your intention to subvert the fundemental Laws of the Land for the great Bulwarks of the peoples Liberty is the Parliament of England and to subvert and root up that which your aim hath been to do would certainly at one blow have confounded the Liberties and the properties of England Truly Sir It makes me call to minde I cannot forbeare to express it for Sir we must deal plainly with you according to the merits of your Cause for so is our commission It makes me I say to call to minde what I have read of a great Romane Emperor a great Roman tyrant may I call him Caligula by name who wished that the people of Rome had but one Neck that at one blow he might cut it off Your proceedings have been something like to this the people of England have been are no where else to be represented but in Parliament and could you have but confounded that you had at one blow cut off the neck of England But God hath reserved better things for us and hath been pleased to breake your Forces and to overthrow your designes and to bring your person in to custody that you might be answerable unto Justice Sir we know very well that it is a question which hath been much pressed by your side By what Presidents we shall proceed Truly Sir for Presidents I shall not at this present make any long discourse on that subject howsoever I shall acquaint them that it is no new thing to cite Presidents almost out of all Nations where the people when power hath been in their hands have not sticked to call their Kings to an account and where a change of Government hath ensued upon the occasion of the Tyranny and misgovernment of those that have been placed over the people I will not waste time to mention France or Spain or the Empire of Germany or any other Countrey Volumnes may be written of it But truey Sir that President of the Kingdom of Arragon hath by some of us been thought upon The Justice of Arragon is as a man tanquam in medio positus it is placed between the people of that Countrey and the King of Spain so that if wrong be done by the King of Arragon the Justice of Arragon hath power to reform that wrong and he is acknowledged the Kings Superiour and bring the grand prisoner of the Priviledges and Liberties of the people he hath prosecuted against the Kings for their misgovernment Sir What the Tribunes were heretofore to Rome and what the Ephori were to the State of Lacedemon we sufficiently know they were as the Parliament of England to the English State and though Rome seemed to have lost her Liberty when once the Emperours were constituted yet you shall find some exemplary Acts of Justice even done by the Senate of Rome on the great Tyrant of his time Nero who was by them condemned and adjudged unto death But why Sir should I make mention of these Forreign Histories and Examples unto you If we shall look but over the Tweed we shall finde Examples enough in your Native Kingdom of Scotland If we look on your first King Forgusius he was an elective King he died and left two Sons both in their minority The elder brother afterwards giving small hopes to the people that he would govern them well so because he endeavoured to have supplanted his Uncle who was chosen by the people to govern them in his minority he was rejected by the people for it and the younger Brother was chosen c. Sir I will not take upon me to express what your Histories do at large declare you know very well that you are the hundred and nineth King of Scotland to mention all the Kings which the people of that Kingdome according to their power and Priviledge have made bold to deal withall either to banish imprison or put to death would be too long a story for this time and place Reges say your own Authors we created Kings at first Leges c. we imposed Laws upon them and as they were chosen by the suffrages of the people at the first so upon the same occasion by the same suffrages they may be taken down again and of this I may be bold to say that no Kingdom in the World hath yielded a more plentifull experience than your Native Kingdom of Scotland on the deposition and the punishment of their transgressing Kings I need not go far for an Example your Grand-mother was set aside and your Father an Infant Crown'd This State hath done the like in England The Parliament and people of England have made bold to call their King to an account therein frequent Examples of it in the Saxons time the time before the Conquest and since the Conquest there have not wanted some Presidents King Edward the second King Richard the second were so dealt with by the Parliament and were both deposed and deprived and truly Sir whosoever shall look into their stories shall not finde the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to the height and the Capitalnesse of the crimes that are laid to your charge nothing near Sir you were pleased the other day to alledge your descent and I did not contradict it but take all together if you go higher than the Conquest you shall find that for almost a thousand years these thinge have been and if you come down since the Conquest you are the four and twentieth King from William called the Conquerour and you shall find one half of them to come meerly from the State and not meerly upon the point of Descent This were easie to be instanced The time must not be lost that way I shall only represent what a grave and learned Judge said in his time who was well known unto you the words are since printed for posterity That although there were such a thing as a Descent many times yet the Kings of England ever held the greatest assurance of their Titles when it was declared by Parliament And Sir your Oath and the manner of your Coronation doth plainly shew that the Kings of England although it 's true by the Law the next person in bloud is designed yet if there were a just cause to refuse him the people of England might do it For there is a Contract and a bargain made betwixt the King and his people and your Oath is taken and certainly Sir the Bond is reciprocall for as you are Leige Lord so are they Leige Subjects and we know very well that Legantis est duplex the one is a Bond of perfection that is due from the Soveraign the other is a Bond of Subjection which is due from the Subject for if this Bond be once broken farewell Soveraignty â—ubjectio trahit c. These things may not be denyed for I speak it the rather and I pray God it may work upon your heart that you may be sensible of your miscarriages for whether you have been as you
into your heart that you had as effectually endeavoured and studied the peace of the Kingdome as in words you seem to pretend but as the other day it was represented to you that actions must expound intentions Your actions have been clean contrary and truly Sir it doth appear very plainly to the Court that you have gone upon very erroneous principles This Kingdom hath felt it to their smart and it will be no comfort to you to think of it for Sir you have been heard to let fall such language as if you had not been subject to the Law or that the Law had not been your Superiour The Court is very sensible of it I hope so are all the understanding people of England That the Law is your Superiour you ought to have ruled according to the law you ought to have done so and your pretence hath been that you have done so But Sir the question is who shall be the expositors of the Law whether you and your party out of the Courts of Justice shall take upon you to expound the Law Or whether the Courts of Justice shall be the expounders themselves Nay this Sovereign and high Court of Justice the Parliament of England who may well be obliged to be the highest expounders of the Law since they are the Sole makers of it Sir for you to set your selfe with your single judgement or for those who adhere unto you to set themselves against the highest Court of Justice there is no Law for it Sir as the Law is your superior so truly there is something that is Superiour to the Law which is the Parent or Author of the Law and that is the people of England For as they are those who at first as other Countries have done did chuse unto themselves this form of Government that Justice might be administred and the peace preserved so they gave Laws unto their Governors according to which they were to govern and if those Laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudicial to the publick they had power in them reserved to themselves to alter as they should finde cause It is very true what some of your side have alleadged Rex non habet parem in regno This Court will affirm the same in some sense that whilest King you have not your Peer for you are major singulis but they will aver again that you are minor universis and the same Author tels you that in exhibitione juris you have no power but they are quasi minimus This we know to be Law Rex haebt superiorem Deum legem etiam Curiam and so sayes the same Author and he makes bold to proceed further Debent ei fraenum ponere they ought to bridle him We know very well the stories of old we cannot be ignorant of those Wars that were called the Barons Wars when the Noblity of the Land did stand out for the Liberty and the property of the Subject and would not suffer the Kings that did invade their Liberties to play the Tryants but did call them to an account for it and did fraenum ponere But Sir If the Nobility of the Land do forbear to do their duty now and are not so mindfull of their own Honour and the Kingdomes good as the Barons of England of old have been certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindefull of what is requisite for their preservation and their safety Justitiae fruendi causa Reges constituti sunt By this we learn that the end of having Kings or Governours is for their enjoying of Justice that is the end Now Sir If the King will go contrary to that end or if any Governour will go contrary to the end of his government he must understand that he is but an Officer in trust and that he ought to discharge that trust and order is to be taken for the animadversion and punishment of such an offending Governour Sir This is not a Law of yesterday since the time of the division betwixt you and the Parliament but it is a Law of old And we know very well both the Authors and the Authorities that acquaint us what the Law was in that point on the election of Kings when they took their Oath to be true unto the people and if they did not observe it there were those remedies instituted which are called Parliaments The Parliaments were they that were to adjudge the very words of the Authors the plainness and wrongs done by the King and Queen or by their Children such wrongs eespecially when the people could have no where else a remedy Sir this is the Case of the people of Eugland they could not have their remedy else where but in Parliament Sir Parliaments were instituted for that intent it was their main end that the grievances of the people might be redressed and truly if the Kings of England had been rightly mindefull of themselves they were never more in Majestie or State than in the time of the Parliament but how forgetfull some have been Histories have informed us and we our selves have a miserable a lamentable and a sad experence of it Sir by the old Laws of England I speake these things the rather to you because you were pleased to affirme the other day that you had as much knowledge in the Law as most Gentlemen of England It is very well Sir and truly Sir it is very sit for the Gentlemen of England to understand the Laws under which they must live and by which they must be governed And then Sir the Scripture sayes they that know their Ma-Masters will and do it not you know what follows the Law is your Master the acts of Parliament the Parliaments were anciently to be kept twice in the year as we find in our old Author that the Subject upon any occasion might have a remedie and a redress for his grievance Afterwards by severall Acts of Parliament in the dayes of your predecessor Edward the third they were to be but once a year What the Intermission of Parliaments in your times hath produced is very well known and the sad consequences of it as also what in the interim instead of Parliaments there hath been by you by a high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the people But when God by his Providence had so far brought it about that you could no longer decline the calling of a Parliament a Parliament was called where it may appear what your ends were against your ancient and Native Kingdom of Scotl but this Parliament of Engl. not serving your turn against them you were pleased to dissolve it Not long after another great necessitie occasioned the calling of this Parliament and what your designes and indeavours all along have been for the crushing and confounding of it hath been most notorious to the whole Kingdom And truly Sir in that you did strike at all it had been a sure way to have brought about that which this Charge doth lay upon you
ought to be a Protector of England or a destroyer of England let all England judge or all the world that hath beheld it and though Sir you have it by inheritance in the way that is spoken of yet it cannot be denyed but your Office is an Office of Trust and indeed an Office of the highest Trust that can be lodged in any single person For as you were the grand Administrator of Justice and others were but as your Delegates to see it executed through your Dominions If your great Office were to do Justice and preserve your people from wrong if instead of executing Justice you will be the grand and publick disturber of the peace surely this is contrary to your Office and your Trust Now Sir if it be an Office of Inheritance as you speak of your Title by descent let all men understand that great Offices are seizable and forfeitable as if you had it but for a year or for your life It will therefore much concern you to take into your serious consideration your great miscarriages in this nature Truly Sir I shall not in this place undertake to give you the particulars of the many miscarriages of your Reign whatsoever they have been they are notoriously known It had been happy for the Kingdome and for your self also if they had not been so much known and so much felt as they are every where complained on and reported Sir that we are now upon by the command of the highest Court hath been and is to bring you to your Triall and to judge you for these great offences of yours Sir the Charge hath called you Tyrant a Traytor a Murtherer and a publike Enemy to the Common-wealth Sir it had been well if these terms might rightly and justly have been omitted nay if any one of them all King Ha! President Truly we have been told Rex est qui bene regit Tyrannus qui populum opprimit and if that be the definition of a Tyrant then see if you come short of it in your Actions and whether not the highest Tyrant by that way of arbitrary Government which you sought to introduce and were putting upon the people Examine with your self if that were not as high an act of Tyranny as any of your predecessours were guilty of yea many degrees beyond it Sir the Term Traytor cannot be spared we shall easily conclude that it doth enforce and denote a breach of Trust and it must be supposed to be done by a superior and therefore as the people of England might have incurred that term if they had been truly guilty of it as to the definition of the Law so on the other side when you did break you Trust to the Kingdom you did break your Trust to your superior For the Kingdom is that for which you were trusted And therefore when you are called to an account for this breach of trust you are called to account by your superior Minimus Majorem in judicium vocat And Sir the people of England cannot be so wanting to themselves whom God hath dealt miraculously and gloriously for they having both power and their great enemy in their hand but they must proceed to Justice to themselves and to you For Sir the Court could heartily desire that you would lay your hand upon your heart and consider what you have done amiss and that you would endeavour to make your peace with God Truly Sir These are two high Crimes Tyranny and Treason There is a third if those had not been and that is Murder which is laid to your charge also All the bloody murders that have been committed since the Division twixt you and your people must be laid to your charge Sir It is a hainous and a crying sin and truly Sir If any man will ask us what punishment is due unto a murtherer let Gods Law let mans Law speak I will presume you are so well read in the holy Scripture as that you know God himself hath said concerning the shedding of mans blood Gen. 9. and Numb 35. will tell you what the punishment is and this Court in the behalf of the Kingdome are sensible of that innocent blood that hath been shed and the Land indeed stands still defiled with that blood and as the Text hath it It can no way be cleansed but by the shedding of the blood of him who shed that blood Sir We know no dispensation from this blood in the Commandment Thou shalt do no Murther we do not know but that it extends to Kings as well as to the meanest peasants the meanest of the people the Command is universal Sir Gods Law forbids it mans Law forbids it nor do we know that there is any manner of exception not even in mans Laws for the punishment of Murther in you T is true that in the Case of Kings every private hand is not to put forth its self to this work for their reformation or punishment but the people represented having power in their hands were there but one willfull Act of murder by you committed have power to convent you and to punish you for it The weight Sir then lying upon you in all these respects that have been spoken for your Tyranny Treason Breach of trust and the murders that have been committed surely it would drive you into a sad consideration concerning your eternall estate I know it cannot be acceptable to you to heare any such things as these mentioned from this Court for so do we call our selves and justifie our selves to be a Court and a High Court of Justice authorized by the highest and solemnest Court of the Kingdome as hath been often already said And although you have indeavoured what lay in you to discourt us yet we do take knowledge of our selves to be such a Court as can administer justice to you as wee are bound in duty to it Sir all I shall say before the reading of the Sentence is but this The Court doth heartily desire that you will seriously consider of those Evills that you stand guilty of You said well the other day you wished us to have God before our eyes Truly Sir I hope all of us have so that God whom we acknowledge to be King of Kings and Lord of Lords that God with whom there is no respect of persons that God who is the avenger of Innocent blood that God have we before our eyes that God who bestowes a Curse upon them who is in the case of guilty malefactors that deserve death do withhold their hands from shedding of blood Sir that God we have before our eyes and were it not that the Conscience of our duty hath called us into this place and this imployment you should have had no appearance of a Court here But Sir we must preferre our respect unto God and to the Kingdom above any respects whatsoever and although at this present many of us if not all of us are severely threatned by some of your party what