Page:Trial of john lilburne (IA trial john lilburne).djvu/23

 King Henry the 8. caused a special Court to be erected, by a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer, which Court also continued in Edward the sixt time, Queen Maries, and first and seventh of K. Iames; The Basis of which Commission, was founded upon those fore-mentioned innovating Statutes, made in Edward the second, and Edward the third’s time ; which speciall Commission of Oyer and Terminer was several times renewed by the late K. Charles, as in the fift, eighth, and thirteenth yeer of his Reign. And the said M. Hide there in his Argument or Speech which I have here in print, names several of the Presidents of that illegal Court of special Commission of Oyer and Terminer; and he there also declares in what an extraordinary manner, and upon what an extraordinary occasion it was granted, which was so great, as that a greater could not be imagined, and yet notwithstanding he declares, that this extraordinary Commission, which being granted to suppress and quiet those many extraordinary Insurrections and Rebellions, which do not admit of so long delay as times of ordinary Tryal, in times of Peace, when the Ordinary, Legal, and common Courts of Justice are open and free will do, when peace and quiet is in the Nation, as now it is; and yet for all that he condemns it for illegal.

And therefore Sir, admit my actions in their tendancy to be as dangerous and hainous as any of my adversaries can imagine or declare them to be, yet they are but in the ashes, but in the harth, they are not broke out into visible and violent hostile actions; and therefore I say, if special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer granted in such special and transcendent cases as those in Henry the 8. time were illegal, much more must a special Commission of Oyer and Terminer granted to try me barely for words, or at most, for pretended Writings or Books, at such a time when there is no burning flame of Insurrections or Rebellions in the Kingdom, but all in visible peace, and all the ordinary Courts of Justice open, and I and my Friends have often sought to enjoy the benefit of the Law in a Legal Trial, from first to last, but could never enjoy it in the least measure, although many Sizes and Sessions have past over my head since my first Commitment, now seven moneths ago, at the first of which, in the County where my pretended crime was committed, I ought by Law and Justice either to be tryed or acquitted; so that Sir, by what I have already said, you may see the judgement and opinion of the House of Commons upon special Commissions of Oyer and Terminer in their first purity, when Rh