Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	bishop_n	john_n	king_n	11,073	5	3.7166	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48472	The picture of the Councell of State, held forth to the free people of England by Lieut. Col. John Lilburn, M. Thomas Prince, and M. Richard Overton, now prisoners in the Tower of London for bearing testimony to the liberties of England against the present tyrants at White-Hall, and their associates, or, a full narrative of the late extrajudiciall and military proceedings against them ; together with the substance of their severall examinations, answers, and deportments before them at Darby-house, upon March 28 last.	Lilburne, John, 1614?-1657.; Prince, Thomas.; Overton, Richard, fl. 1646.	1649 (1649)	Wing L2155; ESTC R10562	40,210	29

which I have proved that I am more cruelly dealt with then bloudy Bonner dealt with the poor Saints and Martyrs in Queen Marys dayes and that I am denyed that which in England was never yet denyed to any Traytor that ever I read of And in it I accuse William Laud the Prelate of Canterbury for High Treason the which I did a yeer agone before Sir John Banks Knight and will still venture my life upon the proof thereof if I may have a Legall proceeding One ground of my accusation is this the Parliament Laws and Statutes of this Land as the 25 and 37 of Hen. 8. and the first of Edw. 6. and the first and 27 of Elizabeth doth enact to this effect That whosoever goes about to set up or challenge any forrain or domestick Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction but what doth immediately flow and come from the Imperiall Crown is ipso facto a Traitor and ought to die without the benefit of Clergie as more at large in them you may read Now the Bishop of Canterbury and the rest of his mercilesse brethren about four yeers agone in the Censure of that Noble Doctor Bastwick now of late much degenerate there in their open Court at Lambeth renounced the King and his Authority and said They were not beholding to him for their Episcopall Jurisdiction for they were made Bishops by Jesus Christ and consecrated by the holy Ghost and they had their thrones and were before Christian Kings and they held the Crowns of Kings upon their heads and their Maxime was No Bishop no King And if this be not treason then I think there was never any committed And this with much more to this effect Doctor Bastwick doth declare in his answer to Sir John Banks his Information as you may read in the tenth and eleventh pages thereof And for this most Noble Lord was I against all Law and Justice laid in irons for a long time together in a most inhumane manner and lock'd up close prisoner for these twelve months together against all Law and to the violating of the Subjects Libertie for by Magna Charta and other Statutes of this Land which are still in force but onely the execution of them is thrown in the kennell neither the Lord Keeper nor any others ought to commit any of the Kings Subjects close prisoners unless either for Felony or Treason and onely in case of an extraordinary crime and then they must forthwith bring them to their tryall But by close imprisonment the Law doth not mean that the Kings Subjects should be locked up in rooms much lesse that their friends should not be suffered to come to speak with them and bring them victuals to preserve their lives as grave Judge Cr●ok not long since in his Speech at Westminster-Hall did prove when he pleaded for the Subjects Liberty But contrary to the Parliament Laws yea and the practice of Heathens and Pagans I am locks up close all alone and cannot be suffered to come to a just tryall but am kept up so close that my friends and acquaintance that bring me relief I being long since deserted of my Kindred are not suffered to come at me but are sent away with that they bring me with all the abuses reproaches and revilings that possible may be by my Keeper And one that came unto me he hath beaten and others he hath threatned to kick if they come any more to me and to others of them he hath most fasly and slinderously reviled me calling me Rebell and Traytor telling them that no victuals should come at me so that I am forced daily in regard of barbarous cruelty to cry out aloud at my iron grate to the prisoners and strangers to let them know the height of my misery wherein I live and yet no redresse can I have but daily more and more cruelty is exercised upon me and many grievous threats from bloudy murthering Morry my keeper who threatens to hamper me and lock my head and legs together for my complaining This he did the last Lords day at night and also offered to beat me with his keys in so much that at ten a clock at night I was forced to cry out to the prisoners of it And in this most miserable condition do I remain though I have been dangerously sick almost these eleven months which many times hath brought me even unto deaths door and in regard of my exceeding extremity of pain in my head by reason of my long closenesse ever since Candlemass Term was twelve months and my cruell torments besides I have been constrained for to get a little ease of my extream pain which in sudden fits takes me for two or three hours together to be tied to a constant course of Physick usually once in fourteen dayes and sometimes oftner And though of late I had a little liberty to walk once a day in the common prison yard yet I am now deprived of it by the Warden for complaining of my keepers cruelty and his shamefull abusing me and my friends which did but come to look upon me with whom this was my greatest discourse that I had tied my self by promise before I could get that little liberty of walking that I would not talk with any Friends therefore I desired them not to be offended for I durst not talk with them Yet because they came but to see me I was deprived of it and also they that looked to me in my sicknesse and weaknesse kept from me so that now in my weakness I have none to look to me In my Grievous and mournfull Complaint already published I have a little touched the Wardens galled conscience for his cruell oppressions wherefore he in revenge it seems intends to murther me lest I should by my just complaints make it cost him as dear as the salving up of his wickednesse did when he was last called to an account for I have heard the prisoners with open mouth proclaim it that for making his peace he gave to the Barl of Bohon ten thousand pounds and to the fore-man of the Jury one thousand pounds for which his conscience being troubled he revealed it upon his death bed And also to an Officer five hundred pounds to rase out some things which were upon record yea I have heard the poor Prisoners proclaim it aloud that he cozens them of above seven hundred pounds a yeer which belongs to them and allows them but a small pittance upon which they are not able to live and some of them have severall times in the open Chappel cryed out to the Gentlemen prisoners that they are ready to starve and perish for want of food yea so great hath been the barbarous cruelty of the Warden to the poor that if the Prisoners reports may be beleeved poor men here have been forced for want of food to eat their own dung And this had been my own condition in likelyhood had not God raised up some compassionate Friends that were meer strangers

of an hours warning But as to man I bid defiance to all my Adversaries upon earth to search my wayes and goings with a candle and to lay any one base Action to my charge in any kind whatsoever since the first day that I visibly made profession of the fear of God which is now about twelve yeers yea I bid defiance to him or them to proclaim it upon the house top provided he will set his hand to it and proclaim a publike place where before indifferent men in the face of the Sun his accusation may be scand yea I here declare that if any man or woman in England either in reference to my publike actions to the States money or in reference to my private dealings in the world shall come in and prove against me that ever I defrauded him or her of twelve pence and for every twelve pence that I have so done I will make him or her twenty shillings worth of amends so far as all the estate I have in the world will extend Courteous Reader and deer Countryman excuse I beseech thee my boasting and glorying for I am necessitated to it my adversaries base and lying calumniations puting me upon it and Iohn Lilburn that never yet changed his principles from better to worse nor could never be threatned out of them nor courted from them that never feared the rich nor mighty nor never despised the poor nor needy but alwayes hath and hopes by Gods goodness to continue semper idem Paul and Samuel did it before me and so I am thine if thou art for the just Freedoms and liberties of the land of thy Nativity From my rejoycing captivity for bearing witnesse against Tyranny in whomsoever I find it in the Tower of London April 3. 1649 Postscript CUrteous Reader I have much wondred with my self what should make most of the Preachers in the Anabaptists Congregations so mad at us four as this day to deliver so base a Petition in the intention of it against us all four who have been as hazardous Sticklers for their particular liberties as any be in England and never put a provocation upon them that I know of especially considering the most if not all their Congregations as from divers of their own member I am informed sprotested against their intentions openly in their Congregations upon the Lords day last and I am further certainly informed that the aforesaid Petition the Preachers delivered is not that which was read by themselves amongst the people but another of their own framing since which I cannot hear was ever read in any one of their Congregations so that for the Preachers viz. M. Kiffin M. Spilsbury M. Patience M. Draps M. Richardson M. Constant M. Wayd the Schoolemaster c. to deliver it to the Parliament in the name of their Congregations they have delivered a lye and a falshood and are a pack of fauning daubing knaves for so doing but as I understand from one of M. Kiffins members Kiffin himself did ingenuously confesse upon the Lords day last in his open Congregation that he was put upon the doing of what he did by some Parliament men who he perceived were willing and desirous to be rid of us four so they might come off handsomely without too much losse of credit to themselves and therefore intended to take a rise from their Pettition to free us and for that end it was that in their Petition read in the Congregations after they had sufficiently bespattered us yet in the conclusion they beg mercy for us because we had been formerly active for the Publick Secondly I have been lately told Some of the Congregationall Preachers are very mad at a late published and licensed Book sold in Popes-head Alley and the blue Anchor in Cornhill intituled The vanity of the present Churches supposing it to be the Pen of some of our Friends and therefore out of revenge might petition against us I confesse I have within a few hours seen and read the Book and not before and must ingenuously confesse it is one of the shrewdest Books that ever I read in my life and do beleeve it may be possible they may be netled to the purpose at it but I wish every honest unbyassed man in England would seriously read it over April 4. 1649. John Lilburn I Shall desire to acquaint the Reader that when the Title page of the fore-going Book was first set there was an absolute determination to have re-printed all our Examinations together but for some weighty reasons the intentions are altered and because I understand that the fury rage and bloud-thirstinesse of Cromwell Ireton Hasterig and Harrison is most at me right or wrong to destroy me and have my bloud I am determined by Gods assistance to fill their hands as full with my own pen as all the brains I have can fill them and to make them pay a valuable price if possibly I can for every hair of my head And in order to my future intentions I shall here annex my Out-cryes against the Bishops when they had like to have murdered me in the Fleet being printed at Amsterdam 1639 intituled A CRY FOR JUSTICE OR An Epistle written by John Lilburn To all the grave and worthy Citizens of the famous City of London but especially to the Right honorable Maurice Abbot Lord Maior thereof The most miserable and lamentable complaint of that inhumane barbarous savage and unparalell'd cruelty and tyranny that is causelesly unjustly and wrongfully exercised upon me J●hn Lilburn a faithfull Subject to my Prince Country and a Prentise of this Honorable City though now a most deplorable close prisoner in the common Gaol of the Fleet. 1639. MOst Honorable and Noble Lord The chief cause wherefore God the wise Governour of Heaven and Earth did appoint Magistrates was for the good of the sons of men and that they should do Justice betwixt a man and his neighbour and that they should hear the grievances of the oppressed and deliver them from the cruelty of their oppressors That wrong violence and injustice that I have suffered would be now too long to relate in particular but it being so insupportable made me to publish it abroad unto the view of the world to the perpetuall infamy of my tormentors the chief of which are the traiterous bloody murthering Prelates The story of my former misery and wrongs you may if you please read at large in three severall Books of mine now in print and published to the view of England Scotland Ireland and Holland They are called My unjust Censure in the Star-chamber My Speech at the Pillory and My mournsull Lamentations I have not seen them since they were put in print because the Prelate of Canterbury wrongfully detains well nigh two thousand of them from me but there are still many thousands of them behinde and I doubt not but some who pities my afflicted estate will convey some of them unto your Lordships hands In the last of

unto me before my sufferings some of which through all difficulties and reproaches from my Keeper have brought me food And though the poor have not by the Wardens means the tenth part of their due yet to lessen that small means which the poor hitherto hath had some of which have nothing else in the world to live upon he hath of late added unto them so many more some of which are men of able estates which he hath put upon the charity contrary to their Orders purposely to starve the poor indeed yea he hath by force put upon the charity Henry the Hangman who is under-Turn-key and hath forty pound land a yeer as he himself confesseth and whose vailes besides as I have heard the prisoners say are some times better worth then three shillings a day and this the warden hath done for him because he is so officious and ready in beating and abusing the poor distressed prisoners that cry out of the wardons cruelty and not only the poor prisoners but also some of those that come to visit and relievethem some of which he hath beat and threatned to kick others I have heard the prisoners affirm that the revenues of the Fleet hath been cast ●p to be above threescore thousand pounds a yeer oh therefore the height of cruelty not to be paralell'd I think amongst the savage and barbarous Heathens and Pagans and which mightily crys unto your Honer now in our Soveraigns absence for the wellfare of the City betimes to be looked unto and with the assistance of the Noble Lord Protector to examine out the truth of things that poor oppressed men may have speedy redress of their wrongs the greatest part of which ariseth by reason of the wardens greatnesse with the Bishop of Canterbury and the Lord Keeper so that they dare not for fear as I have heard some of them say complain of him Besides my Lord it is notoriously known that John Morry my upper keeper hath been arraigned at Newgate for murthering a prisoner here in former times and I think here are other fresh things against him if poor prisoners might be heard and have justice which would bear another inditement and at least manifest him to be too too bloudy a man to have the keeping of poor innocent men For some in this prison as it is here reported have been secretly poysoned and lost their lives upon it and others with eating garlike and like antidotes have expelled it and are yet living here to justifie the same and my dogged under keeper hath been a hangman whereupon the prisoners at their fallings out with him do say this verse to his face vix Morry the Irish pedler and Harry the hangman of Cambridge-Shiere and by these two bloody men from both of which I have received unsufferable wrongs my Adversaries intend I shall be killed in a corner Because of my untainted innocency they dare not bring me to a legall publike tryal to the view of the Kingdom wherefore I am forced by reason of intolerable cruely injustice and wrong to cry out unto your Honour as I have often done at my grate murther murther murther therefore hear O Heavens and give care O Earth and all ye that hear or read this my just complaint and lamentation bear witnesse to future generations that I cry out of violence wrong injustice cruelty and inhumanity that I suffer from the trayterous Bishop and the unjust Lord Keeper old Sir Henry Vaine and their bloody Jaylours which do and will execute their commands be they never so unjust and unlawfull And how that for my zeal and courage for my God and his truth and glory and for my ardent love to my Prince and Country and for my strong de●ire and indeavour for the prosperity and flourishing estate of this renowned City the Metropolis of England I am like to lose my life and blood by murthering cruelty in close Imprisonment Therefore oh all ye brave and worthy Citizens save help and rescue me a poor distressed and greatly oppressed young man from the devouring pawes of devouring Lionish men Now my Honorable Lord I come to make my humble supplication unto your self which is this that you would be pleased to take my most deplorable condition into your grave and serious consideration and after your consultation about it with your worshipfull brethren the Aldermen of this City acquaint the honourable Lord protector that noble and courteous Earl of Northumberland with it who in part knows it already but alas alas I am long since deserted of my kindred and friends so that I have none that dare follow my businesse for me wherefore I am like shortly to perish in my great distress unless your Lorships be pleased in this particular to do something for me I desire from your Honours neitheir silver nor gold for alas at present it would do me no pleasure for had I all treasure in the world to buy me victuals and want a stomack when I should have them they would nothing avail me and yet so lamentable is my condition by reason of my longe closeness and painfull sickness so that all the favour I desire is but the one of these two things First that îf I be thought to be an offender that then I may be forthwith brought to a publick tryal and suffered with freedom to pleade my own just cause again the Bishops and the Lord Keeper and old Sir Henry Vaine's illegall and unjust censure of me which was onely upon this ground because I refused to take an illegall and unlawfull inquisition oath which he the Lord Keeper tendred to me which as I told him to his face in the Star-chamber is against the Statute Lawes of this land yea against the petttion of right enacted in the 3 yeer of our Soveraign King Charles yea I told him and proved it to be against the Lawes of God and man and contrary to the practise of the Heathens and Pagans as you may read in the Acts of the Apostles yet this was the onely ground wherefore he and old Sir Henry Vane c. censured me to pay 500 pound and to be whipt for there was no witness brought against me face to face onely there was read two false oaths made by one Edmond Chillington now a Lieut. in Col. Whalyes Regiment and one of the principal men that lately caused the Souldier to be shot to death at Pauls whom the Bishop hired by giving him his liberty out of New-gate prison for swearing those two false oaths and doing them other wicked service of the like nature My Lord for my own part I desire no mercy nor favour nor compassion from the greatest of my enemies but onely the benefit of my Soveraignes Lawes which as I am a faithfull and loyal subject to my Prince and Contry I do according to my priviledge earnestly crave and begg not fearing by reason of my unspotted Innocency the rigour of Justice for my innocency is such that I fear neither

his neighbours do report him to have been no small Personal Treaty man and also Captain Williams and M. Saul Shoe-maker both of Southwark who are said to be the Devills 3. deputies er informers against us and after they were turned out I was called in next and the dore being opened I marched into the Room with my hat on and looking about me I saw divers Members of the House of Commons present and so I put it off and by Sergeant Dendy I was directed to go neer M. Bradshaw that sat as if he had been Chairman to the Gentlemen that were there present between whom and my self past to this following effect Lievt Col. Lilburn said he here are some Votes of Parliament that I am commanded by this Councel to acquaint you with which were accordingly read and which did contain the late published and printed Proclamation or Declaration against the second part of England New Chains discovered with divers instructions and an unlimitted power given unto the Councel of State to finde out the Authors and Promoters thereof After the reading of which M. Bradshaw said unto me Sir You have heard what hath been read unto you and this Councell having information that you have a principle hand in compiling and promoting this Book shewing me the Book it self therefore they have sent for you and are willing to hear you speak for your self But I saw no Accuser prosecutor or witnesse brought face to face which were very strange proceedings in my judgement Well then M. Bradshaw said I If it please you and these Gentlemen to afford me the same liberty the Cavaliers did at Oxford when I was arraigned before them for my life for levying war in the quarrel of the Common-wealth against the late King and his party which was liberty of speech to speak my mind freely without interruption I shall speak and goe on but without the liberty of speach I shall not say a word more to you To which he replied That is already granted you and therefore you may go on and speak what you can or will say for your self if you please or if you will not you may hold your pyace and withdraw Well then said I M. Bradshaw with your favour thus I am an Englishman born bred brought up and England is a Nation Governed Bounded and Limited by Laws liberties and for the Liberties of England I have both fought and suffered much but truely Sir I judge it now infinitely below me and the glory and excellency of my late actions now to plead merit or desert unto you as though I were forced to fly to the merit of my former actions to lay in a counter-scale to weigh down your indignation against me for my pretended late offences No Sir I scorn it I abhor it And therefore Sir I now stand before you upon the bare naked and single account of an Englishman as though I had never said done or acted thing that tendeth to the preservation of the liberties thereof but yet have done any act that did put me out of a Legal capacity to claim the utmost punctilio benesit priviledge that the laws liberties of England will afford to any of you here present of any other man in the whole Nation And the Laws and Liberties of England are my inheritance and birth right And in your late Declaration published about four or five daies ago wherein you lay down the grounds and reasons as I remember of your doing Justice upon the late King and why you have abolished Kingly Government and the House of Lords you declare in effect the same and promise to maintain the Lawes of England in reference to the Peoples Liberties * See Their Declarations of the 9 of Feb. the 17 of March 1648 in which they positively declare they are fully resolved to maintain and shall and will preserve and keep the fundamental Laws of this Nation for and concerning the preservation of the lives properties and liberties of the people with all things incident thereunto but they of late years were never so good as their words nor I am confident never intead to be they having turned their backs upon common honesty upon the Lord their strength and made lies and falsehoods their refuge and fortress and therefore beleeve them no more for I will make it good they are worse then the King was whose head they have chopt off for a Traytor and Tyrant and thereby have condemned themselves as deserving his very punishment and Freedoms And amongst other things therein contained you highly commend and extol the Petition of Right made in the third year of the late King as one of the most excellent and gloriest Laws in reference to the people liberties that ever was made in this Nation and you there very much blame and cry out upon the King for robbing and denying the people of England the benefit of that Law and sure I am for I have read and studied it there is one clause in it that saith expresly That no Free man of England ought to be adjudged for life limbe liberty or estate but by the Laws already in being established and declared And truly Sir if this be good and sound Legal Doctrine as undoubtedly it is or else your own Declarations are false and lies I wonder what you Gentlemen are For the declared and known Laws of England knows you not neither by names nor qualifications as persons endowed with any power either to imprison or try me or the meanest Free-man of England and truly were it not that I know the faces of divers of you and honour the persons of some of you as Members of the House of Commons that have stood pretty firm in shaking times to the interest of the Nation I should wonder what you are or before whom I am should not in the least honour or reverence you so much as with Civil Respect especially considering the manner of my being brought before you with armed men and the manner of your close sitting contrary to all courts of Justice whose dores ought alwayes to stand wide open M. Bradshaw it may be the house of Commons hath past some Votes or Orders to authorise you to sit here for such and such ends as in their Orders may be declared But that they have made any such Votes or Orders legally unknown to me I never saw them It s true by common Fame you are bruted abroad and s●iled a Councel of State but its possible common Fame in this particular may as well tell me a lye as a truth But admit common Fame do in this tell me a truth and no lye but that the House of Commons in good earnest hath made you a Councel of State yet I know not what that is because the Law of England tells me nothing of such a thing and surely if a Councel of State were a Court of Justice the Law would speak something of it But I have read both

old and new Lawes yea all of late that it was possible to buy or hear of and they tell me not one word of you and therefore I scarce know what to make of you or what to think of you but as Gentlemen that I know I give you civill respect and out of no other consideration But if you judge your selves to be a Councel of ●t●●e and by vertue thereof think you have any power over me I pray you shew me your Commission that I may know the better how to behave my self before you M. Bradshaw I will no●●ow question or dispute the Votes or Orders of the present single House of Commons in reference to their power as binding Lawes to the people yet admit them to be valid legal and good their due circumstances accompanying them yet Sir by the Law of England let me tell you what the House Votes Orders and Enacts within their walls is nothing to me I am not at all bound by them nor in Law can take any cognisance of them as Lawes although 20 Members came out of the House and tell me such things are done till they be published and declared by sound of Trumpet Proclamation or or the like by a publike Officer or Magist●ate in the publike and open places of the Nation But truly Sir I never saw any Law in Print or writing that declares your power so proclaim'd or published and therefore Sir I know not what to make more of you then a company of private men being neither able to own you for a Court of Justice because the Law speaks nothing of you nor for a Councel of State till I see and read or hear your Commission which I desire if you please to be acquainted with But Sir give me leave further to aver unto you and upon this Principle or Averment I will venture my life and being and all I have in the world That if the House had by a Proclaimed and declared Law Vote or Order made this Councel as you call your selves a Court of Justice yet that proclaimed or declared Law Vote or Order had been unjust and null and void in itself And my reason is because the House it self was never neither now nor in any age before betrusted with a Law-executing power but only with a Law making power And truly Sir I should have look'd upon the people of this Nation as very fools if ever they had betrusted the Parliament with a Law-executing power and my reason is because if they had so done they had then chosen and impowred a Parliament to have destroyed them but not to have preserved them which is against the very nature and end of the very being of Parliaments they being by your own declared doctrine chosen to provide for the peoples weale but not for their wo First part Declarat pag. 150 266 267 269 276 279 280 304 361 382 494 696 700 716 726. And Sir the reason of that reason is because its possible if a Parliament should execute the Law they might do palpable injustice and m●●e administer it and so the people would be robbed of their intended extraordinary benefit of Appeals for in such cases they must appeal to the Parliament either against it self or part of it self and can it ever be imagined they will ever condemn themselves or punish themselves nay will they not rather judge themselves bound in honour and safety to themselves to vote that man a Traytot and destroy him that shall so much as question their actions although formerly they have dealt never so unjustly with them For this Sir I am sure is very commonly practised now a dayes and therefore the honesty of former Parliaments in the discharge of their trust and duty in this particular was such that they have declared the power is not in them to judge or punish me o● the meanest free man in England beeng no Member of their House although I should beat or wound one of their Members nigh unto their door going to the House to discharge his duty but I am to be sent in all such cases to the Judge of the upper * See 5. H. 4. 6. 11. H. 6. ch 11. See also my plea against the Lords jurisdiction before the Judges of the Kings Bench called the Laws Funerall pag. 8. 9. and my grand plea against the Lords jurudiction made before Mr. Maynard of the House of Commons and the four imprisoned Aldermen of London's plea against the Lord jurisdiction published by M. Lionel Hurbin 1648. Bench unto whom by Law they have given declared rules and direction in that particular how to behave himself which be as evident for me to know as himself Now ●i● if reason and justice do not judg it convenient that the Parliament shall not be Judges in such particular cases that are of so neer concernment to themselves but yet hath others that are not of their House that are as well concerned as themselves much lesse will reason or justice admit them to be judges in particular cases that are farther remote stom their particular selves and do meerly concern the Common-wealth and sure I am Sir this is the declared Statute Law of England and doth stand in full force at this hour there being I am sure of it no Law to repeal it no not since the House of Commons set up their new Common-wealth Now Sir from all this I argue thus that which is not inherent in the whole cannot by the whole be derived or assigned to a part But it is not inherent neither in the power nor authority of the whole House of Commons primarily and originally to ●●ecute the Law and therefore they cannot derive it to a part of themselves But yet Sir with your favour for all this I would not be mistaken as though I maintained ned the Parliament had no power to make a Court of Justice for I do grant they may erect a Court of Justice to administer the Law provided that the Judges consist of persons that are not Members of their House and provided that the power they give them be universall that is to say to administer the Law to all the people of England indefinitely and not to two or three particular persons solely the last of which for them to do is * And therefore I aver that the High Court of Justice that sate upon Duke Hamilton the Earl of Holland c. was no Court of Justice but in the eye of the Law murdered those Noble men for which Bradshaw and the rest of his fellow Judges are not in the eye of the Law so excusable as was Empson and Dudly that Sir Edward Cook speaks of in the 2. part Ins●it fo 51. 3 part f. 208. 4. part Inst fol. 41. 196. 197. 198. who yet lost their lives as Traitors for subverters of the fundamentall Laws of England unjust and altogether out of their power And therfore Sir to conclude this point It being not in the

death nor hell men nor Devills hanging nor burning for I assuredly know that when this my miserable life is ended I shall go to my God of glory to be a posessour of an immortall Crowne of glory In the second place if they will not let me have a speedy and legal tryall then therefore in regard my keepers are such murthering poysoning and starving fellowes that I have just cause in regard of their cruell bloudy threats and inveterate malice at me to fear that they will either secretly by poison or else by other wicked cruelty put me to death I humbly and earnestly desire that I may be turned over to Bridwell Newgate either of the Countors or any other prison about this City where my friends may be suffered to come to me and relieve me and look to me in my weaknesse and great distresse for I am necessitated with speed to take physickagain to ease the extremity of pain which I endure in my head if my Friends according to law and humanity might be suffered to come to look to me And for my safe imprisonment if I may be removed I will put in sufficient security either to the L. Protector or your self for my forth-coming at all times to answer whatsoever the greatest or capitallest of my enemies shall at any time object against me Now my Lord I have a little acquainted you with my grievous and just complaint the particulars of which I offer to justifie and prove it being such an example of cruelty which is lawlesly and unjustly exercised upon me which I think cannot be parallell'd in any Nation in the world where morality and humanity are professed Oh therefore as you are the Noble Governour of this Renowned City and a Magistrate of good report make me some powerfull and speedy help against the cruel Warden whose lawless unjust and uncontrollable oppressions are so great not only to me but also to many other poor prisoners that I think no Prison in the world is able to parallel those just complaints that poor distressed men are able justly to make against him the chief of which arise from the Bishop old Sir Henry Vane and the Lord Keeper's bearing up the Warden in all his cruelty for executing with tyranny and rigour their unjust and unlawfull Commands upon th●se they commit hither to be tormented in our cruel Fleet Purgatory which if any of the oppressed do but offer to speak of the Warden and his Officers do labour by lawlesse cruelty to murther them Therefore it behoves you my Lord and my Lord Protector now in our Soveraigns absence being then gone against the Scots to hear the cryes of poor distressed and too too much oppressed prisoners and to ease them according to justice and right of their intolerable burthens For my own part my distresses and miseries are so great that I protest before the God of heaven and earth that I had rather imbrace present death then still endure the piercing bitternesse of my oppressing forments yea I had rather chuse to be banished into the howling and dolesom wildernesse and left among the Lions Dragons Bears and Wolves those devouring and ramping wilde beasts then to be as I am in the custody of the lawlesse murthering Bishop and Jaylors O therefore if there be any bowels of mercy and compassion in you most Noble Lord pity the deprorable condition of me a poor distressed innocent young man and a Prentice of this Honourable City And with you my Lord I have had occasion to speak face to face about my Masters businesse and the last piece of service that I did him was in your Honours House O that I were with you again that I might with mournfull sollicitations sollicite you for some speedy redresse which for our Christ his sake I beseech you let me shortly have lest the continuance in my present and constant misery cause me to publish this in print proclaiming it aloud to other Nations to the publick view of all men that so they may know my miserable condition But if I can but have any redresse I shall be ready at your Honours command to do you any service that I am able and in the interim I shall with willingnesse sit down in peace and silence So committing you and all your brave Citizins to the keeping of the Almighty Protector desiring him to guide your Noble heart uprgihtly to execute Justice and Judgment in your great place in these tormenting oppressing and bloudy times that so your good name for equity and justice may be had in perpetuity in future generations So for the present I humbly take my leave and rest Your most miserable distressed and cruelly oppressed poor Suppliant JOHN LILBURN All of this I subscribe with my own bloud which is already almost shed with cruelty And for the safety of my life since I was whipt to the number of above 500 stripes with knotten whip-cords in lesse then an hours space I have been forced to be let bloud four times And because in my most cruell condition I am not suffered to have either pen or ink neither of which I make use of in the writing of this I am forced to send it very ruggedly to your Honour and to crave pardon for those literal faults that you shall finde in it JOHN LILBURN From the Fleet the oppressingest and cruellest prison I think that is in the world the middle of this fifth Month called May 1639. Courteous Reader I shall desire thee to cast thy eye seriously upon this ensuing Letter of mine and my fellow-prisoner Mr. Richard Overton which we wrote to the Generall the 27. of April 1649 in the behalf of Captain Savages Troopers the Copy of which is as followeth The Copy of a Letter written to the Generall from Lieut. Col. Jo. Lilburn and M. Rich. Overton Arbitrary and Ari-stocratical prisoners in the Tower of London the 27 of April 1649 in behalf of Mr. Robert Lockier tyrannycally ordered to be murdered by the Councel of War M. George Ash M. Joseph Hockley M. Robert Osburn Mr. Matth. Heyworth Mr. Tho. Goodwin all of Captain Savage his Troop in Col. Whaley's Regiment who by the said Councel were adjudged to cast lots for their lives and one of them to die In which it is by Law fully proved that it is both Treason and Murder for any Generall or Councel of War to execute any Souldier in time of Peace by Martiall Law May it please your Excellency WEe have not yet forgot your Solemn Engagement of June 5. 1647 whereby the Armies continuance as an Army was in no wise by the wil of the State but by their own mutuall Agreement and if their standing were removed from one Foundation to another as is undeniable then with the same they removed from one Authority to a another and the Ligaments and Bounds of the First were all dissolved and gave place to the Second and under and from the head of their first Station viz. By the will of