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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
end_n	king_n	people_n	safety_n	1,796	5	9.5781	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91207	A legal vindication of the liberties of England, against illegal taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament, lately enforced on the people: or, Reasons assigned by William Prynne of Swainswick in the county of Sommerset, esquire, why he can neither in conscience, law, nor prudence, submit to the new illegal tax or contribution of ninety thousand pounds the month; imposed on the kingdom by a pretended Act of some Commons in (or rather out of) Parliament, April 7 1649. (when this was first penned and printed,) nor to the one hundred thousand pound per mensem, newly laid upon England, Scotland and Ireland, Jan. 26. 1659 by a fragment of the old Commons House, ...	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1660 (1660)	Wing P3998; Thomason E772_4; ESTC R207282	74,956	90

post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledge judgement conscience Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance P●otestation and Solemn League and Covenant taken in the presence of God himself with a sincere heart and real intention to perform the same and persevere therein all the dayes of my life without suffering my self directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terror to be withdrawn therefrom As first That there may be and now is a lawfull Parliament of England actually in being and legally continuing after the Kings death consisting only of a few late Members of the Commons House without either King Lords or most of their Fellow-Commons which the very Consciences and Judgements of all now sitting that know any thing of Parliaments and the whole Kingdom if they durst speak their Knowledge know and believe to be false yea against their Oaths and Covenant Secondly That this Parliament so unduly constituted and packed by power of an army combining with them hath a just and lawfull authority to violate the Privileges Rights Freedoms Customs and alter the Constitution of our Parliaments themselves imprison seclude expel most of their Fellow-Members for voting according to their Consciences to repeal what Votes Ordinances and Acts of Parliament they please erect new Arbitrary Courts of War and Justice to arraign condemn execute the King himself with the Peers and Commons of this Realm by a new kind of Martial law contrary to Magna Carta the Petition of Right and Law of the Land dis-inherit the Kings posterity of the Crown extirpate Monarchy and the whole House of Peers change and subvert the antient Government Seals Laws Writs legal proceedings Courts and coin of the Kingdom sell and dispose of all the Lands Revenues Jewels Goods of the Crown with the Lands of Deans and Chapters as they think meet absolve themselves like so many Antichristian Popes with all the Subjects of England and Ireland from all the Oaths and Engagements they have made TO THE KINGS MAJESTY HIS HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS yea from their verie Oath of Allegiance notwithstanding this expresse clause in it which I desire may be seriously and conscienciously considered by all who have sworn it I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I acknowledge by good and full authoritie to be lawfully ministred unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary and to dispence with our Protestations Solemn League and Covenant so lately and * zealously urged and injoyned by both Houses on Members Officers Ministers and all sorts of People throughout the Realm to dispose of all the Forts Ships Forces Offices and Places of Honour Power Trust or Profit within the Kingdom to whom they please to displace and remove whom they will from their Offices Trusts Pensions Callings at their pleasures without any legal cause or trial to make what new Acts Laws and reverse what old ones they think meet to insnare inthrall our Consciences Estates Liberties Lives to create new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and declare real Treasons against King Kingdom Parliament to be no Treasons and Loyalty Allegiance due Obedience to our known Laws and consciencious observing of our Oaths and Covenants the breach whereof would render us actual Traytors and perjurious Persons to be no lesse than High Treason for which they may justly imprison dismember disfranchise displace and fine us at their wills as they have done some of late and confiscate our Persons Lives to the Gallows and our estates to their new Exchequer a Tyranny beyond all Tyrannies ever heard of in our Nation repealing Magna Charta c. 29. 5 E. 3. c. 6. 25 Ed. 3. c. 4. 28 Ed. 3. c. 3. 37. E. 3. c. 18. 42 E. 3. c. 3. 25 Ed. 3. c. 2. 11 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H. 4. c. 10. 2 H. 4. Rot. Par. N. 60. 1 E. 6. c. 12. 1 Mar. c. 1. The Petition of Right 3 Caroli the Statutes made in the begining of the Parliament 16 Caroli c. 1 7 8 10 12 14 20. and laying all our * Laws Liberties Estates Lives in the very dust after so many bloody and costly years wars to defend them against the Kings and others invasions raise and keep up what forces they will by Sea and Land impose what heavy Taxes they please and renew increase multiply and perpetuate them on us and on Scotland and Ireland too which no English Parliament ever did before as often and as long as they please to support their own encroached more then Regal Parliamental Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us and all that is ours or the Kingdoms at our private and the publick charge against our wills judgements consciences to our absolute enslaving and our three Kingdoms ruine by engaging them one against another in new Civil wars and exposing us for a prey to our Forein Enemies All which with other particulars lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax and sundry others since by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it I must necessarily admit acknowledge to be just and legal by my voluntary payment of it on purpose to maintain an Army to justifie and make good all this by the meer power of the Sword which they can no waies justifie and defend by the Laws of God or the Realm or the least colour of reason justice honesty religion conscience before any Tribunal of God or Men when legally arraigned as they may one day be Neither of which I can or dare acknowledge without incurring the guilt of most detestable Perjury and highest Treason against King Kingdom Parliament Laws and Liberties of the people and therefore cannot yield to this Assesment Thirdly the principal ends and uses proposed in the pr●tended Acts and Warrants thereupon for payment of this Tax and other Taxes since are strong obligations to me in point of Coùscience Law Prudence to withstand it which I shall particularly discusse The First is the maintenante and continuance of the pr●sent Army and Forces in England under the Lord Fairfax Cromwell and other Commanders since To which I say First as I shall with all readinesse gratitude and due respect acknowledge their former Gallantry good and faithfull Services to the Parliament and Kingdom whiles they continued dutifull and constant to their first Engagements and the ends for which they were raised by both Houses as far forth as any man so in regard of their late monstrous defections and dangerous Apostacies from their primitive obedience faithfulnesse and engagements in disobeying the Commands and levying open war against both Houses of Parliament keeping an horrid force upon them at their very doors seising imprisoning secluding abusing and forcing away their Members printing and publishing many high and treasonable Declarations against the Institution Privileges Members and Proceedings of the late and being of

them and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people with the name of a Parliament and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assesements and Taxations and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees the best of which is now become a perfect Star-chamber High Commission and Councel-board make them their perfect slaves and vessals With much more to this purpose If then their principal admirers who confederated with the Army and those now sitting in all their late proceedings and cryed them up most of any as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England before at and since the late force upon the House and its violent purgation do thus in print professedly disclaim them for being any real Parliament or House of Commons to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people or set up High Courts of Justice to try and condemn the King or any Peers or English Preemen the secluded Lord Members Presbyterians Royalists and all others have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegal Taxes Acts as not made by any true English Parliament but a Mock-Parliament only Fourthly He therein further avets f f Pag. 52. 53. 56. 57. 58. 59. That the death of the King in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament ipso facto though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it the rather because the men that would have it continue so long as they please are those who have created these necessities on purpose that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent That the main end wherfore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither was To treat and confer with King Charles and the House of Peers about the great Affairs of the Nation c. And therefore are but a third part ot third estate of that Parliament to which they were to come and joyn with and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make Laws the end both in reason and law of the peoples trust is ceased for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end cannot play Lord paramount over the Major and then do what it please no more can the Minor of a Major viz. one Estate of three legally or justly destroy two of three without their own assent c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within its limited time in all its splendor of glory without the awe of armed men neither in Law nor in the intention of their Choosers were a Parliament and therefore of themselves alone have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments c. concluding thus For shame let no man be so audaciously or sottishly voyd of Reason as to call Tho. Prides pittiful Juncto A PARLIAMENT especially those that called avowed protested and declared again and again those TO BE NONE that sate at Westminster the 26 27 c. of July 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army by a few hours tumult of a company of a few disorderly Apprentices And being no representative of the People much less A PARLIAMENT what pretence of Law Reason Justice or Nature can there be for you to alter the constitution of Parliaments and force upon the people the shew of their own Wills lusts and pleasures for laws and Rules of Government made by a PRETENDED EVERLASTING NULLED PARLIAMENT a Councel of State or Star-Chamber and a Councel of War or rather by Fairfax Cromwel and Ireton Now if their own late confederates and creatures argue thus in print against their being and continuing a Parliament their Jurisdiction Proceedings Taxes and arbitrary pleasures should not all others much more do it and joyntly and magnanimously oppose them to the utmost upon the self-same grounds for their own and the publick ease Liberty Safety Settlement and restoring the Rights Priviledges Freedome Splendor of our true English Parliaments Fifthly He there likewise affirms g g P. 53. 54. 59. 41. that those now fiting at Westminster have perverted the ends of their trusts more then ever Strafford did 1. In not ceasing the people of but encreasing their grievances 2. In exhausting their estates to maintain and promote pernicious Designes to the peoples destruction The King did it by a little Shipmony and Monopolies but since they began they have raised and extorted more mony from the People and Nation then half nay all the Kings since the Conquest ever did as particularly 1 By Excise 2 Contributions 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value 4 Fist part 5 Twentyeth part 6 Meal-mony 7 Sale of plundered good 8 Loanes 9 Benevolences 10 Collections upon their fast days 11 New imposittions or customes upon Merchandize 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men 13 Fifty Subsidies at one time 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value 15 Sale of Bishops lands 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters lands and now after the wars are done 17 Sale of Kings Queens Princes Dukes and the rest of the Childrens revenues 18 Sale of their rich goods which cost an infinite sum 19 to conclude all a Taxation of ninety thousand pounds a moneth since that of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a Moneth and lately of a whole years Tax within three moneths and now of one hundred thousand pound a a moneth for the same six moneths they have payed their Taxes besides Excise Customes Frequent new intollerable Militiaes Payments to increased swa●ms of poor sequestrations Highway money and other charges now all Trade is utterly lost and the three Kingdomes beggar'd and undone and when they have gathered it pretendingly for the Common-wealths use divide it by thousands and ten thousands a piece amongst themselves and wipe their mouths after it like the impudent Harlot as though they had done no evill and then purchase with it publick Lands at smal or trivial values O brave Trustees that have Protested before God and the world again and again in the day of their straits they would never seek themselves and yet besides all this divide all the choicest and profitablest Places of the Kingdome among themselves Therefore when I seriously consider how many in Parliament and elsewhere of their Associates that judge themselves the onely Saints and Godly men upon the earth that have considerable and some of them vast estates of their own inheritance and yet take five hundred one two three four five thousand pounds per annum Salaries and other comings in by their places and that out of the too much exhausted Treasury of the Nation when thousands not onely of the people of the world as they call them but also

humane expectation as he hath done of late and I trust he will s●dainly do again to the rejoycing and reviving of all good men Which is the hope and expectation of thine and his Native Countries true Friend and Servant William Prynne Lincolns Inne Feb. 12. 1659. A Legal Vindication of the Liberties and Properties of all ENGLISH FREEMEN Against ILLEGAL TAXES OR REASONS Assigned By WILLIAM PRYNNE c. BEing on the 7th of this instant June 1649. informed by the Assessors of the Parish of Swainswicke that I was assessed at 2 l. 5 s. for Three Moneths Contribution by virtue of a pretended Act of the Commons assembled in Parliament bearing date the seventh of April last assessing the Kingdom at Ninety thousand pounds Monthly beginning from the 25 of March last and continuing for Six moneths next ensuing towards the maintenance of the Forces to be continued in England and Ireland and the paying of such as are thought fit to be disbanded that so Free-quarter may be taken off whereof 3075 l. 17 s. 1 d. ob is monethly imposed on the County and 4 l. 5 s. 3 d. on the small poor Parish where I live and being since on the fifteenth of June required to pay in 2 l. 5 s. for my proportion I returned the Collector this Answer That I could neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence in the least measure submit to the voluntary payment of this illegal Tax and unreasonable Contribution after all my unrepaired losses and sufferings for the publick Liberty amounting to six times more than SHIP-MONEY the times considered or any other illegal Tax of the late beheaded King so much declaimed against in our three last Parliaments by some of those who imposed this And that I would rather submit to the painfullest death and severest punishment the Imposers or Exactors of it could inflict upon me by their arbitrary power for legal they had none than voluntarily pay or not oppose it in my place and calling to the uttermost upon the s●me if not better reasons ●● I oppugned a Ship-money Knighthood and other unlawful Impositions of the late King and his Councell heretofore And that they and all the world might bear witness I did it not from meer obstinacy or sullenness but out of solid real grounds of Conscience Law Prudenoe and publick affection to the weal and liberty of my native Country now in danger of being ensl●ved under a new vassallage more g●ievous than the worst it ever yet sustained under the late or any other of our worst Kings I promised to draw up the Reasons of this my resusal in writing and to publish them so soon as possible to the Kingdome for my own Vindication and the better Information and satisfaction of all such as are any wayes concerned in the imposing collecting levying or paying of this strange kind of Contribution In pursuance whereof I immediately penned these insuing Reasons against that Taxe in 1649. which I augmented with some new additions against the hundred thousand pound Tax each month imposed on us by our worse then Egyptian Tax-Masters now for those very six ensuing months space they payed in long since before they became due by their forced Exactions and Distresses against all rules of Justice Law Conscience and presidents of former times which I humbly submit to the impartial Censure of all conscientious and judicious Englishmen desiring either their ingenuous Refutation if erroneous or candid Approbation if substantial and irrefragable as my conscience and judgement perswade me they are and that they will appear so to all impartial Perusers after full examination First By the fundamental Laws and known Statutes of this Realm No Tax Tallage Ayd Imposition Contribution Loan or Assessement whatsoever may or ought to be imposed or levied on the free men and people of this Realm of England but by the WILL and COMMON ASSENT of the EARLS BARONS Knights Burgesses Commons and WHOLE REALM in a free and full PARLIAMENT by ACT OF PARLIAMENT All Taxes c. not so imposed levyed though for the common defence and profit of the Realm being unjust oppressive inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject Laws and Statutes of the Realm as is undeniably evident by the express Statutes of Magna Charta cap. 29 30. 25. E. 1. c. 5 6. 34. E. 1. De Tallagio non concodendo c. 1. 14 E. 3. Stat. 1. c. 21. Stat. 2. c. 1. 15. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 1. Stat. 3. cap. 5. 21. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 16. 25. E. 3. c. 8. Rot. Parl. n. 15. 27. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 2. 36. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 26. 38. E. 3. c. 2. Rot. Parl. n. 40. 45. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 42. 51. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 25. 11 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 10. 1. R. 3. c. 2. The Petition of Right and Resolutions of both Houses against Loans 3. Caroli The Votes and Acts against Ship-money Knighthood Tonnage and Poundage and the Star-chamber this last Parliament Ann. 16. 17. Car. c. 8. 12. 14. 20. And fully argued and demonstrated by Mr. William Hackwell in his Argument against Impositions Judg Hutton and Judg Crook in their Arguments and Mr. St. John in his Argument and Speech against Ship-money with other Arguments and Discourses of that subject Sir Edward Cook in his 2 Instit. published by Order of the Commons House pag. 59. 60 c. 527 528 529 532 533 c. with sundry other Records and Law-books cited by those great Rabbies of the Law and Patriots of the Peoples Liberties But the present Tax of Ninety Thousand pounds a Moneth now exacted of me An. 1649. and this of an Hundred thousand pounds each moneth now demanded was not thus imposed Therefore it ought not to be demanded of or levied of me and I ought in conscience law and prudence to withstand it as unjust oppressive inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject Laws and Statutes of the Realm even by the Junctoes Knack of Oct. 11. 1659. To make good the Assumption which is onely questionable First This Tax was not imposed in but out of Parliament the late Parliament being actually dissolved above two moneths before this pretended Act by these Tax-imposers taking away the King by a violent death as is expresly resolved by the Parliament of 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. N. 1. by the Parliament of 14 H. 4. and 1 H. 5. Rot. Parl. N. 26. Cook 4. Institutes p. 46. and 4 E. 4. 44. b and I have largely and irrefragably proved in my true and perfect Narrative 1659. For the King being both the Head beginning end and foundation of the Parliament as Modus tenendi Parliamentum and Sir Edward Cooks 4 Instit. p. 3. resolve which was summoned and constituted onely by his writ now actually abated by his death and the Parliament as is evident by the clauses of the several Writs of Summons to c the Lords and for the election of the Knights

and Burgesses and levying of their wages being only PARLIAMENTUM NOSTRUM the Kings Parliament that is dead not his Heirs and Successors and the Lords and Commons being all summoned and authorized by it to come to OUR PARLIAMENT there to be personally present and confer with US NOBISCUM not Our Heirs and Successors of the weighty and urgent affairs that concerned NOS US and OUR KINGDOM of England and Knights and Burgesses receiving their wages for Nuper ad NOS ad PARLIAMENTVM NOSTRUM veniendo c. quod sommoneri FECINUS ad tractandum ibidem super diversis arduis Negotiis NOS Statum REGNI NOSTRI t●ngentibus as the tenor of the d Writs for their wages determines The King being dead and his Writs and Authority by which they were summoned with the ends for which they were called to conferre with US about US and OUR KINGDOMS affairs c. being thereby absolutely determined without any hopes of revival the Parliament it self must thereupon absolutely be determined likewise especially to those who have disinherited HIS HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and voted down our Monarchy it self and they with all other Members of Parliament cease to be any longer Members of it being made onely such by the Kings abated Writ even as all Judges Justices of peace and Sheriffs made only by the Kings Writs or Commissions not by his Letters Patents cease to be Judges Justices and Sheriffs by the Kings death for this very reason because they are constituted Justiciarios Vicecomites NOSTROS ad Pacem NOSTRAM c. custodiendam and he being dead and his Writs and Commissions expired by his death they can be Our Judges Justices and Sheriffs no longer to preserve OUR Peace c. no more than a wife can be her deceased Husbands Wife and bound to his obedience from which she was loosed to his death Rom. 7. 2 3. And his Heirs and Successors they cannot be unlesse he please to make them so by his new Writs or Commissions as all our e Law-books and Judges have frequently resolved upon this very reason which equally extends to Members of Parliament as to Judges Justices and Sheriffs as is agreed in 4 E. 4. f. 43 44. and Brook Office and Officer 25 Therefore this Tax being clearly imposed not in but out of and after the Parliament ended by the Kings decapitation and that by such who were then no lawfull Knights Citizens Burgesses or Members of Parliament but only private men their Parliamentary Authority expiring with the King it must needs be illegal and contrary to all the forecited Statutes as the Convocations and Clergies Tax and Benevolence granted after the Parliament dissolved in the year 1640. was resolved to be by both Houses of Parliament and those adjudged high Delinquents who had any hand in promoting it as the Impeachments against them evidence drawnup by some now acting 2. Admit the late Parliament still in being yet the House of Peers Earls and Barons of the Realm were no wayes privy nor consenting to this Tax imposed without yea against their consents in direct affront of their * most antient undubitable Parliamentary Right and Privileges these Taxmasters having presumed to vote down and null their very House by their new encroached transcendent power as appears by the title and body of this pretended Act entituled by them An Act of THE COMMONS assembled in Parliament Whereas the House of Commons alone though full and free have no more lawfull Authority to impose any Tax upon the People or make any Act of Parliament or binding Law without the Kings or Lords concurrence than the Man in the Moon or the Convocation Anno 1640. after the Parliament dissolved as is evident by the expresse words of the fore-cited Acts the Petition of Right it self the Acts for the Triennial Parliament and against the proroguing or dissolving this Parliament 16 Car. c. 1 7. with all our printed Statutes f Parliament-Rolls and g Law-books they neither having nor challenging the sole Legislative power in any age and being not so much as summoned to nor constitutive M●mbers of our h antient Parliaments which consisted of the King Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses as all our Histories and Records attest till 49 H. 3. at soonest they having not so much as a Speaker or Commons House till after the beginning of King E. the third's reign and seldom or never presuming to make or tender any Bills or Acts to the King or Lords but Petitions only to them to redress their grievances and enact new Laws till long after R. the seconds time as our Parliament Rolls and the printed Prologues to the Statutes of 1 4 5 9 10 20 23 36 37. and 50 Edw. 3. 1 Rich 3. 1 2 4 5 7 9 11 13 Hen. 4. 1 2 3 4 8 9 Hen. 5. 1 2 3 4 6 8 9 10 11 14 15 29 28 29. 39 Hen. 6. 1 4 7 8 12 17. 22 Ed. 4. and 1 Rich. 3. evidence which run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. by THE ADVICE and ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL and TEMPORAL and at THE SPECIAL INSTANCE and REQUEST OF THE COMMONS OF THE REALM BY THEIR PETITIONS put in the said Parliament as some Prologues have it Our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained certain STATVTES c. Where the advising and assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them to the Commons and that both from King and Lords in whom the Legislative power principally and before 49 H. 3. originally and solely resided as is manifest by the printed Prologue to the Statute of Merton 20 Hen. 3. The Statute of Mortemain 7 E. 1. 31 E. 1. De Asportatis Religiosorum the Statute of Sheriffs 9 Ed. 2. and of the Templers 17 Ed. 2. to cite no more Therefore this Tax imposed by the Commons alone without King or Lords must needs be void illegal and no wayes obligatory to the Subjects 3. Admit the whole House of Commons in a full and free Parliament had power to impose a Tax and make an Act of Parliament for levying of it without King or Lords which they never once did or pretended to in any age yet this Act and Tax can be no waies obliging because not made and imposed by a full and free House of Commons but by an empty House packed swayed over-awed by the chief Officers of the Army and their Confederates in the House who having presumed by mere force and armed power against Law and without President to seclude the major part of the House at least eight parts of ten who by Law and Custom are the House it self from sitting or voting with them contrary to the Freedom and Privileges of Parliament readmitting none but upon their own terms of renouncing their own forme Votes touching the Kings

House door above eight hours together the City-Guards there present nor the City relieving them by reason whereof the House was forced to Vote what that rude multitude would demand and then adjourned the House till the next morning After which the House rising the Speaker and many Members going out of the House they 3 forc'd them back again into the House Many of the Apprentices pressing in with them where they stood with their hats on their heads and compelled the Speaker to take the Chair and the House to vote in their presence what they pleased committing many other insolencies as is published by the Speaker of the House of Commons in his Declaration and is too well known by all then present and during the time of this execrable violence done by the said Apprentices 4 Westminster Hall and the Palace yard was fill'd with Reformadoes and other ill-affected persons designed to back them After this the Houses being adjourned till Friday following upon the Thursday the Apprentices printed and posted a paper in several places of the City requiring all their fellows to be early at the Parliament the next morning for that they intended to adjourn by seven of the clock and that for a Moneth Thus the Speakrs 5 with many of the Members of both Houses were driven away from the Parliament These things being seriously considered by us we have thought fit in the name of the Army to declare that all such Members of either House of Parliament as are already with the Army for the security of their persons and for the ends aforesaid are forced to absent themselves from Westminster that 5 we shall hold and esteem them as persons in whom the publick trust of the Kingdom is still remaining though they cannot for the present sit as a Parliament with freedom and safety at Westminster and by whose advice and counsels we desire to govern our selves in the managing these weighty affairs and to that end we * invite them to make repair to this Army to joyn with us in this great cause we being resolved and do hereby faithfully oblige our selves to stand by them therein and to live and die with them against all Opposition whatsoever And in particular we do hold our selves bound to own that honorable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons who upon the grounds he himself expressed in his Declaration sent unto us hath actually withdrawn himself and hereupon we do further 6 ingage to use our utmost speedy endeavours that he and those Members of either House that are thus inforced away from their attendance at Westminster may with freedom and security sit there and again discharge their trust as a free and a legal Parliament and in the mean time we do declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster as 7 contrary to all right Reason Law and Custom and we professs our selves to be 8 most clearly satisfied in all our Judgements and are also confident the Kingdom will herein concur with us that as things now stand there is no free nor legal Parliament sitting being through the aforesaid violence at present suspended And 9 that the Drders Votes or Resolutions forced from the Houses on Monday the 26. of July last as also all such as shall passe in this Assembly of some few Lords and Gentlemen at Westminster under what pretence and colour soever are unto and null and ought Hot to be submitted unto by the free-born Subjects of England And that we may prevent that slavery designed upon us and the Nation that the Kingdom may be restored to a happy State of a visible Government now eclipsed and darkened we hold our selves bound by our duty to God and the Kingdom to bring to condign punishment the Authors and Promoters of that * unparalleld violence done to the Parliament and in that to all the free-born Subjects of England that are or hereafter shall be and therefore we are resolved to march up towards London where we do expect that the well-affected people of that City will deliver up unto us or otherwise put into safe Custody so as they may be reserved to a legal Trial the 10 eleven impeached Members that have again thrust themselves into the management of publick affairs by this wicked design And that all others will give us such assistance therein 11 that the Members of both Houses may receive due incouragement to return to Westminster there to sit with all freedom and so to perform their trust as shall condues to the settlement of this distracted Kingdom and to inflict such punishments upon these late Offenders as shall deter any for the future to make the like attempt Our lives have not been dear unto us for the publick good and being now resolved by the assistance of God to 12 bring these Delinquents to their deserved punishments as that than which there cannot be any thing of more publick concernment to the Kingdom we trust if it shall come to that our bloud shall not be accounted too dear a price for the accomplishment of it And if any in the City will ingage themselves against us to protect these Persons and so put the Kingdom again into a new and miserable War The bloud must be laid to the account of such persons as are the Authors thereof It is our chief aim to settle Peace with Truth and Righteousnesse throughout the Kingdom that none may be oppressed in his just freedom and Liberties 13 much lesse the Parliament it self which things being duly setled we shall be as ready also to assure unto the King his just Rights and Authority as any that pretend it never so much for the better upholding of an ill cause and the countenance of tumultuous violence against the Parliament the which our honest just and necessary undertakings as we are resolved to pursue with the utmost hazzard of our lives and fortunes so we doubt not but we shall find Gods accustomed goodnesse and assistance with us therein till we have brought them to a good and happy conclusion for this poor distracted languishing Kingdom 5ly By the Ordinance of both Houses eagerly promoted by all the fugitive Members engaging with the Army and now sitting as well as others remaining who condemned and passed Votes against the Apprentiees tumult during their absence and never countenanced it in the least degree as * some scandalously and falsly suggest Die Veneris 20 Aug. 1647. An Ordinance for declaring all Votes Orders and Ordinances passed in One or Both Houses since the force on Both Houses July 26. until the 6. of this present August 1647. to be Null and Voyd WHereas there was a visible horrid insolent and actual Force upon the Parliament on Monday the 26. of July last Whereupon the Speakers and * many Members of Both Houses of Parliament were forced to absent themselves from the

of mony must of necessity be speedilie advanced and procured for the relief of his Majesties Army and People not his Heirs or Successors in the Northern parts c. And for supplie of other his Majesties present and urgent occasions not his Heirs or Successors future occasions which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without credit for raising the said monies which credit cannot be attained untill such obstacles be first removed which are occasioned by Fears Iealousies and Apprehensions of divers of his Majesties Royal Subjects that the Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved not by the Kings sodain or untimelie death of which there was then no fear jealousie or apprehension in any his Majesties loyal Subjects but by his royal Prerogative and advice of ill Counsellors before Justice shall be duly executed upon Delinquents then in being not sprung up since publique Grievances then complained of not others introduced since this Act redressed a firm peace betwixt the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland concluded and before sufficient provisions be made for the repayment of the said Monies not others since borrowed so to be raised All which the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having duly considered do therefore humbly beseech your Majestie that it may be declared and enacted c. All which expressions related TO HIS late Majestie onlie not to his Heirs and Successors and the principal scope of this Act being to gain present credit to raise monies to disband the Scotish and English armies then lying upon the Kingdom manie years since accomplished yea Justice being since executed upon Strafford Canterbury and other Delinquents then impeached the publick Grievances they complained of as the Star-Chamber High-Commission Ship-mony Tonnage and Poundage Fines for Knighthood Bishops Votes in Parliament with their Courts and Jurisdictions and the like redressed by Acts soon after passed a firm peace between both Nations concluded before the Wars began and this preamble's pretensions for this Act all fullie satisfied divers years before the Kings beheading it must of necessity be granted that this Statute never intended to continue this Parliament on foot after the Kings decease especially after the ends for which it was made were all fully accomplished and so it must necessarily be dissolved by his Death Fourthly This is most clear by the body of the Act it self And be it declared and enacted by the King our Soveraign Lord with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose nor shall any time or times during the continuance thereof be prorogued or adjourned unless it be by Act of Parliament to be likewise passed for that purpose And that the House of Peers shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order And in like manner that the House of Commons shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order Whence it is undeniable 1. That this act was only for the prevention of the untimely dissolving Proroguing and adjourning of that present Parliament then assembled and no other 2. That the King himself was the Principal Member of his Parliament yea our Soveraign Lord and the sole declarer and enacter of this Law by the Lords and Commons assent 3. That neither this Act for continuing nor any other for dissolving adjourning or proroguing this Parliament could be made without but only by and with the Kings Royal assent thereto which the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their * Remonstrance of the 26. of May 1642. oft in terminis acknowledge together with his Negative Voyce to Bills 4ly That it was neither the Kings intention in passing this Act to shut himself out of Parliament or create both or either House a Parliament without a King as he professed in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. 5. p. 27. Nor the Lords nor Commons Intendment to dismember him from his Parliament or make themselves a Parliament without him as their foresaid Remonstrance testifies and the words of the Act import Neither was it the Kings Lords or Commons meaning by this Act to set up a Parliament only of Commons much lesse of a remnant of a Commons House selected by Colonel Pride and his Confederates of the Army to serve their turns and vote what they prescribed without either King or House of Peers much lesse to give them any super-transcendent authority to vote down and abolish the King and House of Lords and make them no Members of this present or any future Parliaments without their own order or assent against which so great usurpation and late dangerous unparliamentary encroachments this very Act expresly provides in this clause That the House of Peers wherein the King sits as Soveraign when he pleaseth shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned much less then dissolved excluded or suspended from sitting or voting which is greater and that by their inferiours in all kinds a Fragment of the Commons House who can pretend no colour of Jurisdiction over them before whom they alwaies stood bare-headed like so many Grand-Jury-men before the Judges and attended at their Doors and Bar to know their pleasures unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own Order 5. That neither the King Lords nor Commons intended to set up a perpetual Parliament and intail it upon them their heirs or successors for ever by this act which would cross and repeal the Act for triennial Parliaments made at the same time and on the same * day in Law but to make provision only against the untimely dissolving of this till the things mentioned in the Preamble were accomplished and setled as the Preamble and these oft repeated words any time or times during the continuance of this present Parliament concludes and that during His Majesties reign and life not after his death as these words coupled with The Relief of his Majesties Army and People and for supply of his Majesties present and urgent occasions in the Preamble manifest Therefore this Act can no waies continue it a Parliament after the Kings beheading much lesse after the forcible exclusion both of the King and Lords House and majority of the Commons out of Parliament by those now sitting contrary to the very letter and provision of this act by which device the King alone had he conquered and cut off or secluded by his forces the Lords and Commons Houses from sitting might with much more colour have made himself an absolute Parliament to impose what Taxes and Laws he pleased on the people without Lords or Commons or any 40. of the Commons House or any 7. or 8. Lords concurring with

and them odious not only to the Countrie and Kingdom but to all Officers and Souldiers who had any civilitie in them and be a disparagement to the General by whose Proclamation he ought to be present with his Company to keep them in good order under pain of cashiering And therefore I expected and required Justice and Reparations at his hands the rather because I was informed by some of his own Souldiers and others that they had not been so barbarouslie rude but by his incouragement which if he refused I should complain of him to his Superiours and right my self the best way I might After some expostulations he promised to make them examples and cashier them and to remove them forthwith from my house but the only right I had was that more of his Company repaired thither making all the spoil they could and taking away some Brasse and Pewter continued there till near four of the clock and then marched away only out of fear I would raise the Country upon them many of whom profered me their assistance but I desired them to forbear till I saw what their Officers would do who instead of punishing any of them permitted them to play the like Rex almost in other places where they quartered since marching but three or four miles a day and extorting what monies they could from the Country by their violence and disorders Now for me or any others to give monies to maintain such deboist Bedlams and Beasts as these who boasted of their villanies and that they had done me at least twenty pounds spoil in Beer and Provisions drinking out five barrels of good strong Beer and wasting as much meat as would have served an hundred civil Persons to be Masters of our Houses Goods Servants Lives and all we have to ride over our heads like our Lords and Conquerors and take Free-quarter on us amounting to at least a full years contribution without any allowance for it and that since the last Orders against Free-quarter and Warrants issued for paying in this Tax to prevent it for the future is so far against my Reason Judgement and Conscience that I would rather give all away to suppresse discard them or cast it into the fire than maintain such gracelesse wretches with it to dishonour God enslave consume ruine the Country and Kingdom who every where complain of the like insolencies and of taking Free-quarter since the ninth of June as above two hundred of Colonel Cox his men did in Bath the last Lords day who drew up in a Body about the Maiors house and threatned to s●ise and carry him away for denying to give them Free-quarter contrary to the New Act for abolishing it Lastly This pr●tended Act implies that those who refuse to pay this contribution without distresse or imprisonment shall be still oppressed with Free-quarter And what an height of oppression and injustice this will prove not only to distrain and imprison those who cannot in Conscience Law or Prudence submit to this illegal Tax but likewise to undo them by exposing them to Free-quarter which themselves condemn as the highest pest and oppression let all sober men consider and what reason I and others have to oppose such a dangerous destructive president in its first appearing to the world In few words As long as we keep an Army on foot we must never expect to be exempted from Free-quarter or Wars or to enjoy any peace or settlement and as long as we will submit to pay contributions to support an Army we shall be certain our new Lords and Governors will continue an Army to over-awe and enslave us to their wils Therefore the only way to avoid free-quarter and the cost and trouble of an Army and settle peace is to deny all future contributions Ninthly The principal end of imposing this Tax to maintain the Army and Forces now raised is not the defence and safety of our ancient and first Christian Kingdom of England its Parliaments Laws Liberties and Religion as at first but to disinherit the King of the Crown of Engl. Sootl and Irel. to which he hath an undoubted Right by the Laws of God and Man as the Parliament of 1 Jacob ch. ● resolves and to levy War against him to deprive him of it To subvert the antient Monarchical Government of this Realm under which our Ancestors have alwaies lived and flourished to set up a New-Republick the oppressions and Grievances whereof we have already felt by increasing our Taxes setting up arbitrary Courts and Proceedings to the taking away the lives of the late King Peers and other Subjects against the fundamental Laws of the Land creating new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and the like but cannot yet enjoy and discern the least ease or advantage by it To overthrow the antient constitution of the Parliament of England consisting of King Lords and Commons and the Rights and Privileges thereof To alter the fundamental Laws Seals Courts of Justice of the Realm and introduce an Arbitrary Government at least if not Tyrannical contrary to our Laws Oaths Covenant Protestation a publick Remonstrances and Engagements to the Kingdom and forein States not to change the Government or attempt any of the Premises All which being no lesse than High Treason by the Laws Statutes of the Realm as Sir E. Cook in his * Inst. Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law upon passing the Bill of Attainder of the E. of Strafford both printed by the Commons special order have proved at large by many Presidents reasons records and so adjudged by the last Parliament in the Cases of Strafford and * Canterbury who were condemned and executed as Traytors by judgement of Parliament and some of those now sitting but for some of these Treasons upon obscurer Evidences of guilt than are now visible in others I cannot without incurring the Crime and Guilt of these several High Treasons and the eternal if not temporal punishments incident thereunto voluntarily contribute so much as one penny or farthing towards such Treasonable and disloyal ends as these against my Conscience Law Loyalty Duty and all my Oaths Covenants and Obligations to the contrary Tenthly The payment of this Tax for the premised purposes will in my poor judgement and conscience be offensive to God and all good men scandalous to the Protestant Religion dishonourable to our English Nation and disadvantagious and destructive to our whole Kingdom hindering the speedy settlement of our peace the re-establishment of our King Laws the revival of our decayed Trade by renewing and perpetuating our bloody uncivil Wars engaging Scotland Ireland with forein Princes and Kingdoms in a just War against us to avenge the death of our late beheaded King the dis-inheriting of his Posterity and to restore his lawfull Heirs and Successors to their just undoubted Rights from which they are now forcibly secluded who will undoubtedly molest us with continual Wars what-ever some may fondly