unsuccessefull Warres abroad sometimes the absence of the Prince sometimes Competitions of Titles to the Crowne somtimes perhaps the vices of the King himselfe But let us but rightly weigh and consider the posture the aspect of this state both toward it selfe and the rest of the world the person of our Soveraigne and the nature of our suffering since the third of his Reigne And there can be no cause coulorable inventible wherunto to attribute them but the intermission or which is worse the undue frustration of Parliament by the unluckly use if not abuse of Prerogative in the dissolving them Take in your view Gentlemen a State in a state of the greatest quiet and security that can be fancied not only in joyning the calmest peace it selfe but to improve and secure its happy condition all the rest of the world at the same time in Tempest in Combustions in uncomposable Warres Take into your view Sir a King Soveraigne to three Kingdomes by a Concentring of all the Royall lines in his Person as undisputably as any Mathematical ones in Euclide A King firme and knowing in his Religion eminent in vertue A King that had in his owne time given all the Rights and Liberties of his Subjects a more cleare and ample confirmation freely and graciously then any of his Predecessors when the people had them at advantage extortedly I meane in the Petition of Right This is one Mappe of England Mr. Speaker A man Sir that should present unto you now a Kingdome groaning under that supreme Law which Salus populi periclitata would enact The liberty the property of the Subject fundamentally subverted ravisht away by the violence of a pretended necessity a triple Crown shaking with distempers men of the best conscience ready to fly into the wildernesse for Religion Would not one sweare that this were the Antipodes to the other yet let me tell you Mr. Speaker this is a Mappe of England too and both at the same time true As it cannot bee denyed Mr. Speaker that since the Conquest there hath not been in this Kingdome a fuller concurrance of all circumstances in the former Caracter to have made a Kingdom happy then for these 12. yeares last past so it is most certaine that there hath not beene in all that deduction of ages such a Conspiracie if one may so say of all the Elements of mischiefe thein second Character to bring a flourishing Kingdom if it were possible to swift ruine and desolation I will be bold to say Mr. Speaker and I thanke God wee have so good a King under whom wee may speake boldly of the abuse by ill Ministers without reflection upon his person That an Accumulation of all the publike Grievances since Magna Carta one upon another unto that houre in which the Petition of Right past into an act of Parliament would not amount to so oppressive I am sure not to so destructive a height and magnitude to the rights and property of the Subject as one branch of our beslaving since the Petition of Right The branch I mean is the judgment concerning ship-money This beeing a true representation of England in both aspects Let him Mr. Speaker that for the unmatcht oppression and enthralling of free Subjects in a time of the best Kings raigne and in memory of the best lawes enacted in favour of Subjects liberty can find a truer Cause then the ruptures and intermission of Parliaments Let him and him alone be against the setling of this inevitable way for the frequent holding of them 'T is true Sir wicked Ministers have beene the proximate causes of our miseries but the want of Parliaments the primary the efficient Cause Ill Ministers have made ill times but that Sir hath made ill Ministers I have read among the Lawes of the Athenians a form of recourse in their Oaths and vows of greatest most publique concernment of a three-fold Deity Supplicium Exauditori Purgatori Malorum depulsori I doubt not but we here assembled for the Common-wealth in this Parliament shall meet with all these Attributes in our Soveraigne I make no question but he will graciously heare our Supplications purge away our Grievances and expell Malefactors that is remove ill Ministers and put good in their places No lesse can be expected from his wisdome and goodnesse But let me tell you Mr. Speaker if we partake not of one Attribute more in him if we addresse not our selves unto that I meane Bonorum Conservatori we can have no solid no durable Comfort in all the rest Let his Majesty heare our Complaint never so Compassionately Let him purge away our Grievances never so efficaciously Let him punish and dispell ill Ministers never so exemplarily Let him make choyce of good ones never so exactly If there be not a way setled to preserve and keepe them good the mischiefes and they will all grow again like Sampsons Locks and pull downe the House upon our heads Beleeve it M. Speaker they will It hath been a Maxime amongst the wisest Legislators that whosoever meanes to settle good Lawes must proceed in them with a sinister opinion of all Mankinde and suppose that whosoever is not wicked it is for want only of the opportunity It is that opportunity of being ill Mr. Speaker that wee must take away if ever wee meane to be happy which can never be done but by the frequencie of Parliaments No state can wisely be confident of any publique Ministers continuing good longer then the rod is over him Let me appeale to all those that were present in this House at the agitation of the Petition of Right And let them tell themselves truly of whose promotion to the management of affaires doe they thinke the generality would at that time have had better hopes then of Mr. Noy and Sir Thomas Wentworth both having beene at that time and in that businesse as I have heard most keen and active Patriots and the latter of them to the eternall aggravation of his Infamous treachery to the Common-wealth be it spoken the first mover and insister to have this clause added to the Petition of Right that for the comfort and safety of his Subjects his Majesty would be pleased to declare his will and pleasure that all his Ministers should serve him according to the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme And yet Mr. Speaker to whom now can all the inundations upon our liberties under pretence of Law and the late shipwrack at once of all our property be attributed more then to Noy and those and all other mischiefes whereby this Monarchie hath beene brought almost to the brinke of destruction so much to any as to that Grand Apostate to the Common-wealth the now Lieutenant of Ireland The first I hope God hath forgiven in the other world and the latter must not hope to be pardoned in this till he be dispatcht to the other Let every man but consider those men as once they were The excellent Law for the
government but that his Majesty may well satisfie them For our late experience I hope will teach us what rocks to shunne and how necestary the use of moderation is And for his Majesty he hath had experience enough how that prospers which is gotten without the concurrent good will of his people never more money taken from the Subject never more want in the Exchequer If we looke upon what we have payd it is more then ever the people of England did in such a time if we looke upon what hath beene effected therewith it shewes as if never King had beene worse supplyed so that we seeme to have acted Belids part whose punishment was to endevour the filling of a Sive with water Whosoever gave advice for these courses hath made good the saying of the wise man Qui conturbat domum suam possidebit ventum By new wayes they think to accomplish wonders but in truth they graspe the winde and are in the meane time saevus ambobus Achilles cruell to us and to the King too for if the Common-wealth flourish then hee that hath the Soveraignty can never want nor doe amisse so as hee governe not according to the interest of others but goe the shortest and the safest wayes to his owne and the common good with regard how they stand in order to any private mans desires or a preservation The Kings of this Nation have alwayes governed by Parliaments And if wee looke upon the successe of things since Parliaments were layd by it resembles that of the Grecians Ex illo fluere vetito sublapsa referri Rex Danaum especially on the Subjects parts for though the King hath gotten little they have lost all but his Majesty shall heare the truth from us and wee shall make to appeare the errors of Divines who would perswade us that a Monarch can be absolute and that he may doe all things ad libitum receding not onely from their text though that be a wandring too but from the way which their owne profession would teach them Stare super vias antiquas and remove not the ancient bounds and land-markes which our Fathers have set If to be absolute were to be restrained by no lawes then can no King in Christendome be so for they all stand obliged to the Lawes Christian and we aske no more For to this Pillar are our priviledges fixt our Kings at their Coronation taking a sacred oath not to infringe them I am sorry these men take not more care of informing our faith of those things which they tell us for our soules health whiles we know them so manifestly in the wrong in that which concerns the liberties priviledges of the Subjects of England But they gaine preferment and then 't is no matter though they never beleeve themselves nor are beleeved of others But since they are so ready to let loose the Conscience of our Kings we are the more carefully to provide for our protection against this pulpit-Pulpit-Law by declaring and re inforcing the Municipall Lawes of this kingdome It is worth the observing how new this opinion is or rather this way of rising even amongst themselves For Master Hooker who sure was no refractory man as they terme it thinkes that the first Government was arbitrary untill it was found that to live by one mans will became the cause of all mens miseries these are his words and that this was the originall of inventing Lawes And Master Speaker if we looke furtner back our Histories will tell us that the Prelates of this kingdome have often beene the mediators betweene the King and his Subjects to present and pray redresse of their grievances and had reciprocally then as much love and reverence from the People but these Preachers more active then their Predecessors and wiser then the Lawes have found out a better forme of Government the King must bee more absolute Monarch then any of his Predecessors and to them hee must owe it though in the meane time they hazzard the hearts of his people and involve him into a thousand difficulties For suppose this forme of Government were inconvenient and yet Master Speaker this is but a supposition for these five hundred yeares it hath not onely mainteined us in safety but made us victorious over other Nations but I say suppose they have another Idea of one more convenient wee all know how dangerous Innovations are and what hazzard those Princes runne that enterprise the change of a long established Government Now Master Speaker of all our Kings that have gone before and of all that are to succeed in this happy race why should so pious and so good a King bee exposed to this trouble and hazzard besides that Kings so diverted can never doe any great matter abroad But Master Speaker whiles these men have thus bent their wits against the Lawes of their Countrey whether they have neglected their owne Province and what Tares are growne up in the field which they should have tilled I leave it to a second consideration not but that Religion ought to bee the first thing in our purposes and desires but that which is first in dignity is not alwayes to precede in order of time for well-being supposes a being and the first impediment which men naturally indevour to remove is the want of those things without which they cannot subsist God first assigned unto Adam maintenance of life and gave him a title to the rest of the Creatures before he appointed a Law to observe And let me tell you if our adversaries have any such designe as there is nothing more easie then to impose Religion on a People deprived of their Liberties so there is nothing more hard then to doe the same upon Freemen And therefore Master Speaker I conclude with this motion that an order may bee presently made that the first thing this House will consider of shall be the restoring this Nation in generall to the fundamentall and vitall Liberties the propriety of our goods and freedome of our Persons and that then wee will forthwith consider of the supply desired and thus wee shall discharge the trust reposed in us by those that sent us hither his Majesty will see that wee make more then ordinary haste to satisfie his demands and wee shall let all those know that seeke to hasten the matter of supply that they will so far delay it as they give interruption to the former A Speech made by the Honourable DENZELL HOLLES Esquire at a Conference by a Committee of both Houses of Parliament in the painted Chamber May 4. 1641. in the presenting of the Protestation My Lords THe Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons having taken into their serious consideration the present estate and condition of this Kingdome they find it surrounded with variety of pernitious and destructive designes practices and plots against the well-being of it nay the very being of it and some of these designes hatched within our owne
more to offer unto you But this one compriseth many It is a neast of waspes or swarm of vermine which have over-crept the land I mean the Monopoles and Polers of the people These like the Frogs of Aegypt have gotten possession of our dwellings and have scarce a room free from them They sup in our Cup they dip in our Dish they sit by our fire we finde them in the Dy fat wash-boule and Poudering tub they share with the Butler in his box they have marked and sealed us from head to foot Mr. Speaker they will not bate us a Pin we may not buy our own Cloathes without their brokage These are the Leeches that have suckt the Common wealth so hard that it is almost become hecticall And Mr. Speaker some of these are ashamed of their right names they have a vizard to hide the brand made by that good law in the last Parliament of King James They shelter themselves under the name of a Corporation they make by-laws which serve their turns to squeese us and fill their purses unface these and they will prove as bad Cards as any in the pack These are not petty Chapmen but wholesale men Mr. Speaker I have ecchoed to you the cryes of the kingdome I will tell you their hopes they look to Heaven for a blessing upon this Parliament they hang upon his Majesties exemplary piety and great justice which renders his eares open to the just complaints of his Subjects we have had lately a gratious assurance of it they are the wise conduct of this whereby the other great affaires of the Kingdome and this our grievance of no lesse import And this may go hand in hand in preparation and resolution Then by the blessing of God we shall return home with an Olive branch in our mouths and full confirmations of the priviledges which we received from our Ancestors and ow to our posterity which every freeborn English man hath received with the aire he breathed in These are our hopes These are our prayers Mr. BAGSHAW his speech in Parliament 7 die Novemb. 1640. Mr Speaker I Had rather Act then speak in those weighty businesses of the Kingdome which have been so excellently handled by these foure worthy Gentlemen that spake last and therefore I shall be short For when I look upon the Body of this goodly and flourishing Kingdom in matters of Religion and of our laws For like Hippocrates Twins they live and dye together I say when I behold these in that state and plight as they have been represented to us Flere magis libet quam dicere But this is our comfort Mr. Speaker that we are all met together for the welfare and happinesse of Prince and People And who knows whether this may not be the appointed time wherein God will restore our Religion as at the first and our laws as at the beginning The honour of a King consisteth in the weale of his people this undoubted maxime his Majesty hath made good by his late gracious speech and promise to us to redresse all our grievances to destroy the enemies of our Peace and plenty To make a people rich they must have ease justice Ease in their Consciences from the bane of Superstition from the intolerable burthen of innovation in Religion and from the racks and tortures of strange and new fangled Oaths They must be eased in their persons being liberi homines and not Vilanes All illegall arrests and imprisonment against Magna Charta being our greatest liberties They must be eased in their lands from Forrest where never any Deer fed from depopulations where never any Farm was decayed and from inclosures where never any hedges were set But must lastly be eased in their goods from their exactions and expilations of Pursevants and Apparitors of Projectors and Monopolists Humanarum Calamitatum mercatores as an ancient finely calls them and if the people have all these easements yet if they have not Justice they cannot subsist justice is to the Civill body as food to the naturall If the streams of Justice be by unrighteousnesse turned into Gall and Wormword or by cruelty like the Aegyptian waters be turned into blood those which drink of these brooks must needs dy and perish The Law saith that all Justice is in the King who is stiled in our book Fons Justitiae and he commits it to his Judges for the execution wherein he trusts them with two of the chiefest flowers which belong to his crown The administration of his justice and the exposition of his laws but he will not trust them without an Oath required of them by the Statute of 18 E. 31. Which is so strict and severe that it made a Judge whom I know though honest and strict yet to quake and tremble at the very mention of it The effect of the Oath is that they should doe equall law and execution of right to all the Kings Subjects poore aswell as rich without regard of any person That they should not deny to doe common right to any man by the Kings letters and for any other cause And in case such letters do that they proceed to do come the law notwithstanding such letters or for any other causes as they will answer to the King in bodies goods and lands how this Oath hath been performed we have seen and felt I need say no more But when I cast mine eyes upon the inferiour Courts of Justice wherein no such oath is required I meane the High Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts my soule hath bled for the wrong pressures which I have observed to have been done and committed in these Courts against the Kings good people especially for the most monstrous abuse of the Oath Ex Officio which as it is now used I can call no other than Carnificina Conscientiae I have some reason to know this that have been an Attendant to the Court these five yeeres for my selfe and a deare friend of mine sometimes Knight of our Shire for a meer triviall businesse that the most that could be proved against him was the putting on his hat in the time of Sermon Of which Court I shall say more and make good what I say when those ulcers come to be opened Mr. Speaker I say these foure worthies that spake before me have told you of our miseries but I cannot tell you of the remedies For things are come to that height that I may say as Livy sayd of the Roman state in his time Nec Vitia nostra scire possumus neâ— Remedia for no Laws will now doe us good Better Laws could not have been made then the Stat. of Monopolies against Projectors and the Petition of right against the infringers of liberties and yet as if the Law had bin the Author of them there hath been within these few years more Monopolies and infringment of liberties than hath been in any age since the Conquest and if all those vile Harlets as Queen Elizabeth
whole matter of my Lord of Stafford Mr. St. Johns Argvment The KINGS Majesties First Speech in Parliament the third of November 1640. My Lords THe knowledge I had of the desires of my Scottish Subjects was the cause of my calling the last Assembly of Parliament wherein had I beene beleeved I sincerely thinke that things had not fallen out as now we see But it is no wonder that men are so slow to beleeve that so great a sedition should be raised on so little ground But now my Lords and Gentlemen the honour and safety of this Kingdome lying so neerely at the stake I am resolved to put my self freely and cleerly on the love and affections of my English Subjects as these of my Lords that did wait on me at York very well remember I there declared Therefore my Lords I shall not mention mine own interest or that support I might justly expect from you till the common safety be secured though I must tell you I am not ashamed to say those charges I have been at have been meerly for the securing and good of this Kingdome though the successe hath not been answerable to my desires Therefore I shall only desire you to consider the best way both for the safety and security of this Kingdome wherein their are two parts chiefly considerable First the chastifing out of the Rebells And secondly that other in satisfying your just grievances wherein I shall promise you to concurre so heartily and cleerely with you that all the World may see my intâ—ntions have ever beene and shall be to make this a glorious and flourishing Kingdome There are only two things that I shall mention to you First the one is to tell you that the Loane of money which I lately had from the City of London wherein the Lords that waited on me at Yorke assisted me will only maintain my Armie for two moneâ—hs from the beginning of that time it was granted Now my Lords and Gentlemen I leave it to your considerations what dishonour and mischiefe it might be in case for want of money my Armie be disbanded before the Rebells be put out of this Kingdome Secondly the securing the calamities the Northern people endure at this time and so long as the treaty is on foot And in this I may say not only they but all this Kingdome will suffer the harme therefore I leave this also to your consideration for the ordering of these great affairs whereof you are to treat at this time I am so confident of your love to me and that your care is for the honour and safety of the Kingdome that I shâ—ll freely and willingly leave to you where to begin only this that you may the better know the state of all the Affairs I have commanded my Lord Keeper to give you a short and free accompt of these things that have happened in this interim wiâ—h this Protestation thaâ— if this accompt be not satisfactory as it ought to be I shall whensoever you desire give you a full and perfect accompt of every particular One thing more I desire of you as one of the greatest means to make this a happy Parliament That you on your parts as I on Mine lay aside all suspition one of another as I promised my Lords at Yorke It shall not be my fault if this be not a happie and good Parliament The Kings speech in Parliament the fift of November 1640. My Lords I do expect that you will hastily make relation to the House of Commons of those great affairs for which I have called you hither at this time and for the trust I have reposed in them and how freely I put my selfe on their love and affections at that time and that you may know the better how to do so I shall explaine my selfe concerning one thing I spake the last day I told you the Rebells must be put out of this Kingdome it 's true I must needs call them so so long as they have an Armie that do invade us and although I am under treaty with them and I under my great Seale do call them Subjects and so they are too but the state of my Affairs in short is this It 's true I did expect when I did will my Lords and great ones at Yorke to have given a gracious answer to all your grievances for I was in good hope by their wisedomes and assistances to have made an end of that businesse but I must tell you that my Subjects of Scotland did so delay them that it was not possible to end there Therefore I can no wayes blame my Lords that were at Rippon that the treaty was not ended but must thanke them for their pains and industry and certainly had they as much power as affections I should by that time have brought these distempers to a happy period so that now the treaty is transported from Rippon to London where I shall conclude nothing without your knowledge and I doubt not but by your approbation for I do not desire to have this great work done in a corner for I shall lay open all the steps of this mis-understanding and causes of the great differences between Me and my Subjects of Scotland And I doubt not but by your assistance to make them know their duty and also by your assistance to make them return whether they will or no. The Kings Speech to both the Houses Ianuary 25. 1640. My Lords THe Knights Citizens Burgesses The principall cause of my comming here at this time is by reason of the slow proceedings in Parliament touching which is a great deale of inconvenience Therefore I think it very necessary to lay before you the state of my affairs as now they stand therby to hasten not interrupt your proceedings First I must remember you that there are two Armies in the Kingdome in a manner maintained by you the very naming of which doth more cleerly shew the inconvenience thereof then a better tongue then mine can expresse Therfore in the first place I shall recommend unto you the quick dispatch of that businesse assuring you that it cannot rest upon me In the next place I must recommend unto you the State of my Navie and Forts the condition of both which is so well known unto you that I need not tell you the particulars only thus much they are the Walls and defence of this Kingdome which if out of order all men may easily judge what incouragement it will be to Our enemies and what disheartning to our friends Last of all and not of the least to be considered I must lay before you the distractions that are at this present occasioned through the cause of Parliament for there are some men that more maliciously than ignorantly will put no difference betweene Reformation and alteration of government Hence it commech that divine Service is irreverently interrupted and Petitions in an ill way given in neither disputed nor denied But I will enter into no more particulars
proceedings of the Assembly of which if those that were Officers and Ministers there had been come to Town upon whose help I rested for my particular instruction I should have been better able to have given you an accompt And His Maiesty was pleased to let you know that when there was an occasion of any particular you may be satisfied in it According to His Maiesties command 24. of September all the Peeres were summoned all except some few did meet where His Maiesty was In the first place pleased to declare unto us His resolution to call a Parliament and to all our ioyes and contents as he hath now done it to yours and ours declared that there was nothing he did more desire then to be rightly understood of His people And whosoever he be that shall go about effect it I am sure he cannot to attempt or indeavour to alter this gracious declaration and resolution of His Maiesty or whosoever shall go about to poyson the hearts of His good Subiects with an opinion that it can be so or lesson the affection of His loving Subiects for certainly never Subiects of the world better loved their King then the English nor ever did ever English-men better love a King then now if I say there be any sucâ— may acurse and punishment fall up 〈◊〉 But â—et the Royall Throne be for ever Hâ—â— Majesty was then pleased to tell us the cause for which 〈◊〉 had called us together In the first place it was touching an answer to a petition that had bâ—en since his coming to York And before His assembly sent unto him from those His Subiects of Scotland that were at Newcastle The first thing that His Maiesty desired their advice in was â—â—e answer to that petition The next thing His Maiesty conceived And all that were there were of one opinion with one voyce and consent that it was not fit His Maiesty should disband His Army so long as the Scotch Army was on foot And His Maiesty wished them to take into their consideration what way to have maintenance for His Army in the mean time His Maiesty having opened the cause of calling them together was pleased to expresse himself that He would leave to the Lords their freedom of Debate and himself was ready to have been gone from the Councell but at the humble suite of the Lords he stayed And I am perswaded that nothing was of that ioy to them as His Maiesties presence with such freedome of discourse did every man deliver himself with such grace and sweetnesse did his Maiesty hear them and such content did they take in His moderating guiding and directing those Councells My Lords as holding it most necessary took the latter of those two considerations propounded by His Maiesty to their thoughts and that was the supplying and supporting His Maiesties Army till this Parliament might take some course in it His Maiesty and my Lords did declare themselves as before I have opened unto you that they could never attempt nor have the least thought to make by any Act or Order any thing tending to the Subiect but that it might be left wholly to the supream Jurisdiction And therefore not seeing any other way they resolved by letter to addresse themselves to the City of London And with their letters they sent half a dozen of my Lords My Lord Privy Seal my Lord of Clare who was appointed to go but his urgent occasions prevenâ—ed him Viscount Cambden Lord Coventry Lord Goring and _____ And these Lords they did expresse the joy and content they took in the Kings grace and confidence they had of His gracious assistance was such that they did freely offer themselves and as I dare say there is none but is yet ready to enter into security with His Maieâ—ty And the City gave an answer fit for the Chamber of the King and part of the money is already lent and will be ready I assure my self to supply the rest For the other part the first thing propounded by His Majesty was touching the answer that was to be given to that petition and to the demands of the Subjects in Scotland upon which occasion His Majesty was pleased by those great Officers and Ministers of His that knew best and understood the laws and usages of that Kingdome to expound their demands particularly and to make appear unto their Lordships upon every one wherein they had expounded the Articles of pacification which His Majesty ever desired might be the Square and Rule of the treaty with them My Lords tooke into consideration what was fit to be done for his Majesty then professed as he did oft and as he hath done it during the time of that Councell to be wholy ruled guided and directed by their advice f r the honor of this Nation and safâ—ty of it he did leave it to their wisedomes and considerations against whose advice and without whose judgements and advice he would do nothing My Lords howsoever they had received this information and explanation upon every particular of their demands yet in justice they thought it was fit to hear what could be said on the other side how the objection might be answered and what objection might be made by them against that which seemed to be plain enough For this purpose they were all of opinion and his Majesty was pleased to be of the same opinion that some Lords selected and trusted by that great Councell should Treate with those Subjects of Scotland upon all those particulars to the end that they might see what they did cleerly intend to the end that if a firm peace which was most desired from us might be had or a just Warre to be begun My Lords of the great Councell that were appointed for that purpose were the Earles of Bedford Hertford Essex Salisbury Warwick Bristow Holland and Barkeshire The Barons were the Lords Wharton Paget Rimbolton Brooke Pawlet Howard of Esaich Savile and Dunsmore After which choice some generall insurrections proceeding from the debate and discourses in that great Councell a Commission under the great Seale was given unto them to enable them to treate and conclude as they in their wisedomes and Judgements should thinke fit The place appointed for this treaty was at Rippon where the Lords Commissioners wanted the happinesse of that that they and we had at Yorke of his Maiesties presence And that might be the occasion that more time was spent in it then otherwise would have been yet my Lords omitted not their parts but were desirous to look into the depth to see the utmost extent of their demands But before those of Scotland could come to the maine treaty to explaine themselves touching their demands they made a preparatory demand of maintenance for their Armie and did go so high as to demand Forty thousand Pounds a moneth My Lords that were very unwilling to do any Act or make any order whatsoever as I have opened unto you for the sustenance maintenance and
security of the Subject enacted immediately before their comming to employment in the contriving whereof themselves were principall Actors The goodnesse and vertue of the King they served and yet the high and publique oppressions that in his time they have wrought And surely there is no man but will conclude with me that as the deficience of Parliaments hath bin the Causa Causarum of all the mischiefes and distempers of the present times so the frequency of them is the sole Catholicke Antidote that can preserve and secure the future from the like danger Mr. Speaker let me yet draw my Discourse a little nearer to his Majesty himselfe and tell you that the frequency of Parliament is most essentially necessary to the power the security the glory of the King There are two wayes Mr. Speaker of powerfull Rule eyther by Feare or Love but one of happy and safe Rule that is by Love that Firmissinum Imperium quo obedientes gaâ—dent To which Camillus advised the Romans Let a Prince consider what it is that mooves a people principally to affection and dearnesse towards their Soveraigne He shall see that there needs no other Artifice in it then to let them injoy unmolested what belongs unto them of right If that have beene invaded and violated in any kind whereby affections are alienated the next consideration for a wise Prince that would be happy is how to regaine them To which three things are equally necessary 1. Re-instating them in their former Libertie 2. Revenging them of the Authors of those violations 3. And securing them from Apprehensions of the like againe The first God be thanked wee are in a good way of The second in warme pursuit of But the third as essentiall as all the rest till we be certain of a Trienniall Parliament at the least I professe I can have but cold hopes of I beseech you then Gentlemen since that security for the future is so necessary to that blessed union of affections and this Bill so necessary to that security Let us not be so wanting to our selves let us not be so wanting to our Soveraigne as to forbeare to offer unto him this powerfull this everlasting Philter to Charme unto him the hearts of his people whose vertue can never evaporate There is no man M. Speaker so secure of anothers friendship but will thinke frequent intercourse and accesse very requisite to the support to the confirmation of it Especially if ill offices have beene done betweene them if the raysing of jealousies hath beene attempted There is no Friend but would be impatient to be debarred from giving his friend succour and reliefe in his necessities Mr. Speaker permit mee the comparison of great things with little what friendship what union can there be so comfortable so happy as betweene a gracious Soveraigne and his people and what greater misfortune can there bee to both then for them to bee kept from entercourse from the meanes of clearing mis understandings from interchange of mutuall benefits The people of England Sir cannot open their Eares their Hearts their Mouthes nor their Purses to his Majesty but in Parliament We can neyther heare Him nor Complaine nor acknowledge nor give but there This Bill Sir is the sole Key that can open the way to a frequency of those reciprocall indearments which must make and perpetuate the happinesse of the King and Kingdome Let no man object any derogation from the Kings Prerogative by it Wee doe but present the Bill 't is to be made a Law by him his Honour his Power will be as conspicuous in commanding at once that Parliament shall assemble every third yeare as in commanding a Parliament to be called this or that yeare there is more of his Majesty in ordayning primary and Vniversall Causes then in the actuaâ—ing particularly of subordinate effects I doubt not but that glorious King Edward the Third when he made those Lawes for the yearely Calling of Parliament did it with a right sence of his dignity and honour The truth is Sir the Kings of England are never in their Glory in their Splendour in their Majesticke Soveraignty but in Parliaments Where is the power of imposing Taxes Where is the power of restoring from incapacities Where is the legislative Authority Marry in the King Mr. Speaker But how In the King circled in fortified and evirtuated by his Parliament The King out of Parliament hath a limitted a circumscribed jurisdiction But waited on by his Parliament no Monarch of the East is so absolute in dispelling Grievances Mr. Speaker in chasing ill Ministers we doe but dissipate Clouds that may gather againe but in voting this Bill we shall contribute as much as in us lyes to the perpetuating our Sunne our Soveraigne in his verticall in his Noone day lustre A Speech of the Honourable NATHANAEL FIENNES In the House of Commons the 9. of Febr. 1640. Mr. Speaker TWO things have fallen into debate this day The first concerning the Londoners Petition whether it should bee committed or no. The other concerning the government of the Church by Arch-bishops Bishops c. whether it should bee countenanced or no. For the first I doe not understand by any thing that I have yet heard why the Londoners Petition should not be committed or countenanced The exceptions that are taken against it are from the irregularities of the delivery of it and from the Subject matter contained in it For the first it is alledged that the long taile of this blazing starre is ominous and that such a number of Petitioners and such a number that brought the Petition to the House was irregular Hereunto I answer that the fault was either in the multitude of the Petitioners or in their carriages and demeanours if a multitude finde themselves agrieved why it should be a fault in them to expresse their grievances more than in one or a few I cannot see nay to me it seemes rather a reason that their Petitions should be committed and taken into serious consideration for thereby they may receive satisfaction though all bee not granted that they desire But if wee shall throw their Petition behind the door and refuse to consider it that it may seeme an act of will in us And whether an act of will in us may not produce an act of will in the people I leave it to your consideration Sure I am acts of will are more dangerous there than here because usually they are more tumultuous All Lawes are made principally for the quiet and peace of a Kingdome and a Law may be of such indifferent nature many times that it is a good reason to alter it onely because a great number desires it if there were nothing else in it and therefore I doe not see that the number of Petitioners is any good reason why it should not bee committed but rather the contrary Now for their carriage there came indeed three or foure hundred of the 15000 some of the better sort of them
try the fitnesse of the block and take it up again before he would lay it down for good and all and so he did and before he layd it dow again he told the Executioner that he would give him warning when to strike by stretching forth his hands and then laid down his neck on the block stretching out his hands the Executioner struck off his head at one blow then took the head up in his hands and shewed it to all the people and said God save the King SIXTEENE QVERIES Propounded by the Parliament of Ireland to the Judges of the same Kingdome THat the Judges may set forth and declare whether the Inhabitants of this kingdome be a free people or whether they be to be governed onely by the antient common lawes of England II. Whether the Judges of the Land doe take the Oath of Judges and if so whether under pretext of any Acts of State Proclamation Writ Letter or direction under the great or privie Seale or privie Signet or Letter oâ—other commandement from the Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputie Justice Justices or other chiefe Governor or Governors of this Kingdome they may hinder stay or delay the suite of any subject or his judgement or execution thereupon if so in what cases and whether if they doe hinder stay or delay such suite judgement or execution what punishment they incurre by the Law for their deviation and transgression therein III. Whether the Kings Majesties privie Counsell either together or with the chiefe Governor or Governors of this Kingdome without him or them be a place of Judicature by the common Lawes where in case between party and party for Debts Trespasses Accounts Covenants possessions and title of Land or any of them and with them may be heard and determined and of what civill Causes they have jurisdiction and by what Law and of what force is their order or Decree in such cases or any of them IV. The like of the chiefe Governors alone V. Whether Grant of Monopolies be warrantable by the Law and of what and in what Cases and how and where and by whom are the Transgessors against such Grantees punishable and whether by Fine and mutilation of Members imprisonment losse and forfeiture of goods or otherwise and which of them VI. In what Cases the Lord Deputie or other chiefe Governors of this Kingdome and Counsell may punish by Fine imprisonment Mutilation of Members Pillory or otherwise they may sentence any to such the same or the like punishment for infrigeing the commands of any Proclamation or Monopolie and what punishment doe they incurre that doevote for the same VII Of what force is an Act of state or Proclamation in this Kingdome to bind the liberty goods possessions or inheritance of the natives thereof whether they or any of them can alter the common Law or the infringers of them lose their Goods Chattels or Leases or forfeit the same by infringing any such Act of State or Proclamation or both and what punishment doe the sworne Judges of the Law that are privie Counsellors incurre that vote for such Act and execution of it VIII Whether the subjects of this Kingdome be subiect to the Marshall Law and whether any man in time of peace no enemy being in the fields with displayed colours can be sentenced to Death if so by whom and in what cases if not what punishment doe they incurre that in time of peace execute Marshall Law IX Whether voluntary Oathes taken freely before Arbitrators or others for affirmance or disaffirmance of any thing or for the true performance of any thing be punishable in the Castle-Chamber or in any other Court and why and wherefore X. Why and by what Law and upon what Rule of policie is it that none is admitted to reducement in the Castle-chamber untill he confesse the offence for which he is censured when as Revera he might be innocent therof though subordined proofes or circumstances might induce him to be censured XI Whether the Judges of the Kings Bench and by what law doe or can deny the copies of Indictments of Fellony or Tyeason to the parties accused of Treason contrary to the statute of 42. Edw. 3. XII Whether the statute of Baltinglase take from the Subiâ—cts out-lawed for Treason though erroniously the benefit of his Writ of Error and how and by what meanes that blinâ— clause not warranted by the body of that Act came to be interted and by what Law is it countenanced to the diminution of the liberty of the subject XIII What power have the Barons and the Court of Exchequer to raise the respite of homage Arbitrarily to what value they please and to what value they may raise it and by what law they may distinguish betweene respite of homage upon the diversities of the true value of the Fees when as all Escuage is the same for great and small Fees and they apportionable by Parliament XIIII Whether it 's censurable in the subjects of this Kingdome to repaire into England to appeale to his Majesty for Redresse of Jnjuries or for other their accusers if so why and in what condition of persons and by what law XV. Whether Deanes and other Dignitanies of Cathedrall Churches be properly de mero jure donative by this King or not elective or collative if so why and by what law and whether the confirmation of a Deane de facto of the Bishops Grantee be good and valid in the law or no if not by what law XVI Whether the issuing of Quo Warranto's against Burroughes that antiently and recently sent Burgesses to the Parliament to shew cause why they sent Burgesses to the Parliament be legall CAPTAINE AVDLEY MERVINS SPEECH To the House of Commons in Ireland Mr. Speaker IT was equall care and policy in our Predecessours First to lay a foundation and then by a continued industry to build and perfect so glorious a fabrique as the house of Commons lawfull summoned by the Kings writ represents it selfe unto us at this day In which so elaborate and exquisite a structure being finished and crowned with those fruitfull and peace-speaking events may challenge by right the title of a Jubile To so great a modell with neate and provident husbandry they intend no lesse then sutable furniture which allowed pride disdaine to cloath it with any other but with what by his Majesties favour they had procured out of his owne store I meane those great and large priviledges which by severall acts of royall favor have bin dispensed annexed nay hypostatically united to the same Priviledges are the soule by which we move the Sinnes and Nerves by which we are compacted they are them by which we breath Priviledges for their birth allyed to the Kings Prerogative for their antiquity sacred for their strength so re-intrenched by common law fortified by statutes insconsed by precedents of all times that no man ever attempted their violation with impunity so that now and then it may be truly said The Kings
this next Michaelmas Let thither also reach their prescribed time for liberty And that till then their protections shall remain in as full vertue and authority as if the Parliament were actually sitting To the Right Honorable the LORD Deputie SHewing that in all ages past since the happy subiection of this Kingdome to the imperiall Crown of England it was and is a principall study and Princely care of his Maiesty and his most Noble Progenitors Kings and Queens of England and Ireland to the vast expence of Treasure and bloud that their loyall and dutifull people of this land of Ireland being now for the most part derived from the Brittish Ancestor should be governed according to the municipiall and fundamentall lawes of England that the Statute of Magna Charta or the great Charter for the liberties of England and other laudable lawes and Statutes were in severall Parliaments here enacted and declared that by the means thereof and of the most prudent and benigne government of his Maiestie and his royall Progenitors this Kingdome was untill of late in its growth to a flourishing estate whereby the said people were hertofore enabled to answer their humble and naturall desires to comply with his Maiesties Royall and Princely occasions by the free gift of 150000 l. ster and likewise by another gift of 120000 l. ster more during the government of the Lord Viscount Faulk-land and after by the gift of 40000. l. and their free and chearfull gift of 6. entire Subsidies in the 10. year of his Maiesties Reign which to comply with his Maiesties then occasions signified to the then H. of Commons they did allow should amount in the collections unto 250000. l. although as they confidently beleeve if the sayd Subsidies had not been levied in a moderate Parliamentary way they would not have amounted to much more than half the said sum besides the four entire Subsidies granted in this present Parliament So it is may it please your Lordship that by the occasion of the ensuing and other grievances and innovations though to his Maiestie no considerable profit this Kingdome is reduced to that extreme and universall poverty that the same is now lesse able to pay a Subsidie then it was heretofore to satisfie all the before recited great payments and his Maiesties most faithfull people of the same do conceive great fears that the grievances and the consequences therof may hereafter be drawn into precedents to be perpetuated upon their posterity which in their great hopes and strong belief they are perswaded is contrary to his Maiesties Royall and Princely intention towards his said people some of which said grievances are as followeth I. First the generall and apparent decay of Trades occcasioned by the new and illegall raysing of the book of Rates and Impositions as xii d. a piece custome for Hides bought for 3.4 or 5. s. and many other heavie Impositions upon native and other commodities exported and imported by reason thereof and of the extream usage and sensures Marchants are beggered and both disinabled and discouraged to trade and some of the honorable persons who gain thereby are often Iudges and parties and that in conclusion his Maiesties profit therby is not considerably advanced II. Secondly the arbitrary decision of all civill causes and controversies by paper petitions before the Lord Lievetenant and Lord Deputy and infinite other Iudicators upon references from them derived in the nature of all actions determinable at the Common-law not limited unto certain times seasons causes and things whatsoever and the consequence of such proceedings by receiving imomoderate and unlawfull fees by Secretaries Clerkes Pursivants Serjants at Armes and otherwise by which kinde of proceedings his Majesty loseth a considerable part of his Revenue upon originall writs and otherwise and the Subject loseth the benefit of his writ of error Bill of reversall vouchers and other legall and just advantages and the ordinary course and Courts of Justice declined III. Thirdly the proceedings in civill causes at the Councell boord contrary to the law and great Charter and not mitted to any certain time or season IV. Fourthly that the Subject is in all the materiall parts thereof denyed the benefit of the principall graces and more especially of the Statute of Limitations of the 21. Jan. granted by his Majesty in the 4 year of this Reign upon great advice of the Counsell of England and Ireland and for great consideration and th n published in all the Courts of Dublin and in all the Courts of this Kingdome in open Assizes whereby all persons do take notice that contrary to his Majesties plous intention his Subiects of this Land have not enioyed the benefit of his Maiesties Princely promise thereby made V. Fiftly the extraiudiciall avoyding of Letters Patents of estates of a very great part of his Maiesties Subiects under the great Seale the publique faith of the Kingdome by private opinions delivered at Councell Boord without legall Evictions of their estates contrary to the Law and without precedent or example of any former age VI. Sixtly the Proclamation for the sole exemption and uttering of Tobacco which is bought at very low Rates and uttered at high and excessive Rates by means wherof thousands of Families within this Kingdome and of his Maiesties subiects in severall Islands and other parts of the West Judies as your Petitioners are informed are destroyed and the most part of 〈◊〉 Coyne of this Kingdome is ingrossed into particular hands Insomuch that your Petitioners do conceive that the profit arising and ingrossed thereby doth surmount his Maiesties Revenues certaine and casuall within this Kingdome and yet his Maiestie receiveth but very little profit by the same VII Seventhly the unusuall and unlawfull increasing of Monopolies to the advantage of few to the disprofit of his Maiesty and the impoverishment of his people VIII Eighthly the extream and cruell usage of certain late Commissioners and other towards the Brittish Farmers and Inhabitants of the City and County of London-derry by meanes whereof the worthy plantation of that Country is almost destroyed and the Inhabitants are reduced to great poverty and many of them forced to forsake the Country the same being the first and most usefull Plantation in the large Province of Vlster to the great weakning of the Kingdome in this time of danger the sayd Plantation being the principall strength of those parts IX Ninthly the late erection of the Court of high Commission for causes Ecclesiasticall in these necessitous times the proceedings of the sayd Court in many causes without legall warrant and yet so supported as prohibitions have not been obtained though legally sought for and the excessive fees exacted by the ministers thereof and the incroaching of the same upon the iurisdiction of other Ecclesiasticall Courts of this Kingdome X. Tenthly the exorbitant and Barbarous Fees and pretended Customes exacted by the Clergie against the Law some of which have beene formerly represented to your Lordship XI Eleventhly the
unanimously endeavour to oppose and prevent the Counsels and Counsellours which have brought upon us all these miseries and the fears of greater to prevent the ends and bring the Authors of them to condigne punishment and thereby discharge themselves better before God and man The Protestation your Lordships shall have read unto you together with ground and reasons which have induced the House of Commons to make it which are prefixed before it by way of Preamble Then the Protestation was read by Master Maynard Die Mercurii 5 May 1641. IT is this day ordered by the House of Commons now assembled in Parliament that the Preamble togtheer with the Protestation which the Members of this House made the third of May shall be forthwith Printed and the Copies printed brought to the Cleark of the said House to Attest under his hand to the end that the Knights Citizens and Burgesses may send them down to the Sheriffes and Justices of Peace of the severall Shires and to the Citizens and Burgesses of the severall Cities Boroughes and Cinque Ports respectively And the Knights Citizens and Burgesses are to intimate unto the Shires Cities and Boroughes and Cinque Ports with what willingnesse all the Members of this House made this Protestation And further to signifie that as they justifie the taking of it in themselves so the cannot but approve it in all such as shall take it A Preamble with the Protestation made by the whole House of Commons the third of May 1641. and assented unto by the Lords of the upper House the fourth of May last past WE the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House in Parliament finding to the griefe of our hearts that the designes of the Priests and Jesuits and other adherents to the See of Rome have of late more boldly and frequently put in practice then formerly to the undermining and danger of the Ruine of the true reformed Religion in his Majesties Dominions established and finding also that there hath bin and having cause to suspect there still are even during the sitting in Parliament endeavours to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of England and Ireland and to introduce the exercise of an Arbitrary and tyrannicall government by most pernicious and wicked counsells practises plots and conspiracies and that the long intermision and unhappier breach of Parliaments hath occasioned many illegall Taxations whereupon the Subjects have beene prosecuted and grieved and that divers Innovations and Superstitions have been brought into the Church Multitudes driven out of his Maiesties Dominions Jealousies raised and Fomented between the King and his people a Popish Armie leavied in Ireland and two Armies brought into the bowels of this Kingdome to the hazard of his Majesties Royall Person the Consumption of the Revenue of the Crown and the treasure of this Realme And lastly finding the great causes of Jealousie endeavours have beene and are used to bring the English Armie into mis-understanding of this Parliament thereby to encline that Armie by force to bring to passe those wicked counsells have therefore thought good to ioyn our selves in a Declaration of our united affections and resolutions and to make this ensuing Protestation The Protestation I A.B. Do in the presence of Almighty God promise vow and protest to maintain and defend as farre as lawfully I may with my life power and estate the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England against all popery and popish Innovation within this Realm contrary to the said Doctrine and according to the duty of my Allegiance I will maintain and defend his Majesties Royall Person Honor and Estate As also the power and priviledge of Parliaments the lawfull Rights and Liberties of the Subjects And every person that shall make this Protestation in whatsoever he shall do in the lawfull pursuance of the same and to my power as farre as lawfully I may I will oppose and by all good wayes and means endeavour to bring condigne punishment on all such as shall by force practice counsels plots conspiraces or otherwise do any thing to the contrary in this present protestation contained and further that I shall in all Just and Honorable wayes endeavour to preserve the union and peace betwixt the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland And neither for hope fear or any other respects shall relinquish this promise vow and Protestation The Bill of Attainder that passed against Thomas Earl of STAFFORD WHereas the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons in this present Parliament assembled have in the name of themselves and of all the Commons of England impeached Thomas Earl of Strafford of high Treason for endeavouring to subvert the Ancient and Fundamentall Laws and Government of his Majesties Realms of England and Ireland and to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall Government against Law in the said Kingdoms and for exercising a Tyrannous and exorbitant power over and against the Laws of the said Kingdoms over the Liberties Estates and Lives of his Majesties Subjects and likewise for having by his own authority commanded the laying and asseising of souldiers upon his Majesties Subjects in Ireland against their consents to compell them to obey his unlawfull commands and orders made upon papâ—r Petitions in causes between party and party which accordingly was executed upon divers of his Majesties Subjects in a Warlike manner within the said Realm of Ireland and in so doing did levie Warre against the Kings Majesty and his liege people in that Kingdome And also for that he upon the unhappy Dissolution of the last Parliament did slander the House of Commons to his Majesty and did counsell and advise his Majesty that he was loose and absolved from the rules of Government and that he had an Army in Ireland by which he might reduce this Kingdom for which he deserves to undergo the pains and forfeitures of high Treason And the said Earl hath been also an Incendiary of the Warres between the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland all which offences have been sufficiently proved against the said Earl upon his impeachment Be it therefore enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by authority of the same That the said Earl of Strafford for the haynous crimes and offences aforesaid stand and be adjudged and attainted of high Treason and shall suffer such pain of death and incurre the forfeitures of his Goods and Chattels Lands Tenements and Hereditaments of any estate of Free-hold or Inheritance in the said Kingdoms of England and Ireland which the said Earl or any other to his use or in trust for him have or had the day of the first sitting of this present Parliament or at any time since Provided that no Judge or Judges Justice or Iustices whatsoever shall adiudge or interpret any Act or thing to be Treason nor in any other manner than he or they should or ought to have done before
upon Bill or information and Cite such parties to appeare as stand accused of any misdemeanour and this was the Infancy of the Starchamber but afterwards the Starchamber was by Cardinall Woolsey 8 H. 8. raised to mans Estate from whence being now altogether unlimited it is grown a Monster and will hourely produce worse effects unlesse it be reduced by that hand which laid the foundation for the Statutes that are ratified by Parliament admit of no other than a repeale Therefore I offer humbly unto your Lordships these ensuing Reasons why it should be repealed First the very words of the Statute cleerly shew that it was a needlesse institution for it sayes they who are to Judge can proceed with no delinquent otherwise then if he were convicted of the same crime by due proces of Law And doe your Lordships holdth is a rationall Court that sends us to the Law and calls us to the Law and calls us back from it againe Secondly divers Judicatories confound one another in pessima republica plurimae Leges The second reason is from circumstance or rather à Consuetudine and of this there are many examples both domestique and forain but more particularly by the Parliaments of France abbreviated into a standing Committee by Philip the King and continued according to his Institution untill Lewis the eleventh came to the Crown who being a subtill Prince buried the volume in the Epitome for to this day when ever the three Estates are called either at the death of the old King or to Crown the new It is a common Proverb Allons voire Le van des Estates My Lords Arbitrary judgements destroy the Common Laws and in them the two great Charters of the Kingdome which being once lost we have nothing left but the name of liberty Then the last reason is though it was the first cause of my standing up the great Eclipse it hath ever been to the whole Nobility For who are so frequently vexed there as Peers and Noblemen and notwithstanding their appeale to this Assembly is ever good whilst that famous Law of the 4 Ed. 3. remaines in force for the holding of a Parliament once a year or more if occasion require yet who durst a year ago mention such a Statute without the incurring the danger of M. Kilverts persecution Therefore I shall humbly move your Lordships that a select Commitee of a few may be named to consider of the act of Parliament it selfe and if they shall thinke it of as great prejudice as I doe that then the house of Commons in the most usuall manner may be made acquainted with it either by Bill or conference who also happily thinke it a burthen to the Subject and so when the whole body of Parliament shall joyne in one supplication I am confident his Majestie will desire that nothing shall remaine in force which his people doe not willingly obey Lunae the 10. of May 1641. IT is this day ordered by the House of Commons now assembled in Parliament that the Lord Maior of London the Justices of Peace of Midlesex Westminster and the Liberties of the Dutchie of Lancaster and those of Surrey that are for the Burrough of Southwarke and the place adjoyning doe imploy their best endeavors to prevent that none of the Kings Subjects doe frequent the houses of any the Embassadors Somerset-house or St. James to heare Masse And that they give an accompt to this House of the Execution of this Order at all such times as by the said House they shall be required My Lord Finch his Letter to my Lord CHAMBERLAINE My most welbeloved Lord THe Interest your Lordship hath ever had in the best of my fortunes and affections gives me the Priviledges of troubling your Lordship with these few lines from one that hath now nothing left to serve you withall but his Prayers Those your Lordship shall never faile with an heart as full of true affection to your Lordship as ever any was My Lord it was not the losse of my place and with that of my fortunes nor being exiled from my deare Countrey and friends though many of them were cause of sorrow that afflicts but that which I most suffer under is that displeasure of the House of Commons conceived against me I know a true heart I have ever borne towards them and your Lordship can witnesse in part what wayes I have gone in but Silence and patience best becomes me with which I must leave my selfe and my Actions to the favourable construction of my Noble Friends in which number your Lordship hath a prime place I am now at the Hague where I arrived on Thursday the last of the last moneth where I purpose to live in a fashion agreeable to the poorenesse of my fortunes for my humbling in this world I have utterly cast off the thoughts of it and my aime shall be to learne to number my daies that I may apply my heart unto wisdome that wisdome that shall wipe all teares from mine eyes and heart and lead me by the hand to true happinesse which can never be taken from me I pray God of heaven blesse this Parliament with a happy both progresse and conclusion if my ruine may conduce but the least to it I shall not repine at it I truly pray for your Lordship and your Noble Family that God would give an increase of all worldly blessings and in the fulnesse of dayes to receive you to his glory if I were capable of serving any body I would tell your Lordship that no man should be readier to make knowne his devotion and true gratitude to your Lordship then Your Lordships most humble and affectionate poore kinsman and servant J.F. Hague Jan. 3. 1640. The Lord KEEPERS Speech TO HIS MAJESTIE at the Banquetting-house at White-hall in the name of both Houses May it please Your Majestie I Am to give your Majestie most humble and heartie thanks in the name of both houses of Parliament and this whole Kingdome for the speedy and gracious Royall assent unto the Bill Entitled An act for preventing of inconveniences happening by the long intermission of Parliaments which as it is of singular comfort and securitie for all your Subjects for the present so they are confident it will be of infinite honor and setlement of Your Majesties Royall Crowne and dignitie as well as comfort to their postiritie The Declaration of the Scots Commissioners to the House of Parliament touching the maintenance of their Army March the 16th 1640. IN the midst of other matters necessitie constraineth us to shew your Lordships that fourescore thousand pounds and above of the Moneys appointed for reliefe of the Northerne Countreys there is no more paid but 18000 l. the Country people of those Countreys have trusted the souldiers so long as they are become weary and unable to furnish them their cattell and victuall being so farre exhausted and wasted as it is scarce able to entertain themselves The Markets are decayed
price of moneys must rise and fall to fit their occasions we see this by raising the Exchange of Franckford and other places of their usuall time of the Marts This frequent and daily change in the Low-Countries of their moneys is no such injustice to any there as it would be here for there they being all Merchants or mechanicks they can rate accordingly their labour and their Ware whether it be Coyne or other merchandize to the present condition of their own money in Exchange And our English Merchants to whose profession it properly belongeth do so according to their just intrinsique valew of their forreign Coyn in all barter of commodities or Exchange except usance which we that are rated and tyed by the extrinsiques measure of moneys in all our constant reckonigs and annuall bargains at home cannot do And for us then to raise our Coyn at this time to equall their proportions were but to render our selves to a perpetuall incertainty for they will raise upon us daily them again which we of course shall follow else receive no profit by this present change and so destroy the Policie Justice honor and tranquilitie of our State for ever To the Right Honourable the Lord Deputy The â—â—mble and just Remonstrance of the Knights Cittizens and Burgesses in Parliament assembled SHewing that in all ages since the happy subjection of this Kingdome to the Imperiall Crowne of England it was and is a principall study and Princely care of his Majesty and his most noble Progenitors Kings and Queens of England and Ireland to the vast expence of treasure and blood That their loyall and dutifull people of this Land of Ireland beeing now for the most part derived from Brittish Ancestors should be governed according to the municipall and fundamentall Lawes of England That the statute of Magna Charta or the great Charter of the liberties of England and other laudable lawes and statutes were in severall Parliaments heere enacted and declared that by the means thereof of the most prudent benign government of his Majestie his Royall Progenitors this Kingdome was untill of late in its growth a flourishing estate whereby the said people were heretofore enabâ—ed to aâ—â—iver their humble and naturall desires to comply with his Majesties Princely and royall occasions by their free gift of 150. thousand pounds sterling and likewise by another free gift of 120. thousand pounds more during the government of the Lord Viscount Faulkland and after by the gift of 40. thousand pounds and their free and cheerefull gift of siâ—â— intire Subsidies in the tenth yeare of his Majesties Reignâ— which to comply with his Majesties then occasions signified to the then house of Commons they did allow should ammount in the Collections unto 2 hundred and fifty thousand pounds although as they confidently believe if the Subsidies had been levyed in a moderate Parliamentary way they would not have amounted to much more then halfe the sum aforesaid besides the foure intire Subsidies graunted in this present Parliament Soe it is may it please your Lordship by the occasion of insuing and other grievances and Innovations though to his Majesty no considerable profit this Kingdome is reduced to that extreame and universall poverty that the same is lesse able to pay 2 Subsidies then it was hertofore to satisfie all the before-recyted great payments his Majesties most faithfull people of the Land do conceive great fears that the said grievances and consequences thereof may be hereafter drawne into presidents to be perpetuated upon their posterity which in their great hopes and strong beliefe they are perswaded is contrary to his Royall and Princely intention towards his said people of which greivances are as followeth 1 First the generall apparant decay of Trades occasioned by the new and illegall raising of the booke of rates and impositions upon native and other Commodities exported and imported by reason whereof and of extreame usage and censures Merchants are beggered both and disinabled and discouraged to Trade and some of the honourable persons who gaine thereby often Iudges and parties And that in the conclusion his Majesties profit thereby is not considerably advanced 2. The arbitrary decision of all civill causes and controversies by paper petitions before the Lord Lieutenant and Lord Deputy and infinite other Iudicatories upon references from them derived in the nature of all actions determinable at the Common Law not limited into certaine time cause season or thing whatsoever And the consequences of such exceeding by immoderate and unlawfull fees by Secretaries Clarkes Pursivants Serjeants at Armes and otherwise by which kinde of proceedings his Majesty looseth a considerable part of his revenue upon originall writs and other wise and the Subject looseth the benefit of his writ of Error bill of reversall vouchees and other legall and just advantages and the ordinary course and Courts of Iustice declined 3. The proceedings in civill causes at Counsell board contrary to the Law and great Charter not limited to any certaine time or season 4 That the Subject is in all the materiall parts thereof denyed the benefit of the Princely graces and more especially of the statute of limitations of 21. of Iac. Graunted by his Majesty in the fourth yeare of his Raigne upon great advice of Counsell of England and Ireland and for great consideration and then published in all the Courts of Dublin and in all the Counties of this Kingdome in open assizes whereby all persons doe take notice that contrary to his Majesties pious intentions his Subjects of this land have not enjoyed the benefit of his Majesties Princelie promise thereby made 5. The extrajudiciall avoyding of Letters Pattents of estates of a very great part of his Majesties subjects under the great Seale the publique faith of the Kingdome by private opinions delivered at the Counsell board without legall evictions of their estates contrary to the law and without president or example of any former age 6. The Proclamation for the sole emption and uttering of Tobacco which is bought at every low rates and uttered at high and excessive rates by meanes whereof thousands of families within this Kingdome and of his Majesties Subjects in severall Ilands and other parts of the West Indies as your Petitioners are informed are destroyed and the most part of the coyn of this Kingdome is ingross ed into particular hands Insomuch as the petitioners do conceive that the proffit arising and engrossed thereby doth surmount his Majestyes revenue certain or cosuall within this Kingdome and yet his Majesty receiveth but very little profit by the same 7. The universall and unlawfull increasing of Monopolies to the advantage of a few to the disprofit of his Majesty and Impoverishment of his people 8. The extream and cruell usage of certain late Commissioners and other stewards the Brittish Farmers and Inhabitants of the City and County of London Derry by meanes whereof the worthy Plantation of that Country is almost destroyed and the
God had endowed the Church of England with which God himself hath given by his Law unto the universall Church and in that which the Kings of England by their Charter have bequeathed to the particular Church of England and this we doubt not was the cause that moved Hen. 8. so effectually and powerfully to bend himselfe against the Popes Supremacy usurped at that time over the Church of England for saith the King we will with hazard of life and losse of our Crown uphold and defend in our Realms whatsoever we shall know to be the will of God The Church of God then in England not being free according to the great Charter but in bondage and servitude to the See of Rome contrary to the Law of God the King judged it to stand highly with honour and his Oath to reform redresse and amend the abuses of the same See If then it might please our gracious Soveraign Lord King Charles that now is in Imitation of that his noble Progenitor to vouchsafe an abolishment of all Lordly Primacy executed by Archepiscopall and Episcopall authority over the Ministers of Christ his Highnesse in so doing could no more rightly be charged with the violation of the great Charter then might King Henry the eight with the banishment of the Popish Supremacy or then our late Soveraign Lady Q. Elizabeth could be justly burdened with the breach of her Oath by the Establishment of the Gospell Now if the Kings of England by reason of their Oath were so straitly tied to the words of the great Charter that they might not in any sort have disanulled any supposed Rights or Liberties of the Church used and confirmed by the said Charter unto the Church that then was supposed to be the Church of God in England then be like King Henry 8. might be attainted to have gone against the great Charter and against his Oath when by the overthrow of Abbeys and Monasteries he took away the Rights and Liberties of the Abbots Priers for by expresse words of the great Charter Abbots and Priers had as large and ample a Patent for their Rights and Liberties as our Archbishops and Bishops can at this day challenge for their Primacy If then the Rights and Liberties of the one as being against the Law of God be duely and lawfully taken away notwithstanding any matter clause or sentence contained in the great Charter the other having but little reason by colour of the great Charter to stand upon their pantofles and to contend for their painted sheaves for this is a Rule and Maxime in Gods laws that In omni Juramento semper excipitur authoritas majoris Unlesse then they be able to justifie by the holy scriptures that such Rights and Liberties as they pretend for their spirituall Primacy over the Ministers of Christ be in Deed and Truth inferred unto them by the holy law of God I suppose the Kings Highnesse as successor to Hen. 8. and as most just inheritour of the Crown of England by the words of the great Charter and by his Oath is bound utterly to abolish all Lordly Primacy as hitherto upheld and defended partly by ignorance and partly by an unreasonable and evill Custome My Lord DIGBIES Speech in Parliament 1640. Master Speaker THis happie meeting is to bemoane and redresse the unhappie State of this Common-wealth Let me have I beseech you your leave to give you in a word a short view of our griefes then see whence they flow Our Lawes our liberties our lives and which is the life of all our Religion all which have been by the endeavours of so many Ages secured and made so much our owne can scarce be called ours Our Lawes the only finews and ligeaments of our estates which should run in an even streame are now made to disdaine their bancks and to overflow and drown their fields which they should gently redresse our liberties the very spirit and essence of our weale which should differ us from slaves and speake us English-men are held away by them that even whiles they take them from us cannot but confesse they are our proper dues Are not our lives in danger when an enemy disguised like a friend provoked is as it were suffered because indirectly and in vaine resisted to come almost into our bosomes to rifle some of their goods others of their loyalty which perhaps they could not neither would have touched might we with united force have resisted And lastly which is the soule of all our grievances our Religion which should have beene our Cordiall in all our distempers like a forced Virgin laments ever that her pure innocencie is taken from her and sure all these effects must have their causes That we have just and wise Lawes we may thanke those good Kings that made them the settled exposition of just circumscribed Lawes to binde and defend the Subject That they are so well framed and usefud and to containe enough to make a good King and people be perfect be safe and happie What do we owe to these grave Councellors who sate here before us and that they out-live the malice of some unbounded spirits we are beholding to them that Reprieved them from ruine with their lives and fortunes we call them ours because we are freely born to them as to the Ayre we breath in we claime them and should possesse them under the Protection of our gracious King who is their great Patron and disposes them not inconsiderately but by the advice of those learned expositors of the Lawes the Judges and those whom he trusts to be his great and faithfull Councellors If those pervert the ground and meaning of the Law and contract â—he power of it or make it speake lowder or softer as they themselves are tuned for it the blame should deservedly fall on those mistrusted ministers who are the base betrayers of his Majesties honor and his Peoples right to vindicate which necessitie hath here assembled you Mr. Speaker Is not this offence and m lice as great who should undermine my Tenour and surruptiously deprive me of my evidence by which I held my Inheritance as he who by violence should wrest it from me The Scots we have heard branded as Traytors because they have contrary to the law of Nations and their loyaltie invaded our Kingdome in Arms what other title have they merited who have invaded our Lawes and liberties the precious evidence by which we should freely enjoy our selves and our estates The first we may resist and drive forth by united force and it will be called pietie to the King and Countrie if force be lay'd against the other it will be stiled Rebellion What now remaines but that we should use the Law which because it hath beene inverted and turned against us contrary to its owne naturall and plaine disposition should now right us and it self against our Adversaries Surely the Law is not so weak and improvident to take care for others and never provide
of Christ and his Apostles cannot but beare witnesse against their wordly pomp and dignities and so the fire of contention breaketh forth And truely Sir the state of the Clergy is very like to fire which whilst it keeps in the Chimney it is of excellent use to warme those that approach unto it but if it once breake out into the house and get upon the house top it sets all on fire so whilst the Clergy keepe themselves within the pulpit they are of great use to stirre up the zeale and devotion of Christians but if they once flye out into the house if they begin to meddle with Civill places and jurisdictions and especially if they once get up to the Counsell-table it is seldome seene but that at length they set all on fire and what is it that maketh the fire to breake out of the chimney but too much fuell if there be but a moderate proportion of fuell the fire keepes it selfe within its bounds but if you heape faggot upon faggot a whole Cart load together then it breaketh out So Sir if there bee a competent maintenance for the Ministery they will keep themselves within their bounds but if Living be heaped upon Living and Temporalities added to Spiritualities the flame will soone breake out and set the house on fire Sir I doe not envy the wealth or greatnesse of the Clergy but I am very confident if those were lesse they would be better and doe more service to Christ and his Church and I am very clear in mine owne heart that the livings of the Clergy being more equally distributed the service of God would be so farre from receiving any prejudice that it would bee much advanced and withall a good proportion of revenue might returne againe to the Crowne from whence it was first derived Sir Bishopricks Deanries and Chapiters are like to great wasters in a Wood they make no proofe themselves they cumber the ground whereon they stand and with their great Armes and Boughes streiched forth on every side partly by their shade and partly by their sowre droppings they hinder all the young wood under them from growing and thriving To speake plaine English these Bishops Deanes and Chapiters doe little good themselves by preaching or otherwise and if they were felled a great deale of good timber might be cut out of them for the uses of the Church and Kingdome at this time A fresh stoole of three or foure able Ministers might spring up in their stead to very good purpose in these great Townes which are Ordinarily the Seats of those Episcopall and Collegiate Churches and the private Congregations of divers Parochiall Churches might thrive and grow better which now have the Sunne of Gods Word I meane the cleare and spirituall preaching thereof kept from them and live in the dangerous shade of ignorance by reason that all the meanes is taken from them and appropriated unto Bishops or to Deanries and Chaptiers and other such Collegiate Churches Besides such as doe begin to grow and start up through the voluntary pains of some amongst them or by such preaching as they themselves have procured by their voluntary contributions should not still bee dropped on as they are from the armes and appendances of those great wasters and kept downe continually by their bitter persecutions That which remaines now is to shew how these great Revenues and Dignities become the seedes of superstition and that is this The Clergy in the maintenance of their greatnesse which they are neither willing to forgoe nor yet well able to maintaine upon the principles of the Reformed Religion finding that the popish principles whereon the Bishop of Rome built his greatnesse to suit well unto their ends that maketh them to side with that party and that must needs bring in superstition and as ambition allureth on the one side so the principles they goe by draw them on farther and farther and happily at length farther than they themselves at first intended Whether a reconciliation with Rome were imagined or no by some I leave it to every one to judge within himselfe But sure I am if an accommodation could have beene made in some fashion or other with the Church of Rome the Clergy might againe be capable of forraigne preferments and Cardinals Caps and this is no small temptation Now Sir I am at an end onely I shall draw out three conclusions which I conceive may clearely be collected out of what I have said First that civill jurisdiction in the persons of Clergy-men together with their great Revenues and high places of dignity is one great cause of the evills which we suffer in matter of Religion Secondly that the sole and arbitrary power of Bishops in the ordaining and detriving of Ministers and in Excommunication and absolution is another great cause of the evills we suffer in matter of Religion Thirdly the strict urging of Subscription and Conformity to the Ceremonies and Canons of the Church is another great cause of evill which wee suffer in matter of Religion And now my humble motion is that we should take a piece onely of this subject into our consideration but the whole matter and that not onely that part of the Ministers Remonstrance which hath beene read should be referred to the Committee which you are about to name but Londons Petition also and all other Petitions of the like nature so soone as they shall bee read in the house and that the Committee may collect out of them all such heads as are fit for the consideration of this house and surely that is fit to bee considered that happily will not be thought fit to be altered consideration is one thing and alteration another where there is a mixture of bad and good together the whole must bee considered that we may know how to sever the good from the bad and so retaine the one and reject the other which is all that I desire And if any thing have fallen from me more inconsiderate as in so long a discourse many things may have done I humbly crave the pardon of the house protesting that I have spoken nothing but with a minde which is ready to sacrifice the body it dwelleth in to the peace and safety of his Majesties Kingdomes and the safety and honour of his Majesty in the Government of them A Speech made before the Lords in the Upper House by Mr. Francis Rous Esquire March the 16th 1640. Against Dr. Cossens Dr. Maynwaring and Dr. Beale My LORDS I AM commanded by the House of Commons to present to your Lordships a Declaration and Impeachment against Dr. Cossens and others upon the complaint of Mr. Peter Smart which Mr. Smart was a Proto-Martyr or first Confessor of note in the late dayes of persecution The whole matter is a Tree whereof the branches and fruit are manifest in the Articles of this declaration which being read I shall with your Lordships favour discover and lay open the root The Declaration was
read and then He proceeded thus My Lords I AM now to discover the root of Mr. Smarts Persecution Your Lordships have heard of a great Designe to bring in Popery you have heard of Armies of Souldiers and particularly of the Popish Irish Armie the burthen and Complaint of the Commons But there is another Army not so much spoken of and that is an Army of Priests for since Altars came in so they delight to be called it is a saying of Gregory the Great that when Antichrist comes Preparatus est exercitus Sacerdotum There is an Armie of Priests ready to receive him this is fulfilled in our time for certainty this Army of Priests doth many wayes advance the designe and plot of Popery A first is by the subversion of our Lawes and Government our Lawes and Popery cannot stand together but either Popery must overthrow our Lawes or our Lawes must over throw Popery but to overthrow our Lawes they must overthrow Parliaments and to overthrow Parliaments they must overthrow property thy must bring the Subjects goods to be arbitrarily disposed that so there may bee no need of Parliament this hath bind done by Dr. Maynwaring whom we finde wanting yet not in the seats but in the Bar of the Lords house and the like by Dr. Beale and I think it was the intention of the late Canons A second way by which this Army of Priests advanceth the Popish Designe is the way of Treatie This hath bind acted both by writings conference Sancta Clara himselfe saith Doctâ—ssimi eorum quibusounque egi so it seems they have had conferences together And Sancta Clara on his part labours to bring the Articles of our Church to Popery and some of our side strive to meete him in that way we have a testimony that the great Arch-Priest himselfe hath said It were no hard matter to make a reconciliation if a wise man had the handling of it But I verily beleeve that as the state of Papacie stands a farre wise man than bee cannot reconcile Us without the losse of our Religion For the Pope being fastned to his Errors even by his Chaire of Inerrability hee sits still unmoved and so wee cannot meete except we come wholly to him A man standing in a Boat tyed to a Rocke when he drawes the Rope doth not draw the Rocke to the Boat but the Boat to the Rock And Sancta Clara doth in this somewhat honestly confesse it for he saith he dealt in this way of Treatie not to draw the Church to the Protestants but the Protestants to the Church A third way is a way of violence this violence they exercise partly by Secular Armes and partly by Priestly Armes which they call Spirituall for Secular Armes we have their owne confession that the late warre was Bellum Episcopale and we have the Papists confession that it was Bellum Papale for in their motives they say That the warre concernes them not onely as subjects but as Catholikes for so they falsely call themselves and if it be so then Bellum Episcopale is also Bellum Papale in the Episcopall Warre the Papall cause is advanced For the Spirituall Armes thus they come to execution When a great Man is comming his Sumpters his Furniture his Provisions goe before the Popes Furniture Altars and Copes Pictures and Images are come before and if wee beleeve Dr. Cossens the very substance of the Masse a certaine signe that the Pope was not farre off Now these fore-tunners being come if any man resist them Fire comes out of the Brambles and devoures the Cedars of Lebanon the Army of the Priests falls upon him with their Armes of Suspension Sequestration Excommunication Degradation and Deprivation And by these Armes hath Mr. Smart beene oppressed and undone Hee falls upon their Superstitions and Innovations and they fall upon him with their Armes they beate him down yea they pull him up by the rootes taking away all his meanes of maintenance and living yet they leave him life to feele his miseries Ita feriunt ut diu se sentiat mori there is no cruelty to Priesty cruelty these are they that did put our very Saviour to death the Calling is Reverend but the Corruption of it most pernicious Corruptio optimi pessima I know no reason of this change except it be that of the Apostle Because when they knew God they did not worship him as God but made a God of the World placing the excellency of Priesthood in worldly pompe and greatnesse and gave the glory of the invisible God to Pictures Images and Altars therefore God gave them up to vile affections to be implacable unmercifull and without naturall affection But whatsoever the cause is of their Corruption certainly their Armes have fallen heavily upon Mr. Smart and Priestly cruelty hath cast him into a long misery from which he could get no release by any Priestly mercy And now it is prayed that as these Delinquents by the cruell oppressions of Mr. Smart have advanced the Cause of Popery so they may in such a degree of Iustice bee punished that in them Priestly cruelty and the very cause of Popery may appeare to be punished and suppressed and that Mr. Smart suffering for the Cause of Protestancy may bee so repaired that in him pious Constancy and the very Cause of Protestancy may appeare to be righted and repaired A second Speech of the Honorable NATHANAEL FIENNES second Son to the right Honourable the Lord Say touching the Subjects Liberty against the late Canons and the new Oath Mr. Speaker NOW that we are about to brand these Canons in respect of the matter contained in them it is the proper time to open the foulenesse thereof and though much of this hath beene anticipated in the generall debate yet if any thing hath beene omitted or if any thing may bee farther cleared in that kinde it is for the service of the House that it should now be done Sir I conceive these Canons doe containe sundry matters which are not onely contrary to the Lawes of this Land but also destructive of the very principall and fundamentall Lawes of this Kingdome I shall begin with the first Canon wherein the framers of these Canons have assumed unto themselves a Parliamentary power and that too in a very high degree for they have taken upon them to define what is the power of the King what the liberty of the Subjects and what propriety hee hath in his goods If this bee not proper to a Parliament I know not what is Nay it is the highest matter that can fall under the consideration of a Parliament and such a poynt as wherein they would have walked with more tendernesse and circumspection than these bold Divines have done And surely as this was an act of such presumption as no age can parallell so is it of such dangerous consequence as nothing can be more For they doe not onely take upon them to determine matters of this nature but also
that demonstration of the intention to make that formality Treason which were materially but a misdemeanor a Treason as well against the King as against the Kingdome for whatsoever is against the whole is undoubtedly against the head which takes from his Majesty the ground of his Rule the Lawes for if foundations bee destroyed the Pinnacles are most endangered which takes from his Majesty the principal honour of his Rule the Ruling over Free-men a power as much Nobler then over villaines as that is that 's over beasts which endevoured to take from his Majesty the principall support of his Rule their hearts and affections over whom he rules a better and surer strength and wall to the King than the Sea is to the Kingdome and by begetting a mutuall distrust and by that a mutuall disaffection between them to hazard the danger even of the destruction of both My Lords I shall the lesse need to presse this because as it were unreasonable in any case to suspect your Iustice so here especially where your interest so nearly unites you your great share in possessions giving you an equall concernment in propriety the care and paines used by your Noble Ancestors in the founding and asserting of our conmon Liberties rendring the just defence of them your most proper and peculiar inheritance and both exciting to oppose and extirpate all such designes as did introduce and would have set led an Arbitrary that is an intollerable forme of Government and have made even your Lordships and your posterity but Right Honourarable slaves My Lords I will spend no more words Luctando cum larva in accusing the Ghost of a departed person whom his Crimes accuse more than I can doe and his absence accuseth no lesse than his Crime Neither will I excuse the length of what I have said because I cannot adde to an Excuse without adding to the Fault or my owne imperfections either in the matter or manner of it which I know must appeare the greater by being compared with that learned Gentlemans great abilitie who hath precoded me at this time I will onely desire by the Command and in the behalfe of the House of Commons that these proceedings against the Lord Finch may be put in so speedy away of dispatch as in such cases the course of Parliament will allow The first Speech made by Sir Edward Deering in the house of Commons Mr. Speaker YEsterday the affaires of this House did borrow all the time allotted to the great Committee of Religion I am sorry that having but halfe a day in a whole week we have lost that Mr. Speaker The sufferings that wee have undergone are reduceable to two heads The first concerning the Church The second belonging to the Common-wealth The first of these must have the first fruites of the Parliament as being the first in weight and worth and more immediately to the honour of God and his Glory every dramme whereof is worth the whole weight of a Kingdome The Common-wealth it is true is ful of apparent dangers the Sword is come home unto us and two Twinned Nations united together under one regall Head Brethren together in the Bowels and Bosome of the same Island and which is above all is imbanded together in the same Religion I say in the same Religion by a divellish Machination like to be fatally imbrewed in each others blood ready to digge each others Graves Quantillum abfuit For other grievances also the poore dis-hearted Suject sadly grieves not able to distinguish betweene Power and Law and with a weeping heart no question hath long prayed for this houre in hope to be relieved and to know hereafter whether any thing hee hath besidâ—s his poore part and portion of the common Aire hee breatheth may be truly called his owne These Mr. Speaker and many other doe deserve and must shortly have our deepe regards but suo gradis Now in the first place there is a unum necessarium above all our worldly sufferings and dangers Religion the immediate Service due unto Almighty God and herein let us all be confident that all our consultations wil be unprosperous if wee put any determination before that of Religion For my part let the Sword reach from the North to the South and a generall perdition of all our remaining rights threaten us in an open view it shall bee so farre from making mee to decline the first setling of Religion that I shall ever argue and rather conclude it thus That the more great and eminent our perils of this World are the stronger and quicker ought our care to be for the glory of God and the pure Law of our Soules If then Mr. Speaker it may passe with full allowance that all our cares may give way unto the Treaty of Religion I will reduce that also unto two heads First of Ecclesiasticall persons Then of Ecclesiasticall Causes Let no man start or be affrighted at the imagined length of this Consultation it will not it cannot take up so much Time as it is worth This is God and the Kings God and the Kingdomes nay this is God and the two Kingdomes cause And therefore Mr. Speaker my humble motion is that wee may all of us seriously speedily and heartily enter upon this the best and the greatest and the most important cause wee can treate on Now Mr. Speaker in pursuite of mine owne motion and to make a little entrance into these great Affaires I will present unto you the Petition of a poore distressed Minister in the Couâ—ty of Kent a man conformable in his practice Orthodoxe in his Doctrine laborious in his Ministery as any wee have or I doe know He is now a sufferer as all good men are under the generall obloquy of a Puritan as with other things was admirably delivered by that silver Trumpet at the Bar the Pursevant watched his doore and divides him and his Cure asunder to both their griefes for it is not with him as perhaps with some that set the Pursevant at worke glad of an excuse to be out of thâ— Pulpit it is his delight to Preach About a week since I went over to Lambeth to moove that great Bishop too great indeede to take this danger from off this Minister and recall the Pursevant And withall did undertake for Mr. Wilson for so is your Petitioner called that hee should answere his Accusers in any of the Kings Courts aâ— Westminster The Bishop made me this answere in His verbis I am sure that hee will not absent from his Cure a Twelve-moneth together and then I doubt not but once in a yeare wee shall have him This was all that I could obtaine but I hope by the helpe of this House before this yeare of threats-be runne out his Grace will eyther have more Grace or no Grace at all For our griefes are manifold and doe fill a mighty and vast Circumference yet so that from every part our lines of sorrow doe lead unto him and
a few hard words against Iesuites all popery is countenanc'd Whosoever squares his actions by any rule either Divine or Humane hee is a Puritan Whosoever would be governed by the Kings Lawes he is a Puritan Hee that will not doe whatsoever other men would have him doe he is a Puritan Their great worke their Master-piece now is To make all those of the Religion to be the suspected party of the Kingdome Let us further reflect upon the ill effect these Courts have wrought what by a defection from us on the one side a separation on the other Some imagining whither we are tending made haste to turne or declare themselves Papists before hand thereby hoping to render themselves the more gracious the more acceptable A great multitude of the Kings Subjects striving to hold communion with us but seeing how far we were gone and searing how much further we wouâ—d goe were forc'd to flye the Land some into other inhabited Countries very many into Savago wildernesses because the Land would not bear them Do not they that cause these things cast a reproach upon the government Mr. Speaker let it be our principall care that these wayes neither continue nor returne upon us If wee secure our Religion wee shall cut off and defeat many Plots that are now on foot by Them and Others Beleeve it Sir Religion hath beene for a long time and still is the great designe upon this Kingdome It is a knowne and practic'd principle That they who would introduce another Religion into the Church must first trouble and disorder the government of the State that so they may worke their ends in a confusion which now lyes at the doore I come next Mr. Speaker to the Kings businesse more particularly which indeed is the Kingdomes for one hath no existence no being without the other their relation is so neere yet some have strongly and subtilly laboured a divorce which hath beene the very band both of King and Kingdome When foundations are shaken it is high time to looke to the building He hath no Heart no Head no Soule that is not moved in his whole man to look upon the distresses the miseries of the Common-wealth that is not forward in all that he is and hath to redresse them in a right way The King likewise is reduced to great straights wherein it were undutifulnesse beyond inhumanity to take advantage for him let us rather make it an advantage for him to doe him best service when he hath most need Not to seeke our owne good but in Him and with Him else wee shall commit the same crimes our selves which wee must condemne in others His Majesty hath clearely and freely put himselfe into the hands of this Parliament and I presume there is not a Man in this House but feeles himselfe advanc't in this high trust but if Hee prosper no better in our hands than he hath done in theirs who have hitherto had the handling of his affaires wee shall for ever make our selves unworthy of so gracious a confidence I have often thought and said that it must bee some great extremity that would recover and certifie this state and when thâ—t extremity did come Jt would be a great hazzard whether it might prove a remedy or ruine We are now Mr. Speaker upon that verticall turning poynt and therefore it is no time to palliate to foment our owne undoing Let us set upon the remedy wee must first know the Disease But to discover the deseases of the State is according to some to traduce the Government yet others are of opinion that this is the halfe way to the Cure His Majesty is wiser than they that have advised him and therefore hee cannot but see and feele their subverting destructive Counsells which speake lowder than I can speak of them for they ring a dolefull deadly knell over the whole Kingdome His Majesty best knowes who they are for us let the Matters bolt out the men their actions discover them They are men that talke largely of the Kings service have done none but their owne and that 's too evident They speake highly of the Kings power but they have made it a miserable power that produceth nothing but weaknesse both to the King and Kingdome They have exhausted the Kings revenew to the bottome nay through the bottome and beyond They have spent vast summes of money wastefully fruitlesly dangerously So that more money without other Counsells will be but a swift undoing They have alwayes peremptorily pursued one obstinate pernicious course First they bring things to an extremitie then they make that extremity of their owne making the reason of their next action seven times worse than the former and there wee are at this instant They have almost spoyled the best instituted Government in the world for Soveraignty in a King liberty to the Subject the proportionable temper of both which makes the happiest state for power for riches for duration They have unmannerly and slubbringly cast all their Projects all their Machinations upon the King which no wise or good Minister of State ever did but would still take all harsh distasteful things upon themselves to cleare to sweeten their Master They have not suffered his Majestie to appeare unto his people in his owne native goodnesse They have eclipsed him by their interposition althogh grosse condense bodies may obscure and hinder the Sun from shining out yet is hee still the same in his owne splendor And when they are removed all Creatures under him are directed by his light comforted by his beames But they have framed a superstitious seeming Maxime of State for their owne turne That if a King will suffer men to be torne from him hee shall never have any good service done him When the plaine truth is that this is the surest way to preserve a King from having ill servants abâ—ut him And the Divine Truth likewise is Take away the wicked from the King and his Throne shall be established Mr. Speaker Now wee see what the sores are in generall and when more particulars shall appeare let us be very carefull to draw out the Cores of them not to skin them over with a slight suppurating fâ—string Cure lest they breake out againe into a greater m schiefe consider of it consult and speake your min es It hath heretofore beene boasted That the King should never call a Parliament till he had no need of his people These were words of Division and malignitie The King must alwaies according to his occasions have use of his peoples Power Hearts Hands Purses The People will alwayes have need of the Kings Clemencie Iustice Protection And this Reciprocation is the strongest the sweetest union It hath bin said too of late That a Parliament will take away more from the King then they will give him It may well be said That those things which will fall away of themselves will enable the Subject to give him more than can be taken any way
Majesties government and intending the subversion of the fundamental Lawes and setled governement of that Realme and the distraction of his Majesties liege people there did upon the 30. day of September in the ninth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne in the Citie of Dublin the chiefe Citie of that Kingdome where his Majesties privie Counsell and Courts of Iustice doe ordinarily reside and whither the Nobility and Gentry of that Realme doe usually resort for Iustice in a publikâ— Speech before divers of the Nâ—bility and Gentry and before the Major Aldermen and Recorder and many Citizens of Dublin and other his Majesties Liege people declare and publish that Ireland was a conquered Nation and that the King might doe with them what he pleased and speaking of the Charters of the former Kings of England made to that Citie he further said that their Charters were nothing worth and did binde the King no further then hee pleased 4. That Richard Earle of Corke having sued out processe in course of Law for recovery of his possessions from which he was put by colour of an order made by the said Earle of Strafford and the Counsell Table of the said Realme of Ireland The said Earle of Strafford upon a paper petition without legall proceeding did the 20 day of February in the 11. yeare of his nâ—w Majesties Reigne threaten the said Earle of Corke beeing then a Peere of the said Realme to imprison him unlesse he would surcease his suit and said That he would have neither Law nor Lawyers dispute or question any of his orders And the 20. dâ—y of March in the said 11. year of the said Earle of Strafford speaking of an order of the said Counsell Table of that Realme in the time of King James which concerned a Lease which the said Earle of Corke claimed in certaine rectories or tithes which the said Earle of Cork alleaged to be of no force said That he would make the said Earle and all Ireland know so long as hee had the government there any Act of State there made or to bee made should bee as binding to the Subjects of that Kingdome as an Act of Parliament And did question the said Earle of Corke in the Castle Chamber upon pretence of the breach of the said order of Counsell Table and did sundry other times and upon sundry other occasions by his words and speeches arrogate to himselfe a power above the fundementall Lawes and established Government of that Kingdome and scorned the said Lawes and established government 5 That according to such his Declarations and Speeches the said Earls of S r ffoâ—d did use and exercise a power above â—nd against and to the subversion of the said fundame tall Laws and established government of the said Realme of Ireland exâ—ending such his power to the goods free holds inheritances liberties and lives of his Majesties Subjects in the said Realme viz. The said Earle of Sirâ—fford the twelfth day of December Anno Domini 1635. in the time of full peace did in the said Realme of Ireland give and procure to bee given against the Lord Mount Norris then and yet a Peere of Ireland and then Vice-Treasurer and receiver generall of the Realme of Ireland and one of the principall Secretaries of State and Keeper of the privy Signet of the said Kingdome a sentence of death by a Councell of warre called together by the said Earle of Strafford without any warrant or authority of Law or offence deserving any such punishment And hee the said Earle did also at Dublin within the said Realm of Ireland in the Month of March in the fourteenth yeare of his Majesties Reigne without any legall or due proceedings or tryall give or cause to bee given a sentence of death against one other of his Majesties Subjects whose name is yet unknowne and caused him to be put to death in execution of the said sentence 6 That the said Earle of Strafford without any legall proceedings and upon a paper Petition of Richard Ralstone did cause the said Lord Mount-Norris to be disseized and put out of possession of his free-hold and inheritance of his Mannor and Tymore in the Countrey of Armagh in the Kingdome of Ireland the said Lord Mount-Norris having beene two yeares before in quiet possession thereof 7 That the said Earle of Strafford in the Termâ— of holy Trinity in the thirteenth yeare of his now Majesties Reigne did cause a case commonly called the case of Tenures upon defective Titles to be made and drawne up without any juâ—y or tryall or other legall processe and without the consent of parties and did then procure the ludges of the said Realme of Ireland to deliver their opinions and resolutions to that case and by colour of such opinion did without any legal proceeding cause Thâ—mas Lord Dillon a Peeâ—e of the said Realme of Ireland to be put out of possession of divers Lands and Tenements being his free-hold in the Countrey of Mago and Rosecomen in the said Kingdome and divers other of his Majesties Subjects to be also put out of possession disseized of their free hold by colour of the same resolution without legall proceedings whereby many hundreds of his Majesties subjects were undone and their families utterly ruinated 8 That the said Earle of Strafford upon a Petition of Sir Iohn Gifford Knight the first day of February in the said thirteenth yeare of his Majesties reigne without any regall Processe made a Decree or Order against Adam Viscount Lofts of Elie a Peere of the said Realme of Ireland and L Chancellor of Ireland did cause the said Viscount to bee imprisoned and kept close prisoner on pretence of disobedience to the said Decree or order And the said Earle without any authority and contrary to his Commission required and commanded the said Lord Viscount to yeeld unto him the great Seale of the Realme of Ireland which was then in his custody by his Majesties command and imprisoned the said Chancellour for not obeying such his command And without any legall proceedings did in the same thirteenth yeare imprison George Earle of Kildare a Peere of Ireland against Law thereby to enforce him to submit his Title to the Mannor and Lordship of Castle Leigh in the Queens County being of great yearely value to the said Earle of Straffords will and pleasure and kept him a yeare prisoner for the said cause two moneths whereof hee kept him close prisosoner and refused to enlarge him notwithstanding his Majesties Letters for his enlargement to the said Earle of Strafford directed And upon a Petition exhibited in October 1635. by Thomas Hibbots against dame Mary Hibbots widdow to him the said Earle of Strafford the said Earle of Strafford recommended the said Petition to the Counsell Table of Ireland where the most part of the Counsell gave their vote and opinion for the said Ladie but the said Earle finding fault herewith caused an order to be entred against the said Lady and threatned her
the said Earle did raise an Armie in the said Realme of England consisting of eight thousand foot all of which except one thousand or thereabouts were Papists and the said one thousand were drawne out of the old Army there consisting of two thousand foote and in their places there were a thousand Papists or thereabouts put into the said old Army by the said Earle And the more to ingage and tye the new Army of Papists to himselfe and to incourage them and to discourage and weare out the old Armie the said Earle did so provide That the said new Army of Papists were duâ—ly payeâ— and had all necessaries provided for them and permitted the exercise of their Religion but the said old Army were for the space of one whole yeare and upwards unpaid And that the said Earle being appoynted a Commissioner with eleven severall Counties in the Northern parts of England for compounding with Recusants for their forfeitures due to his Majesty which Commission beareth date the eighth day of Iuly in the fifth yeare of his Majesties Reigne that now is and being also Receiver of the Composition Money thereby arising and of other debts Duties and penalties for his Majesties use by Letters Patents dated the 9. day of the said Iuly he to engage the said Recusants to him did compound with with them at low and under rates and provided that they should bee discharged of all proceedings against them in all his Majesties Courts both temporall and Ecclesiasticall in manifest breach of and contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme in that behalfe established 19 That the said Earle having taxed and levied the said impositions and raised the said Monopolies and committed the said oppressions in his Majesties name and as by his Majesties Royall command he the said Earle in May the 15 yeare of his Majesties Reigne did of his owne authority contrive and frame a new and unusuall oath by the purport whereof among many other things the party taking the said oath was to sweare that he should not protest against any of his Majesties royall commands but submit themselves in all obedience thereunto Which oath he so contrived to enforce the same on the subjects of the Scottish Nation inhabiting in Ireland and out of a hatred to the said Nation and to put them to a discontent with his Majesty his government there and compelled divers of his Majesties said subjects there to take the said oath some he grievously fined and imprisoned and others he destroyed and exiled and namely the 10 of October Anno Dom. 1639. He fined Henry Steward and his wife who refused to take the said oath 5000. pounds a piece and their 2. daughters and Iames Gray 3000. pounds a piece and imprisoned them for not paying the said fines The said Henry Stewards wife and daughters and Iames Gray being the Kings liege people of the Scottish Nation and divers others he used in like manner and the said Earle upon that occasion did declare that the said oath did not onely oblige them in point of allegiance to his Majesty and acknowledgement of his Supremacie only but to the Ceremonies and governement of the Church established or to be established by his Majesties Royall authoritie and said that the refusers to obey he would prosecute to the blood 20 That the said Earle in the 15. and 16. yeares of his Majesties Reigne and divers yeares past laboured and endevoured to beget in his Majestie an ill opinion of his subjects namely those of the Scottish Nation and diverse and sundry times and especially since the Pacification made by his Majestie with his said Subjects of Scotland in Summer in the 15 yeare of his Majesties Reigne he the said Earle did labour and endeavour to perswade incite and provoke his Majestie to an offensive warre against his said Subjects of the Scottish Nation And the said Earle by his counsell actions and endeavours hath beene and is a principall and chiefe incendâ—ary of the warre and discord betweene his Majestie and his Subjects of England and the said Subjects of Scotland and hath declared and advised his Majesty that the demand made by the Scots in this Parliament were a sufficient cause of warre against them The said Earle having formerly expressed the height rancor of his minde towards his Subjects of the Scottish Nation viz. the tenth day of October in the 15. yeare of his Majesties Reâ—gne he said that the Nation of the Scots were â—â—bâ—â—s and traytors and hee beeing then about to come to England he then further said that if it pleased his Master meaning his Majesty to send him backe againe hee would root cut of the said Kingdome meaning the Kingdom of Ireland the Scottish Nation both root and branch Some Lords and others who had taken the said oath in the precedent Article onely excepted and the sayd Earle hath caused divers of the said ships and goods of the Scots to bee stayed seized and molested to the intent to set on the said warre 21. That the said Earle of Strafford shortly after his speeches mentioned in the last precedent Article to wit in the fifteenth yeare of his Majesties Reigne came into this Realme of England and was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and continued his government of that Kingdome by a Deputy At his arrivall here finding that his Majestie with much wisedome and goodnesse had composed the troubles in the North and had made a Pacification with his Subjects of Scotland he laboured by all meanes to procure his Majesty to breake that Pacification incensing his Majesty against his Subjects of that Kingdome and the proceedings of the Parliament there And having incensed his Majestie to an offensive war against his said Subjects of Scotland by Sea and by Land and by pretext thereof to raise Forces for the maintenance of that war he counselled his Majesty to call a Parlament in England yet the said Earle intended if the said proceedings of that Parliament should not be such as would stand with the said Earle of Straffords mischievous designes he would then procure his Majestie to breake the same and by wayes of force and power to raise monies upon the said subjects of this Kingdome And for the incouragement of his Majestie to hearken to his advice he did before his Majesty and his privie Counsell then sitting in Counsell make a large Declaration that he would serve his Majesty in any other way incase the Parliament should not supply him 22 That in the moneth of March before the beginning of the last Parliament the said Earle of Stafford went into Ireland and procured the Parliament of that Kingdome to declare their assistance in a war against the Scots And gave directions for the raising of an Army consisting of 8000. foot and 1000. horse being for the most part Papists as aforesaid And confederating with one Sir George Râ—dcliffe did together with him the said Sir George trayterously conspire to employ the said Army for the
seemes to be this particular case yet seeing that I am pressed by both Houses to give way to his because I will avoid the inconveniencie of giving so great discontent to my people as I conceive this Mercy may produce therefore I doe remit this particular Cause to both the Houses But I desire them to take into their consideration the inconveniencies as I conceive may upon this occasion fall upon my Subjects and other Protestants abroad especially since it may seeme to other States to be a severity which surprise having thus represented I think my selfe discharged from all ill consequence that may ensue upon the execution of this person FINIS To the Right Honourable the Commons House of Parliament The humble Petition of many of his Majesties Subjects in and about the Citie of London and severall Counties of the Kingdome THat wheras the government of Archbishops and Lord-Bishops Deanes and Archdeacons c. with their Courts and ministrations in them hath proved prejudiciall and very dangerous both to the Church and Common-wealth they themselves having formerly held that they have their jurisdiction or authority of humane Authority till of these later times being further perused about the unlawfulnesse that they have claymed their calling immediatly from the Lord JESVS CHRIST which is against the Lawes of this Kingdome and Derogatory to his Majestie and his State Royall And whereas the said government is found by wofull experience to be a maine cause and occasion of many foule evils pressures and grievance of a very high nature unto his Majesties Subjects in their owne Consciences liberties and â—st tes as in a Shedule of particulars hereunto annexed may in part appeare We therefore most humbly pray and beseech this Honourable Assembly the premisses considered that the said government with all its dependâ—nces roots and branches may be abolished and all lawes in their behalfe made voyd and the government according to Gods word may be rightly placed among us and we your humble Supplyants as in duty we are bound will daily pray for his Majesties long and happy raigne over us and for the prosperous successe of this High and Honourable Court of Parliament c. A Particular of the manifold Evils Pressures and Grievances caused practized and occasioned by the Prelates and their Dependants I. FIrst the subjecting and enclining all Ministers under them and their Authority and so by degrees exempting of them from the Temporall power whence followes II. The faint-heartednesse of Ministers to preach the truth of God lest they should displease the Prelates as namely the Doctrine of Predestination of Free-grace of Perseverance of Originall sinne remaining after Baptisme of the Sabbath the Doctrine against universall Grace Election for Faith fore-seene Free-will against Antichrist non-Residents humane Inventions of Gods worship all which are generally with-held from the peoples knowledge because not relishing to the Bishops III. The encouragement of Ministers to despise the temporall Magistracie the Nobles and Gentry of the Land to abuse the Subjects live contentiously with their neighbours knowing that they being the Bishops creatures they shall be supported IV. The restraint of many godly and able men from the Ministry and thrusting out of many Congregations their faithfull diligent and powerfull Ministers who lived peaceably with them and did them good onely because they cannot in Conscience submit unto and maintaine the Bishops needlesse devices nay sometimes for no other cause but for their zeale in Preaching or great Auditories V. The suppressing of that godly Designe set on foot by certaine Sects and sugred with many great gifts by sundry well-affected persons for the buying of Impropriations and placing of able Ministers in them maintaining of Lectures and founding of Free Schooles which the Prelates could not endure lest it should darken their glories and draw the Ministers from their dependance upon them VI. The great encrease of idle lewd and dissolute ignorant and erroneous men in the Ministry which swarme like the Locusts of Egypt over the whole Kingdome and will they but weare a Canonicall Coat a Surplisse a Hood bow at the name of JESVS and be zealous of Superstitious Ceremonies they may live as they list confront whom they please preach and vent what errours they will and neglect preaching at their pleasures without controule VII The discouragement of many from bringing up their Children in learning the many Schismes errors and strange opinions which are in the Church great Corruptions which are in the Universities the grosse and lamentable ignorance almost every where among the people the want of preaching Ministers in very many places both of England Wales the loathing of the Ministry and the generall defection to all manner of prophanenesse VIII The swarming of lascivious idle and unprofitable Books and Pamphlets Play-books and Ballads as namely Ovids fits of Love the Parliament of Women came out at the dissolving of the last Parliament Barnes Poems Parkers Ballads in disgrace of Religion to the encrease of all vice and withdrawing of people from reading studying and hearing the word of God and other good Books IX The hindring of godly Books to be Printed the blotting out or perverting those which they suffer all or most of that which strikes either at Poperie or Arminianisme the adding of what or where pleaseth them and the restraints of reprinting Books formerly lycensed without relycensing X. The publishing and venting of Popish Arminian and other dangerous Books and Tenets as namely that the Church of Rome is a true Church and in the worst times never erred in Fundamentals that the Subjects have no propriety in their Estates but that the King may take from them what hee pleaseth that all is the Kings and that he is bound by no Law and many other from the former whereof hath sprang XI The growth of Popery and encrease of Papists Priests and Jesuits in sundry places but especially about London since the Reformation the frequent venting of Crucifixes and Pop sh Pictures both engraven and printed and the placing of such in Bibles XII The multitude of Monopolies and Pattents drawing with them innumerable Perjuries the large encrease of Customes and Impositions upon Commodities the Ship-monies and many other great burthens upon the Common-wealth under which all groane XIII Moreover the Offices and Jurisdictions of Arch-bishopâ— Lord-Bishops Deanes Arch-Deacons being the same way of Church Government which is in the Romish Church and which was in England in the time of Poperie little change thereof being made except onely the head from whence it was derived the same Arguments supporting the Pope which doe uphold the Prelates and overthrowing the Prelates which doe pull downe the Pope and other reformed Churches having upon their rejection of the Pope cast the Prelates out also as Members of the Beast Hence it is that the Prelates here in England by themselves or their Diciples plead and maintaine that the Pope is not Antichrist and that the Church of Rome is a
studied Speech I come to speake my heart and to speake it clearely and plainely and then leave it to your clemencie and Justice and I hope if any thing shall slip from me to work contrary to my meaning or intention disorderly or ill placed you will be pleased to make a favourable construction and leave me the liberty of explanation if there shall be any but I hope there shall be no cause for it I hope for my affection in Religion no man doubteth me what my education what and under whom for many yeares is well knowne I lived neere 30 yeares in the Society of Grayes Inn and if one that was a reverend Preacher in my time Doctor Sibbs were now alive hee were able to give testimony to this House that when a party ill affected in Religion sought to weary him and tyer him out hee had his chiefest encouragement from me I have now Master Speaker been 15 yeares of the Kings Councell from the first houre to this minute no man is able to say that ever I was Author Advisor or Consentor to any project It pleased the King my gracious Master after I had served him divers yeares to preferre mee to two places to be chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas and then Keeper of his great Seale I say it in the presence of God I was so far from the thought of the one and from the ambition of the other that if my Master his grace and goodnesse had not been I had never enjoyed those Honours I cannot tell Master Speaker nor I doe not know what particulars there are that may draw me into your disfavour or ill opinion and therefore I shall come very weakly armed yet to those that either in my owne knowledge or by such knowledge as is given me and not from any in this House I shall speake somewhat that I hope being truth and accompanied with clearenesse and ingenuity will at last procure some allay of that ill opinion which may perhaps be conceived of me Master Speaker I had once the Honour to sit in the place that you doe from the first time I came thither to the unfortunate time I doe appeale to all that were here then if I served you not with candor Ill office I never did to any of the House good offices I have witnesses enough I did many I was so happy that upon an occasion which once happened I received an expression and testimony of the good affection of this House towards me For the last unhappy day I had a great share in the unhappinesse and sorrow of it I hope there are enough doe remember no man within the walls of this House did expresse more symptomes of sorrow griefe and distraction then I did After an adjournment for two or three dayes it pleased his Majestie to send for me to let me know that he could not so resolve of things as hee desired and therefore was desirous that there might be an adjournment for some few dayes more I protest I did not then discerne in his Majestie and I beleeve it was not in his thoughts to think of the dissolving of this Assembly but was pleased in the first place to give me a command to deliver his pleasure to the House for an adjournment for some few dayes till the Monday following as I remember and commanded me withall to deliver his pleasure that there should be no further speeches but forth with upon the delivery of the Message come and wait upon him hee likewise commanded me if questions were offered to be put upon my Alleageance I should not dare to doe it how much I did then in all humblenesse reason with his Majestie is not for me here to speake onely thus much let me say I was no Author of any counsell in it I was onely a person in receiving commission I speake not this as any thing I now produce or doe invent or take up for my owne excuse but that Which is knowne to divers and some Honourable persons in this house to be most true All that I will say for that is humbly to beseech you all to consider That if it had beene any mans cause as it was mine betweene the displeasure of a gracious King and the ill opinion of an Honourable Assembly I beseech you lay all together lay my first actions and behaviour with the last I shall submit to your Honourable and favourable constructions For the Shipping businesse my opinion of that cause hath layne heavy upon me I shall clearely and truly present unto you what every thing is with this protestation that if in reckoning up my owne opinion what I was of or what I delivered any thing of it be displeasing or coÌ„trary to the opinion of this House that I am farre from justifying of it but submit that and all other my actions to your wisedomes and goodnesse Master Speaker the first Writs that were sent out about Shipping businesse I had no more knowledge of it and was as ignorant as any one Member of this House or any man in the Kingdome I was never the Author nor Advisor of it and will boldly say from the first to this houre I did never advise nor counsell the setting forth of any Ship-writs in my life Master Speaker it is true that I was made chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas some foure dayes before the Ship-writs went out to the Ports and Maritine places as I doe remember the 20 of October 1634. they doe beare Teste and I was sworne Justice the 16 of October so as they went out in that time but without my knowledge or privity the God of heaven knowes this to be true Master Speaker afterwards his Majestie was pleased to command my Lord chiefe Justice of the Kings Bench that then was Sir Thomas Richardson and chiefe Baron of the Exchequer that now is and my selfe then chiefe Justice of the Common Pleas to take into consideration the Presidents then brought unto us which we did and after returned to his Majestie what we had found out of those Presidents It is true that afterwards his Majestie did take into consideration that if the whole Kingdome were concerned that it was not reason to lay the whole burthen upon the Cinque Ports and Maritine Townes Thereupon upon what ground his Majesty took that into his consideration I doe confesse I doe know nothing of it His Majesty did command my Lord chief Justice that now is my Lord chiefe Baron and my selfe to returne our opinions whether when the whole Kingdome is in danger and the Kingdome in generall is concerned it be not according to Law and reason that the whole Kingdome and his Majestie and all interessed therein should joyne in defending and preserving thereof This was in time about one 1634. In Michaelmas Terme following his Majesty commanded â—e to goe to all the Judges and require their opinions in particular He commanded mee to doe it to every one and to charge them upon their
it like a busie angry Waspe his sting is in the tayle of every thing wee have likewise this day heard the report of the conference yesterday and in it the accusation which the Scottish Nation hath charged him withall and we doe all know he is guilty of the same if not more herein this Kingdome Master Speaker hee hath beene the great and common enemie of all goodnesse and good men and it is not safe that such a Viper should be neare his Majesties person to distill his poyson into his sacred eares nor is it safe for the Common-wealth that he sit in so eminent a place of government being thus accused wee know what we did in the Earle of Straffords case this man is the corrupt fountaine that hath infected all the streames and till the Fountaine be purged we can never expect or hope to have cleare channels I shall be therefore bold to offer my opinion and if Jerre it is the error of my judgement and not my want of zeale and affection to the publique good I conceive it is most necessary and fit that we should now take up a resolution to doe somwhat to strike while the iron is hot and to goe up to the Lords in the names of the Commons of this House and in the names of the Commons of England and to accuse him of high Treason and to desire their Lordships his person may be sequested and that in convenient time wee may bring up his charge FINIS A Message sent from the Queenes Majestie to the House of Commons by Mr. Comptroller 5o. Febr. 1640. THat her Majestie hath beene ready to use her best endeavours for the removing of all misunderstanding between the King and people That at the request of the Lords who petitioned the King for a Parliament her Majestie at that time writ effectually to the King and sent a Gentleman expresly to perswade the King to the holding of a Parliament That shee hath since beene most willing to doe all good Offices betweene the King and his People which is not unknowne to divers of the Lords and so shall ever continue to doe as judging it the onely way of happinesse to the King her selfe and Kingdome That all things be justly setled betweene the King and his people and all cause of misunderstanding taken away and removed That her Majestie having taken a knowledge that having one sent to her from the Pope is distastfull to this Kingdome She is desirous to give satisfaction to the Parliament which is convenient time shee will doe and remove him out of the Kingdome That understanding likewise that Exception had beene taken to the great resort to the Chappell of Denmark House shee will be carefull not to exceed that which is convenient and necessary for the Exercise of her Religion Shee further taketh notice that the Parliament is not satisfied with the manner of raising mony for the assistance of the King in his Journey to the North in the yeare 1639 at her entreaty from the Catholiques Shee was moved thereunto meerely out of her deere and tender affection to the King and of the Example of other his Majesties Subjects She seeing the like forwardnesse shee could not but expresse her forwardnesse to the assistance of the King If any thing be illegall shee was ignorant of the Law and was carried therein onely out of a great desire to be assisting to the King in so pressing an occasion but promiseth to be more cautious hereafter not to doe any thing but may stand with the established Lawes of the Kingdome Her Majestie being desirous to imploy her whole power to unite the King and people desireth the Parliament to looke forwards and passe by such mistakes and errors of her Servants as may be formerly committed And this your respect shee promiseth shall be repayed with all the good Offices shee can doe to the House which you shall finde with reall effects as often as there shall be occasion FINIS The Report of the Kings Message by the Lords to the House of Commons January 25. 1640. THat the occasion of his Majesties taking knowledge of the Conviction of John Goodman the Priest lately reprived was upon the constant order that hath been taken for divers yeares that the Recorder hath at the end of every Sessions attended his Majestie with the names of the persons convicted with an expression of their offences to the end that his Majestie might be truly enformed of the Natures of their Crimes and consequently not to be enduced by information to reprive such as were fit for grace and mercy And thereupon that he was lately Condemned for being in order of a Priest meerely and was acquited of the Charge of perverting the Kings people in their beliefe and had never beene Condemned or Banished before His Majestie is tender in matter of blood in Cases of this nature In which Queene Elizabeth and King James have beene often mercifull but to secure his people that this man shall doe no more hurt Hee is willing that he be imprisoned or banished as their Lordships shall advise And if he returne into the Kingdome to be put to Execution without delay And Hee will take such fit course for the expulsion of other Priests and Jesuites as Hee shall be councelled unto by your Lordships And that Hee doth not intend by this particular Mercie to lessen the force of the Lawes FINIS SIR THOMAS ROE his Speech in Parliament 1640. IT is a generall opinion that the trade of England was never greater and it may be true that if it be so yet it will not absolutely conclude that the Kingdome doth increase in riches for the Trade may by very aboundant and yet by consumption and importance of more then is expected the stocke may waste The Ballance would be a true solution of the Question if it could be rightly had but by reason it must be made up by a Medium of the Books of Rates it will be very uncertaine Therefore we must seeke another rule that is more sensible upon which wee may all judge and that may be by the plenty or scarcity of money for it is a true rule If money increase the Kingdome doth gaine by Trade if it be scarce it loseth Let us therefore consider first whether our Gold and Silver be not decreased and then by what meanes it is drayned and lastly how it may be prevented and what Remedies are appliable to effect it It is out of doubt our Gold is gone to travaile without Licence that is visible beyond Seas and every receiver of summes of money must find it privately and I feare the same of Silver for observing the species of late Coyning many halfe Crownes were stamped which are no more to be seene and by this measure I conclude the Kingdome growes poore The causes of this decay of Money may be many It may be stolne out for profit going much higher beyond Seas especially in France and Holland Much hath been
the bond of peace The treasures of the privie Purse are but the supplies of Fancies warranted by a common Interest But the publick Tribute given by common assent supports Royall Dignity is sheltred under the wings of Prerogative and by that power covered from the eyes from the touch of deceivers In these wee render Caesar what is due to Caesar and tribute to whom tribute belongeth The proper inscription of the Crown is born here and censures those malignant spirits that dare whisper into the eares of sacred Majesty that our selves onely not your sacred person not your Royall posterity are the supreme objects of the givers The preservation of the publick union the supply of your Armies the distresses miserable distresses of the Northern parts the common calamities of the times begat the consideration of this Bill the remainder of the six entire Subsidies happily presented to your sacred Majesty by this unworthy hand the first vote advanced a credit to us to issue them for the use of your sacred Majesty The full perfection adds growth to that credit and enables us to returne to your sacred Majesty as to the Ocean the Tribute due to Justice and Soveraignty These are the vast earnests of our desires which take their rise from the due regard from the safety of your Throne of your posterity Your Royall assent stamps your image here and makes this yours and yours onely which I by the commands of the Commons humbly beseech of your sacred Majesty THE SPEECH OF Master Plydell ESQUIRE Master Speaker I Have heard since I had the honour to sit here many grievances presented and truly Sir my heart bleeds within mee when I thinke of them especially those that concerne Religion But what should I speake of grievances concerning Religion when Religion it selfe is become a grievance nay the very Nurse and Mother of all grievances all scandalls all reproaches Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum SIR Not to trouble you with any long discourse if I have any sight that Bark both of Church and State hath a long time floated betwixt Scylla and Charibdis Popery on the one side and I know not what to call it on the other in many respects both alike dangerous unlesse the Italian Proverb may alter the Case God defend me from my reputed friends and I will defend my selfe from my profest enemies Sir Wee are intrusted by God the King and the Countrey with the managing of this Bark fraught with the fortunes of three great Kingdomes Now should wee so decline the former Rock that wee dash on the other side I humbly offer it to this Honourable Assembly whether shee might not have just cause to say shee had changed her Pilot rather then her condition and onely shifted places to finde her ruine For Sir there is as much beyond Truth as on this side it and would wee steere a right course wee must be sure to keepe the channell lest wee fall from one extreme to another from the dotage of Superstition to the frenzie of Profanenesse from bowing to Idols to worship the Calves of our owne imaginations Sir I beseech you consider what libellous Pamphlets are now printed what Sermons are preached not building hay and stubble but utterly subverting the foundations of Truth what irreverence in Churches what profanation of Gods Service to the scandall of Christianity the reproach of Religion and the intolerable griefe of all good men of which I may take up the words of Petrus de Aliaco to the Councell of Constance Nisi celeriter fiat Reformatio audeo dicere quòd licèt magna sint quae videmus tamen in brevi incomparabilia majora videmus post ista tam horrenda majora alia audiemus Sir I take God to record I am no mans Advocate no mans enemy but a faithfull lover of truth and peace and a dutifull Son of our distressed Mother the Church of England in whose behalfe and our owne my motion shall bee shortly this That the Ministers Petition with so much of their Remonstrance as hath been read may be committed and the rest of it concerning matter of Doctrine may bee referred to some learned and approved Divines who have spent their time in that noble study For give me leave to tell you there is a vulgus among the Clergy as among the Laity Et in utroque nil modicum and for these and all things which strike at the roote and branch as they please to call it I shall humbly move that wee rather consider how to satisfie the Petitioners with some timely declaration from both Houses of the lawfulnesse and conveniency of Episcopall Government derived from the Apostles and so long established in this Kingdome rather then to venture upon any alteration the consequence whereof the wisest man cannot fore-see And in truth Sir should we once begin for my owne part I know not how or where wee should stay Neverthelesse if any one doubt the superiority of Bishops over Priests and Deacons in Ecclesiasticall government or in ordination I shall be ready whensoever this House shall command mee to make it good and I think by as pregnant testimonies as wee are able to prove the difference betwixt Canonicall and Apocryphall Scripture the necessity of Infants baptisme or that the Apostles were the Authors of their owne Creed But Sir I hope you will save your selfe and mee that labour and rather devise of some set way to bind up the Churches wounds which God knowes are too wide already that so the Clergy and Laity being made friends and all reduced to the modell of our Ancestors since the Reformation we may altogether preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and so his Majesty having gratiously and prudently exprest himselfe I am the more confident wee shall not onely put an end to all mis-intelligence betwixt Prince and People but also highly advance the Protestant cause and give a deadly blow to the See of Rome Sir I humbly crave the favour of the House for God is my witnesse Non potui aliter liberare animam meam Sir THOMAS ROVVES REPORTS To the COMMONS HOUSE of PARLIAMENT 1640. Master Speaker I Am to make a Report of what was delivered at the conference of a Committee of both Houses of Parliament upon Thursday last I hope Master Speaker so much upon the favour of this House that they will give mee leave to be a Reader and that they will not expect from my age and weaknesse a particular repetition of the same words a taske too great for my memory unpractised for many yeares in such exactnesse neither am I able to represent without diminution that life and grace that those relations received from so great abilities desiring their Lordships pardon and your acceptance of the substance and matter wherein I hope I shall omit nothing substantiall and if I could repeate every word yet would it want as much luster as copies of ordinary hands doe of the best originals
bowels and viper-like working our destruction They finde Jesuites and Priests conspiring with ill Ministers of State to destroy our Religion they find ill Ministers conjoyned together to subvert our Lawes and Liberties They find obstructions of Justice which is the life bloud of every State and having a free passage from the Soveraigne Power where it is primarily seated as the life bloud in the heart and thence derived through the severall Judicatories as through so many veines into all the parts of this great collective Body doth give warmth and motion to every part and member which is nourished and enlivened by it but being once precluded stopped and seared up as the particular must of necessity faint and languish so must the whole frame of Government bee dissolved and consequently Soveraignty it selfe which as the heart in the body is Primum vivens ultimum moriens must dye and perish in the generall dissolution and all things returne as in the beginning in antiquum Chaos They find the propriety of the subject invaded and violated his estate rent from him by illegall Taxations Impositions Monopolies and Projects almost upon every thing which is for the use of man not onely upon superfluities but necessaries and this to enrich the vermine and caterpillers of the Land and to impoverish the good subjects to take the meate from the children and give it to dogges My Lords If we find these things so wee must conceive they must bee ill counsels which have brought us into this condition These counsels have put all into a combustion have discouraged the hearts of all true English men and have brought two Armies into our bowels which as the Vulture upon Prometheus eate through our sides and gnaw our very hearts Hinc dolor sed unde medicina Heretofore Parliaments were the Catholicon the Balme of Gilead which healed our wounds restored our Spirits and made up all the breaches of the Land But of late yeeres they have beene like the Fig-tree in the Gospel without efficacy without fruit onely destructive to the particular members who discharge their duties and consciences no way beneficiall to the Common-wealth Nobis exitiabile nec Reipub. profuturum as he said in Tacitus commonly taken away as Elias was with a whirle-winde never coming to any maturity or to their naturall end whereas they should bee like that blessed old man who dyeth plenus dierum in a full age after hee hath fought a good fight and overcome all his enemies as the shock of wheat which cometh in in due season to fill our Granaries with Corne uphold our lives with the staffe of bread For Parliaments are our panis quotidianus our true bread all other wayes are but Quelques choses which yeeld no true nourisshment breede no good bloud This very Parliament which hath sate so long hath all this while but beaten the ayre and striven against the streame for I may truely say winde and tide have still been against us The same ill counsels which first raised the storme which almost shipwrackt the Common-wealth do still continue they blow strong like the East-wind that brought the Locusts over the land These counsels crosse our designes east difficulties in our way hinder our proceedings and make all that we doe to be fruitlesse and ineffectuall they make us to bee not masters of our businesse and so not masters of money which hath been the great businesse of this Parliament that we might pay the Armies according to our promises and engagements For My Lords our not effecting of the good things which wee had undertaken for the good of the Church and Common-wealth hath wounded our reputation and taken off from our credit Is it not time then my Lords that wee should unite and concentrate our selves in regard of this Antiperistasis and circumvallation of hurtfull and malitious intentions and practices against us My Lords it is most agreeable to nature and I am sure most agreeable to reason in respect of the present conjuncture of our affaires for one maine engine by which our enemies work our mischiefe is by infusing an opinion and belief into the world that wee are not united amongst our selves but that like Sampsons Foxes we draw severall waies and tend to severall ends To defeate then the counsels of those Achitophels which would involve us our Religion our King our Lawes our Liberties all that can bee neere and deare unto an honest soule in one universall and generall desolation to defeate I say the counsels of such Achitophels the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the House of Commons knowing themselves to bee specially intrusted with the preservation of the whole and in their consciences perswaded that the dangers are so imminent that they will admit of no delay have thought fit to declare their united affections by entring into an Association amongst themselves and by making a solemne Protestation and Vow unto their God that they will unanimously endevour to oppose and prevent the counsels and the Counsellors which have brought upon us all these miseries and feares of greater to prevent the ends and bring the Authors of them to condign punishment and thereby discharge themselves both before God and man The Protestation your Lordships shall have read unto you together with the grounds and reasons which have induced the House of Commons to make it which are prefixed before it by way of Preamble The PREAMBLE WEe the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons house in Parliament finding to the great griefe of our hearts that the designes of the Priests and Jesuites and other Adherents to the See of Rome have of late beene more boldly and frequently put in practice then formerly to the undermining and danger of the ruine of the true reformed Protestant Religion in His Majesties Dominions established And finding also that there have beene and having just cause to suspect that there still are even during this sitting in Parliament indeavours to subvert the fundamentall Lawes of England and Ireland and to introduce the exercise of an Arbitrary and Tyrannicall Government by most pernicious and wicked Counsels Practices Plots and Conspiraces And that the long intermission and unhappy breach of Parliaments hath occasioned many illegall Taxations whereupon the Subject hath been prosecuted and grieved And that divers Innovations and Superstitions have beene brought into the Church multitudes driven out of His Majesties Dominions Jealousies raised and fomented betwixt the King and His people a Popish Army levied in Ireland and two Armies brought into the bowels of this Kingdome to the hazzard of His Majesties Royall Person the consumption of the Revenues of the Crowne and Treasure of this Kingdome And lastly finding great cause of Jealousie that indeavours have been and are used to bring the English Army into a misunderstanding of this Parliament thereby to incline that Army with force to bring to passe those wicked Counsels Have therefore thought good to joyne our selves in a Declaration of our united affections and
This it was Master Speaker His advising the King to employ the Army of Ireland to reduce England This I was assured would be proved before I gave my consent to his accusation I was confirmed in the same beliefe during the prosecution and fortified in it most of all since Sir Henry Vaines preparatory examinations by the assurances which that worthy member Mr. Pymme gave me that his Testimony would be made convincing by some notes of what passed at the Junto concurrent with it which I ever understanding to be of some other Counsellour you see now prove but a Copie of the same Secretaries notes discover'd and produc't in the manner you have heard and those Such disioynted fragments of the venemous part of discourses no results no conclusions of Counsels which are the onely things that Secretaries should register there being no use at all of the other but to accuse and to bring men into danger But Sir this is not that which overthrowes the evidence with mee concerning the Army of Ireland nor yet that all the rest of the Iunto upon their oathes remember nothing of it But this Sir which I shall tell you is that which works with mee under favour to an utter overthrow of his evidence as unto that of the Army of Ireland Before whil'st I was a prosecutor and under tye of Secrecie I might not discover any weakenesse of the cause which now as a Judge I must Master Secretary was examined thrice upon Oath at the preparatory Committee The first time he was questioned to all the Interrogatories and to that part of the seventh which concernes the Army of Ireland he said positively in these words I cannot charge him with that But for the rest he desires time to recollect himselfe which was granted him Some dayes after he was examined a second time and then deposes these words concerning the Kings being absolved from rules of government and so forth very clearely But being prest to that part concerning the Irish Army againe can say nothing to that Here wee thought wee had done with him till divers weeks after my Lord of Northumberland and all others of the Junto denying to have heard any thing concerning those words of reducing England by the Irish Army it was thought fit to examine the Secretary once more and then he deposes these words to have beene said by the Earle of Strafford to his Majestie You have an Army in Ireland which you may imploy here to reduce or some word to that sence this Kingdome Mr. Speaker these are the circumstances which I confesse with my Conscience thrust quite out of dores that grand Article of our charge concerning his desperate advice to the King of employing the Irish Army here Let not this I beseech you be driven to an aspersion upon Master Secretary as if he should have sworn otherwise then he knew or beleeved hee is too worthy to doe that onely let thus much be inferr'd from it that hee who twice upon Oath with time of recollection could not remember any thing of such a businesse might well a third time misremember somewhat and in this businesse the difference of one Letter here for there or that for this quite alters the case the latter also being the more probable since it is confest of all hands that the debate then was concerning a warre with Scotland and you may remember that at the Bar he once said to employ there And thus Mr. Speaker I have faithfully given you an account what it is that hath blunted the edge of the Hatchet or Bill with me towards my Lord of Strafford This was that whereupon I accused him with a free heart prosecuted him with earnestnesse and had it to my understanding beene proved should have condemned him with innocence Whereas now I cannot satisfie my conscience to doe it I professe I can have no notion of any bodies intent to subvert the Lawes treasonably or by force and this designe of force not appearing all his other wicked practises cannot amount so high with me I can finde a more easie and more naturall spring from whence to derive all his other Crimes then from an intent to bring in Tyrannie and to make his owne posterity as well as us Slaves as from revenge from Pride from Avarice from Passion and insolence of Nature But had this of the Irish Army been proved it would have diffused a complexion of Treason over all it would have beene a With indeed to bind all those other scattered and lesser branches as it were into a Faggot of Treason I doe not say but the rest may represent him a man as worthy to dye and perhaps worthier then many a Traytor I doe not say but they may justly direct us to Enact that they shall be Treason for the future But God keepe mee from giving judgement of death on any Man and of ruine to his innocent Posterity upon a Law made â posteriori Let the mark be set on the dore where the Plague is and then let him that will enter dye I know Master Speaker there is in Parliament a double power of life and death by Bill a judiciall power and a Legislative the measure of the one is what 's Legally just of the other what is prudentially and politickly fit for the good and preservation of the whole But those two under favour are not to be confounded in Judgement Wee must not peece up want of Legality with matter of convenience nor the defailance of prudentiall fitnesse with a pretence of legall Justice To condemne my Lord of Strafford judicially as for Treason my conscience is not assured that the matter will bear it And to doe it by the Legislative power my reason consultively cannot agree to that since I am perswaded neither the Lords nor the King will passe the Bill and consequently that our passing it will be a cause of great divisions and combustions in the State And therefore my humble advice is that laying aside this Bill of Attainder we may think of another saving only life such as may secure the State from my Lord of Strafford without endangering it as much by division concerning his punishment as he hath endangered it by his practices If this may not be hearkned unto let me conclude in saying that unto you all which I have throughly inculcated to mine owne conscience upon this occasion Let every man lay his hand upon his heart and sadly consider what we are going to doe with a breath either justice or murther justice on the one side or murther heightned and aggravated to its supreamest extent For as the Casuists say that he who lyes with his sister commits incest but he that marries his sister sinnes higher by applying Gods Ordinance to his crime So doubtlesse he that commits murther with the sword of Justice heightens that crime to the utmost The danger being so great and the case so doubtfull that I see the best Lawyers in diametrall opposition concerning it
the Citizens at London and also by a Petition of worthy Gentlemens sons Apprentices thereof so reputed to be All which show the whole estate of our Church and Common-wealth to be grievously diseased of a Plurisie and must have a present and good cure or else England is overthrown which is the mother and Almoner of the Kings well-fare and his posterity Which disease the King not fearing nor knowing he had some ill counsell to let it run so farre in jeopardy of trouble and distresse And herein give me leave to tell you the story of Noah a King in the the Ark yet after he was over-shot and taken by the Vines of his own planting and brought himself to some dishonour thereby as some use our English Kings heretofore have done by their favourites untill they saw it and this is it that made the Papists and Prelates rejoyce in their own wisedom and honour like Chams that saw his father so deceived but such deserve a curse for it both of God and man in respect of the matters contained in the foresaid Petitions of our English Lords as also for that the former Parliament might have settled all things in quiet enriched the Kings Coffers enabled to withstand all powerfull pretences and no doubt but to have qualified the humour of the Scots to all our contents Therefore these deserve the curse of Cham that were movers and stoppers and hinderers of it When things might have been composed convenient without warre or strife and not upon so extreme necessity which is now brought upon us and maketh the Scots proverb in use necessity hath no 〈◊〉 for their defence But now our Proverb is drawn frâ—â— thence we must make a vertue of necessity a hard case for a good take heed and counsell For since the plot of an after intended warre had an ill policy that would wrong good Noah their father and his children in such a manner of proceeding and then in glory and defence of it against this House of Commons cause a booke to be published against our proceedings these men which were the cause of publishing of it are fit to publish 't as Noahs cursed son Cham shamelesse And we for our parts in the House of Commons together with the higher House of Lords I hope will not so leave them but be rejecters of them as good Shem and Japheth acknowledging them to be vain members that go about to supplant our wrong the Vineyard our just King and his Kingdom Now therefore consider the former it shall be fit before we enter upon conference to be strengthened and enabled for discharge of our well meaning both to our King and Country answerable to his late speech to gain and obtain his free love consent power on these three points and cautions handled and moved the last meeting First free liberty of speech Secondly each ones right to our selves Thirdly for reformation of Religion And these things granted to proceed freely without delay of time or matters to the cure of such deadly diseases if they be let alone First I would conceive under favour of bette judgements to begin with Sathans Roots of evill viz. All Papists because they are of the most dangerous seed of the Serpent to the hurt of the Church and Common-wealth herein that we agree with a generall consent of Parliament to search see and finde out all the Jesuits Priests Friars Cappuchines and all such Romish factions and by order to all the Justices of Peace in England to imprison them or to send them all to some out-Townes to banish them all out of the Land speedily while you be in other Councell here sitting and thence to ship them away at their owne chages and upon good bonds and security that they never return into England Scotland or Ireland and if they should both the bonds and the Lawes to be executed upon them And for other long Inhabitants Papist and Recusants such as may seeme honest Subjects only for Religion the old orders and Statutes to be put in execution without the abatement of the penalties till they shall conforme to our Religion and if any have wincked or underhand compounded for the time past to be punished and made pay so much unto the Kings Cofers as justly due by the Statute ever since King Charles his Raigne The first course and Act of Parliament being speedily put in execution whilest we sit here will not only excuse the pretended charity that Papists hope for from the King and Queen but will also manifest the true piety against their heresies for ever and will be a good satisfaction to the Scots which make these one of the chiefest intents and causes of their comming into this Kingdome which we wish they had no worse intents and sure it will be a means to try their intents and our owne too and then we have hope to entreat the Scots to stay our leisures Sir John Wray his Speech touching the Canons the 15. of December 1640. Mr. Speaker A Man may easily see to what tend all these innovations and alterations in Doctrine and Discipline and without perspect time discover a farre off the active toylsomenesse of these spirituall Ingineeres to undermine the old and true foundation of Religion and establish their tottering heresie in Rome thereof which least it should not hold being built with untempered morter You see how carefull they are by a past oath to force mens consciences not to alter their government Archiepiscopall And Master Speaker the thoughts of the righteous are right but the counsells of the wicked are deceits and nothing else in their hearts but destructions and devastations but to the counsellors of peace is joy so long as they kept themselves within the circle of the spirituall commerce and studied to keepe mens hearts upright to God and his Truth there was no such complaining in our Streets of them nor had we never seene so many thousand hands against them as now there are come in And no marvell though God withdrawes so many hearts and hands from them who had turned so many out of the way of truth vita tuta they have stopt up but via devia they have enlarged and layd open as appears by their crooked Canons Master Speaker I shall not goe about to overthrow their government in the plurall but to limit it and qualifie it in some particulars For Sir Francis Bacon long since well observed there two things in the government of Bishops of which he could never be satisfied no more can I the first was the sole exercises of the authorities And secondly by the deputation of that authority But Master Speaker I shall not now dispute of either for mine own part Master Speaker I love some of them so well and am so charitable to the rest that I wish rather their reformation then their ruine But let me tell you withall that if we should finde amongst them any proud Becket or Wolsey Prelates who stick not to write
Inhabitants are reduced to great poverty and many of them forced to forsake the Countrey the same beeing the first and most usefull Plantation in the large Province of that Ulster to the great weakning of the Kingdome in in this time of danger the said plantation being the principall strength of those parts 9. The late erection of the Court of high Commission for causes Ecclesiasticall in those necessitous times the proceedings of the said Court in many causes without legal warrant and yet so supported as prohibitions have not been obtained though legally sought for And the excessive fees exacted by the Ministers thereof and the encroaching of the same upon the jurisdiction of other Ecclesiasticall Courts of this Kingdome 10. The exorbitant fees and pretended Customes exacted by the Clergy against the Law some of which have been formerly represented to your Lordship 11. The Petitioners doe most heartily bemone that his Majesties service and profit are much more impaired then advanced by the grievances aforesaid the Subsidies graunted in the last Parliament having much increased his Majesties revenue by the buying of graunts and otherwise and that all his Majesties debts then due in this Kingdome were satisfied out of the said Subsidies and yet his Majesty is of late as the petitioners have been informed in the house of Commons become indepted in this Kingdome in great somes And they doe therefore humbly beseech that an exact accompt may bee sent to his Majesty how and in what manner his treasure issued 12. The Petitioners doe humbly conceive just and great feares at a Proclamation published in this Kingdome in Anno Domini 1635. Prohibiting men of quality or estates to depart this Kingdome into England without the Lord Deputies Licence wherein the Subjects of this Kingdome are hindered and interrupted from free accesse to addres to his sacred Majesty and privie Counsell of England to declare their just grievances or to obtaine remedies for them in such fort as their Ancestors have done in all ages since the Reigne of King Henry the second and great fees exacted for every of the said Licenses 13. That of late his Majesties late Atourney generall hath exhibited Informations against many Boroughs of this Kingdome into his Majesties Court of Exchequer to shew cause by what warrant the said Burgesses who heretofore sent Burgesses to the Parliament should send the Burgesses to the Parliament and thereupon for want of an answere the said priviledges of sending Burgesses was seised by the said Court which proceedings were altogether Coram non Iudice and contrary to the lawes and priviledges of the house of Parliament and if way should be given thereunto would tend to the subversion of Parliaments and by consequence to the ruine and destruction of the Common-wealth And that the house of Commons hath hitherto in this present Parliament been deprived of the advice and Counsell of many profitable and good members by means thereof 14. By the powerfulnesse of some Ministers of state in this Kingdome the Parliament in its members and actions hath not his naturall freedome 15. And lastly that the Gentry and Merchants and other his Majesties Subjects of this Kingdome are of late by the grievances and pressures before said other the like brought very neere to ruine and destruction And Farmers of Customes Customers Waiters Searchers Clarkes of unwarrantable proceedings Pursivants and Goalers and sundry others very much enriched whereby and by the slow redress of the petitioners his Majesties most faithfull and dutifull people of this Kingdome doe conceive great feares that their readinesse approved upon all occasions hath not beene of latere presented to his sacred Majesty For remedy whereof the said Petitioners doe humbly and of right beseech your Lordship that the said grievances and pressures may bee speedily redressed and if your Lordship shall not thinke fit to afford present reliefe that your Lordship might admit a select Committee of this house of Persons uninteressed in the benefit a rising of the aforesaid grievances to be licensed by your Lordship to repaire to his sacred Majesty in England for to pursue the same and to obtaine fitting remedy for their aforesaid and other just grievances and expressions and upon all just and honourable occasions they will without respect of particular interest or profit to be raised thereby most humbly and readily in Parliament extend their uttermost endeavour to serve his Majesty and comply with his royall and princely occasions And shal pray c. Mr. Secretarie Windebancks Charge in Parliament 7. December 1640. 1 SEventie fower Letters of grace to Recusants within this fowr yeares signed with his owne hands 2. Sixtie foure Priests discharged from the Gatehouse at Westminster within these 4. years and for the most part by him 3. Twenty nine discharged by a verball warrent from him 4. Awarrant to protect one Musket a condemned Priest and alâ— the houses he frequented 5. One committed by the Kings own hand and discharged by him without signifying the Kings pleasure 6. The Retition of the parish of St. Gyles in the fields to the King of the increase of Poperie and that 21. were turned by two Priests Mosse and Souther which being committed were suddenly discharged by Secretary Windebanck A message from the House of Commons to his Majesty 15. December 1640 Mr. Treasurer IS intreated from this house to acquaint his Majesty with the great care and affection of the house to advance and settle his Majesties Revenue and for that purpose we humbly desire his Majesty will give us leave to enter into debate of his revenue and his expence His Majesties answere thereto by Mr. Treasurer HIs Majesty being by me acquainted with the great care and affection of the house of Commons to advance and settle his Maiesties Revenew doth very graciously interpret the same and hath commanded me to give the House thankes for it in his name and his Majesty doth give the House free leave to enter into debate of his Revenews and Expences as is desired and hath given order that all his Officers and Ministers from time to time shall assist the House therein as there shall be occasion Vote concerning the Cannons in the House of Commons 15. Decem. 1640. THat the Clergy of England Convented in any Convocation or Synod or otherwise have no power to make any Constitutions Cannons or Acts whatsoever in matter of Doctrine or otherwise to bind the Clergy or Laity of this Land without the Commons consent of Parliament That the severall Constitutions and Cannons Ecclesiasticall Treated upon by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Yorke Presidents of the Convocation for the respective Provinces of Canterbury and Yorke and the rest of the Bishops and Clergy of these Provinces and agreed upon by the Kings Maiestics lycence in their several Synods began at London and York 1640. do not bind the Clergy or Laity of this Land or either of them An Order concerning Monopolers 19. November 1640. JT is ordered that upon
of Rome doth eate into our Religion and fret into he banks and walls of it the Lawes and Statutes of this Realme especially since these Lawes have beene made in a manner by themselves even by their owne Treasons and bloudy designes and since that Poperie is a consused masse of errors casting downe Kings before Popes the Precepts of God before the tradition of men living and reasonable men before dead and sencelesse stocks and stones I desire that we consider the encrease of Arminianisme and errors that makes the grace of God to lackie it after the will of man that makes the Sheepe keepe the Shepheard and make an immortall seed of a mortall God Yea I desire that we looke into the very belly and bowells of this Trojan horse to see if there be not in it men readie to open the gates of Romish tyranny and Spanish Monarchie for an Arminian is the spaune of a Papist and if their come the warmth of favour upon him you shall have him turne into one of those frogs that arise out of the bottomelesse pit and if you marke it well you shall see an Arminian reach out his hand to a Papist to a Jesuite a Jesuite gives one hand to the Pope another to the King of Spaine and therein having kindled a fire in our neighbors Countrey now they have brought some of it hither to set on flame this kingdome also Let us further search and consider whether these be not the men that breake in upon the goods and liberties of this Common-wealth for by these meanes they may make way for the taking away of Religion It was an old tricke of the Devills when he meant to take away Jobs Religion he began at his goods Lay thy hand on all be hath and be will curse even to thy face Rather they thinke hereby to set a distance betweene Prince and people or to finde some other way of supply to avoyd or breake Parliaments that so they may break in upon our Religion and bring in their errors but let us doe as Job did he held fast his Religion and his goods were restored with advantage and if we hold fast God and our Religion these things shall be unto us Let us consider the times past how we flourished in honor and abundance when Religion flourished amongst us but when Religion decayed so the honour and strength of our Nation decayed when the soul of this Common-wealth is dead the bodie cannot long over live it If a man meete a Dogge alone the Dog is fearefull but though never so fierce by nature if that Dog have his Master by him he will set upon that man from whom he fied before This shewes the lower natures being back't with the higher increase in courage and strength and certainly man being back't with omnipotence is a kinde of omnipotence Wherefore let it now be the unanimous consent and resolution of us all to make a vow and Covenant from henceforth to hold fast on God and his Religion and then may we from henceforth expect prosperitie in the Kingdome and Nation to this Covenant Let every one of us say Amen The Accusation and Impeachment of Sir George Ratcliffe by the Commons in this present Parliament Assembled Charging him with High-Treason and other misdemeanours as ensue 1640. IMprimis That he had conspired with the Earle of Strafford to bring into Ireland an Arbitrary Government and to subvert the fundementall Lawes and did joyn with the Earle to bring in an Armie from Ireland to subdue the Subjects of England Secondly That he hath joyned with the Earle to use Regall power and to deprive the Subjects of their liberties and properties Thirdly That he hath joyned with the Earle to take _____ thousand pounds out of the Exchequer in Ireland and bought Tobacco therewith and converted the same profits to their own uses Fourthly That he had Trayterously confederated with the Earle to countenance Papists and build Monasteries to alienate the affections of the Irish Subjects from the subjection of England Fiftly That he had Traiterously confederated with the Earle to draw the Subjects of Scotland from the King Sixthly That to preserve himselfe and the sayd Earle he had laboured to subvert the liberties and priviledges of Parliament in Ireland The Charge of the Scottish Commissioners against the Prelate of CANTERBVRY NOvations in Religion which are universally acknowledged to be the maine cause of commotions in Kingdomes and States and are knowne to be the true cause of our present troubles were many and great beside the book of Ordination and Homilies 1. Some particular alterations in matters of Religion pressed upon us without order and against Law contrary to the forme established in our Kirk 2. A new booke of Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiasticall 3. A Liturgy or booke of Common-prayer which did also carry with them many dangerous errors in matters of Doctrine Of all which we challenge the Prelate of Canterburie as the prime cause on earth And first that this Prelate was the Author and urger of some particular changes which made great disturbance amongst us we make manifest 1. By fourteen letters subscribed W. Cant. in the space of two yeares to one of our pretended Bishops Bannatine wherein he often enjoyneth him and other pretended Bishops to appeare in the Chappell in their whites contrary to the custome of our Kirk and to his promise made to the pretended Bishop of Edinburgh at the Coronation that none of them after that time should be pressed to weare these garments thereby moving him against his will to put them on for that time wherein he directeth him to give order for saying the English Service in the Chappell twice a day for his neglect shewing him that he was disappointed of the Bishopricke of Edinburgh promising him upon the greater care of these Novations advancement to a better Bishoprick taxing him for his boldnesse in Preaching the sound Doctrine of the reformed Kirks against Master Mitchell who had taught the errors of Arminius in the point of the extent of the merit of Christ bidding him send up a list of the names of Councellours and Senators of the Colledge of Justice who did not communicate in the Chappell in a forme which was not received in our Kirk commending him when he found him obsequious to these his commands telling him that he had moved the King the second time for the punishment of such as had not received in the Chappell and wherein he upbraided him bitterly that in his first Synod at Aberdein he had only disputed against our custome of Scotland of fasting sometimes on the Lords day and presumptuously censuring our Kirk that in this we were opposite to Christianity it selfe and that amongst us there were no Canons at all More of this stuffe may be seen in the letters themselves Secondly by two papers of memoirs and instructions from the pretended Bishop of Saint Androis to the pretended Bishop of Rosse comming to this Prelate for ordering the