Part 77

The Root and Branch Petition of 1640 complained about pressure on ministers by bishops on threat of dismissal not to preach about predestination, free grace, perseverance, original sin remaining after baptism, the sabbath, doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen, free-will against anti-Christ, non- residents, or human inventions in God's worship. It also complained about the great increase of idle, lewd, and dissolute, ignorant and erroneous men in the ministry who wanted only to wear a canonical coat, a surplice, and a hood, bow at the name of Jesus, and be zealous of superstitious ceremonies. It also complained about the swarming of lascivious, idle, and unprofitable books, pamphlets, play-books, and ballads, such as Ovid's "Fits of Love", "The Parliament of Women", Barn's "Poems", and Parker's "Ballads". Further it opposed the restraint of reprinting books formerly licensed without relicensing. It protested the growth of popery and increase of priests and Jesuits, the strict observance of saints' days whereby large fines were imposed on people working on them, the increase of whoredoms and adulteries because of the bishops' corrupt administration of justice and taking of bribes, and the practice of excommunicating for trivial matters such as working on a holy day or not paying a fee. It further protested the fining and imprisoning of many people; breaking up men's houses and studies; taking away men's books, letters, and writings; seizing upon their estates; removing them from their callings; and separating them from their wives, to the utter infringement of the laws and of people's liberties. It complained that these practices caused many clothiers, merchants, and others to flee to Holland, thus undermining the wool industry. It finally complained of the multitude of monopolies and patents, large increase of customs, and ship-money. Many Londoners signed this petition.

The House of Commons decided to forbid bowing at the name of Jesus. When the House of Lords disagreed with this, the House of Commons claimed that it represented all the people and didn't need the concurrence of the House of Lords. The House of Commons ordered that all communion tables be removed from the east end of churches, that the railings be taken away, and all candles and basins be removed from it. Further, all crucifixes, images of the Virgin Mary, and pictures of any of the Trinity were to be demolished, which was done to even those in markets and streets. Further, all bowing at the name of Jesus or toward the east end of the church or toward the communion table was forbidden. All dancing or other sports on Sunday was forbidden. Enforcement was to be done by Justices of the Peace and Mayors. But these orders never became statutes.

Enforcement of the law for not coming to church was not now regularly enforced, so Catholics had a respite.

Rebellion of Irish Catholics against England and English Protestants broke out in Ireland in 1641. Parliament didn't trust the King with an army that he could use against themselves so it passed the following two measures expanding the Navy and calling out the militia and naming certain persons to be Lieutenants of each county.

The Admiral shall impress as many seamen as necessary for the defense of the realm. This includes mariners, sailors, watermen, ship carpenters, but no one over the age of 50 or masters or masters' mates. If one hides, he shall be imprisoned for three months without bail.

Justices of the Peace shall impress as many soldiers as the king may order for war in Ireland. This is despite the right of a citizen to be free from being compelled to go out of his county to be a soldier because the danger from Ireland is imminent. Excluded are clergymen, scholars, students, those rated at a subsidy of land of three pounds or goods of five pounds, esquires or above, the sons of such or their widows, those under eighteen or over sixty years of age, mariners, seamen, and fishermen. The penalty for disobeying is imprisonment, without bail or misprise, and a fine of ten pounds. If an offender can't pay the fine, he shall be imprisoned a year more, without bail or misprise.

The right to call out the county militia had been a prerogative of the Crown, so the King issued a Proclamation ordering the soldiers to ignore this order and obey him. So Parliament declared this Proclamation void.

The King accused five leaders of Parliament, including Pym, of trying to subvert the government of the kingdom, to deprive the King of his regal power, to alienate the affections of the people toward their King, forcing the Parliament to their ends by foul aspersions, and inviting the Scots to invade England. In 1642, the King entered Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest these five. They had flown, but Parliament was shocked that the King had threatened the liberties of Parliament with military force. The citizens of London, in their fear of popery, rose in arms against the King, who left the city. Both sides raised big armies. The goal of the Parliamentarians was to capture the King alive and force him to concessions.

When the Parliamentarians took Oxford in 1648, they purged its faculty of royalists.

- The Law -

From 1625 to 1627 these statutes were passed:

No one shall engage in sports or any pastimes outside his own parish or bearbaiting, bullbaiting, interludes, plays or other unlawful pastimes inside his parish on Sundays because such has led to quarrels and bloodshed and nonattendance at church. The fine is 3s.4d. or if the offender does not have the money or goods to sell to pay, he shall be set in the public stocks for three hours.

No carrier with any horse or wagon or cart or drover with cattle may travel on Sunday or forfeit 20s.

No butcher may kill or sell any victual on Sunday or forfeit 6s.8d.

Every innkeeper, alehousekeeper, and other victualler permitting a patron who is not an inhabitant of the area to become drunk shall forfeit 5s. or be place in the stocks for six hours. Offenders convicted a second time shall be bound by two sureties to the sum of 200s.

As of 1627, a parent sending a child out of the country to go to a Catholic school were to forfeit 100 pounds, one half to the informer and one half to the king.

The Petition of Right herebefore described was passed as a statute in 1627.

- Judicial Procedure -

The Star Chamber decided cases as diverse as a case of subordination of witnesses, cases of counterfeiters of farthing tokens, and cases of apothecaries compounding ill medicines. It tried to keep down the prices of foodstuffs for the benefit of the poor; it repressed extortion and false accusations, and disbarred an attorney for sharp practices; it punished defamation, fraud, riots, forgery of wills; it forbade duels. A special virtue of its position was that it could handle without fear matters in which men of social or local influence might intimidate or overawe juries or even country justices. It punished a lord who caused records to be forged, unlawfully entered lands, and seized tithes. It disciplined a nobleman for drawing a sword on a lord hunting hare.

In one of its cases, Sir Edward Bullock, a knight wanting to enclose a common of a thousand acres threatened his neighbor Blackhall when he would not sell his lands and rights. The knight hired a man to break down the hedges and open a gate that had been staked up, so that his neighbor's cattle would stray. He sued his neighbor three times for trespass, lost his cases, and threatened revenge on all the witnesses who testified against him. He had the house of one pulled down. The pregnant wife and a naked child were turned out and had to lie in the streets because no one dared to take them in, even when a justice so directed. The witness, his wife, and family took refuge in an unheated outbuilding in the winter. He and his wife and one child died there. The knight had another witness cudgeled so that she was black and blue from the waist up, and could not put on her clothes for a month. The knight threatened to set fire to the house of another witness, and sent his men to pull him out of doors and keep him prisoner for some hours. The Star Chamber imprisoned the knight and his men. The knight was fined 1,000 pounds and the men 50 pounds each. The knight also had to pay one witness 100 pounds in reparation to the surviving children of the family whose house had been pulled down.

But the power of the Star Chamber was abused by King Charles I. For instance, one lord was accused by another of calling him a base lord. The evidence was paltry. But he was fined eight thousand pounds, one-half going to the King. A lord who was accused of converting agricultural land to pasture was fined four thousand pounds. The lord was fined ten thousand pounds. A person who exported fuller's earth, contrary to the King's proclamation, was pilloried and fined two thousand pounds. A man who defaced a stained-glass window in a church was fined 500 pounds and ordered to pay for a plain glass replacement. A man who became sheriff of a county and had taken the oath which bound him to remain in the county was elected to Parliament and stood in opposition to the king on many matters. He was imprisoned for many years until he made a humble submission and had to pay a heavy fine. A London importer who was alleged to have said "That the Merchants are in no part of the world so screwed and wrung as in England; That in Turkey they have more encouragement" was fined 2,000 pounds for seditious and slanderous words against his majesty's happy government. A Scottish minister circulated a book appealing to the Parliament to turn out the bishops and to resist its own dissolution by the King. In it he called the bishops men of blood, anti-Christian, satanical, ravens, and magpies, preying on the state. He was against kneeling at the sacrament and denounced the Queen for her religion. He blamed the state for the death of citizens of a certain town by famine. For as he did "scandalize his Majesties Sacred Person, his Religious, Wise, and just Government, the Person of his Royal Consort the Queen, the Persons of the Lords and Peers of this realm, especially the Reverend Bishops", he was fined 10,000 pounds, was to be unfrocked (which was done by the Court of High Commission), and was whipped, pilloried, one ear nailed to the pillory and cut off, his cheek branded, and his nose slit. Then he was imprisoned for life, but only served ten years, being released by a statute of the Long Parliament. A Puritan writer Pyrnne wrote a book that included a condemnation of masks and plays, and all who took part, and all who looked on as sinful, pernicious, and unlawful. It opined that Nero had attended plays and deserved to be murdered. Since Charles had attended plays and the Queen had taken part in a mask, it was inferred that Pyrnne meant them harm. His indictment alleged that "he hath presumed to cast aspersions upon the King, the Queen, and the Commonwealth, and endeavored to infuse an opinion onto the people that it is lawful to lay violent hands upon Princes that are either actors, favorers, or spectators of stage plays". The justices saw in the book an attempt to undermine authority. The Chief Justice called the book a most wicked, infamous, scandalous, and seditious libel. Pyrnne was sentenced to be degraded by Oxford and disbarred by Lincoln's Inn, to be fined 5,000 pounds, to be pilloried and to have his ears cut off, and then to be imprisoned for life. Three men who wrote attacks on the bishops and ecclesiastical courts, such as alleging that the bishops suppression of fasts and preaching had brought the pestilence upon the people and that the bishops had dishonored God and exercised papal jurisdiction in their own names, were each sentenced to 5,000 fine, the pillory, where their ears were cut off, and to life imprisonment. One, who had been convicted for libel before, was branded on both cheeks: "S.L." for Seditious Libeller. Others printed similar material. In vain the Star Chamber limited the number of London printers to twenty, and made licensing stricter. These prisoners were set free by the Long Parliament.

Charles I intimidated justices to obey him in decision-making even more than James I.

Charles I so abused the power of the Star Chamber court that it was abolished by the Long Parliament and with it, the involvement of the King's Council in civil and criminal cases.

The regular church courts punished people for heresy, non- attendance at church, sexual immorality, working on the sabbath or a holy day, non-payment of tithes, and lending money at interest. The special ecclesiastical court, the Court of High Commission, was composed of clerics appointed by the king and decided cases of marriage annulment, alimony, adultery, married couples living separately, cruelty of husbands to wives, and habitual drunkenness. But it also took on cases of schismatics and extended its power over them to include staid and solid Puritans, who uniformly believed that salvation was the only worthy earthly aim. Acting on information attained through secret channels or from visitations, it would summon the accused, who was required to give, under oath, "full, true, and perfect" answers to broad and undetailed charges made by secret informants. Refusal to take the oath resulted in commitment for contempt of court. If he denied the charges and fled, the court could hold the hearing without him. Many fled out of the country or went into hiding in it. If the accused went to the hearing, he could not take an attorney with him. Most of the issues involved clergy refusing to use the litany, to make the sign of the cross in baptism, to wear the surplice, or to publish the Book of Sports, and insistence on extempore prayer and preaching. Other issues were clergy who from the pulpit inveighed against ship-money and unjust taxes, and spoke rudely against the bishops and tyrannical princes. One case is that of Samuel Ward, the town preacher of a large town, heard in 1635. He neglected bowing or kneeling on coming to his seat in church and preached against the Book of Sports. He did not read the set prayers from the official book, but said prayers he had himself conceived. To this he replied that a parrot could be taught to repeat forms and an ape to imitate gestures. But his most serious offenses had to do with his utterances from the pulpit derogatory to the tenets and discipline of the church. He was accused of saying that he believed that congregations still had the right of election of all officers, including ministers. Also, he allegedly said that in preaching on the Christmas holidays he told his people "that in the following days they might do their ordinary business, intending to cross that vulgar superstitious belief, that whoever works on any of those twelve days shall be lousy". He allegedly warned his people to beware of a relapse into popery. Ward was convicted of depraving the liturgy, tending toward schism, frightening the people, and encouraging the overthrow of all manner of government. He was removed from his position, deprived of his ministerial function, suspended and silenced during the King's pleasure. He was ordered to make submission and recantation both in court and in his church and to give bond for 200 pounds. When he did not do this, he was sent to prison and lay there nearly four years, and died a few months later. In another case, a Mrs. Traske was imprisoned for at least eleven years for keeping Saturday as her sabbath. Many people were excommunicated and books censored for essentially political reasons.

In 1637, the king proclaimed that the common law courts could not intervene in ecclesiastical courts.

The Court of High Commission was abolished by the Long Parliament.

Justices of the Peace had general and quarter sessions, the latter of which were held four times a year with all Justices of the Peace attending. It was primarily a court of appeal from penal sentences. But it was also an administrative body to determine taxes and make appointments of officials and grant licenses for businesses.

In 1638, in distributing a deceased person's estate, the Chancery court upheld a trust for an heiress which would not become her husband's property.