heavy Taxes they please and renew increase multiply and perpetuate them on us as long as they please to support their own encroached more then Regall Parliamentall Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us and all that is ours or the Kingdoms at our private and the publique charge against our wills judgments consciences to our absolute enslaving and our three Kingdoms ruine by engaging them one against another in new Civill wars and exposing us for a prey to our Forraign Enemies All which with other particulars lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it I must necessarily admit acknowledge to be just and legall by my voluntary payment of it of purpose to maintaine an Army to justify and make good all this by the meer power of the Sword which they can no wayes justify and defend by the Laws of God or the Realm before any Tribunall of God or Men when legally arraigned as they shall 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 yeeld to this Assessement Thirdly The principall ends and uses proposed in the pretended Act and Warrants thereupon for payment of this Tax are strong Obligations to me in point of Conscience Law Prudence to withstand it which I shall particularly discusse The First is the maintenance and continuance of the present Army and forces in England under the Lord Fairfax To which I say First as I shall with all readinesse gratitude and due respect acknowledg their former Gallantry good and faithfull Services to the Parliament and Kingdom whiles they continued dutiful 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 monstrous defections and dangerous Apostacy from their Primitive obedience faithfulnesse and engagements in disobeying the Commands and levying open warre 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 Priviledges Members and Proceedings of the late and being of all future Parliaments imprisoning abusing arraigning condemning and executing our late King against the Votes faith and engagements of both Houses and disinheriting his Posterity usurping the Regal Parliamental Magistratical and Ecclesiastical power of the Kingdom to their Generall Councel of Officers of the Army as the supreme swaying Authority of the Kingdom and attempting to alter and subvert the ancient Government Parliaments Laws and Customs of our Realm And upon serious consideration of the ordinary unsufferable Assertions of their Officers and Souldiers uttered in most places where they quarter and to my self in particular sundry times That the whole Kingdom with all our Lands Houses goods and whatsoever we have is theirs and that by right of conquest they having twice conquered the Kingdom That we are but their conquered slaves and Vassals and they the Lords and Heads of the Kingdome That our very lives are at their mercy and courtesie That when they have gotten all we have from us by Taxes and Free-quarter and we have nothing left to pay them then themselves will selfe upon our Lands as their own and turn us and our Families out of doors That there is now no Law in England nor never was if we beleeve their lying Oracle Peters but the sword with many such like vapouring Speeches and discourses of which there are thousands of witnesses I can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence assent much lesse contribute in the least degree for their present maintenance or future continuance thus to insult inslave and tyrannize over King Kingdom Parliament people at their pleasure like their conquered vassals And for me in particular to contribute to the maintenance of those who against the Law of the Land the priviledges of Parliament and liberty of the Subject pulled me forcibly from the Commons House and kept me prisoner about two months space under their Martiall to my great expence and prejudice without any particular cause pretended or assigned only for discharging my duty to the Kingdom and those for whom I served in the House without giving me the least reparation for this unparallell'd injustice or acknowledging their offence and yet detain some of my then fellow-Members under custody by the meer power of the Sword without bringing them to tryall would be not onely absurd unreasonable and a tacite justification of this their horrid violence and breach of priviledge but monstrous unnaturall perfidious against my Oath and Covenant 2. No Tax ought to be imposed on the Kingdom in Parliament it self but in case of necessity for its common Good as is cleer by the Stat. of 25. E. 1. c 6. and Cooks 2 Instit. p. 528. Now it is evident to me that there is no necessity of keeping up this Army for the Kingdoms common Good but rather a necessity of disbanding it or the greatest part of it for these reasons 1. Because the Kingdom is generally exhausted with the late 7 years Wars Plunders and heavie Taxes there being more moneys levied on it by both sides during these eight last years then in all the Kings Reigns since the Conquest as will appear upon a just computation all Counties being thereby utterly unable to pay it 2. In regard of the great decay of Trade the extraordinary dearth of cattel corn and provisions of all sorts the charge of relieving a multitude of poor people who starve with famine in many places the richer sort eaten out by Taxes and Free-quarter being utterly unable to relieve them To which I might add the multitude of maimed Souldiers with the widows and children of those who have lost their lives in the Wars which is very costly 3. This heavie Contribution to support the Army destroys all Trade by fore-stalling and engrossing most of the moneys of the Kingdom the sinews and life of Trade wasting the provisions of the Kingdom and enhansing their prices keeping many thousands of able men and horses idle only to consume other labouring mens provisions estates and the publick Treasure of the Kingdom when as their imployment in their trades and callings might much advance trading and enrich the Kingdom 4. There is now no visible Enemy in the field or Garisons and the sitting Members boast there is no fear from any abroad their Navie being so Victorious And why such a vast Army should be still continued in the Kingdom to increase its debts and payments when charged with so many great Arrears and debts already eat up the Country with Taxes and Free-quarter only to play drink whore steal rob murther quarrel fight with impeach and shoot one another to death as Traytors Rebels and Enemies to the Kingdom and Peoples Liberties
addresses were to passe to make a Declaration to the whole world declaring THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE LORDS HOUSE THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTIAN UPHOLD IT which was sent by the Generall to the Lords by Sir Hardresse Waller and to indear himself the more unto the Lords in whose House without all doubt he intended to have sate himself he requited me evill for good and became my enemy to keep me in Prison out of which I must not stirre unlesse I would stoop and acknowledge the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do it yet now they have suppressed them Whence it is most apparent 1. That the General Liutenant General Cromwel Ireton Harrison and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members and over-ruling all the rest have willingly acted against their own knowledges Declarations Judgments Consciences in suppressing the Lords House and depriving them of their Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power by presuming to make Acts pass sentences and impose Taxes without them or their assents in Parliament 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom for their own particular advantage pay and enrichment is in their own judgment and conscience both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm being not assented to by the Lords and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all who love their own or Countries Liberty or have any Nobility or Generosity in them Thirdly he e there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf and his confederates That the purged Parliament now sitting is but a pretended Parliament a mock-Parliament yea and in plain English NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL but the shadow of a Parliament That those company of men at Westminster that gave Commission to the High Court of Justice to try and behead the King c. were no more a Parliament by Law or Representatives of the people by the rules of Justice and Reason then such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People that a company of armed Theeves choose and set apart to try judge condemn hang or behead any man that they please or can prevail over by the power of their swords to bring before them by force of arms to have their lives taken away by pretence of Justice grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their wills and swords That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters or to give a Law unto them or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power and set themselves down in it which is the Armies case with the Parliament especially at Thomas Pride's late purge which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons to set up indeed a MOCK-POWER and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT by purging out all those that they were any way jealous of would not Vote as they would have them and suffering and permitting none to sit but for the major part of them a company of absolute School-boys that will like good Boys say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters and vote what they would have them and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people with the name of Parliament and the shadow and imperfect image of legall and just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assessments and Taxations and by their arbitrary and tyrannicall 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 vassals With much more to this purpose If then their Principall 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 doe thus in print professedly disclaim them for being any reall Parliament or House of Commons to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people the secluded Members Presbyterians Royallists and all others have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegall Taxes Acts as not made by any true English Parliament but a Mock-Parliament only Fourthly He therein further averrs f 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 houre 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 wherefore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither was To hear and conferr with King Charles and the House of Peers about the great affairs of the Nation c. And therefore are but a third part or third estate of that Parliament to which they were to come and joyn with and who were legally to make paramount 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 or 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 it's 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 void of reason as to call Tho. Prides pittifull Junto A PARLIAMENT especially those that called avowed protested and declared again 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 Lawes 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 continuing a Parliament
forbear till I saw what their Officers would do who in stead 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 moneys they could from the Country by their violence and disorders Now for me or any other to give moneys 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 civill persons to be Masters of our Houses Goods Servants Lives and all we have to ride over our heads like our Lords and Conquerours and take Free quarter on us amounting to at least a full yeares contribution without any allowance for it and that since the last Orders against Free-quarter and warrants for paying in this Tax to prevent it for the future issued is so far against my reason Judgement and conscience that I would rather give all away to suppress discard them or cast it into the fire then maintain such graceless wretches with it to dishonour God enslave consume ruine the Country and Kingdome who every where complain of the like insolences and of taking free quarter since the 9 of June as above two hundred of Colonel Coxe his men did in Bath the last Lords day who drew up in a body about the Majors House and threatned to seise and carry him away prisoner for denying to give them free quarter contrary to the New Act for abolishing it Lastly this pretended Act implies that those who refuse to pay this contribution without distress or imprisonment shall be stil oppressed with freequarter And what an height of oppression and injustice this will prove not only to distrain imprison those who cannot in conscience Law or prudence submit to this illegall Tax but likewise to undoe them by exposing them to free-quarter which themselves condemne as the heighst 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 Ninethly The principal end of imposing this Tax to maintain the Army and forces now raised is not the defence and fafety 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 England Scotland and Ireland to which he hath an undoubted right by common and Statute Law as the Parliament of 1 Jacobi ch. 1. resolves and to levy war against him to deprive him of it To subvert the ancient Monarchical Government of this Realm under which our Ancesters have always lived and flourished to set up a New republick the oppressions and greivances whereof we have already felt by increasing our Taxes setting up arbitrary Courts and Proceedings to the taking away of the lives of the late King Peers and other Subjects against the Fundamental Laws of the Land creating new monstrous Treasons never heard off in the world before and the like but cannot yet enjoy or discern the least ease or advantage by it To overthrow the ancient constitution of the Parliaments of England consisting of King Lords and Commons and the Rights and Priviledges thereof To alter the fundamental Laws Seales Courts of Justice of the Realm and introduce an arbitrary Government at least if not Tyrannical contrary to our Lawes Oathes Covenant Protestation a publick Remonstrances and Engagements to the Kingdom and forraign States not to change the Government or attempt any of the premises All which being no less then High Treason by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm as Sir Edward Cook in his 4 Institutes ch. 1. and Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law upon passing the bill of Attainder of the Earl 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 these now sitting but for some of those Treasons upon obscurer Evidences of guilt then are now visible in others I cannot without incurring the Crime and Guilt of these general High Treasons and the eternal if not temporal punishments incident thereunto if I should voluntarily contribute so much as one peny or farthing towards such Treasonable and disloyal ends as these against my Conscience Law Loyalty duty and all my Oathes and obligations to the contrary Tenthly The payment of this Tax for the premised purposes will in my poor judgment 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 Laws and Government establishing of our Taxes disbanding of our Forces revivall of our decayed Trade by the renewing and perpetuating our bloudy uncivill Warrs engaging Scotland Ireland and all forreign 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 restore his lawfull Heirs and Successors to their just undoubted Rights from which they are now forcibly secluded who will undoubtedly molest us with continuall Warrs what-ever some may fondly conceit to the contrary till they be setled in the Throne in peace upon just and honorable terms and invested in their just possessions And therefore I can neither in conscience piety nor prudence ensnare my self in the guilt of all these dangerous consequences by any submission to this illegall Tax Upon all these weighty Reasons and serious grounds of Conscience Law Prudence which I humbly submit to the Consciences and Judgments of all conscientious and Judicious persons whom they do or shall concern I am resolved by the assistance and strength of that Omnipotent God who hath miraculously supported me under and carried me through all my former sufferings for the Peoples publick Liberties with exceeding joy comfort and the ruine of my greatest enemies and Opposers to oppugne this unlawfull Contrbution and the payment of it to the uttermost in all just and lawfull wayes I may And if any will forcibly levie it by distresse or otherwise without Law or Right as Theeves and Robbers take mens goods and Purses let them doe it at their own utmost perill And I trust God and men will in due season doe me justice and award me recompence for all the injuries in this kinde and any sufferings for my Countries Liberties How-ever fall back fall edge I would ten thousand times rather lose life and all I have to keep a good conscience and preserve my native Liberty then part with one farthing or gain the whole world with the losse of either of them and
rather die a Martyr for our Ancient Kingdom then live a Slave under any new Republick or remant of a broken dismembred strange Parliament of Commons without King Lords or the major part of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Realme in being subject to their illegall Taxes and what they call Acts of Parliament which in reality are no Acts at all to binde me or any other subject to obedience or just punishment for Non-obedience thereunto or Non-conformity to what they stile the present Government of the Armies modeling and I fear the Jesuites suggesting to effect our Kingdoms and Religions ruine WILLIAM PRYNNE Swainswick June 16. 1649. PSAL. 26.4 5. I have not sate with vain persons neither will I go with Dissemblers I have hated the Congregation of evill doers and will not sit with the wicked FINIS A POSTSCRIPT SInce the drawing up of the precedent Reasons I have met with a Printed Pamphlet intituled An Epistle written the 8th day of June by Lieutenant Colonel Iohn Lilburn to Master William Lenthall Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights Citizens and Burgesses that Col. Thom. Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster as most fit for his and his Masters designs to serve their ambitious Tyrannical ends to destroy the good old Laws Liberties and Customs of England the badges of our Freedom as the Declaration against the King of the seventh of March 1648 pag. 23. calls them and by force of Armes to rob the people of their lives estates and properties and subject them to perfect vassallage and slavery c. who and in truth no otherwise pretendenly stile themselves The Conservators of the Peace of England or the Parliament of England intrusted and authorized by the consent of all the people thereof whose Representatives by Election in their Declaration last mentioned p. 27. they say they are although they are never able to produce one bit of a Law or any piece of a Commission to prove that all the people of England or one quarter tenth hundred or thousand part of them authorized Thomas Pride with his Regiment of Souldiers to choose them a Parliament as indeed it hath de facto done by this PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAMENT And therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or Peoples Parliament but Col. Prides and his Associats whose really it is who although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant yet walk oppressingest steps if not worst and higher In this Epistle this late great Champion of the House of Commons and sitting Junctoes Supremacy both before and since the Kings beheading who with his Brother a Overton and their Confederates First cryed them up as and gave them the Title of The Supream Authority of the Nation The only Supream Judicatory of the land The only formall and legall Supream power and Parliament of England in whom alone the power of binding the whole Nation by making altering or abrogating Laws without either King or Lords resides c. and first engaged them by their Pamphlets and Petitions against the King Lords and Personall Treatie as he and they print and boast in this Epistle and other late Papers doth in his own and his Parties behalf who of late so much adored them as the only earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation now positively assert and prove First that Commissary Generall Ireton Colonel Harison with other Members of the House and the General Councel of Officers in the Army did in severall meetings and debates at Windsor immediately before their late march to London to purge the House and after to Whitehall commonly stile themselves the pretended Parliament even before the Kings beheading a MOCK PARLIAMENT a MOCK POWER a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOT and not so much as to leave a shadow of it yea and had done it if we say they and some of our then FRIENDS in the House had not been the Principall Instruments to hinder them We judging it then of two evils the least to chuse rather to be governed by THE SHADOW OF A PARLIAMENT till we could get a reall and a true one which with the greatest protestations in the world they then promised and engaged with all their might speedily to effect then simply solely and only by the will of Sword-men whom we had already found to be men of no very tender consciences If then these leading swaying Members of the new pretended purged Commons Parliament and Army deemed the Parliament even before the Kings beheading a Mock-Parliament a mock-power a pretended Parliament yea no Parliament at all and absolutely resolved to pull it up by the roots as such then it necessarily follows First that they are much more so after the Kings death as by their suppression of the Lords House and purging of the Commons House to the very dregs in the opinions and consciences of those now sitting and all other rationall men And no wayes enabled by law to impose this or any other new Tax or Act upon the Kingdom creating new Treasons and Penalties Secondly that these grand saints of the Army and Statesmen of the Pretended Parliament knowingly sit vote and act there against their own judgements and consciences for their own private pernicious ends Thirdly that it is a basenesse cowardize and degeneracy beyond all expression for any of their Fellow-members now acting to suffer these Grâ—nâ—eâ—s in their Assembly and Arms to sit or vote together with them or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army or to impose any tax upon the People to maintain such Officers Members Souldiers who have thus vilified affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority and thereby induced others to contemn and question it and as great a basenesse in others for to pay it upon any terms Secondly he there affirms that d Oliver Crumwell by the helpe of the Aâ—my at their first Rebellion against the Parliament was no sooner put up but like a perfideous base unworthy man c. the House of Peers were his only white boys and who but Oliver who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Vsurpers became their Proctor where ever he came yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also insomuch that at some meetings with some of my friends at the Lord Whartons lodgings he clapt his hand upon his breast and to this purpose professed in the sight of God upon his conscience THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO HIS COAT UPON HIS BACK and he would pocure a freind viz. Master Nathaniel Feinnes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England And not only so but did he not get the Generall and Councell of War at Windsor about the time that the Votes of no more