Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	common_a	king_n	land_n	6,506	5	5.9183	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A82113	A declaration of some proceedings of Lt. Col. Iohn Lilburn, and his associates: with some examination, and animadversion upon papers lately printed, and scattered abroad. One called The earnest petition of many free-born people of this Kingdome : another, The mournfull cries of many thousand poor tradesmen, who are ready to famish for want of bread, or The warning tears of the oppressed. Also a letter sent to Kent. Likewise a true relation of Mr. Masterson's minister of Shoreditch, signed with his owne hand. Published by authority, for the undeceiving of those that are misled by these deceivers, in many places of this Kingdom.	Masterson, Geo. (George)	1648 (1648)	Wing D625; Thomason E427_6; ESTC R204593	42,707	64

and stretch your selves upon Beds of Down you that grind our faces and flay off our skins Will no man amonst you regard will no man behold our faces black with Sorrow and Famine Is there none to pity The Sea Monster drawes out the brest and gives suck to their young ones and are our Rulers become cruell like the Ostrich in the Wildernesse Lament 4.3 OH ye great men of England will not think you the righteous God behold our Affliction doth not he take notice that you devour us as if our Flesh were Bread are not most of you either Parliament-men Committee-men Customers Excise-men Treasurers Governors of Towns and Castles or Commanders in the Army Officers in those Dens of Robbery the Courts of Law and are not your Kinsmen and Allies Colectors of the Kings Revenue or the Bishops Rents or Sequestratours What then are your ruffling Silks and Velvets and your glittering Gold and Silver Laces are they not the sweat of our brows the wants of our backs bellies It s your Taxes Customs and Excize that compells the Countrey to raise the price of food and to buy nothing from us but meer absolute necessaries and then you of the City that buy our Work must have your Tables furnished and your Cups overflow and therefore will give us little or nothing for our Work even what you * * And since the late Lord Mayor Adam you have put in execution art illegall wicked docree of the Common Councel whereby you have taken our goods from us if we have gone to the Inns to sell them to country men and you have murdered some of our poor wives that have gone to Innes to sinde country men to buy them please because you know we must sell for moneys to set our Families on work or else we famish Thus our Flesh is that whereupon you Rich men live and wherewith you deck and adorn your selves Ye great men Is it not your plenty and abundance which begets you Pride and Riot And doth not your Pride beget Ambition and your Ambition Faction and your Faction these Civil broyles What else but your Ambition and Faction continue our Distractions and Oppressions Is not all the Controversie whose Slaves the poor shall be Whether they shall be the Kings Vassals or the Presbyterians or the Independent Factions And is not the Contention nourished that you whose Houses are full of the spoils of your Contrey might be secure from Accounts while there is nothing but Distraction and that by the tumultuousnesse of the people under prodigious oppression you might have fair pretences to keep up an Army and garrisons and that under pretence of necessity you may uphold your arbitrary Government by Committees c. Have you not upon such pretences brought an Army into the bowels of the City and now Exchange doth rise already beyond Sea and no Merchants beyond Sea will trust their Goods hither and our own Merchants conveigh their * * The Merchants have already kept back from the Tower many hundred thousand pounds and no bullion is brought into the Tower so that mony will be more scarce daily Estates from hence so there is likely to be no importing of Goods and then there will be no Exporting and then our Trade will be utterly lost and our Families perish as it were in a moment O ye Parliament-men hear our dying cry Settle a Peace settle a Peace strive not who shall be greatest untill you be all confounded You may if you will presently determine where the supream Power resides and settle the just common Freedomes of the Nation so that all Parties may equally receive Iustice and injoy their Right and every one may be as much concerned as other to defend those common Freedoms you may presently put down your Arbitrary Committees and let us be Governed by plain written Lawes in our own Tongue and pay your Ministers of Justice out of a common Treasury that every one may have Justice freely and impartially You have in your hands the Kings Queens and Princes Revenue and Papists Lands and Bishops and Deans and Chapters Lands and Sequestred Lands at least to the value of eighteen hundred thousand pounds by the year Which is at least five hundred thousand pounds a year more then will pay the Navy and all the Army and the Forces which need to be kept up in England and Ireland and out of that the Kingdoms debts would be paid yearly whereas now you run further into Debt daily and pay one thousand pounds by the day at least for use Money Besides you may if you will Proclaim Liberty for all to come and discover to a Committee of disingaged men chosen out of every County one for a County to discover to them what Monies and Treasure your own Members and your Sequestrators c. have in their hands and you may by that means find many Millions of Money to pay the publique Debts You may find 30000. li. in Mr. Richard Darley's hand 25000. li. in Mr. Thorpes hand * * M. William Lenthall Speaker of the House to cover his cozenage gave 22000 li. to his servant Mr. Cole to purchase land in his own name though for his use which he did and then died suddenly and the land fell to his son and the widdow having married a Lawyer keeps the land for the childes use and saith he knows not that his predecessor received any mony from the Speaker and now Mr. Speaker sueth in Chancery for the land A hundred such discoveries might be made a Member of Yours who first Proclaimed Sir Iohn Hotham Traytor And thus you may take off all Taxes presently and so secure Peace that Trading may revive and our pining hungry famishing Families be saved And O ye Souldiers who refused to disband because you would have Iustice and Freedom who cryed till the Earth ecchoed Iustice Iustice forget not that cry but cry speedily for Peace and Iustice louder then ever There is a large Petition of some pittifull men that is now abroad which contains all our desires and were that granted in all things we should have Trading again and should not need to beg our Bread though those men have so much mercy as they would have none to cry in the Streets for Bread Oh though you be Souldiers shew bowels of Mercy and Pity to a hunger-starved People Go down to the Parliament desire them to consume and trifle away no more time but offer your desires for Us in that large Petition and cry Justice Justice Save save save the perishing People O cry thus till your importunity make them hear you O Parliament men and Souldiers Necessity dissolves all Laws and Government and Hunger will break through stone Walls Tender Mothers will sooner devour You then the Fruit of their own womb and Hunger regards no Swords nor Canons It may be so great oppressours intend tumults that they may escape in a croud but your food may then be wanting as well

time of tryall and now they are made places of u u See Sir Edward Cook 1 part Insti lib. 3 Cha. 7. sect 438 fol. 260. who expresly faith that imprisonment must be a safe custody not a punishment and that a prison ought to be for keeping men safe not to punish them See also 2 par instit fol 589.590.591 torment and the punishment of supposed offenders they being detained many years without any Legal tryalls That therefore it be enacted that henceforth no supposed offender whatsoever may be denyed his Legal tryall at the first Sessions Assizes or Goal delivery after his Commitment w w See the Statute of the E. 3.2 12 R. 2.10 and that at such tryal every such supposed offender be either condemned or acquitted 9. Whereas Monopolies of all kinds have been declared by this honorable House to be against the Fundamentall Laws of the Land and all such restrictions of Trade do in the consequence destroy not only Liberty but property That therefore all Monopolies whatsoever and in particular that oppressive Company of Merchant Adventurers be forthwith abolished and a free trade restored and that all Monopolizers may give good reparation to the Common-wealth the particular parties who have been damnified by them and to be made incapable of bearing any Office of power or trust in the Nation and that the Votes of this House Novemb. 19. 1640. against their siting therein may be forthwith put in due execution 10. Whereas this House hath declared in the first Remonstrance of the x x See 1 part book decl pa. 14. State of the Kingdom that Ship-money and Monopolies which were imposed upon the people before the late War did at least amount to 1400000 l. per annum and whereas since then the Taxes have been double and treble and the Army y y See the Armies last Representation to the House hath declared that 1300000 l. per annum would compleatly pay all Forces and Garisons in the Kingdom and the Customs could not but amount to much more then would pay the Navy so that considering the vast sums of moneys raised by imposition of money the fifth and twentieth part Sequestrations and Compositions Excise and otherwise it 's conceived much Treasure is concealed that therefore an Order issue forth immediatly from this Honorable House to every Parish in the Kingdom to deliver in without delay to some faithful persons as perfect an accompt as possible of all moneys Leavied in such Town City or Parish for what end or use soever since the begining of the late War and to return the several receivers names and that those who shal be imployed by the several Parishes in every Shire or County to carry in those accompts to some appointed place in the County may have liberty to choose the receiver of them and that those selected persons by the several Parishes in every County or Shire may have liberty to invest some one faithful person in every of their respective Counties or places with power to sit in a Committee at London or elsewhere to be the General Accomptants of the Kingdom who shal publish their Accompts every moneth to the publick view and that henceforth there be only one Common Treasury where the books of Accompts may be kept by several persons open to the view of all men 11. Whereas it hath been the Ancient Liberty of this Nation that all the Free-born people have freely elected their Representers in Parliament and their Sheriffs and z z 28. Edw. 1 Chap. 1.8 and 13. See 2 part instit fo 174.175 where Sir Ed. Cook positively declares that in ancient times by the common law of England the Coroner the high Sheriff Iustices of Peace Verderors of Forests yea and in times of war the leaders of the Counties soldiers were chosen in ful county by the freeholders Iustices of the Peace c. and that they were abridged of that their native Liberty by a Statute of the 8. H. 6.7 That therefore that Birth-right of all English men be forthwith restored to all which are not or shal not be legally disfranchised for some criminal cause or are not under 21 years of age or servants or beggers and we humbly offer That every County may have its equal proportion of Representers and that every County may have its several divisions in which one Representer may be chosen and that some chosen Representatives of every Parish proportionably may be the Electors of the Sheriffs Iustices of the Peace Committee-men Grand-jury men and all ministers of Iustice Whatsoever in the respective Counties and that no such minister of justice may continue in his Office above one whole year without a new a a It hath been a maxime amongst the wisest Legislators that whosoever means to settle good Laws must proceed in them with a sinister or evil opinion of all mankind and suppole that who soever is not wicked it is for want of oportunity that no State can be wisely confident of any publick minister continuing good longer then the Rod is over him Election 12. That all Statutes for all kind of Oaths whether in Corporations Cities or other which insnare conscientious people as also other Statutes injoyning all to hear the Book of Common Prayer be forthwith repealed and nulled and that nothing be imposed upon the consciences of any to compel them to sin against their own consciences 13. That the too long continued shame of this Nation viz. permission of any to suffer such poverty as to beg their bread may be forthwith effectually remedied and to that purpose that the Poor be enabled to choose their Trustees to discover all Stocks Houses Lands c. which of right belong to them and their use that they may speedily receive the benefit thereof and that some good improvement may be made of waste Grounds for their use and that according to the promise of this honorable House in your first Remonstrance care be taken forthwith to advance the native commodities of this Nation that the poor may have better wages for their labor and that Manufactures may be increased and the Herring-fishing upon our own Coasts may be improved for the best advantange of our own Mariners and the whole Nation 14. Whereas that burthensom Tax of the Excise lies heavy only upon the Poorer and most ingenious industrious People to their intolerable oppression and that all persons of large Revenues in Lands and vast estates at usury bear not the least proportionable weight of that burthen whereby Trade decays and all ingenuity and industry is discouraged That therefore that oppressive way of raising money may forthwith cease and all moneys be raised by equal Rates according to the proportion of mens estates 15. That M. Peter Smart Doctor Leighton M. Ralph Grafton M. Hen. Burton Doctor Bastwick M. William Prinne Lievt Conell Iohn Lilburne the heires and executors of M. Brewer M. Iohn Turner and all others that suffered any cruelty or

abolished the Starchamber and Hig● Commission prefixed that therefore the Iurisdiction of every Court or Iudicature and the Power of every Officer or Minister of Iustice with their bounds and limits be forthwith declared by this honorable House and that it be enacted that the Iudges of every Court which shal exceed its Iurisdiction and every other Officer or Minister of Iustice which shal interm●dle with matters not coming under his ognizance shall incurr the forfeiture of his and their whole estates And likewise that all unnecessary Courts may be forthwith abolished and that the publike Treasury out of which the Officers solely ought to be maintained k k See the Statute of Westmin 1 made 3 Edw. 1 chap. 26 20 Edw. 3 1 and the Judges oath made in the 18 Edw. 3 Anno 1344 recorded in Pultons collections of sta●●tes fol. 144 may be put to the lesse Charge 4. That whereas there are multitudes of Complaints of oppression by Committees of this House determining particular matters which properly appertains to the Cognizance of the ordinary Courts l l See the 29 chap of Magna Charta and Sir Ed. Cooks ezpo sition upit in his 2 part instit fol. 187 and the Petition of Right of Iustice and whereas many persons of faithful and publike spirits have bin and are dayly molested vexed Imprisoned by such Committes sometimes for not answering Interroga ories and sometimes for other matters which are not in Law Criminall and also without any legal warrants expressing the cause and commanding the Jaylor safely to keep their bodies untill they be delivered by due course m m See the Petition of right made in the 3 of the King Sir Edward COOKS 2 par insti fol. 52 53 589 590 591. of Law And by these oppressions the persons and estates of many are wasted and destroyed That therefore henceforth No particular cause whether Criminal or other which comes under the Cognizance of the ordinary Courts of Iustice may be determined by this House or any Committee thereof or any other then by those Courts whose duty it is to execute such Laws as this honorable House shal make and who are to be censured by this House in case of injustice Always excepted matters relating to the late War for Indempnity for your Assisters and the exact Observation of al articles granted to the adverse n n See Psal 15 4 See Rom 4 15 Party And that henceforth no Person be molested or Imprisoned by the wil or arbitrary powers of any or for such Matters as are not Crimes o according to Law And that all persons Imprisoned at present for any such matters or without such legall warrants as abovesaid upon what pretence or by what Authority soever may be forthwith releast with due reparations 5. That considering it s a Badg of our Slavery to a Norman Conqueror to have our Laws in the French Tongue and it is little lesse then brutish vassalage to be bound to walk by Laws which the People p p See the 36 Edw. 3 15 80 1 Co● 14 7 11 16 19 23 See also the English Chronicles in the Raign of Wil. the Conqueror cannot know that therefore all the Laws and Customs of this Realm be immediatly written in our Mothers Tongue q q See Deut 30 12 13 14. without any abreviations of words and the most known vulgar hand viz. Roman or Secretary and that Writs Processes and Enroulments be issued forth entered or inrouled in English and such manner of writing as aforesaid 6. That seeing in Magna Charta which is our Native right it 's pronounced in the name of all Courts That we wil sel to no man we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right notwithstanding we can obtain no Justice or Right neither from the common ordinary Courts or Judges nor yet from your own Committees though it be in case of indempnity for serving you without paying a dear price for it that therefore our native r r See Sir Ed. Cook in his 1 part insti lib. 3 chap 13 Sect 701 fol 3●8 where he possitively declares it was the native ancient Rights of all Englishmen both by the Statute Common Law of England to pay no Fees at all to any Administrators of justice whatsoever See also 2 part insti fol 74 209 210 and 176 and he there gives this Reason why Judges should take no fees of any man for doing his office because he should be free and at liberty to do justice and not to be fettered with golden fees as fetters to the subvertion or suppression of truth and justice Right be restored to us which is now also the price of our blood that in any Court whatsoever no moneys be extorted from us under pretence of Fees to the Officers of the Court or otherwise And that for this end sufficient sallaries or pensions be allowed to the Iudges and Officers of Courts as was of old out of the common Treasury that they may maintain their Clerks and servants and keep their Oaths uprightly wherein they swear to take no mon●y o● Cloaths or other rewar●s except meat and drink in a smal quantity besides what is allowed them by the King and this we may with the more confidence claim as our Right seeing this honorable House hath declared in case of Ship-money and in the case of the Bishops Canons that not one peny by any power whatsoever could be leavied upon the people without common consent in Parliament and sure we are that the Fees exacted by Iudges and Clerks and Iaylors and all kind of Ministers of Iustice are not setled upon them by Act of Parliament and therefore by your own declared principles destructive to our property ſ ſ See the Articles of high treason in our Chronicles against Iudg Tresilian in Rich. the seconds time therefore we desire it may be enacted to be death for any Iudg Officer or Minister of Iustice from the highest to the lowest to exact the least moneys or the worth of moneys from any person whatsoever more then his pension or sallary allowed from the Common Treasury That no Iudg of any Court may continue above three yeares 7. That whereas according to your own complaint in your first Remonstrance of the t t See 1 part book decla p. 9. State of the Kingdom occasion is given to bribery extortion and partiallity by reason that judicial places and other Offices of power and trust are sold and bought That therefore for prevention of all iniustice it be forthwith enacted to be death for any person or persons whatsoever directly or indirectly to buy or sell or offer or receive moneys or rewards to procure for themselves or others any Office of power or trust whatsoever 8. Whereas according to Iustice and the equitable sense of the Law Goals and Prisons ought to be only used as places of safe custody until the constant appointed

for refuge your Margent will teach the Legislative Power to suspect you and that if you be not wicked it is because perhaps you may not have oportunity or strength enough which it will be therefore their care to prevent and however perhaps it may be true that these sad troubles have caused some diminution in your Estates yet if you had used as much diligence since in your owne callings as you have done in those you lesse understand and had let out the current of your thoughts which have been misimployed about Politiques to the Oeconomy of your families the account of losse had not run so high and your private reflections if ever you assume the trouble of viewing your selves had imbraced you with the smiles of a sweeter peace with him and your actions abroad had lesse procured the guilt of others Thousands of families you say are improverished and mercilesse Famine is entring into your Gates and therefore You will once more essay to pierce their ears with your dolefull cries for Justice and freedome before the Parliaments delayes consume the Nation What justice what freedom is it you mean Which of all the particulars in your Petition being granted will be able to turn this famine you so aggravate into a plenty what an odious aspersion is this to lay upon the Parliament to make them hatefull to all men To tell the World in Print That there is something in their power for otherwise you say nothing that they delay whereby this Dearth and Famine as you call it is upon the Kingdom Have you learned this from those of old That whenever Famine Pestilence or any publicker calamity invaded the World from the just hand of God then to cry out Throw the Christians to the Lions attributing to them the cause of all as you do now to the Parliament Do you not know that the unseasonable seed-time in 1646. and the unkindly Spring following might well cause a Dearth which is not yet in England through the mercy of God as it is in other places And do you think it is in the power of the Parliament to give a Law to the Heavens to restrain the Pleiades or loose Orion to give or withhold rain can the Parliament make windows in heaven or create a plenty Why do you say you care not what and abuse the people without blushing Your large Petitory part in 16 Articles might well receive a very short Answer That it offers many things as grievances that are removed desires many things that are already granted of which you will take no notice that you may multiply the Odium mistake the present state of things as if all were an unformed matter or abrasa tabula fitted for the projection of a new modell or for the compiling of a new body of Laws He that will build a City upon a Plain hath the place obedient to his projections and succeptible of any form And if he be not prejudiced by forreign extrinsicall observations to which he will conform his lines he may exemplifie the best Ideas his minde offers him But he that would reedifie or beautifie an old one will meet with many things that will not submit to pure technicall rules And where it will not it is not presently to be pulled down or set on fire Rome had a greater beauty and uniformity as it was built by its first Kings then after the Burning by the Gaules and Rescue by Camillus where each man built as it was most Commodious for him and not as it was most comely or convenient for the whole And yet Catiline and his Complices were judged Traytors for designing to burn it and it was only becoming Nero to put it into flames The dispute is not now of what is absolutely best if all were new but of what is perfectly just as things now stand It is not the Parliaments work to set up an Vtopian Common-Wealth or to force the people to practise abstractions but to make them as happy as the present frame will bear That wise Lawgiver of old acknowledged that he had not given his people the Laws that were absolutely best but the best they were able to receive The perfect return of health after sicknesse is to be left to nature and time he that will purge his body till there remain nothing peccant will sooner expell his life then the cause of his sicknesse And he that out of a desire to repaire his house shall move all the foundations will sooner be buried in the ruines of the old then live to see the erection of a new structure 1. You forget that universall rule of Justice to do as you would be doneby which is not only one of those con-nate and common Notions which are written in the hearts of all which every one capable of reason and under wrong can quote from that internall writing though he that inferrs the injury will not And it is given also as a Compendium of the Law and an Universall rule of Christian Practice by him who is the one Lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy To whose Commands and Dictates whoever will profess contradiction and pursue a contumacious disobedience is more worthy the name of a Renegado then a Christian Upon forgetfullnesse of this rule it is that you would by force spoil the Lords of their part of the Legislative power which they hold by a claim of an older date then any of the Petitioners can shew for their Land Ask your selves the question Would any of you be content to be disseized of his Land to which he can derive a title or prescribe to for so long a time And your contumelious expression of Patent Lords might have been spared seeing the Houses have resolved that none shall be made Peers of Parliament hereafter but by consent of both Houses whereby your Representors and Trustees have a Negative voice against any such Creation for the future Were it not to inlarge this particular beyond what is intended for the rest you might be informed That there were Princes of the people and heads of the Tribes amongst the Israelites and the f rst choyce of them when they were new come up out of Aegypt and were then receptive of any form was not by the people but by Moses and as it is expresse of the Priesthood so it is evident in the rest of the Tribes that the first of the first line was still Prince of the Tribe And the longest lived best governed most Potent and florishing Common-wealths that ever the sun saw have alwayes had their Orders of Nobility or Patricians in succession from Father to Son preserved with a kinde of Religion in a cleer distinction from the people Those two of Old Rome while a Common-wealth And Venice at present are known Examples But this particular with divers others concerning Government require a fuller Tractate then this occasionall glaunce 2. Secondly besides their right there is at least a very great conveniency if not