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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A74791	A whip for the present House of Lords, or the Levellers levelled. in an epistle writ to Mr. Frost, secretary to the Committee of State, that sits at Darby House, in answer to a lying book said to be his called A declaration, &c. / By L.C. Io. Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London, Feb. 27, 1647.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.; Frost, Walter, fl. 1619-1652.	1648 (1648)	Thomason E431_1	47,524	30

A Whip for the present House of Lords OR The Levellers Levelled In an Epistle writ to Mr. Frost Secretary to the Committee of State that sits at Darby House in answer to a lying book said to be his called a declaratio c. By L.C. Io. Lilburne Prerogative Prisoner in the Tower of London Feb. 27. 1647. Into which is inserted his speech against the House of Lords Legislative and Iudicative power made at the barre of the House of Commons the 19. of Ianuary 1647. In which is punctually proved both by reason and the Parliaments own Declarations that though the present House of Lords de facto exercise a law making and a law iudging power yet de jure they have no right to either being meer prerogative Usurpers and that the House of Lords exercising their pretended Legislative power is destructive to the Libertie and Freedomes of England it alone having been the chiefe cause of all the late warrs and blood shed in England for which as the Bishops were they deserve to be puld up by the Roots In which is also a lash for L. G. Cromwell and Mr. Masterson the lying Shepheard of Shoreditch neere London Mr. Frost I Took occasion the 14. of this present to write a few lines unto you which before I can goe any further I am necessitated here to insert Mr. Frost I Have looked upon you formerly as an honest English man though full of feares and a spirit possessed with two much compliance with unrighteousnesse But a book comming this day to my hands called A Declaration of some proceedings of Lievt Col. Iohn Lilburne published by authority but yet without an Authors name to own it makes me a little in my thoughts to stagger for upon reading of a few pages of it in my own thoughts I iudged the book to be of Mr. Nathaniell Fines his penning or of your own and as I was musing who should be the Author of it I had word brought me from Westminster that possitively it was yours But being desirous if possible I can to know certainly whether it be yours or no before I direct my lines in answer to it to you For I cannot but acquaint you that by Gods assistance I do intend to answer it to the purpose and therefore cannot but intreat you to prevent me from wronging of you and that if my information doe deceive me I intreat you by this bearer to send me two lines under your hand that it is not yours for without such a disavowing I shall take you as in it you say the Lords took me pro confesso and make in due time further addresses to Mr. Walter Frost from his friend John Lilburne But Mr. Frost having not to this houre received one word of answer or one line from you either to own or disavow the foresaid malicious fallacious and lying book I doe therefore in good earnest take it to be yours though in the first reading of the 10. pag one would take it to be compiled by the House of Lords themselves and accordingly shall direct my present lines to you as the Author of it though it may be supposed you had more fingers in it then your owne And at present I shall only principally meddle with that part of it that concernes the House of Lords but of neccessitie I must sum up the substance of your discourse that antesedes that and if I mistake you not the drift of your pen is to vernish over the reputation of the present swaying tyrants the Grandees in the Army and their confederates in the two Houses and to bespatter and levell with the ground upon which they tread all those that they or you conceive may stand in their way in keeping them from attaining to the full possession of their ultimate or finall desires viz. to set up themselves in the full throne of the exercising of an unlimitted unquestionable arbitrary and tyrannicall power and domination over the lives liberties and proprieties of the free men of England Which I will maintaine it they have already de facto levelled with the corrupt rule of their own factious and arbitrary wills and have already s●● ordered the businesse that no man in England can justly or rationally say that his life liberty or estate that he possesseth is his own or that it is possible to inioy it any longer then during their tyrannicall wills and pleasures which already is become the sole and only present safe rule to walk by in England You spend your 1 2 and 3. pages with laying a good round load upon the King and the mischievousnesse of his evill government And then in the last end of your third pag and in your 4 5 6. pages you insinuate that there are a generation of men under specious pretences that have not been professedly of the Kings party that yet drive on his designs And in the beginning of your 5. pag. you intimate that the Levellers perfectly play the Kings game And truly I must tell you I doe absolutely beleeve you and tell you that you and your tyrannical Lords and masters Cromwel and Jreton and the rest of their confederat Grandees of the Armie and in both Houses the names of the principallest of which you m●y read in the 57 67. pages of my late book called the peoples prerogative and priviledges vindicated c. are the true and perfect Levellers that are in being in the Land of England having already filled up all the ditches and puld down all the hedges that should be as ●fence to preserve our lives liberties and proprieties and have already de facto levelled them and all our just lawes to their tyrann●call wills which I have punctually and particularly pr●●●d 〈◊〉 my 〈…〉 book as you may read in the last pag. of the proeme and in the 40. 41. pages of the book it self to the last end but read especially the last halfe sheet and argumentall answer it which I challenge from you or any other of the Grandees pentioners But in the third place in the conclusion of your 5. pag. you declare who the Levellers are viz. the promoters of the dividing distructive Agreement of the people Truly Sir I now know who you meane by the Levellers and that is a company of honest men that both in the Bishops time laboured against and opposed tyranny in all they meet with it in to the apparent hazzard of their lives and at the beginning of this Parliament and ever since hath done the very self same thing and I will maintain it by particulars upon my life have been to the utmost of their powers constantly and continually yee in the Parliaments greatest strait the truest friends to the universall common and true interest of England and the iust interest of Parliament that the kingdome of England hath afforded and never changed their principles to this day and have been the truest and constantest asserters of liberty and propriety which are quite opposite to communitie and Levelling

that have been in the whole land besides And I challenge you in their behalfe and all your co-partners in England to instance or lay unto their charge any the least particulars acted writ said or done by the body of them or those that you count the ring leaders of them that in the eyes of any rationall men in the world doth in the least tend to the destruction of liberty and proprietie or to the setting up of Levelling by universall Communitie or any thing really and truly like it A lasse poore men their great and reall crime is this and nothing else that they will not be ride and inslaved by your masters Cromwell and Ireton and their confederates in the Houses viz. Earle of Northumber and Earle of Solisbury Lord Say Lord Wharton Mr. Lenthall Speaker the two Sir Henry Vains Sir Arthor Hasterige Sir Iohn Eveling Iunior Mr. Recrepoint Col Natth Eines coveteous and ambitious Solicitor S. Iohn Commissary Gen. Staines Scout Master Generall Watson Col. Rich the greatest part of which put altogether hath not so much true volour in them as will half fill a Sempsters Thimble nor so much honestie as will ever make them fit for any thing but Tyrants And indeed and good earnest Mr. Frost if divers of the forementioned honest men which you call Levellers would have been soft wax wether cocks Creatures every thing and nothing but to serve great mens ends I am very confident of it they should not have had your pen so deeply dipt in gall and vinegar against them as in that most desperate malicious lying book it is but in doing what there you doe you doe really without a maske or vizard shew your self what you are viz. a Secretary more fit for the Great Turke then for a Committee of that Parliament that in the yeares 1640. and 1641. did so many iust gallant and excellent things nor have incurred so much bloody hatred and destroying indignation from your last forementioned Grandees Lords and Masters as they have done but I am confident of it some of them might easily at this day have been in as great repute esteemation and place as your self having as much brains and parts and a little more resolution as your self But hinc ille lacrimae heer 's their sorrow heer 's their treason been their rebellion faction sedition stirring up and dividing the people and here is their Annarchicall Levelling as you call it that they will indure tyranny oppression and injustice no more in apostatised Cromwell and Ireton and their forementioned confederates then in Mr. Hollis Sir Pillip Stapleton c. nor then in the Earle of Ess●x Earle of Manchester c. nor in the King and his Cavieleers nor in the Councell Board Star Chamber High Commission c. but desire that all alike may be Levelled to and bound by the Law and so farre I ingeniously confesse I am with them a Leveller and this Mr. Frost without any vernishing or colution is their only and alone crime in the blood-shot eyes of you and your new Lords and Masters And besides if in the phrases of men I may speake to you the forementioned honest men and their principles have been the Creators to set up Cromwell his preservers to support him in his straits which have not been a few his Sanctifiers by their praises and fightings to sanctifie him and to make him amiable and lovely in the peoples eyes his Redeemers to redeem him from destruction by Hollis and Stapleton c. even at that time when I am confident he gave himself up in a manner for a lost and undone man and to requite them for all their faithfullnesse to him and hazzards for him he hath visibly and apparently made it his study and worke to crush and dash them to pieces like a cuber of Glasses with such violence as though he designed and intended they should never be g●ude or sodered together any more O monstrous unnaturall ignoble and horrible ingratitude and yet even this in its hight hath been acted and done by him unto them as is undeniably demonstrated in that notable book called Putney projects and an other book called the Grand designe and a book in answer to his lying champion Mr. Masterson called A lash for a Lyar. And therefore from all that hath been said I againe christen your forementioned tribe the true and reall Levellers and those that you nick name Levellers the supporters and defenders of liberty and propriety or Anti Grandees Anti Jmposters Anti-Monopollsts Anti-Apostates Anti-Arbitrarians and Anti-Levellers And further in your sixe pag. you say that the foresaid honest men are grown to that hight both by making combinations printing and dispearsing all manner of false and scandalous Pamphlets and papers against the Parliament to deb●uch the rest of the people gathering moneys and making treasures and representers of themselves that the Parliament can no longer suffer them in these seditious wayes without deserting their trust in preserving the peace of the Kingdome and the freedome and propriety of peaceable men For printing and dispearsing all manner of false and scandalous Pamphlets I retort that upon you and the rest of the mercianary pentioners of your Grandees lying Dia●nolls and Pamphlets being one of the chiefe meanes to support their rotten reputation and new attaind unto soveraignty but I am sure you and they have almost lockt up the presses as close as the Great Turk● in Turkey doth Tyrants very wel knowing nothing is so likely to destroy their tyrany procure liberty to the people as knowledge is which they very well know is procured by printing and dispearsing rational discourses But your Grandees have been very grosse in their setting up their new tyranny for at their first rising at one blow and with one ordinance they lock up the presse clooser then ever the Bishops did in all their tiranny or then Mr. Hallis and his faction againw whom for tyranny and injustice your Grandees in their declaration so much crid out upon did al● those yeares they bore the sway And J am sure it was the maxim of the chiefe of your Grandees the beginning of this Parliament that alwayes in time of Parliament it being a time of liberty and freedome the printing presse should be open and free and J am sure this was their answer to the Bishops the begining of this Parliament when they solicited the House of Commons to stop the presses and for my particular I shall give you my consent to an Ordenance or law to make it death for any to print or publish any book unlesse the author to the printer or bookseller enter into some ingagement to maintaine with his life the truth of his book provided the Presses may be free for all that will so doe And as for gathering money to promote popular Petitions and all the rest of your charges upon them they may easily iustifie them out of the Parliaments own premitive declarations and for a little tast of

distroying ring leaders amongst them the Earle of Straffords punishment I shall never iustifie you for righteous and impartiall Iudges or think that you have discharged your duty either to God or the Common wealth And then Mr. Speaker in the second place as for the Lords Legislative power I told my friends to this effect that the Lords usurpations in that particular had been the cause of all the late wars and blood shed in England And Mr. Speaker I illustrate it unto you thus that before this Parliament was called there were certain great and wicked men in England that had in a manner totally destroyed and subverted all our lawes and liberties For the Judges in the iudgement of Ship money alone had given up to the King at one blow all our properties and by consequence all our lives and all that was deare unto us And these with many others had de facto set up an arbitrary tyrannicall power beyond above all law which is well set forth in your first Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdome which had like to have destroyed this whole Nation and the King being of necessity compeld to call this Parliament this House in its verginitie and puritie according to the great trust reposed in them endeavoured to execute justice and judgement upon the forementioned tyrannicall law and liberty destroyers whose power and interest by reason of those many great places and command they possessed in the Kingdome and by reason of the length of time they had continued in their wickednesse had so fastly routed and revited them in the bowels of the Common wealth That the endeavouring to pluck them up occasioned the feare of a dreadfull Earth-quake in the Kingdome and therefore that this House might in securitie goe on effectually to discharge their trust and duty to the kingdome they were therefore as to me appeares necessi●ated to new mould the Militia of the Kingdome and to put the strength of the nation into more confiding hands then it was before which desires of theirs they sent up to the Lords for their concurrance who refused to concurre not once nor twice but many times † See 1 part book dec pa. 289 364. 365. 398. 548. 557. and procrastinated time so long by their delay that the Kingdom was therby in danger of ruine which necessitated this house to send up Mr. Hollis a quandum Patron of the peoples liberties to the Lords bar with a message to this effect to demand the names of all those Lords that would not concurre with this House in saving the Kingdome that so they might be the obiect of their iustice and punishment And truly if the Lords had had a rea●● and true right and title to their Negative voice to deny concurring with this House in what they pleased this message was no better then by feare and compulsion to ravish them out of their judgements and consciences and so by force to rob them of their rights And upon this message Mr. Speaker when the House of Lords see this House was in good earnest being prickt up thereunto by divers transcendent high Petitions of the people after they had delayed their concurrance so long as they could or durst the most of them fled and the remnant or lesse part concurred who at the best if they had a right to deny or grant it their wills and pleasures can be stiled no better then a House under force and by the same argument it ●ill follow they have so continued ever since and so all their acts eversince are null and void in law and reason both being the act of force and therefore of necessitie it must either be granted that the Lords pretended right to their law making power is a meere usurpation or else that the House of Commons committed the Apprentices late treason inforcing the Parliament But Mr. Speaker I said and still doe say that the Lords so long standing out and refusing to concurre with this house to settle the Militia of the Kingdome gave the King an oppertunitie to withdraw from the Parliament and to lay his design for a War yea and to gather his forces together whereas if they at the first desire had concurred with this house in setling the Militia the King had never had an oppertunitie to have withdrawn himself from the Parliament or to have gathered 300. men together much lesse an Army and so there could have been no Warre and blood shed in the Kingdome And therefore Mr. Speaker as I old amongst my friends so I doe here again lay the guilt of all the blood that hath been spilt in England in the late warre which I doe beleeve amounts to the number of 100000. men that have lost their lives in it at the House of Lords doore and this House Mr. Speaker in my apprehension can never in justice either before God or man acquit them selves as iust men if at their hands they doe not require and upon their heads requite the guilt in shedding all this innocent blood And as for their right to their pretended Legislative power I told my friends Mr. Speaker I would maintaine it upon my life against all the Proctors the Lords had in England that they had no truer right to their Legislative or Law making power then what they could derive from the sword of that Tyrant Will●am the Conquerer and his successors and therefore it was that in their joynt Declaration with this House published to the view of the Kingdome they doe not stile themselves the chosen Trustees or Representatives of the Kingdome but the Heriditary Councellers of the kingdome † See 1. part book decl pag. 324. 508. and Vox Plebis pag. 43 44 45 86. 92. 93. 94. in which pages the Lords are soundly paid but especially in the last the strength of which is taken out of Will. Prinns part of the soveraign power of Parliaments and kingdomes pag. 42 43. 44. where he hath if my judgement serve me levelled the Lords as sow as ever any of those he calls Levellers in England did and therefore his new book needs no other answer but his own words in his forementioned book so his own hand is against himself that is to say men imposed upon the Kingdom● for their law-makers and Rulers by the ficious omnipotenc● will of the King to be their law makers and governour● Who in his answer to the 19. propositions hath no better plea for the Lords Legistive power but that they ha●● their right thereunto by blood And Mr. Speaker I said unto them and now averre it with confidence unto you tha● for them to take upon them the title of Legislators of England they have no more right so to doe then a Rogue Th●eefe and Robber that robs me upon the high way and by force and violence takes my purse from me had or hath to call my money when he hath so done his own true and proper goods Or Mr. Speaker for them to plead