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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91291	A summary collection of the principal fundamental rights, liberties, proprieties of all English freemen; both in their persons, estates, and elections; and of the memorable votes, resolutions, and Acts of Parliament, for their vindication and corroboration, in the late Parliaments of 3 & 17 of King Charles; collected out of their Journals, and printed Ordinances. Most necessary to be known, considered, re-established (in this present juncture of publick affairs) with all possible old and new securities; against past, present, and future publick violations, under-minings, by force or fraud, for the much-desired healing of the manifold large mortal wounds in these chief vital parts, and repairing the various destructive subversive breaches in these prime foundations of our English state fabrick; without which no effectual present or future healing, union, peace, or settlement can possibly be expected, or established in our distracted nations. / By William Prynne of Swainswick Esq; a bencher of Lincolns Inne.	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1656 (1656)	Wing P4095; Thomason E892_3; ESTC R206517	46,699	73

we desire men of moderation may be chosen and we desire you to give your Voito A. and B c. And for that besides these Letters they warned the trained Band to attend the day of the election By which Letters Menaces and Practices they were voted guilty as practising to pervert the free-dome of the election of the Knights of that County and thereupon thus censured by the House On the 28 of the same May 1628. Sir John Eliot reported from the Committee sundry complaints against the Lord Mohun Vice-warden of the Stanneries in Cornwal by the Tinners of that County whereof this was one That the Tinners in Cornwal have time out of mind used to elect a Parliament of Tinners so often as there is occasion summoned ever in this manner The Lord Warden of the Stanneries grants his Commission to the Vice-Warden who thereupon directs Sommons to the 4 Maiors of the 4 Divisions of the Stanneries appointing them to elect within every Division 6 Tinners to be elected by the Maior and his Corporation and so the parties elected are returned to serve in their Parliment That the Lord Mohun being Vice-Warden at Christmas then last past sent his Warrant to the 4 Maiors commanding them to elect such and such Persons by name to be Tinners for the Parliament The Maiors obeyed and summoned the men who met the 4th of January last Upon the meeting the Tinners questioned the lawfulnesse of that Parliament First because there was no Commission from the Lord Warden but only a Letter and that for a meeting only to confer. 2. For that the Election was not free and due VVhereupon that Parliament was dissolved as void Upon which the Lord Mohun the 5 of February sent out new Sommons to the Maiors that they should reassemble such and such Persons as he named in his Warrant Who meeting together he perswaded fourteen of them against the Protestation of the other ten to impose the sum of 500l upon the Tinners towards the maintenance of their Liberties as he pretended and sent forth his Warrants to collect the Money sitting this Parliament VVhich the Tinners complained of in Parliament as a great Grievance and impeachment of their privilege and freedom of their elections and Parliaments and was so voted by the Commons House and the Lord Mohun thereupon summoned to answer the charge Whether the Fredom of many late Elections of Members for this Assemblie in Counties and Burroughs hath not been perverted hindered abolished by like Letters Menaces from Whitehall Major Generals Captains other Grandees by drawing up Troops of armed Souldiers to the places of Election to terrifie the peole enjoining such and such persons by prescribed Lists Letters and otherwise to be chosen such and such to be opposed and not elected as being persons disaffected turbulent unquiet Spirits c. and other indirect practices to make up a packed Court-Coventicle to carry on private designs instead of a New Free state Parliment is worthy the inquiry and censure of those whom it most concerns to preserve and vindicate the Free-dome of Elections long since established against such practices menaces force and terror by the Statute of 3 E. 1. c. 5. which enacts Because Elections ought to be free the King commanded upon great forfeiture that no great Man nor other by force of Arms or by malice or menacing shall disturb any to make free Election For violating which Law and antient custome the whole Parliament of 1. H. 4. rot Parliamenti nu 36. thus impeached King Richard the 2. when they enforced him to resign his Crown for his misgovernment in this particular amongst others That although by the Statute and Custome of his Realm in the Assembling of every Parliament his People in all Counties of his Realm ought to be free to choose and d●pute Knights for the said Counties to be present in Parliament and to declare their Grievances and to prosecute remedies thereupon as it should seem expedient to them Yet the said King that he might be able in his Parliaments more freely to obtain the effect of his rash will frequently directed his Mandates to his Sheriffs to cause certain persons nominated by the King himself as Knights of the County to come unto his Parliaments Which Knights verily favouring the King he might easily induce as he frequently did sometimes by divers Menaces and tenors and sometimes by Gifts to consent to those things which were prejudicial to the Realm and very burdensome to the People and specially to grant to the said King a Subsidy for certain years to the over-great oppression of his people Which misdemeanour and incroachment upon the freedom of his Subjects elections and packing of Parliaments for these ends lost him not only his peoples hearts but his very Crown Regal Power and life Which others who now tread in his footsteps and exceed him herein may do well advisedly to consider for fear of the like impeachment and tragical events In 11 R. 2. Rot. Claus. dors 13. The King sent Writs to the Sheriffs of Kent and all other Sheriffs to summon a Parliament with this New unusual clause by reason of the differences between the King and his Nobles Eligere homines in debatis modernis maxime indifferentes But this being a Novelty contrary to the Freedom of Elections and the Statute of 3 E. 1. c. 5. contraformam Electionis antiquit us usitatae et contra libertatem Dominorum et Communitatis regni hactenus obtentam Ideo therefore this clause was struck out of the Writs by order of Parliament ever since And that Parliament was afterwards repealed by the Parliament of 21 R. 2. When the Parliament of 6 H. 4. Anno 1404. was to be summoned the King by pretext of an Ordinance of 45 E. 3. rot Parl. n. 13. wrote Letters to the Sheriffs and other Officers * That no Lawyer should be chosen or returned a Knight or Burgesse for the Parliament yet inserted it not into the Writ as Walsingham and others mistake But the very next Parliament after 7 H. 4. the Commons grievously complained against the interruption of the Freedom of their Elections by these Letters Whereupon to prevent the like incroachment and int●rruption for the future at the grievous complaint of the Commons of the undue Election of the Knights of the Counties for the Parliament which be sometimes made at the affections of Sheriffs and otherwise against the form of the Writs to the great slauder of the Counties and hinderance of the businesse of the Comminalty in the said County it was ordained and establishid * by a special Act yet in force that all that attend to the Election of the Knights in the full County shall proceed to the Election freely and indifferently notwithstanding any Request or Commandement to the contrary By vertue of which Acts and premises all late Letters to Major Generals and Sheriffs with like or worser clauses to restrein the people in the freedom

whatsoever as well Supreme as subordinate all Members of Parliament Barresters Attornies Graduates in our Universities Steward of Leets and Court-Barons throughout our Dominions should from time to time upon and at their investitures into their several Offices Trusts or taking their Degrees be corporally sworn To defend and maintain the Great Charter of England the Petition of Right and other Fundamental Lawes of this Land together with the antient undoubted Rights and Liberties of our English Parliaments according to their late Protestation and Solemn League and Covenant And that all Justices of Assize Judges and Justices of the Peace should specially be sworn at every Assizes and Sessions of the Peace in their respective Circuits Counties Corporations and the Justices of the Kings Bench every Term amongst other Articles to the Grand Iury to give them in charge upon their Oaths diligently to inquire of and present all Offences Exactions Oppressions Taxes Imposts and Grievances whatsoever against the Great Charter the Petition of Right and other Good Lawes for the preservation of the Liberty Right and Property of the Subject by any person or persons to the end that they may be exemplarily punished according to Law by Fines Imprisonments or otherwise as the quantity and quality of the Offences deserve It being the * Advice Desire Proposition and Petition of the whole Commons house first and after of the Lords and Commons house joyntly to King Charles in his last Parliament to which he readily assented though never since put into actual execution which is now most necessary to be effectually accomplished for the future having been so long neglected After these Votes and the Petition of Right passed several Impositions upon Wines Currans Tobacco Beer and the taking of Tonnage and Poundage without Act of Parliament being complained of it was by special Votes and Declarations of the Commons House resolved and declared in the same Parliament 8. e That the receiving of Tunnage and Poundage and other Impositions not granted by Parliament is * a breach of the fundamental Libberties of this Kingdom and contrary to his Majesties Regal answer to the Petition of Right And those declared Publick Enemies who should thenceforth collect or pay any Customes Tunnage Poundage or Imposts not granted by act of Parliament which was since enacted and declared for Law in the f two fi●st acts for Tunnage and Poundage in the last Parliament of King Charles and all those in a Premunire and disable● to sue in any Court of Justice who shall presume to levy the same without Act of Parliament The case of all Customers Excisemen and their Instruments at this present fit to be made presidents in this kind for the terror of others 9. A Commission from the King under the Great Seal of England directed to 33 Lords and privy Counsellors dated the last of Febr. 3 Caroli stiled g a Commission of Excise was complained of and brought into the Commons House and there read which commanded them to raise monies by Impositions or otherwise as they in their wisdoms should find convenient for the safety and defence of the King Kingdom and People the Kings Pro●estant Friends and Allies which without hazard of all could admit no delay the necessity being so inevitable that form and circumstances must rather be dispensed with than substance lost Injoyning the Commissioners to be diligent in the service as they tendred the safety of his Majesty and of his People Dominions and Allies This Commission of Excise by the unanimous Vote and judgement of the Lords and Commons was resolved to be against Law and contrary to the Petition of Right And thereupon was cancelled as such in his Majesties presence by his own command and was brought cancelled to the Lords House by the Lord Keeper and by them afterwards sent to the Commons and the Warrant with all Inrollments of it were cancelled and ordered by the Commons that the Projector of it should be found out and punished Which judgement h was thrice recited confirmed and insisted on by the Lords and Commons and some in greatest present power the last Parliament of King Charls in printed Speeches and Declarations And if this intended Commission of Excise though never executed was thus frequently damned as an intollerable and monstrous Grievance against our Laws Properties and the Petition of Right How much more are all present Orders Commissions Warrants for the actual imposing and levying all sorts of Excises on such without any act of Parliament X. The Commons House in that Parliament upon solemn Argument and Debate concluded That by the Laws of this Realm none of his Majesties Subjects ought to be impressed or compelled to goe forth of his County to serve as a Souldier in the Wars * except in case of necessity of the sudden comming in of strange Enemies into the Kingdom or except they be otherwaies bound by the Tenures of their Lands or possessions Nor yet sent out of the Realm against his Will upon any forein imployment by way of an honorable banishment Which Resolution in the last Parliament of King Charles was enacted and declared to be the Law of the Land and fundamental Liberty of the Subject by the i Act for impressing Souldiers for Ireland by two Declarations of the Lords and Commons against the Commission of array and assented to by the King in his answer thereunto All which unanimous Votes Resolutions of both Houses having been successively ratified in two several Parliaments in King Charles his Reign whereof some in present Power were Members and enacted by several Statutes assented to by King Charles himself it must needs be the extremity of Impudency Tyranny Treachery Impiety Perjury Barbarism for any who have formerly contested with him in our Parliaments or in the open field for all or any of these premised Fundamental Rights and Liberties of all English Freemen and who vowed protested covenanted remonstrated again and again before God and all the World inviolably faithfully constantly to defend them with their Lives and Fortunes all their daies in their several places and callings and who beheaded him as the Greatest Tyrant together with Strafford and Canterbury for infringing them to oppose contradict violate or infringe them all in a more transcendent publike manner than he or his worst Ministers formerly have done and now not really chearfully to corroborate defend transmit them to posterity in full vigor by all good wayes and corroborations that possibly can be devised without the least opposition and dispute to make the Nation free and their own posterity together with it XI After the Petition of Right had passed the Commons House and was transmitted to the Lords the House of Lords desired that this Clause might be added to the close thereof We humbly present this Petition to your Majesty not only with a Care of Preservation of our own Liberties but with a due regard to leave intire that Soveraign Power

wherewith your Majesty is trusted for the Protection Safety and Happinesse of your People The Commons after a long and full Debate resolved That this Saving ought to be rejected and by no means to be added to this Petition though very Specious in shew and words for that it would be destructive to the whole Petition and would leave the Subjects in farre worse condition than it found them For whereas the Petition recites That by the Great Charter and other Laws and Statutes of this Land No Loan Tax Tallage or other Charge ought to be imposed on the Subjects or levyed without common consent by Act of Parliament Nor any Freeman of this Realm imprisoned without cause shewed Nor any compelled to receive Souldiers or Mariners into their Houses against their wills Nor any man adjudged to death by Martial Law in times of Peace but only by the lawful trial of his Peers according to the established Lawes and Custom of the Realm This addition would make the Sense and Construction thereof to be That the King by his Ordinary power and Prerogative could impose no Loan Tax Tallage or other things upon his Subjects without their common consent by Act of Parliament Nor imprison any Freeman without cause shewed Nor billet any Souldiers or Mariners in mens Houses against their wills Nor condemn nor execute any Subject by Martial Law But yet by his Soveraign power wherewith he is intrusted for the Protection Safety and Happinesse of his people here left intirely to him he may when he saw cause and necessity impose what Loans Taxes Impositions and Charges he pleased on his people without common consent and Act of Parliament imprison them without cause shewed quarter Mariners and Souldiers in their houses against their wills and condemn execute them by Martial Law upon this pretext that it was for the Protection Safety and Happinesse of his people in general All which himself and his Council not the Judges and our Laws must determine And so this Addition if admitted would quite overturn the Petition it self the Great Charter and all other Acts recited in it and give an intimation to Posterity as if it were the opinion of the Lords and Commons in this Parliament that there is a trust reposed in the King upon some emergent cases and necessities to lay aside as well the Common Law as the Great Charter and other Statutes which declare and ratifie the Subjects Liberty and Property by his Soveraign power And so by consequence to enable him to alter the whole frame and fabrick of the Commonwealth and dissolve that Government whereby this Kingdom hath flourished for so many year under his Majesties most royal Predecessors Whereas in truth there is in the King no Soveraign Power or Prerogative royal to enable him to dispute with or take from his Subjects that Birthright and Inheritance which they have in their Liberties by virtue of the Common Law and these Statutes which are meerly positive and declarative conferring or confirming ipso facto an inherent Right and Interest of Liberty and Freedom in the Subjects of this Realm as a Birthright and Inheritance des●ended to them from their Auncestors and descendible to their Heirs and Posterity But the Soveraign power wherewith he is intrusted is only for the protection safety and happinesse of his people in preserving this their inherent Birthright and Inheritance of Liberty and Freedom and those Lawes and Statutes which ratifie and declare them Upon these and other reasons alleged by the Commons the Lords after three large Conferences agreed fully with the Commons and rejected this destructive Addition to the Petition of Right which the Lords and Commons in their * Declaration touching the Commission of Array January 16. 1642. to which many now in power were parties recite insist on and corroborated in Parliament as an undoubted truth If then the King by his absolute Soveraign power wherewith he was intrusted could upon no emergent occasion or necessity whatsoever violate elude evade subvert all or any of these fundamental Laws Liberties Rights and Inheritances of the Subject by the joynt unanimous resolution of the Lords and Commons in these two Parliaments of King Charles much lesse then may any other Person or Persons or new Powers do it who condemned him for a Tyrant and suppressed Kingship as tyrannical over-burdensome dangerous to the peoples Liberties Safety Prosperity upon any real or pretended Necessity or Emergency whatsoever Much lesse may any true English Parliament permit or enable them upon any pretence to do it in the least degree to the prejudice of Posterity after so many publick Parliamentary and Military conflicts for these Laws and Liberties The rather because that our Noble Ancestors would admit no Saving or Addition to the Great Charter or any Statutes for its confirmation that might any wayes impeach their Liberties Rights or Proprieties And when King Edward the 1. in the 28 year of his reign upon the Petition of the Lords and Commons granted a New Confirmation of their Charters and in the * close thereof added this Clause Salvo jure Coronae Regis That the right and prerogative of his Crown should be saved to him in all things Which the Lords most insisted on to justify the forementioned rejected Addition to the Petition of Right when it came to be proclamed in London the people hearing this Clause at the end thereof added by the King fell into execration for that Addition and the great Earls who went away ●atisfied out of Parliament hearing thereof went to the King and complained thereof who promised to redress it as Mr. Selden then informed the Commons house out of a Leiger Book of that year in the publike Library of the Vniversity of Cambridge Whereupon in the Statute Do Tallagio non concedendo 34 E. 1. the King to please his discontented Lords and Commons not only granted That no Tallage or Ayd should be taken or levied by us or our heirs in our Realm without the good will and assent of the Archbishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the Land c. 1. But likewise added c. 4. We will and grant for us and our Heirs That all Clerks and Lay-men of our Land shall have their Laws Liberties and Free Customes as they have used to have the same at any time when they had them best And if any Statutes have been made by us or our Ancestors or any Customs brought in contrary to them We will and grant That such manner of Statutes and Customs shall be void and frustrate for evermore Yea King Edward the 3. in pursuance thereof in the Parliament of 4● E. 3. c. 1. assented and accorded That the Great Charter and Charter of the Forest be holden and kept in all points And if any Statute he made to the contrary that shall he holden for none And c. 3 It is assented and accorded for the good Government of the Commons that no man be put to answer without

Present more before Justices or matter of Re●ard or by due Process and writ original according to the old Law of the Land And if any thing from henceforth be done to the contrary it shall be void in the Law and holden for ●rrour And therefore we all jointly and severally expect and claim the like Declaration and Resolution in all these particulars being assented to by King Charls himself in the Petition of Right and by these antient Warlike Kings and true English Parliaments from whose vigilancy magnanamity unaminity zeal courage in defence of these our fundamental Charters Laws Rights Liberties we should now be ashamed to degenerate after so many yeats wars and vast expences for their preservation and all sacred solemn Protestations Vows Leagues Covenants Declarations Remonstrances and Ordinances engaging us with our lives and fortunes constantly to defend them all the daies of our lives against all opposition And if any who pretend to the Name or power of a Parliament should now refuse or neglect to do their duties herein they may justly expect to be had in perpetual detestation and execration both with God and all English Freemen XII It was frequently averred declared k by the Commons in this Parliament That the old custome and use of our Parliaments constantly hath been and ought to be to debate redress all publick grievances and re-establish secure their violated * Great Charter Laws Rights and Liberties in the first place of all before they debated or granted any aides or subsidies demanded of them though never so pressing or necessary it being both dangerous imprudent and a breach of their trusts towards the people who elected them to play an After-game for their Liberties Laws and Grievances which would never be effectually redressed after subsidies once granted VVhereupon they refused to pass the Bill of Subsidies then granted till the Petition of Right was fi●st assented unto enrolled and their Grievances redr●ssed by the King XIII They cast Sir Edmund Sawyer a Member of the Commons House out of it upon solemn Debate l committed him Prisoner to the Tower and perpetually disabled him to serve in Parliament for the future for having a chief hand in making a Book of Rates for Tunnage and Poundag and laying imposiions on the Subject in nature of a Projector without grant or Act of Parliament And likewise suspended Mr. John Baber then Recorder and Burgesse of Welle only for making a Warrant to billet Souldiers on some of the Townsmen against the Law and Subjects Liberty out of fear Resolving that all Projectors and Promoters of illegal impositions Taxes billetings Projects out of base fear which Mr. Baber or by regal command which Sir Edmund Sawyer pleaded for his excuse were unfit to sit or vo●e in any English Parliament and fit to be turned out thence by judicial sentence with greatest Infamy And whether any such be fit to be Members at any other season let those whom it concerns determine XIV In this Parliament of 3 Caroli the a Speaker in the close of his first Speech to the King according to b usual custome in former ages prayed 3 Privileges in behalf of every Member of the Commons House the first whereof was That for the better attending the publick and important services of the House all and every Member thereof and their necessary attendants may be free both in Person and in Goods from all Arrests and troubles according to their antient Privileges and immunities Which the King then readily granted them all according to the true Rights and Privileges of Parliament By the mouth of the Lord Keeper c After which Sir Edward Cook arguing against the King and his Councils power to commit men only by special command without any legal cause expressed in the Warrant in the House used this expression This concerneth not only the Commonalty but the Lords and therefore it deserveth to be spoken of in Parliament because this might dissolve the Parliament and this House for we may be then all one after another thus committed 31 H. 6. rot Parl. n. 26 27. d No Member of Parliament can be arrested but for Felony Treason or Peace And all here may be committed under these pretences and then where is the Parliament Surely the Lords will be glad of this it concerns them as well as us e Not long after the Common House being informed that Sir Robert Stanhop a Member thereof was committed by the Lords of the Council thereupon the House in whose power it was either to send an Habeas Corp●s or their Sergeant with his Mace for any Member committed as was resolved the last Parliament before this together with the cause thereof ordered That their Sergeant should go with his Ma●e and bring Sir Robert Stanhop with his Keeper and the Warrant for his commitment into the House the next morning they fate Who accordingly brought him with the Marshal of the Houshold and the Warrant wherein it was declared That his commitment was by the Lords of the Council for breach of the peace and refusing to give Su●●ti●t for the Peace upon a challenge and a Duel intended by him as the truth of the Case appeared Whereupon the House were of opinion That standing committed for his real breach of the peace and refusing to give Sureties he could not have his Privileges without giving good security in the Kings Bench to keep the peace And Mr. ●a●shaw all●ging That in such cases some Members by order of the House had entred into Recogni●ances in the Kings Bench in former times to keep the Peace a Committee was ordered to search out the Presidents and consider of the Case But the quarrel being soon after taken up thereupon the Lords released Sir Robert without Sureties to attend the service of the House On the ●8 of April 1627 Sir Simon Steward a Member of the Commons House being served with a Sub p●na ad audie●dum judicium out of the S●ar-chamber at the sute of the Kings Attorny upon a Bill there exhibited against him for sundry misdemeanours complained thereof to the House and shewed that he had been inticed to enter into a Bond and Recognizance of 500 l. not to claim any privilege of Parliament The House upon solemn debate hereof April 20. resolved That Sir Simon notwithstanding this Bond and Recognizance should have his Privilege allowed him because he was elected by and served for others and could not make a Proxy and because else the House might thereby be deprived of his attendance by his Censure Yea this Recognisance with the Condition thereof not to claim his Privilege were held to be hold and against the Law And by order of the House the party who served the Subpoena on Sir Simon Steward was sent for as a Delinquent and Sir Simon commanded to attend the service of the House and not the hearing of the cause Vpon this on the 10th of May the Inhabitants of the Isle of Ely

levying them by Souldiers on such as refused to pay them by quartering Souldiers upon them till paid or imprisoning or vexing the Refusers For which these Lieutenants Deputy-Lieutenants and Officers of the Souldiers were sent for as Delinquents and their New power and proceedings voted to be contrary to Law and the Subjects Liberties Pernicious to the Country and dishonorable to the King And whether the late erected New Powers of our Major Generals and their Deputies throughout England be not such in imitation of o Wil. Longchamp the first Protector in the Reign of Richard the first who placed in every County armed Troops of Mercinary Souldiers under New Governors of their own Creatures to over-awe and enslave the People and impose what Taxes and exactions he pleased under pretext of preserving the publick Peace and suppressing theevs and Tumults yet was shamefully stript of all his Authority and forced to flye over Sea disgnised in womens apparel within one year after notwithstanding all his Guards or Garrisons or of the p Turkish Bashawes and Beglerbegs as most Patriots of their Countries Freedome and the ordinary people mutter and their exorbitant Tyrannical proceedings in apprehending taxing decimating dis-officing dis-franchising and sequestring all sorts of men in Counties and Corporations at their pleasure in controuling all Officers and Ministers of Justice in intermedling with all mens sutes and causes upon any informations or Petitions after Judgements Verdicts Decrees and whiles pending or ended in any Courts of Law or equity in summoning the parties to appear before them and committing menacing them for not appearing in usurping all the Civil as well as Military Power and Jurisdiction into their own hands in levying illegal Taxes by Souldiers and quartering them upon Refusers adjudged High Treason in Straffords Case for which he lost his Head sequestring Ministers at their pleasures and taking upon them to nominate all Iurymen and New Parliament men to the Sheriff as some of them have done and commit men to Prison upon civil causes or sutes I leave to all such who have taken the Protestation the solemn League and Covenant to all Lovers Patronss of English Liberties and Declamers Engagers against arbitrary Tyranny yea to the Consciences of all those army Officers Souldiers and Major Generals themselves to resolve who were p●nners subscribers approvers applauders of or assenters to the printed Engagements Remonstrances Representations Proposals Desires Letters and Resolutions for se●ling this Nation in its just Rights the Parliament in their just Privileges and the Subjects n their just Liberties and Freedoms publi●hea in the name of the General and General Councel of the Army and of all officers and Souldiers of the Army in one Volume London 1647. Which how sincerely they have since for the most part of them performed let God their own consciences and our whole Nation determine To expiate which former guilt let them now at last upon second and sober thoughts effectually make them all good to avoid the perpetual infamy of the most detestable Perjury Treachery Hypocrisy Fraud Impiety Apostacy Tyranny Atheism that ever any Christian Saint-like Army and Officers were guilty of in the eyes of God or men which else they will incurre and for the present settlement of our three Nations in their Liberty Peace and Christian Unity without more effusion of English Scotish or Irish bloud to regain those just fundamental old Rights Liberties Privileges Freedoms Laws for which they first took up Arms in reality or pretence at least against the beheaded King transmitted to them by their Ancestors and their richest Birth-right and best Inheritance as therefore most unfit to be all betray'd surrendred lost subverted now without any further dispute after so many years conflicts for their preservation I shall close up all with this memorable Petition of the whole House of Commons to the late King by the Speaker and whole House at Whitehall concerning the intolerable Grievance of billetting and keeping of Souldiers amongst them but for a few months only in that Parliament of 3 Caroli April 24. 1628. which the King then granted and provided against for the future in the Petition of Right though since condemned q as the worst and greatest of Tyrants by some who succeeed him at Whitehall And therefore is much more just and reasonable to be granted by them now for the Peoples ease after so many years of incessant Contributions quartering and continuing of armed Mercinary Souldiers amongst them Winter and Summer without any actual imployment for them but to terifie seize imprison Guard oppresse enthrall impoverish dis-inherit of all hereditary Liberties rights privileges our English Freemen at their pleasures and to over-awe force dissolve even Parliaments themselves and secure seclude their Members for whose Protection they were first raised VVhen as the Parliament of 5 R. 2. rot Parl. n. 1. was adjorned for 3 days space because great force of armed men and others arayed in Warlike manner came to the Parliament by reason of the great debate between the Duke of Lancaster and the Earl of Northumberland And the Parliament of 11 R. 2. 21 R. 2. were both repealed because they were held with many armed men and Archers who over-awed enforced them to consent to bills against their wills as the printed Statute of 21 R. 2. c. 12. 1 H. 4. rot Parl. n. 20 21 22 38 70. at large inform us so inconsistent are force and arms with the freedome and essence of a true English Parliament as the armies Confederates in their own Ordinance of 20 August 1647. the Speakers own printed Letter July 29. 1647. with the Solemn Protestation of the prisoned and secluded Members December 11 and Febr. 13. 1648. will further resolve the Nation and Souldiers against whose billetting and scatering abroad in companies here and there in the heart and bowels of the Kingdome to inthrall and oppresse it the whole Commons House then thus petitioned To the Kings most excellent Majesty IN all humblenesse complaining sheweth unto your most Excellent Majesty your loyal and dutiful Commons now in Parliament Assembled That whereas by the Fundamental Laws of this your Realm every Freeman hath and of Right ought to have a full and absolute propriety in his goods and estate and that therefore the billetting or placing of Souldiers in the House of any such Freeman against his VVill is directly contrary to the Laws under which we and our Ancestors have been so long and happily Governed Yet in apparent violation of the said antient and undoubtted Rights of your Majesties Loyal Subjects of this your Kingdome in Generall and to the grievous and insupportable vexation and detriment of many Counties and persons in partcicular A new and almost unheard of way hath been invented and put in practice to lay Souldiers upon them scattered in companies here and there even in the heart and bowels of this Kingdome and to compell many of your Majesties Subjects to receive and lodge them in their

the settlement peace liberty ease from taxes excises and good Government of the Kingdome by a happy close with the late King upon more safe and honourable terms of Freedom and happiness to the whole Nation and our Parliaments than ever we can hope for from our New Governours or Sword-men to usurp the Soveraign Power of King and Parliament into their own hands and perpetuate our Wars Taxes Excises Armies and Military Government upon us from generation to generation as experience now manifests beyond contradiction not for the peoples safety ease wealth tranquillity as they then pretended which people though they then cried up * * January 1648. voted for the only Supreme Authority their free elections for the only Basis of all lawfull Magistracy Power in and over the Nation and their safety as the Supreme Law yet now they imperiously trample upon as their conquered slaves and both by their publike speeches actions proclaim to all the world They now no more value them than they doe the very Acorns of the Swine or dust of their feet no further than they are subservient to their own aspiring designs and selfish ends For those few remaining Abuses in our Laws execution yet unredressed by former Laws as they no waies concern the army or army-Officers as Souldiers being out of their calling Commission and fit only for Iudges or Parliaments in their defaults to redresse So they concern not the generality of the People many thousands of them having no sute at Law in all their lives and the most of them very rarely but for the most part only some Litigious contentious persons who out of their pride and animosity occasion these abuses and prolongatio●s of sutes in Law which they and others complain against and therefore are justly punished and rewarded by them the expensivenesse and tediousnesse of their Law sutes being the best means to correct cure their contentious malicious spirits other sutes between peaceable persons being soon determined without any great expence or length of time if diligently prosecuted by honest Lawyers Attorneys and Sollicitors But the Grievances these Martial Reformers of our Laws have introduced under pretext of reforming some petty Abuses in the practice of the Law and Lawyers are of a far more grievous generall and transcendent nature subverting the very Fnndamental Laws and Liberties of the whole Nation and burthening them with two or three Millions of extraordinary Taxes Expences every year whereas all the abuses in the Law if rectified amount not to above 5 or 6 thousand pounds a year at the most and those volunt●rily expended by litigious persons not exacted from or imposed upon any against their Wills as Taxes Excises Imposts Tunnage and Poundage now are by the Souldiers without Act of Parliament against our Laws Which if redressed by the Swordmen now is not out of any affection towards or design to ease the People but out of spleen to the Profession and Professors of the Law and to increase the Peoples monthly Taxes to the Souldiers and maintenance of their new war to tenfold the value every year at least to what they now expend in Law-sutes by reason of these abuses they would now redresse which will be nothing so grievous expensive to the People as those alterations they intend to make in our Laws and legal conveyances which will but multiply Sutes and draw all mens estates into future sequestration in few years space There are four things specially provided for by our Fundamental Laws and the original constitution of our Government which principally concern all the Freemen of England in General above all things else 1. The Privileges and Fredome of their Parliaments and their Members 2. The safety and liberty of their Persons 3. The propriety of their Estates 4. The Free course of Common Law Right Justice All which our Army Reformers have lately violated in the highest degree beyond the Presidents of the worst of former ages against all Laws of God and the Land their own Commissions Trusts Declarations Protestations Vowes Leagues Covenants Engagements without any colour of lawful Authority to the whole Nations intollerable Grievance Injury Oppression Impoverishing enslaving and yet would be reputed the only just upright faithful righteous conscientious Protectors Reformers of our Laws Grievances government and Gods most precious Saints and all others meer Malignants or Disaffected persons to Liberty and Reformation who oppose or dislike their proceedings secluding them out of their New Parliaments as such when elected most freely by the People 1. For the Privileges Freedom of Parliaments and their Members formerly held most sacred and inviolable c c See the Epistle and Appendix to my Speech in Parliament and the History of Independency They have in their own and the Armies name impeached imprisoned suspended from sitting many Members of both Houses marched up professedly against them contrary to their Trusts Commands and the expresse Statutes of 5 R. 2. c. 4. 5. H. 4. c. 6. 8 H. 6. c. 1. 4 H. 8. c. 8. forced them to retract their own Orders Votes Ordinances eject imprison their own Members and Vote what they prescribed them Since which they imprisoned close imprisoned my self with sundry other Members in remote Castles sundry years without any cause hearing or recompence for this transcendent injustice And not content herewith they contrary to both Houses Votes seised impeached abused condemned beheaded the late King d d Cook 4 Instit. c. 1. modus Teneadi Parliam The head of the Parliament suppressed abolished the whole House of Lords the antientest chiefest Members of it secured secluded the greatest part of the Commons House and forcibly dissolved the Parliament it self by the Sword without any writ contrary to an expresse act of Parliament And how they have disturbed secluded abused dissipated dishoused their own mock-Parliament and their Members even in the like manner How they and their new Instruments have New-modelled that they now call our Parliaments how they have deprived many antient Burroughs Cities of their right of electing Burgesses or of so many Burgesses as they ought contrary to their Charters and the expresse Statutes of 5 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H 5. c. 1. 32 H. 6. c. 15. 9 H. 8. c. 18 disabled many thousands of their Votes in Elections who have Voices and enabled others to be Electors who have no Votes by our Laws incorporated Scotish and Irish Knights Burgesses as Members into their late Parliaments and interrupted the Freedom of Elections by Letters Menaces armed Troops Soldiers and other indirect means against the Statute of 3 E. 1. c. 5. the great Charter and Constitutions Laws Rights Privileges of our Parliaments to make what Persons and Number of their own creatures they please a pretended Parliament to bind our three Nations by colour of a void illegal Instrument made sodenly by a few Privadoes of their own in a corner having no more legal force to bind our three Nations or Parliaments than a Fiddle-string or the

but the very eighth and tenth Moral Commandements of God himself now practically quite expunged out of their Decalogue And do not all else hold their Lands and Estates as Tenants at will to these supream new Land-Lords who upon any New coined Delinquency or pretended plots really sequester or confiscate them at their pleasures by the self-same Law and Title Yea where as all our Kings in former ages took Aids and Subsidies from our Ancestors only as 1 1 Sec Bastals Tenths and taxes all the the Acts for Subsidies Tunage and Poundage as their free Gifts and Grants in Parliament and that in moderate proportions to wit one Fifteen Tenth or Subsidy and no more in antient times and but two or three Subsidies an● Fiftoens of later daies payable at sundry times in divers years for which our Kings returned them hearty thanks in their Answers to those Grants and granted them New 2 2 Magna ●●arta c. 37 52 H. 3. ● 5. 25 ● 3. c. 1 2. c. 28 H. 8. c. 1. M●● Paris Hist. Angliaep 311. 355. 367. 421. 576. 624 688. 838. 833. 338. 940 941. 960. Confirmations of their Laws Liberties and the Great Charter when violated together with beneficial General Pardons in recompence of these their Aids and Subsidies though for publick uses and defence which they never claimed nor imposed in the Clergy or Laity but by their several free Grants in full and free Parliaments and Convocations of the Clergy as all our Parliament Rolls our imprinted Acts Histories and 3 3 4 Institut●s c. 1. p. 10 25●0 35. Sir Edward Cook at large inform us Do not these our New Military Reforming Soveraigns as if they were more than Kings without any free gift grant or Act of Parliament in a full and free Parliamentary Assembly by their own New usurped Power without any thanks at all to the People or confirmation of their violated Laws Liberties Privilges or general Pardons against all former Acts and Parliamentary Votes impose both on the Clergy and Laity against their Wills beyond all Presidents of former ages what excessive heavy monthly Taxe s Excises imposts tunnage poundage and other payments they please upon the w●ole Nation without intermission which their new comodelled Parliaments themselves must nor alter nor controll by the 27 28 29 Articles of their Instrument and levy them by armed Souldiers Violence imprisonments quartering and other great penalties fines inflicted on the Refusers of them and dispose of them at their pleasures when levied without giving any account thereof to the Nation yea force them to pay their contributions some months before they grow due when no Land-lord can receive his Rents nor Creditor his debts to pay these Taxes till at or after the time they become due And all to enslave impoverish the Nation to carry on new Wars without consent of Parliament and gain new Conquests abroad whiles in the mean time our Merchants are robbed undone our trading decayed by these taxes wars and forwant of well-guarding the Seas at home And not content with these ordinary Monthly contributions excises imposts have not these Refarmers without any legal Trial hearing conviction of New Delinquency g g See my Gospel plea for the Ministers of the Gospel oft endeavouring to take away all Ministers Tithes though due unto them Jure divino as well as by the Laws of the Land exacted the Tithes of all formerly sequestred persons their heirs and Widows estates improved according to the best improved valu by a late Decimation for which there is no divine nor human Law or Right notwithstanding all former compositions Pardons under Seal Articles of War their own Act of Oblivion their late instrument of Government and oath for its observance besides all our antient Laws exempting them there from yea notwithstanding this sacred Canon Ezech. 18. 20. The Son shall not bear the iniquity of the Father with this Maxim in our Law Transgressio personalis moritur cum personâ when as yet many Sons yea some Infants are merely decimated for their Fathers and Wives Jointures Dowe●s charged for their Husbands delinquencies Nay which is yet more barbarous illegal hundreds of Orthodox able godly learned Protestant Ministers of our Church without any hearing or crime at all for their former expiated pardoned mistake in being addicted to the late Kings party are not only turned out of all their livings lectures fellowships schools at once but likewise prohibited to preach teach School in publike or private or to be entertained as Chaplains in private Houses to support themselves wives children or to administer the Sacrament or mary any under pain of imprisonment banishment And may not all our other Protestant Orthodox Ministers School-Masters Scholars be thus smi●ten down and suppressed at once by the like club-law and justice of which this President is a very sad presage Moreover do not these Reformers seise mens Horses Arms Swords fouling birding pieces yea the very Armorets Chand●rrs Arms and Ammuntion though their stock wa●es trade livelihood at their pleasures upon every pretended plot fear jealousie Yea do not Souldiers Excise-men and their agents break open search ransack mens Houses Studies Trunks Chests both by day and night and ' take away their Goods Chattels yea their Writings ' Records Papers as they h h See my New Discovey of Free-state Ty●a●n● did mine at their pleasures against all Law and many late Parliament Votes Nay have not they forced thousands of all sorts to enter into great penal Bonds of late with sureties both for themselves and all their Servants containing strange unheard-of i i Adjudged illegal 1 E. 3. c. 15. and 1 E. 3. rot 2 3 4. illegall Conditions and forced them to pay some 10 s. others 5 s. others 2 s. 6 d. for every Bond an unparalleld oppression though many of them not worth so much under pain of Imprisonment sequestration and banishment in case of refusal to omit all other extorted fees by Marshals Lieutenants Officers of the Tower and others from Prisoners by Souldiers for levying pretended arrears of Taxes and of Excise-men and their Instruments And are not these more grievous abuses fit to be redressed than any coruptions excesses fees in Lawyers or our Laws No private Person or Lawyers can take one farthing from another against his will nor do the least prejudice to his reall or personal estate against Law but he may have present remedy for it But these New Reformers by Excises Imposts Contributions Decimations Sequestrations and new-invented forfeitures can forcibly extort and levy some Millions of pounds from the whole Nation every year against their wills all our Laws yea strip whole families of their Inheritances without any remedy by Law or otherwise yet this must be no grievance or injustice at all in them though the Highest Treason and unpardonable crying offences in Strafford Canterbury the old Council-Table and beheaded King but a most righteous proceeding necessary to be still pursued