REASONS Assigned by WILLIAM PRYNNE c. BEing on the 7 of this instant June 1649 informed by the Assessors of the Parish of Swainswicke that I was assessed at 2 l. 5 s. for three months Contribution by vertue of a pretended Act of the Commons assembled in Parliament bearing date the 7 of April last assessing the Kingdom at ninty thousand-pounds monthly beginning from the 25 of March last and continuing for six months next ensuing towards the maintenance of the forces to be continued in England and Ireland and the paying of such as are thought fit to be disbanded that so Free-quarter may be taken off whereof 3075 l. 17 s. 1 d. ob is monthly imposed on the County and 2 l. 5 s. 3 d. on the small poor Parish where I live and being since on the 15 of June required to pay in 2 l. 5 s. for my proportion I returned the Collector this Answer That I could neither in Conscience Law nor Prudence in the least measure submit to the voluntary payment of this illegall Tax and unreasonable Contribution after all my unrepaired losses and sufferings for the publick Liberty amounting to six times more then Ship-money the times considered or any other illegall Tax of the late beheaded King so much declaimed against in our three last Parliaments by some of those who imposed this And that I would rather submit to the painfullest death and severest punishment the Imposers or Exactors of it could inflict upon me by their arbitrary power for legall they had none then voluntarily pay or not oppose it in my place and calling to the uttermost upon the same if not better reasons as I oppugned a Ship-money Knighthood and other unlawfull impositions of the late King and his Councel heretofore And that they and all the world might bear witnesse I did it not from meer obstinacy or fullennesse but out of solid reall grounds of Conscience Law Prudence and publick affection to the weal and Liberty of my native Country now in danger of being enslaved under a new vassalage more grievous then the worst it ever yet sustained under the late or any other of our worst Kings I promised to draw up the Reasons of this my refusal in writing and to publish them so soon as possible to the Kingdom for my own Vindication and the better information and satisfaction of all such as are any wayes concerned in the imposing collecting levying or paying of this strange kinde of Contribution In pursuance whereof I immediately penned these ensuing Reasons which I humbly submit to the impartiall Censure of all conscientious and judicious Englishmen desiring either their ingenuous Refutation if erronious or candid Approbation if substantiall and irrefragable as my conscience and judgment perswade me they are and that they will appear so to all impartiall Persons after full examination First By the fundamental Laws and known Statutes of this Realme No Tax Tallage Ayd Imposition Contribution Loan or Assessment whatsoever may or ought to be imposed or levied on the free men and people of this Realm of England but by the WILL and COMMON ASSENT of the EARLS BARONS Knights Burgesses Commons and WHOLE REALM in a free and full PARLIAMENT by ACT OF PARLIAMENT All Taxes c. not so imposed levyed though for the common defence and profit of the Realm being unjust oppressive inconsistent with the liberty and propertie of the Subject Laws and Statutes of the Realm as is undeniably evident by the expresse Statutes of Magna Charta cap. 29.30 25. E. 1. c. 5 6. 34. E. 1. De Tallagio non concedendo c. 1. 21. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 16. 25. E. 3. c. 8. 36. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 26. 45. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 42. 11. H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 10. 1. R. 3. c. 2. The Petition of Right and Resolutions of both Houses against Loans 3. Caroli The Votes and Acts against Ship-money Knighthood Tonnage and Poundage and the Star-chamber this last Parliament 17. 18 Caroli And fully agreed and demonstrated by Mr. William Hackwell in his Argument against Impositions Judge Hutton and Judge Crook in their Arguments and Mr. St. John in his Argument and Speech against Ship-money with other Arguments and Discourses of that subject Sir Edward Cook in his 2 Instit. published by Order of the Commons House pag. 59.60 c. 527.528.529.532.533 c. with sundry other Records and Law-books cited by these great Rabbies of the Law and Patriots of the Peoples Liberties But the present Tax of Ninety Thousand pounds a Month now exacted of me was not thus imposed Therefore it ought not to be demanded of nor levied on me and I ought in conscience Law and prudence to withstand it as unjust oppressive inconsistent with the Liberty and Property of the Subject Laws and Statutes of the Realm To make good the Assumption which is onely questionable First This Tax was not imposed in but out of any Parliament the late Parliament being actually dissolved above two months before this pretended Act of these Tax-imposers taking away the King by a violent death as is expresly resolved by the Parliament of 1 H. 4. Rot. Parl. n. 1. by the Parliament of 4. H. 4. and 1. H. 5. Rot. Parliam n. 26. Cook 4 Institutes p. 46. and 4. E. 4.44 b. For the King being both the Head beginning end and foundation of the Parliament as Modus tenendi Parliamentum and Sir Edward Cooks 4. Instit. p. 3. resolve which was summoned and constituted only by his Writ now b actually abated by his death and the Parliament as is evident by the clauses of the severall Writs of Summons to c the Lords and for the election of Knights and Burgesses and levying of their wages being onely PARLIAMENTUM NOSTRUM the Kings Parliament that is dead not his Heirs and Successors and the Lords and Commons being all summoned and authorized by it to come to HIS PARLIAMENT there to be present and conferre with HIM NOBISCUM not his Heirs and Successors of the weighty and urgent affairs that concerned NOS HIM and HIS KINGDOME of England and the Knights and Burgesses receiving their wages for Nuper ad NOS ad PARLIAMENTVM NOSTRVM veniendo c. quod sommoneri FECIMVS ad tractandum ibidem super diversis arduis Negotiis NOS Statum REGNI NOSTRI tangentibus as the tenor of the d Writs for their wages determines The King being dead and his Writ and Authority by which they were summoned with the ends for which they were called to confer with HIM about HIS and HIS KINGDOMS affairs c. being thereby absolutely determined without any hopes of revivall the Parliament it self must thereupon absolutely be determined likewise especially to those who have disinherited HIS HEIRS and SUCCESSORS and voted down our Monarchy it self and these with all other Members of Parliament cease to be any longer Members of it being made such onely by the King 's abated Writ
even as all Judges Justices of peace and Sheriffs made onely by the Kings Writ or Commission not by Letters Patents cease to be Judges Justices and Sheriffs by the Kings death for this very reason because they are constituted Justiciarios Vicecomites NOSTROS ad Pacem NOSTRAM c. custodiendam and he being dead and his Writs and Commissions expired by his death they can be his Judges Justices and Sheriffs no longer to preserve HIS Peace c. no more then a wife can be her deceased Husbands Wife and bound to his obedience from which she was losed by his death Rom. 7.2.3 And his Heirs and Successors they cannot be unlesse he please to make them so by his new Writs or Commissions as all our e Law-Books and Judges have frequently resolved upon this very reason which equally extends to Members of Parliament as to Judges Justices and Sheriffs as is agreed in 4 E. 4.43.44 and Brooke Office and Officer 25. Therefore this Tax being cleerly imposed not in but out of and after the Parliament ended by the Kings decapitation and that by such who were then no lawfull Knights Citizens Burgesses or Members of Parliament but onely private men their Parliamentary Authority expiring with the King it must needs be illegall and contrary to all the fore-cited Statutes as by the Convocations and Clergies Tax and Benevolence granted after the Parliament dissolved in the yeer 1640 was resolved to be by both Houses of Parliament and those adjudged high Delinquents who had any hand in promoting it 2. Admit the late Parliament stil in being yet the House of Peers Earles and Barons of the Realm were no ways privy nor concentivg to this Tax imposed without yea against their consents in direct affront of their most ancient undubitable Parliamentary Right and Priviledges these Tax-masters having presumed to vote down and nul their very House by their new encroached transcendent power as appears by the title and body of this pretended Act intituled by them An Act of THE COMMONS assembled in Parliament Whereas the House of Commons alone though full and free have no more lawful Authority to impose any tax upon the people or make any Act of Parliament or binding Law without the Kings or Lords concurrence then the man in the moon or the convocation Anno 1640. after the Parliament dissolved as is evident by the express words of the forecited Acts the Petition of Right it self Acts for the Trienniall Parliament and against the proroging or dissolving this Parliament 17. Caroli with all our printed Statutes f Parliament Rolls and g Law-Books they neither having nor challenging the sole Legislative power in any age and being not so much as summoned to nor constituting members of our h ancient Parliaments which consisted of the King and Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses as all our Histories and Records attest til 47 H. 3. at soonest they having not so much as a speaker or Commons House til after the beginning of King Edward the third his reign as never presuming to make or tender any Bils or Acts to the King or Lords but Petitions only for them to redress their grievances and enact new Laws til long after Rich. the seconds raign as our Parliament Rolls and the printed prologues to the Statutes of 1.4.5.9.10.20.23.36.37 and 50. Ed. 3. 1. Rich. 2.1.2.4.5.7.9.11.13 Hen. 4.1.2.3.4.8.9 Hen. 5.1.2.3.4.6.8.9.10.11.14.15.29.28.29.39 Hen. 6.1.4.7.8.12.17 22. Ed. 4. and 1. Rich. 3. evidence which run all in this form At the Parliament holden c. by THE ADVICE and AS SENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL and TEMPORAL and at THE SPECIAL INSTANCE and REQUEST OF THE COMMONS OF THE REALM BY THEIR PETITIONS put Ãn the said Parliament as some Prologues have it Our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained CERTAIN STATUTES c. where the advising and assenting to Lawes is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them both from King and Lords to the Commons in whom the Legislative power principally if not solely resided as is manifest by the printed Prologue to the Statute of Merton 20. Hen. 3. The Statute of Morteman 7. Ed. 1. 31. Ed. 1. De Aspertatis Religiosorum Therefore this Tax imposed by the Commons alone without King or Lords must needs be void illegal and no ways obligatory to the subjects 3. Admit the whole House of Commons in a full and free Parliament had power to impose a Tax and make an Act of Parliament for levying it without King or Lords which they never did nor pretended to in any age yet this Act and Tax can be no ways obliging because not made and imposed by a full and free House of Commons but by an empty House packed swayed over-awed by the chief Officers of the Army who have presumed by meer force and armed power against law and without president to seclude the Major part of the House at least 8 parts of 10 who by law and custome are the House it self from sitting or voting with them contrary to the Freedom and Priviledges of Parliament readmitting none but upon their own termes An usurpation not to be paralleld in any age destructive to the very being of Parliaments i Where all Members ex debito Justiciae should with have equal Freedom meet and speak their mindes injurious to all those Counties Cities Boroughs whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses are secluded and to the whole Kingdom yea contrary to all rules of reason justice policy conscience and their own Agreement of the people which inhibit the far lesser part of any Councel Court or Committee to over-sway seclude or forejudge the major number of their Assessors and fellow Members over whom they can no wayes pretend the least jurisdiction it being the high way to usher Tyranny and confusion into all Councels and Realms to their utter dissolution since the King alone without Lords and Commons or the Lords alone without King or Commons may by this new device make themselves an absolute Parliament to impose Taxes and enact Lawes without the Commons or any other forty or fifty Commoners meeting together without their companions do the like as wel as this remnant of the Commons make themselves a compleat Parliament without King Lords or their fellow Members if they can but now or hereafter raise an Army to back them in it as the Army doth those now sitting 4. Suppose this Tax should bind these Counties Cities and Buroughs whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses sat and consented to it when imposed though I dare sware imposed against the mindes and wills of all or most of those they represent who by the k Armies new Doctrine may justly question and revoke their authority for this high breach of Trust the rather because the Knights and Burgesses assembled in the first Parliament of E. 3. rot Parl. n. 8. Did all refuse to grant
ceased to be Members by the Parliaments dissolution through the Kings beheading Neither were they ever invested with any legall power to seclude or expell any of their fellow-Members especially if duly elected for any Vote wherein the Majority of the House concurred with them or differing in their consciences and judgments from them nor for any other cause without the Kings and Lords concurrence in whom the ordinary judicial power of the Parliament resides as I have undenyably proved by presidents and reasons in my Plea for the Lords p. 47. to 53. and Ardua Regni which is further evident by Claus. Dors. 7. R. 2. m. 27. and Mr. Seldens Titles of Honour p. 737. Baronet Camoyes Case discharged from being Knight of the Shire by the Kings Writ and Judgment because a Peer of the Realm the practice of sequestring and expelling Commons by their fellow-Commons onely being a late dangerous unparliamentary usurpation unknown to our Ancestors destructive to the priviledges and freedom of Parliaments and injurious to those Counties Cities Burroughs whose Trustees are secluded the House of Commons it self being no Court of Justice to give either an Oath or finall Sentence and having no more Authority to dismember their fellow-Members then any Judges Justices of Peace or Committees have to dis-judge dis-justice or dis-committee their fellow Judges Justices and Committee-men being all of equall authority and made Members onely 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 expell and restore their fellow-Members at their pleasure contrary to the practice and resolution of former ages to patch up a factious Conventicle in stead of an English Parliament Therefore this Objection no ways invalids this first Reason why I neither can nor dare submit to this illegall Tax in Conscience Law or Prudence which engage me to oppose it in all these respects 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 voyd others of them elected by new illegall Writs under a new kind of Seal since the Kings beheading as the Earl of Pembroke and Lord Edward Howard uncapable of being Knights or Burgesses by the Common Law and Custome 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. and asserted by Master Selden in his Titles of Honour part 2. cha. 5. p. 737. Seconded by Sir Edward Cook in his 4. Institutes p. 1.4 5 46 47 49. As I should admit these lawfull Members so I should therby tacitly admit ex post facto assent to some particulars against my knowledg judgment conscience Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance Protestation and Solemn League and Covenant taken in the presence of Gyd himselfe with a sincere heart and reall intention to performâ— the same and persevere therein all the dayes of my life without suffering my selfe directly or indirectly by whatsoever Combination perswasion or terrour to be withdrawne 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 judgments of all now sitting that know any thing of Parliaments and the whole Kingdome if they durst speak their knowledg know and beleeve 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 Priviledges Rights Freedoms Customes and alter the constitution of our Parliaments themselves imprison seclude expell most of their fellow Members for voting according to their consciences to repeal all 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 Martiall Law contrary to Magna Charta the Petition of Right and Law of the Land disinherit the Kings Posterity of the Crowne extirpate Monarchy and the whole House of Peers change and subvert the ancient Government Seals Laws Writs Legall proceedings Courts and coyne of the the Kingdome sell and dispose of all the Lands Revenues Jewels goods of the Crowne 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 very Oath of Allegiance notwithstanding this express clause in it which I desire may be seriously and conscienciously considered by all who have sworne it I do â—eleive 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 Authority to be lawfully ministred unto me and DO RENOUNCE ALL PARDONS AND DISPENSATIONS TO THE CONTRARY dispense with our Protestations Solemn League and Covenant so lately zealously uâ—ged and injoyned by both Houses on Members Officers Ministers and all sorts of People throughout the Realme dispose of the Forts Ships Forces Officers and Places of Honour Power Trust or profit within the Kingdom to whom they please to displace and remove whom they please from their Offices Trusts Pensions Callings at their pleasures without any legall cause or tryall to make what new Acts Lawes 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 reall treasons against King Kingdome Parliament to be no treasons and Loyalty Allegiance due obedience to our knowne Lawes and consciencious observing of our Oaths and Covenant the breach whereof would render us actuall Traytors and pernicious persons to be no lesse then 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 and lives to the Gallowes 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 Edw. 3. cap. 4.28 Ed. 3. c. 3.37 E. c. 18.42 E. 3. cap. 3.25 Ed. 3. cap. 2.11 R. 2. c. 4.1 H. 4 c. 10.2 H. 4. Rot. Par. 11. N. 60. 1. E. 6. c. 12.1 m. c. 1. The Petition of Right 3 Caroli 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 invasions rayse and keep up what force they will by Sea and Land to impose what
rather die a Martyr for our Ancient Kingdom then live a Slave under any new Republick or remant of a broken dismembred strange Parliament of Commons without King Lords or the major part of the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Realme in being subject to their illegall Taxes and what they call Acts of Parliament which in reality are no Acts at all to binde me or any other subject to obedience or just punishment for Non-obedience thereunto or Non-conformity to what they stile the present Government of the Armies modeling and I fear the Jesuites suggesting to effect our Kingdoms and Religions ruine WILLIAM PRYNNE Swainswick June 16. 1649. PSAL. 26.4 5. I have not sate with vain persons neither will I go with Dissemblers I have hated the Congregation of evill doers and will not sit with the wicked 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 by Lieutenant Colonel Iohn Lilburn to Master William Lenthall Speaker to the remainder of those few Knights Citizens and Burgesses that Col. Thom. Pride at his late purge thought convenient to leave sitting at Westminster as most fit for his and his Masters designs to serve their ambitious Tyrannical ends to destroy the good old Laws Liberties and Customs of England the badges of our Freedom as the Declaration against the King of the seventh of March 1648 pag. 23. calls them and by force of Armes 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 pretendenly stile themselves The Conservators of the Peace of England or the Parliament of England intrusted and authorized 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 a Law or any piece of a Commission to prove that all the people of England or one quarter tenth hundred or thousand part of them authorized Thomas Pride with his Regiment of Souldiers to choose them a Parliament as indeed it hath de facto done by this PRETENDED MOCK-PARLIAMENT And therefore it cannot properly be called the Nations or Peoples Parliament but Col. Prides and his Associats whose really it is who although they have beheaded the King for a Tyrant yet walk oppressingest steps if not worst and higher In this Epistle this late great Champion of the House of Commons and sitting Junctoes Supremacy both before and since the Kings beheading who with his Brother a Overton and their Confederates First cryed them up as and gave them the Title of The Supream Authority of the Nation The only Supream Judicatory of the land The only formall and legall Supream power and 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 Personall Treatie as he and they print and boast in this Epistle and other late Papers doth in his own and his Parties behalf who of late so much adored them as the only earthly Deities and Saviours of the Nation now positively assert and prove First that Commissary Generall Ireton Colonel Harison with other Members of the House and the General Councel of Officers in the Army did in severall meetings and debates at Windsor immediately before their late march to London to purge the House and after to Whitehall commonly stile themselves the pretended Parliament even before the Kings beheading a MOCK PARLIAMENT a MOCK POWER a PRETENDED PARLIAMENT NO PARLIAMENT AT ALL And that they were absolutely resolved and determined TO PULL UP THIS THEIR OWN PARLIAMENT BY THE ROOT 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 Principall 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 reall 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 only by the will of Sword-men whom we had already found to be men of no very tender consciences 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 resolved to pull it up by the roots as such then it necessarily follows First that they are much more so after the Kings death as by 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 rationall men And no wayes enabled by law to impose this or any other new Tax or Act upon the Kingdom creating new Treasons and Penalties Secondly that these grand saints of the Army and Statesmen of the Pretended Parliament knowingly sit vote and act there against their own judgements and consciences for their own private pernicious ends Thirdly that it is a basenesse cowardize and degeneracy beyond all expression for any of their Fellow-members now acting to suffer these Grâ—nâ—eâ—s in their Assembly and Arms to sit or vote together with them or to enjoy any Office or command in the Army 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 as great a basenesse in others for to pay it upon any terms Secondly he there affirms that d Oliver Crumwell by the helpe of the Aâ—my at their first Rebellion against the Parliament was no sooner put up but like a perfideous base unworthy man c. the House of Peers were his only white boys and who but Oliver who before to me had called them in effect both Tyrants and Vsurpers 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 JURISDICTIVE POWER OVER THE COMMONS AS HE HAD TO HIS COAT UPON HIS BACK and he would pocure a freind viz. Master Nathaniel Feinnes should argue and plead their just right with any friend I had in England And not only so but did he not get the Generall and Councell of War at Windsor about the time that the Votes of no more
a great extraordinary Subsidie then demanded of them though not comparable to this for the necessary defence of the Kingdom against Forraign enemies till they had conferred with the Counties and Burroughs for which they served and gained their assents Yet there is no shadow of reason Law or Equity it should oblige any of the secluded Members themselves whereof I am one or those Counties Cities or Burroughs whose Knights Citizens and Burgesses have been secluded or scared thence by the Armies violence or setting Members illegall Votes for their seclusion who absolutely disavow this Tax and Act as un-Parliamentary illegall and never assented to by them in the least degree since the only l reason in Law or equity why Taxes or Acts of Parliament oblige any Member County Burrough or Subject is because they are parties and consenting thereunto either in proper person or by their chosen Representatives in Parliament it being a received Maxime in all Laws Quod tangit omnes ab omnibus debet approbari Upon which reason it is judged in our m Law-books That By-Laws oblige only those who are parties and consent unto them but not strangers or such who assented not thereto And which comes fully to the present case in 7 H. 6. 35. H. 6.34 Brooke Ancient Demesne 20. Parl. 17.101 It is resolved That Ancient Demesne is a good plea in a Writ of Waste upon the Statutes of Waste because those in Ancient Demesne were not parties to the making of them FOR THAT THEY HAD NO KNIGHTS NOR BURGESSES IN PARLIAMENT nor contributed to their expences And Judge Brook Parliament 101. hath this observable Note It is most frequently found that Wales and County Palatines WHICH CAME NOT TO THE PARLIAMENT in former times which now they do SHALL NOT BE BOUND BY THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND for ancient Demesne is a good Plea in an action of wast and yet Ancient Demesne is not excepted and it is enacted 2. Ed. 6. c. 28. that fines with Proclamation shall be in Chester for that the former Statutes did not extend to it and it is enacted That a Fine and Proclamation shall be in Lancaster 5. 6. E. 6. c. 26. And a Proclamation upon it a exigent is given by the Statute in Chester and Wales 1. E. 6. c. 20. and by another Act to Lancaster 5. 6. E. 6. c. 26. And the Statute of Justices of Peace extended not to Wales and the County Palatine and therefore an Act was made for Wales and Chester 27. H. 8. c. 5. who had Knights and Burgesses appointed by that Parliament for that and future Parliaments by Act of Parliament 27. H. 8. cap. 26. since which they have continued their wages being to be levyed by the Statute of 35. H. 8. c. 11. Now if Acts of Parliament bound not Wales and County Palatines which had anciently no Knights nor Burgesses in Parliament to represent them because they neither personally nor representatively were parties and consenters to them much lesse then can or ought this Leavie Tax and illegall Act to binde those Knights Citizens and Burgesses or those Counties Cities and Burroughs they represented who were forcibly secluded or driven away from the Parliament by the confederacy practice or connivance at least of those now sitting who imposed this Tax and passed this strange Act especially being for the support and continuance of those Officers and that Army who trayterously seised and secluded them from the House and yet detain some of them Prisoners against all Law and Justice The rather because they are the far major part above six times as many as those that sate and shut them out and would no wayes have consented to this illegall Tax or undue manner of imposing it without the Lords concurrence had they been present And I my self being both an unjustly imprisoned and secluded Member and neither of the Knights of the County of Somerset where I live present or consenting to this Tax or Act one or both of them being forced thence by the Army I conceive neither my self nor the County where I live nor the Burrough for which I served in the least measure bound by this Act or Tax but cleerly exempted from them and obliged with all my might and power effectually to oppose them If any here object That by the custome of Parliament 40 Members onely are sufficient to make a Commons House of Parliament and there were at least so many present when this Tax was imposed Therefore it is valid and obligatory both to the secluded absent Members and the Kingdom I answer First That though regularly it be true that forty Members are sufficient to make a Commons House to begin prayers and businesses of lesser moment in the beginning of the day till the other Members come and the House be full yet forty were never in any Parliament reputed a competent number to grant Subsidies passe or record Bils or debate or conclude matters of greatest moment which by the constant Rules and usage of Parliament were never debated concluded passed but in a free and full House when all or most of the Members were present as the Parliament Rolls Journals Modus tenendi Parliamentum Sir Edward Cooks 4. Institutes p. 1.2.26.35.36 Cromptons Jurisdiction of Courts f. 1. c 39. E. 3.7 Brook Parliament 27. 1. Jacobi c. 1. and the Records I have cited to this purpose in my Levellers levelled my Plea for the Lords and Memento p. 10. abundantly prove beyond contradiction for which cause the Members ought to be fined and lose their wages if absent without special Licence as Modus tenendi Parliamentum as 5. R. 2. Parl. 2. c. 4. 9. H. 8. c. 16. and A Collection of all Orders c. of the late Parliament pa. 294.357 with their frequent summoning and fining absent Members evidence Secondly Though forty Members onely may peradventure make an House in cases of absolute necessity when the rest through sicknesse and publick or private occasions are volutarily or negligently absent and might freely repair thither to sit or give their Votes if they pleased yet forty Members never yet made a Commons House by custome of Parliament there being never yet any such case till now when the rest being above four hundred were forcibly secluded or driven thence by an Army through the practice or connivance of those forty sitting of purpose that they should not over nor counter-vote them much lesse an House to sequester or expell the other Members or impose any Tax upon them Till they shew me such a Law Custom or President of Parliament not to be found in any age all they pretend is nothing to purpose or the present case Thirdly Neither forty Members nor a whole House of Commons were ever enough in any age by the Custom of Parliament or Law of England to impose a Tax or make any Act of Parliament without the King and Lords us I have n already proved much lesse after they