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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91227	A new discovery of free-state tyranny: containing, four letters, together with a subsequent remonstrance of several grievances and demand of common right, by William Prynne Esquire; written and sent by him to Mr. John Bradshaw and his associates at White-Hall (stiling themselves, the Councel of State) after their two years and three months close imprisonment of him, under soldiers, in the remote castles of Dunster and Taunton (in Somersetshire) and Pendennis in Cornwall; before, yea without any legal accusation, examination, inditement, triall, conviction, or objection of any particular crime against him; or since declared to him; notwithstanding his many former and late demands made to them, to know his offence and accusers. Published by the author, for his own vindication; the peoples common liberty and information; and his imprisoners just conviction of their tyranny, cruelty, iniquity, towards him, under their misnamed free-state.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1655 (1655)	Wing P4016; Thomason E488_2; ESTC R203337	111,299	152

Saints and Servants Rev. 2 16. And further assures us That Christ at the last Judgement will say to those who did but only not feed cloth and visit the least of his Saints when they were in Prison Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the ●evil and his Angels What an heavy Doom then will he passe against those who against all Rules of Law and Justice cast them into Prison and will there neither feed cloth nor visit but starv● their bodies and souls too as much as in them lyeth by depriving them of Gods Ordinances and all means of livelihood as you do me after all my former great losses and long-continued suffrings I cannot as yet be so uncharitable as to believe you design the ruine of my soul body and wasted Estate but if you de facto do it by this injurious restraint your sinne is as great as if you did design it If you think to justifie or excuse these Irregularities and unjust violent Proceedings against me by pretext of Necessity and publike Danger the only thing in Justification I yet hear alleged by your Instruments As this will be no Plea at all before Christs Tribunal in the great day of Judgment who prohibits all kind of violonce injustice oppression injury upon any Pretence what soever and will severely punish it their Damnation being most just who do evill upon this unrighteous ground that good may come of it So it will not hold water before mans Tribunal being resolved declared by the Judgement of both Houses and an Act of Parliament in cases of Shipmony Excise Loans to be no cause nor Justification of a Distresse much lesse of an Imprisonment And it being a Necessity and Danger of your own making not mine the Rule of Law is That noman shall take advantage of his own wrong to the prejudice of another The late Beheaded King in his Answer to the Petition of both Houses 26 Martii 1 642. is so ingenious as to confesse That the violating of Laws by his Ministers and the mischief that then grew by Arbitrary Power was made plausible to Us by the suggestion of Necessity and Imminent danger and thereupon he gave both Houses this caution And take you heed you fall not into the same Error upon the same suggestions which in his Answer to the Remonstrance of the Lords and Commons of the 9th of May 1642. he thus seconds And therefore we had good cause to bestow that Admonition for we assure you it was an Admonition of our own upon both Houses of Parliament to take heed of inclining under the specious shews of Necessity and Danger to the exercise of such an arbitrary Power they before complained of The Admonition will do no harm and we shall be glad to see it followed And therefore for you or those now acting after these two serious Admonitions to pretend Necessity and Imminent Danger for these with other Arbitrary courses Proceedings condemned in and by the King himself and the whole Parliament must be the hight of Oppression Injustice and will render you more detestable to the Nation and World than ever they did the King or his Evil Counsellors To trouble you no further at present I shall only inform you That the Commons in their Remenstrance of the State of the Kingdom Decemb. 15. 1641. Yea both Lords and Common● in their Declaration of 4 August 1642. among other Designs Practices of the Malignant Party and Counsellors about the King complained of this as one of the most dangerous That they endeavoured to make those odious under the name of Puritans who sought to maintain the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and such men were sure to be weeded out of the Commission of the Peace and out of all other imployments of Power and Authority in the Government of the Country Many Noble Personages were Counsellors in name but the Power and Authority remained in a ●ew of such as were most addicted to this P●rty whose Resolutions and Determination● were brought to the Table for countenance and execution and not for Debate and Deliberation and no man could offer to oppose them without disgrace and hazard to himself Nay those that did not wholly concurr and actually contribute to the furtherance of their Designs though otherwise Persons of never so great honour and abilities were so far from being imployed in any Place of Trust and Power that they were neglected discountenanced and upon all occasions injured and oppressed The Laws were no Defence or Protection to any Mans Right all was subject to Will and Power which imposed what payments they thought sit to drain the Subjects purses and to supply those Necessities which their ill Counsels had brought upon the King and gratifie such as were Instruments in promoting these illegal and oppressive Courses They who yielded and complyed were countenanced and advanced all others disgraced and kept under that so Mens minds made poor and base and their Liberties lost and gone they might be ready to let go their Religion and submit to the subversion and alteration of the Laws and Government which they designed And whether your Proceedings in the self-same kind against my self others who have suffered and stood so much for Religion Laws and publike Liberties in the worst of former times thus complained against and securing restraining us to boot in a more more violent way than the King and his evill Counsellors proceeded against us heretofore will not draw a greater guilt disreputation heavier judgement upon you and your Associates then they complained of did upon them if you persevere impenitently in such execrable Machiavilian carnal Practices I leave to your own Consciences to determine Sir I was never yet a flatterer of any Person or p●rsons how great soever in arbitrary and illegal w●ys and my present extremities will be a sufficient Apology for this my boldnesse and plain dealing with you as well as others heretofore in like cases wherein the whole N●tions Liberties are concerned as much as mine own wherefore I do once more upon the premised Votes and Gro●nds of right demand my present ●nlargement the restitution of my seised Papers Writings Records Books Tr●●●ks from you and your Associates with reparations for these injurious proceedings against me from your selves 〈◊〉 the Origin●l Authors and Principal Actors in them And so exp●cting your undelayed Answer to my former and present Demands who amidst your manifold imployments may spare as much time to doe me right as wrong that so I may know how to steer my course I must and shall till then remain Your unjustly close restrained Captive WILL. PRYNNE For his quodam kind Friend Mr. Serjeant Iohn Bradshaw at Whitehall these Dunster Castle 16 July An. Dom. 1650. The third Letter to Mr. Bradshaw SIR I And my Servant attending on me have for above 6 weeks space against all Rules of Law Justice and the

worldly comforts publick Trusts and Imployments into remotest Prisons without cause against all Laws into your houses who will not so much as once permit him to return into his own house and so long debarred him from Gods own houses If you see the naked that you cloth him and you have almost made him naked by depriving him of his Calling Friends Imployments detaining his publick oft-demanded debts his extraordinary prisonexpences and late Militia charges enforcing his friends to sell all his stock superadded to all his other payments reducing him to his very worst old Jersie Prison rags and clothes to cover his nakednesse by these mercilesse undoing extremities And that you hide not your selves from your own flesh as you do from him by not receiving some breaking up others of his Letters of complaint without reading them slighting all the rest and answering none of them but by denials refusing to hear dispute or speak with him face to face for ought you can charge him with as persons either ashamed afraid or unable to encounter or behold him after so many indignities or to make good your own cause or proceedings against him by Divinity Law Religion or any sole hearing and yet hide him from his own flesh too by keeping him from his Friends Kindred and them from him by strict restraints in remotest Garisons from them of purpose to deprive him of their visits Give him leave then upon all these grounds in the name and fear of God as your former true Christian friend and present impartiall monitor without all carnall fear or sordid flattery seriously to exhort and faithfully to perswade all and every of you not so much for his own interest as your own truest good salvation and our whole Nations welfare both before and on your Solemne Fast-day to lay all his former Remonstrated pressures and long illegal close restraints as close as may be to your souls and both publickly and privately with deepest sorrow shame and detestation to confesse acknowledge bewaile abhorre renounce redresse repair them by his present honourable enlargement and other proportionable recompences to him and the grieved Nation as crying God-provoking sins which if not then thus seriously acknowledged repented and rerlly redressed may and will draw down as exemplary Justice and Vengeance on your heads and present exorbitant Power as his former sufferings of this natnre did upon beheaded Canterbury with other you immediate Predecessors at Whitehall and their exorbitant authority though then better setled secured by our Laws and long Prescription then you or your present slippery peace And withall before or on that day at furthest effectually sincerely by reall performances and actuall ex●cutions to keep and render unto God that practicall forementioned Fast which he hath chosen and expecteth at your hands in all the respective branches thereof both in relation to himself and all other oppressed afflicted impoverished ones throughout our three Nations now groaning languishing and almost expiring under manifold bonds of wickednesse heavy burdens oppressions yoakes already hinted to you without which all your prayers will be but meer howlings in his ears all other feigned humiliations a meer atheisticall abuse of this most sacred Ordinance to meer politick sinfull ends to which it is oft abused nay a Fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickednesse as God there resolves by making it a generall engine to raise foment encourage countenance justifie new unchristian inhumane unrighteous impolitick divisions factions Warres with and again our very fellow-Christians upon slight pretences dissents and private differences without just substantiall grounds warranted by Gospell principles presidents precepts which instruct all Christian men and States too to love like Brethren to passe by and forgive their enemies injuries and offences to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace to live in peace and follow peace with all men to seek one anothers welfare to lay do●n their life 's for their brethren to study to be quiet to live in all Peaceablenesse and honesty to give no scandall nor offence and do no wrong nor violence one to another to beat their Swords into Plow-shares their Speares into pruning hookes not to lift up a sword one against another or learn warre any more to put up the sword into the sheath because all those that take the sword shall perish with the sword Not to bite and devour one the other lest they be consumed one by another resolving all Warres and Fightings amongst them to come only from their lusts that warre in their Members and all wisdome to raise soment and manage them not to descend from heaven above but to be carnall sinfull devilish And if your publick Fast be now secretly designed to any such unchristian purposes as aforesaid or not accompanied with that reall Fast fore-specified it will be so far from allaying that it will far more incense Gods wrath so far from procuring obtaining publick peace that it will encrease your Warres and enemies so far from establishing your new republick that it will suddenly and certainly subvert it if not by others yet by the very Army and armes of flesh you most depend on so far from securing our sinfull Nation or Religion from forain enemies and plunders thereof that it will expose them to their combined invasions on all hands to their great molestation devastation if not finall extirpation out of the long enjoyed Land of their Nativity as the Britains of old for all your and their late encreased desolating crying sins which hath been and yet is the grounded fear and is and shall be the dayly fervent deprecation of your oppressed close Prisoner necessitated by your defaults to this prolix Remonstrance of his Grievances and finall demand of Right Liberty Justice from you which God himself will both hear and grant if you now prove more deafe and dumbe thereto then the unrighteous Judge in the Gospell after all former Solicitations Letters Suites and this ultimate addresse unto you by Your two years and three months causelesse close Prisoner William Prynne From his ill moist close Prison-chamber in Pendennis Castle 26. Septem 1652. After this Remonstrance sent upon the motion of some of my friends this Order and Warrant thereon was made at Whitehall and sent to Pendennis Castle for my release Tuesday first of February 1652. At the Councel of State at Whitehall Ordered THat Mr. William Prynne be discharged from his Imprisonment he giving his Bond to the summe of one thousand pounds That he will not for the future act any thing to the prejudice of this Common-wealth and the present Government thereof Exam. John Thurlo Clerk of the Councell SIR THe Councell hath thought fit that Mr. William Prynne now Prisoner with you in the Castle of Pendennis shall be discharged from th restraint upon him he giving his own Bond of one thousand pound that he will not

that had then a being neither he nor his Whitehal associates could thus imprison and secure me by any generall instructions without a special order of Parliament without th● highest breach of Parliamentary Priviledges and if there were no reall Parliament in being which gave them their usurped authority as in truth there was not they were then but a company of private men destitute of all legall authority and had no more lawfull authority to restrain or imprison me upon any pretext then I had to imprison him or them since Par in parem non habet imperium as he well knew without some speciall law authorizing him To the fourth I related that if he knew not the particular grounds of my Imprisonment then he could not positively resolve that it was in order to the publick safety That to injure and oppresse me who had written acted and suffered so much for the publick safety heretofore was the high way to occasion hasten not prevent their publick damages and must certainly favour of much private causelesse malice of some men towards me rather then of publick safety or their private respects towards me That I was so conscious of my own innocency that I neither feared nor declined but oft desired a publick legall Tryall for any thing he or his associates could object against me which I could not attain and to say now at last that all they did was only out of tender respects and favour-towards me was a very absurd and pitifull excuse especially seeing he professed he knew no ground nor reason for it That Canterbury and the Prelates might have made the same absurd allegation for my former close restraints as well as he and that if himself should be so long close imprisoned in three remote Castles under such armed guards and unchristian restraints as I sustained under him by me or any other his pretended friends without any legall cause hearing tryall I doubted not but he would interpret it as an act of highest malice Tyranny and injustice not as a speciall favour and tender respect towards him That himself well knew in the cases of many late Delinquents illegall commands and commissions too from the King Councell or any others had been frequently resolved in Parliament and elsewhere to be no excuse nor justification at all for those who obeyed or executed them and therefore his pretended counsels illegall commands to him in relation to me could neither extenuate nor justifie his illegall warrants and restraints in the least degree That he was sorry to hear such poor excuses from a Lawyer and that he should be so far overseen as to expose himself alone to answer and satisfie all the illegall actions and exorbitant Warrants he issued by their unjus● commands b●th against me and others which they now totally disclaimed and so lest him in the lurch to bear both the odium and dammage of them In brief after near two hours discourse being unable to reply to my premised answers he promised to make a dil●gent speedy search after the particulars that were suggested against me and to give me an undelayed account thereof if there were any at all extant as I presumed there were none Whereupon we departing and I hearing not from him in five weeks space I thereupon sent this ensuing Letter to him SIR I Presume by this time according to your former promise you have made an exact search and discovery both of the Informers name and particular Informators upon which you committed me close pri●oner near three years space to three remote Castles without any hearing or tryall against all rules of Law or Justice of which I desire to be presently informed that so I may know how to steer my course in righting my self against this publick injury lest it prove presidentiall to prejudice posterity in such sort as may most redound to my own vindication and the common good of all English Freemen which shall be the endevour of Your Quondam close Prisoner William Prynne Since which I never receiving the least account or answer from him I take this long silence for a satisfactory evidence of my innocence and his injustice in committing and injuring me as aforesaid without any particular cause at all yet discovered or declared after so long a respite whereupon to right my self the best I may at present in point of reputation till a time of future reparation in some other kind shal offer it self I thought it both just and necessary for me to publish all the premises to the world supporting and solacing my self in the mean time with these old Christian Cordials of which I have had frequent experience Psal 37. 5 6 37 38 39 40. Commit thy way unto the Lord trust also in him and he shall bring it to passe And he shall bring forth thy righteousnesse as the light and thy judgment as the noonday Marke the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace But the transgressours shall be destroyed together the end of the wicked shall be cut off But the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord he is their streng●h in the time of trouble And the Lord shall help them and deliver them he shall deliver them from the wicked and save them because they trust in him Mich. 7. 8 9 10. Rejoyce not against me O mine enemy when I fall I shall arise when I sit in darknesse the Lord shall be a light unto me He will plead my cause and execute judgment for me he will bring me forth to the light I shall behold his Righteousnesse Then he that is mine enemy shall see it and shame shall cover him which said unto me Where is the Lord thy God mine eyes shall behold him and now shall he be troden down as the mire of the streets FINIS A Usefull Seasonable Corollary to and from the Premises WHen I seriously contemplate with deepost greife of Heart and confusion of Spirit how my late Imprisoners with other of their Confederates who made the greatest Profession of transcendent Piety Justice Uprightnes Clemency Humility Selfe-deniall cordiall affection transcendent Zeal to the Fundamentall Lawes Liberties Franchises Priviledges Ease Weal Establishment of their Native Country published so many large Declarations Remonstrances to the world in print asserting the same and declaring their utter detestation and totall extirpation of all arbitrary Government Tyrany Injustice Oppression Violence illegall Proceedings Imprisonments Restraints Seisures of Papers ransacking of Houses Executions Taxes Excises Imposts Arrayes exercised by the late King Strafford Canterbury whom they impeached condemned beheaded as the Greatest Tyrants and by the old Councell Table Star-chamber High Commission and House of Lord● which they totally suppressed as intollerable Greivances to the people No sooner ingrossed into their owne hands by force and fraud the Supream Power over their fellow-brethren and our Realmes but they presently degenerated by degrees in to more absolute Tyrants greater Oppressors Self-seekers Invaders underminers