Prerogative of Parliaments in ENGLAND: Proved in a Dialogue (pro & contra) between a Counsellor of State and a justice of Peace.  
Written by the worthy (much lacked and lamented) Sir W. R.Kt. deceased.  
Dedicated to the King's Majesty, and to the House of Parliament now assembled.  
Preserved to be now happily (in these distracted Times) Published, and Printed at Hamburgh. 1628.   

To the KING.  
Most gracious Sovereign:  
THose that are suppressed and helpless are commonly silent, wishing that the common ill in all sort might be with their particular misfortunes: which disposition, as it is uncharitable in all men, so would it be in me more dogge-like then manlike, to bite the stone that struck me: (to wit) the borrowed authority of my Soveragne misinformed, seeing their arms and hands that flung it, are most of them already rotten. For I must confess it ever, that they are debts, and not discontentments, that your Majesty hath laid upon me; the debts and obligation of a friendless adversity, far more payable in all Kind's, than those of the prosperous: All which, nor the least of them, though I cannot discharge, I may yet endeavour it.  
And notwithstanding my restraint hath retrenched all ways, as well the ways of labour and will, as of all other employments, yet hath is left with me my cogitations, than which I have nothing else to offer on the Altar of my Love..  
Of those (most gracious Sovereign) I have used some part in the following dispute, between a Counsellor of Estate, and a justice of Peace, the one dissuading, the other persuading the calling of a Parliament. In all which, since the Norman Conquest (at the least so many as Histories have gathered) I have in some things in the following Dialogue presented your Majesty with the contentions and successes.  
Some things there are, and those of the greatest, which because they ought first to be resolved on, I thought fit to range them in the front of the rest, to the end your Majesty may be pleased to examine your own great and Princely heart of their acceptance, or refusal.  
The first is, that supposition, that your Majesty's Subjects give nothing but with adiunction of their own interests, interlacing in one and the same act your Majesty's relief, and their own liberties; not that your Majesty's piety was ever suspected, but because the best Princes are ever the least jealous, your Majesty judging others by yourself, who have abused your Majesty's trust. The feared continuance of the like abuse may persuade the provision. But this caution, how ever it seemeth at first sight, your Majesty shall perceive by many examples following but frivolous. The bonds of Subjects to their Kings should always be wrought out of Iron, the bonds of Kings unto Subjects but with Cobwebs.  
This it is (most renowned Sovereign) that this traffic of assurances hath been often urged, of which, if the Conditions had been easy, our Kings have as easily kept them; if hard and prejudicial, either to their honours or estates, the Creditors have been paid their debts with their own presumption.  
For all binding of a King by Law upon the advantage of his necessity, makes the breach itself lawful in a King. His Charters and all other instruments being no other than the surviving witnesses of unconstrained will: Princeps non subijcitur nisi sua voluntate libera, mero moto & certa Scientia: Necessary words in all the grants of a King witnessing that the same grants were given freely and knowingly.  
The second resolution will rest in your Majesty leaving the new impositions, all Monopolies, and other grievances of the people to the consideration of the House; Provided, that your Majesty's revenue be not abated, which if your Majesty shall refuse, it is thought that the disputes will last long, and the issues will be doubtful: And on the contrary, if your Majesty vouchsafe it, it may perchance be styled a yielding, which seemeth by the sound to brave the Regalty.  
But (most excellent Prince) what other is it to th'ears of the wise, but as the sound of a trumpet, having blasted forth a false Alarm, becomes but common air? Shall the head yield to the feet? certainly it ought, when they are grieved; for wisdom will rather regard the commodity, than object the disgrace, seeing if the feet lie in fetters, the head cannot be freed, and where the feet feel but their own pains, the head doth not only suffer by participation, but withal by consideration of the evil.  
Certainly, the point of honour well weighed hath nothing in it to even the balance, for by your Majesty's favour, your Majesty doth not yield either to any person, or to any power, but to a dispute only, in which the Proposition and Minor prove nothing without a conclusion, which no other person or power can make, but a Majesty: yea, this in Henry the third his time was called a wisdom incomparable. For, the King raised again, recovers his authority: For, being in that extremity as he was driven with the Queen and his Children, Cum Abbatibus & Prioribus saris homilibus hospitia quaerere & prandia: For the rest, may it please your Majesty to consider that there can nothing befall your Majesty in matters of affairs more unfortunately than the summons of a Parliament, with ill success: A dishonour so persuasive and adventurous as it will not only find arguments; but it will take the leading of all enemies that shall offer themselves against your Majesty's estate.  
Le labourin de la paurete ne saict point the breuct: of which dangerous disease in Princes, the remedy doth chiefly consist in the love of the people, which how it may be had and held, no man knows better than your Majesty; how to lose it, all men know, and know that it is lost by nothing more than by the defence of others in wrong doing. The only motives of mischances that ever came to Kings of this Land since the Conquest.  
It is only love (most renowned Sovereign) must prepare the way for your Majesty's following desires. It is love which obeys, which suffers, which gives, which sticks at nothing: which Love, as well of your Majesty's people, as the love of God to your Majesty, that it may always hold shall be the continual prayers of your Majesty's most humble vassal,  
Walter Ralegh.   

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A COUNSELLOR OF STATE, AND A JUSTICE OF PEACE.  COUNSELLOUR. 
NOW Sir, what think you of M S▪ johns trial in Star-Chamber? I know that the bruit ran that he was hardly dealt withal, because he was imprisoned in the Tower, seeing his dissuasion from granting a Benevolence to the King was warranted by the Law.  JUSTICE. 
Surely Sir it was made manifest at the hearing, that M.S. john was rather in love with his own letter; he confessed he had seen your Lordship's letter before he wrote his to the Mayor of Marleborough, and in your Lordship's letter there was not a word whereto the Statutes by M t S t john alleged, had reference; for those Statutes did condemn the gathering of money from the Subject, under title of a free gift▪ whereas a fifth, a sixth, a tenth, etc. was set down and required. But my good Lord, though diverse Shires have given to his Majesty, some more, some less, what is this to the King's debt?  COUNS. 
We know it well enough, but we have many other projects.  just. 
It is true my good Lord: but your Lordship will find, that when by these you have drawn many petty sums from the subjects, & those sometimes spent as fast as they are gathered, his Majesty being nothing enabled thereby, when you shallbe forced to demand your great aid, the country will excuse itself in regard of their former payments.  COUNS. 
What mean you by the great aid?  just. 
I mean the aid of Parliament.  COUNS. 
By Parliament, I would fain know the man that durst persuade the King unto it, for if it should succeed ill, in what case were he?  just. 
You say well for yourself my Lord: and perchance you that are lovers of yourselves (under pardon) do follow the advice of the late Duke of Alva, who was ever opposite to all resolutions in business of importance; for if the things enterprised succeeded well, the advice never came in question: If ill, (whereto great undertake are commonly subject) he then made his advantage by remembering his country council: But my good Lord, these reserved Politicians are not the best servants, for he that is bound to adventure his life for his Master, is also bound to adventure his advice, Keep not back council (saith Ecclesiasticus) when it may do good.  COUNS. 
But Sir, I speak it not in other respect than I think it dangerous for the King to assemble the three estates, for thereby have our former kings always lost somewhat of their prerogatives. And because that you shall not think that I speak it at random, I will begin with elder times, wherein the first contention began betwixt the Kings of this land, and their subjects in Parliament.  just. 
Your Lordship shall do me a singular favour.  COUNS. 
You know that the Kings of England had no formal Parliament till about the 18 th' year of Henry the first, for in his 17 year, for the marriage of his daughter, the King raised a tax upon every hide of land by the advice of his privy council alone. But you may remember how the subjects soon after the establishment of this Parliament, began to stand upon terms with the King, and drew from him by strong hand and the sword the great Charter.  just. 
Your Lordship says well, they drew from the King the great Charter by the sword, and hereof the Parliament cannot be accused, but the Lords.  COUNS. 
You say well, but it was after the establishment of the Parliament, & by colour of it, that they had so great daring, for before that time they could not endure to hear of S Edward's laws, but resisted the confirmation in all they could, although by those laws the Subjects of this Island were no less free than any of all Europe.  just. 
My good Lord, the reason is manifest; for while the Normans & other of the French that followed the Conqueror, made spoil of the English, they would not endure that any thing but the will of the Conqueror should stand for Law: but after a descent or two when themselves were become English, & found themselves beaten with their own rods, they then began to savour the difference between subjection & slavery, & insist upon the law, Meum & Tuum: & to be able to say unto themselves, hoc fac & vives: yea that the conquering English in Ireland did the like, your Lordship knows it better than I  COUNS. 
I think you guess aright: And to the end the subject may know that being a faithful servant to his Prince he might enjoy his own life, and paying to his Prince what belongs to a Sovereign, the remainder was his own to dispose. Henry the first to content his Vassals, gave them the great Charter, and the Charter of Forests.  just. 
What reason then had K. john to deny the confirmation?  COUNS. 
He did not, but he on the contrary confirmed both the Charters with additions, & required the Pope whom he had them made his superior to strengthen him with a golden bull.  just. 
But your honour knows, that it was not long after, that he repented himself.  COUNS. 
It is true, & he had reason so to do, for the Barons refused to follow him into France, as they ought to have done, and to say true, this great Charter upon which you insist so much, was not originally granted Regally and freely: for Henry the first did usurp the kingdom, and therefore the better to assure himself against Robert his eldest brother, he flattered his Nobility and people with those Charters. Yea King john that confirmed them had the like respect: for Arthur Duke of Britain, was the undoubted heir of the crown, upon whom john usurped. And so to conclude, these Charters had their original from Kings de facto but not the iure.  just. 
But King john confirmed the Charter after the death of his Nephew Arthur, when he was then Rex de iure also.  COUNS. 
It is true, for he durst do no other, standing accursed, whereby few or none obeyed him, for his Nobility refused to follow him into Scotland: and he had so grieved the people by pulling down all the Park pales before harvest, to the end his dear might spoil the Corn; And by seizing the temporalities of so many Bishoprickes into his hands, and chiefly for practising the death of the Duke of Britain his Nephew, as also having lost Normandy to the French, so as the hearts of all men were turned from him.  just. 
Nay by your favour my Lord. King john restored K. Edward's Laws after his absolution, and wrote his letters in the 15 ● of his reign to all Sheriffs countermaunding all former oppressions, yea this he did notwithstanding the Lords refused to follow him into France.  COUNS. 
Pardon me, he did not restore King Edward's Laws then, nor yet confirmed the Charters, but he promised upon his absolution to do both: but after his return out of France, in his 16 th' year he denied it, because without such a promise he had not obtained restitution, his promise being constrained, and not voluntary.  just. 
But what think you? was he not bound in honour to perform it?  COUNS. 
Certainly no, for it was determined the case of King Francis the first of France, that all promises by him made, whilst he was in the hands of Charles the fifth his enemy, were void, by reason the judge of honour, which tells us he durst do no other.  just. 
But King john was not in prison.  COUNS. 
Yet for all that, restraint is imprisonment, yea, fear itself is imprisonment, and the King was subject to both: I know there is nothing more kingly in a King than the performance of his word; but yet of a word freely and voluntarily given. Neither was the Charter of Henry the first so published, that all men might plead it for their advantage: but a Charter was left (in deposito) in the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury for the time, and so to his successors. Stephen Langthon, who was ever a Traitor to the King, produced this Charter, and showed it to the Barons, thereby encouraging them to make war against the King. Neither was it the old Charter simply the Barons sought to have confirmed, but they presented unto the King other articles and orders, tending to the alteration of the whole commonwealth, which when the King refused to sign, the Barons presently put themselves into the field, and in rebellious and outrageous fashion sent the King word except he confirmed them, they would not desist from making war against him till he had satisfied them therein. And in conclusion, the king being betrayed of all his Nobility, in effect was forced to grant the Charter of Magna Charta, and Charta de Forestis, at such time as he was environed with an Army in the meadows of Stains, which Charters being procured by force, Pope Innocent afterward disavowed, & threatened to curse the Barons if they submitted not themselves as they ought to their Sovereign Lord, which when the Lords refused to obey, the King entertained an army of strangers for his own defence, wherewith having mastered & beaten the Barons, they called in jews of France (a most unnatural resolution) to be their King. Neither was Magna charta a law in the 19 th' of Henry the 2●, but simply a Charter which he confirmed in the 21 ● of his reign, & made it a law in the 25 th', according to Littleton's opinion. Thus much for the beginning of the great Charter, which had first an obscure birth from usurpation, and was secondly fostered & showed to the world by rebellion.  just. 
I cannot deny but that all your Lordship hath said is true; but seeing the Charters were afterwards so many times confirmed by Parliament & made laws, & that there is nothing in them unequal or prejudicial to the King: doth not your Honour think it reason they should be observed?  COUNS. 
Yes, & observed they are in all that the state of a King can permit, for no man is destroyed but by the laws of the land, no man disseized of his inheritance but by the laws of the land, imprisoned they are by the prerogative where the King hath cause to suspect their loyalty: for were it otherwise, the King should never come to the knowledge of any conspiracy or treason against his Person or state, and being imprisoned, yet doth not any man suffer death but by the law of the land.  just. 
But may it please your Lordship, were not Cornewallis, Sharpe, & Hoskins, imprisoned, being no suspicion of treason there?  COUNS. 
They were, but it cost them nothing.  just. 
And what got the King by it? for in the conclusion (besides the murmur of the people) Cornewallis, Sharpe, & Hoskins having greatly overshot themselves, and repented them, a fine of 5 or 600 l was laid on his Majesty for their offences, for so much their diet cost his Majesty.  COUNS. 
I know who gave the advice, sure I am that it was none of mine: But thus I say, if you consult your memory, you shall find that those kings which did in their own times confirm the Magna Charta, did not only imprison, but they caused of their Nobility and others to be slain without hearing or trial.  just. 
My good Lord, if you will give me leave to speak freely, I say, that they are not well advised that persuade the King not to admit the Magna Charta with the former reservations. For as the King can never lose a farthing by it, as I shall prove anon: So except England were as Naples is, and kept by Garrisons of another Nation, it is impossible for a King of England to greaten and enrich himself by any way so assuredly, as by the love of his people: For by one rebellion the King hath more loss then by a hundred years' observance of Magna Charta. For therein have our Kings been forced to compound with Rogues and Rebels, and to pardon them, yea the state of the King, the Monarchy, the Nobility have been endangered by them.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, let that pass, why should not our kings raise money as the kings of France do by their letters and Edicts only? for since the time of jews the 11 th', of whom it is said, that he freed the French Kings of their wardship, the French Kings have seldom assembled the States for any contribution.  just. 
I will tell you why; the strength of England doth consist of the people and Yeomanry, the Peasants of France have no courage nor arms: In France every Village and Burrough hath a castle, which the French call Chastean Villain, every good city hath a good Citadel, the king hath the Regiments of his guards and his men at arms always in pay; yea the Nobility of France in whom the strength of France consists, do always assist their King in those levies, because themselves being free, they make the same levies upon their tenants. But my Lord, if you mark it, France was never free in effect from civil wars, and lately it was endangered either to be conquered by the Spaniard, or to be cantonized by the rebellious French themselves, since that freedom of Wardship. But my good Lord, to leave this digression, that wherein I would willingly satisfy your Lordship, is, that the kings of England have never received loss by Parliament, or prejudice.  COUNS. 
No Sir, you shall find that the subjects in Parliament have decreed great things to the disadvantage and dishonour of our kings in former times.  just. 
My good Lord, to avoid confusion, I will make a short repetition of them all, and then your Lordship may object where you see cause; And I doubt not but to give your Lordship satisfaction. In the sixth year of Henry the 3 rd there was no dispute, the house gave the King two shillings of every plough land within England, and in the end of the same year he had escuage paid him (to wit) for every knight's fee two marks in silver. In the fifth year of that King, the Lords demanded the confirmation of the Great Charter which the king's Council for that time present excused, alleging that those privileges, were extorted by force during the King's Minority, and yet the King was pleased to send forth his writ to the Sheriffs of every county, requiring them to certify what those liberties were, and how used, & in exchange of the Lords demand, because they pressed him so violently, the king required all the castles & places which the Lords held of his, & had held in the time of his Father, with those Manors & Lordships which they had heretofore wrested from the Crown, which at that time (the King being provided of forces) they durst not deny. In the 14 th' year he had the 15 th' penny of all goods given him upon condition to confirm the great Charter: For by reason of the wars in France, & the loss of Rochel, he was then enforced to consent to the Lords in all they demanded. In the 100L of his reign he fined the city of London at 50000 marks, because they had received jews of France. In the 11 th' year in the Parliament at Oxford, he revoked the great charter being granted when he was under age, & governed by the Earl of Pembroke, & the Bishop of Winchester. In this 11 th' year the Earls of Cornwall & Chester, Martial, Edward Earl of Pembroke, Gilbert Earl of Gloucester, Warren, Hereford, Ferrars, & Warwick, & others rebelled against the King, & constrained him to yield unto them in what they demanded for their particular interest, which rebellion being appeased, he sailed into France, & in his 15 th' year he had a 15 th' of the temporality, & a disme & a half of the Spirituality, and withal escuage of every Knights fee.  COUNS. 
But what say you to the Parliament of Westminster in the 16 th' of the king, where notwithstanding the wars of France and his great charge in repulsing the Welsh rebels, he was flatly denied the subsicy demanded.  just. 
I confess, my Lord, that the house excused themselves by reason of their poverty, and the Lords taking of Arms; in the next year it was manifest that the house was practised against the king: And was it not so, my good Lord think you in our two last Parliaments, for in the first even those whom his Majesty trusted most, betrayed him in the union, & in the second there were other of the great ones ran counter. But your Lordship spoke of dangers of Parliaments, in this, my Lord, there was a denial, but there was no danger at all: But to return where I left, what got the Lords by practising the house at that time? I say that those that broke this staff upon the K. were overturned with the counterbuff, for he resumed all those lands which he had given in his minority, he called all his exacting officers to account, he found them all faulty, he examined the corruption of other magistrates, and from all these he drew sufficient money to satisfy his present necessity, whereby he not only spared his people, but highly contented them with an act of so great justice: Yea Hubert Earl of Kent, the chief justice whom he had most trusted, and most advanced, was found as false to the King, as any one of the rest. And for conclusion in the end of that year at the assembly of the States at Lambeth, the King had the fortieth part of every man's goods given him freely towards his debts, for the people, who the same year had refused to give the King any thing, when they saw he had squeezed those sponges of the common wealth, they willingly yielded to give him satisfaction.  COUNS. 
But I pray you, what became of this Hubert, whom the King had favoured above all men, betraying his Majesty as he did.  just. 
There were many that persuaded the King to put him to death, but he could not be drawn to consent, but the King seized upon his estate which was great; yet in the end he left him a sufficient portion, and gave him his life because he had done great service in former times: For his Majesty, though he took advantage of his vice, yet he forgot not to have consideration of his virtue. And upon this occasion it was that the King, betrayed by those whom he most trusted, entertained strangers, and gave them their offices and the charge of his castles and strong places in England.  COUNS. 
But the drawing in of those strangers was the cause that Marshal Earl of Pembroke moved war against the King.  just. 
It is true, my good Lord, but he was soon after slain in Ireland, and his whole masculine race, ten years extinguished, though there were five sons of them, & Martial being dead, who was the mover and ringleader of that war, the King pardoned the rest of the Lords that had assisted Marshal.  COUNS. 
What reason had the King so to do?  just. 
Because he was persuaded, that they loved his person, & only hated those corrupt Counselours, that then bare the greatest sway under him, as also because they were the best men of war he had, whom if he destroyed, having war with the French, he had wanted Commanders to have served him.  COUNS. 
But what reason had the Lords to take arms?  just. 
Because the King entertained the Poictoui●s, were not they the King's vassals also? Should the Spaniard's rebel, because the Spanish King trusts to the Neopolitans, Portuguese, Millanoys, and other nations his vassals, seeing those that are governed by the Viceroys and deputies, are in policy to be well entertained and to be employed, who would otherwise devise how to free themselves; whereas, being trusted and employed by their Prince, they entertain themselves with the hopes that other the King's vassals do. if the King had called in the Spaniards, or other Nations, not his Subjects, the Nobility of England had had reason of grief. But what people did ever serve the King of England more faithfully than the Gascoynes did even to the last of the conquest of that Duchy.  just. 
Your Lordship says well, & I am of that opinion that if it had pleased the Queen of Eng. to have drawn some of the chief of the Irish Nobility into Eng. & by exchange to have made them good freeholders in Eng., she had saved above 2. millions of pounds which were consumed in times of those rebellions. For what held the great Gascoigne firm to the Crown of England (of whom the Duke of Espernon married the inheritrix) but his Earldom of Kendal in England, whereof the Duke of Espernon (in right of his wife) bears the title to this day. And to the same end I take it, hath james our Sovereign Lord given lands to diverse of the Nobility of Scotland. And if I were worthy to advise your Lordship, I should think that your Lordship should do the King great service to put him in mind to prohibit all the Scottish nation to alienate and sell away their inheritance here; for they selling, they not only give cause to the English to complain that the treasure of England is transported into Scotland, but his Majesty is thereby also frustrated of making both Nations one, and of assuring the service and obedience of the Scots in future.  COUNS. 
You say well, for though those of Scotland that are advanced and enriched by the King's Majesties will, no doubt serve him faithfully, yet how their heirs & successors, having no inheritance to lose in England may be seduced is uncertain. But let us go on with our Parliament. And what say you to the denial in the 26 ● year of his reign, even when the King was invited to come into France by the Earl of March, who had married his mother, and who promised to assist the King in the conquest of many places lost.  just. 
It is true, my good Lord, that a subsidy was then denied, & the reasons are delivered in Enlish histories, & indeed the King not long before had spent much treasure in aiding the Duke of Britain to no purpose, for he drew over the King but to draw on good conditions for himself, as the Earl of March his father in law now did: As the English Barons did invite jews of France not long before, as in elder times all the kings and states had done, and in late years the Leaguers of France entertained the Spaniards, and the French Protestants and Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth, not with any purpose to greaten those that aid them, but to purchase to themselves an advantageous peace. But what say the histories to this denial? they say with a world of payments there mentioned, that the King had drawn the Nobility dry. And beside, that whereas not long before great sums of money were given, and the same appointed to be kept in four castles, and not to be expended but by the advice of the Peers; it was believed that the same treasure was yet unspent.  COUNS. 
Good Sir you have said enough, judge you whether it were not a dishonour to the King to be so tied, as not to expend his treasure, but by other men's advice as it were by their licence.  just. 
Surely my Lord, the King was well advised to take the money upon any condition, & they were fools that propounded the restraint, for it doth not appear that the King took any great heed to those overseers. King's are bound by their piety and by no other obligation. In Queen Mary's time, when it was thought that she was with child, it was propounded in Parliament, that the rule of the Realm should be given to king Philip during the minority of the hoped Prince or Princess, and the king offered his assurance in great sums of money to relinquish the government at such time as the Prince or Princess should be of age: At which motion when all else were silent in the house, Lord Dueres (who was none of the wisest) asked who shall sue the king's bonds, which ended the dispute, for what bond is between a king and his vassals, than the bond of the king's faith) But my good Lord the king notwithstanding the denial at that time was with gifts from particular parsons, & otherwise supplied for proceeding of his journey for that time into France, he took with him 30 casks filled with silver and coin which was a great treasure in those days. And lastly notwithstanding the first denial in the King's absence he had Escuage granted him (to wit) 20 s of every Knights Fee.  COUNS: 
What say you then to the 28 year of that King in which when the King demanded relief, the states would not consent except the same former order had been taken for the appointing of 4 overseers for the treasure. As also that the Lord chief justice & the Lord Chancellor should be choose by the states with some Barons of the exchequer & other officers.  IUS: 
My good Lord admit the King had yielded their demands, than whatsoever had been ordained by those magistrates to the dislike of the Common wealth, the people had been without remedy, whereas while the King made them they, had their appeal and other remedies. But those demands vanished and in the end the King had escuage given him without any of their conditions. It is an excellent virtue in a King to have patience and to give way to the fury of men's passions. The whale when he is strooken by the fisherman, grows into that fury, that he cannot be resisted, but will overthrow all the ships and barks that come in to his way, but when he hath tumbled a while, he is drawn to the shore with a twinned thread.  COUNS: 
What say you then to the Parliament in the 29 th' of that King.  just: 
I say that the commons being unable to pay, the king relieves himself upon the richer sort, and so it likewise happened in the 33 of that king, in which he was relieved chiefly by the City of London. But my good Lord in the Parliament in London in the 38 year, he had given him the tenth of all the revenues of the Church for three years, and 3 marks of every knight's Fee throughout the kingdom upon his promise & oath upon the obscruing of magna Charta but in the end of the same year, the king being then in France, he was denied the aids which he required. What is this to the danger of a Parliament? especially at this time they had reason to refuse, they had given so great a some in the beginning of the same year. And again because it was known that the King had but pretended war with the king of Castille with whom he had secretly contracted an alliance and concluded a marriage betwixt his son Edward and the Lady Elenor. These false fires do but fraught Children and it commonly falls out that when the cause given is known to be false, the necessity pretended is thought to be feigned, Royal dealing hath evermore Royal success: and as the King was denied in the eight & thirtyeth year, so was he denied in the nine & thirtieth year, because the Nobility and the people saw, that the King was abused by the Pope it plainly who aswell in despite to Manfred bastard son to the Emperor Frederick the second, as to cozen the King and to waste him, would needs bestow on the King the kingdom of Sicily, to recover which, the King sent all the treasure he could borrow or scrape to the Pope, and withal gave him letters of credence, for to take up what he could in Italy, the King binding himself for the payment. Now my good Lord the wisdom of Princes is seen in nothing more than in their enterprises. So how unpleasing it was to the State of England to consume the treasure of the land, & in the conquest of Sicily so far of, and otherwise for that the English had lost Normandy under their noses and so many goodly parts of France of their own proper inheritances: the reason of the denial is as well to be considered as the denial.  CONS. 
Was not the King also denied a subsidy in the forty first of his reign?  just. 
No my Lord, for although the King required money as before for the impossible conquest of Sicily, yet the house offered to give 52000 marks, which whether he refused or accepted is uncertain, & whilst the King dreamt of Sicily, the Welsh invaded & spoilt the borders of England, for in the Parliament of London, when the King urged the house for the prosecuting the conquest of Sicily, the Lords utterly disliking the attempt, urged the prosecuting of the Welshmen: which Parliament being prorogued did again assemble at Oxford, & was called the mad Parliament, which was no other than an assembly of rebels, for the Royal assent of the K. which gives life to all laws, formed by the three estates, was not a Royal assent, when both the K. & the Prince were constrained to yield to the Lords. A constrained consent is the consent of a Captive & not of a K., & therefore there was nothing done there either legally or royally. For if it be not properly a Parliament where the subject is not free, certainly it can be none where the King is bound, for all Kingly rule was taken from the King, and twelve Peers appointed, and as some writers have it 24 Peers, to govern the Realm, and therefore the assembly made by jack Strawe & other rebels may aswell be called a Parliament as that of Oxford. Principis nomen habere, non est esse Princeps, for thereby was the King driven not only to compound all quarrels with the French, but to have means to be revenged on the rebel Lords: but he quitted his right to Normandy Anjou & maine.  COUNS. 
But sir what needed this extremity, seeing the Lords required but the confirmation of the former Charter, which was not prejudicial to the King to grant?  just. 
Yes my good Lord, but they insulted upon the King and would not suffer him to enter into his own castles, they put down the Purvey or of the meat for the maintenance of his house as if the King had been a bankrupt, and gave order that without ready money he should not take up a Chicken. And though there is nothing against the royalty of a King in these Charters (the Kings of England being Kings of freemen and not of slaves) yet it is so contrary to the nature of a King to be forced even to those things which may be to his advantage, as the King had some reason to seek the dispensation of his oath from the Pope, and to draw in strangers for his own defence: yea jure saluo Coronae nostrae is intended inclusively in all oaths and promises exacted from a Sovereign.  COUNS: 
But you cannot be ignorant how dangerous athing it is to call in other nations both for the spoil they make, as also so, because they have often held the possession of the best places with which they have been trusted.  just: 
It is true my good Lord, that there is nothing so dangerous for a King as to be constrained and held as prisoner to his vassals, for by that, Edward the second, and Richard the second lost their Kingdoms and their lives. And for calling in of strangers, was not King Edward the sixth driven to call instrangers against the rebels in Norfolk, Cornwall, Oxfordshire and elsewhere? Have not the Ks. of Scotland been oftentimes constrained to entertain strangers against the Kings of England, And the King of England at this time had he not been divers times assisted by the Kings of Scotland, had been endangered to have been expelled for ever.  COUNS. 
But yet you know those Kings were deposed by Parliament.  just: 
Yea my good Lord being Prisoners, being out of possession and being in their hands that were Princes of the blood and pretenders. It is an old country proverb: (that might overcomes right) a weak title that wears a strong sword, commonly prevails against a strong title that wears but a weak one, otherwise Philip the second had never been Duke of Portugal, nor Duke of milan, nor K. of Naples & Sicily. But good Lord Errores not sunt trah▪ udi in exemplum: I speak of regal, peaceable, and lawful Parliaments. The King at this time was but a King in name, for Gloucester, Leycester and Chichester made choice of other Nine, to whom the rule of the Realm was committed, & the Prince was forced to purchase his liberty from the Earl of Leycester, by giving for his ransom the County Palatine of Chester. But my Lord let us judge of those occasions by their events, what became of this proud Earl? was he not soon after slain in Euesham? was he not left naked in the field, and left a shameful spectacle, his head being cut off from his shoulders, his privy parts from his body & laid on each side of his nose? And did not God extinguish his race, after which in a lawful parliament at Westminster (confirmed in a following parliament of Westminster, were not all the Lords that followed Leycester disinherited? And when that fool Gloucester, after the death of Leycester (whom he had formerly forsaken) made himself the head of a second rebellion, and called in strangers, for which not long before he had cried out against the K. was not he in the end, after that he had seen the slaughter of so many of the Barons▪ the spoil of their castles, & Lordships constrained to submit himself, as all the survivors did, of which they that sped best▪ paid their sins and ransoms, the King reserving to his younger son, the Earldoms of Leycester and Derby.  COUN: 
Well sir, we have disputed this King to his grave, though it be true, that he outlived all his enemies, & brought them to confusion, yet those examples did not terrify their successors, but the Earl Martial, and Hereford, threatened King Edward the first, with a new war.  just: 
They did so, but after the death of Hereford, the Earl Marshal repent himself, and to gain the King's favour, he made him heir of all his lands. But what is this to the Parliament? for there was never K. of this land had more given him for the time of his reign, than Edward the son of Henry the third had.  COUNS: 
How doth that appear?  just: 
In this sort my good Lord, in this kings third year he had given him the fifteenth part of all goods. In his sixth year a twentieth. In his twelfth year a twentyeth, In his fourteenth year he had escuage (to wit) forty shillings of every knight's Fee: in his eighteenth year he had the eleventh part of all movable goods within the kingdom, in his nineteenth year the tenth part of all Church livings in England, Scotland and Ireland, for six years, by agreement from the Pope, in his three & twentieth year he raised a tax upon wool and fells, & on a day caused all the religious houses to be searched, & all the treasure in them to be seized & brought to his coffers, excusing himself by laying the fault upon his treasurer, he had also in the end of the same year, of algoods, of all Burgesses, & of the Commons the 10 ● part, in the 25 ● year of the Parliament of S t Edmundsbury, he had an 18 th' part of the goods of the Burgesses, and of the people in general, the tenth part. He had also the same year by putting the Clergy out of his protection a fifth part of their goods, and in the same year he set a great tax upon wools, to wit, from half a mark to 40 ● upon every sack, whereupon the Earl Martial, and the Earl of Hereford refusing to attend the King into Flanders pretended the greevances of the people But in the end the king having pardoned them, & confirmed the great Charter, he had the ninth penny of all goods from the Lords and Commons of the Clergy, in the South he had the tenth penny, and in the North the fifth penny. In the two and thirtyeth year he had a subsidy freely granted. In the three and thirtyeth year he confirmed the great Charter of his own Royal disposition, and the states to show their thankfulness, gave the king for one year, the fifth part of all the revenues of the land and of the Citizens the sixth part of their goods. And in the same year the king used the inquisition called Trail Baston. By which all justices and other Magistrates were grievously fined that had used extortion or bribery, or had otherwise misdemeaned themselves to the great contentation of the people. This commission likewise did inquire of intruders, barrators & all other the like vermin, whereby the king gathered a great mass of treasure with a great deal of love. Now for the whole reign of this king, who governed England 35 years, there was not any Parliament to his prejudice.  COUNS: 
But there was taking of arms by Marshal and Hereford.  just: 
That's true, but why was that? because the king, notwithstanding all that was given him by Parliament, did lay the greatest taxes that ever king did without their consent. But what lost the king by those Lords? one of them gave the king all his lands, the other died in disgrace.  COUNS: 
But what say you to the Parliament in Edward the Seconds time his successor: did not the house of Parliament banish Peirce Gaveston whom the king favoured?  just: 
But what was this Gaveston but an Esquire of Gascoine, formerly banished the Realm by king Edward the first, for corrupting the Prince Edward, now reigning. And the whole kingdom fearing and detesting his venomous disposition, they besought his Majesty to cast him off, which the king performed by an act of his own, and not by act of Parliament, yea Gavestons' own fatherinlawe, the Earl of Glocester, was one of the Chiefest of the Lords that procured it. And yet finding the king's affection to follow him so strongly, they all consented to have him recalled. After which when his credit so increased, that he despised and set at naught all the ancient Nobility, and not only persuaded the king to all manner of outrages and riots, but withal transported what he listed of the king's treasure, and jewels, the Lords urged his banishment the second time, but neither was the first nor second banishment forced by act of parliament, but by the forceable Lords his enemies. Lastly he being recalled by the king, the Earl of Lancaster caused his head to be stricken off, when those of his party had taken him prisoner. By which presumptuous acts, the Earl and the rest of his company committed treason and murder, treason by raising an army without warrant, murder by taking away the life of the king's subject. After which Gaveston being dead, the Spencers got possession of the king's favour, though the younger of them was placed about the K. by the Lords themselves.  COUNS. 
What say you then to the Parliament held at London about the sixth year of that king?  just. 
I say that king was not bound to perform the acts of this parliament, because the Lords being too strong for the king, enforced his consent, for these be the words of our own history. They wrested too much beyond the bounds of reason.  CONS. 
What say you to the Parliaments of the white wands in the 13 th' of the king.  just. 
I say the Lords that were so moved, came with an army, and by strong hand surprised the King, they constrained, (saith the story) the rest of the Lords and compelled many of the Bishops to consent unto them, yea it saith further, that the king durst not but grant to all that they required, (to wit) for the banishment of the Spencers. Yea they were so insolent that they refused to lodge the Queen coming through Kent in the Castle of Leedes, and sent her to provide her lodging where she could get it so late in the night, for which notwithstanding some that kept her out were soon after taken and hanged, and the refore your Lordship cannot call this a Parliament for the reasons before alleged. But my Lord what became of these Lawgivers to the king, even when they were greatest, a knight of the North called Andrew Herkeley assembled the Forces of the Country, overthrew them and their army, slew the Earl of Hereford and other Barons, took their general Thomas Earl of Lancaster, the King's cozen-germane at that time possessed of five Earldoms, the Lords Clifford, Talbort, Mowbray, Maudiut, Willington, Warren, Lord Darcy, Withers, Knevill, Leybourne, Bekes, Lovel, Fitzwilliams, Watervild, and divers other Barons, Knights and Esquires, and soon after the Lord Percy, and the Lord Warren took the Lords Baldsemere, and the Lord Audley, the Lord Teis, Gifford, Tuchet, and many others that fled from the battle, the most of which passed under the hands of the hangman, for constraining the King under the colour and name of a Parliament. But this your good Lordship may judge, to whom, those tumultuous assemblies (which our histories falsely call Parliaments have been dangerous, the Kings in the end ever prevailed, and the Lords lost their lives, & estates. After which the Spencers in their banishment at York, in the 15 th' of the King, were restored to the honours and estates, and therein the King had a subsidy given him the sixth penny of goods throughout England, Ireland, and Wales.  COUNS: 
Yet you see the Spencers were soon after dissolved.  just: 
It is true my Lord, but that is nothing to our subject of Parliament, they may thank their own insolency, for they branded & despised the Queen, whom they ought to have honoured as the King's wife; they were also exceeding greedy, & built themselues upon other men's ruins, they were ambitious & exceeding malicious, whereupon that came, that when Chamberlain Spencer was hanged in Hereford, a part of the 24 th' Psalm was written over his head: Quid gloriaris in malitia potens?  COUNS. 
Well Sir, you have all this while excused yourself upon the strength and rebellions of the Lords, but what say you now to King Edward the third, in whose time (and during the time of this victorious king, no man durst take Arms or rebel) the three estates did him the greatest affront that ever king received or endured, therefore I conclude where I began, that these Parliaments are dangerous for a king.  just. 
To answer your Lordship in order, may it please you first to call mind, what was given this great king by his Subjects before the dispute betwixt him and the house happened, which was in his latter days, from his first year to his fifth year there was nothing given the king by his subjects: In his eight year at the Parliament at London a tenth and a fifteenth was granted: in his tenth year he ceased upon the Italians goods here in England to his own use, with all the goods of the Monks Cluniacqs and others, of the order of the Cistertians. In the eleventh year, he had given him by parliament a notable relief, the one half of the wools throughout England, and of the Clergy all their wools, after which, in the end of the year he had granted in his parliament at Westminster, forty shillings upon every sack of wool, and for every thirty wool fells forty shillings, for every last of leathern, as much, and for all other merchandizes after the same rate. The king promising that this years gathering ended, he would thenceforth content himself with the old custom, he had over and above this great aid the eight part of all goods of all citizens and Burgesses, and of others as of foreign Merchants, & such as lived not of the gain of breeding of sheep and cattle the fifteenth of their goods: Nay my Lord: this was not all: though more than ever was granted to any king, for the same parliament bestowed on the king the ninth sheaf of all the corn within the land, the ninth fleece, and the ninth lamb for two years' next following: now what think your Lordship of this parliament.  COUNS. 
I say they were honest men.  just: 
And I say, the people are as loving to their king now, as ever they were, if they be honestly and wisely dealt withal, and so his Majesty hath found them in his last two parliaments, if his Majesty had not been betrayed by those whom he most trusted.  COUNS. 
But I pray you Sir, who shall a king trust, if he may not trust those whom he hath so greatly advanced?  just. 
I will tell your Lordship whom the king may trust.  COUNS. 
Who are they?  just. 
His own reason, and his own excellent judgement which have not deceived him in any thing, wherein his Majesty hath been pleased to exercise them, Take council of thine heart (saith the book of Wisdom) for there is none more faithful unto thee than it.  COUNS. 
It is true, but his Majesty found that those wanted no judgement whom he trusted, and how could his Majesty divine of their honesties?  just. 
Will you pardon me if I speak freely, for if I speak out of love, which (as Solomon saith) covereth all trespasses, The truth is, that his Majesty would never believe any man that spoke against them, and they knew it well enough, which gave them boldness to do what they did.  COUNS. 
What was that?  just. 
Even, my good Lord, to ruin the king's estate so far as the state of so great a king may be ruined by men ambitious and greedy without proportion. It had been a brave increase of revenue, my Lord, to have raised 50000′ land of the kings to 20000′ revenue, and to raise the revenue of wards to 20000′ more, 40000′ added to the rest of his Majesty's estate, had so enabled his Majesty, as he could never have wanted. And my good Lord, it had been an honest service to the king, to have added 7000′ lands of the Lord Cobham's, woods and goods being worth 30000′ more.  COUNS. 
I know not the reason why it was not done.  just. 
Neither doth your Lordship, perchance know the reason why the 10000′ offered by Swinnerton for a fine of the French wines, was by the then Lord Treasurer conferred on Devonshire and his Mistress.  COUNS. 
What moved the Treasurer to reject & cross that raising of the king's lands?  just. 
The reason, my good Lord, is manifest, for had the land been raised, then had the king known when he had given or exchanged land, what he had given or exchanged.  COUNS. 
What hurt had that been to the Treasurer whose office is truly to inform the King of the value of all that he giveth?  just. 
So he did when it did not concern himself nor his particular, for he could never admit any one piece of a good Manor to pass in my Lord Aubignes book of 1000′ land, till he himself had bought, & then all the remaining flowers of the Crown were culled out. Now had the Treasurer suffered the King's lands to have been raised, how could his Lordship have made choice of the old rents, as well in that book of my Lord Aubigne, as in exchange of Theobalds', for which he took Hatfield in it, which the greatest subject or favourite Queen Elizabeth had never durst have named unto her by way of gift or exchange. Nay my Lord, so many other goodly Manors have passed from his Majesty, as the very heart of the kingdom mourneth to remember it, and the eyes of the kingdom shed tears continually at the beholding it▪ yea the soul of the kingdom is heavy unto death with the consideration thereof, that so magnanimous a Prince, should suffer himself to be so abused.  COUNS. 
But Sir you know that Cobham's lands were entailed upon his Cousins.  just. 
Yea, my Lord, but during the lives and razes of George Brooke his children, it had been the kings, that is to say, for ever in effect, but to wrest the king, and to draw the inheritance upon himself, he persuaded his Majesty to relinquish his interest for a petty sum of money; and that there might be no counterworking, he sent Brook 6000 l to make friends, whereof himself had 2000 l back again, Buckhurst and Berwick had the other 4000 l, and the Treasurer and his heirs the mass of land for ever.  COUNS. 
What then I pray you came to the king by this great confiscation.  just. 
My Lord, the king's Majesty by all those goodly possessions, woods & goods looseth 500 l by the year which he giveth in pension to Cobham, to maintain him in prison.  COV. 
Certainly, even in conscience they should have reserved so much of the land in the Crown, as to have given Cobham meat and apparel, & not made themselves so great gainers, and the King 500 l (per annum) loser by the bargain, but it's passed: Consilium non est eorum quae fieri nequeunt.  just. 
Take the rest of the sentence, my Lord: Sed consilium versatur in iis quae sunt in nostra potestate. It is yet, my good Lord, in potestate Regis, to right himself. But this is not all my Lord: And I fear me, knowing your Lordship's love to the King, it would put you in a fever to hear all: I will therefore go on with my parliaments.  COUNS. 
I pray do so, and amongst the rest, I pray you what say you to the Parliament holden at London in the fifteenth year of King Edward the third?  just. 
I say there was nothing concluded therein to the prejudice of the King. It is true, that a little before the sitting of the house, the King displaced his Chancellor and his Treasurer, and most of all his judges and officers of the exchequer, and committed many of them to prison, because they did not supply him with money being beyond the seas, for the rest, the states assembled, besought the King that the laws of the two Charters might be observed, and that the great officers of the Crown might be chosen by parliament.  COUNS. 
But what success had these petitions.  just. 
The Charters were observed, as before, & so they willbe ever, & the other petition was rejected, the King being pleased notwithstanding, that the great Officers should take an oath in Parliament to do justice.. Now for the Parliament of Westminster, in the 17 th' year of the King, the King had three marks and a half for every sack of wool transported; and in his 18 th' he had a 10 th' of the Clergy, and a 15 ● of the Laity for one year. His Majesty forbore after this to charge his subjects with any more payments, until the 29 th' of his reign, when there was given the King by Parliament 50 for every sack of wool transported for six years, by which grant, the King received a thousand marks a day, a greater matter than a thousand pounds in these days, & a 1000 l a day amounts to 365000 a year, which was one of the greatest presents that ever was given to a King of this land. For besides the cheapness of all things in that age, the King's soldiers had but 3 d a day wages, a man at arms 6 l, a Knight but 2 ●. In the Parliament at Westminster, in the 33 ● year he had 26 ● 8 d for every sack of wool transported, & in the 42 t● year 3 dimes & 3 fifteen. In his 45 l year he had 50000 of the Laity, & because the Spiritualty disputed it, & did not pay so much, the King changed his Chancellor, Treasurer, and Privy Seal, being Bishops, and placed Lay men in their room.  COUNS. 
It seems that in those days the kings were no longer in love with their great Chancellors, then when they deserved well of them.  just. 
No my Lord, they were not, & that was the reason they were well served, & it was the custom then, & in many ages after, to change the Treasurer & the Chancellor every 3 years, & withal to hear all men's complaints against them.  COUNS. 
But by this often change, the saying is verified, that there is no inheritance in the favour of Kings. He that keepeth the fig tree (saith Solomon) shall eat the fruit thereof; for reason it is that the servant live by the Master.  just. 
My Lord, you say well in both, but had the subject an inheritance in the Prince's favour, where the Prince hath no inheritance in the subject's fidelity, than were kings in more unhappy estate then common persons. For the rest, Solomon meaneth not, that he that keepeth the fig tree should surfeit, though he meant he should eat, he meant not he should break the branches in gathering the figs, or eat the ripe, & leave the rotten for the owner of the tree; for what saith he in the following chapter, he saith that he that maketh haste to be rich, cannot be innocent. And before that, he saith, that the end of an inheritance hastily gotten, cannot be blessed. Your Lordship hath heard of few or none great with Kings, that have not used their power to oppress, that have not grown insolent & hateful to the people; yea, insolent towards those Princes that advanced them.  COUNS. 
Yet you see that Princes can change their fancies.  just. 
Yea my Lord, when favourites change their faith, when they forget that how familiar socuer Kings make themselues with their Vassals, yet they are kings: He that provoketh a King to anger (saith Solomon) sinneth against his own soul. And he further saith, that pride goeth before destruction, and a high mind before a fall. I say therefore, that in discharging those Lucifers, how dear soever they have been, kings make the world know that they have more of judgement then of passion, yea they thereby offer a satisfactory sacrifice to all their people, too great benefits of subjects to their King, where the mind is blown up with their own deservings, and too great benefits of Kings conferred upon their subjects, where 〈◊〉 mind is not qualified with a great deal of modesty, are equally dangerous. Of this later and insolenter, had King Richard the second delivered up to justice but three or four, he had still held the love of the people, and thereby his life and estate.  COUNS. 
Well, I pray you go on with your Parliaments.  just. 
The life of this great King Edward draws to an end, so do the Parliaments of this time, where in 50 years' reign, he never received any affront, for in his 49 th' year he had a disme and a fifteen granted him freely.  COUNS. 
But Sir it is an old saying, that all is well that ends well: judge you whether that in his 50 th' year in Parliament at Westminster he received not an affront, when the house urged the King to remove & discharge from his presence the Duke of Lancaster, the Lord Latimer his Chamberlain, Sir Richard Sturry, and others whom the King favoured and trusted. Nay, they pressed the King to thrust a certain Lady out of the Court, which at that time bore the greatest sway therein.  just. 
I will with patience answer your Lordship to the full, and first your Lordship may remember by that which I even now said, that never King had so many gifts as this King had from his subjects, and it hath never grieved the subjects of England to give to their King, but when they knew there was a devouring Lady, that had her share in all things that passed, and the Duke of Lancaster was as scraping as she, that the Chancellor did eat up the people as fast as either of them both. It grieved the subjects to feed these Cormorants. But my Lord there are two things by which the Kings of England have been pressed, (to wit) by their subjects, and by their own necessities. The Lords in former times were far stronger, more warlike, better followed, living in their countries, than now they are. Your Lordship may remember in your reading, that there were many Earls could bring into the field a thousand Barbed horses, many a Baron 5 or 600 Barbed horses, whereas now very few of them can furnish twenty fit to serve the King. But to say the truth my Lord, the justices of Peace in England, have opposed the iniusticers of war in England, the king's writ runs over all, & the great Scale of England, with that of the next Constables will serve the turn to affront the greatest Lords in England that shall move against the King. The force therefore by which our Kings in former times were troubled, is vanished away. But the necessities remain. The people therefore in these later ages, are no less to be pleased then the Peers; for as the later are become less, so by reason of the training through England, the Commons have all the weapons in their hands.  COUNS. 
And was it not so ever?  just. 
No my good Lord, for the Noblemen had in their Armouries to furnish some of them a thousand, some two thousand, some three thousand men, whereas now there are not many that can arm fifty.  COUNS. 
Can you blame them? But I will only answer for myself, between you & me be it spoken, I hold it not safe to maintain so great an Armoury or Stable, it might cause me, or any other Nobleman to be suspected, as the preparing of some Innovation.  just. 
Why so my Lord, rather to be commended as preparing against all danger of Innovation.  COUNS. 
It should be so, but call your observation to account, & you shall find it as I say, for (indeed) such a jealousy hath been held ever since the time of the Civil wars, over the Military greatness of our Nobles, as made them have little will to bend their studies that ways: wherefore let every man provide according as he is rated in the Muster book, you understand me.  just. 
Very well my Lord, as what might be replied in the preceiving so much; I have ever (to deal plainly and freely with your Lordship) more feared at home popular violence, than all the foreign that can be made, for it can never be in the power of any foreign Prince, without a Papistical party, either to disorder or endanger his Majesty's Estate.  COUNS. 
By this it seems, it is no less dangerous for a king to leave the power in the people, then in the Nobility.  just. 
My good Lord, the wisdom of our own age, is the foolishness of another, the time present ought not to be preferred to the Policy that was, but the policy that was, to the time present. So that the power of the Nobility being now withered, and the power of the people in the flower, the care to content them would not be neglected, the way to win them often practised, or at least to defend them from oppression. The motive of all dangers that ever this Monarchy hath undergone, should be carefully heeded, for this Maxim hath no postern, Potestas humana radicatur in voluntatibus hominum. And now my Lord, for King Edward it is true, though he were not subject to force, yet was he subject to necessity, which because it was violent, he gave way unto it, Potestas (saith Pythagoras) iuxia necessitatem habitat. And it is true, that at the request of the house he discharged & put from him those before named, which done, he had the greatest gift (but one) that ever he received in all his days (to wit) from every person, man & woman above the age of fourteen years. 4 ● of old money, which made many Millions of Groats, worth 6 ● of our money. This he had in general, beside he had of every beneficed Priest, 12d. And of the Nobility & Gentry, I know not how much, for it is not set down. Now my good Lord, what lost the King by satisfying the desires of the Parliament house; for as soon as he had the money in purse, he recalled the Lords, and restored them, & who durst call the King to account, when the Assembly were dissolved. Where the word of a King is, there is power (saith Ecclesiasticus) who shall say unto him, what dost thou? saith the same Author, for every purpose there is a time & judgement, the King gave way to the time, & his judgement persweded him to yield to necessity, Consularius nemo melior est quam tempus.  COUNS. 
But yet you see the king was forced to yield to their demands.  just. 
Doth your Lordship remember the saying of Monsieur de Lange, that he that hath the profit of the war, hath also the honour of the war, whether it be by battle or retreat, the King you see had the profit of the Parliament, and therefore the honour also, what other end had the king then to supply his wants. A wise man hath evermore respect unto his ends: And the king also knew that it was the love that the people bore him, that they urged the removing of those Lords, there was no man among them that sought himself in that desire, but they all sought the King, as by the success it appeared. My good Lord, hath it not been ordinary in England and in France to yield to the demands of rebels, did not King Richard the second grant pardon to the outrageous rogues & murderers that followed jack Straw, & Wat Tyler, after they had murdered his Chancellor, his Treasurer, Chief justice, and others, broke open his Exchequer, and committed all manner of outrages and villainies, and why did he do it, but to avoid a greater danger: I say the Kings have then yielded to those that hated them and their estates, (to wit) to pernicious rebels. And yet without dishonour shall it be called dishonour for the King to yield to honest desires of his subjects. No my Lord, those that tell the King those tales, fear their own dishonour, and not the Kings, for the honour of the King is supreme, and being guarded by justice and piety, it cannot receive neither wound nor stain.  COUNS. 
But Sir, what cause have any about our King to fear a Parliament?  just. 
The same cause that the Earl of Suffolk had in Richard the seconds time, and the Treasurer Fartham, with others; for these great Officers being generally hated for abusing both the King and the subject, at the request of the States were discharged, and others put in their rooms.  COUNS. 
And was not this a dishonour to the king?  just. 
Certainly no, for King Richard knew that his Grandfather had done the like, and though the king was in his heart utterly against it, yet had he the profit of this exchange; for Suffolk was fined at 20000 marks, & 1000 ● lands.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, we will speak of those that fear the Parliament some other time, but I pray you go on with that, that happened in the troublesome reign of Richard the second who succeeded, the Grandfather being dead.  just. 
That king, my good Lord, was one of the most unfortunate Princes that ever England had, he was cruel, extreme prodigal, and wholly carried away with his two Minions, Suffolk▪ & the duke of Ireland, by whose ill advice & others, he was in danger to have lost his estate; which in the end (being led by men of the like temper) he miserably lost. But for his subsedies he had given him in his first year being under age two tenths, and two fifteen: In which Parliament, Alice Peirce, who was removed in king Edward's time, with Lancaster, Latimer, and Sturry. were confiscate & banished. In his second year at the Parliament at Gloucester, the King had a mark upon every sack of wool, and 6 d the pound upon wards. In his third year at the Parliament at Winchester, the Commons were spared, and a subsidy given by the better sort, the Dukes gave 20 marks, and Earls 6 marks, Bishops and Abbots with mitres fix marks, every mark 3● 4 d, & every Knight, justice, Esquire, Shrieve, Parson, Vicar, & Chaplain, paid proportionably according to their estates.  COUNS. 
This me thinks was no great matter.  just. 
It is true my Lord, but a little money went far in those days: I myself once moved it in Parliament in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who desired much to spare the Common people, and I did it by her Commandment; but when we cast up the subsidy Books, we found the sum but small, when the 30 ● men were left out. In the beginning of his fourth year, a tenth with a fifteen were granted upon condition, that for one whole year no subsedies should be demanded; but this promise was as suddenly forgotten as made, for in the end of that year, the great subsidy of Poll money was granted in the Parliament at Northampton.  COUNS. 
Yea, but there followed the terrible Rebellion of Baker, Straw, and others, Leicester, Wrais, and others.  just. 
That was not the fault of the Parliament my Lord, it is manifest that the subsidy given was not the cause; for it is plain that the bondmen of England began it, because they were grievously pressed by their Lords in their tenure of villainage, as also for the hatred they bore to the Lawyers & Attorneyes: for the story of those times say, that they destroyed the houses & Manors of men of law, and such Lawyers as they caught, slay them, & beheaded the Lord chief justice, which commotion being once begun, the head money was by other Rebels pretended: A fire is often kindled with a little straw, which oftentimes takes hold of greater timber, & consumes the whole building: And that this Rebellion was begun by the discontented slaves (whereof there have been many in Elder times the like) is manifest by the Charter of Manumission, which the King granted in haec verba▪ Rich. Dei gratia etc. Sciatis quòd de gratia nostrâ spirituals manumissimus etc. to which seeing the King was constrained by force of arms, he revoked the letters Patents. and made them void, the same revocation being strengthened by the Parliament ensuing. In which the King had given him a subsidy upon wools, called a Maletot. In the same fourth year was the Lord Treasurer discharged of his Office and Hales Lord of S john's chosen in his place. In his fifth year was the Treasurer again changed, and the Staff given to Segraue, and the Lord Chancellor was also changed, and the staff given to the Lord Scroop: Which Lord Scroop was again in the beginning of his sixth year turned out, and the King after that he had for a while kept the Seal in his own hand, gave it to the Bishop of London, from whom it was soon after taken & bestowed on the Earl of Suffolk, who they say, had abused the king, and converted the king's Treasure to his own use. To this the King condescended, and though (saith Walsingham) he deserved to lose his life and goods, yet he had the favour to go at liberty upon good sureties: & because the K. was but young, & that the relief granted was committed to the trust of the Earl of Arundel for the furnishing of the King's Navy against the French.  COUNS. 
Yet you see it was a dishonour to the K. to have his beloved Chancellor removed.  IUS. 
Truly no, for the K. had both his fine 1000 lands, & a subsidy to boot. And though for the present it pleased the K. to fancy a man all the world hated (the K s passion overcoming his judgement) yet it cannot be called a dishonour, for the K. is to believe the general counsel of the kingdom, & to prefer it before his affection, especially when Suffolk was proved to be false even to the K: for were it otherwise love and affection might be called a frenzy and a madness, for it is the nature of humane passions, that the love bred by fidelity, doth change itself into hatred, when the fidelity is first changed into falsehood.  COUNS: 
But you see there were thirteen Lords chosen in the Parliament, to have the oversight of the government under the King.  IUS: 
No my Lord, it was to have the oversight of those Officers, which (saith the Story) had imbezeled, lewdly wasted, and prodigally spent the King's treasure, for to the Commission to those Lords, or to any six of them, joined with the King's Counsel, was one of the most royal and most profitable that ever he did, if he had been constant to himself. But my good Lord, man is the cause of his own misery, for I will repeat the substance of the commission granted by the K▪ & confirmed by Parliament, which, whether it had been profitable for the K. to have prosecuted, your Lordship may judge. The preamble hath these words: Whereas our Sovereign Lord the King perceiveth by the grievous complaints of the Lords & Commons of this Realm, that the rents, profits, & revenues of this Realm, by the singular and insufficient Council and evil government, aswell of some his late great Officers, and others, etc. are so much withdrawn, wasted, eloyved, given, granted, alienated, destroyed, and evil dispended, that he is so much impoverished and void of treasure and goods, and the substance of the Crown so much diminished and destroyed, that his estate may not honourably be sustained as appertaineth. The K. of his free will at the request of the Lords and Commons, hath ordained William Archbishop of Canterbury and others with his Chancellor, Treasurer, keeper of his privy seal, to survey and examine as well the estate and governance of his house, etc. as of all the rents, and profits, and revenues that to him appertaineth, and to be due, or aught to appertain and be due, etc. And all manner of gifts, grants, alienations and confirmations made by him of lands, tenements, rents, etc. bargained and sold to the prejudice of him and his Crown, etc. And of his jewels & goods which were his Grandfathers at the time of his death, etc. and where they be become.  
This is in effect the substance of the commission, which your Lordship may read at large in the book of Statutes, this commission being enacted in the tenth year of the King's reign. Now if such a commission were in these days granted to the faithful men, that have no interest in the sales, gifts nor purchases, nor in the keeping of the jewels at the Queen's death, nor in the obtaining, grants of the King's best lands, I cannot say what may be recovered, & justly recovered; and what say your Lordship, was not this a noble act for the King, if it had been followed to effect?  COUNS. 
I cannot tell whether it were or no, for it gave power to the Commissioners to examine all the grants.  just. 
Why my Lord, doth the King grant any thing, that shames at the examination? are not the King's grants on record?  COUNS. 
But by your leave, it is some dishonour to a King, to have his judgement called in question.  just. 
That is true my Lord, but in this, or whensoever the like shall be granted in the future, the King's judgement is not examined, but their knavery that abused the K. Nay by your favour, the contrary is true, that when a King will suffer himself to be eaten up by a company of petty fellows, by himself raised, there in both the judgement and courage is disputed. And if your Lordship will disdain it at your own servants hands, much more ought the great heart of a King, to disdain it. And surely my Lord, it is a greater treason (though it undercreepe the law) to tear from the Crown the ornaments thereof: And it is an infallible maxim, that he that loves not his Majesty's estate, loves not his person.  COUNS. 
How came it then, that the act was not executed?  IUS. 
Because these, against whom it was granted, persuaded the King to the contrary: As the Duke of Ireland, Suffolk, the chief justice Trisilian, & others, yea, that which was lawfully done by the King, and the great Council of the kingdom, was (by the mastery which Ireland, Suffolk, and Tresilian had over the King's affections) broken and disavowed. Those that devised to relieve the King, not by any private invention, but by general Council, were by a private and partial assembly, adjudged traitors, and the most honest judges of the land, enforced to subscribe to that judgement. In so much, that judge Belknap plainly told the Duke of Ireland, and the Earl of Suffolk, when he was constrained to set to his hand, plainly told these Lords, that he wanted but a rope, that he might therewith receive a reward for his subscription. And in this Council of Nottingham was hatched the ruin of those which governed the King, of the judges by them constrained, of the Lords that loved the King, and sought a reformation, and of the King himself; for though the King found by all the Shreeves of the shires, that the people would not fight against the Lords, whom they thought to be most faithful unto the King, when the Citizens of London made the same answer, being at that time able to arm 50000● men, & told the Major, that they would never fight against the King's friends, and defenders of the Realm, when the Lord Ralph Basset, who was near the K. told the King boldly, that he would not adventure to have his head broken for the Duke of Ireland's pleasure, when the Lord of London told the Earl of Suffolk in the King's presence, that he was not worthy to live, etc. yet would the King in the defence of the destroyers of his estate, lay ambushes to entrap the Lords, when they came upon his faith, yea when all was pacified, and that the King by his Proclamation had cleared the Lords, and promised to produce Ireland, Suffolk, & the Archbishop of York, Tresilian & Bramber, to answer at the next Parliament, these men confessed, that they durst not appear; and when Suffolk fled to Calais, and the Duke of Ireland to Chester, the King caused an army to be levied in Lancashire, for the safe conduct of the Duke of Ireland to his presence, when as the Duke being encountered by the Lords, ran like a coward from his company, & fled into Holland. After this was holden a Parliament, which was called that wrought wonders. In the eleventh year of this King, wherein the forenamed Lords, the Duke of Ireland & the rest, were condemned and confiscate, the Chief justice hanged with many others, the rest of the judges condemned & banished, & a 10 th' and a 15 th' given to the King.  COUNS: 
But good Sir: the King was first besieged in the Tower of London, and the Lords came to the Parliament, & no man durst contradict them.  just: 
Certainly in raising an army, they committed treason, and though it did appear, that they all loved the King, (for they did him no harm, having him in their power) yet our law doth construe all levying of war without the king's commission, and all force raised to be intended for the death & destruction of the K. not attending the sequel. And it is so judged upon good reason, for every unlawful and ill action is supposed to be accompanied with an ill intent. And beside, those Lords used too great cruelty, in procuring the sentence of death against diverse of the King's servaunts, who were bound to follow and obey their Master and Sovereign Lord, in that he commanded.  COUNS. 
It is true, and they were also greatly to blame, to cause then so many seconds to be put to death, seeing the principals, Ireland, Suffolk▪ and York had escaped them. And what reason had they to seek to inform the State by strong hand, was not the King's estate as dear to himself, as to them? He that maketh a King know his error mannerly and private, and gives him the best advice, he is discharged before God, and his own conscience. The Lords might have retired themselves, when they saw they could not prevail, and have left the King to his own ways, who had more to lose then they had.  just. 
My Lord, the taking of Arms cannot be excused in respect of the law, but this might be said for the Lords that the K. being under years, & being wholly governed by their enemies, & the enemies of the kingdom, & because by those evil men's persuasions, it was advised, how the Lords should have been murdered at a feast in London, they were excusable during the king's minority to stand upon their guards against their particular enemies. But we will pass it over and go on with our parliaments that followed, whereof that of Cambridge in the K s 12 th' year was the next, therein the K. had given him a 10 th' & a 15 th', after which, being 20. years of age rechanged (saith H. Kinghton) his Treasurer, his Chancellor, the justices of either bench, the Clerk of the privy seal & others, & took the government into his own hands. He also took the Admiral's place from the Earl of Arundel, & in his room he placed the Earl of Huntingdon in the year following, which was the 13 th' year of the K. in the Parliament at Westminster, there was given to the King upon every sack of wool 14 s and 6 d in the pound upon other merchandise.  COUNS: 
But by your leave, the King was restrained this parliament, that he might not dispose of, but a third part of the money gathered.  just: 
No my Lord, by your favour. But true it is that part of this money was by the Kings consent assigned towards the wars, but yet left in the Lord Treasurer's hands, And my Lo: it would be a great ease, & a great saving to his Majesty our Lord and Master, if it pleased him to make his assignations upon some part of his revenues, by which he might have 1000 upon every 10000●, and save himself a great deal of clamour. For seeing of necessity the Navy must be maintained, & that those poor men aswell Carpenters as ship keepers must be paid, it were better for his Majesty to give an assignation to the treasurer of his navy for the receiving of so much as is called ordinary, then to discontent those poor men, who being made desperate beggars, may perchance be corrupted by them that lie in wait to destroy the K s estate. And if his Majesty did the like in all other payments, especially where the necessity of such as are to receive, cannot possible gives days, his Majesty might then in a little roll behold his receipts and expenses, he might quiet his heart when all necessaries were provided for, and then dispose the rest at his pleasure. And my good Lord, how excellently and easily might this have been done, if the 400000● had been raised as aforesaid upon the King's lands, and wards, I say that his Majesty's house, his navy, his guards, his pensioners, his munition, his Ambassadors and all else of ordinary charge might have been defrayed, and a great sum left for his Majesty's casual expenses and rewards, I will not say they were not in love with the King's estate, but I say they were unfortunately borne for the King that crossed it.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, I would it had been otherwise, But for the assignments, there are among us that will not willingly endure it. Charity begins with itself, shall we hinder ourselves of 50000● per annum to save the King 20? No Sir, what will become of our New-year's gifts, our presents and gratuities? We can now say to those that have warrants for money, that there is not a penny in the Exchequer, but the king gives it away unto the Scots faster than it comes in.  just. 
My Lord you say well, at least you say the truth, that such are some of our answers, and hence comes that general murmur to all men that have money to receive, I say that there is not a penny given to that nation, be it for service or otherwise but it is spread over all the kingdom: yea they gather notes, and take copies of all the privy seals and warrants that his Majesty hath given for the money for the Scots, that they may show them in Parliament. But of his Majesty's gifts to the English, there is no bruit though they may be ten times as much as the Scots. And yet my good Lord, howsoever they be thus answered that to them sue for money out of the Exchequer, it is due to them for 10 or 12▪ or 20 in the hundred, abated according to their qualities that sue, they are always furnished. For conclusion, if it would please God to put into the King's heart to make their assignations, it would save him many a pound, and gain him many a prayer, and a great deal of love, for it grieveth every honest man's heart to see the abundance which even the petty officers in the Exchequer, and others gather both from the king and subject, and to see a world of poor men run after the King for their ordinary wages.  COUNS. 
Well, well, did you never hear this old tale, that when there was a great contention about the weather, the Seamen complaining of contrary winds, when those of the high Country's desired rain, and those of the valleys sunshining days, jupiter sent them word by Mercury, then, when they had all done, the weather should be as it had been, And it shall ever fall out so with them that complain, the course of payments shall be as they have been, what care we what petty fellows say? or what care we for your papers? have not we the King's ears, who dares contest with us? though we cannot be revenged on such as you are for telling the truth, yet upon some other pretence, we'll clap you up, and you shall sue to us ere you get out. Nay we'll make you confess that you were deceived in your projects, and eat your own words: learn this of me Sir, that as a little good fortune is better than a great deal of virtue: so the least authority hath advantage over the greatest wit, was he not the wisest man that said, the battle was not to the strongest, nor yet bread for the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favour to men of knowledge: but what time & chance came to them all.  just. 
It is well for your Lordship that it is so. But cue: Elizabeth would set the reason of a mean man, before the authority of the greatest Councillor she had, and by her patience therein she raised upon the usual and ordinary customs of London without any new imposition above 50000● a year, for though the Treasurer Burleigh, and the Earl of Leicester, and Secretary Walshingham all three pensioners to Customer Smith did set themselves against a poor waiter of the Customhouse called Carwarden, and commanded the grooms of the privy Chamber not to give him access, yet the Queen sent for him, and gave him countenance against them all. It would not serve the turn, my Lord, with her; when your Lordships would tell her, that the disgracing her great officers by hearing the complaints of busy heads, was a dishonour to herself, but she had always this answer, That if any man complain unjustly against a Magistrate, it were reason he should be severely punished, if justly, she was Queen of the small, aswell as of the great, and would hear their complaints. For my good Lord, a Prince that suffereth himself to be besieged, forsaketh one of the greatest regalities belonging to a Monarchy, to wit, the last appeal, or as the French call it, le dernier resort.  COUNS: 
Well Sir, this from the matter, I pray you go on.  just: 
Then my Lord, in the kings 15 th' year he had a tenth and at fifteen granted in Parliament of London. And that same year there was a great Council called at Stamford to which divers men were sent for, of divers counties besides the Nolility, of whom the K. took advice whether he should continue the war, or make a final end with the French.  COUNS. 
What needed the king to take the advice of any but of his own Council in matter of peace or war.  just. 
Yea my Lord, for it is said in the proverbs▪ where are many counsellors, there is health. And if the king had made the war by a general consent, the kingdom in general were bound to maintain the war, and they could not then say when the King required aid, that he undertook a needless war.  COUNS. 
You say well, but I pray you go on.  just. 
After the subsidy in the 15 year, the King desired to borrow 10000 l of the Londoners, which they refused to lend.  COUNS. 
And was not the King greatly troubled therewith.  just: 
Yea but the King troubled the Londoners soon after, for the king took the advantage of a riot made upon the Bishop of Salisbury his men, sent for the Mayor, and other the ablest citizens, committed the Mayor to prison in the Castle of Windsor, and others to other castles, and made a Lord Warden of this city, till in the end what with 10000 l ready money, and other rich presents, instead of lending 10000 l it cost them 20000l. Between the fifteenth year and twentieth year, he had two aids given him in the Parliaments of Winchester and Westminster: and this later was given to furnish the King's journey into Ireland to establish that estate which was greatly shaken since the death of the King's Grandfather, who received thence yearly 30000 l and during the Kings stay in Ireland he had a 10 th' and a 15 th' granted.  COUNS. 
And good reason, for the King had in his army 4000 horse and 30000 foot.  just. 
That by your favour, was the King's sanity: for great armies do rather devour themselves then destroy enemies. Such an army, (whereof the fourth part would have conquered all Ireland) was in respect of Ireland such an army as Xerxes led into Greece in this twentieth year, wherein he had a tenth of the Clergy, was the great conspiracy of the King's uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, and of Moubrey, Arundel, Nottingham, and Warwick, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the abbot of Westminster, and others who in the 21 ● year of the King were all redeemed by parliament. & what thinks your Lordship, was not this assembly of the 3 states for the king's estate, wherein he so prevailed, that he not only overthrew those popular Lords, but beside (the English Chronicle saith, the king so wrought and brought things about, that he obtained the power of both houses to be granted to certain persons▪ to 15 Noblemen and Gentlemen, or to seven of them.  COUNS: 
Sir, whether the king wrought well or ill I cannot judge, but our Chronicles say, that many things were done in this parliament, to the displeasure of no small number of people, to wit, for that divers rightful heirs were disinherited of their lands & livings, with which wrongful doings the people were much offended, so that the King with those that were about him, and chief in counsel, came into great infamy and slander.  just. 
My good Lord, if your Lordship will pardon me, I am of opinion that those Parliaments wherein the kings of this land have satisfied the people, as they have been ever prosperous, so where the king hath restrained the house, the contrary hath happened, for the K ● atchivements in this parliament, were the ready preparations to his ruin.  COV: 
You mean by the general discontetmet that followed, and because the King did not proceed legally with Gloucester and others. Why Sir, this was not the first time that the Kings of England have done things without the Counsel of the land: yea, contrary to the law.  just: 
It is true my Lord in some particulars, as even at this time the Duke of Gloucester was made away at Calais by strong hand, without any lawful trial: for he was a man so beloved of the people and so allied, having the Dukes of Lancaster, and York his brethren, the Duke of Aumarle, and the Duke of Hereford his Nephews, the great Earls of Arundel and Warwick, with divers other of his part in the conspiracy, as the King durst not try him according to the law: for at the trial of Arundel and Warwick, the king was forced to entertain a petty army about him. And though the Duke was greatly lamented, yet it cannot be denied but that he was then a traitor to the King. And was it not so my Lord with the Duke of Guise: your Lordship doth remember the spurgald proverb, that necessity hath no law: and my good Lord, it is the practice of doing wrong, and of general wrongs done, that brings danger, and not where kings are pressed in this or that particular, for there is great difference between natural cruelty and accidental. And therefore it was Machiavels' advice, that all that a king did in that kind, he shall do at once, and by his mercies afterwards make the world know that his cruelty was not affected. And my Lord take this for a general rule, that the immortal policy of a state cannot admit any law or privilege whatsoever, but in some particular or other, the same is necessarily broken, yea in an Aristocratia or popular estate, which vaunts so much of equality and common right, more outrage hath been committed then in any Christian Monarchy.  COUNS: 
But whence came this hatred between the Duke and the King his Nephew.  just: 
My Lord, the Duke's constraining the King, when he was young, stuck in the king's heart, and now the Duke's proud speech to the King when he had rendered Breast formerly engaged to the Duke of Britain, kindled again these coals that were not altogether extinguished, for he used these words: Your grace ought to put your body in great pain to win a strong hold or town by fears of arms, ere you take upon you to sell or deliver any town gotten by the manhood and strong hand and policy of your noble progenitors. Whereat, saith the story, the King changed his countenance &c: and to say truth▪ it was a proud and masterly speech of the Duke; besides that inclusively he taxed him of sloth and cowardice, as if he had never put himself to the adventure of winning such a place, undutiful words of a subject do often take deeper root than the memory of ill deeds do: The Duke of Byron found it when the King had him at advantage. 
Humanum est erra●e●  Yea the late Earl of Essex told Queen Elizabeth that her conditions was as crooked as her carcase: but it cost him his head, which his insurrection had not cost him, but for that speech, who will say unto a King (saith job) thou art wicked. Certainly it is the same thing to say unto a Lady, thou art crooked (and perchance more) as to say unto a King that he is wicked, and to say that he is a coward, or to use any other words of disgrace, it is one and the same error.  COUN: 
But what say you for Arundel, a brave and valiant man, who had the King's pardon of his contempt during his minority.  just: 
My good Lord, the Parliament which you say disputes the King's prerogative, did quite contrary, and destroyed the king's charter and pardon formerly given to Arundel. And my good Lord, do you remember, that at the Parliament that wrought wonders, when these Lords compounded that parliament, as the King did this, they were so merciless towards all, that they thought their enemies, as the Earl of Arundel most insolently suffered the cue: to kneel unto him three hours for the saving of one of her servants, and that scorn of his manebat alto ment repostum. And to say the truth, it is more barbarous & unpardonable than any act that ever he did to permit the wife of his Sovereign to kneel to him being the King's vassal. For if he had saved the Lords servant freely at her first request, as it is like enough that the cue: would also have saved him, Miseris succurrens paria obtinebis aliquando. For your Lordship sees that the Earl of Warwick who was as far in the treason as any of the rest, was pardoned. It was also at this parliament that the Duke of Hereford accused Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, and that the Duke of Hereford, son to the Duke of Lancaster, was banished to the King's confusion, as your Lordship well knows.  COUNS. 
I know it well, and God knows that the K. had then a silly and weak Counsel about him, that persuaded him to banish a Prince of the blood, a most valiant man, and the best beloved of the people in general of any man living, especially considering that the K. gave every day more than other offence to his subjects. For besides that he fined the inhabitants that assisted the Lords in his Minority of the 17 shires) which offence he had long before pardoned, his blank Charters, & letting the Realm to farm to mean persons, by whom he was wholly advised, increased the people's hatred towards the present government.  just: 
You say well my L. Princes of an ill destiny do always follow the worst counsel, or at least embrace the best after opportunity is lost, Qui confilia non ex suo corde sed alienis viribus colligunt, non animo sed auribus cogitant, And this was not the least grief of the subject in general, that those men had the greatest part of the spoil of the commonwealth, which neither by virtue, valour or counsel could add any thing unto it: Nihil est sordidius, nihil crudelius (saith Anto: Pius) quamsi Remp. ij arrode, qui nihil in eam suo labore conferent.  COUNS: 
Indeed the letting to farm the Realm was very grievous to the subject.  just. 
Will your Lordship pardon me if I tell you that the letting to Farm of his Majesty's Customs (the greatest revenue of the Realm) is not very pleasing.  COUNS. 
And why I pray you, doth not the K. thereby raise his profits every third year, and one farmer out bids another to the king's advantage.  just. 
It is true my Lord, but it grieves the subject to pay custom to the subject, for what mighty men are those Farmers become, and if those Farmers get many thousands every year, as the world knows they do, why should they not now (being men of infinite wealth) declare unto the K. upon oath, what they have gained, and henceforth become the King's collectors of his custom, did not Queen Elizabeth, who was reputed both a wise and just Princess, after she had brought Customer Smith from 14000 l a year to 42000 l a year, made him lay down a recompense for that which he had gotten? And if these Farmers do give no recompense, let them yet present the King with the truth of their receivings and profits. But my Lord for conclusion, after Bolingbroke arriving in England with a small troop: Notwithstanding the King at his landing out of Ireland, had a sufficient and willing army: yet he wanting courage to defend his right, gave leave to all his soldiers to depart, & put himself into his hands that cast him into his grave.  COUNS. 
Yet you see, he was deposed by Parliament.  just. 
Aswell may your Lordship say he was knocked in the head by Parliament, for your Lordship knows, that if King Richard had ever escaped out of their fingers, that deposed him, the next Parliament would have made all the deposers traitors and rebels, and that justly. In which Parliament, or rather unlawful assembly, there appeared but one honest man, to wit, the B. of Carliel, who scorned his life & estate, in respect of right & his allegiance, & defended the right of his Sovereign Lo: against the K. elect & his partakers.  COUNS. 
Well I pray go on with the Parliaments held in the time of his successor Henry the fourth.  just. 
This King had in his third year a subsidy, & in his fifth a tenth of the Clergy without a Parliament; In his sixth year he had so great a subsicy, as the House required there might be no record thereof left to posterity, for the House gave him 20 of every knight's Fee, and of every 20● land, 20● and 12● the pound of goods.  COUNS. 
Yea in the end of this year, the Parliament pressed the king to annex unto the Crown all temporal possessions belonging to Churchmen within the land, which at that time, was the third foot of all England. But the Bishops made friends, and in the end saved their estates.  just. 
By this you see, my Lord, that Cromwell was not the first that thought on such a business. And if king Henry the 8● had reserved the Abbeys, and other Church lands, which he had given at that time, the revenue of the Crown of England, had exceeded the revenue of the Crown of Spain, with both the Indies, whereas used as it was, (a little enriched the Crown) served but to make a number of pettifoggers, and other gentlemen.  COUNS. 
But what had the king in steed of this great revenue.  just. 
He had a 15 th' of the Commons, and a tenth, and a half of the Clergy, and withal, all pensions granted by king Edward, and king Richard were made void. It was also moved, that all Crown lands formerly given (at least given by K. Ed: and K. Rich:) should be taken back.  COUNS. 
What think you of that, Sir? would it not have been a dishonour to the king? and would not his Successors have done the like to those that the king had advanced?  just. 
I cannot answer your Lordship, but by distinguishing▪ for where the kings had given land for services, and had not been overreached in his gifts, there it had been a dishonour to the king, to have made void the grants of his predecessors, or his grants, but all those grants of the kings, wherein they were deceived, the very custom and policy of England makes them void at this day.  COUNS. 
How mean you that, for his Majesty hath given a great deal of land among us since he came into England, and would it stand with the king's honour to take it from us again?  just. 
Yea my Lord, very well with the king's honour, if your Lordship, or any Lord else, have under the name of 100 land a year, gotten 500● land, and so after that rate.  COUNS. 
I will never believe that his Majesty will ever do any such thing.  just. 
And I believe as your Lordship doth, but we spoke erewhile of those that dissuaded the King from calling it a Parliament: And your Lordship asked me the reason, why any man should dissuade it, or fear it, to which, this place gives me an opportunity to make your Lordship an answer, for though his Majestle will of himself never question those grants, yet when the Commons shall make humble petition to the King in Parliament, that it will please his Majesty to assist them in his relief, with that which ought to be his own, which, if it will please his Majesty to yield unto, the house will most willingly furnish and supply the rest, with what grace can his Majesty deny that honest suit of theirs, the like having been done in many King's times before? This proceeding, my good Lord, may perchance prove all your phrases of the King's honour, false English.  COUNS. 
But this cannot concern many, & for myself, I am sure it concerns me little.  just. 
It is true my Lord, and there are not many that dissuade his Majesty from a Parliament.  COUNS. 
But they are great ones, a few of which will serve the turn well enough.  just. 
But my Lord, be they never so great (as great as Giants) yet if they dissuade the King from his ready and assured way of his subsistence, they must devise how the K. may be elsewhere supplied, for they otherwise run into a dangerous fortune.  COUNS. 
Hold you contented Sir, the King needs no great dissuasion.  just. 
My Lord, learn of me, that there is none of you all, that can pierce the King. It is an essential property of a man truly wise, not to open all the boxes of his bosom, even to those that are nearest and dearest unto him, for when a man is discovered to the very bottom, he is after the less esteemed. I dare undertake, that when your Lordship hath served the King twice twelve years more, you will find, that his Majesty hath reserved somewhat beyond all your capacities, his Majesty hath great reason to put off the Parliament, as his last refuge, and in the mean time, to make trial of all your loves to serve him, for his Majesty hath had good experience, how well you can serve yourselves: But when the King finds, that the building of your own fortunes and factions, hath been the diligent studies, and the service of his Majesty, but the exercises of your leisures: He may then perchance cast himself upon the general love of his people, of which (I trust) he shall never be deceived, and leave as many of your Lordships as have pilfered from the Crown, to their examination.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, I take no great pleasure in this dispute, go on I pray.  just. 
In that King's 5 th' year, he had also a subsidy, which he got by holding the house together from Easter to Christmas, and would not suffer them to depart. He had also a subsicy in his ninth year. In his eleventh year the Commons did again press the king to take all the temporalities of the Churchmen into his hands, which they proved sufficient to maintain 150 Earls, 1500 knights, and 6400 Esquiers, with a hundred hospitals, but they not prevailing, gave the King a subsidy.  

Hen. 5.  As for the notorious Prince, Henry the fifth, I find, that he had given him in his second year 300000 marks, and after that two other subsedies, one in his fifth year, another in his ninth, without any disputes.  

Hen. 6.  In the time of his successor Henry the sixth, there where not many subsedies. In his third year, he had a subsidy of a Tonnage and Poundage. And here (saith john Stom) began those payments, which we call customs, because the payment was continued, whereas before that time it was granted but for a year, two, or three, according to the King's occasions. He had also an aid and gathering of money in his fourth year, and the like in his tenth year, and in his thirteenth year a 15th. He had also a fifteenth for the conveying of the Queen out of France into England. In the twenty eight year of that King was the act of Resumption of all honours, towns, castles, Signieuries, villages, Manors, lands, tenements, rents, reversions, fees, etc. But because the wages of the King's servants, were by the strictness of the act also restrained, this act of Resumption was expounded in the Parliament at Reading the 31 th' year of the King's reign.  COUNS. 
I perceive that those acts of Resumption were ordinary in former times; for King Stephen resumed the lands, which in former times he had given to make friends during the Civil wars. And Henry the second resumed all (without exception) which King Stephen had not resumed; for although King Stephen took back a great deal, yet he suffered his trustiest servants to enjoy his gift.  just. 
Yes my Lord, & in after times also; for this was not the last, nor shall be the last, I hope. And judge you my Lord, whether the Parliaments do not only serve the King, whatsoever is said to the contrary; for as all King Henry the 6, gifts & grants were made void by the Duke of York, when he was in possession of the kingdom by Parliament. So in the time of K. H. when K. Edw: was beaten out again, the Parliament of Westminster made all his acts void, made him & all his followers traitors, & gave the King many of their heads & lands. The Parliaments of England do always serve the King in possession. It served Rich. the second to condemn the popular Lords. It served Bolingbroke to depose Rich. When Edw. the 4. had the Sceptre, it made them all beggars that had followed H. the 6. And it did the like for H. when Edw. was driven out. The Parliaments are as the friendship of this world is, which always followeth prosperity. For K. Edw. the 4: after that he was possessed of the Crown, he had in his 13 year a subsidy freely given him: & in the year following he took a benevolence through England, which arbitrary taking from the people, served that ambitious traitor the Duke of Bucks. After the King's death was a plausible argument to persuade the multitude, that they should not permit (saith Sir Thomas Moor) his line to reign any longer upon them.  COUNS 
Well Sir, what say you to the Parliament of Richard the third his time?  just. 
I find but one, and therein he made divers good Laws. For K. Henry the seventh in the beginning of his third year he had by Parliament an aid granted unto him, towards the relief of the Duke of Britain, then assailed by the French King. And although the King did not enter into the war, but by the advice of the three estates, who did willingly contribute: Yet those Northern men which loved Richard the third, raised rebellion under colour of the money imposed, & murdered the Earl of Northumberland whom the King employed in that Collection. By which your Lordship sees, that it hath not been for taxes and impositions alone, that the ill disposed have taken Armes▪ but even for those payments which have been apppointed by Parliament.  COUNS. 
And what became of those Rebels?  just. 
They were fairly hanged, and the money levied notwithstanding, in the King's first year he gathered a marvelous great mass of money, by a benevolence, taking pattern by this kind of levy from Edw. 4 th'. But the King caused it first to be moved in Parliament where it was allowed, because the poorer sort were therein spared. Yet it is true that the king used some art, for in his Letters he declared that he would measure every man's affections by his gifts. In the thirteenth year he had also a subsidy, whereupon the Cornish men took Arms, as the Northern men of the Bishopric had done in the third year of the King.  COUNS. 
It is without example, that ever the people have rebelled for any thing granted by Parliament, save in this king's days.  just. 
Your Lordship must consider, that he was not over much beloved, for he took many advantages upon the people and the Nobility both.  COUNS. 
And I pray you what say they now of the new impositions lately laid by the King's Majesty? do they say that they are justly or injustly laid?  just. 
To impose upon all things brought into the Kingdom is very ancient: which imposing when it hath been continued a certain time, is then called Customs, because the subjects are accustomed to pay it, & yet the great tax upon wine is still called Impost, because it was imposed after the ordinary rate of payment, had lasted many years. But we do now a days understand those things to be impositions, which are raised by the command of Princes, without the advice of the commonwealth, though (as I take it) much of that which is now called custom, was at the first imposed by Prerogative royal: Now whether it be time or consent that makes them just, I cannot define, were they just because new, and not justified yet by time, or unjust because they want a general consent: yet is this rule of Aristotle verified in respect of his Majesty: Minus timent homines iniustum pati à principe quem cultorem dei putant. Yea my Lord, they are also the more willingly borne, because all the world knows they are no new Invention of the Kings. And if those that advised his Majesty to impose them, had raised his lands (as it was offered them) to 20000 l more than it was, and his wards to as much as aforesaid, they had done him far more acceptable service. But they had their own ends in refusing the one, and accepting the other. If the land had been raised, they could not have selected the best of it for themselves: If the impositions had not been laid, some of them could not have their silks, others pieces in farm, which indeed grieved the subject ten times more than that which his Majesty enjoyeth. But certainly they made a great advantage that were the advisers, for if any tumult had followed his Majesty, ready way had been to have delivered them over to the people.  COUNS. 
But think you that the King would have delivered them if any troubles had followed?  just. 
I know not my Lord, it was Machiavels' counsel to Caesar Borgia to do it, and K. H. the 8 delivered up Empson and Dudley, yea the same King, when the great Cardinal Woolsey, who governed the King and all his estate, had (by requiring the sixth part of every man's goods for the King) raised a rebellion, the King I say disavowed him absolutely, that had not the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk appeased the people, the Cardinal had sung no more Mass: for these are the words of our Story: The King then came to Westminster to the Cardinal's palace, and assembled there a great Council, in which he protested, that his mind was never to ask any thing of his Commons which might sound to the breach of his Laws. Wherefore he then willed them to know by whose means they were so strictly given forth. Now my Lord, how the Cardinal would have shifted himself, by saying, I had the opinion of the judges, had not the rebellion been appealed, I greatly doubt.  COUNS. 
But good Sir, you blanche my question, and answer me by examples. I ask you whether or no in any such tumult, the people pretending against any one or two great Officers, the King should deliver them, or defend them?  just. 
My good Lord, the people have not stayed for the king's delivery, neither in England, nor in France: Your Lordship knows how the Chancellor, Treasurer, and Chief justice, with many others at several times have been used by the Rebels: And the Marshals, Constables, and Treasurers in France, have been cut in pieces in Charles the sixth his time. Now to your Lordship's question, I say that where any man shall give a King perilous advice, as may either cause a rebellion, or draw the people's love from the King. I say, that a King shallbe advised to banish him: But if the King do absolutely command his servant to do any thing displeasing to the Commonwealth, and to his own peril, there is the King bound in honour to defend him. But my good Lord for conclusion, there is no man in England that will lay any invention either grievous or against law upon the King's Majesty: And therefore your Lordships must share it amongst you.  COUNS. 
For my part, I had no hand in it, (I think) Ingram was he that propounded it to the Treasurer.  just. 
Alas my good Lord, every poor waiter in the Customhouse, or every promoter might have done it, there is no invention in these things. To lay impositions, and sell the King's lands, are poor and common devices. It is true that Ingram and his fellows are odious men, and therefore his Majesty pleased the people greatly to put him from the Coffership. It is better for a Prince to use such a kind of men, then to countenance them, hangmen are necessary in a Commonwealth: yet in the Netherlands, none but a hangman's son will marry a hangman's daughter. Now my Lord, the last gathering which Henry the seventh made, was in his twentieth year, wherein he had another benevolence both of the Clergy and Laity, a part of which taken of the poorer sort, he ordained by his Testament that it should be restored. And for King Henry the eight, although he was left in a most plentiful estate, yet he wonderfully pressed his people with great payments; for in the beginning of his time it was infinite that he spent in Masking and Tilting, Banqueting, and other vanities, before he was entered into the most consuming expense of the most fond and fruitless war that ever King undertook. In his fourth year he had one of the greatest subsedies that ever was granted; for besides two fifteen and two dimes, he used David's Law of Capitation or head-money, and had of every Duke ten marks, of every Earl five pounds, of every Lord four pounds, of every Knight four marks, & every man rated at 8 ● in goods, 4 marks, and so after the rate: yea every man that was valued but at 40 paid 12 ●, and every man and woman above 15 years 4 ●. He had also in his sixth year diverse subsedies granted him. In his fourteenth there was a tenth demanded of every man's goods, but it was moderated. In the Parliament following, the Clergy gave the King the half of their spiritual livings for one year, & of the Laity there was demanded 800000 ', which could not be levied in England, but it was a marvellous great gift that the king had given him at that time. In the King's seventeenth year was the Rebellion before spoken of, wherein King disavowed the Cardinal. In his seventeenth year he had the tenth and fifteenth given by Parliament, which were before that time paid to the Pope. And before that also, the monies that the King borrowed in his fifteenth year were forgiven him by Parliament in his seventeenth year. In his 35 year a subsidy was granted of 4 ● the pound of every man worth in goods from 20● to 5 ●, from 5 ● to 10 l and upwards of every pound 2. And all strangers, denisens' and others doubled this sum, strangers not being inhabitants above 16 years, 4 ● a head. All that had Lands, Fees, and Annuities, from 20 to 5●, and so double as they did for goods: And the Clergy gave 6 the pound. In the thirty seventh year, a Benevolence was taken, not voluntary, but rated by Commissioners, which because one of the Aldermen refused to pay, he was sent for a soldier into Scotland. He had also another great subsidy of six shillings the pound of the Clergy, and two shillings eight pence of the goods of the Laity, and four shillings the pound upon Lands.  

Edw. 6.  In the second year of Edward the sixth, the Parliament gave the King an aid of twelve pence the pound of goods of his Natural subjects, and two shillings the pound of strangers, and this to continue for three years, and by the statute of the second and third of Edward the sixth, it may appear, the same Parliament did also give a second aid, as followeth, (to wit) of every Ewe kept in several pastures, 3: of every weather kept as aforesaid 2 ●: of every sheep kept in the Common, 1 ● ob. The House gave the King also 8 the pound of every woollen cloth made for the sale throughout England for three years. In the third and fourth of the King, by reason of the troublesome gathering of the polymony upon sheep, & the tax upon cloth, this act of subsidy was repealed, and other relief given the King, and in the kings seaventh year he had a subsidy and two fifteen.  
In the first year of Queen Mary, 
M. R.  tonnage and poundage were granted. In the second year a subsidy was given to King Philip, and to the Queen, she had also a third subsidy in Annis 4. & 5.  
Now my Lord, 
Eliz. R.  for the Parliaments of the late Queen's time, in which there was nothing new, neither head money, nor sheep money, nor escuage, nor any of these kinds of payments was required, but only the ordinary subsedies, & those as easily granted as demanded, I shall not need to trouble your Lordship with any of them, neither can I inform your Lordship of all the passages and acts which have passed, for they are not extant, nor printed.  COUNS. 
No, it were but time lost to speak of the latter, and by those that are already remembered, we may judge of the rest, for those of the greatest importance are public. But I pray you deal freely with me, what you think would be done for his Majesty, if he should call a Parliament at this time, or what would be required at his Majesty's hands?  just. 
The first thing that would be required, would be the same that was required by the Commons in the thirtenth year of H. the 8: (to wit) that if any man of the commons house should speak more largely, then of duty he ought to do, all such offences to be pardoned, and that to be of record.  COUNS. 
So might every Companion speak of the King what they list.  just. 
No my Lord, the reverence which a Vassal ovyeth to his Sovereign, is always intended for every speech, howsoever it must import the good of the King, and his estate, and so long it may be easily pardoned, otherwise not; for in Queen Elizabeth's time, who gave freedom of speech in all Parliaments, when Wentworth made those motions, that were but supposed dangerous to the Queen's estate, he was imprisoned in the Tower, notwithstanding the privilege of the house, and there died.  COUNS. 
What say you to the Sicilian vespers remembered in the last Parliament?  just. 
I say, he repented him heartily that used that speech, and indeed besides that, it was seditious, this example held not: The French in Sicily usurped that Kingdom, they kept neither law nor faith, they took away the inheritance of the Inhabitants, they took from them their wives, and ravished their daughters, committing all other insolences that could be imagined. The King's Majesty is the Natural Lord of England, his Vassals of Scotland obey the English Laws, if they break them, they are punished without respect. Yea his Majesty put one of his Barons to a shameful death, for being consenting only to the death of a Common Fencer: And which of these ever did or durst commit any outrage in England, but to say the truth, the opinion of packing the last, was the cause of the contention and disorder that happened.  COUNS. 
Why sir? do you not think it best to compound a Parliament of the King's servants and others, that shall in all obey the king's desires?  just. 
Certainly no, for it hath never succeeded well, neither on the king's part, nor on the subjects, as by the Parliament before-remembred your Lordship may gather, for from such a composition do arise all jealousies, and all contentions. It was practised in elder times, to the great trouble of the kingdom, and to the loss and ruin of many. It was of latter time used by King Henry the eight, but every way to his disadvantage. When the King leaves himself to his people, they assure themselves that they are trusted and beloved of their king, and there was never any assembly so barbarous, as not to answer the love and trust of their King. Henry the sixth when his estate was in effect utterly overthrown, & utterly impoverished at the humble request of his Treasurer made the same known to the House, or otherwise, using the Treasurers own words, He humbly desired the King to take his staff, that he might save his wardship.  COUNS. 
But you know, they will presently be in hand with those impositions, which the King hath laid by his own royal prerogative.  just. 
Perchance not my Lord; but rather with those impositions that have been by some of your Lordships laid upon the King, which did not some of your Lordships fear more than you do the impositions laid upon the Subjects, you would never dissuade his Majesty from a Parliament: For no man doubted, but that his Majesty was advised to lay those impositions by his Council; and for particular things on which they were laid, the advice came from petty fellows (though now great ones) belonging to the Customhouse. Now my Lord, what prejudice hath his Majesty (his revenue being kept up) if the impositions that were laid by the advice of a few, be in Parliament laid by the general Council of the kingdom, which takes off all grudging and complaint.  COUNS. 
Yea Sir, but that which is done by the King, with the advice of his private or privy Council, is done by the King's absolute power.  IUS. 
And by whose power is it done in Parliament, but by the King's absolute power? mistake it not my Lord: The 3 estates do but advise, as the privy Council doth, which advice if the king embrace, it becomes the kings own act in the one, & the king's law in the other, for without the king's acceptation, both the public & private advices be but as empty egge-shels; and what doth his Majesty lose if some of those things, which concerns the poorer sort be made free again, & the revenue kept up upon that which is superfluous? Is it a loss to the K. to be beloved of the Commons? if it be revenue which the K. seeks, is it not better to take it of those that laugh, than of those that cry? Yea if all be content to pay upon a moderation and change of the Species: Is it more honourable and more safe for the King, that the Subject pay by persuasion, then to have them constrained? If they be contented to whip themselves for the King, were it not better to give them their rod into their own hands, than to commit them to the executioner? Certainly it is far more happy for a Sovereign Prince, that a Subject open his purse willingly, than that the same be opened by violence. Besides that when impositions are laid by Parliament, they are gathered by the authority of the law, which (as aforesaid) rejecteth all complaints, and stoppeth every mutinous mouth: It shall ever be my prayer, that the King embrace the Council of honour and safety, & let other Princes embrace that of force.  COUNS. 
But good Sir, it is his Prerogative which the K. stands upon, and it is the Prerogative of the kings, that the Parliaments do all diminish.  just. 
If your Lordship would pardon me, I would say then, that your Lordship's objection against Parliaments is ridiculous. In former Parliaments three things have been supposed dishonour of the King. The first, that the Subjects have conditioned with the King, when the King hath needed them, to have the great Charter confirmed: the second, that the Estates have made Treasurers for the necessary and profitable disbursing of those sums by them given, to the end, that the kings, to whom they were given, should expend them for their own defence, & for the defence of the commonwealth: The third, that these have pressed the King to discharge some great Officers of the Crown, and to elect others. As touching the first my Lord, I would fain learn what disadvantage the Kings of this Land have had by confirming the great Charter, the breach of which have served only men of your Lordship's rank, to assist their own passions, and to punish and imprison at their own discretion the King's poor Subjects. Concerning their private hatred, with the colour of the King's service, for the King's Majesty takes no man's inheritance (as I have said before) nor any man's life, but by the Law of the land, according to the Charter. Neither doth his Majesty imprison any man, (matter of practice, which concerns the preservation of his estate excepted) but by the law of the land. And yet he useth his prerogative as all the Kings of England have ever used it: for the supreme reason cause to practise many things without the advice of the law. As in insurrections and rebellions, it useth the marshal, and not the common law, without any breach of the Charter, the intent of the Charter considered truly. Neither hath any Subject made complaint, or been grieved, in that the Kings of this land, for their own safeties, and preservation of their estates, have used their Prerogatives, the great Ensign, on which there is written soli Deo. And my good Lord, was not Buckingham in England, and Byron in France condemned, their Peers uncalled? And withal, was not Byron utterly (contrary to the customs & privileges of the French) denied an advocate to assist his defence? for where laws forecast cannot provide remedies for future dangers, Princes are forced to assist themselves by their prerogatives. But that which hath been ever grievous, and the cause of many troubles, very dangerous is, that your Lordships abusing the reasons of state, do punish and imprison the King's Subjects at your pleasure. It is you my Lords, that when Subjects have sometimes need of the King's prerogative, do then use the strength of the law, and when they require the law, you afflict them with the prerogative, and tread the great Charter (which hath been confirmed by 16. acts of Parliament) under your feet, as a torn parchment or waste paper.  COUNS. 
Good Sir, which of us do in this sort break the great Charter? perchance you mean, that we have advised the King to lay the new impositions.  just. 
No my Lord: there is nothing in the great Charter against impositions: and besides that, necessity doth persuade them. And if necessity do in somewhat excuse a private man a fortiori, it may then excuse a Prince. Again, the King's Majesty hath profit and increase of revenue by the impositions. But there are of your Lordships (contrary to the direct letter of the Charter) that imprison the King's Subjects, and deny them the benefit of the law, to the Kings disprofit. And what do you otherwise thereby (if the impositions be in any sort grievous) but Renovare dolores? and withal dig out of the dust the long-buried memory of the Subjects former intentions with their Kings.  COUNS. 
What mean you by that?  just. 
I will tell your Lordship when I dare, in the mean time it is enough for me, to put your Lordship in mind, that all the estates in the world, in the offence of the people, have either had profit or necessity to persuade them to adventure it, of which, if neither be urgent, and yet the Subject exceedingly grieved, your Lordship may conjecture, that the House will be humble suitors for a redress. And if it be a Maxim in policy to please the people in all things indifferent, and never suffer them to be beaten, but for the King's benefit, (for there are no blows forgotten with the smart but those) than I say to make them vassals to vassals, is but to batter down those mastering buildings, erected by King Henry the seaventh, and fortified by his Son, by which the people and Gentlemen of England were brought to depend upon the King alone. Yea my good Lord, 
Q. E.  our late dear Sovereign kept them up, and to their advantage, as well repaired as ever Prince did, Defend me, and spend me, saith the Irish churl.  COUNS. 
Then you think that this violent breach of the Charter will be the cause of seeking the confirmation of it in the next Parliament, which otherwise could never have been moved.  just. 
I know not my good Lord, perchance not, for if the House press the King to grant unto them all that is theirs by the law, they cannot (in justice) refuse the King all that is his by the law. And where will be the issue of such a contention? I dare not divine, but sure I am that it will tend to the prejudice both of the K: and subject.  COUN: 
If they dispute not their own liberties; why should they then dispute the King's liberties, which we call his prerogative.  just: 
Among so many & so divers spirits, no man can foretell what may be propounded, but howsoever if, the matter be not slightly handled on the King's behalf, these disputes will soon dissolve, for the King hath so little need of his prerogative, and so great advantage by the laws, as the fear of imparing the one, to wit, the prerogative, is so impossible, and the burden of the other (to wit) the law so weighty, as but by a branch of the King's prerogative, namely of his remission and pardon, the subject is no way able to undergo it. This my Lord is no matter of flourish that I have said, but it is the truth, and unanswerable.  COUNS. 
But to execute the laws very severely, would be very grievous.  just. 
Why my Lord, are the Laws grievous which ourselves have required of our Kings? and are the prerogatives also which our Kings have reserved to themselves also grievous? how can such a people then be well pleased? And if your Lordship confess that the laws give too much, why does your Lordship urge the prerogative that gives more? Nay I will be bold to say it, that except the Laws were better observed, the prerogative of a religious Prince hath manifold less perils than the letter of the Law hath. Now my Lord, for the second & third, to wit, for the appointing of Treasurers, and removing of Counsellors, our Kings have evermore laughed them to scorn that have pressed either of these, & after the Parliament dissolved, took the money of the Treasurers of the Parliament, and recalled & restored the officers discharged, or else they have been contented, that so me such persons should be removed at the request of the whole kingdom, which they themselves out of their noble natures, would not seem willing to remove.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, would you notwithstanding all these arguments advise his Majesty to call a Parliament?  just: 
It belongs to your Lordships who enjoy the King's favour, & are chosen for your able wisdom to advise the K. It were a strange boldness in a poor and private person, to advise Kings, attended with so understanding a Council. But belike your Lordships have conceived some other way, how money may be gotten otherwise. If any trouble should happen, your Lordship knows, that then there were nothing so dangerous for a King, as to be without money: a Parliament cannot assemble in haste, but present dangers require hasty remedies. It will be no time then to discontent the subjects by using any unordinary ways.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, all this notwithstanding we dare not advise the king to call a parliament, for if it should succeed ill, we that advise, should fall into the king's disgrace. And if the king be driven into any extremity, we can say to the K. that because we found it extremely unpleasing to his Majesty to hear of a Parliament, we thought it no good manners to make such a motion.  just. 
My Lord, to the first let me tell you, that there was never any just Prince that hath taken any advantage of the success of Counsels, which have been founded on reason. To fear that, were to fear the loss of the bell, more than the loss of the steeple, and were also the way to beat all men from the studies of the King's service. But for the second, where you say you can excuse yourselves upon the Kings own protesting against a parliament, the king upon better consideration may encounter that fineness of yours.  COUNS: 
How I pray you?  just: 
Even by declaring himself to be indifferent, by calling your Lordships together, and by delivering unto you, that he hears how his loving subjects in general are willing to supply him, if it please him to call a Parliament, for that was the common answer to all the Sheriffs in England, when the late benevolence was commanded. In which respect, and because you come short in all your projects, and because it is a thing most dangerous for a King to be without treasure, he requires such of you, as either mislike, or rather fear a parliament, to set down your reasons in writing, which you either misliked, or feared it. And such as wish and desire it, to set down answers to your objections: And so shall the King prevent the calling or not calling on his Majesty, as some of your great Councillors have done in many other things shrinking up their shoulders, and saying, the K. will have it so.  COUNS. 
Well Sir, it grows late, and I will bid you farewell, only you shall take well with you this advice of mine, thst in all that you have said against our greatest, those men in the end shallbe your judges in their own cause, you that trouble yourself with reformation, are like to be well rewarded: for hereof you may assure yourself, that we will never allow of any invention how profitable soever, unless it proceed, or seem to proceed from our▪ selves.  just: 
If then my Lord, we may presume to say that Princes may be unhappy in any thing, certainly they are unhappy in nothing more than in suffering themselves to be so enclosed. Again, if we may beleeu Pliny, who tells us, that 'tis an ill sign of prosperity in any kingdom or state, where such as deserve well, find no other recompense then the contentment of their own consciences, a far worse sign is it, where the justly accused shall take revenge of the just accuser. But my good Lord, there is this hope remaining, that seeing he hath been abused by them he trusted most, he will not for the future dishonour of his judgement (so well informed by his own experience) as to expose such of his vassals (as have had no other motives to serve him, then simply the love of his person and his estate) to their revenge, who have only been moved by the love of their own fortunes, and their glory.  COUNS: 
But good Sir, the King hath not been deceived by all.  just. 
No my Lord, neither have all been trusted, neither doth the world accuse all, but believe, that there be among your Lordships very just and worthy men, aswell of the Nobility as others, but those though most honoured in the Commonwealth, yet have they not been most employed: your Lordship knows it well enough, that 3 or 4 of your Lordships have thought your hands strong enough to bear up alone the weightiest affairs in the Commonwealth, and strong enough, all the land have found them to beat down whom they pleased.  COUNS: 
I understand you, but how shall it appear that they have only sought themselves.  just: 
There needs no perspective glass to discern it, for neither in the treaties of peace and war, in matters of revenue, and matters of trade, any thing hath happened either of love or of judgement. No my Lord, there is not any one action of theirs eminent, great or small, the greatness of themselves only excepted.  COUNS: 
It is all one, your papers can neither answer nor reply, we can. Besides you tell the King no news in delivering these complaints, for he knows as much as can be told him.  just: 
For the first my Lord, whereas he hath once the reasons of things delivered him, your Lordships shall need to be well advised, in their answers there is no sophistry will serve the turn, where the judge, & the understanding are both supreme. For the 2 d, to say that his Majesty knows, & cares not, that my Lord were but to despair all his faithful subjects. But by your favour my Lord, we see it is contrary, we find now that there is no such singular power as there hath been, justice is described with a balance in her hand, holding it even and it hangs as even now as ever it did in any king's days, for singular authority begets but general oppression.  COUNS. 
Howsoever it be, that's nothing to you, that have no interest in the king's favour, nor perchance in his opinion, & concerning such a one, the misliking, or but misconceiving of any one hard word, phrase, or sentence, will give argument to the K. either to condemn or reject the whole discourse. And howsoever his M● may neglect your informations, you may be sure that others (at whom you point) will not neglect their revenges, you will therefore confess it (when it is too late) that you are exceeding sorry that you have not followed my advice. Remember Cardinal Woolsey, who lost all men for the King's service, and when their malice (whom he grieved) had outlived the King's affection, you know what became of him as well as I.  just. 
Yea my Lord, I know it well, that malice hath a longer life, than either love or thankfulness hath, for as we always take more care to put off pain, than to enjoy pleasure, because the one hath no intermission, & with the other we are often satisfied, so it is in the smart of injury and the memory of good turns: Wrongs are written in marble: Benefits are (sometimes) acknowledged, rarely requited. But my Lord, we shall do the K. great wrong, to judge him by common rules, or ordinary examples, for seeing his Majesty hath greatly enriched and advanced those that have but pretended his service, no man needs to doubt of his goodness towards those that shall perform any thing worthy reward. Nay, the not taking knowledge of those of his own vassals that have done him wrong, is more to be lamented, than the relinquishing of those that do him right, is to be suspected. I am therefore, my good Lo: held to my resolution by these a, besides the former. The 1, that God would never have blessed him with so many years, & in so many actions, yea in all his actions, had he paid his honest servants with evil for good. The 2 d, where your Lordship tells me, that I will be 〈◊〉 for not following your advice. I pray your Lordship to believe, that I am no way subject to the common sorrowing 〈◊〉 worldly men, this Maxim of Plato being true. Dolores aex amore animi orga corpus noscuntur. But for my body, my mind values it at nothing.  COUNS. 
What is it then you hope for or seek?  just. 
Neither riches, nor honour, nor thanks, but I only seek to satisfy his Majesty (which I would have been glad to have done in matters of more importance) that I have lived, and will die an honest man.  
EINIS.   

The Authors Epitaph, made by himself.  
EVen such is Time, which takes in trust  
Our Youth, and joy's, and all we have,  
And pays us but with age and dust,  
Which in the dark and silent grave,  
When we have wandered all our ways,  
Shuts up the story of our days:  
And from which Earth, and Grave, and Dust  
The Lord shall raise me up I trust.