Souldiers were not so wicked as their Masters Yet we daily see many good Families in England despoiled of their Estates for want of protection of the laws brought to miserable beggery rather than they will wrong their consciences by subscribing this damnable Engagement contrary to the Protestation and Covenant imposed by this Parliament contrary to the known law of this land which this Parliament hath declared to observe and keep in all things concerning the lives liberties and properties of the people with all things incident thereto contrary to this Parliaments reiterated votes that they would not change the Ancient Government by a King Lords and Commons And contrary to the Oathes of Allegeance Obedience and Supremacy whereby and by the Stat. of Recognition 1. Jac. our Allegeance is tied onely to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successers from which no power on earth can absolve us and so much we attest in the Oath of Supremacy Politicus Interpreter to our new State-Puppet play Numb. 19. from Sept. 19. to Sept. 26. out of the dictates of his Masters tells us that in Answer to the Kings Act of oblivion granted the Parliament intends to passe an Act of Generall pardon for which they expect in future a Generall obedience submission to the government you see though they will not be the Kings subjects they will be his Apes and in the beginning of the said Pamphlet Politicus saith That Protection implies obedience otherwise they may be handled as publike Enemies and outlawes and ought to be destroyed as Traitors Here you have the end to which this generall pardon is intended it is but a shooing-horn to draw on the utmost penalty upon Non-engagers appointed by the said pretended Act 2. Ian. 1649. to weed them out of this good Land that the Saints only may enjoy the earth and the fullness thereof to which purpose all their new coyned Acts and Lawes are directed The Scripture points forth these kind of men when it saith The Mercies of the wicked are cruell The sum of all is If we will not acknowledge Allegeance to these Mush-romes we shall be Traitors without Alleageance a Treason never yet heard of in any Law If we will acknowledge Allegeance we put our selves in a capacity to be Traitors when they shall please to make us such But let them know That we are all Englishmen Free-born alike under the Protection of an antient legall Monarchy to which we owe Alleageance and how we come to forfeit that legall Protection our setled laws and Government and be subjected to a New unknowne Protection obtruded upon us by a Company of upstarts Mushromes of Majesty so meane in birth and breeding for the most part that the place of a Constable equalls the highest of their education imposing what Lawes and conditions upon us they please I would be glad to heare without being hindered by Guns Drums High Courts of Iustice and other Instruments of violence Murder But the greatest Mistery in this cheat is That our Self-created Supremists having voted the originall power to be in the people and but a derivative Authority to be in themselves as the Representative of the people should notwithstanding so yoake their Soveraigne Lord the people and make them pay Allegeance to their own Delegates the 8. part of a House of Commons under the penalty unless they subscribe as the far major part have not of outlawing and depriving all the people of this Land of all benefit of the Lawes they were born to and consequently of annihilating and making them no longer a Nation or people As if they were meer Salvages newly conquered collected and formed into a Politike body or Commonwealth and endowed with Laws newly invented by these Novice Statists But the unlawfullness of the said Engagement with the Injustice of the Self-created power that obtrudeth it hath been handled by many good pens especially by the Cheshire and Lancashire Ministers in their Plea for Non-Subcribers Therfore I passe on to my principall scope The second Engine appointed to root out all such as are of a different Party The High Court of Iustice A formidable Monster upon which no pen that I know of hath yet adventured 4. In treating of the High Court of Iustice I must consider 1. By what Persons and Authority this new erected unpresidented Court is constituted 2. Of what Persons it is constituted 3. The way and manner of their proceedings What formalities and Lawes they observe therein How sutable to the known Laws of the Land and the Parliaments Declarations Protestations and Covenant they are 4. To what end this Court is constituted 1. The Persons constituting this extrajudiciall Court are the present pretended Parliament consisting of 40 or 50 thriving Commons only who conspired with Cromwell and the Army to expell 7. parts of 8. of their follow-Members without any cause showne abolished the House of Peers erected this High Court of Iustice in nature of a Court Martiall to murder the King abolished Kingly Government Turned it into a thing they call a Free-State disinherited the Royall Family and now usurp to themselves without any calling from God or the People more then a Regall Legall or Parliamentary Authority wherewith they have subverted the Fundamentall Government Religion Laws Liberties and Property of the Nation and envassallised enslaved them to their Arbitrary Domination the Authority by which they erect this extrajudiciall Court is The usurped Legislative power By colour of which they passed an Act dated 26. March 1650. establishing the said High Court of Iustice Yet their own creature Master St. Johns in his Argument against the E. of Strafford in a Book called Speeches and Passages of this great happy Parliament printed by William Cook 1641. pag. 24. saith The Parliament is the Representative of the whole Kingdom wherin the King as head The Lords as the more Noble the Commons the other Members are knit together as one body Politick The Lawes are the Arteries Ligaments that hold the body together And a little after Its Treason to embesell a Judiciall Record Strafford swept them all away It s Treason to counterfeit a 20s peece here is a counterfeiting of Law so in these counterfeit new Acts we can call neither the counterfeit nor true one our own It s Treason to counterfeit the great Seale for an acre of Land no property hereby is left to any Land at all no more is there by the votes practise of our new Supremists thus far Master St. Iohns But that the Parliament doth necessarily consist of the King the two Houses assembled by his Writ can passe no Act without their joint consent See the Praeambles of all our Statutes all our Parliament Records all our Law Books Modus tenendi Parliamentum Hackwells manner of passing Bills Sr. Tho. Smith de Repub. Anglorum Cambdeni Britannia All our Historians Polititians and the uninterrupted practise of all Ages That it is now lately otherwise practised is
way and suffer their Lives Liberties Estates and Honours to be subject to an Arbitrary Extrajudiciall conventicle of Blood Cromwels new Slaughter house which hath neither Law Justice Conscience Reason President or Authority Divine or Humane but onely the pretended Parliaments irrational Votes and the power of the Sword to maintain it which will prove a Cittadell over their Liberties a snare to their Estates a Deadfall to their lives and a scandal to their honours and familes if not timely opposed 1. By the Law the Endictment must specifie what the Treason is and against what Person committed As against our Soveraign Lord the King his Crown and Dignity But in the said Articles of Impeachment it is alleaged that the Treason is committed against the present Government or against the Keepers of the Liberties of England but in this dead-water our turning Tide between the old Regall and this new unknown Government no man knows how to do look or speak for fear of contracting the guilt of an Interpretative Treason upon the said two Statutes for New Treasons and before this boundlesse lawlesse new Court And to say that Treason is committed against a Government in abstracto is Non-sence it must be said that Treason is committed against the Governours in Concreto naming them For there being no Treason without Allegiance And Allegiance being a personall Obligation must be due from a certain known Person to a certain known Person or Persons And therefore the Keepers of the Liberties of England not being yet made known to us who they are or where to be found or what their power duty or office is and being not tied by any set Oath to deal well and truly with the People as Kings are by their Coronation Oath for if the stipulation be not mutuall the People are Slaves not subjects since the Duties of Allegiance and Protection Obedience and Command being reciprocall as they must needs be the Parliament having declared the Supreme power to be in the People they must not govern them Mero Imperio by lawlesse Votes like Turkish Tartarian and Russian Slaves I cannot ow nor perform Allegiance to those individua vaga the Keepers or Gaolers of our Liberties nor to an Utopian Commonwealth And without Allegiance no Treason for in all Endictments of High Treason it must be alledged That the accused did Proditoriè perpetrate such and such Crimes Contra debitam Allegantiam suam And the word Proditoriè signifies the betraying of a Trust According to the Proverbe In Trust is Treason Now where there is no profession of Allegiance there is no acceptance of a Trust no man can trust me against my will I was born under a Regall Government have read the Stat. Recognition 1. Jac. Have taken as well as others the Legall Oathes of Allegiance Obedience and Supremacy to the King his Heires and Lawfull Successors imposed upon me by lawfull Authority and from which no power on Earth can absolve me and so much I attest in the Oath of Supremacy And how I should now come after the New Moduling of the Parliament and Kingdome by Souldiers to ow Allegiance to Cromwell the Brewer Scot the Brewers Clerk Bradshaw the murderous petty fogger Sr. Hen. Mildmay the Court pander and projector Holland the Linckeboy John Trenchard that packed a Committee in which he was a Member and Voted to himself 2000l Love the super-inducted Six Clerk or any other of that Self-created Authority let them sheath their swords and tell me 2. An Endictment must certainly alledge 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 person being the assured Testimony of all Humane Actions This lawlesse Court leaves him in a vast Sea of Troubles without pole-starre card or compasse to steer by The Arbitrary Opinions of this Court declared upon emergent Occasions being a fals hearted Pilot to him These Judges not being of Counsell with the prisoner as our Legal 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. pag. 29. But the whole proceedings of this Court their meeting and sitting being erronious here is no room left for admonition To take away their errours is to take away the Court 4. Cooks 2. Inst. p. 51. expounding the 29. chapter of Magna Charta hath these words All Commissions ought to be grounded upon the Law 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 customs of England not to execute the several powers given them by the Act 26. March 1650 and a little further he saith Against this Antient and Fundamentall Law I finde an Act of Parliament made 11. Hen. VII chap. 3. That as well Justices of Assize as Justices of the Peace without any finding or presentment by the verdict of twelve 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 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 heare such an other Office will be erected when the novelty of this wonderfull High Court is lessened and the yoak thereof throughly setled upon the people necks Yet observe the said Act 11. H. 7. cap 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 bin pursued against many of the Kings Subjects to their great dammage and wrongful vexation The ill successe hereof saith Cooke and the fearful end of these two Oppressors who were Endicted and suffered for High Treason for all the said Act 11. Hen. VII passed in a full and free Parliament Cook 3. Instit. pag. 208. Should admonish Parliaments That in stead of this Ordinary and pretious Triall by the Law of the Land they bring not in Absolute and partiall Tryals by discretion And in his 4. Instit. p. 41. Cook saith
THE HIGH COVRT OF JUSTICE OR CROMWELLS New Slaughter-house in ENGLAND With the Authoritie that constituted and ordained it Arraigned Convicted and Condemned for Usurpation Treason Tyrannie Theft and Murder Being the III. Part of the Historie of Independencie written by the same Author Printed Anno Dom. 1651. The History of INDEPENDENCIE THat every thing is kept and maintained by the same wayes and means it was got and obtained 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 Tiranny layes its foundation in bloud the whole Superstruction must be built with Morter tempered with bloud One Sin must defend and make good another And hence ariseth a Necessity upon Ambitious men to flanck and fortify one Crime with another But to pleade this Necessity which they have so willfully drawne upon themselves in justification of their wicked Courses To expect submission Obedience and an equall Engagement from men uninterressed therein and to intitle 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 Sinnes and an hipocrisie so impudently sinfull 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 forreine 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 Maske of Authority he compelled the Senate or Parliament to approve of all his fore passed villanies Murders and illegal Actes and to conferre 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 himselfe in his selfe-created power he posted up as Rome and in most Cities of Italy Bills of Proscription or Outlawry conteining the names of such persons as without any forme of Lawe or Justice he appointed to be slain by his Souldiers These Proscribed men were for the most part such as having some Sparkes of Roman virtue in them durst love the Auntient Government Lawes and Liberties of Rome and were therefore thought fit to be weeded out as Malignants against his Innovations and Arbitrary courses Yet many meane spirited fellowes were proscribed and murdered partly for confiscation of their Estates and partly to gratify the Malice and hatred of particular friends who in that carriage praid in aid of Syllas sword to ridd them of their Enemies After this Augustus Caesar at Rome having by terror of Arms made himself Consul and finding himself not strong enough fingly to subjugate his Country he called Antonius Lepidus to joine with him with whom entering into confederacy to subvert the Fundamental Government and usurpe the Supreme Authority They divide that vaste Empire betweene them and passed a Decree amongst themselves That they should be called the Triumvirate for Reforming and Reestablishing the Common-wealth 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 advise of Senate or People They appointed what Consuls Magistrates and Officers they pleased They designed rich donatives and 18 of the chief Cities of Italy to be given to their Souldiers if by their valor they should obteine victory over Brutus and Cassius They fixed publike listes 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 being cut off the rest terrified by their example became but Terra Maledicta as Chymickes call it dull liveles Ashes or clods of earth without power or virtue 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 tooke upon him the especial Protection of that Brutish heard the Rascall multitude The Tribunes of the People having bin originally instituted to protect the People His next step was to make himself Perpetual Dictator whereby he arrogated to himself a vaste unlimited power above all Laws The Tribuneship was his Buckler The Dictatorship was his Sword And last of all for Ornament only He having already the full power of an absolute Monarch although he forbore the Title of King because it was hatefull to the People and against the Laws ever 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 Counsell or Parliament And finally usurped the Title and Office of Imperator or Generalissimo of all forces by Land and Sea Garrisons c. Philippe King of Spain Lord of the 17 Belgike Provinces by several Titles and under several Limitations Priviledges Exemptions and Fundamentall Laws according to which he was to govern and they to obey Resolving to subvert the Fundamentall Lawes and Government and reduce those 17 Petty Signiories into one meere absolute Monarchy sent the Duke D'Alva thither a warrior of a resolute stern nature Governour with a powerfull Army Who taking advantage of some rude commotions formerly raised by the Protestants in throwing downe Images and sacrilegiously plundering Churches erected a New Tribunall Criminall or to speake in our modern uncowth language A High Court of Justice consisting of 12 Commissioners or Judges purposely chosen most of them hangers by of the Law of meane fortunes practise birth and breeding Covetous Ambitious and slavishly addicted to the Spanish faction To these was given by special Commission full power and Authority to inquire 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 Bloudy Conventicle This Counsel or Inquisition did supersede and extingnish the Authority of all other Courts of Iudicature and make void all Lawes Constitutions Jurisdictions and Priviledges of the Nation as to the aforesaid commotions and all other causes they pleased to call high Treason They had no other boundes nor limit iâ— their proceedings then what they prefixed to themselves in certain Articles Some few whereof I will here present unto my Reader because they judged of high Treason by those Articles not by the known Laws of the Land a thing very observable and applicable to my purpose so that they were not onely Judges Leges dicere but also Law-makers Leges dare as all Judges are who take upon them a lioertie to observe no set forms of
of all the blood shed this warre 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 Triall 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 lawfull 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 bottomlesse Chaos of their Arbitrary Domination They erect an Extrajudiciall unpresidented High Court of Justice to Try or rather to condemn without Triall the King Consisting of 150. Commissioners Souldiers Parliament men Trades men the most violent engaged and factious incendiaries of all the Antimonarchicall 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 as a reward for that Royall Bloud 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 innundation of bloudy thievish Tyranny and Oppression brake in udon us So that no man can call his life liberty house lands goods or any other his Rights or Fraunchises his own longer than the gratious aspect of some of our Graundees 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 therto They passe misbegotten Acts of Parliament one of the 14. of May another of the 17. of July 1649. whereby in derogation and annihilation of that excellent Stat. 25. Ed. III. 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 wel as deeds within the compasse of that offence and making many duties to which the laws of God and the land the Protestation and Covenant the oaths of allegeance obedience and 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 dretended Hcts. 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 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 generall 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 ears in sinne therefore to be confided in to these or any nine of these they entrust the Administration of this Utopian Common-wealth and these they would have us believe without telling us so are the Keepers or Gaolers of the Liberties of England These things being but Introductions to the Usurpation of these Kinglings and having been already shewed to the world by many pens I content my self to give a cursory view of them and hast to my intended task to shew that this Usurped power is kept and administred by as wicked and violent policies as it was gotten by The first endeavour of all Tyrannicall Usurpers is To lessen the number of their Enemies either by flattering and deceiving them or by violently extirpating and rooting them out And such have been the attempts of our new Cromwellian Statists ever since without any calling from God or the people they toook upon them the Supreme Authority of the Nation subverted our well mixed Monarchy and created themselves a Free-State 1. They endeavoured to sweeten and allure to act with them as many of the Secured and Secluded Members Ministers and other Phesbyterians as they could to the end that ex post facto being guilty of their Sinnes they might be engaged in one common defence and go halfs with them in their ignominy and punishment though not in their power profit and preferments in which the Godly will admit no Rivalls but like their Patron the Devil cry all 's mine But this Design failed for the most part 2. Their second Endevour was how to dimmish the number of their Opposites Royalists and Presbyterians by a Massacre for which purpose many Dark Lanthorns and Ponyards were provided last Winter 1649. But same prevented this plot which coming to be the Common rumour of the Town put them in mind of the danger infamy and hatred that would overwhelm them So this was laid aside At last they invented two other Engins no lesse bloudy then and as effectuall as a Massacre 3. The Engagement is the first of these two Gins which all persons are enjoyned to subscribe by their Act â— Jan. 1649. To be true to the Common-wealth of England as it is now established without a King or House of Peeres And this is obtruded under no lesse penalty then To be totally deprived of all Benefit of Law whatsoever Now the Laws of the Land being the onely Conservators of our lives Liberties and Estates without which lawes all men have a like property to all things and the strongest have right to all is possest by the weaker since the Law onely distinguisheth Meum and Tuum what is this but to expose the Liberties of the Non-Engagers to false Imprisonments our Estates to rapine spoil and Injustice and our Lives and Persons to wounds and Murders at the will and pleasure of such as will engage with our Usurpers but especially at the pleasure of their own Souldiers to whom I conceive this Outlawry was intended as an Alarm or Invitation to plunder and massacre the Non-engagers and to pay themselves their Arrears of which these Parliament men have cousened them out of their Estates and though the
not by any Law of the Land but by the will of lawlesse power and Rebellion that hath cancelled all our Lawes Liberties and Properties and subverted our Fundamentall Government and disfranchised and disinherited the whole Nation Yet Master St. Iohns in his said Argument against Strafford p. 38. was then of opinion That to subvert the Lawes and Government and make a Kingdom no Kingdom was Treason at the Common Law This Act 26. Mar. 1650 is a new modelled Commission of Oier and Terminer And all the people of the Land are by the consequence thereof disfranchised and proscribed The illegality and tyranny thereof they have introduced who in this Parliament so zealously complained against the Court of the President Counsel of York or of the North as an intolerable grievance notwithstanding it had been of as long continuance as from 31. H. 8 as appears by a worthy Members speech or Argument against it in the said Book of Speeches Passages p. 409. made by order of the House of Commons in April 1649. I find not one Exception there made against the Court of York to which this upstart high Court is not more liable then it 1. The Commissioners of this high Court are not appointed to inquire per Sacramentum proborum legalium hominum that is by Iuries as by Magna Charta and above 30. Statutes confirming it all Commissions ought to run 2. They are not appointed nor sworn to heare determine Secundùm Leges Angliae according to the known Lawes as they ought to be but according to certain Articles powers given in the said Act 26. March 1650. 3. The said Act 26. March leaves a dangerous latitude to the interpretation and discretion of the Commissioners contrary to what is done in the Act 25. Ed. 3. chap. 2. namely It hath one Clause enabling them to inflict upon Offenders such punishment either by death or otherwise corporally as the said Commissioners or the major part of them present shall judge to apperteine to Justice This leaves it in the brests of the Commissioners without any Law or rule to walk by to inflict what torments and ignominious punishments they please although not used in our Nation and arbitrary corporall paines are proper to slaves not to Subjects Here after the losse of all but their bodies the people may see their bodies subject to the lawless wills of our Grandees And by another clause this Act impowreth the Commissioners To examine witnesses upon oath or otherwise if need be This word or otherwise c. gives them power to examine witnesses without oath if they cannot procure witnesses so far the sons of Belial and cauterised in conscience as to adventure upon an oath even in case of life and death and mutilation of members contrary to the current of all our Lawes and practice of all our Courts of Law and of all Nations See Stat. 1. Ed. VI chap. 12. 5 Ed. VI chap. 11. Cooks 3. Inst. pag. 24 25 26. Deut. 17. 6. Ex ore duorum vel trium peribit qui-occidetur Deut. 17. 6. Matth. 18. 16. John 18. 23. 2 Cor. 13. 1. Heb. 10. 28. This is the most arbitrary destroying liberty that ever was given to Iudges And such as none but professed theeves and murderers will accept or make use of The Scripture saith An oath is the end of controversy between man man How then can they end and determine a controversy without oath But the end of all controversies before this Butcher-row of Iudges is cutting of throats and confiscation of estates And by the same clause of the said Act To examine witnesses They may and I heare do examine witnesses clandestinely and proceed upon bare Depositions read in Court whereas they ought to produce the witnesses face to face in open Court and there sweare them that the Party accused may interrogate them and examine the circumstances and whether they contradict themselves or one another for cleering the Evidence And whether they be lawfull 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 misinforming 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 mark out for slaughter some principall men deny them the benefit of law in order thereto as these Judges do to be tried by speciall Commission since the whole Kingdom is under the known lawes Courts established at Westminster It should seem by this Parliaments eager complaint against the speciall Commission of York this Parliament hath determined this question in the negative allready whatsoever their present practise to carry on their Designe 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 and 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. Soldiers 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 civill Magistrates and Officers of the Law See Stat. 7. Ed. l. 2. Ed. III. chap. 3. 7. R. II. chap. 13. 6. And contrary to the old oath which all Judges ought to take in these words You shall sweare well lawfully to serve the King people in the Office of Justice c. And that to what estate condition they be come before you in the Sessions with force and armes against the peace against the Statute thereof made to disturbe the Execution of the Common Lawes or to menace the people that you arrest their bodies c. Stat. 18. Ed. III. 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 termes of Indifferency Nor doth any waies oblige them to the people 26. Mar. 1550. viz You shall sweare well and truly according to the best of your skill and knowledge to execute the severall powers given you by this Act not well lawfully to serve the people Besides they swear to execute the severall powers given not to do Justice according to the Lawes Now the Lawes are the only Rules of Iustice by which we distinguish crooked from streight true from false right from wrong This is not the work these Iudges are packed for but to execute Acts of power and will But powers are often usurped tyrannicall illegall
Let Parliaments leave all Causes to be measured by the golden and streightned wand of the Law and not the uncertaine and crooked corde of Discretion for it is not almost credible to foresee when any Maxime or Fundamental Law of the Land is altered what dangerous inconveniences will follow as appears by this unjust and strange Act 11. Hen. VII chap. 3. 5. This Parliament alwayes 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 Trials by â—uries the Chief and most Fundamental of all our Laws See their Remonstrance Therefore in their 7. Article against Strafford They charged him with High Treason for giving Judgments against mens Estates without Trials by Juries Much aggravated by Mr. St. Johns in his aforesaid Argument against Strafford And for the better preservation of Legall Trials by Juries it is provided in the Bill of Attainder of Strafford that the case of the same Earle 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 Fundamentall Laws of the Land for preservation of the lives Liberties Properties of the People with all things incident thereto Now to erect an Arbitrarie Lawles High Court to give Judgement against mens lives Estates and attain their blouds without Enditement found by a Grande Jury and a Triall by a Jury of 12 sworn men vicineto is a farr fouler breach of Trust in them against their Soveraign Lords the People then all they Charged the King withall and a farr Higher Act of Tyranny and Injustice then either the late King or Empson and Dudley or Strafford were accused of But if they alleage They do not put down Juries in Generall but onely in some particular mens cases upon Necessity I Answer That we are all born Freemen of England alike That our Auntient known Laws Lawes Courts and Trialls by Juries are our Inheritance equall alike to all And one Party or part of the People ought not to be disherited disfranchised or forejudged no more then another No man can be said guilty of any Crime untill he be legally convicted sentenced the Lawe must first go upon him condemn him Vbi lex non distinguit non est distinguendum If we do not live all under one Lawe and forme of Justice we are not all of one Common-wealth See the afore mentioned Gentlemans Argument against the Speciall Commission of the Court of York For Necessity Our present power is under none but the fears and terrors of their own guiltie consciences No apparence nor probability of any enemy by their own confession nor can they pleade 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 powerfull and dangerous Persons as could not safely be called to account by the Law so died Joab Adoniah c. For which the rule is Neminem adeo eminere debere ut Legibus interrogari nequeat qui Jus aequum ferre non potest in eum vim haud in justam fore No man ought to advance himself above the powers of the Law He that will not submit to equall Right if he be cut off by violence suffers no wrong But this is to be understood of the Eminency and greatnes of the Person not of the greatnes of the Crime whereof no man is to be forejudged because a great Crime may prove a great Calumny untill a Legall Triall have adjudged it But there is no Person in England so eminent for power or Authoritie but that the least of Bradshaws Ban-dogs can drive him to the Slaughter-house and make him offer his throat to Keeble Therefore Animadversio Gladii if at any time lawfull is now unlawfull To make great examples upon men of little power is great Injustice But the way of this Court is not Animadversio per Gladium It is a Mocking a Counterfeiting an Adulterating and Alchimisting of Justice it is to falsifie her waights and Ballance and steal her Sword to Commit Murder withall 6. By the knowne Lawes Matter of Fact is entrusted to the Jury Matter of Law to the Judges to prevent all Errors Combinations and Partiallities The Judges are sworn to do Justice according to the Lawe The Jury are sworne to finde according to their Evidence But in this High Court the Commissioners or Judges are all packed Confiding men chosen by and out of one Party to destroy all of a different Party They usurp the Office of Judges not being sworn to deal well and lawfully with the People as by the said Stat. 18. Edw. III. nor to do Justice according to the Lawe But onely to execute powers given by the said Act 26. March 1650. And they arrogate as Jury-men to be Triers of the Fact without being sworn To find according to Evidence So that they are Judges Juries and Parties and for ease of their tender Consciences without any Oath of Indifferencie A most excellent Compendium of Oppression They may go to the Devil for Injustice and not be forsworn Great is the Privilege of the Godly 7. The Prisoner may except against his Jurers either against the Array if the Sheriff or Baily impannelling the Jury be not wholly disingaged and Indifferent both to the cause and to the Parties Prosecuting and Prosecuted Or against the Poll he may Challenge 35 peremptorily and as many more as he can render Legal Cause of Challenge for As for defect of Estate or other Abilities or for Partiality Disaffection Engagement Infamy But this Array of Jury-men-Judges A Medley so new we knowe not how to expresse it though picked and empannelled by an Engaged Remainder of the Commons and obnoxious to all exceptions must not be challenged their backs are too much galled to endure the least touch Take heed you scandall not the Court cries Master Atturney See Col. Andrewes 3 Answeres 8. Many Exceptions in a Legall Triall are allowed against Imperfections Uncertainties and Illegallities in the Bill of Enditement for the advantage of the Prisoner But no Exceptions are allowed against these Illegal Articles of Impeachement which are made uncertain intricate obscure and ambiguous purposely to pussle confound and entangle the Respondent 9. By the Lawe a Bill of Enditement must have two full and cleere lawfull witnesses to every considerable Matter of Fact both at finding the Bill and at the Triall Cookes 3. Instit. pag. 25. 26. And Probationes debent esse luce clariores Proofes must be as cleere as the Sun not grounded upon Inferences Presumptions Probabilities And the Prisoner must be Provablement Attainte saith the Stat. 25. Ed. III. chap. 2. Cookes 3. Instit. pag. 12. The word Atteinted shews he must be legally proceeded
with not by absolute power as formerly had bin used and as is now used by this bloudy High Court But before these Slaughter-men of the High Court all manner of witnesses Legal or Illegal one or two sworn or not sworn or apparently forsworn and suborned and all proofes cleere or not cleere are sufficient The Prisoner is sent thither fore-doomed and hath his deaths Marck his fate in his forehead 10. The said Act 26. March 1650. Carries two faces under one hood and looks backwards as well as forewards To facts Precedent as well as Subsequent the said Act Contrary to the Nature of all Laws whose Office is to prohibite before it punish to warn before it strike Where St. Paul defineth Sinne to be The breach of Commandement or Law I had not known Sinne but by the Lawe The Law must therefore be precedent to the Offence But these Acts are not Laws to admonish but Lime-twigges and Trappes to ensnare and Catch men See Col. Andrewes 3. Answers at the latter end of this Book Fourthly and lastly I am to consider To what end and purpose this New invented High Court is constituted and appointed Concerning which see a Letter dated 6. June 1650. Stilo veteri from the Hague supposed to be Walter Strick-lands the Parliaments Agent there as I finde it in Walter Frostes Brief Relations of some Affairs and Transactions c. from Tuesday June 11. to June 18. 1650. wherein the Epistoler hath these words One peece of the cure viz of the daungers that threaten your New State must be Phlebotomy but then you must begin before Decumbency and then it will be facile to prevent danger c. They are here most of all affraid of your High Court of Justice which they doubt may much discourage their party they wish you would not renewe the power thereof but let it expire then they think that after Michilmas they may expect Assistance with you And indeed that Court is of almost as much use to you as an Army and will prevent the rising of as many Enemies as the other will destroy onely you must be sure to execute Justice there with all Severity A few of the first stirrers taken away by the power thereof without respect to cousen or Countrey will keep all the rest quiet But whosoever that Court condemns let them be as already dead c. But let them be most free in cutting the vena Coephalica that is the Presbyterian Party for the Basilica or Royal Party will be latent The Median or levellors would be spared as much as may be that the body be not too much emaciated Besides the bloud is most corrupt in the Coephaliks or Presbyterians and is the very causa continens of your disease You need not fear to take freely of this vein c. Heere you see this State-Mountebancke gives you the use and Application of this corrasive The High Shambles of Justice so fully that I shall not need to comment upon it And in the latter end of a Letter from Cromwell dated from Dunbar 4. September 1650. as I finde it in Politicus speaking of his new purchased victory over the Scots Cromwell saith God puts it more and more into your hands to improve your power viz. your absolute Authority wee pray own his People more and more that is The Army they are the Chariots and Horsmen of Israel of the Kingdom of the Saints disowne your selves but owne your Authority vvhich you enjoy under the Protection of the Army your Lords Paramounte and improve it to Curbe the Proud and the Insolent c. That is all men of different Opinions and Parties from them that will not engage to be true and owe Allegeance to the Kingdom of the Saints and resigne their Lawes Liberties and properties to their lusts and wills That I have not misconstrued the contents of Cromwells mistical Letter will appear by a Discourse in the same Politicus Numb. 17. from Thursday September 26. to October 3. 1650. Where according to his Custom delivering forth State Oracles to the people He tells them in plaine English That after the Confusions of a Civill warr there is a Necessity of some settlement and it can not in reason be imagined the Controversy being determined by the sword that the Conquerers should submit to the conquered though more in number then themselves Nor are they obliged to settle the Government again according to the former Laws and Constitutions but may erect such a form as they themselves conceive most convenient for their own preservation For after a Civil war the written Laws viz. established Laws of the Nation are of no force but onely those which are not written And a little after The King having by Right of war lost his share and interest in Authority and power being conquered by Right of war the whole must needs reside in that part of the People which prevailed over him There being no middle power to make any claim and so the whole Right of Kingly Authority in England being by Military Decision resolved into the prevaling Party what Government soever it pleaseth them to erect is as valide de Jure as if it had the consent of the whole Body of the People That he should affirm That after a Civil war the Established Lawes cease is so grosse a piece of Ignorance that there is hardly any History extant but confutes it After our Barons warr and the Civil warr between York and Lancaster Our Established Laws flourished so did they after the Norman Conquest How many Civil Warrs in France have left their Lawes untouched That of the Holy League lasted 40 years Belgia keeps her Lawes maugre her intestine Warrs What is now become of the Parliaments declared Supream power and Soveraigne Lord the People the Originall and Fountain of all Iust power are they not all here proclaimed Ear-bored slaves for ever But I had thought that an Army of Mercinary Saints raised payed and commissioned by the Parliament to defend the Religion Lawes Liberties and Properties of the People and the Kings Crown and Dignitie according to the Protestation and Covenant and the Parliaments Declarations would not have made such Carnal and Hypocriticall use of their Victories gotten by Gods Providence and the Peoples Money as to destroy our known Laws Liberties and Properties and claim by Conquest and impose their own lusts for Laws upon us Thereby rendering themselves Rebells against their God their King and Countrey Nor was it ever the State of the Quarrell between the King and Parliament whose Slaves the People should be Or whether we should have one King Governing by the known established Lawes or 40 Tyrants Governing by their owne lusts and Arbitrary votes against our written Lawes Nor can the successe make a Conquest just unless the cause of the warr were Originally just and the prosecution thereof justly managed As 1. To vindicate a Just Claim and Title 2. Ad res repetendas To recover Dammages wrongfully sustained