the King is Judge onely whether a Parliament shall be held oftner than once a yeer whereas the Conjunction AND couples and joyns the sence of the words IF NEED BE to the former part of the sentence and so the Statute speaks plain for the King 's being Sole Judge whether there be need of calling Parliaments once a year as well as whether there be need of calling them oftner than once a yeer So that 't is evident the Noble King Edward the Third and his Parliament meant no such matter as the Considerator and his Fellows and as some other Professors of the Law have hitherto misunderstood contrary to the General sence of Law in that part of our Laws which concerns the Establishment of the Prerogative of our Kings a very principal flower whereof is the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments as often as they shall judge there is need and the Practice of other Nations in all the World hath justified this that it is the common Birth-right of Hereditary Kings to be sole Judges of this Question Whether there be need or no need at all times of Calling or of Dismissing the Supreme Assemblies unless they limit themselves but you see here is reason absolute to conclude our King Edward did not intend to limit himself to yeerly Parliaments by the said Statutes And to make further proof of this see again what is said by the Considerator CONSIDERATOR That the Kings of England have not duely nor constantly observed those Statutes ever since their making doth not render them of the less Force because 't is an Offence in the King not to fulfil a Law ANIMADVERSION Here he is pleased to acknowledge what cannot be denied that the Kings of England have not observed those Statutes ever since their making which shews that our succeeding Kings never thought themselves obliged by them or that King Edward intended it so unless they should see need or at any time judge it necessary to call a Parliament Besides we do not read of any Parliamentary Complaint about the omitting of YEERLY Parliaments till our Presbyterian Masters of the Faction in their Grand Remonstrance 1641. charged it as a fault upon his Majesties Father under pretence of those Statutes And doubtless some of the foregoing Parliaments would have made complaint about Yeerly Omission had they believed Kings bound to Yeerly Parliaments But that King Edward and his Parliament which passed the Law never intended or understood it in the Considerator's sence is to be concluded from this most undeniably That from the Fifth yeer of the said King to the Eighth yeer no Parliament was called the reason was because he judged there was no need Nor doth it appear that he did afterward observe any such certain Puncto of time in calling his Parliaments but doubtless 't is in reason to be thought he would have been so tender of his own Law as to have observed it within the fifth or sixth yeer and not so soon have broken it if he had thought himself obliged absolutely to a yeer because it was but in the fourth year that he passed it CONSIDERATOR But saith the Considerator the King is the onely person that is meant or can be bound For he it is that is to Summon or Hold Parliaments and therefore the Statutes intend to oblige Him or else they intend nothing and the Laws for Parliaments that secure our Religion Properties and Liberties are become onely Advices and Counsels to the King with no obligation further than the Kings present thoughts of their expedience ANIMADVERSION That the Obligation to a Yeerly Parliament lies no further upon the King than if in prudence he see there be need is already proved from a Right Construction of the words of the Statutes and that this prudential power and part of the Kings Prerogative in Judging the expedience of calling Parliaments at this or that time as Affairs shall in His Judgement require did remain undiminished by the said Statutes And they intended onely this which was enough That seeing the People had an ancient Right by Custom to have frequent Parliaments the King accordingly should oblige himself to call Parliaments so often as every yeer or oftner if there should be need Whereupon it is observable that seeing in the interval of Parliament there neither ought nor can be any Judge of the necessity but the King these two Laws left the power of judging it in the Prerogative-Royal as they found it and the then Parliament gained this great Advantage for the People that whereas they before had a Right by Custom and Common Law they now obtain a right by Statute-Law too which certainly so wise a King as Edw. 3. would never have granted without a Salvo put in for his Prerogative by the words IF NEED BE. Moreover consider if those Statutes should be otherwise understood viz. that the King ex debito were bound every yeer to call a Parliament whether it would not have been a great Mischief rather than Benefit to the People For in those days they that served Members in Parliament were wont to take Wages for their Service and that would have layn heavie upon every poor Burrough to have been bound to pay Wages due once a yeer sometimes oftner to their Burgesses it being recoverable by Law against them which peradventure would amount to more than their share of payment of Subsidies Again consider as this would empty their Purses so it would lade them with innumerable Laws which are as grievous almost as to have none as it hath been found in many Nations by experience and therefore it is that Justinian hath been every-where praised for so excellent an Emperour because when all the Nations under the Roman Empire were even over-laid with multitudes of Laws and groaned more under this Yoak than that of Taxes Tributes he took care how to deliver the people from that vexatious Burthen by cutting off the major unnecessary part of the Imperial Statutes and Digesting the rest into a tolerable Body Therefore should such yeerly Parliaments be imposed on us by Law the Statutes would soon swell to the like intolerable pass and tire the people out of fondness after so frequent Meetings as these Writers plead for and would force Us to admit even against all Sense and Reason Therefore we have abundant cause to praise the Wisdom of His Majestie and this His Parliament that in the 16th yeer of his Reign they framed that most prudent Triennial Law which placeth a golden Mediocrity betwixt the having too frequent Parliaments and too long delay of them and I must needs say His Majestie hath therein appeared by limiting himself to call Parliaments hereafter at Three yeers time after the determination of this and after the determination of every succeeding Parliament to be beyond all our Kings and most gracious in condescending and Indulgence towards his people that as the Faction which set on work this Considerator and his Fellows to delude the
lie if ever God for our sins should permit them to proceed For they of the Faction cannot fish in the waters of Monarchy they would have a Senate with Oligarchs over it in stead of a Monarch For the Narrator saith we ought not to use the word Parliament now but the word Convention is better Nor is it any part of the Faction's business to be content with the Established Religion or Liberty and Property these are words which they know how to make use of by sprinkling them as flowers of Rhetorick in all their Writings and Discourses they work upon the People with them as Witches do with Charms Characters and Spells to bewitch the Multitude with an opinion against the Court and that all is in danger that way and that themselves are the onely Patrons and Patriots when in the mean time they onely tickle them like Trouts with these things to catch them and enslave them to their own designes and humours for pulling the Government in pieces which is the only Bulwark of Religion Liberty and Property For as the King well saith before without this there will be neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety left to any man The Truth whereof we found by woful experience which ensued after the very same Witchcrafts had bereaved the people of their Senses in FORTY ONE to run headlong into Civil Wars which lasted so long till Twenty yeers Suffering under loss of Religion Liberty Property Safety Government and all made them long and sigh after their Soveraign Lord again as the onely Restorer Look back then once again upon those short Heads of His Majesties Speech with an impartial eye and you have in view so many demonstrations of Wisdom Moderation Tenderness for this Parliament and the future being of Parliaments in their ancient Legal state as also of Love and Kindness towards his People that more cannot be utter'd by Man to cast out the devil of Jealousie and keep it from haunting the Houses of this people any more His Majestie in one of the Heads saith to this effect That without keeping within the compass of the Government as the Laws have stated every part of it viz. in a delicate Medium betwixt the Regal Prerogative and the Parliamentary Right and Liberty of the people so as both may be preserved entire unto Kings and unto Parliaments in their several Stations neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety nor Parliaments can be maintain'd The Reason is plain because the Law of the land which is the Band that ties all together being once broken by any one of the Parties they immediately fall asunder and will easily be cleft into a thousand pieces and the Parliamentary Constitution not easily be restored as it appeared upon the FORTY ONE Divisions for Twenty yeers together Experience saith the Proverb is the Mistress of Fools Must we always then be Fooling for new Experiments of our old Foolery One would think we should have been wiser by this time than to suffer the same Faction to inchant us any more But because a better Description of Kingly and Parliamentary Interest of Government cannot be had than what was described by the Pen of His Majesties Royal Father in His Answer to the Nineteen Propositions presented to him by that Parliament of the Faction anno 1642. June 2. let me here set it down in regard it will be the best Informer of posterity what to do in like Cases to prevent future Troubles that may arise again through mens acting old Cheats over and over His words are these There being Three kindes of Government among men Absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having particular inconveniences the experience and wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded our Government in England out of a Mixture of all Three as to give this Kingdom so far as Humane wisdom can provide the Conveniencies of the Three without the Inconveniencies of any One as long as the Balance hangs even between the Three Estates and while they run joyntly on in their proper Chanels begetting verdure and fertility in the Meadows on both sides and while there is no overflowing of either on either side to raise a Deluge or Inundation In this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons chosen by the People all having free Votes and particular Priviledges The Government according to our Laws is trusted to the King with power of Treaties of War and Peace of making Peers of chusing Officers and Counsellers for State Judges for Law Commanders for Forts and Castles giving Commissions for raising men to make War abroad or to provide against Invasions or Insurrections at home Benefit of Confiscations power of Pardoning and some more of the like kinde are placed in the King And this Monarchy thus regulated having this power to preserve that Authority without which it would be disabled to preserve the Laws in their force and the Subjects in their Liberties and Properties is intended to draw to him such a Respect and Relation from the Great Ones as may hinder the Ills of Division and Faction and procure such a Fear and Reverence from the People as may hinder Tumults Violence and Licentiousness Again that the Prince may not make use of this high and perpetual Power to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it and make use of the name of Publike Necessity for the gain of his private Favourites and Followers to the detriment of his People the House of Commons an excellent Conserver of Liberty but never intended for any Share in the Government or for the chusing of them that should govern is soly intrusted with the first Proposition concerning levies of Moneys which are the sinews of Peace as well as War and with the Impeaching of those who for their own ends though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten Command of the King have violated that Law which he is bound when he knoweth it to protect and to the protection of which they were bound to Advise him at least not to serve him in the contrary And the Lords being trusted with a Judiciary power are an excellent Skreen and Bank between the Prince and the People to assist each against any Incroachments of the other and by just Judgements to preserve that law which ought to be the Rule of every one of the Three I would not have transcribed this but that I conceive it impossible to make a more excellent Delineation of the several Concerns of the King and his Subjects in the Constitution of our English Government that every one may understand what is their due by Law and how Monstrous the Demands were in those Nineteen Propositions the first of which was That those Lords and others of your Majesties Privie Council and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas may be put from your Privie Council and from those Offices and Employments excepting such as
Summons was never question'd nor could the Prorogation have been at all disputed but that the Faction would be so bold and mischievous as to do it and with how slight a colour of Reason you have already seen in these past Discourses And now their last Clamour is that the House of Peers hath condemned the four Lords to Prison for presuming to argue a Nullity of the Parliament And what follows The Dissolver told us in his Pamphlet that a New Parliament is to come that shall call this to account and leave a new precedent to the world That one Parliament may hang another And who knows but that this sort of Pen-men with their Patrons are continually of Counsel with the desperate FACTION The rest of this Writers Pamphlet contains nothing but a partial Relation of Circumstances and Ceremonies which passed in calling the Four Lords to the Bar and about the manner of their Commitment and then he closeth all with a few odious Reflections upon the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal and the House of Commons which here follow NARRATOR He next proceeds in a jeering manner to mention a new Triple League but who are they that are this Triple League He names Bishops Court-Lords and Popish Lords who had already broken through the ancient Rules and Practice of Parliament and all the Laws of England and now would go according to the new Court-word thorow-stitch The rest of the Lords he calls Allies of the Triple League who joyned in the Commitment ANIMADVERSION What a Petition in one hand and at the same time a Poniard in the other Must it be so carried a Petition to the King and the same time a Stab given to his Ministers great Officers Bishops and all the rest of the Nobility of the House of Peers that concurred with them to preserve the Government I would be loth to call the Four Lords and those few that concurred with them on the other side the Allies of the FACTION A New Triple League nor will I let other men think what they please This Jeer sounds like the Witticism of one of them that uses to take care to print all his witty Sayings and Jests as fast as he speaks them especially those against the Court and the Bishops and Ministers of State whom he always dresses with this kinde of Flowers to be offer'd in Sacrifice to his own New Parliament as the old Heathen Sacrificers were wont to dress their Beasts to be offer'd up to their Idols therefore if the word Thorow-stitch were the Word at Court what would become of him and his Triple League if this old Parliament should proceed as roundly as his intended New one would do if we believe the DISSOLVER Then for the Bishops in particular he proceeds thus NARRATOR He saith Vnder pretence of securing the Protestant Religion by Act of Parliament one of the designes of the Triple League is To declare it lawful for our Kings to be Papists As is done in a Bill lately sent down to the Commons from the Lords and I do not hear of any one Bishop but agreed to it ANIMADVERSION This is a Fire-ball with a witness made up of the most dangerous but falsest Ingredients why then should I be long in extinguishing it For the Bishops of England and their Doctrine Discipline and Government will be found the surest Fence against the coming in of Popery as well as against the Invasion of the FACTION and the Slavery of their Discipline Can a greater Provocation be given to the House of Peers and the Bishops The Forming of this Bill was committed to such a Committee of Lords and Bishops that all our world knows them to be Noble and true and as firm as a Rock against the Roman Religion and they took the greatest care that men in prudence possibly could do to secure us from it at present and in future And whatsoever the father of lyes may invent and the FACTION spread abroad to the contrary to exasperate and increase their own Party more could hardly be invented for our Religion's security Sure I am it was thought so by the Papists themselves and to be so severe that they dreaded nothing more than the Consequence of its passing both Houses insomuch that some Lords of that Religion opposed it what they could and spared not to say that after this they expected nothing but Fire and Fagot NARRATOR And that the House of Commons may have their share too of damnable Scandal he lets fly at them without mercy and thus he concludes that they are most of them either French or Court-pensioners Indigent or Out-law'd persons Children Fools or such as are superannuated persons ANIMADVERSION But why French Pensioners c. How then came the Major part to be for an Alliance with the Dutch as appeared by the late Votes and the Address thereupon to his Majesty May not then the other side with as much reason from thence make the like ungentile and unchristian Conclusion that there are Dutch Pensioners too 'T is a miserable pass the world is come to when men shall take up Scandals from Malice Phant'sie or Jealousie to dart at one another and at this rate there can be no end till we have railed our selves round before the eyes of all the Nations of the world and painted out our selves with the vilest Characters to become a subject for their Scorn and Derision It were again to scandalize those worthy Members of the Commons that he aims at for any man to undertake to vindicate them against the foul Imputations of a mad unconscionable sort of desperate Boutefeus 'T is to be hoped the Lords and Gentlemen of both Houses will take heed of these Spirits and by the severest ANIMADVERSIONS of Authority and Justice make their own Vindication FINIS
shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament c. The rest of the Demands were agreeable to this But what answer'd the King to these things These said he being passed We may be waited on bare-headed We may have Our hand kiss'd the Stile of Majestie continued to Vs and the King's Authority declared by both Houses of Parliament may be still the Stile of your Commands We may have Swords and Maces carried before Vs and please our Self with the sight of a Sword and Scepter and yet even these Twigs would not long flourish after the Stock upon which they grew becomes dead but as to true and real Power We should remain but the out-side but the Picture but the Signe of a King We were ever willing that Our Parliament should debate resolve and transact such matters as are proper for them as far as they are proper for them and We heartily wish that they would be careful not to extend their Debates and Resolutions beyond what is proper to them c. But alas instead of hearkening to this they without reason carried all before them like a mighty Stream and so the fatal Wars came on because the King would not be unking'd by giving away the Flowers of his Crown If he would not part with 'em by such fair means they resolved to have 'em by foul But remember this that God suffer'd not any of the first Hot-spurs and Beginners to reap any Comfort by the Business which as all Histories will shew us is the common Fate of such Undertakers And it were well if I had room here to make a Stand to give you a Relation of ours here in England But 't is time now to return to the Narrator and tell him all this kinde of doings was at Westminster within the memory of man NARRATIVE As soon as the Speeches were made and the Commons were withdrawn a Bill was offered to be read But the Duke of Buckingham desired to be heard first Well then what said the Duke It was clear to him the Parliament was Dissolved for which opinion he gave his Reasons which because they are the sum of all that was said to prove tho dissolution I shall give you as good and as brief an account of them as I can ANIMADVERSION The sum of that Speech as the Narrator hath printed it amounts but to two pages I have a written Copie of it by me and could Animadvert upon it but I would not strip one of the finest Courtiers of the world for leaping aside out of his proper Element I am tender of him in many Respects but 't is both my trouble and my wonder that the Narrator prints him among the Martyrs that suffer for the sake of a FACTION who persecuted the Illustrious Duke his Lordships father both in and out of Parliament till he fell their Sacrifice by the hand of Felton and left him the Inheriter of all those Honours and Fortunes which flow'd from the Bounty of our Kings Return return Noble Lord if it may be by the way of Penitence and take Noble Salisbury along with you well prepared whose wise Grandfather was the great Instrument in making way for that happie Succession which united both these Kingdoms under the old name of Great Britain I have here my Lord Duke taken some pains to convince you and all the World and I hope I have done it If any thing more could be done for you I would do it in hope of your Penitence and I hope I do not in vain perswade you because I think your Conscience is not made of the same metal with a man's that as St. Paul saith hath been seared with a red-hot Iron Think not that I court you or that I think your fault as Circumstances were when you committed it hath left you capable of pardon from any but the most merciful of Kings and the extreme commiseration of your Peers unless I could think the Destruction of such a Parliament as this a small matter for this a quick Dissolution would in probability amount to I would not have a tittle to say for you if I did not believe who it was that drew you in to the Business which whether REASON of STATE can excuse is a weighty Question If there were any thing in the Arguments of your Speech more than what was said in other words by the Considerator and the Dissolver I would give you the satisfaction of handling it but it seems to me to be but a mere REHEARSAL which hath in it onely more of Wit and of a Gentleman than of the Reason of Law and a Lawyer NARRATIVE No sooner had the Duke ended his Speech but my Lord Fretchvil moved to have him called to the Bar c. ANIMADVERSION This Narrator presumes to name many more Lords that spake pro and some few con that is against the opinion of the Dissolution But he saith the Lord Chancellor at length undertook to answer all the Arguments that were or should be for a Dissolution If so then it was no wonder that the House was soon satisfied and concluded as the Narrator saith that the Question should be laid aside But I would have told you before that he saith the Earl of Shaftsbury upon the Motion of calling the Duke to the Bar said that it would be the taking away all freedom of speech in Parliament That would be troublesome indeed to his Lordship who hath been a very free speaker in Parliament if we may believe the printed Letter to a friend in the Country and those Speeches that went abroad in print under his name But no more of that I would have somewhat in me now of the Lion and do pass him by His Lordship may see by these Animadversions how little reason he had in Law for so great Confidence in the Speech which the Narrator saith he made also upon the Statutes of Edw. 3. about yeerly Parliaments I hope he did not sit a Dictator in the Council of these Printed Dissolvers If he did 't is but reason the FACTION or some-body else should pay him his Fees But before I part with his Lordship I must needs shew him his Errour about the point of freedom of speech in Parliament and 't is absolutely necessary that I do it because 't is become a villanous Insinuation used by the Narrator and the rest of the scandalous Faction round the Town that the Imprisonment of the four Lords is done contrary to the ancient Priviledge of Parliament which is to have a liberty of speech in all Debates As for this Lord he need not complain he had enough given him or rather he took it if the Speeches printed with his name to them be his Doth freedom of speech extend so far as to make odious Insinuations and Reflections upon the King upon the Crown and its Rights upon the Succession of it upon the Honour of the House of Peers upon the Bishops upon the whole Church with the Canons the
Homilies the 39 Articles and her Doctrine as it relates either to God Religion or the Civil obedience due to the King and the whole Government of State and the Security of all these by an Oath of Allegeance If his Lordship thought that the Law allowed either Peers or Commons such a liberty of speech why did he bustle so diligently and briskly as I have been told to promote a Bill not long since against the ancient way of Tryal of Peers Every body then smelt a Rat in the Case and smiled at his Lordships wise Providence and his secret intent of speaking and acting beyond Compass upon the open Stage and therefore I did not wonder when I did read afterwards in the Pamphlet intituled Debates and Arguments for Dissolving this Parliament c. which was reported to be his that his Lordship was very angry at the House of Commons for throwing out the said Bill of Trial when it was sent down to them and tells the Commons p. 6. They certainly were grown very high in their own opinion and had a very low esteem for the Lords when they neglected their best friends in the House of Peers and did almost with scorn refuse that Bill intituled For the more fair and equal Tryal of Peers I never saw the Bill yet therefore can say nothing more of it onely I cannot but take notice that in the same page and in many other parts of that Print a through-revenge is plentifully bestowed upon the Honour of the House of Commons Nothing would then serve the Turn but they must be turned out of doors Dissolved and a new one presently call'd an instance clear enough for discovery out of whose Quiver this Arrow of Dissolution was first shot and of great probability who set on the Writers since against the Prorogation to break the neck of this Parliament and in it all the hopes of the Loyal part of the Nation And if that aforenamed were the Print of his Lordship I might reckon up out of it and another Print stitcht to the tail of it the most virulent Scandals that could be raked together to prepare that House for the rage of the Rabble But the Narrator having sum'd up in few words the sence of the Author I leave him here because the Narrative it self will give the House that short Cut by and by In the mean while if freedom of speaking in Parliament and after that of Printing All and more than All that is of more perhaps than was spoken be to be construed and extended at this rate know that the old Customs and Laws Parliamentary in England know no such matter A freedom of speech in Debate is that which every Speaker by ancient Custom after the House of Commons hath chosen him and presented him to the King doth petition for to the King on the behalf of all the Members of that House and it was never yet denied by any of our Kings The Lords also in their House do claim it by Birthright for to what end do they meet if they may not freely debate matters without which 't is impossible to come to any Resolution about them May his hand rot off then that shall write a word against it But withal we are to understand there are Bounds Rules and Laws of speaking in either House of Parliament for the Law of Parliaments ever supposeth that the Members ought to keep within the compass of those Bounds and observe those Rules both as to the matter spoken and the manner of speaking Every Member hath a Right to be heard and heard out what he hath to say but then when he hath done the House to which he belongs hath power to judge whether he hath spoken ill or not and if ill then they are the proper Judges to dispose of him to punishment according to his desert And this the Law supposeth they will always do they being interested and intrusted with such Necessary Power and Priviledge for the good of the King and Kingdom Now this is the Case of the most Noble House of Peers They have as to the committing of the Four Lords to the Tower not done it because they spake for they heard out with great patience what they had to say but because they judged what their Lordships had spoken against the Being of this Parliament was of most pernicious Consequence against the Safety and Good of the King and Kingdom And to say no more of this the House was so unanimous in concurring to their Commitment after a debate and consideration of the matter as will appear upon search of the Books of that House that it was with great odds of number carried by the Temporal Lords alone without reckoning in the Bishops or the number of Proxies And the Narrator himself confesseth this was agreed on after a full Hearing of all that could be said by the four Lords themselves or their few Friends only he mingles many ill-favour'd Reflections and false Insinuations in his Relation NARRATIVE It had been he saith moved also by the Duke of Buckingham that the Opinion of the Judges might be declared in the Point ANIMADVERSION All Reverence be given to the Judges in due time and place This was an arduous Point of a Superlative Nature touching the very Life and Being of a Parliament in a conspiring Factious Season infinitely above those ordinary points of Law touching which that House is wont sometimes to consult my Lords the Judges when their Lordships conceive they have need to consult them But this was so plain a Case to their Lordships that having the Judicatory right and power in their own hands and in so transcendent an Occasion it had been a strange thing to have yeelded to such a Motion merely to gratifie those whom they had judged Offenders Nor was it to be supposed that the Judges would have undertaken to opinionate about so Supreme a Question wherein the Safety of all the Concerns of Crown and State were involved fit onely for the Supreme Judicature to consider NARRATIVE It was the next day urged by some Lords in the behalf of the Four Lords that three several times viz. 1 Hen. 7. 1 Qu. Mary 1 Qu. Eliz. the very same Debate was in Parliament yet no man questioned for moving it ANIMADVERSION Whether those Debates were the same or not let the world judge when as the Narrator himself confesses it was only about the Forms of the Writs that summoned the Parliament that the Question in those days was But this Question made now was about the validity of a Prorogation and the very being of a Parliament after it I do not finde in my Lord Cook 's Treatise about the High Court of Parliament that the length of a Prorogation beyond a Years time can dissolve it or that a small flaw in the Form of the Writ of Summons can invalidate a Parliament But if it were so that it could yet that is not within the Case of this Parliament whose Writ of