that know it already and trouble those that need not know the particular cases for it is one of the Fundamentals of Law That the king is not above the Law but the Law above the King I could easily deraign it from 1 Edward 3. to the Jurisdiction of Courts That the king has no more Power or Authority then what by Law is concredited and committed to him but the most famous Authority is Fortescue Chancellor to H. 6. and therefore undoubtedly would not clip his Masters Prerogative who most Judicially takes a difference between a Government wholly Regal and Seignoral as in Turkey Russia France Spain c. and a Government Politique and mixt where the Law keeps the beam even between Soveraignty and Subjection as in England Denmark Swede and Poland the first where the Edict of a Prince makes the Law resembles an impetuous inundation of the waters whereby the Corn and Hay and other Fruits of the Earth are spoiled as when it is Midwinter at Midsummer the latter is like a sweet smooth Stream running by the pleasant Fields and Meadows That by the Law of England the King ought not to impose any thing upon the people or take any thing away from them to the value of a farthing but by common consent in Parliaments or National meetings and that the people of Common-Right and by several Statutes ought to have Parliaments yearly or oftner if need be for the Redress of publique grievances and for the Enacting of good and wholsome Laws and repealing of old Statutes of Omeri which are prejudicial to the Nation And that the king hath not by Law so much power as a Justice of Peace to commit any man to Prison for any offence whatsoever because all such matters were committed to proper Courts and Officers of Justice And if the King by his verbal command send for any person to come before him if the party refused to attend and the messenger endevoring to force him they fell to blows if the messenger killed the party sent for this by the Law is Murther in him but if he killed the messenger this was justifiable in him being in his own defence so as to sue forth a pardon of course these and many other Cases of like nature are so clear well known that I wil not presume to multiply particulars That the king took an Oath at his Coronation to preserve the Peace of the Nation to do Justice to all and to keep and observe the Laws which the people have himself confesses And it was charged upon the late Arch-Bishop that he Emasculated the Oath and left out very material words Which the people shall chuse which certainly he durst not have done without the kings special Command And it seems to me no light presumption that from that very day he had a Design to alter and subvert the Fundamental Laws and to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government but though there had been an Oath yet by special Office and duty of his place every King of England is obliged to Act for the peoples good for all power as it is originally in the people he must needs be extream ignorant malicious or a self-destroyer that shall deny it so it is given forth for their preservation nothing for their destruction for a king to rule by lust and not by Law is a creature that was never of Gods making not of Gods approbation but his permission And though such men are said to be Gods on Earth 't is in no other sence then the Devil is called the God of this world It seems that one passage which the king would have offered to the Court which was not permitted him to dispute the Supreme Authority in the Nation and standing mute the Charge being for High Treason it is a conviction in Law was That 1 Sam. 8. is a Copy of the kings Commission by vertue whereof he as a king might rule and govern as he list that he might take the Peoples Sons and appoint them for himself for his Chariots and to be his Horsemen and take their Daughters to be his Confectionaries and take their Fields and Vineyards and Oliveyards even the best of them and thair goodliest yong men and their Asses and give them to his Officers and to his Servants which indeed is a Copy and Patern of an absolute Tyrant and absolute Slaves where the people have no more then the Tyrant will afford them The holy Spirit in that Chapter does not insinuate what a good king ought to do but what a wicked king would presume to do Besides Saul and David had extraordinary callings but all just power is now derived from and conferred by the people yet in the case of Saul it is observable that the people out of pride to be like other Nations desired a king and such a king as the Heathens had which were all Tyrants for they that know any thing in History know that the first four Monarchs were all Tyrants at first til they gained the peoples consent Nimrod the great Hunter was Ninus that built Nineveh the first Tyrant and Conquerer that had no Title so were all kingdoms which are not Elective till the peoples subsequent consent and though it be by descent yet 't is a continuation of a Conquest till the people consent voluntarily submit to a Government they are but Slaves in reason they may free themselves if they can In France the king begins his Raign from the day of his Coronation the Archbishop asks the people if he shall be King the twelve Peers or some that personate them say yes they girt the sword about him then he swares to defend the Lawes And is any thing more naturall then to keepe an Oath And though vertuous Kings have prevailed with the People to make their Crownes Hereditary yet the Coronation shews the shell that the kernell hath been in Samuel was a good Judge and there was nothing could be objected against him therefore God was displeased at their inordinate desire of a King and it seemes to me that the Lord declares his dislike of all such Kings as the heathens were that is Kings with an unlimited power that are not tied to laws for he gave them a King in his wrath therein dealing with them as the wise Physitian with the distempered and impatient Patient who desiring to drink wine tels him the danger of inflammation yet wine he will have and the Physitian considering a little wine will do but little hurt rather then his Patient by fretting should take greater hurt prescribes a little whitewine wherein the Physitian doth not approve his drinking of wine but of two evils chooseth the least The Jewes would have a King for Majestie and Splendor like the Heathens God permits this he approves it not it seems to me that the Lord renounces the very Genus of such Kings as are there mentioned and the old word Conning by Contraction king does not signifie power
King Charls his Case OR AN APPEAL To all Rational Men Concerning His TRYAL AT THE High Court of Iustice Being for the most part that which was intended to have been delivered at the Bar if the King had Pleaded to the CHARGE and put himself upon a fair TRYAL With an additional Opinion concerning The Death of King James The loss of Rochel and The Blood of Ireland By JOHN COOK of Grays-Inn Barrester Justice is an excellent vertue Reason is the life of the Law Womanish pity to mourn for a Tyrant Is a deceitful cruelty to a City London Printed by Peter Cole at the sign of the Printing-Press in Cornhil near the Royal Exchange for Giles Calvert at the Black Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1649. To the READER THe righteous Iudge whose judgement is not onely inevitable but infallible must shortly judge me and all that concurred to bring the capital Delinquent to condign punishment but in the interim I desire to be judged by all understanding men in the world that suffer their judgements to be swayed by Reason and not byassed by private Interest Whether ever any man did so much deserve to dye Cain for the murther of one righteous Abel and David for one Uriah had been men of death had not God pardoned them Those thirty one Kings which Joshua hanged up and Sauls seven Sons which were but at the worst as it seems to me Evil Counsellors were they not innocent nay Saints in comparison of this man Those that crucified Christ did it ignorantly For had they known him they had not crucified the Lord of Glory The Saints under the ten Persecutions suffered by the hands of Heathens the Sicilian Vespers the Parisian Massacre of the Protestants and the Gunpowder-Plot were acted and intended by Papists out of a conceit of Merit But for a Protestant Prince stiled The Defendor of the Faith in a time of light that had sworn to keep the Peace received Tribute to that end and might have had the very hearts of the People if they could have given him them without death the strongest Engagements I say for such a one so long to persecute the faithful destroy and inslave the People by oppressing cruelties And when Machiavel could not do it to levy a War to that wicked end which never any of his Ancestors durst attempt that might at any time with a word of his mouth have stopt all the bleeding veins in the three Kingdoms but would not and for the satisfying of a base lust caused more Protestant blood to be shed then ever was spilt either by Rome Heathen or Antichristian Blessed God what ugly sins lodge in their bosoms that would have had this man to live But Words are but Women Proofs are Men it is Reason that must be the Chariot to carry men to give their concurrence to this ludgement Therefore I shall deliver my thoughts to the courteous Reader as I was prepared for it if Issue had been joyned in the Cause but with some addition for illustration sake desiring excuse for the Preamble because there is some repetition in matter An Appeal to all Rational men that love their God Justice and Countrey more then their Honor Pleasure and Money Concerning the Kings Tryal May it please your Lordship MY Lord President and this High Court erected for the most Comprehensive Impartial and Glorious piece of Justice that ever was Acted and Executed upon the Theatre of England for the Trying and Judging of Charls Stuart whom God in his wrath gave to be a king to this Nation and will I trust in great love for his notorious Prevarications and Blood-guiltiness take him away from us He that hath been the Original of all Injustice and the Principal Author of more mischiefs to the Free-born People of this Nation then the best Arithmetician can well enumerate stands now to give an account of his Stewardship and to receive the good of Justice for all the evil of his Injustice and Cruelty Had he Ten thousand lives they could not all satisfie for the numerous Horid and Barbarous Massacres of Myriades and legions of Innocent persons which by his Commands Commissions and Procurements or at least all the world must needs say which he might have prevented and he that suffers any man to be kill'd when he may save his life without danger of his own is a Murtherer have been cruelly slain and inhumanely murthered in this renowned Albion Anglia hath been made an Aceldama and her yonger sister Ireland a Land of Ire and Misery and yet this hard-hearted man as he went out of the Court down the stairs Jan. 22. said as some of his Gnard told me and others That he was not troubled for any of the blood that hath been shed but for the blood of one man peradventure he meant Strafford He was no more affected with a List that was brought in to Oxford of Five or six thousand slain at Edgehill then to read one of Ben Johnsons Tragedies You Gentlemen Royalists that fought for him if ye had lost your lives for his sake you see he would have no more pitied you by his own confession then you do a poor Worm and yet what heart but would cleave if it were a Rock melt if it were Ice break if it were a Flint or dissolve if it were a Diamond to consider that so much precious Protestant blood should be shed in these three kingdoms so many gallant valiant Men of all sorts and conditions to be sacrificed and lose their lives and many of them to dye so desperately in regard of their Eternal conditions and all this meerly and onely for the satisfying and fulfilling of one mans sinful lust and wicked will a good Shepherd is he that lays down his life or ventures it to save the Sheep but for one to be so proudly wedded to his own conceits as so maliciously to oppose his private Opinion against the publique Judgement and Reason of State and to make head against the Parliament who acknowledged him to be head thereof so far as to give him the Honor of the Royal Assent in settling the Militia and Safety of the People I say for a Protestant Prince so beloved at home and feared abroad that in love and by gentle means might have had any thing from the Parliament for him to occasion the shedding of so much blood for a pretended Prerogative as hereafter will appear nothing in effect but to fix and perpetuate an absolute Tyranny I can say no less But O Lucifer from whence art thou faln and what hereticks are they in politicks that would have had such a man to live much more that think his Actions to have merited love and praise from Heaven and Earth But now to diffect the Charge 1. That the kings of England are trusted with a limited power to govern by Law the whole stream and current of Legal Authorities run so limpid and clear that I should but weary those
mending his plea or suing in what Court he will and some such prerogatives of a middle indifferent nature that could not be prejudicial to the people but that the Law of England should give the King any such vast immence precipitating power or any such God like state that he ought not to be accountable for wicked actions or Male-Administrations and Misgovernment as he hath challenged and averr'd in his answer to the Petition of Right or any such principals of Tyranny which are as inconsistent with the peoples Liberties and Safety as the Ark and Dagon light and darkness in an intensive degree is a most vain and irrational thing to imagine and yet that was the ground of the War as himself often declared and that would not have half contented him if he had come in by the Sword But some rational men object How can it be murther say they for the king to raise Forces against the Parliament since there is no other way of determining differences between the king and his Subjects but by the Sword for the Law is no competent Judge between two Snpreme powers and then if it be onely a contending for each others Right Where is the malice that makes the killing of a man murther Take the answer thus first How is it possible to imagine two Supreme powers in one Nation no more then two Suns in one Firmament if the king be Supreme the Parliament must be Subordinate if they Supreme then he Subordinate But then it is alleaged That the king challenged a power onely co-ordinate that the Parliament could do nothing without him nor he without them Under favor two powers co-ordinate is as absurd as the other for though in quiet times the Commons have waited upon the king and allowed him a Negative voyce in matters of less concernment where delay could not prove dangerous to the people yet when the Commons shall Vote that the kingdom is in danger unless the Militia be so and so setled now if he will not agree to it they are bound in duty to do it themselves and 't is impossible to imagine that ever any man should have the consent of the people to be their king upon other conditions without which no man ever had right to wear the diadem for Conquest makes a Title amongst Wolves and Bears but not amongst men When the first agreement was concerning the power of Parliaments if the king should have said Gentlemen are you content to allow me any Negative Voyce that if you Vote the kingdom to be in danger unless such an Act pass if I refuse to assent shall nothing be done in that case surely no rational man but would have answered May it please your Majesty we shall use all dutiful means to procure your Royal Assent but if you still refuse we must not sit still and see our selves ruined we must and will save our selves whether you will or no and will any man say that the kings power is diminished because he cannot hurt the people or that a man is less in health that hath many Phisitians to attend him God is Omnipotent that cannot sin and all power is for the peoples good but a Prince may not say that is for the peoples good which they say and feel to be for their hurt And as for the malice the Law implies that as when a thief sets upon a man to rob him he hath no spite to the man but love to the money but it is an implyed malice that he will kill the people unless they will be Slaves Q. But by what Law is the King condemned R. By the Fundamental Law of this kingdom by the general Law of all Nations and the Unanimous consent of all Rational men in the world written in every mans heart with the Pen of a Diamond in Capital Letters and a Character so legible that he that runs may read viz. That when any man is intrusted with the Sword for the protection and preservation of the people if this man shall imploy it to their destruction which was put into his hand for their safety by the Law of that Land he becomes an Enemy to that people and deserves the most exemplary and severe punishment that can be invented And this is the first necessary Fundamental Law of every kingdom which by Intrinsecal rules of Government must preserve it self and this Law needed not be exprest That if a King become a Tyrant he shall dye for it 't is so naturally implyed we do not use to make Laws which are for the preservation of Nature that a man should eat and drink and buy himself cloaths and injoy other natural comforts no kingdom ever made any Laws for it And as we are to defend our selves naturally without any written Law from hunger and cold so from outward violence therefore if a king would dedroy a people 't is absurd and rediculous to ask by what Law he is to dye And this Law of nature is the Law of God written in the fleshly tables of mens hearts that like the eldest Sister hath a prerogative right of power before any positive Law whatsoever and this Law of nature is an undubitable Legislative authority of it self that hath a suspensive power over all humane Laws If any man shall by express Covenant under hand and seal give power to another man to kill him this is a void Contract being destructive to humanity and by the Law of England any Act or Agreement against the Laws of God or Nature is a meer nullity for as man hath no hand in the making of the Laws of God or Nature no more hath he power to marre or alter them If the Pilot of a Ship be drunk and running upon a Rock if the passengers cannot otherwise prevent it they may throw him into the Sea to cool him And this Question hath received Resolution this Parliament When the Militia of an Army is committed to a General 't is not with any express condition That he shall not turn the mouths of his Canons against his own Soldiers for that is so naturally and necessarily implyed that it 's needless to be exprest insomuch as if he did attempt or command such a thing against the nature of his Trust and Place it did ipso facto estate the Army in a right of disobedience unless any man be so grosly ignorant to think that obedience bindes men to cut their own throats or their companions Nor is this any secret of the Law which hath lyen hid from the beginning and now brought out to bring him to Justice but that which is connatural with every man and innate in his judgement and reason and is as ancient as the first king and an Epidemical binding Law in all Nations in the world For when many Families agree for the preservation of Humane Society to invest any king or Governor with power and authority upon the acceptance thereof there is a mutual Trust and confidence between them
an Indian say to this case A King hath all power in his hands to do justice There is one accused upon strong presumptions at the least for poisoning that Kings Father The King protects him from justice Whether do you believe that himself had any hand in his Fathers death Had the Duke been accused for the death of a begger he ought not to have protected him from a Judicial Trial. We know that by Law it is no lesse then misprision of Treason to conceal a Treason and to conceal a Murder strongly implies a guilt thereof and makes him a kind of Accessary to the fact He that hath no nature to do justice to his own Father could it ever be expected that he should do justice to others Was he fit to continue a Father to the people who was without natural affection to his own Father Will he love a Kingdome that shewed no love to himself unlesse it was that he durst not suffer Inquisition to be made for it But I leave it as a riddle which at the day of Judgement will be expounded and unridled for some sinnes will not be made manifest till that day with this only That had he made the Law of God his delight and studied therein night and day as God commanded his Kings to do or had he but studied Scripture half so much as Ben Johnson or Shakespear he might have learnt That when Amaziah was setled in the Kingdom he suddenly did justice upon those servants which had killed his father Joash he did not by any pretended prerogative excuse or protect them but delivered them up into the hands of that Justice which the horridnesse of the fact did undoubtedly demerit That Parliament 4. Car. proving so abortive the King sets forth a Proclamation That none should presume to move him to call Parliaments for he knew how to raise monies enough without the help of Parliaments therefore in 12 years refuseth to call any In which interval and intermission how he had oppressed the people by incroachments and usurpations upon their liberties and properties and what vast summes of mony he had forceably exacted and exhausted by illegal Patents and Monopolies of all sorts I referre the Reader to that most judicious and full Declaration of the state of the Kingdeme published in the beginning of this Parliament That Judgment of Ship-mony did upon the matter formalize the people absolute slaves and him an absolute Tyrant for if the King may take from the people in case of necessity and himself shall be Judge of that necessity then cannot any man say that he is worth 6d for if the King say that he hath need of that 6d then by Law he must have it I mean that great Nimrod that would have made all England a Forrest and the People which the Bishop call his sheep to be his Venison to be hunted at his pleasure Nor does the common objection That the Judges and evil Counsellors and not the King ought to be responsible for such male-Administrations injustice and oppression beare the weight of a feather in the ballance of right reason For 1. Who made such wicked and corrupt Judges were they not his own Creatures and ought not every man to be accountable for the works of his own hands He that does not hinder the doing of evil if it lies in his power to prevent it is guilty of it as a commander thereof He that suffered those black Starres to inflict such barbarous cruelties and unheard of punishments as Brandings Slitting of Noses c. upon honest men to the dishonour of the Protestant Religion and disgrace of the Image of God shining in the face of man He well deserv'd to have been so served But 2. He had the benefit of those illegal Fines and Judgments I agree That if a Judge shall oppresse I. S. for the benefit of I. D. the King ought not to answer for this but the Judge unlesse he protect the Judge against the complaint of I. S. and in that case he makes himself guilty of it But when an unjust judgment is given against I. S. for the Kings benefit and the Fine to come immediately into his Coffers he that receives the mony must needs be presumed to consent to the judgement But 3. Mark a Machiaveipolicy Call no Parliaments to question the injustice and corruption of Judges for the Peoples relief And make your own Iudges and let that be Law that they declare whether it be reasonable or unreasonable it is no matter But then how came it to passe that we had any more Parliaments Had we not a gracious King to call a Parliament when there was so much need of it and to passe so many gracious Acts to put downe the Starre-Chamber c Nothing lesse It was not any voluntary free Act of grace not the least ingredient or tincture of love or goodaffection to the people that called the short Parliament in 16 but to serve his owne turne against the Scots whom he then had designed to enslave and those seven Acts of grace which the King past were no more then his duty to do nor halfe so much but giving the people a take of their own grists and he dissents with them about the Militia which commanded all the rest he never intended thereby any more good and security to the people then he that stealing the Goose leaves the feathers behinde him But to answer the question thus it was The king being wholly given up to be led by the counsels of a Jesuited Party who indeavoured to throw a bone of dissention among us that they might cast in their net into our troubled waters and catch more fish for St. Peters Sea perswaded the King to set up a new forme of Prayer in Scotland and laid the bait so cunningly that whether they saw it or not they were undone if they saw the mystery of iniquity couched in it they would resist and so merit punishment for rebelling if they swallowed it it would make way for worse well they saw the poison and refused to taste it the King makes warre and many that loved honour and wealth more then God assisted him down he went with an Army but his treasure wasted in a short time fight they would not for feare of an after-reckoning some Commanders propound that they should make their demands and the King grants all comes back to London and burnes the Pacification saying it was counterfeit they reassume their forts he raises a second warre against them and was necessitated to call a Parliament offering to lay down shipmoney for twelve subsidies they refuse the King in high displeasure breakes off the Parliament and in a Declaration commands them not to thinke of any more Parliaments for he would never call another There was a King of Egypt that cruelly opprest the People they poore slaves complaining to one another he feared a rising and commanded that none should complaine upon paine of cruell death
Spies being abroad they often met but durst not speake but parted with tears in their eyes which declared that they had more to utter but durst not this struck him to greaterfears he commanded that none should look upon one anothers eyes at parting therefore their griefes being too great to be smothered they fetcht a deep sigh when they parted which moved them so to compassionate one anothers wrongs that they ran in and killed the Tyrant The long hatching Irish treason was now ripe and therefore it was necessary that England and Scotland should be in Combustion least we might help the Irish Protestants well the Scots get Newcastle he knew they would trust him no more he had so often broke with them therefore no hopes to get them out by a treaty many Lords and the City petition for a Parliament the King was at such a necessity that yield he must to that which he most abhorred God had brought him to such a straite he that a few moneths before assumed the power of God Commanding men not to thinke of Parliaments to restraine the free thoughts of the heart of man was constrained to call one which they knew he would breake off when the Scots were sent home therefore got a Confirmation of it that he should not dissolve it without the consent of both Houses of which he had no hopes or by force which he suddenly attempted and the English Army in the North was to have come up to confound the Parliament and this rebellious and disloyall City as the King called it and for their paines was promised thirty thousand pounds and the plunder as by the examinations of Colonel Goring Legge c. doth more fully appeare And here by the way I cannot but commend the City Malignants He calls them Rebels they call him a gracious King He by his Proclamation at Oxford prohibits all commerce and entercourse of trade betweene this populous City the life and interest whereof consists in trade without which many thousands cannot subsist and other parts of the kingdome still they do good against evill and petitioning him so often to cut their throats are troubled at nothing so much as that they are not reduced to that former and a worse bondage then when there was a Lord Warden made in the City and the King sent for as much of their estates as he pleased But surely the Oxford-shire men are more to be commended for when the King had commanded by his Proclamation that what Corne Hay and other provision in the County of Oxford could not be fetcht into the said City for his Garison should be consumed and destroyed by fire for feare it should fall into the hands of the Parliaments friends a cruelty not to be parallel'd by any Infidell Heathen or pagan King nor to be presidented amongst the most avowed and professed enemies much lesâ—e from a King to his Subjects they resolved never to trust him any more But the great Question will be What hath been the true ground and occasion of the War which unless I clear and put it out of question as the Charge imports I shall fall short of what I chiefly aym at viz. That the King set up his Standard of War for the advancement and upholding of his Personal Interest Power and pretended Prerogative against the Publique Interest of Common-Right Peace and Safety and thus I prove it 1. He fought for the Militia by Sea and Land to have it at his absolute dispose and to justifie maintain his illegal Commissions of Array and this he pretended was his Birthright by the Law of England which if it were so then might he by the same Reason command all the money in the kingdom for he that carries the Sword will command the Purse 2. The next thing that he pretended to fight for was his Power to call Parliaments when he pleased and dissolve them when he list If they will serve his turn then they may sit by a Law to inslave the People so that the People had better choose all the Courtiers and Kings Favorites at first then to trouble themselves with ludibrious Elections to assemble the Freeholders together to their great labor expence both of time coyn and those which are chosen Knights Burgesses to make great preparations to take long Journeys to London themselves their Attendants to see the King Lords in their Parliament robes ride in state to the House and with Domitian to catch Flies and no sooner shall there be any breathings or a Spirit of Justice stirring discovered in the House of Commons but the king sends the Black-Rod and dissolves the Parliament and sends them back again as wise as they were before but not with so much money in their purses to tell stories to the Freeholders of the bravery of the king and Lords 3. Well but if this be too gross and that the People begin to murmure and clamor for another Parliament then there goes out another Summons and they meet and sit for some time but to as much purpose as before for when the Commons have presented any Bill for Redress of a publique Grievance then the king hath several games to play to make all fruitless as first his own Negative Voyce that if Lords and Commons are both agreed then he will advise which I know not by what strange Doctrine hath been of late construed to be a plain denyal though under favor at the first it was no more but to allow him two or three days time to consider of the Equity of the Law in which time if he could not convince them of the Injustice of it then ought he by his Oath and by Law to consent to it 4. But if by this means the king had contracted hard thoughts from the people and that not onely the Commons but many of the Lords that have the same noble blood running in their veins as those English Barons whose Swords were the chief Instruments that purchased Magna Charta then that the king might be sure to put some others between him and the peoples hatred The next prerogative that he pretended to have was to be the sole Judge of Chivalry to have the sole power of conferring Honors to make as many Lords as he pleased that so he may be sure to have two against one if the House of Commons by reason of the multitude of Burgesses which he likewise pretended a power to make as many Borough-Towns and Corporations as he pleased were not pack'd also And this is that glorious priviledge of the English Parliaments so much admired for just nothing for if his pretended Prerogative might stand for Law as was challenged by his adherents never was there a purer cheat put upon any people nor a more ready way to enslave them then by priviledge of Parliament being just such a mockery of the people as that Mock-Parliament at Oxford was where the kings consent must be the Figure and
That the king shall improve his power for their good and make it his work to procure their safeties and they to provide for his honor which it done to the Commonwealth in him as the Sword and Ensigns of Honor carried before the Lord Major are for the honor of the city now as when any one of this people shall compass the death of the Governor ruling well this is a Treason punishable with death for the wrong done to the Community and Anathema be to such a man so when he or they that are trusted to fight the peoples Battels and to procure their welfare shall prevaricate and act to the inslaving or destroying of the people who are their Liege Lords and all Governors are but the peoples creatures and the work of their hands to be accomptable as their Stewards and is it not senseless for the vessel to ask the Potter by what Law he calls it to account this is high Treason with a witness and far more transcendent then in the former case because the king was paid for his Service and the Dignity of the Person does increase the offence for a great man of noble Education and knowledge to betray so great a Trust and abuse so much love as the Parliament shewed to the king by Petitioning him as good Subjects praying for him as good Christians advising him as good Counsellors and treating with him as the great Counsel of the kingdom with such infinite care and tenderness of his honor a course which Gods people did not take with Rehoboam they never petitioned him but advised him he refused their counsel and hearkened to yong Counsellors and they cry To thy tents O Israel and made quick and short work of it after all this and much more longanimity and patience from the Lord to the Servant for him not onely to set up a Standard of War in defiance of his dread Soveraign The People for so they truly were in Nature though Names have befool'd us but to persist so many years in such cruel persecutions who with a word of his mouth might have made a Peace If ever there were so superlative a Treason let the Indians judge and whosoever shall break and violate such a trust and confidence Anathema Maranatha be unto them Q. But why was there not a written Law to make it Treason for the King to destroy the people as well as for a man to compass the Kings death Resp. Because our Ancestors did never imagine that any King of England would have been so desperately mad as to leavy a War against the Parliament and people as in the Common instance of Paricide the Romans made no Law against him that should kill his Father thinking no childe would be so unnatural to be the death of him who was the Author of his life but when a childe came to be accused for a Murther there was a more cruel punishment inflicted then for other Homicides for he was thrown into the Sea in a great Leather Barrel with a Dog a Jackanapes a Cock and a Viper significant companions for him to be deprived of all the Elements as in my Poor mans Case Fol. 10. Nor was there any Law made against Parents that should kill their children yet if any man was so unnatural he had an exemplary punishment Obj. But is it not a Maxime in Law That the King can do no wrong Resp. For any man to say so is blasphemy against the great God of Truth and Love for onely God cannot erre because what he wills is right because he wills it and 't is a sad thing to consider how learned men for unworthy ends should use such art to subdue the people by transportation of their sences as to make them believe that the Law is That the King can do no wrong First For Law I do aver it with confidence but in all humility That there is no such Case to be found in Law That if the King Rob or Murther or commit such horrid Extravagancies that it is no wrong Indeed the case is put in H. 7. by a chief Judge that If the King kill a man 't is no felony to make him suffer death that is to be meant in ordinary Courts of Justice But there is no doubt but the Parliament might try the King or appoint others to judge him for it We finde Cases in Law that the King hath been sued even in Civil Actions In 43 E 3. 22. it is resolved That all maner of Actions did lie against the King as against any Lord and 24 E. 3. 23. Wilby a learned Judge said that there was a Writ Praecipe Henrico Regi Angliae Indeed E. 1. did make an Act of State That men should sue to him by Petition but this was not agreed unto in Parliament Thelwall title Roye digest of Writs 71. But after when Judges places grew great the Judges and Bitesheeps began to sing Lullaby and speak Platentia to the king that My Lord the King is an Angel of light Now Angels are not responsible to men but God therefore not kings And the Judges they begin to make the king a God and say that by Law his stile is Sacred Majesty though he swears every hour and Gracious Majesty though gracious men be the chief objects of his hatred and that the king hath an Omnipotency and Omnipresence But I am sure there is no Case in Law That if the king leavy a War against the Parliament and people that it is not Treason Possibly that Case in H. 7. may prove That if the king should in his passion kill a man this shall not be Felony to take away the kings life for the inconveniency may be greater to the people by putting a king to death for one offence and miscarriage then the execution of Justice upon him can advantage them But what 's this toa leavying of War against a Parliament never any Judge was so devoid of understanding that he denyed that to be Treason But suppose a Judge that held his place at the kings pleasure did so I am sure never any Parliament said so But what if there had in dark times of Popery been an Act made That the king might Murther Ravish Burn and perpetrate all mischiefs and play Reaks with impunity will any man that hath but wit enough to measure an Ell of cloath or to tell Twenty say That this is an Obligation for men to stand still and suffer a Monster to cut their throats and grant Commission to rob at Suters hill as such and no better are all Legal thefts and oppressions The Doctor says That a Statute against giving an alms to a poor man is void He is no Student I mean was never bound Prentice to Reason that says A king cannot commit Treason against the people Ob. But are there not Negative words in the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. That nothing else shall be construed to be Treason but what is there exprest Res That Statute was intended for