of all power or righâ— both to get or keepe what 's for their weale or their posterities and all rendered at the Kings will and mercy and that by Law and Allegiance too then which I doe not well understand how there can be a more absolute height of Monarchicall arbitrary tiranny then by pretended Law and right to have it in his power to doe what he will absolute persian for so his will by law gives law to all lawes and the subjects benefit in his meere beneficence For if the Subject desire good lawes hee may stop their mouths and tell them that by Law he may deny them or if he be in a good mind and grant them and after change and be desirous either to unmake them or to breake them which yet the Medes could not doe â—s what 's more changeable then the will of a King whether he be Englands or Israels Solomon subject to alteration upon every puffe of passion or trade-wind of flattery c. And then if the Subject take armes for defence of their Lawes he soiles them at that guard too and and tells them by Law the Militia is his not theirs And if they reply but he is to use it for the publique weale he answers them I may chuse by my negative voyce and thus the poore English-man by Scotch sophistry is tost from post to pillar voide of all certainty and stability and is meerly ad placitum in substance though in shadow a freeman these are no Levellers these are Mountainers high landers but how can wee expect better when strangers and men of contrary interest to us are our Legis-lators and take upon them the highest Office of judicatory in this Kingdome next to making Lawes which they say is the Kings and therefore they will not take that from him viz. to interpret our Lawes and Liberties and so by a writ of alienation we are shared out 'twixt him and them he to make and they to interpret and thus the English Parliament betwixt two stooles falls to the ground and becomes a meere nullity and yet the Scots Commissioners the renewers of our miseries play the Courtiers and tell you in Latine instead of English that they professe ignorantiam facti juris alieni but their words and actions agree as did their words and swords promise much and doe nothing Further to make good these their assertions touching the Kings Right to the Militia and a Negative voyce they prove it by the Scepter and Sword which they say are badges of those powers to be in the King it may be so in Scotland but in England they signifie not the power of creation specially not of annihilation of Laws but of execution of civill and penall Justice else by this reason the Mayor of a Corporation whose badges in proportion import the same things should have a Negative voyce and be a Law-maker or law-refuser who indeed is the Laws Minister and so is the King the fountain of Justice not of Laws But to shew how inconsistent and irrationall it is for the King of England to have a Negative voyce for for the impertinencies of other Nations instanced by them there need no other answer but that we neither give nor take Laws from any but our selves t may appear by these following considerations 1. By the Kings not sitting in Parliament to debate and consult Lawes nor are they at all offered him by the Parliament to consider of but only to consent unto which yet are transmitted from one of the Houses to the other as well to consult as consent to shewing thereby that he hath no share in the consultory part of them for that it belongs only to the people in Parliament to discerne and consult their owne good but he comes only at the time of enacting bringing his royall authority with him as it were to set the seal therof to the Indenture already prepared by the people for the King is head of the Parliament as of the people in regard of his authority not in regard of his reason and judgement as if it were opposed to the reason and judgement of both Houses which is the reason both of King and Kingdome and therefore doe they as consult so interpret Laws without him supposing him to be a person replenished with honour and royall authority not skill'd in Lawes nor to receive information either of law or counsell in Parliamentary affaires from any saving from the supreme Court and highest Councell of the King and Kingdome which admits of no counterpoise being intrusted with all above all 2. Either the choice of the people in Parliament is to be the ground and rule of the Kings assent or nothing but his pleasure so all Bills though never so necessary for publique good and preservation and after never so much paines and consultation of both Houses may be voided and so they made meer cyphers and we brought to that passe as either to have no Lawes or such as come onely and inmediately from the King who oft is a man of pleasure and little seen in publicke affaires to be able to judge and so the Kingdomes great Councell must bee subordinated either to his meer will and then what difference between a free Monarchy and an absolute saving that the one rules without counsell and the other against it or at the best but to a cabinet councell consisting commonly â—f men of personall interests but certainly of no publick trust 3. By the practice of requiring the royall assent even unto those very acts of Subsidies which are granted to himselfe and for his owne use which it is supposed he will accept of and yet Honoris gratia his royall assent is asked and contributed thereunto Lastly from the Scots owne position which is this That regall power and authority is chiefly in making and enacting Lawes and in protecting and defending their subjects which are of the very essence and Being of all Kings Whence I argue that then he hath a negative power in neither no more in the one then in the other but as he is not to deny protection to his people so nor Lawes for as aforesaid things essentiall are necessary these then being so to the office of a King hee is not arbitrary in their dispensation but as he must doe the one viz protect not destroy his people so also the other viz. consent not dissent to their Lawes for to consent is either a meere act of his will and pleasure and then not essentiall to his place or the issue of his duty and then not of his meere will as it is of a Judge to do justice and therefore cannot that is ought not to be denyed this their owne position whereupon they would build the negative voyce quite destroyes it and concludes both against it and them In a word the Fundamentall Law of the Land is a setling of Government so as that it may be administred with honour and safety and therefore the people first consult their own safety and welfare in Parliament and then the King who is to be intrusted with it is to give an honourable confirmation to it and so to put an Impresse of Majâ—sty and Royall Authority upon it The Legislative power in England is in the hands of the supreme Government not Governour here the people like Freemen offers Laws to be enacted doth not receive them so nor ought to be denyed them The King is to give life to such Acts and things as tend to publique good and protection which Acts depend not upon his pleasure but though they are to receive their greater vigour from him yet are they not to be suspended at pleasure by him for that which at first was intended by the Kingdoms for an honourable way of subsistence and administration must not be wrested contrary to the nature of this polity and Institution insomuch as if the King in his person decline his duty the King in his Parliament is to performe it Safety and Beeing is to be preferred to Honour and Well-being and Reallities to Formes which are usefull if not hurtfull Good Hand-maids but bad Mistresses being but Honourable Accidents not Essences like beauty to the face or Jewels to the Crown which though they be pawn'd it s not essentially impair'd Civill superstition may undo us as well as Ecclesiasticall which commonly goe together and one of them oft times is the punishment of the other Civill dissentions Prerogative Wars and Canterburian Altars began at once The peoples hearts were not prepared was of old the sin of many ages and the cause of many judgements God grant it be not so with Englands Israel FINIS Janua 29. 1647. Imprimatur Gilbert Mabbot
it meerly an aliquid nihil But what if other men be of other mindes and have not we cause to bee so and to thinke it unsatisfactory for is not the Prince in his capacity as bad as the King principled by father and mother to begin where he leaves is not the Parliament put in trust by the people to provide for their security and shall they bee so base as to expose posterity had our forefathers been so selfish the Free-men of England might have been like the bondmen in Scotland where the common people speake broken French The reason of the negative voyce is as they affirme because regall power and authority is chiefly in making and enacting Lawes and therefore object That the new preface takes away the Kings negative voice and cuts off all royall power and right in Law-making wherein by the way they play the Sophysters being excellent School men in State matters for when they speake of the Militia which is lesse concerned in terminis in the Coronation oath which principally respects Civil matters yet they bring it for a proof as to that saying That all Kings are obliged by their Coronation oath to protect their Subjects but as to his negative voice the exclusion whereof is both the substance of that oath and this preamble they blanch it taking and leaving as makes for their turnes in Oaths and Covenants and making at best that oath as to the Lawes speake but the language of the Cavalliers whose interpretation of only protecting the Laws they take up and decline that of the Parliaments of confirming and making them so fully evinced in their Declarations to be the genuine sense thereof and in right reason and true construction it must needs be so That he sweares to confirme and grant all such Laws as his people shall choose to be observed not hath chosen for first the word concedis in that oath were then unnecessary the Lawes formerly enacted being already granted by foregoing Kings his predecessors and so need no more concession or confirmation else we must conclude that all our Lawes dye with the old King and receive their Being a new by the new Kings consent Secondly hereby the first and second clause in that interrogatory viz. Concedis justas leges permitt 〈◊〉 protegendas are confounded and doe but idem reâ—â—â—â—â—â— Thirdly Quas vulgus elegerit implies only the act of the people in a dis-junctive sense from the act or consent of the King but Laws already made have more then Quas vulgus elegerit in them they have also the Royall consent too so that that phrase cannot mean those Laws wherein the act and consent of the King is already involved But though the Scots Commissioners approve not of it to be the meaning of that Oath yet they affirme it undeniably as a position of their owne That regall power is chiefly in making and enacting Laws that and protection being of the essence of Kings The Scots say its essentiall to the King to make Laws the Preamble to the Propositions sayes so too That it 's the duty of his office yet they that affirme that oppose this so that there must needs be some great mis-understanding for there is no difference which is this The Scots when they say It is essentiall to the King to make Laws speake by a figure incident to their dialect that is They speake one thing when they meane another you may finde the name of it in Hocus Pocus his politicks intending thereby That it is essentiall to him not to make Lawes elegantly asserting the negative which they contend for in the affirmative For they speake all in the plurall number Kings and Kingdomes nothing but joynt interests and equall jurisdiction municipall lawes are out of doores And let it be granted that it is a principall part of even our regall authority to make and enact Lawes for the Coronation oath saith as much That he is to confirme and grant such Lawes as his people shall present so also sayes this Preamble to the Propositions and what get they by it why then say they to take away the Kings negative voyce is to cut off all power and right in making Lawes nothing lesse this is a meer non sequitur for to make him that he cannot but make them is that to make him that hee cannot make them There are somethings that God himselfe cannot but doe which is as well his perfection and power not imperfection and impotency as those things he can chuse to doe and does that therefore imply that he cannot doe what he cannot but do Things essentiall are not arbitrary but necessary so is making Lawes to the Office of a King but so is not his not making them It seemes by the Scots creed translated into English for they are not of this faith at least not of this practice at home nothing's royall but what 's arbitrary a position fitter for Turkes and Infidels to maintaine then Christians and men of erudition that so preferres will to reason and the will of one man laps'd and relaps'd to the reason of a State making that which is the worst to rule by the sole or principall rule of all rule and Government They are now attain'd to that confidence as after all that 's done and suffered by the Parliament and Kingdome for an establishment of liberty and safety openly to advocate it for the King against these preferring their interest which is against them above their Covenant which is for them notwithstanding the profession they made to the contrary and the money viz. 600000. li. 100000. li. at their comming in 200000. li. at their going out 250000. li. for coales at Newcastle 50000. li. when they lay before Hereford are such another summe when they lay before Newarke besides free-quarter aâ—bitrary assesements and exactions which in computation during their long stay to little purpose amounted to above as much more They have had for their seeming serviceablenesse thereunto And now all the courtesie we must expect is onely this for they are their owne words It is not our desire that Monarchy should be at the absolute height of an arbitrary and tyrannicall power Implying an allowance or content of some yea a great deale of arbitrary and tyrannicall Monarchicall power and for this it seems they contend the whilst they go about to erect these two Pillars of it in the Crown a Negative voyce and a Regall Militia and indeed the Crowne having them what can hinder it of an arbitrary tyrannicall power even to the height thereof if he that weares it be so disposed for by the power of the one the people can have no Lawes but what hee le grant them and by the power of the other they are never the better for them nor surer of them when they have them the Militia investing the King with a negative power of undoing at pleasure what he of curtesie hath done or granted to them and so his people are stript
THE JOVIALL TINKER OF ENGLAND Willing To Hammer the Covenant and Scots Commissioners into English AND To mend the breaches and stop the holes of the Crowne of England miserably torne and bruised both within and without with the best Mettle he can get And at a very reasonable Rate PROVIDED He be not compelled to take the Scots Sense upon the COVENANT He will rather walk about the Countries cry Have you any work for a Joviall Tinker By BORIALIS Guard LONDON Printed for John Hickman 1648. THE Covenant and Scotch Commissioners translated into English for better understanding ENGLAND is unhappily become the Tennis-ball of mis-fortune betwixt a Scottish King and the Kingdom of Scots Epitomiz'd in those State-Merchants their Commissioners The one striving for an absolute separate interest the other for a joynt A designe in practise ever since King James first set foot over Tweed wherewith he traveld all his life but wanting the Midwisery of a Covenant to bring it to passe but now we are shared out by the Meere-stones of mutuall agreement betwixt His Majesty and His Native Subjects who formerly promised them three Counties but that not contenting them he hath now undertaken for the whole kingdome to let them play the best of their Game and they to him for the Crown to make it Independent wheras the Identity and self-samenesse of interest ought to be 'twixt him and his People as betwixt the head and body naturall and certainly the cards play faire for them by the Cavaliers on the one side and the Londoners on the other the one sworn slaves to Prerogative and the other for the most part to the Scotch glosse upon the English Covenant who long to feast the Mayor of Edenborough at Guild-hall For the Scots finding the waters troubled and humors stirring they think now is the best fishing and the fittest time to work their ends and therefore Print their papers in spite of the Parliament in hope therby to set England on fire that they may come to warme their hands at it a practise never known in use by any Ministers of State but these nor by them in no place in the world but here because their warpe is weaving in our Looms They find the Round heads á stiffe people not easily bent but resolved to the death to maintaine entire both the freedom interest of England without mixture or thraldom therfore Acheronta movebunt they now renounce brotherhood and contrary to Covenant fawne upon the Principles of the Cavaliers face about to the common Enemy towards whom throughout all these wars they carried themselves very inoffensively doing them no more hurt than what necessarily conduced to their owne particular advantage in taking a few northern frontier Garrisons and knowing them to bee mostly prophane Esaus a people not much considerate of their owne concernments they hope to buy out their birth-rights with a messe of pottage and yet the Cavaliers hate a Round head he cannot lightly love a Blew-cap so that they may perchance find it prove the onely stay to part two fighting Mastiffes is to turn a Beare loose upon them both And as for the Londoners they are so confident of them as already they call London where their Papers of the disposall of the Kings person was printed Edenbrough upon the frontispiece therof nor is it improper for the Metropolis to change her name when the Kingdome changes her interest And which is the worst part of machiavell they make religion even The solemn League and Covenant to father all their bastards for my owne part I am one that have taken it and wish all did so that will make conscience to keep it but cursed be that English-man that takes it with the Scotch corrupt paraphrase of a joynt interest which ipso facto renders him perjured as to the Oaths of Allegiance Supremacy inhibiting all English-men to betray or communicate their publique interest especially legislative to forraigne States and better it were the Covenant were neither given nor taken then pressed in policy as it is by the Scots to hand-fast English men in a joynt interest and propriety or taken with perjury as it is by the Cavaliers who make no conscience in swearing nor for-swearing But we now plainly see what were our brethrens ends in their first propounding this Covenant not Religion and Conscience but Designe and Incroachment I dare not judge so undivinely of their Divines who I am confident had honester purposes but whatsoever was their divinity in it their equity is starke naught the Commander in cheife whereof in his transactions here in England hath carried himselfe extreame immorally to the scandal of Presbytery and meriting the stoole of repentance and yet it cannot bee denied but that what he hath done hath been equitable for the King raising him by I know not what mystery of State from his deep displeasure to that height of Honour can hee doe too much for such a Master that not onely forgave him but gave him Who is their main pillar of policy and strikes the greatest stroak in this master-piece of transmigration of interest and like Chancery Bills affirms any thing but proves nothing in his papers knowing that a bad cause is better maintained by a brazen face bold assertions than iron arguments Therfore they never offer to reply save with a deaf ear to the House of Commons Answer to their papers touching the disposall of the King in England wherby is made evident that neither as to that particular nor any thing else either in or relating to the Covenant they have any right or interest to order or dispose thereof by any joynt or united property The words of the Covenant being expresse and clear to the contrary in every Article of it engaging both each Nation and each person To endevour both one thing and other in our severall places and callings in our severall Vocations and according to our places and interests So that though the Covenant by these definit expressions purposely provide against confusion of Interests that England and Scotland being severall distinct kingdomes and each one onely to act in his severall place Vocation calling and interest yet without replying to these reasons brought against their indirect quoting the Covenant in abstract Positions thereby to compasse their end of joynt interest they still persist from this Covenant to entitle themselves to the right of exercising a joynt power not onely of disposing the King but the kingdome also though the Covenant be contrary to the exercise of any joynt power which was severall and distinct before the making thereof and although the joynt exercise of such power be a breach of Covenant both of us respectively being therby obliged in our severall Vocations mutually to preserve the rights priviledges and Liberties of each Parliament and kingdom and the exercise of such a joynt power which gives a negative voyce to either Nation towards other is a manifest breach of those Priviledges and Liberties
so Covenanted to be intirely preserved and consequently of the Covenant it selfe And whereas both in their Printed papers to the people and their dissent to the Propositions sent lately to the King at the Isle of Wyght this joynt propriety is so much stood upon yet neither is the word joyntly nor any other expression which will bear that interpretation so much as mentioned in the Covenant but the direct contrary in those words Bach one in his severall Vocation Calling Place and Interest which runs through the whole Covenant and which would have cleared the meaning of it but therefore they cunningly leave it out and break off in the midst of a sentence to dective the people who they find too apt to take upon trust and to suspect strangers lesse than there is cause For per fas nefas the designe if it will not goe it must be driven and so it is from one stage to another for whereas formerly the dispose of the Kings person was only pretended to now they are mounted to a higher staire and steppe of encroachment the empowring of the Crowne and whereas the Covenant runs thus The preservation and defence of the Kings person and authority in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdome They notwithstanding make a stop at Authority and thus our English sentences are read with Scotch comma's and periods and the Covenant made to speake what it never meant and Covenanters to undertake absolutely what they promise but conditionally by these Scotch Artificers who make it a nose of wax and here in England takes upon them to tell you That the King and Crowne shall have the negative voyce the regall Militia yea and Court of Wards too or as good whether it stand with the preservation and defence of true Religion and the Kingdomes liberties or not further then which the Covenant binds not nay though they see apparently all 's lost if it be so the King being as firme to his principles both Ecclesiasticall and Civill as ever yea and for our better security they 'l have the Army disbanded in hope the Parliament cannot easily raise another and so they may command in chiefe in the North the Londoners in the South and the Cavalliers East and West and then their owne flesh and blood the eleven Members may returne in freedome honour and safety and put Mr. Pellam in the chaire againe Thus they doe by us as the Philistims did by Sampson been use they cannot binde us they put out our eyes and make us 〈◊〉 round in a Mil leave us as they found us worse besides the expence of so much blood and mony since with our hands in our pockets that so their new brother-hood the Cavalliers may rise and cut our throats with whom they are confident of a joynt interest both in King and Kingdome When they were pleased to say It was prejudiciall to both Kingdomes for there lies the Emphasis for the King because they had no minde to him to goe into Scotland 〈◊〉 were content they should leave him in England where also they 'le dispose of him and have him come to London in â—â—â—â—…dome honour and safety which are comprehensive tearmes before any peace be concluded or propositions granted and that too as the safest for the Kingdome I should say both Kingdomes under penalty of breach of Covenant which they use now as the Pope in old time was wont to doe his excommunications to compasse Kingdomes And for his comming to London they bring a weighty reason of sutable sophistry to the rest of their transactions viz. Because the Parliament invited him to come thither before the warres break out as being then the onely meanes to prevent them and now to renew them that therefore after so much blood and treasure spilt and spent upon that reason he must come without condition or satisfaction at his owne election and be restored before His Kingdome be repaired this is brotherly love and kind dealing indeed What will posterity think of such Covenanters brethren and Auxiliaries who doubtlesse are out of our pay and have forfeited their arreares that thus in their late Papers alarum the whole Kingdom and set their Pay-masters at defiance and would now sel their party to their Prince as they did their Prince to their Party Besides that to pay them were to arme them till they retract their book Nor do men use to give wages to those they hire for going up and downe the house from roome to roome and rid no worke when worke is to bee done as the Scots did here in perambulation from Country to Country and during the warres neither fought battaile nor stormed Towne but Newcastle but now they make an amends for their idlenes by turning busie-bodies they kept their skins whole and their Army entire to begin it seems when we had made an end but beginne when they will they 'le find work for Tinkers all England is not of one mind their Papers are too long for all to read them and too false to be beleeved by all that doe read them and more there are that side with them for faction then that will side with them in fighting against their Countries interest But they give you reasons or at least would see me to doe so why the Militia must bee inherent in the Crowne and the negative voice in the King The reason of the Militia is because of the protection the Crowne must afford to the people so sayes the King when he means nothing lesse and further tell us That for the Crowne to be divested of all power and right of the Militia is different from their judgements a strong reason and imparatively spoken enough to have been uttered by the Kings negative voice and for the regall protection they speake of against enemies we have found and they have seen it turned to destruction as still its like to be and an oath broken on one part sets the other at liberty our government being pactionall and our Allegiance according to the nature of but Government not of slaves and vassalls but of Freemen As the King is made for the people and not the people for the King so is he first bound to the people and then they to him But we have now more need of protection against false brethren then open enemies which we cannot expect from the King their Country-man and therefore it s better to have the Militia in the power of the Parliament Englands abstract And as they tell you what their judgement is not so also what it is viz. That they thinke the King in his message from Caresbrooke Castle hath offered that which should be very satisfactory in the point of the Militia I wonder not that it contents them being I am confident a childe of their own brame instilled into him at Hampton-Court when they went to see how he did for its perfectly like them a consent like the Covenant as they make