Bottom he and the rest of them do build their Argumentations and the high-flown flourishes of discourse which they so diligently Print and spread abroad to deceive the weaker unwary People and intoxicate them with disaffection to this Parliament and to the lawful Prerogative and Government of His Majesty But if they can make no better Squibs than this to blow up a Parliament they had best give it over for the King not being bound up by Law within a yeer he is at liberty to Prorogue beyond the limit of a yeer and so the Fifteen Months Prorogation was and is good though it hath been seldom that there have been so long Prorogations For that is no Argument against the Wisdom and Power of the King to exceed some days or months if He seeth in prudence it be pro bono Publico and that urgent Reasons of State do require it and there is nothing in all our Law that speaks a syllable to the contrary if rightly consider'd Therefore to unwinde the Bottom which the Dissolver hath entangled let me with assurance determine this Point which is the Standard by which you may measure all that they have said or can say If those two Statutes did not confine the Parliament's sitting to Twelve months then the Kings Proroguing His Parliament to Fifteen months was no violation of the said Statutes If no Statute be thereby violated then the Prorogation was and is good If so then the Parliament is as firm in Being as ever any Prorogued Parliament was or can be and consequently the Laws which they have made or shall make after the Prorogation are as perfect and obligatory upon us as any other Laws that ever were made in this Nation And 't is no question a Crime little less than an endeavour at the Subversion of Parliament for any persons by Speeches or Prints in or out of the Houses to carry on a Designe of arguing a Dissolution of this thereby to perswade the People against Obedience and Submission to it Nor can this Assertion of mine be construed as if I maintained any thing in derogation of that Freedom of speech which ought to be had in Parliament and which I count absolutely necessary for the Debate and the Dispatch of the Grand Affairs But then that freedom of speech ought to be qualified with so much Modesty and Reverence as not to run to such licentious discourse as the Laws make Criminal for next to downright Treasonous discourse none can be worse than that which tends to the Violent Dissolution of a Parliament that is to say without the King's consent or against His will What then do they deserve who have been such busie Speech-makers both in and out of Parliament to bring that End about against the King's consent and against the Laws Or that shall presume to do it hereafter seeing the two Houses have given their Judgment in the Case contrary to the interpretation of all Factious Penmen and Talkers But the Dissolver goes further than this and takes upon himself the person of the People of England and in their Name falls to downright threatning of both Houses of Parliament in the following words DISSOLVER Pages 9 and 10. This we say not Gentlemen by way of acknowledgment that you are in a Legal capacity now to do us either good or hurt for your day is done and your power expired but that you may not like a Snuff smell ill after you are out For the reason why we more particularly direct our selves to you is because of the Character you have born that therefore you should not seem so much as to give Prerogative the upper hand of the Law That so however you have lived yet all may say and witness for you that you died well and made a worthy End If not we hope the whole Nation will strictly observe every man among you that to sit a little longer yet would sacrifice to this Prorogation the very best of Laws and in them all the Laws and Liberties of England The two Statutes of EDW. 3. were declared to be in force by your Selves in the Sixteenth yeer of the King in the new Triennial Act then passed and we are sure there hath been no new Parliament since to Repeal them ANIMADVERSION What need this phrentick impertinent Clause here at last seeing that no man affirms those two Statutes to be Repealed Let them stand for ever as Laws to shew that as we had and have a Right to a frequencie of Parliaments so also that the King hath a Right of Prerogative to judge whether there be need of having them so often as every yeer And thus much is to be understood also by the tenour of the new Triennial Act passed by this Parliament to prevent Inconveniences hapning by the long intermission of Parliaments for they name the two Statutes of Edward the Third but make no mention of a Right to Parliaments once every yeer the words of the Act referring to those Statutes being these onely because by them Parliaments are to be held very often which is the very same that I grant and affirm to be the meaning of the said Statutes and their not affirming a jot more than I do implieth that they understood them no otherwise than I do in general terms for a Declarative Frequencie but whether within a yeer or oftner they say not a word touching which it is to be presumed they would not have been silent if they had understood it to be the Right of the People to have had certain Parliaments yeerly whenas the Statutes declare not absolutely but onely with condition IF NEED BE. And because all mouthes should be stopped and no room left for an Objection which ill-minded heads or jealous may make and is made use of by these our Factious Book-makers viz. that our having of Parliaments is by this means left to the King's pleasure when he please to judge them needful behold there is no reason for such objecting because the nature of His power to judge I maintain not to be absolute whether we shall have Parliaments or not but whether it be needful to have one or more so oft as within every yeer Therefore the high Wisdom of this present Parliament is to be magnisied in contriving that new Triennial Act in such a manner as prevents all the frivolous Objections that may be made by any other persons For in the later end of the Act they pray in these words That it may be Declared and Enacted And be it Declared and Enacted by the Authority aforesaid That hereafter the Sitting and Holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above Three years at the most but that within Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within Three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments OR IF THERE BE OCCASION MORE OFTEN your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for Calling Assembling
the King is Judge onely whether a Parliament shall be held oftner than once a yeer whereas the Conjunction AND couples and joyns the sence of the words IF NEED BE to the former part of the sentence and so the Statute speaks plain for the King 's being Sole Judge whether there be need of calling Parliaments once a year as well as whether there be need of calling them oftner than once a yeer So that 't is evident the Noble King Edward the Third and his Parliament meant no such matter as the Considerator and his Fellows and as some other Professors of the Law have hitherto misunderstood contrary to the General sence of Law in that part of our Laws which concerns the Establishment of the Prerogative of our Kings a very principal flower whereof is the Power of Calling and Dissolving Parliaments as often as they shall judge there is need and the Practice of other Nations in all the World hath justified this that it is the common Birth-right of Hereditary Kings to be sole Judges of this Question Whether there be need or no need at all times of Calling or of Dismissing the Supreme Assemblies unless they limit themselves but you see here is reason absolute to conclude our King Edward did not intend to limit himself to yeerly Parliaments by the said Statutes And to make further proof of this see again what is said by the Considerator CONSIDERATOR That the Kings of England have not duely nor constantly observed those Statutes ever since their making doth not render them of the less Force because 't is an Offence in the King not to fulfil a Law ANIMADVERSION Here he is pleased to acknowledge what cannot be denied that the Kings of England have not observed those Statutes ever since their making which shews that our succeeding Kings never thought themselves obliged by them or that King Edward intended it so unless they should see need or at any time judge it necessary to call a Parliament Besides we do not read of any Parliamentary Complaint about the omitting of YEERLY Parliaments till our Presbyterian Masters of the Faction in their Grand Remonstrance 1641. charged it as a fault upon his Majesties Father under pretence of those Statutes And doubtless some of the foregoing Parliaments would have made complaint about Yeerly Omission had they believed Kings bound to Yeerly Parliaments But that King Edward and his Parliament which passed the Law never intended or understood it in the Considerator's sence is to be concluded from this most undeniably That from the Fifth yeer of the said King to the Eighth yeer no Parliament was called the reason was because he judged there was no need Nor doth it appear that he did afterward observe any such certain Puncto of time in calling his Parliaments but doubtless 't is in reason to be thought he would have been so tender of his own Law as to have observed it within the fifth or sixth yeer and not so soon have broken it if he had thought himself obliged absolutely to a yeer because it was but in the fourth year that he passed it CONSIDERATOR But saith the Considerator the King is the onely person that is meant or can be bound For he it is that is to Summon or Hold Parliaments and therefore the Statutes intend to oblige Him or else they intend nothing and the Laws for Parliaments that secure our Religion Properties and Liberties are become onely Advices and Counsels to the King with no obligation further than the Kings present thoughts of their expedience ANIMADVERSION That the Obligation to a Yeerly Parliament lies no further upon the King than if in prudence he see there be need is already proved from a Right Construction of the words of the Statutes and that this prudential power and part of the Kings Prerogative in Judging the expedience of calling Parliaments at this or that time as Affairs shall in His Judgement require did remain undiminished by the said Statutes And they intended onely this which was enough That seeing the People had an ancient Right by Custom to have frequent Parliaments the King accordingly should oblige himself to call Parliaments so often as every yeer or oftner if there should be need Whereupon it is observable that seeing in the interval of Parliament there neither ought nor can be any Judge of the necessity but the King these two Laws left the power of judging it in the Prerogative-Royal as they found it and the then Parliament gained this great Advantage for the People that whereas they before had a Right by Custom and Common Law they now obtain a right by Statute-Law too which certainly so wise a King as Edw. 3. would never have granted without a Salvo put in for his Prerogative by the words IF NEED BE. Moreover consider if those Statutes should be otherwise understood viz. that the King ex debito were bound every yeer to call a Parliament whether it would not have been a great Mischief rather than Benefit to the People For in those days they that served Members in Parliament were wont to take Wages for their Service and that would have layn heavie upon every poor Burrough to have been bound to pay Wages due once a yeer sometimes oftner to their Burgesses it being recoverable by Law against them which peradventure would amount to more than their share of payment of Subsidies Again consider as this would empty their Purses so it would lade them with innumerable Laws which are as grievous almost as to have none as it hath been found in many Nations by experience and therefore it is that Justinian hath been every-where praised for so excellent an Emperour because when all the Nations under the Roman Empire were even over-laid with multitudes of Laws and groaned more under this Yoak than that of Taxes Tributes he took care how to deliver the people from that vexatious Burthen by cutting off the major unnecessary part of the Imperial Statutes and Digesting the rest into a tolerable Body Therefore should such yeerly Parliaments be imposed on us by Law the Statutes would soon swell to the like intolerable pass and tire the people out of fondness after so frequent Meetings as these Writers plead for and would force Us to admit even against all Sense and Reason Therefore we have abundant cause to praise the Wisdom of His Majestie and this His Parliament that in the 16th yeer of his Reign they framed that most prudent Triennial Law which placeth a golden Mediocrity betwixt the having too frequent Parliaments and too long delay of them and I must needs say His Majestie hath therein appeared by limiting himself to call Parliaments hereafter at Three yeers time after the determination of this and after the determination of every succeeding Parliament to be beyond all our Kings and most gracious in condescending and Indulgence towards his people that as the Faction which set on work this Considerator and his Fellows to delude the
there is no Law to be found that contradicts and therefore 't is to be supposed that an Argument drawn from those two Statutes of Edw. 3. being an Argument ex Consequenti that is an Argument grounded upon Consequence the Consequence if good ought to be derived from a right interpretation of those Statutes Now the decision of the matter rests onely upon this Which of the two Parties Judgements you will rely upon as most likely to make right interpretation of the Statutes whether upon our Author's Judgment and his Fellows who appear to be parties concerned in a present Factious designe and season or upon the Judgment of the Queen's Parliament which sat in a more Happie Season who doubtless could not be ignorant of those Statutes but neither they nor any Parliament or Person since that yeer of the Queen ever found fault with her Prorogation as illegal which it 's to be believed would have been done before this time if that Parliament or any succeeding Parliament or Lawyer or other person before the time of the late Prorogation had apprehended the Queen to be faulty in hers Therefore 't is to be supposed that this Precedent of Prorogation made by that most excellent Princess is a good one and that the Interpretation of those Statutes made by this Author and his Fellows to serve a Faction towards the ruine of this Parliament is the wrong Moreover if the sence of those Statutes be taken as they would have it viz. That no Parliament ought to sit above a yeer but a new one to be called within the yeer why were not those Statutes made use of before in Fifteen yeers time to condemn the sitting of this It is strange that no notable Lawyer should in all that time affirm the illegality of it But that onely some few Scarabees of the Law should now to bolster up a Faction be scribling their sence upon the Statutes when the ablest have been and are silent is ridiculous Besides Fourthly consider that when his Majesty now Regnant did in the 16 yeer of his Reign Enact That the Triennial Act passed by his Royal Father in his 16th yeer should be Repealed for Reasons in that Act of Repeal expressed yet upon the humble Supplication of the Lords and Commons He did Declare That hereafter the sitting and holding of Parliaments shall not be intermitted or discontinued above three yeers at the most And that within three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament and so from time to time within three yeers after the determination of any other Parliament or Parliaments or if there be occasion more often your Majestie your Heirs and Successors do issue out your Writs for calling assembling and holding of another Parliament to the end there may be a frequent calling assembling and holding of Parliaments once in three yeers at the least From which I collect these ensuing Particulars 1. That by the word Three yeers after the determination of this present Parliament it is implied by the Act that the duration of this Parliament shall not be comprehended within any determinate time and there was reason for it because they had a tedious work to do to repair the Ruines of three Kingdoms wasted and unsetled by a long Civil War 2. This appears farther by the subsequent words which shew that the determinate Course of Parliaments set by the Act is meant onely for the future after the Dissolution of this 3. The Parliament had been sitting four yeers when they form'd this Act and therefore though they in the Act made mention of the two old Statutes of Edward the Third for holding a Parliament every yeer yet it seems they did not then in their virgin-days conceive themselves to be within the breach of those Statutes for sitting above a yeer because they were upon the making of this Act which doubtless so many learned men as are in these honourable Houses would never have presumed to do if their Sitting had by Law been limited to but a yeers time for then they could not but have apprehended that the Laws they made in the three yeers before must have been null and void for want of legal power to make them as well as all the Laws that they should make afterward till this day And what must the miserable Consequence of that have been even to demolish all the new Foundations which had been or were to be laid for the Restauration and Establishment of the Crown Church and State in case the validity of their former Sitting and Acting had been questionable as they would have been by such bold Interpreters of Law as I shall further make them appear to be who presume to advance their own Understandings above the Judgement of whole Bodies of Parliaments which these men have done and do by Printed Books scattered like Wild-fire about the three Nations to set all in Combustion But Fifthly what if it should appear a more considerable Question to be put Whether those two Old Statutes of Edward the Third be not of most force for the King And truely there appears good reason to conclude in the Affirmative The two Statutes may stand as declarative Memorials of the Judgement of Parliament in time past for the Peoples having a right to a frequencie of Parliaments if need require and no farther but it is not to be believed that so Victorious and Potent a King as Edward the Third ever would have passed those two Acts if his Parliaments meaning had been to cut off that main Point of his Prerogative Royal viz. the power of judging when 't is fit or needful to call a Parliament and when not Nor is it at all likely that it was the Opinion of that Age that the King had done so in passing those Acts but 't is rather to be supposed that that Parliament meant no more than this That those Statutes were intended to be declarative of the Common Law and of the People's having Right by antient Custom to Parliaments and that as they had been so they should also be yeerly in the future if judged necessary For I would know of any man of an impartial Judgment how it is possible to skrue out of those Statutes any other Meaning seeing the words if need be are words Hypothetical or Conditional viz. supposing there be need or upon Condition there be need Hereby 't is implied that if in a yeers time there be no need there is no obligation by Law from hence for the calling a Parliament always within the yeer The Sum of all then is this That if no need be he need not call one And who I pray you ought to be judge of this need but the King who is to Call But what saith our Author of the Considerations to this He hereupon turns Statute-Expositor and Objector as followeth CONSIDERATOR He saith this meaning of the Law is but a Phansie all our Properties Rights and Liberties are bound up in those LAWS of Annual Parliaments and
the King 's Dispensing with them cannot take place with any man that considers the First of those two Statutes viz. That a Parliament shall be holden every yeer once OR more often if need be by which words the King is left onely Judge of the need of a Parliament oftner than once a yeer But whether the King see need or no he is absolutely and peremptorily bound to hold a Parliament once a yeer ANIMADVERSION This sort of men are always up with a great Noise about Property Right and Liberty of the People because most men are wont to be taken with the mention of those matters wherein their Good and well-being is concerned and the Projecting Faction would be supposed to be the onely Advocates for them but alas this is the Faction's old main Engine to catch Proselytes among the injudicious part of the World which are always much the major Part of Mankinde who in the mean time are not able to judge whether Discourses be made rationally or not till the Sophisms or Cheats of such Crafty Writers be discovered And verily I believe this Penman himself if he had pleased might have saved me the labour of discovery for he writes more like a Lawyer than any of his Fellows And therefore he could have told you that the Law of England is as careful for the Prerogative of the King as it is for the Liberty of the Subject and whereas the Government of England hath in all Times even from utmost Antiquity been for a Monarchy the Laws have not left it destitute of Powers to preserve it Self in that Condition and the People ought to be as zealous for the Conservation of it by maintaining the Rights of the Crown as they are for their own because those also were Ordained for Publike good and are as necessary as the other and accordingly the eye of the Law hath been as tender of them as of the other because our Ancestors in framing the Constitution of this Kingdom conceived the end of Government which is Peace publike Convenience and Safety could not well be attained without it Therefore that in this the wisdom of the Law was great of old and ought greatly to be admired is most evident because by late Experience we have found since 1641 that in pulling the Feathers of Monarchy the People did put none in their own Caps but what made them look like Bedlams and become really such by running at last into Anarchy mere Confusion It were endless to bring in here a citation of manifold Provisions made by Law to preserve the Prerogative for they are known to all men that have studied the Law and to most men that have not And therefore in making Interpretations of Law about Government we are when we write to carry an even hand betwixt what is Right for the King and what is Right for the Subject and not draw Conclusions on one side out of literal Expressions and particular Sentences but rather to derive them from the general Sence and Scope of all our Laws on both sides compared one with another and so should this Considerator and his Fellows have done if they had honest Intentions Next as to what he saith of the Peoples Rights and Liberties being bound up in Annual Parliaments 't is so ridiculous that his Masters of the Faction in 1641 would not understand it so They before all things proclaimed to the World that the onely way to preserve the Rights and Liberties was to have a Parliament of length sufficient to sit and dispatch the Publike affairs that is to say they who pretended themselves to be the great Patrons of the Peoples Rights were so far from thinking those Rights were bound up in yeerly Parliaments that they would not be satisfied till they had an Act passed to impower them to sit as many yeers as they pleased which they never could with any face have demanded if the opinion of Lawyers or of the People of that time had been that all our Rights had been so bound up in those two Statutes that to part with yeerly Parliaments had been to part with our Rights and Liberties For it would then have savoured of too rank Hypocrisie before the Multitude and have raised their Jealousie against them had they imagined or should any body have told them that their Rights and Liberties were at Stake by such proceeding of their Patrons Moreover consider this present Parliament's proceeding in those days when but few men offer'd to finde fault with them For when in the Sixteenth yeer of His now Majestie they passed that Act to prevent long intermission of Parliaments it is plain that they were of another opinion than the Considerator and his Fellows For the words and scope of the Act shew they were exceeding tender of our Rights and Liberties yet determined the time of Parliamentary Meetings to once in three yeers which 't is reason to believe they never would have done if they had not understood our Rights and Liberties would have been better provided for by their Triennial than by yeerly Meetings But now adays it is a small matter with our Factious Leguleian Scriblers to form up Opinions upon forged Interpretations of Law and prefer them before the Opinions of whole Parliamentary Bodies whose Wisdom ought to be reverenced as and as it is the Wisdom of the whole Nation In the next place consider how slily the Considerator shuffles in his transcribing one of the two controverted Statutes The first saith a Parliament shall be holden every yeer once AND oftner if need be but he writes OR oftner if need be in stead of AND. It is not out of any inclination I have to Pedantick Niceties or that I think it becomes any man to mingle Points of Philologie with discourse about matters of Politie that I now begin to play the Grammaticaster but when I perceive there is a crafty purpose in altering such a small Particle when one is placed in a sentence in stead of the other I suppose it becomes me not to neglect it especially when it perverts the whole meaning of a Law I dare appeal to the Ferula of Dr. Busby the Prince of Grammarians whether there be not a material difference in signification betwixt AND and OR the former being a Copulative the later a Disjunctive Now the present Dispute betwixt the Considerator and me being this Whether the words IF NEED BE do refer onely to the later part of the Sentence or to the whole Sentence as he a few lines after expresseth and would have those words to refer to the later part onely and therefore would by foisting in the Conjunction Disjunctive OR in stead of the Conjunction Copulative AND dis-joyn the said words IF NEED BE from the first part of the Sentence give me leave to say that he hereby would put upon us a most partial Artifice of Delusion and mere Juggle for by the word OR there may be some colour for his Construction of the Law that
3. cap. 10. That for the maintenance of those Liberties and remedy of Mischiefs and Grievances that daily happen a Parliament should be held once every yeer ANIMADVERSION I cannot but note this Dissolver to be a mere Shifter He shifts that Statute of 4 Edw. 3. out of the way as a thing too hot for him to handle because of the words IF NEED BE. And as he lays that aside so next he turns Statute-clipper cuts off the main Clause which qualisies the Sence of the Second Statute of the 36 of Edw. 3. The words of the Clause are As at another time WAS ORDAINED BY STATVTE Now that other Statute here mentioned is the first Statute of Edw. 3. which ordained that Parliaments shall be holden once a yeer if need be and more often if need be that is to say we shall have frequent Parliaments and as frequent as heart can wish IF NEED require Just so much and no more was Ordained by the former Statute But who shall be Judge of this need or who can be but the King in whom the Law hath trusted the Calling of Parliaments Therefore 't is in Law to be supposed it may be inconvenient for Him to call a Parliament so often as every yeer when in his Judgment He concludes it not needful so to do So much for Clipping the Statute a Crime as bad as Clipping the King's Coyn if not worse But any thing must be done to serve the turn of Dissolution DISSOLVER The reason he saith is because this Parliament hath sat so many years till they are not the Representatives of one half of the People of England And the Gentry who think themselves born to have their share in Ruling as well as being Ruled judge it a very hard thing upon them to be secluded from their hopes of having the honour to serve their King and Country in Parliament ANIMADVERSION A Share of Ruling as well as being Ruled 'T is very fine ye men of Shaftsbury this is so like the language of the Old Levellers who were all for Ruling by Turns that one might almost swear a small Friend of yours was at the Penning it He is always for Vp and Ride and Rule and Rule alone and so is the whole Faction and that is the Reason why they are for a Tumbling-Cast to the present Rulers of Church and State But what Gentry are those who hanker after Rule If to sit and serve in Parliament be to Rule this the Law never understood in England and the Writ of Summons to Parliament saith no such thing the Rule and Empire being vested in the King and those that are by Law deputed under Him for that purpose It was never otherwise understood till that fatal Parliament in FORTY ONE when they wrested the Rule out of the hand of the King and His inferiour Magistrates There were then such a Sort of Gentry got into the House though but few in comparison of the whole number that in order to the gaining of all Rule into their own hands from their Fellow-Members as well as the King first placed it in the hands of London-Prentices till by Tumults and Tumultuous Voting they drave away the rest of the Gentry as well as the King and the majority of the Lords and never left till themselves became the onely Lords of Mis-rule Such Gentry as those were are they that now reckon of Ruling in Parliament one day or other if they can but be rid of this and perswade the People to chuse 'em having to that end a great confidence in the strength of the Tongues and Lungs of their Ambulatory Chaplains The rest of the Gentry understand them well enough and all their Windings and do very well know and are satisfied that here is a full Parliament all places of Members having been fill'd up by Election of new ones as fast as they were vacant and that a convenient duration of this Assembly of the Peoples Representatives as he calls them is the only Expedient to prevent the Designe of that restless Faction in whose Service this Dissolver and his Scribling Companions are listed And now to do the Feat he ventures at matter of Law too and his Arguments are all summ'd up in what follows DISSOLVER By the Statute of 4 EDW. 3. cap. 10. and 36 EDW. 3. cap. 14. and by other Statutes a Parliament is to meet once within a yeer But directly contrary to those Statutes this last Prorogation Order'd the Parliament not to meet within a yeer but some months after and therefore either the Prorogation is null and void in Law and consequently the Sitting and Acting as a Parliament is at an end or else by your Sitting and Acting you will admit and justifie that a particular Order of the King is to be obey'd though contrary to an Act of Parliament and thereby subvert the Government of England by Law So also the King's Order is to be obeyed against Magna Charta Petition of Right c. and we have neither life nor liberty secured unto us Then the Dissolver by vertue of the foregoing Lines goes on to spend four or five pages in setting forth the great hazard of our Laws Liberties and Properties as if all were true he said and concludes all are gone if the Prorogation beyond twelve months were a good one but he saith 't is null and the Parliament null'd therewith ANIMADVERSION Such small Faggots of Argumentation as these are now bound up in Books to fire the Nation if it be possible They first make false Constructions of the two Statutes of Edw. 3. telling the world the King is by them bound to hold a Parliament once within every yeer and if we could grant that to be the Statutes meaning then they might have some shadow of Reason to make Conclusions to their own mindes But I have already made evident that they either misunderstand the Statutes or craftily wrest the sence of them There is no intent in the Statutes that Parliaments be call'd yeerly ex absoluto but they contain a clear Hypothesis as a Salvo for the undoubted legal Prerogative of the King in the words IF NEED BE so that 't is supposed in the Statutes the King hath by his Prerogative-Royal a Right of Judging the time when it is needful to call a Parliament because He and none but He can Call Therefore 't is to be admir'd there should so many words be made about so plain a business For were I never so much a Conspirator in forming Devices for the Destruction of this Parliament I would finde out some more solid Basis to build my Arguments upon than a manifest Contradiction or else certainly I would for shame be silent The two Statutes say we shall have frequent Parliaments and so frequent as once a yeer if there be need But the Factious Dissolver maintains the sence of them to be that we shall have Parliaments once a yeer though there be no need so that you see upon what a wretched
the Citie may have an Account of the Gains of their Predecessors take it as follows it having been drawn up by one that was in those days a Member of Parliament Some concern the Citie alone and some were charged upon both Citie and Country 1. A Tax called the Royal Subsidie of Three hundred thousand pounds I think it was the Tax they got the King to pass to pay the Scotch Presbyterian Army which themselves had brought a little before into this Kingdom to compass their Ends. 2. Poll-money 3. The Free Loans and Contributions upon the Publike Faith of Money Plate Thimbles Bodkins Horse Arms c. amounting to a vast incredible sum I remember and mine eyes saw at Guild-hall Plate brought in out of the Citizens houses and heaped up like huge Wood-piles 4. The Irish Adventure money most out of this Citie for purchase of lands in Ireland which the King's Father called a dividing of the Bears skin before they had conquered him 5. The Weekly Meal-money that is to say the Citizens spared a Meal out of their own bellies converting the value of it into Cash to be presented after their Plate 6. The Citie loan after the rate of fifty Subsidies 7. The Assesment of Money to bring on a Presbyterian Army of Scots a second time 8. The Fifth and Twentieth part of men's estates 9. The Weekly Assesment for the Lord General Essex his Army 10. The Weekly or Monthly Assesment for Sir Thomas Fairfax 's Army 11. The Weekly Assesment for the second Scotch Presbyterian Army after it had entered England 12. The Weekly Assesment for the British Army in Ireland 13. The Weekly Assesment for my Lord of Manchester 's Army 14. Free Quarter connived at by the Rulers 15. Sequestrations of the King 's Queen's and Prince's Revenue 16. Sequestrations and Plunders by Committees 17. Excise upon all things Whereupon the Gentleman who drew up this Account wrote thus By these several Ways and Taxes about Forty Millions in Money and Money 's worth were milked out of the Nation the most part out of this Citie and that Parliament as the Pope did once might well have called England Puteum inexhaustum A vast Treasure it was such a one as nothing but a long Peace could have imported and nothing but pious Frauds many Follies and a Mad War could dissipate And yet all this prodigious Sum was drained away and spent before the yeer 1647. in but six years so that we do not reckon the vast Sums fetcht out of the Citie and Kingdom to carry on the succeeding Wars which sprang out of this in England Scotland and Ireland betwixt 1647 and 1654. amounting to another vast Sum of Moneys of which I am not able to give any Account I might reckon also the many Tuns of Tears and Blood that were drawn out of the eyes and sides of these three Nations which the Presbyterian Faction can never wash off without Tears of Repentance But let it not be the Repentance of Judas such a one as they made in 1648. when they saw the Ball of Empire caught out of their hands into the hands of Cromwel and mourned for that not for the completed Ruine of the King and his Family which themselves first began and carried on as far as they could And they must look to have it mention'd till they leave off reviving their old Tricks of undermining the Government and embroiling the Nation But this may serve at present to let the Young men as well as the old see what the Citie and Kingdom got by being led by the Nose to Westminster for a Crying down and shifting of Governours and State-Ministers under the King of whose Faults they knew nothing but what they took up upon the Credit of pretended Patriots but really crafty designing publike Enemies as they afterwards appeared to be And you perceive also how false this Narrator is when he tells you that in the memory of man there never was before February last such a flocking of people to Westminster at the opening of a Session of Parliament But what went the people out to see They went to see a Reed shaken with the wind But the Wind brought on a Storm upon those that would have shaken the Foundation of both Houses which seeing they could not do a Resolution is resolved on in mere spight that 't is now no Parliament but a Convention which certainly deserves a severe Animadversion of State upon such as would turn up the Foundation upon which we stand NARRATIVE When the King was come the Commons were sent for up to the Lords House where I made a shift to croud in and hear The King and Lord Chancellor each of them made a Speech worthy your consideration Copies whereof I have here sent you ANIMADVERSION But he is as false here also as he was before in the other for I finde neither of those Speeches inclosed in this Print He will be wary enough of printing them because they are worthy to be often read and consider'd by all the people in order to their satisfaction touching the justice prudence and candour of his Majestie 's Government therefore I must needs give you short Heads of the Kings Speech that the sinister intents and boisterous invective discourses of some men may be the better understood The King in his Speech of the 15 of February told his Lords and the Gentlemen of the House of Commons That he had called them together again after a long Prorogation that they might have an opportunity to repair the Misfortunes of the foregoing Session and to recover and restore the right use and end of Parliaments That he was resolved to let the World see that it should not be his fault if they be not made happie by their Consultations in Parliament That he plainly declared he came prepared to give them all satisfaction and security in the great concerns of the Protestant Religion as it is established in the Church of England that can consist with reason and Christian prudence And that he declared as freely that he is ready to grant a further securing of our Liberties and Properties by as many good Laws as they shall propose and can consist with the Government without which there will be neither Liberty nor Property left to any man That he would have all men judge who is most for Arbitrary Government they that foment such differences as tend to dissolve all Parliaments or He that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissentions That if these good Ends should happen to be disappointed He calls God and men to witness that the misfortune of that disappointment shall not lie at his dore What can be more desired from a gracious King But 't is not the mode nor agreeable to the temper and business of some men in the world to rest as men satisfied with Reason though perhaps they be These are they at whose dore the guilt of Parliamentary Constitutions must