Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	law_n	zeal_n	zealous_a	37	3	8.6292	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88241	Rash oaths unwarrantable: and the breaking of them as inexcusable. Or, A discourse, shewing, that the two Houses of Parliament had little ground to make those oaths they have made, or lesse ground to take, or presse the taking of them, being it is easie to be apprehended, they never intended to keep them, but onely made them for snares, and cloaks for knavery, as it is clearly evinced by their constant arbitrary and tyranicall practices, no justice nor right being to be found amongst them; by meanes of which they have declaratorily, and visibly lost the very soule and essence of true magistracy, (which is, the doing of justice, judgement, equity ... In which is also a true and just declaration of the unspeakable evill of the delay of justice, and the extraordinary sufferings of Lievtenant Colonell John Lilburne, very much occasioned by M. Henry Martins unfriendly and unjust dealing with him, in not making his report to the House. All which with divers other things of very high concernment, are declared in the following discourse, being an epistle, / written by Lievtenant-Colonell John Lilburne, prerogative prisoner in the Tower of London, to Colonell Henry Marten, a member of the House of Commons of England ... May 1647.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1647 (1647)	Wing L2167; Thomason E393_39; ESTC R201615	53,968	58

take all or any of your fore nentioned unwarrantable Oathes for he that hath said Thou shalt not kill hath also said thou shalt not in that manner swear And I would fain know of you what confidence the Parliament upon sollid grounds can put upon any men in England that are so ready and willing to swallow your oat●es that now are become nothing else but cloaks of knavery and breeders of strife and mischief therefore for shame say them all down and presse them no more upon any man whatsoever for he that consciensiously maks nothing of an Oath will make as little of breaking his Oa●h whensoever it shall make for his profit ease or preferment whereas to h●m that conscienciously scruples an Oath his bare word promise or ingagement is the sencerest tye in the world which he would not willingly violate for all the earth But Sir to return to your forementioned grand Objection That your Houses are not in a temper to hear my report and to do me justice upon it I pray Sir what is the reason of it Is it because there is a Faction of great men in it that hates my person and therefore though my cause be never so just yet they will do me no right and if so then I tell you plainly without fear they are a company of Factious knaves and not a company of righteous Judges who ought in judgement to be so impartial that they should not regard or respect persons but the justnesse of their cause Or Secondly it is because I have not the Law of the Land sufficiently on my side and if so it is the easier judged against me but why did you receive and approve of my appeple to your house at first but know Sir that although I be no Lawyer yet I dare throw the gantlet to all the Lawyers in England and against them all before any Legall Barre in England will plead my own cause my selfe and justifie and prove the Lords proceedings with me to be point blanke against the good old and unrepealed Law of England and this I will do at my at most perrell yea let the Lords in the front put their lying Champion William Prinn the basest and lyingest of men who in less then eight lines hath told and printed twelve or thirteene notorious lyes against me see Inocencie and truth justified page 4. 5. 6. and hath such a firey zeale to my distruction that in his late booke called The Sword of Christian Majestracy supported hee would have the two Houses without Law by the power of their owne wills to hang me for no other cause in the world but for being zealous and couragious in standing for the Laws and Liberties of England which you and he have sworne vowed and covenanted to maintaine preserve and defend and for which you have shed at least in pretence so much English blood Oh brave Prinn a fit man indeed to be a Privy-Counseller to the great Turke whose will is his Law Or in the third place it is because the Lords are so great that you dare not do me justice and right for feare of displeasing them and if so why doe you not tell the Kingdome so for it is not a ●…t●le conserned in the contest betwixt the Lords and my self that we may follow your former pattren to know the names of them among them that are enemies to our Liberties and just Free some and so indeavour to give them their just defer●s For I read in the 547 548. pages of the first part book Declaration that upon a lamentable Petition of many thousands of pore people in and about the City of London the House of Commons appoynted a conference with the Lords where Mr. Hollis whose actions demonstrats thereby his ambition is not to be lesse then a Duke or a petty King though not in title yet in power and domination one of the chiefest stickler then against the King in the whole house and one of the chiefest Beginners Causers and Promoters of the by-past warres against the King pressed the Lords at there Barre to joyne with the house of Commons in their desire about the Militia and further with many expressions of the like nature desired in words to this effect that if that desire of the House of Commons were not assented too those Lords who were willing to concur in would find some means to make themselves knowne that it might he knowne who were against them and they might make it knowne to them who sent them yea in page 557 ibim it is positively aver'd that he required the names of all those of that House which would not discharge that they then ●alledther Kingdom se the Juncto● notable Declaration at Oxford the ninteenth of March 1643. page 10. 11. 12. and Mr. Hollis his owne printed Speech and if this fore recited practis were just then it is also in the like case just now yea and the rather because our case is ten times worse now then it was then and our Lawes and Liberties principally by the House of Lords means and their Arbitrary confederates in the House of Commons are now a giving up to the eyes of all rationall and knowing impartiall men their last breath yea and verily there is but one step betwixt Us the Commons of England and perfect and absolute slavery which I for my part had rather be hanged if it were possible ten thousand times over then indure but Sir remember that you in your excellent Declaration of the 19. May 1642. 1. part book Declaration pag. 207. tell us that this law is as old as the Kingdom that the Kingdom must not be without a means to preserve it self and I say by your own declared principles that if you our ordinary and legall means will not preserve us but rather destroy us we may justly by extraordinary and rationall means preserve our selves and destroy you our treacherous destroyers Or lastly is it be cause your House hath already done the last Act of Justice that ever they intended to doe for the Commons of England there Impowerers Lords and Masters and therefore I cannot expect the making of my report indeed Sir I ingniously confesse unto you I think this is the true reason indeed though you do not in plain English words tell us as much yet by your actions you undeniablely declare it for truly many say that there is no Iustice nor right to be had at your hands and for our Laws they only serve you to destroy us at your pleasure or to serve your ends when your hot burning malice is incensed against us which if they serve for your ends they shall be your engines tu undoe us But they do not in the least serve to defend or protect us against you but when we should use them against any of you as justly we may See your own excellent Declaration of the 26. May 1642. 1 part book Declar. p. 278. Sir Ed. Cookes 4. part institut chap. of the High Court of

people for no other end in the world but to provide for their weale and happinesse and to redresse their mischiefs and grievances unfortified at all by the established knowne and declared Law of the Kingdome degenerate from your trust destroy their Liberties and trades overthrow their Lawes and the Bounds that establish meum tuum and tyrannize over their persons ten times worse then ever the King did or his wicked and evill Ministers of Justice the Judges and Patentee Monopolizers especially all of whom you cannot deny but he at the beginning of your Session surrendred up to you to be punished by you according to Law Justice which in them you extreamely perverted and tooke bribes for the acquitting the capitallest of them and otherwise made use of them to do more mischiefe since to the Common-wealth then ever they had done before by assuring any thing for Law that you would propound to them by meanes of which you with your wicked and unbounded Priviledges have dared to exercise the absolutest and grandest tyranny over the lives liberties trades properties and estates of the Freemen of England that ever was I dare positively aver it since it was a Nation governed by an established and declared Law to your eternall and everlasting shame I speake it so that truly if the Freemen of England seriously look upon all your late publike and to us visible actions and compare them with their former enjoyments they may justly take up Miach's lamentation and say with him to you The good man is perished out of the earth and there is none upright amongst you men they or you all lie in waite for blood they or you hunt every man his brother with a net that they or you may do evill with both hands earnestly the Prince asketh and the Judge asketh for a reward and the great man he uttereth his mischievous desire so they wrap it up therefore woe unto the Parliament for the best of them is as a briar the most upright is sharper then a thorne hedge the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh now with a vengeance shall bee their perplexity therefore O all ye understanding Commons of England in reference to your Parliament Trustees trust ye not in a friend put ye no confidence in a guide for your enemies are the men of your owne House Micah 7.2,3,4,5,6 Therefore M. Martin I professe it before you and all the world that were I rationally able I would make no scruple of conscience to help forward with my sword in my hand the distruction of every lawlesse tyrannicall treacherous man amongst you that I should groundedly know to be a ring-leader in the fore-said transcendent vilenesse then I should to help to destroy so many rats or devouring vermin and by your owne fore-mentioned Principles Declarations Protestations Oathes Actions and doings it will undeniably be justified to be lawfull for all the Commons of Englands to do the same towards you But now Sir let us come to some particulars in the first place the 29. Chap and the most excellent Petition of right which I call the English-mans legall treasure doth clearly condemne all the pract●ses amongst you for they expressely say that no Freeman shall be taken and imprisoned or be disseized of his freehold or liberties or free-customes or be out-lawed or exiled or any otherwise destroyed nor we will not passe upon him nor condemne him but by lawfull judgement of his Peers that is to say equalls or men of his owne condition or by the Law of the Land We will sell to no man we will not deny or defer to any man either iustice or right and that no man be imprisoned without cause shewed or expressed in his Warrant of Commitment nor no man refused Habeas Corpus's for any cause whatever nor no man taken by Petition nor suggestion made to our Lord the King nor his Counsell unlesse it be by Indictment or Presentment of his good and lawfull People of the same neighbourhood where such deeds be done 25. E. 3.4 in due manner or by Processe made by Writ Originall at the common Law nor that none be put out of his Franchises nor of hi● Free-holds unlesse he be duly brought in to answer and fore-judged of the same by th● course of the Law and that no man hereafter be compelled to make or yeeld any guift bond benevolence taxe or such like charge without common consent by Act of Parliament Now compare your daily and hourly actions to those good just and unrepealed Laws and blush for shame But to wipe all this off you will it may be say the same that is said in your Declaration of the 17 of Aprill 1645 Booke Decl. 2 part pag. 879. That the end of the Primitive institution of all government is the safty and weale of the people which is above all Lawes and therefore the Kingdome being imbroyled in warre necessitated nacessitie compells you to doe many actions contrary to the knowne Lawes of the Land without the doing of which actions wanting the puntillo of the Kings consent you could not save your selves nor the kingdome will admit all this for a truth I pray then why doe you impose such illegall devilsh impossible to be kept contradicting Oaths and Covenants upon all the Freemen of England upon such sever penalties that all men must be disfranchised or destroyed that will not take them and in them without any provisoes eautions limitations or declared exceptions and reservation tye them to maintaine the Law of the Land and the lawful● rightes and liberties of the Subjects of England is not this to force men to sweare to contradict and oppose to the death all your actions and to destory you for doing those actions because they are contrary to the Law and Liberties of England O yee forsworne men for so I may call you all that have taken these illegall damnable hellish and soule insnaring Oaths because ye do your selves and suffer to be done daily such things as tends to the absolute distruction of the Lawes and the lawfull Liberties of the freemen of England which by all these Oaths you have sworne to maintaine and defend with all your might and yet there is not one just nor righteous man amongst you that dare avowedly and publiquely to the whole Kingdom protest against all the rest but by parsilent patient and constant seting there owne approve of all their actions O ye unworthy forsworne men in the highest degree for this may too justly be the stile and title of all and every one of you without exceptions in the condition of the visablest best of whom for Millions of Gold I would not be for if perjuries swearings and false swearings be so odious abominable and detestable unto God as in Scripture he declares they are read Exod 20.7 Lev. 19.11.12 Num. 30.2 Deut. 23.21.22.23 Psal 15.4 Eccl. 5.4.5 Ezek. 17.13.14.15.16.17.18.19 Jer. 24.10 Zek. 5.3.4.9.8.16.17 Then woe wee and vengance upon earth is your vadoubted

or willingly receive relieve comfort aid or maintaine any such person before-mentioned being at liberty out of prison knowing him to be such as before is expressed shall also for such offence be adjudged a fellon without benefit of Clergie and suffer death lose and forfeits as in case of one attainted of Fellony And this Parliament hath made a solemne League and Covenant and voted that no man shall sit in Parliament without taking it nor no man beare any Office without taking it and you have voted and in severall places made the Freemen of England uncapable to give a voice to choose an Officer if they will not take it in the second Article of which unjust unrighteous and wicked contradicting Covenant all those that take it sweare to extirpate Popery 1 part Book Deel fol. 425. and yet notwithstanding the Judges and Justices of peace made by the present Parliament force the Freemen of England against their wills and minds and the Allegation of the fore-mentioned Law and Covenant to pay Tythes the root and support of Popery to a generation of new upstart Romish Priests or Synodian Sion Colledge Jure divino men that have no other Authority and Power to stand by in their function of Presbyterie but what they challenge and derive from Rome having alreadie avowedly in print renounced and scorned any Jurisdiction either from the Parliament or the people of their Parishes by vertue of which their owne avowed claime they are ipso facto within the lash and reach of the fore-mentioned Statute and may by any Freeman of England be indicted at the Assizes or Sessions for Traytors and ought without mercy by the strength of that Law to suffer as Traytors and all those that pay Tythes or otherwise maintaine them after they know they have renounced the deriving of their Power and Jurisdiction from the Parliament and challenge it Jure divino derivitive from the Pope may be indicted as Fellons and ought to die as Fellons Now Sir is it not a piece of gallant justice in the Parliaments Judges Justices and illegall Committee-men to put freemens persons in prison without Baile or Maineprize and to plunder and I think I may say rob divers of them of their goods and cattels for refusing to support Popery after they have sworne to extirpate it by paying of Tythes to a company of Popish Presbyterian Priests that scorne to derive any power from the people of their Parishes and have already publikely and avowedly renounced the Parliaments Power and Authority and doe actually and really claime and assume unto themselves an Ecclesiasticall or Clergie Authority derivitive from Rome Fourthly the Law of England hath provided an universall remedy for all the men of England to recover their debts by from those that are indebted to them the benefit of which Law the present Parliament both doe and will injoy and at their pleasure will sue anie freeman in England that is not one of themselves but are so fortified with their big swolne priviledges that no man shall dare to meddle either with their persons or estates though they owe never so much and yet divers of them will neither of themselves pay use nor principall although originally the exemption of their persons from Arrests be not a priviledge given them for themselves in reference to their particulars but for the good of the Kingdome and People that choose them that so by the malice of any prerogative man or enemy to the just Libertie of the Commons of England they might not by malicious Arrests be molested troubled diverted or hindered for doing their Countrey faithfull service in the place they had chosen them unto But when this priviledge was first given them which in its selfe is just in its institution though now by the present Parliament-men abused in its execution it remained in them but for certaine weeks for then Parliaments were very short being by the ancient and just unrepealed Law of the Land to be chosen once every year or oftner if need required 4. E. 3.14 36. E. 3.10 it being impossible to be conceived that ever they thought then that any Parliament in England should remaine seven years to the cheating cozening and devouring of particular multitudes of men of their particular debts which now are likely by some Parliament-men to be so long owing them that they will not be claimable or recoverable by Law when this Parliament is ended which by its long sitting is and is more evidently like to be the greatest subversion of Englands Lawes Liberties and Freedomes of any thing that ever was done in England King Charles his seventeen years mis-government before this Parliament as you in your Declarations call it was but a flea-biting or as a mouldhill to a mountain in comparison of what this everlasting Parliament already is and will be to the whole Kingdome and therefore I say and will maintaine it upon the losse of my life that the Commons of England may bid adieu to their Lawes Liberties Freedomes Trades and Properties unlesse they speedily take a course for the electing of a new Parliament for the Members of this Parliament many of them to my knowledge judge themselves subject to no rule nor to be governed by any law but say that they are above Magna Charta and the most excellent Petition of Right and may abolish them although there be divers things in them so founded upon the principles of pure reason which by the fundamentall Maximes of the Law are unalterable Doctor and Student Ch. 2. fol. 4 5. see Innocency and truth justified p. 62. and the Morall Law of God that it is impossible for any power whatsoever to abolish them that is not greater then God or hath not derived a just power from him to dispence with his unchangeable Lawes one of which is That Justice shall never be sold nor impartially administred which is with other most excellent rationall and unalterable things ratified expressely in the 29. Ch. of Magna Charta besides all the rest of most excellent things in those two Lawes confirmed many of which are of universall concernment to all the sons of men under any just Government in the world and as for those things contained in them that are rationally in processe of time upon just experimentall grounds alterable and changeable if you will give us better in their places doe when you will without the doing of which by your own grounds and principles you cannot justly change them being impowered and chosen by us to provide for our weale but not for our woe to provide for our better being but not for our worse being 1 part Book Dec. p. 150. Againe fifthly the Law of England hath provided That whosoever breaks the peace shall be punished or whosoever layes violent hands upon a man and if any man doe it to a Parliament-man he will trounce him for it but they themselves can breake the peace and lay violent hands without cause upon the Freemen of

and others do still remain to the great abridgement of the liberties of the people and to the extreme prejudice of all such industrious people as depend on cloathing or other woollen manufacture it being the Staple commodity of this Nation and to the great discouragement and disadvantage of all sorts of Tradesmen Sea-faring-men and hindrance of Shipping and Navigation Also the old tedious and chargable way of deciding controversies or suits in Law is continued to this day to the extreame vexation and utter undoing of multitudes of Families a grievance as great and as palpable as any in the world Likewise that old but most unequall punishment of malefactors is still continued whereby mens lives and liberties are as liable to the law and corporall pains as much inflicted for small as for great offences and that most unjustly upon the restimony of one witnesse contrary both to the law of God and common equity a grievance very great but litle regarded Also tythes and other enforced maintenance are still continued though there be no ground for either under the Gospel and though the same have occasioned multitudes of suites quarrels and debates both in former and latter times In like maner multitudes of poore distressed prisoners for debt ly still unregarded in a most miserable and wofull condition throughout the Land to the great reproach of this Nation Likewise Prison-Keepers or Goalers are as presumptuous as ever they were both in receiving and detaining of Prisoners illegally committed as cruell and inhumane to all especially to such as are well-affected as oppressive and extorting in their Fees and are attended with under-officers of such vile and unchristian demeanour as is most abominable Also thousands of men and women are still as formerly permit●…d to live in beggery and wickednesse all their life long and to breed their children to the same idle and vitious course of life and no effectual meanes used to reclaim either or to reduce them to any vertue or industry And last as those who found themselves aggrieved formerly at the burdens oppressions of those times that did not conform to the Church-government then established refused to pay Ship-money or yeeld obedience to unjust Patents were reviled and reproached with nicknames of Puritans Hereticks Schismaticks Sectaries or were tearmed factious or seditious men of turbulent spirits despisers of government and disturbers of the publike peace even so is it at this day in all respects with those who shew any sensibility of the fore-recited grievances or move in any manner or measure for remedy thereof all the reproaches evills and mischiefs that can be devised are thought too few or too little to bee said upon them as Roundheads Sectaries Independents Hereticks Schismaticks factious seditious rebellious disturbers of the publike peace destroyers of all eivill relation and subordinations yea and beyond what was formerly non-conformity is now judged a sufficient cause to disable any person though of known fidelity from bearing any Office of trust in the Common-wealth whilest Neuters Malignants and dis-affected are admitted and continued And though it be not now made a crime to mention a Parliament yet is it little lesse to mention the supreme power of this honourable House So that in all these respects this Nation remaineth in a very sad and disconsolate condition and the more because it is thus with us after so long a session of so powerfull and so free a Parliament and which hath been so made and maintained by the aboundant love and liberall effusion of the blood of the people And therefore knowing no danger nor thraldome like unto our being left in this most sad condition by this Parliament and observing that we are now drawing the great and weighty affaires of this Nation to some kind of conclusion and fearing that ye may ere long bee obstructed by somthing equally evill to a negative voice and that ye may be induced to lay by that strength which under God hath hitherto made you powerfull to all good workes whilest we have yet time to hope and yee power to help and least by our silence we might be guilty of that ruine and slavery which without your speedy help is like to fall upon us your selves and the whole Nation we have persumed to spread our cause thus plainely and largely before you And do most earnestly entreat that ye will stir up your affections to a zealous love and tender regard of the people who have chosen and trusted you and that ye will seriously consider that the end of their trust was freedome and deliverance from all kind of temporall grievances and oppressions 1. And that therefore in the first place ye will bee exceeding carefull to preserve your just authority from all prejudices of a negative voice in any person or persons whomsoever which may disable you from making that happy return unto the people which they justly expect and that ye will not be induced to lay by your strength untill ye have satisfied your understandings in the undoubted security of your selves and of those who have voluntarily and faithfully adhered unto you in all your extremities and untill yee have secured and setled the Common-wealth in solid peace and true freedome which is the end of the primitive institution of all governments 2. That ye will take off all Sentences Fines and Imprisonments imposed on Commoners by any whomsoever without due course of Law or judgement of their equalls and to give due reparations to a●l those who have been so injuriously dealt withall and for preventing the l●ke for the time to come that yee will enact all such Arbitrary proceedings to bee capitall crimes 3. That ye will permit no authority whatsoever to compell any person or persons to answer to questions against themselves or nearest relations except in cases of private interest between party and party in a legall way and to release all such as suffer by imprisonment or otherwise for refusing to answer to such Interrogatories 4. That all Statutes Oathes and Covenants may be repealed so farre as they tend or may be construed to the molestation and ensnaring of religious peaceable well-affected people for non-conformity or different opinion or practice in Religion 5. That no man for preaching or publishing his opinion in Religion in a peaceable way may be punished or persecuted as hereticall by Judges that are not infallible but may be mistaken as well as other men in their judgements least upon pretence of suppressing Errors Sects or Schisms the most necessary truths and sincere professors thereof may be suppressed as upon the like pretence it hath been in all ages 6. That ye will for the encouragement of industrious people dissolve that old oppressive Company of Merchant-Adventurers and the like and prevent all such others by great penalties for ever 7. That yee will settle a just speedy plaine and unburthensome way for deciding of controversies and suits in Law and reduce all Lawes to the nearest agreement with Christianity

often late and most illegall and unjust vexatious imprisonments first by the House of Lords to the Fleet secondly he was most illegally by the present Lord Mayor of London fetched out of his shop and committed to New gate for having had in his custody one of the Petitions promoted by the Citizens of London and now thirdly most illegally committed by M. Hollis and the rest of his arbitrary and tyrannicall Committee who had not the least power either by Law or from the House so to doe it And when the said Committee rise the said Citizens by M. Denzill Hollis Sir Philip Stapleton Sir Walter Earle and reverend Sir Samuel Luke with other of their right worthy comrades the planters of tyranny injustice and oppression were abused and called by some of them rogues villains seditious factious fellowes and violent hands laid upon them offering to beat and cane them and to draw their swords upon them and haled and pulled some of them to make them prisoners by the law of their owne will and then the fore-mentioned Members of the House made a most false unjust and untrue report the next day unto the House of the said Citizens carriage and particularly of Major Tulidah by meanes of which the House of Commons outstripped the Pagan Judges of Paul in injustice Act. 25.17 and past a vote to commit or condemne Major Tulidah to prison without hearing or examining any witnesses against him or so much as hearing him to speake one word for himselfe although he waited then at the door of purpose expecting to be called in to speake for himselfe which was not affoorded unto him his fore-mentioned adversaries being both Informers Jurors and Judges but without any more adoe clapt by the heels Which act of the House of Commons is an act of so much basenesse and injustice that the very Heathen and Pagan Romanes will rise up in judgement against these imaginary pretended Christians who by the single light of nature were able to answer Pauls adversaries when they would unjustly have had judgement against him that it is not the manner or Law of the Romanes then Infidells Pagans and Heathens to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him Act. 25.17 But Major Tulidah being in prison as well as M. Nicholas Tue their fore-said friends and fellow-Citizens the next day framed a Petition to the House of Commons Upon the reading of which Petition M. Denzill Hollis and Sir Philip Stapleton knowing their owne guilt and how basely and unworthily they had abused not onely the said Major Tulidah and his friends but also the House in telling and reporting unto them such lies and falshoods of them as they themselves had done they themselves being the truly guilty persons and knowing very well that if Major Tulidah c. had comed to the Bar as both he and his friends desired their basenesse lies and falshoods would have been laid open to their faces before the whole House to prevent which they themselves became and were the principall instruments at the hands of the House to get him his liberty although themselves were the principall instruments to get the House to clap him by the heels yea and have set their agents and instruments also upon honest M. Tue to get him to frame a few lines by way of Petition to the House for his liberty which he absolutely refusing to this very day remaines in the messengers hands a prisoner at Westminster to the apparent ruine and destruction of the poore man contrary to all Law and Justice there being no colour of law or justice for his first commitment and as little law fot the continuation of it which clearly appeares by the Speakers arbitrary and tyrannicall Warrant which thus followeth BY vertue of an Order of the House of Commons these are to require you that Nicholas Tue now in your custody be continued in safe custody untill the pleasure of the House be signified to you to the contrary And for so doing this shall be your Warrant Dated the 19. of March 1646. William Lenthall Speaker To Edward Birkhead Esquire Serjeant and Armes attending the House of Commons I do nominate and appoint George Brag and Henry Radley Gentlemen to be my lawfull Deputies for the due execution of this Warrant dated the 19. of March 1646. Edward Birkhead Serjeant at Armes I pray Sir be judge your selfe whether this Warrant of M. Speakers be not absolutely point-blank against the Law which you have all sworne to maintaine and against the very words of the most excellent Petition of right made in the third yeare of the present King which expressely requires that in all commitments the cause of the commitment shall be expressed which is not in this and so poor M. Tue is deprived of his legall and hereditary priviledge to seek at Kings-Bench Barre c. for a habias corpus and the rather because this tyrannicall warrant hath no legall conclusion as it ought to have viz. and him safely to keep untill he be delivered by due course of Law as Sir Edward Cook your owne learned Oracle of the Law declares in his 2. part of Institutes fol. 52. which is printed by your own special order and yet by your House or at least your Speaker who ought to bee the Conservators of the Law and severe punishers of the violators of it poor M. Tue must be without the least shadow of cause disfranchised spoyled and robbed of the benefit of the Law and must by your wills remaine in prison till it be the pleasure of your House to do justice which I am confident in the way you goe and have lately gone must be till doomes-day in the afternoone for I am sure you have lost the very soule essence and being of true Magistracie which is to doe justice judgement and right and to relieve the afflicted the helplesse fatherlesse and widdow and to let the oppressed goe free and are I will maintaine degene rated into the notoriousest packe of Tyrants that ever in the world were assembled together since Adams creation that professed Humanity Morality and Christianity minding visibly nothing in the world but pleasure oppression tyranny cheating and couzening the whole Kingdome of its treasure and revenue trades lives bloods liberties and properties for which I protest before the Almighty God in my judgement you deserve nothing ●…t to be pulled out by the eares and throwne out to the dunghill and be trodden under-foot by all men that have but the least sparks of justice honor conscience or honesty in them I profess I cannot fully acquit one man of you that sits there being all of you in the eye of both law and reason Accessaries unto the Principals by your base silent tame and patient sitting there and not protesting against their Actions professedly and publikely to the whole Kingdome Acts 7.58 compared

They doe declare their high dislike of that Petition their approbation and esteem of their good Service who first discovered it and of all such Officers and Soldiers as have refused to joyne in it and that for such as have been abused and by the parswasion of others drawn to subscribe it if they shall for the future manifest their dislike of what they have done by forbearing to proceed any further in it it shall not be looked upon as any caus to take away the remembrance sence the houses have of the good service they have formerly done but they shall still be retained in their good opinion and shall be cared for with the rest of the Army in all things necessary and fitting for the satisfaction of persons that have done so good and faithfull service and as may be expected from a Parliament so carefull to performe all things appertaining to honour and justice as on the other side it is declared that all those who shall continue in their distempered condition and goe on in advancing and promoting that petition shall be looked upon and proceeded against as enemies to the State and d●sturbers of the publique peace Die Martis 30. Martii 1647. Ordered by the Lords assembled in parliament that this Declaration be forthwith printed and published John Brown Cler. Parliamentorum Now Sir to conclude the tyrannicall house of Lords having most illegally barbarously tirannically and unjustly committed me to prison and sentenced me under wh●se tyranny you are willing to suffer me to perish and then by your and their whifling and buking Curs to bespatter and reproach me in print thereby strongly indeavouring to m●ke me as odiou● in the eyes of the sons of men as Job was in all his botches and alasse pocre I must be kept in pri●… 〈…〉 without pen or inke accesse of friends or any 〈…〉 and so deprived of all means to vindicate my 〈…〉 ●…ce write in my owne behalfe and set my name to wi●… 〈◊〉 ●…ing alwayes ready to owne and iustifie my lines and to seale then with my 〈◊〉 blood yet my wife must be made a prisoner and fetched up to your arbitrary Committees for dispersing of my bookes and the book women in Westminster Hall that sell them must have then shops and houses searched and rob'd of all my bookes by your Catch poules and if you suspect any for printing of them they must be sure to be dealt worse wi●h then if they were Traytors and enemies to their Country and have their houses rob'd and spoyled of their goods and presses with which they earne bread for them and their families and carried away by force before any legall tryall or conviction of any crime contrary to the lawes of the land which possitively declares that no free man of England forfeits his lands goods or livelyhoods tell he be convicted of a crime 1 R. 3.3 Cookes 2. part institutes chap 103. fol. 228. 229. See the Petition of Right yea and their bodies imprisoned most tyrannicall and illegally without baile or maineprize although there be no collour in law for the pretended cause of their commitment nor no power in law for any Committee of your house to commit a printer or any other free man in England to prison See the law authorities mentioned in Judge Jenkins late printed papers And when the prisoner according to the law of the Kingdome sues for a Habias Corpus which legally cannot be denyed to any prisoner whatsoever and by vertue thereof be brought before the present Judges of the Kings bench Justice Bacon and Justice Rowles yet contrary to law and their owne oathes which oaths are before mentioned they refuse to deliver the prisoner so uniustly imprisoned or to take baile for his forthcomming but returne him back to prison againe there contrary to law and iustice to be kept without bail or maineprize Oh horrible tyrannie oppression and iniustice and yet as I am certainly informed this was the case of Mr. Thomas Paine a Printer the last tearme Nay your Catchpoules by their owne power can and have forceably entered and felloniously and illegally carried away my proper and truly com'd by goods to a large value for which though I complained to your Committee yet could I not obtaine from their hands one dram of Justice See my examination before them called the resolved mans resolution pag. 12. Nay this is not all for when your members and the Lords and their catchpoules creatures have sufficient railed at me and reproached me and tyed up my hands by depriving me of all meanes as they thought to publish any thing for my owne defence then they as I conce●ve ioyne together and git some lying Presbyter assemblie man or other for the Author concealing his name and I not able to find it out I apprehend and iustly conceive I have iust cause to lay it to them it being so sutable to the constant meanes they and their Creatures use to set up their new reformed Kingdome to frame contrive and publish to the view of the world a Recantation in my name that J my selfe though my name be to it had not the least finger in or knowledge of thereby to render me odious to the purpose and to declare me a weather cock follow and as fass●l and easie in changing my former avowed just principles as the Lords and Commons and assembly men at Westminster are to change theirs But Sir if God permit I shall take a more fi●t oppertunity to anotomize that grosse peice of Pa●l●…mentary assembly knavery And therefore I must plainly tell you seeing the Lords and Commons at Westm●nster have dealt so ●arb rously and illegally with 〈◊〉 as they have done * And not with me but also with M. Over●on his wife and brother and Mr. Larners man and maid who are all yet in person and can have nor obtain any iustice from either of your houses and are worse then the unrighteous Iudge that upon no importunity will doe me Justice I am now in good sober resolved earnest determined to appeale to the whole Kingdome and Army against them and it may be thereby come quittance with them and measure unto them as they have measured to me and doubt not but to make it evident that though some of your members call the Army Rebells and Traitors for contesting with those that gave them their power and authority that they themselves a●e reall Rebells and Traitors to the trust reposed in them by the free people of England their Empero●rs Lords and Masters And that the Army are really and truly a company of Rogues Knaves and traiterous Villains to themselves and their native Country if they should disband upon any tearmes in the world till they have brought them to examplary Justice and made them vomit up the vast sums of the publiques money that they have swallowed down into their devowring canniball mawes and firmly setled the peace and iustice of the Kingdome which that they may faithfully and cordially doe is and shall be the daily prayer of him that hath been and will be againe your true friend if you will repent of your remissenesse and slacknesse and manifest your selfe to be more firme active and valourous for the good of your Country Iohn Lilburn From my uniust Captivitie in the Tower of London for the visably almost destroyed Lawes and Liberties of England which condition I more highly prize though in misery enough outwardly then the visiblest condition of any member whatsoever that sits in either or both houses being all and every of them apparently palpably and transendently forsworne having all of them taken Oaths upon Oathes to mainetaine the lawes liberties and freedome of the land and yet in their dayly practice overthrow and destroy them of which sin and wickednesse they are all of them guilty in regard you all sit there in silence and doe not publiquely and avowedly to the whole Kingdome according to your duty manfully protest against and declare your dislike of their crooked uniust and Englands destroying wayes this 31. of May 1647. John Lilburne FINIS