The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625–1660
D.: The remonstrance and petition of the Peers on the restraint of the Earl of Arundel.
19th Century Samuel Rawson Gardiner (ed.) EnglishMy very good Lord, By His Majesty’s commandment I herewith send unto your Lordship your writ of summons for the Parliament, but withal signify His Majesty’s pleasure herein further; That, howsoever he gives way to the awarding of the writ, yet his meaning thereby is not to discharge any former direction for restraint of your Lordship’s coming hither; but that you continue under the same restriction as you did before, so as your Lordship’s personal attendance is to be forborne . . .
May it please your Majesty, we, the Peers of this your realm now assembled in Parliament, finding the Earl of Arundel absent from his place, that sometimes in this Parliament sat amongst us, his presence was therefore called for, but hereon a message was delivered unto us from your Majesty by the Lord Keeper, that the Earl of Arundel was restrained [&c., as above, p. 44]. This message occasioned us to enquire into the acts of our ancestors . . . and after diligent search both of all stories, statutes and records that might inform us in this case, we find it to be an undoubted right and constant privilege of Parliament, that no Lord of Parliament, the Parliament sitting, or within the usual times of privilege of Parliament, is to be imprisoned or restrained without sentence or order of the House, unless it be for treason or felony, or for refusing to give surety for the peace . . . wherefore we, your Majesty’s loyal subjects and humble servants, the whole body of the Peers now in Parliament assembled, most humbly beseech your Majesty, that the Earl of Arundel, a member of this body, may presently be admitted, with your gracious favour, to come, sit, and serve your Majesty and the Commonwealth in the great affairs of this Parliament. And we shall pray, &c.
This remonstrance and petition being read, it was generally approved of by the whole House, and agreed to be presented unto his Majesty by the whole House.
Trusty and well beloved we greet you well. It is not unknown unto you that in February last our high Court of Parliament was by us summoned and assembled to treat of the great and weighty affairs concerning the Church of England and the true religion therein established, and the defence and safety of the Kingdom; and that they there continued together until the 15th of June last, within which time many things of good moment . . . were propounded and began to be handled; and amongst other things, our Commons here assembled . . . not for our own private use, but for the common safety of us and our people, did, with one unanimous consent, agree to give unto us a supply of four entire subsidies and three fifteens, and did, by order of that House, set down the days and times for payment of the same; which their loving and free offer unto us we did graciously accept and rely upon, and dispose of our affairs accordingly, and afterwards with much patience, even beyond the pressing necessity of our public affairs, continually did expect the real performance thereof; and we are assured the same had been performed accordingly, had not the disordered passion of some members of that House, contrary to the good inclination of the graver and wiser sort of them, so far misled themselves and others, that they neither did nor would intend that which concerned the public defence of the Kingdom, for which they were specially called; wherefore, when no gracious admonitions could stay them (though much against our heart) we have dissolved that Parliament.
And the Parliament being now ended and yet the necessity of a supply of money lying still upon us . . . and pressing us, without which the common safety of us and our people cannot be defended and maintained, but is in eminent and apparent danger to be assailed and swallowed up by a vigilant and powerful enemy, we have been enforced to cast all the ways and means which honourably and justly we might take for supply of these important affairs; and many several courses have been propounded and offered unto us: and although no ordinary rules can prescribe a law to necessity, and the common defence and safety and even the very subsistence of the whole might justly warrant us, if out of our royal prerogative and power we should take any way more extraordinary, or less indifferent to any part thereof, yet we desiring nothing more (next to the love and favour of Almighty God, by whose gracious assistance we desire to govern ourselves and all our actions) than the love of our people, which we esteem as our greatest riches, we have made choice of that way which may be most equal and acceptable to them. And therefore we do desire all our loving subjects, in a case of this unavoidable necessity, to be a law unto themselves and lovingly, freely, and voluntarily to perform that which by law, if it had passed formally by an act, as was intended, they had been compellable unto; and so in a timely way to provide not only for our but for their own defence, and for the common safety of all our friends and allies, and of our lives and honour; the performance of which our request will not only give us an ample testimony of the dutiful and good affections of our people in general, but will give us just encouragement the more speedily to meet in Parliament.
We therefore desire you forthwith to meet together and to take such order as may best advance our service, and in our name to desire and exhort our people according to such instructions as herewith we send unto you, that they would not fail freely to give unto us a full supply answerable to the necessity of our present occasions. And these our Letters, &c.
That speedily upon receipt of these Letters you assemble together at some place convenient, and take them and the matter thereby commended unto you, into your due considerations.
That when ye are thus assembled, ye call to mind the resolution in the Parliament lately dissolved, to have given us four subsidies, and three fifteens, and that the several days of payment were ordered for the same; and therefore the sum of money to have been raised thereby was in the judgment of the Parliament but competent and the times of payment convenient for the present and pressing occasions, and we are confident that the same considerations will prevail with our people.
That you let them know how much it will avail to our affairs and to the affairs of our friends and allies, to assail our enemies on their own coasts; and that we have begun a preparation to that end but want monies to perfect the same. And that whilst we are in these consultations, we are advertised from all parts, of powerful preparations made to assail us at home, or in Ireland, or both.
That you put them in mind that nothing invites an enemy more to invasion than an opinion that that part intended to be invaded is either secure, or distracted, and so unprovided for a resistance.
That therefore you, the Deputy Lieutenants, give present direction to have all the troops and bands of the county completed, mustered, trained, and so well furnished that they may be prepared to march unto the rendezvous at an hour’s warning upon pain of death.
That ye conclude upon a constant way of propounding and pursuing this our supply in your several divisions, to the inhabitants of all the whole county.
That when you have first settled this work among yourselves, ye agree how to divide yourselves throughout the whole county into so many parts and divisions as ye in your judgments shall think fittest. . . .
[Collectors to be nominated by the justices.]
That ye assure them in our name and in our royal word, which we will not break with our people, that we will wholly employ all the monies which shall thus be given unto us, to the common defence of the kingdom and not to or for any other end whatsoever.
That together with the monies ye collect, ye send a perfect roll of the names of all those who do thus contribute, and of them who shall refuse, if any such be, that we may be thereby informed who are well affected to our service, and who are otherwise, and what monies are given unto us . . .
And lastly that all this be instantly performed, for that all delays will defeat and overthrow our greatest counsels and affairs.
Charles, by the grace of God [&c.], to our Lord Treasurer of England, now and for the time being, the Commissioners of our Treasury for the time being, to our Chancellor and Under-Treasurer of our Exchequer, now and for the time being, to our Chief Baron and the rest of the Barons of our Exchequer [and others], greeting.
Whereas the Lords and others of our Privy Council have taken into their serious consideration the present state of our revenue arising by customs subsidy and impost upon goods and merchandise to be exported and imported out of and into this our realm . . . and finding that it hath been constantly continued for many ages, and is now a principal part of the revenue of our Crown, and is of necessity to be so continued for the supportation thereof, which in the two last Parliaments hath been thought upon, but could not be there settled by authority of Parliament . . . by reason of the dissolution of those Parliaments before those things which were there treated of could be perfected, have therefore . . . specially ordered, that all those duties upon goods and merchandizes, called by the several names of customs subsidy and imposts, should be levied . . . in such manner as the same were levied in the time of our late dear father King James . . . and forasmuch as, through the want of a parliamentary course to settle the payment of those duties, many inconveniences may arise, which would tend to the impairing of our revenue of that nature, if in convenient time some settled course should not be taken for the prevention thereof:—
Know ye therefore that we . . . by the advice of the Lords and others of our Privy Council, do by these presents declare our will and pleasure to be, that all those duties . . . shall be levied in such manner as the same were levied at the time of the decease of our said late father, and upon such accounts and forms as now the same are collected, or hereafter shall be by us appointed . . . all which our will and pleasure is shall continue until such time as by Parliament (as in former times) it may receive an absolute settling. And if any person whatsoever shall refuse or neglect to pay the duties . . . aforesaid . . . then our will and pleasure is, and we do further grant by these presents unto the Lords and others of our Privy Council for the time being, or unto the Lord Treasurer of England or Chancellor of our Exchequer, now or for the time being, full power to commit every such person to prison, who shall disobey this our order and declaration, there to continue until they . . . shall have conformed and submitted themselves unto due obedience concerning the premises . . .
Witness ourself at Westminster, the 26th day of July [1626]. Per breve a privato concilio.
Charles, by the grace of God [&c.], To our right trusty and right well beloved Counsellors George Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir Thomas Coventry, Knight, Lord Keeper of our Great Seal of England, [and 40 others] greeting.
When the Imperial Crown of this realm descended first upon us, we found ourselves engaged in a war, undertaken and entered into by our late dear father of blessed memory, not willingly nor upon light or ill-grounded counsels, but by the many provocations of an ambitious enemy, and by the grave and deliberate counsels and persuasions of both the Houses of Parliament, upon promise of their continual assistance therein; and thereby not ourselves alone and our own people became thus engaged, but also our friends and allies, and amongst them and above all others our most dear uncle . . . the King of Denmark . . . whom in honour and in reason of State we may not desert, but by the advice of our Council are resolved to assist him presently with men and money, we evidently foreseeing that otherwise our common enemy will in an instant become master of all Germany, and consequently of all the ports and parts where the mass and bulk of our cloth is vented, and whence we must furnish ourselves of provision for our shipping, which how fatal it would be to us and our people may easily be discerned.
But when we came to enter into this great work, we found our treasures exhausted and our coffers empty, and our ordinary revenue hardly sufficient to support our ordinary charge, much less to undergo so great and extraordinary a burthen as a war will produce. Our affairs at home and abroad thus standing we, being willing to tread in the steps of our ancestors, with all the convenient speed we could, summoned a Parliament, but not finding that success therein which we had just cause to expect, we are enforced to this course we are now resolved upon; which was hastened the rather when our unavoidable necessities both at home and abroad multiplied upon us, when our enemies’ great and mighty preparations both by sea and land threaten us daily, and when the late disaster (the chance of war) which hath fallen upon our dearest uncle the King of Denmark, to the endangering of his royal person, the hazarding of his whole army, and the utter disheartening of all our party, do at once call upon us, and cry in our ears, that not our own honour alone, and the ancient renown of this nation (which is dear unto us), but the safety and very subsistence of ourself and people, the true religion of God, and the common cause of Christendom professing that true religion with us, are in apparent danger of suffering irreparably, unless not only a speedy but a present stop be made to so great a breach, which cannot endure so long a delay as the calling of a Parliament.
We therefore, in a case of this extremity, after diligent and deep enquiry into all the ways and means possible which are honourable and just in cases of such unavoidable necessity, have at last, by the advice of our whole Privy Council, resolved to require the aid of our good and loving subjects by lending unto us such a competent sum of money to be speedily collected to our use as may enable us to provide for their safeties and our own; to be repaid unto them as soon as we shall be any ways enabled thereunto, upon showing forth of the acquittance of the collector testifying the receipt thereof. And these sums we are confident will readily and cheerfully be lent unto us by our loving subjects, when they shall be truly informed from us of what importance and of what necessity that is which we now require of them, and when they shall be assured by us, which we faithfully promise and undertake on the royal word of a King, (which we will be jealous not to break with our people), that not a penny of those monies which thus we borrow of them shall be bestowed or expended but upon those public and general services only, wherein every of them and the whole body of the kingdom, their wives, children and posterity, have their personal and common interest.
Know ye therefore that we, reposing special trust and confidence in your fidelities . . . appoint you to be our Commissioners, . . . and command you . . . that, all other occasions set apart, you or any three or more of you . . . do with all speed, after the receipt of this our Commission, . . . call before you all such persons within our county of Middlesex and the liberties thereof as by our instructions (which we shall send unto you herewith) are appointed; and that ye acquaint them with this our will and pleasure, and see it . . . performed accordingly . . . And we authorise you or any two or more of you to minister an oath to such persons and in such cases as by our said instructions are directed.
. . . per ipsum regem [dated 23 Sept. 1626].
[Endorsed] A Commission to the Lords and others of His Majesty’s Privy Council and others, concerning the loan of monies to His Majesty within the county of Middlesex.
First, with all speed, after the receipt of this our Commission, ye shall assemble yourselves together; ye shall determine in what manner ye shall proceed to the execution of this our Commission in the several parts and divisions of the whole county; and before your departing . . . you shall yourselves for a good example to others lend unto us those several sums of money which are hereby required of you to be lent, testified by the writing of your names with your own hands: that when you shall in our name require others to lend, they shall discern your own forwardness, and that you do not move others to that which you forbear to do yourselves; the Lords and others of our Privy Council, attending our person, having already done the same by the subscription of every of their names. And before your parting you shall cause those of that one hundred to appear before you, and proceed with them, according to these our Commission and instructions.
And because we would expedite this service, and ease you of importunity, and leave no way to the partial information of others, in the under or over valuation of men’s estates (which is often subject to much error), we have thought this to be the most indifferent and equal way of conjecturing at every man’s ability to lend, by taking these rates for our guide, at which they were assessed in the book of the last subsidy, and to require the loan of so much money only, as the entire rate and value comes unto at which they are rated and set there: as namely he that is set at one hundred pounds in lands, to lend us a hundred pounds in money, and so after that rate for a more or less sum. And he that is set at a hundred pounds in goods to lend us a hundred marks: and he that is set at ten pounds goods, to lend us twenty nobles: and so pro rata, for a greater or lesser sum. And where there are bearers or contributors they shall assist the subsidy-men.
When you have agreed amongst yourselves of the several days and places of your sitting . . . you shall send your warrants under your hands, or the hands of two of you at the least, to the high constable, petty constables, and other officers of those several divisions, personally to warn all such persons who were assessed for the last subsidy, or to leave such warrant in writing at their dwelling-houses, that they fail not to give you meeting at the times and places appointed by you and that those officers to whom your warrants are directed fail not to give an account to you of their service therein.
That at every of those meetings, when there is a convenient number assembled, you use all possible endeavours, to cause every of them willingly and cheerfully to lend those sums unto us, opening unto them the necessity and unavoidableness of this course . . . and assuring them that this course . . . shall not be drawn into example or precedent.
That if you shall meet with any objections . . . that you use all diligence for removing them . . . And if any shall object or whisper, that if this way of raising money take place, then no Parliament shall hereafter be called, that you satisfy such, that the suddenness and importance of the occasions are such, as cannot possibly admit of that delay which the summoning assembly and resolutions of a Parliament do necessarily draw with it; . . . but that we are fully purposed to call a Parliament as soon as fitly we may, and as oft as the Commonwealth and State occasions shall require the same . . .
That ye appoint the days of payment of the sums of money to be lent unto us to be within fourteen days, and persuade such as shall be able to pay it, to pay it at one entire payment . . . But to such as ye in your discretions shall think it more convenient, ye may accept of one half at the fourteen days, and the other half to be paid before the twentieth day of December now next ensuing.
That you treat apart with every one of those which are to lend unto us, and not in the presence or hearing of any others, unless you see cause to the contrary in your discretions. And as every one giveth consent, that you cause him or her to set his or her name and mark to a book, roll, or list, to be made by you, testifying their assent, with a mark or distinction of the times of payment accorded unto. And if ye shall find any who either shall deny to lend us, or shall make delays or excuses, let them know they do thereby incur our high displeasure; and they persist in their obstinacy notwithstanding that, then ye shall examine such persons upon oath, whether he hath been dealt withal . . . to refuse to lend, or to make excuse for his not lending: who hath so dealt with him, and what speeches or persuasions he or they have used, tending to that purpose. And ye shall also charge every such person in our name, upon his allegiance, not to disclose to any other what his answer was; and ye shall enjoin him in like manner to be forthcoming and ready to attend us or our Council when he shall be sent for, to answer his contempt and neglect of us in this case.
You shall show your own affections and zeal to this business and to our service by your effectual treating with all men freely to run this course, and in using your powers, favours and credits, which every [one] of you have in the country . . . to advance this business, that it may come off cheerfully and soundly. And that ye yourselves by any means discover not any coldness or unwillingness to the service, whereby any other to their discouragement may gather that you have no heart to the work although for form’s sake you must take it upon you, being employed therein; . . .
That in your treating with your neighbours about this business, you show your own discretions and affections, by making choice of such to begin with, who are likely to give the best examples, and when you have a competent number of the hands to the roll or list of the lenders, that ye show the same to others, as they come before you, to lead them to lend in the like manner.
You shall observe and discover by all good ways and means, whether any, publicly or underhand, be workers or persuaders of others’ dissent or dislike from this course, . . . and as much as ye may, ye shall hinder all discourses about it. And ye shall certify our Privy Council, in writing, of the names, qualities and dwelling places of all such refractory persons, with all speed, and specially if ye shall discover any combination or confederacy against these our proceedings.
Ye shall let all to know whom it may concern, that we are well pleased upon lending of these sums required, to remit all that which by letters in our name was desired upon the late benevolence or free gift. And if any have already paid to our use any such sum, that the sum be accepted for so much as in part of this loan, and if it exceed the sum desired to be lent, that the surplus shall be repaid to them without fee or charge.
Likewise, if since the last Parliament any have received privy seals, our pleasure [is] that if they have not already paid in any monies thereupon, that they agreeing to the loan of the sum required be excused of the payment of the privy seals. And if they have already paid . . . any such sum of money upon these privy seals, [allowance is to be made as in preceding clause].
If ye either know or find any able person not set in the last subsidy, that ye deal with every such inhabitant after the same manner and according to the same proportion as is held with other sufficient men according to your best judgments and discretions, and insert their names and sums in the said book, roll, or list, among the others of them. But ye are not to admit of any suit to be made, or any reasons to be given for the abating of any such sums, the time and the instant occasions not now admitting any such dispute, which would but disturb and protract the service.
[appointment of collectors.]
[directions to collectors.]
And if any of the Commissioners shall be absent from the execution of this service (which we hope will not be), that the rest of you the Commissioners certify their names who shall make such default, as also the names of all such who upon these summons do not come and attend you.
And we do hereby explain and declare that the charge given by the said Commission, or by these our instructions, . . . be not intended to any of our Privy Council, for that they are daily employed otherwise in our service, nor to any peer of this realm not resident in the county where he is named a Commissioner, nor to any other that by our special directions is otherwise employed in our service.
And these our instructions we require and command you . . . to keep secret to yourselves, and not impart or disclose the same to any others.
Responsio Johannis Liloe, guardiani Prisonae de le Fleet.
Ego Johannes Liloe [&c.] serenissimo domino regi apud Westminster. Post receptionem hujus brevis quod in hac schedula est mentionatum, certifico quod Walterus Erle miles, in eodem brevi nominatus, detentus est in prisona de le Fleet sub custodia mea praedicta, per speciale mandatum domini regis mihi significatum per warrantum dominorum duorum et aliorum de privato concilio perhonorabilissimo dicti domini regis, cujus quidem tenor sequitur in haec verba:
Whereas Sir Walter Erle, Knight, was heretofore committed to your custody, these are to will and require you still to detain him, letting you know that both his first commitment and this direction for the continuance of him in prison were and are by His Majesty’s special commandment. From Whitehall, 7 Novembris 1627. Thomas Coventry C.S., Henry Manchester, Thomas Suffolk, Bridgwater, Kelly, R Dunelm., Thomas Edmunds, John Coke, Marlborough, Pembroke, Salisbury, Totnes, Grandison, Gulielm. Bath and Wells, Robert Naunton, Richard Weston, Humphry May.
To the Guardian of the Fleet or his deputy.
Et haec est causa detentionis praedicti Walteri Earl sub custodia mea in prisona praedicta. Attamen corpus ejusdem Walteri coram domino rege ad diem et locum praedictum, post receptionem brevis praedicti paratum habeo prout istud breve in se exiget et requiret.
May it please your Lordship, I shall humbly move upon this return in the behalf of Sir John Heveningham, with whom I am of Counsel—it is his petition—that he may be bailed from his imprisonment . . . The exception that I take to this return is as well to the matter and substance of the return, as to the manner and legal form thereof . . . For the matter and substance of the return, it is not good, because there ought to be a cause of that imprisonment. This writ [of Habeas Corpus] is the means, and the only means, that the subject hath in this and such-like case to obtain his liberty . . . and the end of this writ is to return the cause of the imprisonment, that it may be examined in this Court, whether the parties ought to be discharged or not. But that cannot be done upon this return, for the cause of the imprisonment of this gentleman at first is so far from appearing particularly by it, that there is no cause at all expressed in it . . . If the law be that upon this return this gentleman should be remanded—I will not dispute whether or no a man may be imprisoned before he be convicted according to the law—but, if this return shall be good, then his imprisonment shall not continue on for a time, but for ever; and the subjects of this kingdom may be restrained of their liberties perpetually, and by law there can be no remedy for the subject; and therefore this return cannot stand with the laws of the realm or that of Magna Carta, nor with the statute of 28 Edw. 3, c. 3; for if a man be not bailable upon this return, they cannot have the benefit of these two laws, which are the inheritance of the subject. . . .
My Lords, I am of counsel with Sir Edmund Hampden. . . . I shall humbly move you that this gentleman may also be bailed; for under favour, my Lord, there is no cause in the return why he should be any farther imprisoned and restrained of his liberty. . . . Now, my Lord, I will speak a word or two to the matter of the return; and that is touching the imprisonment, ‘per speciale mandatum domini regis,’ by the Lords of the Council, without any cause expressed. . . . I think that by the constant and settled laws of this kingdom, without which we have nothing, no man can be justly imprisoned by either of them, without a cause of the commitment expressed in the return. . . . The statute of Magna Carta, cap. 29—that statute if it were fully executed as it ought to be, every man would enjoy his liberty better than he doth . . . out of the very body of this Act of Parliament, besides the explanation of other statutes, it appears, ‘Nullus liber homo capiatur vel imprisonetur nisi per legem terrae.’ . . . My Lords, I know these words, ‘legem terrae,’ do leave the question where it was, if the interpretation of the statute were not. But I think, under your Lordships’ favour, there it must be intended, by ‘due course of law,’ to be either by presentment or by indictment. My Lords, if the meaning of these words, ‘per legem terrae,’ were but, as we use to say, ‘according to the law’—which leaves the matter very uncertain; and [if] ‘per speciale mandatum &c.’ be within the meaning of these words ‘according to the law,’ then this Act had done nothing.