proceedings but at their own pleasure 1. ARTICLE All Petitions heretofore tendered to the States or Cities Corporate against the erecting of New Episcopall Sees or against the Holy Inquisition or requiring a Moderation of Decrees or Acts of State or Parliament are accounted meer Conspiracies against God and the King 2. ARTICLE All Nobles Gentry Judges Magistrates and all others who connived at Hereticall Sermons plundering of Churches and delivering such Petitions as aforesaid pretending the necessitie of the times and did not resist and oppose them 3. ART Whosoever affirms That all his Majesties Subjects of Belgia have not forfeited their auncient Priviledges Immunities and Lawes for Treason and that it is not lawfull for the King to use and handle them for the aforesaid Treasons as he pleaseth to prevent the like Treasons for the time to come and that the King is not absolved thereby from all Oathes Promises Graunts Contracts and Obligations whatsoever 4. ART They that affirm This Counsell or high Court of Justice to exercise Tiranny in their Proceedings or Judgements and that they are not Supreme and competent Judges in all causes Criminal and Civil 5. ART Those that in case of Heresie deny that all manner of Informers and witnesses of whatsoever Degree and condition they be are to be credited and that upon the Testimony of any two witnesses this High Court ought to proceed to Judgement execution and conflication of life and goods without publishing the cause or charge and without any legal form of Triall All these are guilty of high Treason against God and the King The Rigor Cruelty and Injustice of this New erected Counsell of Bloud or High Court of Justice inforced the Lowe Countries to revolt and cast off the King of Spain LEt us now examine whether in some one little Province or Island belonging to that vast Roman Empire and in some meane petty fellowes Natives of that Island men even at home of obscure birth breeding and fortunes we can not finde examples of Ambition usurpation and Tiranny as high and transcendent as bloudy and destructive as covetous and greedy as any of the fore-cited presidents And which is worst of all carried on by those that call themselves Christians nay Saints which is more than they vouchsafe to Saint Peter and the rest of the Apostles though glorified Saints in the Church Triumphant and such as in all their bloudy oppressing cheating Designes promoted by perjury Treachery breach of Faith Oaths and publike Declarations pretend to the singular favour Providence and will of heaven as confidently as if they could shew Gods special commission to warrant Usurpation Treason Tyranny and Thievery It is not unknown by what Artifices frauds falsified promises Oaths and covenants a party of Antimonarchists Schismaticks and Anabaptists lurking in the Parliament fooled the People to contribute their blood and money towards the subduing of the King and in him of themselves and how by the same wayes and subtleties the said Party in the two Houses now combined openly under the Generall Title of Independents engaging and conspiring with the Officers of the Army and Souldiery expelled by armed force seven parts of eight of the House of Commons leaving not above 43 or 44 of their own engaged Party sitting men enriched with publike spoiles and voting under the power of the Armies commanders whose commands are now become a law to the said sitting Members as their Votes are become Laws to the Kingdome In Obedience to their said Masters of the Army The said Remainder of Commons voted down the House of Lords though an integrall and principall Member of the Parliament of England farr antienter then the House of Commons and having a power of Judicature and to administer an Oath which the House of Commons never had nor pretended to have untill this time that they overflow their Bounds and the whole Kingdomes under the protection of their Army which prerogative of the House of Lords is clearly demonstrated by the House of Commons standing bare before them at all conserences as the Grand Enquest doth before the Judges because they rejected the Ordinance for Triall of the King And now these Dregs and Lees of the House of Commons take upon them to be a compleat Parliament To enact and repeal Statutes to subvert the Fundamentall Government Laws and Liberties of the Land To pull up by the Roots without Legall proceedingss every mans private property and possession and destroy his life To burden the people with unsupportable unheard of unparliamentary Taxes Impositions Excise Freequarter buying of New Arms after the Countrey have been disarmed of their old Arms three times in one year Pressings and Levying of Souldiers Sequestrations Plundering of Houses and Horse and many other oppressions more than the Turk Russe or Tarter ever heard of of all which our Grandees are free and lay them upon others as partially as they please purposely to consume them To make Religion but a stalking horse to their designes and the Ministers thereof but hostlers to rub down curry and dresse it for their riding to whom they send Commands what they shall and shall not preach to the people as if preaching were the Ordinance of man not of God At last by way of preparative to their machinanations they passe these following votes 1. That all Supreme power is in the people 2. That the Supreme Authority under them is in the peoples Representatives or delegates in Parliament assembled Meaning themselves you may be sure the Quintessence and Elixar of the House of Commons extracted by those learned Chimicks Doctour Fairfax Doctour Cromwell and the rest graduated at that degraded University of Oxford Here note they voted the Supreme power to be in the people that they might use those Gulles as Conduit Pipes or Trunks to convey the Supreme Authority into themselves the better to enslave the people And tickle them whilest they fasten about their necks the Iron yoke of a Military Oligarchy wearing the Mask of a perpetuall Parliament 3. That whatsoever the Commons in Parliament shall enact shall have the power and force of an Act of Parliament or Law without the consent of the House of Lords or the Kings Koyal Assent any statute law custome or usage to the contrary notwithstandingr they might have said all our statutes laws customes c. notwithstanding This one vote hath more of Dissolution and more of Vsurpation and Innovation in it than any I yet ever read of This is universally Arbitrary and layes the Ax to the root of all our Lawes Liberties Lives and properties at once What these men will they vote What they vote is Law Therefore what they will is Law 4. That to wage warre or beare Arms against the Representative body of the People or Parliament is high Treason By the law all Treasons are committed against the King his Crown and Dignity 5. That the King hath taken up Armes against this Parliament and is therefore guilty
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
against them sharing their Estates Offices and Revenues by Sequestrations and Suspensions of the Profits amongst themselves without any Crime objected And so leave them to sterve rot or dye in nasty Gaoles for want of Maintenance under the cruelty of covetous and mercilesse Gaolers whom they bear out for mony in all their Extortions And being thus imprisoned and wounded with the displeasure of the State no man dares adventure upon any security to lend him mony for fear of incurring the disfavour of the State and a Note of Malignancy whereby their Prisons are become private Slaughter houses as well as their Courts Publike Shambles of Injustice Prisoners in the Tower of London To which prison no Gaole delivery belongs were alwayes wont in the time of that supposed Tyrant King Charles I. and his Predecessors to have allowance from the King according to their severall degrees As 5l a weeke for an Esquire c. although the King deprived them of no part of their estates untill conviction and this Maintenance was provided for them by the Lieutenant of the Tower and in respect of his care and paines in procuring it he had Fees and not otherwise though now they continue and increase the said Fees the cause being taken away the effect ceaseth not But these men now in power after they have Committed men and robbed them of their Estates without cause shewen are so farre from giving them any allowance to feed them that they shut them up close Prisoners in unwholsome chambers denying them the Liberty of the Tower and the benefit of fresh Aire the Cameleons Diet for their health and resort of friends for their accommodation And that they may be sure to deprive them of all legal means by habeas cotpus to recover their liberties They commit men by illegal warrants not expressing any particuler Offence or cause for their commitment so that it is impossible for the keeper of the prison to obey the habeas corpus which is directed to him in these words Precipimus tibi quod compus A. B. una cum causa detentionis fuae habeas coram nobis c. ad recipiendum ea quae curia nostra c. Wherupon the Goaler or Sheriff is to bring his Prisoner to the Bar and tender his mittimm to the Court shewing the particuler cause of his Imprisonment that the Court may judge whether it be Legall or no Dolosus versatur in Generalibus In the Acts of the Apostles chap. 25. ver. 26. 27. Festus thought it unreasonable to send Paul a Prisoner to Caesar to whom he had appealed and not withall to signifie the Crimes laid to his Charge See Cookes 2. Instit. fol. 591. 4. Their usuall course of practising and suborning witnesses tempting them with hopes and terrifying them with fears is so notorious that it is known the Counsel of State have hundreds of Spies and Intelligencers Affidavit-men and Knights of the Post swarming over all England as Lice Frogs did in Egypt and have both Pensions and set rates for every polle brought in So that now the whole Nation is proscribed and every mans head set to sale and made a staple commodity far beyond the definite proscriptions of Silla the Triumvirate aforesaid These sons of Belial are sent forth to compasse the earth seeking whom they may devoure These with the Liberty of Priviledged Spies speake bold Language to draw other men into danger and plot conspiracies which themselves derect and are rewarded like Decoy Duckes for their paines Of this sort are Bernard and Pits set on work to betray Gell and Andrews as aforesaid For which Bernard had 300l and a Troope of horse conferred upon him Johnson that falsly accused Sr Rob. Sherly and Col. Egerton for their charity in releiving his wants is another Varney is a fourth So well are they fitted with these Sons of Belial that no Naboth can keepe his Vineyard if a Grandee cast a covetous eye upon it they can prove what they list Nay it is usuall for our Grandees to molest one man with examining him 20. or 30. severall times against one Prisoner upon one point to distract his memory not to let him be quiet until he perceive He must speak what their questions and discourses lead him to to redeem himselfe from vexation To say nothing of their Menaces To torture men if they will not confes what they impudently pretend is already discovered by other means And their insinuating into the affections of witnesses by asking them Whether the State doth not owe them money And why they doe not use fitting means and opportunities to recover it And why they do not make means for some beneficial employment 5. In Magna Charta chap. 29. it is enacted That no Freeman shal be taken or imprisoned or be disseised of his Freehold or Liberties or free Customes or be outlawed or exiled or any otherwise destroyed nor we will not passe upon him or condemne him but by lawfull Judgement of his Peares or by the Law of the Land We will sell to no man We will not deny or deferre to any man Justice or Right See Statut 2. Ed. III. chap. 8. 5. Ed. III. chap. 9. 14. Ed. III. chap. 14. 25. Ed. III. chap. 4. 11. R. II. chap. 10. Pet. of Right 3. Car. 1. 10. Ed. IV. fol. 6. Dier fol. 104. Cooke lib. 5 fol. 6. lib. 10. fol. 74. lib. 11. fol. 99. Regist. fol. 86. Where note the word Peeres signifies that no man is to be condemned or destroyed but by the lawful verdict of a Iury of 12. sworne men of the Neighbourhood where the Fact was committed because in probability Neighbours may have best cognizance of the Fact and of the life and conversation of the Party Accused And these only are Competent Judges of Matter of Fact in many cases of Matter of Law too if they will take the knowledge of the Law upon them Neither can this Petty Jury of 12. men goe upon the prisoner unlesse a Bill of Inditement containing the whole Matter of charge be first found in open Court by a Grand Jury or Enquest of sworne men who are to enquire of the Fact upon the Oathes of two lawfull witnesses at least to every material Point of the Enditement and then when the Grande Enquest are all agreed the Foreman endorseth upon the backe of the Bill Billa vera and then presents it in open Court as the Information for the King of the whole Enqueste otherwise the Enditement is quasht and nul Cookes 3. Instit. chap. High Treason and Petty Treason And whereas the Statut. saith but by his Peeres or by the Law of the Land Lex Terrae signifies The Auntient Customes of the Land Amongst which Fundamentall Customes Trials by Juries hold a principall place And when the King Charles I. accused this Parlament That they disposed of the Subjects Lives fortunes by their votes contrary to the known Laws of the Land This Parlament in their
Charge or Accusation and gave five Months time to the Respondents to make their defence And had he given lesse then five Months time To Instruct Counsell Pen their Answers produce and summon witnesses inquire into the lives conversation of their Accusors his feet had been swift to shed blood Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est But our Inquisitors take whole years to themselves to hunt for Matter of Accusation and hire and engage witnesses against men kept in ignorance and want with close imprisonment and allow not them so many dayes to make their Defence All manner of Accusors and witnesses though apparently suborned and forsworn in the same cause and proofes without exceptions offered to the Court that they are of infamous life and conversation are in this Court the Object of whose desires are blood and Confiscations not Iustice lawfull witnesses such witnesses were the said Bernard and Pits Monsters of man See Sir John Gels case stated Printed about August 1650. To Cite any antient known Laws or Statutes or any other then their own new coined Acts passed by this 8. Part of a House of Commons since they became elect Members chosen by Thomas Pride is to incur the High Indignation of the Court expressed abundantly in their words looks But to put them in minde of the Parliaments many Declarations to maintain the ancient known Laws Liberties and Properties of the people is to scandall the present Government and incur the Censure of that unknown mysterious Crime which knaves call Malignancy The witnesses and Judges being thus irrefragable the first may swear what they will the second may judge what they will since they are left at large and have all things in scrinio pectoris and Book Law must give place to Bench Law The Jurisdiction and Authority of this New unparalelled Court is such a Mistery of iniquity so unscrutable and unquestionable that if a prisoner scruple in the least either it or any of the uncouth proceedings of it it is a Mortall sin to him and he is presently interrupted and affronted both with disdainfull words and looks And told We are satisfied with our Authority that are your Judges so are Thieves upon the High way satisfied with their Authority that rob and murther us by Gods Providence and permission It is upon Gods Authority and the Kingdoms yet what they do is against the will of God revealed in his Scriptures and against the known established Laws Statutes and continual Practise of the Kingdome Which Authority commands you in the name of the People of England to answer them Yet at lest 9. parts of 10. of the people so much abhorre these and other their Practises that every mans mouth speakes against them with bitter curses and reproaches to restrain which they have minted Acts of New Treasons to make men Offenders nay Traitors even for bare words and erected this bloudy illegall Theater The High Court so called for its High Injustice as a Spanish Inquisition over them every mans hand would be about their ears did they not keep an Army of Janisaries to suppresse them Their Authority they do avow to the whole World that the whole Kingdom are to rest satisfied therewith You see here a Whip and a Bell provided to keep the whole Kingdom in aw the declared Supreme power of their Soveraign Lord the people must resign their known Laws to their Trustees their Representatives in parliament and take new Laws from their Arbitrary Votes or wo be to their Necks and Shouldiers I must interrupt you what you do is not agreeable to the Proceedings of any Court of Justice You are about to enter into Argument and dispute concerning the Authority of this Court before whom you appeare as a prisonner you may not dispute the Authority of this Court nor will any Court give way to it you are to submit to it It is not safe to confute a lye told with Authority Yet if a man be Endicted of Treason or Felony in the Court of Common Pleas a man may Demurre to and dispute the Jurisdiction of that Court because it is not in Criminall Causes Competens Forum nor the Judges Compentent Judges every man and every cause must be tried Suo Foro non Alieno 80 if a Peer be Arraigned in the Kings Bench And for this upstart unpresidented High Court it is no Court of Judicature at all as being erected without lawful Authority Consisting of Incompetent Judges no Records belonging to it and tending to disinherit and disfranchise all the People of England and to murder them You may not dispute the Jurisdiction of the Supreme and Highest Authority of England from which there is no Appeal The Votes of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament is the Reason of the Kingdome Oh Brutish irrational Kingdome Where 40. or 50. Anabaptisticall Members the Dregs and Lees of the House of Commons after all the best and sincerest 7. parts of 8. had been racked and purged out at the Bunghole by Cromwell the Brewer and Pride his Drayman shall be called the Reason and Law of the Land This confirms the truth of what King Charls the I. Objected to the Parliament whereof I have formerly spoken That they disposed of the Subjects Lives and Fortunes by their own Votes against the known Laws of the Land But that there should be no Appeal to their declared Soveraign Lord the people from their subordinate Trustees in Parliament is wonderfull Considering that in all Governments The last Appeal is ever to the Highest and most Absolute power But it may be they will be the Peoples Trustees in spight of their Teeth and by the power of the Sword and so free themselves from rendring any account of their Stewardship You may not Demurre to the Jurisdiction of the Court If you do they let you know that they over rule your Demerrer and affirm their own Jurisdiction Reason is not to be he heard against the Highest Jurisdiction the Commons of England make a direct positive Answer either by denying or confessing and put in immediately an issuable Plea Guilty or Not Guilty of the Charge or we will record your Default and contumacy and by an implicite confession take you guilty pro confesso immediately give judgment against you This as I told you before is it that blanches the Deer into the Toile But God deliver us from that Jurisdiction that is too high to hear Reason and that over rules Demurrers before they be heard I have told you as much of the proceedings of this Court as the Novelty Obscurity uncertainty and confusion thereof will give me leave Let me now by way of overplus give you the great dangers and slavery that will be fall all sorts of People if they tamely and cowardly suffer themselves to be deprived of their auticent legal Tryals by Endictment and Juries of the Neighbour hood then which the whole world cannot boast of a more equall
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 â—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