Charge or Accusation and gave five Months time to the Respondents to make their defence And had he given lesse then five Months time To Instruct Counsell Pen their Answers produce and summon witnesses inquire into the lives conversation of their Accusors his feet had been swift to shed blood Nulla unquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa est But our Inquisitors take whole years to themselves to hunt for Matter of Accusation and hire and engage witnesses against men kept in ignorance and want with close imprisonment and allow not them so many dayes to make their Defence All manner of Accusors and witnesses though apparently suborned and forsworn in the same cause and proofes without exceptions offered to the Court that they are of infamous life and conversation are in this Court the Object of whose desires are blood and Confiscations not Iustice lawfull witnesses such witnesses were the said Bernard and Pits Monsters of man See Sir John Gels case stated Printed about August 1650. To Cite any antient known Laws or Statutes or any other then their own new coined Acts passed by this 8. Part of a House of Commons since they became elect Members chosen by Thomas Pride is to incur the High Indignation of the Court expressed abundantly in their words looks But to put them in minde of the Parliaments many Declarations to maintain the ancient known Laws Liberties and Properties of the people is to scandall the present Government and incur the Censure of that unknown mysterious Crime which knaves call Malignancy The witnesses and Judges being thus irrefragable the first may swear what they will the second may judge what they will since they are left at large and have all things in scrinio pectoris and Book Law must give place to Bench Law The Jurisdiction and Authority of this New unparalelled Court is such a Mistery of iniquity so unscrutable and unquestionable that if a prisoner scruple in the least either it or any of the uncouth proceedings of it it is a Mortall sin to him and he is presently interrupted and affronted both with disdainfull words and looks And told We are satisfied with our Authority that are your Judges so are Thieves upon the High way satisfied with their Authority that rob and murther us by Gods Providence and permission It is upon Gods Authority and the Kingdoms yet what they do is against the will of God revealed in his Scriptures and against the known established Laws Statutes and continual Practise of the Kingdome Which Authority commands you in the name of the People of England to answer them Yet at lest 9. parts of 10. of the people so much abhorre these and other their Practises that every mans mouth speakes against them with bitter curses and reproaches to restrain which they have minted Acts of New Treasons to make men Offenders nay Traitors even for bare words and erected this bloudy illegall Theater The High Court so called for its High Injustice as a Spanish Inquisition over them every mans hand would be about their ears did they not keep an Army of Janisaries to suppresse them Their Authority they do avow to the whole World that the whole Kingdom are to rest satisfied therewith You see here a Whip and a Bell provided to keep the whole Kingdom in aw the declared Supreme power of their Soveraign Lord the people must resign their known Laws to their Trustees their Representatives in parliament and take new Laws from their Arbitrary Votes or wo be to their Necks and Shouldiers I must interrupt you what you do is not agreeable to the Proceedings of any Court of Justice You are about to enter into Argument and dispute concerning the Authority of this Court before whom you appeare as a prisonner you may not dispute the Authority of this Court nor will any Court give way to it you are to submit to it It is not safe to confute a lye told with Authority Yet if a man be Endicted of Treason or Felony in the Court of Common Pleas a man may Demurre to and dispute the Jurisdiction of that Court because it is not in Criminall Causes Competens Forum nor the Judges Compentent Judges every man and every cause must be tried Suo Foro non Alieno 80 if a Peer be Arraigned in the Kings Bench And for this upstart unpresidented High Court it is no Court of Judicature at all as being erected without lawful Authority Consisting of Incompetent Judges no Records belonging to it and tending to disinherit and disfranchise all the People of England and to murder them You may not dispute the Jurisdiction of the Supreme and Highest Authority of England from which there is no Appeal The Votes of the Commons of England assembled in Parliament is the Reason of the Kingdome Oh Brutish irrational Kingdome Where 40. or 50. Anabaptisticall Members the Dregs and Lees of the House of Commons after all the best and sincerest 7. parts of 8. had been racked and purged out at the Bunghole by Cromwell the Brewer and Pride his Drayman shall be called the Reason and Law of the Land This confirms the truth of what King Charls the I. Objected to the Parliament whereof I have formerly spoken That they disposed of the Subjects Lives and Fortunes by their own Votes against the known Laws of the Land But that there should be no Appeal to their declared Soveraign Lord the people from their subordinate Trustees in Parliament is wonderfull Considering that in all Governments The last Appeal is ever to the Highest and most Absolute power But it may be they will be the Peoples Trustees in spight of their Teeth and by the power of the Sword and so free themselves from rendring any account of their Stewardship You may not Demurre to the Jurisdiction of the Court If you do they let you know that they over rule your Demerrer and affirm their own Jurisdiction Reason is not to be he heard against the Highest Jurisdiction the Commons of England make a direct positive Answer either by denying or confessing and put in immediately an issuable Plea Guilty or Not Guilty of the Charge or we will record your Default and contumacy and by an implicite confession take you guilty pro confesso immediately give judgment against you This as I told you before is it that blanches the Deer into the Toile But God deliver us from that Jurisdiction that is too high to hear Reason and that over rules Demurrers before they be heard I have told you as much of the proceedings of this Court as the Novelty Obscurity uncertainty and confusion thereof will give me leave Let me now by way of overplus give you the great dangers and slavery that will be fall all sorts of People if they tamely and cowardly suffer themselves to be deprived of their auticent legal Tryals by Endictment and Juries of the Neighbour hood then which the whole world cannot boast of a more equall
THE HIGH COVRT OF JUSTICE OR CROMWELLS New Slaughter-house in ENGLAND With the Authoritie that constituted and ordained it Arraigned Convicted and Condemned for Usurpation Treason Tyrannie Theft and Murder Being the III. Part of the Historie of Independencie written by the same Author Printed Anno Dom. 1651. The History of INDEPENDENCIE THat every thing is kept and maintained by the same wayes and means it was got and obtained is a rule true both in Philosophy and Policy And therefore Dominion gotten by fraud and force must by fraud and force be preserved Things impiously got must be impiously kept When usurped Tiranny layes its foundation in bloud the whole Superstruction must be built with Morter tempered with bloud One Sin must defend and make good another And hence ariseth a Necessity upon Ambitious men to flanck and fortify one Crime with another But to pleade this Necessity which they have so willfully drawne upon themselves in justification of their wicked Courses To expect submission Obedience and an equall Engagement from men uninterressed therein and to intitle the Divine Providence and unrevealed will of God thereto in opposition to his will revealed and declared in the Scriptures as is now a dayes used is to accuse the Holy Ghost of our Sinnes and an hipocrisie so impudently sinfull and damnable that I doubt no age but this the Dregs and lees of time ever gave an example of the like TO illustrate my first Maxime by some forreine Examples before I lay the Bastard at our own doors Sylla at Rome by the power of the Sword proclaimed or voted himself Dictator to make good which usurpation with a Maske of Authority he compelled the Senate or Parliament to approve of all his fore passed villanies Murders and illegal Actes and to conferre a power upon him To kill whom he pleased and confiscate their Estates To build and destroy Cities Dispose Kingdomes And exercise an Arbitrary Supreme Authority and then to establish himselfe in his selfe-created power he posted up as Rome and in most Cities of Italy Bills of Proscription or Outlawry conteining the names of such persons as without any forme of Lawe or Justice he appointed to be slain by his Souldiers These Proscribed men were for the most part such as having some Sparkes of Roman virtue in them durst love the Auntient Government Lawes and Liberties of Rome and were therefore thought fit to be weeded out as Malignants against his Innovations and Arbitrary courses Yet many meane spirited fellowes were proscribed and murdered partly for confiscation of their Estates and partly to gratify the Malice and hatred of particular friends who in that carriage praid in aid of Syllas sword to ridd them of their Enemies After this Augustus Caesar at Rome having by terror of Arms made himself Consul and finding himself not strong enough fingly to subjugate his Country he called Antonius Lepidus to joine with him with whom entering into confederacy to subvert the Fundamental Government and usurpe the Supreme Authority They divide that vaste Empire betweene them and passed a Decree amongst themselves That they should be called the Triumvirate for Reforming and Reestablishing the Common-wealth well enough before if they had let it alone with Supreme Authority to give Estates and Offices to whom they thought fit without asking the advise of Senate or People They appointed what Consuls Magistrates and Officers they pleased They designed rich donatives and 18 of the chief Cities of Italy to be given to their Souldiers if by their valor they should obteine victory over Brutus and Cassius They fixed publike listes or Tables of Proscription naming such Persons as they exposed to slaughter They Proscribed at one time 130 Senators at another time 150 and 2000 Knights Whereby the best men for understanding conduct Resolution and Affection being cut off the rest terrified by their example became but Terra Maledicta as Chymickes call it dull liveles Ashes or clods of earth without power or virtue to quicken them or make them productive After some revolutions wherein Augustus and Antonius had discarded the dull and stupid Lepidus and at last Augustus had subdued Antonius Augustus usurped the Title of Tribune of the people whereby his Person became sacred and inviolable and humouring the irrational Animals tooke upon him the especial Protection of that Brutish heard the Rascall multitude The Tribunes of the People having bin originally instituted to protect the People His next step was to make himself Perpetual Dictator whereby he arrogated to himself a vaste unlimited power above all Laws The Tribuneship was his Buckler The Dictatorship was his Sword And last of all for Ornament only He having already the full power of an absolute Monarch although he forbore the Title of King because it was hatefull to the People and against the Laws ever since the Regifugium he took upon him the Title of Princeps Senatus or President of the Senate to keep a corresponding power over that great Counsell or Parliament And finally usurped the Title and Office of Imperator or Generalissimo of all forces by Land and Sea Garrisons c. Philippe King of Spain Lord of the 17 Belgike Provinces by several Titles and under several Limitations Priviledges Exemptions and Fundamentall Laws according to which he was to govern and they to obey Resolving to subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government and reduce those 17 Petty Signiories into one meere absolute Monarchy sent the Duke D'Alva thither a warrior of a resolute stern nature Governour with a powerfull Army Who taking advantage of some rude commotions formerly raised by the Protestants in throwing downe Images and sacrilegiously plundering Churches erected a New Tribunall Criminall or to speake in our modern uncowth language A High Court of Justice consisting of 12 Commissioners or Judges purposely chosen most of them hangers by of the Law of meane fortunes practise birth and breeding Covetous Ambitious and slavishly addicted to the Spanish faction To these was given by special Commission full power and Authority to inquire into and judge or to hear and determine the forepassed commotions whereupon they stiled this Court Concilium Turbarum but the multitude called it Concilium Sanguinis or the Bloudy Conventicle This Counsel or Inquisition did supersede and extingnish the Authority of all other Courts of Iudicature and make void all Lawes Constitutions Jurisdictions and Priviledges of the Nation as to the aforesaid commotions and all other causes they pleased to call high Treason They had no other boundes nor limit iâ— their proceedings then what they prefixed to themselves in certain Articles Some few whereof I will here present unto my Reader because they judged of high Treason by those Articles not by the known Laws of the Land a thing very observable and applicable to my purpose so that they were not onely Judges Leges dicere but also Law-makers Leges dare as all Judges are who take upon them a lioertie to observe no set forms of
proceedings but at their own pleasure 1. ARTICLE All Petitions heretofore tendered to the States or Cities Corporate against the erecting of New Episcopall Sees or against the Holy Inquisition or requiring a Moderation of Decrees or Acts of State or Parliament are accounted meer Conspiracies against God and the King 2. ARTICLE All Nobles Gentry Judges Magistrates and all others who connived at Hereticall Sermons plundering of Churches and delivering such Petitions as aforesaid pretending the necessitie of the times and did not resist and oppose them 3. ART Whosoever affirms That all his Majesties Subjects of Belgia have not forfeited their auncient Priviledges Immunities and Lawes for Treason and that it is not lawfull for the King to use and handle them for the aforesaid Treasons as he pleaseth to prevent the like Treasons for the time to come and that the King is not absolved thereby from all Oathes Promises Graunts Contracts and Obligations whatsoever 4. ART They that affirm This Counsell or high Court of Justice to exercise Tiranny in their Proceedings or Judgements and that they are not Supreme and competent Judges in all causes Criminal and Civil 5. ART Those that in case of Heresie deny that all manner of Informers and witnesses of whatsoever Degree and condition they be are to be credited and that upon the Testimony of any two witnesses this High Court ought to proceed to Judgement execution and conflication of life and goods without publishing the cause or charge and without any legal form of Triall All these are guilty of high Treason against God and the King The Rigor Cruelty and Injustice of this New erected Counsell of Bloud or High Court of Justice inforced the Lowe Countries to revolt and cast off the King of Spain LEt us now examine whether in some one little Province or Island belonging to that vast Roman Empire and in some meane petty fellowes Natives of that Island men even at home of obscure birth breeding and fortunes we can not finde examples of Ambition usurpation and Tiranny as high and transcendent as bloudy and destructive as covetous and greedy as any of the fore-cited presidents And which is worst of all carried on by those that call themselves Christians nay Saints which is more than they vouchsafe to Saint Peter and the rest of the Apostles though glorified Saints in the Church Triumphant and such as in all their bloudy oppressing cheating Designes promoted by perjury Treachery breach of Faith Oaths and publike Declarations pretend to the singular favour Providence and will of heaven as confidently as if they could shew Gods special commission to warrant Usurpation Treason Tyranny and Thievery It is not unknown by what Artifices frauds falsified promises Oaths and covenants a party of Antimonarchists Schismaticks and Anabaptists lurking in the Parliament fooled the People to contribute their blood and money towards the subduing of the King and in him of themselves and how by the same wayes and subtleties the said Party in the two Houses now combined openly under the Generall Title of Independents engaging and conspiring with the Officers of the Army and Souldiery expelled by armed force seven parts of eight of the House of Commons leaving not above 43 or 44 of their own engaged Party sitting men enriched with publike spoiles and voting under the power of the Armies commanders whose commands are now become a law to the said sitting Members as their Votes are become Laws to the Kingdome In Obedience to their said Masters of the Army The said Remainder of Commons voted down the House of Lords though an integrall and principall Member of the Parliament of England farr antienter then the House of Commons and having a power of Judicature and to administer an Oath which the House of Commons never had nor pretended to have untill this time that they overflow their Bounds and the whole Kingdomes under the protection of their Army which prerogative of the House of Lords is clearly demonstrated by the House of Commons standing bare before them at all conserences as the Grand Enquest doth before the Judges because they rejected the Ordinance for Triall of the King And now these Dregs and Lees of the House of Commons take upon them to be a compleat Parliament To enact and repeal Statutes to subvert the Fundamentall Government Laws and Liberties of the Land To pull up by the Roots without Legall proceedingss every mans private property and possession and destroy his life To burden the people with unsupportable unheard of unparliamentary Taxes Impositions Excise Freequarter buying of New Arms after the Countrey have been disarmed of their old Arms three times in one year Pressings and Levying of Souldiers Sequestrations Plundering of Houses and Horse and many other oppressions more than the Turk Russe or Tarter ever heard of of all which our Grandees are free and lay them upon others as partially as they please purposely to consume them To make Religion but a stalking horse to their designes and the Ministers thereof but hostlers to rub down curry and dresse it for their riding to whom they send Commands what they shall and shall not preach to the people as if preaching were the Ordinance of man not of God At last by way of preparative to their machinanations they passe these following votes 1. That all Supreme power is in the people 2. That the Supreme Authority under them is in the peoples Representatives or delegates in Parliament assembled Meaning themselves you may be sure the Quintessence and Elixar of the House of Commons extracted by those learned Chimicks Doctour Fairfax Doctour Cromwell and the rest graduated at that degraded University of Oxford Here note they voted the Supreme power to be in the people that they might use those Gulles as Conduit Pipes or Trunks to convey the Supreme Authority into themselves the better to enslave the people And tickle them whilest they fasten about their necks the Iron yoke of a Military Oligarchy wearing the Mask of a perpetuall Parliament 3. That whatsoever the Commons in Parliament shall enact shall have the power and force of an Act of Parliament or Law without the consent of the House of Lords or the Kings Koyal Assent any statute law custome or usage to the contrary notwithstandingr they might have said all our statutes laws customes c. notwithstanding This one vote hath more of Dissolution and more of Vsurpation and Innovation in it than any I yet ever read of This is universally Arbitrary and layes the Ax to the root of all our Lawes Liberties Lives and properties at once What these men will they vote What they vote is Law Therefore what they will is Law 4. That to wage warre or beare Arms against the Representative body of the People or Parliament is high Treason By the law all Treasons are committed against the King his Crown and Dignity 5. That the King hath taken up Armes against this Parliament and is therefore guilty
way and suffer their Lives Liberties Estates and Honours to be subject to an Arbitrary Extrajudiciall conventicle of Blood Cromwels new Slaughter house which hath neither Law Justice Conscience Reason President or Authority Divine or Humane but onely the pretended Parliaments irrational Votes and the power of the Sword to maintain it which will prove a Cittadell over their Liberties a snare to their Estates a Deadfall to their lives and a scandal to their honours and familes if not timely opposed 1. By the Law the Endictment must specifie what the Treason is and against what Person committed As against our Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity But in the said Articles of Impeachment it is alleaged that the Treason is committed against the present Government or against the Keepers of the Liberties of England but in this dead-water our turning Tide between the old Regall and this new unknown Government no man knows how to do look or speak for fear of contracting the guilt of an Interpretative Treason upon the said two Statutes for New Treasons and before this boundlesse lawlesse new Court And to say that Treason is committed against a Government in abstracto is Non-sence it must be said that Treason is committed against the Governours in Concreto naming them For there being no Treason without Allegiance And Allegiance being a personall Obligation must be due from a certain known Person to a certain known Person or Persons And therefore the Keepers of the Liberties of England not being yet made known to us who they are or where to be found or what their power duty or office is and being not tied by any set Oath to deal well and truly with the People as Kings are by their Coronation Oath for if the stipulation be not mutuall the People are Slaves not subjects since the Duties of Allegiance and Protection Obedience and Command being reciprocall as they must needs be the Parliament having declared the Supreme power to be in the People they must not govern them Mero Imperio by lawlesse Votes like Turkish Tartarian and Russian Slaves I cannot ow nor perform Allegiance to those individua vaga the Keepers or Gaolers of our Liberties nor to an Utopian Commonwealth And without Allegiance no Treason for in all Endictments of High Treason it must be alledged That the accused did Proditoriè perpetrate such and such Crimes Contra debitam Allegantiam suam And the word Proditoriè signifies the betraying of a Trust According to the Proverbe In Trust is Treason Now where there is no profession of Allegiance there is no acceptance of a Trust no man can trust me against my will I was born under a Regall Government have read the Stat. Recognition 1. Jac. Have taken as well as others the Legall Oathes of Allegiance Obedience and Supremacy to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successors imposed upon me by lawfull Authority and from which no power on Earth can absolve me and so much I attest in the Oath of Supremacy And how I should now come after the New Moduling of the Parliament and Kingdome by Souldiers to ow Allegiance to Cromwell the Brewer Scot the Brewers Clerk Bradshaw the murderous petty fogger Sr. Hen. Mildmay the Court pander and projector Holland the Linckeboy John Trenchard that packed a Committee in which he was a Member and Voted to himself 2000l Love the super-inducted Six Clerk or any other of that Self-created Authority let them sheath their swords and tell me 2. An Endictment must certainly alledge the Offence committed in respect of the Matter Time Place persons and other circumstances But in these Articles of Impeachment they tie themselves to no such certainties Whereby the Accused knows not at what ward to lie nor how to make his Defence The Circumstances of time place and person being the assured Testimony of all Humane Actions This lawlesse Court leaves him in a vast Sea of Troubles without pole-starre card or compasse to steer by The Arbitrary Opinions of this Court declared upon emergent Occasions being a fals hearted Pilot to him These Judges not being of Counsell with the prisoner as our Legal Judges are who swear to do Justice according to the Law 3. By the Law any learned man that is present may inform the Court for the benefit of the prisoner of any thing that may make the proceedings erronious Cooks 3. Instit. pag. 29. But the whole proceedings of this Court their meeting and sitting being erronious here is no room left for admonition To take away their errours is to take away the Court 4. Cooks 2. Inst. p. 51. expounding the 29. chapter of Magna Charta hath these words All Commissions ought to be grounded upon the Law of England not upon the Votes of the House of Commons and to contain this clause in them To do what is just according to the Laws customs of England not to execute the several powers given them by the Act 26. March 1650 and a little further he saith Against this Antient and Fundamentall Law I finde an Act of Parliament made 11. Hen. VII chap. 3. That as well Justices of Assize as Justices of the Peace without any finding or presentment by the verdict of twelve men upon a bare Information for the King before them made should have full power and Authority by their Discretions to hear and determine all Offences Contempts committed or done by any person or persons against the Form Ordinance or effect of any Statute made and not repealed saving Treason Murder or Felony By colour of which Act shaking this Fundamentall Law it is not credible what horrible Oppressions and Exactions to the undoing of infinite number of people were Committed by Empson and Dudley Justices of the Peace throughout England And upon this unjust and injurious Act a new Office was erected as commonly in like cases it falleth out and they made Masters of the Kings Forfeitures I heare such an other Office will be erected when the novelty of this wonderfull High Court is lessened and the yoak thereof throughly setled upon the people necks Yet observe the said Act 11. H. 7. cap 3. went not so high as to Treason Murder and Felony But by the Stat. 1. Hen. VIII chap. 6. the said Act 11. Hen. VII was repealed and the reason given For that by force of the said Act it was manifestly known That many sinister and crafty forged and feigned Informations had bin pursued against many of the Kings Subjects to their great dammage and wrongful vexation The ill successe hereof saith Cooke and the fearful end of these two Oppressors who were Endicted and suffered for High Treason for all the said Act 11. Hen. VII passed in a full and free Parliament Cook 3. Instit. pag. 208. Should admonish Parliaments That in stead of this Ordinary and pretious Triall by the Law of the Land they bring not in Absolute and partiall Tryals by discretion And in his 4. Instit. p. 41. Cook saith
Souldiers were not so wicked as their Masters Yet we daily see many good Families in England despoiled of their Estates for want of protection of the laws brought to miserable beggery rather than they will wrong their consciences by subscribing this damnable Engagement contrary to the Protestation and Covenant imposed by this Parliament contrary to the known law of this land which this Parliament hath declared to observe and keep in all things concerning the lives liberties and properties of the people with all things incident thereto contrary to this Parliaments reiterated votes that they would not change the Ancient Government by a King Lords and Commons And contrary to the Oathes of Allegeance Obedience and Supremacy whereby and by the Stat. of Recognition 1. Jac. our Allegeance is tied onely to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successers from which no power on earth can absolve us and so much we attest in the Oath of Supremacy Politicus Interpreter to our new State-Puppet play Numb. 19. from Sept. 19. to Sept. 26. out of the dictates of his Masters tells us that in Answer to the Kings Act of oblivion granted the Parliament intends to passe an Act of Generall pardon for which they expect in future a Generall obedience submission to the government you see though they will not be the Kings subjects they will be his Apes and in the beginning of the said Pamphlet Politicus saith That Protection implies obedience otherwise they may be handled as publike Enemies and outlawes and ought to be destroyed as Traitors Here you have the end to which this generall pardon is intended it is but a shooing-horn to draw on the utmost penalty upon Non-engagers appointed by the said pretended Act 2. Ian. 1649. to weed them out of this good Land that the Saints only may enjoy the earth and the fullness thereof to which purpose all their new coyned Acts and Lawes are directed The Scripture points forth these kind of men when it saith The Mercies of the wicked are cruell The sum of all is If we will not acknowledge Allegeance to these Mush-romes we shall be Traitors without Alleageance a Treason never yet heard of in any Law If we will acknowledge Allegeance we put our selves in a capacity to be Traitors when they shall please to make us such But let them know That we are all Englishmen Free-born alike under the Protection of an antient legall Monarchy to which we owe Alleageance and how we come to forfeit that legall Protection our setled laws and Government and be subjected to a New unknowne Protection obtruded upon us by a Company of upstarts Mushromes of Majesty so meane in birth and breeding for the most part that the place of a Constable equalls the highest of their education imposing what Lawes and conditions upon us they please I would be glad to heare without being hindered by Guns Drums High Courts of Iustice and other Instruments of violence Murder But the greatest Mistery in this cheat is That our Self-created Supremists having voted the originall power to be in the people and but a derivative Authority to be in themselves as the Representative of the people should notwithstanding so yoake their Soveraigne Lord the people and make them pay Allegeance to their own Delegates the 8. part of a House of Commons under the penalty unless they subscribe as the far major part have not of outlawing and depriving all the people of this Land of all benefit of the Lawes they were born to and consequently of annihilating and making them no longer a Nation or people As if they were meer Salvages newly conquered collected and formed into a Politike body or Commonwealth and endowed with Laws newly invented by these Novice Statists But the unlawfullness of the said Engagement with the Injustice of the Self-created power that obtrudeth it hath been handled by many good pens especially by the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers in their Plea for Non-Subcribers Therfore I passe on to my principall scope The second Engine appointed to root out all such as are of a different Party The High Court of Iustice A formidable Monster upon which no pen that I know of hath yet adventured 4. In treating of the High Court of Iustice I must consider 1. By what Persons and Authority this new erected unpresidented Court is constituted 2. Of what Persons it is constituted 3. The way and manner of their proceedings What formalities and Lawes they observe therein How sutable to the known Laws of the Land and the Parliaments Declarations Protestations and Covenant they are 4. To what end this Court is constituted 1. The Persons constituting this extrajudiciall Court are the present pretended Parliament consisting of 40 or 50 thriving Commons only who conspired with Cromwell and the Army to expell 7. parts of 8. of their follow-Members without any cause showne abolished the House of Peers erected this High Court of Iustice in nature of a Court Martiall to murder the King abolished Kingly Government Turned it into a thing they call a Free-State disinherited the Royall Family and now usurp to themselves without any calling from God or the People more then a Regall Legall or Parliamentary Authority wherewith they have subverted the Fundamentall Government Religion Laws Liberties and Property of the Nation and envassallised enslaved them to their Arbitrary Domination the Authority by which they erect this extrajudiciall Court is The usurped Legislative power By colour of which they passed an Act dated 26. March 1650. establishing the said High Court of Iustice Yet their own creature Master St. Johns in his Argument against the E. of Strafford in a Book called Speeches and Passages of this great happy Parliament printed by William Cook 1641. pag. 24. saith The Parliament is the Representative of the whole Kingdom wherin the King as head The Lords as the more Noble the Commons the other Members are knit together as one body Politick The Lawes are the Arteries Ligaments that hold the body together And a little after Its Treason to embesell a Judiciall Record Strafford swept them all away It s Treason to counterfeit a 20s peece here is a counterfeiting of Law so in these counterfeit new Acts we can call neither the counterfeit nor true one our own It s Treason to counterfeit the great Seale for an acre of Land no property hereby is left to any Land at all no more is there by the votes practise of our new Supremists thus far Master St. Iohns But that the Parliament doth necessarily consist of the King the two Houses assembled by his Writ can passe no Act without their joint consent See the Praeambles of all our Statutes all our Parliament Records all our Law Books Modus tenendi Parliamentum Hackwells manner of passing Bills Sr. Tho. Smith de Repub. Anglorum Cambdeni Britannia All our Historians Polititians and the uninterrupted practise of all Ages That it is now lately otherwise practised is
3. To repell an Injury done to your self or to your Ally in league with you The ultimate end of these wicked Endeavours is To establish and cement with the bloud of their Adversaries the Kingdom of the Brambles or Saints already founded in bloud By cutting off all such by their said New Acts of Treason and High Court of Justice as will not bow their Necks to their Iron yoake Which appears more cleerely in an Additionall Act giving farther power to the said High Court dated 27. Aug. 1650. To hear and determine all Misprisions or concealments of Treasons mentioned or contained in any of the said Articles or Acts of Parliaments And to inflict such punishments and award such execution as by the Lawes and Statutes have bin or may be inflicted This Lawe if I miscall it not considering how they have multiplied Treasons by their said 3 New Statutes 14. May 17. July 1649. and 26 March 1650. Whereby bare words without Act are made High Treason Contrarie to those well approved Statutes 25. Ed. III. chap. 2. 1. Hen. IV. chap. 10. 1. Edw. VI chap. 12. I. Mariae chap. 1. Cooke 3. Instit. saith That words may make an Heretique not a Traitor Chap. High Treason And the Scripture denounceth a wo to him That maketh a man an Offender for a word is one of the cruelst and most generally dangerous and entrapping that ever was made For hereby all Relations Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brothers and Sisters Masters and Servants are all injoyned to be informers against and Accusors of one another which is to take upon them the Devils Office and be Accusatores Fratrum for light and vain words spoken onely in Passion or ignorantly or else they fall into the Jawes of this alldevouring Court from whence no more then from Hell there is no Redemption for Misprision of Treason the Penaltie whereof is losse of Libertie and Lands for life and of Goods for ever Who can imagine lesse heerby but that our Statistes intend to raise a yearly revenue by this Court by Forfeitures and Confiscations and to erect an Office of Master of the States Forfeitures like Empsons and Dudleis in Hen. VII time aforesaid And so continue this Court to weede out the Auntient Inhabitants Cananites and Amalechites The said Additional Act 27. Aug. 1650. concludes That the said High Court shall not examine Try or proceed against any Person other then such as shall be first by name appointed by the Parliament or Counsel of State It should seem the Parliament and Counsel of State supply the want of a Grand Enquest and their Appointment is in stead of a Bill of Enditement found and presented As assuredly as The High Inquisition was erected in Spain by Firdinando and Isabella to extirpate the Mahometan Moors And the said Councel of Bloud in the Lowe Countries by the Duke D'Alva to weed out the Lutherans Calvinistes and Anabaptistes So is this High Court set up in England to root out the Royallistes Presbyterians and Levellors and generally all that will not wholly concurre with our Independents in Practise and Opinions As will manifestly appear when their work is don in Scotland which will soon be effected the more zealous Scots being now as ready to sell their Kingdom as they weare formerly to sell their King I Conclude therefore upon the Reasons aforesaid That because the Commissioners or Judges are not sworn to do Justice according to the Lawes And are Parties pre-in-gaged as well as their Masters and Pay-Masters that named them ignorant men and of vild and base professions uncapable of places of Judicature Necessitous Persons and some of them Scandalous and the High Court it self hath neither Law President nor any just Authority for Constituting thereof or the Judges therein And all proceedings before them are directly Contrary to Magna Charta the Statut. 25. Edw. III. chap. 2. The Petition of Right and all other known and Established Laws and the continual Practise of our Nation and in many Points Contrary to the Law of God and the Dictates of Right Reason That these Commissioners are Incompetent Judges Their Court an Extrajudicial Conventicle tending to disinherite disfranchise and enslave all the Free-men of the Nation and all Proceedings before them are void and Coram non Judice See Col Andrews 3. Answers The said High Court of Justice to be a meer bloudy Theater of Murder and Oppression It being against Common Reason and all Laws Divine and Humane That any man should be Judge in his own Cause Neminem posse in sua Causa Judicem esse Is the Rule in Law But this Parliament and Counsell of State know they can not establish and confirm their usurped Tyrannie The Kingdom of the Saints eaâ—e up the People with Taxes and share Publike Lands Offices and Mony amongst themselves enslave the Nation to their Lawles wills and Pleasures but by cutting off the most able and active men of all opposite Parties by som such expedient as this Arbitrary Lawlesse High Court is The old Legall way by Juries being found by John Lilbourns Triall to be neither sure enough nor speedy enough to do their work A Butcher-Rowe of Judges being easier packed then a Jury who may be challenged So that it fareth with the People of England as with a Traviler fallen into the hands of Theeves First they take away his Purse And then to secure themselves they take away his life So they Robbe him by Providence And then Murder him by Necessity And to bring in their Third Insisting Principle they may alleage They did all this upon Honest Intentions to enrich the Saints and robb the Egiptians With these 3. Principles they Justify all their Villanies Which is an Invention so meerely their own That the Devil must acknowledge They have propagated his Kingdome of Sinne and Death more by their Impudent Justifications then by their Turbulent Actions An Additional Postscript SInce the Conclusion of the Premises hath happened the Trial of that worthy Knight Sr. John Stowell of the County of Sommerset Who having bin often before this Court hath so well defended himself and wiped off all Objections and made such good use of the Articles of the Rendition of Excester that in the Opinion of all men and in despite of their ensnaring Acts for New Treasons he can not be adjudged guilty of any Treason Old or New which was the Summe and Complement of the Charge against him Wherefore the Court put off his Trial for a longer time to hunt for New Crimes and witnesses against him At last came into the Court as a witnes John Ashe notwithstanding he is a Party many waies engaged against him 1. Ashe is a Parliament man in which capacity Sr. John Stowell bore Armes for the King against him 2ly Ashe as a Parliament man is one of the constitutors of this Murderous Court and the Judges thereof and therefore their Creatures who expect rewards from them beare a more awfull respect to his