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

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Concessions and taking their new treasonable Engagements against the King Kingship and House of Lords An usurpation not to be paralel'd in any age destructive to the very being of Parliaments i Where all Members of both Houses are ex debito Justitiae wi●h equal Freedom to meet and speak their mind● injurious to all those Counties Cities Borough● whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses are secluded and to the whole Kingdom yea contrary to all rules of reason justice policy conscience and their own Agreement of the people which inhibit the * far lesser part of any Councel Court or Committee to oversway seclude or fore-judg the major number of their Assessors and fellow-members over whom they can no ways pretend the least jurisdiction it being the high way to usher Tyranny and confusion into all Councels and Realms to their utter dissolution since the King alone without the Lords and Commons or the Lords alone without the King or Commons may by this new device make themselves an absolute Parliament to impose Taxes and enact Laws without the Commons or any other forty or fifty Commoners meeting together without their companions and secluding them by force do the like as well as this remnant of the Commons make themselves a complete Parliament without the King Lords or Majority of their fellow-Members if they can but now or hereafter raise an Army to back them in it as the Army did those sitting 1648. and 1649. and those sitting in 1659 have done secluding the majority of their old fellow-Members by meer armed Violence 4. Suppose this Tax should bind those Counties Cities and Burronghs whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses sate and consented to it when imposed though I dare swear much against the minds and wills of all or most of those they represent who by the k Armies new Doctrine may justly question and revoke their authority for this high breach of Trust the rather because the Knights and Burgesses assembled in the first Parliament of 13. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 8. did all refuse to grant a great extraordinary Subsidie demanded of them though not comparable to this for the necessary defence of the Kingdome against foraign Enemies till they had conferred with the Counties and Burroughs for which they served and gained their assents Yet there is no shadow of Reason Law or Equity it should oblige any of the Secluded Members themselves whereof I am one or those Counties Cities Burroughs whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses have been secluded or scared thence by the Armies or sitting Members fraud force violence or illegal Votes for their seculsion who absolutely disavow this Tax and Act as un-parliamentary illegall and never assented to by them in the least degree since the onely l reason in Law or equity why Taxes or Acts of Parliament oblige any Member County Burrough or Subject is because they are parties and consenting thereunto either in proper person or by their chosen Representatives in Parliament returned and authorized by Indentures under their Seals it being a recieved Maxime in all Laws m Quod tang it omnes ab omnibus debet approbari Upon which reason it is judged in our n Law-books That By-Laws oblige only those who are parties and consent unto them but not strangers or such who assented not thereto And which comes fully to the present case in 7. H. 6. 35. 8. H. 6. 34. Brook Ancient Demesne 20. Patl. 17. 101. it is resolved That ancient Demesne is a good plea in a Writ of Wast upon the Statutes of Wast because those in ancient Demesne were not parties to the making of them FOR THAT THEY HAD NO KNIGHTS NOR BURGESSES IN PARLIAMENT nor contributed to their expences And Judge Brook Parliament 101. hath this observable Note It is most frequently found that Wales and County palatines WHICH CAME NOT TO THE PARLIAMENT in former times which now they do SHALL NOT BE BOUND BY THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND for ancient Demesne is a good Plea in an action of Wast and yet ancient Demesne is not excepted and it is enacted 2. Ed. 6. cap. 28. That Fines and Proclamations shall be in Chester for the former Statutes did not extend to it And it is enacted That a Fine and Proclamation shall be in Lancaster 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 26. And in a Proclamation upon an e●igent is given by the Statute in Chester and Wales 1 E. 6. c. 20. And by another Act to Lancaster 5. 6. E. 5. c. 26. And the Statute of Justices of Peace extented not to Wales and the County palatine and therefore an Act was made for Wales and Chester 27. H. 8. c. 5. who had Knights and Burgesses appointed by that Parliament for that and future Parliaments by Act of Parliament 27. Hen. 8. cap. 26. since which they have continued their wages being to be levyed by the Statute of 35. H. 8. c. 11. Now if Acts of Parliament bound not Wales and Counties Palatines which had anciently no Knights nor Burgesses in Parliament to represent them because they neither personally nor representatively were parties and consenters to them much lesse then can or ought this heavy Tax and illegal Act 1649 or those of 1659. to bind those Knights Citizens and Burgesses or the Counties Cities and Burroughs they represent who were forcibly secluded or driven away from the Parliament by the confederacy practice orders commands or connivance at least of those now sitting who imposed these Taxes and passed these strange Acts as the recited Lawbooks and the later Clauses in all Writs for electing Knights and Burgesses resolve much lesse to oblige Scotland Ireland who have * Parliaments of their own and have yea ought to have no Members sitting for them in the English Parliaments who seldom or never imposed Taxes on Scotland or Ireland heretofore whose taxes were only imposed by their own Parliaments as is evident by claus. 46 E. 3. m. 25. claus. 47 E. 3. m. 3. My Plea for the Lords p. 426 427 2 R. 2 f. 11 12. Brook Parliament 98. 20 H. 6. f. 8. Fitz. Prescription 7. and Brook Prescription 4. They being not so much as a Parliament of England much lesse of Scotland Ireland as they stile themselves and having no authority by their writs of Elections and Indentures to treat or consult of any businesses but only such as touch and concern the Kingdom of England not the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland not mentioned in the Writs or Indentures of their Elections Especially because those Taxes are thus imposed by them for the support and continuance of those Officers and that Army who trayterously seised and secluded the Members from the House and yet detain some of them Prisoners against all Law and Justice and have oft secluded them since and because the secluded Members are the far major part above six times as many as those that sate and shut them out by force and would no waies have consented to
offensive and defensive war against the King and Kingship but to oppose the Kings interest and Title to that Kingdom * setled on Him his Heirs and Successors for ever by an express Act of Parliament made in Ireland 23 H. 8. c. 1. and by the Statute of 1 Jac. c. 1. made in England yet unrepealed and the Protestant remaining party there adhering to and proclaiming acknowledging him for their Soveraign lest his gaining of Ireland should prove fatal to their usurped Soveraigntie in England or conduce to his enthroning here And by what Authority those now sitting can impose or with what Conscience any loyal Subject who hath taken the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Covenant can voluntarily pay any Contributions to deprive the King of his hereditary right and undoubted Title to the Kingdoms and Crowns of England and Ireland and alter the frame of the antient Government and Parliaments of our Kingdoms * Remonstrated so often against by both Houses and adjudged High Treason in Canterburies and Straffirds cases for which they were beheaded and by themselves in the Kings own case whom they decolled likewise without incurring the guilt of perjury and danger of high Treason to the loss of his life and estate by the very laws and Statutes yet in force transcends my understanding to conceive Wherefore I neither can nor dare in conscience law or prudence submit to this Contribution The 3d. end of this Tax and more particularly of this new Tax of Jan 26. 1659. of one hundred thousand pound the Month for 6 months space after a former Tax levied before hand for the self-same Months is the maintenance of the Armies and Navyes raised and continued for the defence of the twice dissipated Anti-Parliamentarie Conventicle and their Utopian Common-wealth and the necessary and urgent occasions thereof now propounded and insisted on by the sitting Members as the only means of Peace and Settlement both in Church and State when as in truth it hath been is and will be the onlie means of Unsettlement and new divisions wars oppressions confusions in both to their utter ruine and desolation if pursued Which I shall evidence beyond contradiction 1. This project to metamorphoze our antient Hereditary famous flourishing Kingdom into an Helvetian and Vtopian Common-wealth by popular Tumults Rebellion and a prevalent party in Parliament was originally contrived by Father Parsons and other Jesuites in Spain in the year of our Lord 1590. recommended by them to the King of Spain to pursue and was principally to be effected by Jesuites to destroy and subvert our Protestant Monarchs Kingdoms and subject them to the Tyranny and Vassallage of the Jesuites and Spaniards as you may read at large in William Watson his Quodlibets printed 1602. p. 92 94 25 286 389 310 330 332 333 334 322 323 in his Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman printed at Rhemes 1601. and in William Clarke both Secular Priests his Answer to Father Parsons Libel p. 75 76 c. 2ly After this it was particularly and by name recommended by Thomas Campanella an Italian Monk and Arch-Machivilian to the King of Spain in the year 1600. as the principal means to sow the seeds of Divisions and Dissentions amongst the English themselves and to engage England Scotland and Ireland in inextricable wars against each other to divert the English from the Indies and his Plate Fleet and reduce them under his universal Temporal and the Popes Spiritual Monarchy at last as you may read at large in his Book De Monarchia Hispanica c. 25. now translated into English 3ly It was again set on foot and vigorously prosecuted by the Jesuites and Cardinal Richelien of France in the years 1639 1640. as you may read in my Romes Master-piece and Epistle to A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication c. of the good old fundamental Liberties Laws c. of all English Freemen printed 1655. And specially recommended to the French King and Cardinal Mazarin his Successor at his death Anno 1642. vigorously to pursue and accomplish by the Civil Wars raised between Scotland and England and the late King and Parliament as a Historia Conte de Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato part 3. Venotiis 1648. p. 175 176. and was accordingly prosecuted by the Spanish and French Agents and the Jesuites and Popish Priests and their seduced Proselytes of the Juncto and Army as I evidenced at large in my Speech Dee 4. 1648. and the Appendix to it my soresaid Epistle and True and Perfect Narrative May 1659. by evidences past all contradiction 4ly It is evident That the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists in England Scotland and Ireland with all the b Sectarian Party of Anabaptists Quakers Enthisiasts and Sectaries of all sorts headed by disguised Jesuites Monks Fryers and Popish Priests have been the chiefest Sticklers of all others for this New projected Commonwealth against the King and Monarchy and the only means to extirpate our established Protestant Ministry with their Maintenance Tithes Glebes and embroyl us in endless confusions and revolutions of Governments Wars Distractions till we be beggered destroyed and made a prey to our forein Enemies 5ly The King of Spain was the first of all forein Kings and States who owned cou●ted and ent●ed into a League of Amity with our new Common-wealth after the Kings beheading as a Creature of his own in opposition to our King and Kingship and engaged us in a war against the Dutch to make himself Monarch over us both according to Campanella his advice De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25 27. which our Republicans punctuallie pursued from 1649 till 1653. almost to the ruine of us both by the Spaniards Gold and policie 6ly That the French Cardinal Mazarin and other Popish Kings and States complyed and confederated with our Republicans and late Protectors in opposition to our Hereditary Protestant King and Kingship purposely to ruine us and our Religion at home and the Protestant Churches abroad engaged by their policies in unchristian wars against each other 7ly That we have all visibly seen and sensibly felt by twelve years wofull experiment that this Jesuitical project and chymera of a Free-state and Common-wealth was propounded by the c Army-Officers and the sitting Juncto as the only means of our present and future peace and settlement both in Nov. 1647 1648 1649. and yet it hath proved as I then predicted in my Speech and Memento a perpetual Seminarie of new Wars Tumults Combustions Changes Revolutions of Government and Governours Anti-parliamentarie Conventicles Factions Schisms Sects Heresies Confusions and endlesse Taxes Oppressions Ataxies ever since both in Church State Court and Camp almost to our inevitable destruction and of necessity it will and must do so still And is it not then a worse than Bedlam follie and frenzie for our Anti-parliamentarie Juncto Swordmen and Republicans to enforce and impose it on us by mere armed violence against our Judgements Reasons Consciences Experiments and
A Legal Vindication Of the Liberties of ENGLAND AGAINST ILLEGAL TAXES And pretended Acts of Parliament Lately enforced on the PEOPLE OR Reasons assigned by WILLIAM PRYNNE of Swainswick in the County of Sommerset Esquire why he can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence submit to the New illegal Tax or Contribution of Ninety thousand pounds the Month Imposed on the Kingdom by a pretended Act of some commons in or rather out of Parliament April 7 1649. when this was first penned and printed nor to the One Hundred Thousand pound per Mensem newly laid upon England Scotland and Ireland Jan. 126. 1659. by a 〈◊〉 of the old Commons House secluding the whole House of Lords and Majority of their hellow Members by armed violence against all rules of Law and Parliament Presidents Esay 1. 7. He looked for Judgement but behold Oppression for Righteousnesse but behold a cry Psal. 12. 5. For the Oppression of the Poor for the sighing of the Needy new will I arise saith the Lord and will set him in safety from him that would ensnare him Exod. 6. 5. 6. I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Aegyptians keep in bandage and I have remembred my Covenant Wherefore say unto the children of Israel I am the Lord and I will bring you out from under the Burdens of the Aegyptians and I will rid you out of their Bondage and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great Judgements Eccles. 4. 1 2. So I returned and considered all the Oppressions that are done under the Sun and beh●ld the tears of such as were oppressed and they had no comforter and in the hand of their Oppressors there was power but they had no Comforter Wherefore I praised the dead which are already dead more than the living which are yet alive The second Edition enlarged London printed for Edw. Thomas at the Adam and Eve in Little Britain 1660. ERRATA PAge 4. l. 33. to read by p. 8. l. 1. Seclusion l. 29. dele in l. 31. extended p. 41. l. 10. on p. 47. l. 2. only p. 54. l 18. and r. as p. 57. l. 4. it is p. 62. l. 4. obsta p. 71. l. 35. to p. 71. l. 1. resolved l. 8. and r. as p. 79. l. 15. and r. of Margin P. 9. l. 9. 12 r. 17. To the Ingenuous Reader THe Reasons originally inducing and in some sort necessitating me to compile and publish this Legal Vindication against Illegal Taxes and pretended Acts of Parliament imposed on the whole English Nation in the year 1649. by a small remnant of the Commons House sitting under an armed Force abjuring the King and House of Lords and unjustly secluding the Majority of their Fellow-Commoners against the very tenor of the Act of 17 Caroli c. 6. by which they pretended to sit the letter of the Writs by which they were elected and those Indentures by which they were returned Members the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance Protestation Solemn National League and Covenant which they all took as Members the very first Act of Parliament made and printed after their first sitting 16 Caroli c. 1. and many hundreds of Declarations Remonstrances Orders Ordinances Votes from Nov. 3. 1640. to Dec. 5. 1648. have constrained me now to reprint it with some necessary and usefull Additions in the year 1659. above ten years after its first Publication Those very Rumpers who on the 7th of April 1649. imposed a Tax of Ninety thousand Pounds the Month on England alone having on the 26. of January 1659. presumed to lay a new Tax of no lesse than One hundred thousand pounds the Month for six Months next ensuing on England Scotland and on Ireland too never taxed in former Ages by intire undubitable English Parliaments when as by their former Order they advanced and paid in before hand a heavy Tax illegally imposed on them by a Protectorian Conventicle during those very Months for which they are now taxed afresh far higher than before though totally exhausted with former incessant Taxes Free-quarter Militia expences Imposts of all sorts and utterly undone for want of Trade and all to keep them in perpetual Bondage under armed Gards and Iron yoaks under pretext of making them a New Free-State and Common-wealth of the Jesuites projection perpetually to subvert our antient hereditary Monarchy Kingdom and true old English * Common-wealth under which we formerly lived and flourished with greater freedom splendor honour peace safety unity and prosperity than we can ever expect under any new Form of Government or Utopian Republick whatsoever our whimsical Innovators can erect When our Parliaments under our antient and late Kings granted any Aydes Subsidies Imposts to supply the publick Necessities as they were alwaies moderate and temporary not exceeding the present Necessities and the Peoples abilities to pay them so they ever received some Acts of Grace and Retribution from our Kings and New Confirmations of their Great Charters and Fundamental Laws and Liberties recorded in our Parliament Rolls and Statutes at large But our New Republicans worse than the old Aegyptian Pharoes and Tax-Masters double our Bricks Taxes yet deny us straw and materials to make or defray them redressing none of all our publick Grievances nor easing us of any unjust burthens or oppressions whatsoever nor indulging any Graces or Favours to us nor yet so much as preserving or confirming our old Grand Charte●s Fundamental Laws Statutes for the preservation of our Lives Liberties Properties Franchises Freeholds but violating them all in a far highe and more presumptuous degree than Strafford Canterbury the Shipmony Judges or any of our Kings whom they brand for Tyrants and that after all our late wars and contests for their defence Upon which account I held it my bounden duty to enlarge and reprint this Vinaication nor out of any Factious or Seditions design but from the impulse of a true Heroick English publike spirit and Zeal to defend my Native Countries undubitable Hereditary Rights against all arbitrary Tyrannical Usurpations and Impostors whatsoever though arrogating to themselves the Title and power of The Parl. of England when their own Judgements Consciences as well as all our antient Statutes Parliament Rolls Laws Judges Law-Books and Treatises of English Parliaments resolve them to be no Parliament at all but an * Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle If I now lose my life as I have formerly done my Liberty Calling and Estate for this publike cause I shall repu●e it the greatest earthly Honour and 〈◊〉 to dye a Ma●●●● for my dying Country to redeem her lost Liberti●s with the losse of my momentary life which will be more i●ksome to me than the 〈◊〉 Death if protracted only to behold those ruines and desolations which some Grandees Tyrannies and Bedlam exorbitances are like speedily to bring upon her unlesse God himself by his Miraculous Provi●●n●●s reflrain their Fury abate their Power and confound their Destructive Des●gns beyond all
others in all manner of Oppressions and Injustice concluding thus Vpon all these and many other unparallel'd offences upon his breach of Faith of Oaths and Protestations upon the cry of the blood of England and Ireland upon the tears of Widows ond Orphans and childless Parents and millions of persons undone by him let all the world of indifferent men judge whether the Parliament you mean your selves only which made this Declaration had not sufficient cause to bring the King to Iustice And much more the whole Kingdom and secluded Lords and Members to bring you to publick Justice since you not only imitate but far exceed him in all and every of these even by your own verdict 3. Themselves charge the King with profuse Donations of Salaries and Pensions to such as were found or might be made fit Instruments and Promoters of Tyranny which were supplied not by the legal justifiable revenue of the Crown but by Projects and illegal waies of draining the Peoples purses All which mischiefs and grievances they say will be prevented in their free State though the quite contrarie way as appears by the late large Donations of some thousands to Mr. * Henry Martin the Lord Lisle Commissary General Ireton Cromwell and others of their Members and Instruments upon pretence of arrears or service and that out of the monies now imposed for the relief of Ireland and other publick Taxes Customs Lands and Revenues And must we pay Taxes to be thus prodigally given away and expended 4. They therein promise and engage That the good old Laws and Customs of England the badges of our Freedom the benefit whereof our Ancestors enjoyed long before the conquest and spent much of their blood to have confirmed by the great Charter of the Liberties and other excellent laws which have continued in all former changes and being duly executed are the most just free and equal of any other laws in the world shall be duly continued and maintained by them the liberty property and peace of the Subject being so fully preserbed by them and the common interest of those whom they serve And if those laws should be taken away all Industry must cease all misery blood and confusion would follow and greater Calamities then fell upon us by the late Kings Mis-government would certainly involve all persons under which they must inevitably perish How well they have performed this part of their Remonstrance let their proceedings in their High Courts of Justice the long Imprisoments and close Imprisonments of my self and other their Fellow-Members their acts for new Treasons and Delinquents and ejecting their Fellow-Members and Lords out of Parliament without the least Impeachment Tryal Accusation their Imprisonment of Sir Robert Pye the Kentish Gentlemen and others for demanding a Free Parliament fair and free elections restitution of the secluded Members c. determine 5. They therein expresly promise p. 26. To order the revenue in such away That the publick charges may be defrayed The Souldiers pay justlie and duly setled That free-quarter may be wholy taken away and the People eased of their Burthens and Taxes And is this now all the ease we feel to have all Burthens and Taxes thus augmented doubled trebled paid in near a year before hand and then new and greater Taxes imposed on them for those verie Months they have paid in their old proportion before hand beyond all Presidents of Tyranny and oppression in any age and that by pretended acts made out of Parliament against all these good old Laws and Statutes our Liberties and Properties which these worse than Aegyptian Tax-Masters have so newly and deeply engaged themselves to maintain and preserve without the least diminution and violation 6. That this very Juncto in their Act as they stile it made and published Octob. 11. 1659. intituled an Act against the raising of Monies upon the people without their common consent in Parliament enact and declare That no Person or Persons shall after the XI of October 1659. assesse levy collect gather or receive any customs imposts excise assesment contribution tax tallage or any sum or sums of mony or other Imposition whatsoever upon the People or Commonwealth without their consent in Parliament or as by Law might have been done before the 3. of November 1640. And it is further enacted and declared that every Person offending contrary to this Act shall be and is hereby adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason Which * some of them have declared to be the Fundamental and old Law of England against which no By-Law is to be made and one of the main Birth-rights of England Therefore themselves by assessing and imposing many former Customs Imposts Excises Assesments and contributions on the people and this of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for 6. Month Jan. 26. 1659. without Common consent in Parliament when and whiles 26. of the greatest Counties in England and 11. Shires in Wales 14. whole Cities and most Boroughs in England have not so much as one Knight Citizen or Burgess sitting with them to represent them and 9. English Counties no more but one Knight and but 4. Counties and 2. Cities alone and not above 3. or 4. Boroughs their full numbers of Knights Citizens and Burgesses sitting with them to represent them all the rest to the number of 420. Members besides the whole House of Lords being forcibly excluded or dead by the tenor of their own Act and Decl. are adjudged guilty of High Treason and ought to suffer and forfeit as in case of Treason and all those Commissioners named in their Act amounting to above one thousand and all Assessors Collectors and Treasurers under them who shall assesse levy collect gather or receive the same shall incur the guilt of Treason and suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason and their real and personal Estates be confiscated to pay the publick debts and Souldiers arrears 7. That this Anti-Parliamentary Convention in their late Declaration of Jan. 24. have published and declared to the world That they are resolved to remain constane and immovable that the people of these Nations may be governed from time to time by Representatives of Parliament chosen by themselves That they should be governed by the Laws That all proceedings touching the Laws Liberties and Estates of the free-people of the Commonwealth shall be according to the Laws of the Land It being their principal care to provideagainst all arbitrarinesse in Government And that it is one of the greatest cares they have upon them how to give the people that ease from their present burthens which their undone condicion calls for Which how well and faithfully they have performed and not rather most notoriously violated let the whole world God Angels Men determin by their imposing a Monthly Tax of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for the 6. next Months they had paid and advanced before hand By ordering