============================================================= Quotations for the word "sanguinary" (c. 1628-1801) Compiled by Margo Schulter ============================================================= 1634 or earlier (c. 1628?) All these we have named in the honour of them, and of their Families and Posterities, for that they in their several times were great furtherers of these excellent Laws concerning Treason. _In memoria aeterna erit justus._ And all this was done in several ages, that the fair Lillies and Roses of the Crown might flourish, and not be stained by severe and sanguinary Statutes. Sir Edward Coke, _The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning High Treason, and other Pleas of the Crown, and Criminal Causes_ 3 (4th ed., London, 1669). [Coke's dates are 1552-1634, and the first edition of the Third Part of the Institutes_ was published in 1644] =============================================================== 1660 (title of publication) _To the King's most sacred Majesty and Clemency and to the great wisdom and piety of both Houses of Parliament, most humbly offered to consider, 1. Whether it be not more expedient now to enact a total suspension of all former laws, as to the sanguinary and mulctative penalties only, than any execution of them against recusants taking and subscribing the following oath? ..._ [Publication includes a suggested form of oath] ......... Note: OED definition of mulctative: "Of or pertaining to punishment by fines." The reference in the anonymous 1660 publication to "sanguinary and mulctative penalties" is parallel to that in a 1689 quotation by a Mr. Palmes, Member of Parliament, in the course of a discussion in the House of Commons on possible punishments or amnesties for acts committed during the reign of James II. He proposes that it is wisest first to determine which crimes should be "capital" or "mulctuary" before addressing individual case, see Mr. Palmes.] The last day, the Committee had order, "that crimes should precede persons." Determine what crimes shall be capital, and what mulctuary, before you begin. (Debate of May 16, 1689) ================================================================= 1661 Upon Consideration this Day of the Petition of the _Romain_ Catholics: It is ORDERED, That the Judges do bring in a List, To-morrow Morning, of all the penal Laws that are sanguinary, concerning Religion. 11 _Journals of the House of Lords, Beginning Anno Duodecimo Caroli Secundi, 1660_ 279, June 14, 1661. ---- This Day, being appointed to hear what Objections could be offered could be offered by the _Romain_ Catholics, concerning the sanguinary Laws; Colonel _Tuke_, at the Bar, made a long Speech, and delivered Two Papers, one being a List of the Penal and Sanguinary Laws concerning Religion; another, Paper of their Desires. 11 _Journals of the House of Lords, Beginning Anno Duodecimo Caroli Secundi, 1660_ 286, June 21, 1661. ---- ORDERED: That these Lords following do consider of the Sanguinary Laws concerning Priests, and such other Laws as reach to Blood; and present the same to this House: [list follows, beginning with "His Royal Highness, the Duke of Yorke."] 11 _Journals of the House of Lords_, supra, 292, June 28, 1661. ================================================================== 1662/1663 The truth is, I am in my nature an Enemy to all Severity for Religion and Conscience, how mistaken soever it be, when it extends to capital and sanguinary Punishments, which I am told were begun in Popish Times: Therefore, when I say this, I hope I shall not need to warn any here not to infer from thence, that I mean to favour Popery. King Charles I, King's Speech in Parliament, February 18, 1662/3, 11 _Journals of the House of Lords_, supra, 478. ================================================================= 1664 (Book title) William Denton, _Horae subsecivae, or, A treatise shewing the original grounds, reasons, and provocations necessitating our sanguinary laws against papists made in the daies of Q. Elizabeth, and the gradations by which they ascended unto that severity: and shewing, that no papist hath been executed in England on the single account of his religion, either in the daies of Edw. 6, Q. Elizabeth, K. James, Car. I or Car. 2, though multitudes of Protestants were in the daies of H. 8 and Q. Mary_. (London, 1664) ================================================================= 1670 That God may inspire into every Soul that one Faith, without which none is saved, ought to be the only Common-Prayer imposed upon us; for that by this Uniformity of Prayer every man is left to his own _Inquisition_, which is much more agreeable to our genius than that of _Spain_; and more likely to make us agree amongst our selves, then any Penal or Sanguinary Statutes; all which I humbly submit to _Your Graces_ Judgment, begging your Pardon for this Trouble, and your Protection for this Treatise. Peter Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, _A Treatise of Religion and Government; With Reflections upon the Cause and Cure of Englands Late Distempers and Present Dangers_, Dedication to "The Most Illustrious Prince The Duke of Buquingham, &c." (fifth page of dedication, this section unnumbered), 1670. ================================================================= 1675 In making of laws, therefore, it will import us to consider, That too many Laws are a Snare, too few are a Weakness in the Government; too gentle are seldom obeyed, too severe are as seldom executed; and Sanguinary Laws are, for the most Part, either the Cause or the Effect of a Distemper in the State. Lord Keeper's Speech, 12 _House of Lords Journal_, April 13, 1675 [Here is a close equivalent of the famous statement found in Blackstone around 90 years later!] ================================================================= 1675 And if _Capital_ and _Sanguinary punishments_ can be proved lawful, because in all Ages appointed and allowed by God; sure _Emendatory punishments_ cannot be denied but they may be inflicted, and their inflicting may easily be justified. William Starket, _An Apology for the Laws Ecclesiastical Established, That command our publick exercise in Religion; and, A serious Enquiry, whether Penalties Be reasonably determined against Recusancy_ 179 (London, 1675). ================================================================= 1686 If it be said that it is his Majesty's Tenderness to these of his own Religion, that they may be secured from sanguinary Laws, that moves him to recommend this to his Parliament, _Answer_.... We trust his Majesty's Tenderness to them, will not clash with his Fidelity and Tenderness to us, in his engaging to defend the Protestant Religion, which cannot be done by Men, without the _penal Statutes_, especially seeing the Laws are so much slighted, as the Mass, which by our Law is Idolatry and Treason, hath been of late frequented openly in the chiefest City of our Nation.... [F]or Experience hath proved, notwithstanding all the _penal and sanguinary Laws_ they speak of, there hath not been so much as one Papist since the Reformation, who did suffer Loss of Life or Limb merely for his Religion, and they are authorized by the _Lateran_ Council, which they own as infallible, to destroy us, and are daily practicing accordingly, where they ever prevail, or have Power.... It may be objected by some, that our Religion is a holy and meek Religion, and needs not those penal and sanguinary Laws to defend it, and its Professors; for the Author of it will defend them, and these Laws are inconsistent with the Spirit of our Religion, which is a Spirit of Meekness. SOURCE: "Reasons why none who own the present Government, can consent to abolish the penal Statutes." 1686. No. CXVII. In 2 Robert Wodrow, _The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland, from the Restauration to the Revolution: Collected From the publick Records, original Papers, and Manuscripts of that Time, and other well attested Narratives._ (Edinburgh 1722) Appendix 161-167, at 163 ------- 1685-1688 (document undated, but from the reign of James II) Now the Papists acknowledge and own the God of _Israel_ to be the true God, and abhor the Worship of Sun, Moon, and Stars, and of the other Idols of the Heathens; and it is now lawful to extend penal and sanguinary Laws to any, but to such against whom they were directly, and _in terminis_ designed and intended; lest if way be given to proceed in the Execution of such Laws, by remote and obscure Consequences and Inferences, ill-natured and cruel Judges shall never want a Pretence for hurting or destroying the innocent or less guilty. "Reasons for abrogating the penal Statutes." No. CXVIII. In 2 Robert Wodrow, id., Appendix 163-167 at 164. ------- 1685-1688 (document undated, but from the reign of James II) He pretends,... to plead not for taking away, repealing, or abrogating the penal Statutes against Papists, but only for a suspending of the Execution of them, and yet, in the very same Paragraph, he does more than tacitely insinuate, that the making or owning of those Laws is the effect of a Popish or fanatical Principle, and a misrepresenting of the Protestant Religion, as the most cruel and sanguinary Institution in the World;... "Answer to a Paper writ for abrogating the penal Statutes." No. CXIX, in 2 Robert Wodrow, id., Appendix 168-173 at 168. ================================================================== 1689 The Temper and Moderation shewn by his late Majesty and both Houses, in this Act of Parliament, deserves to be observ'd: It is not like the _Leges Draconis_, written in blood; this is no Sanguinary Law. It does not proceed against them with Fire and Faggot. Sir Robert Atkyns, _An Enquiry into the Power of Dispensing with Penal Statutes. Together with some Animadversions Upon A Book writ by Sir Edw. Herbert, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Entituled, A Short Account of the Authorities in Law, upon which Judgment was given in Sir Edward Hales's Case._ 4 (London, 1689). ================================================================== c. 1700 [T]he Bishops Likewise sitt as peers of the realme and have voices in all Causes, but in bloud the Sanguinary laws and decision there on its said they may sitt, but they from their order in the Church alwayes go out, but they first make their claime that they might continue, but all other of ye Lords if absent can give their proxy to another Lord and desire him to give his voice in matters debateable in his absence... Celia Fiennes, _Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary: Being the Diary of Celia Fiennes, With an Introduction by the Honorable Mrs. Griffiths_ 268-269 (London 1888). [This is extremely interesting as suggesting that the Bishops would sit "in all Causes, but in bloud, the Sanguinary laws and decision thereon it's said they may sitt, but they from their order in the Church alwayes go out..." Here I've modernized the punctuation and some word divisions according to one possible reading. While the right of Bishops to sit in capital proceedings had been disputed, for example in the impeachment of the Earl of Danby (1679), it was agreed that as a matter of their own ecclesiastical tradition they should not vote in such cases involving a possible judgment of blood.] ================================================================= 1767 (sermon preached in 1759) The chief support of the Pope's tyrannic power was his usurped authority over Kings and Princes; and the fatal instruments of his rage, were those fanatic assassins still ready addressed to plunge the dagger into the bosom of those whom he has anathematized; so that the Legislature was necessitated to interpose what these murderers mis-call _sanguinary Laws_; the terror of which was not pointed at then as false Believers, but as Traytors and Rebels to their King and Country. And that it might be seen, the necessity was not pretended but real; and the object of their resentment, bad Citizens, and not mistaken Religionists, they have, from their first enacting, been chiefly held out in terror; and never put in force but where the Recusant convict was at the same time a convict Traytor. And since the Bulls of Rome lost their power to frighten the People, or to mischieve the Sovereign, these _sanguinary Laws_ have slept so profoundly, that the far greater part of both Protestants and Papists hardly know that any such are in being. 3 Dr. William Warburton, Lord Bishop of Glouchester, _Sermons and Discounses on Various Subjects and Occasions_ 201-202 (London, 1767), in "Sermon IX, Preached in Bristol, November 29, MDCCLIX. Being the day appointed for a Public Thanksgiving, for Victories obtained by the British Arms." [Here is a claim, like Madan's in 1785, that "sanguinary Laws" is a term by which certain people "mis-call" stern but necessary capital statutes. Here the topic is, as often, the religious and more specifically anti-Catholic legislation passed under Elizabeth I and James I, as opposed to Madan's focus on ordinary criminal law.] ================================================================= 1790 The advocates for sanguinary statutes, have asserted, that "they are founded upon natural reason;" for that "by the law of nature, a murderer is put to death." "An oration intended to have been spoken at a late commencement, on the unlawfulness and impolicy of capital punishments, and the proper means of reforming criminals. By a citizen of Maryland." 7 _The American Museum, or, Universal Magazine 7-8 at 8 (January-June 1790). ================================================================= 1801 It was to preserve the many against the few that capital punishment in certain cases became the law of the land; and, the history of most nations supports the belief that they all began at first with mild punishments; such as allowing the murderer to purchase his pardon, [ ] that they continued the use of this and similar practices as long as the safety of civil society would admit; and that nothing but dire necessity forced them at least to the adoption of Sanguinary laws. Daniel Webster, "Ought the Punishment of Death to be abolished" (Argument for negative side of question, 1801), =================================================================