principles assist him Well We fought in jest and were kept between winning and losing The king must not be too strong lest he revenge himself nor the Parliament too strong for the Commons would rule all till Naseby fight that then the king could keep no more days of Thanksgiving so well as we Then he makes a Cessation in Ireland and many Irish came over to help him English came over with Papists who had scarce wiped their Swords since they had killed their wives and children and had their Estates But thus I argue The Rebels knew that the king had proclaimed them Traytors and forty Copies were Printed and the first clause of an Oath enjoyned by the General Councel of Rebels wrs To bear true Faith and Allegiance to King Charls and by all means to maintain his Royal Prerogative against the Puritans in the Parliament of England Now is any man to weak in his intellectuals as to imagine That if the Rebels had without the kings command or consent murthered so many Protestants and he thereupon had really proclaimed them Rebels That they would after this have taken a new Oath to have maintained his Prerogative No those bloody Devils had more wit then to fight in jest If the king had once in good earnest proclaimed them Rebels they would have burnt their Scabbards and would not have stiled themselves The King and Queens Army as they did And truly that which the king said for himself That he would have adventure d himself to have gone in Person into Ireland to suppress that Rebellion is but a poor Argument to inforce any mans belief That he was not guilty of the Massacre For it makes me rather think That he had some hopes to have returned in the head of 20 or 30000 Rebels to have destroyed this Nation For when the Earl of Leicester was sent by the Parliament to subdue the Rebels Did not the king hinder him from going and were not the cloaths and provisions which were sent by the Parliament for the relief of the poor Protestants there seized upon by his command and his men of War and sold or exchanged for Arms and Ammunition to destroy this Parliament And does not every man know That the Rebels in Ireland gave Letters of Mart for taking the Parliaments Ships but freed the kings as their very good friends And I have often heard it credibly reported that the king should say That nothing more troubled him but that there was not as much Protestant blood running in England and Scotland as in Ireland And when that horrid Rebellion begun to break forth How did the Papists here triumph and boast that they hoped ere long to see London streets run down in blood and yet I do not think that the king was a Papist or that he designed to introduce the Popes Supremacy in Spiritual things into this kingdom But thus it was A Jesuitical party at Court was to prevalent in his Counsels and some mungrel Protestants that less hated the Papists then the Puritans by the Queens Mediation joyned altogether to destroy the Puritans hoping that the Pa pists and the Laodicean Protestant would agree well enough togeth er And lastly if it be said that if the king and the Rebels were never faln out what need had Ormond to make a pacification or peace with them by the kings Commission under the Great Seal of Ireland Truly there hath been so m uch daubing and so little plain dealing that I wonder how there comes to be so many beggars Concerning the betraying of Rochel to the inslaving of the Protestant party in France I confess I heard so much of it and was so shamefully reproached for it in Geneva and by the Protestant Ministers in France that I could believe no less then that the king was guilty of it I have heard fearful exclamations from the French Protestants against the king and the late Duke of Buckingham for the betraying of Rochel And some of the Ministers told me ten years since That God would be revenged of the wicked king of England for betraying Rochel And I have often heard Deodati say concerning Henry the fourth of France That the Papists had his body but the Protestants had his heart and soul but for the king of England The Protestants had his body but the Papists had his heart Not that I think he did believe Transubstantiation God forbid I should wrong the dead but I verily believe That he loved a Papist better then a Puritan The Duke of Roan who was an honest gallant man and the kings God-father would often say That all the blood which was shed in Daulphin would be cast upon the king of Englands score For thus it was The king sent a Letter to the Rochelers by Sir William Breecher to assure â—hem That he would assist them to the uttermost against the French king for the liberty of their Religion conditionally That they would not make any peace without him and Mountague was sent into Savoy and to the Duke of Roan to assure them from the king That 30000 men should be sent out of England to assist them against the French king in three Fleets One to land in the Isle of Ree a second in the River of Bourdeaux and a third in Normandy whereupon the Duke of Roan being General for the Protestanrs not suspecting that the French durst assault him in Daulphin because the king of England was ready to invade him as he had promised drew out his Army upon disadvantage Whereupon the French king imployed all his Army into Daulphin against the Protestants who were forced to retreat and the Duke of Roan to flie to Geneva and the Protestants to accept of peace upon very hard conditions to stand barely at the Kings devotion for their liberties without any cautionary Towns of assurance as formerly they had being such a peace as the Sheep make with the Wolves when the Dogs are dismist And the Protestants have ever since cryed out to this very day It is not the French King that did us wrong for then we could have born it but it was the King of England a profest Protestant that betrayed us And when I have many times intreated Deodati and others to have a good Opinion of the King he would answer me That we are commanded to forgive our enemies but not to forgive our friends There is a French Book printed about two years since called Memoires du Monsieur de Roan where the Kings horrid perfidiousness and deed dissimulation is very clearly unfolded and discovered To instance but in some particulars The King having solemnly ingaged to the Rochelers that he would hazard all the Forces he had in his three Kingdoms rather then they should perish did in order thereunto to gain credulity with them send out eight Ships to Sea commanded by Sir John Pennington to assist the Rochelers as was pretended but nothing less intended for Pennington assisted the French King against the Rochelers which
King Charls his Case OR AN APPEAL To all Rational Men Concerning His TRYAL AT THE High Court of Iustice Being for the most part that which was intended to have been delivered at the Bar if the King had Pleaded to the CHARGE and put himself upon a fair TRYAL With an additional Opinion concerning The Death of King James The loss of Rochel and The Blood of Ireland By JOHN COOK of Grays-Inn Barrester Justice is an excellent vertue Reason is the life of the Law Womanish pity to mourn for a Tyrant Is a deceitful cruelty to a City London Printed by Peter Cole at the sign of the Printing-Press in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1649. To the READER THe righteous Iudge whose judgement is not onely inevitable but infallible must shortly judge me and all that concurred to bring the capital Delinquent to condign punishment but in the interim I desire to be judged by all understanding men in the world that suffer their judgements to be swayed by Reason and not byassed by private Interest Whether ever any man did so much deserve to dye Cain for the murther of one righteous Abel and David for one Uriah had been men of death had not God pardoned them Those thirty one Kings which Joshua hanged up and Sauls seven Sons which were but at the worst as it seems to me Evil Counsellors were they not innocent nay Saints in comparison of this man Those that crucified Christ did it ignorantly For had they known him they had not crucified the Lord of Glory The Saints under the ten Persecutions suffered by the hands of Heathens the Sicilian Vespers the Parisian Massacre of the Protestants and the Gunpowder-Plot were acted and intended by Papists out of a conceit of Merit But for a Protestant Prince stiled The Defendor of the Faith in a time of light that had sworn to keep the Peace received Tribute to that end and might have had the very hearts of the People if they could have given him them without death the strongest Engagements I say for such a one so long to persecute the faithful destroy and inslave the People by oppressing cruelties And when Machiavel could not do it to levy a War to that wicked end which never any of his Ancestors durst attempt that might at any time with a word of his mouth have stopt all the bleeding veins in the three Kingdoms but would not and for the satisfying of a base lust caused more Protestant blood to be shed then ever was spilt either by Rome Heathen or Antichristian Blessed God what ugly sins lodge in their bosoms that would have had this man to live But Words are but Women Proofs are Men it is Reason that must be the Chariot to carry men to give their concurrence to this ludgement Therefore I shall deliver my thoughts to the courteous Reader as I was prepared for it if Issue had been joyned in the Cause but with some addition for illustration sake desiring excuse for the Preamble because there is some repetition in matter An Appeal to all Rational men that love their God Justice and Countrey more then their Honor Pleasure and Money Concerning the Kings Tryal May it please your Lordship MY Lord President and this High Court erected for the most Comprehensive Impartial and Glorious piece of Justice that ever was Acted and Executed upon the Theatre of England for the Trying and Judging of Charls Stuart whom God in his wrath gave to be a king to this Nation and will I trust in great love for his notorious Prevarications and Blood-guiltiness take him away from us He that hath been the Original of all Injustice and the Principal Author of more mischiefs to the Free-born People of this Nation then the best Arithmetician can well enumerate stands now to give an account of his Stewardship and to receive the good of Justice for all the evil of his Injustice and Cruelty Had he Ten thousand lives they could not all satisfie for the numerous Horid and Barbarous Massacres of Myriades and legions of Innocent persons which by his Commands Commissions and Procurements or at least all the world must needs say which he might have prevented and he that suffers any man to be kill'd when he may save his life without danger of his own is a Murtherer have been cruelly slain and inhumanely murthered in this renowned Albion Anglia hath been made an Aceldama and her yonger sister Ireland a Land of Ire and Misery and yet this hard-hearted man as he went out of the Court down the stairs Jan. 22. said as some of his Gnard told me and others That he was not troubled for any of the blood that hath been shed but for the blood of one man peradventure he meant Strafford He was no more affected with a List that was brought in to Oxford of Five or six thousand slain at Edgehill then to read one of Ben Johnsons Tragedies You Gentlemen Royalists that fought for him if ye had lost your lives for his sake you see he would have no more pitied you by his own confession then you do a poor Worm and yet what heart but would cleave if it were a Rock melt if it were Ice break if it were a Flint or dissolve if it were a Diamond to consider that so much precious Protestant blood should be shed in these three kingdoms so many gallant valiant Men of all sorts and conditions to be sacrificed and lose their lives and many of them to dye so desperately in regard of their Eternal conditions and all this meerly and onely for the satisfying and fulfilling of one mans sinful lust and wicked will a good Shepherd is he that lays down his life or ventures it to save the Sheep but for one to be so proudly wedded to his own conceits as so maliciously to oppose his private Opinion against the publique Judgement and Reason of State and to make head against the Parliament who acknowledged him to be head thereof so far as to give him the Honor of the Royal Assent in settling the Militia and Safety of the People I say for a Protestant Prince so beloved at home and feared abroad that in love and by gentle means might have had any thing from the Parliament for him to occasion the shedding of so much blood for a pretended Prerogative as hereafter will appear nothing in effect but to fix and perpetuate an absolute Tyranny I can say no less But O Lucifer from whence art thou faln and what hereticks are they in politicks that would have had such a man to live much more that think his Actions to have merited love and praise from Heaven and Earth But now to diffect the Charge 1. That the kings of England are trusted with a limited power to govern by Law the whole stream and current of Legal Authorities run so limpid and clear that I should but weary those
that know it already and trouble those that need not know the particular cases for it is one of the Fundamentals of Law That the king is not above the Law but the Law above the King I could easily deraign it from 1 Edward 3. to the Jurisdiction of Courts That the king has no more Power or Authority then what by Law is concredited and committed to him but the most famous Authority is Fortescue Chancellor to H. 6. and therefore undoubtedly would not clip his Masters Prerogative who most Judicially takes a difference between a Government wholly Regal and Seignoral as in Turkey Russia France Spain c. and a Government Politique and mixt where the Law keeps the beam even between Soveraignty and Subjection as in England Denmark Swede and Poland the first where the Edict of a Prince makes the Law resembles an impetuous inundation of the waters whereby the Corn and Hay and other Fruits of the Earth are spoiled as when it is Midwinter at Midsummer the latter is like a sweet smooth Stream running by the pleasant Fields and Meadows That by the Law of England the King ought not to impose any thing upon the people or take any thing away from them to the value of a farthing but by common consent in Parliaments or National meetings and that the people of Common-Right and by several Statutes ought to have Parliaments yearly or oftner if need be for the Redress of publique grievances and for the Enacting of good and wholsome Laws and repealing of old Statutes of Omeri which are prejudicial to the Nation And that the king hath not by Law so much power as a Justice of Peace to commit any man to Prison for any offence whatsoever because all such matters were committed to proper Courts and Officers of Justice And if the King by his verbal command send for any person to come before him if the party refused to attend and the messenger endevoring to force him they fell to blows if the messenger killed the party sent for this by the Law is Murther in him but if he killed the messenger this was justifiable in him being in his own defence so as to sue forth a pardon of course these and many other Cases of like nature are so clear well known that I wil not presume to multiply particulars That the king took an Oath at his Coronation to preserve the Peace of the Nation to do Justice to all and to keep and observe the Laws which the people have himself confesses And it was charged upon the late Arch-Bishop that he Emasculated the Oath and left out very material words Which the people shall chuse which certainly he durst not have done without the kings special Command And it seems to me no light presumption that from that very day he had a Design to alter and subvert the Fundamental Laws and to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government but though there had been an Oath yet by special Office and duty of his place every King of England is obliged to Act for the peoples good for all power as it is originally in the people he must needs be extream ignorant malicious or a self-destroyer that shall deny it so it is given forth for their preservation nothing for their destruction for a king to rule by lust and not by Law is a creature that was never of Gods making not of Gods approbation but his permission And though such men are said to be Gods on Earth 't is in no other sence then the Devil is called the God of this world It seems that one passage which the king would have offered to the Court which was not permitted him to dispute the Supreme Authority in the Nation and standing mute the Charge being for High Treason it is a conviction in Law was That 1 Sam. 8. is a Copy of the kings Commission by vertue whereof he as a king might rule and govern as he list that he might take the Peoples Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsemen and take their Daughters to be his Confectionaries and take their Fields and Vineyards and Oliveyards even the best of them and thair goodliest yong men and their Asses and give them to his Officers and to his Servants which indeed is a Copy and Patern of an absolute Tyrant and absolute Slaves where the people have no more then the Tyrant will afford them The holy Spirit in that Chapter does not insinuate what a good king ought to do but what a wicked king would presume to do Besides Saul and David had extraordinary callings but all just power is now derived from and conferred by the people yet in the case of Saul it is observable that the people out of pride to be like other Nations desired a king and such a king as the Heathens had which were all Tyrants for they that know any thing in History know that the first four Monarchs were all Tyrants at first til they gained the peoples consent Nimrod the great Hunter was Ninus that built Nineveh the first Tyrant and Conquerer that had no Title so were all kingdoms which are not Elective till the peoples subsequent consent and though it be by descent yet 't is a continuation of a Conquest till the people consent voluntarily submit to a Government they are but Slaves in reason they may free themselves if they can In France the king begins his Raign from the day of his Coronation the Archbishop asks the people if he shall be King the twelve Peers or some that personate them say yes they girt the sword about him then he swares to defend the Lawes And is any thing more naturall then to keepe an Oath And though vertuous Kings have prevailed with the People to make their Crownes Hereditary yet the Coronation shews the shell that the kernell hath been in Samuel was a good Judge and there was nothing could be objected against him therefore God was displeased at their inordinate desire of a King and it seemes to me that the Lord declares his dislike of all such Kings as the heathens were that is Kings with an unlimited power that are not tied to laws for he gave them a King in his wrath therein dealing with them as the wise Physitian with the distempered and impatient Patient who desiring to drink wine tels him the danger of inflammation yet wine he will have and the Physitian considering a little wine will do but little hurt rather then his Patient by fretting should take greater hurt prescribes a little whitewine wherein the Physitian doth not approve his drinking of wine but of two evils chooseth the least The Jewes would have a King for Majestie and Splendor like the Heathens God permits this he approves it not it seems to me that the Lord renounces the very Genus of such Kings as are there mentioned and the old word Conning by Contraction king does not signifie power
or force to do what he will but a knowing wise discreete man that opens the Peoples eyes and does not lead them by the noses but governe them with wisedome and discretion for their owne good Therefore Gentlemen-Royalists be not so mad as to misconstrue either the Oaths of Allegiance or Supremacy or any League or Covenant that any man should sweare to give any one leave to cut his throat the true meaning is that the King of England was supreme in this land in opposition to the Pope or any other Prince or Potentate as the words of the Oath do import that no foraigne State Prince or Potentate c. In case of any forraigne invasion the King was by Law to be Generalissimo to command the People for their owne safety and so it was expounded by the Parliament in 13. Eliz. which for some reason of State was not permitted to be printed with the Statutes besides God told those Kings whom he had formerly annoynted what their duty was not to exalt themselves overmuch above their brethren to delight themselves in the Law of God out of which I inferre that the Turkes Tarters Muscovites French Spaniards and all people that live at the beck and nod of tyrannicall men may and ought to free themselves from that tyranny if and when they can for such Tyrants that so domineer with a rod of iron do not governe by Gods permissive hand of approbation or benediction but by the permissive hand of his Providence suffering them to scourge the People for ends best known to himselfe untill he open a way for the people to work out their owne enfranchisements But before I speak of the warre it will be necessary for the satisfaction of rationall men to open and prove the Kings wicked designe wherewith he stands charged Now that he had from the beginning of his raigne such a designe and indeavour so to teare up the foundations of Government that Law should be no Protection to any mans person or estate will clearly appeare by what follows 1. By his not taking the Oath so fully as his Predecessours did that so when the Parliament should tender good laws to him for the Royal assent he might readily answer that he was not by Oath obliged to confirme or corroborare the same 2. By his dishonourable and perfidious dealing with the People at his Coronation when he set forth a Proclamation that in regard of the infection then spread through the Kingdome He promised to dispense with those knights that by an old statute were to attend at the Coronation who were thereby required not to attend but did notwithstanding with in few months after take advantage of their absence and raised a vaste summe of money out of their estates at the Councel Table where they pleading the said Proclamation for their justification they were answered that the law of the land was above any Proclamation like that Tyrant that when he could not by law execute a virgin commanded her to be deflored and then put to death 3. By his altering the Pattents and Commissions to the Judges wch having heretofore had their places granted to them so long as they should behave themselvs therin he made them but during pleasure that so if the Judges should not declare the Law to be as he would have it he might with a wet singer remove them and put in such as should not only say but swear if need werethat the Law was as the king would have it for when a man shall give five or ten thousand pounds for a Judges place during the kings pleasure and he shall the next day send to him to know his opinion of a difference in law between the king and a subject it shal be intimated unto him that if he do not deliver his opinion for the king he is likely to be removed out of his place the next day which if so he knows not how to live but must rot in a Prison for the money which he borrowed to buy his place as was well known to be some of their cases who underhand and closely bought great places to elude the danger of the statute whether this was not too heavy a temptation for the shoulders of most men to bear is no hard matter to determine so as upon the matter that very act of his made the King at the least a potentiall Tyrant for when that shall be law which a King shall declare himselfe or which shall be declared by those whom he chooses this brings the People to the very next step to slavery But that which does irrefragably prove the design was his restlesse desire to destroy Parliaments or to make them uselesse And for that who knowes not but that there were three or four National meetings in Parliament in the first foure yeares of his Reign which were called for supply to bring mony into his coffers in point of Subsidies rather then for any benefit to the People as may appear by the few good Lawes that were then made But that which is most memorable is the untimely dissolving of the Parliament in 4o Car. when Sir John Elliot and others who managed a Conference with the House of Peers concerning the Duke of Buckin ham who amongst other things was charged concerning the death of King James were committed close prisoner to the Tower where he lost his life by cruel indurance Which I may not passe over without a special Animadversion for sure there is no Turk or Heathen but will say that if he were any way guilty of his Fathers death let him die for it I would not willingly be so injurious to the honest Reader as to make him buy that again which he hath formerly met with in the Parliaments Declaration or elswhere in such a case a marginal reference may be sufficient Nor would I herein be so presumptuous as to prevent any thing that happily may be intended in any Declaration for more general satisfaction but humbly to offer a Students mite which satisfies my self with submission to better judgments How the King first came to the Crown God and his own Conscience best knew It was well known observed at Court that a little before he was a professed enemy to the Duke of Buckingham but instantly upon the death of King James took him into such special protection grace and favour that upon the matter he divided the Kingdom with him And when the Earl of Bristol had exhibited a Charge against the said Duke the 13. Article whereof concerned the death of King James He instantly dissolved that Parliament that so he might protect the Duke from the justice thereof and would never suffer any legal inquiry to be made for his Fathers death The Rabbines observe that that which stuck most with Abraham about Gods command to sacrifice Isaac was this Can I not be obedient unlesse I be unnaturall What will the Heathens say when they heare I have killed my only son What will
an Indian say to this case A King hath all power in his hands to do justice There is one accused upon strong presumptions at the least for poisoning that Kings Father The King protects him from justice Whether do you believe that himself had any hand in his Fathers death Had the Duke been accused for the death of a begger he ought not to have protected him from a Judicial Trial. We know that by Law it is no lesse then misprision of Treason to conceal a Treason and to conceal a Murder strongly implies a guilt thereof and makes him a kind of Accessary to the fact He that hath no nature to do justice to his own Father could it ever be expected that he should do justice to others Was he fit to continue a Father to the people who was without natural affection to his own Father Will he love a Kingdome that shewed no love to himself unlesse it was that he durst not suffer Inquisition to be made for it But I leave it as a riddle which at the day of Judgement will be expounded and unridled for some sinnes will not be made manifest till that day with this only That had he made the Law of God his delight and studied therein night and day as God commanded his Kings to do or had he but studied Scripture half so much as Ben Johnson or Shakespear he might have learnt That when Amaziah was setled in the Kingdom he suddenly did justice upon those servants which had killed his father Joash he did not by any pretended prerogative excuse or protect them but delivered them up into the hands of that Justice which the horridnesse of the fact did undoubtedly demerit That Parliament 4. Car. proving so abortive the King sets forth a Proclamation That none should presume to move him to call Parliaments for he knew how to raise monies enough without the help of Parliaments therefore in 12 years refuseth to call any In which interval and intermission how he had oppressed the people by incroachments and usurpations upon their liberties and properties and what vast summes of mony he had forceably exacted and exhausted by illegal Patents and Monopolies of all sorts I referre the Reader to that most judicious and full Declaration of the state of the Kingdeme published in the beginning of this Parliament That Judgment of Ship-mony did upon the matter formalize the people absolute slaves and him an absolute Tyrant for if the King may take from the people in case of necessity and himself shall be Judge of that necessity then cannot any man say that he is worth 6d for if the King say that he hath need of that 6d then by Law he must have it I mean that great Nimrod that would have made all England a Forrest and the People which the Bishop call his sheep to be his Venison to be hunted at his pleasure Nor does the common objection That the Judges and evil Counsellors and not the King ought to be responsible for such male-Administrations injustice and oppression beare the weight of a feather in the ballance of right reason For 1. Who made such wicked and corrupt Judges were they not his own Creatures and ought not every man to be accountable for the works of his own hands He that does not hinder the doing of evil if it lies in his power to prevent it is guilty of it as a commander thereof He that suffered those black Starres to inflict such barbarous cruelties and unheard of punishments as Brandings Slitting of Noses c. upon honest men to the dishonour of the Protestant Religion and disgrace of the Image of God shining in the face of man He well deserv'd to have been so served But 2. He had the benefit of those illegal Fines and Judgments I agree That if a Judge shall oppresse I. S. for the benefit of I. D. the King ought not to answer for this but the Judge unlesse he protect the Judge against the complaint of I. S. and in that case he makes himself guilty of it But when an unjust judgment is given against I. S. for the Kings benefit and the Fine to come immediately into his Coffers he that receives the mony must needs be presumed to consent to the judgement But 3. Mark a Machiaveipolicy Call no Parliaments to question the injustice and corruption of Judges for the Peoples relief And make your own Iudges and let that be Law that they declare whether it be reasonable or unreasonable it is no matter But then how came it to passe that we had any more Parliaments Had we not a gracious King to call a Parliament when there was so much need of it and to passe so many gracious Acts to put downe the Starre-Chamber c Nothing lesse It was not any voluntary free Act of grace not the least ingredient or tincture of love or goodaffection to the people that called the short Parliament in 16 but to serve his owne turne against the Scots whom he then had designed to enslave and those seven Acts of grace which the King past were no more then his duty to do nor halfe so much but giving the people a take of their own grists and he dissents with them about the Militia which commanded all the rest he never intended thereby any more good and security to the people then he that stealing the Goose leaves the feathers behinde him But to answer the question thus it was The king being wholly given up to be led by the counsels of a Jesuited Party who indeavoured to throw a bone of dissention among us that they might cast in their net into our troubled waters and catch more fish for St. Peters Sea perswaded the King to set up a new forme of Prayer in Scotland and laid the bait so cunningly that whether they saw it or not they were undone if they saw the mystery of iniquity couched in it they would resist and so merit punishment for rebelling if they swallowed it it would make way for worse well they saw the poison and refused to taste it the King makes warre and many that loved honour and wealth more then God assisted him down he went with an Army but his treasure wasted in a short time fight they would not for feare of an after-reckoning some Commanders propound that they should make their demands and the King grants all comes back to London and burnes the Pacification saying it was counterfeit they reassume their forts he raises a second warre against them and was necessitated to call a Parliament offering to lay down shipmoney for twelve subsidies they refuse the King in high displeasure breakes off the Parliament and in a Declaration commands them not to thinke of any more Parliaments for he would never call another There was a King of Egypt that cruelly opprest the People they poore slaves complaining to one another he feared a rising and commanded that none should complaine upon paine of cruell death
the Representative stand but for a Cypher 5. But then out of Parliament the people are made to believe That the king hath committed all Justice to the Judges and distributed the execution thereof into several Courts and that the king cannot so much as imprison a man nor impose any thing upon nor take any thing away from the people as by Law he ought not to do But now see what prerogative he challenges 1. If the King have a minde to have any publique spirited man removed out of the way this man is killed the murtherer known a Letter comes to the Judge and it may be it shall be found but Manslaughter if it be found Murther the man is condemned but the King grants him a Pardon which the Judges will allow if the word Murther be in it but because it is too gross to pardon Murther therefore the king shall grant him a Lease of his life for seven years and then renew it like a Bishops Lease as he did to Major Prichard who was lately Justiced who being a Servant to the Earl of Lindsey murthered a Gentleman in Lincolnshire and was condemned and had a Lease of his life from the king as his own friends have credibly told me 2. For matter of Liberty The King or any Courtier sends a man to Prison if the Judge set him at liberty then put him out of his place a temptation too heavy for those that love Money and Honor more then God to bear therefore any Judgement that is given between the King and a Subject 't is not worth a rush for what will not money do Next he challenges a Prerogative to enhance and debase moneys which by Law was allowed him so far as to ballance Trade and no further that if gold went high beyond Sea it might not be cheap here to have it all bought up and transported but under colour of that he challenges a Prerogative that the king may by Proclamation make Leather currant or make a Six pence go for Twenty shillings or a Twenty shillings for Six pence which not to mention any thing of the project of Farthings or Brass money He that challenges such a Prerogative is a potential Tyrant for if he may make my Twelve pence in my pocket worth but Two pence what property hath any man in any thing that he enjoys Another Prerogative pretended was That the king may avoid any Grant and so may cousen and cheat any man by a Law the ground whereof is That the kings Grants shall be taken according to his intention which in a sober sence I wish that all mens Grants might be so construed according to their intentions exprest by word or writing but by this means it being hard to know what the king intended his Grants have been like the Devils Oracles taken in any contrary sence for his own advantage 1. R. In the famous Case of Altonwoods there is vouched the Lord Lovels Case That the king granted Lands to the Lord Lovel and his Heirs males not for service done but for a valuable consideration of money paid The Patentee well hoped to have enjoyed the Land not onely during his life but that his Heirs males at least of his body should have likewise enjoyed it but the Judges finding it seems that the king was willing to keep the money and have his Land again for what other reason no mortal man can fathom resolved that it was a void Grant and that nothing passed to the Patentee I might instance in many cases of like nature through out all the Reports as one once made his boast that he never made or past any Patent or Charter from the Crown but he reserved one starting hole or other and knew how to avoid it and so meerly to cousen and defraud the poor Patentee So that now put all these Prerogatives together 1. The Militia by Sea and Land 2. A liberty to call Parliaments when he pleased and to adjourn prorogue or dissolve them at pleasure 3. A Negative voice that the people cannot save themselves without him and must cut their own throats if commanded so to do 4. The nomination and making of all the Judges that upon peril of the loss of their places must declare the Law to be as he pleases 5. A power to confer Honors upon whom and how he pleases A covetous base wretch for Five or Ten thousand pounds to be Courted who deserves to be carted 6. To pardon Murtherers whom the Lord says shall not be pardoned 7. To set a value and price of Moneys as he pleases that if he be to pay Ten thousand pounds he may make Leather by his Proclamation to be currant that day or a Five shillings to pass for twenty shillings and if to receive so much a Twenty shillings to pass for Five shillings And lastly a Legal theft to avoid his own Grants I may boldly throw the Gantlet and challenge all the Machiavels in the world to invent such an exquisite platform of Tyrannical Domination and such a perfect Tyranny without maim or blemish as this is and that by a Law which is worst of all But the truth is these are no Legal Prerogatives but Usurpations Incroachments and Invasions upon the Peoples Rights and Liberties and this easily effected without any great depth of policy for t is but being sure to call no Parliaments or make them useless and make the Judges places profitable and place Avarice upon the Bench and no doubt but the Law shall sound as the king would have it But let me thus far satisfie the ingenuous Reader that all the Judges in England cannot make one Case to be Law that is not Reason no more then they can prove a hair to be white that is black which if they should so declare or adjudge it is meer nullity for Law must be Reason adjudged where Reason is the Genus and the Judgement in some Court makes the Differentiae and I never found that the fair hand of the common Law of England ever reached out any Prerogative to the king above the meanest man but in three cases 1. In matters of honor and preeminence to his person and in matters of Interest that he should have Mines Royal of Gold and Silver in whose Land soever they were discovered and Fishes Royal as Sturgeons and Whales in whose streams or water soever they were taken which very rarely happened or to have tythes out of a Parish that no body else could challenge for says the Law The most Noble Persons are to have the most Noble things 2. To have his Patents freed from deceit that he be not overreached or cousened in his Contracts being imployed about the great and arduous affairs of the Kingdom 3. His Rights to be freed from incursion of time not to be bound up by any Statute of Non claim for indeed possession is a vain plea when the matter of Right is in question for Right can never dye and some such honorable priviledges of
That the king shall improve his power for their good and make it his work to procure their safeties and they to provide for his honor which it done to the Commonwealth in him as the Sword and Ensigns of Honor carried before the Lord Major are for the honor of the city now as when any one of this people shall compass the death of the Governor ruling well this is a Treason punishable with death for the wrong done to the Community and Anathema be to such a man so when he or they that are trusted to fight the peoples Battels and to procure their welfare shall prevaricate and act to the inslaving or destroying of the people who are their Liege Lords and all Governors are but the peoples creatures and the work of their hands to be accomptable as their Stewards and is it not senseless for the vessel to ask the Potter by what Law he calls it to account this is high Treason with a witness and far more transcendent then in the former case because the king was paid for his Service and the Dignity of the Person does increase the offence for a great man of noble Education and knowledge to betray so great a Trust and abuse so much love as the Parliament shewed to the king by Petitioning him as good Subjects praying for him as good Christians advising him as good Counsellors and treating with him as the great Counsel of the kingdom with such infinite care and tenderness of his honor a course which Gods people did not take with Rehoboam they never petitioned him but advised him he refused their counsel and hearkened to yong Counsellors and they cry To thy tents O Israel and made quick and short work of it after all this and much more longanimity and patience from the Lord to the Servant for him not onely to set up a Standard of War in defiance of his dread Soveraign The People for so they truly were in Nature though Names have befool'd us but to persist so many years in such cruel persecutions who with a word of his mouth might have made a Peace If ever there were so superlative a Treason let the Indians judge and whosoever shall break and violate such a trust and confidence Anathema Maranatha be unto them Q. But why was there not a written Law to make it Treason for the King to destroy the people as well as for a man to compass the Kings death Resp. Because our Ancestors did never imagine that any King of England would have been so desperately mad as to leavy a War against the Parliament and people as in the Common instance of Paricide the Romans made no Law against him that should kill his Father thinking no childe would be so unnatural to be the death of him who was the Author of his life but when a childe came to be accused for a Murther there was a more cruel punishment inflicted then for other Homicides for he was thrown into the Sea in a great Leather Barrel with a Dog a Jackanapes a Cock and a Viper significant companions for him to be deprived of all the Elements as in my Poor mans Case Fol. 10. Nor was there any Law made against Parents that should kill their children yet if any man was so unnatural he had an exemplary punishment Obj. But is it not a Maxime in Law That the King can do no wrong Resp. For any man to say so is blasphemy against the great God of Truth and Love for onely God cannot erre because what he wills is right because he wills it and 't is a sad thing to consider how learned men for unworthy ends should use such art to subdue the people by transportation of their sences as to make them believe that the Law is That the King can do no wrong First For Law I do aver it with confidence but in all humility That there is no such Case to be found in Law That if the King Rob or Murther or commit such horrid Extravagancies that it is no wrong Indeed the case is put in H. 7. by a chief Judge that If the King kill a man 't is no felony to make him suffer death that is to be meant in ordinary Courts of Justice But there is no doubt but the Parliament might try the King or appoint others to judge him for it We finde Cases in Law that the King hath been sued even in Civil Actions In 43 E 3. 22. it is resolved That all maner of Actions did lie against the King as against any Lord and 24 E. 3. 23. Wilby a learned Judge said that there was a Writ Praecipe Henrico Regi Angliae Indeed E. 1. did make an Act of State That men should sue to him by Petition but this was not agreed unto in Parliament Thelwall title Roye digest of Writs 71. But after when Judges places grew great the Judges and Bitesheeps began to sing Lullaby and speak Platentia to the king that My Lord the King is an Angel of light Now Angels are not responsible to men but God therefore not kings And the Judges they begin to make the king a God and say that by Law his stile is Sacred Majesty though he swears every hour and Gracious Majesty though gracious men be the chief objects of his hatred and that the king hath an Omnipotency and Omnipresence But I am sure there is no Case in Law That if the king leavy a War against the Parliament and people that it is not Treason Possibly that Case in H. 7. may prove That if the king should in his passion kill a man this shall not be Felony to take away the kings life for the inconveniency may be greater to the people by putting a king to death for one offence and miscarriage then the execution of Justice upon him can advantage them But what 's this toa leavying of War against a Parliament never any Judge was so devoid of understanding that he denyed that to be Treason But suppose a Judge that held his place at the kings pleasure did so I am sure never any Parliament said so But what if there had in dark times of Popery been an Act made That the king might Murther Ravish Burn and perpetrate all mischiefs and play Reaks with impunity will any man that hath but wit enough to measure an Ell of cloath or to tell Twenty say That this is an Obligation for men to stand still and suffer a Monster to cut their throats and grant Commission to rob at Suters hill as such and no better are all Legal thefts and oppressions The Doctor says That a Statute against giving an alms to a poor man is void He is no Student I mean was never bound Prentice to Reason that says A king cannot commit Treason against the people Ob. But are there not Negative words in the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. That nothing else shall be construed to be Treason but what is there exprest Res That Statute was intended for