all futurâ— Parliaments imprisoning abusing arraigning condemning and executing our late King against the Votes Faith and Engagements of both Houses and dis-inheriting His posterity usurping the Regal Parliamental Magistratical and Ecclesiastical power of the Kingdom to their General-Council of Officers of the Army and Anti-Parliamentary Conventicles as the supreme swaying Authority of the Kingdom and attempting to alter and subvert the antient Government Parliaments Laws and Customs of our Realms And upon serious consideration of the ordinary unsufferable Assertions of their Officers and Souldiers uttered in most places where they Quarter and to my self in particular sundry times * That the whole Kingdom with all our Lands Houses Goods and whatsoever we have is theirs and that by right of Conquest they having twice conquered the Kingdom That we are but their conquered Slaves and Vassals and they the Lords and Heads of the Kingdom That our very lives are at their mercy and courtesie That when they have gotten all we have from us by Taxes and Free-quarter and we have nothing left to pay them then themselves will seize upon our Lands as their own and turn us and our Families out of doors That there is now no Law in England nor never was if we believe their lying Oracle Peters but the Sword with many such like vapouring Speeches and discourses of which there are thousands of witnesses I can neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence assent unto much lesse contribute in the least degree for their present maintenance or future continuance thus to insult inslave and tyrannize over King Kingdom Parliament People at their pleasure like their conquered Vassals And for me in particular to contribute to the maintenance of those who against the Law of the Land the privileges of Parliament and liberty of the Subject pulled me forcibly from the Commons House and kept me Prisoner about 2. months space under their Martial to my great expence and prejudice and since that close Prisoner near 3. whole years in Dunster Taunton and Pendennis Castles and thrice forcibly excluded me and other Members out of the House May 7. and 9. and Decemb. 27. 1659. without any particular cause pretended or assigned only for discharging my duty to the Kingdom and those for whom I served in the House without giving me the least reparation for this unparallel'd injustice or acknowledging their offence and yet detain some of my then fellow-Members under custody by the meer power of the Sword without bringing them to Trial would be not â—â—ly absurd unreasonable and a tacit justification of this hâ—rrid violence and breath of Privilege but monstrous unnatural perfidious against my Oath and Covenant 2. No Tax ought to be imposed on the Kingdom in Parliament it self but in case of necessity for the common good and defence thereof against forein Enemies or Domestique Traytors and Rebels as is clear by the Stat. of 25 E. 1. c. 6. all Acts for Taxes Subsidiâ—s Tenths Aydes Tonnage and Poundage Cooks 2 Instit. p. 528. Now it is evident to me that there is no necessity of keeping up this Army for the Kingdoms common Good but rather a necessity of disbanding it or the greatest part of it for these reasons 1. Because the whole Kingdom with Scotland and Ireland are generally exhausted by the late 18. years Wars Plunders and heavy Taxes there being more monies levyed on it by both sides during these 18. last years than in all the Kings Reigns since the Conquest as will appear upon a just computation all Counties being thereby utterly unable to pay it 2. In regard of the great decay of Trade the extraordinary dearth of cattel corn and provisions of all sorts the charge of relieving a multitude of poor people who starve with famine in many places the richer sort eaten out by Taxes and Free-quarter being utterly unable to relieve them To which I might adde the multitude of maimed Souldiers with the widows and children of those who have lost their lives in the Wars which is very costly 3. The heavie Contributions to support the Army which destroy all Trade by fore-stalling engrossing most of the Monies of the Kingdoms and enhancing their prices keeping many thousands of able men and horses idle only like moths and locusts to consume other labouring mens provisions estates and the publick Treasure of the Kingdoms when as their employment in their Trades and Callings might much advance trading and enrich the Kingdoms 4. There is now no visible Enemy in the field or elsewhere and the fitting Members boast there is no fear from any abroad their Navie being so Victorious And why such a vast Army should be still continued in the Kingdom to increase its debts and payments when charged with so many great Arrears and Debts already to eat up the Countâ—y with Taxes and Free-quarter only to play drink whore steal rob murther quarrel fight with impeach and shoot one another to death as Traytors Rebels and Enemies to the Kingdom and Peoples Liberties as of late the Levellers and Cromwellists did when this was written and the Lambardists and Rumpists since for want of other imployments and this for the publick Good transcends my understanding 5. When the King had two great Armies in the Field and many Garrisons in the Kingdom this whole Army by its primitive Establishment consisted but of twenty two thousand Horse Dragoons and Foot and had an Establishment only of about Fortie five thousand pounds a month for their pay which both Houses then thought sufficient as is evident by their o Ordinances of Febr. 15. 1644. and April 4 1646. And when the Army was much increased without their Order sixty thousand pounds a month was thought abundantly sufficient by the Officers and Army themselves to disband and reduce all super-numeraries maintain the Established Army and Garrisons and ease the Country of all Free-quarter which Tax hath been constantly pain in all Counties Why then this Tax to the Army should now be raised above the first Establishment when reduced to twenty thousand whereof sundry Regiments are designed for Ireland for which there is thirty thousand pounds a month now enacted beside the sixty for the Army and this for the common good of the Realm and that the Taxes since should be mounted to 120. thousand pounds each month and now again to one hundred thousand pounds for those 6. months for which they have paid in 35. thousand pounds 9. months since before hand only to murther our Protestant Brethren and Allies of Scotland and Holland destroy and oppresse each other and keep up an Anti-Parliamentary Conventicle of Tyrants and Vsurpers to undo enslave and ruine our Kingdoms Parliaments and their Privileges against all their former Oaths Protestations Declarations Covenants is a riddle unto me on rather a Mystery of Iniquity for some mens private â—â—â—re 〈…〉 than the publick weal 6. The Militias of every County for which there was so great contest in Parliament with the late King and
those Persons of interest and estates in every Shire or Corporation who have been cordial to the Parliament and Kingdom heretofore if put into a posture of defence under Gentlemen of quality and known integrity as they were under Sectaries Quakers and Anabaptists of late would be a far greater safer fitter Guard to secure the Kingdom Parliament against forein Invasions or domestick Insurrections than a mutinous mercenary Army of Sectaries or Persons and Souldiers of no fortunes and that with more general content and the tenth part of that charge the Kingdom is now at to maintain this Army a costly Militia besides and prevent all danger of the undoing pest of Free-quarter Therefore there is no necessity to keep up this Army or impose any new Tax for their maintenance or defraying rheir pretended Arrears which I dare aver the Free-quarter they have formerly taken in kinde and levied in money if brought to a just account as it ought will double if not treble most of their antient Arrears and make them much indebted to the Country And no reason they should have full pay and Free-quarter too and the Country bear the burthen of both without full allowance of all the Quarters levied or taken on them against Law out of their pretended Arrears And if any of the sitting Tax-Makers here object That they dare not trust the Militia of the Cities and Counties of the Realm with their own or the Kingdoms defence Therfore there is a necessity for them to keep up the Army to prevent all dangers from abroad and Insurrections at home I answer 1. That upon these pretences these new Lords may intail and enforce an Army and Taxes to support them on the three Kingdoms till Dooms-day 2. If they be real Members who make this Objection elected by the Counties Cities and Boroughs for which they serve and deriving their Parliamental Authority only from the People the * only new fountain of all Power and Authority as themselves now dogmatize then they are but their Servants and Trustees who are to allow them wages and give them Commission for what they act And if they dare not now trust the people and those persons of quality sidelitie and estate who both elected intrusted and impowred them and are their Lords and Masters not Slaves or Vassals yea the primitive and supreme power it is high time for their Electors and Masters the People to revoke their authoritie trusts and call them to a speedie account for all their late exorbitant proceedings in ejecting the Majority of their faithfull Fellow Members in whom the people most confided and for their mispence of the Kingdoms Treasure and no longer to trust those with their purses liberties safetie who dare not now to confide in them and would rather commit the safeguard of the Kingdom to mercenary indigent souldiers than to those Gentlemen Free-holders Citizens Burgesses and persons of Estate who elected them whose Trustees Servants and Attorneys only they professe themselves and who have greatest interest both in them and the Kingdoms weal and are those who must pay these Mercinaries if continued 3. The Gentlemen and Free-men of England have very little reason any longer to trust the Army with the Kingdoms Parliaments or their own Liberties Laws and Privileges safeguard which they have so oft invaded professing now * that they did not fight to preserve the Kingdom King Parliament Laws Liberties and Properties of the Subject but to conquer and pull them down and make us conquered slaves instead of Froe-men averring All is theirs by conquest which is as much as the King and his Cavaliers or any forein enemy could or durst have affirmed had they conquered us by Battel And if so then this Army is not cannot be upheld and maintained for the Kingdoms and peoples common good and safety but their enslaving destruction and the mere support of the usurped power authority offices wealth and absolute domination only of those Generals Officers Junctoes as we have found by sad experience who have exalted themselves for the present above King Parliament Kingdoms Laws Liberties and those who did entrust them by the help of this trusâ—breaking Army who have * lost and stained all the glory of their former noble Victories and Heroick Actions by their late degenerate unworthy treacheries practices and aâ—e become a reproach to the profession of a Souldier the Protestant Religion and the English Nation in all Christian Kingdoms and Churches The second end of this heavy Tax of April 7. 1649. is the support and maintenance of the Forces in Ireland for which there was only twenty thousand pounds a month formerly allowed now mounted unto thirty thousand To which I answer in the first place That it is apparent by the printed Statutes of 25 E. 1. c. 6. 1 E. 3. c. 5 7. 18 Ed. 3. c. 7. 25 Ed. 3. c. 8. 4 H. 4. c. 13. Cooks 2. Institutes p. 528. and the Protestation of all the Commons of England in the Parliaments of 1 Hen. 5. num 17. and 7 H. 5. num 9. That no Free-man of England ought to be compelled to go in person or to pay any Tax for or toward the maintenance of any forein War in Ireland or any other parts beyond the Sea without their free consents in full Parliament And therefore this Tax to maintain Souldiers and the War in Ireland neither Imposed in Parliament much lesse in a full and free one as I have proved must needs be illegal and no waies obligatory to me or any other 2. Most of the antient Forces in Ireland as the British Army Scots and Inchiqueen's towards whose support the twenty thousand pounds a month was designed have been long since declared Rebels Traytors Revolters and are not to share in this Contribution and those now pretending for Ireland being Members of the present Army and to be paid out of that Establishment there is no ground at all to augment but to decrease this former monthly Tax for Ireland over what it was before 3. Many of those now pretending for Ireland have been the greatest obstructers of its relief heretofore and many of those designed for this service by lot have in words writing and print protested they never intend to go thither and disswade others from going yet take Free-quarter on the Country and pay too under that pretext And to force the Country to pay Contribution and give Free quarter to such Cheaters and Impostors who never intend this service is both unjust and dishonourable 4. If the relief of Ireland be now really intended it is not upon the first just and pious grounds to preserve the Protestant party there from the forces of the bloodie Popish Irish Rebels with whom if report be true these sitting Anti-Monarchists seek and * hold correspondence and are now actually accorded with Owen Roe-Oneal and his party of bloudiest Papists declaring For their New Iesuitical Common-wealth and joyning with them in an
and them odious not only to the Countrie and Kingdom but to all Officers and Souldiers who had any civilitie in them and be a disparagement to the General by whose Proclamation he ought to be present with his Company to keep them in good order under pain of cashiering And therefore I expected and required Justice and Reparations at his hands the rather because I was informed by some of his own Souldiers and others that they had not been so barbarouslie rude but by his incouragement which if he refused I should complain of him to his Superiours and right my self the best way I might After some expostulations he promised to make them examples and cashier them and to remove them forthwith from my house but the only right I had was that more of his Company repaired thither making all the spoil they could and taking away some Brasse and Pewter continued there till near four of the clock and then marched away only out of fear I would raise the Country upon them many of whom profered me their assistance but I desired them to forbear till I saw what their Officers would do who instead of punishing any of them permitted them to play the like Rex almost in other places where they quartered since marching but three or four miles a day and extorting what monies they could from the Country by their violence and disorders Now for me or any others to give monies to maintain such deboist Bedlams and Beasts as these who boasted of their villanies and that they had done me at least twenty pounds spoil in Beer and Provisions drinking out five barrels of good strong Beer and wasting as much meat as would have served an hundred civil Persons to be Masters of our Houses Goods Servants Lives and all we have to ride over our heads like our Lords and Conquerors and take Free-quarter on us amounting to at least a full years contribution without any allowance for it and that since the last Orders against Free-quarter and Warrants issued for paying in this Tax to prevent it for the future is so far against my Reason Judgement and Conscience that I would rather give all away to suppresse discard them or cast it into the fire than maintain such gracelesse wretches with it to dishonour God enslave consume ruine the Country and Kingdom who every where complain of the like insolencies and of taking Free-quarter since the ninth of June as above two hundred of Colonel Cox his men did in Bath the last Lords day who drew up in a Body about the Maiors house and threatned to sâ—ise and carry him away for denying to give them Free-quarter contrary to the New Act for abolishing it Lastly This prâ—tended Act implies that those who refuse to pay this contribution without distresse or imprisonment shall be still oppressed with Free-quarter And what an height of oppression and injustice this will prove not only to distrain and imprison those who cannot in Conscience Law or Prudence submit to this illegal Tax but likewise to undo them by exposing them to Free-quarter which themselves condemn as the highest pest and oppression let all sober men consider and what reason I and others have to oppose such a dangerous destructive president in its first appearing to the world In few words As long as we keep an Army on foot we must never expect to be exempted from Free-quarter or Wars or to enjoy any peace or settlement and as long as we will submit to pay contributions to support an Army we shall be certain our new Lords and Governors will continue an Army to over-awe and enslave us to their wils Therefore the only way to avoid free-quarter and the cost and trouble of an Army and settle peace is to deny all future contributions Ninthly The principal end of imposing this Tax to maintain the Army and Forces now raised is not the defence and safety of our ancient and first Christian Kingdom of England its Parliaments Laws Liberties and Religion as at first but to disinherit the King of the Crown of Engl. Sootl and Irel. to which he hath an undoubted Right by the Laws of God and Man as the Parliament of 1 Jacob ch. â— resolves and to levy War against him to deprive him of it To subvert the antient Monarchical Government of this Realm under which our Ancestors have alwaies lived and flourished to set up a New-Republick the oppressions and Grievances whereof we have already felt by increasing our Taxes setting up arbitrary Courts and Proceedings to the taking away the lives of the late King Peers and other Subjects against the fundamental Laws of the Land creating new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and the like but cannot yet enjoy and discern the least ease or advantage by it To overthrow the antient constitution of the Parliament of England consisting of King Lords and Commons and the Rights and Privileges thereof To alter the fundamental Laws Seals Courts of Justice of the Realm and introduce an Arbitrary Government at least if not Tyrannical contrary to our Laws Oaths Covenant Protestation a publick Remonstrances and Engagements to the Kingdom and forein States not to change the Government or attempt any of the Premises All which being no lesse than High Treason by the Laws Statutes of the Realm as Sir E. Cook in his * Inst. Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law upon passing the Bill of Attainder of the E. of Strafford both printed by the Commons special order have proved at large by many Presidents reasons records and so adjudged by the last Parliament in the Cases of Strafford and * Canterbury who were condemned and executed as Traytors by judgement of Parliament and some of those now sitting but for some of these Treasons upon obscurer Evidences of guilt than are now visible in others I cannot without incurring the Crime and Guilt of these several High Treasons and the eternal if not temporal punishments incident thereunto voluntarily contribute so much as one penny or farthing towards such Treasonable and disloyal ends as these against my Conscience Law Loyalty Duty and all my Oaths Covenants and Obligations to the contrary Tenthly The payment of this Tax for the premised purposes will in my poor judgement and conscience be offensive to God and all good men scandalous to the Protestant Religion dishonourable to our English Nation and disadvantagious and destructive to our whole Kingdom hindering the speedy settlement of our peace the re-establishment of our King Laws the revival of our decayed Trade by renewing and perpetuating our bloody uncivil Wars engaging Scotland Ireland with forein Princes and Kingdoms in a just War against us to avenge the death of our late beheaded King the dis-inheriting of his Posterity and to restore his lawfull Heirs and Successors to their just undoubted Rights from which they are now forcibly secluded who will undoubtedly molest us with continual Wars what-ever some may fondly
of the precious redeemed lambs of Christ are ready to starve for want of bread I cannot but wonder with my self whether they have any conscience at all within them or no and what they think of that saying of the spirit of God That who so hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother hath need and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him which he absolutely doth that any wayes takes a little of his little from him how dwelleth the love of God in him 1 John 3. 17. These actions and practises are so far from being like the true and real children of the most High that they are the highest oppression theft and murther in the world to rob the poor in the day of their great distress by Excise Taxations c. to maintain their pomp superfluities and debauchery when many of those from whom they take it do perish and starve with want and hunger in the mean time and be deaf and Ad mant-hearted to all their TEARS CRYES LAMENTATIONS MOURNFUL HOWLINGS GROANES Without all doubt these pretended Godly Religious Men have got a degree beyond those Atheists or Fools that say in their hearts there is no God Psal. 14. 1. and 13. 1 3. In quite destroying the peoples essential Liberties Laws and and Freedomes and in leaving them no Law at all as M. Peters their grand Teacher averred lately to my face we had none but their meer will and pleasures saving Fellons Laws or Martial Law where new Butchers are both Informers Parties Jury men and Judges who have had their hands imbrewed in blood for above these seven years together having served an Apprentiship to the killing of men for nothing but many and so are more bloody than Butchers that kill â—â—eep and calves for their own livelyhood who yet by the Law of England are not permitted to be of any jury for life and death because they are conversant in the shedding of blood of beasts and thereby through a habit of it may not be so tender of the blood of men as the Law of England Reason and Justice would have them to be Yea do not these men by their swords being but servants give what Laws they please to their Masters the pretended Law-makers of your House now constituted by as good and legal a power as he that robs and kills a man upon the high way And if this be the Verdict of their own Complices and Partizans concerning them and their proceedings especially touching their exhausting our Estates by Taxes and sharing them among themselves in the time of famine and penury as the great Officers of the Army and Treasurers who are Members now do who both impose what Taxes they please and dispose of them and all power honour profit to themselves and their creatures as they please without rendering any Accompt to the Kingdoms contrary to the practise of all former ages and the rules of reason and justice too are not all others in the three Nations especially the secluded Lords and Members bound by all bonds of conscience Law and Prudence to withstand their impositions and Edicts unto death rather than yield the least submission to them Sixthly He there avers proves and offers legally to make good before any indifferent Tribunal that the h h Pag. 2. 15 27 29. 33. 34. 35. 41. 53. 57 58 59 64 65. 75. Grandees and over-ruling Members of the House and Army are not onely a pack of dissembling Jugling Knaves and Machevillians amongst whom in consulation hereafter he would ever scorn to come for that there was neither faith truth nor common honesty amonst them but likewise Murtherers who had shed mens blood against Law as well as the King whom they beheaded and therefore by the same Texts and arguments they used against the King their blood ought to be shed by man and they to be surely put to death without any satisfaction for their lives as Traytors Enemies Rebels to and i i See Pag. 39. 52. conspirators against the late King whom they absolutely resolved to destroy though they did it by martial Law Parliament Kingdome and the peoples Majesty and Soveraignty That the pretended House and Army are guilty of all the same crimes in kind though under a new Name and notion of which they charge the King in their Declaration of the 17. of March 1648. That some of them more legally deserve death than ever the King did and considering their many Oathes Covenants Promises Declarations and Remonstrances to the contrary with the highest promises and pretences of good for the people and their declared Liberties that ever were made by men the most perjured pernicious false Faith and Trust-breakers and Tyrants that ever lived in the world and ought as many of you have been and now are by all rational honest men to be most detested and abhorred of all men that ever breathed by how much more under the pretence of friendship and brotherly kindnesse they have done all the mischief they have done in destroying our Laws liberties there being no treason like Judas his Treason who betrayed his Lord and Master with a kisse c. And shall we then submit to their Taxes and new Acts or trust them with our estates lives liberties and the supreme power or acknowledge them for our legal Parliament and soveraign Lords of the three Kingdomes if such now in their own late adorers eyes Seventhly He there asserts k k P. 57. 34. That whosoever stoops to their new change of Government and Tyrany and supports it is as absolute a Traytor both by Law and Reason as ever was in the world If not against the King PRINCE CHARLES heir apparent of his Fathers Crown and Throne yet against the peoples Majesty and Soveraignty And if this be true as it is that this purg'd Parliament IS NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL then there is neither legal Judges nor Justices of peace in England And if so then all those that are executed at Tiburn c. by their sentence of condemnation are meerly murthered and the * * Let our Gownmen sitting at Westminster and other places in high courts of Justice too there condemning and executing men consider it Judges and Justices that condemned them are liable in time to be hanged and that justly therefore for acting without a just and legal Commission either from TRUE REGAL OR TRUE PARLIAMENTARY POWER except in corporations only where they proceed by ancient Charters in the Anâ—ient Legal form And if this be Law and l l Luk. 19. 14. 27. c. 12. 13. 14. Gospel too as no doubt it is then by the same reason not onely all legal proceedings Indictments Judgements Verdicts Writs Tryals Fines Recoveries Recognisances and the like before any Judges and Justices since the Kings beheading in any Courts at Westminster or in their Circuits Assises or quarter Sessions held by new Commissions with all Commissions and Proceedings of Sheriffs are not only meerly void illegall coram non
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 behâ—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 Charteâ—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 repuâ—e it the greatest earthly Honour and 〈◊〉 to dye a Maâ—â—â—â— for my dying Country to redeem her lost Libertiâ—s with the losse of my momentary life which will be more iâ—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 Proviâ—â—nâ—â—s reflrain their Fury abate their Power and confound their Destructive Desâ—gns beyond all
without the Commons vote because a Peer of the Realm the practice of expelling Commons by their fellow Commons only being * a late dangerous unparliamentary usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructiue to the Privileges and Freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities Boroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons it selfbeing no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or final Sentence and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members than any * Judges Justices of the peace or Committees have to disjudge dis-Justice or discommittee their fellow-Judges Justices or Committee-men being all of equal authority and made Members only by the Kings Writ and peoples Election not by the Houses or other Members Votes who yet now presume both to make and unmake seclude and recall expel and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages to patch up a factious Conventicle instead of an English Parliament Therefore this Objection no waies invalids this first Reason why I neither can nor dare submit to this illegal Tax in conscience law or prudence which engage me to oppose it in all these Respects If any Object That true it is the Parliament by the common Law and Custom of the Realm determines by the Kings death but by the Statute of 17 Caroli c. 6. which enacts That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose continues the Parliament still in being notwithstanding the Kings beheading since no Act of Parliament is passed for its dissolution The only pretext for to support this continuance of the Parliament since the Kings violent death To this I answer That it is a Maxime in Law That every Statute ought to be expounded according to the intent of those that made it and the mischiefs is intended only to prevent as is resolved in 4 Edw. 4. 12. 12 Edw. 4. 18. 1 H. 7. 12 13. Plowd Com. fol. 369. and Cooks 4. Instit. p. 329 330. Now the intent of the Makers of this Act and the end of enacting it was not to prevent the dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death no wayes intimated nor insinuated in any clause thereof being a clear unavoidable dissolution of it to all intents not provided for by this Law but by any Writ or Proclamation of the King by his Regal power without consent of both Houses which I shall manifest by these Reasons First From the principal occasion of making this Act. The King as the COMMONS in their * Remonstrance of the state of the Kingdom 15 Decemb. 1641 complain had dissolved all former Parliaments during his Reign without and against both Houses approbation to their great discontent and the Kingdoms prejudice as his Father King James had dissolved others in his Reign and during their continuance adjourned and prorogued them at their pleasure Now the fear of preventing of the like dissolution prorogation or adjournment of this Parliament after the Scotish Armies disbanding before the things mentioned in the Preamble were effected by the Kings absolute power was the only ground and occasion of this Law not any fear or thoughts of its dissolution by the Kings untimely death then not so much as imagined being before the Wars or Irish Rebellion brake forth the King very healthy not antient and likely then to survive this Parliament and many others in both Houses judgement as appears by the Bill for triennial Parliaments This undenyable Truth is expresly declared by the Commons themselves in their foresaid Remonstrance Exact Collection p. 5 6 14 17. compared together where in direct terms they affirm The abrupt dissolution of this Parliament is prevented by another Bill by which it is provided it shall not be dissolved or adjourned without the consent of both Houses In the Bill for continuance of this present Parliament there seems to be some restraint of the Royal power in dissolving of Parliaments not to take it out of the Crown but to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion only which was so necessarie for the Kings own security and the publick peace that without it we could not have undertaken any of these great charges but must have left both the Armies to disorder and confusion and the whole Kingdom to blood and rapine In which passages we have a clear resolution of the Commons themselves immediately after the passing of this Act that its scope and intention was only to provide against the Kings abrupt dissolution of the Parliament by his mere royal power in suspending the execution of it for this time and occasion only and that for the Kings own security not his Heirs and Successors as well as his peoples peace and safety Therefore not against any dissolution of it by his natural much lesse his violent death which can no waies be interpreted an Act of his Royal power which they then intended hereby not to take out of the Crown but only to suspend the execution of it for this time and occasion and that for his security but a natural impotency or unnatural disloyalty which not only suspends the Kings power for a time but utterly destroys and takes away him and it without hopes of revival for ever Secondly the very title of this Act An Act to prevent Inconveniences which may happen by the UNTIMELY adjourning proroguing or DISSOLUTION of this present Parliament intimates as much compared with the body of it which provides as well against the adjourning and proroguing of both or either Houses without an Act of Parliament as against the dissolution of the Parliament without an Act. Now the Parliament cannot possibly be said to be adjourned or prorogued in any way or sense much lesse untimely merely by the Kings death which never adjourned or prorogued any Parliament but only by his Proclamation writ or royal command to the Houses or their Speakers executed during his life as all our Journals ¶ Parliaments Rolls and * Lawbooks resolve though it may be dissolved by his death as well as by his Proclamation Writ or royal command And therefore this title and Act coupling adjourning proroguing and dissolving this Parliament together without consent of both Houses by Act of Parliament intended only a Dissolution of this Parliament by such Prerogative waies and means by which Parliaments had been untimely adjourned and prorogued as well as dissolved by the Kings mere will without their assents not of a dissolution of it by the Kings death which never adjourned nor prorogued anie Parliament nor dissolved any formerly sitting Parliament in this Kings reign or his Ancestors since the death of King Hen the 4th and King James the only Parliaments we read of dissolved by death of the King since the Conquest and so a mischief not intended nor remedied by this Act Thirdly The prologue of the Act implies as much Whereas great sums
Gen. Monk by a Vote of their Council of State at Whitehall afterwards ratisied by a Vote at Westminster when executed the 9. of this instant February to march with all his Forces into the City of London to seize and imprison 2. of their Aldermen and sundry of their Common-Council men in the Tower to pull down and destroy the Gates and Portcullesses of the City To discontinue null and void the Common-Council of the City of London for this year by ordering a Bill for the choice of another Common-Council with such Qualifications as the Juncto shall think fit which was accordingly executed and then ratified and approved by their Votes and by commanding him afterwards to demand the City Arms to disarm them by force if they deliver them not upon demands s and all because the Common-Council upon a Petition of the Citizens and Remonstrance of the Gentlemen Ministers and Freeholders of Warwickshire and other Counties Febr. 8. voted and resolved That no Person or Persons whatsoever might impose any Laws or Taxes upon the City and Citizens untill the Authority thereof be derived from their Representatives in a full and free Parliament And all this without and before the least hearing or examination of the City and Common-Council a Tyranny Indignity Dishonour and Ingratitude not to be paralleld and never offered in any age to the City and Citizens before by any of our Kings for the highest Treasons against them at least before hearing and convictiâ—â— much lesse only for demanding and claiming the benefit of those Fundamental Laws and Privileges for whose defence they had so lately expended so many Millions of Treasure and Thousands of their lives to defend them according to these their fresh Declarations and Acts encouraging them thereunto and that after all their former Obligations and Indearments to the City upon all occasions and the beheaded Kings free Confirmation of all their former Charters Liberties Privileges Militia and enlargements of the same at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight notwithstanding their taking up Armes against him in the Parliaments defence may now justly irritate and engage the City of London and all other Cities Boroughs Corporations and Counties of this Realm unanimously to oppose the present and all other Taxes and Excises whatsoever imposed on them by these Oppressors and put their own Act in vigorous execution against them as the worst of Tyrants and Invaders of their Liberties Thirdly Both Houses of Parliament joyntly and the House of Commons severally in the late Parliament with the approbation of all and consent of most now sitting did in sundry ¶ Romonstrances and Declarations published to the Kingdom not only Tax the King and his evil Counsellors for imposing illegal Taxes on the Subjects contrary to the forecited Acts the maintenance whereof against all future violations and invasions of the Peoples Liberties and Properties they made one principal ground of our late bloody expensive war but likewise professed * That they were specially chosen and intrusted by the Kingdom in Parliament and owned it as their duty to hazzard their own lives and estates for preservation of those Laws and Liberties and use their best endeavours that the meanest of the Commonalty MIGHT ENJOY THEM AS THEIR BIRTH-RIGHTS as well as the greatest Subject That every honest man especially those who have taken the late Protestation and Solemn League and Covenant since is bound to defend the Laws and Liberties of the kingdom against Will and Power which imposed what payments they thought fit to drain the Subjects Purses and supply those Necessities which their ill Counsel had brought upon the King and Kingdom And that they would be ready to live and dye with those worthy and true-hearted Patriots of the Gentry of this Nation and others who were ready to lay down their lives and fortunes for the maintenance of their Laws and Liberties with many such like expressions Which must needs engage me a Member of that Parliament and Patriot of my Country with all my strength and power to oppose this injurious Tax imposed out of Parliament though with the hazard of my life and fortunes wherein all those late secluded Lords and Members who have joyned in these Remonstrances are engaged by them to second me under pain of being adjudged unworthy for ever hereafter to sit in any Parliament or to be trusted by their Counties and those for whom they served And so much the rather to vindicate the late Houses honour and reputation from those predictions and printed aspersions of the beheaded King now verified as undeniable experimented truths by the Antiparliamentary sitting Juncto * That the maintenance of the Laws Liberties Properties of the People were but only gilded Dissimulations and specious pretences to get power into their own hands thereby to enable them to destroy and subvert both Laws Liberties and Properties at last and not any thing like them to introduce Anarchy Democracy Parity Tyranny in the Highest degree and new forms of arbitrary Government and leave neither King nor Gentleman all which the people should too late discover to their costs and that they had obtained nothing by adhering to and complyance with them but to enslave and undo themselves and to be at last destroyed Which royal Predictions many complain and all experimentally â—ind too trulie verified by those who now bear rule under the Namâ— and visour of the Parliament of England since its dissolution by the Kings decapitation and the Armies imprisoning and seclusion of the Members and Lords who above all others are obliged to disprove them by their Actions as well as Declarations to the people who regard not words but real performances from these new Keepers of their Liberties especially in this FIRST YEAR OF ENGLANDS FREEDOM engraven on all their publick Seals which else will but seal their Selfdamnation and proclaim them the Archest Impostors under Heaven and now again in their 3. Session after their two sodain and forcible Dissolutions Secondly Should I voluntarily submit to pay this Tax and that by vertue of an Act of Parliament made by those now sitting some of whose Elections have been voted void others of them elected by new illegal Writs under a new kind of Seal without the Kings Authority Stile or Seal and that since the Kings beheading as the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Howard uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common-law or Custom of Parliament being Peers of the Realm if now worthy such a Title as was adjudged long since in the Lord Camoyes case Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. m. 32. asserted by Mr. Selden in his Titles of Honor part 2. c. 5. p. 737. seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4. Institut p. 1 4 5 46 47 49. and I have proved at large in my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers As I should admit these to be lawfull Members and their unlawfull void Writs to be good in Law so should I tacitly admit ex
post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledge judgement conscience Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance Pâ—otestation and Solemn League and Covenant taken in the presence of God himself with a sincere heart and real intention to perform the same and persevere therein all the dayes of my life without suffering my self directly or indirectly by whatsoever combination perswasion or terror to be withdrawn therefrom As first That there may be and now is a lawfull Parliament of England actually in being and legally continuing after the Kings death consisting only of a few late Members of the Commons House without either King Lords or most of their Fellow-Commons which the very Consciences and Judgements of all now sitting that know any thing of Parliaments and the whole Kingdom if they durst speak their Knowledge know and believe to be false yea against their Oaths and Covenant Secondly That this Parliament so unduly constituted and packed by power of an army combining with them hath a just and lawfull authority to violate the Privileges Rights Freedoms Customs and alter the Constitution of our Parliaments themselves imprison seclude expel most of their Fellow-Members for voting according to their Consciences to repeal what Votes Ordinances and Acts of Parliament they please erect new Arbitrary Courts of War and Justice to arraign condemn execute the King himself with the Peers and Commons of this Realm by a new kind of Martial law contrary to Magna Carta the Petition of Right and Law of the Land dis-inherit the Kings posterity of the Crown extirpate Monarchy and the whole House of Peers change and subvert the antient Government Seals Laws Writs legal proceedings Courts and coin of the Kingdom sell and dispose of all the Lands Revenues Jewels Goods of the Crown with the Lands of Deans and Chapters as they think meet absolve themselves like so many Antichristian Popes with all the Subjects of England and Ireland from all the Oaths and Engagements they have made TO THE KINGS MAJESTY HIS HEIRS AND SUCCESSORS yea from their verie Oath of Allegiance notwithstanding this expresse clause in it which I desire may be seriously and conscienciously considered by all who have sworn it I do believe and in Conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I acknowledge by good and full authoritie to be lawfully ministred unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary and to dispence with our Protestations Solemn League and Covenant so lately and * zealously urged and injoyned by both Houses on Members Officers Ministers and all sorts of People throughout the Realm to dispose of all the Forts Ships Forces Offices and Places of Honour Power Trust or Profit within the Kingdom to whom they please to displace and remove whom they will from their Offices Trusts Pensions Callings at their pleasures without any legal cause or trial to make what new Acts Laws and reverse what old ones they think meet to insnare inthrall our Consciences Estates Liberties Lives to create new monstrous Treasons never heard of in the world before and declare real Treasons against King Kingdom Parliament to be no Treasons and Loyalty Allegiance due Obedience to our known Laws and consciencious observing of our Oaths and Covenants the breach whereof would render us actual Traytors and perjurious Persons to be no lesse than High Treason for which they may justly imprison dismember disfranchise displace and fine us at their wills as they have done some of late and confiscate our Persons Lives to the Gallows and our estates to their new Exchequer a Tyranny beyond all Tyrannies ever heard of in our Nation repealing Magna Charta c. 29. 5 E. 3. c. 6. 25 Ed. 3. c. 4. 28 Ed. 3. c. 3. 37. E. 3. c. 18. 42 E. 3. c. 3. 25 Ed. 3. c. 2. 11 R. 2. c. 4. 1 H. 4. c. 10. 2 H. 4. Rot. Par. N. 60. 1 E. 6. c. 12. 1 Mar. c. 1. The Petition of Right 3 Caroli the Statutes made in the begining of the Parliament 16 Caroli c. 1 7 8 10 12 14 20. and laying all our * Laws Liberties Estates Lives in the very dust after so many bloody and costly years wars to defend them against the Kings and others invasions raise and keep up what forces they will by Sea and Land impose what heavy Taxes they please and renew increase multiply and perpetuate them on us and on Scotland and Ireland too which no English Parliament ever did before as often and as long as they please to support their own encroached more then Regal Parliamental Super-transcendent Arbitrary power over us and all that is ours or the Kingdoms at our private and the publick charge against our wills judgements consciences to our absolute enslaving and our three Kingdoms ruine by engaging them one against another in new Civil wars and exposing us for a prey to our Forein Enemies All which with other particulars lately acted and avowed by the Imposers of this Tax and sundry others since by colour of that pretended Parliamentary Authority by which they have imposed it I must necessarily admit acknowledge to be just and legal by my voluntary payment of it on purpose to maintain an Army to justifie and make good all this by the meer power of the Sword which they can no waies justifie and defend by the Laws of God or the Realm or the least colour of reason justice honesty religion conscience before any Tribunal of God or Men when legally arraigned as they may one day be Neither of which I can or dare acknowledge without incurring the guilt of most detestable Perjury and highest Treason against King Kingdom Parliament Laws and Liberties of the people and therefore cannot yield to this Assesment Thirdly the principal ends and uses proposed in the prâ—tended Acts and Warrants thereupon for payment of this Tax and other Taxes since are strong obligations to me in point of Coùscience Law Prudence to withstand it which I shall particularly discusse The First is the maintenante and continuance of the prâ—sent Army and Forces in England under the Lord Fairfax Cromwell and other Commanders since To which I say First as I shall with all readinesse gratitude and due respect acknowledge their former Gallantry good and faithfull Services to the Parliament and Kingdom whiles they continued dutifull and constant to their first Engagements and the ends for which they were raised by both Houses as far forth as any man so in regard of their late monstrous defections and dangerous Apostacies from their primitive obedience faithfulnesse and engagements in disobeying the Commands and levying open war against both Houses of Parliament keeping an horrid force upon them at their very doors seising imprisoning secluding abusing and forcing away their Members printing and publishing many high and treasonable Declarations against the Institution Privileges Members and Proceedings of the late and being of
heavier Taxes of this kind when these expire which we must expect when all the Kings Bishops Deans and Chapters Lands are shared amongst them sold and spent as they will quicklâ— be if we patientlie submit to this leading Decoy since q Binus Actus inducit consuetudinem as our Ancestors resolved Auno 1240. in the case of an unusual Tax demanded by the Popeâ— whereupon they all unanimously opposed it at first r Opprime dum nova sunt subiti mala semina morbi Principiis oqsta serò medicina paratur Cum mala per longas invaluêre moraâ— Bâ—ing the safest rule of State-Physick we can follow in such new diseases which endanger the whole Body-Politick Upon which grounds the most conscientious Gentlemen and best Patriots of their Countrey opposed Loans Shipmouy Tonnage Poundage Knighthood and the late illegal Impositions of the King and his Councel in the very beginnings of them and thought themselves bound in Conscience Law Prudence so to do though there were some colourable reasons and precedents of former times pretended to countenance them And if thefe Worthies conceived themselves thus obliged to oppose those illegal Impositions of the King and his Councel though countenanced by some Judges opinions as Iegal to their immortal honour and high esteem both in Countrey and Parliament who applauded them as the * principal maintainers of their Countries Liberties then much more ought I and all other tenderes of their own and Countries Freedom to oppose this illegal dangerous Contribution imposed on us by a few of our fellow Subjects only without yea against all Law or President to countenance it being of greater consequence and worser example to the Kingdom than all or any of the Kings illegal projects or Taxes Seventhly the excessiveness of this Tax much raised and encreased when we are so much exhausted and were promised and expected ease from Taxes both by the Army in their Remonstrance November 20. 1648. and by the * Imposers of it amounting to a sixth part if not a moyety of most mens estates is a deep Engagement for me to oppose it since Taxes as well as s Fines and Amerciaments ought to be reasonable so as men may support themselves and their Families and not be undone as many will be by this if forced to pay it by Distress or imprisonment Upon this ground in the Parliament Petitions of 1 Edward the third we find divers freed from payment of Tenths and other Taxes lawfully imposed by Parliament because the people were impoverished and undone by the Wars who ought to pay them And in the printed Statutes of 31 Henr. 6. c. 8. 1 Mariae c. 17 to omit others we find Subsidies mitigated and released by subsequent Acts of Parliament though granted by pâ—ecedent by reason of the peoples poverty and inability to pay them Yea sometimes we read of something granted them by the King by way of aid to help pay their Subsidies as in 25 Edward 3. Rastal Tax 9. and 36. Ed. 3 c. 14. and for a direct president in point when t Peter Rubie the Pope's Legat in the year 1240. exacted an excessive unusual Tax from the English Clergy the whole Clergy of Berkshire and others did all and every of them unanimously withstand it tendring him divers Reasons in writing of their refusal pertinent to our time and present Tax whereof this was one That the Reâ—venues of their Churches scarce sufficed to find them daily food both in regard of their smalness and of the present dearth of their Corn and because there were such multitudes of poor people to relieve some of which died of Famin so as they had not enough to suffice themselves and the poor Whereupon they ought not to be compelled to any such Contribution which many of our Clergy may now likewise plead most truly whose Livings are small and their Tithes detained and divers people of all ranks and callings too who must sell their stocks beds and their houshold stuff or rot in prison if forced to pay it Eighthly the principal inducement to bring on the payment of this Tax is a promise of taking off the all-devouring and undoing Grievance of Free-quarter which hath ruined many Countries and Families and yet they must pay this heavy Tax to be eased of it for the future instead of being paid and allowed for what is already past according to u former Engagements and yet Free-quarter is still taken Against which I have these just exceptions 1. That the taking of Free-quarter by Souldiers in mens houses is a grievance against the very Common law it self which defines every mans House to be his Castle and Sanctuary into which none ought forcibly to enter against his will and which with his Goods therein he may lawfully x fortifie and defend against all intruders whatsoever and kill them without any danger of Law Against all the Statutes concerning y Purveyers which prohibit the taking of any mens goods or provisions against their wills or payment for them under pain of Felony though by Commission under the great Seal of England Against the expresse Letter and Provision of the Petition of Right 3 Caroli Condemned by the Commons House in their z Declaration of the State of the Kingdom of the 15. December 1641. and charged as an Article against King Richard the second when deposed in the Parliament of 1 H. 4. nu 22. Yea it is such a Grievance as exposeth our houses goods provisions monies servants children wives lives and all other earthly comforts we enjoy to the lusts and pleasure of every domineering Officer and unruly common Souldier Therefore absolutely to be abolished without any compensation And to impose an unjust heavy Tax and induce people to pay it upon hopes of freeing them from Free-quarter is but to impose one Grievance to remove another 2. There have been many former promises Declarations and Orders of both Houses and the General for taking off Free-quarter upon the Peoples paying in their Contributions before hand and then nonâ— should afterward free quarter on them under pain of death Yet no sooner have they paied in their Contributions but they have been free-quartered on as much or more than formerly the Souldiers when we tell them of any Orders against free quarter slighting them as so many waste papers and carrying themselves more unruly And when complaint thereof hath been made to the Officers Members or the Committee for the Army or in the House answer hath still been made That as long as there is an Army on foot there will be free-quarter taken and there can be no prevention of it there being a necessity for it and when any have craved allowance of it they have found so many put offs and delaies and such difficulties in obtaining it that their expences have equalled their allowance and after allowances made the monies allowed have been called for again So as few have had any allowance for quarters and
sword-men whom we had already found to be men of no very tender conscience And do not the Speaker and all Lawyers and others now sitting in their own Judgments and Consciences and to their friends in private believe say and confess as much that they are no Parliaments and yet have the impudency and the insolency to sit act and Tax yea seclude and imprison us at their pleasures as a real legal and absolute Parliament O Atheisme O Tyranny and Impiety of the worst Edition If then these leading swaying members of the new pretended purged Commons Parliament and Army deemed the Parliament even before the Kings beheading a Mock-parliament a mock-power a pretended Parliament yea no Parliament at all and absolutely resoved to pull it up by the roots as such then it necessarily folows First That they are much more so after the Kings death and their suppression of the Lords House and purging of the Commons House to the very dregs in the opinions and consciences of those now sitting and all other rational men And no wayes enabled by Law to impose this or any other new Tax or Acts upon the Kingdom or to create any new Treasons Confiscations Sequestrations and Penalties and being themselves in truth the worst and greatest of all Traytors and Tyrants Secondly that these grand Saints of the Army and Steersmen of the pretended Parliament and all Gown-men confederating with them knowingly sit vote and act there against their own judgments and consciences for their own private pernicious ends Thirdly that it is a baseness cowardize and degeneracy beyond all expression for any of their fellow-members now acting to suffer these Grandees in their Assembly and Army to sit or vote together with them or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army under them or to impose any Tax upon the people to maintain such Officers Members Souldiers who have thus vilified affronted their pretended Parliamentary Authority and thereby induced others to contemn and question it and forcibly excluded and imprisoned the greatest part of the Members and whole House of Peers in order to their own future exclusion and as great a baseness in them and others for to pay it upon any terms Secondly he there affirms that d d P. 26 27. Oliver Crumwel by the help of the Army at their first Rebellion against the Parliament was no sooner up but like a perfidious base unworthy man c. the House of Peers were his onely white boys and who but Oliver who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Usurpers became their Proctor where ever he came yea and set his son Ireton at work for them also insomuch that at some meetings with some of my friends at the Lord Whartons Lodgings he clapt his hand upon his breast and to this purpose professed in the sight of God upon his conscience THAT THE LORDS HAD AS TRUE A RIGHT TO THEIR LEGISLATIVE Note and JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO THE COAT UPON HIS BACK and he would procure a friend viz. Master Nathaniel Fiennes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England And not onely so but did he not get the General and Councel of War at Windsor about the time that the Votes of no more addresses were to pass to make a Declaration to the whole world declaring THE LEGAL RIGHT OF THE LORDS HOUSE and THEIR FIXED RESOLUTION TO MAINTAIN and UPHOLD IT which was sent by the General to the Lords by Sir Hardresse Waller and to indear himself the more unto the Lords in whose house without all doubt he intended to have sate himself he required me evil for good and became my enemy to keep me in Prison out of which I must not stirre unless I would sloop and acknowledge the Lords jurisdiction over Commoners and for that end he sets his agents and instruments at work to get me to do it yet now they themselves have suppressed them Whence it is most apparent 1. That the General Lieutenant General Cromwel Col. Ireton Harison and other Officers of the Army now sitting as Members and over-ruling all the rest * * See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers yea all other Lawyers Members sitting with them have wittingly acted against their own knowledges Declarations Judgments Consciences in suppressing the Lords House and depriving them of their Legislative and Jurisdictive Right and power by presuming to make Acts pass sentences and impose Taxes without them or their assents in Parliament contrary to the express Acts of 16 17 Caroli c. 1. 7 8 12 14 20. and hundreds of Ordinances Remonstrances Declarations the Protestation Vow and Solemn League and Covenant made this Parliament by the Votes of most now sitting 2. That this Tax enforced upon the Commons and Kingdom for their own particular advantage pay and enrichment and to suppress the House of Lords is in their own judgments and conscience both unjust and directly contrary to the Laws of the Realm being not assented to by the Lords and therefore to be unanimously and strenuously opposed by all the Lords and other Englishmen who love their own or Countries Liberties or have any Nobility or Generosity in them Thirdly he e e Pag. 34. 39 40. 56 47. there asserts in positive terms in his own behalf and his confederates That the purged Parliament now sitting is but a pretended Parliament a mock-Parliament yea and in plaine English NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL but the shadow of a Parliament That those Company of men at Westminster that gave Commission to the high Court of Justice to try and behead the King c. were no more a Parliament by Law or Representatives of the people by the rule of Justice and Reason then such a company of men are a Parliament or Representative of the People that a company of armed Thieves choose and set apart to try judge condemn hang or behead any man that they please or can prevail over by the power of their Sword to bring before them by force of arms to have their lives taken away by prâ—tence of JUSTICE grounded upon rules meerly flowing from their VVills and Swords That no Law in England authoriseth a company of servants to punish and correct their Masters or to give a Law unto them or to throw them at their pleasure out of their power and set themselves down in it which is the Armies case with the Parliament especially at Thomas Pride's late purge which was an absolute dissolution of the very Essence and being of the House of Commons to set up indeed a MOCK-POVVER and a MOCK-PARLIAMENT by purging out all those that they were any way jealous of would not Vote as they would have them and suffering and permitting none to sit but for the Major part of them a company of absolute School-boys that will like good Boys say their Lessons after them their Lords and Masters and vote what they would have
judice to all intents with all Bills Decrees and Proceedings in Chancery or the Rolls and all Judges Justices Sheriffs now acting and Lawyers practising before them in apparent danger of High-treason both against King and Kingdom they neither taking the Oaths of Judges Supremacy or Allegiance as they ought by Law but only to be true and faithful to the new erected State without a King but likewise all votes and proceedings before the pretended House or any of their Committees oâ—sub-Committees in the Country with all their Grants and Offices Moneys Salaries Sequestrations Sales of Lands or Goods Compositions c. meer Nullities and illegal acts and the proceedings of all active Commissioners Assessors Collectors Treasurers c. and all other Officers imployed to levy and to collect this illegal tax to support that usurped Parliamentary Authority and Army which hath beheaded the late King dis-inherited his undoubted Heir levyed war against and dissolved the late Houses of Parliament subverted the ancient Government of this Realm the constitution and Liberties of our Parliaments the Lawes of the Kingdome with the Liberty and property of the people of England no less than High-treason in all these respects as is fully proved by Sir Edward Cook in his 3 Institutes ch. 1. 2. and by Mr. St. John in his Argument at Law at the attainder of the Earl of Strafford and Declaration and Speech against the ship-mony Judges published by the late Commons House order which I desire all who are thus imployed to consider especially such Commissioners who take upon them to administer a new unlawful Ex-officio Oath to any to survey their Neighbours and their own estates in every parish and return the true values thereof to them upon the new proun'd rate for the 3 last months contribution to fine those who refuse to do it a meer diabolical invention to multiply perjuries to damn mens souls invented by Cardinal Woolsey much enveighed against by Father Latimer in his sermons condemned by the express words of the Petition of Right providing against such Oathes and a snare to enthral the wealtheir sort of people by discovering their estates to subject them to what future taxes they think fit when as the whole House of Commons in no age had any power to administer any Oath in any case whatsoever much lesse then to confer any authority on others to give such illegal Oathes and fine those who refuse them the highest kind of Arbitrary Tyrany both over mens Consciences Properties Liberties to which those who voluntarily submit deserve not only the name of Traytors to their Country but to be m m Exod. 21. 5. 6. boared through the ear and they and their posterities to be made Slaves for ever to these new Tax-masters and their successors and those who are any ways active in imposing or administring such Oaths yea treasonable Oaths of the highest degree abjuring and engaging against King Kingship Kingdome and House of Lords and that with constancy and perseverance against their former Oathes of Homage Fealty Supremacy and Allegiance the Protestation Vow Solemn League and National Covenant the most detestable Perjury and High treason that ever mortal men were guilty of or assistant in imposing assessing collecting and levying illegal taxes by distresse or otherwise may and will undoubtedly smart for it at last not onely by Actions of trespasse false imprisonment Accompt c. brought against them at the Common Law when there will be no Committee of Indempnity to protect them from such suits but likewise by Indictments of High treason to the deserved losse of their Estates Lives and Ruine of their families and that by the Junctoes own Votes and Declaration Octob. 11. 1659. when there will be no Parliament of purged Commoners nor Army to secure nor legal plea to acquit them from the guilt and punishment of Traytors both to their King and Country pretended present forbid fear of imprisonment loss of Liberty Friends Estate Life or the like being no n n See 1. H. 4. Rot. Par. n. 97. excuse in such a case and time as this but an higher aggravation of their crime nor yet to exempt them from Hell it self and everlasting Torments in it for their Perjuries Treasons Oppressions Rebellions and actings against their Consciences out of fear of poor inconsiderable mortals who can but kill the body at most nor yet do that but by Gods permission contrary to the express commands of God himself Ps. 3. 6. Ps. 27. 1. Ps. 56. 11. Ps. 112. 7 8. Isa. 44. 8. c. 51. 7. 12. ler. 1. 8. Ezek. 2. 6. 12. 4. 5. Mat. 10. 28. 1. Pet. 3. 4. Heb. 13. 6. the o o Rev. 21. 8. FEARFUL being the first in that dismal list of Malefactors who shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death even by Christs own sentence JOHN 18. 34. To this end was I born and for this cause came I into the world that I should bear witnesse unto the truth FINIS * See Fortescue de Laudibus Legum Angliae and Sir Thomas Smith De Republica Anglicana 16 Car. c. 1. See Rastal Title Taxes Tallages The Acts for Subsidies of the Clergy and Temporalty * See My Memento to the pâ—esent Un-Parliamentary Juncto Prynne the Member reconciled to Prynne the Barresteâ— and True and perfect Narrative May 7. 9. 1659. a See my Humble Remonstrance against Ship-money Jan. 26. 1659. b See 1 E. â— cap. 7. Cook 7. Report 30 31. Dyer 165. 4 Ed. 4. 43 44 1 E. 5. 1 Book Commission 10 21. c Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts fol. 1. Cook 4. Instit. c. 1. d 5 E. 3. m. 6. part 2. Dors. Claus. Regist. f. 192. 200. e 4 Ed. 4. 44. 1 E. 5. 1. Brook Commissions 19. 21. Officer 25. Dyer 165. Cook 7. Report 30. 31. 1 E. 6. c. 7. Daltons Justice of Peace c. 3. p. 13 Lambert p. 71. * See my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers f 14 R. 2. n. 15. 11 H 4. n. 30. 13 H. 4. n. 25. g 4 H. 7. 18. b. 7 H. 7. 27. Fortescue c. 18. f 20 Dyer 92. Bâ—ook Parliament 76 197. Cooks 4. Institut p. 25. h See the Freeholders grand Inquest My Plea for the Lords The 1 and 2 Part of my Register of Parliamentary Writs and exact Ab. idgement of the Records in â—â—e Tower my Historical Collection part 1 2. c. 3. See my Speech Dec. 4. 1648. and a full Declation of the true state of the Case of the Secluded Members i i Cooks 4. Institutes p. 1. 5 R. 2. Stat. 2. c. 4. * Populi Minor pars Populum non obigit Grotius de Jure Belli l. 2. c. 15. sect. 3. Alexander ab Alexandro Gen. dierum l. 4. c. 11. a Declarat Nov. 28. 30. 1648. l 39. Ed. 3. 7. 4. H. 7. 10. Brook Parl. 26. 40. Cook 4. Instit. p. 1. 25 26. 1 Jac. cap. 1. m Claus. 23. E. 1.
the preventing of which mischiefs together with the considerations aforesaid have weighed more with me than any thing which may concern my particular and especially having served the House faithfully and diligently for the space of very near seven years 4 in a true and Parliamentary way of proceedings that I might not now be made a servant to such a multitude to transfer upon them the colour of Parliamentary authority there withall to abuse and deceive the minds and to 5 destroy the lives liberties and estates of the people of this Kingdom And having taken a 6 solemn Protestation Covenant in my place and calling to maintain the privileges of Parliament and the Rights and Liberties of the Subjects I could not now satisfie my self but by 7 absenting my self at this time rather than by my presence to give any shadow or countenance of the authority of Parliament to such apparent violations thereof Neither can the omission of a circumstance or some formality in the adjournments of the House when through force and violence it cannot meet and sit in any sort as a Parliament be any prejudice to the future meetings and proceedings thereof when it may meet and sit again as a free Parliament it being well known that nothing can dissolve this Parliament but an Act of Parliament When a company of Apprentices Reformadoes and others shall call the Ordinances of Parliament pretended Ordinances shall 8 lock the doors of the Houses upon them shall swear not to let them out till they had passed what they pleased concerning the Militia of London and other things though the Houses had immediately before voted otherwise shall threaten the Houses in case they did not instantly satisfie their demands shall knock whoot and hollow continually at the Parliament door that the 9 Members could not be heard to speak or debate after that the House of Commons had passed a Vote concerning the Militia of London and that the Speaker by the Vote had judged the 10 major part to be for the Negative shall not suffer the House to be divided but in a thr eatning way require those that 11 gave their votes againstth em to corne out to them if they would when after the House was adjourned they shall by main force thrust back the Speaker again into the House and force the Members in their presence and sight divers of them thrusting into the House to vote what they demanded when they shall justle pull and hale the Speaker all the way he went down to his Cosch and force him to avoid their violence to betake himself to the next Coach he could get into for Refuge when they shall breath forth bloody threats against the Members as they came out of the House and since against me in particular at the next meeting of the House as I am credibly informed and where there is no appearance but that they will continue to do as formerly they have done or far worse on Friday 12 I couldnot in discharge of my Trust Protestation and Covenant sit in the Chair of the House of Commons whilst it shall be iu such a condition but so soon as it may sit again in freedome and safety I shall be ready to attend she service thereof but till then as I have upon the forementioned grounds fully satisfied my own Conscience so I doubt not but I shall give the whole Kingdome whose interest is most concerned in it ample satisfaction in the necessity of my absence William Lenthall Speaker 2ly By the Engagement of those Lords and Commons that went to the Army after the Apprentices transitory forcâ— upon the Army-Officers invitation who subscribed their names thereto with some others who continued sitting in the Houses Die Mercurii quarto Augusti 1647. WE the Members of both Houses of Parliament who absent our selves from the service of the Parliament 1 by reason of the force and violence offered thereunto by a tumultuous multitude having received from his Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax a Declaration entituled a Declaration of his Exceliency Sir Thomas Fairfax and his Councel of War on the behalf of themselves and the whole Army shewing the grounds of their present advance towards the City of London and having perused the same we look upon it as a Declaration full of truth the matter of fact being well known unto most of us who have been ey and ear witnesses thereof full of Christian noble and publick affection to the good peace and prosperity of the Kingdome and full of integrity and faithfulnesse to the truâ— interest of the English Nation and 2 full of undaunted and generous resolutions to assert the Honour and Freedome of the Parliament and effectually to vindicate it from the force and violence whereby it hath been of late trampled under the foot of a Rabble of people unto which force 3 it is still exposed so as it may be exercised upon them at pleasure and whilest the Parliament remains in such a condition although it be not dissolvable but by Act of Parl yet it is suspended from acting as a Parliament In all these things and generally throughout our sense so fully agreeth with what is expressed in that Dcelaration of the Army that we cannot but receive it with much approbation and also with great thankfulness to God in the first place and next under him 4 to this ever faithfull Army for that tender sense expressed therein of our honour and security who absent our selves from the Parliament in regard of that force And for that high Eugagem of the Armie to live dy with us in this cause Whereupon we cannot but 5 mutually engage our selves as hereby we do to live die with Sir The Fairfax and the Army in the vindication of the honour and freedome of the Parliament And we cannot but observe the special providence of God in holding up so extraordinarily 6 this Army reserving it to take off the scorn of this Nation and to raise up again from the depth of contempt that once so much honoured and high esteemed name of a Parliament And whereas in the said Declaration it is desired that we as persons upon whom 7 their publick trust still remaineth though for the present we cannot exercise the same in a Parliamentory way would advise his Excellency and his Councel os Waâ— in such things as may be for the good of the Kingdome and for the attaining the ends aforesaid We do declare that we shall be â—ver ready to do it upon all occasions in such a capacity as we may 8 till we shall be enabled to discharge our trust in a free Parliament which we conceive we can never do until the Houses of Parliament may be absolute Judges and Masters of their own securities and such 9 Trayterous audacious offenders as have endevoured with so high a hand to destroy the highest Authority as
House door above eight hours together the City-Guards there present nor the City relieving them by reason whereof the House was forced to Vote what that rude multitude would demand and then adjourned the House till the next morning After which the House rising the Speaker and many Members going out of the House they 3 forc'd them back again into the House Many of the Apprentices pressing in with them where they stood with their hats on their heads and compelled the Speaker to take the Chair and the House to vote in their presence what they pleased committing many other insolencies as is published by the Speaker of the House of Commons in his Declaration and is too well known by all then present and during the time of this execrable violence done by the said Apprentices 4 Westminster Hall and the Palace yard was fill'd with Reformadoes and other ill-affected persons designed to back them After this the Houses being adjourned till Friday following upon the Thursday the Apprentices printed and posted a paper in several places of the City requiring all their fellows to be early at the Parliament the next morning for that they intended to adjourn by seven of the clock and that for a Moneth Thus the Speakrs 5 with many of the Members of both Houses were driven away from the Parliament These things being seriously considered by us we have thought fit in the name of the Army to declare that all such Members of either House of Parliament as are already with the Army for the security of their persons and for the ends aforesaid are forced to absent themselves from Westminster that 5 we shall hold and esteem them as persons in whom the publick trust of the Kingdom is still remaining though they cannot for the present sit as a Parliament with freedom and safety at Westminster and by whose advice and counsels we desire to govern our selves in the managing these weighty affairs and to that end we * invite them to make repair to this Army to joyn with us in this great cause we being resolved and do hereby faithfully oblige our selves to stand by them therein and to live and die with them against all Opposition whatsoever And in particular we do hold our selves bound to own that honorable act of the Speaker of the House of Commons who upon the grounds he himself expressed in his Declaration sent unto us hath actually withdrawn himself and hereupon we do further 6 ingage to use our utmost speedy endeavours that he and those Members of either House that are thus inforced away from their attendance at Westminster may with freedom and security sit there and again discharge their trust as a free and a legal Parliament and in the mean time we do declare against that late choice of a new Speaker by some Gentlemen at Westminster as 7 contrary to all right Reason Law and Custom and we professs our selves to be 8 most clearly satisfied in all our Judgements and are also confident the Kingdom will herein concur with us that as things now stand there is no free nor legal Parliament sitting being through the aforesaid violence at present suspended And 9 that the Drders Votes or Resolutions forced from the Houses on Monday the 26. of July last as also all such as shall passe in this Assembly of some few Lords and Gentlemen at Westminster under what pretence and colour soever are unto and null and ought Hot to be submitted unto by the free-born Subjects of England And that we may prevent that slavery designed upon us and the Nation that the Kingdom may be restored to a happy State of a visible Government now eclipsed and darkened we hold our selves bound by our duty to God and the Kingdom to bring to condign punishment the Authors and Promoters of that * unparalleld violence done to the Parliament and in that to all the free-born Subjects of England that are or hereafter shall be and therefore we are resolved to march up towards London where we do expect that the well-affected people of that City will deliver up unto us or otherwise put into safe Custody so as they may be reserved to a legal Trial the 10 eleven impeached Members that have again thrust themselves into the management of publick affairs by this wicked design And that all others will give us such assistance therein 11 that the Members of both Houses may receive due incouragement to return to Westminster there to sit with all freedom and so to perform their trust as shall condues to the settlement of this distracted Kingdom and to inflict such punishments upon these late Offenders as shall deter any for the future to make the like attempt Our lives have not been dear unto us for the publick good and being now resolved by the assistance of God to 12 bring these Delinquents to their deserved punishments as that than which there cannot be any thing of more publick concernment to the Kingdom we trust if it shall come to that our bloud shall not be accounted too dear a price for the accomplishment of it And if any in the City will ingage themselves against us to protect these Persons and so put the Kingdom again into a new and miserable War The bloud must be laid to the account of such persons as are the Authors thereof It is our chief aim to settle Peace with Truth and Righteousnesse throughout the Kingdom that none may be oppressed in his just freedom and Liberties 13 much lesse the Parliament it self which things being duly setled we shall be as ready also to assure unto the King his just Rights and Authority as any that pretend it never so much for the better upholding of an ill cause and the countenance of tumultuous violence against the Parliament the which our honest just and necessary undertakings as we are resolved to pursue with the utmost hazzard of our lives and fortunes so we doubt not but we shall find Gods accustomed goodnesse and assistance with us therein till we have brought them to a good and happy conclusion for this poor distracted languishing Kingdom 5ly By the Ordinance of both Houses eagerly promoted by all the fugitive Members engaging with the Army and now sitting as well as others remaining who condemned and passed Votes against the Apprentiees tumult during their absence and never countenanced it in the least degree as * some scandalously and falsly suggest Die Veneris 20 Aug. 1647. An Ordinance for declaring all Votes Orders and Ordinances passed in One or Both Houses since the force on Both Houses July 26. until the 6. of this present August 1647. to be Null and Voyd WHereas there was a visible horrid insolent and actual Force upon the Parliament on Monday the 26. of July last Whereupon the Speakers and * many Members of Both Houses of Parliament were forced to absent themselves from the
him secluding all the rest by armed power make themselves an absolute standing Parliament for him his heirs and successors by vertue of this act than those few Commons sitting since his tryal death do or can do 6. The last clause of this act And that all and every â—â—ing or things whatsoever done or to be done to wit by the King or His Authority for the adjournment proroguing or dissolving of this present Parliament contrary to this present Act shall be utterly void and of none effect Now death and a dissolution of this Parliament by the Kings death cannot as to the King be properly stiled a Thing done or to be done by Him for the adjournment proroguing or dissolving of this Parliament contrary to this present Act which cannot make the Kings death utterly void and of none effect by restoring him to his life again Therefore the dissolution of the Parl. by the Kings death is cleerly out of the words and intentions of this Act especially so many years after its Enacting 7. This present Parl. every Member thereof being specially summoned by the Kings Writ by the particular name of CAROLVS REX not REX in general only to be His Parliament and Council and to confer personally with Him of the great and urgent affairs concerning Him and His Kingdom not his Heirs and Successors and these Writs and the Elections upon them returned unto Him and His Court by Indentures and the persons summoned and chosen by vertue of them appearing only in His Parliament for no other ends but those expressed in His Writs it would be both an absurdity and absolute impossibility to assert that the King or both Houses intended by this Act to continue this Parliament in being after the Kings beheading or death unlesse they that maintain this paradox be able to inform me and those now sitting how they can confer and advice with a dead beheaded King of things concerning Him and His Kingdom and that even after they have abjured his Heirs and Successors and Royal line and extirpated Monarchy it self and made it Treason to assert or revive it and how they can continue still His Parliament and Council whose head they have cut off and that without reviving or raising him from his grave or enstalling His right Heir and Successor in His Throne to represent His Person neither of which they dare to do for fear of losing their own Heads and Quarters too for beheading him This Tax therefore being imposed on the Kingdom long after the Kings beheading and the Parliaments actual and legal dissolution by it must needs be illegal and meerly void in Law to all intents because not granted nor imposed in but totally out of Parliament by those who were then no Commons nor Members of a Parliament and had no more authority to impose any Tax upon the Kingdom than any other forty or fifty Commoners whatsoever out of Parliament who may usurp the like Authority by this president to Tax the Kingdom or any County what they please yea the whole 3. Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland as they now presume and then levy it by an Army or force of Armes to the peoples infinite endlesse oppression and undoing This is my first and principal exception against the Legality of this Tax and others they shall impose which I desire the Imposers and Levyers of it most seriously to consider and challenge them all to Answer if they can for our 3. Kingdoms present and posterities satisfaction by other Arguments than Imprisonments close Imprisonments Pistols Swords and armed violence and that upon these important considerations from their own late Declarations First themselves in their own Declaration of the 9th of February 1648. have protested to the whole Kingdom That they are fully resolved to maintain and shall and will uphold preserve and keep the fundamental Laws of this Nation for and concerning the preservation of the Lives Properties and Liberties of the people with all things incident thereunto Which how it will stand with the former and this new Tax imposed by them out of Parliament or in a thin House under force or their Act concerning New Treasons I desire they would satisfie the Kingdom before they levy the one or proceed upon the other against any of their fellow-Subjects by meer arbitrary armed power against Law and Right Secondly Themselves in their Declaration expressing the grounds of their late proceedings and setling the present Government in way of a Free-State dated 17 Martii 1648. engage themselves 1. To procure the well-being of those whom they serve to renounce oppression arbitrary power and all opposition to the Peace and Freedom of the Nation And to prevent to their power the reviving of Tyranny Injustice and all former evils the only end and duty of all their Labours to the satisfaction of all concerned in it 2. They charge the late King for exeeeding all his Predeoeessors in the destruction of those whom he was bound to preserve To manifest which they instance in The Loans unlawfull Imprisonments and othec Oppressions which produced that excellent Law of the Petition of Right which were most of them again acted presently after the Law made against them which was most palpably broken by him almost in every part of it very soon after his Solemn Consent given unto it 1 His imprisoning and prosecuting Members of Parliament for opposing His unlawfull Will and of divers 2 worthy Merchants for refusing to pay Tonnage and Poundage because not granted by Parliament yet 3 exacted by HIM expresly against Law punishment of many 4 good Patriots for not submitting to whatsoever he pleased to demand though never so much in breach of the known Law The multitude of Projects and Mouopolies established by Him His design and charge to bring in 5 German-Horse to awe us into slavery and his hopes of compleating all by His grand project of 6 Ship-mony to subject every mans Estate to whatsoever Proportion He pleaseth to impose upon them But above all the English Army was laboured by the King to be engaged against the English Parliament A thing of that 7 strange impiety and unnaturalness for the King of England to sheath their swords in one anothers bowels that nothing can answer it but his own being a Foreiner neither could it have easily purchased belief but by his succeeding visible actions in full pursuance of the same As the Kings coming in person to the 8 House of Commons to seise the five Members whither he was followed 9 with some hundreds of unworthy debauched persons armed with Swords and Pistols and other Arms and they attending at the Door of the House ready to execute whatsoever their Leader should command them The oppressions of the Council-Table Star-Chamber High-Commission Court-Martial Wardships Purveyances Afforestations and many others of like nature equalled if not far exceeded now by sundry arbitrary Committees and Sub-Committee to name no
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-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
of Parliament shall be quietly permitted without any legal impeachment hearing tryal or cause alleged but only for one just single Vote Decemb. 4. 1648. carryed in a full House after long debate without any division forcibly to seclude and Vote out the greatest part of their Fellow-Members of greatest integritie interest ability and faithfulness to the Publick against all rules of Law Justice and Parliamentarie proceedings and their Electors wills and by new heterogeneal Writs derived from another power and varying in form from those by which themselves were chosen to enforce whole Counties Cities and Boroughs to elect new Knights Citizens and Burgesses to recruit their empty House upon such pernicious Qualifications and Engagements as themselves prescribe both to the Electors and Members to be elected of which themselves will be the only Judges ere they admit them to sit when chosen on purpose to carry on their own private designs and force what Government they please upon the people against their publick Interest and desires to perpetuate our Confusions Oppressions Unsettlements and to disable whom they please to elect or be elected without any publick opposition by the secluded Members and people then endeavoured then farewell Parliaments Laws and Liberties for ever Fourthly The coercive power and manner of levying this contribution expressed in the Act is against the law of the Land and libertie of the Subject which is threefold First Distresse and sale of the Goods of those who refuse to pay it with power to break open their Houses which are their Castles doors chests c. to distrain which is against Magna Chart. c. 29. The Petition of Right 3 Car. The Votes of both Houses in the case of Shipmony 1 R. 2. c. 3. and the resolution of our Judges and Law-books 13 Edw. 4 9. 20 E. 4. 6. Cook 5 Report f. 91 92. Semains case and 4 Inst. p. 176 177. Secondly Imprisonment of the bodie of the party till he pay the Contribution which is contrarie to Magna Charta c. 29. The Petition of Right The resolution of both Houses in the Parliament of 3 Caroli in the case of Loans and 17 Caroli in the case of Shipmony the judgement of our Judges and law-books collected by Sir Edward Cook in his 2 Inst. p. 46 c. the Statute of 2 H. 4 rot parl. n. 6. 16 Car. c. 1 8 10 12 14 20. most expresse in point Thirdly Levying of the contribution by souldiers and force of arms in case of resistance and imprisoning the person by like force adjudged High Treason in the case of the Earl of trafford and a levying of war within the Statute of 25 Ed. 3. by the last Parliament for which he lost his head and proved to be High Treason at large by Master St. John in his Argument at Law at the passing the Bill for his attainder Printed by order of the Commons House Fourthly which heightens the illegality of these illegal means of levying it if any person whose goods are distrained or person imprisoned for these illegal caxes shall bring his Action at Law or an Habeas Corpus for his relief or action of false imprisonment as he may justly do not onely those who now stile themselves Judges forgetting the cases of Judge Thorp Tresilian and others of old and the impeachments of the late Shipmony Judges in the beginning of this Parliament with Mr. St. Johns Speech and Declaration against them worthy their perusal will deny or delay to right and release them for which they deserve Thorps and Tresilians punishments but if these fail them at least wise the new illegal Committee of Indempnity will stay his legal proceedings award costs against him commit him anew till he pay them and release his Sut es at Law and upon an Habeas corpus their own sworn Judges created by them without any Oath to do equal Justice c. to all but onely to be true and faithfull to their new ereâ—ted State and sitting amongst them as Members dare not bail but remaund him against Law An oppression and Tyranny far exceeding the worst of the Beheaded Kings under whom the Subjects had Free-Liberty to sue and proceed at Law both in the cases of Loans Shipmony and Knighthood without any Council-Table or Committee of Indempnity to stop their sutes or force them to release them and therefore in all these respects so repugnant to the Laws and Liberty of the Subject I cannot submit to these illegal Taxes but oppugn them to the uttermost as the most Destructive to our Laws and Libertie that ever were Fifthly The time of the imposing of this illegal Tax with these unlawfull wayes of levying it is very confiderable and sticks much with me it is as the imposers of it declare and publish in many of their new kind of Acts and devices in the first year of Englands Liberty and redemption from thraldom this last after its new revival after 6. years interruption and inter-regnum by Oliver his Son Richard And if this unsupportable Tax thus illegally to be levied be the first fruiâ—s of our first years Freedome and redemption from thraldom as they stile it how great may we expect our next years thraldom will be when this little finger of theirs is heavier by far than the Kings whole loins whom they beheaded for Tyranny and Oppression 6ly The Order of this first Tax if I may so term a disorder or rather newnâ—ss of it engageth me and all lovers of their Countries Liberty unanimously to withstand the same It is the first I find that was ever imposed by any who had been Members of the Commons House after a Parliament dissolved the Lords House voted down and most of their fellow Commoners secured or secluded by their connivance or confederacy with an undutifull Army at first and this latter the first doubled Tax upon the people for the very moneths they advanced â— aid in beforehand by the expresse command and orders of the sitting Members to exclude the secluded ones not only out of the House it self but Lobby too into which the meanest Footboyes and Porters have free accesse Which if submitted to and not opposed as illegal not onely the King or Lords alone without the Commons but any forty or fifty Commoners who have been Members of a Parliament gaining Forces to assist and countenance them may out of Parliament now or any time hereafter do the like and impose what Taxes and Laws they please upon the Kingdom and the secluded Lords and Commons that once sate with them and on Scotland and Ireland too being encouraged thereto by such an unopposed president Which being of so dangerous consequence and example to the constitution and Privileges of Parliament and liberties of the people we ought all to endeavour the crushing of this new Cocâ—atrice in the shell lest it grow up to a Fiery Serpent to consume and sting us to death and induce the imposers of it to lâ—de us with new and
conceit to the contrary till they be setled in the Throne in peace upon just and honourable terms and invested in their just possessions Which were far more safe honourable just prudent and Christian for our whole 3. Kingdoms voluntarily and speedily to do themselves than to be forced to it at last by any forein Forces the sad consequences whereof we may easily conjecture and have cause enough to fear if we now delay it or still contribute to maintain Armies to oppose their Titles and protect the Invaders of them from publick Justice And therefore I can neither in conscience piety nor prudence ensnare my self in the guilt of all these dangerous treasonable consequences by any submission to this illegal Tax Upon all these weighty Reasons and serious grounds of Conscience Law Prudence which I humbly submit to the Consciences and Judgements of all conscientious and judicious persons whom they do or shall concern I am resolved by the Assistance and strength of the Omnipotent God who hath miraculously supported me under and carried me through all my former sufferings for the Peoples publick Liberties with exceeding joy comfort and tâ—e ruine of my greatest Enemies and Opposers to oppugn these unlawfull Contributions and the payment of them oâ— the uttermost in all just and lawfull waies I may And if any will forcibly levy them by distresse or otherwise without and against all Law or Right as Theeves and Robbers take mens Goods and Purses let them do it at their own umost peril being declared all Traytors and to be proceeded against capitally as Traytors by the Junctoes own late Knack and Declaration However though I suffer at present yet I trust God and men will in due time do me justice upon them and award me recompence for all injuries in this kind or any sufferings for my Countries Liberties However fall back fall edge I would ten thousand times rather lose my Life Libertie and all that I have to keep a good Conscience and preserve my own and my Countries native Liberty than to part with one farthing or gain the whole World with the losse of either of them and rather dye a Martyr for our Antient Kingdom than live a Slave under any New Republick or remnant of a broken dismembred strange Antiparliamental House of Commons without King Lords or the major part of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Realm in being subject to their illegal Taxes and what they call Acts of Parliament which in reality are no Acts at all to bind me or any other Subject in point of Conscience or Prudence to obedience or just punishment for Non-obedience thereunto or Non-conformity to what they style the present Government of the Armies modeling and I fear of the Popes Spaniards Campanellaes Father Parsons and other Jesuites suggesting to effect our Kings Kingdoms and Religions ruine as I have * elsewhere clearly evidenced beyond all contradiction Psalm 26. 4 5. I have not sate with vain Persons neither will I go in with Dissemblers I have hated the Congregation of evil Doers and will not sit with the wicked WILLIAM PRYNNE SWAINSWICK June 16. 1649. FINIS A POSTSCRIPT SInce the drawing up of the precedent Reasons I have met with a printed Pamphlet intituled An Epistle written the 8th day of June 1649. by Lieut. Colonel John Lilbourn to Mr. William Lenthal Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights Citizens and Burgesses that Col. Thomas Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster as most fit for his and his Masters designeâ— to serve their ambitious and tyrannical ends to destroy the good old Laws Liberties and Customes of England the badges of our Freedom as the Declaration against the King of the 7th of March 1648. p. 23. calls them and by force of Arms to rob the people of their lives estates and properties and subject them to perfect vassallage and slavery c. who and in truth no otherwise pretendedly style themselves The Conservators of the peace of England or the Parliament of England intrusted and authorised by the consent of all the people thereof whose Representatives by Election in their Declaration last mentioned p. 27. they say they are although they are never able to produce one bit of Law or any piece of a Commission to prove that all the people of England or one quarter tenth huâ—dred or thousand part of them authorised Thomas Pride with his Regiment of Souldiers to chuse them a Parliament as indeed he hath de facto done by his PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAMâ—NT and therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or Peoples Parliameâ—t but Col. Prides and his Associates whose really it is who although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant yet walk in his oppressiâ—gâ—st steps if not worse and higher This is the Title of his Epistle In this Epistle this late great champion of the House of Commons and fitting Junctoes Supremacy both before and since the Kings beheading who with his Brother a a His Petition and Appeal his Arrow of Defiance See Mr. Edwards Gangrena 3. part p. 154. f. 204. See My 〈…〉 for the 〈…〉 to Overton and their Confederates first cryed them up as and gave them the Title of The supreme Authority of the Nation The onely supreme Judicatory of the Land The onely formal and legal supreme Power of the Parliament of England in whom alone the power of binding the whole Nation by making altering or abrogating Laws without either King or Lords resides c. and first engaged them by their Pamphlets and Petitions against the King Lords and Personal Treaty as he and they print and boast in bâ— this Epistle and other late Papers Pag. 11 29 doth in his own and his parties behalf who of late so much adored them as the onely earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation now positively assert and prove First That c c Pag. 34 35. Commissary General Ireton Colonel Harrison with other Members of the House and the General Councel of Officers of the Army did in several Meetings and Debates at Windsor immediately before their late march to London to purge the House and after at White-hall commonly style themselves the pretended Parliament even before the Kings beheading A MOCK PARLIAMENT a MOCK POWER a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT and NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOTS and not so much as to leave a shadow of it yea and had done it if we say they and some of our then FRIENDS in the House had not been the principal Instruments to hinder them We judging it then of two evils the least to chuse rather to be governed by THE SHADOW OF A PARLIAMENT till we could get a real and a true one which with the greatest protestations in the world they then promised and engaged with all their might speedily to effect then simply solely and onely by the will of