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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	just_a	king_n	law_n	2,604	5	4.7027	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88203	The ivglers discovered, in two letters writ by Lievt. Col. John Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London, the 28. September, 1647. to his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, Captaine Generall of all the forces in England and Wales, discovering the turn-coat, Machiavell practises, and under-hand dealings of Lievt. Gen. Cromwell, and his soone in law, Commissary Generall Ireton, and the rest of their hocus pocus faction in his Excellencies Counsell of Warre, the first of which letters thus followeth. Unto which is annexed some advice to the private soldiers.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.; Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, Baron, 1612-1671.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2123; Thomason E409_22; ESTC R7139	19,171	16

my iust and long expected liberty iustice and reparation procured for me by the meanes of your selfe and those men of honour and justice with you But most Noble and most Honoured Gen. give me leave without your displeasure truly to tell you that though I must as you justly and truly deserve from me returne you extraordinary hearty thankes for your chearefull willingnesse to give countenance to anything that may justly be undertaken in my doulfull and sad condition to procure for me justice and my just freedom● yet I am apt to think there is intentively some tricks put upon me by some of the contrivers * The cheif contrivers I iudge to be King Crumwell and his son Prince Ireton who are the principall instruments that keep me in prison because I will not comply with their turncoat Lordly interest and yet at that time durst not well but seem to doe something far me in regard of the honest Adjutaters impertunitie about it but yet by their subtilty did it in such a manner that they were sure would doe me no good of that paper to the House of Commons Dated at Reading Iuly 19. 1647. sent by your Excellency and your Councell of Warr for most Noble Sir the thing that will doe me good is vigorrously to presse the House of Commons to command Mr. Martin to make my report unto their House and then to adjudge my cause for either the House of Lords have by law a Jurisdiction over me and all the Commons of England in crimminall cases or they have not and in my protesting against the Lords juridiction in crimminall cases and appealing to the House of Commons as my leagall proper judges I have either done evill illegally or else justly and legally If I have done evilly and illegally I crave no favour at their hands but desire them to condemne me that so I may know what to trust to that so I may vse some meanes to the King c. for to the House of Lords I will never in this apply my selfe For the takeing of my 4000 l. Fine and restoring me to my liberty and freedome and not be forced all my dayes to live in prison and in the conclusion be forced to strave for want of bread or else to eat my wife and children But if in my protesting against the Lords jurisdiction in crimminall cases and appealing to the House of Commons as my proper and legall Iudges I have done well and legally why doe the house of Commons suffer me to be kept in prison and not adiudge my cause and deliver me with iust reparation and a iust punishment upon the causers of my causelesse torments and sufferings and this alone is the thing most noble Generall I want and stand in need of which only will doe me good and which in it selfe is such a rationall and equitable peece of justice as by no iust man can be denyed For alas most noble Generall what will liberty in England without iudging my cause and Appeale doe me good am I not subiect every houre in the Kings name and behalfe though it may be against his previty will or mind to have my body cast into prison for the 4000. l. which by that uniust fine I in law owe him or if my body by absence cannot be seized upon is not that little that I have liable by the law every houre to be seized upon yea and the very beds that my distressed helpelesse and unpittied wife and children lye upon subiect to be taken from under them yea and stript of their very wearing clothes They were And truly Sir so large experience have I of the mercilesse and cruel temper of my adversaries that I will not trust in the least to the mercie of the mercilesse Lords at westminster or their cruell and mercilesse confederates in the House of Commons Assembly or Common Counsell of London any of whom I am sure would willingly Vote Petition or Remonstrate me to death And againe Sir should I put in baile as your paper desires I should run my selfe into such a snare as I should never get out of again while I live but thereby should like a foolish fellow undoe all that in the heat of the fire I have been doing almost this 14. moneths viz. preserving and defending the liberty of all the Commons of England against the tyrannicall invasions of the House of Lords For whose prisoneram I surely the House of Lords and no others unlesse it be negligent Henry Martins and to whom must I put in security surely to no other then the Lords And undoubtedly I should both in reason and law by so doing iustifie the illegallitie and uniustnesse of their sentence past against me and not only so but also iustifie their iurisdiction and power over all the Commons of England in criminall cases which were an act that would not only as much as in me lyes destroy the best and fundamentallest Lawes of England viz. Magna Charta and the most excellent Petition of Right c. But also destroy and overthrow the rationall naturall nationall and legall liberties of my selfe and all the Commons of England which would be an act in my iudgement not only of the greatest businesse in the world but also of the greatest treason that I could commit against the land of my nativitie and my own being of which wickednesse I would not iustly be esteemed guilty for all the gold in the world Now most noble and heroicall Generall if it should be obiected against me that the House of Commons are full of the great and weighty affaires of the Kingdome and therefore want time to debate and adiudge my particular businesse to which I answer and say I am confident they have not a businesse of greater weight and consequence before them then mine in the latitude of it is for it is concerning the escentiall and fundamentall liberties of themselves of me and of all and every individuall Commoner of England and I wonder what greater businesse they can spend their time about then a businesse of so grand and universall concernment without the settlement of which it is easily to be evinced that all that you have done with your swords and they with their tongues is to no more purpose then to blow in the aire for invasion of rights was the true cause of all the present warres and their so visible invading of the just and legall rights and freedomes of all the Commons of England is not the way in the least to pacific and still them but to foment and newly increase them and make them a fresh flame out againe * Espccially when the Commons of England shall see the most base and wicked juglings of L. G. Cromwell and his ' son Ireton whose power interest in the Army by those 4 grandiuglers means viz. Lord Say Lord Wbarton young Sir Hen. Vaine and Soliciter St. Iohn is now vigorusly improved to support uphold the Lords usurpations

good for me viz. without delay to have adiudged my cause and appeale either to my iustification or condemnation which is the chiefest thing is the first place I desire and which may easily be done in one houre Vpon the hearing fully of all businesse so that in 7. yeares time I know not what more effectually to say then then I did I was commanded by that Committee by the 9. of Novemb 1646. to bring in writing what by word of mouth I had said to them which I accordingly did and since printed it and intituled it an Annotamy of the Lords tyrannie And have since that time with all my might by all the wayes and meanes I had in the world indeavoured with Mr. Martin to make my report to the house as you may fully understand by reading the first part of my epistle to him dated the 31. of May last which in print I lately sent unto your Excellency and in this inclosed epistle sent unto him yesterday * Which is now printed in the last pag. of my book called Ionahs cryes out of the Whales bellie but what should be the reason why he will not doe it I cannot tell unlesse it be that he is conjoyned in interest with the Lords to buy sell or betray the liberties of all the Commons of England who are all and everie of them concerned in the Lords arbitrary and tyrannicall dealing with me for what is my case to day may be their case to morrow and seeing by intreaties and faire words I could doe nothing with him * But in answer to the forementioned letter he sent me a letter in which he gives me information that he hath proferred 20. times to make my report but the house would not heare him and he also promiseth me to doe it the first opportunitie he hath which he did performe the 14. Sept. 1647. which hath given me ful satisfaction which I have acknowledged to him in my late two printed letters to him I underhand in City and Country applyed my selfe vigorusly to my friends and fellow Commons strongly to petition to the House of Commons to adjudge my cause and either to justifie me or condemne me for favour or mercy I craved none from them but only law and justice some of whose petitions by the interest of a company of tyrannicall treacherous Villains there Hollis and Stapleton c. was slighted and would not be received and others they burnt by the hands of the Common Hang-man and for ever to terrifie the Commons of England againe to petition for justice or their liberty they most illegally and uniustly caused severall of the Petitioners to be imprisonned for which action alone by the principles of justice and reason they deserve in my judgement to be hanged And when I see that all my importunity and all the faire meanes I could use would doe me no good and knowing that it was as bad as murther in me to leave any meanes whatsoever unattempted for my own preservation being by my tyrannicall imprisonment likely to be murthered and destroyed without and against all law and justice and being in my own soule confidently perswaded that if I sate still I must perish I made a vigorus and strong attempt upon the private Soldiery of your Army and with abundance of study and paines and the expence of some scores of pounds I brought my just honest and lawfull intentions by my agents instruments and interest to a good ripenesse not daring to meddle with the Officers having had so large experience of the selfeishnesse and timerousness of the chiefest of them sitting in the House of Commons who I had sufficiently tryed to see what mettle they were made of and found them quivering spirited overwise prudentiall men not any one of them that I could heare of at any time daring to carrie a high though just Petition into the House to deliver it and speake unto it so that at present they were to me become reprobate silver and therefore knowing by the morrall law that murther was odious in the sight of God especially selfe murther I durst not but doe the uttermost that I could to preserve my selfe which in my understanding could by no other meanes in the world be effected but by men that had swords in their hands and resolution in their spirits which I beleeve had been done ere now to the purpose if I had imbraced their earnest desire to breake prison and goe to them which for divers weighty reasons I could not and truly Sir give me leave to tell you without feare or dread had I come and could have got so many to have followed me as would da●e inabled me with my sword in my hand to have done justice and execution upon those grand treacherous fellows and tyrants at Westminster that have not only tyrannised over me but the whole kingdome I should have made no more scruple of conscience with my own hands to have destroyed them who have destroyed all law and justice equity and conscience and destroy us by their arbitrary and tyrannicall wills then to have destroyed so many Weasels and Poule-Cats but I hoped the great worke of the kingdome would speedily be done by more abler and wiser instruments then I judged my selfe to be but when I see and heard of divers great ones in your Army to coole the businesse on foot I sent my wife then big with child and severall other Agents down to St. Albons to revive my earnest desire with those I had an interest in for the obtaining of my just ends iustice and my iust liberty never in my life time coveting or desiring the interest and power of your Army to be a clooke or covering for any of my misdoings making alwayes so far as I knew the law of the land the square of my actions in reference to civill things amongst men having alwayes this rule of true reason and justice before me to doe to every man as I would have all men doe to me but understanding from time to time of plotted and contrived tricks put upon me c by some faire outsides under your * Who I have named in my booke called Ionahs cry and in an Epistle to Lievt Gen. Cromwell bearing date 13. Aug. 1647. and lately printed with my two letters to M. Hen. Martin command although I never heard any thing of your gallant just and magnanimous selfe either in reference to me or the publique but what deserves my choisest thankes and praises and the rather for that I am as it were a meere stranger to you which now to you J iudge it altogether inconvenient to take the boldnesse to complaine of but hearing from time to time I was not forgot amongst those that have no more ends then I have viz. iustice and the universall good and benefit of all iust interests in England I waited with as much patience as my unsimpothized with condition would inable me to doe for the good houre of

yet as soone as tha present feare is over to be as ready as ever to run into the same transgression and truly most Noble Sir give me leave to think that if the present House of Lords were truly and in good serious earnest resolved to repent of their evils and amend their wayes by doing unbiased justice and right they would of themselves without any addressing unto have forthwith done justice and right to me and other afflicted one whom they have by unmerciful imprisonments contrary to all equity reason law and justice yea and I dare boldly say it against the light of their own consciences And truly Sir give me leave to assure your Honour from the mouthes of some of themselves to some of my true friends I might at the first Contest with them have had my liberty c. from them if I would in any way of my own framing have made but any addresses to them And truly Sir give me leave in the sincerity and uprightnesse of my heart before the presence of God to tell you it is meerly a principle of conscience within me to justice and honesty and not any wilfull stubbornnesse or base selfe ends of my owne that makes me I cannot ingeneously professing unto your honour I received more iustice and courtesie in three moneths from the House of Lords then I have done almost in seaven yeares from the House of Commons And I doe protest before the Almighty and I appeale unto the Lord Wharton to beare * Vnto whom I shewed my protest before I delivered it and told him both what I must and would and offered him to doe any thing that the Lords in reason or iustice could require of me so they would not force me to to their bar See the 4. pag. of my booke called the free mans freedome vindicated me witnesse that I did the utmost that in me laid by way of gratitude and thankefulnesse unto them to hinder a contest with them but the revenging mallice of the Earle of Manchester who I am apt to think had long since lost his head for his base and palpable treacherie and transcendent wickednesse if Lievtenant Generall Cromwell had effectually discharged his duty to the whole kingdome as he ought to have done at me for ingaging with Lievtenant Generall Cromwell in his just cause against him would be satisfied with no reason but the crushing me to peices by whose meanes principally with Col. Edward King one of his treacherous wicked confederates I suffer all that I doe at this day * See my printed narrative to the Ad●utators of the 21. August 1647. printed at the last on of the 2. Edition of my Epistle to Iudge Reeves and I dare confidently affirme it that if I could have addressed to them since my Appeale to the House of Commons I might have had solid grounds not only to have had my liberty and my fine of 4000. l. taken of but also some thousands of pounds by their meanes in my purse which now in my thoughts is a very great hazzard whether ever I shall injoy or no. Therefore to conclude all I shall humbly state a case unto your Excellency and leave the application of it to your selfe which is this An honest and a true man is following his lawfull occasions and there meets with him a company of bloody Murtherers Theeves and Robber who being stronger then he set upon him and attempt the taking away his purse and life and whiie he is strugling with them by comes a company of honest and true men stronger then the Rogues and Theeves unto whom the honest almost destroyed man addresseth himself and acquaints them truly fully with his present case and pittifully cryes out to them for helpe but they though they seeme to pittie him in words passe by him and doe not effectually rescue him by meanes of which he is not only rob'd but also slaine and destroyed Now the question is whether by the law of humanity nature and reason the aforesaid honest passengers were not tyed in duty and conscience without any more dispute to have at least rescued the honest oppressed man and have set him free or at least to have secured him and them to the next just Magistrate and endeavoured the obtaining of iustice for him upon those that would have destroyed him And then the second question is whether or no that in the case before mentioned they suffer him being easily able to rescue him to be robd and murthered whether in the sight of God and all iust men they be not cleerly accessaries of the robberie and murther and as guilty of it as those that committed it So craving pardon for my boldnesse and tediousnesse I commit you as my owne soule to the carefull and powerfull protection of the Lord Iehovah desiring of him for you to mainetaine and uphold you in your integrity and true plain uprightnesse that you may shine and be truly glorious in the eyes of our Lord and master and all iust men I humbly take my leave and rest From my causelesse and uniust inthralment in the Tower of London this 21. of August 1647. Sir your most devoted faithfull servant that without feare or flattery highly honours you John Lilburne Advice to the Private Soldiers SIRS MY best advice at your earnest desire unto you and all the privat Soldiers of your Army is to the death to contest for the preservation and performing of your Solemn ingagement made and subscribed at New Market the 5. th July 1647. especially in the first branch thereof and not to suffer any thing to be acted or done in the Army to the violation thereof but forthwith vigorously to demand justice upon every person though never so great that you can prove hath or doth attempt the infringment of it and to set a brand of infamy upon him as a deceiver and a man not fit to be intrusted and also immediately to require an account of your respective Adjutators what they have been doing all this while and suffer not one sort of men too long to remaine adjetators least they be corrupted by bribes of offices or places of preferment for standing waters though never so pure at first in time putrifies and also instantly presse your Adjutators to move vigorously for the imediate and totall purgeing of the House of all those that sat in Mr. Pellums factious traiterous Juncto who are so declared already by your Army by whose illeagall pretended and unbinding votes a new Warr was defacto raised and leavied in the Kingdome to the visible hazard of the ruine and utter destruction there and if you doe not this effectually but for the factious Lordly ends of some great ones as L. G. Crumwell Commisary Gen Ireton suffer that factious illeagall Combination and assembly of men to run away with the name and power of a true House of Commons then it will evidently follow that your Generall and your whole Army and all those members of

the House that came to you and adheared to you are all Parliament Rebels and traytors inforceably opposing them and marching up against them in all Warrlick manner as you have done and by your Remonstrances declarations and proposals declaring that whole assembly of Mr. Pellumes Juncto * See the latter end of the Armies Remonstrance of 18. August 1647. published to the wh●le Kingdome by the spesciall order of the present House of Peeres 20. Aug. 1647. see also the Adiutators proposals or addresses 5th and 14. August 1647. subscribed by 53 of their hands and printed by the Armies printer blades to be usurpesr of a Parliament power Traytor and enmies to their Country and the trust reposed in them ands fit to beseverely punished and not fit to be continued any longer as Iudges in the Kingdome or their own causes and their sitting still in the House will reader all the orders and ordinances made while they there sit to be questionable as unvailed and unbinding being made by the cōcurrant votes of so many as you your selves al those members that concurd with you but espescially the present House of Lords have so visibly and publiquely declared Traytors to the whole Kingdome and therefore are not fit to be law makers nor Iudges in their own causes and the greatest and weightiest things of the Kingdome and besides how can you or any that have adheared to you in iustice presse for the punishing of any in London that was active in leaving War against you the Kingdoms Parliaments Army as you call your selves in your notable and large Remonstrance of the 18 August 1647. seeing what they did was in obedience to Parliament authority if you suffer the most or any of Mr. Pellums Iuncto Blades to set in the House and so to goe scot free without punnishment for to let the principals the Parliament men goe free without punnishment and to punnish the accessaries the Citizens for putting in execution their orders and ordinances is the greatest in iustice that can be acted in the World and besides if that any of the Juncto Blades that sat in the House when the votes passed for leavying a new warr on the Kingdome sit still in the House and so gac on unpunnished the active zealous Presbyter Citizens that did obey execute their Ordinances shall any way be punnished therefore what will this else but be a iust ground to all rationall men to combine together and resolve in future time never to obey any more orders Ordinances of Parliament least they be by the Parliament soundly punished therefore * And for Sir Thomas Fairsax to command a Soldier to goe charge such an enemie and do the best he can to kill him and when the obedient Soldier hath zealously put his command in execution and for Sir Thomas when he hath done to goe about to hang the Soldier for his paines is not only the hight of in iustice but is also the ready way to breed a muteny in his Army that in future times his commands will never be obeyed and grant that Iuncto to be a House of Commons in any sence and all the late active zealous Citizens against you are acquited thereby from all their Junquits and made iust persons and your selves the Traytors and transgressors and it may be before you be a yeare older yee may get your recompence by loosing your lives at Tiburne or else wheare as you will iustly diserve it In this particular you play the Iuglers or suffer your selves to be foold and doe not effectually see fulfilled your own forementioned Declarations Therefore say I immediately presse vigorusly for the totall purging the House of all that sate with Mr. Pillam that so there may be way made for the exemplary punishing of the Lord Maior of London and all the chief ring-leaders actors in the late desperate and trayterous ingagement And also presse for moneys to pay your quarters the want of which will speedily by free quarter destroy the Army in the poore country peoples affections whose burthens are intolerable in paying Excise for that very meat the Soldiers eate from them gratis and yet paying heavie taxations besides and being also lyable by the Persons and Impropriators to be every yeare robbed of the tenth part of their labours stock i and increase under the name of payment of Iewish Tythes long since by the death of Christ abolshed Heb. 7. 5. 11. 12. 18. 19. 17. 9. 9. 12. 14. 16. 10. 1. 12. And if they be any thing stuborne in this particular of parting with their proper goods to those that never sweat for it then by the late Independant Ordinance of Parliament they are subiect by the Arbitrary pleasure of two Iustices of peace to pay them trible Also it is worth your consideration to presse that th● publique treasure of the kingdome may be taken out of that uncertaine cheating and cosoning way of receiving and paying that now it is in and put immediately into the old experienced sure and undeceiving way of the Exchequer by meanes of which the Kingdome may be sure to know what is done with their money And without which both they and you wil be everlastingly consumed and cheated * Read a late notable book intituled an eye salve for the Army but above all presse for the immediate doing of impartial iustice without any more delay … ail men without exceptions that are under oppressions suffer wrong down withal sorts and kinds of Monopolies that so all the people may inioy their birth right free trade And take effectuall care of all our lawes and the proceedings therein may be translated speedily into English that so the people may speedily inioy some fruits by all your b●●ss●ng and gallant promises and may no longer have overmuch cause to say as now commonly they doe both in City and Country that you have cheated and guld them with faire and plausible Declarations which when you made you never intended as by your present actions you fully declare to endeavour the fulfilling of but made them as stalking Horses to attaine your own ends of present power and future expected honour and profit and so suck the people dry and make them slaves as the Grandees in Parliament have done with all their Declarations But above all the rest be sure not to trust your great officers at the Generalls quarters no further then you can throw an Oxe for they are generally corrupted and to the true and legall liberties of the Commons of England are turned enemies and reprobates being grown Lordly and selfe●sh in the highest nature having by their plausible but yet cunning and subtile pollicies most uniustly stolne the power both from your honest Generall and your too flexible Adiutators and devolved it upon a company of corrupt Linsey woolsey men sitting at Westminster * Who I am sure are not short in acting all manner of tyranny and appression whasoever that may render a power or Magistracy to be for fitters of their trust and degenerate from the true Magistrates into reall Tyrants That in Iune or Iuly last declared you Traytors for endeavong by petition to make knowne your grievances to them and in August last voted and leavied a warre against you intentively to have murthered and destroyed you Whose principall care in all their visible actions is to rob and pole the poore kingdome of all their treasure and share it by thousands and ten thousands amongst themselves and to doe effectuall iustice and right to no man but themselves kindred and friends Who by the serious of all their visible actions intend when the people are poore enough to make both them and you their vassells and slaves and themselves domineering Lords and masters over you and your aforesaid officers present carriage being such as that they give too iust cause to me c to aver it under my hand with sorrow and griefe that as sure as I beleeve there is a God so surely doe I beleeve that they are ioyned with the Lords against me and become the principall instruments to keep me fast in my uniust imprisonment witnes my hand this 8. Sept. 1647. Iohn Lilburne FINIS