much more to act it Queen or their eldest Son and Heyre 2. To violate the KING'S Companion eldest Daughter unmarried or the Wife of the KING' 's eldest Son and Heyre 3. To leavy War against the King or adhere to his Enemies in his Realm and thereof be proveably attained of open deed by people of their condition 4. To counterfeit the King 's Great or Privy Seal 5. Or his M ney 6. To slay the King's Chancellor Treasurer Justices of one Bench or other Justices in Eyre Justices in Assize and all other Justices assigned to hear and determine being in their Places doing their Offices If any other case supposed Treason which is not above specified So the four Lords ought to have been Tried not by a new shambles of Justice doth happen before any Justices the Justices shall tarry without any going to Judgement of the Treason till the Cause be shewed and declared before the King and his Parliament not before the House of Commons only or before both Houses without the King whether it ought to be adjudged Treason You see how few in number these Treasons specified are and that they must be attained of open deed by their Peers our words were free under Monarchy though not free under our Free-State so were they under the Romans Tacitus An. 1. sub finem seaking of Treasons facia arguebantut dicta impune erant These horrible tyrannies considered and being destitute of all other less desperate relief I do here solemnly declare and protest before that God that hath made mee a Man and not a Beast a Free-man and not a Slave that if any man whatsoever that taketh upon him the reverend name and title of a Judge or Justice shall give Sentence of Death upon any friend of mine upon this or any other illegal Act of this piece of a House of Commons I will and lawfully may the enslaving scar-crow doctrine of all time-serving State-flattering Priests and Ministers notwithstanding follow the examples of Sampson Judith Jael and Ehud and by Ponyard Pistol Poyson or any other means whatsoever secret or open prosecute to the Death the said Judge and Justice and all their principal Abettors And I do here invite and exhort all generous free-born English-men to the like resolutions and to enter into Leagues defensive and offensive and sacramental associations seven or eight in a company or as many as can well confide in one another to defend and revenge mutually one anothers Persons Lives Limbs and Liberties as aforesaid against this and all other illegal and tyrannous Usurpations 162. A motion to inlarge Sir Will. Waller c. And the Generals Answer intimating the securing of the Members to be done by confederacy with the Army-party in the House About this time or a little before the General was moved to enlarge Sir William Waller and the other Members illegally kept Prisoners in Windsor He answered They were no longer his but the Parliaments prisoners It should seem the Brute hath made a private deed of gift of them to his Journy-men of the House The Generals Warrant seized and imprisoned them and notwithstanding the Councel of Officers declared in Print that they were preparing a Charge against them yet the Knaves lyed like Saints they were then so far from having matter to accuse them of that they have ever since hunted after a Charge against them and endeavoured to suborn Witnesses but after 24 weeks restraint whereas by the Law no man ought to be committed without an accusation they have found nothing against them This turning over of these Prisoners to the House of Commons proves what I formerly asserted in Sect. 24. That the violence of the Army in securing and secluding the Members was by consent of their Somerset-house Junto now sitting in the House of Commons 163 The General sends forth Warrants to all Justices of the Peace to attach those Levellers that he had routed The honest Levellers most of them Country-men endeavouring to draw to a Randezvouz about 600. or 700. of them marched from Banbury to Burford in Oxfordshire where lying securely because they were upon treaty with the Enemy their Quarters were beaten up and about 180. of them taken Prisoners which their enemies according to their usual custome to gain reputation by lying reported to be so many Hundreds And the General as if they had been all routed sent forth his Warrants to all Justices of the Peace in the adjacent Counties requiring them to apprehend and secure all such of them as shall be found I desire to know by what Authority the General takes upon him to command Justices of the Peace who are not under his Power and what tame Animals these Justices are that will submit to his commands and whether he thinks the Civil Magistrate to be obnoxious to the Power of the Sword and the Councel of Officers See the Vote and Act for abolishing the Kingly office 164. and his single self the Supreme Magistrate or Tyrant Paramount notwitstanding the Vote of his Journey-men Commons That no single Man should be trusted with the Supreme Power The Levellers having possessed themselves of Northampton the General it is said thought fit to take hold of the Horns of the Altar The General sends to the City for additional Forces and wrote to his vassals of the City to send their Trained Bands to his relief that he might the better domineer over them and continue their slavery hereafter But if the Citizens have no more wit I wish their Horns may be as visible in their fore-heads as the Nose in Olivers face To cozen the honest Levellers 165. The Commons colourably debate to dissolve this Parl. and settle a succeeding Representative the Commons in order to the ending this present Parliament are debating how to pack a succeeding Representative as wicked as themselves and of the same leaven whose Election shall not be free but bounded with such Orders of limitation and restriction as shall shut out all men from electing or being elected as are not precisely of the same principles and practices and as deep engaged in their tyrannical trayterous cheating bloody designs as themselves guilty Committee-men and Accountants to the State shall be the next Representative and for the better lengthening of the businesse that they may see what success in the mean time the Levellers will have they wire-draw it through a Committee and refer it to be debated by a Committee of the whole House And at last if they must dissolve having packed themselves into a Councel of State they will usurp the Supreme Authority there to prepare the way to which design they have passed another Act May 19. That the People shall be Governed as a Free-state by Representatives and by such as they shall constitute and then consider what kind of Representatives we are like to have Great care is taken that the State or rather our States-mens private pockets might not be prejudiced by Judgments
be sensible of the Divel where with they were possessed did frown upon them which so disanimated our Fanatick Enthusiasts ha a he very first blast they left the helm and like good boyes and well-taught having drawn up formally an instrument under their hands and Seals they repair to Cromwell and according as the design was laid together with the said instrument deliver and resign the Government to him and his Councill They resign to Cromwell who though at first he seemingly denyed yet immediately after with much solemnity he accepts thereof before the Mayor some Aldermen some Judges and the Officers of the Army Having thus far perâ—ected his devillish design and made all his own by modelling the Army under the command of his own Creatures setling the Government of Ireland upon his Son Harry and Scotland reduced to obey and submit to him It is now thought fit he should declare himself Cromwels first Parliament do nothing which to please and gull the people the better he does by abasing himself and calling as he termed it a Parliament to meet on the Third of September 1654. Which it did but the poor animalls not having well conned their lesson before-hand were suspected dull and turned a grazing to get more understanding the very first instant he might lay hold on to do it By which means once more all pretence of Government being utterly abolished he himself playes Rex and by an arbitrary power beyond without and against law doeth what he list Major Gen. set up by Mayor-Generals a name in England unknown oppressing the Country robbing the Gentry spoiling all and murdering many so that none durst say what doest thou A question was converted into a plot and to deny a tax merited decimation It was not enough to have suffered all former rapines imprisonment and plunderings fines and taxes but at last we must all be decimated We were tanquam Oves destined for slaughter and such was our misery there was none to redeem sad testimonies whereof were Gerard Grove and others about this time whose blood only could expiate a crime they never thought or were guilty off In this unlimited posture of arbitrary power did the the Kingdom stand when that Arch-Machiavilian Cromwell adding strength to the wings of his ambitious mind soared an Eagle-height and made all the circumference of his actions to center at the royall State thinking with a grasp of the Scepter to ennoble his name and family not minding either the danger of the passage or the slipperriness of the station when arrived at the top And indeed such was his fortune that he did ascend the throne in which it was for the future his restless endeavour to settle himself and his posterity and the better to cast a seeming gloss of legality upon his usurpation Cromwels second Parliament confirm him as Protector he summons another Parliament in the Year 1656. hoping thereby to work his ends unseen and so he did as to the vulgar eye for soon after their meeting and first triall of their temper he so moulds them to his own humour by a recognition that they are over-hastily delivered of a strange abortion by them called the petition and advice c. in which with much solemnity though damnable hypocrisie they desire him to be King but in more general terms to take upon him the government and be chief Magistate which he very gravely considering of diverse dayes returnes his denyall in part but withall insinuates in part his willingness to be setled Lord Protector at which newes his faction rejoycing with many Eulogies for his humility in refusing the Kingship he is by the said Parliament who adjourned for the same end solemnly installed Protector at Westminster by Widdrington who was the Speaker to that convention by Whitlock Lisle Warwick c. And upon their resisting he is petitioned to accept of almost two millions by the year for his support to maintain a crew of idle wenches his daughters whose pampered lusts were grown almost insatiable 2. To erect a new house of Lords of his own Creatures who being indebted to him for their raising durst do no other than by a slavish submission perform his tyrannous will 3. To name his successor that so he might entail his yoke of tyrannical Usurpation and slavish oppression on the Kigdom and severall other things which with much adoe after many perswasive intreaties and much unwillingness God knowes he accepts of No sooner is this done The said Parliament dissolved but the fox laughs in his sleeve to see how he has cheated the Parliament And therefore to make them know their rider after a few words of exhortation to them of the want of them in the Country and the necessity of their retiring thither for the peace of the Nation with a friendly nod he dismisseth them and sends them home Thus with much cunning and dissimulation having attained the perfection of his desires Cromwell seeks to strengthen himself knowing that such greatness must be upheld with allies and every noble coat of armes must have his supporters he strengthens himself at home by intermixing with noble blood marrying own of his Daughters to the Lord Faulconbridge and an other to the heir apparent of the Earldom of Warwick the later of which though in the prime of his youth finding the disagreement between Nâ—ble and Rebell blood was soon over-heated and by the suddenness of his death left his wife the widow of a loathed bed In the next place he seeks friendships and leagues abroad and intending to close with France He closeth with France he directly quarrels with the Spanyard and affronts him in severall places near about one time particularly he sends one part of the Fleet under the command of Pen to Hispaniola but with so little disadvantage that he was enforced to retreat thence with no small loss falling soon after on Jamaica with better success winning a part thereof though most inconsiderable the whole Island being not worth the tenth part of the blood and treasure it hath cost this Kingdom being no way at all serviceable either for the advance or security of trade in those parts Mazarine in France finding the benefit of these helps upon the very first motion strikes with him a league offensive and defensive Cromwell promising to assist the French with 7000. Men to maintain the war against the Flanders which at this time he sent they proving so helpfull by their valour that in a short time they gain Mardike Gravelin and Dunkirke Dunkirke gained the last of them according to articles being delivered up to the English in whose hand it yet remains In the interim while these things were transacting Cromwell suspicious of every blast of wind and fearfull of every motion contrives in himself to take off two or three of the most eminent of the Kings party in England to daunt the rest among whom he separates one layman Sir Henry Slingsby and one
what Spirit Haslerigge is known That some Northern Counties having petitioned the Commons for relief against the miserable famine raging there Haslerigge opposed their request saying The want of food would best defend those Counties from Scottish Invasions What man that had any sense of Christianity Courage Honesty or Iustice would have been the Authour of so barbarous and unjust a motion That six Gentlemen no way conscious nor privie to the fact should be offered up a sacrifice to revenge and malice nay to guilty fears and base cowardicâ— to keep off the like attempts from Haslerigge and his Party I wish this Gentleman would reade the Alcharon or new Independent Bible of the new Translation and from thence gather precepts of more Humanity Justice Honesty and Courage since he hath Read the Old and New Testament of Moses and Christ to so little purpose Yet the House 18. of May passed a Declaration That if more Acts of the like nature happened hereafter it should be retaliated upon such Gentlemen of the Kings Party as had not yet Compounded But this is but a device to fright them to Compound unlesse it be a forerunner to a Massacre heretofore taken into consideration at a Councell of Warre See Sect. 117. 161. An act declaring more new Treasons About this time came forth that prodigious Act declaring four new Treasons with many complicated Treasons in their bellies the like never heard of before in our Law nor in any Kingdom or Republike of Christendom Because I have formerly spoken of it the Act it self printed publisht and dreadfully notorious throughout the whole Kingdom I will refer you to the printed Copie onely one clause formerly debated was omitted in the Act viz. That to kill the Generall Lieuten Gen. any Members of this present Parl. or Counsel of State to be declared Treason this would have discovered their guilty cowardize so much they were ashamed of it besides it was thought fit to make the People take a new Oath of Allegiance to the new State First I will only give you some few Observations thereupon This Act declares to be Treason unto death and confiscation of Lands all Deeds Plots and Words 1. Against this present fagge end of a Parliament and against their never before heard-of Supream Authority and Government for when was this Kingdome ever governed by a Parliament or by any power constituted by them 2. All endeavours to subvert the Keepers of the Liberty of England and Councell of State constituted and to be from time to time constituted by Authority of Parliament who are to be under the said Representatives in Parliament if they please and not otherwise for the Sword and the Purse trusted in the power of the Councell of State yet the Keepers of the Liberties of England and the Councell of State of England to be hereafter constituted by Parliament are Individua vaga ayrie notions not yet named nor known and when they are known we owe them no Allegiance without which no Treason by the known Lawes of the Land which is onely due to the King His lawfull Heires and Successours thereto sworn nor any the particular Powers and Authorities granted to this Parliament by the said Keepers of the Liberties of England and Councell of State yet any where authentically published and made known to us by any one avowed Act unlesse we shall account their Licensed New Books to be such and therefore they may usurp what powers they please So that these men who involved us in a miserable Warre against the late Murdered KING pretending He would enslave us and they would set us free have brought us so far below the condition of the basest Slaves that they abuse us like brute Beasts and having deprived us of our Religion Lawes and Liberties and drawn from us our money and bloud they now deny us the use of reason and common sence belonging to us as Men and Govern us by Arbitrary irrationall Votes with which they bait Traps to catch us Woe be to that people whose Rulers set snares to catch them and are amari venatores contra Dominum Men-hunters against God nay to move any Person to stir up the People against their Authority is hereby declared Treason mark the ambiguity of these words like the Devils Oracles which he that hath Power and the Sword in his hands will interpret as he please If the Keeper of the Liberties of England or Councell of State shall extend too farre or abuse their Authority never so much contrary to the Lawes of the Land Reason Justice or the Lawes of God as hath been lately done in this Case of Lylburne Walwyn c. no Lawyer no Friend shall dare to performe that Christian duty of giving councell or help to the oppressed here Fathers and Children Husbands and Wives Brothers and all relations must forsake nay betray one another lest these Tyrants interpret these duties to be A moving of them to stirre up the People against their Authority 3. All endeavours to withdraw any Souldier or Officer from their obedience to their Superior Officer or from the present Government as aforesaid By which words it is Treason First if any mans Child or Servant be inticed into this Army and the Father or Master endeavour to withdraw him from so plundering and roguing a kinde of life back to his profession Secondly If any Commander or Officer shall command his Souldiers to violate wrong or rob any man for the party so aymed at or some wel-meaning Friend to set before the said Souldiers the sinne and shame of such actions and disswade them from obeying such unlawfull commands 4. If any man shall presume to counterfeit their counterfeit Great Seale It is declared Treason I wonder it is not Treason to counterfeit their counterfeit coyne Behold here new minted Treasons current in no time and place but this afflicted Age and Nation Edw. 3. anno 25. regni ch 2. passed an excellent Act to secure the People by reducing Treasons to a certainty as our New Legislative Tyrants labour to ensnare the People by making Treasons uncertaine and arbitrary Sic volo sic ju beo it shall be Treason be cause they will call and Vote it so what they please to call Treason shall be Treason though our knowne Lawes call it otherwise we have long held our Estates and Liberties and must now hold our Lives at the will of those Grand Seigniours one Vote of 40. or 50. factious Commons Servants and Members of the Army vacates all our Lawes Liberties Properties and destroys our Lives Behold here a short veiw of that Act which hath no Additions by any Act subsequent See stat 1. Mariae c. 10. Whereas diverse opinions have been before this time in what cases Treason shall be said and in what not The King at the request of the Lords and Commons Declares See 1. H. 4. c. 10. 11. H. 7. c. 1. 1. That to compasse or imagine the Death of the KING how
Churchman Dr. Hewit Dr. Hewits death for the slaughter and conscious to himself that they had done nothing contrary to the law of the land he durst not try them by a Jury but re-erects his monstrous high Court of Justice before which being brought they denyed the authority thereof as unwarrantable which so wrought upon the patience of Mr. Lisle their bloodily learned President and the rest of the gange that they according as they were fore-instructed by their Master Divell Oliver without any great matter of circumstance condemne them both to be beheaded which sentence was accordingly executed on them the 8th Day of June at Towerhill notwithstanding all the means their friends could use of engagements perswasions and money and the deep earnest and continued intreaties sollicitations and supplications of Mrs. Claypoole his best beloved daughter Mrs. Clapooles death for so inexorable he continued that like the deaf adder he stopped his ears to the charmer charme he never so wisely at which unheard of cruelty and for that Dr. Hewits Lady as is said was then with child Mrs. Claypoole took such excessive grief that she suddenly fell sick the increase of her sickness making her rave in a most lamentable manner calling out against her Father for Hewits blood and the like the violence of which extravagant passions working upon the great weakness of her body carried her into another World even at the heighest thereof No sooner did Cromwell receive the deplorable newes of this sad death of his Daughter but himself falls into a desperate melancholly which never left him till his Death which was not long after Observe Give me leave here to relate a passage which I received from a Person of Quality Viz. It was believed and that not without some good cause that Cromwell the same morning that he defeated the Kings Army at Worcester Fight had conference personally with the Divell with whom he made a contract that to have his will then and in all things else for seven years after from that time being the Third of September 1651. he should at the expiration of the said years have him at his command to do at his pleasure both with his soul and body Now if any one will please to reckon from the third of September 1651. till the Third of September Cromwels death 1558. he shall find it to a Day just seven years and no more at the end whereof he dyed but with such extremity of tempestuous weather that was by all men judged to be prodigious neither indeed was his end more miserable for he dyed mad and despairing than he hath left his name infamous this was the end of our English Nero and thus having laid the best foundations his short and troublesome Reign would give leave to have continued his posterity in the same unlimited Dominion at his death si ulla fides viris qui castra sequuntur declaring his eldest Son Richard his successour in his Usurpation Leaving his Son Henry Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his Daughter Fleetwood married to the Commander in chief of the Army under himself and the only Man suspected for a Competitour in the Protectorship for Lambert had been laid aside long before as a person of too dangerous and aspiring principles to be trusted Richard Cromwell Protector Richard Cromwell p esently ascends the Throne being but a private Gentleman of Hampshire invited thereunto and incouraged by Fleetwood Desborow Sydenham the two Jones Thurloe and others the relations and confidents of his Father His first work is to take care for his Fathers Funerall his corps being shortly after interred among the Kings and Queens at Westminster at a farr * 29000 l. greater charge than had been used upon like occasions in the richest times death giving him that honour which he aspired to but durst not embrace in his life time which solemity â—ast by the contrivance of the new Courtiers congratulations are sent prepared at Whitehall from most of the Counties Citties chief Townes of England And from the Armies of England Scotland Ireland with engagements to live and dye with him Addresses from the Independent Churches by Mr. Goodwine and Nye their Metropolitans and was indeed worshipped by many as the rising Sun in our Horizon This Introduction being made for transferring the Government of these Nations from the Royal family of the Stewarts to that upstart of the Cromwells it was thought fit that a generall Convention Diâ—ks Parliament now model ed. after the manner of a Parliament wisely chosen by influences from Whitehall should be called to meet the twenty seventh of January and upon pretence of restoring the people to their antient way of Elections but reall that the Court might command the more votes the Burroughs also had writs sent to them and the Elections were all made in the antient way only thirty memberâ— were called by writs from Scotland and as many from Ireland according to the late combination of the three Nations into one Common-wealth This new kind of Parliament being met at the time and place appointed God who had so well ordered the Elections notwithstanding the practices of Men that their English Spirit quickly appeared against Impositions both from Court and Army Act of Recognition which being discerned by the Protector and his Grandees a Recognition is sent to them to be drawn into a bill the debate whereof taking up a whole fourtnights time and they still remaining in a great streight till by the expedient of an honest Gentleman they were extricated thence by passing these votes on Munday the 14th of February 1658. without any division or negative Resolved that it be part of this Bill to Recognize and declare his Highnesse Richard Lord Protector and chiefe Magistrate of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging Resolved that before this Bill be committed the House do declare such additionall clauses to be part of this Bill as may bound the power of the chief Magistrate and fully secure the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties and Rights of the People and that neither this nor any other previous vote that is or shall be passed in order to this Bill shall be of force or binding to the People till the whole Bill be passed Committee of inspection This done a Committee of Inspections is appointed to take a view of the accounts and revenue of the Common-wealth twelve Members versed in matters of account were selected and fully impowered for that work in order to the lessening the charge of the Common-wealth On Saturday the 19th of February they re-assumed the debate upon the Act of Recognition and resolved That it be part of the bill to declare the Parliament to consist of two houses Parl. to consist of two houses after which they fell upon the point of bounding the chiefe Magistrates power and the bounds and powers of the