Page:Trial of john lilburne (IA trial john lilburne).djvu/22

 And Sir, with your favour, the then Parliament that made the lastrecited Lawes, were so farre from countenancing any special Commissions o Oyer and Terminer, upon any special or pretended great occasions whasoever that I can read of, That I rather find and read the Parliaments proceedings in the year 1641. An extream Out-cry of the House of Commons, against special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer, with a great deal of bitterness and vehemency, as may fully and clearly be read in that excellent Argument of Mr. Hide, April 1641. Printed and published in a Booke, called Speeches and Passages of Parliament, page 409. to 417. which I have here at the Barre to produce which Mr. Hide, was then the special and appointed mouth of the House of Commons before the Lords, who unto them in conformity to his Commission from the then House of Commons, complaines to the house of Lords extreamly of a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer, that was exercised in the five Northern Counties of England, and earnestly in the name of the house of Commons, craves the special assistance of the house of Lords, to pluck up that Court by the very rootes, founded upon a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer, being so illegall and unjust in the very foundation of it, as it is inconsistent with the peoples liberties, and as that which destroyed and disinherited all the people that were tryed, both of their Birth-right and Inheritance, viz. Their Liberties and Freedoms contained in Magna Charta; And this Sir, was the declared and avowed judgement and opinion of the house of Commons in April 1641. in their primitive purity and none-defilement, when they acted bravely and gallantly for the universall Liberties and Freedom of this Nation (and not selfe-interest) when they were in the Virginity of their Glory and Splendor, as he there fully and most excellently declares, and yet he there gives an extraordinary reason for the original erection of that Court founded upon a speciall Commission of Oyer and Terminer, as can be rendred.

The originall reason or occasion of which he there declares to be thus, that by reason of the suppression of the Abbies in the 27. of Henry the eights time; In the North of England (through discontent thereat) there did arise from the said 27. yeare to the 30. no fewer then six grand insurrections, most of them under the Command of some eminent man of those Countries, which Insurrections & Rebellions occasioned the leavying of great Armies which had like to have set the whole Kingdom in an universall flame; for the suppressing and preventing of which in future times