of mony must of necessity be speedilie advanced and procured for the relief of his Majesties Army and People not his Heirs or Successors in the Northern parts c. And for supplie of other his Majesties present and urgent occasions not his Heirs or Successors future occasions which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without credit for raising the said monies which credit cannot be attained untill such obstacles be first removed which are occasioned by Fears Iealousies and Apprehensions of divers of his Majesties Royal Subjects that the Parliament may be adjourned prorogued or dissolved not by the Kings sodain or untimelie death of which there was then no fear jealousie or apprehension in any his Majesties loyal Subjects but by his royal Prerogative and advice of ill Counsellors before Justice shall be duly executed upon Delinquents then in being not sprung up since publique Grievances then complained of not others introduced since this Act redressed a firm peace betwixt the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland concluded and before sufficient provisions be made for the repayment of the said Monies not others since borrowed so to be raised All which the Commons in this present Parliament assembled having duly considered do therefore humbly beseech your Majestie that it may be declared and enacted c. All which expressions related TO HIS late Majestie onlie not to his Heirs and Successors and the principal scope of this Act being to gain present credit to raise monies to disband the Scotish and English armies then lying upon the Kingdom manie years since accomplished yea Justice being since executed upon Strafford Canterbury and other Delinquents then impeached the publick Grievances they complained of as the Star-Chamber High-Commission Ship-mony Tonnage and Poundage Fines for Knighthood Bishops Votes in Parliament with their Courts and Jurisdictions and the like redressed by Acts soon after passed a firm peace between both Nations concluded before the Wars began and this preamble's pretensions for this Act all fullie satisfied divers years before the Kings beheading it must of necessity be granted that this Statute never intended to continue this Parliament on foot after the Kings decease especially after the ends for which it was made were all fully accomplished and so it must necessarily be dissolved by his Death Fourthly This is most clear by the body of the Act it self And be it declared and enacted by the King our Soveraign Lord with the assent of the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by the authority of the same That this present Parliament now assembled shall not be dissolved unlesse it be by Act of Parliament to be passed for that purpose nor shall any time or times during the continuance thereof be prorogued or adjourned unless it be by Act of Parliament to be likewise passed for that purpose And that the House of Peers shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order And in like manner that the House of Commons shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own order Whence it is undeniable 1. That this act was only for the prevention of the untimely dissolving Proroguing and adjourning of that present Parliament then assembled and no other 2. That the King himself was the Principal Member of his Parliament yea our Soveraign Lord and the sole declarer and enacter of this Law by the Lords and Commons assent 3. That neither this Act for continuing nor any other for dissolving adjourning or proroguing this Parliament could be made without but only by and with the Kings Royal assent thereto which the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament in their * Remonstrance of the 26. of May 1642. oft in terminis acknowledge together with his Negative Voyce to Bills 4ly That it was neither the Kings intention in passing this Act to shut himself out of Parliament or create both or either House a Parliament without a King as he professed in his {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} c. 5. p. 27. Nor the Lords nor Commons Intendment to dismember him from his Parliament or make themselves a Parliament without him as their foresaid Remonstrance testifies and the words of the Act import Neither was it the Kings Lords or Commons meaning by this Act to set up a Parliament only of Commons much lesse of a remnant of a Commons House selected by Colonel Pride and his Confederates of the Army to serve their turns and vote what they prescribed without either King or House of Peers much lesse to give them any super-transcendent authority to vote down and abolish the King and House of Lords and make them no Members of this present or any future Parliaments without their own order or assent against which so great usurpation and late dangerous unparliamentary encroachments this very Act expresly provides in this clause That the House of Peers wherein the King sits as Soveraign when he pleaseth shall not at any time or times during this present Parliament be adjourned much less then dissolved excluded or suspended from sitting or voting which is greater and that by their inferiours in all kinds a Fragment of the Commons House who can pretend no colour of Jurisdiction over them before whom they alwaies stood bare-headed like so many Grand-Jury-men before the Judges and attended at their Doors and Bar to know their pleasures unlesse it be by Themselves or by their own Order 5. That neither the King Lords nor Commons intended to set up a perpetual Parliament and intail it upon them their heirs or successors for ever by this act which would cross and repeal the Act for triennial Parliaments made at the same time and on the same * day in Law but to make provision only against the untimely dissolving of this till the things mentioned in the Preamble were accomplished and setled as the Preamble and these oft repeated words any time or times during the continuance of this present Parliament concludes and that during His Majesties reign and life not after his death as these words coupled with The Relief of his Majesties Army and People and for supply of his Majesties present and urgent occasions in the Preamble manifest Therefore this Act can no waies continue it a Parliament after the Kings beheading much lesse after the forcible exclusion both of the King and Lords House and majority of the Commons out of Parliament by those now sitting contrary to the very letter and provision of this act by which device the King alone had he conquered and cut off or secluded by his forces the Lords and Commons Houses from sitting might with much more colour have made himself an absolute Parliament to impose what Taxes and Laws he pleased on the people without Lords or Commons or any 40. of the Commons House or any 7. or 8. Lords concurring with
and Burgesses and levying of their wages being only 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 OUR PARLIAMENT there to be personally present and confer with US NOBISCUM not Our Heirs and Successors of the weighty and urgent affairs that concerned NOS US and OUR KINGDOM of England and Knights and Burgesses receiving their wages for Nuper ad NOS ad PARLIAMENTVM NOSTRUM veniendo c. quod sommoneri FECINUS ad tractandum ibidem super diversis arduis Negotiis NOS Statum REGNI NOSTRI tâ—ngentibus as the tenor of the d Writs for their wages determines The King being dead and his Writs and Authority by which they were summoned with the ends for which they were called to conferre with US about US and OUR KINGDOMS affairs c. being thereby absolutely determined without any hopes of revival 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 they with all other Members of Parliament cease to be any longer Members of it being made onely such by the Kings abated Writ even as all Judges Justices of peace and Sheriffs made only by the Kings Writs or Commissions not by his 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 Our Judges Justices and Sheriffs no longer to preserve OUR Peace c. no more than a wife can be her deceased Husbands Wife and bound to his obedience from which she was loosed to 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. f. 43 44. and Brook Office and Officer 25 Therefore this Tax being clearly 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 only private men their Parliamentary Authority expiring with the King it must needs be illegal and contrary to all the forecited Statutes as the Convocations and Clergies Tax and Benevolence granted after the Parliament dissolved in the year 1640. was resolved to be by both Houses of Parliament and those adjudged high Delinquents who had any hand in promoting it as the Impeachments against them evidence drawnup by some now acting 2. Admit the late Parliament still in being yet the House of Peers Earls and Barons of the Realm were no wayes privy nor consenting to this Tax imposed without yea against their consents in direct affront of their * most antient undubitable Parliamentary Right and Privileges these Taxmasters having presumed to vote down and null their very House by their new encroached transcendent power as appears by the title and body of this pretended Act entituled by them An Act of THE COMMONS assembled in Parliament Whereas the House of Commons alone though full and free have no more lawfull Authority to impose any Tax upon the People or make any Act of Parliament or binding Law without the Kings or Lords concurrence than the Man in the Moon or the Convocation Anno 1640. after the Parliament dissolved as is evident by the expresse words of the fore-cited Acts the Petition of Right it self the Acts for the Triennial Parliament and against the proroguing or dissolving this Parliament 16 Car. c. 1 7. 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 constitutive Mâ—mbers of our h antient Parliaments which consisted of the King Spiritual and Temporal Lords without any Knights Citizens or Burgesses as all our Histories and Records attest till 49 H. 3. at soonest they having not so much as a Speaker or Commons House till after the beginning of King E. the third's reign and seldom or never presuming to make or tender any Bills or Acts to the King or Lords but Petitions only to them to redress their grievances and enact new Laws till long after R. the seconds time as our Parliament Rolls and the printed Prologues to the Statutes of 1 4 5 9 10 20 23 36 37. and 50 Edw. 3. 1 Rich 3. 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 ASSENT OF THE LORDS SPIRITUAL and TEMPORAL and at THE SPECIAL INSTANCE and REQUEST OF THE COMMONS OF THE REALM BY THEIR PETITIONS put in the said Parliament as some Prologues have it Our Lord the King hath caused to be ordained or ordained certain STATVTES c. Where the advising and assenting to Laws is appropriated to the Lords the ordaining of them to the King and nothing but the requesting of and petitioning for them to the Commons and that both from King and Lords in whom the Legislative power principally and before 49 H. 3. originally and solely resided as is manifest by the printed Prologue to the Statute of Merton 20 Hen. 3. The Statute of Mortemain 7 E. 1. 31 E. 1. De Asportatis Religiosorum the Statute of Sheriffs 9 Ed. 2. and of the Templers 17 Ed. 2. to cite no more Therefore this Tax imposed by the Commons alone without King or Lords must needs be void illegal and no wayes 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 of it without King or Lords which they never once did or pretended to in any age yet this Act and Tax can be no waies 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 and their Confederates in the House who having presumed by mere force and armed power against Law and without President to seclude the major part of the House at least eight parts of ten who by Law and Custom are the House it self from sitting or voting with them contrary to the Freedom and Privileges of Parliament readmitting none but upon their own terms of renouncing their own forme Votes touching the Kings
service of the Parliament And whereas those Members of the House could not return to sit in safety before Friday the 6. of August It is therefore declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled that the Ordinance of Monday the said 26. of July for the repealing and making void of the Ordinance of the 23. of the said July for the setling of the Militia of the City of London being gained by force and violence And all Votes Orders Ordinances passed in either or both Houses of Parliament since the said Ordinance of the 26. of July to the said 6. of Aug. * are null and void and were so at the making thereof are hereby declared so to be the Parliament being under a force and not free Provided alwaies and be it ordained that no Person or Persons shall be impeached for his or their actions by or upon or according to the foresaid Votes Orders or Ordinances unlesse he or they shall be found guilty of contriving acting or abetting the aforesaid visible or actual force or being present at or hearing of the said force did afterwards Act upon the Votes so forced c. John Brown Cler. Parliamentorum This force mentioned in all these 5. Declarations Engagements and Protests against it by the Army-Officers fugitive Members was far inferior and no waies comparable to the force upon the secured and secluded Members but far inferior thereto in these respects 1. That force was only by a few unarmed tumultuous London Apprentices who had neither Sword nor Musquet nor Pike nor Stick in their hands This upon the secluded Members was by whole Regiments Troops Companies of Horse and Foot armed with Swords Musquets Pikes Pistols 2. That force was upon this account only to presse the Houses to repeal an Ordinance surreptitiously procured to settle the Militia of London without their privities to the disservice of the City and Parliament passed but 3. daies before Theirs to prevent a settlement of the Peace of the Kingdom upon our vote touching the Kings Answer to the Propositions of both Houses for the publick Peace Safety and honour of the Parliament and three Kingdoms 3. Their tumult and force lasted but a few houres and part of one day and then vanished That secluding and securing the Members continued sundry years and ever since the Junctoes two last sittings till this present 4. That force neither secluded nor secured not drove away any one Member from the Houses during its continuance but only kept them tumultuously in the House till the Ordinance of July 23 was repealed by them and then vanished This was purposely imployed to secure above 40. and seclude the Majority of the Members of the Commons House and whole House of Peers by violence against their Privileges Trusts and our Laws and is still continued for that end 5. That force caused some few eminent Members only to absent themselves from the Houses and repair to the Army 3. or 4. daies after the force was ended upon the Armies invitation being the far lesser part of both Houses This force secured imprisoned and actually kept out and drove away 5. parts of 6. from the House and that by practice and combination of some Members of the House to seclude the rest lest they should over-vote them and since by their expresse Orders and Commands kept out by armed guards for that end 6. This force was by such who were never raised commissioned waged to preserve the Houses and Members from violence that they might freely sit and vote without disturbance This by Souldiers specially raised commissioned intrusted paid to defend their persons and Privileges freely to sit and vote without interruption or seclusion 7. That force was condemned disowned by all the Members of both Houses as well those who remained sitting or those who absented themselves This justified approved commanded even by those now sitting though they condemned it as Treasonable and Criminal in these Apprentices and in Cromwel Lambert and other Army-Officers since in their own cases 8. This inconsiderable force nulled and made void all Votes Acts Ordinances passed not only during the continuance of this horrid actual visible force upon the Houses on July 26. but likewise from that day till the 6. of Aug. only because those few Members invited to the Army were forced as they affirmed to absent themselves from the service of the Parliament and could not return to sit in safety before that day though there was neither force nor guards during that space upon either House to deter or drive them thence Therfore upon all these Considerations The Ordinance made for this first Tax of 90000. and now for 100000. l. a month during the forcible securing secluding of the whole House of Peers and Majority of the Commons House must much more be null and void and were so at the time of their making to all intents the Parl. and Houses being under a more horrid insolent visible and actual force before and at the making of them keeping out the Major part of the Members than ever the Apprentices or any age were formeâ—ly guilty of and so no waies obliging the excluded Lords Members or any others whatsoever our secluders themselves and these their Resolutions being Judges which do all justify the Protestation published in their names though not owned by them Dec. 11. 15 8. to be no jâ—st cause â—â—t their Ejection by the pretended Ordinance of Dec. 5. made by 3. Lords and 45. Commoners only whiles both Houses were under the Armies force and so be null and void to all intents Fourthly 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 House of Lords as I have already proved and largely and irrefragably evidenced in my Plea for the Lords and House of Peers My Levellers Levelled The 1. and 2. Part of my Register and Survey of Parliamentary Writs My true and perfect Narrative and full Declaration of the state of the Case of the secluded Members much lesse can they do it after they ceased to be Members by the Parliaments dissolution through the Kings beheading Neither were they ever invested with any legal power to seclude or expel any of their fellow Members especially if duly elected for any Vote wherein the Majority of the House concurred with them or for voting against or differing in their consciences and judgements 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 undeniably proved by presidents and reasons in my Plea for the Lords p. 305 to 428. and Ardua Regni which is further evident by Claus. Dors. 7 R. 2. M. 32. Mr. Seldens Titles of Honour p. 737. Banneret Camoys Case discharged from being Knight of the Shire by the Kings Writ and judgement alone
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
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
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
offensive and defensive war against the King and Kingship but to oppose the Kings interest and Title to that Kingdom * setled on Him his Heirs and Successors for ever by an express Act of Parliament made in Ireland 23 H. 8. c. 1. and by the Statute of 1 Jac. c. 1. made in England yet unrepealed and the Protestant remaining party there adhering to and proclaiming acknowledging him for their Soveraign lest his gaining of Ireland should prove fatal to their usurped Soveraigntie in England or conduce to his enthroning here And by what Authority those now sitting can impose or with what Conscience any loyal Subject who hath taken the Oaths of Supremacy Allegiance and Covenant can voluntarily pay any Contributions to deprive the King of his hereditary right and undoubted Title to the Kingdoms and Crowns of England and Ireland and alter the frame of the antient Government and Parliaments of our Kingdoms * Remonstrated so often against by both Houses and adjudged High Treason in Canterburies and Straffirds cases for which they were beheaded and by themselves in the Kings own case whom they decolled likewise without incurring the guilt of perjury and danger of high Treason to the loss of his life and estate by the very laws and Statutes yet in force transcends my understanding to conceive Wherefore I neither can nor dare in conscience law or prudence submit to this Contribution The 3d. end of this Tax and more particularly of this new Tax of Jan 26. 1659. of one hundred thousand pound the Month for 6 months space after a former Tax levied before hand for the self-same Months is the maintenance of the Armies and Navyes raised and continued for the defence of the twice dissipated Anti-Parliamentarie Conventicle and their Utopian Common-wealth and the necessary and urgent occasions thereof now propounded and insisted on by the sitting Members as the only means of Peace and Settlement both in Church and State when as in truth it hath been is and will be the onlie means of Unsettlement and new divisions wars oppressions confusions in both to their utter ruine and desolation if pursued Which I shall evidence beyond contradiction 1. This project to metamorphoze our antient Hereditary famous flourishing Kingdom into an Helvetian and Vtopian Common-wealth by popular Tumults Rebellion and a prevalent party in Parliament was originally contrived by Father Parsons and other Jesuites in Spain in the year of our Lord 1590. recommended by them to the King of Spain to pursue and was principally to be effected by Jesuites to destroy and subvert our Protestant Monarchs Kingdoms and subject them to the Tyranny and Vassallage of the Jesuites and Spaniards as you may read at large in William Watson his Quodlibets printed 1602. p. 92 94 25 286 389 310 330 332 333 334 322 323 in his Dialogue between a Secular Priest and a Lay Gentleman printed at Rhemes 1601. and in William Clarke both Secular Priests his Answer to Father Parsons Libel p. 75 76 c. 2ly After this it was particularly and by name recommended by Thomas Campanella an Italian Monk and Arch-Machivilian to the King of Spain in the year 1600. as the principal means to sow the seeds of Divisions and Dissentions amongst the English themselves and to engage England Scotland and Ireland in inextricable wars against each other to divert the English from the Indies and his Plate Fleet and reduce them under his universal Temporal and the Popes Spiritual Monarchy at last as you may read at large in his Book De Monarchia Hispanica c. 25. now translated into English 3ly It was again set on foot and vigorously prosecuted by the Jesuites and Cardinal Richelien of France in the years 1639 1640. as you may read in my Romes Master-piece and Epistle to A Seasonable Legal and Historical Vindication c. of the good old fundamental Liberties Laws c. of all English Freemen printed 1655. And specially recommended to the French King and Cardinal Mazarin his Successor at his death Anno 1642. vigorously to pursue and accomplish by the Civil Wars raised between Scotland and England and the late King and Parliament as a Historia Conte de Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato part 3. Venotiis 1648. p. 175 176. and was accordingly prosecuted by the Spanish and French Agents and the Jesuites and Popish Priests and their seduced Proselytes of the Juncto and Army as I evidenced at large in my Speech Dee 4. 1648. and the Appendix to it my soresaid Epistle and True and Perfect Narrative May 1659. by evidences past all contradiction 4ly It is evident That the Jesuites and Jesuited Papists in England Scotland and Ireland with all the b Sectarian Party of Anabaptists Quakers Enthisiasts and Sectaries of all sorts headed by disguised Jesuites Monks Fryers and Popish Priests have been the chiefest Sticklers of all others for this New projected Commonwealth against the King and Monarchy and the only means to extirpate our established Protestant Ministry with their Maintenance Tithes Glebes and embroyl us in endless confusions and revolutions of Governments Wars Distractions till we be beggered destroyed and made a prey to our forein Enemies 5ly The King of Spain was the first of all forein Kings and States who owned couâ—ted and entâ—ed into a League of Amity with our new Common-wealth after the Kings beheading as a Creature of his own in opposition to our King and Kingship and engaged us in a war against the Dutch to make himself Monarch over us both according to Campanella his advice De Monarchia Hisp. c. 25 27. which our Republicans punctuallie pursued from 1649 till 1653. almost to the ruine of us both by the Spaniards Gold and policie 6ly That the French Cardinal Mazarin and other Popish Kings and States complyed and confederated with our Republicans and late Protectors in opposition to our Hereditary Protestant King and Kingship purposely to ruine us and our Religion at home and the Protestant Churches abroad engaged by their policies in unchristian wars against each other 7ly That we have all visibly seen and sensibly felt by twelve years wofull experiment that this Jesuitical project and chymera of a Free-state and Common-wealth was propounded by the c Army-Officers and the sitting Juncto as the only means of our present and future peace and settlement both in Nov. 1647 1648 1649. and yet it hath proved as I then predicted in my Speech and Memento a perpetual Seminarie of new Wars Tumults Combustions Changes Revolutions of Government and Governours Anti-parliamentarie Conventicles Factions Schisms Sects Heresies Confusions and endlesse Taxes Oppressions Ataxies ever since both in Church State Court and Camp almost to our inevitable destruction and of necessity it will and must do so still And is it not then a worse than Bedlam follie and frenzie for our Anti-parliamentarie Juncto Swordmen and Republicans to enforce and impose it on us by mere armed violence against our Judgements Reasons Consciences Experiments and
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
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
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
humane expectation as he hath done of late and I trust he will sâ—dainly do again to the rejoycing and reviving of all good men Which is the hope and expectation of thine and his Native Countries true Friend and Servant William Prynne Lincolns Inne Feb. 12. 1659. A Legal Vindication of the Liberties and Properties of all ENGLISH FREEMEN Against ILLEGAL TAXES OR REASONS Assigned By WILLIAM PRYNNE c. BEing on the 7th 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 Moneths Contribution by virtue of a pretended Act of the Commons assembled in Parliament bearing date the seventh of April last assessing the Kingdom at Ninety thousand pounds Monthly beginning from the 25 of March last and continuing for Six moneths 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 monethly imposed on the County and 4 l. 5 s. 3 d. on the small poor Parish where I live and being since on the fifteenth 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 illegal Tax and unreasonable Contribution after all my unrepaired losses and sufferings for the publick Liberty amounting to six times more than SHIP-MONEY the times considered or any other illegal 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 legal they had none than voluntarily pay or not oppose it in my place and calling to the uttermost upon the sâ—me if not better reasons â—â— I oppugned a Ship-money Knighthood and other unlawful Impositions of the late King and his Councell heretofore And that they and all the world might bear witness I did it not from meer obstinacy or sullenness but out of solid real grounds of Conscience Law Prudenoe and publick affection to the weal and liberty of my native Country now in danger of being enslâ—ved under a new vassallage more gâ—ievous than 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 resusal in writing and to publish them so soon as possible to the Kingdome 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 kind of Contribution In pursuance whereof I immediately penned these insuing Reasons against that Taxe in 1649. which I augmented with some new additions against the hundred thousand pound Tax each month imposed on us by our worse then Egyptian Tax-Masters now for those very six ensuing months space they payed in long since before they became due by their forced Exactions and Distresses against all rules of Justice Law Conscience and presidents of former times which I humbly submit to the impartial Censure of all conscientious and judicious Englishmen desiring either their ingenuous Refutation if erroneous or candid Approbation if substantial and irrefragable as my conscience and judgement perswade me they are and that they will appear so to all impartial Perusers after full examination First By the fundamental Laws and known Statutes of this Realm No Tax Tallage Ayd Imposition Contribution Loan or Assessement 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 Property of the Subject Laws and Statutes of the Realm as is undeniably evident by the express Statutes of Magna Charta cap. 29 30. 25. E. 1. c. 5 6. 34. E. 1. De Tallagio non concodendo c. 1. 14 E. 3. Stat. 1. c. 21. Stat. 2. c. 1. 15. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 1. Stat. 3. cap. 5. 21. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 16. 25. E. 3. c. 8. Rot. Parl. n. 15. 27. E. 3. Stat. 2. c. 2. 36. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 26. 38. E. 3. c. 2. Rot. Parl. n. 40. 45. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 42. 51. E. 3. Rot. Parl. n. 25. 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 Ann. 16. 17. Car. c. 8. 12. 14. 20. And fully argued and demonstrated by Mr. William Hackwell in his Argument against Impositions Judg Hutton and Judg 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 those great Rabbies of the Law and Patriots of the Peoples Liberties But the present Tax of Ninety Thousand pounds a Moneth now exacted of me An. 1649. and this of an Hundred thousand pounds each moneth now demanded was not thus imposed Therefore it ought not to be demanded of or levied of 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 even by the Junctoes Knack of Oct. 11. 1659. To make good the Assumption which is onely questionable First This Tax was not imposed in but out of Parliament the late Parliament being actually dissolved above two moneths before this pretended Act by 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 14 H. 4. and 1 H. 5. Rot. Parl. N. 26. Cook 4. Institutes p. 46. and 4 E. 4. 44. b and I have largely and irrefragably proved in my true and perfect Narrative 1659. 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 onely by his writ now actually abated by his death and the Parliament as is evident by the clauses of the several Writs of Summons to c the Lords and for the election of the Knights
these illegal Taxes or the undue manner of imposing them 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 these Acts or Taxes both of them being forced thence by the Army and sitting Members and one of them now dead and the other excluded I conceive neither my self nor the Countie where I live nor the Borough for which I served nor the people of these Kingdoms in the least measure bound by these Acts or Taxes but clearly exempted from them and obliged with all our might and power effectually to oppose them If any here object That by the custome of Parliament forty 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 obligatory both to the secluded Members and the Kingdome I answer First That though regularly it be true that forty members are sufficient to make a Commons House to begin praiers businesses of lesser moment in the beginning of the day till the other Members come and the House be full yet 40. were never in any Parliament reputed a competent number to grant Subsidies Taxes passe or read Bills 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 sull 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 Jac. c. 1. and the many Records I have cited to this purpose in my Levellers Ievelled my Plea for the Lords and Memento p. 10. the exact Abridgement of the Records in the Tower p. 11. 13 14. 19. 31. 36. 43. 46. 50. 51. 66. 69. 73. 74. 78. 90. 92. 96. 105. 120. 144. 152 154. 167. 169. 173. 182. 188. 193. 195. 202. 281. 286. 287. 290. 298. 308. 318. 318. 331. 335. 371. 373. 392. 426 427. 428. 430. 439. 440. 450. 454. 555. 464. 465. 665. 750. 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 5 R. 2. Par. 2. c. 4. 9. H. 8. c. 16. and A Collection of all Orders c. of the late Parliament p. 224. 357. with the frequent summoning and fining absent Members evidence Secondly though forty Members onely may peradventure make an House in case of absolute necessity when the rest through sickness and publick or private occasions are voluntarily 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 any such case till now when the rest being above four times their number were forcibly secluded or driven thence by an Army raised to defend them through the practice connivance or command of those forty or fifty 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 Custome or President not to be found in any age all they pretend is nothing to purpose or the present case 3ly The visible horrid armed force upon both Houses of Parliament suppressing and secluding the whole House of Peers a against their undoubted hereditary and most ancient right to sit and vote in all Parliaments of England ratified by the first Act made this Parliament 16 Car. c. 1. and the Act for the continuance thereof 17 Car. c. 7. by pretext whereof the Members now sit their forcible seclusion of the far greatest part of the House of Commons onely for their Vote of Dec. 5. 1648. to settle the peace of the Kingdoms after a long-lasting intestine war upon most safe and honourable terms by the Army raised for their defence to sit and vote in safety as it totally subverts all the rights Priviledges and Constitution of our Parliaments so it utterly nalls all their Votes Orders Ordinances Taxes and Impositions whatsoever to all intents as I shall evidence beyond contradiction 1. By b the Declaration of WILLIAM LENTHAL Esquire SPEAKER of the Honourable HOUSE OF COMMONS Printed July 29. 16 7. by his direction then and rising up in Judgement gainst him and all his sitting Conventicles ever since the forcible exclusion of the most of their fellow-Members and the Lords by their expresse order and confederacy A Declaration of William Lenthall Esquire Speaker of the Honorable House of Commons ALthough it may happily be contrary to the expectation of some that I attend not the service of the House of Commons at this time as I have constantly done for 7. years last past yet can it not be reasonably expected by any that well consider the 1 violence offered to both Houses of Parl. and to my self in particular on Monday last insomuch that I can safely take it upon my conscience and so I doubt not may all the Members of both Houses also they sate in continual fear of their lives and by terrour thereof were compelled to passe such Votes as it pleased an unruly multitude to force upon them which as I did then openly declare in the House so I cannot but believe that they are all void and null being extorted by force and violence and in that manner that they were and 2 I cannot any longer dispence with my self to be an instrument in passing such Votes or to give any colour or shadow of Parliamentary authority unto them which are not the Votes of the representative body of the Kingdom but of a tumultuous multitude as those must needs be accompted that seemed to passe the House on Monday last and which shall passe hereafter untill better provision be made for the safe and free sitting of the Houses of Parliament there being no effectual * course taken by the City since the last adjournment of the Houses to prevent the like tumults for the future no nor so much as a Declaration from them to shew their dislike thereof But on the contrary it is generally voyced in the Town that there will be a far greater confluence of Apprentices Reformadoes and others on Friday at the Parliaments doors and particularly notice was given to me that after they 3 had made the House Vote what they please they would destroy me I had likewise information given me that there would be a great number of Apprentices of a contrary Opinion and affections to the other about the Parliament doors on Friday morning which I fore-saw must of necessity cause a great combustion and in probability occasion much blood-shed
by the particulars so fully clearly expressed in the Declaration of the army may appear shal receive condigne punishment or at least the Parliament put in such a condition as that they may be able to bring them thereunto And 10 we trust in God through his accustomed blessing upâ—n this Army and their Assistants in their honest and just undertakings the Parliament shall speedily be put into a condition to sit like a Parl. of England and we hope that 11 every true hearted Englishman will put his helping hand to so necessary so publick and so honourable a work as is the vindicating the freedom and honour of Parliament wherein the freedome and honour of all the free born people of this Nation are involved Manchester Speaker of the House of Peers * Sarisbury Denbigh Northumberland Gray of Wark Mulgrave Kent Howard Say and Seal 1 William Lenthal Speaker of the House of Commons 2 Lord Lisle Tho. Gray Will. Pierpoint 3 Henry Mildmay Nathaniel Fiennes John Fiennes 4 Arthur Haslerigg William Armyn 5 James Temple Edm. Prideaux 6 Miles Corbet John Danvers Francis Allin John Evelin 7 George Fleetwood George Fennick John Blackstone 8 Tho. Scot Tho. Scot Major 9 Roger Hill 10 Henry Martin 11 Cornelius Holland 12 Oliver Saint-Johns 13 William Lemmon 14 William Mounson Humphry Edwards 15 John Weaver 16 John Corbett 17 Thomas Lister 18 Henry Smith 19 Nich. Love Francis Pierpoint Henry Lawrence 20 Tho. Ougain Godfrey Boswell 21 Henry Darley 22 Tho. Boon 23 Peter Temple 24 Philip Smith 25 Michael Livesey Henry Hamond Gregory Norton Thomas Jarvice William Constable 26 William Say 27 Edward Ludlow 28 Edward Dunce 29 John Bingham 30 Augustine Skinner 31 John Trenchard 32 Sam. Mayn Benjamine Weston Francis Thurnow Rowland Wilson Laurence Whitacrâ— John Crowder 33 George Piggots John Bamfield In all but 58. Some 10 or more of which sate in the House in the Speakers absence and went not to the Army Of these 33. are yet living and sitting now and then excluding the Majority of the House by force and voting them out 5. of them now living are secluded who subscribed this engagement the rest since dead How these Subscribers and secluders can look God or men in the face or justify Taxes Knacks and Proceedings to be legal and Parliamentary whiles most of the Members are kept out by force after this their subscription and publication to the contrary under their own hands let themselves resolve It will be also worth the Enquiry who was the Pen-man and Contriver of this Engagement Whether it be not more dangerous and treasonable in those Members who have since confederated with the Army to seclude the Lords House and their own Members than that Engagement of the Citizens which the subfcribers hereof voted to be Treasonable And whether it makes not these sitting Members who subscribed it pre-ingaged parties and incompetent Judges of the secluded ejected and imprisoned Members who continued sitting in the House according to their trust and duty and of the accused and imprisoned Citizens who did but defend the Parliament then sitting according to their own Votes Ordinances Covenant and their duty 3ly By Sir Thomas Fairfax Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Maior Aldermen and Common-council of the City of London My Lord and Gentlemen YOu may please to remember the former complyance of this Army with your desires to remove to this distance and that upon the assurance you gave them of your concurrence with their declared desires for the setling the liberty and peace of the Kingdom against which you never yet offered us one exception or anie ground of dissent as also of your great tendernesse and resolution to secure the Parliament and their privileges from any violence or attempt the reason given us of your late listing of new forces and wherein we did most acquiesce That upon this confidence we had disposed the Armie into several parts of the Kingdom for the ease of the whole to above 100. miles distance we had given up our selves to the effecting of such Proposals as might tend to the comfortable settlement of this poor Kingdom and a hopefull way for the speedy relief of Ireland We cannot then but be deeply sensible of the 1 unparalleld violation acted upon the Parliament upon Mondy last by a rude multitude from your City because therein the Guards sent from the City did not only neglect their duty for the security of the Parliament from such violence and the whole Citie to yield anie relief to the Houses in that extremity but I am assured from eye and ear-witnesses that divers of the Common-council gave great encouragement to it which doth not only 2 gain-say your former professions but doth violence to those many Obligations that by your Charter Protestation and sundry other waies lye upon you to protect the Parliament For my part I cannot but look on your selves who are in authoritie as accountable to the Kingdom for your present interruptions of that hopefull way of peace and settlement things were in for this Nation and of relieving Ireland occasioned by the late Treasonable and destructive Engagement Especially the lately prodigious and horrid force done upon the Parliament 3 tending to dissolve all Government upon which score we and the whole Kingdom shall have cause to put every thing of the like nature that may happen to the Parliament or to any who are friends to them and this Armie except by your wisdom care and industry the chief actors may be detected 4 secured and given up to the procuring of justice for the same and the best endeavors used to prevent the like for the future And so I rest Your most assured friend to serve you Tho. Fairfax Bedford 29 July 1647. 4ly By a Declaration of Sir Tho. Fairfax * and his Council of War August 3. 1647. concerning the Apprentices force upon the Houses wherein are these observable passages Monday July the six and twentieth the Common-Council of the City presents their Petitions to both Houses for changing the Militia whereon the House of Lords refuse to alter their resolutions the House of Commons answered they would take it into consideration the next morning Notwithstanding which the City and Kingdome cannot be ignorant with what rage and insolency the tumult of Apprentices the same day forced both Houses They 1 blockt up their doors swearing they would keep them in till they had passed what Votes they pleased they threatned the Houses if they granted not their desires knocking whooting and hallowing so at the Parliament-doors that many times the Members could not be heard to speak or debate not suffering the House of Commons to divide for determining such Questions as wâ—â—e put crying out 2 That those that gave their Votes against them should be sent out to them very often and loudly saying Agree agree dispatch we 'l stay no longer and in this outragious manner they continued at the
others in all manner of Oppressions and Injustice concluding thus Vpon all these and many other unparallel'd offences upon his breach of Faith of Oaths and Protestations upon the cry of the blood of England and Ireland upon the tears of Widows ond Orphans and childless Parents and millions of persons undone by him let all the world of indifferent men judge whether the Parliament you mean your selves only which made this Declaration had not sufficient cause to bring the King to Iustice And much more the whole Kingdom and secluded Lords and Members to bring you to publick Justice since you not only imitate but far exceed him in all and every of these even by your own verdict 3. Themselves charge the King with profuse Donations of Salaries and Pensions to such as were found or might be made fit Instruments and Promoters of Tyranny which were supplied not by the legal justifiable revenue of the Crown but by Projects and illegal waies of draining the Peoples purses All which mischiefs and grievances they say will be prevented in their free State though the quite contrarie way as appears by the late large Donations of some thousands to Mr. * Henry Martin the Lord Lisle Commissary General Ireton Cromwell and others of their Members and Instruments upon pretence of arrears or service and that out of the monies now imposed for the relief of Ireland and other publick Taxes Customs Lands and Revenues And must we pay Taxes to be thus prodigally given away and expended 4. They therein promise and engage That the good old Laws and Customs of England the badges of our Freedom the benefit whereof our Ancestors enjoyed long before the conquest and spent much of their blood to have confirmed by the great Charter of the Liberties and other excellent laws which have continued in all former changes and being duly executed are the most just free and equal of any other laws in the world shall be duly continued and maintained by them the liberty property and peace of the Subject being so fully preserbed by them and the common interest of those whom they serve And if those laws should be taken away all Industry must cease all misery blood and confusion would follow and greater Calamities then fell upon us by the late Kings Mis-government would certainly involve all persons under which they must inevitably perish How well they have performed this part of their Remonstrance let their proceedings in their High Courts of Justice the long Imprisoments and close Imprisonments of my self and other their Fellow-Members their acts for new Treasons and Delinquents and ejecting their Fellow-Members and Lords out of Parliament without the least Impeachment Tryal Accusation their Imprisonment of Sir Robert Pye the Kentish Gentlemen and others for demanding a Free Parliament fair and free elections restitution of the secluded Members c. determine 5. They therein expresly promise p. 26. To order the revenue in such away That the publick charges may be defrayed The Souldiers pay justlie and duly setled That free-quarter may be wholy taken away and the People eased of their Burthens and Taxes And is this now all the ease we feel to have all Burthens and Taxes thus augmented doubled trebled paid in near a year before hand and then new and greater Taxes imposed on them for those verie Months they have paid in their old proportion before hand beyond all Presidents of Tyranny and oppression in any age and that by pretended acts made out of Parliament against all these good old Laws and Statutes our Liberties and Properties which these worse than Aegyptian Tax-Masters have so newly and deeply engaged themselves to maintain and preserve without the least diminution and violation 6. That this very Juncto in their Act as they stile it made and published Octob. 11. 1659. intituled an Act against the raising of Monies upon the people without their common consent in Parliament enact and declare That no Person or Persons shall after the XI of October 1659. assesse levy collect gather or receive any customs imposts excise assesment contribution tax tallage or any sum or sums of mony or other Imposition whatsoever upon the People or Commonwealth without their consent in Parliament or as by Law might have been done before the 3. of November 1640. And it is further enacted and declared that every Person offending contrary to this Act shall be and is hereby adjudged guilty of High Treason and shall suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason Which * some of them have declared to be the Fundamental and old Law of England against which no By-Law is to be made and one of the main Birth-rights of England Therefore themselves by assessing and imposing many former Customs Imposts Excises Assesments and contributions on the people and this of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for 6. Month Jan. 26. 1659. without Common consent in Parliament when and whiles 26. of the greatest Counties in England and 11. Shires in Wales 14. whole Cities and most Boroughs in England have not so much as one Knight Citizen or Burgess sitting with them to represent them and 9. English Counties no more but one Knight and but 4. Counties and 2. Cities alone and not above 3. or 4. Boroughs their full numbers of Knights Citizens and Burgesses sitting with them to represent them all the rest to the number of 420. Members besides the whole House of Lords being forcibly excluded or dead by the tenor of their own Act and Decl. are adjudged guilty of High Treason and ought to suffer and forfeit as in case of Treason and all those Commissioners named in their Act amounting to above one thousand and all Assessors Collectors and Treasurers under them who shall assesse levy collect gather or receive the same shall incur the guilt of Treason and suffer and forfeit as in case of High Treason and their real and personal Estates be confiscated to pay the publick debts and Souldiers arrears 7. That this Anti-Parliamentary Convention in their late Declaration of Jan. 24. have published and declared to the world That they are resolved to remain constane and immovable that the people of these Nations may be governed from time to time by Representatives of Parliament chosen by themselves That they should be governed by the Laws That all proceedings touching the Laws Liberties and Estates of the free-people of the Commonwealth shall be according to the Laws of the Land It being their principal care to provideagainst all arbitrarinesse in Government And that it is one of the greatest cares they have upon them how to give the people that ease from their present burthens which their undone condicion calls for Which how well and faithfully they have performed and not rather most notoriously violated let the whole world God Angels Men determin by their imposing a Monthly Tax of one hundred thousand pounds a Month for the 6. next Months they had paid and advanced before hand By ordering
compel us to maintain Armies and Navies by this New insupportable Tax to set up this Romish Babel which hath been is and will be the most certain Remora and Obstacle of our Peace and Settlement and most apparent Jesuitical Romish Spanish Engin to create more and greater Confusions Distractions than before and effect our inevitable destruction both as men and Protestants 8ly That this pretence of erecting a Common-wealth was first pretended by Cromwell and carried on with specious pretexts to blind the credulous people onlie to make way for his own tyrannical and ambitious usurpation of a more than Regal and Monarchical power over our Kingdoms and settle it on himself and his posteritie in conclusion which he effected by degrees And what intelligent person discerns not the self-same design now couched under it in other ambitious Grandees now in power most eagerly crying up a Free-state and Common-wealth upon the same account 9ly The Anti-parliamentary Unchristian Atheistical if not Diabolical means by which this Utopian Republick was at first endeavoured to be erected established and now again re-edified must needs draw down the full vials of Gods wrath and furie upon it and all its Projectors and our 3. Nations too if they voluntarily submit unto it It was first ushered in by ambitious treacherous perjurious rebellious Army-Officers seduced by Romish Emissaries and their Confederates in the Commons House forcibly secluding securring and ejecting the Majoritie of their Fellow-Members 4. parts of 5. at least only for their Vote to proceed to settle the peace of the Kingdom upon the Kings Concessions after 7. years intestine wars By the close imprisonment of sundry of them in remote Castles for divers years without examination hearing or cause expressed by their suppressing voting down the whole House of Lords without hearing or impeachment over whom they had no Jurisdiction by murdering their Protestant King in a strange Court of Highest injustice by exiling and disinheriting his royal Issue and right Heir to the Crown to make way for their own Usurpation of Soveraign Power by subverting the fundamental Government of the Kingdom and the constitution rights privileges of English Scotish Irish Parliaments and their Members by seising upon disposing and dissipating all the Crown Lands Revenues Customs Forts Forces Navies of our three Kingdoms by imprisoning disinheriting sequestâ—ing exiling destroying murdering manie thousands of their Protestant Brethren and Allyes of England Scotland Ireland Holland merely for their Loyalty and Allegianee by keeping a perpetual Army to over-awe our 3. Nations as conquered Vassals bond-slaves and governing them by armed lust tyrannie militarie Committees High Courts of Justice Major Generals and fleying off their verie Skins by giving a boundlesse libertie to all Religions Sects Heresies Blasphemies Jusque datum seâ—leri c. against all laws of God and Man the fundamental Laws Statutes Liberties Franchises of the Realm the Oaths of Homage Fealty Supremacy Allegiance the Protestations Vows Solemn League and Covenant they had frequently taken themselves and prescribed to others yea against many hundreds of Votes Orders Ordinances Acts Declarations Remonstrances they had successively made and published to the World and all sorts of civil and sacred Obligations to God their King Country the Trusts reposed in them by their Indentures and Commissions as Members or Souldiers by exercising a more lawlesse Tyranny and boundlesse Military power than the worst of all our Kings in any age exacting vaster sums of mony sroÌ„ the exhausted people in lesse than 10. years space than all our Kings since the Norman Conquest And it now carried on again after so many sodain strange admirable demonstrations of Gods indignation against our new Babel-Builders and their Posterities by his various and successive Providences beyond all human apprehensions by the self-same violent exorbitant unrighteous courses unbeseeming Englishmen or Christians and now by re-excluding and ejecting all the old secured and secluded Members by armed force and injurious Votes without accusation hearing crime or impeachment against all rules of Law Justice and Parliamentarie Presidents and of the whole House of Lords against the expresse Letter of the Act by which they pretend to fit By bidding open defiance to the Addresses and Desires of the generality of the Nobility Gentry Ministry Freeholders Commoners Citizens Burgesses of most Counties Cities and Boroughs of England declaring for a free-Free-Parliament or restitution of all the Secluded Members by imprisoning some * Gentlemen Souldiers of Quality for delivering such Addresses to their Speaker by putting far higher affronts and force upon the City and Common-Council of London after all their former Obligations to them than ever they received from the worst of our Kings in any age before the least hearing or legal conviction of them as Delinquents by moving in the House That all who have declared or made Addresses for a Free Parliament shall be disabled to elect or be elected Members By taking away the peoples freedoms of Election by prescribing new illegal Qualifications against * all Laws and Statutes concerning Elections and all forms of antient Writs both for the persons electing and to be elected to recruit their empty House of which themselves alone not the people will be the only Judges before they shall be admitted when chosen whereby they will like Cromwell and his Council of State keep out any the people shall elect that is not of their confederacy and admit none but when and whom they please to perpetuate the Parliamentary Power and all places of Trust and Gain in themselves and their Creatures And because few or none but Novices shall sit amongst them in Parliamentarie affairs whom they can easily over-reach and rule at their pleasure being Strangers to each other and Parliament proceedings they have voted out all the old Secluded Members though twice their number and disabled them to be new elected or if elected to be re-admitted unless they will fully submit to the Test of their new * Qualifications and Engagements Which will re-seclude all or most of them if elected and prove fatal to the Peoples freedom in their Elections and to all Parliaments and Members in succeeding Ages if submitted to For if a combined Majority of the Commons House who have violated all their primitive Oaths Trusts Protestations Covenants Remonstrances Declarations and so * disabled and disfranchised themselves from sitting any more as Members or the peoples Trustees may without any new election at all by the people after their renuntiation and nulling of their first elections by destroying and engaging against that Regal power by which they were first elected and sitting only by power of the Sword without any Qualifications prescribed to themselves which they impose on others and would seclude most of them from being Electors or Elected Members having gotten forcible possession of the Commons House by armed Tyranny and Usurpation after so many Declarations and bloody wars for the defence of the Privileges Rights and Members
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
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
them and so be a skreen betwixt them and the people with the name of a Parliament and the shadow and imperfect image of Legal and Just Authority to pick their pockets for them by Assesements and Taxations and by their arbitrary and tyrannical Courts and Committees the best of which is now become a perfect Star-chamber High Commission and Councel-board make them their perfect slaves and vessals With much more to this purpose If then their principal admirers who confederated with the Army and those now sitting in all their late proceedings and cryed them up most of any as the Parliament and Supreme Authority of England before at and since the late force upon the House and its violent purgation do thus in print professedly disclaim them for being any real Parliament or House of Commons to make Acts or impose Taxes upon the people or set up High Courts of Justice to try and condemn the King or any Peers or English Preemen the secluded Lord Members Presbyterians Royalists and all others have much more cause and ground to disavow and oppose their usurped Parliamentary authority and illegal Taxes Acts as not made by any true English Parliament but a Mock-Parliament only Fourthly He therein further avets f f Pag. 52. 53. 56. 57. 58. 59. That the death of the King in Law indisputably dissolves this Parliament ipso facto though it had been all the time before never so intire and unquestionable to that very hour That no Necessity can be pretended for the continuance of it the rather because the men that would have it continue so long as they please are those who have created these necessities on purpose that by the colour thereof they may make themselves great and potent That the main end wherfore the Members of the Commons house were chosen and sent thither was To treat and confer with King Charles and the House of Peers about the great Affairs of the Nation c. And therefore are but a third part ot third estate of that Parliament to which they were to come and joyn with and who were legally to make permanent and binding Laws for the people of the Nation And therefore having taken away two of the three Estates that they were chosen on purpose to joyn with to make Laws the end both in reason and law of the peoples trust is ceased for a Minor joyned with a Major for one and the same end cannot play Lord paramount over the Major and then do what it please no more can the Minor of a Major viz. one Estate of three legally or justly destroy two of three without their own assent c. That the House of Commons sitting freely within its limited time in all its splendor of glory without the awe of armed men neither in Law nor in the intention of their Choosers were a Parliament and therefore of themselves alone have no pretence in Law to alter the constitution of Parliaments c. concluding thus For shame let no man be so audaciously or sottishly voyd of Reason as to call Tho. Prides pittiful Juncto A PARLIAMENT especially those that called avowed protested and declared again and again those TO BE NONE that sate at Westminster the 26 27 c. of July 1647. when a few of their Members were scared away to the Army by a few hours tumult of a company of a few disorderly Apprentices And being no representative of the People much less A PARLIAMENT what pretence of Law Reason Justice or Nature can there be for you to alter the constitution of Parliaments and force upon the people the shew of their own Wills lusts and pleasures for laws and Rules of Government made by a PRETENDED EVERLASTING NULLED PARLIAMENT a Councel of State or Star-Chamber and a Councel of War or rather by Fairfax Cromwel and Ireton Now if their own late confederates and creatures argue thus in print against their being and continuing a Parliament their Jurisdiction Proceedings Taxes and arbitrary pleasures should not all others much more do it and joyntly and magnanimously oppose them to the utmost upon the self-same grounds for their own and the publick ease Liberty Safety Settlement and restoring the Rights Priviledges Freedome Splendor of our true English Parliaments Fifthly He there likewise affirms g g P. 53. 54. 59. 41. that those now fiting at Westminster have perverted the ends of their trusts more then ever Strafford did 1. In not ceasing the people of but encreasing their grievances 2. In exhausting their estates to maintain and promote pernicious Designes to the peoples destruction The King did it by a little Shipmony and Monopolies but since they began they have raised and extorted more mony from the People and Nation then half nay all the Kings since the Conquest ever did as particularly 1 By Excise 2 Contributions 3 Sequestrations of lands to an infinite value 4 Fist part 5 Twentyeth part 6 Meal-mony 7 Sale of plundered good 8 Loanes 9 Benevolences 10 Collections upon their fast days 11 New imposittions or customes upon Merchandize 12 Guards maintained upon the charge of private men 13 Fifty Subsidies at one time 14 Compositions with Delinquents to an infinite value 15 Sale of Bishops lands 16 Sale of Dean and Chapters lands and now after the wars are done 17 Sale of Kings Queens Princes Dukes and the rest of the Childrens revenues 18 Sale of their rich goods which cost an infinite sum 19 to conclude all a Taxation of ninety thousand pounds a moneth since that of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds a Moneth and lately of a whole years Tax within three moneths and now of one hundred thousand pound a a moneth for the same six moneths they have payed their Taxes besides Excise Customes Frequent new intollerable Militiaes Payments to increased swaâ—ms of poor sequestrations Highway money and other charges now all Trade is utterly lost and the three Kingdomes beggar'd and undone and when they have gathered it pretendingly for the Common-wealths use divide it by thousands and ten thousands a piece amongst themselves and wipe their mouths after it like the impudent Harlot as though they had done no evill and then purchase with it publick Lands at smal or trivial values O brave Trustees that have Protested before God and the world again and again in the day of their straits they would never seek themselves and yet besides all this divide all the choicest and profitablest Places of the Kingdome among themselves Therefore when I seriously consider how many in Parliament and elsewhere of their Associates that judge themselves the onely Saints and Godly men upon the earth that have considerable and some of them vast estates of their own inheritance and yet take five hundred one two three four five thousand pounds per annum Salaries and other comings in by their places and that out of the too much exhausted Treasury of the Nation when thousands not onely of the people of the world as they call them but also
3 Parl. 2. Rot Parl. n. 3. 6. 5 R. 2 n 64 65. 11 R. 2. n 14 16 20. â— H. 4. n. 2 7. 27 H. 6. n. 12. 28 H. 6. n. 8 9 11. 29 H. 6. n. 10 11. 31 H. 6 n. 22 30 49. * Cooks 4. Institut p. 25. Dyer f 203. * Exact Collect p. 69 70 736 709 722. * Brook Parliment 80. Relation 85. Dyer 85. 1 Is not this the Armies and their own late and present practice 2 Alderman Chambers the eminentest of them is yet since this Declaration discharged by you for his loyalty and conscience only 3 And is it not so by you now and tâ—ansmirted unto the Exchequer to be levied 4 And do not you now the same yeâ— some of them verie good Patriots 5 Are not the Generals and Armies Horses and Foot too kept up and continued among us for that purpose being some of them Germans too 6 Not one quarter so gâ—ievous as the late and present Taxes Excises Customs imposed by you for the like purpose 7 And is it not more unnatural in those now sitting to engage the English Army raised by the Parliament of England and convenanting to defend it from violence against the verie Parliament of England and its Members to seclude exclude and eject the majoritie of their Fellow Members and whole House of Peers by their Votes and Commands and that successively twice after one another and yet to own and support this Army without â—ighting those Members 8 Was not Pride's and the Armies comming thither to seise and actually seising above Forty and secluding above two hundred Members with Thousands of aâ—med Horse and Foot And their suppressing the House of Lords and re secluding the Members by armed Guards on May 7 9. Dec. 27. 1659. a thousand times a greater offence especiallie after so many Declarations of the Houses against this of the Kings 9 Was not Humphry Edwards now sitting an unduly elected Member one of them thus armed * Henrie Martin is accomptable to the State for above 8700 l. which the Committee of Accounts in two years time could never bring him to account for and yet hath 3000 pound voted him lately for moneys pretended to be diâ—bursed to whom and for what quaeâ—e * In their pâ—rliamentâ— P. a p. 5 6 7. See A Full Declaration of the true state of the Case of the secluded Members p. 55 c. ¶ Exact Collection p. 5 6 7 14 342 492. * Exact Collection p. 28 29 214 263 270 491 492 495 496 497 600. * Exact Collect p. 285 286 298 320. 32a 378 379 381 513 514 515 c. 618 619 623 647 c. 671 679 c. A Collect. c. p. 100 102 c. 117. * A Collect. c. p. 327 358 359. 399 404 416 420 c. 694 751 768 769 798 802 806 c. 879 889. * See Cooks 3 Instit. p. 1. 21 22 23. * Can or will the expulsed King himself or his Heirs say more or so much as these if he invade and conquer us by forein forces And were it not better for us then to submit to our lawfull King than to so many thousand perfidious usurping pretended Conquerors of us who of late pretended only they were no other but our Servants not Lords and Conquerors o A Collect. c. p. 599 876. Objct. Answ * See their Votes Jan. 4. Declaracion 17 March 1648. p. 1. 27. * See their Declaration Nov. 20. proposals Dec 6. 164â— and Cromwelâ— Instâ—ument Speeches * Ezek. 18 24. * see the 2d part of the History of Independency * See Seldens Titles of Honour * See A Collect p. 94 95 99 698 700 877 878. a See my Jus Pationatus and New Discovery of Free-State tyranny and the Good Old Cause truly stated b See the Coffin for the Good Old Cause John Rogers and Nedham his Interest will not lye My true and perfect Narrative and Consciencious Quaenes where this is fully proved c In their several Agreements of the people â—heir Dâ—claâ—ation of Nov. 10. Their Proposals Decemb. 6. And Declaration of March 17. 1648. * Sir Robert Pye others * 3 E. 1. c. 5. See Rastals Abridgements Tit. Elections and Parliament * Febr. 18. 1659. * Cooks 11 Reports f. 98. 2 Chron. 10. 10. q Mat. Paris 517. r Ovid de remed. Amoris * Exact Collections p. 5. 6. And their own Declarations 17. March 1648. p. 7 c. * In their Declarations March 17. 1648. p. 26. s Magna Chart. c. 14. 14 E. 3. c. â— Cook 2. Instit. p. 26 27. 169. 170. t Mar. Paris p. â—60 u A Collection c. p â—71 Semains Case 7 Rep. Sendels Case Lambeâ—t f. â—7â— Daltons Justice of Peace â—24 24 H. 8. c. 4. x See Cook 5 Report f 9 P 92. y See Rastal Title Purveyers z An Exact Collecti on p. 7. a See an Exact Collection and a Collection of publick Orders c. p. 99 698 700 877 878. * Lib. 3. c. 1 2. * See Canterburies Doom and Straffords Trial. * In my Speech 4 Dec. See Romes Master-piece the Epistle to my Jus Patronatus A true and perfect Narrative 1659. the Epistle to the 1. part of my Historical Vindication and Collection 1655.