Bottom he and the rest of them do build their Argumentations and the high-flown flourishes of discourse which they so diligently Print and spread abroad to deceive the weaker unwary People and intoxicate them with disaffection to this Parliament and to the lawful Prerogative and Government of His Majesty But if they can make no better Squibs than this to blow up a Parliament they had best give it over for the King not being bound up by Law within a yeer he is at liberty to Prorogue beyond the limit of a yeer and so the Fifteen Months Prorogation was and is good though it hath been seldom that there have been so long Prorogations For that is no Argument against the Wisdom and Power of the King to exceed some days or months if He seeth in prudence it be pro bono Publico and that urgent Reasons of State do require it and there is nothing in all our Law that speaks a syllable to the contrary if rightly consider'd Therefore to unwinde the Bottom which the Dissolver hath entangled let me with assurance determine this Point which is the Standard by which you may measure all that they have said or can say If those two Statutes did not confine the Parliament's sitting to Twelve months then the Kings Proroguing His Parliament to Fifteen months was no violation of the said Statutes If no Statute be thereby violated then the Prorogation was and is good If so then the Parliament is as firm in Being as ever any Prorogued Parliament was or can be and consequently the Laws which they have made or shall make after the Prorogation are as perfect and obligatory upon us as any other Laws that ever were made in this Nation And 't is no question a Crime little less than an endeavour at the Subversion of Parliament for any persons by Speeches or Prints in or out of the Houses to carry on a Designe of arguing a Dissolution of this thereby to perswade the People against Obedience and Submission to it Nor can this Assertion of mine be construed as if I maintained any thing in derogation of that Freedom of speech which ought to be had in Parliament and which I count absolutely necessary for the Debate and the Dispatch of the Grand Affairs But then that freedom of speech ought to be qualified with so much Modesty and Reverence as not to run to such licentious discourse as the Laws make Criminal for next to downright Treasonous discourse none can be worse than that which tends to the Violent Dissolution of a Parliament that is to say without the King's consent or against His will What then do they deserve who have been such busie Speech-makers both in and out of Parliament to bring that End about against the King's consent and against the Laws Or that shall presume to do it hereafter seeing the two Houses have given their Judgment in the Case contrary to the interpretation of all Factious Penmen and Talkers But the Dissolver goes further than this and takes upon himself the person of the People of England and in their Name falls to downright threatning of both Houses of Parliament in the following words DISSOLVER Pages 9 and 10. This we say not Gentlemen by way of acknowledgment that you are in a Legal capacity now to do us either good or hurt for your day is done and your power expired but that you may not like a Snuff smell ill after you are out For the reason why we more particularly direct our selves to you is because of the Character you have born that therefore you should not seem so much as to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law That so however you have lived yet all may say and witness for you that you died well and made a worthy End If not we hope the whole Nation will strictly observe every man among you that to sit a little longer yet would sacrifice to this Prorogation the very best of Laws and in them all the Laws and Liberties of England The two Statutes of EDW. 3. were declared to be in force by your Selves in the Sixteenth yeer of the King in the new Triennial Act then passed and we are sure there hath been no new Parliament since to Repeal them ANIMADVERSION What need this phrentick impertinent Clause here at last seeing that no man affirms those two Statutes to be Repealed Let them stand for ever as Laws to shew that as we had and have a Right to a frequencie of Parliaments so also that the King hath a Right of Prerogative to judge whether there be need of having them so often as every yeer And thus much is to be understood also by the tenour of the new Triennial Act passed by this Parliament to prevent Inconveniences hapning by the long intermission of Parliaments for they name the two Statutes of Edward the Third but make no mention of a Right to Parliaments once every yeer the words of the Act referring to those Statutes being these onely because by them Parliaments are to be held very often which is the very same that I grant and affirm to be the meaning of the said Statutes and their not affirming a jot more than I do implieth that they understood them no otherwise than I do in general terms for a Declarative Frequencie but whether within a yeer or oftner they say not a word touching which it is to be presumed they would not have been silent if they had understood it to be the Right of the People to have had certain Parliaments yeerly whenas the Statutes declare not absolutely but onely with condition IF NEED BE. And because all mouthes should be stopped and no room left for an Objection which ill-minded heads or jealous may make and is made use of by these our Factious Book-makers viz. that our having of Parliaments is by this means left to the King's pleasure when he please to judge them needful behold there is no reason for such objecting because the nature of His power to judge I maintain not to be absolute whether we shall have Parliaments or not but whether it be needful to have one or more so oft as within every yeer Therefore the high Wisdom of this present Parliament is to be magnisied in contriving that new Triennial Act in such a manner as prevents all the frivolous Objections that may be made by any other persons For in the later end of the Act they pray in these words That it may be Declared and Enacted And be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That hereafter the Sitting and Holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above Three years at the most but that within Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within Three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments OR IF THERE BE OCCASION MORE OFTEN your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for Calling Assembling
3. cap. 10. That for the maintenance of those Liberties and remedy of Mischiefs and Grievances that daily happen a Parliament should be held once every yeer ANIMADVERSION I cannot but note this Dissolver to be a mere Shifter He shifts that Statute of 4 Edw. 3. out of the way as a thing too hot for him to handle because of the words IF NEED BE. And as he lays that aside so next he turns Statute-clipper cuts off the main Clause which qualisies the Sence of the Second Statute of the 36 of Edw. 3. The words of the Clause are As at another time WAS ORDAINED BY STATVTE Now that other Statute here mentioned is the first Statute of Edw. 3. which ordained that Parliaments shall be holden once a yeer if need be and more often if need be that is to say we shall have frequent Parliaments and as frequent as heart can wish IF NEED require Just so much and no more was Ordained by the former Statute But who shall be Judge of this need or who can be but the King in whom the Law hath trusted the Calling of Parliaments Therefore 't is in Law to be supposed it may be inconvenient for Him to call a Parliament so often as every yeer when in his Judgment He concludes it not needful so to do So much for Clipping the Statute a Crime as bad as Clipping the King's Coyn if not worse But any thing must be done to serve the turn of Dissolution DISSOLVER The reason he saith is because this Parliament hath sat so many years till they are not the Representatives of one half of the People of England And the Gentry who think themselves born to have their share in Ruling as well as being Ruled judge it a very hard thing upon them to be secluded from their hopes of having the honour to serve their King and Country in Parliament ANIMADVERSION A Share of Ruling as well as being Ruled 'T is very fine ye men of Shaftsbury this is so like the language of the Old Levellers who were all for Ruling by Turns that one might almost swear a small Friend of yours was at the Penning it He is always for Vp and Ride and Rule and Rule alone and so is the whole Faction and that is the Reason why they are for a Tumbling-Cast to the present Rulers of Church and State But what Gentry are those who hanker after Rule If to sit and serve in Parliament be to Rule this the Law never understood in England and the Writ of Summons to Parliament saith no such thing the Rule and Empire being vested in the King and those that are by Law deputed under Him for that purpose It was never otherwise understood till that fatal Parliament in FORTY ONE when they wrested the Rule out of the hand of the King and His inferiour Magistrates There were then such a Sort of Gentry got into the House though but few in comparison of the whole number that in order to the gaining of all Rule into their own hands from their Fellow-Members as well as the King first placed it in the hands of London-Prentices till by Tumults and Tumultuous Voting they drave away the rest of the Gentry as well as the King and the majority of the Lords and never left till themselves became the onely Lords of Mis-rule Such Gentry as those were are they that now reckon of Ruling in Parliament one day or other if they can but be rid of this and perswade the People to chuse 'em having to that end a great confidence in the strength of the Tongues and Lungs of their Ambulatory Chaplains The rest of the Gentry understand them well enough and all their Windings and do very well know and are satisfied that here is a full Parliament all places of Members having been fill'd up by Election of new ones as fast as they were vacant and that a convenient duration of this Assembly of the Peoples Representatives as he calls them is the only Expedient to prevent the Designe of that restless Faction in whose Service this Dissolver and his Scribling Companions are listed And now to do the Feat he ventures at matter of Law too and his Arguments are all summ'd up in what follows DISSOLVER By the Statute of 4 EDW. 3. cap. 10. and 36 EDW. 3. cap. 14. and by other Statutes a Parliament is to meet once within a yeer But directly contrary to those Statutes this last Prorogation Order'd the Parliament not to meet within a yeer but some months after and therefore either the Prorogation is null and void in Law and consequently the Sitting and Acting as a Parliament is at an end or else by your Sitting and Acting you will admit and justifie that a particular Order of the King is to be obey'd though contrary to an Act of Parliament and thereby subvert the Government of England by Law So also the King's Order is to be obeyed against Magna Charta Petition of Right c. and we have neither life nor liberty secured unto us Then the Dissolver by vertue of the foregoing Lines goes on to spend four or five pages in setting forth the great hazard of our Laws Liberties and Properties as if all were true he said and concludes all are gone if the Prorogation beyond twelve months were a good one but he saith 't is null and the Parliament null'd therewith ANIMADVERSION Such small Faggots of Argumentation as these are now bound up in Books to fire the Nation if it be possible They first make false Constructions of the two Statutes of Edw. 3. telling the world the King is by them bound to hold a Parliament once within every yeer and if we could grant that to be the Statutes meaning then they might have some shadow of Reason to make Conclusions to their own mindes But I have already made evident that they either misunderstand the Statutes or craftily wrest the sence of them There is no intent in the Statutes that Parliaments be call'd yeerly ex absoluto but they contain a clear Hypothesis as a Salvo for the undoubted legal Prerogative of the King in the words IF NEED BE so that 't is supposed in the Statutes the King hath by his Prerogative-Royal a Right of Judging the time when it is needful to call a Parliament because He and none but He can Call Therefore 't is to be admir'd there should so many words be made about so plain a business For were I never so much a Conspirator in forming Devices for the Destruction of this Parliament I would finde out some more solid Basis to build my Arguments upon than a manifest Contradiction or else certainly I would for shame be silent The two Statutes say we shall have frequent Parliaments and so frequent as once a yeer if there be need But the Factious Dissolver maintains the sence of them to be that we shall have Parliaments once a yeer though there be no need so that you see upon what a wretched
nowhere in our Chronicle can finde a Rebelling against payment of Taxes but it always ended in Hanging the Jack Cades the Wat Tylers and Captain Mendals with all the like Predecessors of this Leading Dissolver But not a word of the Pudding He is so tender of the People that he will not fright 'em his Business being to draw in as many and as fast as he can Mutiny mutiny my dear Country-men said a Rebel in a Stage-play or else I shall be hang'd c. So there is an End of the DISSOLVER and his Threatnings The next Seditious Pamphlet that came abroad appeared with the Title of A Seasonable Question and an Vseful Answer c. I have view'd this Author very well but after a strict impartial Search of him all over I finde that as to matter of Law he writes little yea nothing at all but what hath been said in other words by the two foregoing Writers yet because he hath interwoven many subtil insinuations under pretence of Law and many Scandalous Additions I am constrained to take him also in pieces and more effectually dissolve him than he can the Parliament the designe of this Pamphleter being the same with his fellows And I am the more willing to tire my self out at this Work that His Majesties good Subjects may be throughly informed of all that the Faction is able to alledge against the Legal existence and duration of this present Parliament and then the better judge of the unreasonableness of these mens Suggestions which they scatter all over the Land to impoison the mindes of men and prepare them for the old pious work of Rebelling after the mode of FORTY ONE For as it was in the days of Solomon so all the Designes they are now upon do well agree with the Text There is nothing new under the sun You shall see the old Game of Covenanting Sequestring Slaughtering Plundering Committees increase of Taxes with all the shapes of Metamorphosis in Governments and miseries Acted over again if these men may prevail They are likely to give us nothing New but a New Parliament and that shall be a Swinger as the DISSOLVER hath promised us and told us he hath taken care for the New Elections so that the House shall appear New in its Out-side but in its In-side as like the Old one as one Nut is like another Here perhaps some captious man of malice may be willing to mistake me as if I did declaim against New Parliaments But that I may prevent those that lie at Catch let them know I plead not against them but the having of any other Parliament brought on by Factious Clamours and Outcries in Print or otherwise till this Parliament hath finish'd the Work now in their hands for Setling the Nation with sure Laws and Provisions against Renting and Tearing of it by manifold Factions But to proceed This Book which I am now to Dissect is grounded upon mere Fiction It supposeth a Letter from a person newly chosen to sit a Member of this Parliament one that before he would make so great a Journey to London desires a Friend of his a Bencher of the Temple because there hath been a great noise in the Country that by Law Parliaments are to be held once a yeer and that whereas this Parliament was Prorogued to three months above the term of a year the Prorogation being thereby illegal the Parliament must needs be null and in Law Dissolved And therefore he would be loth to come up two hundred miles to put his neck in a Noose by sitting here as a Member unless his friend the Bencher would satisfie him of the truth of the matter and advise him to come This is the sum of the Question and the Fable is so laid forsooth that the pretended Bencher undertakes to give him his Resolution upon the Point BENCHER This is a Question of the greatest moment that ever was moved in England viz. Whether this Parliament be actually Dissolved by the last Prorogation for fifteen months He that will answer it ought first to consider whether a Prorogation ordered and continued beyond a year can be made to agree with our Laws and the Statutes of the Realm particularly those two Statutes of Edward the third which were re-inforced by that Act of the sixteenth Caroli primi which was repealed by the Act of the sixteenth Caroli secundi wherein this Parliament acknowledged those Statutes of Edw. 3. to be still the Laws and Statutes of the Realm and they in this Act enacted no Clause that abates their force ANIMADVERSION It is indeed a Question of the greatest and withal of the slightest moment that ever was in England slight in the nature of it but greatest in the Consequence and I will shew you how That in its nature 't is but slight and idle appears most abundantly by what I have already given you in the former part of these Animadversions To which give me leave to adde also that it had never been brought under Question if one man in a corner had not failed in all other Tricks to bring about an untimely Dissolution of the Parliament For as soon as ever he was lifted out of the Court the former PACQVET shew'd how bravely he plaid his Game in Parliament by imbarquing both Houses in Disputes about Priviledges which raised so many Broils to hinder them from dispatch of Business that all good endeavours were made vain the Parliament it self became a while useless to the King and unable to do any thing to relieve the pressing Necessities of the Kingdom that so by tiring out the patience and expectations of Prince and people there might have follow'd a willingness on all sides to admit of an Argument for this Parliaments Dissolution and the calling of his Plotted New one But the effect of these his Artificial Contrivances having been prevented by the Wisdom of His Majestie and His Two Houses then he had recourse to this last Device of picking a Hole if possible in this point of the Prorogation which with the assistance of a few Disaffected Lawyers and others was presently done by false Expositions and Glosses upon old Statutes and from hence sprang the Original of this frivolous Question about the legality of this Parliament's longer Sitting which they with more Impudence than Conscience determine in the Negative as hath been manifested unto you so that whoever shall concur with them must obstinately offer violence to his own Reason and all the known Rules of Argument if after due Consideration he shall adhere to their Opinion Moreover though the Question in it self be but slight yet as to the Consequence I agree it may be of exceeding moment as the Devisers thereof intended it For they meant to delude the people into a misunderstanding of the Laws a Jealousie of their Liberties and a disposition to Tumults to the hazard of their Peace their Lives and Fortunes by new Commotions Their Designe is by raising the dust about this
the Citie may have an Account of the Gains of their Predecessors take it as follows it having been drawn up by one that was in those days a Member of Parliament Some concern the Citie alone and some were charged upon both Citie and Country 1. A Tax called the Royal Subsidie of Three hundred thousand pounds I think it was the Tax they got the King to pass to pay the Scotch Presbyterian Army which themselves had brought a little before into this Kingdom to compass their Ends. 2. Poll-money 3. The Free Loans and Contributions upon the Publike Faith of Money Plate Thimbles Bodkins Horse Arms c. amounting to a vast incredible sum I remember and mine eyes saw at Guild-hall Plate brought in out of the Citizens houses and heaped up like huge Wood-piles 4. The Irish Adventure money most out of this Citie for purchase of lands in Ireland which the King's Father called a dividing of the Bears skin before they had conquered him 5. The Weekly Meal-money that is to say the Citizens spared a Meal out of their own bellies converting the value of it into Cash to be presented after their Plate 6. The Citie loan after the rate of fifty Subsidies 7. The Assesment of Money to bring on a Presbyterian Army of Scots a second time 8. The Fifth and Twentieth part of men's estates 9. The Weekly Assesment for the Lord General Essex his Army 10. The Weekly or Monthly Assesment for Sir Thomas Fairfax 's Army 11. The Weekly Assesment for the second Scotch Presbyterian Army after it had entered England 12. The Weekly Assesment for the British Army in Ireland 13. The Weekly Assesment for my Lord of Manchester 's Army 14. Free Quarter connived at by the Rulers 15. Sequestrations of the King 's Queen's and Prince's Revenue 16. Sequestrations and Plunders by Committees 17. Excise upon all things Whereupon the Gentleman who drew up this Account wrote thus By these several Ways and Taxes about Forty Millions in Money and Money 's worth were milked out of the Nation the most part out of this Citie and that Parliament as the Pope did once might well have called England Puteum inexhaustum A vast Treasure it was such a one as nothing but a long Peace could have imported and nothing but pious Frauds many Follies and a Mad War could dissipate And yet all this prodigious Sum was drained away and spent before the yeer 1647. in but six years so that we do not reckon the vast Sums fetcht out of the Citie and Kingdom to carry on the succeeding Wars which sprang out of this in England Scotland and Ireland betwixt 1647 and 1654. amounting to another vast Sum of Moneys of which I am not able to give any Account I might reckon also the many Tuns of Tears and Blood that were drawn out of the eyes and sides of these three Nations which the Presbyterian Faction can never wash off without Tears of Repentance But let it not be the Repentance of Judas such a one as they made in 1648. when they saw the Ball of Empire caught out of their hands into the hands of Cromwel and mourned for that not for the completed Ruine of the King and his Family which themselves first began and carried on as far as they could And they must look to have it mention'd till they leave off reviving their old Tricks of undermining the Government and embroiling the Nation But this may serve at present to let the Young men as well as the old see what the Citie and Kingdom got by being led by the Nose to Westminster for a Crying down and shifting of Governours and State-Ministers under the King of whose Faults they knew nothing but what they took up upon the Credit of pretended Patriots but really crafty designing publike Enemies as they afterwards appeared to be And you perceive also how false this Narrator is when he tells you that in the memory of man there never was before February last such a flocking of people to Westminster at the opening of a Session of Parliament But what went the people out to see They went to see a Reed shaken with the wind But the Wind brought on a Storm upon those that would have shaken the Foundation of both Houses which seeing they could not do a Resolution is resolved on in mere spight that 't is now no Parliament but a Convention which certainly deserves a severe Animadversion of State upon such as would turn up the Foundation upon which we stand NARRATIVE When the King was come the Commons were sent for up to the Lords House where I made a shift to croud in and hear The King and Lord Chancellor each of them made a Speech worthy your consideration Copies whereof I have here sent you ANIMADVERSION But he is as false here also as he was before in the other for I finde neither of those Speeches inclosed in this Print He will be wary enough of printing them because they are worthy to be often read and consider'd by all the people in order to their satisfaction touching the justice prudence and candour of his Majestie 's Government therefore I must needs give you short Heads of the Kings Speech that the sinister intents and boisterous invective discourses of some men may be the better understood The King in his Speech of the 15 of February told his Lords and the Gentlemen of the House of Commons That he had called them together again after a long Prorogation that they might have an opportunity to repair the Misfortunes of the foregoing Session and to recover and restore the right use and end of Parliaments That he was resolved to let the World see that it should not be his fault if they be not made happie by their Consultations in Parliament That he plainly declared he came prepared to give them all satisfaction and security in the great concerns of the Protestant Religion as it is established in the Church of England that can consist with reason and Christian prudence And that he declared as freely that he is ready to grant a further securing of our Liberties and Properties by as many good Laws as they shall propose and can consist with the Government without which there will be neither Liberty nor Property left to any man That he would have all men judge who is most for Arbitrary Government they that foment such differences as tend to dissolve all Parliaments or He that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissentions That if these good Ends should happen to be disappointed He calls God and men to witness that the misfortune of that disappointment shall not lie at his dore What can be more desired from a gracious King But 't is not the mode nor agreeable to the temper and business of some men in the world to rest as men satisfied with Reason though perhaps they be These are they at whose dore the guilt of Parliamentary Constitutions must
lie if ever God for our sins should permit them to proceed For they of the Faction cannot fish in the waters of Monarchy they would have a Senate with Oligarchs over it in stead of a Monarch For the Narrator saith we ought not to use the word Parliament now but the word Convention is better Nor is it any part of the Faction's business to be content with the Established Religion or Liberty and Property these are words which they know how to make use of by sprinkling them as flowers of Rhetorick in all their Writings and Discourses they work upon the People with them as Witches do with Charms Characters and Spells to bewitch the Multitude with an opinion against the Court and that all is in danger that way and that themselves are the onely Patrons and Patriots when in the mean time they onely tickle them like Trouts with these things to catch them and enslave them to their own designes and humours for pulling the Government in pieces which is the only Bulwark of Religion Liberty and Property For as the King well saith before without this there will be neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety left to any man The Truth whereof we found by woful experience which ensued after the very same Witchcrafts had bereaved the people of their Senses in FORTY ONE to run headlong into Civil Wars which lasted so long till Twenty yeers Suffering under loss of Religion Liberty Property Safety Government and all made them long and sigh after their Soveraign Lord again as the onely Restorer Look back then once again upon those short Heads of His Majesties Speech with an impartial eye and you have in view so many demonstrations of Wisdom Moderation Tenderness for this Parliament and the future being of Parliaments in their ancient Legal state as also of Love and Kindness towards his People that more cannot be utter'd by Man to cast out the devil of Jealousie and keep it from haunting the Houses of this people any more His Majestie in one of the Heads saith to this effect That without keeping within the compass of the Government as the Laws have stated every part of it viz. in a delicate Medium betwixt the Regal Prerogative and the Parliamentary Right and Liberty of the people so as both may be preserved entire unto Kings and unto Parliaments in their several Stations neither Religion Liberty Property nor Safety nor Parliaments can be maintain'd The Reason is plain because the Law of the land which is the Band that ties all together being once broken by any one of the Parties they immediately fall asunder and will easily be cleft into a thousand pieces and the Parliamentary Constitution not easily be restored as it appeared upon the FORTY ONE Divisions for Twenty yeers together Experience saith the Proverb is the Mistress of Fools Must we always then be Fooling for new Experiments of our old Foolery One would think we should have been wiser by this time than to suffer the same Faction to inchant us any more But because a better Description of Kingly and Parliamentary Interest of Government cannot be had than what was described by the Pen of His Majesties Royal Father in His Answer to the Nineteen Propositions presented to him by that Parliament of the Faction anno 1642. June 2. let me here set it down in regard it will be the best Informer of posterity what to do in like Cases to prevent future Troubles that may arise again through mens acting old Cheats over and over His words are these There being Three kindes of Government among men Absolute Monarchy Aristocracy and Democracy and all these having particular inconveniences the experience and wisdom of our Ancestors hath so moulded our Government in England out of a Mixture of all Three as to give this Kingdom so far as Humane wisdom can provide the Conveniencies of the Three without the Inconveniencies of any One as long as the Balance hangs even between the Three Estates and while they run joyntly on in their proper Chanels begetting verdure and fertility in the Meadows on both sides and while there is no overflowing of either on either side to raise a Deluge or Inundation In this Kingdom the Laws are joyntly made by a King by a House of Peers and by a House of Commons chosen by the People all having free Votes and particular Priviledges The Government according to our Laws is trusted to the King with power of Treaties of War and Peace of making Peers of chusing Officers and Counsellers for State Judges for Law Commanders for Forts and Castles giving Commissions for raising men to make War abroad or to provide against Invasions or Insurrections at home Benefit of Confiscations power of Pardoning and some more of the like kinde are placed in the King And this Monarchy thus regulated having this power to preserve that Authority without which it would be disabled to preserve the Laws in their force and the Subjects in their Liberties and Properties is intended to draw to him such a Respect and Relation from the Great Ones as may hinder the Ills of Division and Faction and procure such a Fear and Reverence from the People as may hinder Tumults Violence and Licentiousness Again that the Prince may not make use of this high and perpetual Power to the hurt of those for whose good he hath it and make use of the name of Publike Necessity for the gain of his private Favourites and Followers to the detriment of his People the House of Commons an excellent Conserver of Liberty but never intended for any Share in the Government or for the chusing of them that should govern is soly intrusted with the first Proposition concerning levies of Moneys which are the sinews of Peace as well as War and with the Impeaching of those who for their own ends though countenanced by any surreptitiously gotten Command of the King have violated that Law which he is bound when he knoweth it to protect and to the protection of which they were bound to Advise him at least not to serve him in the contrary And the Lords being trusted with a Judiciary power are an excellent Skreen and Bank between the Prince and the People to assist each against any Incroachments of the other and by just Judgements to preserve that law which ought to be the Rule of every one of the Three I would not have transcribed this but that I conceive it impossible to make a more excellent Delineation of the several Concerns of the King and his Subjects in the Constitution of our English Government that every one may understand what is their due by Law and how Monstrous the Demands were in those Nineteen Propositions the first of which was That those Lords and others of your Majesties Privie Council and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas may be put from your Privie Council and from those Offices and Employments excepting such as