whereof was by his own Confession an Irish Popish Priest and by the Assistance of their over-pow'ring Army voted down suppressed and shut up the House of Peers as useless and dangerous inforced themselves into a Republick and the Nation who by the Laws of God and the King and their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were bound as well as themselves to the contrary to Ingage never more to admit of a King and House of Lords and in some of their Answers to their Brethren of Scotland who urged and taxed them with some of their Promises concerning His late Majesty said that they hoped they would not make their Promises to be Obligations And in their Declaration Printed and Published to give Satisfaction to all the World that would believe them of the Reasons of their Actions and turning themselves into a Common-wealth endeavoured to assert that in all Promises a Tacite Condition and Proviso was ever to be understood as annexed unto them So always that they did not prejudice or inconvenience the Party promising And forgetting that they had prosecuted the late Earl of Strafford and caused him to be put to Death upon a pretence of his Subversion of Laws which he never did but they themselves really and frequently did Murdered their King Banished His now Majesty the Prince and the rest of his Children and used their utmost endeavors to Extirpate all the Royal Progeny scorned and abused the Laws tumbled tossed and ploughed up the Liberties Proprieties and Estates of the Loyal Party and made some Ignotos and invisible they themselves never knew and who were less to be understood than King Oberon and his Fairy Queen to be stiled the Keepers of the Liberties of England voted the Courts of Chancery King's-Bench Common Pleas and Exchequer to be dissolved and ordered the Records thereof to be destroyed and thrown into the River of Thames and were not all that while in dread of any Arbitrary Power and a Standing Army when to the great Charge of the People they could not think themselves safe without it But tamely suffered Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin and greatest of Hypocrites to put a trick upon them and teach them the Truth and Doctrine of Divine Retalliation by dissolving the Reliques of the over-long Parliament pulling out the remaining Members with Soldiers and Musquettiers and shutting up the Doors of that House of Commons and could for the Preservation of their ill-gotten Estates like Isachar bow down unto the burden and be well content to believe it to be no violation of the Privileges of Parliament no Arbitrary Power or Introduction to it nor any Destruction of the Liberties of the People and suffer him upon the 16 th of December 1653. in the presence of the Commanders and Officers of his Army attended by the miscalled Lords Commissioners of the pretended great Seal of England Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London divers of the over awed Judges of the Land and many other Persons said to be of Quality to declare himself by an Instrument in Writing of his own framing Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland Disannul and Abrogate the antient form of Parliaments constitute a New and Ordain that the Persons Elected to be Members for ever afterwards should be approved by the major part of his Council and the succeeding Protectors who were most of them Major Generals and Commanders in his Standing Army of Oppressors That an yearly Revenue should be raised settled and established for the maintaining of Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland for the Defence and Security thereof and a Convenient Number of Ships for guarding of the Seas besides Two hundred thousand Pounds per Annum for defraying the other necessary Charges and Expences of the Government Which Revenues were to be raised by the Customs and such other ways and means as should be agreed upon by him and his Council That the Lands Tenements Rents Royalties Jurisdictions and Hereditaments which remained unsold and undisposed by Acts or Ordinances of Parliament belonging to the Common-Wealth except the Forests and Chases and the Honors and Mannors appertaining thereunto the Lands of the Rebels in Ireland and the four Counties of Dublin Cork Kildare and Caterlaugh the Lands forfeited by the People of Scotland in the late Wars and the Lands of Papists and Delinquents in England who had not then Compounded should together with the Debts Fines Issues Amerciaments Penalties and Profits certain and casual due to the Keepers of the Liberties of England by Authority of Parliament be vested in the Lord Protector and his Successors Lord Protectors of the aforesaid Nations not to be aliened but by consent of Parliament which made him no less an yearly Revenue as some of his own Party did calculate it then Eighteen hundred Thousand Pounds sterling per Annum That for the preventing of Disorders and Dangers which might fall out both at Sea and Land he should have Power until the meeting of the first Parliament which was to be once in every Three years to raise Money for the purposes aforesaid And to make Laws and Ordinances for the Peace and welfare of these Nations which should be binding and in force until order should be taken in Parliament concerning the same That the exercise of the Chief Magistrate and the Administration of the Government over the said Countries and Dominions should be in the Lord Protector assisted with a Council not exceeding Twenty one or less than Thirteen That he should in the Intervals of Parliament dispose and order the Militia and Forces of the Three Nations for the Peace and good thereof with the advice and consent of the major part of his Council That the Number of 60 Elected and chosen or approved as aforesaid being easie enough to be tempted by Preferment or over-awed by a standing Army should be deemed a Parliament for the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland That he and every successive Lord Protector should take an Oath that he would not Violate or Infringe the matters and things contained in that Instrument of Government And when afterwards to prevent the Juries Scruples of Conscience and unwillingness to give their Verdicts against the Law and the King 's Loyal Party as he would have them erected in Westminster-Hall his High Court of Justice or Shambles as some of the People not unfitly termed it adorned with Red and Blood-demonstrating Colours to Try and Condemn such Innocent Persons as he should call Offenders not according to the Law but the unbounded rules of his vulgar Reason of State guided by a standing Army of 30000 Horse and Foot baffled and disgraced the Laws and reasonable Customs of England maimed and cut off as much as he could of it as Adonizedek did the Thumbs and Toes of his Captive Kings altered and destroyed all he could the form and rationality of the Proceedings thereof and caused the Writs and
Ursa Major Minor OR A Sober and Impartial ENQUIRY Into those Pretended Fears and Jealousies OF Popery and Arbitrary Power WITH Some Things offered to Consideration touching His MAJESTIE' 's League made with the King of FRANCE upon Occasion of his Wars with Holland and the United Provinces IN A LETTER Written to a Learned FRIEND LONDON Printed for H. S. MDCLXXXI SIR IF a very long and sad for many years together often repeated Experience with the sence of very many National and Universal needless Miseries which are so certainly to be believed as all the People of the Nation the wickedly-gaining Party by it only excepted may safely make Affidavit of it were able to obtain any thing or prevail with us not one but every man should think that it was and would be a duty Incumbent upon every English-man and true Lover of his King and Countrey for there be too many Counterfeits who do not well understand either the one or the other to abhor and fly as the affrighted Greek and Relator of the Strength and Gigantine Cruelties of the monstrous Polyphemus did with a Fugite ô Fugite from the Phantasms of those ungrounded Fears and Jealousies which usher'd in and fomented that Subversion of our Religion Laws and Liberties especially when it is not yet gone out of memory how many Dismal and ever to be lamented Effects and Calamities the inflamed and affrighted Vulgar and too hasty and inconsiderate Factious part of the People in the Years 1641 and 1642. with the Fancies of Popery and Arbitrary Power and Dangers rushing in upon us viz. a Plague-Plaister supposed to have been Attempted to be delivered to their great Champion Mr. John Pym to Infect and Destroy him Horses kept and trained under Ground the Lord Digby in his Coach and six Horses upon his ordinary occasions appearing at Kingston upon Thames in a Warlike manner with many other dressed up Bugbears not enough to affright old Women and young Children have brought upon us and that a Bloody and Costly War Murder of their King and fellow Subjects Rapine and Spoil of each other the washing over in Blood and almost Destruction of Three Kingdoms and the Ruine of Church and State have been the Products of them And when all was done could not assign any other Ground or Cause for it than Rebellion that Sin of Witchcraft and the Relish and Content which was found in the violation of all the Commandments in the second Table of the dreadfully by God himself pronounced Decalogue and as much as they could of the first and by yielding up their Discretions to the first Summons of their Fears of Imaginary apparitions of Dangers have made themselves to be well deserving or fit for the Reproach or Castigation which St. Paul used to a far less intoxicated People O ye foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you Though your Learning long Conversation and large acquaintance with history together with your curious recherches and retrospection into the Affairs of the World and Ages past a great Insight into the Politiques and a strict watch and observation kept upon the Causes Effects and Events of Actions of State and as many of the Reasons and Intrigues thereof as are proper and do usually come to publick View may sufficiently fortifie you against those kind of Impressions which have bespoken and taken up so much room in the Minds of such as are less Cognisant or do too much accustome themselves to make their Designs to be the only measure of their own Errors in Judgment which are not seldom built upon guess or contraries yet lest your great care and vigilance in all the Concernments of the Protestant Religion and the Property and just Rights of the Subjects should raise in you more than ordinary Apprehensions and carrying you down the Rapid stream of those great mistakings bereave you of that Happiness which hitherto hath attended the Temper and Tranquillity of your Mind and make you a Prisoner to those Fears and false Alarms which your more Sedate Thoughts will I assure my self tell you are not to be numb'red amongst those quoe in virum Constantem cadere possint which can ever be able to disturb the quiet and repose of a Man who from the mountains of Time hath looked further than yesterday and by the Rules of Prudence Policy and former Examples may with more certainty than Astrology ever afforded foresee what is likely to happen I have adventured here inclosed to send you my Thoughts and Sentiments which I hope will not want your Candid Reception especially when they shall but bring before you and your judicious Censure the Considerations that there will be enough surely to satisfie and quiet the most timerous or melancholick Persons who too often trouble themselves with their own Imaginations that the increase of Popery since the Statutes of the first and 23 th of Queen Eliz. and 3 d of King James in the year 1638. when Liberty Pretence of Religion and Conscience began to run out of their Wits and never stayed until they came to an Open and Horrid Rebellion hath been so little although the Popish Party have gained too many great Advantages by that and our many Divisions in Matters of Religion and Church Government and our late National Debaucheries and Atheism which do carry too many into the Delusions of Popery As it may if a strict accompt were taken probably enough ascertain us that there hath been rather a Decrease than an Increase of it And that if Commissions which will be no way inconsistent with the Rules and reason of Law and good Government were granted by His Majesty unto Orthodox Loyal Discreet Sober and Unbyassed Persons in every County and City of England and Wales to Inquire and Certifie how many Papists there are therein Resident the Result and Conclusion will assure His Majesty and His great Council of Parliament that there is not above Five in every Hundred of the Nation if so many that are guilty of direct Popery or Infected with it and in Scotland not many more unless that small Number should happen something to be increased by the late addition of the Jesuited Masquerade counterfeit Protestants And their increase in Riches or Estate not like to be much when they that shall be Convict and have no Lands or real Estate are by the Statutes of 29 Eliz. to forfeit and pay 20 l. every Month. And they that have Lands and real Estate are to pay 2 parts the whole in the 3 parts to be divided by the Statute of 3 Jac. ca. 4. And if that should not impoverish their Estates and make them less terrible than the Anakims it would nevertheless be effected by the Maintenance Necessities and corroding of their Priests and Jesuits with the multitude of Papal Exactions and Contributions to foreign Colleges and Religious Houses Pensions Censes Peter-pence Procurations Suits for Provisions Expeditions of Bulls Appeals Rescripts Dispensations Licenses Grants Relaxations Writs of Perinde
Michaelmas Term by a Select Grand Jury of the County of Middlesex cause an enquiry to be made although it were to be wished it might be after the antient manner by Articles delivered unto them in Writing to be distinctly answered unto Offences committed against the King and his Crown and Dignity of all Confederacies Champerties Maintenance Trespasses Extortions and Grievances done to the King's Subjects by any Arch-Bishops Bishops Dukes Earls Barons Servants Officers Coroners and Ministers of the King or by any other whatsoever of breach of the Peace denying of Bail on those who ought to be Bailed and of all manner of Oppressions and Grievances of the People When the numerous Justices of Peace in every County being as too many of them Baronets Serjeants and Men of Law Knights Elquires and Gentlemen of good Quality Families Estates and Education are Sworn and imployed not only to be Guardians and Conservators of the Peace of the King and his People to suppress Felonies Riots and the lower and most Common sort of Exorbitancies and Misdemeanors but to take Care of the Execution of many Laws and Statutes committed to their Trust and with the Method and Order appointed by our Laws and Ancient and reasonable Customs of presenting an Inquiry of Grievances by our many Court-Leets Sheriffs Tournes and County Courts Subordinate one under the other to the Superiour Courts of Westminster and they unto their Supream Authority the King It will be the Peoples own fault and neglect of their own Concernments if any Grievances or Oppression pass undiscernable uncomplained of or unpunished or if any Arbitrary Power or Extravagances do invade or break in upon the Nation who by the fence and care of our Laws and many times Confirmed Liberties which for more than 500 years last past have been building repairing and polishing to a perfection more than the Hebrew Greek or Roman Laws did ever attain unto the Laws which God himself made for that peculiar people only excepted And may if by our Sins and Provocations of God Almighty the Inspector of our unparallel'd Misdeeds and Punisher of them when his wrath shall be kindled and have no longer patience the Walls of our Happiness shall not be demolished our Liberties put to the Sword and our Laws led into Captivity be as safe as Humane Prudence and Laws can possibly make them More especially when our Courts of Justice at Westminster-Hall are governed by Judges and Men of great Wisdom and Integrity Sworn to observe the Laws and Judge according to their Direction and our Lawyers at the Bars freely permitted with fitting reference rightly to inform and plead their Clients Cases And the King 's high Court of Chancery the Officina Justiriae under the Teste me ipso of the Watchman under God of our Israel Superintending over them giveth Writs remedial to all that ask for them with helps for extraordinary Emergencies or to allay the Severity of Laws and makes it its business to punish and forbid Frauds and Oppressions The Masters of Chancery Annually stipended by the King formare Brevia originalia remedialia and to be Assistants subordinately to that High and Honourable Court in matters of Accompt and References The Rule of Chancery being ever since the Statute of Westm ' the second made in the 13 th year of the Reign of King Edward the First quod nullus recedat à Cancellaria sine remedio Concordent Clerici and the Officers and Clerks of the Chancery thereunto appointed are from time to time to do their utmost endeavours to provide Remedies for all that Complain Nè Justitia deficeret Conquerentibus And as to lesser Matters of Complaints and often Emergencies Pensioneth by good yearly Salaries 4 Learned and venerable Men of worth called Masters of Requests or Supplicationum libellorum who by turns and courses each Master being deputed to his Month have their audience Twice or oftener in that Time of the King to give Answers to their Petitions And the King in matters wherein any of his Rights and what appertaineth unto him are concerned gives his People leave by Petition or monstrans du droit Traverses oustre les mames c. to obtain what they can prove to be due unto them and where any of his Letters Patents are grievous and against the Law suffers them to be repealed by Writs of Scire facias brought against the Patentees And if any of the People should be so unhappy in the Intrigues or Difficulties of their Cases as they cannot be relieved by any of those provided Remedies from any supposed Arbitrary Power of their Prince or any Illegal oppressing Actions of one Subject against another they have the Liberty of Appeals from the Inferior Courts of Justice to the Superior and in Matters concerning breach of the Peace and of Misdemeanors within the Cognisance of the Justices of Peace may appeal from them to the Justices of Assize and from them to the King and his Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and if not by any of those ways to be relieved are in Cases not concerning Free-hold not debarred their Appeals to the King and his Privy Council where they are the King himself being very often present judiciously and deliberately heard upon all the Pleas and Arguments which the Councel Learned in the Law on both sides can make one against the other And Remedies also against all the Assaults of Grievances are not difficult to be come at in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Courts of Admiralty where when the Subjects Complaints cannot be remedied they do easily obtain the King's Commission of Delegates to other Judges and if that do not answer their Expectations may have a Commission of Adjuncts to other Judges to be added unto them And in these or other Courts where the Potency of the one part and the Poverty of the other hath disabled the weaker from attending the formalities of Justice or croud of many other Causes he may have a Commission ob lites dirimendas granted by the King out of his High Court of Chancery to some good and wise men to endeavor as much as they can a more speedy Remedy The Dermier Resort last Appeal ultimum refugium of the People in their seeking for Justice being so necessarily Inherent in the Crown as none but they that wear it can justly claim any Right unto it but have always been enjoyed not only by our British Saxon and Danish Kings before the Norman Conquest but all our Kings which Succeeded them And if there they find no help are like enough if therebe cause of Justice in their Complaints not to fail of Relief by Petition to the King when he is assisted with the advice of his Lords and Commons in Parliament All which with many other Laws and reasonable Customs Priviledges and Liberties like so many Cittadels Block-houses Out-works and Strong Castles and Forts which divers of our ancient and reasonable Customs and Acts of Parliament
have in the making of other Laws from time to time been careful upon all occasions to erect and build to help to guard and protect their Liberties Rights and Priviledges together with the very great care which the Judges restraining all non obstantes of Acts of Parliament and Regal Dispensations unto what the Law allows or to the King 's particular Concernments do take in all their Judgments and Decisions Expositions Applications and Interpretations of Laws to assist and support the just Rights and Proprieties of the Subjects in their Lands and Estates and not in the least to prejudice them in their Common Assurances by Fines and Common Recoveries The Severity used by divers of our Kings in the Punishment of Briberies Extortions or Byassed and Illegal flattering Opinions of Judges The Oaths of the Lords and others of the King 's Privy Council who are usually the Greatest Noble and most concerned Men of Estate and Interest of the Nation Oath of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England well and truly to serve the King and his People and to do right to all manner of People according to the Law and Usages of the Realm Oaths of the Judges to do equal Law and execution of Right to all the King's Subjects rich and poor without having regard to any Person to deny no man Common Right by the King's Letters nor none other Mans nor for none other Cause Oaths of the King's Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve him and his People and as duly and hastily speed such Matters as any Man shall have against the King in the Law as they may lawfully do without delay or tarrying the Party for his lawful Process The Oaths of other Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve the King and his People and truly Counsel them Oaths of the Justices of Peace to do equal right to the Poor as to the Rich after the Laws and Customs of the Realm and Statutes thereof made Oaths of the Sheriffs to do right to Poor as well as Rich in all that belongeth to their Office to disturb no Man's Right nor to do wrong to any Man And the Oaths of the Escheators Clerks of the Chancery and Coroners with the Oaths of the Officers of Courts Under-Sheriffs and Bailiffs well and to execute Justice All which several Degrees of Men in the Nation would be as unwilling as any others to have the Lives Liberties and Estates of themselves and their Posterities or dearest Relations sacrificed to a lawless and unlimitted Power of their Kings and Princes And the Oaths of our Kings at their several Coronations to conserve the Liberties of the People and observe all the good Laws made by their Royal Progenitors and Predecessors with the Impossibility that ever the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled will consent to the abrogating of any of the aforesaid Laws and reasonable Customs be felones de se or deliver up themselves and their Posterities to the absolute Will and Pleasure of their Succeeding Kings and Princes may abundantly evidence how safely and securely the Property and Liberties of the People until Rebellion foolishly fancied Fears and Jealousies with their Discords distrust and plundering of one another shall put them under such another yoke as Oliver Cromwell had cheated them into may rest and are like inviolably to continue for ever protected against any the Incroachments of Arbitrary Power whilst they live under their King 's ancient Government Of which His late Majesty was so careful and so willing to dislodge all manner of Jealousies out of the Minds of his Subjects as he did in the Third year of his Reign give his Royal Assent as they call'd it unto their Petition of Right and made it an Act of Parliament wherein he not only Confirmed their Magna Charta and Charta Forestoe but the Act of Parliament assented unto by King Edward the First De Tallagio non Concedendo The Act of Parliament made in the First year of the Reign of King Edward the Third cap. 6. The Act of Parliament made in the 25 th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King That no Man should be compelled to make any Loans to the King against his will The Statutes of the 28 E. 3. ca. 3. 37 E. 3. ca. 18. 38 E. 3. ca. 9. 42 E. 3. ca. 3. 11 R. 2. ca. 9. 17 R. 2. ca. 6. and 1 R. 3. ca. 2. Charged all his Officers and Ministers to serve him according to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm as they tendered the Honour of his Majesty and the Prosperity of the Kingdom Banished as he hoped for ever all their Fears of the Infringing of their Liberties and given cause of Content to them and that Parliament to such a satiety such a fulness and nè plus ultra as unless they would have been Consortes Imperii and require to have a share in his Regality and Government there was no more to be asked or requested of him or granted by him Imprisoned shortly after in the Tower of London John Earl of Clare and the greatly Learned Selden for but having Copies in their Custody of some Florentine and Foreign Laws and Customs proposed by Sir Robert Dudley a Titular Duke of Tuscany to be imitated by him here in England as a means to raise Money by Impositions laid upon the People and caused his Attorney General to exhibit a Bill against them in the Star-Chamber for Disquieting his Subjects with Fears and Jealousies And was so ready from time to time to Condescend to their Infirmities and give Satisfaction to them in all their Concerns and Scruples as he suffered those two great Cases of the Habeas Corpus and the Ship Money wherein his necessary Prerogative for the good of himself and his People was not a little concerned to be publickly and solemnly argued in the Course and Method of the Laws in foro Contradictorio before the Judges and shewed no displeasure afterwards but much kindness unto Justice Hutton and Justice Croke who in the Case of the Ship Money had in their Arguments and Opinions delivered thereupon against him in the Exchequer Chamber dissented from all the rest and greater number of the Judges And His now Royal Majesty treading the good old Paths of Queen Elizabeth his Grandfather King James and his Royal Father doth in all Matters of difficulty in the absence of Parliaments where the Laws and Justice of the Nation are likely to be more than ordinarily concerned consult and advise with the Judges hath not long ago Superseded one of them for some harsh usage and discontent given to the Countrey in his Circuits and takes all the care he can to choose and make Judges and his Learned Council at the Law out of the most able honest experienced and eminent practisers of it and hath but lately in several of his Speeches in Parliament declared and promised that he would give his consent unto any good Laws
of any of their Kings and Princes at once with an Addition afterwards of another Pardon or Abolition of a lesser size for Offences and Forfeitures since committed and did not only restore unto all the Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England and Wales their forfeited Charters Privileges and Liberties but enlarged and gave unto many of them more than they had before And was so unwilling to Punish those that had done him and his Royal Father Mother Brothers Sisters those almost impossible to be forgotten or forgiven most execrable Villanies as he not only Pardoned but gave them profitable Employments who to their shame cozened him all they could and moulded themselves into a Faction of Repeating as many Impieties as they had been guilty of before and was so over Clement and forgiving as he imployed and did not Punish one that was proved to have said after His Majestie 's escape from the Battel of Worcester That if he had been taken he ought to have been stripped stark Naked led through the Streets with a Bridle thrust through an hole bored in his Nose Whipped at a Carts tail and afterwards Hanged Are not to be very angry or take it ill if they be charged with Partiality or Injustice or as great a Reproach as our Blessed Saviour bestowed upon the over-quick-sighted fault-finding Pharisee who could espy a mote as he thought in another's eye but not see a beam in his own but rather retire into themselves and upon a more strict Examination of their past evil Actions abhor themselves in dust and ashes cover their heads with shame weep repent and resolve to walk retrograde and persist no more in the gain-saying of Corah Datham and Abiram wherein they perished When they who would make every body as much afraid as they themselves do seem to fear an Inclination in His Majesty to an Arbitrary Power which he never did or is willing to exercise can almost every day joyn with others in Complaints of the no few of the Subordinate Magistrates usurping it against the mind and direction of the King and his Laws over their fellow Subjects by their Irregular courses Condemning and many times Imprisoning without Jury Trial legal Hearing or Proceedings And easily discern an yearly Custom of an illegally over-strained Power in the Lord Maiors of London Electing and Drinking unto many or more than needs in the Choice of two to be Sheriffs of London and Middlesex for the ensuing year and imposing and taking great Fines of the Refusers unto whom he needed not to have Drank whereby to gain some Thousands of Pounds yearly for the Fines of such as were unwilling or unfit to bear the Charge or Expence of those Offices and Imprison and Constrain them to pay them which are seldom less than 4 or 500 l. upon every such Refuser As if some fatal and successive Annual or fit of Thirst or kind Drinking was at a certain Time of every year to fall upon the Lord Maiors of that City to Drink more often and unto more than he should do And they that shall happen to be so imposed upon are sure to be out of hopes of getting themselves discharged of Imprisonment for not paying the Fine by Writs of Habeas Corpus and Bail which if the King should do every year in the Choice of Three presented unto him to serve as Sheriffs in all other Counties and Places of England and Wales no other City or Place therein making use of such a kind and loving Device to raise Moneys the Habeas Corpora Bells would Ring in all the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall and His Majesty would be troubled with the noise thereof And no small Arbitrary Power in their Courts of Orphants in London by Imprisoning a young Man in Newgate without Bail or Mainprise that had lawfully Married a City Orphant and his Father in like manner for contriving it And we may often hear and observe in the Guilds Fraternities and Companies of Trade and their Mysteries in the City of London an almost unbounded over absolute Power in their By-Laws which should be perused as it is more than a little probable they are not or but very seldom or cursorily by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Treasurer and the two Lord Chief Justices and allowed by them or any three of them to be according to the Law together with their giving of unlawful Oaths imposing of Taxes Quarteridges or Fines and Assessements as they please upon the Poorer sort of the Companies of Trades supernumerating their Livery Men in their Companies in making them to be twice as many as they were wont to be and inforcing them to Pay 20 or 25 l. a Man and be at the Charge of a reverend Gown faced with Furrs of Foynes or Budge and Imprison Men for not obeying them and their grinding superfluous Orders The Exactions and Arbitrary Power of the Church-Officers in the City of London and its overgrown Suburb Parishes in the Renting of Pews and Seats in the Churches making Strangers pay great and double Fees for Tolling the Passing Bell and Ringing of a Peal when there was no such Matters taking great Fees for Burying of the Dead in the Church or Chancel near an Husband Wife Father or Mother Brother or Sister where before they have lain there a quarter of a year or a little time they are sure to be taken up again and flung into a Common Vault to lodge amongst those that were Buried far cheaper conniving at or permitting the Parish Clerks Sextons or Grave-makers to sell the broken and sometimes pillaged Coffins of the Dead to be made fewel for fire or Bake-houses cozening the Living and Dead feasting and fatning themselves upon every small Consultation and Parish meeting for the good as they call it or little Business of the Parish as for the putting out a Bastard or Foundling or poor Parish Child to a Beggar to beg with and trouble the Streets withal at a low weekly rate and take the advantage to themselves of reckoning by a greater which have been the cause of such short Memories in Parish Politicks and Governments as the Accompt of a Legacy of Three hundred Pounds per Annum as they may be now demised in Houses and Tenements in a London Suburb Parish for as many hundred years ago for the Building of the Church yet standing upon its old Ruins is so vanished as it is not at all to be found and a royal Charity of One hundred and Twenty pounds given in the year 1625. by King Charles the Martyr in a Time of Pestilence could never be heard of and the Church wardens or Collectors of a near London Parish have been so over-watched for the good of the Parish and thereby rendred so sleepy or Lethargick as they could not good People as they would be thought to be tell which way One Thousand or Two Thousand pounds have escaped out of the Accompt and the fault
Coal and Hops be never so cheap or Ale the best must be taken off and the remainder being only water half boiled flung upon the strengthless grains is sent and served to the House-keeper for 6 s. Beer with the Excise laid upon it and made to be a Drink not fit to give Beasts quickly stinking and souring and by the Opinion of the London Physitians is a great if not an only cause of the Epidemick and now more than formerly Infection or Disease called the Scurvy not so much as heretofore taken notice of in the Bills of Mortality and that Beer though always over-hopped and imbittered to supply the want of Mault the People are constrained to be content with and if they will have it better are to pay Eight shillings a Barrel besides the Excise for that which should be but Six All which or a great part of it might by the Justice and Laws of the Nation be redressed if the Vintners who by a late Trick of glass Bottles now used in most Taverns bespoken and made to be but or not so much as a Pint and an half instead of a Quart and their elder Brethren the Brewers were but put in mind as they ought to be of the Statute entituled Assisa panis Cervisiae made in the 51 year of the Reign of King Henry the Third And another Statute made by that King in the same year called the Statute of the Pillory and Tumbrell both yet in force and unrepealed whereby the Offenders Vintners Brewers and Bakers are to be presented and amerced and for every default the Baker is to be adjudged to the Pillory and the Brewer and Vintner to the Tumbrell which was as it were in a Ducking-Stool now sometimes used over cleaner waters and applied to notorious Scolding and unquiet Women hanging over some muddy and unwholesome water being the Punishment of the Fossa or stinking Pits appropriate by the Grants of divers of our Kings to the Lords or Owners of great Mannors or Liberties having Assisas panis Cervisiae Which ill doings of the Brewers in their unconscionable and unchristian-like Arbitrary Power exercised as far as it can be stretched upon their fellow Subjects are imitated by the Alehouse keepers the Inferior and Retailing Masters of the Tap who would never have it be said or proved that they come short of their Founders great Abilities in the Arts or Knaveries of the Drink Profession or any of their Subtilties or Exactions And therefore to make it go with a double at the least rate or price or much more than it should be have to cheat and cozen the People in to an idle and ridiculous Expence devised several Names for Drinks as they shall please to call them though there be little or nothing of the supposed Ingredients in them as Cock Ale College Ale China Ale Scurvygrass Ale Lymmon or Orange Beer or Ale Hull Ale Northdown Ale Sambach Ale Doctor Butler's Ale cum multis alâ—â—s For which Adoptions sundry of those Promoters of Drunkenness do think they shall serve the Devil for nothing if they be not paid a double or greater rate and by that means and those measures make a shift to clear Four Pounds a Week and put it to griping Usury and in a short time make themselves the Owners of 3 or 400 l. per Annum and some of them 7 or 800 l. per 〈◊〉 And in their Ale-honesty can take no less in the Suburbs of London than a Peny for a Pint of Ale when in Southwark on the other side of the Thames better Brewed and made can be sold for an Half-Peny a Pint. The Woodmongers or Colliers can leap over all our Laws as they list and by Confederacy keep back the Collier New Castle Fleet and make them tarry in the lower part of the River of Thames and send up to London some stragling Cole-Ships to scarce and enhaunce the price of Coles insomuch as until His Majesty after many Complaints and a tired Patience had taken away their Charter they would at every extraordinary Frost or winterly weather never fail to raise the rates of Sea Coles in the space of a few Days or less than a Week unto 5 10 or 20 s. at a time and sometimes as high as 3 or 4 l. a Chaldron to the great Affliction and Impoverishment of the poorer sort of People when they might as they have done since the taking away of their Charter have afforded a Chaldron of Coles with gain enough under 20 s. a Chaldron Neither need we to have any Jury or Inquest impannelled in the search of an Arbitrary Power daily made use of in the City of London and Suburbs thereof by the People over one another the mighty over the weak and the rich over the poor And the Usurer and man of Money when he takes as much above the legal Interest for the loan of his Money as the necessities of the distressed Borrowers can perswade him unto and upon the Severity of an Execution or a forfeited Mortgage of Lands double or treble in value to the Money lent looks as Nebuchadonozer overlook'd his Babylon walks about like a Mogul or some unlimited Monarch of the East and as pittiless to the Supplication of the lamenting supplicant Borrower and the tears of his Wife and Children as the Hunger-bitten Woolf is with the Lamb under his bloody Paws and Fangs In company of whom do march the insinuating Imp of the Devil called the Tallyman with his closer and more Consumptive secretly biting Usury lending Eighteen Shillings to Market-Men and Women Heglers c. Such as cry necessary Food in the Streets instead of 20 s. upon the Tally and their own Security at the interest and rate of 12 d. duely paid every Week although continued at that pace a year together being a cunning piece of Usury far exceeding that of the Jews who in the Reign of our King Richard the First were by the Common People Massacred and the Caursini the Pope's Brokers banish'd by King Henry the Third for much gentler Usuries followed by that of the lesser Pinching Money Improvers who will lend 10 l. for no longer than a Month and at that or every Months end call fiercely to have it paid in to beget the former or a greater Brocage When all the Trades of London and Westminster and their largely overbuilt Suburbs can by an unreasonable and Arbitrary Power to maintain their unfitting Pride and Luxury impose and put what price they please upon their Work and Commodities and not a few do upon every occasion or opportunity of their interest and advantage break and run over our Magna Charta and other the Laws and Statutes of the Kingdom And when they trust their Customers without which there would be little or no Trade do when such Buyers dream nothing of it clap an hard interest into the price and if need be in writing over their Books again make where it may be undiscernable an addition unto it
Nations who were the Mediators for Peace at Cologne emboldened by our home Divisions and want of Supplies lengthened it self beyond all Expectation And hath notwithstanding in the Interim by his Protections Royal and many other Cares taken done as much as he could to keep the Bankers from Arrests Imprisonments and other Ruines impendant often happening and falling upon Men indebted Although if Reports and the Laments of some that were concerned be not much mistaken a great part of that Money was belonging to many of his own Servants who by his Bounty and Places of Profit under him had easily gained it and many of those who so heavily complained of that detention of their Moneys had for their own advantages intrusted it to the Bankers who by an Imaginary Credit far exceeding their own Estates furnishing one man with another man's Money and paying out that which was but the same day or a little before come in had inticed a great part of the Money of the Nation into their hands And some if not many of the Owners did well enough understand that they did not only furnish them and their Credits upon all Emergent occasions of Profit or Accommodation by that kind of alluring much of the Money of the Nation into their Custody but his Majesty also at an high and intollerable Usury which if a strict enquiry were made by His Majesty or Order of Parliament of the particular Owners of the Money brought into the Exchequer by the Bankers and from thence borrowed and made use of by his Majesty upon his Publick and most urgent Affairs would plainly appear And it will be as manifest that he afterwards gave no respite to his Royal Cares and Intentions of Repaying it with the Legal or as much Interest as the Bankers were to pay for it And finding that the Fee Farm Rents amounting unto Seventy thousand pounds per annum sold at Sixteen years Purchase which nothing but a grand Necessity could enforce him to Alien for that many of them being the Tenths were by two several Acts of Parliament annexed to the Imperial Crown of England for the maintenance thereof and were as so many Ties and Obligations which made the Owners of these Lands to be dependant upon the Crown would not reach to a Satisfaction of his other Debts and Expences which having been longer due were more importunate than those of the Bankers did lately in a Speech to the Lords and Commons in Parliament make it his earnest Request that they would take the Necessity and speedy Payment of the Bankers into their Considerations And when nothing of help could be obtain'd for that purpose did by his Letters Patents under his great Seal with great difficulty and hardship order a part of his burdened Revenue to be assigned for the due and orderly payment of the Interest until the Principal Moneys should be justly satisfied and paid So as his doings therein or making use of that Money if impartially and judiciously weighed in the Ballance of Truth and Judgment is not to be called a seizure or forcible taking of the Bankers Money or to be ranked either as to the necessity or the thing it self or the number of the persons concerned with what King Edward the First a Wise and Prudent Prince did do when he in the 22 year of his Reign seized into his hands upon occasion of supplying the Publick Necessities all the Wools in the Kingdom as the Merchants were lading them in the Ports giving them Security for Payment at his own Rates and a long day and a short price and transported them to his own best and readiest Sale and at another time upon a like necessity seized all the Pope's Moneys which had been Collected for him by the Clergy of England amounting to very great Sums of Money towards the Wars of the Holy Land gave Protections to those that had the Custody of it and retain'd and made use of it for his then pressing Publick Affairs two years and more notwithstanding that the Pope had in the mean time sent unto him then hugely formidable threatning Bulls and Letters for it Or the like done by King Edward the Third in the 12 th year of his Reign with all the Tynne or with what King Henry the 6 th did by way of Purveyance of great Store of Grain and Corn and transporting it into Gascony where it was very dear or by Queen Elizabeth of a great deal of Beer Transported and sold to her use beyond the Seas and by defraying a great part of the Charges of her Wars in Ireland with Moneys Coined of Tynne with a promise to make a Satisfaction for it with Moneys made of Silver which was justly performed by her and King James her Learned Successor Concerning all which matters fears and jealousies I can be confident your Sentiments and mine will so little disagree as your Judgment of the Ages past and observations of the rise and progress of our late Troubles and Miseries which brought the greatest Shame and Scandal to the Protestant Religion profest in England and Scotland that ever it had or could have laid upon it and cast an unhappy Reflection upon those that were in the parts beyond the Seas will not refuse me your Company in the Opinion of a Truth so experimented that the fruit of all those Artifices rather than any just cause of any such fears or apprehensions have yielded no better Effects than the Ruine and Confusion of the former Glory and Honour of our Nation by setting up a Rebellious part of the People the Offspring as to some of their Levelling Principles of Wat Tiler and Jack Cade to undo and Rule over the better sort of the People and the Poor to Plunder and rob the Rich. And that therefore they which have been the cause of so many Mischiefs and Evils which their and our Seri Nepotes will have reason enough bitterly to bewail and without God's great Mercy will scarcely live to see eradicated ought better to consult their Conscience the Precepts and Examples of Wisdom Salus Populi Interest of the Kingdom and Honour of the King and Nation and abandoning their former Follies and false Lights which led them and their partakers into so great Sins and made them to be the Causes of so many National Miseries not run themselves and others into the fear of one or two incertain Evils but an Hundred which will be most certain and can never be recalled And I cannot but assure my self that you will be ready to conclude with me that there is no Rational or just Cause of Fear that we can have by any Infection contracted from the now Laws and manner of Government of France under His most Christian Majesty For until their Civil and Intestine Wars and Ill Usage of Charles the Fifth and Charles the Seventh their Kings in their greatest Distresses that Nation had Liberties more than at present they have or are likely to enjoy And that our
or their Landlord's Houses to the mercy of the Fire which doing what it pleased and raging so impetuously made the whole City and its Lines of Communication and the Circum ambient Air to be like an Oven over-heated as the numberless Sign Posts with their Signs fell on fire and leapt in sheets as it were from one Street to another where it never had stopped until it had destroyed and Burnt all London and Westminster with at least 60000 Houses therein if His Majesty and his Servants and Nobility indefatigably Night and Day labouring amongst the remaining sad-hearted People that tarried had not upon the Wednesday Night or Thursday Morning next following put the Fire by blowing up some Houses to a stand and taught and encouraged the then witless over-affrighted Citizens to subdue that mighty Arbitrary Element Which City had been long after unbuilt and left inter Rudera Cineres a sad Spectacle to the World if the continued Cares of His Majesty had not by the Advice of his Parliaments rescued them from Beggery and almost endless Suits and Controversies betwixt the Landlords and Tenants concerning the Building up and Repair of their Houses And laid the burden of the Loss and Damage upon the Landlords who were many of the Nobility and Gentry Colleges and Halls in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Companies of Trade Hospitals such as St. Bartholomew's Christ-Church and St. Thomas in Southwark Cum multis aliis c. By causing them in consideration of the Tenants Rebuilding their Burnt Houses with Brick in a safe and substantial way to make them long Leases of Forty or Fifty years according to the several Circumstances of Reason good Conscience and Equity without any Examination of their foolish Fears in the saving of their Goods and leaving their Houses to the fury of the Fire which in a few years hath by the Rich Tradesmens taking of five times more Money with Apprentices than Fifty years ago was accustomed amounting in the whole unto many Thousands of Pounds and some Mortgages and the Sinful Liberty and Arbitrary Power which they have of late taken in the raising of their Prices and adulterating and sophisticating all that they Sell starving the Workmen and disparaging and falsifying all the Manufacture of the Kingdom and some helps before-mentioned from His Majesty together with his Building of Temple-Bar to the wonder of many at home and all Nations that Merchandize with her abroad been most beautifully Rebuilt much better and more glorious than it was before And in the gorgeous Apparel and Attire of themselves their Wives and Children Stately Furniture of their Houses and Expence of Diet having drawn a great part of the Riches of the Nation to their dispose and command do live like Lords and their Wives like Countesses or great Ladies of Honour wallow in Peace and Plenty and it were well they would be more thankful than they are unto God and their King for it Shall we be afraid because things may be when we neither are or can be sure that they are or will be and terrifie or molest one another with the apprehension or possibility of it before-hand when we might do better to be quiet And if I should now Inquire of you how they have arrived to the height they now possess and become so fermented as to be the Disease Epidemical of the Nation you will I make no question without any the least of hesitation or scruple return me an Answer That it is the twice a Day visited in London by almost every Tradesman and many times by his Man where too often they do Brew and tun up Sedition and Treason Coffee-Houses or prating Lying and Seditious Schools in London and its large Suburbs and most of the Cities and Boroughs of the Nation the Mart of Lies and Fools bolts and Mr. Muddiman's Cream of Intelligence Communicated twice a Week by his Letters to very many in divers Countries who do largely Pension him and to Countrey Coffee-Houses that pay him a very considerable yearly Rent for his State-Informations where Lectures being read and Annotations made upon them and Guesses and Conjectures rashly heaped one upon another and put together Faction spreads her wings and carries it as fast as she can home unto too many of the Gentlemen and Farmer 's Houses From whence it comes to be Chewed over again at every Conventicle or Congregation Meeting and repeated at every Market or Country meetings and at the Feasts or Entertainments each of other which multiplies their fancied Affrights and Dangers and pleaseth them not a little who would think themselves or their Tittle tattle Trade undone if they should but hear of any thing which they might often if they would but confess or understand it that is well done either in the Church or State whereunto the Dissenters or Conventicle Nonconforming Ministers do bring no small addition who can as little hold forth or prove that they and their numerous Proselytes and followers are or ever will be without conversion either good Christians or Subjects as they can Evidence that gaping winking snoffling face-making howling with as many frantick gestures in their Pulpits as the Heathen fatidici or Priests were accustomed to make are Essential to Preaching or that all that they in their Extempore trash bable to their seduced People is by the Spirit or any gift thereof all that they in those Places or stations of teaching and promoting Disobedience and Aversion to the King and his Laws and Government can be Canonical or if so how it should come to pass that in that kind of crude undigested matter there should be so many Blasphemies wrestings and abuses of Scripture Tautologies vain Repetitions and ridiculous Stories Expressions and Exhortations to Sedition and Rebellion The Product whereof hath sadly of late years appeared to have been not one but many Sheba's blowing the Trumpets of Sedition and Shimei's railing at Lampooning and reviling our David by base calumniating libellous Papers without any Names subscribed put on his Table or Chair in his Closet or affixed in places in his Galleries or Walks by those that would be call'd his Loyal and most Obedient Subjects or such as have been thereunto instigated by Jesuits to make their Soveraign out of love with them or they with him at the same Time when his Sacred Person hath been surrounded with Popish Plots by Pistolling Stabbing Poisoning or Assassination and those that are Trusty and Faithful to him and the well-established Government in Church and State must have no better Titles than Tories Tantivies or Popish affected Pamphlets and Books to justifie and incite Sedition Treason and Rebellion every day publickly Cryed in the Streets or Sold in the Book-sellers Shops All which the most savage wild and barbarous People or Nations of the World Jews Pagan Mahumetan Latitudinarian Papist and Protestant Religious Eastern and Western Churches and even the cheating Bannians would disown blush at be ashamed of and abhor Unto which our
Disasters both in Church and State have been great Additions and Kindle Coles which have made not only many that have some Learning and are ex meliori luto better born and bred but the Mechanick and Illiterate part of the People to take themselves to be a kind of State-Menders and to make their small Capacities the rule and measure of their foolish Prognosticks and are as like to hit the white or mark as he that stands without the Doors of an House a mile off it and undertakes of himself without the help or Information of the Inhabitants to know what is every day and night hour or minute thereof done within the House or as some Mountebank Physitian who without the Aid or Sight of the Patient or any Inquiry into the Symptoms Indications or Progress of the Disease should promise a never-failing Cure of his Sickness or Distemper and may as little deserve his Fee as a Lawyer who should adventure to give his Opinion or direct his Client how to proceed in his Action or Suit without any knowledge at all of the Fact So as those State Almanack-makers by such an Extravagant and incertain Ephemeris would do well to be more modest and cautious in their Opinions and not to expose the Honour of their King and Soveraign to the foolish and ill-digested Censures of themselves and others and make themselves the Conduit-Pipes to convey their Follies to the more Ignorant part of the People who although by God's mercy to a causeless murmuring Nation from the Winter to the Spring from the Spring to the Summer from the Summer to the Autumn and from the Seed time to the Harvest when the Valleys sing and the Earth is loaden with the Increase thereof and so all along not for one but many years together they might understand how often they have sinned against the Divine Mercy and Providence by their Complaints of the weather too hot too cold too wet too windy too dry so as scarce one day in every ten of the year can get an universal liking or good word of the ways of God's Providence and should when they have found themselves every year so often and so greatly mistaken be once ashamed and forsake that unquietness of Spirit will not withstanding not only continue those their mis-doings and humours in the Case of God Almighty as a Custom or Privilege belonging to their Farms and Husbandry but in the height of all their Peace without which their Plenty would be blasted so very much traduce scandalize and mislike the Royal Cares of their King and God's Vicegerent and be so unjust and unreasonable in their Complaints and fault findings as though they sit under their own Vines eat the fat of the flock lye down upon their beds of Ivory sing to the Harp rise up to play enjoy a Peace and Plenty to a Surfeit and the Envy of all their Neighbours and may Weekly read and hear of the Miseries and Sufferings of many Neighbour Nations by Wars and Invasions of one another yet they must never be contented but be every day and very often in every day finding fault with the Government As if the Government of the King and the Government of the King of Kings as to the weather were always to be blamed Whilst they ought rather to be so careful of themselves and their Posterities as to abominate those foolish ways of censuring Authority and to take heed that God do not Punish us for our unthankfulness and abusing his so many and all sorts of Mercies under a Prince Who besides all his other Royal Cares and Concessions added unto those of his famous great Ancestors and Predecessors Kings and Queens of this Realm for the Preservation of his Peoples Liberties and Properties did no longer ago than in the 31 th year of his Reign for the better securing of the Liberties of his Subjects in their Persons and prevention of Imprisonments by sending them in Custody to some of the Islands consented unto an Act of Parliament under great Severities Forfeitures and Penalties to be inflicted upon such as should Imprison or Detain any Man after an Habeas Corpus brought as well in the Vacations as Terms And so far extended it as upon the Committing of any Man Prisoner by himself or the Lords of his Privy Council Lord Chamberlain or other great Officers of his Houshold they are allowed to be Bailed by the King's Justices of his Superiour Courts of Justice although when they themselves shall as they do often Commit or Imprison any man by their Delegated and Derivative Power from the King only they are not at all obliged to discharge any such Offenders upon Writs of Habeas Corpus And by that and those multitudes of former Provisions which our Kings and their Laws have made for the good and safety of their People from all the incursions of Arbitrary Power should not forget that there is not so much as an Imaginary fear or danger that any Subject of England can be injured by any Arbitrary Power or otherwise for which a present and sudden Remedy may not be quickly had or provided and that it is now a received Maxim in our Common Law That the King can do no wrong and that id potest quod de Jure potest So that there are very few unless such as would have the King to be as liable which our Laws did always forbid to Coertions Arrests or Punishments as the most ordinary or meanest of his Subjects are or ought to be or can be so ignorant in the course or Proceedings of our Laws but may understand That if he should cause any to beat or do any Injury or Trespass to any of his Subjects the Parties or Agents are by his and our own Laws to be responsible for it And believe that King James who had reason to understand Government and Affairs of State better than such kind of People did not err or say amiss in his Answer in the 19 th year of his Reign to a Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament when he declared unto them That None could have Wisdom to Judge of things of that Nature but such as are duely acquainted with the particulars of Treaties and of the variable and fixed Connexions of the Affairs of State together with the knowledge of the Secret ways ends and intentions of Princes in their several Negotiations otherwise a small mistaking of Matters of that Nature might produce more and worse effects than can be Imagined And remember that if Impossibilities could be possible and every one that foolishly fancies himself to be able could be able to manage or Judge of State Affairs yet we have no Laws that do allow every Man Coblers and Illiterate men not excepted to be a Statesman And that St. Jude reprehending those that despised Dominions and speak evil of Dignities gives us the Original from whence it comes for that they speak evil of those things they know not And