the witnesses face to face in open Court See Stat. 5 Ed. 6. chap. 11. Cooks 2. Inst pag. 26. and there swear them that the party accused may interrogate them and examine the circumstances and whether they contradict themselves or one another for clearing the Evidence And whether they be lawful witnesses or no Nay I hear they do privately suborn and engage witnesses without oath And then produce them to swear what they have formerly related only and if they scruple at an oath punish them for mis-informing the State 4. That I may make some more use of the aforesaid Members words Whether the King or a prevailing Party usurping his Kingly power may canton out a part of his Kingdom or cull and mark out for slaughter some principal men and deny them the benefit of Law in order thereto as these Judges do to be tried by special Commission since the whole Kingdom is under the known laws and Courts established at Westminster It should seem by this Parliaments eager complaint against the special Commission of York this Parliament hath determined this question in the negative already whatsoever their present practise to carry on their Design is See Stat. 17. Car. 1. against the Star-Chamber To what purpose serve those Statutes of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right if men may be fined and imprisoned nay murdered without Law according to the discretion of Commissioners This discretion is the quick-sand that hath swallowed our Properties Liberties but is now ready to swallow our carkasses Thus far that Gentleman Whose words then carried the Parliamentary stamp upon them Let me add some more exceptions of my own against this High Court of Injustice 5 Souldiers of the Army are appointed by the Act 26 March to be assistant to the Commissioners contrary to the peaceable proceedings of the Law which never makes use of any but Civil Magistrates and Officers of the Law See Stat. 7 Ed. I. 2 Ed. III. chap. 3. 7. R. 2. chap. 13. 6. And contrary to the old oath which all Judges ought to take in these words You shall swear well and faithfully to serve the King and people in the Office of Justice c. And that to what estate and condition they be come before you in the Sessions with force and arms against the peace against the Statute thereof made to disturb the Execution of the Common Laws or to menace the people that you arrest their bodies c. Stat. 18 Ed. 3. in An. Dom. 1344. p. 144. Poultons Book of Stat. at large But the oath appointed for these Commissioners to take is not penned in terms of indifferency nor doth any waies oblige them to the people 26. Mar. 1550. viz. You shall swear well and truly according to the best of your skill and knowledge to execute the several powers given you by this Act not well and lawfully to serve the people Besides they swear to execute the several powers given not to do Justice according to the Laws Now the Laws are the only rules of Justice by which we distinguish crooked from strait true from false right from wrong This is not the work these Judges are packed for but to execute Acts of power and will But powers are often usurped tyrannical illegal and unjust So are these Injuria est quod contra legem fit 7. How can the House of Commons if it were full and free constitute a new unpresidented Court of Justice nominate and ordain Judges and enable them to administer Oaths having never had nor so much as pretended to have any power to judge to nominate Judges or to administer an Oath as having never been more than the Grand Enquest of the Kingdom humbly to present to His Majesty in a petitionary way the grievances of the people Nemo dat quod non habet 8. Suppose the House of Commons had power of Judicature delegated to them from the people as their Representative Delegati non possunt substituere Delegatos Protestatam sibi concreditam in alios transferre Delegates cannot make subdelegates and transfer their trust to others See Col. Andrews 3. Answers given into this High Court for his defence Printed at the latter end hereof 2. My second consideration will be Of what Persons delegated or Commissioned this Court consisteth The pretended Act. 26. March 1650. names 25. Commissioners all which for their better credit it enacteth Esquires amongst whom are 4. or 5. that have professed the Law as farre as wearing a Lawyers Gown comes to but were better known by their leisure then by their Law untill by adhering to our prevailing Schismaticks in subverting our Laws they seem to be eminent Lawyers Of Keeble see the Triall of L. Collonel John Lilburn first and second Part. Steel cited expired Statutes at Winchester against Captain Burley The rest are for the most part poor ignorant Trades men some so young they are but lately out of their Apprentiships others Broken Trades-men that have compounded with their Crediturs some of vild and base professions One or two of these Wolvish Saints I hear have with some difficulty escaped the Gallowes for Man-slaying William Wibeard Esquier is a Rope-seller this employment may happily help him to the Hangmans Custom William Pemoier Esquire was heretofore an Ape-carrier Cherry-lickom or Mountredinctido Cook a Vintner at the Bear at the Bridge-foot he keeps a vaulting-School for our sanctified Grandees and their Ladies of the Game If the House of Commons had power to make Judges which I have disproved yet Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius They must name such Persons as may be competent Judges And therefore must not choose 1. Ignorant men 2. Nor such as the Law calls Viles Personas men base or contemptible for their Persons or Sordide callings Mechanicks of the lowest rank 3. Persons of Scandalous life and conversations 4. Not Banquerouts and Indigent Persons Necessitas cogit ad turpia 5. Not partiall and preingaged Persons chosen to suppresse another party As these Commissioners are engaged to the present power to suppresse all others 6. Nor such as Schismatically or Heretically affected are seasoned with such Doctrines and Principles as neither agree with the Duties of a good Christian a good Common-wealths man nor a good Judge Which two last Objections not only these Commissioners but the pretended Parliament that commissioned them are apparently guilty of as being all of the Independent Faction conspiring to rob and rout out all other Parties Royallists Presbyterians and Levellers For which purpose this New Tribunall or Inquisition is set up Independency being a meer complication and Syncretismus or rather a Sink and Common Sewer of all Errours Heresies Blasphemies and Schismes though they peevishly differ in some inconsiderable Tenents yet having one Generall End or scope at which they all chiefly aime viz. power preferment profit and the suppression of the Truth and Magistracy they have likewise some common principles to soader them together which they use as
survey his Actions but as if it were purposely done when the Commissioners came as far on their way as Bristol about a dozen renegado Officers of his Army met the Commissioners and turned them back again The said Officers posted up to the Parliament before the Commissioners and the 13 April were called in to the Commons Bar where they made a relation to the House to this purpose That the Lord Inchiquin having made an expedition into the County of Kerry upon his return sent for these Officers into his presence Chamber and told them He intended to declare against the Army and Independent party in England who kept the King and Parliament under a force that he would stand for the Liberty of the King and Parliament and a free Conference to settle Peace and that he expected all his Officers should joyn with him in so honourable an undertaking but should take an Oath of secrecy before he discover'd himself farther to them They Answered They could make no such Oath before they knew whether they might with a safe conscience keep it saying they would be true to the Parliament My Lord Inchiquin replied So have I and will be delude me not with ambiguous words do you mean this pretended Parliament telling them farther he had good correspondence with all the Presbyterians in Scotland and England as well in the Parliament as out of it that he doubted not to go through with his undertaking and if the worst hapned to make good conditions for himself and his party That he would make peace with my Lord Taff and that he knew the Independents in England were upon Treaty with Owen Roe Oneal who was a man of their humour and loved to keep all in combustion They refused to joyn he dismissed them for England The same day Letters from Capt. John Growthen Vice-Admiral of the Irish Seas from a shipboard were read in the House much to the same purpose though not so large wherein he said He had already blocked up all my Lord Inchiquin's Havens Presently Allen the Goldsmith moved 87. Allen the Gold-smith moveth to put the House to the touch by some Covenant Declaration c. That since the Lord Inchiquin had discovered that he had a correspondency with the Presbyterians in the House before they dealt with their Enemies without doors they should try who were their Enemies within doores by putting all men to some Covenant Engagement or Protestation c. And Lieutenant General Cromwell said That being to debate this business to morrow whosoever with crosse Arguments shall spin out the debate and so retard our prceedings by my consent shall be noted with a Black Coal to which was answered That this tended to take away freedom of debate which was the life of Parliaments and of all Councils and was destructive to the very being of Parliaments It is not amisse to insert here by way of digression what I formerly omitted Sir Henry Mildmay long since moved That 150 rich Guard Coats of the King might be sold for 800 l. to find Fire and Candle for the Souldiers in White-hall The question put The Speaker gave judgement the Yeas had it Mr. Edward Stephens declared the Noes had it They were unwilling to divide upon such a question but Mr. Stephens persisted and Robert Reynolds said aloud notice shall be taken of him for putting such a dishonour upon the House Upon the Division the Noes carried it by nine voices Thereupon complaint was made against Reynolds for attempting against the liberty of Voting but no redress But to return from my digression the next day 14 of April it was moved that my Lord Inchiquin's Son a Child of 8 or 9 years old going to School at Thistleworth might be secured in the Tower and kept for a Hostage To which was Answered That no man could take an Hostage without consent an Hostage must be given upon the publick faith upon some stipulation and must be so received by mutual agreement you cannot punish the child for the Fathers fault yet he was voted to the Tower and sent My Lord Inchinquin's Commission as President of Munster and General of the Army Voted void and no man to obey him himself Voted a Traitor yet no man examined upon Oath against him nor any man sent to take information of the businesse into Ireland and his professed enemy the Lord Lisle is to go General into Munster in his room and the said fugitive Officers all rewarded as if they had brought acceptable news This day Reynolds revived Allens motion for putting the Members to the Test by some Covenant Protestation or Declaration subscribed That this is a free Parliament and that they would live and die with this Parliament and Army To which was answered 1. That by Ordinance of both Houses all men were enjoyned to take the National Covenant This Covenant is the true Touch-stone of the Parliament and so agreed upon by the wisdom of both Nations yet many sit here who refuse to obey this Ordinance I know no reason therefore why any man should obey you in any other Ordinance of this Nature let us keep the old Covenant before we take any new 2. It hath been moved in the House that the Oathes of Justices of the Peace and Sheriffs might be taken away I hope you will not abolish legal Oathes and impose illegal Oathes This House hath not so much Authority as to administer an Oath much more to impose one you must allow to others that liberty of Conscience which you demand for your selves 3. Major Gray told you my Lord Inchiquin said he had correspondency with all the Presbyterians in the House who had made their peace with the King But my Lord Inchiquin told him farther the Independents were upon Treaty with Owen Roe and Oneal let them clear themselves of that imputation first before they give a purgation unto others otherwise what you do will savour of force 4. The true Touch-stone to try every mans integrity is to examine who have inriched themselves by the calamities of the times and your service and who are impoverished 5. This is a new device to purge the House The Grandees of the House have cantonized the Kingdom between them 88. The Counties compelled to give thanks to the Houses for their Votes against the King every man in his Division protecting the Country Committees and receiving tribute from them in recompence of their protection and Prideaux the Post master being King of the West Saxons his Vice-roy or Lord Deputy for the County of Somerset is that running Col. John Pyne who being often inspired with Sack rules the Committee and County by inspirations Pyne and his Peers of the Committee to please his superiours set on foot a draught of a Petition to be handed by the Country Giving thanks to the Parliament for the four Votes against the King and promising to live and die with the Parliament and Army and desiring the County might be freed from
Christendome with vast summes raised by publick Theft and Rapines Pressings and Leavying of Souldiers Sequestrations Plundering of Houses and Horse and many other oppressions more than the Turke Russe or Tartar ever heard of of all which our Grandees are free and lay them upon others as partially as they please purposely to consume them To make Religion but a stalking horse to their Designs and the Ministers thereof but Hostlers to rub down curry and dress it for their riding to whom they send Commands what they shall and shall not preach to the people as if preaching were the Ordinance of man not of God At last by way of preparative to their machinations they pass these following Votes 1. That all Supreme power is in the people 2. That the Supreme Authority under them is in the peoples Representatives or delegates in Parliament assembled Meaning themselves you may be sure the Quintessence and Elixar of the House of Commons extracted by those learned Chimcks Doctour Fairfax Doctour Cromwel and the rest graduated at that degraded University of Oxford Here note they voted the Supreme power to be in the people that they might use those Gulles as Conduit pipes or Trunks to convey the Supreme Authority into themselves the better to enslave the people And tickle them whilest they fasten about their necks the Iron yoke of a Military Oligarchy wearing the Mask of a perpetual Parliament 3. That whatsoever the Commons in Parliament shall enact shall have the power and force of an Act of Parliament or Law without the consent of the House of Lords or the Kings Royal Assent any statute law custome or usage to the contrary notwithstanding they might have said all our statutes laws customes c. notwithstanding This one vote hath more of Dissolution and more of Vsurpation and Innovation in it than any I yet ever read of This is universally Arbitrary and layes the Ax to the root of all our Laws Liberties Lives and properties at once What these men will they vote What they vote is Law Therefore what they will is Law 4. That to wage war or to bear Arms against the Representative body of the People or Parliament is high Treason By the Law all Treasons are committed against the King his Crown and Dignity 5. That the King hath taken up Arms against this Parliament and is therefore guilty of all the blood shed this War and should expiate those crimes with his blood If the King were not guilty these men are And therefore they passed this Vote Se defendendo Yet observe that herein they became Judges in their own cause and forejudged his Majesty before his Trial if that may be called a Trial that was carried on by men who were both Accusers Prosecuters parties and Judges and had neither Law president formality of proceedings nor any other foundation of Justice or Reason to warrant them nor were delegated by any lawful Authority These Votes thus passed and by this kinde of men were the foundation upon which they built their great Engine to destroy the King and Kingly Government together with the Religion Laws Liberties Lives and properties of the people all condemned in that deadly sentence given against the King For having as aforesaid created by their own Votes themselves as absolute a power as they pleased and cast the people and all they have into that bottomless Chaos of their Arbitrary Domination They erect an Extrajudicial unpresidented High Court of Justice to Try or rather to condemn without Trial the King consisting of 150. Commissioners Souldiers Parliament men Trades men the most violent engaged and factious incendiaries of all the Antimonarchical faction Amongst whom were many low conditioned Mechanicks and Banquerouts whose Fortunes are since repaired out of the Kings Estate and other publick Lands Goods and Offices See Stat. Recognition 1 Jac. The Oaths of Algiance Obedience and Supremacy and all our Law-books as a reward for that Royal Blood they spilt The King the Fountain of Law Justice Mercy Honour War and Peace the Head of the Parliament and Supreme Governour over all persons and in all causes thus violently removed presently as if the Mounds and banks of the Sea had been overturned an impetuous inundation of bloody thievish Tyranny and Oppression brake in upon us So that no man can call his life liberty house lands goods or any other his Rights or Franchises his own longer than the gracious aspect of some of our Grandees shine favourably upon him In the next place contrary to their own Declarations of the 9. Feb. and 17. March 1648. Wherein they promise that in all things concerning the lives liberties and properties of the people they will observe the known laws of the Land with all things incident thereto They pass misbegotten Acts of Parliament This Stat. 25 Ed. 3. c. 2. S. Johns against Strafford cals the security of the people And the Stat. 1 Hen. 4. cap. 10. Ed. 6. cap. 12. 1. Mariae 1. ratifie and highly commend one of the 14. of May another of the 17. of July 1649. whereby in derogation and annihilation of that excellent Stat. 25 Ed. 3. Chap. 2. Ascertaining Treasons and reducing them to a small number and leaving nothing to the interpretation of the Judges that the people might not be ensnared they exceeding by multiplying Treasons bringing bare words as well as deeds within the compass of that offence and making many duties to which the laws of God the land the Protestation Covenant the oaths of allegiance obedience supremacy oblige us to be high treason these new acts of treason penned in obscure ambiguous terms purposely to leave a latitude of Interpretation in their own creatures the Judges that the People may be ensnared The King thus taken out of their way They passe pretended Acts. 1. To Disinherit his Children 2. To abolish Kingly Government for ever 3. To convert our ancient well-tempered Monarchy into that which they call a Common-wealth They have converted our ancient Monarchy into a Free-state and tell us they are the State They tell us they have bestowed Liberty upon the people but they and their faction onely are the people All the rest of the English Nation are annihilated and reduced to nothing that these fellows may become all things Meer ciphers serving onely to make them of more account And this gross fallacy must not be disputed against lest their New Acts of Parliament call it Treason or Free-State although nothing be therein free but their lusts nor hath it any form or face of Civil and just Government wherein a confused Multitude rule by their own Wills without Law and for their own benefit no consideration being had of the good and happinesse of the people in general 4. They Constitute a Senate or Councel of State of 40 men amongst which some Trades-men Souldiers illiterate Lawyers Parliament-Members men already engaged over head and eares in sin therefore to be confided in to these
knowledge execute the severall powers given you by this Act. 1. If the Court be Triers and Iudges too it is humbly offered by the respondent that it is but reasonable that they should be sworn as triers in the sight of the Freeman who shall be upon his Triall 2. And that as Iustices of Oyer and Terminer They being authorized to hear and determine by the words of the Act. They should take an oath such as is usual and equal set down E. III. Viz. You shall swear that well and lawfull you shall serve our Lord the King and his People in the Office of Iustice c. And that you deny to no man Common Right 3. Or that this Court taking Notice of such high matters as Treason upon the guilt wherof the Freemans life depends should take an Oath at least as equall as a Iustice of the Peace Daltons Iust of Peace fol. 13. the words are I A. B. do swear that I will do equall Right c. according to my best wit canning and power after the Laws and Customes of the Land and the Statutes therof made c. 4. If the Court will be Iudges and Triers too for they have power given them to conclude the Freemen by the opinion of the major number of twelve holding some resemblance but with a signal difference with the verdict of a Iury it were but reasonable that they should take an Oath correspondent to that usually administred to Iury-men The words are You shall well and truly try and true deliverance make betweene the Keepers of the Liberties of England and the Prisoner at the Bar according to your evidence So help you God c. 5. When this Court as it is now constituted hath condemned a Freeman by applying their skill and knowledge to the power given them whether justly or not the Oath injoyned them by the Act 26. Marh 1650. is not broken literally as to be exactable by man though God will have a better account And therefore upon the whole matter premised The Respondent saving as before averreth for Law and Reason This Court by the words of the Act constituting it is not qualified in respect of the objected defects to passe upon him for life in case of Treason And prayes this his 2 Answer may be received with the Salvo's and registred Eusebius Andrews The third Answer of Coll. Eusebius Andrews Esquire to the Honorable The High Court of Justice 1650. THe said Respondent with favour of this Honourable Court reserving and praying to be allowed the benefit and liberty of making further Answer if it shall be necessary in all humblenesse for present Answer offereth to this Honourable Court 1. That it is his Right if he admit this Court to be duly and legally established and constituted as to their being a Court to be tried by his Peers men of his own condition and Neighbourhood 2. That it is within the power of this Court by the Letter of the Act 26. March 1650. Or at least not repugnant to the Act to try him by such his Peers c. 1. That it is his Right to be tried only so appears by Magna Charta chap. 29. 25. Ed. 3. chap. 9. 28. Ed. 3. chap. 4. 42. Ed. 3. chap. 3. 25. Ed. 1. chap. 1. and 2. 25. Ed. 3. chap. 2. and 4. 37. Ed. 3. chap. 18. By all which this Right is maintainable And the Proceedings contrary thereunto will be held for none and to be redressed as void and erroneous So that if the Laws and Courts were not obstructed in the cases of some sort of Freemen of England the whole Proceedings contrary to these Laws without a Jury of his Peers were avoidable and reversible by Writ of Errour as appears by the Presidents vouched in the Respondents second Answer 3. That it is in the Courts power To try the Freeman consequently the Respondent by a Iury of his Equalls The Court is humbly desired to consider the words of qualification 1. The Court is Authorised To hear and determine and so if at all Commissioners then Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer and such Commissioners in their natural constitution and practical execution do proceed against Freemen according to Law by a Iury of their Peers and not otherwise 2. Authorised to proceed to Trial condemnation and execution But not restrained to the manner limitative As to Triall by the Opinion of the Court as Triers Nor exclusive As to Triall per pares But is left in the Manner as in the Iudgment it self To the Opinion of the major part of 12. and if they shall think fit to try by a Iury it will be no offence against the Act there being no Prohibition to the contrary And though this Respondent insisteth upon his said Right consisting with the Courts said power and the more to induce the Court to grant him his said Right He humbly representeth the wrong done to himself and in him to the Freemanzy of England in the following particulars against their just Rights depending upon such Trials to be allowed or denied 1. Challenges to his Triers peremptory or with cause of Challenge 2 Seeing hearing and counter-questioning the witnesses for clearing of the Evidence in matter of Fact and Circumstance 3. The being convicted or acquitted by a full and fully consented verdict To all which benefits as his undoubted Right and the Right of all the Freemen of England the Respondent maketh claim by these Reasons Laws and Presidents following 1. The benefit of Challenges by the learning of Stanford in his Pleas of the Crown Title challenge fol. 150. To challenge 35. without Reason shewed and with Reason shewn without Number adjudged 32. Hen. VI. in Poinings case abriged by Fitzherb Tit. Challenge fol. 26. allowed in Hillary 1. Jac. Sir Walter Rawleigh and Brooks 2. To the hearing and questioning the value and weight of the witnesses The Laws are plain in Stanfords pleas of the Crown fol. 163 164. Stat. 1. and 2. of Phil and Mary Chap 10 11. 1 Ed. VI. chap. 12. Cookes 3 Instit pag. 12. upon the words in the St. 25. Ed. III. chap 2. Provablement atteint Because the punishment was heavy the proof must be punctual and not upon Presumptions or Inferences or Streins of wit nor upon Arguments simili or Minori ad Majus c. But upon good and clear proofs made good also by the St. 1. Ed. c. 6. 19. Ed. c. 1. 3. A verdict by Iury passeth from all or not at all in this way of proceeding by the Court immediatly it passeth by way of concurrence or voting the great fault found with the Star-Chamber and all Commissionary Courts proceeding without presentment or Enditement 4. A Verdict passeth from a Iury before discharged upon their Affairs of business or supplies of Nature to prevent corruption by mony or power In this way of Trial a man may be heard to day and a Sentence given at leisure when the power and will of those by whom the Freeman
THE COMPLEAT HISTORY OF Independencie UPON THE PARLIAMENT Begun 1640. By CLEM. WALKER Esq Continued till this present year 1660. which fourth Part was never before published Horat. Spe Metuque procul LONDON Printed for Iohn Wiliams at the Crown in St. Paul's Church-yard 1661. RELATIONS AND OBSERVATIONS HISTORICAL and POLITICK upon the PARLIAMENT begun Anno Dom. 1640. Divided into II. Books 1. The Mystery of the two Junto's Presbyterian and Independent 2. The History of Independency c. TOGETHER WITH An APPENDIX touching the Proceedings of the Independent Faction in SCOTLAND POLIB Historici est Ne quid falsi audeat dicere Ne quid veri non audeat HORAT Spe metuque procul Printed in the Year 1648. To my dread Soveraign Royal Sir YOU have Drunk deep in the Cup of Affliction and we have all Pledged you it is wholsome though bitter but let us pray to God to remove this Cup in time for the dregs and lees are poyson You have learned by over-winding the strings of Authority how to tune the People of this Monarchy without breaking their Patience hereafter Most Princes desire unlimited power which is a Sail too great for any Vessel of Mortality to bear though it be never so well Ballasted with Justice Wisdome Moderation and Piety yet one flarb or other will endanger the over-setting it Those Commonwealths are most stable and pleasing where the State is so mixed that every man according to his degree and capacity hath some interest therein to content him The KING Sovereign Command and Power The Nobility and Gentry a derivative Authority and Magistracy and all enjoy their Laws Liberties and Properties God hath cursed him that removeth the Bound-marks of his neighbour this is a comprehensive curse Kings enlarging their Prerogatives beyond their limits are not excepted from it You may be pleas'd to take heed therefore of two sorts of men most likely to mis-lead you in this point Ambitious Lawyers who teach the Law to speak not what the Legislators meant but what you shall seem to desire To avoyd this snare suffer your Parliament to nominate 3. men for every Judges place out of which you may please to choose one as in pricking of Sheriffs For it is the people that are obnoxious to their wickedness you are above the reach of their malice The second sort is Parasitical Divines These Ear-wigs are alwayes hovering in Princes Courts hanging in their ears They take upon them to make Princes beholding to their violent wresting of the Text to bestow upon them whatever Prerogative the Kings of Juda or Israel used or usurped as if the judicials of Moses were appointed by God for all Common-wealths all Kings as a good Bishoprick or Living is fit for every Priest that can catch it These men having their best hopes of preferment from Princes make Divinity to be but Organon Politicum an instrument of Government and harden the hearts of Princes Pharaoh-like Kings delight to be tickled by such venerable warrantable flattery Sir you have more means to prefer them than other men therefore they apply themselves more to you than other men do Tu facis hunc Dominum te facit ille Deum The King makes the poor Priest a Lord and rather than he will be behind with the King in courtesie he will flatter him above the condition of a Mortal and make him a God Royal. Sir permit me to give you this Antidote against this poyson let an Act be past That all such Divines as either by Preaching Writing or discoursing shall advance your Prerogative and Power above the known Laws and Liberties of the Land forfeit all his Ecclesiastical preferments ipso facto and be incapable ever after and for ever banished your Court. But above all learn to trust in your Judgment Plus aliis de te quà m tu tibi credere noli God hath enabled you to remember things past to observe things present and by comparing them together to conjecture things to come which are the three parts of Wisdom that will much honor and advantage you God keep your Majesty so prayes Your humble Subject THEOPH VERAX To his Excellency Sir THOMAS FAIRFAX and the ARMY under his Command MY Lord and Gentlemen I have here by way of Preparation laid open to your view those Vlcers which you have undertaken to cure viz. The 2 Factions in Parliament Authors of Schismes and Divisions in the two Houses from whence they are derived to the whole Kingdome to the obstructing of justice and of the establishment of our Laws Rights Liberties and Peace the enslaving of the Parliament it self and the dilapidating of the Publick Treasure whereby the whole Kingdom may be enfranchised secured and united and the King and his Posterity setled in His due Rights which is the sum of all your undertakings in your many reiterated Papers I confess a Herculean labour and far beyond his clensing of the Augaean Stable That was performed by an Arm of flesh this cannot be effected without an extraordinary calling for ordinary calling thereto you have none and God seldome blesseth a man out of his calling and though an heroick heat and zeal may go far yet it will tire many miles on this side the work unless it be blown and inspired with divine breath And as Alchymists say of the Philosophers Stone so I of this work which is the Philosophers Stone in our English Politicks it cannot be effected but by a man of wonderfull and unspotted Integrity and Innocency free from all Fraud Self-seeking and Partiality In order to this great work you have already begun to sift and winnow the House of commons by charging 11 Presbyterian Grandees who if they be proved guilty must needs have their counterpanes equally faulty even to a syllable in the opposite Junto of Independents for when two factions shall conspire to toss keep up the golden ball of Government Profit Preferment between them neither can be innocent unless therefore you apply your corrosive to one Vlcer as well as the other you will never work a compleat cure nor will be free from scandal and appearance of faction or design that I may use your own words to weaken onely one party under the notion of unjust or oppressive that you may advance another more than your own Representation p. 6. sect 2. Besides it is observed that you speak but coldly to have the publick accounts of the Kingdom Stated putting it off with a wish only as if you did secretly fear what the Presbyterians openly say That the Independents are guilty of more Millions than their party your own words are p. 14. sect 7. We could wish the Kingdom might both be righted publickly satisfied in point of Accounts for the vast sums that have been Leavied as also for many other things c. But we are loath to press any thing that may lengthen dispute Are so many Millions to be cursorily passed over without dispute were they not the
blood and tears of the exhausted people and the milk of their Babes are they not like Achan's wedge amongst us would it not much ease the people of burthens and go far in the payment of Souldiers and publick debts to have both the Kings and the Parliaments sponges of what party and profession soever squeezed into the common Treasury whensoever the Common-wealth settles Review this clause well and as the Parliament hath altered some Votes for you so do you alter this clause for the people who long not only to see the Kingdom but also our new-made Gentlemen in statu quo prius Gentlemen you that will give Counsel will take it without offence against him that dares lay as good claim to justice and honesty as your selves THEODORUS VERAX The Mystery of the Two Juntoes Presbyterian and Independent with some Additions THe Kingdom being overgrown with Prerogative Corruption and Superstition the fruits of a long and lazie peace by a long discontinuance of Parliaments at last by Providence his Majesty was necessitated to call a Parliament the onely Colledge of Physicians to purge the much-distempered body of the Common-wealth In this Parliament a contest between the Kings Prerogative and the Peoples Laws and Liberties begat a War The Divines on both sides out of their Pulpits sounding Alarum thereto and not only Sermons but Declarations of Parliament and National Covenant holding forth to the people the defence of Religion Laws Liberties and Properties inflamed the people to the rage of battel as the Elephant is enraged at the sight of Red. This War occasioned extraordinary Taxes and Leavies of money such as were never heard of by our Ancestors and were Irritamenta malorum the nurse of our corruptions This incentive working upon the humane frailty of the speaking and leading Members of the Houses Grandees caused them first to interweave their particular interests and ambitions with the publick and lastly to prefer them before the publick Wherefore the said leading men or Grandees for that is now Parliament language first divided themselves into two factions or Juntoes Presbyterians and Independents Factions seeming to look onely upon the Church but Religion having the strongest operation upon the spirit of man involved the interests of the Common-wealth The common people of the two Houses following with an implicite faith and blind obedience the example of their leaders divided themselves also into the said Dichotomy which they did with more seriousness than their leaders as not perceiving any thing of design therein but according to the diversity of their Judgments or rather Fancies and Confidings for to resign a mans judgment to the opinion of another man is but a silly trust and confidence studied the upholding of their parties with earnestness whilest the Grandees of each party in private close together for their own advancement serving one anothers turn The Grandees in all publick debates seem as real in their reciprocal oppositions as those silly ones who are in earnest whereby they cherish the zeal of their respective parties keep them still divided Divide impera is the Devils rule and so amuse them and take them off from looking after other interests in which were they conjoyned they might share with the Grandees themselves and for the better contentment of such their Confidents as looking too intentively after their own gain the Grandees of each Junto confer something of advantage upon those that are subservient unto them as five pounds a week or some petty imployment The seeds of these factions spread themselves into the Common-wealth and Armies as Rheum distils from the head into all the body Thus the leading men or Bel-weathers having seemingly divided themselves Monopolizing profits and preferments and having really divided the Houses and captivated their respective parties judgment teaching them by an implicite faith Jurare in verba Magistri to pin their opinions upon their sleeves they begin to advance their projects of Monopolizing the Profits Preferments and Power of the Kingdome in themselves To which purpose though the leaders of each party seem to maintain a hot opposition yet when any profit or preferment is to be reached at it is observed that a powerful Independent especially moves for a Presbyterian or a leading Presbyterian for an Independent and seldom doth one oppose or speak against another in such cases unless something of particular spleen or Competition come between which causeth them to break the common Rule By this means the Grandees of each faction seldom miss their mark since an Independent moving for a Presbyterian his reputation carries the business clear with the Independent party and the Presbyterians will not oppose a leading man of their own side By this artifice the Grandees of each side share the Common-wealth between them and are now become proud domineering Rehoboams even over the rest of their fellow Members contrary to the liberty of Parl. which consists in an equality that were formerly fawning ambitious Absoloms There hath been lately given away to Members openly besides innumerable and inestimable private cheats mutually connived at at least 300000 l. in money besides rich Offices Imployments in money Committees Sequestrations and other advantages And those Members who have so well served themselves under colour of serving the publick are for the most part old Canvasers of Factions who have sate idlely and safely in the House watching their advantages to confound businesses and shuffle the cards to make their own game when others that have ventured their persons abroad labour'd in the publick work like Israelites under these Aegyptian task-masters and lost their estates are left to sterve untill they can find relief in that empty bag called by fools fides Publica by wise men fides Punica and are now looked upon in the House superciliously like unwelcome guests for it is known how malignantly and how juglingly writs for new Elections were granted and executed and called younger brothers and like younger brothers they are used their elder brothers having slipped into the World before them and anticipated the inheritance they have broken first into the common field and shut the door to prevent after commers even from gleaning after their full harvest for the better effecting whereof they have now morgaged in effect all the means they have to raise money unto the City and being themselves fat and full with the publick Treasure to express rather their scorn than care they are making an Ordinance that no more money shall be given to their Members and yet to shew how carefull they are of all such as have cheated the Commonwealth under them I will not say for them they have taken advantage of the Petition of the Army wherein they desire Indempnity for all acts done in Relation to the War and have passed an Ordinance of Indempnity for all such as have acted by Authority and for the service of the Parliament wherein under great penalties and with an appeal at last from the Judges of
the Law to a Committee of Parliament such as have gone beyond the Authority given by Parliament and sequestred men unjustly and so withheld their goods under pretence thereof and such as have leavied Taxes three or four times over are quit from private actions and the benefit of Law and Justice taken from the oppressed to secure Country Committees Sequestrators and others not Prerogative but Legislative Thieves contrary to Magna Charta which says nulli negabimus nulli differemus justitiam aut rectum We will deny nor defer justice and right to no man Oh prodigious acts and of greater Tyranny than any King ever durst adventure upon What is become of our National Covenant and the Parliaments many Declarations for defence of Laws and Liberty Or have we fought our Liberty into slavery By these devices the honest middle men of the House whose Consciences will not let them joyn in any faction to rend the Commonwealth in sunder are out of all possibility of repair and made contemptible as well by their own wants as the pride of the Grandees and in the end their poverty will enforce them to leave the sole possession of the House to these thriving Junto men who do beleaguer them therein making them for farther addition to their losses pay all taxes from which the thriving men go free so that the poorer part of the House pays tribute to the richer Nay it is farther whispered that at last the Junto men will quit the Parliament Privilege of not being sued purposely to leave these younger Brothers to the mercy of their creditors and disable them to sit in their House Another ambitious aym of those Junto men is their devise of referring all businesses of moment to Committees Committees of the Houses For the active speaking men by mutual agreement naming one another of every Committee or at least their confident Ministers do thereby fore-stall and intercept the businesses of the House and under colour of examining and preparing matters they report them to the House with what glosses additions detractions and advantages they please whereby the House judging according to their report oftentimes mis-judgeth and if it be a businesse they are willing to smother the Committees have infinite artifical delays to put it off and keep it from a hearing or at least from reporting By this means the remaining part of the House are but Cyphers to value and Suffragans to ratifie what is forejudged by the said Committees This usurpation of theirs is much helped by keeping the doors of their Committee-rooms shut and dispatching all affairs privately and in the dark whereas Justice delights in the light and ought to be as publick as the common air it being against its nature to be Chambered up and kept from the observation of eye and ear-witnesses And by their examining of men against themselves contrary to Magna Charta they much enlarge their power Parts of this project we may well call the Multiplicity of money-Committees as Goldsmiths-hall Haberdashers-hall Money Committees the Committee of the Kings Revenues Committee of the Army c. Where every mans profit and power is according to his cunning and conscience Hereby they draw a generall dependency after them for he that commands the money commands the men These Committee-men are so powerfull that they over-awe and over-power their fellow-Members contrary to the nature of a free-Paliament wherein the equality of the Members must maintain the freedom and integrity thereof and suppress factions The like may be said of such Members as in scorn of the self-denying Ordinances hold Offices by gift or connivence of the Parliament either openly in their own name Members holding Offices c. or secretly in the name of some friend Their offices inabling them to do courtesies and discourtesies And although there hath been a Committee appointed to certifie all pensions sequestrations offices imployments of advantage and profits conferred by the Parliament upon any their Members in which Committee Mr. Sands holdeth the chair yet is this meerly a formality to blind the eys of the World and fool the expectation of some losing Members who were then resolute to know who had already received satisfaction for their losses and how far they had out-run their fellow-Members therein Yet this Committee is now let fall no reports demanded of Mr. Sands and when any is to be made they are not unprovided of a means to make it fruitless by putting every particular to debate well knowing that no man will be willing to argue against the particular persons and merits of his fellow Members and thereby heap envy upon his own head besides the delay of a particular debate How frequently the Countrie Committees act contrary to the Laws of the Land Country Committees how they trample Magna Charta under their feet how boldly and avowedly they transgress all Orders and Ordinances of Parliament and break our Solemn League and Covenant how they ordinarily turn well-affected men out of their free-holds and goods imprison and beat their Persons without any known charge accuser or witnesse against them nay murther them as in the case of Doctor Rawleygh killed in prison at Welles by the Committees Marshal and the poor men murthered at Bridgwater whose bloods were shed like the blood of a dog and no real prosecution thereof how frequently they leavy one Taxe three or four times over and continue their leavies after the Ordinance expiâ—e How cruelly they raise the twentieth and fifth part upon the well-affected exercising an illegall arbitrary tyrannical power over their fellow Subjects far higher than ever Strafford or Canterbury durst advise the King to how ignorantly and unjustly they exercise a power to hear and determine or rather to determine without hearing or hear without understaâ—ding private controversies of Meum Tuum for debts trespasses nay Title and possession of Lands without either formality or knowledge of the Law not having wit manners nor breeding enough as being chosen for the greatest part out of the basest of the People for base ends to satisfie men with an outside or Complement of justice Insomuch that nothing is now more Common than an accusation without an accuser a sentence without a Judge and a condemnation without a hearing How they exclude all other Magistracy ingrossing to themselves the power of Sheriffs Justices of Peace Church-wardens c. in an Arbitrary way keeping Troops of Horse upon pay and free-quarter for their guards like the 30 Tyrants of Athens and if any man but speak of calling them to give an account they presently vote him a Delinquent and Sequester him If any man I say be so deaf as not to hear the loud universal out-crying of the people so great a stranger in our Israel as not to know these truths let him peruse M. Edward Kings discovery of the arbitrary actions of the Committee of Lincoln and the heads of Grievances of Glamorganshire printed 1647. where he may see these
things briefly Epitomized but to Historize them at large would require a volume as big as the Book of Martyrs These Committees are excellent spunges to suck mony from the people and to serve not only their own but also the Covetous Malicious Ambitious ends of those that raked them out of the dunghil for that imployment and do defend them in their oppressions who is so blind as not to see these men have their protectors the Daemones to whom they offer up part of their rapins to whom they sacrifice Occulta spolia plures de pace Triumphos If there be any intention to restore our Laws and Liberties and free us from Arbitrary Government it is fit these Committees and all associations be laid down having no enemy to associate against and that the old form of Government by Sheriffs Justices of the Peace c. be re-established and the Militia in each County setled as before in Lieutenants and deputy Lieutenants or in Commissioners The rather because the people are now generally of opinion They may as easily find Charity in Hell as Justice in any Committee and that the King hath taken down one Star-chamber and the Parliament hath set up a hundred Nor is it a small artifice to raise money by so many severall and confused Taxes Taxes Whereas one or two ways orderly used and well husbanded would have done the work 1. Royal Subsidie of 300000 l. 2. Pole money 3. The free Loans and Contributions upon the Publick Faith amounted to a vast incredible sum in money Plate Horse Arms c. 4. The Irish adventure for sale of Lands the first and second time 5. The Weekly meal 6. The City Loan after the rate of 50 Subsidies 7. The Assesment for bringing in the Scots 8. The five and twentith part 9. The Weekly Assesment for my Lord Generals Army 10. The Weekly or Monthly Assesment for Sir Thomas Fairfax Army 11. The Weekly Assesment for the Scotch Army 12. The Weekly Assesment for the British Army in Ireland 13. The Weekly Assesment for my Lo. of Manchesters Army 14. Free-quarter at least connived at by the State because the Souldiers having for a time subsistence that way are the less craving for their pay whereby their Arrears growing stale will at last either be frustrated by a tedious Committee of Accounts or forgotten in the mean time the Grand Committee of Accounts discount it out of the Commanders Arrears whereby the State saves it 15. The Kings Revenue 16. Sequestrations and Plunder by Committees which if well answered to the State would have carried on the work which thus I demonstrate One half of all the goods and Chattels and at least one half of the Lands Rents and Revenues of the Kingdom have been sequestred And who can imagin that one half of the profits and Goods of the Land will not maintain any Forces that can be kept and fed in England for the defence thereof 17. Excise upon all things this alone if well managed would maintain the War the Low-Countries make it almost their only support 18. Fortification-money c. By these several ways and Taxes about forty Millions in money and money-worth have been milked from the people and the Parliament as the Pope did once may call England Puteum inexhaustum yet it is almost drawn dry A vast Treasure and so excessive as nothing but a long peace could import and nothing but much fraud and many follies could dissipate and we ought not to wonder if it be accounted inter arcana novissimi imperii to be always making yet never finishing an account thereof And as they have artificially confounded the accounts by laying on multiplicity of Taxes Accounts so for the same reason they let the money run in so many muddy obscure chanels through so many Committees and Officers fingers both for collecting receiving issuing and paying it forth that it is impossible to make or ballance any Publick account thereof and at least one half thereof is known to be devoured by Committees and Officers and those that for lucre protect them By these means as they make many men partners with them in the publick spoyls so they much strengthen and increase their party whereby multitudo peccantium tollit poenam If these things were not purposely done 1. Our Taxes would be fewer in number Accounts again and more in effect 2. They would be put to run in one chanel under the fingering of fewer Harpies and perspicuous and true Entries made of all receipts and disbursments which would be publick to common view and examination The Exchequer way of accounts is the exactest antientest and best known way of account of England and most free from deceit which is almost confessed de facto when to make the Kings Revenue more obnoxious to their desires they took it out of the Exchequer way contrary to the fundamental Laws of the Land for both the Higher and Lower Exchequer are as antient and fundamental as any Court in England and put it under a Committee which as all other Committees do will render an account of their Stewardship at the latter day In the mean time divers of that Committee buy in old sleeping Pensions which they pay themselves from the first of their arrears yet other men that have disbursed money out of their purses for the Kings Service can receive no pay for any money laid forth before Michaelmas Term 1643. because forsooth then the Committee first took charge of the Revenue In the mean time the Kings Tenants and Debtors are deprived of the benefit of the Laws and Liberties of the subject which before they enjoyed all Debts and Moneys being now raised by the terrour of Pursuivants and Messengers whose Commissions are only to distrain and levy c. whereas formerly the Exchequer sent out legal Process and the Tenant or Debtor had liberty to plead to it in his own defence if he thought himself wronged but now New Lords new Laws and to countenance their doings the Committee have gotten an addition of some Lords to them 3. If there were fair play above board so many members of both Houses would not be ambitious of the trouble and clamour that attends Task masters Publicans and such sinners as sit at the receipt of Custome being no part of the business for which the Writ Summons or the people choose or trust them and whereby they are diverted from the business of the House but would leave that imployment to other men who not having the character and privilege of Parliament upon them will be lesse able to protect themselves and their agents from giving publick accounts of their receipts and disbursments and from putting affronts and delays upon the Committee of Accompts as it is well known some of them have done Lastly it is scandalous that the same men should be continued so long in their money-imployments because Diuturnitas solitudo carrumpunt Imperia and by long continuance and experience they
to bring in an Ordinance of Accommodation which was suddenly done and passed and is now printed at the latter end of the said menacing Remonstrance of the Army a Child fit to wait upon such a Mother 42. Debate in passing the Ordinance of null and void Thus was this Ordinance of null and void gotten which hath been the cause of so much danger and trouble to multitudes of people by the Lords reiterated breaches upon the Privileges of the House of Commons The engaged parties threats within dores The Armies thundring Letters and Remonstrance Their Guards upon their doors and a Regiment or two of Horse in Hide Park ready to make impressions upon the House in case things had not gone to their minds diverse of whose Commanders walking in the Hall enquired often how things went protesting they would pull them forth by the Ears if they did not give speedy satisfaction Thus for the manner of passing that Ordinance The matter of Argument used against it was as far as I can hear to the purpose following It was alleged that the Force upon Monday 26. July ended that day that the next day being Tuesday the House met quietly and adjourned that upon Friday following the Houses sate quietly all day and gave their Votes freely and so forward the City having sufficiently provided for their security that the transient force upon Monday could have no influence on the Houses for time to come That the Supreme power of no Nation can avoid their own Acts by pretended force this would make the Common people the Jurors and Judges to question all Acts done in Parliament since one man can and may judge of force as well as another this were to bring the Records of the House into dispute Magna Charta was never gotten nor confirmed but by Force Force was three-fold upon one or both Houses or upon the King in giving his Royal assent neither could plead it the Parliament is presumed to consist of such men as dare lay down their lives for their Country When the King came with force to demand the 5. Members When the City came down crying for justice against the Earl of Stafford When the Women came down crying for Peace When the Reformadoes came down in a much more dangerous Tumult than this of the unarmed Apprentices yet the Houses continued sitting and acting and none of their Acts were nullified That to make their Acts Orders and Ordinances void ab initio would draw many thousand men who had acted under them into danger of their lives and fortunes who had no Authority to dispute the validity of our Votes we must therefore give them power to dispute our Acts hereafter upon matter of fact for to tie men to unlimited and undisputable obedience to our Votes and yet to punish them for obeying whensoever we shall please to declare our acts void ab initio is contrary to all reason If to act upon such Ordinances were criminal it was more criminal in those that made them And who shall be Judges of those that made them not the Members that went to the Army They are parties pre-ingaged to live and die with the Army and have approved the Armies Declaration calling those that sate a few Lords and Gentlemen and no Parliament They have joyned with a power out of the Houses to give a Law to and put an engagement upon both Houses a president never heard of before of most dangerous consequence it takes away the liberty of giving I and No freely being the very life of Parliaments If all done under an actual force be void it it questionable whether all hath been done this four or five years be not void and whether his Majesties Royal assent to some good Bils passed this Parliament may not be said to have been extorted by force If the Kings partie prevail they will declare this Parliament void upon the ground your selves have laid Fabian's History 1. Hen. 7. that King urged the Parliament to make void ab initio all Acts passed Rich. 3. which they refused upon this ground that then they should make all that had acted in obedience to them liable to punishment only they repealed those Acts. The debate upon this Ordinance of Null and Void held from Monday 9. of Aug. to the 20. Aug. when it was passed but not without some interloaping debates of something a different nature yet all looking the same way occasioned by Messages from the Lords 43. The Lords Message to the Commons to approve the Declaration of the Army Namely once upon a Message from them The said Declaration from Sir Thomas Fairfax and his Army concerning their advance to London was read and debated in grosse whether the Commons should concur with the Lords in approving it But almost all but the ingaged party and their pensioners distasted it it was laid by without any question put lest it should prove dangerous to put a Negative upon their Masters of the Army Yet many menaces according to custome were used by the engaged party to get it passed Haslerigge affirming that those Gentlemen that sate and voted for a Committee of safety and the Kings comming to London 44. The Committee of safety did drive on the design of the City Protestation and Engagement To which was answered That the Committee of safety was not then newly erected by those which sate but of the old Committee revived by that Vote which had been long since erected in a full and free Parliament when the Army first mutined and threatned to march to London and for the same ends defence of Parliament and City and for the Kings coming to London it was Voted onely to get him out of the power of the Army as formerly in a full and free Parliament he had been Voted to Richmond for the same reason Upon another Message from the Lords 45. A Committee to Examine the Tumult the Commons concurred in an Ordinance to erect a Committee of Examination to inquire into and examine the City Petition Engagement and the force upon the Houses 26. July all endeavours to raise any forces c. This Committee consisted of 22. Commons besides Lords almost all of them Members engaged with the Army but because there were some three or four Presbyterians gotten in amongst them to shut these Canaanites forth that the Godly 46. A Sub-committee of secrecy selected to examine the Tumult the true seed of Israel might shuffle the cards according to their own mind the 13. August after upon another Message from the Lords there was a Sub-Committee of Secrecy named out of this Grand Committee of Examinations to examine upon Oath the persons were the Earl of Denbigh and Mulgrave Lord Gray of Wark Lord Howard of Escrig Sir Arthur Haslerigge Mr. Solicitor Gourdon Miles Corbet Alderman Penington Allen Edwards Col. Ven or any three of them all persons engaged to live and die with the Army and now appointed to make a clandestine
say farther that other things of main importance for the good of this Kingdom are in Proposition c. which yet before the end of this Session they hope may receive some progresse and perfection As the establishing and ordering the Kings Revenue c. The Regulating of Courts of Justice and the abridging both the delaies and Charges of Law Sutes c. Preventing the exportation of Gold and Silver and the inequality of Exchanges between this and other Kingdoms improving the Herring fishing upon our Coasts c. which things in all their Propositions and Addresses to the King have not been once mentioned nor any thing else but what makes for the profit preferment and power of a few ambitious Grandees of the Parliament and Army in order to which they demand the Militia of a standing Army with an arbitrary power to raise what Forces by Land and Sea consisting of what persons and to raise what sums of Money out of every mans Estate they please which power the King hath not to give neither did He nor His Ancestors ever exercise the only Militia they used having been either the Posse Commitatus under the Sheriffs which is very legal and antient or the Militia of Trained Bands under Lord Lieutenants and their Deputy Lieutenants which is a new invention Nor did the policy of our Law ever trust the power of the Sword and the Purse in one hand for fear of enslaving the People Ex. Col. p. 19. They farther declare That it is far from their purpose or desire to let loose the Golden reins of Discipline and Government in the Church to have private persons or particular Congregations to take up what form of Divine Service they please because they hold it requisite that there should be throughout the whole Realm a Conformity to that Order which the Laws enjoyn Ex. Col. p. 203. They farther say there That the gracious favour His Majesty expressed in the Bill for continuance of this Parliament and the advantage and security which they thereby have from being Dissolved shall not encourage them to do any thing which otherwise had not been fit to have been done Ex. Col. p. 281. They conclude the said Declaration thus That they doubt not but it shall in the end appear to all the world that their endeavours have been most hearty and sincere for the maintenance of the true Protestant Religion The Kings just Prerogatives The Laws and Liberties of the Land and the Privileges of Parliament in which indeavours by the Grace of God they would still persist though they should perish in the work Ex. Col. p. 376. In their Declaration 4. June 1642. The Lords and Commons do declare That the Design of their Propositions for Plate and Money is To maintain the Protestant Religion the King's Authority and Person in his Royal Dignity The free Course of Justice The Laws of the Land what then becomes of Martial Law and Committee Law The Peace of the Kingdom and Privileges of Parliament In their Propositions for bringing in Money and Plate Ex. Col. p. 340. 10. June 1642. the Lords and Commons declare That no mans affections shall be measured according to the proportion of his offer so that he express his good will to the Service in any proportion whatsoever that is so that he ingage with them yet notwithstanding the 29. Novemb following Ex. Col. p. 765. the same Lords and Commons appointed a Committee of 6. persons who should have power to Assess all such persons as were of ability and had not Contributed and such as had Contributed yet not according to their ability which is now looked upon as a Malignancy to pay such sums of Money according to their Estates as the Assessors or any of them should think fit so as the same exceeded not the 20. part of their Estates The power is still exercised by all Country Committees to a 5. and 20. part charged upon all men even such as have been destroyed and undon or laid forth themselves beyond their abilities for their service to this Parliament In the National Covenant taken by this Parliament and by them imposed upon the Kingdom to be taken with hands lifted up to the most High God the Lords and Commons vow To maintain the King's Person Crown and Dignity in Defence of Religion Laws and Liberties c. To suppress all Errors Heresies Blasphemies and Schisms and to defend one another mutually in the same work with their lives and fortunes yet is the same Covenant now cast aside and called An Almanack out of date Many men have been punished for attempting to keep it And I hear the House of Commons are now upon passing an Ordinance for Martial Law to be executed in London upon all such persons as having taken the said Covenant shall attempt or design any thing against the Parliament or City of London what is this but to impose a special penalty upon such as have taken the Covenant and leave those that have not taken it free And who doubts but that the said Council of War shall consist of Anti-monarchical Schismaticks and Anti-covenanters for the most part who shall stretch every word to the utmost extent And this is now in brewing contrary to the Petition of Right 3. Caroli Magna Charta no considerable enemy being in the Field and the Courts of Justice in Westminster hall sitting nay I hear like Janus Bifrons this Law if I do not mis-call it looks backwards to Acts past as well as forward contrary to the nature of all Laws which have an admonishing power to warn men of the evil to come before they can have a punishing power for evils passed Therefore the Apostle saith Sin is a breach of a Commandement or Law I had not known Sin but by the Law The Law therefore must be previous to the Sin How the said Promises and Covenant and many more have been kept let the world judge What the Promises Undertakings and Proposals of the Army have been in order to setling the peace of the people of this Kingdom and of the King 's just Rights and Prerogatives and their own Disbanding are to be found in their many printed Papers which I will here omit because they had no lawfull calling or warrant for such undertakings and how they have been prosecuted and perfomed is obvious to every capacity General Conclusion Out of these Premises I shall draw these Conclusions following 1. The Grandees have subverted the fundamental Government of the Kingdom and why 1. THe engaged Party have laid the Axe to the very root of Monarchy and Parliaments they have cast all the Mysteries and secrets of Government both by Kings and Parliaments before the vulgar like Pearl before Swine and have taught both the Souldiery and People to look so far into them as to ravel back all Governments to the first principles of nature He that shakes Fundamentals means to take down the Fabrick Nor have
Remonstrance delivered to the Commons Novemb. 20. 1648. The second part of Englands New Chains and the Hunting the Foxes from New-Market and Triplo heath to White-hall by five small Beagles p. 6 7. See my Animadversions upon the Army Remonstrance Nov. 20. 1648. and Putney Projects p. 43. and Major Huntingtons Relation in a Book called A Plea for King and Kingdome in Answer to the Army Remonst presented Novemb. 20. 1648. pag. 14 15 16. and Second part of Englands New Chaines and the said Hunting of the Foxes c And the Reasons inducing Major Robert Huntington to lay down his Commission though since they Quarrel with Parliament and City for using them and Reducers of his Queen and Children without which they openly profess and declare positively in many printed Papers to the world and the Parliament There can be no setled peace nor happiness to this Nation The truth of this Assertion was obvious to the meanest Capacities and will suddenly be proved by dear and lamentable experience To all these undertakings they now hunt directly counter yet in pursuance of these undertakings the Army by their own Authority made Addresses to his Majesty and presented to him more tolerable Proposals than any he could obtain from his Parliament They treated with him yea they wrought upon him under-hand to neglect the Propositions from Parliament tendered to him at Hampton-Court and to prefer the Proposals of the Army and then presuming they had him fast lymed they propounded to him anew as I have it from good hands private Proposals from the Interest of the Independent Grandees and the Army derogatory to the Kingly Power and Dignity to the Lawes Liberties and Properties of the Subject and destructive to Religion To which his Majesty giving an utter denial they began to entertain new Designs against the Kings Person and Kingly Government which they ushered in by setting the Schismatical and Levelling Party on work in City and most Counties to obtrude upon the Houses clamourous Petitions against further Treaties and demanding exemplary Justice against the King exceedingly laboured by Cromwel himself in Yorkeshire both amongst the Gentry and Souldiers c. amongst these the Petition Dâ—cemb 11. 1648. was the most eminent these men that insolently petitioned against the fundamental Government of the Land and peace by Accommodation were entertained with Thanks Others that petitioned for Peace by Accommodation were entertained with Frowns disfranchisings sequestrations wounds and death as the Surrey Gentlemen this shewed with how little reality the over-ruling party in the Houses Treated with the King 2. part of Englands Chains discovered 1. â—reaty in the Isle of Wight In order to this Designe of laying aside the King and subverting Monarchy They 1. frighted his Majesty into the Isle of Wight 2. The Parliament that is the predominant Party pursued him thither with offer of a Treaty upon Propositions conditionally that before he should be admitted to Treat he pass 4. Dethroning Bils of so high a nature that he had enslaved the People subverted Parliaments and had made himself but the Statue of a King and no good Christian had he by his Royal assent passed them into Acts of Parliament 1. par Hist Inâ— sect 62 63 64. and the Parliamâ—nt or rather the Grandees after his Royal assent might have made themselves Masters of all the other Propositions without his Consent so that this Treaty was but a flourish to dazle the eyes of the world His Majesty therefore denied the 4. said Bils and thereby preserved the legal Interests of King Parliament and People yet the Faction presently took a pretence and occasion thereupon to lay aside the King Ibidem sect 65 66 67 68 69 70 71. 72 74. 75. And my said Animadvers p. 10. And the 2 part of Englands new Ch. by passing 4. Votes for no more Addresses to him and a Declaration against him which were not passed without many threats and more shew of force than stood with the nature of a Free Parliament the Army lying near the Town to back their Party the design having been laid before-hand between Sir Henry Vane Junior Sir John Evelyn of Wilts Nath. Fiennes Solicitor Saint Johns and a select Committee of the Army I told you before the People had been throughly instructed formerly by the Army and their Agitators That there could be no peace nor happiness in England 2 part of Englands new Ch. discovered p. 4 5. without restoring the King to his just Rights and Prerogatives c. notwithstanding which the people now found their hopes that way deluded by the Army and their Party who had cast off the King upon private discontents the true grounds whereof did not appear and had obstructed all way s to Peace and Accommodation and made them dangerous and destructive to such as travelled peaceably in them witness the sad example of the Surrey-men Kent Essex and all to perpetuate their great Places of power and profit The minds of the people therefore troubled with apprehension that our old Lawes and laudable form of Government should be subverted and new obtruded by the power of the Sword suitable to the power and lust of these ambitious covetous men and finding besides evident symptomes of a new War approaching to consume that small Remainder which the last Wars had left grew so impotient of what they feared for the future and felt at present insupportable Taxes Free-quarter insolency of Souldiers Martial Law Arbitrary Government by Committees and by Ordinances of Parliament changed and executed at the will and pleasure of ths Grandees instead of our setled and well approved Laws that despair thrust them headlong into Arms in Wales Kent Essex Pontefract c. and at the same time a cloud arising in Ireland a storm powred in from Scotland and the Prince threatning a tempest from Sea these concurrences looked so black upon the Independent Grandees that they gave way to a second mock-Treaty in the Isle of Wight 2. Treaty in the Isle of Wight which was the fruit of their cowardise and subtilty as appeares by Sergeant Nicholas a Creature of theirs who upon Saturday Octob. 28. 1648. moved in the House That the Lord Goring might be proceeded against as a new Delinquent out of mercy because he had Cudgelled them into a Treaty though now they attribute all to the Kings corrupt Party in the two Houses the Army likewise kept a mock-Fast or day of Humiliation at Windsor to acknowledge their sins and implore Gods mercy for their former disobedience to the Parliament in not Disbanding and their insolent Rebellion in Marching up in a Hostile and Triumphant posture against the Parliament and City August 6. 1647. promising more obedience hereafter and to acquiesce in the judgment of the Parliament and Declared Decl. Jun. 14. 1647. That it was proper for them to act in their own sphere as Souldiers and leave State affairs to the Parliament but this was done but to recover
lesse I think to hurt his Person the Lawes are the Kings Lawes Courts the Kings Courts Judges his Judges Great Seale his Seale Writs the Kings Writs the Justice and Peace of the Land are his consequently the Warrs his Warrs he is the fountain of all Authority as well as of all Honour * 1 Pet. â— 13 Hâ—â—e the King is called Supâ—eâ—e not the People and thoâ—gh said to be an ordinance of man in some respects yet St. Paul Râ—m 13. saith He is ordain'd of God 2. Governours are distinguished the King is supreme and Governors are sent by him and his Commission Besides it appears Gen. 3.16 and 4.7 God gave not to all men that freedom which is supposed the foundation of supremacie in the people He made them not Masters of their own liberty for even then he laid the foundations of obedience in Abel to Cain Eve to Adam If a people chuse a King it is the act of every particular man of whom the Commonalty consists and each individual nor the whole Commonaâ—ty can give him more power then himself hath But no man hath power over his own life neither arbitrarily nor judicially but onâ—y over his liberty which he may so give away as to make himselfe a subject or a slave this makes him so chosen a Ruler or Protector of them who have parted with their liberty and subjected to him and then God who only hath power of life and death invests the King with power to be the Minister of God to execâ—te vengeance not bearing the Sword in vain Rom. 13. See Dr. Hammonds Letter to the L. Fairfax Jan. 5. 1648. Thou shalt not speak ill of the Governour of the People therefore not accuse him The King hath no Superiour nor equal in England contrary to that false distinction of the Observator that he is Major singulis minor universis When David would have gone forth to Battel his Army disswaded it using these reasons If we flee they will not care for us nâ—ither if halfe of us die will they care for us But thou art worth ten thousand of us Here you see the King is reckoned major universis more than all his Army and yet that Army was at that time in effect all the well-affected of the Land and therefore by the Anarchical Principle aforesaid the only People of the Laâ—d for further proof hereof I appeal to all our Laws and Statutes how will they Try him Who shall Judge him who are his Peers that he may be Legally Tryed like a Freeborn man for sure they cannot deny him that right according to Magna Charta per legale judicium parium suorum It is a grounded Maxime in our Lawes The King can do no wrong wherefore then will they Try him for doing no wrong The policy and civility therefore of our Lawes and of our Parliament too in all their Declarations Remonstrances so long as they continued in any state or degree of innocency always accused his Evil Counsellours and Ministers and freed Himself lest they gave advantages to ambitious men Absalom-like to scandalize and dishonour him and render him low and vile in the eyes of the People to the disturbance of the peace of the King and Kingdoms and shaking of the Royal Throne which is alwayes accompanied with an earth-quake of the whole Land Saint Peter bids us Submit to every ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme or unto Governours as those that are sent by him As free and not using your liberty for a cloake of malitiousnesse but Feare God Honour the King But these rebellious Saints abusing Christian liberty for a cloake of malitiousnesse will according to their 4th Antimonarchical Principle make the giddy ignorant tumultuous many-headed multitude Judges of their King and make the confused Rabble his Superiours thereby setting up two Superiours one contradictory to the other and so turn the Kingly Government into a popular Military Government abolish our Lawes and leave all to the power of the Sword in an Arbitrary way to carry on their designe to which purpose they have lately caused their Journey-men the present House of Commons to Vote contrary to our knowne Lawes That the Supreme Authority of this Nation is in the People of England and therefore in themselves as their Representative This is a 6. Anarchical Principle of the Army and their Party who wanting reason to prove it assert it by the Authority of their Mock-Parliament and must now make it good by the Sword to justifie their proceedings against the King and People These popular principles are meer empty notions whereby the Grandees draw the Supreme Authority thorow the People to themselves the better to enslave them for the liberty of the Commons doth not consist in a licentiousnesse to interrupt the Government of their Superiours and change the Government according to their fancies but the liberty of the People consists in the enjoying the fruits of their labours their goods possessions estates and their personal liberty according to the knowne Lawes of the Land When Harry Martyn in Barkshire forbade the People to stand bare at the Sessions and doe homage and fealty to their Lords he gulled them and gave them that which was not their due to rob them of that which was their due their Horses Goods Money plundred from them for service of the State forsooth and beat them that defended their owne so that while he flattered them to be the Supreme Authority and Lords Paramount and the Parliament to be their Servants he used them like Slaves conquered by the Parliament Besides it is not all the People nor the thousandth part of them but a few covetous ambitious men that desire to bring the King to capital punishment and subvert our fundamental Government and Lawes that have usurped the power of the Kingdome into the hands of their Faction and now require this to keep themselves from being called to account The second Demand tends to disinherit his Posterity viz. That the Prince and Duke of Yorke come in by a day appointed and acquit themselves of their capitall Delinquency or else to be Declared incapable of Government and to die without mercy if afterwards found in the Kingdome thâ—s Summons is but to insinuate their guilt if they refuse to appeare as reason tells us they must and will This is to shut the door after Monarchy and keep it out for ever in farther pursuance they demand the Revenue of the Crowne to continue still in Hucksters hands to pay publique Debts and repaire the Losses of the People that is themselves The second sort of Propositions are for setling of the Kingdome upon their owne Grounds and Interest That a certaine period be set to this Parliament by which time the Supreme trust in them may returne unto the People that is still to themselves and their Faction the new erected Committee of State the hogen mogens at White-hall Thus you see having removed
strong armed Guards of Horse and Foot upon them without and against their Order is the highest and most detestable force and breach of Priviledge and Freedom ever offered to any Parliament of England and that all Acts Ordinances Votes and proceedings of the said House made since the 6. of Decemb. aforesaid or hereafter to be made during our restraint and forcille seclusion from the House and the continuance of the Armies force upon it are no way obligatorie but void and null to all intents and purposes And that all Contrivers of Actors in and Assistants to this unparallel'd force and treasonable armed violence are open Enemies to and professed Subverters of the Priviledges Rights and Freedom of Parliament and Disturbers of the pace and settlement of the Kingdom and ought to be proceeded against as such and that all Members of Parliament and Commoners of England by their solemn Covenant and dutie under paine of deepest perjurie and eternall infamie are obliged unanimouslie to oppose and endeavour to their utmost power to bring them to exemplarie and condigne punishment for this transcendent offence tending to the dissolution of the present and subversion of all future Parliaments and of the fundamentall Government and Laws of this Realm All which we held it our duties to declare and publish to the world for fear our stupid silence should give any tacit consent or approbation to this most detestable crime and make us guiltie of betraying the Priviledges Freedom and Honour of this Parliament to our perpatuall reproach and the prejudice of all succeeding Parliaments Dated at Westminster Decemb. 11. 1648. 27. The tame Lords and insolent Commons pass and print a Declaration against the said Declaration The said solemn Protestation of the secured Members being complained of was sufficiently barked at in the House of Commons and the Lords fell a barking at it too for company and at last that they might confute it with Authority instead of Reason both Houses passed this following declaration against it The Declaration of the Lords and Commons Against the first Declaration of the secured and secluded Members THe Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament taking into their consideration a printed Paper entituled A solemn Protestation of the Imprisoned and secluded Members c. wherein amongst other things it is Declared That all Acts Ordinances Votes and proceedings of the House of Commons made since the 6. of this instant Decemb. or hereafter to be made during their restraint and forcible seclusion from the House The present visible Government is the Power of the Sword in the hands of Rebels The fundamental Government of this Kingdom is destroyed by the Faction remaining in the House of Commons by their Acts For abolishing Kingly Government The House of Peers their putting down Trials by Jury of 12. men and setting up illegal High Courts of Justice their usurping the Supream Authority their mâ—kâ—ng Treason an Arbitrary crime their erecting a Councel of State oâ— Hogens mogens forty Tyrants in lieu of one King their altering the stile of Writs and Legal Proceedings c. Sentence given before any person accused or heard to speak for himself Oh the brutish understanding of men whose sins and fears have intoxicated their wits and the continuance of the Armies force upon it are no way obligatory but void and null to all intents and purposes The said Lords and Commons do thereupon judge and declare the said printed Paper to be false scandalous and seditious and tending to destroy the visible and fundamental Government of this Kingdome And do therefore order and ordain the said printed Paper to be suppressed and that all persons whatsoever that have had any hand in or given consent unto the contriving framing printing or publishing thereof shall be adjudged and hereby are adjudged uncapable to bear any Office or have any place of trust or authoritie in this Kingdome or to sit as Members of either House of Parliament And do further order and ordain That every Member of either House respectively now absent upon his first coming to sit in that House whereof he is a Member for the manifestation of his innocencie shall disavow and disclaim his having anie hand in or given consent unto the contriving framing printing or publishing of the said paper or the matter therein contained The 12. and 13. Decemâ—er 28. The Conventicle of Commons repeat ex tempore in a thin House under a force the Votes deliberately passed in a full and free House the Commons that they might purge their Journal Books of all State-Heresies as well as their House of all State-Hereticks voted this Index expurgatorius which in their own canting language I here present to you 1. Resolved c. That the Vote of this House Jan. 3. 1647. for revoking the Order Sept. 9. 1647. for suspending Commissary Lionâ—l Copley from being a Member of this House is of dangerous consequence and tending to the destruction of the justice and peace of the Kingdom and is hereby repealed The like for the rest of the Impeached Members mutatis mutandis 2. Resolved c. That the Vote of the House June 30. 1648. whereby this House did concur with the Lords for opening of a way to the Treaty with His Majesty for a safe and well-grounded Peace That the Votes Jan. 3. 1647. forbidding all Addresses to be made to or from the King be taken off was highly dishonourable to the proceedings of Parliament and apparently destructive to the good of the kingdom sure they meant the kingdom of the Saints They likewise by four several Votes revived the said 4. Votes Jan. 3. for no Addresses in terminis 3. Resolved c. That the Vote Iuly 28. 1648. That a Treaty be bad in the Isle of Wight with the King in person by a Committee appointed by both Houses upon the Propositions presented to him at Hampton-Court was highly dishonourable and apparently destructive to the good of the kingdome The House adjourned Good Boyes they can say their Lessons well and apace too when the Army whips them on they will shortly have a jubilee of play-days for their pains 40 or 50 new Lights snuffed by the Councel of War can better discover what is dishonourable and apparently destructive to their own kingdom then 340. or 244 could do at other times If you ask what Debates they had they could have none being now freed from the contradiction of sinners being all Birds of a feather taught the same tune by the same Masters and singing in the same cage 29. A Protest to be entred against the Votes That the Kings Grants were a ground for a settlement a Touch-stone of I. Gourdons See the Order Dec. 5. 1648. Yet the unanimous recalling those Votes was not thought by those that think one thing and say another a sufficient Test all were confidently for them that voted with them wherefore godly John Gourdon a Fellow that spits venome as naturally as a Toad moved That
we could enjoy nothing but as the will of any number of men that shall call themselves The People And upon the same ground that those that shall subscribe this Agreement may call themselves the People may those that shall refuse to subscribe call themselves the People and upon far better grounds as being farre the more numerous and standing for defence of those ancient Lawes which do constitute the People and Common-wealth of England which will breed infinite confusions and divisions and what those that call themselves the People now agree to they may alter upon the next change of humour or interest 2. The inconveniences of the present Government have not yet been plainly discovered nor no Trial hath been made by the present knowne legal power of England whether those inconveniences may not be removed without subverting the present Government and introducing so totall a change as will be very dangerous and grievous to all sorts and conditions of men 3. In the Protestation May 5. 1641. and the Covenant Septemb. 27. 1643. we are bound to defend Parliaments and to oppose and bring to punishment all such as shall endeavour the subversion of Parliaments which this Agreement cleerly doth 4. This Agreement encroacheth desperately upon the liberty of the People of England in the Election of this Representative depriving them that have constantly adhered to this Parliament as wel as the Kings Party if they cannot in conscience subscribe it from Electing or being Elected yet they shall have Laws and Taxes imposed upon them by Subscribers who are the least and the least considerable party of the Kingdome and upon whom they conferre no trust which is to disfranchise the Nonsubscribers and reduce them to the condition of Conquered Slaves It is a knowne Maxime in Law Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractaeni debet what concernes all men must be debated and agreed to by all men either personally or representatively 5. It will raise factions and feuds between the Subscribers and Non-subscribers of the Parliament party 6. It takes away Magistracy and Government not onely by placing such a Supreme power over them as is disputable nay apparently illegal But by making the heady multitude the People supreme Judges over the said Representative for although it inflicts the penalty of death upon the Resisters of their Orders yet is with this salvo except such Representative shall expresly violate this Agreement which makes every man or number of men that shall get power into their hands Judges of it nor is there any other Judge designed and if there were who shall judge that Judge sic in infinitum the legal supreme Trust of all publique interests being taken away our vagabond thoughts wander in a circle not knowing where to repose our trust all Judges all Councels may erre but the rascal multitude are the very sinke of errors and corruptions If therefore the Supreme the Representative have so unstable an authority what shall the subordinate Magistrate acting under them have 7. It smels so much of the Jesuite that it tolerateth Popery in private Houses contrary to the knowne Lawes of the Land Popery like the old Serpent if it once get in the head will soon insinuate the whole body being so well backed by Potent Princes and Councels from beyond Sea And truly I know not what to say against Popery where Heresie Schisme Atheisme and Blasphemie are openly tolerated and exempted from the power of the civil Magistrate as in this Agreement 8. It will lose Ireland the managing of the Warre there being legally in this Parliament by Act passed not in this newfangled Representative 9. It divides us from Scotland 10. It destroyes the Cause for which the Parliament so often Declared Voted Protested and Covenanted that they fought viz. Defence of Parliaments Religion Lawes and Liberties and bestowes the Cause upon the King as if He only from the beginning had fought for them which all men have reason to believe when they shall see the Parliament make such ill use of their Victory as to root them all up And this and all other Parliament-Armies were Commissioned to preserve this Parliament by this Authority they have their Pay and Indemnity without which they are Thieves Rebels and Murderers 11. It demands that there be no Lawyers nor Lawes but new Rules in English to be made from time to time by the new Representative who are to be chosen and trusted onely by a small faction of Subscribers as hath been said according to which justice shall be administred not by Mayors Sheriffs Justices of the peace Officers alwaies ready but by hundred Courts who are to supply the roome of all the Judges and Lawyers of the Kingdome and all this to lie in the brests of 12. Men in every Hundred of the Tribe of the Godly be sure who peradventure can neither write nor read nor have responsible Estates to satisfie wrongs done these shall doe justice by providence and revelation 12. It destroyeth all great and publique Interests and therefore cannot stand Kings Lords Souldiers Magistrates Parliaments Lawyers Ministers who will oppose it because it confounds and destroyes Religion and depriveth the Ministery of its lot Tythes stopping their mouthes with famine purposely to cast them off and generally all men of quality and discretion will withstand it because it gives no security for enjoyment of liberty and property nor for increase of learning civility and piety who then are left to owne and subscribe it but desperate forlorne Persons who because they cannot bring their actions under the protection of our present Laws and Government will bring the Laws and Government to their own corrupt wills and interests and therefore will signe this Agreement no obedience being given to this Representative but upon condition that they kept this Agreement and their being no other Judges of their keeping it but the Subscribers who in the result of all hath the Law in their owne Wills 36. This Agreement of the People was condemned by the House of Commons 9. Nov. 1647. This Agreement of the People is the same which was subscribed by 9. Regiments of Horse and 7. of Foot and presented with a Petition to the House of Commons Novemb. 5. 1647 by the Agitators Gifforde the Jesuite being then in the Lobby with them and very active therein Upon reading and debate hereof the House then declared their judgements against it by passing these Votes Die Martis 9. Nov. 1647. A Paper directed to the Supreme Authority of the Nation the Commons in Parliament assembled The just and earnest Petition of those whose Names are subscribed in behalfe of themselves and all the Free-borne people of England Together with a Paper annexed intituled An Agreement of the people for present and future peace upon grounds of Common Right avowed How these Papers come now to be owned those that oppose them violenrly secured by the Army by the connivance at least of the dregs of the House now sitting
could not be carried on by any private designe in Conventicles and corners as are all the bloudy Petitions for justice justice against capital Delinquents and the most High which being penned and solicited by the Army or sectary Committee-men 48. Somersetshire encouraged by the House to associate all the wel-affected i. e. all the Anarchists and Cheaters and subscribed and prosecuted by some few beggerly Schismaticks without Cloaks in the Names of whole Counties whom they had the impudence to belie were entertained in state and they and that wel-affected County though they abhorred the villany thanked for their paines * 25. Decemb. The House voted a Letter to be sent by way of encouragement to the County of Somerset to go on with setling their association with the wel-affected and forces of the Counties adjacent this is to associate and Arme all the Schismaticks Committee-men guilty and desperate Persons Antimonarchists and Anarchists against all the peaceable and honest men of the Kingdome 26. Decemb. Mr. Pryn sent a Letter to the General 49. Mr. Pryns Letter to the General demanding his liberty demanding his liberty and seconded it with a Declaration as followeth Mr. Pryn's Demand of his Liberty to the Generall Decemb. 26. 1648. with his Answer thereto And his Declaration and Protestation thereupon For the Honourable Lord Fairfax Generall of the present Army THese are to acquaint your Lordship 50. Mr. Pryns Declaration seconding his said Letter That I being a Member of the Commons House of Parliament a Free-man of England a great Sufferer for and an Assertor of the Subjects Liberties against all Regal and Prelatical tyranny and no way subject to your owne your Councel of Warrs or Officers military power or jurisdiction going to the House to discharge my duty on the 6 of this instant December was on the staires next the Commons House door forcibly kept back entring the House seized on and carried away thence without any pretext of Lawfull Authority therto assigned by Colonel Pride and other Officers and Souldiers of the Army under your Command And notwithstanding the Houses demand of my enlargement both by their Sergeant and otherwise ever since unjustly detained under your Marshals custody and tossed from place to place contrary to the known Priviledges of Parliament the Liberty of the Subject and fundamental Laws of the Land which you are engaged to maintaine against all violation And therefore do hereby demand from your Lordship my present enlargement and just liberty with your Answer hereunto From the Kings-head in the Strand Decemb. 26. 1648. William Pryn. This was delivered to the Generals own hands at his House in Queen-street about three of the clock the same day it beares date by Doctor Bastwijcke VVho returned this Answer by him upon the reading therof THat he knew not but Mr. Pryn was already released and that he would send to his Officers to know what they had against him VVho it seems act all things without his privity and steer all the Armies present counsels and designes according to their absolute wills The Publique Declaration and Protestation of William Pryn of Lincolnes Inne Esquire Against his present Restraint and the present destructive Councels and Jesuiticall proceedings of the Generall Officers and Army I VVilliam Pryn a Member of the House of Commons and Freeman of England who have formerly suffer'd 8. years Imprisonment four of them close three in exile three Pillories the losse of my Ears Calling Estate for the vindicating of the Subjects just Rights and Liberties against the arbitrary tyranny injustice of King and Prelats and defence of the Protestant Religion here established spent most of my strength and studies in asserting the Peoples just freedom and the power and priviledges of Parliament against all Opposers and never received one farthing by way of damages gift or recompence or the smallest benefit or preferment whatsoever for all my sufferings and publicke services Do here solemnly declare before the most just and righteous God of Heaven and Earth the Searcher of all hearts the whole Kingdome English Nation and the World that having according to the best of my skill and judgment faithfully discharged my trust and duty in the Commons House upon real grounds of Religion Conscience Justice Law prudence and right reason for the speedy and effectual setlement of the peace and safety of our three distracted bleeding dying Kingdoms on Monday Dec. 4. I was on Wednesday morning following the 6 of this instant going to the House to discharoe my duty on the Parliament staires next the Commons door forcibly seized upon by Col. Pride Sir Hardress VValler and other Officers of the Army who had then beset the House with strong Guards and whole Reg of Horse and Foote haled violently thence into Queens Court notwithstanding my Protestation of breach of priviledge both as a Member and a Freeman by a meere usurped tyrannicall power without any lawfull Authority or cause assigned and there forceibly detained Prisoner with other Members there restrained by them notwithstanding the Houses double demand of my present enlargement to attend its service by the Sergeant and that night contrary to faith and promise carried Prisoner to Hell and there shut up all night with 40. other Members without any lodging or any other accommodations contrary to the known Priviledges of Parl. the fundamental Laws of the Realm and Liberty of the subject which both Houses the 3. Kingdoms the General with all Officers and Soldiers of the Army are by solemn Covenant and duty obliged inviolably to maintain Since which I have without any lawful power or authority bin removed and kept prisoner in several places put to great expences debar'd the liberty of my person calling denied that hereditary freedom which belongs to me of right both as a Freeman a Member an eminent sufferer for the publick and a Christian by these who have not the least shadow of authority or justice to restrain me and never yet objected the least cause for this my unjust restraint I do therfore hereby publickly protest against all these their proceedings as the highest usurpation of an arbitrary and tyrannical power the greatest breach of faith trust Covenant priviledges of Parl. and most dangerous encroachment on the Subjects liberties and Laws of the Land ever practised in this Kingdome by any King or Tyrant especially by pretended Saints who hold forth nothing but justice righteousnesse liberty of conscience and publick freedom in all their Remonstrances whils they are triumphantly trampling them all under their armed iron feet And do further herby appeal to summon them before all the Tribunals and powers in heaven and earth for exemplary justice against them who cry out so much for it against others less tyrannical oppressive unjust and fedifragus to God and men than themselves And do moreover remonstrat that all their present exorbitant actings against the King Parl. present Government and their new modled representative are nothing else
your Lordship or your Officers Judges I therefore desire to know from your Lordship what kind of Prisoner I am and whose If a Prisoner of peace neither your Lordship nor your Officers are any Justices of peace or Civill Magistrates in this place to restrain me for any civill crime were I guilty of it much less without proof or hearing in case I were no Member but being neither guilty nor accused of any such crime and a Member too no Magistrate can nor ought to imprison me upon any pretext at least without the Houses licence first obtained If a Prisoner of Warre which I cannot probably be being never in Arms and apprehended neer the Commons House door going peaceably and unarmed thither to discharge my duty then you and your Officers thereby acknowledge That you have levied Warre against the Parliament and its Members and what capital offence this is and what a punishment it deserves I need not inform your Lordship or your Councell who have for this very crime condemned and shot some to death as Traytours and demanded speedy justice and execution for it upon the King himself I have but one thing more to trouble your Lordship with and that is to demand whose Prisoner I am having yet seen no Warrant nor Order from your self or your Officers for my restraint though I have oft demanded it of your Marshall If your Lordships Prisoner there appearing yet no legall Authority cause or Warrant for my restraint I must then crave so much justice from your Lordship being but a Subject and not yet paramount all Laws to order your Attourney to give an Appearance for you in the Kings bench the first return of the next Tearm to an action of false Imprisonment for this my unjust restraint which I intend by Gods assistance effectually to prosecute If your Officers Prisoner onely and not yours which I conceive who yet abuse your name and authority herein though it be a rule in Law and Divinity too Qui non prohibet malum quod potest jubet yet I shall be so just as to set the saddle upon the right horse and commence my action onely against such of your Officers who have been most active in my Imprisonment for damage and reparations which if there be any justice remaining under Heaven I doubt not but I shall recover in Gods due time in this publick cause which so highly concerns the honour freedom and Priviledges of Parliament and Subjects Liberties for defence and maintenance whereof as I have hitherto spent my strength adventured my life body liberty and estate so shall I now again engage them all and all the friends and interests I have in heaven and earth rather then they shall suffer the least diminution prejudice or eclipse by my stupid patience under this unjust captivity though I can as willingly forgive and put up private injuries when the publike is not concerned as any man All which I thought meet to inform your Lordship of whom I am heartily sorry to see so much dishonoured abuâ—ed and misled by rash ill-advised Officers and dangerous destructive and I dare say Jesuitical Councels to the Parliaments dissipation the Kingdoms prejudice Irelands loss most good mens and Ministers grief your best Friends astonishment your Enemies and the Papists triumph our Religions scandal and your own dishonour which I beseech you as an Englishman a Christian a Professor of piety and Religion a Souldier a General to lay sadly to your heart as the earnest request of From my Prison at the Sign of the Kings Head in the Strand 3. Jan. 1648. Your Lordships faithful Friend and Monitor William Pryn. * An Additional Postscript VVE reade Luke 3.14 that when the Souldiers demanded of John Baptist saying and What shall we do he said unto them Do violence to no man or put no man in fears neither accuse any falsly and be content with your allowance not imprison depose or murther Kings pull down Parliaments imprison violently shut out and drive away Parliament men and then lay all false accusations and scandals upon them to colour your violence subvert Kingdoms alter States break all bonds of Laws Oaths Covenants Obligations Engagements to God and Men usurp all Civil Military and Ecclesiastical power and the Kings Royal Palaces into your own hands as supreme Lords and Kings raise what new forces and levie what new Taxes you please take up what Free-quarters and Houses seize and plunder what publike Treasuries monies you please without Commission or Authority obey neither God nor Man neither Parliament nor Magistrate and be content with nothing but alter and subvert all things These are Saint Peters new doctrines and Revelations to our Officers and Souldiers now those Jesuits who lurk amongst them not John the Baptist whose Canonicall advice is now rejected as Apocryphall even among the Army Saints who preferre every ignis fatuus though from Doway or Râ—me it self before this burning and shining old light and are guided onely by a new minted law of pretended providence or necessity of their own forging and not by the revealed will and law of God the sacred light whereof their present works of darkness dare not approach lest they should be reproved and condemned by them But some 43. Actions of false imprisonment by the imprisoned and 150. Actions of the Case by the secluded Members brought against these domineering lawless Officers and Grandees of the Army wherein good Damages will be recovered and some 12. Indictm of High Treason against them for laying violent hands upon the Kings Person and the Members and leavying War against the Parliament will teach them more obedience humility and modesty then either John Baptist Saint Paul Saint Peter or Saint Peters will do and be like Gideon thorns and briers of discipline to these men of Succoth with whom no fair means will prevail who might have learned so much law and justice from a Heathen Souldier and Governour Festus Acts 25.27 It seemeth unto me unreasonable to send much more to commit a Prisoner and not withall to signifie the crimes laid against him and come short of that ingenuity of the heathenish chief Captain who seized upon Paul thereby to appease the Tumult at Hierusalem Acts 22.27 29. who as soon as ever Paul told him he was a Roman Free-born then straight way they departed from him who should have examined him and the chief Captain also was affraid after he knew that he was a Roman and because he had bound him And should not false imprisoning of a Parliament-man Free-born English-man be as formidable to our chief Captains being a Christian I say sworn and vowed to defend the Houses Priviledges and Members Persons as the Imprisonment of a Roman was to this chief Captain and they as ingenious and just as he who shall rise up in judgement against them and condemn them at the last I shall close up all with this observation That as the most glorious Angels in Heaven when
about the thirtieth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and two at Beverley in the County of York and upon or about the thirtieth day of July in the year aforesaid in the County of the City of York and upon or about the twenty fourth day of August in the same year at the County of the Town of Nottingham when and where he set up his Standard of War and also on or about the twenty third day of October in the same year at Edgehill and Keinton-field in the County of Warwick and upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the same year at Brainford in the County of Middlesex and upon or about the thirtieth day of August in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred fourty and three at Cavesham-bridge neer Reading in the County of Berks and upon or about the thirtieth day of October in the year last mentioned at or neer the City of Gloucester And upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the year last mentioned at Newbury in the County of Berks And upon or about the one and thirtieth day of July in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and four at Cropredy-bridge in the County of Oxon And upon or about the thirtieth day of September in the year last mentioned at Bodmin and other places neer adjacent in the County of Cornwall And upon or about the thirtieth day of November in the year last mentioned at Newbury aforesaid And upon or about the eighth day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and five at the Towne of Leicester And also upon the fourteenth day of the same moneth in the same year at Naseby-field in the County of Northampton At which several times and places or most of them and at many other places in this Land at several other times within the years aforementioned And in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred forty and six He the said Charles Stuart hath caused and procured many thousands of the free-people of the Nation to be slaine and by Divisions Parties and Insurrections within this Land by invasions from forraigne parts endeavoured and procured by Him and by many other evill waies and meanes He the said Charles Stuart hath not only maintained and carried on the said Warre both by Land and Sea during the years before mentioned but also hath renewed or caused to be renewed the said Warre against the Parliament and good people of this Nation in this present yeare one thousand six hundred forty and eight in the Counties of Kent Essex Surrey Sussex Middlesex and many other Counties and places in England and Wales and also by Sea And particularly He the said Charles Stuart hath for that purpose given Commissions to his Sonne the Prince and others whereby besides multitudes of other Persons many such as were by the Parliament intrusted and employed for the safety of the Nation being by Him or his Agents corrupted to the betraying of their Trust and revolting from the Parliament have had entertainement and commission for the continuing and renewing of Warre and Hostility against the said Parliament and People as aforesaid By which cruell and unnaturall Warres by Him the said Charles Stuart levyed continued and renewed as aforesaid much Innocent bloud of the Free-people of this Nation hath been spilt many Families have been undone the Publique Treasury wasted and exhausted Trade obstructed and miserably decayed vast expence and damage to the Nation incurred and many parts of the Land spoyled some of them even to desolation And for further prosecution of His said evill Designes He the said Charles Stuart doth still continue his Commissions to the said Prince and other Rebels and Revolters both English and Forraigners and to the Earle of Ormond and to the Irish Rebels and Revolters associated with him from whom further Invasions upon this Land are threatned upon the procurement and on the behalf of the said Charles Stuart All which wicked Designes Warrs and evill practises of Him the said Charles Stuart have been and are carried on for the advancing and upholding of the Personall Interest of Will and Power and pretended prerogative to Himself and his Family against the publique Interest Common Right Liberty Justice and Peace of the people of this Nation by and for whom He was entrusted as aforesaid By all which it appeareth that He the said Charles Stuart hath been and is the Occasioner Author and Contriver of the said unnaturall cruell and bloudy Warrs and therein guilty of all the treasons murthers rapines burnings spoiles desolations damage and mischief to this Nation acted or committed in the said Warrs or occasioned therby And the said John Cook by Protestation saving on the behalfe of the people of England the liberty of Exhibiting at any time hereafter any other Charge against the said Charles Stuart and also of replying to the Answers which the said Charles Stuart shall make to the premises or any of them or any other Charge that shall be so exhibited doth for the said treasons and crimes on the behalf of the said people of England Impeach the said Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murtherer and a publique and implacable Enemy to the Common-wealth of England And pray that the said Charles Stuart King of England may be put to answer all and every the premises That such Proceedings Examinations Tryals Sentence and Judgment may be thereupon had or shall be agreeable to Justice The King smiled often during the reading of the Charge especially at these words Tyrant Traytor Murderer and publique Enemy of the Commonwealth President Sir you have now heard your Charge you finde that in the close of it it is prayed to the Court in behalfe of the Commons of England that you answer to your Charge which the Court expects King I would know by what power I am called hither I was not long ago in the Isle of Wight how I came there is a longer story then I think fit at this time for me to speak But there I entred into a Treaty with both Houses of Parliament with as much faith as is possible to be had of any People in the World I Treated there with a number of Honourable Lords and Gentlemen and treated honestly and uprightly I cannot say but that they did very nobly with Me We were upon a Conclusion of the Treaty Now I would know by what lawful Authority there are many unlawfull Authorities Thieves and Robbers on the High-way I was brought from thence and carried from place to place and I know not what and when I know by what lawfull Authority I shall Answer Remember I am your King your lawfull King and what sinns you bring upon your own heads and the judgment of God upon this Land think well upon it think well upon it I say before you go on from one sinne to a greater therefore let me know by what
have no power nor authority to make or alter the Great Seale of England or grant any Commissions to any Commissioners Judges Sheriffs Justices of the Peace or any other That all the Commissions granted by them under their New or any other Seale are meerly void and illegall and all the new Writs and proceedings in Law or Equity before any Judges Justices Sheriffs or other Officers made by them meerly void in Law to all intents coram non judice 4. That the deniall of the KING's Title to the Crowne and plotting the meanes to deprive Him of it or to set it upon anothers Head is High Treason within the Statute of 25. Ed. 3. ch 2. And that the endeavouring to subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government of the Realme of England by King Lords and Commons and to introduce a tyrannicall or arbitrary Government against Law is High Treason at the Common Law especially in Judges and Lawyers not taken away by any Statute Both which Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law concerning the Bill of attainder of high Treason of Tho. E. of Stafford published by order of the Com. House An. 1641. p. 8. 14. to 33. and 64. to 78. And in his Speech as a conference of both Houses of Parl. concerning Ship-mony An. 1640. hath proved very fully by many reasons and presidents and Coke in his 7. Report f. 10 11 12 and 3. Instit c. 1. That the Commons now sitting in making a new Great Seale without the Kings Image or Style in granting new illegall Commissions to Judges Justices of Peace Sheriffs and other Officers in the name of Custodes Angliae in the generall in omitting and altering the Kings Name Style and Title in Writs Processe Indictments and proceedings at the Common Law and thereby indeavouring to Dis-inherit the Prince now lawfull King by and since his Fathers bloudy murther and to alter and subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government of the Realme by such commissions and proceedings and by the power of an Army to enforce them and the Judges Justices Sheriffs and other Officers who accept of such Commissions and all those especially Lawyers who voluntarily assist consent and submit to such Commissions and Alterations by such usurped illegall Authority and the Commissioners sitting in the new Courts of Justice are most really guilty of both these high * * Whereupon six Judges refused to accept any new Commissions or to act as Judges Treasons in which there are no Accessories and lesse excusable than Strafford or Canterbury whom some of these new Judges and sitting Members impeached and prosecuted to death for those very Treasons themselves now act in a more apparent and higher degree than they and in respect of their oaths covenant callings and places are more obliged to maintaine the Kings Title the Fundamentall Lawes and Government the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdome and Parliament then they and therefore if they persevere therein may justly expect the self-same capitall punishments they underwent if not farre worse especially since they attempt to reduce the antientest Kingdome of all Christendom into the puniest and most contemptible State in all the World and thereby to render us the most infamous perfidious and dishonourable Nation under Heaven both to the present and all succeeding Ages which must needs make the contrivers and Abetters thereof the most detestable Traytors and publique Enemies to their King and native Country that ever this Realme brought forth in any Age. Repent therefore of these your Treasons and amend your lives if you expect the least hope of pardon from God or Man and expiate all your former high misdemeanours by engaging all your power and endeavours to settle all things in Church and State according to your primitive engagements instead of accumulating one sin and Treason to another which will prove your certaine ruine in conclusion not your safety About the same time and it is thought from the same Author came forth a Paper bearing the Title of 110. Six propositions of undoubted verity Another Paper Every Act of Parliament relateth to the first day of the same Parliam but it cannot be that any Act passed in the Reigne of King Charles the second should relate to the first day of this Parliament which happened in the sixteenth yeare of Charles the First ergo this Parliament is determined by the death of King Charles the first ¶ Six Propositions of undoubted verity fit to be considered in our present exigency by all loyall Subjects and conscientious Christians 1. THat this Parliament is ipso facto Dissolved by the King's death He being the Head Beginning and End of the Parliament called onely by his Writ to confer with Him as His Parliament and Councel about urgent affaires concerning Him and His Kingdome and so was it resolved in 1. Hen. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 1. 14 H. 4. Coke 4. Instit p. 46. 4. c. 4. f. 44. b. 2. That immediately upon this Parliaments dissolution by the Kings death all Commissions granted by the King or by one or both Houses to the Generall or Officers of the Army the Commissioners of the great Seale of England Judges of the Kings Courts Justices of Peace Sheriffs Excise-men Customers and the like with all Committees and ordinances of one or both Houses made this Parliament did actually determine expire and become meerly void in Law to all intents and purposes and cannot be continued as good and valid by any Power whatsoever 3. That instantly after the Kings decease the Imperiall Crowne of this Realme of England and of the Kingdomes Dominions and Rights thereunto belonging was by inherent Birth-right and Lawfull undoubted succession and descent actually vested in the most Illustrious Charles Prince of Wales being next lineall Heire of the bloud Royall to his Father King CHARLES and that He is actuall KING thereof before any ceremony of Coronation as is resolved in full Parliament by the Statute of 1. Jacobi ch 1. and by all the Judges of England since Coke 7. Report f. 10 11. in Calvins case Whose Royall Person and Title to the Crowne all loyall Subjects are bound by their Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Solemne League and Covenant with their Estates Lives and last drop of their blouds to maintaine against all Opposers 4. That all Peers of the Realme Mayors Sheriffs chief Officers of Cities and Corporations in this Kingdome are obliged by their Places and Allegiance without any delayes or excuses to declare and proclaime Prince Charles to be rightfull King of England and of all Kingdomes and Rights thereunto belonging notwithstanding any illegall prohibitions or menaces to the contrary by any usurped Power whatsoever under paine of being guilty of High Treason and forfeiting their City and Corporation Charters in case of supine neglect or refusall thereof through fear terror or any sinister respect 5. That till King Charles be setled in his Throne or give other Order the present Government of the Kingdome is legally vested
own such prodigious abuses should happen p. 19. It is said The Kings Revenue by a medium of 7 years was yearly 700000 l. The legall and justifiable Revenue of the Crown fell short of 100000 l. per annum I perceive this is all the Account the Common-wealth is likely to have from the Committee of the Kings Queens and Princes Revenue nor do I know what a pruning-hook that phrase legall Revenue may prove But I conceived all that Q. Elizabeth the Kings Father and Himself received had been His Revenue de jure I am sure it was de facto and the Parliament in their Declarations promised to settle a better Revenue upon Him than any of His Ancestors enjoyed neither did this nor any former Parliament complain that His Purse was grown too full or His Revenue too fulsome and if the Committe of the Revenues had enjoyed no more but their own legal and justifiable Revenue so many of the KING'S Servants and Creditors had not starved for want of their own p. 19. They very much aggravate Monopolies Patente and Projects I wonder they suffer so many Men guilty in that kind to sit in their House old Sir Henry Vane Sir Henry Myldmay Sir John Hypsley Cornelius Holland Laurence Whytakers c. p. 20. 2 Part of Englands New Chains discovered c and the Hunting the Foxes return to s 127. They speak against the Lords Negative Voice but not a word against the Councell of Warres Negative Voice who march up in hostile manner against Parliament and City and secure seclude and drive away 250 Members at one time if they vote any thing contrary to their Interest They speak likewise against the Lords Judiciall power over Commoners but have forgot what unjust and illegal use themselves attempted to make of the Lords jurisdiction against the 11 impeached Members the 4 Aldermen and Citizens p. 21. 1 Part. sect 45. 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54. They excuse their receding from their Declaration of April 1646. they might have minded you of a Vote of a later Date had it made for their turn for Governing the Kingdom by King Lords and Commons To this it is said the King nor Lords could take no advantage thereof being a contract they never consented unto indeed it was never presented to them but I shall ask whether the people may not take advantage thereof for whose satisfaction this was Declared a generall grudge being then amongst them that the Parliament and Army would subvert the ancient Fundamentall Government p. 22 23. They answer an Objection that these great matters ought to be determined in a full House not when many Members are excluded by force and the priviledges so highly broker and those who are permitted to sit do act under a force To this is answered how truly let any man that hath read our Histories tell That few Parliaments have acted but some force or other hath been upon them I wonder they did not argue thus for the silly Tumult of Apprentices for Breach of Priviledges of Parliament They Answer It will not be charged upon the remaining party or to have been within their power to prevent it or repair it to this I reply that it is doubted the remaining party being the Army party contrived it in their Junto at Somerset-house for p. 23. it is acknowledged they called and appointed the Army for their Guard which was not openly done by a full House it must be therefore secretly done by a party See many Reasons for this conjecture before Sect. 24. Farther they say That the safety of the Kingdom ought to be preferred before priviledge of Parliament and that if their House had declined their dutie viz by not Acting they had resigned up all to ruine and confusion from whence should this ruine and confusion come but from their own Army which they perpetuate to eat up the Kingdom and continue their own power and profit and I wonder they did not use the same moderation after that childish Tumult of Apprentices but Declared all Acts c. passed from 26. July which day the Tumult began and ended to the 6. August null and void And endeavoured to make the very sitting of the Members and the Citizens obeying to the said Orders though no Judges of the force Treasonable they deny they sit now under a force the Army being their best friends called by them for their safety Indeed it is generally thought the Army and this remnant of the House of Commons are as good Friends and Brethren as Simeon and Levi Pilate and Herod were and were called to secure the Members and purge the House yet if the remaining party should Vote contrary to the Dictates of the Councell of War Quaere 2 Part of Englands New Chains and the Hunting the Foxes c. Whether they will not be used as uncivilly as the secured Members nay worse by being called to account for cousening the State p. 24. They say There is a cleer consistencie of our Laws with the present Government of a Republique I desire to know who by our Law can call or bold a Parliament but the KING who is Principium Caput Finis Parliamenti who is the fountain of Justice Honour Peace when we have no King who is Conservator of the Laws and Protector of the people where is the Supreme Authority to Vote it in their own case to be in a Representative of 50 or 60 Commons without legall proofs or precedents is to lead Mens reason captive as well as their Persons and Estates to impose an implicite faith upon Man not to use discourse and reason against their Votes is to take Man out of Man to deny him his definition Animal rationale to whom doth the Subject owe Allegiance and where is the Majesty of England when there is no King for all Treason is Crimen laesae majestatis contra debitam ligeanciam Therefore where by the known Laws no Allegiance is there is no Treason Lastly if our present Laws be so consistent with the Republique I desire to know why they did not Trie the 4 Lords legally at the Common Law by their Peers and Sir John Owen by a Jury of 12 Men of the Neighbourhood according to Magna Charta and other good Laws but were faine to put a Legislative Trick upon them and erect such a Court for the Triall of them as was never heard of in England before nor hath no place in our Government They conclude p. 26. That as they have not intermedled with the affairs and Government of other States so they hope none will intermeddle with them This assertion is as true as the rest it being well known that for about 3. years last pass'd they have boasted That they have many Agents in France who under colour of Merchandise vent Antimonarchicall and Anarchicall Tenents and sow seeds of Popular Liberty amongst the poor Peasants and Huguenots of France which they brag prospered well there their very
they would not hear him so he went forth into the Church-yard the people following him where he related to them That he had a Vision and received a command from God to deliver his will unto them which he was to deliver and they to receive upon pain of damnation It consisted of 5 Lights 1. That the Sabbath was abolished as unnecessary Jewish and meerly ceremonial And here quoth he I should put out my first Light but the wind is so high I cannot light it 2. Tythes are abolished as Jewish and Ceremonial a great burden to the Saints of God and a discouragement of industry and tillage And here I should put out my second Light c. as aforesaid which was the burden of his song 3. Ministers are abolished as Antichristian and of no longer use now Christ himself descends into the hearts of his Saints and his Spirit enlightneth them with Revelations and inspirations And here I should have put out my third Light c. 4. Magistrates are abolished as useless now that Christ himself is in puritie of Spirit come amongst us and hath erected the Kingdom of the Saints upon earth besides they are Tyrants and Oppressors of the Liberty of the Saints and tie them to Laws and Ordinances meer humane inventions And here I should have put c. 5. Then putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out a little Bible he shewed it open to the People saying Here is a Book you have in great veneration consisting of two parts the Old and New Testament I must tell you it is abolished It containeth beggarly rudiments milk for Babes But now Christ is in Glory amongst us and imparts a fuller measure of his Spirit to his Saints then this can afford and therefore I am commanded to burn it before your faces so taking the Candle out of his Lanthorn he set fire of the leaves And then putting out the Candle cryed And here my fifth Light is extinguished Upon a Report from the Councell of State 143. The Earle of Warwick's Commission recalled and 3 Admirals appointed the Commons Voted void the Earle of Warwick's Commission for Admirall and appointed three Commissioners to have and execute the Admirals Place with 3 l. a day a piece a Commission for Martiall Law and Land Souldiers aboard to keep under the Seamen The three Admirals are Col. Edw Popham Col. Rob Blake and Col Deane Sunday after Easter-day 144. Cromwell turned Preacher six Preachers militant at White-hall tried the patience of their Hearers one calling up another successively at last the Spirit of the Lord called up Oliver Cromwell who standing a good while with lifted up eyes as it were in a trance and his neck a little inclining to one side as if he had expected Mahomet's Dove to descend and murmure in his eare and sending forth abundantly the groans of the Spirit spent an hour in prayer and an hour and an half in a Sermon In his prayer he desired God to take off from him the Government of this mighty People of England as being too heavy for his shoulders to bear An audatious ambitious and hypocriticall imitation of Moses It is now reported of him that he pretendeth to Inspirations and that when any great or weighty matter is propounded he usually retireth for a quarter or half an hour and then returneth and delivereth out the Oracles of the Spirit surely the Spirit of John of Leyden will be doubled upon this Man 145. The last Retreat of the Faction by H. Martins report About this time the Palsgrave took his leave of the Parliament being much courted and complemented by them and his 8000 l. per annum with all Arrears confirmed to him since his departure Harry Martin in a jolly humour was heard to say If the worst hapned and that they should not he able to stand their ground in England yet the Palsgrave would afford them a place of retreat in the Palatinate the seeds of these Anarchicall Anabaptisticall humours upon the reducing of Munster spread themselves in England and now have a mind to return into Germany to kindle a fire there 146 Io. Lilburn's third Book called The Picture of the Councell of State About this time John Lilburn and his Company set forth a Book called The Picture of the Councell of State c. wherein they set forth the illegall and violent proceedings of the said Councell against them in seizing upon them with armed Bands of Souldiers and interrogating them against themselves c. where they have these words The Faction of a Traiterous Party of Officers of the Army hath twice rebelled against the Parliament and broke them in pieces and by force of Armes culled out whom they pleased and imprisoned divers of them and laied nothing to their charge and have left onely in a manner a few men besides 11 of themselves viz the Generall Cromwell Ireton Harrison Fleetwood Rich Ingolsby Hazelrigge Constable Fennick Walton and Allen Treasurer of their own Faction behind them that will like Spaniel dogs serve their lusts and wills yea some of the chiefest of them viz Ireton Harrison c. yea Mr. Holland himself styled them a Mock Parliament a Mock power at Windsor yea it is yet their expressions at London And if this be true that they are a Mock-power and a Mock Parliamâ—nt then Quare Whether in Law or Justice especially considering they have fallen from all their many glorious promises and have not done any one action that tends to the universall good of the people can those Gentlemen sitting at Westminster in the House called the House of Commons be any other than a factious company of Men trayteâ—ously combined together with Cromwell Ireton and Harrison to subdue the Laws Liberties and Freedoms of England for no one of them protests against the rest and to set up an absolute and perfect tyranny of the Sword will and pleasure and absolutely intend the destroying the Trade of the Nation and the absolute impoverishing the people thereof to sit them to be their Vassals and Slaves And again the three forementioned Men viz Cromwell Ireton and Harrison the Generall being but their stalking horse and a cypher and their trayterous Faction having by their wills and Swords got all the Swords of England under their command and the disposing of all the great Places in England by Sea and Land and also the pretended Law making power and the pretended Law executing power by making among themselves contrary to the Laws and Liberties of England all Judges Justices of Peace Sheriffs Bayliffs Committee-men c. to execute their wils and tyranny walking by no limits or bounds but their own wills and pleasures and trayterously assume unto themselves a power to leavy upon the people what money they please and dispose of it as they please yea even to buy knives to cut the peoples throats that pay the money to them and to give no account for it till Dooms-day in the
their Wives Children Families and Posterity to venture their lives and all they have to make opposition against this the greatest mischief that ever was attempted the greatest Treason that ever was committed against the liberties of the People and not to stand any longer in a mix-maze between hope and feare for if this designe take place your great Officers and their Confederates in Parliament and Councel of State will be as so many Kings Princes and Lords and your selves and all the people their Slaves and Vassals Therefore keep every man his place and post and stir not but immediately chuse you a Councel of Agitators once more to judge of these things without which we shall never see a new Parliament or ever be quit of these intolerable burdens oppressions and cruelties by which the people are like to be beggered and destroyed About this time Master Robert Lockier 151. M. Lockier condemned by a Councel of Warr with his honourable death and burial and Lilburns Letter to the General and five or six other Troopers of Captaine Savages Troop were condemned for a supposed mutiny in behalf of whom Lieut. C. John Lilburne writ this Letter following to the General dated 27. April 1649. May it please your Excellency WE have not yet forgot your Solemne Engagement of June 5. 1647. wherby the Armies Continuance as an Army was in no wise by the will of the State but by their owne 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 another and the Ligaments and Bonds of the First were Dissolved and gave place to the Second and under and from the head of their first Station viz By the Will of the State the Army derived their Government by Martiall Law which in Judgment and Reason could be no longer binding then the Authority which gave being thereto was binding to the Army For the deniall of the Authority is an Abrogation and Nullment of all Acts Orders or Ordinances by that Authority as to them And upon this Account your Excellency with the Army long proceeded upon the Constitution of a new Councel and Government contrary to all Martial Law and Discipline by whom only the Army engaged to be Ordered in their prosecution of the Ends to wit Their several Rights both as Souldiers and Commoners for which they associated Declaring Agreeing and Promising each other not to Disband Divide or suffer themselves to be Disbanded or Divided without satisfaction and security in relation to their Grievances and Desires in behalf of themselves and the Common-wealth as should be agreed unto by their Councel of Agitators And by vertue and under colour of this Establishment all the Extraordinary Actions by your Excellency your Officers and the Army have past Your refusal to disband disputing the Orders of Parliament Impeachment and Ejection of Eleven Members your first and second march up to London your late violent Exclusion of the major part of Members out of the House and their Imprisonment without cause c. which can no way be justified from the guilt of the highest Treason but in the accomplishment of a righteous end viz. The enjoyment of the benefit of our Lawes and Liberties which we hoped long ere this to have enjoyed from your hands Yet when we consider and herewith compare many of your late carriages both towards the Souldiery and other free people and principally your cruell Exercise of Martial Law even to the Sentence and Execution of Death upon such of your Souldiers as stand for the Rights of that Engagement c. And not onely so but against others not of the Army we cannot but look upon your defection and Apostacy in such dealings as of most dangerous Consequence to all the Laws and Freedoms of the People And therefore although there had never been any such solemn Engagement by the Army as that of Iune 5. 1647. which with your Excellency in point of duty ought not to be of the meanest obligation We do protest against your Exercise of Martial Law against any whomsoever in times of Peace where all Courts of Iustice are open as the greatest encroachment upon our Lawes and Liberties that can be acted against us and particularly against the Tryall of the Souldiers of Captaine Savages Troop yesterday by a Court Martial upon the Articles of Warre and sentencing of two of them to death and for no other end as we understand but for some dispute about their Pay And the reason of this our Protestation is from the Petition of Right made in the third yeare of the late King which declareth That no person ought to be judged by Law Martial except in times of Warre And that all Commissions given to execute Martial Law in time of Peace are contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of the Land And it was the Parliaments complaint That Martial Law was then Commanded to be executed upon Souldiers for Robbery Mutiny or Murder Which Petition of Right this present Parliament in their late Declarations of the 9. of February and the 17. of March 1648. commend as the most excellentest Law in England and there promise to preserve inviolably it and all other the Fundamental Lawes and Liberties concerning the preservation of the Lives Properties and Liberties of the People with all things incident therunto And the Exercise of Martial Law in Ireland in time of Peace was one of the chiefest Articles for which the E. of Strafford lost his Head The same by this present Parl. being judged High Treason And the Parliament it self neither by Act nor Ordinance can justly or warrantably destroy the Fundamental Liberties and Principles of the Common Law of England It being a Maxim in Law and Reason both that all such Acts and Ordinances are ipso facto null and void in Law and binds not all but ought to be resisted and stood against to the death And if the Supreme Authority may not presume to do this much lesse may You or Your Officers presume thereupon For where Remedy may be had by an ordinary course in Law the Party greived shall never have his recourse to extraordinaries Whence it is evident That it is the undoubted Right of every Englishman Souldier or other that he should be punishable onely in the ordinary Courts of Justice according to the Lawes and Statutes of the Realme in the times of Peace as now it is and the extraordinary way by Courts Martial in no wise to be used Yea the Parliaments Oracle Sir Edward Cooke Declares in the third part of his Institutes Chap. of Murder That for a General or other Officers of an Army in time of Peace to put any man although a Souldier to death by colour of Martial Law it is absolute murder in that General c. Therfore erecting of Martial Law now when all Courts of justice are open and stopping the free current of Law which sufficiently provides for the punishment
much more to act it Queen or their eldest Son and Heyre 2. To violate the KING'S Companion eldest Daughter unmarried or the Wife of the KING' 's eldest Son and Heyre 3. To leavy War against the King or adhere to his Enemies in his Realm and thereof be proveably attained of open deed by people of their condition 4. To counterfeit the King 's Great or Privy Seal 5. Or his M ney 6. To slay the King's Chancellor Treasurer Justices of one Bench or other Justices in Eyre Justices in Assize and all other Justices assigned to hear and determine being in their Places doing their Offices If any other case supposed Treason which is not above specified So the four Lords ought to have been Tried not by a new shambles of Justice doth happen before any Justices the Justices shall tarry without any going to Judgement of the Treason till the Cause be shewed and declared before the King and his Parliament not before the House of Commons only or before both Houses without the King whether it ought to be adjudged Treason You see how few in number these Treasons specified are and that they must be attained of open deed by their Peers our words were free under Monarchy though not free under our Free-State so were they under the Romans Tacitus An. 1. sub finem seaking of Treasons facia arguebantut dicta impune erant These horrible tyrannies considered and being destitute of all other less desperate relief I do here solemnly declare and protest before that God that hath made mee a Man and not a Beast a Free-man and not a Slave that if any man whatsoever that taketh upon him the reverend name and title of a Judge or Justice shall give Sentence of Death upon any friend of mine upon this or any other illegal Act of this piece of a House of Commons I will and lawfully may the enslaving scar-crow doctrine of all time-serving State-flattering Priests and Ministers notwithstanding follow the examples of Sampson Judith Jael and Ehud and by Ponyard Pistol Poyson or any other means whatsoever secret or open prosecute to the Death the said Judge and Justice and all their principal Abettors And I do here invite and exhort all generous free-born English-men to the like resolutions and to enter into Leagues defensive and offensive and sacramental associations seven or eight in a company or as many as can well confide in one another to defend and revenge mutually one anothers Persons Lives Limbs and Liberties as aforesaid against this and all other illegal and tyrannous Usurpations 162. A motion to inlarge Sir Will. Waller c. And the Generals Answer intimating the securing of the Members to be done by confederacy with the Army-party in the House About this time or a little before the General was moved to enlarge Sir William Waller and the other Members illegally kept Prisoners in Windsor He answered They were no longer his but the Parliaments prisoners It should seem the Brute hath made a private deed of gift of them to his Journy-men of the House The Generals Warrant seized and imprisoned them and notwithstanding the Councel of Officers declared in Print that they were preparing a Charge against them yet the Knaves lyed like Saints they were then so far from having matter to accuse them of that they have ever since hunted after a Charge against them and endeavoured to suborn Witnesses but after 24 weeks restraint whereas by the Law no man ought to be committed without an accusation they have found nothing against them This turning over of these Prisoners to the House of Commons proves what I formerly asserted in Sect. 24. That the violence of the Army in securing and secluding the Members was by consent of their Somerset-house Junto now sitting in the House of Commons 163 The General sends forth Warrants to all Justices of the Peace to attach those Levellers that he had routed The honest Levellers most of them Country-men endeavouring to draw to a Randezvouz about 600. or 700. of them marched from Banbury to Burford in Oxfordshire where lying securely because they were upon treaty with the Enemy their Quarters were beaten up and about 180. of them taken Prisoners which their enemies according to their usual custome to gain reputation by lying reported to be so many Hundreds And the General as if they had been all routed sent forth his Warrants to all Justices of the Peace in the adjacent Counties requiring them to apprehend and secure all such of them as shall be found I desire to know by what Authority the General takes upon him to command Justices of the Peace who are not under his Power and what tame Animals these Justices are that will submit to his commands and whether he thinks the Civil Magistrate to be obnoxious to the Power of the Sword and the Councel of Officers See the Vote and Act for abolishing the Kingly office 164. and his single self the Supreme Magistrate or Tyrant Paramount notwitstanding the Vote of his Journey-men Commons That no single Man should be trusted with the Supreme Power The Levellers having possessed themselves of Northampton the General it is said thought fit to take hold of the Horns of the Altar The General sends to the City for additional Forces and wrote to his vassals of the City to send their Trained Bands to his relief that he might the better domineer over them and continue their slavery hereafter But if the Citizens have no more wit I wish their Horns may be as visible in their fore-heads as the Nose in Olivers face To cozen the honest Levellers 165. The Commons colourably debate to dissolve this Parl. and settle a succeeding Representative the Commons in order to the ending this present Parliament are debating how to pack a succeeding Representative as wicked as themselves and of the same leaven whose Election shall not be free but bounded with such Orders of limitation and restriction as shall shut out all men from electing or being elected as are not precisely of the same principles and practices and as deep engaged in their tyrannical trayterous cheating bloody designs as themselves guilty Committee-men and Accountants to the State shall be the next Representative and for the better lengthening of the businesse that they may see what success in the mean time the Levellers will have they wire-draw it through a Committee and refer it to be debated by a Committee of the whole House And at last if they must dissolve having packed themselves into a Councel of State they will usurp the Supreme Authority there to prepare the way to which design they have passed another Act May 19. That the People shall be Governed as a Free-state by Representatives and by such as they shall constitute and then consider what kind of Representatives we are like to have Great care is taken that the State or rather our States-mens private pockets might not be prejudiced by Judgments
to go serve the Spaniard as his Majesty had promised the two Spanish Ambassadors the Marquesses of Velada and Maluezzi which cashiered discontented men first put fire to the Tumult They who did all this are guilty of the Irish Rebellion and of the blood of above 100000 Protestants who perished in that War Adde They who importuned the King contrary to His judgment to make the Irish desperate by passing an Act to confiscate their estates and grant them away to such as should advance Monies upon Irish Adventures Touching the War kindled in England the Author confesseth it was a fatal thing there should be a withdrawing of the Kings Person from the Parliament But averreth it was a barbarous thing that the King with above four parts in five of the Lords and two parts in three of the Commons should be frighted away by Tumults raised by Ven and Bourges and a Design to seize the Kings Person yet it is fit it should be remembred 1. What reiterated Messages his Majesty sent offering to return if there might be a course taken to secure his Person with those Peers and Commons rioted away 2. That there was not the least motion towards War until Hotham shut the Gates of Hull against the King attended onely with some few of his houshold servants which Act of his was approved of afterwards by the House of Commons Vote as if he had done it by their warrant 3. That a while after there was an Army of 16000. men effective inrolled about London to fetch Him to His Parliament and remove ill Counsellors under the Earl of Essex long before the King began to set up His Standard 4. That the same Army so raised to bring the King to His Parliament was continued two years after to keep Him from His Parliament 5. Who interdicted Trade first and brought in Forreign Force to help them and whose Commissions of War were near upon two years date before the Kings 6. That in all His Declarations He alwayes protested He waged not War against the Parliament but against some Seditious Members against whom He could not obtain Common Justice 7. That upon all good Successes the King still courted the Parliament and City to an Accommodation 8. That upon the Treaty of Vxbridge The King moved that to prepare mens mindes to Peace there might be freedome of Trade from Town to Town A cessation of all Acts of Hostility for the time that the inflamation being allayed the wound might be cured the sooner 9. That this present Army remember how often in their Proposalls and Declarations they protested That their aim was to restore His Majesty with Honour Freedome and Safety whereunto they were formerly bound by their Protestation and Covenant and that the two Commanders in Chief pawn'd their Souls to Him thereupon 10. That to settle Peace the King did in effect by His Concessions part with His Sword Scepter and Crown and every thing that was personal to Him 11. With what admired Temper Prudence Constancy He comported Himself in His Afflictions and how many of His engaged Enemies became His Converts thereby speaking Panegyricks in His praise 12. That though there be some precedents in our Histories for Deposing Kings in point of Competition for the Crown yet it is unexampled That a King of England of an undoubted Title should be Summoned Arraigned Tryed Condemned and Executed at His own Door by His own Subjects and by the Name of their King to whom they had sworn Allegiance Contrary to the whole Current of the Law which saith The King can do no wrong The Crown takes away all defects Wherefore it was adjudged superfluous to take off Attainders under which Hen. 7. and Queen Eliz. lay because the Crown wiped off all Blots Rex non habet Parem in suis Dominiis nec Superiorem satis habet Rex ad poenam quod Deum expectat ultorem If therefore by the Laws of the Land all men must be Tried by their Peers and the King have no Peer what power had these Men to Arraign their King to be both His engaged Enemies Accusors and Judges and to Erect an unpresidented Tribunal without the least Foundation in Law with power and purpose to condemn all that came before it and that Sentence of Death should pass without conviction or Law against the Head and Protector of our Laws and Fountain of Justice and Mercy 13. That they who by their own Confession represent but the Common People should assume power to cut him off who immediately represented God 203. Mr. Pryns excellent Book entituled A legal Vindication of the Liberties of England illegal axes and pretended Acts of Parliament abridged in part but the whole commended to be seriously read by all men About the same time Mr. William Pryn Assigned his Reasons why he could neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence voluntarily submit to pay the Arbitrary illegal Tax of 90000 l. a Month imposed upon the People by a pretended Act of the Commons bearing Date 7. of April 1649. towards the maintenance of Forces to be continued in England and Ireland Because by the Fundamental Laws and known Statutes of this Land No Tax c. ought to be Imposed or Leavied but by the Will and common Assent of the Earls Barons Knights Burgesses Commons and whole Realm in a free and full Parliament See Magna Charta 29 30. Stat. 25 Edw. 1. chap. 5 6. 34 Edw. 1. De Tallagio non concedendo c. 1. 21 Edw. 3. Rot. Parl. nu 16. 25 Edw. 3. c. 8. 36 Edw. 3 Rot. Parl. nu 26. 45 Edw. 3. Rot. Parl. nu 42. 11 Hen. 4. Rot. Parl. nu 10. 1 Rich. 3. c. 2. The Petition of Right and Resolutions of both Houses against Loans 3 Car. The Votes and Acts against Ship-money Knighthood Tonnage and Poundage and the Star-chamber this Parliament 17 18. Car. agreed to by Mr. William Hackwel in his Argument against Impositions Judge Hutton and Crock in their Arguments Mr. Saint Johns in his Argument and Speech against Ship-money with others Arguments and Discourses upon that subject Sir Ed. Cock in his 2 Instit pag. 59. 60 527 528 529 532 533. But this Assessement was not so legally imposed Ergo I nor no man else ought to pay it 1. This Tax was not imposed by any Parliament The late Parliament being actually dissolved above two months before this pretended Act was passed for imposing it by the Murder of the King as is resolved by the Parliament 1 Hen. 4. Rot. Parl. nu 1. 4 Hen. 4. and 1 Hen. 5. Rot. Parl. nu 26. Cooks 4. Institutes p 46. 4 Edw. 4. 44. 6. For the King being both the Beginning End and Foundation of Parliaments according to Modus tenendi Parliamentum and Sir Edw. Cook 4. Instit p. 3. which are Summoned and Constituted only by his Writ the Writ is actually abated by his Death 1 Edw. 6. c. 7. Cooks 7. Rep. 30 31. Dyer 165. 4 Ed. 4. 43 44. 1 Ed. 5. 1
Brook Comission 19. 21. It appears by the Writs of Summons to the Lords Crompt Jurisdiction of Courts fol. 1. Cooks 4. Instit p. 9. 10. and of Elections Quere How a Parliament Summoned by the Writ of K. Charles I. and called Parliamentum Nostrum ad tractandum nobiscum super arduis negotiis regni nostri can be continued one and the same Parl. after the Kings death that called it and the Monarchy changed into a Commonwealth formally it cannot be the same the Head thereof being gone The Lords House and Monarchy being abolished and the State not the same materially it cannot be the same so many of the ancient Members being thrown out and new ones unduly elected brought in But there are some pragmatical Taylors in the House who can make a garment fit for all states of the Moon and a Parl. fit for all changes of the State and leavying their Wages That the Parliament was only Parliamentum nostrum the Parliament of the Kings that is Dead not of his Heirs and Successors They are all Summoned to come to his Parliament to advise with him nobiscum not with his Heirs and Successors of great and weighty Affairs concerning Nos Regnum nostrum Him and his Kingdome 5 Edw. 3. 6. part 2. Dors Claus Regist fol. 192 200. So the King being dead and his Writ and Authority by which they were Summoned and the end for which they were Called Ad Tractandum ibidem nobiscum super arduis negotiis nos statum Regni nostri tangentibus being thereby absolutely determined without any hope of revival The Parliament is determined thereby especially as those who have Dis-inherited his Heirs and Successors and Voted down Monarchy it self and the Remnant now sitting are no longer Members of Parliament as all Judges Justices of the Peace Sheriffs made onely by the Kings Writ or Commission and not by Patent Cease and become void by the Kings death for this very reason because they are constituted Justitiarios Vicecomites nostros ad pacem nostram c. custodiendum The King being dead his Writs and Commissions expire with Him 4 Ed. 4. 43. 44. Brook Office and Officer 25. Commission 19. 21. Dyer 195. Cook 7. Rep. 30 31. 1 Ed. 6. c. 7. Daltons Justice of Peace chap. 3. pag. 13. Lambert pag. 71. Object If any object the Act of continuance of the Parliament 17 Car. That this present Parliament shall not be dissolved unless it be by Act of Parliament for that purpose Answ It is Answered That it is a Maxim in Law That every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it and the mischiefes it intended onely to prevent 4 Edw. 4. 12. 12 Edw. 4. 18. 1 Hen. 7. 12 13. Plowdens Comment fol. 369. Cooks 4. Institutes pag. 329 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act was not to prevent the Parliaments dissolution by the Kings Death no wayes intimated in any clause thereof although it be a clear dissolution of it to all intents not provided for by this Act but by any Writ or Proclamation of the Kings by his Regal Power without the consent of both Houses which I shall prove by the Arguments following 1. From the principal occasion of making the said Act. The Commons in their Remonstrance 15. Decemb. 1642. complain That the King had dissolved all former Parliaments against approbation of both Houses of Parliament Wherefore to prevent the Dissolution Prorogation or Adjournment of this present Parl. by the Kings Regal Power after the Scots Army should be disbanded and before the things mentioned in the Preamble could be effected was the ground and occasion of this Law and not any fear of Dissolving the Parliament by the Kings death Natural or Violent which is confessed by the Commons in the said Remonstrance Exact Collect. pag. 5 6. 14 17. compared together where they Affirm The abrupt dissolution of this Parliament is prevented by another Bill c. In the Bill for continuance of this Parliament there seemes to be some restraint of the Royal power in Dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion onely which was so necessary for the Kings own Security and the Publick Peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of those great Charges but must have left both Armies to disorder and confusion c. 2. The very Title of this Act an Act to prevent inconveniences which may happen by the untimely Adjourning Proroguing or Dissolution of this present Parliament intimates as much compared with the body of it which provides as well against the Adjourning or Proroguing without an Act as against a Dissolution Now the Parliament cannot be said to be Adjourned or Prorogued untimely by the Kings Death which never Adjourned or Prorogued any Parliament but onely by his Proclamation Writ or Royal Command to the Houses or their Speaker executed during his life-time See Parl. Rolls 6 Edw. 3. 2. Rot. Parl. 3. 6. 5 Ric. 2. n. 64 65. 11 Ric. 2. nu 14 16 20. 8 Hen. 4. nu 2 7. 27 Hen. 6. nu 12. 28 Hen. 6. nu 8 9 11. 29 Hen. 6. nu 10 11. 31 Hen. 6. nu 22 30 49. and Cooks 4. Instit p. 25. Dyer fol. 203. 3. The Prologue of the Act implies as much whereas great summs of Money must of necessity be speedily advanced for relief of His Majesties Army not his Heir or Successor and for supplying other His Majesties not his Heires nor Successors occasions which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without credit for raising the said Monies which credit cannot be attained until such Obstacles be first removed as are occasioned by Fears and Jealousies That this Parliament may be Adjourned Prorogued or Dissolved before Justice shall be duly executed upon Delinquents then in being as Strafford Canterbury not since made Publique Grievances then complained of as Star-chamber High Commission Ship-money Knighthood-money Tonnage and Poundage c. redressed Peace concluded between the two Nations sufficient provisions made for repayment of the said monies not others since so to be raised All which expressions related onely to His late Majesty as to His Acts of Royal Power not to His Heires and Successors after His Natural much less Violent death which was not then thought on but publickly Detested and Protested against no Man being so hardy as to mention it for fear of the Law not then subdued by the Sword And the several Principal Scopes of this Act are fully satisfied long before the late Kings death 4. It is clear by the Body of this Act And be it declared c. That this present Parliament c. shall not be dissolved unless it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose nor shall at any time or times during this present Parliament be Adjourned or Prorogued unless it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for
spoken lyes your tongues have muttered perversness None calleth for Justice nor any pleadeth for truth they trust in vanity and speak lies they conceive Mischief and bring forth Iniquity Vers 7. Their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity wasting and destruction are in their pathes The way of peace they know not and there is no judgement in their goings Vers 11. We look for Judgement but there is none For Salvation but it is far from us Vers 14. Judgement is turned away backward and Justice standeth afar off For truth is fallen in the streets and Equity cannot enter THat every thing is kept and maintained by the same wayes and means it was got and obtained Vnumquodque conservatur eodem modo quo fit is a rule true both in Philosophy and Policy And therefore Dominion gotten by fraud and force must by fraud and force be preserved Things impiously got must be impiously kept When usurped Tyranny layes its foundation in blood the whole Superstruction must be built with Mortar tempered with blood One sin must defend and make good another And hence ariseth a Necessity upon Ambitious men to flanke and fortifie one Crime with another But to plead this Necessity which they have so wilfully drawn upon themselves in justification of their wicked Courses To expect submission obedience and an equal engagement from men uninterressed therein and to entitle the Divine Providence and unrevealed Will of God thereto in opposition to His Will revealed and declared in the Scriptures as is now a dayes used is to accuse the Holy Ghost of our Sins and an Hypocrisie so impudently sinful and damnable that I doubt no Age but this the Dregs and Lees of time ever gave an example of the like TO illustrate my first Maxime by some forreign Examples before I lay the Bastard at our own Doors Sylla at Rome by the power of the Sword proclaimed or voted himself Dictator to make good which usurpation with a Mask of Authority he compelled the Senate or Parliament to approve of all his forepassed Villanies Murthers and illegal Acts and to confer a power upon him To kill whom he pleased and confiscate their Estates To build and destroy Cities Dispose Kingdomes And exercise an Arbitrary Supreme Authority and then to establish himself in his self-created power he posted up at Rome and in most Cities of Italy Bills of Proscription or Outlawry containing the names of such persons as without any form of Law or Justice he appointed to be slain by his Souldiers These Proscribed men were for the most part such as having some sparks of Roman vertue in them durst love the antient Government Laws and Liberties of Rome and were therefore thought fit to be weeded out as Malignants against his Innovations and arbitrary courses Yet many mean spirited fellows were proscriscribed and murdered partly for confiscation of their Estates and partly to gratifie the malice and hatred of particular friends who in that carnage prayed in aid of Syllas sword to rid them of their Enemies After this Augustus Caesar at Rome having by terror of Arms made himself Consul and finding himself not strong enough singly to subjugate his Country he called Antonius and Lepidus to joyn with him with whom entring into confederacy to subvert the fundamental Government and usurp the Supreme Authority they divide that vast Empire between them and passed a Decree amongst themselves that they should be called the Triumvirate for Reforming and Re-establishing the Commonwealth well enough before if they had let it alone with Supreme Authority to give Estates and Offices to whom they thought fit without asking the advice of Senate or people They appointed what Consuls Magistrates officers they pleased They designed rich donatives and 18 of the Chief Cities of Italy to be given to their Souldiers if by their valour they should obtain victory over Brutus and Cassius They fixed publick lists or Tables of Proscription naming such persons as they exposed to slaughter They proscribed at one time 130 Senators at another time 150 and 2000 Knights Whereby the best men for understanding Conduct Resolution and Affection beeng cut of the rest terrified by their example became but Terra Maledicta as Chymicks call it dull liveless Ashes or clods of Earth without power or vertue to quicken them or make them productive After some revolutions wherein Augustus and Antonius had discarded the dull and stupid Lepidus and at last Augustus had subdued Antonius Augustus usurped the Title of Tribune of the People whereby his Person became sacred and inviolable and humouring the irrational Animals took upon him the special Protection of that Brutish Herd the Rascal Multitude the Tribunes of the people having been originally instituted to Protect the people His next step was to make himself Perpetual Dictator whereby he arrogated to himself a vast unlimited power above all Lawes The Tribuneship was his Buckler The Dictatroship was his Sword And last of all for Ornament only He having already full power of an absolute Monarch although he forbore the Title of King because it was hateful to the people and against the Laws evea since the Regifugium he took upon him the Title of Princeps Senatus or President of the Senate to keep a corresponding power over that great Counsel or Parliament And finally usurped the Title and Office of Imperator or Generalissimo of all Forces by Land and Sea Garrisons c. Philip King of Spain Lord of the 17. Belgick Provinces by several Titles and under several limitations Priviledges Exemptions and Fundamental Laws according to which he was to govern and they to obey In nevum regnum vi armisque partum redigere atque aliis Novis legibus domare ac guhernare Belgium Meteran in anno 1567. Roidan in an 1566. John Fraunces Petit Thuanus Resolving to subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government and reduce those 17. petty Signiories into one meer absolute Monarchy sent the Duke D' Alva thither a Warriour of a resolute stern nature Governour with a powerful Army Who taking advantage of some rude Commotions formerly raised by the Protestants in throwing down Images and Sacrilegiously plundering Churches erected a New Tribunal Criminal or to speak in our modern uncouth Language A High Court of Justice consisting of 12 Commissioners or Judges purposely chosen most of them hangers by of the Law of mean fortunes practice birth and breeding Covetous Ambitious and slavishly addicted to the Spanish Faction To these was given by special Commission full Power and Authority to enquire into and judge or to hear and determine the forepassed Commotions whereupon they stiled this Court Concilium Turbarum but the multitude called it Concilium Sanguinis or the Bloody Conventicle This Councel or Inquisition did supersede or extinguish the Authority of all other Courts of Judicature and make void all Laws Constitutions Jurisdictions and Priviledges of the Nation as to the
as if those excellent gifts had never received their birth nor been so much as shewen to the People untill they murdered the King and stepped into his Throne But how righteous a Free-State or Common-wealth is this like to be And how well are the People therein likely to be instructed in the waies of Righteousnesse Justice and Charity and improved in good life and conversation by men so principled as aforesaid Let the world judge Especially when they observe That our New Statists have enacted in the said pretended Act. 2. January 1649. enjoyning the Engagement That whosoever will promise Truth and fidelity to them by subscribing the Engagement may deal falsely and fraudulently with all the world besides And break all Bonds Assurances and Contracts made with Non-engagers concerning their Estates and pay their Debts by pleading in Bar of all Actions That the complaint hath not taken the Engagement This is to rob the Egyptians of the good things of this world This is to break their Faith by the Motions of the Spirit This is to cheat and rob their Neighbours without breach of Charity or Justice and without imputation of Sin according to their aforesaid Tenets 3. I am come now to consider in the third place The way and Manner of their proceedings How consonant they are to the usuall proceedings of our known Lawes and Legall Courts of Judicature the best Inheritance of all Freemen whereof see Colonel Andrews 3. Answers in his Defence given into the said High Court herewith printed 1. The first course they commonly take is To break open mens Houses Studies Chests c. and seise their Papers and thereby hunt for Matter of Charge against them And then to examine them against themselves upon the said Papers contrary to Magna Charta which saith Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum And contrary to the Doctrine of Christianity which forbids a man to destroy his own life or be Felo de se as many men unwittingly do who answer to captious ensnaring questions When that tempting question was put to Christ Art thou the King of the Jews He returned no other Answer then Thou sayest it Why askest thou me Ask them that heard me That is Ask witnesses It was objected against the Oath ex Officio That it was High Injustice to examine a man against himself Because his Answers may only serve to condemn but not to acquit him 2. They usually break open houses with Souldiers at all houres of the night pulling men out of their beds with great violence and Terrour and so carry them away under pretence whereof Robberies and Murders have been committed Whereas by the Stat. 1. Ed. VI. chap. 12. and 5. and 6. Ed. VI. chap. 11. A man ought not to be accused of High Treason but to one of the Kings Counsel or to one of the Kings Justices of the Assize or to one of the Kings Justices of the Peace being of the Quorum or to 2. Justices of the Peace where the Offence is committed Cooks 3. Instit chap. High Treason pag. 26. 27 28. 3. They Commit men to Prison without any Accusation or Accusor made known and during pleasure and detain them in Prison many yeares together without any Legall proceedings or Charge against them sharing their Estates Offices and Revenues by Sequestrations and Suspensions of the Profits amongst themselves without any Crime objected And so leave them to starve rot and dye in nasty Gaoles for want of Maintenance under the cruelty of covetous and mercilesse Gaolers whom they bear out for mony in all their Extortions And being thus imprisoned and wounded with the displeasure of the State no man dares adventure upon any security to lend him money for fear of incurring the disfavour of the State and a Note of Malignancy Witness about 3000. Scottish Prisoners of War starved to death at Durham where they eate one another for hunger These were taken at the battle of Dunbar on 1650. 3. Sept. and many hundred Prisoners have been murdered in Gaoles with hunger cold nastiness and contagion after they have been robbed of their Estates and no Crime laid to their Charge this is become a daily practise whereby their Prisons are become private Slaughter-houses as well as their Courts Publick shambles of Injustice Prisoners in the Tower of London To which prison no Goale-delivery belongs were alwaies wont in the time of that supposed Tyrant King Charles I. and his Predecessors to have allowance from the King according to their severall degrees As 5 l. a weeke for an Esquire c. although the King deprived them of no part of their Estates untill conviction and this Maintenance was provided for them by the Lieutenant of the Tower and in respect of his care and paines in procuring it he had Fees and not otherwise though now they continue and encrease the said Fees the cause being taken away the effect ceaseth not But these men now in power after they have Committed men and robbed them of their Estates without cause shewen are so far from giving them any allowance to feed them that they shut them up close Prisoners in unwholsome Chambers denying them the Liberty of the Tower and the benefit of fresh Aire the Cameleons Diet for their health and resort of friends for their accommodation And that they may be sure to deprive them of all legall meanes by habeas corpus to recover their liberties They Commit men by illegall warrants not expressing any particular Offence or cause for their Commitment so that it is impossible for the keeper of the prison to obey the habeas corpus which is directed to him in these words Praecipimus tibi quod corpus A. B. unâ cum causa detentionis suae habeas coram nobis c. ad recipiendum ea quae curia nostra c. Whereupon the Gaoler or Sheriff is to bring his Prisoner to the Bar and tender his mittimus to the Court shewing the particular cause of his Imprisonment that the Court may judge whether it be Legall or no. Dolosus versatur in Generalibus In the Acts of the Apostles chap. 25. vers 26 27. Festus thought it unreasonable to send Paul a prisoner to Cesar to whom he had appealed and not withall to signifie the Crimes laid to his Charge See Cooks 2. Instit fol. 591. 4. Their usuall Course of practising and suborning witnesses tempting them with hopes and terrifying them with fears is so notorious That it is known the Counsell of State have hundreds of Spies and Intelligencers Affidavit-men and Knights of the Post swarming over all England as Lice and Frogs did in Egypt and have both Pensions and set rates for every Pole brought in So that now the whole Nation is proscribed and every mans head set to sale and made a staple commodity far beyond the definite Proscriptions of Silla and the Triumvirate aforesaid These Sons of Belial are sent forth to compasse the earth seeking whom they may devour These with the
Projector Holland the Linkeboy John Trencharde that packed a Committee in which he was a Member and voted to himself 2000 l. Love the super-inducted Six Clerk or any other of that Self-created Authority let them sheath their swords and tell me See the Additionall Pâ—stscript at the Latter end of this Book 2. An Enditement must certainly allege the Offence committed in respect of the Matter Time Place Persons and other Circumstances But in these Articles of Impeachment they tie themselves to no such certainties Whereby the Accused knows not at what ward to lie nor how to make his Defence The Circumstances of Time Place and Persons being the assured Testimony of all Humane Actions This Lawless Court leaves him in a vast Sea of Troubles without Pole-star card or compass to steer by The Arbitrary Opinions of this Court declared upon emergent Occasions being a false-hearted Pilot to him These Judges not being of Counsel with the Prisoner as our Legall Judges are who swear to do Justice according to the Law 3. By the Law any learned man that is present may inform the Court for the benefit of the Prisoner of any thing that may make the proceedings erronious Cooks 3. Instit p. 29. But the whole Proceedings of this Court their Meeting and sitting being erroneous here is no room left for Admonition To take away their errours is to take away Court 4. Cooks 2. Instit pag. 51. expounding the 29. chapter of Magna Charta hath these words All Commissions ought to be grounded upon the Laws of England not upon the votes of the House of Commons and to contain this Clause in them To do what is just according to the Laws and Customs of England not to execute the severall powers given them by the Act. 26. March 1650 and a little further he saith Against this Antient and Fundamentall Law I find an Act of Parliament made 11. Hen. VII c. 3. That as well Justices of Assize as Justices of the Peace without any finding or presentment by the verdict of 12 men upon a bare Information for the King before them made should have full power and Authority by their Discretions to hear and determine all Offences and Contempts committed or done by any Person or Persons against the Form Ordinance or effect of any Statute made and not repealed saving Treason Murder or Felony By colour of which Act shaking this Fundamentall Law it is not credible what horrible Oppressions and Exactions to the undoing of infinite number of People were Committed by Empson and Dudley Justices of the Peace throughout England And upon this unjust and injurious Act a New Office was erected as commonly in like cases it falleth out and they made Masters of the Kings Forfeitures I hear such an other Offfce will be erected when the Novelty of this wonderfull High Court is lessened and the yoke thereof throughly setled upon the Peoples Necks Yet observe the said Act. 11. Hen. VII c. 3. went not so high as to Treason Murder and Felony But by the Stat. 1. Hen. VIII chap. 6. the said Act 11. Hen. VII was repealed and the reason given For that by force of the said Act it was manifestly known That many sinister and crafty forged and feigned Informations had been pursued against many of the Kings subjects to their great dammage and wrongfull vexation The ill successe hereof saith Cook and the fearfull end of these two Oppressors who were Endited and suffered for High Treason for all the said Act 11. Hen. VII passed in a full and Free Parliament Cooks 3. Instit p. 208. Should admonish Parliaments That instead of this Ordinary and precious Triall by the Law of the Land they bring not in Absolute and Partiall Trialls by Discretion And in his 4. Instit page 41. Cook saith Let Parliaments leave all Causes to be measured by the golden and streightned wand of the Law and not the uncertain and crooked cord of Discretion for it is not almost Credible to foresee when any Maxime or Fundamentall Law of the Land is altered what dangerous inconveniences will follow as appeares by this unjust and strange Act 11. Henry VII chap. 3. 5. This Parliament alwaies declared they bore Arms against the King in Defence of the Laws Liberties and Properties of the People This way ran the whole current of their Declarations And they alwaies reckoned Magna Charta the Petition of Right and Trialls by Juries the Chief and most Fundamentall of all our Laws See their 1. Remonstrance Therefore in their 7. Article against Strafford They charged him with High Treason for giving Judgements against mens Estates without Trials by Juries Much aggravated by Master St. Iohns in his aforesaid Argument against Strafford And for the better preservation of Legall Trialls by Juries it is provided in the Bill of Attainder of Strafford that the case of the same Earl should not be used as a President in succeeding times And in two of this Parliaments late Declarations 9. Febr. and 17. March 1648. The Parliament promiseth To preserve and keep the fundamental Laws of the land for preservation of the lives liberties and properties of the people with all things incident thereto Now to erect an arbitrary lawless high Court to give judgment against mens lives and estates and attain their bloods without Enditement found by a grand Jury and a trial by a Jury of twelve sworn men vicineto is a far fouler breach of trust in them against their Sovereign Lords the People than all they charged the King withall and a far higher act of tyranny and injustice than either the late King or Empson and Dudley or Strafford were accused of But if they alledg They do not put down Juries in general but only in some particular mens cases and upon necessity I answer That we are all born Freemen of England alike That our ancient known Laws Laws Courts and trials by Juries are our inheritance equal alike to all And one party or part of the people ought not to be disherited disfranchised or forejudged no more than another No man can be said guilty of any crime until he be legally convicted and sentenced the Law must first go upon him and condemn him Ubilex non distinguit non est distinguendum If we do not live all under one Law and form of Justice we are not all of one Commonwealth See the aforementioned Gentlemans Argument against the special Commission of the Court of York For Necessity our present power is under none but the fears and terrors of their own guilty consciences No apparence nor probability of any enemy by their own confession nor can they plead in their excuse a necessity which they have brought upon themselves I know some Kings have de facto used the Animadversion of the Sword to cut off such powerful and dangerous persons as could not safely be called to account by the Law so dyed Joab Adonijah c. for which the rule is Neminem adeo eminere