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war_n	king_n	law_n	levy_v	3,963	5	11.2983	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A91207	A legal vindication of the liberties of England, against illegal taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament, lately enforced on the people: or, Reasons assigned by William Prynne of Swainswick in the county of Sommerset, esquire, why he can neither in conscience, law, nor prudence, submit to the new illegal tax or contribution of ninety thousand pounds the month; imposed on the kingdom by a pretended Act of some Commons in (or rather out of) Parliament, April 7 1649. (when this was first penned and printed,) nor to the one hundred thousand pound per mensem, newly laid upon England, Scotland and Ireland, Jan. 26. 1659 by a fragment of the old Commons House, ...	Prynne, William, 1600-1669.	1660 (1660)	Wing P3998; Thomason E772_4; ESTC R207282	74,956	90

and them odious not only to the Countrie and Kingdom but to all Officers and Souldiers who had any civilitie in them and be a disparagement to the General by whose Proclamation he ought to be present with his Company to keep them in good order under pain of cashiering And therefore I expected and required Justice and Reparations at his hands the rather because I was informed by some of his own Souldiers and others that they had not been so barbarouslie rude but by his incouragement which if he refused I should complain of him to his Superiours and right my self the best way I might After some expostulations he promised to make them examples and cashier them and to remove them forthwith from my house but the only right I had was that more of his Company repaired thither making all the spoil they could and taking away some Brasse and Pewter continued there till near four of the clock and then marched away only out of fear I would raise the Country upon them many of whom profered me their assistance but I desired them to forbear till I saw what their Officers would do who instead of punishing any of them permitted them to play the like Rex almost in other places where they quartered since marching but three or four miles a day and extorting what monies they could from the Country by their violence and disorders Now for me or any others to give monies to maintain such deboist Bedlams and Beasts as these who boasted of their villanies and that they had done me at least twenty pounds spoil in Beer and Provisions drinking out five barrels of good strong Beer and wasting as much meat as would have served an hundred civil Persons to be Masters of our Houses Goods Servants Lives and all we have to ride over our heads like our Lords and Conquerors and take Free-quarter on us amounting to at least a full years contribution without any allowance for it and that since the last Orders against Free-quarter and Warrants issued for paying in this Tax to prevent it for the future is so far against my Reason Judgement and Conscience that I would rather give all away to suppresse discard them or cast it into the fire than maintain such gracelesse wretches with it to dishonour God enslave consume ruine the Country and Kingdom who every where complain of the like insolencies and of taking Free-quarter since the ninth of June as above two hundred of Colonel Cox his men did in Bath the last Lords day who drew up in a Body about the Maiors house and threatned to s●ise and carry him away for denying to give them Free-quarter contrary to the New Act for abolishing it Lastly This pr●tended Act implies that those who refuse to pay this contribution without distresse or imprisonment shall be still oppressed with Free-quarter And what an height of oppression and injustice this will prove not only to distrain and imprison those who cannot in Conscience Law or Prudence submit to this illegal Tax but likewise to undo them by exposing them to Free-quarter which themselves condemn as the highest pest and oppression let all sober men consider and what reason I and others have to oppose such a dangerous destructive president in its first appearing to the world In few words As long as we keep an Army on foot we must never expect to be exempted from Free-quarter or Wars or to enjoy any peace or settlement and as long as we will submit to pay contributions to support an Army we shall be certain our new Lords and Governors will continue an Army to over-awe and enslave us to their wils Therefore the only way to avoid free-quarter and the cost and trouble of an Army and settle peace is to deny all future contributions Ninthly The principal end of imposing this Tax to maintain the Army and Forces now raised is not the defence and safety of our ancient and first Christian Kingdom of England its Parliaments Laws Liberties and Religion as at first but to disinherit the King of the Crown of Engl. Sootl and Irel. to which he hath an undoubted Right by the Laws of God and Man as the Parliament of 1 Jacob ch. ● resolves and to levy War against him to deprive him of it To subvert the antient Monarchical Government of this Realm under which our Ancestors have alwaies lived and flourished to set up a New-Republick the oppressions and Grievances whereof we have already felt by increasing our Taxes setting up arbitrary Courts and Proceedings to the taking away the lives of the late King Peers and other Subjects against the fundamental Laws of the Land creating new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and the like but cannot yet enjoy and discern the least ease or advantage by it To overthrow the antient constitution of the Parliament of England consisting of King Lords and Commons and the Rights and Privileges thereof To alter the fundamental Laws Seals Courts of Justice of the Realm and introduce an Arbitrary Government at least if not Tyrannical contrary to our Laws Oaths Covenant Protestation a publick Remonstrances and Engagements to the Kingdom and forein States not to change the Government or attempt any of the Premises All which being no lesse than High Treason by the Laws Statutes of the Realm as Sir E. Cook in his * Inst. Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law upon passing the Bill of Attainder of the E. of Strafford both printed by the Commons special order have proved at large by many Presidents reasons records and so adjudged by the last Parliament in the Cases of Strafford and * Canterbury who were condemned and executed as Traytors by judgement of Parliament and some of those now sitting but for some of these Treasons upon obscurer Evidences of guilt than are now visible in others I cannot without incurring the Crime and Guilt of these several High Treasons and the eternal if not temporal punishments incident thereunto voluntarily contribute so much as one penny or farthing towards such Treasonable and disloyal ends as these against my Conscience Law Loyalty Duty and all my Oaths Covenants and Obligations to the contrary Tenthly The payment of this Tax for the premised purposes will in my poor judgement and conscience be offensive to God and all good men scandalous to the Protestant Religion dishonourable to our English Nation and disadvantagious and destructive to our whole Kingdom hindering the speedy settlement of our peace the re-establishment of our King Laws the revival of our decayed Trade by renewing and perpetuating our bloody uncivil Wars engaging Scotland Ireland with forein Princes and Kingdoms in a just War against us to avenge the death of our late beheaded King the dis-inheriting of his Posterity and to restore his lawfull Heirs and Successors to their just undoubted Rights from which they are now forcibly secluded who will undoubtedly molest us with continual Wars what-ever some may fondly

A Legal Vindication Of the Liberties of ENGLAND AGAINST ILLEGAL TAXES And pretended Acts of Parliament Lately enforced on the PEOPLE OR Reasons assigned by WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick in the County of Sommerset Esquire why he can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence submit to the New illegal Tax or Contribution of Ninety thousand pounds the Month Imposed on the Kingdom by a pretended Act of some commons in or rather out of Parliament April 7 1649. when this was first penned and printed nor to the One Hundred Thousand pound per Mensem newly laid upon England Scotland and Ireland Jan. 126. 1659. by a 〈◊〉 of the old Commons House secluding the whole House of Lords and Majority of their hellow Members by armed violence against all rules of Law and Parliament Presidents Esay 1. 7. He looked for Judgement but behold Oppression for Righteousnesse but behold a cry Psal. 12. 5. For the Oppression of the Poor for the sighing of the Needy new will I arise saith the Lord and will set him in safety from him that would ensnare him Exod. 6. 5. 6. I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Aegyptians keep in bandage and I have remembred my Covenant Wherefore say unto the children of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the Burdens of the Aegyptians and I will rid you out of their Bondage and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great Judgements Eccles. 4. 1 2. So I returned and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun and beh●ld the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and in the hand of their Oppressors there was power but they had no Comforter Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive The second Edition enlarged London printed for Edw. Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1660. ERRATA PAge 4. l. 33. to read by p. 8. l. 1. Seclusion l. 29. dele in l. 31. extended p. 41. l. 10. on p. 47. l. 2. only p. 54. l 18. and r. as p. 57. l. 4. it is p. 62. l. 4. obsta p. 71. l. 35. to p. 71. l. 1. resolved l. 8. and r. as p. 79. l. 15. and r. of Margin P. 9. l. 9. 12 r. 17. To the Ingenuous Reader THe Reasons originally inducing and in some sort necessitating me to compile and publish this Legal Vindication against Illegal Taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament imposed on the whole English Nation in the year 1649. by a small remnant of the Commons House sitting under an armed Force abjuring the King and House of Lords and unjustly secluding the Majority of their Fellow-Commoners against the very tenor of the Act of 17 Caroli c. 6. by which they pretended to sit the letter of the Writs by which they were elected and those Indentures by which they were returned Members the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance Protestation Solemn National League and Covenant which they all took as Members the very first Act of Parliament made and printed after their first sitting 16 Caroli c. 1. and many hundreds of Declarations Remonstrances Orders Ordinances Votes from Nov. 3. 1640. to Dec. 5. 1648. have constrained me now to reprint it with some necessary and usefull Additions in the year 1659. above ten years after its first Publication Those very Rumpers who on the 7th of April 1649. imposed a Tax of Ninety thousand Pounds the Month on England alone having on the 26. of January 1659. presumed to lay a new Tax of no lesse than One hundred thousand pounds the Month for six Months next ensuing on England Scotland and on Ireland too never taxed in former Ages by intire undubitable English Parliaments when as by their former Order they advanced and paid in before hand a heavy Tax illegally imposed on them by a Protectorian Conventicle during those very Months for which they are now taxed afresh far higher than before though totally exhausted with former incessant Taxes Free-quarter Militia expences Imposts of all sorts and utterly undone for want of Trade and all to keep them in perpetual Bondage under armed Gards and Iron yoaks under pretext of making them a New Free-State and Common-wealth of the Jesuites projection perpetually to subvert our antient hereditary Monarchy Kingdom and true old English * Common-wealth under which we formerly lived and flourished with greater freedom splendor honour peace safety unity and prosperity than we can ever expect under any new Form of Government or Utopian Republick whatsoever our whimsical Innovators can erect When our Parliaments under our antient and late Kings granted any Aydes Subsidies Imposts to supply the publick Necessities as they were alwaies moderate and temporary not exceeding the present Necessities and the Peoples abilities to pay them so they ever received some Acts of Grace and Retribution from our Kings and New Confirmations of their Great Charters and Fundamental Laws and Liberties recorded in our Parliament Rolls and Statutes at large But our New Republicans worse than the old Aegyptian Pharoes and Tax-Masters double our Bricks Taxes yet deny us straw and materials to make or defray them redressing none of all our publick Grievances nor easing us of any unjust burthens or oppressions whatsoever nor indulging any Graces or Favours to us nor yet so much as preserving or confirming our old Grand Charte●s Fundamental Laws Statutes for the preservation of our Lives Liberties Properties Franchises Freeholds but violating them all in a far highe and more presumptuous degree than Strafford Canterbury the Shipmony Judges or any of our Kings whom they brand for Tyrants and that after all our late wars and contests for their defence Upon which account I held it my bounden duty to enlarge and reprint this Vinaication nor out of any Factious or Seditions design but from the impulse of a true Heroick English publike spirit and Zeal to defend my Native Countries undubitable Hereditary Rights against all arbitrary Tyrannical Usurpations and Impostors whatsoever though arrogating to themselves the Title and power of The Parl. of England when their own Judgements Consciences as well as all our antient Statutes Parliament Rolls Laws Judges Law-Books and Treatises of English Parliaments resolve them to be no Parliament at all but an * Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle If I now lose my life as I have formerly done my Liberty Calling and Estate for this publike cause I shall repu●e it the greatest earthly Honour and 〈◊〉 to dye a Ma●●●● for my dying Country to redeem her lost Liberti●s with the losse of my momentary life which will be more i●ksome to me than the 〈◊〉 Death if protracted only to behold those ruines and desolations which some Grandees Tyrannies and Bedlam exorbitances are like speedily to bring upon her unlesse God himself by his Miraculous Provi●●n●●s reflrain their Fury abate their Power and confound their Destructive Des●gns beyond all

without the Commons vote because a Peer of the Realm the practice of expelling Commons by their fellow Commons only being * a late dangerous unparliamentary usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructiue to the Privileges and Freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities Boroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons it selfbeing no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or final Sentence and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members than any * Judges Justices of the peace or Committees have to disjudge dis-Justice or discommittee their fellow-Judges Justices or Committee-men being all of equal authority and made Members only by the Kings Writ and peoples Election not by the Houses or other Members Votes who yet now presume both to make and unmake seclude and recall expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages to patch up a factious Conventicle instead of an English Parliament Therefore this Objection no waies invalids this first Reason why I neither can nor dare submit to this illegal Tax in conscience law or prudence which engage me to oppose it in all these Respects If any Object That true it is the Parliament by the common Law and Custom of the Realm determines by the Kings death but by the Statute of 17 Caroli c. 6. which enacts That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose continues the Parliament still in being notwithstanding the Kings beheading since no Act of Parliament is passed for its dissolution The only pretext for to support this continuance of the Parliament since the Kings violent death To this I answer That it is a Maxime in Law That every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it and the mischiefs is intended only to prevent as is resolved in 4 Edw. 4. 12. 12 Edw. 4. 18. 1 H. 7. 12 13. Plowd Com. fol. 369. and Cooks 4. Instit. p. 329 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act and the end of enacting it was not to prevent the dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death no wayes intimated nor insinuated in any clause thereof being a clear unavoidable dissolution of it to all intents not provided for by this Law but by any Writ or Proclamation of the King by his Regal power without consent of both Houses which I shall manifest by these Reasons First From the principal occasion of making this Act. The King as the COMMONS in their * Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom 15 Decemb. 1641 complain had dissolved all former Parliaments during his Reign without and against both Houses approbation to their great discontent and the Kingdoms prejudice as his Father King James had dissolved others in his Reign and during their continuance adjourned and prorogued them at their pleasure Now the fear of preventing of the like dissolution prorogation or adjournment of this Parliament after the Scotish Armies disbanding before the things mentioned in the Preamble were effected by the Kings absolute power was the only ground and occasion of this Law not any fear or thoughts of its dissolution by the Kings untimely death then not so much as imagined being before the Wars or Irish Rebellion brake forth the King very healthy not antient and likely then to survive this Parliament and many others in both Houses judgement as appears by the Bill for triennial Parliaments This undenyable Truth is expresly declared by the Commons themselves in their foresaid Remonstrance Exact Collection p. 5 6 14 17. compared together where in direct terms they affirm The abrupt dissolution of this Parliament is prevented by another Bill by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament there seems to be some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion only which was so necessarie for the Kings own security and the publick peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to blood and rapine In which passages we have a clear resolution of the Commons themselves immediately after the passing of this Act that its scope and intention was only to provide against the Kings abrupt dissolution of the Parliament by his mere royal power in suspending the execution of it for this time and occasion only and that for the Kings own security not his Heirs and Successors as well as his peoples peace and safety Therefore not against any dissolution of it by his natural much lesse his violent death which can no waies be interpreted an Act of his Royal power which they then intended hereby not to take out of the Crown but only to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion and that for his security but a natural impotency or unnatural disloyalty which not only suspends the Kings power for a time but utterly destroys and takes away him and it without hopes of revival for ever Secondly the very title of this Act An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the UNTIMELY adjourning proroguing or DISSOLUTION of this present Parliament intimates as much compared with the body of it which provides as well against the adjourning and proroguing of both or either Houses without an Act of Parliament as against the dissolution of the Parliament without an Act. Now the Parliament cannot possibly be said to be adjourned or prorogued in any way or sense much lesse untimely merely by the Kings death which never adjourned or prorogued any Parliament but only by his Proclamation writ or royal command to the Houses or their Speakers executed during his life as all our Journals ¶ Parliaments Rolls and * Lawbooks resolve though it may be dissolved by his death as well as by his Proclamation Writ or royal command And therefore this title and Act coupling adjourning proroguing and dissolving this Parliament together without consent of both Houses by Act of Parliament intended only a Dissolution of this Parliament by such Prerogative waies and means by which Parliaments had been untimely adjourned and prorogued as well as dissolved by the Kings mere will without their assents not of a dissolution of it by the Kings death which never adjourned nor prorogued anie Parliament nor dissolved any formerly sitting Parliament in this Kings reign or his Ancestors since the death of King Hen the 4th and King James the only Parliaments we read of dissolved by death of the King since the Conquest and so a mischief not intended nor remedied by this Act Thirdly The prologue of the Act implies as much Whereas great sums

offensive and defensive war against the King and Kingship but to oppose the Kings interest and Title to that Kingdom * setled on Him his Heirs and Successors for ever by an express Act of Parliament made in Ireland 23 H. 8. c. 1. and by the Statute of 1 Jac. c. 1. made in England yet unrepealed and the Protestant remaining party there adhering to and proclaiming acknowledging him for their Soveraign lest his gaining of Ireland should prove fatal to their usurped Soveraigntie in England or conduce to his enthroning here And by what Authority those now sitting can impose or with what Conscience any loyal Subject who hath taken the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Covenant can voluntarily pay any Contributions to deprive the King of his hereditary right and undoubted Title to the Kingdoms and Crowns of England and Ireland and alter the frame of the antient Government and Parliaments of our Kingdoms * Remonstrated so often against by both Houses and adjudged High Treason in Canterburies and Straffirds cases for which they were beheaded and by themselves in the Kings own case whom they decolled likewise without incurring the guilt of perjury and danger of high Treason to the loss of his life and estate by the very laws and Statutes yet in force transcends my understanding to conceive Wherefore I neither can nor dare in conscience law or prudence submit to this Contribution The 3d. end of this Tax and more particularly of this new Tax of Jan 26. 1659. of one hundred thousand pound the Month for 6 months space after a former Tax levied before hand for the self-same Months is the maintenance of the Armies and Navyes raised and continued for the defence of the twice dissipated Anti-Parliamentarie Conventicle and their Utopian Common-wealth and the necessary and urgent occasions thereof now propounded and insisted on by the sitting Members as the only means of Peace and Settlement both in Church and State when as in truth it hath been is and will be the onlie means of Unsettlement and new divisions wars oppressions confusions in both to their utter ruine and desolation if pursued Which I shall evidence beyond contradiction 1. This project to metamorphoze our antient Hereditary famous flourishing Kingdom into an Helvetian and Vtopian Common-wealth by popular Tumults Rebellion and a prevalent party in Parliament was originally contrived by Father Parsons and other Jesuites in Spain in the year of our Lord 1590. recommended by them to the King of Spain to pursue and was principally to be effected by Jesuites to destroy and subvert our Protestant Monarchs Kingdoms and subject them to the Tyranny and Vassallage of the Jesuites and Spaniards as you may read at large in William Watson his Quodlibets printed 1602. p. 92 94 25 286 389 310 330 332 333 334 322 323 in his Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman printed at Rhemes 1601. and in William Clarke both Secular Priests his Answer to Father Parsons Libel p. 75 76 c. 2ly After this it was particularly and by name recommended by Thomas Campanella an Italian Monk and Arch-Machivilian to the King of Spain in the year 1600. as the principal means to sow the seeds of Divisions and Dissentions amongst the English themselves and to engage England Scotland and Ireland in inextricable wars against each other to divert the English from the Indies and his Plate Fleet and reduce them under his universal Temporal and the Popes Spiritual Monarchy at last as you may read at large in his Book De Monarchia Hispanica c. 25. now translated into English 3ly It was again set on foot and vigorously prosecuted by the Jesuites and Cardinal Richelien of France in the years 1639 1640. as you may read in my Romes Master-piece and Epistle to A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication c. of the good old fundamental Liberties Laws c. of all English Freemen printed 1655. And specially recommended to the French King and Cardinal Mazarin his Successor at his death Anno 1642. vigorously to pursue and accomplish by the Civil Wars raised between Scotland and England and the late King and Parliament as a Historia Conte de Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato part 3. Venotiis 1648. p. 175 176. and was accordingly prosecuted by the Spanish and French Agents and the Jesuites and Popish Priests and their seduced Proselytes of the Juncto and Army as I evidenced at large in my Speech Dee 4. 1648. and the Appendix to it my soresaid Epistle and True and Perfect Narrative May 1659. by evidences past all contradiction 4ly It is evident That the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists in England Scotland and Ireland with all the b Sectarian Party of Anabaptists Quakers Enthisiasts and Sectaries of all sorts headed by disguised Jesuites Monks Fryers and Popish Priests have been the chiefest Sticklers of all others for this New projected Commonwealth against the King and Monarchy and the only means to extirpate our established Protestant Ministry with their Maintenance Tithes Glebes and embroyl us in endless confusions and revolutions of Governments Wars Distractions till we be beggered destroyed and made a prey to our forein Enemies 5ly The King of Spain was the first of all forein Kings and States who owned cou●ted and ent●ed into a League of Amity with our new Common-wealth after the Kings beheading as a Creature of his own in opposition to our King and Kingship and engaged us in a war against the Dutch to make himself Monarch over us both according to Campanella his advice De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25 27. which our Republicans punctuallie pursued from 1649 till 1653. almost to the ruine of us both by the Spaniards Gold and policie 6ly That the French Cardinal Mazarin and other Popish Kings and States complyed and confederated with our Republicans and late Protectors in opposition to our Hereditary Protestant King and Kingship purposely to ruine us and our Religion at home and the Protestant Churches abroad engaged by their policies in unchristian wars against each other 7ly That we have all visibly seen and sensibly felt by twelve years wofull experiment that this Jesuitical project and chymera of a Free-state and Common-wealth was propounded by the c Army-Officers and the sitting Juncto as the only means of our present and future peace and settlement both in Nov. 1647 1648 1649. and yet it hath proved as I then predicted in my Speech and Memento a perpetual Seminarie of new Wars Tumults Combustions Changes Revolutions of Government and Governours Anti-parliamentarie Conventicles Factions Schisms Sects Heresies Confusions and endlesse Taxes Oppressions Ataxies ever since both in Church State Court and Camp almost to our inevitable destruction and of necessity it will and must do so still And is it not then a worse than Bedlam follie and frenzie for our Anti-parliamentarie Juncto Swordmen and Republicans to enforce and impose it on us by mere armed violence against our Judgements Reasons Consciences Experiments and

Gen. Monk by a Vote of their Council of State at Whitehall afterwards ratisied by a Vote at Westminster when executed the 9. of this instant February to march with all his Forces into the City of London to seize and imprison 2. of their Aldermen and sundry of their Common-Council men in the Tower to pull down and destroy the Gates and Portcullesses of the City To discontinue null and void the Common-Council of the City of London for this year by ordering a Bill for the choice of another Common-Council with such Qualifications as the Juncto shall think fit which was accordingly executed and then ratified and approved by their Votes and by commanding him afterwards to demand the City Arms to disarm them by force if they deliver them not upon demands s and all because the Common-Council upon a Petition of the Citizens and Remonstrance of the Gentlemen Ministers and Freeholders of Warwickshire and other Counties Febr. 8. voted and resolved That no Person or Persons whatsoever might impose any Laws or Taxes upon the City and Citizens untill the Authority thereof be derived from their Representatives in a full and free Parliament And all this without and before the least hearing or examination of the City and Common-Council a Tyranny Indignity Dishonour and Ingratitude not to be paralleld and never offered in any age to the City and Citizens before by any of our Kings for the highest Treasons against them at least before hearing and convicti●● much lesse only for demanding and claiming the benefit of those Fundamental Laws and Privileges for whose defence they had so lately expended so many Millions of Treasure and Thousands of their lives to defend them according to these their fresh Declarations and Acts encouraging them thereunto and that after all their former Obligations and Indearments to the City upon all occasions and the beheaded Kings free Confirmation of all their former Charters Liberties Privileges Militia and enlargements of the same at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight notwithstanding their taking up Armes against him in the Parliaments defence may now justly irritate and engage the City of London and all other Cities Boroughs Corporations and Counties of this Realm unanimously to oppose the present and all other Taxes and Excises whatsoever imposed on them by these Oppressors and put their own Act in vigorous execution against them as the worst of Tyrants and Invaders of their Liberties Thirdly Both Houses of Parliament joyntly and the House of Commons severally in the late Parliament with the approbation of all and consent of most now sitting did in sundry ¶ Romonstrances and Declarations published to the Kingdom not only Tax the King and his evil Counsellors for imposing illegal Taxes on the Subjects contrary to the forecited Acts the maintenance whereof against all future violations and invasions of the Peoples Liberties and Properties they made one principal ground of our late bloody expensive war but likewise professed * That they were specially chosen and intrusted by the Kingdom in Parliament and owned it as their duty to hazzard their own lives and estates for preservation of those Laws and Liberties and use their best endeavours that the meanest of the Commonalty MIGHT ENJOY THEM AS THEIR BIRTH-RIGHTS as well as the greatest Subject That every honest man especially those who have taken the late Protestation and Solemn League and Covenant since is bound to defend the Laws and Liberties of the kingdom against Will and Power which imposed what payments they thought fit to drain the Subjects Purses and supply those Necessities which their ill Counsel had brought upon the King and Kingdom And that they would be ready to live and dye with those worthy and true-hearted Patriots of the Gentry of this Nation and others who were ready to lay down their lives and fortunes for the maintenance of their Laws and Liberties with many such like expressions Which must needs engage me a Member of that Parliament and Patriot of my Country with all my strength and power to oppose this injurious Tax imposed out of Parliament though with the hazard of my life and fortunes wherein all those late secluded Lords and Members who have joyned in these Remonstrances are engaged by them to second me under pain of being adjudged unworthy for ever hereafter to sit in any Parliament or to be trusted by their Counties and those for whom they served And so much the rather to vindicate the late Houses honour and reputation from those predictions and printed aspersions of the beheaded King now verified as undeniable experimented truths by the Antiparliamentary sitting Juncto * That the maintenance of the Laws Liberties Properties of the People were but only gilded Dissimulations and specious pretences to get power into their own hands thereby to enable them to destroy and subvert both Laws Liberties and Properties at last and not any thing like them to introduce Anarchy Democracy Parity Tyranny in the Highest degree and new forms of arbitrary Government and leave neither King nor Gentleman all which the people should too late discover to their costs and that they had obtained nothing by adhering to and complyance with them but to enslave and undo themselves and to be at last destroyed Which royal Predictions many complain and all experimentally ●ind too trulie verified by those who now bear rule under the Nam● and visour of the Parliament of England since its dissolution by the Kings decapitation and the Armies imprisoning and seclusion of the Members and Lords who above all others are obliged to disprove them by their Actions as well as Declarations to the people who regard not words but real performances from these new Keepers of their Liberties especially in this FIRST YEAR OF ENGLANDS FREEDOM engraven on all their publick Seals which else will but seal their Selfdamnation and proclaim them the Archest Impostors under Heaven and now again in their 3. Session after their two sodain and forcible Dissolutions Secondly Should I voluntarily submit to pay this Tax and that by vertue of an Act of Parliament made by those now sitting some of whose Elections have been voted void others of them elected by new illegal Writs under a new kind of Seal without the Kings Authority Stile or Seal and that since the Kings beheading as the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Howard uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common-law or Custom of Parliament being Peers of the Realm if now worthy such a Title as was adjudged long since in the Lord Camoyes case Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. m. 32. asserted by Mr. Selden in his Titles of Honor part 2. c. 5. p. 737. seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4. Institut p. 1 4 5 46 47 49. and I have proved at large in my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers As I should admit these to be lawfull Members and their unlawfull void Writs to be good in Law so should I tacitly admit ex

all futur● Parliaments imprisoning abusing arraigning condemning and executing our late King against the Votes Faith and Engagements of both Houses and dis-inheriting His posterity usurping the Regal Parliamental Magistratical and Ecclesiastical power of the Kingdom to their General-Council of Officers of the Army and Anti-Parliamentary Conventicles as the supreme swaying Authority of the Kingdom and attempting to alter and subvert the antient Government Parliaments Laws and Customs of our Realms And upon serious consideration of the ordinary unsufferable Assertions of their Officers and Souldiers uttered in most places where they Quarter and to my self in particular sundry times * That the whole Kingdom with all our Lands Houses Goods and whatsoever we have is theirs and that by right of Conquest they having twice conquered the Kingdom That we are but their conquered Slaves and Vassals and they the Lords and Heads of the Kingdom That our very lives are at their mercy and courtesie That when they have gotten all we have from us by Taxes and Free-quarter and we have nothing left to pay them then themselves will seize upon our Lands as their own and turn us and our Families out of doors That there is now no Law in England nor never was if we believe their lying Oracle Peters but the Sword with many such like vapouring Speeches and discourses of which there are thousands of witnesses I can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence assent unto much lesse contribute in the least degree for their present maintenance or future continuance thus to insult inslave and tyrannize over King Kingdom Parliament People at their pleasure like their conquered Vassals And for me in particular to contribute to the maintenance of those who against the Law of the Land the privileges of Parliament and liberty of the Subject pulled me forcibly from the Commons House and kept me Prisoner about 2. months space under their Martial to my great expence and prejudice and since that close Prisoner near 3. whole years in Dunster Taunton and Pendennis Castles and thrice forcibly excluded me and other Members out of the House May 7. and 9. and Decemb. 27. 1659. without any particular cause pretended or assigned only for discharging my duty to the Kingdom and those for whom I served in the House without giving me the least reparation for this unparallel'd injustice or acknowledging their offence and yet detain some of my then fellow-Members under custody by the meer power of the Sword without bringing them to Trial would be not ●●ly absurd unreasonable and a tacit justification of this h●rrid violence and breath of Privilege but monstrous unnatural perfidious against my Oath and Covenant 2. No Tax ought to be imposed on the Kingdom in Parliament it self but in case of necessity for the common good and defence thereof against forein Enemies or Domestique Traytors and Rebels as is clear by the Stat. of 25 E. 1. c. 6. all Acts for Taxes Subsidi●s Tenths Aydes Tonnage and Poundage Cooks 2 Instit. p. 528. Now it is evident to me that there is no necessity of keeping up this Army for the Kingdoms common Good but rather a necessity of disbanding it or the greatest part of it for these reasons 1. Because the whole Kingdom with Scotland and Ireland are generally exhausted by the late 18. years Wars Plunders and heavy Taxes there being more monies levyed on it by both sides during these 18. last years than in all the Kings Reigns since the Conquest as will appear upon a just computation all Counties being thereby utterly unable to pay it 2. In regard of the great decay of Trade the extraordinary dearth of cattel corn and provisions of all sorts the charge of relieving a multitude of poor people who starve with famine in many places the richer sort eaten out by Taxes and Free-quarter being utterly unable to relieve them To which I might adde the multitude of maimed Souldiers with the widows and children of those who have lost their lives in the Wars which is very costly 3. The heavie Contributions to support the Army which destroy all Trade by fore-stalling engrossing most of the Monies of the Kingdoms and enhancing their prices keeping many thousands of able men and horses idle only like moths and locusts to consume other labouring mens provisions estates and the publick Treasure of the Kingdoms when as their employment in their Trades and Callings might much advance trading and enrich the Kingdoms 4. There is now no visible Enemy in the field or elsewhere and the fitting Members boast there is no fear from any abroad their Navie being so Victorious And why such a vast Army should be still continued in the Kingdom to increase its debts and payments when charged with so many great Arrears and Debts already to eat up the Count●y with Taxes and Free-quarter only to play drink whore steal rob murther quarrel fight with impeach and shoot one another to death as Traytors Rebels and Enemies to the Kingdom and Peoples Liberties as of late the Levellers and Cromwellists did when this was written and the Lambardists and Rumpists since for want of other imployments and this for the publick Good transcends my understanding 5. When the King had two great Armies in the Field and many Garrisons in the Kingdom this whole Army by its primitive Establishment consisted but of twenty two thousand Horse Dragoons and Foot and had an Establishment only of about Fortie five thousand pounds a month for their pay which both Houses then thought sufficient as is evident by their o Ordinances of Febr. 15. 1644. and April 4 1646. And when the Army was much increased without their Order sixty thousand pounds a month was thought abundantly sufficient by the Officers and Army themselves to disband and reduce all super-numeraries maintain the Established Army and Garrisons and ease the Country of all Free-quarter which Tax hath been constantly pain in all Counties Why then this Tax to the Army should now be raised above the first Establishment when reduced to twenty thousand whereof sundry Regiments are designed for Ireland for which there is thirty thousand pounds a month now enacted beside the sixty for the Army and this for the common good of the Realm and that the Taxes since should be mounted to 120. thousand pounds each month and now again to one hundred thousand pounds for those 6. months for which they have paid in 35. thousand pounds 9. months since before hand only to murther our Protestant Brethren and Allies of Scotland and Holland destroy and oppresse each other and keep up an Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle of Tyrants and Vsurpers to undo enslave and ruine our Kingdoms Parliaments and their Privileges against all their former Oaths Protestations Declarations Covenants is a riddle unto me on rather a Mystery of Iniquity for some mens private ●●●re 〈…〉 than the publick weal 6. The Militias of every County for which there was so great contest in Parliament with the late King and

compel us to maintain Armies and Navies by this New insupportable Tax to set up this Romish Babel which hath been is and will be the most certain Remora and Obstacle of our Peace and Settlement and most apparent Jesuitical Romish Spanish Engin to create more and greater Confusions Distractions than before and effect our inevitable destruction both as men and Protestants 8ly That this pretence of erecting a Common-wealth was first pretended by Cromwell and carried on with specious pretexts to blind the credulous people onlie to make way for his own tyrannical and ambitious usurpation of a more than Regal and Monarchical power over our Kingdoms and settle it on himself and his posteritie in conclusion which he effected by degrees And what intelligent person discerns not the self-same design now couched under it in other ambitious Grandees now in power most eagerly crying up a Free-state and Common-wealth upon the same account 9ly The Anti-parliamentary Unchristian Atheistical if not Diabolical means by which this Utopian Republick was at first endeavoured to be erected established and now again re-edified must needs draw down the full vials of Gods wrath and furie upon it and all its Projectors and our 3. Nations too if they voluntarily submit unto it It was first ushered in by ambitious treacherous perjurious rebellious Army-Officers seduced by Romish Emissaries and their Confederates in the Commons House forcibly secluding securring and ejecting the Majoritie of their Fellow-Members 4. parts of 5. at least only for their Vote to proceed to settle the peace of the Kingdom upon the Kings Concessions after 7. years intestine wars By the close imprisonment of sundry of them in remote Castles for divers years without examination hearing or cause expressed by their suppressing voting down the whole House of Lords without hearing or impeachment over whom they had no Jurisdiction by murdering their Protestant King in a strange Court of Highest injustice by exiling and disinheriting his royal Issue and right Heir to the Crown to make way for their own Usurpation of Soveraign Power by subverting the fundamental Government of the Kingdom and the constitution rights privileges of English Scotish Irish Parliaments and their Members by seising upon disposing and dissipating all the Crown Lands Revenues Customs Forts Forces Navies of our three Kingdoms by imprisoning disinheriting sequest●ing exiling destroying murdering manie thousands of their Protestant Brethren and Allyes of England Scotland Ireland Holland merely for their Loyalty and Allegianee by keeping a perpetual Army to over-awe our 3. Nations as conquered Vassals bond-slaves and governing them by armed lust tyrannie militarie Committees High Courts of Justice Major Generals and fleying off their verie Skins by giving a boundlesse libertie to all Religions Sects Heresies Blasphemies Jusque datum se●leri c. against all laws of God and Man the fundamental Laws Statutes Liberties Franchises of the Realm the Oaths of Homage Fealty Supremacy Allegiance the Protestations Vows Solemn League and Covenant they had frequently taken themselves and prescribed to others yea against many hundreds of Votes Orders Ordinances Acts Declarations Remonstrances they had successively made and published to the World and all sorts of civil and sacred Obligations to God their King Country the Trusts reposed in them by their Indentures and Commissions as Members or Souldiers by exercising a more lawlesse Tyranny and boundlesse Military power than the worst of all our Kings in any age exacting vaster sums of mony srō the exhausted people in lesse than 10. years space than all our Kings since the Norman Conquest And it now carried on again after so many sodain strange admirable demonstrations of Gods indignation against our new Babel-Builders and their Posterities by his various and successive Providences beyond all human apprehensions by the self-same violent exorbitant unrighteous courses unbeseeming Englishmen or Christians and now by re-excluding and ejecting all the old secured and secluded Members by armed force and injurious Votes without accusation hearing crime or impeachment against all rules of Law Justice and Parliamentarie Presidents and of the whole House of Lords against the expresse Letter of the Act by which they pretend to fit By bidding open defiance to the Addresses and Desires of the generality of the Nobility Gentry Ministry Freeholders Commoners Citizens Burgesses of most Counties Cities and Boroughs of England declaring for a Free-Parliament or restitution of all the Secluded Members by imprisoning some * Gentlemen Souldiers of Quality for delivering such Addresses to their Speaker by putting far higher affronts and force upon the City and Common-Council of London after all their former Obligations to them than ever they received from the worst of our Kings in any age before the least hearing or legal conviction of them as Delinquents by moving in the House That all who have declared or made Addresses for a Free Parliament shall be disabled to elect or be elected Members By taking away the peoples freedoms of Election by prescribing new illegal Qualifications against * all Laws and Statutes concerning Elections and all forms of antient Writs both for the persons electing and to be elected to recruit their empty House of which themselves alone not the people will be the only Judges before they shall be admitted when chosen whereby they will like Cromwell and his Council of State keep out any the people shall elect that is not of their confederacy and admit none but when and whom they please to perpetuate the Parliamentary Power and all places of Trust and Gain in themselves and their Creatures And because few or none but Novices shall sit amongst them in Parliamentarie affairs whom they can easily over-reach and rule at their pleasure being Strangers to each other and Parliament proceedings they have voted out all the old Secluded Members though twice their number and disabled them to be new elected or if elected to be re-admitted unless they will fully submit to the Test of their new * Qualifications and Engagements Which will re-seclude all or most of them if elected and prove fatal to the Peoples freedom in their Elections and to all Parliaments and Members in succeeding Ages if submitted to For if a combined Majority of the Commons House who have violated all their primitive Oaths Trusts Protestations Covenants Remonstrances Declarations and so * disabled and disfranchised themselves from sitting any more as Members or the peoples Trustees may without any new election at all by the people after their renuntiation and nulling of their first elections by destroying and engaging against that Regal power by which they were first elected and sitting only by power of the Sword without any Qualifications prescribed to themselves which they impose on others and would seclude most of them from being Electors or Elected Members having gotten forcible possession of the Commons House by armed Tyranny and Usurpation after so many Declarations and bloody wars for the defence of the Privileges Rights and Members

judice to all intents with all Bills Decrees and Proceedings in Chancery or the Rolls and all Judges Justices Sheriffs now acting and Lawyers practising before them in apparent danger of High-treason both against King and Kingdom they neither taking the Oaths of Judges Supremacy or Allegiance as they ought by Law but only to be true and faithful to the new erected State without a King but likewise all votes and proceedings before the pretended House or any of their Committees o●sub-Committees in the Country with all their Grants and Offices Moneys Salaries Sequestrations Sales of Lands or Goods Compositions c. meer Nullities and illegal acts and the proceedings of all active Commissioners Assessors Collectors Treasurers c. and all other Officers imployed to levy and to collect this illegal tax to support that usurped Parliamentary Authority and Army which hath beheaded the late King dis-inherited his undoubted Heir levyed war against and dissolved the late Houses of Parliament subverted the ancient Government of this Realm the constitution and Liberties of our Parliaments the Lawes of the Kingdome with the Liberty and property of the people of England no less than High-treason in all these respects as is fully proved by Sir Edward Cook in his 3 Institutes ch. 1. 2. and by Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law at the attainder of the Earl of Strafford and Declaration and Speech against the ship-mony Judges published by the late Commons House order which I desire all who are thus imployed to consider especially such Commissioners who take upon them to administer a new unlawful Ex-officio Oath to any to survey their Neighbours and their own estates in every parish and return the true values thereof to them upon the new proun'd rate for the 3 last months contribution to fine those who refuse to do it a meer diabolical invention to multiply perjuries to damn mens souls invented by Cardinal Woolsey much enveighed against by Father Latimer in his sermons condemned by the express words of the Petition of Right providing against such Oathes and a snare to enthral the wealtheir sort of people by discovering their estates to subject them to what future taxes they think fit when as the whole House of Commons in no age had any power to administer any Oath in any case whatsoever much lesse then to confer any authority on others to give such illegal Oathes and fine those who refuse them the highest kind of Arbitrary Tyrany both over mens Consciences Properties Liberties to which those who voluntarily submit deserve not only the name of Traytors to their Country but to be m m Exod. 21. 5. 6. boared through the ear and they and their posterities to be made Slaves for ever to these new Tax-masters and their successors and those who are any ways active in imposing or administring such Oaths yea treasonable Oaths of the highest degree abjuring and engaging against King Kingship Kingdome and House of Lords and that with constancy and perseverance against their former Oathes of Homage Fealty Supremacy and Allegiance the Protestation Vow Solemn League and National Covenant the most detestable Perjury and High treason that ever mortal men were guilty of or assistant in imposing assessing collecting and levying illegal taxes by distresse or otherwise may and will undoubtedly smart for it at last not onely by Actions of trespasse false imprisonment Accompt c. brought against them at the Common Law when there will be no Committee of Indempnity to protect them from such suits but likewise by Indictments of High treason to the deserved losse of their Estates Lives and Ruine of their families and that by the Junctoes own Votes and Declaration Octob. 11. 1659. when there will be no Parliament of purged Commoners nor Army to secure nor legal plea to acquit them from the guilt and punishment of Traytors both to their King and Country pretended present forbid fear of imprisonment loss of Liberty Friends Estate Life or the like being no n n See 1. H. 4. Rot. Par. n. 97. excuse in such a case and time as this but an higher aggravation of their crime nor yet to exempt them from Hell it self and everlasting Torments in it for their Perjuries Treasons Oppressions Rebellions and actings against their Consciences out of fear of poor inconsiderable mortals who can but kill the body at most nor yet do that but by Gods permission contrary to the express commands of God himself Ps. 3. 6. Ps. 27. 1. Ps. 56. 11. Ps. 112. 7 8. Isa. 44. 8. c. 51. 7. 12. ler. 1. 8. Ezek. 2. 6. 12. 4. 5. Mat. 10. 28. 1. Pet. 3. 4. Heb. 13. 6. the o o Rev. 21. 8. FEARFUL being the first in that dismal list of Malefactors who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death even by Christs own sentence JOHN 18. 34. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnesse unto the truth FINIS * See Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliae and Sir Thomas Smith De Republica Anglicana 16 Car. c. 1. See Rastal Title Taxes Tallages The Acts for Subsidies of the Clergy and Temporalty * See My Memento to the p●esent Un-Parliamentary Juncto Prynne the Member reconciled to Prynne the Barreste● and True and perfect Narrative May 7. 9. 1659. a See my Humble Remonstrance against Ship-money Jan. 26. 1659. b See 1 E. ● cap. 7. Cook 7. Report 30 31. Dyer 165. 4 Ed. 4. 43 44 1 E. 5. 1 Book Commission 10 21. c Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts fol. 1. Cook 4. Instit. c. 1. d 5 E. 3. m. 6. part 2. Dors. Claus. Regist. f. 192. 200. e 4 Ed. 4. 44. 1 E. 5. 1. Brook Commissions 19. 21. Officer 25. Dyer 165. Cook 7. Report 30. 31. 1 E. 6. c. 7. Daltons Justice of Peace c. 3. p. 13 Lambert p. 71. * See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers f 14 R. 2. n. 15. 11 H 4. n. 30. 13 H. 4. n. 25. g 4 H. 7. 18. b. 7 H. 7. 27. Fortescue c. 18. f 20 Dyer 92. B●ook Parliament 76 197. Cooks 4. Institut p. 25. h See the Freeholders grand Inquest My Plea for the Lords The 1 and 2 Part of my Register of Parliamentary Writs and exact Ab. idgement of the Records in ●●e Tower my Historical Collection part 1 2. c. 3. See my Speech Dec. 4. 1648. and a full Declation of the true state of the Case of the Secluded Members i i Cooks 4. Institutes p. 1. 5 R. 2. Stat. 2. c. 4. * Populi Minor pars Populum non obigit Grotius de Jure Belli l. 2. c. 15. sect. 3. Alexander ab Alexandro Gen. dierum l. 4. c. 11. a Declarat Nov. 28. 30. 1648. l 39. Ed. 3. 7. 4. H. 7. 10. Brook Parl. 26. 40. Cook 4. Instit. p. 1. 25 26. 1 Jac. cap. 1. m Claus. 23. E. 1.