ENGLAND'S PROSPERITY IN THE PRIVILEGES OF PARLIAMENT, Set forth In a brief Collection of their most Memorable services for the honour and safety of this Kingdom, since the Conquest, till these present times.   printer's device with fleur-de-lis, probably originally belonging to John Wolfe 
nouemb: 24 LONDON, Printed for Nicholas jones.   

ENGLAND'S Prosperity.  
THe Institution of our Parliaments is very ancient; Some hold they were in use among the Saxons, but the more certain opinion is, they are derivative from the Norman Conqueror, being indeed the very Essence and primum mobile of the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom; the Subjects best inheritance, the Charter by which he holds his liberty.  
In the Reign of William the Conqueror his time, being most employed in France, we read not of any memorable act performed by Parliament, the Kingdom being then as it were in parties, and the Laws in their infancy: Nor in his sons William Rufus reign, till upon his decease the Body of the kingdom, saith William Rishanger, chose for their head King Beauclarke discarding Robert Duke of Normandy his elder brother from the government; so supreme was the dignity of the Parliament in those days, that for the good of the people, who desired not a stranger should rule over them, Robert being an alien borne, and Henry at Selby in Yorkshire, that it could confer the royalty on him that only had his right in the Sovereignty by the Parliaments Election and suffrage. The same Parliament to unite the ancient Saxon blood Royal, with the Norman, engaging him to marry Matilda the daughter of Malcolme King of Scots, being the only heir of Edmund Ironside. The same Parliament or another in his Reign obtaining from that good King many Franchises and Privileges for the subject.  
King Stephen the successor to his Uncle made no great use of the Honourable the High Court of Parliament, being indeed an usurper, he was assured that just and wise Assembly could never be so much recreant to their natural virtue, as to underprop by their strength his former claim against the right heir Maud the Empress, whose son Henry the short Mantle, Parliamentary power rather than his forces, settled in the Royalty. This powerful King made frequent and special use of his Parliaments, both for the supplying his coffers exhausted in his expensive wars; and for settling the affairs of the kingdom, a Parliament in his reign settling the confusion of our common Laws, gathering the best of the Norman constitutions, and adding to them the best of King alfred's and Saint Edward's Laws; It made up the body of our fundamental Statutes. The same Parliament for the ease and benefit of the subject obtaining from that King Judges itinerant that should ride the several circuits of the kingdom, and bring the people right home to their own doors: His son the Lion-hearted Richard, in his wars in the Holy Land, receiving from his subjects the bounteous provision of his Parliaments in nine years, eleven hundred thousand marks, a stupendious sum says one in those days, ere the Indean Treasury had oresiowed the world, though they were not at all for the profit of the people, were mightily to the honour of the Nation in general, as those days went; So that it is apparent our Parliaments have always been as careful of the kingdom's honour as its profit.  
King john his successor indeed an usurper, declined the use of Parliaments till his necessities enforced him to call them and rely on them: Our Parliaments having always been our King's best helpers at dead lifts, furnishing them from the public store, when either mischance, or if superfluity had exhausted, their private Treasuries  
When this King alienating from the virtue of his Ancestors, sought not only the oppression of the subject, but to enslave the Crown to a foreign yoke, to avoid excommunication, and to win him to his party, holding his Royalty of the Pope. The Parliament mindful of the subject's safety took righteous arms up against them, and got the charter of their Liberty, sealed them, his son Henry the third as he reigned longest of all our Kings, so he had the most to do with the high Court of Parliament, with whom for the Liberty of the Subject, that Assembly had many and frequent contentions at Oxford: A Parliament in his Reign (all places of credit and trust being conferred upon aliens the King's kinsmen and half brothers) took upon them to redress those abuses, displacing those up-starts from their usurped dignities, and banished them the kingdom.  
Parliamentary power was never more useful to the Subject then in these times, nor never was its power better managed. When the King having again got new and evil Ministers that wasted the treasure and Crowne-lands on themselves and followers; The usual reply of their servants to the complaints of the King's Subjects, as saith William of Kishanger, being quis tibi rectum faciet quod Dominus meus vult. Dominus Rex vult. Then did the Parliament by force rectify those abuses when fair means would not prevail, and thence indeed grew those long lasting Barons wars, wherein the Liberty and property of the subject had been swallowed in the gulf of the Royal Prerogative, had not the Parliament preserved it; so careful has that great and wise Assembly always been of the kingdom's safety, and so advantageous to the commodity of the subject.  
Edward the first, our English justinian made often and good use of his Parliaments, which liberally furnished him with money for his Scottish wars, the Parliament supplying him with money, being the main occasion of his conquests; there those Parliaments in lieu of their liberality obtaining from that good and gracious King the ample confirmation of their former privileges, divers new ones being added to those of Magna Charta, as the mitigation of those rigorous laws of the forests, which did most undo the subject's safeties, many excellent and useful Statutes, being enacted in those Parliaments. The Jews, that both by their irreligion and usury, were grown odious to the people, being not as in former Kings reigns fined, but their illgotten goods confiscated, and themselves for ever banished the kingdom.  
Edward the second, a dissolute and infortunate Prince, complied not with his Pa●●iament but his Minions, and was at last by a Parliament deposed, and the royalty conferred on his son, that great Edward the third; who still relying on the love and loyalty of his people, was powerful and victorious in France, the Parliaments assembled here furnishing him with plentiful supplies of treasure to pay his soldiers, and by those sums purchased still new infranchisements for the Subjects, that glorious King being every whit as careful to institute good & wholesome laws for his people here, as he was desirous to conquer in France. That unfortunate grandchild of his, Richard 2. seduced by flatterers, and led away to Oppressions and Injustices by his evil ministers, the Subject groaning under their tyrannies, had only recourse to the Parliament for relief: that great and famous Parliament that wrought wonders, being in his reign wherein forces were raised by the noblest Peers and faithful commons for the punishment of the King's malignant counsellors. Vere Tresilian and the rest, who from the Parliament received a due reward for their treacheries; and that last this King who never would adhere to his Parliaments advice was by Parliament degraded of his royalty, and the Crown conferred by their act upon Henry the fourth, who confiding in his Parliament, repressed by their help all domestic troubles and foreign Enemies: his son that thunderbolt of war, Henry the fifth, by his Parliaments bounty, made an absolute conquest of France, so that indeed all the glorious achievements of our English Monarches are to be attributed to the care of and providence of Parliaments: Henry the sixth, during the life of his Uncles, Bedford and Gloucester, was happy and feared abroad, as well as loved at home; those good Dukes, both to defend their foreign conquests, and to preserve the Majesty of their Nephew at home, summoning many Parliaments, at last the Parliament in its justice taking notice of the undoubted right of Richard Duke of York, to the Crown and the usurpation of the house of Lancaster, by their act settled the royalty upon his Progeny, disclaiming the son of Henry the sixth, though a gallant Prince.  
Edward the fourth, the first Monarch of the House of York, was, though not a frequent caller of Parliaments; yet when they were assembled, a great consenter to them, and at their request a continual confirmer of the people's Immunities; so was he, who though held the worst of men, is reputed among the best of our Kings. The Tyrant, Richard the third, who at his Parliaments devised many new and wholesome Laws for the benefit of the people: how rich, how puissant and glorious Henry the seventh lived and died by the Parliaments advice and furtherance, is not unknown to all that know our Histories, the union between the two so long jarring Houses, though continued by private persons, being ratified and confirmed by Parliament.  
Henry the eighth's reign afforded plurality of Parliaments, and very materious ones; at one of them that great Act (the more wondered at then the extirpation of Episopacie could be now) was passed for the demolishment of those rich Abbeys, the nurseries of sloth and licentiousness; for the not only excluding mitred Abbots from having votes in Parliament, but for their utter annihilating, their mighty revenues being confined the Kings: At another Parliament the power of the Pope was banished this Island, and the Supreme Ecclesiastical government annexed to the Prerogative Royal; so careful have our Parliaments always been, not only to preserve, but augment the dignity of our King. A Parliament in Edward the sixth's time refined Religion from all the dregs of Romish superstition, and settled the purity of Religion in this Kingdom, which obscured and altered in Queen Mary's reign, was in her sisters, of famous memory, by Parliamentary power settled again into its old order, how happy and glorious was that Queen during her long reign by relying on her Parliament: what blessings were derived from the Prince to the people, and from the people to the Prince: so it was i● King james his time, no difference at all ever happening between him and his Parliament; at one of which himself with his whole Nobility, had not God miraculously prevented it, had been by the Papists devilish conspiracy sold to destruction; nor certainly had there ever been emergent this strange distemper between King Charles and this his honourable and loyal Parliament, had the King been as ready to comply with their just desires, as they were to perform their duties to him; never was Parliament so hopeful, never had the State so much need of physic, because it was never so desperately sick: never were wholesomer medicines applied to cure its distempers, then hath been by this Parliament, had not perverse malignants altered and transformed the King's intentions from his Parliament now assembled, heaven send a speedy union between them, and there is no doubt but the Parliament (whom God preserve from all dangers) will make the King great and glorious, and the Subject fortunate and flourishing.   
FINIS.