without the Commons vote because a Peer of the Realm the practice of expelling Commons by their fellow Commons only being * a late dangerous unparliamentary usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructiue to the Privileges and Freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities Boroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons it selfbeing no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or final Sentence and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members than any * Judges Justices of the peace or Committees have to disjudge dis-Justice or discommittee their fellow-Judges Justices or Committee-men being all of equal authority and made Members only by the Kings Writ and peoples Election not by the Houses or other Members Votes who yet now presume both to make and unmake seclude and recall expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages to patch up a factious Conventicle instead of an English Parliament Therefore this Objection no waies invalids this first Reason why I neither can nor dare submit to this illegal Tax in conscience law or prudence which engage me to oppose it in all these Respects If any Object That true it is the Parliament by the common Law and Custom of the Realm determines by the Kings death but by the Statute of 17 Caroli c. 6. which enacts That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose continues the Parliament still in being notwithstanding the Kings beheading since no Act of Parliament is passed for its dissolution The only pretext for to support this continuance of the Parliament since the Kings violent death To this I answer That it is a Maxime in Law That every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it and the mischiefs is intended only to prevent as is resolved in 4 Edw. 4. 12. 12 Edw. 4. 18. 1 H. 7. 12 13. Plowd Com. fol. 369. and Cooks 4. Instit. p. 329 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act and the end of enacting it was not to prevent the dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death no wayes intimated nor insinuated in any clause thereof being a clear unavoidable dissolution of it to all intents not provided for by this Law but by any Writ or Proclamation of the King by his Regal power without consent of both Houses which I shall manifest by these Reasons First From the principal occasion of making this Act. The King as the COMMONS in their * Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom 15 Decemb. 1641 complain had dissolved all former Parliaments during his Reign without and against both Houses approbation to their great discontent and the Kingdoms prejudice as his Father King James had dissolved others in his Reign and during their continuance adjourned and prorogued them at their pleasure Now the fear of preventing of the like dissolution prorogation or adjournment of this Parliament after the Scotish Armies disbanding before the things mentioned in the Preamble were effected by the Kings absolute power was the only ground and occasion of this Law not any fear or thoughts of its dissolution by the Kings untimely death then not so much as imagined being before the Wars or Irish Rebellion brake forth the King very healthy not antient and likely then to survive this Parliament and many others in both Houses judgement as appears by the Bill for triennial Parliaments This undenyable Truth is expresly declared by the Commons themselves in their foresaid Remonstrance Exact Collection p. 5 6 14 17. compared together where in direct terms they affirm The abrupt dissolution of this Parliament is prevented by another Bill by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament there seems to be some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion only which was so necessarie for the Kings own security and the publick peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to blood and rapine In which passages we have a clear resolution of the Commons themselves immediately after the passing of this Act that its scope and intention was only to provide against the Kings abrupt dissolution of the Parliament by his mere royal power in suspending the execution of it for this time and occasion only and that for the Kings own security not his Heirs and Successors as well as his peoples peace and safety Therefore not against any dissolution of it by his natural much lesse his violent death which can no waies be interpreted an Act of his Royal power which they then intended hereby not to take out of the Crown but only to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion and that for his security but a natural impotency or unnatural disloyalty which not only suspends the Kings power for a time but utterly destroys and takes away him and it without hopes of revival for ever Secondly the very title of this Act An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the UNTIMELY adjourning proroguing or DISSOLUTION of this present Parliament intimates as much compared with the body of it which provides as well against the adjourning and proroguing of both or either Houses without an Act of Parliament as against the dissolution of the Parliament without an Act. Now the Parliament cannot possibly be said to be adjourned or prorogued in any way or sense much lesse untimely merely by the Kings death which never adjourned or prorogued any Parliament but only by his Proclamation writ or royal command to the Houses or their Speakers executed during his life as all our Journals ¶ Parliaments Rolls and * Lawbooks resolve though it may be dissolved by his death as well as by his Proclamation Writ or royal command And therefore this title and Act coupling adjourning proroguing and dissolving this Parliament together without consent of both Houses by Act of Parliament intended only a Dissolution of this Parliament by such Prerogative waies and means by which Parliaments had been untimely adjourned and prorogued as well as dissolved by the Kings mere will without their assents not of a dissolution of it by the Kings death which never adjourned nor prorogued anie Parliament nor dissolved any formerly sitting Parliament in this Kings reign or his Ancestors since the death of King Hen the 4th and King James the only Parliaments we read of dissolved by death of the King since the Conquest and so a mischief not intended nor remedied by this Act Thirdly The prologue of the Act implies as much Whereas great sums
and Burgesses and levying of their wages being only PARLIAMENTUM NOSTRUM the Kings Parliament that is dead not his Heirs and Successors and the Lords and Commons being all summoned and authorized by it to come to OUR PARLIAMENT there to be personally present and confer with US NOBISCUM not Our Heirs and Successors of the weighty and urgent affairs that concerned NOS US and OUR KINGDOM of England and Knights and Burgesses receiving their wages for Nuper ad NOS ad PARLIAMENTVM NOSTRUM veniendo c. quod sommoneri FECINUS ad tractandum ibidem super diversis arduis Negotiis NOS Statum REGNI NOSTRI tâ—ngentibus as the tenor of the d Writs for their wages determines The King being dead and his Writs and Authority by which they were summoned with the ends for which they were called to conferre with US about US and OUR KINGDOMS affairs c. being thereby absolutely determined without any hopes of revival the Parliament it self must thereupon absolutely be determined likewise especially to those who have disinherited HIS HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and voted down our Monarchy it self and they with all other Members of Parliament cease to be any longer Members of it being made onely such by the Kings abated Writ even as all Judges Justices of peace and Sheriffs made only by the Kings Writs or Commissions not by his Letters Patents cease to be Judges Justices and Sheriffs by the Kings death for this very reason because they are constituted Justiciarios Vicecomites NOSTROS ad Pacem NOSTRAM c. custodiendam and he being dead and his Writs and Commissions expired by his death they can be Our Judges Justices and Sheriffs no longer to preserve OUR Peace c. no more than a wife can be her deceased Husbands Wife and bound to his obedience from which she was loosed to his death Rom. 7. 2 3. And his Heirs and Successors they cannot be unlesse he please to make them so by his new Writs or Commissions as all our e Law-books and Judges have frequently resolved upon this very reason which equally extends to Members of Parliament as to Judges Justices and Sheriffs as is agreed in 4 E. 4. f. 43 44. and Brook Office and Officer 25 Therefore this Tax being clearly imposed not in but out of and after the Parliament ended by the Kings decapitation and that by such who were then no lawfull Knights Citizens Burgesses or Members of Parliament but only private men their Parliamentary Authority expiring with the King it must needs be illegal and contrary to all the forecited Statutes as the Convocations and Clergies Tax and Benevolence granted after the Parliament dissolved in the year 1640. was resolved to be by both Houses of Parliament and those adjudged high Delinquents who had any hand in promoting it as the Impeachments against them evidence drawnup by some now acting 2. Admit the late Parliament still in being yet the House of Peers Earls and Barons of the Realm were no wayes privy nor consenting to this Tax imposed without yea against their consents in direct affront of their * most antient undubitable Parliamentary Right and Privileges these Taxmasters having presumed to vote down and null their very House by their new encroached transcendent power as appears by the title and body of this pretended Act entituled by them An Act of THE COMMONS assembled in Parliament Whereas the House of Commons alone though full and free have no more lawfull Authority to impose any Tax upon the People or make any Act of Parliament or binding Law without the Kings or Lords concurrence than the Man in the Moon or the Convocation Anno 1640. after the Parliament dissolved as is evident by the expresse words of the fore-cited Acts the Petition of Right it self the Acts for the Triennial Parliament and against the proroguing or dissolving this Parliament 16 Car. c. 1 7. with all our printed Statutes f Parliament-Rolls and g Law-books they neither having nor challenging the sole Legislative power in any age and being not so much as summoned to nor constitutive Mâ—mbers of our h antient Parliaments which consisted of the King Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses as all our Histories and Records attest till 49 H. 3. at soonest they having not so much as a Speaker or Commons House till after the beginning of King E. the third's reign and seldom or never presuming to make or tender any Bills or Acts to the King or Lords but Petitions only to them to redress their grievances and enact new Laws till long after R. the seconds time as our Parliament Rolls and the printed Prologues to the Statutes of 1 4 5 9 10 20 23 36 37. and 50 Edw. 3. 1 Rich 3. 1 2 4 5 7 9 11 13 Hen. 4. 1 2 3 4 8 9 Hen. 5. 1 2 3 4 6 8 9 10 11 14 15 29 28 29. 39 Hen. 6. 1 4 7 8 12 17. 22 Ed. 4. and 1 Rich. 3. evidence which run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. by THE ADVICE and ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL and TEMPORAL and at THE SPECIAL INSTANCE and REQUEST OF THE COMMONS OF THE REALM BY THEIR PETITIONS put in the said Parliament as some Prologues have it Our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained certain STATVTES c. Where the advising and assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them to the Commons and that both from King and Lords in whom the Legislative power principally and before 49 H. 3. originally and solely resided as is manifest by the printed Prologue to the Statute of Merton 20 Hen. 3. The Statute of Mortemain 7 E. 1. 31 E. 1. De Asportatis Religiosorum the Statute of Sheriffs 9 Ed. 2. and of the Templers 17 Ed. 2. to cite no more Therefore this Tax imposed by the Commons alone without King or Lords must needs be void illegal and no wayes obligatory to the Subjects 3. Admit the whole House of Commons in a full and free Parliament had power to impose a Tax and make an Act of Parliament for levying of it without King or Lords which they never once did or pretended to in any age yet this Act and Tax can be no waies obliging because not made and imposed by a full and free House of Commons but by an empty House packed swayed over-awed by the chief Officers of the Army and their Confederates in the House who having presumed by mere force and armed power against Law and without President to seclude the major part of the House at least eight parts of ten who by Law and Custom are the House it self from sitting or voting with them contrary to the Freedom and Privileges of Parliament readmitting none but upon their own terms of renouncing their own forme Votes touching the Kings
of mony must of necessity be speedilie advanced and procured for the relief of his Majesties Army and People not his Heirs or Successors in the Northern parts c. And for supplie of other his Majesties present and urgent occasions not his Heirs or Successors future occasions which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without credit for raising the said monies which credit cannot be attained untill such obstacles be first removed which are occasioned by Fears Iealousies and Apprehensions of divers of his Majesties Royal Subjects that the Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved not by the Kings sodain or untimelie death of which there was then no fear jealousie or apprehension in any his Majesties loyal Subjects but by his royal Prerogative and advice of ill Counsellors before Justice shall be duly executed upon Delinquents then in being not sprung up since publique Grievances then complained of not others introduced since this Act redressed a firm peace betwixt the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland concluded and before sufficient provisions be made for the repayment of the said Monies not others since borrowed so to be raised All which the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having duly considered do therefore humbly beseech your Majestie that it may be declared and enacted c. All which expressions related TO HIS late Majestie onlie not to his Heirs and Successors and the principal scope of this Act being to gain present credit to raise monies to disband the Scotish and English armies then lying upon the Kingdom manie years since accomplished yea Justice being since executed upon Strafford Canterbury and other Delinquents then impeached the publick Grievances they complained of as the Star-Chamber High-Commission Ship-mony Tonnage and Poundage Fines for Knighthood Bishops Votes in Parliament with their Courts and Jurisdictions and the like redressed by Acts soon after passed a firm peace between both Nations concluded before the Wars began and this preamble's pretensions for this Act all fullie satisfied divers years before the Kings beheading it must of necessity be granted that this Statute never intended to continue this Parliament on foot after the Kings decease especially after the ends for which it was made were all fully accomplished and so it must necessarily be dissolved by his Death Fourthly This is most clear by the body of the Act it self And be it declared and enacted by the King our Soveraign Lord with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose nor shall any time or times during the continuance thereof be prorogued or adjourned unless it be by Act of Parliament to be likewise passed for that purpose And that the House of Peers shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order And in like manner that the House of Commons shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order Whence it is undeniable 1. That this act was only for the prevention of the untimely dissolving Proroguing and adjourning of that present Parliament then assembled and no other 2. That the King himself was the Principal Member of his Parliament yea our Soveraign Lord and the sole declarer and enacter of this Law by the Lords and Commons assent 3. That neither this Act for continuing nor any other for dissolving adjourning or proroguing this Parliament could be made without but only by and with the Kings Royal assent thereto which the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their * Remonstrance of the 26. of May 1642. oft in terminis acknowledge together with his Negative Voyce to Bills 4ly That it was neither the Kings intention in passing this Act to shut himself out of Parliament or create both or either House a Parliament without a King as he professed in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. 5. p. 27. Nor the Lords nor Commons Intendment to dismember him from his Parliament or make themselves a Parliament without him as their foresaid Remonstrance testifies and the words of the Act import Neither was it the Kings Lords or Commons meaning by this Act to set up a Parliament only of Commons much lesse of a remnant of a Commons House selected by Colonel Pride and his Confederates of the Army to serve their turns and vote what they prescribed without either King or House of Peers much lesse to give them any super-transcendent authority to vote down and abolish the King and House of Lords and make them no Members of this present or any future Parliaments without their own order or assent against which so great usurpation and late dangerous unparliamentary encroachments this very Act expresly provides in this clause That the House of Peers wherein the King sits as Soveraign when he pleaseth shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned much less then dissolved excluded or suspended from sitting or voting which is greater and that by their inferiours in all kinds a Fragment of the Commons House who can pretend no colour of Jurisdiction over them before whom they alwaies stood bare-headed like so many Grand-Jury-men before the Judges and attended at their Doors and Bar to know their pleasures unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own Order 5. That neither the King Lords nor Commons intended to set up a perpetual Parliament and intail it upon them their heirs or successors for ever by this act which would cross and repeal the Act for triennial Parliaments made at the same time and on the same * day in Law but to make provision only against the untimely dissolving of this till the things mentioned in the Preamble were accomplished and setled as the Preamble and these oft repeated words any time or times during the continuance of this present Parliament concludes and that during His Majesties reign and life not after his death as these words coupled with The Relief of his Majesties Army and People and for supply of his Majesties present and urgent occasions in the Preamble manifest Therefore this Act can no waies continue it a Parliament after the Kings beheading much lesse after the forcible exclusion both of the King and Lords House and majority of the Commons out of Parliament by those now sitting contrary to the very letter and provision of this act by which device the King alone had he conquered and cut off or secluded by his forces the Lords and Commons Houses from sitting might with much more colour have made himself an absolute Parliament to impose what Taxes and Laws he pleased on the people without Lords or Commons or any 40. of the Commons House or any 7. or 8. Lords concurring with
post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledge judgement conscience Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance Pâ—otestation and Solemn League and Covenant taken in the presence of God himself with a sincere heart and real intention to perform the same and persevere therein all the dayes of my life without suffering my self directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terror to be withdrawn therefrom As first That there may be and now is a lawfull Parliament of England actually in being and legally continuing after the Kings death consisting only of a few late Members of the Commons House without either King Lords or most of their Fellow-Commons which the very Consciences and Judgements of all now sitting that know any thing of Parliaments and the whole Kingdom if they durst speak their Knowledge know and believe to be false yea against their Oaths and Covenant Secondly That this Parliament so unduly constituted and packed by power of an army combining with them hath a just and lawfull authority to violate the Privileges Rights Freedoms Customs and alter the Constitution of our Parliaments themselves imprison seclude expel most of their Fellow-Members for voting according to their Consciences to repeal what Votes Ordinances and Acts of Parliament they please erect new Arbitrary Courts of War and Justice to arraign condemn execute the King himself with the Peers and Commons of this Realm by a new kind of Martial law contrary to Magna Carta the Petition of Right and Law of the Land dis-inherit the Kings posterity of the Crown extirpate Monarchy and the whole House of Peers change and subvert the antient Government Seals Laws Writs legal proceedings Courts and coin of the Kingdom sell and dispose of all the Lands Revenues Jewels Goods of the Crown with the Lands of Deans and Chapters as they think meet absolve themselves like so many Antichristian Popes with all the Subjects of England and Ireland from all the Oaths and Engagements they have made TO THE KINGS MAJESTY HIS HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS yea from their verie Oath of Allegiance notwithstanding this expresse clause in it which I desire may be seriously and conscienciously considered by all who have sworn it I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I acknowledge by good and full authoritie to be lawfully ministred unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary and to dispence with our Protestations Solemn League and Covenant so lately and * zealously urged and injoyned by both Houses on Members Officers Ministers and all sorts of People throughout the Realm to dispose of all the Forts Ships Forces Offices and Places of Honour Power Trust or Profit within the Kingdom to whom they please to displace and remove whom they will from their Offices Trusts Pensions Callings at their pleasures without any legal cause or trial to make what new Acts Laws and reverse what old ones they think meet to insnare inthrall our Consciences Estates Liberties Lives to create new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and declare real Treasons against King Kingdom Parliament to be no Treasons and Loyalty Allegiance due Obedience to our known Laws and consciencious observing of our Oaths and Covenants the breach whereof would render us actual Traytors and perjurious Persons to be no lesse than High Treason for which they may justly imprison dismember disfranchise displace and fine us at their wills as they have done some of late and confiscate our Persons Lives to the Gallows and our estates to their new Exchequer a Tyranny beyond all Tyrannies ever heard of in our Nation repealing Magna Charta c. 29. 5 E. 3. c. 6. 25 Ed. 3. c. 4. 28 Ed. 3. c. 3. 37. E. 3. c. 18. 42 E. 3. c. 3. 25 Ed. 3. c. 2. 11 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H. 4. c. 10. 2 H. 4. Rot. Par. N. 60. 1 E. 6. c. 12. 1 Mar. c. 1. The Petition of Right 3 Caroli the Statutes made in the begining of the Parliament 16 Caroli c. 1 7 8 10 12 14 20. and laying all our * Laws Liberties Estates Lives in the very dust after so many bloody and costly years wars to defend them against the Kings and others invasions raise and keep up what forces they will by Sea and Land impose what heavy Taxes they please and renew increase multiply and perpetuate them on us and on Scotland and Ireland too which no English Parliament ever did before as often and as long as they please to support their own encroached more then Regal Parliamental Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us and all that is ours or the Kingdoms at our private and the publick charge against our wills judgements consciences to our absolute enslaving and our three Kingdoms ruine by engaging them one against another in new Civil wars and exposing us for a prey to our Forein Enemies All which with other particulars lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax and sundry others since by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it I must necessarily admit acknowledge to be just and legal by my voluntary payment of it on purpose to maintain an Army to justifie and make good all this by the meer power of the Sword which they can no waies justifie and defend by the Laws of God or the Realm or the least colour of reason justice honesty religion conscience before any Tribunal of God or Men when legally arraigned as they may one day be Neither of which I can or dare acknowledge without incurring the guilt of most detestable Perjury and highest Treason against King Kingdom Parliament Laws and Liberties of the people and therefore cannot yield to this Assesment Thirdly the principal ends and uses proposed in the prâ—tended Acts and Warrants thereupon for payment of this Tax and other Taxes since are strong obligations to me in point of Coùscience Law Prudence to withstand it which I shall particularly discusse The First is the maintenante and continuance of the prâ—sent Army and Forces in England under the Lord Fairfax Cromwell and other Commanders since To which I say First as I shall with all readinesse gratitude and due respect acknowledge their former Gallantry good and faithfull Services to the Parliament and Kingdom whiles they continued dutifull and constant to their first Engagements and the ends for which they were raised by both Houses as far forth as any man so in regard of their late monstrous defections and dangerous Apostacies from their primitive obedience faithfulnesse and engagements in disobeying the Commands and levying open war against both Houses of Parliament keeping an horrid force upon them at their very doors seising imprisoning secluding abusing and forcing away their Members printing and publishing many high and treasonable Declarations against the Institution Privileges Members and Proceedings of the late and being of
sword-men whom we had already found to be men of no very tender conscience And do not the Speaker and all Lawyers and others now sitting in their own Judgments and Consciences and to their friends in private believe say and confess as much that they are no Parliaments and yet have the impudency and the insolency to sit act and Tax yea seclude and imprison us at their pleasures as a real legal and absolute Parliament O Atheisme O Tyranny and Impiety of the worst Edition If then these leading swaying members of the new pretended purged Commons Parliament and Army deemed the Parliament even before the Kings beheading a Mock-parliament a mock-power a pretended Parliament yea no Parliament at all and absolutely resoved to pull it up by the roots as such then it necessarily folows First That they are much more so after the Kings death and their suppression of the Lords House and purging of the Commons House to the very dregs in the opinions and consciences of those now sitting and all other rational men And no wayes enabled by Law to impose this or any other new Tax or Acts upon the Kingdom or to create any new Treasons Confiscations Sequestrations and Penalties and being themselves in truth the worst and greatest of all Traytors and Tyrants Secondly that these grand Saints of the Army and Steersmen of the pretended Parliament and all Gown-men confederating with them knowingly sit vote and act there against their own judgments and consciences for their own private pernicious ends Thirdly that it is a baseness cowardize and degeneracy beyond all expression for any of their fellow-members now acting to suffer these Grandees in their Assembly and Army to sit or vote together with them or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army under them or to impose any Tax upon the people to maintain such Officers Members Souldiers who have thus vilified affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority and thereby induced others to contemn and question it and forcibly excluded and imprisoned the greatest part of the Members and whole House of Peers in order to their own future exclusion and as great a baseness in them and others for to pay it upon any terms Secondly he there affirms that d d P. 26 27. Oliver Crumwel by the help of the Army at their first Rebellion against the Parliament was no sooner up but like a perfidious base unworthy man c. the House of Peers were his onely white boys and who but Oliver who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Usurpers became their Proctor where ever he came yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also insomuch that at some meetings with some of my friends at the Lord Whartons Lodgings he clapt his hand upon his breast and to this purpose professed in the sight of God upon his conscience THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE Note and JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO THE COAT UPON HIS BACK and he would procure a friend viz. Master Nathaniel Fiennes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England And not onely so but did he not get the General and Councel of War at Windsor about the time that the Votes of no more addresses were to pass to make a Declaration to the whole world declaring THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE LORDS HOUSE and THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN and UPHOLD IT which was sent by the General to the Lords by Sir Hardresse Waller and to indear himself the more unto the Lords in whose house without all doubt he intended to have sate himself he required me evil for good and became my enemy to keep me in Prison out of which I must not stirre unless I would sloop and acknowledge the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do it yet now they themselves have suppressed them Whence it is most apparent 1. That the General Lieutenant General Cromwel Col. Ireton Harison and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members and over-ruling all the rest * * See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers yea all other Lawyers Members sitting with them have wittingly acted against their own knowledges Declarations Judgments Consciences in suppressing the Lords House and depriving them of their Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power by presuming to make Acts pass sentences and impose Taxes without them or their assents in Parliament contrary to the express Acts of 16 17 Caroli c. 1. 7 8 12 14 20. and hundreds of Ordinances Remonstrances Declarations the Protestation Vow and Solemn League and Covenant made this Parliament by the Votes of most now sitting 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom for their own particular advantage pay and enrichment and to suppress the House of Lords is in their own judgments and conscience both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm being not assented to by the Lords and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all the Lords and other Englishmen who love their own or Countries Liberties or have any Nobility or Generosity in them Thirdly he e e Pag. 34. 39 40. 56 47. there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf and his confederates That the purged Parliament now sitting is but a pretended Parliament a mock-Parliament yea and in plaine English NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL but the shadow of a Parliament That those Company of men at Westminster that gave Commission to the high Court of Justice to try and behead the King c. were no more a Parliament by Law or Representatives of the people by the rule of Justice and Reason then such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People that a company of armed Thieves choose and set apart to try judge condemn hang or behead any man that they please or can prevail over by the power of their Sword to bring before them by force of arms to have their lives taken away by prâ—tence of JUSTICE grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their VVills and Swords That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters or to give a Law unto them or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power and set themselves down in it which is the Armies case with the Parliament especially at Thomas Pride's late purge which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons to set up indeed a MOCK-POVVER and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT by purging out all those that they were any way jealous of would not Vote as they would have them and suffering and permitting none to sit but for the Major part of them a company of absolute School-boys that will like good Boys say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters and vote what they would have
A Legal Vindication Of the Liberties of ENGLAND AGAINST ILLEGAL TAXES And pretended Acts of Parliament Lately enforced on the PEOPLE OR Reasons assigned by WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick in the County of Sommerset Esquire why he can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence submit to the New illegal Tax or Contribution of Ninety thousand pounds the Month Imposed on the Kingdom by a pretended Act of some commons in or rather out of Parliament April 7 1649. when this was first penned and printed nor to the One Hundred Thousand pound per Mensem newly laid upon England Scotland and Ireland Jan. 126. 1659. by a 〈◊〉 of the old Commons House secluding the whole House of Lords and Majority of their hellow Members by armed violence against all rules of Law and Parliament Presidents Esay 1. 7. He looked for Judgement but behold Oppression for Righteousnesse but behold a cry Psal. 12. 5. For the Oppression of the Poor for the sighing of the Needy new will I arise saith the Lord and will set him in safety from him that would ensnare him Exod. 6. 5. 6. I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Aegyptians keep in bandage and I have remembred my Covenant Wherefore say unto the children of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the Burdens of the Aegyptians and I will rid you out of their Bondage and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great Judgements Eccles. 4. 1 2. So I returned and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun and behâ—ld the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and in the hand of their Oppressors there was power but they had no Comforter Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive The second Edition enlarged London printed for Edw. Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1660. ERRATA PAge 4. l. 33. to read by p. 8. l. 1. Seclusion l. 29. dele in l. 31. extended p. 41. l. 10. on p. 47. l. 2. only p. 54. l 18. and r. as p. 57. l. 4. it is p. 62. l. 4. obsta p. 71. l. 35. to p. 71. l. 1. resolved l. 8. and r. as p. 79. l. 15. and r. of Margin P. 9. l. 9. 12 r. 17. To the Ingenuous Reader THe Reasons originally inducing and in some sort necessitating me to compile and publish this Legal Vindication against Illegal Taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament imposed on the whole English Nation in the year 1649. by a small remnant of the Commons House sitting under an armed Force abjuring the King and House of Lords and unjustly secluding the Majority of their Fellow-Commoners against the very tenor of the Act of 17 Caroli c. 6. by which they pretended to sit the letter of the Writs by which they were elected and those Indentures by which they were returned Members the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance Protestation Solemn National League and Covenant which they all took as Members the very first Act of Parliament made and printed after their first sitting 16 Caroli c. 1. and many hundreds of Declarations Remonstrances Orders Ordinances Votes from Nov. 3. 1640. to Dec. 5. 1648. have constrained me now to reprint it with some necessary and usefull Additions in the year 1659. above ten years after its first Publication Those very Rumpers who on the 7th of April 1649. imposed a Tax of Ninety thousand Pounds the Month on England alone having on the 26. of January 1659. presumed to lay a new Tax of no lesse than One hundred thousand pounds the Month for six Months next ensuing on England Scotland and on Ireland too never taxed in former Ages by intire undubitable English Parliaments when as by their former Order they advanced and paid in before hand a heavy Tax illegally imposed on them by a Protectorian Conventicle during those very Months for which they are now taxed afresh far higher than before though totally exhausted with former incessant Taxes Free-quarter Militia expences Imposts of all sorts and utterly undone for want of Trade and all to keep them in perpetual Bondage under armed Gards and Iron yoaks under pretext of making them a New Free-State and Common-wealth of the Jesuites projection perpetually to subvert our antient hereditary Monarchy Kingdom and true old English * Common-wealth under which we formerly lived and flourished with greater freedom splendor honour peace safety unity and prosperity than we can ever expect under any new Form of Government or Utopian Republick whatsoever our whimsical Innovators can erect When our Parliaments under our antient and late Kings granted any Aydes Subsidies Imposts to supply the publick Necessities as they were alwaies moderate and temporary not exceeding the present Necessities and the Peoples abilities to pay them so they ever received some Acts of Grace and Retribution from our Kings and New Confirmations of their Great Charters and Fundamental Laws and Liberties recorded in our Parliament Rolls and Statutes at large But our New Republicans worse than the old Aegyptian Pharoes and Tax-Masters double our Bricks Taxes yet deny us straw and materials to make or defray them redressing none of all our publick Grievances nor easing us of any unjust burthens or oppressions whatsoever nor indulging any Graces or Favours to us nor yet so much as preserving or confirming our old Grand Charteâ—s Fundamental Laws Statutes for the preservation of our Lives Liberties Properties Franchises Freeholds but violating them all in a far highe and more presumptuous degree than Strafford Canterbury the Shipmony Judges or any of our Kings whom they brand for Tyrants and that after all our late wars and contests for their defence Upon which account I held it my bounden duty to enlarge and reprint this Vinaication nor out of any Factious or Seditions design but from the impulse of a true Heroick English publike spirit and Zeal to defend my Native Countries undubitable Hereditary Rights against all arbitrary Tyrannical Usurpations and Impostors whatsoever though arrogating to themselves the Title and power of The Parl. of England when their own Judgements Consciences as well as all our antient Statutes Parliament Rolls Laws Judges Law-Books and Treatises of English Parliaments resolve them to be no Parliament at all but an * Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle If I now lose my life as I have formerly done my Liberty Calling and Estate for this publike cause I shall repuâ—e it the greatest earthly Honour and 〈◊〉 to dye a Maâ—â—â—â— for my dying Country to redeem her lost Libertiâ—s with the losse of my momentary life which will be more iâ—ksome to me than the 〈◊〉 Death if protracted only to behold those ruines and desolations which some Grandees Tyrannies and Bedlam exorbitances are like speedily to bring upon her unlesse God himself by his Miraculous Proviâ—â—nâ—â—s reflrain their Fury abate their Power and confound their Destructive Desâ—gns beyond all
him secluding all the rest by armed power make themselves an absolute standing Parliament for him his heirs and successors by vertue of this act than those few Commons sitting since his tryal death do or can do 6. The last clause of this act And that all and every â—â—ing or things whatsoever done or to be done to wit by the King or His Authority for the adjournment proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament contrary to this present Act shall be utterly void and of none effect Now death and a dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death cannot as to the King be properly stiled a Thing done or to be done by Him for the adjournment proroguing or dissolving of this Parliament contrary to this present Act which cannot make the Kings death utterly void and of none effect by restoring him to his life again Therefore the dissolution of the Parl. by the Kings death is cleerly out of the words and intentions of this Act especially so many years after its Enacting 7. This present Parl. every Member thereof being specially summoned by the Kings Writ by the particular name of CAROLVS REX not REX in general only to be His Parliament and Council and to confer personally with Him of the great and urgent affairs concerning Him and His Kingdom not his Heirs and Successors and these Writs and the Elections upon them returned unto Him and His Court by Indentures and the persons summoned and chosen by vertue of them appearing only in His Parliament for no other ends but those expressed in His Writs it would be both an absurdity and absolute impossibility to assert that the King or both Houses intended by this Act to continue this Parliament in being after the Kings beheading or death unlesse they that maintain this paradox be able to inform me and those now sitting how they can confer and advice with a dead beheaded King of things concerning Him and His Kingdom and that even after they have abjured his Heirs and Successors and Royal line and extirpated Monarchy it self and made it Treason to assert or revive it and how they can continue still His Parliament and Council whose head they have cut off and that without reviving or raising him from his grave or enstalling His right Heir and Successor in His Throne to represent His Person neither of which they dare to do for fear of losing their own Heads and Quarters too for beheading him This Tax therefore being imposed on the Kingdom long after the Kings beheading and the Parliaments actual and legal dissolution by it must needs be illegal and meerly void in Law to all intents because not granted nor imposed in but totally out of Parliament by those who were then no Commons nor Members of a Parliament and had no more authority to impose any Tax upon the Kingdom than any other forty or fifty Commoners whatsoever out of Parliament who may usurp the like Authority by this president to Tax the Kingdom or any County what they please yea the whole 3. Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland as they now presume and then levy it by an Army or force of Armes to the peoples infinite endlesse oppression and undoing This is my first and principal exception against the Legality of this Tax and others they shall impose which I desire the Imposers and Levyers of it most seriously to consider and challenge them all to Answer if they can for our 3. Kingdoms present and posterities satisfaction by other Arguments than Imprisonments close Imprisonments Pistols Swords and armed violence and that upon these important considerations from their own late Declarations First themselves in their own Declaration of the 9th of February 1648. have protested to the whole Kingdom That they are fully resolved to maintain and shall and will uphold preserve and keep the fundamental Laws of this Nation for and concerning the preservation of the Lives Properties and Liberties of the people with all things incident thereunto Which how it will stand with the former and this new Tax imposed by them out of Parliament or in a thin House under force or their Act concerning New Treasons I desire they would satisfie the Kingdom before they levy the one or proceed upon the other against any of their fellow-Subjects by meer arbitrary armed power against Law and Right Secondly Themselves in their Declaration expressing the grounds of their late proceedings and setling the present Government in way of a Free-State dated 17 Martii 1648. engage themselves 1. To procure the well-being of those whom they serve to renounce oppression arbitrary power and all opposition to the Peace and Freedom of the Nation And to prevent to their power the reviving of Tyranny Injustice and all former evils the only end and duty of all their Labours to the satisfaction of all concerned in it 2. They charge the late King for exeeeding all his Predeoeessors in the destruction of those whom he was bound to preserve To manifest which they instance in The Loans unlawfull Imprisonments and othec Oppressions which produced that excellent Law of the Petition of Right which were most of them again acted presently after the Law made against them which was most palpably broken by him almost in every part of it very soon after his Solemn Consent given unto it 1 His imprisoning and prosecuting Members of Parliament for opposing His unlawfull Will and of divers 2 worthy Merchants for refusing to pay Tonnage and Poundage because not granted by Parliament yet 3 exacted by HIM expresly against Law punishment of many 4 good Patriots for not submitting to whatsoever he pleased to demand though never so much in breach of the known Law The multitude of Projects and Mouopolies established by Him His design and charge to bring in 5 German-Horse to awe us into slavery and his hopes of compleating all by His grand project of 6 Ship-mony to subject every mans Estate to whatsoever Proportion He pleaseth to impose upon them But above all the English Army was laboured by the King to be engaged against the English Parliament A thing of that 7 strange impiety and unnaturalness for the King of England to sheath their swords in one anothers bowels that nothing can answer it but his own being a Foreiner neither could it have easily purchased belief but by his succeeding visible actions in full pursuance of the same As the Kings coming in person to the 8 House of Commons to seise the five Members whither he was followed 9 with some hundreds of unworthy debauched persons armed with Swords and Pistols and other Arms and they attending at the Door of the House ready to execute whatsoever their Leader should command them The oppressions of the Council-Table Star-Chamber High-Commission Court-Martial Wardships Purveyances Afforestations and many others of like nature equalled if not far exceeded now by sundry arbitrary Committees and Sub-Committee to name no
others in all manner of Oppressions and Injustice concluding thus Vpon all these and many other unparallel'd offences upon his breach of Faith of Oaths and Protestations upon the cry of the blood of England and Ireland upon the tears of Widows ond Orphans and childless Parents and millions of persons undone by him let all the world of indifferent men judge whether the Parliament you mean your selves only which made this Declaration had not sufficient cause to bring the King to Iustice And much more the whole Kingdom and secluded Lords and Members to bring you to publick Justice since you not only imitate but far exceed him in all and every of these even by your own verdict 3. Themselves charge the King with profuse Donations of Salaries and Pensions to such as were found or might be made fit Instruments and Promoters of Tyranny which were supplied not by the legal justifiable revenue of the Crown but by Projects and illegal waies of draining the Peoples purses All which mischiefs and grievances they say will be prevented in their free State though the quite contrarie way as appears by the late large Donations of some thousands to Mr. * Henry Martin the Lord Lisle Commissary General Ireton Cromwell and others of their Members and Instruments upon pretence of arrears or service and that out of the monies now imposed for the relief of Ireland and other publick Taxes Customs Lands and Revenues And must we pay Taxes to be thus prodigally given away and expended 4. They therein promise and engage That the good old Laws and Customs of England the badges of our Freedom the benefit whereof our Ancestors enjoyed long before the conquest and spent much of their blood to have confirmed by the great Charter of the Liberties and other excellent laws which have continued in all former changes and being duly executed are the most just free and equal of any other laws in the world shall be duly continued and maintained by them the liberty property and peace of the Subject being so fully preserbed by them and the common interest of those whom they serve And if those laws should be taken away all Industry must cease all misery blood and confusion would follow and greater Calamities then fell upon us by the late Kings Mis-government would certainly involve all persons under which they must inevitably perish How well they have performed this part of their Remonstrance let their proceedings in their High Courts of Justice the long Imprisoments and close Imprisonments of my self and other their Fellow-Members their acts for new Treasons and Delinquents and ejecting their Fellow-Members and Lords out of Parliament without the least Impeachment Tryal Accusation their Imprisonment of Sir Robert Pye the Kentish Gentlemen and others for demanding a Free Parliament fair and free elections restitution of the secluded Members c. determine 5. They therein expresly promise p. 26. To order the revenue in such away That the publick charges may be defrayed The Souldiers pay justlie and duly setled That free-quarter may be wholy taken away and the People eased of their Burthens and Taxes And is this now all the ease we feel to have all Burthens and Taxes thus augmented doubled trebled paid in near a year before hand and then new and greater Taxes imposed on them for those verie Months they have paid in their old proportion before hand beyond all Presidents of Tyranny and oppression in any age and that by pretended acts made out of Parliament against all these good old Laws and Statutes our Liberties and Properties which these worse than Aegyptian Tax-Masters have so newly and deeply engaged themselves to maintain and preserve without the least diminution and violation 6. That this very Juncto in their Act as they stile it made and published Octob. 11. 1659. intituled an Act against the raising of Monies upon the people without their common consent in Parliament enact and declare That no Person or Persons shall after the XI of October 1659. assesse levy collect gather or receive any customs imposts excise assesment contribution tax tallage or any sum or sums of mony or other Imposition whatsoever upon the People or Commonwealth without their consent in Parliament or as by Law might have been done before the 3. of November 1640. And it is further enacted and declared that every Person offending contrary to this Act shall be and is hereby adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason Which * some of them have declared to be the Fundamental and old Law of England against which no By-Law is to be made and one of the main Birth-rights of England Therefore themselves by assessing and imposing many former Customs Imposts Excises Assesments and contributions on the people and this of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for 6. Month Jan. 26. 1659. without Common consent in Parliament when and whiles 26. of the greatest Counties in England and 11. Shires in Wales 14. whole Cities and most Boroughs in England have not so much as one Knight Citizen or Burgess sitting with them to represent them and 9. English Counties no more but one Knight and but 4. Counties and 2. Cities alone and not above 3. or 4. Boroughs their full numbers of Knights Citizens and Burgesses sitting with them to represent them all the rest to the number of 420. Members besides the whole House of Lords being forcibly excluded or dead by the tenor of their own Act and Decl. are adjudged guilty of High Treason and ought to suffer and forfeit as in case of Treason and all those Commissioners named in their Act amounting to above one thousand and all Assessors Collectors and Treasurers under them who shall assesse levy collect gather or receive the same shall incur the guilt of Treason and suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason and their real and personal Estates be confiscated to pay the publick debts and Souldiers arrears 7. That this Anti-Parliamentary Convention in their late Declaration of Jan. 24. have published and declared to the world That they are resolved to remain constane and immovable that the people of these Nations may be governed from time to time by Representatives of Parliament chosen by themselves That they should be governed by the Laws That all proceedings touching the Laws Liberties and Estates of the free-people of the Commonwealth shall be according to the Laws of the Land It being their principal care to provideagainst all arbitrarinesse in Government And that it is one of the greatest cares they have upon them how to give the people that ease from their present burthens which their undone condicion calls for Which how well and faithfully they have performed and not rather most notoriously violated let the whole world God Angels Men determin by their imposing a Monthly Tax of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for the 6. next Months they had paid and advanced before hand By ordering
Gen. Monk by a Vote of their Council of State at Whitehall afterwards ratisied by a Vote at Westminster when executed the 9. of this instant February to march with all his Forces into the City of London to seize and imprison 2. of their Aldermen and sundry of their Common-Council men in the Tower to pull down and destroy the Gates and Portcullesses of the City To discontinue null and void the Common-Council of the City of London for this year by ordering a Bill for the choice of another Common-Council with such Qualifications as the Juncto shall think fit which was accordingly executed and then ratified and approved by their Votes and by commanding him afterwards to demand the City Arms to disarm them by force if they deliver them not upon demands s and all because the Common-Council upon a Petition of the Citizens and Remonstrance of the Gentlemen Ministers and Freeholders of Warwickshire and other Counties Febr. 8. voted and resolved That no Person or Persons whatsoever might impose any Laws or Taxes upon the City and Citizens untill the Authority thereof be derived from their Representatives in a full and free Parliament And all this without and before the least hearing or examination of the City and Common-Council a Tyranny Indignity Dishonour and Ingratitude not to be paralleld and never offered in any age to the City and Citizens before by any of our Kings for the highest Treasons against them at least before hearing and convictiâ—â— much lesse only for demanding and claiming the benefit of those Fundamental Laws and Privileges for whose defence they had so lately expended so many Millions of Treasure and Thousands of their lives to defend them according to these their fresh Declarations and Acts encouraging them thereunto and that after all their former Obligations and Indearments to the City upon all occasions and the beheaded Kings free Confirmation of all their former Charters Liberties Privileges Militia and enlargements of the same at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight notwithstanding their taking up Armes against him in the Parliaments defence may now justly irritate and engage the City of London and all other Cities Boroughs Corporations and Counties of this Realm unanimously to oppose the present and all other Taxes and Excises whatsoever imposed on them by these Oppressors and put their own Act in vigorous execution against them as the worst of Tyrants and Invaders of their Liberties Thirdly Both Houses of Parliament joyntly and the House of Commons severally in the late Parliament with the approbation of all and consent of most now sitting did in sundry ¶ Romonstrances and Declarations published to the Kingdom not only Tax the King and his evil Counsellors for imposing illegal Taxes on the Subjects contrary to the forecited Acts the maintenance whereof against all future violations and invasions of the Peoples Liberties and Properties they made one principal ground of our late bloody expensive war but likewise professed * That they were specially chosen and intrusted by the Kingdom in Parliament and owned it as their duty to hazzard their own lives and estates for preservation of those Laws and Liberties and use their best endeavours that the meanest of the Commonalty MIGHT ENJOY THEM AS THEIR BIRTH-RIGHTS as well as the greatest Subject That every honest man especially those who have taken the late Protestation and Solemn League and Covenant since is bound to defend the Laws and Liberties of the kingdom against Will and Power which imposed what payments they thought fit to drain the Subjects Purses and supply those Necessities which their ill Counsel had brought upon the King and Kingdom And that they would be ready to live and dye with those worthy and true-hearted Patriots of the Gentry of this Nation and others who were ready to lay down their lives and fortunes for the maintenance of their Laws and Liberties with many such like expressions Which must needs engage me a Member of that Parliament and Patriot of my Country with all my strength and power to oppose this injurious Tax imposed out of Parliament though with the hazard of my life and fortunes wherein all those late secluded Lords and Members who have joyned in these Remonstrances are engaged by them to second me under pain of being adjudged unworthy for ever hereafter to sit in any Parliament or to be trusted by their Counties and those for whom they served And so much the rather to vindicate the late Houses honour and reputation from those predictions and printed aspersions of the beheaded King now verified as undeniable experimented truths by the Antiparliamentary sitting Juncto * That the maintenance of the Laws Liberties Properties of the People were but only gilded Dissimulations and specious pretences to get power into their own hands thereby to enable them to destroy and subvert both Laws Liberties and Properties at last and not any thing like them to introduce Anarchy Democracy Parity Tyranny in the Highest degree and new forms of arbitrary Government and leave neither King nor Gentleman all which the people should too late discover to their costs and that they had obtained nothing by adhering to and complyance with them but to enslave and undo themselves and to be at last destroyed Which royal Predictions many complain and all experimentally â—ind too trulie verified by those who now bear rule under the Namâ— and visour of the Parliament of England since its dissolution by the Kings decapitation and the Armies imprisoning and seclusion of the Members and Lords who above all others are obliged to disprove them by their Actions as well as Declarations to the people who regard not words but real performances from these new Keepers of their Liberties especially in this FIRST YEAR OF ENGLANDS FREEDOM engraven on all their publick Seals which else will but seal their Selfdamnation and proclaim them the Archest Impostors under Heaven and now again in their 3. Session after their two sodain and forcible Dissolutions Secondly Should I voluntarily submit to pay this Tax and that by vertue of an Act of Parliament made by those now sitting some of whose Elections have been voted void others of them elected by new illegal Writs under a new kind of Seal without the Kings Authority Stile or Seal and that since the Kings beheading as the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Howard uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common-law or Custom of Parliament being Peers of the Realm if now worthy such a Title as was adjudged long since in the Lord Camoyes case Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. m. 32. asserted by Mr. Selden in his Titles of Honor part 2. c. 5. p. 737. seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4. Institut p. 1 4 5 46 47 49. and I have proved at large in my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers As I should admit these to be lawfull Members and their unlawfull void Writs to be good in Law so should I tacitly admit ex
offensive and defensive war against the King and Kingship but to oppose the Kings interest and Title to that Kingdom * setled on Him his Heirs and Successors for ever by an express Act of Parliament made in Ireland 23 H. 8. c. 1. and by the Statute of 1 Jac. c. 1. made in England yet unrepealed and the Protestant remaining party there adhering to and proclaiming acknowledging him for their Soveraign lest his gaining of Ireland should prove fatal to their usurped Soveraigntie in England or conduce to his enthroning here And by what Authority those now sitting can impose or with what Conscience any loyal Subject who hath taken the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Covenant can voluntarily pay any Contributions to deprive the King of his hereditary right and undoubted Title to the Kingdoms and Crowns of England and Ireland and alter the frame of the antient Government and Parliaments of our Kingdoms * Remonstrated so often against by both Houses and adjudged High Treason in Canterburies and Straffirds cases for which they were beheaded and by themselves in the Kings own case whom they decolled likewise without incurring the guilt of perjury and danger of high Treason to the loss of his life and estate by the very laws and Statutes yet in force transcends my understanding to conceive Wherefore I neither can nor dare in conscience law or prudence submit to this Contribution The 3d. end of this Tax and more particularly of this new Tax of Jan 26. 1659. of one hundred thousand pound the Month for 6 months space after a former Tax levied before hand for the self-same Months is the maintenance of the Armies and Navyes raised and continued for the defence of the twice dissipated Anti-Parliamentarie Conventicle and their Utopian Common-wealth and the necessary and urgent occasions thereof now propounded and insisted on by the sitting Members as the only means of Peace and Settlement both in Church and State when as in truth it hath been is and will be the onlie means of Unsettlement and new divisions wars oppressions confusions in both to their utter ruine and desolation if pursued Which I shall evidence beyond contradiction 1. This project to metamorphoze our antient Hereditary famous flourishing Kingdom into an Helvetian and Vtopian Common-wealth by popular Tumults Rebellion and a prevalent party in Parliament was originally contrived by Father Parsons and other Jesuites in Spain in the year of our Lord 1590. recommended by them to the King of Spain to pursue and was principally to be effected by Jesuites to destroy and subvert our Protestant Monarchs Kingdoms and subject them to the Tyranny and Vassallage of the Jesuites and Spaniards as you may read at large in William Watson his Quodlibets printed 1602. p. 92 94 25 286 389 310 330 332 333 334 322 323 in his Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman printed at Rhemes 1601. and in William Clarke both Secular Priests his Answer to Father Parsons Libel p. 75 76 c. 2ly After this it was particularly and by name recommended by Thomas Campanella an Italian Monk and Arch-Machivilian to the King of Spain in the year 1600. as the principal means to sow the seeds of Divisions and Dissentions amongst the English themselves and to engage England Scotland and Ireland in inextricable wars against each other to divert the English from the Indies and his Plate Fleet and reduce them under his universal Temporal and the Popes Spiritual Monarchy at last as you may read at large in his Book De Monarchia Hispanica c. 25. now translated into English 3ly It was again set on foot and vigorously prosecuted by the Jesuites and Cardinal Richelien of France in the years 1639 1640. as you may read in my Romes Master-piece and Epistle to A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication c. of the good old fundamental Liberties Laws c. of all English Freemen printed 1655. And specially recommended to the French King and Cardinal Mazarin his Successor at his death Anno 1642. vigorously to pursue and accomplish by the Civil Wars raised between Scotland and England and the late King and Parliament as a Historia Conte de Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato part 3. Venotiis 1648. p. 175 176. and was accordingly prosecuted by the Spanish and French Agents and the Jesuites and Popish Priests and their seduced Proselytes of the Juncto and Army as I evidenced at large in my Speech Dee 4. 1648. and the Appendix to it my soresaid Epistle and True and Perfect Narrative May 1659. by evidences past all contradiction 4ly It is evident That the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists in England Scotland and Ireland with all the b Sectarian Party of Anabaptists Quakers Enthisiasts and Sectaries of all sorts headed by disguised Jesuites Monks Fryers and Popish Priests have been the chiefest Sticklers of all others for this New projected Commonwealth against the King and Monarchy and the only means to extirpate our established Protestant Ministry with their Maintenance Tithes Glebes and embroyl us in endless confusions and revolutions of Governments Wars Distractions till we be beggered destroyed and made a prey to our forein Enemies 5ly The King of Spain was the first of all forein Kings and States who owned couâ—ted and entâ—ed into a League of Amity with our new Common-wealth after the Kings beheading as a Creature of his own in opposition to our King and Kingship and engaged us in a war against the Dutch to make himself Monarch over us both according to Campanella his advice De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25 27. which our Republicans punctuallie pursued from 1649 till 1653. almost to the ruine of us both by the Spaniards Gold and policie 6ly That the French Cardinal Mazarin and other Popish Kings and States complyed and confederated with our Republicans and late Protectors in opposition to our Hereditary Protestant King and Kingship purposely to ruine us and our Religion at home and the Protestant Churches abroad engaged by their policies in unchristian wars against each other 7ly That we have all visibly seen and sensibly felt by twelve years wofull experiment that this Jesuitical project and chymera of a Free-state and Common-wealth was propounded by the c Army-Officers and the sitting Juncto as the only means of our present and future peace and settlement both in Nov. 1647 1648 1649. and yet it hath proved as I then predicted in my Speech and Memento a perpetual Seminarie of new Wars Tumults Combustions Changes Revolutions of Government and Governours Anti-parliamentarie Conventicles Factions Schisms Sects Heresies Confusions and endlesse Taxes Oppressions Ataxies ever since both in Church State Court and Camp almost to our inevitable destruction and of necessity it will and must do so still And is it not then a worse than Bedlam follie and frenzie for our Anti-parliamentarie Juncto Swordmen and Republicans to enforce and impose it on us by mere armed violence against our Judgements Reasons Consciences Experiments and
conceit to the contrary till they be setled in the Throne in peace upon just and honourable terms and invested in their just possessions Which were far more safe honourable just prudent and Christian for our whole 3. Kingdoms voluntarily and speedily to do themselves than to be forced to it at last by any forein Forces the sad consequences whereof we may easily conjecture and have cause enough to fear if we now delay it or still contribute to maintain Armies to oppose their Titles and protect the Invaders of them from publick Justice And therefore I can neither in conscience piety nor prudence ensnare my self in the guilt of all these dangerous treasonable consequences by any submission to this illegal Tax Upon all these weighty Reasons and serious grounds of Conscience Law Prudence which I humbly submit to the Consciences and Judgements of all conscientious and judicious persons whom they do or shall concern I am resolved by the Assistance and strength of the Omnipotent God who hath miraculously supported me under and carried me through all my former sufferings for the Peoples publick Liberties with exceeding joy comfort and tâ—e ruine of my greatest Enemies and Opposers to oppugn these unlawfull Contributions and the payment of them oâ— the uttermost in all just and lawfull waies I may And if any will forcibly levy them by distresse or otherwise without and against all Law or Right as Theeves and Robbers take mens Goods and Purses let them do it at their own umost peril being declared all Traytors and to be proceeded against capitally as Traytors by the Junctoes own late Knack and Declaration However though I suffer at present yet I trust God and men will in due time do me justice upon them and award me recompence for all injuries in this kind or any sufferings for my Countries Liberties However fall back fall edge I would ten thousand times rather lose my Life Libertie and all that I have to keep a good Conscience and preserve my own and my Countries native Liberty than to part with one farthing or gain the whole World with the losse of either of them and rather dye a Martyr for our Antient Kingdom than live a Slave under any New Republick or remnant of a broken dismembred strange Antiparliamental House of Commons without King Lords or the major part of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Realm in being subject to their illegal Taxes and what they call Acts of Parliament which in reality are no Acts at all to bind me or any other Subject in point of Conscience or Prudence to obedience or just punishment for Non-obedience thereunto or Non-conformity to what they style the present Government of the Armies modeling and I fear of the Popes Spaniards Campanellaes Father Parsons and other Jesuites suggesting to effect our Kings Kingdoms and Religions ruine as I have * elsewhere clearly evidenced beyond all contradiction Psalm 26. 4 5. I have not sate with vain Persons neither will I go in with Dissemblers I have hated the Congregation of evil Doers and will not sit with the wicked WILLIAM PRYNNE SWAINSWICK June 16. 1649. FINIS A POSTSCRIPT SInce the drawing up of the precedent Reasons I have met with a printed Pamphlet intituled An Epistle written the 8th day of June 1649. by Lieut. Colonel John Lilbourn to Mr. William Lenthal Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights Citizens and Burgesses that Col. Thomas Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster as most fit for his and his Masters designeâ— to serve their ambitious and tyrannical ends to destroy the good old Laws Liberties and Customes of England the badges of our Freedom as the Declaration against the King of the 7th of March 1648. p. 23. calls them and by force of Arms to rob the people of their lives estates and properties and subject them to perfect vassallage and slavery c. who and in truth no otherwise pretendedly style themselves The Conservators of the peace of England or the Parliament of England intrusted and authorised by the consent of all the people thereof whose Representatives by Election in their Declaration last mentioned p. 27. they say they are although they are never able to produce one bit of Law or any piece of a Commission to prove that all the people of England or one quarter tenth huâ—dred or thousand part of them authorised Thomas Pride with his Regiment of Souldiers to chuse them a Parliament as indeed he hath de facto done by his PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAMâ—NT and therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or Peoples Parliameâ—t but Col. Prides and his Associates whose really it is who although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant yet walk in his oppressiâ—gâ—st steps if not worse and higher This is the Title of his Epistle In this Epistle this late great champion of the House of Commons and fitting Junctoes Supremacy both before and since the Kings beheading who with his Brother a a His Petition and Appeal his Arrow of Defiance See Mr. Edwards Gangrena 3. part p. 154. f. 204. See My 〈…〉 for the 〈…〉 to Overton and their Confederates first cryed them up as and gave them the Title of The supreme Authority of the Nation The onely supreme Judicatory of the Land The onely formal and legal supreme Power of the Parliament of England in whom alone the power of binding the whole Nation by making altering or abrogating Laws without either King or Lords resides c. and first engaged them by their Pamphlets and Petitions against the King Lords and Personal Treaty as he and they print and boast in bâ— this Epistle and other late Papers Pag. 11 29 doth in his own and his parties behalf who of late so much adored them as the onely earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation now positively assert and prove First That c c Pag. 34 35. Commissary General Ireton Colonel Harrison with other Members of the House and the General Councel of Officers of the Army did in several Meetings and Debates at Windsor immediately before their late march to London to purge the House and after at White-hall commonly style themselves the pretended Parliament even before the Kings beheading A MOCK PARLIAMENT a MOCK POWER a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT and NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOTS and not so much as to leave a shadow of it yea and had done it if we say they and some of our then FRIENDS in the House had not been the principal Instruments to hinder them We judging it then of two evils the least to chuse rather to be governed by THE SHADOW OF A PARLIAMENT till we could get a real and a true one which with the greatest protestations in the world they then promised and engaged with all their might speedily to effect then simply solely and onely by the will of
them and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people with the name of a Parliament and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assesements and Taxations and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees the best of which is now become a perfect Star-chamber High Commission and Councel-board make them their perfect slaves and vessals With much more to this purpose If then their principal admirers who confederated with the Army and those now sitting in all their late proceedings and cryed them up most of any as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England before at and since the late force upon the House and its violent purgation do thus in print professedly disclaim them for being any real Parliament or House of Commons to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people or set up High Courts of Justice to try and condemn the King or any Peers or English Preemen the secluded Lord Members Presbyterians Royalists and all others have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegal Taxes Acts as not made by any true English Parliament but a Mock-Parliament only Fourthly He therein further avets f f Pag. 52. 53. 56. 57. 58. 59. That the death of the King in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament ipso facto though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it the rather because the men that would have it continue so long as they please are those who have created these necessities on purpose that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent That the main end wherfore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither was To treat and confer with King Charles and the House of Peers about the great Affairs of the Nation c. And therefore are but a third part ot third estate of that Parliament to which they were to come and joyn with and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make Laws the end both in reason and law of the peoples trust is ceased for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end cannot play Lord paramount over the Major and then do what it please no more can the Minor of a Major viz. one Estate of three legally or justly destroy two of three without their own assent c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within its limited time in all its splendor of glory without the awe of armed men neither in Law nor in the intention of their Choosers were a Parliament and therefore of themselves alone have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments c. concluding thus For shame let no man be so audaciously or sottishly voyd of Reason as to call Tho. Prides pittiful Juncto A PARLIAMENT especially those that called avowed protested and declared again and again those TO BE NONE that sate at Westminster the 26 27 c. of July 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army by a few hours tumult of a company of a few disorderly Apprentices And being no representative of the People much less A PARLIAMENT what pretence of Law Reason Justice or Nature can there be for you to alter the constitution of Parliaments and force upon the people the shew of their own Wills lusts and pleasures for laws and Rules of Government made by a PRETENDED EVERLASTING NULLED PARLIAMENT a Councel of State or Star-Chamber and a Councel of War or rather by Fairfax Cromwel and Ireton Now if their own late confederates and creatures argue thus in print against their being and continuing a Parliament their Jurisdiction Proceedings Taxes and arbitrary pleasures should not all others much more do it and joyntly and magnanimously oppose them to the utmost upon the self-same grounds for their own and the publick ease Liberty Safety Settlement and restoring the Rights Priviledges Freedome Splendor of our true English Parliaments Fifthly He there likewise affirms g g P. 53. 54. 59. 41. that those now fiting at Westminster have perverted the ends of their trusts more then ever Strafford did 1. In not ceasing the people of but encreasing their grievances 2. In exhausting their estates to maintain and promote pernicious Designes to the peoples destruction The King did it by a little Shipmony and Monopolies but since they began they have raised and extorted more mony from the People and Nation then half nay all the Kings since the Conquest ever did as particularly 1 By Excise 2 Contributions 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value 4 Fist part 5 Twentyeth part 6 Meal-mony 7 Sale of plundered good 8 Loanes 9 Benevolences 10 Collections upon their fast days 11 New imposittions or customes upon Merchandize 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men 13 Fifty Subsidies at one time 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value 15 Sale of Bishops lands 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters lands and now after the wars are done 17 Sale of Kings Queens Princes Dukes and the rest of the Childrens revenues 18 Sale of their rich goods which cost an infinite sum 19 to conclude all a Taxation of ninety thousand pounds a moneth since that of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a Moneth and lately of a whole years Tax within three moneths and now of one hundred thousand pound a a moneth for the same six moneths they have payed their Taxes besides Excise Customes Frequent new intollerable Militiaes Payments to increased swaâ—ms of poor sequestrations Highway money and other charges now all Trade is utterly lost and the three Kingdomes beggar'd and undone and when they have gathered it pretendingly for the Common-wealths use divide it by thousands and ten thousands a piece amongst themselves and wipe their mouths after it like the impudent Harlot as though they had done no evill and then purchase with it publick Lands at smal or trivial values O brave Trustees that have Protested before God and the world again and again in the day of their straits they would never seek themselves and yet besides all this divide all the choicest and profitablest Places of the Kingdome among themselves Therefore when I seriously consider how many in Parliament and elsewhere of their Associates that judge themselves the onely Saints and Godly men upon the earth that have considerable and some of them vast estates of their own inheritance and yet take five hundred one two three four five thousand pounds per annum Salaries and other comings in by their places and that out of the too much exhausted Treasury of the Nation when thousands not onely of the people of the world as they call them but also
judice to all intents with all Bills Decrees and Proceedings in Chancery or the Rolls and all Judges Justices Sheriffs now acting and Lawyers practising before them in apparent danger of High-treason both against King and Kingdom they neither taking the Oaths of Judges Supremacy or Allegiance as they ought by Law but only to be true and faithful to the new erected State without a King but likewise all votes and proceedings before the pretended House or any of their Committees oâ—sub-Committees in the Country with all their Grants and Offices Moneys Salaries Sequestrations Sales of Lands or Goods Compositions c. meer Nullities and illegal acts and the proceedings of all active Commissioners Assessors Collectors Treasurers c. and all other Officers imployed to levy and to collect this illegal tax to support that usurped Parliamentary Authority and Army which hath beheaded the late King dis-inherited his undoubted Heir levyed war against and dissolved the late Houses of Parliament subverted the ancient Government of this Realm the constitution and Liberties of our Parliaments the Lawes of the Kingdome with the Liberty and property of the people of England no less than High-treason in all these respects as is fully proved by Sir Edward Cook in his 3 Institutes ch. 1. 2. and by Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law at the attainder of the Earl of Strafford and Declaration and Speech against the ship-mony Judges published by the late Commons House order which I desire all who are thus imployed to consider especially such Commissioners who take upon them to administer a new unlawful Ex-officio Oath to any to survey their Neighbours and their own estates in every parish and return the true values thereof to them upon the new proun'd rate for the 3 last months contribution to fine those who refuse to do it a meer diabolical invention to multiply perjuries to damn mens souls invented by Cardinal Woolsey much enveighed against by Father Latimer in his sermons condemned by the express words of the Petition of Right providing against such Oathes and a snare to enthral the wealtheir sort of people by discovering their estates to subject them to what future taxes they think fit when as the whole House of Commons in no age had any power to administer any Oath in any case whatsoever much lesse then to confer any authority on others to give such illegal Oathes and fine those who refuse them the highest kind of Arbitrary Tyrany both over mens Consciences Properties Liberties to which those who voluntarily submit deserve not only the name of Traytors to their Country but to be m m Exod. 21. 5. 6. boared through the ear and they and their posterities to be made Slaves for ever to these new Tax-masters and their successors and those who are any ways active in imposing or administring such Oaths yea treasonable Oaths of the highest degree abjuring and engaging against King Kingship Kingdome and House of Lords and that with constancy and perseverance against their former Oathes of Homage Fealty Supremacy and Allegiance the Protestation Vow Solemn League and National Covenant the most detestable Perjury and High treason that ever mortal men were guilty of or assistant in imposing assessing collecting and levying illegal taxes by distresse or otherwise may and will undoubtedly smart for it at last not onely by Actions of trespasse false imprisonment Accompt c. brought against them at the Common Law when there will be no Committee of Indempnity to protect them from such suits but likewise by Indictments of High treason to the deserved losse of their Estates Lives and Ruine of their families and that by the Junctoes own Votes and Declaration Octob. 11. 1659. when there will be no Parliament of purged Commoners nor Army to secure nor legal plea to acquit them from the guilt and punishment of Traytors both to their King and Country pretended present forbid fear of imprisonment loss of Liberty Friends Estate Life or the like being no n n See 1. H. 4. Rot. Par. n. 97. excuse in such a case and time as this but an higher aggravation of their crime nor yet to exempt them from Hell it self and everlasting Torments in it for their Perjuries Treasons Oppressions Rebellions and actings against their Consciences out of fear of poor inconsiderable mortals who can but kill the body at most nor yet do that but by Gods permission contrary to the express commands of God himself Ps. 3. 6. Ps. 27. 1. Ps. 56. 11. Ps. 112. 7 8. Isa. 44. 8. c. 51. 7. 12. ler. 1. 8. Ezek. 2. 6. 12. 4. 5. Mat. 10. 28. 1. Pet. 3. 4. Heb. 13. 6. the o o Rev. 21. 8. FEARFUL being the first in that dismal list of Malefactors who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death even by Christs own sentence JOHN 18. 34. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnesse unto the truth FINIS * See Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliae and Sir Thomas Smith De Republica Anglicana 16 Car. c. 1. See Rastal Title Taxes Tallages The Acts for Subsidies of the Clergy and Temporalty * See My Memento to the pâ—esent Un-Parliamentary Juncto Prynne the Member reconciled to Prynne the Barresteâ— and True and perfect Narrative May 7. 9. 1659. a See my Humble Remonstrance against Ship-money Jan. 26. 1659. b See 1 E. â— cap. 7. Cook 7. Report 30 31. Dyer 165. 4 Ed. 4. 43 44 1 E. 5. 1 Book Commission 10 21. c Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts fol. 1. Cook 4. Instit. c. 1. d 5 E. 3. m. 6. part 2. Dors. Claus. Regist. f. 192. 200. e 4 Ed. 4. 44. 1 E. 5. 1. Brook Commissions 19. 21. Officer 25. Dyer 165. Cook 7. Report 30. 31. 1 E. 6. c. 7. Daltons Justice of Peace c. 3. p. 13 Lambert p. 71. * See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers f 14 R. 2. n. 15. 11 H 4. n. 30. 13 H. 4. n. 25. g 4 H. 7. 18. b. 7 H. 7. 27. Fortescue c. 18. f 20 Dyer 92. Bâ—ook Parliament 76 197. Cooks 4. Institut p. 25. h See the Freeholders grand Inquest My Plea for the Lords The 1 and 2 Part of my Register of Parliamentary Writs and exact Ab. idgement of the Records in â—â—e Tower my Historical Collection part 1 2. c. 3. See my Speech Dec. 4. 1648. and a full Declation of the true state of the Case of the Secluded Members i i Cooks 4. Institutes p. 1. 5 R. 2. Stat. 2. c. 4. * Populi Minor pars Populum non obigit Grotius de Jure Belli l. 2. c. 15. sect. 3. Alexander ab Alexandro Gen. dierum l. 4. c. 11. a Declarat Nov. 28. 30. 1648. l 39. Ed. 3. 7. 4. H. 7. 10. Brook Parl. 26. 40. Cook 4. Instit. p. 1. 25 26. 1 Jac. cap. 1. m Claus. 23. E. 1.