Selected quad for the lemma: act_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
act_n	king_n	parliament_n	writ_n	3,273	5	9.6734	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66820	The high court of justice. Or Cromwells new slaughter-house in England With the authoritie that constituted and ordained it, arraigned, convicted, and condemned; for usurpation, treason, tyrannie, theft, and murder. Being the III. part of the Historie of independencie: written by the same author.; High court of justice	Walker, Clement, 1595-1651.; Andrews, Eusebius, d. 1650.	1651 (1651)	Wing W324D; ESTC R203985	41,776	78

Souldiers were not so wicked as their Masters Yet we daily see many good Families in England despoiled of their Estates for want of protection of the laws brought to miserable beggery rather than they will wrong their consciences by subscribing this damnable Engagement contrary to the Protestation and Covenant imposed by this Parliament contrary to the known law of this land which this Parliament hath declared to observe and keep in all things concerning the lives liberties and properties of the people with all things incident thereto contrary to this Parliaments reiterated votes that they would not change the Ancient Government by a King Lords and Commons And contrary to the Oathes of Allegeance Obedience and Supremacy whereby and by the Stat. of Recognition 1. Jac. our Allegeance is tied onely to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successers from which no power on earth can absolve us and so much we attest in the Oath of Supremacy Politicus Interpreter to our new State-Puppet play Numb. 19. from Sept. 19. to Sept. 26. out of the dictates of his Masters tells us that in Answer to the Kings Act of oblivion granted the Parliament intends to passe an Act of Generall pardon for which they expect in future a Generall obedience submission to the government you see though they will not be the Kings subjects they will be his Apes and in the beginning of the said Pamphlet Politicus saith That Protection implies obedience otherwise they may be handled as publike Enemies and outlawes and ought to be destroyed as Traitors Here you have the end to which this generall pardon is intended it is but a shooing-horn to draw on the utmost penalty upon Non-engagers appointed by the said pretended Act 2. Ian. 1649. to weed them out of this good Land that the Saints only may enjoy the earth and the fullness thereof to which purpose all their new coyned Acts and Lawes are directed The Scripture points forth these kind of men when it saith The Mercies of the wicked are cruell The sum of all is If we will not acknowledge Allegeance to these Mush-romes we shall be Traitors without Alleageance a Treason never yet heard of in any Law If we will acknowledge Allegeance we put our selves in a capacity to be Traitors when they shall please to make us such But let them know That we are all Englishmen Free-born alike under the Protection of an antient legall Monarchy to which we owe Alleageance and how we come to forfeit that legall Protection our setled laws and Government and be subjected to a New unknowne Protection obtruded upon us by a Company of upstarts Mushromes of Majesty so meane in birth and breeding for the most part that the place of a Constable equalls the highest of their education imposing what Lawes and conditions upon us they please I would be glad to heare without being hindered by Guns Drums High Courts of Iustice and other Instruments of violence Murder But the greatest Mistery in this cheat is That our Self-created Supremists having voted the originall power to be in the people and but a derivative Authority to be in themselves as the Representative of the people should notwithstanding so yoake their Soveraigne Lord the people and make them pay Allegeance to their own Delegates the 8. part of a House of Commons under the penalty unless they subscribe as the far major part have not of outlawing and depriving all the people of this Land of all benefit of the Lawes they were born to and consequently of annihilating and making them no longer a Nation or people As if they were meer Salvages newly conquered collected and formed into a Politike body or Commonwealth and endowed with Laws newly invented by these Novice Statists But the unlawfullness of the said Engagement with the Injustice of the Self-created power that obtrudeth it hath been handled by many good pens especially by the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers in their Plea for Non-Subcribers Therfore I passe on to my principall scope The second Engine appointed to root out all such as are of a different Party The High Court of Iustice A formidable Monster upon which no pen that I know of hath yet adventured 4. In treating of the High Court of Iustice I must consider 1. By what Persons and Authority this new erected unpresidented Court is constituted 2. Of what Persons it is constituted 3. The way and manner of their proceedings What formalities and Lawes they observe therein How sutable to the known Laws of the Land and the Parliaments Declarations Protestations and Covenant they are 4. To what end this Court is constituted 1. The Persons constituting this extrajudiciall Court are the present pretended Parliament consisting of 40 or 50 thriving Commons only who conspired with Cromwell and the Army to expell 7. parts of 8. of their follow-Members without any cause showne abolished the House of Peers erected this High Court of Iustice in nature of a Court Martiall to murder the King abolished Kingly Government Turned it into a thing they call a Free-State disinherited the Royall Family and now usurp to themselves without any calling from God or the People more then a Regall Legall or Parliamentary Authority wherewith they have subverted the Fundamentall Government Religion Laws Liberties and Property of the Nation and envassallised enslaved them to their Arbitrary Domination the Authority by which they erect this extrajudiciall Court is The usurped Legislative power By colour of which they passed an Act dated 26. March 1650. establishing the said High Court of Iustice Yet their own creature Master St. Johns in his Argument against the E. of Strafford in a Book called Speeches and Passages of this great happy Parliament printed by William Cook 1641. pag. 24. saith The Parliament is the Representative of the whole Kingdom wherin the King as head The Lords as the more Noble the Commons the other Members are knit together as one body Politick The Lawes are the Arteries Ligaments that hold the body together And a little after Its Treason to embesell a Judiciall Record Strafford swept them all away It s Treason to counterfeit a 20s peece here is a counterfeiting of Law so in these counterfeit new Acts we can call neither the counterfeit nor true one our own It s Treason to counterfeit the great Seale for an acre of Land no property hereby is left to any Land at all no more is there by the votes practise of our new Supremists thus far Master St. Iohns But that the Parliament doth necessarily consist of the King the two Houses assembled by his Writ can passe no Act without their joint consent See the Praeambles of all our Statutes all our Parliament Records all our Law Books Modus tenendi Parliamentum Hackwells manner of passing Bills Sr. Tho. Smith de Repub. Anglorum Cambdeni Britannia All our Historians Polititians and the uninterrupted practise of all Ages That it is now lately otherwise practised is

way and suffer their Lives Liberties Estates and Honours to be subject to an Arbitrary Extrajudiciall conventicle of Blood Cromwels new Slaughter house which hath neither Law Justice Conscience Reason President or Authority Divine or Humane but onely the pretended Parliaments irrational Votes and the power of the Sword to maintain it which will prove a Cittadell over their Liberties a snare to their Estates a Deadfall to their lives and a scandal to their honours and familes if not timely opposed 1. By the Law the Endictment must specifie what the Treason is and against what Person committed As against our Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity But in the said Articles of Impeachment it is alleaged that the Treason is committed against the present Government or against the Keepers of the Liberties of England but in this dead-water our turning Tide between the old Regall and this new unknown Government no man knows how to do look or speak for fear of contracting the guilt of an Interpretative Treason upon the said two Statutes for New Treasons and before this boundlesse lawlesse new Court And to say that Treason is committed against a Government in abstracto is Non-sence it must be said that Treason is committed against the Governours in Concreto naming them For there being no Treason without Allegiance And Allegiance being a personall Obligation must be due from a certain known Person to a certain known Person or Persons And therefore the Keepers of the Liberties of England not being yet made known to us who they are or where to be found or what their power duty or office is and being not tied by any set Oath to deal well and truly with the People as Kings are by their Coronation Oath for if the stipulation be not mutuall the People are Slaves not subjects since the Duties of Allegiance and Protection Obedience and Command being reciprocall as they must needs be the Parliament having declared the Supreme power to be in the People they must not govern them Mero Imperio by lawlesse Votes like Turkish Tartarian and Russian Slaves I cannot ow nor perform Allegiance to those individua vaga the Keepers or Gaolers of our Liberties nor to an Utopian Commonwealth And without Allegiance no Treason for in all Endictments of High Treason it must be alledged That the accused did Proditoriè perpetrate such and such Crimes Contra debitam Allegantiam suam And the word Proditoriè signifies the betraying of a Trust According to the Proverbe In Trust is Treason Now where there is no profession of Allegiance there is no acceptance of a Trust no man can trust me against my will I was born under a Regall Government have read the Stat. Recognition 1. Jac. Have taken as well as others the Legall Oathes of Allegiance Obedience and Supremacy to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successors imposed upon me by lawfull Authority and from which no power on Earth can absolve me and so much I attest in the Oath of Supremacy And how I should now come after the New Moduling of the Parliament and Kingdome by Souldiers to ow Allegiance to Cromwell the Brewer Scot the Brewers Clerk Bradshaw the murderous petty fogger Sr. Hen. Mildmay the Court pander and projector Holland the Linckeboy John Trenchard that packed a Committee in which he was a Member and Voted to himself 2000l Love the super-inducted Six Clerk or any other of that Self-created Authority let them sheath their swords and tell me 2. An Endictment must certainly alledge the Offence committed in respect of the Matter Time Place persons and other circumstances But in these Articles of Impeachment they tie themselves to no such certainties Whereby the Accused knows not at what ward to lie nor how to make his Defence The Circumstances of time place and person being the assured Testimony of all Humane Actions This lawlesse Court leaves him in a vast Sea of Troubles without pole-starre card or compasse to steer by The Arbitrary Opinions of this Court declared upon emergent Occasions being a fals hearted Pilot to him These Judges not being of Counsell with the prisoner as our Legal Judges are who swear to do Justice according to the Law 3. By the Law any learned man that is present may inform the Court for the benefit of the prisoner of any thing that may make the proceedings erronious Cooks 3. Instit. pag. 29. But the whole proceedings of this Court their meeting and sitting being erronious here is no room left for admonition To take away their errours is to take away the Court 4. Cooks 2. Inst. p. 51. expounding the 29. chapter of Magna Charta hath these words All Commissions ought to be grounded upon the Law of England not upon the Votes of the House of Commons and to contain this clause in them To do what is just according to the Laws customs of England not to execute the several powers given them by the Act 26. March 1650 and a little further he saith Against this Antient and Fundamentall Law I finde an Act of Parliament made 11. Hen. VII chap. 3. That as well Justices of Assize as Justices of the Peace without any finding or presentment by the verdict of twelve men upon a bare Information for the King before them made should have full power and Authority by their Discretions to hear and determine all Offences Contempts committed or done by any person or persons against the Form Ordinance or effect of any Statute made and not repealed saving Treason Murder or Felony By colour of which Act shaking this Fundamentall Law it is not credible what horrible Oppressions and Exactions to the undoing of infinite number of people were Committed by Empson and Dudley Justices of the Peace throughout England And upon this unjust and injurious Act a new Office was erected as commonly in like cases it falleth out and they made Masters of the Kings Forfeitures I heare such an other Office will be erected when the novelty of this wonderfull High Court is lessened and the yoak thereof throughly setled upon the people necks Yet observe the said Act 11. H. 7. cap 3. went not so high as to Treason Murder and Felony But by the Stat. 1. Hen. VIII chap. 6. the said Act 11. Hen. VII was repealed and the reason given For that by force of the said Act it was manifestly known That many sinister and crafty forged and feigned Informations had bin pursued against many of the Kings Subjects to their great dammage and wrongful vexation The ill successe hereof saith Cooke and the fearful end of these two Oppressors who were Endicted and suffered for High Treason for all the said Act 11. Hen. VII passed in a full and free Parliament Cook 3. Instit. pag. 208. Should admonish Parliaments That in stead of this Ordinary and pretious Triall by the Law of the Land they bring not in Absolute and partiall Tryals by discretion And in his 4. Instit. p. 41. Cook saith

Let Parliaments leave all Causes to be measured by the golden and streightned wand of the Law and not the uncertaine and crooked corde of Discretion for it is not almost credible to foresee when any Maxime or Fundamental Law of the Land is altered what dangerous inconveniences will follow as appears by this unjust and strange Act 11. Hen. VII chap. 3. 5. This Parliament alwayes declared they bore Arms against the King in Defence of the Laws Liberties and properties of the people This way ran the whole current of their Declarations And they alwaies-reckoned Magna Charta the Petition of Right and Trials by ●uries the Chief and most Fundamental of all our Laws See their Remonstrance Therefore in their 7. Article against Strafford They charged him with High Treason for giving Judgments against mens Estates without Trials by Juries Much aggravated by Mr. St. Johns in his aforesaid Argument against Strafford And for the better preservation of Legall Trials by Juries it is provided in the Bill of Attainder of Strafford that the case of the same Earle should not be used as a President in succeeding times And in two of this Parliaments late Declarations 9 Febr. and 17. March 1648. The Parliament promiseth To preserve and keep the Fundamentall Laws of the Land for preservation of the lives Liberties Properties of the People with all things incident thereto Now to erect an Arbitrarie Lawles High Court to give Judgement against mens lives Estates and attain their blouds without Enditement found by a Grande Jury and a Triall by a Jury of 12 sworn men vicineto is a farr fouler breach of Trust in them against their Soveraign Lords the People then all they Charged the King withall and a farr Higher Act of Tyranny and Injustice then either the late King or Empson and Dudley or Strafford were accused of But if they alleage They do not put down Juries in Generall but onely in some particular mens cases upon Necessity I Answer That we are all born Freemen of England alike That our Auntient known Laws Lawes Courts and Trialls by Juries are our Inheritance equall alike to all And one Party or part of the People ought not to be disherited disfranchised or forejudged no more then another No man can be said guilty of any Crime untill he be legally convicted sentenced the Lawe must first go upon him condemn him Vbi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum If we do not live all under one Lawe and forme of Justice we are not all of one Common-wealth See the afore mentioned Gentlemans Argument against the Speciall Commission of the Court of York For Necessity Our present power is under none but the fears and terrors of their own guiltie consciences No apparence nor probability of any enemy by their own confession nor can they pleade in their excuse a Necessity which they have brought upon themselves I know some Kings have de facto used the Animadversion of the Sword to cut off such powerfull and dangerous Persons as could not safely be called to account by the Law so died Joab Adoniah c. For which the rule is Neminem adeo eminere debere ut Legibus interrogari nequeat qui Jus aequum ferre non potest in eum vim haud in justam fore No man ought to advance himself above the powers of the Law He that will not submit to equall Right if he be cut off by violence suffers no wrong But this is to be understood of the Eminency and greatnes of the Person not of the greatnes of the Crime whereof no man is to be forejudged because a great Crime may prove a great Calumny untill a Legall Triall have adjudged it But there is no Person in England so eminent for power or Authoritie but that the least of Bradshaws Ban-dogs can drive him to the Slaughter-house and make him offer his throat to Keeble Therefore Animadversio Gladii if at any time lawfull is now unlawfull To make great examples upon men of little power is great Injustice But the way of this Court is not Animadversio per Gladium It is a Mocking a Counterfeiting an Adulterating and Alchimisting of Justice it is to falsifie her waights and Ballance and steal her Sword to Commit Murder withall 6. By the knowne Lawes Matter of Fact is entrusted to the Jury Matter of Law to the Judges to prevent all Errors Combinations and Partiallities The Judges are sworn to do Justice according to the Lawe The Jury are sworne to finde according to their Evidence But in this High Court the Commissioners or Judges are all packed Confiding men chosen by and out of one Party to destroy all of a different Party They usurp the Office of Judges not being sworn to deal well and lawfully with the People as by the said Stat. 18. Edw. III. nor to do Justice according to the Lawe But onely to execute powers given by the said Act 26. March 1650. And they arrogate as Jury-men to be Triers of the Fact without being sworn To find according to Evidence So that they are Judges Juries and Parties and for ease of their tender Consciences without any Oath of Indifferencie A most excellent Compendium of Oppression They may go to the Devil for Injustice and not be forsworn Great is the Privilege of the Godly 7. The Prisoner may except against his Jurers either against the Array if the Sheriff or Baily impannelling the Jury be not wholly disingaged and Indifferent both to the cause and to the Parties Prosecuting and Prosecuted Or against the Poll he may Challenge 35 peremptorily and as many more as he can render Legal Cause of Challenge for As for defect of Estate or other Abilities or for Partiality Disaffection Engagement Infamy But this Array of Jury-men-Judges A Medley so new we knowe not how to expresse it though picked and empannelled by an Engaged Remainder of the Commons and obnoxious to all exceptions must not be challenged their backs are too much galled to endure the least touch Take heed you scandall not the Court cries Master Atturney See Col. Andrewes 3 Answeres 8. Many Exceptions in a Legall Triall are allowed against Imperfections Uncertainties and Illegallities in the Bill of Enditement for the advantage of the Prisoner But no Exceptions are allowed against these Illegal Articles of Impeachement which are made uncertain intricate obscure and ambiguous purposely to pussle confound and entangle the Respondent 9. By the Lawe a Bill of Enditement must have two full and cleere lawfull witnesses to every considerable Matter of Fact both at finding the Bill and at the Triall Cookes 3. Instit. pag. 25. 26. And Probationes debent esse luce clariores Proofes must be as cleere as the Sun not grounded upon Inferences Presumptions Probabilities And the Prisoner must be Provablement Attainte saith the Stat. 25. Ed. III. chap. 2. Cookes 3. Instit. pag. 12. The word Atteinted shews he must be legally proceeded