Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	king_n	law_n	parliament_n	7,328	5	6.6868	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A59386	Rights of the kingdom, or, Customs of our ancestors touching the duty, power, election, or succession of our Kings and Parliaments, our true liberty, due allegiance, three estates, their legislative power, original, judicial, and executive, with the militia freely discussed through the British, Saxon, Norman laws and histories, with an occasional discourse of great changes yet expected in the world.	Sadler, John, 1615-1674.	1682 (1682)	Wing S279; ESTC R11835	136,787	326

but by consent of Parliament for all agree that a Senate was Elected or Dilected as they speak in his time not then first Created but it might be renewed after the Romans had so much interrupted it of which before from Tacitus so far am I still from believing our first Parliament did come from the Roman Senate It is a known History how that King Divorcing himself from his Scottish Queen and Marrying a Daughter of Claudius Caesar at Claudio Cestre was censured by his Parliament or Proceres so that he was fain to exhibit his Answer in Writing which is still left us in Fragments in divers places Amongst other passages he said he knew not but it might be lawful for him to have more Wives than one Eo quod Leges Britannorum illuc usque id nunquam prohibuissent because the Brittish Laws had not yet forbidden it I must not here dispute what moved Lucius to desire and send for the Roman Laws nay and that for the State also Nor can I yet Subscribe to them that think the Britains to be wholly Governed by Roman Laws from Claudius to Attila's time But could the British King send out for Forreign Laws or call them in without consent of Parliament it might not be and Eleutherius's Answer is in Print among the Confessors Laws and every where ad Petitionem Regis procerum Regni Britanniae Petistis à nobis Leges Romanes Caesaris his answer was You have the Scriptures and from them you shall do well to frame your Laws but by your Parliament per Consilium Regni vestri They which begin our British Christianity from Eleutherius seem not to consider his Epistle granting that the Britans were already Christians and had both the Old and New Testament Susceptis nuper Mis. D. in Regno Britanniae Legem Fidem Christi habetis penes vos in Regno utramque Paginam c. They were Christians long before Tempore summo Tiberii Caesaris as Gildas Badonicus and Albanius telleth how Philip the Apostle sent hither Ioseph of Arimathea out of Gaul see Baronius EMS Historia in Vaticano Melchin cited by Bale Capgrave of Arviragus and Malmsbury of the Famous Glassenbury which in old Charter by Parliament is said to be Founded by the Lords Disciples and is therefore Styled Fons Origo Religionis as Westsex is Caput Regni Legum in the Laws of Henry the first as London in St. Edwards Some have also brought St. Paul in Britain so Venantius Fortunatus Anno 570. from The●doret perhaps who yet nameth not St. Paul but the Leather Cutter and the Publicans and Fishermen which may be St. Peter if we may believe the Greek Author cited by Mr. Patrick Young on Clemens or Sophronius and Nicephorus as Dorotheus Tyrius of Zelotes That I say nothing of the British Bard who from the Stars did tell the Birth of our Saviour in so many older than Bale But again to the Brittish Parliaments for so we read in the Laws of King Alfred out of British Trojan Grecian c. that in the very first times of Christian Religion in this Island Laws were made by a Common-Council of Bishops and other Wise Men with that of Bede Servabant Reges sacerdotes privati Optimates suum quique Ordinem After the Death of Lucius the Britains could not soon agree about the Choice of another King 't is every where ' ere long they chose Asclepiodat the Duke of Cornwall by consent of Commons also Communi assensu annuente Populo Troublesome he was to all the Romans but especially to Gallus who hath left his Name in Walbrook as the Gauls some think in Wales but for this Polydor Virgil and the Confessors Acts with the Laws of King Ina may be compared with Monmouth Virunnius Basingstoke Florilegus Gyraldus and some passages of Bede Coel e're long appeareth on the Scene but yet against Succession and he cannot dye so long as Helen liveth Mother to the Christian Emperor but Daughter to our Brittish Coel who was also Father unto Colchester We are come to times of more certainty when that deadly wound of one of the Heads had made the Roman Empire gasp as if it would Expire and breathe no more it had little list or leisure to command or Counsel any of the Toes or other Members at a Distance In this point of time the Britains Rose with other Nations and did soon recover most of that the Romans held by force their Laws and Customs now were free 't is yielded us by all but they could hardly turn and view their Liberty before they came to be new Slaves to the Picts and Scots ancient Appendants to the Brittish Crown in Fee The Roman Consul then in Gaul could not regard the Brittish Sighs and Tears which himself knew to be as just as pitiful for had the Romans not so gleaned Britain of its Glory for their Conquest of other Nations they had never asked help it seems against the Scots From the Romans they had first recourse to their Neighbour Gauls or to their Countrey-men in Gaul for such they were in that which to this day is called Brittany Upon what terms they had help from them I dispute not their King had as great a Name as the great Constantine but how himself or his Sons like the Brittish Reins we may guess in part from what we read in Gildas Tears for his poor Countrey where he complaineth that Kings were Elected and Anointed for nothing of God or of Good in them but only for their Force c. This is also found in another Author besides Gildas as old as King Stephen or Henry the Second which may the more perswade us that Monmouth had good Authority for what he Writes of those times for he also hath Gildas's words with very little variation By which we see the Law or at least the Custom of those times both for Electing Anointing Kings among our British Ancestors Two of those Kings may be Constantine and Constans who are said to be Slain by some of their Guard or Attendants yet so as divers intimate it came from a farther and an higher Hand Constans also came up to the Crown by a Faction rather than a free Choice as all relate who ascribe it to the Duke of Cornwall not without great Contests of divers Lords and with little consent of Commons vix Annuente Populo as we may read in divers Authors who are also plain enough to make us know that he was pulled down by the same Hands that set him up Vortiger came next but on Election it is agreed by all and that there were two Royal Princes Sons to the late and Brothers to the last King who must wait for the Crown with much Patience How he called in the Saxons by consent of Parliament I shewed before in the Militia and I might confirm it from divers others who do also Record that the King told the Saxons that he durst not without the

since the late Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy which have seemed to abate the use I say not the Force of the old Leet Oath of Grand Fealty Which was perhaps never taken or much understood by some of those that appear most zealous in crying up Allegiance For it is natural to us all to be most confident in that which we least understand They seem to have done much wrong to the King and Crown and to have made so many averse from the very Name of a King who by too much Zeal did strain our English Legiance out beyond all bounds of English Laws and then they would fly out to Forreign Laws as if the Moulds and Sphears of Kingly Power or Subjects Duty were by nature equal in all Climates and in every Kingdom Yet I know not that we need be much afraid to appeal to the Laws of any Civil State especially to those of Iudah which if some had known more they would have pressed less for our Pattern But all English Kings had English Bounds by Law and so we Swore Allegiance and no otherwise by Law It was a Pang of Zeal or strange Affection more than Reason or Religion which did make so many once at Cambridge Swear to Edward the Senior To Will what he Willed c Of which the Saxon Chronology But I hope it is not fatal to that Place or to any others in this Kingdom For I cannot learn that e're our Law did force or wish us to oblige our selves by Oath to Think Speak or Doe as any King would doe or have us for to doe if contrary to Law and right Reason Our Law dispenseth much with Womens Homage and of old they were not pressed to it for a Woman might not say I am your Man nor to a man but to her own Husband Sir I am your Woman yet she was to Swear Fealty So were the Bishops also to Swear Fealty except in Frank almoigne but the Law dispensed with a Bishops or Church-mans Homage so that he needed not to say My Lord or Liege I am your Man The Reason is because he was or should be the Man of God and might not give himself so much away to others as any other whatsoever And the reason of this may reach to all our Fealty so far as to perswade us to consider what it is we cannot nor we may not give away to any Man or Angel Was it not an hard Covenant tendred by Nahash that he would protect all those or own them for his Subjects that would put out their right Eyes and yet this had been more reasonable and Just than to have required absolute Allegiance without any Limitation or Salvo at all For this had been to have bid them pluck out their Souls or at least to uncase them from that which nature hath made the Cabinet of Souls that curious Orient Mother of Pearl Right Reason which doth make us Men that I say nothing of that which makes us Christians or Religious Men. We sinned if we wholly gave our selves unto a King without any Limitation or Restriction whatsoever For by so doing we unman our selves and give away to a Man what we owe not what we may not give to any mortal Creature whatsoever Let us discuss it then by Law and Reason what is our Legal Fealty how Made how Limited how Kept or how Dissolved Let us inquire what Duty what Allegiance is commanded by the Laws and what they did not mean they would not have us give to mortal Man Shall we behold the Sun Reflected or Refracted in a Stream of Water shall we consider the King as Cloathed in the Dress or habit of some other Lord For every Lord the meanest and the lowest is or may be to his Vassals as a little King to his Subjects Such was the Plea of Lanfranc as before at Pinenden and so it was adjudged and confirmed by that Parliament that he should be in his Demesn as was the King in his And the old Laws of Alfred Ethelstane Edgar and Canute with the good Laws of Hen. the first do as much forbid and punish Treason against Inferiour Lords as against the King himself for to them also is Homage done and Fealty Sworn by their Vassals saying My Liege I am your Man and bear you Faith of Life Member and Terrene honour saving the Faith I owe to other Lords Or thus My Lord I will bear you true Faith and do you true Service as my Duty to you is so the Statute of Edw. the Second that is according to my Fee And the Mirrour will tell us that it was an Abuse for the King himself to require it any otherwise for it did not consist in a Point but had much Latitude and several Degrees according to the several Fees And if any such Tenant were pressed on more Service or other than his Fee required or were injured he might Implead his Liege in Law For what his Duty was neither himself nor his Liege Lord might determine but the Law For a Villain who of all Vassals was most Fettered most forbidden to molest his Lord yet might be Demandant in some Real or Plaintiff in some Personal Actions where the Lord might not make plain defence as they speak Nay and Villains also did often bring Actions of Trespass And in Cases of others as of Orphans where the Villain is Executor in Trust he may implead his Lord who can not deny to answear though he do it with a Salvo lest such a Suit might make his Villain free as much as if he had made him an Obligation or a Deed of some Annuity or a Lease for Term or Infeofment with Seisin or had sued him in Law for what he might have had without a Suit For these did Enfranchise the Villain as much as being in a City or Castle without claim or Challenge for a Year and a Day or his Lords giving him by the Right Hand to the Sheriff in full County Court shewing him the open Doors and free wayes and delivering to him a Sword and a Lance or other Free Arms which are the wayes of Manumission in the Laws of King William and Hen. the first where we also find the Text so much Commented by Glanvil Bracton Britton Fleta with the Mirror and others They all agree in this that the Bond and Obligation is Mutual and that the Lords Kiss whispereth as much Respect and Defence as the Vassals Kneeling doth his Reverence Nay there is in Law so great an Obligation on the Lord and so great a Charge often in Guarranty which of old was much larger than now in Homage Ancestrell That the Lord would often refuse and delay to take his Tenants Homage So that there was a Writ made commanding him to take it and by it to Oblige himself to his Tenant whom he was to Defend and his Trespass on him in Law had a very great Aggravation because the Vassal was to be sub defensione Ligea as we found the

full and clear Parliament We need not suspect or doubt it for in those very times there were such Parliaments and such degrees Nay Caesar himself found such degrees among the Britains a King and Druyds which were as Bishops and Archbishops as we may clear anon Dukes and Nobles besides the Commons So civil was our British Ancestors Of whom much more ere long And for the very first times of Christian Religion which was much higher than Austin the Father who might have been great Grandfather to Austin the Monk King Alfred's own Laws acknowledge that in this Island the Laws were then made by a Common Council of Bishops and other Wise men or elder men of the Wytan Old Bede seemeth plain enough for this in several places Servabant Reges Sacerdotes Privati Were the Commons before the Lords Optimates suum quique Ordinem And of the Saxons called in by Common Council Initum est Concilium quid agendum c. placuitque omnibus cum suo Rege Vortigorno ut Saxonum gentem in auxilium vocarent And of Ethelbert King of all the South to the River Humber Among other good works saith he quae consulendo conferebat etiam decreta Iudiciorum juxta exempla Romanorum Concilio Sapientiunt constituit And among other Laws of his in the same Bede that is one in special for Priviledge Ecclesiae Episcopi Reliquorum ordinum That this might also extend to the great Priviledge of Parliaments I could the rather believe from the Laws of the said King Ethelbert yet to be found in the old book of Rochester Textus Roffensis of which Sir Henry Spelman unto whom we owe so much for all Antiquities Where after provision for the things of God and the Church to which St. Edward's Laws allude the next Act is for Priviledge of Parliament it seems being for the punishing and sore fining of those that should do any damage Gif Kyning his Leode to him gehateth c. And in the old Chronicle of Canterbury we read of this King Ethelbert being at Canterbury with his Queen and Son and the Archbishop Austin Caeterisque Optimatibus convocato ibidem Communi Concilio tam Cleri quàm Populi With divers other proofs for Parliaments in Charters to that Church in print And Spot deserves as much One thing I must not omit that Bede observing how Religion was preached both to the King and to the Counts omnibus Comitibus saith there was a License granted for publick Preaching but when the King and divers great men were converted and baptized yet there was no force used to compel others to be of that Religion because he saith they were taught that Christs service must be voluntary and not forced But the Mirrour telleth us the King was bound to compel men to Salvation O happy men or unhappy King But the Britains would not be forced from their Rites by Austin the Monk Absque suae gentis imprimis Senatorum suffragio as a learned man translates King Alfred's Saxon Bede Which is also very clear in several places for setling of Christian Religion when it was freely chosen with destruction of Pagan Idolatry with Lent and other things confirmed by divers Acts of Parliament in time of Ercombert and King Edwin Mid his Witum mid his Ealdormanum So is the old Book of Peterburgh for a Parliament or Heatfield With which we may compare somewhat in Ingulph and more in Bede Ethelward and Huntingdon about the Parliaments which received and consirmed the General Councils and that which established the Division of Parishes and Patronage of Churches Of which Stow and the Antiquities of Canterbury but especially a Manuscript in Camdridge cited by Mr. Wheelock on the fourth or fifth of Bede I should not digress to Sigesberts founding the Vniversity of Cambridge had not King Alfred himself in this added good Notes to Bede By which we may see whence he learned what so many say he did to Oxford the younger Sister For which Polydore is plain enough besides so many better elder Authors It is also considerable that King Alfred calleth Cambridge or Grantacestre a City which Bede would make a Civitatula How little it might then be made by the Danes or others I know not But in old Nennius of the British Cities I find Cair Granth next before Cair Londen And Sir Simon d' Ewes affirmeth it to be ranked before London in Gildas Albarius and an old Saxon Anonymus besides that of the old but not the oldest book of Doomsday Nor must I omit the Records of Richard the First for the Customs of the City of Cambridge found by a Jury in an Assize of Darrein Presentment for the Church of St. Peters in Cambridge Of which the great Judge in his Reports or Commentaries To which I might adde what the Saxon Chronology speaketh of Grante Briege at the year 875 and 921 where we also find an ancient Military Sacrament or great Oath of Fealty more to be marked than may seem at first view Come we to the Saxon Laws extant in print They begin with King Ina whom some will have to be a Britain But in the Confessors Acts he is stiled Optimus Rex Anglorum qui electus fuit in Regem per Angelum qui primum obtinuit Monarchum Totius Regni hujus post adventum Angliorum And that himself and others of his People matched with the Britains But per Communae Concilium assensum omnium Episcoporum Principum Comitum omnium Sapientum Seniorum Populorum totius Regni Not onely a clear proof for Parliaments in King Ina's time but a good Comment on his Laws in print Providing about Matches Dowries and Women's Thirds and all by Parliament as the Proem it self expresses beside King Edward's Laws And for the Saxon Militia a Phrase used by Bede himself Nam egressi contra Gevissorum gentem omnes pariter cum suà Militia corruerunt King Ina's Laws afford us divers Acts of Parliament providing against Thieves Riots Routs and all unlawful Assemblies in several degrees and branches As also for Officers of the Militia to be ready on a great Fine to march upon all just occasions With which we may compare Mr. Lambert's Custos Paganus Sithecundman which some would have to be the Father to our Side-men See Whithred's Military Dooms Egbert is by all esteemed a great if not the first Monarch of the Saxons a great Warriour and a Conquerour But yet he neither made or managed the Militia without a great Common Council or Parliament For which besides all others we have a clear proof in the old Abbot of Croyland to which there was a great Charter confirmed Coram Pontificibus Proceribus Majoribus totius Angliae which were all together at London consulting how to provide against the Danish Pirates Pro Concilio capiendo contra Danicos Piratas c. That also Majores in this place might denote some lower than Earls or Lords may not onely be gathered from