England by Inheritance And their mutual Rancors and Displeasures with the grand Contests of them and their Parties to procure the Statutes of Articuli super Chartas de Tallagio non Concedendo were not healed without the Aids and Subsidies of his People The mis-government and mis-leading of King Edward the Second by his several Favorites Peirce Gaveston and the Spencers did not hinder him from the Supplies of his People King Edward the Third after a fifteenth of the Temporalty a twentieth part of the Goods of the Cities and Burroughs and a tenth of the Clergy granted unto him by Parliament in the Eighth year of his Reign having consumed much Treasure in his Wars made for the Kingdom of France which he claimed as his Inheritance wherein the English Nation more than for the Grandeur and Honour of their Prince were not much concerned but were jealous until an Act or Declaration of the King in Parliament was procured to the contrary that the Conquest of France might have caused England to have been afterwards dependant upon that greater Crown and Kingdom was notwithstanding the seizure and taking into his hands the Goods and Estates of three Orders of Monks viz. The Lombards Cluniacks and Cistertians and all the Treasure committed to the Custody of the Churches through England for the Holy War forced to revoke divers Assignations made for Payment of Moneys though he had received Three Millions of Crowns of Gold for the Ransom of John King of France whom his Son the Black Prince had taken Prisoner and was not put to lose any of his Honour Friends Estate or Interest for want of the necessary Assistance of his Subjects who for the maintenance of those and other his Wars were howsoever well content to give him half of the Laieties Wool and a whole of the Clergies and at another time the ninth Sheaf the ninth Fleece and ninth Lamb for two years and after many other Taxes and Aids granted in several Parliaments of his Reign and a Commission sent into every Shire to enquire of the value of every man's Estate The Treasure of the Nation being much exhausted found the People so willing to undergo that and other Burdens which those successful Wars had brought upon them as the Ladies and Gentlewomen did willingly Sacrifice their Jewels to the Payment of his Souldiers That Unfortunate Prince Richard the Second his Grandchild tossed and perplexed with the Greatness Ambition and Factions of his Uncles and the subtil underminings of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster the most powerful of them fatally continued and pursued by Henry of Bullingbrook his Son Duke of Hereford was not in all those his Distresses so unhappy but that although the Commons in Parliament had by their Petitions unto him complained That for want of good Redress about his Person and in his Houshold and Courts the Commons were daily pilled and nothing defended against the Enemy and that it would shortly undo him and the whole Estate yet they were so mindful of their Soveraign and themselves as they not only afforded him very great Aids and Assistances but in the Fourteenth year of his Reign the Lords and Commons in Parliament did Pray That The Prerogative of the King and his Crown might be kept and all things done or attempted to the contrary might be redressed and that he might be as free as any of his Royal Progenitors were And in the Fifteenth year of his Reign did in Parliament require him That He would as largely enjoy his Prerogative as any of his Progenitors notwithstanding any Statute and namely the Statute of Gloucester in the time of King Edward the Third the which Statute they utterly repealed out of their tender affection to the King King Henry the Fourth Fifth and Sixth although well understood to have been Kings de facto not de jure for so not seldom have been the Pleadings at the Law of their Acts of Parliament and although the later of those Kings being Crowned King of France in his Infancy and in Possession of that Kingdom was by his Meek and Pious rather than Prudent Government a great part of the Cause of the Bloody Contests betwixt the Two Houses of York and Lancaster which ruined very many of the Nobility and Gentry by taking their several Parties and were by their Discords the loss of all the Kingdom of France but Calice And that Richard Duke of York had in Parliament so claimed and wrestled for the Crown as he was declared Protector of the Kingdom of England enjoyed notwithstanding the care and good will of their Subjects upon all occasions either at home or abroad in times of Peace or War by their Contributions of Subsidies King Edward the Fourth in the brunt and hottest of the long continued bloody Contentions of the two great Houses and Families of York and Lancaster after nine Battels won by himself attested by his Surcoat of Arms which he wore therein hung up as a Trophy in the Cathedral Church of St. George at Windsor and his many struglings with King Henry the Sixth and his Party in losing and gaining the Crown again War with France and compelling the crafty Lewis the 11 th the King thereof to demand a Peace and consent to pay him 75000 Crowns towards his War Expences and a Tribute of 50000 Crowns yearly during the life of King Edward notwithstanding that he had in the second year of his Reign sate in a Michaelmas Term three days together in his Court of Kings Bench and gathered great Sums of Money of the People of England by his Privy Seal towards his Wars with the Scots and in the Seventh year of his Reign resumed by Act of Parliament all the Grants which he had made since he took Possession of the Realm raised great Sums of Money by Benevolences and Penal Laws had in the Eighth year of his Reign granted him by Act of Parliament two fifteens and a Demy and in the Thirteenth year of his Reign a Subsidy towards his Wars with France when the Actions Courage and Wisdom of Parliaments were so incertain as there was in the space of half a year one Parliament Proclaiming King Edward an Usurper and King Henry a Lawful King and another Proclaiming King Edward a Lawful King and King Henry an Usurper King Henry the Seventh although that he sometimes declared That he held the Crown as won in Battel by Conquest of King Richard the Third and at other times by his better Title from the House of York and his Marriage with the Lady Elizabeth the Daughter of King Edward the Fourth and avaritiously took all the ways possible for the enriching of his Treasury had divers great Aids and Subsidies granted unto him by Parliament King Henry the Eighth notwithstanding that he had after many great Subsidies and Aids both as to the Money and manner of Collecting it granted unto him his Heirs and Successors by several Parliaments and the first Fruits and Tenths of
valent Rehabilitations Abolitions and other sorts and natures of Breves and Instruments enumerated in the Statute of 25 H. 8. ca. 21. And there said to be Infinite with their many times costly Masses Indulgencies Releases and Purgatory favours by which the common kind of Papists are sure in their Contributions and Taxes charged upon them by their wellgaining Superiours or Conductors the wrong way to have themselves and their Families kept and continued poor and low enough without the least of danger of Surfeits or overmuch Satieties especially when they are to live after the excessive Rates of Houshold Provisions and Expences for Food and Raiment now more than formerly exacted to the shame and disgrade of the Protestant Religion by a mighty and insupportable excess of Pride Usury Brocage and Cheating to maintain it Neither are their Numbers or Increase considering their strict Observations of Lent very many Publick Penances Vigils and Fasts and Private Mortisications like to be as dreadful as that of the Children of Israel in Aegypt to the Aegyptians Or of the Moors that had 800 years together Conquered and Overpowred Spain when the numerous Posterity of them were in the memory of Man Banished and sent home again into Affrick upon so severe and short a warning as they were constrained to abandon and leave behind them all their Lands and Possessions and carry only such moveables as a rigorous and short prefixion could allow them Or to cause them to be Transplanted as many of the Irish were by Cromwell in his Hypocritical Zealous and unmerciful Policy from their other more comfortable Provinces in Ireland as Ulster Lymerick and the English Pale into Connaught the worser part of that Kingdom And that there is no foundation to support those Panick Fears which have so greatly and more then needs tormented the Minds of too many of the either over-credulously fearful or over-medling part of the People and being only more supposed than demonstrated to be a Grievance and lying heavy upon some kind of Spirits will be as necessary to be taken out of their Minds and as well becoming a State Policy and the Care of the Soveraign as it was of our King Henry the Third who in the turbulent Commotions of his Barons and their Adherents and the Distresses which were put upon him found it to be no Mountebank's Medicine to Cure and asswage the Distempers of the all-discerning and giddy Multitude by granting out his Commissions into every County to inquire of their Grievances or causes of discontents so as not to excuse or Patronize any one Sort or Sect whatsoever in their maintaining the Unchristian and Damnable Doctrine of Killing or Deposing Princes for Male-Administration of Justice or those that dissent from our truly Loyal and Religious Church of England It may be a thing capable of wonder and fit to be put as a Question to the more Intelligent How it should happen that Fears and Jealousies should so disturb the Minds of such as endeavour to affright themselves and others with the Attempts and Dangerous Doctrines of the Popish Party and the same persons nevertheless to be so calm and silent in the fast-rooted unrepented and offered in publick to be justified groundless ungodly and disloyal Opinions of too many of those that would be called Protestants and accompted Zealots in the Practice and Promotion of it That a King is accomptable to the People for breach of Trust may be deposed and is but Co-ordinate with both his Houses of Parliament and as not content with that which can never be proved to be due unto them would mount a great deal higher and pretend that there is a Soveraignty in the People and that the King is but an Artificial Man set up or appointed by them And suffer a Seditious Book called The Obligation of Humane Laws to be publickly Sold and never complained of when it doth all it can to prove That every man how simple or illiterate soever he be is to be a Judge whether the Law or a Command of his Prince or Superior be good or bad and direct or apply his Obedience unto it accordingly As if they had never heard or read of the folly and dire Effects of Rebellion and Sedition in that of the Spencers in the Reign of King Edward the Second That Allegiance was only due to the Crown and not unto the Person of the Prince being exploded by two Acts of Parliament and the Promoters Condemned of Treason and his Inforced resignation of his Crown to his Son King Edward the Third by the Faction of his Queen and Mortimer and the deposing of King Richard the Second by an over-power of the Army of Henry of Lancaster and his Party occasioned by affrighting him into a seeming voluntary Surrender disallowed and detested by Succeeding Ages Or may we not rather commend and imitate the better temper of the Subjects of this Kingdom before the 23 d year of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth when in the beginning of her Happy and ever to be praised Government they never started at her Indulgence to the Popish Party or took it ill that she kept an Embassador at Rome and was offered to have the English Liturgy and Reformation established by the Pope's Authority if she would but acknowledge his Supremacy gave Aid to Don Antonio a distressed Popish Prince towards the Recovery of the Kingdom of Portugal and so much assisted Mary Queen of Scotland a Papist and Mother to our King James who if she had survived her was by Inheritance to have been Queen of England against the Presbyterian and Congregational Rebellious Party in Scotland as they called her the Whore of Babylon and publickly Preached that she was an Atheist and of no Religion Or can we do less than deem the English Nation in the Reign of King James to be happy in their enjoyment of so great a Tranquility as to be free from any Suspitions of the Increase of Popery when he was wrongfully accused by Elphiston to have written a little before his coming to the Crown of England a seeming friendly Letter to the Pope and that the Pope had after he came into England sent a Cardinal to Seduce him into the Snares of that Religion wherein although upon reason of State he had given his Royal Protection unto Preston and Warrington two Secular Priests against the Practices of some Jesuits which Abbot Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a professed enemy to Popery did allow as a thing not evilly done his afterwards Learned Books and Writings against that Church might have abundantly manifested the folly of such who should but have imagined that he had any Inclination or good Will unto it For it cannot be unknown to you that until the 16 th year and the after succeeding years of the Reign of that peaceable and wise Prince when his Son-in-Law Frederick Prince Elector and Count Palatine of the Rhine had as unhappily as rashly and unjustly taken upon him to be Elected King of
Michaelmas Term by a Select Grand Jury of the County of Middlesex cause an enquiry to be made although it were to be wished it might be after the antient manner by Articles delivered unto them in Writing to be distinctly answered unto Offences committed against the King and his Crown and Dignity of all Confederacies Champerties Maintenance Trespasses Extortions and Grievances done to the King's Subjects by any Arch-Bishops Bishops Dukes Earls Barons Servants Officers Coroners and Ministers of the King or by any other whatsoever of breach of the Peace denying of Bail on those who ought to be Bailed and of all manner of Oppressions and Grievances of the People When the numerous Justices of Peace in every County being as too many of them Baronets Serjeants and Men of Law Knights Elquires and Gentlemen of good Quality Families Estates and Education are Sworn and imployed not only to be Guardians and Conservators of the Peace of the King and his People to suppress Felonies Riots and the lower and most Common sort of Exorbitancies and Misdemeanors but to take Care of the Execution of many Laws and Statutes committed to their Trust and with the Method and Order appointed by our Laws and Ancient and reasonable Customs of presenting an Inquiry of Grievances by our many Court-Leets Sheriffs Tournes and County Courts Subordinate one under the other to the Superiour Courts of Westminster and they unto their Supream Authority the King It will be the Peoples own fault and neglect of their own Concernments if any Grievances or Oppression pass undiscernable uncomplained of or unpunished or if any Arbitrary Power or Extravagances do invade or break in upon the Nation who by the fence and care of our Laws and many times Confirmed Liberties which for more than 500 years last past have been building repairing and polishing to a perfection more than the Hebrew Greek or Roman Laws did ever attain unto the Laws which God himself made for that peculiar people only excepted And may if by our Sins and Provocations of God Almighty the Inspector of our unparallel'd Misdeeds and Punisher of them when his wrath shall be kindled and have no longer patience the Walls of our Happiness shall not be demolished our Liberties put to the Sword and our Laws led into Captivity be as safe as Humane Prudence and Laws can possibly make them More especially when our Courts of Justice at Westminster-Hall are governed by Judges and Men of great Wisdom and Integrity Sworn to observe the Laws and Judge according to their Direction and our Lawyers at the Bars freely permitted with fitting reference rightly to inform and plead their Clients Cases And the King 's high Court of Chancery the Officina Justiriae under the Teste me ipso of the Watchman under God of our Israel Superintending over them giveth Writs remedial to all that ask for them with helps for extraordinary Emergencies or to allay the Severity of Laws and makes it its business to punish and forbid Frauds and Oppressions The Masters of Chancery Annually stipended by the King formare Brevia originalia remedialia and to be Assistants subordinately to that High and Honourable Court in matters of Accompt and References The Rule of Chancery being ever since the Statute of Westm ' the second made in the 13 th year of the Reign of King Edward the First quod nullus recedat à Cancellaria sine remedio Concordent Clerici and the Officers and Clerks of the Chancery thereunto appointed are from time to time to do their utmost endeavours to provide Remedies for all that Complain Nè Justitia deficeret Conquerentibus And as to lesser Matters of Complaints and often Emergencies Pensioneth by good yearly Salaries 4 Learned and venerable Men of worth called Masters of Requests or Supplicationum libellorum who by turns and courses each Master being deputed to his Month have their audience Twice or oftener in that Time of the King to give Answers to their Petitions And the King in matters wherein any of his Rights and what appertaineth unto him are concerned gives his People leave by Petition or monstrans du droit Traverses oustre les mames c. to obtain what they can prove to be due unto them and where any of his Letters Patents are grievous and against the Law suffers them to be repealed by Writs of Scire facias brought against the Patentees And if any of the People should be so unhappy in the Intrigues or Difficulties of their Cases as they cannot be relieved by any of those provided Remedies from any supposed Arbitrary Power of their Prince or any Illegal oppressing Actions of one Subject against another they have the Liberty of Appeals from the Inferior Courts of Justice to the Superior and in Matters concerning breach of the Peace and of Misdemeanors within the Cognisance of the Justices of Peace may appeal from them to the Justices of Assize and from them to the King and his Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and if not by any of those ways to be relieved are in Cases not concerning Free-hold not debarred their Appeals to the King and his Privy Council where they are the King himself being very often present judiciously and deliberately heard upon all the Pleas and Arguments which the Councel Learned in the Law on both sides can make one against the other And Remedies also against all the Assaults of Grievances are not difficult to be come at in the Ecclesiastical Courts and Courts of Admiralty where when the Subjects Complaints cannot be remedied they do easily obtain the King's Commission of Delegates to other Judges and if that do not answer their Expectations may have a Commission of Adjuncts to other Judges to be added unto them And in these or other Courts where the Potency of the one part and the Poverty of the other hath disabled the weaker from attending the formalities of Justice or croud of many other Causes he may have a Commission ob lites dirimendas granted by the King out of his High Court of Chancery to some good and wise men to endeavor as much as they can a more speedy Remedy The Dermier Resort last Appeal ultimum refugium of the People in their seeking for Justice being so necessarily Inherent in the Crown as none but they that wear it can justly claim any Right unto it but have always been enjoyed not only by our British Saxon and Danish Kings before the Norman Conquest but all our Kings which Succeeded them And if there they find no help are like enough if therebe cause of Justice in their Complaints not to fail of Relief by Petition to the King when he is assisted with the advice of his Lords and Commons in Parliament All which with many other Laws and reasonable Customs Priviledges and Liberties like so many Cittadels Block-houses Out-works and Strong Castles and Forts which divers of our ancient and reasonable Customs and Acts of Parliament
have in the making of other Laws from time to time been careful upon all occasions to erect and build to help to guard and protect their Liberties Rights and Priviledges together with the very great care which the Judges restraining all non obstantes of Acts of Parliament and Regal Dispensations unto what the Law allows or to the King 's particular Concernments do take in all their Judgments and Decisions Expositions Applications and Interpretations of Laws to assist and support the just Rights and Proprieties of the Subjects in their Lands and Estates and not in the least to prejudice them in their Common Assurances by Fines and Common Recoveries The Severity used by divers of our Kings in the Punishment of Briberies Extortions or Byassed and Illegal flattering Opinions of Judges The Oaths of the Lords and others of the King 's Privy Council who are usually the Greatest Noble and most concerned Men of Estate and Interest of the Nation Oath of the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England well and truly to serve the King and his People and to do right to all manner of People according to the Law and Usages of the Realm Oaths of the Judges to do equal Law and execution of Right to all the King's Subjects rich and poor without having regard to any Person to deny no man Common Right by the King's Letters nor none other Mans nor for none other Cause Oaths of the King's Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve him and his People and as duly and hastily speed such Matters as any Man shall have against the King in the Law as they may lawfully do without delay or tarrying the Party for his lawful Process The Oaths of other Serjeants at Law well and truly to serve the King and his People and truly Counsel them Oaths of the Justices of Peace to do equal right to the Poor as to the Rich after the Laws and Customs of the Realm and Statutes thereof made Oaths of the Sheriffs to do right to Poor as well as Rich in all that belongeth to their Office to disturb no Man's Right nor to do wrong to any Man And the Oaths of the Escheators Clerks of the Chancery and Coroners with the Oaths of the Officers of Courts Under-Sheriffs and Bailiffs well and to execute Justice All which several Degrees of Men in the Nation would be as unwilling as any others to have the Lives Liberties and Estates of themselves and their Posterities or dearest Relations sacrificed to a lawless and unlimitted Power of their Kings and Princes And the Oaths of our Kings at their several Coronations to conserve the Liberties of the People and observe all the good Laws made by their Royal Progenitors and Predecessors with the Impossibility that ever the Lords and Commons in Parliament Assembled will consent to the abrogating of any of the aforesaid Laws and reasonable Customs be felones de se or deliver up themselves and their Posterities to the absolute Will and Pleasure of their Succeeding Kings and Princes may abundantly evidence how safely and securely the Property and Liberties of the People until Rebellion foolishly fancied Fears and Jealousies with their Discords distrust and plundering of one another shall put them under such another yoke as Oliver Cromwell had cheated them into may rest and are like inviolably to continue for ever protected against any the Incroachments of Arbitrary Power whilst they live under their King 's ancient Government Of which His late Majesty was so careful and so willing to dislodge all manner of Jealousies out of the Minds of his Subjects as he did in the Third year of his Reign give his Royal Assent as they call'd it unto their Petition of Right and made it an Act of Parliament wherein he not only Confirmed their Magna Charta and Charta Forestoe but the Act of Parliament assented unto by King Edward the First De Tallagio non Concedendo The Act of Parliament made in the First year of the Reign of King Edward the Third cap. 6. The Act of Parliament made in the 25 th year of the Reign of the aforesaid King That no Man should be compelled to make any Loans to the King against his will The Statutes of the 28 E. 3. ca. 3. 37 E. 3. ca. 18. 38 E. 3. ca. 9. 42 E. 3. ca. 3. 11 R. 2. ca. 9. 17 R. 2. ca. 6. and 1 R. 3. ca. 2. Charged all his Officers and Ministers to serve him according to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm as they tendered the Honour of his Majesty and the Prosperity of the Kingdom Banished as he hoped for ever all their Fears of the Infringing of their Liberties and given cause of Content to them and that Parliament to such a satiety such a fulness and nè plus ultra as unless they would have been Consortes Imperii and require to have a share in his Regality and Government there was no more to be asked or requested of him or granted by him Imprisoned shortly after in the Tower of London John Earl of Clare and the greatly Learned Selden for but having Copies in their Custody of some Florentine and Foreign Laws and Customs proposed by Sir Robert Dudley a Titular Duke of Tuscany to be imitated by him here in England as a means to raise Money by Impositions laid upon the People and caused his Attorney General to exhibit a Bill against them in the Star-Chamber for Disquieting his Subjects with Fears and Jealousies And was so ready from time to time to Condescend to their Infirmities and give Satisfaction to them in all their Concerns and Scruples as he suffered those two great Cases of the Habeas Corpus and the Ship Money wherein his necessary Prerogative for the good of himself and his People was not a little concerned to be publickly and solemnly argued in the Course and Method of the Laws in foro Contradictorio before the Judges and shewed no displeasure afterwards but much kindness unto Justice Hutton and Justice Croke who in the Case of the Ship Money had in their Arguments and Opinions delivered thereupon against him in the Exchequer Chamber dissented from all the rest and greater number of the Judges And His now Royal Majesty treading the good old Paths of Queen Elizabeth his Grandfather King James and his Royal Father doth in all Matters of difficulty in the absence of Parliaments where the Laws and Justice of the Nation are likely to be more than ordinarily concerned consult and advise with the Judges hath not long ago Superseded one of them for some harsh usage and discontent given to the Countrey in his Circuits and takes all the care he can to choose and make Judges and his Learned Council at the Law out of the most able honest experienced and eminent practisers of it and hath but lately in several of his Speeches in Parliament declared and promised that he would give his consent unto any good Laws
have a mind to Imitate such a self-ruining madness the dire Events and many heavy and remediless Calamities which fell upon the over-sparing and cautious Constantinopolitans who denying their Emperor a necessary and fitting Aid to defend them as well as himself made the Turks Master of all Greece so renowned heretofore for Learning and that City and the Riches of it a twentieth or a very small part whereof might have disappointed all the Tyranny Bondage and Slavery which they have ever since been under and are according to Humane Judgement like to continue to the end of the World in no better a Condition And now that Hannibal is ad Portas Dangers on all sides encompassing and crowding in upon us we should neither forsake our selves and good old England which will surely be worth the saving nor so much mistake that which was ever accompted to be Reason Wisdom and Forecast as to undervalue the prospect and the cares of Prevention laugh at them as Pedantick Fopperies or the dotage of a Decrepit World and like Jonas displeasing his God fall asleep in the midst of a Tempest But rather make hast to return to our selves and set before us the Wisdom and Examples of our Ancestors and Predecessors who in the care of themselves and of the Private and Publick not separate but joyned together as well as of their Kings and Soveraigns would not be deterred by any Statemisfortunes or Irregularities or tempted by their Jealousies or Fears to suffer themselves as the Members and smaller parts of the Body to languish and be destroyed by neglecting the Head and the Security and Safety thereof or by not paying their Duty and Reverence to their Kings hate and ruine themselves which in all their Discontents and Murmurings against their Kings and Government the Anxieties or Commotions of their Minds and Passions or the Dispairs which had sometimes seized upon them they did so much seek to avoid as they did not refuse them Aids in all their Wars and Troubles Domestick and Foreign King Henry the Second who after a very great and general Act of resumption of the Aliened Crown Revenue some whereof had been granted by himself had discontented many of his great Nobility when all his Sons had Rebelled Warred and taken Arms against him wanted not a supply by Escuage from his Subjects of England to reduce them to Obedience and make his Wars in France King Richard the First being unfortunately in his Return Incognito from his warlike and glorious Expedition to Jerusalem made Prisoner by an unworthy Surprize of the Duke of Austria and the German Emperor enforced as some of our Historians have reported for his Deliverance to invest the former of them with the Superiority of his Kingdom of England by the delivering of his Hat unto him which the Emperor in the presence of divers of the Nobility of Germany and England returned unto him to hold the Kingdom of him by the Annual Tribute of Fifty thousand pound Sterling and his Brother John Usurping the Crown in his absence and Plotting with the Emperor and the King of France his mortal Enemy to continue him a Prisoner during his Life both Laiety and Clergy notwithstanding that he had by the perswasion of the Clergy more than of the Laiety been ingaged in that very Expensive War did so strain themselves to redeem the Person of their King the Kingdom and People at that time being secure enough from Foreign Invasions as they raised and paid One hundred and fifty thousand Marks in pure Silver of Cologn weight then a very great Sum of Money by Twenty Shillings imposed upon every Knights Fee the fourth part of the Revenue of the Laiety and the like of the Clergy a tenth of their Goods all or most the Chalices and Treasure of the Church being then also not a little sold to make up the Sum So as William Petit or Newbrigensis who wrote his Book in that time saith Ferè exmunita pecuniis Anglia videretur England seemed to be almost emptied of all her Money and the like courses were held for raising that then great Sum of Money in all his Dominions beyond the Seas King John likewise having resum'd much of his Crown-Lands Murdered as was suspected his Nephew Arthur the right Heir to the Crown and thereby forfeited the Dutchy of Normandy to the King of France of whom he held it and in those many Troubles and Distresses which were cast upon him by his unruly Baronage constrained to acknowledge to hold his Kingdoms of England and Dominion of Ireland of the Pope and his Successors in Fee-Farm under the yearly Rent of One thousand Marks per Annum Charged his Earls and Barons with the Losses which he had sustained in France Fined and made them pay a seventh part of all their Goods had Two marks and a half granted unto him by the Parliament out of every Knight's Feé and within a year after a thirteenth part of all the Moveables and other Goods as well of the Clergy as of the Laiety King Henry the Third his Son resum'd all the Lands alien'd from the Crown had so great Troubles entail'd upon him by the Contests of his boisterous Baronage with his Father as Lewis the French King's Son was called in by some of them received their Homage and had London and a great part of the Kingdom delivered up and put into his Possession but upon better Consideration was afterwards sent home again by those that Invited him and the Barons of England having so little accorded with their Native King as several Battels were fought betwixt them in one of which the King himself was taken Prisoner and in another released by the Valour of the Prince his Son the managers of that Rebellion Slain and their multitude of Partizans reduced to Obedience being a great part of the Kingdom by their Compounding with his Commissioners at Kenelworth to give him Seven years Purchase of the yearly value of their Lands which amounted to a very great Sum of Money for a Pardon for their Offences and a Redemption of their Estates the Subjects and People of this Nation did howsoever in order to their own Preservation besides the fifteenth part of all their Goods for his Grants of Magna Charta and Charta Forestae not deny him their Aids of Scutage Fifteenths and Tenths there being scarce a year wherein there was not a Parliament and seldom any Parliament without a Tax King Edward the First notwithstanding his Writs of Quo Warranto brought against all the Nobility Great Men Gentry and others of England Cities and Burroughs Claiming Liberties and Priviledges wherein he did put them strictly to prove them either by Grant or Prescription seized and confiscated the Estates of the Earls of Gloucester Hereford and Norfolk Men of great Might and Power for their refusing to go and serve him in his Wars beyond the Seas the Earl of Hereford being Constable and the Earl of Norfolk Earl Marshal of
Bohemia and that by the designed Marriage of His late Majesty with the Infanta of Spain he endeavoured all he could to allay and quench the Fire which the Wars about that and the Palatinate had kindled in Germany and had put too many of our English into an humour and fit of Zeal to desire the propagating of the Protestant Religion by the Sword no such Fears or Jealousies had gained a Possession in the Minds of some unquiet People who were in Duty as well as Reason to have acquiesced in the Constancy and Care of that Religious King for the preservation of the Protestant Religion Nor escape your Observation that the benefits of the Marriage with the Infanta of Spain being not well understood and the misapprehension of a Toleration of Popery to ensue thereupon multiplying the supposed Dangers Having induced the House of Commons in Parliament in the Nineteenth year of his Reign to Petition that peaceable Prince that the time was come that Janus Temple must be opened and the Voice of Bellona not of the Turtle must be heard and therefore they thought it their Duty not only to provide for the present supply of the War but to take Care for the securing of their Peace at home which the dangerous Increase and Insolency of Popish Recusants apparently visibly and sensibly did lead them unto And yet in the same Petition did acknowledge That they did not assume to themselves any Power to determine of any part thereof nor intended to incroach or intrude upon the sacred bounds of his Royal Authority to whom and to whom only they acknowledged it did belong to resolve of Peace and War and the Marriage of the most Noble Prince his Son Unto which he did Answer That his Son in Law 's unjust Usurpation of the Crown of Bohemia from the Emperor had given the Pope and all that Party too fair a ground and opened them too wide a gate for curbing and oppressing of many Thousands of the Protestant Religion in divers parts of Christendom that the Palatines accepting of the Crown of Bohemia had no reference to the Cause of Religion and therefore would not have the Parliament to couple the War of the Palatinate with the Cause of Religion and that the beginning of that miserable War which had set all Christendom on fire was not for Religion but only caused by his Son-in-Law's hasty resolution following evil Counsel to take to himself the Crown of Bohemia and in the last year of his Reign in a Speech to the Parliament wished that it might be written in marble and remain to Posterity as a mark upon him when he should swerve from his Religion And certainly he must be much an Infidel and a great Master in the Phantasticks and School of Opinionastrete that will not believe King Charles the First his Son to have been a great Assertor of it when in the fourth year of his Reign in a Speech to the Parliament he declared That he was and ever should be as careful of Religion and as forward as they could desire and would use all means for the maintenance and propagation of that Religion wherein he had lived and did resolve to die And in the Head of his Army and very great Distresses afterwards profess by the taking of the blessed Sacrament to maintain it and took so great a Care of it as a Popish Book could not peep into England but he speedily appointed some of his Chaplains or some other Learned Man of the Church of England to Print and Publish an Answer unto it made many of his Coins of Silver to Proclaim his resolution to Defend the Protestant Religion Laws Privileges of Parliament and the Liberties of the People and died a Martyr because he would not deliver up his Subjects to a perpetual slavery of a never to be shaken off Arbitrary Power And His Majesty that now is being the Son and Heir of his Constancy in the Protestant Religion hath been so much of that fixed and unalterable Resolution as the Love of a Mother and all those Obligations that a filial Obedience had put upon him could not disswade him from enforcing the Duke of Gloucester his younger Brother out of her Tuition and Intention to breed him up in the Popish Religion and the Syren Charms of Militiere in his Book purposely Dedicated unto him to make him averse to that Religion whose Pseudo-Professors had murdered his Father and been the Cause of those very many Miseries Affronts Ill Usages Wants and Reproaches which he and his Royal Brothers endured in the Twelve years longsome time of his Distresses could never perswade him to accept of a strong and powerful Aid of Catholick Princes for his Re-establishment in his Kingdoms nor incline him to do that to save Three Kingdoms which his Grandfather by the Mother-side the Great Henry of France by reconciling himself to the Church of Rome did to save only one when his Sufferings outwent and far surmounted any which his Grandfather had endured But if any would have our Laws the severest of which was Enacted in the Conspiracy and feared evil Consequences of the Gun-Powder Treason to be put so much in execution as to forfeit and take away two parts of three the whole in three parts to be equally divided of the real Estates of those who have Lands and Subject those that have no Lands to great Forfeitures and Penalties and incapacitate all to bear any Office in the Kingdom They are to consider that it will be as hard as unequal for their King and Common Parent as well as ours to allow a Liberty and Connivance to those that are of worse Principles or at least as dangerous as the Papists fought and were active in our last Wars and Miseries against His Majesty and His Royal Father and all that were their Loyal and Obedient Subjects and deny it to those that fought were Sequestred Plundered and Suffered for them that all the Protestants in the World are not in England and that amongst those in England there are too many the more is the pity who have so rent and divided themselves from the Church of England and do so much and so often vary in their Judgments Practice and Opinions as they appear rather to be no Protestants or very little embracing the Profession and Interest thereof that our Incomparable and Prudent Queen Elizabeth could never have maintained and supported so much as she did the Protestant Religion as well Lutheran as Calvinist in the Parts beyond the Seas and that of the purer and better reformed Religion of the English Church at home by her Aids Embassies Leagues and Intercessions if she had not requited the Catholick Princes with the like Indulgence and usage to any of her Subjects that were of the Romish Religion and that neither the Rebellions of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland for the advance of Popery many several Attempts to take away her Life and Plots to Dethrone her could ever
perswade her or her Learned Successor notwithstanding the Horrid design of the Gunpowder Treason against him and his Posterity and the wiser as they should be and better part of his Subjects Assembled in Parliament to be more than prudentially rigorous to that Party whose Friends in other Countries might retalliate any Severity used to theirs And although she made some fierce and smart Laws to affright those that called themselves Catholicks for principles inconsistent with the Safety of her Soveraignty and its Government which in all these Acts of Parliament appeared to be more against the Emissaries from Rome which came to Seduce and lead them into such dangerous Errors than to forbid any thing that was Innocent in the private Devotions religious and practical part of it that Great Queen and King well understanding that they could not by any Rules of State Justice or Modesty of which Princes when there is not so great Inequality as to give them an absolute Dominion over one another are usually very tender require any Ease or Liberties for Protestants living under other Princes and their Laws when they can neither promise or perform Mutualities or Reciprocations And therefore the Learned King James when the House of Commons in Parliament had Petitioned him to give some stop to the growth of Popery one Cause whereof they assigned to be the Interposition of Foreign Princes Embassadors and Agents in favour of Papists Answered That they might rest secure that he would never be weary to do all he could for the Propagation of the Protestant Religion and Suppression of Popery but the manner and form they were to remit to his Care and Providence who could best consider of times and seasons but his Care of Religion must be such as on the one part he must not by the hot Persecution of our Recusants at home irritate Foreign Princes of a contrary Religion and teach them a way to plague the Protestants in their Dominions with whom he daily interceeded and at that time principally for ease to them of our Profession that live under them And in the 21 th year of his Reign in a Speech which he made in Parliament declared to the Lords and Commons That it was true that at times for Reasons best known to himself he did not so fully put Laws in Execution against Recusants but did wink and connive at some things which might have hindred more weighty Affairs But he did never in all his Treaties agree to any thing to the overthrow and dissolution of those Laws but had in all a chief care of the preservation of that truth which he ever professed for as it was a good Horseman's part not always to use his Spurs and keep strait the Reins but sometime to suffer the Reins to be more remiss So it was the part of a Wise King and his Age and Experience in Government had informed him sometimes to quicken the Laws with Executions and at other times upon just Occasions to be more remiss But as God shall Judge him he never thought or meant nor ever in any word expressed any thing that savoured of it and prayed them to root out Jealousies which were the greatest Weeds in their Garden For certainly to Consiseate two parts of three of a Papist's Lands or disinherit the next Heir if bred up in that Religion can never amount to the avail of Protestants in Transilvania Hungary Bohemia Silesia Moravia Poland Upper or Lower Austria Piedmont Flanders Brabant and the rest of the Belgick Provinces nor under those which were United and Confederate the Hause-Towns Bearne and some other of the Cantons of Switzerland and the bad enough already used Multitudes of Huguenots in France Nor can the Persecution or destroying of the greater part of the Protestants beyond the Seas to gratifie the humerous pretences and causeless fears of the more Imprudent and lesser part of the Protestants of England be by any rule of right reason adjudged to be for the Protestant Interest And upon the like advice and reason may our fears of any Invasion upon our Properties and just Rights disappear and vanish as soon as they shall with any eye of Judgment be but looked upon nor will ever be able to endure the touchstone of Truth when our Liberties are so Impregnable and fortified by very many of our good Laws and Liberties and by our Magna Charta and Charters de Foresta more than Thirty times confirmed by Acts of Parliament for those great Charters were never singly or by themselves so many times confirmed by Acts of Parliament When by that excellent Law and Charter freely granted in the Ninth year of the Reign of King Hen. 3. No Freeman may be taken or Imprisoned or be disseised of his freehold Liberties or free Customs be Outlawed or Exiled or in any manner destroyed but by the lawful Judgment of his Peers or by the Law of the Land no man shall be amerced for a small fault or if for a greater saving to him his Contenement and a Merchant saving to him his Merchandize Earls and Barons shall not be amerced but by their Peers the King will not sell deny or defer any Man either Justice or Right No Man of the Church shall be amerced after the quantity of his Spiritual benefit but after the quantity of his Lay-tenement and the quantity of his Offence and a Villain shall not be amerced but saving his Wainage and that all things done to the contrary shall be void Sureties or Pledges shall not be Charged for any Debts of the King if the Debtor hath Goods and Chattels to pay the Debt and is ready to pay None shall be Distreined for more Service than is due Common Pleas shall not follow the King 's Court. Those that do commit Redisseisin shall be Imprisoned and not delivered without special Commandment of the King and shall make Fine to the King for the Trespass By an Act of Parliament made in the Third year of King Edward the First none shall be attached by any occasion nor fore-judged of life or limb nor his Lands Tenements Goods or Chattels seised into the King's hands against the form of the Great Charter and the Law of the Land No City Burrough or Town nor any Man shall be amerced without reasonable Cause and according to the quantity of his Trespass that is to say every Freeman saving his Free-hold and Merchant saving his Merchandize a Villain saving his Gainure and that by his or their Peers By an Act of Parliament made in the 25th year of his Reign The King will take no Aids or Prizes but by the Common consent of the Realm saving the ancient Aids and Prizes due and accustomed Aids and Taxes granted to the King shall not be taken for a Custom No Officer of the King by themselves or any other shall maintain Pleas Suits or Matters hanging in the King's Court for Lands Tenements or other things to
which should be by them desired for the further securing of their Religion Liberties and Properties and not long ago answered private and particular Persons of ordinary Quality Petitioning him for Right to be done unto them in Matters of Law and some of his own Concernments that God forbid but his People should have Liberty to demand right of him as well as against any of their fellow Subjects They therefore who do over-busie themselves in the carrying about the Buz of false and incertain rumours and the dreadful Imaginations of an Arbitrary and Lawless Power which may be hoped will never happen nor be able if any should desire it to Attack and Demolish those Impregnable Fortresses which our Laws right reason long continued good and reasonable Customs of England have built and provided against it And do make such lamentable Outcries and Exclamations against Arbitrary Power before it happens or they can perceive any likelihood of it and in their Ill-tutor'd Logick would persuade themselves and others it is so because they are pleased to fancy it is possible it may be so and cannot be quiet but do think themselves ill used if they may not be permitted like the Andabatoe to fight with their own shadows and be not a little commended magnified and accompted good Patriots for it Blench at every thing turn their Follies into all kinds of Fears and Jealousies and so strongly fancy them as if they were actually upon them and will not be persuaded but the King will deliver us up to Popery and Arbitrary Power and to that end the King of France hath viewed and sounded our Ports and Havens and with great Armies is ready to invade destroy or make Slaves of us and our Generations But may do better to give some respite to those their needless Affrights and pausing a while sit down and consider What greater assurance his now Majesty could give to his Subjects or they desire than what he declar'd in his Speech to the House of Commons in March 1661 Gentlemen I hear and am very solicitous I thank you for it since I presume it proceeds from a good Root of Piety and Devotion But I must tell you I have the worst luck in the world if after all the reproaches of being a Papist when I was Abroad I am suspected of being a Presbyterian now I am come Home I know you will not take it unkindly if I tell you that I am as Zealous for the Church of England as any of you can be and am as much in love with the Book of Common-Prayer as you can wish and have prejudice enough to those that do not love it And do as much desire to see an Uniformity setled as any amongst you I pray you trust me in that Affair In the year 1664. tells them I do assure you upon my word and I pray you believe me That I have no other Thoughts or Design in my heart but to make you all Happy in the Support of the Religion and Laws established In the same year when they brought him a Bill for the Repeal of the Act of Parliament to exclude the Bishops out of the House of Peers He said I thank you with all my heart indeed as much as I can do for any thing for the Repeal of that Act It was an unhappy Act in an unhappy Time passed with many unhappy Circumstances and attended with miserable Events and therefore I do again thank you for Repealing of it you have thereby restored Parliaments to their Primitive Institutions In his Speech unto both Houses in Anno 1672. said That he would conclude with this assurance that I will preserve the true Protestant Religion and the Church as it is now establish'd in this Kingdom and in the whole course of the Dissenters I do not intend that it shall any ways prejudice the Church but I will support its Rights and its full Power In January 1673. said If there be any thing else which you think wanting to secure Religion there is nothing which you shall reasonably propose but I shall be ready to receive it In April 1675. said The Principal end of his calling the Parliament now is to know what you think may be yet wanting to the security of Religion and to give my Self the satisfaction of having done the utmost of my Endeavours In February 1679. said to both Houses of his Parliament I declare my Self very plainly unto you that I am prepar'd to give you all the Satisfaction and Security in the great Concern of the Protestant Religion as it is establish'd in the Church of England that shall reasonably be ask'd or can consist with Christian Prudence 6 March 1678. I do give you this assurance that I will with my Life defend both the Protestant Religion and the Laws of this Kingdom In January 1673. If there be any thing you think wanting to secure Property there is nothing which you shall reasonably propose but I shall be ready to receive it Febr. 15. 1676. said to His Two Houses of Parliament I do declare my Self freely that I am ready to gratifie you in a further Security of your Liberty and Property if you can think you want it by as many good Laws as you shall propose and as can consist with the Safety of the Government without which there will neither be Liberty nor Property left unto any Man And let all men Judge who is most for Arbitrary Government they that foment such Differences as tend to Dissolve all Parliaments or I that would preserve this and all Parliaments from being made useless by such Dissolutions And remember that there was a Time not long ago when the Phanatick Party who at this Time are too great a part of England and some of the Presbyterians were not in the heretofore justly stiled the Long and Rebellious part of a Parliament so much afraid of Arbitrary Government as now they do seem to be When in that Long and Unhappy misnamed Parliament they procured to be Voted down as many as they could of their Soveraign's Rights Methods and means of Government in an Ancient and well Established Monarchy overturned Peerage Episcopacy Tenures and many other of our Fundamental Laws warranted by the Laws of God and this Nation and as if they feared that Rebellion raising of Armies and Chacing and Fighting against their Pious and Religious King who never gave them any Cause for it if any Cause at all can ever be assigned or able to justifie Rebellion should not be Sin enough made all the hast they could to add Sacriledge unto it and placed in themselves an Arbitrary and boundless Authority over him unto whom they had Sworn an Allegiance due to Superiority trampled upon all their fellow Subjects Plundered Sequestred and did all they could to Perjure the Loyal part of them destroyed the Privileges of Parliament suffered some of their own Members to be pulled out of the House of Commons and Imprisoned by Soldiers and Red-Coats one
whereof was by his own Confession an Irish Popish Priest and by the Assistance of their over-pow'ring Army voted down suppressed and shut up the House of Peers as useless and dangerous inforced themselves into a Republick and the Nation who by the Laws of God and the King and their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were bound as well as themselves to the contrary to Ingage never more to admit of a King and House of Lords and in some of their Answers to their Brethren of Scotland who urged and taxed them with some of their Promises concerning His late Majesty said that they hoped they would not make their Promises to be Obligations And in their Declaration Printed and Published to give Satisfaction to all the World that would believe them of the Reasons of their Actions and turning themselves into a Common-wealth endeavoured to assert that in all Promises a Tacite Condition and Proviso was ever to be understood as annexed unto them So always that they did not prejudice or inconvenience the Party promising And forgetting that they had prosecuted the late Earl of Strafford and caused him to be put to Death upon a pretence of his Subversion of Laws which he never did but they themselves really and frequently did Murdered their King Banished His now Majesty the Prince and the rest of his Children and used their utmost endeavors to Extirpate all the Royal Progeny scorned and abused the Laws tumbled tossed and ploughed up the Liberties Proprieties and Estates of the Loyal Party and made some Ignotos and invisible they themselves never knew and who were less to be understood than King Oberon and his Fairy Queen to be stiled the Keepers of the Liberties of England voted the Courts of Chancery King's-Bench Common Pleas and Exchequer to be dissolved and ordered the Records thereof to be destroyed and thrown into the River of Thames and were not all that while in dread of any Arbitrary Power and a Standing Army when to the great Charge of the People they could not think themselves safe without it But tamely suffered Oliver Cromwel their Man of Sin and greatest of Hypocrites to put a trick upon them and teach them the Truth and Doctrine of Divine Retalliation by dissolving the Reliques of the over-long Parliament pulling out the remaining Members with Soldiers and Musquettiers and shutting up the Doors of that House of Commons and could for the Preservation of their ill-gotten Estates like Isachar bow down unto the burden and be well content to believe it to be no violation of the Privileges of Parliament no Arbitrary Power or Introduction to it nor any Destruction of the Liberties of the People and suffer him upon the 16 th of December 1653. in the presence of the Commanders and Officers of his Army attended by the miscalled Lords Commissioners of the pretended great Seal of England Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of London divers of the over awed Judges of the Land and many other Persons said to be of Quality to declare himself by an Instrument in Writing of his own framing Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland Disannul and Abrogate the antient form of Parliaments constitute a New and Ordain that the Persons Elected to be Members for ever afterwards should be approved by the major part of his Council and the succeeding Protectors who were most of them Major Generals and Commanders in his Standing Army of Oppressors That an yearly Revenue should be raised settled and established for the maintaining of Ten Thousand Horse and Dragoons and Twenty Thousand Foot in England Scotland and Ireland for the Defence and Security thereof and a Convenient Number of Ships for guarding of the Seas besides Two hundred thousand Pounds per Annum for defraying the other necessary Charges and Expences of the Government Which Revenues were to be raised by the Customs and such other ways and means as should be agreed upon by him and his Council That the Lands Tenements Rents Royalties Jurisdictions and Hereditaments which remained unsold and undisposed by Acts or Ordinances of Parliament belonging to the Common-Wealth except the Forests and Chases and the Honors and Mannors appertaining thereunto the Lands of the Rebels in Ireland and the four Counties of Dublin Cork Kildare and Caterlaugh the Lands forfeited by the People of Scotland in the late Wars and the Lands of Papists and Delinquents in England who had not then Compounded should together with the Debts Fines Issues Amerciaments Penalties and Profits certain and casual due to the Keepers of the Liberties of England by Authority of Parliament be vested in the Lord Protector and his Successors Lord Protectors of the aforesaid Nations not to be aliened but by consent of Parliament which made him no less an yearly Revenue as some of his own Party did calculate it then Eighteen hundred Thousand Pounds sterling per Annum That for the preventing of Disorders and Dangers which might fall out both at Sea and Land he should have Power until the meeting of the first Parliament which was to be once in every Three years to raise Money for the purposes aforesaid And to make Laws and Ordinances for the Peace and welfare of these Nations which should be binding and in force until order should be taken in Parliament concerning the same That the exercise of the Chief Magistrate and the Administration of the Government over the said Countries and Dominions should be in the Lord Protector assisted with a Council not exceeding Twenty one or less than Thirteen That he should in the Intervals of Parliament dispose and order the Militia and Forces of the Three Nations for the Peace and good thereof with the advice and consent of the major part of his Council That the Number of 60 Elected and chosen or approved as aforesaid being easie enough to be tempted by Preferment or over-awed by a standing Army should be deemed a Parliament for the Three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland That he and every successive Lord Protector should take an Oath that he would not Violate or Infringe the matters and things contained in that Instrument of Government And when afterwards to prevent the Juries Scruples of Conscience and unwillingness to give their Verdicts against the Law and the King 's Loyal Party as he would have them erected in Westminster-Hall his High Court of Justice or Shambles as some of the People not unfitly termed it adorned with Red and Blood-demonstrating Colours to Try and Condemn such Innocent Persons as he should call Offenders not according to the Law but the unbounded rules of his vulgar Reason of State guided by a standing Army of 30000 Horse and Foot baffled and disgraced the Laws and reasonable Customs of England maimed and cut off as much as he could of it as Adonizedek did the Thumbs and Toes of his Captive Kings altered and destroyed all he could the form and rationality of the Proceedings thereof and caused the Writs and
Pleadings form and frame thereof to be translated and only used in the English Language on purpose and with a design to Abrogate them and make way for a new Fabrick and Engine of Laws for the establishing of his intended absolute manner of Arbitrary Government encouraged and Pensioned Mr. White a profest Papist and Mr. Hobbs Men of great Learning which might have been better Imployed to Write and Publish Books to vindicate and justifie the necessity of an Absolute Power in Supreme Magistracy and others to Write and Publish their unsound Opinions that Copyhold Estates were a Badge of the Norman Slaveries that the eldest Sons or only Daughters in every Family had no right to any more than a double Portion of their Father's real Estate that University-Learning was needless with a purpose to Confiscate their Revenues and Payment of Tythes unlawful permitted Servants to betray and sequester their Masters Tenants their Landlords Wives their Husbands and Children their Parents only because they were unwilling to be Perjured in their new Oaths and Ingagements or wretchedly willing to forsake their Loyalty and the Laws of God and the Kingdom suffered his illiterate Commanders to threaten to pull the Gowns from off the Lawyers Backs and Publickly to declare That it would never be well until their Gowns were like the Colours taken from their Subdued Scots Brethren hung up in Westminster-Hall made his Major Generals Governors in several Provinces who abusing and domineering over the Laws Imprisoned men without Cause and suffered the Nobility of England to stand bare and uncovered before them and to be Arrested and Drag'd in the Streets by Bailiffs and Catchpoles for Debt when they had nothing left to pay them Prohibited ejected Orthodox Ministers to bring Actions at Law for recovery of their Rights and all others to demand or seek to recover at Law their Debts or other Rights by any Actions or Suits in Law or Equity unless they took the aforesaid Engagement against the King and House of Lords tired and almost starved with tricks and delays the poor deprived Ministers Wives and Children of their fifth part of the Profits of their Husbands and Fathers Benefices which they seemed to allow unto them gave a considerable yearly Salary duly paid to Lilly the fooling and cozening Astrologer to foretel in his State as well as weather Almanacks good or bad Events to Lacquy after his accursed Designs and positively assert by his pretended intimacy with the Stars that in such a year before His Majestie 's happy Restauration Prince Rupert who God be thanked is yet living was certainly to be Hanged Constituted a House composed of his Army Commanders and some other of his Nymrods and Deputy-oppressors many whereof had been formerly well instructed in the Arts of Coblers Draymen and Bodies-making c. and instead of an House of Peers called it the Other House And when Mr. Coney a London Merchant being Imprisoned against the Law without a Cause shewn had brought his Habeas Corpus to be Bailed sent Mr. Maynard Mr. Twisden and Mr. Wadham Wyndham his Lawyers Prisoners to the Tower of London for Pleading for him and the Liberties of the People and called our Magna Charta Magna farta Prohibited all Lawyers to Plead for any of the Sequestred Orthodox Ministry that would not crouch under and kiss the Rod of their Persecution Many notwithstanding of those better now than they were before Informed Members of that over long and unhappy Parliament and continued to be Members of Parliament through all the Changes from thence to Oliver and from Oliver to his Son Dick seemed not then to be out of love with those new Authorities or over turning Rota's of Government Laws and Liberties And too many of the gaining and Phanatick Party who might have foreseen the dismal Apprehensions of an approaching Arbitrary Power had in the days of Oliver and his Son Mr. Richard so little a dread or were not so much afraid of it when they had reason to have been a great deal more as they being no small Gainers by it rejoyced in it thought themselves happily placed in the blessed Land of Canaan and Conducted into it by the hand of Heaven and Singing a Magnificat to Oliver and a Requiem to themselves and their chosen Posterity could be at no rest until they had obtained Declarations out of many Counties and Cities subscribed by the most considerable Men of their Rebellious and Sacrilegious Party and caused them to be Printed and delivered unto his Counterfeit Highness with Solemn Addresses upon their Knees and other actions of Veneration by some of their most active Accomplices wherein they stiled Oliver Moses and Joshua made up his Praises with almost Blasphemy and prayed for the continuance of his Care for their Protection and as they called it the Publick Good and were after his Death as busie with the like Adoration several solemn Declarations Addresses and Thanksgivings to his Son Richard's ridiculous parcel of Highness Wherefore they who were then so willing to bow their Necks under the hard galling Iron yoke which a Long Parliament by Colour of a false Authority assistance of a standing Army and a Rebel Brewer had put upon them And to take Arms against their own Happiness and betray their own good Laws Liberties Privileges and Customs to Usurpers which were so unparallel'd as the Devil with a pair of Spectacles cannot upon the most malicious and exactest search find any Nation under Heaven so happy and blessed as England hath been in the security of their Liberties Properties and Privileges since the beginning of the Reign of King Henry the First thorough the Reigns of all our Succeeding Kings who upon the least appearance or complaints of Grievances either as to particulars or generals rarò contingentibus or but feared or likely to happen never denied good Laws and Remedies to their People as all our Law-Books Year-Books Reports of Cases Adjudged Parliament Rolls and Books of Statutes will abundantly testifie may with shame and horror of so foul and grand ingratitude recall to their remembrance that they that were the Disciples of the late Wars and Usurpations and gainers by the Ruin and Misery of this and two other Kingdoms by their Arts and Power of cheating and haring their fellow Subjects out of their Loyalty Religion Estates Laws and Liberties Could be well contented to receive of His Majesty after his Return from his Distresses not only a Pardon unto all but a few excepted of their great and many Offences and Misdeeds after that he had by several Acts of Parliament Unfornicated or Unadulterated the Wives and Husbands and Legitimated the Children of those that were mis-married and taken away the Errors of their Illegal Proceedings and Judgments and Recoveries had at Law in the time of their many years abominable Rebellion but the greatest acquital of Money Arrears and Forfeitures due unto him amounting unto many Millions Sterling that ever any People of England had and received
of any of their Kings and Princes at once with an Addition afterwards of another Pardon or Abolition of a lesser size for Offences and Forfeitures since committed and did not only restore unto all the Cities Boroughs and Corporations of England and Wales their forfeited Charters Privileges and Liberties but enlarged and gave unto many of them more than they had before And was so unwilling to Punish those that had done him and his Royal Father Mother Brothers Sisters those almost impossible to be forgotten or forgiven most execrable Villanies as he not only Pardoned but gave them profitable Employments who to their shame cozened him all they could and moulded themselves into a Faction of Repeating as many Impieties as they had been guilty of before and was so over Clement and forgiving as he imployed and did not Punish one that was proved to have said after His Majestie 's escape from the Battel of Worcester That if he had been taken he ought to have been stripped stark Naked led through the Streets with a Bridle thrust through an hole bored in his Nose Whipped at a Carts tail and afterwards Hanged Are not to be very angry or take it ill if they be charged with Partiality or Injustice or as great a Reproach as our Blessed Saviour bestowed upon the over-quick-sighted fault-finding Pharisee who could espy a mote as he thought in another's eye but not see a beam in his own but rather retire into themselves and upon a more strict Examination of their past evil Actions abhor themselves in dust and ashes cover their heads with shame weep repent and resolve to walk retrograde and persist no more in the gain-saying of Corah Datham and Abiram wherein they perished When they who would make every body as much afraid as they themselves do seem to fear an Inclination in His Majesty to an Arbitrary Power which he never did or is willing to exercise can almost every day joyn with others in Complaints of the no few of the Subordinate Magistrates usurping it against the mind and direction of the King and his Laws over their fellow Subjects by their Irregular courses Condemning and many times Imprisoning without Jury Trial legal Hearing or Proceedings And easily discern an yearly Custom of an illegally over-strained Power in the Lord Maiors of London Electing and Drinking unto many or more than needs in the Choice of two to be Sheriffs of London and Middlesex for the ensuing year and imposing and taking great Fines of the Refusers unto whom he needed not to have Drank whereby to gain some Thousands of Pounds yearly for the Fines of such as were unwilling or unfit to bear the Charge or Expence of those Offices and Imprison and Constrain them to pay them which are seldom less than 4 or 500 l. upon every such Refuser As if some fatal and successive Annual or fit of Thirst or kind Drinking was at a certain Time of every year to fall upon the Lord Maiors of that City to Drink more often and unto more than he should do And they that shall happen to be so imposed upon are sure to be out of hopes of getting themselves discharged of Imprisonment for not paying the Fine by Writs of Habeas Corpus and Bail which if the King should do every year in the Choice of Three presented unto him to serve as Sheriffs in all other Counties and Places of England and Wales no other City or Place therein making use of such a kind and loving Device to raise Moneys the Habeas Corpora Bells would Ring in all the Courts of Justice in Westminster-Hall and His Majesty would be troubled with the noise thereof And no small Arbitrary Power in their Courts of Orphants in London by Imprisoning a young Man in Newgate without Bail or Mainprise that had lawfully Married a City Orphant and his Father in like manner for contriving it And we may often hear and observe in the Guilds Fraternities and Companies of Trade and their Mysteries in the City of London an almost unbounded over absolute Power in their By-Laws which should be perused as it is more than a little probable they are not or but very seldom or cursorily by the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England Lord Treasurer and the two Lord Chief Justices and allowed by them or any three of them to be according to the Law together with their giving of unlawful Oaths imposing of Taxes Quarteridges or Fines and Assessements as they please upon the Poorer sort of the Companies of Trades supernumerating their Livery Men in their Companies in making them to be twice as many as they were wont to be and inforcing them to Pay 20 or 25 l. a Man and be at the Charge of a reverend Gown faced with Furrs of Foynes or Budge and Imprison Men for not obeying them and their grinding superfluous Orders The Exactions and Arbitrary Power of the Church-Officers in the City of London and its overgrown Suburb Parishes in the Renting of Pews and Seats in the Churches making Strangers pay great and double Fees for Tolling the Passing Bell and Ringing of a Peal when there was no such Matters taking great Fees for Burying of the Dead in the Church or Chancel near an Husband Wife Father or Mother Brother or Sister where before they have lain there a quarter of a year or a little time they are sure to be taken up again and flung into a Common Vault to lodge amongst those that were Buried far cheaper conniving at or permitting the Parish Clerks Sextons or Grave-makers to sell the broken and sometimes pillaged Coffins of the Dead to be made fewel for fire or Bake-houses cozening the Living and Dead feasting and fatning themselves upon every small Consultation and Parish meeting for the good as they call it or little Business of the Parish as for the putting out a Bastard or Foundling or poor Parish Child to a Beggar to beg with and trouble the Streets withal at a low weekly rate and take the advantage to themselves of reckoning by a greater which have been the cause of such short Memories in Parish Politicks and Governments as the Accompt of a Legacy of Three hundred Pounds per Annum as they may be now demised in Houses and Tenements in a London Suburb Parish for as many hundred years ago for the Building of the Church yet standing upon its old Ruins is so vanished as it is not at all to be found and a royal Charity of One hundred and Twenty pounds given in the year 1625. by King Charles the Martyr in a Time of Pestilence could never be heard of and the Church wardens or Collectors of a near London Parish have been so over-watched for the good of the Parish and thereby rendred so sleepy or Lethargick as they could not good People as they would be thought to be tell which way One Thousand or Two Thousand pounds have escaped out of the Accompt and the fault
his Mind as Affairs he was after his Happy Restauration unavoidably enforced to pay many great Sums of Money owing by him in Foreign Parts and the time of his Troubles Great Arrears owing by Oliver Cromwel to the Seamen and Land Forces to calm and pacifie them Lost great Sums of Money in the Assessing and Collecting of the Subsidies Poll Money and Assessements Hath been at great Charges in procuring his Plundered and lost Houshold-stuff Hangings Plates and Pictures and the Redemption of the Crown Jewels a great part of which were by his Royal Father in his Wars and Calamities Pawned at Amsterdam Granted Eight thousand pounds per Annum of the Crown Revenue to George Duke of Albemarle and the Heirs males of his Body who was so happily instrumental in his Restauration Four thousand pounds per Annum upon the like accompt to the Earl of Sandwich in Fee or Fee-tail Sixty thousand pounds given to the distressed Cavalier Party that sought for him and his Royal Father besides other great Gifts and Pensions to not a few of his Subjects either necessitated by Suffering for him and his Royal Father or craving what they could of him or to sweeten allure and keep in quiet the Schismatical Rebellious and contrary Parties Expended much Money in Repairing his if not almost ruined yet much deformed and defaced Houses and Palaces replenishing of his Parks Stores and Magazines Building of his House at Greenwich with an Expence of House-keeping and bounty more than ordinary at his Return and coming into England with the Charge of Diet for the Dukes of York and Gloucester and the Princess of Orange and their Families more than formerly chargeable by reason of the want of his Purveyance In the Payment of 200000 l. to the old Farmers of the Customs Charged upon Ireland more than that Kingdoms yearly Revenue and their Parliamentary Aids given by them amounted unto The Abatement of some of his Customs to advance the Fishing Trade Of his Chimney or Hearth-Money in London and some of the Suburbs thereof for Seven years in Relief of those that Suffered by the Burning of London made and ordained several helpful Acts of Parliament for the Rebuilding of it Gave great Sums of Money out of his Customs towards the Relief of the Captives at Algier Was at great Charges in keeping and fortifying of Dunkirk until the quitting thereof And of the Garrison and making the Mole at Tangier and some of his Customs assigned to defray the Charges of repairing the Peer or Port of Dover Adventures in the Guiny and Royal Company Two hundred and Twenty thousand pounds per Annum necessary yearly Charges for the maintenance of his Life-Guards Foot and Horse besides many other great Charges in the Raising and Disbanding of Forces to defend himself and the Kingdom against Intestine Plots Seditions and a threatning Invasion from abroad Of Building of many great Ships and Frigots and making of Forts in England Ireland and Scotland In Magazines Stores and Provision for Shipping Ammunition Ordnance Gunpowder c. Of procuring the Bishop of Munster to make a diversive War upon the Dutch Charges and Expences of the former Dutch War and his Navy of an Hundred great Ships and Men of War in several years and Summers every single Ship in its Victualling Pay and Ammunition being as Chargeable as two Regiments of Foot in an Army well Victualled and Paid Payment of an unreasonable and racking Interest to borrow and procure Money and relieve his not easily to be satisfied necessitous and weather-beaten Court and Servants Charges in the Collecting the Chimney Money and the Losses and Defalcations in the Excise-Revenue in the late great Plague and Dismal Fire at London and Defalcations to the Farmers of the Customs for their Losses by the want of Trade in the time of the Dutch War An Allowance or Imposition upon every Chaldron of Coals for a certain number of years towards the Rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and 39 other Churches in London Two years Revenue of divers Rents of Houses near London allowed to the Queen Mothers Servants after her Death all the Delinquents Estates who were greatly Instrumental in the Murder of his Royal Father given to the Duke of York for his Support together with the Profits of the Admiralty Wine-Licences and a great part of the yearly benefit by the Post-Office With many other necessary Regal Expences And being since His most Happy Restauration to himself but most of all to his oppressed Subjects who were thereby delivered out of a like to be perpetual Bondage and Vassalage of their own framing from which otherwise they could never have redeemed themselves and being kind and gracious to as many as he could of his Suffering Party and willing to perswade those that had been altogether instrumental and causers of his own and his Loyal Subjects Miseries to follow their Example gave their never to be satisfied Rapines and godless greediness too many of the Imployments Places Farms and Offices under him can notwithstanding with Samuel justly say whose Ox or whose Ass have I unjustly taken away whom have I defrauded or whom have I oppressed Which if Right be done unto him should not be gainsaid by his borrowing of the Banker's Money when they had sent it into his Exchequer at an high and unreasonable Interest and making use of it to furnish out his Navy in or against the approaching Spring when the Ingrateful Dutch having heaped their Abuses and Injuries upon him and the Nation were as Confident as the Philistins were in the Case of the Children of Israel when there was not a Spear or Sword in Israel That he could have no means or Money by the frowardness and discords of some Opiniatrées and State-Reformers to furnish out his Fleet to prevent their designs of persisting in their disgracing and domineering over him the Trade of the Nation abroad and affronting and mastering of him at home And in the doing thereof he was Necessitate Necessitatum driven by an unavoidable and extreme Necessity more than that which perswaded David to take the Shew bread from off the Altar to preserve the Publick in himself and himself in the Publick from a fatal and otherwise utter ruine and loss of the Soveraignty of our Brittish Seas and the Guard and Benefits thereof justly Claimed and Vindicated by his Royal Progenitors and Predecessors and at no time before in so much danger of loosing For his after-Actions and Cares of Repayment may Evidence that he intended neither any wrong or Injustice to the Bankers or the Owners of it in that he not only made a Provision to pay them the Interest until he could be able to pay them the Principal but did all he could if his daily and publick Occasions had not prevented him to pay the Principal which he long ere this had accomplished had not the War by the Haughtiness Malice and Insolence of the Dutch often and very much decryed by the Sweeds and other
Nations who were the Mediators for Peace at Cologne emboldened by our home Divisions and want of Supplies lengthened it self beyond all Expectation And hath notwithstanding in the Interim by his Protections Royal and many other Cares taken done as much as he could to keep the Bankers from Arrests Imprisonments and other Ruines impendant often happening and falling upon Men indebted Although if Reports and the Laments of some that were concerned be not much mistaken a great part of that Money was belonging to many of his own Servants who by his Bounty and Places of Profit under him had easily gained it and many of those who so heavily complained of that detention of their Moneys had for their own advantages intrusted it to the Bankers who by an Imaginary Credit far exceeding their own Estates furnishing one man with another man's Money and paying out that which was but the same day or a little before come in had inticed a great part of the Money of the Nation into their hands And some if not many of the Owners did well enough understand that they did not only furnish them and their Credits upon all Emergent occasions of Profit or Accommodation by that kind of alluring much of the Money of the Nation into their Custody but his Majesty also at an high and intollerable Usury which if a strict enquiry were made by His Majesty or Order of Parliament of the particular Owners of the Money brought into the Exchequer by the Bankers and from thence borrowed and made use of by his Majesty upon his Publick and most urgent Affairs would plainly appear And it will be as manifest that he afterwards gave no respite to his Royal Cares and Intentions of Repaying it with the Legal or as much Interest as the Bankers were to pay for it And finding that the Fee Farm Rents amounting unto Seventy thousand pounds per annum sold at Sixteen years Purchase which nothing but a grand Necessity could enforce him to Alien for that many of them being the Tenths were by two several Acts of Parliament annexed to the Imperial Crown of England for the maintenance thereof and were as so many Ties and Obligations which made the Owners of these Lands to be dependant upon the Crown would not reach to a Satisfaction of his other Debts and Expences which having been longer due were more importunate than those of the Bankers did lately in a Speech to the Lords and Commons in Parliament make it his earnest Request that they would take the Necessity and speedy Payment of the Bankers into their Considerations And when nothing of help could be obtain'd for that purpose did by his Letters Patents under his great Seal with great difficulty and hardship order a part of his burdened Revenue to be assigned for the due and orderly payment of the Interest until the Principal Moneys should be justly satisfied and paid So as his doings therein or making use of that Money if impartially and judiciously weighed in the Ballance of Truth and Judgment is not to be called a seizure or forcible taking of the Bankers Money or to be ranked either as to the necessity or the thing it self or the number of the persons concerned with what King Edward the First a Wise and Prudent Prince did do when he in the 22 year of his Reign seized into his hands upon occasion of supplying the Publick Necessities all the Wools in the Kingdom as the Merchants were lading them in the Ports giving them Security for Payment at his own Rates and a long day and a short price and transported them to his own best and readiest Sale and at another time upon a like necessity seized all the Pope's Moneys which had been Collected for him by the Clergy of England amounting to very great Sums of Money towards the Wars of the Holy Land gave Protections to those that had the Custody of it and retain'd and made use of it for his then pressing Publick Affairs two years and more notwithstanding that the Pope had in the mean time sent unto him then hugely formidable threatning Bulls and Letters for it Or the like done by King Edward the Third in the 12 th year of his Reign with all the Tynne or with what King Henry the 6 th did by way of Purveyance of great Store of Grain and Corn and transporting it into Gascony where it was very dear or by Queen Elizabeth of a great deal of Beer Transported and sold to her use beyond the Seas and by defraying a great part of the Charges of her Wars in Ireland with Moneys Coined of Tynne with a promise to make a Satisfaction for it with Moneys made of Silver which was justly performed by her and King James her Learned Successor Concerning all which matters fears and jealousies I can be confident your Sentiments and mine will so little disagree as your Judgment of the Ages past and observations of the rise and progress of our late Troubles and Miseries which brought the greatest Shame and Scandal to the Protestant Religion profest in England and Scotland that ever it had or could have laid upon it and cast an unhappy Reflection upon those that were in the parts beyond the Seas will not refuse me your Company in the Opinion of a Truth so experimented that the fruit of all those Artifices rather than any just cause of any such fears or apprehensions have yielded no better Effects than the Ruine and Confusion of the former Glory and Honour of our Nation by setting up a Rebellious part of the People the Offspring as to some of their Levelling Principles of Wat Tiler and Jack Cade to undo and Rule over the better sort of the People and the Poor to Plunder and rob the Rich. And that therefore they which have been the cause of so many Mischiefs and Evils which their and our Seri Nepotes will have reason enough bitterly to bewail and without God's great Mercy will scarcely live to see eradicated ought better to consult their Conscience the Precepts and Examples of Wisdom Salus Populi Interest of the Kingdom and Honour of the King and Nation and abandoning their former Follies and false Lights which led them and their partakers into so great Sins and made them to be the Causes of so many National Miseries not run themselves and others into the fear of one or two incertain Evils but an Hundred which will be most certain and can never be recalled And I cannot but assure my self that you will be ready to conclude with me that there is no Rational or just Cause of Fear that we can have by any Infection contracted from the now Laws and manner of Government of France under His most Christian Majesty For until their Civil and Intestine Wars and Ill Usage of Charles the Fifth and Charles the Seventh their Kings in their greatest Distresses that Nation had Liberties more than at present they have or are likely to enjoy And that our
gave them a Caution for the future to believe that whatsoever is subject to a publick Exposition cannot be good And the Parliaments in her long and glorious Reign were so unwilling to give any disturbance to her Great and Renowned Actions for the defence and good of her Self and her People and all the Protestant Concernments in Christendom As in the First year of her Reign a Parliament granted her Two shillings eight pence in the Pound of Goods and Four shillings of Lands to be paid in several Payments In her Sixth year one Subsidy was granted by the Clergy and another by the Laiety together with two Fifteenths and Tenths in the Thirteenth year of her Reign towards the Charges of Suppressing the Northern Rebellion a Subsidy of Six shillings in the pound by the Clergy and by the Temporalty two Fifteens and a Subsidy of Two shillings and eight pence in the Pound in her Six and twentieth year had granted her by the Clergy two whole Subsidies and by the Laiety three besides Six Fifteenths and Tenths with a Proviso that that great Contribution should not be drawn into Example in her Fortieth year had granted by the Clergy three entire Subsidies and as many by the Laiety with Six Fifteens and Tenths and in the 42 th year of her Reign to furnish Money for the Irish Wars had Commissions granted to confirm the Crown Lands of Ireland to the Possessors o◠defective Titles And all little enough when in the same year Sir Walter Raleigh a Member of the House of Commons declared unto them That the Moneys lent unto 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet unpaid her Jewels and much of her Lands sold and she had spared Money out of her own Purse and her Apparel for her Peoples sake And yet when in the Eighth year of her Reign the Parliament had offered unto her four Subsidies upon Condition that she would declare her Successor she magnanimously refused it and remitted the fourth Subsidy saying It was all one whether the Money was in her own or in her Subjects Coffers Our King James being born and bred in the Kingdom of Scotland where their Laws are mingled with some Neighbour English Customs drawn out of our Glanvil brought thither by their King James the First who lived some time here in England and afterwards so much Compounded and over-born by the Civil Law brought out of France long after by King James the Fifth which with some part of their Common Law makes them to be so overmuch Civil and Canon and a Miscellany of them as they are very much different from ours had so great an affection to the Civil Laws and those of his own Countrey before he had understood the Excellency of ours that shortly after his coming to the Crown of England he earnestly recommended to the Parliament of England not only an Union of both the Kingdoms and the Subjects thereof but of their Laws also And so much savoured the Civil Laws as he complained in a Speech to the Parliament of the Contempt of them allowed or was much taken with the Comedy of Ignoramus and Dulman which was purposely framed to expose the Professors of our Common Laws to a Derision of the People and render them guilty of an Ignorance of good Letters and Learning which all of them witness our great Selden and some other of his Coaevals could not justly be charged with and suffered it to be Acted before him at Cambridge with great Applause and to be afterwards Printed and Published without any murmur or jealousie of the English Nation that he endeavoured to introduce an Arbitrary Power who manifested no unwillingness to give him Subsidies and Aids in Foreign as well as Domestick Affairs when he had occasion to require them All which the Cares and doings of our Ancestors for the Publick and Common good joined with their Duty and Allegiance to their Soveraign Kings and Princes may afford us convincing Reasons and Arguments out of concluding Premisses that the Weal and Woe of Kings and their People are like those of Hippocrates's Twins partaking each with other and that the Fear of God Honour of the King Self-Preservation and Oaths and Duty of Allegiance will be more than enough to enjoyn every good Christian and Subject where the welfare of the King and Publick are concerned to be as willing to help the King as he would himself And it cannot be deemed to be either unadvisedly or ill done by our English Fore-fathers or Predecessors in the House of Commons in Parliament in the Seventh year of the Reign of King Richard the Second when being required of the King to give their Advice concerning a Peace to be made with the King of France And the Chancellor then said That the King of himself could well do it yet for good will he would not without their Knowledge or Consent And it could not be Concluded without a Personal Interview of the King of France which for his Honour required great Charges whereof he Charged them of their Allegiance to consult and give him Answer unto which they answering That it becomed not them to Intermeddle their Council therein And therefore referred the whole Order thereof unto the King and his Council And being urged again to answer whether they desired Peace or War for one of them they must choose They answered Peace But when they understood that the King of France desired that the King should hold Guyen of him by Homage and Service they knew not what to say only they hoped that the King meant not to hold of the French Calice and other Territories gotten of them by the Sword whereunto when the King replied That otherwise Peace could not be granted and therefore willed them to Choose They in the end rather desired Peace But Peace not ensuing or being to be had and the King by his Chancellor the next year after in Parliament informing them how that the King was Invironed with the French Spanish Flemmings and the Scots who were Confederate and had made great Preparations to destroy him and his People which was like to ensue unless some means were used to resist it That the King Intended to hazard his own Person to whatsoever Peril which might justly encourage all Estates willingly to offer themselves and what they had to such defence And declared unto them the falshood and treachery of the French in their Treaty of Peace at Calice when they finding the English inclined to it had departed from their Offers The Lords and Commons when they found the Honour of the King and Safety of the Nation so deeply Ingaged granted unto the King two Fifteenths Conditionally that a Moiety of the Fifteenth granted in the last Parliament be part of it and so as if the King go not in Person or that Peace be made the last Fifteenth might Cease Can the sullen rude and ungodly Dutch the most of whose Religion is Trade and all that can be gained by it to maintain their Incroachments