Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	honourable_a	house_n	petition_n	3,157	5	9.0634	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87928	A letter from a grave gentleman once a member of this House of Commons, to his friend, remaining a member of the same House in London. Concerning his reasons why he left the House, and concerning the late treaty.	Grave gentleman once a member of this House of Commons.	1643 (1643)	Wing L1403; Thomason E102_13; ESTC R21285	19,142	24

King hath now often profest Himselfe ready to joyne in which Profession would sure have been more readily entertained if they had not fear'd that this would have been so full a satisfaction to so many that their side would have been much weakned by it could we then ever thinke to have liv'd to see the Common-Prayer Book totally neglected and publiquely affronted and those neglects and affronts not onely conniv'd at but as publiquely countenanced and encouraged by that honourable Assembly and to see a Bill pass't both Houses for the totall extirpation of Bishops Root and Branch and this Bill offered to His Majesty among Propositions for Peace 6. In those Parliaments though some of us often express't our dislike of some illegall Clauses in the Commissions given to and executed by Lords and Deputy Lievtenants yet did we ever heare or looke to heare of the least pretence that the Militia of this Kingdom was either not under the Kings Command or under any Command but His And did both Houses so much as suspect themselves upon any pretence or in any time to have any Right to order and dispose of it 7. In those Parliaments though we have often humbly represented to His Majesty some things wherein we suppos'd there was some failour in His Ministers in those particulars which we then all confest the Law had solely trusted to Him as of Ships not set out or Forts ill guarded or the like yet did we ever thinke it possible both Houses should ever pretend to such a supervisorship over that Trust that whensoever they would say He did not discharge it as He ought they might legally lay hold on it themselves and having seiz'd His Ships Forts Magazines c. take up Armes to maintaine what they had done and to keep this their Trust Paramount in perpetuall execution 8. In those Parliaments did we ever see the same things severall times prest to the Lords House by the House of Commons after they had been upon mature advice rejected by them as if they had meant to say Deny it if you dare and at last past there with the Peoples helpe either a thinne House being watcht for or some of the Lords out of anger and some out of feare absenting themselves 9. In all those Parliaments did we ever see any Declarations of both Houses against the King or of one House against the other Printed and publisht to the people calling them to their assistance and laying before them their destruction if they assisted not 10. In all those Parliaments did we ever see when any thing had been propos'd to and rejected by the House of Lords the House of Commons notwithstanding proceed in it and expresse their mindes of it to the people as in the point of the Bill for the Protestation or when the House of Lords had publisht an Order for the establisht Law as they did now upon the ninth of September did we ever see the House of Commons oppose them and the Law together and disgrace the one and endeavour to suppresse the other as they did now by a Printed Order to the contrary of the same Date 11. Did we ever see the House of Commons in all those Parliaments so invade the Priviledge of the House of Lords as first to question particular Members for words spoken in that House as my Lord Duke and my Lord Digby and next to question the whole House by bringing up and countenancing a mutinous and seditious Petition which demanded the names of those Lords who consented not with the House of Commons in those things which that House that is the Major part of it had twice denied and joyning with them in that Demand 12. Did We ever see Petitions brought by armed Mechanicks countenanced by the House of Commons the Assaults made by them upon their owne Members though complained of not enquired into and these multitudes termed their Friends by the principall Governours the House of Lords refused to be joyn'd with in their modest desire onely of a Declaration against the like for the future the guard against the like placed by vertue of a Writ issued by command of the Lords House discharged the Iustice of Peace that placed them committed the ordinary legall Inquisition upon Riots stopt and hindred by an order of the House of Commons alone Sir some of these things having been done in former Parliaments so contrary to what is now done so many things now done which were never attempted in and if they had been thought of would have been condemned by those former Parliaments you must pardon me if I thinke that charge of Apostacy which under other mens names you your selfe lay upon me to be very injurious and I appeal to any man that shall consider and examine my Action and these particulars whether I left the Houses till they left the Law and whether to quit the place and retaine the principles or to quit the principles and be only constant to the place be the greater and the truer Apostacy The next Objection you make is this That whereas Wee here pretend to stand for Law yet it is only for such a Law of which we Our selves will only be Iudges refusing to stand to the Iudgement of the supream Iudicatory of the Kingdome both Houses of Parliament And truly Sir if this objection were made by a stranger only made acquainted with the generall Scheme of the Constitution of the Kingdom neither with the particular Lawes nor the particular Occurrences I should not wōder but from one who hath been a constant Member of the Parliament I wonder to receive it First Sir I appeal to you whether you doe not beleeve that suppose which were hardly possible to be supposed that both Houses in the fullest and freest condition of Parliament that is imaginable should declare that by the Law of the Land The Kings Crowne and the Subjects Property and Liberty were to be dispos'd of by them and should take up Armes to make this good for Law and declare that by Law all the Subjects of the Land were obliged to assist their Armes thus taken up Suppose this I say Doe you not beleeve that their being the Supream Iudicatory could not satisfie Our consciences who have taken the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy in a Iudgement as contrary to those Oathes and the knowne Law as it is knowne that by the Law both Houses have Power to judge in any other Cases or that there are at all two Houses of Parliament And sure this is now as to what is done though not as to their condition who doe it either the Case or very neere it Indeed Sir till the Parliament was made perpetuall such a Case was absolutely unimaginable for being a dissoluble Body kept them from invading the known Rights either of King or Subjects of neither of which they need now to have the same apprehension having strengthned themselves by a Bill against the one and by an Army against

A LETTER FROM A GRAVE GENTLEMAN once a Member of this House of COMMONS to his friend remaining a Member of the same House in LONDON CONCERNING HIS REASONS WHY he left the House and concerning the late Treaty Printed in the Yeare 1643. SIR I Am extreamly glad that in this time of generall Distraction and Ruine of which Pragmaticalnesse and want of Charity are both the effect and the cause there is yet so much Leizure and kindnesse left even in the most busy and most ill-natur'd place to admit a thought of a Person no more considerable and to afford a letter to a Malignant and a Cavalier and that you put me not out either of your Memory or Your Care when those you live with put me out of the House And truly if you could in despight of the Infection of Your Climate have as well preserv'd your Logick as your good Nature either you might have brought me to your Opinions or have left me hopes that I might perswade you into mine Whereas now I see no probability of either your way of arguing being so different from your own usuall rationall way that you seem to mee to have burnt your Aristotles Organon and to have learnt a new manner of making Syllogismes from Mr Gordon and Serjeant Wilde Sir I assure you that though you have there inflicted a Punishment upon me which in the beginning of the Parliament would have broke my Heart and that for no other cause for ought appeared to you then for having businesse at Yorke when you had banisht the King from London yet I am more troubled with the decay of Reputation which both Houses suffer by such unreasonable and unjust Votes then for my own Concerne in their unreasonablenes and Injustice being sufficiently comforted against my share in them by the Company you have given me having expel'd whole Sholes sometimes twenty in a morning of Gentlemen first chosen and still esteemed by their Countries for continuing in and demeaning themselves according to the same Principles by which they had obtained that Choyce and Estimation 1. You know Sir you and I were both at once both committed about the Loanes and put out of the Commission of the Peace for opposing Shipmony and how sensible We after found the Parliament of all mens sufferings in that kind and for those causes And did either of us then think to have lived to have seen any so much as discountenanced by both Houses of Parliament for refusing a loane though it were called a Contribution or opposing an Ordinance as illegall as that Writ grounded upon a Necessity as hard to be discovered as that which was then pretended How often have you told me when you have heard the Courtiers argue that without such a Power in the Crowne no Parliament sitting the Kingdom might be unavoydably destroyed that with or without that Power We should be liable to mighty dangers but the Wisdom of the Law had avoyded those most that were likely to come oftnest That now besides the Question was not what was best to be Law but what was Law That Arguments from Convenience are good considerations in framing of Lawes or founding of States but that the State being framed it was most ridiculous and dangerous to retyre from the Law to a disputable convenience or Necessity and put our selves back again into the same Maze of Debates and Questions which Lawes were framed to be rules to us to deliver us from And yet then Sir We might have known this present fundamentall and indeed only Law now left of nature and Necessity And Salus Populisuprema Lex was a sentence that was no stranger to Vs and these are sure better Pretences for one Estate when the other two are not in being then for two Estates in the presence and in the despight of the Third 2. You and I Sir were both of that Parliament in which my Lord of Bristolls dispute with my Lord Duke of Buckingham and our dislike of my Lord Duke got my Lord of Bristoll all those that dislikt the other to labour to assist and protect him and you know how studious most men were in that work when my Lord of Bristoll was accus'd of Treason by the Kings Atturney in the Lords House and yet the accusation stood received till the end of the Parliament And could We ever have then believed that an Accusation in the same manner by the same Officer in the same Court before almost all the very same men no difference in the case but between Bristoll and Kimbolton should be voted a high breach of Priviledge should be a Reason to censure the Atturney and the maine and most sufficient Pretence for most necessary and defensive Armes at least for a horrid Rebellion under that Title 3. You and I were both of that Parliament in which my Lord of Arundell being Committed you know how both Houses laboured his Discharge You know how tender we were then of Our Priviledges and how much more likely to claime a Priviledge that we had not then to quit a Priviledge we had and how many able honest judicious Lawyers we had of the House that would not have suffered us to have overseen Our Right And when in that Parliament a Petition framed by both Houses did admit their Priviledge of Parliament not to extend to Cases either of Treason Felony or refusing to give sureties for the Peace could we ever have thought to see it claimed as a Priviledge that no member be restrained without order of the House though in case of Treason to be immediatly acted upon the Kings Person And could we ever have thought to have seen the People engaged by Order of the House of Commons alone and under Pretence of an uncommanded Protestation to have assisted all such as should be so restrained in despight of this Declaration of both Houses and in Opposition to the known Lawes of the Land 4. You and I Sir have been of many other Parliaments and when we saw so many Bills offered and some pass't and others laid by sometime with Our sorrow but never with our complaint when we all acknowledged with the old Act of Parliament that is was of the Kings Regality to grant or deny them and no one of us so much as whispered to any friend that the King had done illegally in doing so or broke the Oath taken at His Coronation because of the Clause Quas vulgus Elegerit could we ever have thought then to have seen the whole frame of Monarchy destroyed by seeing the Kings Negative voyce denyed Him and He call'd by consequence a perjur'd man for not consenting to any publique Bill from both Houses though it were to depose Himselfe 5. When in those Parliaments We saw so little prevalency in the Puritan party that they were never able to passe a Bill even in the House of Commons for such an ease of weake consciences in the point of indifferent Ceremonies as I alwayes wish't them and as the