Selected quad for the lemma: end_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	act_n	parliament_n	session_n	2,713	5	11.3473	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88195	An impeachment of high treason against Oliver Cromwel, and his son in law Henry Ireton Esquires, late Members of the late forcibly dissolved House of Commons, presented to publique view; by Lieutenant Colonel Iohn Lilburn close prisoner in the Tower of London, for his real, true and zealous affections to the liberties of his native country. In which following discourse or impeachment, he engageth upon his life, either upon the principles of law ... or upon the principles of Parliaments ancient proceedings, or upon the principles of reason ... before a legal magistracy, when there shal be one again in England ... to prove the said Oliver Cromwel guilty of the highest treason that ever was acted in England, and more deserving punishment and death then the 44 judges hanged for injustice by King Alfred before the Conquest; ... In which are also some hints of cautions to the Lord Fairfax, for absolutely breaking his solemn engagement with his souldiers, &c. to take head and to regain his lost credit in acting honestly in time to come; ... In which is also the authors late proposition sent to Mr Holland, June 26. 1649. to justifie and make good at his utmost hazard ... his late actions or writings in any or all his books.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.	1649 (1649)	Wing L2116; Thomason E568_20; ESTC R204522	95,549	77

but acquaint you for all the fair dealing my wife supposeth to finde abroad I am informed since Hast write to you That there is one Thomas Verney * * Which Thomas Verney is son to Sir Edward Verney the Kings Standard Bearer who was slain at Edg-Hill which Verney though he was Traveller yet is lately become an Agent of the Derby house Committee and Councel of State who as I am from very good hands informed they imployed to the Hague to lay a design to put the Prince on Ship-board and so send him for England to lose his head as his Father hath done but Verney being a little discovered comes lately over into England and amongst some pretends to be an Agent from the Prince and upon that score the Councel of State imployes him to write Letters of Friendship to me and to enter into treaty with me to betray Oxford c. to whom I will appoint that so if I had treated with him by his testimony they might have taken away my life for a Traytor in holding correspondency with the Prince by his Agents For the refusing to swear I so did honest young Master Blank being thereunto much perswaded and promised large bribes by Sir Arthur Haslerig but especially upon the 23 of April last as that alone for which they would take away my life was forced by Sir Arthur Haslerig the covetous and blood-thirsty Governor of Newcastle Ireton Pride c. to run the Gantlop at Saint James whom they whipped most barbarously and inhumanely therefore as by his Printed Testimony under his hand dated the 20 of April 1649. now in Print in Mercurius Militaris Number 3 he declares But knowing Verney before I saw him I was to hard for the Knave and have his Letters by me which I have several times told the Lieutenant of the Tower of that the Councel of State hath lately received his Oath against me in order to some tryal the Copy of whose Letters dated the eighth ninth and eleventh of May 1649. I have ordered my wife to bring you also a Surrey Justice of Peace being yesterday at a friends House in London declared He understood I was the third of July next to be tryed at Croyden Assizes Reports sometimes are but reports But if these should be true I may draw many inferences from them but whether true or false I shall not be altogether unprovided In the third place I am newly told it is intended that I and my three Comrades shall have our Liberties by an Act of Grace I confess if upon the day time any shall come up to my Chamber and say All the Gates are opened on purpose for me to go out I will take my liberty and go to my own house c. let the Gates be opened by whom they will but yet an Act of Grace is so ugly a thing in reference to my own innocency that I loath the thoughts of it in that sence For if I had been a condemned Felon I should have expected at the end of a Session of Parliament my portion in an Act of Grace and though I shall not be so much a fool but to take my liberty by it yet though I perish for it I must declare publikely abroad my Reasons to the Nation That those that sent us hither more stand in need of an Act of Grace from us then we from them Sir I love to be plain with any man I deal with as abhorring to accomplish my ends upon any man by deceit and therefore intreat you to desire Master Holland to think seriously upon my late Letter to him That I may have some kinde of answer from him by the day prefixt and send me my Ordinance and the Printed Sheet of Paper I sent you with it So with my love remembred to you I rest As much an Englishman as ever John Lilburn Tower the 29. of June 1649. And accordingly Master Holland sent me a large Letter dated from Sommerset House the 2. of July 1649. But although it takes notice of my foregoing Letter to him of the 26 of June 1649. yet it hath not one word of a direct answer to the three main things I therein desire of him that I can read in all his being meerly a Discourse built upon mistakes for I must here in a fair way tell him I have not in the least changed my principles but he his as I will upon the hazard of the greatest disgrace in the world make evidently appear to his face before any rational men in England whensoever he pleaseth Therefore I say I am no way by my foresaid Letter engaged to silence but am free at Liberty to prosecute my fixed intentions before the writing thereof which was to lay a firm foundation for my late promised Second part of the Legal Fundamental Liberties of the people of England revived asserted and maintained and fully to treat upon all those Heads mentioned in the last page of it being 9. And because I intend and hope I have matter enough already to make it the master-peece of all that ever I have writ And because unadvoidably it must have a dependency on what here follows which would make it to large to be therein Printed therefore I must go on with my former intended thoughts to publish in Print my impeachment of High Treason yet never extant to publique view against Lieutenant General Oliver Cromwel and his son in law Commissary General Henry Ireton as I formerly delivered it openly at the Bar of the House of Commons the nineteenth of January 1647. Which with the Preamble or Introduction thereunto belonging thus followeth UPon Munday the 17. Jan. 1647. I was at the h●●se of one Mr. Williams a Gardiner in Ratcliff-high-way neer East Smithfield where I met with divers honest men Inhabitants thereabouts about a Petition now on foot amongst whom was one Mr. Masterson the Parson or Priest of Shoreditch neer London who as since I am told came pretendedly as a Scrupler but said never a word there as I heard coming resolvedly to catch and intrap as by the sequel of his carriages appears For the next day being Tuesday up he comes with a full careere to the House of Lords as if he had been running for a fat Benefice as I was informed makes a most desperate complaint against Mr. John Wildman and my self as though under the pretence of managing a Petition we carried on a desperate design to destroy or cut the throats of the Parliament men and the execution of our desperate designs could not be far off for that I had as he said appointed blew Ribbons to be the sign to be worn in our hats to know one another by upon that day And after he had given in some such information as this with much more of the like nature at the Lords Bar where without doubt it was hugg'd to the purpose and rejoyced in as the issue of a design of their own brain to blast without all peradventure as

let me freely tell you I count it my glory and honour amongst the sons of men that I have had so great a hand in forwarding of that Petition as a had And therfore Sir as my crown and glory I shall freely tell you that as soon as I and some other of my true and faithfull Comrades had caused some thousands of that Petition to be printed I did the best I could to set up constant meetings in severall places in Southwark to promote the Petition to which meetings all scruplers and objecters against any thing contained in the Petition might repair unto for satisfaction and I did constantly make one at all such meetings to improve and put forth my abilities to open and unfold the excellency of that Petition and to answer all objections against any particular in it and when there was appointed Trustees in every parish which only did consist of such as had been and stil were active cordial and untainted faithful men to the Liberties and Freedome of their Native Country to take the especial care to promote the Petition effectually and vigorously in their respective Parishes I laboured the most I could to set up the like meetings in London and for that end diverse cordial honest faithful and Noun substantive English-men met openly at the WHALEBONE behind the Exchange where by common consent we chuse out a Committee or a certaine numb●r of faithful undestanding men but in regard I abhor to be a betrayer or a mischievous accuser I shal not dare without leave from themselves to name their names but leave you to the information of my illegal and unjust accuser at the Bar or such other as from such as he is you can procure it to withdraw into the next roome to forme a method how to promote it in every Ward in the City and out-parishes and also in every County in the Kingdome and for the more vigorous carrying it one we nominated as he tels you two or three treasurers and a proportion of Collectors to gather up our voluntary contributions which were no greater then some two pence per week others 3 d. some 4 d. some 6 d. some 12 d. 18 d. 2 s. the highest was halfe a crown per weeke and this was and is the voluntary act of every man in himselfe and the end of it was to pay for Printing the Petitions and bearing the charges of those messengers we should have occasion to send downe into the Countries to our friends there to promote the Petitions and I doe acknowledge I have been at diverse other meetings in London and the out-parishes to promote it withall the migh● I had and I do further confesse that I wrote a Letter Intituled To my friends and faithfull Country men in Buckingham-shire and Hertford shire that ingaged for me c in a Petition to this House about 13 moneths agoe to desire you to hear judge and determine according to Law and Justice my businesse against the Lords depending in this House either to my justification if innocent or condemnation if guilty And the Copy of the Letter I have by me which when this House shal command me I shal be ready and willing to produce it at this Bar the contents of it being to presse them with all their might and interest to promote this Petition in every parish quite through both the Counties I also went to Darfort in Kent and there was one of those that set my hand to a Letter subscribed to all the in the County of Kent and also I set my hand to a Letter to Colonel Blunt the Copy of both which at the command of this House I shal be ready to present unto you at this Bar and at my comming home I set my hand to a Letter to Captaine Boine in Kent and did besides the best I could to promote the foresaid Petition not only in London but in several other * Yea and I am confident in a moneths longer time if Cromwell and his agents in the House had not hindred us as they did we had got above a hundred thousand hands to it the promoting and prosecuting of which would in all likelyhood have hindred the Wars that followed the innocent bloud shed therein lying principally upon Cromwels score for this constant hindering the setling the liberties of the Nation and prosecuting to death and bonds the prosecutors thereof which bread divisions and they the Wars Counties besides and hearing as before is declared in my foresaid discourse at the House of Commons door the substance of which I againe related at their Bar that some honest people in or about Wappin scrupulled to Petition any more to the House for the reasons before mentioned in p. 16. 17. which I gave the House being desired by some friends to come to the meeting to help to answer their objections I did accordingly and being at the foresaid place there were diverse friends met and the discourse was begun in which with many arguments it was declared that it was our duty to go on with Petitioning to this House againe for that it was all the visible just power that was left in the Kingdome to preserve the peace thereof and though all members thereof did not act as they should yet to do any thing that should destroy the power of the whole it would be a destruction to our selves and the Kingdome for the people being in that mutinous temper by reason of their oppessions and burthens there was no way to keep them in peace and quietnesse but by a vigorous proposing and prosecuting of some universal just things to ease them and for the future to secure them neither was there any safe or sure way for the people to act in to make their grievances known and probably hope for redresse but by Pettiion and that to the House of Commons which was the most our owne interest of any power in England and no man knew at this nick of time what just and righteous things might be produced by and from the House if they should see the people universally own close with so just and gallant a thing as this Petition is and much more to the same purpose which I cannot well remember but this I am sure of that there was not in the whole discourse one dis-ingaging expression to the interest of this House but I dare with much confidence aver it that the whole streame scope and bent of the whole discourse was to lift up and preserve the interest of this House that so it might be the better inabled to do just and righteous things for the whole Kingdome according to the end of the trust they have reposed in you and I dare safely aver it there was not so much as one bit of a mischievous or factious discourse at all the whole tendency of it being to peace Justice and Union And by-and-by there was an objection raised as I remember to this effect I but if the generality