Selected quad for the lemma: peace_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
peace_n	justice_n	party_n	warrant_n	4,234	5	10.3462	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58041	Mercurius Rusticus, or, The countries complaint of the barbarous outrages committed by the sectaries of this late flourishing kingdom together with a brief chronology of the battels, sieges, conflicts, and other most remarkable passages, from the beginning of this unnatural war, to the 25th of March, 1646.	Ryves, Bruno, 1596-1677.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664. Querela Cantabrigiensis.; Wharton, George, Sir, 1617-1681. Mercurius Belgicus.	1685 (1685)	Wing R2449; ESTC R35156	215,463	414

chosen by the Congregation for their Pastor And that Imposition of Hands by the Bishop and Presbytery are meer Popish Innovations What more additions to these monstrous Opinions the wildness of such mens Brains assisted by the cunning of the Devil and incouraged by the usurped power of these Times may produce we must leave to the discovery of Time In the interim good Reader stand amazed and wonder at this excellent pattern of the intended blessed Reformation Had not God to prepare us for destruction deprived us of Knowledg had he not closed our Eyes that we should not see and hardned our Hearts that we should not understand were we not a people as the Prophet speaks forsaken and meted out for destruction it could not be but that Mankind would rise up against this Generation of Vipers and their Protectors and sweep them away to use the Metaphor of the Holy Ghost with the beesom of destruction who if a while connived at will prove Moths fretting to the destruction both of Church and State For in this Model you may see the Babel which is now in building and the budding forth of those Brambles out of which if not timely quenched will come forth a Fire as it is in Jothams Parable which will devour the Cedars of Lebanon The same godly Reformers which plundred Master Laud before mentioned came afterwards to Master Cornelius Parson of Peldon in the same County of Essex whom they rob of all his goods within doors and without They spared not his Library nor his Wives Child-bed Linnen though she was great with Child and in danger by the fright she took at their coming to have occasion to make use of them before her due time they plunder him to the value of Four hundred pounds a very great sum in a poor Clergy-mans purse especially as these Times go For relief of his Loss he sends his Servant to the Mayor of Colchester a famous Justiciary as you may remember the last Week in the relation of Mr. Laud and Mr. Honifields Cases having made his Complaint and accused the plunderers by name the Mayor knew that some body deserved Commitment but had the ill luck to be mistaken in the person and therefore instead of the plunderers he Commits Master Cornelius his man to the Gaol where he is lodged for a Malignant until his Master plundred of his Man too came and put in Bail that his Servant should be forth-coming to answer to all Objections the next Sessions Master Cornelius knowing that he should in vain expect Justice where he found Oppression from the Mayor goes to Mr. Gardner a Justice of Peace not far off who grants his Warrant for apprehension of the parties Who being apprehended though for Felony put in Bail to answer the next Sessions When the time came Mr. Cornelius indicts these plunderers the Bill was found by the Grand-Jury upon the evidence of three or four Witnesses who were Spectators and saw them carry away the Goods Nay the prisoners at the Bar not only confessed the Fact in their Examination before the Justice when they were first apprehended but in the face of the Court and presence of the Jurors Yet the Petty-Jury contrary to Reason and their own Consciences found the Indictment against the King The Court wondring at so wilful blindness cause the Statute to be read lay open the Evidence and remand them back not doubting but comparing the Fact with the Law the Result would be a Verdict for the King They persist in their Obstinacy and return Ignoramus Being asked by the Bench how they could go against so clear Evidence They answered in general Because they did not think PLUNDERING a new name for an old Theft to be Felony by the Law But being beaten out of this starting hole though ten are Convicted yet two stand out and give this reason that they were a Malignants Goods and the Parliament had given power to plunder such But when it was replied That no such Order was produced nor was it pleaded by the Prisoners at the Bar they then professed openly that these men arraigned at the Bar were honest men that they had an Intent to do them favour and they would do it Hereupon the Bench justly incensed against so wilful perjury binds over the Jurors to answer it the next Assizes And withal order Mr. Cornelius to Indict these plunderers again upon another Felony he obeys their command and the Grand-Jury find it to be Billa vera But when the Under-Sheriff went out to Impanel a Jury to try the prisoners he could find none but Separatists who attended there that day purposely to be of the Jury and professed openly that they staied there to save the prisoners Happy men these that may commit Murthers Robberies and Thefts and yet fear no Condemnation neither at the Tribunal of God or Man It is an usual doctrine of this Sect That God sees no sin in his Children for that name they will ingross to themselves though no men less deserve it and it seems they are resolved to see no sin one in another It was a wild saying of a great Patriarch of theirs That the Children of God were Heteroclites because God did often save them even contrary to his own Rules I know not how true they will find this assertion at the Great Day when Murther shall be Murther and Theft Theft and God that Righteous Judg who without respect of persons shall render to every man according to his deeds yet here on Earth if these men may judg one another they may commit what wickedness they list and let the Rains loose to all kinds of Villany and yet be saved contrary to all the Rules of Law and Justice Mr. Archer Lecturer at the same place in his Sermon encouraged the people to take up Arms against the King but it may be objected says he that the Gentry gainsay this Doctrine and the Learned utterly disclaim it as Erroneous and Damnable but what though the Gentry and Learned as you call them dissent yet let it not Stagger your belief of this undoubted Truth For I tell you that in my Conscience you may do it and in doing it you are so far from sinning that you will do that which is acceptable to God Be liberal therefore in contributing to this holy War and sending forth men to fight this Battel of the Lord. This man in his Prayers and Sermons constantly calls the Parliament The Lords Anointed but with what Oyl it is not yet determinated I am sure by experience we find that it is not Oyl of Gladness Mercurius Rusticus c. IV. Sir Rich. Minshul 's House in Buckinghamshire plundered by the Lord Brooks command The Kings Picture abused A House burnt near Hounslow by the Lord Wharton 's Souldiers Mr. Wiborow and Mr. Thorn the one a Minister in Essex the other in Bedfordshire the first ill-intreated on the Lords Day by the Lord S. John 's Troopers the other unjustly committed to

growing Hemp and there lay on the Ground almost 20 Hours without Meat or any sustenance so that what with fright and dampness of the Earth some of them contracted dangerous Sicknesses and hardly escaped with Life The Terrour which fell upon the Country thereabout was so great that the neighbouring Justice of Peace durst not grant his Warrant to search after any of Sir Richard's Goods though earnestly intreated to it And the Neighbours were so ill used and threatned to extort confession from them where Sir Richard was or where any of his Goods were conveyed that some swooned for fear some fell mad and some died Certain it is their carriage was so barbarous that it inforced Mr. Jo. Crew one of the Company to profess his dislike and to tell the Lord Brooks and the rest That they being Law-makers should not be Law-breakers nor make such precedents as would discover their intentions and render them odious unto the Country Since that knowing Sir Richard to have put himself for preservation of his Life under his Majesties Protection they have caused his Pond-heads to be digged down and have destroyed all his Fish they have cut down his Woods and seised on all his Lands or made them utterly unprofitable unto him for they will not suffer any Bayliff or Servant of his to take any care of his Estate but have often sent parties of Horse to seise on them or kill them At a place called Kings-harbour near Hounslow-heath three Soldiers under the Command of the Lord Wharton came into a House to drink going away they of the House demand Money for their Drink So unexpected an affront did so incense the Soldiers that one of them told his Companions he would shew them how they set Houses on fire in Ireland and so put his Carbine into the Thatch and discharged it set the House on fire and departed The General ESSEX returning from London came by as the House was on fire complaint is made unto him that the owner of the House was undone but all in vain his Excellency was not at leisure to do Justice The Countess of Rivers who as you heard in the second Weeks Relation was Plundered to the value of an Hundred thousand or an Hundred and fifty thousand pounds finding her abode here unsafe having lost her Goods and her Person in danger to secure her self resolved for a time to abandon her Country and rather expose her self to the hazard of Travel than commit her self to that protection which the contemned Laws now afford To this purpose she obtained a Pass to go beyond Seas While she was in preparing for her Voyage Mr. Martin Plunder-master General he that so familiarly speaks Treason and steals the King's Horses or doth any thing plunders the Countess of her Coach Horses notwithstanding a Warrant from the Lords House to secure them And when this Warrant was produced to stave off this Parliament Horse-taker he replied That if the Warrant had been from both Houses he would obey it as coming from the highest authority in England sure this man was born with Treason in his Mouth but since it came But from the Lords he did not value it When this Warrant could not prevail the Countess obtains a Warrant from the Earl of Essex to have the Horses restored unto her again but Mr. Martin to overbear all procures an Order from the House of Commons to keep them This Honourable Ladies Goods were seised on though Licensed to pass by the Lords and searched and allowed by the Custome-House At Pebmarsh in the same County of Essex on the Lords Day divers of the Parliament Voluntiers came into the Church while the Parson Mr. Wiborow was in his Prayer before Sermon and placed themselves near the Pulpit and when he was in his Prayer one of them struck divers times with his Staff against the Pulpit to interrupt him and while he was in his Sermon in contempt of the place where they were and the sacred action in doing they were almost as loud as the Preacher to the great disturbance of the Congregation No sooner was the Sermon ended and the Parson come out of the Pulpit as far as the Reading-desk but they lay violent hands upon him rent his Clothes threaten to pull him in pieces in the Church With much intreaty they spare him there and permit him to go into the Church-yard he is no sooner come thither but they assault him more violently than before Mr. Wiborow seeing the Constable who all this while stood a spectator of his hard usage calls unto him and charges him in the King's Name to keep the Kings Peace At his request they did a little forbear him But before he could get half ways Home they assault him again and demand the Book of Common-Prayer which he used in the Church That which was found by the Parish being torn in pieces before which he refusing to deliver up unto them they reek their fury on him They tug and hale him and vow to kill him unless he deliver up the Book of Common-Prayer to their pleasure he stoutly refuseth Hereupon they fall upon him strike up his Heels and take it from him by force and so carry it away in triumph Mr. Blakerby a silenced Minister heretofore preaching at Halstead in the same County told them That to bow at the Name of Jesus was to thrust a Spear into Christ's side and such Ministers as signed Children with the sign of the Cross did as much as in them lay to send such Children unto the Devil When the Earl of Essex and the rest went from Reading to London after the unhappy to say no more surrender of that town they left there a Committee consisting of none but City Captains and Tradesmen these according to the authority committed unto them summon all the able men of the Parishes thereabout to appear before them at Reading and Assessed them at their pleasure In Marlow they Assessed one Mr. Drue at 1000 l. they fell to 500 l. he refusing to pay was Imprisoned but the Prison being most nasty and loathsom denied the accommodation of Bedding was forced to pay 300 l. Mr. Horcepoole they assessed at 200 l. Mr. Chase a man plundered before at 40 l. 20 pound was offered but nothing will be abated of 30. Eliot a Butcher at an 100 l. and Imprisoned Cocke a Baker at 20 l. Mr. Fornace the Vicar not suffered to speak for himself because a Malignant at 10 l. and paid seven John Langley 10 l. Thomas Langley 20 l. William Langley 5 l. and Wilmot his Servant 5 l. John More 80 l. Hoskins a Shoomaker 5 l. Cane an Innkeeper 7 l. Rates so Illegal or had they been Legal so unequally proportioned to these mens Estates that had Ship-money been still on foot it would not have drawn so much Money out of their Purses in forty or fifty years as this Blew-Apron Committee at Reading removed some seven or eight Degrees from the Close Committee at Westminster

MERCURIUS RUSTICUS THE COUNTRYS COMPLAINT Recovnting the sad Events of the late unparalleld REBELLION Christ Church Coll Ox Canterbury Minster Trinn Colledge Comb Countess of Rivers plundered pag 11 S r John Lucas house plundered pag ● 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hous plundered pag 31. A Bonfire for the voting downe Episcopacy pag. ●6 〈…〉 pag 81. Warder Castle defended by a Lady pag 41. Mercurius Rusticus OR The COUNTRIES Complaint of the barbarous Outrages committed by the SECTARIES of this late flourishing KINGDOM Together with A brief CHRONOLOGY of the Battels Sieges Conflicts and other most remarkable Passages from the beginning of this unnatural War to the 25 th of March 1646. Together with A brief CHRONOLOGY of the Battels Sieges Conflicts and other most remarkable Passages from the beginning of this unnatural War to the 25 th of March 1646. Jer. 15.13 Thy substance and thy treasure will I give to the spoil without price and that for all thy sins even in all thy borders LONDON Printed for R. Royston Book-seller to the King 's Most Excellent Majesty and are to be sold by R. Green Book-seller in Cambridge 1685. THE PREFACE VVHen the sins of this Kingdom were ripe for punishment the Divine Justice permitted a great part of it to be besotted with Discontents either wholly causeless or such as His Majesty was pleased to remedy with Grants so unmeasurably gracious as could not otherwise be justified than by their importunity that demanded them and His Majesties Royall tenderness of his Subjects peace and safety These Grants were so far from satisfying those whose broken fortunes and boundless desires would not permit them to live without a Civil War that they make of them no other use than thereby to strengthen themselves to demand more till at last they broke out into a most unnatural Rebellion The people alwaies apt to cherish murmurs and invectives against their Princes and now grown wanton with the fruits of a long peace incline to Abners mind and think the war which yet they knew not but a sport Therefore with a great facility they imbrace the design and the baits to cover the Hooks with are the preservation of Religion and the vindication of Liberty And howsoever they cannot reconcile their practise with Gods command which under pain of damnation forbids all Subjects to resist their King yet they are so wedded to that interest which they challenge in Religion and Liberty that for Gods command if they cannot untie the Knot they resolve to cut it Do but assure them that the forbidden fruit will make them as Gods and they will eat it though it be forbidden do but perswade them that to take up arms against their Sovereign is the way to secure their Religion and Liberty and they make bold with God for once to choose their own way for so good an end From so desperate Resolution had they had but Morall justice they might have been kept back by the improbability of those calumnies whereby His Majesty was traduced as intending to alter Religion and infringe their Liberties Or had Religion to which they do so Zealously pretend had that potent influence upon them it might have taught them that Religion cannot be defended by transgressing Gods commands which are the Rule of it But if nothing else yet even regard to their own pretensions the defence of Religion and Liberty should have wrought in them a detestation of Rebellion which is so contrary to both For as an eye had to Gods dominion over us should exact obedience to his commands though never so much to our prejudice So the meditation of his infinite goodness ought to win it from us because his commands enjoyn us onely what is for our good if we could see it He would not have forbidden Subjects to defend Religion against their King by force of Arms but that he knew as Rebels can be no friends to Religion so it gaines love and admiration by the innocent patience of those that profess it whereas Bloodshed Force and Rapine the fruits of Rebellion procure Hatred or Hypocrisie And for Liberty it is for the good of mankind to forbid the assertion of it by Subjects Arms taken up against their Prince both because that pretence would otherwise be used by those that have a design to make the abused people their own slaves and because Rebellion doth more violate the Subjects liberty than is morally possible for the worst Prince in times of peace to do This truth was known before by speculation to a few whose endeavours to infuse it into the distempered peoples minds had the fate of Cassandraes predictions to hit the truth and want belief till these sad times have at last verified it by a costly experience That this may be more universally beneficial you have too plentifull a harvest of Instances collected in the insuing Relations wherein may evidently be seen that this War which the multitude was so fond of as the only means to preserve Religion and Liberty hath been almost the utter ruin of them both Here you shall find these great pretenders to Religion suppressing that which themselves confess to be Divine Truth Debarring poor prisoners the comfort of joyning their prayers together enforcing men to take Oaths of blind Obedience to whatsoever they should afterwards command them turning out Clergy-men above all exception and placing most scandalous and insufficient wretches in their rooms darting from their invenomed mouths most horrid Blasphemies against our blessed Lord and Saviour abusing the service of God and profaning not only the Form of it the Book of Common Prayer against which they have a professed quarrel but even Gods own Word the holy Bible which they pretend to reverence Here shall you behold them not only like those Canes Sepulchrales violating the bones and ashes of the dead to make the world know that they believe what some of their fellows openly profess that of those sometime living Temples of the holy Ghost there shall be no resurrection but exercising their fury on the Churches of God which they have defaced with Barbarous rudeness defiled with more than beastly nastiness and as if contrary to their wont they had studied the Book of Maccabees to find out and out-do the most Heathenish wickednesses therein related they have polluted the very Altar with their whoredoms The Independents at whose door the most part of these profanations of the Houses of God must lye will hardly make the world believe they are in earnest when they plead for Liberty of Conscience in Religion while they thus deface the places where it should be taught and practiced And as ill can the Presbyterians make good their pretended zeal to Religion and the Nurse of it Learning having almost extirpated one of the most flourishing Universities of Christendom Then for the other point the Subjects Liberty the following Narrations will plainly shew that it hath not been spared by those that would be accounted the Champions of it when the violation of

his Soul and the indangering the Souls of his Parishoners one Lemuel Tuke is appointed Lecturer in Master Simmons his Church a man by education a Weaver and that had not so much as saluted either University yet while men slept he intruded into a Cure of Souls in Nottinghamshire from which ever since 〈◊〉 the Parliament began he hath been a Nonresident for not long after the sitting of this Parliament his Parishoners framed a Bill against him to the Lower House Articling against him not only as negligent but insufficient in his calling Nay they accuse him of no less than Barretry and Battery Drunkenness and Whordom and some such other sins which in the judgment of all honest men make a man truly and properly scandalous yet this man thus Articled against to the House of Commons as Scandalous is thought worthy to be substituted as a Coadjutor in Mr. Simmons his Cure who only was voted Scandalous because not Rebellious so that all the World may judge what it is to be scandalous in this new sense To honour the King and to live in obedience to the established orders of the Church Thirdly having preached that it was unlawful to take up Arms against the King and contrary to the Doctrine of the Scriptures to contribute to a War against him in opposition to Lemuel Tuke who laboured to poison his People with Sedition and Rebellion affirming openly that in some Cases it was lawful not only to Resist but which I tremble to relate to kill the King instancing in the example of Athaliah 2 King 11. yet the said Tuke is countenanced and encouraged whereas Master Simmons for asserting the Truth was summoned before the Committee there to answer as a Delinquent who was so far from a Retractation that he justified the Doctrine which he did so fully that one of the Committee was convicted of it yet as he himself did so he would have Master Simmons to withold that Truth in unrighteousness for Sir Thomas Barrington who was the man confessed that it was a Truth and a Divine Truth yet not fit to be preached at all times no not by those that were intrusted with it by God himself no though it might be in some danger of Impeachment At last being charged to preach no more such Doctrine and putting in bail by the Committee he is permitted to return to his charge But behold what it is to be voted a Delinquent or a scandalous Minister by the Committee it is to be put out of the protection of the Law and exposed to the fury of the people for on his return Oath is made before a Justice of Peace that at Halstead in Essex it was concluded that an hundred men from Cogshall and Colchester side some of that Crew that plundered Sir John Lucas his house should suddenly surprize Mr. Simmons in his house Plunder his goods and cut off his person as one not fit to live because he was as they said against the Parliament But by the good providence of God this Conspiracy was discovered and prevented Fourthly they oppressed him in his State for after his return home seeing the necessity of opposing that inundation of wickedness which was overflowing his Charge and pressed earnestly in conscience according to his duty and place to labour to undermine that throne of Satan which by the Luxation of the nerves and sinews of Government was like to be set up both there and in all parts of the Kingdom he bent himself in his Sermon chiefly against the prevailing sins of the time as Lying and Slandering Rebellion and Treason Pride and Oppression Malice and Cruelty yet these Sermons by his malicious enemies were interpreted little better than Libells against the Parliament and upon Information given he was sent for up three or four times to the Lower House to his very great charge and trouble tho when he came to London he was never called to answer to the Accusation And because he refused to contribute voluntarily to the maintenance of the Rebellion his malicious Neighbours resolved to extort it from him in a seeming legal way for in the rates made for the Royal Subsidy they raised him far beyond his just proportion and therefore in the first rate they seized him twice as much and in the second almost thrice as much as themselves and contrived their business so cunningly that they caused him to be sent for up to the Parliament while these things were in doing and returned rates in to the Exchequer in his absence that so he might not have the opportunity by complaint of a just grievance to relieve himself Lastly having by most unjust vexations exhausted his Estate and drained his purse without hearing his defence indeed without further summoning him to appear they sequester his Parsonage and Glebe and Tyth and put one Robert Atkins a stranger into Cure and as they put his Livelyhood into a strangers hands so they put his life into the power of his Enemies who are authorized to apprehend him and carry him Prisoner to Cambridg but upon Intimation given he withdrew himself and leaving all to the mercy of his Enemies was forced by flight to secure his Person And here by the way give me leave to observe one thing to the Courteous Reader and it is the Reason which was alledged in the sequestration of Mr. Simmons his Parsonage and indeed is generally used in all these sequestrations and it is For the better supply of an able and godly man in the said Church I would they could tell us where we should find these two Epithites Able and Godly to meet in any one of those which they have substituted in the Revenues and imployments of those Orthodox Divines which they have banished from their Cures and families do but survey the new Plantations which they have made and you will think that Jereboams Priests were risen again from the dead the lowest and basest of the People for while honest learned and conscientious men could not suffer themselves to be made the base instruments to corrupt and seduce the Ignorant multitudes to comply with the reasonable practices of the heads of this Rebellion it was necessary to seek out and invite such of the Clergy into their Party whom either want of Merit or want of Honesty had left destitute of Means and when Orthodox Men are displaced or driven away and such Trencher Chaplains put in their places we may easily guess what work is in hand even the alteration of the Government For while they are so earnest both to Preach and Print that other Forms of Government are God's Ordinance as well as Monarchy they will in time go on to undervalue Monarchy in comparison of the rest But to leave my Diversion and to return to Mr. Simmons His Living Sequestrated and his Person exposed to the licence of his veriest Enemies but he withdrawing himself from this Storm and being out of their reach they reek their malice on his poor Wife and

false Perspectives of slander and falsehood which they hold before their eyes Coleman speeds to London and complains to that Conventicle which call themselves a Parliament against Mr. Gibb for so foul an Affront put upon them by Publishing the Kings Declaration presently being servilely Observant to every base informer they dispatch several Pursevants to apprehend Mr. Gibb he seeing the Storm coming as wise men do hides himself after some time of retirement advised unto it by his friend he goes to London where by the great mediation of friends and paying fees to the sum of 30 l. he was dismissed upon engagement to be forth-coming whensoever they should call for him There is none so insolent and intolerable as a base mean man started up into command or authority we cannot give you a greater instance than in that beggarly Captain Ven Citizen of London made Colonel and Commander in chief of Windsor-Castle who doth not only assume to himself the propriety of his Sovereigns house dating his Letters to Jezabel his Wife From our Castle at Windsor and building some additions to the Deans lodgings as if he meant to set up his rest there and make that his habitation when no place in that Royal Castle is fit for such a Couple but the Cole-house and even that too good for them but as if there would never come a time to call him to an account he doth use the Gentlemen and Soldiers taken by the Rebels and sent Prisoners thither with that cruelty and inhumanity as if they were Turks not Christians for the Gentlemen that are Prisoners there are not only kept from Church nor permitted to receive the Sacrament neither from their own Preachers nor from any friend whom they could procure to do that office for them nay they were not permitted to joyn together in devotions in their private lodgings but each man a part and if this petty Tyrant could have hindred that intercourse which every particular devout Soul injoys with his God this Atheist would have hindered that too And because the sedentary Solitary Lives which they led there were prejudicial to their healths they earnestly entreated Ven that they might recreate themselves in the Tennis-Court near the Keep and offered to be at the charges of a Guard if those high walls and the many guards about them were not thought sufficient to secure them but yet were denied Nay when the Sheriff of Sussex was brought Prisoner from London to Windsor very lame though his Chirurgion offered Colonel Ven to be deposed that on the least neglect his Leg was like to gangreen yet after he came to Windsor he was forced to lie with the rest of the Knights and Gentlemen on the ground many nights at last shewing his leg to Ven he confessed that he never saw a more dangerous lameness and promised to acquaint the Earl of Essex with it and the Sheriff himself being acquainted with the Earl presuming on some interest in him wrote unto him to acquaint him with his condition and earnestly entreating him that he might be sent to London and disposed of though in a Dungeon for a week that he might have the assistance of his own Physitian and Chirurgion offering to give any security and be at any charges to assure him of his safe return to render himself true Prisoner but neither the sense of his misery nor his earnest sollicitations could prevail with his Excellency And if the Knights and Gentlemen who had money to bribe that compassion which they could not intreat found no better measure at their hands what then think you were those heavy pressures under which the poor common Soldiers groaned there were in the Castle eight poor Soldiers to whom the Sheriff of Sussex allowed eight shillings a week yet notwithstanding because they refused to take the wages of Iniquity and serve under the Rebels Colours and fight against their Sovereign they starved them insomuch that being released that they might not die in the Castle coming into the air three of them fell down dead in the streets three more recovered as far as Eaton where a good Woman for five shillings a week given for their relief by the Sheriff of Sussex gave them entertainment and when the Sheriff made his happy escape he left them alive There was a poor man living near Moore Park whom when Prince Rupert was in those parts commanded to shew him where the Pipes lay which conveyed water to the Castle for this crime they apprehend him and commit him Prisoner to the Castle where they fed him with so slender diet that they even starved him and when upon his Wives tears and lamentable cries that she and her Children were like to starve at home while her Husband starved at Windsor they having no subsistence but what he got by the sweat of his browes he was released he was not able to stand on his legs and whether dead since we have no information There was at the same time in the Castle one Lieutenant Atkinson Prisoner who suffering under the same want of necessary food sent to his Father humbly petitioning for relief his Father though a man of good estate returned answer that unless he would take profered Entertainment from the Parliament he should lie there rot and starve and be damn'd for him He finding no pity from his Father where Nature and Religion bade him expect it petitioned the Gentlemen in the Keep for bread as many others daily did and on his Petition had monies sent him but died starved two daies after and left this just ground to the World to make this Observation That where Puritanism prevails it cancels all Obligations both of Religion and Nature and never fails to make men guilty of that sin which is in the number of those which the Scripture tells us shall heap wrath on the end of the World the want of natural affection Mercurius Rusticus c. X. Master Chaldwel and his Wife barbarously used by the Rebels at Lincoln and his Servant Murthered Mr. Losse Parson of Wedon Pinkney in Northampton-shire himself and the Church infinitely abused on the Lords day by some Rebel-Troopers of Northampton c. WIlliam Chaldwell of Thorgonby in the County of Lincoln Esquire and Justice of Peace being an aged Gentleman yet his Loyalty and desire to serve the King in his just Wars made him over-look his infirmities so that he resolved in person to come to his assistance To this purpose he provided four horses compleatly furnished of which the Rebels having intelligence they surprize him and seize on his horses In February 1643. some Rebel-Troopers came to Mr. Chaldwells House and demanded entrance which he denying unless they could shew some Commission from the King they presently broke up his Hall windows and forcing his entrance apprehend his Person yet his Person is not all they come for they begin to plunder his Goods and the first thing which they lay hold on was some Linnen lying on the Hall

fled to prevent surprizal but hearing that Colonel Morley was gone to Battell and thinking the Storm to be now blown over he resolved to return to Hasting and being on the way thither he met Fray the Jurat who was one of the Combination to execute Morley's Warrant and apprehend him as Fray was drilling Mr. Car along by chance one Mr. Breame met them and seeing Mr. Car so familiarly conversing with a Judas that was resolved to betray him called Mr. Car aside to speak with him what he said is uncertain but in all probability he discovered to Master Car the danger in which he was for immediately he left Fray's company and rode back again Fray thus unexpectedly robb'd of his prey instantly informed Colonel Morley that Master Breame had frayed away the Bird that was so near going into the snare Morley presently sends some Troopers to apprehend Master Breame and at what sum he did redeem this Crime is uncertain On the Tuesday after Morleys coming to Hasting Mr. Hinson returned home and that day the Jurats that Morley took with him being come back summoned the rest of their Brethren unto the Town-Hall where they acquainted them with the Contents of their new Warrant who with joynt consent promise their best endeavors to put it in execution to this purpose having picked out of the Town a sufficient number to assist them and execute their Commands and having put their names in the Warrant with their own they bind them by the Religion and strict bond of an Oath to do what they would have them without ever specifying any Particulars wherein they intended to exercise their Obedience until they should give them in charge what they were to do Nay not only so but having received their commands they swear them not to reveal what commands were laid on them to any body no not to their own Wives until they had executed the commands and when some of these assistants startled at this Jesuitical implicite Obedience to know to what in particular their Oath should bind them Wenham a Factious Jurat replyed That they must swear in general and afterwards they should know the particulars Thomas Staple one of the Assistants being pressed to take this Oath rejoined Then you may make us swear and the business we swear to may be to knock our Fathers in the head or betray them Wenham most convincingly replyed That if they would not swear they had authority for their refusal to Imprison them for a year The rest adding That they need not be so scrupulous though they did not know what they swore unto it was no harm for they had taken the same Oath themselves to do that which they were to assist them in And so partly by fear and partly by the inducement of the Jurats example they took an Oath upon the Holy Evangelists to assist the Jurats in what they were to do not knowing what and to be secret until it was done Sure the Oath of Canonical Obedience and the so much decryed caetera must now for ever rest in Peace and never more be maliciously and ignorantly traduced after this most Papistical Jesuitical Puritanical practice Having thus engaged these men by an Oath to do any thing which they shall command them they then think them sufficiently prepared to receive the Mysteries of the Warrant which now they reveal unto them and tell them that they must apprehend Master Hinson and some others nominated in the Warrant in obedience therefore to the Command they presently go to Mr. Hinson and seize on him in his Lodging and being brought before the Mayor and his Brethren the Jurats he never questioned by what Authority he was apprehended but only told them That he had not done any thing that deserved this usage Presently Wenham replyed That he had highly deserved it because he read the Kings Declarations After this all the Jurats went out one by one and left Mr. Hinson locked up with one Mr. Parker whom they had a little before committed because he would not pay for the carriage of some Ordnance to Rye a most Factious Town not far off Mr. Parker was that night removed from the Town-Hall but Master Hinson was left there all night strongly guarded by eight Bill-men having no other Bed but a Bench next day Master Parker who had the favor to be lodged that Night in a Serjeants House desirous to see his Fellow-Prisoner prevailed with his Landlord to go along with him to visit Master Hinson of which when Wenham had notice he told Biddenham for so was the Serjeants name that he deserved for this to be laid by the heels himself which check so awed many of Mr. Hinson's Friends that they durst not visit him for fear of Imprisonment the Mayor and Wenham command the Maid-servant that attended him not to carry any Letters from him and being examined by them whether she had conveyed any from him already upon her denyal Barlow a factious Schismatick who because heretofore his Neighbors of Hasting refused to concur with him in petitioning against Episcopacy joyned and subscribed with those of Rye told her that she deserved to be put into the Ducking-house a Prison for Women for denying it That night Biddenham the Serjeant was commanded to carry Mr. Hinson out of the Town-hall and put him into the Common Goal which the Serjeant refusing that busie Fellow Wenham told him That he deserved to be committed himself for refusing to perform his office hereupon by vertue of this Oath they command four of the Men whom they had sworn to apprehend Mr. Hinson to tell him That he must exchange his Prison the Town-hall for the common Goal whither they presently led him there they lock him fast up in a loathsom place where there was but one short bench and no company but a Tinker and he none of the Jovialists neither for the stubborn sullen Tinker pleading seniority in the place took possession of the Bench and most unsociably kept it all night not interchanging with Mr. Hinson his repose for a walk for variety sake but left him one while to walk and another while to sleep on that floor in which he was forced to do the necessary acts of Nature while he lay in this loathsom condition four of the Jurats Jurats I mean four that had taken the Oath to do whatever was commanded them came to the Goal and professed to Mr. Hinson their hearty sorrow that they ever had a hand in his Attachment intreated him that he would not think evil of them for they were compelled to do that for which they were now sorry And Thomas Staple that as before you heard expostulated so freely and pleaded against the taking the Oath before he was awed to take it shewing the monstrous evil in which it might ingage them openly exclaimed against the Mayor and his Brethren wishing that the Plague from God might light upon them for insnaring their Consciences with such an Oath when not