of Surry in effect came in so civill a posture to deliver a petition to the house that they were Armed for the most part but with sticks in which Petition there is nothing contained which the Parliament is not bound to make good by their many Declarations and Remonstrances to the people or by the Oathes of Allegiance Supremacy or Nationall Covenant or by the known Laws of this Land Yet were they 1. Abused by the Souldiers of White-hall as they passed by where some of them were pulled in and beaten 2. When those Gentlemen of quality that carried the Petition came to Westminster-hall they found a Guard of Souldiers at the door uncivilly opposing their entrance to make their addresses to the House 3. When they pressed into the Hall and got up to the Commons door they were there reviled by the Guard 4. The Multitude which stood in the new Palace because some of them did but whoop as others did who were purposely set on work as is conceived to mix with them disorder them were suddenly surrounded with a strong party of horse from the Mews It is reported by some that Sir H. Mildmay Col. Purefoy the Speaker doubting the Hou would give too good an answer to their Petition sent for these Horse and Foot and some more Companies of Foot from White-hall who by the appointment of the Committee of Schismaticks at Derby-House were ready prepared for this design and catched them as it were in a Toyle and with barbarous and schismatical rage fell upon these naked unarmed Petitioners slew and wounded many without distinction telling them They were appointed to give an answer to their Petition and they should have no other as indeed they had not though the Lieut. Colonell that did all the mischief was called into the House of Commons and had publick thanks given him at the Bar took many of them Prisoners Plundred their Pockets Cloaks Hats Swords Horses some of them even Gentlemen of as good quality as their General were stripped of their doublets those Gentlemen of quality who where in the Lobby before the Commons door civily expecting an answer were abused and violently driven out by the Guard to take their fortune among the Rabble what Tyrants ever in the World refused to heare the Petitions and grievances of their people before The most Tyranicall government of the world is that of Russia and Jo. Vasilowich was the greatest Tyrant of that Nation yet shall this Tyrant rise up in judgement at the latter day against these Monsters Behold what entertainment your Petitioners shall have hereafter if publick Peace be the end of their desires yet many Petitions ready drawn are sent up and down in most Counties by Committee-men and Sequestrators to enforce men to give thanks for the four votes against the King and many Petitions from Schismaticks destructive to Religion Laws Liberties and Property have been obtruded upon the Houses and received encouragement and thanks because they tend to subvert the fundamental Government of Church and Common-wealth and cast all into the Chaos of confusion whereby the Grandees may have occasion to keep up this Army and perpetuate their Tyranny and our burdens And from these Tumults of their own raising the grandees pretend a necessity to keep this Army about this Town to watch advantages against it Cromwell having often said This Town must be brought to more absolute obedience or laid in the dust in order to which the Souldiers are now disarming the Country and then the City is next who being once disarmed must prostitute their mony-baggs to these fellows or be Plundered Reader having spoken my sense to thee I leave thee to thy own sense submitting my self to as much Charity as God hath endowed thee withall God that made all preserve and amend all This shall be the daily prayer of him that had rather die for his Country than share with these Godly Thieves in eating out the bowels of his Country and enriching himself with publick spoyls The History of INDEPENDENCY YOU have in The mystery of the two Juntoes The Preaâ—ble Presbyterian and Independent presented to your view these two Factions as it were in a Cockpit pecking at one another which rising originally from the two Houses and Synod have so much disturbed and dislocated in every joynt both Church and Common-wealth I must now set before you Independency Triumphant rousing it self upon its Legs clapping its wings and crowing in the midst of the Pit with its enemy under its feet though not yet well resolved what use it can or may make of its Victory But before I go any farther it is fit I tell you what Independency is It is Genus generalissimum of all Errors Heresies Blasphemies 1 What Independency is and Schisms a general Name and Title under which they are all united as Sampson's Foxes were by the Tails And though they have several opinions and fancies which make their vertiginous heads turn different wayes yet profit and preferment being their Tails their last and ultimate end by which they are governed like a Ship by his Rudder and wherein they mutually correspond the rest of their differences being but circumstantial are easily plaister'd over with the untempered Morter of hypocricy by their Rabbies of the Assembly and their Grandees of the two Houses and Army in whom they have an implicite faith As Mahomet's Alchoran was the Gallemaufry of Jew and Christian so are they a Composition of Jew Christian and Turk Independenâ—â— is compounâ—ed of Judaism with the Jew they arrogate to be the peculiar people of God the Godly the Saints who only have right unto the Creatures and should possess the good things of this World all others being Usurpers a Tenent so destructive to humane society and civil Government that by vertue hereof they may and do by fraud or force Tax eat up with Free-quarter cozen and plunder the whole Kingdom and count it but robbing the Egyptians To this purpose they overthrow all the Judicatures Laws and Liberties of the Land and set up Arbitrary Committees Martial-Law and Weather-cock Ordinances in their room made and unmade by their own over-powring faction in Parliament at pleasure with the help and terror of their Janisaries attending at their doors â—ristianism With the Christian some of them but not all acknowledge the Scriptures but so far only as they will serve their turns to Pharise themselves and Publican all the World besides men filled with spiritual pride meer Enthusiastiques of a speculative and high flying Religion too high for Earth and too low for Heaven whereas a true and fruitful Religion like Jacob's Ladder Stat pede in terris caput inter nubila condit must have one end upon earth as well as the other in Heaven He that acknowledgeth the duties of the first table to God and neglecteth the duty of the second table to Man is an Hypocrite both against God and Man â—rcism With the
Malignants Neuters and Apostates which in their interpretation signifies Presbyterians and moderate men who will not dance about the flame when the Independents make a Bonfire of the Common-wealth The Eastern Division of Somerset-shire rejected the Petition in the Western Division Pyne and his Committee sending abroad his Sequestrators with the Petition threatned to take them for Malignants and Sequester them that refused got many Subscriptions but the Subscribers since better informed of the danger and mischief of those Votes retracted what they had done by a counter Petition wherein they declare that their Subscription to the former Petition was contrary to their Judgement and Consciences and extorted by the terror of Sequestrators and threats of being Sequestred This affront stung the Committee and opened the eyes of the Country As the like foolish attempt of Sir Henry Mildmay did the eyes of the County of Essex Wherefore to find a Plaster for this broken pate Sergeant Wild he that hang'd Capt. Burly coming that Circuit care was taken to have a select Grand-Jury of Schismaticks and Sequestrators blended together who made a presentment subscribed by 19. of their hands which Sergeant Wild preserved in his pocket and upon Tuesday 18. April delivered with as much gravity as a set speech and a set ruffe could furnish him withall in the House of Commons and was read and hearkned unto by the thriving Godly with as much attention as pricking up of eares and turning up of eyes could demonstrate the Contents of this presentment were the same with the aforesaid revoked Petition Great care was taken to give thanks to the High Sheriff and Grand Jury who had so freely delivered the sence of that wel-affected County and as much care taken to improve this Talent and put it to interest throughout the Kingdom Collonel Purefoy is now at this work in Warwick-shire Sir Arthur Haslerig about Newcastle others in other places Pitifull Crutches to support a cripled reputation which now halts and begs for relief worse than their own maimed Souldiers do and with as bad success they have juggled themselves out of credit and would fain juggle themselves in again Behold the wisdom of our Grandees wise religious new-modelled Politicians who have brought themselves and the whole Kingdom into these deplorable contemptible straits take notice of your Representative you that are represented call them to a seasonable account But whither doth my zeal carry me I shall anon stumble upon a new fangled Treason to be declared against me without nay against Law 89. Mens tongues tied up by an Ordinance Friday 21. April An Ordinance was presented to the House intituled For suppressing all Tumults and insurrections the Committee of Safety at Derby House had before an ample power conferred upon them for that purpose but guilty consciences though they be safe are never secure like Cain they think that every man will slay them it was passed after some amendments to this purpose That any three Committee-men shall have Power to Imprison and Sequester all such as shall actually adhere to any that shall raise or endeavour to raise Tumults and Insurrections or shall speak or publish any thing reproachfull to the Parliament or their proceedings Behold here an excise amounting to the Value of all you have set upon every light word a man made an offender for a word to the utter ruine of him and his posterity under colour of defending Laws Liberties and Properties you are cheated of them all and reduced to meer and absolute slavery and beggery you are not Masters of your own carcasses yet your mouths are but toned up you must not be allowed that silly comfort of venting your griefs by way of complaint what Tyrant was ever so barbarous so indiscreet as to do the like It was moved that Offenders of this kind might be bound to the good behaviour and the offences proved openly at the Assizes or Sessions before so destructive a punishment be inflicted There are three principles in Law of which the Laws are very tender and will not suffer them to be touched but upon great Offences cleer proofs and exact formalities observed life liberty and estate by Magna Charta the Petition of Right and many other Statutes these principles are so sacred that nothing but the Law can meddle with them Nemo imprisonetur aut disseisietur nisi per legale judicium parium suorum You have made the people shed their money and blood abundantly pretending defence of Religion Laws and Liberties let them now at last being a time of peace enjoy what they have so dearly paid for and delay them not with a pretended necessity of your own making you now make all that is or can be neer and deer to them liable to the passions of three Committee-men to judge and execute according to their discretion without Law or so much as a formality thereof And yet both Houses of Parliament have often heretofore offered to abolish those Committees as men whose wickednesse and folly they and the whole Kingdom were ashamed of The Grandees of the Parliament and Army when the Houses are called and full have resolved to draw their forces neer about the Town and by that terrour to trie the temper of the Houses such Members as will not comply with them they will with fresh Charges purge out of the House and publish base and infamous scandals against them to which if they submit with silence they betray their reputations for ever and spare the credits of their jugling enemies If they make any defence for their honours by way of Apology they shall be brought within the compasse of this devouring inslaving Ordinance as men that reproach the Parliament and their Proceedings Thus the same whip shall hang over the shoulders of the Presbyterian party who will not agree to King-deposing Anarchy and Shism as it did formerly over the Kings party And the Presbyterians shall be squeesed into the Independents coffers as formerly the Kings party were so long as they had any thing to lose for the whole earth is little enough for these Saints who are never satisfied with money and blood although they never look towards Heaven but through the spectacles of this world The old elogium and Character of this English Nation was that they were Hilaris gens cui libera mens libera lingua But now Country-men your tongues are in the Stocks your bodies in every gaole your souls in the dark and estates in the mercy of those that have no mercy and at the discretions of those that have no discretion Farewell English liberty 90. The Kentish Committee-War In the Epistle to this book I have given you an account of the bloody Answer given to the Surrey Petitioners May 16. 1648. I must in the next place speak something of the Kentish Petition and of the Committee-war they raysed to oppose it which took his rising and beginning partly from the insolencies and oppressions of their tyrannical
broached in a Pamphlet by old Rowse the illiterate Jew of Eaton-Colledge And by John Goodwin the sophistical Divine which is fully conâ—uted in A Religious Demurrer concerning submission to the present power an excellent peece but what the Sword gave To this the honest Lievtenant Colonel answered Mr. Peters You are one of the Guides of the Army used by the chief Leaders to trumpet their Principles and Tenents and if your reasoning be good then if six Theeves meet three or four honest men and rob them that act is righteous because they are the stronger Party And if any power be a just power that is uppermost I wonder how the Army and Parliament can acquit themselves of being Rebels and Traytors before God and man in resisting and fighting against a just power in the King who was a power up and visible fenced about with abundance of Laws so reputed in the common acceptation of Men by the express letter of which all thâ—se that fought against him are ipso facto Traytors and if it were not for the preservation of our Laws and Liberties why did the Parliament fight against Him a present power in being and if there be no Laws in England nor never was then you and your great Mâ—sters Cromwel Fairfax and the Parliament are a pack of bloody Rogues and Villains to set the People to murder one anâ—ther in fighting for preservation of their Laws in which their Liberties were included which was the principal declared Cause of the War from the beginning to the end I thought quoth the Lievtenant Colonel I had been safe when I made the known Laws the rules of my actions which you have all sworn and declared to Defend and make as the standard and touchstone between you and the People * The Laws are now no protection to us nor the rule of our actions but the arbitrary wills and lusts of the Grandees I but replied Hugh I will shew that your safety lyes not therein their minds may change and then where are you I but quoth the Lievtenant Colonel I cannot take notice of what is in their minds to obey that but the constant Declaration of their minds never contradicted in any of their Declarations as That they will maintain the Petition of Right and Laws of the Land c. This was the substance of their discourse saving that John pinched upon his great Masters large fingring of the Common-wealths money calling it Theft and State-Robbery and saying That Cromwel and Ireton pissed both in one quill though they seem sometime to go one against another yet it is but that they may the more easily carry on their main design To enslave the People Reader I was the more willing to present the summ of this Debate to thee that by comparing their doctrine and principles with their daily practices thou mayst perfectly see to what condition of slavery these beggarly upstart Tyrants and Traytors have reduced us by cheating us into a War against our lawful Soveraign under pretence of defending our Laws and Liberties and the Priviledges of Parliament which themselves onely with a concurring faction in the House have now openly and in the face of the Sun pulled up by the roots and now they stop our mouths and silence our just complaints with horrid Sect. 162. illegal and bloody Acts Declaring words and deeds against their usurpations and tyranny to be High Treason nothing is now Treason but what the remaining faction of the House of Commons please to call so To murder the King break the Parliament by hostile force put down the House of Lords erect extrajudicial High Courts of Justice to murder Men without Trial by Peers or Jury or any legal proceeding to subvert the fundamental Government by Monarchy and dispossess the right Heir of the Crown and to usurp his Supreme Authority in a factious fagg-end of the House of Commons to put the Kingly Government into a packed Junto of forty Tyrants called A Councel of State to exercise Martial Law in times of peace and upon persons no Members of the Army to raise what unnecessary illegal Taxes they please and share them and the Crown Lands and Revenues amongst themselves leaving the Souldiers unpaid to live upon Free-quarter whilst they abuse the People with pretended Orders against Free-quarter to alter the Styles of Commissions Patents Processe and all Legal proceedings and intoduce a forraign Jurisdiction to Counterfeit the Great Seal and Coin of the Kingdome and to keep up Armies of Rebels to make good these and other Tyrannies and Treasons is High Treason by the known Lawes but now by the Votes of the Conventicle of Commons it is High Treason to speak against these crimes Good God! how long will thy patience suffer these Fools to say in their hearts there is no God and yet profess thee with their mouths to break all Oathes Covenants and Protestations made in thy Name to cloak and promote their Designes with dayes of impious fasting and thanksgiving how often have thy Thunderbolts rived sensless Trees and torn brute Beasts that serve thee according to their Creation yet thou passest over these men who contemn thee contrary to their knowledge and professions Scatter the People that delight in War Turn the Councels of the wise into folly let the crafty be taken in their own net and now at last let the Oppressed taste of thy mercies and the Oppressor of thy justice throw thy rod into the fire and let it no longer be a bundle bound together in thy right hand They appeal to thee as Author of their prosperous sins become Lord Author of their just punishments bestow upon them the rewards of Hypocrites and teach them to know the difference between the saving strength of Magistrates and the destroying violence of Hang-men But what am I that argue against thy long-suffering whereof my self stand in need and seek to ripen thy vengeance before thy time Shall the Pot ask the Potter what he doth I beheld the prosperity of the wicked and my feet had slipped Lord amend all in thy good time and teach us heartily to pray Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven 170. The Act for Abolishing Monarchy proclaimed in London May 30. 1649. The aforesaid Trayterous Act for abolishing Kingly Government and converting England into a Free-State consisting of forty Tyrants and many millions of slaves was proclaimed in London by the newly intruded illegal Lord Mayor Andrewes accompanied with 14 Aldermen of the same pack the People in great abundance crying out Away with it away with it GOD save King CHARLES the Second and bitterly reviling and cursing it and them until some Troops of Horse ready prepared in secret were sent to disperse beat and wound them and yet the Trial of the King and the subverting of our well-formed Monarchy under which we lived so happily heretofore with all other Acts of the like high nature was done in the name of the People of