Part 3

He said he would labor to contract those manifold affairs both of the Church and State, which did so earnestly require the wisdom and faithfulness of this House, into a double method of grievances and cures. And because there wanted not some who pretended that these things, wherewith the commonwealth is now grieved, are much for the advantage of the King, and that the redress of them will be to his Majesty’s great disadvantage and loss, he doubted not but to make it appear, that in discovering the present great distempers and disorders, and procuring remedy for them, we should be no less serviceable to his Majesty, who hath summoned us to this great council than useful to those whom we do here represent. For the better effecting whereof, he propounded three main branches of his discourse. In the first, he would offer them the several heads of some principal grievances, under which the kingdom groaned. In the second, he undertook to prove that the disorders from whence those grievances issued, were as hurtful to the King as to the people. In the third, he would advise such a way of healing, and removing those grievances, as might be equally effectual to maintain the honor and greatness of the King, and to procure the prosperity and contentment of the people.

In the handling whereof he promised to use such expressions as might mitigate the sharpness and bitterness of those things whereof he was to speak, so far as his duty and faithfulness would allow. It is a great prerogative to the King, and a great honor attributed to him, in a maxim of our law, that he can do no wrong; he is the fountain of justice; and, if there be any injustice in the execution of his commands, the law casts it upon the ministers, and frees the King.

Activity, life, and vigor are conveyed into the sublunary creatures by the influence of heaven; but the malignity and distemper, the cause of so many epidemical diseases, do proceed from the noisome vapors of the earth, or some ill-affected qualities of the air, without any infection or alteration of those pure, celestial, and incorruptible bodies. In the like manner, he said, the authority, the power, and countenance of princes, may concur in the actions of evil men, without partaking in the injustice and obliquity of them. These matters whereof we complain, have been presented to his Majesty, either under the pretence of royal prerogatives, which he is bound to maintain, or of public good, which is the most honorable object of regal wisdom. But the covetous and ambitious designs of others have interposed betwixt his royal intentions and the happiness of his people, making those things pernicious and hurtful, which his Majesty apprehended as just and profitable.

He said, the things which he was to propound were of a various nature, many of them such as required a very tender and exquisite consideration. In handling of which, as he would be bold to use the liberty of the place and relation wherein he stood, so he would be very careful to express that modesty and humility which might be expected by those of whose actions he was to speak. And if his judgment or his tongue should slip into any particular mistake, he would not think it so great a shame to fail by his own weakness as he should esteem it an honor and advantage to be corrected by the wisdom of that House to which he submitted himself, with this protestation, that he desired no reformation as much as to reform himself.

The greatest liberty of the kingdom is religion; thereby we are freed from spiritual evils, and no impositions are so grievous as those that are laid upon the soul.

The next great liberty is justice, whereby we are preserved from injuries in our persons and estates; from this is derived into the commonwealth, peace, and order, and safety; and when this is interrupted, confusion and danger are ready to overwhelm all.

The third great liberty consists in the power and privilege of parliaments; for this is the fountain of law, the great council of the kingdom, the highest court; this is inabled by the legislative and conciliary power, to prevent evils to come; by the judiciary power, to suppress and remove evils present. If you consider these three great liberties in the order of dignity, this last is inferior to the other two, as means are inferior to the end; but, if you consider them in the order of necessity and use, this may justly claim the first place in our care, because the end cannot be obtained without the means: and if we do not preserve this, we cannot long hope to enjoy either of the others. Therefore being to speak of those grievances which lie upon the kingdom, he would observe this order.

1. To mention those which were against the privilege of parliaments. 2. Those which were prejudicial to the religion established in the kingdom. 3. Those which did interrupt the justice of the realm in the liberty of our persons and propriety of our estates.

The privileges of Parliament were not given for the ornament or advantage of those who are the members of Parliament.[10] They have a real use and efficacy toward that which is the end of parliaments. We are free from suits that we may the more entirely addict ourselves to the public services; we have, therefore, liberty of speech, that our counsels may not be corrupted with fear, or our judgments perverted with self respects. Those three great faculties and functions of Parliament, the legislative, judiciary, and conciliary power,[11] cannot be well exercised without such privileges as these. The wisdom of our laws, the faithfulness of our counsels, the righteousness of our judgments, can hardly be kept pure and untainted if they proceed from distracted and restrained minds.

It is a good rule of the moral philosopher,—_Et non lædas mentem gubernatricem omnium actionum_. These powers of Parliament are to the body politic as the rational faculties of the soul to a man; that which keeps all the parts of the commonwealth in frame and temper, ought to be most carefully preserved in that freedom, vigor, and activity, which belongs to itself. Our predecessors in this House have ever been most careful in the first place to settle and secure their privileges; and he hoped, that we, having had greater breaches made upon us than heretofore, would be no less tender of them, and forward in seeking reparation for that which is past, and prevention of the like for the time to come.

Then he propounded divers particular points wherein the privileges of Parliament had been broken. First, in restraining the members of the House from speaking. Secondly, in forbidding the Speaker to put any question.

These two were practiced the last day of the last Parliament (and, as was alleged, by his Majesty’s command); and both of them trench upon the very life and being of parliaments; for if such a restraining power as this should take root, and be admitted, it will be impossible for us to bring any resolution to perfection in such matters as shall displease those about the King.[12]

Thirdly, by imprisoning divers members of the House, for matters done in Parliament. Fourthly, by indictments, informations, and judgments in ordinary and inferior courts, for speeches and proceedings in parliaments. Fifthly, by the disgraceful order of the King’s bench, whereby some members of this House were enjoined to put in security of their good behaviour; and for refusal thereof, were continued in prison divers years, without any particular allegation against them. One of them was freed by death. Others were not dismissed till his Majesty had declared his intention to summon the present Parliament. And this he noted not only as a breach of privilege, but as a violation of the common justice of the kingdom. Sixthly, by the sudden and abrupt dissolution of parliaments, contrary to the law and custom.

Often hath it been declared in parliaments, that the Parliament should not be dissolved, till the petitions be answered. This (he said) was a great grievance because it doth prevent the redress of other grievances. It were a hard case that a private man should be put to death without being heard. As this representative body of the Commons receives a being by the summons, so it receives a civil death by the dissolution. Is it not a much more heavy doom by which we lose our being, to have this civil death inflicted on us in displeasure, and not to be allowed time and liberty to answer for ourselves? That we should not only die, but have this mark of infamy laid upon us? to be made intestabiles, disabled to make our wills, to dispose of our business, as this House hath always used to do before adjournments or dissolutions? Yet this hath often been our case! We have not been permitted to pour out our last sighs and groans into the bosom of our dear sovereign. The words of dying men are full of piercing affections; if we might be heard to speak, no doubt we should so fully express our love and faithfulness to our prince, as might take off the false suggestions and aspersions of others; at least we should in our humble supplications recommend some such things to him in the name of his people, as would make for his own honor, and the public good of his kingdom.

Thus he concluded the first sort of grievances, being such as were against the privilege of Parliament, and passed on to the next, concerning religion; all which he conveyed under these four heads. The first, was the great encouragement given to popery, of which he produced these particular evidences. 1. A suspension of all laws against papists, whereby they enjoy a free and almost public exercise of that religion. Those good statutes which were made for restraint of idolatry and superstition, are now a ground of security to them in the practice of both; being used to no other end but to get money into the King’s purse; which as it is clearly against the intentions of the law, so it is full of mischief to the kingdom. By this means a dangerous party is cherished and increased, who are ready to close with any opportunity of disturbing the peace and safety of the State. Yet he did not desire any new laws against popery, or any rigorous courses in the execution of those already in force; he was far from seeking the ruin of their persons or estates; only he wished they might be kept in such a condition as should restrain them from doing hurt.[13]

It may be objected, there are moderate and discreet men amongst them, men of estates, such as have an interest in the peace and prosperity of the kingdom as well as we. These (he said) were not to be considered according to their own disposition, but according to the nature of the body whereof they are parties. The planets have several and particular motions of their own, yet they are all rapt and transported into a contrary course by the superior orb which comprehends them all. The principles of popery are such as are incompatible with any other religion. There may be a suspension of violence for some by certain respects; but the ultimate end even of that moderation is, that they may with more advantage extirpate that which is opposite to them. Laws will not restrain them. Oaths will not. The Pope can dispense with both these, and where there is occasion, his command will move them to the disturbance of the realm—against their own private disposition—yea, against their own reason and judgement—to obey him; to whom they have (especially the Jesuitical party) absolutely and entirely obliged themselves, not only in spiritual matters, but in temporal, as they are in order _ad spiritualia_. Henry III. and Henry IV. of France were no Protestants themselves, yet were murthered because they tolerated Protestants. The King and the kingdom can have no security but in their weakness and disability to do hurt.

2. A second encouragement is, their admission into places of power and trust in the Commonwealth, whereby they get many dependents and adherents, not only of their own, but even of such as make profession to be Protestants.

3. A third, their freedom of resorting to London and the court, whereby they have opportunity, not only of communicating their counsels and designs, one to another, but of diving into his Majesty’s counsels, by the frequent access of those who are active men amongst them, to the tables and company of great men; and under subtle pretences and disguises they want not means of cherishing their own projects, and of endeavoring to mould and bias the public affairs to the great advantage of that party.

4. A fourth, that as they have a congregation of cardinals at Rome, to consider of the aptest ways and means of establishing the Pope’s authority and religion in England, so they have a nuncio here, to act and dispose that party to the execution of those counsels, and, by the assistance of such cunning and Jesuitical spirits as swarm in this town, to order and manage all actions and events, to the furtherance of that main end.[14]

The second grievance of religion, was from those manifold innovations lately introduced into several parts of the kingdom, all inclining to popery, and disposing and fitting men to entertain it. The particulars were these: 1. Divers of the chiefest points of religion in difference betwixt us and the papists have been publicly defended, in licensed books, in sermons, in university acts and disputations. 2. Divers popish ceremonies have been not only practised but countenanced, yea, little less than enjoined, as altars, images, crucifixes, bowings, and other gestures and observances, which put upon our churches a shape and face of popery. He compared this to the dry bones in Ezekiel. First, they came together; then the sinews and the flesh came upon them; after this the skin covered them; and then breath and life was put into them! So (he said) after these men had moulded us into an outward form and visage of popery, they would more boldly endeavor to breathe into us the spirit of life and popery.

The third grievance was the countenancing and preferring those men who were most forward in setting up such innovations; the particulars were so well known that they needed not to be named.[15]

The fourth was, the discouragement of those who were known to be most conscionable and faithful professors of the truth. Some of the ways of effecting this he observed to be these: 1. The courses taken to enforce and enlarge those unhappy differences, for matters of small moment, which have been amongst ourselves, and to raise up new occasions of further division, whereby many have been induced to forsake the land, not seeing the end of those voluntary and human injunctions in things appertaining to God’s worship. Those who are indeed lovers of religion, and of the churches of God, would seek to make up those breaches, and to unite us more entirely against the common enemy. 2. The over rigid prosecution of those who are scrupulous in using some things enjoined, which are held by those who enjoin them, to be in themselves indifferent. It hath been ever the desire of this House, expressed in many parliaments in Queen Elizabeth’s time and since, that such might be tenderly used. It was one of our petitions delivered at Oxford to his Majesty that now is; but what little moderation it hath produced is not unknown to us all! Any other vice almost may be better endured in a minister than inconformity. 3. The unjust punishments and vexations of sundry persons for matters required without any warrant of law: as, for not reading the book concerning recreation on the Lord’s day[16]; for not removing the communion table to be set altarwise at the east end of the chancel; for not coming up to the rails to receive the sacrament; for preaching the Lord’s day in the afternoon; for catechising in any other words and manner than in the precise words of the short catechism in the common prayer-book.

The fifth and last grievance concerning religion, was the encroachment and abuse of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The particulars mentioned were these: 1. Fining and imprisoning in cases not allowed by law. 2. The challenging their jurisdiction to be appropriate to their order, which they allege to be _jure divino_. 3. The contriving and publishing of new articles, upon which they force the churchwardens to take oaths, and to make inquiries and presentments, as if such articles had the force of canons; and this was an effect of great presumption and boldness, not only in the bishops, but in the archdeacons, officials, and chancellors, taking upon themselves a kind of synodal authority. The injunctions of this kind might, indeed, well partake in name with that part of the common law which is called the extravagants!

Having despatched these several points, he proceeded to the third kind of grievances, being such as are against the common justice of the realm, in the liberty of our persons, and propriety of our estates, of which he had many to propound: in doing whereof, he would rather observe the order of time, wherein they were acted, than of consequence; but when he should come to the cure, he should then persuade the House to begin with those which were of most importance, as being now in execution, and very much pressing and exhausting the commonwealth.

He began with the tonnage and poundage and other impositions not warranted by law; and because these burdens had long lain upon us, and the principles which produced them are the same from whence divers others are derived, he thought it necessary to premise a short narrative and relation of the grounds and proceedings of the power of imposing herein practised.[17] It was a fundamental truth, essential to the constitution and government of this kingdom—an hereditary liberty and privilege of all the freeborn subjects of the land—that no tax, tallage, or other charge might be laid upon us, without common consent in Parliament. This was acknowledged by the Conquerro; ratified in that contract which he made with this nation, upon his admittance to the kingdom; declared and confirmed in the laws which he published. This hath never been denied by any of our kings—though broken and interrupted by some of them, especially by King John and Henry III. Then, again, it was confirmed by Mag. Chart., and other succeeding laws; yet not so well settled but that it was sometime attempted by the two succeeding Edwards, in whose times the subjects were very sensible of all the breaches made upon the common liberty, and, by the opportunity of frequent parliaments, pursued them with fresh complaints, and for the most part found redress, and procured the right of the subject to be fortified by new statutes.

He observed that those kings, even in the acts whereby they did break the law, did really affirm the subject’s liberty, and disclaim that right of imposing which is now challenged: for they did usually procure the merchants’ consent to such taxes as were laid, thereby to put a color of justice upon their proceeding; and ordinarily they were limited to a short time, and then propounded to the ratification of the Parliament, where they were cancelled or confirmed, as the necessity and state of the kingdom did require. But for the most part such charges upon merchandise were taken by authority of Parliament, and granted for some short time, in a greater or lesser proportion, as was requisite for supply of the public occasions—six or twelve in the pound, for one, two or three years, as they saw cause to be employed for the defence of the sea: and it was acknowledged so clearly to be in the power of Parliament, that they have sometimes been granted to noblemen, and sometimes to merchants, to be disposed for that use. Afterward they were granted to the King for life, and so continued for divers descents, yet still as a gift and grant of the Commons.

Betwixt the time of Edward III. and Queen Mary, never prince (that he could remember) offered to demand any imposition but by grant in Parliament. Queen Mary laid a charge upon cloth, by the equity of the statute of tonnage and poundage, because the rate set upon wool was much more than upon cloth; and, there being little wool carried out of the kingdom unwrought, the Queen thought she had reason to lay on somewhat more; yet not full so much as brought them to an equality, but that still there continued a less charge upon wool wrought into cloth, than upon wool carried out unwrought; until King James’ time when upon Nicholson’s project, there was a further addition of charge, but still upon pretence of the statute, which is that we call the pretermitted custom.

In Queen Elizabeth’s time, it is true, one or two little impositions crept in, the general prosperity of her reign overshadowing small errors and innovations. One of these was upon currants, by occasion of the merchants’ complaints that the Venetians had laid a charge upon the English cloth, that so we might be even with them, and force them the sooner to take it off. But this being demanded by King James, was denied by one Bates, a merchant, and upon a suit in the exchequer, was adjudged for the King. Now the manner of that judgment was thus: There were then but three judges in that court, all differing from one another in the grounds of their sentences. The first was of opinion, the King might impose upon such commodities as were foreign and superfluous, as currants were, but not upon such as were native and to be transported, or necessary, and to be imported for the use of the kingdom. The second judge was of opinion, he might impose upon all foreign merchandise, whether superfluous or no, but not upon native. The third, that for as much as the King had the custody of the ports, and the guard of the seas, and that he might open and shut up the ports as he pleased, he had a prerogative to impose upon all merchandise, both exported and imported. Yet this single, distracted, and divided judgment, is the foundation of all the impositions now in practice; for, after this, King James laid new charges upon all commodities outward and inward, not limited to a certain time and occasion, but reserved to himself, his heirs and successors, forever,—the first impositions in fee-simple that were ever heard of in this kingdom. This judgment, and the right of imposing thereupon assumed, was questioned in septimo and duodecimo[18] of that king, and was the cause of the breach of both those parliaments. In 18 and 21 Jacobi, indeed, it was not agitated by this House, but only that they might preserve the favor of the king, for the despatch of some other great businesses, upon which they were more especially attentive.[19] But in the first of his present Majesty, it necessarily came to be remembered, upon the proposition on the King’s part, for renewing the bill of tonnage and poundage; yet so moderate was that Parliament, that they thought rather to confirm the impositions already set by a law to be made, than to abolish them by a judgment in Parliament; but that and divers ensuing parliaments have been unhappily broken, before that endeavor could be accomplished: only at the last meeting a remonstrance was made concerning the liberty of the subject in this point; and it hath always been expressed to be the meaning of the House, and so it was (as he said) his own meaning in the proposition now made, to settle and restore the right according to law, and not to diminish the king’s profit, but to establish it by a free grant in Parliament.