"Form of Apology and Satisfaction"Parliament (1604) |  |
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Most gracious Sovereign, We cannot but with much joy and thankfulness of
mind acknowledge your Majesty's great graciousness in declaring lately unto
us by the mouth of our Speaker that you rested now satisfied with our
doings. We know, and with great thankfulness to God acknowledge, that He hath given us a King of such understanding and wisdom as is rare to find in any prince in the world. Howbeit, seeing no human wisdom, how great soever, can pierce into the particularities of the rights and customs of people or of the sayings and doings of particular persons but by tract of experience and faithful report of such as know them (which it hath pleased your Majesty's princely mouth to deliver), what grief, what anguish of mind hath it been unto us at some time in presence to hear, and so in other things to find and feel by effect, your gracious Majesty (to the extreme prejudice of all your subjects of England, and in particular of this House of Commons thereof) so greatly wronged by misinformation as well touching the estate of the one as the privileges of the other, and their several proceedings during this Parliament: Which misinformations, though apparent in themselves and to your subjects most injurious, yet have we in some humble and dutiful respects rather hitherto complained of amongst ourselves than presumed to discover and oppose against your Majesty... With all humble and due respect to your Majesty our Sovereign Lord and Head, against those misinformations we most truly avouch, First, That our privileges and liberties are our right and due inheritance, no less than our very lands and goods. Secondly, That they cannot be withheld from us, denied, or impaired, but with apparent wrong to the whole state of the realm. Thirdly, And that our making of request in the entrance of Parliament to enjoy our privilege is an act only of manners, and cloth weaken our right no more than our suing to the King for our lands by petition... Fourthly, We avouch also, That our House is a Court of Record, and so ever esteemed. Fifthly, That there is not the highest standing Court in this land that ought to enter into competency, either for dignity or authority, with this High Court of Parliament, which with your Majesty's royal assent gives laws to other Courts but from other Courts receives neither laws nor orders. Sixthly and lastly, We avouch that the House of Commons is the sole proper judge of return of all such writs and of the election of all such members as belong to it, without which the freedom of election were not entire: And that the Chancery, though a standing Court under your Majesty, be to send out those writs and receive the returns and to preserve them, yet the same is done only for the use of the Parliament, over which neither the Chancery nor any other Court ever had or ought to have any manner of jurisdiction... The rights of the liberties of the Commons of England consisteth chiefly in these three things: First, That the shires, cities, and boroughs of England, by representation to be present, have free choice of such persons as they shall put in trust to represent them. Secondly, That the persons chosen, during the time of the Parliament as also of their access and recess, be free from restraint, arrest, and imprisonment. Thirdly, That in Parliament they may speak freely their consciences without check and controlment, doing the same with due reverence to the Sovereign Court of Parliament, that is, to your Majesty and both the Houses, who all in this case make but one politic body whereof your Highness is the Head... There remaineth, dread Sovereign, yet one part of our duty at this present which faithfulness of heart, not presumption, cloth press. We stand not in place to speak or do things pleasing; our care is and must be to confirm the love and tie the hearts of your subjects the commons most firmly to your Majesty. Herein lieth the means of our well deserving of both. There was never prince entered with greater love, with greater joy and applause of all his people. This love, this joy, let it flourish in their hearts for ever. Let no suspicion have access to their fearful thoughts that their privileges, which they think by your Majesty should be protected, should now by sinister informations or counsel be violated or impaired, or that those which with dutiful respects to your Majesty speak freely for the right and good of their country shall be oppressed or disgraced. Let your Majesty be pleased to receive public information from your Commons in Parliament as to the civil estate and government, for private informations pass often by practice: the voice of the people, in the things of their knowledge, is said to be as the voice of God. And if your Majesty shall vouchsafe, at your best~pleasure and leisure, to enter into your gracious consideration of our petition for the ease of these burdens under which your whole people have of long time mourned, hoping for relief by your Majesty, then may you be assured to be possessed of their hearts, and if of their hearts, of all they can do or have. And so we your Majesty's most humble and loyal subjects, whose ancestors have with great loyalty, readiness, and joyfulness served your famous progenitors, Kings and Queens of this Realm, shall with like loyalty and joy, both we and our posterity, serve your Majesty and your most royal issue for ever, with our lives, lands, and goods, and all other our abilities, and by all means endeavor to procure your Majesty honor, with all plenty, tranquillity, content, joy, and felicity. |
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SOURCE:
Thomas C. Mendenhall et al., Ideas and Institutions in European History, 800-1715 (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1963), pp. 273-274.
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