Tenenda non Tollenda, OR The Necessity of Preserving TENORS IN CAPITE and by KNIGHT-SERVICE, Which according to their first Institution were, and are yet, a great part of the Salus Populi, and the Safety and Defence of the King, as well as of his People.  
TOGETHER With a Prospect of the very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences, which by the taking away or altering of those Tenors, will inevitably happen to the KING and his KINGDOMS.  
By Fabian Philipps, Esq  Claudian Lib. 2. 
Ne pereat tam priscus Honos qui portus honorum.  
Semper erat, nullo Sarciri Consule Damnum.  
LONDON, Printed by Thomas Leach, for the Author, and are to be sold by Abel Roper at the Sign of the Sun in Fleetstreet, 1660.   

To the Right Honourable Sir Edward Hide Knight, Baron of Hindon, and Lord Chancellor of England.  
My Lord,  
EVery man who hath not been out of his Wits or his own Country, or like the Poet Epimenides, who is said to have slept more than Twenty years.  
And hath but understood or experimented the many Miseries and Confusions which our new Reformers and Modellers of Government, (who like unskilful Architects, cannot amend a part of an house without overturning the whole Fabric upon the heads of the Owners) have treated the Faction and Ignorance of too many of the seduced people of this Kingdom withal; And sitting by the Waters of Babylon had not forgot Jerusalem, or but remembered the happiness of the Condition we before enjoyed under a gracious and pious Prince in an Ancient, and for many ages past, most happy Monarchy, and with Tears of Joy welcomed it again in the Return of his sacred Majesty, and all our peace and plenty from a sad and long oppressing Captivity, must needs think himself obliged not only to pray for the Peace of our Zion but to endeavour all he can to uphold the King's Rights and Jurisdictions.  
Who being our Lex viva, and guarding Himself, us and our Laws, is with them the sure support of us and all that is or can be of any Concernment to us and our Posterities; And therefore when we are taught by our Laws, and the sage▪ Interpreters and Expounders thereof, That every Subject hath an Interest in the King as the Head of the We●le Public, and as the inferior Members cannot estrange them selves from the Actions or Passions of the head, 
Holland's Case in Coke● 4 Reports.  no less can any Subject make himself a Stranger to any thing which toucheth the King or their supreme Head, And that not a few but very many knowing and able men are of opinion not ushered in by Fancy or first Notions, but well weighed and built with Reason and good Authorities that the exchanging of the Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service, for a constant yearly payment of 100000 l. will levelly the Regality, and turn the Sovereignty into a dangerous popularity, and take away or blunt the Edge of the Sword, by which his Majesty is to defend his people; I could not but conceive it to be my Duty (and a failer of my Duty and Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy not to do it) to offer to consideration the antiquity and right use of Tenors in this and other Kingdoms, that they are no Slavery nor Grievance, how from a project in the beginning of the Reign of King James, it came to trouble several Parliaments, the small benefits will come to the Subjects by altering those Tenors, and the many Inconveniences and Mischiefs which will inevitably follow, and that it is such a flower of the Crown, as the power of an Act of Parliament, and consent of the King and his Nobility, and people cannot take away, wherein, though I may well say it is a matter, as Livy said of his undertaking to write the Roman History Immensi Operis, and that the disquisition of it requiring greater Abilities than I can lay any claim unto; and the excellent Order heretofore used, that all Books of the Law, or very much concerning it▪ should be perused and allowed by the Reverend Judges of the Law, before they should be Printed and published, might have been enough to have made me either to desist, or have attended their approbation; Yet when the good intentions of many Parliament men of the House of Commons to make the King a constant Revenue were so busy to prepare an Act of Parliament to dissolve those more useful and honourable Tenors into a Socage, which will never arrive to the Salus Populi they aim at. I have like some well-wishing Roman to his Country's good, in my Cares, and fear least any thing should hurt, dislocate, or disturb, that well ordered and constituted Government, under which our Progenitors enjoyed so much Honour, Peace und Plenty, hasted Currente Calamo, to a modest inquiry into the grounds and motives, for the dissolution of them, and the Court of Wards, and an examination of that to be prepared Act in the General (for as to the Preamble, Clauses or Prouisoes, they are not permitted to be seen before the Act passeth) the Rogatio Legum as it was amongst the Romans, being not here in use in some cases as it may be wished it were, and when none else would publicly endeavour to rescue them, have without any Bias or partiality as well as I could, represented what hath been the right use of them, and what may be the Inconveniences if they should be changed or altered, and that they are not guilty of the charge which is supposed, but never will be proved against them.  
And confess that it deserved a better Advocate than myself, who having attempted to do it horis Succ●s●vis & interturbationes rerum, am Conscious to myself that much more might have been said for it, and that the matter was capable of a better form, and might have appeared in a better dress, if my care to do something as fast as I could, had not for want of time hindered me from doing what I might.  
But I hope that your Lordship who hath trod the Paths of Affliction, and in the attendance and care of a persecuted Monarchy, and an Afflicted most Gracious Prince, who hath born the burden of His own Sorrows & Troubles, as well as of a Loyal party that Suffered wi●h & for Him and His Royal Father▪ have in Your Travails and residence in many Kingdoms and parts beyond the Seas, viewed and seen the Fundamentals and Orders of other Kingdoms, the Policies and good Reiglements of some, and the Errors and Infirmities of others, will with your learned Predecessor the Chancellor Fortescue in the Reign of King Henry the 6●h. the more admire and love the Laws and excellent Constitutions of England, which as a Quintessence of right reason, may seem to have been Limbecked and drawn out of the best of Laws, and choice of all which might be learned out of other Nations, or the Records or Treasury of Time, and find reason enough to be of the opinion of that well knowing Statesman, 
Fortescue de laudibus Legum Angl●ae.  that non minime erit regno accommodum, ut Incolae ejus in artibus sint experti, & quod domus regia sit tanquam gymnasium supremum nobilitatis regni schola quoque Strenuitatis probitatis & morum quibus regnum honoretur, & floret ac contra Irruentes securatur, & hoc revera bonum accidisse non pottuisset regno illi, Si nobilium fil●i Orphani & Pupilli per pauperes amicos parentum suorum nutrirentur, and greatly approve as he did of our Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service (which have been since better ordered, and more deserve that, and a better commendation) and to put forth your hand to rescue them, who have hitherto as great Beams, pieces of Timber, or Pillars, helped to bear up and sustain the Fabric of our Ancient and Monarchical Government, and have no other fault, but that they are misunderstood and misrepresented to the vulgar, who by making causeless complaints & multiplying them, have done of late by our Laws and best Constitutions, as the Boys are used to do when they hunt Squirrels with Drums, shouts and Noises; And that your Lordship who is able to say much more for that Institution and Right use of Tenors, will be pleased to accept of my good Intentions, and pardon the Imperfections of  
London 23. November 1660. Your Lordship's most Humble Servant Fabian Philipps.   


THE CONTENTS.  
CHAP. I. OF the antiquity and use of Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, in England, and other Nations. page 1.  
CHAP. II. The holding of Lands in Capite, and by Knight service, is no Slavery or Bondage to the Tenant or Vassals. 12.  
CHAP. III. Tenors of Lands in Capite, and by Knight service, are not so many in number as is supposed, nor were, or are any public or general Grievance. 29.  
CHAP. IU. How the design of altering Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, into Socage Tenors, and Dissolving the Court of Wards and Liveries, and the Incidents, and Revenue belonging thereunto, 〈◊〉 out of the Forges of some private men's imagination's, to be afterwards agitated in Parliament. 145.  
CHAP. V. The Benefits or Advantages which are expected ●y the people in putting down of the Court of wards ●nd Liveries, and changing the Tenors in Capi●e and by Knight service, into free and common Socage. 154.  
CHAP. VI The great, and very many Mischiefs and Inconveniences which will happen to the King, and Kingdom, by taking away Tenors in Capite, and Knight service. 157.  
CHAP. VII. That Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, holden of the King, and the Homage and Incidents thereunto appertaining, and the right of the Mesne Lords, cannot be dissolved, or taken away by any Act of Parliament.  
The Conclusion. 258.    

Erratas, or Faults escaped in Printing, by the haste of the Press.  
PAge 1 line 1 leave out and, p. 2 l 28 for be read by. p. 6 l 12 for or Knights, r and Knights, p. 8 l 16 leave out that. ib. r in Capite and Knight service. p. 9 l 25 for where r were. p. 17 in the margin leave out the quotation note. p. 21 l 18 r. his enfant. p. 23 l 23 r. be the less free, p. 24, l 26. for was r. were. p. 36. l 12, r them, 20 H. 3.6 p. 38 l 3 for E 1 r. E 3. p. ib. l 6. r person, 42 E 3.5. p 40. l 31. for of, r. or p. 43. l 18. r thought to. p. 54 l. 16. leave out and. p. 68 l. 14 leave out was. p· 81 l. 12 for a● r. in p. 82 l. 15 for E. 3 r E 1. p. 100 l. 7 for 1648 r. 1643. p. 111 l. 2 leave out his. p. 125 l. 1 for Episcopium, r Episcopum. ib. l 18. r hold by. ib. l. 23, r nor could, 126. l 12 for ●e r. to. p. 131 l 32. r For it. p. 13● l. 1 leave out Laws after the. ib. l. 2 leave out the. ib. l. 15 for and r. for. p. 135 l 6. r or by p. 136 l. 14 for and ● which. p. 138 in the margin leave out Litletons' quotation, p. 140 l. 13 leave out an. p. 154 l. 10 r. Grand and Petit. p 159. in the margin for XI r II. p. 162. against l 12 in the margin put V. ib. against l 33. put VI p. 163. l 4. for Protections, r Portions▪ ib. in the margin against l 8, put VII. ib. against ● 20, put VIII. p. 164 l 4. for and, r shall. ib. in the margin against l 15, put IX. p. 165 against l 33. put X. p. 166 against l 5. put XI. ib. against l. 10 put XII. ib. against l 14, put XIII. ib. against l 26. put XIV. p. 17 r l. 15 for amore r. more▪ p. 174 in the margin, for Olbertus r. Obertus. p. 183 in margin for Lovelaces r. Lo●es. p. 184 l. 16. leavo out in. p. 185 l. 32. leave out they. p. 187 l. 9 for enernate, r enervate. ib. l 24. for displaced r. displayed▪ p. 192 l. 15. leave out if not recompensed by some Annual payment. p. 194 l. 8. r. under the penalties of. ibib. l 9 leave out under the penalties. p. 212, l 22. r be a Baron, ibib. leave out of Holt. p. 217 l. 2. for derived r. deemed. p. 222 in the margin against l. 15 put L. p. 241 in the margin against l 6. put LXIV. p. 24● against l 4 put LXV. p. 246. against 26, put LXXII. p. 247. l 4. for know r knowing, p. 254. l 20, r which is, ib. 28, r and the● p. 255 l 24, r or that. p. 259 l 18. for it r them. ib. l 23 leave out upon all. p. 268. l 4. leave out and. p. 269, l 15, r or to● p. 274. l 33 for of, r if. p. 275. l 11, leave out would ruine● 〈◊〉 l, 13, r Baronies would be ruined.   

CAP. I. Of the Antiquity and use of Tenors in capite and by Knight service in England and other Nations.  
THe Law of Nature, & that secret and great Director under God, and his Holy Spirit of all men's Actions, for their safety, and self preservation, by the Rules or Instinct of Right Reason, and the Beams of Divine Light and Irradiations; (So far as those Laws of Nature are not contrary to positive and Humane Laws which are always either actively or passively to be obeyed) having in the beginning of time, and its delivery out of the Chaos, made and allowed Orders, and distinctions of mankind, as they have been found to be more Rich, Wise, Virtuous, Powerful, and Able, than others, & therefore the fitter to Protect, Defend, and do good unto such as wanted those Abilities & Endowments, and constituted & ordained the faith and just performances also of Contracts, Promises, and Agreements, and the acknowledgements of benefits and favours received, being no strangers to those early days; when the Patriarch Abraham had leave given him by Abimelech King of Gerar to dwell in the Land where it pleased him, and that Abimelech in the presence of Phicol the chief Captain of his Host, who took himself to have some concernment in it, required an Oath of him, That he would not deal falsely with him, nor with his Son's son, but 
(a) Genes. 21.23.  according to the kindness that he had done unto him. and to the Land in which he had Sojourned; And that Abraham thereupon swore (which somewhat resembles our Oath of Fealty or Fidelity) and took Sheep and Oxen (for then Pecus was instead of pecunia, which is derived a Pecude) and gave unto Abimelech, and both of them made a Covenant.  
It will (though as in many other matters not tending to man's Salvation, which are not expressed in the sacred Story; there is not so full and clear a light & evidence, as to entitle the holding of Land by the service of going to War to so great a Warrant or Original, as that of a Scripture direction or example.) Notwithstanding be no wild or improbable conjecture, that some such, or the like obligations, more than the affections, & good will, of the people, did lie upon them, or their Estates, not to forsake their King and Country in time of Wars and distress, the Law of Nature teaching the necessity of the Members readiness and combination to preserve the head & its well being, as well as their own Estates and well beings, in that of their King or Supreme Governor, and every man's particular in the General, when as the ancient Inhabitants of the Earth, or some of them at least, as appears by Jacob's blessing to his Sons upon his Deathbed, became Servants to Tribute, and Moses by the advice of jethro his Father-in-law, did choose able men ou● of all Israel, and made them Heads over the people, and Rulers, which were afterwards called Captains of thousands, Rulers of hundreds, fifties, and ten, to be as a standing and certain Militia, and all the people young and old that had not rebelled with Absalon, went out with David, Rehoboham his Grandchild ou● of the two Tribes of judah and Benjamin, could muster an hundred and fourscore thousand chosen men which were Warriors, to preserve their Prince in War, and defend his, as well as their own Estates, and that some such, or the like obligations, passed betwixt Solomon and Hyram King of Tyre, when he gave him the twenty Cities in the Land of Gallilee.  
And that from thence either by Tradition, or Travel of Philosophers or wise men into those more knowing Countries and Regions of Palestine or Egypt, where Gods chosen and peculiar people of Israel, had a nearer communication with him, and his Divine Illuminations, or by those secret dictates, and the Edicts Statutes and Decrees of the Law of Nature, whereby as the Judicious and Learned Hooker saith, 
(b) Hooker Ecclesiastic. Polit. lib. 1.  Humane Actions are framed, and the Chincks and Crannies, by which the wisdom of the Almighty, that intellectual worker as Plato and Anaxagoras styled him, is wont imperceptibly to diffuse & impart its impressions, into the Customs and manners of men.  
That custom now about 2293 years ago, used by Romulus in his new established City or Empire of Rome, took its rise or beginning of appointing the Plebeian or common people, to make choice of whom they could out of the Patricij, Senators, or Eminent men, to protect them in their causes or concernments, in recompense or lieu whereof, the Clients were to contribute, if need were, to the marriages of their Daughters, redeem them or their Sons, when they were taken 
(c) Gellius lib. 1. cap. 13.  Captives in War, as bearing a reverence or respect to their Lords, or Patroni; 
(d) Bud●us in Annotat. ad Pandect.  to the end, that they might be defended by them, & that they should reciprocally propter beneficium, the help & favour received from them, maintain and defend their dignity, and that duty or Clientela was therefore not altogether improperly called Homagium or Homage, as a Service pro beneficio prestandum, for a benefit had, or to be enjoyed, & accipitur pro patrocinio & protectione, and taken to be as a patronage and protection, insomuch as upon the Conquest or reducing of any province into their obedience, they did in Clientelam se dare Romans, acknowledge a Duty or Homage, either to the Senate, or certain of the Nobility, or great men to be their Patroni or Protectors, quae necessitudo, or near relations, which were betwixt t●em, id serebat saith Oldendorpius 
(e) Oldendorpius.  ut Clientes perpetua Patronorum protectione defenderentur, ac vicissim eos omni obsequio colerent, brought it so to pass that the Clients enjoyed a constant protection of their Patrons, or great men, and exhibited for it a duty and obedience unto them.  
From which kind of Customs, and usages, Tutandae vitae ac fortunarum omnium, for the defence of life and estate, 
(f) Oldendorpius.  veluti scintillis quibusdam caepit initium benificiariae consuetudinis quae aucta est multum propter continuam bellorum molestiam, as from increasing sparks or small beginnings that beneficial Custom taking its original, which by continuance of wars and troubles was much increased; another kind of Clientela was introduced, (though there be as Craig saith, a 
(g) Craig. de Feudis▪  great difference betwixt Clientela and Vassalagium,) qua vel dignitas vel praedium aliquod, alicui datur, ut et ipse istius posteri, et haeredes beneficii auctorem perpetuo agnoscant, et quasi pro Patrono colant, ejusque caput existimationem et fortunas tueantur; whereby either some dignity or lands were given to any one, to the end that he and his heirs should always acknowledge the giver to be the Author of that benefit, reverence and esteem him as their Patron and defend him, and his life reputation and fortunes. In resemblance whereof, or from the eommon principle of Reason, that private or particular men, or their estates cannot be safe or in any good condition, where the public is either afflicted, or ruined, was the use or way of Tenors in Capite, or Knight's Service, found out and approved by Kings and Emperors, ut cum delectus edicitur in 
(h) Cujacius de seudis. lib. 1.  militiam eant vel vicarium mittant, vel certum ce●sum domini aerario inferant, that when a muster was to be made, or a going to War, they should either go in person, or send one in their stead, or pay a certain ra●e in money, and was so ancient and universal, as whilst the Germans would entitle themselves to be the first of Nations, introducing it, the Gauls or French were so unwilling to come behind them, as they endeavour out of Caesar's Commentaries, to make themselves the right owners of it, where he saith, that Eos qui opibus inter Gallos' valebant multos habuisse devotos quos secum ducerunt in bello Soldarios sua lingua nuncupatos quorum haec erat conditio, ut omnibus in vita commodis cum iis fruerentur quorum amicitiae se dedissent, quod si quid pervim accidisset, aut cundem casum ferrent ipsi, aut mortem sibi consciscerent; the Gauls which were rich or had good Estates, had some which were devoted unto them, which followed them in the Wars▪ & in their language were called Soldiers, and enjoyed a livelihood under them, and if any evil happened unto them, either endured it with them, or willingly ventured their lives with them, others attribute it to the Saxons, ubi jus antiquissimum feudorum semper viguit et adhuc, saith the learned Craig. religiose observatur, where the feudal Laws were, and are yet most religiously observed, and Cliens and Vasallus, in matters of Feuds and Tenors, are not seldom in the Civil Law, and very good Authors become to be as Synonimes, and used one for the other.  
And the later Grecians since the Reign of Constantine 
(i) Gerardus Niger in Cujacio lib. de feudis.  Porphyrogenneta in the East, and the Roman Emperors in the West, before, & since the Reign of Charlemagne, or Charles the great, were not without those necessary defences of themselves, and their people; And such a general benefit, and ready and certain way of aid and help, upon all emergencies in the like usage of other Nations, making it to be as a Law of Nations.  
There hath been in all or most Kingdoms and Monarchies of the World, as well Heathen, as Christian, a dependency of the Subject upon the Prince or Sovereign, and some duties to be performed by reason of their Lands and Estates, which they held under their Protection, and in many of them, as amongst the Germans, Saxons, Franks, and Longobards, and several other Nations descending from them; Tenors in capite, and Knight service, were esteemed as a foundation and subsistency of the right and power of Sovereignty and Government, and being at the first 
(i) Craig, de origine f●udor●m, d●eg. 4.  precariae ex domini solius arbitrio, upon courtesy at the will only of the Prince or Lord, were afterwards annal from year to year, after that feuda ceperunt esse vitalia, their Estates or Fees became to be for life, and after for Inheritance.  
So as by the Law of England, we have n●t properly Allodium 
(k) C●ke 1. part Inst●t. so. 1. b.  (saith Coke) that is, any Subject's Land which is not holden of some Superior, and that Tenors in capite, appear not to be of any new institution in the book of Doomsday, or in Edward the Confessors days, an. 1060. in King Athelstans, an. 903. in King Canutus his Reign, in King Ke●ulphus his Reign, an. 821. or in King Ina's Reign, an. 720. In Imitation whereof and the Norman (no slavish) Laws, and usages which as to Tenors, by the opinion of William Roville of Alenzon, in his Preface to the grand Customier of Normandy, were first brought into Normandy out of England, by our Edward the Confessor, & the Customs & Policies of other People and Kingdoms, prudent Antiquity having in that manner so well provided by reservation of Tenors, for the defence of the Realm. William the Conqueror sound no better means to continue and support the Frame and Government of this Kingdom, then upon many of his gifts and grants of Land, (the most part of England being then by conquest in his Demean) to reserve the Tenors and Service of those, and their Heirs; to whom he gave it in Capite, and by Knight Service; and if Thomas Sprot 
(l) Spelmans gloss. p. ●58.  and other ancient Authors and Traditions, mistake not in the number of them 
(m) Selden tit. Hon. p. 692, 693.  (for that there were very many is agreed by the Red Book in the Exchequer, and divers authentics) created 60215 Knights Fees, which with their Homage, incidents, and obligations, to serve in Wars with the addition of those many other Tenors by Knight's service, which the Nobility, great men, and others, (besides those great quantities of Lands and Tenements, which they and many as well as the King, and others our succeeding Princes, gave Colonis & Hominibus inferioris notae, to the ordinary and inferior sort of people to hold in Socage. Burgages, and Petit Serjeantie) reserved upon their gifts, and grants to their Friends, Follower's, and Tenants, who where to attend also their mesne Lords in the service of their Prince, could not be otherwise then a safety and constant kind of defence for ever after to this Kingdom; And by the Learned 
(n) Spelman▪ gloss.  Sir Henry Spelman said to be due, non solum jure positivo sed & gentium & quodammodo naturae, not only by positive Law, but the Law of Nations, and in some sorts by the Law of Nature.  
Especially when it was not to arise from any compulsary or incertain way, or involuntary contribution, or out of any personal or movable estate, but to fix and go along with the Land, as an easy and beneficial tye, and perpetuity upon it, and is so incorporate and inherent with it, as it hath upon the matter a coexistence, or being with it; and Glanvil and Bracton are of opinion, that the King must have Arms, as well as Laws to Govern by, and not depend ex aliorum Arbitrio, it being a Rule of Law, that quando Lex aliquid concedit, id concedit, sine quo res ipsa esse non potest, when the Law granteth any thing, it granteth that also which is necessary and requisite to it.  
And therefore the old oath of Fealty, which by Edward the Confessors Laws was to be administered in the Folcmotes, 
(o) LL. Ed. Confessor. cap. 35.  or assemblies of the People once in every year, Fide et Sacramento non fracto ad defendendum regnum contra Alienigenas, et Inimicos cum Domino suo, Rege, et terras, et honores, illius omni fidelitate cum eo servare, et quod illi ut, Domino suo Regi intra et extra regnum Britanniae fideles esse volunt, by faith and oath, inviolable to defend the Kingdom against all strangers, and the King's Enemies, and the Lands and dignity of the King, to preserve, and be faithful to him, as to their Lord, as well within, as without the Kingdom of Britain, which was not then also held to be enough, unless also there were a tye and obligation upon the Land, and therefore enacted that, debeant universi liberi homines secundum feodum suum, & secundum tenementa 
(p) Lambert fo. ●35▪  sua arma habere, & illa semper prompta conservare ad tuitionem Regni, & servicium Dominorum su●rum juxta preceptum Domini Regis explendum & peragendum; every free man according to the proportion of his Fee and Lands, should have his Arms in readiness for the defence of the Kingdom, and Service of their Lords, as the King should command; And it was by William the Conqueror ordained, quod omnes liberi homines fide et Sacramento 
(q) Spelman: gloss in verbo fidelitatis▪  affirment, quod intra & extra universum Regnum, Willielmo Regi Domino suo fideles esse volunt terras & honores suos omni fidelitate ubique servare cum eo & contra Inimicos & Alieniginas defendere, that all Freemen should take an Oath, that as well within as without the Realm of England, they should be faithful to their King and Lord, and defend every where him and his Lands, Dignity, and Estate, with all faithfulness against his Enemies and Foreiners; Et Statuit & firmiter precepit, ut omnes, Comites, Barones, Milites, & Servientes, Teneant se semper in Armis & in Equis ut decet & oportet, & quod sint semper prompti & parati ad servicium suum integrum explendum & peragendum cum semper opus adfuerit secundum quod debent de ●eodis & tenementis suis de jure facere, Appointed and commanded, that all Earls, Barons, Knights, and their Servants, should be ready with their Horse and Arms, as they ought, to do, their Service which they owed, and were to do for their Fees and Lands when need should require, and was beneficial to the Vassal or Tenant.   

CAP. II. The holding of Lands in Capite, and by Knight Service, is no Slavery or Bondage to the Tenant or Vassal.  
FOr his lands were a sufficient recompense for the service which he performed for them, and his Lord besides the lands which he gave the Tenant, gave him also a protection and help in lieu of the service which he received from him; For though as 
(r) Bodin cap. 7.  Bodin observeth, vassallus dat fidem nec tamen accipit▪ The Tenant makes fealty to his Lord, but receiveth none from him, there is betwixt them, mutua fides et tuendae salutis, et dignitatis utriusque obligatio contracta, a mutual and reciprocal obligation to defend one another.  
And when the Donee had lands freely conferred upon him and his Heirs, upon that consideration, (omnia feoda, as well in Capite and Knight's service tenure, as Copyhold and more inferior Tenors, being at first, ad arbitrium Domini) no man can rightly suppose that he would refuse the reservation of Tenure and incidents unto it, or imagine it to be a servitude, or any thing else but an Act of extraordinary favour arising from the Donor, which by the Civil Law and Customs of Nations, challenged such an hereditary gratitude and return of thankfulness as amongst many other privileges thereupon accrued to the Donor, if any of the Heirs of the Lord of the Fee happened to fall into distress, the Heirs of the Tenant, though never so many ages and descents after, were to relieve them, 
(s) Besoldus discurs. Polit. p. 74▪ Spelman gloss. p. 254, 256. Alber. Gentilis p. 696.  Domini utilitatem proferre et incommoda Propellere, et si cum poterit non liberaverit eum a morte feudo sive beneficio suo privabitur, such a Donee or Tenant was to advance the good of his Lord, or Benefactor, and hinder any damage might happen unto him and forfeit and be deprived of those lands, if he did not when he could rescue him from death, for Feudum ut habeat, et Dominum non juvet rationis non est, it is no reason that he should enjoy that land or benefit, and not help or assist him which gave it, and by our Law, if such a Tenant ceased to do his service (if not hindered by any legal impediment) by the space of two years upon a Cessavit per Biennium, brought by the Lord, the land if no sufficient distress was to be had was forfeited, if he appeared not upon the distress, and paid the arrears.  
And such Tenure carrying along with it an end and purpose in its original institution, not only of preservation and defence of the Donor, but of the Kingdom and protection also of the Tenant, and the land which was bestowed upon him.  
And being a voluntary and beneficial paction submitted unto by the Tenant (insomuch as Feudum, whether derived from the Germane word Feec or war or a fide prestanda, or a faedere, inter utrosque contracto is not seldom in the Civil Law called beneficium,) may with reason enough be conceived to be cheerfully after undergone and approved of by the Tenants and their Heirs, receiving many Privileges thereby as not payign any other aids or Tallages besides the service which their Tenors enjoined them, (which by a desuetude or necessity of the times is not now allowed them) not to be excommunicated by the Pope or Clergy, which (H. 2. 
(t) Mat. Paris, 100  amongst other Laws and Customs observed in the time of his Grandfather, H. 1.) in the Parliament at Clarindon, claimed as a special privilege belonging to him and those which held of him in capite, (which in those days was worthily accounted amongst the greatest of exemptions) and of creating like Tenors to be holden of themselves with services of War Wardship, Marriage, and other incidents, to have their heirs in minority, not only protected in their persons and estates, which in tumultuous and unpeaceable Times, was no small benefit, but to be gently and virtuously educated in Bellicis artibus, feats and actions of arms taught to ride the great horse and manage him, and himself completely armed with Shield and Lance, married without disparagement in his own or a better rank and quality, his equitatura, or Horse and Arms could not be taken in execution unless he dishonourably absented himself when his service was required and then all that he had was subject to execution saving one horse which was to be left him propter dignitatem militiae, and have no usury (which in those days especially until the reign of E. 1. By Jews and a sort of foreiners called Caursini was very oppressive and intolerable) run upon them for their father's Debts whilst they were in wardship.  
Besides many other great privileges belonging to Knights & Gentry (the original of many of whom was anciently by Arms and military service) allowed them by our Laws of England, as well as by the Civil Law and Law of Nations, as to bear Arms, make Images, and Statues of their Ancestors, and by the Civil Law a pre-eminence that more credence should be given by a Judge to the oath of two Gentlemen, produced as Witnesses, 
(u) Barto●u● de testibus.  then to a multitude of ungentle persons, aught to be preferred to Offices before the ignoble in ●u●io enim pres●mitur pro nobili●ate ad efficia regenda and honoured in the attire and apparel of their bodies as to wear Silks and purple colours and ex cons●e●udine non suspenduntur sed decapitantur are not when they are to suffer death for offences criminal, 
(w) Sr. John, Fer●e glory of generosity. 78.  used to be hanged but beheaded, with many other privileges not here enumerated, which our common people of England in their abundance of freedom have too much forgotten.  
Were so much respected here in the reign of H. 2. saith the eminently learned Mr. Selden as one was fined one hundred pounds (which in those days of more honesty and less money, was a great sum of money) for striking a 
(x) Selden tit. ●on. 783.784. ro●. Mag● H. 2. 39 E. 3 Bracton Chap. de appell de mayhems.  Knight and another forty Marks, because he was present when he was compelled to swear that he would not complain of the injury done unto him, the grand Assize in a writ of right which is one of the highest Trials by Jury and Oath in the Law of England is to be chosen by Knights and out of Knights & a Baron in a Jury for or against him, may challenge the Panel if one Knight at the least were not returned of the Jury, if a Ribald or Russian stroke a Knight without cause he was to lose the hand that struck him, Kings have Knighted their eldest Sons, and sometimes sent them to neighbour Kings to receive that Honour, and Barons, and Earls have taken it for an addition of Honour, and not any lessening to be knighted.  
And had no cause at all to dislike such military Tenors, which were not called vassalage, as Common People may now mistake the word, but from vassus or Cliens qui pro beneficio accepto fidem suam autori benificii obligat or from Gesell, a Germane word which signifieth Socius or Commilito, a fellow Soldier, the name and profession reason and cause of it being so honourable and worthy.  
Or to deem them to be burdens which were at the first intended and taken to be as gifts and favours, which none of the sons of men, who are Masters of any sense or reason do use to find fault with, but may well allow them to be very far distant from Slavery, when as Servitude is properly, 
(y) Selden tit. hon. ca 5.784.  quum quod acquiritur servo acquiritur Domino when that which is gained or acquired by the servant is justly and properly the Lords, and a freeman is contra-distinguished by quod acquirit, sibi acquirit, in that which he gaineth is his own, or hath a property in it and that among the Southern Nations (a more gentle and merciful bondage being paternd by that of Abraham and his successors the Patriarches and allowed by the rules and government of God,) dura erat servitus Dominorum imperia gravia, service or the condition of Servants was hard, and the severity of Masters great, who had potestatem vitae & necis, power of life and death over their Servants who having nothing which they could call their own, but their misery, were put to maintain their Masters out of their labours and enduring vilissima et miserrima ministeria, all manner of Slaveries, ab omni Militia arcebantur were not suffered to know or have the use of Arms, apud Boreales tamen gentes justior suit semper servitus et clementior, but amongst the Northern Nations there was a more just and gentle usage of their Servants for that they did divide their Lands & Conquests amongst their Soldiers and Servants pactionibus interpositis inter Dominum et servientem de mutua Tutela upon certain agreements betwixt them for mutual defence.  
Which made our English as well as other Nations abundantly contented with it as may appear by the acquiescence of them and the Normans, under the Norman and next succeeding Kings, and of Edward the Confessors Laws, and other English customs retaining them, the reckoning of it amongst their liberties, fight for them, and adventuring their lives and all that they had at the making of 
(z) M. S. Mr. Rob. Hill concerning Tenors.  Magna Charta, and in the Baron's wars, wherein those great spirits, as Mr. Robert Hill saith, so impatient of tyranny, did never so much as call in question that great and ancient prerogative, of their Kings or except against Tenors, escuage, releifs, and other moderate and due incidents thereof.  
The care taken in the Parliament of 
(a) 52 H. 3. Stat. Marl●bridge.  52 H. 3. to prevent the deceiving of the Lords of their wardships by fraudulent conveyances, or Leases, of 18 E. 10. in the making of the statute of Quia 
(b) 18 E. 1. Quia emptores etc.  emptores terrarum, that the Feoffees or Purchasers of Lands holden of mesne, Lords should hold by such services and Customs as the Feoffor did hold the Registering and Survey of Knights Fees by H. 2. H. 3. E. 1. E. 3. and H. 6. Escuage Aids and Assessments in Parliament and the Marshal's Rolls in time of War and necessity.  
The esteem anciently held of the benefits and liberties accrued by them insomuch as many have by leave of their Lords changed their Socage Tenors into Knight's service, 
(c) Somner de Gavelkind 60.  and thought themselves enfranchised thereby.  
The value put upon them by the Commons of England in the Parliament of 6. H. 4. when they petitioned the King in that Parliament, 
(d) Rot. Parl. 6 H. 4.  that all Feoffements of Lands and Tenements holden by Knight service, and done by Collusion expressed in the Statute of Marlbridge might upon proof thereof be utterly void.  
The opinion of Chief Justice Fortescue in the reign of H. 6. in his Book de laudibus legum Angliae commending them as most necessary as well for the Commonwealth, 
(e) Fortescue de laudibus legum Angliae ca 44.  as for those and their Heirs who held their Land by such Tenors.  
The retaining of it by the Germans who did as most of the Northern Nations, saith Bodin, libertatem spirare, only busy themselves to gain and keep their liberty and from the time of their greatest freedom to rhis present, and now also, could never tell how to find any fault with them.  
Their Princes, Electors of the Empire, and the Imperial Cities, or Hanse towns, who take thrmselves to be as free as their name of freedom or liberty doth import, not at this day disdaining or repining at them, & the Swissers in their greatest thoughts of freedom, taking their holding of the Empire in Capite to be no abatement of it.  
The use of them by the ancient Earls and Governors of Holland, Zealand, and West-freezland who having been very successful in their Wars without the use of Tenors in Capite or knight's service, 
Cornel Neos●ad▪ de Feudi juris scripti Hollandici, West Frisicique successione ca 2.4. et 5.  but finding that ipsa virtus amara alioqui per se atque aspera praemiis excitanda videretur simul uti fisco, ac Reipublicae consuler●tur, saith Neostadius, that the hardship of virtue needed to be sweetened with some rewards, & that the old custom of the Longobards in creating, and reserving Tenors in Capite, and by knight's service, would be not only a saving of Charges to their Treasury, but a good, and benefit to their Provinces or Commonwealth, did create and erect such or the like Tenors.  
And to this day by the Scotish Nation in a time, and at the instant of their late obtaining (if they could be thankful for them) of all manner of liberties and freedom▪ do sufficiently evince them to be as far from Slavery as they are always necessary.  
Wherein, if the primitive purpose and institution of Tenors in capite knight service and Socage be rightly considered, every man may without any violence or Argument used to his reason or Judgement, if self-conceitedness and obstinacy do not choke or disturb his Intellectuals; Easily conclude, whether, if it were now 〈…〉 Choice, he would not rather take Land by a Service or Condition, only to go to war with the King, or his mesne Lord, when Wars shall happen, which in a Common course of accidents may happen, but once or not at all in his life time, & then not tarry with him above forty days or less, according to his proportion of Fee or Land holden, & to have escuage of his own Tenants, if they shall refuse to go also in person with him, and to have his heir, if he chanced to die which in times of less Luxury happened not so often, & but once perhaps in three or four descents, to be left in his minority to be better educated than he could have been in his life time, married without disparagement and himself as well as his own & children's estates protected.  
Or accept of a Manor freely granted him, to hold of the King, by an honourable service of grand Serjeanty.  
Then to hold in Socage and be ●yed to do yearly and oftener some part of Husbandry, or drudgery upon his Lord's Land for nothing, or pay an annual Rent, besi●●● many other servi●e payments & duties as for Rend Oats, rend Timber, rend Wood, Mal●, rend Ho●y, rend for fishing, & liberty to Blow, at certain seasons and the like.  
And if they had been esteemed, or taken to be a bondage the 
(h) Rot. Parl. 1 R. 2▪ n. 16.  Commons of Eng. certainly in the Parliament of 1 R. 2. Would not by their Speaker have commended the Feats of Chivalry, & showed to the King that thereby the people of England were of all Nations renowned, and how by the decay thereof the Honour of the Realm was, and would daily decrease. Or in 
(i) Rot. Parl. 9 H. 4. n. 46.  9 H. 4. Petitioned the King, that upon seizure of the Lands of such as be, or should be attainted, or grants of such Lands by the King, the services therefore due to other Lords might thereupon be reserved.  
The good and original benefit whereof derived to the Tenant from the King, or mesne Lord that first gave the Lands, and the consideration, that by the taking of that a way, every one was in all justice & equity to be restored to his primitive propriety and that which was his own, and so to reduce the Lands to the Heirs of those that at first gave them restraining them might be in all probability the reason that not only Capite, and Knight service Tenors, but Copyhold & other Tenors and estates also having as much or more pretence or fancy of servitude in them, were never so much as petitioned against in Parliament to be utterly taken away.  
Some instance whereof may be had in that of Villinage which being the heaviest and most servile of all kind of Tenors (though some thousand Families in this Kingdom (there being anciently some Tenants in villainage belonging almost to every Manor) by desuetude & expiration of that course of Tenors, now esteeming themselves nothing less were never in any Parliament desired to be abolished. Bracton & F●eta, & other ancient Authors in our English Laws alleging it to be de jure Gentium and that nihil detrahit liberta●i is not to be reckoned a servitude, much less surely then are Tenors in Capite and Knight service, which the learned Grotius in the utmost that he could in his Book de antiquitate reipublicae Batavicae, allege for the freedom and independency of the Hollanders, though he could not deny but that the Germane Emperors did claim them to hold in vassalage, or as a Feiff o● the Empire, will not allow to be any derogation from their liberty, 
(h) Hugo Gotius de antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae edit an. 1630. 53. L. no● dubito ss. de Captivis.  but concludes, quod etsi optinerent non eo desinerent Hollandi esse liberi, cum ut Proculus egregie demonstrat nec Clientes liberi esse desinant, quia Patronis dignitate pares non sunt, unde liberi feudi orta est appellatio, That if it should be granted it would make the Hollanders not to be free, when as Proculus very well demonstrateth Clients (or vassals) did not cease to be free because they are not equal to their Patrons in dignity, whence the name or Term of frank Fee was derived, and Sr. Henry Spelman saith, quemadmodum igitur omnibus non licuit feudum dare, ita nec omnibus accipere, as it was not lawful for every one to give lands to hold of him, so it was not allowed to every one to take, prohibentur enim ignobiles servilisque conditionis homines (et quidem juxta morem Heroicis seculis receptum) munera subire militaria, for ignoble and men of servile condition according to the usage of Heroic times, were ●orbid to attempt military Offices, and Employments, as may be evidenced also in those ancient Customs and usages of those grand & eminent Commonwealths of Rome, and Athens, in the latter of which notwithstanding the opinion of those who deny the use of Tenors by military service, to have been in Greece before the time of Constantine Porphyrogenneta, it appears that Solon had long before made a second classis or degree of such as could yearly dispend three hundred Bushels of Corn, & other liquid fruits, 
(l) Sigonius de ●ntiquo jure Civi●●n Rom. 54.97. et de Repub. Athen. 47.4. Plutarch in vita Solonis.  & were able to find a Horse of service & called them Knights, Soli igitur saith judicious Spelman, nobiles feudorum susceptibiles erant quod prae●●usticis et ignobilibus longe agiliores habiti sunt ad tractanda arma regendamque militiam. And therefore the Nobility and Gentry were only capable of such Fees or Tenors in regard that they were more agile and fitter for the use of Arms and military Government and Order, 
(m) Perionius de Rom. et G●ae●. Magistrate.  and was therefore called by the French heritage's nobles, et liberis et ing●nuis solummodo competunt, a noble inheritance, and only belonged to men that were free born and of rank and quality.  
And were●no longer ago than in Anno Dom. 1637. in the argument of the case of 〈◊〉 Shipmoney in the Exchequer Chamber, so little thought to be a Slavery to the people, or any unjust or illegal prerogative of the Kings, as Mr, Oliver, St. John, (none of the reverend and learned Judges of England then contradicting it) alleged them to be for the defence of the Realm, and that they were not ex provis●one hominis, not of man's provision, but ex provisione legis, ordained by Law, and that the King was to have the benefit that accrued by them with Wardships primer seisins Licences of Alienation and Reliefs, as well to defend his Kingdom, as to educate his Wards.  
Nor can they be accounted to be a Bondage or Slavery; unless we should fancy (which would like a dream also vanish, when men shall awake into their better senses and reason) that those ornaments in peace and strength in time of war, which have been for so many ages and Centuries since King Inas time, which was in an. 721 now above 940 years ago (and may have been long before that) ever accounted to be harmless and unblameable, and in King Edgar's Time, by a Charter made by him unto Oswald Bishop of Worcester, said to be constitutione antiquorum temporum, of ancient time before the date of that Charter, were an oppression, that all ranks and sorts of the People should endure a slavery and not know nor feel it, nor any of the contemporary writers, ancient or modern take notice of it, that the Peers of this Kingdom should be in Slavery, and not know or believe it; The The gentry of the Kingdom should be as worshipful Slaves, and not understand or perceive it; And the Commons of the Kingdom what kind of Slaves it should please any, without any cause, to style them; That Honours, Gifts, and Rewards, Protection, Liberties, Privileges, and Favours, to live well and happily of free gift and without any money paid for the purchase, should be called a Bondage, when as a Tenure in Socage, ut 
(n) ●●kam ●ap. quae per solam consuetudinem etc. & Coke 1 part. in●●it. cap. 5. 〈◊〉. 117.  in condemnatos ultrices manus ●●ttant, ut alios suspendio ali●s membr●rum detruncatione, vel aliis modis juxt● quantitatem delicti puniat; To be an Hangman or Executioner of such as were condemned to suffer death or any loss of Members according to the nature of their offences, could neither be parted with, or taken to be any thing but a benefit.  
And that a claim was made by one th●● held Lands in the Isle of Silly, to be the Exe●cutioner of Felons which there was then usualy done by letting every one of them down in a Basket, from a ste●p Rock, with the provision only of two Loaves of Barley bread, and a pot of water to expect as they hung the mercy of the Sea, when the Tide should bring it in.  
And that those which held by the easy and no dishonourable Tenors of being Tenants in Capite, and Knight●service, should as Mr. Robert Hill a learned and judicious Antiquary in the beginning of the Reign of King James well observeth, rack and lease their Lands to their under Tenants, at the highest Rents and Rites, and neither they nor their Tenants call that a slavery which (though none at all) may seem to be a far greater burden than any Ten●nt in Capite, and by Knight service which holdeth of the King, or any Tenant that holdeth by knight service of a mesne Lord endureth when as the one is always more like to have the bag and burden, which he must pay for, laid upon him in his Bargain, than the other who is only to welcome a gift or favour, for which he payeth but a grateful acknowledgement.  
Nor is there in that which is now so much complained of, and supposed to be a Grievance, which, (whatever it be, except that which may as to some particular cases happen to the best and most refined Constitutions, and the management thereof) hath only been by the fault of some people, who to be unfaithful, and deceive the King in his Wardships, or other Duties, have some times cast themselves into the trouble and extremityes which were justly put upon them for concealments of Wardships, or making fraudulent conveyances to defeat the just Rights of the King, or their superior Lords, or by some exorbitances, or multiplications of Fees since the erecting of the Court of Wards and Liveries by an Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. any malum in se, original innate or intrinsecal cause of evil or inconvenience in them, Active or Proxime merely arising from the Nature or Constitution of Tenors in Capite and Knight Service. To be found upon the most severe examinations and inquiries which may be made of them, nor are they so large in their number as to extend or spread themselves into an universality of grievances, nor were or are any public or extraordinary Grievance.   

CHAP. III. Tenors of Lands in Capite and by Knight service, are not so many in number as is supposed, nor were, or are any public or general grievance.  
FOr the Number of Knights▪ Fees which were holden in Capite and by Knight service of the King, have by tract of time Alienations Purprestures, Assarts, encroachments, deafforrestations, and concealments, been exceedingly lessened▪ and decreased. 28015 which were said to be parcel of the 60215 knights Fees created by William the Conqueror, being granted afterwards by him or his successors to Monasteries Abbeys, Priories, and religious houses, or parceled into Glebes or other endowments belonging to, Cathedrals, Churches, and Chantries, or given away in Mortmain, and very many quillets and parcels of Land after the dissolution of the Abbeys, and religious houses, not exceeding the yearly value of forty shillings. And now far exceeding that value granted in Socage by King Henry the eighth, besides many other great quantities of dissolved Abbeys and religious Lands granted to be holden in Socage. Much of the Abbye Lands retained in the Crown or King's hands, as part of the Royal Patrimony, and many Manors and great quantities of Land granted to divers of the Nobility, gentry, and others, with reservations many times of Tenors of but half a knight's Fee, when that which was granted would after the old rate or proportion of knights Fees have been three or four knight's Fees or more, and sometimes as much or more than that (no rule at all as touching the proportions of Lands or Tenors, being then in such an abundance of Land and Revenue as by the dissolution of the Abbeys came into the King's hands or disposing 〈◊〉 all kept) which might have made many knight's Fees were not seldom granted with a Tenure, only of a twentieth or fortieth, and sometimes an hundreth part of a knight's Fee, whereby the knights Fees which were granted to the Religious houses being almost half of the number which William the Conqueror is said at the first to have created, might well decrease into a smaller number and many of those which divers of the Nobility and great men held of the King, as those of Ferrer, Earl of Derby and the Earls of Chester, those that came by marriage as by one of the Daughters and Heirs of 〈◊〉 Earl of Hereford, and Essex, by escheat, as the Earldom of Clare, or by Resumptions, Dissolution of Priors, Alien●, Knights, of St. John of Jerusalem Attainders, Escheats or Forfeitures, which in the Baron's Wars were very many, or holden as of honours etc. Merging and devolving into the Royal Revenue, did take of very many of the number, especially since the making of the Act of Parliament in 1 ●. 6. cap. 4. that there should be no Tenure in Capite of the King by reason of Lands coming to the hands of him or any of his Progenitors, Heirs, or Successors, by Attainders of Treason, misprision of Treason Premunires, dissolution or surrender of Religious Houses, And not a few of the Mesne Lords and those which held also of the King did make as great an abatement in their Tenors, by releasing and discharging their services before the making of the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum, granting Lands in Socage, Frank Almoigne, or by copy of Court Roll, and casting out a great part of their Lands, as well as the Kings of England did, not Forests, Chases, & many vast Commons which they laid out in Charity, for the good of the poorer sort of people, infranchising of a great number of Copyholders, selling & giving away many and great parcels of their demesne Lands, disparking of many of their Parks, & deviding them into many Tenements to be holden in Socage, endowing of Churches, Chantries, religious houses, & the like, the forests, Chases and Commons of the Kingdom making very near a tenth part in ten of the Lands of the Kingdom, and the Socage Lands, Burgages, Frank Almoigne, and Copyholds more than two parts in three of all the remainder of the Lands of the Kingdom. So as it is not therefore improbable but that there are now not above ten thousand, or at most, a fourth part of those 62015. Knight's Fees to be found.  
And that in ancient and former times either by reason that great quantities of Manors and Lands, as much sometimes as amounted to a third part of a Shire or County were in the Nobilities or great men's possessions, some of whom held of the King a 100 or more Manors, and had as many Knight's Fees holden of them, besides some Castles, Forests, Parks, and Chases, or that the two Escheators which were many times all that were in England, the one on this side, the other beyond Trent, did not nor could not so carefully look to the death of the King's Tenants, which the Statute of 14 E. 3. ca 8. complaineth of or that the smaller sort of Lands in Capite, or mean men's estates were not so much looked after (And yet the old Records of the Kingdom do speak a great deal of care, and looking after every part of the King's Revenue,) the not mentioning in deeds or conveyances of whom or how the Land was holden, the more frequent use of Feoffements with Livery & seisin in former times (which being not Enrolled, hindered or obstructed, the vigilance of the Escheators and Feodaries,) their sleepiness in permitting where any one Manor or parcel was holden in Capite, many other Manors or Lands of the same Tenure to be found in the same Inquisition by an Ignoramus of the Tenure & services & the craft & industry of many, if not most men to evade and elude, as much as they can, the Law or any Acts of Parliament, though when they are sometimes catched they dearly pay for it. Or by some other cause or reason not yet appearing many of the said Knights Fees are lost and never to be discovered, the Offices post mortem now extant in the Tower of London, being in the last year of the reign of King H. 3. in the beginning of whose reign they first began to be regularly found, and recorded but— 187. in an. 35. E. 1— 153. in an. 20 E. 2— 52. & of the succeeding Kings until the end of E. 4. when such Tenors were most valued and respected, are in every year but few in number, sometimes less than 200, and many times not above 300, in the most plentiful years of those times. And of the Knight's Fees & Lands holden in Capite and by Knight service which are now to be discovered in the greatest diligence of Escheators & their better looking unto them in this last Century of years, where there hath been an Escheator for the most part in every County to look to the Tenors and Wardships, there will not upon exact search thereof appear to be in an. 21 Jac. Regis any more than 71.22 Jac. 73— in 2 Car. Regis primi— 112 in 3 Car. Regis primi— 85. Custodies & wardships granted, under the great Seal of England which in Wardships of any Bulk or concernment do most commonly pass that way leaving those of ordinary and lesser value to pass only under the Seal, of the Court of Wards and Liveryes & in an. 10 Car. primi. not above— 450 offices post mortem some of which did only entitle the King to a Livery, are to be found filled & returned; & in an. 11 Car. Regis not above; 580 which may give us some estimate of the small number which now remains of that huge number which former ages & writers talked of, & that after that rate if there be 10000 Knights Fees holden in Capite there is scarce a twentieth part falls one year with another to make any profit or advantage to the King, by Wardships, Marriage, Reliefs, primer seisin etc.  
Nor are there unless by some unluckiness or accidents commonly above one in every three or four descents in a Family, holding in Capite, which do die and leave their Heirs in minority, & then also it is either more of less chargeable to the Family, as the Males shall be nearer unto, or more remote from their full age of 21, or the Females to their age of 16, some of the supposed Inconveniences being prevented by an earlier marriage of the Inheritrixes, or the Kings giving the honour of Knighthood to some of the Males in their minority, which dispenseth with the value of their marriages.  
And yet those Tenors Wardships, and incidents thereunto, though so ancient, legal, and innocent in their use and institution, were not without the watchful eye and ●are of Parliaments, to prevent or pluck up any Grievances, which like weeds in the best of Gardens, or per accidens, might annoy or blemish those fair flowers of the Crown Imperial, as that of 9 H. 3— that the Tenant, by Knight Service, being at his full age when his Ancestor dyeth shall have his inheritance by the old relief according to the old custom of the Fees the Statute of Merton in anno 9 H. 3 ca— 2. and 3 E. 1 ca— 2●. the King's Tenant being at full age shall pay according to the old custom that is to say five pounds for a Knight's Fee or less according to proportion ca— 4 and 5. The Keeper of the Lands of the Heir within age shall not take of the Lands of the Heir but reasonable issues customs and services, without destruction and waist of his men and goods, shall keep up the Houses, Parks, Warrens, Ponds, Mills, and other things pertaining to the Lands, with the issues of the Lands, and deliver the Lands to the Heir when he comes of full age stored with Ploughs and all other things, at least as he received them ca— 7. A Widow shall have her Marriage inheritance and tarry in the chief house of her Husband forty days after her Husband's death with reasonable Estovers within which time her Dower shall be assigned, if it were not assigned before,  
The Wards shall not be married to Villains or other, as Burgesses where they be disparaged or within the age of fourteen years or such age as they cannot consent to marriage, and if they do and their Friends complain thereof, the Lord shall lose the Wardship, and all the profits that thereof shall be taken, and they shall be converted to the use of the Heirs, being within age after the disposition and provision of their Friends for the shame done unto them, a Writ of Mortd'auncester shall be allowed to the Heir with damages against the Lord that keepeth his Lands after he is of full age. Heirs within age shall not lose their Inheritance by the neglect or wilfulness of their Guardians, 52 H. 3. cap 7 and 16. The Lord shall not after the age of fourteen years keep a Female unmarried more than two years after, and if he do not by that time marry her she shall have an Action to recover her Inheritance, without giving any thing for her Wardship or Inheritance, 3 E. 1 ca 22. A Writ of Novel disseisin shall be awarded against any Escheator that by colour of his Office shall disseise any of his freehold with double damages, and to be grievously amerced Westmr. 1.3 E. 1 cap. 24 In aid to make the Son of the Lord a Knight or to marry the Daughter, there shall be taken but twenty shillings for a whole Knight's Fee, and after that rate proportionably ibm. 35. If the Guardian maketh a Feoffement of the Wards Lands, he shall have a Writ of Novel disseisin, and upon recovery the Seisin shall be delivered to the next friend, and the Guardian shall lose the Wardship 3. E. 1. ca 47. Usurpation of a Church during the minority of the Heir shall not prejudice him, 13 E. 1.5. Admeasurement of Dower shall be granted to a Guardian, and the Heir shall not be barred by the suit of the Guardian, if there be collusion, 13 E. 1.7. Next Friends shall be permitted to sue if the Heir be ●loyned, 13 E. 1.15. If part of the Lands be sold the services shall be apportioned Westmr. 3.2. Escheators shall commit no waste in Wards Lands, 28 E. 1 18. If Lands without cause be seized by the Escheator, the Issues and Mesne profits shall be restored, 21 E. 1.19. where it is found by Inquest that Lands are not holden of the King, the Escheator shall without delay return the possession Stat de Escheatoribus 29 E. 1. Escheators shall have sufficient in the places where they Minister, to answer the King and his People if any shall complain, 4 E 3.9.5 E. 3 4. Shall be chosen by the Chancellor, Treasurer, and chief Baron taking unto them the chief Justices of the one bench and the other if they be present and no Escheator▪ shall tarry in his office above a year 14 E. 3.8. A Ward shall have an action of waste against his Guardian, and Escheators shall make no waste in the Lands of the King's wards 14 E. 3 13. Aid to make the King's Son a Knight or to marry his Daughter, shall be in no other manner then according to the Statute thereof formerly made 25 E. 3 11. Traverses of offices found before Escheators upon die seized or alienations without licence shall be tried in the King's Bench 34 E. 3 14. An Escheator shall have no Pec of wood, fish, or venison, out of the wards Lands 38 E. 3 13. An Idempnitate nominis shall be granted of another man's Lands seized by an Escheator 37 E 1.2. No Escheator shall be made unless he have twenty pounds' Land per annum or more in Fee and they shall execute their offices in proper person, the Chancellor shall make Escheators without any Gift or Brokage and shall make them of the most lawful men and sufficient 12 R. 2.2. An Escheator or Commissioner shall take no Inquest, but by such persons as shall be returned by the Sheriff they shall return the offices found before them and the Lands shall be let to farm to him that tendereth a Traverse to the office 8 H. 6.16. Inquisitions shall be taken by Escheators in good Towns and open places and they shall not take above forty Shillings for finding an office under the penalty of forty pounds 23 H. 6— 17. Women at the age of fourteen years at the time of the death of their Ancestors without question or difficulty shall have Livery of their Lands 39 H. 6.2. No office shall be returned into any of the King's Courts by any Escheator, or Commissioner, but which is found by a Jury, and none to be an Escheator who hath not forty marks per annum, above all reprises, the Jurors to have Land of the yearly value of forty shillings within the Shire▪ the Forman of the Jury shall keep the Counter part of the Inquisition and the Escheator must receive the Inquisition found by the jury as also the offices or Inquisitions shall be received in the Chancery and Exchequer 1 H. 8 ca 8. Lands shall be l●t to farm to him that offereth to traverse the office before the offices or Inquests returned, or within three Months after 1 H. 8 ca 10. the respite of Homage of Lands not exceeding five pounds per Annum, to be but eight pence the yearly value of Lands not exceeding twenty pounds per annum to be taken as it is found in the Inquisition, except it by examination otherwise appear to the Master of the Wards, Surveyer, Attorney, or Receiver General, or three of them, or that it shall otherwise appear and be declared in any of the King's Courts, No Escheator shall sit virtute officii where the Lands be five pounds per annum or above, the Escheator shall take for finding of an office not exceeding five pounds per annum but six Shillings, eight pence for his Fee, and for the writing of the office three Shillings four pence, for the charges of the Jury three Shillings and for the officers and Ministers of any Court that shall receive the same Record two shillings upon pain of five pounds to the Escheator for every time so offending, the Master and Court shall have power to moderate any Fines or Recognizances 33 H 8.22. The Heir of Lands not exceeding five pounds per annum may sue his General Livery by warrant only out of the Court of wards although there be no Inquisition or office found or certified. The Interest of every lesser Tenant for Term of years' Copyholder or other person having interest in any Lands found in any office or Inquisition shall be saved though they be not found by office. The Heir upon an aetate probanda shall have an oust●e le manes and the profits of his Lands from the time that he comes to age and if any office be untruly found, a Traverse shall be allowed or a Monstrans de Droit without being driven to any petition of right though the King be entitled by a double matter of Record. A Traverse to an office shall be allowed where a wrong Tenure is found, an ignoramus ●ound of a Tenure shall not be taken to be any Tenure in Capite and upon a Traverse a Scire facias shall be awarded against the Kings Patentee 2 and 3 E 6. ca 8.  
And if there had been any certain or common grievances or so much as a likelihood of any to have risen or happened by such Tenors and benefits which many were the better for, and had no reason at all to find fault with & w ch. many more were striving to deserve of the Kings of England & the Nobility & great men of this Kingdom, the Parliaments that have been ever since the 8 th'. year of the reign of H. 3. would not have made so many Acts of Parliament for their establishment, or tending to their preservation, & if we should believe (as it cannot be well denied) that Parliaments have been sometimes mistaken and enacted that, which they have afterwards thought fit to repeal. Yet it comes not within the virge or compass of any probability, that Parliaments where all grievances are most commonly represented, should for almost four hundred years together in a succession of many Kings & Parliaments, enact or continue grievances instead of remedies, & neither find those Tenors to be inconvenient, or not fit to be continued, or so much as complain of them, but as if they were blessings of a part of the well being of the Nation, not at once but at several times, in several ages, and several Generations, support and uphold them by after Laws, & constitutions, as, That no Freeman should from thence give nor sell any more of his lands, but so that of the residue of the lands the Lord of the fee may have the services due unto him which belongeth to the Fee, Lands aliened in mortmain shall accrue to the Lord of the Fee 9 H. 3. ca 32. & 36. the Ward shall pay to the Lord of the Fee the value of his marriage, if he will not marry at the request of his Lord for the marriage of him that is within age, say the Statute & the makers thereof, of mere right pertaineth to the Lord of the Fee, 20. H. 3, cap. 7. The Lord shall not pay a Fine for distraining his Tenant for Services and customs, 52. H. 3, cap. 3. A fraudulent conveyance to defeat the Lord of his ward shall be void, cap. 6. The King shall have primer seisin, neither the heir nor any other shall intrude into their Inheritance before he hath received it out of the King's hands, as the same Inheritance was wont to be taken out of his hands, and his Ancestors in times past, if the lands be accustomed to be in the King's hands by Knight service, or Serjeanty, or right of Patronage, 52. H. 3. cap. 16. If an heir marry within age without the consent of his Guardian before he be passed the age of fourteen years it shall be done according as is contained in the statute of Merton, and of them that marry after that age without the consent of their Guardian, the Guardian shall have the double value of their marriage, such as have withdrawn their marriage shall pay the full value to the Guardian for the trespass, and nevertheless the King shall have like amends; And if the wards of malice or by evil council will not be married by their chief Lords where they shall not be disparaged, than the Lords may hold their lands and Inheritance until they have accomplished the age of an heir male, that is to wit, of twenty one years and further until they have taken the value of the marriage, 3 E. 1.22. A Tenaent shall have a writ of mesne to acquit him of his services, and if the mesne come not he shall lose the service of his Tenant, 13 E. 1.9. Priority of Feoffment shall make a title for wardship, cap. 16. the chief Lord shall have a Cessavit against the Tenant if he cease for two years to do his service writs of Ravishment degard allowed to the Lord, and the Party offending, though he restore the ward unmarried, or pay for the marriage, shall nevertheless be punished by two years' Imprisonment, 13 E. 1.35. The Feoffee shall hold his lands of the chief Lord and not of the Feoffor, 18 E. 1. Quia emptores terrarum, A saving to the King of the ancient aids due and accustomed, 25. E. 1.6. The King shall have the wardship of his Tenant which holdeth in chief & the marriage of the heir, primer seisin assignment of dower to the widow, marriage of the women Tenants deviding their lands in Coparcinery holden of him, and they which hold of him in Serjeanty shall pay a Fine at the Alienation, 17. E. 2. A Freeman shall do his homage to his Lord, 17. E. 2. Knight's Fees shall not pass in the King's grants without special words 17 E. 2.16. he shall be answered the mesne rates of Lands coming to him by his Tenant's death. 28. E. 3.4. & where sundry of the King's Tenants holding of him immediately, as of his Duchy of Lancaster, did by sundry Recoveries, Fines, and Feoffments in use, defeat the King of Wardships of Body and Lands. It was Enacted that the King, and his Heirs, shall have the Wardship and Custody of the Body and Lands of cestui que use, and if they be of full age, shall have relief, notwithstanding any such conveyance, and an exact provision made for Writs to be granted upon the imbesiling of any such Heir, Rot. Parl. 22 E. 4. N. 16. & 17. The Lord of Cestui que use, no will being declared etc. shall have a Writ of Right of Ward for the Body and Land, and the Heir of Cestuique use being of full Age at the Death of his Ancestor shall pay a relief, 4 H. 7.17. Av●wry may be made by▪ the Lord upon the land holden of him without naming his Tenant 21 H. 8.19. And no grievance was thought be in them at the time of the making of the Act of Parliament of 27 H. 8, 2. when as it was expressly provided by that Act, that Tenors in Capite should be reserved to the King of all manors, lands, and hereditaments belonging to Monasteries & religious houses, which had lands, Tenements, and hereditaments not exceeding the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds, which he should afterwards grant for an estate of Inheritance; nor did the Parliament in the 31 year of the reign of that King, retract that good opinion which was formerly had of them, when enacting that the King and his heirs and Successors should be put in actual possession of all manors, lands and hereditaments of any yearly value whatsoever belonging to Monasteries, they saved to the King, his heirs and Successors, all rents, services, and other duties, as if that act had never been made; Nor in the Act of Parliament of 32 H. 8. cap. 46. For erection of the Court of wards and Liveries wherein it is acknowledged that Tenors in Capite and wardships, with their incidents, did of right belong to the King in the right of the Imperial Crown of this Realm; In the Act of Parliament of 32. H. 8. And an explanation thereof in 34 and 35 H. 8.5. giving power to those that held lands in Capite and by Knight's service, to devise two parts thereof reserving to the King wardship, primer seisin, and Fines for alienation of the third part, and Fines for alienations of the Freehold, or Inheritance of the two parts. The Crown being secured of the Tenure of the two parts by the statute of Quia emptores terrarum. Nor at the making of the statutes of 35 H. 8.14. & 37 H. 8.2. Whereby the King might reserve Tenors in Socage or Capite at his will and pleasure upon grants of lands not exceeding the value of forty shillings per annum, belonging to religious houses. And that the King's former right shall be saved notwithstanding any Traverse, & a remedy for the rents of the mesne Lords where the King hath the wardships, 2 and 3 E. 6. cap. 8,  
And those that held by such Tenors besides the care of so many Acts of Parliament, were not unhappy also in that provision of the Common Law, where it was an Article or inquiry in the Eyre if any Lord novas levavit consuetudines, had charged his Tenant with any new Customs, if any Escheators or Subescheators had made any waist in the Wards Lands, or seized Lands which ought not to be seized. Et omnes illi qui sentiunt se super hiis gravatos, & inde conqueri voluerint audiantur & fiat eis Justitia. All that were grieved, were to be heard, 
(o) Capi●●a itin●ris in vet. magn. Charta 157 158. & Coke 4. part institutes tit. C●r. Ward.  and have Justice done them and the Tenant had his remedy by a 
(p) Glanvil lib 12 cap. 9 & 10 Register 4 & 59 Coke magna Charta cap. 10.  writ of ne injust vexes, where his Lord did Indebita exigere servitia.  
And lest any thing should but come within the suspicion of a Grievance, or that the power of the Court of Wards and Liveries, and the latitude which the Act of Parliament of 32 H. 8. had given it, (which was to be as fixed as the trust which was committed to it, should in the intervals of Parliaments or seldomest Cases be any thing like to a burden or Inconvenience, the disposing and granting of wardships was by King James his Commission and instructions, under the great Seal of England in 
(q) instructions King J●mes in Anno 1622.  an. 1622. to the end that the people might stand assured, that he desired nothing more, than that their Children and their Lands which should fall unto him by reason of wardships might after their decease be committed in their nearest and trustiest friends, or to such as they by will or otherwise commit the charge unto upon such valuable considerations as are just and reasonable, that the Parents and Ancestors may depart in greater peace in hope of his gracious favour; their friends may see their children brought up in piety and learning, and may take such care as is fit for the preservation of their inheritance, if they will seek the same in time.  
Ordered that no direction for the finding of any Office be given for the wardship of the body and lands of any Ward until the end of one month next after the death of the Wards Ancestor, but to the nearest and trustiest friends of the ward, or other person nominated by the Ancestor in the wards behalf, who may in the mean time become Suitors for the same, among whom choice may be made of the best and fittest.  
No composition, agreement, or promise of any wardship or lease of Lands be made until the office be found, and then such of the friends to have preferment as tendered their Petitions within the month, they yielding a reasonable composition.  
The Master Attorney Surveyor, and other the Officers of the Court of Wards were to inform themselves as particularly as they might of the truth of the Wards estate, as well of his Inheritance, as of his Goods and Chattels, the estate of the deceased Ancestors, and of all other due circumstances considerable, to the end the Compositions might be such as might stand with (the Kings) reasonable profit, and the Ability of the Heirs estate.  
No Escheator shall enforce any man to show his evidence.  
That all Leases of Wards lands (except in cases of concealment) be made with little or no Fine, and for the best improved yearly rent that shall be offered, consideration being had of the cautions aforesaid, that no recusant be admitted to compound or be assignee of any wardship.  
That where it shall appear, that neither the King nor his progenitors, within the space of threescore years last passed, enjoyed any benefit by Wardship, Livery, Primer seizin, Relief, Respect of Homage, Fi●es, or mesne rates of any lands, the Master and Council of the said Court, were authorized to remit and release all benefit and profit that might accrue to the King thereby; And in all cases where covenants were p●●formed to deliver bonds, which were taken concerning the same.  
And that upon consideration of circumstances, which may happen in assessing of Fines for the marriages, of the Wards and renting of their lands, either by reason of the broken estate of the deceased, want of provision for his wife, his great charge of Children unprovided for, infirmity or tenderness of the heir, incertainty of the title, or greatness of encumbrance upon the lands, they shall have liberty, as those or any other the like comsiderations shall offer themselves, to use that good discretion, and Conscience which shall be sit in mitigating or abating Fines or Rents to the relief of such necessities.  
In pursuance whereof, and the course and usage of that Court as well before as after the said Instructions, Wardships, nor any Custody or Lease of the Wards or their Lands were not granted, in any surprising or misinforming way, but by the care and deliberation of the Master and Council of the Court of Wards and Liveries, upon a full hearing and examination of all parties and pretenders, they to whom they were granted Covenanting by Indenture under their Hands and Seals with Bonds of great penalties to perform the same, to educate the ward according to his degree and quality, preserve his lands and houses from waste, fell no Coppice, Woods, grant no Copyhold estates for lives, nor appoint any Steward to keep the Courts without licence, and to permit the feodary of the County where the land lieth yearly to survey, and superintend, the care thereof and had reasonable times of payment allowed them.  
And could not likely produce any grievances in the rates or assessing of Fines for marriages, or for rents reserved during the minority of the wards, or for primer seisin or any other Compositions, when as the Kings of England since the Reign of the unhappy R. 2. and the intermission of the Eyres and those strict inquiries which were formerly made of the frauds, or concealment of the Escheators or their Deputies in the business of Tenors, and Wardships, and their neglect or not improving of them, (most of those former Officers and those that trucked with them not doing that right which they ought to their Consciences and their Kings and Benefactors.  
Have for some ages passed been so willing to ease their people, or comply with their desires, as they have no● regarded a● all their own profit, or taken such a care as they might to retain ●hose just powers which were incident or necessary to their Royal Government; but by leaving their bounty and kindness open to all the requests or designs of the people, have like tender hearted parents given away much of their own support and sustenance, to gratify the blandishments, or necessities, of their Children, and not only enervated, but dismembered, and quitted many of their Regal powers and just Prerogatives in their grants of Lands and Liberties, and thereby too much exhausted and abandoned the care of their own Revenue and Treasure, as may easily appear to any that shall take but a view of those many Regalities, Franchises, and Liberties, which (being to be as a Sacrum patrimonium, unalienable) have heretofore either been too liberally granted by the King's Progenitors, of which H. 3. was very sensible in his answer to the Prior or Master of the Hospital of St. John's at Jerusalem, 
(q) Daniel 168.  or not well looked after in those Encroachments, and Usurpations, which have been made upon them.  
Or consider the very great cares and providence, as well as prudence, of former ages, in the Managing, Collecting, and Improveing of the King's Revenue in England, whether certain or casual. The strict Inquiries, & Orders, and the care of every thing which might make a profit, or prevent a damage which made some of the Kings of England to be so little wanting money▪ as King Canutus, as the Abbey Book of Ramsey hath recorded it, 
(r) Lib. Caenobij d● Ramsey Sect. 114. et spelman's glossar. in ver●● Fiscus.  was able out of his Hanaper or travailing Trunk, when he lodged at Vassington in Northamptonshire, to lend the Bishop Etheruus (who s●bita pulsus occasione, had a great occasion to use it) good store of money.  
And that in William the conquerors time, and in the height of his plenty and prosperity, no repairs of Castles and Houses were made but upon account by Oath.  
Inquiries were made by some of the succeeding Kings and 
(s) Claus. 3●. H. 3.  their Officers after windfalen trees & a few trees were not given, nor Cheverons nor Rafters allowed towards the repairing of a Grange, or Farm, without the warrant of the great Seal of England Judges commanded to look to the Fines imposed in the Eyre● or Circuits, and in all the Eyres & 
(t) Pla●it. 〈◊〉 3 E. 3. Rot. 58.  Circuits, a Clerk who kept particular Rolls or Duplicates of the Judge's Rolls, or Records of their Proceedings was for the King especially appointed, and attended, and as small a sum as 2 d. accounted for a Deodand.  
Nor was any thing as far as Humane vigilance, Industry, or Providence, might foresee, prevent, or remedy, suffered to be done or continue, that might endamage or lessen the Royal Revenue, which King Henry the 3 d. could so watch over as the Court of Exchequer hath sometimes seen him there sitting, and taking his own accounts.  
Which kinds of wariness, and care, have been so much disused or neglected by many of his Successors, as though by time and the course thereof, the alteration of the value of money & Coin from twenty pence the ounce to five shillings & a penny, the ounce, of Silver, the prizes & rates of Provision and Commodities to be bought with it almost yearly raised and enhanced, and the more chargeable way of living which followed thereupon; might have put them in mind to have given less, or demanded more, for what was justly their own, when as in the 14 th'. year of the Reign of King Edward the 3 d. 40 shillings per diem, was thought by the King and his Council to be a royal and sufficient expense for Edward Balliol King of Scots & his train, whilst he tarried 
(u) 46 E. 3 par. Parl. 2 in 20 & 34.  at London, and 6 s. per diem when he travailed. And in the reign of King H. 6. Medow-ground in 
(w) 23 H. ●. Escaet.  Leicestershire was valued but at eight pence an Acre and that as appears by a Remonstrance made in Parliament in or about the 11 th'. year of the reign of that King, who was King in possession of France, as well as of England, now not above 227 years ago, he did right worshipfully as the Record saith, maintain the charge of his household with sixteen thousand pounds Sterling per annum, and could not then defray it with less than Twenty four thousand pounds per annum, which now cannot well be done under ten times as much, when an Annuity or Pension of ten pounds or twenty marks per annum, which was then sufficient for the King's better sort of Servants, is now scarce enough for a Footman and the most ordinary sort of inferior Servants.  
Did notwithstanding not lessen their bounty, or raise the Rents or Rates of their Revenues, but permitted their Escheators in matters of Tenors and Wardships, to adhere unto their former courses, and find the value of the Lands in their Offices or Inquisitions, at the old or small yearly values, the rule which the Escheators took for the finding of the values of the Lands upon Inquisitions, being at the highest but the tenth part of the true yearly value (which was the guide also for the rate of the primer seisins where they were to be taken) & as much lower as the unwarrantable kindness of too many of those which were trusted, and should have looked better unto it could persuade them. The Feodaries also upon their Surveys seldom raising the yearly value to more than about a third part of such a gentle value as he should be entreated to add to that which the Jurors and Escheators had friendly found it. So as sometimes a Manor of above one hundred pounds per annum was found but at thirteen shillings four pence per annum, and other times if mingled with other lands, of a great yearly value at no more than forty shillings per annum  
And no longer ago than in the reign of King Cha●les the first, above one thousand pound● per annum, hath been found to be but of the yearly va●ue of twenty Marks. And an Estate— consisting of very few Manors, and as few Copyholders, but most in F●rms and demesnes upon an improved and almost racked▪ Rend worth six thousand pounds per annum, found at no greater yearly value than one hundred eighty three pounds eleven shillings, which is less than the thirtieth par●, ●hough the Escheators with Knights and Gentlemen, and sometimes men of greater mark and quality were Commissioners, the Jurors made up sometimes of Gentlemen, and most commonly of substantial Freeholders, and all of them, such as might better have understood an Oath, who takeing an ill custom to be warrant enough for a bad Conscience, did when they were by the Writ to inquire upon their Oaths de vero Annuo valour, of the true yearly value of the Lands, th●nk that they did honestly and well enough to find it at a very small or low yearly value, because they were sure it was we●l worth so much.  
Neither were the payments o● 〈◊〉 of Homage so troublesome, as to make a complaint of when as by an Order made in 13 Eliz. by virtue of her privy Seal by the Lord Burghley Lord Treasurer and the Chancellor and Barons of the Exchequer, which the Lords and Commons of England in primo Jacobi, did pray and procure to be enacted by Parliament. It was after such an easy and old fashioned rate or value of the Lands, as it was but in every fifth Term to be paid in the Exchequer by a rate and apportionment, and might have been saved by an actual doing of Homage as was anciently used to be done upon their Livery, and first coming to their Lands and their respite of Homage and howsoever may as well be taken to be a favour as they do of their mesne Lords or one to another, in paying three shillings four pence per annum as a quit Rend for respite of suit of Court.  
And that it was therein and thereupon also enacted, that no process ad faciendum Homagium, or fidelitatem, scire facias Capias or distress, should issue out of the Exchequer, but upon a good ground.  
And that the Clerks of the Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer, shall pay all issues that any shall lose after he hath paid ordinary Fine for respite of Homage, and so may be proved by any of their Acquittances.  
Neither were the Rates for Licences of Alienations burdensome when they were paid by the rich and improving and most commonly advantage taking purchasers or by the gainers by the settlement or alteration of Lands or Estates, and are in passing Fines not usually above a thirtieth part, and so after an ancient & un-improved small yearly value, as six thousand pounds per annum, hath within three years' last passed paid but a little above one hundred and twenty pounds for a Composition or Licence of Alienation.  
Which with other of the King's casual profits by a long remissness and usage of some ages past whilst the people to save their own Purses, and favour one another choosing the open Rode and tract and following the precedents and too common use of under valuations, which hath ever been; and is the great obstructor and diminisher of royal Revenues, would as much as they could never forsake or go much out of it as is visible enough in the Escuage● upon Knights Fees and valuations in several ages & Kings reigns in that of a tenth in 36 H. 3. demanded in Parliament to be paid out of all the Ecclesiastical Revenues after the full yearly value, where adjuncto magnae verb● offensionis, as 
(x) Mat. Paris 849.  Matthew Paris tells us it was taken the worse in regard it was required to be taxed non secundum estimationem pristin●m sed secundum, ●stimationem no●am ad inquisitionem strictissimam not according to the former estimation or rates, but a n●w and most severe valuation, & was not at all granted. And in a Parliament at Bury, in 5● H. 3. the Clergy denied to be rated by the Laity or Justa & alta taxatione By a just & high valuation. 
(y) Mat. Paris 100L  Sed tantum ut taxatio staret antiqua, But only that the old taxation might stand, nor was it much otherwise in the rates of fifteen and other proportions of taxes granted by Parliaments, though sometimes ordered to be assessed upon oath the greatest tye and obligations that can be laid upon men and their Consciences, wherein little or more than a tenth or small part was paid or collected of the true yearly value.  
But like a numerous family of Children spending much, wanting much, and drawing all that they can from the kind and selfdenying common parent, together with the bounty and munificence which Kings and Princes are not seldom necessitated unto in the way of Government and care of the generality, would never be brought to any just valuation or improvement no more than that of customs for goods exported or imported at the rate of twelve pence in the pound, and for the subsidies given by Parliament, whereupon no more was used to be paid than two 
(z) Parl. 4 Car. primi.  shillings, or two shillings eight pe●ce in the pound, for Movables, Debts, defalked and 4 s. in the pound, and most commonly not so much according to the yearly value of Lands, Rents, Annuities or other yearly profits, after an easy and accustomed great undervaluation, no more than that of Tenths and first Fruits, or of Taxations or Valuations of Benefices in the King's Books at the tenth or fifth of the true yearly value, though every age, of one or two ages last passed, and every thirty or twenty years in the age of Century, in which we now live, have hugely raised the yearly value of Lands every one striving who shall do it most in their own particular Estates.  
And if there were not (as there are) so very many plain and evident Demonstrations of it, may well be believed to be possible, when the public, though made up of the private, is daily gnawed, and preyed upon by the private, and every one lurches, and takes what he can from the Public, to add to his private, when the numberless Number of the Private, is more than the Head or Monarch, when the people are to assess themselves, and will ease one another, when interest and partiality are the Lodestones that attracts, and the Cards and Compasses which the most of men do sail by, every man is a wellwisher to the Public, but very few well-doers, every one pretends good unto it, but intent, if not all, yet a great deal more unto themselves, and do make it their business to be the King's Cousins, though they are not of the blood-Royal, and by the help of bad Consciences, and no good affection to the public, or Commonweal, do think no more evil to be in such purloinings, than to fetch or take water from a great River, or stones, or gravel, from a vast and high Mountain.  
And the Nobility and Gentry, and most of the Landlords in England, have for many years last passed in the public Assessments, which were made to maintain the miseries and iniquities of our latter times to their cost and grievance experimented, that where the Tenants were to pay for their Stock, they could so order it, as to lay the most of the Burden upon the Landlords, upon pretences, that they had but a small Stock of Cattle when it was in their power not only to undervalue what they had, but to lessen or make it more, any Fair or Market-day before or after.  
Whereby, and the effects which best discovers the truth and intention of all men, and their matters be their pretences never so plausible, much coloured or varnished over, the Conclusion will necessarily follow the Premises, that the outsides and noise of great aids and Subsidies, have been always a great deal more than the reality of them; that the Kings and Queens of England have always had in their Revenues fair blossomings or Blooms, but little more than the Tenth of it hath come to be fruits or gatherings into their Treasuries, witness, if there were nothing else to prove it, the great and more than treble or a better Improvement which hath been lately made of them, since they came to be wrongfully possessed by private men; and that the Revenues of the Kings and Princes of England could never yet arrive to the Fate of great Rivers, which fertilizeing all the Neighbouring shores, and carrying many a great Burden and Vessel, which daily sail to and fro upon them, are notwithstanding so far from emptying or impairing themselves, as the further they run, they are sure enough to be made greater by an Addition of many little Brooks, and great Rivers which fall into them.  
But by a continual emptying and deflux, must of necessity sink itself into a great decay and deficiency, when as that which was accounted Providence, and good Husbandry in King H. 2. (or H. 1. if 
(a) daniel's History.  Samuel Daniel, and others be not mistaken) to change his Rent, Provisions of Corn & Victuals, which in every County was paid in Specie, into yearly Rents or Sums of money, because con●luebat ad Regis Curiam, Multitude Colo●orum oblatis vomeribus, in signum deficientis Agriculturae, A Multitude of Ploughmen and Husbandmen, (occasioned probably by the many vast Demeasns, Commons, Woods, and Forests which then took up much of the Lands of the Kingdom) came with their Ploughshares to the Court, to show the King the decay of Husbandry, saith the Black Book 
(b) in lib. nigro Scaccarij & Spelmans gl●ssar in verbo firma.  of the Exchequ●er; when as a little before a measure of Wheat, for bread for a hundred men, was valued by the King's Officers but at one shilling, the Carcase of a fat Ox one shilling, of a Sheep four pence, and for Provender for twenty Horses but four pence.  
And thought himself to have been on the surer side when he ordered six pence in every pound to be taken overplus or D'avantage, lest the rate and value of money should diminish, is now not the hundreth part of the value of the old kind of Rents and Provisions; and reducing also many incertain Customs into a certainty of yearly Rents, which being then some thing proportionable unto it, is not now the 50 th'. or 100 th'. part of what was then the value in the intention and estimation, as well of the Kings, which were to receive it, as of the Tenants who were to pay it; And therefore notwithstanding the great Estates and Revenues of some Rebellious Subjects which have sometimes been forfeited, & came as an accession & supplement to the wasting and dec●ying Crown Lands, much of them being either in mer●y or policy restored afterwards to the Heirs of those which justly forfeited them. The languishing Condition of the Royal Revenues were so little remedied, as the Royal Expenses in defraying the more expenseful Charges of their household, Family, and princely Retinue. After the new enhanced Rates and Prizes, whilst they recelved their Rents and other Profits after the old, carrying so great a difference and disproportion.  
As there is betwixt one hundred four pounds seventeen shillings and six pence, paid by Thomas Earl of Lancaster, in the reign of King E. 2. for 184 Tuns of Claret-wine, and one Tun of White, but little exceeding eleven shillings per Tunn, and that which is now the price of the like quantity & between one hundred forty seven pounds seventeen shillings and eight pence for seven Furs of variable Miniver, or powdered Ermine; seven hoods of Purple three hundred ninety five Furs of Budge for the Liveries of Barons, Knights, and Clerks. 123 Furs of Lamb for Esquires bought at Christmas as appears by the account of Henry Leicester the said Earls Cofferer.  
Twenty four shillings for a fat stalled Ox, twenty pence for a Mutton, two pence half penny for a Goose, two pence for a Capon, a penny for a Hen, and twenty four Eggs for a penny, which were the prizes assessed by the Magistrates, and then thought to be equal for the Buyer, as well as the Seller, between the price of Cloth, for two Gowns for the Clarks of the Chamber, to the Lord Mayor of London now, and that which in the reign of H. 6. cost but two shillings per▪ yard, and betwixt the price of a Capon in the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth at six pence, and the rate of 2 s 6 d. or 3 s. which is now the least will be taken for one.  
And that by reason of the Gentry and all private men's racking and enhancing the Rents of their Lands, letting it too often by the Acre, and the strictest measure, and the most that will be bid for it, and the plenty of pride to an extremity of excess, rather than a plenty of money in the Nation, the rates of Victuals and Provisions and manner of living, are increased to almost a third part more than what they were within this 20 years' last passed.  
There must needs follow that Tabes or Consumption which is so apparent and visible in the Royal Revenue, which will be as little for the people's good, who (unless they can think it to be either Goodness or Wisdom in the Members to make or suffer the head to be sick and languish) are by Subsidies & Assessments to support it in its sickness or languishing condition, as it will be for the King to press or persuade them to it.  
But lest it should be objected, that as the well ordering, right use, and manage of the best things, is that only which blesseth and crowneth the Intention, and first Institution of them, and the ill is that which corrupteth and blasteth all that was hoped for, or expected by it, and that the Innocency and necessary use of Tenors in Capit● and Knight service may amount unro a grievance if the Court of Wards should either by the wickedness, extortion, or avarice of the Judges, or their ignorance, which is as bad as either, or their lenity or connivance to the Officers, or those which are employed under them. intent more their own profit than the Kings, and in stead of being a protection to Wards, pillage and ruin them and their estates, or be like (as they were not) an Assembly or Congregation of men met together in the formality of a Court where rapine, avarice, and injustice, under the vizard or Hypocrisy of doing justice, strives who shall most advance their ends by a propension to what is unjust, and an aversion from all that may relieve the oppressed.  
It may be necessary to show by whom or what manner of persons that Court of wards and Liveries was governed, and guided.  
Which was not like that Court of Civil Law, upon whose Bench and Tribunal in our late times of delirium and confusion, sat as Judges two common Lawyers Hugh Peter's a a Traitor to his King and Country, sometimes a Prompter at a Playhouse, and afterwards an extemporary Preacher, together with an Attorney at common Law, a Tradesman, & a Country Gentleman, who would not at any time think it safe, or becoming them in that their never the like practised in any age or time before Antipodes or contrarieties▪ to right reason, or the way of understanding, or doing Justice, to mention any Text or part of the Civil Law, though it was daily and learnedly pleaded before them by the Advocates, but when any Books or Authorities of the Civil Law, were cited and urged, which their capacities could not reach, some of them like the Woman in Seneca, which did not complain of her own want of sight, but found fault with the darkness of the House, could to throw by the trouble or any further consideration of what they did not understand, find no better a way than causelessely to rail at, and reproach the Common Law as well as the Civil, and unadvisedly and publicly declare them to be but Inventions to get money.  
Was not like the Court to remove Obstructions in the Godly as they called it, but ungodly Purchasers, where all the Kings grants after 1636. or thereabouts were adjudged as null, and not to be allowed, and all manner of obstructions laid in the way of Loyal and Distressed men, to clear and make an open passage for their own Party and such kind Purchasers▪  
Not like that of Haberdashers-Hall, where the Just and Innocent were Sequestered (by the tender Conscienced Party as they styled themselves) for their Allegiance to their King, following of the Scripture, their Consciences, and the known Laws of the Land were notwithstanding their many Petitions, and Importunities several years whilst their estates were Sequestered and taken from them, kept in a starving Condition, before they could be heard, to little purpose, where Sons and too well descended to be so unworthy, were invited to accuse their Loyal & Aged Parents, whom the Jews would have rend their Clothes to have seen, encouraged, and made to be sharers in the spoil of their Father.  
Not like the Committee (or Court improperly called) at Salters-Hall for relief of Creditors against their imprisoned Debtors, where some of those Judges and Committees, if not wronged by printed Complaints, were in good hopes to have made some preparations to sell the Debtors Lands to their Friends or Kindred at good Pennyworths.  
Nor like the Committee for Plundering, rather than Plundered Ministers, who to take away all the Benefices of England and Wales, from the Tribe of Levi, and confer them upon the Tribe of Issachar, and their Factious, and Mechanic guifted Brethren, and keep out the Orthodox and learned Clergy, could make their costly orders for the trial of them that were more Learned than themselves, concerning the Grace of God, and their utterance for Preaching of the Gospel with private and deceitful marks, and little close couched or interposed Letters, hid or put under or over some other Letters, whereby to intimate to their Subcommittees in the Countries, that howsoever the men were without exception, and found to be so upon Certificates and Examination, they were to be delayed, and sent from Post to Pillar, and tired bo●h in their Bodies and Purses, and be sure never to be instituted and inducted.  
But was a Court composed of grave, learned, knowing, and worthy Masters of the Wards, such as William marquis of Winchester, William Lord Burghley, and his Son the Earl of Salisbury, and many other who made not the Court, or any of the business thereof, to Lackey after their own Interest.  
Had for Attorney Generals of that Court, who sat as men of Law and Judges therein, and assistants to the Masters of the Wards Richard Onslow Esq afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, Sr. Nicholas Bacon Knight, afterwards a most learned Lord keeper of the great Seal of England, and a great Councillor of Estate to Queen Elizabeth, Sr. Henry Hobart afterwards Lord chief Justice of the Court of Common-pleas, Sr. James Ley Knight and Baronet, afterwards Lord chief Justice of the Court of King's Bench, after that Earl of Marleborough, and Lord Treasurer of England, Sr. Henry Calthrop Knight, Sr. Rowland Wandesford Knight, and Sr. Orlando Bridgeman Kt. now Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common pleas, all very eminently learned Lawyers, and of great estates, honour, honesty, and worth in their several generations, who upon any difficult or weighty matter of Law, to be discussed in that Court, did usually entreat the presence, and had the assistance of the Lord chief Justices, Lord's chief Baron, or of any of the other learned Judges of the Land, whom they should please to invite unto them, where a variety of learning, grave deliberations, a great care of Justice, and right reason most lively and clearly represented, have left to posterity as guides and directions for after ages; those conclusions and resolutions, of cases of great learning and weight in that Court, reported by the Lord Dier, Cook, and other learned Sages of the Law.  
Nor were the Masters of the Wards Attorneys, Auditors or Escheators loosely tied by Oaths, as some of the Committee Jurisdictions were, when they did swear only in general, faithfully according to their best skill and knowledge, to discharge the trust committed to them, and would not for favour or affection reward, or gift, or hopes of reward, or gift, break the same.  
Or as little restraining them from Acts of Oppression or Injustice, as the Oath of the controllers for the sale of the Kings and Queens lands, ordered by that which called itself a Parliament 17. July 1649. The Oath of the Commissioners for managing the estates of Delinquents & Sequestrations at Haberdashers-Hall; Ordered by no better an Authority the 15 of April 1650. or that, which by that, which would be called an Act of Parliament, of the 10 of December 1650. for establishing an high Court of Justice within the Counties of Norfforlk, Suffolk, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, for the Trial of Delinquents was only ordered was to be taken by those that were to be the Judges, that they should well and truly according to the best of their skill and knowledge execute the several powers given unto them; Which bound them not from doing wrong, to those whom they made to bear the burdens of all the cruelties which they could possibly lay upon them.  
But were compassed and hedged in by Oaths, 
(c) Master of the Wards Oath.  as warily restraining, as they were legal, for the Master of the Wards was by Act of Parliament enjoined to swear to minister Justice to Rich and Poor, to the best of his cunning and power, to take no gift or reward in any Case depending before him, 
(d) 32 H. 46.  and to deliver with speed such as shall have to do before him. 
(e) Attorney of the Wards Oath.  The Attorney was sworn truly to counsel the King, and the Master of the Court, and with all speed and diligence to endeavour the hearing and determination, indifferently of such matters and causes as shall depend before the Master of the Wards, and shall not take any gift or reward, in any matter or cause depending in the same Court. 
(f) Auditor's Oath▪  The Auditors sworn to make a true allowance in their Offices to every person, which shall be accountant before them, and not to take or receive of Poor or Rich any gift or reward in any matter or cause depending, or to be discussed in the Court but such as shall be ordinarily appertaining to their Offices, 
(g) Escheators Oath.  and the Escheators to treat all the people in their bailiwicks, truly and righteously to do right to every man aswell to poor as to rich, do no wrong to any man, neither for promise, love, nor hate, nor no man's right disturb, do nothing whereby right may be disturbed, letted, or delayed, and shall take their Inquests, in open places, and not privy.  
And might better content the people, Then when in former ages the Wardships and their disposing were left to the care and order of the Chancellor, as to Thomas B●cket in H. 2. time, 
(h) Math Paris 101.  or to Hubert de Burgh Chief-Justice and Earl of Kent, in the Reign of H. 3. sometimes to the Treasurers or Chamberlains & most commonly, let to farm by Escheators, & sometimes by under-Sherifs or when the next Wardships or Escheats that should happen were before hand assigned towards the payment of some of the King's Debts, as to William de Valence Earl of Pembroke in the Reign of E. 1. or that the Wardships and Escheats which should happen in 6▪ or 7. Counties were before hand granted to some particular man.  
And can never be so good or for the ease of the people as when the King by a constant and well ordered Court shall be rescued from the importunities and necessities of great men, and preserved from the Errors which an indulgence or munificence to so many Cravers, Petitioners, and Pretenders, as do usually throng the Courts, and presence of Princes, might draw or persuade them unto and the Wards and their Friends, not put to seek Remedies or just Defences in their Suits or Concernments in other Courts amongst a multitude and intermixture of Causes of another nature, nor to procure an access for their Petitions to their Kings, or at their Courts or Residences, where a continual assembly of all the weighty cares and emergencies in Government, will inevitably enforce or necessitate delays, and notwithstanding the help of some costly Mediators and intercessors, cannot nor ever could be easily got through, but may in such a fixed and peculiar Court as that of the Wards & Liveri●● with a small expense of time, or attendance, and the assistance of certain allowed Fees to proper and appointed offices, which cannot be any grievance where they shall be any thing within the bounds of Reason or Moderation, know how to find out and go to their proper Remedies as readily as an Apothecary can to his Boxes of Medicaments, or the Physician to the experimented directions of his Books or Recipes, and were sure to be heard and have redress in a Court of Justice, guided and governed by wise, and good men, who being as great as they were good, were fenced and compassed about with comprehensive and restraining Oaths, enjoining all manner of right, and forbidding the least of Injustice, and wrong to be done unto the People.  
Preserved the estates, inheritance, and evidences of the Wards, guarded, and rescued the estates of Lunatics, and Idiots, from those that would deceive them, helped the Wards in the discovery, and recovery of their debts, and rights, rescued them from all wrongs, enjoined, and prohibited other Courts from any cognizance, or determination of their concernments, except when a Will was to be proved, or an Administration granted, or the like, to, or for the use, and benefit, of a Ward, and committed the education of such, whose Fathers died Papists, so to Protestants, as many, and amongst them some Earls, and Nobility, have by the direction of the King, and the care of that Court, been put under the Tuition of some Bishops, and thereby become Protestants, and their Posterities fastened in that Religion, most of which cares of that Court, and benefits received by the people, could not be at all, or not so well had and enjoyed, when there was no Court, which besides the preventing and punishing of stolen marriages, and many other benefits not here mentioned, may notwithstanding some deviations, and irregularities, which have been committed by some Officers, and Clarks, which may easily be remedied, be as useful as other of the great Courts in Westminster-Hall, which were not dissolved or put down in the reign of King E. 1. because all the Judges of the King's Bench, common Pleas, and Exchequer, except John de Metingham, and Elias de Beckingham were by judgement of Parliament, 
(i) Spelmans glossar 416. et Daniel 189.  found guilty and grievously Fined for Briberies, extortions, oppressions, and other great misdemeanours, but to the great good and comfort of the people and nation, have as before those offences committed by some of their Judges in the absence of the King in Gasconie, ever since continued as great Magazines of Justice, and the Asylums or Sanctuaries of all that are distressed.  
So as no Serpent, for aught ever appears, lurked under that green grass, nor any Crocodile nourished, or bathed himself in those wholesome waters, laid not his eggs in the Sand of our Estates or Properties, assaulted not the innocent Passenger, nor spoiled our Flocks of Sheep, or herds of Cattle: and a Marvel or wonder it may therefore be, that so good, so necessary, and so beneficial an Institution, should have any Innate, or original evil or grievance in it, and the quaerulous humour of the vulgar, who, like a herd of Swine, do too often cry, when one of many of them is but justly pinched or wrung by the ear for his unjust Trespassing, or as those irrational Guards of the night do use to howl or bark because one of their kind half a mile off, torments himself in a Moonlight night in barking at his own or any other shadow, should never stuff out, or enlarge their complaints, against that which was accounted to be no grievance in Edward the Confessors time, whose memory was, and is yet like the Nard, or Spices of the East, and his Laws so venerable, as our English forefathers could in the loss and ruins of their Country, hide them under his shrine at Westminster, and thought themselves happy, when as with Tears and Importunities they obtained of William the Conqueror to be restored to them, and left them as rich Heir-looms, and a precious Legacy to their Posterity, who got the care and observation of them to be afterwards inserted into the Coronation-Oath of the succeeding Kings of England.  
And could no way be suspected not to be highly contented with them, when as they were Leges propriae, Laws of their own Country, & consuetudines antiquae in quibus vixerant Patres ●orum 
(k) Chronic Leichfeldense.  & ipsi in eyes nati, & nutriti fuerunt; and the ancient Customs in which their forefathers were born or bred up in, not collected or put together by incertain reports partial or doubtful, upon reasonless traditions, or hearsays of an afflicted trembling, or affrighted degenerate people, under the sense and miseries of a late Foreign Conquest, but per praeceptum Regis Wil●elmi electi sunt de singulis totius Angliae Comitatibus 12 viri sapie●tiores quibus jurejurando injunctum fuit coram Rege Gulielmo ut quoad possent tramite neque ad dextram, neque ad sinistram, declinantes legum suarum & consuetudinum sancita patefacerent, nil praetermittentes nil addentes, nil praevaricando mutantes, orderly and judicially inquired and sought out by a fair and just election of twelve of the wisest men of every County in England, by virtue of King William the conquerors Writs or Commission to whom being brought into the King's presence, they were enjoined by oath, that as much as possibly they could▪ they, should have a care to do right, and neither incline to the right hand, nor to the left, & without any omission, addition, collusion, or deceit should certify their legal Customs, which being done, and written out by the King's command, by the proper hand-writing of Aldered Archbishop of York, and Hugh Bishop of London, were by the King ratified by his Proclamation, and made perpetual, per totum Regnum Angliae inviolabiliter tenendas sub paenis gravissimis, Throughout all England under grievous penalties to be observed and kept; And so approved by the people, as about 70 years after, the Citizens of London, (as the continuation of Florence Wigorniensis mentioned by that learned Knight Sr. Roger Twisden in his preface to the Laws of William the Conqueror, published by the eminently learned Mr. Selden informs us) 
(l) Continuation Floren. Wigor● et Sr. Roger Twisden in pr●fat. ad leges Willielmi 1.  did importune Maud the Empress, ut eyes Edwardi Regis Leges observare liceret quia optimae erant, That the Laws of King Edward might be observed, because they were the best.  
And when William the Conqueror ordered the Rents, and Revenues of such as held of him, to be paid into the Exchequer, it was non simpliciter nec haeres ab hereditate, 
(m) M. S. Cottoniana.  nec ut ab ipso haereditas tollitur, sed simul cum haereditate sub Regis custodia constitutus temp●r● pupillaris aetatis, Not to take away the Inheritance, but to keep and educate him during his Minority.  
For It could be no inconvenience to the public welfare of the Nation, to have the Children of the best rank and quality (for such were then the Tenants in Capite and by Knight service) virtuously and nobly educated in Arts and Arms, whereby to be enabled to do their Prince and Country service, and their Lands and Estates in the interim, to be protected and defended from Neighbour or other injuries.  
Nor to be married to their own degree or a nobler quality, when as by the means of intermarriages betwixt the Saxons & Normans, as between 
(n) York & vincent Catalogue of English Nobility.  Lucia the Sister of Morchar Earl of Northumberland, a Saxon, and Juo Talbois a great Norman Baron, and betwixt Ralph de waiet a Saxon, by a British or Welsh Woman, & Emme the Daughter of William Fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford, by which he was by the Conqueror made Earl of the East- Angles. And many more which might be instanced, their mutual discontents and animosities calming into reconciliations and friendships, had the like effect, as the tye and kindness of the intermarriages had not long before in King Ina's time, who himself marrying with Guala a 
(o) M. S. inter L. L. Regis Edwardi.  British woman, & his Lords and great men intermarrying with the Welsh, & Scots, & their Sons also marrying with their Daughters, the Nation became to be as Gens una, one people, in a near consociation, and relation, and the Norman H. 1. afterwards found it to be not unsuccessful in his own marriage with Matilda the Daughter of Malcolm King of Scots, by the Sister or Niece of Edgar Atheling of the Saxon Royal line.  
It was no grievance when the Charter of Liberties (which was the original of a great part of our after Magna Charta,) was granted to the people of England by K. H. 1. who is therein said omnes malas consuetudines quibus Anglia opprimebatur auferre, to abolish all the evil customs with which England was oppressed, when it would have been strange that Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service should remain as a part of the King's just prerogative, and be so well liked of, and approved, consilio & consensu Baronum, By advice and consent of the Barons, if there had been any grievance originally or naturally in them.  
Nor so much as a Semblance of it in the reign of H. 2. 
(p) Mat Pa●is 99 & 100  when a general Inquisition was made per Angliam cui quis in servitio seculari de jure obnoxius teneretur, through England What secular or temporal services due by Law were not performed.  
And as little in the Parliament at Clarendon in the same King's reign, where in the presence of the King, Bishops, Earls, Barons, and Nobility, 
(q) Mat. Paris 100  facta fuit recognitio, sive recordatio, cujusdam partis consuetudinum, & libertatum Antecessorum suorum, Regis viz. Henrici Avi sui & aliorum quae observari deb●bant in Regno & ab omnibus teneri, A recapitulation and rehearsal was made of some of the Customs and Liberties of their Ancestors, and of the King, that is to say of King H. 1. and others which ought of all to be observed and kept in the Kingdom, in which there was nothing against the Feudal Laws or Tenors in Capite, and by Knight's service, but many expressions, and allowances of them.  
And if otherwise it would have been something strange that the issue and posterity of those Barons, should in King John's time adventure all that could be dear, or near unto them, to gain the Liberties granted by H. 1. with some addition, and never grudge that King the same Prerogative, when as hazarding the forfeiture of their own Magna Charta of Heaven, to gain a Magna Charta on Earth for their posterities. They had greatly overpowered their King, at Running Mede where their Armies stood in procinctu & acie, Facing one another, & Pila 
(r) Mat. Paris.  minantia pilis, Threatening death and destruction to each other, or would so willingly have hung up their Shields, and Lances, and returned to their peace and obedience, by accepting of that Magna Charta, if they had not taken it to be as much for their own defence, & the good of the Kingdom, as it was for his, nor so willingly afterwards in the reign of King Henry the 3 d. his Son have clad themselves in Steel, made a Combination, and bou●d themselves by oath one to another never to submit to a peace, until they had a just performance of what his Father had granted them, endured the Popes then direful Fulminations, and never rested until the King himself had confirmed that Magna Charta by a most solemn oath, in procession with the Bishops who with lighted Tapers in their hands; anathematised all the infringers thereof, if Tenors in Capite and the enableing their Prince to defend them, had not been a part of their own Liberties, nor could they be imagined to be otherwise, when as by an Act of Parliament also of that King the great Charter was to be duly read in all Counties of England, and Writs, and Letters were sent to all the Sheriffs of England, commanding them by the oaths of twelve Knights of every County, to inquire what were the ancient Rights and Liberties of the People, no return was ever made that Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, either were or could be any obstructions to them or that, so often bloodily contested and too dearly purchased, Magna Charta, nor was it any public grievance, when as in the Parliament of 26 H. 3 in a great contest betwixt him and the Baronage and great men of England, touching his ill Government, and divers exactions, and oppressions, the profits which he had by his Tenors and Escheats were said to have been sufficient to have kept him from a want of money, and oppressing his Subjects.  
Nor in Anno 42. H. 3. when the King upon those great complaints and stirs betwixt him, and the then Robustious and sturdy Barons of England occasioned by his misgovernment, which busied the people with Catalogues of grievances, he by his Writs or Commissions appointed in every County of England; 
(r) Mat. Paris 977.  Quatuour milites qui considerarent qu●t et quantis granaminibus simpliciores a fortioribus opprimuntur et inquirent diligenter d● singulis quaerelis et injurijs a quocunque factis, vel quibuscunque illatis a multis retroactis temporibus, et omnia inquisita sub sigillis suis inclusa secum coram Baronagio ad tempus sibi per breve praefixum; Four Knights, men of known worth and wisdom, loving and beloved of their Countries, to inquire what grievances or oppressions the smaller sort of people suffered by the greater, and also of all injuries and ●●ongs done by any person whatsoever, either lately or formerly, and to certify it under their Seals to the Barronage, which what ever they were, or if ever or never recorded, (for they have not for aught appears, been certified or recorded,) no Record or Historian of that, or the after times, have said that Tenors in Capite and by Knight's service, were thereupon returned to be oppressive, or so much as inconvenient.  
Neither are to be found amongst any of those huge heaps of evils which Matthew Paris that sour and honest Monk of St. Albon (who lived in those times and especially remarked them) hath delivered to posterity.  
The 24 Reformers or Conservators of the Kingdom, in that King's Reign, appointed by the Baronage, never intimated any thing of their dislike of that honourable institution.  
It was not complained of upon the refusal of Roger Bigod Earl of Norfolk, Martial of England, Humphrey Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex, Constable of England and Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester, and Hertford, great and mighty men and of Princely Estates, to go at the Command of King E. 1. 
(s) Pat. 30. E. 1.  unto his Wars at Gascony, upon pretence that the warning was to short, whereby the King's displeasure was so much incurred, 
(t) Walsingham ypodigm● N●uster. 487.  a● Bohun and Clare, to escape the Seizure and forfeiture of their Lands and to purchase his favour again were glad each of them to marry one of his Daughters, without any Dowry, and surrender their Earldoms, Honours, Offices, and Lands unto him, & take back Estates thereof in Tail to them, and the Heirs of their Bodies upon their wives to be severally begotten, and Bigot surrendering also to him his Earledom, and Marshal's rod together with all his Lands, 
(u) Claus. 30. E. 1●  and taking Back a grant of an Estate for life in his honours and Lands, the reversion to the King if he should not have any Issue of his Body begotten the King in Parliament pardoned them, and John de Ferrari●s, and other Earls, Barons, Knights, and Esquires, 
(w) parl E. 1  and all other of their fellowship, confederacy, and Bond and all that held twenty pounds' Land Per annum, whether in chief of the King or other that were appointed at a certain day to pass over with him into Flanders, their rancour and evil will and all other offences committed against him.  
Were not in the Roll of general grievances, which the Arch-Bishops, Bishops, Earls, Barons, and Commons, sent him when he was at the Sea side ready to take shipping into Gascoigne, 
(x) daniel's History 195.  concerning his Taxes, and other impositions. Neither any vestigia, or footsteps to be found of any grievance by them, in that grand search, or inquiry by the Commissions of Trail Baston, in, or about the 33 of E. 3. after intruders into other men's Lands, exactions, and oppressions, or in the presentments in the Eyres, when the Justices thereof in several Kings reigns, carefully travailed into the several Counties and places of England, and found out, and returned the complaints, and oppressions of every County, and where the Natives themselves, & the witnesses cannot be supposed to be so much their own enemies, as to conceal, the Country's oppressions & the Jurors were solemnly charged to present them upon their Oaths, and if they should omit to do it, had the malice of their Neighbours to watch & accuse their Perjuries, and the severity of the Judges, to punish any failings in their duty.  
Or in the Reformation which the Lords Ordainers, as they were afterwards called, in or about the fifth year of the Reign of King E. 2. pretended to make in that unadvised Commission, which he granted them for the Government of the Kingdom.  
No pretence, or so much as a murmur against them by the Reformers in Wat Tilers and Jack Straw's commotion, when they were so willing to overthrow and extirpate all the Nobility and Gentry, which should withstand their rude and unruly designs of making all Bondmen free, and taking away Villeinage, and of making Wat Tyler, and several other of their party, Kings in several Counties, and to devise what Laws they listed.  
Or by Jack Cade, or Captain Mend-all as he falsely styled himself when many a grievance was picked up to colour his Rebellion in the reign of King H. 6. but could find nothing of that for a garnish of his Roguery.  
Or Robert Ket the Tanner, in the reign of King E. 6. sitting in judgement amongst the Rabble, under his tree (as they called it) of Reformation, where Tenors and Wardships, being so obvious, and every where insisted, upon, they would not probably have omitted them out of the Roll, or list of their complaints if there could have been but a supposition, or dream of any grievance in them, which being the more noble beneficial, and better sort of Tenors may better deserve an approbation of the People, and Parliaments of England, than Tenors in Villeinage, which by an Act of Parliament in 25 E. 3.18. may be pleaded, and a Villain seized though a libertate proba●d●, be depending. And it was enacted in the Parliament of 9 R. 2.2. that if Villains fled into places enfranchised and sued their Lords, their Lords should not be barred thereby, and by an Act Parliament in 8 H. 6.11. that a Villain should not be admitted▪ or put to be an Apprentice in the City of London, and by an Act of Parliament in 19 H. 7.15. If any Bondman purchase Lands, and convey away the Lands, the Bondman being ●estui que use of th●se Lands, they shall be seized by the Lord.  
Nor did the Act of Parliament of 25 E. 3. 
(y) 25 E. 3.1.  which provided that none should be constrained to find men of Arms, H●blers, nor Archers, but by common assent, and grant made in Parliament, mistake when it inserted a saving, and exception of all those that held by such services.  
Neither did the Commons in the Parliament of 5 R. 2. 
(z) Rot Parl. 5 R. 2.11. & 14.  upon the Repeal in Parliament, of the Manumissions of Bondmen, extorted from the King by Wat Tyler, and his Rout, or men of Reformation, think they did themselves, or those they represented, any hurt, when they cried with one voice, that the Repeal was good, and that at their request the Repeal was by whole assent confirmed.  
Tenors in Capite, and by Knight's service, were not complained of in the Parliament of 13 R. 2. though the Commons in Parliament had prayed, and were allowed, that every man might complain of the oppression of what person or Estate soever without incurring the pain of the Statute of 
(a) Rot Parl. 13. R. 2▪ n. 45.  Gloucester (which under great penalties prohibited, false News and Lies of the Nobility and great men of the Realm, Chancellor, Treasurer, Justices of both Benches, and other great Officers of the Bench) made in the second year of the King.  
Nor was there so much as an Apprehension of any evil in them in the Parliament of 4 H. 4. where the Commons pray that The Act of Parliament of the 1 of E. 3. 
(b) Declarat. Lords and Commons, in Collect. Parliament declarations, 386▪ & 390.  that none shall be distrained to go out of their Counties, but only for the Cause of necessity of sudden coming of strange Enemies into the Realm, and the Statute made in the 18 th'. year of the Reign of the said King, That men of Arms, Hoblers and Archers chosen to go in the King's Service out of England; shall be at the King's wages from the day that they do depart out of the Counties where they were chosen, and also that the Statute made in the 25 th'. year of the Reign of the said King, that none be compelled to find Men of Arms Hoblers nor Archers, other than those which hold by such services, unless it be by common assent and grant made in Parliament, be firmly holden and kept in all points, it was upon the granting of their desires, and an Act of Parliament made for that purpose (as the Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament, against the King's Commission of Array, in an. 1642 mentioneth) especially provided, that by force or colour of the said supplication, nor of any Statute thereupon to be made, the Lords nor any other that have Lands or Possessions in the Counties of Wales, or in the Marches thereof, shall in no wise be excused of their Services and Devoires due of their said Lands and Possessions, nor of any other Devoier, or things whereunto they or any of them be especially bound to the King, though that the same Lords and others, have other Lands and Possessions within the Realm of England; nor that the Lords, or other of what Estate or Condition soever they be, that hold by Escuage or other Services due to the King, any Lands and Possessions within the said Realm▪ be no way excused to do their Services and Devoirs due of the said Lands and Possessions: nor that the Lords, Knights, Esquires, nor other Persons, of what Estate or Condition they be, which hold and have of the Grant or Confirmation of the King, Lands, Possessions, Fees, Annuities, Pensions, or other yearly profits, be not excused to do their Services to the King, in such manner as they are bound, because of the Lands, Possessions, Fees, Annuities, Pensions▪ or Profits aforesaid.  
And might challenge their quietus est, or Proclamation of acquittal, when there were no complaints made against them in the former ages when there were so many Taxes laid upon Knights Fees, as 20▪ shillings then a great sum of money, & as much almost as 20 marks is now, upon every Knight's Fee, imposed by King R. 1. toward his ransom 26 s. 8 d. upon every Knight's Fee by King john, and another also of the same sum towards his expedition into Wales, 20 s. upon every Knight's Fee towards his Charges in Normandy, & an Escuage of 20 s. upon every Knight's Fee to be paid the one half at Easter, and the other at Michaelmas besides the Escuage which he had upon the marriage of his Sister Isabel to the Emperor Frederick, two Escuages imposed by H. 3. and an Escuage upon the marriage of his Daughter the Lady Margaret to Alexander King of Scots. 20 s. of every Knight's Fee by H. 4. the many services in person done by those which held in capite, and Knight's Service, in forinseco servitio, in all the expeditions and Wars in France, from the time of the Norman Conquest, to the end of the Reign of E. 4. and at home in the Wars betwixt England and Wales, and betwixt England and the Scots, where very many Inhabitants of the Counties of Cumberland, Westme●land, and Northumberland, that held by Cornage a kind of Knight Service, to blow a horn upon the invasion or incursion of the Scots, and to help to repel them, and had their Lands sometimes at the Will of the Lords conferred and given to the younger and more lusty Sons who were able to undergo that service, could before King James his accession to the Crown of England, the pacification of the English and Scottish hostilities, & placing them under one obedience, scarce rest in their beds by reason of the Scots sudden or nightly alarms and depredations, driving or stealing their cattle, and spoiling all that they had.  
And in all the troubles of England before and since the Baron's Wars upon any Rebellions and inquietudes of the people, when those that held by Knight▪ service were frequently and hastily summoned to come to the King cum Equis & Armis, and the great charges, trouble, hazard, and expenses, which the Lords M●sne, were put unto, by Assessments of Escuage and otherwise; And that immediately upon the death of the King's Tenants in capite, & by Knight Service, the Escheators did usually seize not only the Lands of the greatest of the Nobility, Gentry, and meaner men; But the Stock and cattle upon their grounds, and the Goods in their Houses, insomuch as their Executors were many times constrained to Petition and obtain the King's Writs and Allowance, to have the Stock and personal Estate delivered unto them.  
And yet no complaints made at all against those Tenors or necessary defences of the Kingdom, nor against Tenors by grand or Petit Serjeanty, in the thirty confirmations of our Magna Charta, upon as often Breaches to be supposed of it.  
Never complained off in the making of thirty six Acts of Parliament concerning Wardships and Tenors in the several times and Ages from 8 H. 3. to this present, nor at the making of the Act of Parliament in 32 H. 8. for the erection of the Court of Wards.  
Nor in so many thousand Petitions which have been in 186. several Parliaments, for almost four hundred years last passed, or before 9 H. 3. or ever since this nation could remember any thing either in our Parliaments Micel-gemots Wittenagemots conventus sapientum, or Magna Concilia, where all the Grievances, and Complaints of the people not to be remedied else where, came as to the Pool of Bethesda, for help and relief, and wherein if any in some one or more Parliaments should so much neglect their duty, and the more than ordinary business and concernments of their Kings, themselves, and Countries with which they were entrusted, and to which their Oaths of Allegiance, if nothing else, must needs be their Monitors, it cannot (without a supposition and belief which will never be able to find entertainment in any rational man's understanding) be imagined that the whole Nation for so many Ages, past and in so many Assemblies, of those that should be the Sons of Wisdom, should be bound up under such a fate of Stupidity or Ignorance, as to represent those that were sick and not know of it, or that all or any of them should propter imbecillitatem, vel pernegligentiam, by a to be pitied weakness or negligence, not either seek or find the way to the ears or audience of so many worthy and just Kings and Princes as this Kingdom hath been happy in, who would have been as willing to give a remedy as they could have been to seek it, if there had been any ground or cause for it, that so many Petitions of small concernments, or of no greater consequence than for the paving of Streets, killing of Crows, not taking of young Herns out of their nests without licence of the owner of the ground, and the like, should get admittance, and cause Acts of Parliament to be made thereupon, and that of Tenors in Capite, if any grievance could at all be found in them, and of so long a continuance (which usually makes light burdens to be heavy) should be so dipped in a Lethe or Oblivion, as not at all to be remembered.  
Which had nothing at all of grievance in their essence or being understood of them, in the making of the Statute of 
(c) 1 H. 8. cap. 12. Coke 4. part Institutes 197.  1 H. 8. against Empson and Dudley, by whom the King's Subjects had been sore hurt, troubled, and grieved, in causing untrue Offices to be found, returning of Offices that never were found, and in changing Offices that were found.  
No Grievance perceived to be in them, in Primo Jacobi, 
(d) 1 Jacobi▪ 5.  when in the Statute concerning Respites of Homage there was a Proviso, that in case it shall be thought fit, for the true knowledge and preservation of the Tenors appertaining to the Crown, and so ordered in the open Court of Exchequer, that process should issue out of the said Court against any, came not within the Suspicion or Jealousy of a Grievance, when in the Parliament of 7. Jacobi Regis, Sr. Francis Bacon then his Majesty's Solicitor, 
(e) Sr. Francis Bacon's speech in Parliament in 7. Jacobi, touching a Composition to be made for Tenors in Capite.  in his speech, as one of the House of Commons in Parliament, to the Lords in Parliament, persuading them to join with the Commons, to Petition the King to obtain liberty to treat of a Composition with his Majesty for Wards and Tenors, acknowledged in the name of that Parliament, that the Tree of Tenors was planted into the Prerogative by the Ancient Common Law of England, fenced in and preserved by many Statutes, and yieldeth to the King the fruit of a great Revenue, and that is was a noble Protection, that the young Birds of the Nobility and good Families, should be gathered and clucked under the Wings of the Crown.  
Nor in Primo Car. primi, 
(f) 1 Ca● primi●.  in the Act of Parliament touching the rating of Officers Fees in the Exchequer, upon plead of Licences or Pardons for Alienations, when the Lords and Commons in that Parliament assembled, did declare that the King's Tenors are a Principal flower of the Crown (which being in England, the safety and protection of the people cannot be said or proved to be adorned by their sorrows and miseries) and ought not to be concealed.  
And that in the petition of Right, in 3 Car. primi. wherein all the Grievances and Burdens of the Subjects, and breaches of Laws and Liberties, that any way concerned them or their Posterities were enumerated, and remedies for the future establishment of the quiet, and happiness of the people propounded and granted, Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, with their incidents, were not reckoned or accounted as Grievances, though all that troubled the people, were at that time so largely thought and believed to be redressed as a public joy, upon the Kings granting of that Petition of Right, was commanded to be celebrated by the Music and ringing of Bells in every Parish Church of the Cities of London and Westminster, which vied each with other who should proclaim and tell their joys the loudest; And the blaze of numberless Bonfires, representing the flame of the people's affection towards a most gracious Sovereign, seemed to turn the sullen night into a morning or day which the Sun beams had newly guilded, whilst Allecto and her Sister Furies despairing in their hopes of kindling a sedition, and bringing the miseries of a Civil War upon us, had thrown by their Torches, and employed their Hellish griefs in the tearing of their Snaky lo●ks.  
Were no Sirtes or Rocks to shipwreck or hurt the people, when Sr. Edward Coke, who was so willing to have Tenors in Capite and Knight service, to be changed into Tenors by Fealty only, as of some of the King's Honours, and all their Incidents, as Wardships, primer seisin, Licences of Alienation, etc. taken away and recompensed by a greater yearly profit, than was, then had or received by them, and a rent to be inseparably annexed to the Crown, with some necessary Covenants and Privisoes, as he hoped that so good a motion as had been made in the Parliament of 18 Jacobi, tending as he thought to the Honour and Profit of the King and his Crown for ever, and the quiet and freedom of his Subjects, and their Posterities would one way or other, by the grace of God, and Authority of Parliament, take effect and be established, could not but acknowledge between Anno 3. Car. Regis primi, 
(g) Coke 4. part Institutes tit. Court of Wards 193  and the 12 th'. year of his reign, that the Objection that Wardship was a Badge of servitude (which would be a Grievance indeed, and of the greatest Magnitude) was groundless and without a Foundation, for that the King by taking money for the marriage of the Ward, doth it not as for a Ransom, but taketh such moderate sums of money, as in respect of the quality, and state of the Ward He or She, all circumstances considered, is able to pay, and in regard thereof, hath the protection of the Court of Wards during Minority; And giving Tenors by Knight service no worse a Character, than the Wisdom of Antiquity, for his justification therein, citeth a place out of the Red Book 
(h) Coke 4. Institutes & lib. ru●. Scac.  in the Exchequer, where it is said that mavult enim princeps domesticos, quam Stipendiarios Bellicis apponere casibus, the King had rather be served by his own Subjects, than Hirelings or Stipendiary Soldiers.  
No Scylla or Charybdis taken to be in them, in the Parl. of 17. Car. prim. at the making of the Act for the better raising and levying of Soldiers for the present defence of the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, wherein it being said, that by the Laws of this Realm, none of his Majesty's Subjects ought to be impressed, or compelled to go out of his Country, to serve as a Soldier in the Wars, they excepted cases of necessity of the sudden coming in of strange enemies into the Kingdom, or where they be otherwise bound by the Tenure of their Lands or Possessions; In the Remonstrance of the House of Commons 15. December 1641. and that unhappy Amasse, and collection of Complaints against the Government, the Tenors themselves were not so much as complained of, but the exceeding of the Jurisdiction of the Court of Wards, 
(i) Exact Collections of the King and Parliament Declarations 8.  that thereby the estates of many Families were weakened, some ruined by excessive Fines, for Composition for Wardships exacted from them, which if in some few particulars, where the Estate itself was weak, or encumbered with Debts, or charge of Children, cannot rationally conclude or argue the Fines to be excessive, no more than a common weight or burden which may easily be born or carried by any man in health, doth make it to be of a greater weight or burden, because another man by reason of sickness, or other disabilities, is not able to bear or stand under it, or that a reasonable or small rent, which Tenants are to pay to their Landlords, is therefore too much or unreasonable, because a poor or decayed Tenant cannot so well bear or pay it as he was wont, 
(k) Exact Collect●ons of the King and Parliament Declarations. 8.  or as one that is thriving, or before hand might do; That all Leases of above One hundred years were made to draw Wardships contrary to Law (when as such or the like Collusions, were by the Statute of Marlebridge prohibited) and the Parliament was misinformed, for long Leases under 500 years were not made by that Court liable to Wardships, and that undue proceedings were used in the finding of Offices to make Jurors find for the King (which was but to adjorne or bind them over to the Bar of the Court of Wards, in case that there was any doubt of the Law or Evidence.  
Or when the Lords and Commons in Parliament the second day of June 1642. by the nineteen Propositions 
(l) Exact Collection of the K●n●s and Parliaments Declarations 307.  which were (as they alleged) for the establishment of the King's honour and safety, and the welfare and security of his Subjects and Dominions, and being granted, would be a necessary and effectual means to remove those jealousies and differences which have unhappily fallen betwixt him and his people, and procure both his Majesty and them a constant course of honour, peace, and happiness.  
Did propose, petition, and advise, that the Lord high Constable of England, 
(m) Exact Collection of the Kings and Parliaments Declarations and Messages. 308.  Lord Chancellor, or Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England, Lord Treasurer, Lord privy Seal, Earl Marshal, Lord Admiral Warden of the Cinque Ports, chief Governor of Ireland, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Wards, Secretaries of State, two chief Justices, and chief Baron, may always (which showed they had no desire for the present or the future to take away the Tenors in Capite and by Knight service) be chosen by approbation of both Houses of Parliament.  
Did not conceive them to be any Disease or Gangreen in the Body Politic, at the making of the 2 d. Declaration of the Lords & Commons in Parliament, dated the 12 th'. of January 1642. Concerning the Commission of Array, occasioned by a book then lately published, Entitled his Majesty's answer to the Declaration of both Houses of Parliament, concerning the said Commission of Array, Printed and Published by the care of Mr. Samuel Brown, then and now a Member of the House of Commons, wherein many Arguments being used (and if they had been grievances, would not have become the Parliament to have urged or pressed them as an argument) against the Kings, having power to raise men by his Commissions of Array, and were then so little denied to be for the necessary defence of the King and his Subjects, as they were rather taken by that Parliament to be as the hands and Arms of the body politic, worthy a continuance & perpetuity, and very well deserving the good opinion which the Parliament than had of them in the expressions following.  
We deny that there is an impossibility of defence, without such power, viz. the Commissions of Array. And affirm that the 
(n) Exact. Collect. of the K●ngs and Parliament Declarations 850.856.857  Kingdom may be defended in time of danger, without issuing such Commissions, or executing such power. For, we say, that the Law hath provided several ways for provision of Arms, and for defence of the Kingdom in time of danger without such Commissions 1. All the Tenors that are of his Majesty by Barony, Grand Se●jeanty, Knight service in Capite, Knight service, and other like Tenors, were all originally instituted for the defence of the Kingdom, in time of War and danger, as appears by the Statute of 7 E. 1. of Mortmain, which saith, servitia quae ex hujus modi feodis d●bentur ad defensionem Regni ab initio provisa fuerunt, vide Chart. H. 1. irrotulat in libro Rubro Scac. Coke Instit. 75. Bracton 36.37. Britton 162.35 H. 6.41. Coke 8.105. Coke 6. ●. Instit. 1 part 103. These Tenors in the conquerors time were many, and since they are much increased; and these are all bound to find men and arms, according to their Tenors, for the defence of the Kingdom.  
2. As those Tenors are for the defence of the Kingdom, so the Law hath given to his Majesty divers Privileges and Prerogatives for the same end and purpose; that with the profits of them, he should defend himself and his people in times of danger, of which his Majesty is, and always hath been in actual possession since his access to the Crown.  
For the defence of the Kingdom, his Majesty ha●h the profits o● Wardships, Liveries, Primer seisins, Marriages, Reliefs, Fines for Alienation, Customs, Mines, Wrecks, Treasure trove, Escheats, Forfeitures, and divers others the like casual profits, That by these he may be enabled to defend the Kingdom, and that he enjoying them, his Subjects might enjoy their Estates under his Protection, free from Taxes and Impositions for defence. Therefore it is declared 14 E. 3. chap. 1. That all the profits arising of an aid then granted to the King by his people; And of Wards Marriages, Customs, Escheats, and other profits rising of the Realm of England, should ●e spent upon the safeguard of the Realm of England, & on the Wars in Scotland, France, and Gascoigne, and no places elsewhere, during the Wars. And the Lords and Commons in Rich. 2 time, (knowing the Law to ●e so) did▪ as appears ●y the Parliament ●olls 6 Rich. ●. m. 42) pass a petition, that the King would live o● his own Revenues, and that the Wards, Marriages, Reliefs, Forfeitures, and other profits of the Crown, might be kept to be spent in the Wars for the defence of the Kingdom.  
3. If the said Tenors and casual profits rising by his Prerogative, will not serve for defence, but more help is necessary, by the fundamental Laws and Constitutions of this Kingdom, his Majesty is entrusted with a power to summon Parliaments as often as he pleases, for defence of himself, and his people, when his ordinary Revenues will not serve the turn; And there is no other legal way (when the others are not sufficient) but this, and this last hath been ever found by experience, the most sure and successful way for supply in time of imminent danger, for defence of the Kingdom, and to this the Kings of this Realm have in times of danger frequently had recourse.  
A main end why Parliaments are called, is for defence of the Kingdom, and that other Supplies th●n th●se before mentioned, cannot be made without a Parliament.  
Nor was there any public or general damage so much as supposed to be in them the first of February 1642. when in the propositions sent by those Lords & Commons, which remained in Parliament, to the King at Oxford, to be treated upon by the Earl of Northumberland, William Pierrepont Esq Sr. Wil Armin & Bulstrode Whitlock, Esq their Commissioners. There was nothing desired or proposed for the taking away of the Court of Wards or changing of Tenors, but did conclude that if that which then was desired of the King should be granted, the Royalty & greatness of his Throne would be supported by the loyal, and bountiful affections of his people, 
(*) Propositions sent by the Parliament to the King at Oxford 1 of Feb●uary 1642.  & their Liberties and Privileges, maintained by his Majesty's protection and Justice.  
They were no part of the Bills, or Acts of Parliament, sent to the King at Oxford, in order to a peace in July 1648.  
No part of the Demands, or Bills, or Acts of Parliament, proposed by the Parliament in the Treaty at Uxbridge, betwixt them and the King, 23 Novemb. 1644.  
And there was so little of grievance or inconvenience, or none at all to be found in Tenors in Capite and by Knight service, by reason of any accidents, for naturally or originally there can be none at all proved to be in them.  
As notwithstanding the Vote of the House of Commons in Parliament, made the 20 th' day of September 1645.  
Which being less than an Embryo, and no more than an opinion of the Major part of that House, a recens assensio, velleity, desire or intention only, which our Laws take no notice of; was left to an after more mature deliberation, when an Act of Parliament should be brought in upon it, & have gone through all its necessary requisites, formalities, and debates, the Parliament itself were so little resolved, or believing any Grievance to be in them, as the Lords and Commons by their Ordinance of the first day of November 1645. did ordain that the Master and Council of that Court, should proceed in all things belonging to the Jurisdiction of that Court according to Law.  
And the House of Commons shortly after, viz. the fourth day of November 1645. being informed that by reason of a Vote passed in that House the 20 th'. day of September 1645. that the Court of Wards should be taken away, divers Wardships, Liveries, Primer seisins, and Mesne rates, which theretofore fell and happened, were not compounded for as they ought to be; It was declared that all of them which have happened, or shall fall or happen before the Court of Wards, shall be put down by the Parliament, shall be answered to the Commonwealth, and the Master and Council of that Court were required to proceed accordingly, so as it extended not to any whose Ancestors being Officers or Soldiers have been slain or died in the service of the Parliament.  
But the 24 th'. of February 1645. upon occasion of a debate concerning the Wardship of the Son of Sir Christopher Wray, who died as they said, in the service of the Parliament, an Ordinance was brought in and made by the Lords and Commons, for the taking away of Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, which saith one of their allowed Mercuries, was first given to the Crown for defence of the Kingdom, but the Parliament would take care for other supplies.  
But that Ordinance notwithstanding was so little liked of, as that without the giving satisfaction which they promised to the Nobility Gentry and Mesne Lords for the loss of their Tenors by Knight service, and satisfaction to the most part of the Officers of the Court of Wards, it was no more or not much thought of, but lay from that time in a slumber, until the first of August 1647. when the mighty Mechanicques of the Army driven on by their ignorant, and seditious Agitators, who were but the Engines of Cromwell's lurking and horrid designs, had by their Remonstrances, like Wolves clothed in Sheepskins, bleated, and seemed to thirst only after godly and purified Reformations, and Hewson the Cobbler, and Pride the Drayman, and others of the College of their n●w ●apientia, busying themselves in State, as well as Parliament affairs, and thombing the Scriptures, and the English Translations of Livy and Plutarch at the wrong end, thought every one of themselves to be no less than a Solon and Lycurgus, admired Agrarian Laws, and other old exploded grievances, dreamt they were excellent Politics, and not knowing our good old Laws, but suspecting them (as well they might) to be averse, and no wellwishers to their ungodly, and worse than Machiavillian devices, did all they could to destroy them, root and branch, and at the same time, when (in their New-England Phrase,) they held forth a more than ordinary Care of the King's Honour and Dignity, and the freedom, rights and interests of the seduced people, proposed (or commanded rather) that the 
(*) Proposals agreed upon by the Council of the Army to be tendered to the Commissioners of the Parliament residing with the Army 1 August 1647.  Ordinance for taking away the Court of Wards and Liveryes be confirmed by Act of Parliament, provided his Majesty's Revenues be not damnified therein, nor those that held Offices in the same, left without Reparation some other way.  
Which howsoever it were, to the remaining and small part of that Parliament, who durst not say it, but found themselves under a force which against many of their will●▪ had undertaken to be their Guard and safekeeping, a motive or spur enough to make them put that Vote and ordinance against the Court of Wards and Liveries in●o an Act as they▪ would call it, of Parliament, after 10000 l. given & paid to the Master of the Court of Wards, for the loss of his place 5000 l. to Sr. Roland Wandesford, Attorney General of that Court 6000 l. to Sr. Benjamin Rudiard, Surveyer General, 3500 l. to Charles Fleetwood, late Governor of the destroying Committee of Safety, for his supposed loss by the Receiver General's place of that Court, which he pretended he ought to enjoy by a Sequestration from Sr. Will. Fleetwood his Brother, who was then attending his Master the King at Oxford, and to Mr. Bacon, 3000 l. for a pretended loss of his Office, for the making and engrossing of Licences or pardons for alienation, all of them but Sir Roland Wandesford, being Members of Parliament, it did without any mention made or remedy provided for those only supposed Evils, in Tenors in Capite, and Chivalry in the Billsor intended Acts of Parliament, which were sent to the King the 3 of March 1647. when he was at Holmby under a restraint fall asleep for many years after, and left all other to expect their satisfaction upon the Parliaments promises, and further proceedings.  
And there was so little cause for putting that Sentence in execution against them, in the judgement & opinion of some of the most knowing sort of the Arraigners of antiquity, and the actions of their more understanding forefathers, as 
(p) Nat. Bacon's historical Discourses of the Kings of England 202.254.296. & in 2 part 241.  Mr. Nathaniel Bacon in his Historical discourses of the uniformity of the Government of England under the Britain, Saxon, Danish, Norman and other Kings of this Isle until the reign of King E. 3. published in Anno 1647. and in his 2 part from King E. 2. until the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, printed in Anno 1651. in a design to make all, or most of the Actions of those our Kings and Princes and the Nobility and Clergy in their several reigns, for at all of them (like one of the Ephori sitting in Censure rather than Judgement upon the Spartan Kings and Government) and the Acts of Parliament, made in the several Reigns, of those Kings, he aimed, and flung his Fancies, clad in a sober Style and Gravity, rather than any Truth or Reason, by pretending that they were made and contrived only under their influence to be arbitrary and oppressive to the freeborn people of this Nation, for which he got several Preferments under Oliver the Protector of our burdens & miseries.  
Though if the Records and Journals of our Parliaments may be credited (as certainly they ought to be) before him, most if not all of our Acts of Parliament were granted and assented unto by our Kings upon the Petitions of the Commons, representing the people in Parliament as balsams and great Remedies and redresses of all that they could complain of, deliverances from the oppressions, frauds, and deceits of one another, and prevention of evils which might happen to them and their posterities, wherein our Kings have almost in every Parliament given away many, & diminished very much of their own just & legal Rights and prerogatives by granting and confirming their Liberties and Estates with such an enfranchisement and freedom as no Nation or people under Heaven now enjoys.  
And when as heretofore in former Parliaments they gave to their Kings & Princes (& many times too unwillingly) any aids or Subsidies, were sure besides the blessings which accrued to them by many good Laws and wholesome Acts of Parliament to gain a great deal more by their Acts of grace and general pardons only, than the aids and Subsidies did amount unto.  
Unless it were in the Reign of King H. 8. when the Abbey Lands were granted unto him, & in the reign of King E 6. when the Chanterie & remaining pieces of those religious Lands (were given to him wherein only the Founders and the religious to whom they properly belonged, were the only loser's) and yet by reason of King H. 8. his Endowments and erection of the Bishoprics of Oxford, Peterborough, Chester, Gloucester, and Bristol, the College of Christ-Church in Oxford, and the Deanary of Westminster, Deaneries and prebend's of Canterbury, Winchester, Worcester, Chester, Peterburgh, Oxford, Ely, Gloucester, Bristol, Carlisle, Durham, Rochester, and Norwich, and his large gifts and grants to divers of the Nobility, who had formerly been the Founders, or great Benefactors to many of the Abbeys and priories, and also to other of his people, and the grants of E. 6. Queen Eliz. and King James considered, very little of those Lands and Revenues do at this time continue in the Crown.  
And our many Acts of Parliament against Mortmaineses without the King's Licence, Provisions by the Pope, or any appeals to be made to him▪ under the most severe penalties of Praemunire, the Act of Parliament taking away the Pope's Supremacy, the fineing and putting the Clergy of the Provinces of Canterbury and York, under Premunires by King H. 8. An Oath of Renunciation of all fealty and appeals to the Pope, an Engagement to observe all Laws made against his Power, 
(q) Na●. Bacon's historical discourses of the Kings of England▪ 219.  the loss of 72 Manors or Lordships out of the Revenues of the Arch-bishopprick of York, and of sundry great Manors and Possessions taken from the Sees of Canterbury, Ely, and London; The demolishing and dissolution of Religious Houses, 3845. Parochial Churches, (being more than a third part of all the Churches in England) impropriated and gotten into the hands of the Laity, many of the Vicarages confined to the small and pitiful maintenance of some 20 l. per Annum, others 10, and some but 6 l. per An. several Acts of Parliament made in the reigns of several other Kings and Princes, clipping the Clergies Power in making Leases, or chargeing their Benefices with Cure, restraining their taking of Farms, forbidding Pluralityes, intermeddling as Commissioners in Lay or Temporal Affairs, or to make Constitutions in their Synods or Convocations without the King's Assent, may declare how little power for some hundreds of years past, the Clergy of England, have before or since the Reformation, either encroached upon, or been able to get or keep.  
Finds not in his mistaken Censures and Distortions of most of the Acts of our Kings and Parliaments to make way in the deluded people's minds for the erecting of oliver's Protean, and Tyrannical Government.  
Any fault with the erection of the Court of Wards and Liveries, nor with Tenors or Wardships, but justifying them, says, that the relief paid by the Tenant upon the death of his Ancestor, was in memorial of the first Lord's favour in giving him the Land, and was first settled in the Saxons times, that the Law of Wardship may seem more anciently seated in this Kingdom, than the Normans times, that Wardship was a fruit of the Service of the Tenant, and for the defence of the Kingdom.  
Which that Parliament, or the following Conventions, or Assemblies, made no haste to overturn or take away, until Oliver Cromwell that Hyaena, or Wolf of the Evening, having filled the Kingdom with Garrisons, & several Regiments of Horse and Foot, amounting to 30000. men, which were to be constantly maintained at the people's charge, to keep them quiet in their slavery; had upon the humble petition and advice of that which he called his Parliament, acknowledging with all thankfulness the wonderful mercies of God in delivering them from that Tyranny and Bondage, 
(r) Petition of advice of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament in An, ●657▪  both in their Spiritual and Civil Governments, which the late King and his party (which in a Fog or Mist of sin and delusion they were pleased most injuriously to aver and charge upon them) designed by a bloody War to bring them under (when as then they were under none, and all but the gainers by the spoils of those Wars, have since had more Burdens, Grievances, and Taxes entailed upon them, than ever was in any Nation in Christendom) allowed him in a constant Revenue for support of the Government, and the safety and defence of the Nations of England, Scotland, and Ireland, a yearly Revenue of thirteen hundred thousand pounds, whereof ten hundred thousand pounds for the Navy and Army; which far exceeded tha● which accrued to the Crown or Kings of England by Wardships, Tenors, and Shipmoney, which were but casual, and upon necessity, and but at some times or seldom, and always less by more than eight parts in ten of those justly to be complained of awful and yearly Asessements.  
Procured the Assembly or Parliament so called in Anno 1657. to awake that sleeping Ordinance, and dress it into an Act as he called it of Parliament, wherein It was without any Cause or Grievance express, or satisfaction given, or promised to those that remained the loser's by it, enacted that the Court of Wards and Liveries, and all Wardships, Primer seisins, and Oustre le manes, and all other charges incident and arising for, or by reason of any such Tenors, Wardship, Primer seisin, or Oustre les manes, be taken away from the said 24 th'. day of February 1645. (though notwithstanding this pretended Act, he could for his own profit continue and take the Fines upon Alienations) And that all Homages, Licences, Seizures, Pardons for Alienations, incident or arising for, or by reason of Wardship, Livery, Primer seisin, or Oustre le manes, and all other charges incident thereunto, be likewise (according to the new mode of making retrospective Acts of Parliament) taken away from the said 24 th'. day of February 1645. And that all Tenors in Capite, and by Knight's service, of the late King, or any other person (when as the Parliament that made the Ordinance for taking away Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, did as was said, promise that all the mesne Lords, and others which held of the King, and had others held of them, should be recompensed for the loss of their Tenors) and all Tenors by Socage in chief to be taken away and turned from the said four and twentieth day of February 1645. into free and common Socage.  
Whereby in all probability, he did but cause those Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, to be put down, to the end that he might take them up again at his pleasure, when he should have finished his wished and devilish designs of making himself a King over a degenerate (as to the generality of the people) sinful and harassed Nation, or in stead of them, to rule as he had begun, with his Janissaries, and Pashas, or Major Generals.  
But whatever he or his over awed and flattering Assemblies, would make a long & often deluded Nation to believe concerning Tenors in Capite and Chivalry, or that kind of fixed and constant part of the Militia, It was not accounted in the holy Scripture to be any grievance to the people of Israel, that Saul in the government of them, 
1 Chronic. 12.23, 29, 30, 33.  had in every Tribe, and of every kindred many thousands of men of War of the most valiant in a standing Militia, as of the Children of Ephraim, twenty thousand and eight hundred mighty men of valour, famous (and such were our Nobles & Tenants in Capite) throughout the house of their Fathers; and of Zebulun, such as went forth to Battle, expert in war, and were not of double heart fifty thousand; or that of the Children of Benjamin, the greatest part of three thousand kept the Ward of Saul's house.  
Or that David, a King after Gods own heart, did appoint the Chief Fathers and Captains of thousands and hundreds, 
1 Chonic. 27.1.  and their Officers that served the King in any matter of the Courses which came in and went out Month by Month throughout all the Months of the year, and of every Course twenty and four thousand (which were as our Knight's Fees or Tenors in Chivalry out of a select or more refined and fit part of the People, whose Estates, as well as their Persons, made them liable unto it, for the general Musters or trained Bands did by many hundred thousands exceeding that number) which were only as a Landguard or ready help and defence upon all em●rgencyes, & although it be not there said that they held their Lands by that, or any military Service, yet a great resemblance and affinity may be discerned betwixt that, and the cause & reason of Tenors in Capite, which amongst that people was less requisite & necessary, for that they being always Marshalled under Captains of Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties, & Ten, were by some not expressed Tie or Obligation, or their grand Obedience to the command of their Kings and Princes, which by a set Law of the Almighty's own enacting, in all matters as well military as civil, 
Deut. 17.12,  had no less a punishment than Death affixed to the Transgressor's thereof) always ready to go up to battle with their King, against any neighbour Nation or others, that did them injury, and leaves but this only difference betwixt our Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, and (if they were not then in use amongst them,) their fixed provisions for wars offensive or defensive, that theirs was a continual charge upon so many of the people in every year by turns or courses, and ours upon the Princes, Nobles, and many of the Gentry, and better part of the people (for all of the Gentry had not the happiness to have Lands originally given them to hold by such kind of Tenors, or did not afterwards purchase them of the first proprietors of those beneficiary and noble kind of Tenors) when wars should happen, which being not often, or might not perhaps be commonly once in forty or more years, were not then also called out to War themselves but when the King went in person, or sent his Lieutenant, and then were to tarry with him or send one in their stead at their own charges but for forty days.  
No wrong was done by Solomon to the people of Israel, 
(s) 2 Chroni●. 8.7.8.  when he made the people that were left of the Hittites, Amorites, Perezites, Hevites, and the Jebusites, and their Children which were not of Israel, to pay Taxes and do public work.  
And the Children of Israel, no Servants for his work, but men of war, and chief of his Captains of his Chariots and Horsemen.  
Jehoshaphat did not any evil in the fight of the Lord, when as notwithstanding that the Fear of the Lord had fallen upon all the Kingdoms of the Lands that were round about Judah, 
(t) 2 Chron▪ 17.2.3▪ 10.  so that they made no War against him and the Philistines (the old Enemies of Judah and Israel) brought him presents, and Tribute Silver, and he waxed exceedingly great, and built in Judah Castles and Cities of Store, placed Forces in all the fenced Cities of Judah, set Garrisons in the Land of Judah, he understood it whilst the Lord was with him, 
2 Palip. 17.2.10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19; Lib. 1.81.  & he walked in the first ways of his Father David, to be a Salus Populi to have the men of War mighty men of valour in Jerusalem eleven hundred and threescore thousand men which waited upon the Kings besides those whom he put in the fenced Cities.  
It was no Imposition upon the people of Israel, 
(w) 1 Sam. 14.52.  neither is it in holy Writ made to be any Error in Government, that Saul (whom our Kings & Nobility in the Creation of military Tenors did but imitate) when he saw any strong man, or any valiant man took him unto him.  
Or that David after he was King, hearing of the fame of the Hebronites, sought for them, and when there were found among them at Jazer of Gilead Jerijah the chief, 
x 1 Chronic. 26.31, 32.  and two thousand and seven hundred mighty men of valour made them Rulers over the Reubenites, and it seems were also but of some part of them, for that in the next Chapter the Ruler whom he appointed over the Reubenites the Gadites, and the half Tribe of Manasseth was Eliezer the son of Zichri, & over the half Tribe of Manasseth in Gilead, Iddo the Son of Zechariah. Nor did Nehemiah that great and good example of Magistracy put any grievance upon the people, when as in the re-building of jerusalem, and to repel the Enemies and hinderers thereof, (there being as much necessity to defend a City or Commonwealth, after it is built or established, as it can be in the building, framing or repairing, of it) he ordered the one half of the servants to work, and the other to hold the Spears, the shields, Bows, and Habergeons, 
(y) Nehemiah 4.15, 16, 19, 20, 11. v. 1.14.  and every one of the builders had his Sword girded by his side, and the Nobles were appointed when the Trumpeter should sound that stood by Nehemiah, because they were separated one from another to resort thither unto him upon occasion of ●ight or danger, and did after their work finished, cause the Rulers of the people to dwell at Jerusalem, and out of the rest of the people by lot, to bring one of every Tribe to inhabit and dwell in there, such as were valiant, or mighty men of valour, and had for overseers the principal and most eminent men, and Zabdiel the Son of one of the mighty men. David did not turn aside from God, nor bind heavy burdens upon the people, because he had mighty men about him, and that Joshebbassebet the Tachmonite sat (like a Constable or Marshal of England) chief amongst the Captains, nor did Solomon bruise the broken Reeds, 
(z) 2 Sam. 23.8.  because he had many Princes and great Officers under him, as Benajah, the Son of Jehoiada, (who served his Father David, and was Captain over his Guard) was over the Host, Azariah the Son of Nathan, over the Officers, (like as in England, a Lord great Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the King's Household) Zabud the Son of Nathan, Principal Officer, and A●ishar (as a Treasurer, or Comptrouler) over the Household, none of which could take it for any injury to enjoy those great Offices and places during the King's pleasure, but would have esteemed it to have been a greater favour if they had a grant for life, and most of all, and not to be complained of, to have it to them, and to their Heirs, or after Generations, for that all good things and blessings by a natural propension and custom, amongst the Sons of men, are very desirable to be continued and transmitted to posterity, and the sacred Volumes have told us, that it is a reward of wisdom, and virtue, to stand before Princes.  
Nor was it any dishonour to the men of Judah, and people of Israel, that the Queen of Sheba wondering even to astonishment at the Attendance of Solomon's Servants, 
(a) 1 Reg. 10.4, 5.  and Ministers, and his Cup bearers, or Butlers, as the Margin reads it, pronounced them happy that stood continually before him.  
Or to the Subjects of Ahasuerus, who reigned from India, 
(b) Esther 1.10.14.  to Ethiopia, over an hundred and seventeen Provinces, that besides his seven Chamberlains, or Officers of honour, he had the seven Princes of Persia, and Media, which saw the King's face, and sat the first in the Kingdom. Nor any to our heretofore happy Nation, enjoying in a long Series, and tract of time, an envied peace and plenty, under famous and glorious Kings and Princes, that they did give Places, Castles, Manors, and Lands, of great yearly values, to certain great and well-deserving men, and their Heirs, to serve in great Employments, Solemnities, and Managements of State-affairs, to the honour of their Sovereigns, and the good, & safety of the People, in the Offices of great Chamberlain, high Steward, Constable, or Marshal of England, chief Butler of England, and the like. For when the gift of the Land itself was a great kindness, it must needs be a greater to have an honourable Office & Employment annexed to it, & that an act of bounty done by a Prince, in giving the Land, should oblige the claim or receiving a far greater, in the executing of that Office or Attendance, which belonged to it.  
And could have nothing of affinity to a burden, when as besides the original gift of the Lands, which were very considerable, and to be valued, many of those personal services by grand Serjeanty, were not unprofitable or without the addition, or accession of other Bounties and Privileges, as the gift to the Lord great Chamberlain of forty yards of Crimson Velvet, for his Robes, upon the Coronation day, the Bed and furniture that the King lay in the night before, the silver Bason and Ewer, when he washed his hands, with the Towels, and Linens, etc.  
The Earl Marshal to have the granting of the Marshals, and Ushers, in the Courts of Exchequer, and Common Pleas, with many other gifts and Privileges, and Dymock who holds some of his Lands by the service of being the King's Champion, and to come upon the Coronation day into Westminster-Hall, on Horseback, completely armed, and defy, or bid battle to any that shall deny him to be rightful King of England, is to have the King's best Horse, and were not in the least any charge to the people, or laid upon them as Cromwell did the stipends of his mock Lords or Officers of his imaginary Magnificence, to be paid out of the public Purse or Taxes, as were the self created Lords of his Counsel, who had 1000 l. per an. for advising him how to fool the people, & build up himself by the wickedness of some, and ruins of all the rest, or as the Lord so called Pickering, or Chamberlain of his Household, and the quondam would be Lord Philip Jones, who was called the Comptrouler of his Household, had to buy them white staves to cause the people to make way and gape upon them.  
No Prejudice to the Commonwealth that the Beauchamps Earls of Warwick, did hold Land by right of inheritance to be Panterer at the King's Coronation, and to bear the 3 Sword before him the Duke of Lancaster, before that Duchy came again into the possession of the Kings of England, to bear before him the sword called Curtana, or the Earls of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man, to bear before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Lancaster, which Henry the 4 th'. did wear when he returned from exile into England, or for the Earl of Arundel to be chief Butler of England, the day of the Coronation.  
No disfranchisement to the City of London that some Citizens of London chosen forth by the City served in the Hall at the King's Coronation assistants to the Lord chief Butler, whilst the King sits at Dinner the day of his Coronation, 
(c) Cromptons' jurisdiction of Couts.  and when he enters into his Chamber after Dinner, and calls for Wine, the Lord Mayor of London is to bring him a Cup of Gold with Wine, and have the Cup afterwards given to him, together with the Cup that contains water to allay the Wine, and that after the King hath drunk, the said Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen of London, are to have their Table to Dine at, on the left hand of the King in the Hall. Or to the Barons of the Cinque Ports, who claim & are allowed to bear at the King's Coronation a Canopy ●f cloth of Gold over him, with four Staves, and four Bells at the four corners, every Staff having four of those Barons to bear it. Also to Dine and sit at the Table next to the King on his right hand, in the Hall the day of his Coronation: And for their Fees to have the said Canopy of Gold, with the Bells and Staves.  
Or that at the Coronation of Eli●nor, Wife to King Henry the third Marchiones de Marchia Walliae videlicet Joannes filius Alani Radulphus de m●r●uo mari Joannes de Monmouth, et Walterus de Clifford nomine Marchiae jus Marchiae esse dicebant hastas argenteas inveniendi et las deferendi ad sustentandum pannum Sericum quadratum purpureum, in Coronatione Regum et Reginarum Angliae; The Lords Marchers of Wales, videl. john Fitz Alan, Rafe de Mortimer, 
(d) Lib. rub. in Scac. et Camden Brit▪ 523.  john de Monmouth, and Walter de Clifford, in behalf of the Marches, did claim and allege it to be their right, to provide silver Spears or Lances, and with them to bear or carry a four square Canopy of Purple Silk over the Kings and Queens of England at their Coronation.  
For those Tenors in grand serjeanty, were ever (as in all reason they deserved to be) accounted to be so honourable as some have made it their Surname, as the noble Earls of Ormond in Ireland, descended from an ancient and worthy English Family have done, who carry in their Coat of Arms, or part of their now marks of honour, or bearing the Symbols, or remembrance of the Office of chief Butler in Ireland, which with the prisage which is a part of it, hath by King E. the 3 d. been granted to the Ancestors of the now marquis, & Earl of Ormond by Inheritance, and a Knightly and good Family of the Chamberlains in England, do account it no dishonour to have been descended from th● Earls of Tankervile, who were Chamberlains to our King H. 1. in Normandy.  
And some branches of the noble Family of the Greys of Wilton, being ancient Barons of England, holding the Manor of Waddon in Buckinghamshire of the King, per servitium custodiendi unum Gerfalconem Domini Regis, by the service of keeping a Gerfalcon of the Kings, do use or bear as a badge or mark of honour in their Arms a Gerfaulcon, & the Manor of Wymondley, in the County of Hertford, being holden of the King by Grand serjeanty, of giving to the King the first Cup of Wine or Beer upon the day of his Coronation, The Family of" Argentons, being by the marriage of a Daughter and Heir of the Lord Fitz Tece, become at the Conquest the possessors of it, have thought it honourable saith Camden, to bear in their Shields in memory thereof three Cups argent in a field Gules.  
No oppression to the people of England to be kept safe in their peace and plenty, from the Incursions of Foreign Enemies, 
(w) Camden Brit. 353.  when William the Conqueror fortified Dover, a strong and principal Bulwark betwixt England and France, with whom we had then continual Wars or Jealousies, and gave to john Fines, than a Noble Man of great prowess and fidelity, the Custody of that, and the rest of the Cinque-Ports, with 56 Knights Fees, willing him (as that Learned Antiquary Mr. Lambard tells us) to 
(x) Lambard perambulation of Kent 362▪  communicate some parts of that gift to such other valiant and trusty persons as he should best like of, for the more sure conservation of that most noble and precious Fort and Castle,  
Who thereupon imparting liberally out of those Lands to eight worthy Knights, viz. William of Albrance, Fulbert of Dover, William Arsick, Geoffrey Peverel, William Mainemouth, Robert Porthe, Robert Crevequer, and Adam Fitz-Williams, bound them and their Heirs by Tenure of their Lands received of the King to maintain 112 Soldiers amongst them, which were so divided by Months of the years, as five and twenty of them were continually to watch, and ward within the Castle, for their several parts of time, and all the rest ready upon necessity, each of which eight Knights had their several Charges in several Towers and Bulwarks, and were contented (as well they might) at their own dispense to maintain and repair the same.  
Of whom divers of the Towers and Bulwarks do yet, or did but in Queen Elizabeth's reign bear their names.  
No inconvenience or mischief to the public that the Castle and 
(y) Camden Brit. 505.  Barony of Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, was holden by John Hastings per Hom●g●●m Wardam & Maritagium cum accide●it & s● guerra fuerit inter Regem Angliae & Principem Walliae deberet custodire patriam de Over went sumptibus proprijs meliori modo quo poterit pro commodo suo & utilitate Regis & defension Regni Angliae, by Homage, Ward, and Marriage, when it should happen, and if War should be between the King of England and the Prince of Wales was to guard at his own charges the Country called Over went, the best way that he could for his profit, and benefit of the King, and defence of the Kingdom of England.  
No cause of complaint to the Town, or anciently called City of Leicester, for that veteri Instituto by ancient Custom, they were to furnish the King with twelve Burgesses or Townsmen, 
(r) Camden Brit. 463. in 4●●.  when he went to War, and i● per Mare in Hosts ibat mittebant quatuor Equos usque Londinum ad arma comportanda vel alia quae opus essent, he went by Sea were to send four Horses as far as London, to carry his Arms or other necessaries.  
Nor to the Town of Warwick to be enjoined by Tenure, to send 
(s) Camden Brit. 505.  twelve of their Burgesses or Townsmen with their King to War, and qui monitus non ibat centum solidos Regi emendabat, he which was summoned and did not go, was to forfeit & pay one hundred shillings to the King, And cum contra Hostes per Mare ibat Rex, quatuor Botesuenas, vel quatuor libras denariorum mittebant, when the King should be by Sea against his Enemies, should furnish four Boat-Swains or Mariners, or send four pounds in money.  
No harm done to give Lands at Seaton, which Sr. Richard Rockslye Knight did hold by Serjeanty to be 
(t) Ro. ●in. 11 E. 2. Coke● 1 part Instit. 70.  vantrarius Regis the King's fore-footman when he went into Gascoigne, donec per usus fuit parisolutarum precij 4d until he had worn out a pair of Shoes of four pence, than the price of a pair of Shoes for a worthy man not 4 s. 6. or 5 s. as they are now. Or Lands to another to furnish duos A●migeros, two Esquires to march in his Vanguard, upon occasion of War with the Welsh.  
Or that the Princes of Wales, ab antiquis temporibus very anciently, did hold that Principality and part of Britain of the Kings of England, in Capite, by Military or Knight Service, and that, upon that ground only as he was a liege man and subject of England, Leoline Prince of Wales was for raising of War against his Superior Lord imprisoned, and hanged or beheaded by King E. 1. and the Principality of Wales as an Escheat annexed to the Crown of England.  
And as little when any held of the King in Capite by some other Service and not in Chivalry and by Knight Service, as the Town of Shrewsbury to cause 12 Townsmen apud 
(u) Camden Brit. 530.  Angliae Reges excubare cum in illa urbe agerent; To watch and ward about the King's Person (which the affrighted Cromwell with his guilty and terrified Conscience would have been well content with) totidemque concomitare cum venatum prodirent, and as many to attend him whilst he road on hunting, Or when Richard Pigot of Stanford in the County of Hereford, or his Ancestors had two Yard Land given him there by the King to hold in Capite per servitium conducendi Thesaurum Domini Regis, (which Sir Edward Coke calleth Firmamentum pacis, et robur Belli, the Foundation of Peace, and strength of War) the Hereford usque ad London quotiescunque opus fueries sumptibus Domini Regis et in redeundo sumptibus suis propriis, et etiam summonendi Episcopium Hereford ad portas Manerij dicti Episcopi de Bromyard si contingat Dominum Regem praedictum Episcopum implacitare; By the Service of conducting the King's Treasure from Hereford to London as oft as there should be occasion, at the King's charge in going thither, and at his own, in his return, and to summon the Bishop of Hereford at the Gates or door of his Manor of Bromyard, when it should happen that the King should implead him.  
Never troubled the heart of Roger the King's Tailor, when the King gave him a good quantity of Land in Halingbury in the County of Essex, tenendum per Serjeantiam solvendi ad Scaccarium Domini Regis unum Acum argenteum quolibet anno in cras●ino Sancti Martini, To hold the Serjeanty of paying yearly at the Exchequer upon the morrow of St. Martin a silver Needle.  
Nor did the Donees, or those who had those Lands of so free a gift or bounty esteem them to be any burden, could it be heavy or troublesome to their Heirs or those that should succeed them in those Lands, whenas our Kings did successively give away so great a part of the Lands of England as were holden in Capite and by Knight Service, either to follow or serve them in the Wars for their own defence as well as theirs, or for their attendance (wherein they received more honour than their Princes gained by it) at their Coronations, or other great Solemnities by grand Serjeanty or by petit Serjeanty, to present them at some times of the year with a Rose, or a Hawk, or a pair of Spurs, or an Arrow, to keep them a Hawk or Hounds, provide necessaries in their Progress for their household Expenses▪ Sumpter Horses in their Journey to some particular place, Straw for their Bed, and Rushes for their Chamber, as if they gave away all to receive almost nothing for it, and so willingly as be put themselves to some trouble to devise what kind of grateful acknowledgements should be made them in a perpetuity, or as far as they could reach to a supposed or hoped for Eternity, & that many of their Tenors where there were not necessaries in war or peace reserved, do seem to be but so far for pleasure and merriment, as they did not care what was reserved, so it was but something, as to hold the King's head at Sea when he should sail betwixt Dover and Whitsand, or hold the Cord by which the Sail was tied, when the Queen (not to shoot with Guns and Canons, as some of the Covenanters for the late Kings good could find the way to do at his dear Wife the Queen Mother that now is) should pass the Seas into France, cum multis aliis, with many other sorts and kinds, not here to be enumerated without the trouble of a volume, which those honester times having a better opinion of gratitude, and not thinking it to be so crazy or mortal as now every one finds it to be, did liberally create and bestow.  
No wrong was done to them that had Lands given to them and their Heirs by a Mesne Lord, before the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum, as our forefathers the Saxons, long before the Conquest believed; when as Byrhtrick a Saxon of great note and eminency in Kent, holding Lands of Aelsrick a Mesne Lord, did by his last will and testament in the first place, give to his natural Lord a Bracelet of fourscore marks of Gold, one Hatchet of half as much, four Horses, two of them trapped, two Swords trimmed, two Hawks, and all his Hounds; and to the Lady his wife, one Bracelet of thirty marks of Gold, and one Horse to entreat that his Testament (wherein he devised great quantities of land to divers persons, and to charitable uses, and the Lords consent was very necessary) stand may, and prayed his dear lief Lord that he do not suffer that any man his Testament do turn aside.  
Nor to the County of Hertford, or places adjacent, when Leofranus Abbot of St. Alban, gave in Edward the Confessors reign, unto Turnot, Waldef, and Thurman, three Knights, the Manor of Flamsteed in the County of Hertford, to be holden by the service, ut regionem vicinam contra latrones defend●rent, to the end that they should defend the neighbourhood against Thiefs.  
And no hurt to the Commonwealth, when as the Nobility and great men of England, imitating the bounty and munificence of their Kings and Princes, for the enabling themselves to serve their King & Country, did bountifully give much of their own Estates▪ & Demes●s to divers of their friends & 
(y) Camden Brit. 361.  followers to hold of them by Knight service, or some honourable & seldom services about their Persons or Estates; As the Earls of Oxford, Arundel; Norfolk, Hereford, & Essex, Hertford, & Gloucester, Leicester, Chester, Lancaster, Northumberland, & other ancient Earls, did when they severally gave to those who had so little wrong done them by their kindness, as they have for many ages, and do yet continue men of worship and great estates in their Counties, as many as 100 Knights fees, many times more, and seldom less, to be holden of them by Knight service, which at the now value of Lands, reckoning every Knight's fee as Sr. Edward Cook doth, if at 100 l. per annum, which is the lowest value, would be 10000 l. per annum, & at 200 l. per an. which is the most probable medium rate, will amount unto no less than 20000 l. per annum.  
That Harden Castle in Cheshire, with the lands thereunto belonging, of a great yearly value in the County of Chester, was given by an Earl of Chester, to be holden of the Earl and his heirs, per senescalciam comitum Cestriae, 
(a) Camden Brit. 604.  by the service of being Stewards to the Earls of Chester.  
Or that the Castle and Manor of Tunbridge, and the Manors of Vielston, 
(b) Lambards' Perambulation of Kent.  Horsmund, Melyton, and Pettis in the County of Kent, were holden by Richard de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by agreement and composition made betwixt the said Earl and Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury, in the reign of King H. 3. by the service of four Knights Fees, and to be high Stewards, and high Butlers to the Arch-Bishops of that See at their Consecration, taking for their service in the Stewardship, seven competent Robes of Scarlet, thirty gallons of Wine, thirty pound of Wax for his light livery, of Hay and Oats for eighty Horse for two nights, the Dishes and Salt which should stand before the Archbishop in that Feast, and at their departure, the diet of three days at the cost of the Archbishop, at four of his then next Manors wheresover they would; So that the said Earls repaired thither but with fifty Horse, and taking also for the Office of Butlership, other seven like Robes, twenty gallons of Wine, fifty pound of Wax like livery, for sixty Horses for two nights, the Cup wherewith the Archbishop should be served, all the empty Hogsheads of Drink, and for six Tun of Wine, so many as should be drunk under the Bar; all which services were accordingly performed by Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Gloucester and Hertford, at the Inthronization of Robert Winchelsey Archbishop of Canterbury; and by the same Earl to Archbishop Reignolds; by Hugh Audley, afterwards Earl of Gloucester, to John Stratford Archbishop of Canterbury; by the Earl of Stafford, to whom the Lordship of Tunbridge at length came, to Simon Sudbury Archbishop of that See; and by Edward Duke of Buckingham, to William Warham Archbishop of Canterbury, and executed the Stewardship in his own person, and the Butlership by his Deputy Sr. Thomas Burgher Knight.  
No disparagement to the Knightly family of the Mordants, in the County of Essex, that they hold the Manor of Winslowes in Hempsteed, in the said County, of the Earls of Oxford, by the service of a Knight's Fee, and to be his Champion, and to come to the Castle of Hedingbam the day of the Earls marriage, riding in complete harness to Defy or bid Battle to any that should deny him to be Earl of Oxford, and to see what order was kept in the Hall there, which Robert Mordant Esq performed in his own person the 14 th'. day of December, in the 14 th'. year of the reign of Queen Eliz. being the day of Edward Earl of Oxford's marriage, though it was not there solemnised.  
Or to Sr. Giles Allington, the Ancestor of the now Lord Allington, to hold his Manors called Carbonnels and Lymberies in Horsed in the County of Cambridge, by the service of a Knight's Fee and a half, and to attend upon the Earl the day of his marriage, and to hold his stirrup when he goeth to horseback, which service he performed in person at White-Hall the 14 th'. day of December in the 14 th'. year of the reign of Queen Eliz. being the marriage day of the said Edward Earl of Oxford, in the presence of the Earls of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Leicester, the Lord William Howard, Lord Chamberlain of the Queen's household, and the Lord Burleigh etc.  
Those Dreams or Fancies of Grievances by Tenors in Capite and Knight Service, were never presented in those thousands of Court Leets, or Law days, which twice in every year now for almost 600 years since the Conquest, and very long before, made it a great part of their business to inquire upon oath of Grievances, Extortions, and Oppressions.  
Nor in those yearly grand inquests to the like purpose, which have been twice in every year, for many hundreds of years past, by the oath of the most sufficient Knights, Gentlemen and Freeholders', of the County of Middlesex.  
It neither was, nor is, nor can by any reasonable intendment, be taken to be a grieveance, to do, or perform that which by the Laws of God, Nature, and Nations, the Laws, reasonable Customs, and the fundamental Laws of England, hath so often, and through all times and ages, and the memory of man and Records, which are monumenta veritatis, & vetustatis, ever been allowed, repeated, and confirmed in Parliament, without the least of any contradiction, or repeal, and is but upon necessity and occasion to defend the King, themselves, their Country, Friends, and Neighbours, and to do that which every Gentleman, and such as are e meliori Luto, of the more refined Clay, and better born, & bred than the vulgus, or common sort of people would be willing to do & as that learned French Lawyer B●issonius well observeth, 
(c) Barn. Brisson. in Basilic. lib. 6. tit. 13.  Qu' en la necessite de guerre toutes l●s gentilz hommes sont tenus de prendre les A●mes p●ur la necessite du Roy, That in necessity of War, every Gentleman is bound to take Arms, and go to the Wars, 
(d) 21 E. 3. ●3. 45. E. 3. ●●.  for the defence of the King, which by our Laws of England, is so to be encouraged, as it is Treason to kill any man that goeth to aid the King in his Wars, and is no more than what the Oaths of Allegiance, and Supremacy doth bind every Englishman unto, though they should tarry in the Camp more than forty days, 
(e) judges 5.23.  or not have Escuage, or any allowance of their charges from their own Tenants, and is but that duty which Deborah and Baruch believed that every Subject was bound to perform, when they cursed Meroz (not as some of our Pulpit Incendiaries did when they traitorously inverted the Text, to encourage the people to fight against their King) in that they came not forth to battle to help the Lord against the mighty, and the loyal Uriah would not forget, when the King himself could not persuade him to go into his own House, to eat, and to drink, and lie with his Wife, when the Ark, and Judah and Israel abide in Tents, 
(f) 2 Sam▪ 11 11.  and his Lord Joab, and the Servants of his Lord were encamped in the open field, and which the good old Barzillai, in the rebellion of Absolom against his King and Father David, thought was incumbent upon him, when he could not bring his loyal mind to think it to be enough to provide the King of sustenance, while he lay at Mahanami, unless when he himself was fourscore years old, and could not taste what he eat or drank; he also should come down from Rogelim, and go as he did with his Son Chimham, over Jordan, with the King to conduct him, and would not accept of the King's offer or reward, to live with him at Jerusalem (which those that hold in England their Lands and goodly Revenues by those beneficial Tenors in Capite, of a free gift, and in perpetuity may be said to do and have more also then was offered Barzillai for the remainder of an old and worn-out life, 
(g) 2 Sam. 19.31 32, 33.35. & 36.  but says why should the King recompense it with such a reward.  
And is but the performance of the original contracts made betwixt the kind Donors, and the thankful Tenants, and the observing of faith and promises, which is the ingens vinculum, and next unto the Divine Providence, the grand support of the world, and the quiet repose and peace of all mankind, makes a certainty in all their actions, and leads to the Mountain of Holiness, and the Hill of eternal rest and blessedness.  
No grinding of the face of the poor, which (if it were any as it can never be evinced to be) could not commonly, or ordinarily be in the case of such Tenors, when as those which are any way concerned in it, are men of good Estates and Revenues, and would be loath to be under any other notion to pay a reasonabe Escuage assessed in Parliament, when they went not themselves, or sent any in their stead, and where their Tenants went not in person to defend their Lords as well as their King, to have as much assessed upon them, and by no other than a Parliament, wherein the Commons of England had their Representatives of their own Election.  
Neither were the Kings of England, or the Mesne Lords in the case of those Tenors any Egyptian Taskmasters, when those that held under them, had such benefits and bounties of free gift, and if they have been since transferred, and aliened, that part of it, viz. the Tenors, and a grateful acknowledgement of the favour of the first givers were neither sold or paid for in the purchase, but the Services were by Act and operation of Law, and the Statute of Quia emptores terrarum, reserved to the first Donors, by an express Covenant in the deeds of purchase to be performed to the Lords of whom they were holden, and it is a maxim in Law, Quod nemo plus juris in alium transferre potest quam in ipso est, that no man can grant or transfer a greater right than he hath, or is in him.  
And are if a right consideration of things shall not be, as it hath been too much in the times of our late Frenzies, and Distractions, adjudged a praemunire, or committing high Treason. More noble Tenors than that of Soccage, by how much a rustic and Ploughman's life, and demeanour, was ever in all ages, and amongst all Nations, which had any civility, and understanding, justly accounted to be so far inferior to the Equestris ordo, Gentlemen, or men of more noble employments.  
As that those and not the military Tenors were truly accounted to be a kind of Slavery, according as they were in their original Institution, before the favour obtained of the King and Mesne Lords, to reduce their drudgeries, to easy and small quit Rents, and to be but little better than Joshuas Gibeonites, Hewers of Wood, and Drawers of Water, or solomon's Perezites, and Jebusites, to be employed as his Servants and Workmen.  
And as now they are, or expect to be in that which they would imagine to be their better condition, holding in free and common Soccage, by fealty only for all services, and being not to be excused from Aids, to make the King's eldest Son a Knight, or for the marriage of his Daughter, or to pay a years value of their Lands, and sometimes double the rent which is to be paid at the death of every Tenant, and may amount to a great deal more than the ordinary, low, and favourable rate of five pounds for a relief for every Knight's Fee, 50 shillings for a half, and 25 shillings for a quarter of a Knight's Fee, and lesser according to the smaller proportions of the Lands which they hold; would in all likelihood if they might but enjoy the ancient, and long ago discontinued privilege, which the Tenors by Knight service, in Capite, 
(h) Charta H. 1. et Regis Iohannis et 9 H. 3. cap 10.  were to enjoy by the Charter or Magna Charta of King H. 1. of not having Lands of that kind of Tenure which was in their own Demean charged with any other Assessments or services than what they were obliged unto by their Tenors.  
And was no more than what was before the common Justice and right Reason of this nation, be now very well content to exchange their free as they call it Socage Lands, which was anciently understood to be no other than feudum ignobile et plebeium, an ignoble and plebeian Fee or Estate, 
(i) spelman's Glossar 260, 261.  and as Sr. Henry Spelman saith, nobili opponitur, et ignobilibus, et rusticis competit nullo feudali privilegio ornatum, et feudi nomen sub recenti seculo perperam, et abusu rerum auspicatum est, is opposed or contra distinguished to the more noble Tenors, and being not entitled to any feudal privilege, belongs only to Ignoble and Rustics, and hath of late times improperly and by abuse gained the name of Fee, for Lands holden in Capite, and by Knight service; So as they might be free from all assessments and charges of War, under which burden the Owners of Lands holden by any kind of Tenors have for these last Twenty years heavily groaned, and if Mr. Prynne had not publicly and truly said it did mu●●is parasangis, by many and very many degrees out go all that was pretended to be a Grievance, by the Court of Wards, and Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, which all things rightly considered, are a more free, beneficial, frank, and noble kind of Tenure, the Marriages of the Heirs in Minority only excepted, which not often happening are notwithstanding abundantly recompensed by the freeness of the gift, seldom Services and other Immunityes.  
Then Socage, which those many Tenants which hold by a certain rent of Sir Anthony Weldens Heir for Castleguard to the ruined Rochester Castle in Kent, to pay 3 s. 4 d. nomine paenae, by way of Penalty for every Tide, which after the Time limited for payment, shall run under Rochester Bridge, and the Rent and Arrears refused, though tendered the next day, do not find to be the best of Tenors, or so good as that of Knight Service, & in Capite.  
Which is better than that which the Tenants in Cumberland and other Northern Parts do claim by a kind of inheritance and Tenant Right, 
(k) Littleton cap. 9  wherein they can be well contented to pay their Lord a thirty penny ●ine at every Alienation, and a twenty penny upon the Death of an Ancestor, or the death of their Lord according to the Rate of the small yearly Rent which they pay to their Lords, 
(l) Fitz Herbert N. B. 12. b. 14. & 165.   
Better than all or most kind of Estates or Tenors, and better than that at will, which many are well apaied with, and better than those of Copyholders, 
(m) Mich. 7 E. 4.19.  who if the Lords of Manors put them out of their Estates, have no Remedy but by Petition to them.  
Can have no Writ of Right-Close to command their Lords to do them Right without Delay according to the Custom of the Manor.  
No Writ of false Judgement at the Common Law upon Judgements given in the Lord's Court, but to sue to the Lord by Petition, nor can sue any Writ of Monstraverunt to command their Lords not to require of them other Customs or Services than they ought to do.  
Are to pay upon their admission an uncertain Fine at the will of the Lord, who, if they be unreasonable, the most they can be compelled unto by any Court or Rule of Justice, is a reasonable Fine, commonly adjudged or estimated at two years' value, and either certain or uncertain, are to be paid at the death or alienation of every Tenant (which do as in Socage happen more often and constantly than that of Escuage and Knight Service) and have many Payments, Forfeitures, Restraints, and Dependencyes attending that kind of Estate and Inheritance, as in some places the Heir to forfeit his Land, if after three Solemn Proclamations in three several Courts he comes not in, pays his Fine and prays to be admitted, or shall without any reasonable cause of absence wilfully refuse to appear after summons at his Lord's Court Baron, or to be sworn of the homage, or deny himself to be a Coppy-holder, payeth not his Fine when it is assessed, or sues a Replevin against his Lord distraining for Rent-service, pays not his Rent, or permits or commits voluntary waist, by plucking down an ancient built house, and building up a new in the place, or cutting Timber without licence, may be fined or amerced, if he speak unreverently of his Lord, or behave himself contemptuously towards him, is at his Death to pay his best beast, or if he hath none, the best piece of his householdstuff for a herriot, and in some places for it varies according to several customs, is to give the Lord a certain sum of money every month during Wars, to bear his charges, cannot be sworn of the Homage, or bring a plaint in the nature of an Assize, until he be admitted Tenant to his Land, the Wife shall not have her Bench or Life in her Husband's Copyhold Estate, if she marry without Licence of the Lord, and in some places, if she will redeem it, must come riding into the Court upon a ●lack Ram, or as in the manner of South Peve●ton in Somersetshire, being 
(n) H▪ l. 7. E. 1. coram Rege.  an ancient D●mesne, where a Widow convicted of Fornication, shall as an Escheat to the Lord of the Manor, forfeit all her Lands and Goods, and the Tenant is by a peculiar custom in some places before he can enforce his Lord to admit any one to his Coppyhold to make a prosf●r thereof to the next of the blood, or to his Neighbours ab orientesole, inhabiting Eastward of him, who giving as much as another, is to have it, and many more inconveniencies, and unpleasing customs, not here remembered, which they who in the Reign of H. 3. and E. 1. Or when Bracton and Fleta wrote, were but Tenants at the will of the Lord, and by an accustomed and continued charity, fixed and settled upon them and their Heirs, are now become to be the owners of a profitable and well to be liked inheritance, secundum consuetudinem manerij, according to the custom of the Manor, could never by any manner of Reason or Justice, require a better usage, o● find the way to complain of, until our late horrid and irrational Confusions, when Injustice accused justice, Oppression complained of Right●, and the wickedest o● Gains, was called the refined Godliness, and when they got so much encouragement, as in the height of a grand and superlative ingratitude, to cry aloud and clamour against their Lords who were nothing else but their, good and great Benefactors, and would make as many as they could, believe that their Coppyhold Estates which were great Acts of Charity in the time of the Saxons, were now nothing less than Norman Slaveries.  
Are better also than Estates for lives or years, which are not (unless in case of a seldom happening minority, which is otherwise recompensed) so happy in their conditions, as Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, but are more clogged and encumbered with Covenants or operation of Law, than Knight Service, as the Tenant to be punished with treble damage, and a forfeiture of Locum vastatum, the place wasted, for waste committed or permitted to be done, in but cutting down an Apple tree in an Orchard, or a few Willows or other Trees that grow about the House, or ploughing up land that was not arable, cannot Assign his Term, or make a Lease of part of it, or cut down Timber of Wood without leave of his Lord, is stinted to his fuel or firewood, and to have so many Loads only to burn, is not to carry any dung of the ground, is to forfeit his Lease, if he pay not his Rent, if demanded at the time appointed, and many times strict Nomine Penaes' for every day after in which it shall be unpaid, must carry so many loads of Wood or Coal, every year for his Landlord, pay quarters of Wheat; Rend Capons, a Boar, or Brawn, a Mutton or fat Calf, and the like, renewing thereby again the old kind of Socage, by their own Covenants, or for their own conveniency, agreeing to find so many men furnished with Pikes▪ or Muskets, in the service of their Landlords, in the time of Wars, which was not long ago done in Ireland, by some Tenants of the late Lord Conway, which is no less than a Military Tenure, Wardships, and Marriage only expected.  
And whether for lives or years do live under as many other harsh and uncomfortable Covenants and Conditions, as the wariness, distrust, or gripping of their Landlords, will put or enforce upon them, which he that hath not the property of the Land which he renteth, and knows it to be none of his own, is to endure the more patiently, because if he will not take it, or hold it, so, another will be glad to do it, and that Covenants and Obligations which were at first but voluntatis, at the Tenants will and pleasure, before they were entered into, do afterwards as the Civil Law saith, become to be necessitatis, and cannot be avoided.  
So as Tenors in Capite and Knight service, being more beneficial, and most commonly less troublesome and encumbered, than either Socage, or Copyhold Tenors, or Estates for lives, or years, which are more than two parts of three of the Lands of the Kingdom, and are yet well enough endured, purchased, and daily sought for, and when all is said that can be truly, and rationally alleged for any good that is in them, that in Capite, and by Knight service, being the most noble and best of Tenors, will weigh heavier in the balance of any reasonable, impartial, or knowing man's understanding; it cannot be imagined from which of the many points of the compass, or Card of the vulgar, and unruly apprehensions the Wind, or Heri●an of the complaints can come which are made against them, unless any should be so brutish as to think the payments of Rent to their Landlords, or the performing of their oaths when they make Fealty, or their Covenants, Promises, or Contracts, are a grievance.  
And therefore until upon any account of truth, or reason, a just, and more than ordinary care of the King, shall be reckoned to be a Curse, Favour a Fault, Protection a Persecution, Benefits shall be taken for Burdens, Blessings, for Bondage, performance of promises, a Sin, and compelling of them an injury, and gratitude and due acknowledgement for Subsistance, Livelihood and Liberty, be made a cause of complaint, & every thing that gives the people not a Liberty to undo, cheat and ruin one another, be called (though it never deserved it) a grievance, it must and may well remain a wonder never to be satisfied, how Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, which until these distempered times, had no complaint made of them, nor could ever be proved to be any public, or general mischief or inconveniences, (for seldom, or as to some particulars, there may be in the best of Institutions, or the most eminent, or excellent of sublunary things●, or actions, something of trouble or molestation,) should after so long an approbation of so many ages past, without any reason given, other then by a bargain for increase, or making a constant Revenue to lessen the Majesty and just power of our Kings, which the Parliament will certainly endeavour all they can to uphold, be now so unlucky, as to be put and enclosed in the Skin of a Bear, baited under the notion of a grievance, and cried down by a few, and not many of the people, as many other legal and beneficial constitutions have lately been, by the vote and humour only of the common-people, or a ruining Reformation, which as to that particular was first occasioned by.   

CHAP. IU. How the design of altering Tenors in Capite, and Knight Service into Socage Tenors, and dissolving the Court of Wards, and Liveries, and the Incidents and Revenue belonging thereunto, came out of the Forges of some private men's imaginations, to be afterwards agitated in Parliament.  
OLD Sir Henry Vane the Father of young Sir Henry Vane, who helped to steal away the Palladium of our happiness, and under the colour of sacrificing to Minerva, or a needless Reformation, was instrumental in bringing the Trojan Horse into our Senate, & like the crafty Sinon taught the people, weary of their own happiness, how to unlock him, and to murder one another, and massacre our Religion, Laws, and Liberties. And Sir John Savil whose Son the Lord Savil, afterwards Earl of Sussex, (was too busy and active in the hatching of our late Wars, and troubles) and some other men of design and invention perceiving about the first or second year of the reign of King james, that his Revenue and Treasure by his over bounty to his people of Scotland, and their necessitous importunities and cravings, which is too much appropriate to that Nation, were greatly exhausted, did to s●rue themselves into some profitable actions, and employments, upon a pretence of raising the King a constant Revenue, of two hundred thousand pounds per annum, propose the Dissolving of the Court of Wards and Liveries, and the changing of Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, into free and common Socage, the only attempt and business whereof, bringing some of them out of their Countries, and colder stations, into the warmth of several after Court preferments, which like the opening of Pandora's Box, proved afterwards to be very unhappy & fatal to the most of all the kingdom, but themselves, and those that afterwards traded in the miseries and ruin of it.  
It was in that Parliament after a large debate, resolved, saith Justice jones, in his argument of the Ship-money, by the whole Parliament, that such an Act to take away the Prerogative of Tenors in Capite, would be void, because it is inherent in the Crown, & it being again in the seventh year & the eighteenth year of the reign of that King, earnestly afterwards moved, & desired to be purchased of him, and the King ready to grant it, & recomending it to the Parliament, it was then found upon advice & consultation with all the Judges of England, to be of prejudicial consequence to the Subject, as well as impossible, in regard that all Lands as well as persons in the Kingdom, being to acknowledge a Superiority, if the old Tenors should be put down, a new of a like nature might be again created, and the recompense given for it still continue in the Crown, as may be instanced in the Dane-gelt, which continued here in England, till the reign of King H. 1. long after this Nation was freed from the Danes, and the Alcavalas or Cruzadas in Spain, being a kind of Taxes there used and if new Tenors should not be created, the old perhaps might be again assumed▪  
And with good reason was then denied when King James was heard to tell his Son, the late King Charles, That such an yearly Revenue as was offered in lieu of those Tenors, might make him a rich Prince, but never a great, and when so many Troops, and Brigades of evils do march in the Rear or Company of that design, which was so per se and non par●il, as the necessity of Robert Duke of Normandies', raising of money, for want whereof he pawned that Duchy for ten thousand pounds, sterling, to enable him in his voyage to Jerusalem, to recover the holy Land, the imprisonment & troubles of K. Richard 1. in his return from thence, and his ransom of one hundred thousand marks, of 
(o) Sam. Daniel 121.  silver, raised by twenty shillings upon every Knight's Fee the fourth part of the Revenues of the Clergy, as well as the Laity, with the tenth of their goods, and the Chalices and Treasure (which may tell us how little money, and more honesty England was then able to furnish) of all the Churches, taken as well here as in the Territories beyond the Seas, to make up the sum, & those necessities which King John had upon him, & the great want of money which his Son King H. 3. endured in the Baron's wars when he was forced after sale of Lands and Jewels, to pawn Gascoigne, after that, his Imperial Crown and Jewels to supply his wants, & having neither credit to borrow, nor any more things to pawn, 
(p) Rot. claus. 37. H. 3. Cl●us. 46. et 47. H. 3.  could not deny his wants, the gauging of the Jewels and Ornaments of St. Edward's Shrine, and in the end as Sir Robert Cotton, if he were the Author of the short view of the long life, and reign of that King observeth, not having means to defray the Diet of his Court, was constrained to break up House, and (as Matthew Paris saith) with his Queen and Children cum Abbatibus, & Prioribus satis humiliter hospitia & prandia quaerere, to demand entertainment and Diet at some Abbeys, and Priories, and confessed to the Abbot of Peterburgh, when he came to borrow money of him, majorem El●emosinam f●re sibi juvamen pecuniare quam alicui ostiatim mendicanti 
(q) Mat. Paris 758.  that it would be a greater act of Charity to lend or give him money then to one that begs from door to door.  
Could never persuade them to any such remedies, worse than their diseases, nor did the unruly Barons of King H. 3. when they had him or his Father K. John, at the most disadvantages ever demand it of them or any English man, until the beginning of the reign of King James, & the broaching of this project, ever adventure to ask, or give such demands any room or entertainment in their imaginations, and is more than the Athenians and Romans ever aimed at, who in all their popular and restless turmoils, seditions, and agitations by the people or their Tribunes, concerning the Agrarian Laws, and making and changing of many other Laws, and several forms of Government, did never seek to take away or root out those long lasting monuments of benefits, and the acknowledgements and returns of gratitude, which ought to be made of them.  
More than the people of France in those hard Conditions which they would have put upon the Dauphin of France, afterwards Charles the fifth of France, in the troubles and imprisonment of his Father King John in England, in the Reign of our King Edward the third, and the strange and insolent behaviour of the Citizens of Paris towards him, when the Provost or Mayor, put his own hood half blue & half red upon his head, & compelling him to wear his Livery, did all that day wear the Daulphines', being of a brown black, embroidered with gold in token of his Dictatorship did ever demand, nor did in those great afflictions & wants which were upon Charles the seventh, when he was reproached by his Subjects, and the English had so much of France in their possession in the Reign of our King H. 5. and King H. 6. who by their numerous Armies, and the gallantry of their nobility and Tenants in Capite, and by Knight Service, were Masters of the Field, as well as of that Crown, 
(r) John de Serres history of France.  as he was in disgrace called the King of Berry, being a small Province, wherein he made what shift he could to defend himself, & when his Table failed him, so that he eat no more in public, but sparingly in his Chamber, attended by his domestical Servants, & had pawned the County of Gyan for money, ever require to be discharged of their Homages and Tenors, and the duties and incidents which belonged to them.  
Neither did the Justices or domineering Officers of State in Arragon in their height and extravagancy of power, which (for some time, until by its own weight, their Tyranny, or the subtle & politic patience of their Kings, it came to be dissolved into the Royal & proper Rights of that Crown & Government) they exercised over their Kings, ever make that to be any part of it, nor did the wants of John King of Arragon, when he had pawned the County of Roussilion to Lewis the eleventh King of France, nor of Ferdinand the Second, Emperor, when within these forty years in those devouring and destroying Wars of Germany, when the pale horse of death, and the red of destruction, rid up to the bridles in blood, he pawned Lusatia and Silesia to the Duke of Saxony, and the upper Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria, beget any such motion of the people, or Condescension of their Princes.  
And that unhappy project and design, had in all probability no more disquieted our old Albion, or Britain, sitting upon a Rock mediis tranquilla in undis, in the midst of all our late Storms and Tempests, which had broken the bag of Aeolus, & getting loose, vied with the raging waves of a distempered Sea, who should be most destructive, and play the Bedlam.  
Had not a necessity of the Parliament in An. 1645. and their want of money to maintain their Wars, put them again in mind of that way of raising money, all other that could be almost thought upon as far as the money, which should be spared by one meal in every family in a week, having been before put in Execution (so dangerous and of fatal consequence, are sometimes but the attempts or beginning of designs) and then as the vote tells us, the house of Commons having received the report from the grand Committee, which was ordered to consider of raising of monies for supply of the whole Kingdom, after some debate thereupon, ordered that the Court of Wards and Liveries, with the Primer Seisins, Oustres les manes, and all other profits arising by the said Court, should be fully taken away, and be made null and void.  
And that the Sum of one hundred thousand pounds per Annum, should be raised in this Kingdom, instead of the Revenue thereof, to be disposed for the good of this Kingdom, and that the proceedings of the said Court, should continue Statu quo prius, until an Ordinance for taking away the said Court, and paying the yearly Sum of 100000 l. be brought in, and past both Houses.  
Which might well have been forborn, when no general or extraordinary, and not otherwise to be prevented evils, but only want of money for aught yet appears, did, or could persuade them unto it for a Subversion of so grand a Fundamental of the Government, Regality, and Laws, will never be able to avoid the dangerous consequences which will inevitably follow thereupon, and though it should be done by Act of Parliament, will but produce and usher in many numberless mischiefs and inconveniences to the King, Kingdom, Nobility, Gentry, and the most substantial and considerable part of the people.  
And will never be recompensed by the benefits hoped for, or which may happen by the intended dissolution of that Court, and alteration of those Tenors, which in the prospect or event will appear, if so many to be no more than these.   

Chap. V. The Benefits or Advantages which are expected by the people in the putting down of the Court of Wards and Liveryes and changing the Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service into free and common Socage.  
BY taking away the Service of War without the Kingdom, when the King or his Lieutenant goeth to war for forty days bearing the Charge of a man and Horse, and the payment of Escuage to be assessed by Parliament, if he neither go nor send one in his place.  
Respites of Homage, petit Serjeanties', Fines for Alienation, Wardships, and payments of Fines for the marriage of the Heirs in minority, a rent for the Lands in the interim, Reliefs, primer seisins, Oustre les manes, Mesne Rates, Liveries, and assignment of Widow Dower.  
The troublesome and powerful process of the Exchequer, costly and long plead of their Evidences, to avoid seizures for not sueing out Licences of Alienation, thereby enforcing them to procure pardons and to plead them.  
Costly Attendance upon Escheators, and Feodaries, finding of Offices or Inquisitions post mortem, producing and finding (if the party hath a mind to it) of their Evidences, Compositions, chargeable passing, and obtaining grants of the custody of the body, and Lands, of Wards.  
Trouble and charge of Writs of diem clausit extremum quae plura & mel●us inquirendum, Process of privy Seals, Messengers, Informations, Bills, & Demurrers, (as the Case may happen,) Answers, Traverses, Replications, Rejoinders, Commissions, Examinations, & Depositions of Witnesses, Orders, Hear Decrees, Injunctions, (all which are but to help to recover or defend the Wards rights, and if not in that Court, would be with as much or more cost and trouble as in other Courts) Extents, Seizures, Accounts before Auditors, Surcharges, and Exceptions, Fees to Auditors, and their Clarks.  
Concealment of Wardships, vexatious & chargeable hunting after them, and the cunning search and Inquisition which is made after them by the Escheators, Feodaries, or Informers, busy and malicious Adversaries, (which is not often, and but where the parties endeavour to deceive the King, and the Court, and evade the Law) and the extremities put upon them by granting it, and the Mesne rates, to the fierce discoverers, or such as seek profit out of other men's troubles and afflictions.  
Restraints from felling of Timber without Licence of the Court, begetting the charges of motions, & the attending upon the Court and their many Officers.  
A constant and certain yearly Revenue of eighty thousand pounds per annum, or so much more as the Revenue shall fall short of twenty thousand pounds per annum, which the alienation office now yields to be added to it, will be duly answered and paid, to his Majesty which will with all charges & expenses deducted as is alleged, be as much as was yearly gained to the Crown by the Court of Wards and Liveries, or any dependences thereof, against which if there shall be opposed, and put into the other end of the balance, these inconveniences following they will weigh very much the heavier.   

CHAP VI The great and very many Mischiefs, and Inconveniences, which will happen to the King and Kingdom, by the taking away of Tenors in Capite, and Knight Service.  
FOR that Lands in Socage will if the Mothers be alive, during the minority of the heirs, most commonly fall until the age of fourteen years, into their Guardianships, who as all women which have an estate considerable, either real or personal, in their own right or their children's, do more than nine in every ten, (unle●●, which seldom happens, they shall be such good women and loving, as for their love to their Children, and dead Husband, to deny themselves their expected content by a second Husband,) by the temptations and flatteries of younger Brothers, or men of decayed Estates, transire ad secundas nuptias, marry again, all too often within the first year, which the Civil Law reserved for the time of their mourning, or retiredness from worldly pleasures, and do too commonly bring the children's Estate to be as a Sauce to the hungry enough appetite of a Father in Law, who being many times as good a Guardian to the Children, as the Wolf or Fox is to the Lambs, will be sure if he do not spend both the Mothers and children's Estates, and bring them to beggary, to be gnawing and put many a lurch and trick upon them.  
Which might be the Reason that the prudent Romans were so little willing that the Mothers of any Children should after their Husband's death be the Guardians of them, as they had a Custom that the Mothers themselves should be in perpetua Tutela in a perpetual Wardship or Guardianship, for Cicero would have it that Mulieres propter infirmitatem Consilii, 
(s) Cicero o●tat. pro Mu●ena.  Women though of full Age should by reason of their unfitness to govern or give Counsel be, in Tutorum Potestate, have Tutors assigned them, and the Judicious Cato declared it openly, in publicae Concione in a public Speech concerning the Oppian Law that, 
(t) Cato apu●d Livium.  Majores nostri nullam nè privatam quidem rem agere Faeminas ●ine Auctore v●luerùnt, Their Ancestors did not permit Women to meddle not so much as in private affairs without a Director or Overseer, And Ulpian tells us that, Lege Atilia sancitum ut mulieribus et pupillis Tutores non habentibus a Prae●ore et majore parte Tribunorum darentur, 
(u) Ulpian tit. 11. & Sigonius de antiquo Jure Civium Rom. lib. 1 cap. 13.  It was enacted by the Atilian Law, That the Praetor or Lord Chief Justice, and the greater part of the Tribunes should appoint Guardians to such Women and Children as had none.  
And if the Mothers should either make themselves, or be allowed by the Magistrate, as one way or the other it will be most likely to be, the Guardians before the Heirs age of 14. or if at 14, the Children should be left, as they must, to choose their Guardians themselves the Fear and Awe of the Mothers, or their second Husband's Enticements and Kindness but for that instant, will in all probability induce them to choose no other, & so whether before the age of 14 or after, it is likely to be no otherwise but that where the Mothers are living & married again, the selfseeking and purloining Father in Laws of the Kingdom will be the Guardians, and where there are a second Brood of Children which will not be seldom, the Estates of the Children of the first Husband shall be sacrificed by the Mother's Consent or permission to the benefit of the second Children, whose Father making much of the Mother or flattering her, finds it to be no hard matter to make her as willing to it as himself, and if she would hinder or doth not like, it can but steal her sighs and weep and lament in a Corner, for that which she may wish were otherwise, but cannot help it when she is, Sub potestate viri, Under the Power of a second Husband.  
And if not granted to the Mother or her second Husband, but to the Friends of that side which cannot inherit, which where the Mother is not an heir must of necessity be to her kindred, it will not then also escape another common, often, and sadly experimented fault or evil, that the affections and care which doth usually assist and encourage honest and fair Dealings, will not be so much in the kindred on the Mother's side, which is but taken out of their Family and transplanted into that of the Fathers, (where the Mother herself is to forget her Father's house and kindred,) nor equal that affection, care, and obligation, which is on the part of the Father's kindred to preserve that Family which wears their Name as well as their Blood.  
And whether the Guardian in Socage shall be Tutor Testamentarius, ordained by the Father's last Will and Testament, or a Pretore datus appointed by a Judge will not arrive to any better Fate or Condition than that where there be Executors or Administrators in personal Estates or trusties in Real or Personal, for Children and minors, or for payment of debts, who can many times neglect and forget the dying requests of Parents, on their death Beds, to to be careful of their Children, and their own imprecations, that God should do so and so to their own Children, if they should not perform the trusts, and let out their Consciences Hackney to the Devil, to find ways to deceive and wrong them, of whom and many other such Guardianships and faithless performances of trusts, our Courts of Law and Equity do daily hear more Complaints of frauds and cosening, than they can either easily find out or remedy.  
Which with that also of Father in Laws do in a woeful experience exceed ten to one all that hath been but only surmised of the Court of Wards, which being a standing Court where there are no Interests, but a care only of the Kings and the People's just Rights, and their Oaths cannot be so predominant or enchanting, as the Interests, advantages or designs of single Persons; And it is not now to learn that the Mischiefs done to Infants and their Estates are more where they be in Socage then in Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service, that there is a great difference between accounts that are to be made to a Court and impartial Auditors, and where the Guardians will account when or where they list, and give no security for true Accounts, and discharge of their trust, and without it are not to be trusted, for that many times they fail in their Estates and are impoverished, and the Evils that have happened to the heir of Helena or of Davenport, where some of the Soldiery which were formerly Tradesmen have in the usurpations of authorities made themselves to be more than like the Master of the Wards, and tossed and tumbled their Estates and Marriages at their pleasure, and complaints, are obvious where an Heir by the unconscionableness of Socage, Guardians have by the spoil and waste of their Woods and Estates▪ been damnified ten or twenty thousand pounds.  
The King's Tenants will be enabled to alienate their Lands to such as may be open enemies, or ill affected to his Person, Succession, or Government.  
Which will leave him a lesser power over his Subjects, in relation to his tenants and those that hold of him, than every Gentleman and Lord of a Manor hath in England over his Copyholders', or such as hold of them by Leases for lives or years.  
Which every Landlord finds, aswel as believes, to be so necessary as Citizens and Burghers, and all manner of Landlords, do both in little and great estates and leases, especially provide against letting, setting, or assigning without their licence first had in writing, unless it be sometimes to Wives or Children, which in the King's case, in matter of freehold, was in 32 H. 8. allowed his Tenants, so as they left a full third part to descend to the Heir.  
The education of the Heirs in minority of Recusants, or persons disaffected to the King, or his Government, or to the Orthodox Religion.  
Provisions for protections for younger Children, and care of payment of Debts, preservation of the Wards Estate, Woods and Evidences will be neglected.  
The finding of Offices or Inquisitions, post mortem, of the Ancestor, and the true extent and quantities of the Manors and Lands, and many times the finding or mentioning of Deeds or Evidences in the Offices, which in ancient aswell as latter times, have given a great light and help to titles and descents of Land, and the recovery and making out of Deeds or Evidences lost, will now be laid aside, and all things left in the darkness of ignorance and incertainty.  
Genealogies and Pedigrees, which by such Offices have only since the beginning of the reign of King H. 3. been deduced and brought into great certainties, will now be left like those of the Welsh, to believe one Ap after another, and Ap John, Ap Jenkin, Ap David, and whatsoever the wild traditions and boastings of our New men or upstarts and our Bards, or undertaking ignorant Painters▪ to draw money out of their credulous customers purses, shall be pleased to fancy, and shall not be so happy▪ as the Jews in their return out of their captivity▪ who were not to seek for the registers of their Genealogies, but be like the dull Thracians, who are said to have so short a memory as not to count above the number of 4 or 5, Or being like a House with the windows or lights only backward; or as a people with their eyes only in their backs, and in the time to come, not be able to give an account of our Ancestors further than our Grandfather's.  
And no other course or way being yet found to preserve the memory or right of Arms, or certainty of descents of our Nobility and Gentry, the people (which the more Peysant and Mechanic part will be glad of) will be left to fool and make one another believe their own Rhodomantadoes and Delusions.  
'Cause increase and multiply contention betwixt the Kindred and near Relations of the Orphans and Minors, in striving who shall have the Manage and Protection of their Lands and Estate, or as too often happens, most cleanly or hypocritically deceive or ruin them, or make an Interest or Advantage for themselves, friends, or kindred by their Marriages, which in these last twenty years, and the practice of Counterfeit Religion and Honesty, calling every successful knavery a Providence of the Almighty, (who not only hates, but will punish it;) can take 500 l. or or more at a time to make Mat●hes, where they pretend great friendships, and in an Age of all manner of cheating and cunning devices to maintain Pride, is become the beneficial employment of many that would be thought to be Gentlemen, or people of great respect or worship; and if a Tradesman or Citizen, whose riches and influence have of late been too much upon all men or their estates in the Kingdom (more especially those that are prodigal or vicious) should get a Guardian-ship, may do as the Dutch are now complained of, who out of their Weis Camer, Chamber, or Court of Orphans, can send their monies to trade as far as the East-Indies, not for the children's, but for their own advantage, and in the mean time make delays and pretences enough not to pay them their money, insomuch as a young Girl whose Parents died when she was but three years old, was of late so out of patience with Petitioning and attendance, until she was 17. as she had almost clawed out the Gref●●er● or Registers eyes, and in the chase of such controversies, which upon pretences of nearer of kin, weakness of Estate in some, or bad life and conversation, and unfitness in other, may aswel be lengthened and made to be very chargeable, as those are concerning Executors or Administrators, which do too often make the Infant's money and Estates the lamentable paymasters.  
Whereas in the Court of Wards, Controversies or Competitions for Wardships, were by reason of the instructions and rules by which they walked, easily and quietly determined in an hour or little more time spent, Summarily and upon Petition, only in the Council Chamber of that Court.  
There will not be that ready help or care which was used to be, for the preservation of the Wards estate from false or forged Wills, fraudulent or forged Conveyances, unjust Entries, and pretended Titles, and other Encumbrances.  
Nor for Tenants in tail and their Heirs, whose Deeds being found in the Offices, did many times prevent their disherision by Heirs, by second Venture, and forged Conveyances or Wills.  
Creditors cannot for want of such Offices sound, know how the Debtors Lands are settled, or what is in Fee-simple to charge the Heir.  
An Heir may now be disinherited by the frowardness of an aged Father, Instigated by the cunning and practice of a Stepmother, whereas a third part could not have before been conveyed or given from him.  
In Socage Tenors there will be nothing for the defence and safety of his Majesty's Kingdom, Person, and People, when every man shall be holding his Blow, or be supposed to hold by it, but the moiety of the Excise of Ale and Beer, to the value of one hundred thousand pounds per annum.  
The Kingdom will upon occasion of war or invasion, lose the ready defence, and personal service of the Nobility, who held per Baroniam, or as Tenants in Capite, and of many worthy and able men, Knights, Esquires, Gentry, and other sufficient Freeholders, and men of good Estate and Reputation, well educated and fitted for war, and completely armed on Horseback, & not like to be Runaways or treacherous which hold the remainder, and yet to be discovered Knights Fees, or any part thereof in an ordinary course of defence for forty days service (which in those times, and after the manner and way of war, and the Militia then used, was time enough to determine all or a great part of the unhappy controversies of War) by, and out of so many several Estates, than at twenty pounds per annum, since improved to two or three hundred pounds per annum, with not a few of their Tenants, Friends, Servants, and Attendants, going along with them, and may call or summon them to go with· him out of the Kingdom in case of a diversive War, or otherwise, which by the Statutes of 1 E. 3.8 E. 3.25 E. 3. & 4 H. 4. & 17 Car. he cannot do to Hoblers, Archers, Footmen, or the Train Bands, but in case of necessity, and sudden coming of Foreign Enemies into the Realm, and would have been sure of a gallant Army of Horse, which being the more active and ready part of an Army, fittest for charge or retreat, forage or traversing a Country, is by the French whose Nobless in War are presently on Horseback, and make it their joy and subsistence, to appear in the defence of their King and Country, found to be a great part of the Success in war as well as the Persians have done, who hath many times overcome the Turk by the strength of Horse, as the Hungarians and Poles have often done; And the Germans and Italians, did heretofore make great use of their Nobility in Wars, and made their Armies to consist most of Horse, for that they presumed quoth in Equestri militia praevalerent nobiles, that the Nobility would do best, and prevail when they served on Horseback, 
(w) Nolden de ●●etu nobilium, 62.  for as the great Estates of England; were held by Knight Service, so it was most performed on horseback, and such as found or furnished out Horses in War, were to be men of Gentility and value and did in person go with their Prince or their Lieutenant) and until H. 5. Time, gentlemans which every high Constable and Mechanic, 
(x) Waterhouse discourse of Arms and Armouries.  now thinks it to be too little to usurp the Title of) were not distinguished by any Title of addition, but by their forinsecum servitium, which was Knight Service, and in Kent where they claimed Gavelkind, were never put under that kind of partition.  
It must needs be very prejudicial to the King who is to protect his people, and to his people, who are to be protected by him, when as the King that hath none or very few Inland, Castles, Citadels, or places of strength, as Holland, Flanders, France, Italy, Germany, & most Nations have to retard the March of an Enemy landed, until he can summon or call together his Subjects and Forces, and cannot at once, or upon a sudden, be able to raise so many men as may be able to encounter, or vanquish him in the Field.  
Shall have no Legions, or standing parts of an Army, as Oliver and his Son Richard had paid at the charge of the public to rally and unite at pleasure, redress Rebellions, Repel and Oppose an Enemy, and if need be, visit him at home, and make his Country rather than his own, Sedem Belli, the Stage of War, to endure the Spoils, Plundring, Insolences, and free quartering of Soldiers.  
But shall when the Floods shall roar and lift up their voice, his Enemies compass him in on every side, and there be none to help him, be as a Prince disarmed, and left to entreat and expect the good will of his people, or the care which they will be pleased to take for themselves in the first place, & for him at leisure & hoping that they will not divide into parties of factions call or summon a Parliament, which will take up forty days or six weeks, and give the Enemy all that while the mastery of the field, and time enough to make up all his advantages, and in the mean time must not so much as require aid of them who have had their lands freely given them, or of those who hold Offices or Annuities under him, for the performance of their Homages, Oaths, Fealties, Contracts, Promises, and grateful acknowledgements, and when the Parliament are met, must tarry until the majority of opinions shall agree how and in what manner he shall be helped, which will not if it should be agreed upon the second or third day, but useth not to be in so many weeks, be speedily furnished when the money must be first raised (which in the late necessity of disbanding and paying of Soldiers, could not be finished in two or three months) and the men after levied, armed, and clothed, which where the Enemy, shall in the mean time have gained some Forts, Passages, or Counties, will not be so ready a way, or help at hand, as the use of Tenors, in Capite which like so many Garrisons invisibly dispersed, but no way oppressing their several Neighbourhoods are upon the score of gratitude as well as loyalty quickly called out and embodied, which made the Kingdom have the less use of Forts & Castles, & to be able in the Reign of King Stephen by agreement betwixt him and Henry the second to demolish at once 1150 Castles.  
Will lose also his Homage of his Tenants in Capite, and by Knight service, being the Seminary and root of the Oath of Allegiance, and the Genus or original of Fealty, which saith Sir Edward Coke is a part of Homage, 
(y) Coke 1. part I●stit. 64.  and is so much saith Sir Henry Spelman, 
(z) spelman's Glossar. in verb● Homagij 356▪  a part of Homage, as a release of Fealty is a discharge of Homage, which (the Oaths of Allegiance and Fealty, & the duty of them being now by the delusions of Satan too much disused, and strangely Metamorphosed into factions) will though the Oaths of Allegiance and Fealty should fail, remain fixed and radicated in the Tenors of Lands in Capite and by Knight Service, and when they concur, do altogether if rightly observed, make a threefold Cord which will not easily be broken, and were therefore by as careful as wise Antiquity invented to fasten Subjects to their Duty, any one of which cannot now with any safety to the King or his Kingdom and people, be separated or disjointed, more especially that of Homage, for that former ages understood the Obligation of self Preservation and Interest to be more binding than Oaths as Salmuthius in his learned and accurate Comment upon Pancirollus well noteth, 
(a) Salmut●ius in Pancirollum 280.  Ut amore humani ingenii pro illis habeant maximam Curam, in quibus suam vident esse positam Substantiam, That men most commonly take most care of that, wherein their Lands and Estates are concerned, which that ancient Committee-man and old Sequestrator the Devil well understood when he got an Order or Permission to ruin the Righteous, Job in his Estate, and our last twenty years can inform us how impotent and unable Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, Protestations, National Covenants, with hands lifted up to heaven, call God to witness Loyalties, hot and fiery Zeals, and pretences of Religion, setting up of Christ, and his Interest, and walking with God in the more (as it was wrongfully called) refi●●ed way of his worship, to resist or stand in the way of Interest, Dangers, Hazards, Selfseeking, and Self-having, in this world, but nothing at all in the better.  
Which the reserving of Fealty, or its being always to be taken upon Tenors in Socage, and as well upon Leases for years, as Estates of freehold and inheritance will not remedy, when as Sir Henry Spelman hath well observed, Fealty, though it be taken upon Oath is not so obligatory as Homage though it be not taken upon Oath, for that the Words of Homage are devenio homo vester ab hac die in posterum, de vita, de membro, & de terreno honore verus, & fidelis vobis ero, & fidem vobis portabo ob terras quas a vobis teneo, I become from this day forward, your man of life, member and earthly honour, and shall be faithful and bear faith unto you, for the Lands which I hold of you. And is not so awful & binding as that which was used in the British or Saxon times, or shortly after the Conquest, viz. ad defendendum Regnum contra alienigenas, & contra inimicos, una cum Domino suo Rege, & terras, & honores, cum omni fidelitate, cum eo servare, & quod illi intra & extra Regnum fidelis esse voluit, & intra & extra Regnum defendere. that is, to defend the Kingdom against Foreigners, and Enemies, within and without the Kingdom, and with the King to defend his Lands and Honours, with all fidelity, and would be faithful to the King within and without the Kingdom, & that that which is prescribed by the Statute of 17 E. 2. (in which also the form and words of the Homage is declared and expressed) ever since used, viz. Quod vobis ero fidelis et legalis, et fidem vobis feram de tenementis quae de vobis teneo, et legaliter vobis faciam, Consuetudines et servitus quae vobis facere debeo, ad terminos assignatos ut deus me adjuvet, that I shall be faithful and loyal, and faith bear to you for the Tenements which I hold of you, and shall lawfully do and perform to you all Customs and Services which I ought to do at the Terms assigned▪ So God me help, is far less obliging and comprehensive, 
(b) Spelmans glossar 268. ●● 269.  and so little in the opinion of the Tenants or Fealty makers, as sufficit plerunque; As Sr. Henry Spelman saith, si pactos redditus, exoluerit sectamque Curiae Domini, ex more praestiterit Domini autem non milit at nec armis cingitur; they most commonly think it extendeth but to pay the rents agreed upon, and do the accustomed suit and service to their Lords Court.  
Which in the Civil Law, form of an Oath of Fealty, used in the parts beyond the Seas in this manner, viz. Ego juro ad sancta dei Evangelia quod a modo in antea ero fidelis ei ut vassallus domino nec id quod mihi sub nomine fidelitatis commiserit pandam alii ad ejus detrimentum me sciente, I swear upon the holy Evangelists, that from henceforth I shall be faithful to him (id est the Lord) as a vassal to his Lord, nor shall willingly discover to another any secret which under the name of Fealty he shall commit unto me, was taken and found to be so slender a tye or obligation, as Alia de novo super fidelitatis juramento inventa forma et utentium consuetudine quae hodie.  
When Obertus de Orto wrote his books de feudis in omni curia videtur obtinere, 
〈◊〉 Olbertus 〈◊〉 Orto, lib 2. ●e feudis, & Cujacius Anno●. in eundem lib. 5, 6, 7.  a new form of the Oath of fidelity was found and invented, and is used saith he almost in every Court, and approved by those that used it, Scilicet ego Titius juro super haec sancta dei Evangelia quod ab hac hora in antea usque ad ultimum diem vitae meae ero fidelis tibi Caio domino meo contra omnem hominem (& where it is to a mesne Lord) excepto Imperatore vel Rege, I Titius do swear that from this hour to the last day of my life I shall be faithful to thee Caius my Lord against all men, except the Emperor or the King, which saith the great Cujacius by reason that the genuine sense or meaning of the words would not be so well understood by ignorant men, haec adijci solet, other clauses & words were used to be added (which amounted to as much as the duty of one that doth homage for Lands holden by Knight's service) which Cujacius thought to be necessary enough, quod plaerique fidem sibi promitti satis non habent nisi et fidei partes muniaque specialiter enumerentur veleo maxime si quid contra ea fecerint ut non possint negare se commisisse in Jusjurandum et feudum amisisse, for that they did not think it to be enough to have fealty & promises made unto them, unless the duties and parts thereof should be especially enumerated, to the end more especially that i● they should do any thing contrary thereunto, they should not be able to deny that they had broken their Oath, and forfeited their Fee and Lands, so little were they satisfied with the slight, or general words formerly used in the Oaths of fealty, though in more just and honest times, about the reign of Charles the great Emperor, the word fidelis, or a fealty, did contain in it (howsoever not expressed) a promise, de tuenda vita et honore domini et si quid aliud specialiter jurejurando exprimi solet, to defend the life and honour of the Lord and every thing else, which was specially expressed in the Oath; so great a care was taken to make the first intentions and promises of those that had those Fees given them to come up and be answerable to the good will and expectations of those that gave them.  
And therefore it may prove to be of evil consequence, if any of our new Socage men should like the Snakes thinking themselves the younger by casting off their Skins, fancy in their old or the next factious humour they shall meet with, that they are only to pay their rent and do the services belonging to their Lands, but are not bound to pay that principal part of their natural, as well as sworn Allegiance, to take Arms to defend the King and the Kingdom, more especially when they shall hold their Lands, in libero et communi Socagio, et pro omnibus servitiis per fidelitatem tantum, in free and common Socage by fealty for all services, which may be more than a little prejudicial to the Kingdom and the salus populi, safety of the people so much fought for, as was pretended to exchange the men of Arms and such as are fit for war, as the Tenors in Capite do truly and not feignedly import, for those that shall claim exemption from wars, and are by all nations understood to be the unfittest for it; when those that by Tenure of their Lands and by reason of their Homage and Fealty, were always ready and bound to do it, and those that by a fealty not actually or but seldom taken, will suppose themselves not to be bound at all unto it, but being most disloyal, will as some thousands of fanatics have lately done, imagine themselves to be most faithful, and where the Knight Service men were to forfeit their Lands so holden, if they did not do their service within two years, or pay Escuage assessed by Parliament, if they went not when they were summoned, or sent another in their stead, the new or old Socage men shall be under no manner of penalty of forfeiture at all.  
Which may seem to be the cause that England, and all other Civilised and well constituted Nations & Kingdoms, did put that value upon Homage (of which there is some likeness & of Fealty▪ also in that of the Princes & mighty men of Israel, and all the Sons likewise of King David submitting themselves at his command unto Solomon, & giving the hand under Solomon as the margin renders, 
(d) Chronics 29. v 42.  (like that Oath of Abraham's Steward) as they understood it to be of the Essence of Sovereignty, the great Assistant and preserver of it, and the Bond of Obedience fixed and radicated in the interest of men's Estates, kept in and guarded by their fear of losing them.  
And made our Kings so highly prise the Homages of their Subjects, and conceive them to be the Liaisons, or fastenings that kept their Crowns fast upon their heads, as King H. 2. when he had unadvisedly made his Son Henry King in his life time, caused the English Nobility to do Homage unto him, and R. 1. returning out of Captivity, had found that his Brother john had almost stolen into his Throne, caused himself to be Crowned the second time, and took the Homages of his Nobility; and our Kings have been heretofore so careful, as always at their Coronation, to take the Homages of their Nobility; and after a vacancy of a Bishopric, not to restore the Temporalties, until the succeeding Bishop shall have done his Homage.  
And appears to be no less valued by Foreign Princes, when as Philip King of France would, and did to his cost, refuse to receive the Homage of our King E. 3. by proxy, but compelled him to do it in his own person, for the Duchy of Aquitain, and an Archduke of Austria, was constrained in person to do his Homage to the King of France, between the hands of his Chancellor, for Flan-Flanders, and the now Emperor of Germany hath lately and most industriously travailed through many of his Dominions and Kingdoms, to receive the personal Homages of the Princes and Nobility thereof, and not omitted to go to Gratz, and Carinthia, to have it as formally, as really done unto him.  
And was such a Jewel in their Crowns, as they could sometimes to pacify the greatest of their troubles by the Seditions and Rebellions of their Subjects, find no greater or fitter a pawn or security to assure the performance of their promises and agreements, than an absolving their Subjects from their Homage and Obedience (which were as Synonimes, or of one and the same signification) in case of Breach of promises, as our King Henry the 3 d. did in his necessities to Richard Marshal Earl of Pembroke, 
(e) Mat. Paris, 1232.  that he should be freed from his Homage Si rex pactum suum violaret, if the King should break his agreement, and as the Ancient Earls of Brabant, are said to have done in their Reversals, or Grants to their Subjects, if they should infringe their Liberties or Privileges.  
Which the seditious party that deposed King Richard the 2 d. knew so well to be a grand Obligation or Tie, which Kings had upon their Subjects, as they put themselves to the trouble of inventing a new trick of Treason solemnly in the name of the three Estates of the Kingdom, viz. Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons, to renounce their Homages, Fealties, and Allegiance, and all Bonds, Charges, and Services belonging thereunto, which would have been to as little purpose, as it was contradictory to all the Rules of Right, Reason, and Justice, if they had not forced the distressed & imprisoned King by a public instrument upon Oath to absolve all his Subjects a Juramento fidelitatis & homagiis omnique vinculo ligeanciae, 
(f) Rot. Parl. 1 H. 4. M. 20.  from their Oaths of Fealty and Homage, and all Bonds of Allegiances, and to swear and promise never to revoke it, and is so precious inestimable, of so high a nature, so useful, and of so great a value, as nothing but the Kingdom itself can be equivalent unto it.  
And our Nobility did so esteem of the Homage and Service of their Tenants, and build as is were their Grandeur and Power upon it, as they did anciently grant one to another Homagium & Servicium of such and such Tenants. Maud the Empress gave to Earl Alberick de vere servicium decem militum, the Service of ten Knights. An Earl of Leicester gave to Bygod Earl of Norfolk, ten Knights Fees, which after the manner of those times, may with reason enough be conceived to be only the Homage and Service of so many, for the purchase of the Office of Lord high Steward of England, and John Earl of Oxford in the Reign of H. 7. did at his Castle of Hedingham in Essex, actually receive the Homages of many worthy Knights and Gentlemen that held of him.  
May very much prejudice in their Dignities and Honours, as well as Estates, the ancient Earls and Barons of this Kingdom, by taking away Tenors in capite & changing them, and Knight service Tenors into Socage, when as the Earls of Arundel, do hold the Castle and Rape of Arundel, which is the Honour and Earldom itself by the Service of 84. Knight's Fees, the Earldom of Oxford is holden by the Service of 30 Knights Fees, and that by a modus tenendi Parliamentum, so believed to be true, that King John caused it when he sent our English Laws into Ireland to be exemplified, and sent thither under the Great Seal of England, it is said that every Earldom consisteth of 21 Knights Fees, and every Barony of 13 Knights Fees, and a third part of a Knight's Fee, and were of such a value and esteem, as they were wont heretofore to bring Actions and Assizes for them, and their Homage and Services.  
And so little less in France, as the wealth of that great and populous Kingdom, is not as may be rationally supposed enough to purchase of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom, the transmutation of their Fiefs nobles into the Roturier or Feifs ignobles, nor are the Princes or Nobility of Germany likely to be persuaded out of their ancient Rights and Tenors into that of the Boors or common sort of People.  
The Nobility and Gentry of England, when their Military Tenors and Dependencies shall be taken from them, will not upon necessities of War and Danger, according to the Tenors of their Lands, their Homages, and Oaths of Allegiance, and their natural and legal Allegiance, be able to succour or he●p their Prince and Father of their Country, their Defender and Common Parent, as they have heretofore done, when as they stoutly and valiantly helped to guard their Standard, and Lions but for want of those which held Lands of them, and the Tenors by Knight service, will be forced to abide with Gilead beyond Jordan, and not be able to imitate their noble Ancestors, 
(g) Dugdale Illustration of Warwickshire, 116.  nor each or any of them bring to his Service three Bannerets, sixty one Knights, and one hundred fifty four Archers on Horseback, 
(h) Dugdale Illustration of Warwickshire 316.  as Thomas de Bello campo Earl of Warwick, did to E. 3. in anno 21. of his Reign at the Siege of Caleis, or as the Earl of Kildare did to King E. 3. in the 25 th'. year of his Reign, when he besieged Calais, 
(i) spelman's Glossar in verbo Hobellarij.  when he brought one Banneret, six Knights, thirty▪ Esquires, nineteen Hoblers, twenty four Archers on Horseback, and thirty two Archers on foot.  
It will take away the subjection of the Bishop of the Isle of Man, who holdeth of the Earl of Derby as King of the Isle of Man, and not of the King of England, and therefore cometh not to Parliament.  
Take away from the King, Nobility, and Gentry, who have Lands holden by Knight service, all Escheats of such as die without Heirs, or forfeit or be convicted of Felony, and the Kings Annum diem & vastum, year, day, and waste, where the Lands are holden of Mesne Lords, the Escheats of those that held of Kings, immediately being so considerable as the Castle of Barnard in Cumberland, and the Counties of Northumberland, and Huntingdon, which the Kings of Scotland sometimes held of England, came again to the Crown by them, and the power which King Edward 1. had to make Balliol King of Scots, and to determine the competition for that Kingdom, was by reason it was held of him, the Earldoms of Flanders, and Artois were seized by Francis the 1. as forfeited, being Fiefs of the Crown of France, & Flanders, and many other Provinces, forced to submit themselves upon some controversies, to the Umpirage of France, of whom they held.  
Enervate at least, if not spoil our original & first Magna Charta, which was grant by H. 3. tenendum de se & heredibus suis, and all our Liberties, and the many after confirmations of that Magna Charta, will be to seek for a support, if it shall be turned into Socage, & the Lib●rties also of the City of London, & all other ancient Cities, and Boroughs, and such as anciently and before 9 H. 3. did use to send Burgesses unto Parliament.  
Alter if not destroy the Charter of K. R. 1. granted to the City of London for their Hustings Court, to be free of Toll & Lastage through all England, and all Seaports, with many other Privileges, which were granted to be held of the King and his Heirs, and the same with many other immunities granted & confirmed by King John, with a Tenure reserved to him and his Heirs, for where no Tenure is reserved nor expressed, though it should be said, absque aliquo inde reddendo, it shall be intended for the King and the Law will create a new Tenure by Knight service in Capite. 
(k) Coke 9 Report, Leonard Lovelaces Case.   
A Socage Tenure for Cities and Boroughs, which have no Ploughs, or intermeddle not with Husbandry, will be improper when as there is not any fictio juris, or supposition ●in Law, which doth not sequi rationem, so follow reason, or allude unto it, as to preserve the reason or cause which it either doth, or would signify, but doth not suppose things improper, or which are either Heterogeneous, or quite contrary.  
Put into fresh disputes the question of precedency, betwixt Spain & England, which being much insisted upon by the Spaniard, at the treaty of peace betwixt the two Kingdoms, in anno 42. of Q. Eliz. at Calais occasioned by the contests of the Ambassador of Spain, and Sir Henry Nevil, Ambassador for England, it was argued or adjudged that England besides the arguments urged on its behalf, viz. Antiquity of Christian Religion, more authority Ecclesiastical, more absolute authority Political, eminency of royal dignity, and Nobility of blood, aught to have precedency, in regard that it was Superior to the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland, and the Isle of Man, which held of i●, that Spain had no Kingdom held in Fee of it, but was itself Feudatory to France, and enthralled by oath of Subjection to Charles the fifth King of France, in anno 1369. holds a great part of the Netherlands of France, Arragon, both the Indies, Sicily, Granado, and Navarre, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Canary Islands of the Pope, Portugal payeth an annual Tribute to him; and Naples yearly presents him with a white Spanish Genner, and a certain Tribute.  
Lessen, and take away the honour of the King, in having the principality of Wales, Kingdom of Ireland, Isle of Man, Isles of Wight, Gernesey, and Jersey, holding of England as their Superior in Capite.  
Enervate or ruin the Counties Palatine of Chester, Lancaster, Durham, and Isle of Ely, if the Tenors should be Leveled into Socage.  
Very much damnify all the Nobility and Gentry of England, who hold as they have anciently divers Manors and Lands, or Offices by grand Serjeanty, as for the Earls of Chester, which belongeth to the Princes of Wales, and the eldest Son of the King, to carry before the King at his Coronation the Sword called Curtana, to be Earl Marshal of England, and to lead the King's Host to be Lord great Chamberlain of England, which is claimed by the Earl of Oxford, to carry the Sword called Lancaster before the King at his Coronation due to the Earl of Derby as Kings of the Isle of Man, to be grand Faulconner or Master of the Hawks claimed by the Earl of Carnarvan, and the King's Champion at his Coronation claimed by the Family of the Dymocks in Lincolnshire, and very many others holding by divers other grand Serjeanties'.  
Prejudice the Families of Cornwall, Hilton, and Venables, who though not privileged and allowed to sit as Peers in Parliament, are by an ancient custom and prescription allowed to use the Title of Baron of Burford, Baron Hilton, and Baron of Kinderton, because they hold their Lands per Baron●am.  
Disparage the Esquires and Gentry of England, the first sort of which being as anciently as the days of the Emperor Julian, called Scutarii, of their bearing of shields in the Wars, 
(l) Selden tit. Hon●● 875.  and the other as our excellently learned Mr. Selden teacheth us, called Gentlemen, a gente, or the stock out of which they were derived, or because they were ex origine gentis of noble kind distinguished from them whom Horace termeth sine gente, or that they had servile Ancestors, had by their fears and prowess in War not only gained great reputation, but Lands given to them and their Heirs for their reward, support, and maintenance, from which custom and usage amongst the Romans, says Pasquier, 
(m) Pasquier de Rocherches de France li-se●ond 202.  the French in imitation of the Gauls did call those Esquires & Gentlemen, Quilz vi●●ent estre pourv●uz de tells benefices, whom they did see so provided with those benefices or rewards, Et pour autant quilz veterent ceux cy n' estre chargez d' aucune redevance pecu●iare à raison de leurs terres benificiales envers le Prince et outre plus qu'a l' occasion d'icelles ils devoient prendre les armes pour la protection et d●ffense de Royaume le peuple commenca de fonder le seul et unique degrè de noblesse sur telle maniere de gens, ●or that they did see that they were not charged with any Assessment in money to the Prince by reason of the Tenors of their Lands, and that therefore they were upon all occasions to take Arms for the protection and defence of the Realm. the people took them to be a degree of Nobility, as appeareth by the stature of 1 E. 2. touching such as ought to be Knights and came not to receive that order.  
Take away a great part of the root and foundation of the Equestris ordo, and ancient and honourable degree of Knighthood in England, which was derived and took its beginning from the service of their Lands which were military, for the chief Gentlemen or Freeholdes of every County, in regard they usually held by Knight's service, saith the learned Selden, 
(n) Selden ti●. Honour cap 769, et 770▪  were called Chivalers, in the statute of W. 1. touching Coroners, and was so honourable a Title as the name of Chivaler was anciently given to every temporal Baron, whether he were dubbed a Knight or no.  
Blast and enernate that also of our not long ago instituted order of Baronetts, which are, though there be no Tenure expressed in their Patents, held by service in War, and a more noble Tenure than Socage.  
Take away the cause and original of that anciently very eminent degree of Banneret, when as such as hold Lands in Capite, and by Knight service, and had many Tenants also holding of them by Knight service, were able in a more than ordinary manner to do their King and Country service, by bringing their own Banner in the Field, which was to be displaced by the King or his Lieutenant.  
Make our heretofore famous English Nation in matters of Arms and feats of Chivalry, to be as a Pastoritium, or agreste genus hominum, to be Rustics and Plowmen, which the followers of Romulus, which were many of them but Rubul●i et opiliones, Sheppheards and Herdsmen, did not take to be a degree worthy the Founders of that great Empire of Rome, nor could be content with any les● then that of their Patricij or Equites, Senator's or Knights; And was therefore called Feudum n●bile et cognoscitur mul●is privilegiis inhaerentibus, viz. Gardia, Fidelitas, Homagium, Curia, Consuetudin●s, Jurisdictio in Vassallos, Banni, et retrobann● privilegium, jus Columbarij jus molendini, etc. A noble Fee which hath many privileges belonging to it, viz. Wardship, Fealty, Homage, a Court, Customs, Jurisdiction over Tenants, privilege of Ban, and Arriere Ban, calling them to War in defence of their Prince, a right to have a Dove-house and a Mill, the two latter of which others could not heretofore build or enjoy without the King's licence, Equibus liquet ingentem maneriorum nostrorum multitudinem Normannis, 
(o) Spelmans glossar 261.  enim abunde auctam videmus ex privilegiis ad feuda militaria olim spectantibus originem sumpsisse, by which it is manifest that our great number of Manors came to be abundantly increased by the Normans, and took their beginning from the privileges belonging to Knights Fees; Take away all the Manors and Court Barons of the Kingdom, 
(p) Spelmans glossar in verbo f●●dum nobile.  which being before the statute of Quia emptores terrarum, created by the Lords, who parceled out the Lands, which the King had before given them to several Friends or Tenants to be held of them and their Heirs by Knight service, and some other part in Socage, to plow their Lands and carry their Hay, etc. and to do suit to the Courts (of which the Freeholders' are said to be the Homage) holden for their Manor in whose Jurisdiction the Lands do lie, and are no small part of the legal and necessary privileges and power of the Gentry or Lords of Manors over their Tenants, which were as Sr. Edward Coke saith given them for the defence of the Kingdom, 
(q) Coke 1. part Institutes 58●  and do not only very much conduce to the well ordering of their Tenants, but to the universal peace and welfare of the Nation, in their inferior Orbs and Motions subordinate to the higher.  
Were all at the first derived out of Knight service, as evidently appears by Edward the Confessors Laws, wherein it was ordained that Barones qui suam habent Curiam de suis hominibus, 
(r) Spelmans glossar  which have their Court consisting of their men and Tenants, Et qui Sacham et Socam habent id est Curiam et Jurisdictionem super Vassallis suis, 
(s) LL Edwa●di R●gis 9.21.  have a Court and Jurisdiction over their Tenants, are to do right to their Tenants, and by the fall of those many thousand Manors, & Court Barons in the Kingdoms, which will at the same time die and perish with the Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service.  
Extinguish the Copyhold Estates, which belong unto them, which by the destruction of the Manors, and Court Barons, will also fall, for as there can be no Court Baron without Freeholders, so no customary Court without Copiholders.  
And once lost, or but altered, cannot be created again, for that now a Subject cannot make a Manor, which must be part in demesnes, and part in services, to hold of him by services and Suit of Court, which is to be by a long continuance of time a tempore cujus contrarij memoria hominum non existit, and if there be no Court the Customary Tenants, or Copiholders cannot enter their Plaints, make Surrenders, and be admitted.  
Turn the Tenors in Capite, which are only so called from the duty of Homage, and the acknowledgement of Sovereignty, and Headship in the King, into a Tenure in Socage, which is so far from acknowledging the King to be chief, or to engage, as the other doth their Lands, to do him service as it is but a Tenure, as it were a latere, & is no more than what one Neighbour may acknowledge to hold or do to another, for his Rent, or money be a Lease for a Life, or one or more years, or as Tenant at will, and levels and makes rather an equality, than any respect of persons, which if ever or at all reasonable, or fit to be done, is in a democratical or popular way of Government, but will be unexampled, and is not at all to be in Monarchy, & may make many of the people which are not yet recovered out of a gainful Lunacy, to believe they were in the right when they supposed themselves to be the Sovereigns.  
Ireland, which in the subverting Olivers time, was to have their Swords by the like Tenure, turned into Ploughshares, though their wars and taxes were never intended to leave them, was to pay but 12000 l. per annum, to turn their better Tenors & Conditions into worse, will if they be not come again to their wits expect the like prejudicial bergain.  
Bring many inconveniences and mischiefs to the Nobility and Gentry of Scotland, if their Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, and those which are holden of them as Mesn Lords, shall as ours, be taken away with their services and dependencies, Licences of Alienation, benefits of Investitures, infeodations, and the like, it being amongst others as a reason given for Wardships in that Kingdom, in the Laws of Scotland, in the reign of their Malcombe the 2. (which was before the Conquerors entering into England, Ne non suppeterent Regiae Majestatis facultates, to the end that the King should have wherewithal to defend the Kingdom.  
And a letting loose of a fierce and unruly people, who are best of all kept in awe & order by a natural & long & well enough liked subjection to their Mesne Lords and Superiors, into a liberty which cannot be done without a disjointing and overturning all the Estates of the Nobility and Gentry of that Kingdom, and may like our late English Levellers, either endeavour to do it, or bring themselves and the whole Nation, to ruin by a renversing of the fundamental Laws, and that ancient order and constitution of that Kingdom, wherein the estates and livelihood of all the Nobility and Gentry, and better part of the people are hugely concerned.  
And besides a great damage to the King in his Revenues, and profits arising out of such Tenors, if not recompensed by some annual payment.  
Will howsoever take away that ancient Homage and acknowledgement of Superiority, which from that Kingdom to this of England, cannot be denied to be due, and to have been actually and anciently done, and presidented, and not in one, but several ages, fidem & obsequium ut vassallos Angliae Regibus, & superioribus dominis jurejurando promisisse, to have done their Homage and Fealty as vassals to our English Kings, and bound themselves by oath thereunto, as namely, to Alfred, Edgar, Athelstane, William the Conqueror, William Rufus, Maud the Empress, Henry the second, and Edward the first, the later of whom with all the Baronage of England, in a Letter to the Pope, did upon the search of many Evidences and Records stoutly assert it.  
Will be no small damage and disturbance to the Kings other Regalities, and Prerogatives, and in the Tenors of the Cinque Ports, who are to provide fifty ships for the guarding of the Seas, and the Town of Maldon in Essex one, the Town of Lewis in Sussex, as the Book of Doomsday informeth, where King Edward the Confessor had 127 Burgesses in dominio & eorum consuetudo erat, si Rex ad Mare custodiendum sine se suos mittere voluisset, de omnibus hominibus cujuscunque terrae fuissent colligebant 20 s●lidos & hos habebant qui in manibus arma custodie●ant, had 127 Burgesses in his deme●ne of the King, and when he sent any of his men to guard the Seas, they were to gather 20 s. a man, which was to be given to those that manned the Ships, & in Colchester where the custom than was, that upon any expedition of the Kings by Sea or Land, every house was to pay six pence ad victum soldariorum Regis, towards the quarter or livelihood of the King's Soldiers, and likewise prejudice him in his grand and Petit Serjeanties', and many thousand other reservations of honour and profit, by and upon Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, which revived and called out of their Cells, wherein those that are to do and pay them, are content they should sleep, and take their rest for ever, would go near to make and maintain an Army with men and Provisions.  
The King when the Tenors in Capite shall be taken away, shall never be able to erect his Standard and to call thereunto all that hold Lands, Fees, Annuities, and Offices of him, to come to his assistance, according to the duty of their Tenors, and the Acts of Parliament of 11 H. 7. chap. 18. And 19 H. 7. chap. 1. of forfeiting the Lands and Offices holden of him under the penalties, which was the only means which the late King his Father had to protect as much as he could himself, and his Subjects or to manifest the justice of his Cause, in that War which was forced upon him, and was very useful and necessary heretofore for the defence of the Kings of England, and their People, and proved to be no otherwise in the Bellum 
(t) Ethelredus Abbas Rienal●ensis.  Standardi, so called in the reign of King Stephen, where some of the Barons of England, and some of the English Gentry, gathered themselves to the Royal Standard, and repelled and beat the King of Scotland, and in several Kings reigns afterwards repulsed the Scotch, and Welsh Hostilities, and Invasions, and at Floddon Field in King H. 8 this. time, when the Duke of Norfolk and his Son the Earl of Surrey, and divers of the Nobility and Gentry which accompanied them vanquished, and slew the King of Scots.  
The benefit whereof the Commons of England had so often experimented as in divers Parliaments they Petitioned 
(u) Rot. Parl. 6. R. 2. m. 33. ●. H▪ 4. m. 24.  the King and Lords to cause the Lord Marchers, and other great men, to repair into their Counties, and defend the borders, and was so necessary in France, to assemble together the Bans, and Arrierebans which were but as our Tenants in Capite, as it helped King Charles the 7 th'. of France, to recover that Kingdom again out of the hands and possession of our two Henries, the 5. and 6. Kings of England.  
And if any Rebellion or Conspiracy shall hereafter happen. When 

— Cum 
(w) Virgil 1 Eneid.  saepe coorta  
Seditio saevitque animis ignobile vulgus.   

Fury, and Rage of War shall burn,  
And the Ignoble to the worst side turn.    
Must be left to hire his Soldiers or Assistance, out of the Rascality, Debauched, and Ruder sort of People, and such as know neither how to fight, or be faithful, if his Treasury or yearly Income, upon such an increased Revenue, can do it, when as without the necessity of his Subjects, preserving their own Lands and Estates by performing the duties and service of their Tenors, the money which the late King could have procured, could never have brought any considerable number of men to his Standard, of whose fidelity, being Hirelings, and such of the Vulgar and ignoble part of the people, as had neither courage virtue or Estate, or such as for a little more pay, would either have deserted or betrayed him, nor could he be so certain, and assured as he was in the aid and assistance of that of the Nobility and Gentry, and better part of the people, virtuously educated, and descended from worthy Ancestors, furnished out, and ready to attend him, with the haz●r● of all their Estates and Fortune's, and whose great Sou●s ●ct●d by a nobler principle, made them scorn to stoop to any unworthy Actions, baseness or villainy, which caused our brave King H. 5. after the Batte● at Agincourt, in a Muster, or Levy, which he was to make of Soldiers to pass with him into France, publicly to Proclaim, that none should presume to go with him (for then they needed no other impressing but the obligation of their Tenors and glory and honour of serving their Prince, and Country) but such as were Gentlemen, and had Tunicas armo●um, did bear Arms, except such as had served him at the Battle of Agincourt, though they had none.  
For if a War, which will be sure to lose no opportunities; but pick & cull its advantages, should break out before the rend day, or the monies can be gathered, he cannot likely want distresses or misfortunes either for himself or his people, when they shall not have wherewith to hire an Army; And failing of a necessary defence and assistance at Land, for want of his Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, shall also lose the help of his Ships and Navy at Sea.  
And if the King or any of his Successors should be so happy as to have money in their Treasury, which as the course and charge of War is now, must be no small sums to hire, provide, and continue an Army, it may be seized on as his Revenues, and all the money in the Exchequer, and much of his Plate and Household stuff were in the late Wars, and if he could be so well before hand as to have any Magazines, may have that as easily taken from him as his Magazines at Hull, and the Tower of London were, when his Tenors per Baroniam, and in Capite, and by Knight service were not.  
Can have no manner of assurance, that when any sedition or commotion of the people shall be bred or increased by the practice of some great men, or enticements of any of the Clergy, and a Bellum flagrans, or a War as sudden and unexpected as it shall be dangerous, shall break out not only in one, but several parts of the Nation, that the people or most vulgar and common sort of Hirelings will especially in a frenzy or humour of sedition be hired or drawn to fight for him by a small and inconsiderable pay, and the support of an Hospital when their wounds shall bring them into it, or a small allowance which the statute allows wounded Soldiers until they be cured, or maimed Soldiers which are incurable, shall be so very disproportionate to their danger and hazards.  
When the hireing also of common Soldiers upon a sudden and in case of necessity, will (if he could get them) be more chargeable and difficult then when he was to be served and defended in his Wars by men of worth and quality, under the engagement of their Lands and Tenors, which made our former Kings, besides those aids and safeguards by Tenors of Lands, to stipend and pension certain of their Nobility and Gentry whom they found most proper and fit to serve them by Indenture, with so many men at Arms or Soldiers, as for instance, Thomas Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, retained in 46 E. 3. by Indenture to serve the King in his Wars beyond Seas for one whole year with 100 men at Arms, of which number himself to be one, 160 Archers, 2 Bannerets, 30 Knights, and 77 Esquires, a trial or proof whereof would easily have manifested the difference betwixt the one way & the other, 
(x) Dugdale Illustration of Wariekshire 321.  if when the late King in his march or expedition against the Covenanting Scots in An. 1639. had such a gallant Army as he had of his English Nobility & Gentry, had disbanded them & taken as well as he could in their rooms only milites Gregarij, or Tirones, common and mercenary Soldiers; And may expose him in any distress, when his money or hirelings shall fail him, to that disloyal and rebellious late opinion too much entertained and taken in by Newtrals double dealing or time serving people, that where the King cannot protect them, their Oaths and Consciences gives them a liberty to make the best bergain they can for themselves,  
Take away also the foundation of the House of Peers in Parliament, whom the Laws and Records of the Kingdom, do prove to sit there only as Tenants in Capite, and per Baroniam, which well might be the grand foundation of so noble a Senate, when as amongst the Romans, their Senators were Lecti in senatum ex equestri ordine, 
(y) Sigonius de antiquo jure Rom.  chosen into the Senate out of the degree of Knighthood, and even by Brutus in his Consulship, and great endeavours to restore that people to their Liberty, was so approved, as that many ages after, Perseus Macedoniae Rex apud Livium lib, 
(z) Livy lib. 42.  42. Equites Romanos appellat principes juventutis & seminarium Senatus, calleth in Livy the Roman Knights, the Princes or Flower of the youth▪ and the Nursery of the Senate, 
(a) Sigoni●s. de antiquo jure Rom. 76.  and saith that inde lectos in patrum numerum, they where thence chosen to be Senators, and ex veteri instituto, the Custom was as Isiodore saith▪ that when the Senators Sons came to be of Age, 
(b) Perionius de Senatu Rom. lib. 25.  they were not to be admitted into the Senate, until they were Knighted. And Alexander Severus the Emperor, 
(c) Lampridius in vita Severi.  would not assumere libertos in equestrem ordinem, ordain or make Yeomen, or such as were newly 〈◊〉 to be Knights, or give 〈◊〉 (as he did) Lands to hold by Knight 〈◊〉, dicens· quod seminarium 〈◊〉 Equestrem ●sse locum, that it was the seminary for the Senate, amongst the Germans, who were as jealous to keep their Honour, as they were their Liberties Nobiles vocati Ritter id est Servator, 
(d) Nolden de statu nobilium 60. & 62.  Noblemen were termed Ritters, which signifieth a Saviour or Defender, quod virtute & fortitudine servent patriam, because by their virtue and manhood, they defended their Country, amongst whom the degree of Knighthood is worthily reckoned to be honoris species exercitium nobile & proprium nobilium, a degree or part of honour, a noble exercise, and proper breeding for Nobility, hinc militum nomen in Jure feudali pro nobili usurpatur, and thence a Knight was in the feudal Laws taken and used for a Nobleman, and though Hector Boethius calleth equites Barons, 
(e) Hector Boethius, Hist. Scot lib. 11.  speaking of those that paid for Wardship and releifs to Malcolm the King of Scots, yet Sir Henry Spelman is clearly of opinion, 
(f) spelman's Glossar. 85.  that Miles quem ea tempestate Baronem vocabant non a militari cingulo quo equites creabantur sed a militari feudo quo al●●s possessor & libere tenens nuncupatus est nomen sumpsit that a Knight, which in those ●imes they called a Baron, was not so called from the Military Belt or Girdle by which they were created, but took his title or denomination from the Knight's Fee, of which he was otherwise ca●led Possessor, or free Tenant, had jus Annulorum amongst the Romans a right to wear Rings, and was gradus ad Senatorium, a step or means to be a Senator.  
For Nobilium Ordo pro seminario munerum praecipuorum habetur, quia liberaliter educati sapientiores esse censentur saith Besoldus the degree of Nobility hath been accounted to be the foundation or original of the greatest Offices or places, for that being liberally and more than ordinarily educated, they were judged to be the wisest, and therefore Comites or Earls being anciently in the reign of the Emperor Charlemagne, (which was in anno Christi, 806.) if not long before, praefecti Provinciarum, & qui Provincias, Administrabant, the Governors of Countries, and Provinces under their Emperors and Kings, were with Dukes also and Barons not only in France, in those times, but in Germany also, afterwards inserted or put into the Matricula, 
(g) Besoldus de Comitibus & Baronibus Imperij. Germani 117.  or Roll of the States of the Empire, & in Comitijs jus suffragij habuerunt, and had voice or judicature in their Diets, or greatest Assemblies, which corresponds with that more ancient Custom amongst the Hebrews, 
(h) Num. 11. Joshua 23. Jeremiah 26.  in Gods once peculiar Commonwealth, where the Princes of the twelve Tribes, summo Magistratui in consilijs assidebant, did assist the chief Magistrate in their great Counsels and Arumaeus as well as many other, is of opinion that it was libertatis pars, a great part of the people's Liberties, & fo● their good, that deliberatio o●dinum consili● & authoritate quorum periculo, 
(i) Arumaeus de Comitiis 7.  res agitur suscipitur & qui apud Principem in m●gna g●●cia su●●, in those great Counsels Resolves should be made by those who should be in●●ressed, or partakers in any dangers or misfortunes, which should happen thereupon 
(k) Arumaeus de Comitijs 223.  & jure Comitiorum una & perpetua privativa est mediata subjectio qua qui infectus est nec Comitiorum particeps esse potest.  
That it is a Rule or Law in such Assemblies, that those that sit there, or have voice and suffrage in it, are to hold immediately of the Empire, and the Reasons of the first Institution of the Parliament of France, composed of the Nobility by the ancient Kings of France, and King Pepin was as Pasquier, that learned Advocate of France, observeth in partem solicitudinis, to assist their Kings, for the better management of the Affairs of Government, who did thereby communicate les Affairs publiques a leurs premiers et grandes seigneurs come si avec la monarchie ils eussent voulu entre mesler l'ordre d'vne aristocraty et Governement de plusi●urs personages d'honne●r, 
(l) Pasquier des Recherches de la France liure 2.72. & 7●.  the public affairs to their chief and greatest Lords, to the end, to intermingle, and blend with Monarchy, the order and manner of an aristocraty, and Government, by many personages of Honour, et ne se mettre en hain des grand●s Signior & Potentats, and not to draw upon them the envy of their great and mighty men, 
(m) Pasquier es Reche●ches de la France liure 2.72, 74, et 76.  Et ●estans les grands Seigneurs ●insi lo●s unis se composa un corpse general de toutes les Princes et Governeurs par l' advis desquels se viudereient non seulement les differents qui se presenteroient entre le Roy et eux mais entre le Roy et ses Subjects, And the great Lords being so united, composed, and made one general body of all the princes and Governors of Provinces, by whose advice and council, not only the differences which should happen betwixt the King and them, but between the King and his Subjects, might be determined, Et estoit l' usance de nos anciens Roys telle qu' es lieux ou la necessite les sumomioit se uvidojent ordinairement les affaires par assemblies generales des Barons, and it was the usage of the ancient French Kings in all cases of necessity, most commonly to consult of their affairs in the general Assemblies of their Barons, and accordingly by the directions of reason, or of that and the more ancient Governments amongst the greeks, in their great Council of Amphiction, or of the Romans in their Senate, our Saxon Kings did in Anno 712. which was almost one hundred years before the reign of the Emperor Charlem●in, call to their Assemblies, and great Counsels for the enacting of Laws, 
(n) Lambard d● Prisc●s Anglerum legibus.  and redressing of Griveances, their regni Scientissimos et Aldermannos Aldermen, Earls, or Governors of Provinces & the wisest & most knowing of the Kingdom, & therefore after the Conquest, King John did at the request of the Barons, not to call to his Parliaments the Barones minores, the men of lesser estates, which ho●d also in Capite, promise under his great Seal, Ut Archiepiscopos, Abbares, Comites et majores Barones Angliae sigillatem per literas summoniri faceret, that he would severally summon to Parliaments the Arch-Bishops, abbots, Earls, and greater Barons of England, and that the lesser Barons were summoned or sat in Parliament, falsum esse ipsa ratio suadet, saith the no less Judicious than Learned Sr. Henry Spelman, 
(o) Sr. Henry spelman's glossar in diatriba de Baronibus 79, et●0 ●0.  reason itself will not allow for a Truth, when as there was as he observeth ingens multitudo, a great number, et plus minus 30000 quos nullo tecto convocari poterat, and no less than 30000 which no one house was able to contain, Quemadmodum itaque saith he nequ● Barones ipsi consiliauè majores neque minores quempiam in Curiis suis ad Judicia ferenda de rebus sui Dominij admittant nisi Vassallos suos qui de ipsis immediate tenent hoc est milites suos et tenentes libere ita in summa Curia totius Regni nulli olim ad Judicia, et Consilia administranda personaliter accersendi erant· nisi qui proximi essent a Rege ipsique arctioris fidei & homagii vinculo conjuncti hoc est immediate vassalli sui; As therefore neither the greater nor lesser Barons do admit any in their Courts to advise them, or meddle with matters of Judicature concerning things belonging to their Estate or Jurisdiction, but their Tenants, and such as hold immediately of them, that is, Freeholders, and such as hold by Knight Service; So in the great Court of all the Kingdom, none were anciently personally called to give Judgement and adv●se therein, but such as were near to the King, and bound and obliged to him by a greater Bond and Tye of Faith and Homage, that is to say, his immediate vassals, Barones nempe cujuscunque generis qui de ipsi tenuere in Capite ut videndum est in breve de summonitione (wherein they are summoned in fide & homagio quibus tenentur, in the Faith and Homage by which they held) & partim in charta libertatum Regis Johannis, and Barons of any kind whatsoever which held of him in Capite, as may appear by the Writs of Summons to Parliament, & the Charter of King John. Hence the Barons of England are in our laws said to be Nati Consiliarij, born Counsellors of State, and Baro signifying Capitalem Vassallum majorem qui tenetur Principi Homagij vinculo seu potius Baronagij hoc est de agendo vel essendo Baronem suum quod hominem seu clientem praestantiorem significat, A Baron who is a chief or Capital Vassal, is bound to his Prince by the Bond of Homage, or rather Baronage, which is to be his Baron or man, or more considerable Client, and makes a threefold dvision of Barons, who by Bracton are called Potentes sub Rege, great or mighty men under the King, & Barones hoc est robur belli, and Barons, which is as much to say, as the strength of War, into feudal or by prescription, 1. Qui a priscis feodalibus Baronibus oriundi suam prescriptione tuentur dignitatem, which being descended from Ancient feudal Barons, do continue their dignity by prescription, 2. Rescriptitios qui brevi Regio evocantur ad Parliamentum, 
(p) Spelmans glossar 80.  which are called to Parliament by the King's Writs, & 3. Diplomaticos, which are by Letters Patents and Creation, and that Barones isti Feodales nomen & dignitatem suam ratione fundi obtinuerunt, those Feudal Barons do hold their dignity by reason of their Lands and Tenors, and that Episcopi suas sortiuntur Baronias sola fundorum investitura, Bishops are Barons, only by investiture of their Baronies Lands and Temporalties; And the most excellently Learned Mr. Selden, who was well known to be no stranger to the old and most choice Records and Antiquities of the Kingdom, doth not doubt but that the Bishops and Abbots did sit in Parliament and were summoned thither only as Barons by their Tenors per Baroniam, 
(q) Seldens Epistle to Mr. Vincent concerning his book against York.  and in his Epistle to 
(r) 47. H. 2. in dors● m. 7 & Pat 48 H. 3. Selden tit. honour 716.  Mr. Augustine Vincent concerning his Corrections of York's Catalogue of Nobility doth most learnedly prove it by many Instances besides that in ●he Case of Thomas Becket Archbishop of Canterbury in 11▪ H. 2. and the claim made and allowed in Parliament in 11 R. 2. by all the Bishop, Abbots, and Priors, of the Province of Canterbury which used to sit in Parliament, that de Jure et consuetu●ine Regni Angliae, all Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and other Prelates whatsoever per Baroniam Domini Regis tenentes, 
(s) Stamford lib. 3▪ cap. 62.  holding of the King by Barony were Peers of the Parliament which agreeth with the opinion of Stamford that the Bishops, ne ont lieu en Parliament eins in respect de lour possessions annexes a lour, 
(t) Camden Brit. 120.122.  dignities have no pla●e in Parliament but in respect of their Possessions annexed to their Dignities, and that Mr. Camden saith that divers Abbots and other spiritual men, formerly summonned by writ to Parliament, were afterwards omitted because they held not by Barony, 
(u) Seldens t●t. honour.  and that it was mentioned and allowed to be good Law in a Parliament of King E. 3. que toutes les religieuses que teignent per Barony soient tenus de vener au Parliament, that all the religious which hold by Barony are to be summoned to Parliament.  
And as to the temporal Barons, doth besides what he allegeth of the Thanes or Barons of England in the Saxon times, that they held by personal service of the King, and that their honorary possessions were called Taine-Lands, and in the Norman times after denoted by Baronies, and the eminent and noted Case of the Earls of Arundel claiming, and allowed to be Earls of Arundel by reason of their holding, or Tenure of Arundel Castle, and Sir John Talbots being Lord Lisle ratione Dominij et Manerij de Kingston Lisle doth by 22 E. 3, fo. 18.48 E. 3. fo. 30. & other good Authorityes conclude, that the Tenure of a Barony is the main & principal Cause of the Dignity that 130 temporal Barons by Tenure were called by several writs to assist the King cum equis & Armis, with horse and Arms, and the spiritual being about 50 were called, ad habendum servicium suum, and that the greatest number of Barons during all that time were by Tenure, that the most part of the Barons by Tenure and Writ until the middle of the Reign of King R. 2. and those that were called by Writ, were such as had Baronyes in Possession, that the honorary possessions of Earls were called Honours, and reckoned as part of their Earldoms which were holden in Capite, the chief Castle or seat of the Earls or Barons were called Caput Comitatus seu Baroniae, the head or chief of the Earldom or Barony, and that in this sense Comitatus integer is used for a whole Earldom in the grand Charter, and Bracton and Servicium quarte partis Comitatus for the fourth part of an Earldom, that Hugh de Vere Earl of Oxford, Magnavile Earl of Essex and divers other ancient Earls were Cingulo Comitatus & Gladio Comitatus cincti girt with the Girdle or sword of their Earldoms, which he conceiveth to be an Investiture.  
All which may by the Records of this Kingdom be plentifully illustrated by very many instances, and by the Rolls of the Constables and Marshals of England in which upon the March of the Army of King E.. 1. towards Scotland in the 28 year of that King, Humfridus de Bohun, Comes Hereford & Essex Constabularius Angliae recognovit per os Nicho●ai de Segrave Baneretti sui & locum suum tenentis se acquietari per servitium suum per Corpus suum in Exercitu presenti Scotiae pro Constabularia in Comitatu Hereford, 
(w) In Rotuli● Humfridi de Bohun Comitis Hereford & Essex the recognitione servitiorum Domini Regis Angliae pro guerrae sua Sc●tie An. 28. E. 1.  Humphrey de Bohun Earl of Hereford and Essex Constable of England, declared by Sir Nicholas Segrave his Baneret and Lieutenant, that he was to be acquitted for the Constabulary in the County of Hereford (where it seems some Manors or Lands in that County were annexed to the said Office or held by grand Serjeanty) by the Service of himself in the Army for Scotland, I tem idem Comes recognovit per eundem Nicholaum Servitium trium feodorum Militum faciendum in dicto Exercitu pro Comitatu Essex per Dominos johannem de Ferrariis Henricum de Bohun et Gilbe●tum de Lindsey milites, Also the said Earl acknowledgeth by the said Sir Segrave●●e ●●e Service of three Knights Fees to be performed in the said Army for the Earldom of Essex (which shows also that then those Ancient Earldoms of England were no other than by Tenure and Feudal) by John de Ferrer, Henry de Bohun, and Gilbert de Lindsey Knights; And in the same Constable's Roll and at the same time Walter de Langton Bishop of C●ventry and Li●chfield, recognovit et offered Servitium duorum Feudorum militum pro Baronia sua faciendum per dominos Robertum Peverel, et Robertum de Watervile, milites, acknowledged and offered the service of two Knights Fees, to be performed for his Barony, by Sir Robert Peverel, and Sir Robert Watervile Knights, & Mr. Selden is also of opinion that to hold of the King in Capite, & to have Possessions as a Barony, & to be a Baron and sit with the rest of the Barons in Parliament, are according to the Laws of those Time's Synonimies.  
And upon this and no other ground or foundation is built that as noble and illustrious as it is ancient Pairage of the 12 pairs of France, all of whom even the Earldom of Flanders now in the hands of the King of Spain do hold in Capite or Sovereignty of the French King, and that great and eminent Electoral College in Germany and the mighty▪ Princes thereof are no other than Tenants in Capite and holding their vast Terrytories of the Empire by grand Serjeanry, and have feuda antiqua concessa & acquisita generi & familiae connexam habentes Principatibus et Territoriis suis dignitatem Electoralem, and have an ancient Fee (or Territory) granted and acquired to their Issue and Family, 
(x) Rusdorff. vindiciae causae Pala●inae, 34.  and a dignity Electoral annexed to their Principalityes and Territoryes.  
And it cannot with any reason or Authority be said or believed that the late Charles King of Sweden could by the Treaty or Pacification at Munster have been made a Prince of the Empire, or have had place or voice in their Diets, if he had not had the Bishopric of Breme and other Lands and Provinces as Fiefs of the Empire in his Possession, to have made him a member thereof, and that the Prince Elector Palatine who by reason of that Territory justly claimeth the Vicariat of the Empire, had never been made the eighth Elector if he had not had part of the Palatinate which he now enjoys.  
For certainly if the care and wisdom of our Progenitors or Ancestors, could not think it fitting to compose that high Court of Judicature of Strangers, or grant them an Inheritance in it, which had no Lands or Possessions (to make them a concernment, and to be more careful of the good of the Kingdom) as Oliver or Dick of the Addresses would have done their Mongrel Scotch, that had no Lands at all in England, but a stock of Knavery, but would rather bring in such as had the best Estates, and holden by the most noble and serviceable Tenors, in order to the defence of their King, and Country, and were the most honourable, wise, and understanding, than such as had been Servants, or of a low extraction & race of mankind, & by their folly and whimsies had not long ago tossed and tumbled about poor England like a Football, which may call to our remembrance that opinion or a lage of the Ancients, that Jupiter subd●xit servis dimidium mentis, that God would not allow servants or men little better, or rudely and ignorantly educated, any more than to be half witted, some of our late Levellers at the same time making a difference betwixt the ancient great Estates, of the Peers and Barons of England, and that lesser which they now enjoy to be an objection against the House of Peers, in Parliament, for that now as they mistakenly surmised they could not as formerly be a bank or balance betwixt the King and the people.  
And howsoever that the temporal Barons as well those which were since the middle of the reign o● R. 2. created by Patent to be unum Baronum Angliae, as in Sir John Beauchamps Patent to be Baron of Holt, or as many later to have lo●um, vo●em, et sedem, in Parliamento, to have voice and place in the Parliament, as those that hold per Baroniam, and that those that hold per Baroniam, and were Barons by Tenure, do not come to Parliament but when they are summoned by the King's Writ, (as the Bishops also do not) and as in the Earl of Bristols Case was adjudged in the late King's time, are to have their Writs of Summons ex debito justitiae, as of right due unto them, yet a first, second, or third Summons, which is only and properly to give notice when and where the Parliament beginneth cannot as Mr. William Prynne hath learnedly proved, 
(y) Mr. Pryn▪ Plea for the House of Peers.  any way make or entitle any man which shall be so summoned to be a Peer or Baron, that is not a Baron by prescription, or was not created, nor doth that Clause in the Patents of Creation, do or operate any more than that such new created Barons, who are also Tenants in Capite, and as all the other Barons do aught to do their Homage, shall be one of the Barons in Parliament, & have voice and place there, deny that they that sit there by Tenure and per Baroniam, do not sit there and enjoy their Honours and Dignities as Tenants in Capite, and per Baroniam, or that those that come in by patent amongst them, do enjoy their places as incorporated and admitted amongst them, and not as Tenants in Capite, and being added to them, do help to continue the Society or Court, though they be not of one and the same Original or Constitution, as Prebend added ●o a Cathedral Church, may make them to be of the old Constitution, but takes it not away, and as the grant of King H. 8. to the Abbot of Tavestock, quod sit unus de Spiritualibus et Religiosis dominis Parliamenti, could not have altered his former and better condition if he had held any Lands per Baroniam; And though the Creations by Patents, may well enough sustain the privileges of those that sit and were introduced by it, yet the greater number, or as many of the Earls and Barons as hold per Baroniam, such as the Earls of Arundel and Oxford, Lords Berkley, Mowbray, Abergaveny, Fitz walter, Audley, De la ware, and that great number which were before R. 2. and were not created by letters Patents, and had not the Clause of locum vocem et sedem in Parliamento, will lose their Peerage, and right of sitting in Parliament, if the other do not when as their Patents giving them, sedem vocem et locum in Parliamento, do but entitle them to be of that House whereof the other Earls and Barons were, and to be but as the former Barons were which hold per Baroniam, and in Capite; As if a Lord of a Manor could create a man to be one of his Copyholders', he should be no otherwise then as a Coppy-holder of that Manor, and those Patent Lords do by their Patents hold their Honour and Dignities in Capite, though it be not expressed in their Pa●ents, and should pay as great a Relief as the other Earls and Barons do by Tenure, for no man can sit there but as a Tenant in Capite, and acknowledging his Sovereign, unless a Coordination should be supposed and that dangerous Doctrine again encouraged, nor can these by Creation sit if the House should be dissolved, by the change of the others Tenors, for that they were but Adjuncts and Associates of them.  
Which was so well understood by Sir Edw. Coke to be a shaking, if not an overturning of the foundation of that high and most honourable Court, or judicatory, as in the Parliament of the 18 ●h. year of King James, in the proposition which was then on foot to change the Tenors in Capite and by Knight service, into free and common Socage, 
(z) Coke 4 ●h. Part Iu●●●tutes ●it Court of Wards.  he and some of the old Parliament men advised a Proviso to be inserted in that intended Act of Parliament, that the Bishops notwithstanding that their Baronies should be holden in Socage, should continue Lords of Parliament, and in our late times in that great inundation of mistaken Liberty, when the outrage of the vulgar and common people, greedily pursued the dictates of their ignorance and fancy, and that after the House of Lords had been shut up, and voted to be useless and dangerous, the persons of the Barons of England, which the Law, and the reasonable and ancient, as well as modern Customs of England, did never allow to be arrested, were arrested and haled to Prison. In the seeking a remedy whereof some of the Baronage pleading their Privilege, it was in Easter Term, 
Cremer versus Burnet in Banco Regis Pas. 1650.  1650. in the Kings or upper Bench, in the argument of the Countess of Rivers Case, argued, and urged that all Tenors as well as the House of Lords were taken away, so that the Court holding that the Privilege was not allowable, for that she never had reference to the Parliament, or to do any public service the Cause was adjourned.  
Wherefore seeing that the custom of a Court is the Law of a Court, and the interrupton of a Custom, 
(b) Coke 9 report Abbot de s●●ata Marcellas case.  Prescription, or Franchise, very dangerous, and Cessante causa tollitur effectus, the cause or foundation taken away, the effect or building faileth, that a Lord of a Manor is not able to create a Manor, or make a Lease-holder, or Tenant of one Manor, to enjoy the same privileges which he did formerly, & be incorporate & a Tenant in another Manor, a House with a Common Appendent, or which was before belonging unto it, once pulled down, though built up again, looseth its Common and Prescription, or if a Copyhold estate come to the Lord by Forfeiture, 
(c) Coke 4 Rep. 31.  Escheat, or otherwise, if he make a Lease, or otherwise, it is no more grantable by Copy of Court Roll, or make a Feoffment upon condition, and after enter for the Condition broken, it shall not be regranted by Copy.  

(d) Coke 6. Reports Higgens Case.  And if a man hath libertyes by Prescription, & take letters Patents of them, the matter of the Record drowns or takes away the prescription as was held in 33 H. 8. tit. precription Br. 102. etc.  
Or if as in the Acts of Parliament for the dissolution of the Monasteries, the King shall be before the Tenors be ordained to be in free and common Soccage, made or derived to be in the actual Se●sin and Possession of all the Lands.  
There will be cause and reason enough to make a stand or a pause, and inquire further into it.  
For if the subversion of Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, will not totally, or at once, ruin and dissolve the House of Peers in Parliament, or put upon it a new constitution, it will not be good certainly to leave that House, and most high and Honourable Court, and all its just Rights and Privileges, which hath already so much suffered by the Assaults and Batteries of Faction and vulgar Frenzies, to an after question of moote point, whether or no it be not dissolved or put upon a new Foundation.  
And must needs be very dangerous, when as one of the three Estates under the King (which is Supreme and not Coordinate) viz. the Bishops, and Lords Spiritual being lopped off, the second which is the Lords Temporal, shall be but either suspected, or doubted to have a being, and the third which is the House of Commons, shall up●● the next advantage, or distemper of that pa●●y which lately gained so much by ● supposing it to be the Sovereign, b●●ancied ●o be above both it and the King, who as the head is above them both, and too much gratify that late illegal and unwa●rentable opinion, and practice of the Sovereignty of the House of Commons in Parliament, or that they alone are the Parliament of England.  
Destroy the hopes and rights of the Bishops, being the third Estate in Parliament, of ever being restored or admitted again into it, from which after a force and a protestation solemnly made against it, & twelve of them imprisoned for making of it, they were by an Act of Parliament in an. 17. Car. Regis primi, prohibiting them as well as all other Clergy men to intermeddle in any temporal affairs or proceedings, excluded the House, had all their Estates afterwards by an Ordinance of the Lords and Commons without being cited or heard, and without the King's consent, and after his going from the Parliament, and in the midst of a War, and Hostilities betwixt them, confiscated and taken from them, & by the taking away of Tenors per Baroniam, being the only cause and reason of their sitting there, and constituting them a third Estate, will now after his Majesty's happy restoration, when the waves and rage of the people are so calmed and ceased, as the Halcyon is preparing to build her nest, be more than ever made to be altogether impossible.  
Hinder and restrain our Princes from recovery of Foreign Rights, a necessary enlarging their Dominions, making an offensive War, or pursuing a flying or like to be recruited Enemy, which in keeping a Kingdom in peace and plenty, or maintaining the Commerce thereof, will be according to the rules of policy and good Government, as necessary as that of David's revenging upon the Ammonites, the affronts done to his Ambassadors, the Wars of our Edward the third, or H. 5. in France, of the great Gustavus King of Sweden in Germany, or the now King of Denmark's, and marquis of Brandenburghes, Wars upon Charles late King of Sweden.  
And when any of those occasions or necessities shall offer themselves, or enforce a forinsecum serviciu●, or service in foreign wars, shall have none but Auxiliaries & Hirelings to go along with them, when as several Acts of Parliament do prohibit the enforcing Hoblers, which were a kind of light horsemen, Archers, Trained Bands, and common Soldiers, to go out of their Countries, unless it be in cases of necessity, which the common people know not how to judge of, and the little Parliament so called in the beginning of the year 1640. upon the invasion of an Army of factious Scots, and a letter produced by the King that they had written for aid to the French K●ng, did not rightly apprehend, for it is not to be doubted, but that the cheerful and ready aids upon all occasions given to the Kings of England by the Tenants in Capit●, and Knight Service, and the Nobility and Gentry, and their Tenant's Friend's, and Followers, taking Arms, and following the Royal Standard, was a great cause ●f their Conquests in France, and Warlike atchivement in that and other parts of the World, often beating back the incursions of the Scotch and Welsh, and de●ending the borders.  
The taking away of th● Knights Fees or Tenors by Knight Service from the Nobility and Gentry without any Recompense, if they would be content to part with them or to accept it. Will be an Act of great Injustice, Regula quip feudalis et firma est quod Dominus nec in totum nec pro parte minuere adimereve Jus vassallo quesitum possit sine culpa eoque non convicto, 
(e) Rusdor●f P●l●tinae●85· ●85·  for it is a fixed and constant Rule in the Feudal Law, That the Lord cannot neither in the whole nor in part without a forfeiture or conviction of his Tenant, diminish or take away the Vassals Right, and it would be against Right, Reason, and Equity not to give a Recompense in Ca●se of pulling down or firing a House in a Necessity of War to prevent an Enemy, but much more against it and our Magna Charta in Case of no Necessity to Sacrifice without a just Recompense given for it, the Estates and Rights of some to pacify the Fears of others, and disturb and encumber the Estates of all or a great many to free the Estates of a few, which would be a● unjust, as for the Lords of Manors to make By-laws, forbidding the Services of their Tenants, and without any forfeitures or convictions, grant or sell away their Lands or Copyhold Inheritances▪ to Strangers, or dedicate the Profits thereof to the public wherein the owners or Proprietors shall get none or very little share in it, or such as will be impreceptible, and appeared to be so much against Law and Reason, as when in the dissolution of the Abbeys and Monasteryes, the Nobility and great men who had been Founders of many of them, or given a great part of the Lands thereof; were to be the losers of that which should have reverted or come unto them if they could not consist with the first Intentions; King H. 8. did take a care to gratify many of them with great quantities and Portions thereof, and to some granted entire Priories and Nunneries of their Ancestors founding, as to John Earl of Oxford the Priory of Colne, and Nunery of Hedingham in Essex and the like to many others which might be here remembered  
The Public Faith (which was wont to have so much care taken of it when she borrowed money to make our unhappy wars and Contentions) of so much of the Nation as hold by the Tenors in Capite and Knight Service, and of all the other parts of the people who by Oaths of Supremacy, Protestations and Covenant were not to prejudice the King, nor by their Covenant, any other in their Rights and Liberties will now be broken, which when Livy a Heathen Writer and one that very well understood affairs of State, upon the making of a Law at Rome to pacify a mutiny, that the Prisoners for Debt should not be bound or fettered as the manner than was, could say that Ingens vinculum fidei, a great Obligation or Bond of Faith amongst men was that day broken, he would have without doubt said more were he now a●ive as to our breach of Faith amongst men, but a great deal more (if he had been Christian) as to God Almighty.  

(f) Lindimannus in dedicke Exercitat, ●eudi & Roth usal in Synops; ad L●ctorem. §. 1.  Take away not only the Honour, but the public Benefits of those Tenors and feudal Rights which are so highly and justly esteemed in all other Kingdoms and Principalityes which are so happy as to live under Monarchy the best of Governments, as they can give them no other Character then that, Jura Regnorum Ducatuum Marchionatuum adeoque totius Imperij Leges Fundamental●s ac nervi quibus Monarchiae Romanae cum ipso senescente mundo languescentis lutei pedes colligantur in●iis continentur, 
(g) Calvin in 〈◊〉 Dedicator. Juris prudent▪ fudal.  Therein are contained the Laws and Rights of Kingdoms, Dukedoms, Ma●quisates, the Fundamental Laws of the Empire, and the Nerves and Sinews by which the Empire, languishing in the old age of the world hath been sustained, And that Feuda Feudorumque Jura ●●delitatem & ●idem publica●● pacem & incolumnatem Communis Patriae firmant ●irmissimum Militiae contra Communes Reipublicae hostes ne●vum ac praesidium su●ministrat adeoque fulc●a Germanico Romani Imperi● 〈◊〉 desiderant, Feuds and the Rights thereof do six and consolidate the Fidelity, public Faith, Peace and welfare of the Commonwealth, and administereth the greatest help and strength in war against the Common Enemy, and is worthy to be called the Prop of the Germane and Roman Empire.  
Make our Nobility and Gentry, who have by their Chivalry and high Attempts by Sea and Land, rendered them second to none, and published the Fame and Glory of their Actions, as far, and farther than ever the Roman Eagles flew, to be like the Roturiers or peasants o● France, and a reproach or hissing to all Natioas, or like David's Ambassadors, when the Children of Ammon had misused them, and shaved the one half of their Beards, and cut off their Garments in the middle, 
(h) 2 Sam. 10▪ 4, 5.  even to their Buttocks, and to be put behind all but the Dutch and Swissers, the former of which, do Trade under Taxes, & Excise & the latter are but the Mercenaries and Hirelings of the French and Spanish Kings in their Wars and Hostilities, and ran●king us with them, and those little and despicable Commonwealths of Luca, and Geneva, cast us into the Giddy, and at last woeful Precedents and Consequences of the unquiet headed Argentinians, Lindorians, Citizens of Sienna, Genoa, and Florence, who by ruining and rooting up the Nobility and Gentry, and making three ranks and degrees of their Citizens, some great, some mean, and the rest of the vulgar, the two last putting out the first, cast themselves into a Circle of blood and misery, out of which nothing but their former Government was able to refcue them.  
Occasion the loss and ruin of purchasers, and Mony-lenders' & enlarge their complaints of double & treble Feoffments & Mortgages which (by the disuse of the Court of Wards, and finding of Offices after the death of Tenants in Capite, and by Knight Service, have been more than formerly and wherein some of our late Reformers were known more to have exercised their wits than their Consciences) concealed, & Dormant, and fraudulent Assurances carried in the Pockets of some to pick the Pockets of others, which by reason of the Tenors in Capite, and finding of Offices wherein the Evidences being produduced, and many Times found, did not only find but declare what Estate the deceased was seized of, and if the truth did not then appear, which could hardly be hid, when as the Jury were commanded by the Writ of Diem clausit extremum, to inquir● upon their Oaths of what Estate the last Ancestor died seized of, and that the vigilancy and cares of the Feodaries and Escheators who were also to be present to attend them, would cause them to be the more careful and if the fraud of the Heir should be able to make its way, or escape through them, the Estate found in the Office would after prove to be an Evidence against them, and either overthrow or perplex the Knavery of such wicked designs.  
The Recompense of 100000 l. per Annum if it could be raised without Injustice, or the breach of the Laws of God, Nature, and Nations, and our oftentimes confirmed Magna Charta, and the enforcing of 19 men in every 20 to bear burdens which nothing at all appertains to them, will not be adequate to the loss of a great part of the King's Revenue which did serve for the maintenance of his Crown and Dignity, and to exempt and ease the Subjects of extraordinary Taxes and Assessments, which the Necessity of Princes for the good and Defence of the Kingdom must otherwise bring upon them; Nor to the want of Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service, & the Services & Incidents belonging unto them (being a certain and never failing Defence of himself and the Kingdom) Castleguard Licence of Alienations giving him notice and continuing him safe in the Change of his Tenants (being so necessary to Government as some have been grievously fined for alienating their Lands in Capite without it) Marriage & Dependency of the Heirs which hold of him, Livery and Reliefs, Grand Serjeantyes, and a great part of the Honour and Privileges which all other neighbour Kings and Princes are neither desired to part with, nor can he persuaded so much to lessen themselves and their Regalities.  
For gold and Silver and precious Stones or any thing less than the whole Kingdom of England itself is not of value or to be compared to the Honour of a King, and the homage and duty of his Subjects, the Gratitude, Faith and Promises of their Ancestors which should descend to them with the Lands holden by those Tenors, whenas Omnes habent Causam a primo et ex tun●, non ut ex nunc, are bounden to the Cause which obliged their first Ancestor and Progenitor, and are to consider that it is now, 
() Per Collig. Bononiens. inter Consil. Francisci Carti Consilium 50. et Rusdorff. in vindicits causae Palatinae.  as it was then, a most ready means and help which did and doth naturally and kindly arise for the Defence of themselves and the Kingdom, for as it is not the weight of an inestimable Diamond or Ruby that makes either of them to be better than a Flint or any other Stone, but the lustre, virtue, and scarceness of them; and that a greater poise or weight of a man makes not a Solomon an Alexander Sir-named the great, or an Aristotle, but that all men and things are to be esteemed according to the virtues and Excellencyes which are in them, so it will not be the yearly Profit in money which was made of the Wardships primer Seisins, Liveryes, and Incidents which belong to those Tenors, but the Homage Duty gratitude and necessary Attendance in War, not only of those that held immediately of the King, but those that were the mediate Tenants, and came also with the immediate, the grand and mutual Tie betwixt the King and his people and the Regality, Prerogative, intrinsical, and true worth and value of them, when there should be any use of those necessary Defences of the King and his Kingdom, in making a diversive War, or succouring his Friends and Allies, which are not seldom or were in more heroic times justly accounted to be as Outworks, Ante Murales, or Bulwarks of the Kingdom, & that the Rate which is now offered for those Tenors, are but like a Tender, or Offer to give the weight in Gold for an incomparable, not to be got again and unvaluable Meddal, or for Aaron's Breastplate, Moses rod, or the Sceptres of Princes, if they could have been purchased at all, and by weight.  
It will be as unsafe as unusual to take money or Turn into a Rent that which in its first Institution, and a happy, long and right use which was made of it, was only intended for a defence of the Kingdom, when the King is not likely to be any ●aver by it, and shall not gain 90000 l. per Annum (his own Income by Licences of Alienation deducted) for the clear Profit of the Court of Wards which the Lord Cottington when he was Master of that Court, did but a year before the Troubles make as much by it, besides the many great and royal Prerogatives which he shall lose to gain more mischiefs and Inconveniencyes to himself & his People, then at the present can be instanced or numbered.  
The giving the King a Recompense by an yearly Rate amounting to one hundred thousand pounds per Annum to be charged upon all men's Lands, Tenements and Hereditaments holden in Capite, or Socage by Copyhold, Leases for Lives, or Tenants at Will, or for years will be against right, Reason, Justice and Equity, as well as unwarranted by any hitherto Law or Custom of England to make 19 parts of 20 (for so much if not more will probably be the odds) that were not liable to Wardships, or any imagined Inconveniences which might happen thereby, not only to bear their proportionable part of the general Assessments for War but a share also in the burden of others where it could never be laid upon them and wherein they, or the major part of them by more than two in three have no Lands in Fee simple, Fee tail, or by Leases for 100 years or any longer Term nor are never like to be purchasers of any Lands at all and if they had money to do it are not likely to buy Inheritances, & if inheritances, not Capite or Knight Service Lands, when there is by more than 9 parts in 10 of Socage or Copyhold Lands to be purchased, were not, nor are like to be in any danger of Wardships, or under any fear or Apprehensions, of it and render the Capite Land three or four years purchase dearer than it was wont to be, and the Socage Lands three or four years purchase the cheaper, only to free the Nobility, Gentry and men of greatest Riches and Estates in the Kingdom, which are subject to those small Burdens which are only said to be in Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service.  
Or if laid upon the Moiety of the Excise upon Ale, Beer, Cider and Coffee etc. or any other native or Inland Commodity will fall upon those that have no Land as well as those which have, as upon Citizen's Mechanics, Children, Servants, and the like, and heaviest u●on the poorer sort of people, and be a burden which the lowly Cobbler and reverend Applewomen, the Butcher and Stockingmenders, in their pitiful subterraneous Tenements, and the poor Women which in the Streets do cry Fruits and Fish by a double retail, and pay twelve pence a week for the loan of twenty shillings, and pawn a Petticoat for security, the Chimney Sweeper's, Brooom-men and Beggars cannot escape.  
Will be no good way of raising money, nor an Honourable Revenue, and though it might become the Dutch in their grand necessities of War where they have but few Gentlemen, will not be for the honour of England, and the Nobility and Gentry of England, to have their provisions of War and Defence arise out of so low a business as A●e and Beer, and make the Brewers and Ale-house-keepers, to be as it were the Tenants in Capite, and to supply the Knight Service in the exchange, of that which is but pretended to be a Grievance for a most certain and undeniable grievance, and for one Grievance if it could be proved to be one for a Seminary and complication of Greivances and to take away wardships from the estates of 1▪ in every 20. of the people when they should happen and make 19 in every 20 to be every day in every year in wardship to an Excise upon a considerable part of their daily Dyer and Sustenance.  
That small Sum of 100000 l. per an. may upon any discontent of the people, by reason of the payment of that Excise, be Petitioned against or taken away by Parliament, or by some insurrection or mutiny of the common people, which Naples, and France, & this Kingdom, can tell us, do sometimes happen, and the wisdom of Kings and Princes do use to suspect and provide against, or if some other unlucky difference (which God avert) should happen betwixt the King and his people, may fall into the Case or Example of the Customs, and Poundage, and Tonnage, in the beginning of the Reign of his late Majesty, which being stopped by the Parliament, and declared against, did put him into un●it necessities, and made those unhappy controversies and misunderstandings betwixt him and many of the shorter Parliaments, which disabled him from aiding his Friends and Allies, and was the beginning of our never enough to be lamented national Calamities and Reproaches; and proved to be the ruin and disturbance also of a great part of Christendom.  
Such an imposed or continued excise, will by the Arts and Deceits of the Brewers and Ale men, and those that gather and pay it in the first place, be as all excises commonly are, double charged upon the people, who instead of 100000 l. per an. laid upon their Beer & Ale, will by the abuse which will be committed therein, as to quantity and quality, lay and charge another 100000 l. per an. upon the people, and the Brewer in every 6 d. or 12 d. Excise to be laid upon every Barrel of six shillings Beer, will be sure to make his Beer so, as he shall get double, if not more than that Excise amounts unto.  
And as it could never have been at first settled without the awe and help of Garrisons, Troops of Horse, and Companies of Foot, in every County and City, and the Soldier's assistance to enforce and gather it from those that would not pay it, or were not able, so in all probability, it will be now again never be brought into a constant yearly Revenue, without a constant & formerly used way of keeping a standing Army at the charge of sixty or ninety thousand pounds per mensem, or the month, which will be more troublesome and chargeable than 52 Escheators, and as many Feodaries, who may be men of wisdom Integrity, & good Estates in their Countries; for there will be a great difference between the charge or yearly Revenue of the Court of Wards, which is made up of many small parts, and favourable and easy Rents, Fines and compositions, quietly gathered and paid in by the Justice and Order of a Court of Wards, & honest and responsable Officers, and 90000 l. per annum being to be Collected by this Excise at the charge of as much for every month in the year, from the ruder and most ignorant part of the people, who will (not Tributorum causam quaerere sed quaeri) sooner murmur and complain of Taxes or Tributes, than rationally inquire into the causes of them, and by a weeping & woeful Arithmetic of the poor, and inferior sort of people in every County be reckoned to be no great part or piece of Husbandry to purchase off 90000 l. per annum, yearly charges to free those that held in Capite, at the rate of 100000 l. (or rather 200000 l. per annum,) which is to be paid out of the Excise, and pay 90000 l. per mensem, or 60. or 30000 l. per mensem besides for collecting of it, besides the free quarterings, and other insolences of the common Soldiers.  
And by making that part of the Excise perpetual give the people to understand that the next occasion given or made, may introduce a perpetuity of Excise upon all other things, which to have been introduced, but upon a temporary and not like to be long lasting necessity, would before oliver's Saddle had been put upon the people's backs, have put them into multitudes of Complaints; And in the Reign of King James, and that of our late blessed Martyr King Charles, before he was driven from his Throne, would have been but only in the advising of it more Capital and offensive, than that which was charged upon the late Earl of Strafford, and made more in one single fault or crime, than all the accumulations of Crimes against him could arrive unto, and was so dreadful to this Nation, and before hand hated, as they were afraid of every thing that tended that way; So as in a Parliament in the Reign of King James, some of the House of Commons having been informed that the King had employed a Gentleman into Holland to inquire concerning the manner & manage of their Excise (which as afterwards appeared upon examination, was but for curiosity and learning sake) were so troubled at it, as the Gentleman hardly escaped a vote, whether he should not be most severely punished.  
And whether Excise or not Excise, will if those Tenors in Capite, and by Knight Service, which have hitherto been as the Life and Land-guards of the King and his people should be taken away, some other ways of means are to be found out to supply it, for the people being sworn by their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, to assist and defend the King and all his Rights and Jurisdictions, if they would not defend him, and take a care of those Oaths, will likely be willing enough to defend themselves in defending him; Or if they should not, their Representatives in Parliament, would as they have for this twenty years' last passed, not only assess them, but make them find Men, Horses and Arms, for the defence of the Kingdom, which hath hitherto been a costly Knight Service, and so far exceeding forty days Service at their own charges, as they have besides the outrages, free quarterings, and plunder of Soldiers, and loss of their debts by the ruin and death of their Debtors, born the trouble of forty Six months continual Assessments far exceeding the Escuage and all the Taxes in 600 years before laid upon our Forefathers, and the question will then be of no great difficulty, whether will be the better, the old way or the new?  
And when the King shall be as he ought to be the Judge of dangers or necessities, and want the Assistance of his Subjects, and it cannot when the Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service shall be taken away, be pretended, as it was in the Case of the Ship-money that his Tenors and Wardships, were to defend him and the Kingdom in cases of danger and invasion, until a Parliamen could be Assembled.  
Or shall as his late Royal Father was in the later end of the year 1642. when the long shut up Janus Temple had by the Salij or Priests of Mars been against his will broken open, and the miseries or troubles of War overwhelmed him and his loyal people, and the Plowers made Furrows upon his back, being hindered from putting his Commissions of Array in Execution, be told by the Parliaments Declaration, that his Tenors in Capite, and their incidents, (and not his Commission of Array,) were the allowed and ordinary means for his defence, until more could be obtained from the Parliament, and shall have no military Tenors but only 100000 l. per annum, or if that should fa●l him.  
Or he shall need to transport an Army into an Enemy's Country, to keep off, or hinder an Invasion, succour or back his Allies, whilst they imbroil or weaken his common enemies, shall be told that he may not impress any men or Soldiers, to go out of their Countries, unless he can do it by order of Parliament, or persuade them that there is a great necessity.  
Whether he will not when the people shall cry unto him as the woman that had in the siege of Samaria, boiled her Child & eat of it, Help my Lord O King, shall not be able to do any more, than answer, as he did, Whence shall I help thee, 2 Reg, 6.26, 27. And finds himself as his noble Progenitor King Ed. the 3. publicly declared in a Writ of Error, wherein Blanch, the Wife of Thomas Wake, of Lidal, was Complainant that he was Ratione dignitatis in exhibitione justitiae quibuscunque de regno debtor & ad statut● Progenitorum facta, 
(i) 29. E. 3. Coram Rege.  observanda vinculo juramenti astrictus, by reason of his Kingly dignity, a Debtor to every one of his Kingdom, in the doing of Justice, and bound by his oath to observe the Laws of his Progenitors, in the care of himself and his people, whom he is by his Coronation Oath bound to defend and protect, and of the Salus Populi, ne quid detrimenti Respublica capiat, for the safety of his People, and to the end that the Commonwealth may receive no damage, be enforced as it were to raise and keep a standing Army always, in readiness with Garrisons, to protect both himself and his people.  
And then it may be easily experimented whether is the better, to have some that aught to bear the charges and burdens of their Tenors, if they will enjoy their Lands, or to have the whole Nation groan and lament under the burden of maintaining a standing Army and Garrisons, by public Assessments, or to have the Nobility and Gentry of England, and five or ten thousand men, and all those that hold of them, to attend them, and be always in readiness by the obligation of their Tenors, without any charge to the public, or thirty thousand unruly Soldiers to be yearly or for ever maintained at the charge of the People.  
An instance whereof we need not go further to look for, then in Holland and Zealand, whenas the Emperor Charles the fifth, living out of the Country and Governing them by Regent's or Deputies, & fearing lest that Nation in re militari longo usu bellorum exercita, being by long experience become Warlike, and holding their Lands by Knight service, simul ingenio soli quod natura depressum ac uliginosum tum incilibus passim Fossis lac●busque ac paludibus intercissum haud san● faciles invasuro aditus confisa ad turbas ac seditionum praemia converteret, together with the nature of the soil, which was flat and moorish, and cut into many Ditches, Lakes, and little Islands, would not easily give him entrance if he should be put to invade them, or send Forces to suppress any rebellion, or that they confiding in such their strengths, might prove seditious, and abuse the benefits and intention of their Tenors, 
(k) Jus●●n. lib 1.  did in a policy perhaps, such as Cyrus is said to make use against the Lydians, by giving way to their Vices and Luxury; release (if Cornelius Neostadius be not mistaken) to them some of their military services (for to this day the Emperors of Germany, as their Countryman the learned Grotius confesseth, 
(l) Cornelius Neostadius the ●eud success. apud Hollandie 4.  do claim the benefit of those ancient feudal rights) ea tamen lege ut fundi Clientelares publicis sunctionibus quibus hactenus immunes fuissent in posterum non secus atque patrimoniales obnoxij existerent, upon condition that those Lands so holden should not as hitherto be free from public charges and taxes, but hereafter should do as others did.  
Which hath done both sides no good, for those Dutch afterwards falling into discontents with some of their fierce and over rigid Governors, did by necessity and for want of their Tenors and ancient domestic military Aids betake themselves to foreign Forces as they could hire them, and have by force and continual wars in that Country, which hath for more than sixty years been a Cockpit for all Christendom, and the hireling Soldiers of it not only brought great miseries and neighbour wars upon themselves and all Christendom, but so tired the Kings of Spain his Successors, and wasted the wealth and profit of his West-Indies, as he hath been enforced to make a peace with them, and allow them to be a free State as they call it, and a Republic.  
Are themselves become of a very Active and Warlike Nation, so Lourdish and unwarlike, as they are only found to be men of Trade, Fishing, and Navigation, filling their Country with many strong fortified walled Cities, Towns, Citadels, and Garrisons, and living under the shelter of a constant, well paid, and disciplined Army, do by the cunning of an universal Trade and Commerce with almost all the World, and out doing all Nations herein, carry the Excise on their backs, and make the States & Richer part (but not the multitude or poorer) the better for it, and yet sometimes do find the want of their former Tenors, and the readiness of their aids as in the late wars of Denmark, where they were concerned to adventure through many dangers to aid the Danes against the Swedes, found their design more out of order than it would otherwise have been, for that the Seamen where they do not use to impress, would not be persuaded to go at all without a greater pay then ordinary, And whether that discharge of the Emperor Charles the 5 th'. did absolve them from their Clientelage or holding of the Empire or no? it is well known that they keep all or most of the incidents belonging to Tenors in Capite, as their Laudemia's or Reliefs, Investitures, Fines for Alienation, and the like, and living under those great burdens, and otherwise intolerable Taxes, Contributions, and Excises, which are made only tolerable by their hostilities and depraedations exercised upon Spain and its Dominions, do notwithstanding almost in every Frontier Town in the winter time, make their Inhabitants hold by a kind of Service as to their own defence, in the alotment of every house or street, to break daily a proportion of Ice in times of Frost in their Town Ditches.  
The Assessments for horse and foot Arms, and charge and pay of Armies, and so much as for Ribbons and Trophies as they are now called (which in the time of our Military Tenors, the people were not at all or so much troubled with, will swell and be the greater, when so many as were to be contributory in a more especial manner, shall be exempted from that, and put under the general Assessment, which will make the burden to be the heavier, and will be as little for the ease of the people, as if all the many Hospitals and Almshouses in England, which were built and endowed at the great charge of the Founders, with large and perpetual Annual Revenues in many Parishes and places in England, and the great number of Charities and charitable uses, which since the Protestant Religion established in England, have by wills and Testaments been given to the poor, should be taken away and put to other uses, as those loving and tender hearted Statesmen, the late committee of Slavery rather than Safety, or the Rump Assembly, were about to do and put into some Godly Treasury, and they that must pay a great deal more in their Rates and Assessments for the poor, left to make Affidavits, that the remedy was taken away, and a Disease put in the place of it.  
The King who is Pater Patriae, the great and careful Parent and Father of his people, and who by God Almighty is trusted with the Welfare, Protection, and Defence, of them, shall only have that part of the Court of Wards, and kind of Prerogative left unto him to provide and take care for Lunatics and Idiots  
Shall not now enjoy that ancient and well performed trust of protecting the Fatherless, nor have that power in looking to Orphans, and their Estates in their Minorities, as the Dutch and States of Holland have, who (though the people under the Jurisdiction of that Republic, do hold neither by Knight Service of it, nor can be well said to hold in Soccage, or as Fie●● Roturier, where they have so little Land, but by Navigation rather and Commerce) have their Wees Kamer, or Court of Orphans, do not think it fitting to trust them and their Estates to the Mothers, (although they have thereby a Custom and Pacta antenuptialia, 
(m) Peckius de pactis antenuptialibus.  a joint-tenancy and power of dispose to their own kindred) nor the kindred on either side to make their profit by them, and sub amici fallere nomen, under a colour of love and kindness, either ruin them, or leave them to ruin themselves, by selling them and others good bargains.  
And shall not have so much privilege as the City of London hath, who by ancient Custom have an absolute Court of Wards in the City, though it pass under the name of the Court of Orphans, as may appear by their ancient Customs, viz. The Mayor and Aldermen that are for the time, 
(n) Customs and usages in London in an old Manuscript in French in Guildhall.  by custom of the City shall have the Wardships and Marriages of all the Orphans of the said City after the death of their Ancestors, although the same Ancestors do hold in the City of any other Lord by what Service soever.  
Ought to inquire of all the Lands and Tenements, Goods and Chattels, within the said City, appertaining to such Orphans, and safely keep them to the use and profit of such Orphans, or otherwise commit the same Orphans, together with their Lands and Tenements, Goods and Chattels, to others their Friends by sufficient Surety found of Record in the Chamber of Guildhall, to maintain conveniently the said Orphans during their nonage, and their Lands and Tenem●nts to repair, and their said Goods and Chattels safely to keep, and thereof to render a good and loyal account before the said Mayor and Aldermen, to the profit of the same Infants when they shall come to their age, or when they shall be put to a mystery, or shall marry by the advice of the said Mayor and Aldermen.  
And that in all Cases except that it be otherwise ordained and disposed for the same Orphans, or for their Lands and Tenements, Goods and Chattels, by the express words contained in the Testaments of their Ancestors.  
And no such Orphans ought to be married without the assent of the said Mayor and Aldermen, and also where Lands or tenements, Goods and Chattels, within the City, are devised to an Infant within Age living with his Father, and that such an Infant is no Orphan, yet by usage of the said City, the said Lands and Tenements, Goods and Chattels, shall be in custody of the Mayor and Aldermen, as well as of Orphans to maintain and keep them to the use and profit of the same Infant, except that the Father of the Infant, or some other of his Friends, will find sufficient surety or Record to maintain and keep the said Lands and Tenements, Goods and Chattels, to the use and profit of the said Infant, and thereof to render a good and loyal account as is aforesaid.  
And may if the King's Court of Wards shall be dissolved, and the Tenors in Capite taken away, be endangered or petitioned against, which within these last twenty years, hath been a notable Engine and piece of Artillery of the factious, who made great use of Petitions, & many a causeless complaint to overturn any ancient useful constitution of the Kingdom, & well approved Rights and Liberties of the people in general or of some men in particular.  
Will renverse and overturn many of the Fundamental Laws and Constitutions of the Kingdom, & throw them with their heels upwards into a Ditch of all manner of evils and confusion, which will so increase and fall upon them and us, as no after endeavours by any new Bills or Acts of Parliament will be able to rescue them, and being once dead or destroyed, will not meet with any that either can or will be able to call them like Lazarus out of the grave, or their winding Sheets.  
It will be against the People's Oaths of Supremacy to desire, to purchase of, or diminish the King's Rights and Jurisdictions.  
And against their own safety to weaken the hands and power of their Prince, that should protect and defend them, and commit the trust of protecting and defending the oppressed poor to the oppressing Rich, the Chickens to the Kites, & the harmless Lambs to the cunning Foxes, or greedy Wolves; the weak and the Innocent to such as shall endeavour to hurt them, and charge and burden themselves and their Posterities, with a Rent and excise for mischiefs and inconveniences enough in perpetuity.  
Take away that power and ready means of protecting and defending them, and that which should enable him to procure according to his Coronation Oath to the Church of God and the Clergy, and people, firm peace and unity in God according to his power and to administer indifferent and upright Justice, by forsaking a certain & willing way of defence, for a constrained or incertain, & by taking away the best, for so much of it, of all defences, for that which in the very birth of it, is justly feared to be the worst.  
Draw a Curse rather than any expected blessing or happiness upon all such Tenors in Capite and by Knight service, as by seeking to purchase their Homages, and obedience to their Prince, and a better and long experimented, and prosperous way of defence of themselves & posterity, shall seek or endeavour to break the reiterated oaths and contracts of all their Ancestors, to be but a part & for a short time of the general defence, of the Kingdom like a Lifeguard, at hand to skirmish and make head against an Enemy, until a Parliament can be called, and have time to consult of the means, or the whole Nation summoned for help and embodied, & will be a perjury more sinful, then that of the Children of Israel, to the deceitful and turncoat Gibeonites, and may be more severely punished by God Almighty, upon the hereafter withering Estates of those men, and their generations, who shall not only break their own oaths, and faith, but the oaths and faith also of their more grateful Ancestors who would never have done it.  
Will make our common people, which were wont like the lesser Wheels, in a well ordered watch to be governed by the greater or superior, to run themselves into as many blessings as they did in these last twenty years, when they wrested the Sword out of their King's hands (and by the power of those two great Devils Interest & Reformation in the abuse, and not right use of the words, which may well wear the name of those Devils which were called Legion) to cut murder, pillage and rob the honest and loyal part of the the people, & lasciviendo in quaerelas & quaestiones, playing the wantoness in their complaints, and evil practices, which they found to be so beaten a tract or road of prosperity, to the journey's end of their wickedness, complain of every thing that likes not their fancies, or ignorance, and from Wardships and Tenors, return again in their ingratitude to God and man, to their late design of taking away Tithes, & Coppyholds, by enforcing the Lords to take a year or two years' purchase for the rights of their Manors, & Copyhold Estates, & from thence to the Act of Parliament, intended in our Reformers late deformations, to abate Rents where the Landlords were not so well affected as the Tenants, to make or maintain War against their Sovereign.  
And if there had nothing been said or written, as we hope there is sufficient to justify the Innocency or right use of Tenors in Capite and by Knight service, it had been enough (as it was to the virtuous Seneca, to be persecuted and put to death by Nero, who loved all Ill and hated all Good) that Cromwell, that Minotaur, to whom in his Lab●rinth of Subtleties, Hypocrisy, and abused Scripture, our Laws and Liberties were daily sacrificed by the Flattering Addresses of a company of Knaves or Fools, very well know after he had cut down the Royal Oak, and blasted all the lofty Pines and Firres in Druina's Forest, procured an Act for renouncing and disannulling the Title of our now most gracious Sovereign, and his Brothers to the Crown of England, and their Father's Dominions, and all other which should pretend any Title or Claim, from, by, or under them, or any of them, how much it concerned his most wicked purposes of establishing that which should be called a Commonwealth, under His and his posterities Protectorship, and most Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government, by a perpetual standing Army of 30000. Horse and Foot, an intolerable Excise, and monthly Assessments to pay them & set up the other, or t'other House instead of a House of Peers, made up for the most part of Mechanics transformed into Colonels and Major Generals, and some other who might have been better Englishmen then to have been catched in the Trap of Ambition, or Titles made the wrong way; By which he might check the growing Factions in the House of Commons, and destroy their pretended Sovereignty, Tax and Rack the estates of all men, and more than a Grand Signior or Turk ever durst adventure upon; Command as he should please the Bodies and Souls of the people, take away every Surculus or little Sprigs that might grow out of the remaining Sap of that mighty Tree, and every thing that might either contribute to it, or remain but as Relics of the Regal Estate and people's happiness, did by an Ordinance as he called it of himself and his Council the 12 th'. of April 1654. not only ordain an Union betwixt the two Kingdoms, but that all the Nation of Scotland should be discharged of all Fealty, Homage, and Allegiance which is or should be pretended to be due to his Majesty that now is, and that neither he nor any of his Royal Brothers, or any deriving from the late King should hold Name, Title, and Dignity of King of Scotland, and that all Herritors, Proprietors, and Possessors of Lands in Scotland, should hold their Lands of their respective Lords by and under their accustomed yearly Bones and Annual services, without rendering any Duty or Vassalage, and discharged them of all military services, and well knowing that their old Customs being taken away, the Court-Barons would also fail, did by another Ordinance erect new Court-Barons for them.  
And having made store of Slaves in that Kingdom, made all the hast he could to complete his wickedness in this, and did the 17 th'. day of September 1656. procure his houses of Parliament or good will and pleasure, rather to do as much for England, and take away all Tenors in Capite & by Knight service, and all Homages, and Reliefs, & not only do all he could to destroy the heirs thereof, but cut the Nerves & let out the blood of a most noble & ancient Monarchy.  
But if there could be any hopes in the Exchange of those innocent as useful Tenors in Capite, and Knight service, of bettering the condition of the Commonwealth and people, increasing their Liberties and content, and to maintain and keep them in a most happy peace and plenty, (which will never be done if the Sword and Sceptre of the King shall only be like the Ensigns and Ornaments of Regality, and made only to represent a Majesty) there will another difficulty stand in the way and meet the design of doing it by Act of Parliament) and offer this question to consideration; Whether an Act of Parliament, and the consent of the House of Peers, & the desire of all the Commons and People of England, which must be understood to be signified by their Representatives, and the Roy le veult, the King giving life and breath, and being to it can in the great power and respect which ever hath been by the Law, and justly aught to be always attributed unto it. Take away Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, grand and Petit Sejeanties', Homage, and all other incidents belonging unto them, or the right which the Nobility, and Gentry, and mesne Lords have to enjoy their Tenors by Knight service, & the incidents thereunto belonging. Which howsoever that in many other things it hath been said, that Consensus tollit errorem, & Conventi● vincit Legem, Consents and Agreements are more binding then Law, will by the Laws of God, and Nature, and Nations, and the Laws of this Kingdom, and the opinion of some eminent and learned Sages and Lawyers thereof, be resolved in the Negative, viz.   

CHAP. VII. That Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, holden of the King, and the Homage and Incidents thereunto appertaining, and the Right of the Mesne Lords cannot be dissolved or taken away by any Act of Parliament.  
FOR that God's Law, and the Law of Nature, and Nations, have taken care not only to preserve the Rights of Sovereignty, and the means and order of Government, but the Rights & property of every particular Subject, & do prohibit all injustice, & it is a Maxim, or Aphorism undeniable that Laws made against the Word of God, & the Laws of Nature or which are impossible, or contra bonos mores, right Reason, or natural Equity, will be void in themselves, be the Seal or Stamp of Authority never so eminent.  
And therefore, if as the Law hath often determined, that the King's Charters are void, and not pleadable by Law, when they are repugnant to the Laws, Acts of Parliament, Maxims, and reasonable Customs of the Realm, that it is not in the King's power by his Charter or last Will and Testament, to grant away the Crown of England, to another Prince, or Potentate, as it was resolved in the Case of the supposed grant of King Edward the Confessor, to William Duke of Normandy, and that grant of King John to the Pope, to hold England, and Ireland of him, and that notwithstanding the grant made by William the Conqueror, to Hugh Lupus, of the Earldom of Chester, tenendum per gladium, and ita libere, as the King himself did hold England, the Earldom of Chester, was holden of the King, that the grant of King H. 2. to the Monks of St. bartholomew's in London, that the Prior & the Monks should be as free in their Church, 
(o) 13 H. 6.  as the King was in his Crown, was adjudged to be void, for that the Prior, and the Monks were but Subjects, and that by the Law, the King may no more denude himself of his Royal Superiority over his Subjects, than his Subjects can renounce or avoid their subjection to their King, and the reason why such or the like grants of the King by his Charter are void, is not in regard it was granted without the consent of the people in Parliament, but that it was in disherison of his Crown, and disabling himself to govern; or if he should by his grant exempt a man from paying his Debts, or maintenance of hise Wife and Children, the joining of the Lords and Commons with him in an Act of Parliament would not make such a Law to be binding or obligatory.  
And therefore the King cannot saith Dier release or grant a Tenure in Capite to any Subject, Dier 44. when King Edward the 3 d. granted to the Black Prince his Son the grant of the Duchy of Cornwall, all Wards, Marriages, and Reliefs, non obstante, the King's Prerogative, it was adjudged that the Prince could not seize a Ward which held of the King's Ward, 
(p) 43. Assize plit. 1.  because it belonged to the King by his Prerogative.  
And in 2 R. 2. Robert de Hauley Esquire, being arrested and pursued upon an Action of Debt, in Westminster Abbey, where he took Sanctuary, 
(q) Rot Parl 2 R. 2 111.72, 73, & 74.  was in the tumult slain at the high Altar when the Priest was singing high Mass; And the offence and breach of privilege (as it was then pretended to be) complained of in Parliament by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the rest of the Prelates and Clergy, and prayed that due satisfaction and amends might be made of so horrible a fact; It was opposed by the Lords and Commons, and they vouched Records, and called to witness the Justices and others that were learned in the Laws of the Land, that in the Church of England, it hath not been accustomed, nor aught to have Immunity for Debt or Trespass or other Cause whatsoever, except for Crime only; And certain Doctors of Divinity, Canon and Civil Laws being thereupon sworn and examined before the King himself to speak the plain truth, said upon mature and sound deliberation, that in case of Debt, Account, or Trespass, where a man is not to lose life or member, no man ought to have Immunity in holy Church, and said further (in the highest expressions those times could afford) that God saving his Perfection, the Pope saving his Holiness, nor any King or Prince can grant such a privilege, and that if the King should grant such a privilege, the Church is and aught to be favoured and nourished ought not to axcept of it, whereof offence or occasion of offence may arise, for it is a sin and occasion of offence (saith the Record) to delay a man willingly from his Debt, or the just recovery of the same; And if an Act of the Commons alone, or of the Lords alone or of both together, cannot amount to an Act of Parliament, the King himself cannot grant away his Regality, or Power, or means of governing by his Charter, or any Act which he can singly do, his concurrence with both the Lords and Commons can no more make an Act to confirm that which should not be done or granted, than his own grant or Charter could have done, or than if he and the House of Commons only had made an Act; As it appeareth by the Ordinance which the Lords Ordainers, so from thence called, did obtain from Edward 2. whereby he delegated much of his Regal Authority unto them, which was afterwards complained of in Parliament, made void, and the Authors or Lords Ordainers punished; for it hath been clearly asserted by eminent and learned Judges and Sages of the Law, as the Lord chief Justice Hobart, Sr. Francis Bacon, and Sr. Jonh Davis, Attorney General to King James in Ireland, that the Superlative power of Parliaments above all but the King, is in some things for restrained, as it cannot enact things against Right Reason, or common Right, or against the Laws of God or Nature, that a man shall be Judge in his own Case, as that the King shall have no Subsidies whereby to defend himself and his people, that Children shall not obey their Parents, and the like.  
And that Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, are of so transcendent a nature, and so radically in the Crown and Fundamental Laws, 
(r) Case of Imposi●ions▪  as no Act of Parliament can take it away or alter it, and are so inseparable as Sr. John Davis saith that in a Parliament holden in England in the latter end of the reign of King James, it was resolved by the House of Commons, that the Wit of man could not frame an Act of Parliament whereby all Tenors of the Crown might be extinguished.  
And Judge Hutton, who in the Case of the Ship-money, would allow the King no more Prerogative than what could not be denied him, did publicquely deliver it for Law which in that great and learned Assembly of Judges and Lawyers was not contradicted, that Tenors in Capite, are so inseparable in the Crown, as the Parliament will not nor cannot sever them, and the King cannot release them.  
And such is the care for the defence of the Kingdom which belongeth inseparably to the King as Head or supreme Protector, so as if any Act of Parliament should enact that he should not defend the Kingdom, or that he should have no aides from his Subjects to defend the Realm, such Acts would not bind, but would be void, because they would be against all natural Reason.  
And Judge Crook also doth in his Argument against the Ship-money, wherein he concurred with Justice Hutton, allege that if a statute were made that a King should not defend the Kingdom, it were void being against Law and Reason.  
And when a Parliament is called by the King's Writ to preserve his Kingdom, and Magna Charta so little intends that any future Parliament should alter or take away any Liberties granted or confirmed thereby, or any fundamental Laws, which are incorporate with the essence of Government, as it hath been by several confirmations of it enacted, that all Laws hereafter to be made to the contrary, shall be Null and void, and with good reason as to the King and Mesne Lords, in the changing of their Tenors into Socage, when as ex contractu obligatio, and ex obligatione Actio, should as well hold in those beneficial pactions, which were in the Creation of those Tenors betwixt the King, Lords, and Tenants, as in Bonds Bills, and Assumpsits, or any other contracts whatsoever.  
And is so great a part of right Reason, in the opinion of Foreigners, and according to the Law of Nature and Nations, as in the Germane Empire, (though it hath heretofore lost much of its power and authority, 
(s) Conringius de Germanici Imperii Republic.  by the greatness of some of the Princes, and the many Liberties and Privileges granted to Cities & Towns) its remaining Prerogatives notwithstanding are said to be Jura Majestatis & instar puncti divisionem non recipientia adeoque Imperatoris personae cohaerent ut nec volens iis se abdicare aut alium in consortium vocare possit, 
(t) Arumae●● de Comitijs Roma●i Germanici Imperij ca 3. §, 2. &. 3.  so inseparable as they are capable of no division, and do so adhere unto the Emperor's person, as he cannot if he would renounce or transfer them over to any other.  
And Bodi● that understood France very well, 
(u) Bodin de Republica lib. 1.273.  saith, that Si Princeps publica praedia, cum imperio aut jurisdictione & eo modo fruenda concesserit quo ipse fruetur, etiam si Tabulis jura Majestatis excepta non fuerunt ipso jure tamen excepta judicantur, if the King shall grant any of his Lands, to hold as freely, and with as much power and jurisdiction as he himself enjoyed it, the jura Majestatis, or Regalities are always adjudged and taken to be excepted though there be no reservation or exception in the Letters Patents.  

(w) Bodin ibm●59 ●59.  And the Parliament of Paris were so careful of the King's Rights, in Governing as when Francis the first, had granted to the Queen his Mother, a Commission to pardon and restore condemned persons, it declared that such a grant quum sine Majestatis diminutione communicari non possit, seeing it could not be granted without diminution of his Royal Authority, was void, & thereupon the Queen Mother intermeddled no more therein.  

The Conclusion.  
WHen all therefore which can be but pretended against Tenors in Capite, and by Knight service, shall be put together, and said, and done they will come to no more than this.  
The general Assessments for men and Horses, and necessaries for War, whether men will or no, are a service incumbent upon every man's estate, though they bought and purchased their Lands, & the Knight service which is now complained of, is but where their Lands were given them for that purpose, and ex pacto & voluntate, by Agreement.  
For it hath always been accounted to be no less than reason, that qui sentit commodum sentire debet et onus, the Rose and the Prickle must go together, and he that hath the profit may be well contented to do something for it, especially when it is no more than what he did agree to do, and believed it to be a favour.  
And if they now take those Lands to be a burden, may if they please give themselves an ease by returning of them to those that gave it.  
And should not be murmured at, or complained of, when as those that live near the Sea, do live under a Charge or Imposition which is annual, and sometimes very great upon all. And in Holland are commanded and ordered yearly by the Dijck Graven, or Magistrates appointed for that purpose, to repair and amend their Sea walls; Or as it is also in England, by Direction of Law and Commissions of Sewers, and do but in that though their Lands were dearly paid for, and not freely given, as those do which hold their Lands by Knight service, and defend themselves by defending others.  
And it will ever be a Rule and Maxim in Loyalty, as well as in Law and right Reason, that by the Laws of God, Nature, and Nations, as well as of England, there is and aught to be a natural Allegiance to the King, that Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy do enjoin every Subject to defend his Prince, and his just Rights and Jurisdictions; And that the safety of every man in particular, and his own discretion should advise him to it, unless they will think it to be wisdom in the Citizens of Constantinople, who in the Siege thereof would rather keep their money and riches for the Turks to plunder, then help themselves or their Emperor with it, & make thereby themselves & their posterity Slaves to the enemy of Christendom then put it to the right use of defending their Prince, themselves, and Posterities.  
And will all resolve in this, a defence of the King & his people will be eternally necessary, an ordinary, a speedy, a ready, a willing, and the most ingageing & obliging way, will be better than that which shall be extra-ordinary a far off, and to seek, or be enforced.  
And the most ready means for a defence and at hand, must needs be the most proper and beneficial, for upon that ground Kings have their Treasuries, Armouries, and Arsenals, which Republicques are content to imitate; Our Constables and Justices of Peace in England, being as standing Officers and Guardians of the Peace, are more for the safety of the people, when they are made before hand, to be ready upon any breach of peace, then if they were to seek, or to be made afterwards, and i● would be no dimunition of the strength or defence of the Kingdom to have the Nobility and Gentry of England by the Tenure of their Lands as it were listed, and undertaking upon all occasions to serve their Prince and defend their Country, for the smallest understandings can find the way to determine that it will be better and more easy for the Subject to have the King and their Country served by a Knight service, in acknowledgement of great Estates only given them for that purpose, than to have 10 or 12000 men provided by the Subjects by a constant Pole money and Assessment upon them and their Heirs, for a ready Guard and Assistance for the defence and safeguard of the Country as well as of the King, which the Danes after their late so great misfortunes and miseries by the incursions & furious attempts of the Swedes, have learned to be wisdom, & have therefore lately bound themselves and their posterities to maintain a guard of 10 or 12000 men to be paid by a Pole or Assessment.  
And unless the divine light of reason, and that which hitherto hath been called wisdom, have altered their courses and resolved that which is retrograde and quite contrary to be the better, the most safe and natural way will be as it ever hath been to have our men at Arms to be Natives rather than Foreigners, such as are of the better sort, and bred and educated in Feats of arms, rather than such as have neither skill nor courage, and such as have Lands and Estates of their own to make a concernment, rather than such as have none.  
Better to have the Nobility and Gentry who are bred and trained up in War, and understand the necessity and causes of a War to be engaged in the defence of the Kingdom, than the vulgus who are often called, and too often experimented, and best know how they came to deserve it mobile & imperitum vulgus, a Beast of many heads, and without a Superior or Governors, are ●it only to attempt again the building of Babel, wherein if they were all of one language, they would for want of agreement or wit, either totally miscarry in the building, or make it to be an unimitablepeice of deformity.  
For it was certainly no fault in Abraham that he had 318 Servants born in his own house to Arm in a case of necessity to rescue his Brother Lot; 
(y) Genesis 14, v. 14.  Nor in David that he had Servants to pass before him to War.  
Or when he well understood that the Children of Israel when they had no King, 
(z) 1 Reg. 15. v. 18. & 19  and every one followed his own Imaginations, were often delivered into the hands of the Midianites, Philistims, & many of the Nations round about them, and that Deborah & Baruch, having undertaken to relieve them were enforced to pronounce a Curse against thos● that came not to help the Lord against the mighty, when Reuben had great devisions, & did abide amongst the Sheepfolds, Dan remained in Ships, and Ashur continued by the Sea-Shore.  
And that he had tasted of the fickleness & infidelity of the men of Judah & Israel in the Rebellion of Absalon, did though they were afterwards so kind unto him, as to wrangle with the men of Judah for bringing him home to his Kingdom, and not giving them a share in the honour of it, not think it to be repugnant to the good and safety of the people to settle a strong & well form Militia, and to have a Lifeguard of 24000 valiant men to attend by months, and courses the safety of his person, and his peaceable Government, which must needs be better than to be left to the humour of the people to go or not to go with their Prince to war, as the wind of their Interest, or faction shall blow them, which may make such kind of aids in the greatest of necessities to be hardly compassed.  
And the Delectus of the Roman Soldiers in their growing greatness, and most virtuous condition of that State or Commonwealth before their course and custom of Patronage, & Clyentelage had taken root and gained approbation, and their often Mutinies and refuseing nomina dare to list or Enrol themselves, unless usury might be lessoned, and Laws cut out to their Fancies, hath told us how like Egyptian Reeds such a away of raising men to defend the King, themselves and the Kingdom will be to those that shall most trust or lean upon it.  
So that then the Gorgon's head and the Bugbear of the Tenors in Capite and Knight Service being only the marriages and putting the Wards Estates under a rent, whilst they shall be in minority if rationally considered with allowance of the seldom happening of it or but once in three or four descents, and two years' value being allowed upon the death of every Tenant in Socage or Copyhold Estates, at the admission of every one of their Heirs, will with their reliefs and herriots, possibly make the account of the money and charge of the wardship to be something equal, if not a great deal less.  
Which howsoever may be removed or made to be more familiar and better understood or born, if the Tenants in Capite and by Knight Service, shall be exempted from all other Taxes or Assessments for War, but what belongs to their Service, as by Law they anciently were and aught to be; the Wards nor their Estate during that time, being never heretofore charged with any such Assessments, as our late Tax-Masters have laid upon the People, when as the fifth, and many times the third part of the Wards yearly Rents, besides a fifth part of the value of their real estate, and a twentieth of the personal, and revenue enforced & taken from them to maintain Iniquity, would have saved more money than the Wardships cost.  
Or if that will not still the causeless outcry, that the Licence of Alienation (which as well as in Capite & by Knight Service, are by the Custom of many Manors to be paid in Socage) and the Homages, Grand and Petit Serjeanties', Reliefs, Primer Seisins, and Liveries, and all other incidents belonging to the Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service, be reserved and continued to the King and Mesne Lords, and the Marriages of the Wards be put to a just apportionment and rate (not to boxing or bidding with every pretender, or such as shall be procured on purpose, and was thought by the Sons of Rapine to be a parcel of godliness) according to two years present value of the Estate, and a moderate Rate or Rent for the Lands.  
And if that they do not like to sue or be sued in that Court, may do it either in the Exchequer or Chancery, and try which of those Courts they shall like the better.  
There being no Reason to be shown why Wardships Rents, and Marriage Money should not be paid as quietly, or without the Noise or Clamour of Oppressioon by some orderly Course to be taken in the collecting of it, as the first Fruits of Arch-bishoppricks, Bishoprics, and all the Clergyes Benefices, which was at first derived from the Pope's Usurpations, and afterwards settled in the Crown, or as the Tenths of all the Monasteryes and Religious Lands which by Act of Parliament were settled in the Crown for the Support and Maintenance thereof.  
And now all the Lines are come in, and meet in one Centre, we may ask the Days that are past, and demand of the Sons of Novelty how it should happen, or where the Invisible Cause or Reason lurketh, that a People, at least too many of them, not long ago covenanting, whether his late Majesty would or no, to preserve his Honour, Rights and jurisdictions, and calling God to witness that they had no Intention to diminish them, should press or persuade the King to part with the vitals of his Regality, or let out the blood thereof to take in water instead of it, which that learned John Earl of Bristol, who in his many Travails and Embassies to foreign Princes, had observed the several Strengths, Policies, and defects of Governments of all the Kings and Princes of Christendom, 
(x) Motives of the Earl of Bristol for adhering to his 〈◊〉 Majesty 58.  could think no otherwise of that high and just Prerogative of Kings than that, to discharge the Tenors in Capite would be consequently to discharge them of their Service to the Crown.  
When as their can be neither Cause nor Reason to make any such Demands, and that all the Lords of Manors in England who may already find the Inconveniences of making too many small sized Freeholders, and I wish the Kingdom may not feel it in the Elections of Parliament men, and Knights of the Shire, as well as it doth already by the Faction and Ignorance of such as choose Burgesses in Towns and Corporations who many times choose without eyes, ears, or understanding, would not be well content to have the many perplexed and tedious Suits at Law betwixt them and their troublesome Tenants about Customs and Fines incertain, which in every year do vex and trouble the Courts in Westminster Hall, or that which the late feavorish Fancies of some would call Norman Slaveryes should be either a Cause that they must be forced or over entreated to part with their Copyhold Estates, Herryots, Fines for Alienations, and all other Incidents thereunto belonging, or that it would be a good Bargain to have no Compensation or Recompense at all for them, or no more than after the Rate of what might Communibus Annis one year with another be made of them.  
Whenas to have the intended Recompense for the Court of Wards paid as is now proposed by a part of the Excise or Curses of the People, or to have the poor bear the burden of the rich or those to bear the Burden of it which are not at all concerned in any such purchase or Alteration, and will be an Act which can have no more Justice or Equity in it, then that the payment of First-Fruits which is merely Ecclesiastical should be distributed and charged for ever upon the Laity, and the other part of the People as well as the Clergy.  
That the Tenths which the Laity and some of the Clergy do now contentedly pay should be communicated and laid upon all the Kingdom in general in a perpetuity.  
That the draining or maintaining the Banks and Sluices and Misfortunes many times of the Fens in Lincolnshire and other particular Places should be charged upon the Estates of all the men in England that could not be concerned either in profit, loss, or D●nger.  
Or that in the enclosing of Commons or in Deafforrestations, the Commoners should have their, Compensation paid by all men in City Town▪ and Country, for that which was not 〈…〉 nor was ever like to be any Gain or Advantage to them.  
Or that the losses of Merchants by Shipwracks, Pirates, or letters of Reprisal, should be repaired and born by all the rest of the people that went no partnership or gain with them; Or which way the people of England should think it to be for their good or safety, that as it was in the days of Saul, there should not be a Sword or Spear in Israel, that the Lords of England, whose great Ancestors helped to maintain all our Liberties, being in Parliament in the 20 th'. year of King H. 3. pressed by the Bishops to Enact that Children born before Matrimony, when their Parents after married should be legitimate, answered Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae, we will not change the Laws of England, should not take the overturning so many of the Fundamental Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom, to be the ruin or destruction of it, to be of a greater concernment.  
And that the King will not think it to be a most Christian as well as an Heroic answer of John King of France, 
(y) John de Serres History of France.  when he was a Prisoner in England, to our King E. 3. and was denied his Liberty unless he would amongst other things do Homage for the Realm of France, and acknowledge to hold it of England, That he must not speak to him of that which he neither ought nor would do to Alienate a Right Inalienable, that he was resolved at what price soever, to leave it to his Children as he had received it from his Ancestors, that affliction might well engage his person, but not the inviolable right of the Crown, where he had the honour to be born, over which neither Prison nor Death had any power, and especially in him who should hold his life well employed sacrificing it for the Immortal preservation of France.  
And that the people of England should not rather imitate the wisdom as well as goodness of the Elders of Israel, when as Benhadad not content with ahab's Homage, had demanded unreasonable things of him, 
(z) 1 Reg. 20.8.  Say unto the King, harken not unto him nor consent.  
But remember that it was their forefather's, which in a Parliament of King E. 3. holden in the 42 th'. year of his reign, declared that they could not assent to any thing in Parliament, that tended to the disherison of the King, and his Crown, to which they were sworn, that in a Parliament holden in the 14 th'. year of the reign of King Richard the 2 d. the Lords and Commons did pray the King that the Prerogative of Him and his Crown may be kept, and that all things done, or attempted to the contrary, may be redressed, and that the King might be as free, as any of his Progenitors were, which the King granting, gave to it the force and power of an Act of Parlaiment.  
And consider that the innovation of Laws, or change of Customs are dangerous, and as St Augustine saith, non tam utilitate (if there were any profit in them) prosunt quam Novit●●e perturbant, do more hurt than good by their Novelty, that it will be unsafe to take away or dig up foundations, that where the inconveniences in the old Laws are not apparent, and the conveniences to come by the new not infallible or not likely to deceive our expectation of them, it will be perilous to change our Laws, more perilous when they be many, and most of all, when they be fundamental.  
That the more Power and Might is in the King, to defend us, the better will be the Ends which by the Means is intended, and that therefore in the Parliament of 7 E. 1. the Prelates, Earls, Barons, and the Commonalty of the Realm, did acknowledge that to the King it belonged of his Royal Signory, straight to defend force of Armour, and all other force against the Peace, and to punish them which shall do contrary, according to the Laws and usages of the Realm; and thereunto were bound to aid their Sovereign Lord at all Seasons when need shall be, that to make a Captain of a Cripple, or a Constable, which should keep the Peace in a Parish, and be ready to repel any violence which should be offered to the Inhabitants, to be blind or Bedrid, would not answer the End, or b● for the Safety of those that expect it from him.  
And that his Majesty's opinion expressed in his Message or Declaration from Breda, before his return into England, is and ever will be a maxim composed of very great reason and truth that his Majesty's just rights are the best preserver of the people's Liberties.  
And may believe before it be too late that to take away Tenors in Capite, and introduce the inconveniences before mentioned, will be but as a Prologue, or usher to Levelling, and the gate or entrance, to the Agrarian Devices, and the supposed Saints taking possession of the Estates of those which they call the wicked.  
And that the laying by of Tenors in Capite, and their services, and making use of Mercenary and Mechanic Soldiers, may help us to as many miseries and follies, as we have pertaked of in our late troubles, from our Servants, make them to become our Masters, and by inureing them to insolences against others, teach them how to domineer over the people, which shall be their paymasters, after that over Parliaments garbling and purging the House, pulling out, and putting in whom they please, turn Legislators, and Remonstrance▪ makers from their head quarters, make themselves not the Repairers of Breaches, but the makers and causers of them, engross, all the places and employments of the Kingdom, throw down Laws and Government, create out of themselves and their own Party, Mayors, Generals, to tyrannise awe the people, and abuse their Laws, and Liberties, and play the fools at Coffeehouses, with disputing and discoursing of Rotas, and Balloting Boxes, and which of their Whimsies, and ignorant contrivances would best make a Government Commit Perjuries in abundance, and make their oaths more changeable, and less to be trusted then the Wind or Wether, or a Lilies Almanac and make it their only business to enslave and insult over the people, and Metamorphose them into as many shapes of baseness, perjuries, Hipocrisies, dissembling and wickedness, as poverty hope of gain, or to get or preserve estates, (though it be but to have Poliphemus his courtesy to be last of all ruined) fear or flattery, or an accursed ambition to raise an estate out of other men's miseries, could persuade or draw them unto.  
That the taking away of Tenors in Capite & by Knight service, is not desired by any universal or general Petition at all of the People, that not one in every 20 of those that are concerned, & hold by those Tenors, nor one in every 100 of those that hold by other Tenors, and are not concerned, do desire it. That the injudicial and inconsiderate desires of a very few of the common people, who do sometimes (as they have many times done in our late troubles, and too late repent it) outdo Children in ask Stones instead of Bread, and Serpents for Fishes, are not to be harkened unto, that the Surfeits upon Liberty, are many times very dangerous, & may prove as fatal & unhappy, though granted or asked with the best of intentions, as that of giving great Sums of money to the Scots, in the beginning of our unhappy Wars, & calling their invasion a brotherly assistance, or that of giving Liberty to the long Parliament, not to dissolve without their consent.  
That if Augustus Caesar, when by his great Prudence he had put the broken pieces of the Roman Republic, which was Civilibus Discordiis lacerata, woefully torn with civil Discords into a well composed Monarchy, and blest the Empire & a great part of the World with an universal Peace, could find no better a way to fix and make it lasting, then to put many of the Soldiers under a Gratitude and Concernment to love and cherish it by giving them Lands for Life or Inheritance to engage them to their former Duties when occasion should happen, which saved the Charge and Trouble on all sides, as well to the conquered as the conquering in maintaining Roman Legions made up of a Medley or Gallimausry of all manner of Nations.  
It cannot now be good when the long lasting Monarchy of England hath been lately and lamentably torn into pieces to make up a Commonwealth, could never be agreed upon to alter or take away a Course of constant and ordinary defence which hath been for so many Ages past the happy Support of this Ancient Monarchy.  
And that it could not have been any bad or likely to be unsuccessful Policy, but a means of an Establishment of our late Soldiers and controulers had in the Allowance of their cheap purchases been tied to Tenors by Knight Service for the Defence of the Kingdom, as the late King of Sweden was to hold of the Empire by the Treaty of Munster.  
And if that Bracton who was a Lord Chief Justice in the Reign of King H. 3. was of opinion that by a partition of Earldoms and Baronies, 
(a) Bracton lib. 2. cap. 34.  deficeret Regnum quod ex Comitatibus & Baronijs dicitur esse constitutum, would ruin the Kingdom which is constituted of Earldoms and Baronies, he would now certainly foresee greater Mischiefs and Inconveniencies in the taking away of Tenors in Capite and by Knight Service, or changing them into Tenors in Socage.  
That by the Civil Law, that universal and great Rule of Reason, 
(b) Insti●ur. Justiniani in proaemio.  Imperatoriam Majestatem non solum armis decoratam sed etiam legibus oportet esse Armatam ut utrumque Tempus et Bell●rum et pacis recte possit gubernari, The Imperial Majesty or Power ought not only to be adorned & strengthened with Arms & the power thereof, but with Laws, to the end that as well in time of War as Peace, he may rightly govern.  
And that therefore we may well tremble and shake at the name of Innovations, and desiring to find the way again into the old Paths of Peace, Plenty, and Security.  
Have cause enough to say as the learned Grotius did concerning Holland, (only changing the word Respublica, into a better of a Kingdom) that multum debem●s majoribus nostris qui acceptam a primis conditoribus Rempublicam per se egregiam nostro vero ingenio nostrisque studiis aptissimam pace servatam bello recuperatam nobis reliquere, we owe much to our Ancestors, who having received the Commonwealth, which is excellent in itself, and fited to our Customs and manners from those which first founded it, and left us to enjoy in peace, what they had recovered in War, & nostrum est si nec ingrati nec imprudentes esse volumus Rempublicam constanter tueri quam ratio suadet probant experimenta & commendat Antiquitas. And if we would not be ingrateful or unjust we ought to defend that Kingdom and Government which Reason persuadeth us unto, Experiments approve, & Antiquity commendeth.  Collapsa ruent subductis tecta columnis.  
FINIS.