Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	according_a	law_n	parliament_n	2,488	5	6.5410	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A79847	A letter from a true and lawfull member of Parliament, and one faithfully engaged with it, from the beginning of the war to the end. To one of the lords of his highness councell, upon occasion of the last declaration, shewing the reasons of their proceedings for securing the peace of the Commonwealth, published on the 31th of October 1655.	Clarendon, Edward Hyde, Earl of, 1609-1674.	1656 (1656)	Wing C4424; Thomason E884_2; ESTC R207305	35,184	70

extreamly zealous for and jealous of their liberty that they onely acknowledged one God to be Lord and Master of all things and had rather themselves with their dearest children and kinsfolk endure the most greivous and bitter torments that could be imagined than call any mortal man their Lord And this is the antientest Record I think can be produced for those Friends of yours who have lifted you up to the height you are now at though it is plain your selves are retired enough from those inconvenient scruples Be what other Nation you will how far you are from being the English Nation or that part of it which is tender of and like to advance its Interests must appear in the further examination of the Principles of your Declaration Since you would have it believed that no part of the English Nation can be concerned in or hurt by this destroying Act but onely the Royal Party you should so clearly have set down the guilt of those you punish and the rules by which you punish that no innocent man could have thought himself involved in the one or in the reach of the other it had been to be wished that since you take upon you to execute Justice and Judgement for the Nation you had according to the good old Custome alwayes observed in those Judicatories plainly set out the known Laws of the Land by which such and such Actions are declared to be Crimes and by which those Crimes are to be punished in that degree it being no more in the Judges power to exceed the punishment prescribed than to declare that to be a Crime which no Law hath declared to be so whereas without quoting one judged Case in Law or citing one Statute for your ground or mentioning one precedent to justifie your manner of proceeding you wrap up your discourse in Metaphysical notions and conclude by deductions from the Law and Light of Nature and from the dictates of Reason a Reason so abstracted from practice and so difficult to be understood that we may well apprehend that we shall hereafter be concluded guilty and condemned before we are accused or able to accuse our selves and therefore it is not out of kindness to them that we now endeavour to state the true Case of the Royal Party the Crime they are charged with in this Declaration the Judgement that is inflicted upon them and the Grounds of that Judgement that we may from thence be able to conclude how far we are from their case and consequently how secure we are from being liable to their punishments The Case then of the Royal Party is this After a War waged for some years between the King and the Parliament after several great Successes on the Parliaments side the Kings Armies and Garrisons are reduced to those streights that they thought fit to make Conditions They do not confess that they owe their admission to compound for their Estates or the moderation that was used in it to that excess of good nature you reproach them with in your Declaration But they say it was upon a full Contract between the Parliament and them and upon Articles of surrender on their part of those places of strength which remained then in their possession the which together with their acquiescence from further opposing us we of the Parliaments party they say then thought a valuable consideration for any Concessions we then made to them and that they had the Publick Faith of the Parliament for the punctual and exact performance of the Articles on our part That by our thus treating with them and their compounding with us we raised a vast sum of money for the support of our Armies without which we had been in many streights and if they had not totally declined any further thoughts of opposing us amongst so many discontents which then raged in the Parliament the Army and amongst the Scots it is not probable that we should have carried all before us with so little resistance as we did so that the advantage we got by their Compounding was not small or inconsiderable That we were so far from requiring them to change their Principles other than their no further assisting the King in a War against the Parliament the which himself at the same time declined and betook himself to Treaties that there was a special provision in all Articles against any such pressure That we of the Parliaments party were so far from urging them to wave their Allegiance to the King that we professed the same with them in all our Professions Declarations and Protestations and that the Crime we accused them of and obliged them to compound for was for their offences against the King and Parliament and therefore the Pardon drawn by order of Parliament was granted to them in the Kings name and passed under the Great Seal of England so that they were and are by that according to the Fundamental Laws of England which are the onely security every Subject hath for the enjoying his property and his liberty free and absolved from all manner of Offences committed before the Grant of that Pardon and by it put into as full a possession of their Estates and all the Rights of a Subject of England as they before enjoyed and if they have committed no offence since that time against the Laws of the Land they are and ought to be accounted in the same condition with us and not in any degree to be troubled for more than what they have done since And this is in truth the state of the Royal Party without strengthening it by any consideration of the Act of Grace and Oblivion which was afterwards granted to them Whether those Articles have been so punctually performed as you say whether that Court which was purposely erected to do them Justice in that particular was erected soon enough and before they were broken with intollerable oppression or whether that Court hath since executed Justice so effectually on their behalf as you declare I leave to themselves to make manifest being in truth as I said before no otherwise concerned for them than as the equal administration of Justice to all sorts of people is and must be the foundation of peace and happiness to any Commonwealth according to the Ordinance of God himself He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God Where there is not exact and precise Justice there can be no fear of God pretend what you will and you cannot but have heard that very many learned and pious men have attributed the ill success which the Christians received in the several attempts which have been made with so vast a consumpsion of men and treasure in the Holy Land to that perfidious breach of faith made by the Christians after the first taking of Jerusalem in the year 1098. when after Mercy proclaimed to all that would lay down Arms it was concluded necessary for their defence upon the rumour or apprehension of

Garrisons and strong Holds And is it not very manifest by no one mans appearing with all his Tenants and very few mens appearing who had Tenants by their not possessing one Garrison or strong hold or house that what design soever some particular persons might have the whole party did in no degree cherish or assist the design Shall the presence of those who were there though many probably might not know what they came about be enough to condemn them and shall not the absence of others except you can prove they were at least privy to what was designed absolve them You say that what Major Generall Overton designed was to be brought to passe by the Levellers and some others who did not as you hope intend to serve the interest of Charles Stuart And why have you not so much Charity for the Royall party of which there did not appeare enough at any Rendezvous Salisbury onely excepted to put you to the trouble of dispersing them to hope that whatever the Lord Wilmot and the rest intended to bring to passe by them they never thought to second them It can neither be just in it self nor prudent in you to give the Royall Party cause to believe that they hold their liberties and Estates by no better a tenure than the good behaviour of every man who keeps them company or hath been heretofore engaged in the same quarrell with them That the Earl of Kingston who therefore compounded because he had a great estate to enjoy should loose his when ever Major Generall Wagstaffe shall rebell against you who never compounded because he had nothing to save and will be alwayes venturing because he hath nothing to loose You have not reduced the Royall party into a Corporation that by the misdemeanour of some of the Members their Charter should be avoided They of them who never had pardon have received no benefit by what the other procured for themselves and there is no reason they who compounded with you should without committing new faults receive prejudice by the transgressions of other men Can you imagine that they who were admitted by you to compound would ever have been at the charge and trouble of it if they had thought they should incurre any danger or pay the penalty for any attempts made by the Excepted Persons As long as they who are not suffered to live amongst you are projecting against you as they will alwayes be must not the rest who dwell at home as much as you enjoy what is their own In a word every man compounded for himself sued out his own pardon and can only be punished for his own offences And it is expresly provided for by severall Statutes of Magna Charta that no man shall be condemned without being brought to his answer and how the sworne Judges of the Law who do not relieve those who demand protection from them for their Liberties or Estates will answer the breach of their duty and their Oaths I cannot foresee especially if they remember what the Lord Chief Justice Cooke puts them in minde of in his Pleas of the Crown printed by order of Parliament That it was Enacted in the first year of H. 4. that the Lords nor the Judges shall never be admitted to say That they durst not for fear of death to speak the truth For my own part I am content that I was one of that partie which reduced them to a necessitie of compounding and admitted them to conpound upon such terms that they might enjoy their Countrey with some satisfaction and comfort Let it be your glory to breake and violate all those conditions and to be recorded as those were by the excellent Historian in the declination of the Roman State from Justice and Honour Ignavissimi homines per summum scelus omnia ea sociis adimêre quae fortissimi viri victores hostibus reliquerunt That you have by transcendent wickednes and Tyranny stripped them of all whilst they lived as friends peaceably with you and under you which we were contented they should enjoy af●er we had conquered them as Enemies and so let them stand or fall as they can I come now to consider how we who are not yet accused by you may expect upon the same inferences to have the same judgement let loose upon us which for the present you intend shall immediatly destroy only the Royall partie you will not suffer us to think it strange that so many persons are secured although they were not visibly in armes upon the late Insurrection or that you have laid a burthen upon their Estates beyond what is imposed upon the rest of the Nation towards the defraying that charge of which they are the occasion you have at present in custodie under the same generall reproach persons who from the beginning to the end of the warr served the Parliament as faithfully and as eminently as any who were Members of it now it is not probable that they would have engaged themselves in so unequall an enterprize if they had not expected to be seconded by their friends why should not we therfore looke to be involved under the same judgment You say John Wildeman and others of the like Principles were most fitting Instruments for the carrying on the design and that Major Generall Overton was to make use of the Levellers and it cannot be supposed that they would have proceeded so far without having some assurance of assistance from their party and I pray then where is the difference between the Levellers those who insist upon the Rights and Liberties of the free-borne people of England who would have Taxes taken off and a free and equall Representative those are their Crimes and the Royall partie which is condemned because some of their friends appeared in the Insurrection It is plaine enough what they are in due time to expect at your hands who in the last Parliament Insisted to have part of the Army disbanded which you insinuate was done upon no lesse than Combination with that partie you have condemned But we need not take such paines by such inferences to discover your good purposes towards us you have ingenuously declared That your quarrell is against all who retaine their old Principles and still adhere to their former interest in direct opposition to the Government established Let the old Principles retained be what they will and the Interest adhered to what it will Parliamentarie Principles and Parliamentarie Interest Presbyterian Principles and Presbyterian Interest Independent Principles and Independent Interest if it be in direct opposition to the Government established the same measure of persecution must be their portion which you would have us thinke is only now assigned to the Cavaliers Alas it is not their Principles you are angry with but their obstinate adhering to their obligations and their interest Let them depart from those and no longer oppose the Government established and you will like them the better for their

power how exerorbitant soever that we thought only related to them You know the wise answer given to him that asked what City he believed to be best governed Solon said That City where such as receive no wrong do as earnestly defend others to whom wrong is offered as if the wrong and injury had been offered to themselves And that Generall was worthily extolled qui aliquid esse crederet in hostem nefas Our too little circumspection and tenderness of that hath brought the Case to be our own If the Royall party will change their interest that is keepe their old Monarchicall Principles and apply them to the support of your interest they shall be received entertained and preferred by you you have manifested it enough to them by trusting none more than those who have done so They are onely in danger of whom you are afraid in respect of their conversation of their intentions towards the present Government and of their interest not to submit to that Government which you say is established and they believe or know to be but usurped And we shall the better finde who they are and make some discoverie of the number of them and consequently of the danger that is threatned from them if we take a short view of the Government by what degrees and by what Authority it is imposed upon us and how far the severall interests of those who have at least equally with your selves opposed the common Enemy are secured and provided for and we shall thereby the more easily judge how far we are obliged in conscience or discretion to submit to it of whom you are most like to be afraid and so who are most probably in the end to be charged with the maintenance of those forces which you will finde necessarie to secure that Government and your feares that it will not be secure What is become of the Parliament and the Parliament partie that first undertook that war and pursued it till they were without an eneny is too melancholick a question to expect an answer to You cannot take it ill that I say this is not the Government we then undertook and engaged to preserve and defend and you will give me leave to observe that there is not one officer in all your Armies that in the beginning of that warre was above the degree of a Captaine so far are you from being the People who bore the heat of the day or who deprived the enemy of of their armes Nor is there one person amongst you who had then interest or reputation enough to engage ten men in the quarrell nor is one of those who had in any credit now with you or trusted in any part of your Government So that you may reasonably conclude that as they cannot hold themselves obliged to submit to it so much lesse engaged to support it and consequently amongst that number of which you have reason to be afraid After you had by bringing your Army to London and imprisoning the major part of the Commons and dissolving the House of Peeres extinguished Kingly Government erected your selves into a Commonwealth and insteed of one set up as many Kings as you had left members of your Parliament all who were uncontrolable and above the reach of Justice and exercised what kinde of Power and Tyrannie they pleased upon their fellow subjects The people were universally engaged to maintain and defend that Government of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of England All Princes and forraigne States taught to make their addresses to it Warre and Peace declared by it The Keepers of the Great Seal of England the Judges and Ministers of Justice appointed in the same manner and the whole Administration of Justice throughout the Kingdome was in the name of the Keepers of the Liberty of England The Army professed it self entirely at the obedience of the Parliament and absolutely to be disposed by it and well it might do so there being so many Officers of the Army Members of Parliament that they had reason to believe all Commands would be suitable to their own desires if they desired no more than what they hitherto professed the support of that Government which not onely every person who had the least trust share or benefit in it had sworn to defend but whosoever sued for favour or Justice from it were bound to subscribe to In this manner all things were ordered Ireland reduced to perfect obedience and our enemies there to perfect slavery Scotland as your own Poet sayes was preferred by Conquest to serve us So that we were not only without any visible Enemy and so sufficiently revenged of our friends that they could be of use to none but our selves The Parliament now thought it high time that they who were in truth the Conquerors the People at whose charge alone the warre had been carried on should receive some benefit from their Conquests That when they had no enemy at all they need not have so great an Army and therefore they betook themselves to councels of good husbandry and to thinke of preferring them who had taken so much paines in their service to ease and plenty to give those Estates to them which they had taken from others and by these gratuities to disband some part of their Army But that was a Jurisdiction you never intended they should exercise you were well enough contented that they should have the Soveraigne power to raise money for the payment of the Armies but when they presumed to speak of disbanding those Armies you wisely remembred how insecure you should be without those forces which had raised you to the height you were at you remembred how many former orders you had disobeyed how you had triumphed over the long Robe and the Priviledges of Parliament and albeit Acts of Prdon and Oblivion had been passed for your Indemnity you concluded if the Government should once fall into those peaceable hands they would find ways enough to avoid the observance of any promises they had been cōpelled to make against their wills and hereupon for the good of the people you resolved to take the Government into your own hands and according to the advice given by the Servants of the King of Syria Take the Kings away every man out of his place and put Captains in their roomes You brought armed men into the house of Parliament forced the Members with many opprobrious speeches to leave their places locked up the doors that there might be no more resort thither and appointed a select number of the Officers of the Army to provide for all that King or Parliament used to do and here was an end of your Commonwealth which Government all were so solemnly engaged to defend nor is there any person who adheres to the Principles of a Commonwealth in any trust or esteeme with you Nay it is very observable and notorious that of all that select number which helped you to be free from Monarchy by sitting