Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A88031
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A letter to a noble lord at London from a friend at Oxford: vpon occasion of the late covenant taken by both houses.
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Friend at Oxford.
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1643
(1643)
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Wing L1690; Thomason E60_20; ESTC R10956
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10,238
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16
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to be the proper businesse of your Army and yet I would you would leave men this liberty that you would not compell them to be worse then they have a minde to be and you would be contented to absolve them from the Law and trust them with their owne inclinations though you pull downe the Inclosures use no violence to hunt them from their knowne Pathes let their owne love of Liberty lead them without being driven by your fury Consider the liberty of the Subject before you found out this device to defend it How strongly was it guarded and fenced by knowne cleare excellent Lawes not capable of any dammage or inconvenience to which there was not a proper reparation and remedy prepared if any little breaches had been made in this Fence for in comparison of the gappes you have since made in it in one howre what was done in 16 yeares before was but little with what diligence Industry and Bounty did His Majesty comply with you to make them up and so finished the Worke that if you had not taken all this monstrous paines to destroy it you Country now had beene the wonder and envy of Christendome in Peace and all the Ornaments of Beauty Plenty and Lustre which Peace desires to be adorned with What pressure or violation was offered to this Liberty when you first tooke up your defensive Armes See now to what degree you have advanced it as it hath reference to our Goods Estates your Ordinances of sequestration your weekly Assessements and your order for the twentieth part abundantly expresses your Care as it hath reference to Our Persons the full Gaoles in all places and the very many Houses you have turned into Gaoles for the safe keeping of Our Liberty will bee rare Monuments to Posterity as it concernes Our Conscience you need no other Evidence though you have store then this your sacred Vow and Covenant If this be your course to defend Liberty I would you would for variety sake practise some way to destroy it it may be it might prove the more Sovereigne Remedy to the Common-wealth T is Mr. Pyms third Observation of the evill Conscience of those who were in the late Plot they that pretended to take Armes to defend their owne Property obtained a Commission to violate the Property of others they would take the Assertion of the Lawes of the Land but assumed to them such a power as was most contrary to that Law to seize upon their Persons without due processe to impose upon their Estates without Consent to take away some lives by the Law Martiall This is a Text I hope your Lordship will beleeve and is so truly an instance of evill Conscience that if His Majesty had used these words in any of His Messages or Declarations they had beene voted at least an imputation upon both Houses and a Censure of their Proceedings But Mr. Pym may Libell against you and in earnest you will finde most of his speechs to be such without breach of Priviledge hee hath found out too new Conservators of our Liberty which wee never heard of till now instead of King Lords and Commons The Parliament that is the close Committee the City and the Army are the three vitall parts of the Kingdome in which he sayes not only the well being but the very life and being of it doth consist and yet they perswade your Lordship they are willing to disband this Army You will say these Invasions upon Liberty are the effect of these distempers which 't is your businesse to suppresse which being done the Subject shall have no more cause to complaine But my Lord We that live at a distance have well observed that the principles and foundations for all this mischiefe were laid long before your Mistresse Necessity was owned by you long before your Armes were raised all your rapines all your Plundrings and Imprisonings are not more destructive to the Liberty of the Subject then your Votes of the fifteenth of March your assuming power so to declare Law that what you said or did was therefore Law because it was yours How many men were imprisoned and undone by you expresly against the Law and the Petition of Right How many Acts of Parliament suspended and actions done by you in a Diameter contrary to Acts of Parliament so that in truth all your excesses since which you excuse by imputing them to your Army and the raising that Army are but superstructures upon the foundations you laid in your calmest and most undisturbed Government and there is nothing that you of the moderate Party have since refused to consent to which might not very well have followed from some of those propositions which even your selves have before admitted defended and contrived I have troubled your Lordship longer in this Argument then I meant and have the vanity to believe that your often reading this over though it be no more then you knew before may make some impression in you do not thinke that which is in it selfe simply ill can be made good by a Vote or that the word Parliament can give Reputation to Actions absolutely wicked in themselves Mr. Pym tells you in this goodly Speech of his that a Parliament is but a Carcase when the freedome of it is suppressed that is it bee deprived of its owne Liberty it is left without life or power to keepe the Liberty of others Alas my Lord though you will answer no other part of my Letter tell mee upon your Honour would you have taken this last Covenant if you had had liberty to have refused it if you had not where is your freedome of Parliament Can you yet look upon that Assembly with reverence Thinke of their number thinke of their quality think sadly of their Actions and you will easily find a way and there is but one that I know to evade your Covenant It was unjustly impiously imposed upon you rashly unlawfully to say no worse taken by you you ought noâ— you must not keep it But that is not enough winde yourselfe out of this Labyrinth with Courage and Magnanimiâ—y and in your â—…vening doe somwhat that may redeeme the faults of the day Consider that these men who by your Assistance prosper in their bad wayes are doing their owne businesse and every day make a Progresse to their owne ends My Lord Say since all honest men have been undoing hath betteâ—ed his own Estate above twenty thousand pounds besides advancing his younger sonnes to full and ample Revenues Mr. Pym hath swet to purpose and hath thrived so well in two years that he is your equall at least They who abhorre Bishops revenge themselves at your charge and every Action that advances that Designe is more pleasant to them then life Your great Generall hath the Sovereigne delight of opposing the King and having his Health dranke with lowd Musicke Pennington Ven Fulk and Manwaring are from broken beggerly contemptible Varlets become your fellow Peers and no doubt when they have reconciled your Lordships and the Commons into one House will have the negative voice which you two have sâ—atched froÌ„ the King deposited in their hands That vitall part of the Kingdome the City will never be trusted in your Custody who have managed all the rest so ill If any Accident should happen Providence or Victory to defeat them these men have been good and wary Husbands and have the fortitude to love any Country equall to their owne Is your Lordship of a constitution fit to mingle with these men Is your Revenue improved or Exchequer inlarged since these troubles Is any one designe of yours satisfied by your concurrence or can you be content to die a Peere of New-England or the Isle of Providence Is not your Reputation and interest with all good men lost and have you one friend left whose face you knew a yeare before this Parliament These are Melancholique considerations but you must passe through them and then if some Noble at least honest resolution doe not possesse you resolve to dye the last of your name and to leave this Character behind you That notwithstanding all your discourse and pretence of Religion you would have turned Turke if the Major part of both Houses and the stronger part of the Kingdome had required you to take a Covenant to that purpose FINIS