Terminer in causes within the City which being by the Dictator published to the People they were so joyful as they brought Camillus home to his house with great shouts of joy and clapping of hands and being the next morning assembled in the Town-house or Market-place decreed that the Temple of Concord should be built at the Common-wealth's charge that some Festival dayes should be solemnized and Sacrifices made unto the Gods in every Temple of the City to give them thanks and that the People should in token of joy wear Garlands upon their heads for this reconciliation About nine years after upon a new Sedition of choosing of Magistrates and for want of them an Interregnum happening the Commons lost their Consulship again and two of the Patricii began to govern who thinking to continue it as formerly in the Nobility had the trouble of another Sedition wherein the People after many stirs and meetings not prevailing two other Confuls of the Nobility were elected And though the Usury or rate of Interest was much abated yet the poorer sort of the People being over-charged with the payment of the principal became bound and thrall to their Creditors in so much as the Commons in regard of their private streights which they were driven unto never troubled their heads at all any more with the making of Consuls In the end of the next year after the contention betwixt the Senate and the Common People brake forth concerning the Election of the Consuls whereupon the Tribunes of the People stifly denyed to suffer any Assembly to be holden unless they might have one of the Consuls to be chosen out of the Commons according to the Law Licinian And the Dictator as stoutly bent to denye it the Election was adjourned and the Dictator leaving his Office the matter grew again to an Interregnum and the Interregents finding the Commons to be alwayes maliciously set against the Senators succeeded one after another until the Eleventh Interregnum when the discord and variance still continuing the Tribunes called on hard for the Law Licinia the Commons had an inward grief that struck nearer to them upon the excessive Usury that still increased and each mans private care and grievance brake out in their publick contentions and debates the Senate thereupon weary of such Troubles commanded L. Scipio the Interregent for the time being for concord and unity sake to observe the Law Licinia in the Election of the Confuls so as P. Valerius Publicola had joyned with him in fellowship of Government Cajus Martius Rutilius one of the Commons Who labouring to ease the matter of Usury being that which hindred the general agreement set a course to do it so as the long or old debts which were more intangled rather in regard of the Debtors slackness and negligence then want of ability the City out of the common Stock crossed them out of the Book by setting up certain Counters or Tables with ready coin in the publick Hall provided that good Security were given to the City by Sureties put in beforehand or else the Goods of Men valued at indifferent and reasonable prices were to discharge the Debts so as a great number of Debts without the complaint of either Party was satisfied and paid Two years after the Ancient possession saith Livy of the Consulship was restored to the Senators and about two years after that the Usury coming but to half so much as it was formerly the payment of Debts were dispenced and ordered to be paid in three years by even portions so as a fourth part were paid beforehand some of the Commons being for all that pinched therewith for that the Senate had more care to see Credit kept with the Chamber of the City then of the difficulties of private Persons which was the better born in regard of the forbearance to muster Souldiers and call for Tribute About seven years after that upon a mutiny of the Souldiers in the Camp a Law was published by a Tribune of the Commons that Usury should be made altogether unlawful and after many nnreasonable demands saith Livy the insurrection of the Souldiers who compelled their Commanders to march against the City was upon a Capitulation made as once before saith that learned Historian the Commons and a second time the Army had done with the Senate that their mutiny and insurrection should not be made use of to their danger or dishonour it was appeased About sixteen years after being three hundred and thirteen years before the Incarnation or coming of Christ Papirius Publius being bound for his Fathers Debt having consigned himself a Prisoner to the Creditor who supposing that he might abuse the young mans Body for Interest of his Money began to tempt him with fair words and promises afterwards to threaten him and when that would not serve commanded him to be stript naked and whipt whereupon the young man all wounded and torn ran forth into the Street and complained to all he met of the filthy lust and cruelty of the Creditor and thereupon a great company of People moved with the injury of the Usurer and pity of the young Man as also in regard of their own case and their Children gathered themselves into the Market-place or Town-hall and from thence towards the Senate-house and the Consuls being upon this suddain uproar Coacti saith Livy compelled to assemble the Senate the People as the Senators entred in the Senate-house lay prostrate at their feet as they passed by shewed the young mans back and sides whereupon the Consuls were commanded to propose to the People that from hence forward no person whatsoever unless guilty of matters Criminal or Trespas for noxa the word used there by Livy and Noxales actiones are by the Roman and Civil Laws and our Bracton also interpreted to be matters and actions of Trespas as well as greater crimes until he were condemned to punishment should be bound in Fetters or Chains and that the Goods of the Debtors not the Body should be obnoxious to the payment of the Money borrowed which might better be ordained there than with us or many other Nations for that the Romans by their Censors did keep publick Registers of every mans Lands Estate and Lands so they that were in Bondage became released and enlarged and order war taken for the time to come ne necterentur saith Livy that the Debtors should not hereafter be bound or chained in Prison Which if any shall misinterpret to be an absolute freedom of the Persons of the Debtors from Arrest the Roman Records and Histories will be againsâ— them CHAP. XIII That this Order made to pacifie a Tumult was not perpetual or so much as intended to extend to an absolute freedom of the Debtors from Arrest or restrainte of their Persons till they appeared in Courts of Justice or gave Bail to do it FOr a Plebiscite or Law of the People it could not be for they were not
of Debt if it had been a grievance or not understood as it ought to be a legal and necessary part of the Laws of the Land or have omitted so often and daily happening Concernments of themselves and their Posterity if they could have thought that way of Procesâ— and proceedings at Law either was or could have been a grievance when as they did then so much believe all the grievances of the Nation to be by that abundantly satisfactory Act of Parliament made upon that Petition of Right to be banished and their fears quieted as they caused publick rejoycings and Bon-fires to be made for it And if it had not been so understood by the Reverend and Learned Judges and Sages of the Law who were then in being and have been since entrusted with the Administration of Justice such Proces and proceedings would never certainly have been made when the Petition of Right prayed That in the things aforesaid all his Majesties Officers should serve him according to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm as they would tender the honour of His Majesty and prosperity of the Kingdom and the King in his answer thereunto and giving it the life and power of a Law did will that right should be done according to the Laws and Customes of the Realm and that the Statutes be put in Execution that His Subjects may have no cause to complain of any Wrong or Oppression contrary to their just Rights and Liberties For it must be a more then an ordinary Hypochondriacal Melancholy that can perswade any Man to think that if the Process of Arrest or Outlawry could by any foresight or prospect have been believed to have been either a grievance or illegal or any Seminary of ill Consequences that ever to be lamented unhappy Parliament begun in November 1640. would in that fatal Remonstrance of theirs published to the People the 15th day of December following wherein they were so willing to amass every thing that might but look like a grievance of the People and were so effascinated in their evil purposes as they crowded in amongst them many essentials and necessaries of Government have omitted such an important and often happening grievance if any could with any colour of Law or reason have believed it or that in the nineteen high and mighty Propositions sent by them unto him in June 1642. or in the Message or Committe of the Lords and Commons then remaining at Westminster sent unto him at Oxford in Anno 1643. by the Earl of Northumberland William Peirpont Esquire and others or in the Treaty and Propositions at Vxbridge for Peace betwixt the King and that misnamed Parliament in the year 1644. such a necessary if it had been thought to have been one should have been neglected or in the Message of the Lords and Commons in the then so called Parliament sent unto him when he was a Prisoner at Holimby in the year 1647. with propositions for Peace nothing should have been desired to prohibit Arrests but on the contrary an Act of Parliament was required for confirmation of all Customs Charters Liberties and Franchises of the City of London which for many hundred of years before had been approved Or that in the Bills and Propositions sent unto Him in the same year to the Isle of Wight when he was there a close Prisoner Or in an Act or Ordinance made by the Lord Major and Common Councel of London in the year 1660. for the better regulating of that Cities Courts at Guild-hall in which notice was taken of their ancient Customs and diverse abuses committed by Serjeants at Mace and their Yeomen in arresting of Men there should be no mention made of any original Grievances or Illegality by or in the Proces of Arrest nor any orders made or desired to be made against it Until therefore this invisible and untelligible repealing Act of the Statute of 25 E 3. ca. 17. shall be pleased to appear and shew it self the Founders of that fancy may do well to build no further upon it but silence their causeless out-cries against it And when such or the like imaginations shall offer themselves think rather that Acts of Parliament according to the advice and opinion of the Judges in Doctor Foster's case which have been established with so much solemnity wisdom gravity and universal consent for the good of the Weal publick ought not by any strained construction or ambiguous words if there had any been in any subsequent Act to be laid aside disused or abrogated and that doubtful aequivocal words if there had been any ought according to the rule in Gregories Case to be interpreted in the better and more likely sence And not trouble themselves as they have lately done for before the year 1640 and 1641. when Liberty ran mad and the Factious part of the People did too much read the Books of Plunder and Sequestration and admired the Models and Contrivances of Hugh Peters Huson the Cobler Pride the Drayman and every Mechanick and Tradesman and every Mercenary Red-coat Rebel-Souldier who would by his indigested conceptions be a Solon or Licurgus they did not to subvert as they endeavour'd to do our long experimented approved Laws Customs to make room for their own ungodly advantages and sordidly ignorant alterations and at the same time allow the Caption and Horning of that by them Conquered and once illegally Covenanting Scotland to be lawful Nor vex themselves and others as they have done with the Chymeras and phancies of that never to be found repealed Statute of 25 E. 3. cap. 17. and their so much mistaken Gorgons head and affrights of their Liberties being likely to be lost by that or other our Laws when our Laws and the due Execution thereof are and have been by our Kings and Princes and their just authority the only means under God to preserve them Or be so over-lavish in shooting their Bolts in undertaking to assert That England is impoverished more then a Million of Money Sterling every year by Sheriffs Bailiffs Serjeants Marshals-men Proces-makers Habeas Corpus Rules Writers c. As a late Anonimous Champion of those kind of Liberty mongers terms them for which he would decoy as many inconsiderate People as he could into an opinion and belief that the Creditor is not the better one Peny for it which is as impossible to be proved or be lieved as that Bears are enabled by Nature to fly and usually do it or that the Mountains of Mountains the Alpes those highest Hills of the Christian World do usually at every Jubile leap to Rome to obtain an Indulgence or Pardon from that Holy Father for being so high-minded And what ever far lesser Sum of Money those Officers Fees which as to the Process-makers are very small and dearly enough earned do amount unto yearly it will be very difficult for that Man of confidence whosoever he be to prove that none or very many of the Creditors did
are not Judges by derivation from the King Who cannot make or unmake Judges Inferior Judges are more necessary than a King Parliaments may conveen and Judge without a King Are co-ordinate Judges with him not advisers only Subordination of the King to the Parliament and Co-ordination are both consistent The King transgressing in a hainous manner is under the coaction of Law Defensive Wars are lawful And there may be a distinction betwixt the Kings person and his Royal power The Physical act of taking away the life of offending persons when commanded by the Law of self-defence is no Murther Wars raised by the Subjects and Estates for their own just defence against the Kings bloody Emissaries are lawfull Parliament power is a fountain power above the King Who is but a noble Vassal of the Kingdom Is not head of the Church The people in some Cases may convene without the King Subsidies are the Kingdoms due rather then the Kings And thus provided and the scaling ladders made ready to storm the Laws which were the Forts and Bulwarks of the King and Government and heretofore made it their business to give help or shelter to the King the Deformers rather then Reformers do hasten one another to be up and doing And therefore in a Pamphlet entituled Liberty vindicated against Slavery Printed in the year 1645. the Author declared that Imprisonment for Debts is against the foundamental Laws of England Propositions were shortly after made unto that company of Monarchy underminers called the Parliament for the laying aside the six Clarks in Chancery and the imploying their under Clarks at Cheaper Rates In the year 1646. Mr. John Cooke of Grayes Inne who sufficiently deserved to be hanged drawn and quartered as he was afterwards as a Traytor in a Book dedicated to the most high and most honourable Court of Parliament the supreme as he calls it Judicatory of the Kingdom saith that the alteration of fundamental Laws as Sir Edward Coke saith produces many inconveniencies as in that statute of imprisoning mens bodies for Debt And there must needs be good work in that their sport of pulling down and setting up when it hath been as truly said as verified that the Kings Parliament began in 1640. and continued with some freedom of Votes untill December 1641. From thence it was governed by the City of London and their Tumults Propositions and Petitions unto December 1643. And from thence by the Scots and their rebellious League and Covenant unto the Month of June 1647. When the Presbyterians had the ascendant and predominancy and that was not unjustly called the Apprentises Parliament And after that Sir Thomas Fairfax his Parliament which was governed by his Army and their Addresses Declarations and Proposals wherein the Independant party were Superior and ought to be called the Agitators Parliament The King in the mean time in his great desire of peace with those whose wicked designes never intended it not making that right use which he otherwise might have done of the successes which God had given him in the just defence of himself and his Loyal Subjects and the Laws Liberties and Religion of his People tired with the treachery of those that too often betrayed and sold his just advantages and overpowered with an Army of Covenanting Scots who came to assist their brother Rebells of England and believing himself to be somthing safe in their Oaths and Promises and flying to them for Succour was by a party of them contrary to the Laws of God and Nations sold to the English Rebells for two hundred thousand Pounds Sterling Too great a summe of Money to be restored again as Judas did the thirty pence the wages of his sin for the betraying of our Lord and Saviour and by tricks and devices carried Prisoner from place to place untill he was barbarously Murthered And the Heire and Royal Issue driven out of their Inheritance and then every Mechanick head was set on worke to frame a new Government in which there were as many diversities of opinions as there were Ignorances and Sinister ends to advance their particular ambitions or advantages and a mart being kept of Whimsies some being much in love with the Balletting box used at Venice others with the Rota and Mr. Harringtons Oceana and all or too many thus busied Sedition and Ignorance sat in their Triumphal Chariots with the Laws Learning and Religion of the Nation like so many Captive Kings in Chains attending all which did not fully correspond with the Votes and expectation of the Presbyterians when as Cromwell the gâ—â—at Encourager of the Independents or Fanatick party then the more numerous feeling his own strength and having a prospect of a better design of establishing himself did so delay and trifle with the Parliament his Masters in their desires of disbanding the Armies as the Presbyterian Souldiers in the mean time selling their Debenturs the wages of their Rebellion and wickedness at 16 d. or 18 d. a pound with a long Interest to the Independents who were thereby easily enabled to buy King Queen and Princes the Bishops and Dean and Chapters Nobility and Delinquents Lands as they mis-called them and that party being so well gratified were not afterwards unwilling to Lacquey after his hypocrisie and permit him to frame and make his own Instrument and method of a more arbitrary Government then our Laws permitted or any of our Kings or Princes exercised and to be as a single person Protector of all the Knaves and Fools in England Scotland Ireland and Wales withall their fancied and supposed Liberties which as they used them were but to hunt and chase all that were loyal and honest and thought they might do any thing to the Amorites Moab and Amalek and that all the Scripture was contained in Gain being as they supposed Sanctified into a pretence and outward semblance of Godliness In the later end of the year 1648. some thousands of Well-affected as their Sedition perswaded them inhabiting the Cities of London and Westminster Borough of Southwark and Hamlets supposing the Time to smile upon their purposes did Petition that which when the King was murthered was no Parliament that they would consider the many thousands that were ruined by perpetual imprisonment for Debt and provide for their enlargement In the year 1649. one Thomas Faldoe of Grays-Inne Esq was so loth to have his Conceipts and Opinions lag behind as in a Pamphlet entituled Reformation of Proceedings at Law published on the behalf of himself and the Commonwealth of England he complained That the Law of Property was depressed and useless by the colour of the Statute of Imprisonment and sacrificed to all the Birds of prey even to Covetousness the mother of Cruelty in the several Offices and Instruments of Justice And in the same year came out a Representation of divers as they called themselves Well-affected persons in or about the City of London petitioning the Parliament That all tenures in Capite and all inferiour
general execution of the Laws as it is now practised is an oppression to the whole Nation that trivial and impertinent Suits are brought out of the Countries to Westminster and thereby all inferiour Courts are destroyed and proposed a publick Registry to be in every County of all Entails Mortgages and Statutes that before any cause or Action â—e entred in any Court or come before the Judges peace he offered by the Plaintiffs and that wise men be appointed to take up Controversies that all the Tithes and Glebe Lands with other things called Church-duties may be sold and a competent means provided for the Ministers of the Gospel In a Book entituled Englands safety in the Laws Supremacy and published in the year 1659 it was amongst other things required as a Law including the peopleâ— Liberties that no man be imprisoned for Debt but that all Estates real and personal be liable for discharge of Debts In the same year in a Pamphlet entituled the humble desires of a Free Subject it was desired that not any of the free people of the three Nations and Territories thereunto belonging should not be molested or imprisoned or have any violence offered to their persons but shall have full power and liberty to seek for their redress unto the Law and the Courts of Justice according to the ancient constitutions of the Laws of the three Nations In another owned by one Mr. James Freez entituled the outcry and just Appeal of the enslaved people of England to be delivered from the insupportable oppression of lawless yokes of misery it complains that thousands of people are ruined and robbed in their Estates Liberties and Lives by Arrests and Outlaries and prayeth that the Writs of Capias may be abolished and the imprisoned set free which would work the total downfall of Satans throne of Injustice cruelty and oppression even of the four Fairs kept in Westminster-hall by the ingrossers of pretended Justice where and by whom men are daily bought and sold in their Estates Rights and Liberties Some of the Inhabitants of Hull did petition that the Laws by which the Common-wealth is to be governed may be those holy just and righteous Laws of the great and wise God and declaring that the Nobility are the Pillars and Buttresses of Monarchy and Citadels of Pride and Tyranny ought to be only during life that the Divines the Lawyers and hereditary Nobility are irreconcilable Antagonists to a Free-State adviseth an Agrarian Law that the proportion of Lands be stinted and a rotation of all Offices and imployments that those which are capable may tast of rule as well as subjection In a Book called A Rod for the Lawyers they are called the grand robbers and deceivers of the Nation greedily devouring many millions of the peoples money and it alledgeth that there are in England Wales of Judges Lawyers Officers Clarks Attorneys and Solicitors above 30000 a quarter of that number at the largest reckoning being not to be found of them which admitting that each of them do get 250 l. per annum very many of them not getting 100 l. per annum many not 50 l. per annum and many not 10 l. per annum or so much as the Rag-gatherers in London-streets do who take it to be an ill week that yields them not 10 s. it will saith that Calculator amount unto seven millions and an half per annum besides the charges of riding to and from London whereas if ever there were such a number to be proved there are greater numbers of Carpenters and Smiths who do yearly gain as much as the smaller sort of the Law Profession do by their as necessary labours In a Declaration and Proclamation of the Army as they called themselves of God published in the same year they did declare and resolve by the help of God that there should be liberty of Conscience but not of Sin Godly Laws to be enthroned but not the Jews Judges to be in every City but not imposed Prison doors should be set open to let out Debtors to labour towards the payment of their Debts and look'd upon it as the voice of God calling upon them and giving them an opportunity and therefore desiring assistance in so great an enterprize by as many persons of note and ability as God hath made willing and able together with themselves to put in sufficient security for the performance thereof did intreat them to send in their names to Mr. Livewell Chapman Book-seller in Popes-head-alley by the Exchange who hath promised to keep them secret untill by sober and frequent meetings the matters may be digested fit to be presented to the Parliament and chief Officers of the Army Where if the Propositions do prove acceptable there will be a sum of 500000 l. ready towards performance of the same And in the Plea called the Armies Plea it is alledged that the peoples safety is the chief Soveraignty of all Laws Statutes Acts and Ordinances Covenants Engagements Promises Subscriptions Vows Oaths and all manner of obligations and expressions thereof and are only binding to the Publique safety and not to the persons of the Governours or forms of Government but with reference thereunto and as principles of truth and right reason brought to light by the late Parliament And one being willing to come on as fast as he could and keep company with those goodly assertions saith that it is not lopping the branches or cutting off the Top branch of Monarchy that will deliver a Nation from bondage unless the Axe be laid to the root thereof to the evil root of bitterness whence springs all our misery to the root of every usurping and domineering Interest whether in things Civil or Divine The number of Freeholders being much increased hath had a natural and strong tendency towards a Commonwealth no Government can be fix'd in this Nation but according to the Ballance of Land that Prince that is not able neither by his own or the publique Revenue in some measure to counterpoise if not over-ballance the greater part of the people must necessarily be Tenant at will Another in his Arguments and fancied Reasons against the office and title of Kingship published in the year aforesaid saith that the Office of a King makes way for an Act of resumption and the unsetling of mens Estates that the abolishing of Episcopacy and Peerage and the establishing of Liberty for Tender consciences were not the ground of the Wars for nothing appeared at the first but the Militia the Negative voice and the removing of Evil Counsel the other things were brought into the quarrel in the progress of the contest by an higher hand of providence then mans purpose One of the same company and School of contrivances desired publickly that no man should be imprisoned for Debt except such as are doubted to be running away and then not above three days and to be maintained by the Plaintiff at 3 s. a day in the mean time In a
by discountenancing the present Laws to loosen the bonds of government to the end that all disorder and confusion might breake in upon him And in his answer to the above mentioned 19. propositions sent unto him by both houses of Parliament the 2. of June 1642. Declared unto them that those that had the conduct of that affair thought fit to remove a troublesome rub out of their way viz. the Law to the end they might undermine the very foundation of it Which every day after grew more and more visible when they being called together to council and advise him could not by their Votes which they would make as binding and obligatory as if they were Laws made and established by their Soveraign wrest and take from him the Militia or Sword wherewith he should protect and defend his people took it to be not a little advantagious to their purposes to ravel and dislocate the method and proceedings of his Laws and Justice By which his Throne was established that by overturning the long approved Laws and Customs of the Kingdom upon which the best Monarchy in the World was built they might open a passage to let in that gain and Anarchy which they aimed at which being once made known to their Emissaries and so much encouragement given by their members of that which was then untruly called a Parliament who rather then fail of Petitions unto them from the sons of Zerviah and Shimei out of every Countrey City Corporation and Market Town caused Printed Bills to be affixed upon the Posts and Corners of the Streets in London whose multitudes of Inhabitants in Masters Apprentizes Tapsters and other Illiterate and Vulgar kind of people could readily afford them good store of such as had been borne or lived in every County City and Corporation of England and Wales to give a meeting at a place appointed to some Members of Parliament for the framing of Petitions unto it And thus the Hounds being uncoupled and let loose to chase the Royal Hart and the Presbyterian Ministers like Huntsmen busied in the ha loo lo ho ha loo loo so ho. Whooping and following to cheer and set them on and busying themselves to remove all things that might hinder the pursuit of their Petitions for the presenting whereof Pulpit Granado men were employed to procure them to be brought with 100 or 200 or more of the factious on Horseback with the Petitions ready printed or Tackt to their Hats or Hatbands with Swords by their sides The London Porterswere set on to Petition against the Militia when they were only told it was against the Watermen for carrying Trunks and other Burdens by Water And a Schoolmaster at Stamford was so wickedly Ingenious as to make his Boyes subscribe a Petition to that Parliament against Episcopacy as if their Parents had actually done it In the mean time the Diurnals News Books and seditious Pamphlets the Stationers Arrowes and Artillery were day by day shot to wound him and incense the people against him and some of the Parliament men were heard to say That they could not do their work without them And the design was carried on so prosperously as too many thought their time best of all bestowed to pull down or take in pieces either all our old Laws or such a part of them as might not only undermine the frame and constitution of the Monarchy but innovate and introduce so much of their own Modells and Inventions as might either directly lead to a republique or some new devices of Anarchy A Book called the pollution of University Learning printed in 1642. Marched in the van together with another Book called the Observator and his Jesuitical principles Quod efficit tale est magis tale and that the King was singulis Major but universis Minor and those kind of Engines were greatly incouraged in their attempts by a Book of Junius Brutus his vindiciae contra Tirannos translated out of Latine into English to infect the people with Treasonable Doctrines And a Book intituled Maxims Vnfolded That the Election of the Kings of England ought to be by the consent of the people The Royal and politique power in all Causes and over all persons is properly the Parliament The Oath of Supremacy binds not in Conscience to the King against the Parliament but the Pope And another book written by Mr. William Prynn an utter Barrister of Lincolnes Inne Entituled the Soveraigne power of Parliaments and Kingdoms Printed at London in the year 1643. Wherein with heaped quotations and much Learning and reading the wrong way he was willing to invite his Readers to believe that the Court of Parliament had a lawful power to question the Kings Patents Charters Commissions Proclamations Grants Warrants Writts and Commandments whether they be legal and to Cancell and repeale them that be illegal or mischievous and onerous to the subject not only without but against his consent It is lawful for the people submitting themselves to prescribe the King and his successors what Laws they please the Sheriffs of every County were antiently elected by the Freeholders and had power to raise the Militia that the Navy Ammunition Armes and Revenue of the King though they be in his possession are the Kingdoms That Kings and their great Officers Counsellors and Justices were at the first created and elected by the people that the King hath an absolute Negative voice in the passing of Bills of common right and Justice for the publique good that the Parliaments present necessary defensive war is just and lawfull both in point of Law Divinity and Conscience and no Treason or Rebellion the Parliament hath a right and Jurisdiction to impose Taxes and Contributions upon the subjects for defence of the King in case of the King his wilfull absence or Arming against them Seconded by a Book entituled Lex Rex written as believed by one Rutherford a Scottish Divine Printed at London by John Field and published in the year 1644. By the then usurped authority wherein he falsly endeavoured to maintaine against all the grounds and fundamentals of Law and Religion That Kings and their Families have no calling to the Crown but only by the people Royalty is not transmitted from Father to Son if the people may limit the King they give him the power who is the servant of the people both objectively and subjectively and is inferiour unto them who cannot make away their power but do retain the fountain power of making a King that to swear non self preservation and to swear self Murther is all one The King is a Fiduciary Life-Renter not a Lord or Heritor the conscience of the people is immediately subordinate to God not to the King mediatly or immediately the Judges are the immediate Vicars of God not of the King The Parliament hath more power then the King The Crown is the Patrimony of the Kingdom not of him who is King or of his Father The Parliament
in his Comment upon Magna Charta cap. 29. that the Custom of England declared by Magna Charta doth not extend to the imprisonment of any Debtors but the Kings And assisted those his wicked and false Rabshakesmes with another little Book called the Cry of Bloud dedicated to Oliver Cromwell General as he stiled him of the puissant Army of the Parliament of England wherein charging the crime of Murder and of the bloud of the righteous Abel as he is almost frantickly pleased to fancy it upon the Process of Arrest and Outlawry and that innocent and most necessary way of compelling men to Justice he stileth them a course of Sin and the Offices of those who do make them the gift of the Devil and the Lawyers liars although Mr. John Cooke of Grays-Inne before the Devil had entred into him and ingaged him to be a prosecutor of his Soveraign even to the Murder of him did in his Book printed in the year 1646. entituled A Vindication of the Professors and Profession of the Law dedicated to the then Parliament declare that he was confident that the Common Lawyers of England are as understanding rational men as any Practisers of any Profession whatsoever in the world and he durst say that there are more Godly religious Lawyers Attorneys and Sollicitors in England then in all that habitable part of the world called Christendom Mr. William Leach of the Middle-Temple proposed that no Defendant should be enforced to appear unto any Action before a Poenal Summons and a Declaration first filed unless in case of likelihood to depart the Land or to make away his Goods and in such case upon an affidavit to be made before a Justice of Peace by any Officer to be arrested Isaac Pennington the younger the Son of that man of Faction his Father offered in a Pamphlet to assert that the Rights Liberties and safety of the people were in themselves and derivatively in the Parliament their Substitutes and Representatives and that the people ought well to look to their rectifying right that it may have its free current Mr. Henry Robinson in his publick Proposals for a cheap and easie distribution of Justice would have a publick Country Registry for Lands and another for Debts and that in every City Corporation and Division in each County Judges may be appointed with an yearly Salary By a Petition of many calling themselves a Free-people promoted by John Wildman and John Lilburne Gent. they do require that all the Laws Process and Inrolments of England be written in English and a Roman or Secretary hand Hugh Peters a Prompter at a Play-house long before he was a my mick Preacher and the abuse of the Pulpit having made many a Renegado Voyage from England to Holland thence to New-England and from thence in the company of other Birds of Prey pearching here again in England was so unwilling not to be as busie in the ruine of his Country as other men of the Trinkets and new Fangles were as in his Book entituled Endeavours as he saith aiming at the Glory of God that Peace and Truth may meet together undertaketh to prove that Government by succession from Father to Son was none of Gods institution in the first and purest Times that Custom hath worn out Truth but we were to enquire for the old and good ways and Christ saith it was not so in the beginning And in June 1651. in his Book entituled Good Work for a Good Magistrate would have Registers to be setled in every Parish of all Mortgages Alienations c. and from thence transmitted to the County or Shire-Town that in every County every Hundred do choose three men to be Peace-makers for a year to determine all common controversies without Appeal Wills and Testaments to be acknowledged before two next Justices and entred in the Parochial Registries five or seven in every Town or Hundred to be yearly chosen to determine all Debts or Strifes whereof three to give sentence without Appeal that Summons instead of Arrests may be left at mens houses none to distrain for Taxes or Debts but the Debtors outward doors to be taken away and carried to the Town-house and as many other new doors as shall be set in the place every man plead his own cause and if he think himself too weak let him have liberty to take a Friend or Neighbour to plead for him but no Advocates or Seriveners to plead for any man if any Lawyers be continued let them be allowed and paid by the State all Suits in London and great Cities to be determined in a week Which being done it was very advisable to burn all the old Records even those in the Tower the monuments of Tyranny And had so in a short time after haled on his design of destroying all the Records and memorials of the Laws of England to make way for his new contrivances as a Serjeant at Arms of the then miscalled Parliament or one of their Mock-Majesty Mace-bearers had an express order happily diverted by some other affair when it was ready to be put in execution to throw all the Records remaining in the Treasuries at Westminster into the River of Thames And the Law that it might the better be baited and abused as if no Foreigners could ever have occasion to read understand or make use of them must with its Writs Records Process and Proceedings for the time to come be written in English many of the Law-books being in order thereunto by the factious and greedy avarice of many of the Book-sellers and Stationers procured to be mercenarily translated into English and exposed to the rude eyes and hands of the ignorant and the little reason that the Owners of it do use to have whereby to make it a Ludibrium and the wonder of their lesser Intellect which might easily happen where they wanted the keys and assistance of other Learnings and every thing their shallow apprehensions could not reach or fathom was by them supposed to be Norman slavery Antichristian or Idolatry the Records must no more be written in the long-lasting and durable Court and Chancery hands or manner of writing made out of the old Saxon Gothick and Reunick Characters as they were wont to be and had been for many ages before but in a Secretary hand not that strong and legible hand heretofore used but a kind of Jack-an-Apes hand composed of Antick frisking undistinguishable letters so written with the side of a Pen and small slit as that scratching rather then writing hath been often seen not to be able to keep company with the Parchment it was wrote upon the small period of Oliver Cromwells wickedly usurped Dominion Which needless change and novelty with other the doings of the Factious and Rebellious so wrought upon the minds of the ruder sort of the people to the joy and comfort of those who thought themselves to be specially Godly as the Lawyers could not pass in the Streets without many