents of whom too many are crept into Your Majesties Guards The Liberty of speaking according to their Consciences will be thereby destroyed and the validity of all their Acts and Proceedings consisting in it left disputable The straitness of the place no way admits of such a concourse of persons as now follows every Parliament The Witnesses which are necessary to give Evidence against the Popish Lords such Judges or others whom the Commons have impeached or had resolved to impeach can neither bear the charge of going thither nor trust themselves under the Protection of a Parliament that is it self evidently under the power of Guards and Souldiers The Premises considered We Your Majesties Petitioners out of a just abhorrence of such a dangerous and pernicious Council which the Authors have not dared to avow and the direful apprehensions of the calamities and miseries that may ensue thereupon do make it our most humble Prayer and Advice that the Parliament may not sit at a place where it will not be able to Act with that freedom which is necessary and especially to give unto their Acts and Proceedings that Authority which they ought to have amongst the people and have ever had unless impaired by some Awe upon them of which there wants not presidents and that Your Majesty would be Graciously pleased to order it to sit at Westminster it being the usual place and where they may consult with Safety and Freedom And Your Petitioners c. Monmouth Kent Huntingdon Bedford Salisbury Clare Stamford Essex Shaftsbury Mordent Ewers Paget Grey Herbert Howard Delamer BUt His Majesty resolving not to alter His Resolution for the Parliaments setting at Oxford and the time of their metting