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A56213 The substance of a speech made in the House of Commons by Wil. Prynn of Lincolns-Inn, Esquire, on Munday the fourth of December, 1648 touching the Kings answer to the propositions of both Houses upon the whole treaty, whether they were satisfactory, or not satisfactory : wherein the satisfactorinesse of the Kings answers to the propositions for settlement of a firm lasting peace, and future security of the subjects against all feared regall invasions and encroachments whatsoever is clearly demonstrated ... and that the armies remonstrance, Nov. 20, is a way to speedy and certain ruine ... / put into writing, and published by him at the importunate request of divers members, for the satisfaction of the whole kingdome, touching the Houses vote upon his debate. Prynne, William, 1600-1669. 1649 (1649) Wing P4093; ESTC R38011 126,097 147

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security that 25 of the eminentest Barons should be made Conservators of the Magna Char. and that all the rest of the Barons and people should take an Oath to be aiding and assisting to them in their preservation thereof and that the King should surrender into their hands his four principall Castles that so it he infringed his Charter they might compell him to observe it This was the highest Militia and security of that kind our Ancestors ever demanded or enjoyed which is nothing comparable unto that now granted us by the King who rested satisfied therewith 3. Because the King and his successors are hereby not only totally disabled to raise any forces to oppresse the people or disturb their peace and settlement but all persons discouraged from aiding or assisting them by any Commission or authority whatsoever under pain of high Treason and losse both of life and estate at the pleasure of both Houses without any benefit of pardon from the KING disabled for to grant it So great a discouragement for any persons of fortune or quality to appear for the King or his party in the Field for time to come that in all humane probability none ever will or dare to appear in arms hereafter for the King against the Parliament being sure to forfeit all without any hopes of pardon And if this Act had been passed as a Law before our Wars I dare presume not any one English Lord or Gentleman durst once to have appeared in the Field for the King and wee had never felt the miseries of a civill War Fourthly Because the Militia of Ireland Ier●y Guernsey and Wales as well as England is wholly transferred from the King to the Houses so as we need fear no danger thence and the Militia of Scotland being in their Parliaments disposall if wee hold a Brotherly correspondency with them I know no other enemies we need to fear for the Navy being in the Houses power wee need not fear any forraigne invasion that can hurt us if we can agree at home All which considered I dare assert we have now the greatest security of any people under Heaven against all armed regall force and power the King having given up all his Military power into the Houses actuall possission and resigned his Sword and Armes into their hands And if we refuse to accept it now he so freely resignes it we may fight till doomesday but never win nor hope for the like security or advantage yea the present age and all posterity will curse and abhor us for not embracing and resting satisfied with such unparalleld security But is this all the security the King hath granted us in this Treaty No verily there is yet much more behind which hath not yet been opened The Kings of England have alwaies held two swords in their hands which when ill managed have hurt destroyed their Subjects The first is the sword of Mars in times of War which is already sheathed and resigned into the Houses hands by the precedent concessions so as it can never wound them more The other is the sword of Iustice in times of Peace and this likewise the King hath wholly given up into the Houses power for twenty years as he hath the Militia so that it can never hurt them nor any English man or other Subject hereafter at least for twenty years This sword was formerly intrusted by the King in the Judges and great Officers hands● had they been so couragious so upright as they should the King could never have wounded or ruined the meanest of his Subjects with this Sword Shipmoney Kingh●hood with other Grievances Monoplies neither would nor could have been imposed on the people by the Kings Prerogative or power had the Judges according to Law and duty declared them illegall The Kingdome can do no injustice to any it his Judges be so just and stout as to do justice Whereupon this House impeached only the Judges not blamed the King for the project of Shipmony to which their opinions in Mr. Hampdens Case gave life vigor Now the King in this Treaty hath for twenty yeeres at least granted to both Houses the nomination and appointment of all the Great Officers Civill or Military and of all the Judges and Barons of his Courts and Exchequers within England and Ireland to continue in their places only quom diu bene se gesserint So as these great Officers Judges having now no dependence at all upon the King who can neither place nor displace any of them but wholly upon the Houses of Parliament and such as they shall appoint to nominate them in the Intervals of Parliament if the Houses have a care to make good Officers and Judges in all Courts at first and to displease and punish them as they may and ought to do when they degenerate or misdemean themselves the King with all his legall power now left him can neither injure nor oppresse the poorest Subject in body goods or Estate nor protect the greatest malefactor from justice And what more can we desire to expect for the security of our lives liberties or estates than this Besides as the● King hath intrusted you with the Sword and Courts of Justice and Revenue so hath he with his Conscience and Courts of Equity too You have the nomination of the Lord Chancellours Lord Keepers and Commissioners of his great Seals of England and Ireland of the Chancellours of the Exchequer and Dutchy and Masters of the Rolls as well in Ireland as England who are the Dispensers of his Equity Conscience to his Subjects the Issuers of al his Commissions Writs Patents and keepers of all his publique Records If this be not enough you have the disposall of his purse and Treasure too The nomination of the Lord Treasurers both of England and Ireland of the Chancellours and Barons of the Exchequers in both and of the Vice-Treasurer and Treasurer of Wars in Ireland Would you have yet more You have the nomination of the Lord Deputy and chief Governour of Ireland and of all the Presidents of the severall Provinces of that Kingdome for twenty years and of all other forenamed great Officers Judges and Treasurers there a great strength and reall addition to the Militia of that Kingdome which can never doe us harm if we accept of these concessions which invest us in such power there as no Parl. of England ever yet expected nor laid claim to What is there yet remaining for your safety Perchance you will suspect the King may have many secret designs and intercourses with forraign enemies and States and grand Malignants at home to undo all which we shall never discover without some further provisions then yet we have made Truly no you have a remedy already provided and granted for this The nomination and appointing of the Lord Warden of the Cinque-ports the principall gates to let in or keep out Forraign Enemies or Spies and of the Secretaries of State who will be
the question now debating I shall with the greater boldness crave liberty to discharge my conscience towards God and duty to my dying country which now lies at stake and so much the rather because for ought I know it may be the last time I shall have freedome to speak my minde within this House That I may in this great debate more sincerely speak my very heart and soul without any prejudice I shall humbly crave leave briefly to remove two seeming prejudices which may perchance in some members opinions inervate the strength of those reasons I shal humbly represent unto you to make good my conclusion touching the satisfactorinesse of the Kings answers to the Houses Propositions The first is that wherewith some Members have upon another occasion the last week and now again tacitely aspersed me That I am a Royal Favorite alluding to the title of one of my books out of which some have collected an abstract in nature of a charge against the King and this day published it in my name and am now turned an Apostate to the Kings party and interest To which I shall return this short answer I hope without any vain-glory or boasting being thus provoked thereunto That I have opposed and written against the King and his Prelates Arbitrary power illegal proccedings more then any man That I have suffered from the King and Prelates for this my opposition more then any man That if the King and Prelates be ever restored to their pristine Arbitrary power and illegall prerogative I must expect to suffer from them as much if not more then any man That all the Royal favour I ever yet received from his Majesty or his Partie was the cutting off both my ears two several times one after another in a most barbarous manner the setting me upon three severall pillories at Westminster and in Cheapside in a disgraceful manner each time for two houres space together stigmatizing on both cheeks the burning of my licenced books before my face by the hand of the hangman the imposing of two fines upon me of 50001.2 peece expulsion out of the Innes of Court and University of Oxford and degradation in both the losse of my calling almost nine yeares space the seisure of my Bookes and Estate above eight years imprisonment in several prisons at least 4 of these years spent in close imprisoment and exile in CARNARV AN in Northwales and in the lsle of IERSEY where I was debarred the use of pen inke paper and all books almost but the Bible with the least accesse of any friend without any allowance of diet for my support And all this for my good service to the State in opposing Popery and Regall Tyranny for all which sufferings and losses I never yet received one farthing recompence from the King or any other though I have waited above 8 years at your doors for justice and reparations and neglecting my own private calling and affairs imployed most of my time studies and expended many hundred pounds out of my purse since my inlargement to maintain your cause against the King his Popish and Prelaticall party For all which cost and labour I never yet demanded nor received one farthing from the Houses nor the least office or preferment whatsoever though they have bestowed divers places of honour upon persons of less or no desert nor did I ever yet receive so much as your publike thanks for any publike service ●on you which every preacher usually receives for every Sermon preached before you most others have received for the meanest services though I have brought you off with honor in the cases of Cant. and Macg. when you were at a loss in both cleared the justness of your cause when it was at the lowest ebb to most reformed Churches abroad who received such satisfaction fro my books that they translated them into several languages ingaged many thousands for you at home by my writings who were formely dubious unsatisfied Now if any Member or old Courtier whatsoever shal envy my happiness for being such a royal or State favorite as this I wish he may receive no other badges of Royall favour from his Majesty nor greater reward or honor from the Houses then I have done and then I beleeve he will no more causlesly asperse or suspect me for being now a Royal favourite or Apostate from the publike cause True it is which it behoves me now to touch that about 4 years since I published a Book entituled The Royal Popish Favorite wherein as likewise in my Hidden works of Darknesse brought to publique light published a year after it I did with no little labour and expence discover to the world the severall plots and proceedings of the Iesuites Papists and their forraign and domesticke confederates to introduce and set up Popery throughout England Scotland and Ireland and how farre they had inveagled the K. not only to connive at but to countenance and assist them in a great measure more fully evidently then any else had done And those worthy Members of this House who drew up that Declaration whereupon they voted No more Addresses to the King plowed but with my heyfer borrowing all or most of their real materials from my writings A convincing evidence that I am yet no more a Royal favourite then themselves Yet this I must adde withall to take off that aspersion of being an Apostate from my first principles that I never published those Books as I then professed in them and now again protest to scandalize or defame the King or alienate the peoples affections from him much lesse to depose or lay him quite aside though I am clear of opinion that Kings are accountable for their Actions to their Parliaments and whole kingdoms and in case of absolute necessity where Religion Laws Liberties and their kingdoms will else be inevitably destroyed by their Tyrannicall and flagitious practises be deposed by them if there be no speciall oaths nor obligations upon their consciences to the contrary which is our present case much less did I it out of any malice or revenge for the injustice I received from him in the executions done upon my person and estate which I have long since cordially forgiven and do now again forgive him from my soul beseeching God to forgive him likewise but meerly to discover his former errours in this kinde unto himselfe that he might seriously repent of them for the present and more carefully avoid and detest them for time to come and that the Parliament and whole kingdom might more clearly discern the great danger our Religion was in before we publikely discerned it and the several wayes and stratagems by which Popery got such head and growth among us that they might thereby the better prevent the like plots and dangers for the future by wholesom Laws and edicts as I have more largely declared in the books themselves This grand prejudice against me being