The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon Volume 2 - Edward Hyde Clarendon

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1798 Excerpt: ...concealed for other Opportunities; and some were apprehended when They endeavoured to fly, and so were imprisoned. The Parliament published a Proclamation, "that " all who did not render themselves by a Day named, " should be judged as guilty, and attainted of Trea" son;" which many consented to, conceiving it to amount to no more than a common Process at Law to bring Men to Justice. But it was no sooner out, than all They who had concealed themselves in Order to be transported, rendered themselves to the Speaker, of the House of Commons, and were by him committed to the Tower. And the House conceived itself engaged to save those Men's Lives, who had put themselves into their Power upon that Presumption. The House of Peers insisted upon it in many Conserences, that the Proclamation could bear no such Interpretation; but as it condemned all who by flying declined the Justice of the Kingdom, so it admitted as many as would appearto plead their own Innocence, which if They could prove They would be sase. But the guilty, and with them the House of Commons, declared, " that They could not but understand, that " They who rendered themselves should be in a better a better Condition than They who fled beyond the " Seas, which They were not in any Degree, if " They were put upon their Trial; for to be tried a and to be condemned was the same Thing.since the ' Guilt of all was equally notorious and manisest." And this Kind of Reasoning prevailed upon the Judgments and Understandings of many, who had all Manner of Detestation for the Persons of the Men. In the End, the Mouse of Peers after long Contests was obliged to consent, " that all the Persons who " were fled, -and those who had not rendered them" s...