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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88998	The picklock of the old Fenne project: or, Heads of Sir John Maynard his severall speeches, taken in short-hand, at the committee for Lincolneshire Fens, in the exchequer chamber. Consisting of matter of fact. Matter of law. Presidents quæres and answers.	Maynard, John, Sir, 1602-1690.	1650 (1650)	Wing M1457; Thomason E594_4; ESTC R206914	10,306	19

THE PICKLOCK OF THE Old Fenne Project OR Heads of Sir JOHN MAYNARD his severall SPEECHES TAKEN In Short-hand at the Committee for LINCOLNESHIRE FENS in the Exchequer Chamber Consisting of Matter of Fact Matter of Law Presidents Quaeres and Answers LONDON Printed by J. B. 1650. The Picklock of the Old-Fenne-Project Mr. Goodwin I Shall observe this Method in answering the Councell on the other side First I shall speake to the matter of Fact Secondly to the matter of Law And thirdly I shall cite some Presidents in the point Sir William Killagrew hath mis-stated the matter of Fact in his Printed Case for therein he alleadges that the Commissioners first invited the King to recommend to them an Undertaker whereas it appears otherwise in the Kings Letters and in three of his Letters the King varies The Undertakers which no question was by Sir Robert Killagrew Sir William Killagrew and Master Robert Longs procurement The Kings first Letter is most observable therein are couched all the fallacies of the Undertakers and the foundation of the project They informed and perswaded the King that he might appoint and command a Tax to be laid of a Marke the Acre without any respect to the interest of particular persons or consult the owners And further That the Tax should be made by the Commissioners on you without Verdict and that their judgement must be the rule of proceedings in this case and not the consent of the Owners whose aversenesse must not prejudice the Publique good In the Kings second Letter the Earl of Lindsey Sir Rob. Killagrew Sir William Killagrew are recommended by way of Mandamus to be Undertakers As we expect and we do command all manner of persons to forbeare to make any particular bargains or works c. In the third Letter it is still by way of Mandamus We have made choice of him meaning the Earle of Lindsey to be the Vndertaker And in the Kings last Letter the King offers to give his Royall Assent The Commissioners began legally for they impannel'd a Jury of the Neighbourhood of twenty five who found that the Levell was not hurtfully surrounded When Mr. Robert Long saw how the Countrey was bent he wisely sold his share for 1500l to Mr. Herne Mr. Nicholas Love and one Mr. Hoyden and they were to be at the charge of draining Likewise Mr. Long perswaded Mr. Thomas Killagrew and Mr. Henry to sell their shares but Sir William Killagrew would not be advised but built a faire House on another folks Lands and fortified it and furnished it with men Ammunition and Artillery Muskets Horsemen and Pistols in a Warlike manner and entertained French and Dutch Yet the Countrey would never yeeld possession but alwaies opposed Sir William and the rest of the Undertakers the Countrymen were Pursuivanted imprisoned by Councell-Table-Warrants some we heare were wounded and affrighted with Mastiffe-Dogs Many men were utterly undone and wearied out and forced to subscribe and enter into Bonds Assoone as the Courtiers saw the Commissioners joyned with the Countrey they procured worthy Patriots to be put out of Commission and Courtiers Servants to the Undertakers and many of themselves were Jndges and Parties After the Jury found the Levell not hurtfully surrounded they were laid aside And the Commissioners many being Undertakers and consequently Judges and Parties got upon Boston Steeple and adjudged all they saw was hurtfully surrounded They might as well have got upon Pauls Steeple and adjudged all the rich Meadows and Marshes on both sides the Thames to be hurtfully surrounded when they are overflowne by Land-floods If you will see to the end you must observe the meanes The Undertakers gave the King 3000. Acres by way of bribe and the King gave them 14000. Acres for being Judges and Parties they might be their own carvers Likewise the Undertakers gave some thousands of Acres to divers Lords of the Councell and both the Secretaries I pray Observe some materiall circumstances First the time when this project was set on foot It was in the Intervals of Parliaments the onely harvest for Projectors then Parliaments were damn'd at Court And observe the persons that were the Patrons of those Projectors they were inveterate enemies to Parliaments The Lord Treasurer Weston who was accused by Sir John Elliot in 3 Car. and most instrumentall to imprison those worthy Members and Sir John Elliot died a Martyr for the Parliament in the Tower The Earle of Lindsey father and son and all the Undertakers have been against the Parliament Alas there is a bed-roule of other grievances and 200. witnesses were examined when Mr. Ellis had the chaire So much in brief to the matter of Fact For the Matter of Law we conceive these Undertakers are higher offenders then the Earle of Strafford for they have not onely indeavoured but traiterously maliciously and premeditately against the light of their own consciences and knowledges have actually subverted the fundamentall Lawes of the Land and introduced an Arbitrary and Tirannicall Government For contrary to the 29. Chap. of Magna Charta which is confirmed by thirty two Sessions of Parliament whereof the Petition of Right and the Act for the abolishing the Star-chamber are two they have imprisoned our persons and destroyed Juries and put out the two eyes of the Law Liberty and Property Likewise contrary to the 15 and 16 chap. of the great Charter wherein it is expressed That no man shall be compelled and distrained to make new ban●● or bridges but as formerly the same is confirmed in the 25. Ed. the 3. ch. 2. the 1. of H. 4. chap. 12. the 6. of H. 6. chap. 5. the 8. of H. 6. chap. 2. the 12. Ed. 4. ch. 7. the 6. of H. 8. chap. 10. All which are knit up in the 23. of H. 8. chap. the 5. yet the Undertakers many being Commissioners have acted point blank against these known Laws For the Commissioners could do nothing without the Jury which are Judges of the matter of Fact and they are to finde the defaulters according to the 12. of Edw. 4. and the 23. of H. 8. and to amerce individuals and not a generall levell and the Commissioners are to approve of such Amerciaments Object But say they the undertakers by the 23. of Hen. 8. the Commissioners may proceed without Juries by view according to their discretion Answ. Sir Edward Cook explains discretion which is Secundum consuetudines leges Angliae otherwise their proceedings are irrationall and illegall Besides the Commissioners could not lay a Tax because they were new moulded of Courtiers which were Judges and Parties and the Countrey Gentlemen contrary to Usance Custom and Law were put out and Strangers put in some not worth fourty Marks per Annum which by the Law they ought to have been so they were not legall Commissioners because they were Undertakers and consequently Judges and Parties and could not contract with themselves Had they been legall Commissioners they could not do it without Juries and

they laid it likewise upon no body for generals signifies nothing but as I said formerly it must be done by the Jury upon individuals All the Kings Letters which are supposed to be indited by Master Role ● Long were diametrially contrary to Law The King could lay no Tax nor give the Commissioners leave to proceed without Juries nor to appoint Undertakers which is contrary to the 43. of Eliz and the 4. and 7. of King Iames In the 43. of Elizabeth there is the first mention of an Undertaker and therein he is limited and directed what how ●●d with whom he must contract A Commissioner likewise hath no authority to contract but the Contract must be by the direction and approbation of the Lords Owners and Commoners under their hands and seals in writing indented Here was no such matter they followed their own lights which were Ignes fatui and so fell into those pits they digged for others They made a Contract with the King which was an evil bargain and they had the Kings Royall Assent which signifies nothing out of Parliament who ought by Law to speak onely by his Writs For Det Lex Regi quod Rex Legi quae Rex jure potest Rex ea sola potest but my fellow Courtiers thought they were above and beyond the Arm of the Law though they were both reached and over-reached at the last The Judges for Ship money were accused for Treason by reason it was destructive to Propriety yet that was not three in the pound but the Fenne-Project cuts our estates asunder at a blow In Ship-Money the King had a Judgement by the sworn or rather forsworn Judges but the Undertakers were the old Levelling Courtiers destroyers of Propriety and got the Kings hand to Letters of their own inditing and just as the Earl of Strafford produced blanks for all his horrid illegall Acts as disarming the Protestants and arming the Papists so did the Undertakers produce the Kings Letters upon all occasions especially to destroy Jucies and to take away our reall estates without consulting the Owners It is the same with the Forrest business for the Judges some of them would have made all England a Forrest So this generation of Undertakers would have incorporated and got a standing Commission in all Counties and so made England the Levell and England to be surrounded and in short time would have taken all we had This was as bad as their Levying War against the Parliament And we conceive Sir William Killagrew did actually Levy War against the Nation and had his project succeeded we had been no more a People Alas the Law of the Land was used by the Undertakers as a Murderer in Frame whose joynts are broken on the Wheel whilest he is yet alive and in good health I should Answer the Counsellors prolix Argument but I know not how to finde the beginning nor end of his ravelled discourse He hath played the part of a flourishing Writer who usually buries the Capitall Letter in a curious knot and instead of enucleating the business I can see no kernell but husks and shels In my apprehension the Gentleman that spake last hath gleaned his Argument from my Lord Finch and some of the Ship-Money Judges All he hath spoken is for the Kings Prerogative against the Law that is not now Ala mode But Master Goodwin I beseech you observe this Honourable Committee hath spent one quarter of a year on the point of possession and I hope we have beaten the Undertakers from that Post Then they pressed to state their case in Law and shew their title so that we hope now we have gained that Post likewise and not only got possession which is eleven points in Law but the twelfth likewise Now the Undertakers are building Castles in the Ayre or rather upon a Quicksandy foundation of the old Arbitrary Government of conveniency and inconveniency if that poynt crack then they will flie to necessity the old Court Retreat Let them traverse their ground and sence as well as they can we shall hit them still and beat them at their own weapon The Presidents IN Queen Elizabeths days this project was set on foot by the then Earl of Lincoln who procured a Patent from the Queen to drain some of these Fens when he was making his Works and new Drains contrary to Law the Country rose and the Lord Willoughby of Erby then Governour of Berwick raised the Trained Bands and assisted the Countrey in beating the workmen off the Earl of Lincoln complained to the Queen of the Riot committed by the Lord Willoughby who was sent for to the Councell Table The Lord Willoughby proved the Earl of Lincoln had not the Countreys consent but some few Tenants and others of his own faction that it was for private ends and lucre not onely to drayne himself and drown his Neighbours but to take great propoitions of Land which were never drowned for melioration and the means my Lord of Lincoln used was bribes to Courtiers to procure such an illegall Commission that himself and his friends might be Judges and Parties and that it was against the 23. of H. 8. The Queen upon full hearing of the business in great passion resumed her Commission and was wroth with the Earl of Lincoln who had been committed to prison but that his Lordship made great friends at Court and the Queen thanked the Lord Willoughby of Erby for assisting her good people in so honest and just a cause In the first of King James the same project was set on foot and a Petition was delivered unto his Majestie as though it had proceeded from the Country just such a Petition as Sir William Killagrew procured by two Ale-house keepers For it was onely a few of the Undertakers faction like to the Agreement of the People Sir Miles Sandes had made many friends at Court and the King was prepossessed it was a glorious work and for the Publique good and the King was made believe the Isle of Ely and the Southside the River Grant was hurtfully surrounded but when the King was hunting the Lord Garret of Chippenbam Sir John Cotton of Chenely Sir John Paytan of Iselham and Sir Thomas Gee acquainted the King with all the cheats of the Undertakers that they being Judges and Parties had made many thousand Acres that were never drowned and the most part of the Land which was the better by overflowing in the nature of River Meadows to be Land hurtfully surrounded That they dreyned and meliorated a little hurtfully surrounded Lands of their own and pejorated ten times as much Lands which were never hurtfully drowned before and that which was most gross and palpable they must not onely have a third part of that Land so pejorated but a third of such Lands as were never drowned for melioration When the King was fully instructed he injoyned secrecy and went up to the Parliament and discovered all the Undertakers fallacies and concluded wittily It is just

while will they be like the Dog in the Manger neither do their selves good nor suffer others to help them Ans. The Country are and have been ever willing but they have been obstructed these sixty yeares by powerfull Courtiers as Lord Keepers Attorneys-Generall and the dissolution and Intervals of Parliaments have impeded us but when we are rid of the Undertakers the worke will quickly be done both for the Honour and profit of the Nation without fraud or coven 6 Quaere But had not the Earle of Lindsey the Major part of the Lords Owners and Commoners consents his Lordship had a Petition signed with many hands Answ. Ten for one of the Lords Owners and Commoners are against the Earls undertaking Those hands for the Earle were procured by two Alehouse-keepers and most of them were Cottagers no Lords and but very few Owners and Commoners 7 Quaere Would it not be a brave improvement to have Rape and Cole-seed Hemp Flax and likewise Corne Answ. They calculate and reckon without their Host that the Customes will amount to 10000 l. 1 s. 8 d. ob per annum This is Ala Mountebanco or Sharlaton like Our Fens as they are produce great store of Wooll and Lambe and large fat Mutton besides infinite quantities of Butter and Cheese and do breed great store of Cattell and are stockt with Horses Mares and Colts and we send fat Beefe to the Markets which affords Hides and Tallow and for Corne the Fodder we mow off the Fens in summer feeds our Cattell in the winter By which meanes wee gather such quantities of Dung that it inriches our upland and Corne-ground which are contiguous halfe in halfe Besides our Fennes relieves our neighbours the Uplanders in a dry summer and many adjacent Counties So thousands of Cattell besides our owne are preserved which otherwise would perish So take away a third of our Fens you extinguish our Rents in our Commoning Houses and our Pastures and Corne-ground proportionably besides thousands of Cottagers which have no right of commoning must go a begging which the Owners connive at because they cannot prevent it being so numerous So that Rape Cole-seed and Hemp is a Dutch Commodity and but trash and trumpery and pils Land in respect of the afore recited Commodities which are the Oare of the Common-wealth 8 Quaere Is it not pitty when Sir William Killagrew having done so much good by his drayning and hath spent 30000 l. but that the Countrey should re-imburse his moneys there is all the conscience and reason in the world for this Answ. First it hath been proved he hath done a great deale more hurt then good by his new Dreyners and when the Countrey shall make use of the Undertakers Dreynes we will give satisfaction for them but they are uselesse nay pernicious and broken Cisternes to the Commoners in Summer both by dreyning our dry grounds so we are constreyned to buy water and to drive our Cattell very far in Summer to water them whereas our old Dreynes have ever furnished us with water enough Then on the other extreame their new Works have so hurtfully surrounded us that our Upland and Corne-grounds have been spoyled by them this is fully proved by many uninteressed Witnesses the Countrey is daminified at the least 60000 l. by these Undertakers 9 Quaere Whether are the old Draynes or the new most usefull for dreyning Answ. The old Dreynes are as the naturall sinks or rather Vent of the Body of the Fens Suppose a mans fundament were stopped and that a hundred Issues were made in the body the whole masse of blood would quickly be corrupted and the body would breake out in botches and biles So stop the old Sewers you will quickly perceive the sores or Quagmires will increase and whereas there is but one Acre now hurtfully surrounded were the old Draines duly scowred if they be stopped there will be tenne This is proved by Master Thorpe Mathematician and he gives his reason which is Mathematicall and necessary Because the old Dreynes have farre greater descents then the new so that the old Dreynes were never without water in summer which now they want exceedingly by reason of these Undertakers Dreynes which was proved before Master Ellis when he had the Chaire by twenty Witnesses Likewise the new Dreynes wanting that descent the old had the least floods in Summer or Winter overflow those Lands sooner and longer which is the cause that these Fennes are ten times more hurtfully surrounded then before This is not my bare information but Mathematicall or necessary and proved by many Witnesses For I say what Master Walpoole hath alleadged is not Mathematicall at all but pragmaticall and fantasticall It is a strange Chymaera and Phrenzie in the Undertakers to expect satisfaction of the Parliament for the money they have expended It were just the same as though the old Ship-money Judges should be preferred to be Judges and that their Fines should be restored and they rewarded over and above and the present Reverend Judges who have adhered to the Parliament should be displaced and Fined O Monstrum horrendum in forme ingens Quodcunque ostendas mihi sie incredulus odi We hope the Parliament will either Fine them as they did the Ship-money Judges or the old Farmers of the Custom-house and that this Fine shall be imployed by Lawfull Commissioners of Sewers towards the doing of the Work or relieving the poor or that we shall be left to the Common-Law as the Parliament left Sir Robert Barkham Captain Hall and Master Waldrum If Sir William Killagrew finde himself agrieved he may then appeal to the Parliament The Rule in Divinity is Deus non vult contradictoria Sic Parliamentum non vult contradictoria In the first Grand Remonstrance this individuall business is declared to be an Injustice Oppression Violence Project and Grievance and they particularize it For this horrid Project furnished the Parliament with those choice Materials which builded their Grand Remonstrance These are their express words Large Quantities of Commons and severalls have been taken away by the colour of the Statute of Improvement that is by falsifying and adulterating it which is meant by the 43. of Eliz. and by abuse of the Commission of Sewers which dissolves that excellent Law of the 23. of H. the 8. without their consent and against it which is the destruction of the Great Charter Petition of Right the Act for abolishing the Star-Chamber and all the fundamentall Laws of the Land And against twenty of the Parliaments Declarations which are in Print to the view of all the world yet the Undertakers are so impudent that they are confident to pass a Law and to inslave us who have conquered them but we so Confide in our Trustees that we know it is impossible being contrary to the principles of a Republique who acknowledge the Supream Power resides in the People and the Supream Authority is derived from them and the Soul and heart of the Common-wealth is Liberty and Property These Undertakers were formidable Monsters to the Countrey and had they continued a little longer probably they would not only have torn in pieces but devoured and swallowed up the whole Nation For they were Legislators out of Parliament and Anti-Legislators Parliamentarians and Anti-Parliamentarians Bribers Judges Juries and Parties They were Legislators for they have made severall Laws and they bribed the King with 3000. Acres to purchase his Royall Assent though I believe they might have had it for nothing This was the Root of all our Miseries For could the Parliament by their humble Petitions have obtained the Kings Royall Assent as these Courtiers could do with ease by their importunity opportunity and flattery this War had probably been prevented Certainly the Undertakers were the onely Impeders and partition walls betwixt King and People and they had closed and been reconciled had it not been for such Imposters as they who cared not for God King nor Countrey but sought themselves and preferred their owne gaine before the Publique That Prince is unhappy that prefers Persons or Individuals before the Representative of so numerous a People and great Nation They were Anti-Legislators for all their Laws were point blank against the great Charter Petition of Right and all the Fundamentall Laws of the Land they were Parliamentarians to call a Parliament to sell Ship-money for twelve Subsidies and to raise money to make Wars against the Scots who wrestled for their Liberties and were not such tame slaves as they expected When the Parliament would give no Subsidies to inslave themselves then the Courtiers dissolved that Parliament That the Undertakers were Bribers is upon Record and likewise that they were Judges Juries and Parties Sir Edward Cook was wont to say that it never failed that those which brake Parliaments were alwayes broken by them yet these Undertakers hope to be repayred for their project which was onely to keep off Parliaments And this one Project had it succeeded would have commanded all the Land in England to have been at the Kings disposing Then all had been their own for the King was little the better by such Projects the Courtiers gained all FINIS