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kingdom_n	according_a	law_n	power_n	2,849	5	4.9076	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84716	A declaration, or, representation from His Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and the army under his command, humbly tendred to the Parliament, concerning the iust and fundamentall rights and liberties of themselves and the kingdome. With some humble proposals and desires. June 14. 1647. By the appointment of his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax, with the officers and souldiers of the army, signed John Rushworth, Secretary.	England and Wales. Army.; Fairfax, Thomas Fairfax, Baron, 1612-1671.	1647 (1647)	Wing F156; Thomason E392_27; ESTC R201582	9,597	16

a meere mercinary Army hired to serve any Arbitrary power of a State but called forth and conjured by the severall Declarations of Parliament to the defence of our owne and the peoples just rights and liberties And so we tooke up Armes in judgement and conscience to those ends and have so continued them and are resolved according to your first just desires in your Declarations and such principles as we have received from your frequent informations and our own common sence concerning those our fundamentall Rights and Liberties to assert and vindicate the just power and Rights of this Kingdome in Parliament for those common ends premised against all arbitrary power violence and oppression and against all particular parties or interests whatsoever The said Declarations still directing us to the epuitable sence of all Laws and constitutions as dispencing with the very Letter of the same and being supreame to it when the safety and preservation of all is concerned and assuring us that all authority is fundamentally seated in the office and but ministerially in the persons neither doe or will these our proceedings as we are fully and in conscience perswaded amount to any thing not warrantable before God and men being thus far much short of the common proceedings in other Nations to things of an higher nature then we have yet appeared to And we cannot but be sencible of the great complaints that have been made generally to us of the Kingdome from the people where we march of arbitrarinesse and injustice to their great and insupportable oppressions And truly such Kingdomes as have according both to the law of Nature and Nations appeares to the vindication and defence of their just rights and and liberties have proceeded much higher As our brethren of Scotland who in the first beginning of these late differences associated in Covenant from the very same grounds and principles having no vissible form either of Parliament or King to countenance them and as they were therein justified and protected by their own and this Kingdome also so we justly shall expect to be We need not mention the States of the Netherlands the Portugals and others all proceeding upon the same Principles of right and freedome And accordingly the Parliament hath declared it no resistance of Magistracie to side with the just Principles and law of Nature and Nations being that Law upon which we have assisted you And that the Souldiery may lawfully hold the hands of that Generall who will turne his Cannon against his Army on purpose to destroy them the Sea-men the hands of that Pylot who wilfully runnes the Ship upon a Rock as our brethren of Scotland argued And such were the proceedings of our Ancestors of famous memory to the purchasing of such Rights and Liberties as they have enioyed through the price of their blood and we both by that and the later blood of our deare friends and fellow-Souldiers with the hazard of our own doe now lay claim unto Nor is that supreame end the glory of God wanting in these cases to set a price upon all such proceedings of Righteousnesse and Justice it being one witnesse of God in the World to carry on a Testimony against the Injustice and unrighteousnesse of men and against the miscarriages of Govermnents when corrupted or declining from their primitive or originall glory These things we mention but to compare proceeding and to shew that we are so much the more iustifiable and warranted in what we do by how much we come short of that height and measure of proceedings which the people in free Kingdomes and Nations have formrly practiced Now having thus farre cleared our way in this businesse we shall proceed to propound such things as we do humbly desire for the setling and securing of our own and the Kingdomes common right freedome peace and safety as followeth 1. That the Houses may be speedily purged of such members as for their Delinquency or for Corruptions or abuse to the State or undue Elections ought not to sit there whereof the late elections in Cornwall Wales and other parts of the Kingdome afford so many examples to the great prejudice of the peoples freedome in the said elections 2. That those persons who have in the unjust and high proceedings against the Army appeared to have the will the confidence credit and power to abuse the Parliament and the Army and indanger the Kingdom in carrying on such things against us while an Army may be some way speedily disabled from doing the like or worse to us when disbanded and disperst and in the condition of private men or to other the free-born people of England in the same condition with us and that for that purpose the same persons may not continue in the same power especially as our and the Kingdoms Judges in the highest trust but may be made incapable thereof for future And if it be questioned who these are we thought not fit particularly to name them in this our representation unto you but shall very speedily give in heir names and before long shall offer what we have to say against them to your Commissioners wherein we hope so to carry our selves as that the world shall see we aime at nothing of private revenge as animossities but that justice may have a free course and the Kingdom be eased and secucured by disinabling such men at least from places of Judicature who desiring to advantage and set up themselves and their party in a generall confusion have indeavoured to put the Kingdom into a new flame of warre then which nothing is more abhorrent to us But because neither the granting of this alone would be sufficient to secure our own and the Kingdoms rights liberties and safety either for the present age or posterity nor would our proposing of this singly be free from the scandal and appearance of faction or designe onely to weaken one party under the notion of unjust or oppressive that we may advance another which may be imagined more our own we therefore declare That indeed wee cannot but wish that such men and such onely might be preferred to the great power and trust of the Common-wealth as are approved at least for morall righteousnesse And of such wee cannot but in our wishes preferre those that appeare acted thereunto by a principle of Conscience and Religion in them And accordingly we doe and ever shall blesse God for those many such Worthies who through his providence have been chosen into this Parliament And to such mens endeavours under God wee cannot but attribute that Vindication in part of the peoples Rights and Liberties and those beginnings of a just Reformation which the first proceedings of this Parliament appeared to have driven at and tended to though of late obstructed or rather diverted to other ends and interest by the prevailing of other persons of other principles and conditions But yet wee are so farre from designing or complying to have an absolute or arbitrary power

fixed or setled for continuance in any persons whatsoever as that if we might be sure to obtaine it wee cannot wish to have it so in the persons of any whom wee could most confide in or who should appeare most of our own opinions or principles or whom wee might have most personall assurance of or interest in but wee doe and shall much rather wish that the Authoritie of this Kingdome in Parliaments rightly constituted that is freely equally and successively chosen according to its originall intention may ever stand and have its course And therefore wee shall apply our desires chiefly to such things as by having Parliaments setled in such a right Constitution may give most hopes of Justice and Righteousnesse to flow downe equally to all in that its ancient Channell without any Overtures tending either to overthrow that foundation of Order and Government in this Kingdome or to ingrosse that power for perpetuity into the hands of any particular persons or party whatsoever And for that purpose though as wee have found it doubted by many men minding sincerely the publique good but not weighing so fully all consequences of things it may and is not unlike to prove that upon the ending of this Parliament and the Election of New the Constitution of succeeding Parliaments as to the persons Elected may prove for the worse many wayes yet since neither in the present purging of this Parliament nor in the Election of New wee cannot promise to our selves or the Kingdome an assurance of Justice or other positive good from the hands of men but those who for present appeare most righteous and most for common good having an unlimited power fixed in them during life or pleasure in time may become corrupt or settle into parties or factions or on the other side in case of new Elections those that should so succeed may prove as bad or worse then the former Wee therefore humbly conceive that of two inconveniences the lesse being to be chosen the maine thing to be intended in this case and beyond which humane providence cannot reach as to any assurance of positive good seemes to be this viz. to provide that however unjust or corrupt the persons of Parliament-men in present or future may prove or whatever ill they may doe to particular parties or to the whole in particular things during their respective termes or periods yet they shall not have the temptation or advantage of an unlimited power fixt in them during their own pleasures whereby to perpetuate injustice and oppression upon any without end or remedy or to advance and uphold any one particular party faction or interest whatsoever to the oppression or prejudice of the Communitie and the enslaving of the Kingdome unto all posteritie but that the people may have an equall hope or possibilitie if they have made an ill choice at one time to mend it in another and the members of the House themselves may be in a capacitie to tast of subjection as well as rule and may so be inclined to consider of other mens cases as what may come to be their owne This wee speake of in relation to the House of Commons as being entrusted on the peoples behalf for their interest in that great and supreame power of the Common-wealth viz. the Legislative power with the power of finall judgement which being in its own nature so arbitrary and in a manner unlimited unlesse in point of time is most unfit and dangerous as to the peoples interest to be fixt in the persons of the same men during life or their own pleasures Neither by the originall Constitution of this State was it or ought it to continue so nor does it where-ever it is and continues so render that State any better then a meere Tyranny or the people subjected to it any better then Vassalls But in all States where there is any face of common freedome and particularly in this State of England as is most evident both by many positive Lawes and ancient constant custome the people have a right to new and successive Elections unto that great and supreame trust at certain periods of time which is so essentiall and fundamentall to their freedome as it is cannot or ought not to be denied them or withheld from them and without which the House of Commons is of very little concernment to the interest of the Commons of England Yet in this wee would not be mis-understood in the least to blame those Worthies of both Houses whose zeale to vindicate the Liberties of this Nation did procure that Act for continuance of this Parliament whereby it was secured from being dissolved at the Kings pleasure as former Parliaments had been or reduced to such a Certainty as might enable them the better to assert and vindicate the Liberties of this Nation immediately before so highly invaded and then also so much endangered And these wee take to be the principall ends and grounds for which in that exigency of time and affaires it was procured and to which wee acknowledge it hath happily been made use of but wee cannot thinke it was by those Worthies intended or ought to be made use of to the perpetuating of that supreame trust and power in the persons of any during their owne pleasures or to the debarring of the people from their right of Elections totally new when those dangers or exigencies were past and the affaires and safety of the Common-wealth would admit of such a change Having thus cleared our Grounds and Intentions as wee hope from all scruples and misunderstandings in what followes we shall proceede further to propose what wee humbly desire for the setling and securing of our owne and the Kingdomes Rights and Liberties through the blessing of God to posterity and therefore upon all the Grounds premised we further humbly desire as followeth 3. That some determinate period of time may be set for the continuance of this and future Parliaments beyond which none shall continue and upon which new Writs may of course issue out and new Elections successively take place according to the intent of the Bill for Trienniall Parliaments And herein we would not be misunderstood to desire a present or suddain dissolution of this Parliament but only as is exprest before that some certaine period may be set for the determining of it so as it may not remaine as now continuable for ever or during the pleasure of the present Members And we should desire that the period to be now set for ending this Parliament may be such as may give sufficient time for provision of what is wanting and necessary to be passed in point of just Reformation and for further securing the Rights and Liberties and setling the peace of the Kingdome In order to which we further humbly offer 4. That secure provisions may be made for the continuance of future Parliaments so as they may not be adjournable or dissolveable at the Kings pleasure or any otherwayes then by their

owne consent during their respective periods but at those periods each Parliaments to determine of course as before This we desire may be now provided for if it may be so as to put it out of all dispute for future though we thinke of right it ought not to have beene otherwise before And thus a firme foundation being laid in the authority and constitution of Parliaments for the hopes at least of common and equall right and freedome to our selves and all the free-born people of this Land we shall for our parts freely and cheerefully commit our stock or share of interest in this Kingdome into this common bottome of Parliaments and though it may for our particulars goe ill with us in one Voyage yet we shall thus hope if right be with us to fare better in another These things we desire may be provided for by Bill or Ordinance of Parliament to which the Royall Assent may be desired when his Majestie in these things and what else shall be proposed by the Parliament necessary for securing the Rights and Liberties of the people and for setling the Militia and Peace of the Kingdome shall have given his concurrence to put them past dispute We shall then desire that the Rights of his Majestie and his posterity may be considered of and setled in all things so farre as may consist with the Right and Freedome of the Subject and with the security of the same for future 5 We desire that the right and fredome of the people to represent to the Parliament by way of humble Petition their grievances in such things as cannot otherwise be remedied then by Parliament may be cleared and vindicated That all such grievances of the people may be freely received admitted in to consideration and put into an equitable and speedy way to be heard examined and redressed if they appeare reall and that in such things for which men have remedy by law they may be freely left to the benefit of law and the regulated course of Justice without interruption or checke from the Parliament except in case of things done upon the exigency of Warre or for the service and benefit of the Parliament and Kingdome in relation to the Warre or otherwise in due pursuance and execution of Ordinances or Orders of Parliament More particularly under this head we cannot but desire that all such as are imprisoned for any pretended misdemeanor may be put into a speedy way for a just hearing and triall and such as shall appeare to have beene uniustly and unduly imprisoned may with their liberty have some reasonable reparation according to their sufferings and the demerit of their oppressors 6 That the large powers given to the Committees or Deputy Lieutenants during the late times of Warre and destraction may be speedily taken into consideration That such of these powers as appeare not necessary to be continued may be taken away and such of them as are necessary may be put into a regulated way and left to as little Arbitrarinesse as the nature and necessity of the things wherein they are conversant will beare 7 We could wish that the Kingdome might both be righted publikely satisfied in point of Accounts for the vast summes that have been levyed and paid as also in divers other things wherein the Common wealth may be conceived to have beene wronged or abused But we are loath to presse any thing that may tend to lengthen out further disputes or contestations but rather such as may tend to a speedy and generall composure and quieting of mens minds in order to Peace for which purpose we further propose 8. That publique Justice being first satisfied by some few examples to posterity out of the worst of excepted persons and other Delinquents having past their Compositions some course may be taken by a generall Act of oblivion or otherwise whereby the seeds of future Warre or fewds either to the present age or posterity may the better be taken away by easing that sence of present and satisfying those feares of future Ruine or Undoing to persons or families which may drive men into any desperate wayes for selfe preservation or remedy and by taking away the private remembrances and distinction of parties as farre as may stand with safety to the rights and Liberties wee have hitherto fought for There are besides these many particular things which wee could wish to be done and some to be undone all in order still to the same ends of common right freedome peace and safety But these proposalls aforegoing being the principall things wee bottome and insist upon wee shall as wee have said before for our parts acquiesce for other particulars in the Wisdome and Justice of Parliaments And whereas it hath been suggested or suspected that in our late or present proceedings our design is to overthrow Presbytery or hinder the settlement thereof and to have the Independent government set up we doe clearely disclaime and disavow any such designe We onely desire that according to the Declarations promising a provision for tender consciences there may some effectuall course be taken according to the intent thereof And that such who upon conscientious grounds may differ from the established formes may not for that be debarred from the common Rights Liberties or Benefits belonging equally to all as men and Members of the Common wealth while they live soberly honestly and inoffensively towards others and peacefully and faithfully towards the State We have thus freely and clearely declared the depth and bottome of our hearts and desires in order to the Rights Liberties and Peace of the Kingdome wherein we appeale to all men whether we seeke any thing of advantage to our selves or any particular partie whatever to the prejudice of the whole whether the things we wish and seek do not equally concern conduce to the good of others in common with our selves according to the sincerity of our desires and intentions wherein 〈◊〉 we have already found the concurrent sence of the people in divers Counties by their Petitions to the Generall expressing their deepe representment of these things and pressing us to stand for the Interest of the Kingdome therein so we shall wish and expect to finde the unanimous concurrence of all others who are equally concerned with us in these things and wish well to the Publique And so trusting in the mercy and goodnesse of God to passe by and helpe any failings or infirmities of ours in the carriage or proceedings hereupon we shall humbly cast our selves and the businesse upon his good pleasure depending onely on his presence and blessing for an happie issue to the peace and good of this poore Kingdome in the accomplishment whereof wee desire and hope that God will make you blessed Instruments June 14th 1647. By the appointment of his Excellency S ir Thomas Fair-fax with the Officers and Souldiery of his Army Signed Jo Rushworth Secretary FINIS

A DECLARATION OR REPRESENTATION From His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax And the Army under his command Humbly tendred to the Parliament Concerning the iust and Fundamentall Rights and Liberties of themselves and the Kingdome WITH Some humble Proposals and Desires JUNE 14. 1647. By the appoyntment of his Excellency Sir THOMAS FAIRFAX with the Officers and Souldiers of his Army Signed John Rushworth Secretary LONDON Printed for George Whittington at the Blew Anchor in Corn hill neere the Exchange 1647. A Declaration or Representation from his Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and of the Army under his Command Humbly tendred to the PARLIAMENT THAT we may no longer be the dis-satisfaction of our friends the subject of our enemies malice to worke jealousies and misrepresentations upon and the suspition if not astonishment of many in the Kingdome in our late or present transactions and conduct of businesse we shal in all faithfulnesse and clearnesse professe and declare unto you those things which have of late protracted and hindred our disbanding the present grievances which possesse our Army and are yet unremedied with our desires as to the compleat settlement of the liberties and peace of the kingdome which is that blessing of God then which of all worldly things nothing is more dear unto us or more pretious in our thoughts we having hitherto thought all our present enjoyments whether of life or livelihood or nearest relations a price but sufficient to the purchase of so rich a blessing that we and all the free-born people of this Nation may sit down in quiet under our Vines under the glorious administration of Justice and righteousnesse and in the full possession of those Fundamentall Rights and Liberties without which we can have little hopes as to humane considerations to enjoy either any comforts of life or so much as life it selfe but at the pleasures of some men ruling meerly according to will and power It cannot be unknown what hath passed betwixt the Parliament and the Army as to the service of Ireland By all which together with the late proceedings against the Army in relation to their petition and grievances all men may judge what hath hindred the Army from a ready engagement in that service and without further account or Apologie as to that particular then what passages and proceedings themselves already made publicke doe afford we doe appeale to your selves whether those courses to which the Parliament hath by the designes and practises of some been drawne have rationally tended to induce a cheerfull and unanimous undertaking of the Army to that service or rather to break and pull the Army in pieces with discontent and dishonour and to put such disobligations and provocations upon it as might drive it into distemper and indeed discourage both this Army and other Souldiers from any further engagement in the Parliaments service And we wish all men would with us upon the whole carriage seriously consider whether in the intentions of those who have by false informations and misrepresentations put the Parliament upon such wayes the timely and effectuall reliefe of Ireland seem really to have been intended or rather with the breaking or disbanding of this Army to draw together or raise such other forces and of such a temper as might serve to some desperate and distructive designes in England For which besides the probable suspitions from their carriage of the businesse we have beforehand in the transaction thereof had more then hints of such a designe by cleare expressions to that purpose from many of the Officers of the Army that have been perswaded and appeared most forward to engage as for Ireland on the tearmes proposed And that such a designe hath all along been driven seemes now too evident by the present disposing of those Forces that have been engaged for Ireland by the endevours of some to gain a power from the Parliament of ordering those Forces for some service in England and by the private listings of men for service there without any publick authority of Parliament And all this by the same persons who have all along appeared most active and violent in the late proceedings against the Army As to the full discontents and dis-satisfactions of the Army in relation to their grievances and their non-compliance to the late orders for sudden disbanding by peece-meale before more full and equall satisfaction were given to the whole we desire you to look back to the Papers already published of the grievances themselves the Narrative of the Officers and the late Papers from the generall Councell of Warre at Bury and late generall Randezvouz neare Newmarket and we thinke your late resuming the consideration of their things as to a further satisfaction doth much iustifie the desires and proceedings of the Army in the past particulars hitherto And though had we upon our first addresses for our undoubted Rights and Dues bound or free and candid reception with a iust consideration and a reasonable satisfaction or at least a free answer therein we should have been easily perswaded to have abated or forborne much of our Dues and not to have enquired into or considered so farre as we have either the possibilities there are for more present satisfaction of Arreares or the credit of future securities proposed yet since vpon these former addresses we have found such hard dealing as in the said Papers is set forth and those additionall though hitherto but partiall satisfactions comming so hardly as they have we finde no obliging reasons in the least to decline or recede from what is our due but rather still to adhere unto our desires of full and equall satisfaction in all the things mentioned in the aforesaid Papers not onely in behalf of our selves and the Army but also the whole Souldiery throughout the whole Kingdome who have concurred or shall concurre with us in the same desires And to all our former desires as Souldiers we cannot but adde this wherein we find our selves so nearly concerned in poynt of Justice and Reputation that more care and a stricter course may be taken for making good all Articles granted upon Surrenders according to the true intent and meaning of them As also for Remedy and Reparation in case of any breach and this without those delayes which divers have found as preiudicial to them or more then if they had been totally denied the performance of them Nor will it now wee hope seeme strange or unseasonable to rationall and honest men who consider the consequence of our present case to their own and the Kingdoms aswell as our future concernments in point of right freedome peace and safety if from a deepe sence of the high consequence of our present case both to our selves in future and all other people we shall before disbanding proceed in our own and the Kingdoms behalf to propound and plead for some provision for our and the Kingdoms satisfaction and future security in relation to those things especially considering that we were not