328 TRACTS RELATING TO 



and manner : in matter, as well by way of omission 

 as commission ; for omission, that it was a fault in 

 the judges, that when they heard a counsellor at the 

 bar presume to argue against his majesty s preroga 

 tive, which in this case was in effect his supremacy, 

 they did not interrupt and reprove sharply that base 

 and bold course of defaming or impeaching things 

 of so high a nature by discourse ; especially since 

 his majesty hath observed, that ever since his com 

 ing to the crown, the popular sort of lawyers have 

 been the men, that most affrontedly in all parlia 

 ments have trodden upon his prerogative : which 

 being most contrary to their vocation of any men, 

 since the law or lawyers can never be respected, if 

 the king be not reverenced ; it doth therefore best 

 become the judges of any, to check and bridle such 

 impudent lawyers, and in their several benches to dis 

 grace them that bear so little respect to their king s au 

 thority and prerogative : that his majesty liad a double 

 prerogative, whereof the one was ordinary and had 

 relation to his private interest, which might be, and 

 was every day, disputed in Westminster-Hall ; the 

 other was of an higher nature, referring to his 

 supreme and imperial power and sovereignty, which 

 ought not to be disputed or handled in vulgar argu 

 ment : but that of late the courts of the common law 

 are grown so vast and transcendent, as they did 

 both meddle with the king s prerogative, and had 

 incroached upon all other courts of justice ; as the 

 high commission, the councils established in Wales 

 and at York, the court of requests. 



